Pakistan has deported more than 19,500 Afghans this month, among more than 80,000 who have left ahead of a 30 April deadline, according to the UN.

Pakistan has accelerated its drive to expel undocumented Afghans and those who had temporary permission to stay, saying it can no longer cope.

Between 700 and 800 families are being deported daily, Taliban officials say, with up to two million people expected to follow in the coming months.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar flew to Kabul on Saturday for talks with Taliban officials. His counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi expressed “deep concern” about deportations.

Some expelled Afghans at the border said they had been born in Pakistan after their families fled conflict.

More than 3.5 million Afghans have been living in Pakistan, according to the UN’s refugee agency, including around 700,000 people who came after the Taliban takeover in 2021. The UN estimates that half are undocumented.

Pakistan has taken in Afghans through decades of war, but the government says the high number of refugees now poses risks to national security and causes pressure on public services.

• Pakistan orders Afghan asylum seekers out
• Afghans hiding in Pakistan live in fear

There has been a recent spike in border clashes between the security forces of both sides. Pakistan blames them on militants based in Afghanistan, which the Taliban deny.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said the two sides had “discussed all issues of mutual interest” in Saturday’s meeting in Kabul.

Pakistan had extended a deadline for undocumented Afghans to leave the country by a month, to 30 April.

On the Torkham border crossing, some expelled Afghans told the BBC they left Afghanistan decades ago – or had never lived there.

“I lived my whole life in Pakistan,” said Sayed Rahman, a second-generation refugee born and raised in Pakistan. “I got married there. What am I supposed to do now?”

Saleh, a father of three daughters, worried what life under Taliban rule will mean for them. His daughters attended school in Pakistan’s Punjab province, but in Afghanistan, girls over the age of 12 are barred from doing so.

“I want my children to study. I don’t want their years in school to go to waste,” he said. “Everyone has the right to an education.”

Another man told the BBC: “Our children have never seen Afghanistan and even I don’t know what it looks like anymore. It might take us a year or more to settle in and find work. We feel helpless.”

At the border, men and women pass through separate gates, under the watch of armed Pakistani and Afghan guards. Some of those returning were elderly – one man was carried across on a stretcher, another in a bed.

Military trucks shuttled families from the border to temporary shelters. Those originally from distant provinces stay there for several days, waiting for transport to their home regions.

Families clustered under canvases to escape the 30C degree heat, as swirling dust caught in the eyes and mouth. Resources are stretched and fierce arguments often break out over access to shelter.

Returnees receive between 4,000 and 10,000 Afghanis (£41 to £104) from the Kabul authorities, according to Hedayatullah Yad Shinwari, a member of the camp’s Taliban-appointed finance committee.

The mass deportation is placing significant pressure on Afghanistan’s fragile infrastructure, with an economy in crisis and a population nearing 45 million people.

“We have resolved most issues, but the arrival of people in such large numbers naturally brings difficulties,” said Bakht Jamal Gohar, the Taliban’s head of refugee affairs at the crossing. “These people left decades ago and left all their belongings behind. Some of their homes were destroyed during 20 years of war.”

Nearly every family told the BBC that Pakistani border guards restricted what they could bring – a complaint echoed by some human rights groups.

Chaudhry said in response that Pakistan did “not have any policy that prevents Afghan refugees from taking their household items with them”.

One man, sitting on the roadside in the blistering sun, said his children had begged to stay in Pakistan, the country where they were born. They had been given temporary residency, but that expired in March.

“Now we’ll never go back. Not after how we were treated,” he said.

For the last few weeks, many foreign students living in the US have watched as a sequence of events has repeated itself on their social media feeds: plain-clothes agents appearing unannounced and hauling students off in unmarked cars to detention centres.

Those taken into custody in a string of high-profile student detentions captured on video have not faced any criminal charges and instead appear to have been targeted for involvement in pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses.

The Trump administration has said repeatedly that visas are a “privilege” and can be revoked at any time for a wide variety of reasons.

But the crackdown appears to be far wider than initially thought, with more than 1,000 international students or recent graduates at colleges across the US now having had their visas revoked or legal statuses changed, according to a tracker from Inside Higher Ed, an online news site covering the sector.

For many, the precise reasons are unknown, and universities have often only learned of the changes when checking a government-run database that logs the visa status of international students.

The combination of targeted detentions and reports of wide-scale visa revocations have left campuses on edge, from the biggest public universities to elite Ivy League institutions, students and faculty told the BBC.

“I could be next,” said one student visa-holder attending Georgetown University, who has written articles about Israel and the war in Gaza.

He’s begun carrying around a card in his pocket that lists his constitutional rights, in case he is ever stopped by law enforcement.

Another student in Texas said he’s afraid to leave his apartment, even to buy groceries.

And at some colleges, departments are being hit as researchers abroad refuse to return to the US.

Most students the BBC spoke to requested anonymity out of fear that having their names in the media could make them a target.

The BBC has contacted the Department of Education for comment.

The reasons for visa cancellations vary. In some cases, criminal records appear to be a factor. Other instances have reportedly included minor legal infractions like driving over the speed limit. But “a lot” of those targeted have been involved in pro-Palestinian protests, Secretary of State Marco Rubio himself has said.

• Marco Rubio says US revoked at least 300 foreign students’ visas
• Why has Trump revoked hundreds of international student visas?
• Trump signs order to dismantle US education department

It is part of a wider White House push to crack down on protesters whom officials say created an unsafe environment for Jewish students on many campuses. They also accuse demonstrators of having expressed support for Hamas, an officially designated terrorist group.

“Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” Rubio told reporters in late March. “We do it every day.”

Civil liberties groups have protested against the detentions and moves to deport student demonstrators as a violation of constitutional rights. And the students themselves reject associations with Hamas, saying that they are being targeted for political speech about the war in Gaza and US support for Israel.

At Georgetown, signs that read “protect our students” have been taped to the doors of bathroom stalls, adding a sense of gloom to the cherry blossom trees and tulips that typically mark the arrival of spring on campus.

A postdoctoral fellow from the university, Badar Khan Suri, was grabbed by federal agents outside his Virginia home in March. The Department of Homeland Security accused the conflict resolution researcher of “promoting antisemitism on social media” and having links to a “known or suspected terrorist”.

• The Indian scholar arrested in US over father-in-law’s Hamas link
• US court blocks deportation of Georgetown University researcher

This was an apparent reference to the Palestinian father of his US-born wife, a former adviser to killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Mr Suri’s lawyers say he has only met his father-in-law a handful of times and is being targeted due to his wife’s identity.

His detention followed that of Columbia University student protest organiser Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident arrested at home in New York but now awaiting deportation from a facility in Louisiana.

Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, who co-authored a student newspaper op-ed about Gaza and was detained in Massachusetts, is also being held in Louisiana.

Last Monday, Mohsen Mahdawi, another Columbia student protester, was detained in Vermont as he attended an interview to obtain US citizenship. Like Mr Khalil, he holds a green card, rather than a student visa.

“Based on the detentions that we’re seeing, I think there is a possibility anyone who has been outspoken about Palestine can be detained,” said the Georgetown student, who knew Mr Suri.

The White House says it is going after those who have been involved in activities that “run counter” to US national interests. In Mr Khalil’s case, officials have cited a 1952 law that empowers the government to order someone deported if their presence in the country could pose unfavourable consequences for US foreign policy.

In a post on X, the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association celebrated Mr Khalil’s arrest, calling him the “ringleader of chaos” at the university.

Polling suggests that immigration is an issue where President Trump enjoys some of his highest approval ratings, with recent Reuters and AP-NORC surveys suggesting about half of US adults approve of action in that area, several points higher than his overall rating.

Universities are also being targeted at an institutional level. This week, the White House’s task force on combating antisemitism froze over $2bn in funding for Harvard University, after the university refused to agree to a list of demands that it said would amount to “surrendering its independence”.

• Harvard just stood up to Trump. How long can it last?
• Trump administration threatens Harvard with foreign student ban

Trump officials have said that if Harvard doesn’t comply with a request for information on certain student visaholders, it will stop granting visas to international students who want to study there.

Georgetown professor Nader Hashemi said he believes the government’s main goal is “silencing dissent” by intimidating would-be protesters.

The Georgetown student says he has asked his parents not to fly from India to the US to see him graduate with a master’s degree in just a few weeks. He is still unsure if he will even attend the ceremony.

In addition to checking his email daily to see if he is among the hundreds that have had their visas revoked recently, he has also prepared for the possibility of sudden arrest.

“I have cleared my chats across messaging apps, and I have learned how to quickly lock my phone in SOS mode,” he said.

Georgetown professors have even begun offering spare rooms to students who worry about being visited by immigration agents at their residences, said Prof Hashemi.

“This is part of the trauma that I think students are facing,” he said.

At Tufts University, outside of Boston, Massachusetts, students are waiting to see what happens to Ms Ozturk, who was detained outside her home.

Video shows her confused and shaking in fear as she is intercepted by agents while headed to a Ramadan dinner celebration. Last year, she had co-authored an op-ed supporting the boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) movement against Israel.

Tufts PhD student Anteri Mejr told the BBC that the actions have had a “chilling effect”, and that international students she knows who have left the country to visit home or attend conferences are now afraid to return.

“There are students working remotely because they’re afraid they can’t get back in the country,” he said.

At the University of Texas, rumours about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on campus have some students terrified.

“I’m scared to be out. I’m scared to come to school. I’m scared to go grocery shopping,” a master’s student there said.

“I’m afraid that if I’m walking, I will be approached by agents in incognito clothes and plain disguise,” he continued.

Despite being a green card holder and having not played a role in pro-Palestinian protests on campus, he says he is still in “crippling anxiety” because he has written things that are critical of the president.

“How far does this administration dig through, like, an immigrant’s history?” he asked. “What if I did say something and I’m not aware.”

A team of scientists claim to have discovered a new colour that no human has ever seen before.

The research follows an experiment in which researchers in the US had laser pulses fired into their eyes.

By stimulating specific cells in the retina, the participants claim to have witnessed a blue-green colour that scientists have called “olo”, but some experts have said the existence of a new colour is “open to argument”.

The findings, published in the journal Science Advances on Friday, have been described by the study’s co-author, Prof Ren Ng from the University of California, as “remarkable”.

He and his colleagues believe that the results could potentially further research into colour blindness.

Prof Ng, who was one of five people to take part in the experiment, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday that olo was “more saturated than any colour that you can see in the real world”.

“Let’s say you go around your whole life and you see only pink, baby pink, a pastel pink,” he said.

“And then one day you go to the office and someone’s wearing a shirt, and it’s the most intense baby pink you’ve ever seen, and they say it’s a new colour and we call it red.”

During the team’s experiment, researchers shone a laser beam into the pupil of one eye of each participant.

There were five participants in the study – four male and one female – who all had normal colour vision. Three of the participants – including Prof Ng – were co-authors of the research paper.

According to the research paper, the participants looked into a device called Oz which consists of mirrors, lasers and optical devices. The equipment was designed previously by some of the involved researchers – a team of scientists from UC Berkeley and the University of Washington, and updated for use in this study.

The retina is a light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye responsible for receiving and processing visual information. It converts light into electrical signals, which are then transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve, enabling us to see.

The retina includes cone cells, which are cells responsible for perceiving colour.

There are three types of cone cells in the eye – S, L and M – and each one is sensitive to different wavelengths of blue, red and green respectively.

According to the research paper, in normal vision, “any light that stimulates an M cone cell must also stimulate its neighbouring L and/or S cones”, because its function overlaps with them.

However, in the study, the laser only stimulated M cones, “which in principle would send a colour signal to the brain that never occurs in natural vision”, the paper said.

This means the colour olo could not been seen by a person’s naked eye in the real world without the help of specific stimulation.

To verify the colour observed during the experiment, each participant adjusted a controllable colour dial until it matched olo.

Some experts, however, say the new perceived colour is a “matter of interpretation”.

Prof John Barbur, a vision scientist at City St George’s, University of London, who was not involved in the study, said that while the research is a “technological feat” in stimulating selective cone cells, the discovery of a new colour is “open to argument”.

He explained that if, for example, the red cone cells (L) were stimulated in large numbers, people would “perceive a deep red”, but the perceived brightness may change depending on changes to red cone sensitivity, which is not unlike what happened in this study.

But the study’s co-author Prof Ng admitted that although olo is “certainly very technically difficult” to see, the team is studying the findings to see what it could potentially mean for colour blind people, who find it difficult to distinguish between certain colours.

Five people have drowned after huge waves hit parts of Australia at the start of the Easter weekend.

Two others are missing off the coasts of New South Wales and Victoria states.

On Saturday the body of a man was found in the water near Tathra in southern New South Wales. It came a day after a 58-year-old fisherman and two other men were found dead in separate incidents in the state.

Rescuers are searching for a man who was washed into the water near Sydney. Also on Friday, one woman drowned and a man is missing after their group was swept into sea in San Remo in Victoria.

“One of the women managed to make her way back to shore but the other woman and the man were unable to,” Victoria police said.

Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan said it marked a “awful start” to the Easter weekend.

“My thoughts are with the family of someone who has lost their life in such tragic circumstances, and potentially there is more difficult news to come,” she said.

Australia’s eastern states have been battered by dangerous waves.

The head of the charity Surf Life Saving Australia, Adam Weir, advised holidaymakers to visit patrolled beaches after their data showed 630 people had drowned at unpatrolled beaches in the past 10 years.

“But these coastal locations can present dangers, some that you can see and some that you can’t, which is why we have some simple advice: Stop, Look, Stay Alive.”

Every iPhone comes with a label which tells you it was designed in California.

While the sleek rectangle that runs many of our lives is indeed designed in the United States, it is likely to have come to life thousands of miles away in China: the country hit hardest by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, now rising to 245% on some Chinese imports.

Apple sells more than 220 million iPhones a year and by most estimates, nine in 10 are made in China. From the glossy screens to the battery packs, it’s here that many of the components in an Apple product are made, sourced and assembled into iPhones, iPads or Macbooks. Most are shipped to the US, Apple’s largest market.

Luckily for the firm, Trump suddenly exempted smartphones, computers and some other electronic devices from his tariffs last week.

But the comfort is short-lived.

The president has since suggested that more tariffs are coming: “NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’,” he wrote on Truth Social, as his administration investigated “semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN”.

The global supply chain that Apple has touted as a strength is now a vulnerability.

The US and China, the world’s two biggest economies, are interdependent and Trump’s staggering tariffs have upended that relationship overnight, leading to an inevitable question: who is the more dependent of the two?

China has hugely benefited from hosting assembly lines for one of the world’s most valuable companies. It was a calling card to the West for quality manufacturing and has helped spur local innovation.

Apple entered China in the 1990s to sell computers through third-party suppliers.

Around 1997, when it was on the verge of bankruptcy as it struggled to compete with rivals, Apple found a lifeline in China. A young Chinese economy was opening up to foreign companies to boost manufacturing and create more jobs.

It wasn’t until 2001 though that Apple officially arrived in China, through a Shanghai-based trading company, and started making products in the country. It partnered with Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronic manufacturer operating in China, to make iPods, then iMacs and subsequently iPhones.

As Beijing began trading with the world – encouraged by the US no less – Apple grew its footprint in what was becoming the world’s factory.

Back then, China was not primed to make the iPhone. But Apple chose its own crop of suppliers and helped them grow into “manufacturing superstars,” according to supply chain expert Lin Xueping.

He cites the example of Beijing Jingdiao, now a leading manufacturer of high-speed precision machinery, which is used to make advanced components efficiently. The company, which used to cut acrylic, was not considered a machine tool-maker – but it eventually developed machinery to cut glass and became “the star of Apple’s mobile phone surface processing,” Mr Lin says.

Apple opened its first store in the country in Beijing in 2008, the year the city hosted the Olympics and China’s relationship with the West was at an all-time high. This soon snowballed to 50 stores, with customers queuing out of the door.

As Apple’s profit margins grew, so did its assembly lines in China, with Foxconn operating the world’s largest iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, which has since been termed “iPhone City”.

For a fast-growing China, Apple became a symbol of advanced Western tech – simple yet original and slick.

Today, most of Apple’s prized iPhones are manufactured by Foxconn. The advanced chips that power them are made in Taiwan, by the world’s largest chip manufacturer, TSMC. The manufacturing also requires rare earth elements which are used in audio applications and cameras.

Some 150 of Apple’s top 187 suppliers in 2024 had factories in China, according to an analysis by Nikkei Asia.

“There’s no supply chain in the world that’s more critical to us than China,” Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said in an interview last year.

In Trump’s first term, Apple secured exemptions on the tariffs he imposed on China.

But this time, the Trump administration has made an example of Apple before it reversed tariffs on some electronics. It believes the threat of steep taxes will encourage businesses to make products in America instead.

“The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones – that kind of thing is going to come to America,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in an interview earlier this month.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated that last week: “President Trump has made it clear America cannot rely on China to manufacture critical technologies such as semiconductors, chips, smartphones and laptops.”

She added: “At the direction of the president, these companies are hustling to onshore their manufacturing in the United States as soon as possible.”

But many are sceptical of that.

The thought that Apple could move its assembly operation to the US is “pure fantasy,” according to Eli Friedman, who formerly sat on the firm’s academic advisory board.

He says the company has been talking about diversifying its supply chain away from China since 2013, when he joined the board – but the US was never an option.

Mr Friedman adds that Apple didn’t make much progress over the next decade but “really made an effort” after the pandemic, when China’s tightly controlled Covid lockdowns hurt manufacturing output.

“The most important new locations for assembly have been Vietnam and India. But of course the majority of Apple assembly still takes place [in China].”

Apple did not respond to the BBC’s questions but its website says its supply chain spans “thousands of businesses and more than 50 countries”.

Any change to Apple’s current supply chain status quo would be a huge blow for China, which is trying to kickstart growth post-pandemic.

Many of the reasons that the country wanted to be a manufacturing hub for Western companies in the early 2000s ring true today – it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs, and gives the country a crucial edge in global trade.

“Apple sits at the intersection of US-China tensions, and tariffs highlight the cost of that exposure,” says Jigar Dixit, a supply chain and operations consultant.

It might explain why China has not bowed to Trump’s threats, retaliating instead with 125% levies on US imports. China has also imposed export controls on a range of critical rare earth minerals and magnets it has in stores, dealing a blow to the US.

There is no doubt the US tariffs still being levied on other Chinese sectors will hurt, though.

And it’s not just Beijing facing higher tariffs – Trump has made it clear he will target countries that are part of the Chinese supply chain. For instance Vietnam, where Apple has moved AirPods production, was facing 46% tariffs before Trump hit pause for 90 days, so moving production elsewhere in Asia is not an easy way out.

“All conceivable places for the huge Foxconn assembly sites with tens or hundreds of thousands of workers are in Asia, and all of these countries are facing higher tariffs,” Mr Friedman says.

So what does Apple do now?

The company is fighting off stiff competition from Chinese firms as the government pushes for advanced tech manufacturing in a race with the US.

Now that “Apple has cultivated China’s electronic manufacturing capabilities, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and others can reuse Apple’s mature supply chain,” according to Mr Lin.

Last year, Apple lost its place as China’s biggest smartphone seller to Huawei and Vivo. Chinese people are not spending enough because of a sluggish economy and with ChatGPT banned in China, Apple is also struggling to retain an edge among buyers seeking AI-powered phones. It even offered rare discounts on iPhones in January to boost sales.

And while operating under President Xi Jinping’s increasingly close grip, Apple has had to limit the use of Bluetooth and Airdrop on its devices as the Chinese Communist Party sought to censor political messages that people were sharing. It weathered a crackdown on the tech industry that even touched Alibaba founder and multi-billionaire Jack Ma.

Apple has announced a $500bn (£378bn) investment in the US, though that may not be enough to appease the Trump administration for long.

Given the several U-turns and the uncertainty around Trump’s tariffs, more unexpected levies are expected – which could again leave the company with little manoeuvring room and even less time.

Mr Dixit says smartphone tariffs will not cripple Apple should they rear their head again, but regardless will add “pressure – both operationally and politically” to a supply chain that cannot be unwound quickly.

“Clearly the severity of the immediate crisis has been lessened,” Mr Friedman adds, referring to last week’s exemption for smartphones.

“But I really don’t think this means Apple can relax.”

An Indian archaeologist, whose career was marked by brilliance and controversy, made one of the world’s greatest historical discoveries. Yet he remains largely forgotten today.

In the early 1900s, Rakhaldas Banerjee (also spelled Banerji) unearthed Mohenjo-daro – meaning “mound of the dead men” in the Sindhi language – in present-day Pakistan. It was the largest city of the thriving Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilisation, which stretched from north-east Afghanistan to north-west India during the Bronze Age.

Banerjee, an intrepid explorer and talented epigraphist, worked for the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) when the country was under British colonial rule. He spent months travelling to distant corners of the subcontinent, looking for ancient artefacts, ruins and scripts.

But while his discovery of Mohenjo-daro was ground-breaking, Banerjee’s legacy is clouded by disputes. His independent streak and defiance of colonial protocols often landed him in trouble – tainting his reputation and perhaps even erasing parts of his contribution from global memory.

Interestingly, Banerjee’s reports on Mohenjo-daro were never published by the ASI. Archaeologist PK Mishra later accused then ASI chief John Marshall of suppressing Banerjee’s findings and claiming credit for the discovery himself.

“The world knows Marshall discovered the civilisation’s ruins and it is taught in institutions. Banerjee is an insignificant footnote,” Prof Mishra told the Times of India newspaper.

In her book, , historian Nayanjot Lahiri writes that Banerjee “lacked diplomacy and tact and displayed a high-handedness that ruffled feathers”. Her book also sheds light on the controversies he was embroiled in during his time at the ASI.

She notes how once, he attempted to procure inscriptions and images from a museum in north-east India without the approval or knowledge of his boss.

Another time, Banerjee attempted to relocate some stone sculptures from a museum in Bengal to the one he was stationed at without the necessary permissions.

In another instance, he purchased an antique painting for a sum without consulting his superiors who thought he’d paid more than was necessary.

“Banerjee’s many talents seemed to include being always able to rub people the wrong way,” Lahiri writes.

But Banerjee remains a prominent figure among world historians and scholars in Bengal because of his connection with Mohenjo-daro.

He was born in 1885 to a wealthy family in Bengal.

The medieval monuments that dotted Baharampur, the city he grew up in, kindled his interest in history and he pursued the subject in college. But he always had an adventurous streak.

Once, when he was tasked with writing an essay about the Scythian period of Indian history, he travelled to a museum in a neighbouring state to study first-hand sculptures and scripts from that era.

In her book, , author Yama Pande notes how Banerjee joined the ASI as an excavation assistant in 1910 and rose quickly within the ranks to become a superintending archaeologist in western India in 1917.

It was in this post that he first set eyes on Mohenjo-daro in Sindh in 1919. In the following years, he conducted a series of excavations at the site that revealed some of the most fascinating finds: ancient Buddhist stupas, coins, seals, pots and microliths.

Between 1922 and 1923, he discovered several layers of ruins that held clues about various urban settlements that had emerged in the region, but most importantly, the oldest one that had existed some 5,300 years ago – the Indus Valley Civilisation.

At that time, historians had not yet discovered the full scale of the Indus Civilisation which, we now know, covered an expanse of approximately 386,000 sq miles (999,735 sq km) along the Indus river valley.

Three seals from Banerjee’s excavation bore images and scripts similar to those from Harappa in the Punjab province in present-day Pakistan. This helped establish a link between the two sites, shedding light on the vast reach of the Indus Valley civilisation.

But by 1924, Banerjee’s funds for the project had dried up and he was also transferred to eastern India. He had no further contact with the site, nor did he participate in any excavations there, Pande writes in her book.

But Nayanjot Lahiri notes that Banerjee was transferred at his own request, after becoming entangled in questions over his spending. He had failed to account for several job-related expenses.

It was also revealed that Banerjee had used excavation grants to buy office furniture and his travel expenses were deemed excessive.

His explanations failed to convince his superiors and disciplinary action was recommended. After some negotiation, Banerjee was granted his request and transferred to another region.

Banerjee continued to work with the ASI in eastern India. He spent most of his time in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and oversaw the restoration work of many important monuments.

He resigned from the ASI in 1927, but his departure was marred by controversy. In the years prior to his departure, he became the prime suspect in a case of idol theft.

It all started in October 1925, when Banerjee had visited a revered Hindu shrine in Madhya Pradesh state that housed a stone idol of a Buddhist goddess. Banerjee was accompanied by two low-ranking assistants and two labourers, Lahiri notes in her book.

However, following their visit, the idol went missing, and Banerjee was implicated in its theft. He denied any involvement in the disappearance and an investigation was launched.

The idol was later recovered in Calcutta. Though the case against Banerjee was dismissed and the charges were found to be unsubstantiated, Marshall insisted on his resignation.

After leaving the ASI, Banerjee worked as a professor, but faced financial difficulties because of his lavish lifestyle.

Historian Tapati Guha-Thakurta told the Telegraph newspaper that Banerjee splurged on good food, horse carriages and friends. In 1928, he joined the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) as a professor. He died just two years later at the age of 45.

The US Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to pause the deportation of a group of alleged Venezuelan gang members.

The men are being held in detention in north Texas under an 18th-Century wartime law, and a civil liberties group has sued the government saying they have not had a chance to contest their case in court.

Donald Trump has sent accused Venezuelan gang members to a notorious mega-jail in El Salvador, invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act which gives the president power to order the detention and deportation of natives or citizens of “enemy” nations without usual processes.

The act had previously been used only three times, all during war.

It was last invoked in World War Two, when people of Japanese descent were imprisoned without trial and thousands sent to internment camps.

Since taking office in January, Trump’s hard-line immigration policies have encountered a number of legal hurdles.

Trump had accused Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua of “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion” on US territory.

Out of 261 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador as of 8 April, 137 were removed under the Alien Enemies Act, a senior administration official told CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner.

A lower court temporarily blocked these deportations on 15 March.

The Supreme Court initially ruled on 8 April that Trump could use the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members, but deportees must be given a chance to challenge their removal.

The lawsuit that resulted in Saturday’s order said the Venezuelans detained in north Texas had been given notices about their imminent deportation in English, despite one detainee only speaking Spanish.

The challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also said the men had not been told they had a right to contest the decision in court.

“Without this Court’s intervention, dozens or hundreds of proposed class members may be removed to a possible life sentence in El Salvador with no real opportunity to contest their designation or removal,” the lawsuit read.

Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented on Saturday.

In his second inaugural address in January, Trump pledged to “eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to US soil”.

In the highest-profile case, the government admitted it mistakenly deported El Salvador national Kilmar Ábrego García, but contends he is a member of the MS-13 gang, which his lawyer and family denies. Mr Ábrego García has never been convicted of a crime.

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the government should facilitate bringing back Mr Ábrego García, but the Trump administration has said he will “never” live in the US again.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, visited Mr Ábrego García in El Salvador and said he had been moved from the mega-jail Cecot (Terrorism Confinement Centre) to a new prison.

The layout of Myanmar’s capital city Nay Pyi Taw will be redrawn after the devastating earthquake last month, the country’s military ruler has said.

During a government meeting, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said that buildings which collapsed during the earthquake were so badly affected because they were built on soft soil.

Office buildings will be rebuilt and must be resistant to future earthquakes, he said, with tests on soil also being conducted before any rebuilding is done.

The BBC has seen evidence indicating about 70% of government buildings were damaged by the quake in the capital, and some offices have reportedly been moved to Yangon.

Myanmar was devastated by a huge earthquake which hit the country on 28 March. The 7.7 magnitude quake was so strong it was felt in Thailand and south-west China.

According to state media, over 3,500 people were killed and 5,012 were injured in Myanmar as a result of the quake.

The city of Nay Pyi Taw covers at least four times the area of London, but with only a fraction of the people. Its history is short: it has only existed since 2005, raised out of the flatlands by the then military rulers of Myanmar, which was previously known as Burma.

The name Nay Pyi Taw means “seat of the king”. The reasons for moving the capital some 370km inland from the largest city, Yangon, have never been entirely clear.

The city bears all the hallmarks of a planned capital: the road leading from parliament to the presidential palace is 20 lanes wide, but carries hardly any traffic. Shiny shopping malls and empty luxury hotels line the boulevards. There’s a safari park, a zoo, and at least three stadiums.

Since 2021, Myanmar has been plagued by civil war between the junta, which seized power in a military coup, and ethnic militias and resistance forces across the country.

A 20-day ceasefire was declared by the military council on 2 April, following the announcement of a pause in hostilities by an alliance made up of three rebel groups.

The ceasefires were announced to help relief efforts, but the military has reportedly continued to attack rebel-held areas.

The military council’s photo archives show that several government buildings, including the Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Planning and the Court of the Union were severely damaged in the earthquake.

Most of the buildings are still in ruins as repair work on them has not yet started.

The removal of important government documents has reportedly been ordered, along with equipment and other moveable items.

Reconstruction of the buildings could take years, and as a result, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Tourism have reportedly moved their offices to the former capital Yangon – 366km (228m) away.

Other departments are relocating their offices to open air halls called “hotai” in Nay Pyi Taw, which are built with steel frames.

Social media posts written by staff at the National Museum in Nay Pyi Taw say they have moved inscriptions and manuscripts and are trying to save as many as possible of the tens of thousands of books, along with literature and computers.

Iran and the US have held a second round of high-stakes nuclear talks in Rome – and agreed to meet again next week – even as hopes for de-escalation are tempered by mounting military threats and mixed messages.

US President Donald Trump reminds Tehran nearly every day of its options: a deal or war.

He has previously said Israel would lead a military response if the talks failed.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Trump had “waved off” an Israeli plan to strike Iranian nuclear sites as early as next month.

“I wouldn’t say waved off. I’m not in a rush to do it,” Trump told reporters in response to the article on Thursday, adding that he preferred to give diplomacy a chance.

“I think that Iran has a chance to have a great country and to live happily without death… That’s my first option. If there’s a second option, I think it would be very bad for Iran.”

After both sides described the first round of talks in Oman last weekend as constructive, Trump had said he would be “making a decision on Iran very quickly”.

In 2018, Trump pulled the US out of a 2015 agreement which saw Iran limit its nuclear activities and allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in return for sanctions relief.

He said it did too little to stop Iran’s potential pathway to a nuclear weapon and reinstated US sanctions as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign to compel Iran to negotiate a new deal.

However, Iran refused and increasingly breached restrictions in retaliation. It has now stockpiled enough highly-enriched uranium to make several bombs if it chose to do so – something it says it would never do.

The threat of military action appears to have played a role in bringing Iran back to the negotiating table. Yet it insists that is not the reason.

The website of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Iran had agreed to talks only because the US limited its demands strictly to nuclear issues – not out of fear of US and Israeli strikes.

Even so, reaching a deal remains far from certain.

Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who is leading the US negotiating team, posted on X on Tuesday: “Any final arrangement must set a framework for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East – meaning that Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization programme.”

It came just a day after he had suggested in an interview with Fox News that Iran would be allowed to continue enriching uranium.

“They do not need to enrich past 3.67%,” he said, referring to the limit set by the 2015 nuclear deal.

“This is going to be much about verification on the enrichment programme and then ultimately verification on weaponization.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the head of the Iranian delegation, responded by noting Witkoff’s “contradictory statements” and stressing that “real positions will be made clear at the negotiating table”.

“We are ready to build trust regarding possible concerns over Iran’s enrichment, but the principle of enrichment is not negotiable,” he said.

Saturday’s talks in Rome come amid a flurry of diplomatic activity.

Saudi Arabia’s Defence Minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman, visited Tehran on Thursday, delivering a personal message from his father King Salman to Ayatollah Khamenei. He also met Iran’s President, Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iran has warned that any US military action would be met with retaliation against American bases in the region – many of them hosted by Iran’s Arab neighbours.

At the same time, Araghchi visited Moscow and handed a letter from Khamenei to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Iran and Russia have strengthened their military ties since the start of the war in Ukraine, with Tehran accused of supplying drones to support Moscow’s war effort.

The Russian parliament ratified a 20-year strategic partnership between Iran and Russia 10 days ago. However, the deal does not include a mutual defence clause.

Meanwhile, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi completed a two-day visit to Tehran this week, meeting Iranian nuclear officials and the foreign minister in a bid to ease tensions and restore inspection protocols.

Since Trump returned to office this year, Ayatollah Khamenei has consistently denounced negotiations with Washington.

“Negotiating with this administration is not logical, not wise, nor honourable,” he said in a February speech, just two months before agreeing to the current round of talks.

The supreme leader’s distrust stems from Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, the “maximum pressure” campaign that followed, and the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in a US strike in Iraq in 2020.

Ayatollah Khamenei expressed satisfaction with the first round of talks, saying it was “implemented well”.

But he cautioned that he was “neither overly optimistic nor overly pessimistic”.

He has also previously warned that Iran would ​retaliate in the event of strikes on its nuclear programme.

Some officials, including his adviser Ali Larijani, have even said that Iran might be “forced” to acquire a nuclear weapon if attacked.

“We are not pursuing weapons, and we have no problem with IAEA oversight – even indefinitely. But if you resort to bombing, Iran will have no choice but to reconsider. That is not in your interest,” Larijani told state TV earlier this month.

Each side is pushing its own narrative about how the talks are being conducted.

The US says they are direct. Iran says they indirect, and that Oman is mediating by exchanging written notes.

After the first round in Muscat, Araghchi acknowledged he had a brief exchange with Witkoff “out of diplomatic courtesy” after crossing paths.

US news website Axios, citing sources, reported the two chief negotiators spoke for up to 45 minutes.

Tehran prefers secrecy. Washington seeks publicity.

After both sides put out positive statements about the first round, Iran’s currency surged by 20%.

Iran’s leadership is well aware of public discontent over the country’s harsh economic conditions – and the potential for protests it may trigger.

For the Islamic Republic, the fear is not just over bombs – it’s protests too.

Stock markets around the world have been relatively settled this week after a period of chaos, sparked by US trade tariffs.

But investors are still closely watching a part of the market which rarely moves dramatically – the US bond market.

Governments sell bonds – essentially an IOU – to raise money for public spending and in return they pay interest.

Recently, in an extremely rare move the rate the US government had to pay on its bonds rose sharply, while the price of bonds themselves fell.

The volatility suggests investors were losing confidence in the world’s biggest economy.

You may think it’s too esoteric to bother you, but here’s why it matters and how it may change President Trump’s mind on tariffs.

When a government wants to borrow money, it usually does so by selling bonds – known as “Treasuries” in the US – to investors on financial markets.

Such payments are made over a number of pre-agreed years before a full and final payment is made when the bond “matures” – in other words, expires.

Investors who buy bonds are mainly made up of financial institutions, ranging from pension funds to central banks like the Bank of England.

Investors buy government bonds because they are seen as a safe place to invest their money. There is little risk a government will not repay the money, especially an economic superpower like the US.

So when the economy is turbulent and investors want to take money out of volatile stocks and shares markets, they usually place that cash in US bonds.

But recently that hasn’t happened.

Initially, following the so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs announcement on 2 April when shares fell, investors did appear to flock to US bonds.

However, when the first of these tariffs kicked in on 5 April and Trump doubled down on his policies that weekend, investors began dumping government bonds, sending the interest rate the US government would have to pay to borrow money up sharply.

The so-called yield for US government borrowing over 10 years shot up from 3.9% to 4.5%, while the 30-year yield spiked at almost 5%. Movements of 0.2% in either direction are considered a big deal.

Why the dramatic sell-off? In short, the uncertainty over the impact of tariffs on the US economy led to investors no longer seeing government bonds as such a safe bet, so demanded bigger returns to buy them.

The higher the perceived risk, the higher the yield investors want to compensate for taking it.

If the US government is spending more on debt interest repayments, it can affect budgets and public spending as it becomes more costly for the government to sustain itself.

But it can also have a direct impact on households and even more so on businesses.

John Canavan, lead analyst at Oxford Economics, says when investors charge higher rates to lend the government money, other rates for lending that have more risk attached, such as mortgages, credit cards and car loans, also tend to rise.

Businesses, especially small ones, are likely to be hardest hit by any immediate change in borrowing rates, as most homeowners in the US have fixed-rate deals of between 15 and 30 years. If businesses can’t get access to credit, that can halt economic growth and lead to job losses over time.

Mr Canavan adds that banks can become more cautious in lending money, which could impact the US economy.

First-time buyers and those wishing to move home could also face higher costs, he says, which could impact the housing market in the longer term. It’s common in the US for small business owners starting out to use the equity in their home as collateral.

Following the introduction of tariffs, Trump urged his nation to “hang tough”, but it appears the potential threat to jobs and the US economy stopped the president in his tracks.

Following the ructions in the bond markets, he introduced a 90-day pause for the higher tariffs on every country except China. The 10% blanket tariff, however, on all countries remains.

It proved a pressure point for Trump – and now the world knows it.

“Although President Donald Trump was able to resist the stock market sell-off, once the bond market began to weaken too, it was only a matter of time before he folded,” says Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics.

According to US media reports, it was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, inundated with calls from business leaders, who played a key part in swaying Trump.

The bond market reaction has led to comparisons with former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s infamous mini-Budget of September 2022. The unfunded tax cuts announced then spooked investors, who dumped UK government bonds, resulting in the Bank of England stepping in to buy bonds to save pension funds from collapse.

Some analysts suggested that America’s central bank, the US Federal Reserve, might have been forced to step in if the sell-off had worsened.

While bond yields have settled, some might argue the damage has already been done as they remain higher than before the blanket tariffs kicked in.

“Arguably the most worrying aspect of the [recent] turmoil… is an emerging risk premium in US Treasury bonds and the dollar, akin to what the UK experienced in 2022,” according to Jonas Goltermann, deputy chief markets economist at Capital Economics.

But unless you’re a first-time buyer or selling your home, Americans are unlikely to be immediately hit by higher mortgage costs, unlike Brits who were securing new shorter-term fixed deals.

Since 2010, foreign ownership of US bonds has almost doubled, rising by $3 trillion, according to Deutsche Bank.

Japan holds the most US Treasuries, but China, the US’s arch enemy in this global trade war, is the second biggest holder of US government debt globally.

Questions were raised about whether it sparked the debt sell-off in response to being hit with huge tariffs.

However, this is unlikely as any fire sale “would impoverish China more than it would hurt the US”, according to Capital Economics.

Tributes have been paid to British couple Elaine and Graeme Winn who were among four people killed in a cable car crash near Naples.

The school Mrs Winn worked at in Market Harborough described the 58-year-old as “much-loved and highly respected”, and tributes were also left for the couple on social media.

The mountain cable car cabin plunged to the ground after one of the cables supporting it snapped on Thursday, local officials said.

The cable car operator said it had passed a safety inspection just two weeks ago and that a criminal investigation has been opened.

The two other victims include the driver of the cable car, named by authorities as 59-year-old Carmine Parlato, and an Israeli woman identified as Janan Suliman.

A fifth person in the cabin, Ms Suliman’s brother, was “extremely seriously injured” in the crash and airlifted to hospital, where he remains in a critical condition, officials said.

Authorities in Torre Annunziata have opened an investigation into the cause of the crash.

A spokesperson for Welland Park Academy said Mrs Winn worked at the Leicestershire secondary school as a business manager and that it was “deeply saddened” by her death.

“Elaine was a much-loved and highly respected member of our school community,” they said. “Her professionalism, warmth, and unwavering dedication to school life touched the lives of students, staff, and families alike.”

They added: “The care and kindness she showed to everyone in our community means her loss will be felt deeply by us all.”

The mayor of Castellammare di Stabia – where the cable car is located – said it was believed a traction cable had snapped.

“The emergency brake downstream worked but clearly not the one on the cabin that was about to reach the top of the hill,” Luigi Vicinanza told Italian media on Thursday.

He added that there had been regular safety checks on the cable car line which runs the two miles (3km) between the town to the top of Mount Faito.

Vicinanza’s spokesman told PA news agency that 10 people were rescued from a second cabin which was also on the line near the bottom of the valley at the time of the incident. They were winched to safety.

The investigation into the incident will examine the possibility that strong winds could have been among the causes of the incident.

The cable car service had been suspended on Tuesday and Wednesday due to adverse weather conditions and had only resumed full operations on Thursday morning.

British tourist Megan Pacey was near the site of the incident on Thursday with her husband and their two young children when they saw the suspended cable car.

Ms Pacey said: “We were within a minute or two of [the incident] happening.”

“We watched the first couple of people come down in a harness, and as we left, there was a sense of urgency that had kicked in.”

She said flowers and candles had been left as tribute on the railway station steps on Friday.

A day of mourning will be held in the town, which is between Pompeii and Sorrento, and all local events for the Easter holiday have been cancelled.

The president of the region, Vincenzo De Luca, said it was a “truly tragic and painful” day.

Shortly after the crash, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who was on a trip to Washington, expressed her “sincere condolences” to the families of the victims.

The Mount Faito cable car has been operating since 1952. A similar accident on the line in 1960 left four people dead.

“No man avenged has ever risen from the grave” is the haunting tagline of a film that has shocked Somalis to the core in a case of life imitating art.

Called Aano Qabiil, meaning “Clan Vengeance”, the short film sought to highlight the futility of vendettas between rival clans that sometimes go back generations and lead to senseless killings – often of young men who are targeted just because of their lineage.

It was a poetic warning, a cry – a story intended not just to entertain, but to educate a wounded nation.

Since its release earlier this month, it has gone viral as people have learnt that one of the actors in the drama was later shot dead in exactly the kind of clan revenge killing the film had warned about.

Guudey Mohamed Geedi, a veteran of Somali cinema, had played a character who tried to intervene to stop the owner of a teashop from being killed as he hid in a building from gunmen from a rival clan.

Outside a woman is heard shouting: “Don’t let him leave alive, I want to drink his blood,” as Geedi’s character pleads: “He’s just a tea vendor – what did he do to you that warrants his death?”

Not long after the filming of Aano Qabiil wrapped up in the town of Bal’ad, around 30km (18 miles) north-east of the capital, Mogadishu, Geedi travelled to visit his family in the countryside.

It is in rural areas that rivalries between Somali clans proliferate. Sometimes the disputes are about long-standing competition for resources such as grazing land or access to wells for camels and other livestock.

But even minor issues can sometimes spark a deadly feud – for example a remark by a politician in the capital.

When Geedi reached his small village outside Warsheikh, in the Middle Shabelle region, he did not know that tensions between two Abgal sub-clans were about to boil over.

The 45-year-old was shot dead outside his home in November by armed men as part of this long-standing inter-family feud.

No-one has been arrested for his murder and the authorities have not commented on the case.

It often happens that clan-related killings go un-investigated – especially in rural zones. They are seen as “private matters” or too complex to intervene in.

“He died in real life the same way as the violence played out in the film,” his friend Adaawe, who requested that only his first name be used, told the BBC.

“Only this time, there was no camera, no director to yell ‘cut’. No-one to plead for his life.”

Abdisiyaad Abdullhai Mohamed, who wrote and directed Aano Qabiil for Astaan TV, said Geedi had been instrumental during filming.

“We worked closely together. Guudey believed in the message we were trying to convey. He wasn’t just an actor; he was a key part of the vision I had for the story,” the 32-year-old told the BBC.

The film-maker grew up in a community often affected by stories of bloodshed, where people are killed in the name of seeking justice.

“I wanted to show the humanitarian cost that follows simply hearing the news that someone has been killed due to clan revenge,” he said.

“As Somalis, every time we hear someone has been killed, we never stop to think or ask ourselves if that person belonged to a close family that is now destroyed and a future lost.”

The story of the film centres on two friends, Ali and Salah, who belong to rival sub-groups of an unnamed clan.

Together they run a teashop in Bal’ad, when clan violence from the countryside intrudes upon their lives. Neither of them knows what has brought the feud to their doorstep.

“The same cursed clans we were born into are at war again,” says Ali, who at first manages to save Salah’s life before he himself becomes a target.

To avenge Ali’s death, Salah is then killed. The film ends with clansmen laughing over his bullet-ridden body near Ali’s grave – happy that honour has been satisfied.

“In my film, I showed how the death of Ali affects his wife, Sahra, who is pregnant. Overall, this film was a cry for help, meant to raise awareness among the Somali community,” said the director, Mohamed.

Clan identity is deeply engrained in Somali society. The country has four major clans, and each has hundreds of sub-clans, with even those divided, depending on the region.

Many Somalis have grown up hearing about the killings of close relatives in the name of past grievances or clan rivalries.

Clan-related killings contribute to internal conflicts and displacement in Somalia, especially in rural areas.

But a 2023 report from PeaceRep, a research organisation based in the UK, highlighted the spread of clan revenge killings to cities in central Somalia.

Somali Peace Line, a local organisation, recorded in its 2022 annual report more than 160 clan-related killings in just one year, most of which went without justice, further fuelling the cycle of violence.

In some central regions, up to 80% of clan killings remain unresolved, leading to communities failing to learn from the tragedies.

Mohamed explained that he had met Geedi, who was married with 11 children, through a community casting contact.

“From the moment we spoke, I knew he understood the depth of what we were trying to portray,” he said.

“He was a man who truly understood the impact of clan violence, and that’s why he was perfect for our message.”

The film-maker is tormented by how a man who raised his voice for peace has become a victim of clan vengeance.

“It’s painful,” he said. “We made this film to warn people, and then, it happens to him. It’s hard to accept.”

Reaction to the film has been splashed all over social media, the mantra “no man avenged has ever risen from the grave” has been shared widely across Somali TikTok and Facebook, along with images of Geedi and clips from the film.

When asked what he hoped people would take away from the film, Mohamed said: “I want people to understand that revenge does not bring resolution – it only leads to more death and destruction.

“I can say Guudey gave his life to spread a message to society. Anyone who hears that message, I hope they take something positive from it.”

• ‘Why I spent my university fees on Somali TikTok battles’
• ‘I wanted my clitoris back’ – FGM survivor fights back
• Somalia’s opioid overdose: Young, female and addicted

“I don’t know anyone else my age that is married… never mind married and widowed.”

Growing up in Birmingham, Tania Pomroy moved to Coventry to study at university. When she arrived at her student halls, she had no idea the girl in the next room, Charlotte Thomas, would one day become her wife.

They married on 23 September 2023, exactly six years after the day they met.

But five months later, in February 2024, Charlotte died, leaving Tania a widow at 24.

“I feel like you never really come across many young widows so I felt really isolated at the start,” she said.

Tania had never experienced grief in this way before and said she felt like her memory from that time had been wiped.

“At the very start I was kind of just going on autopilot and then you have all the secondary losses of relationships with other people,” she said.

“I had to leave my job eventually too.

“When you lose your person it’s not just the person that you lose, it’s yourself and everything that makes you, you, in the process.”

But there was a small light in the dark for her – making videos and posting them online.

She started making YouTube videos in 2020 and, after the launch of TikTok, began posting similar content there.

In the weeks after Charlotte passed away, she posted a video sharing the news, with footage of them in their wedding dresses.

To date, it has had more than 7.8 million views.

“I think for me it was almost at the time the one part of my life that was kind of normal… I’m guessing that’s why I picked up the camera and carried on doing that,” Tania said.

“I do remember seeing the response to it and being like: ‘Oh my gosh, look at all these comments coming in’.

“I only really posted it for friends and family… only had a few thousand followers.”

Over the next year, Tania continued to post on the app, shifting much of her content to sharing her grief and talking about her mental health.

Her followers grew and she said many related to her experience.

“I’ve built a little community of fellow grievers over there that I actually find so wholesome in a way,” she said.

“It actually shows you that you’re not alone; there are other people out there that are 24 years old and widowed, it’s not just you.”

She added the support had helped her hugely with her grieving journey.

“I was welcomed in with such open arms and it’s so nice now that I’ve created a space where I can welcome other people in with open arms,” she said.

“If anything positive has come out of this, then that’s definitely one of those things.”

More than a year since her wife died, Tania, now 25, started incorporating her hobbies and interests into her content for her nearly 200,000 followers.

She went backpacking in Thailand in January – a trip which Charlotte wanted to do.

“She would be so shocked that I’ve done it… but she would also be really proud that I’m getting out there and seeing the world and hopefully sharing a little bit of it with her… we’re going to have so much to catch up on,” she said.

Tania said posting about Charlotte helped keep her memory alive.

“I always called her my sunshine because she was just the warmest person and she had the kindest heart; she was so adventurous and she made life so fun and exciting and made you happy to live,” she added.

Looking ahead, she said she wanted to raise awareness about grief and mental health as well as share her life.

“A widow is a widow, it doesn’t matter whether you’re 25 or you’re 75,” she said.

“Everyone is going to experience grief at some point, so if we talk about it more and it’s a little bit less taboo, then we’ll realise that we’re all going to be in the same boat, and we can help and support each other.”

Healthcare in the Gaza Strip is itself a casualty of 18 months of war between Israel and Hamas. With doctors struggling to cope, the BBC followed one GP through her shift at a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) clinic.

By 07:30, a slight figure in a pink headscarf, Dr Wissam Sukkar, is picking her way through the devastated streets of Gaza City.

“I was walking for around 50 minutes to reach our clinic,” she explains when she is met by a local BBC journalist who helped us log her day. With virtually no fuel left in Gaza, few taxis are running.

“With our limited resources we’re still trying to be here in northern Gaza through these difficult times,” adds Dr Sukkar.

The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) says that only 21 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are currently partially functional. Medical supplies are running critically low due to Israel’s ongoing blockade of Gaza.

The GP points out what is left of her former workplace, an MSF burns clinic that came under fire in the early weeks of the war, during street battles between Israeli soldiers and Hamas fighters.

Her team has now converted an office towards the west of Gaza City into a clinic – and by 09:30, as Dr Sukkar is putting on her white robe, there are already some 150 people waiting outside in a tented reception area.

“Most of our patients are displaced people,” Dr Sukkar says. “They live in shelters, they even live in tents in the streets.”

Since a ceasefire collapsed a month ago, thousands of Gazans have once again left their homes and fled to this neighbourhood, seeking safety.

With little food and clean water, there is a rise in malnutrition and diseases – from stomach bugs to scabies. The elderly and young are worst affected, and the first patients of the day are babies with viral infections.

“We receive a lot of children who suffer from upper respiratory tract infections and diarrhoea. In the shelters, there are a lot of children in the same place and a virus can spread very quickly,” the doctor explains.

One toddler has his face dotted with mosquito bites and Dr Sukkar administers some soothing cream. As cooking gas has run out, families have taken to using open fires to heat food and this has also led to an increase in serious burns.

Within an hour, Dr Sukkar and three other physicians have seen dozens of patients. But there are many whom they struggle to help.

“We have more and more challenges with the huge number of patients with less and less medical supplies,” Dr Sukkar says wearily.

“Also, we receive complicated cases, and we don’t know where to refer these patients because the health system in Gaza has collapsed.”

There has been an influx in seriously wounded patients arriving at the clinic since last Sunday, when Israeli warplanes attacked al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City.

Israel accused Hamas of using a hospital building as a “command and control centre”; something the armed group denied.

Al-Ahli – which was the main medical site for treating trauma in northern Gaza – can no longer accept patients. The WHO says the emergency room, laboratory, X-ray machines and pharmacy were destroyed.

“I started my treatment at al-Shifa hospital, then I got transferred to al-Ahli and they bombed it,” says Saeed Barkat, an older man with a fractured thigh bone, who arrives at the MSF clinic on crutches.

He had surgery after he was wounded by Israeli artillery fire on the shelter where he was staying late last year. He has pins in his leg, and it is swollen.

“I came here for any treatment and to follow-up,” says Mr Barkat, as nurses change his dressing and give new painkillers.

At midday, when Dr Sukkar checks on the small pharmacy at the clinic, she looks worried. Many of the shelves are bare.

Israel closed all crossings to Gaza at the start of March, saying it was putting pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages it is holding. Since then, no aid has entered.

“For diabetes, we don’t have insulin, we don’t have treatments for epilepsy, we don’t have basic medicines like anti-fever drugs,” Dr Sukkar says.

“It’s the season for skin infections and we don’t have creams or ointments for bacterial infections, no medicines to treat scabies and head lice.”

The doctors are rationing the supplies that remain.

“We are doing our best so that it will be enough for the coming week,” sums up Dr Sukkar, “but we expect that our stock will run out in more or less two weeks.”

Soon Dr Sukkar is back in her consultation room. The rush of patients continues with many more sick children. They have coughs, fevers and stomach upsets.

By 15:30, it is time to close up the clinic for the day. The four doctors here calculate that they have seen nearly 390 patients.

After a long, tiring day, there is the long, tiring walk home for Dr Sukkar.

As she leaves the clinic she telephones her family. Her thoughts turn to looking after her own children, who have been displaced with her nine times in the past year and a half.

“Like every Gazan, I have a daily struggle to secure clean water, food for my kids,” says Dr Sukkar. “We don’t have electricity, so it’s really hard even to charge the battery of my mobile.”

“Most of all, it’s really hard to have any hope,” she goes on. “I feel I live in a nightmare that doesn’t end. When will this war end?”

For now, there is no answer, and no respite.

An Indian archaeologist, whose career was marked by brilliance and controversy, made one of the world’s greatest historical discoveries. Yet he remains largely forgotten today.

In the early 1900s, Rakhaldas Banerjee (also spelled Banerji) unearthed Mohenjo-daro – meaning “mound of the dead men” in the Sindhi language – in present-day Pakistan. It was the largest city of the thriving Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilisation, which stretched from north-east Afghanistan to north-west India during the Bronze Age.

Banerjee, an intrepid explorer and talented epigraphist, worked for the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) when the country was under British colonial rule. He spent months travelling to distant corners of the subcontinent, looking for ancient artefacts, ruins and scripts.

But while his discovery of Mohenjo-daro was ground-breaking, Banerjee’s legacy is clouded by disputes. His independent streak and defiance of colonial protocols often landed him in trouble – tainting his reputation and perhaps even erasing parts of his contribution from global memory.

Interestingly, Banerjee’s reports on Mohenjo-daro were never published by the ASI. Archaeologist PK Mishra later accused then ASI chief John Marshall of suppressing Banerjee’s findings and claiming credit for the discovery himself.

“The world knows Marshall discovered the civilisation’s ruins and it is taught in institutions. Banerjee is an insignificant footnote,” Prof Mishra told the Times of India newspaper.

In her book, , historian Nayanjot Lahiri writes that Banerjee “lacked diplomacy and tact and displayed a high-handedness that ruffled feathers”. Her book also sheds light on the controversies he was embroiled in during his time at the ASI.

She notes how once, he attempted to procure inscriptions and images from a museum in north-east India without the approval or knowledge of his boss.

Another time, Banerjee attempted to relocate some stone sculptures from a museum in Bengal to the one he was stationed at without the necessary permissions.

In another instance, he purchased an antique painting for a sum without consulting his superiors who thought he’d paid more than was necessary.

“Banerjee’s many talents seemed to include being always able to rub people the wrong way,” Lahiri writes.

But Banerjee remains a prominent figure among world historians and scholars in Bengal because of his connection with Mohenjo-daro.

He was born in 1885 to a wealthy family in Bengal.

The medieval monuments that dotted Baharampur, the city he grew up in, kindled his interest in history and he pursued the subject in college. But he always had an adventurous streak.

Once, when he was tasked with writing an essay about the Scythian period of Indian history, he travelled to a museum in a neighbouring state to study first-hand sculptures and scripts from that era.

In her book, , author Yama Pande notes how Banerjee joined the ASI as an excavation assistant in 1910 and rose quickly within the ranks to become a superintending archaeologist in western India in 1917.

It was in this post that he first set eyes on Mohenjo-daro in Sindh in 1919. In the following years, he conducted a series of excavations at the site that revealed some of the most fascinating finds: ancient Buddhist stupas, coins, seals, pots and microliths.

Between 1922 and 1923, he discovered several layers of ruins that held clues about various urban settlements that had emerged in the region, but most importantly, the oldest one that had existed some 5,300 years ago – the Indus Valley Civilisation.

At that time, historians had not yet discovered the full scale of the Indus Civilisation which, we now know, covered an expanse of approximately 386,000 sq miles (999,735 sq km) along the Indus river valley.

Three seals from Banerjee’s excavation bore images and scripts similar to those from Harappa in the Punjab province in present-day Pakistan. This helped establish a link between the two sites, shedding light on the vast reach of the Indus Valley civilisation.

But by 1924, Banerjee’s funds for the project had dried up and he was also transferred to eastern India. He had no further contact with the site, nor did he participate in any excavations there, Pande writes in her book.

But Nayanjot Lahiri notes that Banerjee was transferred at his own request, after becoming entangled in questions over his spending. He had failed to account for several job-related expenses.

It was also revealed that Banerjee had used excavation grants to buy office furniture and his travel expenses were deemed excessive.

His explanations failed to convince his superiors and disciplinary action was recommended. After some negotiation, Banerjee was granted his request and transferred to another region.

Banerjee continued to work with the ASI in eastern India. He spent most of his time in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and oversaw the restoration work of many important monuments.

He resigned from the ASI in 1927, but his departure was marred by controversy. In the years prior to his departure, he became the prime suspect in a case of idol theft.

It all started in October 1925, when Banerjee had visited a revered Hindu shrine in Madhya Pradesh state that housed a stone idol of a Buddhist goddess. Banerjee was accompanied by two low-ranking assistants and two labourers, Lahiri notes in her book.

However, following their visit, the idol went missing, and Banerjee was implicated in its theft. He denied any involvement in the disappearance and an investigation was launched.

The idol was later recovered in Calcutta. Though the case against Banerjee was dismissed and the charges were found to be unsubstantiated, Marshall insisted on his resignation.

After leaving the ASI, Banerjee worked as a professor, but faced financial difficulties because of his lavish lifestyle.

Historian Tapati Guha-Thakurta told the Telegraph newspaper that Banerjee splurged on good food, horse carriages and friends. In 1928, he joined the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) as a professor. He died just two years later at the age of 45.

Millions of wrestling fans across the world are gearing up for this weekend’s much-anticipated annual finale – WrestleMania 41.

Just ask seven-year-old Oliver, who’s spent the past week of his school holidays waking his dad, Paul, at 6:30 to eagerly count down the days.

He’s even being allowed to get up at midnight to watch it, because, as one of the 17 million UK households subscribed to Netflix, the family now has live ringside access to the two-night Las Vegas extravaganza.

It means Oliver will finally get to find out if 16-time champion John Cena, who’s recently flipped from hero to villain as part of his farewell tour (leaving Oliver in shock), can defeat Cody Rhodes in a record-breaking win before retirement.

It’s all part of a $5bn (£4bn) mega-deal bringing World Wrestling Entertainment’s (WWE) archive and biggest events to the streamer – with WrestleMania now available live on Netflix in many international territories for the very first time. US viewers, however, will still be watching on NBC’s Peacock, at least for now.

The 10-year contract, which began earlier this year, connects WWE with a potential global audience of 700 million. It’s central to WWE chief content officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque’s vision of making wrestling globally accessible and relevant to a new generation of streaming era fans.

The stakes are high. WrestleMania, which began in 1985, is being treated as a litmus test – not just for WWE’s global expansion, but for Netflix’s potential move into live sports.

But will this blockbuster tag-team partnership pay off, or will it prove one (very) expensive fight too far?

The Netflix/WWE deal reflects changes in viewing habits, and also speaks to WWE’s eagerness to be promoted by the “winner of the streaming wars”, the Wrestlenomics website editor Brandon Thurston tells the BBC.

After years of relying on cable pay-per-view – which charged US viewers a hefty $60 (£45) per event – WWE launched its own network in 2014. The company took most of its pay-per-view events in house, aware that half the revenue was being lost to satellite companies.

The move paid off, says Thurston, as prices for pay-per-view events dropped significantly to around $10 (£7.50), creating “a larger audience than ever”.

The Netflix deal is, according to Thurston, part of WWE’s plans to recruit globally, create bigger international stars, and amplify its live tournaments such as Raw, WrestleMania and Smackdown across different markets.

As WWE’s Levesque told the Ankler podcast, Netflix’s universal “simplicity” felt game-changing: “No matter where you are in the globe, there it is right in front of you. It’s one click, and you’re on and you’re in”.

Good thing too, as Levesque says younger audiences have “no concept” of traditional television, and increasingly view on-demand streaming as the norm, alongside video platforms like YouTube and TikTok.

It’s certainly made Oliver a megafan, and he is now able to watch the weekly Smackdown and Raw shows with his dad. Previously, without a TNT sport subscription, his options were limited to the monthly events available on the WWE network.

“Now that WWE is on Netflix, he watches it probably four times a week. It’s his go-to programme,” says Paul.

“It’s really opened up a huge door for him. What’s great for me as a dad is I used to be into wrestling when I was his age as well, so it’s nice to share that journey with him”.

And he’s far from alone. On Thursday, industry magazine Broadcast reported that the move to Netflix had significantly increased UK engagement with both shows, with Raw ranked among the platform’s top 10 shows in nine of its first 10 weeks.

The picture is less clear in the US. Back in February, Mark Shapiro, a chief at WWE parent company TKO, told investors that Raw viewership was up 13% for the year to date compared to its previous home on USA Network – rising to 38% if the heavily promoted opening night is included.

However, Thurston’s research suggests that Raw and Smackdown viewership has since levelled off to numbers seen on USA.

And figures are continuing to fall, not to an alarming amount, but certainly indicating that, potentially, weekly events on the streamer may not be as much of a growth area as major live events.

Regardless, he sees the trade-off as worth it for Netflix in the long run – particularly looking ahead to WrestleMania’s global debut tonight, which is expected to break streaming records.

When former longtime WWE CEO Vince McMahon dreamt up WrestleMania more than 40 years ago, he envisaged a Superbowl-style set piece event to unite the franchise’s commercial partnerships and burrow it deeper within popular culture.

That’s why 1985’s first WrestleMania was heavily promoted through MTV and held at New York’s Madison Square Garden – featuring everyone from wrestler Hulk Hogan to A-team actor Mr T, popstar Cyndi Lauper and Muhammad Ali as a referee.

“We were trying to make a statement as to what our business is,” McMahon told Netflix’s 2024 docuseries, “all forms of entertainment rolled into one”.

And yet despite turning WWE into a media empire, McMahon departed in disgrace – first in 2022 and then again in 2024, amid various controversies – including an ongoing sexual harassment lawsuit. McMahon’s attorney, Jessica Rosenberg, denied the claims.

Thurston feels McMahon’s tight grip on creative business decisions also stifled WWE’s storytelling in later years. Under Levesque, Thurston says that’s changed in favour of collaboration. He says stories feel fresher, gender representation has improved and US event attendance is up.

For Jonny Pivaral, who grew up watching during what he calls McMahon’s “bra and panties match” era of the 2000s, the evolution is welcome. “Back then, women were just eye candy,” he says. “Now they’re being showcased on the same level as the men.”

This shift will be on full display when women’s wrestling storylines take centre stage at WrestleMania. Top stars Rhea Ripley, Bianca Belair, and IYO SKY are to face off in a triple-threat match, while women’s champion Tiffany Stratton will fight the legendary Charlotte Flair – in a battle that underlines the division’s growing value.

Attracting new audiences matters, Thurston says, because WWE’s global strategy now hinges on fees paid by cities hosting these events (including WrestleMania), both inside and outside the USA.

“They want WrestleMania to become like the World Cup or Olympics, where there’s a bidding war,” he explains. “Las Vegas is paying them $5 million for this year’s event,” he adds, noting that London has been heavily touted as a potential WrestleMania host city.

Finding a home on a streaming giant may be great news for WWE – but what does Netflix stand to gain from the partnership?

According to James English, managing partner at sports and entertainment marketing agency Fuse, Netflix is “stating loud and clear that it wants to dominate ‘sportainment'”.

The WWE streaming deal is, he says, a major reason why Netflix beat expectations with its financial figures on Thursday, delivering 13% revenue growth for the first quarter of 2025.

English sees WrestleMania as the natural progression in their drive to use sport to attract viewers to “cultural moments”.

This began last November with Mike Tyson taking on YouTuber Jake Paul in an influencer-boxing hybrid bout that drew in 60 million households – perhaps benefitting from cross-generational appeal.

This first foray into live sports attracted complaints of crashing and buffering but the issues were largely fixed for Netflix’s two NFL matches on Christmas Day a month later, part of a new three-year deal to show Christmas Day fixtures.

English says that unlike Apple or Amazon Prime, which bought packages to the Major League Soccer (MLS) and the Premier League, Netflix’s focus on “event” viewing allows them to make best use of their personalised advert and interface data.

WrestleMania exemplifies this strategy. As a “live, global, fan-driven deal that blends sports, entertainment and storytelling”, English says Netflix could stand to make huge profits from its WWE partnership.

The big question, of course, is whether wider Netflix audience interest will last the rounds.

But it may be a gamble worth taking – for all involved. Just ask Oliver and his Dad at midnight.

Artists and creatives are pushing back against a recent trend using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate “starter pack” images of people as toys – which they say may be in danger of risking their livelihoods.

Since the start of April, thousands of people have uploaded their photos to generate images of themselves as dolls, despite warnings of damaging the environment, giving away personal information, and devaluing creativity.

Nick Lavallee, who has made custom action figures for six years, told the BBC he was concerned his work may be at risk after “AI images saturated social media”.

“People are sick of them,” he said. “It’s an artistic aesthetic – AI-generated art diminishes that.”

Nick has made figures of – and for – comedians, film directors, and artists such as Weezer and Tyler Childers, which sell for as much as $250 (£188) online on his Wicked Joyful website.

His success has led to a clothing brand and will soon be followed by a physical shop in his hometown of Manchester, New Hampshire.

But he’s concerned action figure commissions could soon dry up, as well as the public perception of his work, from thousands of AI images mimicking his passion.

The feeling has been shared by other creatives with the rise of the #StarterPackNoAI movement, which has been used thousands of times since first appearing on Instagram in early April before spreading to X soon after.

After Patouret’s post, others quickly joined the counter-trend, with artist Maria Picassó Piquer saying she chose to take part “for fun, but also as a statement”.

“While AI pieces all looked more or less the same, I was amazed at the variety of the ‘human’ works,” she said.

“Plus, self-portraits added an extra layer of, well, humanity.”

Maria, like many other artists, sees the dual risk of AI images threatening intellectual property rights by being “fed on ‘stolen’ art”, and the possibility of reducing her finding new clients.

Illustrator Dav le Dessineux, working in Bordeaux, France, said some in his industry had already lost contracts to AI design work.

He contributed his starter pack because “like many artists who use their real hands”, he was “tired” of the deluge of AI-generated doll images.

Dav’s illustration featured only a pencil and sheet of white paper – tools he said are “all you need to start being an artist”.

“People usually forget about it because of the technology surrounding us, but we really don’t need more than basic stuff to create something and be original,” he said.

Eli Dibitonto, an artist living in Barletta, Italy, agreed, describing the process of digitally illustrating his own starter pack as “carefree and fun”.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect – mine isn’t,” he said. “Art isn’t meant to be perfect or look flawless.”

And illustrator and student Evie Joyce said creating her own artwork meant being able to consider what to reflect of her personality during a process lasting several hours, rather than seconds.

“I think that what’s so magical about it is you’re seeing people put time and effort and their personality, all of their experiences, into pieces of art,” she said.

“With AI, it can even steal from artists and steal their work and their style, it just loses that touch of personality.”

Back in New Hampshire, Nick understands the rebellion from illustrators, but says he believes there is use for AI.

“I don’t necessarily want to say AI is bad when I know that it could be a useful tool,” he said.

“I think all of us have experimented with it.”

And Henk van Ess, a global expert in using AI in investigative research, has proven how useful it can be – but it would be safe to say he does not believe it lies in starter packs.

“It’s like watching a supercomputer calculate how many Hobnobs fit in a Sports Direct mug, while solving climate change sits on the ‘to-do’ list,” he said.

“Technically impressive? Sure. But it’s the technological equivalent of using the Large Hadron Collider to heat up your Pot Noodle.

“While everyone’s busy generating these digital equivalents of small talk, they’re missing the actually revolutionary stuff AI can do – it’s just wasteful to put all that energy into creating digital fluff when we can use it for solving real-world problems.”

And Nick remains positive.

“The musicians who get my stuff, who are excited to hold a Wicked Joyful in their hands, they know it’s my artwork, they know it’s mine,” he said.

Likewise, Dav is confident in the worth of human work.

Despite the rise of pre-fabricated furniture, he says, “people still call on cabinetmakers”.

“I hope I’ll be one of those artisans,” he said.

Nick, who says he found his purpose “in bringing joy to people” with his creations, said he similarly wanted to remain hopeful about the future.

“I really hope people are totally sick of AI action figures,” he said.

“But I hope that they are smart enough to understand the difference in something that I’m doing versus what is computer-generated.”

Last year, Alfie Watts went global, becoming the youngest ever winner of Race Across the World – the BBC show that does exactly what it says on the tin.

Teams of two race to get from one part of the world to another with no air travel, no smartphones, no bank cards and a limited cash budget.

After 50 days spent travelling by land and sea from Japan to Indonesia alongside his St Albans schoolfriend Owen Wood, it all came down to a foot race by a beach off the island of Lombok.

The series four finale saw the pair pip mother and daughter duo Eugenie and Isabel by a mere eight minutes to take the title and £20,000 prize pot.

It also saw Alfie catch the travel bug, sending him on his way to a new career as a travel guru and online content creator.

As series five of the show gets underway on Wednesday, BBC News speaks to the 21-year-old about his new life on the road, advice for fellow travellers and tips for this year’s contestants on how to win the show.

“The whole experience [on the show] kind of opened my eyes to real travel,” Watts tells us over a video call from Portugal, while taking a break from refereeing a football match.

“I think there are definitely two different types of travel that we’re used to in the UK; shallow travel, as I’d call it, where you go on holiday and you see what you want to see and you stay within your comfort zone or hotel.

“And then I’d say there’s real authentic travel whereby you see the world as it actually is.

“And I’ve just learned that I actually much prefer the authenticity of places… rather than the weather.”

Watts’s main advice for readers with a similar wanderlust is to consider travelling further afield.

“Flights to Spain in the summer might be £300 return, but you are going to be paying extremely high prices for food, accommodation and things like that,” he notes.

“Whereas, actually, if you go a little bit further afield, if you try Malaysia, Thailand, even Brazil, for sure the flights might be £600-700 but when you’re actually there, you’re spending £20-25 a day maximum.”

He adds: “You’re helping local people and you’re trying something new.”

Since his big TV win, he’s been to around 30 countries, including five in one day for a Europe-based online challenge.

Another time he found and boarded the cheapest possible flights he could find online for seven days straight.

And he also returned to Japan to pay a bill he felt he owed for some Kobe beef steaks that were kindly donated to him and Owen for free when they were worried about their budget, as fans of the show will remember. “That was a really nice moment,” he says.

Watts likes to travel solo as he enjoys his “own company” and doing things on his “own terms”, while also meeting new people.

He acknowledges that it’s not for everyone, and that some people prefer to be away with friends and family, but he wants to encourage would-be travellers to “throw yourself in”.

“I don’t do things that would put me in danger because I think I have a responsibility to the people that follow me,” he says.

He does admit though that he once ended up in a taxi with an armed government official in Venezuela – a country he travelled to against UK goverment guidance.

“That was about as wacky as it got.”

His favourite place he has been on his travels so far is “without doubt” Angel Falls in Venezuela, while his favourite country would be a coin flip between Jordan and Malaysia.

One thing he’d still like to tick off his bucket list is visiting the remote island of Tuvalu in the South Pacific Ocean, which sounds like a pitch for a new TV show in itself.

“It’s the least visited country in the world,” he explains.

“Only 1,500 people go there every year. It’s very difficult to get to, very expensive to get to.”

As well as becoming far better travelled, the past year has also seen him expand his horizons in other ways, acting as an ambassador for Young Minds UK, a mental health charity for young people, and Winston’s Wish, a children and young people’s grief charity.

One of the most heart-rending moments of series four was when it was revealed that Watts’s mum had died of cancer when he was just a child.

Speaking of his ambassadorial work, he says: “I love it and I’m so glad that I get to have the opportunity [to help].

“But internalising it, it can be quite challenging, listening to people’s stories.”

Race Across the World resumes on Wednesday, with a new raft of contestants heading this time from north eastern China to the southernmost tip of India.

They include ex-spouses Gaz and Yin, and current couple Fin and Sioned, as well as sisters Elizabeth and Letitia, brothers Brian and Melvyn and mother and son duo Caroline and Tom.

The rules, as usual, are no smart phones, no bank cards (just a small cash budget) and no air travel.

Watts thinks it’s going to be a “really tough route” and “a topsy turvey” series.

“China is very easy to get around but very hard to communicate,” he stresses from personal experience. “And a lot of China doesn’t accept cash anymore.”

His “number one piece of advice” for anyone taking part is to learn from his mistakes and take a calculator and a whiteboard. “We had to borrow notebooks and God knows what else”.

He’d also suggest taking “little travel placards” with pictures of buses, trains and people on, for ease of communication.

“I think now there’s more and more series, people are watching it and starting to think, ‘actually, this is where they’re going wrong. This is how we can be creative around it’.

“And I think we’re probably going to see that this series, that people have been a lot more streetwise with how they’ve prepared.”

Is he worried about losing his title as the show’s youngest winner?

He replies, like a true international diplomat, that he just wants the pair who “nicely interact” with the others and “who genuinely appreciate the opportunity to travel” to win.

“I think those are always the people that you want to do best, and if that happens to be the two 18-year-olds this time, then I’ll be happy to hand my crown over.”

A Maryland man who the Trump administration mistakenly deported to El Salvador has been moved to a new prison, US Senator Chris Van Hollen has said.

The Democratic senator was speaking after returning from El Salvador where he met Kilmar Ábrego García, who was sent to the notorious mega-jail Cecot (Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism) last month.

Mr Ábrego García was “traumatised” and fearful of other prisoners while inside the facility, Van Hollen said, adding that he was moved to another facility in the country over a week ago.

The Supreme Court has ordered the government to “facilitate” his return, however Trump administration officials have continued to push back against the order.

The White House accuses him of being a member of the transnational Salvadoran gang MS-13, a designated foreign terrorist organisation, and has said he will not return to the US.

Mr Ábrego García has never been convicted of a crime. His family and attorneys have fiercely denied he is a member of MS-13.

Chris Van Hollen said he was initially blocked from meeting Mr Ábrego García by Salvadoran authorities. Later, he said government officials helped facilitate a meeting and Mr Ábrego García was brought to the senator’s hotel.

“His conversation with me was the first communication that he had with anybody outside of prison since he was abducted,” Van Hollen said.

“He said he felt very sad about being in a prison because he had not committed any crimes.”

Van Hollen added that conditions in the new prison, in the Salvadoran city of Santa Ana, were better.

“He still has no access to any news from the outside world and no ability to communicate with anybody in the outside world,” Van Hollen said.

Mr Ábrego García’s case is part of a simmering showdown between the Trump administration and the US courts system on the issue of immigration.

A separate feud has been brewing after a judge said he could hold the Trump administration in contempt for its “wilful disregard” of his order barring deportation flights.

Multiple judges – including a unanimous US Supreme Court ruling – said the government should facilitate Mr Ábrego García’s return to the US. But the White House has insisted the Maryland man will “never” live in the US again.

“If he [Mr Ábrego García] ever ends up back in the United States, he would immediately be deported again,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House Mr Ábrego García was “not a very innocent guy”.

Mr Ábrego García has faced at least two other allegations of criminal activity, neither of which resulted in a conviction.

His wife alleged in a 2021 protective order request that he’d physically attacked her on multiple occasions, according to documents shared by the US Department of Homeland Security.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura decided not to follow through with the court process, saying she and her husband were “able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counselling”.

A separate incident was reported in 2022, when Mr Ábrego García was pulled over in Tennessee for allegedly speeding.

An officer speculated that he was involved in human trafficking, due to him having multiple people in the car and telling authorities he’d been travelling from Texas to Maryland, according to information shared by the Department of Homeland Security that was obtained by the BBC’s partner CBS.

No criminal case was launched from the incident. His wife said he “worked in construction and sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites”.

• What next in legal fight over El Salvador deportations?
• Who is the man in middle of Maryland deportation case?

At the heart of the case, though, are the allegations of his involvement in MS-13, which the Trump administration used to expel him under the Alien Enemies Act.

The president has evoked the law to deport hundreds so far, by arguing the alleged gang members were terrorists.

Sen Van Hollen said the Trump administration wants to “flat out lie about what this case is about”.

“If you want to make claims about Ábrego García, you should present them in the courts, not on social media,” he said.

Mr Ábrego García was arrested by immigration authorities on 12 March in Baltimore, before being deported from Texas to El Salvador on 15 March.

A British man has died after he was buried by an avalanche at a ski resort in the French Alps, local officials have said.

The man, 27, was near the roadside at the Val Thorens resort when he was swept up and carried 15 metres (50ft) by snow on Thursday morning, a local prosecutor said.

The Briton, who has not yet been named, had already gone into cardiac arrest when police officers arrived at the scene to pull him out of the snow.

He was taken to a hospital in Grenoble, in the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region, where he died later that evening.

• Heavy snow blocks Alpine resorts in Switzerland and France

His family is being supported by local services, the prosecutor added, and an investigation into the incident has been launched.

A spokesperson for the UK’s foreign office said: “We supporting the family of a British man who died in France and are in contact with the local authorities.”

Heavy snow has hit the Alps in recent days, with thousands of homes in the Savoie region of eastern France left without power.

On Thursday, road and rail routes were cut off into the resort of Zermatt in the southern canton of Valais and tourists and residents were told to stay indoors in the French resort of Tignes.

Tignes Mayor Serge Revial said there was a high risk of avalanches and that a decision had to be made “to protect people”.

South of Zermatt, power outages were reported in 37 of the 74 municipalities in the Aosta Valley in north-west Italy, and a bridge collapsed in Biella in nearby Piedmont.

Canada’s election campaign has ramped into top gear with voting day just over a week away.

The leaders of major parties participated in debates on Wednesday (in French) and Thursday (in English), pitching their visions for the future of the country during an uncertain time.

On stage were Liberal leader Mark Carney, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh and the Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet.

The BBC has spoken to seven voters who watched Thursday’s debate, as they work out who to cast their ballot for on 28 April. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Today’s debate was surprising in terms of the dynamic between the candidates. I think it was a bit more centred around content than blaming one another.

I find it refreshing that Carney is not a career politician, and it showed in the debate. The way he spoke was business-like – in both the French and English debates – and he was able to express his points very clearly compared to practiced politicians.

Pierre Poilievre felt like a broken record, constantly looking at the camera to send his message. It was like watching an advertisement.

My values align with the NDP, but I don’t think Singh can be a leader for the Canadians. So my vote is still for Carney, as I think he has the best plan.

The debate was all very respectful. I didn’t get a sense that anyone was having a go at each other, unlike in the good old days of hot-headed debate – those days seem to be over.

Pierre Poilievre was the winner at the end of the day. I don’t think there was a big difference between him and Carney, but Poilievre was better for sure.

Poilievre made some good points, pointing to the nine-and-a-half years of the Liberals in power and the catastrophic mess they’ve made. Carney tried to pitch himself as some kind of Lancelot figure, but didn’t come across as different to what was there before.

At the end of it, I was disappointed. I didn’t feel anyone left the table with a phenomenal finish.

I think it was a pretty good debate, and nothing too crazy was said. The Liberal and Conservative leaders stayed on track, sticking to their initial messages.

The loser of the debate was Jagmeet Singh. He came across a bit desperate and frantic in the way he was trying to attack on multiple fronts.

The key thing that stood out for me was that all the leaders were emphasising a strong Canada in the face of foreign influence.

My big concerns were the environment, the cost of living and a strong Canada – they addressed those issues well, although I don’t think anything new was brought up.

On the whole, the debate was civil, useful, and very Canadian.

Pierre Poilievre showed a more prime ministerial attitude today, rather than being the attack dog he has been over the past few months.

But his pre-formatted spiel was very annoying – it was as if he was trying to beat it into voters that 10 years of Liberal government was bad for Canada.

We also saw a Mark Carney who was very confident, very respectful, quite the opposite of what the Conservative party has shown so far in mimicking the Republican party in the US in terms of rhetoric.

The standout moment was when Mark Carney told Poilievre that the carbon tax and Trudeau were “both gone” – to me that was akin to a smash that is unexpected in a tennis match. A highlight, and a very effective and honest response.

This debate reinforced a few things, but didn’t change anything.

From a western Canadian perspective, the Bloc Quebecois leader had a few good comments. I liked that he said he was willing to work within the Canadian federation as long as Quebec’s sovereignty is respected. It’s not something we understand in western Canada.

He’s not someone I’ll be able to vote for, but I was impressed by his performance.

I’m personally confident that either Pierre Poilievre or Mark Carney are capable leaders, and I’m not worried about whether the wrong person wins.

I’m more worried about the next year when the world might be on fire, as Trump seems prepared to make such extreme moves. Nothing is off the table with him.

If we go into a crisis, I’m sure Poilievre and Carney will put aside their differences and work together and do the job as well as it can be done.

So to the extent that Canada can be well prepared in the face of this looming threat, I’m confident that whoever the leader is is going to be able to manage it as well as it can be managed.

I am proud of the quality of the debate – it was respectful, dignified dialogue between high-calibre politicians. Canada has once again demonstrated to the world that it is a strong, multi-party democracy.

Mark Carney’s idea of free trade in Canada by Canada day is a winning policy, and the concept of a national bureau to address the housing crisis – which was mentioned during the French debate – is one that should be explored.

But I found it difficult to relate to the picture that the Conservative leader was painting of the current Canadian experience in the sense that there is widespread chaos and crime.

I wish there was more in the public discourse about the climate crisis and that leaders had to commit to climate action. I agree that Canada could be a clean energy superpower, but that they made no commitment was a little disappointing – which could have happened had the Green party been invited.

• GUIDE: What you should know about this election
• MORE ON DEBATE: Key moments
• CANDIDATES: Who could become the new Prime Minister?
• VIDEO: How Canada will chose its new leader
• FRENCH DEBATE: What happened in the first debate?

“Please be upstanding for the world’s most confusing House of Games contestant and Bake Off failure, Self Esteem!”

This is how Rebecca Lucy Taylor – aka celebrated pop singer Self Esteem – is introduced to the stage at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre.

It’s a typically irreverent comment, an example of the dry wit she uses to sweeten the sincerity and anger of her music.

“You can take piccies and videos,” the off-stage voice continues, “because she needs all the help she can get.”

That, too, is strictly tongue-in-cheek.

Three years ago, Taylor released her second album, Prioritise Pleasure, a body-shaking manifesto for female self-worth that bristled at society’s expectations while acknowledging her own shortcomings (“Sexting you at the mental health talk seems counterproductive,” she observed on Moody).

After 10 years in mid-ranking indie band Slow Club, the album propelled her into uncharted realms.

There were magazine covers, nominations for the Mercury Prize and Brit Awards, a starring role on stage in Cabaret, a support slot with Adele and, yes, an appearance on Celebrity Bake Off – where, unfortunately, she burned her crumpets.

“The week that Prioritise Pleasure came out, my whole life changed,” she reflects.

“Not financially or in terms of fame, but it’s like there was a knot in my stomach that untied.

“Then everyone was like, ‘Right, can you do that again, please?'”

Taylor tore herself in two to make the follow-up, A Complicated Woman, which comes out on Friday.

After playing it live for the first time in the West End on Wednesday, she describes the album’s gestation process as “horrible”, “lonely”, and “painful”.

“It just felt really stressful to execute what was in my head,” she explains in a phone interview the next morning.

“I was thinking so big, but I still don’t have access to the resources I need to make it as big as I wanted.”

Part of the problem was a punishing, but self-imposed, time limit.

“The music industry is like, ‘You’ve got 10 minutes, then you’re over and someone else is going to take your place’,” she explains.

“So I felt like I had no choice [but to commit to another record] if I wanted to build on what I’d done.

“But as painful as it was and as dark as it got, the second I’m back on stage performing it, I’m like, ‘Oh, this is why I love it’.”

She hasn’t just made a new album – she has also created a daring, jaw-dropping theatrical experience to go with it.

It’s set in a sparse recreation of the community centre where eight-year-old Becky from Rotherham learned to tap dance.

“,” recalls an older, more cynical version of that child – as she assesses her life at the age of 38.

“”

As the show opens, 10 dancers line up on either side of her, dressed in austere outfits that recall The Handmaid’s Tale.

Initially, their movements are stiff and restricted but, as Taylor describes suffocating relationships with emotionally-stunted men, they start to thrash and jerk their bodies.

“We start in that world where we’re shackled, and then we exorcise it,” Taylor explains.

“Over the course of the show, it all unravels and everyone ends up being themselves instead of conforming to these societal norms.”

A four-night theatre residency is an unusual way to launch an album. The audience is unfamiliar with most of the songs, and no-one’s sure whether to absorb the performance attentively, or sing along and dance.

Several times, laughter ripples through the theatre as the singer’s more acerbic observations hit home. The following morning, she’s not quite sure what to make of the reaction.

“Every time people laugh, my heart sinks,” she says. “But then I’m like, the lyrics are funny, aren’t they?

“And I love changing the laughter into emotion. It feels like people are laughing because it’s uncomfortable.”

In the end, the audience members mirror the on-stage narrative. Shaking off their discomfort, they rise out of their seats and start making an almighty racket.

The music becomes a soundtrack to solidarity – which, it transpires, was Taylor’s intention.

A Complicated Woman might be as cutting and powerful as its predecessor, but the melodies were designed for stadiums.

“Do you remember the Elbow song One Day Like This?” she asks. “The one that goes, ”?

“I went mad for that song when it came out and, honestly, I played it over and over in the studio and said, ‘I want to do this’.”

“I was very inspired by trying to make it onto World Cup montages. That’s a genre of music that I really, really enjoy.”

That’s only half the story, though. The album is all about capturing the complex and contradictory impulses of a woman in her mid-30s.

Recent single 69, for example, is a thumping house track on which Taylor talks with withering candour about her sex life. Imagine Madonna’s Justify My Love, if she was being honest.

“It’s an idea I had for ages, of listing sex positions and scoring them so that there’s no grey area [for prospective partners],” the singer laughs.

“But there’s a more political element, which is that women still aren’t saying what they want in the bedroom. And I’m like, I can’t bear this any more. Please let us just enjoy having sex.

“It’s not exactly going to win an Ivor Novello Award for lyrics, but I think it stands on the album with moments that are more emotional and deep.”

Those moments include The Curse, a rousing ballad about using alcohol to dull her anxiety, which is possibly the best song Self Esteem’s ever written.

Her personal favourite, however, is called In Plain Sight. A collaboration with South African musician Moonchild Sanelly, it’s a response to the criticism they’ve both received for speaking their minds.

“” says Sanelly in a semi-improvised rap.

“.”

It’s a feeling Taylor immediately recognised.

As excitement built around Prioritise Pleasure in 2021, she started getting “nasty messages” on social media, which shook her up.

“I was really shocked the first time I got grief, because no-one’s ever been that bothered about what I’m doing,” she says.

“People say you should ignore it, but if you went to a wedding and had a nice day and one person called you an [expletive], who would you go home thinking about? It’s just human nature.”

Eventually, the criticism took its toll.

“There were moments where I considered giving up, which shocked me because I’ve been this defiant, angry thing for so long,” she says.

“But over the last few years, especially with the world being like it is, I’ve definitely had feelings of protecting myself and shutting up.

“That’s the saddest part of the album, really. But I found a way through.

“And if I can, then I hope the rest of the world can too, you know?”

That realisation is the connecting tissue of A Complicated Woman.

Life is never easy, she says. No-one is ever truly satisfied. Relationships are hard work. You can’t please everyone. But that’s OK. You’re OK. Trust your gut.

She sums it up on Focus Is Power, held aloft by the sound of a gospel choir: “.”

On stage in London, she sings those final lines a capella with her dancers and backing singers, arms wrapped around each other in a display of female solidarity.

It’s a cathartic moment after the bruising process of putting the album together.

“There’s so much joy in being a woman and just being yourself can be beautiful,” she says. “You’ve just got to find a way to do it.”

With that, she’s off to make tweaks for the show’s second night. After that, she has to find a way to scale down the West End production for a UK tour.

“I’ll do what I can to make it continue, but it’s a huge risk because there’s so little revenue from anything else,” she says.

Ultimately, though, her ambition is undimmed.

“I want to make 20 albums, I want to do bigger theatre shows,” she says.

“Of course it’d be useful if I could ‘cross over’ because everything gets easier when you’ve got more resources.

“But last night I was like, ‘Bloody hell, you did what you set out to do’. So I’m good.”

Police in Pakistan have made dozens of arrests following a string of protests targeting KFC branches across the country which led to one man being killed.

Protesters, angry at the war in Gaza, have been urging a boycott of the chain, claiming it’s a symbol of the United States and its ally Israel.

At least 20 attempted attacks on KFC outlets have been recorded across the country in the past week, Pakistan’s Minister of State for the Interior Talal Chaudhry told the BBC.

Videos on social media show mobs armed with iron rods entering KFC stores and threatening to burn them down before police arrive to arrest protesters. In Karachi, two stores were set on fire.

A video on social media shows a man yelling, “They are buying bullets with the money you make.”

Condemning the violence, Chaudhry said that “most of the vendors involved are Pakistani” and “the profits go to Pakistanis”.

A police officer confirmed to BBC News that the man who was killed, 45-year-old Asif Nawaz, was a staff member at KFC who was shot during one of the protests in the city of Sheikhupura, on the outskirts of Lahore, on 14 April.

Sheikhupura Regional Police Officer Athar Ismail said Nawaz was working in the kitchen at the time and was hit in the shoulder by a bullet that was fired from a pistol more than 100ft away. He told BBC News that the main culprit is still at large, but that police have made 40 arrests so far.

A bullet fired from that distance is not usually fatal, but a post-mortem found that after hitting his shoulder, the bullet travelled towards his chest.

Mr Ismail told BBC News there was no evidence so far that suggested Mr Nawaz was the intended target and the shooting may have been accidental.

Across Pakistan, influential figures have condemned the war in Gaza.

The Islamist party, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) has called for protests against Israel and the US, but has denied any involvement in the attacks on KFC.

Pakistan’s most influential Sunni scholar, Mufti Taqi Usmani, has encouraged a boycott of products perceived to be linked to the war.

But both have urged protesters to avoid resorting to violence.

Usmani said in remarks made at the National Palestine Conference on Thursday that while it was essential to boycott products and companies from or linked to Israel, Islam “is not a religion that encourages harming others” and said it is prohibited to “throw stones or put anyone’s life at risk”.

“So, continue your protest and boycott, but do so in a peaceful manner. There should not be any element of violence or non-peaceful behavior,” he said.

TLP spokesman Rehan Mohsin Khan said the group “has urged Muslims to boycott Israeli products, but it has not given any call for protest outside KFC”.

There have been several cases of Western brands facing attacks, boycotts and protests in Pakistan and other Muslim countries since Israel’s war on Gaza began.

Last year, McDonald’s confirmed it would buy back all of its Israeli restaurants because a boycott over its perceived support for Israel caused a sales slump.

In 2023, Starbucks called for peace and blamed “misrepresentation” of its views after a series of protests and boycott campaigns in part tied to the Israel-Gaza war.

KFC and its parent company Yum Brands have not yet responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

Five people have drowned after huge waves hit parts of Australia at the start of the Easter weekend.

Two others are missing off the coasts of New South Wales and Victoria states.

On Saturday the body of a man was found in the water near Tathra in southern New South Wales. It came a day after a 58-year-old fisherman and two other men were found dead in separate incidents in the state.

Rescuers are searching for a man who was washed into the water near Sydney. Also on Friday, one woman drowned and a man is missing after their group was swept into sea in San Remo in Victoria.

“One of the women managed to make her way back to shore but the other woman and the man were unable to,” Victoria police said.

Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan said it marked a “awful start” to the Easter weekend.

“My thoughts are with the family of someone who has lost their life in such tragic circumstances, and potentially there is more difficult news to come,” she said.

Australia’s eastern states have been battered by dangerous waves.

The head of the charity Surf Life Saving Australia, Adam Weir, advised holidaymakers to visit patrolled beaches after their data showed 630 people had drowned at unpatrolled beaches in the past 10 years.

“But these coastal locations can present dangers, some that you can see and some that you can’t, which is why we have some simple advice: Stop, Look, Stay Alive.”

A team of scientists claim to have discovered a new colour that no human has ever seen before.

The research follows an experiment in which researchers in the US had laser pulses fired into their eyes.

By stimulating specific cells in the retina, the participants claim to have witnessed a blue-green colour that scientists have called “olo”, but some experts have said the existence of a new colour is “open to argument”.

The findings, published in the journal Science Advances on Friday, have been described by the study’s co-author, Prof Ren Ng from the University of California, as “remarkable”.

He and his colleagues believe that the results could potentially further research into colour blindness.

Prof Ng, who was one of five people to take part in the experiment, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday that olo was “more saturated than any colour that you can see in the real world”.

“Let’s say you go around your whole life and you see only pink, baby pink, a pastel pink,” he said.

“And then one day you go to the office and someone’s wearing a shirt, and it’s the most intense baby pink you’ve ever seen, and they say it’s a new colour and we call it red.”

During the team’s experiment, researchers shone a laser beam into the pupil of one eye of each participant.

There were five participants in the study – four male and one female – who all had normal colour vision. Three of the participants – including Prof Ng – were co-authors of the research paper.

According to the research paper, the participants looked into a device called Oz which consists of mirrors, lasers and optical devices. The equipment was designed previously by some of the involved researchers – a team of scientists from UC Berkeley and the University of Washington, and updated for use in this study.

The retina is a light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye responsible for receiving and processing visual information. It converts light into electrical signals, which are then transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve, enabling us to see.

The retina includes cone cells, which are cells responsible for perceiving colour.

There are three types of cone cells in the eye – S, L and M – and each one is sensitive to different wavelengths of blue, red and green respectively.

According to the research paper, in normal vision, “any light that stimulates an M cone cell must also stimulate its neighbouring L and/or S cones”, because its function overlaps with them.

However, in the study, the laser only stimulated M cones, “which in principle would send a colour signal to the brain that never occurs in natural vision”, the paper said.

This means the colour olo could not been seen by a person’s naked eye in the real world without the help of specific stimulation.

To verify the colour observed during the experiment, each participant adjusted a controllable colour dial until it matched olo.

Some experts, however, say the new perceived colour is a “matter of interpretation”.

Prof John Barbur, a vision scientist at City St George’s, University of London, who was not involved in the study, said that while the research is a “technological feat” in stimulating selective cone cells, the discovery of a new colour is “open to argument”.

He explained that if, for example, the red cone cells (L) were stimulated in large numbers, people would “perceive a deep red”, but the perceived brightness may change depending on changes to red cone sensitivity, which is not unlike what happened in this study.

But the study’s co-author Prof Ng admitted that although olo is “certainly very technically difficult” to see, the team is studying the findings to see what it could potentially mean for colour blind people, who find it difficult to distinguish between certain colours.

Pakistan has deported more than 19,500 Afghans this month, among more than 80,000 who have left ahead of a 30 April deadline, according to the UN.

Pakistan has accelerated its drive to expel undocumented Afghans and those who had temporary permission to stay, saying it can no longer cope.

Between 700 and 800 families are being deported daily, Taliban officials say, with up to two million people expected to follow in the coming months.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar flew to Kabul on Saturday for talks with Taliban officials. His counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi expressed “deep concern” about deportations.

Some expelled Afghans at the border said they had been born in Pakistan after their families fled conflict.

More than 3.5 million Afghans have been living in Pakistan, according to the UN’s refugee agency, including around 700,000 people who came after the Taliban takeover in 2021. The UN estimates that half are undocumented.

Pakistan has taken in Afghans through decades of war, but the government says the high number of refugees now poses risks to national security and causes pressure on public services.

• Pakistan orders Afghan asylum seekers out
• Afghans hiding in Pakistan live in fear

There has been a recent spike in border clashes between the security forces of both sides. Pakistan blames them on militants based in Afghanistan, which the Taliban deny.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said the two sides had “discussed all issues of mutual interest” in Saturday’s meeting in Kabul.

Pakistan had extended a deadline for undocumented Afghans to leave the country by a month, to 30 April.

On the Torkham border crossing, some expelled Afghans told the BBC they left Afghanistan decades ago – or had never lived there.

“I lived my whole life in Pakistan,” said Sayed Rahman, a second-generation refugee born and raised in Pakistan. “I got married there. What am I supposed to do now?”

Saleh, a father of three daughters, worried what life under Taliban rule will mean for them. His daughters attended school in Pakistan’s Punjab province, but in Afghanistan, girls over the age of 12 are barred from doing so.

“I want my children to study. I don’t want their years in school to go to waste,” he said. “Everyone has the right to an education.”

Another man told the BBC: “Our children have never seen Afghanistan and even I don’t know what it looks like anymore. It might take us a year or more to settle in and find work. We feel helpless.”

At the border, men and women pass through separate gates, under the watch of armed Pakistani and Afghan guards. Some of those returning were elderly – one man was carried across on a stretcher, another in a bed.

Military trucks shuttled families from the border to temporary shelters. Those originally from distant provinces stay there for several days, waiting for transport to their home regions.

Families clustered under canvases to escape the 30C degree heat, as swirling dust caught in the eyes and mouth. Resources are stretched and fierce arguments often break out over access to shelter.

Returnees receive between 4,000 and 10,000 Afghanis (£41 to £104) from the Kabul authorities, according to Hedayatullah Yad Shinwari, a member of the camp’s Taliban-appointed finance committee.

The mass deportation is placing significant pressure on Afghanistan’s fragile infrastructure, with an economy in crisis and a population nearing 45 million people.

“We have resolved most issues, but the arrival of people in such large numbers naturally brings difficulties,” said Bakht Jamal Gohar, the Taliban’s head of refugee affairs at the crossing. “These people left decades ago and left all their belongings behind. Some of their homes were destroyed during 20 years of war.”

Nearly every family told the BBC that Pakistani border guards restricted what they could bring – a complaint echoed by some human rights groups.

Chaudhry said in response that Pakistan did “not have any policy that prevents Afghan refugees from taking their household items with them”.

One man, sitting on the roadside in the blistering sun, said his children had begged to stay in Pakistan, the country where they were born. They had been given temporary residency, but that expired in March.

“Now we’ll never go back. Not after how we were treated,” he said.

The US Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to pause the deportation of a group of alleged Venezuelan gang members.

The men are being held in detention in north Texas under an 18th-Century wartime law, and a civil liberties group has sued the government saying they have not had a chance to contest their case in court.

Donald Trump has sent accused Venezuelan gang members to a notorious mega-jail in El Salvador, invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act which gives the president power to order the detention and deportation of natives or citizens of “enemy” nations without usual processes.

The act had previously been used only three times, all during war.

It was last invoked in World War Two, when people of Japanese descent were imprisoned without trial and thousands sent to internment camps.

Since taking office in January, Trump’s hard-line immigration policies have encountered a number of legal hurdles.

Trump had accused Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua of “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion” on US territory.

Out of 261 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador as of 8 April, 137 were removed under the Alien Enemies Act, a senior administration official told CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner.

A lower court temporarily blocked these deportations on 15 March.

The Supreme Court initially ruled on 8 April that Trump could use the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members, but deportees must be given a chance to challenge their removal.

The lawsuit that resulted in Saturday’s order said the Venezuelans detained in north Texas had been given notices about their imminent deportation in English, despite one detainee only speaking Spanish.

The challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also said the men had not been told they had a right to contest the decision in court.

“Without this Court’s intervention, dozens or hundreds of proposed class members may be removed to a possible life sentence in El Salvador with no real opportunity to contest their designation or removal,” the lawsuit read.

Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented on Saturday.

In his second inaugural address in January, Trump pledged to “eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to US soil”.

In the highest-profile case, the government admitted it mistakenly deported El Salvador national Kilmar Ábrego García, but contends he is a member of the MS-13 gang, which his lawyer and family denies. Mr Ábrego García has never been convicted of a crime.

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the government should facilitate bringing back Mr Ábrego García, but the Trump administration has said he will “never” live in the US again.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, visited Mr Ábrego García in El Salvador and said he had been moved from the mega-jail Cecot (Terrorism Confinement Centre) to a new prison.

For the last few weeks, many foreign students living in the US have watched as a sequence of events has repeated itself on their social media feeds: plain-clothes agents appearing unannounced and hauling students off in unmarked cars to detention centres.

Those taken into custody in a string of high-profile student detentions captured on video have not faced any criminal charges and instead appear to have been targeted for involvement in pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses.

The Trump administration has said repeatedly that visas are a “privilege” and can be revoked at any time for a wide variety of reasons.

But the crackdown appears to be far wider than initially thought, with more than 1,000 international students or recent graduates at colleges across the US now having had their visas revoked or legal statuses changed, according to a tracker from Inside Higher Ed, an online news site covering the sector.

For many, the precise reasons are unknown, and universities have often only learned of the changes when checking a government-run database that logs the visa status of international students.

The combination of targeted detentions and reports of wide-scale visa revocations have left campuses on edge, from the biggest public universities to elite Ivy League institutions, students and faculty told the BBC.

“I could be next,” said one student visa-holder attending Georgetown University, who has written articles about Israel and the war in Gaza.

He’s begun carrying around a card in his pocket that lists his constitutional rights, in case he is ever stopped by law enforcement.

Another student in Texas said he’s afraid to leave his apartment, even to buy groceries.

And at some colleges, departments are being hit as researchers abroad refuse to return to the US.

Most students the BBC spoke to requested anonymity out of fear that having their names in the media could make them a target.

The BBC has contacted the Department of Education for comment.

The reasons for visa cancellations vary. In some cases, criminal records appear to be a factor. Other instances have reportedly included minor legal infractions like driving over the speed limit. But “a lot” of those targeted have been involved in pro-Palestinian protests, Secretary of State Marco Rubio himself has said.

• Marco Rubio says US revoked at least 300 foreign students’ visas
• Why has Trump revoked hundreds of international student visas?
• Trump signs order to dismantle US education department

It is part of a wider White House push to crack down on protesters whom officials say created an unsafe environment for Jewish students on many campuses. They also accuse demonstrators of having expressed support for Hamas, an officially designated terrorist group.

“Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” Rubio told reporters in late March. “We do it every day.”

Civil liberties groups have protested against the detentions and moves to deport student demonstrators as a violation of constitutional rights. And the students themselves reject associations with Hamas, saying that they are being targeted for political speech about the war in Gaza and US support for Israel.

At Georgetown, signs that read “protect our students” have been taped to the doors of bathroom stalls, adding a sense of gloom to the cherry blossom trees and tulips that typically mark the arrival of spring on campus.

A postdoctoral fellow from the university, Badar Khan Suri, was grabbed by federal agents outside his Virginia home in March. The Department of Homeland Security accused the conflict resolution researcher of “promoting antisemitism on social media” and having links to a “known or suspected terrorist”.

• The Indian scholar arrested in US over father-in-law’s Hamas link
• US court blocks deportation of Georgetown University researcher

This was an apparent reference to the Palestinian father of his US-born wife, a former adviser to killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Mr Suri’s lawyers say he has only met his father-in-law a handful of times and is being targeted due to his wife’s identity.

His detention followed that of Columbia University student protest organiser Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident arrested at home in New York but now awaiting deportation from a facility in Louisiana.

Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, who co-authored a student newspaper op-ed about Gaza and was detained in Massachusetts, is also being held in Louisiana.

Last Monday, Mohsen Mahdawi, another Columbia student protester, was detained in Vermont as he attended an interview to obtain US citizenship. Like Mr Khalil, he holds a green card, rather than a student visa.

“Based on the detentions that we’re seeing, I think there is a possibility anyone who has been outspoken about Palestine can be detained,” said the Georgetown student, who knew Mr Suri.

The White House says it is going after those who have been involved in activities that “run counter” to US national interests. In Mr Khalil’s case, officials have cited a 1952 law that empowers the government to order someone deported if their presence in the country could pose unfavourable consequences for US foreign policy.

In a post on X, the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association celebrated Mr Khalil’s arrest, calling him the “ringleader of chaos” at the university.

Polling suggests that immigration is an issue where President Trump enjoys some of his highest approval ratings, with recent Reuters and AP-NORC surveys suggesting about half of US adults approve of action in that area, several points higher than his overall rating.

Universities are also being targeted at an institutional level. This week, the White House’s task force on combating antisemitism froze over $2bn in funding for Harvard University, after the university refused to agree to a list of demands that it said would amount to “surrendering its independence”.

• Harvard just stood up to Trump. How long can it last?
• Trump administration threatens Harvard with foreign student ban

Trump officials have said that if Harvard doesn’t comply with a request for information on certain student visaholders, it will stop granting visas to international students who want to study there.

Georgetown professor Nader Hashemi said he believes the government’s main goal is “silencing dissent” by intimidating would-be protesters.

The Georgetown student says he has asked his parents not to fly from India to the US to see him graduate with a master’s degree in just a few weeks. He is still unsure if he will even attend the ceremony.

In addition to checking his email daily to see if he is among the hundreds that have had their visas revoked recently, he has also prepared for the possibility of sudden arrest.

“I have cleared my chats across messaging apps, and I have learned how to quickly lock my phone in SOS mode,” he said.

Georgetown professors have even begun offering spare rooms to students who worry about being visited by immigration agents at their residences, said Prof Hashemi.

“This is part of the trauma that I think students are facing,” he said.

At Tufts University, outside of Boston, Massachusetts, students are waiting to see what happens to Ms Ozturk, who was detained outside her home.

Video shows her confused and shaking in fear as she is intercepted by agents while headed to a Ramadan dinner celebration. Last year, she had co-authored an op-ed supporting the boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) movement against Israel.

Tufts PhD student Anteri Mejr told the BBC that the actions have had a “chilling effect”, and that international students she knows who have left the country to visit home or attend conferences are now afraid to return.

“There are students working remotely because they’re afraid they can’t get back in the country,” he said.

At the University of Texas, rumours about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on campus have some students terrified.

“I’m scared to be out. I’m scared to come to school. I’m scared to go grocery shopping,” a master’s student there said.

“I’m afraid that if I’m walking, I will be approached by agents in incognito clothes and plain disguise,” he continued.

Despite being a green card holder and having not played a role in pro-Palestinian protests on campus, he says he is still in “crippling anxiety” because he has written things that are critical of the president.

“How far does this administration dig through, like, an immigrant’s history?” he asked. “What if I did say something and I’m not aware.”

An Indian archaeologist, whose career was marked by brilliance and controversy, made one of the world’s greatest historical discoveries. Yet he remains largely forgotten today.

In the early 1900s, Rakhaldas Banerjee (also spelled Banerji) unearthed Mohenjo-daro – meaning “mound of the dead men” in the Sindhi language – in present-day Pakistan. It was the largest city of the thriving Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilisation, which stretched from north-east Afghanistan to north-west India during the Bronze Age.

Banerjee, an intrepid explorer and talented epigraphist, worked for the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) when the country was under British colonial rule. He spent months travelling to distant corners of the subcontinent, looking for ancient artefacts, ruins and scripts.

But while his discovery of Mohenjo-daro was ground-breaking, Banerjee’s legacy is clouded by disputes. His independent streak and defiance of colonial protocols often landed him in trouble – tainting his reputation and perhaps even erasing parts of his contribution from global memory.

Interestingly, Banerjee’s reports on Mohenjo-daro were never published by the ASI. Archaeologist PK Mishra later accused then ASI chief John Marshall of suppressing Banerjee’s findings and claiming credit for the discovery himself.

“The world knows Marshall discovered the civilisation’s ruins and it is taught in institutions. Banerjee is an insignificant footnote,” Prof Mishra told the Times of India newspaper.

In her book, , historian Nayanjot Lahiri writes that Banerjee “lacked diplomacy and tact and displayed a high-handedness that ruffled feathers”. Her book also sheds light on the controversies he was embroiled in during his time at the ASI.

She notes how once, he attempted to procure inscriptions and images from a museum in north-east India without the approval or knowledge of his boss.

Another time, Banerjee attempted to relocate some stone sculptures from a museum in Bengal to the one he was stationed at without the necessary permissions.

In another instance, he purchased an antique painting for a sum without consulting his superiors who thought he’d paid more than was necessary.

“Banerjee’s many talents seemed to include being always able to rub people the wrong way,” Lahiri writes.

But Banerjee remains a prominent figure among world historians and scholars in Bengal because of his connection with Mohenjo-daro.

He was born in 1885 to a wealthy family in Bengal.

The medieval monuments that dotted Baharampur, the city he grew up in, kindled his interest in history and he pursued the subject in college. But he always had an adventurous streak.

Once, when he was tasked with writing an essay about the Scythian period of Indian history, he travelled to a museum in a neighbouring state to study first-hand sculptures and scripts from that era.

In her book, , author Yama Pande notes how Banerjee joined the ASI as an excavation assistant in 1910 and rose quickly within the ranks to become a superintending archaeologist in western India in 1917.

It was in this post that he first set eyes on Mohenjo-daro in Sindh in 1919. In the following years, he conducted a series of excavations at the site that revealed some of the most fascinating finds: ancient Buddhist stupas, coins, seals, pots and microliths.

Between 1922 and 1923, he discovered several layers of ruins that held clues about various urban settlements that had emerged in the region, but most importantly, the oldest one that had existed some 5,300 years ago – the Indus Valley Civilisation.

At that time, historians had not yet discovered the full scale of the Indus Civilisation which, we now know, covered an expanse of approximately 386,000 sq miles (999,735 sq km) along the Indus river valley.

Three seals from Banerjee’s excavation bore images and scripts similar to those from Harappa in the Punjab province in present-day Pakistan. This helped establish a link between the two sites, shedding light on the vast reach of the Indus Valley civilisation.

But by 1924, Banerjee’s funds for the project had dried up and he was also transferred to eastern India. He had no further contact with the site, nor did he participate in any excavations there, Pande writes in her book.

But Nayanjot Lahiri notes that Banerjee was transferred at his own request, after becoming entangled in questions over his spending. He had failed to account for several job-related expenses.

It was also revealed that Banerjee had used excavation grants to buy office furniture and his travel expenses were deemed excessive.

His explanations failed to convince his superiors and disciplinary action was recommended. After some negotiation, Banerjee was granted his request and transferred to another region.

Banerjee continued to work with the ASI in eastern India. He spent most of his time in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and oversaw the restoration work of many important monuments.

He resigned from the ASI in 1927, but his departure was marred by controversy. In the years prior to his departure, he became the prime suspect in a case of idol theft.

It all started in October 1925, when Banerjee had visited a revered Hindu shrine in Madhya Pradesh state that housed a stone idol of a Buddhist goddess. Banerjee was accompanied by two low-ranking assistants and two labourers, Lahiri notes in her book.

However, following their visit, the idol went missing, and Banerjee was implicated in its theft. He denied any involvement in the disappearance and an investigation was launched.

The idol was later recovered in Calcutta. Though the case against Banerjee was dismissed and the charges were found to be unsubstantiated, Marshall insisted on his resignation.

After leaving the ASI, Banerjee worked as a professor, but faced financial difficulties because of his lavish lifestyle.

Historian Tapati Guha-Thakurta told the Telegraph newspaper that Banerjee splurged on good food, horse carriages and friends. In 1928, he joined the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) as a professor. He died just two years later at the age of 45.

Stock markets around the world have been relatively settled this week after a period of chaos, sparked by US trade tariffs.

But investors are still closely watching a part of the market which rarely moves dramatically – the US bond market.

Governments sell bonds – essentially an IOU – to raise money for public spending and in return they pay interest.

Recently, in an extremely rare move the rate the US government had to pay on its bonds rose sharply, while the price of bonds themselves fell.

The volatility suggests investors were losing confidence in the world’s biggest economy.

You may think it’s too esoteric to bother you, but here’s why it matters and how it may change President Trump’s mind on tariffs.

When a government wants to borrow money, it usually does so by selling bonds – known as “Treasuries” in the US – to investors on financial markets.

Such payments are made over a number of pre-agreed years before a full and final payment is made when the bond “matures” – in other words, expires.

Investors who buy bonds are mainly made up of financial institutions, ranging from pension funds to central banks like the Bank of England.

Investors buy government bonds because they are seen as a safe place to invest their money. There is little risk a government will not repay the money, especially an economic superpower like the US.

So when the economy is turbulent and investors want to take money out of volatile stocks and shares markets, they usually place that cash in US bonds.

But recently that hasn’t happened.

Initially, following the so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs announcement on 2 April when shares fell, investors did appear to flock to US bonds.

However, when the first of these tariffs kicked in on 5 April and Trump doubled down on his policies that weekend, investors began dumping government bonds, sending the interest rate the US government would have to pay to borrow money up sharply.

The so-called yield for US government borrowing over 10 years shot up from 3.9% to 4.5%, while the 30-year yield spiked at almost 5%. Movements of 0.2% in either direction are considered a big deal.

Why the dramatic sell-off? In short, the uncertainty over the impact of tariffs on the US economy led to investors no longer seeing government bonds as such a safe bet, so demanded bigger returns to buy them.

The higher the perceived risk, the higher the yield investors want to compensate for taking it.

If the US government is spending more on debt interest repayments, it can affect budgets and public spending as it becomes more costly for the government to sustain itself.

But it can also have a direct impact on households and even more so on businesses.

John Canavan, lead analyst at Oxford Economics, says when investors charge higher rates to lend the government money, other rates for lending that have more risk attached, such as mortgages, credit cards and car loans, also tend to rise.

Businesses, especially small ones, are likely to be hardest hit by any immediate change in borrowing rates, as most homeowners in the US have fixed-rate deals of between 15 and 30 years. If businesses can’t get access to credit, that can halt economic growth and lead to job losses over time.

Mr Canavan adds that banks can become more cautious in lending money, which could impact the US economy.

First-time buyers and those wishing to move home could also face higher costs, he says, which could impact the housing market in the longer term. It’s common in the US for small business owners starting out to use the equity in their home as collateral.

Following the introduction of tariffs, Trump urged his nation to “hang tough”, but it appears the potential threat to jobs and the US economy stopped the president in his tracks.

Following the ructions in the bond markets, he introduced a 90-day pause for the higher tariffs on every country except China. The 10% blanket tariff, however, on all countries remains.

It proved a pressure point for Trump – and now the world knows it.

“Although President Donald Trump was able to resist the stock market sell-off, once the bond market began to weaken too, it was only a matter of time before he folded,” says Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics.

According to US media reports, it was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, inundated with calls from business leaders, who played a key part in swaying Trump.

The bond market reaction has led to comparisons with former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s infamous mini-Budget of September 2022. The unfunded tax cuts announced then spooked investors, who dumped UK government bonds, resulting in the Bank of England stepping in to buy bonds to save pension funds from collapse.

Some analysts suggested that America’s central bank, the US Federal Reserve, might have been forced to step in if the sell-off had worsened.

While bond yields have settled, some might argue the damage has already been done as they remain higher than before the blanket tariffs kicked in.

“Arguably the most worrying aspect of the [recent] turmoil… is an emerging risk premium in US Treasury bonds and the dollar, akin to what the UK experienced in 2022,” according to Jonas Goltermann, deputy chief markets economist at Capital Economics.

But unless you’re a first-time buyer or selling your home, Americans are unlikely to be immediately hit by higher mortgage costs, unlike Brits who were securing new shorter-term fixed deals.

Since 2010, foreign ownership of US bonds has almost doubled, rising by $3 trillion, according to Deutsche Bank.

Japan holds the most US Treasuries, but China, the US’s arch enemy in this global trade war, is the second biggest holder of US government debt globally.

Questions were raised about whether it sparked the debt sell-off in response to being hit with huge tariffs.

However, this is unlikely as any fire sale “would impoverish China more than it would hurt the US”, according to Capital Economics.

Every iPhone comes with a label which tells you it was designed in California.

While the sleek rectangle that runs many of our lives is indeed designed in the United States, it is likely to have come to life thousands of miles away in China: the country hit hardest by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, now rising to 245% on some Chinese imports.

Apple sells more than 220 million iPhones a year and by most estimates, nine in 10 are made in China. From the glossy screens to the battery packs, it’s here that many of the components in an Apple product are made, sourced and assembled into iPhones, iPads or Macbooks. Most are shipped to the US, Apple’s largest market.

Luckily for the firm, Trump suddenly exempted smartphones, computers and some other electronic devices from his tariffs last week.

But the comfort is short-lived.

The president has since suggested that more tariffs are coming: “NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’,” he wrote on Truth Social, as his administration investigated “semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN”.

The global supply chain that Apple has touted as a strength is now a vulnerability.

The US and China, the world’s two biggest economies, are interdependent and Trump’s staggering tariffs have upended that relationship overnight, leading to an inevitable question: who is the more dependent of the two?

China has hugely benefited from hosting assembly lines for one of the world’s most valuable companies. It was a calling card to the West for quality manufacturing and has helped spur local innovation.

Apple entered China in the 1990s to sell computers through third-party suppliers.

Around 1997, when it was on the verge of bankruptcy as it struggled to compete with rivals, Apple found a lifeline in China. A young Chinese economy was opening up to foreign companies to boost manufacturing and create more jobs.

It wasn’t until 2001 though that Apple officially arrived in China, through a Shanghai-based trading company, and started making products in the country. It partnered with Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronic manufacturer operating in China, to make iPods, then iMacs and subsequently iPhones.

As Beijing began trading with the world – encouraged by the US no less – Apple grew its footprint in what was becoming the world’s factory.

Back then, China was not primed to make the iPhone. But Apple chose its own crop of suppliers and helped them grow into “manufacturing superstars,” according to supply chain expert Lin Xueping.

He cites the example of Beijing Jingdiao, now a leading manufacturer of high-speed precision machinery, which is used to make advanced components efficiently. The company, which used to cut acrylic, was not considered a machine tool-maker – but it eventually developed machinery to cut glass and became “the star of Apple’s mobile phone surface processing,” Mr Lin says.

Apple opened its first store in the country in Beijing in 2008, the year the city hosted the Olympics and China’s relationship with the West was at an all-time high. This soon snowballed to 50 stores, with customers queuing out of the door.

As Apple’s profit margins grew, so did its assembly lines in China, with Foxconn operating the world’s largest iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, which has since been termed “iPhone City”.

For a fast-growing China, Apple became a symbol of advanced Western tech – simple yet original and slick.

Today, most of Apple’s prized iPhones are manufactured by Foxconn. The advanced chips that power them are made in Taiwan, by the world’s largest chip manufacturer, TSMC. The manufacturing also requires rare earth elements which are used in audio applications and cameras.

Some 150 of Apple’s top 187 suppliers in 2024 had factories in China, according to an analysis by Nikkei Asia.

“There’s no supply chain in the world that’s more critical to us than China,” Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said in an interview last year.

In Trump’s first term, Apple secured exemptions on the tariffs he imposed on China.

But this time, the Trump administration has made an example of Apple before it reversed tariffs on some electronics. It believes the threat of steep taxes will encourage businesses to make products in America instead.

“The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones – that kind of thing is going to come to America,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in an interview earlier this month.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated that last week: “President Trump has made it clear America cannot rely on China to manufacture critical technologies such as semiconductors, chips, smartphones and laptops.”

She added: “At the direction of the president, these companies are hustling to onshore their manufacturing in the United States as soon as possible.”

But many are sceptical of that.

The thought that Apple could move its assembly operation to the US is “pure fantasy,” according to Eli Friedman, who formerly sat on the firm’s academic advisory board.

He says the company has been talking about diversifying its supply chain away from China since 2013, when he joined the board – but the US was never an option.

Mr Friedman adds that Apple didn’t make much progress over the next decade but “really made an effort” after the pandemic, when China’s tightly controlled Covid lockdowns hurt manufacturing output.

“The most important new locations for assembly have been Vietnam and India. But of course the majority of Apple assembly still takes place [in China].”

Apple did not respond to the BBC’s questions but its website says its supply chain spans “thousands of businesses and more than 50 countries”.

Any change to Apple’s current supply chain status quo would be a huge blow for China, which is trying to kickstart growth post-pandemic.

Many of the reasons that the country wanted to be a manufacturing hub for Western companies in the early 2000s ring true today – it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs, and gives the country a crucial edge in global trade.

“Apple sits at the intersection of US-China tensions, and tariffs highlight the cost of that exposure,” says Jigar Dixit, a supply chain and operations consultant.

It might explain why China has not bowed to Trump’s threats, retaliating instead with 125% levies on US imports. China has also imposed export controls on a range of critical rare earth minerals and magnets it has in stores, dealing a blow to the US.

There is no doubt the US tariffs still being levied on other Chinese sectors will hurt, though.

And it’s not just Beijing facing higher tariffs – Trump has made it clear he will target countries that are part of the Chinese supply chain. For instance Vietnam, where Apple has moved AirPods production, was facing 46% tariffs before Trump hit pause for 90 days, so moving production elsewhere in Asia is not an easy way out.

“All conceivable places for the huge Foxconn assembly sites with tens or hundreds of thousands of workers are in Asia, and all of these countries are facing higher tariffs,” Mr Friedman says.

So what does Apple do now?

The company is fighting off stiff competition from Chinese firms as the government pushes for advanced tech manufacturing in a race with the US.

Now that “Apple has cultivated China’s electronic manufacturing capabilities, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and others can reuse Apple’s mature supply chain,” according to Mr Lin.

Last year, Apple lost its place as China’s biggest smartphone seller to Huawei and Vivo. Chinese people are not spending enough because of a sluggish economy and with ChatGPT banned in China, Apple is also struggling to retain an edge among buyers seeking AI-powered phones. It even offered rare discounts on iPhones in January to boost sales.

And while operating under President Xi Jinping’s increasingly close grip, Apple has had to limit the use of Bluetooth and Airdrop on its devices as the Chinese Communist Party sought to censor political messages that people were sharing. It weathered a crackdown on the tech industry that even touched Alibaba founder and multi-billionaire Jack Ma.

Apple has announced a $500bn (£378bn) investment in the US, though that may not be enough to appease the Trump administration for long.

Given the several U-turns and the uncertainty around Trump’s tariffs, more unexpected levies are expected – which could again leave the company with little manoeuvring room and even less time.

Mr Dixit says smartphone tariffs will not cripple Apple should they rear their head again, but regardless will add “pressure – both operationally and politically” to a supply chain that cannot be unwound quickly.

“Clearly the severity of the immediate crisis has been lessened,” Mr Friedman adds, referring to last week’s exemption for smartphones.

“But I really don’t think this means Apple can relax.”

A Welsh tourist who was detained in a US immigration centre has spoken of her experiences.

Becky Burke, 28, spent 19 days in a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing centre in Washington State after being denied entry into Canada, over a “visa mix-up”.

Ms Burke believed that her case was “prioritised” following a combination of media, social media and diplomatic pressure since her case was first made public.

A spokesperson for US Customs and Border Protection previously told the BBC they could not discuss specific cases but travellers were treated with “integrity, respect and according to law”.

Speaking to BBC World Service’s Outside Source, Ms Burke said she had planned a four month backpacking trip across North America, Canada and other areas.

She had flown from New York to Portland, Oregon, where she spent time with a host family, helping with household chores in return for accommodation.

At the end of February she travelled to Seattle with plans to travel to Vancouver in Canada to stay with another family.

“After I bought my tickets I saw that Trump had come into power so I was making sure that I left the country well within my ESTA,” she said.

She described how she spent six hours at the border waiting while officials were “trying to determine if what I had been doing in America counted as work”.

“I was getting quite worried.

“I then had an interrogation for about an hour in a small room where they were asking me loads of details about what I had been doing in America and at the end of that, they had determined that I had been working in America and violated my ESTA.”

Ms Burke said while in the ICE centre many people were telling her that she was “lucky” to be in this one, as it was known as “one of the better ones”.

“A few of the woman had come from San Diego and they were telling me how awful [it was] and how they were treated.

“The officers would shout at them and throw them in the shower for like five seconds [max].”

She added that she wanted to use the spotlight on her to share the stories of the other woman in the centre.

Ms Burke believes pressure from the press coverage helped with her early release.

She said an ICE officer told her that her case had been brought to “the top of the pile” after they received an email from the British consulate.

The following day she was told a flight had been booked to take her home on 18 March.

A spokesperson for US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) previously said it could not comment on specific cases for privacy reasons, but added: “All persons arriving at a port-of-entry to the United States are subject to inspection.

“CBP officers treat all travellers with integrity, respect, professionalism and according to law.”

The spokesperson said in the event of a foreign national being found inadmissible to the United States, CBP would “provide the foreign national an opportunity to procure travel to his or her home country”.

“If the foreign national is unable to do so, he or she will be turned over to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO) for repatriation,” they added.