The Trump administration has said it is freezing more than $2bn (£1.5bn) in federal funds for Harvard University, hours after the elite college rejected a list of demands from the White House.

“Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges,” the Department of Education said in a statement.

The White House sent a list of demands to Harvard last week that it said were designed to fight antisemitism on campus, including changes to its governance, hiring practices and admissions procedures.

Harvard strongly rejected the demands on Monday and said the White House was trying to “control” its community.

It is the first major US university to defy pressure from the Trump administration to change its policies.

In a letter to the Harvard community on Monday, its President Alan Garber said the White House had sent an “updated and expanded list of demands” on Friday alongside a warning that the university “must comply” in order to maintain its “financial relationship” with the government.

“We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement,” he wrote. “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

Mr Garber added that the university did not “take lightly” its obligation to fight antisemitism, but said the government was overreaching.

“Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard,” he said.

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Shortly after his letter was sent, the education department said it was freezing $2.2bn in grants and $60m in contracts to Harvard immediately.

“The disruption of learning that has plagued campuses in recent years is unacceptable,” it said.

“The harassment of Jewish students is intolerable. It is time for elite universities to take the problem seriously and commit to meaningful change if they wish to continue receiving taxpayer support,” the statement added.

The White House said in its own letter on Friday that Harvard had “in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment”.

The letter included 10 categories for proposed changes that the White House said were needed in order for Harvard to maintain its “financial relationship with the federal government”.

Some of the changes included: reducing the power held by students and untenured faculty; reporting students to the federal government who are “hostile” to American values; and hiring an external government-approved party to audit programs and departments “that most fuel antisemitic harassment”.

The letter orders the university to take disciplinary action for “violations” that happened during protests on campus over the past two years. It also demands an end the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies and programmes.

Since re-entering the White House, President Trump has put pressure on universities to tackle antisemitism and end diversity practices.

He has accused leading universities of failing to protect Jewish students, as well as having an institutional left-wing bias.

In March, the administration said it was reviewing roughly $256m in federal contracts and grants at Harvard, and an additional $8.7bn in multi-year grant commitments.

Harvard professors filed a lawsuit in response, alleging the government was unlawfully attacking freedom of speech and academic freedom.

The White House had previously pulled $400m in federal funding from Columbia University and accused it of failing to fight antisemitism and protect Jewish students on its campus.

When the $400m was pulled, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said: “Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding”.

Shortly after, Columbia agreed to several of the administration’s demands, drawing criticism from some students and faculty.

Earlier on Monday, a lawyer for an organiser of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University said her client had been arrested by immigration officials as he attended an interview as part of his application for US citizenship.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a green card holder who is due to graduate next month, was detained on Monday in Colchester, Vermont.

Others who took part in campus protests against the war, including Columbia University’s Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University’s Rumeysa Ozturk, have been detained in recent weeks.

Indian businessman Mehul Choksi has been arrested in Belgium following India’s request for his extradition.

Mr Choksi, who left India in 2018, was arrested on Saturday, his lawyer Vijay Aggarwal told the BBC on Monday.

The diamond merchant is wanted by India over allegations of involvement in a case of defrauding one of the country’s largest banks of nearly $1.8bn (£1.3bn).

Mr Choksi has not commented publicly on the case, but his lawyer said they would appeal against his detention and also oppose his extradition to India.

“These are the obvious grounds [on which we will argue the case], that he is not a flight risk and secondly, that he is extremely sick. He is undergoing cancer treatment,” Mr Agarwal said.

He added that they would “contest the extradition on grounds that there isn’t enough evidence against him and the extradition request is politically motivated and the trial in India may not be fair”.

The BBC has reached out to India’s foreign ministry and financial crimes agency – the Enforcement Directorate (ED) – for comment.

According to a Times of India report, Mr Choksi was arrested on the basis of two non-bailable warrants issued by an Indian court in 2018 and 2021 – although it’s not clear why the action came now.

Mr Choksi and his nephew, Nirav Modi, are wanted by Indian authorities in connection with a $1.8bn fraud case at Punjab National Bank (PNB).

Mr Modi, who’s also been living abroad since 2018, is lodged in a prison in London and is awaiting extradition to India.

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Both were high-profile diamond traders. Mr Modi’s jewellery was worn by several Hollywood celebrities such as Naomi Watts and Kate Winslet. One of the biggest Bollywood stars, Priyanka Chopra, was his company’s brand ambassador.

Mr Choksi, meanwhile, was the owner of Gitanjali Gems, an Indian jewellery retailer which once had about 4,000 stores across India.

The ED has accused Mr Choksi and Modi of colluding with some employees of PNB’s Brady House branch in Mumbai city to get fraudulent advances for payments to overseas suppliers of jewels.

These funds were then allegedly diverted and laundered.

Mr Choksi and Mr Modi have denied the allegations against them.

After leaving India, Mr Choksi reportedly travelled to the US and later to Antigua – where he has citizenship.

In 2021, he was reportedly arrested in Dominica and deported back to Antigua.

Hariprasad SV, a Bengaluru-based entrepreneur who had in 2016 alerted authorities about the alleged scam at PNB, said Mr Choksi’s arrest was “great news”.

“Apart from bringing him back, the most important thing is to get back all those billions of dollars he looted from India,” he told ANI news agency.

In the chaotic minutes after US President Donald Trump’s administration abruptly reversed course and paused dozens of sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs, one man quickly became the public face of the decision: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“It took great courage,” the bespectacled 62-year-old former hedge fund manager told the dozens of reporters gathered around him on 9 April. “Great courage to stay the course until this moment.”

Notably absent during the press briefing – after which markets rocketed – were the other two men tasked with delivering Trump’s tariff message to the American people: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and trade adviser Pete Navarro.

Bessent’s centre-stage role in the tariffs announcement, some trade policy veterans have suggested, starkly highlights how shifting power dynamics within the White House brought the US back from the brink of an all-out global trade war, even if all the players are broadly supportive of Trump’s economic agenda.

“He’s playing the good cop,” William Alan Reinsch, the former head of the National Foreign Trade Council, told the BBC. “And Lutnick and Navarro are playing the bad cop.”

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Publicly, the White House has been largely quiet on the chain of events that led to Trump’s market-shaking decision to pause reciprocal tariffs for most countries while raising levies on China, with the president saying only that he had been “thinking about it” for a “few days” before it “came together” early on the morning of 9 April.

But according to US media reports, it was Bessent, inundated with calls from business leaders, that played a key part in swaying Trump, including with conversations on Air Force One the weekend beforehand and in the Oval Office on the morning of the decision.

Earlier in his career, Bessent expressed reservations about tariffs. Some observers believe these views, together with long experience in the bond market, ultimately made it possible for him to gain the president’s ear over Navarro and Lutnick, both of whom represented a harder-line stance on the tariffs.

“I think what happened was that Trump wasn’t paying attention to the bond market,” added Mr Reinsch, now an economics expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And Bessent got him to pay attention.”

Mr Reinsch, who was also undersecretary of commerce for export administration in the 1990s during President Bill Clinton’s administration, said that Bessent’s approach, so far, has been “a classic way to deal with Trump”.

“Don’t tell him he’s wrong or made a mistake,” he added. “Tell him there’s a better way forward to achieve his objectives, and that the market is not reacting the way we want it to react.”

On the morning of the announcement on 9 April, Trump met in the Oval Office with Bessent as well as National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett and Lutnick, the 63-year-old former chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald and a noted China hawk.

Two other key players in tariffs policy were notably absent, prompting one source close to the White House to tell Reuters news agency there had been a “pecking order change”.

One, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, was just a short drive away on Capitol Hill, testifying about tariffs before a House of Representative committee.

He would later that day learn of the tariffs announcement in real-time along with the lawmakers, prompting a tense exchange in which he was accused of having the “rug pulled out” from underneath him.

The other, Peter Navarro, was similarly absent despite being one of the most visible figures in the media on tariffs, prompting speculation his stance had fallen out of favour with the president.

At times, the various figures involved in tariffs gave contradictory statements on the policy, which experts say contributed to confusion and market volatility.

“They are not singing on the same page,” said Mark Sobel, who spent nearly 40 years at the Treasury Department, including as deputy assistant secretary for international monetary and financial policy.

“You hear Navarro, you hear Bessent, you hear the president and you feel you’re getting whiplash,” he added. “This is not a disciplined group.”

Terry Haines, the founder of Washington DC-based consultancy Pangaea Policy, told the BBC he believes that it was “deliberate” that the administration put forward various people to become the public faces of tariffs.

“[They wanted to] throw as many spokespeople out there, say different things, and flood the zone with opinion,” he said. “It may have efficacy in politics, but it confuses the hell out of markets.”

As an example, Mr Haines pointed to Navarro, who he said gets “more leeway than you’d expect” owing to the four-month jail term he served for contempt of Congress after ignoring a subpoena from a House committee investigating the 2021 US Capitol riot.

“They appeal to different audiences. Bessent would be interested in the financial press, while Navarro has a different message,” he said.

Haines, however, cautioned against assuming that any one person contributed the most to Trump’s decision.

“Markets want winners and losers, like People magazine-style stuff,” he said. “But we need to know who to listen to, and that became, pretty much by default, Bessent.”

Several experts contacted by the BBC said they expect Bessent to now take a much more prominent public role in tariff policy, with Lutnick taking charge of the negotiations, while Navarro, Hassett and Greer play supporting roles.

Haines, for example, said he believes Bessent will become, in real terms, “the spokesman for economic policy”.

Ultimately, a more structured approach could contribute to market stability, according to Andrew Hale, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“I imagine it will get more certain as we go forward,” he said. “It’s what businesses and investors want.”

Machias Seal Island is a tiny dot on maps of North America.

But the uninhabited, fogbound rock is significant for its location in an area known as the “Grey Zone” – the site of a rare international dispute between Canada and the United States.

The two neighbours and long-time allies have each long laid claim to the island and surrounding water, where the US state of Maine meets Canada’s New Brunswick province – and with that claim, the right to catch and sell the prized local lobsters.

John Drouin, a US lobsterman who has fished in the Grey Zone for 30 years, tells of the mad dash by Canadian and American fishermen to place lobster traps at the start of the summer catching season each year. “People have literally lost parts of their bodies, have had concussions, [their] head smashed and everything,” he says.

The injuries have been caused when lobstermen have been caught up in each other’s lines. He says one friend lost his thumb after it became caught up in a Canadian line, what Mr Drouin calls his battle scar from the Grey Zone.

The 277 square miles of sea around Machias Seal Island has been under dispute since the late 1700s – and in 1984, an international court ruling gave both the US and Canada the right to fish in the waterway.

It has stood as a quirk – an isolated area of tension in what had been, until now, an otherwise close relationship between the two countries.

But that could all be about to change. US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, steep tariffs on Canadian imports and rhetoric about making the country the 51st state has sparked a series of fresh flashpoints, with the possibility that he may ultimately wish to subsume Canada into the US hanging over everything. Amid the biggest shift in the relationship between the two countries in decades, the question is, what does he really want from Canada?

Cutler, Maine, is the closest US town to the Grey Zone. It has a collection of scattered houses, one supply store and, for good reason, a lobster wholesaler.

Aside from a few big-city retirees and holiday-goers, Cutler owes its existence to the bountiful crustaceans that inhabit the offshore waters. And for the lobstermen of Cutler, the international limbo of the Grey Zone is their everyday reality, as they scatter their traps along the bottom of the Gulf of Maine to catch the prized lobsters and bring them to market.

During lobster season, the Grey Zone is packed with boats and buoys marking the location of their traps. When the waters get crowded and livelihoods are at stake, things can get ugly.

“Do we like it? Not in the least,” says Mr Drouin. He has caught lobsters in the Grey Zone for 30 years. “I will continue to complain about it until I can’t breathe anymore.”

Another Maine lobsterman, Nick Lemieux, said he and his sons have had nearly 200 traps stolen in recent years – and he blames their rivals to the north.

“This is our area, and it’s all we have to work with,” he said. “Things like that don’t sit very well with us.”

Americans accuse the Canadians of operating under a different, more accommodating set of rules that allow them to catch larger lobsters.

Canadians counter that the Americans have higher catch limits and are surreptitiously fishing in their territorial waters.

The union representing Canada’s border officials recently complained that Americans have responded to their enforcement efforts with threats of violence – and some of its officers have refused to work in the Grey Zone.

Canada regularly dispatches maintenance workers to Machias Seal Island to check on an automated lighthouse – evidence, they say, of their control. The Americans point to US Marines who occupied the island during World War One as their proof of sovereignty.

The dispute appears to be going nowhere, but during Trump’s first presidency, events in the Grey Zone did not appear to be intruding greatly on the overall warmth between the US and Canada.

When Trump hosted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House in 2017, he spoke about the US-Canada relationship in glowing terms, remarking on the “special bonds” between the two nations that “share much more than a border”.

Yet his rhetoric has since changed sharply.

In recent months, Trump has repeatedly called Canada the “51st state” of the US – and the White House has expressed a willingness to open up new areas of dispute all along the US-Canada border.

In September, the president voiced designs on Canadian water in British Columbia in the west of the country, for instance, suggesting it could be piped to drought-parched California: “You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north… they have essentially a very large faucet”.

Approximately 1,500 miles further east, the Great Lakes could become another site of potential conflict, as US officials told their Canadian counterparts they are considering withdrawing from treaties over their coordinated environmental regulation.

And even further east, a library has become the unlikely setting for a flashpoint: built deliberately to straddle the Vermont-Quebec border as a symbol of cooperation between Canada and the US, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House used to be open to residents from both nations.

However in March, America changed the rules so that Canadians are required to pass through immigration control before they access the building, with the US Department of Homeland Security claiming it was in response to drug trafficking.

Natural resources are another source of dispute. Canada has vast supplies of rare earth metals, gold, oil, coal and lumber – the kind of natural wealth that Trump has long prized.

While Trump has disavowed any desire for Canada’s lumber, energy stockpiles or manufactured products, in February Trudeau reportedly told a closed-door meeting of Canadian business and labour leaders that he saw it differently.

“I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may even be why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state. They’re very aware of our resources, of what we have, and they very much want to be able to benefit from those,” the CBC quoted Trudeau as saying.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings, a Canadian journalist and host of The Big Story podcast, believes Trump wants Canadian resources, and that the president’s annexation comments should be taken seriously.

“He likes the idea of being the guy to bring in a huge land mass,” says Mr Heath-Rawlings. “He probably wants the Arctic, which is obviously going to become much more valuable in the years to come.”

For Trump, even the US-Canadian border itself is suspect. “If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it between Canada and the US,” he said in March. “Somebody did it a long time ago, and it makes no sense.”

Needless to say, Trump’s comments have rankled Canadian leaders, who warn of the president’s ultimate designs on their homeland.

In March, Trudeau accused the US president of planning “a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that will make it easier to annex us”.

The previous month, after Trump first announced new tariffs on Canada, Trudeau had said: “Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that [annexing Canada] is absorbing our country. And it is a real thing.”

If US territorial ambitions for Canada are, in fact, a “real thing”, it presents a simple, vexing question. Why? Why would the US, which has had the closest of diplomatic, military, economic and cultural ties with its northern neighbour for more than a century, put all of that at risk?

Some see a pattern in Trump’s designs on Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal – one that reflects a dramatic change in how the US sees itself in the world.

It has been most clearly articulated by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said in January that the post-World War Two dominance of the US was more the exception than the norm.

“Eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multi-polar world, multiple great powers in different parts of the planet,” he said. “We face that now with China and to some extent Russia, and … rogue states like Iran and North Korea.”

According to Michael Williams, professor of international affairs at the University of Ottawa, if the current Trump administration thinks that American world dominance is no longer possible or even desired, the US might pull back from far-flung conflicts and European commitments.

Instead, says Prof Williams, the US would prioritise its “territorial core”, creating a continental fortress of sorts, insulated on both sides by the vastness of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

“If this is your plan, you seek to control key geographic choke points,” he says. “You maximise access to natural resources, of which Canada has plenty, and you reshore industry whenever possible.”

Such a geopolitical outlook is hardly new. In the 1820s, US President James Monroe articulated a new global order in which America and Europe confined themselves to their own hemispheres.

But it does represent a remarkable shift in US foreign policy since the end of World War Two.

Prof Williams acknowledges that it’s difficult to figure out exactly what the US president is thinking – a view wholeheartedly endorsed by John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser for more than a year of his first presidential term.

“Trump has no philosophy,” he says. “He gets ideas, but does not follow a coherent pattern. There is no underlying strategy.”

The president is currently fixated on minerals and natural resources, he said, but Mr Bolton argues the best way to go about doing that is through the private sector, not by floating the idea of annexing an ally. Canada, for its part, has offered to work with US companies on joint mining partnerships.

Prof Williams and Mr Bolton agree that whatever the motivations behind Trump’s designs on Canada, the diplomatic damage that’s being done will be difficult to undo – and the possibility of unanticipated consequences is high.

“Trump likes to say in a lot of contexts that other people don’t have any cards,” says Prof Williams. “But the further you push people to the wall, the more you may find that they have cards that you didn’t know they had – and they might be willing to play them. And even if you have more cards, the consequences of doing so can easily spiral out of control in some really bad ways.”

Canadians have already been boycotting US products and cancelling winter trips south, which has had an impact on tourist communities in Florida.

“We’re not looking for a fight, but Canada’s ready for one,” says Mr Heath-Rawlings.

The idea that the trust between the US and Canada has been broken is one that’s been embraced by the country’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, as a general election looms.

“The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over,” he said recently. “I reject any attempts to weaken Canada, to wear us down, to break us so that America can own us.”

Back in the 19th Century, territorial conflicts and flare-ups along the US-Canada border were a more frequent occurrence. Americans made multiple unsuccessful attempts to capture Canadian territory during the 1812 War.

In 1844, some Americans called for military force if the UK wouldn’t agree to its claims in the Pacific Northwest.

The 1859 “pig dispute” involved contested islands near Vancouver and the unfortunate shooting of a British hog that had intruded on an American’s garden.

All that seemed the stuff of dusty history books, where the Grey Zone was a diplomatic oddity – an exception to a peaceful norm in the modern world of developed and integrated democracies.

But that calm is now broken, and no one is sure where these stormy waters will lead either country.

El Salvador will not return Kilmar Ábrego García, whom the US government deported to his home country where he is being held in a mega-prison.

President Nayib Bukele made the comments during a meeting on Monday at the White House with Donald Trump, with whom he shares a strong relationship.

The US Supreme Court ruled last week that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Mr Ábrego García, who was living in Maryland with his family and was granted protection from deportation by a court in 2019.

The Trump administration argues it cannot bring him home, and Attorney General Pam Bondi said it is “up to El Salvador if they want to return him”.

Trump praised Bukele for a new partnership under which the US can deport people it alleges are gang members to the Central American nation. Mr Ábrego García, whose lawyer said he is not a gang member, was among 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans the Trump administration deported to El Salvador’s Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (Cecot).

On Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said another 10 alleged gang members were sent there, despite legal challenges over those it already deported. The US considers them suspected members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs, which are designated as “foreign terrorist organisations” by Trump.

In response to an earlier ruling by the US Supreme Court that the administration should facilitate the release of Mr Ábrego García, lawyers wrote on Sunday that the issue was a matter of foreign policy – and outside the control of the courts.

Trump told reporters last week that if the Supreme Court said “bring somebody back, I would do that”.

The justice department cited Bukele’s comments that Mr Ábrego García would not be returned to the US as an update in their latest court filing.

Mr Ábrego García’s wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a US citizen, said the “Trump and Bukele administrations continue to play political games with his life”.

“My heart is heavy, but I hold on to hope and the strength of those around me. For our children, our family, and all immigrants fighting for loved ones – Kilmar, we will not stop fighting for you,” she said in a statement.

The US government has conceded Mr Ábrego García was deported because of an “administrative error”, though it also says he is a member of the MS-13 gang – something his lawyer denies.

Officials were ordered to provide daily updates on steps being taken to bring Mr Ábrego García back to the US.

Relations between Trump and Bukele have flourished since the US president’s return to the White House in January, after Bukele agreed to take US deportees, which has helped Trump in his pledge to enact mass deportations.

Writing on X, Rubio said the alliance was an “example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere”.

Ahead of Bukele’s trip to Washington, Trump praised his counterpart, who has positioned himself as a tough-on-crime strongman.

Trump said Bukele was doing a “fantastic job” at imprisoning some “very bad people… that should never have been allowed into our country”.

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Trump’s team has so far sent to El Salvador more than 200 migrants, who were accused of being gang members. Many of them were removed from the country using a law that dates back to 1798.

BBC Mundo was allowed to go inside Cecot, El Salvador’s maximum security prison, in 2024.

It is the symbol of the aggressive and controversial “war on gangs” waged by President Bukele since 2022.

Spanning 116 hectares, the jail was built in less than a year and has the capacity to hold 40,000 inmates, according to the government. It has been widely criticised for alleged human rights abuses and lack of legal protections for prisoners.

The cells have no windows or ventilation, and prisoners sleep on metal bunks without mattresses or sheets. Each cell can hold more than 150 prisoners and there are only two toilets with no privacy whatsoever.

They have limited access to water, and are only allowed to go out to exercise for 30 minutes a day.

Family members of some previous deportees to the prison have denied they have gang ties.

One woman in Venezuela, Myrelis Casique López, recently told BBC Mundo she became certain her son was among the detainees when she saw a photo of him being taken to Cecot.

She suggested he was targeted by American authorities due to his tattoos.

Announcing the removal of 10 more “criminals” in a social media post on Sunday, Rubio did not say whether the latest group was sent to Cecot specifically.

The administration previously published images of deportees arriving at the facility – and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem paid a visit last month.

Asked whether he had concerns over allegations of human rights abuses at Cecot, Trump told reporters: “I don’t see it.”

Bukele stands to gain both money and political capital from accepting US deportees to Cecot.

According to US government documents obtained by the Associated Press, El Salvador is receiving $20,000 (£15,100) per deportee per year.

That adds up to about $6m for the most recent group. Bukele says these payments, along with prison labour programmes, will help make the prison system financially self-sufficient.

By aligning closely with Trump, Bukele gains favour in Washington and reduces scrutiny of his internal policies.

His government has arrested more than 80,000 people under a state of emergency that has lasted three years, with frequent reports of detentions without due process.

Critics say the US is now less likely to challenge democratic setbacks or rights abuses in El Salvador.

More than a thousand people have been left with respiratory problems after a sandstorm swept across Iraq’s central and southern parts of the country, health officials said.

One official in Muthanna province reported to the AFP news agency at least 700 cases of what they said was suffocation.

Footage shared online showed areas cloaked in a thick orange haze, with local media reporting power cuts and the suspension of flights in a number of regions.

Dust storms are common in Iraq, but some experts believe they are becoming more frequent due to climate change.

Pedestrians and police wore face masks to protect themselves from the dust and paramedics were on site to assist people with difficulty breathing, according to AFP.

Hospitals in Muthanna province in southern Iraq received at least “700 cases of suffocation”, a local health official said.

More than 250 people were taken to hospital in Najaf province, and at least 322 patients including children were sent to hospitals in Diwaniyah province.

A further 530 people reported breathing issues in Dhi Qar and Basra provinces.

The sandstorm blanketed Iraq’s southern provinces in an orange cloud that reduced visibility to less than one kilometre (0.62 mile).

The authorities were forced to shut down airports in the provinces of Najaf and Basra.

Conditions are expected to gradually improve by Tuesday morning, according to local weather services.

Iraq is listed by the UN as one of the five countries most vulnerable to climate change as it encounters regular sandstorms, sweltering heat and water scarcity.

A severe sandstorm in 2022 left one person dead and more than 5,000 needing treatment for respiratory illnesses.

Iraq will be experiencing more “dust days” in the future, according to its environment ministry.

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has taken the witness stand in a landmark antitrust trial to defend his company against allegations that his company operates a social media monopoly.

His testimony is part of a case first brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2020 during the final days of the first Trump administration.

The US competition watchdog alleges Meta unfairly dominated the market through its acquisitions of photo-sharing app Instagram in 2012 and the messaging service WhatsApp in 2014.

The FTC is seeking to break up Meta by forcing a spinoff of Instagram or WhatsApp. Meta says there’s plenty of competition in social media, including from apps such as TikTok, X, and YouTube.

Wearing a dark suit and light blue tie, Mr Zuckerberg was the first witness in the case on Monday at a federal court in Washington DC. The trial is expected to last for two months.

The FTC pointed to a 2011 email Mr Zuckerberg sent saying: “Instagram seems like it’s growing quickly.”

The following year, he sent another email saying the company was “so far behind that we don’t even understand how far behind we are… I worry that it will take us too long to catch up”.

On the stand, Mr Zuckerberg defended his statements, calling the emails “relatively early” conversations about buying the app. He added that Meta had improved Instagram over the years.

Mr Zuckerberg also said he wanted to buy Instagram because of its camera technology, not because of its social network. He is expected to continue his testimony on Tuesday.

The FTC says the company overpaid when it acquired Instagram for $1bn and WhatsApp for $19bn as a defensive move.

“They decided that competition was too hard and it would be easier to buy out their rivals than to compete with them,” said FTC lawyer Daniel Matheson in his opening statement at Monday’s trial.

Meta countered that the lawsuit from the FTC, which originally reviewed and approved both those acquisitions, was “misguided”.

Meta “acquired Instagram and WhatsApp to improve and grow them alongside Facebook”, the company’s attorney Mark Hansen argued.

The FTC lawyer cited a 2012 memo from Mr Zuckerberg in which he discusses the importance of “neutralising” Instagram.

Mr Matheson called that message “a smoking gun”.

Meta, on the other hand, said the purchases made the consumer experience better.

“Acquisitions to improve and grow” have never been found unlawful, Meta’s lead litigator, said on Monday, “and they should not be found unlawful here”.

Meta said last year that it had 3.27 billion daily active users across its products.

Instagram was expected to account for more than half of Meta’s advertising revenue in the US in 2025. according to research firm Emarketer.

Meta has been making regular overtures to Trump since his election.

The company contributed $1m to Trump’s inaugural fund, and has added former Trump adviser Dina Powell McCormick and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) boss Dana White, a Trump ally, to Meta’s board of directors this year.

The company also announced in January that it was rolling back content moderation policies that Republicans said had amounted to censorship.

It also agreed to pay Trump $25m to settle a lawsuit over the suspension of his accounts after the US Capitol riot in 2021.

Mr Zuckerberg has also visited the White House in recent weeks.

The Meta boss has lobbied Trump in person to have the FTC drop the case, according to the Wall Street Journal.

When asked by the BBC to confirm that report, Meta sidestepped the question but said in a statement: “The FTC’s lawsuits against Meta defies reality.”

FTC v Meta begins as another major antitrust case – USA v Google – grinds on.

The Department of Justice won the first phase of that case last summer when Judge Amit Mehta found that Google holds a monopoly in online search, with a market share of around 90%.

Last month, government attorneys reiterated a demand made during the Biden administration that a court break up Google’s search monopoly.

The FTC’s case against Meta will be tougher to prove, says Laura Phillips-Sawyer, an associate professor of business law at the University of Georgia.

“I think they have a real uphill battle,” Ms Phillips-Sawyer said of the FTC.

“They have a long road before any consideration of divestiture of Instagram or WhatsApp is considered.”

That’s because compared to online search, there’s more competition in the personal network services space that Meta operates in, Ms Phillips-Sawyer said.

Amazon and Apple also face antitrust lawsuits by US enforcers.

Pop star Katy Perry and five other women safely returned to Earth after reaching space aboard Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket.

The singer was joined by Bezos’s fiancée Lauren Sánchez and CBS presenter Gayle King, who said a highlight of the flight was hearing Perry sing Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”.

After landing back on Earth, Perry said she felt “super connected to life” and “so connected to love”.

The flight lasted around 11 minutes and took the six women more than 100km (62 miles) above Earth, crossing the internationally recognised boundary of space and giving them a few moments of weightlessness.

Also on board were former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

The New Shepard rocket lifted off from its West Texas launch site just after 08:30 local time (14:30 BST).

The capsule returned to Earth with a parachute-assisted soft landing, while the rocket booster also landed back in Texas.

Cheering could be heard from inside the capsule as the recovery crew went to collect them.

Jeff Bezos opened the capsule door to welcome back Lauren Sánchez, the first to disembark.

“I’m so proud of this crew,” she said tearfully. “I can’t put it into words.”

She paused, before adding: “I looked out of the window and we got to see the moon.”

“Earth looked so quiet,” she said, adding that it was not what she expected. “It was quiet, but really alive.”

Next out was Katy Perry, who kissed the ground and lifted a daisy to the sky – her daughter is called Daisy.

Gayle King also got on her knees and kissed the ground.

“I just want to have a moment with the ground, just appreciate the ground for just a second,” she said.

The last to get out, Kerianne Flynn, pointed at the sky and shouted: “I went to space.”

A celebrity cast had watched the launch from the ground.

Speaking from the viewing platform, Khloé Kardashian said: “I didn’t realise how emotional it would be, it’s hard to explain. I have all this adrenaline and I’m just standing here.”

“Whatever you dream of is in our reach, especially in today’s day and age. Dream big, wish for the stars—and one day, you could maybe be amongst them,”​ she added.

Oprah Winfrey spoke about her friend Gayle King, and revealed she was a nervous flier.

“I mean, for her—whew—anytime we’re on a flight, she’s in somebody’s lap at the slightest bit of turbulence. She has real, real-world anxiety when it comes to flying. And this… this is her overcoming a wall of fear,” she said.

The spacecraft was fully autonomous, requiring no pilots, and the crew did not manually operate the vehicle.

The last all-female spaceflight was over 60 years ago when Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel into space on a solo mission aboard the spacecraft Vostok 6.

Since then, there have been no other all-female spaceflights but women have made numerous significant contributions.

The space tourism industry is still in its infancy, so every successful launch is significant and demonstrates that these short, commercial flights can be carried out safely.

But some critics stress it is tourism, not space science, and professional astronauts undertake missions, including scientific research, for the benefit of humankind.

“A celebrity isn’t an envoy of humankind – they go into space for their own reasons,” Dr Kai-Uwe Schrogl, special advisor for political affairs at the European Space Agency, told BBC News.

“These flights are significant and exciting, but I think maybe they can also be a source of frustration for space scientists,” he added. “We see space flight as being for science, knowledge and the interests of humanity.

“Celebrities do it for amusement but get a lot more attention than the regular astronauts.”

The space flight also generated a range of response on social media, from enthusiasm to hostility.

Dr Tanya Harrison, from the Outer Space Institute experts network said: “A lot of the comments that I saw on social media were things about, ‘Oh, it’s like the Real Housewives go to Mars’ or ‘It’s the oligarchy in space, read the room, the timing is terrible.'”

But: “There were a lot of positive takes as well. People were like, ‘Oh, this is so cool. Katy Perry is going to space.'”

Dr Harrison, who had previously worked on Nasa missions to Mars said: “The cynical part of me wants to call it a marketing stunt. This is a company promoting the fact they can launch tourists into space.”

However she noted the all-women team might “change the demographics a little bit of who might want to do something like this.”

“Socially, they might have had some impact”, she said.

In a news conference after the flight, two of the women took issue with some of the criticism the mission had received, related for example to its cost.

“I feel that anybody who is criticising doesn’t really understand what’s happening here,” said Gayle King.

She said that the astronauts had had a huge, positive response from young women and young girls.

Lauren Sánchez said she had got “fired up” about the criticism and would love to have the naysayers come to Blue Origin and see the thousands of employees who “put their heart and soul into” the missions.

Blue Origin is a private space company founded in 2000 by Bezos, the billionaire entrepreneur who also started Amazon.

Although Blue Origin has not released full ticket prices, a $150,000 (£114,575.85) deposit is required to reserve a seat—underlining the exclusivity of these early flights.

Alongside its suborbital tourism business, the company is also developing long-term space infrastructure, including reusable rockets and lunar landing systems.

The New Shepard rocket is designed to be fully reusable and its booster returns to the launch pad for vertical landings after each flight, reducing overall costs.

According to US law, astronauts must complete comprehensive training for their specific roles.

Blue Origin says its New Shepard passengers are trained over two days with a focus on physical fitness, emergency protocols, details about the safety measures and procedures for zero gravity.

Additionally, there are two support members referred to as Crew Member Seven: one provides continuous guidance to astronauts, while the other maintains communication from the control room during the mission.

The rise of space tourism has prompted criticism that it is too exclusive and environmentally damaging.

Supporters argue that private companies are accelerating innovation and making space more accessible.

Professor Brian Cox told the BBC in 2024: “Our civilisation needs to expand beyond our planet for so many reasons,” and believes that collaboration between NASA and commercial firms is a positive step.

Rocket engine exhaust contains gases and particles that can affect Earth’s climate and ozone layer.

On its web page under the title “Protecting our Planet” Blue Origin claims: “During flight, the only byproduct of New Shepard’s engine combustion is water vapor with no carbon emissions.”

However, Eloise Marais, a professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Air Quality at University College London points out that water vapour too is a greenhouse gas and is a chemical that is not supposed to be in the upper layers of the atmosphere.

“It alters the chemistry of the stratosphere, depleting the ozone layer, and also forms clouds that affect climate,” she says.

Experts say that as more rockets are launched, the risks of harming the ozone layer increases.

The high cost of space tourism makes it inaccessible to most people, with these expensive missions out of reach for the majority.

Critics, including actress Olivia Munn, questioned the optics of this particular venture, remarking “there’s a lot of people who can’t even afford eggs,” during an appearance on Today with Jenna & Friends.

A Liberal Democrat MP barred from entering Hong Kong has told the BBC she believes it was to “shut me up and to silence me”.

Wera Hobhouse flew to Hong Kong with her husband on Thursday to visit her son and newborn grandson. However she was detained at the airport, questioned and deported.

The MP for Bath, one of more than 40 parliamentarians of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac) which is critical of Beijing’s record on human rights, said she had been given no reason for being refused entry.

A Hong Kong government spokesperson said it was “the duty of [an] immigration officer to ask questions to ascertain that there is no doubt about the purpose of any visit”, AFP reported.

According to the news agency, the spokesperson did not comment on the details of Hobhouse’s case, but added: “It will be unhelpful to the person’s case if the person refuses to answer questions put to him or her for that purpose.”

A Lib Dem spokeswoman said: “Wera answered fully all the questions she was asked, and was compliant with officials through the whole ordeal.

“It’s concerning that the Chinese authorities are trying to cast doubt on her faithful account.”

Downing Street said Trade Minister Douglas Alexander, who is in Hong Kong to promote British exports, had relayed the government’s “deep concern” about the incident with senior Chinese and Hong Kong interlocutors, including Hong Kong’s chief secretary for administration.

A government spokesperson said Alexander had “demanded an explanation” to understand why Hobhouse was refused entry.

“Unjustified restrictions on the freedom of movement for UK citizens into Hong Kong only serves to further undermine Hong Kong’s international reputation and the important people-people connections between the UK and Hong Kong,” they said.

Speaking on the BBC’s Newscast show on Sunday, Hobhouse said she wants “some answers”, and said she was not very “outspoken about China”.

She told Newscast she and her husband had been looking forward to visiting their son, who has lived in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, since 2019.

While her husband “got processed quite quickly” and was allowed entry, she was taken aside for questioning, held for five hours and then put on a return flight.

Asked by presenter Laura Kuenssberg what the authorities had said about why she was being detained, Hobhouse responded: “Nothing.”

She added: “They said not to worry at first, just a few questions to answer.”

In response to the suggestion it could be due to her involvement in Ipac, which scrutinises Beijing’s human rights record, Hobhouse said she was not very “outspoken about China”.

“I was only standing up for our values,” she said.

“It would be terrible if China uses this now to intimidate me, to stop me from speaking out for human rights and liberty and democracy.

“That is the last thing that should happen, but that is, of course probably the intention, to shut me up and to silence me.”

Hobhouse said she had had a huge amount of solidarity from “very worried” MPs.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy has promised to “urgently” raise the issue with authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing and “demand an explanation”.

He added it would be “unacceptable for an MP to be denied entry for simply expressing their views as a parliamentarian”.

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey has called for Lammy to summon the Chinese ambassador, adding the Chinese government cannot be allowed to “undermine our democracy by intimidating our parliamentarians.”

“I want some answers,” Hobhouse said, calling for Lammy to “reassure parliamentarians that this is not the way the Chinese communist party can treat [them]”.

It comes a week after two Labour MPs were denied entry to Israel while on a trip to visit the occupied West Bank.

“It is very chilling that authoritarian countries can treat us in this way,” said Hobhouse, adding the “diplomatic understanding” in which we allow politicians into each other’s countries seemed to be “collapsing”.

She has ruled out approaching the Chinese embassy for permission to enter Hong Kong, saying they will see their relatives elsewhere.

Asked about the timing of the incident in the week the UK government sought to take control of the Chinese-owned British Steel plant in Scunthorpe, Lincs, Hobhouse said she could only speculate.

She called for a “clear-eyed” approach to what China wants from Britain, saying “it’s not just fluffy, friendly relationships”.

“They want something from us. They use us and we must not be naïve about giving them access to too much, for example our critical national infrastructure.”

The Chinese Embassy has been approached for comment.

Asked about the case during a regular press briefing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said: “The Hong Kong SAR [special administrative region] government has stated its position on that.

“Let me stress that border entry is a matter within a country’s sovereignty.

“The Hong Kong SAR government has the authority to handle individual cases of entry in accordance with relevant laws and policies.”

More than 400 people have been killed in recent attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan’s Darfur region, says the UN citing “credible sources”.

Last week, the RSF launched an intense ground and aerial assault on refugee camps surrounding the city of El-Fasher in an attempt to seize the last state capital in Darfur held by their rival, the Sudanese army.

The two warring sides have been locked in a bloody power struggle since April 2023. This has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and forced millions to flee their homes.

The UN said it had verified 148 killings between Thursday and Saturday, but warned the toll was much higher.

UN spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told the BBC their verification process was still ongoing and their number didn’t include Sunday’s violence.

“Credible sources have reported more than 400 killed,” said Ms Shamdasani.

At least nine humanitarian aid workers were among those killed, the UN said.

The refugee camps that surround El-Fasher – Zamzam and Abu Shouk – provide temporary homes to more than 700,000 people, many of whom are facing famine-like conditions.

In a statement released on Saturday, the RSF said it was not responsible for attacks on civilians and that scenes of killing in Zamzam were staged to discredit its forces.

The following day, the group said it had completed a “successful liberation” of the camp from Sudan’s army. The RSF accused the army of using Zamzam as “a military barracks, and innocent civilians as human shields”.

El-Fasher is the last major town in Darfur under army control and has been under siege by the RSF for a year. Sudan’s brutal civil war will enter its third year on Tuesday.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk called on all parties involved to “renew their resolve to take meaningful steps towards resolving the conflict”.

Ahead of a conference on Tuesday in London to mark the conflict’s two-year anniversary, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced a £120m food and aid package for Sudan.

He said Sudan’s stability is “vital for our national security”.

The UK will co-host the talks alongside the African Union and European Union.

Hungary’s parliament has backed a range of constitutional amendments which will limit the rights of LGBTQ+ people and dual nationals.

The amendments, which the government says are aimed at protecting children’s physical and moral development, will enable it to ban public LGBTQ+ gatherings.

Hundreds gathered outside parliament to protest against the move, which rights campaigners have labelled a “key moment in Hungary’s shift toward illiberal governance”.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose Fidesz party voted through the bill, vowed in March that an “Easter cleanup” of his critics was coming.

The vote passed with 140 members voting for and 21 against.

The amendments will also enable the government to temporarily suspend the citizenship of any Hungarian dual nationals who are deemed a threat to the country’s security or sovereignty.

Fidesz has suggested that the move is aimed at those who finance “bogus NGOs, bought politicians and the so-called independent media” from abroad – leading some to speculate it is, in part, intended to target Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros, who Orban has frequently criticised.

The amendments follow a law passed last month that banned LGBTQ+ pride marches on alleged grounds they are harmful to children.

Orban praised the legislation at the time, saying: “We won’t let woke ideology endanger our kids.”

Speaking to the BBC, opposition Momentum MP David Bedo said: “It’s not just about pride, it’s about any assembly that is organised by the opposition.”

“This is only the first step they’re taking in this one year campaign, and we are going to see many more laws enacted and passed in parliament that is very much against any democracy or any rule of law,” he added.

Government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs wrote on X that those in government viewed the changes as a “constitutional safeguard against ideological influences that they argue threaten the well-being of children, particularly in the context of events like Pride parades”.

The changes are seen by some within Hungary as an attempt to reshape the country’s identity along Christian-conservative lines.

Viktor Orban’s party has been in office since 2010. But polls suggest that the new centre-right party Tisza is in the lead nationally ahead of next year’s parliamentary election.

Tisza, which wants a more constructive relationship with the EU, shot up in popularity after Peter Magyar, a one-time Fidesz politician, broke with the ruling party in February 2024 over what he said was its poor running of Hungary.

The government hopes to force Peter Magyar to come out in favour of Pride – and thereby alienate his more conservative supporters. He has refused so far to take the bait.

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From the end of April, the 500-year-old Royal Mail will be controlled by a Czech billionaire who co-owns a football club and is a major investor in a British supermarket – so, why would he want this ailing institution?

“A pair of scissors, one empty teapot and some hot water, please.” The slightly baffled staff at Claridge’s scrambled to comply with Daniel Kretinsky’s breakfast order as he sanitised and moisturised his hands.

The upscale hotel has been serving tea to the global elite for decades but Mr Kretinsky brought along his own packet of Chinese green tea, which he snipped open (hence the scissors) and poured into the empty pot.

He was tall, perfectly groomed, steely-eyed but unfalteringly polite and thoughtful. If you told anyone in the dining room he was a billionaire, they would have no problem believing it.

Known as the Czech Sphinx for his enigmatic style, Mr Kretinsky, who is 49, is worth £6bn according to the Sunday Times Rich List. He lives in plush mansions in Paris and London, was originally a lawyer and made his fortune in European energy markets.

Our meeting was at Claridge’s in June 2024 – I was trying to convince him to give me an interview about his audacious attempt to buy a British institution that was once seen as a national treasure: Royal Mail.

His profile as a buyer was one that unions and ministers typically would be wary of because of his historic connections with Russia – his companies own a gas pipeline that has transported Russian gas to Europe.

But six months on, his bid to buy Royal Mail’s parent company was cleared by the UK government after he agreed “legally binding” undertakings.

The government was awarded a so-called “golden share”, requiring it to be notified of any major changes to Royal Mail’s ownership, headquarters location and tax residency. The deal was also blessed by unions.

Earlier this month, the owner of Royal Mail said that the takeover could be completed by the end of April as the deal cleared the final regulatory hurdles standing in the way.

But step back and Royal Mail seems a strange target for a globally mobile oil and gas billionaire investor to set his sights on. It begs the question why would anyone, let alone a successful international entrepreneur, want to buy this faded relic?

Royal Mail was founded by Henry VIII more than 500 years ago and still carries the royal cipher on its vans. It is part of the fabric of British life and many people still have a fond relationship with their ‘postie’, who walks down their path bringing their letters and parcels to their door.

But in recent years Royal Mail’s crown has slipped. It is losing money and market share, has been fined for missing delivery targets and has made an enemy of its own workforce through a series of bitter strikes.

Royal Mail’s letter business is in steep decline too. It has gone from a peak of 20 billion letters sent in 2004 to under seven billion sent last year.

In December 2024, it was fined £10.5m by the regulator Ofcom for failing to meet delivery targets for first and second class mail.

While the boom in e-commerce has seen the volume of parcels rise, Royal Mail’s share of that more profitable business has been falling as new competitors like DPD, DHL, Amazon and Evri have eaten into its market share.

Royal Mail was split off from the Post Office in 2012 and privatised in 2013 at a value of £3.3bn. Its shares immediately rocketed by 38% on the first day of trading, leading to criticism – from the National Audit Office, among others – that it had been sold on the cheap.

At its peak in Covid-era May 2021, the company was worth more than £6bn but had slumped to just over £2bn when Mr Kretinsky launched his takeover bid last April.

He sealed the deal at £3.6bn – 63% higher than before he signalled his intent, but barely more than it was worth at privatisation over a decade ago.

“Royal Mail is a business that has historically found it difficult to grow revenues by more than costs,” says Alex Paterson, an analyst at Peel Hunt stockbrokers. “It has seen its parcels market share eroded by more dynamic competition that has been able to invest more in technology, and it has struggled with industrial relations to keep staff working towards a common goal.

“This is not a challenge to underestimate nor one that can be overcome quickly, but that requires considerable long-term investment in infrastructure, technology and staff.”

Part of the challenge, and one that puts Royal Mail at a disadvantage compared with its rivals, is that unlike them, Royal Mail has to meet a string of legal and regulatory obligations, says Hazel King, the editor of Parcel and Post Technology International.

Under what is called the universal service obligation (USO), Royal Mail is required by law to deliver letters six days a week and parcels five days a week to every address in the UK. So it cannot pick and choose which business it wants to do.

“Royal Mail must meet their universal service obligation while trying to compete with private firms who often cherry-pick the most profitable business,” says Ms King.

Mr Kretinsky says he has a plan. His success in the energy sector allowed him to buy a 27.5% stake in Royal Mail’s parent company, International Distribution Services (IDS). And his company – EP Group – intends to build a pan-European conglomerate built on three pillars: energy, retail and logistics.

He sees IDS as the cornerstone of the logistics pillar, with a plan to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Deutsche Post DHL, DPD and Amazon.

The USO has been under review by Ofcom, with Royal Mail hoping that the regulator will reduce the requirement to deliver second-class letters from six days a week to every other weekday. That single move could save Royal Mail £300m a year – putting it back on a break-even footing.

Mr Kretinsky told me during our interview that he would honour the USO “as long as I am alive”, but he is unsurprisingly very much in favour of changing its terms. He said he hopes that “rational minds prevail” when reforming a service that is unsustainable in its current form.

So far, the noises from Ofcom seem to be supportive. The regulator’s chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes told the BBC there were “real questions about what the service needs to be going into the future”.

Given letter numbers are falling, “we have to think about what is economical”, she said, adding Ofcom would be publishing plans for the regulation of Royal Mail “to make sure it is sustainable”.

While Royal Mail generally welcomed the proposed changes to the Universal Service Obligation, Royal Mail pushed back against proposed new delivery time and business customer requirements.

Royal Mail said last week that the level at which Ofcom is proposing to set the new delivery targets – 99.5% of First Class letters delivered within three days, and the same percentage of Second Class letters within five – is “over specified and will add significant cost to the delivery of the Universal Service”.

It also expressed concerns that proposals to add a new category of regulation to ensure timely delivery for business users like direct mail companies “goes against the wider government drive to reduce unnecessary regulation”.

But there are other factors that may have driven the sale. Some analysts have speculated that there is another jewel in the crown of IDS – and that Mr Kretinsky may really be after a different part of the business.

Along with Royal Mail, IDS also owns a European parcels business called GLS which it acquired in 1999 – long before Royal Mail was split off from the Post Office and privatised.

Last year GLS made a profit of £320m, compared to Royal Mail, which lost £348m as letter volumes continued to plunge and new competitors ate into its market share of the more profitable parcels business.

“GLS has been a profitable growth business, which has seen investment whereas Royal Mail has been a perpetual underperformer, as the board of parent company IDS has invested where it thinks it will see the best returns,” says Mr Paterson.

Mr Kretinsky rejects suggestions from some quarters that he wants to break up the group and has committed to keeping it together for at least five years. Even beyond that, he says the plan is to grow the company rather than shrink it, so a disposal of GLS would be “nonsensical”.

In fact, Mr Kretinsky says he hopes to bring the European parcel know-how at GLS to bear on Royal Mail’s operations.

What the unions are hoping, and Kretinsky is promising, is that Royal Mail will see greater investment and over time begin to look a bit more like GLS and its European counterparts such as Deutche Post DHL.

Given all the challenges Royal Mail faces, there’s an obvious question – why would a billionaire want to chance his arm on turning round something that others couldn’t, while up against powerful competitors?

Well, if you believe as Kretinsky does – and he is surely right – that getting parcels to people is a profitable and growing industry, then buying Royal Mail and GLS gives you a way to become a big European player in logistics quickly.

Add to that a powerful and historic brand, a database with every single UK address and a frontline workforce that most of its customers are fond of and pleased to see when they walk down the path – then, despite the challenges, it begins to make sense.

Mr Kretinsky is convinced future growth lies in out-of-home (OOH) delivery. The parcel lockers found in supermarket car parks and elsewhere, operated by the likes of Amazon, Evri and UPS, have grown quickly across Europe.

Earlier this month it was reported that Sainsbury’s would be the first supermarket to partner with Royal Mail and install parcel lockers at supermarkets. Some are already operating at several stores including ones in Clapham, Kidderminster and Chislehurst.

Royal Mail has also trialled a new postbox that can take small parcels. Customers procure a barcode from an app, then at the postbox they scan the barcode and drop the parcel into a drawer – this is all powered by solar panels on the box.

Emma Gilthorpe, Royal Mail chief executive, called it an “historic change” to give postboxes “a new lease of life”.

All of this boils down to the same thing: convenience. It means customers don’t have to wait at home for a delivery – the sender or parcel business emails or texts a code to unlock the locker. For the business it’s more efficient, allowing couriers to deliver lots of parcels to one place – meaning fewer miles on the road and less time.

“If they can grow the parcels business and claw back market share, there is every chance that they can add new jobs that could offset the reduction in jobs in the declining letters business,” says Mr Paterson.

“There is a significant long-term opportunity to run Royal Mail more successfully with regulatory changes to the USO and greater investment in technology and out-of-home deliveries.”

But Royal Mail still has a lot of catching up to do with its competitors. It currently has 1,500 lockers in the UK and aims to grow this figure to at least 20,000 over time. By contrast, Amazon already has 5,000 lockers across the UK and InPost has 7,500 across the UK.

That Mr Kretinsky has pulled off the takeover is no easy feat. Royal Mail is, after all, considered vital national infrastructure and as such the deal required review under national security laws.

Then there is the fact that his companies own a gas pipeline that has transported Russian gas to Europe – paid for and approved by EU member states. The small amount that was transported was reduced to zero at the end of 2024 when Ukraine refused to renew permission for any gas to flow across its borders.

Speaking in front of MPs in November, UK Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds referred to Mr Kretinsky as a “legitimate business figure” whose alleged links to Russia had already been reviewed and dismissed when he became the biggest shareholder in the company two years ago.

Getting the unions on board seemed even more of a challenge and the Communication Workers Union was wary of Mr Kretinsky. “The CWU believes Royal Mail should be in public hands,” Dave Ward, the CWU’s general secretary, told the BBC in June. “We know there are legitimate concerns about Royal Mail Group being owned by a foreign private equity investor.”

But during negotiations, union representatives secured a series of time-limited commitments from him, including guarantees that he will protect Royal Mail’s pension surplus, that there will be no compulsory redundancies for two years, no sell-off or break-up of any operational part of the existing company and no outsourcing of grades represented by the CWU.

Mr Kretinsky also agreed to restrictions on moving dividends out of Royal Mail Group and to respect agreements with and recognition of the CWU. He said he would keep the brand name and Royal Mail’s headquarters and tax residency in the UK for the next five years.

Union bosses told me that a life under Mr Kretinsky “couldn’t be any worse than what we have had for the last 10 years”.

So, as Mr Kretinsky looks certain to pull off the sale, what will customers notice?

The frequency of second-class deliveries may be reduced after the Ofcom review. We will see new Royal Mail lockers appearing in our neighbourhoods. And the price of first-class mail may go up: second-class stamps are regulated by Ofcom, while first-class ones are not.

The monarch’s head will still be on those stamps, but there is a new king of our mail system. And his name is Daniel Kretinsky.

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Fifty-seven years into his career, Neil Young has harvested millions of fans – but none of those followers is more devoted than his pet dogs.

“They love the music,” says the musician’s wife, actress Daryl Hannah.

“They go to every sound check and lay under the piano on the stage. Whenever Neil is playing, the dogs just migrate right to him and lay at his feet.”

It’s not just the dogs. During the 2020 lockdown, Young performed a livestream concert from the barn at his Colorado farm, surrounded by alpacas, ducks, chickens and even a horse.

“And every single one of the animals came over and laid down and watched him,” Hannah says. “It was so cool. I think they’re really drawn to the music.”

Hannah, known for appearing in films such as Blade Runner, Splash and Kill Bill, directed that livestream – and she’s stayed behind the camera to make a documentary about Young’s 2023 solo tour.

Filmed largely on her phone (“and it’s not even the most recent model”), it captures the star’s return to the stage, aged 75, after a four-year break, with his dogs in tow.

“He was very nervous about it,” she recalls.

“There’s always a point where he’s like, ‘I don’t know if I can do this… We’ll see’.”

“It’s funny, because he didn’t do any rehearsals before the tour. He likes things to be real and spontaneous. But as soon as he walked out on stage, he was fine.”

Playing without a band, the shows were loose and unpredictable. The setlist changed every night, and even recurring songs like Heart of Gold and Like A Hurricane would be played in different settings, on different instruments, without warning.

It’s a set-up that caused his director a few headaches.

“It was really hit or miss because every day he would go out to do sound check, and he would choose one of his three pianos and play something like Expecting To Fly,” says Hannah.

“So we’d set a camera on that piano but, when it came to show time, he wouldn’t go near it. There were quite a few shows where we literally got no footage.

“I was frustrated in the editing room, trust me.”

Despite those challenges, Hannah captured spellbinding, stripped back versions of rarely-played tracks like Vampire Blues, If You Got Love and Prime Of Life.

More revealing, however, was the footage she shot off the stage.

Large stretches of the film take place on a silver eagle tour bus, where Young rides shotgun beside his longtime driver, Jerry Don Burden.

Together, they shoot the breeze like Vladimir and Estragon – but rather than waiting for Godot, they’re waiting for the next arena car park.

The conversations are wonderfully mundane. There is ample discussion of scenery, snacks and setlists (“people think they want to hear the hits, because that’s all they’ve ever heard”, Young observes.)

It’s punctuated by stretches of companionable silence, where Young drums on his knees, or interacts with his son Ben, who was born with severe cerebral palsy.

Later, the musician emerges from the bathroom, stares into the camera and deadpans: “Now there’s no risk of having to pee in the middle of the show”.

Capturing that day-to-day normality was Hannah’s motivation from the start.

“So many performers put on a persona, and Neil just does not have that quality at all. Whatever he’s talking about with his bus driver, he continues talking about with the audience.

“People think of him as this intimidating, inscrutable person who’ll make an album the record company refuses to put out,” she continues, referring to the time Geffen Records sued Young for submitting two albums it considered “musically uncharacteristic”.

Hannah says people who judge him on that basis have got it wrong.

“He just has an absolute, uncanny commitment to his creative muse,” she argues.

“He’s not driven by financial interests, he’s not driven by self-aggrandisement, he’s not driven by anything other than that creative force, and it’s pretty incredible to witness.

“Having spent so much time with him, my perception is that he’s completely guileless. He has a lot of warmth and innocence, so I wanted to show that.”

Young recently made headlines for pulling out of the Glastonbury Festival, saying the BBC had asked him “to do a lot of things” he was “not interested in”.

He later backtracked, saying he’d received bad information, and will top the bill on the Pyramid Stage this June (Hannah jokes he’ll serenade Glastonbury’s livestock, in the style of his lockdown sessions).

But his European tour isn’t without peril. Writing on his website, Young has shared concerns that he could be barred from the US upon his return, following a rise in the number of people being detained and deported upon entering the country.

“If I talk about Donald J Trump, I may be one of those returning to America who is barred or put in jail to sleep on a cement floor with an aluminium blanket,” he wrote.

Young, who holds dual Canadian-American citizenship, has long been an outspoken critic of President Trump, calling him “a disgrace to my country” and suing him for using the song Rockin’ In the Free World on the campaign trail.

Hannah reveals her husband was harassed during the first Trump administration, as he went through the process of becoming a US citizen.

“They tried to every trick in the book to mess him up, and made him keep coming back to be re-interviewed and re-interviewed. It’s ridiculous [because] he’s been living in America and paying taxes here since he was in his 20s.”

Despite that, she doesn’t think Young will be prevented from entering the country.

“They’ve been detaining people who have green cards or visas – which is hideous and horrifying – but they have not, so far, been refusing to let American citizens back in the country, so I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Hannah will accompany Young to Glastonbury, and says she’ll film his performance from the side of the stage (perhaps the BBC can use that footage, if all else fails).

The trip happens to fall on the 25th anniversary of her West End debut, in The Seven Year Itch. So, has she any desire to tread the boards again?

“Oh God, no,” she exclaims. “I really loving directing, because I don’t have to be the focus of things, and that’s a much more comfortable position for me.

“I mean, never say never, but that’s how I feel right now.”

In response to why Beijing is not backing down to Donald Trump on tariffs, the answer is that it doesn’t have to.

China’s leaders would say that they are not inclined to cave in to a bully – something its government has repeatedly labelled the Trump administration as – but it also has a capacity to do this way beyond any other country on Earth.

Before the tariff war kicked in, China did have a massive volume of sales to the US but, to put it into context, this only amounted to 2% of its GDP.

That said, the Communist Party would clearly prefer not to be locked in a trade war with the US at a time when it has been struggling to fix its own considerable economic headaches, after years of a real estate crisis, overblown regional debt and persistent youth unemployment.

However, despite this, the government has told its people that it is in a strong position to resist the attacks from the US.

It also knows its own tariffs are clearly going to hurt US exporters as well.

Trump has been bragging to his supporters that it would be easy to force China into submission by simply hitting the country with tariffs, but this has proven to be misleading in the extreme.

Beijing is not going to surrender.

China’s leader Xi Jinping told the visiting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday that his country and the European Union should “jointly resist the unilateral bullying practices” of the Trump administration.

Sanchez, in turn, said that China’s trade tensions with the US should not impede its cooperation with Europe.

Their meeting took place in the Chinese capital in the hours before Beijing again increased its tariffs on goods from the US – though it has said it will not respond to further US tariff increases.

Next week Xi will visit Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia. These are all countries which have been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs.

His ministers have been meeting counterparts from South Africa, Saudi Arabia and India, talking up greater trade co-operation.

In addition, China and the EU are reportedly in talks about potentially removing European tariffs on Chinese cars, to be replaced by a minimum price instead, to rein in a new round of dumping.

In short, wherever you look, you can see that China has options.

And analysts have said that these mutual tariff increases by the two superpowers are now becoming almost meaningless, as they’ve already passed the point of cutting out much of the trade between them.

So, the tit-for-tat tariff increases in both directions have become more like symbolism.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning has, over the past two days, posted images of Chairman Mao on social media, including a clip during the Korean War when he told the US that “no matter how long this war lasts we will never yield”.

Above this, she posted her own comments, saying: “We are Chinese. We are not afraid of provocations. We won’t back down.”

When the Chinese government wheels out Chairman Mao, you know they’re getting serious.

For more than a century, a member of the Lawton family has worked in Canada’s car industry.

Kathryn Lawton and husband Chad both work for the carmaker in Windsor, the heart of Canada’s automobile sector, just a bridge away from the US state of Michigan.

And so do their children, who are “fifth generation Ford workers”, she says.

So when US President Donald Trump suggested that Canada stole the American auto industry, Chad Lawton calls it “ludicrous”.

“These were never American jobs. These were Canadian jobs,” he told the BBC, on the day that Trump’s auto tariffs came into force.

“They’ve always been Canadian jobs, and they’re going to stay Canadian jobs because we didn’t take them from them. We created them, we sustained them.”

Kathryn agreed: “This is Ford City right here.”

Tucked away in southwestern Ontario, Windsor finds itself on one of the front lines of Trump’s trade war.

It faces a 25% tariff on foreign-made vehicles – reduced by half for cars made with 50% US-made components or more – as well as blanket 25% US tariffs on steel and aluminium imports.

US tariffs on auto parts are expected next month.

The region of just over 422,000 grew alongside Detroit – nicknamed Motor City for its role as an auto manufacturing hub – turning the region into an important centre for North American automobile production.

Ford first established its presence in Windsor in 1896, while the first Stellantis (then Chrysler) factory arrived in 1928, with dozens of factories and suppliers springing up around the city and surrounding region in the ensuing decades.

Much of the manufacturing has since left the city, though it still boasts two Ford engine factories and a Stellantis assembly plant, which employ thousands.

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Workers on both sides of the border have built iconic vehicles over the decades, most recently models like the Dodge Charger and the Ford F-150.

Some 24,000 people work directly in the automotive industry in Windsor-Essex, while an estimated 120,000 other jobs depend on the sector.

A drive through the neighbourhood around the Ford factory feels like a trip back in time, showcasing classic bungalows from the last century. Many have seen better days, though each boasts a verandah and small front yard. Large murals celebrating the city’s automotive history punctuate the scenery.

Windsor has weathered the challenges of the North American auto sector alongside Michigan, as the industry shares a deeply integrated supply chain.

Chad Lawton points to the 2008 financial crisis, when the Big Three American automakers – Ford, General Motors and Chrysler – faced staggering losses, and GM and Chrysler received billions in US bailouts to avoid bankruptcy.

That period was “bad, not just for next door, but also we went through a very, very rough time”, he said.

“This feels the same. The level of anxiety with the workers, the level of fear, the idea and the belief that this is just something that is so completely out of your control that you can’t wrap your head around what to do.”

John D’Agnolo, president of Unifor Local 200, which represents Ford workers in Windsor, said the situation “has created havoc”.

“I think we’re going to see a recession,” he said.

He continued: “People aren’t going to buy anything. I gotta tell my members not to buy anything. They gotta pay rent and food for their kids.”

What makes the tariffs such a hard pill to swallow for auto workers the BBC spoke to is that this situation has been brought about by the US, Canada’s closest economic and security ally.

“It seems like a stab in the back,” said Austin Welzel, 27, an assembly line worker at Stellantis. “It’s almost like our neighbors, our friends – they don’t want to work with us.”

Christina Grossi, who has worked at Ford for 25 years, said the prospect of losing her job, and what it will mean to her family, is “terrifying”.

But Ms Grossi also fears losing the meaning she gets from her work.

“You’ve been doing this job for so long and you really take pride in it, you’re proud of what you’re putting out to the public,” she said. “And now someone’s taking away the opportunity to do that.”

Laura Dawson, the executive director of Future Borders Coalition, said the tariffs could cause major upheavals throughout the sector due to its deep integration, with ripple effects felt across the continent if exports from Canada stop for more than a week.

She said the US tariffs structure is extremely complicated.

Cars crossing the border will need every component to be assessed for “qualifying content” – where it originates, the cost of labour to produce it, and – if it contains steel or aluminium – where that metal came from.

“Every part of an automobile is literally under a microscope for where it was produced and how,” she said.

The US tariffs have been a major factor in Canada’s general election, which is on 28 April, with Canada’s political parties rolling out suites of plans on the campaign trail to help the auto sector.

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Liberal leader Mark Carney, the current prime minister, has pledged to create a C$2bn ($1.4bn; £1.1bn) fund to boost competitiveness and protect manufacturing jobs, alongside plans to build an “all-in-Canada” auto component parts network.

In his role as prime minister, he imposed last week a reported C$35bn in counter auto tariffs, in addition to previously announced reciprocal measures on the US.

Carney’s main rival, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, has vowed to remove sales tax on Canadian vehicles, and to create a fund for companies affected by the tariffs to help keep their employees.

Jagmeet Singh, whose left-wing New Democratic Party is fighting for a competitive seat in Windsor, has pledged to use every dollar from counter tariffs to help workers, and to stop manufacturers from moving equipment to the US.

Still, Windsor’s economy is dependent on automakers, and heavily relies on trade with the United States. If it falters, everything – from restaurants to charities – will feel the effects.

The Penalty Box is a sports bar just down the road from the Stellantis plant, and popular with the workers there.

“We’re one of the busiest restaurants. I don’t want to say it, but if you ask around about the Penalty Box, they’ll tell you,” its 70-year-old owner, Van Niforos, said. “We do close to 1,000 meals a day.”

With a white apron and a wide smile, he relates its 33-year history. But his demeanour darkens when asked about threats the auto sector faces.

“It’s a devastating situation. I don’t want to think about it,” he said.

“We employ 60 people and we’re open six days a week. [If something happens to the Stellantis plant], will we be able to keep 60 people working? Absolutely no.”

Chad Lawton, sitting in his office at the local union, takes a deep breath as he contemplates how precarious his life feels.

He doesn’t think Carney’s counter tariffs help the current situation, arguing they “just makes a really bad situation a little bit worse”.

He hopes there is room for trade negotiation, but said he will be the first to say that Canada “cannot just concede and roll over”.

“I’ve worked for a Ford Motor Company for almost 31 years, and I have never seen anything close to this,” he said.

“That includes Covid, because at least with Covid, we knew what we were dealing with. And there was some certainty there.”

“This is all over the map.”

Spanish authorities have arrested a couple suspected of selling exotic cats online, including protected species like white tigers, pumas and clouded leopards.

Civil Guard police raided the couple’s home on the island of Majorca after learning that they were owning and breeding rare feline species which they then sold on social media.

In total, 19 felines were found on the property and rescued by agents. They included a caracal, two servals and 16 hybrid felines.

The Civil Guard say the discovery was just “the tip of the iceberg of a plot” of a global criminal organisation involving breeders, transporters and vets.

“Most of the animals offered for sale came from countries such as Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, to be smuggled into the European Union,” the Civil Guard said.

The authorities said the couple’s social media was “extremely active” as people from other countries contacted them to purchase these types of animals.

The animals were smuggled into the EU through Poland’s border with Belarus and then distributed with false documents, they added.

Europe is a central hub for exotic wildlife trade and the illicit black market is on the rise, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

The couple also advertised other animals through social media including hyenas, desert lynxes and pumas.

A clouded leopard – an animal native to the Himalayas – with a price tag of €60,000 (£52,000; $68,000) was also put up for sale online.

This raid was part of a wider operation which began last March. One other person is being investigated for selling various species of exotic animals on the internet.

The animals have been temporarily placed at the Son Servera Safari Zoo in Majorca. They will later be relocated to a rescue centre near Alicante.

The high demand for exotic cats is fuelled by social media because the felines can be seen as a sign of wealth or status, according the IFAW.

But these cats – which require a lot of space – are difficult to look after.

“They are very aggressive and can pose a danger to people or other animals” which leads to many people getting rid of them, the Spanish Civil Guard said.

A Palestinian paramedic who has been missing since an Israeli attack that killed 15 other emergency workers in southern Gaza three weeks ago is being detained by Israeli authorities, the International Committee of the Red Cross has said.

The ICRC confirmed in a statement that it had “received information” that Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) medic Assad al-Nassasra was being held “in an Israeli place of detention”.

The PRCS said Mr Nassasra was “forcibly abducted” by Israeli troops following the attack and called for his immediate release.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not confirmed his detention. A spokesperson said it was aware of the claim about his whereabouts.

The bodies of eight PRCS medics, six Civil Defence first responders and a UN staff member were found buried in shallow graves on the outskirts of Rafah, a week after their convoy came under fire from Israeli troops there on 23 March.

One other PRCS medic survived and said he was released by Israeli forces after being detained for around 15 hours.

The PRCS has said the incident was a “full-fledged war crime”, accusing Israeli forces of “a series of deliberate attacks” on its staff and their ambulances as they answered a call to help casualties.

It has called for an independent international investigation into the incident and for those responsible to be held to account.

Last Monday, the IDF said a preliminary inquiry indicated troops “opened fire due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area, and that six of the individuals killed in the incident were identified as Hamas terrorists”, without giving evidence.

The Palestinian Red Crescent rejected the allegation, as did the other surviving paramedic.

The IDF initially said its troops fired on “suspicious vehicles” driving in darkness with their headlights and emergency lights off.

But it later said that account was “mistaken” after a video found on the mobile phone of medic Rifaat Radwan, who was in the same ambulance as Assad al-Nassasra, showed the convoy was using its emergency lights.

At the end of the video, the ambulances are seen pulled over on the roadside. The sound of gunfire can be then heard just as Radwan gets out of his ambulance. It continues for more than five minutes and Radwan is heard saying his last prayers, before the voices of Israeli soldiers are heard approaching.

Audio analysis by BBC Verify of the footage found Israeli troops fired more than 100 times during the attack, with some shots taken from as close as 12m (39ft) away.

In a statement released on Sunday, the PRCS said: “We have been informed by the International Committee of the Red Cross that PRCS medic Assad al-Nassasra is being held by the Israeli occupation authorities.

“His fate had remained unknown since he was targeted along with other PRCS medics in Rafah.”

It added: “We call on the international community to pressure the occupation authorities to immediately release our colleague, medic Assad, who was forcibly abducted while carrying out his humanitarian duties.”

A spokeswoman for the PRCS told the New York Times Mr Nassasra had worked for the PRCS for 16 years, and was married with six children.

An ICRC spokeswoman said it had informed Mr Nassasra’s family and the PRCS after receiving information about his whereabouts.

It noted: “The ICRC has not been granted access to visit Assad al-Nassasra. The ICRC has not been able to visit any Palestinian detainees held in Israeli places of detention since 7 October 2023.”

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

More than 50,940 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Hundreds of flights have been cancelled and trains suspended as gales hit Beijing and northern China on Saturday.

By 11:30 local time (03:30 GMT) on Saturday, 838 flights had been cancelled at the capital’s two major airports, according to the news agency Reuters.

Wind gusts of up to 93mph (150kph) – the strongest in the Chinese capital for more than half a century – are set to continue through the weekend, forcing the closure of attractions and historic sites.

Millions were urged to stay indoors on Friday, with some state media outlets warning that people weighing less than 50kg may be “easily blown away”.

Train services, including the airport’s express subway line and some high-speed rail lines, have been suspended.

Parks were also shut, with some old trees reinforced or trimmed in preparation – but almost 300 trees have already fallen over in the capital.

A number of vehicles were damaged, but no injuries were reported. In Beijing, most residents followed authorities’ advice to stay indoors after the city warned 22 million residents to avoid non-essential travel.

“Everyone in Beijing was really nervous about it. Today there are hardly any people out on the streets. However, it wasn’t as severe as I had imagined,” a local resident told Reuters.

Meanwhile, a businessman from the Zhejiang province, near Shanghai, had his flight home cancelled.

“Because of the severe winds, all flights scheduled for last night and today were cancelled. So I will probably rebook my flight in a couple of days. I’m now basically stranded in Beijing,” he said.

The strong winds are from a cold vortex system over Mongolia and are expected to last through the weekend.

Winds bringing sand and dust from Mongolia are routine in spring, but climate change can make storms stronger and more severe.

Beijing issued its first orange alert for strong winds in a decade, with the strongest winds expected to arrive on Saturday.

China measures wind speed on a scale that goes from one to 17. A level 11 wind, according to the China Meteorological Administration, can cause “serious damage”, while a level 12 wind brings “extreme destruction”.

The winds this weekend are expected to range from level 11 to 13, with conditions expected to ease by Sunday.

A 5.2 earthquake rattled San Diego, California, and the surrounding area on Monday afternoon, according to the US Geological Survey.

The quake struck at 10:08 local time (18:00 GMT) with an epicentre in Julian, California.

The resort town is located in the Cuyamaca Mountains about an hour north-east of San Diego.

Around two hours after the earthquake, Perette Godwin, a spokeswoman for the City of San Diego, told the BBC there had been no reports of structural damage or injuries.

The San Diego sheriff’s office also said it had not yet “received any reports of injuries or major damage caused by the earthquake,” but said it was a “developing situation”.

California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office posted on X shortly after the quake that he had been briefed on the situation.

The USGS continued to report smaller aftershocks in the region in the hour after the quake.

The National Weather Service, meanwhile, said a tsunami was not expected.

In the moments before it struck, emergency alerts issued by the USGS ordered residents to take shelter as far away as Los Angeles.

“Drop, cover, hold on. Protect yourself,” the alert read.

Kevin Manaugh was eating breakfast when he received an alert, and quickly took shelter under a door frame.

“Sure enough, the quaking started to happen,” Mr Manaugh said. “I’ve lived in San Diego most of my life, I was born here, and this is probably the worst quake that I’ve ever felt.”

“It was a bit shocking,” he continued. “Everything shook, it shook a lot. It rattled around and lasted maybe three seconds, and then it was over.”

Though his house suffered no damage, Mr Manaugh said he would likely prepare in case another earthquake struck.

“Between this and the wildfires in Los Angeles, it made me think that it’s probably a good idea to have an evacuation bag,” he said.

Earthquakes are notoriously difficult to predict, but the alert’s lead time – about 15 seconds for Mr Manaugh – was enough to take action.

“The way they were able to predict that, it gave me time to get to a point of safety,” he said.

The USGS uses seismographs and other sensors buried in the ground throughout California to make a “lightning fast” detection when the earth starts to move, said Robert de Groot, a team lead for the agency’s ShakeAlert system.

The sensors convey data to a processing centre, which helps scientists determine the strength and potential scale of the quake.

“We use about a second’s worth of data to determine what is going on,” Mr de Groot said. USGS data is quickly distributed to Google and various earthquake apps to help warn residents.

In the case of larger quakes, like the one that struck Southern California on Monday morning, officials send a notification through the wireless emergency alert system to ensure it reaches anyone who could be in harms way.

On Monday, that included Mr de Groot, who felt the earthquake in Pasadena, 130 miles north of the epicentre.

He saw the alert, and quickly took cover under a table until the rattling stopped.

“Nobody likes the ground shaking,” he said, “even though earthquakes are my day job.”

Buying or renting a home has become unaffordable for the average Australian, driven by a perfect storm of astronomical house prices, relentless rental increases and a lack of social housing.

With less than a month until the federal election, housing remains among the top issues for voters, and the country’s two major parties – the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Coalition – have both pledged to tackle the crisis in a range of ways.

Australians are already struggling under cost-of-living pressures and bracing for the effects of Donald Trump’s global tariff war. And it remains to be seen whether either party will sway voters with their promise of restoring the Australian dream.

Simply put, Australia has not been building enough homes to meet the demands of its rapidly growing population, creating a scarcity that makes any available home more expensive to buy or rent.

Compounding the issue are Australia’s restrictive planning laws, which prevent homes being built where most people want to live, such as in major cities.

Red tape means that popular metropolitan areas like Melbourne and Sydney are far less dense than comparably sized cities around the world.

The steady decline of public housing and ballooning waitlists have made matters worse, tipping people into homelessness or overcrowded living conditions.

Climate change has also made many areas increasingly unliveable, with natural disasters such as bushfires and severe storms destroying large swathes of properties.

Meanwhile, decades of government policies have commercialised property ownership. So the ideal of owning a home, once seen as a right in Australia, has turned into an investment opportunity.

In short: it depends where you live.

Sydney is currently the second least affordable city in the world to buy a property, according to a 2023 Demographia International Housing Affordability survey.

The latest data from property analytics company CoreLogic shows the average Sydney home costs almost A$1.2m (£570,294, $742,026).

Across the nation’s capital cities, the combined average house price sits at just over A$900,000.

House prices in Australia overall have also jumped 39.1% in the last five years – and wages have failed to keep up.

It now takes the average prospective homeowner around 10 years to save the 20% deposit usually required to buy an average home, according to a 2024 State of the Housing System report.

The rental market has provided little relief, with rents increasing by 36.1% nationally since the onset of Covid – an equivalent rise of A$171 per week.

Sydney topped the charts with a median weekly rent of A$773, according to CoreLogic’s latest rental review. Perth came in second with average rents at A$695 per week, followed by Canberra at A$667 per week.

Immigration and foreign property purchases are often cited as causes for Australia’s housing crisis. But experts say that they are not significant contributors statistically.

Many people who move to Australia are temporary migrants, such as international students who live in dedicated student accommodation rather than entering the housing market, according to Michael Fotheringham, head of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

“The impact [of migrants] on the housing market is not as profound as some commentators have suggested,” Mr Fotheringham tells the BBC.

The federal government also recently sought to crack down on foreign homebuyers, by tripling fees.

However that is “a very small issue” with not much meaningful impact on housing strain, says Brendan Coates, from the Grattan Institute public policy think tank.

The latest data released by the Australian Taxation Office supports this, with homes purchased by foreign buyers in 2022-23 representing less than one percent of all sales.

“It’s already very difficult for foreigners to purchase homes under existing foreign investment rules. They are subject to a wide range of taxes, particularly in some states,” Mr Coates explains.

Labor and the Coalition have both promised to invest in building more homes – with Labor offering 1.2 million by 2029, and the Coalition vowing to unlock 500,000.

In their respective campaign launches, both parties promote housing initiatives aimed at first homebuyers.

Labor has pledged to expand an existing shared-equity scheme to allow all first homebuyers to purchase homes with a 5% deposit, an ease on the 20% deposit typically needed.

Albanese also promised 100,000 of the new homes his government creates will only be available to first homebuyers, in addition to building more social housing and introducing subsidies to help low-to-moderate-income earners.

The Coalition, if elected, will allow first-time buyers to use up to $50,000 from their superannuation retirement savings to fund a house purchase. They will make mortgage payments partially tax free for up to five years for all first homebuyers with newly built properties.

Central to the Coalition’s housing affordability policy is cutting migration, reducing the number of international students and implementing a two-year ban on foreign investment in existing properties.

Additionally, they have promised a A$5bn boost to infrastructure to support local councils by paying for water, power and sewerage at housing development sites.

The Greens’ policies, meanwhile, have focused on alleviating pressures on renters by calling for national rent freezes and caps.

They have also said that in the event of a minority government, they will be pushing to reform tax incentives for investors.

In short, experts say that while both Labor and the Coalition’s policies are steps in the right direction, neither are sufficient to solve the housing problem.

“A combination of both parties’ platforms would be better than what we’re seeing from either side individually,” Mr Coates tells the BBC.

A 2025 State of the Land report by the Urban Development Institute of Australia says the federal government will fail to meet its target of 1.2 million new homes by 2029 – falling short by almost 400,000.

The Coalition’s focus on reducing immigration, meanwhile, will only make housing marginally cheaper while making Australia poorer in the long-term, according to Mr Coates.

The cuts to migration will mean fewer skilled migrants, he explains, and the loss of revenue from those migrants will result in higher taxes for Australians.

Decades of underinvestment in social housing also means demand in that area is massively outstripping supply – which at 4% of housing stock is significantly lower than many other countries, according to Mr Fotheringham.

There’s also concern about grants for first homebuyers, which drive prices up further.

While commending the fact that these issues are finally being treated seriously, Mr Fotheringham believes it will take years to drag Australia out of a housing crisis that has been building for decades.

“We’ve been sleepwalking into this as a nation for quite some time,” he says. “[Now] the nation is paying attention, the political class is paying attention.”

The Trump administration has said it is freezing more than $2bn (£1.5bn) in federal funds for Harvard University, hours after the elite college rejected a list of demands from the White House.

“Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges,” the Department of Education said in a statement.

The White House sent a list of demands to Harvard last week that it said were designed to fight antisemitism on campus, including changes to its governance, hiring practices and admissions procedures.

Harvard strongly rejected the demands on Monday and said the White House was trying to “control” its community.

It is the first major US university to defy pressure from the Trump administration to change its policies.

In a letter to the Harvard community on Monday, its President Alan Garber said the White House had sent an “updated and expanded list of demands” on Friday alongside a warning that the university “must comply” in order to maintain its “financial relationship” with the government.

“We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement,” he wrote. “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

Mr Garber added that the university did not “take lightly” its obligation to fight antisemitism, but said the government was overreaching.

“Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard,” he said.

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Shortly after his letter was sent, the education department said it was freezing $2.2bn in grants and $60m in contracts to Harvard immediately.

“The disruption of learning that has plagued campuses in recent years is unacceptable,” it said.

“The harassment of Jewish students is intolerable. It is time for elite universities to take the problem seriously and commit to meaningful change if they wish to continue receiving taxpayer support,” the statement added.

The White House said in its own letter on Friday that Harvard had “in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment”.

The letter included 10 categories for proposed changes that the White House said were needed in order for Harvard to maintain its “financial relationship with the federal government”.

Some of the changes included: reducing the power held by students and untenured faculty; reporting students to the federal government who are “hostile” to American values; and hiring an external government-approved party to audit programs and departments “that most fuel antisemitic harassment”.

The letter orders the university to take disciplinary action for “violations” that happened during protests on campus over the past two years. It also demands an end the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies and programmes.

Since re-entering the White House, President Trump has put pressure on universities to tackle antisemitism and end diversity practices.

He has accused leading universities of failing to protect Jewish students, as well as having an institutional left-wing bias.

In March, the administration said it was reviewing roughly $256m in federal contracts and grants at Harvard, and an additional $8.7bn in multi-year grant commitments.

Harvard professors filed a lawsuit in response, alleging the government was unlawfully attacking freedom of speech and academic freedom.

The White House had previously pulled $400m in federal funding from Columbia University and accused it of failing to fight antisemitism and protect Jewish students on its campus.

When the $400m was pulled, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said: “Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding”.

Shortly after, Columbia agreed to several of the administration’s demands, drawing criticism from some students and faculty.

Earlier on Monday, a lawyer for an organiser of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University said her client had been arrested by immigration officials as he attended an interview as part of his application for US citizenship.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a green card holder who is due to graduate next month, was detained on Monday in Colchester, Vermont.

Others who took part in campus protests against the war, including Columbia University’s Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University’s Rumeysa Ozturk, have been detained in recent weeks.

Machias Seal Island is a tiny dot on maps of North America.

But the uninhabited, fogbound rock is significant for its location in an area known as the “Grey Zone” – the site of a rare international dispute between Canada and the United States.

The two neighbours and long-time allies have each long laid claim to the island and surrounding water, where the US state of Maine meets Canada’s New Brunswick province – and with that claim, the right to catch and sell the prized local lobsters.

John Drouin, a US lobsterman who has fished in the Grey Zone for 30 years, tells of the mad dash by Canadian and American fishermen to place lobster traps at the start of the summer catching season each year. “People have literally lost parts of their bodies, have had concussions, [their] head smashed and everything,” he says.

The injuries have been caused when lobstermen have been caught up in each other’s lines. He says one friend lost his thumb after it became caught up in a Canadian line, what Mr Drouin calls his battle scar from the Grey Zone.

The 277 square miles of sea around Machias Seal Island has been under dispute since the late 1700s – and in 1984, an international court ruling gave both the US and Canada the right to fish in the waterway.

It has stood as a quirk – an isolated area of tension in what had been, until now, an otherwise close relationship between the two countries.

But that could all be about to change. US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, steep tariffs on Canadian imports and rhetoric about making the country the 51st state has sparked a series of fresh flashpoints, with the possibility that he may ultimately wish to subsume Canada into the US hanging over everything. Amid the biggest shift in the relationship between the two countries in decades, the question is, what does he really want from Canada?

Cutler, Maine, is the closest US town to the Grey Zone. It has a collection of scattered houses, one supply store and, for good reason, a lobster wholesaler.

Aside from a few big-city retirees and holiday-goers, Cutler owes its existence to the bountiful crustaceans that inhabit the offshore waters. And for the lobstermen of Cutler, the international limbo of the Grey Zone is their everyday reality, as they scatter their traps along the bottom of the Gulf of Maine to catch the prized lobsters and bring them to market.

During lobster season, the Grey Zone is packed with boats and buoys marking the location of their traps. When the waters get crowded and livelihoods are at stake, things can get ugly.

“Do we like it? Not in the least,” says Mr Drouin. He has caught lobsters in the Grey Zone for 30 years. “I will continue to complain about it until I can’t breathe anymore.”

Another Maine lobsterman, Nick Lemieux, said he and his sons have had nearly 200 traps stolen in recent years – and he blames their rivals to the north.

“This is our area, and it’s all we have to work with,” he said. “Things like that don’t sit very well with us.”

Americans accuse the Canadians of operating under a different, more accommodating set of rules that allow them to catch larger lobsters.

Canadians counter that the Americans have higher catch limits and are surreptitiously fishing in their territorial waters.

The union representing Canada’s border officials recently complained that Americans have responded to their enforcement efforts with threats of violence – and some of its officers have refused to work in the Grey Zone.

Canada regularly dispatches maintenance workers to Machias Seal Island to check on an automated lighthouse – evidence, they say, of their control. The Americans point to US Marines who occupied the island during World War One as their proof of sovereignty.

The dispute appears to be going nowhere, but during Trump’s first presidency, events in the Grey Zone did not appear to be intruding greatly on the overall warmth between the US and Canada.

When Trump hosted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House in 2017, he spoke about the US-Canada relationship in glowing terms, remarking on the “special bonds” between the two nations that “share much more than a border”.

Yet his rhetoric has since changed sharply.

In recent months, Trump has repeatedly called Canada the “51st state” of the US – and the White House has expressed a willingness to open up new areas of dispute all along the US-Canada border.

In September, the president voiced designs on Canadian water in British Columbia in the west of the country, for instance, suggesting it could be piped to drought-parched California: “You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north… they have essentially a very large faucet”.

Approximately 1,500 miles further east, the Great Lakes could become another site of potential conflict, as US officials told their Canadian counterparts they are considering withdrawing from treaties over their coordinated environmental regulation.

And even further east, a library has become the unlikely setting for a flashpoint: built deliberately to straddle the Vermont-Quebec border as a symbol of cooperation between Canada and the US, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House used to be open to residents from both nations.

However in March, America changed the rules so that Canadians are required to pass through immigration control before they access the building, with the US Department of Homeland Security claiming it was in response to drug trafficking.

Natural resources are another source of dispute. Canada has vast supplies of rare earth metals, gold, oil, coal and lumber – the kind of natural wealth that Trump has long prized.

While Trump has disavowed any desire for Canada’s lumber, energy stockpiles or manufactured products, in February Trudeau reportedly told a closed-door meeting of Canadian business and labour leaders that he saw it differently.

“I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may even be why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state. They’re very aware of our resources, of what we have, and they very much want to be able to benefit from those,” the CBC quoted Trudeau as saying.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings, a Canadian journalist and host of The Big Story podcast, believes Trump wants Canadian resources, and that the president’s annexation comments should be taken seriously.

“He likes the idea of being the guy to bring in a huge land mass,” says Mr Heath-Rawlings. “He probably wants the Arctic, which is obviously going to become much more valuable in the years to come.”

For Trump, even the US-Canadian border itself is suspect. “If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it between Canada and the US,” he said in March. “Somebody did it a long time ago, and it makes no sense.”

Needless to say, Trump’s comments have rankled Canadian leaders, who warn of the president’s ultimate designs on their homeland.

In March, Trudeau accused the US president of planning “a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that will make it easier to annex us”.

The previous month, after Trump first announced new tariffs on Canada, Trudeau had said: “Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that [annexing Canada] is absorbing our country. And it is a real thing.”

If US territorial ambitions for Canada are, in fact, a “real thing”, it presents a simple, vexing question. Why? Why would the US, which has had the closest of diplomatic, military, economic and cultural ties with its northern neighbour for more than a century, put all of that at risk?

Some see a pattern in Trump’s designs on Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal – one that reflects a dramatic change in how the US sees itself in the world.

It has been most clearly articulated by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said in January that the post-World War Two dominance of the US was more the exception than the norm.

“Eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multi-polar world, multiple great powers in different parts of the planet,” he said. “We face that now with China and to some extent Russia, and … rogue states like Iran and North Korea.”

According to Michael Williams, professor of international affairs at the University of Ottawa, if the current Trump administration thinks that American world dominance is no longer possible or even desired, the US might pull back from far-flung conflicts and European commitments.

Instead, says Prof Williams, the US would prioritise its “territorial core”, creating a continental fortress of sorts, insulated on both sides by the vastness of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

“If this is your plan, you seek to control key geographic choke points,” he says. “You maximise access to natural resources, of which Canada has plenty, and you reshore industry whenever possible.”

Such a geopolitical outlook is hardly new. In the 1820s, US President James Monroe articulated a new global order in which America and Europe confined themselves to their own hemispheres.

But it does represent a remarkable shift in US foreign policy since the end of World War Two.

Prof Williams acknowledges that it’s difficult to figure out exactly what the US president is thinking – a view wholeheartedly endorsed by John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser for more than a year of his first presidential term.

“Trump has no philosophy,” he says. “He gets ideas, but does not follow a coherent pattern. There is no underlying strategy.”

The president is currently fixated on minerals and natural resources, he said, but Mr Bolton argues the best way to go about doing that is through the private sector, not by floating the idea of annexing an ally. Canada, for its part, has offered to work with US companies on joint mining partnerships.

Prof Williams and Mr Bolton agree that whatever the motivations behind Trump’s designs on Canada, the diplomatic damage that’s being done will be difficult to undo – and the possibility of unanticipated consequences is high.

“Trump likes to say in a lot of contexts that other people don’t have any cards,” says Prof Williams. “But the further you push people to the wall, the more you may find that they have cards that you didn’t know they had – and they might be willing to play them. And even if you have more cards, the consequences of doing so can easily spiral out of control in some really bad ways.”

Canadians have already been boycotting US products and cancelling winter trips south, which has had an impact on tourist communities in Florida.

“We’re not looking for a fight, but Canada’s ready for one,” says Mr Heath-Rawlings.

The idea that the trust between the US and Canada has been broken is one that’s been embraced by the country’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, as a general election looms.

“The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over,” he said recently. “I reject any attempts to weaken Canada, to wear us down, to break us so that America can own us.”

Back in the 19th Century, territorial conflicts and flare-ups along the US-Canada border were a more frequent occurrence. Americans made multiple unsuccessful attempts to capture Canadian territory during the 1812 War.

In 1844, some Americans called for military force if the UK wouldn’t agree to its claims in the Pacific Northwest.

The 1859 “pig dispute” involved contested islands near Vancouver and the unfortunate shooting of a British hog that had intruded on an American’s garden.

All that seemed the stuff of dusty history books, where the Grey Zone was a diplomatic oddity – an exception to a peaceful norm in the modern world of developed and integrated democracies.

But that calm is now broken, and no one is sure where these stormy waters will lead either country.

El Salvador will not return Kilmar Ábrego García, whom the US government deported to his home country where he is being held in a mega-prison.

President Nayib Bukele made the comments during a meeting on Monday at the White House with Donald Trump, with whom he shares a strong relationship.

The US Supreme Court ruled last week that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Mr Ábrego García, who was living in Maryland with his family and was granted protection from deportation by a court in 2019.

The Trump administration argues it cannot bring him home, and Attorney General Pam Bondi said it is “up to El Salvador if they want to return him”.

Trump praised Bukele for a new partnership under which the US can deport people it alleges are gang members to the Central American nation. Mr Ábrego García, whose lawyer said he is not a gang member, was among 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans the Trump administration deported to El Salvador’s Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (Cecot).

On Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said another 10 alleged gang members were sent there, despite legal challenges over those it already deported. The US considers them suspected members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs, which are designated as “foreign terrorist organisations” by Trump.

In response to an earlier ruling by the US Supreme Court that the administration should facilitate the release of Mr Ábrego García, lawyers wrote on Sunday that the issue was a matter of foreign policy – and outside the control of the courts.

Trump told reporters last week that if the Supreme Court said “bring somebody back, I would do that”.

The justice department cited Bukele’s comments that Mr Ábrego García would not be returned to the US as an update in their latest court filing.

Mr Ábrego García’s wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a US citizen, said the “Trump and Bukele administrations continue to play political games with his life”.

“My heart is heavy, but I hold on to hope and the strength of those around me. For our children, our family, and all immigrants fighting for loved ones – Kilmar, we will not stop fighting for you,” she said in a statement.

The US government has conceded Mr Ábrego García was deported because of an “administrative error”, though it also says he is a member of the MS-13 gang – something his lawyer denies.

Officials were ordered to provide daily updates on steps being taken to bring Mr Ábrego García back to the US.

Relations between Trump and Bukele have flourished since the US president’s return to the White House in January, after Bukele agreed to take US deportees, which has helped Trump in his pledge to enact mass deportations.

Writing on X, Rubio said the alliance was an “example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere”.

Ahead of Bukele’s trip to Washington, Trump praised his counterpart, who has positioned himself as a tough-on-crime strongman.

Trump said Bukele was doing a “fantastic job” at imprisoning some “very bad people… that should never have been allowed into our country”.

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Trump’s team has so far sent to El Salvador more than 200 migrants, who were accused of being gang members. Many of them were removed from the country using a law that dates back to 1798.

BBC Mundo was allowed to go inside Cecot, El Salvador’s maximum security prison, in 2024.

It is the symbol of the aggressive and controversial “war on gangs” waged by President Bukele since 2022.

Spanning 116 hectares, the jail was built in less than a year and has the capacity to hold 40,000 inmates, according to the government. It has been widely criticised for alleged human rights abuses and lack of legal protections for prisoners.

The cells have no windows or ventilation, and prisoners sleep on metal bunks without mattresses or sheets. Each cell can hold more than 150 prisoners and there are only two toilets with no privacy whatsoever.

They have limited access to water, and are only allowed to go out to exercise for 30 minutes a day.

Family members of some previous deportees to the prison have denied they have gang ties.

One woman in Venezuela, Myrelis Casique López, recently told BBC Mundo she became certain her son was among the detainees when she saw a photo of him being taken to Cecot.

She suggested he was targeted by American authorities due to his tattoos.

Announcing the removal of 10 more “criminals” in a social media post on Sunday, Rubio did not say whether the latest group was sent to Cecot specifically.

The administration previously published images of deportees arriving at the facility – and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem paid a visit last month.

Asked whether he had concerns over allegations of human rights abuses at Cecot, Trump told reporters: “I don’t see it.”

Bukele stands to gain both money and political capital from accepting US deportees to Cecot.

According to US government documents obtained by the Associated Press, El Salvador is receiving $20,000 (£15,100) per deportee per year.

That adds up to about $6m for the most recent group. Bukele says these payments, along with prison labour programmes, will help make the prison system financially self-sufficient.

By aligning closely with Trump, Bukele gains favour in Washington and reduces scrutiny of his internal policies.

His government has arrested more than 80,000 people under a state of emergency that has lasted three years, with frequent reports of detentions without due process.

Critics say the US is now less likely to challenge democratic setbacks or rights abuses in El Salvador.

Pop star Katy Perry and five other women safely returned to Earth after reaching space aboard Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket.

The singer was joined by Bezos’s fiancée Lauren Sánchez and CBS presenter Gayle King, who said a highlight of the flight was hearing Perry sing Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”.

After landing back on Earth, Perry said she felt “super connected to life” and “so connected to love”.

The flight lasted around 11 minutes and took the six women more than 100km (62 miles) above Earth, crossing the internationally recognised boundary of space and giving them a few moments of weightlessness.

Also on board were former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

The New Shepard rocket lifted off from its West Texas launch site just after 08:30 local time (14:30 BST).

The capsule returned to Earth with a parachute-assisted soft landing, while the rocket booster also landed back in Texas.

Cheering could be heard from inside the capsule as the recovery crew went to collect them.

Jeff Bezos opened the capsule door to welcome back Lauren Sánchez, the first to disembark.

“I’m so proud of this crew,” she said tearfully. “I can’t put it into words.”

She paused, before adding: “I looked out of the window and we got to see the moon.”

“Earth looked so quiet,” she said, adding that it was not what she expected. “It was quiet, but really alive.”

Next out was Katy Perry, who kissed the ground and lifted a daisy to the sky – her daughter is called Daisy.

Gayle King also got on her knees and kissed the ground.

“I just want to have a moment with the ground, just appreciate the ground for just a second,” she said.

The last to get out, Kerianne Flynn, pointed at the sky and shouted: “I went to space.”

A celebrity cast had watched the launch from the ground.

Speaking from the viewing platform, Khloé Kardashian said: “I didn’t realise how emotional it would be, it’s hard to explain. I have all this adrenaline and I’m just standing here.”

“Whatever you dream of is in our reach, especially in today’s day and age. Dream big, wish for the stars—and one day, you could maybe be amongst them,”​ she added.

Oprah Winfrey spoke about her friend Gayle King, and revealed she was a nervous flier.

“I mean, for her—whew—anytime we’re on a flight, she’s in somebody’s lap at the slightest bit of turbulence. She has real, real-world anxiety when it comes to flying. And this… this is her overcoming a wall of fear,” she said.

The spacecraft was fully autonomous, requiring no pilots, and the crew did not manually operate the vehicle.

The last all-female spaceflight was over 60 years ago when Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel into space on a solo mission aboard the spacecraft Vostok 6.

Since then, there have been no other all-female spaceflights but women have made numerous significant contributions.

The space tourism industry is still in its infancy, so every successful launch is significant and demonstrates that these short, commercial flights can be carried out safely.

But some critics stress it is tourism, not space science, and professional astronauts undertake missions, including scientific research, for the benefit of humankind.

“A celebrity isn’t an envoy of humankind – they go into space for their own reasons,” Dr Kai-Uwe Schrogl, special advisor for political affairs at the European Space Agency, told BBC News.

“These flights are significant and exciting, but I think maybe they can also be a source of frustration for space scientists,” he added. “We see space flight as being for science, knowledge and the interests of humanity.

“Celebrities do it for amusement but get a lot more attention than the regular astronauts.”

The space flight also generated a range of response on social media, from enthusiasm to hostility.

Dr Tanya Harrison, from the Outer Space Institute experts network said: “A lot of the comments that I saw on social media were things about, ‘Oh, it’s like the Real Housewives go to Mars’ or ‘It’s the oligarchy in space, read the room, the timing is terrible.'”

But: “There were a lot of positive takes as well. People were like, ‘Oh, this is so cool. Katy Perry is going to space.'”

Dr Harrison, who had previously worked on Nasa missions to Mars said: “The cynical part of me wants to call it a marketing stunt. This is a company promoting the fact they can launch tourists into space.”

However she noted the all-women team might “change the demographics a little bit of who might want to do something like this.”

“Socially, they might have had some impact”, she said.

In a news conference after the flight, two of the women took issue with some of the criticism the mission had received, related for example to its cost.

“I feel that anybody who is criticising doesn’t really understand what’s happening here,” said Gayle King.

She said that the astronauts had had a huge, positive response from young women and young girls.

Lauren Sánchez said she had got “fired up” about the criticism and would love to have the naysayers come to Blue Origin and see the thousands of employees who “put their heart and soul into” the missions.

Blue Origin is a private space company founded in 2000 by Bezos, the billionaire entrepreneur who also started Amazon.

Although Blue Origin has not released full ticket prices, a $150,000 (£114,575.85) deposit is required to reserve a seat—underlining the exclusivity of these early flights.

Alongside its suborbital tourism business, the company is also developing long-term space infrastructure, including reusable rockets and lunar landing systems.

The New Shepard rocket is designed to be fully reusable and its booster returns to the launch pad for vertical landings after each flight, reducing overall costs.

According to US law, astronauts must complete comprehensive training for their specific roles.

Blue Origin says its New Shepard passengers are trained over two days with a focus on physical fitness, emergency protocols, details about the safety measures and procedures for zero gravity.

Additionally, there are two support members referred to as Crew Member Seven: one provides continuous guidance to astronauts, while the other maintains communication from the control room during the mission.

The rise of space tourism has prompted criticism that it is too exclusive and environmentally damaging.

Supporters argue that private companies are accelerating innovation and making space more accessible.

Professor Brian Cox told the BBC in 2024: “Our civilisation needs to expand beyond our planet for so many reasons,” and believes that collaboration between NASA and commercial firms is a positive step.

Rocket engine exhaust contains gases and particles that can affect Earth’s climate and ozone layer.

On its web page under the title “Protecting our Planet” Blue Origin claims: “During flight, the only byproduct of New Shepard’s engine combustion is water vapor with no carbon emissions.”

However, Eloise Marais, a professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Air Quality at University College London points out that water vapour too is a greenhouse gas and is a chemical that is not supposed to be in the upper layers of the atmosphere.

“It alters the chemistry of the stratosphere, depleting the ozone layer, and also forms clouds that affect climate,” she says.

Experts say that as more rockets are launched, the risks of harming the ozone layer increases.

The high cost of space tourism makes it inaccessible to most people, with these expensive missions out of reach for the majority.

Critics, including actress Olivia Munn, questioned the optics of this particular venture, remarking “there’s a lot of people who can’t even afford eggs,” during an appearance on Today with Jenna & Friends.

Nick Frost, Paapa Essiedu, Janet McTeer and Paul Whitehouse will appear in the forthcoming Harry Potter TV series, US network HBO has confirmed.

Frost has been cast as Hagrid, McTeer will play Minerva McGonagall, and Essiedu will portray Severus Snape. All three were reported to be in talks with the network in recent weeks.

HBO have now formally confirmed their casting, and announced that Whitehouse, well known for the Fast Show and Harry & Paul, will play Argus Filch.

The network also confirmed John Lithgow’s announcement in February that he will play Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

The show is due to begin filming this summer, with the first series airing potentially as early as next year.

The actors playing Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger have not yet been cast.

HBO launched an open casting call for the three lead roles, which reportedly attracted more than 30,000 submissions.

• John Lithgow, who will play Dumbledore, recently starred in the Oscar-winning Conclave, and has also appeared in 3rd Rock from the Sun, Footloose and The Crown. He won an Olivier Award last week for playing Roald Dahl in stage play Giant, which soon transfers to the West End
• Paapa Essiedu, who will portray Hogwarts teacher Severus Snape, shot to fame in the TV series I May Destroy You, and has also appeared in Gangs of London and The Lazarus Project. Last year, he starred in The Outrun with Saoirse Ronan, and will appear in a new stage production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons in the West End later this year
• Janet McTeer, who has been cast as Professor McGonagall, has appeared in films including Wuthering Heights, Albert Nobbs and The Menu, as well as the TV series Ozark and Jessica Jones. Later this year, she will be seen in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
• Nick Frost, who will play the friendly half-giant Hagrid, is best known for appearing in comedy films Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End and Paul. His TV credits include Spaced and Into the Badlands, and he voices SM-33 in Star Wars: Skeleton Crew
• Paul Whitehouse, who will play Argus Filch, appeared in the BBC sketch comedy series The Fast Show and opposite Harry Enfield in Harry & Paul. He also appears in Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, with Bob Mortimer, while his stage credits include Only Fools and Horses The Musical
• Luke Thallon, who will play Quirinus Quirrell, has appeared in stage productions including Patriots, Albion and Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt. He was most recently seen in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet, playing the titular role

Showrunner Francesca Gardiner and executive producer Mark Mylod said they were “delighted to have such extraordinary talent onboard, and we can’t wait to see them bring these beloved characters to new life”.

JK Rowling’s phenomenally successful series of novels has previously been adapted into a film franchise starring Daniel Radcliffe as Potter.

The TV series, however, will have more breathing space to explore the plot lines from the books without the time constraints of the film.

Rowling will serve as an executive producer on the TV series, which HBO has said will be a “faithful adaptation” of her books.

Further casting announcements are expected to follow soon, with rumours swirling about other actors reportedly in discussions about joining, including Cillian Murphy as a possible Voldermort.

Indian businessman Mehul Choksi has been arrested in Belgium following India’s request for his extradition.

Mr Choksi, who left India in 2018, was arrested on Saturday, his lawyer Vijay Aggarwal told the BBC on Monday.

The diamond merchant is wanted by India over allegations of involvement in a case of defrauding one of the country’s largest banks of nearly $1.8bn (£1.3bn).

Mr Choksi has not commented publicly on the case, but his lawyer said they would appeal against his detention and also oppose his extradition to India.

“These are the obvious grounds [on which we will argue the case], that he is not a flight risk and secondly, that he is extremely sick. He is undergoing cancer treatment,” Mr Agarwal said.

He added that they would “contest the extradition on grounds that there isn’t enough evidence against him and the extradition request is politically motivated and the trial in India may not be fair”.

The BBC has reached out to India’s foreign ministry and financial crimes agency – the Enforcement Directorate (ED) – for comment.

According to a Times of India report, Mr Choksi was arrested on the basis of two non-bailable warrants issued by an Indian court in 2018 and 2021 – although it’s not clear why the action came now.

Mr Choksi and his nephew, Nirav Modi, are wanted by Indian authorities in connection with a $1.8bn fraud case at Punjab National Bank (PNB).

Mr Modi, who’s also been living abroad since 2018, is lodged in a prison in London and is awaiting extradition to India.

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Both were high-profile diamond traders. Mr Modi’s jewellery was worn by several Hollywood celebrities such as Naomi Watts and Kate Winslet. One of the biggest Bollywood stars, Priyanka Chopra, was his company’s brand ambassador.

Mr Choksi, meanwhile, was the owner of Gitanjali Gems, an Indian jewellery retailer which once had about 4,000 stores across India.

The ED has accused Mr Choksi and Modi of colluding with some employees of PNB’s Brady House branch in Mumbai city to get fraudulent advances for payments to overseas suppliers of jewels.

These funds were then allegedly diverted and laundered.

Mr Choksi and Mr Modi have denied the allegations against them.

After leaving India, Mr Choksi reportedly travelled to the US and later to Antigua – where he has citizenship.

In 2021, he was reportedly arrested in Dominica and deported back to Antigua.

Hariprasad SV, a Bengaluru-based entrepreneur who had in 2016 alerted authorities about the alleged scam at PNB, said Mr Choksi’s arrest was “great news”.

“Apart from bringing him back, the most important thing is to get back all those billions of dollars he looted from India,” he told ANI news agency.

An organiser of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University has been arrested by immigration officials as he attended an interview as part of his application for US citizenship, his lawyer says.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a green card holder who is due to graduate next month from the New York City college, was detained on Monday in Colchester, Vermont.

His lawyer said Mr Mahdawi was taken into custody “in direct retaliation” for his role in campus demonstrations against the Israel-Gaza war.

Others who took part in campus protests against the war, including Columbia University’s Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University’s Rumeysa Ozturk, have been detained.

The BBC has contacted US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for more details on Mr Mahdawi’s case.

Video shared on social media apparently shows him being escorted into a car by two officers wearing police jackets.

His lawyer, Luna Droubi, said: “The Trump administration detained Mohsen Mahdawi in direct retaliation for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinians and because of his identity as a Palestinian.

“His detention is an attempt to silence those who speak out against the atrocities in Gaza. It is also unconstitutional.”

The attorney applied to a federal court for a temporary restraining order to prevent US immigration authorities moving Mr Mahdawi out of Vermont or expelling him from the US.

Judge William Sessions, an Obama appointee, quickly granted that order.

The court filing says Mr Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank and moved to the US in 2014.

It describes the philosophy major as a committed Buddhist who believes in “non-violence and empathy as a central tenet of his religion”.

The whereabouts of Mr Mahdawi, who has held US permanent resident status since 2015, are unknown, according to Ms Droubi.

Mr Mahdawi, who co-founded Columbia’s Palestinian Student Society, has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

Last December, he did an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes programme in which he accused Israel of genocide, which it denies.

Mr Mahdawi’s detention comes amid an immigration crackdown by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Last month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at least 300 foreign students’ visas had been revoked in an effort to tackle antisemitism on university campuses.

Critics say US officials are falsely accusing students of anti-Jewish bigotry and violating their right to free speech.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said on X that Mr Mahdawi “was illegally detained by ICE during what was supposed to be the final step in his citizenship process”.

The senator said he “must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention”.

Judge Sessions also held a hearing on Monday in the case of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student at Boston’s Tufts University, who was arrested by immigration authorities last month.

He questioned whether the Trump administration would provoke a “constitutional crisis” by not releasing the student from custody if the court were to order that she be moved from detention in Louisiana back to Vermont.

Meanwhile, lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil are currently challenging an immigration judge’s ruling on Friday allowing the government to deport him as a national security risk.

The Columbia University protest leader was detained last month outside his campus accommodation and transferred to a Louisiana detention centre.

Spanish authorities have arrested a couple suspected of selling exotic cats online, including protected species like white tigers, pumas and clouded leopards.

Civil Guard police raided the couple’s home on the island of Majorca after learning that they were owning and breeding rare feline species which they then sold on social media.

In total, 19 felines were found on the property and rescued by agents. They included a caracal, two servals and 16 hybrid felines.

The Civil Guard say the discovery was just “the tip of the iceberg of a plot” of a global criminal organisation involving breeders, transporters and vets.

“Most of the animals offered for sale came from countries such as Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, to be smuggled into the European Union,” the Civil Guard said.

The authorities said the couple’s social media was “extremely active” as people from other countries contacted them to purchase these types of animals.

The animals were smuggled into the EU through Poland’s border with Belarus and then distributed with false documents, they added.

Europe is a central hub for exotic wildlife trade and the illicit black market is on the rise, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

The couple also advertised other animals through social media including hyenas, desert lynxes and pumas.

A clouded leopard – an animal native to the Himalayas – with a price tag of €60,000 (£52,000; $68,000) was also put up for sale online.

This raid was part of a wider operation which began last March. One other person is being investigated for selling various species of exotic animals on the internet.

The animals have been temporarily placed at the Son Servera Safari Zoo in Majorca. They will later be relocated to a rescue centre near Alicante.

The high demand for exotic cats is fuelled by social media because the felines can be seen as a sign of wealth or status, according the IFAW.

But these cats – which require a lot of space – are difficult to look after.

“They are very aggressive and can pose a danger to people or other animals” which leads to many people getting rid of them, the Spanish Civil Guard said.

In the chaotic minutes after US President Donald Trump’s administration abruptly reversed course and paused dozens of sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs, one man quickly became the public face of the decision: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“It took great courage,” the bespectacled 62-year-old former hedge fund manager told the dozens of reporters gathered around him on 9 April. “Great courage to stay the course until this moment.”

Notably absent during the press briefing – after which markets rocketed – were the other two men tasked with delivering Trump’s tariff message to the American people: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and trade adviser Pete Navarro.

Bessent’s centre-stage role in the tariffs announcement, some trade policy veterans have suggested, starkly highlights how shifting power dynamics within the White House brought the US back from the brink of an all-out global trade war, even if all the players are broadly supportive of Trump’s economic agenda.

“He’s playing the good cop,” William Alan Reinsch, the former head of the National Foreign Trade Council, told the BBC. “And Lutnick and Navarro are playing the bad cop.”

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Publicly, the White House has been largely quiet on the chain of events that led to Trump’s market-shaking decision to pause reciprocal tariffs for most countries while raising levies on China, with the president saying only that he had been “thinking about it” for a “few days” before it “came together” early on the morning of 9 April.

But according to US media reports, it was Bessent, inundated with calls from business leaders, that played a key part in swaying Trump, including with conversations on Air Force One the weekend beforehand and in the Oval Office on the morning of the decision.

Earlier in his career, Bessent expressed reservations about tariffs. Some observers believe these views, together with long experience in the bond market, ultimately made it possible for him to gain the president’s ear over Navarro and Lutnick, both of whom represented a harder-line stance on the tariffs.

“I think what happened was that Trump wasn’t paying attention to the bond market,” added Mr Reinsch, now an economics expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And Bessent got him to pay attention.”

Mr Reinsch, who was also undersecretary of commerce for export administration in the 1990s during President Bill Clinton’s administration, said that Bessent’s approach, so far, has been “a classic way to deal with Trump”.

“Don’t tell him he’s wrong or made a mistake,” he added. “Tell him there’s a better way forward to achieve his objectives, and that the market is not reacting the way we want it to react.”

On the morning of the announcement on 9 April, Trump met in the Oval Office with Bessent as well as National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett and Lutnick, the 63-year-old former chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald and a noted China hawk.

Two other key players in tariffs policy were notably absent, prompting one source close to the White House to tell Reuters news agency there had been a “pecking order change”.

One, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, was just a short drive away on Capitol Hill, testifying about tariffs before a House of Representative committee.

He would later that day learn of the tariffs announcement in real-time along with the lawmakers, prompting a tense exchange in which he was accused of having the “rug pulled out” from underneath him.

The other, Peter Navarro, was similarly absent despite being one of the most visible figures in the media on tariffs, prompting speculation his stance had fallen out of favour with the president.

At times, the various figures involved in tariffs gave contradictory statements on the policy, which experts say contributed to confusion and market volatility.

“They are not singing on the same page,” said Mark Sobel, who spent nearly 40 years at the Treasury Department, including as deputy assistant secretary for international monetary and financial policy.

“You hear Navarro, you hear Bessent, you hear the president and you feel you’re getting whiplash,” he added. “This is not a disciplined group.”

Terry Haines, the founder of Washington DC-based consultancy Pangaea Policy, told the BBC he believes that it was “deliberate” that the administration put forward various people to become the public faces of tariffs.

“[They wanted to] throw as many spokespeople out there, say different things, and flood the zone with opinion,” he said. “It may have efficacy in politics, but it confuses the hell out of markets.”

As an example, Mr Haines pointed to Navarro, who he said gets “more leeway than you’d expect” owing to the four-month jail term he served for contempt of Congress after ignoring a subpoena from a House committee investigating the 2021 US Capitol riot.

“They appeal to different audiences. Bessent would be interested in the financial press, while Navarro has a different message,” he said.

Haines, however, cautioned against assuming that any one person contributed the most to Trump’s decision.

“Markets want winners and losers, like People magazine-style stuff,” he said. “But we need to know who to listen to, and that became, pretty much by default, Bessent.”

Several experts contacted by the BBC said they expect Bessent to now take a much more prominent public role in tariff policy, with Lutnick taking charge of the negotiations, while Navarro, Hassett and Greer play supporting roles.

Haines, for example, said he believes Bessent will become, in real terms, “the spokesman for economic policy”.

Ultimately, a more structured approach could contribute to market stability, according to Andrew Hale, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“I imagine it will get more certain as we go forward,” he said. “It’s what businesses and investors want.”

Donald Trump says Chinese-made smartphones and other electronics will not be exempt from tariffs – adding they are simply moving into a different levy “bucket”.

European stock markets bounced up on Monday morning after Friday’s official announcement that some of these products would escape levies of up to 145%.

China has called on Donald Trump to “completely cancel” his tariffs regime, and “return to the right path of mutual respect”.

However US officials said on Sunday that products would be subject to a “semiconductor tariff” instead, with Trump expected to reveal more details later.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the new levy would be in addition to a host of global tariffs the US imposed earlier this month, then paused for 90 days.

“We need our medicines and we need semiconductors and our electronics to be built in America,” he added.

On Saturday, a US customs notice revealed smartphones, computers and some other electronic devices would be excluded from the 125% tariff on goods entering the country from China.

But Trump chimed in on social media, saying there was no exemption for these products and called such reports about this notice false. Instead, he said that “they are just moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket'”.

Trump added: “We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations.”

He said he would provide an update on Monday about semiconductor duties.

Everyday devices such as smartphones and laptops rely on semiconductors, which are small and powerful pieces of tech that form the basic building blocks of modern computation.

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On Monday, Sony announced that it was increasing the price of its flagship games console, the PlayStation 5, by about 10% in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, citing a “challenging economic environment”, inflation and fluctuating exchange rates. It did not announce price rises in the United States.

The Chinese commerce ministry had called Trump’s exemptions a “small step” by the US, and said that Beijing was “evaluating the impact” of the move.

But the suggestion by Trump administration officials of plans for future levies may dampen hopes of a thaw in the two rivals’ protectionist posture.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer was asked on Sunday whether there were any plans for Trump to speak with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

“Right now we don’t have any plans on that,” he said during an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation.

Trump imposed a tariff amounting to 54% on imports of products from China at the beginning of April, before escalating to the current 145% rate.

In its own tit-for-tat tariffs, China imposed levies of 34% on US goods, before increasing it to 84% and then 125%, which took effect on Saturday.

In announcing its latest tariffs, China’s commerce ministry said last week that it would “fight to the end” if the US “insists on provoking a tariff war or trade war”.

Late on Saturday, while travelling to Miami, Florida, Trump said he would give more details of the exemptions at the start of next week.

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The White House has argued that it is using tariffs as a negotiating tactic to extract more favourable trade terms from other countries.

Trump has said his policy will redress unfairness in the global trading system, as well as bring jobs and factories back to the US.

However, his interventions have seen massive fluctuations in the stock market and raised fears of a decrease in global trade that could have a knock-on effect on jobs and individual economies.