At least 34 people have died in the US – including 12 in Missouri alone – after deadly tornadoes tore through several south-eastern states, flipping cars and flattening homes.

In Kansas, at least eight people died after more than 55 vehicles were involved in a crash due to a dust storm.

More than 170,000 properties were without power across five states – including Michigan Missouri and Illinois – on Saturday evening, according to tracker PowerOutage.

Further severe weather is expected for the region, with tornado watches issued across eastern Louisiana, western Georgia, central Tennessee and the western Florida Panhandle.

Six deaths were reported in Mississippi by the Governor Tate Reeves, as several tornadoes spread across the state.

Flash flooding and flood warnings have also been issued in central Mississippi, eastern Louisiana and western Tennessee; as well as parts of Alabama and Arkansas, as severe weather continues to track across the south-east.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has said these flash floods could prove deadly.

Multiple tornado warnings were also issued across Alabama on Saturday night.

The NWS warned of “multiple intense to violent long-track tornadoes” in those areas, describing the situation as “particularly dangerous”.

The meteorological agency said: “If you live in these areas, get to the sturdiest structure you have access to and remain in place until the storms pass.”

Mike Kehoe, governor of Missouri, said the state had been “devastated by severe storms and tornadoes, leaving homes destroyed and lives lost”.

Missouri’s emergency management agency said initial reports indicated 19 tornadoes had struck 25 counties so far.

Arkansas has seen three deaths and 29 injuries – prompting Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders to declare a state of emergency.

Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, also declared a state of emergency, while Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt confirmed one person had been killed in the state.

A dust storm that caused three deaths in Texas on Friday night caused a pile-up of an estimated 38 cars.

“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” Sgt Cindy Barkley, of the state’s department of public safety, told reporters.

“We couldn’t tell that they were all together until the dust kind of settled.”

A further death has since been reported in Texas.

The destructive storms fuelled more than 100 wildfires in several central states and overturned multiple semi-trailer trucks, CBS reports.

In Oklahoma, one of those fires, known as the 840 Road Fire, has already burned 27,500 acres and remains 0% contained, according to the Oklahoma Forestry Service. The agency has issued a “red flag” warning for the state’s panhandle area, signalling a severe fire danger.

Tornadoes form when moist, warm air rises, mixing with cold air above to form thunderclouds.

Winds blowing from different directions cause the air to rotate, creating a vortex of air moving upwards.

Four states where tornado-related deaths have been confirmed in the past day lie within a path frequently hit by the weather phenomenon.

It has earned this stretch of the US the unofficial name Tornado Alley, because its geography is ideal for tornado formation.

In 2024, 54 people were killed in tornado-related incidents, according to Noaa. Nine people died in Texas. There were eight in Oklahoma, five in Arkansas and one in Missouri.

Peak tornado season in Tornado Alley is from May to June – but meteorologists caution that tornadoes can occur at any time of year.

Have you been personally affected by the tornadoes in the US?

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The US has launched a “decisive and powerful” wave of air strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen, President Donald Trump has said, citing the armed group’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea as the reason.

“Funded by Iran, the Houthi thugs have fired missiles at US aircraft, and targeted our Troops and Allies,” Trump wrote on his Truth social platform, adding that their “piracy, violence, and terrorism” had cost “billions of dollars” and put lives at risk.

The Houthi-run health ministry said at least 15 people were killed and nine others injured in the strikes.

The group – which began targeting shipping in response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza – said its forces would respond to US strikes.

The Houthis reported a series of explosions on Saturday evening in Sanaa and in the northern province of Saada – the rebels’ stronghold on the border with Saudi Arabia.

The Iranian-backed rebel group, which considers Israel its enemy, controls Sanaa and the north-west of Yemen, but it is not the country’s internationally-recognised government.

Unverified images show plumes of black smoke over the area of Sanaa’s airport – which includes a military facility.

In a statement, the Houthis blamed the US and the UK for “wicked” aggression targeting residential areas in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa – though it is understood that the UK did not participate in Saturday’s US strikes against the Houthi targets but it did provide routine refuelling support for the US.

These attacks, Trump said, “will not be tolerated”.

He added: “We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US government had “no authority, or business, dictating Iranian foreign policy”.

“End support for Israeli genocide and terrorism,” he posted on X on Sunday. “Stop killing of Yemeni people.”

The Houthis have said they are acting in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and have claimed – often falsely – that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK.

• Who are the Houthis and why are they attacking ships?

Since November 2023, the Houthis have targeted dozens of merchant vessels with missiles, drones and small boat attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They have sunk two vessels, seized a third, and killed four crew members.

The group has not been deterred by the deployment of Western warships to protect merchant vessels, or by multiple rounds of US and British air strikes on its military targets.

Israel has also carried out air strikes against the Houthis since July in retaliation for the 400 missiles and drones that the Israeli military said had been launched at the country from Yemen, most of which were shot down.

Major shipping companies have been forced to stop using the Red Sea – through which almost 15% of global seaborne trade usually passes – and use a much longer route around southern Africa instead.

Trump said that it had been more than a year since a US-flagged ship had sailed safely through the Suez Canal – which the Red Sea leads to – and four months since a US warship had been through the body of water between east Africa and the Arabian peninsula.

The Suez Canal is the quickest sea route between Asia and Europe, and is particularly important in the transportation of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Addressing the Houthis directly, Trump wrote that if they did not stop, “HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE”.

But the Houthis were unwavering in their response, saying the aggression would not wane their support for Palestinians.

“This aggression will not go without response and our Yemeni armed forces are ready to answer escalation with further escalation,” the group said.

Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the Houthi’s “benefactor”, Iran, was “on notice”.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also discussed military deterrence operations against the Houthis when he spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday.

Rubio emphasised that “continued Houthi attacks on US military and commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea will not be tolerated”, a State Department spokesperson said.

The Houthis launched 190 attacks in the Red Sea between November 2023 and October 2024, according to the US Congress.

Previously, the UK and US conducted joint naval and air strikes against the group. Israel has also targeted sites linked to the Houthis in separate strikes.

Trump urged Iran to cease its support for the Houthis, warning that Washington would hold Tehran “fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it”.

He also accused the previous White House administration, under Joe Biden, of being “pathetically weak” and allowing the “unrestrained Houthis” to keep going.

After Kim Visintine put her son to bed every night at a hospital in St Louis, Missouri, she spent her evening in the hospital’s library. She was determined to know how her boy had become seriously ill with a rare brain tumour at just a week old.

“Doctors were shocked,” she says. “We were told that his illness was one in a million. Other parents were learning to change diapers but I was learning how to change chemotherapy ports and IVs.”

Kim’s son Zack was diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme. It is a brain tumour that is very rare in children and is usually seen in adults over 45.

Zack had chemotherapy treatments but doctors said there was no hope of him ever recovering. He died at just six years old.

Years later, social media and community chatter made Kim start to think that her son was not an isolated case. Perhaps he was part of a bigger picture growing in their community surrounding Coldwater Creek.

In this part of the US, cancer fears have prompted locals to accuse officials of not doing enough to support those who may have been exposed to radiation due to the development of the atomic bomb in the 1940s.

A compensation programme that was designed to pay out to some Americans who contracted diseases after exposure to radiation expired last year – before it could be extended to the St Louis area.

This Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (Reca) provided one-time payouts to people who may have developed cancer or other diseases while living in areas where activities such as atomic weapons testing took place. It paid out $2.6bn (£2bn) to more than 41,000 claimants before coming to an end in 2024.

Among the areas covered were parts of New Mexico, where the world’s first test of a nuclear weapon took place in 1945. Research published in 2020 by the National Cancer Institute suggested that hundreds of cancers in the area would not have occurred without radiation exposure.

St Louis, meanwhile, was where uranium was refined and used to help create the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project. After World War Two ended, the chemical was dumped near the creek and left uncovered, allowing waste to seep into the area.

Decades later, federal investigators acknowledged an increased cancer risk for some people who played in the creek as children, but added in their report: “The predicted increases in the number of cancer cases from exposures are small, and no method exists to link a particular cancer with this exposure.”

The clean-up of the creek is still ongoing and is not expected to finish until 2038.

A new bill has been put forward in the House, and Josh Hawley, a US senator representing Missouri, says he has raised the issue with President Donald Trump.

When Kim flicks through her school yearbook, she can identify those who have become sick and those who have since passed away. The numbers are startling.

“My husband didn’t grow up in this area, and he said to me, ‘Kim, this is not normal. It seems like we’re always talking about one of your friends passing away or going to a funeral’,” she says.

Just streets away from the creek, Karen Nickel grew up spending her days near the water picking berries, or in the nearby park playing baseball. Her brother would often try and catch fish in Coldwater Creek.

“I always tell people that we had just the fairytale childhood that you would expect in what you consider suburban America,” says Karen. “Big backyards, big families, children playing out together until the street lights came on at night.”

But years later, her carefree childhood now looks very different.

“Fifteen people from the street I grew up on have died from rare cancers,” she says. “We have neighbourhoods here where every house has been affected by some cancer or some illness. We have streets where you can’t just find a house where a family has not been affected by this.”

When Karen’s sister was just 11 years old, doctors discovered that her ovaries were covered in cysts. The same had happened to their neighbour when she was just nine. Karen’s six-year-old granddaughter was born with a mass on her right ovary.

Karen helped found Just Moms STL, a group that is dedicated to protecting the community from future exposures that could be linked to cancers – and which advocates for a clean-up of the area.

“We get messages every day from people that are suffering from illnesses and are questioning whether this is from exposure,” she says. “These are very aggressive illnesses that the community is getting, from cancers all the way to autoimmune diseases.”

Teresa Rumfelt grew up just a street away from Karen and lived in her family home from 1979 until 2010. She remembers every one of her animals passing away from cancer and her neighbours getting ill from rare diseases.

Years later, her sister Via Von Banks was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a form of motor neurone disease. Some medical studies have suggested there could be a link between radiation and ALS, but this is not definitive – and more research needs to be done to firm it up.

That does not reassure people like Teresa who are concerned that more needs to be done to understand how locals are being affected.

“ALS took my sister at 50,” Teresa says. “I think it was the worst disease ever of mankind. When she was diagnosed in 2019, she’d just got her career going and her children were growing. She stayed positive through all of it.”

Like Hawley, Just STL Moms and other community members want the government’s compensation act to be expanded to include people within the St Louis area, despite the programme being in limbo after expiring.

Expanding it to the Coldwater Creek community would mean that locals could be offered compensation if they could prove they were harmed as a result of the Manhattan Project, during which the atomic bomb was developed with the help of uranium-processing in St Louis. It would also allow screenings and further study into illnesses other than cancer.

In a statement to the BBC, the US government’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it took concerns very seriously and had actively worked with federal, state and local partners – as well as community members – to understand their health concerns, and to ensure community members were not exposed to the Manhattan Project-era waste.

The BBC has also contacted the US Army Corps of Engineers, which is leading the clean-up – but has not received a response to a request for comment.

“My sister would have loved to be part of the fight. She’d be the first to picket,” says Teresa of her efforts to get greater support from the government.

The trend in people around Coldwater Creek getting unwell has not gone unnoticed among healthcare professionals.

Dr Gautum Agarwal, a cancer surgeon at Mercy Hospital in St Louis, says he has not noticed a “statistical thing”, but notes that he has seen husbands and wives and their neighbours presenting cancers.

Now, he ensures that his patients are asked where they live and how close they are to Coldwater Creek.

“I tell them that there’s a potential that there’s a link. And if your neighbours or family live near there, we should get them screened more often. And maybe you should get your kids screened earlier.”

He hopes that over time more knowledge will be gained about the issue, and for a study into multi-cancer early detection tests to be introduced that could help catch any potential cancers, and help reassure people in the area.

Other experts take a different view of the risks. “There is a narrative that many people are sick from cancers, specifically from exposures while living next to Coldwater Creek for the last few decades”, says Roger Lewis, a professor in the environmental and occupations health department of St Louis University.

“But the data and studies don’t indicate that. They show that there is some risk but it’s small. It doesn’t mean that it’s not significant in some ways, but it’s very limited.”

Prof Lewis acknowledges the fear in the community, saying locals will feel safer if the government is clearer about its efforts to eliminate any hazards.

For many people near Coldwater Creek, conversation with authorities is not easing the angst that comes with living in an area known for the dumping of nuclear waste.

“It’s almost a given in our community that at some point we all expect to have some sort of cancer or illness,” says Kim Visintine. “There’s almost this apathy within our group that, well, it’s just a matter of time.”

We are surrounded by an invisible killer. One so common that we barely notice it shortening our lives.

It’s causing heart attacks, type 2 diabetes and studies now even link it to dementia.

What do you think it could be?

The answer is noise – and its impact on the human body goes far beyond damaging hearing.

“It is a public health crisis, we’ve got huge numbers of people exposed in their everyday life,” says Prof Charlotte Clark, from St George’s, University of London.

It’s just a crisis we don’t talk about.

So I’ve been investigating when noise becomes dangerous, chatting to the people whose health is suffering and seeing if there’s any way of overcoming our noisy world.

I started by meeting Prof Clark in an eerily silent sound laboratory. We’re going to see how my body reacts to noise and I’ve been kitted out with a device that looks like a chunky smartwatch.

It’s going to measure my heart rate and how much my skin sweats.

You can join in too if you have some headphones. Think about how these five sounds make you feel.

The one I find really grating is the traffic noise from Dhaka, Bangladesh, which has the title of the noisiest city in the world. I immediately feel like I’m in a ginormous, stressful traffic jam.

And the sensors are picking up my agitation – my heart rate shoots up and my skin is sweating more.

“There’s really good evidence that traffic noise affects your heart health,” says Prof Clark, as the next sound is prepared.

Only the joyful sounds of the playground have a calming effect on my body. The dogs barking and the neighbour’s party in the early hours lead to a negative response.

• WATCH: Is noise an invisible killer?

But why is sound changing my body?

“You have an emotional response to sound,” says Prof Clark.

Sound is detected by the ear and passed onto the brain and one region – the amygdala – performs the emotional assessment.

This is part of the body’s fight-or-flight response that has evolved to help us react quickly to the sounds like a predator crashing through the bushes.

“So your heart rate goes up, your nervous system starts to kick in and you release stress hormones,” Prof Clark tells me.

All of this is good in an emergency, but over time it starts to cause damage.

“If you’re exposed for several years, your body’s reacting like that all the time, it increases your risk of developing things like heart attacks, high blood pressure, stroke and type 2 diabetes,” says Prof Clark.

Insidiously, this even happens while we’re fast asleep. You might think you adapt to noise. I thought I did when I lived in a rental near an airport. But the biology tells a different story.

“You never turn your ears off; when you’re asleep, you’re still listening. So those responses, like your heart rate going up, that’s happening whilst you’re asleep,” adds Prof Clark.

Noise is unwanted sound. Transport – traffic, trains and aeroplanes – are a major source, but so too are the sounds of us having a good time. One person’s great party is another’s insufferable noise.

I meet Coco at her fourth-floor flat in the historic Vila de Gràcia area of Barcelona, Spain.

There’s a bag of freshly picked lemons tied to her door gifted by one neighbour, her fridge contains a tortilla cooked by another and she offers me fancy cakes made by a third neighbour who’s training in patisserie.

From the balcony you can see the city’s famous cathedral, the Sagrada Familia. It is easy to see why Coco has fallen in love with living here, but it comes at a huge price and she thinks she’ll be forced to leave.

“It’s extremely noisy… it’s 24-hour noise,” she tells me. There’s a dog park for owners to walk their pooches which “bark at 2, 3, 4, 5am” and the courtyard is a public space that is used for everything from children’s birthday parties to all-day concerts finished off with fireworks.

She gets out her phone and plays the recordings of the music being blasted out so loud it makes the glass in her windows vibrate.

Her home should be a refuge from the stress of work, but the noise “brings frustration, I feel like crying”.

She has been “hospitalised twice with chest pain” and “absolutely” thinks noise is causing the stress, which is damaging her health. “There is a physical change that I feel, it does something to your body, for certain,” she says.

In Barcelona there are an estimated 300 heart attacks and 30 deaths a year just from traffic noise, according to researcher Dr Maria Foraster, who has reviewed evidence on noise for the World Health Organization.

Across Europe noise is linked to 12,000 early deaths a year as well as millions of cases of severely disturbed sleep as well as serious noise annoyance which can impact mental health.

I meet Dr Foraster at a café that is separated from one of Barcelona’s busiest roads by a small park. My sound meter says the noise from the distant traffic is just over 60 decibels here.

We can easily chat over the noise without raising our voices, but this is already an unhealthy volume.

The crucial number for heart health is 53 decibels, she tells me, and the higher you go the greater the health risks.

“This 53 means that we need to be in a rather quiet environment,” says Dr Foraster.

And that’s just in daytime, we need even lower levels for sleep. “At night we need quietness,” she says.

Although it is not just about the volume, how disruptive the sound is and how much control you have over it affect our emotional response to noise.

Dr Foraster argues the health impact of noise is “at the level of air pollution” but is much harder to comprehend.

“We are used to understanding that chemicals can affect health and they are toxic, but it’s not so straightforward to understand that a physical factor, like noise, affects our health beyond our hearing,” she says.

A loud party can be the fun that makes life worth living and someone else’s intolerable noise.

The sound of traffic has the greatest impact on health because so many people are exposed to it. But traffic is also the sound of getting to work, doing the shopping and taking the children to school. Tackling noise means asking people to live their lives differently – which creates problems of its own.

Dr Natalie Mueller, from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, takes me for a walk around the city centre. We start on a busy road – my sound meter clocks in at over 80 decibels – and we head to a quiet tree-lined avenue where the noise is down to the 50s.

But there is something different about this street – it used to be a busy road, but the space was given over to pedestrians, cafes and gardens. I can see the ghost of an old cross roads by the shape of the flowerbeds. Vehicles can still come down here, just slowly.

Remember earlier in the lab, we found that some sounds can soothe the body.

“It is not completely silent, but it’s a different perception of sound and noise,” Dr Mueller says. My heart rate went down and I stopped sweating.

The initial plan was to create more than 500 areas like this, termed “superblocks” – pedestrian-friendly areas created by grouping several city blocks together.

Dr Mueller performed the research projecting a 5-10% reduction in noise in the city, which would prevent about “150 premature deaths” from noise alone each year. And that would be “just the tip of the iceberg” of the health benefits.

But in reality only six superblocks were ever built. The city council declined to comment.

The dangers of noise though are continuing to grow. Urbanisation is putting more people into noisy cities.

Dhaka, Bangladesh, is one of the fastest growing megacities in the world. This has brought more traffic and given the city a cacophonous soundtrack of honking horns.

Artist Momina Raman Royal earned the label of the “lone hero” as his silent protests have focused attention on the city’s noise problem.

For about 10 minutes each day, he stands at the intersection of a couple of busy roads with a big yellow placard accusing drivers who honk their horns loudly of causing a massive nuisance.

He took on the mission after his daughter was born. “I want to stop all honking from not only Dhaka, but from Bangladesh,” he says.

“If you see the birds or trees or rivers, no one’s making noise without humans, so humans are responsible.”

But here there are the beginnings of political action too. Syeda Rizwana Hasan, who’s the environment adviser and minister for the government of Bangladesh, told me she was “very worried” about the health impacts of noise.

There is a crackdown on honking horns to get the noise levels down – with an awareness campaign and stricter enforcement of existing laws.

She said: “It’s impossible to get it done in one year or two years, but I think it is possible to ensure that the city becomes less noisy, and when people feel that, they feel better when it’s less noisy, I’m sure their habit will also change.”

The solutions to noise can be difficult, complicated and challenging to solve.

What I’m left with is a new appreciation for finding some space in our lives to just escape the noise because in the words of Dr Masrur Abdul Quader, from the Bangladesh University of Professionals, it is “a silent killer and a slow poison”.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said military planning to protect a potential Ukraine ceasefire is moving to an “operational phase” after a virtual meeting with 29 other world leaders.

Military leaders will meet in London on Thursday “to put strong and robust plans in place to swing in behind a peace deal and guarantee Ukraine’s future security”, Sir Keir said.

The meeting follows Ukraine agreeing to a 30-day ceasefire after talks with the US. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he agrees with the idea, but set a number of pre-conditions for peace.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, who joined Saturday’s meeting, said “active pressure is needed, not just talks”.

“The world must understand that Russia is the only obstacle preventing peace,” he said.

“The path to peace must begin unconditionally. If Russia doesn’t want this, then strong pressure must be applied until they do. Moscow understands one language,” Zelensky added.

He urged European countries to produce their own weapons as soon as possible and to talk to the US and its President Donald Trump to reach a deal more quickly through “full sanctions, strong pressure, and forcing Russia to make peace”.

In a speech after the video call, Sir Keir said “the world needs actions…not empty words and conditions”.

In a statement, he said the “Kremlin’s dithering and delay” over the ceasefire proposal and its continued attacks on Ukraine “run entirely counter to President Putin’s stated desire for peace”.

Leaders agreed on Saturday that if Putin refused an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire” they would need to “ratchet up pressure…to convince him to come to the negotiating table”, Sir Keir said.

“To deliver this, we will accelerate our military support, tighten our sanctions on Russia’s revenues, and continue to explore all lawful routes to ensure that Russia pays for the damage it has done to Ukraine,” the statement read.

Putin said on Thursday he supported the idea of a ceasefire, but added “there are nuances” and asked a list of questions about details, including whether a ceasefire would allow Ukraine to rearm and who would police it.

• Starmer’s ad hoc alliance could still struggle to materialise
• Putin sets out conditions for Ukraine ceasefire

Participants in Saturday’s call included Nato, the European Union, nearly two dozen European countries, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Military chiefs will meet this week to move forward on “practical plans” for how their militaries can support Ukraine, Sir Keir said.

“We will build up Ukraine’s own defences and armed forces, and be ready to deploy as a ‘coalition of the willing’ in the event of a peace deal, to help secure Ukraine on the land, at sea, and in the sky,” his statement read.

Sir Keir introduced the idea of a “coalition of the willing” to defend a ceasefire earlier this month, and on Saturday said it had grown and includes backing from Japan and others.

The prime minister has previously said he is “ready and willing” to put UK troops in Ukraine to help guarantee its security as part of a peace deal. He has called on other European countries to commit to concrete security guarantees, and said a US “backstop” is needed.

In a news conference after the summit, Zelensky said there was a need for some form of “boots on the ground” after the ceasefire, although he admitted some were “sceptical”.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg after the summit that it is “still too early” to talk about putting troops on the ground as part of any security guarantee.

Stubb said Finland was willing to be part of efforts to defend a peace deal, but said: “It is too early to talk about boots on the ground because we don’t have a ceasefire, we don’t have a peace process. Once we have a clear plan, we start doing the commitments.”

He said there was “anywhere from zero to 50 different ways they can help out, boots on the ground is only one way”.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

A fashion show held last week in a picturesque, snow-clad town in Indian-administered Kashmir has sparked a major controversy that is still simmering.

The show, by the well-known fashion brand Shivan & Narresh, was held last Friday at a ski resort in Gulmarg to display their skiwear collection. The label is the first big, non-local brand to hold a fashion show in Kashmir, a scenic Himalayan region which has seen decades of violence.

But it soon sparked outrage among locals, politicians and religious leaders in Muslim-majority Kashmir after fashion publisher Elle India posted a video on social media which showed some models wearing underwear or bikinis. Locals were also angry over another video – shared by online magazine Lifestyle Asia – of a party held after the show, which showed people drinking alcohol outdoors.

Many took offence with the show being held in the holy month of Ramadan – a time of fasting and prayer for Muslims – and accused the designers of “mocking their faith” and “disregarding local culture and sentiments”. Some clerics called the show “obscene” and said it was like “soft porn”.

Some others explained that the outrage had arisen not only from religious conservatism, but also from a fear of cultural imposition from “outsiders”. Kashmir has witnessed decades of armed separatist insurgency against Indian rule since the late 1980s.

The backlash prompted Elle India and Lifestyle Asia to delete their videos. Shivan Bhatiya and Narresh Kukreja, the designers behind the label, also apologised, saying that their “sole intention was to celebrate creativity” and that they didn’t intend to offend religious sentiments.

Kashmir – known as the land of saints and Sufism (Islamic mysticism) – has a rich tradition of spirituality which influences many aspects of peoples’ lives. The traditional attire is modest, with locals – both men and women – often wearing the pheran, a long, loose cloak.

The row also moved off social media and a discussion about the show and the after-party caused a ruckus in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly.

The opposition criticised the government, accusing it of giving permission for the event despite being aware of local sensitivities. Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah distanced his government from the event, saying it had been organised by private entities, and asking local authorities to investigate the matter and submit a report.

“If law has been violated, strict action will be taken,” he said in the assembly on Monday. The police have not yet given details about who organised the event and what laws, if any, have been violated.

The fashion brand did not respond to the BBC’s questions about the show, including about permissions it obtained.

It’s not surprising that scenic Gulmarg – one of India’s few skiing destinations and a favourite with tourists – was the choice of venue for a show highlighting a skiwear collection.

Fashion journalist Shefalee Vasudev says it’s not uncommon for designers to want to hold fashion shows in exquisite locations.

In fact, international designers like Alexander McQueen and Karl Lagerfeld are remembered as much for their creative, theatrical fashion shows as they are for their iconic designs.

But experimentation brings with it the risk of controversy and so, it’s important to be mindful of the political and cultural sensitivities of a place, Ms Vasudev told the BBC.

And this holds especially true in a place like Kashmir, which has witnessed wars and decades of armed conflict.

• Article 370: What happened with Kashmir and why it matters
• ‘Don’t beat us, just shoot us’: Kashmiris allege violent army crackdown

Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full but control it only in parts. Since India’s partition and the creation of Pakistan in 1947, the nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two wars over the territory.

Thousands of people have been killed since the late 1980s, when a separatist insurgency broke out against Indian rule. Though the separatist movement has lost steam over the years, many locals continue to view the administration in Delhi with distrust.

These sentiments have deepened since 2019 when the federal government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, stripped the region of its autonomy.

So some locals told the BBC that they were not surprised by the reactions to the show.

“Everything in Kashmir is political; people see things through a political prism,” says Mir, a professor at a local university (he asked for his surname to be withheld to protect his identity). He adds that people are sceptical about big corporate events like the fashion show and – even if they are organised by private players – they believe that the government is trying to dilute their culture.

Arshid Ahmad, a researcher, uses stronger words to express public angst. “The government is trying to dilute the spirit of resistance in Kashmiris,” he says.

This isn’t the first time an event held by non-locals has triggered a controversy in Kashmir. In 2013, separatists and human rights activists in the region protested against a show by renowned conductor Zubin Mehta. They said it was an attempt by the government to show the world that all was well in Kashmir when people were “suffering and dying”.

Some of the recent apprehensions around culture and identity can also be tied to the increase in tourists to Kashmir from other states in India. The federal government has often connected this boom in tourism to the abrogation of Article 370, which stripped the region of its autonomy.

Nousheen Fatima, 34, says because of government messaging, people outside Kashmir now see the region as being safer and “more assimilated with India”. But she alleges that many tourists do not respect the region’s culture.

Last year, a video showing tourists drinking alcohol during a boat ride on the famous Dal Lake in Srinagar evoked outrage from political and religious leaders, who called the behaviour “un-Islamic and unethical”.

In February, locals put up posters in Srinagar, asking tourists to “respect local culture and traditions” and “avoid alcohol and use of drugs”, but these were later pulled down by the police.

In an editorial for The Voice of Fashion magazine, Ms Vasudev argues that the outrage needs to be examined from a critical lens. She asks if it would have been all right for the show to have been held in another Indian city instead of Kashmir, where Muslims would also be observing Ramadan. And whether it would have been acceptable to hold the show in Kashmir if it featured only outfits perceived as modest.

She also points out that Kashmir is home to the “world’s finest wool yarn; some of the finest handspun, handwoven pashmina creations and its artisans”.

“What Kashmir creates and stands for cannot be replicated anywhere. Shouldn’t a fashion show at Gulmarg then, with innovative garments made with 100% wool, be seen as regenerating interest in untried ways?” she asks.

The elderly woman gazes wistfully into the distance, her hands curled over a basket of tobacco, surrounded by the hundreds of cigarettes she has spent hours rolling by hand.

The photograph is one of several snapped by student Rashmitha T in her village in Tamil Nadu, featuring her neighbours who make traditional Indian cigarettes called beedis.

“No-one knows about their work. Their untold stories need to be told,” Rashmitha told the BBC.

Her pictures were featured in a recent exhibition about India’s labourers titled The Unseen Perspective at the Egmore Museum in Chennai.

All the photographs were taken by 40 students from Tamil Nadu’s government-run schools, who documented the lives of their own parents or other adults.

From quarry workers to weavers, welders to tailors, the pictures highlight the diverse, backbreaking work undertaken by the estimated 400 million labourers in India.

Many beedi rollers, for instance, are vulnerable to lung damage and tuberculosis due to their dangerous work, said Rashmitha.

“Their homes reek of tobacco, you cannot stay there long,” she said, adding that her neighbours sit outside their homes for hours rolling beedis.

For every 1,000 cigarettes they roll, they only earn 250 rupees ($2.90; £2.20), she told the BBC.

In the state’s Erode district, Jayaraj S captured a photo of his mother Pazhaniammal at work as a brick maker. She is seen pouring a clay and sand mixture into moulds and shaping bricks by hand.

Jayaraj had to wake up at 2am to snap the picture, because his mother begins working in the middle of the night.

“She has to start early to avoid the afternoon sun,” he said.

It was only when he embarked on his photography project that he truly realised the hardships she has to endure, he added.

“My mother frequently complains of headaches, leg pain, hip pain and sometimes faints,” he said.

In the Madurai district, Gopika Lakshmi M captured her father Muthukrishnan selling goods from an old van.

Her father has to get a dialysis twice a week after he lost a kidney two years ago.

“He drives to nearby villages to sell goods despite being on dialysis,” Lakshmi says.

“We don’t have the luxury of resting at home.”

But despite his serious condition, her father “looked like a hero” as he carried on with his gruelling daily routine, said Gopika.

Taking pictures with a professional camera was not easy initially, but it got easier after months of training with experts, said the students.

“I learned how to shoot at night, adjust shutter speed and aperture,” said Keerthi, who lives in the Tenkasi district.

For her project, Keerthi chose to document the daily life of her mother, Muthulakshmi, who owns a small shop in front of their house.

“Dad is not well, so mum looks after both the shop and the house,” she said. “She wakes up at 4am and works until 11pm.”

Her photos depict her mother’s struggles as she travels long distances via public buses to source goods for her store.

“I wanted to show through photographs what a woman does to improve her children’s lives,” she said.

Mukesh K spent four days with his father, documenting his work at a quarry.

“My father stays here and comes home only once a week,” he said.

Mukesh’s father works from 3am till noon, and after a brief rest, works from 3pm to 7pm. He earns a meagre sum of about 500 rupees a day.

“There are no beds or mattresses in their room. My father sleeps on empty cardboard boxes in the quarry,” he said. “He suffered a sunstroke last year because he was working under the hot sun.”

The students, aged 13 to 17, are learning various art forms, including photography, as part of an initiative by the Tamil Nadu School education department.

“The idea is to make students socially responsible,” said Muthamizh Kalaivizhi, state lead of Holistic Development programme in Tamil Nadu’s government schools and founder of non-government organisation Neelam Foundation.

“They documented the working people around them. Understanding their lives is the beginning of social change,” he added.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer says a “huge amount” has happened since his “coalition of the willing” idea first surfaced at his Lancaster House summit a fortnight ago.

He is not wrong: US-Ukrainian relations have been on a rollercoaster since then, culminating in the meeting in Riyadh earlier this week, where the two sides agreed on a 30-day ceasefire.

But Sir Keir’s coalition is a big, still somewhat nebulous undertaking, and there is clearly a great deal of work to be done before this ad hoc alliance is ready to take on something as complex – and potentially perilous – as keeping the peace in Ukraine.

Sir Keir says the coalition is now bigger and that “new commitments” are on the table, though he did not spell these out.

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Participants of Saturday morning’s virtual summit, he said, had agreed to keep military aid flowing to Ukraine and tighten restrictions on the Russian economy, to weaken Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine.

Planning, he said, would now move to an “operational phase”, with military chiefs due to meet in the UK next Thursday.

“Overall, we are successfully gathering political and military momentum,” he said.

It is likely that we will see a rolling set of political, diplomatic and military gatherings as the plan slowly takes shape.

It is far from plain sailing.

Asked about vital US military support for any European-led operation – what’s being called a “backstop” – the prime minister was clear: the US position had not changed.

European national security advisors including Jonathan Powell – one of those credited with convincing Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept the US ceasefire proposal – were in Washington on Friday.

Unless US President Donald Trump’s position on the backstop changes, Sir Keir’s coalition of the willing could struggle to get off the ground.

For Zelensky, the military clock is ticking, especially in Kursk, where his troops have been occupying a shrinking sliver of Russian territory since August 2024.

Ukraine vehemently denies reports that its forces are surrounded in Kursk – a theory promoted by Trump on Friday – but they are clearly under enormous pressure and are losing ground.

When I was in Kyiv towards the end of last year, Ukrainian troops told us they were holding onto territory in Kursk as a bargaining chip to be played in future negotiations.

But as those negotiations approach, it is a chip that Putin seems determined to remove from the table first.

That may go some way towards explaining his “yes, but” approach to the idea of a 30-day ceasefire.

When my mother told me at the age of 16 that we were going from the UK to Ghana for the summer holidays, I had no reason to doubt her.

It was just a quick trip, a temporary break – nothing to worry about. Or so I thought.

One month in, she dropped the bombshell – I was not coming back to London until I had reformed and had earned enough GCSEs to continue my education.

I was hoodwinked in a similar way to the British-Ghanaian teenager who recently took his parents to the High Court in London for sending him to school in Ghana.

In their defence, they told the judge they did not want to see their 14-year-old son become “yet another black teenager stabbed to death in the streets of London”.

Back in the mid-1990s, my mother, a primary school teacher, was motivated by similar concerns.

I had been excluded from two high schools in the London Borough of Brent, hanging out with the wrong crowd (becoming the wrong crowd) – and heading down a dangerous path.

My closest friends at the time ended up in prison for armed robbery. Had I stayed in London, I would have almost certainly been convicted with them.

But being sent to Ghana also felt like a prison sentence.

I can empathise to a degree with the teenager, who said in his court statement that he feels like he is “living in hell”.

Yet, speaking for myself, by the time I turned 21 I realised what my mother had done had been a blessing.

Unlike the boy at the centre of the London court case – which he lost – I did not go to boarding school in Ghana.

My mother placed me in the care of her two closest brothers, they wanted to keep an eye on me and it was felt that being around boarders could prove too much of a distraction.

I first stayed with my Uncle Fiifi, a former UN environmentalist, in a town called Dansoman, near the capital, Accra.

The lifestyle change hit hard. In London, I had my own bedroom, access to washing machines and a sense of independence – even if I was using it recklessly.

In Ghana, I was waking up at 05:00 to sweep the courtyard and wash my uncle’s often muddy pick-up truck and my aunt’s car.

It was her vehicle that I would later steal – something of a watershed moment.

I did not even know how to drive properly, treating a manual like an automatic and I crashed it into a high-ranking soldier’s Mercedes.

I tried to flee the scene. But that soldier caught me and threatened to take me to Burma Camp, the notorious military base where people had disappeared in the past.

That was the last truly reckless thing I did.

It was not just discipline that I learnt in Ghana – it was perspective.

Life in Ghana showed me how much I had taken for granted.

Washing clothes by hand and preparing meals with my aunt made me appreciate the effort needed.

Food, like everything in Ghana, required patience. There were no microwaves, no fast-food runs.

Making the traditional dough-like dish fufu, for example, is laborious and involves pounding cooked yams or cassava into a paste with a mortar.

At the time, it felt like punishment. Looking back, it was building resilience.

Initially, my uncles considered placing me in high-end schools like the Ghana International School or SOS-Hermann Gmeiner International College.

But they were smart. They knew I might just form a new crew to cause chaos and mischief.

Instead, I received private tuition at Accra Academy, a state secondary school that my late father had attended. It meant I was often taught on my own or in small groups.

Lessons were in English, but out of school those around me were often speaking local languages and I found it easy to pick them up perhaps because it was such an immersive experience.

Back home in London, I used to love to learn swear words in my mother’s Fante language – but was far from fluent.

When I later moved to the city of Tema to stay with my favourite uncle, Uncle Jojo – an agricultural expert, I continued private tuition at Tema Secondary School.

In contrast to the boy making the headlines in the UK, who claimed Ghana’s education system was not up to standard, I found it to be exacting.

I was considered academically gifted in the UK, despite my troublesome ways, but actually found it tough going in Ghana. Students my age were far ahead in subjects like maths and science.

The rigour of the Ghanaian system pushed me to study harder than I ever had in London.

The result? I earned five GCSEs with grades C and above – something that once seemed impossible.

Beyond academic achievements, Ghanaian society instilled values that have stayed with me for life.

Respect for elders was non-negotiable. Throughout the neighbourhoods I lived in, you greeted those older than you, regardless of whether or not you knew them.

Ghana did not just make me more disciplined and respectful – it made me fearless.

Football played a huge part in that transformation. I played in the parks, which were often hard red clay with loose pebbles and stones, with two square goalposts fashioned out of wood and string.

It was a far cry from the neatly maintained pitches in England, but it toughened me up in ways I could not have imagined – and it is no wonder some of the greatest footballers seen in the English Premier League have come from West Africa.

The aggressive style played in Ghana was not just about skill – it was about resilience and endurance. Getting tackled on rough ground meant picking yourself up, dusting yourself off and carrying on.

Every Sunday, I played football on the beach – though I would often be late because there was absolutely no way either of my uncles would allow me to stay home instead of attending church.

Those services felt like they lasted forever. But it was also a testament to Ghana as a God-fearing nation, where faith is deeply embedded in everyday life.

The first 18 months were the hardest. I resented the restrictions, the chores, the discipline.

I even tried stealing my passport to fly back to London, but my mother was ahead of me and had hidden it well. There was no escape.

My only choice was to adapt. Somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing Ghana as a prison and started seeing it as happy home.

I know of a few others like me who were sent back to Ghana by their parents living in London.

Michael Adom was 17 when he arrived in Accra for school in the 1990s, describing his experience as “bittersweet”. He stayed until he was 23 and now lives back in London working as a probation officer.

His main complaint was the loneliness – he missed his family and friends. There were times of anger about his situation and the complications of feeling misunderstood.

This largely stemmed from the fact that his parents had not taught him or his siblings any of the local languages when growing up in London.

“I didn’t understand Ga. I didn’t understand Twi. I didn’t understand Pidgin,” the 49-year-old tells me.

This made him feel vulnerable for his first two-and-a-half years – and, he says, liable to being fleeced, for example, by those increasing prices because he seemed foreign.

“Anywhere I went, I had to make sure I went with somebody else,” he says.

But he ended up becoming fluent in Twi and, overall, he believes the positives outweighed the negatives: “It made me a man.

“My Ghana experience matured me and changed me for the better, by helping me to identify with who I am, as a Ghanaian, and cemented my understanding of my culture, background and family history.”

I can concur with this. By my third year, I had fallen in love with the culture and even stayed on for nearly two more years after passing my GCSEs.

I developed a deep appreciation of the local food. Back in London, I never thought twice about what I was eating. But in Ghana, food was not just sustenance – each dish had its own story.

I became obsessed with “waakye” – a dish made from rice and black-eyed peas, often cooked with millet leaves, giving it a distinctive purple-brown colour. It was usually served with fried plantain, the spicy black pepper sauce “shito”, boiled eggs, and sometimes even spaghetti or fried fish. It was the ultimate comfort food.

I enjoyed the music, the warmth of the people and the sense of community. I was not just “stuck” in Ghana any more – I was thriving.

My mother, Patience Wilberforce, passed away recently, and with her loss I have reflected deeply on the decision she made all those years ago.

She saved me. Had she not tricked me into staying in Ghana, the chances of me having a criminal record or even serving time in prison would have been extremely high.

I went on to enrol at the College of North West London aged 20 to study media production and communications, before joining BBC Radio 1Xtra via a mentoring scheme.

The guys I used to hang out with in north-west London did not get the second chance that I did.

Ghana reshaped my mindset, my values and my future. It turned a misguided menace into a responsible man.

While such an experience might not work for everyone, it gave me the education, discipline and respect I needed to reintegrate into society when I returned to England.

And for that, I am forever indebted to my mother, to my uncles and to the country that saved me.

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A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump from using a 227-year-old law meant to protect the US during wartime to carry out mass deportations of Venezuelans.

Trump on Saturday proclaimed immigrants belonging to the Venezuelan crime gang Tren de Aragua were “conducting irregular warfare” against the US and that he would deport them under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

But US District Judge James Boasberg on Saturday evening ordered a halt to deportations covered by the proclamation that will last for 14 days, according to media reports.

Judge Boasberg told a hearing he had heard planes with deportees were taking off and ordered them turned back, the Washington Post reported.

The law allows the US during wartime to detain and remove people threatening the country’s safety without having to follow due process. It was last invoked to intern people of Japanese descent during World War Two.

There was little surprise to the proclamation on Saturday, where Trump declared Tren de Aragua was “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States”.

He had promised to use the controversial law for mass deportations during last year’s campaign.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other rights group had already sued to block him from using it on Saturday before he issued the proclamation, as well.

At a hearing, the judge said the terms “invasion” and “predatory incursion” in the law “really relate to hostile acts perpetrated by enemy nations,” and the law probably did not offer a good basis for Trump’s proclamation, according to the New York Times.

An ACLU lawyer had told the New York Times he believed there were two planes of Venezuelan immigrants in the air on Sunday. The BBC has not verified that report.

The case will now move through the legal system and could go all the way to the Supreme Court.

The proclamation, and the fight around it, should rally Trump’s supporters, who largely returned him to the White House on his pledges to crack down on illegal immigration and bring down prices of everyday goods. Since he was inaugurated in January, he has swiftly worked to overhaul the US immigration system.

Rights groups, along with some legal experts, are calling the invocation unprecedented, noting the Alien Enemies Act has been used in the past after the US officially declared war against other countries. Under the constitution, only Congress can declare war.

All Venezuelan citizens in the US who are at least 14 years old, members of Tren de Aragua and “are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents” were to be “apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies”, under Trump’s order.

Trump did not lay out in the proclamation how US officials would determine that a person is a member of the violent, transnational gang.

By using this law, instead of immigration laws that already give him “ample authority” to deport the gang’s members, Trump would not have to prove that detainees are part of Tren de Aragua, said Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice in a statement.

“He wants to bypass any need to provide evidence or to convince a judge that someone is actually a gang member before deporting them,” she said.

“The only reason to invoke such a power is to try to enable sweeping detentions and deportations of Venezuelans based on their ancestry, not on any gang activity that could be proved in immigration proceedings.”

Hundreds of thousands of people descended on Serbia’s capital on Saturday to protest over the deaths of 15 people in a railway station collapse.

While the government put attendance at 107,000 across Belgrade, an independent monitor said 325,000 – if not more – had gathered, making it Serbia’s largest protest ever.

The Novi Sad collapse last November has galvanised anger towards the government and President Aleksandar Vucic. Demonstrators blame corruption and corner-cutting for the loss of life.

They believe the disaster reflects more than a decade of governing by the Progressive Party of Vucic – who closely associated himself with the station’s recent renovation.

President Vucic addressed the nation on Saturday and praised the police, adding that he was proud that “we managed to preserve the peace”.

He added that he “understood” the protesters’ message, and said “we will have to change ourselves”.

Despite multiple resignations – and Vucic’s insistence that he is going nowhere – the protests have only continued to grow.

“We just want a country that works,” law student Jana Vasic told the BBC in the growing crowd in Belgrade.

“We want institutions that do their jobs properly. We don’t care what party is in power. But we need a country that works, not one where you don’t get justice for more than four months.”

Republic Square – just one of the four meeting points around Serbia’s capital for the “15th for 15” protest – was full to overflowing on Saturday.

Some took refuge on the plinth of Prince Mihajlo’s statue – the traditional spot for Belgraders to meet, the equivalent of Eros in London’s Piccadilly.

Others queued up along the road in front of the National Museum, stretching all the way back to Students’ Square.

The other meeting points were every bit as crowded ahead of the planned rendezvous in front of the National Assembly.

The Public Meeting Archive said 275,000-325,000 had attended the protest – “with the possibility that the number was even higher”.

“Due to the extraordinary size, dynamic nature and structure of the assembly, as well as the unclear situation in some parts of the city… a more precise assessment is not possible,” it added.

Serbian media reports 22 people were arrested and 56 others injured.

While the protests over the Novi Sad collapse began with students, they have been joined by taxi drivers, farmers and lawyers.

Ahead of the big protest, motorbike riders pulled up outside the National Assembly, facing off against the tractors surrounding a camp of pro-government counter-protesters.

Then a parade of military veterans received a rousing welcome. They said they would make a citizen’s arrest on anyone who attacked the students.

The students have been calling for full transparency and accountability over the collapse of a concrete and glass canopy at the station in Serbia’s second city, which was renovated and only reopened – by Vucic – in 2022.

They want the government to publish all the documentation relating to the renovation project and say they are not satisfied with the papers the authorities have released so far.

They also want those responsible for the disaster to be charged and convicted. Prosecutors have indicted at least 16 people, including former construction minister Goran Vesic.

But the charges have yet to go to trial. And the students insist they will continue with their protests until the authorities meet all their demands.

“We’re making progress,” a student representing Belgrade University’s philosophy faculty told the BBC. “But at this point none of our demands have been met completely.”

“A couple of politicians have resigned from their offices,” noted another. “But they weren’t fired. We’re yet to see anything but empty promises”.

Prime Minister Milos Vucevic announced his resignation at the end of January. But that has yet to be ratified by the National Assembly and he remains in his post.

But the real power in Serbia lies with Vucic, who insists that he is going nowhere.

“I don’t give in to blackmail,” he told a media conference on the eve of the big protest. “I won’t allow the street to pave a horrible future for this country.”

Vucic described the student protests as “well-intentioned”. But he had less flattering words for opposition parties, labelling them members of a “criminal cartel”. He accused them of attempting to force the formation of a “fraudulent interim government”.

Borko Stefanovic does not deny that the opposition parties are looking for the establishment of a “government of experts”.

The deputy president of the Party of Freedom and Justice describes it as the “only rational way out” of the political crisis, which would establish the conditions for fresh elections.

Like other opposition leaders, Stefanovic says that free elections are not currently possible due to the Progressive Party’s domination of the media and state institutions.

But this is not one of the students’ demands. They are simply calling for the truth behind the Novi Sad disaster to be established.

As law professor Miodrag Jovanovic puts it “they are asking for the things I’ve been lecturing about – the rule of law, respect for the constitution, and the responsibility and accountability of public officials”.

Whatever happens during the “15th for 15” protest, it seems unlikely that the students will relent until they receive some satisfactory answers.

A team of charity workers has been killed in Israeli strikes in northern Gaza, the UK-registered Al Khair Foundation has told the BBC.

The charity said eight people – including its volunteers and independent journalists documenting their activities – were killed when their vehicles were targeted on Saturday in what Hamas described as a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire agreement with Israel.

The Israeli military has said it had struck “two terrorists who were identified operating a drone that posed a threat to Israeli troops”, adding that it then targeted “additional terrorists” who arrived at the scene.

The charity rejects the allegation that members of its team were terrorists.

Qasim Rashid Ahmad, founder and chairman of the charity, told the BBC the team was in the area to set up tents and document it for the charity’s own promotion efforts.

He said that the cameramen came back to the car and were hit, while its team members who rushed to the scene were then struck by an Israeli drone which had followed them when they went to the charity’s second car.

But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had targeted people operating a drone who posed a threat to Israeli troops in Beit Lahia, adding: “Later, a number of additional terrorists collected the drone operating equipment and entered a vehicle. The IDF struck the terrorists.”

Video editor Bilal Abu Matar and cameramen Mahmoud Al-Sarraj, Bilal Aqila and Mahmoud Asleem were all named as having been killed in the strike, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.

The organisation accused Israel of carrying out “systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists, who risk their lives to report the truth and expose Israeli crimes to the world”.

Several others were injured in the strike, and rushed to the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

A spokesman for the group, Hazem Qassem, accused Israel of having “committed a horrific massacre in the northern Gaza Strip”.

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has been in place since January, after 15 months of fighting, but its future is uncertain as the process has reached an impasse.

The first phase of the multi-stage deal saw Hamas return dozens of hostages, both alive and dead, that it had captured during its attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, in exchange for about 1,800 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Talks to extend the first phase of the ceasefire – which ended on 1 March – ended without an agreement, a Palestinian official told the BBC on Saturday.

Negotiators were working on a US-proposed extension, which would include a further exchange of hostages and prisoners.

Washington accused Hamas of making “entirely impractical” demands. The group has demanded immediate talks on the second phase, including discussions of a permanent ceasefire, as laid out in the agreement brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the US in January.

Hamas’s unprecedented assault on Israel on 7 October 2023 saw about 1,200 people killed and 251 others taken to Gaza as hostages.

Israel responded with a massive military offensive on the Palestinian territory, which has killed more than 48,300 people, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says.

In the world of billionaires and the similarly wealthy teams they own, designing a state-of-the-art stadium goes beyond the visual.

In the offices of architecture firm Arup, there is a downstairs soundproof room with premium grade surround-sound speakers and a large screen. It looks like a small theatre.

“We can put a client in there and say, ‘when your team scores, this is what it will sound like if your stadium roof is shaped this way,'” says Chris Dite, who is responsible for the firm’s sports projects.

“But, if we change the roof shape to this, then this is what it will sound like.”

The way the pitch and intensity of the crowd noise changes in the aftermath of a goal is based on data from stadium projects the firm have completed over the last 25 years.

Dite’s previous work includes the Allianz Arena used by German football giants Bayern Munich and the Gtech Community Stadium where Brentford play.

“If you can sit the client in those front rows and make them feel like they’re in it, that’s where you start to really invoke an emotional response,” Dite tells BBC News.

What a goal might sound like in the new Manchester United stadium was not part of the presentation given by the club earlier this week, but the design of the new £2bn ground certainly invoked emotional responses.

Some questioned how realistic it was to build such tall pillars from which a glass panelled canvas drapes over the new stands and surrounding grounds.

The three pillars in the artist’s impression, unveiled by the firm Foster and Partners, are a nod to the trident on the Red Devil’s crest.

“Gravity still exists, unfortunately for us,” remarks Dite. He says he “can’t comment on other architectural businesses” but that Arup doesn’t issue any public designs that haven’t been approved by structural engineers.

“We don’t want to get into the situation of showing a client or fans an image that everyone falls in love with, that everybody gets behind.

“And then, when it comes to being a finished building, everyone’s like ‘well, that doesn’t look anything like the picture’.”

Prof Kevin Singh, head of the Manchester School of Architecture, explains modern building techniques mean many of an architect’s ideas are possible to construct, though there are limitations.

Housing and infrastructure that surround an existing stadium, particularly in an inner city or residential area, can limit the scope of ambitious redevelopment.

Both Liverpool and Newcastle United have had difficulties expanding their grounds due to their close proximity to houses.

One stand at Luton Town can only be accessed through an entrance sandwiched between a long row of terraced housing. Fans pass through a tight corridor before climbing staircases overlooking gardens of neighbouring properties.

Singh points towards the way Fulham have redeveloped Craven Cottage in a residential part of west London and Everton’s new ground at Bramley-Moore Dock as good examples of stadiums that “fit into its place”.

He said: “Everton’s feels contextual. You know it’s on the dock and it has some nods to Goodison Park,” he told the BBC. “When you saw the images of the stadium, it looked like the sort of thing you would build there.”

In contrast, he thinks Man Utd have chosen to construct something striking that can’t be confused for any other stadium.

“It’s very much an iconic thing in itself,” he says. “They’re justifying that sort of design because of the trident.”

Singh adds: “I think nobody could say that the proposal for Old Trafford is like anything else. I think avoiding anonymity was probably a key consideration.”

Dite agrees, saying how much a stadium stands out in its local area is often something that has to be discussed with planners.

“Some buildings make the statement that ‘I want to be seen’ … I think Tottenham’s stadium does that and certainly the images we’ve seen this week from Manchester show it’s a statement – an iconic piece of architecture.”

He adds: “A lot of that is around the client’s appetite to make a statement.”

For Singh this goes hand in hand with a club’s wider ambitions around branding and what message it is trying to convey about itself.

“We’re in a world now where brand is so important … Anybody can support a team from anywhere – you can watch every single game on TV,” he says.

“It’s a global marketplace now and so clubs are competing, you know, all over the world for fans and their attention. So they have an identity in mind and, of course, their stadium is a huge part of that.”

Club greats and the local mayor hail the project as giving the club the world-leading stadium it deserves.

Some fans are stunned by this exciting look into the future while others feel it looks like a generic entertainment venue devoid of local connection.

Fans of rival clubs have commented it looks like a circus tent, a fitting reflection of the woes suffered by the Premier League’s most valuable team – they are 15th in the table.

For Dite, as much as modern stadium design now includes acoustic considerations and brand messaging, the core tenets have long been the same.

“It is not wildly different from when the Colosseum was built 2,000 years ago”, he says. “That spectators are really participants who want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

“You know what it’s like, when it’s the last five minutes of a close game, everyone gets behind the team.

“It becomes a collective experience. You’re not watching the action, you’re in it.”

Operation Varsity “was the battle that ended” World War Two in Europe, yet it is largely unknown to all but military history buffs.

British, Canadian and American forces took off mostly from Essex airfields on 24 March 1945, to be dropped directly on top of the German lines at the River Rhine.

Paratroopers and gliders packed with men descended into fierce fighting conditions which resulted in rapid success, but huge loss of life. About six weeks later, the Western Allies had met the Russians in Berlin and Victory in Europe was declared.

Chris Bullock has organised an event at one of the departure airfields, RAF Rivenhall, to remember those who died, saying “it’s an untold story”.

“When you see a video of the men at Rivenhall with their final brew, giving the thumbs up and the V for victory sign before they get into their gliders and you know some of them didn’t come home, within three hours they were dead – it’s important to tell that story,” he said.

Peter Davies, 102, took off from RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk towed by a Dakota plane and carrying “a 17-pounder gun, towing vehicle and gun detachment of eight personnel”.

He had volunteered for the Glider Pilot Regiment in 1942 because he thought it would be “more exciting” than his time as an Army private manning a Royal Artillery anti-aircraft unit.

“It’s like flying a brick – there’s only one way, and it’s down,” said Mr Davies, from Bollington, Cheshire, describing what it was like once the the glider was loosed.

“There was a hell of a lot of flak, we lost our controls and having lost a great chunk of one wing, we were pulling deeper and deeper into enemy ground.

“When we hit the ground – and I do mean hit – we were very much in the wrong place amongst a load of very angry Germans, and it was total chaos.”

One American glider came down within 50m (about 160ft) of him, “and not one man got out alive because the Germans were there as well”.

But with co-pilot Bert Bowman, he made it across the battlefield to their intended drop zone and returned to Britain.

“The Allies landed directly on top of the Germans and lots of gliders were shot down and lots of paratroopers were shot in the skies – 80 people from RAF Rivenhall alone lost their lives,” said Mr Bullock, 56, who served in the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment for 25 years.

Operation Varsity was the largest single airborne operation in history, with more than 16,000 men were dropped into western Germany on the same day.

Its aim was to establish a bridgehead across the River Rhine for the main Allied advance into Germany and push rapidly towards the Russian forces arriving from the east.

The first part was the ground offensive Operation Plunder, “which was the biggest-ever river crossing and was done by British and Canadian forces”, Mr Bullock said.

The intention was for the amphibious troops on the western side of the Rhine to join up with the airborne troops dropped to its east.

Varsity took place just five months after the disastrous Battle of Arnhem, which resulted in 90% casualties to the Glider Pilot Regiment.

RAF pilots such as Brian Latham, who had been sent to Texas, to learn to fly fighter planes, were among hundreds who “volunteered” for glider service.

“If we didn’t volunteer, we were told we’d never fly again and be made to join the infantry or go down a mine,” said Mr Latham, 101, from Llandudno, Conway, Wales.

However, he soon realised being a gilder pilot was “an elite, like the Commandos”.

“We were not toughies and they made us toughies – I became a trained infantry man,” he said.

Flying from RAF Gosfield, near Braintree, Essex, Mr Latham carried a mortar section, with a Jeep and trailer, and was dropped into ground smoke and heavy anti-aircraft fire.

“We just dived into the smoke and it was all very exciting and we landed just where we should have done at Hamminkeln,” he said.

“We were then by a bridge, held by the Royal Ulster Rifles, which was attacked by German tanks until the British 2nd Army came up [having crossed the Rhine].”

Eventually he was returned to the UK, but grateful not to go back to his home station of RAF Broadwell in Oxfordshire, because “we’d lost too many people”.

Of the 890 Glider Pilot Regiment personnel who took part in Varsity, more than 20% of them were killed or wounded.

“We were dropped right in amongst the Germans, which had never been tried before, and we knew it was a suicide drop,” said Danny Mason, who had qualified to join the Parachute Regiment aged 19 just a week earlier.

“But it didn’t bother us. We were young and keen and thought, ‘We’ll be all right, we’ll be fine’.”

Now 98 and living in Ludlow, Shropshire, Mr Mason added: “We also thought the Germans were losing and weren’t in good fighting condition and this’ll be easy – but it wasn’t. We had a very high casualty rate.”

At least 1,070 members of the US 17th Airborne Division and the British 6th Airborne Division, which included the Canadians, were killed and thousands more were wounded.

“But within four or five hours we had accomplished what we had set out to do,” Mr Mason said.

He advanced 600 miles through Germany within a fortnight until he was injured.

“It was the battle that ended the war, yet nobody was interested in it,” he said.

“I asked my old commanding officer about it and he said it was because everyone was fed up. It was six years of war and it was such a huge relief when VE Day came.”

Mr Bullock provided some additional context.

“Three weeks after Varsity, Belsen concentration camp was liberated. Two weeks after, Hitler killed himself, and a week after that Germany capitulated – it’s probably hardly talked about because events overtook themselves.”

Now working as an international operations security manager for the BBC, he lives near RAF Rivenhall and began researching its story 10 years ago.

Sixty gliders towed by two RAF squadrons left the airfield at 07:00 GMT on 24 March 1945, carrying part of the 6th Airborne Division.

But some of that history is still lost.

“There are no records left of who flew on which glider and what happened to each man – only the anecdotal evidence and individual stories I’ve managed to track down,” he said.

He has commissioned a memorial to “remember all those who flew from Rivenhall and died on that day”.

It will be unveiled at an event on 23 March, with military vehicles, static stands, re-enactors, presentations and a flypast by a Dakota.

A memorial service will be held the next day at 07:00 GMT.

• Listen to Jennifer read this article

The boss of online clothing brand Snag has told the BBC it gets more than 100 complaints a day that the models in its adverts are “too fat”.

Chief executive Brigitte Read says models of her size 4-38 clothing are frequently the target of “hateful” posts about their weight.

The brand was cited in an online debate over whether adverts showing “unhealthily fat” models should be banned after a Next advert, in which a model appeared “unhealthily thin”, was banned.

The UK’s advertising watchdog says it has banned ads using models who appear unhealthily underweight rather than overweight due to society’s aspiration towards thinness.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received 61 complaints about models’ weight in 2024, with the vast majority being about models who appeared to be too thin.

But it only had grounds to investigate eight complaints and none were about Snag.

Catherine Thom read the BBC report about the Next advert ban and got in touch to say she found it “hypocritical to ban adverts where models appear too thin for being socially irresponsible, however when models are clearly obese we’re saying it’s body positivity”.

The 36-year-old from Edinburgh was one of several people who contacted the BBC with this view, while a Reddit thread had more than 1,000 comments with many along the same theme.

Mrs Thom says she was “bombarded with images of obese girls in tights” after buying from Snag when she was pregnant.

“I see Snag tights plastering these morbidly obese people all over social media,” she says.

“How is that allowed when the photo of the Next model isn’t? There should be fairness, not politically correct body positivity. Adverts normalising an unhealthy weight, be it obese or severely underweight, are equally as harmful.”

But Snag founder Ms Read says: “Shaming fat people does not help them to lose weight and actually it really impacts mental health and therefore their physical health.”

She thinks the idea of banning adverts showing models with bigger bodies is a symptom of society’s “fat phobia”.

Of her 100 staff, 12 are dedicated “just to remove negative comments and big up those promoting body positivity”.

“Fat people exist, they’re equally as valid as thin people, they buy clothes and they need to see what they look like on people that look like them,” she says.

“You are not worth less the bigger you are. Models of all sizes, shapes, ethnicities and abilities are valid and should be represented.”

Sophie Scott is a 27-year-old salon owner from Lossiemouth in Scotland who has modelled for Snag, and received positive and negative comments about her size on social media.

“I get either ‘you’re so beautiful’ or ‘you need to lose weight’. When I started modelling I was a size 30. Having lost weight since then I’m still on the receiving end of hate comments because it will never be enough for some people.”

Sophie is used to online comments telling her she is “unhealthy”, but says, “fitness is not measured by the way you look. They are making assumptions, they don’t know me or my activity levels.

“People say ‘you’re glorifying obesity’ but I don’t think anyone is looking at me and saying ‘I want to look like that’. Perhaps some people are looking at me and saying ‘she has a similar body type to me’.

“When I get a message from someone saying ‘we are the same size and you’ve inspired me to wear what I want’, it takes away from every hate comment I get.

“If I’ve helped one person accept their body then the hate comments don’t really bother me.”

Fashion journalist Victoria Moss believes the “depressing” debate shows society is not used to seeing bigger bodies in advertising campaigns.

“You’d be pretty hard pushed to find genuine plus-size models on retailers’ websites because even a mid-size is a 10/12 and plus is 14/16 which is actually around the average size for a woman in the UK,” she says.

“The issue with adverts showing very small or very big models is the context and the provocation. We know people with eating disorders seek out images of very thin people as ‘thinspiration’. But if anyone sees a picture of a bigger person they’re not going to drive to buy 10 McDonald’s to try to get fatter.”

Jess Tye at the ASA told the BBC the watchdog gets about 35,000 complaints a year about all advertising, and in 2024 received 61 complaints about 52 adverts relating to the model’s weight.

She says an advert will be investigated if it could be seen to be encouraging people to aspire to an unhealthy body weight. Adverts simply promoting body confidence and using a model who is relevant to the product’s size range would not be investigated.

“It’s to do with the wider societal context. We know in the UK currently society tends to view thinness as aspirational and that’s not the case for being overweight.”

On Friday, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, found himself in a particularly uncomfortable position.

President Donald Trump was singing his praises. And former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other influential Democrats were expressing their dismay with him – or worse.

This was Schumer’s fate the day after he decided to back a Republican-crafted measure to avert a possible US government shutdown this weekend.

Later, he followed through on his promise, voting with nine other Democrats and all but one Republican to overcome the key procedural hurdle that – if Democrats had stuck together in opposition – would have prevented the funding bill from coming to a final vote.

The Senate bill, which passed that final vote shortly after, contained a number of provisions that angered liberals. These included cuts to non-military programmes, increased spending on border security, limits on how Congress can rescind Trump’s tariffs and draconian restrictions on Washington DC’s budget.

Schumer acknowledged all of this, but said he was backing the bill because a shutdown, which would allow the president to determine what government services and employees to suspend, would be worse.

“I believe it is the best way to minimise the harm that the Trump administration will do to the American people,” he said on Friday. “Allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via government shutdown is a far worse option.”

• Schumer backs Republican spending bill to avert shutdown
• Why government shutdowns seem to only happen in US
• US government shutdown averted as Senate passes spending bill

It didn’t take long after Schumer’s announcement for Democratic second guessing – and straight-up outrage – to ensue.

“Chuck Schumer is unwilling and unable to meet the moment,” the Democratic group Pass the Torch, which led calls for Joe Biden to end his re-election bid last summer, said in a statement.

Pelosi, who wields considerable influence among House Democrats despite having stepped down from her leadership position, decried what she said was a “false choice” between a shutdown and accepting the Republican measure.

“We must fight back in a better way,” she said, suggesting a short-term funding extension and new bipartisan negotiations. She called the Republican bill a “blank cheque that makes a devastating assault on the well-being of working families across America”.

In a Friday press conference, the current House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, dodged questions about Schumer. When asked if he still had confidence in his Senate counterpart, he tersely replied: “Next question.”

Others in the party were less circumspect. Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia told reporters that he expected “new leadership” in the Senate next year – or after the next presidential election in 2028.

A group of 60 House Democrats – who joined all but one in their party to vote against the Republican bill in that chamber – penned a letter to Schumer, saying that the legislation “potentially legitimises President Trump and the Republican party’s dismantling of government”.

“If Republicans in Congress want to pass this bill,” they wrote, “they should do so with their own votes.”

As if to add rub salt on Democratic wounds, Trump took to his Truth Social website on Friday morning to praise what he said was a “good and smart move” by Schumer – and to promise that more Republican legislation on taxes, spending and “so much more” was coming.

“This could lead to something big for USA,” he wrote, “a whole new direction and beginning!”

While many rank-and-file Democrats and liberal activists clamoured for Schumer and Senate Democrats to block the House measure even if it triggered a government shutdown, it is unclear whether such a move would have pressured Trump and Republicans to negotiate a less partisan government-funding bill.

In fact, there are many on the right, including Trump’s designated government slasher, Elon Musk, who were relishing an opportunity to use a shutdown to further hamstring the federal bureaucracy.

After days, or weeks, of shutdown pain that would disproportionately affect their supporters, the Democratic Party could have found itself in the same place it is now – with limited power and few good options.

“Neither House Democrats nor the people voting ‘no’ in the Senate nor the people getting mad on Twitter have an actual strategy for getting what the base wants out of this, which is some kind of act of Congress saying that Trump and Musk need to conduct the government differently,” writes Matthew Yglesias, a left-leaning commentator.

Democrats have the power to block Republican legislation, but they simply don’t have the votes to advance their own alternative either in the House or the Senate.

That doesn’t make the situation Schumer and the Democrats have found themselves in any easier to stomach, however. Republicans, by sticking together, have been able to exert their will in Congress, while Trump pushes the boundaries of presidential power.

Elections, as they say, have consequences. And 2024’s results have left Democrats deep in the wilderness.

Think of video games, and you’ll probably think of something competitive.

Some of the most popular titles in the world, such as Fortnite and Call of Duty, are focused on outgunning, outrunning or outclassing opponents.

But, as Josef Fares and his studio Hazelight have shown, that’s not the only thing gamers want.

His latest, Split Fiction, is a collaborative experience where two players work together to solve puzzles and beat obstacles.

The adventure game has received rave reviews, sold one million copies in 48 hours and is currently among the most-watched titles on streaming platform Twitch.

It’s not a one-off. His previous title, It Takes Two, featured similar “couch co-op” gameplay and sold 20 million copies and won a Game of the Year Award.

What draws players to these friendlier experiences?

A report from analytics company Midia Research found that couch co-op was especially popular among people aged 16 to 24.

It surveyed 9,000 gamers worldwide, and said roughly 40% of respondents in the age range reported it was their preferred way to play.

The report said “social play is a key part of gaming for younger consumers,” and suggested more developers could look to incorporate collaborative elements.

Co-operative games are also big with streamers – watching players bicker as they try to conquer a new title is a great source of viral moments.

Last year Chained Together, where players work together to escape the depths of hell, was a hit thanks to huge names like Kai Cenat and IShowSpeed getting in on the action.

Couple Melissa and Jonn-Mark, from Middlesbrough, have been uploading clips of themselves playing Split Fiction together to TikTok.

The game centres around fantasy author Zoe and sci-fi writer Mio, who become trapped in simulated versions of their own stories.

Melissa, a keen reader, says the plot appealed to her, but the chance to team up got her invested.

“A lot of the time when you play video games you are isolated from other people and it’s just nice to be together, spend that quality time together,” Melissa tells Newsbeat.

Jonn-Mark says popular online games are often very competitive, which can be stressful.

“I don’t want to have to come home tired and have to focus 100% to just be able to do ok at a game,” he says.

“Whereas this one, I can just sit back, relax and just enjoy the experience.”

What Hazelight does is unique, but other companies do implement co-op features into their titles.

Guildford-based Supermassive Games, which specialises in “interactive horror movies”, made couch co-op a standard mode in its titles after publishing its breakout hit Until Dawn.

They found players were going through the single-player title in groups, passing the pad between them as the narrative – which changes based on choices made in-game – progressed.

Competitive social play is also popular. Some of the best-selling games on Nintendo’s Switch system – Mario Kart 8 and the Mario Party series – are frequently played with mates around the TV.

In recent years, developers have tried to replicate the success of games like Fortnite – so-called “live service” titles that constantly update and retain players for months, if not years.

If you get it right, the potential financial rewards are huge, but cutting through in a saturated market is difficult.

And as the video games industry continues to deal with mass layoffs, studio closures and decreased spending on premium games, not many publishers want to take a risk.

Josef believes there may be too much focus on the bottom line.

“Publishers need to step up and really trust the developer,” he says.

“But also developers, I think, need to have a clear vision and stick with what they believe in.”

He does admit, though, that not everyone has his studio’s history, nor his personality.

“I am a – what do you say? – a different breed,” says Josef.

When he was directing his first game, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, feedback from some early playtests was “super bad”.

“I’m like, they’re wrong, they’re wrong, because I know it’s great,” he says.

He’s spoken before about resisting pressure to put micro-transactions – in-game purchases – in his projects, and is uncompromising despite his studio’s close relationship with EA, one of the world’s biggest publishers.

“I don’t expect everybody to be like me, but that’s me with my extreme confidence,” he says.

“What we do, I love it.

“We’re sticking to the vision of what we believe in. Stick with the vision, go with it.

“And I think if you really love what you do people love it as well.”

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

Netflix’s latest big-budget film The Electric State, starring Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, is one of the most expensive movies ever made, and had some of the most scathing reviews in recent memory. But that doesn’t mean it will flop.

Film critics haven’t minced their words when delivering their verdicts on The Electric State.

It is “a turgid eyesore” and “top-dollar tedium”, according to the Times. It’s “slick but dismally soulless”, declared the Hollywood Reporter, while the New York Times called it “obvious, garish and just plain dumb”.

Paste pointed out its eye-watering budget, billing it as “the most banal way you can spend $320m”. Warming to the theme, the magazine summed it up as “one hell of an artistically neutered, sanitized boondoggle”.

There have been some kinder reviews. Empire said it was “breezily watchable” and worth three stars, while the Telegraph awarded four stars to the “Spielbergian treat”.

But overall, its 15% Rotten Tomatoes score is a meagre return for any major film, especially one costing such a lot. The $320m (£247m) figure has been widely reported but neither confirmed nor denied by Netflix. It would make The Electric State the most expensive streaming film ever.

Critics’ opinions, however, have become more irrelevant in the streaming age. The bad reviews didn’t stop The Electric State from going straight to number one on Netflix’s chart after its release on Friday.

It fits into Netflix making star-packed, entertaining and escapist movies that often get panned by reviewers – but are watched by hundreds of millions of subscribers.

“I would love to say that what I’ve written and what other critics have written will matter, but I just don’t think it will,” says Digital Spy movies editor Ian Sandwell.

Sandwell awarded the film two stars out of five, noting that the action and visual effects are “decent”, the robots are “impressive” and the finale is “epic”.

“My main problem was they’d created this really impressive, visually spectacular world and then just told quite a generic seen-it-all-before story inside it,” he says.

Bad reviews might have put people off paying to see the film if it had been released in cinemas, he says. “But on Netflix, I think it will still be absolutely massive. I don’t think bad reviews will matter at all.”

While a critic’s job is to a analyse a movie, “audiences probably do just want a big, spectacular blockbuster to watch at home, with two massive stars”, he adds.

The Electric State follows Brown, Pratt and a succession of zany robots in an alternative version of 1990s America, where there has been a war between humans and intelligent bots.

It also stars Ke Huy Quan, Stanley Tucci and the voices of Woody Harrelson and Brian Cox, and is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo – who have made four Marvel movies, including the wildly successful Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame.

The Electric State is based on the graphic novel by Simon Stålenhag, although some critics pointed out that Netflix had missed the book’s point about the perils of a consumerist society addicted to technology.

The film is “absolutely not” value for money in terms of quality, says City AM’s film editor Victoria Luxford.

And it remains to be seen whether the film makes financial sense for Netflix, she says.

The streaming giant’s most popular ever film, 2021’s Red Notice, has had 231 million views, according to Netflix’s measurements.

“The Electric State will be hoping for that kind of performance, just as a $320m theatrically released movie would be aiming to break box office records,” Luxford says.

“The higher the price, the higher the target for success, even with a business model as opaque as Netflix’s.”

Red Notice, an action-packed art crime caper starring Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, has a lukewarm 39% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes – but a 92% audience rating.

Other recent Netflix hits have been lapped up by viewers more than reviewers.

Brooke Shields’ lightweight multi-generational rom-com Mother of the Bride has a 13% critics’ score, Jennifer Lopez’s AI action thriller Atlas is on 19%, Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx’s family spy escapade Back In Action has 29%, and Kevin Hart’s heist comedy Lift is on 30%.

They are enjoyable but forgettable – and easy to watch in the midst of potential distractions at home. The Hollywood Reporter described Atlas as “another Netflix movie made to half-watch while doing laundry” – summing up this new genre.

In December, N+1 magazine quoted several screenwriters as saying a common request from Netflix executives is for characters to announce what they’re doing “so that viewers who have this programme on in the background can follow along”.

“Electric State does feel like that,” Sandwell continues, “where there are just random big dumps of the characters explaining exactly what’s happened, sometimes something we’ve seen recently, just in case you’re not following along.

“But it does depend on the movie.”

Netflix does have serious and critically-acclaimed movies, too, of course, but they are often not such crowd-pleasers. Emilia Perez, which led this year’s Oscar nominations, has not troubled the Netflix global top 10 charts.

Another critic, Gav Squires, says many of Netflix’s films are “very average”, but don’t usually have such astronomical budgets as The Electric State.

“Netflix know what they’re doing,” he says. “They know that people are probably watching on a second screen, they’re not paying full attention. So when they’re putting stuff out that costs $30m that people aren’t really watching and is kind of average, I’m not too fussed about it.

“But when they’re spending $320m on a movie, I start getting really angry. $320m would have paid the budgets for the last, I think, 10 best picture Oscar winners.

“And it just feels like really, really bad value for money at that point.”

Arlington National Cemetery has scrubbed from its website information and educational materials about the history of black and female service members.

Some of the content unpublished from the site was on veterans who had received the nation’s highest military recognition, the Medal of Honor, according to military news site Task & Purpose.

The content removal is part of a larger effort by President Donald Trump to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices in the military and throughout the federal government.

Approximately 400,000 veterans are buried in the Army-run cemetery, which was established after the US Civil War at the home of the South’s general, Robert E. Lee.

On the cemetery’s website, internal links that directed users to webpages with information about the “Notable Graves” of dozens of black, Hispanic and female veterans were missing on Friday.

The pages contained short biographies about veterans such as Gen Colin L Powell, the first black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which is the highest rank in the military after the president.

They also told the life stories of members of the Tuskegee Airmen, the country’s first black military airmen.

Earlier this year, the Defense Department had to reinstate training materials on the revered airmen after a national outcry over their removal following Trump’s orders on DEI.

Information on Hector Santa Anna, a World War II bomber pilot and career military leader who has been called a hero of the war, has been taken down, as well.

Visitors to the site may also have trouble finding information, as links to major sections have disappeared. It no longer lists pages for African American History, Hispanic American History and Women’s History.

Content still exists on some notable women buried there, including former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and 14 veterans from the unit recently featured in the Oscar-nominated movie The Six Triple Eight, but it is only found from a direct search.

Since re-entering the White House, President Donald Trump has signed multiple executive orders banning DEI within the federal government.

A spokesperson for the cemetery said in a statement it was working to restore links and content and remained “committed to sharing the stories of military service and sacrifice to the nation”, according to the Washington Post.

It added that it wanted to ensure that the content aligned with Trump’s orders and also with instructions from Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth.

Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, condemned the content removal.

“The whole thing is deeply concerning,” Smith said in an interview with the New York Times.

“Even if you have concerns about the way DEI was handled in a number of different places, I’ve never seen a problem within the military.”

Trump has made dramatic changes in the military in his second term, including firing the country’s top general, CQ Brown, a black man who had supported diversity in the armed forces.

Secretary Hegseth – a former Fox News host and military veteran – has pledged to root out all diversity initiatives and had accused Gen Brown of being “woke”.

There are 2.03m people serving in the US military on active duty or in reserves, with 30% identifying as part of a minority group such as black or Native American and 18% as Hispanic or Latino, according to the latest Defense Department report. One-fifth of those in the military are women.

The US is expelling South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio describing him as a “race-baiting politician”.

In a post on X, Rubio accused Ebrahim Rasool of hating the US and President Donald Trump, and said the ambassador was “no longer welcome in our great country”.

The office for South Africa’s president on Saturday called the decision “regrettable”, adding that the country remained committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the US.

The rare move by the US marks the latest development in rising tensions between the two countries.

While lower-ranking diplomats are sometimes expelled, it’s highly unusual in the US for it to happen to a more senior official.

In his post on Friday, Rubio linked to an article from the right-wing outlet Breitbart that quoted some of Rasool’s recent remarks made during an online lecture about the Trump administration.

At the event, Rasool said Trump was “mobilising a supremacism” and trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle” as the white population faced becoming a minority in the US.

“We see it in the domestic politics of the USA, the Maga movement as a response not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the USA in which the voting electorate in the USA is projected to become 48% white,” he said.

He suggested that South Africa was under attack because “we are the historical antidote to supremacism”.

In response, Rubio called Rasool “PERSONA NON GRATA”, referencing the Latin phrase for “unwelcome person”.

Ties between the US and South Africa have been deteriorating since Trump took office.

An executive order last month – which froze US assistance to South Africa – cited “unjust racial discrimination” against white Afrikaners, largely descended from Dutch settlers who first arrived in the 17th Century.

It references a new law, the Expropriation Act, that it claims targets Afrikaners by allowing the government to take away private land.

“As long as South Africa continues to support bad actors on the world stage and allows violent attacks on innocent disfavoured minority farmers, the United States will stop aid and assistance to the country,” a statement from the White House said at the time.

South Africa’s 2022 census noted that white people – including Afrikaners – made up 7.2% of the population. However, according to a 2018 land audit by the South African government, white farmers owned 72% of the country’s individually-held farmland.

South Africa’s government, which is made up of 10 parties led by the African National Congress (ANC), said earlier that the US president’s actions were based on “a campaign of misinformation and propaganda aimed at misrepresenting our great nation”.

It added no land had been seized without compensation and said this would only happen in exceptional circumstances, such as if land was needed for public use and all other avenues to acquire the land had been exhausted.

A fact sheet from the White House states the country “blatantly discriminates against ethnic minority descendants of settler groups”.

Rasool – who previously served as US ambassador from 2010 to 2015 – was himself forcibly removed from his home in Cape Town’s District Six as a child after it was declared a white area under the Apartheid government.

He would later describe the eviction as a significant moment in his upbringing which guided his future.

Rasool became Pretoria’s ambassador to the US again in 2024.

Unnamed sources in the South African government told online news site Daily Maverick at the time that he was thought to be well placed to deal with a Trump administration because of the experience and contacts he had acquired during his first stint as ambassador.

Talks to extend the Gaza ceasefire have failed to reach an agreement, a Palestinian official has told the BBC, as the US accused Hamas of making “entirely impractical” demands at meetings in Qatar.

Negotiators have been trying to find a way forward after the first phase of the temporary truce ended on 1 March.

The US proposed to extend the first phase until mid-April, including a further exchange of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

But the Palestinian official familiar with the talks, who did not wished to be named, said Israel and Hamas disagreed over key aspects of the deal set out by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff at the indirect talks.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel was prepared to continue negotiations with Hamas on extending the ceasefire in Gaza.

The comments came after Netanyahu met top aides and security officials. His office said the decision was a response to what Israel had heard from mediators on US proposals for 11 living Israeli hostages to be released, and the bodies of half of the deceased hostages.

The White House accused Hamas of making “entirely impractical” demands in its response to Witkoff’s proposal.

It would extend the ceasefire into April but delay the negotiation of a permanent end to the war.

A statement from Witkoff’s office and the US National Security Council on Friday said: “Hamas is making a very bad bet that time is on its side. It is not.”

“Hamas is well aware of the deadline, and should know that we will respond accordingly if that deadline passes.”

A Hamas statement seen by the BBC said negotiations had broken down.

Netanyahu’s office had earlier said Israel accepted the US proposal.

It said Hamas remained “firm in its refusal and has not budged a millimetre,” accusing the group of “manipulation and psychological warfare”.

• What we know about the Gaza ceasefire deal
• US envoy in Qatar for talks on extending fragile Gaza ceasefire
• Gaza ceasefire in peril as Israel and Hamas hit impasse

Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal involving three stages in January, after 15 months of war.

In the first stage, Hamas returned 25 living Israeli hostages, the remains of eight others, and five living Thai hostages. Israel released about 1,800 Palestinian prisoners in exchange.

The deal says stage two will include the remaining living hostages in Gaza exchanged for more Palestinian prisoners.

But both sides currently disagree on the number of hostages due to be released next.

They also disagree on the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, which the original deal states should be happening by now.

Israel resists this point, while Hamas insists it should happen.

Earlier in March, Israel blocked aid shipments to Gaza and then cut electricity, saying it aimed to put pressure on Hamas.

It is believed that Hamas is still holding up to 24 living hostages in Gaza and the remains of 35 others.

As indirect talks continued on Friday, the group said in a statement it was ready to release the last living Israeli-American hostage it is known to be holding.

Edan Alexander, 21, was serving as an Israeli soldier close to Gaza when he was taken.

Under the terms of the original ceasefire agreement, it was expected that he would have been among the last hostages to be released.

The group also said it would hand over the remains of four other dual nationals captured during the 7 October 2023 attacks.

It did not give further details or make clear what it would demand in return.

Witkoff dismissed the offer, saying Hamas was trying to appear flexible in public while being impractical in private.

The attacks led by Hamas on 7 October 2023 killed more than 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, with 251 taken hostage.

The assault triggered an Israeli military offensive that has since killed more than 48,520 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry which are used by the UN and others.

Most of Gaza’s 2.1 million population has been displaced multiple times.

An estimated 70% of buildings have been damaged or destroyed, healthcare, water, and sanitation systems have collapsed and there are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.

A senior Islamic State (IS) group leader in Iraq and Syria has been killed in an operation by members of the Iraqi national intelligence service along with US-led coalition forces, the Iraqi prime minister has said.

Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rifai, also known as Abu Khadijah, “was considered one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world”, according to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.

US President Donald Trump said “he was relentlessly hunted down by our intrepid warfighters”.

The US Central Command (Centcom) said it conducted a “precision airstrike” in Iraq’s western Al Anbar province, which killed “one of the most important” IS members on Thursday.

Rifai was the head of IS’s most senior decision-making body and was responsible for operations, logistics, and planning conducted by IS globally, the US Central Command said.

He also directed a large portion of finance for the group’s global organisation, Centcom added.

Posting on his Truth Social platform, President Trump said: “His miserable life was terminated, along with another member of ISIS, in coordination with the Iraqi Government and the Kurdish Regional Government. PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH!”

Rifai was found dead alongside one other IS operative, Centcom said.

“Both terrorists were wearing unexploded ‘suicide vests’ and had multiple weapons,” it added.

Centcom and Iraqi forces were able to identify him through a DNA match from DNA collected on a previous raid where he “narrowly escaped”, it added.

Gen Michael Erik Kurilla said Rifai “was one of the most important IS members in the entire global IS organisation.

“We will continue to kill terrorists and dismantle their organizations that threaten our homeland and US, allied and partner personnel in the region and beyond.”

• IS: A persistent danger, 10 years since its peak

IS once held 88,000sq km (34,000sq miles) of territory stretching from north-eastern Syria across northern Iraq and imposed its brutal rule on almost eight million people.

Iraq declared the defeat of IS in December 2017 and the group was driven from its last piece of territory in 2019.

However militants and sleeper cells continue to have a presence in various parts of the country and carry out sporadic attacks against Iraq’s army and police.

A US influencer who was filmed taking a wild baby wombat away from its distressed mother in Australia has said she is “truly sorry” and received thousands of death threats over the incident.

Sam Jones, who calls herself an “outdoor enthusiast and hunter”, was filmed picking up the joey on the side of a road, while laughing and running over to a car, while the mother chases after them.

It sparked a huge backlash, with Australian PM Anthony Albanese challenging her to “take a baby crocodile from its mother and see how you go there”.

In a lengthy statement on her Instagram page, Jones says she was trying to get the animals safely off the road.

She said, as can be seen in the video, that the mother runs off the road, but the baby does not, and Jones scoops it up. She says she ran across the road “not to rip the joey away from its mother, but from fear she might attack me”.

“The snap judgement I made in these moments was never from a place of harm or stealing a joey,” the statement said.

She said the video was “not staged, nor was it done for entertainment”, and in her excitement of the moment, “acted too quickly and failed to provide necessary context to viewers online”.

• US influencer draws backlash for stealing baby wombat from mum

In the second part of her statement, Jones launched a scathing attack on Australia’s animal culling laws, including wombats, kangaroos, horses, deer and pigs.

Australia has various culling laws and regulations that spark controversy and divide the nation.

Wombats, which are native to Australia, are a protected species, but permits can be obtained to cull them if deemed necessary.

• To conserve or cull? Life in Australia’s crocodile capital

An online petition supporting her deportation received more than 40,000 signatures. Home Affairs minister Tony Burke said his department was reviewing whether it could revoke Jones’s visa. However, the BBC understands that she left the country of her own accord.

Jones, who also goes by the name Samantha Strable, has more than 95,000 followers on Instagram.

Conservationists warned Jones’s “appalling” behaviour could have caused severe harm to the wombats.

The Wombat Protection Society said it was shocked to see the “mishandling of a wombat joey in an apparent snatch for ‘social media likes'”.

“[She] then placed the vulnerable baby back onto a country road – potentially putting it at risk of becoming roadkill,” it noted in its statement, adding that it remained unclear if the joey had been reunited with its mother.

“I caught a baby wombat,” Jones said in the video, while the joey could be heard hissing and struggling in her grip.

The man filming can be heard laughing: “Look at the mother, it’s chasing after her!”

Her caption in the now-deleted post read: “My dream of holding a wombat has been realised! Baby and mom slowly waddled back off together into the bush.”

“The baby was carefully held for one minute in total and then released back to mom,” she wrote in the comments, responding to criticism.

“They wandered back off into the bush together completely unharmed. I don’t ever capture wildlife that will be harmed by my doing so.”

Animal rights organisations have criticised Jones. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or Peta, described the video as “wildlife-exploiting content” and urged people to “stop treating wildlife as a prop”.

United Nations aid agencies have been sent questionnaires by the US asking them to state if they have “anti-American” beliefs or affiliations.

Among the 36 questions on the form, sent by the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and seen by the BBC, is one asking if they have any links to communism.

Some of the world’s biggest humanitarian organisations have received the questionnaire, including the UN Refugee Agency and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Trump administration has launched a cost-cutting drive across the US government, led by billionaire Elon Musk, and has closed down much of its foreign aid.

The UN groups fear the move by the OMB is a sign the US is planning to abandon humanitarian work – or even the UN itself – altogether.

The US pulled out of the World Health Organization on the first day of US President Donald Trump’s second term.

And this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the vast majority of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) programmes had been terminated.

Surveys indicate that most Americans believe the country overspends on foreign aid.

The US spends a lower percentage of its GDP on aid than European countries but, because of its huge economy, still supplies 40% of global humanitarian funding

Many of the UN aid agencies who were sent the form receive funding, not just from USAID, but directly from the US government.

One question asks: ”Can you confirm that your organisation does not work with entities associated with communist, socialist, or totalitarian parties, or any party that espouses anti-American beliefs?”

Another asks agencies to confirm they don’t receive any funding from China, Russia, Cuba or Iran – these countries may not be Washington’s best friends but, like all 193 UN member states, they fund the big humanitarian agencies.

Other questions ask aid agencies to ensure no project includes any elements of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) or anything related to climate change.

This could be awkward for agencies like Unicef, which supports equal access to education for girls, or the World Food Programme, which tries to prevent famine by supporting drought affected communities to transition to more climate resilient crops.

Professor Karl Blanchet, of Geneva University’s Centre for Humanitarian Studies, believes the aid agencies are being set up to fail: “The decision has already been made. It’s highly likely the US is going to stop its involvement in any UN system.

“It’s multilateralism versus America first – these are two ends of a spectrum.”

Aid agencies working on complex humanitarian operations are more blunt.

“It’s like being asked ‘have you stopped beating your child, yes or no?'” said one frustrated aid worker.

The UN aid agencies believe the questionnaire misunderstands their core principles of neutrality and impartiality – that people suffering because of war or natural disaster should be helped regardless of political beliefs, and that aid should not be used as a tool to strengthen one particular nation.

UN Human Rights has already chosen not to fill out the form.

“Given they were mostly yes/no questions with very limited room for elaboration, and that some of the questions were not applicable to the UN, we were not in a position to reply directly to the online questionnaires,” a spokesperson told the BBC.

“Instead, we provided replies by email with explanations to those questions where we could provide a response.”

Some of the questions also reflect the economic interests of President Trump’s administration.

There is a query about projects which might affect “efforts to strengthen US supply chains or secure rare earth minerals”.

The BBC has approached the OMB and the US missions at the United Nations in New York and Geneva for comment.

The captain of a cargo ship that collided with an oil tanker in the North Sea has appeared in court charged with gross negligence manslaughter over the death of a crew member.

The Portuguese-flagged Solong and US-registered tanker Stena Immaculate crashed off the East Yorkshire coast at about 10:00 GMT on Monday.

Filipino national Mark Angelo Pernia, 38, was named as the crew member of the Solong who was missing and presumed dead, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

Vladimir Motin, 59, of Primorsky in St Petersburg, Russia, captain of the Solong, did not enter a plea and was remanded in custody by Hull magistrates to appear before the Central Criminal Court in London on April 14.

Mr Motin stood in the glass-front dock at Hull Magistrates’ Court for the 35-minute hearing.

He spoke through a translator to confirm his name, age and address, and that he understood the charges.

The court heard how all 23 people on the tanker were rescued along with 13 of 14 crew members from the Solong but that Mr Pernia could not be located.

Humberside Police arrested Mr Motin on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter on Monday evening, hours after the collision.

The force said he had been charged on Friday evening.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) is trying to establish the cause of the crash.

It said initial inquiries found the Solong was travelling from Grangemouth to Rotterdam and had often sailed the same route.

“At 09:47 GMT it struck the Stena Immaculate that was at anchor off the entrance to the River Humber,” the MAIB said.

On Friday, Stena Bulk said salvage experts from SMIT Salvage had successfully boarded Stena Immaculate to conduct a thorough assessment. The vessel was carrying 220,000 barrels of aviation fuel.

The Stena Immaculate is still at anchor at the point where the collision happened, which is about 12 miles off the East Yorkshire coast, near Withernsea.

The MAIB said the salvage process was “necessarily methodical, comprehensive and ongoing” and would “require time to complete fully”.

Chief coastguard Paddy O’Callaghan said that aerial surveillance flights continued to monitor the vessels and confirmed “there continues to be no cause for concern from pollution” from either ship.

All 23 crew on board Stena Immaculate were Americans who are currently in Grimsby and are likely to be repatriated in due course, the BBC understands.

Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Soundslatest episode of Look North here.

Elon Musk’s electric carmaker Tesla has warned it and other US exporters could be harmed by countries retaliating to Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.

Mr Musk is a close ally of the US president and is leading efforts to reduce the size of the federal government.

But in an unsigned letter addressed to the US trade representative, Tesla said while it “supports” fair trade it was concerned US exporters were “exposed to disproportionate impacts” if other countries retaliated to tariffs.

The letter was dated the same day that Trump hosted an event at the White House where he promised to buy a Tesla in a show of support for Mr Musk.

It is unclear who at Tesla wrote the letter as it is unsigned, or if Mr Musk was aware of it.

Tesla’s share price has dropped 40% since the start of the year. Mr Musk is the carmaker’s chief executive and while some have argued his alignment with the Trump administration is hurting its brand, market analysts say the share fall is more about worries over Tesla meeting production targets and a drop in sales over the past year.

In the letter, Tesla said it was making changes to its supply chains to find as many local suppliers for its cars and batteries so it was less reliant on foreign markets.

“None the less,” it warned, “even with aggressive localisation of the supply chain, certain parts and components are difficult or impossible to source within the US.”

The US president has imposed an additional 20% tariff on all imports from China, prompting Beijing to respond with retaliatory levies including on cars. China is Tesla’s second biggest market after the US.

“For example, past trade actions by the United States have resulted in immediate reactions by the targeted countries, including increased tariffs on EVs imported into those countries,” the letter reads.

The EU and Canada have both threatened sweeping retaliations for tariffs on steel and aluminium imports into the US, which went into effect earlier this week.

Demonstrators have targeted Tesla showrooms in recent weeks in protest against Mr Musk’s cost-cutting role in Trump’s administration, where he is head of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).

Earlier this week, Trump hosted an event at the White House where he said people protesting against Tesla should be labelled domestic terrorists, while sitting in the driver’s seat of a brand new red Tesla that he said he planned to buy.

Trump said demonstrators were “harming a great American company”, and anyone using violence against the electric carmaker would “go through hell”.

US President Donald Trump has praised talks held with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the US-proposed ceasefire deal in Ukraine as “good and productive”.

This comes after Putin and US envoy Steve Witkoff met in Moscow on Thursday evening, after which the Kremlin said it shared the US’s “cautious optimism” over a peace process.

Trump said in a Truth Social post that the talks provided “a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, accused Putin of trying to drag out talks to continue the war, while Sir Keir Starmer said the Russian president could not be allowed to “play games” with ceasefire proposals.

• Follow live: Trump says US had ‘good and productive’ talks with Putin over Ukraine war

Earlier this week, Ukraine accepted the US-proposed ceasefire deal, which Russia is yet to agree to.

On Thursday, Putin had said the idea of a ceasefire was “right and we support it… but there are nuances” and he set out a number of tough conditions for peace, a response branded “manipulative” by Zelensky.

Ukraine’s leader continued his criticism on Friday in a series of posts on X, writing: “Putin cannot exit this war because that would leave him with nothing.

“That is why he is now doing everything he can to sabotage diplomacy by setting extremely difficult and unacceptable conditions right from the start even before a ceasefire.”

He said Putin would “drag” everyone into “endless discussions… wasting days, weeks, and months on meaningless talks while his guns continue to kill people”.

“Every condition Putin puts forward is just an attempt to block any diplomacy. This is how Russia works. And we warned about this.”

UK PM Sir Keir said the Kremlin’s “complete disregard” for Trump’s ceasefire proposal demonstrated Putin was “not serious about peace”.

“If Russia finally comes to the table, then we must be ready to monitor a ceasefire to ensure it is a serious and enduring peace,” he said.

“If they don’t, then we need to strain every sinew to ramp up economic pressure on Russia to secure an end to this war.”

On Saturday, Sir Keir will host a video call with as many as 25 leaders to develop the peacekeeping mission proposed during a summit in London earlier this month.

The “coalition of the willing” – as he called it – will work to deter future Russian aggression, should the US-proposed ceasefire come into effect.

In his social media posts on Friday, Zelensky “strongly” urged “everyone who can influence Russia, especially the United States, to take strong steps that can help”, because Putin would not stop the war on his own.

“Putin is lying about the real situation on the battlefield… the casualties” and “the true state of his economy”, he said, explaining that Putin was “doing everything possible to ensure that diplomacy fails”.

But the White House believes the two sides have “never been this close to peace”.

Talking to reporters, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt maintained that the talks between Putin and Witkoff in Moscow on Thursday were “productive”.

She added Trump has been “putting pressure on Putin and the Russians to do the right thing”.

Trump’s social media post also “strongly requested” Putin should spare the lives of Ukrainian troops, whom he described as surrounded by Russian forces, adding it would be a “horrible massacre” not seen since World War Two.

His comments came after Putin said on Thursday that Ukrainian troops in Kursk had been “isolated” and were trying to leave, as Russia ramps up efforts to reclaim the region invaded by Ukraine last year.

But on Friday, Ukraine’s armed forces general staff denied the encirclement of its troops, calling it “false and fabricated”.

In a statement, it said operations were continuing, with Ukrainian troops having withdrawn and “successfully regrouped” to better defensive positions.

“There is no threat of encirclement of our units,” it said.

In response to Trump’s request, Putin said Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk would be treated with “dignity in line with the norms of international law and the laws of the Russian Federation” if they gave up arms and surrendered.

Meanwhile, G7 members have been meeting in Quebec, where host Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said all the members agreed with the US proposal of a ceasefire that is supported by Ukrainians.

“And we are now studying and looking at Russian reactions, so ultimately the ball is now in Russia’s court when it comes to Ukraine.”

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who was also at the meeting, said the members were united in calling for a ceasefire with “no conditions”.

Following the meeting, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US would not make foreign policy decisions based on what leaders said on social media or at a news conference, and stressed the “only way to end this war is through a process of negotiations”.

A US influencer who was filmed taking a wild baby wombat away from its distressed mother in Australia has said she is “truly sorry” and received thousands of death threats over the incident.

Sam Jones, who calls herself an “outdoor enthusiast and hunter”, was filmed picking up the joey on the side of a road, while laughing and running over to a car, while the mother chases after them.

It sparked a huge backlash, with Australian PM Anthony Albanese challenging her to “take a baby crocodile from its mother and see how you go there”.

In a lengthy statement on her Instagram page, Jones says she was trying to get the animals safely off the road.

She said, as can be seen in the video, that the mother runs off the road, but the baby does not, and Jones scoops it up. She says she ran across the road “not to rip the joey away from its mother, but from fear she might attack me”.

“The snap judgement I made in these moments was never from a place of harm or stealing a joey,” the statement said.

She said the video was “not staged, nor was it done for entertainment”, and in her excitement of the moment, “acted too quickly and failed to provide necessary context to viewers online”.

• US influencer draws backlash for stealing baby wombat from mum

In the second part of her statement, Jones launched a scathing attack on Australia’s animal culling laws, including wombats, kangaroos, horses, deer and pigs.

Australia has various culling laws and regulations that spark controversy and divide the nation.

Wombats, which are native to Australia, are a protected species, but permits can be obtained to cull them if deemed necessary.

• To conserve or cull? Life in Australia’s crocodile capital

An online petition supporting her deportation received more than 40,000 signatures. Home Affairs minister Tony Burke said his department was reviewing whether it could revoke Jones’s visa. However, the BBC understands that she left the country of her own accord.

Jones, who also goes by the name Samantha Strable, has more than 95,000 followers on Instagram.

Conservationists warned Jones’s “appalling” behaviour could have caused severe harm to the wombats.

The Wombat Protection Society said it was shocked to see the “mishandling of a wombat joey in an apparent snatch for ‘social media likes'”.

“[She] then placed the vulnerable baby back onto a country road – potentially putting it at risk of becoming roadkill,” it noted in its statement, adding that it remained unclear if the joey had been reunited with its mother.

“I caught a baby wombat,” Jones said in the video, while the joey could be heard hissing and struggling in her grip.

The man filming can be heard laughing: “Look at the mother, it’s chasing after her!”

Her caption in the now-deleted post read: “My dream of holding a wombat has been realised! Baby and mom slowly waddled back off together into the bush.”

“The baby was carefully held for one minute in total and then released back to mom,” she wrote in the comments, responding to criticism.

“They wandered back off into the bush together completely unharmed. I don’t ever capture wildlife that will be harmed by my doing so.”

Animal rights organisations have criticised Jones. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or Peta, described the video as “wildlife-exploiting content” and urged people to “stop treating wildlife as a prop”.

Sam Jones, a US influencer who briefly snatched a baby wombat from its distressed mother, and uploaded the footage to social media has left Australia.

Australia’s Home Affairs minister Tony Burke had earlier said his department was reviewing whether it could revoke Ms Jones’s visa, but the BBC understands that she left the country of her own accord.

“There has never been a better time to be a baby wombat,” Burke said in a short statement on Friday celebrating Jones’s departure.

Anger erupted across Australia after Jones posted a video of her taking a baby wombat from the side of a road while laughing and running away from the distraught mother wombat.

The video also shows the baby wombat hissing in distress before Jones then returns it to the bush.

Jones, who also goes by the name Samantha Strable, has nearly 100,000 followers and describes herself as an “outdoor enthusiast and hunter” on her Instagram profile. She has since made her account private and deleted her post.

Her video was swiftly met with widespread condemnation, with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calling the incident an “outrage”.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong called the video “dreadful”.

On Friday, opposition leader Peter Dutton said he thought it was “a cruel act” and that he was “glad” the influencer has now left.

An online petition demanding Jones be deported from Australia garnered more than 30,000 signatures.

However, as Jones had not been charged nor been deemed a threat to the country – the government may not have had any grounds to cancel her visa.

In since-deleted comments, Jones said “the baby was carefully held for one minute in total and then released back to mom”.

“They wandered back off into the bush together completely unharmed,” she wrote. “I don’t ever capture wildlife that will be harmed by my doing so.”

But wildlife experts have deemed Jones’s act a “blatant disregard” for native wildlife.

The Wombat Protection Society said it was shocked to see the “mishandling of a wombat joey in an apparent snatch for ‘social media likes'”.

Suzanne Milthorpe, Head of Campaigns at World Animal Protection Australia, told BBC Newsday that posting such a video for “cheap content” was “unacceptable”.

“To that baby it must have seemed like a giant predator was picking it up and taking it away,” she said.

Wombats, which are native to Australia, are a legally protected species across the country. Baby wombats share a strong bond with their mothers, and any separation can be distressing and harmful, conservationists say.

A new TikTok account claiming to be Jones after her original account was allegedly banned, published a post on Thursday saying that “the hate is currently too much for me to handle” and that there had been “hundreds” of death threats.

“Imagine someone just goes up to your child and curses at them? Let’s have some respect,” the post said.

Most, however, have remained critical of Jones’s act.

“Maybe imagine if someone picked up your child and laughed while you screamed for them to give them back,” read a comment under the post, a reference to Jones’s snatching of the wombat from its mother.

“Nerve-wrecking, terrifying and horrific.”

That is how one witness described her experience getting off an American Airlines flight that caught fire after it was forced to make an emergency landing in Colorado.

Some of the 172 passengers travelling on the flight bound for Dallas were seen standing on the plane’s wing after it touched down in Denver, with large plumes of smoke encircling around them.

Everyone on board, including six crew members, made it out of the plane alive, with 12 passengers treated at hospital for minor injuries, according to airport officials.

One of those passengers, Michele Woods, told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, how everything about the flight seemed normal at take off.

It was not until they were cruising in the air that she noticed a loud noise reverberating from one of the plane’s engines.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) later confirmed the plane diverted to Denver at around 17:15 local time (23:15 GMT) after the crew reported “engine vibrations”.

But even when the plane landed, passengers soon realised they were still far from safety.

“Everything was fine but then there was smoke filling the cabin,” said Ms Woods, who was returning home after attending a trade show in Colorado.

Seated at the front of the plane, she explained how she was one of the few in a position where they were able to walk off the plane once it had touched down.

Other passengers, as now viral images of huddled people standing on the wing of a smoking plane show, did not have as straightforward an escape.

Ingrid Hibbit, who was travelling on flight 1006 with her husband and daughter, was one of the unfortunate few forced out onto the wing before she could reconnect with her family on the ground.

“[You could see] flames from the window and the windows [were] kind of melting,” Ms Hibbit told CBS. Dismounting from the plane proved to be a difficult task – not helped, she pointed out, by being dressed in Birkenstock sandals.

“I was like shaking, I was not stable,” she admitted.

Adding to her already fever-pitch anxieties was the fact neither she, nor any member of her family, were seated in the same section of the plane. They could communicate only through text messages.

“I was hoping everything was okay, but we really didn’t know for sure,” she said, adding that despite the ordeal lasting only 10 minutes, “it was a very long 10 minutes”.

“It was a really great feeling to see that everyone was okay.”

She and her family finally touched down at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport on Friday morning, along with several of the other passengers.

Relief, she said, had swept through the group, particularly after an “exhausting” episode that had overshadowed the start of their family holiday.

“If this would’ve happened in the air, I don’t think we would be telling this story at all, because who knows what that would’ve been like,” she said. “I’m grateful that everyone survived.”

Iran is using drones and intrusive digital technology to crush dissent, especially among women who refuse to obey the Islamic republic’s strict dress code, the United Nations has said.

Investigators say Iranian security officials are using a strategy of “state-sponsored vigilantism” to encourage people to use specialist phone apps to report women for alleged dress code violations in private vehicles such as taxis and ambulances.

Their new report also highlights the increasing use of drones and security cameras to monitor hijab compliance in Tehran and in southern Iran.

For women who defy the laws, or protest against them, the consequences are severe – arrest, beating, and even rape in custody.

• Iranian women ‘ready to pay the price’ for defying hijab rules
• A really simple guide to the protests in Iran
• Iran reportedly executed at least 901 people in 2024, UN says

The findings of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran come after it determined last year that the country’s theocracy was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in 2022.

Witnesses said the 22-year-old Kurd was badly beaten by the morality police during her arrest, but authorities denied she was mistreated and blamed “sudden heart failure” for her death. Her killing sparked a massive wave of protests that continues today, despite threats of violent arrest and imprisonment.

“Two-and-a-half years after the protests began in September 2022, women and girls in Iran continue to face systematic discrimination, in law and in practice, that permeates all aspects of their lives, particularly with respect to the enforcement of the mandatory hijab,” the report said.

“The state is increasingly reliant on state-sponsored vigilantism in an apparent effort to enlist businesses and private individuals in hijab compliance, portraying it as a civic responsibility.”

At Tehran’s Amirkabir University, authorities installed facial recognition software at its entrance gate to also find women not wearing the hijab, the report said.

Surveillance cameras on Iran’s major roads are also being used to search for uncovered women.

Investigators also said they obtained the “Nazer” mobile phone app offered by Iranian police, which allows “vetted” members of the public and the police to report on uncovered women in vehicles, including ambulances, buses, metro cars and taxis.

“Users may add the location, date, time and the licence plate number of the vehicle in which the alleged mandatory hijab infraction occurred, which then ‘flags’ the vehicle online, alerting the police,” the report said.

According to the report, a text message is then sent to the registered owner of the vehicle, warning them they had been found in violation of the mandatory hijab laws. Vehicles could be impounded for ignoring the warnings, it added.

The UN investigators interviewed almost 300 victims and witnesses – they also looked in-depth at Iran’s judicial system, which they said lacks any real independence. Victims of torture and other violations were also persecuted while their families were “systematically intimidated”, according to their report.

They also found evidence of the extrajudicial executions of three child and three adult protesters, later dismissed by the state as suicides.

The report also established additional cases of sexual violence in custody, citing the case of one arrested woman who was beaten severely, subjected to two mock executions, raped and then gang-raped.

The report will be presented to the Human Rights Council on 18 March.

Outside the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) detention centre, where former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has been taken, his supporters gathered on Wednesday night, waving national flags and shouting, “Bring him back!” as a vehicle thought to be carrying him was driven through the imposing iron gates at speed.

Shortly before he landed in the Netherlands, the 79-year-old unapologetically defended his bloody “war on drugs” for which the ICC says there are “reasonable grounds” to charge him with murder as a crime against humanity.

Small-time drug dealers, users and others were killed without trial on his watch as mayor and, later, as president.

The official toll stands at 6,000, though activists believe the real figure could run into the tens of thousands.

Duterte said he cracked down on drug dealers to rid the country of street crimes.

However, rights groups allege that the campaign was rife with police abuse, targeting young men from the urban poor.

Duterte is the first Asian former head of state to be indicted by the ICC – and the first suspect to be flown to The Hague in three years.

And his arrival comes at a pivotal moment for the International Criminal Court.

Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest and deportation on Monday was the result of an unprecedented chain of events.

His supporters allege that the ICC is being used as a political tool by the country’s current president Ferdinand Marcos who has publicly fallen out with the powerful Duterte family.

The ICC is a court of last resort designed to hold the most powerful to account when domestic courts are unable or unwilling to do so. But this case is a reminder of the extent to which it depends on state co-operation in order to fulfil its mandate – it effectively has no power to arrest people without the co-operation of the countries they are in, which is most often refused.

In the case of Duterte, chances that he would ever be prosecuted by the ICC seemed unthinkable even in 2022, when his daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte, allied with Marcos to create the powerful “uniteam” that swept presidential elections.

Up until a few months ago, Marcos had dismissed the idea of co-operating with the ICC.

But the pace at which Duterte was served an arrest warrant and extradited shows that when political winds shift, those once considered untouchable can find themselves touching down in The Hague.

The whole process of his extradition – from his detention in Manila to his arrival in The Hague – has been documented on social media by his daughter Kitty and Duterte himself through his aide. His plane was the most tracked on flight radar.

“I am the one who led our law enforcement and military. I said that I will protect you and I will be responsible for all of this,” he said on a Facebook video, one of many that was shared over more than 24 hours during his journey from Manila to The Hague.

It provided rare insight into what is usually an opaque process, and the world was able to follow, sometimes in real time, every step of it right down to the meals Duterte was served on board his chartered jet.

Duterte’s arrest now sends a strong signal that even powerful individuals may be held accountable for their actions, potentially deterring future abuses.

His case has also reignited debate about the ICC’s role in relation to national sovereignty, a concern often raised by non-member states like the United States, Russia, and China.

The court depends on its 128 members to fund and be the operational arm of this judicial body.

So Duterte’s headline-making arrival, followed by his first night in custody at The Hague, offer the court a much-needed win.

After serving two high-profile arrest warrants – one for the Russian president Vladimir Putin, and another for Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war in Gaza – which are unlikely to be enforced, the arrival of Duterte will be put forth as proof the court is capable of bringing those accused of the gravest atrocities to face justice.

It is a litmus test for the ICC’s ability to function effectively in an increasingly polarised climate.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan was recently sanctioned by Donald Trump over the arrest warrant issued for Benjamin Netanyahu.

The detention of Duterte provides him with a powerful response.

“Many say international law is not strong,” Karim Khan acknowledged. “But international law is not as weak as some may think. When we come together, when we build partnerships, the rule of law can prevail.”

The former Philippines president will now mark his 80th birthday this month in the ICC’s detention facility, located in the dunes of The Hague.

The facility, once a Nazi prison complex, provides each detainee with a private cell, access to computers, a library, and sports facilities.

If he isn’t satisfied with the meals provided, Duterte has the option to prepare his own food using a shopping list in the detention center’s kitchen. He will also have access to medical care, lawyers, and visitors.

He is expected to make his initial court appearance in the coming days, where he will confirm his identity, choose the language he wishes to follow proceedings in, and acknowledge the charges against him.

Following this public appearance, a confirmation of charges hearing will follow, during which the judges will decide whether the prosecution has presented a sufficient amount of evidence to proceed to trial.

If the charges are confirmed, it could be many months before he eventually goes on trial, and years before a final judgment.

Mark Carney, an economist and political newcomer, has been sworn in as Canada’s new prime minister, and delivered remarks vowing to “never” become a part of the United States.

He took office on Friday just days after being elected leader of the governing Liberal Party and amid an ongoing trade war with US President Donald Trump.

“We know that by building together, we can give ourselves far more than anyone else can take away,” he said after the ceremony.

Carney replaces outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was in office for nine years, after a landslide victory in last week’s Liberal leadership race.

“We will never, in any shape or form, be part of the US,” Carney told reporters in Ottawa on Friday, referring to Trump’s musings that Canada join the US as its “51st state”.

“We are very fundamentally a different country,” he said, later adding the notion is “crazy”.

He declined to answer questions about the timing of Canada’s next federal election – currently scheduled for October – but hinted he would move quickly to seek “as strong a mandate that is needed for the time”.

• Carney wins race to succeed Trudeau as PM
• A simple guide to Canada’s federal election

In his first order as prime minister, Carney moved to end a policy that had been frequent attacked against by political opponents.

He ended the consumer carbon pricing programme – a key environmental policy under Trudeau that had become deeply unpopular in recent years amid high inflation.

Conservatives have criticised the tax, saying it raised the price of goods and energy for Canadian families.

At an afternoon cabinet meeting, Carney said his government will still take steps to fight climate change. An industrial carbon tax on large emitters remains in place.

Canadians receive a rebate to offset the cost of carbon pricing and will get their final cheque in April.

Canadian politics in recent months have largely been overshadowed by the trade war Trump launched after taking office in January – and with a general election on the horizon, Carney is expected to pitch himself as the candidate best equipped to take on Trump.

He previously held roles as governor of the Bank of Canada, the country’s central bank, and of the Bank of England, and helped both countries weather major financial disruption.

He intends to travel to the UK and France as his first foreign trip as PM next week.

Carney said he also looks forward to speaking with Trump.

“We respect the United States. We respect President Trump,” he said.

“President Trump is has put some very important issues at the top of his agenda.”

Carney has promised to uphold Canada’s reciprocal tariffs on specific American goods for as long as Trump maintains 25% universal tariffs on Canadian goods not covered by the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) trade deal.

Canada is dependent on trade with the US. Economists say it risks a recession if Trump’s tariffs are fully imposed.

Several of Carney’s new cabinet members served under Trudeau, and in particular he kept on those who have been working directly with the Trump administration in recent months.

They including Mélanie Joly, who remains in foreign affairs; David McGuinty, who remains in public safety; Jonathan Wilkinson, staying on as energy minister; Dominic Leblanc, who has moved from finance to trade; and François-Philippe Champagne, moved from industry to finance.

When the federal election comes, Carney’s main rival will be Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

Before the the threat of tariffs, Conservatives enjoyed a 20-point lead in some election polls. Now polls are indicating a much closer race.

Speaking after Carney on Friday, Poilievre argued that Liberals do not deserve a fourth term in office, arguing adding they have already had nine years to improve affordability and other issues in the country.

“It will be the same Liberal results,” he said.

Poilievre added that if he were to be elected prime minister, he would “face off against President Trump directly, respond with counter tariffs and take back control”.

When Canadians next go to the polls, the Liberals will face not only the Conservatives – who are the official opposition with 120 seats in the House of Commons – but also the Bloc Quebecois, who have 33 seats, and the New Democrats (NDP), who have 24.

Reacting to Carney’s swearing in, the leader of the NDP argued that his cabinet appointments show that there is no room for progressive Liberals under his leadership.

Jagmeet Singh said that he had failed to create separate cabinet portfolios for minister of women, youth, or people with disabilities, and described Carney as someone who has made billionaires “very rich at the cost of workers”.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Vladimir Putin of trying to “sabotage” diplomatic efforts to secure an immediate ceasefire.

In a post on social media, he urged the US to put more pressure on the Russian president, saying only the “strength of America” could end the war.

The Ukrainian leader said Putin was “doing everything he can to sabotage diplomacy by setting extremely difficult and unacceptable conditions right from the start even before a ceasefire”.

At his press conference on Thursday, Putin said he accepted the idea of a ceasefire but qualified that with numerous questions about detail.

• Peace talks are in parallel universe, say Ukraine front-line troops
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He raised the Kursk border region, where Russian forces are retaking territory occupied by Ukraine six months ago. He accused Ukrainian forces of “heinous crimes against civilians” – something Kyiv denies – and asked whether they should walk free or surrender.

He asked about whether Ukraine would use a ceasefire to mobilise, retrain and resupply its troops, without suggesting his forces might do the same.

And Putin raised numerous questions about how a ceasefire could be monitored and policed along the frontline in the east. “Who will be able to determine who violated the potential ceasefire agreement over a distance of 2,000 km and where exactly?” he asked. “Who will be held responsible for violating the ceasefire?”

At a meeting with journalists on Friday, Zelensky addressed these issues directly, especially the questions about verification. He said Ukraine was more than able to verify a ceasefire in the air and the sea. But he said the surveillance and intelligence capabilities of American and European aircraft and satellites would be needed to monitor the front line.

Ukraine believes Putin’s conditions of detail can be addressed. Much harder to deal with are Putin’s objections of principle. He said any deal should “proceed from the assumption that this cessation should lead to long-term peace and eliminate the root causes of this crisis”. By that, he means his objections to the expansion of the Nato military alliance and the very existence of Ukraine as a sovereign independent state.

There is very little chance of that being addressed in any immediate interim ceasefire. Not for nothing did G7 foreign ministers meeting in Canada emphasise Ukraine’s territorial integrity “and its right to exist and its freedom, sovereignty and independence”.

This is why Zelensky said “Russia is the only party that wants the war to continue and diplomacy to break down”.

So what could happen now? Well the ball is in America’s court. President Trump could choose to step up pressure on Russia as Ukraine is demanding. He could impose more sanctions on Russia – and countries buying its cheap oil and gas. He could also give more military and intelligence support to Ukraine. Or alternatively Trump could offer Russia more concessions to get a deal over the line, a possibility that worries some here in Kyiv. Much of the contact between the US and Russia has been held in secret compared to the very public diplomatic pressure imposed on Ukraine.

That is why Zelensky is calling out Russia’s delaying tactics and urging the West to put more pressure on Putin. He may also be enjoying seeing Russia in the spotlight, having been the butt of American diplomatic efforts for more than a month since Trump and Putin had their first telephone call.

The bottom line is that Trump has driven a diplomatic bulldozer through many international issues since his inauguration, including the war in Ukraine.

But now he has come up against the walls of the Kremlin and they may be harder to get through.

Trump wants a fast end to the fighting. Putin wants a “painstaking” discussion about details and principles. Two incompatible imperatives held by two stubborn leaders used to getting their way. Who will blink first? The prospects of a ceasefire are by no means certain, for all the American expressions of “cautious optimism”.

Greenland’s leading political parties have issued a joint statement to condemn Donald Trump’s “unacceptable behaviour”, after the US president seemed to escalate his campaign to take over the island.

The show of unity saw all leaders of parties in the Inatsisartut – the parliament – release a joint message saying they “cannot accept the repeated statements about annexation and control of Greenland”.

It follows a meeting between Trump and Nato’s secretary general Mark Rutte on Thursday, where the president seemed to double down on his annexation plan.

Greenland’s joint statement was orchestrated by outgoing Prime Minister Mute B Egede, whose party was defeated in an election on Tuesday.

“Our country will never be the USA and we Greenlanders will never be Americans,” Egede wrote on Facebook. “Don’t keep treating us with disrespect. Enough is enough.”

Greenland – the world’s biggest island, between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans – has been controlled by Denmark, nearly 3,000km (1,860 miles) away, for about 300 years.

Greenland governs its own domestic affairs, but decisions on foreign and defence policy are made in Copenhagen.

The US has long had a security interest in the island. It has had a military base there since World War Two, and Trump is probably also keen on the rare earth minerals that could be mined.

• Why does Trump want Greenland and what do its people think?
• BBC InDepth: Greenland’s dark history – and does it want Trump?

Greenland was already on the defensive about Trump’s annexing talk, but his comments to Rutte at the White House sent further shockwaves when he implied that Nato’s help might be needed to seize the island.

“You know, Mark, we need that for international security… we have a lot of our favourite players cruising around the coast, and we have to be careful,” Trump said.

“We’ll be talking to you,” he added.

When asked about the prospect of annexation, Trump said: “I think that will happen.”

Rutte has been criticised in both Greenland and Denmark for not reprimanding Trump. Instead, he said he would “leave that [issue] outside… I do not want to drag Nato into that”.

He then pivoted to praise – something several world leaders have used when dealing with Donald Trump – saying he was “totally right” that security in the Arctic must be maintained.

The joint statement from Greenland’s politicians emphasised that they are united in their pushback against Trump’s plan.

“Greenland continues the work for Greenland,” the statement said.

“We all stand behind this effort and strongly distance ourselves from attempts to create discord.”

Their decision to speak out came three days after elections in which the centre-right opposition – the Democratic Party – won a surprise victory.

Its leader, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who is likely to be Greenland’s new prime minister, is now negotiating with other parties to form a coalition.