Pope Francis’ body will be moved to St Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday morning where it will lie in state for three days to allow Catholic faithful to pay their final respects ahead of a funeral expected to bring a host of world leaders including Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump.

Francis, a groundbreaking reformer, died aged 88 on Monday from a stroke and cardiac arrest, ending an often turbulent 12-year reign in which he repeatedly clashed with traditionalists and championed the poor and marginalised.

His body, lying in an open casket, was set to be taken from the chapel of the Vatican residence where he lived to St Peter’s, entering through the central door, in a grand procession starting at 9am local time (7am GMT), with cardinals and Latin chants.

Scores of Catholics and well-wishers are expected to pay their respects to the spiritual leader before he is laid to rest.

After a religious service, the general public will be allowed to visit the late pontiff until 7pm on Friday, with a funeral scheduled for Saturday morning.

The service will be outdoors, in St Peter’s Square, and is due to be led by the dean of the college of cardinals, 91-year-old Giovanni Battista Re. Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend.

Italy is preparing for a major security operation for the funeral, with the weekend already due to be busy because of the public holiday on 25 April. Interior minister Matteo Piantedosi said authorities were expecting between 150 and 170 foreign delegations, and tens of thousands of people.

Italian police have tightened security for the viewing and the funeral, carrying out foot and horse patrols around the Vatican, where pilgrims continued to arrive for the Holy Year celebrations that Francis opened in December.

“For me, Pope Francis represents a great pastor, as well as a great friend to all of us,’’ said Micale Sales, visiting St Peter’s Basilica from Brazil.

“I think he spread a positive message around the world, saying there shouldn’t be any violence, there should be peace around the world,’’ said Amit Kukreja, from Australia.

Trump, who clashed repeatedly with the pope on immigration, will be accompanied by first lady Melania. Leaders from Italy, France, Germany, Britain, Ukraine, EU institutions and Francis’ home nation of Argentina also confirmed their presence.

Francis has asked to be buried in St Mary Major, a Roman basilica he was particularly attached to, rather than St Peter’s like many of his predecessors, with a simple inscription of his name in Latin, Franciscus. He will become the first pope in more than 100 years to be laid to rest outside the Vatican.

On Tuesday, the Vatican released images of the pope dressed in his vestments, holding a rosary, with Swiss Guards standing beside his casket. Dignitaries, including Italian president Sergio Mattarella and Italian Jewish leaders, came to visit.

About 60 cardinals gathered on Tuesday to decide funeral plans, with more meetings planned in the coming days on other urgent business. The conclave, which will choose the new pope, is not expected to start before 6 May.

There is no clear frontrunner to succeed Francis, although British bookmakers have singled out Luis Antonio Tagle, a reformer from the Philippines, and Pietro Parolin, a compromise choice from Italy, as early favourites.

In the meantime, in the period known as the “sede vacante” (vacant seat) for the global Catholic church, a cardinal known as the camerlengo (chamberlain), Irish-American Kevin Farrell, is in charge of ordinary affairs.

The cardinal who announced the death of Pope Francis bore the ancient Vatican title of camerlengo and spoke in Italian, but there was no mistaking the Dublin accent.

Long before he rose through the ecclesiastical ranks and was entrusted with temporarily running the Holy See, Kevin Farrell was an altar boy from an Irish republican family in the working-class suburb of Drimnagh.

Or, as the British tabloid Metro put it: “Interim pope is a bloke called Kevin from Dublin.”

As camerlengo, or chamberlain, the 77-year-old Irish American officially ascertained the pope’s death and will organise the conclave that will elect a successor – with Farrell himself a longshot possibility.

The death of Francis on Monday vaulted the powerful but little known Vatican figure into the global spotlight, and prompted comparisons to the fictional cardinal played by Ralph Fiennes in the film Conclave. (The film made Fiennes the dean of the College of Cardinals but gave him the duties of the real-life camerlengo.)

Farrell has a reputation for personal warmth, a passion for social justice and moderation on doctrinal issues, like Pope Francis.

But liberals decry his stances on same-sex marriage and abortion rights, and his decision in 2018 to bar Ireland’s former president, Mary McAleese, from speaking at a Vatican conference, reportedly because of her advocacy for same-sex marriage and female priests. McAleese said she was “profoundly hurt” by the attempt to exclude her.

As a senior bureaucrat – his jobs include running the Vatican’s investments and its Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life, which promotes marriage – he favoured opening the church’s lay movements to younger people.

“The future of the movements depends on their ability to change the heads of these movements so that we prepare younger people all the time to take leadership roles,” he told the Jesuit magazine America in 2022.

Farrell was born in 1947 to Edward and Molly Farrell, who worked at the Player Wills tobacco factory on South Circular Road. They instilled in their son respect for the Irish language, Ireland’s republican heritage and the Catholic church.

Young Kevin was not sporty but “very, very bright”, a childhood playmate, Alan Wheelan, told RTÉ.

Molly’s prayers that one of her four sons would become a priest were more than answered; Kevin and his older brother Brian both joined the Legionaries of Christ in the 1960s and went on to become bishops.

After studying theology at the University of Salamanca in Spain and at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Kevin served as a university chaplain in Mexico before moving to the US archdiocese of Washington in 1983. He became a US citizen, ran pastoral centres and charities, and studied business administration at the University of Notre Dame.

Farrell served under Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was later defrocked over allegations of sexual abuse. Farrell said he had no knowledge of wrongdoing by McCarrick. “I was shocked, overwhelmed; I never heard any of this before in the six years I was there with him,” he told Catholic News Service in 2018.

In 2007 he was appointed bishop of Dallas and brought to Rome in 2016 by Pope Francis, who made the like-minded Spanish speaker a cardinal tasked with multiple jobs.

Farrell said he accepted the role of camerlengo on condition that Pope Francis outlive him. “I jokingly said to him: ‘I will accept this job, Your Holiness, but on one condition, that you preach at my funeral!’”

The Dubliner is expected to lead a procession that moves the pope’s body from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta to St Peter’s Basilica and to orchestrate the funeral on Saturday, which dozens of heads of state and government are expected to attend. During the interregnum when there is no pope – the sede vacante – it is Farrell’s duty to destroy Pope Francis’s papal ring.

The conclave is to begin in early May and will conclude with a puff of white smoke that announces the cardinals have selected a new pontiff. Only twice has a cardinal camerlengo become pope: Gioacchino Pecci (Pope Leo XIII) in 1878 and Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) in 1939.

Predicting the outcome of the highly secretive papal conclave is near impossible as cardinals’ positions shift over successive votes and some try to game the system to influence the chances of their favoured – or least-favoured – candidates. In the last conclave in 2013, few predicted that Jorge Mario Bergoglio would be elected as Pope Francis. At the moment, speculation is focusing on these men to succeed him:

Pietro Parolin, 70, Italy

Seen as a moderate “continuity candidate”, Parolin was close to Francis. He has been the Vatican’s secretary of state since 2013, playing a key role in diplomatic affairs, including delicate negotiations with China and governments in the Middle East. He is regarded as a reliable and trusted papal representative by secular diplomats. In 2018, he was the driving force behind a controversial agreement with the Chinese government on the appointment of bishops, criticised by some as a sellout to the communist regime. Parolin’s critics see him as a modernist and a pragmatist who places ideology and diplomatic solutions above hard truths of the faith. To his supporters, he is a courageous idealist and avid proponent of peace.

Luis Antonio Tagle, 67, the Philippines

Tagle, a former archbishop of Manila, would be the first Asian pope, the region with the fastest-growing Catholic population. At one time he was considered to be Francis’s preferred successor and a strong contender to continue the late pope’s progressive agenda, but recently appears to have fallen out of favour. He has suggested that the Catholic church’s stance on gay and divorced couples is too harsh, but has opposed abortion rights in the Philippines.

Peter Turkson, 76, Ghana

Turkson would be the first black pope in centuries. He has been vocal on issues such as the climate crisis, poverty and economic justice while affirming the church’s traditional positions on the priesthood, marriage between a man and a woman, and homosexuality. However, his views on the latter have loosened and he has argued that laws in many African countries are too harsh. He has spoken out on corruption and human rights.

Péter Erdő, 72, Hungary

A leading conservative candidate, Erdő has been a strong advocate for traditional Catholic teachings and doctrine. He would represent a big shift away from Francis’s approach. He is widely regarded as a great intellect and a man of culture. Erdő was a favourite of the late cardinal George Pell who believed he would restore the rule of law in the post-Francis Vatican. In 2015, Erdő appeared to align himself with Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, when he opposed Francis’s call for churches to take in migrants.

Matteo Zuppi, 69, Italy

Appointed a cardinal by Francis in 2019, Zuppi is considered to be on the progressive wing of the church, and would be expected to continue Francis’s legacy, sharing the late pope’s concern for the poor and marginalised. He is (relatively) liberal on same-sex relationships. Two years ago, Francis made him the Vatican peace envoy for Ukraine, in which capacity he visited Moscow to “encourage gestures of humanity”. While there he met Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox church and Vladimir Putin’s ally. He has also met Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president.

José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça, 59, Portugal

Tolentino is one of the youngest potential successors to Francis, which could count against him – ambitious cardinals may not want to wait another 20 or 30 years before another shot at the top job. He has attracted controversy for sympathising with tolerant views on same-sex relationships and allying himself with a feminist Benedictine sister who favours women’s ordination and is pro-choice. He was close to Francis on most issues, and argues that the church must engage with modern culture.

Mario Grech, 68, Malta

Grech was seen as a traditionalist but began to embrace more progressive views after Francis was elected in 2013. His supporters argue that his changing opinions show his capacity for growth and change. He has criticised European political leaders who sought to limit the activities of NGO ships and has expressed support for female deacons.

Pierbattista Pizzaballa, 60, Italy

Since 2020, Pizzaballa has been the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, a crucial role in advocating for the Christian minority in the Holy Land. After Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, Pizzaballa offered himself as a hostage in exchange for children who were being held by Hamas in Gaza. He visited Gaza in May 2024 after months of negotiations. He would be expected to continue some aspects of Francis’s leadership of the church, but has made few public statements on controversial issues.

Robert Sarah, 79, Guinea

Sarah is a traditional, Orthodox cardinal who at one time sought to present himself as a “parallel authority” to Francis, according to a Vatican observer. In 2020, he co-authored a book with the then retired Pope Benedict defending clerical celibacy that was seen as a challenge to Francis’s authority. He has denounced “gender ideology” as a threat to society, and has spoken out against Islamic fundamentalism. Like Turkson, he could make history as the first black pope in centuries.

The Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, said he will start pulling back from his role at the so-called “department of government efficiency” starting in May. Musk’s remarks came as the company reported a massive dip in both profits and revenues in the first quarter of 2025 amid backlash against his role in the White House.

On an investor call, Musk said the work necessary to get the government’s “financial house in order is mostly done”.

“Starting probably next month, May, my time allocation to Doge will drop significantly,” he said.

That said, he expects to spend one to two days a week continuing to do what he referred to as “critical work” at Doge “for as long as the president would like me to do so and as long as it is useful”.

Musk is scheduled to leave Doge on May 30, a strict 130-day cap on his service as a special government employee.

Tesla saw a 9% drop in revenue year over year in the first quarter of 2025. The company brought in $19.3bn in revenue, well below Wall Street expectations of $21.45bn. The company reported an earnings per share of 27 cents, also well under investor expectations of 43 cents in earnings per share.

Tesla profits also slid 71% to $409m compared with $1.39bn in net income the previous year.

The company suffered a 13% drop in vehicle deliveries, making it the company’s worst quarter since 2022. Tesla closed the quarter with 336,681 vehicles delivered.

Though Musk has acknowledged there have been “rocky moments” of late, he remained optimistic about the company’s future.

“The future for Tesla is better than ever,” he said. “The value of the company is delivering sustainable abundance with our affordable AI-powered robots. If you say, what’s the ideal future that you can imagine, that’s what you’d want. You’d want abundance for all in a way that’s sustainable, that’s good for the environment. Basically this is a happy future, this is the happiest future you can imagine.”

That “happy future” includes the company’s plans for fully self-driving cars, said the billionaire CEO as he laid out an ambitious timeline for when he expects the vehicles to hit US roads in some cities – “by the end of the year”. Tesla has historically struggled to meet timelines Musk has publicly set for the launch of new products, especially when it comes to self-driving.

“The acid test is, can you go to sleep in your car and wake up in your destination and I’m confident that will be available in many cities in the US by the end of this year,” he said.

This would be on top of the Robotaxi service the company plans to roll out in June. “I predict that there will be millions of Teslas operating fully autonomously in the second half of next year,” Musk said.

Despite missing Wall Street expectations on the top and bottom line, initial analyst reactions are optimistic given many had significantly lowered their expectations after the company reported a massive dip in vehicle deliveries.

“Against the backdrop of catastrophic expectations, with everything from sales to margins projected to continue the slump, the less-than-bad numbers have been received as welcome news by Tesla investors,” said Thomas Monteiro, senior analyst at Investing.com. “In a curious turn of events, it’s as if numbers show that even at the worst moment, Elon and the team’s operation can still bring a robust $19.3bn in revenue, with total revenue partly making up for the huge drop in auto revenue.

“If this is the worst it gets for Tesla, then certainly there must be some upside for the stock once tailwinds, such as the highly awaited cheaper model and the Robotaxi, finally hit the market later this year,” Monteiro continued.

Analysts attribute the company’s overall difficulties to a number of factors, but ultimately conclude Musk’s role in the White House has caused a branding crisis for Tesla. The company is at a major crossroads, analysts say, that will only be remedied if Musk leaves his role in Doge and returns to Tesla as CEO full time.

In addition to a drop in sales, a 50% dip in share prices, existing Tesla owners are looking to sell their vehicles in droves, Teslas have been vandalized across the country and in response to ongoing protests of the automaker, the Vancouver International Auto show removed the electronic carmaker from its March lineup. The company also recalled 46,000 Cybertrucks – nearly all that had been sold.

Musk said that the drop in demand is due to the macro economic trends – not branding. “Tesla is not immune to the macro demand for cars,” Musk said. “When there is economic uncertainty, people generally want to pause on doing a major capital purchase like a car. Absent macro issues we don’t see any reduction in demand.”

Analysts are not convinced.

“If Musk leaves the White House there will be permanent brand damage…but Tesla will have its most important asset and strategic thinker back as full time CEO to drive the vision and the long term story will not be altered,” read a Wedbush Securities analyst note. Wedbush remained bullish on the company’s chances of turning its financials around. “IF Musk chooses to stay with the Trump White House it could change the future of Tesla/brand damage will grow.”

The company declined to provide forward-looking guidance for the next quarter citing “shifting global trade policy on the automotive and energy supply chains”.

“While we are making prudent investments that will set up both our vehicle and energy businesses for growth, the rate of growth this year will depend on a variety of factors, including the rate of acceleration of our autonomy efforts, production ramp at our factories and the broader macroeconomic environment,” the earnings report reads. “We will revisit our 2025 guidance in our Q2 update.”

The company did warn, however, that “changing political sentiment” could meaningfully impact short-term demand for Tesla products.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, will host US and European negotiators for fresh talks about Ukraine on Wednesday amid speculation that Russia has told Washington it might be willing to drop its claim to parts of Ukraine it does not occupy.

The price would include the US making concessions to Moscow such as recognising the 2014 annexation of Crimea, though Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said no such proposal had been shared with him by the White House and that his country could not endorse it.

The emerging US-Russia plan would envisage a ceasefire along roughly the existing frontlines once Moscow’s territorial demand has been dropped, leaks suggest – something that Ukraine has indicated it could accept, as long it did not have to recognise Russian occupation as permanent or legal.

Ukraine would be prevented by a US veto from joining Nato, a point largely accepted by a reluctant Kyiv. The only future security guarantees for Ukraine would be provided by a UK/French-led 30-country “coalition of the willing” to provide a “reassurance force”, but this would not include the US.

It had been hoped that Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, would attend the talks, but the state department said on Tuesday that would no longer be possible and that Keith Kellogg, the White House’s Ukraine envoy, would be present instead.

The meetings in London take place amid European scepticism that the Russian leader is seriously willing to end the war, reinforced by events over Easter weekend, when Ukraine reported of thousands of violations of a short truce announced by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

John Healey, the defence secretary, told the Commons that the UK agreed with Ukraine that the Russian leader’s public pledges were not borne out by military reality.

“Despite President Putin’s promise of a 30-hour pause in fighting, I can confirm that Defence Intelligence [an MoD unit] has found, and I quote, ‘no indication that a ceasefire on the frontline was observed over the Easter period’,” he told MPs.

“So, while Putin has said he declared an Easter truce – he broke it. While Putin says he wants peace – he rejected a full ceasefire. And while Putin says he wants to put an end to the fighting – he continues to play for time in negotiations.”

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy said Russia had continued to bomb the frontline with first-person view drones over Easter, though he said that the attackers had scaled back the number of operations and did not use long-range weapons.

Healey also said he would meet the Ukrainian defence minister, Rustem Umerov, “as the government is bringing together US, UK and European ministers and national security advisers to discuss next steps”.

Ukrainian sources indicated that the country’s foreign secretary, Andrii Sybiha, was expected in London to meet Lammy, Kellogg and delegations from France and Germany at meetings expected to last throughout the day.

Healey said the meetings in London would include discussion of “what a ceasefire might look like and how to secure peace in the long term”. Despite nearly three months of talks led by the White House there has until now been no breakthrough in ending the war.

European officials had believed Moscow is not ready to agree to a ceasefire because Putin has not abandoned his efforts to dominate Ukraine while talks between the Kremlin and the White House continue.

Russia has been demanding that Ukraine hand over the entirety of four eastern and southern regions its forces only partly occupied. That would include Kyiv ceding Kherson, which its forces recaptured in November 2022, and Zaporizhzhia city, proposals Ukraine would not be able to accept.

But the FT reported on Tuesday that the Kremlin would soften its demands in direct discussions with the US, and would accept a freezing of the conflict on the frontline if the US agreed that Crimea, seized by Moscow in 2014, belonged to Russia.

However, Zelenskyy ruled out recognising Crimea as Russian territory. “There is nothing new to mention or discuss. Ukraine will not recognise the occupation of Crimea,” he said, pointing out that it would be incompatible with Ukraine’s constitution.

No details of any revised peace plan had been formally shared with Kyiv, Zelenskyy added. He said discussions should take place in the London format, rather than through the media, with the UK, France and the US as participants.

According to one report in the Telegraph, Russia would hand over control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the largest in Europe, not to Ukraine but to the US – though it is unclear how Kyiv would respond to this.

Putin floated on Tuesday that he was open to direct negotiations with Ukraine, which would be the first time the two countries had held peace discussions since spring 2022. This could involve discussing the issue of not striking civilian targets, his spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, later added.

The US is expected to relay Ukraine’s response to Putin after the London meetings. Steve Witkoff, who is a close friend of Donald Trump and his informal envoy, is set to visit Moscow later this week. Witkoff has held three in-depth meetings with Putin, and his apparently warm relationship with the Kremlin has raised concerns in Ukraine that he may be amplifying Russian narratives.

A Russian drone hit a bus carrying workers in the Ukrainian city of Marhanets early on Wednesday, killing nine people in wave of attacks that targeted civilian infrastructure in east, south and central Ukraine, officials said.

The full scale of the attacks, which kept Kyiv and the eastern half of Ukraine awake for several hours overnight, was not immediately known.

The strikes came as both Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy have signalled that they would be willing to negotiate a pact that would ban striking civilian infrastructure.

If bilateral talks occur, it would be the first time the two sides had held direct negotiations since the early days of the war, which Russia began with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

European and US officials will meet with a Ukrainian delegation on Wednesday in London for further peace talks, after their Paris meeting last week. At the meeting, Washington is expecting Ukraine’s answer to a peace framework that requires Kyiv to accept Russian occupation, Axios reported.

“The Russians attacked a bus with employees of the enterprise who were on their way to work in Marhanets,” Mykola Lukashuk, head of the Dnipropetrovsk region council, said on Telegram.

Serhiy Lysak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, which includes Marhanets, in central-southern Ukraine, said nine people were killed in the attack, with at least 30 injured.

Ukraine’s emergency service said that there was also an attack on the Synelnykivskyi district in the Dnipropetrovsk region that injured two people and sparked a fire at an agricultural enterprise.

Russia also launched “a massive” drone attack on the central Ukrainian region of Poltava, injuring at least six people, the emergency service said in a post on Telegram messaging app.

“Solely the city’s civilian infrastructure was under enemy attacks,” the emergency service said on Telegram.

Several fires broke out and residential buildings, enterprises, warehouses, and garages were damaged, the emergency service said, posting photos of firefighters battling flames at night.

Two people were injured in a drone attack on civilian infrastructure in the suburbs of the Black Sea port city of Odesa, which also sparked several fires, Oleh Kiper, governor of the southern Ukraine Odesa region, said on Telegram.

Large-scale fires also broke out as a result of a Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram.

Air defence units were also engaged in repelling attacks on the Kyiv region, but there were no reports of potential damages.

There was no immediate comment from Russia about the attacks.

The Russian defence ministry said that its air defence units destroyed 11 Ukrainian drones overnight over several Russian regions and over the Crimean Peninsula. Regional governors said there were no reports of immediate damages.

The Kremlin says it is open to direct talks with Ukraine but has declined to back Kyiv’s proposal to extend the Easter ceasefire.

Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday that there were no concrete plans for negotiations on halting strikes against civilian targets, but that the Russian president was willing to discuss this directly with Ukraine if Kyiv removed “certain obstacles”.

While rare, it is not unprecedented for Putin to suggest direct talks with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Speaking on Tuesday in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready to hold direct talks with Russia “in any format”. But he said this could only happen if Moscow first implemented a complete ceasefire – something, he said, it had failed to do over the Easter weekend.

On Friday, Putin announced a 30-hour pause in fighting. Zelenskyy said during this period the Russian army scaled back its military operation, with no long-range strikes and fewer assaults. But it did not observe a genuine ceasefire, and carried out numerous attacks with kamikaze drones, he said.

Russia has frequently claimed it was open to talks with Ukraine but that Kyiv made that legally impossible under a 2022 decree barring negotiations with Putin. The Russian leader has previously suggested Ukraine must hold elections and choose a new president before any such talks could take place.

There have been no official talks between the two sides since the early weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy reiterated Ukraine’s readiness for immediate discussions to end attacks on civilian infrastructure.

“Our proposal for a ceasefire on civilian objects also remains in force. We need Russia’s serious readiness to talk about it. There are and will be no obstacles on the Ukrainian side,” Zelenskyy said in a statement.

Putin and Zelenskyy have recently appeared more positive over the prospect of peace talks, probably in response to mounting pressure from the Trump administration, which has said it may abandon its mediation efforts unless progress is made.

Russia also reported a decrease in fighting during the Easter truce, and accused Ukraine of violating the temporary ceasefire.

Speaking on Russian television on Monday, Putin said Russia had a “positive attitude towards any peace initiatives”.

However, he has publicly given no indication he is prepared to back down from some of his extreme demands, including the demilitarisation of Ukraine and full Russian control over the four Ukrainian regions illegally annexed in 2022.

The Kremlin on Tuesday also warned that negotiators were unlikely to obtain a swift breakthrough in peace talks on the war.

Ukrainian officials are expected to meet western allies in London on Wednesday for US-led talks on ending the war. The meeting is expected to follow up on last week’s discussions in Paris, where the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, presented Washington’s proposed plan for a resolution to the conflict.

Media reports suggest the US is promoting a “peace deal” that heavily favours Russia. The proposal reportedly includes freezing the conflict along the current 1,000km frontline, recognising Crimea as part of Russia, and a Russian veto over Ukraine joining Nato.

Kyiv is expected to respond to the proposal during the talks in London.

The US is expected to relay Ukraine’s response to Putin, with Steve Witkoff – a close friend of Donald Trump and his informal envoy – set to visit Moscow later this week. Witkoff has previously held three in-depth meetings with Putin, and his relationship with the Kremlin has raised concerns in Ukraine that he may be amplifying Russian narratives.

Zelenskyy said he did not want to lose the US as a strategic ally and said it had a crucial role to play in the peace process. “We are America’s ally. Russia is a historic enemy of the US,” he said. “I believe the US is the real leader. We want them to exert pressure on Russia.”

Donald Trump said during a White House news conference that high tariffs on goods from China will “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero”.

Trump’s remarks were in response to earlier comments on Tuesday by treasury secretary Scott Bessent, who said that the high tariffs were unsustainable and that he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Trump placed import taxes of 145% on China, which has countered with 125% tariffs on US goods. Trump has placed tariffs on several dozen countries, causing the stock market to stumble and interest rates to increase on US debt as investors worry about slower economic growth and higher inflationary pressures.

Details of Bessent’s remarks were confirmed by two people familiar with the remarks who insisted on anonymity to discuss them.

“I do say China is going to be a slog in terms of the negotiations,” Bessent said, according to a transcript obtained by the Associated Press. “Neither side thinks the status quo is sustainable.”

The S&P 500 stock index rose 2.5% after Bloomberg News initially reported Bessent’s remarks.

Trump acknowledged the increase in the stock market in comments to reporters after the ceremonial swearing-in of Paul Atkins as the Securities and Exchange Commission chair on Tuesday.

However, Trump avoided confirming if he, too, thought the situation with China was unsustainable, as Bessent had said behind closed doors.

“We’re doing fine with China,” Trump said.

Despite his high tariffs, Trump said he would be “very nice” to China and not play hardball with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“We’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together,” Trump said.

The US president said that the final tariff rate with China would come down “substantially” from the current 145%.

“It won’t be that high, not going to be that high,” Trump said.

China’s government was yet to respond to the news, but has consistently criticised Trump’s tariffs. On China’s social media platform, Weibo, Trump’s remarks trended under various hashtags including “Trump admitted defeat”.

A Tuesday article in the English-language state mouthpiece, China Daily, described them as “emblematic of the MAGA agenda’s populist protectionism”, and destabilising global trade. After matching Trump’s successive tariff raises, the tit-for-tat ended when Beijing said its 125% against US imports had already crushed domestic market interest for US products.

Trump’s subsequent 90-day pause on his wide-ranging global tariffs did not include China.

The Trump administration has met for talks with counterparts from Japan, India, South Korea, the European Union, Canada and Mexico, among other nations.

Trump has shown no public indications that he plans to pullback his baseline 10% tariff, even as he has insisted he’s looking for other nations to cut their own import taxes and remove any non-tariff barriers that the administration says have hindered exports from the US.

China on Monday warned other countries against making trade deals with the United States that could negatively impact China.

“China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests,” China’s commerce ministry said in a statement.

However on Tuesday Korean media reports suggested Beijing is now putting its own pressure on third countries to enforce Chinese restrictions on US sales. The Korea Economic Daily reported that some Korean companies had received letters from the Chinese government, warning of “retributions” if they exported any products to US military contractors which contained Chinese critical minerals.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration has received 18 proposals from other countries for trade deals with the US, adding: “Everyone involved wants to see a trade deal happen.”

The uncertainty over tariffs in the financial markets has also been amplified by Trump calling on the Federal Reserve to cut its benchmark interest rate, with the president saying he could fire Fed chair Jerome Powell if he wanted to do so.

Trump later said he wanted Powell to “be early” in lowering rates and that he has no intention of firing the Fed chair, despite previously suggesting that he would.

Donald Trump said during a White House news conference that high tariffs on goods from China will “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero”.

Trump’s remarks were in response to earlier comments on Tuesday by treasury secretary Scott Bessent, who said that the high tariffs were unsustainable and that he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Trump placed import taxes of 145% on China, which has countered with 125% tariffs on US goods. Trump has placed tariffs on several dozen countries, causing the stock market to stumble and interest rates to increase on US debt as investors worry about slower economic growth and higher inflationary pressures.

Details of Bessent’s remarks were confirmed by two people familiar with the remarks who insisted on anonymity to discuss them.

“I do say China is going to be a slog in terms of the negotiations,” Bessent said, according to a transcript obtained by the Associated Press. “Neither side thinks the status quo is sustainable.”

The S&P 500 stock index rose 2.5% after Bloomberg News initially reported Bessent’s remarks.

Trump acknowledged the increase in the stock market in comments to reporters after the ceremonial swearing-in of Paul Atkins as the Securities and Exchange Commission chair on Tuesday.

However, Trump avoided confirming if he, too, thought the situation with China was unsustainable, as Bessent had said behind closed doors.

“We’re doing fine with China,” Trump said.

Despite his high tariffs, Trump said he would be “very nice” to China and not play hardball with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“We’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together,” Trump said.

The US president said that the final tariff rate with China would come down “substantially” from the current 145%.

“It won’t be that high, not going to be that high,” Trump said.

China’s government was yet to respond to the news, but has consistently criticised Trump’s tariffs. On China’s social media platform, Weibo, Trump’s remarks trended under various hashtags including “Trump admitted defeat”.

A Tuesday article in the English-language state mouthpiece, China Daily, described them as “emblematic of the MAGA agenda’s populist protectionism”, and destabilising global trade. After matching Trump’s successive tariff raises, the tit-for-tat ended when Beijing said its 125% against US imports had already crushed domestic market interest for US products.

Trump’s subsequent 90-day pause on his wide-ranging global tariffs did not include China.

The Trump administration has met for talks with counterparts from Japan, India, South Korea, the European Union, Canada and Mexico, among other nations.

Trump has shown no public indications that he plans to pullback his baseline 10% tariff, even as he has insisted he’s looking for other nations to cut their own import taxes and remove any non-tariff barriers that the administration says have hindered exports from the US.

China on Monday warned other countries against making trade deals with the United States that could negatively impact China.

“China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests,” China’s commerce ministry said in a statement.

However on Tuesday Korean media reports suggested Beijing is now putting its own pressure on third countries to enforce Chinese restrictions on US sales. The Korea Economic Daily reported that some Korean companies had received letters from the Chinese government, warning of “retributions” if they exported any products to US military contractors which contained Chinese critical minerals.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration has received 18 proposals from other countries for trade deals with the US, adding: “Everyone involved wants to see a trade deal happen.”

The uncertainty over tariffs in the financial markets has also been amplified by Trump calling on the Federal Reserve to cut its benchmark interest rate, with the president saying he could fire Fed chair Jerome Powell if he wanted to do so.

Trump later said he wanted Powell to “be early” in lowering rates and that he has no intention of firing the Fed chair, despite previously suggesting that he would.

Donald Trump has said tariffs on goods from China will be reduced “substantially” but “won’t be zero”, after US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Trump placed import taxes of 145% on China, which countered with 125% tariffs on US goods, causing volatility in the stock market and concern about slowing global economic growth.

But the US president on Tuesday said he would be “very nice” to China and not play hardball with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “We’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together,” Trump said.

Meanwhile, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said he would start pulling back from his role at the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from May, as the company reported a massive dip in profits amid backlash against his White House role.

Here are the key stories at a glance:

Catching up? Here’s what happened on 21 April 2025.

At least 26 tourists have been killed and ten injured after suspected militants opened fire at a popular local tourist destination in Kashmir during a scheduled four-day visit to the country by the US vice-president JD Vance.

Most of the victims were Indian, although two foreign nationals were also reportedly among the dead.

The attack occurred in the Baisaran Valley, a picturesque meadow in Pahalgam, a well-known tourist town located 30 miles south-east of Srinagar, the region’s main city, in what officials are describing as the deadliest attack on civilians in the region in recent years.

At about 3pm local time, a group of gunmen, who apparently approached tourists from the direction of the nearby mountains, emerged from a dense pine forest.

Graphic videos shared by locals on social media showed injured tourists lying in pools of blood, while their relatives screamed and pleaded for help. Due to the area’s lack of road access, helicopter services were deployed to evacuate the wounded.

Describing the scene, a local tour guide told the AFP news agency he reached the scene after hearing gunfire and transported some of the wounded away on horseback.

“I saw a few men lying on the ground looking like they were dead,” said Waheed, who gave only one name.

A female survivor told the PTI news agency: “My husband was shot in the head while seven others were also injured in the attack.”

Omar Abdullah, the region’s top elected official, wrote on social media: “This attack is much larger than anything we’ve seen directed at civilians in recent years.”

Government officials said the dead included tourists from the Indian states of Karnataka, Odisha and Gujarat and two foreign nationals. At least six others were wounded.

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, decried the “heinous act” cut short a visit to Saudi Arabia.

“Those behind this heinous act will be brought to justice … they will not be spared. Their evil agenda will never succeed. Our resolve to fight terrorism is unshakable and will only grow stronger,” said Modi, who met with Vance the day before.

Donald Trump expressed his “full support” to India in a call with Modi late on Tuesday, Delhi’s foreign ministry said.

The scene of the attack was cordoned off as police launched an operation to track down the attackers.

According to local police officials, two to three gunmen opened indiscriminate fire on tourists in the area, which is accessible only by foot or on horseback, before fleeing the scene.

A witness speaking to India Today said: “The shooting occurred right in front of us. At first we thought it was just firecrackers, but when we heard others screaming we rushed out of there to save ourselves.”

Another witness, who also did not reveal his name, said: “We didn’t stop running for 4km … I’m still trembling.”

Protests erupted in several areas of the Indian-administered Kashmir condemning the attack, with a rally led by rightwing vigilantes in the city of Jammu blaming Pakistan.

A militant group identifying itself as “Kashmir Resistance” has claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media message. The group cited anger over Indian settlement of over 85,000 “outsiders”, which it said was driving a “demographic change” in the region.

The mountain region is claimed in full but ruled in part by both India and Pakistan, and has been riven by militant violence since the start of an anti-Indian insurgency in 1989.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed, although violence has tapered off in recent years.

India revoked Kashmir’s special status as an autonomous state in 2019, splitting the state into two federally administered territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

This also allowed local authorities to issue domicile rights to outsiders, allowing them to get jobs and buy land in the territory.

Authorities have described the attack as targeted and intended to spread terror among the tourists visiting Kashmir.

Tuesday’s attack seems to be a major shift in the regional conflict where tourists for many years have largely been spared from violence despite a spate of targeted killings of Hindus, including immigrant workers from Indian states, after New Delhi ended the region’s semi-autonomy in 2019 and drastically curbed dissent, civil liberties and media freedoms.

The Baisaran area attracts tens of thousands of Indian tourists daily, especially during the summer months, when temperatures in mainland India soar.

Indian army and paramilitary forces have been deployed to the area to search for the attackers. In recent years, militants have increasingly targeted security forces in the region’s mountainous and forested areas.

Kashmir remains one of the most heavily militarised zones in the world and is claimed in full by both India and Pakistan, although each controls only a part. The two countries have fought multiple wars over the region.

Nearly half of birch wood certified by leading sustainability schemes is misidentified and does not come from the labelled country of origin, according to new testing. The analysis raises fears that large quantities of sanctioned wood from Russia and Belarus are still illegally entering Britain.

New research by World Forest ID, a consortium of research organisations that includes Kew Gardens and the World Resources Institute, scrutinised the accuracy of dozens of harvesting-origin claims on birch products, which had almost entirely been approved by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) sustainability schemes.

The samples of birch – a popular hardwood used in furniture, kitchens panels and musical instruments – were labelled as originating in Ukraine, Poland, Estonia and Latvia. But tests using the wood’s “chemical fingerprint” showed that 46% of certified samples did not come from the origin on the label.

The birch tree is commercially grown and processed across much of northern Europe, including large parts of Russia and Belarus. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it became illegal to import Russian and Belarusian plywood and timber products into Britain and other European countries due to sanctions.

While the tests did not specify the country where the wood was grown, experts said Russia and Belarus were the only plausible origins.

“Where else could it be from?” said David Hopkins, chief executive of Timber Development UK, the industry’s trade association, reacting to the analysis.

“There’s a small number of companies that produce this stuff legally,” he said. “The birch trees that are in Finland are being taken up by a small number of sawmills producing birch plywood.

“There’s pockets of it elsewhere in the Baltics and Scandinavia. But the bulk of it is going to be from Russia, putting money through the Russian economy and breaching sanctions while you are doing it,” Hopkins said.

Certification questions

The FSC and the PEFC are the world’s most commonly used timber certification schemes, intended to promote the sustainable management of woodland and prevent deforestation.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the FSC suspended its certification for timber from Russian and Belarus, and blocked all controlled wood from the two countries. PEFC decided to classify timber from both countries as “conflict timber”, meaning they could no longer use its certification.

But the new World Forest ID analysis – which was partly funded by the FSC – found that of 52 samples with a FSC or PEFC certification, 24 had an incorrect harvest claim. While tests were conducted on a relatively small number of samples, the report authors said their findings indicated that existing oversight was not sufficient to guarantee accurate claims.

To test the wood, researchers used stable isotope ratio analysis, comparing the chemical makeup of the birch samples with a reference database from across northern and eastern Europe. Scientists used markers caused by differences in light, soil and water conditions to estimate the geographic origin.

Jade Saunders, executive director of World Forest ID, said: “The UK has been a leader in sanctions and trade laws and certification schemes but they are only as good as the tools with which they are implemented.

“Chemical traceability is a whole new way of thinking about what is really in our supply chains. We know we can only solve problems if we can see them, and in this study we saw them very clearly, so it is time for the government and guardians of supply-chain integrity to step up and start solving.”

The FSC said it took any indication of potential fraud seriously and welcomed the World Forest ID research, adding that it was actively investing in new techniques to ensure reliability in supply chains. It said it had no access to the names of the companies that had provided samples confidentially.

The PEFC said the findings needed to be placed in context and that only 14% of the samples were associated with their certification. It said generalisations about the overall effectiveness of their sustainability schemes should not be made from the analysis.

The certification schemes are the primary way that companies source sustainable wood, avoiding contributing to the destruction of rainforests and other biodiverse environments. The report raises questions about whether current certification systems are reliable.

Leaky sanctions

After Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2022, recorded exports of Russian birch to European countries including the UK decreased dramatically. But in the months that followed, trade data shows that exports from other countries including Kazakhstan and Turkey rose significantly.

In the case of Kazakhstan, exports of plywood leapt from 600 tonnes in 2021, to 25,600 tonnes in 2022, according to UN trade statistics.

In January, the environmental organisation Earthsight published an investigation into birch-wood laundering, finding that a network of organisations had found a way to avoid European sanctions, with 20 container-loads of wood continuing to arrive every day. The Russian military and oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin profit directly from the sale of the timber, according to the report.

Sam Lawson, founding director of Earthsight and one of the report’s authors, said: “Timber is a big export for Russia; it was a big revenue earner prior to the conflict that is less well known than gas and oil.

“The EU and UK have banned all imports of Russian and Belarusian wood, including products made with them. Our investigation found that those sanctions are being flouted on a massive scale.

“We concluded that over €1.5bn [£1.3bn] worth of illegal sanctions – blood timber, basically – has entered Europe since the sanctions took effect in 2022. A lot of the birch plywood that people were using in their kitchens, and for trendy furniture and stuff, prior to the conflict was being imported from Russia or Belarus. That wood is still managing to get to Europe,” he said.

A UK government spokesperson said that timber entering the UK must be legal and sustainable.

“That’s why this Government is going further by strengthening certification schemes so any breaches of the law are cracked down on,” they said.

The world’s coral reefs have been pushed into “uncharted territory” by the worst global bleaching event on record that has now hit more than 80% of the planet’s reefs, scientists have warned.

Reefs in at least 82 countries and territories have been exposed to enough heat to turn corals white since the global event started in January 2023, the latest data from the US government’s Coral Reef Watch shows.

Coral reefs are known as the rainforests of the sea because of their high concentration of biodiversity that supports about a third of all marine species and a billion people.

But record high ocean temperatures have spread like an underwater wildfire over corals across the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, damaging and killing countless corals.

The 84% of reefs exposed to bleaching-level heat in this ongoing fourth event compares with 68% during the third event, which lasted from 2014 to 2017, 37% in 2010 and 21% in the first event in 1998.

Even reefs considered by scientists to be refuges from the ocean’s rising levels of heat have been bleached, Dr Derek Manzello, the director of Coral Reef Watch, said.

“The fact that so many reef areas have been impacted, including purported thermal refugia like Raja Ampat and the Gulf of Eilat, suggests that ocean warming has reached a level where there is no longer any safe harbour from coral bleaching and its ramifications,” he said.

Many areas have seen bleaching in back-to-back years, including the world’s biggest reef system, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, where last week authorities declared a sixth widespread bleaching event in just nine years.

Australia’s other World Heritage-listed reef along the Ningaloo coast in Western Australia has seen its highest levels of heat stress on record in recent months.

Scientists on the other side of the Indian Ocean have reported bleaching in recent weeks affecting reefs off Madagascar and the east African coast, including South Africa’s World Heritage iSimangaliso wetland park.

Dr Britta Schaffelke, of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and coordinator of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), said the event was unprecedented. “Reefs have not encountered this before.”

“With the ongoing bleaching it’s almost overwhelming the capacity of people to do the monitoring they need to do,” she said. “The fact that this most recent, global-scale coral bleaching event is still ongoing takes the world’s reefs into uncharted waters.

“[For] people who spend their entire working lives on monitoring and observing reefs and protecting reefs, and living alongside them and relying on them, seeing something like this must be devastating.

“Ecological grief is real. People who spend a lot of time under the water see it changing before their eyes,” she said.

The GCRMN is collating monitoring data for a status report due out next year, but Schaffelke said even that report would not give a full picture of the impact of the event.

Scientists in north and central America, including Florida, the Caribbean and Mexico, were among the first to raise the alarm after record ocean temperatures saw extreme bleaching in the northern hemisphere’s summer of 2023.

Corals can recover from bleaching if temperatures are not too extreme, but surveys done in the months after the event have begun to paint a picture of widespread coral death.

Across Florida, an average of one in five corals were lost. On the Pacific side of Mexico, one area lost between 50% and 93% of its corals. Almost a quarter of corals were killed by heat last year in the remote Chagos Islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Scientists described a “graveyard of dead corals” in the northern section of the Great Barrier Reef after bleaching in early 2024 that caused 40% of corals to die in one area in the south.

After the extreme heat of 2023, Coral Reef Watch was forced to add three new threat levels to its global bleaching alert system to represent the unprecedented heat stress corals had faced.

Melanie McField, the founder of the Healthy Reefs for Healthy People initiative in the Caribbean, said reefs had fallen quiet across the world.

“Bleaching is always eerie – as if a silent snowfall has descended on the reef … there is usually an absence of fluttering fish and an absence of the vibrant colours on the reef,” she said. “It’s an ashen pallor and stillness in what should be a rowdy vibrant reefscape.”

Dr Lorenzo Álvarez-Filip, a coral scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, has been surveying reefs across the Mexican Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico after the bleaching in 2023 and again in 2024.

He said the most devastating impact was the loss of reef-building corals, such as elkhorns, that help protect coastlines and support a multitude of other marine life.

“Many of the coral colonies I knew well, and which had survived [a major disease] outbreak just a few years earlier, died in a matter of weeks.

“The feeling of impotence combined with the need to at least document what was happening made me very anxious – this was particularly hard when we were about to dive in sites where we knew there were big aggregations of susceptible corals. In almost all cases, we ended up with a very depressing feeling when we confirmed that all or nearly all the coral had died.”

Dr Valeria Pizarro, a senior coral scientist at the Perry Institute for Marine Science that works on reefs in the Bahamas and Caribbean, witnessed extreme bleaching in the Bahamas in July 2023.

She said “in a blink of my eyes” shallow reefs became white landscapes, with widespread death among staghorn corals used in restoration projects. Spectacular sea fans and soft corals died quickly.

“It was like they were melting with the heat,” she said.

“World leaders need to really commit to reduce fossil fuels and increase investments in clean energies and make it a reality. We need them to stop having it on paper and on the news, we need it to be real.”

The world’s coral reefs have been pushed into “uncharted territory” by the worst global bleaching event on record that has now hit more than 80% of the planet’s reefs, scientists have warned.

Reefs in at least 82 countries and territories have been exposed to enough heat to turn corals white since the global event started in January 2023, the latest data from the US government’s Coral Reef Watch shows.

Coral reefs are known as the rainforests of the sea because of their high concentration of biodiversity that supports about a third of all marine species and a billion people.

But record high ocean temperatures have spread like an underwater wildfire over corals across the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, damaging and killing countless corals.

The 84% of reefs exposed to bleaching-level heat in this ongoing fourth event compares with 68% during the third event, which lasted from 2014 to 2017, 37% in 2010 and 21% in the first event in 1998.

Even reefs considered by scientists to be refuges from the ocean’s rising levels of heat have been bleached, Dr Derek Manzello, the director of Coral Reef Watch, said.

“The fact that so many reef areas have been impacted, including purported thermal refugia like Raja Ampat and the Gulf of Eilat, suggests that ocean warming has reached a level where there is no longer any safe harbour from coral bleaching and its ramifications,” he said.

Many areas have seen bleaching in back-to-back years, including the world’s biggest reef system, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, where last week authorities declared a sixth widespread bleaching event in just nine years.

Australia’s other World Heritage-listed reef along the Ningaloo coast in Western Australia has seen its highest levels of heat stress on record in recent months.

Scientists on the other side of the Indian Ocean have reported bleaching in recent weeks affecting reefs off Madagascar and the east African coast, including South Africa’s World Heritage iSimangaliso wetland park.

Dr Britta Schaffelke, of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and coordinator of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), said the event was unprecedented. “Reefs have not encountered this before.”

“With the ongoing bleaching it’s almost overwhelming the capacity of people to do the monitoring they need to do,” she said. “The fact that this most recent, global-scale coral bleaching event is still ongoing takes the world’s reefs into uncharted waters.

“[For] people who spend their entire working lives on monitoring and observing reefs and protecting reefs, and living alongside them and relying on them, seeing something like this must be devastating.

“Ecological grief is real. People who spend a lot of time under the water see it changing before their eyes,” she said.

The GCRMN is collating monitoring data for a status report due out next year, but Schaffelke said even that report would not give a full picture of the impact of the event.

Scientists in north and central America, including Florida, the Caribbean and Mexico, were among the first to raise the alarm after record ocean temperatures saw extreme bleaching in the northern hemisphere’s summer of 2023.

Corals can recover from bleaching if temperatures are not too extreme, but surveys done in the months after the event have begun to paint a picture of widespread coral death.

Across Florida, an average of one in five corals were lost. On the Pacific side of Mexico, one area lost between 50% and 93% of its corals. Almost a quarter of corals were killed by heat last year in the remote Chagos Islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Scientists described a “graveyard of dead corals” in the northern section of the Great Barrier Reef after bleaching in early 2024 that caused 40% of corals to die in one area in the south.

After the extreme heat of 2023, Coral Reef Watch was forced to add three new threat levels to its global bleaching alert system to represent the unprecedented heat stress corals had faced.

Melanie McField, the founder of the Healthy Reefs for Healthy People initiative in the Caribbean, said reefs had fallen quiet across the world.

“Bleaching is always eerie – as if a silent snowfall has descended on the reef … there is usually an absence of fluttering fish and an absence of the vibrant colours on the reef,” she said. “It’s an ashen pallor and stillness in what should be a rowdy vibrant reefscape.”

Dr Lorenzo Álvarez-Filip, a coral scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, has been surveying reefs across the Mexican Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico after the bleaching in 2023 and again in 2024.

He said the most devastating impact was the loss of reef-building corals, such as elkhorns, that help protect coastlines and support a multitude of other marine life.

“Many of the coral colonies I knew well, and which had survived [a major disease] outbreak just a few years earlier, died in a matter of weeks.

“The feeling of impotence combined with the need to at least document what was happening made me very anxious – this was particularly hard when we were about to dive in sites where we knew there were big aggregations of susceptible corals. In almost all cases, we ended up with a very depressing feeling when we confirmed that all or nearly all the coral had died.”

Dr Valeria Pizarro, a senior coral scientist at the Perry Institute for Marine Science that works on reefs in the Bahamas and Caribbean, witnessed extreme bleaching in the Bahamas in July 2023.

She said “in a blink of my eyes” shallow reefs became white landscapes, with widespread death among staghorn corals used in restoration projects. Spectacular sea fans and soft corals died quickly.

“It was like they were melting with the heat,” she said.

“World leaders need to really commit to reduce fossil fuels and increase investments in clean energies and make it a reality. We need them to stop having it on paper and on the news, we need it to be real.”

Congressional lawmakers denounced the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, the students being detained by US immigration authorities for their pro-Palestinian activism, as a “national disgrace” during a visit to the two facilities in Louisiana where each are being held.

“We stand firm with them in support of free speech,” the Louisiana congressman Troy Carter, who led the delegation, said during a press conference after the visits on Tuesday. “They are frightened, they’re concerned, they want to go home.”

Öztürk, a Tufts University PhD student, and Khalil, a graduate of Columbia, have been detained for more than a month since US immigration authorities took them into custody. Neither have been accused of criminal conduct and are being held in violation of their constitutional rights, members of the delegation said.

The delegation included representatives Carter, Bennie Thompson, Ayanna Pressley, Jim McGovern, Senator Ed Markey, and Alanah Odoms, the executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana. They visited the South Louisiana Ice processing center in Basile, where Öztürk is being held, and traveled to the Central Louisiana Ice processing center in Jena to see Khalil.

They met with Öztürk and Khalil and others in Ice custody to conduct “real-time oversight” of a “rogue and lawless” administration, Pressley said.

Their detention comes as the Trump administration has staged an extraordinary crackdown on immigrants, illegally removing people from the country and seeking to detain and deport people for constitutionally protected free speech that it considers adverse to US foreign policy.

“It’s a national disgrace what is taking place,” Markey said. “We stand right now at a turning point in American history. The constitution is being eroded by the Trump administration. We saw today here in these detention centers in Louisiana examples of how far [it] is willing to go.”

McGovern described those being held as political prisoners. He said: “This is not about enforcing the law. This is moving us toward an authoritarian state.”

Late last month, officials detained Öztürk, who co-wrote a piece in a Tufts student newspaper that was critical of the university’s response to Israel’s attacks Palestinians. The 30-year old has said she has been held in “unsanitary, unsafe, and inhumane” conditions in a Louisiana facility and has had difficulty receiving medical treatment.

Öztürk was disappeared when she was detained, Pressley said, adding that she was denied food, water and the opportunity to seek legal council. Khalil missed the birth of his first child, she said. She described Donald Trump as a dictator with a draconian vision for the US.

“They are setting the foundational floor to violate the due process and free speech of every person who calls this country home, whatever your status is,” she said. “It could be you tomorrow for suffering a miscarriage. It could be you tomorrow for reading a banned book.”

Those in custody are shaken and were visibly upset and afraid, the delegation said. They have said they are not receiving necessary healthcare and that the facilities are kept extremely cold.

“We have to resist, we have to push back. We’re a much better country than this,” McGovern said.

Earlier this month a judge ruled that Khalil, who helped lead demonstrations at Columbia last year and has been imprisoned for more than a month, is eligible to be deported from the US.

The Trump administration has argued that Khalil, a lawful permanent resident of the US and child of Palestinian refugees, holds beliefs that are counter to the country’s foreign policy interests.

On Monday, Senator Peter Welch of Vermont met with Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green-card holder and Columbia student who was detained while at a naturalization interview.

Images of child sexual abuse created by artificial intelligence are becoming “significantly more realistic”, according to an online safety watchdog.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said advances in AI are being reflected in illegal content created and consumed by paedophiles, saying: “In 2024, the quality of AI-generated videos improved exponentially, and all types of AI imagery assessed appeared significantly more realistic as the technology developed.”

The IWF revealed in its annual report that it received 245 reports of AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery that broke UK law in 2024 – an increase of 380% on the 51 seen in 2023. The reports equated to 7,644 images and a small number of videos, reflecting the fact that one URL can contain multiple examples of illegal material.

The largest proportion of those images was “category A” material, the term for the most extreme type of child sexual abuse content that includes penetrative sexual activity or sadism. This accounted for 39% of the actionable AI material seen by the IWF.

The government announced in February it will become illegal to possess, create or distribute AI tools designed to generate child sexual abuse material, closing a legal loophole that had alarmed police and online safety campaigners. It will also become illegal for anyone to possess manuals that teach people how to use AI tools to either make abusive imagery or to help them abuse children.

The IWF, which operates a hotline in the UK but has a global remit, said the AI-generated imagery is increasingly appearing on the open internet and not just on the “dark web” – an area of the internet accessed by specialised browsers. It said the most convincing AI-generated material can be indistinguishable from real images and videos, even for trained IWF analysts.

The watchdog’s annual report also announced record levels of webpages hosting child sexual abuse imagery in 2024. The IWF said there were 291,273 reports of child sexual abuse imagery last year, an increase of 6% on 2023. The majority of victims in the reports were girls.

The IWF also announced it was making a new safety tool available to smaller websites for free, to help them spot and prevent the spread of abuse material on their platforms.

The tool, called Image Intercept, can detect and block images that appear in an IWF database containing 2.8m images that have been digitally marked as criminal imagery. The watchdog said it would help smaller platforms comply with the newly introduced Online Safety Act, which contains provisions on protecting children and tackling illegal content such as child sexual abuse material.

Derek Ray-Hill, the interim chief executive of the IWF, said making the tool freely available was a “major moment in online safety”.

The technology secretary, Peter Kyle, said the rise in AI-generated abuse and sextortion – where children are blackmailed over the sending of intimate images – underlined how “threats to young people online are constantly evolving”. He said the new image intercept tool was a “powerful example of how innovation can be part of the solution in making online spaces safer for children”.

It has long been assumed that William Shakespeare’s marriage to Anne Hathaway was less than happy. He moved to London to pursue his theatrical career, leaving her in Stratford-upon-Avon and stipulating in his will that she would receive his “second best bed”, although still a valued item.

Now a leading Shakespeare expert has analysed a fragment of a 17th-century letter that appears to cast dramatic new light on their relationship, overturning the idea that the couple never lived together in London.

Matthew Steggle, a professor of early modern English literature at the University of Bristol, said the text seemed to put the Shakespeares at a previously unknown address in Trinity Lane – now Little Trinity Lane in the City. It also has them jointly involved with money that Shakespeare was holding in trust for an orphan named John Butts.

Addressed to “Good Mrs Shakspaire”, the letter mentions the death of a Mr Butts and a son, John, who is left “fatherles”, as well as a Mrs Butts, who had asked “Mr Shakspaire” to look after money for his children until they came of age. It suggests the playwright had resisted attempts to pay money that the young Butts was owed.

Steggle said: “The letter writer thinks that ‘Mrs Shakspaire’ has independent access to money. They hope that Mrs Shakspaire might ‘paye your husbands debte’.

“They do not ask Mrs Shakspaire to intercede with her husband, but actually to do the paying herself, like Adriana in The Comedy of Errors, who undertakes to pay a debt on her husband’s behalf, even though she was previously unaware of it: ‘Knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it.’”

Steggle added: “For about the last 200 years, the prevailing view has been that Anne Shakespeare stayed in Stratford all her life and perhaps never even went to London.”

This document, which refers to the couple who “dwelt in trinitie lane”, suggests that she did spend significant time with her husband in the capital.

The fragment was preserved by accident in the binding of a book in Hereford Cathedral’s library. Although it was discovered in 1978, it has remained largely unknown because “no one could identify the names or places involved”, Steggle said.

Crucial evidence includes the 1608 book in which the fragment was preserved, Johannes Piscator’s analyses of biblical texts. It was published by Richard Field, a native of Stratford, who was Shakespeare’s neighbour and his first printer.

Steggle said that it would be a “strange coincidence” for a piece of paper naming a Shakspaire to be bound, early in its history, next to 400 leaves of paper printed by Field, “given Field’s extensive known links to the Shakespeares”.

John Butts seems to have been serving an apprenticeship because the letter mentions “when he hath served his time”. Scouring records from the period 1580 to 1650, Steggle found a John Butts, who was an apprentice, fatherless and in the care of his mother.

He also unearthed a 1607 reference to a John Butts in the records of Bridewell, an institution whose tasks included the disciplining of unruly apprentices. A document told of “his disobedience to his Mother” and that he was “sett to worke”.

Steggle found John Butts in later records, placing him in Norton Folgate, outside the city walls, and living on Holywell Street (Shoreditch High Street today), home to several of Shakespeare’s fellow actors and associates.

It was an area in which Shakespeare worked in the 1590s, first at the Theatre in Shoreditch, the principal base for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men throughout those years, and then at its near neighbour, the Curtain theatre. Shakespeare’s lifelong business partners, the Burbages, were involved in innkeeping and victualling nearby.

Steggle said: “The adult John Butts, living on the same street as them, working in the hospitality industry in which they were invested … would very much be on the Burbages’ radar. So Shakespeare can be linked to Butts through various Norton Folgate contacts.”

If the writing on the back of the letter – in another hand – was written by Anne, the words would be “the nearest thing to her voice ever known”, he noted.

The research is being published in Shakespeare, the journal of the British Shakespeare Association, on 23 April, the anniversary of his birth.

Steggle writes: “For Shakespeare biographers who favour the narrative of the ‘disastrous marriage’ – in fact, for all Shakespeare biographers – the Hereford document should be a horrible, difficult problem.”