A state funeral has been held in Iran for about 60 people, including military commanders and nuclear scientists, killed during the 12-day conflict with Israel.

Coffins draped in the Iranian flag, bearing portraits of deceased commanders, were flanked by crowds near Tehran’s Enghelab Square.

The conflict ended with a ceasefire earlier this week, after the US became directly involved by bombing key nuclear sites in Iran.

Huge crowds of mourners dressed in black chanted slogans, waved Iranian flags and held portraits of those killed.

Ahead of the event, a media campaign urged people to participate, with authorities providing free bus and metro rides. Government offices were shut for the day.

Among those laid to rest on Saturday was Mohammad Bagheri, the highest-ranking military officer in Iran who was chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces.

Bagheri was to be buried with his wife and daughter, who were killed in an Israeli strike. In total, Iranian authorities said 627 people were killed in Iran. Israeli officials said 28 people were killed in Israel following missile attacks by Iran.

Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and nuclear scientists including Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi – head of Azad University in Tehran – were also among those laid to rest.

The funeral was attended by prominent figures including Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani – an advisor to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – state television showed. Shamkhani was injured in an Israeli strike earlier this month.

It comes after US President Donald Trump said he would “absolutely” consider bombing Iran again.

Responding to a question from the BBC’s Nomia Iqbal at a White House press briefing on Friday, he said he would “without question” attack the country if intelligence concluded Iran could enrich uranium to concerning levels.

Trump has also repeated his assertions that Iran was “decimated”, writing: “Why would the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of the war-torn country of Iran, say so blatantly and foolishly that he won the war with Israel, when he knows his statement is a lie.”

Trump also claimed to have known “exactly where he [Khamenei] was sheltered”, saying he “would not let Israel, or the US Armed Forces… terminate his life”.

“I saved him from a very ugly and ignominious death, and he does not have to say, ‘thank-you, president Trump!'”, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, warned Trump against making “disrespectful” comments about Khamenei, who claimed US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites had achieved “nothing significant”.

“If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei,” Araghchi posted on X.

“The Great and Powerful Iranian People, who showed the world that the Israeli regime had no choice but to run to ‘Daddy’ to avoid being flattened by our Missiles, do not take kindly to Threats and Insults.”

Araghchi has admitted that “excessive and serious” damage was done to Iran’s nuclear sites by the recent bombings.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said it is still not known how much of Iran’s nuclear capabilities – including highly-enriched uranium and the centrifuges needed to purify the metal – have been destroyed or moved.

The agency’s director general Rafael Grossi also said that stopping Iran from being able to build nuclear weapons would not be achieved through military attacks.

“You are not going to solve this in a definitive way militarily, you are going to have an agreement,” he told the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

On social media, Trump claimed that in recent days he had been “working on the possible removal of sanctions, and other things, which would have given a much better chance to Iran at a full, fast, and complete recovery”.

But he said Khamenei’s comments had deterred him, declaring: “Instead I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief, and more.”

At least 81 Palestinians have been killed and more than 400 injured in Israeli strikes across Gaza in the 24 hours until midday on Saturday, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

In one incident, at least 11 people, including children, were killed after a strike near a stadium in Gaza City, Al-Shifa hospital staff and witnesses told news agencies. The stadium was being used to house displaced people, living in tents.

Footage verified by the BBC shows people digging through the sand with their bare hands and spades to find bodies.

The BBC has contacted the Israeli military for comment.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said he was hopeful a ceasefire could be agreed in the next week.

Qatari mediators said they hoped US pressure could achieve a deal, following a truce between Israel and Iran that ended the 12-day conflict between the countries.

In March, a two-month ceasefire collapsed when Israel launched fresh strikes on Gaza. The ceasefire deal – which started on 19 January – was set up to have three stages, but did not make it past the first stage.

Stage two included establishing a permanent ceasefire, the return of remaining living hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

On Thursday, a senior Hamas official told the BBC mediators have intensified their efforts to broker a new ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, but that negotiations with Israel remain stalled.

A rally was organised on Saturday evening in Tel Aviv calling for a deal to free the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Organisers said “the time has come to end the fighting and bring everyone home in one phase”.

Meanwhile, Israeli attacks in Gaza continue. Friday evening’s strike near the Palestine Stadium in Gaza City killed at least 11 people, hospital staff and witnesses said.

One witness said they were sitting when they “suddenly heard a huge explosion” after a road was hit.

“This area was packed with tents – now the tents are under the sand. We spent hours digging with our bare hands,” Ahmed Qishawi told the Reuters news agency.

He said there are “no wanted people here, nor any terrorists as they [Israelis] claim… [there are] only civilian residents, children, who were targeted with no mercy,” he said.

The BBC has verified footage showing civilians and emergency services digging through the sandy ground with their hands and spades to find bodies.

Fourteen more people were reported killed, some of them children, in strikes on an apartment block and a tent in the al-Mawasi area.

The strike in al-Mawasi killed three children and their parents, who died while they were asleep, relatives told the Associated Press.

“What did these children do to them? What is their fault?” the children’s grandmother, Suad Abu Teima, told the news agency.

More people were reported killed on Saturday afternoon after an air strike on the Tuffah neighbourhood near Jaffa School, where hundreds of displaced Gazans were sheltering.

The strike killed at least eight people, including five children, the Palestinian health ministry said.

One witness Mohammed Haboub told Reuters that his nephews, father and the children of his neighbours were killed in the strike.

“We didn’t do anything to them, why do they harm us? Did we harm them? We are civilians,” he told the news agency.

The health ministry said ambulance and civil defence crews were facing difficulties in reaching a number of victims trapped under the rubble and on the roads, due to the impossibility of movement in some of the affected areas.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not yet commented on these reported strikes.

The IDF released a statement on Saturday evening saying it had killed Hakham Muhammad Issa al-Issa, a senior figure in Hamas’s military wing, in the area of Sabra in Gaza City on Friday.

The IDF said he was one of the founding members of Hamas’s military wing, a member of Hamas’s general security council, and played a “significant role in the planning and execution” of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

The Israeli military launched its bombardment of Gaza in response to the attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 56,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Back in March, as he turned his back on a ceasefire process that was delivering results, the Israeli prime minister took a decision described by some commentators as akin to “political suicide”.

The Gaza ceasefire deal, brokered by Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff even before the US president was inaugurated to his second term, had led to the release of dozens of hostages from Hamas captivity, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

The next stage was due to see more hostages return home and a gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, before a negotiated end to the war.

Tired of conflict, Israelis and Palestinians contemplated the end of the most destructive war in a common history too frequently punctuated by fighting.

But Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t want the war to end.

As he ordered the resumption of attacks across Gaza, the prime minister declared that fighting would continue until Hamas had been “completely destroyed”.

The safe return of the remaining hostages in Gaza seemed to be a secondary consideration. (The civilian consequences in Gaza itself didn’t merit a mention.)

Many Israelis, especially the hostage families, were outraged.

They accused Netanyahu of putting his own political survival ahead of their relatives’ safety and the greater good of the nation.

“Bibi’s” popularity in the polls plummeted and he struggled to keep together a disjointed government, propped up by hardline ministers from the far right and orthodox religious parties.

Three months on, Netanyahu is basking in the glory of a spectacular military victory over his nemesis, Iran. He is now said to be contemplating early elections and yet another term as prime minister.

At a press conference earlier this week, the 75-year-old, who is already Israel’s longest-serving leader, said he still had “many missions” to complete and would seek to do so for as long as “the people” of Israel want him to.

Later in the week, and presenting the presumed destruction of Iran’s nuclear programme as a “window of opportunity” that “must not be missed”, Netanyahu suggested only he could secure the “freeing of hostages and defeat of Hamas” after which he would strike wider regional agreements.

But calling early elections would be a big risk and, according to the latest polls, Netanyahu hasn’t enjoyed as big a “bounce” from the 12-day conflict with Iran as he might have hoped for.

In a fractured political system where coalition building is key in the 120-seat Knesset, Netanyahu’s Likud Party would fall well short of a majority by itself and could struggle to pull together support from smaller parties on the right, suggests latest polling in the Ma’ariv newspaper.

The same polling suggested a significant majority, 59% of Israelis, want the fighting in Gaza to stop now, in exchange for the hostages.

Almost half of those asked, some 49%, also thought the only reason Netanyahu is continuing the war is for his own political considerations.

“The guy is a very skilful political actor,” says Professor Tamar Hermann, a senior Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. “There is no more skilled politician in Israel.”

But, he says, “trust” is a big problem for Netanyahu.

A political leader who has changed his spots so many times to cling to the reins of power is simply no longer believed by a majority of Israelis.

According to new polling, soon to be released by Prof Hermann’s Israel Democracy Institute, Netanyahu “doesn’t cross the 50% line in terms of Israelis expressing full or even partial trust in him”.

In some ways, says Prof Hermann, deciding to call early elections “is an even greater risk [for Netanyahu] than attacking Iran because in the Middle East you really don’t know where you will be in six months”.

That’s because, despite his military gamble in Iran seemingly paying off, there’s an elephant in the corner of Benjamin Netanyahu’s living room.

Indeed, you could say a small herd of elephants is threatening to disrupt the prime minister’s hopes of yet another term in office.

Next week, he is due to testify in a high-profile criminal case in which he’s facing charges of political corruption, including bribery and fraud.

The prime minister’s attempts to, again, delay the High Court hearings on account of his busy schedule and the special state of emergency (over the Iran war) were rejected at the end of last week.

Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly tried to portray the legal case against him as part of a “politically driven witch hunt” but in an increasingly polarised society, his opponents are equally determined he should face justice.

Appearing to belatedly learn about “Bibi’s” legal troubles, President Trump said Netanyahu was a “great hero” and “warrior” whose trial should be “cancelled immediately” or, at the very least, he should be given a pardon.

This, remember, is the same US president who only days earlier had publicly castigated the Israeli prime minister – with expletives – as the Iran ceasefire deal threatened to unravel before it had begun.

But Trump’s latest intervention has been described as unwise and unhelpful by many in Israel.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid said he should not “intervene in a legal process of an independent state”.

His apparently contradictory stance on Israel and attempted intervention in Netanyahu’s legal case was akin to “treating us like a banana republic”, says Prof Hermann.

On the international stage, many Israelis accuse Netanyahu of having harmed Israel’s global standing and its economic prospects by needlessly prolonging the war in Gaza, even though many former generals have said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has achieved as much as is militarily possible in Gaza.

It should not be forgotten, either, that the International Criminal Court still has warrants issued against the prime minister – and former defence minister Yoav Gallant – over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, where more than 55,000 people have been killed in Israel’s war against Hamas.

Israel’s government, along with Netanyahu and Gallant, strongly reject the accusations.

Ultimately, say most commentators, it would be difficult to imagine new elections being called in Israel while the war in Gaza continues and while Israeli hostages remain captive.

But many of Netanyahu’s critics and opponents have prematurely written him off over the years and have certainly learned never to second-guess what his next move might be.

Senate Republicans are racing to pass a budget bill that is pivotal to President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda ahead of a self-imposed 4 July deadline.

Party leadership have been twisting arms for an initial vote on the “Big Beautiful Bill” on Saturday, following the release of its latest version – all 940 pages – shortly after midnight.

Rank-and-file Republicans have been divided over how much to cut from welfare programmes in order to cover the cost of extending some $3.8tn (£2.8tn) in Trump tax breaks.

The sprawling tax and spending measure passed the House of Representatives by a single vote last month.

• A look at the key items in Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’
• The woman who could bust Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’

In a memo sent on Saturday to Senate offices, the White House endorsed the latest revisions to the bill and called for its passage.

The memo reportedly warned that failure to approve the budget “would be the ultimate betrayal”.

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune called plans for a Saturday vote “aspirational”.

A Republican senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, told the Fox & Friends programme on Saturday he will be voting “no”, saying he still needed time to read it.

“We just got the bill,” Johnson said. “I got my first copy at about 01:23 in the morning.”

Two other Republican senators are holding out.

Thom Tillis of North Carolina raised objections to the legislation on Saturday, a day after Rand Paul of Kentucky said no.

All eyes are now on centrist Republican senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.

Collins has indicated she may support a vote to advance the bill to the debate stage, but that she remains undecided on whether she will vote “yes” to passing it.

The bill needs a simple majority to clear the Senate. With Republicans holding 53 seats out of 100, plus a tiebreaker from Vice-President JD Vance, the party can only afford three defections.

The latest version was designed to appease some backbench Republican holdouts.

Other amendments incorporate input from the Senate parliamentarian, an official who reviews bills to ensure they comply with the chamber’s procedures.

It includes an increase in funding for rural hospitals, after some party moderates argued the original proposal would harm their constituents.

Another tweak was made to State and Local Taxes (Salt) – a bone of contention for representatives from high-tax states such as New York.

There is currently a $10,000 cap on how much taxpayers can deduct from the amount they owe in federal taxes.

In the new bill, Senate Republicans have raised the Salt limit to $40,000 for married couples with incomes up to $500,000 – in line with what the House of Representatives approved.

But the latest Senate version ends the $40,000 cap after five years – when it would drop back to $10,000.

There are also changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which provides food benefits to low-income Americans.

Under the latest bill, Alaska and Hawaii would be temporarily exempt from a proposed requirement for some states to start footing the bill for the programme, which is currently fully funded by the federal government.

The revision comes after Alaska’s two Republican senators pushed for an exemption.

The legislation still contains some of its core components, including extending tax cuts passed by Republicans in 2017, as well as the addition of new cuts that Trump campaigned on, such as a tax deduction on Social Security benefits and the elimination of taxes on overtime work and tips.

More contentious measures are also still in place, including restrictions and requirements on Medicaid – a healthcare programme used by millions of elderly, disabled and low-income Americans.

Democrats have heavily criticised this piece of the bill, saying it will limit access to affordable healthcare for millions of Americans.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 7.8 million people would become uninsured due to such Medicaid cuts.

Senator Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, took to social media on Saturday to argue the bill contains “the largest healthcare cuts in history”.

The lavish wedding party of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and TV presenter Lauren Sanchez concludes on Saturday evening in Venice with the main gala event.

But as their celebrity guests were preparing to step into water taxis from their luxury hotels, paparazzi poised, a crowd of some Venetians gathered to protest against the big event.

Their causes are varied, from locals opposed to over-tourism in a delicate city, to activists protesting against climate change and capitalism.

Hundreds marched through the city on Saturday, hanging a “no space for Bezos” banner from the Rialto bridge and setting off multicoloured flares. But plans to launch themselves into the city’s canals with inflatable crocodiles and block the wedding guests’ passage were dropped.

• In pictures: Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding

Spotted heading into Harry Bar’s for lunch on Saturday, Bezos blew kisses towards the cameras when a local journalist asked what he made of the protests.

The city’s deputy mayor dismissed the activists as “narcissists” and insisted the wedding was the “high-quality tourism” Venice needs.

Simone Venturini, city councillor for economic developments, said he hoped “a lot of people will want to get married in Venice” now and boost the city’s wedding sector.

“We are not Iran. The city cannot say who can or who cannot get married. We have no moral police going around,” he told the BBC on the bank of the Grand Canal, as gondolas loaded with tourists drifted by.

The activists have already claimed one win, though.

Tonight’s party was moved further from the city centre for security reasons. The new venue, Arsenale, is easier to protect.

“I think the main problem is that Venice is becoming like an amusement park,” argues Paola, an Italian member of the Extinction Rebellion group.

She’s especially incensed that wedding guests arrived here on private jets and argues the world’s elite are the worst polluters.

“Of course, mass tourism is eating the city alive, but the fact that billionaires can come here and use the city as their amusement park is an enormous problem.”

The Italian media have leapt on the glitz and glamour of what they are dubbing the “wedding of the year.”

Their pages and posts are full of pictures of the 200 or so A-list celebrities now in town, including Leonardo di Caprio and Kim Kardashian.

There’s talk of cuttlefish banquets – tonight’s spread will feature cod, cooked regional-style – and photos of the bride’s white lace Dolce and Gabbana gown, apparently inspired by one worn by Sophia Loren in the 1950s.

It seems, however, that talk of this wedding bringing the city to a halt was overblown.

Ivanka Trump has been spotted at an art gallery, as has Bill Gates, and the newly married couple have been photographed and filmed in various locations and outfits.

But most tourists, or Venetians, are more likely to bump into a Bezos look-a-like, who made the journey from Germany specially to pose for photos, than any of the real-life rich and famous.

There are plenty of water taxis and gondolas still free for hire and no crowds of angry tourists, deprived of their magical ride.

Some streets were briefly closed around the main events but disruption appears to have been minimal.

Most of the posters declaring “No Space for Bezos” have been ripped down and just the odd bit of graffiti can be seen. Attempts to project slogans on buildings were quickly stopped by police.

A planned march by protesters on Saturday evening is taking place with official permission.

But fears of Venice becoming a tourist playground, forcing locals out of town, are no exaggeration.

Just down from the main railway station, police check visitors at random for mandatory day passes. It is a new measure to try to control the crowds.

All around, cafes are packed with people shiny-faced from the humidity and pink from the brutally fierce sun.

A short walk away is the pretty piazza where Roberto Zanon has spent all his life but which he now has to leave.

His landlord has sold his home to out-of-town developers and the 77-year old is being evicted soon together with his two dogs.

Finding anything else in his home city is impossible, Roberto says. He can’t compete with higher-paying tourists.

“One, two, three doors – those are locals, but the rest is all for tourism now,” Roberto says, pointing to the wooden doors around his square.

“There are fewer and fewer Venetians here,” he says quietly, deeply upset at the loss of his home. “There is no purpose any more. You lose your friends. You lose piece of your heart. But sadly this situation is unstoppable.”

That doesn’t mean Roberto is fretting about a billionaire choosing Venice for his wedding, mind you.

He worked in tourism himself for many years and calls it “an honour” to have such famous guests in the city he himself loves so much. “I find it positive.”

He’s not alone.

In a souvenir shop selling magnets and T-shirts, Leda is all in favour of the Bezos-Sanchez bonanza.

She is blunt: “I think there should be more people like Bezos here. Right now we get trash tourism and Venice doesn’t deserve that.”

Leda used to have her own store selling quality Italian goods but had to close it to adapt to a low-spending market. “It’s low-cost, hit-and-run tourism,” she says. “People take 20 euro flights, come here and don’t spend a thing. That’s not what Venice needs.”

So what will be left, when the big party jets out of town?

The deputy mayor confirmed tech boss Bezos had donated “around three million euros” to groups working to protect this fragile city-on-the-water, in a gesture of support.

As for the 30 million euros the wedding might net the city in other ways – activists call that a “drop in the lagoon” for one of the richest men on earth.

“It’s around three euros for a normal person, if you put in proportion to Bezos’s wealth,” Lorenzo from Extinction Rebellion said. “It’s a very low amount of money.”

Health and fire warnings have been issued in countries across southern Europe, with temperatures expected to exceed 40C in some places over the weekend.

Italy, Greece, France, Spain and Portugal are among the countries affected – with the Spanish city of Seville forecast to hit 42C on Sunday.

Hot air from North Africa, which is spreading across the Balkans to holiday destinations such as Croatia, is contributing to the soaring temperatures.

BBC Weather says the heatwave is “very intense” for this time of the year – with the continent normally experiencing such high temperatures in July and early August.

In Spain, emergency staff have been placed on standby to deal with a surge in heatstroke cases especially among vulnerable people, including children, the elderly and those with chronic illnesses.

“It always gets super hot in Madrid, what surprises me is how early it’s happening – we’re still in June,” Marina, 22, told the Reuters news agency in the Spanish capital.

“This year is extreme. Last year, at least you could go out at this hour, but now? No way. It’s intense, and people are drinking more water,” Janeth, 47, said.

Italian authorities are advising residents in several cities, including Rome, Milan and Venice – where several A-list celebrities have gathered for the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and TV presenter Lauren Sanchez – to stay indoors between 11:00 and 18:00 local time.

“There is no wind, a lot of humidity, we are sweating, and I’m suffocating at night,” Alejandra Echeverria, a 40-year-old Mexican tourist in Venice, told AFP.

France, meanwhile, has been experiencing a heatwave for more than a week. Orange heat alerts, the country’s second-highest warning, were issued for southern regions on Friday.

In the city of Marseille, municipal swimming pools are being opened free of charge until the end of the heatwave, while there have been calls in some places for schools to close to protect the health of students.

Yellow and amber alerts are also in place for parts of England this weekend, and temperatures in London may reach 35C on Monday. The heatwave is forecast to last until Tuesday evening.

Wildfires have already struck some parts of Europe, including Greece, where coastal towns near the capital Athens erupted in flames that destroyed homes – forcing people to evacuate.

While it is hard to link individual extreme weather events to climate change, heatwaves are becoming more common and more intense due to climate change.

Scientists at World Weather Attribution, who analyse the influence of climate change on extreme weather events, say June heatwaves with three consecutive days above 28C are about 10 times more likely to occur now compared to pre-industrial times.

Tens of thousands have gathered for the Budapest Pride march, defying Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s legal threats against LGBTQ rights activists.

Organisers estimated that a record 200,000 people may have taken part despite mounting pressure from nationalist conservative politicians and police to stop any display of pro-LGBTQ material.

The police issued a ban in line with a new “child protection” law restricting gatherings considered to be promoting homosexuality.

Orban downplayed the possibility of violent clashes between police and participants, but warned of potential legal repercussions for attendees.

“Of course, the police could break up such events, because they have the authority to do so, but Hungary is a civilised country, a civic society. We don’t hurt each other,” he told state radio on Friday.

“There will be legal consequences, but it cannot reach the level of physical abuse.”

Attendees risk a fine of up to €500 (£427; $586), with police empowered to use facial recognition technology to identify them.

Organisers could face a one-year prison sentence.

Luca, 34, who is planning to attend with her mother Enikö, said they want a country of “diversity” which she said they don’t currently have.

“We have a law that bans people who are different from others to gather. This is why we are here. Because it’s hurting our rights. That’s why we came.”

She told the BBC she is worried about her four-year-old daughter’s future living “in a country where she can’t love anyone she wants to”.

Barnabás said he was attending to “express my solidarity with the LGBTQ community… because I know what it feels like not being seen and to be treated like an outcast, which obviously everyone here is not”.

Not part of the community himself, the 22-year-old said he comes from the countryside, where people “are more likely to be xenophobic and homophobic”.

EU equalities commissioner Hadja Lahbib, a former Belgian foreign minister, is in Budapest and expected to join the march.

On Friday, she posted a picture showing her standing with the liberal Budapest mayor Gergely Karacsony in front of a rainbow flag symbolising gay rights.

The Pride march “will be a powerful symbol of the strength of the civil society”, she wrote on X.

Dozens of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were also expected to be in attendance.

Finnish MEP Li Andersson said it was important for her and her European colleagues to be there to show solidarity with both Hungary’s LGBTQI community and civil society.

“It’s important to emphasise that the reason why we are here is not only Pride – this is about the fundamental rights of all of us.”

She added that she thinks Orban is using arguments on family values as a pretext to ban the march.

“[It’s] a march that is fundamentally about equality and about equal rights for anyone – for everybody, about the right to love and live with whoever you choose.

“And I think that’s a core value that any free and democratic society should respect.”

Karacsony, a member of Hungary’s opposition, has insisted no-one attending the march can face any reprisals as it has been co-organised by city hall, and as such is a municipal event that does not require police approval.

Ahead of the Pride, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen asked the Orban government not to block the march.

Orban was unfazed, asking her “to refrain from interfering in the law enforcement affairs” of EU member countries.

Belfast rap group Kneecap filled Glastonbury’s West Holts stage for a highly-charged performance that hit back at Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer with expletive-laden chants.

The Irish-language band have been in the headlines after rapper Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, who performs under the name Mo Chara, was charged with a terrorism offence for allegedly displaying the flag of proscribed terrorist organisation Hezbollah at a gig last year. He has denied the charge.

Last week, Sir Keir said Kneecap’s appearance at the festival was “not appropriate“.

On stage, the band thanked Glastonbury for keeping them on the bill and told the crowd the “prime minister of your country, not mine, said he didn’t want us to play”.

• Follow the latest updates from the Glastonbury festival

Mr Ó hAnnaidh is on bail after a court hearing in London two weeks ago.

Towards the start of their set, the rapper – who was wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh – held his arms out to the crowd and announced, “Glastonbury, I am a free man!”

His bandmate Naoise Ó Cairealláin, who performs under the name Móglaí Bap, called the case “a trumped up terrorism charge”, adding that it was “not the first time there was a miscarriage of justice for an Irish person in the British justice system”.

He then implored fans to turn up to support Mr Ó hAnnaidh at his next court appearance at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in August.

Glastonbury organisers had to fence off the West Holts field 45 minutes before the band’s appearance, as thousands turned up to show their support – or see what all the fuss was about.

They were treated to a set of raucous, rabble-rousing electro-rap, and responded by setting off smoke flares and moshing in giant rippling circles of bodies.

The hedonism of the music, rooted in club and drug culture, was often at odds with the band’s pronouncements between songs.

The trio, who are vocal critics of Israel’s military action in Gaza, addressed that topic again during their Glastonbury set.

“We understand colonialism and we understand how important it is to support each other internationally,” Mr Ó hAnnaidh said.

Accusing Israel of genocide, he then led the crowd in a chant of “free, free Palestine”.

Israel has strongly denied allegations of genocide relating to the ongoing war in Gaza.

Kneecap also voiced support for Palestine Action, a protest group that the UK government intends to proscribe under anti-terror laws, after some of its activists broke into an RAF base and spray-painted two military planes red.

This led to a further chant against Sir Keir, as the band criticised the UK’s sale of arms to Israel.

Formed in 2017, Kneecap rose to fame after starring a semi-autobiographical film alongside Oscar-nominated actor Michael Fassbender last year.

Their vocal support for Palestinians put them under an intense media and political spotlight earlier this year, after an appearance at Coachella Festival in California.

Shortly after, video footage emerged of Mr Ó hAnnaidh allegedly holding a Hezbollah flag at a gig in November 2024.

The video was investigated by anti-terrorism police which resulted in Mr Ó hAnnaidh being charged, under the name Liam O’Hanna.

Amid the row, Sir Keir and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy were among those who said Kneecap’s appearance at Glastonbury was “not appropriate”.

However, the band’s set was backed by Glastonbury founder Sir Michael Eavis and his daughter Emily, who runs the festival.

She told the BBC: “There have been a lot of really heated topics this year, but we remain a platform for many, many artists from all over the world and, you know, everyone is welcome here.”

Sir Michael added that “people that don’t agree with the politics of the event can go somewhere else”, in an interview with Glastonbury’s on-site newspaper.

On stage, Kneecap thanked the festival for their support.

“The pressure that that family was under and they stood strong,” said Mr Ó hAnnaidh. “Fair play to them.”

The band’s Glastonbury appearance caused problems for the BBC, which had to decide whether it could broadcast their set while meeting its obligations to impartiality and offensive language.

Although there was no live stream, the broadcaster said it intended to make highlights available later on Saturday.

“Whilst the BBC doesn’t ban artists, our plans ensure that our programming meets our editorial guideline,” a spokesperson confirmed.

“We don’t always live stream every act from the main stages and look to make an on-demand version of Kneecap’s performance available on our digital platforms, alongside more than 90 other sets.”

During the set, Mr Ó hAnnaidh observed the sea of Palestinian flags in the audience and joked that “the BBC editor is going to have some job”.

The signing of a peace agreement between the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda in Washington has elicited mixed reactions, with the former Congolese president, Joseph Kabila, describing it as “nothing more than a trade agreement”.

The deal signed on Friday demanded the “disengagement, disarmament and conditional integration” of armed groups fighting in eastern DR Congo – but offered few other details.

While some, including Kabila, have been critical, others have hailed the agreement as a turning point in a devastating conflict that has dragged on for decades.

Rwanda has denied allegations it backs an armed group, known as M23, which has been fighting in the eastern DR Congo.

The conflict escalated earlier this year when M23 rebels seized control of large parts of eastern DR Congo, including the regional capital, Goma, the city of Bukavu and two airports.

The UN says thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of civilians forced from their homes following the recent rebel offensive. The M23 disputes the figures, saying fewer than 1,000 people have died.

After the loss of territory, DR Congo’s government turned to the US for help, reportedly offering access to critical minerals in exchange for security guarantees. Eastern DR Congo is rich in coltan and other resources vital to the global electronics industries.

• What’s the fighting in DR Congo all about?
• Ceasefire deal still faces many challenges

In a post on X following the signing of the agreement on Friday, Kabila questioned the choice of the deal’s participants, saying the DR Congo was not at war with the states depicted in a photo of the signing, which included President Donald Trump and other US officials, as well as Rwanda’s foreign minister.

It is not entirely clear if his comments were an indirect criticism of the absence of M23 representatives in Washington.

“We must stop distorting the facts to disguise a propaganda agenda,” Kabila said, adding “Congolese people deserve the truth, not a diplomatic show”.

The absence of M23 representatives was also noted in the rebel-held city of Goma in eastern DR Congo.

“How can they say they sign for peace, yet they have not involved M23?” a resident questioned, adding the rebels ought to have been included in the talks for “collective peace” to be found.

Another resident, a commercial motorbike rider told the BBC “people are tired, they are not interested in talks”, insisting “all they want is peace”.

He argued previous peace talks and agreements were not endorsed or implemented by the conflicting parties, leaving little hope for a return to normality.

Similarly, Sam Zarifi, executive director at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), an international NGO that has worked in the DRC for more than a decade, said the Washington-brokered agreement is replete with “major omissions”.

“There can be no durable peace without meaningful justice. But the agreement…sidelines human rights and fails survivors,” Mr Zarifi said.

He added: “The agreement overlooks how hostilities can continue through proxy armed groups that our research has shown are responsible for serious violations.”

Stephanie Marungu, head of a humanitarian organisation in Goma, was more positive.

“The signing of the deal…is a momentous and hopeful development for the eastern region,” she told the BBC, adding it could “lead to increased stability and it’s going to make it easier for us to deliver aid and access those in need”. However, she acknowledges there may be challenges in implementing the deal.

“If the agreement is what will bring peace we have no problems,” another Goma resident said.

It remains to be seen what the situation on the ground will be going forward, with concerns the Washington deal may simply enrich a few people with the country’s mineral resources to the detriment of ordinary people.

Donald Trump’s week began with an on-air expletive as he lost his cool over his mounting frustrations with Iran and Israel’s shaky ceasefire.

It ended with a beaming US president holding court at the White House – not once, but twice – as he celebrated a series of significant political victories at home and abroad.

Trump was in a triumphant mood, answering questions for more than an hour at a news conference that turned into a checklist of his accomplishments.

Here’s a look at four big wins from this week, as well as a reminder of some things that didn’t go entirely the president’s way.

The successful US strike on Iranian nuclear facilities on 21 June was followed just three days later by Trump’s announcement of a “complete and total” ceasefire in what he termed the “12-day war” between Israel and Iran.

It had a rocky start. Not long before the announcement, Iran fired off ballistic missiles at a US airbase in Qatar, sparking fears of a wider war across the Persian Gulf.

Even after the ceasefire, things seemed tenuous. Both sides were quickly accused of breaking it, prompting an angry, expletive-laden tirade to reporters on the White House lawn.

By his own admission, Trump only narrowly managed to convince Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call off further attacks on Iran.

But ultimately the ceasefire held, allowing the president to proudly claim that his military gamble of an “unbelievable” strike on Iran worked, and point to evidence that he is a “peacemaker” – a sorely needed win as peace continues to elude him in both Gaza and Ukraine.

• Hegseth talks up strikes in Iran in push for public approval

Trump was on his way to the Netherlands for the Nato summit when he got a text from Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, lavishing praise on him for the strikes on Iran – texts the president was more than happy to make public.

During his whirlwind visit to the summit, US allies committed to 5% defence spending, something the president had repeatedly and vocally called for.

Then during a joint press conference, Rutte jokingly referred to Trump as “Daddy”, a reference to the president being able to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.

Trump has seemed to embrace the moniker.

“I think he likes me. If he doesn’t… I’ll come back and hit him hard,” Trump said at a news conference, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio laughing beside him. “He did it very affectionately.”

Soon afterwards, the White House posted various videos of a victorious-looking Trump with the caption “daddy’s home”.

• Trump takes victory lap at Nato – but questions remain

Trump’s week ended on a high note with the news that the Supreme Court issued a ruling that will curb judges’ power to block his orders nationwide.

While the ruling stems from a case regarding Trump’s ability to end birthright citizenship for children of some immigrants, it has sweeping implications. It will be harder for lower courts to challenge Trump’s domestic agenda through what Attorney General Pam Bondi described as an “endless barrage” of injunctions.

At an impromptu news conference, the president hailed the ruling as a “monumental victory for the constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law”.

The decision allows him to pursue a number of other policy items that had been thwarted by injunctions, including freezing funds to so-called “sanctuary cities” that stand in the way of his mass deportation drive, suspending refugee resettlement, and preventing tax money being used to fund gender surgeries.

The president smiled and cracked jokes, inviting reporters to ask more and more questions, as his aides – including Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt – sat smiling beside him.

“This was a tremendous win, and we’ve had tremendous wins,” he said at the end. “But this was a tremendous win today.”

• Court ruling expands Trump’s power – he intends to use it

On Friday afternoon, Trump met with the foreign ministers of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, who earlier in the day signed a peace deal aimed at ending decades of fighting between the two neighbours.

Further details are scant and previous peace deals in the region have failed – yet that has not deterred the US and Congolese presidents from framing this as a generational victory.

“Today, the violence and destruction comes to an end, and the entire region begins a new chapter of hope and opportunity,” Trump said.

The deal also helps the US government and American companies gain access to critical minerals in the region.

“I was able to get them together and sell it,” Trump said. “And not only that, we’re getting for the United States a lot of the mineral rights from the Congo.”

At his earlier news conference Trump had admitted he knew few details about the conflict, which is far from the minds of most Americans.

“I’m a little bit out of my league… because I don’t know too much about it,” he said. “I know one thing. They were going at it for many years, and with machetes.”

• Find out more about the peace deal signed in Washington

The week hasn’t been all victories and roses for Trump.

The president’s biggest legislative priority – a massive tax bill he’s dubbed the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” – has hit some roadblocks.

Trump has repeatedly urged lawmakers to get it on to his desk to sign into law by 4 July, Independence Day in the US.

But earlier this week, Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough said that certain provisions violated Senate rules, throwing billions of dollars of cuts into doubt.

“This is part of the process. This part is part of the workings of the United States Senate,” Karoline Leavitt said earlier this week. “But the president is adamant about seeing this bill on his desk here at the White House by Independence Day.”

And while Trump has hailed the ceasefires in Iran – as well as those in central Africa and last month between Pakistan and India – as victories, he has so far faltered on two of his biggest promises for peace: in Gaza and Ukraine.

“We’re working on that one,” Trump said of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine at Friday’s news conference, where he did not mention Gaza.

Even the end of US military involvement in Iran is not guaranteed.

During the news conference, Trump was asked by the BBC if he would consider bombing Iran again if he believed they were re-starting their nuclear programme.

“Sure, without question, absolutely,” he responded.

Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tied the knot with TV presenter Lauren Sanchez in a lavish wedding in Venice on Friday.

Reality stars, actors, royals and a whole host of A-listers were trailed by paparazzi in water taxis as they made their way to the three-day event.

Oprah Winfrey, Orlando Bloom, Kylie Jenner and Ivanka Trump were just some of the celebrities seen in the city for the star-studded event.

The festivities are expected to end on Saturday with a large party in a former medieval shipyard, where Lady Gaga and Elton John are expected to perform.

Wearing a lace Dolce & Gabbana haute couture gown that took 900 hours of atelier work, Sanchez told photographers that she “felt like a princess”.

Sanchez, 55, was later seen beaming alongside a jubilant Bezos, 61, after the ceremony, in a picture posted on Instagram, which was captioned with a love heart and the date.

An estimated 200 people, 70 of whom are family, were invited to the nuptials, though Sanchez told Vogue that the event was “extremely intimate”.

Friday’s ceremony took place on the small island of San Giorgio, where Matteo Bocelli – son of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli – reportedly performed.

While the exact cost of the wedding is not known, estimates range from $20m (£14m) to more than $50m.

The event has attracted protests from a variety of groups in Venice, from locals fighting over-tourism to climate change activists.

This will be the second wedding for both Sanchez and Bezos.

The couple have seven children between them from previous marriages and relationships.

They got engaged in May 2023 on board their 417-foot sailing yacht, Koru, named after a Maori symbol for “new life.”

In November 2023, the pair held an engagement party in Beverly Hills, with Oprah Winfrey, Salma Hayek Pinault, Barbra Streisand, Kris Jenner in attendance.

In Manhattan’s West Village, where culinary trends can change with the seasons, Chef Vijay Kumar is shaping a quiet revolution.

His 2025 James Beard Award win for Best Chef: New York State this month is more than just personal recognition – it marks a cultural inflection point.

Chennai-based culinary historian Rakesh Raghunathan says: “Following in the footsteps of fellow Tamil-origin recipients like Raghavan Iyer and Padma Lakshmi, Vijay Kumar’s recognition reflects a growing momentum for south Indian voices on the global culinary stage”.

“Tamil cuisine – along with Sri Lankan Tamil and other south Indian regional traditions – is increasingly being embraced by global diners as something refined, rich, and deeply rooted in culture.”

Born in the small farming village of Arasampatti, Madurai in southern Tamil Nadu, the 44-year-old Kumar has always cooked from memory – of forests and foraging, firewood stoves and his mother and grandmother serving meals made from scratch for the family.

When he took the stage at the JB awards ceremony, he said “the food I grew up on, the food made with care, with fire, with soul is now taking the main stage”. It was a moment of deep emotion and cultural pride for Kumar.

“There is no such thing as a poor person’s food, or a rich person’s food. It’s food. It’s powerful. And the real luxury is to be able to connect with each other around the dinner table.”

For Kumar, the win is a personal milestone but also a powerful act of visibility.

“When I started cooking, I never thought a dark-skinned boy from Tamil Nadu could make it to a room like this,” he said in his acceptance speech. It was therefore important for him to wear veshti, the traditional Tamil attire for men, for the black-tie James Beard ceremony as a nod to his roots.

Recently, Kumar was trolled by a pair of influencers in New York. Quick to rise to his defence was Padma Lakshmi, cookbook author and culinary ambassador, who called the influencers out for their cultural insensitivity.

Speaking to the BBC, Lakshmi said “Vijay’s story is important not just for south Indian food but also as a story of someone who grew up with humble means and cooked with limited resources.”

“This resourcefulness has not only propelled his work ethic but enhanced his sense of flavour, ingredients and sense of the world. He is a beacon of hope to young people all over the world that if you trust and develop your senses and skills, you can go far in a creative career.”

Kumar’s journey wasn’t smooth to start with.

Unable to afford engineering school in the big city, he chose culinary school instead – beginning his journey at Taj Connemara hotel in Chennai, cooking his way through cruise ships and kitchens, and eventually finding his promised land in America, working at Dosa in San Francisco.

His real breakthrough came when he partnered with Roni Mazumdar and Chintan Pandya of Unapologetic Foods, a New York restaurant group, to open Semma – a Tamil slang word for “fantastic” in 2021.

The trio found a “shared sense of wanting to honour our heritage, to tell the world who we really are through our cuisine”.

“At that moment, it wasn’t just about food, it was about identity,” Mazumdar told the BBC. “For too long, Indian food in the US has lived under the veil of a manufactured, watered-down north-western lens. With Semma, we set out to pull back that curtain and share something more honest.”

Kumar jumped at the opportunity to share his cuisine with the world. “His eyes lit up when we started talking about the food we grew up eating, and that kind of food rarely makes it to restaurant menus,” recalls Mazumdar.

Kumar’s strength lies in serving authentic village food that is seasonal, hyper-local, and built entirely from scratch. His farm-to-table approach, he says, was to cook the way “my mother and grandmother did”. Semma, he adds, is a celebration of that simplicity.

That simplicity resonates.

Semma’s menu defies the clichés that often define Indian food abroad. There’s no butter chicken or naan here and Kumar’s epiphany came with an unlikely encounter: French escargot.

As a child, on days when rice was scarce, he would forage with his family for snails in the paddy fields, which would be cooked in a savoury tamarind sauce. Kumar admitted that he was ashamed of it as a boy as it “felt like food born of poverty – until I saw the pride with which the French serve escargot”.

Today, the dish, nathai pirattal, sits proudly on Semma’s menu, reimagined not as a memory of scarcity, but as a symbol of resilience and cultural pride.

Semma’s menu – pepper rasam, tamarind crab, banana flower vadai, the ubiquitous dosa – offer an emotional connection for many diaspora diners, and a revelation for first-timers.

Kumar’s intention to bring village-style Tamil food and showcase it in upscale spots and in the cut-throat New York restaurant space has won a long line of admirers.

There’s depth, regionality and a powerful emotional connection in this food.

The cocktails are a nod to Tamil film stars like Rajnikanth and Silk Smitha, and the décor channels Chennai’s warmth. Even the kitchen is a space of intention – cooks are asked to prepare food with “gratitude and mindfulness”.

“I invited him to curate a black-tie gala dinner for 650 guests at the Gold Gala in Los Angeles, and he made us all proud. A year later, people still talk about how incredible the food was,” says Lakshmi, applauding Kumar’s gift for bringing regional Indian cuisine to the most glamorous platforms.

The awards and accolades feel like a natural progression of his journey. Semma is the first New York restaurant serving only south Indian cuisine to win a Michelin star and topped The New York Times’s list for top 100 restaurants. And now the JBA for Kumar.

In many ways, Kumar is not just serving food – he is serving memory, pride and a quiet revolution.

His James Beard win is a recognition of his talent, but also an affirmation that regional Indian cuisine, with its bold spices and soulful simplicity, belongs at the centre of the global table.

Kumar’s win has piqued the “curiosity of young people from all over the Indian diaspora and instilled a greater pride in our food ways”, says Lakshmi. “This will be his greatest legacy.”

Adds Mazumdar, “This win is a signal that regionality matters, and that our stories and our roots have value on the world stage.”

Deal or no deal, what Wes Love wants is certainty.

His Toronto-area business, Taurus Craco, imports machinery from overseas and distributes it across North America, mainly to the United States.

But President Donald Trump’s shifting tariffs on Canadian products have left him, like many independent business owners, unable to plan for the future.

“What has been creating indecision in the market is people don’t know which way this is going to go,” Mr Love told the BBC in June.

“And in small businesses, indecision is killer.”

Taurus Craco was hit hard by the tariffs earlier this year when it was forced to shell out nearly C$35,000 ($25,500, £18,700) because a shipment to the US crossed the border a few minutes after one deadline.

“It is totally punitive. From a small business perspective, that’s more than the cost that we spend on hydro and gas for the entire year,” he said.

Even though Trump paused that tariff a few hours later, Taurus Craco still had to pay. Refusing would mean no longer being allowed to transport its products into the US, Mr Love said.

“It’s like dealing with the mob,” he said.

Canada is in a tit-for-tat tariff war with its largest trading partner, faciing a series of levies, in particular on metals and auto.

Since taking office in January, Trump has announced a series of import taxes on goods from other countries – arguing they will boost American manufacturing and protect jobs.

The ensuing uncertainty has hit Canada’s economy and intense talks between the two countries hit a snag on Friday.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has called Trump’s tariffs “unjust”, and said while campaigning for the April election that the “old relationship” with the US is “over”.

Shortly after winning that election, the prime minister visited Washington DC, taking a more conciliatory message to the White House to launch talks on a new trade and security deal.

A 16 July deadline since has been set to hash out that deal, and President Trump said at the recent G7 summit that he was optimistic the two countries could “work something out” on trade.

But on Friday, Trump said he was cutting trade talks over Canada’s digital services tax.

“We are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,” he wrote on social media.

Carney has threatened to impose another round of retaliatory tariffs on the US if the talks aren’t successful.

Mr Love welcomes any prospect of a deal.

“Give us a set of rules and leave them alone and let us operate within those rules,” he said.

“It’s like sport, right? Everybody goes onto the field and you play to a set of rules, but you don’t change the rules in the middle of the game.”

• Trade, a sudden exit, Middle East conflict – five takeaways from G7
• ‘A stab in the back’ – car workers in Canada hit out at US over tariffs
• The reality behind Trump’s incredible investment claims
• What tariffs has Trump announced and why?

Gaphel Kongtsa, international policy director at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said businesses are hopeful an agreement will bring stability.

Thus far, they have had to navigate a very fluid landscape, he said, “where seemingly things get increased or decreased or added on without very much clear indication as to why”.

Canada is hugely reliant on trade with the US, with 75% of its exports heading south, according to Statistics Canada.

Its economy has slowed significantly in the first quarter of 2025 as a result of trade war and the ensuing uncertainty – growing only 0.8% between 1 January and 31 March, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).

It shrank 0.1% over a month in April.

A timeline of the tariffs shows what a whirlwind few months it has been.

On 1 February, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on most Canadian imports, then suspended them for a month days later. They were re-imposed when that deadline expired, only to be again delayed.

Not long after, he granted an exemption on all goods that were compliant with the current North American free trade deal, known as the USMCA.

Then in March, the US imposed a global 25% tariff on imported steel and aluminium as well as on imported vehicles.

This month, Trump raised the metals tariff to 50%.

The manufacturing sector has been in the spotlight when it comes to the tariffs, but the service sector also is affected by the uncertainty, if not by the levies directly.

Sam Gupta is the founder and CEO at ElevatIQ, a technology and management consultancy that operates out of Buffalo, New York, and in Toronto.

Mr Gupta said most people don’t think about the service sector during a period of uncertainty, calling it the “unloved stepchild” of the economy.

“The attention goes to all the manufacturing companies and the companies that are directly impacted by the supply chain,” he said.

Still, services – which encompass everything from finance to tourism – make up a huge proportion of Canada’s economy, accounting for the vast majority of its workforce.

Service exporters have not been hit as hard as manufacturing, but their outlook and confidence in the market is at the lowest level in years, according to data from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

And while Ottawa has implemented several measures to provide relief to companies hit by the tariffs – including from funds raised by counter tariffs – the service sector has not received any compensation.

“We are not even in the conversation,” Mr Gupta said. “We don’t exist.”

He said his business is not financially struggling at the moment, but noted that inquiries for his firm’s services were “down by 50%”.

“As far as our understanding goes, not a lot of businesses are thinking about these longterm investments right now. It just, they just are not in the mindset,” he said.

“The biggest fear that we all have right now is, I don’t know how long this is going to go. If it is going to be six months, a year, 18 months, we can still survive. But let’s say this goes on for like two years, three years then oh, my goodness, it will be, really, really hard.”

This has been the toughest period for the industry in his 20-year career, as the sector faces a combination of challenges, he said.

Mr Gupta recalled how easy it was for him to get a well-paying job early in his career.

“Even when I was graduating, we were getting paid like crazy. And we were so arrogant that we would not even pick up calls from recruiters,” he said.

“But now with AI, with tariffs, the economy, everything, everybody that I know is struggling,” he said.

Statistics Canada reports that 56% of all businesses that export to the US have taken measures to mitigate the impact of tariffs.

More than 30% have delayed major investments and expenditures, while 25% sought alternative customers outside the US.

The Bank of Canada said on Wednesday that exports to the US dropped by more than 15% in April. Steel and aluminium exports were down by 25% and 11%, and the export of vehicles had fallen by 25%.

But despite everything, Mr Love remains positive.

He said businesses can navigate the challenges as long as the US does not keep changing its trade policy.

“We’re entrepreneurs. We are full of piss and vinegar, as they would say,” he said.

“And so we are doing everything that we possibly can to keep fighting. And I think we will be successful; we just need to know what the ground rules are.”

Strawberries and cream – an iconic British combo since the 1800s. But do they belong together in a sandwich?

M&S has rolled out a limited-edition strawberries and cream sandwich, made with strawberries, whipped cream cheese and sweetened bread, which it says is inspired by the “viral Japanese fruit sando”. The supermarket chain says it was its top-selling sandwich the two days after its launch.

Strawberry sandwiches are available at some Japanese bakeries in the UK, but M&S’s offering appears to be the first time they have been widely available on supermarket shelves.

The idea of serving fruit in a sandwich might sound unusual but it’s nothing new in Japan. Known as “furutsu sando”, they became popular after Japanese fruit shops opened parlours selling desserts for customers to sample their wares.

They recently became sought-after around the world after going viral on social media, with Western tourists on TikTok scrambling to get their hands on the version sold in Japanese convenience store chain 7-Eleven.

Fruit sandwiches are typically made of sweetened, soft, spongy white bread filled with whipped cream and fruit, typically strawberries or clementine, says Shuko Oda, chef at Koya restaurant in London. They’re usually cut into triangles so that the fruit is on display.

“It looks quite pretty,” Shuko says, adding that the sandwiches are a “fun play on texture”.

Some people in Japan make them at home, but they’re more commonly bought from convenience stores, food halls or dedicated fruit sando stores, she says. People often enjoy them as a snack with tea or coffee or served on a plate alongside savoury sandwiches.

In the UK, it’s not as uncommon as you might think to pair fruit with slices of bread for a sandwich. Think of banana sandwiches, served with the fruit sliced or mashed, or the nostalgia of childhood jam sandwiches. Coronation chicken sandwiches are made with dried apricots or sultanas, too.

What is a sandwich, at its core? Does it have to be savoury? And does it have to even be made with typical wheat bread – take the jibarito, for example, which is made with fried plantain instead.

What about Scandinavian open sandwiches? And if they count as sandwiches, then what about French toast topped with fruit and sauce?

The Oxford English Dictionary says sandwiches are made of two thin slices of bread, usually buttered, “with a savoury… or other filling”.

Though humans have been making bread for thousands of years, the sandwich as we know it today is said to owe its popularity to John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. The story goes that he asked his staff to bring him meat between two slices of bread so he could continue playing cards without stopping to eat.

Some of the sandwiches we eat in the UK would raise eyebrows around the world. Take crisp sarnies, coronation chicken sandwiches, or the humble chip butty. But if you’re feeling inspired by Japan’s strawberry sandos and want to up your sandwich game, here are some more sandwiches from around the world.

Bánh mì is a Vietnamese sandwich served in a baguette, typically filled with meat, pate, pickles and spicy sauces. It’s usually eaten for breakfast. BBC Food has a recipe made with sweet and spicy pork belly and chilli sauce.

Croque monsieur is a French sandwich served hot with gooey, melted cheese. It’s made with white sauce, cheese, ham and mustard, cooked under the grill. To mix it up, served with a fried egg on top and – voila – you have a croque madame.

A po’ boy, which comes from “poor boy”, is a New Orleans street food sandwich that celebrates Louisiana’s seafood. A huge variety of fillings are available, but the most popular include fried shrimp, crab or lobster nestled among lettuce, remoulade and pickles. BBC Food has a simplified version you can make at home more easily using frozen scampi.

Rather than using bread made from typical wheat flour, arepas are made using corn flour. They’re also popular in Colombia, but it’s Venezuela where they’re most often made into sandwiches. One popular filling is Reina Pepiada, which combines chicken, avocado and coriander.

We’re no strangers to doubling up on carbs in the UK – and the Australian spaghetti jaffle draws on the same principle. It is made by serving leftover spaghetti in tomato sauce inside a toastie. At convenience stores across Japan, you can also pick up a yakisoba pan – noodles served in a hot dog bun.

Francesinha, a Portuguese sandwich originating in Porto, is a cheese and meat lover’s heaven. The impressive structure is made by filling a lightly toasted bread with a steak, sausage, cheese and ham.

More cheese is then placed on top, and the whole sandwich is typically baked in the oven until the cheese melts and then served with an egg on top. A spicy sauce made with Port, beer and tomato is then poured over the whole thing. If that wasn’t filling enough already, it’s usually served with chips on the side.

Getting ready for a role in a blockbuster film always has its challenges, but for Damson Idris, there was one thing he couldn’t prepare for.

“How do I look cute when the wind is hitting me at 180mph?”

The actor stars alongside Brad Pitt in F1: The Movie and had to spend months learning how to drive the racing cars before shooting.

“We were really following the Grand Prix as it was happening,” he tells 1Xtra’s Nadia Jae.

Damson says driving on iconic tracks like Silverstone and Rockingham is an intense experience.

“You need to remember when you’re driving those cars sometimes you’re hitting 180mph. I was moving, it was fire,” he says.

“Then on top of that, you got to act within a movie, you’ve still got to try and look cute.”

Damson had some help from current F1 driver Sir Lewis Hamilton, one of the film’s producers, who also has a cameo.

“When it comes to driving he really encouraged me,” Damson says.

“He brought that energy on set that just reminded us of how authentic this movie is and that was always our goal – to make the most authentic racing movie of all time.

“And Lewis is my brother as well so to see him getting his acting bag was so amazing to me.”

The film was released in the UK on Wednesday to generally positive reviews and marks a new era for Damson.

The 33-year-old, who grew up in Peckham, south London, had his breakout role in 2017 US crime drama Snowfall, which he says was overlooked by “mainstream awards”.

But he was recognised by organisations such as BET, NWACP and Mobo, which celebrate black artists in the entertainment industry.

“It’s funny that every single award that the culture could give me, I won,” he says.

“We cleaned up there.”

Transitioning to a major Hollywood role has been a long road for Damson but he says he never lost hope thanks to his mum.

“The conversations she used to have with me my during my periods of rejection, she’d come in and give me these words and really educate me,” he says.

“That knowledge of manifestation and acceptance makes you prepared for when it actually is a reality.”

One thing he wasn’t prepared for though – spitting on his co-star Brad Pitt on set.

He says the confession, which he made during an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, has been following him around ever since.

“I never should have said it,” he says.

“People are like: ‘Bro you phlegmed on Brad Pitt?’ I’m like: ‘I never phlegmed’.”

He insists it was an accident.

“It was a little speck,” says Damson. “But it was a speck too much, I mean it’s Brad Pitt.”

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

In 2023, Doechii announced she was three years into her five-year plan for becoming one of the biggest names in music.

“By year five I want to be at my peak,” she told Billboard magazine.

“I want to be in my Sasha Fierce era, the top of my game with still a long way to go – but I want to reach my prime and never leave it.”

Back then, it felt like a bold claim.

The Florida-born rapper and singer had scored a couple of viral hits – most notably Persuasive, an ode to marijuana that ended up on Barack Obama’s summer playlist – but nothing that had crossed over to the mainstream charts.

But jump-cut to 2025 and Doechii is a Grammy Award-winning “woman of the year“, who’s about to play one of the most hotly-anticipated sets at Glastonbury Festival.

• Glastonbury 2025: Full line-up and stage times for the weekend
• The mystery of the festival’s surprise stars
• The 1975 deliver a polished, but safe headline slot
• Why there will be no Glastonbury Festival in 2026
• 1Xtra Salutes… Doechii and Friends

It’s hard to identify the turning point. Some people say it was her mesmerising performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last December.

With her hair carefully braided to her backing dancers, she delivered a meticulously-choreographed performance of Boiled Peanuts and Denial Is a River – a cartoonish character piece, in which she confides to her therapist that her boyfriend’s been cheating on her with another man.

Others pinpoint her Tiny Desk Concert, released on YouTube two days later. The 15-minute set bursts with joie de vivre, simultaneously soulful and fiery, as the star rattles through jazzy, full-band recreations of her mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal.

She won even more fans at the Grammys in March, where she won best rap album, making her just the third female artist to win in the category.

In her speech, she spoke directly to young, black, queer women like her: “Don’t allow anybody to project any stereotypes on you, to tell you that you can’t be here, that you’re too dark or that you’re not smart enough or that you’re too dramatic or you’re too loud.”

She capped off her win with an ultra-physical performance that referenced Michael Jackson, Missy Elliott and Bob Fosse – and ended with her pulling the splits while being held aloft by five male dancers.

With three “star-is-born” performances in just four months, Doechii became the most talked-about new rapper of her generation… just like she planned.

So where did it all start?

Doechii was born Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon in Tampa, Florida and raised in a “heavily Christian” single-parent household by her mother, Celesia Moore.

A studious kid who loved writing poetry, she invented her alter-ego at the age of 11, after being viciously bullied in school.

“I was in a position where I thought about killing myself because the bullying was so bad,” she told Dazed magazine in February.

“Then I had this realisation: I’m not gonna do that, because then they’re gonna all get a chance to live and I’m gonna be the one dead.”

Overnight, her attitude shifted.

“Jaylah might’ve been getting bullied, but I decided Doechii wouldn’t stand for that,” she recalled in an interview with Vulture.

“And then,” she told The Breakfast Club, “I went to school in a tutu and I started doing music.”

As a teenager, she spent four years at Tampa’s Howard W. Blake School of the Arts, after winning a place on the choral programme by performing Etta James’ At Last.

The school unlocked her creativity, allowing her to take classes in everything from nail design and hair, to ballet, tap, cheerleading and stage production. However, it was gymnastics that left the biggest impression.

“The way that gymnasts train is really, really tough. It’s brutal and hard and difficult,” she told Gay Times.

“But at some point in my gymnastic career I learnt how to embrace and really love pain. To view pain as me getting stronger and better. That caused a deep discipline that has never left me.”

The school also helped the teenager accept her sexuality.

“Even though I was aware [that I was queer], I didn’t feel as comfortable until I started surrounding myself with more gay friends at my school.

“Once I had gay friends it was like, ‘OK, I can be myself, I’m good, I can feel safe, this is normal, I’m fine.’ I have those same friends today and will have them for life.”

That’s not all they gave her: Those same friends convinced Doechii to give up her ambitions of becoming a chorister, and start writing and releasing her own music.

Initially called iamdoechii, she uploaded her first song to Soundcloud in 2016, and self-released her debut single Girls two years later.

It already bore the hallmarks of her best work: Rhythmically and lyrically dextrous, and chock full of personality.

“,” she chided over a mellow electric piano, before the beat switched up and her rapping became more frenetic. By the closing bars, she barely had time catch breath as she listed her accomplishments.

“

The lines were more prophecy than reality. Doechii had a solid following on YouTube, but she was still working at Zara to make ends meet.

In 2019, she was booked for a showcase in New York City and hopped on a bus – without the money for her return trip.

“The night after, I slept at a McDonald’s,” she recalled in a 2022 interview.

“And then I had to call one of my mom’s friends… and, like, beg her to let me sleep at her house. And I ended up living there until I got back on my feet.”

Things started to turn around with the release of 2020’s Yucky Blucky Fruitcake, named after Junie B. Jones’s children’s book, in which Doechii sketched out her own childhood.

According to the lyrics, she was precocious (“”), competitive (“”) and frequently broke (“”).

The song marked a breakthrough in her writing.

“I was lacking this sense of vulnerability and honesty in my music,” she told Billboard, until “I learned accuracy and just saying exactly what it is, like on Lucky Blucky Fruitcake”.

The song went viral, winning her a record deal with Top Dawg Entertainment – the label that launched Kendrick Lamar and SZA.

She followed it up with the effortlessly hooky Persuasive, earning praise from SZA (who jumped on a remix) and former President Barack Obama.

“I can’t imagine Obama just jamming my song,” she exclaimed. “I just don’t believe it, but if he really does – that’s crazy.”

Doechii next collaborated with Kodak Black on the 2023 single What It Is (Block Boy), earning her first Top 40 hit.

Then, everything stalled.

Subsequent singles flopped, and Doechii was, as she later wrote on social media, “drowning in my own vices, battling differences with my label and a creative numbness that broke me”.

Initially, her Alligator Bites Never Heal mixtape looked set to repeat the pattern. Released last August, it entered the US charts at number 117 and vanished a week later.

But reviews were ecstatic.

Critics loved the acerbic, funny lyrics, that saw Doechii unpack the trials and tribulations of the last two years; and heaped praise on bars that recalled greats such as Q-Tip, Lauryn Hill and Slick Rick, while keeping pace with contemporaries like Kendrick Lamar.

After a period dominated by the mumbled bars of Souncloud rap, her precision was a breath of fresh air.

“One of the year’s most fully-realized breakout albums,” wrote Rolling Stone. “If this is the sound of Doechii pushing against constraints, a little friction might not be the worst thing,” added Pitchfork.

As word spread, she was booked to play the Colbert show and Tiny Desk. Those performances lit a rocket under her career. By April, Alligator had chomped into the US Top 10, and the UK Top 40.

Around the same time, she bowed to fan pressure by releasing her 2019 YouTube song, Anxiety, a pop-rap crossover based on a sample of Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know.

With an eye-catching video that recreated a full-on panic attack, it hit number three in the UK, and even earned Doechii a citation in medical journal Psychology Today.

“The song and accompanying video work so well in showing exactly how anxiety feels in our bodies and minds,” wrote Professor Sandra Chafouleas.

“Think about quick and short breaths, racing thoughts, and worrying about things that haven’t happened yet. Anxiety feels like ‘Anxiety’ sounds, with brilliant mirroring of how the experience can hijack us.”

Since then, Doechii’s been hard at work on her debut album. There’d been rumours she’d release it in time for her Glastonbury slot on Saturday night, but perfectionists have got to perfect. At the time of writing, she’s still in the studio.

Speaking to Dazed, she dropped a few hints of what’s in store.

“In Alligator Bites Never Heals, the archetype was a student of hip-hop. For this next project, I’m thinking about how this student develops.

“Who does she develop into? What has she learned? I’m still unpacking how that character develops into this next project.”

Despite the delay, Doechii’s headline set remains one of Glastonbury’s biggest draws.

She might only be performing for 45 minutes, but she’ll make every one of them count.

As the star boasted on her single Nosebleeds: “”

US President Donald Trump has said he is cutting off trade talks with Canada “immediately” as the country looks to start enforcing a tax policy targeting big tech companies.

The latest move, which he announced on social media, comes as the neighbouring nations had been working to agree a trade deal by mid-July.

Both countries have imposed tariffs on each other’s goods after Trump sparked a trade war earlier this year and threatened to annex Canada using “economic force”.

On Friday, the US president said he was ending talks due to what he called an “egregious tax” on tech companies and added he would announce new tariffs on goods crossing the border within the next week.

“We are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,” he wrote on social media.

“We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”

Later in the Oval Office, President Trump told reporters that the US has “all the cards”.

“Economically, we have such power over Canada. I’d rather not use it,” he added.

In brief comments to reporters, Prime Minister Mark Carney suggested that talks would grind on.

“We will continue to conduct these complex negotiations in the best interest of Canadians,” he said.

Canada’s 3% digital services tax has been a sticking point in its relationship with the US since the law was enacted last year. The first payments are due on Monday.

Business groups estimate it will cost American companies, such as Amazon, Apple and Google, more than $2bn a year. Other countries have a similar tax in place, including the UK, France and Italy.

Canadian officials had said they expected to address the issue as part of trade talks with the US.

There were hopes that the relatively warm relationship that newly elected Carney has forged with Trump might help those negotiations.

The president’s latest move casts doubt on a future deal, though Trump has often used social media threats to try to gain leverage in talks or speed up negotiations he sees as stalling.

Last month, for example, he threatened to ramp up tariffs on goods arriving to US shores from the European Union, only to relent a few days later.

Candace Laing, chief executive of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which has been critical of the digital services tax, said that “last-minute surprises should be expected” as the deadline for a deal approaches.

“The tone and tenor of talks has improved in recent months, and we hope to see progress continue,” she added.

Canadian Senator Hassan Yussuff, who sits on a Canada-US trade advisory council to Prime Minister Carney, told the Globe and Mail that he believes Trump is trying to gain “leverage” in the talks by putting pressure on Canada.

“I think we don’t react to it,” Yussuff said.

Meanwhile, some in Canada’s business community have called on Carney to scrap the digital services tax. Goldy Hyder, president of the Business Council of Canada, said on Friday that the tax undermines Canada’s relationship with the US, and it should be lifted “to get trade negotiations back on track”.

At the G7 in mid-June, Trump and Carney had set a 30-day deadline for a trade deal to be reached. It is unclear whether Trump’s latest comments have affected that timeline.

During Trump’s first term, the White House fought hard as many countries began considering taxes on digital services.

But Inu Malak, fellow for trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that the issue was left unresolved in the trade deal the US and the UK reached earlier this year, suggesting some flexibility.

She said Trump’s threat seemed like a move to ramp up pressure out of his typical negotiating “playbook – but was also a sign the president had refocused on Canada, which could open the way for a deal.

“It does provide a bit of an opening – maybe not the one that Prime Minister Carney wanted… but it does provide some space for them to hasten those talks,” she said.

The US is Canada’s top trade partner, buying more than $400bn in goods last year under a longstanding free trade agreement.

But Trump hit that trade with a new 25% tariff earlier this year, citing concerns about drug trafficking at the border.

New US tariffs on cars, steel and aluminium have also scrambled relations. Car parts, for example, cross US, Mexican and Canadian borders multiple times before a vehicle is completely assembled and such import taxes threaten supply chains.

Trump later carved out exemptions for some goods in the face of widespread alarm from businesses in both the US and Canada, which has hit back with tariffs of its own on some American products.

Shares in the US fell on Friday after Trump said he was cutting off talks, but later bounced back with the S&P 500 closing at a record high.

“Defender ready?” calls the host.

A thumbs up and moments later, two burly men – with no protective gear – run full speed at each other before they clash, the unmistakable sound of flesh and bone crunching.

The crowd erupts into a collective roar, some cheering, others wincing.

This is the moment they’ve been waiting for – and it’s exactly this adrenaline-fuelled energy that organisers of the Run It Championship League are banking on to help bring what they call the “world’s fiercest, new collision sport” to global audiences.

It is a supercharged version of a one-on-one tackle game which originated in the backyards and school playgrounds of Australia and New Zealand – namely in Pacific Islander communities.

One person carrying a ball must “run it straight” at the defender, who is also sprinting towards them: they are not allowed to duck, hurdle or sidestep the tackler.

Videos of the game have recently gone viral, and the founders of the Run It league have capitalised on the surge of interest – they say they’ve gained millions of views online, won over thousands of fans, attracted big name sponsors, and even inspired rival competitions.

They’ve held jousts in Melbourne and Auckland, and on Saturday another will take place in a Dubai arena, the winner taking away prize money of A$200,000 (£98,000). Next on their agenda, is an expansion to the UK and US.

But the groundswell of support for the league is increasingly being rivalled by critical voices. Medical experts and sporting figures are worried about the physical and mental health impacts of the game – which has also become a wider social media craze, that is already accused of claiming one life.

“It’s like shaking a baby,” says Peter Satterthwaite, whose teenage nephew died after copying the game at a party.

The objective of the game is simple: be the person who “dominates” the contact, as deemed by a panel of three judges.

Two of the league’s seven co-founders, Brandon Taua’a and Stephen Hancock, tell the BBC they have fond memories of playing the game as teenagers in Melbourne.

“I used to ‘run it straight’ at Brandon all the time,” Hancock says, joking that the pair would usually try to avoid hitting each other straight on.

There’ll be none of that this weekend, when the eight finalists compete for that giant cash prize in United Arab Emirates.

Hancock insists Run It is a “game of skill” – “[It’s] all about the footwork” – but there’s no denying the violent nature of it.

A quick scroll of the league’s social media accounts shows dozens of quick-burst videos, all honing in on the explosive action of two men colliding.

In other videos circulating from the events, several competitors are knocked out and require immediate medical attention.

Taua’a acknowledges the sport comes with risks, but says the league has safety protocols to minimise them.

Competitors are screened, undergoing medical assessments – such as blood tests and a physical exam – and they must also send a recent video of themselves playing a sport that features tackling. Medical staff are also on the sidelines of the events.

“There’s an element of danger with surfing, with boxing, and many other sports as well,” Taua’a argues.

For Champ Betham – who won NZ$20,000 earlier this month at the competition in Auckland and is gunning for the title in Dubai on Saturday – the element of danger is a secondary consideration.

“This is a massive blessing to a whole heap of us to pretty much try and win 20K or whatever for a couple hours’ work,” he told Radio New Zealand at the time.

“We got to pay off some debts and stock up the fridges and the cupboards, food for our little ones, especially with the economy and stuff like that here in New Zealand. Nothing’s cheap these days.”

The money involved, for a league which has only been around for six months, is impressive. Along with the prize fund, competitors’ travel and accommodation expenses are being paid. A 1,600-seat arena has been booked. The league has a slick social media account, a PR representative, and a bunch of promoters – including antipodean sports stars.

Its initial financial backers have been described only as “a group of local investors who believe in the product”, but bigger names are emerging: days before the Dubai event, the league announced it had secured a major sponsor in online gambling platform Stake.com, which is banned in key markets like Australia and the UK.

There are also ongoing talks with potential US investors, including a contact linked to American podcaster and UFC heavyweight Joe Rogan, which Taua’a says “will definitely help” the league build a presence in the US.

They will need big backers to match their ambitions for the contest, which they argue is more than just a fleeting social media trend.

“This could actually eventuate into a sport that could sit [in a class] with MMA and boxing,” Hancock says.

But as Taua’a and Hancock focus on the competition’s future ambitions, more and more voices are questioning its safety.

“They might as well set up smoking as a legitimate sport,” says neuroscientist Alan Pearce.

Speaking to the BBC from the New Zealand city of Palmerston North, Peter Satterthwaite is unequivocal.

“It’s not a sport,” he says. It’s “a dangerous activity” designed purely “to hurt the guy in front of you”.

His 19-year-old nephew Ryan was celebrating a 21st birthday with friends at a local park when they decided to try the game they’d seen all over their social media feeds.

Ryan did two tackles. Neither he or his friend fell down or clashed heads. But as he walked away, he told his mates he didn’t feel well, his uncle recounts.

“[Ryan] was coherent for a bit, then he lay down and his eyes just rolled back in his head.”

Friends rushed him to hospital where doctors had to “cut a sizable chunk out of his skull” to alleviate pressure caused by brain swelling, Satterthwaite says.

“I saw him on the ventilator, his chest going up and down as he was breathing, and it was like ‘Get up! Open your eyes’.”

On Monday evening, just a day after he was playing with his mates, Ryan’s life support was turned off in a hospital room filled with loved ones.

“It was just an innocuous clash,” Ryan’s uncle says, “and it just shows you how fragile life is and how fragile your brain is.”

Run It says it understands the dangers of contact sports and takes safety seriously. Weeks after Ryan’s death, the league posted a video saying the game is “not for the backyard, not for the street”.

“Do not try this at home,” they said.

But Satterthwaite doubts that warning will have much impact.

“I don’t think there’s a sport in the world that people don’t do at the beach, or in their backyard, or at the park.”

It’s not just the physical impacts that worry Shenei Panaia.

As a Samoan growing up in Australia, she would often see schoolkids playing the game as a bit of fun. But the mental health worker fears it reinforces “a version of masculinity where silence is strength, and violence is proof of pride”.

“It sends a dangerous message to young men that their worth is based on how much pain they can take. That if you’re not tough, you don’t belong.”

And the league’s attempt to turn this into a lucrative spectator sport contradicts the values of many in the Pacific Islander community, Penaia says.

“We are taught to look out for one another… and to make decisions that serve more than just ourselves.”

Their concerns are echoed by a pack of concussion experts and sporting figures.

For more than a decade, the world of high-impact sports has been introducing safety measures as the research into brain injuries develops.

Official bodies including Rugby Australia, New Zealand Rugby have warned people not to take part, with the New Zealand Prime Minister also weighing in, saying it’s a “dumb thing to do”.

Neuroscientist Pearce argues Run It magnifies “the most violent aspects of our established sport”, while the safety protocols do little to minimise any risk. Blood tests and physical exams cannot predict a brain injury, and catastrophic damage can occur even without a direct hit to the head, he says.

“I can’t see how running at 25km an hour straight at each other without stopping is safe,” he tells the BBC. “It’s as simple as that.”

There’s the risk of immediate concussion, Dr Pearce says, delayed onset brain injuries like Ryan Satterthwaite’s, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) – a degenerative disease caused by repetitive head trauma. They can lead to cognitive impairments, movement disorders, dementia, depression.

“[They’re] basically using the collision as the entertainment value, which is, in effect, commercialising concussion,” he concludes.

But a spokesperson for the league – who argues it is “not about masculinity” but “strength and skill” – say organisers have no intention of slowing down, and aren’t too worried about their critics.

Taua’a says what happens at their competitions is “not too much different” to what you see on televised rugby matches, and – with their protocols – it is far safer than many of the games played in backyards the world over.

“It’s quite new for viewers and it might take some time for them to get used to seeing what we’ve put together.”

I’m on the hunt for a microbial saviour – a type of virus that can treat infections rather than cause them.

We all know the viral bad guys – Covid, flu, norovirus, herpes, chicken pox, measles… the list goes on.

But there’s a type of virus that’s not interested in infiltrating our bodies, instead it preys on bacteria.

They’re known as bacteria eaters, or bacteriophage, or commonly as phage.

Capturing them could give us new ways of treating infections, including superbugs that are becoming incurable.

So, how to catch a killer?

I’ve been promised it’s surprisingly easy. The team at the Phage Collection Project sent me some vials to collect samples, along with a pair of gloves. All I need to do is hunt for some dirty water, the dirtier the better, dip the vials in and screw on the lid.

I tried a couple of ponds, the juice from a worm-composting bin and then I needed my dirtiest sample. I didn’t flush the toilet after a poo and left it for a couple of hours. I pop on a glove and hold my breath as I go in for the final sample. Strict hygiene instructions, including vigorous hand-washing, were followed, at all times.

The vials were packaged up for collection and then three days later I headed off to the University of Southampton to see what was inside.

“They were a bit dirty when I received them,” phage scientist Michelle Lin tells me as we don our blue lab-coats and matching gloves to go into the Containment Level 2 microbiology laboratory.

We grab my samples from the fridge, which look much clearer now they have been filtered of any… debris. “It’s fine, it’s needed,” Michelle, who had the unpleasant job, reassures me.

Filtering is the first step in looking for phage, next they get served dinner – a cocktail of yummy bacteria – to help them grow in number.

Now comes the really cool bit – finding a useful phage. The scientists have been working with the local hospital to collect bacteria from patients with troublesome infections.

Michelle grabs a petri dish that’s growing bacteria from a patient with a painful, urinary tract infection that keeps coming back.

And to my amazement – one of the phage I collected from my toilet was able to kill this infection in the lab.

“The way to see that the phage has infected bacteria is you get these zones where the bacteria are not growing and that’s because they’ve been killed by the phage,” says Michelle.

You can see the leopard print pattern in the petri dish where the phage have been making light work of a bacterial infection that modern medicine was struggling to shift.

“As crazy as it sounds, well done to the toilet sample,” says Michelle with great delight.

And when I was offered the chance to name the phage, well of course it’s the Gallagher-phage.

“Sounds amazing to me,” says Michelle.

So far this is all good fun in the laboratory, but could my phage ever be given to a patient?

“Yes and I hope so,” says associate professor Dr Franklin Nobrega as we look at images of my phage captured with an electron microscope.

“Your phage, already in just 24 hours, we were able to get in a high concentration and able to be a very good killer, which means this is very promising for patients, so thank you,” said Dr Nobrega.

Phage remind me of a moon lander – a big capsule on spindly legs – just instead of landing on the surface of the moon they use their legs to select their victim.

They then hijack the bacteria and transform it into a mass-production factory for more phage, which burst out of their host, killing it in the process.

There are pros and cons to phage. They reproduce as they go along so you don’t need constant doses like you would with drugs.

They are also very picky eaters. You need a precise match between phage and the strain of bacteria you’re trying to treat whereas antibiotics tend to kill everything good and bad. So it is harder to find the right phage, but if you do it comes with fewer side effects.

Dr Nobrega tells me infected wounds are a “very good application” for phage because you can apply them directly to the injury, but they can also be inhaled via a nebuliser to treat lung infections or to target urinary tract infections “which is our target currently”.

Phage science may sound new and exciting, but it is actually a century old idea stemming from the discoveries of Felix d’Hérelle and Frederick Twort in the 1910s.

Bacteriophage therapy was a branch of medicine and the idea was compelling. Even as late as the 1940s there was an active pharmaceutical industry in western countries trying to produce phage-therapy to defeat bacterial infections.

However, it was rapidly eclipsed by the wonder-drug of the 20th century.

“Antibiotics were working so well that most people said ‘why bother’,” says Dr Nobrega.

Work on phage therapy continued in places like Georgia and there are individual accounts of it working wonders; but there hasn’t been the same depth of medical research and clinical trials as there have for drugs.

But just as the initial success of antibiotics suppressed phage research, the failure of antibiotics is reigniting excitement at their potential.

More than a million people a year are already dying from infections caused by microbes that are resistant to treatment – it’s known as the “silent pandemic”. By 2050, that figure is projected to reach 10 million a year.

This “antibiotic apocalypse” would mean common infections could kill again and undermine modern medicine. The drugs are also used to make organ transplants, open surgery and chemotherapy possible.

“The predictions around antibiotic resistance are very frightening, but the reality is we’re seeing it now and it’s only going to get worse,” says Prof Paul Elkington, the director of the institute for medical innovation at the University of Southampton.

He is also a doctor with a speciality in lung medicine and is already at the point where – after a year of treatment and turning to ever more toxic and less effective antibiotics – “in the end you have to have a conversation [and say] ‘we can’t treat this infection, we’re really sorry'”.

He says we can’t rely solely on antibiotics in the future and phage are a potential alternative.

But he warns the steps needed to get from the laboratory and into patients are “uncharted”.

Things are changing. Phage therapy is available in the UK on compassionate grounds when other treatments have failed. And the drugs regulator – The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency – has published its first official rules to support the development of phage therapy.

“If one looks 15-20 years into the future, with the emerging methodologies, it’s going to be possible for them to be much more widely available and for doctors to prescribe phage instead of antibiotics for some infections,” says Prof Elkington.

If you want to see if you can find a friendly virus too then The Phage Collection Project are launching their new sampling kits at the Summer Science Exhibition taking place this week at the Royal Society and through their website.

“Antimicrobial resistance is something that could affect all of us,” says Esme Brinsden from the Phage Collection Project, “when the public get involved they may just find the next phage that can help treat and save a patient’s life”.

Suzanna Kathumba, a domestic worker in Malawi, spends every day thinking of ways she can economise to make her salary of 80,000 kwacha ($46; £34) a month stretch to support her family.

As she wrings a wet cloth from a bucket of water in the living room and starts by wiping down the tables and chairs, she considers her latest ploy to save money.

“I’ve told my youngest children not to get too dirty when playing so we can save on soap,” the 43-year-old told the BBC.

“But it’s hard because children are children, they want to play.”

For the past few months Ms Kathumba, a divorced mother of four working in the capital, Lilongwe, has been struggling to survive on her salary because of the surging prices of goods in the market.

With little financial support from her ex-husband, she is the sole earner for the household. Most of her money goes back to her four children, who live in their home town of Kasungu, around 130km (80 miles) north-west of capital. The two youngest children are still in school and two older ones are unemployed.

In May, the annual inflation rate in Malawi was 27.7% – one of the highest in Africa – a decline from 29.2% in April.

“What is surprising is that salaries are staying the same, but the price of commodities keeps going up on a daily basis,” Ms Kathumba said.

“The money finishes before it even comes. We’re living a very hard life.”

A recent Ernst & Young report said that Malawi was one of the few countries in the world it considered to have what it called a “hyperinflationary economy” – along with Burundi, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. This is when there is cumulative inflation over three years of around 100% or more.

The accounting firm said that according to the World Economic Outlook database, compiled by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Malawi had a three-year cumulative rate of inflation of 116% as of December 2024 and it forecast three-year cumulative rates of inflation of 102% for 2025 and 66% for 2026.

Data from the World Bank also shows that the country is one of the poorest in the world. It estimates that 70% of the southern African nation’s population lives on less than $2.15 a day.

The current cost-of-living crisis has left many citizens, like Ms Kathumba, without any savings.

“I would be lying if I say that I save some money at the end of the month. I have absolutely nothing left,” she said.

“I pay 50,000 kwacha [$29] in school fees each term. Then you need to buy exercise books, food, soap – all from the same small salary. Sugar [1kg] is now 4,500 kwacha [$3].”

Economists put Malawi’s current inflation problems partly down to the shortage of foreign money – known as “forex” – in the banks.

Malawi has often struggled with forex as the country imports much more than it exports.

“We are not exporting high-value products,” Dr Bertha Bangara Chikadza, senior lecturer in macroeconomics at the University of Malawi and the president of the Economics Association of Malawi, told the BBC.

“We export products like maize, soya beans and sugar, but import expensive products such as fertilisers, medicine and furniture, so we need a huge amount of forex for this,” she said.

Businesses wanting to import goods say that when they apply to the banks for forex – in particular US dollars – they are often turned down because there is none available.

This forces some to look for US dollars on the black market, where the exchange rate is higher than the official rate of 1,750 kwacha for $1.

Traders can pay between 4,000 and 5,000 kwacha for $1 – which has a knock-on effect for consumers.

Business owners, like Mohammed Hanif Waka, who owns a stationery shop in the capital, says he has lost many customers since putting up prices.

“Sales have drastically dropped. We have had to make redundancies,” he told the BBC.

While he would usually import items for his shop, like office supplies, pens and notepads, the lack of foreign exchange means he is now trying to access goods locally.

“I can’t remember when our banks gave us forex,” he said.

Desperate for change, informal traders took to the streets to protest in February, hundreds blocking the entrance to Malawi’s parliament.

“We are really affected, we are supposed to get a profit from our businesses,” Steve Magombo, the chairman of Lilongwe’s Tsoka Flea Market, told the BBC.

“But the way things are, we are failing. Malawians are failing to buy our commodities.”

Earlier this year it was announced that a loan agreement of $175m with the IMF had been suspended temporarily. The four-year loan was approved in November 2023, with $35m disbursed so far.

“Under IMF policy, if reviews are not completed over an 18-month period the programme automatically expires, and no reviews have been successfully completed,” Justin Tyson, the IMF mission chief for Malawi, told the BBC.

Mr Tyson added that “fiscal discipline” had “proven difficult to maintain in the current environment due to elevated spending pressures”.

However, Malawi’s Finance Minister Simplex Chithyola Banda said it was the government’s decision to suspend the loan as there was a disagreement over terms.

“When you are told you need to build up reserves but at the same time the country is running dry because you don’t have fuel – you choose to procure fuel [rather] than to build up reserves,” Banda told the BBC’s World Business Report last month.

“We were told in order to stay in the programme, you need to adjust prices of fuel, but that could have a negative impact on the prices of basic commodities.”

With Malawi’s national elections scheduled for September, the government says it is taking a number of steps to bring prices down.

Trade Minister Vitumbiko Mumba has acknowledged that forex has to be rationed but says registered businesses can apply for essentials via the reserve bank or finance ministry. But he also blames traders for inflating prices.

“We are setting up an economic sabotage bill and there is also going to be an essential goods and services bill to regulate this,” he told the BBC.

Meanwhile, the main opposition has laid the blame for inflation at the feet of those in power.

Whatever the cause of inflating prices, the cost-of-living is likely to be a huge campaign issue.

Malawians hope their daily struggles will be eased by the government’s plans – and everyone wants a solution that brings lasting stability to the economy.

“We depend on the government for assistance,” said Ms Kathumba.

“I hope the politicians remember the less privileged Malawians when making their decisions.”

• ‘My bananas were seized and destroyed’ – Malawi-Tanzania trade row escalates
• HIV clinics shut in Malawi after USAID freeze
• Malawi seeks billions of dollars from US firm over ruby sales
• Banana wine brings sweet taste of success to Malawi farmers

The sex trafficking and racketeering case against hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was “badly, badly exaggerated”, his lawyer told a panel of 12 New York jurors on Friday.

In his closing, Marc Agnifilo argued for four hours that the government was criminalising Combs and his girlfriends’ “swingers lifestyle” in what amounted to a “fake trial”.

His 55-year-old client pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution.

“The government targeted Sean Combs,” Mr Agnifilo told the court, leading to an objection – later sustained – from prosecutors.

Warning: This story contains details some readers may find distressing

Lawyer Christy Slavik spoke to jurors for five-and-a-half hours in the prosecution’s closing arguments on Thursday, telling them that Combs abused his power and business empire to sex traffic women and commit other crimes.

The prosecution claimed Combs plied his ex girlfriends with drugs, and used violence and other means to coerce them into so-called “freak-offs” – Combs’ name for events where he watched and filmed while they had sex with male escorts.

While Ms Slavik was calm and methodical during a guided digital presentation, Mr Agnifilo was animated – pacing back and forth, and frequently cracking jokes.

He began by attacking the credibility of Combs’ ex-girlfriends who testified against him, Casandra Ventura and anonymous witness “Jane”.

He called Combs’ 11-year-relationship with Ms Ventura – in which she alleges he beat her repeatedly – “one of the great modern love stories”. She was a willing participant in their sex lives, he said.

“She’s a woman who actually likes sex – good for her,” Mr Agnifilo said. “She’s beautiful, she should.”

• Who testified in the Diddy trial?
• As Diddy prosecution rests, how compelling is the case against him?

He argued Ms Ventura was no victim, as Combs was now in jail and she settled a civil lawsuit against him for physical abuse and sexual coercion for millions of dollars.

“If you had to pick a winner in this whole thing, it’s hard not to pick Cassie,” he said.

The problems in their relationship amounted to domestic violence – and not sex trafficking, Mr Agnifilo said. He tried to cast doubt on prosecutors’ argument that the rapper used violence to coerce Ms Ventura into participating in freak-offs.

The government has focused on a 2016 surveillance video of Combs beating Ms Ventura in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel, allegedly after she tried to leave a freak-off.

Playing the video for jurors again, Mr Agnifilo argued it could not have been an instance of sex trafficking because Ms Ventura appeared to gesture Combs back to their room when a security guard arrived on the scene.

There was “nothing scary in the room”, he said, adding that freak-offs were “beautiful evenings” with nice music and well-decorated rooms.

Mr Agnifilo also attempted to chip away at Jane’s testimony, citing one night where she alleges the rapper was violent with her before a freak-off.

“Her story truly makes no sense,” he said.

Combs’ lawyer attacked the government’s racketeering case, the allegation that Combs relied on his loyal employees to help him commit sex trafficking and other crimes, then cover them up.

There was a “gaping lack of evidence” that Combs and his employees ran some sort of criminal enterprise, and that there were any co-conspirators, he said.

Combs’ former chief-of-staff, Kristina Khorram, whom prosecutors have pointed to as a co-conspirator, is a “helpful” woman who everyone loved, Agnifilo told the jury.

A real co-conspirator, he claimed, would have helped kick the door down when Combs is alleged to have tried to break into his ex-girlfriend’s home.

In response to the transportation to engage in prostitution charge, Mr Agnifilo argued that male escorts the hip-hop mogul and his girlfriends hired were paid “for their time” with the couple, and not for sex.

At the end of his arguments, Combs, wearing an off-white sweater, hugged his attorney. His family, including his twin daughters and mother, were seated behind him for the second day in a row.

In a rebuttal to the defence’s closing on Friday, prosecutor Maurene Comey took a more aggressive tone than Ms Slavik’s, slamming Combs’ lawyers for suggesting his ex-girlfriends were lying and that they wanted to engage in freak-offs after being beaten.

“There is no separating the violence from the sex,” Ms Comey said. “They were trapped emotionally, physically and financially.”

She noted Ms Ventura’s lawsuit settlement, asking, “why risk it all by perjuring herself at a federal trial?”

Jurors will reconvene on Monday for the judge’s instructions on how to weigh the case against the hip-hop mogul. Deliberations are expected to begin soon after.

Combs is facing life in prison over the most serious charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.

Health and fire warnings have been issued in countries across southern Europe, with temperatures expected to exceed 40C in some places over the weekend.

Italy, Greece, France, Spain and Portugal are among the countries affected – with the Spanish city of Seville forecast to hit 42C on Sunday.

Hot air from North Africa, which is spreading across the Balkans to holiday destinations such as Croatia, is contributing to the soaring temperatures.

BBC Weather says the heatwave is “very intense” for this time of the year – with the continent normally experiencing such high temperatures in July and early August.

In Spain, emergency staff have been placed on standby to deal with a surge in heatstroke cases especially among vulnerable people, including children, the elderly and those with chronic illnesses.

“It always gets super hot in Madrid, what surprises me is how early it’s happening – we’re still in June,” Marina, 22, told the Reuters news agency in the Spanish capital.

“This year is extreme. Last year, at least you could go out at this hour, but now? No way. It’s intense, and people are drinking more water,” Janeth, 47, said.

Italian authorities are advising residents in several cities, including Rome, Milan and Venice – where several A-list celebrities have gathered for the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and TV presenter Lauren Sanchez – to stay indoors between 11:00 and 18:00 local time.

“There is no wind, a lot of humidity, we are sweating, and I’m suffocating at night,” Alejandra Echeverria, a 40-year-old Mexican tourist in Venice, told AFP.

France, meanwhile, has been experiencing a heatwave for more than a week. Orange heat alerts, the country’s second-highest warning, were issued for southern regions on Friday.

In the city of Marseille, municipal swimming pools are being opened free of charge until the end of the heatwave, while there have been calls in some places for schools to close to protect the health of students.

Yellow and amber alerts are also in place for parts of England this weekend, and temperatures in London may reach 35C on Monday. The heatwave is forecast to last until Tuesday evening.

Wildfires have already struck some parts of Europe, including Greece, where coastal towns near the capital Athens erupted in flames that destroyed homes – forcing people to evacuate.

While it is hard to link individual extreme weather events to climate change, heatwaves are becoming more common and more intense due to climate change.

Scientists at World Weather Attribution, who analyse the influence of climate change on extreme weather events, say June heatwaves with three consecutive days above 28C are about 10 times more likely to occur now compared to pre-industrial times.

Tens of thousands have gathered for the Budapest Pride march, defying Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s legal threats against LGBTQ rights activists.

Organisers estimated that a record 200,000 people may have taken part despite mounting pressure from nationalist conservative politicians and police to stop any display of pro-LGBTQ material.

The police issued a ban in line with a new “child protection” law restricting gatherings considered to be promoting homosexuality.

Orban downplayed the possibility of violent clashes between police and participants, but warned of potential legal repercussions for attendees.

“Of course, the police could break up such events, because they have the authority to do so, but Hungary is a civilised country, a civic society. We don’t hurt each other,” he told state radio on Friday.

“There will be legal consequences, but it cannot reach the level of physical abuse.”

Attendees risk a fine of up to €500 (£427; $586), with police empowered to use facial recognition technology to identify them.

Organisers could face a one-year prison sentence.

Luca, 34, who is planning to attend with her mother Enikö, said they want a country of “diversity” which she said they don’t currently have.

“We have a law that bans people who are different from others to gather. This is why we are here. Because it’s hurting our rights. That’s why we came.”

She told the BBC she is worried about her four-year-old daughter’s future living “in a country where she can’t love anyone she wants to”.

Barnabás said he was attending to “express my solidarity with the LGBTQ community… because I know what it feels like not being seen and to be treated like an outcast, which obviously everyone here is not”.

Not part of the community himself, the 22-year-old said he comes from the countryside, where people “are more likely to be xenophobic and homophobic”.

EU equalities commissioner Hadja Lahbib, a former Belgian foreign minister, is in Budapest and expected to join the march.

On Friday, she posted a picture showing her standing with the liberal Budapest mayor Gergely Karacsony in front of a rainbow flag symbolising gay rights.

The Pride march “will be a powerful symbol of the strength of the civil society”, she wrote on X.

Dozens of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were also expected to be in attendance.

Finnish MEP Li Andersson said it was important for her and her European colleagues to be there to show solidarity with both Hungary’s LGBTQI community and civil society.

“It’s important to emphasise that the reason why we are here is not only Pride – this is about the fundamental rights of all of us.”

She added that she thinks Orban is using arguments on family values as a pretext to ban the march.

“[It’s] a march that is fundamentally about equality and about equal rights for anyone – for everybody, about the right to love and live with whoever you choose.

“And I think that’s a core value that any free and democratic society should respect.”

Karacsony, a member of Hungary’s opposition, has insisted no-one attending the march can face any reprisals as it has been co-organised by city hall, and as such is a municipal event that does not require police approval.

Ahead of the Pride, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen asked the Orban government not to block the march.

Orban was unfazed, asking her “to refrain from interfering in the law enforcement affairs” of EU member countries.

Donald Trump’s week began with an on-air expletive as he lost his cool over his mounting frustrations with Iran and Israel’s shaky ceasefire.

It ended with a beaming US president holding court at the White House – not once, but twice – as he celebrated a series of significant political victories at home and abroad.

Trump was in a triumphant mood, answering questions for more than an hour at a news conference that turned into a checklist of his accomplishments.

Here’s a look at four big wins from this week, as well as a reminder of some things that didn’t go entirely the president’s way.

The successful US strike on Iranian nuclear facilities on 21 June was followed just three days later by Trump’s announcement of a “complete and total” ceasefire in what he termed the “12-day war” between Israel and Iran.

It had a rocky start. Not long before the announcement, Iran fired off ballistic missiles at a US airbase in Qatar, sparking fears of a wider war across the Persian Gulf.

Even after the ceasefire, things seemed tenuous. Both sides were quickly accused of breaking it, prompting an angry, expletive-laden tirade to reporters on the White House lawn.

By his own admission, Trump only narrowly managed to convince Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call off further attacks on Iran.

But ultimately the ceasefire held, allowing the president to proudly claim that his military gamble of an “unbelievable” strike on Iran worked, and point to evidence that he is a “peacemaker” – a sorely needed win as peace continues to elude him in both Gaza and Ukraine.

• Hegseth talks up strikes in Iran in push for public approval

Trump was on his way to the Netherlands for the Nato summit when he got a text from Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, lavishing praise on him for the strikes on Iran – texts the president was more than happy to make public.

During his whirlwind visit to the summit, US allies committed to 5% defence spending, something the president had repeatedly and vocally called for.

Then during a joint press conference, Rutte jokingly referred to Trump as “Daddy”, a reference to the president being able to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.

Trump has seemed to embrace the moniker.

“I think he likes me. If he doesn’t… I’ll come back and hit him hard,” Trump said at a news conference, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio laughing beside him. “He did it very affectionately.”

Soon afterwards, the White House posted various videos of a victorious-looking Trump with the caption “daddy’s home”.

• Trump takes victory lap at Nato – but questions remain

Trump’s week ended on a high note with the news that the Supreme Court issued a ruling that will curb judges’ power to block his orders nationwide.

While the ruling stems from a case regarding Trump’s ability to end birthright citizenship for children of some immigrants, it has sweeping implications. It will be harder for lower courts to challenge Trump’s domestic agenda through what Attorney General Pam Bondi described as an “endless barrage” of injunctions.

At an impromptu news conference, the president hailed the ruling as a “monumental victory for the constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law”.

The decision allows him to pursue a number of other policy items that had been thwarted by injunctions, including freezing funds to so-called “sanctuary cities” that stand in the way of his mass deportation drive, suspending refugee resettlement, and preventing tax money being used to fund gender surgeries.

The president smiled and cracked jokes, inviting reporters to ask more and more questions, as his aides – including Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt – sat smiling beside him.

“This was a tremendous win, and we’ve had tremendous wins,” he said at the end. “But this was a tremendous win today.”

• Court ruling expands Trump’s power – he intends to use it

On Friday afternoon, Trump met with the foreign ministers of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, who earlier in the day signed a peace deal aimed at ending decades of fighting between the two neighbours.

Further details are scant and previous peace deals in the region have failed – yet that has not deterred the US and Congolese presidents from framing this as a generational victory.

“Today, the violence and destruction comes to an end, and the entire region begins a new chapter of hope and opportunity,” Trump said.

The deal also helps the US government and American companies gain access to critical minerals in the region.

“I was able to get them together and sell it,” Trump said. “And not only that, we’re getting for the United States a lot of the mineral rights from the Congo.”

At his earlier news conference Trump had admitted he knew few details about the conflict, which is far from the minds of most Americans.

“I’m a little bit out of my league… because I don’t know too much about it,” he said. “I know one thing. They were going at it for many years, and with machetes.”

• Find out more about the peace deal signed in Washington

The week hasn’t been all victories and roses for Trump.

The president’s biggest legislative priority – a massive tax bill he’s dubbed the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” – has hit some roadblocks.

Trump has repeatedly urged lawmakers to get it on to his desk to sign into law by 4 July, Independence Day in the US.

But earlier this week, Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough said that certain provisions violated Senate rules, throwing billions of dollars of cuts into doubt.

“This is part of the process. This part is part of the workings of the United States Senate,” Karoline Leavitt said earlier this week. “But the president is adamant about seeing this bill on his desk here at the White House by Independence Day.”

And while Trump has hailed the ceasefires in Iran – as well as those in central Africa and last month between Pakistan and India – as victories, he has so far faltered on two of his biggest promises for peace: in Gaza and Ukraine.

“We’re working on that one,” Trump said of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine at Friday’s news conference, where he did not mention Gaza.

Even the end of US military involvement in Iran is not guaranteed.

During the news conference, Trump was asked by the BBC if he would consider bombing Iran again if he believed they were re-starting their nuclear programme.

“Sure, without question, absolutely,” he responded.

The lavish wedding party of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and TV presenter Lauren Sanchez concludes on Saturday evening in Venice with the main gala event.

But as their celebrity guests were preparing to step into water taxis from their luxury hotels, paparazzi poised, a crowd of some Venetians gathered to protest against the big event.

Their causes are varied, from locals opposed to over-tourism in a delicate city, to activists protesting against climate change and capitalism.

Hundreds marched through the city on Saturday, hanging a “no space for Bezos” banner from the Rialto bridge and setting off multicoloured flares. But plans to launch themselves into the city’s canals with inflatable crocodiles and block the wedding guests’ passage were dropped.

• In pictures: Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding

Spotted heading into Harry Bar’s for lunch on Saturday, Bezos blew kisses towards the cameras when a local journalist asked what he made of the protests.

The city’s deputy mayor dismissed the activists as “narcissists” and insisted the wedding was the “high-quality tourism” Venice needs.

Simone Venturini, city councillor for economic developments, said he hoped “a lot of people will want to get married in Venice” now and boost the city’s wedding sector.

“We are not Iran. The city cannot say who can or who cannot get married. We have no moral police going around,” he told the BBC on the bank of the Grand Canal, as gondolas loaded with tourists drifted by.

The activists have already claimed one win, though.

Tonight’s party was moved further from the city centre for security reasons. The new venue, Arsenale, is easier to protect.

“I think the main problem is that Venice is becoming like an amusement park,” argues Paola, an Italian member of the Extinction Rebellion group.

She’s especially incensed that wedding guests arrived here on private jets and argues the world’s elite are the worst polluters.

“Of course, mass tourism is eating the city alive, but the fact that billionaires can come here and use the city as their amusement park is an enormous problem.”

The Italian media have leapt on the glitz and glamour of what they are dubbing the “wedding of the year.”

Their pages and posts are full of pictures of the 200 or so A-list celebrities now in town, including Leonardo di Caprio and Kim Kardashian.

There’s talk of cuttlefish banquets – tonight’s spread will feature cod, cooked regional-style – and photos of the bride’s white lace Dolce and Gabbana gown, apparently inspired by one worn by Sophia Loren in the 1950s.

It seems, however, that talk of this wedding bringing the city to a halt was overblown.

Ivanka Trump has been spotted at an art gallery, as has Bill Gates, and the newly married couple have been photographed and filmed in various locations and outfits.

But most tourists, or Venetians, are more likely to bump into a Bezos look-a-like, who made the journey from Germany specially to pose for photos, than any of the real-life rich and famous.

There are plenty of water taxis and gondolas still free for hire and no crowds of angry tourists, deprived of their magical ride.

Some streets were briefly closed around the main events but disruption appears to have been minimal.

Most of the posters declaring “No Space for Bezos” have been ripped down and just the odd bit of graffiti can be seen. Attempts to project slogans on buildings were quickly stopped by police.

A planned march by protesters on Saturday evening is taking place with official permission.

But fears of Venice becoming a tourist playground, forcing locals out of town, are no exaggeration.

Just down from the main railway station, police check visitors at random for mandatory day passes. It is a new measure to try to control the crowds.

All around, cafes are packed with people shiny-faced from the humidity and pink from the brutally fierce sun.

A short walk away is the pretty piazza where Roberto Zanon has spent all his life but which he now has to leave.

His landlord has sold his home to out-of-town developers and the 77-year old is being evicted soon together with his two dogs.

Finding anything else in his home city is impossible, Roberto says. He can’t compete with higher-paying tourists.

“One, two, three doors – those are locals, but the rest is all for tourism now,” Roberto says, pointing to the wooden doors around his square.

“There are fewer and fewer Venetians here,” he says quietly, deeply upset at the loss of his home. “There is no purpose any more. You lose your friends. You lose piece of your heart. But sadly this situation is unstoppable.”

That doesn’t mean Roberto is fretting about a billionaire choosing Venice for his wedding, mind you.

He worked in tourism himself for many years and calls it “an honour” to have such famous guests in the city he himself loves so much. “I find it positive.”

He’s not alone.

In a souvenir shop selling magnets and T-shirts, Leda is all in favour of the Bezos-Sanchez bonanza.

She is blunt: “I think there should be more people like Bezos here. Right now we get trash tourism and Venice doesn’t deserve that.”

Leda used to have her own store selling quality Italian goods but had to close it to adapt to a low-spending market. “It’s low-cost, hit-and-run tourism,” she says. “People take 20 euro flights, come here and don’t spend a thing. That’s not what Venice needs.”

So what will be left, when the big party jets out of town?

The deputy mayor confirmed tech boss Bezos had donated “around three million euros” to groups working to protect this fragile city-on-the-water, in a gesture of support.

As for the 30 million euros the wedding might net the city in other ways – activists call that a “drop in the lagoon” for one of the richest men on earth.

“It’s around three euros for a normal person, if you put in proportion to Bezos’s wealth,” Lorenzo from Extinction Rebellion said. “It’s a very low amount of money.”

Belfast rap group Kneecap filled Glastonbury’s West Holts stage for a highly-charged performance that hit back at Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer with expletive-laden chants.

The Irish-language band have been in the headlines after rapper Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, who performs under the name Mo Chara, was charged with a terrorism offence for allegedly displaying the flag of proscribed terrorist organisation Hezbollah at a gig last year. He has denied the charge.

Last week, Sir Keir said Kneecap’s appearance at the festival was “not appropriate“.

On stage, the band thanked Glastonbury for keeping them on the bill and told the crowd the “prime minister of your country, not mine, said he didn’t want us to play”.

• Follow the latest updates from the Glastonbury festival

Mr Ó hAnnaidh is on bail after a court hearing in London two weeks ago.

Towards the start of their set, the rapper – who was wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh – held his arms out to the crowd and announced, “Glastonbury, I am a free man!”

His bandmate Naoise Ó Cairealláin, who performs under the name Móglaí Bap, called the case “a trumped up terrorism charge”, adding that it was “not the first time there was a miscarriage of justice for an Irish person in the British justice system”.

He then implored fans to turn up to support Mr Ó hAnnaidh at his next court appearance at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in August.

Glastonbury organisers had to fence off the West Holts field 45 minutes before the band’s appearance, as thousands turned up to show their support – or see what all the fuss was about.

They were treated to a set of raucous, rabble-rousing electro-rap, and responded by setting off smoke flares and moshing in giant rippling circles of bodies.

The hedonism of the music, rooted in club and drug culture, was often at odds with the band’s pronouncements between songs.

The trio, who are vocal critics of Israel’s military action in Gaza, addressed that topic again during their Glastonbury set.

“We understand colonialism and we understand how important it is to support each other internationally,” Mr Ó hAnnaidh said.

Accusing Israel of genocide, he then led the crowd in a chant of “free, free Palestine”.

Israel has strongly denied allegations of genocide relating to the ongoing war in Gaza.

Kneecap also voiced support for Palestine Action, a protest group that the UK government intends to proscribe under anti-terror laws, after some of its activists broke into an RAF base and spray-painted two military planes red.

This led to a further chant against Sir Keir, as the band criticised the UK’s sale of arms to Israel.

Formed in 2017, Kneecap rose to fame after starring a semi-autobiographical film alongside Oscar-nominated actor Michael Fassbender last year.

Their vocal support for Palestinians put them under an intense media and political spotlight earlier this year, after an appearance at Coachella Festival in California.

Shortly after, video footage emerged of Mr Ó hAnnaidh allegedly holding a Hezbollah flag at a gig in November 2024.

The video was investigated by anti-terrorism police which resulted in Mr Ó hAnnaidh being charged, under the name Liam O’Hanna.

Amid the row, Sir Keir and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy were among those who said Kneecap’s appearance at Glastonbury was “not appropriate”.

However, the band’s set was backed by Glastonbury founder Sir Michael Eavis and his daughter Emily, who runs the festival.

She told the BBC: “There have been a lot of really heated topics this year, but we remain a platform for many, many artists from all over the world and, you know, everyone is welcome here.”

Sir Michael added that “people that don’t agree with the politics of the event can go somewhere else”, in an interview with Glastonbury’s on-site newspaper.

On stage, Kneecap thanked the festival for their support.

“The pressure that that family was under and they stood strong,” said Mr Ó hAnnaidh. “Fair play to them.”

The band’s Glastonbury appearance caused problems for the BBC, which had to decide whether it could broadcast their set while meeting its obligations to impartiality and offensive language.

Although there was no live stream, the broadcaster said it intended to make highlights available later on Saturday.

“Whilst the BBC doesn’t ban artists, our plans ensure that our programming meets our editorial guideline,” a spokesperson confirmed.

“We don’t always live stream every act from the main stages and look to make an on-demand version of Kneecap’s performance available on our digital platforms, alongside more than 90 other sets.”

During the set, Mr Ó hAnnaidh observed the sea of Palestinian flags in the audience and joked that “the BBC editor is going to have some job”.

Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tied the knot with TV presenter Lauren Sanchez in a lavish wedding in Venice on Friday.

Reality stars, actors, royals and a whole host of A-listers were trailed by paparazzi in water taxis as they made their way to the three-day event.

Oprah Winfrey, Orlando Bloom, Kylie Jenner and Ivanka Trump were just some of the celebrities seen in the city for the star-studded event.

The festivities are expected to end on Saturday with a large party in a former medieval shipyard, where Lady Gaga and Elton John are expected to perform.

Wearing a lace Dolce & Gabbana haute couture gown that took 900 hours of atelier work, Sanchez told photographers that she “felt like a princess”.

Sanchez, 55, was later seen beaming alongside a jubilant Bezos, 61, after the ceremony, in a picture posted on Instagram, which was captioned with a love heart and the date.

An estimated 200 people, 70 of whom are family, were invited to the nuptials, though Sanchez told Vogue that the event was “extremely intimate”.

Friday’s ceremony took place on the small island of San Giorgio, where Matteo Bocelli – son of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli – reportedly performed.

While the exact cost of the wedding is not known, estimates range from $20m (£14m) to more than $50m.

The event has attracted protests from a variety of groups in Venice, from locals fighting over-tourism to climate change activists.

This will be the second wedding for both Sanchez and Bezos.

The couple have seven children between them from previous marriages and relationships.

They got engaged in May 2023 on board their 417-foot sailing yacht, Koru, named after a Maori symbol for “new life.”

In November 2023, the pair held an engagement party in Beverly Hills, with Oprah Winfrey, Salma Hayek Pinault, Barbra Streisand, Kris Jenner in attendance.

A state funeral has been held in Iran for about 60 people, including military commanders and nuclear scientists, killed during the 12-day conflict with Israel.

Coffins draped in the Iranian flag, bearing portraits of deceased commanders, were flanked by crowds near Tehran’s Enghelab Square.

The conflict ended with a ceasefire earlier this week, after the US became directly involved by bombing key nuclear sites in Iran.

Huge crowds of mourners dressed in black chanted slogans, waved Iranian flags and held portraits of those killed.

Ahead of the event, a media campaign urged people to participate, with authorities providing free bus and metro rides. Government offices were shut for the day.

Among those laid to rest on Saturday was Mohammad Bagheri, the highest-ranking military officer in Iran who was chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces.

Bagheri was to be buried with his wife and daughter, who were killed in an Israeli strike. In total, Iranian authorities said 627 people were killed in Iran. Israeli officials said 28 people were killed in Israel following missile attacks by Iran.

Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and nuclear scientists including Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi – head of Azad University in Tehran – were also among those laid to rest.

The funeral was attended by prominent figures including Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani – an advisor to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – state television showed. Shamkhani was injured in an Israeli strike earlier this month.

It comes after US President Donald Trump said he would “absolutely” consider bombing Iran again.

Responding to a question from the BBC’s Nomia Iqbal at a White House press briefing on Friday, he said he would “without question” attack the country if intelligence concluded Iran could enrich uranium to concerning levels.

Trump has also repeated his assertions that Iran was “decimated”, writing: “Why would the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of the war-torn country of Iran, say so blatantly and foolishly that he won the war with Israel, when he knows his statement is a lie.”

Trump also claimed to have known “exactly where he [Khamenei] was sheltered”, saying he “would not let Israel, or the US Armed Forces… terminate his life”.

“I saved him from a very ugly and ignominious death, and he does not have to say, ‘thank-you, president Trump!'”, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, warned Trump against making “disrespectful” comments about Khamenei, who claimed US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites had achieved “nothing significant”.

“If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei,” Araghchi posted on X.

“The Great and Powerful Iranian People, who showed the world that the Israeli regime had no choice but to run to ‘Daddy’ to avoid being flattened by our Missiles, do not take kindly to Threats and Insults.”

Araghchi has admitted that “excessive and serious” damage was done to Iran’s nuclear sites by the recent bombings.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said it is still not known how much of Iran’s nuclear capabilities – including highly-enriched uranium and the centrifuges needed to purify the metal – have been destroyed or moved.

The agency’s director general Rafael Grossi also said that stopping Iran from being able to build nuclear weapons would not be achieved through military attacks.

“You are not going to solve this in a definitive way militarily, you are going to have an agreement,” he told the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

On social media, Trump claimed that in recent days he had been “working on the possible removal of sanctions, and other things, which would have given a much better chance to Iran at a full, fast, and complete recovery”.

But he said Khamenei’s comments had deterred him, declaring: “Instead I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief, and more.”

Back in March, as he turned his back on a ceasefire process that was delivering results, the Israeli prime minister took a decision described by some commentators as akin to “political suicide”.

The Gaza ceasefire deal, brokered by Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff even before the US president was inaugurated to his second term, had led to the release of dozens of hostages from Hamas captivity, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

The next stage was due to see more hostages return home and a gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, before a negotiated end to the war.

Tired of conflict, Israelis and Palestinians contemplated the end of the most destructive war in a common history too frequently punctuated by fighting.

But Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t want the war to end.

As he ordered the resumption of attacks across Gaza, the prime minister declared that fighting would continue until Hamas had been “completely destroyed”.

The safe return of the remaining hostages in Gaza seemed to be a secondary consideration. (The civilian consequences in Gaza itself didn’t merit a mention.)

Many Israelis, especially the hostage families, were outraged.

They accused Netanyahu of putting his own political survival ahead of their relatives’ safety and the greater good of the nation.

“Bibi’s” popularity in the polls plummeted and he struggled to keep together a disjointed government, propped up by hardline ministers from the far right and orthodox religious parties.

Three months on, Netanyahu is basking in the glory of a spectacular military victory over his nemesis, Iran. He is now said to be contemplating early elections and yet another term as prime minister.

At a press conference earlier this week, the 75-year-old, who is already Israel’s longest-serving leader, said he still had “many missions” to complete and would seek to do so for as long as “the people” of Israel want him to.

Later in the week, and presenting the presumed destruction of Iran’s nuclear programme as a “window of opportunity” that “must not be missed”, Netanyahu suggested only he could secure the “freeing of hostages and defeat of Hamas” after which he would strike wider regional agreements.

But calling early elections would be a big risk and, according to the latest polls, Netanyahu hasn’t enjoyed as big a “bounce” from the 12-day conflict with Iran as he might have hoped for.

In a fractured political system where coalition building is key in the 120-seat Knesset, Netanyahu’s Likud Party would fall well short of a majority by itself and could struggle to pull together support from smaller parties on the right, suggests latest polling in the Ma’ariv newspaper.

The same polling suggested a significant majority, 59% of Israelis, want the fighting in Gaza to stop now, in exchange for the hostages.

Almost half of those asked, some 49%, also thought the only reason Netanyahu is continuing the war is for his own political considerations.

“The guy is a very skilful political actor,” says Professor Tamar Hermann, a senior Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. “There is no more skilled politician in Israel.”

But, he says, “trust” is a big problem for Netanyahu.

A political leader who has changed his spots so many times to cling to the reins of power is simply no longer believed by a majority of Israelis.

According to new polling, soon to be released by Prof Hermann’s Israel Democracy Institute, Netanyahu “doesn’t cross the 50% line in terms of Israelis expressing full or even partial trust in him”.

In some ways, says Prof Hermann, deciding to call early elections “is an even greater risk [for Netanyahu] than attacking Iran because in the Middle East you really don’t know where you will be in six months”.

That’s because, despite his military gamble in Iran seemingly paying off, there’s an elephant in the corner of Benjamin Netanyahu’s living room.

Indeed, you could say a small herd of elephants is threatening to disrupt the prime minister’s hopes of yet another term in office.

Next week, he is due to testify in a high-profile criminal case in which he’s facing charges of political corruption, including bribery and fraud.

The prime minister’s attempts to, again, delay the High Court hearings on account of his busy schedule and the special state of emergency (over the Iran war) were rejected at the end of last week.

Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly tried to portray the legal case against him as part of a “politically driven witch hunt” but in an increasingly polarised society, his opponents are equally determined he should face justice.

Appearing to belatedly learn about “Bibi’s” legal troubles, President Trump said Netanyahu was a “great hero” and “warrior” whose trial should be “cancelled immediately” or, at the very least, he should be given a pardon.

This, remember, is the same US president who only days earlier had publicly castigated the Israeli prime minister – with expletives – as the Iran ceasefire deal threatened to unravel before it had begun.

But Trump’s latest intervention has been described as unwise and unhelpful by many in Israel.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid said he should not “intervene in a legal process of an independent state”.

His apparently contradictory stance on Israel and attempted intervention in Netanyahu’s legal case was akin to “treating us like a banana republic”, says Prof Hermann.

On the international stage, many Israelis accuse Netanyahu of having harmed Israel’s global standing and its economic prospects by needlessly prolonging the war in Gaza, even though many former generals have said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has achieved as much as is militarily possible in Gaza.

It should not be forgotten, either, that the International Criminal Court still has warrants issued against the prime minister – and former defence minister Yoav Gallant – over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, where more than 55,000 people have been killed in Israel’s war against Hamas.

Israel’s government, along with Netanyahu and Gallant, strongly reject the accusations.

Ultimately, say most commentators, it would be difficult to imagine new elections being called in Israel while the war in Gaza continues and while Israeli hostages remain captive.

But many of Netanyahu’s critics and opponents have prematurely written him off over the years and have certainly learned never to second-guess what his next move might be.

Senate Republicans are racing to pass a budget bill that is pivotal to President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda ahead of a self-imposed 4 July deadline.

Party leadership have been twisting arms for an initial vote on the “Big Beautiful Bill” on Saturday, following the release of its latest version – all 940 pages – shortly after midnight.

Rank-and-file Republicans have been divided over how much to cut from welfare programmes in order to cover the cost of extending some $3.8tn (£2.8tn) in Trump tax breaks.

The sprawling tax and spending measure passed the House of Representatives by a single vote last month.

• A look at the key items in Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’
• The woman who could bust Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’

In a memo sent on Saturday to Senate offices, the White House endorsed the latest revisions to the bill and called for its passage.

The memo reportedly warned that failure to approve the budget “would be the ultimate betrayal”.

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune called plans for a Saturday vote “aspirational”.

A Republican senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, told the Fox & Friends programme on Saturday he will be voting “no”, saying he still needed time to read it.

“We just got the bill,” Johnson said. “I got my first copy at about 01:23 in the morning.”

Two other Republican senators are holding out.

Thom Tillis of North Carolina raised objections to the legislation on Saturday, a day after Rand Paul of Kentucky said no.

All eyes are now on centrist Republican senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.

Collins has indicated she may support a vote to advance the bill to the debate stage, but that she remains undecided on whether she will vote “yes” to passing it.

The bill needs a simple majority to clear the Senate. With Republicans holding 53 seats out of 100, plus a tiebreaker from Vice-President JD Vance, the party can only afford three defections.

The latest version was designed to appease some backbench Republican holdouts.

Other amendments incorporate input from the Senate parliamentarian, an official who reviews bills to ensure they comply with the chamber’s procedures.

It includes an increase in funding for rural hospitals, after some party moderates argued the original proposal would harm their constituents.

Another tweak was made to State and Local Taxes (Salt) – a bone of contention for representatives from high-tax states such as New York.

There is currently a $10,000 cap on how much taxpayers can deduct from the amount they owe in federal taxes.

In the new bill, Senate Republicans have raised the Salt limit to $40,000 for married couples with incomes up to $500,000 – in line with what the House of Representatives approved.

But the latest Senate version ends the $40,000 cap after five years – when it would drop back to $10,000.

There are also changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which provides food benefits to low-income Americans.

Under the latest bill, Alaska and Hawaii would be temporarily exempt from a proposed requirement for some states to start footing the bill for the programme, which is currently fully funded by the federal government.

The revision comes after Alaska’s two Republican senators pushed for an exemption.

The legislation still contains some of its core components, including extending tax cuts passed by Republicans in 2017, as well as the addition of new cuts that Trump campaigned on, such as a tax deduction on Social Security benefits and the elimination of taxes on overtime work and tips.

More contentious measures are also still in place, including restrictions and requirements on Medicaid – a healthcare programme used by millions of elderly, disabled and low-income Americans.

Democrats have heavily criticised this piece of the bill, saying it will limit access to affordable healthcare for millions of Americans.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 7.8 million people would become uninsured due to such Medicaid cuts.

Senator Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, took to social media on Saturday to argue the bill contains “the largest healthcare cuts in history”.

This year’s Glastonbury festival is in full swing, as stars spanning a spectrum of genres and eras play the UK’s biggest weekend of music.

The 1975, Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo are headlining the Pyramid Stage, with other highlights including Charli XCX, Doechii, Rod Stewart, Loyle Carner, The Prodigy and Wolf Alice.

Here are the schedules for the main stages:

Pyramid Stage – Friday 27 June

• The 1975: 22:15 – 23:45
• Biffy Clyro: 20:15 – 21:25
• Alanis Morissette: 18:15 – 19:15
• TBA: 16:55 – 17:30
• Burning Spear – 15:00 – 16:00
• CMAT – 13:30 – 14:30
• Supergrass: 12:00 – 13:00

Pyramid Stage – Saturday 28 June

• Neil Young And The Chrome Hearts: 22:00 – 23:45
• Raye: 20:00 – 21:00
• Patchwork: 18:15 – 19:15
• John Fogerty: 16:30 – 17:30
• The Script: 15:00 – 16:00
• Brandi Carlile: 13:30 – 14:30
• Kaiser Chiefs: 12:00 – 13:00

Pyramid Stage – Sunday 29 June

• Olivia Rodrigo: 21:45 – 23:15
• Noah Kahan: 19:45 – 20:45
• Nile Rodgers & Chic: 18:00 – 19:00
• Rod Stewart: 15:45 – 17:15
• The Libertines: 14:00 – 15:00
• Celeste: 12:30 – 13:30
• The Selecter: 11:15 – 12:00

Other Stage – Friday 27 June

• Loyle Carner: 22:30 – 23:45
• Busta Rhymes: 20:30 – 21:30
• Gracie Abrams: 18:45 – 19:45
• Franz Ferdinand: 17:15 – 18:15
• Wet Leg: 15:45 – 16:45
• Inhaler: 14:15 – 15:15
• Rizzle Kicks: 13:00 – 13:45
• Fabio & Grooverider And The Outlook Orchestra: 11:30 – 12:30

Other Stage – Saturday 28 June

• Charli XCX: 22:30 – 23:45 (
• Deftones: 20:30 – 21:30
• Ezra Collective: 18:45 – 19:45
• Amyl & The Sniffers: 17:00 – 18:00
• Weezer: 15:30 – 16:30
• Beabadoobee: 14:00 – 15:00
• Good Neighbours: 12:45 – 13:30
• Alessi Rose: 11:30 – 12:15

Other Stage – Sunday 29 June

• The Prodigy: 21:45 – 23:15
• Wolf Alice: 19:45 – 20:45
• Snow Patrol: 18:00 – 19:00
• Turnstile: 16:30 – 17:30
• Joy Crookes: 15:00 – 15:45
• Shaboozey: 13:45 – 14:30
• Nadine Shah: 12:30 – 13:15
• Louis Dunford: 11:15 – 12:00

West Holts Stage – Friday 27 June

• Maribou State: 22:15 – 23:45
• Badbadnotgood: 20:30 – 21:30
• Denzel Curry: 19:00 – 20:00
• En Vogue: 17:30 – 18:30
• Vieux Farka Toure: 16:00 – 17:00
• Glass Beams: 14:30 – 15:25
• Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso: 13:00 – 14:00
• Corto.Alto: 11:30 – 12:30

West Holts Stage – Saturday 28 June

• Doechii: 22:45 – 23:30
• Amaarae: 20:30 – 21:30
• Greentea Peng: 19:00 – 20:00
• Yussef Dayes: 17:30 – 18:30
• Kneecap: 16:00 – 17:00
• Bob Vylan: 14:30 – 15:30
• Nilüfer Yanya: 13:00 – 14:00
• Infinity Song: 11:30 – 12:30

West Holts Stage – Sunday 29 June

• Overmono: 21:45 – 23:15
• Parcels: 20:00 – 21:00
• The Brian Jonestown Massacre: 18:30 – 19:30
• Goat: 17:00 – 18:00
• Black Uhuru: 15:30 – 16:30
• Cymande: 14:00 – 15:00
• Abel Selaocoe & The Bantu Ensemble: 12:30 – 13:30
• Thandii: 11:00 – 12:00

Woodsies – Friday 27 June

• Four Tet: 22:30 – 23:45
• Floating Points: 21:00 – 22:00
• Pinkpantheress: 19:30 – 20:30
• Blossoms: 18:00 – 19:00
• Lola Young: 16:30 – 17:30
• Shed Seven: 15:15 – 16:00
• Fat Dog: 14:00 – 14:45
• Myles Smith: 12:45 – 13:30
• TBA: 11:30 – 12:15

Woodsies – Saturday 28 June

• Scissor Sisters: 22:30 – 23:45
• Tom Odell: 21:00 – 22:00
• Father John Misty: 19:30 – 20:30
• TV On The Radio: 18:00 – 19:00
• Nova Twins: 16:30 – 17:30
• Jade: 15:15 – 16:00
• Fcukers: 14:00 – 14:45
• Sorry: 12:45 – 13:30
• The Amazons: 11:30 – 12:15

Woodsies – Sunday 29 June

• Jorja Smith: 21:30 – 22:45
• AJ Tracey: 20:00 – 21:00
• St. Vincent: 18:30 – 19:30
• Black Country, New Road: 17:00 – 18:00
• Djo: 15:30 – 16:30
• Sprints: 14:00 – 15:00
• Gurriers: 12:30 – 13:30
• Westside Cowboy: 11:15 – 12:00

The Park Stage – Friday 27 June

• Anohni And The Johnsons: 23:00 – 00:15
• Self Esteem: 21:15 – 22:15
• Wunderhorse: 19:30 – 20:30
• Osees: 18:00 – 19:00
• English Teacher: 16:30 – 17:30
• Faye Webster: 15:15 – 16:00
• Jalen Ngonda: 14:00 – 14:45
• John Glacier: 12:45 – 13:30
• Horsegirl: 10:30 – 12:10

The Park Stage – Saturday 28 June

• Caribou: 23:00 – 00:15
• Beth Gibbons: 21:15 – 22:15 ()
• TBA: 19:30 – 22:30
• Gary Numan: 18:00 – 19:00
• Pa Salieu: 16:45 – 17:30
• Lucy Dacus: 15:30 – 16:15
• Japanese Breakfast: 14:00 – 15:00
• Ichiko Aoba: 12:45 – 13:30
• Yann Tiersen: 11:10 – 12:10

The Park Stage – Sunday 29 June

• The Maccabees: 21:15 – 22:30
• Future Islands: 19:35 – 20:35
• Kae Tempest: 18:00 – 19:00
• Girl In Red: 16:30 – 17:30
• Royel Otis: 15:15 – 16:00
• Katy J Pearson: 14:00 – 14:45
• Geordie Greep: 12:45 – 13:30
• Melin Melyn: 11:30 – 12:15

Acoustic Stage – Friday 27 June

• Ani Difranco: 21:30 – 22:45
• The Searchers: 20:00 – 21:00
• Dhani Harrison: 18:30 – 19:30
• Billie Marten: 17:00 – 18:00
• Skerryvore: 16:00 – 16:40
• Hugh Cornwell: 15:00 – 15:40
• Gabrielle Aplin: 14:00 – 14:40
• Tift Merritt: 13:00 – 13:40
• Nadia Reid: 12:10 – 12:40
• Our Man In The Field: 11:30 – 12:00

Acoustic Stage – Saturday 28 June

• Nick Lowe: 21:30 – 22:45
• Hothouse Flowers: 20:00 – 21:00
• Jeremy Loops: 18:30 – 19:30
• The Coronas: 17:10 – 18:00
• The Bluebells: 16:10 – 16:50
• Not Completely Unknown: A Celebration Of The Songs Of Bob Dylan: 15:00 – 16:00
• Sophie B. Hawkins: 14:00 – 14:40
• Oisin Leech: 13:00 – 13:40
• Lorraine Nash: 12:10 – 12:40
• Henry Grace: 11:30 – 12:00

Acoustic Stage – Sunday 29 June

• Roy Harper: 21:30 – 22:30
• The Bootleg Beatles: 20:00 – 21:00
• Rhiannon Giddens With Dirk Powell: 18:30 – 19:30
• London Community Gospel Choir: 17:00 – 18:00
• PP Arnold: 16:00 – 16:40
• The Riptide Movement: 15:00 – 15:40
• Michele Stodart: 14:00 – 14:40
• The Henry Girls: 13:00 – 13:40
• Toby Lee: 12:10 – 12:40
• Dawn Landes & Friends Perform The Liberated Woman’s Songbook: 11:30 – 12:00

Avalon Stage – Friday 27 June

• The Fratellis: 23:05 – 00:20
• Terrorvision: 21:35 – 22:35
• The Magic Numbers: 20:05 – 21:05
• Orla Gartland: 18:35 – 19:35
• Ash: 17:05 – 18:05
• Paris Paloma: 15:35 – 16:35
• Rumba De Bodas: 14:10 – 15:05
• Beans On Toast: 12:50 – 13:40

Avalon Stage – Saturday 28 June

• Hard-Fi: 23:10 – 00:20
• Tom Walker: 21:40 – 22:40
• Rachel Chinouriri: 20:10 – 21:10
• Jade Bird: 18:40 – 19:40
• The Amy Winehouse Band: 17:10 – 18:10
• Jamie Cullum: 15:40 – 16:40
• Stephen Wilson Jr.: 14:15 – 15:10
• Bess Atwell: 12:50 – 13:45
• Fülü: 11:30 – 12:20

Avalon Stage – Saturday 29 June

• Alabama 3: 22:50 – 23: 50
• Bear’s Den: 21:20 – 22:20
• Sam Ryder: 19:50 – 20:50
• The Big Moon: 18:20 – 19:20
• My Baby: 16:50 – 17:50
• The Horne Section: 15:20 – 16:20
• Brooke Combe: 13:55 – 14:50
• Talisk: 12:30 – 13:25
• Dea Matrona: 11:25 – 12:05

Arcadia – Friday 27 June

• Job Jobse B2B Palms Trax: 02:00 – 03:00
• Romy: 01:00 – 02:00 (
• Sonny Fodera: 00:00 – 01:00
• Dragonfly Show: 23:50 – 00:00
• Max Cooper: 22:50 – 23:50
• Optimo (Espacio): 21:55 – 22:50
• Logic 1000: 21:00 – 21:55

Arcadia – Saturday 28 June

• Groove Armada B2N Jungle (DJ Set): 02:00 – 03:00
• Annie Mac B2B Jamz Supernova: 01:00 – 02:00
• Four Tet: 00:00 – 01:00
• Dragonfly Show: 23:50 – 00:00
• Michael Bibi B2B Solomun: 22:50 – 23:50
• Hannah Wants: 21:55 – 22:50
• Danny Howard: 21:00 – 21:55
• Becky Hill: 20:00 – 21:00

Arcadia – Sunday 29 June

• Basslayerz B2b Born On Road: 01:30 – 02:30
• Shy Fx B2b Eats Everything: 00:10 – 01:30
• Bru-C: 23:40 – 00:10
• Dragonfly Show: 23:30 – 23:40
• Girls Dont Sync: 22:30 – 23:30
• Dr Banana B2B Gallegos: 21:30 – 22:30
• Eva Lazarus: 21:00 – 21:30
• Jeremiah Asiamah: 20:00 – 21:00

Levels – Thursday 26 June

• Adiel: 01:30 – 03:00
• Marie Davidson: 00:00 – 01:30
• Roza Terenzi: 22:00 – 00:00
• Confidence Man (DJ) B2B Job Jobse: 21:00 – 23:00
• Palms Trax: 19:30 – 21:00
• Peach B2B Club Fitness: 18:00 – 19:30

Levels – Friday 27 June

• Calibre: 01:45 – 03:00
• Goldie B2B Special Request: 00:15 – 01:45
• LTJ Bukem: 23:00 – 00:15
• Lens W/ Dread MC: 21:45 – 23:00
• Notion: 20:30 – 21:45
• Conducta: 19:15 – 20:30
• Oppidan B2B Sicaria: 17:45 – 19:15
• Arthi: 16:35 – 17:45
• Katy B (Live): 16:15 – 16:35
• DJ EZ: 15:00 – 16:15
• G33: 13:30 – 15:00
• Bad B!tch Dubz: 12:00 – 13:30

Levels – Saturday 28 June

• Jyoty: 01:15 – 03:00
• Skream & Benga W/ Sgt Pokes: 00:00 – 01:15
• Modeselektor (DJ): 22:30 – 00:00
• Erol Alkan B2B Ewan Mcvicar: 21:00 – 22:30
• Haai B2B Romy: 19:30 – 21:00
• Chaos In The CBD: 18:00 – 19:30
• Berlioz: 16:30 – 18:00
• Jungle (DJ): 15:00 – 16:30
• DJ Paulette: 13:30 – 15:00
• Ella Knight: 12:00 – 13:30

Levels – Sunday 29 June

• Groove Armada: 01:00 – 02:30
• Seth Troxler: 23:30 – 01:00
• Josh Baker: 22:00 – 23:30
• Pawsa: 20:30 – 22:00
• Chloe Caillet: 19:00 – 20:30
• Adriatique B2B Carlita: 17:30 – 19:00
• Kilimanjaro B2B Tsha: 16:00 – 17:30
• Jazzy: 14:45 – 16:00
• Rio Tashan: 13:15 – 14:45
• Dani Whylie: 12:00 – 13:15

Leftfield Stage – Friday 27 June

• Billy Bragg: 21:00 – 22:00
• Antony Szmierek: 19:50 – 20:30
• Jasmine.4.T: 18:40 – 19:20
• Gurriers: 17:35 – 18:10
• The Meffs: 16:30 – 17:05
• Radical Round Up: With Billy Bragg, Jasmine.4.T, Holly Carter: 15:00 – 16:00
• Panel: Feminism In The Age Of The Manosphere: 13:30 – 14:30
• Panel: What Next For The Left: Politics, Organising And Power: 12:00 – 13:00

Leftfield Stage – Saturday 28 June

• Kate Nash: 21:00 – 22:00
• Lambrini Girls: 19:50 – 20:30
• The Guest List: 18:40 – 19:20
• Chloe Slater: 17:35 – 18:10
• Girlband!: 16:30 – 17:05
• Radical Round Up: With Billy Bragg, Rianne Downey, Andy White: 15:00 – 16:00
• Panel: Saving The Planet But Not Leaving The Workers Behind: 13:30 – 14:30
• Panel: Confronting The Rise Of The Far Right: 12:00 – 13:00

Leftfield Stage – Sunday 29 June

• Grandson: 21:00 – 22:00
• Reverend And The Makers: 19:50 – 20:30
• Red Rum Club: 18:40 – 19:20
• Du Blonde: 17:35 – 18:10
• The Halfway Kid: 16:30 – 17:05
• Radical Round Up: With Billy Bragg, Grandson, Jamie Webster: 15:00 – 16:00
• Panel: Disability Cuts: The Fight Back: 13:30 – 14:30
• Panel: How To Fix The Crisis Care: 12:00 – 13:00