Scientists have found new but tentative evidence that a faraway world orbiting another star may be home to life.

A Cambridge team studying the atmosphere of a planet called K2-18b has detected signs of molecules which on Earth are only produced by simple organisms.

This is the second, and more promising, time chemicals associated with life have been detected in the planet’s atmosphere by Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

But the team and independent astronomers stress that more data is needed to confirm these results.

The lead researcher, Prof Nikku Madhusudhan, told me at his lab at Cambridge University’s Institute of Astronomy that he hopes to obtain the clinching evidence soon.

“This is the strongest evidence yet there is possibly life out there. I can realistically say that we can confirm this signal within one to two years.”

K2-18b is two and a half times the size of Earth and is seven hundred trillion miles away from us.

JWST is so powerful that it can analyse the chemical composition of the planet’s atmosphere from the light that passes through from the small red Sun it orbits.

The Cambridge group has found that the atmosphere seems to contain the chemical signature of at least one of two molecules that are associated with life: dimethyl sulphide (DMS) and dimethyl disulphide (DMDS). On Earth, these gases are produced by marine phytoplankton and bacteria.

Prof Madhusudhan said he was surprised by how much gas was apparently detected during a single observation window.

“The amount we estimate of this gas in the atmosphere is thousands of times higher than what we have on Earth,” he said.

“So, if the association with life is real, then this planet will be teeming with life,” he told me.

Prof Madhusudhan went further: “If we confirm that there is life on k2-18b it should basically confirm that life is very common in the galaxy”.

There are lots of “ifs” and “buts” at this stage, as Prof Madhusudhan’s team freely admits.

Firstly, this latest detection is not at the standard required to claim a discovery.

For that, the researchers need to be about 99.99999% sure that their results are correct and not a fluke reading. In scientific jargon that is a five sigma result.

These latest results are only three sigma, 99.7%. Which sounds a lot, but it is not enough to convince the scientific community. But it is much more than the one sigma result of 68% the team obtained 18 months ago,, which was greeted with much scepticism at the time.

But even if the Cambridge team obtains a five sigma result, that won’t be conclusive proof that life exists on the planet, according to Prof Catherine Heymans of Edinburgh University and Scotland’s Astronomer Royal, who is independent of the research team.

“Even with that certainty, there is still the question of what is the origin of this gas,” she told BBC News.

“On Earth it is produced by microorganisms in the ocean, but even with perfect data we can’t say for sure that this is of a biological origin on an alien world because loads of strange things happen in in the Universe and we don’t know what other geological activity could be happening on this planet that might produce the molecules.”

That view is one the Cambridge team agree with; they are working with other groups to see if DMS and DMDS can be produced by non-living means in the lab.

Other research groups have put forward alternative, lifeless, explanations for the data obtained from K2-18b. There is a strong scientific debate not only about whether DMS and DMDS are present but also the planet’s composition.

The reason many researchers infer that the planet has a vast liquid ocean is the absence of the gas amonia in K2-18b’s atmosphere. Their theory is that the ammonia is absorbed by a vast body of water below . But it could equally be explained by an ocean of molten rock, which would preclude life, according to Prof Oliver Shorttle of Cambridge University.

“Everything we know about planets orbiting other stars comes from the tiny amounts of light that glance off their atmospheres. So it is an incredibly tenuous signal that we are having to read, not only for signs of life, but everything else.

“With K2-18b part of the scientific debate is still about the structure of the planet,” he said.

Dr Nicolas Wogan at Nasa’s Ames Research Center has yet another interpretation of the data. He published research suggesting that K2-18b is a mini gas giant with no surface.

Both these alternative interpretations have also been challenged by other groups on the grounds that they are inconsistent with the data from JWST, which highlights the strong scientific debate surrounding K2-18b.

Prof Madhusudhan acknowledges that there is still a scientific mountain to climb if he is to answer one of the biggest questions in science. But he believes he and his team are on the right track.

“Decades from now, we may look back at this point in time and recognise it was when the living universe came within reach,” he said.

“This could be the tipping point, where suddenly the fundamental question of whether we’re alone in the universe is one we’re capable of answering.”

The research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

A controversial new law introduced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has put the spotlight on waqf, or properties donated by Indian Muslims over centuries.

Waqf is a tradition across many Muslim-majority countries, where these properties are used to house and operate schools, orphanages, hospitals, banks and graveyards.

The properties in India are managed by waqf boards formed by different state governments. A federal organisation called the Central Waqf Council coordinates their functioning.

But thousands of these land tracts, worth billions of rupees, have been mired in legal disputes across the country for decades.

For instance, in India’s capital Delhi, there are more than a thousand of these properties, including mosques, graveyards and mausoleums. Emblems of the city’s centuries-old Islamic heritage, they have been used for religious, educational and charitable purposes to benefit the community. At least 123 of them are locked in long-running ownership disputes between the city’s waqf board and the federal government.

They form just a fraction of thousands of such cases fought by waqf boards across India against private parties – Muslims and non-Muslims – as well as government departments. It is one of the challenges that the federal government claims will be resolved through the new law, called the Waqf Amendment Act 2025, which has brought in dozens of changes to the existing system.

Many Muslim leaders and opposition parties have criticised the law, calling it an attempt to weaken the rights of minorities, and it has sparked protests and violence in some states. India’s Supreme Court has also begun hearing a bunch of pleas challenging the law.

Waqf disputes stem from a number of reasons – unclear land titles, oral declarations of properties as waqf, inconsistent laws, collusion with land mafias and years of official neglect.

Government data shows that of 872,852 waqf properties in India (on paper), at least 13,200 are entangled in legal battles, 58,889 have been encroached upon and more than 436,000 have unclear status.

Some of these claims have attracted national attention. For instance, waqf boards in different states are accused of wrongly claiming ownership of a predominantly Christian village in Kerala, several government buildings in Gujarat and a large tract of land used by farmers in Karnataka.

The federal government says waqf boards have declared ownership over 5,973 of its properties across India – an assertion denied by the boards which insist they rightfully own these sites.

Some disputes are traced back to India’s partition in 1947. In Punjab, more than half of the state’s 75,965 waqf properties have been “encroached”, a legacy of migration that left many Muslim estates in limbo. “Some owners fled to Pakistan, and others arrived and claimed the same properties,” said Mohammad Reyaz, who teaches at a university in Kolkata.

In Delhi, the 123 disputed properties are claimed by departments under the federal urban and housing ministry, while the waqf says its ownership dates back to the British era and earlier. Attempts by governments and courts to resolve the issue have not been successful.

As far back as 1923, lawmakers in British-ruled India had flagged concerns over waqf properties slipping away from Muslim control. The MPs pushed for their registration, warning that managers supposed to take care of the properties were wrongly listing themselves as owners – a practice critics say continues even today.

Prof Reyaz says such disputes have increased as land prices rise.

“Not many cared for every piece of land 40-50 years ago, but as its importance has grown, members of the community or descendants of the donors have started claiming the waqf land, often resulting in disputes in places where people have lived for generations, either after buying or encroaching on the land,” he says.

Disputes also stem from attempts by waqf boards to suddenly claim land they have long neglected. So, despite them being government organisations, the boards are being criticised for their unchecked power to claim properties.

Part of the concern is because of repeated assertions by media and politicians that the decision of the waqf tribunal – a specialised judicial organisation that hears waqf disputes – is final, says Mohd Ismail Khan, a Hyderabad-lawyer involved in several waqf-related cases. But the final authority, he points out, are higher courts.

Even under the old law – which the government said gave “draconian” powers to claim property ownership – waqf boards frequently failed to safeguard their own interests.

Afroz Alam Sahil, a journalist who has extensively covered waqf-related issues, highlighted these weaknesses in 2011 with a question filed under the right to information law about Delhi’s graveyards. The Delhi Waqf Board initially reported 562, later revising the number down to 488.

But in 2014, a waqf board official told him – in a BBC Hindi report – that only 70-80 graveyards remained under its supervision in the city.

This lack of clarity extends to other properties too. In 2008, says Mr Sahil, the Delhi Waqf Board issued a list of 1,964 properties under it in the city, but a federal government statement this month put that number at only 1,047. It’s not clear what has happened to the 917 properties missing from the list.

The BBC has reached out to the Central Waqf Council and Delhi Waqf Board for comment.

While most stakeholders agree that the system needs reform, critics fear the new bill will not improve the situation.

A major cause for concern is the removal of a provision called “waqf by user” – which allowed properties to be designated as waqf if they had been used for religious or charitable purposes by Muslims over time.

According to government records, 402,000 waqf properties are classified as “waqf by user”. This could be because they were orally donated decades or even centuries ago, without deeds or documents.

A federal minister has said in parliament that existing waqf-by-user properties – registered with the government before the new law came into force – will remain so unless their ownership has already been disputed. But it is not clear how many such properties have been formally registered.

Critics argue that eliminating this provision will spark new disputes and worsen existing ones as it could give rise to new claimants even for properties that have been actively used over the years.

One of the petitions submitted in the Supreme Court argues that since much of the waqf land is “not created under any deed” but was classified as “waqf by user”, much of the properties will cease to fall under the category.

The removal of the “waqf by user” provision also brings into question a 1998 Supreme Court ruling that said “once a waqf, always a waqf”, meaning once a property is donated as waqf, its character couldn’t be changed.

Syed Zafar Mahmood, a former bureaucrat, said this change in the new law could affect tens of thousands of waqf properties.

“Very few properties will remain waqf assets, while the rest may cease to exist,” he told BBC Hindi.

A Tesla whistleblower who has fought Elon Musk and his company through the courts for years has won the latest round of a long-running legal battle.

Engineer Cristina Balan lost her job after she raised a safety concern in 2014 about a design flaw which could affect the cars’ braking.

Her defamation claim against the firm seemed to have run out of road when a judge confirmed an arbitration decision dismissing her case – but a panel of appeal judges in California has reversed this decision in her favour.

She told BBC News she now wants to face Elon Musk and Tesla in open court.

Tesla has not responded to a request for comment.

Ms Balan said she believes the case will now in effect go back to square one, and new proceedings can be launched.

“We are hoping we will start a new lawsuit and we will have the chance to take on Elon Musk in front of a jury and judge,” she said.

The engineer was once so prominent at Tesla that her initials were engraved on the batteries inside Model S vehicles.

In an interview with BBC News last year, she said she is determined to prove her innocence for the sake of her son.

She also revealed she was in remission from stage-3B breast cancer, and her biggest worry was she may not live to see her final day in court.

Ms Balan claimed she was worried the carpets were curling underneath some pedals in Tesla models, creating a safety hazard.

She said managers rebuffed her concerns, became hostile, and she lost her job.

She then won a wrongful dismissal case – but this turned out to be the start of a long journey through the courts.

Ms Balan was publicly accused by Tesla of using its resources for a “secret project” – accusations which amount to embezzlement, a crime under US law.

She has consistently denied the accusation, and decided to bring a defamation case against the firm in 2019.

“I want to clear my name,” she told BBC News last year.

“I wish Elon Musk had the decency to apologise.”

A court then decided Ms Balan’s case should be subject to arbitration per a contract she signed while working for Tesla.

The arbitrator found in favour of the firm and Musk, dismissing her claims, due to California’s statute of limitations – meaning too much time had passed since the alleged defamatory statements were made.

Tesla brought the case back to a district court in California to have the decision confirmed.

However, Ms Balan appealed this decision, and judges from the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found in her favour – in effect deciding the California court did not have the jurisdiction to make its judgement.

They have ordered for the confirmation of the arbitration award to be cancelled, and for the district court to dismiss the action due to its lack of jurisdiction.

As the trade war between China and the US escalates, attention has been focused on the increasingly high levels of tit-for-tat tariffs the two countries are imposing on one another.

But slapping reciprocal tariffs on Washington is not the only way Beijing has been able to retaliate.

China has now also imposed export controls on a range of critical rare earth minerals and magnets, dealing a major blow to the US.

The move has laid bare how reliant America is on these minerals.

This week, Trump ordered the commerce department to come up with ways to boost US production of critical minerals and cut reliance on imports – an attempt by Washington to reclaim this critical industry. But why exactly are rare earths so important and how could they shake up the trade war?

“Rare earths” are a group of 17 chemically similar elements that are crucial to the manufacture of many high-tech products.

Most are abundant in nature, but they are known as “rare” because it is very unusual to find them in a pure form, and they are very hazardous to extract.

Although you may not be familiar with the names of these rare earths – like Neodymium, Yttrium and Europium – you will be very familiar with the products that they are used in.

For instance, Neodymium is used to make the powerful magnets used in loudspeakers, computer hard drives, EV motors and jet engines that enable them to be smaller and more efficient.

Yttrium and Europium are used to manufacture television and computer screens because of the way they display colours.

“Everything you can switch on or off likely runs on rare earths,” explains Thomas Kruemmer, Director of Ginger International Trade and Investment.

Rare earths are also critical to the production of medical technology like laser surgery and MRI scans, as well as key defence technologies.

China has a near monopoly on extracting rare earths as well as on refining them – which is the process of separating them from other minerals.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that China accounts for about 61% of rare earth production and 92% of their processing.

That means it currently dominates the rare earths supply chain and has the capacity to decide which companies can and cannot receive supplies of rare earths.

Both the extraction and processing of these rare earths are costly and polluting.

All rare earth resources also contain radioactive elements, which is why many other countries, including those in the EU, are reluctant to produce them.

“Radioactive waste from production absolutely requires safe, compliant, permanent disposal. Currently all disposal facilities in EU are temporary,” says Mr Kruemmer.

But China’s dominance in the rare earth supply chain didn’t take place overnight – but rather, is the result of decades of strategic government policies and investment.

In a visit to Inner Mongolia in 1992, the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who oversaw China’s economic reform, famously said: “The Middle East has oil and China has rare earths”.

“Beginning in the late 20th century, China prioritised the development of its rare earth mining and processing capabilities, often at lower environmental standards and labour costs compared to other nations,” said Gavin Harper, a critical materials research fellow at the University of Birmingham.

“This allowed them to undercut global competitors and build a near-monopoly across the entire value chain, from mining and refining to the manufacturing of finished products like magnets.”

In response to tariffs imposed by Washington, China earlier this month began ordering restrictions on the exports of seven rare earth minerals – most of which are known as “heavy” rare earths, which are crucial to the defence sector.

These are less common and are harder to process than “light” rare earths, which also makes them more valuable.

From 4 April, all companies now have to get special export licenses in order to send rare earths and magnets out of the country.

That is because as a signatory to the international treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, China has the ability to control the trade of “dual use products”.

According to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), this leaves the US particularly vulnerable as there is no capacity outside China to process heavy rare earths.

A US Geological report notes that between 2020 and 2023, the US relied on China for 70% of its imports of all rare earth compounds and metals.

This means that the new restrictions have the ability to hit the US hard.

Heavy rare earths are used in many military fields such as missiles, radar, and permanent magnets.

A CSIS report notes that defence technologies including F-35 jets, Tomahawk missiles and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles all depend on these minerals.

It adds that this comes as China “expands its munitions production and acquires advanced weapons systems and equipment at a pace five to six times faster than the United States”.

“The impact on the US defence industry will be substantial,” said Mr Kroemmer.

And it’s not only in the field of defence.

US manufacturing, which Trump has said he hopes to revive through the imposition of his tariffs, stand to be severely impacted.

“Manufacturers, particularly in defence and high-tech, face potential shortages and production delays due to halted shipments and limited inventories,” said Dr Harper.

“Prices for critical rare earth materials are expected to surge, increasing the immediate costs of components used in a wide range of products, from smartphones to military hardware,” he says, adding that this could result in potential production slowdowns for affected US companies.

If such a shortage from China persists in the long-run, the US could potentially begin diversifying its supply chains and scaling up its domestic and processing capabilities, though this would still require “substantial and sustained investment, technological advancements and potentially higher overall costs compared to the previous dependence on China”.

And it’s clear this is something already on Trump’s mind. This week, he ordered an investigation into the national security risks posed by the US’ reliance on such critical minerals.

“President Trump recognises that an overreliance on foreign critical minerals and their derivative products could jeopardise US defence capabilities, infrastructure development, and technological innovation,” said the order.

“Critical minerals, including rare earth elements, are essential for national security and economic resilience.”

The US has one operational rare earths mine, but it does not have the capacity to separate heavy rare earths and has to send its ore to China for processing.

There used to be US companies that manufactured rare earth magnets – until the 1980s, the US was in fact the largest producer of rare earths.

But these companies exited the market as China began to dominate in terms of scale and cost.

This is largely believed to be part of why US president Donald Trump is so keen to sign a minerals deal with Ukraine – it wants to reduce dependency on China.

Another place Trump has had his eye on is Greenland – which is endowed with the eighth largest reserves of rare earth elements.

Trump has repeatedly showed interest in taking control of the autonomous Danish dependent territory and has refused to rule out economic or military force to take control of it.

These might have been places that the US could have sourced some of its rare earth exports from, but the adversarial tone Trump has struck with them means the US could be left with very few alternative suppliers.

“The challenge the U.S. faces is two-fold, on the one hand it has alienated China who provides the monopoly supply of rare earths, and on the other hand it is also antagonising many nations that have previously been friendly collaborators through tariffs and other hostile actions,” said Dr Harper.

“Whether they will still prioritise collaboration with America remains to be seen in the turbulent policy environment of this new administration.”

Nora Aunor, one of the Philippines’ most celebrated film stars, has died at the age of 71.

Aunor’s death on Wednesday was announced by her children on social media, but no further details were provided about her cause of death.

“She touched generations with her unmatched talent, grace, and passion for the craft. Her voice, presence, and artistry shaped a legacy that will never fade,” her daughter and actor Lotlot de Leon said on Instagram.

Born into a poor family in the city of Iriga, Aunor established a career in television, music and film over seven decades. She was named National Artist for Film and Broadcast Arts in 2022 – the Philippines’ highest honour for the arts.

She rose to stardom as a singer in the 1960s before moving to the screen, where she amassed more than 200 credits in film and television.

One of her most memorable performances was in 1995’s The Flor Contemplacion Story, a film about a Filipino maid executed by Singapore for murdering her fellow domestic helper.

Aunor won local and international awards for her portrayal, along with dozens of other acting honours over her career.

She was married to Filipino actor Christopher de Leon from 1975 to 1996 and they had five children.

Her son Kristoffer Ian De Leon remembered his mother as a “source of unconditional love” in a Facebook post.

“She was the heart of our family. Her kindness, wisdom, and beautiful spirit touched everyone who knew her,” he wrote.

Aunor was most recently seen in the 2024 TV series Lilet Matias, Attorney-at-Law and filmed a special cameo for the musical Isang Himala.

Beijing insists it will stand firm in the face of Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods. It has been trying to reassure everyone that the country is strong and the economy is resilient enough to weather this latest storm.

But this week, Chinese officials have acknowledged the potential for economic pain as a result of the unfolding trade war with the US.

One option for policymakers here is to try to increase domestic consumption to make up for lost export revenue.

China has a massive population and, if they start buying more stuff, Chinese companies won’t have to rely as much on trade overseas.

A key target in this endeavour are retirees with potentially decades of savings.

Now the government wants them to spend some of it – for the good of the country.

And initiatives like the “silver train” – which are tailored specifically to older travellers – aim to do just that.

On board the Star Express, the cocktails are poured and the karaoke microphone is passed around, as retirees party their way through China’s south-western Yunnan province.

The roast goose is being devoured with shots of baijiu, a Chinese white spirit alcohol.

“We have been working hard all these years,” says 66-year-old Daniel Ling, who is travelling with a group of retired or semi-retired friends.

“The important thing when we reach this age, is to know what is the right thing to do – and that is to really enjoy life.”

The initiative hopes to turn an economic problem into an economic solution by giving older people a fun avenue to spend more.

Families are not spending enough because they don’t feel financially safe – the property crisis has diminished the value of their number one asset: their home. And growing unemployment has also potentially made their job less secure.

Add to the mix an ageing population and low birthrates and the proportion of retirees grows each year, making it harder for the economy to support them.

But what retirees do have is time on their hands and money to spend.

So now they are to be given more opportunities to splurge with special trains designed to take them to sites they might not normally visit – parts of the country further afield, which need a financial shot in the arm.

“The main places where the silver trains will stop are undeveloped rural areas or small towns with struggling economies,” says Dr Huang Huang, a research associate from the China Tourism Academy who has been studying the potential impact of this plan.

“They will consume various products on the trains, but after they pull into a station, they will also visit tourist attractions and traditional villages.”

In Baisha, the travellers stop by the modest street stalls at the bottom of old, two-storey, wooden houses built by the local Naxi ethnic minority.

One of them approaches a vendor selling barbecued strips of yak meat. They look tasty and she buys a bagful. The vendor’s husband, who is also working at the stall, says this business is only a year old and that they need outside customers to survive.

All along this street you can get potatoes with spicy sauce, lamb skewers, fresh orange juice and the traditional clothing of the Naxi people.

This is a region where incomes are low and most young people leave when they reach a certain age because there are hardly any jobs for them.

It is also not an easy place for many retirees to reach, but these silver trains make it possible, with easy access to boarding and alighting, and with staff to help as well as extra medical support if required.

Shi Lili, 69, whose granddaughter is accompanying her, says the travelling spirit of her youth has been rekindled: “When I was young I really liked exploring other places by myself. Now I’m older, I have my family who can go with me.”

By the end of last year, 22% of China’s population were over the age of 60, making up more than 310 million people.

So, if only the smallest percentage of China’s retirees take a silver train, it can still mean millions of ticket sales. And China’s railway authorities say they plan to be operating 100 routes within the next three years.

Such trips alone are not going to fix China’s massive challenge with low consumer spending. But economists would say these moves are a step in the right direction.

Older citizens now have a much greater desire to travel compared to previous generations, creating “huge potential”, according to Dr Huang.

“Given that China’s ageing population is now a reality going into the long run – something which is unlikely to the reversed – we should find more opportunities from this rather than always turning it into a challenge.”

Back on board the train, the silver adventurers are ready to crash out. And they can do so knowing that their big day out was – at least partly – for the benefit of all.

Then it’s onto the next town.

The tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu has unveiled its first ever cash machines in a move hailed as momentous by the prime minister.

Their instalment marks the first time the island’s 11,000 inhabitants have had access to electronic banking.

Five machines and 30 sale terminals have been installed on Funafuti, the country’s main island, including at its airport.

Feleti Teo, the prime minister, said the move “not only marks a momentous occasion but it is also historic as the bank moves into a totally new era”.

“We’ve been in an analogue space all along, these were dreams for us,” Teo said according to the Guardian.

“These machines don’t come cheap. But with government support and sheer determination, we were able to roll out this service for our people.”

The ceremony took place at the headquarters of the National Bank of Tuvalu in the village of Vaiaku on Funafuti. It was also attended by traditional leaders, members of parliament and business officials.

Until now, Tuvaluans have had to physically visit a bank to get money, and lengthy queues form outside as workers withdraw salaries on pay day.

Shops will also be able to process electronic payments for the first time.

The cash machines will initially only accept prepaid cards, however. The bank plans to introduce debit and credit cards that can be used internationally at a later date.

The head of the national bank, Siose Penitala Teo, said the move to electronic banking and payments would open the door to economic empowerment.

Tuvalu is a group of nine small islands in the South Pacific which won independence from the United Kingdom in 1978.

Formerly known as the Ellice Islands, all are low-lying, with no point on Tuvalu being higher than 4.5m above sea level.

Local politicians have campaigned against climate change, arguing that it could see the islands swamped by rising sea levels.

In November, Teo delivered a national statement at the COP29 Climate Conference in Azerbaijan, warning that rising sea levels as a result of melting glaciers will one day mean Tuvalu is entirely submerged.

Israel’s defence minister has said troops will remain in so-called security zones they have established by seizing large areas of Gaza even after an end to the war.

Israel Katz said the zones would provide a “buffer” to protect Israeli communities “in any temporary or permanent situation”, and that “tens of per cent” of the Palestinian territory had been added since the Israeli offensive resumed three weeks ago.

Israel would continue its six-week blockade of humanitarian aid to pressure Hamas to release hostages, he said, despite the UN warning of “devastating” consequences.

On Wednesday Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) became the latest international organisation to sound alarm at the impact of Israel’s campaign, saying that Gaza had been “turned into a mass grave of Palestinians and those coming to their assistance”.

“We are witnessing in real time the destruction and forced displacement of the entire population in Gaza,” Amande Bazerolle, the charity’s emergency co-ordinator in Gaza, said.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry has said more than 1,650 people have been killed since the war resumed on 18 March.

Hospital officials said at least 24 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza on Wednesday.

The majority of those reported killed were in Gaza City, in the north.

They included 10 members of the Hassouna family, mostly children and women. One of them was Fatema Hassouna – a young writer and photographer.

The BBC has asked the Israeli military for comment on the strike.

The UN says 69% of the territory is now under active Israeli military evacuation orders, within a “no-go” zone running along the borders with Israel and Egypt and the Wadi Gaza valley south of Gaza City, or both. Some 500,000 people have been newly displaced or uprooted once more, with no safe place to go, it estimates.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said it has killed “hundreds of terrorists” in strikes while troops have advanced into several areas in the north and the south. It has established a new corridor that cuts the southern city of Rafah off from neighbouring Khan Younis and has designated 30% of Gaza as an “operational security perimeter”.

On Wednesday, Israel Katz said Israel’s policy was to “first and foremost make every effort to bring about the release of all hostages” still being held there and to “build a bridge to defeat Hamas later on”.

“Unlike in the past, the IDF is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized,” he said.

“The IDF will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and [Israeli] communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza – as in Lebanon and Syria.”

Hamas has insisted Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

“Any truce lacking real guarantees for halting the war, achieving full withdrawal, lifting the blockade, and beginning reconstruction will be a political trap,” the group said on Wednesday, according to Reuters news agency.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum in Israel, which represents many hostages’ relatives, called Katz’s plan an “illusion”.

“They promised that the hostages come before everything. In practice, however, Israel is choosing to seize territory before the hostages,” it said.

“There is one obvious, practical, solution and it is to release all of the hostages in one stage with an agreement, even at the cost of ending the war.”

Israeli military reservists and veterans have recently signed several open letters calling for the return of the hostages to be prioritised over fighting Hamas.

• Members of British Jewish body condemn Israel’s Gaza offensive

Katz also made clear that Israel would maintain its blockade of Gaza – it has blocked the entry of all food, medicine and other supplies since 2 March.

“Israel’s policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population,” he said.

UN agencies strongly reject the Israeli government claim that there is no shortage of aid in Gaza because 25,000 lorry loads of supplies entered during the ceasefire, and suggest the blockade could breach international humanitarian law.

The UN’s humanitarian partners say tents are no longer available for distribution and that there has been a rise in acute malnutrition, with the number of children who received supplementary feeding decreasing by more than two thirds in March.

In its statement, MSF said the humanitarian response was “severely struggling under the weight of insecurity and critical supply shortages, leaving people with few, if any, options for accessing care”.

MSF said two of its staff had been killed over the past two weeks and called the killing of 15 emergency workers by Israeli troops last month “yet another example of the complete disregard shown by Israeli forces for the protection of humanitarian and medical workers”.

It also said it was facing shortages in medications for pain management and chronic illnesses, antibiotics and critical surgical materials.

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 others were taken hostage.

At least 51,025 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Many of the 1.9 million displaced people returned to the home areas during the recent ceasefire, which began on 19 January.

That ceasefire saw Hamas release 33 Israeli hostages – eight of them dead – in exchange for about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, a surge in humanitarian aid entering Gaza, and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from populated areas.

Israel blocked supplies to Gaza on 2 March and resumed its offensive two weeks later. It said Hamas had refused to accept a proposal to extend the ceasefire deal’s first phase and release of more of the 59 hostages it is still holding, up to 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

Hamas accused Israel of violating the original deal, according to which there would be a second phase where all the remaining living hostages would be handed over and the war brought to a permanent end.

A senior Palestinian official told the BBC on Tuesday that Hamas had rejected a new Israeli proposal for a six-week ceasefire in exchange for the release of half of the living Israeli hostages and disarmament of the armed group.

On Wednesday, sources close to the Israeli prime minister’s office told the Haaretz newspaper that Israel had not yet received an official reply from Hamas.

The allied armed group Palestinian Islamic Jihad meanwhile released a new video showing the Israeli-German hostage Rom Braslavski. In the video, in which he appears to be speaking under duress, the 21-year-old appealed to the US and Israeli governments to secure his release.

Germany’s ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, said it was painful to see him “cruelly paraded in a video”.

“The terrorists must release him and all hostages now. And to everyone involved in the talks: no duty is more pressing than their return,” he added.

US actress Michelle Trachtenberg died a natural death from complications caused by diabetes, according to the New York City medical examiner’s office.

The 39-year-old actress was found “unconscious and unresponsive” in her New York City apartment in February.

Officials did not perform a post-mortem examination, but said toxicology tests determined Trachtenberg’s cause of death.

The US actress was best known for playing Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s younger sister Dawn Summers, and later took on the role of manipulative socialite Georgina Sparks in Gossip Girl as an adult.

Trachtenberg’s family, who are Orthodox Jews, had reportedly objected to an autopsy, citing religious reasons.

Because there was no sign of foul play, the medical examiner did not overrule the relatives’ objection.

An unnamed source told NBC News the actress had received a liver transplant before her death. The exact timing or reasoning of the operation is unclear.

Trachtenberg’s sudden death shocked her fans.

She rose to fame as a childhood star making her debut in a number of Nickelodeon projects including the film Harriet the Spy.

In the early 2000s, she was nominated for several acting awards – including a Daytime Emmy Award – for her role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

She also starred in films including EuroTrip, Ice Princess, Killing Kennedy, and Sister Cities.

Following her death, fellow actors paid tribute.

Blake Lively, a Gossip Girl co-star, said everything Trachtenberg did “she did 200%”.

“She laughed the fullest at someone’s joke… she cared deeply about her work, she was fiercely loyal to her friends and brave for those she loved, she was big and bold and distinctly herself,” Lively wrote on social media.

Every spring for the past six years, millions of people have tuned in to a round-the-clock livestream of elk on the move in northern Sweden.

“The Great Moose Migration” tracks the animals as they swim across the Angerman River and make their annual journey toward greener, summer pastures.

This year’s 24-hour programme from SVT Play, the streaming platform for Sweden’s national broadcaster, began on Tuesday – a week ahead of schedule because of the warmer weather this April.

The broadcast has become a “slow TV” phenomenon, cultivating a loyal fanbase since its inception in 2019.

Cait Borjesson, 60, who has been hooked to the annual livestream since she stumbled upon it during the Covid-19 pandemic, said her TV had been on for 16 straight hours since it began on Tuesday.

“It’s unbelievably relaxing,” she said. “There’s the natural sounds of the birds, the wind, the trees. It gives you a sense that you’re in nature even if you’re not”.

For Cait, watching the migration has become a yearly tradition, so much so that she books time off work to fully immerse herself in the three-week broadcast.

She said the stream was “like therapy” which had helped her anxiety and panic attacks.

And she is not alone. SVT’s livestream has a wide audience, including a Facebook group boasting more than 77,000 members who come together to share their memorable moments, emotional reactions to the broadcast and their shared fascination of the migration.

A major part of their journey captured by SVT is through the village of Kullberg in northern Sweden, next to the Angerman. The animals are known as moose in North America, and elk in Europe.

Goran Ericsson, dean of the faculty of forest sciences at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and science advisor for the broadcast, said the elk migrate back to the summer ranges after aggregating in spots with better temperatures in the winter.

“Historically, this migration has been going on since the ice age,” he said. “During spring and summer, moose are more evenly spread out in the landscape.”

He added that around 95% of the elk in northern Sweden migrate annually, adding that early migrations were not new with this year’s prompted by less snow on the ground.

“Early springs happen occasionally,” he said. “We’re still within the normal range of variation.”

More than 30 cameras are used to capture the elk as they move through the vast landscapes, he added.

The show drew in nearly a million people during its launch in 2019, before garnering nine million viewers in 2024.

Minh-Xuan Truong, a researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences who has surveyed viewers of the livestream, said in a fast-paced media environment, people enjoy experiencing nature through this “slow TV” style – a genre characterised by long, un-edited and real-time broadcasts.

“A lot of people say it’s like an open window to a forest,” he says. “When you ask them if they would prefer having music in the background, or commentary, they say they prefer just having the sound of the wind, the birds and trees.”

Sweden’s woodlands are home to about 300,000 elk. The animal is known in the Scandinavian country as “King of the Forest”.

Listen to Pallab read this article

There are some scientific discoveries that do much more than advance our knowledge: they create a shift in our psyche as they show us the scale of the Universe and our place in it.

One such moment was when space craft sent back images of the Earth for the first time. Another is the discovery of life on another world, a moment that has inched a little closer today with the news that signs of a gas, which on Earth is produced by simple marine organisms, has been found on a planet called K2-18b.

Now, the prospect of really finding alien life – meaning we are not alone in the Universe – is not far away, according to the scientist leading the team that made the detection.

“This is basically as big as it gets in terms of fundamental questions, and we may be on the verge of answering that question,” says Prof Nikku Madhusudhan of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University.

But all of this prompts even more questions, including, if they do find life on another world, how will this change us as a species?

Our ancestors have long created stories of beings that might dwell in the skies. In the early 20th Century, astronomers thought they could see straight line features on the Martian surface, raising speculation that one of our nearest planets might be home to an advanced civilisation: an idea that spawned a wealth of pulp science fiction culture involving flying saucers and little green aliens.

It was during an era when western governments generated fear of the spread of communism, so visitors from outer space were more often than not portrayed as menaces, bringing peril rather than hope.

But decades on, what has been described as “the strongest evidence yet” of life on another world has come, not from Mars or Venus, but from a planet hundreds of trillions of miles away orbiting a distant star.

Part of the challenge when it comes to researching the existence of alien life is knowing where to look.

Until relatively recently, the focus for Nasa’s search for life was Mars, but that began to change in 1992 with the discovery of the first planet orbiting another star outside of our solar system.

Although astronomers had suspected that there were other worlds around distant stars there had been no proof until that point. Since then, nearly 6,000 planets outside our solar system have been discovered.

Many are so-called gas giants, like Jupiter and Saturn in our solar system. Others are either too hot or too cold to support liquid water, thought to be essential for life.

But many are in what astronomers call “The Goldilocks Zone” where the distance is “just right” to support life. Prof Madhusudhan believes there could be thousands in our galaxy.

As these so-called exoplanets were being discovered, scientists began to develop instruments to analyse the chemical composition of their atmospheres. Their ambition was breathtaking, some would say audacious.

The idea was to capture the tiny amount of starlight glancing through the atmospheres of these faraway worlds and study them for chemical fingerprints of molecules, which on Earth can only be produced by living organisms, so-called biosignatures.

And they succeeded in developing such instruments for ground and space-based telescopes.

Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which detected the gas on the planet called K2-18b in this week’s discovery, is the most powerful space telescope ever built and its launch in 2021 generated excitement that the search for life was at long last within humanity’s grasp.

But JWST has its limits – it can’t detect faraway planets as small as ours or as close to their parent stars, because of the glare. So, Nasa is planning the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), scheduled for the 2030s, which will be able to spot and sample the atmospheres of planets similar to our own. (This is possible using what is effectively a high-tech sunshield that minimises light from the star which a planet orbits.)

Also coming online later this decade is the European Southern Observatory (ESO)’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which will be on the ground, looking up at the crystal-clear skies of the Chilean desert.

It has the largest mirror of any instrument built, 39-metres in diameter, and so can see vastly more detail at planetary atmospheres than its predecessors.

Prof Madhusudan, however, hopes to have enough data within two years to demonstrate categorically that he really has discovered the biosignatures around K2-18b. But even if he does achieve his aim, this won’t lead to mass celebrations about the discovery of life on another world.

Instead, it will be the start of another robust scientific debate about whether the biosignature could be produced by non-living means.

Eventually though, as more data is gathered from more atmospheres and as chemists fail in finding alternative explanations for biosignatures, the scientific consensus will slowly and gradually shift towards the probability that life does exist on other worlds, according to Prof Catherine Heymans, from Edinburgh University, who is Scotland’s Astronomer Royal.

“With more time on telescopes, astronomers will get a clearer vision of the chemical compositions of these atmospheres. You won’t know that it’s definitely life. But I think the more data that’s built up, and that if you see this in multiple different systems, not just this one particular planet, it gives us more confidence”.

The world wide web emerged in a series of incremental technological breakthroughs that didn’t necessarily feel of enormous consequence at the time.

In similar fashion, it may dawn on people that possibly the most enormous scientific, cultural and social transformation in the whole of human history has happened, but that the moment the balance was tipped in terms of there being other life out there was not fully recognised at the time.

A much more definitive discovery would be to discover life in our own solar system using robotic space craft containing portable laboratories. Any off-world bug could be analysed, possibly even brought back to Earth, providing prima facie evidence to at least significantly limit any scientific push back that may ensue.

The scientific case for the possibility of life or past life in our own solar system has increased in recent years following data sent back by various spacecraft, so several missions to search for signs of it are on their way.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars rover, planned for launch in 2028, will drill below the surface of Mars to search for signs of past and possibly present life. Given the extreme conditions on Mars, however, the discovery of fossilised past life is the more likely outcome.

China’s Tianwen-3 mission, also planned for launch in 2028 is designed to collect samples and bring them back to Earth by 2031. Nasa and ESA each have spacecraft on their way to the icy moons of Jupiter to see if there may be water, possibly vast oceans, under their icy surfaces.

But the spacecraft are not designed to find life itself. Instead, these missions lay the ground for future missions which will, according to Prof Michele Dougherty of Imperial College, London.

“It is a long, slow process,” she says. “The next decision to make would be a lander, which moon it goes to, and where we should be landing.

“You don’t want to land where the ice crust is so thick that there is no way you can get underneath the surface. And so, it’s a long, slow burn, but it’s pretty exciting en route”.

Nasa is also sending a spacecraft called Dragonfly to land on one of the moons of Saturn, Titan in 2034. It is an exotic world with what are thought to be lakes and clouds made from carbon-rich chemicals which give the planet an eerie orange haze, bringing the Beetles Song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds to mind: a world with “marmalade skies”. Along with water these chemicals are thought to be a necessary ingredient for life.

Prof Dougherty is one of the leading planetary scientists in her field. Does she think there is life on one of the icy Moons of Jupiter or Saturn?

“I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t,” she says, beaming with delight.

“Three things are required: a heat source, liquid water and organic (carbon-based) chemicals. If we have those three ingredients, the chances that life is able to form rises really steeply.

If simple life forms are found to exist that is no guarantee that more complex life forms are out there.

Prof Madhusudhan believes that, if confirmed, simple life should be “pretty common” in the galaxy. “But going from that simple life to complex life is a big step, and that is an open question. How that step happens? What are the conditions that govern that? We don’t know that. And then going from there to intelligent life is another big step.”

Dr Robert Massey, who is the deputy executive director of the Royal Astronomical Society, agrees that the emergence of intelligent life on another world is much less likely than simple life.

“When we see the emergence of life on Earth, it was so complex. It took such a long time for multi-cellular life to emerge and then evolve into diverse life forms.

“The big question is whether there was something about the Earth that made that evolution possible. Do we need exactly the same conditions, our size, our oceans and land masses for that to happen on other worlds or will that happen regardless?”

He believes that the discovery of even simple alien life would be the latest chapter in the diminution of humanity’s place in the cosmos.

As he puts it, centuries ago, we believed we were at the centre of the Universe and with each discovery in astronomy we have found ourselves “more displaced” from that point. “I think the discovery of life elsewhere it would further reduce our specialness,” he says.

Prof Dougherty, on the other hand, believes that such a discovery in our own solar system would be good for science, and good for the soul.

“The discovery of even simple life will allow us a better understanding about how we might have evolved way back those millions of aeons ago when we first evolved. And so, for me, it’s helping us find our place in the Universe.

“If we know there is life, elsewhere in our solar system and potentially beyond, [this] would somehow be comforting to me, knowing that we’re a fabric of something larger will make us bigger”.

Never before have scientists searched so hard for life on other worlds and never before have they had such incredible tools to do this with. And many working in the field believe that it is a matter of when, rather than if, they discover life on other worlds. And rather than bringing fear, the discovery of alien life will bring hope, according to Prof Madhusudhan.

“When we would look at the sky, we would see not just physical objects, stars and planets, we would see a living sky. The societal ramifications of that are immense. It will be a huge transformational change in the way we look at ourselves in the cosmic scene.

“It will fundamentally change the human psyche in how we view ourselves and each other, and any barriers, linguistic, political, geographical, will dissolve, as we realise we are all one. And that will bring us closer,” he continues.

“It will be another step in our evolution”.

The assault rifles and pistols arrived in Haiti stashed in two cardboard boxes, nestled among packages of food and clothes, on a cargo ship stacked with rust-red shipping containers.

They had come from the US, which one expert describes as a “supermarket” feeding an arms race among gangs that have brought chaos to the Caribbean island nation.

An investigation by the BBC World Service and BBC Verify traced the two boxes’ journey, showing how weapons from the US reach Haiti. It reveals a chain of lax laws, absent checks and suspected corruption used by traffickers to bypass a UN embargo.

Haitian police announced in April 2024 that they had seized the two boxes. They contained 12 assault rifles, 14 pistols and 999 ammunition cartridges.

A police photo clearly shows weapons from two different US-based manufacturers.

The shipment had travelled nearly 1,200km (746 miles) from Fort Lauderdale in Florida to Cap-Haitien in northern Haiti, on the Rainer D cargo ship.

The shipping container was filled in a warehouse yard in Fort Lauderdale, according to a UN Panel of Experts, which is tasked with monitoring sanctions on Haiti and investigated the shipment.

Haitians in the US frequently ship much-needed food and other items to the country.

A man named Anestin Predestin told the Miami Herald that in late February 2024, he was leasing out space in the container.

He told the newspaper that a man who gave his name as “Diamortino” put in two boxes saying they contained “clothes” – and that he was shocked to learn later they had contained weapons.

The BBC’s attempts to contact Mr Predestin were unsuccessful.

It is not clear where the guns had been bought. Guns are not manufactured in Haiti, and previous seizures have included guns bought in Florida.

Sometimes dubbed the “gunshine state”, Florida was one of about 30 states where, until 2024, private, unlicensed sellers could sell firearms, for example at gun shows and online, without doing background checks. As president, Joe Biden tightened these rules nationally.

The UN panel says two Haitian brothers based in the US had used “straw buyers” – individuals buying on their behalf – to buy the weapons in the seized shipment.

Experts say this is a common method, often with the guns transported in multiple shipments of small quantities, a process named “ant trafficking”.

The container was shipped by the Florida-based shipping company Alliance International Shipping, Haitian police say.

Alliance International Shipping does not own vessels travelling to Haiti, but buys space on ships and sells it on to clients such as Mr Predestin.

The company’s president, Gregory Moraille, said in a statement to the BBC that it provides empty containers to customers, but does not physically interact with the cargo.

“Unfortunately, we have no viable means of preventing illicit shipments,” he says, adding the firm co-operates with authorities and has many staff originating from Haiti.

“Tragically, many of our own families have been victims of gun violence in Haiti,” he adds.

The BBC contacted US Customs and Border Protection to ask whether the shipment could have been checked as it left the US, but received no response.

The UN panel said last September that US searches had increased, but “the vast majority of the 200 containers heading from South Florida to Haiti every week are not inspected”.

A former official with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), Bill Kullman, told the BBC that checks on outgoing cargo are “very scattershot” and the volume of shipments is “incredible”.

Haitian police say they discovered the weapons in a “targeted search” of the container.

According to the UN panel, a senior Haitian customs official had put one of the boxes containing weapons in his vehicle and was arrested and sacked a few days later.

Police said they were seeking a man called Wilmane Jean, who is named in the customs data as the consignee for the shipment – the person responsible for receiving it.

The BBC understands from sources in Haiti that he is a customs broker, is on the run and is suspected of being connected with gang activity in the north of the country.

A previous UN report says Haitian customs operations suffer from a lack of capacity, corruption among senior officials, and threats and attacks from gangs.

BBC attempts to contact Haitian customs authorities for comment were unsuccessful.

Around the time the weapons were packed into the shipping container, a wave of gang violence swept through the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.

Gangs freed thousands of inmates from the main prison, and blockaded the capital’s ports and airport.

In March 2024, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, unable to return from an overseas trip, agreed to step down.

A record 5,601 people were killed in gang violence in Haiti in 2024, according to the UN. Its agencies say nearly a tenth of the population – over a million people – have fled their homes and half the population faces acute hunger. Kidnapping and extortion are rife.

Wilson, a handyman from Port-au-Prince, was shot in the leg while trying to flee as gangs fought over territory in his neighbourhood.

“It was chaos, everyone was running from their homes,” he told the BBC. “My leg stopped working. When I looked down, blood was pouring.”

He is now living alongside hundreds of other people in a school that is being used as a shelter.

Experts say the authorities do not have the capacity to take back control, despite support from an international security force including at least 800 Kenyan police officers.

The gangs have gained territory in the past six months, and now control at least 85% of the capital, says Romain le Cour, a Haiti expert at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, an NGO with headquarters in Geneva.

Gang members frequently pose on social media with high-calibre weapons. Experts told the BBC some of the guns displayed were definitely made in the US, and others are likely to have been manufactured there too.

However, guns and ammunition “keep on coming”, says Mr Le Cour, which is “a massive driver for violence and instability”.

To investigate the potential scale of trafficking from the US using similar shipping routes, the BBC analysed customs data shared with us by the shipping data platform CargoFax.

We compiled a list of individuals currently under sanctions for alleged gang connections in Haiti, and others who have been arrested in Haiti or the US as suspected arms traffickers.

We checked these names against thousands of records of shipments from the US to Haiti over four years.

In total, 26 people on the list were named as consignees for 286 shipments, which took place before the individuals were put under sanctions or arrested. It is not clear whether these shipments contained weapons.

Listed 24 times as a consignee was Prophane Victor – a former member of Haiti’s parliament who was later put under UN and US sanctions for arming gangs and trafficking weapons. He was arrested in Haiti in January.

“First and foremost, US authorities are not doing enough,” says Mr Le Cour.

Mr Kullman, the former US official at the ATF, says there is no legal obligation on gun dealers to report suspicious buyers.

Changes to US gun laws are “really politically difficult to achieve”, he says, but he would like to see a voluntary code of conduct for firearms sellers covering issues such as sales to suspicious buyers and information sharing.

Also, gun registration – similar to car registration – is in place in a few states and could be “really helpful” if adopted more widely, Mr Kullman adds.

Jonathan Lowy, president of Global Action on Gun Violence, says gun makers are told when trafficked guns are under investigation and are aware which dealers are selling guns to traffickers.

“Manufacturers cutting off these dealers would put an immediate stop to most trafficking routes from the US.”

The BBC contacted the ATF and the US Department for Homeland Security for comment, but received no responses.

Mr Le Cour says international scrutiny of the problem has increased, but there is no visible impact: “We know we have the diagnosis, we know what the symptoms are, but we’re not doing anything to actually cure it”.

When investigators smashed through a hastily built wall, they uncovered a set of secret jail cells.

It turned out to be a freshly bricked-up doorway – an attempt to hide what lurked behind.

Inside, off a narrow hallway, were tiny rooms to the right and left. It was pitch-black.

The team may never have found this clandestine jail – a stone’s throw from Dhaka’s International Airport – without the recollections of Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem and others.

A critic of Bangladesh’s ousted leader, he was held there for eight years.

He was blindfolded for much of his time in the prison, so he leaned on the sounds he could recall – and he distinctly remembered the sound of planes landing.

That was what helped lead investigators to the military base near the airport. Behind the main building on the compound, they found the smaller, heavily guarded, windowless structure made of brick and concrete where detainees were kept.

It was hidden in plain sight.

Investigators have spoken to hundreds of victims like Quasem since mass protests toppled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed’s government last August, and inmates in the jails were released. Many others are alleged to have been killed unlawfully.

The people running the secret prisons, including the one over the road from Dhaka airport, were largely from an elite counter-terrorism unit, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), acting on orders directly from Hasina, investigators say.

“The officers concerned [said] all the enforced disappearance cases have been done with the approval, permission or order by the prime minister herself,” Tajul Islam, the chief prosecutor for the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh, told the BBC.

Hasina’s party says the alleged crimes were carried out without its knowledge, that it bears no responsibility and that the military establishment operated alone – a charge the army rejects.

Seven months on, Quasem and others may have been released, but they remain terrified of their captors, who are serving security force members and are all still free.

Quasem says he never leaves home without wearing a hat and mask.

“I always have to watch my back when I’m travelling.”

He slowly walks up a flight of concrete steps to show the BBC where he was kept. Pushing through a heavy metal door, he bends his head low and goes through another narrow doorway into “his” room, the cell where he was held for eight years.

“It felt like being buried alive, being totally cut off from the outside world,” he tells the BBC. There were no windows and no doors to natural light. When he was inside, he couldn’t tell between day or night.

Quasem, a lawyer in his 40s, has done interviews before but this is the first time he has taken the media for a detailed look inside the tiny cell where he was held.

Viewed by torchlight, it is so small an average-sized person would have difficulty standing up straight. It smells musty. Some of the walls are broken and bits of brick and concrete lie strewn on the ground – a last-ditch attempt by perpetrators to destroy any evidence of their crimes.

“[This] is one detention centre. We have found that more than 500, 600, 700 cells are there all through the country. This shows that this was widespread and systematic,” says Islam, the prosecutor, who accompanied the BBC on the visit to the jail.

Quasem also clearly remembers the faint blue tiles from his cell, now lying in pieces on the floor, which led investigators to this particular room. In comparison to the cells on the ground floor, this one is much larger, at 10ft x 14ft (3m x 4.3m). There is a squatting toilet off to one side.

In painful detail, Quasem walks around the room, describing how he spent his time during his years in captivity. During the summers, it was unbearably hot. He would crouch on the floor and put his face as close to the base of the doorway as he could, to get some air.

“It felt worse than death,” he says.

Coming back to relive his punishment seems cruel. But Quasem believes it is important for the world to see what was done.

“The high officials, the top brass who aided and abetted, facilitated the fascist regime are still in their position,” he says.

“We need to get our story out, and do whatever we can to ensure justice for those who didn’t return, and to help those who are surviving to rehabilitate into life.”

Previous reports said he was kept inside a notorious detention facility – known as Aynaghor, or “House of Mirrors” – inside the main intelligence headquarters in Dhaka, but investigators now believe there were many such sites.

Quasem told the BBC he spent all his detention at the RAB base, apart from the first 16 days. Investigators now suspect the first site was a detective branch of police in Dhaka.

He believes he was disappeared because of his family’s politics. In 2016 he’d been representing his father, a senior member of the country’s largest Islamist party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, who was on trial and later hanged.

Five other men the BBC spoke to described being taken away, blindfolded and handcuffed, kept in dark concrete cells with no access to the outside world. In many cases they say they were beaten and tortured.

While the BBC cannot independently verify their stories, almost all say they are petrified that one day, they might bump into a captor on the street or on a bus.

“Now, whenever I get into a car or I’m alone at home, I feel scared thinking about where I was,” Atikur Rahman Rasel, 35, says. “I wonder how I survived, whether I was really supposed to survive.

He says his nose was broken and his hand is still painful. “They put handcuffs on me and beat me a lot.”

Rasel says he was approached by a group of men outside a mosque in Dhaka’s old city last July, as anti-government protests raged. They said they were from law enforcement and he had to go with them.

The next minute, he was taken into a grey car, handcuffed, hooded and blindfolded. Forty minutes later, he was pulled out of the car, taken into a building and put in a room.

“After about half an hour, people started coming in one by one and asking questions. Who are you? What do you do?” Then the beatings started, he says.

“Being inside that place was terrifying. I felt like I would never get out.”

Rasel now lives with his sister and her husband. Sitting on a dining chair in her flat in Dhaka, he describes his weeks in captivity in detail. He speaks with little emotion, seemingly detached from his experience.

He too believes his detention was politically motivated because he was a student leader with the rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), of which his father was a senior member. His brother, who lived abroad, would frequently write social media posts critical of Hasina.

Rasel says there was no way of knowing where he was held. But after watching interim leader Muhammad Yunus visiting three detention centres earlier this year, he thinks he was kept in Agargaon district in Dhaka.

It was an open secret that Hasina had no tolerance for political dissent. Criticising her could get you “disappeared” without a trace, former detainees, opponents and investigators say.

But the total number of people who went missing may never become clear.

A Bangladeshi NGO that has tracked enforced disappearances since 2009 has documented at least 709 people who were forcibly disappeared. Among them, 155 people remain missing. Since the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances was created in September, they have received more than 1,676 complaints from alleged victims and more people continue to come forward.

But that doesn’t represent the total number, which is believed to be much higher.

It is through speaking to people like Quasem that Tajul Islam is able to build a case against those responsible for the detention centres, including Sheikh Hasina.

Despite being held at different sites, the narrative of victims is eerily similar.

Mohammad Ali Arafat, spokesperson for Hasina’s Awami League party, denies any involvement. He says if people were forcibly disappeared, it was not done under the direction of Hasina – who remains in India, where she fled – or anyone in her cabinet.

“If any such detention did occur, it would have been a product of complex internal military dynamics,” said Arafat. “I see [no] political benefit for the Awami League or for the government to keep these people in secret detention.”

The military’s chief spokesman said it “has no knowledge of the things being implied”.

“The army categorically denies operating any such detention centres,” Lt Col Abdullah Ibn Zaid told the BBC.

Tajul Islam believes the people held in these prisons are evidence of Awami League involvement. “All the people who were detained here were from different political identities and they just raised their voice against the previous regime, the government of that time, and that is why they were brought here.”

To date they have issued 122 arrest warrants, but no one has yet been brought to justice.

Which is why victims like Iqbal Chowdhury, 71, believe their lives are still in danger. Chowdhury wants to leave Bangladesh. For years after he was released in 2019, he didn’t leave his house, not even to go to the market. Chowdhury was warned by his captors never to speak of his detention.

“If you ever reveal where you were or what happened, and if you are taken again, no one will ever find or see you again. You will be vanished from this world,” he says he was told.

Accused of writing propaganda against India and the Awami League, Chowdhury says that is why he was tortured.

“I was physically assaulted with an electric shock as well as being beaten. Now one of my fingers is heavily damaged by the electric shock. I lost my leg’s strength, lost physical strength.” He remembers the sound of others being physically tortured, grown men howling and crying in agony.

“I am still scared,” says Chowdhury.

Rahmatullah, 23, is also terrified. “They took away a year and a half of my life. Those times won’t ever be returned,” he says. “They made me sleep in a place where a human being should not even be.”

On 29 August 2023, he was taken from his home at midnight by RAB officers, some in uniform and others dressed in plain clothes. He was working as a cook in a neighbouring town while training to be an electrician.

After repeated interrogations, it became clear to Rahmatullah he was being forcibly detained for his anti-India and Islamic posts on social media. Using a pen and paper, he draws the layout of his cell, including the open drain he would use to relieve himself.

“Even thinking about that place in Dhaka makes me feel horrible. There was no space to lie down properly, so I had to sleep being curled up. I couldn’t stretch my legs while lying down.”

The BBC also interviewed two other former detainees – Michael Chakma and Masrur Anwar – to corroborate some of the details about the secret prisons and what is alleged to have gone on inside them.

Some of the victims live with physical scars from their detentions. All of them talk about the psychological torment that follows them everywhere they go.

Bangladesh is at a pivotal moment in its history as it tries to rebuild after years of autocratic rule. A crucial test of the country’s progress towards democracy will be its ability to hold a fair trial for the perpetrators of these crimes.

Islam believes it can, and must happen. “We must stop the recurrence of this type of offence for our future generations. And we have to do justice for the victims. They suffered a lot.”

Standing in what remains of his concrete cell, Quasem says a trial must take place as soon as possible so the country can close this chapter.

It’s not so simple for Rahmatullah.

“The fear has not gone away. The fear will remain until I die.”

Harvard University says it will not acquiesce to US President Donald Trump’s demands – whether it continues to get federal funding or not.

“No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach,” Harvard’s president Alan Garber said in a letter posted on the university’s website.

Not long after Harvard refused to agree to the White House’s sweeping list of demands – which included directions on how to govern, hire and teach – the Trump administration froze $2.2bn (£1.7bn) of federal funds to the institution.

“Everyone knows that Harvard has ‘lost its way,'” Donald Trump wrote on social media on Wednesday morning. “Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds.”

Many students and alumni lauded the university’s decision to stand its ground, despite the consequences. Former President Barack Obama, an alumnus himself, called Trump’s move “ham-handed” and praised Harvard as “an example for other higher-ed institutions”.

In response to Harvard’s decision to refuse the government’s demands, the education department accused the university of a “troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges – that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws”.

With billions in the balance, the battle for the higher ground in the case of Harvard may just be the opening salvo in a war of attrition between the federal government and higher education.

• Obama calls Trump’s freeze of Harvard funding ‘unlawful’

Trump’s attacks on Harvard are not isolated – the government’s antisemitism task force has identified at least 60 universities for review.

Nor did the latest move come out of the blue. Trump and his Vice-President JD Vance have long railed against higher education institutions. In 2021, Vance gave a speech that described universities as the “enemy”.

Trump pitched a funding crackdown on universities in his presidential campaign, painting them as hostile to conservatives. Almost a year before the present conflict in Gaza began in October 2023, he introduced a free speech policy initiative that promised to “shatter the left-wing censorship regime” – in part targeting campuses.

Polling by Gallup last summer suggested that confidence in higher education had been falling over time among Americans of all political backgrounds, partly driven by a growing belief that universities push a political agenda. The decline was particularly steep among Republicans.

At issue now, Trump’s team says, is last year’s pro-Palestinian campus protests, which roiled colleges across the country. During the demonstrations and sit-ins, some Jewish students said they felt unsafe and faced harassment. Others joined the protests against Israel’s military action in Gaza and US support for it.

Last month, Columbia University agreed to many of the administration’s demands in the wake of the protests – after the government cut $400m in funding.

Harvard, too, made concessions. It agreed to engage with the administration’s task force to combat antisemitism. The school dismissed the leaders of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies and suspended its Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative over accusations of anti-Israel bias.

And in January, Harvard settled two lawsuits brought by Jewish students alleging antisemitism. It did not admit any wrongdoing, and said the settlement showed its commitment to supporting its Jewish students and staff.

But the university drew the line at the White House’s list of demands on Friday.

Harvard student Sa’maia Evans, who is an activist and member of the university’s African and African American Resistance Organization, said the university’s decision to take a stand was a long time coming.

“Harvard will only do that of which it is held accountable to,” she told the BBC. She pointed to campus protests in the past few weeks – and the widespread criticism of Columbia’s agreement with the Trump administration – as helping to put pressure on university officials.

“They know the public – they would experience public backlash” if they capitulated, Ms Evans said.

“It would be atypical (for) Harvard to do anything outside of what would be in its own interest.”

With a $53.2bn endowment – a figure that is larger than the GDP of some small countries – Harvard is uniquely able to weather the storm. But experts say it is still left in a crunch.

“Most policymakers think of endowments as a chequing account, a debit card where you can withdraw money and use it for any purpose,” said Steven Bloom, the spokesperson for American Council on Education. “But it’s not.”

While Harvard’s endowment is eye-popping, it says 70% of the money is earmarked for specific projects – which is typical for educational endowments, according to Mr Bloom.

Harvard has to spend the money the way the donors have directed, or it risks legal liability.

And Harvard’s expenses are huge – its 2024 operating budget was $6.4bn. About a third of that was funded by the endowment – with 16% coming from the federal government, often to help with things that are supposed to create good for the whole of the US, such as biomedical research.

Mr Bloom said the golden rule for endowment finance was that universities should not spend more than 5% of their total endowment each year. Making up for a $2bn loss means the school will need to boost its endowment by $40bn.

“You can’t find 40 billion dollars under a rock,” Mr Bloom said.

And that pain will only increase if Trump is able to make good on his threat to remove Harvard’s tax-exempt status. That status helps the school avoid paying taxes on its investments and properties. Harvard has campuses all over the Greater Boston area, and is estimated by Bloomberg to have saved $158m on its property tax bills in 2023.

In his latest comments on the university, early on Wednesday, Trump attacked the “radical left” Harvard leadership and said the institution could “no longer be considered even a decent place of learning”.

• Trump threatens Harvard’s tax-exempt status after freezing $2bn funding

The realities of the situation have made some students sceptical about how long it can go on.

“There’s more the government can do if it wants to attack Harvard, and I’m not optimistic that it’s going to stop after cutting $2.2 billion,” Matthew Tobin, the academic representative on Harvard’s student council.

Mr Tobin said the idea that the Trump administration was making these demands to help Harvard is “malarkey”.

“Its a total bad-faith attack,” he told the BBC. “The funding cuts have to do with Trump attacking an institution that he views as liberal, and wanting to exercise more control over what people teach and how students learn and think.”

“Trump is a crazy man,” says Lionel Xu, who is surrounded by his company’s mosquito repellent kits – many were once best sellers in Walmart stores in the United States.

Now those products are sitting in boxes in a warehouse in China and will remain there unless President Donald Trump lifts his 145% tariffs on all Chinese goods bound for the US.

“This is so hard for us,” he adds.

Around half of all products made by his company Sorbo Technology are sold to the US.

It is a small company by Chinese standards and has around 400 workers in Zhejiang province. But they are not alone in feeling the pain of this economic war.

“We are worried. What if Trump doesn’t change his mind? That will be a dangerous thing for our factory,” says Mr Xu.

Nearby, Amy is helping to sell ice cream makers at her booth for the Guangdong Sailing Trade Company. Her key buyers, including Walmart, are also in the US.

“We have stopped production already,” she says. “All the products are in the warehouse.”

It was the same story at nearly every booth in the sprawling Canton Fair in the trading hub of Guangzhou.

When the BBC speaks to Mr Xu, he is getting ready to take some Australian buyers to lunch. They have come looking for a bargain and hope to drive down the price.

“We will see,” he says about the tariffs. He believes Trump will back down.

“Maybe it will get better in one or two months,” Mr Xu adds with his fingers crossed. Maybe, maybe…”

Last week, President Trump temporarily paused the vast majority of tariffs after global stock markets tumbled, and a sell-off in the US bond market.

But he kept the import levies targeted at Chinese goods being shipped to the US. Beijing responded by imposing its own 125% levies on American imports.

This has bewildered traders from more than 30,000 businesses who have come to the annual fair to show off their goods in several exhibition halls the size of 200 football pitches.

In the homeware section, firms displayed everything from washing machines to tumble dryers, electric toothbrushes to juicers and waffle makers. Buyers come from all over the world to see the products for themselves and make a deal.

But the cost of a food mixer or a vacuum cleaner from China with the added tariffs are now too high for most American firms to pass on the cost to their customers.

The world’s two largest economies have hit an impasse and Chinese goods meant for US households are piling up on factory floors.

The effects of this trade war will likely be felt in kitchens and living rooms across America, who will now have to buy these goods at higher prices.

China has maintained its defiant stance and has vowed to fight this trade war “until the end.”

It is a tone also used by some at the fair. Hy Vian, who was looking to buy some electric ovens for his firm, waved off the effects of tariffs.

“If they don’t want us to export – then let them wait. We already have a domestic market in China, we will give the best products to the Chinese first.”

China does have a large population of 1.4 billion people and in theory this is a strong domestic market.

Chinese policymakers have also been trying to stimulate more growth in a sluggish economy by encouraging consumers to spend.

But it is not working. Many of the country’s middle classes have invested their savings in buying the family home, only to watch their house prices slump in the last four years. Now they want to save money – not spend it.

While China may be better placed to weather the storm than other countries, the reality is that it is still an export-driven economy. Last year, exports accounted for around half of the country’s economic growth.

China also remains the world’s factory – with Goldman Sachs estimating that around 10 to 20 million people in China may be working on US-bound exports alone.

Some of those workers are already feeling the pain.

Not far from the Canton Fair, there are warrens of workshops in Guangdong making clothes, shoes and bags. This is the manufacturing hub for companies such as Shein and Temu.

Each building houses several factories on several floors where workers will labour for 14 hours a day.

On a pavement near some shoe factories, a few workers were squatting down to chat and smoke.

“Things are not going well,” says one, who was unwilling to give his name. His friend urges him to stop talking. Discussing economic difficulties can be sensitive in China.

“We’ve had problems since the Covid pandemic, and now there’s this trade war. I used to be paid 300-400 yuan ($40-54) a day, and now I will be lucky if I get 100 yuan a day.”

The worker says it is difficult to find work these days. Others making shoes on the street also told us they only earned enough to live a basic life.

While some in China feel pride in their product, others feel the pain of increasing tariffs and wonder how this crisis will end.

China is facing the prospect of losing a trading partner which buys more than $400bn (£302bn) worth of goods each year, but the pain will also be felt on the other side, with economists warning that the US could be heading for a recession.

Adding to the uncertainty is President Trump, who is known for his brinkmanship. He has continued to push Beijing and China has refused to back down.

However, Beijing has said it will not add any more to the current 125% tariff rate on US goods. They could retaliate in other ways – but it offers the two sides some breathing room from a week that sparked an economic war.

There is reportedly little contact between Washington and Beijing and neither side appears willing to head to the negotiating table any time soon.

In the meantime, some companies at the Canton Fair are using the event to try to find new markets.

Amy hopes her ice cream makers will head in a new direction.

“We hope to open the new European market. Maybe Saudi Arabia – and of course Russia,” she adds.

Others believe there is still money to be made in China. Among them is Mei Kunyan, 40, who says he is earning around 10,000 yuan a month at his shoe firm which sells to Chinese customers. Many major shoe manufacturers have moved to Vietnam where labour costs are cheaper.

Mr Mei has also realised something that businesses around him are now discovering: “The Americans are too tricky.”

Beijing insists it will stand firm in the face of Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods. It has been trying to reassure everyone that the country is strong and the economy is resilient enough to weather this latest storm.

But this week, Chinese officials have acknowledged the potential for economic pain as a result of the unfolding trade war with the US.

One option for policymakers here is to try to increase domestic consumption to make up for lost export revenue.

China has a massive population and, if they start buying more stuff, Chinese companies won’t have to rely as much on trade overseas.

A key target in this endeavour are retirees with potentially decades of savings.

Now the government wants them to spend some of it – for the good of the country.

And initiatives like the “silver train” – which are tailored specifically to older travellers – aim to do just that.

On board the Star Express, the cocktails are poured and the karaoke microphone is passed around, as retirees party their way through China’s south-western Yunnan province.

The roast goose is being devoured with shots of baijiu, a Chinese white spirit alcohol.

“We have been working hard all these years,” says 66-year-old Daniel Ling, who is travelling with a group of retired or semi-retired friends.

“The important thing when we reach this age, is to know what is the right thing to do – and that is to really enjoy life.”

The initiative hopes to turn an economic problem into an economic solution by giving older people a fun avenue to spend more.

Families are not spending enough because they don’t feel financially safe – the property crisis has diminished the value of their number one asset: their home. And growing unemployment has also potentially made their job less secure.

Add to the mix an ageing population and low birthrates and the proportion of retirees grows each year, making it harder for the economy to support them.

But what retirees do have is time on their hands and money to spend.

So now they are to be given more opportunities to splurge with special trains designed to take them to sites they might not normally visit – parts of the country further afield, which need a financial shot in the arm.

“The main places where the silver trains will stop are undeveloped rural areas or small towns with struggling economies,” says Dr Huang Huang, a research associate from the China Tourism Academy who has been studying the potential impact of this plan.

“They will consume various products on the trains, but after they pull into a station, they will also visit tourist attractions and traditional villages.”

In Baisha, the travellers stop by the modest street stalls at the bottom of old, two-storey, wooden houses built by the local Naxi ethnic minority.

One of them approaches a vendor selling barbecued strips of yak meat. They look tasty and she buys a bagful. The vendor’s husband, who is also working at the stall, says this business is only a year old and that they need outside customers to survive.

All along this street you can get potatoes with spicy sauce, lamb skewers, fresh orange juice and the traditional clothing of the Naxi people.

This is a region where incomes are low and most young people leave when they reach a certain age because there are hardly any jobs for them.

It is also not an easy place for many retirees to reach, but these silver trains make it possible, with easy access to boarding and alighting, and with staff to help as well as extra medical support if required.

Shi Lili, 69, whose granddaughter is accompanying her, says the travelling spirit of her youth has been rekindled: “When I was young I really liked exploring other places by myself. Now I’m older, I have my family who can go with me.”

By the end of last year, 22% of China’s population were over the age of 60, making up more than 310 million people.

So, if only the smallest percentage of China’s retirees take a silver train, it can still mean millions of ticket sales. And China’s railway authorities say they plan to be operating 100 routes within the next three years.

Such trips alone are not going to fix China’s massive challenge with low consumer spending. But economists would say these moves are a step in the right direction.

Older citizens now have a much greater desire to travel compared to previous generations, creating “huge potential”, according to Dr Huang.

“Given that China’s ageing population is now a reality going into the long run – something which is unlikely to the reversed – we should find more opportunities from this rather than always turning it into a challenge.”

Back on board the train, the silver adventurers are ready to crash out. And they can do so knowing that their big day out was – at least partly – for the benefit of all.

Then it’s onto the next town.

Judges at the UK Supreme Court have unanimously ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law.

It marks the culmination of a long-running legal battle which could have major implications for how sex-based rights apply across Scotland, England and Wales.

The court sided with campaign group For Women Scotland, which brought a case against the Scottish government arguing that sex-based protections should only apply to people that are born female.

Judge Lord Hodge said the ruling should not be seen as a triumph of one side over the other, and stressed that the law still gives protection against discrimination to transgender people.

The Scottish government argued in court that transgender people with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) are entitled to the same sex-based protections as biological women.

The Supreme Court was asked to decide on the proper interpretation of the 2010 Equality Act, which applies across Britain.

Lord Hodge said the central question was how the words “woman” and “sex” are defined in the legislation.

He told the court: “The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.

“But we counsel against reading this judgement as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another, it is not.”

He added that the legislation gives transgender people “protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender”.

Campaigners who brought the case against the Scottish government hugged each other and punched the air as they left the courtroom, with several of them in tears.

The Equality Act provides protection against discrimination on the basis of various characteristics, including “sex” and “gender reassignment”.

Judges at the Supreme Court in London were asked to rule on what that law means by “sex” – whether it means biological sex, or legal, “certificated” sex as defined by the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.

The Scottish government argued the 2004 legislation was clear that obtaining a GRC amounts to a change of sex “for all purposes”.

For Women Scotland argued for a “common sense” interpretation of the words man and woman, telling the court that sex is an “immutable biological state”.

Speaking outside the Supreme Court following the ruling, For Women Scotland co-founder Susan Smith said: “Today the judges have said what we always believed to be the case, that women are protected by their biological sex.

“Sex is real and women can now feel safe that services and spaces designated for women are for women and we are enormously grateful to the Supreme Court for this ruling.”

First Minister John Swinney said the Scottish government accepted the judgement.

He posted on social media: “The ruling gives clarity between two relevant pieces of legislation passed at Westminster.

“We will now engage on the implications of the ruling.”

Swinney added: “Protecting the rights of all will underpin our actions.”

A Scottish government spokesperson insisted ministers had acted “in good faith” during the legal proceedings, and noted that the Equality and Human Rights Commission was updating its guidance in response to the judgement.

A UK government spokesman said the ruling would bring “clarity and confidence for women and service providers such as hospitals, refuges, and sports clubs”.

“Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government,” the spokesman added.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described the ruling as a “victory for all of the women who faced personal abuse or lost their jobs for stating the obvious”.

She added: “It’s important to be reminded the court strongly and clearly re-affirmed the Equality Act protects all trans people against discrimination, based on gender reassignment, and will continue to do so.”

Harry Potter author JK Rowling posted on social media: “It took three extraordinary, tenacious Scottish women with an army behind them to get this case heard by the Supreme Court and, in winning, they’ve protected the rights of women and girls across the UK.”

But Scottish Green MSP Maggie Chapman, a prominent campaigner for trans-rights, said: “This is a deeply concerning ruling for human rights and a huge blow to some of the most marginalised people in our society.

“It could remove important protections and will leave many trans people and their loved ones deeply anxious and worried about how their lives will be affected and about what will come next.”

For Women Scotland had warned that if the court sided with the Scottish government, it would have implications for the running of single-sex spaces and services, such as hospital wards, prisons, refuges and support groups.

Transgender people warned the case could erode the protections they have against discrimination in their reassigned gender.

Scottish Trans manager Vic Valentine said the organisation was “shocked” by the court ruling, arguing that it “reverses 20 years of understanding on how the law recognises trans men and women with gender recognition certificates”.

They added: “This judgement seems to suggest that there will be times where trans people can be excluded from both men’s and women’s spaces and services.

“It is hard to understand where we would then be expected to go – or how this decision is compatible with a society that is fair and equal for everybody.”

The case follows years of heated debate over transgender and women’s rights, including controversy over transgender rapist Isla Bryson initially being put in a women’s prison and an ongoing employment tribunal involving a female NHS Fife nurse who objected to a transgender doctor using a women’s changing room.

NHS Fife said it would “carefully consider” the court’s judgement.

The judges ruled that that interpreting sex as “certificated” rather than “biological” would “cut across the definitions of man and “woman and thus the protected characteristic of sex in an incoherent way”.

They said a “certified” definition of sex would weaken protections for lesbians, citing the example of lesbian-only spaces and associations as it would mean that a trans woman who was attracted to women would be classed as a lesbian.

The ruling found the biological interpretation of sex was also required for single-sex spaces to “function coherently”.

It cited changing rooms, hostels, medical services and single-sex higher education institutions.

The judges noted “similar confusion and impracticability” had arisen in relation to single-sex associations and charities, women’s sport, public sector equality and the armed forces.

The judges added: “The practical problems that arise under a certificated sex approach are clear indicators that this interpretation is not correct.”

Gender reassignment is a protected characteristic in law, making it is illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis that they are transgender.

However, single-sex spaces can exclude people with GRCs “if it is proportionate to do so”.

Dr Nick McKerrell, senior law lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University, said the ruling means a transgender women with a GRC who was excluded from a single-sex space would be unable to argue she is being discriminated against as a woman.

He also said the ruling implied that workplaces would need to provide separate spaces for people on the basis of biological sex.

But the law lecturer said arguments over access to single-sex spaces would not be “settled” by this court case.

He told the BBC: “It doesn’t mean everything overnight is going to change in terms of stopping trans people from accessing services. It will depend on what providers think the new definition will mean for them.”

Dr McKerrell said the judgement does not immediately change anything for the rules on transgender participation in women’s sport, but that it might prompt a “reassessment” of rules.

The legal dispute began in 2018, when the Scottish Parliament passed a bill designed to ensure gender balance on public sector boards.

For Women Scotland complained that ministers had included transgender people as part of the quotas in that law.

The issue has been contested several times in the Scottish courts.

Holyrood ministers won the most recent case in Scotland, with judge Lady Haldane ruling in 2022 that the definition of sex was “not limited to biological or birth sex”.

The Scottish Parliament passed reforms that year that would have made it easier for someone to change their legally recognised sex.

The move was blocked by the UK government, and has since been dropped by Holyrood ministers.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is heading to the US to meet Donald Trump – a visit that will see her walk a tightrope between representing the interests of the EU and remaining in the US president’s good books.

As the first European leader to travel to Washington since Trump introduced – then paused – 20% tariffs on the EU earlier in April, Meloni will be hoping to convince him of the merits of a “zero-for-zero” tariffs deal for the entire EU.

Italy is particularly vulnerable to any changes to US trade policy.

Around 10% of its exports – worth about €67bn (£57bn; $76bn) – go to the US, Italy’s third biggest non-EU trading partner, and the tariffs announced by Trump earlier this month caused Rome to halve its growth forecast.

“We know this is a difficult time,” Meloni said ahead of her trip. “We will do our best – I am aware of what I represent and of what I am defending.”

At this fraught moment, she is perhaps one of the best-placed current European leaders to speak to Trump. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen recognises that and they have been speaking regularly ahead of the trip.

Trump and Meloni famously enjoy a good relationship and have lavished praise on one another in the past. He has called her a “fantastic woman” who has “really taken Europe by storm”.

For her part, Meloni – who has headed a right-wing coalition government since 2022 – is ideologically closer to Trump than to some of her European neighbours.

In a video message to a US conservative conference in February, she echoed some of Trump’s common talking points, railing against mass migration, “globalist elites” and “woke ideology”.

She was also the only European leader to attend the US president’s inauguration in January, and has steered clear of overtly criticising the work of his administration since.

The harshest criticism she has dispensed was earlier this month, when she said Trump’s decision to impose 20% tariffs on the EU was “absolutely wrong” and that it would end up damaging the EU “as much as the US”.

“Meloni has always said that Europe shouldn’t take any decisions that put it on a collision course with the US, and that Europe should adapt rather than resist,” said Riccardo Alcaro of the Italian Institute for International Affairs in Rome.

“If the Trump administration is immovable on tariffs, she’ll agree to counter-tariffs. But her first move is always to say no. Because ultimately she thinks the importance of the West in the world is thanks to the US, and that the West revolves around the US.”

Meloni’s world view is also closer to that of many of Trump’s main allies than many of her European neighbours.

“She knows that Italy is strategically, politically and economically subordinate to the EU – but she also has a genuine proximity to MAGA Republicans,” Alcaro added.

US Vice-President JD Vance is due to travel to Rome on Friday for Easter, and will see Meloni as well as leading officials at the Vatican.

Meloni’s natural affinity to an administration many in Europe are having trouble finding common ground with has sparked concern among some Europeans that, in the privacy of the Oval Office, she may be tempted to go at it alone and argue for more favourable terms for Italy.

Last week France’s Industry Minister Marc Ferracci spoke out against “bilateral talks” and warned Trump’s strategy was to “divide Europeans”.

His comments irritated Rome and had to be toned down later by a French government spokesperson.

The European Commission has signalled it has confidence in Meloni, and a spokeswoman said “any outreach to the US [was] very welcome”.

However, the spokeswoman also said Meloni’s trip was being “closely coordinated” with the institutions, and underlined that handling trade policy was a job for the EU.

The EU negotiates on behalf of all member states, and no single country can negotiate lower tariffs for its own benefit.

Meloni’s team appears clear on this and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that Meloni “isn’t going to negotiate for Italy against Europe but is going to champion a European stance”.

Ultimately the Italian leader’s mission may be to emphasise to Trump that the EU is keen to reach a zero-tariff agreement and commit to buying American – especially when it comes to defence and liquified natural gas (LNG).

And, in more hushed tones, she may also tell him that Europe is in no rush to make any deals with China.

“I don’t know how public this will be but I think there will be some anti-China discourse as an incentive for the US administration,” Riccardo Alcaro said.

At home, party allies were singing Meloni’s praises before her plane to Washington even left the ground.

“This meeting shows Giorgia Meloni’s courage and stature,” said Brothers of Italy (FdI) MP Augusta Montarulli – although Senator Giovanbattista Fazzolari, somewhat less encouragingly, warned the trip would be “full of potential pitfalls”.

And centre-left opposition parties took the opportunity to berate Meloni’s proximity to the Trump administration.

“I have a feeling that upon her return Meloni will be flying the Trump flag rather than Italy’s or Europe’s,” said Peppe Provenzano of the Democratic Party (PD).

“I hope to be proven wrong.”

At an awards ceremony in Rome on Tuesday, Meloni addressed a room packed with entrepreneurs and business leaders – the very same who stand to lose the most from Trump’s tariffs.

Looking ahead to her trip to Washington, she chuckled nervously.

“As you can imagine,” she joked, “I’m feeling no pressure at all.”

US economic growth will be hit and prices will rise for consumers as a result of new tariffs on goods entering the country, the head of America’s central bank has warned.

Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, said the import taxes recently announced by President Donald Trump were larger than the bank had expected, going beyond the higher end of its estimates.

His comments followed a period of turmoil on global stock markets as investors reacted to trade tariffs coming into force and the escalating trade war between the US and China.

Powell said surveys of households and businesses reported a “sharp decline” in their sentiment over the economic outlook, largely due to tariff concerns.

Since returning to office, Trump has stoked a trade war by introducing a 10% tax on goods being imported to the US from the vast majority of countries.

He has escalated tariffs further with China by putting a 145% tax on Chinese goods, though there are some exemptions for smartphones. China has hit back with tariffs of 125% on US products. The White House said on Wednesday that when the new tariffs are added on to existing ones the levies on some Chinese goods could reach 245%.

“The level of the tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated,” Powell said in his starkest warning on the effects of the new tariffs regime.

“The same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.”

The US president has said tariffs will boost US manufacturing and jobs, but stock markets have been spooked.

Powell said on Wednesday that impact of the Trump administration’s changes to trade as well as immigration, fiscal policy and regulation on the US economy remained “highly uncertain”.

• US tariffs will make global trade shrink, says WTO

All three main US stock markets suffered sharp falls on Wednesday. The Dow Jones fell 1.73%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended the day down 2.24% and 3.07% respectively.

But perhaps more concerning to the Trump administration than stocks and shares plunging in value was the rise in the number of investors dumping US government debt last week.

The rise in the effective interest rate the US government had to pay on its bonds is reported to have contributed to the president’s decision to pause some higher tariffs.

Governments sell bonds – essentially IOUs – to borrow money from financial markets and in return they pay interest.

The US does not normally see high interest rates on its debt, as its bonds are viewed as a safe investment, but rates spiked sharply last week in a sign investors were losing confidence in the world’s biggest economy. They have settled this week, but remain elevated.

Powell said on Wednesday that despite the uncertainty and ructions in the markets, the “US economy is still in a solid position”.

For now, he said, the Fed could keep its benchmark interest rate steady “to wait for greater clarity before considering any adjustments”.

The Fed’s benchmark interest rate is currently set in a range between 4.25% and 4.5%, where it has been since December following a series of rate cuts late last year.

The central bank has been attacked by Trump for holding rates unchanged. The president’s campaign promises included calls for lower interest rates in order to bring relief to borrowers.

If tariffs push up inflation, as many economists expect, the Fed could decide to hold or even raise rates. Traders on Wednesday kept their bets it will continue to cut rates this year.

But the Fed also has a mandate to maintain maximum employment as well as stable prices.

Should it be caught between rising inflation and a rising unemployment rate, Powell said “we would consider how far the economy is from each goal” and then look at “the potentially different time horizons” for getting prices under control and bringing the unemployment rate down.

“As that great Chicagoan Ferris Bueller once noted, “life moves pretty fast”, he added.

The European Union has identified seven countries it considers safe countries of origin, as part of proposals to speed up asylum applications, especially from those countries involved.

Citizens from Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Morocco and Tunisia would all have their claims fast-tracked within three months on the assumption that they were likely to fail.

Markus Lammert of the European Commission said it would be a “dynamic list” that could be expanded or reviewed, with countries suspended or removed if they were no longer seen as safe.

Ever since EU countries saw an influx of irregular migrants in 2015-16, they have sought to reform asylum rules.

A pact on migration and asylum was agreed last year, but the EU says as it does not come into force until June 2026 it wants to push through two key rules on speeding up processing.

EU leaders called on the Commission last year to come up with plans to accelerate migrant returns, as EU figures suggested under 20% of people ordered to leave were sent back to their countries of origin.

Under the plans, EU countries would be able to fast track people coming either from safe countries or countries from which a maximum of one in five applicants are given protection.

European countries that are candidates to join the EU will automatically be considered safe, although exceptions are possible, for example for countries at war such as Ukraine.

Among the countries pushing for reform was Italy, which has seen a big influx since 2015. Other countries including Germany have imposed border controls in a bid to limit irregular migration.

Although Italy is among several member states that already have designated safe countries, it is thought an agreed EU list would deter asylum seekers from targeting those with looser regulations.

Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt have all seen large numbers of irregular migrants leave their shores to cross the Mediterranean in recent years.

The list has been welcomed by Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government. Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi hailed it as a success for Rome that Bangladesh, Egypt and Tunisia were on the list, in the face of “purely ideological political opposition”.

Italian judges blocked Meloni’s bid to send Egyptian and Bangladeshi migrants to detention centres in Albania, because while the government in Rome deemed their countries as safe, the European Court of Justice said they could not be seen as safe if all their regions and minorities were not.

The new proposals will now need to be approved by both the European Parliament and EU member states, and some human rights groups have expressed concern about the plans.

EuroMed Rights – a network of human rights organisations – warned that it was misleading and dangerous to label the seven countries as safe, because they included “countries with documented rights abuses and limited protections for both their own citizens and migrants”.

“We do not cut back on fundamental and human rights,” said Commission spokesman Markus Lammert. “Under EU law member states have to carry out individual assessments of each asylum application in each individual case.”

A colossal squid has been filmed in its natural environment for the first time since the species was discovered 100 years ago.

The 30cm-long (11.8in) juvenile was caught on camera at a depth of 600m (1,968ft), near the South Sandwich Islands in the south Atlantic Ocean.

A team of scientists, led by a University of Essex academic, recorded the footage in March during a 35-day quest to find new marine life.

Experts believe colossal squid can grow up to 7m (23ft) in length and weigh up to 500kg (1,100lb) – making them the heaviest invertebrate on the planet.

The mollusc was discovered on the 100-year anniversary of it first being identified and named.

Crew onboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Falkor (too) vessel used a remote-controlled vehicle to spot it.

Chief scientist Dr Michelle Taylor, from the university, said the team was initially unsure what the squid was but filmed it because it was “beautiful and unusual”.

The footage was then verified by Dr Kat Bolstad, who said previous squid encounters had mostly been as remains in whale and seabird stomachs.

“It’s exciting to see the first in situ footage of a juvenile colossal and humbling to think that they have no idea that humans exist,” she said.

Little is known about the colossal squid’s life cycle, but they eventually lose the transparent appearance of juveniles.

Another distinguishing feature of the species is the presence of hooks on the middle of their eight arms.

Dying adults have previously been filmed by people fishing, but have never been seen alive at depth.

The Natural History Museum has suggested it is hard to estimate the global population of colossal squids.

In 2022, the institution said the lack of observations meant that “even to this day, the enormous invertebrates still straddle the line between legend and reality”.

Scientists also revealed that, in January, they captured footage of a glacial glass squid for the first time ever.

“The first sighting of two different squids on back-to-back expeditions is remarkable and shows how little we have seen of the magnificent inhabitants of the southern ocean,” added Dr Jyotika Virmani, Schmidt Ocean Institute’s executive director.

“These unforgettable moments continue to remind us that the ocean is brimming with mysteries yet to be solved.”

The White House has dug in on its refusal to return a man who US officials have acknowledged was wrongly deported last month from Maryland to an El Salvador mega-prison.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt doubled down on accusations that Salvadoran national Kilmar Ábrego García was a member of the MS-13 gang, which his lawyer denies.

Leavitt also accused the 29-year-old of domestic violence, citing records showing his US citizen wife once filed a protective order against him.

A Maryland judge has ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to bring Mr Ábrego García back to the US. But El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said on a visit to the White House this week that he did not “have the power” to return him.

It comes amid an escalating showdown between the president and the judiciary on immigration as a judge in another case said the administration could be held in contempt of court over deportation flights.

Leavitt told a press briefing on Wednesday: “If he [Mr Ábrego García] ever ends up back in the United States, he would immediately be deported again.

“He will never live in the United States of America.”

She again accused Mr Ábrego García of being a member of the MS-13 gang, citing court findings. But his lawyer and family reject that he was ever in the gang.

• Who is Kilmar Ábrego García?
• MS-13: One of the world’s most brutal street gangs

The press secretary also called Mr Ábrego García a “woman beater”, referring to a domestic violence claim.

The Department of Homeland Security released details of a 2021 restraining order filed by his wife, who alleged he punched and scratched her and ripped off her shirt.

Mr Ábrego García’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, told Newsweek on Wednesday that she sought the order “out of caution”. She said they were able to resolve the situation as a family, including by counselling.

The BBC contacted Mr Ábrego García’s lawyer, Benjamin Osorio, about the domestic violence allegation.

The attorney responded by email: “Is the government allowed to admittedly break the law if an individual is alleged to have broken the law?”

Mr Ábrego García was living in Maryland, before he was deported on 15 March with scores of Salvadorans and Venezuelans to the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (Cecot) in El Salvador.

Maryland Judge Paula Xinis ruled that Mr Ábrego García’s removal from the country breached a 2019 court order that had granted him legal protection from deportation.

The US Supreme Court last week partially upheld the lower court ruling, finding that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Mr Ábrego García’s release.

Trump administration officials have conceded the deportation was an “administrative error”, although the White House insists there was no mistake.

Judge Xinis has requested daily updates on what steps are being undertaken to bring him back to the US.

But in Wednesday’s status report, acting general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security Joseph Mazzara told the court there were “no further updates”.

The White House press secretary was joined at Wednesday’s briefing by the mother of a Maryland woman who was murdered in August 2023 by an alleged illegal immigrant from El Salvador.

Patty Morin shared graphic details of her daughter Rachel Morin’s death at the hands of Victor Martinez-Hernandez, who was found guilty on Monday.

“We are American citizens,” said Patty Morin. “We need to protect our families, our borders, our children.”

Meanwhile, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, flew to El Salvador in an attempt to speak with Mr Ábrego García, but was denied access on Wednesday.

Van Hollen met the country’s Vice-President Félix Ulloa, who told the US senator they could not accommodate a visit to the mega-prison.

In a press conference in the capital San Salvador, Van Hollen called on the Central American country to release “a man who’s charged with no crime, convicted of no crime and who was illegally abducted from the United States”.

The White House hit back in a press release that Van Hollen “didn’t even bother to contact” the family of Rachel Morin after her death.

Van Hollen’s rebuff came a day after another US member of Congress, West Virginia Republican Riley Moore, was allowed by Salvadoran authorities to enter the prison.

Moore posted a selfie in front of a crowded cell, saying the visit had made him even more determined to “support President Trump’s efforts to secure our homeland”.

A Tesla whistleblower who has fought Elon Musk and his company through the courts for years has won the latest round of a long-running legal battle.

Engineer Cristina Balan lost her job after she raised a safety concern in 2014 about a design flaw which could affect the cars’ braking.

Her defamation claim against the firm seemed to have run out of road when a judge confirmed an arbitration decision dismissing her case – but a panel of appeal judges in California has reversed this decision in her favour.

She told BBC News she now wants to face Elon Musk and Tesla in open court.

Tesla has not responded to a request for comment.

Ms Balan said she believes the case will now in effect go back to square one, and new proceedings can be launched.

“We are hoping we will start a new lawsuit and we will have the chance to take on Elon Musk in front of a jury and judge,” she said.

The engineer was once so prominent at Tesla that her initials were engraved on the batteries inside Model S vehicles.

In an interview with BBC News last year, she said she is determined to prove her innocence for the sake of her son.

She also revealed she was in remission from stage-3B breast cancer, and her biggest worry was she may not live to see her final day in court.

Ms Balan claimed she was worried the carpets were curling underneath some pedals in Tesla models, creating a safety hazard.

She said managers rebuffed her concerns, became hostile, and she lost her job.

She then won a wrongful dismissal case – but this turned out to be the start of a long journey through the courts.

Ms Balan was publicly accused by Tesla of using its resources for a “secret project” – accusations which amount to embezzlement, a crime under US law.

She has consistently denied the accusation, and decided to bring a defamation case against the firm in 2019.

“I want to clear my name,” she told BBC News last year.

“I wish Elon Musk had the decency to apologise.”

A court then decided Ms Balan’s case should be subject to arbitration per a contract she signed while working for Tesla.

The arbitrator found in favour of the firm and Musk, dismissing her claims, due to California’s statute of limitations – meaning too much time had passed since the alleged defamatory statements were made.

Tesla brought the case back to a district court in California to have the decision confirmed.

However, Ms Balan appealed this decision, and judges from the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found in her favour – in effect deciding the California court did not have the jurisdiction to make its judgement.

They have ordered for the confirmation of the arbitration award to be cancelled, and for the district court to dismiss the action due to its lack of jurisdiction.

As the trade war between China and the US escalates, attention has been focused on the increasingly high levels of tit-for-tat tariffs the two countries are imposing on one another.

But slapping reciprocal tariffs on Washington is not the only way Beijing has been able to retaliate.

China has now also imposed export controls on a range of critical rare earth minerals and magnets, dealing a major blow to the US.

The move has laid bare how reliant America is on these minerals.

This week, Trump ordered the commerce department to come up with ways to boost US production of critical minerals and cut reliance on imports – an attempt by Washington to reclaim this critical industry. But why exactly are rare earths so important and how could they shake up the trade war?

“Rare earths” are a group of 17 chemically similar elements that are crucial to the manufacture of many high-tech products.

Most are abundant in nature, but they are known as “rare” because it is very unusual to find them in a pure form, and they are very hazardous to extract.

Although you may not be familiar with the names of these rare earths – like Neodymium, Yttrium and Europium – you will be very familiar with the products that they are used in.

For instance, Neodymium is used to make the powerful magnets used in loudspeakers, computer hard drives, EV motors and jet engines that enable them to be smaller and more efficient.

Yttrium and Europium are used to manufacture television and computer screens because of the way they display colours.

“Everything you can switch on or off likely runs on rare earths,” explains Thomas Kruemmer, Director of Ginger International Trade and Investment.

Rare earths are also critical to the production of medical technology like laser surgery and MRI scans, as well as key defence technologies.

China has a near monopoly on extracting rare earths as well as on refining them – which is the process of separating them from other minerals.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that China accounts for about 61% of rare earth production and 92% of their processing.

That means it currently dominates the rare earths supply chain and has the capacity to decide which companies can and cannot receive supplies of rare earths.

Both the extraction and processing of these rare earths are costly and polluting.

All rare earth resources also contain radioactive elements, which is why many other countries, including those in the EU, are reluctant to produce them.

“Radioactive waste from production absolutely requires safe, compliant, permanent disposal. Currently all disposal facilities in EU are temporary,” says Mr Kruemmer.

But China’s dominance in the rare earth supply chain didn’t take place overnight – but rather, is the result of decades of strategic government policies and investment.

In a visit to Inner Mongolia in 1992, the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who oversaw China’s economic reform, famously said: “The Middle East has oil and China has rare earths”.

“Beginning in the late 20th century, China prioritised the development of its rare earth mining and processing capabilities, often at lower environmental standards and labour costs compared to other nations,” said Gavin Harper, a critical materials research fellow at the University of Birmingham.

“This allowed them to undercut global competitors and build a near-monopoly across the entire value chain, from mining and refining to the manufacturing of finished products like magnets.”

In response to tariffs imposed by Washington, China earlier this month began ordering restrictions on the exports of seven rare earth minerals – most of which are known as “heavy” rare earths, which are crucial to the defence sector.

These are less common and are harder to process than “light” rare earths, which also makes them more valuable.

From 4 April, all companies now have to get special export licenses in order to send rare earths and magnets out of the country.

That is because as a signatory to the international treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, China has the ability to control the trade of “dual use products”.

According to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), this leaves the US particularly vulnerable as there is no capacity outside China to process heavy rare earths.

A US Geological report notes that between 2020 and 2023, the US relied on China for 70% of its imports of all rare earth compounds and metals.

This means that the new restrictions have the ability to hit the US hard.

Heavy rare earths are used in many military fields such as missiles, radar, and permanent magnets.

A CSIS report notes that defence technologies including F-35 jets, Tomahawk missiles and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles all depend on these minerals.

It adds that this comes as China “expands its munitions production and acquires advanced weapons systems and equipment at a pace five to six times faster than the United States”.

“The impact on the US defence industry will be substantial,” said Mr Kroemmer.

And it’s not only in the field of defence.

US manufacturing, which Trump has said he hopes to revive through the imposition of his tariffs, stand to be severely impacted.

“Manufacturers, particularly in defence and high-tech, face potential shortages and production delays due to halted shipments and limited inventories,” said Dr Harper.

“Prices for critical rare earth materials are expected to surge, increasing the immediate costs of components used in a wide range of products, from smartphones to military hardware,” he says, adding that this could result in potential production slowdowns for affected US companies.

If such a shortage from China persists in the long-run, the US could potentially begin diversifying its supply chains and scaling up its domestic and processing capabilities, though this would still require “substantial and sustained investment, technological advancements and potentially higher overall costs compared to the previous dependence on China”.

And it’s clear this is something already on Trump’s mind. This week, he ordered an investigation into the national security risks posed by the US’ reliance on such critical minerals.

“President Trump recognises that an overreliance on foreign critical minerals and their derivative products could jeopardise US defence capabilities, infrastructure development, and technological innovation,” said the order.

“Critical minerals, including rare earth elements, are essential for national security and economic resilience.”

The US has one operational rare earths mine, but it does not have the capacity to separate heavy rare earths and has to send its ore to China for processing.

There used to be US companies that manufactured rare earth magnets – until the 1980s, the US was in fact the largest producer of rare earths.

But these companies exited the market as China began to dominate in terms of scale and cost.

This is largely believed to be part of why US president Donald Trump is so keen to sign a minerals deal with Ukraine – it wants to reduce dependency on China.

Another place Trump has had his eye on is Greenland – which is endowed with the eighth largest reserves of rare earth elements.

Trump has repeatedly showed interest in taking control of the autonomous Danish dependent territory and has refused to rule out economic or military force to take control of it.

These might have been places that the US could have sourced some of its rare earth exports from, but the adversarial tone Trump has struck with them means the US could be left with very few alternative suppliers.

“The challenge the U.S. faces is two-fold, on the one hand it has alienated China who provides the monopoly supply of rare earths, and on the other hand it is also antagonising many nations that have previously been friendly collaborators through tariffs and other hostile actions,” said Dr Harper.

“Whether they will still prioritise collaboration with America remains to be seen in the turbulent policy environment of this new administration.”

Beijing insists it will stand firm in the face of Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods. It has been trying to reassure everyone that the country is strong and the economy is resilient enough to weather this latest storm.

But this week, Chinese officials have acknowledged the potential for economic pain as a result of the unfolding trade war with the US.

One option for policymakers here is to try to increase domestic consumption to make up for lost export revenue.

China has a massive population and, if they start buying more stuff, Chinese companies won’t have to rely as much on trade overseas.

A key target in this endeavour are retirees with potentially decades of savings.

Now the government wants them to spend some of it – for the good of the country.

And initiatives like the “silver train” – which are tailored specifically to older travellers – aim to do just that.

On board the Star Express, the cocktails are poured and the karaoke microphone is passed around, as retirees party their way through China’s south-western Yunnan province.

The roast goose is being devoured with shots of baijiu, a Chinese white spirit alcohol.

“We have been working hard all these years,” says 66-year-old Daniel Ling, who is travelling with a group of retired or semi-retired friends.

“The important thing when we reach this age, is to know what is the right thing to do – and that is to really enjoy life.”

The initiative hopes to turn an economic problem into an economic solution by giving older people a fun avenue to spend more.

Families are not spending enough because they don’t feel financially safe – the property crisis has diminished the value of their number one asset: their home. And growing unemployment has also potentially made their job less secure.

Add to the mix an ageing population and low birthrates and the proportion of retirees grows each year, making it harder for the economy to support them.

But what retirees do have is time on their hands and money to spend.

So now they are to be given more opportunities to splurge with special trains designed to take them to sites they might not normally visit – parts of the country further afield, which need a financial shot in the arm.

“The main places where the silver trains will stop are undeveloped rural areas or small towns with struggling economies,” says Dr Huang Huang, a research associate from the China Tourism Academy who has been studying the potential impact of this plan.

“They will consume various products on the trains, but after they pull into a station, they will also visit tourist attractions and traditional villages.”

In Baisha, the travellers stop by the modest street stalls at the bottom of old, two-storey, wooden houses built by the local Naxi ethnic minority.

One of them approaches a vendor selling barbecued strips of yak meat. They look tasty and she buys a bagful. The vendor’s husband, who is also working at the stall, says this business is only a year old and that they need outside customers to survive.

All along this street you can get potatoes with spicy sauce, lamb skewers, fresh orange juice and the traditional clothing of the Naxi people.

This is a region where incomes are low and most young people leave when they reach a certain age because there are hardly any jobs for them.

It is also not an easy place for many retirees to reach, but these silver trains make it possible, with easy access to boarding and alighting, and with staff to help as well as extra medical support if required.

Shi Lili, 69, whose granddaughter is accompanying her, says the travelling spirit of her youth has been rekindled: “When I was young I really liked exploring other places by myself. Now I’m older, I have my family who can go with me.”

By the end of last year, 22% of China’s population were over the age of 60, making up more than 310 million people.

So, if only the smallest percentage of China’s retirees take a silver train, it can still mean millions of ticket sales. And China’s railway authorities say they plan to be operating 100 routes within the next three years.

Such trips alone are not going to fix China’s massive challenge with low consumer spending. But economists would say these moves are a step in the right direction.

Older citizens now have a much greater desire to travel compared to previous generations, creating “huge potential”, according to Dr Huang.

“Given that China’s ageing population is now a reality going into the long run – something which is unlikely to the reversed – we should find more opportunities from this rather than always turning it into a challenge.”

Back on board the train, the silver adventurers are ready to crash out. And they can do so knowing that their big day out was – at least partly – for the benefit of all.

Then it’s onto the next town.

Scientists have found new but tentative evidence that a faraway world orbiting another star may be home to life.

A Cambridge team studying the atmosphere of a planet called K2-18b has detected signs of molecules which on Earth are only produced by simple organisms.

This is the second, and more promising, time chemicals associated with life have been detected in the planet’s atmosphere by Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

But the team and independent astronomers stress that more data is needed to confirm these results.

The lead researcher, Prof Nikku Madhusudhan, told me at his lab at Cambridge University’s Institute of Astronomy that he hopes to obtain the clinching evidence soon.

“This is the strongest evidence yet there is possibly life out there. I can realistically say that we can confirm this signal within one to two years.”

K2-18b is two and a half times the size of Earth and is seven hundred trillion miles away from us.

JWST is so powerful that it can analyse the chemical composition of the planet’s atmosphere from the light that passes through from the small red Sun it orbits.

The Cambridge group has found that the atmosphere seems to contain the chemical signature of at least one of two molecules that are associated with life: dimethyl sulphide (DMS) and dimethyl disulphide (DMDS). On Earth, these gases are produced by marine phytoplankton and bacteria.

Prof Madhusudhan said he was surprised by how much gas was apparently detected during a single observation window.

“The amount we estimate of this gas in the atmosphere is thousands of times higher than what we have on Earth,” he said.

“So, if the association with life is real, then this planet will be teeming with life,” he told me.

Prof Madhusudhan went further: “If we confirm that there is life on k2-18b it should basically confirm that life is very common in the galaxy”.

There are lots of “ifs” and “buts” at this stage, as Prof Madhusudhan’s team freely admits.

Firstly, this latest detection is not at the standard required to claim a discovery.

For that, the researchers need to be about 99.99999% sure that their results are correct and not a fluke reading. In scientific jargon that is a five sigma result.

These latest results are only three sigma, 99.7%. Which sounds a lot, but it is not enough to convince the scientific community. But it is much more than the one sigma result of 68% the team obtained 18 months ago,, which was greeted with much scepticism at the time.

But even if the Cambridge team obtains a five sigma result, that won’t be conclusive proof that life exists on the planet, according to Prof Catherine Heymans of Edinburgh University and Scotland’s Astronomer Royal, who is independent of the research team.

“Even with that certainty, there is still the question of what is the origin of this gas,” she told BBC News.

“On Earth it is produced by microorganisms in the ocean, but even with perfect data we can’t say for sure that this is of a biological origin on an alien world because loads of strange things happen in in the Universe and we don’t know what other geological activity could be happening on this planet that might produce the molecules.”

That view is one the Cambridge team agree with; they are working with other groups to see if DMS and DMDS can be produced by non-living means in the lab.

Other research groups have put forward alternative, lifeless, explanations for the data obtained from K2-18b. There is a strong scientific debate not only about whether DMS and DMDS are present but also the planet’s composition.

The reason many researchers infer that the planet has a vast liquid ocean is the absence of the gas amonia in K2-18b’s atmosphere. Their theory is that the ammonia is absorbed by a vast body of water below . But it could equally be explained by an ocean of molten rock, which would preclude life, according to Prof Oliver Shorttle of Cambridge University.

“Everything we know about planets orbiting other stars comes from the tiny amounts of light that glance off their atmospheres. So it is an incredibly tenuous signal that we are having to read, not only for signs of life, but everything else.

“With K2-18b part of the scientific debate is still about the structure of the planet,” he said.

Dr Nicolas Wogan at Nasa’s Ames Research Center has yet another interpretation of the data. He published research suggesting that K2-18b is a mini gas giant with no surface.

Both these alternative interpretations have also been challenged by other groups on the grounds that they are inconsistent with the data from JWST, which highlights the strong scientific debate surrounding K2-18b.

Prof Madhusudhan acknowledges that there is still a scientific mountain to climb if he is to answer one of the biggest questions in science. But he believes he and his team are on the right track.

“Decades from now, we may look back at this point in time and recognise it was when the living universe came within reach,” he said.

“This could be the tipping point, where suddenly the fundamental question of whether we’re alone in the universe is one we’re capable of answering.”

The research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

US actress Michelle Trachtenberg died a natural death from complications caused by diabetes, according to the New York City medical examiner’s office.

The 39-year-old actress was found “unconscious and unresponsive” in her New York City apartment in February.

Officials did not perform a post-mortem examination, but said toxicology tests determined Trachtenberg’s cause of death.

The US actress was best known for playing Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s younger sister Dawn Summers, and later took on the role of manipulative socialite Georgina Sparks in Gossip Girl as an adult.

Trachtenberg’s family, who are Orthodox Jews, had reportedly objected to an autopsy, citing religious reasons.

Because there was no sign of foul play, the medical examiner did not overrule the relatives’ objection.

An unnamed source told NBC News the actress had received a liver transplant before her death. The exact timing or reasoning of the operation is unclear.

Trachtenberg’s sudden death shocked her fans.

She rose to fame as a childhood star making her debut in a number of Nickelodeon projects including the film Harriet the Spy.

In the early 2000s, she was nominated for several acting awards – including a Daytime Emmy Award – for her role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

She also starred in films including EuroTrip, Ice Princess, Killing Kennedy, and Sister Cities.

Following her death, fellow actors paid tribute.

Blake Lively, a Gossip Girl co-star, said everything Trachtenberg did “she did 200%”.

“She laughed the fullest at someone’s joke… she cared deeply about her work, she was fiercely loyal to her friends and brave for those she loved, she was big and bold and distinctly herself,” Lively wrote on social media.

A US judge has said he could hold the Trump administration in contempt of court for “wilful disregard” of an order to halt the departure of deportation flights carrying more than 200 people to El Salvador last month.

The administration had invoked a 227-year-old law meant to protect the US during wartime to carry out the mass deportation.

“The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory,” federal judge James Boasberg wrote.

In a statement, the White House said it would contest the decision.

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said: “We plan to seek immediate appellate relief”, referring to a process in which parties can request a higher court review and potentially change a decision made by a lower court.

“The President is 100% committed to ensuring that terrorists and criminal illegal migrants are no longer a threat to Americans and their communities across the country.”

Judge Boasberg’s decision to begin contempt proceedings escalates a clash between the White House and the judiciary over the president’s powers.

The administration could avoid a contempt finding, or “purge” itself of contempt, if they provide an explanation of their actions and come into compliance with the original order issued last month, Boasberg said on Wednesday.

That filing is due by 23 April, he said.

His ruling comes despite the Supreme Court’s later finding that Donald Trump could in fact use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to conduct the deportations to El Salvador.

The Supreme Court’s ruling against Boasberg’s temporary restraining order “does not excuse the Government’s violation”, he said.

If the administration does not provide the requested information by the 23 April deadline, Boasberg will then seek to identify the individual people who ignored the order to stop the deportations.

He could then recommend prosecutions for those involved. Federal prosecutions come under the US justice department which ultimately reports to the Trump administration.

The March deportation flights saw more than 200 Venezuelans accused by the White House of being gang members deported to a jail in El Salvador.

During a 15 March hearing, Judge Boasberg imposed a temporary restraining order on the use of the wartime law and a 14-day halt to deportations covered by the proclamation.

After lawyers told him that the planes had already departed, he issued a verbal order for the flights to be turned around to the US.

The White House denied violating the court ruling.

US press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order.

“The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA [Tren de Aragua] aliens had already been removed from US territory.”

After two deportation flights continued to El Salvador despite his order that they be turned around, Judge Boasberg convened a hearing to discuss “possible defiance” of his ruling by the Trump administration.

In response, Trump took to TruthSocial to call Boasberg a “troublemaker and agitator” and call for his impeachment.

El Salvador has agreed to take in the deportees in exchange for $6m (£4.6m).

Earlier this week, Trump met with El Salvdador’s President, Nayib Bukele, at the White House, and expressed an interest in sending more deportation flights to El Salvador.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has filed a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s spate of tariffs that have upended global trade.

The suit, which marks the first time a state has sued over the levies, challenges an emergency power Trump cited giving him authority to enact them.

California is the world’s fifth largest economy – outpacing every US state and most countries – and is home to the largest shares of manufacturing and agricultural production in the US.

The White House, which has argued the tariffs are tackling imbalances in international trade, dismissed the lawsuit and said it would continue addressing “this national emergency that’s decimating America’s industries”.

“Instead of focusing on California’s rampant crime, homelessness, and unaffordability, Gavin Newsom is spending his time trying to block President Trump’s historic efforts to finally address the national emergency of our country’s persistent goods trade deficits,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said.

Newsom and the state’s Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit at a news conference at an almond farm – one of the biggest crops California produces.

Nearly 82% of the world’s almonds come from the Golden State. It’s also the nation’s sole producer of artichokes, figs, olives, walnuts and raisins.

Newsom argued California has been “disproportionately affected” by the tariffs and that’s why the state, which has already filed 15 lawsuits against Trump since January, would lead the charge against the levies – which currently are 10% on most countries and 145% on China.

“That’s our state of mind,” the governor said. “That’s why we’re asserting ourselves on behalf of 40 million Americans.”

• US tariffs will make global trade shrink, says WTO
• ‘A number of businesses in limbo’ in China after US import tariffs
• Good cops, bad cops – how Trump’s shifting tariff team kept world guessing

The lawsuit challenges Trump evoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to enact the tariffs, arguing the act had never been used for such levies and such powers rest with the US Congress.

The lawsuit cites multiple times from rulings by the US Supreme Court against the Biden administration in its quest to forgive student debt, noting the high court called Biden’s manoeuvres a “transformative expansion” of presidential authority.

Newsom said if the Supreme Court is “consistent, then this lawsuit is a lock” for the state.

The act has never been used to issue tariffs by any president, congressional research shows.

While California is the first state to file legal action against the Trump administration over the levies, several other lawsuits filed by small businesses and a civil rights group have similarly challenged Trump’s authority on the matter.

Since Trump’s inauguration in January there has been a flurry of announcements on tariffs.

The US president says the import taxes will encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, increase the amount of tax raised, and lead to huge levels of investment in the country.

Critics argue that bringing manufacturing back to the US is complicated and could take decades and that the economy will struggle in the meantime.

Trump has also backtracked on many of his announcements.

Just hours after steep levies against roughly 60 of America’s trading partners kicked in earlier this month, Trump announced a 90-day pause on those tariffs to all countries except China, in the face of mounting opposition from politicians and the markets.

Donald Trump’s administration is accusing New York Attorney General Letitia James of mortgage fraud, and has made a criminal referral to the the justice department seeking federal prosecution.

Officials with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) allege James falsified bank and property records to receive better loan agreements, an administration official told the BBC.

James won a civil case against Trump in 2023 that accused him of overvaluing his properties in order to take out loans with favourable terms. He is currently appealing against the judgment.

No charges have been filed against James. Her office has accused the Trump administration of weaponizing the US government.

“Attorney General James is focused every single day on protecting New Yorkers, especially as this administration weaponizes the federal government against the rule of law and the Constitution. She will not be intimidated by bullies — no matter who they are,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

Throughout his court trials after leaving office in 2021, Trump repeatedly said he believed his political opponents were weaponizing the justice system against him.

No charges have been filed, the White House confirmed, adding that more details would follow if the justice department took action.

In a letter obtained by US media to US Attorney General Pam Bondi, FHFA Director William Pulte accused James of misrepresenting a building in New York as a four-unit structure instead of five to get a better loan deal.

Pulte also alleged that James claimed a property in Norfolk, Virginia, was her primary residence in 2023 – when she was the top state prosecutor – to secure a lower interest rate on a loan. Mortgages for primary residences typically come with better terms.

“Ms. James was the sitting Attorney General of New York and is required by law to have her primary residence in the state of New York — even though her mortgage applications list her intent to have the Norfolk, VA, property as her primary home,” the letter said.

In a post on Truth Social on Monday, Trump called James a “wacky crook”.

“Letitia James, a totally corrupt politician, should resign from her position as New York State Attorney General, immediately,” he wrote.

Trump’s family business was found liable in 2023 of falsifying records and financial statements in order to get better terms on loans and insurance deals.

In the case brought by James, a judge ruled that the Trump Organization was liable for overvaluing a penthouse at Trump Tower in New York by claiming that it was three times its actual size, among other allegations.

Trump was ordered to pay more than $350m (£264m) in damages in the civil fraud case, which is going through the appeals process. During the case, Trump frequently attacked James, calling her “biased and corrupt”.

Trump was criminally convicted for falsifying business records in a separate case. Last year, he was found guilty on 34 counts for fraudulently classifying reimbursements for a hush-money payment made to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

During his campaign, Trump promised to seek revenge against many of his perceived political enemies – including former President Joe Biden – and others who have opposed him.

He has revoked the security clearances – which allows people to access classified material – of several officials, including James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the criminal hush-money case,

He has fired several prosecutors who worked for special counsel Jack Smith on two criminal probes against him. He has also taken actions against law firms with attorneys who were involved in investigations into allegations against him, including the firm that employed former special counsel Robert Mueller.

Judges at the UK Supreme Court have unanimously ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law.

It marks the culmination of a long-running legal battle which could have major implications for how sex-based rights apply across Scotland, England and Wales.

The court sided with campaign group For Women Scotland, which brought a case against the Scottish government arguing that sex-based protections should only apply to people that are born female.

Judge Lord Hodge said the ruling should not be seen as a triumph of one side over the other, and stressed that the law still gives protection against discrimination to transgender people.

The Scottish government argued in court that transgender people with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) are entitled to the same sex-based protections as biological women.

The Supreme Court was asked to decide on the proper interpretation of the 2010 Equality Act, which applies across Britain.

Lord Hodge said the central question was how the words “woman” and “sex” are defined in the legislation.

He told the court: “The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.

“But we counsel against reading this judgement as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another, it is not.”

He added that the legislation gives transgender people “protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender”.

Campaigners who brought the case against the Scottish government hugged each other and punched the air as they left the courtroom, with several of them in tears.

The Equality Act provides protection against discrimination on the basis of various characteristics, including “sex” and “gender reassignment”.

Judges at the Supreme Court in London were asked to rule on what that law means by “sex” – whether it means biological sex, or legal, “certificated” sex as defined by the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.

The Scottish government argued the 2004 legislation was clear that obtaining a GRC amounts to a change of sex “for all purposes”.

For Women Scotland argued for a “common sense” interpretation of the words man and woman, telling the court that sex is an “immutable biological state”.

Speaking outside the Supreme Court following the ruling, For Women Scotland co-founder Susan Smith said: “Today the judges have said what we always believed to be the case, that women are protected by their biological sex.

“Sex is real and women can now feel safe that services and spaces designated for women are for women and we are enormously grateful to the Supreme Court for this ruling.”

First Minister John Swinney said the Scottish government accepted the judgement.

He posted on social media: “The ruling gives clarity between two relevant pieces of legislation passed at Westminster.

“We will now engage on the implications of the ruling.”

Swinney added: “Protecting the rights of all will underpin our actions.”

A Scottish government spokesperson insisted ministers had acted “in good faith” during the legal proceedings, and noted that the Equality and Human Rights Commission was updating its guidance in response to the judgement.

A UK government spokesman said the ruling would bring “clarity and confidence for women and service providers such as hospitals, refuges, and sports clubs”.

“Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government,” the spokesman added.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described the ruling as a “victory for all of the women who faced personal abuse or lost their jobs for stating the obvious”.

She added: “It’s important to be reminded the court strongly and clearly re-affirmed the Equality Act protects all trans people against discrimination, based on gender reassignment, and will continue to do so.”

Harry Potter author JK Rowling posted on social media: “It took three extraordinary, tenacious Scottish women with an army behind them to get this case heard by the Supreme Court and, in winning, they’ve protected the rights of women and girls across the UK.”

But Scottish Green MSP Maggie Chapman, a prominent campaigner for trans-rights, said: “This is a deeply concerning ruling for human rights and a huge blow to some of the most marginalised people in our society.

“It could remove important protections and will leave many trans people and their loved ones deeply anxious and worried about how their lives will be affected and about what will come next.”

For Women Scotland had warned that if the court sided with the Scottish government, it would have implications for the running of single-sex spaces and services, such as hospital wards, prisons, refuges and support groups.

Transgender people warned the case could erode the protections they have against discrimination in their reassigned gender.

Scottish Trans manager Vic Valentine said the organisation was “shocked” by the court ruling, arguing that it “reverses 20 years of understanding on how the law recognises trans men and women with gender recognition certificates”.

They added: “This judgement seems to suggest that there will be times where trans people can be excluded from both men’s and women’s spaces and services.

“It is hard to understand where we would then be expected to go – or how this decision is compatible with a society that is fair and equal for everybody.”

The case follows years of heated debate over transgender and women’s rights, including controversy over transgender rapist Isla Bryson initially being put in a women’s prison and an ongoing employment tribunal involving a female NHS Fife nurse who objected to a transgender doctor using a women’s changing room.

NHS Fife said it would “carefully consider” the court’s judgement.

The judges ruled that that interpreting sex as “certificated” rather than “biological” would “cut across the definitions of man and “woman and thus the protected characteristic of sex in an incoherent way”.

They said a “certified” definition of sex would weaken protections for lesbians, citing the example of lesbian-only spaces and associations as it would mean that a trans woman who was attracted to women would be classed as a lesbian.

The ruling found the biological interpretation of sex was also required for single-sex spaces to “function coherently”.

It cited changing rooms, hostels, medical services and single-sex higher education institutions.

The judges noted “similar confusion and impracticability” had arisen in relation to single-sex associations and charities, women’s sport, public sector equality and the armed forces.

The judges added: “The practical problems that arise under a certificated sex approach are clear indicators that this interpretation is not correct.”

Gender reassignment is a protected characteristic in law, making it is illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis that they are transgender.

However, single-sex spaces can exclude people with GRCs “if it is proportionate to do so”.

Dr Nick McKerrell, senior law lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University, said the ruling means a transgender women with a GRC who was excluded from a single-sex space would be unable to argue she is being discriminated against as a woman.

He also said the ruling implied that workplaces would need to provide separate spaces for people on the basis of biological sex.

But the law lecturer said arguments over access to single-sex spaces would not be “settled” by this court case.

He told the BBC: “It doesn’t mean everything overnight is going to change in terms of stopping trans people from accessing services. It will depend on what providers think the new definition will mean for them.”

Dr McKerrell said the judgement does not immediately change anything for the rules on transgender participation in women’s sport, but that it might prompt a “reassessment” of rules.

The legal dispute began in 2018, when the Scottish Parliament passed a bill designed to ensure gender balance on public sector boards.

For Women Scotland complained that ministers had included transgender people as part of the quotas in that law.

The issue has been contested several times in the Scottish courts.

Holyrood ministers won the most recent case in Scotland, with judge Lady Haldane ruling in 2022 that the definition of sex was “not limited to biological or birth sex”.

The Scottish Parliament passed reforms that year that would have made it easier for someone to change their legally recognised sex.

The move was blocked by the UK government, and has since been dropped by Holyrood ministers.