The trade war between the world’s two biggest economies shows no signs of slowing down – Beijing has vowed to “fight to the end” hours after US President Donald Trump threatened to nearly double the tariffs on China.

That could leave most Chinese imports facing a staggering 104% tax – a sharp escalation between the two sides.

Smartphones, computers, lithium-ion batteries, toys and video game consoles make up the bulk of Chinese exports to the US. But there are so many other things, from screws to boilers.

With a deadline looming in Washington as Trump threatens to introduce the additional tariffs from Wednesday, who will blink first?

“It would be a mistake to think that China will back off and remove tariffs unilaterally,” says Alfredo Montufar-Helu, a senior advisor to the China Center at The Conference Board think tank.

“Not only would it make China look weak, but it would also give leverage to the US to ask for more. We’ve now reached an impasse that will likely lead to long-term economic pain.”

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Global markets have slumped since last week when Trump’s tariffs, which target almost every country, began coming into effect. Asian shares, which saw their worst drop in decades on Monday after the Trump administration didn’t waver, recovered slightly on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, China has hit back with tit-for-tat levies – 34% – and Trump warned that he would retaliate with an additional 50% tariff if Beijing doesn’t back down.

Uncertainty is high, with more tariffs, some more than 40%, set to kick in on Wednesday. Many of these would hit Asian economies: tariffs on China would rise to 54%, and those on Vietnam and Cambodia, would soar to 46% and 49% respectively.

Experts are worried about the speed at which this is happening, leaving governments, businesses and investors little time to adjust or prepare for a remarkably different global economy.

China had responded to the first round of Trump tariffs with tit-for-tat levies on certain US imports, export controls on rare metals and an anti-monopoly investigation into US firms, including Google.

This time too it has announced retaliatory tariffs, but it also appears to be bracing for pain with stronger measures. It has allowed its currency, the yuan, to weaken, which makes Chinese exports more attractive. And state-linked enterprises have been buying up shares in what appears to be a move to stabilise the market.

The prospect of negotiations between the US and Japan seemed to buoy investors who were fighting to claw back some of the losses of recent days.

But the face-off between China and the US – the world’s biggest exporter and its most important market – remains a major concern.

“What we are seeing is a game of who can bear more pain. We’ve stopped talking about any sense of gain,” Mary Lovely, a US-China trade expert at the Peterson Institute in Washington DC, told the BBC’s Newshour programme.

Despite its slowing economy, China may “very well be willing to endure the pain to avoid capitulating to what they believe is US aggression”, she added.

Shaken by a prolonged property market crisis and rising unemployment, Chinese people are just not spending enough. Indebted local governments have also been struggling to increase investments or expand the social safety net.

“The tariffs exacerbate this problem,” said Andrew Collier, Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School.

If China’s exports take a hit, that hurts a crucial revenue stream. Exports have long been a key factor in China’s explosive growth. And they remain a significant driver, although the country is trying to diversify its economy with high-end tech manufacturing and greater domestic consumption.

It’s hard to say exactly when the tariffs “will bite but likely soon,” Mr Collier says, adding that “[President Xi] faces an increasingly difficult choice due to a slowing economy and dwindling resources”.

But it’s not just China that will be feeling the impact.

According to the US Trade Representative office, the US imported $438bn (£342bn) worth of goods from China in 2024, with US exports to China valued at $143bn, leaving a trade deficit of $295bn.

And it’s not clear how the US is going to find alternative supply for Chinese goods on such short notice.

Taxes on physical goods aside, both countries are “economically intertwined in a lot of ways – there’s a massive amount of investment both ways, a lot of digital trade and data flows”, says Deborah Elms, Head of Trade Policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore.

“You can only tariff so much for so long. But there are other ways both countries can hit each other. So you might say it can’t possibly get worse, but there are many ways in which it can.”

The rest of the world is watching too, to see where Chinese exports shut out of the US market will go.

They will end up in other markets such as those in South East Asia, Ms Elms adds, and “these places [are dealing] with their own tariffs and having to think about where else can we sell our products?”

“So we are in a very different universe, one that is really murky.”

Unlike the trade war with China during Trump’s first term, which was about negotiating with Beijing, “it’s unclear what is motivating these tariffs and it’s very hard to predict where things might go from here,” says Roland Rajah, lead economist at the Lowy Institute.

China has a “wide toolkit” for retaliation, he adds, such as depreciating their currency further or clamping down on US firms.

“I think the question is how restrained will they be? There’s retaliation to save face and there’s pulling out the whole arsenal. It’s not clear if China wants to go down that path. It just might.”

Some experts believe the US and China may engage in private talks. Trump is yet to speak to Xi since returning to the White House, although Beijing has repeatedly signalled its willingness to talk.

But others are less hopeful.

“I think the US is overplaying its hand,” Ms Elms says. She is sceptical of Trump’s belief that the US market is so lucrative that China, or any country, will eventually bend.

“How will this end? No-one knows,” she says. “I’m really concerned about the speed and escalation. The future is much more challenging and the risks are just so high.”

At least 79 people have been killed and more than 150 injured after a roof collapsed at a nightclub in the Dominican Republic’s capital Santo Domingo, officials have said.

A provincial governor and former Major League Baseball pitcher Octavio Dotel were among the victims. Dotel, 51, died on the way to hospital after being pulled from the debris.

The incident happened in the early hours of Tuesday at a concert by popular merengue singer Rubby Pérez at the Jet Set nightclub. He was reported among those trapped in the rubble.

Hundreds of people were inside the venue and some 400 rescuers are still searching for survivors. There are fears the death toll will rise further.

The director of the Emergency Operations Centre (COE), Juan Manuel Méndez, said he was hopeful that many of those buried under the collapsed roof were still alive.

Jet Set is a popular nightclub in Santo Domingo which regularly hosts dance music concerts on Monday evenings. Politicians, athletes and other prominent figures were in attendance.

Also among the victims was Nelsy Cruz, governor of Monte Cristi province, President Luis Abinader said. She was the sister of former baseball player Nelson Cruz, a seven-time Major League Baseball All-Star.

Dotel meanwhile began playing for the New York Mets in 1999 and played for teams including the Houston Astros, Oakland A’s, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers until 2013.

Video footage apparently taken inside the club shows people sitting at tables in front of the stage and some dancing to the music in the back while Rubby Pérez sings.

In a separate mobile phone recording shared on social media, a man standing next to the stage can be heard saying “something fell from the ceiling”, while his finger can be seen pointing towards the roof.

In the footage, singer Rubby Pérez, also seems to be looking towards the area pointed out by the man.

Less than 30 seconds later, a noise can be heard and the recording goes black while a woman is heard shouting “Dad, what’s happened to you?”.

One of Rubby Pérez’s band members told local media that the club had been full when the collapse happened “at around 1am”.

“I thought it was an earthquake,” the musician said.

The daughter of Rubby Pérez said her father was among those trapped in the debris.

President Abinader has expressed his condolences to the families affected.

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Iran is ready to engage with the US at talks on Saturday over its nuclear programme “with a view to seal a deal”, its Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said.

But US President Donald Trump must first agree there can be no “military option”, Araghchi said, and added that Iran would “never accept coercion”.

He also insisted the negotiations in Oman would be indirect, contradicting Trump’s surprise announcement on Monday that they would be “direct talks”.

Trump, who pulled the US out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers during his first term, warned that Iran would be in “great danger” if talks were not successful.

The US and Iran have no diplomatic ties, so last month Trump sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader via the United Arab Emirates. It said he wanted a deal to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and to avert possible military strikes by the US and Israel.

Trump disclosed the upcoming talks during a visit to the White House on Monday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said on Tuesday that both leaders had agreed “Iran will not have nuclear weapons” and added “the military option” would happen if talks dragged on.

Iran insists its nuclear activities are entirely peaceful and it will never seek to develop or acquire nuclear weapons.

However, Iran has increasingly breached restrictions imposed by the existing nuclear deal, in retaliation for crippling US sanctions reinstated seven years ago, and has stockpiled enough highly-enriched uranium to make several bombs.

The US president told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that this weekend’s meeting in Oman would be “very big”.

“I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious,” Trump said.

But he also warned that it would “be a very bad day for Iran” if the talks were not successful.

In an opinion piece published by the Washington Post on Tuesday, Iran’s foreign minister declared that it was “ready to engage in earnest and with a view to seal a deal”.

“We will meet in Oman on Saturday for indirect negotiations. It is as much an opportunity as it is a test,” Araghchi said.

Iran harboured “serious doubts” about the sincerity of the US government’s intentions, he noted, citing the “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions that Trump restored soon after starting his second term.

“To move forward today, we first need to agree that there can be no ‘military option’, let alone a ‘military solution’,” he said.

“The proud Iranian nation, whose strength my government relies on for real deterrence, will never accept coercion and imposition.”

Araghchi insisted there was no evidence that Iran had violated its commitment not to seek nuclear weapons, but also acknowledged that “there may exist possible concerns about our nuclear programme”.

“We are willing to clarify our peaceful intent and take the necessary measures to allay any possible concern. For its part, the United States can show that it is serious about diplomacy by showing that it will stick to any deal it makes. If we are shown respect, we will reciprocate it.”

“The ball is now in America’s court,” he added.

Iran’s hard-line Tasnim news agency said Araghchi would head the country’s delegation at the Oman talks, underlining their importance.

The BBC’s US partner CBS News meanwhile confirmed that Trump’s Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff would lead the US side, and said America was continuing to push for the talks to be direct.

During the first set of meetings, the US was expected to call on Iran to fully dismantle its nuclear programme and, depending on how negotiations went, technical experts were then expected to follow up in additional talks, it said.

US officials have so far revealed few details about Trump’s demands.

However, after Witkoff said in a recent interview that Trump was proposing a “verification programme” to show Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz clarified the goal was “full dismantlement”.

Israel’s prime minister echoed Waltz’s stance in a video on Tuesday, saying he wanted a “Libyan-style” agreement – a reference to the North African country’s decision to dismantle its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes in 2003.

“They go in, blow up the installations, dismantle all of the equipment, under American supervision and carried out by America,” Netanyahu explained.

He then said: “The second possibility, that will not be, is that they drag out the talks and then there is the military option.”

Israel, which is assumed to have its own nuclear weapons but maintains an official policy of deliberate ambiguity, views a nuclear Iran as an existential threat.

Netanyahu said last year that Israel had hit an Iranian nuclear site in retaliation for a missile attack.

A senior official at Iran’s foreign ministry told the BBC that it would never agree to dismantle its nuclear programme, and added the “Libya model” would never be part of any negotiations.

The 2015 deal that Iran reached with then-US President Barack Obama’s administration, as well as the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany, saw it limit its nuclear activities and allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in return for sanctions relief.

However, in 2018, Trump unilaterally abandoned the agreement, which he said did too little to stop Iran’s potential pathway to a bomb.

Iran then increasingly breached the agreement’s restrictions. The IAEA warned in February that Iran had stockpiled almost 275kg (606lb) of uranium enriched to 60% purity, which is near weapons grade. That would theoretically be enough, if enriched to 90%, for six nuclear bombs.

Elon Musk has called President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, a “moron” over comments he made about his electric vehicle firm, Tesla.

Musk – who is also a member of the Trump administration – said Navarro was “dumber than a sack of bricks” in posts on his social media platform X.

It was in response to an interview Navarro gave in which he criticised Musk. “[He’s] not a car manufacturer. He’s a car assembler, in many cases,” Navarro said.

Navarro was being interviewed about Trump’s sweeping tariff policy and said he wanted to see parts made in the US in the future instead.

Musk, who has hinted at his opposition to White House trade policy, said Navarro’s claims about Tesla were “demonstrably false”.

The spat was the most public sign of disagreement yet between Trump’s trade team and Musk, the world’s richest man who heads the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) which is tasked with slashing the size and spending of the federal government.

Later on Tuesday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt was asked about the row between Musk and Navarro. “These are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs,” she told reporters.

“Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue,” Leavitt said.

Trump has in part justified his global wave of tariffs by saying he wants to revive manufacturing in the US. This is an argument Navarro made during an appearance on CNBC on Monday.

“If you look at our auto industry, right, we’re an assembly line for German engines and transmissions right now,” he said.

“We’re going to get to a place where America makes stuff again, real wages are going to be up, profits are going to be up,” Navarro added.

Responding to the comments on Tuesday, Musk posted a link to a 2023 article by car valuation firm Kelley Blue Book, which cited Cars.com findings that Tesla vehicles had the most parts produced in the US.

“By any definition whatsoever, Tesla is the most vertically integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of US content,” Musk wrote in a follow-up post.

Technology industry analyst Dan Ives said the company was less exposed to tariffs than other US car makers such as GM, Ford, and Stellantis.

But he too claimed the company sourced the majority of its parts from outside the US, particularly China.

“The tariffs in their current form will disrupt Tesla, the overall supply chain, and its global footprint which has been a clear advantage over the years vs. rising competitors like BYD,” he said.

• Live updates: The latest as US stocks rally after days of turmoil
• Analysis: Trump’s game of chicken over tariffs leaves world guessing
• Explainer: What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a dean and professor at the Yale School of Management who hosted a gathering of business executives in Washington last month, said Musk was articulating what many American CEOs think but are reluctant to say publicly about Trump’s trade policies.

“Seventy-nine percent of them said they’re embarrassed in front of international partners, and 89 percent said this is needlessly taking us into a recession and a misguided economic policy,” Mr Sonnenfeld told the BBC, referring to a survey taken at the event he hosted.

Even before the row with Navarro, Musk had hinted at his dissatisfaction with the tariff policy.

On Monday, he posted a video of the economist Milton Friedman, a noted opponent of tariffs, in which he extolls the values of the free market.

Trump’s tariffs have caused stock market falls around the world, as investors calculate it will result in firms making smaller profits.

Musk said in an X post on 27 March that even his company would not be immune from tariff disruption.

Another Trump backer, the billionaire fund manager Bill Ackman, has called for a pause on the tariffs to stave off what he called “major global economic disruption”.

In a post on X, he said the current plans would do “unnecessary harm.”

Navarro is considered an ultra-Trump loyalist and was jailed for ignoring a subpoena from a House committee investigating alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

He is thought to be one of the main architects of Trump’s tariff policy.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has faced-off with his election rival Peter Dutton in their first debate before the 3 May federal election vote.

Cost of living issues dominated Tuesday night’s debate, organised by Sky News Australia and The Daily Telegraph, and the two leaders were also asked about US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Opinion polls have predicted a slim margin between Albanese’s Labor Party and Dutton’s Liberal-National coalition, and the possibility that either will need to form the next government with independent MPs or minor parties.

Albanese was declared the night’s winner by Sky News after a vote by 100 undecided voters, who also provided the night’s questions.

When the debate host asked the audience if they were having a tough time with the cost of living, most of the audience members raised their hands, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Dutton described the show of hands as a “very confronting scene” and said his plan to temporarily lower a government tax on fuel would provide immediate relief.

Albanese pointed the finger at tough global economic conditions, saying “the world has thrown a lot of challenges at Australia”. But he said he had brought inflation down and wages up, and added that interest rates were starting to fall.

How to respond to Trump’s tariffs was the first question of the night, to which Albanese replied that “no country is better prepared” than Australia because of his efforts.

“We’ll continue to negotiate with the United States looking for a better deal for Australia because reciprocal tariffs would, of course, be zero, because we don’t impose tariffs on US goods,” he said.

Dutton pointed to his experience as a senior minister negotiating with the first Trump government, and argued he would be in a better position to get concessions from the White House.

“The prime minister of the day should have the ability and the strength of character to be able to stand up against bullies, against those that would seek to do us harm, to keep our country safe,” he said.

The leaders also clashed on health and energy, and throughout the debate accused each other of lying.

Dutton blamed Albanese’s government for increased out-of-pocket health expenses, and said his party would help by funding more free doctor visits, training more general practitioners (GPs) and improving mental health services.

The Labor Party has promised to do all of these things too – and Albanese said only they could be trusted on health policy, pointing to the Coalition government’s previous record.

Each leader was given the opportunity to ask the other a question, and Albanese used his to attack Dutton’s nuclear energy plan.

Dutton has proposed building seven nuclear reactors, something he says will help Australia lower its emissions, create new jobs and offer cheaper power than renewables.

“Our policy is to make sure that we can underpin our economy with a stable energy market for the next hundred years,” Dutton said, pointing to countries like China, France, and Canada which all use nuclear power.

In the interim, the coalition would increase the supply of gas into the Australian market, he said.

“The only gas policy that the coalition have is the gaslighting of the Australian public,” Albanese rebutted, citing experts who say the nuclear scheme cannot be delivered within the timeframe or cost Dutton has specified.

Dutton, meanwhile, used his question to accuse the Labor government of out-of-control spending.

“A coalition government will always be a better economic manager,” he argued.

“When the Prime Minister says that this has been a successful three-year period, it’s just in defiance of the reality of people’s lives and where we are as a country right now.”

Ukrainian forces have captured two Chinese nationals who were fighting for the Russian army in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

He said on Tuesday that intelligence suggested the number of Chinese soldiers in Russia’s army was “much higher than two”.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Chinese troops fighting on Ukrainian territory “puts into question China’s declared stance for peace” and added that their envoy in Kyiv was summoned for an explanation.

It is the first official allegation from Ukraine that China is supplying Russia with manpower. There has been no immediate response to the claims from Moscow or Beijing.

In a statement on social media platform X, Zelensky said the soldiers were captured in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region with identification documents, including bank cards which had “personal data” on them.

Ukraine’s forces fought six Chinese soldiers and took two of them prisoner, he said.

The post was accompanied by a video showing one of the alleged Chinese captives in handcuffs, speaking Mandarin Chinese and apparently describing a recent battle.

“We have information suggesting that there are many more Chinese citizens in the occupier’s units than just these two,” he said.

“Russia’s involvement of China, along with other countries, whether directly or indirectly, in this war in Europe is a clear signal that Putin intends to do anything but end the war,” Zelensky added.

The Ukrainian president called for a response “from the United States, Europe, and all those around the world who want peace”.

An investigation is under way and the captives are currently in the custody of Ukraine’s security service, he added.

On Tuesday, US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce called the reports “disturbing”.

She added that China is a “major enabler” of Russia’s war in Ukraine, citing its supply of dual-use goods such as navigation equipment, semiconductor chips and jet parts.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said that he had summoned China’s chargé d’affaires in Kyiv to “demand an explanation”.

Writing on X, Andrii Sybiha said: “We strongly condemn Russia’s involvement of Chinese citizens in its war of aggression against Ukraine, as well as their participation in combat against Ukrainian forces.”

He added that the move “puts into question China’s declared stance for peace” and undermines Beijing’s credibility as a member of the UN Security Council.

French newspaper Le Monde has previously reported that it identified around 40 accounts on TikTok’s sister app, Douyin – which is only available in China – belonging to Chinese individuals who claim to have signed up with the Russian army.

North Korea has sent thousands of troops to aid Russia’s war effort against Ukraine, according to Kyiv and Western officials.

• What we know about North Korean troops fighting Russia’s war
• About 1,000 North Koreans killed fighting Ukraine in Kursk, officials say

In a press conference on Tuesday, Zelensky said: “But there is a difference: North Koreans fought against us on the front in Kursk, the Chinese are fighting on the territory of Ukraine.”

In January Ukraine said it captured two injured North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk Oblast.

While Beijing and Moscow are close political and economic allies, China has attempted to present itself as a neutral party in the conflict and has repeatedly denied supplying Russia with military equipment.

One of Russia’s chief advantages in the war is numbers. There have been reports of Moscow using “meat grinder” tactics to throw huge numbers of soldiers at the front lines and incrementally improve their position.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukraine’s territory, mostly in the east.

Russian drone attacks into Ukraine continued on Tuesday night with strikes injuring 14 people in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, and another two in Kharkiv, in the north-east, local officials said. A number of fires were reported in the two cities.

Police in India have arrested a man, who is accused of impersonating a British doctor, for performing surgeries that allegedly led to the death of seven patients.

Narendra Vikramaditya Yadav – also known as Dr N John Camm – worked as a cardiologist at a missionary hospital in Madhya Pradesh state.

Police accuse him of fraud, cheating and forgery and allege that the 53-year-old, who has worked as a doctor for almost two decades, faked his medical degrees.

They are also investigating allegations that he added the name of Prof John Camm, a leading cardiologist at UK’s St George Hospital, to his own to gain credibility. Mr Yadav has denied the allegations against him.

On Monday, just hours before he was arrested, he sent a legal notice of 50m rupees ($580,000; £455,000) to two dozen individuals and publishers for claiming he impersonated “some other cardiologist”.

The Mission Hospital in Damoh city, where Mr Yadav worked for a few weeks, has denied having any knowledge of his alleged fake credentials.

“Nobody suspected him of being a fake doctor. He was good at his job and acted like a big-time professor,” a hospital official told The Indian Express newspaper.

The case first came to light in February, when a child welfare committee in Damoh flagged the deaths to district officials.

“We got suspicious about his expertise and checked his credentials online and found that he had cases against him in at least three states,” claimed Deepak Tiwari, president of the district Child Welfare Committee.

An investigation found that Mr Yadav had quit his job at the hospital earlier that month and “gone missing” without explanation.

He was arrested in the city of Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh state on Monday evening.

“The accused doctor had worked on a total of 64 cases, including 45 cases of angioplasty, which led to seven patient deaths,” the district’s police chief Shrut Kirti Somvanshi told BBC Hindi.

It’s not yet clear whether his degrees are genuine or fake, but police believe they were likely to be forged as the documents lack key details, such as a unique registration number given to each student.

This is not the first time that questions have been raised about Mr Yadav’s identity.

In a 2019 blog post, he claimed that he trained in the UK under Prof A John Camm and joined St George’s hospital in 2002 as an “Interventional Cardiologist”.

He claimed he first returned to India in 2003 to work at a leading heart hospital in Delhi and had worked in the US, Germany and Spain since then.

In one post shared in 2021, Mr Yadav wrote that he was developing a 5,000-bed John Camm Institute of Medical Sciences and Research in the western state of Rajasthan.

“The hospital is being developed under [the] leadership of Dr N John Camm, renowned Interventional Cardiologist from Germany, and will [be] spread over 100 acres of land and will have world class research and tissue labs,” he claimed.

But public records show that he registered four companies in the UK in 2018 under the name of Dr Narendra Vikramaditya Yadav, which he later got changed to Dr Narendra John Camm.

In 2023, a well-known fact-checker in India too had raised questions about his credentials after he allegedly created an X (formerly Twitter) account under the name of “Prof N John Camm”.

After some of his posts went viral, the real Prof Camm put out a statement clarifying that it was not his account and that he was being impersonated.

Police say Mr Yadav has also been at the centre of several other investigations.

In 2019, he was arrested for allegedly abducting a British doctor he had invited to work with him at a hospital in Hyderabad city.

And in 2014, India’s medical regulators had banned him for five years for “professional misconduct”, parliamentary records show.

Records show that he was also charged with fraud and cheating in 2013 in Uttar Pradesh. However, a court stayed the complaint against him.

The UN’s secretary-general says “aid has dried up [and] the floodgates of horror have re-opened” in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has blocked the entry of all goods and resumed the war against Hamas.

“Gaza is a killing field, and civilians are in an endless death loop,” António Guterres said on Tuesday.

His comments come after the heads of six UN agencies appealed to world leaders to act urgently to ensure food and supplies reached Palestinians there.

Israel’s foreign ministry insisted there was enough food in Gaza and accused Guterres of “spreading slander against Israel”.

Israel blockaded Gaza on 2 March, after the first stage of a ceasefire expired. Hamas refused to extend that part of the truce, accusing Israel of reneging on its commitments.

Israel then renewed its aerial bombardment and ground offensive on 18 March and these have since killed 1,449 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza. The Israeli military insists it does not target civilians.

In his address to journalists, Guterres said Israel, as the occupying power, had obligations under international law to ensure that food and medical supplies get to the population.

“The current path is a dead end – totally intolerable in the eyes of international law and history,” he said.

Responding to the comments, Israel’s foreign ministry said there was no aid shortage in Gaza.

“As always, you don’t let the facts get in the way when spreading slander against Israel,” spokesman Oren Marmorstein said.

“There is no shortage of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip – over 25,000 aid trucks have entered the Gaza Strip in the 42 days of the cease fire,” he added.

Guterres’s comments followed a joint statement issued by six UN agencies on Monday that said world leaders must act urgently to make sure food and aid supplies get to Palestinians in the Strip.

Gazans were “trapped, bombed and starved again”, the statement said.

“The latest ceasefire allowed us to achieve in 60 days what bombs, obstruction and lootings prevented us from doing in 470 days of war: life-saving supplies reaching nearly every part of Gaza,” it said.

“While this offered a short respite, assertions that there is now enough food to feed all Palestinians in Gaza are far from the reality on the ground, and commodities are running extremely low.”

The statement was signed by the heads of:

• OCHA – UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs
• Unicef – UN’s children’s agency
• WFP – World Food Programme
• WHO – World Health Organization
• Unrwa – UN agency for Palestinian refugees
• UNOPS – UN Office for Project Services

Because of the blockade, all UN-supported bakeries have closed, markets are empty of most fresh vegetables and hospitals are rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

The statement says that Gaza’s “partially functional health system is overwhelmed [and]… essential medical and trauma supplies are rapidly running out.”

“With the tightened Israeli blockade on Gaza now in its second month, we appeal to world leaders to act – firmly, urgently and decisively – to ensure the basic principles of international humanitarian law are upheld.

“Protect civilians. Facilitate aid. Release hostages. Renew a ceasefire.”

The two-month pause in fighting saw a surge in humanitarian aid let into Gaza, as well as the release by Hamas of 33 hostages – eight of them dead – in exchange for about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

On Tuesday, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said at least 58 people had been killed in the territory over the previous 24 hours.

Israeli strikes overnight killed 19 people, including five children whose home in the central town of Deir al-Balah was hit, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency.

Another 11 people were reportedly killed in two separate strikes in the northern town of Beit Lahia and an area north-west of Gaza City.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) said a second Palestinian journalist had died of the wounds following an Israeli strike on Monday.

Ahmed Mansour suffered severe burns when a media tent in the southern city Khan Younis was hit, also killing his Palestine Today colleague Helmi al-Faqaawi.

The Israeli military said the strike targeted a third journalist, Hassan Eslaih, whom it accused of being a “Hamas terrorist”. The PJS said Eslaih was in a critical condition following the attack, along with several other journalists.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken back to Gaza as hostages.

More than 50,810 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive since then, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

On 12 March, Kilmar Abrego Garcia was driving home with his young son in Maryland when he was stopped by agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Agents took Mr Garcia into custody, then shuttled him to detention facilities in Louisiana and Texas.

According to a federal judge, after three days, “without any notice, legal process, or hearing”, Mr Garcia found himself back in his native El Salvador at an infamous prison known for housing gang members.

The government said he was deported due to an “administrative error”.

But despite that, Mr Garcia remains incarcerated in El Salvador as lawyers debate the unusual intricacies of the case.

A Maryland court ordered Mr Garcia be returned to the US, but Trump officials argued that they cannot compel El Salvador to return Mr Garcia. The administration also argued that the judge ordering his return lacked the authority to do so.

On Monday, the Supreme Court put a temporary hold on lower court orders while they consider the matter.

Immigration experts say that as US President Donald Trump takes a hardline approach on illegal immigration, this case has the potential to upend due process for immigrants.

“If the US Supreme Court were to accept [the Trump administration’s] position, it would completely eviscerate any rule of law in the immigration process,” Maureen Sweeney, director of the University of Maryland’s Chacón Center for Immigrant Justice, told the BBC.

“Because they could pick up anybody, at any time, and send them anywhere with no repercussions whatsoever.”

US District Judge Paula Xinis wrote in a filing Sunday that ICE officials did not follow procedures in the Immigration and Nationality Act when they deported Mr Garcia to El Salvador.

She ruled the US must bring him back before midnight on Monday. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, writing that the US “has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street”.

Yet the Trump administration has argued that it cannot comply, saying Judge Xinis’ filing is outside her jurisdiction.

“Neither a federal district court nor the United States has authority to tell the Government of El Salvador what to do,” US Solicitor General D John Sauer wrote in an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Nicole Hallett, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School said that while it is true – US district judges cannot order El Salvador to take action – they can order the US government to have Mr Garcia returned.

She also said the US has previously facilitated the return of mistakenly deported individuals.

Prof Hallett also questioned the government’s claim that the US is powerless to compel El Salvador to release Mr Garcia, citing an agreement between the two countries.

The US, under the Trump administration, paid El Salvador’s government $6m to house prisoners it sends, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner. Top officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself have publicly touted the arrangement.

“It’s almost as if the Salvadoran government is acting as an agent of the US government,” Ms Hallett said, arguing that this makes the release more plausible.

Mr Garcia’s lawyers argued that because El Salvador was detaining Mr Garcia “at the direct request and pursuant to financial compensation” from the US, the court could order the US government to request his return.

Mr Garcia is among 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans deported under the Trump administration to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison. Officials allege they are gang members and therefore are subject to deportation.

Mr Garcia, who is married to a US citizen, does not have any gang ties and has never been charged with a crime, his lawyer says.

He was also protected by a “withholding of removal” order, which means the US government cannot send him back to El Salvador because he could face harm. The order dates back to 2019, when ICE first took Mr Garcia into custody and alleged he belonged to the MS-13 criminal organisation, an allegation he denied at the time.

Such orders are common, immigration lawyers told the BBC, and are an alternative to asylum protections.

“It was an unlawful act, for the US to return him to the country where he could not be returned,” said Amelia Wilson, director of the Immigration Justice Clinic at Pace University.

A judge ultimately granted Mr Garcia the 2019 order after he “testified about how he was a victim of gang violence in El Salvador when he was a teenager and he came to the US to escape all of that,” his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wrote in a March 2025 affidavit.

Department of Justice attorney Erez Reuveni acknowledged that at the time the “government did not appeal that decision, so it is final”.

The Trump administration now reiterates allegations that Mr Garcia belonged to MS-13, but Judge Xinis said the government made this claim “without any evidence” and had not produced a removal order or warrant.

The Trump administration continues to press its case to the nation’s highest court, setting up a potential showdown over the White House’s deportation strategy.

Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay on Monday night, pausing lower court rulings while the US Supreme Court considers the government’s appeal.

President Trump touted the stay as a victory, writing on Truth Social that the ruling allowed the president “to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself.”

Immigration lawyers, meanwhile, are watching Mr Garcia’s case closely, considering it a test for how much power the administration can exert over US immigration.

“If the Trump administration is trying to remove these individuals by bypassing the immigration courts,” said Ms Wilson, “there’s a direct and obvious line between what they’re doing, and an effort by the administration to completely usurp judicial and due process.”

Tributes have been paid to a London-based scientist who formerly worked for the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) after he was found murdered in northern Colombia.

Alessandro Coatti’s remains were discovered on the outskirts of Santa Marta, a port city on the Caribbean coast, on Sunday, investigators say.

Santa Marta’s Mayor, Carlos Pinedo Cuello, said a reward of 50,000,000 Colombian pesos (£8,940) was being offered for information leading to the capture of those responsible for the death of the Italian citizen.

In a statement issued on Tuesday. the RSB said it was “devastated” by news of Mr Coatti’s killing.

“He was a passionate and dedicated scientist, leading RSB animal science work, writing numerous submissions, organising events and giving evidence in the House of Commons,” the RSB said.

“Ale was funny, warm, intelligent, loved by everyone he worked with and will be deeply missed by all who knew and worked with him.

“Our thoughts and best wishes go out to his friends and family at this truly awful time.”

Santa Marta is a gateway to some of Colombia’s most popular tourist destinations including Tayrona National Park, Minca and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains.

Mr Coatti, who took a master’s course at University College London (UCL), worked for the RSB for eight years as science policy officer before being promoted to senior science policy officer.

He left the RSB at the end of 2024 to volunteer in Ecuador and travel in South America.

Parts of the scientist’s dismembered body were found in a suitcase dumped in a stream.

Posting on X, Mr Pinedo Cuello said: “This crime will not go unpunished. The criminals must know that crime has no place in Santa Marta. We will pursue them until they are brought to justice.”

A hotel worker who spoke to Colombian newspaper El Tiempo said Mr Coatti had inquired about visiting the village of Minca and was conducting research on local animal species.

Delegates from the US and Russia will meet in Istanbul on Thursday as part of continued efforts to normalise embassy operations between the two countries, the US State Department has said.

The talks, which will take place at the Russian consulate in Turkey’s capital, will not include any discussion of political or security issues, the US said.

“Ukraine is not, absolutely not, on the agenda,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.

The Russian delegation will be led by the newly appointed ambassador to the US, Alexander Darchiev, and the US team by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Sonata Coulter, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Speaking at a daily press briefing on Tuesday, Bruce said the negotiations would focus “solely” on the functioning of the respective embassies, “not on normalising a bilateral relationship overall”.

That “can only happen, as we’ve noted, once there is peace between Russia and Ukraine,” he said.

Earlier talks in February focused predominantly on conditions for each country’s diplomats.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also said the second round of normalisation talks would take place “in the coming days”.

Over the past decade, Washington and Moscow have expelled numerous diplomats and restricted the appointment of new officials. Diplomatic ties were then all but severed after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

However there has been a thaw in relations under the Trump administration.

In February US and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia for their first face-to-face talks since the invasion to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine.

German security officials say they are carefully examining possible indications of foreign finance or influence in a series of attacks in German cities in the past year.

However, they have reacted coolly to a German TV report suggesting suspicious internet searches were carried out in Russia before a deadly attack in Mannheim last year.

A 26-year-old Afghan man has admitted a knife attack that targeted anti-Islam activist Michael Stürzenberger and killed a police officer in May last year, days before European elections.

A ZDF TV report has now suggested that Russian Google searches days earlier had included “terror attack in Mannheim” and “Michael Stürzenberger stabbed”.

Digital intelligence analyst Steven Broschart told the public broadcaster ZDF’s Terra X History programme that the searches were highly unusual: “it’s pretty unlikely that we’re talking about a coincidence here”.

He spoke of Russian internet searches for webcams in Mannheim’s market square before the 31 May attack took place.

The broadcaster also highlighted fires inside parcels at a DHL cargo hub in Leipzig which Western security officials blamed on Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.

That attack in August 2024 preceded regional elections in Saxony, and the head of domestic intelligence Stephan Joachim Kramer in neighbouring Thuringia told ZDF that “those who deal with this know we’ve actually been at war for a long time, even if it’s not been declared”.

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The trial of the man accused of carrying out the Mannheim attack, Sulaiman A, has heard how he became fascinated by jihadist group Islamic State and how he had ordered a knife online beforehand.

Other German cities have since been hit by attacks, including this year in Aschaffenburg and Munich, ahead of federal elections. The killings coincided with a spike in support for the far-right anti-immigration party, Alternative for Germany.

Interior ministry officials have not commented on ZDF’s report on Russian internet searches four days before the Mannheim attack, other than to say the issue of “possible indications of targeted influence from abroad” was being taken seriously.

There were “no clear indications” so far, the spokesman told AFP news agency.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Germany’s BND intelligence service voiced scepticism over the analysis of internet searches before last year’s Mannheim attack.

“The results from Google Trends are unsuitable for presented analysis and evaluation methods and cannot be used with validity either,” the spokesman told Reuters.

The spokesman suggested that the the results were based on samples and searches that were too small, and that VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) that disguised the location of a search would not have been taken into account.

Despite the wariness of the intelligence response, former BND employee Gerhard Conrad warned that it would be “naive” not to pursue these leads.

Such violent crimes would certainly fit the “toolbox of what we now called hybrid measures, hybrid warfare”, he said.

The domestic intelligence service warned only last week that Russian spies were using “espionage, sabotage and exertion of influence, including disinformation” to target Germany and the rest of Europe.

A full-scale trade war with China and the US is in prospect after President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs of more than 100% on Chinese goods imports from Wednesday 9 April.

China has said it will “fight to the end” rather than capitulate to what it sees as US coercion, and has already raised its own trade barriers against the US in response.

What does this escalating trade conflict mean for the world economy?

The trade in goods between the two economic powers added up to around $585bn (£429bn) last year.

Though the US imported far more from China ($440bn) than China imported from America ($145bn).

That left the US running a trade deficit with China – the difference between what it imports and exports – of $295bn in 2024. That’s a considerable trade deficit, equivalent to around 1% of the US economy.

But it’s less than the $1tn figure that Trump has repeatedly claimed this week.

Trump already imposed significant tariffs on China in his first term as president. Those tariffs were kept in place and added to by his successor Joe Biden.

Together those trade barriers helped to bring the goods the US imported from China down from a 21% share of America’s total imports in 2016 to 13% last year.

So the US reliance on China for trade has diminished over the past decade.

Yet analysts point out that some Chinese goods exports to the US have been re-routed through south-east Asian countries.

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For example, the Trump administration imposed 30% tariffs on Chinese imported solar panels in 2018.

But the US Commerce Department presented evidence in 2023 that Chinese solar panel manufacturers had shifted their assembly operations to states such as Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam and then sent the finished products to the US from those countries, effectively evading the tariffs.

The new “reciprocal” tariffs due to be imposed on those countries will therefore push up the US price of a wide range of goods ultimately originating in China.

In 2024 the biggest category of goods exports from the US to China were soybeans – primarily used to feed China’s estimated 440 million pigs.

The US also sent pharmaceuticals and petroleum to China.

Going the other way, from China to the US, were large volumes of electronics, computers and toys. A large amount of batteries, which are vital for electric vehicles, were also exported.

The biggest category of US imports from China is smartphones, accounting for 9% of the total. A large proportion of these smartphones are made in China for Apple, a US-based multinational.

The US tariffs on China have been one of the main contributors to the decline in the market value of Apple in recent weeks, with its share price falling by 20% over the past month.

All these imported items to the US from China were already set to become considerably more expensive for Americans due to the 20% tariff the Trump administration has already imposed on Beijing.

If the tariff rises to 100% – for all goods – then the impact could be five times greater.

And US imports into China will also go up in price due to China’s retaliatory tariffs, ultimately hurting Chinese consumers in a similar way.

But beyond tariffs, there are other ways for these two nations to attempt to damage each other through trade.

China has a central role in refining many vital metals for industry, from copper and lithium to rare earths.

Beijing could place obstacles in the way of these metals reaching the US.

This is something it has already done in the case of two materials called germanium and gallium, which are used by the military in thermal imaging and radar.

As for the US, it could attempt to tighten the technological blockade on China started by Joe Biden by making it harder for China to import the kind of advanced microchips – which are vital for applications like artificial intelligence – it still can’t yet produce itself.

Donald Trump’s trade advisor, Peter Navarro, has suggested this week that the US could apply pressure on other countries, including Cambodia, Mexico and Vietnam, not to trade with China if they want to continue to exporting to the US.

The US and China together account for such a large share of the global economy, around 43% this year according to the International Monetary Fund.

If they were to engage in an all-out trade war that slowed their growth down, or even pushed them into recession, that would likely harm other countries’ economies in the form of slower global growth.

Global investment would also likely suffer.

There are other potential consequences.

China is the world’s biggest manufacturing nation and is producing far more than its population consumes domestically.

It is already running an almost $1tn goods surplus – meaning it is exporting more goods to the rest of the world than it imports.

And it is often producing those goods at below the true cost of production due to domestic subsidies and state financial support, like cheap loans, for favoured firms.

Steel is an example of this.

There is a risk that if such products were unable to enter the US, Chinese firms could seek to “dump” them abroad.

While that could be beneficial for some consumers, it could also undercut producers in countries threatening jobs and wages.

The lobby group UK Steel has warned of the danger of excess steel potentially being redirected to the UK market.

The spillover impacts of an all-out China-US trade war would be felt globally, and most economists judge that the impact would be highly negative.

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The trade war between the world’s two biggest economies shows no signs of slowing down – Beijing has vowed to “fight to the end” hours after US President Donald Trump threatened to nearly double the tariffs on China.

That could leave most Chinese imports facing a staggering 104% tax – a sharp escalation between the two sides.

Smartphones, computers, lithium-ion batteries, toys and video game consoles make up the bulk of Chinese exports to the US. But there are so many other things, from screws to boilers.

With a deadline looming in Washington as Trump threatens to introduce the additional tariffs from Wednesday, who will blink first?

“It would be a mistake to think that China will back off and remove tariffs unilaterally,” says Alfredo Montufar-Helu, a senior advisor to the China Center at The Conference Board think tank.

“Not only would it make China look weak, but it would also give leverage to the US to ask for more. We’ve now reached an impasse that will likely lead to long-term economic pain.”

• Live updates on this story

Global markets have slumped since last week when Trump’s tariffs, which target almost every country, began coming into effect. Asian shares, which saw their worst drop in decades on Monday after the Trump administration didn’t waver, recovered slightly on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, China has hit back with tit-for-tat levies – 34% – and Trump warned that he would retaliate with an additional 50% tariff if Beijing doesn’t back down.

Uncertainty is high, with more tariffs, some more than 40%, set to kick in on Wednesday. Many of these would hit Asian economies: tariffs on China would rise to 54%, and those on Vietnam and Cambodia, would soar to 46% and 49% respectively.

Experts are worried about the speed at which this is happening, leaving governments, businesses and investors little time to adjust or prepare for a remarkably different global economy.

China had responded to the first round of Trump tariffs with tit-for-tat levies on certain US imports, export controls on rare metals and an anti-monopoly investigation into US firms, including Google.

This time too it has announced retaliatory tariffs, but it also appears to be bracing for pain with stronger measures. It has allowed its currency, the yuan, to weaken, which makes Chinese exports more attractive. And state-linked enterprises have been buying up shares in what appears to be a move to stabilise the market.

The prospect of negotiations between the US and Japan seemed to buoy investors who were fighting to claw back some of the losses of recent days.

But the face-off between China and the US – the world’s biggest exporter and its most important market – remains a major concern.

“What we are seeing is a game of who can bear more pain. We’ve stopped talking about any sense of gain,” Mary Lovely, a US-China trade expert at the Peterson Institute in Washington DC, told the BBC’s Newshour programme.

Despite its slowing economy, China may “very well be willing to endure the pain to avoid capitulating to what they believe is US aggression”, she added.

Shaken by a prolonged property market crisis and rising unemployment, Chinese people are just not spending enough. Indebted local governments have also been struggling to increase investments or expand the social safety net.

“The tariffs exacerbate this problem,” said Andrew Collier, Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School.

If China’s exports take a hit, that hurts a crucial revenue stream. Exports have long been a key factor in China’s explosive growth. And they remain a significant driver, although the country is trying to diversify its economy with high-end tech manufacturing and greater domestic consumption.

It’s hard to say exactly when the tariffs “will bite but likely soon,” Mr Collier says, adding that “[President Xi] faces an increasingly difficult choice due to a slowing economy and dwindling resources”.

But it’s not just China that will be feeling the impact.

According to the US Trade Representative office, the US imported $438bn (£342bn) worth of goods from China in 2024, with US exports to China valued at $143bn, leaving a trade deficit of $295bn.

And it’s not clear how the US is going to find alternative supply for Chinese goods on such short notice.

Taxes on physical goods aside, both countries are “economically intertwined in a lot of ways – there’s a massive amount of investment both ways, a lot of digital trade and data flows”, says Deborah Elms, Head of Trade Policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore.

“You can only tariff so much for so long. But there are other ways both countries can hit each other. So you might say it can’t possibly get worse, but there are many ways in which it can.”

The rest of the world is watching too, to see where Chinese exports shut out of the US market will go.

They will end up in other markets such as those in South East Asia, Ms Elms adds, and “these places [are dealing] with their own tariffs and having to think about where else can we sell our products?”

“So we are in a very different universe, one that is really murky.”

Unlike the trade war with China during Trump’s first term, which was about negotiating with Beijing, “it’s unclear what is motivating these tariffs and it’s very hard to predict where things might go from here,” says Roland Rajah, lead economist at the Lowy Institute.

China has a “wide toolkit” for retaliation, he adds, such as depreciating their currency further or clamping down on US firms.

“I think the question is how restrained will they be? There’s retaliation to save face and there’s pulling out the whole arsenal. It’s not clear if China wants to go down that path. It just might.”

Some experts believe the US and China may engage in private talks. Trump is yet to speak to Xi since returning to the White House, although Beijing has repeatedly signalled its willingness to talk.

But others are less hopeful.

“I think the US is overplaying its hand,” Ms Elms says. She is sceptical of Trump’s belief that the US market is so lucrative that China, or any country, will eventually bend.

“How will this end? No-one knows,” she says. “I’m really concerned about the speed and escalation. The future is much more challenging and the risks are just so high.”

Whether it’s pensions, mortgages, investments or the cost of everyday items, many of you have been getting in touch with Your Voice, Your BBC News to ask how the global tariffs and recent stock market turmoil may impact your personal finances.

The BBC’s Cost of Living Correspondent, Colletta Smith, has been answering your questions.

If you’re far away from retirement age, then sit tight because pensions are a long-term investment. As we have seen, a lot can change in a very short space of time so don’t panic.

If you’re getting close to retiring, your pension pot is likely to be moved to less risky investments, such as government bonds. When stock markets fall, these bonds tend to do better than traditional investments.

Pensioners with a fixed annuity should not be affected.

But if you’re currently living off a pension that has been invested, that could mean you get less than you expected because of this stock market fall.

It’s important to make a plan about how you will make up any shortfall.

Brian Waldie, 64, has been investing into a Child Trust Fund for his youngest daughter since 2007.

In the last three days, he has seen £1,500 lost from the account.

“We were trying to make our daughter’s life simple but this is money I can’t afford to lose,” he told Your Voice, Your BBC News.

If you invest directly, through a Stocks and Shares ISA or Child Trust Fund, then you will have seen some big changes over the last couple of days.

Providers should always tell you that investments can go down as well as up.

If you want more certainty, it may be worth facing up to reality and making a new financial plan.

Tariffs are taxes on stuff that is imported from other countries. Companies have to pay the taxes to the government of whatever country they’re sending their items to. Donald Trump has said he wants US citizens to buy more American-made products and he’s hoping to do that by making the price of things brought in from other countries more expensive. While we don’t know what impact this will have, there are some worries it could affect jobs here, especially for people working in car manufacturing and machinery. The cost of items in the shops could go up, and the general uncertainty might make it difficult for the government to meet the economic targets it has set itself.

The government has said it won’t rush into making any decisions about introducing tariffs on goods coming into the UK.

Right now, items coming from the USA may well end up costing more, but it’s also possible that products from countries that have been hit with tariffs to import into the US may just decide that it is cheaper to send their products here instead.

With cheaper foreign imports coming from countries like China, Japan and South Korea, it may push the prices down of some products here in the high street as firms compete with each other to attract customers with lower prices than rivals.

Lots of people have been asking about how the uncertainty could affect mortgages. Chris in Sussex got in touch to find out whether it could lead to a drop in interest rates.

The Bank of England is worried that businesses and consumers are getting nervous so they want to encourage people to spend and borrow more.

We had been expecting two interest rate cuts this year and it’s now predicted there will be an additional third cut.

Lenders are already pricing that into their equations and we’re seeing mortgage rates fall as a result.

Todd Brayman is no longer buying his favourite red wine, which is from California.

A veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, he is one of a growing number of people in Canada, Europe, and other parts of the world, who are avoiding buying US products due to President Trump’s tariffs and treatment of US allies.

“I have in my life served alongside American forces. It is just profoundly upsetting and disappointing to see where we are given the historical ties that our two countries have,” says Mr Brayman, who lives in Nova Scotia.

“But I think right now it’s time to stand up and be counted, and in my mind, that means buying local and supporting Canadian business.”

Together with his wife, Mr Brayman has replaced all the American products he used to buy, including his previous wine of choice, with Canadian alternatives.

“Luckett Phone Box Red wine, which is from right here in Nova Scotia, is great,” he says.

Determining which products are Canadian isn’t always easy however. “Sometimes labelling can be misleading,” adds Mr Brayman.

To help, he now uses an app on his phone that can scan a product’s barcode and identify where it’s from. If the product is identified as American, the app suggests Canadian alternatives.

The app, called Maple Scan, is one of numerous emerging in Canada to help people shop local. Others include Buy Canadian, Is This Canadian? and Shop Canadian.

Maple Scan’s founder, Sasha Ivanov, says his app has had 100,000 downloads since it launched last month. He believes the momentum around buying Canadian is here to stay.

“Lots of Canadians have told me, ‘I’m not going back’. It’s important that we support local regardless,” he says.

Canadians like Mr Brayman are boycotting American products in response to a raft of import tariffs introduced by Trump. These included tariffs of 25% on all foreign cars, steel and aluminium, and 25% tariffs on other Canadian and Mexican goods.

Meanwhile, other European Union exports will get tariffs of 20%, while the UK is facing 10%.

Trump says the tariffs will boost US manufacturing, raise tax revenue and reduce the US trade deficit. However, they have spooked global markets, which have fallen sharply over the past month.

Trump has even expressed a desire for Canada to join the US as its 51st state, something the Canadian government was quick to strongly reject.

Ottawa has also responded with C$60bn ($42bn; £32bn) in counter tariffs, as well as additional tariffs on the US auto sector.

And there has been a substantial drop in the number of Canadians travelling to the US.

Groups dedicated to boycotting US goods have also emerged in European countries. Momentum behind the boycott is particularly strong in Denmark, whose territory of Greenland Trump has said he wants to acquire.

Denmark’s largest grocery store operator, Salling Group, recently introduced a symbol, a black star, on pricing labels to denote European brands.

Bo Albertus, a school principal who lives in Skovlunde, a suburb of Copenhagen, says joining the boycott was his way of taking action. “Statements that Trump made about wanting to buy Greenland, that was just too much for me,” he says.

“I can’t do anything about the American political system, but I can vote with my credit card.”

One of Mr Albertus’s first moves was to cancel his subscriptions to US streaming services, including Netflix, Disney Plus and Apple TV. “My 11-year-old daughter is a bit annoyed about it, but that’s the way it is. She understands why I do it,” he says.

Mr Albertus is the administrator for a Danish Facebook group dedicated to helping people boycott US goods. In the group, which has 90,000 members, people share recommendations for local alternatives to US goods, from shoes to lawnmowers.

Mr Albertus says: “It’s a movement that is quite a lot bigger than just our little country, so it all that adds up.”

Mette Heerulff Christiansen, the owner of a grocery shop in Copenhagen called Broders has stopped stocking American products, such as Cheetos crisps and Hershey’s chocolate, in her store. She is substituting them with Danish or European products where possible.

Ms Christiansen is also swapping out products she uses at home. She’s finding some easier to replace than others. “Coca-Cola is easy to substitute with Jolly Cola, a Danish brand,” she says. “But technology, like Facebook, that’s totally difficult to avoid.”

She believes the boycott movement in Denmark is helping people to channel their anger at Trump’s policies and rhetoric. “I think it’s more for the Danish people to feel good that they are doing something,” she says.

Douglas Irwin, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College in the US, who specializes in the history of US trade policy, believes the economic impact of the boycott may be limited. “It is hard to judge how economically significant the consumer boycotts will be in terms of reducing trade with the United States,” he says.

“In the past, boycotts have not lasted long and have not achieved much. It starts as a hostile reaction to some US action but tends to fade with time,” he says.

For now though, the rising Buy Canadian sentiment in Canada is boosting sales for many local brands. The CEO of Canadian grocer Loblaw posted on LinkedIn that weekly sales of Canadian products were up by double digits.

Bianca Parsons, from Alberta in Canada, is behind an initiative to promote locally-made goods, called Made In Alberta, which she says has had a surge in interest since the tariffs were introduced. “We’re now getting over 20,000 hits [to the site] every two weeks.”

Ms Parsons, who is the executive director of the Alberta Food Processors Association, adds: “I’ve had producers reach out to us and say: ‘I’m selling out at stores that I would never sell out before, thank you so much’.”

Several Canadian provinces, including Ontario and Nova Scotia, have removed US-made alcoholic beverages from their liquor store shelves in response to tariffs, a move the boss of Jack Daniel’s maker Brown-Forman has said is “worse than tariffs”.

Among the American businesses feeling the impact is Caledonia Spirits, a distiller based in Vermont, near the Canadian border. Ryan Christiansen, Caledonia’s president and head distiller, says his business had an order on track for shipment to Quebec cancelled directly after tariffs were announced.

“My sense is that everyone’s just being a little too aggressive and, unfortunately, I think America started that,” says Mr Christiansen. “I do understand that the action America took needed a counter reaction.

“If it were up to me, I’d be at the table trying to resolve this in a friendly way, and I’m hopeful that the leaders in America take that approach.”

Ethan Frisch, the co-founder of Burlap & Barrel, an American spice company based in New York, which also exports to Canada, says he’s more concerned with the impact of the tariffs on his company’s imports and rising inflation in the US than the consumer boycott.

He says: “I think there’s this assumption that, if you boycott an American company, it’s going to have an impact on the economy and maybe change the situation. I think that assumption, unfortunately, is not accurate.

“The [US] economy is crashing all up by itself. Businesses like ours are struggling without boycotts.”

A detailed analysis of a full-sized digital scan of the Titanic has revealed new insight into the doomed liner’s final hours.

The exact 3D replica shows the violence of how the ship ripped in two as it sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912 – 1,500 people lost their lives in the disaster.

The scan provides a new view of a boiler room, confirming eye-witness accounts that engineers worked right to the end to keep the ship’s lights on.

And a computer simulation also suggests that punctures in the hull the size of A4 pieces of paper led to the ship’s demise.

“Titanic is the last surviving eyewitness to the disaster, and she still has stories to tell,” said Parks Stephenson, a Titanic analyst.

The scan has been studied for a new documentary by National Geographic and Atlantic Productions called Titanic: The Digital Resurrection.

The wreck, which lies 3,800m down in the icy waters of the Atlantic, was mapped using underwater robots.

More than 700,000 images, taken from every angle, were used to create the “digital twin”, which was revealed exclusively to the world by BBC News in 2023.

Because the wreck is so large and lies in the gloom of the deep, exploring it with submersibles only shows tantalising snapshots. The scan, however, provides the first full view of the Titanic.

The immense bow lies upright on the seafloor, almost as if the ship were continuing its voyage.

But sitting 600m away, the stern is a heap of mangled metal. The damage was caused as it slammed into the sea floor after the ship broke in half.

The new mapping technology is providing a different way to study the ship.

“It’s like a crime scene: you need to see what the evidence is, in the context of where it is,” said Parks Stephenson.

“And having a comprehensive view of the entirety of the wreck site is key to understanding what happened here.”

The scan shows new close-up details, including a porthole that was most likely smashed by the iceberg. It tallies with the eye-witness reports of survivors that ice came into some people’s cabins during the collision.

Experts have been studying one of the Titanic’s huge boiler rooms – it’s easy to see on the scan because it sits at the rear of the bow section at the point where the ship broke in two.

Passengers said that the lights were still on as the ship plunged beneath the waves.

The digital replica shows that some of the boilers are concave, which suggests they were still operating as they were plunged into the water.

Lying on the deck of the stern, a valve has also been discovered in an open position, indicating that steam was still flowing into the electricity generating system.

This would have been thanks to a team of engineers led by Joseph Bell who stayed behind to shovel coal into the furnaces to keep the lights on.

All died in the disaster but their heroic actions saved many lives, said Parks Stephenson.

“They kept the lights and the power working to the end, to give the crew time to launch the lifeboats safely with some light instead of in absolute darkness,” he told the BBC.

“They held the chaos at bay as long as possible, and all of that was kind of symbolised by this open steam valve just sitting there on the stern.”

A new simulation has also provided further insights into the sinking.

It takes a detailed structural model of the ship, created from Titanic’s blueprints, and also information about its speed, direction and position, to predict the damage that was caused as it hit the iceberg.

“We used advanced numerical algorithms, computational modelling and supercomputing capabilities to reconstruct the Titanic sinking,” said Prof Jeom-Kee Paik, from University College London, who led the research.

The simulation shows that as the ship made only a glancing blow against the iceberg it was left with a series of punctures running in a line along a narrow section of the hull.

Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable, designed to stay afloat even if four of its watertight compartments flooded.

But the simulation calculates the iceberg’s damage was spread across six compartments.

“The difference between Titanic sinking and not sinking are down to the fine margins of holes about the size of a piece of paper,” said Simon Benson, an associate lecturer in naval architecture at the University of Newcastle.

“But the problem is that those small holes are across a long length of the ship, so the flood water comes in slowly but surely into all of those holes, and then eventually the compartments are flooded over the top and the Titanic sinks.”

Unfortunately the damage cannot be seen on the scan as the lower section of the bow is hidden beneath the sediment.

The human tragedy of the Titanic is still very much visible.

Personal possessions from the ship’s passengers are scattered across the sea floor.

The scan is providing new clues about that cold night in 1912, but it will take experts years to fully scrutinise every detail of the 3D replica.

“She’s only giving her stories to us a little bit at a time,” said Parks Stephenson.

“Every time, she leaves us wanting for more.”

There is a magnificent, snow-white wolf on the cover of Time Magazine today – accompanied by a headline announcing the return of the dire wolf.

This now extinct species is possibly most famous for its fictional role in Game of Thrones, but it did exist – more than 10,000 years ago – when it roamed across the Americas.

The company Colossal Biosciences is behind today’s headlines. It announced that it used “deft genetic engineering and ancient DNA” to breed three dire wolf puppies and to “de-extinct” the species.

But while the young wolves – Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi – represent an impressive technological breakthrough, independent experts say they are not actually dire wolves.

Zoologist Philip Seddon from the University of Otago in New Zealand explained the animals are “genetically modified grey wolves”.

Colossal publicised its efforts to use similar cutting edge genetic techniques to bring back extinct animals including the woolly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger.

Meanwhile experts have pointed to important biological differences between the wolf on the cover of Time and the dire wolf that roamed and hunted during the last ice age.

• How extinct animals could be brought back from the dead
• Woolly mice designed to engineer mammoth-like elephants

Paleogeneticist Dr Nic Rawlence, also from Otago University, explained how ancient dire wolf DNA – extracted from fossilised remains – is too degraded and damaged to biologically copy or clone.

“Ancient DNA is like if you put fresh DNA in a 500 degree oven overnight,” Dr Rawlence told BBC News. “It comes out fragmented – like shards and dust.

“You can reconstruct [it], but it’s not good enough to do anything else with.”

Instead, he added, the de-extinction team used new synthetic biology technology – using the ancient DNA to identify key segments of code that they could edit into the biological blueprint of a living animal, in this case a grey wolf.

“So what Colossal has produced is a grey wolf, but it has some dire wolf-like characteristics, like a larger skull and white fur,” said Dr Rawlence. “It’s a hybrid.”

Dr Beth Shapiro, a biologist from Colossal Biosciences, said that this feat does represent de-extinction, which she described as recreating animals with the same characteristics.

“A grey wolf is the closest living relative of a dire wolf – they’re genetically really similar – so we targeted DNA sequences that lead to dire wolf traits and then edited grey wolf cells… then we cloned those cells and created our dire wolves.”

According to Dr Rawlence though, dire wolves diverged from grey wolves anywhere between 2.5 to six million years ago.

“It’s in a completely different genus to grey wolves,” he said. “Colossal compared the genomes of the dire wolf and the grey wolf, and from about 19,000 genes, they determined that 20 changes in 14 genes gave them a dire wolf.”

The edited embryos were implanted in surrogate domestic dog mothers. According to the article in Time, all three wolves were born by planned caesarean section to minimise the risk of complications.

Colossal, which was valued at $10bn (£7.8bn) in January, is keeping the wolves on a private 2,000-acre facility at an undisclosed location in the northern US.

The pups certainly look like many people’s vision of a dire wolf and the story has gathered global attention. So why is this scientific distinction important?

“Because extinction is still forever,” Dr Rawlence told BBC News. “If we don’t have extinction, how are we going to learn from our mistakes?

“Is the message now that we can go and destroy the environment and that animals can go extinct, but we can bring them back?”

It’s likely that you have not heard of Taiwan’s Hong Fu Industrial Group, but look down on a busy street and you may well see its products.

Hong Fu is the world’s second-biggest maker of trainers (sneakers) supplying shoes to Nike, Converse, Adidas, Puma and many others. It makes around 200 million pairs of sports shoes a year.

So when it made a big investment in India’s market, the footwear industry took note.

Hong Fu is currently building a giant plant in Panapakkam, in the state of Tamil Nadu in south eastern India. When fully operation, sometime in the next three to five years, it will make 25 million pairs of shoes a year, employing as many as 25,000 workers.

The project has Indian partners, including Aqeel Panaruna, the chairman of Florence Shoe Company: “The international market is saturated and they [Hong Fu] were looking for a new market,” he explains.

“There is a drastic increase in non-leather footwear in India. It has huge potential,” Mr Panaruna added.

The Indian government is keen to attract such investment, hoping it will raise standards in the footwear industry and boost exports.

To spur the industry, last August the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) introduced new quality rules for all shoes sold in India.

Under those standards, for example, materials will have to pass tests of strength and flexibility.

“These BIS standards are really about cleaning up the market. We’ve had too many low-quality products flooding in, and consumers deserve better,” says Sandeep Sharma a journalist and footwear industry expert.

But many in India can’t afford shoes from well-known brands.

Serving them is a huge and intricate network of small shoe makers, known as the unorganised sector.

Their affordable products are estimated to account for two-thirds of the total footwear market.

Ashok (he withheld his full name) counts himself as part of that sector, with shoe making units all across the district of Agra in northern India. He estimates that 200,0000 pairs of shoes are made everyday by operations like his across Agra.

“Many consumers, especially in rural and lower-income urban areas, opt for cheaper local footwear instead of branded options,” he says.

“Many organised brands struggle to expand their retail footprint in semi-urban and rural areas because we cater to them.”

So how will the new government standards affect makers like Ashok?

“It’s complicated,” says Mr Sharma.

“I think the government is trying to walk a tightrope here. They can’t just shut down thousands of small businesses that employ millions of people – that would be economic suicide.

“What I’m seeing is more of a carrot-and-stick approach. They’re pushing for standards, but also rolling out programs to help small manufacturers upgrade their processes. It’s not about wiping out the unorganised sector but gradually bringing them into the fold.”

Making the situation more complicated is that the unorganised sector is well-known for making counterfeit shoes of big brands.

While popular among Indian shoppers looking for a stylish bargain, other countries have long-complained about the losses caused.

Meanwhile, a host of new Indian trainer-makers are springing up, to serve India’s growing middle class.

Sabhib Agrawal is trying to get those buyers interested in barefoot footwear – shoes which, their makers say, are healthy for the foot as they encourage natural, or barefoot, movement.

Mr Agrawal says his company, Zen Barefoot, is unusual as much of the Indian footwear industry is not very innovative.

“There are very few people who are ready to take time and invest in new technologies here. Indian manufacturing is a very profit- first market, ROI [return on investment] driven.

“And in a lot of cases, even the government is not ready to enable these industries through grants or tax relief, which makes it quite difficult.”

Comet is one Indian firm looking to innovate.

It claims to be the first homegrown trainer brand that owns the whole production process, from design to manufacturing.

“This level of control allows us to experiment with materials, introduce innovative silhouettes, and continuously refine comfort and fit based on real feedback,” says founder Utkarsh Gupta.

He says the Comet shoes are adapted to India’s climate and roads.

“Most homegrown brands rely on off-the-shelf soles from the market, but when we started Comet, we realized that these were lacking in quality, durability, and grip,” he says.

Change is coming to the footwear sector he says. “The shift to high value is now happening.”

“Many high value brands need to move their manufacturing to India. In 3-5 years, we should have a robust ecosystem to compete in the international sneaker market,” he adds.

Back in Agra, Ashok hopes that the unorganised sector is not neglected amid the growth of India’s footwear industry.

“The government should give us accreditation and certificates so our factories don’t close down. Once we too are included in the organised sector no one can beat India in the shoe manufacturing industry.”

But Mr Sharma says change is inevitable.

“The market is definitely going to shift. We’ll see the bigger players getting bigger – they have the money to adapt quickly.

“But I don’t think the small guys will disappear completely. The smart ones will find their niche.”

In his first few weeks back in the Oval Office, US President Donald Trump made several extraordinary decisions on foreign policy.

He threatened to annex Greenland, announced plans to “take over” Gaza, and started to remove the US from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Paris climate agreement. He has also shuttered the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the government’s main overseas aid agency.

Many of these moves are not very popular with ordinary Americans, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Centre. It surveyed 3,605 US adults in late March – just before Trump imposed sweeping trade tariffs on countries around the world.

Here are four takeaways from the Pew research.

Trump has increased his rhetoric on “getting” Greenland, and Vice-President JD Vance recently took a controversial trip to the Arctic island.

But Pew found that most survey respondents (54%) did not think the US should take over the Danish territory. When asked if they think Trump would actually pursue the plan, 23% thought it was extremely likely, but a greater number (34%) said they believed he would not carry through with it.

• Denmark and Greenland show united front against US ‘annexation’ threats
• Andrew Harding: Vance makes ominous pitch to Greenland

Trump also proposed an American takeover of the Gaza Strip, resettling two million Palestinians in neighbouring countries with no right of return. This would violate international law and has been described as “tantamount to ethnic cleansing” by the UN.

Of those surveyed, 62% of Americans opposed such a move, compared to 15% who favoured it. Opinions were divided as to whether Trump was likely to actually pursue it. Again, the greater number (38%) thought it very or extremely unlikely.

• Trump says no right of return for Palestinians under Gaza plan

Trump signed executive orders to remove the US from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Paris Agreement on climate change, and said USAID largely would be shut down.

• More than 80% of USAID programmes ‘officially ending’

More Americans disapprove than approve of such moves, the survey suggests – although the results are not a landslide.

• 45% disapprove of ending USAID programmes (compared with 35% who approve)
• 46% do not agree with leaving the Paris agreement (32% approve)
• 52% disapprove of leaving the WHO (32% approve)

At the start of his second presidency, Trump said he would “work together, very closely” with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine – a very different approach to that of his predecessor, Joe Biden.

The Pew research found 43% of respondents thought Trump favoured Russia too much – a higher number than the 31% who said he was striking the right balance between both sides.

Since the survey was conducted, however, Trump’s mood appears to have changed. He has said he is “very angry” with Putin over Ukraine negotiations.

• Steve Rosenberg: Trump takes US-Russia relations on rollercoaster ride

Meanwhile, Trump’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has grown increasingly close this year.

Answering a question about whether Trump was favouring Israelis or Palestinians, 31% of those surveyed thought he favoured Israelis too much. Close behind at 29% were those who thought Trump was striking the right balance.

Larger than either of these, however, was the group of respondents who were not sure (37%). Just 3% felt he was favouring Palestinians too much.

While Pew Research Centre is non-partisan, those surveyed were not.

The results showed that most of the respondents (64%) who described themselves as Republican – or Republican-leaning – supported the move by the Republican president to end USAID, for example.

That compared to just 9% of opposing Democrats – or Democratic-leaning – respondents who felt the same way, indicating a high level of polarisation.

Generally, it is older adults who support Trump’s foreign policy actions, more than younger adults, the research suggested.

Pew also asked about tariffs on China, although this research was carried out before the situation escalated sharply into the trade war that is now under way.

Generally, more Americans said the tariffs would be bad for them personally, but those who were Republican, or leant more towards that party, believed the tariffs would benefit the US.

• China is not backing down from Trump’s tariff war. What next?

It’s only been a couple of years since the last series of Charlie Brooker’s dystopian Netflix show Black Mirror landed. But we’re now living in an unpredictable world and a lot can happen in a short space of time.

Renowned for its often savvy and disturbing takes on humanity and our relationship with technology, Black Mirror is back for a seventh series at a time when the pace of change in both politics and tech has left many of us – including lawmakers – struggling to keep up.

In 2011, when the first episode aired, Siri was the new kid on the block and the iPhone 4S had just been launched. Now we have Meta AI embedded in WhatsApp and we’re on series 10 of the Apple watch.

Since then, Black Mirror has taken us from creepy memory devices, phone implants and robotic bees to actors-turned-werewolves. And everything in between.

Brooker is in buoyant mood as, he tells the BBC there appears to be little danger of him running out of ideas anytime soon, when asked if Black Mirror could go on forever.

“Hopefully [it will run and run]. Selfishly, it’s a fun job,” he says. “Technology is developing in the real world very quickly.

“That means there are more sources of inspiration, and… the viewer is experiencing more [technological] things in their everyday life.

“We can do stories that I wouldn’t have thought of 10 years ago, and also, you don’t need to explain some of the concepts to people because they’ve got it in their phone.”

The Crown and Deadpool & Wolverine actor Emma Corrin, who stars in one of this season’s episodes, adds: “It’s much closer to home. People have access to stuff like AI which is terrifying so then it’s more confronting and serves as a better warning.”

Brooker jokes: “So you’re saying it should go on forever?”

“Yes, it should go on forever,” Corrin concurs.

Brooker adds: “I’ll find out when it stops if I drop dead or people stop watching.”

Corrin appears in an episode titled Hotel Reverie, alongside Issa Rae. The pair both play A-listers appearing in a remake of a vintage Hollywood classic. With a twist, of course.

Corrin plays screen siren Dorothy Chambers, and reflects: “I really enjoyed playing in a 1940s movie star.

“I just like the voice and the mannerisms and the way they hold themselves, and the style of acting is so ridiculous, larger than life and tongue in cheek, and yet packed with emotion at the same time.”

Without giving too much away, AI – the subject of much debate in the creative industries – rears its head in the storyline.

Corrin says they don’t “feel great” about its potential impact on their profession.

“Obviously, I think it’s scary, but it’s also a massive conversation, right? There are aspects of it that are terrifying to me as an artist. I love the creative process. I love that this art is born out of being in a room with people and things coming from the depths of someone’s human experience or imagination. And I really don’t think we’ll lose that, or I hope not.

“And I think there are also aspects of AI I probably don’t understand, and that could be used as tools for good. It’s about everyone being able to understand them and to use them correctly, and them being in the right hands.”

Brooker agrees: “Quite rightly, when Andy Serkis played Gollum [in the Lord of the Rings trilogy], everyone’s amazed by that, but what you’re amazed by is the human, you’re seeing a human performance shining through.

“I can totally see the value of AI as a tool for creative people. The point at which it worries me is if you remove the people bit from that equation, or you’re just hoovering up their work and regurgitating it, and they’re not being paid.”

Brooker also returns to another favourite tech theme, which he’s used as a jumping off point for several Black Mirror episodes over the previous six series. The world of gaming.

Remember the interactive standalone Black Mirror film Bandersnatch, where Asim Chaudhry and Will Poulter played a games company boss and a genius developer? The pair are now reprising their roles from the 2018 movie in a new series seven episode called Plaything.

Scottish actor Lewis Gribben, who is soon to star in the highly anticipated TV series Blade Runner 2099, plays 1990s games journalist and loner Cameron, who becomes obsessed with one particular game featuring little pixel creatures. (Brooker himself was a games journalist back in the day).

Former Doctor Who Peter Capaldi also turns in a brilliantly disturbing performance as an older Cameron.

Although a big Black Mirror fan, Gribben hadn’t seen Bandersnatch but says that coming to Plaything fresh actually aided his performance.

“I think it made it easier for me… but I was just intimidated. I was like ‘Oh my god, it’s Will Poulter who I’ve watched since I was seven years old acting in Son of Rambow. And Asim Chowdhury from People Just Do Nothing!”

Gribben tells the BBC he’s a bit of a gamer himself but has more of a handle on it than his Black Mirror character.

“I’m playing the new Assassin’s Creed Shadows at the minute,” he says. “When you have a day off… I can spend a solid 10 hours [on it]. But I like to think most people game in moderation or just have bingeing game sessions. It’s more like a relaxation thing.”

Josh Finan, who has starred in Baby Reindeer, The Responder and recently played Gerry Adams in Say Nothing, plays an acquaintance of Cameron who becomes unwittingly embroiled in his companion’s distorted sense of reality.

The pair will both star in the highly anticipated Amazon mini-series, Blade Runner 2099. Expected to drop later this year, the action takes place 50 years after 2017’s Blade Runner 2049, a movie that also analyses the relationship between humans and AI.

Finan isn’t too worried about being replaced by robots though.

“I’m very optimistic. I don’t think actors are going anywhere. Maybe I’m being naive [but] I don’t think there’s any danger of being replaced. What we do is too special.”

For the first time in decades, Lyle and Erik Menendez say they are beginning to feel hope they could get parole. It is a shift in mindset for the brothers, who have spent more than 30 years behind bars for the murders of their parents in their Beverly Hills home.

“My brother and I are cautiously hopeful,” Lyle Menendez, 57, said in a recent jailhouse interview with TMZ, which was aired on Fox.

“Hope for the future is really kind of a new thing for us. I think Erik would probably agree with that. It’s not something we’ve spent a lot of time on,” he added.

The Menendez brothers were convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to life without parole for the 1989 shotgun killings of their parents, Kitty and Jose Menendez.

The case shocked the nation – not only for the brutal nature of the crime, but also for the courtroom drama that followed.

Their first trial ended in a hung jury after both brothers detailed years of sexual abuse they claimed to have suffered at the hands of their father, a high-powered music industry executive.

But prosecutors in the second trial cast doubt on those claims, arguing the brothers had acted out of greed and wanted to inherit their parents’ wealth. The jury agreed, and the brothers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Over the decades, the brothers have kept up their appeals – and recently learned that they would get a parole hearing after all.

With that hearing scheduled for June, and a resentencing hearing in the middle of April, the brothers are reflecting on how they will lead their lives if freed.

• Who are the Menendez family, at centre of US murder case?
• Three possible paths to freedom for the Menendez brothers
• ‘Like a golden ticket’ – Menendez brothers case sparks frenzy in LA

“What it is that I want to do in terms of my day-to-day life is much of what I’m doing in here. I want to be an advocate for people that are suffering in silence,” 54-year-old Erik Menendez told TMZ.

“Lyle and I aren’t talking about leaving prison – should we be able to get out – and not looking back. Our lives will be spent working with the prison and doing the work that we’re doing in here, out there,” he added.

Part of the bid for parole hinges on a risk assessment that evaluates whether the brothers are still seen as threats to society.

The brothers say they have changed in prison.

“I’m striving to be a better person every day, and I want to be a person that my family can be proud of,” said Erik Menendez. “Who I’ve evolved into, who I’ve seen Lyle evolve into. I’m beginning to like myself, be proud of myself, and find it’s okay to like myself.”

During their time in prison, both Erik and Lyle have started rehabilitation programs for disabled and elderly inmates and taught classes on trauma healing and meditation.

“Our best moments are the ones that are not spoken about, and we just help somebody, or we help an animal, or we make somebody smile that’s feeling down that might have gone and harmed themselves if we weren’t there,” Erik said, speaking of their volunteer work in prison.

Despite the upcoming parole hearing, the brothers’ future – and the other possible paths to freedom – remain uncertain.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman recently withdrew a motion for resentencing that had been filed under his predecessor, George Gascón, signalling a harder stance on the case.

Hochman has publicly said he will not support the brothers’ release, though the final decision rests with a judge.

The move has stirred controversy with the DA’s office as two former prosecutors who worked under Gascón and advocated for the brothers’ resentencing, have filed a legal case against Hochman – accusing him of harassment, retaliation, and defamation.

The pair claim they were demoted because of their stance on the case – and have faced intense public scrutiny as a result. Mr Hochman’s office is yet to comment.

Some members of the Menendez family have also criticized Mr Hochman, suggesting he is letting personal bias influence his actions. Mr Hochman denies this.

“Hochman doesn’t seem to want to listen or engage with us,” the brothers’ cousin Tamara Goodell told US media. Ms Goodell accused the prosecutor of dismissing and ignoring the family, and “not acting like a neutral party”.

• Los Angeles DA Hochman opposes move to resentence Menendez brothers

But public opinion remains divided.

In the same TMZ special, Alan Abrahamson, a former Los Angeles Times reporter who covered the Menendez trials in the 1990s, said the brothers are “two of the most skilled and accomplished liars”.

“The Menendezes are very capable of shapeshifting, and being who people who want them to be,” Mr Abrahamson said. “And I think this is one of the grave dangers of this discussion that people don’t seem to pick up on.”

That is a thought shared by a former Beverly Hills detective who was assigned to investigate the murders at the time.

“This is the most heinous murder case I’ve had,” Tom Linehan told TMZ. He believes the Menendez brothers were money-motivated killers who grew up getting exactly they wanted.

“If somebody is challenging what they want to do, they’d take them out if they had to,” Linehan added.

As for the brothers, they have to hope the parole board sees things differently, so they will continue to fight their legal case.

“You never know how long you’ll be blessed to be on the Earth, so we don’t sit around waiting for something,” Lyle said.

The UK government is investigating a fast-growing “green fuel” called HVO diesel amid claims of significant fraud, the BBC has learned.

HVO is increasingly popular as a transport fuel and for powering music festivals and its backers say it can curb carbon emissions by up to 90% as it can be made from waste materials like used cooking oil.

But industry whistleblowers told the BBC they believe large amounts of these materials are not waste but instead are virgin palm oil, which is being fraudulently relablled.

And data analysed by the BBC and shared with the UK’s Department for Transport casts further doubt on one of the key ingredients in HVO, a material called palm sludge waste.

Europe used more of this waste in HVO and other biofuels in 2023 than it is thought possible for the world to produce.

In response to the BBC’s findings, the Department for Transport said they “take the concerns raised seriously and are working with stakeholders and international partners to gather further information”.

HVO, or hydrotreated vegetable oil, has been called something of a wonder-fuel in recent years as it can be used as 100% substitute for diesel reducing planet warming emissions.

UK consumption rocketed from 8 million litres in 2019 to about 699 million litres in 2024, according to provisional government figures.

Its green credentials rely heavily on the assumption that it is made from waste sources, particularly used cooking oil or the waste sludge from palm oil production.

But industry whistle-blowers have told the BBC that they believe virgin palm oil and other non-waste materials are often being used instead.

That would be bad news for the planet, as virgin palm oil is linked to increased tropical deforestation, which adds to climate change and threatening endangered species like orang-utans.

This palm oil “floods the market like cancer,” one large European biofuel manufacturer told the BBC.

They said that to stay in business they have to go along with the pretence that they are using waste materials.

Another whistle-blower, a former trader of these biofuels, also speaking anonymously, gave the BBC his account of one recent case dealing with supposedly waste products.

“I believe that what I bought was multiple cargos of virgin palm oil that has been wrongly classified as palm oil sludge,” they said.

“I called one of the board members and told them about the situation, and then I was told that they didn’t want to do anything about it, because the evidence would be burned.”

As well as this testimony, data compiled by campaign group Transport & Environment and analysed by the BBC suggests that more palm sludge waste is being used for transport biofuels than the world is probably able to produce.

The figures show that the UK and EU used about two million tonnes of palm sludge waste for HVO and other biofuels in 2023, based on Eurostat and UK Department for Transport figures.

EU imports of this sludge appear to have risen further in 2024, according to preliminary UN trade data, although the UK appears to have bucked this trend.

But the data analysed by the BBC, which is based on well-established UN and industry statistics, suggests the world can only produce just over one million tonnes of palm sludge waste a year.

This mismatch further suggests non-waste fuels such as virgin palm oil are being used to meet Europe’s rapid growth in biofuels, according to researchers and industry figures.

“It’s a very easy game,” said Dr Christian Bickert, a German farmer and editor with experience in biofuels, who believes that much of the HVO made with these waste products is “fake”.

“Chemically, the sludge and the pure palm oil are absolutely the same because they come from the same plant, and also from the same production facility in Indonesia,” he told BBC News.

“There’s no paper which proves [the fraud], no paper at all, but the figures tell a clear story.”

Underpinning the sustainability claims of biofuels is an independent system of certification where producers have to show exactly where they get their raw materials from.

It is mainly administered by a company called ISCC, and in Europe it has a long-standing reputation for ensuring that waste materials turned into fuel really do come from waste, by working with national authorities.

But in Indonesia, Malaysia and China, three of the main sources of the raw ingredients claimed to be waste for HVO, supervision is much more difficult.

“ISCC is simply not allowed to send anybody to China,” said Dr Christian Bickert.

“They have to rely on certification companies in China to check that everything is OK, but China doesn’t allow any inspectors in from outside.”

This concern is echoed by several other groups contacted by the BBC.

Construction giant Balfour Beatty, for example, has a policy of not using the fuel, citing sustainability concerns.

“We just are not able to get any level of visibility over the supply chain of HVO that would give us that level of assurance that this is truly a sustainable product,” Balfour Beatty’s Jo Gilroy told BBC News.

The European Waste-based and Advanced Biofuels Association represents the major biofuel manufacturers in the EU and UK.

In a statement they said “there is a major certification verification issue that needs to be addressed as a matter of priority”, adding that the “ISCC should do much more to ensure that non-EU Biodiesel is really what it claims to be”.

In the light of growing fraud allegations, the Irish authorities have recently restricted incentives for fuels made from palm waste.

The BBC also understands that the EU is about to propose a ban on ISCC certification of waste biofuels for two-and-a-half years, although it is expected to say it is not aware of direct breaches of renewable goals.

It would then be up to individual member countries to decide whether to accept certifications.

In response, the ISCC said it was “more than surprised” by the EU’s move, adding that it had been “a frontrunner in implementing the most strict and effective measures to ensure integrity and fraud prevention in the market for years”.

“The measure would be a severe blow to the entire market for waste-based biofuels,” it said.

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to keep up with the latest climate and environment stories with the BBC’s Justin Rowlatt. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

China has called US Vice-President JD Vance “ignorant and impolite” after he said America had been borrowing money from “Chinese peasants”.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters on Tuesday that Vance’s comments – which had already caused a stir on Chinese social media – were “surprising and sad”.

Vance made the comments on Thursday, during an interview on Fox News where he defended US President Donald Trump’s tariffs – which are currently fuelling tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

“We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture,” the vice-president said.

On Monday, Trump gave China – one of the world’s largest holders of US Treasury bonds – until Tuesday to scrap its 34% counter tariff or face an additional 50% tax on goods imported into the US.

If Trump acts on his threat, US companies could face a total rate of 104% on Chinese imports – as it comes on top of 20% tariffs already put in place in March and the 34% announced last week.

China has said it will “fight to the end” as it called Trump’s moves “bullying”.

“China’s position on China-US economic and trade relations has been made very clear,” Lin said on Tuesday.

Vance’s comments had already caused a stir among Chinese social media users, some of whom have called for him to be banned from entering China.

“As a key figure in the US government, it is really shameful for Vance to say such things,” one Weibo user wrote.

“Isn’t his memoir called ‘Hillbilly Elegy’?” wrote another user, a reference to Vance’s book which detailed his upbringing in rural America.

Trump and his allies have long argued that his tariff policy will boost the US economy and protect jobs.

But economists have warned that this would cause major disruptions to international supply chains, push up prices for consumers and bode disaster for all trade.

In the wake of the tariffs announcement, financial institutions have warned of heightened risks of a recession, both in the US and globally.

South Korea will hold a presidential election on 3 June, its acting leader has said, after the country’s constitutional court removed Yoon Suk Yeol from the presidency.

Yoon was impeached by parliament in December for his shock martial law declaration. The court upheld his impeachment on 4 April, paving the way for a snap election within 60 days.

Acting president Han Duck-soo announced the election date on Tuesday, saying the country needs to “quickly heal from the wounds” and go “upward and forward”.

Yoon’s martial law declaration plunged South Korea deep into political uncertainty and highlighted deep divisions in its society.

“I sincerely apologise for causing confusion and worries to the people over the past four months, and for having to face this regrettable situation of a presidential vacancy,” Han said.

Yoon cited threats from “anti-state forces” and North Korea when he declared martial law. However, it soon became clear that his move had been spurred not by external threats but by his own domestic political troubles.

He has been charged separately with insurrection before a criminal court.

Some politicians have signalled their intention to run for president, including labour minister Kim Moon-soo, who left his post on Tuesday to launch his campaign.

Ahn Cheol-soo, a lawmaker from the ruling People Power Party who contested in the last three presidential elections, has also thrown his hat into the ring.

But the current frontrunner is opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, who in 2022 lost to Yoon in the tightest race the country had seen. A Gallup poll held last week saw Lee with an approval rating of 34%.

Yoon is leaving behind a divided South Korea. While martial law has angered much of the country, with thousands taking to the streets calling for his removal, Yoon’s supporters have grown bolder and more extreme.

As South Korea emerges from its political crisis, it is also dealing with fresh economic challenges in the form of the sweeping tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump.

South Korea faces a 25% tariff on exports to the US, and authorities say they are seeking negotiations with the Trump administration.

The Duchess of Sussex has revealed she suffered a “rare and scary” medical condition after giving birth to one of her children.

In the first episode of her new podcast, Confessions of a Female Founder, Meghan said she was diagnosed with post-partum pre-eclampsia following childbirth.

She described it as a “huge medical scare”, and said she had to manage without the world knowing what she was going through.

Meghan, who shares two children with the Duke of Sussex, did not reveal whether she faced the medical complication after the birth of Archie, five, or Lilibet, three.

According to the NHS website, pre-eclampsia affects some women during pregnancy or soon after their baby is delivered, with early signs including having high blood pressure.

“It’s so rare. And it’s so scary,” Meghan said of the condition.

“You’re still trying to juggle all these things and the world doesn’t know what is happening, quietly, and in the quiet you are still trying to show up for people,” she added.

“In the quiet you’re still trying to show up mostly for your children. But those things are huge medical scares.”

The first guest on Meghan’s podcast was Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of dating app Bumble, who also suffered from the condition.

Herd described it as “life or death, truly”, adding: “It’s really scary.”

She said she would “never forget” the image of Meghan, after giving birth to Archie, “and the whole world was waiting for his debut”.

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In the podcast, Meghan also talked about her experience of juggling work and childcare, and how Lilibet often joins her during online meetings when she’s working from home.

“I don’t leave the house to go to an office, my office is here,” she said. “Lili still naps, she gets picked up early and she naps. She only has a half day in preschool.

“If she wakes up and she wants to find me, she knows where to find me, even if my door is closed to the office.

“She’ll be sitting there on my lap during one of these meetings with a grid of all the executives.”

But Meghan insisted she “wouldn’t have it any other way”.

“I don’t want to miss those moments. I don’t want to miss pick-up if I don’t have to. I don’t want to miss drop-off.”

Meghan’s new podcast, with Lemonada Media, follows an earlier series called Archetypes on Spotify, which faced some tough criticism.

It’s the latest in a flurry of business ventures from the duchess, who has also recently starred in a new Netflix lifestyle series – titled With Love, Meghan – and launched a new brand, As Ever.

She has said the new series will feature “candid conversations with amazing women” and also include “girl talk”.

In the first episode, she added that having young children, while building a business, helped to bring “perspective”.

“Because you’re building something while your child’s going through potty training… and both are just as important,” she said.

“In your own world, that’s super high value. And in [Lili’s] world, that’s super high value.”

• Pre-eclampsia is a condition that affects some women, usually during the second half of pregnancy or soon after their baby is delivered
• Early signs include having high blood pressure and protein in urine
• In some cases, further symptoms can develop, including severe headaches, vision problems, and pain below the ribs
• Many cases are mild, but the condition can lead to serious complications for both mother and baby if it’s not monitored and treated

More information is available on the NHS.

King Charles and Queen Camilla found an appropriately symbolic place in Rome to pose for photographs on the second day of their state visit to Italy.

They stood in the ancient Temple of Venus, honouring a goddess of love, during a four-day trip which coincides with their 20th wedding anniversary.

The royal visitors were earlier given a ceremonial red-carpet welcome by Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella and his daughter Laura at the Quirinale Palace.

At the Colosseum, shouts of “Carlo” could be heard from the crowds as the King and Queen met tourists visiting the historic monument.

The state visit is part of the UK’s efforts to reinforce its links with its European allies.

In a symbolic show of unity, the UK’s Red Arrow pilots flew alongside their Italian counterparts, the Frecce Tricolori, in a flypast that trailed the colours of both countries over the skies above Rome.

The UK’s ambassador to Italy, Lord Llewellyn, has said the alliance between Italy and the UK was “vital in a changing Europe, as both our countries stand steadfast in our support of Ukraine”.

The Colosseum provided a picture book setting for a photograph, with the royals standing on a balcony at the site of the Temple of Venus and Rome, built almost 2,000 years ago.

The King and Queen will celebrate their 20th anniversary on Wednesday by attending state banquet in the evening – a glitzy event which will have a guest list of politicians and celebrities.

A new set of photographs to mark their anniversary were taken on Monday evening, as the King and Queen visited the British ambassador at his residence.

State visits are a soft power mix of public engagements and diplomatic meetings. Such visits are carried out on behalf of the UK government – Foreign Secretary David Lammy has been accompanying the King on the trip.

King Charles will meet Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday. He will also make a speech to both houses of Italy’s Parliament – the first time a UK monarch will deliver such an address.

The state visit had originally been intended to include engagements at the Vatican, but that was postponed because of the ill-health of Pope Francis.

But with the Pope seeming to be getting better, there has been speculation about a possible private meeting when the King and Queen are in Rome.

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A US judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore the Associated Press’s access to presidential events after the White House blocked the news agency in a dispute over the term “Gulf of America”.

District Judge Trevor McFadden on Tuesday said the administration’s restriction on AP journalists was “contrary to the First Amendment”, which guarantees freedom of speech.

The dispute arose when the AP refused to adopt the administration’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” in its coverage, following an executive order by President Donald Trump.

The ban has meant that the AP has been unable to access press events at the White House as well as Air Force One.

Judge McFadden, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, also paused the ruling’s implementation until Sunday to allow administration’s lawyers time to appeal.

“The Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists — be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere — it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints,” he wrote in his ruling. “The Constitution requires no less.”

The AP had argued that the administration violated the news agency’s constitutional right to free speech by restricting access due to disagreements over the its language.

In February, Judge McFadden had declined to immediately restore its access to presidential events.

After Tuesday’s ruling, AP spokesperson Lauren Easton said the agency was “gratified by the court’s decision”.

“Today’s ruling affirms the fundamental right of the press and public to speak freely without government retaliation. This is a freedom guaranteed for all Americans in the U.S. Constitution,” she said in a statement.

The ruling was also welcomed by other organisations who had criticised the initial restrictions on the AP.

“This is a careful, well-reasoned opinion that properly describes the exclusion of the Associated Press from the press pool as retaliatory, viewpoint-based, and unconstitutional,” said Jameel Jaffer, the executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

The AP sued three senior Trump administration officials — Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich — claiming the restrictions were unlawful and infringed on press freedom.

The Trump administration argued that the Associated Press was not entitled to “special access” to the president.

Soon after taking office in January, the Trump administration issued an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”, a move the White House said reflects the gulf’s status as “an indelible part of America”.

The AP said it would continue to use the term Gulf of Mexico, while acknowledging the Trump administration’s efforts to rename it.

In response, the White House restricted the AP’s access to events covered by the “pool” of journalists who report back to other media outlets.

Authorities in India’s Kuno National Park have started disciplinary action against a forest worker who is seen offering water to a cheetah and her cubs in a video that has gone viral online.

The man, a driver at the sanctuary, violated instructions which say only authorised personnel can go near the big cats, park officials told PTI news agency.

Cheetahs were declared extinct in India in 1952, the only large mammal to become extinct since the country’s independence.

They were reintroduced in Kuno in 2022 as part of an ambitious plan to repopulate the species.

The incident came to light on Sunday, when a video of the man feeding water to the big cats began circulating online.

The footage shows him pouring water into a metal pan after being urged to do so by some people who aren’t seen in the video.

Moments later, a cheetah named Jwala and her four cubs walk up to the pan and start drinking from it.

Officials say it’s not uncommon for certain staff members to offer water to big cats if they get close to the boundary of the national park to lure them back into the forest.

The mum and her cubs were in the fields close to the boundary, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests Uttam Kumar Sharma told PTI.

“The monitoring team, in general, has been instructed to try to deviate or lure the cheetahs back inside whenever such a situation arises so as not to create human-cheetah conflict,” he said

However, only trained personnel are allowed to do so and the man’s actions went against established protocol, he added.

“There are clear instructions to move away from cheetahs. Only authorised persons can go in close proximity to them to perform a specific task,” Mr Sharma said.

Initial reports in the media called the video “heartwarming” but many on social media raised concerns about the safety of people and animals in such situations. Others suggested a better option would be for the authorities to create ponds and water bodies in the park to ensure the cats did not have to go far for water in the hot summer.

Villages on the park’s border have been tense as cheetahs wander into their fields and kill their livestock. Last month, some villagers pelted the cats with stones to stop such attacks, The New Indian Express newspaper reported. Officials say they have been trying to raise awareness in the villages so that people adapt to living near the animals.

Twenty cheetahs were relocated from South Africa and Namibia to the Kuno national park in the central state of Madhya Pradesh between 2022 and 2023 in what was the first such intercontinental translocation of the big cats.

Eight of them have since died due to various reasons, including kidney failure and mating injuries, sparking concerns about whether conditions at Kuno are suitable for them.

In 2023, South African and Namibian experts involved with the project wrote to India’s Supreme Court, saying they believed that some of these deaths could have been prevented by “better monitoring of animals and more appropriate and timely veterinary care”.

Experts from the Namibia-based Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), which has been involved with the project since its inception, had also raised concerns about inadequate record-keeping at Kuno. They told the BBC that the park management had “little or no scientific training” and the vets were “too inexperienced to manage a project of this calibre”.

Park authorities have rejected the allegations and say there are now a total of 26 cheetahs, including 17 in the wild and nine others that are kept in enclosures at the moment.

This year, India is expected to receive 20 more cheetahs from South Africa. Officials say the big cats have already been identified by a task force in collaboration with South African authorities.

Elon Musk has called President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, a “moron” over comments he made about his electric vehicle firm, Tesla.

Musk – who is also a member of the Trump administration – said Navarro was “dumber than a sack of bricks” in posts on his social media platform X.

It was in response to an interview Navarro gave in which he criticised Musk. “[He’s] not a car manufacturer. He’s a car assembler, in many cases,” Navarro said.

Navarro was being interviewed about Trump’s sweeping tariff policy and said he wanted to see parts made in the US in the future instead.

Musk, who has hinted at his opposition to White House trade policy, said Navarro’s claims about Tesla were “demonstrably false”.

The spat was the most public sign of disagreement yet between Trump’s trade team and Musk, the world’s richest man who heads the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) which is tasked with slashing the size and spending of the federal government.

Later on Tuesday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt was asked about the row between Musk and Navarro. “These are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs,” she told reporters.

“Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue,” Leavitt said.

Trump has in part justified his global wave of tariffs by saying he wants to revive manufacturing in the US. This is an argument Navarro made during an appearance on CNBC on Monday.

“If you look at our auto industry, right, we’re an assembly line for German engines and transmissions right now,” he said.

“We’re going to get to a place where America makes stuff again, real wages are going to be up, profits are going to be up,” Navarro added.

Responding to the comments on Tuesday, Musk posted a link to a 2023 article by car valuation firm Kelley Blue Book, which cited Cars.com findings that Tesla vehicles had the most parts produced in the US.

“By any definition whatsoever, Tesla is the most vertically integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of US content,” Musk wrote in a follow-up post.

Technology industry analyst Dan Ives said the company was less exposed to tariffs than other US car makers such as GM, Ford, and Stellantis.

But he too claimed the company sourced the majority of its parts from outside the US, particularly China.

“The tariffs in their current form will disrupt Tesla, the overall supply chain, and its global footprint which has been a clear advantage over the years vs. rising competitors like BYD,” he said.

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Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a dean and professor at the Yale School of Management who hosted a gathering of business executives in Washington last month, said Musk was articulating what many American CEOs think but are reluctant to say publicly about Trump’s trade policies.

“Seventy-nine percent of them said they’re embarrassed in front of international partners, and 89 percent said this is needlessly taking us into a recession and a misguided economic policy,” Mr Sonnenfeld told the BBC, referring to a survey taken at the event he hosted.

Even before the row with Navarro, Musk had hinted at his dissatisfaction with the tariff policy.

On Monday, he posted a video of the economist Milton Friedman, a noted opponent of tariffs, in which he extolls the values of the free market.

Trump’s tariffs have caused stock market falls around the world, as investors calculate it will result in firms making smaller profits.

Musk said in an X post on 27 March that even his company would not be immune from tariff disruption.

Another Trump backer, the billionaire fund manager Bill Ackman, has called for a pause on the tariffs to stave off what he called “major global economic disruption”.

In a post on X, he said the current plans would do “unnecessary harm.”

Navarro is considered an ultra-Trump loyalist and was jailed for ignoring a subpoena from a House committee investigating alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

He is thought to be one of the main architects of Trump’s tariff policy.

A full-scale trade war with China and the US is in prospect after President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs of more than 100% on Chinese goods imports from Wednesday 9 April.

China has said it will “fight to the end” rather than capitulate to what it sees as US coercion, and has already raised its own trade barriers against the US in response.

What does this escalating trade conflict mean for the world economy?

The trade in goods between the two economic powers added up to around $585bn (£429bn) last year.

Though the US imported far more from China ($440bn) than China imported from America ($145bn).

That left the US running a trade deficit with China – the difference between what it imports and exports – of $295bn in 2024. That’s a considerable trade deficit, equivalent to around 1% of the US economy.

But it’s less than the $1tn figure that Trump has repeatedly claimed this week.

Trump already imposed significant tariffs on China in his first term as president. Those tariffs were kept in place and added to by his successor Joe Biden.

Together those trade barriers helped to bring the goods the US imported from China down from a 21% share of America’s total imports in 2016 to 13% last year.

So the US reliance on China for trade has diminished over the past decade.

Yet analysts point out that some Chinese goods exports to the US have been re-routed through south-east Asian countries.

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For example, the Trump administration imposed 30% tariffs on Chinese imported solar panels in 2018.

But the US Commerce Department presented evidence in 2023 that Chinese solar panel manufacturers had shifted their assembly operations to states such as Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam and then sent the finished products to the US from those countries, effectively evading the tariffs.

The new “reciprocal” tariffs due to be imposed on those countries will therefore push up the US price of a wide range of goods ultimately originating in China.

In 2024 the biggest category of goods exports from the US to China were soybeans – primarily used to feed China’s estimated 440 million pigs.

The US also sent pharmaceuticals and petroleum to China.

Going the other way, from China to the US, were large volumes of electronics, computers and toys. A large amount of batteries, which are vital for electric vehicles, were also exported.

The biggest category of US imports from China is smartphones, accounting for 9% of the total. A large proportion of these smartphones are made in China for Apple, a US-based multinational.

The US tariffs on China have been one of the main contributors to the decline in the market value of Apple in recent weeks, with its share price falling by 20% over the past month.

All these imported items to the US from China were already set to become considerably more expensive for Americans due to the 20% tariff the Trump administration has already imposed on Beijing.

If the tariff rises to 100% – for all goods – then the impact could be five times greater.

And US imports into China will also go up in price due to China’s retaliatory tariffs, ultimately hurting Chinese consumers in a similar way.

But beyond tariffs, there are other ways for these two nations to attempt to damage each other through trade.

China has a central role in refining many vital metals for industry, from copper and lithium to rare earths.

Beijing could place obstacles in the way of these metals reaching the US.

This is something it has already done in the case of two materials called germanium and gallium, which are used by the military in thermal imaging and radar.

As for the US, it could attempt to tighten the technological blockade on China started by Joe Biden by making it harder for China to import the kind of advanced microchips – which are vital for applications like artificial intelligence – it still can’t yet produce itself.

Donald Trump’s trade advisor, Peter Navarro, has suggested this week that the US could apply pressure on other countries, including Cambodia, Mexico and Vietnam, not to trade with China if they want to continue to exporting to the US.

The US and China together account for such a large share of the global economy, around 43% this year according to the International Monetary Fund.

If they were to engage in an all-out trade war that slowed their growth down, or even pushed them into recession, that would likely harm other countries’ economies in the form of slower global growth.

Global investment would also likely suffer.

There are other potential consequences.

China is the world’s biggest manufacturing nation and is producing far more than its population consumes domestically.

It is already running an almost $1tn goods surplus – meaning it is exporting more goods to the rest of the world than it imports.

And it is often producing those goods at below the true cost of production due to domestic subsidies and state financial support, like cheap loans, for favoured firms.

Steel is an example of this.

There is a risk that if such products were unable to enter the US, Chinese firms could seek to “dump” them abroad.

While that could be beneficial for some consumers, it could also undercut producers in countries threatening jobs and wages.

The lobby group UK Steel has warned of the danger of excess steel potentially being redirected to the UK market.

The spillover impacts of an all-out China-US trade war would be felt globally, and most economists judge that the impact would be highly negative.

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The trade war between the world’s two biggest economies shows no signs of slowing down – Beijing has vowed to “fight to the end” hours after US President Donald Trump threatened to nearly double the tariffs on China.

That could leave most Chinese imports facing a staggering 104% tax – a sharp escalation between the two sides.

Smartphones, computers, lithium-ion batteries, toys and video game consoles make up the bulk of Chinese exports to the US. But there are so many other things, from screws to boilers.

With a deadline looming in Washington as Trump threatens to introduce the additional tariffs from Wednesday, who will blink first?

“It would be a mistake to think that China will back off and remove tariffs unilaterally,” says Alfredo Montufar-Helu, a senior advisor to the China Center at The Conference Board think tank.

“Not only would it make China look weak, but it would also give leverage to the US to ask for more. We’ve now reached an impasse that will likely lead to long-term economic pain.”

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Global markets have slumped since last week when Trump’s tariffs, which target almost every country, began coming into effect. Asian shares, which saw their worst drop in decades on Monday after the Trump administration didn’t waver, recovered slightly on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, China has hit back with tit-for-tat levies – 34% – and Trump warned that he would retaliate with an additional 50% tariff if Beijing doesn’t back down.

Uncertainty is high, with more tariffs, some more than 40%, set to kick in on Wednesday. Many of these would hit Asian economies: tariffs on China would rise to 54%, and those on Vietnam and Cambodia, would soar to 46% and 49% respectively.

Experts are worried about the speed at which this is happening, leaving governments, businesses and investors little time to adjust or prepare for a remarkably different global economy.

China had responded to the first round of Trump tariffs with tit-for-tat levies on certain US imports, export controls on rare metals and an anti-monopoly investigation into US firms, including Google.

This time too it has announced retaliatory tariffs, but it also appears to be bracing for pain with stronger measures. It has allowed its currency, the yuan, to weaken, which makes Chinese exports more attractive. And state-linked enterprises have been buying up shares in what appears to be a move to stabilise the market.

The prospect of negotiations between the US and Japan seemed to buoy investors who were fighting to claw back some of the losses of recent days.

But the face-off between China and the US – the world’s biggest exporter and its most important market – remains a major concern.

“What we are seeing is a game of who can bear more pain. We’ve stopped talking about any sense of gain,” Mary Lovely, a US-China trade expert at the Peterson Institute in Washington DC, told the BBC’s Newshour programme.

Despite its slowing economy, China may “very well be willing to endure the pain to avoid capitulating to what they believe is US aggression”, she added.

Shaken by a prolonged property market crisis and rising unemployment, Chinese people are just not spending enough. Indebted local governments have also been struggling to increase investments or expand the social safety net.

“The tariffs exacerbate this problem,” said Andrew Collier, Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School.

If China’s exports take a hit, that hurts a crucial revenue stream. Exports have long been a key factor in China’s explosive growth. And they remain a significant driver, although the country is trying to diversify its economy with high-end tech manufacturing and greater domestic consumption.

It’s hard to say exactly when the tariffs “will bite but likely soon,” Mr Collier says, adding that “[President Xi] faces an increasingly difficult choice due to a slowing economy and dwindling resources”.

But it’s not just China that will be feeling the impact.

According to the US Trade Representative office, the US imported $438bn (£342bn) worth of goods from China in 2024, with US exports to China valued at $143bn, leaving a trade deficit of $295bn.

And it’s not clear how the US is going to find alternative supply for Chinese goods on such short notice.

Taxes on physical goods aside, both countries are “economically intertwined in a lot of ways – there’s a massive amount of investment both ways, a lot of digital trade and data flows”, says Deborah Elms, Head of Trade Policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore.

“You can only tariff so much for so long. But there are other ways both countries can hit each other. So you might say it can’t possibly get worse, but there are many ways in which it can.”

The rest of the world is watching too, to see where Chinese exports shut out of the US market will go.

They will end up in other markets such as those in South East Asia, Ms Elms adds, and “these places [are dealing] with their own tariffs and having to think about where else can we sell our products?”

“So we are in a very different universe, one that is really murky.”

Unlike the trade war with China during Trump’s first term, which was about negotiating with Beijing, “it’s unclear what is motivating these tariffs and it’s very hard to predict where things might go from here,” says Roland Rajah, lead economist at the Lowy Institute.

China has a “wide toolkit” for retaliation, he adds, such as depreciating their currency further or clamping down on US firms.

“I think the question is how restrained will they be? There’s retaliation to save face and there’s pulling out the whole arsenal. It’s not clear if China wants to go down that path. It just might.”

Some experts believe the US and China may engage in private talks. Trump is yet to speak to Xi since returning to the White House, although Beijing has repeatedly signalled its willingness to talk.

But others are less hopeful.

“I think the US is overplaying its hand,” Ms Elms says. She is sceptical of Trump’s belief that the US market is so lucrative that China, or any country, will eventually bend.

“How will this end? No-one knows,” she says. “I’m really concerned about the speed and escalation. The future is much more challenging and the risks are just so high.”

With US stocks tumbling and volatility shooting up, many Americans are keeping a wary eye on their retirement accounts – and even having second thoughts about their future plans.

“It’s troubling times,” says Carl Young, 52, who lives near St Augustine, Florida.

Young, who is originally from Warrington in the UK and has been living in the US for 10 years, is semi-retired after working as an energy industry executive and does part-time consulting work on the side.

The current stock market turmoil, he says, “worries me because it’s self-inflicted, it’s not during Covid. It feels like we’re shooting ourselves in our foot.”

President Donald Trump has argued the impact on global markets from his sweeping tariffs will be short-term, and they are necessary to address trade imbalances and protect American industry.

About 60% of Americans have stock market investments, either directly or through retirement accounts, according to Gallup.

Stock ownership is skewed towards higher earners, older workers and skilled professionals, but that rate is relatively high among developed countries – driven in part by the popularity of 401(k) retirement accounts.

Named after a subclause of tax law, these accounts are an easy tax-free way to save – and often include significant stock market holdings. About 35% of working Americans choose to invest a portion of their pay checks into a 401(k) retirement account.

And although market fluctuations are nothing new, anecdotal evidence indicates that many Americans are concerned that they might be overexposed to recent falls.

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The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (Tiaa), which provides financial and services and manages $1.4 trillion (£1.1 trillion) in assets for millions of American workers, says calls about its retirement products and online account logins have spiked nearly 30% since last Thursday.

That’s the day after President Trump outlined his tariff plans from the White House Rose Garden. Tiaa says the added call volume is being driven by the flurry of market news.

Since then, financial advisors have largely been urging clients to stay the course and keep a long-term view in mind.

“I remind them if you sell, you may be locking in losses and someone else is buying your investments at a discount,” says Evan Potash, executive wealth management advisor at Tiaa. “I remind my clients that we are prepared for market volatility.”

Some Americans close to retirement are taking that long view. Barry Brown, a 63-year-old living in South Carolina, had once thought about early retirement, but ran some calculations about his health insurance costs and decided to wait until the standard retirement age of 65.

Brown says he enjoys his job as a communications and IT specialist at his local church, and he doesn’t mind working for a couple of more years.

“Of course, I am concerned” about the stock market, he says, but he is leaning on prayer and his Christian faith, and also broadly supports the White House’s economic policy.

“I’m truthfully totally behind President Trump because I feel like the US has taken these tariff hits over the years with no pushbacks,” he says.

Others are not so enthusiastic about the administration’s policies or sanguine about the future course of the economy.

Catherine Foster lives in central Florida and had hoped to retire when she reached age 60, a little over a year from now.

“I just don’t know if that’s going to happen now,” she says.

Foster, who works as an administrator at a small liberal arts college, says she had a peek at her 401(k) retirement accounts and estimated they are down around $10,000 (£7,827) from their peak – enough to make her think twice about her future plans.

“It’s scary not knowing what’s going to happen down the line,” she says. “If something catastrophic happens to my house, for example, I don’t know what I would do, to find the money to repair it.”

• What would a US-China trade war do to the world economy?
• Is the US heading for a recession? Three warning signs to watch

Foster lives with her older sister, whose retirement accounts took a hit during the Great Recession of 2008 – which along with Covid was another time in recent memory when economic upheaval threatened the future of American retirees.

Laura Quinby, associate director of employee benefits and labour markets at the Center for Retirement Research (CRR) at Boston College, says that those two events had very different long-term impacts.

When it came to financial markets, the sharp shock of Covid was relatively short-lived, and was followed by a tight labour market, where jobs were relatively plentiful.

That meant that older Americans found it easier to find work.

“Working longer is one of the most powerful tools that people have to shore up their finances in retirement,” she says.

But after the recession crisis – which started in 2007 and spanned till 2009 and was deeper and wider than the Covid market fluctuations – there were fewer jobs on offer.

“A lot of those older workers who lost their job during the Great Recession weren’t able to find new ones. So a lot of them ended up retiring earlier than they intended, and also saw a drop in their 401(k).”

CRR carried out research 10 years after the financial crisis and found that younger baby boomers, who were in their 40s at the time, took a significant and long-lasting hit to their retirement funds as a result.

And although many economists are predicting that tariffs will lead to recession, financial planners are hoping that the recent turmoil looks more like Covid – a more fleeting storm.

“The market always experiences new things,” says John Daly, a financial planner based in Mount Prospect, Illinois. His firm, Daly Investment Management, oversees $100m in investments.

“This week, clients are calling me and telling me, ‘John, this is different, this is new.’ I agree, but we’re always faced with unique events,” he says.

He said such market volatility is, of course, unpleasant and sparks a sense of unease. But, things should return to normal eventually – it’s just about riding out this moment.

“I am always beating a dead horse when I tell people the stock market is a long-term investment,” he said. “Just keep that focus.”

A detailed analysis of a full-sized digital scan of the Titanic has revealed new insight into the doomed liner’s final hours.

The exact 3D replica shows the violence of how the ship ripped in two as it sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912 – 1,500 people lost their lives in the disaster.

The scan provides a new view of a boiler room, confirming eye-witness accounts that engineers worked right to the end to keep the ship’s lights on.

And a computer simulation also suggests that punctures in the hull the size of A4 pieces of paper led to the ship’s demise.

“Titanic is the last surviving eyewitness to the disaster, and she still has stories to tell,” said Parks Stephenson, a Titanic analyst.

The scan has been studied for a new documentary by National Geographic and Atlantic Productions called Titanic: The Digital Resurrection.

The wreck, which lies 3,800m down in the icy waters of the Atlantic, was mapped using underwater robots.

More than 700,000 images, taken from every angle, were used to create the “digital twin”, which was revealed exclusively to the world by BBC News in 2023.

Because the wreck is so large and lies in the gloom of the deep, exploring it with submersibles only shows tantalising snapshots. The scan, however, provides the first full view of the Titanic.

The immense bow lies upright on the seafloor, almost as if the ship were continuing its voyage.

But sitting 600m away, the stern is a heap of mangled metal. The damage was caused as it slammed into the sea floor after the ship broke in half.

The new mapping technology is providing a different way to study the ship.

“It’s like a crime scene: you need to see what the evidence is, in the context of where it is,” said Parks Stephenson.

“And having a comprehensive view of the entirety of the wreck site is key to understanding what happened here.”

The scan shows new close-up details, including a porthole that was most likely smashed by the iceberg. It tallies with the eye-witness reports of survivors that ice came into some people’s cabins during the collision.

Experts have been studying one of the Titanic’s huge boiler rooms – it’s easy to see on the scan because it sits at the rear of the bow section at the point where the ship broke in two.

Passengers said that the lights were still on as the ship plunged beneath the waves.

The digital replica shows that some of the boilers are concave, which suggests they were still operating as they were plunged into the water.

Lying on the deck of the stern, a valve has also been discovered in an open position, indicating that steam was still flowing into the electricity generating system.

This would have been thanks to a team of engineers led by Joseph Bell who stayed behind to shovel coal into the furnaces to keep the lights on.

All died in the disaster but their heroic actions saved many lives, said Parks Stephenson.

“They kept the lights and the power working to the end, to give the crew time to launch the lifeboats safely with some light instead of in absolute darkness,” he told the BBC.

“They held the chaos at bay as long as possible, and all of that was kind of symbolised by this open steam valve just sitting there on the stern.”

A new simulation has also provided further insights into the sinking.

It takes a detailed structural model of the ship, created from Titanic’s blueprints, and also information about its speed, direction and position, to predict the damage that was caused as it hit the iceberg.

“We used advanced numerical algorithms, computational modelling and supercomputing capabilities to reconstruct the Titanic sinking,” said Prof Jeom-Kee Paik, from University College London, who led the research.

The simulation shows that as the ship made only a glancing blow against the iceberg it was left with a series of punctures running in a line along a narrow section of the hull.

Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable, designed to stay afloat even if four of its watertight compartments flooded.

But the simulation calculates the iceberg’s damage was spread across six compartments.

“The difference between Titanic sinking and not sinking are down to the fine margins of holes about the size of a piece of paper,” said Simon Benson, an associate lecturer in naval architecture at the University of Newcastle.

“But the problem is that those small holes are across a long length of the ship, so the flood water comes in slowly but surely into all of those holes, and then eventually the compartments are flooded over the top and the Titanic sinks.”

Unfortunately the damage cannot be seen on the scan as the lower section of the bow is hidden beneath the sediment.

The human tragedy of the Titanic is still very much visible.

Personal possessions from the ship’s passengers are scattered across the sea floor.

The scan is providing new clues about that cold night in 1912, but it will take experts years to fully scrutinise every detail of the 3D replica.

“She’s only giving her stories to us a little bit at a time,” said Parks Stephenson.

“Every time, she leaves us wanting for more.”

Todd Brayman is no longer buying his favourite red wine, which is from California.

A veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, he is one of a growing number of people in Canada, Europe, and other parts of the world, who are avoiding buying US products due to President Trump’s tariffs and treatment of US allies.

“I have in my life served alongside American forces. It is just profoundly upsetting and disappointing to see where we are given the historical ties that our two countries have,” says Mr Brayman, who lives in Nova Scotia.

“But I think right now it’s time to stand up and be counted, and in my mind, that means buying local and supporting Canadian business.”

Together with his wife, Mr Brayman has replaced all the American products he used to buy, including his previous wine of choice, with Canadian alternatives.

“Luckett Phone Box Red wine, which is from right here in Nova Scotia, is great,” he says.

Determining which products are Canadian isn’t always easy however. “Sometimes labelling can be misleading,” adds Mr Brayman.

To help, he now uses an app on his phone that can scan a product’s barcode and identify where it’s from. If the product is identified as American, the app suggests Canadian alternatives.

The app, called Maple Scan, is one of numerous emerging in Canada to help people shop local. Others include Buy Canadian, Is This Canadian? and Shop Canadian.

Maple Scan’s founder, Sasha Ivanov, says his app has had 100,000 downloads since it launched last month. He believes the momentum around buying Canadian is here to stay.

“Lots of Canadians have told me, ‘I’m not going back’. It’s important that we support local regardless,” he says.

Canadians like Mr Brayman are boycotting American products in response to a raft of import tariffs introduced by Trump. These included tariffs of 25% on all foreign cars, steel and aluminium, and 25% tariffs on other Canadian and Mexican goods.

Meanwhile, other European Union exports will get tariffs of 20%, while the UK is facing 10%.

Trump says the tariffs will boost US manufacturing, raise tax revenue and reduce the US trade deficit. However, they have spooked global markets, which have fallen sharply over the past month.

Trump has even expressed a desire for Canada to join the US as its 51st state, something the Canadian government was quick to strongly reject.

Ottawa has also responded with C$60bn ($42bn; £32bn) in counter tariffs, as well as additional tariffs on the US auto sector.

And there has been a substantial drop in the number of Canadians travelling to the US.

Groups dedicated to boycotting US goods have also emerged in European countries. Momentum behind the boycott is particularly strong in Denmark, whose territory of Greenland Trump has said he wants to acquire.

Denmark’s largest grocery store operator, Salling Group, recently introduced a symbol, a black star, on pricing labels to denote European brands.

Bo Albertus, a school principal who lives in Skovlunde, a suburb of Copenhagen, says joining the boycott was his way of taking action. “Statements that Trump made about wanting to buy Greenland, that was just too much for me,” he says.

“I can’t do anything about the American political system, but I can vote with my credit card.”

One of Mr Albertus’s first moves was to cancel his subscriptions to US streaming services, including Netflix, Disney Plus and Apple TV. “My 11-year-old daughter is a bit annoyed about it, but that’s the way it is. She understands why I do it,” he says.

Mr Albertus is the administrator for a Danish Facebook group dedicated to helping people boycott US goods. In the group, which has 90,000 members, people share recommendations for local alternatives to US goods, from shoes to lawnmowers.

Mr Albertus says: “It’s a movement that is quite a lot bigger than just our little country, so it all that adds up.”

Mette Heerulff Christiansen, the owner of a grocery shop in Copenhagen called Broders has stopped stocking American products, such as Cheetos crisps and Hershey’s chocolate, in her store. She is substituting them with Danish or European products where possible.

Ms Christiansen is also swapping out products she uses at home. She’s finding some easier to replace than others. “Coca-Cola is easy to substitute with Jolly Cola, a Danish brand,” she says. “But technology, like Facebook, that’s totally difficult to avoid.”

She believes the boycott movement in Denmark is helping people to channel their anger at Trump’s policies and rhetoric. “I think it’s more for the Danish people to feel good that they are doing something,” she says.

Douglas Irwin, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College in the US, who specializes in the history of US trade policy, believes the economic impact of the boycott may be limited. “It is hard to judge how economically significant the consumer boycotts will be in terms of reducing trade with the United States,” he says.

“In the past, boycotts have not lasted long and have not achieved much. It starts as a hostile reaction to some US action but tends to fade with time,” he says.

For now though, the rising Buy Canadian sentiment in Canada is boosting sales for many local brands. The CEO of Canadian grocer Loblaw posted on LinkedIn that weekly sales of Canadian products were up by double digits.

Bianca Parsons, from Alberta in Canada, is behind an initiative to promote locally-made goods, called Made In Alberta, which she says has had a surge in interest since the tariffs were introduced. “We’re now getting over 20,000 hits [to the site] every two weeks.”

Ms Parsons, who is the executive director of the Alberta Food Processors Association, adds: “I’ve had producers reach out to us and say: ‘I’m selling out at stores that I would never sell out before, thank you so much’.”

Several Canadian provinces, including Ontario and Nova Scotia, have removed US-made alcoholic beverages from their liquor store shelves in response to tariffs, a move the boss of Jack Daniel’s maker Brown-Forman has said is “worse than tariffs”.

Among the American businesses feeling the impact is Caledonia Spirits, a distiller based in Vermont, near the Canadian border. Ryan Christiansen, Caledonia’s president and head distiller, says his business had an order on track for shipment to Quebec cancelled directly after tariffs were announced.

“My sense is that everyone’s just being a little too aggressive and, unfortunately, I think America started that,” says Mr Christiansen. “I do understand that the action America took needed a counter reaction.

“If it were up to me, I’d be at the table trying to resolve this in a friendly way, and I’m hopeful that the leaders in America take that approach.”

Ethan Frisch, the co-founder of Burlap & Barrel, an American spice company based in New York, which also exports to Canada, says he’s more concerned with the impact of the tariffs on his company’s imports and rising inflation in the US than the consumer boycott.

He says: “I think there’s this assumption that, if you boycott an American company, it’s going to have an impact on the economy and maybe change the situation. I think that assumption, unfortunately, is not accurate.

“The [US] economy is crashing all up by itself. Businesses like ours are struggling without boycotts.”

China has called US Vice-President JD Vance “ignorant and impolite” after he said America had been borrowing money from “Chinese peasants”.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters on Tuesday that Vance’s comments – which had already caused a stir on Chinese social media – were “surprising and sad”.

Vance made the comments on Thursday, during an interview on Fox News where he defended US President Donald Trump’s tariffs – which are currently fuelling tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

“We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture,” the vice-president said.

On Monday, Trump gave China – one of the world’s largest holders of US Treasury bonds – until Tuesday to scrap its 34% counter tariff or face an additional 50% tax on goods imported into the US.

If Trump acts on his threat, US companies could face a total rate of 104% on Chinese imports – as it comes on top of 20% tariffs already put in place in March and the 34% announced last week.

China has said it will “fight to the end” as it called Trump’s moves “bullying”.

“China’s position on China-US economic and trade relations has been made very clear,” Lin said on Tuesday.

Vance’s comments had already caused a stir among Chinese social media users, some of whom have called for him to be banned from entering China.

“As a key figure in the US government, it is really shameful for Vance to say such things,” one Weibo user wrote.

“Isn’t his memoir called ‘Hillbilly Elegy’?” wrote another user, a reference to Vance’s book which detailed his upbringing in rural America.

Trump and his allies have long argued that his tariff policy will boost the US economy and protect jobs.

But economists have warned that this would cause major disruptions to international supply chains, push up prices for consumers and bode disaster for all trade.

In the wake of the tariffs announcement, financial institutions have warned of heightened risks of a recession, both in the US and globally.

Ukrainian forces have captured two Chinese nationals who were fighting for the Russian army in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

He said on Tuesday that intelligence suggested the number of Chinese soldiers in Russia’s army was “much higher than two”.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Chinese troops fighting on Ukrainian territory “puts into question China’s declared stance for peace” and added that their envoy in Kyiv was summoned for an explanation.

It is the first official allegation from Ukraine that China is supplying Russia with manpower. There has been no immediate response to the claims from Moscow or Beijing.

In a statement on social media platform X, Zelensky said the soldiers were captured in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region with identification documents, including bank cards which had “personal data” on them.

Ukraine’s forces fought six Chinese soldiers and took two of them prisoner, he said.

The post was accompanied by a video showing one of the alleged Chinese captives in handcuffs, speaking Mandarin Chinese and apparently describing a recent battle.

“We have information suggesting that there are many more Chinese citizens in the occupier’s units than just these two,” he said.

“Russia’s involvement of China, along with other countries, whether directly or indirectly, in this war in Europe is a clear signal that Putin intends to do anything but end the war,” Zelensky added.

The Ukrainian president called for a response “from the United States, Europe, and all those around the world who want peace”.

An investigation is under way and the captives are currently in the custody of Ukraine’s security service, he added.

On Tuesday, US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce called the reports “disturbing”.

She added that China is a “major enabler” of Russia’s war in Ukraine, citing its supply of dual-use goods such as navigation equipment, semiconductor chips and jet parts.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said that he had summoned China’s chargé d’affaires in Kyiv to “demand an explanation”.

Writing on X, Andrii Sybiha said: “We strongly condemn Russia’s involvement of Chinese citizens in its war of aggression against Ukraine, as well as their participation in combat against Ukrainian forces.”

He added that the move “puts into question China’s declared stance for peace” and undermines Beijing’s credibility as a member of the UN Security Council.

French newspaper Le Monde has previously reported that it identified around 40 accounts on TikTok’s sister app, Douyin – which is only available in China – belonging to Chinese individuals who claim to have signed up with the Russian army.

North Korea has sent thousands of troops to aid Russia’s war effort against Ukraine, according to Kyiv and Western officials.

• What we know about North Korean troops fighting Russia’s war
• About 1,000 North Koreans killed fighting Ukraine in Kursk, officials say

In a press conference on Tuesday, Zelensky said: “But there is a difference: North Koreans fought against us on the front in Kursk, the Chinese are fighting on the territory of Ukraine.”

In January Ukraine said it captured two injured North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk Oblast.

While Beijing and Moscow are close political and economic allies, China has attempted to present itself as a neutral party in the conflict and has repeatedly denied supplying Russia with military equipment.

One of Russia’s chief advantages in the war is numbers. There have been reports of Moscow using “meat grinder” tactics to throw huge numbers of soldiers at the front lines and incrementally improve their position.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukraine’s territory, mostly in the east.

Russian drone attacks into Ukraine continued on Tuesday night with strikes injuring 14 people in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, and another two in Kharkiv, in the north-east, local officials said. A number of fires were reported in the two cities.

Authorities in India’s Kuno National Park have started disciplinary action against a forest worker who is seen offering water to a cheetah and her cubs in a video that has gone viral online.

The man, a driver at the sanctuary, violated instructions which say only authorised personnel can go near the big cats, park officials told PTI news agency.

Cheetahs were declared extinct in India in 1952, the only large mammal to become extinct since the country’s independence.

They were reintroduced in Kuno in 2022 as part of an ambitious plan to repopulate the species.

The incident came to light on Sunday, when a video of the man feeding water to the big cats began circulating online.

The footage shows him pouring water into a metal pan after being urged to do so by some people who aren’t seen in the video.

Moments later, a cheetah named Jwala and her four cubs walk up to the pan and start drinking from it.

Officials say it’s not uncommon for certain staff members to offer water to big cats if they get close to the boundary of the national park to lure them back into the forest.

The mum and her cubs were in the fields close to the boundary, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests Uttam Kumar Sharma told PTI.

“The monitoring team, in general, has been instructed to try to deviate or lure the cheetahs back inside whenever such a situation arises so as not to create human-cheetah conflict,” he said

However, only trained personnel are allowed to do so and the man’s actions went against established protocol, he added.

“There are clear instructions to move away from cheetahs. Only authorised persons can go in close proximity to them to perform a specific task,” Mr Sharma said.

Initial reports in the media called the video “heartwarming” but many on social media raised concerns about the safety of people and animals in such situations. Others suggested a better option would be for the authorities to create ponds and water bodies in the park to ensure the cats did not have to go far for water in the hot summer.

Villages on the park’s border have been tense as cheetahs wander into their fields and kill their livestock. Last month, some villagers pelted the cats with stones to stop such attacks, The New Indian Express newspaper reported. Officials say they have been trying to raise awareness in the villages so that people adapt to living near the animals.

Twenty cheetahs were relocated from South Africa and Namibia to the Kuno national park in the central state of Madhya Pradesh between 2022 and 2023 in what was the first such intercontinental translocation of the big cats.

Eight of them have since died due to various reasons, including kidney failure and mating injuries, sparking concerns about whether conditions at Kuno are suitable for them.

In 2023, South African and Namibian experts involved with the project wrote to India’s Supreme Court, saying they believed that some of these deaths could have been prevented by “better monitoring of animals and more appropriate and timely veterinary care”.

Experts from the Namibia-based Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), which has been involved with the project since its inception, had also raised concerns about inadequate record-keeping at Kuno. They told the BBC that the park management had “little or no scientific training” and the vets were “too inexperienced to manage a project of this calibre”.

Park authorities have rejected the allegations and say there are now a total of 26 cheetahs, including 17 in the wild and nine others that are kept in enclosures at the moment.

This year, India is expected to receive 20 more cheetahs from South Africa. Officials say the big cats have already been identified by a task force in collaboration with South African authorities.

A US judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore the Associated Press’s access to presidential events after the White House blocked the news agency in a dispute over the term “Gulf of America”.

District Judge Trevor McFadden on Tuesday said the administration’s restriction on AP journalists was “contrary to the First Amendment”, which guarantees freedom of speech.

The dispute arose when the AP refused to adopt the administration’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” in its coverage, following an executive order by President Donald Trump.

The ban has meant that the AP has been unable to access press events at the White House as well as Air Force One.

Judge McFadden, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, also paused the ruling’s implementation until Sunday to allow administration’s lawyers time to appeal.

“The Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists — be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere — it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints,” he wrote in his ruling. “The Constitution requires no less.”

The AP had argued that the administration violated the news agency’s constitutional right to free speech by restricting access due to disagreements over the its language.

In February, Judge McFadden had declined to immediately restore its access to presidential events.

After Tuesday’s ruling, AP spokesperson Lauren Easton said the agency was “gratified by the court’s decision”.

“Today’s ruling affirms the fundamental right of the press and public to speak freely without government retaliation. This is a freedom guaranteed for all Americans in the U.S. Constitution,” she said in a statement.

The ruling was also welcomed by other organisations who had criticised the initial restrictions on the AP.

“This is a careful, well-reasoned opinion that properly describes the exclusion of the Associated Press from the press pool as retaliatory, viewpoint-based, and unconstitutional,” said Jameel Jaffer, the executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

The AP sued three senior Trump administration officials — Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich — claiming the restrictions were unlawful and infringed on press freedom.

The Trump administration argued that the Associated Press was not entitled to “special access” to the president.

Soon after taking office in January, the Trump administration issued an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”, a move the White House said reflects the gulf’s status as “an indelible part of America”.

The AP said it would continue to use the term Gulf of Mexico, while acknowledging the Trump administration’s efforts to rename it.

In response, the White House restricted the AP’s access to events covered by the “pool” of journalists who report back to other media outlets.