Canada has announced retaliatory tariffs against the US, in a move that marks the beginning of a trade war between the neighbouring countries.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau set out “far-reaching” tariffs of 25%, affecting 155bn Canadian dollars’ worth ($106.6bn; £86bn) of American goods ranging from beer and wine, to household appliances and sporting goods.

The move matches US President Donald Trump 25% levy on Canadian and Mexican imports to the US – and an additional 10% on China – over his concerns about illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

Trudeau said he would “not back down in standing up for Canadians”, but warned of real consequences for people on both sides of the border.

“We don’t want to be here, we didn’t ask for this,” he said at a news conference late on Saturday.

The Canadian prime minister added that tariffs on 30bn-worth US goods would come into force on Tuesday and another 125bn in 21 days to give Canadian firms time to adjust.

Trudeau’s response targets items including American beer, wine, bourbon, fruits and fruit juices, vegetables, perfumes, clothing and shoes, as well as household appliances, sporting goods and furniture.

Lumber and plastics will also face levies and non-tariff measures are also being considered are related to critical minerals and procurement.

Economists have warned the introduction of the import taxes by the US, and the response from Canada, as well as Mexico and China, could lead to prices rising on a wide range of products for consumers.

A tariff is a domestic tax levied on goods as they enter a country, proportional to the value of the import.

The prospect of higher tariffs being introduced on imports to the US has been concerning many world leaders because it will make it more expensive for companies to sell goods in the world’s largest economy.

Christopher Sands, director of the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute, told the BBC that tit-for-tat tariffs between the US and Canada were “mutually assured destruction” and they would impact people’s lives very quickly.

He said there would be no adjustment time as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had recently proposed: “Just a massive hit that’s going to make a lot of people’s lives a lot tougher, very quickly.”

But the taxes are a central part of Trump’s economic vision. He sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue – and in this case, pushing for policy action.

Canada, Mexico and the US have deeply integrated economies, with an estimated $2bn (£1.6bn) worth of manufactured goods crossing the borders daily.

Canada is America’s largest foreign supplier of crude oil. According to the most recent official trade figures, 61% of oil imported into the US between January and November last year came from Canada.

While 25% has been slapped on Canadian goods imported to the US, its energy faces a lower 10% tariff.

The White House said on Saturday the implementation of tariffs was “necessary to hold China, Mexico, and Canada accountable for their promises to halt the flood of poisonous drugs into the United States”.

But Trudeau pushed back on the suggestion the shared border posed a security concern, saying less than 1% of fentanyl going into the US comes from Canada.

He added less than 1% of illegal migrants entered the US through the border and that tariffs were “not the best way we can actually work together to save lives”

Trump has indicated he is ready to escalate the duties further if the countries retaliate to his tariffs, as Canada has done.

Prior to the tariffs announcement, Canada has pledged more than $1bn to boost security at its shared border with the US.

Trudeau said on Saturday had not spoken to Trump since he had taken office.

Mark Carney, the former head of Canada’s and England’s central banks, told BBC Newsnight on Friday that the tariffs would hit economic growth and drive up inflation.

“They’re going to damage the US’s reputation around the world,” said Carney, who is also in the running to replace Trudeau as leader of Canada’s Liberal Party.

Shelling at a busy market near Sudan’s capital has filled a mortuary with bodies, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says.

MSF and the Sudanese authorities said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were responsible for Saturday’s attack in the city of Omdurman, which killed and injured more than 100 people – a claim the RSF has denied.

The majority of those killed at the market were women and children, the Sudanese Doctors’ Union says.

The RSF and Sudan’s army have been locked in a civil war that, over 22 months, has killed tens of thousands and sparked what the UN describes as one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.

• A simple guide to what is happening in Sudan

In the past few weeks, the army has stepped up its offensive in Omdurman, which lies across the River Nile from capital city, Khartoum, aiming to regain complete control from the RSF.

Eyewitnesses told the AFP news agency that Saturday’s artillery shelling had come from western Omdurman, where the RSF remains in control.

Saturday’s explosion caused “utter carnage” at the nearby Al Nao hospital, which was overwhelmed with injured patients, MSF general secretary Chris Lockyear said.

The Sudanese Doctors’ Union appealed for nearby medics to assist at the hospital, saying there was an “acute shortage of medical staff”.

It added that one shell had fallen “metres away” from the hospital on Saturday.

One survivor of the market attack told the AFP news agency: “The shells hit in the middle of the vegetable market, that’s why the victims and the wounded are so many.”

Both sides have been accused of targeting civilians, including health workers, and indiscriminate shelling of residential areas.

The recent skirmishes have forced emergency response rooms to shut several health centres, affecting the provision of medical services to thousands of residents.

• ‘Tears of joy’ – Sudan capital gets first aid convoy since war began
• Sudan – where more children are fleeing war than anywhere else
• Medics under siege: ‘We took this photo, fearing it would be our last’

Families of people who were killed in a crush at a major religious festival in northern India this week are grieving their loss and waiting to take bodies of their relatives back home.

At least 30 people died in the crush at the Kumbh Mela on Wednesday, which was one of the holiest days of the six-week long Hindu festival.

The incident took place in Prayagraj city near the Sangam, an auspicious meeting point of the sacred Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers where devotees take a dip.

The festival, billed as the largest gathering of humanity, attracts tens of millions of pilgrims from around the world.

The crush reportedly took place after a surge of pilgrims making their way to the Sangam trampled over devotees sleeping near the riverbank.

Eyewitnesses have blamed the police and festival authorities for poor crowd-control measures and not making adequate space for pilgrims to move to their destinations.

The government in Uttar Pradesh state has launched a judicial investigation into the incident.

• BBC reports from scene of India’s Kumbh Mela crush

Meanwhile, the families of the victims are mourning the loss of their loved ones and some say that many of their questions remain unanswered. Others are still waiting for news of their relatives.

Kaikeyi Devi, who travelled from Bihar state with her husband to attend the Kumbh Mela, says she can’t shake the image of him getting trampled in front of her eyes.

“He was dragged in the chaos and we started crying… ‘Let him free! Let him be! We are here!’…but he never came [back],” Ms Devi told Reuters news agency as she waited outside a mortuary in Prayagraj city to collect her husband’s body.

Taposh Roy, a resident of Assam state who lost his brother in the crush, recounts the delay in getting help from authorities.

“He was just lying there for a long time because there was no ambulance to take him to the hospital. We pleaded with the police saying that we would carry him ourselves but they told us to wait. When he was taken by police, we couldn’t go with him,” Mr Roy told the Indian Express newspaper.

This was also the experience of Tarun Bose from West Bengal state who lost a female relative in the crush.

“The authorities failed to rescue her and the police only managed to retrieve her body after an hour and a half. There were no police officers around during the accident,” he told AFP news agency.

Deepak Hattarwat from Karnataka state is mourning the loss of his wife and daughter. He didn’t travel to the festival and says that he found out about their deaths only a day later and that too from a fellow traveller in their group.

“We were planning her [the daughter’s] wedding. What should I do and for whom should I live now?” Mr Hattarwat told the Indian Express newspaper.

Meanwhile, some people say that they are still searching for their loved ones, more than 48 hours after the incident took place.

Manoj Kumar Sahni from Bihar state told Reuters news agency that he has been desperately searching for his father who is missing.

“I have been searching for him since the last three days. I went to the hospital as well but didn’t find him. We also searched at the railway station and the bus stand but did not find him,” he said.

Since the incident, authorities have stepped up security measures in the festival and have also banned vehicles from entering the mela grounds until 4 February. The next auspicious bathing day is on Monday, when the festival is expected to witness massive crowds.

A hiss and puff of compressed air shapes the smooth leather, bringing to life an all-American cowboy boot in a factory on China’s eastern coast.

Then comes another one as the assembly line continues, the sounds of sewing, stitching, cutting and soldering echoing off the high ceilings.

“We used to sell around a million pairs of boots a year,” says the 45-year-old sales manager, Mr Peng, who did not wish to reveal his first name.

That is, until Donald Trump came along.

A slew of tariffs in his first presidential term triggered a trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Six years on, Chinese businesses are bracing themselves for a sequel now that he is back in the White House.

“What direction should we take in the future?” Mr Peng asks, uncertain of what Trump 2.0 means for him, his colleagues – and China.

For Western markets that are increasingly wary of Beijing’s ambitions, trade has become a powerful bargaining chip – especially as a sluggish Chinese economy relies ever more on exports. Trump returned on a campaign promise that included crushing tariffs against Chinese-made goods, and has since announced a 10% levy – on top of existing sanctions.

He has also ordered a review of US-China trade – which buys Beijing time and Washington, negotiating room. And for now, harsher rhetoric (and higher tariffs) seems to be directed against US allies such as Canada and Mexico.

Trump may have pressed pause on the looming battle with Beijing. But many believe it’s still coming. It’s hard to find an exact figure on how many businesses are fleeing China, but major firms such as Nike, Adidas and Puma have already relocated to Vietnam. Chinese businesses too have been moving, reshaping supply chains, although Beijing remains a key player.

Mr Peng says his boss, who owns the factory, has considered moving production to South East Asia, along with many of their competitors.

It would save the firm, but they would lose their workforce. Most of the staff are from the nearby city of Nantong and have worked here for more than 20 years.

Mr Peng, whose wife died when their son was young, says the factory has been his family: “Our boss is determined not to abandon these employees.”

• Trump to hit Canada, Mexico and China with tariffs on Saturday
• Booze, oil and orange juice: How Canada could retaliate

He is aware of the geopolitics at play, but he says he and his workers are just trying to make a living. They are still reeling from the impact of 2019, when a fourth round of Trump tariffs – 15% – hit Chinese-made consumer goods, such as clothes and shoes.

Orders have since dwindled and staff numbers, once more than 500, have dropped to just over 200. The evidence is in the empty work stations, as Mr Peng shows us around.

All around him, workers are cutting the leather into the right shape to hand it to the machinist. They have to be precise because mistakes will ruin the expensive leather, most of which has been imported from the US.

The factory is trying to keep costs low as some of their American buyers are already considering moving business away from China and the threat of tariffs.

But that would mean losing skilled workers: it can take up to a week to make one pair of boots, from flattening the leather to giving the finished boots a final polish and packing them for export.

This is what turned China into the world’s top manufacturer – labour-intensive production which is also cheap when it’s scaled up and supported by an unrivalled supply chain. And this has been years in the making.

“It was once a constant cycle of inspecting goods and shipping them out – I felt fulfilled,” says Mr Peng, who has worked here since 2015. “But orders have decreased, which makes me feel quite lost and anxious.”

Once crafted to conquer the Wild West, these cowboy boots have been made here for more than a decade. And this is a familiar story in the south of Jiangsu province, a manufacturing hub along the Yangtze River that produces just about everything, from textiles to electric vehicles.

These are among the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods that China ships to the United States every year – a number that steadily ballooned as Washington became its biggest trading partner.

That status slipped under Trump. But it was not restored under his successor Joe Biden, who kept most Trump-era tariffs in place, as ties with Beijing frayed.

In fact, the European Union too has imposed tariffs on electric vehicle imports, accusing China of making too much, often with the support of state subsidies. Trump has echoed this – that China’s “unfair” trade practices disadvantage foreign comeptitors.

Beijing sees such rhetoric as Western attempts to stifle its growth, and it has repeatedly warned Washington that there will be no winners in a trade war. But it has also said it’s ready to talk and “properly handle differences”.

And President Trump, who has described tariffs as his “one big power” over China, certainly wants to talk.

It’s unclear as yet what he might want in return. During Trump’s honeymoon period with China in his first term he came to Beijing to ask for Xi’s help in meeting North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un. This time it is believed he might need Xi’s support to make a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. He recently said that China had “a great deal of power over that situation”.

The threat of a 10% tariff is driven by the belief that China is “sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada”. So he could demand that it do more to end that flow.

Or, given he welcomed a bidding war over TikTok, he may want to negotiate its ownership – or the prized technology that powers the app – because Beijing would need to agree to any such sale.

Whatever the deal may be, it could help reset US-China ties. However, the absence of one could abruptly end the chance of a second honeymoon, setting up Trump and Xi for a far more confrontational relationship.

Already business sentiment is nervous: an annual survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China showed just over half of them were concerned about the US-China relationship deteriorating further.

Trump’s seemingly softer stance on China offers some relief. But his hope is still that the threat of tariffs will help drive buyers away from China and move manufacturing back to the US.

Some Chinese businesses are indeed on the move – but not to America.

An hour outside Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, businessman Huang Zhaodong has built a new factory to cater to a flood of orders from US giants Walmart and Costco.

This is his second factory in Cambodia, and together they produce half a million garments a month, from shirts to underwear. Hangers carrying cotton trousers roll past us on an automated line, moving from one station to the next as the elastic waist is inserted and hemlines are finished.

Now, when prospective US customers lob the first question, which he has come to expect – where is he based – Mr Huang has the right answer. Not in China.

“In the case of some Chinese firms, their customers have told them: ‘If you don’t move production overseas, I’ll cancel your orders’.”

The tariffs raise tough choices for suppliers and retailers, but it’s not always clear who will bear the brunt of the cost. Sometimes it will be the customer, Mr Huang says.

“Take Walmart as an example. I sell them clothes at $5, but they usually mark it up 3.5 times. If the cost increases due to higher tariffs, the price I sell to them might rise to $6. If they mark it up by 3.5 times, the retail price would increase.”

But usually, he says, it is the supplier. If his production line was in China, he estimates an extra 10% tariff could take an extra $800,000 (£644,000) from his earnings.

“That’s more than what I make as profit. It’s huge and we can’t afford it. If you’re making clothes in China under such tariff conditions, it’s unsustainable,” he says.

Current US tariffs on Chinese goods vary from 100% on electric vehicles to 25% on steel and aluminium. Until now, several top-selling items have been exempt, including electronics, such as TVs and iPhones.

But the 10% blanket tariff Trump is proposing could affect the price of everything that is made in China and exported to the US. That applies to a lot of things – from toys and tea cups to laptops.

Mr Huang says this would encourage more factories to move elsewhere. Several new workshops have sprung up around him and Chinese companies from textile production heartlands such as Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong are moving in to make winter jackets and woollen clothing.

Around 90% of clothing factories in Cambodia are now Chinese-run or Chinese-owned, according to a report by insight and analysis group Research and Markets.

Half of the country’s foreign investment flows from China. Seventy percent of roads and bridges were built using loans Beijing dispensed, according to Chinese state media.

Many of the signs on restaurants and shops are in Chinese as well as Khmer, the local language. There’s even a ring road named Xi Jinping Boulevard in honour of the Chinese president.

Cambodia is not a lone recipient. China has invested heavily in different parts of the world under President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative – a trade and infrastructure project that also increases Beijing’s influence.

That means China has choices.

Chinese state media claims that more than half of China’s imports and exports now come from Belt and Road countries, most of them in South East Asia.

This has not happened overnight, says Kenny Yao from AlixPartners, who advises Chinese firms on how to deal with tariffs.

During Trump’s first term, many Chinese firms doubted his tariff threat, he told the BBC. Now they ask if he will follow the supply chain and slap tariffs on other countries.

Just in case he does, Mr Yao says, it would be wise for Chinese businesses to look further afield: “For example, Africa or Latin America. This is more difficult, but it is good to look at areas you have not explored before.”

As America pledges to look after itself first, Beijing is doing its best to appear a stable business partner, and there is some evidence it is working.

China has edged past the US to become the prevailing choice for countries in South East Asia, according to a survey by the Iseas Yusof-Ishak think tank in Singapore.

Even though production has moved abroad, money still flows to China – 60% of the materials being made into clothes at Mr Huang’s factories in Phnom Penh come from China.

And exports are thriving, with Beijing investing more heavily in high-end manufacturing, from solar panels to artificial intelligence. Last year’s trade surplus with the world – on the back of a nearly 6% year-on-year jump in exports – was a record $992bn.

Still, Chinese businesses – in Jiangsu and Phnom Penh – are preparing themselves for an uncertain spell, if not a turbulent one.

Mr Peng hopes the US and China can have an “amicable and calm” discussion to keep the tariffs “within a reasonable range” and avoid a trade war.

“Americans still need to purchase these products,” he said, before driving off to meet new customers.

Donald Trump’s talk of applying new tariffs to goods from America’s biggest trade partners has sparked months of uncertainty for business owners.

On Saturday, the president made good on his threats, ordering a new 25% tax on shipments from Mexico and Canada and raising existing tariffs on goods from China by 10%.

But that has not stopped the questions.

“Is it for a day, is it a political flex or is it something that will last for four years?” asked Nicolas Palazzi, the founder of Brooklyn-based PM Spirits. He runs a 21-person business that imports and sells wine and spirits, about 20% of which come from Mexico.

Trump’s orders set in motion threats that the president has discussed for months, striking at shipments from America’s top three trade partners, which together account for more than 40% of the roughly $3tn goods the US imports each year.

Canadian oil and other “energy resources” will face a lower 10% rate. But otherwise, there will be no exceptions, the White House said.

Trump said the tariffs were intended to hold Canada and Mexico accountable for promises to address illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

The measures go into effect on 4 February and are to remain in place “until the crisis is alleviated,” according to the orders.

If the plans were not a surprise, they still presented a potentially stunning blow to many businesses, especially for those in North America. The three countries have become tightly linked economically after decades of free trade under a treaty signed in the 1990s, known then as Nafta and updated and renamed under the Trump administration to USMCA.

The growth of mezcal in the US, brought in by businesses like Palazzi’s, has been part of this shift.

Since 2003, consumption of tequila and mezcal has roughly tripled, increasing at a rate of more than 7% each year, according to Distilled Spirits Council, a trade group.

Overall since the 1990s, trade in spirits between the US and Mexico has surged by more than 4,000% percent, said the organisation, which issued a statement after the president’s announcement warning that the tariffs would “significantly harm all three countries”.

For months, Palazzi has been fielding nervous questions from his suppliers in Mexico, who are typically small, family owned businesses and may not survive if the tariffs are prolonged.

If it sticks, he said the 25% tax on the bottles of mezcal, tequila and rum he brings in will push up prices – and sales will drop.

“Definitely this is going to impact the business negatively. But can you really plan? No,” he said. “Our strategy is roll-with-the-punches, wait and see and adapt to whatever craziness is going to unfold.”

Economists say the hit from the tariffs could push the economies of Mexico and Canada into recession.

Ahead of the announcement, Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, described the looming tariffs from the US, and expected retaliation, as “existential” for many of his members.

“Look, we get that the government has got to respond in some fashion …. But at the same time we urge the government to use caution,” he said, comparing tariffs on imports to chemotherapy: “It poisons your own people in order to try and fight the disease.”

“It’s going to have an effect everywhere,” said Sophie Avernin, director of De Grandes Viñedos de Francia in Mexico, noting that many Americans own Mexican alcohol brands and Modelo beer is actually owned by a Belgian company.

Trump, who has embraced tariffs as a tool to address issues far removed from trade, has dismissed concerns about any collateral damage to the economy in the US.

But analysts have warned the measures will weigh on growth, raise prices and cost the economy jobs – roughly 286,000, according to estimates by the Tax Foundation, not including retaliation.

Those in the alcohol business said the industry had already been struggling to emerge from the shadow of the pandemic and its after-shocks, including inflation, which has prompted many Americans to cut back on dining out and drinking.

Smaller firms, who typically have less financial cushion and ability to swallow a sudden 25% jump in cost, will bear the brunt of the disruption.

“I’m pretty frustrated,” said California-based importer Ben Scott, whose nine-person business Pueblo de Sabor brings in brands from Mexico such as Mal Bien and Lalocura.

“There’s just a huge cost that’s going to affect so many people in ways other than they’re paying a couple bucks more for a cocktail, which doesn’t sound like a tragedy.”

Fred Sanchez has spent years pushing to expand his business, Bad Hombre Importing, a small California-based importer and distributor of Mexican agave-based spirits like Agua del Sol, and was recently working on deals in New York and Illinois.

But his potential partners started hesitating as Trump’s tariff talk ramped up last year.

Now, instead of expanding, he is contemplating selling off his stock of liquor and possibly shutting down. He said he had little capacity to absorb the jump in costs and saw little scope for raising prices in the current economy.

“25% is just not something that we can realistically pass onto the consumer,” he said.

Sanchez said he believed that Trump might be using tariffs as a negotiating tactic, and the tax could be short-lived. Still, for his business, damage is already done.

A woman has died in Australia and thousands have been forced to flee their homes after torrential rainfall caused flooding in northern Queensland.

Authorities say waters will continue to rise and have warned of a “dangerous and life-threatening” situation.

More than 1,000mm (39in) of rain has fallen on parts of north-east Queensland since Friday with “record rainfalls” set to continue into Monday, according to Queensland State Premier David Crisafulli.

Meteorologists say these could be the worst floods in the region in more than 60 years.

Crisafulli said conditions were unlike anything northern Queensland had experienced “for a long time”.

“It’s not just the intensity, but it’s also the longevity of it,” he told Australian broadcaster ABC.

The woman who died was onboard a State Emergency Service (SES) dinghy which hit a tree and capsized in the town of Ingham, in north-west Queensland.

It is understood she was a member of the public who was being rescued at the time, and was not an emergency worker. The other five people on board were able to get to safety. An investigation has been launched.

Meanwhile, three people were rescued from the roof of a house in Cardwell, about halfway between Cairns and Townsville.

Video has emerged showing a man clinging to a pole in Ingham after his vehicle was washed away – and being taken to safety by locals in a boat.

The Townsville Local Disaster Management Group says that 1,700 homes in the city may be inundated – some up to the second floor – as river levels rise.

Thousands of people across six Townsville suburbs were told to leave their homes by midday on Sunday, but officials say about 10% of residents had opted to stay.

The same areas were severely hit during 2019 flooding.

Premier Crisafulli urged people to heed the warnings, saying: “In the end, houses and cars and furniture, that can all be replaced. Your family can’t”.

Andrew Cox was among those who heeded the advice to leave. He told the BBC that police had visited his partner’s home on Saturday evening advising they may have to evacuate and had returned early on Sunday to reiterate the message.

“Some of the neighbours said they’d been here during floods in 2019 and that it would be fine, but we didn’t want to take a chance, so we packed up,” he said.

On Sunday night local time a new evacuation centre was being opened – as others reached capacity.

Parts of the road between Townsville and the tourist centre of Cairns have been cut off, hampering efforts to get rescue teams and sandbags to the worst-hit areas.

Meanwhile Townsville airport is closed until Monday morning, supermarkets have run out of fresh food, and thousands of homes are without power, including in Ingham and the Indigenous community of Palm Island.

And there is a warning for locals to watch for crocodiles lurking in floodwaters away from their usual habitats.

Sitting in the tropics, north Queensland is prone to destructive cyclones, storms and flooding.

But climate scientists say that warmer oceans and a hotter planet create the conditions for more intense and frequent extreme rainfall events.

Justin Baldoni has published a website amid a battle over allegations of what happened on the set of his and Blake Lively’s film, It Ends With Us.

The website contains Baldoni’s amended complaint and a timeline of events related to the case.

The two stars played a couple in the hit film, which came out last year, but have since become embroiled in an increasingly bitter legal dispute.

Lively, 37, sued Baldoni, 41, in December, accusing him of sexual harassment and a smear campaign. Baldoni is counter-suing Lively and her husband, the actor Ryan Reynolds, on claims of civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy.

Baldoni is also suing the New York Times for libel. Both parties strongly deny the claims.

A trial date has been set for the hearing of the claims between the stars.

• Lively and Baldoni file new lawsuits in harassment row
• Hollywood stars support Lively over legal complaint
• Lively accuses co-star Baldoni of smear campaign

The website was published on Saturday, and is called Lawsuit Info.

It contains two legal documents related to the case: Baldoni’s latest court filings against Lively and Reynolds, and a 168-page document entitled “timeline of relevant events” related to the dispute and the production of the film.

The latter includes alleged text message exchanges between him and Lively.

It comes after Baldoni amended his lawsuit, accusing Lively of giving the New York Times advance access to her civil rights complaint.

Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, told BBC News that Baldoni amended his lawsuit due “to the overwhelming amount of new proof that has come to light”.

“This fresh evidence corroborates what we knew all along, that due to purely egotistical reasons Ms Lively and her entire team colluded for months to destroy reputations through a complex web of lies, false accusations and the manipulation of illicitly received communications,” Freedman continued.

A New York Times spokesperson told BBC News that Baldoni’s legal filings were “rife with inaccuracies” about the newspaper, “including, for example, the bogus claim that The Times had early access to Ms Lively’s state civil rights complaint”.

They added that Baldoni’s lawyers were “[basing] their erroneous claim on postings by amateur internet sleuths, who, not surprisingly, are wrong”.

BBC News has reached out to Lively’s representatives for comment.

Last month, Baldoni released out-takes from a romantic scene in It Ends With Us, which he says is evidence that Lively’s allegations of sexual harassment are unfounded.

However, she responded by saying the footage of the pair filming a slow dance is “damning” and corroborates her claims.

It Ends With Us was released last summer, and became a TikTok sensation.

The film is based on a best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover. In it, Lively plays a woman who finds herself in a relationship with a charming but abusive boyfriend, played by Baldoni.

The 45-year-old author has said her inspiration was the domestic abuse endured by her mother.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s coalition government has unveiled its first full-year budget after his party lost an outright majority in parliament last year.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced measures to counter slowing growth, rising prices and flagging consumption among the middle class in Asia’s third-largest economy.

After a period of world-beating growth of more than 8%, India is set for its slowest economic expansion in four years as stagnant wages and high food prices hit consumer spending and corporate profits.

Here are five key takeaways from India’s union budget:

In a major relief to millions of taxpayers, the government has raised income tax exemption limits, making earnings of up to 1.2m rupees ($13,841; £11,165) – excluding special rate income like capital gains – entirely tax free.

The finance minister has also announced tweaks to other income tax slabs which is likely to leave more money in the hands of the middle class.

The income tax concessions to the middle class “seems aimed at addressing the slump in urban consumption”, said Nomura’s India Economist Aurodeep Nandi.

The impact, however, could be limited since a tiny fraction of Indians pay direct taxes. In 2023, 1.6% of Indians (22.4 million people) actually paid income taxes, according to data presented in parliament.

The market cheered the announcements with stocks of automobiles, consumer goods and online grocery companies rallying.

State-funded capital expenditure on major road, port and railway projects has been a key driver of India’s growth engine since 2020.

Despite an unexpected contraction in actual spending in the first nine months of this year, the government has modestly increased its infrastructure expenditure target for this year from 11.1 trillion to 11.2 trillion rupees ($129.18bn; £104.21bn).

The government has also proposed offering interest-free loans to states to enable them to spend more on infrastructure development.

The budget has set a goal to generate 100GW of nuclear energy by 2047. As part of this plan, a Nuclear Energy Mission has been launched with a budget of 200bn rupees ($2.3bn, £1.86bn). The plan is to deploy five indigenous reactors by 2033 and amend laws, like the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, to realise goals and get more private sector participation in the sector.

Meanwhile, foreign direct investment limits for the insurance sector have been increased from 74% to 100%.

“This will aid foreign insurers’ interest in investing in the growing Indian insurance market, where we expect strong premium growth to boost profitability,” said Mohammed Ali Londe, Senior analyst at Moody’s Ratings.

In order to ease the climate for doing business, which has been a major concern among investors, a high-level committee has been announced to undertake regulatory reforms in the non-financial sectors and reduce the compliance burden on corporations. The panel will make recommendations within a year.

Small and micro industries, that account for 35% of India’s manufacturing and create millions of jobs, also got a boost through fiscal support of 1.5 trillion rupees ($17.31bn; £13.96bn) over the next five years.

The government has also raised production-linked subsidies and slashed import duties for local manufacturing units across sectors like textiles, mobile telephones and electronics. This could promote private investments, which have not picked up post the Covid-19 pandemic.

Even with slightly higher budget outlays for infrastructure creation, India has had to continue a delicate balancing act between pushing economic growth and keeping its spending in check.

The budget has reiterated a commitment to reducing the government’s deficit, which is the gap between what it earns and spends, to 4.4% by 2026 from 4.8% this year.

Global rating agencies closely watch these numbers, with lower debt figures leading to potentially better investment ratings in the future and a reduction in borrowing costs for the country.

India’s recent slowdown has made the growth versus fiscal prudence trade-off increasingly challenging.

A recent economic survey by the finance ministry expects GDP growth to slow to between 6.3-6.8% in the financial year ending March 2026, in line with the Reserve Bank of India’s forecasts.

With the budget out of the picture, the focus will now shift to the central bank’s monetary policy meeting later this month.

The RBI has maintained policy rates at 6.5% since February 2023, but is likely to begin easing the cost of borrowing as both growth and inflation have begun to come down.

Last week, the central bank announced plans to inject $18bn into the domestic banking system to ease a cash shortage, a move seen by many as a precursor to rate cuts.

The Grammys are music’s biggest night, both literally and figuratively.

The ceremony, which takes place in LA on Sunday night, runs for a staggering eight hours, attracting the biggest stars in pop, rock, country and hip-hop.

Organisers will hand out 94 awards, recognising everything from best pop album to best choral performance.

Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have both confirmed their attendance, as they square off in the album of the year category for the first time since 2010 (Swift won on that occasion, fact fans).

There’ll also be performances from Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, Benson Boone, Shakira, Stevie Wonder, Teddy Swims and Raye – and an tribute to Thriller producer Quincy Jones.

Here’s everything you need to know about the ceremony.

The big question of the night is whether Beyoncé will finally win album of the year, after four previous losses in the category?

During last year’s ceremony, her husband Jay-Z addressed the oversight, telling the audience: “I don’t want to embarrass this young lady, but she has more Grammys than everyone and never won album of the year. So even by your own metrics, that doesn’t work.”

Beyoncé’s latest record, Cowboy Carter, is a wildly ambitious attempt to contextualise and commemorate the black roots of country music. It’s the sort of thing that delights Grammy voters, who traditionally prefer albums that elevate America’s musical history over contemporary, cutting-edge productions.

But the album’s excessive length – including a few weaker tracks in its latter half – could count against it.

Billie Eilish is currently the bookmakers’ favourite with her third album Hit Me Hard and Soft. Mixing passionate power ballads with violent electronic shifts and hip-hop swagger, it marks a new evolution in the star’s songwriting partnership with her brother, Finneas.

Charli XCX’s Brat is a career-defining pop record that became a cultural phenomenon. The best-reviewed album of 2024, it’s probably too abrasive for the Grammys’ more conservative voters, but that’s their loss.

And you’d have to be crazy to ignore Taylor Swift. Her 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department, was the biggest-seller of last year; a fact that will undoubtedly be taken into account, even if the record is one of her weaker efforts.

If she wins, Swift will collect her fifth album of the year trophy – more than any other artist in Grammy history.

One of the year’s most stacked categories is record of the year – better understood as “best single”.

Aside from a rogue nomination for The Beatles (see below), the shortlist reflects a stellar year for pop music, with Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso and Charli XCX’s 360 up against Beyoncé’s Texas Hold ‘Em and Billie Eilish’s Birds Of A Feather.

But the front-runner is Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us. A furious take-down of his rap nemesis, Drake, it’s as catchy as it is legally contentious. If it wins, it would be only the second hip-hop single to win the category, following Childish Gambino’s This Is America in 2019.

In the parallel song of the year prize – which recognises achievement in songwriting – the smart money is on Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga’s Die With A Smile.

Both artists are perennial Grammy favourites, and their virtuoso ballad will be catnip to voters.

Their competition includes Shaboozey’s A Bar Song (Tipsy), which was America’s longest-running number one single of 2024. However, the fact that it’s based on a previous hit (J-Kwon’s Tipsy) is likely to count against it.

Chappell Roan’s breakout single Good Luck Babe is another strong contender, notable for its soaring high notes and a piercing lyric that skewers internalised homophobia. Billie Eilish’s gossamer ballad Birds of a Feather is a similar masterclass in songcraft – making this category one of the hardest to predict.

By contrast, the coveted best new artist prize is pretty much a two-way split between Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, both of whom established a dominant chart presence in 2024 after years on the pop sidelines.

That’s bad news for the sole British nominee, six-time Brit Award winner Raye. But at least she’s in good company, alongside breakout rap star Doechii and big-hearted pop singer Teddy Swims.

• Rowdy after parties cancelled: why this year’s Grammys will be sombre
• Grammy Awards 2025: List of nominees
• Beyoncé surpasses Jay-Z in all-time Grammy nominations
• How rave culture inspired Charli XCX’s Brat
• Critics praise Billie Eilish’s “bold and brave” new album
• Chappell Roan interview: ‘I’d be more successful if I wore a muzzle’
• Grammys 2024: The highs, the lows, and why Taylor Swift won

Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter has 11 nominations, potentially making it the most-rewarded album in Grammy history.

The record is currently held by Santana, who got nine trophies for his album Supernatural in 2000 (coincidentally, the same year that Beyoncé received her first Grammy nomination, as part of Destiny’s Child).

And if Cowboy Carter doesn’t take home best album, Beyoncé still breaks a record, for the most nominations in that category without a win.

Billie Eilish could become the first female artist to win Record of the Year three times with Birds of a Feather. Paul Simon and Bruno Mars are the only other artist with three wins in the category.

Rapper turned flautist André 3000 is also poised to make history. If he wins best instrumental composition, he does so with the longest song title in Grammy history: I Swear, I Really Wanted To Make A ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time.

The current record holders, in case you were wondering, are Oklahoma band The Flaming Lips. In 2007, they won best rock instrumental performance for the magnificently-titled The Wizard Turns on the Giant Silver Flashlight and Puts On His Werewolf Moccasins.

More than 13,000 members of the Recording Academy vote for the Grammys every year – including musicians, producers, lyricists, and even the people who write CD liner notes.

To qualify, they must be currently working in the music industry, and pay an annual subscription of $150 (£120). All former winners are also eligible to vote.

Every member is allowed to vote in up to 10 categories across three fields, such as rock, classical and R&B. They are encouraged only to vote in genres where their expertise lies.

Additionally, every member, regardless of their background, gets to vote for the six biggest awards of the night. Those are: album of the year, record of the year, song of the year, best new artist, songwriter of the year and producer of the year.

The 2025 awards recognise music released between 16 September 2023 and 30 August, 2024. The winners are not revealed until the ceremony.

The Beatles might have broken up 55 years ago, but they’re up for two prizes on Sunday: record of the year and best rock performance.

Both nominations recognise Now and Then, a song that John Lennon demoed in the 1970s, and which was finally completed by his surviving bandmates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr last year.

Grammy voters, with their eyes firmly trained on the past, rarely miss an opportunity to reward the Beatles. Eight years ago, for example, the band’s documentary Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years beat Beyoncé’s groundbreaking Lemonade for best music film.

In some ways, that’s correcting an historic wrong. In their prime, the Beatles were nominated for record of the year four times – for I Want to Hold Your Hand, Yesterday, Hey Jude and Let It Be – but lost every time.

A win in 2025 would prove that Beatlemania never fades – but voters may be put off by The Beatles’ use of machine learning (a form of artificial intelligence), which was used to clean up Lennon’s scratchy old cassette recordings.

The Recording Academy’s rules on AI say that “only human creators” can win Grammys, and that “the human authorship component of the work submitted must be meaningful”.

That’s true in the case of Now And Then, but many creators remain sceptical of the technology.

Quite a lot.

All the hoopla surrounding the Grammys has gone. No pre-parties, no after-parties. Everything except the ceremony itself has been cancelled. All the money that would have been spent on champagne and vol au vents is being funnelled into relief efforts.

The Recording Academy and its affiliated MusiCares charity have also set up a Fire Relief fund, which has so far pledged more than $3.2 million (£2.6 million) in emergency aid to assist music professionals affected by the fires.

And the telecast itself will reflect the devastation, with segments honouring the first responders who risked their lives to tackle the inferno and protect the vulnerable.

“We’ll still have performances, we’ll still have awards and honour music,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason, Jr told Variety magazine.

“But you’ll know that something’s happened, and you’ll know that we’re using music to do good.”

As part of that effort, Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga will “a special tribute to the city of Los Angeles and those affected by the wildfires,” the Grammys announced on Saturday.

You betcha. So far, the list includes:

• Benson Boone
• Sabrina Carpenter
• Jacob Collier
• Sheryl Crow
• Billie Eilish
• Cynthia Erivo
• Charli XCX
• Doechii
• Herbie Hancock
• Lady Gaga
• Brittany Howard
• John Legend
• Bruno Mars
• Chris Martin
• Janelle Monáe
• Brad Paisley
• Raye
• Chappell Roan
• Shakira (
• Teddy Swims
• Lainey Wilson
• Stevie Wonder
• St. Vincent

The ceremony is split into two parts, with the first 80 awards distributed during what’s called the “premiere ceremony” at 12:30 in Los Angeles / 20:30 in London on Sunday.

It’s often worth tuning in. The winners in the more obscure categories are less polished and more excited about winning, and the performances are looser and, dare I say it, more musical than the grandiose set pieces you’ll see later.

You can watch the whole thing on the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel, and on live.grammy.com.

That’s also where you want to go to watch red carpet coverage, which kicks off at 15:00 in Los Angeles / 23:00 in the UK.

Finally, the main show kicks off at 17:00 Los Angeles / 01:00 Monday in the UK. It’s broadcast live in the US on CBS and streamed internationally on Paramount Plus. Speeches and select performances are usually uploaded to YouTube the following day.

Of course not! But have you seen what’s going on everywhere else in the world?

Musicians, however take the Grammys . A big win can boost album sales and bump you up festival bills.

That said, the awards themselves are notoriously ridiculous. According to legend, they were created in 1959 as a panicked reaction to the popularity of rock ‘n’ roll. Record companies hoped that by highlighting “good” music, they’d steer the public away from Elvis’s swivelling hips.

As if to illustrate that point, they didn’t hand Mr Presley a trophy until 1968, and even that was for “best sacred performance”, recognising his first gospel album, How Great Thou Art.

Since then, the awards have remained wilfully arbitrary, woefully out of touch, or a combination of the two.

Famously, The Beatles won more awards after they split up than they did together; and there were no rap categories until 1989.

And if anyone still thinks that Herbie Hancock’s jazz tribute to Joni Mitchell was the best album of 2008 – the year of Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black and Kanye West’s Graduation – I’d be interested to hear your arguments.

So if Beyoncé doesn’t win on Sunday (or even if she does) don’t let it affect your enjoyment of her music.

Punxsutawney Phil – a “weather-predicting” groundhog – has forecast six more weeks of winter in the US, disappointing the crowds of people gathered in the Pennsylvania town for the annual Groundhog Day celebrations.

To chants of “Phil” the rodent was brought out from a tree stump early on Sunday morning to “give” his yearly forecast.

According to folklore, If Phil looks at his own shadow then there will be another six weeks of the North American winter, and if not, then an early spring is on the horizon

“There’s a shadow up here, get ready for six more weeks of winter this year,” a man from the club behind the event proclaimed.

The spotlight is on Phil every year on Groundhog Day – a tradition celebrated in the US and Canada which attracts tens of thousands of people.

It is thought to have evolved from German celebrations of Candlemas on 2 February. Known as Dachstag, or Badger Day, it was believed that if a badger refused to emerge from its home, locals were in for four more weeks of snow.

As the German-speaking Pennsylvania Dutch settled in America, the tradition moved stateside with a groundhog replacing the badger.

The first official Groundhog Day took place in 1887 in Punxsutawney.

The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, the group behind the event, has an “inner circle” of 15 people wearing top hats and bowties who are responsible for taking care of Phil and protecting “the legend of the great weather-predicting groundhog”.

They claim – in a light-hearted way – that the same groundhog has been predicting the weather at Gobbler’s Knob for more than100 years.

An “elixir of life” made from a “secret recipe” is given to the groundhog every summer which is what gives Phil his “longevity and youthful good looks”, it says on the club’s website.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission says the potential lifespan of a groundhog is estimated at eight or nine years.

Last year, Phil “predicted” an early spring after he did not see his shadow on Groundhog Day.

But the reliability of America’s most celebrated rodent weather forecaster has been called into question.

Phil was right 30% of the time between 2014 and 2023, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said, according to BBC’s US partner CBS.

The event was further popularised by the 1993 film Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.

Billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman has a big vision for the future of humanity.

He set off on his first mission to space in 2021 – a private journey he paid an estimated $200m (£160m) for – and announced that he wanted space travel to be for the masses, not only for the 600 who have experienced it to date – most of them professional astronauts employed by Nasa and the wealthy.

“We want it to be 600,000,” he told reporters.

Later, he added: “I drank the Kool-Aid in terms of the grand ambitions for humankind being a multi-planet species… I think that we all want to live in a Star Wars, Star Trek world where people are jumping in their spacecraft.”

Mr Isaacman, who made much of his $1.9bn (£1.46bn) fortune from a payment processing company that he founded in 1999 aged 16, is said to have bankrolled the rest of the crew of four aboard the SpaceX craft in the 2021 mission, fuelled by a longstanding love of flying and fascination with space.

Since then, there have been more adventures: last year he demonstrated Captain Kirk-like daring by travelling in an upgraded SpaceX capsule and performing the first commercial spacewalk.

During the mission, he tested an experimental spacesuit and a new cost-saving protocol to exit and re-enter the spacecraft without using an airlock.

The photograph of Mr Isaacman, silhouetted with the world at his feet, is now iconic – it demonstrated that this was not a playboy billionaire paying to act out Star Trek, but someone pushing the envelope of what was possible with current technology.

And yet it is a more recent achievement that has drawn greater attention still – being nominated by Donald Trump in December to be the new head of Nasa.

The question is why Trump chose him and what has he asked him to do – especially in the context that the President has appointed SpaceX owner Elon Musk to a government role to cut $2 trillion (£1.6 trillion) off the Federal budget.

The Nasa post is a presidential appointment, though it requires the confirmation of the US Senate. And if confirmed, Mr Isaacman’s appointment will also raise broader questions about the future of humanity in space, given his vision for space travel for the masses. It also has significant implications for the future of the space agency, if Mr Isaacman’s role leads to Nasa using the private sector even more than it does now.

In the past, the heads of Nasa have come from a variety of backgrounds: some, such as the previous incumbent Bill Nelson, have been former astronauts; others, such as Michael Griffin (in charge from 2005 to 2009) came from a government background, and before him Dan Goldin was an entrepreneur, striving to lower costs.

Despite their disparate backgrounds, those who have led Nasa have all been company people, charged with defending the space agency and its values.

And yet Mr Isaacman, along with Mr Musk and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, is among a new wave of billionaires who have been challenging the old order in space.

They have accelerated the pace of innovation and are aiming to dramatically reduce the cost of human space travel.

On the day of his nomination in December, Mr Isaacman posted a statement on X that gave an early glimpse into his vision. “This second space age has only just begun,” he wrote.

“There will inevitably be a thriving space economy – one that will create opportunities for countless people to live and work in space… At Nasa, we will… usher in an era where humanity becomes a true spacefaring civilisation.”

Many presidents have talked about sending astronauts to the Moon since the end of the Apollo lunar landings of the 1960s and 70s, but Trump was the first to turn talk into action, authorising Nasa’s Artemis programme to send humans back to the Moon during his first term. His record suggests that he is a big Nasa fan.

But since then, two factors are likely to have changed his thinking: Nasa’s rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), has been delayed and costs have spiralled; at the same time Mr Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’s Blue Origin are developing reusable low-cost Moon rockets.

That is a worrying backdrop for Nasa, according to Courtney Stadd of New York-based Beyond Earth Institute think tank.

“You have a government looking to slash,” he said at a webinar hosted by Space News. “If you are the new administrator, you are going in in that context, so you are going to have to look at everything that is a drain on your budget…

“This next two years is going to be the equivalent of a tsunami and everything is on the table.”

One of the biggest questions is what to do with the space agency’s SLS Moon rocket. In 2021, Nasa’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), which provides oversight of the space agency for Congress, reported that the cost was $4.1bn (£3.3bn) for each and every launch.

By contrast, SpaceX’s equivalent rocket system, Starship, is estimated to cost around $100m (£80m) per launch – and Musk has said he aims to bring the costs down further to $10m (£8m) as he develops his system.

Bezos’s new Moon rocket, New Glenn, had its maiden test launch at the beginning of January. Blue Origin has not announced its cost per launch, but it is estimated currently to be around $68m (£54.5m).

Competition between the two billionaires is likely to speed up innovation and reduce costs further.

Starship and New Glenn are projected to be cheaper because, unlike SLS, they are designed to be reusable. But “that’s only a part of the reason for the disparity in costs”, according to Dr Adam Baker, an expert on the space industry at Cranfield University.

“SpaceX is given a sum of money and contracted to deliver on time and on budget,” he continues. “They are driven by profit, and they want to minimise costs.

“A Nasa programme is not driven by profit; it is driven by the programme objectives and so those in charge don’t think they need to track costs in the same way.

“There is a general acceptance that SLS has no future.”

The OIG could only come up with a best guess for the full cost of the Artemis programme in its review for Congress because, as it put it: “Nasa lacks a comprehensive and accurate cost estimate that accounts for all programme costs.

“Instead, the Agency’s plan presents a rough estimate that excludes $25bn (£20bn) for key activities”.

Nasa’s project management of SLS is not an aberration – some would say it is typical. For example, the James Webb Space Telescope was given a $1bn (£800m) budget and a launch date of 2010 – but it cost ten times that amount and launched in 2021, earning it the nickname of “the telescope that ate astronomy”.

(Other important scientific programmes had to be scaled back, delayed or scrapped entirely to make way for the overruns.)

It was a similar story of delays and budget overruns during the development of the Space Shuttle in the 1970s and the construction of the International Space Station in the 2000s.

Nasa got away with it because it was responsible for arguably America’s greatest moment when it sent the first astronauts to the Moon. The Apollo programme laid the foundations for America’s technology businesses and ushered in a vibrant new era for the US.

But the world has changed significantly since then, and Nasa has simply not kept up, according to Emeritus Prof John Logsdon, former director of the Space policy Institute at George Washington University. “Changing the way the United States goes about its civilian space programme is long overdue.”

The current model is to give so-called “cost-plus” contracts to big heritage aerospace companies, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which guarantee to pay the development costs and an agreed profit.

The model gave the firms the financial reassurance they needed for ambitious projects such as the space shuttle, the SLS, and developing parts of the Saturn V rocket that took Apollo astronauts to the Moon, but these contracts provided no incentives to cut costs or increase efficiency. For example, there were no penalties for delays or cost overruns.

Dr Simeon Barber at the Open University, who has worked with Nasa on robotic space missions, was originally sceptical that the new commercial companies would deliver. But he is now a convert to the new way of doing things.

“We were used to big projects falling behind schedule and going over budget. But the new companies have shone a light on the old way of doing things.”

Moves to change what some saw as an overly cosy relationship with the heritage space companies gained pace in 2009 when President Obama introduced fixed-price contracts to some private sector firms. The companies were given latitude to innovate to cut costs and increase their profits provided they delivered on schedule and on budget.

Among those firms was the dynamic new start-up, SpaceX, which was awarded a contract to develop its reusable Falcon rockets and Dragon Space capsule to resupply the International Space Station with crew and cargo.

The heritage space company Boeing was also given a similar contract in 2014 to develop its Starliner capsule to do the same job.

SpaceX, with its riskier but faster development processes, began delivering to the ISS within four years of receiving its contract. By contrast, Boeing’s Starliner, which had a series of delays due to technical problems and cost overruns, took 10 years – only to have more issues with some of its engines, which left astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams stranded on the space station.

The ultimate humiliation is that they will be brought back to Earth by rival SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.

“Starliner is an embarrassment for the traditional way of doing business,” says Prof Logsdon. “So, shaking up the system is very positive.”

Prof Logsdon expects big changes under Trump, Mr Musk and Mr Isaacman: scrapping programmes, closing Nasa centres and more contracting out to SpaceX, Blue Origin and other private sector firms. Mr Isaacman has called the SLS “outrageously expensive” and said that the major aerospace contractors are “incentivised to be economically inefficient”.

But changes like that are not going to be easy. Nasa’s budget is controlled by Congress. Although President Trump’s party controls both legislative houses, individual senators and congressmen on the committees that oversee Nasa are from states with jobs and industries dependent on Nasa’s $25bn (£20bn) annual budget.

“Party discipline takes second place where there is constituency money involved,” says Prof Logsdon, a seasoned watcher of the horse trading that goes on with space politics in Congress.

Although Nasa’s projects have been expensive, they have shown us the wonders of the universe and shifted humanity’s perception of ourselves and our place in the cosmos.

The creation of the first reusable space shuttle, the construction of an orbiting space station, the images of distant worlds captured by its robotic spacecraft and the awe-inspiring photos from Hubble have all inspired generations and supercharged interest in science. As a result, senators and congressmen know that America and the world owe Nasa an unpayable debt.

“The old way of doing things gave us a lot of success, so you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There will be significant change, but not the radical change that Mr Musk and Mr Isaacman want to see,” argues Prof Logsdon.

“There is a delicate balance between the interests of Nasa, Congress and the White House.”

Where that balance will fall will emerge in the coming months: some are speculating that the return-to-the-Moon programme might be scrapped altogether in favour of going straight to Mars, as President Trump alluded to during his inauguration, with the greatest proponent of that policy – Musk – seated nearby.

Others fear cuts in Nasa’s Earth Observation programmes, which monitor and model environmental changes from space, and include the impact of climate change; and some worry that the robotic scientific missions to other planets might be cut back to boost efforts for the human spaceflight programme.

There is concern in some quarters about the close relationship between Mr Isaacman and Mr Musk. Mr Isaacman paid SpaceX for his two ventures into space. The company has already received $20bn (£16bn) in contracts from government since 2008.

But if SLS is scrapped, and SpaceX were to receive the lion’s share of Nasa’s Moon programme work, Mr Musk’s firm stands to receive contracts that might be ten or even a hundred times greater, possibly at the expense of other private-sector players.

And there are many innovative US start-up companies hoping to build parts for spacecraft and infrastructure in Nasa’s return-to-the-Moon programme, including Texas-based Firefly, which has a spacecraft on its way to land on the Moon in March.

But industry analysts say that the US government has a long tradition of breaking up monopolies so that they don’t stifle innovation. And in any case, just because Mr Isaacman has worked with Mr Musk, it does not mean that any outcome is inevitable, argues Prof Logsdon.

“Isaacman is his own man,” he adds. “He is not a disciple of Elon Musk.”

Ultimately, however, it has become painfully clear, even to Nasa’s most ardent supporters, that it needs saving from itself. And the need for Nasa reform is not a partisan issue – Democrat and Republican presidents alike have set the wheels in motion.

But the coincidental timing of the success of SpaceX, Blue Origin and other private-sector space firms with a new administration impatient to cut costs and energise the private sector means that Mr Isaacman has a unique opportunity to make some of the biggest changes to Nasa since its inception.

“Nasa truly is a crown jewel, and we aren’t doing what we should be doing on behalf of the American people,” argued former deputy head of Nasa Lori Garver during the Space News webinar. “That is frustrating for all of us.”

Asked if a private sector billionaire was the right person to be entrusted with one of America’s greatest national treasures, Ms Garver responded: “Jared is a patriot, and he is doing this for public service.

“The truth of Jared agreeing has something to do with him willing to take on these hard things – and there are so many hard things”.

When war broke out in Ukraine 15-year-old Illia Mitiushnikov was forced to flee his home and family, and claim asylum in Wales.

Almost three years on, he is about to follow in the footsteps of no fewer than five British prime ministers after securing a place on one of the most prestigious degree courses at the University of Oxford.

Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Oxford has been described by the Guardian as “the Oxford degree that runs Britain”.

Its list of alumni includes former prime ministers David Cameron, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Edward Heath and Harold Wilson, as well as other British and global political heavyweights such as Tony Benn, Bill Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi.

It is a remarkable achievement for the 18-year-old, who said his English was “not so good” before arriving in the UK.

Until May 2022, Illia lived in Vinnytsia, central Ukraine, with his parents and their now 11-year-old cocker spaniel Simba.

After being accepted onto the Homes for Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme, Illia and his mother packed a suitcase each and made the journey to Wales, taking a train to Poland, a flight to London and a bus to Cardiff where they were met by their hosts.

“It was both emotionally hard and physically hard,” said Illia, recalling the long journey.

They moved in with their hosts, a couple with three young children, in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan.

“I was very delighted when I came here,” said Illia.

“I was really grateful to my host family that they agreed to accept me and my mum because it’s quite stressful to just meet completely new strangers and just let them stay in your house.”

It was his host family who suggested he apply to Westbourne School, an independent school in nearby Penarth, and he was offered a free place under its refugee scholarship scheme.

In the summer of 2023, he sat his GCSEs, achieving 10 A*s.

He then began the school’s International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme in place of A-Levels.

Thoughts of studying at the University of Oxford were prompted by a visit to the city.

“That’s when the dream started to appear in my mind,” he said.

Then when on work experience at a bank in London last summer he spoke to graduates and decided to go for it.

But initially he had doubts he could achieve his ambition.

“Part of me was like, ‘it’s too much for me’… and then another part of me was thinking ‘if others can do it, why can’t I do it also’.”

Knowing what people in Ukraine were experiencing drove him to work hard.

“I can’t let myself have a lot of rest because I know how people are feeling in Ukraine,” he said.

“I imagine the lives of all the soldiers who fight 24/7 for Ukraine and I can’t let myself chill out.

“It was like a new goal for me, I just had to do this, I had no other chance.”

The day he was accepted was emotional.

“I called my family straight away and they were just crying from happiness,” he said.

He is full of gratitude for his host family and his teachers and is looking forward to receiving an “insanely good” education and making new friends at St Hilda’s College, Oxford.

And what are his plans for the future?

He said he hoped Oxford would give him knowledge he could use to “improve the worldwide situation”.

But initially he intends to work in banking, “just to stabilise in life, to help my family”.

Like many of his PPE predecessors he also has his eye on a career in politics.

“I would like to help the world, help nations to develop, solve international crises, like the current war with Ukraine and Russia,” he said.

“I hope it will end before then obviously but there are other conflicts to solve.”

Marie de Tito Mount is global chief executive for Westbourne, which also has schools in Singapore and Sydney.

“We see a few students each year that go on to Oxford… but I think there is a particular warmth given Illia’s story, given his background, I think we’re all immensely proud of him, everyone’s rooting for him,” she said.

“He’s seen the opportunities available and has grabbed them with both hands, so that’s something any school would be proud of.

“It’s phenomenal achievement.”

A woman still waiting for her father’s funeral seven weeks after his death says the new certification system is “awful”.

Gemma Whysall, 42, whose father Christopher Wyles died unexpectedly in his sleep on 17 December, says she was left in limbo while the cause of his death was determined.

The death certification reforms for England and Wales came into effect on 9 September, and mean all deaths are now reviewed independently, either by a medical examiner or a coroner, before a certificate is issued.

Gemma said: “By the time we are able to have a funeral, it will be seven weeks since he passed, and the process, for a family who’s grieving, has been terrible.”

“In the absence of any real communication about the new process, we’ve just been sat waiting,” Gemma added.

“I had no update on when or how I could arrange my dad’s funeral, what the process would be, and nobody seemed to know what was happening.”

Under the new system, which was brought about partly in response to Harold Shipman’s murders, GPs no longer issue death certificates independently.

After a GP completes a medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD), an independent medical examiner reviews it.

Once approved, the certificate is sent to the registrar, who officially records the death.

The process means GPs have to give access to a patient’s records in order for the medical examiner to decide if they agree with the MCCD.

Because the 71-year-old died unexpectedly, Mr Wyles’s death was reviewed by a coroner who determined it was caused by an undiagnosed heart condition.

Gemma received a certified cause of death on 17 January – one month later – with the death then officially registered five days later.

The funeral is due to take place on Thursday.

Gemma said the delay in receiving a death certificate meant she was unable to visit her father in the chapel of rest – a room in which families can see their loved one at a funeral home.

Funeral directors are unable to embalm or treat the deceased in their care until a death is registered.

“I would have liked to see him, I would have liked the children to see him, but we can’t now, because they [the funeral director] said he will have changed so much, he won’t be recognisable,” she said.

“The children are heartbroken, they were really, really close to their grandad and so they feel like they haven’t said goodbye.

“They have written a goodbye letter that they are going to read at the funeral.”

The NHS is responsible for reviewing deaths in and out of hospitals. In line with the new regulations, this must be done for all deaths excluding those referred to the coroner.

Since the reforms, this process must be done before a death certificate can be issued, and the NHS aims to do that within three days, but this can vary depending on the complexity of the case.

A spokesperson for the NHS Derby and Derbyshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) said: “We would always wish to support families during what is clearly a distressing and difficult time and we strive to ensure the medical certificate of cause of death can be issued as quickly as possible.

“However, it can take longer when cases are complicated, or we have a high volume of deaths.

“The change in legislation is still very new, and we are continuing to improve our process by appointing more medical examiners and ensuring seamless handover of information to ensure our part of the death certification process happens in a timely manner.”

Funeral director Darlene Kinton, who is arranging the funeral for Mr Wyles, said: “It’s not a nice thing to have to say to someone, that their loved one’s deteriorated.

“We can’t stop that process happening and because that delay is there, we are having to have those difficult conversations.”

The company director at Kinton and Daughter Family Funeral Directors in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, said the new system has had a “massive impact” on funerals.

“It can be three or four weeks before we’ve got the death registered,” she said.

“That means that we can’t start our work, we can’t start looking after them, preparing them for families to come and see them.

“So then the knock-on effect is that families are not getting to spend time with their loved ones at a time when they need it.”

Guidance on the new legislation, set by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), says: “Medical examiners will offer a conversation about the cause of death with the deceased’s representative, which provides an opportunity for them to raise concerns.”

However, Gemma said she was not contacted and found herself “chasing answers”.

“The thing that was missing for me was that communication, clear expectations on timescales and processes would help families.

“I don’t think we need to leave grieving families this long not knowing why their loved one died.

“The delays have definitely compounded the grieving process and made it harder for me,” she said.

A DHSC spokesperson added: “Changes to the death certification process support vital improvements to patient safety and aim to provide comfort and clarity to the bereaved in the difficult moments following a death.

“We expect deaths to be processed as quickly and efficiently as possible and are closely monitoring the implementation of these reforms.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s coalition government has unveiled its first full-year budget after his party lost an outright majority in parliament last year.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced measures to counter slowing growth, rising prices and flagging consumption among the middle class in Asia’s third-largest economy.

After a period of world-beating growth of more than 8%, India is set for its slowest economic expansion in four years as stagnant wages and high food prices hit consumer spending and corporate profits.

Here are five key takeaways from India’s union budget:

In a major relief to millions of taxpayers, the government has raised income tax exemption limits, making earnings of up to 1.2m rupees ($13,841; £11,165) – excluding special rate income like capital gains – entirely tax free.

The finance minister has also announced tweaks to other income tax slabs which is likely to leave more money in the hands of the middle class.

The income tax concessions to the middle class “seems aimed at addressing the slump in urban consumption”, said Nomura’s India Economist Aurodeep Nandi.

The impact, however, could be limited since a tiny fraction of Indians pay direct taxes. In 2023, 1.6% of Indians (22.4 million people) actually paid income taxes, according to data presented in parliament.

The market cheered the announcements with stocks of automobiles, consumer goods and online grocery companies rallying.

State-funded capital expenditure on major road, port and railway projects has been a key driver of India’s growth engine since 2020.

Despite an unexpected contraction in actual spending in the first nine months of this year, the government has modestly increased its infrastructure expenditure target for this year from 11.1 trillion to 11.2 trillion rupees ($129.18bn; £104.21bn).

The government has also proposed offering interest-free loans to states to enable them to spend more on infrastructure development.

The budget has set a goal to generate 100GW of nuclear energy by 2047. As part of this plan, a Nuclear Energy Mission has been launched with a budget of 200bn rupees ($2.3bn, £1.86bn). The plan is to deploy five indigenous reactors by 2033 and amend laws, like the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, to realise goals and get more private sector participation in the sector.

Meanwhile, foreign direct investment limits for the insurance sector have been increased from 74% to 100%.

“This will aid foreign insurers’ interest in investing in the growing Indian insurance market, where we expect strong premium growth to boost profitability,” said Mohammed Ali Londe, Senior analyst at Moody’s Ratings.

In order to ease the climate for doing business, which has been a major concern among investors, a high-level committee has been announced to undertake regulatory reforms in the non-financial sectors and reduce the compliance burden on corporations. The panel will make recommendations within a year.

Small and micro industries, that account for 35% of India’s manufacturing and create millions of jobs, also got a boost through fiscal support of 1.5 trillion rupees ($17.31bn; £13.96bn) over the next five years.

The government has also raised production-linked subsidies and slashed import duties for local manufacturing units across sectors like textiles, mobile telephones and electronics. This could promote private investments, which have not picked up post the Covid-19 pandemic.

Even with slightly higher budget outlays for infrastructure creation, India has had to continue a delicate balancing act between pushing economic growth and keeping its spending in check.

The budget has reiterated a commitment to reducing the government’s deficit, which is the gap between what it earns and spends, to 4.4% by 2026 from 4.8% this year.

Global rating agencies closely watch these numbers, with lower debt figures leading to potentially better investment ratings in the future and a reduction in borrowing costs for the country.

India’s recent slowdown has made the growth versus fiscal prudence trade-off increasingly challenging.

A recent economic survey by the finance ministry expects GDP growth to slow to between 6.3-6.8% in the financial year ending March 2026, in line with the Reserve Bank of India’s forecasts.

With the budget out of the picture, the focus will now shift to the central bank’s monetary policy meeting later this month.

The RBI has maintained policy rates at 6.5% since February 2023, but is likely to begin easing the cost of borrowing as both growth and inflation have begun to come down.

Last week, the central bank announced plans to inject $18bn into the domestic banking system to ease a cash shortage, a move seen by many as a precursor to rate cuts.

Sri Lanka is set to relax a ban on some vehicle imports in a sign the country is returning to normal after a severe economic crisis that toppled a president.

From 1 February, imports of buses, trucks and utility vehicles will be allowed to resume, while restrictions on other vehicles are expected to be gradually lifted.

Many Sri Lankans are waiting for authorities to also drop an import ban on private cars, sport utility vehicles and three-wheeled trishaws – which are commonly used as taxis.

But with prices of vehicles forced up by a scarcity of new ones to buy, a weak currency and high taxes, some are asking who will be able to afford a new car.

In 2022, Sri Lanka faced a severe foreign currency shortage, which meant it was unable to meet its obligations to creditors for the first time in its history.

The island nation of 22 million people was thrown into turmoil as it faced crippling shortages of fuel, food and medicines.

Massive anti-government protests toppled then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa just months later.

Colombo negotiated a $2.9bn (£2.3bn) bailout from the International Monetary Fund, while Rajapaksa’s successor introduced austerity measures including hiking taxes and ending energy subsidies.

The country’s finances have since improved and the economy is gradually returning from the brink.

The announcement to lift the import ban on vehicles has triggered a buzz among Sri Lankans who have been waiting for years to buy a new car or a van.

Murtaza Jafeerjee, chair of Advocata, an economic think tank based in Colombo, told the BBC he thought the move was long overdue.

“The vehicle imports will not only increase the government’s revenue but will also trigger other economic activities like car financing, dealer revenue, car servicing and other related activities, creating jobs,” he said.

But Nalinda Jayatissa, the country’s information minister told a media briefing on Tuesday that the country was “moving very cautiously because we don’t want a surge of imports that will deplete our foreign reserves”.

The country, which doesn’t have any major factories producing cars and trucks, imports almost all its vehicles, many of them from countries like Japan and India. Now there’s a also lot of interest in Chinese cars, particularly electric vehicles.

Prices of used cars in Sri Lanka have soared, with some models now costing two or three times as much as they did before the ban.

The restrictions have been particularly difficult for people like Gayan Indika, who provides vehicles for weddings and is a part-time cab driver.

“I want to buy a new car so that I can do my work and resume my private cab rental. Without a car, without mobility, I am losing a lot of my revenue,” he said.

In a country with poor public transport, a car can be vital, Sasikumar, a software professional from the central city of Kandy explained.

“As we don’t have a good public transport system, a car is essential to travel to other parts of the country. Either the government should lift the ban on cars or improve the public transport.”

Sri Lanka imported about $1.4bn worth of vehicles in the year before the ban was imposed. This year the central bank says it’s planning to allocate up to a billion dollars for vehicle imports, but said the money will be released gradually.

Arosha Rodrigo, from the Vehicle Importers Association of Sri Lanka, and his family have been running a car dealership for more than four decades.

The firm was importing about 100 vehicles a month before the ban. Since the restrictions came into force they have not been unable to import a single vehicle.

He points out that even if the ban is relaxed further, to allow passenger cars and other vehicles to be imported, many people won’t be able to afford them because of increased taxes and Sri Lanka’s weak currency.

The government has sharply raised excise duties on imported vehicles, both new and second hand, to 200% and 300% depending on engine size.

On top of excise duty, there is also 18% Value Added Tax (VAT) for any vehicle brought from abroad.

The price of imported vehicles will also be impacted by the weakness of the Sri Lankan rupee against major world currencies like the US dollar.

Those soaring costs are putting off people like school teacher R Yasodha.

“We have been waiting to purchase a vehicle for a long time. But if we calculate the tax and the price, the cost of an average sized car has doubled from 2.5 million rupees ($8,450; £6,800) to five million rupees,” she told the BBC.

“It would cost a fortune for us.”

Pilot Mike Slack was in the cockpit during a descent into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport nearly two decades ago when he noticed something on the runway.

Mr Slack, a licensed pilot and now aviation attorney, was sitting in the right pilot seat as his plane prepared to land on Runway 33 – the same runway the doomed American Airlines flight approached when it collided mid-air with a helicopter this week.

A departing Cessna Citation plane was pulling onto the runway to take off. His aircraft quickly aborted the landing, climbed back into the sky and began circling the airport to try again – a flight manoeuvre called a sudden go-around.

“That was one of those moments you go, ‘Man that was close and that was tight,'” he told the BBC.

While near-misses at the airport and across the country are far from the norm, and fatal collisions are even rarer, Wednesday’s crash, in which 67 people died, has renewed calls to re-evaluate safety protocols and shone a spotlight on air traffic at Reagan National airport.

“When something like this happens, typically it’s something that’s slipped past many safeguards,” said retired air-traffic controller Ron Bazman, whose son, wife and brother have also all worked as controllers. “Rarely is it a smoking gun.”

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The cause of the collision is still being determined, but media and the White House have zeroed in on actions taken by the helicopter and on air traffic control staffing on the night of the crash as they speculate on what went wrong. It is the worst mid-air collision in America since the 1980s.

MIT aeronautics professor R. John Hansman said that it’s important to take stock of safety concerns, but also to recognise that the American aviation system is one of the safest in the world.

“This was terrible,” he said, noting there hasn’t been a major commercial plane crash since 2009. “But it isn’t like the system is falling apart.”

Since his comments, a small medical transport plane crashed into buildings in Philadelphia on Friday evening, just two days after the Washington crash. The jet was carrying four crew members, a child patient and the patient’s escort, Jet Rescue Air Ambulance said in a statement.

The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating the crash. In a statement, President Donald Trump said: “So sad to see the plane go down in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More innocent souls lost.”

An American Airlines flight that had departed from Wichita, Kansas, was coming in for a landing when it collided with a Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk helicopter on Wednesday evening. The army helicopter had taken off from Fort Belvoir, close by in Virginia, on a training mission.

Recordings of air traffic control conversations published online suggest that a controller warned the helicopter about the jet in the seconds before the collision. The helicopter pilot appeared to confirm they were aware of the plane, but moments later the two aircraft collided.

Located in Virginia at the heart of the capital area, the airport has become exceptionally popular with travellers, but it faces numerous logistical challenges, such as congestion in the air space and shorter runways.

With nearly 400 flights daily and around 22,000 commercial flights per year, it provides direct service to 98 destinations in the US and Canada and is a feeder airport to international hubs in areas like Philadelphia, Charlotte, Atlanta and New York.

Several pilots the BBC spoke with said that flying in and out of the small airport on the edge of the US capital can be a nail-biting experience.

“There are times when we are watching planes land and we find ourselves saying ‘whoa that is close’,” said pilot Mo Khimji, noting that strong crosswinds can push a plane into restricted airspace “by a whisker” if the pilot is not careful.

Multiple types of aircraft share the airspace, from Air Force One carrying the president to commercial flights and military helicopters. And at night, city lights reflect off the Potomac River, making visibility and spotting other aircraft even tougher.

It is also smaller than other airports, such as nearby Dulles International Airport, with Mr Slack calling it a postage stamp.

“It’s a challenging arrival, challenging approach. You’ve got traffic all around you – above, below and to each side,” he said.

Mr Slack’s experience of a near-miss is not an isolated incident. Just 24 hours before the deadly collision, a military helicopter came too close to a different regional jet, which then performed a sudden go-around, according to a list of incidents and accidents from the FAA.

After several national incidents in 2023, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a safety review warning that “one close call is one too many”.

The review raised alarms.

“Inadequate, inconsistent funding”, as well as staffing shortages, had led to an “erosion” of safety standards that made “the current level of safety unsustainable”, it found.

Chronic air traffic control staffing shortages impact the FAA’s ability to maintain safety standards, the 2023 safety review found.

Last year, the agency barely exceeded its hiring target of 1,800 controllers – by 11. But the 2023 review found those very targets were insufficient to “adequately satisfy system needs”.

Prof Hansman said staffing issues have been a “perpetual” concern, as waves of employees have retired. Mr Bazman, the retired air traffic controller, said Covid made a lot of staffing issues worse.

“It’s a domino effect, it really is,” he said.

Training for the highly specialised job of safely guiding aircraft, often full of people, into the air and onto the ground can take as long as three years.

When staff is short, available workers are put into the most critical positions and some roles go unfilled.

Prof Hansman cautioned against blaming the controller shortage for the recent collision, saying: “There is no indication that there was a controller incompetency issue.”

With the budget for the FAA determined by Congress – and the leader of the FAA appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate – the organisation can sometimes fall prey to the ups and downs of Capitol Hill, the safety review found.

The chronic controller shortage was made worse when a 35-day US government shutdown that started in 2018 put a pause on hiring.

Political pressure has also impacted Reagan, specifically.

Last year, US lawmakers tried to add landing spots there through the FAA’s budget reauthorisation just two weeks after a near-miss at the airport – a move Virginia Senator Tim Kaine opposed.

“We should not be jamming more flights onto the busiest runway in the United States,” Kaine told fellow lawmakers.

Then, there is the steady rotation of people at the top, in the role of FAA administrator. In three years, the agency has had just as many administrators.

When the American Airlines jet and helicopter collided on Wednesday, there was, in fact, no FAA administrator.

The Biden-appointee Michael Whitaker had resigned in December, just one year into his five-year term. Media reported the early departure was spurred by an adviser to President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, who had called for Whitaker’s resignation after the FAA proposed fining his rocket company SpaceX $600,000 for alleged launch violations.

While Trump has named an acting administrator in the wake of the crash, the permanent administrator will need to go through a congressional approval process.

Prof Hansman said the rotating door of administrators makes it harder to make substantive changes or improvements.

“It keeps keeping on, it keeps operating the way it has,” he said.

But after Wednesday’s crash, change should be expected, Todd Inman, of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), told media Friday evening.

“Our job is to find the facts. More importantly, our job is the make sure this tragedy doesn’t happen again – regardless of what anyone may be saying,” he said.

“We will be advocating for years for changes that need to be made.”

It is rare that a video game series becomes so popular it inspires copycats – but it is rarer still that it’s so unique it kicks off its own genre.

But that’s what happened with Dynasty Warriors, a series which pioneered the so-called “1 vs 1,000” gameplay, in which the player defeats thousands of enemies in each level.

Throughout years of development – the series has been going since 1997 on the original PlayStation – hardware limitations meant at its best only a few hundred enemies could appear on-screen at any one time.

But all that is now changing, with the power of modern consoles enabling as many as 10,000 opponents on-screen at once.

In other words, the “1 vs 1,000” moniker is finally coming true.

And with that new power comes a new game – after seven years in the wilderness, publisher Koei Tecmo is back with Dynasty Warriors: Origins.

Throughout this period the series has faced a problem – despite selling 21 million copies throughout its history – Dynasty Warriors has always sold significantly better in Japan than in the West.

“It’s something that we’ve been trying to get a lot of people overseas to play,” the head of developer Omega Force, Tomohiko Sho, told the BBC.

But times may be changing, as the release of Dynasty Warriors: Origins in January 2025 has seen encouraging sales.

In the UK, it broke the top 10 of the retail sales charts, while online it was the top-selling game on PC retailer Steam – with just under 70,000 people playing the game at the same time on launch.

There have been nine numbered entries in the series since it began in 1997, culminating in 2018’s Dynasty Warriors 9 on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

But advances in hardware mean Mr Sho believes now is the time for a sequel.

Though he did not call it a reboot, the team has ditched the numbered titles and simply called the game Dynasty Warriors: Origins – perhaps signalling that the studio believes this is a turning point for the franchise.

It released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC in January 2025, becoming the first mainline entry in the series in seven years.

Mr Sho told the BBC the team had been working on a sequel – which would have been called Dynasty Warriors 10 – but he felt it was simply too similar to previous games, which fans were “starting to get a bit bored of”.

Instead, the long-awaited game was scrapped in order to take advantage of the new hardware.

The reason Dynasty Warriors: Origins seeks to break away from what came before is simple, Mr Sho said – it was a result of fan reaction to the last mainline game released in the series, 2018’s Dynasty Warriors 9.

“Either you really liked it, or you didn’t,” he said.

The unreleased sequel was too similar to what came before, he said, but by the time development was in full swing, a change in the games industry ultimately halted production.

Within two days of each other in November 2020, Sony released the PlayStation 5 and Microsoft launched the Xbox Series X – consoles so powerful Mr Sho ceased development to focus on the new hardware.

“The current technology allows us to have many troops and army officers on the screen,” he said.

“This is something I’ve been wanting to do since Dynasty Warriors 2 and 3.”

Those two games, which released on PlayStation 2 back in 2000 and 2001, could at most manage twenty or thirty enemies on-screen at once.

The new hardware can manage a lot more – with PlayStation 5 Pro owners seeing an even bigger leap in performance.

“We’re able to have many troops on-screen – not just thousands, but tens of thousands,” Mr Sho said.

“With the current generation of consoles, we’re able to do that.”

But all that power comes with a cost – no multiplayer, which has been a staple of the series since its PlayStation 2 days.

“I am very aware that it is seen as an iconic part of the series,” he said.

He felt multiplayer would result in a “performance loss”, meaning fewer enemies on screen, so he decided against including it.

But he said that may change if the game were given a sequel.

“If everyone really enjoys the game, then for the next game in the series, we will definitely have multiplayer,” he said.

In the interim years between the release of Dynasty Warriors 9 and Dynasty Warriors: Origins, the team has focussed on other things – namely spin-offs.

These are versions of the game, within the 1 vs 1,000 genre, outside of the main series that typically feature different characters – much like how the film franchise Puss in Boots was a spin-off of Shrek.

The company has found success in this area with games featuring characters from series such as Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda and Sega’s Persona 5.

Mr Sho said Dynasty Warriors: Origins was a shift in direction as it focused on performance – while spin-offs were about being true to the franchises involved.

“When the teams were approaching development, they weren’t thinking about the hardware,” he said.

“But more, with Hyrule Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors being on the Switch, how would we be able to do that best as a Warriors game?”

He said Dynasty Warriors’ future was about “getting the most” out of current consoles – perhaps with even more enemies on screen.

Though he laughed off the suggestion that perhaps the studio should consider collaborating on the ultimate “spin-off” – a Sonic the Hedgehog game.

“I also actually like Sonic, just to let you know,” he said.

And Mr Sho said if he could make any Dynasty Warriors spin-off, there are two series he’s huge fans of – Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.

“If there is a chance, I’d definitely love to take on the challenge,” he said.

The Grammy Awards has a dedicated space for African music, but just a year after the category’s introduction it is already proving contentious.

The Best African Music Performance made its debut with South Africa’s Tyla winning for her hit song Water, a blend of South African amapiano and Afropop.

It was a move welcomed across the industry, especially by African artists.

But the nominations for this year’s award have raised eyebrows, especially with the inclusion of US R&B star Chris Brown.

The 35-year-old has been nominated for his chart-topping single Sensational, which incorporates Afrobeats elements and features guest vocals from Nigerian artists Davido and Lojay.

However, the participation of an American artist in an African music category has sparked some debate.

Should non-African artists be considered in a category meant to showcase African talent?

“Music is about inclusivity. We don’t want to fence people out of genres,” Grammy CEO Harvey Mason Jr tells the BBC.

“If we start deciding who can or can’t make a certain type of music, we lose the essence of creativity.”

The head of the Grammys explains that such cross-fertilisation is expected.

“We’ve seen it with Latin before, we’ve seen it with K-Pop and now you’re starting to see it with Afrobeats and amapiano,” he says.

“We like to honour all music [regardless of] where it comes from or who makes it. If it’s excellent we want to celebrate it.”

Another bone of contention this year is the dominance of Afrobeats, which has its roots in Nigeria and Ghana.

There is a feeling that the Grammys remain too focused on it, to the exclusion of other African music genres, despite calls for inclusivity.

Nigerian music journalist Ayomide Tayo says he understands why Afrobeats is dominating this year’s awards.

“I don’t think Afrobeats is better,” he tells the BBC.

“It’s just that Afrobeats has had over three decades of exposure. We consistently pushed great music, superstars and events that have attracted the world to it,” Lagos-based Tayo explains.

Nigerians living abroad have also played a crucial role in the popularisation of Afrobeats.

“The Nigerian diaspora in England and North America is one of the key factors why Afrobeats exploded in Europe and the US,” Tayo says.

While other Africa-based music business professionals see a bright future for other African music genres, saying this year could be a one-off.

For example, amapiano, a genre that in 2023 surpassed 1.4 billion streams on the music app Spotify.

Raphael Benza, head of Johannesburg-based record label Vth Season, says the very name Best African Performance goes against pigeonholing.

“Coming from the home of amapiano, I would say [musicians] are doing extremely good work and I think next year you’ll see amapiano artists being nominated in this category,” he tells the BBC.

The Best African Music Performance category was introduced as a way to honour Africa’s increasing influence on global music.

When Tyla won, she beat Nigerian heavyweights like Davido and Burna Boy, establishing her place on the international stage.

Since then, the 22-year-old has been spotted at the Met Gala in New York and has been featured in top fashion magazines, proving that the Grammys effect is real.

This year’s nominees, however, have shifted almost entirely to Nigerian artists, with Yemi Alade, Burna Boy, Tems and a joint nomination for Asake & Wizkid, as well as Davido and Lojay featuring on Chris Brown’s hit.

“To be fair to Chris Brown, he has been invested in Afrobeats and African music for a long time,” says Tayo, explaining that the US musician flew to Nigeria to collaborate with Davido and Wizkid.

“We have an inside joke in Nigeria that we say Chris Brown is Nigerian, because of the ways he pops up in our songs and our music videos all the time.”

Last month, he also held two massive sell-out concerts at a 90,000-seater stadium in Johannesburg – with people travelling from across southern Africa to see his performance, which fans said was electrifying.

African musicians have won Grammys long before the Best African Music Performance Award was established.

South Africa’s Mariam Makeba was the first to win one – Best Folk Recording – in 1966 for her collaboration with Harry Belafonte, called simply An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba.

African artists became more of a feature after 1992, with the introduction of the Best World Music Album.

That category has gone through various guises over the years – including being split into traditional and contemporary world music awards – and is now known as Best Global Music Album.

Multi-award winners include Angélique Kidjo, Youssou N’Dour, Ali Farka Touré and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

But African musicians have often broken out of that category for example, South Africa’s Black Coffee won Best Dance/Electronic Album in 2022.

The hope is that to counter the dominance of Afrobeats, more categories from Africa will be offered at the Grammys in years to come.

This would cover the ever-growing popularity of African music globally – and better reflect the huge number of music styles produced in Africa.

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Canada has announced retaliatory tariffs against the US, in a move that marks the beginning of a trade war between the neighbouring countries.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau set out “far-reaching” tariffs of 25%, affecting 155bn Canadian dollars’ worth ($106.6bn; £86bn) of American goods ranging from beer and wine, to household appliances and sporting goods.

The move matches US President Donald Trump 25% levy on Canadian and Mexican imports to the US – and an additional 10% on China – over his concerns about illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

Trudeau said he would “not back down in standing up for Canadians”, but warned of real consequences for people on both sides of the border.

“We don’t want to be here, we didn’t ask for this,” he said at a news conference late on Saturday.

The Canadian prime minister added that tariffs on 30bn-worth US goods would come into force on Tuesday and another 125bn in 21 days to give Canadian firms time to adjust.

Trudeau’s response targets items including American beer, wine, bourbon, fruits and fruit juices, vegetables, perfumes, clothing and shoes, as well as household appliances, sporting goods and furniture.

Lumber and plastics will also face levies and non-tariff measures are also being considered are related to critical minerals and procurement.

Economists have warned the introduction of the import taxes by the US, and the response from Canada, as well as Mexico and China, could lead to prices rising on a wide range of products for consumers.

A tariff is a domestic tax levied on goods as they enter a country, proportional to the value of the import.

The prospect of higher tariffs being introduced on imports to the US has been concerning many world leaders because it will make it more expensive for companies to sell goods in the world’s largest economy.

Christopher Sands, director of the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute, told the BBC that tit-for-tat tariffs between the US and Canada were “mutually assured destruction” and they would impact people’s lives very quickly.

He said there would be no adjustment time as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had recently proposed: “Just a massive hit that’s going to make a lot of people’s lives a lot tougher, very quickly.”

But the taxes are a central part of Trump’s economic vision. He sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue – and in this case, pushing for policy action.

Canada, Mexico and the US have deeply integrated economies, with an estimated $2bn (£1.6bn) worth of manufactured goods crossing the borders daily.

Canada is America’s largest foreign supplier of crude oil. According to the most recent official trade figures, 61% of oil imported into the US between January and November last year came from Canada.

While 25% has been slapped on Canadian goods imported to the US, its energy faces a lower 10% tariff.

The White House said on Saturday the implementation of tariffs was “necessary to hold China, Mexico, and Canada accountable for their promises to halt the flood of poisonous drugs into the United States”.

But Trudeau pushed back on the suggestion the shared border posed a security concern, saying less than 1% of fentanyl going into the US comes from Canada.

He added less than 1% of illegal migrants entered the US through the border and that tariffs were “not the best way we can actually work together to save lives”

Trump has indicated he is ready to escalate the duties further if the countries retaliate to his tariffs, as Canada has done.

Prior to the tariffs announcement, Canada has pledged more than $1bn to boost security at its shared border with the US.

Trudeau said on Saturday had not spoken to Trump since he had taken office.

Mark Carney, the former head of Canada’s and England’s central banks, told BBC Newsnight on Friday that the tariffs would hit economic growth and drive up inflation.

“They’re going to damage the US’s reputation around the world,” said Carney, who is also in the running to replace Trudeau as leader of Canada’s Liberal Party.

A woman has died in Australia and thousands have been forced to flee their homes after torrential rainfall caused flooding in northern Queensland.

Authorities say waters will continue to rise and have warned of a “dangerous and life-threatening” situation.

More than 1,000mm (39in) of rain has fallen on parts of north-east Queensland since Friday with “record rainfalls” set to continue into Monday, according to Queensland State Premier David Crisafulli.

Meteorologists say these could be the worst floods in the region in more than 60 years.

Crisafulli said conditions were unlike anything northern Queensland had experienced “for a long time”.

“It’s not just the intensity, but it’s also the longevity of it,” he told Australian broadcaster ABC.

The woman who died was onboard a State Emergency Service (SES) dinghy which hit a tree and capsized in the town of Ingham, in north-west Queensland.

It is understood she was a member of the public who was being rescued at the time, and was not an emergency worker. The other five people on board were able to get to safety. An investigation has been launched.

Meanwhile, three people were rescued from the roof of a house in Cardwell, about halfway between Cairns and Townsville.

Video has emerged showing a man clinging to a pole in Ingham after his vehicle was washed away – and being taken to safety by locals in a boat.

The Townsville Local Disaster Management Group says that 1,700 homes in the city may be inundated – some up to the second floor – as river levels rise.

Thousands of people across six Townsville suburbs were told to leave their homes by midday on Sunday, but officials say about 10% of residents had opted to stay.

The same areas were severely hit during 2019 flooding.

Premier Crisafulli urged people to heed the warnings, saying: “In the end, houses and cars and furniture, that can all be replaced. Your family can’t”.

Andrew Cox was among those who heeded the advice to leave. He told the BBC that police had visited his partner’s home on Saturday evening advising they may have to evacuate and had returned early on Sunday to reiterate the message.

“Some of the neighbours said they’d been here during floods in 2019 and that it would be fine, but we didn’t want to take a chance, so we packed up,” he said.

On Sunday night local time a new evacuation centre was being opened – as others reached capacity.

Parts of the road between Townsville and the tourist centre of Cairns have been cut off, hampering efforts to get rescue teams and sandbags to the worst-hit areas.

Meanwhile Townsville airport is closed until Monday morning, supermarkets have run out of fresh food, and thousands of homes are without power, including in Ingham and the Indigenous community of Palm Island.

And there is a warning for locals to watch for crocodiles lurking in floodwaters away from their usual habitats.

Sitting in the tropics, north Queensland is prone to destructive cyclones, storms and flooding.

But climate scientists say that warmer oceans and a hotter planet create the conditions for more intense and frequent extreme rainfall events.

Justin Baldoni has published a website amid a battle over allegations of what happened on the set of his and Blake Lively’s film, It Ends With Us.

The website contains Baldoni’s amended complaint and a timeline of events related to the case.

The two stars played a couple in the hit film, which came out last year, but have since become embroiled in an increasingly bitter legal dispute.

Lively, 37, sued Baldoni, 41, in December, accusing him of sexual harassment and a smear campaign. Baldoni is counter-suing Lively and her husband, the actor Ryan Reynolds, on claims of civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy.

Baldoni is also suing the New York Times for libel. Both parties strongly deny the claims.

A trial date has been set for the hearing of the claims between the stars.

• Lively and Baldoni file new lawsuits in harassment row
• Hollywood stars support Lively over legal complaint
• Lively accuses co-star Baldoni of smear campaign

The website was published on Saturday, and is called Lawsuit Info.

It contains two legal documents related to the case: Baldoni’s latest court filings against Lively and Reynolds, and a 168-page document entitled “timeline of relevant events” related to the dispute and the production of the film.

The latter includes alleged text message exchanges between him and Lively.

It comes after Baldoni amended his lawsuit, accusing Lively of giving the New York Times advance access to her civil rights complaint.

Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, told BBC News that Baldoni amended his lawsuit due “to the overwhelming amount of new proof that has come to light”.

“This fresh evidence corroborates what we knew all along, that due to purely egotistical reasons Ms Lively and her entire team colluded for months to destroy reputations through a complex web of lies, false accusations and the manipulation of illicitly received communications,” Freedman continued.

A New York Times spokesperson told BBC News that Baldoni’s legal filings were “rife with inaccuracies” about the newspaper, “including, for example, the bogus claim that The Times had early access to Ms Lively’s state civil rights complaint”.

They added that Baldoni’s lawyers were “[basing] their erroneous claim on postings by amateur internet sleuths, who, not surprisingly, are wrong”.

BBC News has reached out to Lively’s representatives for comment.

Last month, Baldoni released out-takes from a romantic scene in It Ends With Us, which he says is evidence that Lively’s allegations of sexual harassment are unfounded.

However, she responded by saying the footage of the pair filming a slow dance is “damning” and corroborates her claims.

It Ends With Us was released last summer, and became a TikTok sensation.

The film is based on a best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover. In it, Lively plays a woman who finds herself in a relationship with a charming but abusive boyfriend, played by Baldoni.

The 45-year-old author has said her inspiration was the domestic abuse endured by her mother.

Donald Trump’s talk of applying new tariffs to goods from America’s biggest trade partners has sparked months of uncertainty for business owners.

On Saturday, the president made good on his threats, ordering a new 25% tax on shipments from Mexico and Canada and raising existing tariffs on goods from China by 10%.

But that has not stopped the questions.

“Is it for a day, is it a political flex or is it something that will last for four years?” asked Nicolas Palazzi, the founder of Brooklyn-based PM Spirits. He runs a 21-person business that imports and sells wine and spirits, about 20% of which come from Mexico.

Trump’s orders set in motion threats that the president has discussed for months, striking at shipments from America’s top three trade partners, which together account for more than 40% of the roughly $3tn goods the US imports each year.

Canadian oil and other “energy resources” will face a lower 10% rate. But otherwise, there will be no exceptions, the White House said.

Trump said the tariffs were intended to hold Canada and Mexico accountable for promises to address illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

The measures go into effect on 4 February and are to remain in place “until the crisis is alleviated,” according to the orders.

If the plans were not a surprise, they still presented a potentially stunning blow to many businesses, especially for those in North America. The three countries have become tightly linked economically after decades of free trade under a treaty signed in the 1990s, known then as Nafta and updated and renamed under the Trump administration to USMCA.

The growth of mezcal in the US, brought in by businesses like Palazzi’s, has been part of this shift.

Since 2003, consumption of tequila and mezcal has roughly tripled, increasing at a rate of more than 7% each year, according to Distilled Spirits Council, a trade group.

Overall since the 1990s, trade in spirits between the US and Mexico has surged by more than 4,000% percent, said the organisation, which issued a statement after the president’s announcement warning that the tariffs would “significantly harm all three countries”.

For months, Palazzi has been fielding nervous questions from his suppliers in Mexico, who are typically small, family owned businesses and may not survive if the tariffs are prolonged.

If it sticks, he said the 25% tax on the bottles of mezcal, tequila and rum he brings in will push up prices – and sales will drop.

“Definitely this is going to impact the business negatively. But can you really plan? No,” he said. “Our strategy is roll-with-the-punches, wait and see and adapt to whatever craziness is going to unfold.”

Economists say the hit from the tariffs could push the economies of Mexico and Canada into recession.

Ahead of the announcement, Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, described the looming tariffs from the US, and expected retaliation, as “existential” for many of his members.

“Look, we get that the government has got to respond in some fashion …. But at the same time we urge the government to use caution,” he said, comparing tariffs on imports to chemotherapy: “It poisons your own people in order to try and fight the disease.”

“It’s going to have an effect everywhere,” said Sophie Avernin, director of De Grandes Viñedos de Francia in Mexico, noting that many Americans own Mexican alcohol brands and Modelo beer is actually owned by a Belgian company.

Trump, who has embraced tariffs as a tool to address issues far removed from trade, has dismissed concerns about any collateral damage to the economy in the US.

But analysts have warned the measures will weigh on growth, raise prices and cost the economy jobs – roughly 286,000, according to estimates by the Tax Foundation, not including retaliation.

Those in the alcohol business said the industry had already been struggling to emerge from the shadow of the pandemic and its after-shocks, including inflation, which has prompted many Americans to cut back on dining out and drinking.

Smaller firms, who typically have less financial cushion and ability to swallow a sudden 25% jump in cost, will bear the brunt of the disruption.

“I’m pretty frustrated,” said California-based importer Ben Scott, whose nine-person business Pueblo de Sabor brings in brands from Mexico such as Mal Bien and Lalocura.

“There’s just a huge cost that’s going to affect so many people in ways other than they’re paying a couple bucks more for a cocktail, which doesn’t sound like a tragedy.”

Fred Sanchez has spent years pushing to expand his business, Bad Hombre Importing, a small California-based importer and distributor of Mexican agave-based spirits like Agua del Sol, and was recently working on deals in New York and Illinois.

But his potential partners started hesitating as Trump’s tariff talk ramped up last year.

Now, instead of expanding, he is contemplating selling off his stock of liquor and possibly shutting down. He said he had little capacity to absorb the jump in costs and saw little scope for raising prices in the current economy.

“25% is just not something that we can realistically pass onto the consumer,” he said.

Sanchez said he believed that Trump might be using tariffs as a negotiating tactic, and the tax could be short-lived. Still, for his business, damage is already done.

Canada, Mexico and China have vowed to respond to sweeping new tariffs to their exports to the US announced by President Donald Trump.

Trump said a levy of 25% on Canadian and Mexican imports as well as an additional 10% tax on Chinese goods would come into force on Tuesday. Canadian energy faces a lower 10% tariff.

The US president said the move was in response to his concerns about illegal immigration and drug trafficking – two of the main promises on which he was elected.

In response, both Canada and Mexico said they were preparing similar tariffs on US goods, while China added it would take “necessary countermeasures to defend its legitimate rights and interests”.

The implementation of tariffs and the subsequent retaliation could mark the start of a new era of global trade wars.

Economists have warned the introduction of the import taxes by the US, and the responses from other countries, could lead to prices rising on a wide range of products, from cars, lumber, and steel to food and alcohol.

• China, Mexico and Canada to retaliate in kind – follow reaction

Consumers in all countries could see an increase in the cost of living if businesses decide to pass on higher costs to customers, with US industry groups already raising the alarm.

But Trump has indicated he is ready to escalate the duties further if the countries retaliate.

“Today’s tariff announcement is necessary to hold China, Mexico, and Canada accountable for their promises to halt the flood of poisonous drugs into the United States,” the White House said in a statement on X on Saturday.

Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “This was done through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) because of the major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs killing our Citizens, including fentanyl.”

• How countries respond to Trump’s tariffs is what matters next
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• Canada hits back, warning people will suffer
• China ready for new US tariffs

A tariff is a domestic tax levied on goods as they enter the country, proportional to the value of the import. They are a central part of Trump’s economic vision.

He sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue – and in this case, pushing for policy action.

Together, China, Mexico and Canada accounted for more than 40% of imports into the US last year.

Canada, Mexico and the US have deeply integrated economies, with an estimated $2bn (£1.6bn) worth of manufactured goods crossing the borders daily.

In its announcement, the White House accused Mexico’s government of having “an intolerable alliance” with Mexican drug trafficking organisations.

In her response, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called allegations that the Mexican government had alliances with criminal organisations “slander”.

Sheinbaum called on the US to do more to clamp down on the illegal flow of guns south to arm the cartels.

Her country is willing to work with the US, she said. “Problems are not resolved by imposing tariffs, but by talking.”

She instructed her economy minister to respond with tariff and non-tariff measures, which are expected to include retaliatory tariffs of 25% on US goods into Mexico.

Canada has already announced retaliatory tariffs against the US, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau matching the 25% imposed on his country.

He set out “far-reaching” tariffs would affect 155bn Canadian dollars’ worth ($106.6bn; £86bn) of American goods ranging from beer and wine, to household appliances and sporting goods.

Non-tariff measures being considered are related to critical minerals and procurement, although Trudeau did not offer more detail.

“We don’t want to be here, we didn’t ask for this,” he said. “But we will not back down in standing up for Canadians.”

The Canadian prime minister pushed back on the suggestion the shared border posed a security concern, saying less than 1% of fentanyl going into the US comes from Canada. He also added less than 1% of illegal migrants entered the US through the border.

Canada is America’s largest foreign supplier of crude oil. According to the most recent official trade figures, 61% of oil imported into the US between January and November last year came from Canada.

China said it “firmly opposes” the tariffs, but has not yet announced any retaliatory measures. The 10% tax on its imports to the US will be added over and above tariffs already imposed on China by Trump in his first term and by President Joe Biden.

“Trade and tariff wars have no winners,” said a spokesperson at China’s Washington embassy.

Trump has acknowledged there could be “some temporary, short-term disruption” a as a result of tariffs.

The car manufacturing sector could be especially hard hit. Parts cross the US, Canadian and Mexican borders multiple times before a final vehicle is assembled.

TD Economics suggested the import taxes could push up the average US car price by around $3,000, while the National Homebuilders Association said housing costs could increase.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce said the levies would have “immediate and direct consequences on Canadian and American livelihoods” and will “drastically increase the cost of everything for everyone”.

The Farmers for Free Trade said with many US farmers already struggling, “adding tariffs to the mix would only exacerbate the situation across much of rural America”.

But the US Retail Industry Leaders Association, which includes big names such as Home Depot, Target and Walgreens among its more than 200 members, expressed hope tariffs could still be averted.

The White House, explaining on Saturday why it was targeting its top trading partners, said Mexican cartels were responsible for trafficking fentanyl, methamphetamine and other drugs.

It said tariffs on Canada would remain until it “co-operates with the US against drug traffickers and on border security”.

Lastly, it said “China plays the central role in the fentanyl crisis” with exports of the lethal synthetic painkiller.

Both the northern and southern US borders have reported drug seizures, though amounts at the border with Canada are considerably lower than those with Mexico, according to official data.

US border agents seized 43lbs (19.5kg) of fentanyl at the northern border between October 2023 and last September, compared to more than 21,000lbs (9,525.4kg) at the southern border.

Still, recent reports from Canadian intelligence agencies suggest a growing number of transnational organised crime groups are manufacturing drugs in Canada.

Ashley Davis, a Republican lobbyist for businesses, who represents major US companies, including Walmart and Boeing, and has been involved in discussions about tariffs, told the BBC’s World Business Report she thought Trump would pull back on the tariffs in North America if he could point to progress on the issues he has raised as complaints – especially immigration.

“You have to remember – the border and China are the two biggest issues that Americans voted him on in the elections in November. Anything he can do to claim wins on that, I think he’s going to do,” she said.

Donald Trump says he ordered military air strikes on a senior attack planner and others from the Islamic State (IS) group in Somalia.

“These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies,” Trump posted on social media.

“The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians.”

In a post on X, the office of the president of Somalia said they had been informed of the US strike targeting senior IS leadership in the northern part of the country.

The BBC could not independently verify reports of casualties.

Trump did not name any of the people targeted in strikes.

The president ended the post with: “The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that “WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!”

In a post on X, the office of Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said he “acknowledges the unwavering support of the United States in the fight against international terrorism and welcomes the continued commitment under the decisive leadership of President Donald Trump”.

The post also said the latest operation “reinforces the strong security partnership between Somalia and the United States in combating extremist threats”.

In a statement, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said “our initial assessment is that multiple operatives were killed in the airstrikes and no civilians were harmed”.

Hegseth said the strikes “further degrade” the ability of IS “to plot and conduct terrorist attacks” and “sends a clear signal that the United States always stands ready to find and eliminate terrorists”.

He said the strikes were carried out in the Golis mountains, in north-east Somalia.

The government of Puntland, a region of north-east Somalia, thanked “international friends” who participated in the airstrikes that “killed high-ranking members” of IS.

IS rose to international prominence in the 2010s, particularly in Syria and Iraq, but now its presence is mainly restricted to parts of Africa.

The Somali branch of IS was formed in 2015 by a group of defectors from the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Shabab group – the largest jihadist group in Somalia.

IS in Somalia is notorious for extorting locals and mainly carries out small-scale, sporadic attacks, according to the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Trump in his statement on Saturday also took a swipe at the former administration, stating the US military had targeted this particular IS planner for years, but accused Joe Biden “and his cronies” of not acting quickly enough “to get the job done. I did!”

US forces killed IS leader, Bilal al-Sudani, and 10 of his operatives in a remote mountainous cave in northern Somalia in 2023, in an operation ordered by Biden.

One of the last actions Trump took when he left the White House in 2020 was to pull hundreds of US troops out of Somalia. He has now ordered the first attacks on the nation less than two weeks after his return.

Trump maintains he does not want the US involved in other countries’ conflicts, while Biden had wanted to wind down America’s involvement in post 9/11 conflicts.

But Somalia is seen differently by Washington. The US has invested massively in the country for decades, to contain the threat posed by al-Shabab.

Trump ordered strikes in his first term, despite pulling troops out in the eleventh hour of his presidency. Biden reversed that decision when he took over in 2021 in order to keep a continuous US presence. So far in his second term, Trump has kept troops there.

But it is likely he may eventually take a different approach, not just on Somalia but the African continent as a whole. His former defence secretary, Mark Esper, said in his memoir that Trump “didn’t see much value” in having any Americans – military personnel or diplomats – anywhere on the continent.

This may be more so the case with Somalia where al-Shabab are seemingly growing more resilient, and the US may decide it is not worth it.

Trump 1.0 saw him de-prioritising US outreach to Africa – he hosted two Sub-Saharan African leaders but never visited the continent.

Trump 2.0 will likely view Africa through a competitive lens, due to US adversaries Russia and China hugely expanding their trade influence on the continent.

India now hosts the world’s largest tiger population, despite having the highest human density and just 18% of global tiger habitat, according to a new study.

In just over a decade, India has doubled its tiger population to more than 3,600, accounting for 75% of the world’s tigers.

These tigers now inhabit an area of 138,200 sq km (53,360 sq miles) – roughly half the size of the UK – alongside some 60 million people.

This has been made possible by safeguarding the big cats from poaching and habitat loss, securing prey, reducing human-wildlife conflict, and uplifting local communities, the study published in Science, a leading peer-reviewed research journal, says.

“We think human densities are detrimental to conservation of large carnivores [like tigers]. But more than density it is the attitude of people that matters,” Yadvendradev Vikramsinh Jhala, the study’s lead author, told the BBC.

He cited Malaysia as an example, where, despite being economically prosperous and having a lower population density than India, tiger populations have not been successfully revived.

India’s tiger recovery shows how conservation can protect big cats, boost biodiversity, and support communities – offering key lessons for the world, the researchers believe.

The study by Mr Jhala, Ninad Avinash Mungi, Rajesh Gopal and Qamar Qureshi analysed tiger occupancy in India from 2006 to 2018.

Since 2006, India has surveyed tiger habitats every four years across 20 states, monitoring distribution of the big cats, co-predators, prey, and quality of habitat.

In that time, its tiger habitat has grown by 30% – about 2,929 sq km annually.

But while tigers in the country have thrived in protected, prey-rich areas, they have also adapted to landscapes shared by nearly 60 million people, primarily living in farming communities and settlements outside tiger reserves and national parks.

The level of coexistence with tigers varies across India, influenced by economics, social settings, and cultural factors, the researchers found.

In states like Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, and Karnataka, tigers share space with people at high densities.

In regions with a history of bushmeat hunting or poaching, such as Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and northeast India, tigers are either absent or extinct. These areas also include some of India’s poorest districts.

In other words, researchers note, tiger coexistence with people is often found in economically prosperous areas, which benefit from tiger-related tourism and government compensation for conflict losses.

But development can be a “double-edged sword”, says Mr Jhala.

The researchers say economic prosperity through sustainable use of ecosystems helps recovery of tigers. However, it often leads to changes in land use that harm tiger habitats.

“Tiger recovery is thus constrained at opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, by intensive urbanisation and poverty,” the researchers say.

“Hence, adopting an inclusive and sustainable rural prosperity in place of an intensive land-use change–driven economy can be conducive for tiger recovery, aligning with India’s modern environmentalism and sustainability.”

Armed conflict also significantly increases risk of extinction of tigers, the researchers found.

Globally, political instability has led to drastic wildlife declines, as militants exploit wildlife for funding, turning lawless areas into poaching hotspots.

In India, Manas National Park lost its rhinos during conflict, mirroring Nepal’s rhino decline during the civil unrest.

The researchers found tiger extinctions occurred in districts impacted by India’s Maoist conflict, particularly in tiger reserves in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

Reserves where the conflict has been controlled – Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam, Amrabad, and Similipal – have shown recovery, they say.

Also, several habitats in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and eastern Maharashtra have faced armed insurgencies, resulting in low tiger occupancy and high extinction risk, the researchers found.

“With improved political stability, these areas may see tiger recovery,” they say.

India’s tiger-free habitats – some 157,000 sq km – are mainly in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Jharkhand. Reintroducing tigers and enhancing habitat connectivity in protected areas could restore around 10,000 sq km in these areas, the researcher say.

Recovering large carnivores in crowded, poverty-stricken areas is challenging, researcher say.

One approach, land sparing, suggests keeping people separate from predators. The other, land sharing supports coexistence between humans and wildlife.

Critics argue land sharing leads to conflict, while land sparing may be impractical. The study shows that both approaches – land sparing and land sharing – are necessary for tiger recovery in India, as each has a “role in conserving large carnivores”.

India is also grappling with rising human-wildlife conflict, leading to fatalities from tiger attacks. How does this align with the growing tiger population?

“We lose 35 people to tiger attacks every year, 150 to leopards, and the same number to wild pigs. Additionally, 50,000 people die from snake bites. And then about 150,000 also lose their lives in car accidents annually,” says Mr Jhala.

“It’s not about the number of deaths. Two hundred years ago, human deaths from predators were a normal part of mortality. Today, they’re abnormal, which is why they make the headlines. In fact, within tiger reserves, you’re more likely to die from a car accident than from a tiger attack.”

A hiss and puff of compressed air shapes the smooth leather, bringing to life an all-American cowboy boot in a factory on China’s eastern coast.

Then comes another one as the assembly line continues, the sounds of sewing, stitching, cutting and soldering echoing off the high ceilings.

“We used to sell around a million pairs of boots a year,” says the 45-year-old sales manager, Mr Peng, who did not wish to reveal his first name.

That is, until Donald Trump came along.

A slew of tariffs in his first presidential term triggered a trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Six years on, Chinese businesses are bracing themselves for a sequel now that he is back in the White House.

“What direction should we take in the future?” Mr Peng asks, uncertain of what Trump 2.0 means for him, his colleagues – and China.

For Western markets that are increasingly wary of Beijing’s ambitions, trade has become a powerful bargaining chip – especially as a sluggish Chinese economy relies ever more on exports. Trump returned on a campaign promise that included crushing tariffs against Chinese-made goods, and has since announced a 10% levy – on top of existing sanctions.

He has also ordered a review of US-China trade – which buys Beijing time and Washington, negotiating room. And for now, harsher rhetoric (and higher tariffs) seems to be directed against US allies such as Canada and Mexico.

Trump may have pressed pause on the looming battle with Beijing. But many believe it’s still coming. It’s hard to find an exact figure on how many businesses are fleeing China, but major firms such as Nike, Adidas and Puma have already relocated to Vietnam. Chinese businesses too have been moving, reshaping supply chains, although Beijing remains a key player.

Mr Peng says his boss, who owns the factory, has considered moving production to South East Asia, along with many of their competitors.

It would save the firm, but they would lose their workforce. Most of the staff are from the nearby city of Nantong and have worked here for more than 20 years.

Mr Peng, whose wife died when their son was young, says the factory has been his family: “Our boss is determined not to abandon these employees.”

• Trump to hit Canada, Mexico and China with tariffs on Saturday
• Booze, oil and orange juice: How Canada could retaliate

He is aware of the geopolitics at play, but he says he and his workers are just trying to make a living. They are still reeling from the impact of 2019, when a fourth round of Trump tariffs – 15% – hit Chinese-made consumer goods, such as clothes and shoes.

Orders have since dwindled and staff numbers, once more than 500, have dropped to just over 200. The evidence is in the empty work stations, as Mr Peng shows us around.

All around him, workers are cutting the leather into the right shape to hand it to the machinist. They have to be precise because mistakes will ruin the expensive leather, most of which has been imported from the US.

The factory is trying to keep costs low as some of their American buyers are already considering moving business away from China and the threat of tariffs.

But that would mean losing skilled workers: it can take up to a week to make one pair of boots, from flattening the leather to giving the finished boots a final polish and packing them for export.

This is what turned China into the world’s top manufacturer – labour-intensive production which is also cheap when it’s scaled up and supported by an unrivalled supply chain. And this has been years in the making.

“It was once a constant cycle of inspecting goods and shipping them out – I felt fulfilled,” says Mr Peng, who has worked here since 2015. “But orders have decreased, which makes me feel quite lost and anxious.”

Once crafted to conquer the Wild West, these cowboy boots have been made here for more than a decade. And this is a familiar story in the south of Jiangsu province, a manufacturing hub along the Yangtze River that produces just about everything, from textiles to electric vehicles.

These are among the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods that China ships to the United States every year – a number that steadily ballooned as Washington became its biggest trading partner.

That status slipped under Trump. But it was not restored under his successor Joe Biden, who kept most Trump-era tariffs in place, as ties with Beijing frayed.

In fact, the European Union too has imposed tariffs on electric vehicle imports, accusing China of making too much, often with the support of state subsidies. Trump has echoed this – that China’s “unfair” trade practices disadvantage foreign comeptitors.

Beijing sees such rhetoric as Western attempts to stifle its growth, and it has repeatedly warned Washington that there will be no winners in a trade war. But it has also said it’s ready to talk and “properly handle differences”.

And President Trump, who has described tariffs as his “one big power” over China, certainly wants to talk.

It’s unclear as yet what he might want in return. During Trump’s honeymoon period with China in his first term he came to Beijing to ask for Xi’s help in meeting North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un. This time it is believed he might need Xi’s support to make a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. He recently said that China had “a great deal of power over that situation”.

The threat of a 10% tariff is driven by the belief that China is “sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada”. So he could demand that it do more to end that flow.

Or, given he welcomed a bidding war over TikTok, he may want to negotiate its ownership – or the prized technology that powers the app – because Beijing would need to agree to any such sale.

Whatever the deal may be, it could help reset US-China ties. However, the absence of one could abruptly end the chance of a second honeymoon, setting up Trump and Xi for a far more confrontational relationship.

Already business sentiment is nervous: an annual survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China showed just over half of them were concerned about the US-China relationship deteriorating further.

Trump’s seemingly softer stance on China offers some relief. But his hope is still that the threat of tariffs will help drive buyers away from China and move manufacturing back to the US.

Some Chinese businesses are indeed on the move – but not to America.

An hour outside Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, businessman Huang Zhaodong has built a new factory to cater to a flood of orders from US giants Walmart and Costco.

This is his second factory in Cambodia, and together they produce half a million garments a month, from shirts to underwear. Hangers carrying cotton trousers roll past us on an automated line, moving from one station to the next as the elastic waist is inserted and hemlines are finished.

Now, when prospective US customers lob the first question, which he has come to expect – where is he based – Mr Huang has the right answer. Not in China.

“In the case of some Chinese firms, their customers have told them: ‘If you don’t move production overseas, I’ll cancel your orders’.”

The tariffs raise tough choices for suppliers and retailers, but it’s not always clear who will bear the brunt of the cost. Sometimes it will be the customer, Mr Huang says.

“Take Walmart as an example. I sell them clothes at $5, but they usually mark it up 3.5 times. If the cost increases due to higher tariffs, the price I sell to them might rise to $6. If they mark it up by 3.5 times, the retail price would increase.”

But usually, he says, it is the supplier. If his production line was in China, he estimates an extra 10% tariff could take an extra $800,000 (£644,000) from his earnings.

“That’s more than what I make as profit. It’s huge and we can’t afford it. If you’re making clothes in China under such tariff conditions, it’s unsustainable,” he says.

Current US tariffs on Chinese goods vary from 100% on electric vehicles to 25% on steel and aluminium. Until now, several top-selling items have been exempt, including electronics, such as TVs and iPhones.

But the 10% blanket tariff Trump is proposing could affect the price of everything that is made in China and exported to the US. That applies to a lot of things – from toys and tea cups to laptops.

Mr Huang says this would encourage more factories to move elsewhere. Several new workshops have sprung up around him and Chinese companies from textile production heartlands such as Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong are moving in to make winter jackets and woollen clothing.

Around 90% of clothing factories in Cambodia are now Chinese-run or Chinese-owned, according to a report by insight and analysis group Research and Markets.

Half of the country’s foreign investment flows from China. Seventy percent of roads and bridges were built using loans Beijing dispensed, according to Chinese state media.

Many of the signs on restaurants and shops are in Chinese as well as Khmer, the local language. There’s even a ring road named Xi Jinping Boulevard in honour of the Chinese president.

Cambodia is not a lone recipient. China has invested heavily in different parts of the world under President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative – a trade and infrastructure project that also increases Beijing’s influence.

That means China has choices.

Chinese state media claims that more than half of China’s imports and exports now come from Belt and Road countries, most of them in South East Asia.

This has not happened overnight, says Kenny Yao from AlixPartners, who advises Chinese firms on how to deal with tariffs.

During Trump’s first term, many Chinese firms doubted his tariff threat, he told the BBC. Now they ask if he will follow the supply chain and slap tariffs on other countries.

Just in case he does, Mr Yao says, it would be wise for Chinese businesses to look further afield: “For example, Africa or Latin America. This is more difficult, but it is good to look at areas you have not explored before.”

As America pledges to look after itself first, Beijing is doing its best to appear a stable business partner, and there is some evidence it is working.

China has edged past the US to become the prevailing choice for countries in South East Asia, according to a survey by the Iseas Yusof-Ishak think tank in Singapore.

Even though production has moved abroad, money still flows to China – 60% of the materials being made into clothes at Mr Huang’s factories in Phnom Penh come from China.

And exports are thriving, with Beijing investing more heavily in high-end manufacturing, from solar panels to artificial intelligence. Last year’s trade surplus with the world – on the back of a nearly 6% year-on-year jump in exports – was a record $992bn.

Still, Chinese businesses – in Jiangsu and Phnom Penh – are preparing themselves for an uncertain spell, if not a turbulent one.

Mr Peng hopes the US and China can have an “amicable and calm” discussion to keep the tariffs “within a reasonable range” and avoid a trade war.

“Americans still need to purchase these products,” he said, before driving off to meet new customers.

Billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman has a big vision for the future of humanity.

He set off on his first mission to space in 2021 – a private journey he paid an estimated $200m (£160m) for – and announced that he wanted space travel to be for the masses, not only for the 600 who have experienced it to date – most of them professional astronauts employed by Nasa and the wealthy.

“We want it to be 600,000,” he told reporters.

Later, he added: “I drank the Kool-Aid in terms of the grand ambitions for humankind being a multi-planet species… I think that we all want to live in a Star Wars, Star Trek world where people are jumping in their spacecraft.”

Mr Isaacman, who made much of his $1.9bn (£1.46bn) fortune from a payment processing company that he founded in 1999 aged 16, is said to have bankrolled the rest of the crew of four aboard the SpaceX craft in the 2021 mission, fuelled by a longstanding love of flying and fascination with space.

Since then, there have been more adventures: last year he demonstrated Captain Kirk-like daring by travelling in an upgraded SpaceX capsule and performing the first commercial spacewalk.

During the mission, he tested an experimental spacesuit and a new cost-saving protocol to exit and re-enter the spacecraft without using an airlock.

The photograph of Mr Isaacman, silhouetted with the world at his feet, is now iconic – it demonstrated that this was not a playboy billionaire paying to act out Star Trek, but someone pushing the envelope of what was possible with current technology.

And yet it is a more recent achievement that has drawn greater attention still – being nominated by Donald Trump in December to be the new head of Nasa.

The question is why Trump chose him and what has he asked him to do – especially in the context that the President has appointed SpaceX owner Elon Musk to a government role to cut $2 trillion (£1.6 trillion) off the Federal budget.

The Nasa post is a presidential appointment, though it requires the confirmation of the US Senate. And if confirmed, Mr Isaacman’s appointment will also raise broader questions about the future of humanity in space, given his vision for space travel for the masses. It also has significant implications for the future of the space agency, if Mr Isaacman’s role leads to Nasa using the private sector even more than it does now.

In the past, the heads of Nasa have come from a variety of backgrounds: some, such as the previous incumbent Bill Nelson, have been former astronauts; others, such as Michael Griffin (in charge from 2005 to 2009) came from a government background, and before him Dan Goldin was an entrepreneur, striving to lower costs.

Despite their disparate backgrounds, those who have led Nasa have all been company people, charged with defending the space agency and its values.

And yet Mr Isaacman, along with Mr Musk and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, is among a new wave of billionaires who have been challenging the old order in space.

They have accelerated the pace of innovation and are aiming to dramatically reduce the cost of human space travel.

On the day of his nomination in December, Mr Isaacman posted a statement on X that gave an early glimpse into his vision. “This second space age has only just begun,” he wrote.

“There will inevitably be a thriving space economy – one that will create opportunities for countless people to live and work in space… At Nasa, we will… usher in an era where humanity becomes a true spacefaring civilisation.”

Many presidents have talked about sending astronauts to the Moon since the end of the Apollo lunar landings of the 1960s and 70s, but Trump was the first to turn talk into action, authorising Nasa’s Artemis programme to send humans back to the Moon during his first term. His record suggests that he is a big Nasa fan.

But since then, two factors are likely to have changed his thinking: Nasa’s rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), has been delayed and costs have spiralled; at the same time Mr Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’s Blue Origin are developing reusable low-cost Moon rockets.

That is a worrying backdrop for Nasa, according to Courtney Stadd of New York-based Beyond Earth Institute think tank.

“You have a government looking to slash,” he said at a webinar hosted by Space News. “If you are the new administrator, you are going in in that context, so you are going to have to look at everything that is a drain on your budget…

“This next two years is going to be the equivalent of a tsunami and everything is on the table.”

One of the biggest questions is what to do with the space agency’s SLS Moon rocket. In 2021, Nasa’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), which provides oversight of the space agency for Congress, reported that the cost was $4.1bn (£3.3bn) for each and every launch.

By contrast, SpaceX’s equivalent rocket system, Starship, is estimated to cost around $100m (£80m) per launch – and Musk has said he aims to bring the costs down further to $10m (£8m) as he develops his system.

Bezos’s new Moon rocket, New Glenn, had its maiden test launch at the beginning of January. Blue Origin has not announced its cost per launch, but it is estimated currently to be around $68m (£54.5m).

Competition between the two billionaires is likely to speed up innovation and reduce costs further.

Starship and New Glenn are projected to be cheaper because, unlike SLS, they are designed to be reusable. But “that’s only a part of the reason for the disparity in costs”, according to Dr Adam Baker, an expert on the space industry at Cranfield University.

“SpaceX is given a sum of money and contracted to deliver on time and on budget,” he continues. “They are driven by profit, and they want to minimise costs.

“A Nasa programme is not driven by profit; it is driven by the programme objectives and so those in charge don’t think they need to track costs in the same way.

“There is a general acceptance that SLS has no future.”

The OIG could only come up with a best guess for the full cost of the Artemis programme in its review for Congress because, as it put it: “Nasa lacks a comprehensive and accurate cost estimate that accounts for all programme costs.

“Instead, the Agency’s plan presents a rough estimate that excludes $25bn (£20bn) for key activities”.

Nasa’s project management of SLS is not an aberration – some would say it is typical. For example, the James Webb Space Telescope was given a $1bn (£800m) budget and a launch date of 2010 – but it cost ten times that amount and launched in 2021, earning it the nickname of “the telescope that ate astronomy”.

(Other important scientific programmes had to be scaled back, delayed or scrapped entirely to make way for the overruns.)

It was a similar story of delays and budget overruns during the development of the Space Shuttle in the 1970s and the construction of the International Space Station in the 2000s.

Nasa got away with it because it was responsible for arguably America’s greatest moment when it sent the first astronauts to the Moon. The Apollo programme laid the foundations for America’s technology businesses and ushered in a vibrant new era for the US.

But the world has changed significantly since then, and Nasa has simply not kept up, according to Emeritus Prof John Logsdon, former director of the Space policy Institute at George Washington University. “Changing the way the United States goes about its civilian space programme is long overdue.”

The current model is to give so-called “cost-plus” contracts to big heritage aerospace companies, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which guarantee to pay the development costs and an agreed profit.

The model gave the firms the financial reassurance they needed for ambitious projects such as the space shuttle, the SLS, and developing parts of the Saturn V rocket that took Apollo astronauts to the Moon, but these contracts provided no incentives to cut costs or increase efficiency. For example, there were no penalties for delays or cost overruns.

Dr Simeon Barber at the Open University, who has worked with Nasa on robotic space missions, was originally sceptical that the new commercial companies would deliver. But he is now a convert to the new way of doing things.

“We were used to big projects falling behind schedule and going over budget. But the new companies have shone a light on the old way of doing things.”

Moves to change what some saw as an overly cosy relationship with the heritage space companies gained pace in 2009 when President Obama introduced fixed-price contracts to some private sector firms. The companies were given latitude to innovate to cut costs and increase their profits provided they delivered on schedule and on budget.

Among those firms was the dynamic new start-up, SpaceX, which was awarded a contract to develop its reusable Falcon rockets and Dragon Space capsule to resupply the International Space Station with crew and cargo.

The heritage space company Boeing was also given a similar contract in 2014 to develop its Starliner capsule to do the same job.

SpaceX, with its riskier but faster development processes, began delivering to the ISS within four years of receiving its contract. By contrast, Boeing’s Starliner, which had a series of delays due to technical problems and cost overruns, took 10 years – only to have more issues with some of its engines, which left astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams stranded on the space station.

The ultimate humiliation is that they will be brought back to Earth by rival SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.

“Starliner is an embarrassment for the traditional way of doing business,” says Prof Logsdon. “So, shaking up the system is very positive.”

Prof Logsdon expects big changes under Trump, Mr Musk and Mr Isaacman: scrapping programmes, closing Nasa centres and more contracting out to SpaceX, Blue Origin and other private sector firms. Mr Isaacman has called the SLS “outrageously expensive” and said that the major aerospace contractors are “incentivised to be economically inefficient”.

But changes like that are not going to be easy. Nasa’s budget is controlled by Congress. Although President Trump’s party controls both legislative houses, individual senators and congressmen on the committees that oversee Nasa are from states with jobs and industries dependent on Nasa’s $25bn (£20bn) annual budget.

“Party discipline takes second place where there is constituency money involved,” says Prof Logsdon, a seasoned watcher of the horse trading that goes on with space politics in Congress.

Although Nasa’s projects have been expensive, they have shown us the wonders of the universe and shifted humanity’s perception of ourselves and our place in the cosmos.

The creation of the first reusable space shuttle, the construction of an orbiting space station, the images of distant worlds captured by its robotic spacecraft and the awe-inspiring photos from Hubble have all inspired generations and supercharged interest in science. As a result, senators and congressmen know that America and the world owe Nasa an unpayable debt.

“The old way of doing things gave us a lot of success, so you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There will be significant change, but not the radical change that Mr Musk and Mr Isaacman want to see,” argues Prof Logsdon.

“There is a delicate balance between the interests of Nasa, Congress and the White House.”

Where that balance will fall will emerge in the coming months: some are speculating that the return-to-the-Moon programme might be scrapped altogether in favour of going straight to Mars, as President Trump alluded to during his inauguration, with the greatest proponent of that policy – Musk – seated nearby.

Others fear cuts in Nasa’s Earth Observation programmes, which monitor and model environmental changes from space, and include the impact of climate change; and some worry that the robotic scientific missions to other planets might be cut back to boost efforts for the human spaceflight programme.

There is concern in some quarters about the close relationship between Mr Isaacman and Mr Musk. Mr Isaacman paid SpaceX for his two ventures into space. The company has already received $20bn (£16bn) in contracts from government since 2008.

But if SLS is scrapped, and SpaceX were to receive the lion’s share of Nasa’s Moon programme work, Mr Musk’s firm stands to receive contracts that might be ten or even a hundred times greater, possibly at the expense of other private-sector players.

And there are many innovative US start-up companies hoping to build parts for spacecraft and infrastructure in Nasa’s return-to-the-Moon programme, including Texas-based Firefly, which has a spacecraft on its way to land on the Moon in March.

But industry analysts say that the US government has a long tradition of breaking up monopolies so that they don’t stifle innovation. And in any case, just because Mr Isaacman has worked with Mr Musk, it does not mean that any outcome is inevitable, argues Prof Logsdon.

“Isaacman is his own man,” he adds. “He is not a disciple of Elon Musk.”

Ultimately, however, it has become painfully clear, even to Nasa’s most ardent supporters, that it needs saving from itself. And the need for Nasa reform is not a partisan issue – Democrat and Republican presidents alike have set the wheels in motion.

But the coincidental timing of the success of SpaceX, Blue Origin and other private-sector space firms with a new administration impatient to cut costs and energise the private sector means that Mr Isaacman has a unique opportunity to make some of the biggest changes to Nasa since its inception.

“Nasa truly is a crown jewel, and we aren’t doing what we should be doing on behalf of the American people,” argued former deputy head of Nasa Lori Garver during the Space News webinar. “That is frustrating for all of us.”

Asked if a private sector billionaire was the right person to be entrusted with one of America’s greatest national treasures, Ms Garver responded: “Jared is a patriot, and he is doing this for public service.

“The truth of Jared agreeing has something to do with him willing to take on these hard things – and there are so many hard things”.

Donald Trump has imposed new tariffs on goods entering the US from Canada, Mexico and China.

The US president signed an executive order putting a 25% tariff – or tax on imports – on all goods coming from Canada and Mexico, to get both countries to crack down on illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

Goods coming from China will also be hit with a 10% tariff “above any additional tariffs” until it cuts fentanyl smuggling. He has already pledged to target the country with a 60% rate, and has mulled a 200% tax on some car imports.

Tariffs are a central part of Trump’s economic vision – he sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue.

During his election campaign, he told voters that the taxes were “not going to be a cost to you, it’s a cost to another country”.

That was almost universally regarded by economists as misleading.

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In practical terms, a tariff is a domestic tax levied on goods as they enter the country, proportional to the value of the import.

So a car imported to the US with a value of $50,000 (£38,000) subject to a 25% tariff, would face a $12,500 charge.

The charge is physically paid by the domestic company that imports the goods, not the foreign company that exports them.

So, in that sense, it is a straightforward tax paid by domestic US firms to the US government.

Over the course of 2023, the US imported around $3.1tn of goods, equivalent to around 11% of US GDP.

And tariffs imposed on those imports brought in $80bn in that year, around 2% of total US tax revenues.

The question of where the final “economic” burden of tariffs falls, as opposed to the upfront bill, is more complicated.

If the US importing firm passes on the cost of the tariff to the person buying the product in the US in the form of higher retail prices, it would be the US consumer that bears the economic burden.

If the US importing firm absorbs the cost of the tariff itself and doesn’t pass it on, then that firm is said to bear the economic burden in the form of lower profits than it would otherwise have enjoyed.

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Alternatively, it is possible that foreign exporters might have to lower their wholesale prices by the value of the tariff in order to retain their US customers.

In that scenario, the exporting firm would bear the economic burden of the tariff in the form of lower profits.

All three scenarios are theoretically possible.

But economic studies of the impact of the new tariffs that Trump imposed in his first term of office between 2017 and 2020 suggest most of the economic burden was ultimately borne by US consumers.

A survey by the University of Chicago in September 2024 asked a group of respected economists whether they agreed with the statement that “imposing tariffs results in a substantial portion of the tariffs being borne by consumers of the country that enacts the tariffs, through price increases”. Only 2% disagreed.

Let’s use a concrete example.

Trump imposed a 50% tariff on imports of washing machines in 2018.

Researchers estimate the value of washing machines jumped by around 12% as a direct consequence, equivalent to $86 per unit, and that US consumers paid around $1.5bn extra a year in total for these products.

There is no reason to believe the results of even higher import tariffs from a future Trump administration would be any different in terms of where the economic burden would fall.

The non-partisan Peterson Institute for International Economics has estimated Trump’s new proposed tariffs would lower the incomes of Americans, with the impact ranging from around 4% for the poorest fifth to around 2% for the wealthiest fifth.

A typical household in the middle of the US income distribution, the think tank estimates, would lose around $1,700 each year.

The left-of-centre think tank Centre for American Progress, using a different methodology, has an estimate of a $2,500 to $3,900 loss for a middle-income family.

Various researchers have also warned that another major round of tariffs from the US would risk another spike in domestic inflation.

Yet Trump has used another economic justification for his tariffs: that they protect and create US domestic jobs.

“Under my plan, American workers will no longer be worried about losing your jobs to foreign nations, instead, foreign nations will be worried about losing their jobs to America,” he said on the campaign trail.

The political context for Trump’s tariffs was longstanding concern about the loss of US manufacturing jobs to countries with lower labour costs, particularly after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) with Mexico in 1994 and the entry of China into the World Trade Organisation in 2001.

In January 1994, when Nafta came into effect, the US had just under 17 million manufacturing jobs. By 2016, this had declined to around 12 million.

Yet economists say it is misleading to attribute this decline to trade, arguing that growing levels of automation are also an important factor.

And researchers who studied the impact of Trump’s first-term tariffs found no substantial positive effects on overall employment in US industrial sectors that were protected.

Trump imposed 25% tariffs on imported steel in 2018 to protect US producers.

By 2020, total employment in the US steel sector was 80,000, still lower than the 84,000 it had been in 2018.

It is theoretically possible that employment might have dropped even further without the Trump steel tariffs but detailed economic studies of their impact on US steel still showed no positive employment impact.

And economists have also found evidence suggesting that, because the domestic price of steel rose after the tariffs were imposed, employment in some other US manufacturing sectors, which relied on steel as an input – including the agricultural machinery manufacturer Deere & Co – was lower than it otherwise would have been.

Trump has criticised America’s trade deficit, which is the difference between the value of all the things the country imports and the value of its exports in a given year.

“Trade deficits hurt the economy very badly,” he has said.

In 2016, just before Trump took office, the total goods and services deficit was $480bn, around 2.5% of US GDP. By 2020, it had grown to $653bn, around 3% of GDP, despite his tariffs.

Part of the explanation, according to economists, is that Trump’s tariffs increased the international relative value of the US dollar (by automatically reducing demand for foreign currencies in international trade) and that this made the products of US exporters less competitive globally.

Another factor behind this failure to close the trade deficit is the fact that tariffs, in a globalised economy with multinational companies, can sometimes be bypassed.

For example, the Trump administration imposed 30% tariffs on Chinese imported solar panels in 2018.

The US Commerce Department presented evidence in 2023 that Chinese solar panel manufacturers had shifted their assembly operations to countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam and then sent the finished products to the US from those countries, effectively evading the tariffs.

There are some economists who support Trump’s tariff plans as a way to boost US industry, such as Jeff Ferry of the Coalition for A Prosperous America, a domestic lobby group, but they are a small minority of the profession.

Oren Cass, the director of the conservative think tank American Compass, has argued tariffs can incentivise firms to keep more of their manufacturing operations in America, which he argues has national defence and supply chain security benefits.

And the Biden/Harris administration, while sharply criticising Trump’s proposed extension of tariffs, has kept in place many of the ones he implemented after 2018.

It has also imposed new tariffs on imports of things like electric vehicles from China, justifying them on the grounds of national security, US industrial policy and unfair domestic subsidies from Beijing.

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Schools on the Greek island of Santorini have been told to close on Monday following an increase in seismic activity in recent days.

Authorities have also advised against “large gatherings in enclosed spaces” across the island – a popular tourist destination known for its whitewashed buildings and blue domed churches.

Tremors measuring up to 4.6 in magnitude have been recorded over the last couple of days – with quakes of 4.3 and 3.9 magnitude reported nearby on Sunday morning.

Santorini is on what is known as the Hellenic Volcanic Arc but the last major eruption was in 1950. Greek authorities have said that the recent movements are not related to volcanic activity and have started to subside.

The tremors recorded by geologists are considered minor or light, but authorities have recommended a number of preventative measures in addition to the school closure including to avoiding the ports of Ammoudi and Fira.

Big cruise ships often anchor near the Old Port of Fira, with passengers being brought to shore on smaller boats.

One of the largest volcanic eruptions in history, around 1600BC, formed the island as it stands today.

The British husband of a Thai woman whose body was found in the Yorkshire Dales more than 20 years ago has been arrested on suspicion of her murder.

Walkers discovered Lamduan Armitage’s half-naked body in a stream near Pen-y-ghent in 2004 and she remained unidentified for 15 years until her family saw a BBC News report and came forward.

David Armitage, who had lived in Thailand since her death, was arrested earlier when he returned to the UK after the Thai authorities revoked his resident visa.

North Yorkshire Police, which is investigating the death, said: “A 61-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Lamduan Armitage in 2004. He remains in police custody for questioning.”

Mr Armitage was detained last Thursday at his house in Kanchanaburi before being transferred to the Bangkok Immigration Detention Centre.

He did not file an immigration petition meaning he no longer had the right to stay in Thailand.

He returned to the UK on Saturday morning and was arrested by police shortly after his arrival at Heathrow Airport, the BBC understands.

The BBC has not spoken with Mr Armitage but he has previously said he was not involved in his wife’s death, according to The Sun.

Mrs Armitage, nee Seekanya, became known as the Lady of the Hills during attempts to identify her after her body was found on 20 September 2004.

A post-mortem examination established she had died between one and three weeks before her body was found, but it could not determine how she died.

There was no sign of violence and hypothermia was ruled out, but detectives could not answer two main questions; who she was or how she met her death.

A cold case review was started in 2016 and scientific advances meant police were able to piece together a more detailed picture of who she was and concluded she had been killed.

Three years later there was a major breakthrough when a Thai family read about the case and believed the woman could be their daughter who vanished in 2004.

This led North Yorkshire Police to carry out DNA testing to confirm her identity.

Inquiries established she had moved to the UK in 1991 with Mr Armitage after they were married in Thailand and they had been living in northern England before her death.

Three Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza were released from captivity on Saturday, in exchange for 183 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Yarden Bibas, 34, Ofer Kalderon, 53, and Keith Siegel, 65, were handed over to the Red Cross – the latest hostages to be released as part of a ceasefire deal struck last month.

Palestinian prisoners were taken in buses to Gaza and the West Bank, many of them coming from the nearby Ofer prison.

The tone of the exchange sat in stark contrast to Thursday’s chaotic handover, during which surging crowds pressed in on hostages, eliciting concern for their safety and prompting Israel to delay that day’s release of Palestinian prisoners.

Saturday’s release was more orderly, but retained the presentational elements that sought to project that Hamas remains the governing force in Gaza.

Lines of armed fighters kept crowds at bay, while the men who were released were flanked by more armed and masked fighters. A banner behind them bore the images of killed Hamas leaders.

Officials from the Red Cross signed certificates of release for Mr Kalderon and Mr Bibas, who were then made to hold them as they waved to the crowd in Khan Younis.

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As Mr Siegel, a US-Israeli dual national, appeared on stage in Gaza City, a crowd gathered in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv erupted into cheers, some chanting: “He’s a hero, he’s a hero.” One woman described feeling “pure happiness”.

Mr Siegel’s wife, Aviva, said “there’s no one happier than me” as she was filmed getting into a car to go and meet her husband.

The family of French-Israeli Mr Kalderon said in a statement that they were “overwhelmed with joy, relief, and emotion after 484 long and difficult days of unbearable waiting”.

They added that he “endured months in a nightmare”, holding onto the “hope of embracing his children again”.

But others, like Liz Domsky, had mixed feelings. “They all need to come home,” she said while watching the proceedings from Hostages Square.

Mr Siegel’s niece, Tal Wax, told the BBC: “We’re all very, very excited to have Keith back home but very worried to see the state that he came back to us in. Although we can see that he is able to walk and talk, we see that he has lost a lot of weight.”

She added: “Obviously our family are very excited for Keith but it’s still a very bitter moment. [The other families] have to have this moment just like us.”

There was a similar complexity of emotion in Israel over the release of Mr Bibas, whose wife, Shiri, and two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, were also kidnapped during the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas.

Hamas claimed that they had been killed by an Israeli air strike early on in the ensuing war – but they were then named in a list of hostages it said in January it was willing to free.

Holding up an image of Kfir, who was just nine months old when he was taken, Andrea Wittenberg remarked: “They are children. They should be at home. It is impossible for them to be in Gaza.”

She added: “I don’t want to give up.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog described Mr Bibas’s return as “simply heartbreaking”, saying his country remained “deeply concerned” about their fate. “As an entire nation we hold them in our hearts,” he wrote.

Herzog added that each released hostage “deserves the time to rehabilitate and rebuild their lives, and every one of the hostages deserves to come home soon”.

In Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, buses of freed Palestinian prisoners were met by large and jubilant crowds.

“Today we were born again…we left the narrowness of the graves to the spaciousness of the world,” Nasrallah Muammar, who was released after 17 years in prison, said in his first statement, according to Palestinian media.

“I feel joy despite the journey of pain and hardship that we lived,” Ali Al-Barghouti, who was serving two life sentences, told Reuters.

A majority of the prisoners were held on what Israel calls “administrative detention” – what critics say is imprisonment without charge. Some had been found guilty of serious crimes.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Association said 54 had received long sentences and 18 were serving life in prison.

Saturday’s hostage release was more organised than the one on Thursday, when two Israelis and five Thai nationals were led through cheering crowds, who at times had to be pushed out of the way.

Efrat Machikawa, the niece of 80-year-old Gadi Moses, among those released, said her uncle thought it was the “end of his life” as the crowd surrounded him, and praised the “brave” Red Cross workers who had facilitated his release.

Described as “shocking scenes” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel demanded – and received assurances – that they would not be repeated.

International Committee of the Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric had urged that security around the handovers be improved and they “take place in a safe and dignified manner”.

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According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, nearly 47,500 people have been killed in the territory since Israel invaded in the wake of the 7 October 2023 attack, in which around 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 taken hostage.

A ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Israel and Hamas began on 19 January, with the first stage to see 33 hostages and 1,900 prisoners released, as well as hundreds of lorries carrying humanitarian aid being allowed into Gaza each day.

The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt – a key humanitarian corridor – was also reopened on Saturday, after eight months of being closed.

The Gaza health ministry said 50 patients had left via the crossing to access medical care in Egypt.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have also been allowed to return to their homes in northern Gaza this week.

But Ashraf al-Dous, among them, said that some, including his father, have gone back to the south after seeing the scale of the destruction caused by Israeli air strikes.

“It’s really a mess,” he said. “The situation is catastrophic.”

Most of the floors in his apartment building in northern Gaza City have been destroyed, he said. “I didn’t expect the situation to be like this – it’s too much.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Moscow has bombed a boarding school in Ukrainian-occupied Russia where civilians were sheltering and preparing to evacuate.

The Ukrainian army said four people were killed and dozens – many of them elderly – were injured in the town of Sudzha in the Kursk region, which has been under Ukrainian control for five months.

More than 80 people are reported to have been rescued from the building.

The BBC has not been able to confirm Ukraine’s claim that it was a deliberate Russian attack using a guided aerial bomb. Moscow blamed Ukraine for the bombing.

Zelensky posted on X that the incident exposed Russia as “a state devoid of civility”.

“This is how Russia wages war – Sudzha, Kursk region, Russian territory, a boarding school with civilians preparing to evacuate,” he wrote.

“A Russian aerial bomb. They destroyed the building even though dozens of civilians were there.”

The Ukrainian army’s general staff posted on Telegram that four people had died and that 84 civilians were rescued, adding that “the strike was carried out on purpose”.

For its part, the Russian defence ministry said Ukraine carried out Saturday’s attack, which it described as a targeted missile strike.

Ukraine launched a lightning thrust into the Russian oblast of Kursk last August, taking Russian border guards by surprise.

The government in Kyiv made it clear at the time that it had no intention of holding on to the territory seized, merely to use it as a bargaining chip in future peace negotiations.

Zelensky likened Saturday’s strike to “how Russia waged war against Chechnya decades ago. They killed Syrians the same way. Russian bombs destroy Ukrainian homes the same way”.

A hiss and puff of compressed air shapes the smooth leather, bringing to life an all-American cowboy boot in a factory on China’s eastern coast.

Then comes another one as the assembly line continues, the sounds of sewing, stitching, cutting and soldering echoing off the high ceilings.

“We used to sell around a million pairs of boots a year,” says the 45-year-old sales manager, Mr Peng, who did not wish to reveal his first name.

That is, until Donald Trump came along.

A slew of tariffs in his first presidential term triggered a trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Six years on, Chinese businesses are bracing themselves for a sequel now that he is back in the White House.

“What direction should we take in the future?” Mr Peng asks, uncertain of what Trump 2.0 means for him, his colleagues – and China.

For Western markets that are increasingly wary of Beijing’s ambitions, trade has become a powerful bargaining chip – especially as a sluggish Chinese economy relies ever more on exports. Trump returned on a campaign promise that included crushing tariffs against Chinese-made goods, and has since announced a 10% levy – on top of existing sanctions.

He has also ordered a review of US-China trade – which buys Beijing time and Washington, negotiating room. And for now, harsher rhetoric (and higher tariffs) seems to be directed against US allies such as Canada and Mexico.

Trump may have pressed pause on the looming battle with Beijing. But many believe it’s still coming. It’s hard to find an exact figure on how many businesses are fleeing China, but major firms such as Nike, Adidas and Puma have already relocated to Vietnam. Chinese businesses too have been moving, reshaping supply chains, although Beijing remains a key player.

Mr Peng says his boss, who owns the factory, has considered moving production to South East Asia, along with many of their competitors.

It would save the firm, but they would lose their workforce. Most of the staff are from the nearby city of Nantong and have worked here for more than 20 years.

Mr Peng, whose wife died when their son was young, says the factory has been his family: “Our boss is determined not to abandon these employees.”

• Trump to hit Canada, Mexico and China with tariffs on Saturday
• Booze, oil and orange juice: How Canada could retaliate

He is aware of the geopolitics at play, but he says he and his workers are just trying to make a living. They are still reeling from the impact of 2019, when a fourth round of Trump tariffs – 15% – hit Chinese-made consumer goods, such as clothes and shoes.

Orders have since dwindled and staff numbers, once more than 500, have dropped to just over 200. The evidence is in the empty work stations, as Mr Peng shows us around.

All around him, workers are cutting the leather into the right shape to hand it to the machinist. They have to be precise because mistakes will ruin the expensive leather, most of which has been imported from the US.

The factory is trying to keep costs low as some of their American buyers are already considering moving business away from China and the threat of tariffs.

But that would mean losing skilled workers: it can take up to a week to make one pair of boots, from flattening the leather to giving the finished boots a final polish and packing them for export.

This is what turned China into the world’s top manufacturer – labour-intensive production which is also cheap when it’s scaled up and supported by an unrivalled supply chain. And this has been years in the making.

“It was once a constant cycle of inspecting goods and shipping them out – I felt fulfilled,” says Mr Peng, who has worked here since 2015. “But orders have decreased, which makes me feel quite lost and anxious.”

Once crafted to conquer the Wild West, these cowboy boots have been made here for more than a decade. And this is a familiar story in the south of Jiangsu province, a manufacturing hub along the Yangtze River that produces just about everything, from textiles to electric vehicles.

These are among the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods that China ships to the United States every year – a number that steadily ballooned as Washington became its biggest trading partner.

That status slipped under Trump. But it was not restored under his successor Joe Biden, who kept most Trump-era tariffs in place, as ties with Beijing frayed.

In fact, the European Union too has imposed tariffs on electric vehicle imports, accusing China of making too much, often with the support of state subsidies. Trump has echoed this – that China’s “unfair” trade practices disadvantage foreign comeptitors.

Beijing sees such rhetoric as Western attempts to stifle its growth, and it has repeatedly warned Washington that there will be no winners in a trade war. But it has also said it’s ready to talk and “properly handle differences”.

And President Trump, who has described tariffs as his “one big power” over China, certainly wants to talk.

It’s unclear as yet what he might want in return. During Trump’s honeymoon period with China in his first term he came to Beijing to ask for Xi’s help in meeting North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un. This time it is believed he might need Xi’s support to make a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. He recently said that China had “a great deal of power over that situation”.

The threat of a 10% tariff is driven by the belief that China is “sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada”. So he could demand that it do more to end that flow.

Or, given he welcomed a bidding war over TikTok, he may want to negotiate its ownership – or the prized technology that powers the app – because Beijing would need to agree to any such sale.

Whatever the deal may be, it could help reset US-China ties. However, the absence of one could abruptly end the chance of a second honeymoon, setting up Trump and Xi for a far more confrontational relationship.

Already business sentiment is nervous: an annual survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China showed just over half of them were concerned about the US-China relationship deteriorating further.

Trump’s seemingly softer stance on China offers some relief. But his hope is still that the threat of tariffs will help drive buyers away from China and move manufacturing back to the US.

Some Chinese businesses are indeed on the move – but not to America.

An hour outside Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, businessman Huang Zhaodong has built a new factory to cater to a flood of orders from US giants Walmart and Costco.

This is his second factory in Cambodia, and together they produce half a million garments a month, from shirts to underwear. Hangers carrying cotton trousers roll past us on an automated line, moving from one station to the next as the elastic waist is inserted and hemlines are finished.

Now, when prospective US customers lob the first question, which he has come to expect – where is he based – Mr Huang has the right answer. Not in China.

“In the case of some Chinese firms, their customers have told them: ‘If you don’t move production overseas, I’ll cancel your orders’.”

The tariffs raise tough choices for suppliers and retailers, but it’s not always clear who will bear the brunt of the cost. Sometimes it will be the customer, Mr Huang says.

“Take Walmart as an example. I sell them clothes at $5, but they usually mark it up 3.5 times. If the cost increases due to higher tariffs, the price I sell to them might rise to $6. If they mark it up by 3.5 times, the retail price would increase.”

But usually, he says, it is the supplier. If his production line was in China, he estimates an extra 10% tariff could take an extra $800,000 (£644,000) from his earnings.

“That’s more than what I make as profit. It’s huge and we can’t afford it. If you’re making clothes in China under such tariff conditions, it’s unsustainable,” he says.

Current US tariffs on Chinese goods vary from 100% on electric vehicles to 25% on steel and aluminium. Until now, several top-selling items have been exempt, including electronics, such as TVs and iPhones.

But the 10% blanket tariff Trump is proposing could affect the price of everything that is made in China and exported to the US. That applies to a lot of things – from toys and tea cups to laptops.

Mr Huang says this would encourage more factories to move elsewhere. Several new workshops have sprung up around him and Chinese companies from textile production heartlands such as Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong are moving in to make winter jackets and woollen clothing.

Around 90% of clothing factories in Cambodia are now Chinese-run or Chinese-owned, according to a report by insight and analysis group Research and Markets.

Half of the country’s foreign investment flows from China. Seventy percent of roads and bridges were built using loans Beijing dispensed, according to Chinese state media.

Many of the signs on restaurants and shops are in Chinese as well as Khmer, the local language. There’s even a ring road named Xi Jinping Boulevard in honour of the Chinese president.

Cambodia is not a lone recipient. China has invested heavily in different parts of the world under President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative – a trade and infrastructure project that also increases Beijing’s influence.

That means China has choices.

Chinese state media claims that more than half of China’s imports and exports now come from Belt and Road countries, most of them in South East Asia.

This has not happened overnight, says Kenny Yao from AlixPartners, who advises Chinese firms on how to deal with tariffs.

During Trump’s first term, many Chinese firms doubted his tariff threat, he told the BBC. Now they ask if he will follow the supply chain and slap tariffs on other countries.

Just in case he does, Mr Yao says, it would be wise for Chinese businesses to look further afield: “For example, Africa or Latin America. This is more difficult, but it is good to look at areas you have not explored before.”

As America pledges to look after itself first, Beijing is doing its best to appear a stable business partner, and there is some evidence it is working.

China has edged past the US to become the prevailing choice for countries in South East Asia, according to a survey by the Iseas Yusof-Ishak think tank in Singapore.

Even though production has moved abroad, money still flows to China – 60% of the materials being made into clothes at Mr Huang’s factories in Phnom Penh come from China.

And exports are thriving, with Beijing investing more heavily in high-end manufacturing, from solar panels to artificial intelligence. Last year’s trade surplus with the world – on the back of a nearly 6% year-on-year jump in exports – was a record $992bn.

Still, Chinese businesses – in Jiangsu and Phnom Penh – are preparing themselves for an uncertain spell, if not a turbulent one.

Mr Peng hopes the US and China can have an “amicable and calm” discussion to keep the tariffs “within a reasonable range” and avoid a trade war.

“Americans still need to purchase these products,” he said, before driving off to meet new customers.

Mark Carney, the frontrunner to be the next Canadian prime minister, has said his country is “going to stand up to a bully” after US President Donald Trump said he would unveil tariffs of 25% on Canada.

Speaking exclusively to BBC Newsnight, 59-year-old Carney said Canada will “match dollar for dollar the US tariffs”.

As well as levying a 25% tariff on Canadian imports on Saturday, the White House has announced tariffs of 25% on Mexico and 10% on China.

Carney, who announced his run for leader of Canada’s governing Liberal Party in January, is the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.

He is currently one of five candidates in the running to succeed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – and has so far secured the largest support base among Liberal MPs.

The leadership race will conclude on 9 March.

The winner will replace Trudeau – who announced his intention to resign in January after nine years in office – both as prime minister and party leader.

Canada is then required to hold a federal election to elect a new government on or before 20 October, with the Liberal party currently trailing their Conservative rivals in the polls.

In response to the tariff announcement, Carney told Newsnight that “President Trump probably thinks Canada will cave in”.

“But we are going to stand up to a bully, we’re not going to back down,” he said.

“We’re united and we will retaliate.”

The former Bank of England governor said the tariffs are “going to damage the US’s reputation around the world”.

“They’re going to hit growth. They’re going to move up inflation. They’re going to raise interest rates,” he said.

He added that it’s the “second time” in less than a decade that the US has “in effect, ripped up a trade agreement with its closest trading partner”.

In 2020, towards the end of Donald Trump’s first term, the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (UCMCA) came into effect – effectively an update to Nafta, the agreement between the three countries which had been in place since the 1990s.

Economists have suggested the newly imposed tariffs could have a devastating immediate impact on Canada’s economy – while also leading to higher prices for Americans.

Tariffs are a central part of Trump’s economic vision. He sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue.

Outgoing Prime Minister Trudeau has said Canada’s response will be “forceful” and “immediate” to the new tariffs.

Trump said on Friday that Canadian oil would be hit with lower tariffs of 10%, which would take effect later, on 18 February.

The president also said he planned to impose tariffs on the European Union in the future, saying the bloc had not treated the US well.

A small medical transport plane crashed into several buildings in the US city of Philadelphia on Friday evening, killing all six people on board and at least one other person on the ground, the mayor has confirmed.

The jet was on a medical transport trip, heading to Tijuana, Mexico, with a short stop-over in Missouri. It was carrying a child patient and her mother, along with two pilots, a doctor and paramedic. They were all Mexican nationals.

But just one minute after take-off, the Learjet 55 plummeted to the ground. Videos show the plane coming down quickly and sparking a huge fireball.

Nineteen others were injured, though Mayor Cherelle Parker said that number could still change.

Speaking at a news conference on Saturday, Philadelphia city managing director Adam Thiel said it would probably be “days or more” until officials are able to confirm “the number of folks who perished in this tragedy and the outcome of those who were injured”.

He added that there is still “a lot of unknowns about who was where” when the crash happened.

The girl being transported to Mexico had just finished medical treatment for a life-threatening illness at Shriners Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia.

Earlier on Friday, staff had thrown her a party to celebrate, hospital spokesman Mel Bower said. He added that staff who treated her had been “impacted very deeply” by news of the tragedy.

The flight was bound for Springfield, Missouri for a short stop-over, before continuing onto Tijuana.

The plane left Northeast Philadelphia Airport at about 18:07 local time (23:07 GMT) on Friday, rose to 1,500ft, turned slightly right, then slightly left, then began a steep descent, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials said.

The crash occurred less than four miles (6.4km) away. Flight logs show the plane was in the air “for only a minute” before it crashed, Mayor Parker said.

No issues were reported from the plane to air traffic control, and controllers who attempted to get a response from the flight crew did not receive one, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said.

Witnesses described shrapnel damaging cars and sending burning debris into the streets. Photos of the aftermath show mangled, burnt-out vehicles and a deep gouge in the street.

Fire officials said there were five separate fires sparked by the crash, but they were contained and extinguished.

The crash happened just blocks from the Roosevelt Mall, a three-storey shopping centre in a densely populated part of Philadelphia, the fifth biggest city in the US.

The area is filled with terraced housing and shops. Many properties lost power after the crash.

One man said he was driving when he heard a whirring sound and then a loud explosion.

“Everyone just started screaming,” he said.

Another witness told local media the explosion “lit up the whole sky”.

“I just saw a plane basically hit the building and it exploded. The sky lit up and I pulled over and basically, it was just real bad around here,” the witness told WPVI-TV, describing the crash as feeling like an earthquake.

Ryan Tian, 23, told the Philadelphia Inquirer he was getting dinner when he saw a “massive fireball” that turned the sky orange.

“I thought we were getting attacked by something,” he said.

In a statement, Jared Solomon, a local state representative, said: “In a time of profound tragedy, I was inspired to witness hundreds of our first responders sprinting towards danger to ensure the safety of our neighbourhood.”

Mayor Parker said emergency workers had worked through the night at the crash site.

Officials said the wreckage site is large, spanning up to six blocks, and there is also debris in remote areas too.

The mayor told city residents that if they find any debris, to call 911 and “don’t touch anything”.

NTSB investigators are still looking for the cockpit voice recorder – which is “likely damaged and may be fragmented”, Ms Homendy said.

She said investigators would be collecting debris for “several days, possibly extending into weeks”.

“I do want to stress this is an active investigation scene. The debris is scattered, it is very dangerous, so I encourage everyone to stay out of the accident site,” she said.

The FAA is also investigating.

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In a statement, President Donald Trump said his administration was “totally engaged”.

“So sad to see the plane go down in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More innocent souls lost,” he said.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she “mourns the passing of six Mexicans in the aviation accident”, in a statement translated from Spanish.

“My solidarity is with their loved ones and friends,” she added.

The Mexican foreign ministry said personnel at the country’s consulate in Philadelphia were in contact with next-of-kin.

This crash comes just two days after a much larger collision happened between a commercial jet and a military helicopter in Washington DC, where officials believe all 67 people aboard both aircraft were killed.

It was the deadliest plane crash in the US in more than 20 years.

Ms Homendy said on Saturday her agency was “highly skilled” and it was “not unusual for the NTSB to be investigating two major accidents”.