The British family of an Israeli hostage freed from Gaza on Saturday have described a “pendulum of emotions” as he was released 16 months after his capture.

Eli Sharabi’s brother-in-law Steve Brisley, who lives in Bridgend, Wales, expressed joy at his release, but voiced concerns over Mr Sharabi’s gaunt appearance and whether he knew his wife and daughters had been killed in the 7 October attack.

Mr Sharabi, 52, was taken by Hamas from Kibbutz Beeri on 7 October, while his British-born wife, Lianne, and two teenage daughters, Noiya and Yahel, were found murdered in their home.

He was one of three hostages handed to the Red Cross by Hamas in a choreographed release in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

Mr Brisley told the BBC he was experiencing “the whole pendulum of emotions – joy and relief through to heartache and everything in between”.

“It’s the end of one part of the nightmare that we’ve been on, but beginning of the next chapter… It’s been an incredibly emotional 24 hours or so since Eli’s name appeared on the list yesterday afternoon,” Mr Brisley told BBC Breakfast mere minutes after Mr Sharabi was released to the Red Cross.

“To finally have confirmation that he’s alive and that he’s coming out is obviously what we’ve been working towards for last 15,16 months, but to see him paraded in the way he was in that propaganda fashion was incredibly difficult.

“And to see the physical state of him – on one hand he’s upright and walking independently at least, but he’s gaunt, thin and just the light gone from his eyes.

“All the way through this, we’ve not known if he was alive or dead,” he said.

A family statement released following Mr Sharabi’s transfer to the Red Cross said they were “delighted” he is finally free but horrified at his physical condition and the “grotesque spectacle” of his release.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which facilitated the handover, said it was “increasingly concerned about the conditions surrounding release operations”.

“We strongly urge all parties, including the mediators, to take responsibility to ensure that future releases are dignified and private,” it said.

• Follow Saturday’s hostage release live

Mr Sharabi’s name being on a list of hostages to be released on Saturday was the first confirmation that the family had of him being alive since 2023, Mr Brisley said.

Mr Sharabi’s father-in-law Pete Brisley, who also lives in Bridgend, says there were no witnesses to the attack on the Sharabi home, which means the family does not know whether he is aware of the deaths of his family.

“We still don’t know whether he knows that he’s lost his family, his wife and daughters because nobody knows whether he saw them murdered or whether he was taken outside before,” he told the BBC’s Lucy Manning.

“It’s just very, very emotional here.

“It’s great to see him released, but I wasn’t expecting to see him looking like that, so very very thin and emaciated.

“He looks like he’s just come out of a concentration camp,” he said.

Lianne Sharabi was Pete Brisley’s daughter and Steve Brisley’s sister, and Noiya and Yahel their granddaughters and nieces respectively.

“We’ll find out some time in the next couple of hours, because his mum and his sister are waiting at the hospital to greet him,” Pete Brisley said.

“I would think his first question will be, where are they?

“If he did see them murdered, then he’s had to live with that for the last 15 months, 16 months.”

Lianne grew up in Staple Hill, on the outskirts of Bristol, and first moved to Israel as a volunteer on a kibbutz when she was 19, before relocating to the country permanently.

After just three months in Israel, she met Eli. They had two daughters, Noiya and Yahel, who were 16 and 13 when they were killed.

One of Eli’s brothers, Yossi, was also taken hostage on 7 October, but was later killed in captivity. Hamas said his death was the result of an Israeli airstrike, which Israel said was likely.

Foreign secretary David Lammy welcomed the release of Mr Sharabi, and also Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami, saying that “they and their families have suffered an unimaginable ordeal”.

He called for the ceasefire deal to be implemented in full, including the release of the remaining hostages.

The release of the three hostages comes under the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel, which came into effect on 19 January.

Israel is releasing 183 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday. More than 70 are serving life or long sentences; others are Gazans detained during the war.

The ceasefire deal sees a total of 33 hostages taken on 7 October released in weekly hand-overs in exchange for 1,900 Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

So far, 16 hostages have been freed over five releases and 566 prisoners have been released.

On 7 October Hamas seized 251 hostages and killed about 1,200 people when it attacked Israel, triggering the war.

At least 47,500 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

About two-thirds of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed by Israel’s attacks, the UN says.

More than three decades after leaving the Soviet Union, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have begun to unplug from Russia’s electricity grid and join the EU’s network.

The two-day process began on Saturday morning, with residents told to charge their devices, stock up on food and water, and prepare as if severe weather is forecast.

Many have been told not to use lifts – while in some areas traffic lights will be turned off.

A giant, specially-made clock, will count down the final seconds before the transition at a landmark ceremony in Lithuania’s capital on Sunday, attended by EU chief Ursula von der Leyen.

The three nations will then officially transition away from the grid that has connected them to Russia since the years after World War Two.

The so-called Brell power grid – which stands for Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania – is controlled almost entirely by Moscow and has long been seen as a vulnerability for the former Soviet republics, which are now Nato members.

Though none of them have purchased electricity from Russia since 2022, their connection to the Brell grid left them dependent on Moscow for energy flow.

After disconnecting on Saturday morning, the three countries will carry out frequency tests before integrating into the European grid via Poland on Sunday.

“We are now removing Russia’s ability to use the electricity system as a tool of geopolitical blackmail,” Lithuania’s Energy Minister Zygimantas Vaiciunas told AFP news agency.

“It’s the culmination of efforts over more than 10 years or 20 years, to reduce that energy dependence,” Prof David Smith of the Baltic Research Unit at the University of Glasgow told the BBC.

“When the Baltic States joined the EU and Nato, everybody talked about them being an energy island that was still dependent on that joint electricity network with Belarus and Russia,” said Smith. “That’s been completely broken now.”

Tensions between the Baltic States and Russia, which share a combined 543 mile-long (874km) border, have soared since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Since then, a spate of suspected sabotage incidents involving electricity cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea have prompted fears that Moscow could retaliate against the shift towards EU energy.

In the past 18 months, at least 11 cables running under the Baltic Sea have been damaged. In a recent case, a ship from Russia’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers was accused of damaging Estonia’s main power link in the Gulf of Finland. The Kremlin declined to comment.

Nato has not accused Russia, but has responded by launching a new patrol mission of the region named Baltic Sentry.

“We cannot rule out some kind of provocation. That is why Latvian and foreign security authorities are on high alert,” Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs said on Wednesday.

“Clearly there are risks, we understand that very well,” Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina echoed. “But the risks are identified and there is a contingency plan.”

A spokesperson from the Nato Energy Security Centre of Excellence told the BBC that in recent months, frequent emergency operation tests have been carried out to help prepare for potential targeted attacks on the energy system.

The head of Estonia’s Cybersecurity Centre, Gert Auvaart, told the BBC in a statement that Russia “may attempt to exploit this period to create uncertainty”, but said that due to international co-operation, Estonia was “well-prepared even for worst-case scenarios”.

He added that cyber-attacks against the country had surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and ranged from “hacktivist-driven DDoS attacks [Distributed Denial-Of-Service] to more sophisticated, targeted operations against government agencies and businesses”.

The Baltic states will also be on watch for disinformation campaigns related to the transition.

Shortly after they notified Russia of their decision to withdraw from Brell in August 2024, campaigns emerged on social media falsely warning of supply failures and soaring prices if the countries were to leave the joint power grid.

“If the island sinks, I will sink with it,” Delfino Davies says, his smile not fading for a second.

There is silence, except for the swish of his broom across the floor of the small museum he runs documenting the life of his community in Panama, the Guna.

“Before, you could hear children shouting… music everywhere, neighbours arguing,” he says, “but now all the sounds have gone”.

His community, living on the tiny low-lying island of Gardi Sugdub, is the first in Panama to be relocated because of climate change.

The government has said they face “imminent risk” from rising sea levels, which scientists say are likely to render the island uninhabitable by 2050.

In June last year, most of the residents abandoned this cramped jumble of wooden and tin homes for rows of neat prefabricated houses on the mainland.

The relocation has been praised by some as a model for other groups worldwide whose homes are under threat, but even so, it has divided the community.

“My father, my brother, my sisters-in-law and my friends are gone,” says Delfino. “Sometimes the children whose families have stayed cry, wondering where their friends have gone, he says.

House after house is padlocked. About 1,000 people left, while about 100 stayed – some because there was not enough room in the new settlement. Others, like Delfino, are not fully convinced climate change is a threat, or simply did not want to leave.

He says he wants to stay close to the ocean, where he can fish. “The people that lose their tradition lose their soul. The essence of our culture is on the islands,” he adds.

The Guna have lived on Gardi Sugdub since the 19th Century, and even longer on other islands in this archipelago off Panama’s northern coast. They fled from the mainland to escape Spanish conquistadors and, later, epidemics and conflict with other indigenous groups.

They are known for their clothes called “molas”, decorated with colourful designs.

The Guna currently inhabit more than 40 other islands. Steve Paton, a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, says it is “almost a certainty” that most, if not all, of the islands will be submerged before the end of the century.

As climate change causes the Earth to heat up, sea levels are rising as glaciers and ice sheets melt and seawater expands as it warms.

Scientists warn that hundreds of millions of people living in coastal areas around the world could be at risk by the end of the century.

On Gardi Sugdub, waves whipped up during the rainy season wash into homes, lapping below the hammocks where families sleep.

Mr Paton says, “it is very unlikely that the island will be habitable by 2050, based on current and projected rates of sea level rise”.

However, the first discussions about relocation began, more than a decade ago, because of population growth, not climate change.

The island is just 400m long and 150m wide. Some residents see overcrowding as the more pressing problem. But others, like Magdalena Martínez, fear the rising sea:

“Every year, we saw the tides were higher,” she says. “We couldn’t cook on our stoves and it was always flooded… so we said ‘we have to get out of here’.”

Magdalena was among those who clambered into motor boats and wooden canoes last June, bound for new homes.

“I brought just my clothes and some kitchen utensils,” she says. “You feel like you are leaving pieces of your life on the island.”

The new community, Isberyala, is – weather permitting – just 15 minutes by boat, followed by a five-minute drive, from Gardi Sugdub. But it feels like another world.

Identical white and yellow homes line tarmacked roads.

Magdalena’s eyes light up as she shows off the “little house” where she lives with her 14-year-old granddaughter Bianca and her dog.

Each house has a small area of land behind it – a luxury not available on the island. “I want to plant yucca, tomatoes, bananas, mangoes and pineapples,” she enthuses.

“It is quite sad to leave a place you’ve been in for so long. You miss your friends, the streets where you lived, being so close to the sea,” she says.

Isberyala was built with $15m (£12m) from the Panamanian government and additional funding from the Inter-American Development Bank.

In its new meeting house, which is roofed with branches and leaves in the traditional style, waits Tito López, the community’s sayla – or leader.

“My identity and my culture aren’t going to change, it’s just the houses that have changed,” he says.

He is lying in a hammock, and explains that as long as the hammock keeps its place in Guna culture, “the heart of the Guna people will be alive”.

When a Guna dies, they lie for a day in their hammock for family and friends to visit. It is then buried next to them.

In the state-of-the-art new school, students aged 12 and 13 are rehearsing Guna music and dances. Boys in bright shirts play pan pipes, while girls wearing molas shake maracas.

The cramped school on the island has closed now, and students whose families stayed there travel each day to the new building with its computers, sports fields and library.

Magdalena says conditions in Isberyala are better than on the island, where she says they had only four hours of electricity a day and had to fetch drinking water by boat from a river on the mainland.

In Isberyala, the power supply is constant, but the water – pumped from wells nearby – is only switched on for a few hours a day. The system has at times broken down for days at a time.

Also, there is no healthcare yet. Another resident, Yanisela Vallarino, says one evening her young daughter was unwell and she had to arrange transport back to the island late at night to see a doctor.

Panamanian authorities told the BBC that construction of a hospital in Isberyala stalled a decade ago over lack of funding. But they said they hoped to revive the plan this year, and were assessing how to create space for remaining residents to move from the island.

Yanisela is delighted that she is now able to attend evening classes in the new school, but she still returns to the island frequently.

“I’m not used to it yet. And I miss my house,” she says.

Communities around the world will be “inspired” by the way the residents of Gardi Sugdub have confronted their situation, says Erica Bower, a researcher on climate displacement at Human Rights Watch.

“We need to learn from these early cases to understand what success even looks like,” she says.

As afternoon arrives, the school activities give way to the shouts and scuffles of football, basketball and volleyball.

“I prefer this place to the island because we have more space to play,” says eight-year-old Jerson, before diving for a football.

Magdalena sits with her granddaughter, teaching her to sew molas.

“It’s hard for her, but I know she’s going to learn. Our unique ways can’t be lost,” says Magdalena.

Asked what she misses about the island, she replies: “I wish we were all here.”

A federal judge has blocked Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) from accessing the personal financial data of millions of Americans in Treasury Department records, according to court documents.

US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued a preliminary injunction on Saturday to prohibit access, ordering Musk and his team to immediately destroy any copies of records.

The move comes after 19 state attorneys general sued the Trump administration after Doge, a cost-cutting initiative led by Musk, was given access to the records.

They argued access for Musk, a “special government employee”, and Doge, which is not an official government department, violated federal law.

There was no immediate comment from the White House, President Donald Trump or Musk.

The Democratic state attorneys general sued Trump, the Treasury Department and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday.

Engelmayer’s order, issued early on Saturday, said the states would “face irreparable” harm without immediate relief.

“That is both because of the risk that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking,” the order read.

The order restrains the defendants from granting access to Treasury Department records containing personally identifiable or confidential information to special government employees, political appointees, and other employees from outside the department.

The injunction restricts anyone else from accessing those records other than civil servants who need to do so for their work at the Bureau of Fiscal Services and have passed background checks.

The judge further ordered any person among those restricted to immediately destroy copies of records.

The conditions will remain in place until the next court hearing on 14 February.

Tech titan and billionaire Musk has been heavily involved in upheaval during Trump’s second term, with Doge leading major cuts at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which distributes billions of dollars of aid globally.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party will form the government in Indian capital Delhi after 27 years as it scripted an impressive election victory.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won or is leading in 48 seats in the 70-member legislative assembly, while the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is ahead in 22 seats, according to data from the Election Commission of India (EC).

A party that wins more than the halfway mark of 35 seats can form the government.

“Development wins, good governance triumphs,” Modi wrote on X, adding that his party would leave “no stone unturned” in developing Delhi .

The election was a battle of prestige for both the BJP and AAP, given Delhi’s symbolic importance as the country’s capital.

The city, a federally-administered territory, was governed by the AAP since 2013, with voters backing its strong record of welfarism. But the party and its leaders have faced several challenges recently, with leaders embroiled in corruption allegations which they have denied.

For the BJP, securing Delhi represents more than just electoral success – it marks a crucial foothold in the nation’s capital after being out of power there since 1998.

The party, which has had recent election successes in other states, such as Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, threw resources at the Delhi campaign, with Modi as well as Home Minister Amit Shah attending events.

Congress, the main opposition party at the national level, was also in the race, but did not win even one seat.

The party governed Delhi from 1998 to 2013, but was ousted over allegations of corruption that saw voters turn to AAP instead. It has failed to make a mark since.

Experts say that the win in politically crucial Delhi will reinforce Modi’s popularity among Indian voters after his party lost its outright majority in last year’s general election.

The defeat is a big blow to the AAP, a much smaller party which was praised in its early years in power for focusing on improving education and health facilities in the city. It also governs Punjab state, but retaining Delhi would have been a triumph for the beleaguered party which now faces questions about its future.

On Saturday, the biggest upsets for AAP included top leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia losing in the New Delhi and Jangpura constituencies, respectively.

Incumbent Chief Minister Atishi managed only a narrow victory from the Kalkaji constituency.

In a video message on X, Kejriwal said he and his party “humbly accepted” the verdict of the people and congratulated the BJP on its win.

“I hope they live up to the expectations of the people who voted for them,” he said.

More than 60% of eligible voters cast their ballot in the election on Wednesday. Most exit polls had predicted an absolute majority for the BJP, although such predictions have gone wrong in the past.

Much of the BJP campaign targeted Kejriwal, an anti-graft activist, who – along with Sisodia – had been jailed over the past two years in a corruption case relating to a now-scrapped alcohol sales policy. Both leaders, who deny all the charges, separately got bail last year after spending months in jail.

Kejriwal has accused Modi’s party of carrying out a “political vendetta” against him and the AAP, which the BJP denies.

The Supreme Court’s bail conditions banned him from entering the chief minister’s office or signing files. Kejriwal resigned from the role days after his release from prison.

*****

Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP is losing Delhi due to anti-incumbency, governance fatigue and the BJP’s relentless onslaught.

After more than a decade in power, AAP’s appeal has waned, especially among the middle class which was once drawn to Kejriwal’s anti-corruption stance. Kejriwal, once a champion of the middle-class-led anti-corruption movement, had pivoted to becoming the party of the poor – it is not yet clear when the poor and Delhi’s struggling working class abandoned him.

Corruption allegations, the jailing of key leaders, and Kejriwal’s own arrest damaged AAP’s campaign, creating a vacuum the BJP swiftly filled. Backed by vast resources and a powerful electoral machine, the BJP’s “double-engine” pitch – where state and federal governments are ruled by the same party – promised stability and better governance.

This is a historic victory – BJP’s first Delhi majority in almost 30 years. Its “Parivartan” (change) message struck a chord, but its political and financial muscle sealed the landslide win.

Fresh off wins in the states of Haryana and Maharashtra, this cements BJP’s resurgence after last year’s general election setback. With Delhi slipping away, the fragmented opposition is in disarray, while the BJP enters the next electoral cycle with a clear upper hand.

*****

Delhi has a unique governance structure. Key decisions related to public order, police and land are taken by the lieutenant governor (LG) who is appointed by the federal government. The state legislature handles matters including education, health and public services.

This division has often caused friction between the federal government and state legislature when they are run by rival parties.

The power structure was also a reason why the election campaigning in Delhi was more focused on welfare than on political or identity issues, which play a larger role in elections elsewhere in the country.

The AAP and BJP campaigns both promised improvements to public schools and free healthcare services as well as cash handouts to women.

Meanwhile, the BJP also hoped for a boost from last week’s federal budget, which slashed income tax for the salaried middle class, a key voting bloc in the capital.

The bitter, weeks-long campaign to win the capital focused strongly on welfare facilities for its residents. One topic, however, remained off the agenda – Delhi’s perennial air pollution crisis that affects the city of more than 30 million for much of the year.

The BJP had promised to reduce the city’s Air Quality Index (AQI) by half by 2030 if it won, and other parties also made references to the crisis in their manifestos. But the issue didn’t dominate discussions or become a talking point in the election campaign.

On a calm summer day on Santorini in July 1956, disaster hit.

“I remember our dog and bird acting strangely. Then, the earthquake struck,” 83-year-old Eirini Mindrinou recalls. “The house split open before closing again. Through the crack in the roof, I could see the sky.”

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake, which hit between Santorini and the nearby island of Amorgos, destroyed much of the island, and a powerful aftershock 12 minutes later caused further damage. Fifty-three people died.

The island, then just a quiet fishing village, was scarred and its people fled.

It is much different today, rebuilt into one of Greece’s most coveted tourists destinations – but this week, another mass exodus unfolded as a new wave of earthquakes hit the island.

Subtle tremors that had begun in June 2024 turned into full-fledged quakes, shaking homes and unsettling the island’s residents. Families rushed to leave by air and sea, desperately seeking respite as the ground shook once again.

But not everyone is fleeing. Those that remain display the mix of courage, necessity, and a deep connection to the land that has come to define the locals of this island. They endure sleepless nights, haunted by memories of the past and the terrifying unknown of what’s yet to come.

“The noise from the earthquake… it’s unbearable. Even in my house, it’s become overwhelming,” says Margarita Karamolegkou, a local businesswoman. “I’ve felt tired, day after day, with no end in sight… But I haven’t felt fear. I can’t leave my home, and I can’t leave the people who’ve stayed behind.”

This resilience is nothing new. People have have withstood both social change -about 3.4 million visited the island last year, according to Mayor Nikos Zorzos – and seismic shifts. Now, as always, they have come together in solidarity.

“We’re doing our best to support the vulnerable,” says Matthaios Fytros, a local volunteer and merchant. “People with disabilities, the elderly – many struggle to get around, and their homes are hard to reach. If a major earthquake hits, I know exactly where they live, and I’ll get to them as fast as I can, alongside the firefighters.”

Matthaios and others patrol the island, ensuring abandoned properties aren’t looted and helping anyone in need. “I’m not afraid,” he says with quiet conviction. “We’re proud of our island. I just hope everything works out and that this ordeal ends soon. We’ll be happy to have our visitors back with us.”

The response of the state has been swift, with measures taken to address the crisis. Beneath the gratitude for the government’s intervention, however, lingers a quiet bitterness. Many islanders recall the years when their cries for better infrastructure and support went unheard.

“For years, we’ve been asking for a better port, something to help us manage the growing number of tourists,” Margarita says, her voice tinged with frustration. “We need help preserving the island’s identity – its unique environment, the seismic and volcanic forces that shape it. We’re grateful for the tourists, but we also need to protect what makes Santorini special.”

Tourism has become the lifeblood of Santorini’s economy. The island contributes around 2.5% to Greece’s GDP, approximately 5.9 billion euros (£4.9 billion) each year.

As the tremors continue, the future of Santorini’s economy remains uncertain. Will its prosperity withstand the shaking ground? The people of Santorini worry that the island’s fragility may soon extend beyond the land itself.

“I regret how haphazard the island’s development has been with the rise in tourism,” says Eirini, who is temporarily in Athens, not out of fear, but for routine medical tests. “We’ve damaged the natural environment here. Now, with the earthquakes continuing, there’s a real risk we could lose the entire tourist season.”

Scientists may not know when the shaking will stop, but instead of succumbing to fear, some residents have chosen to understand the phenomenon, hoping that will bring them reassurance in the face of the unknown.

“I try to think of what’s happening with kindness,” Margarita says thoughtfully. “It feels like something is settling down there. Everything we admire about Santorini today – the beauty, the character – has been shaped by the volcano and its seismic forces.”

“We are the most beloved island,” says Matthaios, his voice full of pride. “And I believe we’re the most beautiful of all the islands in Greece. We will get out of this stronger.”

When Donald Trump’s fortunes took a downturn in the 90s and he needed to raise cash fast, he sailed his 282ft (85m) superyacht, the Trump Princess, to Asia hoping he could attract Japan’s wealthy.

It wasn’t the first time the businessman had sought out Japanese buyers or lenders for his projects.

In the cut-throat world of New York real estate, Trump had a front-row seat from his Fifth Avenue skyscraper of Tokyo’s buying spree in the 80s of iconic US brands and properties, including Rockefeller Center.

It was then that his worldview on trade and America’s relations with its allies was formed, and his fixation on tariffs, a tax on imports, began.

“He had a tremendous resentment for Japan,” says Barbara Res, a former executive vice-president at the Trump Organization.

He watched with jealousy as Japanese businessmen were viewed as geniuses, she says. He felt America wasn’t getting enough in return for assisting its ally Japan with military defence.

• What are tariffs and why is Trump threatening them?

Trump often complained that he had difficulties doing deals with large groups of Japanese businessmen.

“I’m tired of watching other countries ripping off the United States.”

That Trump quote could’ve been pulled from 2016, but it’s actually from the late 80s when he made an appearance on CNN’s Larry King Live, around the time he first floated his name as a potential presidential candidate.

Fresh from sharing his business philosophy in his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal, Trump went on a tirade against America’s trade policies in national interviews.

In an animated interview with Oprah Winfrey before a live studio audience on The Oprah Show, he said he would handle foreign policy differently by making the country’s allies “pay their fair share”.

He added that there wasn’t free trade when Japan was “dumping” products into America’s market but making it “impossible to do business” there.

Jennifer Miller, an associate professor of history at Dartmouth College, said others shared his concerns about the economy at the time.

Japan provided competition for US manufacturing, particularly in consumer electronics and cars. As US factories were shuttering and new Japanese brands entered the market, pundits were talking about Japan surpassing the US as the world’s leading economy.

“Trump is sort of symbolic of a lot of people who were kind of questioning American leadership in the American-led international order, and whether it actually served the United States,” Prof Miller says.

Before his Oprah appearance, Trump had spent almost $100,000 to release an “open letter” in full-page ads in three major US newspapers.

The headline read: “There’s nothing wrong with America’s Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can’t cure.”

In it, he said Japan and other nations had been taking advantage of the US for decades. He claimed “the Japanese, unimpeded by the huge costs of defending themselves (as long as the United States will do it for free), have built a strong and vibrant economy with unprecedented surpluses”.

Trump believed the obvious solution was to “tax” these wealthy nations.

“The world is laughing at America’s politicians as we protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies who won’t help,” he wrote.

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The ad served as a potent introduction to Trump’s foreign policy vision, according to Prof Miller. One built on the zero-sum belief that allies are freeloaders and that the liberal internationalist approach which had dominated since World War II was weak and foolish in a competitive world. The solution, he argued, was a more aggressive, protectionist trade policy.

“I think that’s one reason he likes tariffs so much, is they fit not only with his transactional ideology but his sense of himself, which is very deeply rooted as this successful dealmaker,” she said. “And the fact that tariffs can be threatened; they can be dangled over another country.”

Clyde Prestowitz headed negotiations with Japan during the Reagan administration as counselor to the secretary of commerce. A longtime critic of free-trade policies, he said nobody who was intellectually serious was affiliated with Trump or his simplistic approach at the time. He argues that the president hasn’t offered a real solution to the problems he’s raised.

“Tariffs are kind of a showy thing that you can say, look what I did, I banged those guys… so you know, you can be a tough guy. Whether or not they are effective in any way is really open to discussion.”

Mr Prestowitz believes the real problem then and now is that the US doesn’t have a strategic manufacturing policy, despite complaining about unfair trade.

Of course, fears of Japan’s rise calmed over time and now it’s an ally. Instead it’s China that is the US’s fiercest corporate competitor. This week Trump welcomed Japan’s prime minster into the Oval Office as one of his first foreign visitors.

But Donald Trump’s governing philosophy is still the same as when he was a young real estate developer. He still believes just as strongly in tariffs as a tool to pressure other countries to open their markets and reduce trade deficits.

“He just says this all the time to anybody who will listen whenever anybody asks, and that’s been true for 40 years. And in fairness to him, you know that is a very natural way to view international commerce,” said Michael Strain, an economist with the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

He says students often share Trump’s intuitive thinking about the economy, and one of the big challenges that professors face is convincing them that their understanding is wrong.

Mr Strain says despite Trump’s hold on the party, with a stance that has upended decades of Republican embrace of free trade, he doesn’t think he’s convinced sceptical lawmakers, business leaders and economists.

The sticking points remain that his views that foreign imports are bad, that the size of the trade deficit is a useful measure of policy success or that the ideal state for the US economy is to only import goods that cannot physically be made in the US.

Mr Strain believes threats to increase tariffs on US allies could reduce business investment and weaken international alliances.

Joseph LaVorgna, a chief economist of the National Economic Council during Trump’s first term, believes there’s been too narrow a focus on tariffs and not enough of an attempt to understand the big picture of what Trump is trying to accomplish.

He says the president wants to galvanise domestic industry, in particular high-tech manufacturing.

The administration, he explains, feels they can encourage more corporations to come to the US using tariffs, combined with deregulation, cheaper energy and lower corporate taxes, if enacted by Congress.

“I think that President Trump understands something which is very important, being a businessman and being transactional, and that is free trade is great in theory but in the real world you need to have fair trade and that’s a level playing field.”

He is betting Donald Trump is right. Few Republicans have publicly opposed the president as he demands loyalty to his agenda.

Still, some who have remained silent understand that their constituents could be impacted by rising prices, and are hoping they can convince Trump not to follow through with his beloved tariffs.

Canada’s outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told a group of business leaders he believes President Donald Trump might be serious about annexing his country.

Trudeau suggested Trump has floated the idea of taking over Canada and making it the “51st state” because he wants to access the country’s critical minerals.

“Mr Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing,” the prime minister said.

His comments were made behind closed doors at a Canada-US Economic Summit in Toronto, but were captured in part by a microphone and were reported on by several Canadian media outlets.

The summit was attended by more than 100 business leaders and public policy experts, and was hosted by the Canadian government’s newly created advisory council on Canada-US relations.

Trudeau’s comments come after Trump threatened Canada with a 25% tariff on all its exports to the US, with the exception of energy exports that would be taxed at a lower rate of 10%.

The tariffs were to be imposed earlier this week, but Trump granted Canada – as well as Mexico, who had been threatened with similar tariffs – a last-minute reprieve for 30 days in exchange for more efforts to bolster security at their shared borders.

Trump had suggested repeatedly, both in posts on his social media platform Truth Social and in remarks to reporters, that Canada could become a US state instead to avoid the tariffs. He has also referred to the country’s prime minister as “Governor Trudeau”.

“What I’d like to see – Canada become our 51st state,” Trump said earlier this week at the Oval Office, when asked about what concessions Canada could offer.

Trump first mentioned the idea of absorbing Canada at a dinner with Trudeau in December, shortly after he first threatened the tariffs. At the time, Canadian officials dismissed it as a joke.

But Trudeau’s comments on Friday suggest a shift in how Canada might be perceiving Trump’s remarks.

An Ipsos poll conducted in January shows that the majority of Canadians (80%) oppose their country becoming part of the US, and would never vote ‘yes’ in any referendum on the issue.

Such a move would also require the approval of both chambers of Congress in the US, and would need a supermajority of 60 votes to get through the Senate.

In Canada, Trump’s threats have caused nationwide anxiety. Around three-quarters of Canadian exports are sold to the US, and steep tariffs on those goods could deeply hurt Canada’s economy and risk thousands of job losses.

Some provincial politicians have been launching “buy local” campaigns to encourage Canadians to spend their money at home instead of the US. Some Canadians have cancelled trips to south of the border in protest.

But officials have also tried to push closer ties with the US in the wake of the tariffs, saying that Canada was open to establishing a Canada-US alliance on energy and critical minerals.

Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, who has been in Washington DC this week to meet his American counterparts, said closer collaboration would be a “win-win” for both countries.

At Friday’s summit, Trudeau said Canada was facing the possibility of “a more challenging, long-term political situation with the United States”, and must find ways to strengthen its own economy and trade ties in the years ahead.

“I feel very angry, upset, worthless, and like my mental health and my life does not matter,” says Jessie, propped up in a hospital bed.

She is recording this in a video diary. Blue NHS curtains are drawn around the bed and all her possessions are stacked up in the tiny chaotic space this creates.

Among the piles of boxes and bags sit the dolls she holds to keep her calm.

Thirty-five-year-old Jessie spent 550 days in Northampton General Hospital. For nearly all that time, she was medically fit to leave but finding her a suitable place to go to was difficult.

The BBC has followed her story for more than five months as the NHS trust took costly High Court action against her, to have her evicted from the hospital bed she was occupying.

Jessie was eventually arrested and taken to a care home where she says she feels anxious.

Her story is an extreme example, but it demonstrates the acute pressures faced by a care system coping with more complex cases, the knock-on effect to the NHS, and how the person at the heart of it can feel lost.

North Northamptonshire Council, which is responsible for her housing and care, says it cannot comment because of an ongoing police investigation into Jessie’s behaviour.

The hospital says it “is not the best environment for patients who are not in need of acute medical care”.

The Department of Health and Social Care has told the BBC: “This is a troubling case which shows how our broken NHS discharge system is failing vulnerable people.”

Jessie was one of more than 70 people who contacted the BBC after reading about Matthew in Surrey – who would end up spending more than a year stuck on a hospital ward before being moved to a care home.

Most who wrote to us told of their struggles to find the social care they needed, some also faced long waits to get out of hospital.

At the start of January 2025, nearly 13,000 out of the more than 100,000 hospital beds in England were occupied by people who didn’t have a medical reason to be there, according to official figures.

For people delayed for more than a week, the most common reasons were a lack of social care available in their own homes, or a shortage of places in care or rehabilitation homes.

Such delays have become normal, say experts.

It is very rare for a patient to be taken to court by the NHS – Jessie’s is only the fourth case since 2006. So how did she come to be arrested in her hospital bed?

She arrived at Northampton General on 14 April 2023 needing treatment for cellulitis, a bacterial infection affecting the skin, which can be serious.

She uses a wheelchair and needs help with all her personal care. She has also been diagnosed with an emotionally unstable personality disorder.

Jessie likes games, arts and crafts, and trips to garden centres. She also finds life difficult and can be challenging to those trying to help her. When stressed, she self-harms and can threaten to harm others.

By the end of April, she was ready to be discharged from hospital, but was told she could not return to the nursing home where she had lived for nine years because it could no longer meet her needs.

Jessie – who is unable to work and reliant on benefits – became increasingly isolated stuck inside her hospital cubicle on the six-bedded ward. She says her mental health deteriorated further, people would stare at her and she felt safer with the curtains drawn.

From documents we have seen, and from what Jessie and her mother, Hilda, have told us, it was about a year before she was offered an alternative place by the local council.

Sarah Scobie, deputy director of research at the Nuffield Trust think tank, says patients stuck in hospital for three weeks or more, like Jessie, tend to need a lot of support, and the number of these cases is increasing.

With councils – who pay for most social care – financially squeezed and overstretched, many care homes and home-care providers are only given short-term funding, she says.

It is “difficult for them to establish services, recruit staff, train staff, invest in a service, if they don’t know whether that funding is going to continue,” she adds.

The government says it is providing an additional £26bn to help “shift the focus of care from hospital to community, and tackle delayed discharges by improving the links between the NHS and social care”.

It also says a review of adult social care led by Baroness Louise Casey, which starts work in April, will draw up a plan for a fair and affordable care system for the future.

In Jessie’s case, legal documents say the council investigated nearly 120 care places. Only one was offered to her.

This was a supported living flat in a nearby town, with two care staff initially present 24 hours a day.

But the town has upsetting memories for Jessie. She finds it too difficult to talk about, other than to say “bad things” happened.

She told us she was desperate to leave hospital, but the thought of going there made her feel suicidal. So, she refused the one place offered.

Under the 2014 Care Act, Jessie should be able to express a preference about where she lives.

She has mental capacity, but was assessed by the NHS as needing a professional advocate to support her in this, helping her understand the decisions she is asked to make and to explain her views to others.

Jessie was referred to an advocacy firm by the council, but in June 2024 her case was closed after she asked for a new advocate but then didn’t respond to further contact.

The health and care system is “convoluted, complicated, very bureaucratic” and it is easy for a patient’s voice to get lost, says Caroline Entwistle from the advocacy charity, VoiceAbility.

She believes an advocate can “take that pressure off the person who’s feeling quite overwhelmed” – but that funding for such services is not keeping up with demand.

The hospital did provide Jessie with mental health support while she was in her cubicle. But she believed no-one was listening to her.

“I explained all the reasons I wasn’t happy with [the accommodation],” she says, “but they just went ahead with it anyway.”

In August 2024, 16 months after she arrived, the hospital started legal action against Jessie to repossess the bed she was in.

She did not really understand what was happening, she says. Neither did her mother. They could not find a solicitor and had no advocate, so the first two hearings went ahead without anyone representing Jessie’s views.

The NHS trust argued a patient didn’t have the right to choose their placement, and that a hospital bed took up significant resource.

It said it had taken account of Jessie’s vulnerabilities throughout and the package of care offered by the council was significant, with staff present 24 hours a day to keep her safe.

A care plan, which detailed the support Jessie needed, was only given to the court at the final hearing. The date suggests the assessment was completed the day before. It also notes that “Jessie is unable to communicate effectively”.

At the final High Court hearing on 4 October, Jessie attended remotely from hospital. Within minutes she was overwhelmed and had to leave. Her mother struggled to speak for her.

The judge said Jessie could challenge the council’s assessment of whether the accommodation and care were right for her, but she could not remain in hospital “when she does not need a bed there, and has not needed one for over a year, and others do”.

He ruled that Jessie must leave hospital, and said “we must hope the transition goes smoothly”.

The hospital trust says it is committed to working with “care partners to provide the best possible care for those in our communities” in the place that “best suits their needs”.

The most recent data, from 2020-21, suggests a standard NHS hospital bed costs £345 per day. Adjusting for inflation, this would mean Jessie’s hospital stay is likely to have cost more than £200,000. We do not know how much the legal action cost.

Ten days after Jessie’s final hearing, 18 months after she arrived in hospital, the police arrested her. She spent several hours at a police station before being moved to the flat in the town that holds bad memories.

Police are investigating her for a number of alleged incidents, she told us, including for sending offensive emails shortly before she was evicted in October.

Since moving, Jessie says she has self-harmed and the police have been called on three occasions – once by Jessie, twice by staff.

“They don’t know what to do with me,” she says.

Jessie has recently been visited by a new advocate.

King Charles and Queen Camilla have hosted an Italian-themed dinner with dishes including crab, ravioli and pork, along with English and Italian wine.

Friday’s dinner, with guests including David and Victoria Beckham, Dame Helen Mirren and Donatella Versace, was a culinary warm-up for the royal couple’s state visit to Italy and the Vatican in early April, where they will meet Pope Francis.

The trip is expected to coincide with Charles and Camilla’s 20th wedding anniversary and the King told dinner guests about his love of Italian food and culture.

“Good food brings people together and what we choose to eat helps to define us – as families, communities and nations,” said the King.

The UK-Italy dinner, hosted by the King and Queen at their Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire, and with the Italian ambassador to the UK, Inigo Lambertini, was a celebration of “slow food”, which uses fresh local food and traditional cooking methods.

Other guests included former British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful and chefs Raymond Blanc and Angela Hartnett.

The King hailed this “most splendid evening which brings together two things very dear to my heart – slow food and Italy”.

“A nation’s food culture is a priceless social and environmental asset, intimately bound up with its sense of identity and place,” said the King.

An enthusiast for art, culture and religion, he spoke of his enthusiasm for the state visit, which will be his 18th official visit to the country.

“To say that we are looking forward to it would be to engage in a little British understatement,” he joked to diners, including Stanley Tucci, who inspired the choice of food.

The reception and dinner menu, cooked by Calabrian chef Francesco Mazzei, featured Italian recipes with British ingredients. It was accompanied by English sparkling wine and Italian red and white wines.

Reception:

Rare and pasture salumi

Tuscan-style paté and coppa

Yorkshire pecorino cheese puffs

British vegetables caponata tartelletta

with Highgrove sparkling wine

Dinner:

Scottish crab panzanella

Westcombe ricotta and Highgrove fine herbs ravioli

Isle of Wight tomato passata

Suffolk Red porchetta

Pumpkin and sage mash, Tuscan kale

with white wine Gavi dei Gavi La Scolca Black label 2023 and red wine Barbaresco Gaja 2021

Zuppa Inglese and biscotti

with a red dessert wine, Recioto della Valpolicella Classico Zenato

Some of the British guests in attendance had strong links to Italy.

Dame Helen and her husband have a house in Puglia, in the south of the country, where they spend six months out of the year.

She previously told a local TV show that she is learning to speak Italian, and has found “nothing but kindness” in the area where she lives.

And it is sometimes forgotten that David Beckham played 29 matches for AC Milan in two loans spells in 2009 and 2010 as he sought to prove his match fitness to play for England in the 2010 World Cup. But it was a bittersweet experience as the second spell was cut short by an Achilles tendon injury that ultimately ruled him out of the World Cup in South Africa.

King Charles said of the combined culinary efforts of chef Mazzei and Tucci: “I can only hope they are still talking to each other at the end of it all!”

Cocktails were made by “mixologist” Alessandro Palazzi, using herbs from the gardens at Highgrove.

There was a toast made by the King in Italian, “alla eterna cultura italiana del buon cibo,” meaning “to Italy’s timeless food culture”.

This dinner comes ahead of the state visit in early April, confirmed on Thursday by Buckingham Palace.

There will be engagements in Rome and Ravenna, with the King and Queen set to hold meetings with Pope Francis and Italian political leaders.

Sign up here to get the latest royal stories and analysis straight to your inbox every week with our Royal Watch newsletter. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

TV host Chelsea Handler “thanked” actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni at Friday night’s Critics Choice Awards during her opening monologue.

The comedian said that people in Los Angeles and across the country had been “through a lot lately”, and that it was important in such times to have a “distraction”.

Handler’s remarks were met with laughter by the audience but on social media she was criticised for “trivialising” the feud.

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.

• Justin Baldoni ramps up Blake Lively feud with new website
• Lively and Baldoni lawyers spar during first court hearing
• Blake Lively accuses co-star Justin Baldoni of smear campaign

Handler began the ceremony, which was held in Santa Monica, by praising the first responders who had tackled the recent deadly wildfires in LA.

“I want to acknowledge that we’ve been through a lot lately, not just here in Los Angeles, but our entire country waking up every day, not knowing what news we are going to hear that will disappoint or horrify us,” she said.

“So, it is important in times like these to have a distraction. And that’s why I want to personally extend my gratitude to Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively.

“Thank you for providing us with that distraction. I’m grateful… I think everybody in this room, no matter whose side you’re on, we can all agree to accept that there’s probably not going to be a sequel.”

“It ends with us, guys,” Handler concluded, in a reference to the 2024 film It Ends With Us in which Lively and Baldoni co-starred.

Neither Baldoni or Lively were present at the awards on Friday night.

Video footage posted online shows the monologue as well recieved by the audience.

But on social media, one X user said Handler was “trivialising” the feud while another said the jokes were “in poor taste”.

Meanwhile, Demi Moore took another leap ahead in the Oscars race, winning best actress at Friday’s ceremony.

The 62-year-old, who also scooped up the award at last month’s Golden Globes, has enjoyed a remarkable career resurgence thanks to her role in body horror The Substance.

“This has been such a wild ride,” said Moore.

She thanked critics for celebrating “this genre of horror films, that are overlooked and not seen for the profundity that they can hold”.

Moore’s win came at the expense of Emilia Perez rival Karla Sofia Gascon, whose past tweets caused a significant fallout.

But the Spanish-language musical did manage to pick up several awards on the night, including best supporting actress for Zoe Saldana.

Anora, a film about a stripper and occasional sex worker who marries the spoiled son of a Russian oligarch, bagged the prize of best picture at the end of the night, having missed out in earlier categories.

Anora’s triumph shakes up the race for the most sought-after award at the Oscars next month.

Other wins on the night included Adrian Brody, who won best actor for his role in historical epic The Brutalist, and Jon M. Chu who won best director for Wicked.

Conclave won best adapted screenplay.

It has earned the romantically-named village worldwide fame, with sweethearts from every continent – even Antarctica – paying to have the Lover postmark on their cards.

People can order online or drop into the area’s pop-up post office that is open in the lead up to 14 February.

Nine years ago, residents formed the Lover Community Trust and since then have sent more than 10,000 love letters.

And the romance does not end with their postal service, they have also decorated the area with paper hearts and opened a Darling café.

Nick Gibbs, who runs the scheme alongside volunteers, said: “People just love this product. In a world full of trouble, this is an oasis of love and affection.

“It is that moment when you can express how you feel about somebody else and that’s wonderful.”

All the money paid for the cards goes back into supporting the community, including funding a major refurbishment of the Old School building.

Mr Gibbs added: “They go all over the world. We’ve been on Australian TV and had a rush of orders from Australia. We’ve been on American airport screens.”

In the past, orders from China required a “re-jig” in technology so addresses could be read.

However, while many will be sending “love from lover”, they might find they pronounce it wrong – it is actually “lover” like “Dover”.

Before the Lover Community Trust was established in 2016, the Lover Post was in operation for four decades until the village post office closed in 2008.

The third week of Donald Trump’s second term has been marked by more major action from the US president and his team.

From announcing US goals on the future of Gaza and massively slashing the US agency for foreign aid to intervening in a golf dispute and banning transgender women from female sports competitions, Trump, his adviser Elon Musk and the rest of his team have pressed on with their agenda.

There’s a lot to keep up with – so here’s a reminder of 17 moves this week.

At a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said the US would “take over” and “own” Gaza, resettling its Palestinian population in the process.

Trump proposed developing the territory, devastated after 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas, into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” Trump repeated on social media on Thursday, reiterating the idea would mean resettling Palestinians who currently live there.

Trump suggested the displacement would be permanent, but administration officials later suggested any relocation would be only temporary.

Any forced deportation of civilians would be a violation of international law.

• Read Jeremy Bowen’s take on Trump’s vision for Gaza
• Why does Trump want to take over Gaza and could he do it?
• How Trump’s plan compares to international law

Thousands of employees at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the government’s main foreign aid agency, were expected to be placed on leave at midnight on Friday.

That was until a judge temporarily blocked President Trump’s plan, hours before it was due to happen.

Judge Carl Nichols issued a “limited” temporary restraining order, in response to a last-minute lawsuit filed by two unions trying to save the agency.

The proposed cuts will affect the vast majority of the agency’s workforce, leaving only a few hundred essential staff out of a total of about 10,000 employees globally.

The move comes after workers were asked to stay out of the agency’s Washington DC headquarters earlier this week.

Cutbacks at the agency have upended the global aid system, with hundreds of programmes already frozen in countries around the world.

The Trump administration reportedly intends to merge the agency, which distributes billions of dollars in aid globally, with the state department, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters he was now the acting head of the agency.

• Read this piece on the effect aid cuts are already having
• Judge blocks Trump plan to put thousands of USAID staff on leave

Trump imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese imports on Tuesday, but held off on his threat of implementing 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico for 30 days, after those countries’ leaders pledged to beef up border security.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed to reinforce the US-Canada border to clamp down on migration and the flow of the deadly drug fentanyl.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to bolster the country’s northern border with troops, and in return the US would limit the flow of guns into Mexico.

The tariffs, which some experts suggest could exacerbate inflation, were part of Trump’s campaign platform ahead of November’s election.

• Some Canadians cancel US subscriptions and trips after Trump threats
• China threatens to retaliate with tariffs on the US

The Trump administration had offered incentives to federal workers to voluntarily resign by a Thursday midnight deadline – part of an effort to slash the size of the government.

However, a US judge temporarily halted the plan hours before the deadline, pausing it until a hearing on Monday to determine the merits of a lawsuit filed by federal employee unions, CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, reported.

Some of the federal government’s more than two million civilian workers have voiced confusion about the terms of the deal, which the administration says would allow them to receive pay and benefits through September in exchange for resigning.

Critics have questioned the legality of the offer and some federal employee unions have advised members to exercise caution around accepting the deal.

• ‘We were blindsided’: Federal workers react to buy-out offer

On Thursday, Trump signed an order to impose sanctions on some staff of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The sanctions place financial and visa restrictions on individuals and their families who assist in ICC investigations of American citizens or allies.

The Hague-based court brings global prosecutions for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Recently, it issued arrest warrants for a Hamas commander and Israel’s Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza, which Israel denies.

Trump’s announcement came as Netanyahu was visiting Washington DC.

More than 120 countries, including the UK, are members of the ICC, though the US and Israel are not.

• What is the ICC and why has Trump sanctioned it?

Trump said he ordered military air strikes on a senior attack planner and others from the Islamic State (IS) group in north-east Somalia on 1 February.

He said “many terrorists” were killed “without, in any way, harming civilians”. The BBC could not independently verify reports of casualties.

The office of Somalia’s president on social media welcomed the “unwavering support of the United States in the fight against international terrorism”.

• Read our correspondent on why Trump is on the warpath in Somalia

Trump also took action to end US involvement in several UN institutions.

On Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the US from the main UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, of which Israel has been highly critical.

The same order said the US would no longer participate in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and the US would conduct a review of its membership in the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) within 90 days.

• Read more about Unrwa and why Israel has banned it

The US sent the first group of migrants to Guantanamo Bay on Tuesday, after Trump announced plans to expand migrant detention at the US Navy base in Cuba.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the detainees were part of the Tren de Aragua – a gang that originated in Venezuela’s prisons. Ten detainees were sent, CBS reported, citing multiple US officials.

The move came after Trump ordered that an existing migrant detention facility at the base be expanded to hold some 30,000 people.

The Naval base has been used to house a small number migrants – a few dozen at a time, in recent years – for decades.

Separately, nearly 800 people – most held on suspicions of terrorism – have been jailed at the base’s detention centre since it opened in 2002. About 15 people are still held there now, according to US media.

Deportation flights also carried migrants back to India this week.

• Read about the row between India and the US over deportation flights
• What is birthright citizenship and can Trump ban it?

On Monday, Trump said he wanted Ukraine to guarantee the supply of more rare earth metals in exchange for $300bn (£240bn) to support its fight against Russia.

“We want what we put up to go in terms of a guarantee… we’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where we’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earth (minerals) and other things,” Trump said.

Ukraine has large deposits of uranium, lithium and titanium, which can be used for defence and electronics manufacturing, CBS reported.

In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country was open to investment by American companies.

• Zelensky says war will ‘end sooner’ with Trump as president

Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that prevents transgender women from competing in female categories of sports.

The order outlines guidance, regulations and legal interpretations largely around high school, university and grassroots sports.

However, Trump said the order would include the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, adding he would deny visas for transgender Olympic athletes trying to visit the US to compete.

• Read what the ban includes and what people are saying

Trump on Monday ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to release billions of gallons of water from two reservoirs in California’s Central Valley after deadly wildfires in Los Angeles in January.

Trump had claimed California withheld water supplies that could have made a difference in fighting the fires, which the state’s Governor Gavin Newsom and other officials disputed, CBS reported.

The water was released into a dry lakebed more than 100 miles (160km) away from the fires. Experts and officials told CBS the water could not flow to Los Angeles and would likely go to waste.

US Congressman Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, said that before the water in the dams was released, it was being “saved for the farmers for the summer season when they needed the water” in the state’s agricultural region.

• How climate change made LA fires worse, scientists say

Trump on Thursday signed an executive order that aimed “to protect the religious freedoms of Americans and end the anti-Christian weaponization of government”.

He appointed newly confirmed Attorney General Pam Bond to lead a task force to eradicate what he called “anti-Christian bias” in the federal government.

Trump signed the order after giving remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC.

• ‘Anointed by God’: The Christians who see Trump as their saviour

Trump, an avid golf player who owns courses around the world, reportedly intervened in a dispute between championship organiser PGA Tour and its rival series LIV Golf.

After the launch of LIV Golf led to a rift, the rivals entered negotiations and announced a “framework agreement” for a merger, but a deadline to complete that deal passed.

This week, PGA Tour said it was “closer to a deal” with LIV Golf after calling on Trump to step in.

“We asked the president to get involved for the good of the game, the good of the country, and for all the countries involved,” said the statement. “We are grateful that his leadership has brought us closer to a final deal, paving the way for reunification of men’s professional golf.”

• Read more about the split in the golf world

Starting last week, the Trump administration reportedly ordered some US government agency websites to remove references to climate change.

It has affected the websites of the departments of transportation, defence, state and agriculture, which manages the forest service, the Guardian reported.

Some climate content remained on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Nasa and energy department’s sites.

This week, some employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were also ordered to temporarily stop communicating with foreign nationals, US media reported.

The change came after reports that staff from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – which is not an official government department – entered the offices of NOAA and took over the agency’s internal websites, removing pages devoted to diversity-focused employee affinity groups.

• What we know about Doge, Trump and Musk’s new cost-cutting mission

President Donald Trump said on Friday that he had directed Musk’s Doge, a cost-cutting initiative to shrink the federal government, to “check out” spending at the defence department among other agencies.

“Pentagon, education, just about everything,” Trump said during a news conference with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

The Trump administration also gave members of Doge access to a US treasury department payments system that controls the flow of trillions of dollars in funds every year, US media reported.

But on Saturday, a federal judge blocked Doge from accessing the personal financial data of millions of Americans in Treasury Department records.

US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit access, ordering Musk and his team to immediately destroy any copies of records.

Musk’s newly created Doge, which is not an official federal department, has been heavily involved in government upheaval.

• Inside Musk’s race to upend government
• Judge blocks Musk team access to Treasury Department records

Trump revoked Joe Biden’s security clearance and access to daily intelligence briefings on Friday – something Biden did to Trump four years ago.

“There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“JOE, YOU’RE FIRED,” the Republican added in a reference to his catchphrase on the reality TV show, The Apprentice.

It came among a flurry of other announcements on Friday, which included an executive order freezing financial assistance to South Africa and announcing that he would fire the board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC and name himself chairman.

Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi this week disbanded a force designed to combat foreign interference in elections, as well as another initiative which targeted Russian oligarchs.

In an order signed on Bondi’s first day in office, she disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force – which aimed to prevent foreign meddling in US elections – to reassign its staff to focus instead on drug cartels and transnational criminal organisations.

The order stated it would “free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion”.

Bondi also disbanded Task Force KleptoCapture, which was launched after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It had been tasked with seizing yachts and other assets from Russian oligarchs.

Your 20s are a whirlwind of bad dates, career crises, and wondering if you’ll ever get your life together.

Enter Bridget Jones, the queen of chaotic charm, who has been stumbling through life lessons since before many of us can remember.

Despite the original Bridget Jones’s Diary book being released in 1996 and the film in 2001, it seems the floundering and flawed heroine has captivated the hearts of Gen Z, who weren’t born when Helen Fielding’s novel was first published.

Fielding says she finds it “comforting” that women in their 20s have a real interest in Bridget’s trials and tribulations. At her book signings, she says “half the audience are Gen Zs”.

From navigating embarrassing work mishaps to realising that self love (and maybe an extra glass of Chardonnay) is the key to happiness, Bridget has been there, done that, and lived to tell the tale.

Ahead of the release of the new film Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy next week, we’ve been speaking to three women in their 20s about the life lessons the character taught them: Sophie Gwillym from Cardiff, 28, Hannah Booth in Chester, 25, and 27-year-old Sophie Tyler from Yorkshire.

And then there’s us – Yasmin and Noor – both fans of the franchise who have to say about it.

Yasmin: In the summer before high school, I stole a tattered copy of Bridget Jones’s Diary from my parents’ bookshelf and read it all in one night hidden under my duvet. To me, it was a bible for adult life, which, being on the edge of puberty and going into year seven, felt like a total must-read. Almost all of it went over my head at that age but one thing stuck with me: Bridget Jones felt like a real woman who, unlike other perfect heroines that featured in many stories that were actually aimed at children, was flawed and nuanced.

Noor: I was at school and I remember my English teacher talking about one of the films. She was refusing to go see it, as she felt the whole premise was completely unrealistic (“As if such a beautiful, competent woman would be struggling to find love”). But my older sister was going, so I tagged along and it was love at first sight plus I’ll admit I fancied Hugh Grant just a bit.

Sophie T: My best friend and I watched the first film at a sleepover when we were about 14. I think, on reflection, the scene where Bridget sleeps with Hugh Grant’s character, Daniel Cleaver, for the first time probably wasn’t appropriate for us… I do remember thinking she shouldn’t have worn the big knickers (but I would’ve had no idea ), and we giggled through all the adult bits.

Noor: Bridget Jones’s obsession with Daniel Cleaver was my life in my 20s. I was chasing after bad boys and addicted to the drama, so it was completely relatable. My friends and I were in endless casual relationships – and that’s very Bridget too. Her dating life was the definition of the situationship, before that was even a thing. But what I really like is how she (eventually) realises she deserves better. She teaches us you can find a Mr Darcy who loves you “just as you are” – even if he does wear reindeer jumpers and fold his pants before bed.

Yasmin: Bridget has given us the ultimate guide to getting over a heartbreak: lying on the sofa wearing old pyjamas and eating ice cream out of the tub while you sob to All By Myself. Unlike the Bridget of the early films, today’s 20-somethings aren’t incessantly checking for answerphone messages but we guilty of a bit of post-breakup stalking. Even if the tech isn’t the same, early Bridget’s neurotic tendencies can still teach us that obsessing over someone is rarely worth it.

Sophie G: Bridget isn’t a perfect character, and that’s OK. You should be loved for who you are and not try to change yourself to fit in with what society thinks you should be – but learning to accept that is a hard task.

Hannah: At first, Bridget is the epitome of a woman who thinks she needs a man to survive but by the end of the first film, she teaches us to value nice, respectful guys and not to tolerate people who cheat (though, admittedly, they shouldn’t have made Daniel Cleaver so hot!).

She also teaches us how to work at a relationship, that love is a choice as well as a feeling, and how to be vulnerable and have boundaries at the same time.

Sophie T: It comes back to not needing to change yourself in a society that pressurises us constantly to be skinnier, taller, to read more books and be the best at hobbies. Having a character with self-acceptance is so important when we are constantly being pressured to change ourselves.

Yasmin: I love that Bridget embraces her chaotic energy and that really appeals to Gen Z. If she was a woman in her 20s now, she’d definitely have fallen madly in love with the concept of brat summer – instead of Chaka Khan, she’d be blaring out Charli XCX’s 365 through her headphones on her morning commute.

Noor: Wear the big knickers. Eating the entire contents of your fridge is OK sometimes. And don’t be defeated by a bad hair day!

Yasmin: Bridget is by no means perfect – her calorie counting obsession feels dated and other characters branding a woman who weighs 60kg fat is jarring. Body positivity may be more celebrated now – in fact, some women would love “a bottom the size of two bowling balls” – but being self-conscious about your appearance is a universal feeling that transcends decades.

One thing I will say is that it’s hard to feel sorry for Bridget when she owns her own flat in central London, has a successful publishing and journalism career and doesn’t seem to worry about the price of a round of drinks at the pub – it all feels a little less realistic now.

Noor: You could definitely argue the earlier books and films haven’t aged well. First of all, there’s a noticeable lack of diversity, and way too many sexist jokes. Then you chuck in all that obsessing over being single, and Bridget’s fretting over her calorie intake.

Much of that feels out of place in the context of the progress we’ve made now, but that’s not to say it no longer has relevance: one of my friends is considering Ozempic and others still worry about why they’ve not met their dream partner as they swipe through Tinder and Bumble.

Sophie G: I think if Bridget was created now, some of those more “problematic” elements of her character might be changed but that would be a shame, as it’s part of her charm.

We all say and do things we kick ourselves for later. And most of Bridget’s more problematic moments are the result of pressures women are subjected to in our society. The way Bridget acts feels more realistic than some characters who are the perfect feminist who deals with everything in the best way.

Noor: I don’t think I could’ve got through the numerous crises of my 20s without having a close group of female friends around me, as Bridget does. Nowadays, there are probably fewer Friday pub trips after work, and more meeting up for yoga and spin, but the overall message is the same: choose your friends wisely as they’re the ones who will be there when everything else goes wrong.

Sophie T: That friendship will always be there through the ups and downs of romantic life: to laugh at the failures and be there to comfort you when you need it. Bridget’s interactions with her friends are the same as mine. We’re always catching up over a meal and drink to moan about life – though there’s a little less smoking these days.

Yasmin: Find yourself friends that will eat your blue celery soup! Instead of going for drinks at a fancy London bar and getting a black cab home, we often split a bottle of cheap Tesco wine at one of our crammed and crumbly flats. But really, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, it’s just about having a supportive group of friends who can tell you when it’s time to ditch your toxic Daniel Cleaver-esque situationship.

Sophie T: Whenever I’m in a work situation where I’m meeting new people, I genuinely always picture the scene from the film where Bridget’s trying to introduce people to each other with a fact about the other person and messes it up.

The iconic scene when she tells her boss Daniel she’s quitting has also always stuck with me. During times when I’ve had to deal with sexism in my career and have battled it head on, I’d like to imagine R-E-S-P-E-C-T was playing in the background.

Noor: Don’t send emails before proof reading, don’t try and use language you don’t understand. Oh, and don’t sleep with your boss.

Sophie G: It’s okay to try something new and put yourself out there, regardless of your age or where you think you should be in your career at a certain point. Bridget’s fear of public speaking has definitely resonated with me in the past, but knowing I’ll never have to present in front of Hugh Grant, Colin Firth and Salmon Rushdie is a comforting thought.

Hannah: To be ambitious and aspirational. A successful career is important to a sense of purpose. You can make mistakes and work through them and you can make bold decisions and take risks.

When Labour lost the 2010 election, rising star Ed Miliband was asked whether Peter Mandelson, who had just published a headline-grabbing autobiography, could play a role in the party’s future.

“All of us,” Miliband drily replied, “believe in dignity in retirement.”

Mandelson winced and smiled at that quip, he later wrote. But ignored the advice.

Fifteen years later, at the age of 71, the political veteran who helped mastermind Labour’s renewal in the 1980s and 1990s, and was twice forced to resign from Tony Blair’s government, has staged yet another comeback.

“It’s a whirlwind,” admits a member of his new team in Washington. “Because he’s a whirlwind kind of guy.”

The first political appointee to the role of UK ambassador to the United States in 50 years arrived in DC with a lot on his plate. Even by American standards.

But why did Sir Keir Starmer recruit him, what explains Mandelson’s hunger for the job, and how does he plan to charm Team Trump?

“Peter is supremely political,” explains a Downing Street source. “And this is a very political White House. He is a brilliant operator.”

Lord Mandelson has already moved into the ambassador’s vast official residence, recently refurbished at a cost of £118.8m.

His new life will involve more than Congressional meetings and cocktail parties. He now oversees 800 UK staff in the country many of whom are seconded to the Pentagon and defence bases.

At the embassy, beneath a Warhol portrait of the late Queen, Mandelson has already hosted lunch for General Keith Kellogg, President Trump’s envoy to Ukraine and Russia.

This was merely a warm up for the real challenge later this month: accompanying Keir Starmer to the Oval Office to meet President Trump.

The new president may be erratic and impulsive yet No 10 officials are determined the two leaders will develop a strong relationship despite their differing personalities.

“The PM will be asking Peter: ‘How on earth do I handle this crazy guy?’,” says a former colleague.

“As an ambassador in the court of Donald Trump you need someone who can tickle him under his chin. Peter will be the absolute fixer and bridge builder.”

Unlike the imminent turnover of leaders in continental Europe (Mandelson’s long friendship with Emmanuel Macron is no longer so helpful), Starmer and Trump are likely to be in office and working together for the next four years.

One official says part of the UK’s pitch is about emphasising that both men are winners: “Our message to him is we won big in July. You won big in November. Let’s do business together.”

Mandelson has regularly provided advice to Keir Starmer in recent years and acted as an unofficial mentor to the PM’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and director of communications Matthew Doyle.

These relationships suggest Downing Street and the US embassy will have an unusually close and constant level of contact.

In an administration where billionaire businessmen have unprecedented influence, Peter Mandelson’s contacts from his time as EU trade commissioner, UK business secretary, and via his international lobbying firm Global Counsel is already being deployed. “He’s essentially been a businessman for the last 15 years,” says a source.

In conversations with Trump, Mandelson could drop the names of numerous mutual friends: he knows Peter Thiel, the right-wing billionaire backer of vice president JD Vance, and Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, who is on the board of Meta.

Mandelson has met Elon Musk, holidayed with Trump’s new Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and built a relationship with Mark Burnett, the TV producer behind The Apprentice who is now Trump’s special envoy to the UK.

Yet Mandelson’s expertise in charming these elites (former President George W. Bush nicknamed him ‘Silvertongue’), and his penchant for luxury have also led to problems throughout his career.

“He has weaknesses,” says one longtime friend. “He likes the high life. A lifestyle he can’t afford.”

Peter Mandelson’s friendship with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska during his time at the EU provoked questions about conflicts of interest – Mandelson had stayed on Deripaska’s yacht. The European Commission cleared him of wrongdoing.

A name Mandelson will likely not drop in Trump’s company is that of their late former friend Jeffrey Epstein.

Both knew the billionaire paedophile who died by suicide in 2019. Mandelson maintained a relationship with him even after Epstein signed a plea deal in 2008 and served an 18-month jail term for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14.

Epstein is said to have referred to Mandelson as “Petie”. Photographs released in court documents show Mandelson trying on a belt alongside Epstein in a clothing shop, and the pair blowing out candles on a birthday cake.

Lord Mandelson has said he “deeply regrets” both ever meeting Epstein and the hurt caused to his many victims, and has also said that he never had any kind of professional or business relationship with him. But in an interview with the Financial Times this week, the diplomat also added: “I’m not going to go into this”, and swore explosively at the interviewer.

That undiplomatic language was a rare media misstep and contrasts with No 10’s expectation that Mandelson will be a far safer pair of hands with journalists than his predecessor, outgoing ambassador Dame Karen Pierce.

“Karen just wasn’t reliable enough for broadcast,” one senior insider tells me. Starmer aides want Mandelson to regularly appear on US TV, including Trump’s favoured channel Fox News.

Dame Karen’s glittering career as a diplomat may have meant she had less experience of television, but her expertise in national security and persistence in charming Trump’s allies paid dividends.

So much so that Donald Trump’s co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita objected to Sir Keir replacing a “professional universally respected ambo [ambassador] with an absolute moron”.

Dame Karen stood out in the largely male and often stale world of Washington in her colourful tailor-made suits, occasionally complemented with a feather boa.

As she packed her bags, at one farewell event she was presented with a commemorative champagne sabre engraved with the words “always the Dame of DC”.

Swapping a beltway bon vivant for the so-called Prince of Darkness is, however, a risk.

Concerns have been raised about potential conflicts with clients of Mandelson’s lobbying firm Global Counsel, which have included Shell and China-linked companies like TikTok. He resigned from Global Counsel’s board last summer but remains a shareholder.

Mandelson has already appeared on Fox News to apologise for his previous criticism of Donald Trump. He said his claims that the president was “a bully” were “ill-judged and wrong”.

Friends say the new ambassador is well aware that even before he arrived in the US capital he had other prominent detractors like Steve Bannon, Trump’s former top adviser who called his appointment a “terrible pick”.

Mandelson’s diplomatic strategy so far involves dividing Trumpworld into three groups and approaching them in different ways. The groups are: ideological MAGA (Trump’s campaign mantra Make America Great Again), national security MAGA, and the technocracy.

The first of these groups includes Bannon and may be the trickiest to mollify.

“They want to do as much damage as possible to Starmer and the UK/US relationship,” says a diplomat. “And they want to discredit Peter.”

Mandelson privately considers himself a foreign policy hawk so is more optimistic about his luck with group two: national security MAGA. These officials are more anti-Putin than others in the president’s orbit, and they could be helpful when discussing policy on Ukraine, Russia and China.

Group three – the technocracy – should also be open to the ambassador’s advances. Mandelson wants the signature policy of his time in Washington to be a technological partnership involving AI and quantum computing.

“So Western nations and economies retain a technological edge over our adversaries,” explains one involved.

Before all that, the most pressing priority for the UK is avoiding trade tariffs.

To help smooth the path, Mandelson’s team have pointedly decided to frame their interactions with the White House in America First terms.

“We have a balanced trading relationship with America,” insists one British diplomat.

“We’ll be demonstrating where the UK partnership adds value to America not just saying ‘this is good for Britain’.”

As the president floats unconventional and controversial ideas, one key UK tactic will be to simply stay out of the President’s firing line.

“We’re not getting involved,” is a regular refrain from Downing Street.

On Monday, Lord Mandelson will present his diplomatic credentials (a formal letter from King Charles) at the State Department.

He is understood to already be planning how best to deploy his ultimate line manager with officials considering inviting the president on a second state visit to London.

President Trump appeared to revel in a recent meeting with Prince William, who he said “looks better in person”.

Trump also insists, without evidence, he was Elizabeth II’s favourite president.

One minister jokes that when the prime minister visits the White House later this month he should take “something from the Buckingham Palace gift shop… Maybe give Trump a royal family colouring-in book”.

Forty years after he became Labour’s director of research and communications, Peter Mandelson is back at the heart of British politics.

As to why he still has the hunger for high office, one friend points to the four years he spent in the political wilderness after resigning from Tony Blair’s government for the second time in 2001.

That bruising experience, they argue, left him feeling unfulfilled and desperate to prove himself.

“He should have been foreign secretary,” says the friend. “Instead in those years he sat at home watching his contemporaries and intellectual inferiors on Newsnight.”

Another ally characterises Lord Mandelson’s ambition in simpler terms: he has an insatiable thirst for power.

“Peter’s great mission in life”, they say, “is to stay relevant.”

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German voters decide on 23 February who will run their next government, with Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democrats favourite to become the biggest party in power.

Controlling immigration and reviving the European Union’s biggest economy are the main issues in this snap election, triggered by the collapse of centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition late last year.

We assess who and what you need to know ahead of the vote for Germany’s next parliament, the Bundestag.

Europe’s biggest economy has contracted for two years in a row, hit by high energy prices and stiff Chinese competition. The next government will need to turn that around and revive German industry.

A series of deadly attacks has heightened pressure on the mainstream parties to reform immigration and asylum rules, and boosted support for the far-right Alternative for Germany. Attacks in Mannheim, Solingen, Magdeburg and Aschaffenburg are all in fresh in German minds.

Although no other party is prepared to let the Alternative for Germany (AfD) into government, if they come second and attract 20% of the vote, they could double their number of seats in the Bundestag.

Germans aged 18 and over will decide on their next parliament from 08:00-18:00 on 23 February.

There are five candidates for chancellor.

If the biggest party can secure a coalition deal with one or two other parties, the president will usually nominate its leader as chancellor. Then parliament will hold a secret ballot to decide.

The frontrunner in the race to run Germany is Friedrich Merz, whose Christian Democrats (CDU) are up to 10 points ahead in the polls. He was chosen as candidate for chancellor ahead of Markus Söder, the leader of their sister party in Bavaria the Christian Social Union.

Aged 69 and 198cm (6ft 6in) in height, Merz is a plain-talking, pro-business, social conservative who has spent years waiting in the wings.

Eclipsed in the CDU by Angela Merkel in 2002, he eventually left politics, served on the boards of investment banks and took up flying as an amateur pilot.

Merz’s first two bids to win the CDU leadership failed, against Merkel in 2018 and then Armin Laschet who went on to lose the German election in 2021.

Merz then took over the CDU and is running under the slogan “A Germany we can be proud of again”.

He has promised to restrict immigration, cut taxes and slash €50bn in welfare spending in a bid to kickstart Germany’s faltering economy. He has also promised to bolster aid for Ukraine.

But he provoked a furious backlash ahead of the election when he sought to tighten immigration rules by relying on the votes of the far-right AfD, and ultimately failed.

Former CDU chancellor Angela Merkel said he was “wrong” to accept AfD votes and he has faced big protests. But he has won the backing of his party and succeeded in putting the years of his more centrist rival behind him.

Olaf Scholz has already served more than three years as chancellor, at the head of an unpopular coalition that fell apart in a row over loosening Germany’s strict debt rules.

His government struggled from the start, largely because of the effect of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine on Germany’s economy.

Germany became Ukraine’s biggest aid-provider in Europe. Scholz spoke of a (turning point) in beefing up German defence policy and military spending – but he was accused of acting too slowly or too late.

Many in his own Social Democrat party (SPD) believed he should have allowed party colleague Boris Pistorius to run for chancellor instead.

However, the party has joined conservatives in the past and although Scholz said he could no longer trust Merz, the Social Democrats remain potential partners.

Alice Weidel, 46, is the AfD first candidate for chancellor since the party was created in 2013.

She has little chance of winning power, but she has become popular with young voters on TikTok and her party has set its sights on four years’ time.

Co-led by Tino Chrupalla, the AfD has already secured one recent victory, in September’s state election in Thuringia in the east.

Weidel enjoys the support of Elon Musk, who said the ex-Goldman Sachs analyst could not be right wing extremist as she “has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka”.

And yet she has backed the mass deportation of migrants, embracing the highly controversial term “remigration”, and she wants to end sanctions on Russia.

Party supporters have cheered her with the slogan (Alice for Germany), which sounds similar to a banned Nazi slogan

Robert Habeck’s Greens played a key role in the Scholz government as vice-chancellor and economy minister.

But one of his flagship policies, phasing out fossil-fuel heating systems in Germany, had to be watered down and led to a dive in the government’s poll ratings.

Habeck, 55, has taken a strong line on aid for Ukraine, and he has forcefully criticised Friedrich Merz for relying on votes from the AfD in parliament.

Relations with Friedrich Merz are awkward, after he accused the CDU leader of disqualifying himself as chancellor, but the Greens could still return to government.

Like Alice Weidel’s AfD, Sahra Wagenknecht and her BSW party back closer relations with Russia and has built a strong support base in eastern Germany.

Wagenknecht calls her politics “left conservativism” and presents herself as an alternative to the AfD, backing strict limits on asylum and immigration.

She shares the AfD’s opposition to German military support for Ukraine and has been accused of parroting Kremlin narratives on the war.

But she may struggle to reach the 5% national threshold to get into parliament.

Elections to the Bundestag usually take place every four years – this one had been due on 28 September 2025 but was brought forward because of the collapse of the Scholz government.

Over-18s get two votes.

One is to elect members of the Bundestag directly in 299 constituencies. The second is to choose a political party in one of the 16 states that you live in.

Any party that wins 5% of that second vote is allowed to enter the Bundestag, and they then use their state lists to pick their MPs.

Complex voting rules that meant the outgoing parliament had 733 seats have now been abolished. That means Germany’s next Bundestag will have a total of 630 seats – a reduction of more than 100 seats.

However, one of the old rules will remain. Any party that fails to poll 5% of the vote can still get in, if they win in three of the 299 constituencies.

The conservative CDU and CSU parties are favourite to win the most seats, but by ruling out a coalition with the AfD Merz has narrowed their options of potential partners in government.

That makes a deal most likely with either or both the SPD and the Greens.

Many in the SPD are reluctant to work with Merz after the migration row, but a so-called grand coalition of the two parties is considered possible.

A decade ago, Andrew Jenkins wrote a list of 19 names – friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances.

Every single one of them had taken their own lives.

Suicide is the single biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK and, 10 years on, Mr Jenkins’ list of names is now even longer – 34 people in total.

But he is determined to do something about it, and is selling his beloved Aston Martin as part of a drive to fund a feature film, highlighting the issue.

“I’ve known people who seem to be the life and soul of the party, only to go home that very evening and kill themselves,” said Mr Jenkins.

“It just goes to show how huge this is, and we’ve got to do something about it.”

Mr Jenkins and his friend, the filmmaker Peter-Watkins Hughes, got their heads together and decided to make a film about the devastating effect that suicide has on people who are “left behind”.

The pair have worked together in the past on numerous films, including the Bafta award-winning A Bit of Tom Jones in 2009 and Cow, a short film about texting and driving which became a global hit.

But Mr Watkins-Hughes said suicide was their most challenging issue yet.

“We were really nervous about people being worried, that people would think we’re exploiting it or by making a film, you’d encourage people to do it,” he said.

“Suicide is such a complicated and individual story – we could just say, throw our hands up and just say, ‘well, you know, there is no single rationale, but we’ve got to do something about it’.

“We’ve taken advice from mental health charities on the script and had huge support from bereaved relatives of people who’ve taken their own lives.

“We want the film to be a catalyst to a conversation and if somebody is prevented from going down that path, then that’s what it’s all about.”

The screenplay for their proposed film, Bubbles, tells the stories of people who have experienced the devastation of suicide.

Sue Davies, from Brynmawr, Blaenau Gwent, who lost her son Daniel to suicide in May 2024, contacted Mr Jenkins to lend her support when she heard about his film.

She even read a draft of the script to provide feedback based on her own experiences.

“Every day I wake up thinking about [Daniel], asking ‘why?’ and ‘what if?’ because you feel like you’ve failed them,” Ms Davies said.

“I don’t live anymore. I’m just surviving. I get up and just wait until it’s time to go to bed again.

“If [the film] makes one person think about it – about what pain they will leave for their mum, their dad, their grandparents, their siblings, then it’ll be worth it.”

Mr Jenkins said he knows the power of having conversations to try to prevent suicide.

“I had a good mate who was so down on his luck he couldn’t see a way out of it, but we sat with him for hours and got him though that dark period,” he added.

“A year later he’d met the love of his life, he now has a child, and he says to me he can’t believe how close he was to losing all that – so there is always hope.”

Mr Jenkins has been trying to raise money to get the production of the film off the ground, but with more funding needed, he has decided to sell his beloved Aston Martin to be able to start filming in March.

Mr Jenkins said the poignancy of the film was brought into sharper focus recently after one of many fundraising events – a music night at a local pub.

“One of the guys that came along – only in his 50s, seemed to have a great time and donated some money,” he said.

“I found out that later that night he went home and killed himself.

“I was on a massive guilt trip for a while, questioning if we were doing the right thing, but I’ve been flooded with supportive messages since.”

Mr Watkins-Hughes said despite the film being his most difficult to date, it was one that he felt “has to be made”.

“We want to ensure that we do justice to the subject and that there is a positive outcome from this,” he said.

“To talk about the issue in a way that maybe means that people would be able to speak about their thoughts when they’re in that potential crisis point.

“It’s not a panacea, it’s not a cure or solution, it’s just the start of one of the points in the dialogue so that hopefully society can better engage with people facing that terrible position.”

If you have been affected by the issues raised in this article there is help available via the BBC Action Line.

The seizure by M23 rebels of vast tracts of land in the mineral-rich east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has triggered a humanitarian and diplomatic crisis, involving several neighbouring countries.

An alarming number of African armies already have troops deployed in the conflict zone, which has a long history of outside interference.

The DR Congo is so vast – two-thirds the size of Western Europe – that it is a member of both the East and Southern African blocs.

The two regional groupings are joining forces to hold an emergency summit on Saturday to try and end the fighting.

So, who are the main players and what do they want?

First and foremost is the Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi. He wants to regain territory lost to the rebels, including the largest eastern town of Goma, and to prevent them from seizing more.

He blames Rwandan leader Paul Kagame for backing the M23 with weapons and troops, accusing Kigali of invading Congolese territory with the aim of looting the country’s mineral wealth and orchestrating regime change.

The case that Rwanda is supporting the M23 offensive is based on evidence presented in a UN report and broadly accepted by many African and Western governments, who have demanded that Kagame withdraw his forces.

However, to Tshisikedi’s frustration, none have matched their rhetoric with action and responded to Kinshasa’s calls for sanctions and other tough measures.

The Congolese leader is also worried about keeping his seat.

“I think the political survival of his government is at stake,” said Jason Stearns, a former UN investigator in DR Congo and currently a professor at Simon Fraser University.

There is concern that the M23 campaign might embolden internal opposition forces or trigger a coup in his army, which has a reputation for being fragmented and undermined by corruption.

• What’s the fighting in DR Congo all about?
• DR Congo’s failed gamble on Romanian mercenaries
• Who is DR Congo’s President Félix Tshisekedi?

In this conflict, Rwanda’s long-time leader Kagame is the centre of attention, but he’s practised at deflecting it.

He has a long history of military intervention inside DR Congo linked to the aftermath of the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

Rwanda does not admit to providing military support to the M23, but repeatedly insists it will do anything necessary to defend itself.

Kagame maintains that Rwanda’s priority is to destroy an armed group formed by the Hutu genocide perpetrators, who massacred Rwandan Tutsis and then fled to what is now eastern DR Congo.

He has accused DR Congo’s army of joining forces with them and others to not only slaughter Congolese Tutsis – who the M23 claims to be fighting to protect – but to threaten Rwanda.

At a diplomatic level, Rwanda wants confirmation of its narrative – that the conflict is a Congolese problem, and Kigali is simply defending its borders against the spill-over of a civil war.

It’s demanding that Kinshasa negotiate directly with the M23, which it refuses to do.

But what it’s really after, said Mr Stearns, is “to maintain a sphere of influence in the eastern DR Congo”.

Rwanda has economic as well as security interests.

Kigali denies UN evidence that it smuggles vast amounts of gold and other metals out of eastern DR Congo and sells them as its own. But access to DR Congo’s mineral wealth has been a driver of conflict in the region for decades.

There are others this time around, not least the personal animosity between Kagame and Tshisekedi.

“Kagame wants to teach Tshisekedi a lesson about who’s the strong guy on the block,” said Richard Moncrieff, who monitors Africa’s Great Lakes region for the International Crisis Group (ICG).

The Rwandans are “just going to keep fighting until he makes concessions and…gives them fairly free rein in [the eastern province of] North Kivu,” he added.

• Who is Rwanda’s leader Paul Kagame?
• The evidence that shows Rwanda is backing rebels in DR Congo

Rwanda sees Burundi’s army as another security threat in eastern DR Congo.

The nation that borders both Rwanda and DR Congo has had thousands of soldiers there for years. They went to hunt down Burundian rebels but are now supporting Kinshasa’s army in battles against the M23.

Relations between Rwanda and Burundi are hostile. The two countries have a similar ethnic make-up but unlike Rwanda, the majority Hutus are in power in Burundi. Both countries have accused each other of trying to overthrow their respective governments.

Burundi’s President Evariste Ndayishimiye has posted a strongly-worded warning on social media.

“If Rwanda continues to make conquests,” he wrote, “I know that war will even arrive in Burundi… One day he [Kagame] wants to come to Burundi – we’re not going to accept that. The war will spread.”

The threat would increase if the M23 continues its advance from Goma into the province of South Kivu closer to Burundi’s border, which is where its forces are stationed.

“What Burundi is seeking here is regime survival,” said Mr Stearns.

“Burundi is worried that if Rwandan troops… extend their influence into South Kivu that could destabilize the government in Bujumbura. What’s at stake here is stopping this rebellion before it gets too close to home.”

Some fear a repeat of the two wars that engulfed the region in the late 1990s, which drew in nine different countries and reportedly led to millions of deaths.

This time, direct clashes between the two armies could extend the DR Congo’s conflict beyond its borders.

• LISTEN: What will it take to end tensions between Rwanda and Burundi?

Uganda is not directly involved, but it also has troops in eastern DR Congo.

They are helping the Congolese government with a different security threat – hunting down militants with Ugandan origins who are connected to the Islamic State group.

But Uganda’s role is confusing – it’s working with the Congolese, while also allegedly providing at least complicit support to the M23. UN experts report that it has allowed them to use Ugandan territory as a rear base and supply route.

Kampala strongly denies that. But it has responded to the M23 offensive by putting its troops in a “forward defensive posture,” to prevent other armed groups from exploiting the crisis, it has said.

Local residents have reported seeing Ugandan soldiers moving towards the conflict zone, heightening fears of a regional escalation.

Like Rwanda, Uganda has entered eastern DR Congo in the past claiming to be protecting its borders. But it’s also accused of looting natural resources, especially gold.

Analysts expect it to safeguard its economic interests while keeping an eye on the Rwandans.

“It’s very clear that Uganda wants to retain its own influence in eastern DR Congo and not be pushed out by its rival in Rwanda,” says the ICG’s Mr Moncrieff.

• Who is Uganda’s longtime leader Yoweri Museveni?

South Africa has contributed most of the troops to a Southern African regional force fighting alongside the Congolese army and has suffered heavy losses.

But it’s also been thrust into the headlines because of an astonishingly vitriolic exchange between Kigali and Johannesburg.

The South Africans blamed the deaths of 14 of their soldiers on the Rwandan Defense Forces, which President Cyril Ramaphosa disparagingly referred to as the “RDF militia.”

His defence minister claimed he’d warned Kagame that any further shooting would be taken as a declaration of war.

This infuriated the Rwandan president, who said that the account of their conversation was a “lie” and called the South Africans a “belligerent” force that must leave the DR Congo.

This is the sharpest end of a broad division between the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (Sadc).

The EAC supports Rwanda’s call for direct talks between Kinshasa and the M23.

While Sadc condemns RDF attacks on its soldiers, including Tanzanian and Malawian troops, and has reaffirmed their commitment to DR Congo’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.

• South Africa and Rwanda go head-to-head over DR Congo war
• Who is South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa?

• Your phone, a rare metal and the war in DR Congo
• ‘People are afraid’: BBC visits DR Congo city under rebel control

US President Donald Trump has said he is revoking Joe Biden’s security clearance and access to daily intelligence briefings, after his predecessor did the same to him four years ago.

“There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“JOE, YOU’RE FIRED,” the Republican added in a reference to his catchphrase on the reality TV show, The Apprentice.

Trump has already revoked the security clearance of more than four dozen former intelligence officials whom he accused of meddling in the 2020 election in Biden’s favour.

Trump posted on Friday evening that Biden “set this precedent in 2021, when he instructed the Intelligence Community (IC) to stop the 45th President of the United States (ME!) from accessing details on National Security, a courtesy provided to former Presidents”.

He said Biden “could not be trusted with sensitive information”, citing a justice department inquiry into the Democrat’s storage of classified files, which concluded that while there was no need to press criminal charges, Biden had a poor memory.

The investigation said Biden was unable to recall significant life events such as the year his son, Beau, died and when he served as vice-president to Barack Obama. Biden rejected that characterisation at the time.

The former president, who has taken some time away from the limelight since leaving his post last month, did not immediately respond to Trump’s move on Friday.

The BBC contacted Biden’s talent agency, which recently signed him, but no response was immediately forthcoming.

In 2021, Biden stopped Trump from receiving classified intelligence briefings, the first time an ex-president had ever been denied such information, which is traditionally given as a courtesy.

He justified the move by saying Trump could not be trusted because of his “erratic behaviour”, even before the 2021 US Capitol riot, which Democrats accused Trump of inciting in the last days of his first term.

“What value is giving him an intelligence briefing?” Biden said at the time. “What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?”

In 2022, federal agents discovered classified files in Trump’s Florida home and he was charged with wilfully retaining defence information. He pleaded not guilty, and the case was ultimately dropped once he was re-elected.

Since returning to office, Trump has taken steps to revoke the security clearances and protections of other top officials linked to the Biden administration.

Among those whose security clearance and detail has been retracted is former top US military commander Mark Milley, a vocal critic of Trump.

The new Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, has also ordered Milley’s “conduct” to be investigated, and his military grade to be reviewed.

Trump has also revoked the security detail of former chief medical adviser to the president, Anthony Fauci, who led the US response to Covid-19.

Trump said at the time the decision was “very standard” and that it was not possible for everyone to have security protection for the rest of their life because they worked for the government.

He ended security protection for his own former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Secret Service protection for his former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, last month.

The president has also ordered that the security clearance of dozens of former intelligence officials, including two ex-CIA directors, be revoked.

They signed a letter in 2020 suggesting that reports about a laptop owned by Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, were a Russian hoax.

But the computer, whose trove of data contained evidence of drug abuse, prostitution and foreign business deals, was real.

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order freezing financial aid to South Africa, after threatening to do so earlier this week.

Trump said he was bringing in the order because of South Africa’s new land law, which he says is violating people’s rights, and also because of its international court case accusing Israel of genocide.

It escalates a dispute between the two countries nearly a week after Trump threatened to cut funding without citing evidence, that “South Africa is confiscating land” and “certain classes of people” were being treated “very badly”.

Trump’s close adviser Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, also joined in the criticism asking on X why Ramaphosa had “openly racist ownership laws”.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has not yet commented but previously defended South Africa’s land policy after Trump’s threat on Sunday.

He said the government had not confiscated any land and the policy was aimed at ensuring equitable public access to land.

President Ramaphosa’s law was signed last month, and allows land seizures without compensation in certain circumstances.

Land ownership has long been a contentious issue in South Africa with most private farmland owned by white people, 30 years after the end of the racist system of apartheid.

There have been continuous calls for the government to address land reform and deal with the past injustices of racial segregation.

South Africa’s new law allows for expropriation without compensation only in circumstances where it is “just and equitable and in the public interest” to do so.

This includes if the property is not being used and there is no intention to either develop or make money from it, or when it poses a risk to people.

The order said the US “cannot support the government of South Africa’s commission of rights violations in its country”, and as long as it “continues these unjust and immoral practices” then the US will not provide aid or assistance.

The White House said Washington will also formulate a plan to resettle South African farmers and their families as refugees.

It said US officials will take steps to prioritise humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program for Afrikaners in South Africa, who are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers.

The executive order also references South Africa’s role in bringing accusations of genocide against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The order said: “In addition, South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the ICJ, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.”

• South Africans’ anger over land set to explode
• President Ramaphosa calls Musk to calm Trump land row

On Sunday, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: “I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”

He later said, in a briefing with journalists, that South Africa’s “leadership is doing some terrible things, horrible things”.

“So that’s under investigation right now. We’ll make a determination, and until such time as we find out what South Africa is doing – they’re taking away land and confiscating land, and actually they’re doing things that are perhaps far worse than that.”

But, on Monday, Ramaphosa moved to defuse the row with Trump’s new US administration over the new land law by speaking to Musk on the phone.

Ramaphosa’s office said, in that call to Musk the president “reiterated South Africa’s constitutionally embedded values of the respect for the rule of law, justice, fairness and equality”.

Amanda Palmer, the ex-wife of British author Neil Gaiman, has denied allegations of negligence and human trafficking made by a woman who worked for the former couple.

Earlier this week, the woman filed civil lawsuits in the US alleging the former couple violated laws on federal human trafficking, with complaints of assault, battery and inflicting emotional distress against Gaiman and negligence against Palmer.

In a short post on Instagram, Palmer, who lives in the US, said she would not respond to specific allegations against her, but broadly denied them.

Gaiman has denied allegations of sexual misconduct made by eight women.

The lawsuits claim the woman was befriended by Palmer when she was 22 years old and homeless. She claims she had started working for the couple in New Zealand when the assaults began.

According to the lawsuits, she alleges that Gaiman sexually assaulted her and Palmer told her there had been previous complaints from more than a dozen different women.

On Instagram, Palmer, who is a member of band The Dresden Dolls, wrote: “I thank you all deeply for continuing to respect my recent request for privacy as I navigate this extremely difficult moment. I must protect my young child and his right to privacy.

“With that as my priority, I will not respond to the specific allegations being made against me except to say that I deny the allegations and will respond in due course. My heart goes out to all survivors.”

On 13 January, Gaiman was reportedly accused of sexual misconduct by eight women, including four who previously spoke out in a New York Magazine article.

It led to publisher Dark Horse Comics cancelling upcoming work by Gaiman and a UK stage adaptation of his book Coraline has been pulled.

Gaiman, 64, has denied allegations of sexual misconduct made by eight women saying he has “never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever”.

Palmer tied the knot with Gaiman in 2011 and they announced the birth of their son in 2015.

In a shared statement with Gaiman they revealed they were getting divorced in 2022.

“After many years of marriage, we have made the difficult decision to divorce,” they said.

“While we will no longer be partners in marriage, we will remain in one another’s lives as co-parents committed to raising our wonderful son in a loving and compassionate environment.

“We deeply appreciate everyone respecting our family’s privacy so we can focus on our son as we enter this new chapter in our lives.”

The son of a Scottish woman who was found dead along with her husband in France has said his family are mourning the couple’s loss.

Mrs Searle’s son, the actor and singer Callum Kerr, issued a statement on social media on behalf of couple’s four shared children.

The bodies of Andrew and Dawn Searle, who were in their sixties, were discovered by a neighbour on Thursday at their home in south west France. They moved to the area from Scotland a decade ago.

The local mayor, Jean-Sébastien Orcibal, told French television that the deaths were “clearly a homicide”.

The statement, posted on the Netflix and Hollyoaks actor’s Instagram, said: “At this time, Callum Kerr and Amanda Kerr are grieving the loss of their mother, Dawn Searle (née Smith, Kerr) while Tom Searle and Ella Searle are mourning the loss of their father, Andrew Searle.”

He requested that the family’s privacy was respected during this “difficult period”, added that they would provide updates as appropriate.

Mr Kerr has appeared in Netflix’s Virgin River and played PC Kiss in Hollyoaks.

He has also released a number of country songs.

The 30-year-old walked his mother down the aisle as she married Mr Searle at a ceremony in France in 2023.

On social media, he wrote at the time: “Not many people can say they walked their own mother down the aisle. What a pleasure. I love you mum.”

The couple’s bodies were found at about 12:20 on Thursday at their home in the hamlet of Les Pesquiès, in a rural area north of the city of Toulouse.

The discovery was made by a neighbour, who went to check on them when they failed to turn up for a planned dog walk.

The area around their detached house has been sealed off while investigations take place, and local police have called in expert help from Toulouse.

Forensics officers spent Thursday searching the scene of the crime, with a helicopter, a drone, criminal investigation technicians and a forensic doctor deployed to the site.

No criminal case has been opened so far, and police say there is no preferred theory about how the couple died.

Mr Orcibal, who represents the Villefranche-de-Rouergue area, told BBC News the cause of the death was still unclear.

He had earlier dismissed speculation the deaths were due to a burglary “gone wrong”, and said “no knife was found”.

Mr Orcibal also said the couple had become “very well integrated” in the village and used to regularly invite neighbours, many of them fellow expats, for a drink.

According to his LinkedIn page, Mr Searle had worked in financial crime prevention at companies including Standard Life and Barclays Bank during his career.

Mrs Searle grew up in Eyemouth in the Scottish Borders, and Mr Searle was originally from England.

The couple – who were in their 60s – lived in Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, before they moved to Les Pesquiès, which is south of Villefranche-de-Rouergue.

A spokesperson for the UK’s Foreign Office said: “We are supporting the family of a British couple who died in France and are liaising with the local authorities.”

At least 30 people have been reported missing after a landslide in south-western China, according to Chinese state media.

The landslide struck Jinping village in Sichuan province at 11:50 local time (03:50 GMT) burying 10 houses and trapping several residents. Two people were rescued.

A command centre has been set up at the scene according to a statement by the county’s emergency management bureau.

China’s President Xi Jinping has ordered an “all-out” rescue of those trapped.

Hundreds of emergency workers are searching for survivors, according to a statement from China’s Ministry of Emergency Management.

President Xi has ordered authorities to do “everything possible to search and rescue missing people, minimise casualties and properly handle the aftermath”, according to the official Xinhua state news agency.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang asked for an investigation and inspection of potential geological hazard risks in nearby areas.

Li also said residents who were under threat should be evacuated to prevent another disaster, the AP news agency reports, citing Xinhua.

Fifty million yuan ($6.9m; £5.5m) has been allocated from central government funds to repair infrastructure and public services, AP adds.

The remote, mountainous parts of China’s south-west can be prone to landslides.

In January 2024, a landslide in China’s Yunnan province killed dozens of people when a steep cliff collapsed and destroyed part of a village. In January 2013, at least 18 people were killed in a landslide in the same region.

The US Coast Guard has said the wreckage of a small plane that went missing in Alaska on Thursday has been found, with three people confirmed dead.

The coastguard said seven other bodies are believed to be inside the aircraft, but are currently inaccessible because of the condition of the plane.

Ten people were on board the Cessna Caravan craft, operated by the airline Bering Air, when its position was lost about 12 miles (19km) offshore on Thursday afternoon, authorities said.

The coastguard said the aircraft wreckage was located 34 miles south-east of the city of Nome, where it had been headed from Unalakleet.

“Say a prayer tonight for the 10 souls who lost their lives on the Bering Air flight in Alaska,” US Transport Secretary Sean Duffy said.

Duffy said the the National Transportation Safety Board is conducting an investigation into the incident, with the support of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Alaska State Troopers said it had been notified of an “overdue” aircraft at 16:00 local time on Thursday (01:00 GMT).

The Nome volunteer fire department said the pilot had told air traffic controllers that “he intended to enter a holding pattern while waiting for the runway to be cleared”.

The coastguard later said the plane had experienced a rapid loss in altitude and speed before its location was lost.

Details of who was on board have not been released but the Nome Volunteer Fire Department said all families of the passengers have been notified.

The 10 people on board comprised of nine passengers and a pilot, the Alaska Department of Public Safety said.

Air search and rescue operations had been limited by difficult weather conditions, which hampered visibility, multiple parties involved in rescue efforts said.

Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski shared her condolences online following the incident.

“Alaska is a big small town. When tragedy strikes, we’re never far removed from the Alaskans directly impacted,” Murkowski said.

Alaska’s Governor, Mike Dunleavy, said he was “heartbroken” by the disappearance of the flight.

“Our prayers are with the passengers, the pilot, and their loved ones during this difficult time,” he said.

The two cities of Unakleet and Nome are some 146 miles from each other across the Norton Sound, an inlet of the Bering Sea on Alaska’s western coast.