Days after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake shook Myanmar at the end of March, killing at least 3,700 people, the country’s ruling junta agreed to a halt in its devastating military campaign.

It then violated that ceasefire, again and again.

I went inside rebel-held territory in the eastern Karenni state for 10 days from mid-April. I witnessed daily violations by the junta, including rocket and mortar attacks which killed and injured civilians and resistance fighters.

One of those was Khala, a 45-year-old father killed in a strike by military warplanes, in a place his wife Mala said should have been safe.

When the ceasefire was announced, on 2 April, Mala and Khala sensed an opportunity to return to their home for the first time in years.

With their four-year-old child, they headed from the camp where they’d taken refuge to their village, Pekin Coco. They found it abandoned, with buildings shattered from drawn-out fighting. Almost everyone there had moved to farmland further away from the junta’s weapons.

But as the young family was about to leave Pekin Coco again, their car loaded with their possessions, the shelling started.

“We were all at the front of the house. Then, shells landed near us. We hid at the back of the house. But he [Khala] stayed where he was,” said Mala. “The artillery shell landed and exploded near him. He died in the place where he thought he was safe.

“He was a good man,” she said and began to cry.

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Later that afternoon, the junta’s warplanes attacked a house on the same street, killing four more men.

“I hate them,” Mala said. “They always attack people without reason. I don’t feel safe here. Jet fighters are flying over the sky often but there is no place to hide.”

Mala is 31 and seven months pregnant. When we spoke she was back in a displaced people’s camp, grieving. Her son Zoe, missing his father, wouldn’t leave her side.

Before the earthquake, Myanmar was in the midst of a nationwide civil war.

After decades of military rule and brutal repression, ethnic groups, along with a new army of young insurgents, brought the dictatorship to crisis point. As much as two-thirds of the country has fallen to the resistance.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed, including many children, since the military seized power in a coup in 2021. The UN says the earthquake has pushed a further two million people into need, some 2.5 million were already displaced before the quake.

Karenni, or Kayah, state is far from the earthquake’s epicentre. Its remoteness is both a blessing and a curse. Its thick jungle provides cover for those who oppose military rule, but it is difficult to get around, the roads are poor and main highways remain in range of the army’s guns. Most of the state is now controlled by rebel and armed ethnic groups.

On 28 March when the quake hit, there were no reported deaths in Karenni – but the hospitals still filled quickly with people suffering spinal and crush injuries.

A 30m (100ft) sinkhole had appeared in the forests around the town of Demoso. Locals who heard the ground open up thought it was another air strike. For many weeks, the sinkhole continued to expand with the aftershocks.

The UN noted that the Myanmar military continued operations after the earthquake and beyond the ceasefire, and called for them to end. The State Administration Council, the ruling junta, has not commented on the alleged violations but has claimed that it was attacked by resistance groups. During the ceasefire all sides in the conflict have reserved the right to respond if attacked.

During my 10 days in Mobeye, Karenni, I witnessed daily attacks by the junta.

I met Stefano there, a 23-year-old fighting the military dictatorship with the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF).

He leads a platoon of young fighters who have set up trenches around the base.

From a dugout just 100m (330ft) from the junta’s positions, he explained the army had continued attacks “using all means” during the ceasefire – soldiers on the ground, drones and jets.

“They usually attack with drones and heavy artillery on this side. When it rains, they advance by taking advantage of the weather.”

He called the ceasefire a “joke”.

“We did not believe the military council from the beginning. We don’t believe it now, and we won’t believe it in the future.”

The day after we spoke, the military launched a full-scale assault with heavy weapons and men, attacking rebel lines. As we made our way to the front lines, small-arms fire could be heard nearby, along with mortar strikes. The ground was pitted with fresh hits from armed drones.

Nearby lay the corpse of a junta fighter who had tried to breach the rebel positions. The resistance forces say they have suspended all offensive activities during the ceasefire, but they have said they will respond if attacked. Yi Shui, the commander of another resistance group, the Karenni National Army, showed me pictures on his phone. “When we saw them, we shot them. One of them got hit” and another ran away, he said.

And again, the military wasn’t just targeting the resistance forces. Its rockets hit farmland beyond, killing a 60-year-old woman. We arrived at fields where four rockets had landed, children were playing with the bent metal and shrapnel from the strikes.

The injured were taken to local hospitals, which are hidden deep in the jungle to avoid air strikes from junta warplanes.

In one, a young fighter was being treated in a wooden ward with a dirt floor. He had a shrapnel wound to his shoulder and was losing a lot of blood.

The doctor in charge, 32-year-old Thi Ha Tun, said he’d treated around a dozen patients for war-related injuries since the ceasefire was declared. Two of the patients, resistance fighters, died.

He dismissed what he called the junta’s lies. “They only care about their own interests,” he said. “They will only care about their own organisation. They will not care about the rest of this country, their own generation, the youth, the children, the elderly, anything.”

The only solution is to keep fighting, he said.

High on a hilltop in the rebel-controlled areas is the church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The earthquake brought down the church steeple and part of the roof. The bell from Rome now sits in a temporary cradle. Repairs have been made, but the church will probably need to be rebuilt.

They are still feeling the aftershocks here weeks later.

But for Father Philip, the local priest, the greatest threat to his congregation, many of whom are the war displaced, comes from above, not below.

“No place is safe. When we have jet fighters flying in the sky… you never know what will come falling from the sky.”

Back at the Mobeye front, Stefano and his men pass the hours between attacks, cleaning their weapons and singing songs. “I can hear the people’s prayers, cries, and cries. We will overthrow the dictatorship,” they sing in unison. They say the only ceasefire they will trust will come with the junta’s defeat.

The truce will finish at the end of the month, but for most of the people here, it’s as if it never existed at all.

US President Donald Trump has said he thinks his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky is willing to give up Crimea to Russia as part of a peace deal – despite Kyiv’s previous rejections of any such proposal.

Asked if he thought the Ukrainian president was ready to cede control of its southern peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, Trump replied: “I think so.”

Trump also urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to “stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal” to end the fighting, suggesting this could be achieved within two weeks.

He made the comments to reporters after returning from the Vatican, where he held a brief meeting with Zelensky before Pope Francis’ funeral.

Trump said that meeting had “gone well” and that Crimea had been discussed “very briefly”.

He also said that Zelensky now seemed “calmer”, in what could have been a reference to a very public clash between the two presidents at the White House in February.

Ukraine has repeatedly rejected making any territorial concessions, stressing that issues about land should only be discussed once a ceasefire is agreed.

Neither Zelensky nor Russian President Vladimir Putin have publicly responded to Trump’s latest comments.

Earlier on Sunday, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius warned Ukraine not to agree to a deal which involves sweeping territorial concessions in return for a ceasefire.

He told German public broadcaster ARD that Kyiv “should not go as far as the latest proposal by the American president”, which he said would amount to a “capitulation”.

The German minister said that Ukraine knew it might have to part with some territory to secure a truce.

“But they will certainly not go as far – or should not go as far – as the latest proposal by the American president.

“Ukraine could have got a year ago what was included in that proposal, it is akin to a capitulation. I cannot discern any added value,” Pistorius said.

Trump said last week that “most of the major points [of the deal] are agreed to”. Reports suggest that Ukraine could be asked to give up large portions of land seized by Russia, including Crimea.

The BBC has not seen the exact details of the latest US plan.

On Friday, Reuters news agency reported that it had seen proposals from the US that included American legal acceptance of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian control of other occupied areas, including all of Luhansk in the east of the country.

Reuters says it has also seen counter-proposals from Europe and Ukraine, which reportedly say the sides will only discuss what happens to occupied Ukrainian territory once a ceasefire has come into effect.

The US plan also rules out Ukraine’s membership in the Nato military alliance and sees a UK-France led “coalition of the willing” providing a security guarantee once a ceasefire is in force without the involvement of the US.

Meanwhile the Europeans want the US to give “robust” guarantees in the form of a cast-iron Nato-style commitment to come to Ukraine’s aid if it is attacked.

The US reportedly further proposes to take control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – currently occupied by Russia – which would then provide electricity to both Russia and Ukraine. The counter-plan makes no mention of giving Russia power.

In an interview with Time magazine this week, Trump once again blamed Kyiv for starting the war, citing its ambitions of joining Nato.

The US president also told Time: “Crimea will stay with Russia.”

On Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Russia and Ukraine to move forward to secure a peace deal.

“It needs to happen soon,” Rubio told NBC. “We cannot continue to dedicate time and resources to this effort if it’s not going to come to fruition.”

The US has recently warned it would walk away from negotiations if progress was not made.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls almost 20% of Ukrainian territory.

The members of Kenya’s security forces who shot dead anti-tax protesters at the country’s parliament last June have been identified by the BBC.

The BBC’s analysis of more than 5,000 images also shows that those killed there were unarmed and not posing a threat.

The East African nation’s constitution guarantees the right to peaceful protest, and the deaths caused a public outcry.

Despite a parliamentary committee ordering Kenya’s Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) to investigate the deaths on the streets of the capital, Nairobi – and make public its findings – no report regarding the killings at parliament has yet been issued and no-one has been held to account.

The BBC World Service team analysed videos and photos taken by protesters and journalists on the day. We determined when each was taken using camera metadata, livestream timings and public clocks visible in the shots.

We plotted three of the killings on a 3D reconstruction of Kenya’s parliament, allowing us to trace the fatal shots back to the rifles of a police officer and a soldier.

What follows is BBC Africa Eye’s detailed timeline of events as Kenya’s MPs entered parliament for the final vote on the government’s controversial finance bill, while protesters amassed on the streets outside on Tuesday 25 June 2024.

Young people, labelled Gen Z protesters who had mobilised themselves on social media, began streaming into central Nairobi early in the morning – in what would be the capital’s third large-scale protest since the finance bill was introduced on 9 May.

“It was a beautiful party,” says prominent human rights activist Boniface Mwangi, who was there.

“Kids came out with Bluetooth speakers and their water. It was a carnival.”

Protests earlier in the week had already led lawmakers to axe tax increases on bread, cooking oil, mobile money and motor vehicles, as well as an eco levy that would have raised the cost of goods like nappies and sanitary towels.

But other measures to raise the $2.7bn (£2bn) the government said it needed to cut its reliance on external borrowing, such as higher import taxes and another on specialised hospitals, remained.

“For the first time it was the Kenyan people – the working class and the middle class and the lower class – against the ruling class,” says Mwangi.

The protesters had one target – parliament, where the final vote was taking place.

By 09:30 local time, the last of the MPs filed into the lower house.

Outside, thousands pushed towards Parliament Road from the east, north and west of the city.

“For me, it was just a normal day,” says 26-year-old student journalist Ademba Allans.

People were livestreaming on their TikTok and Instagram accounts, while events were broadcast live on national TV, he adds.

At first, protesters were held back at roadblocks by tear gas and truncheons, then police started using water cannons and rubber bullets.

By 13:00, more than 100,000 people were on the streets.

“The numbers start getting bigger and people actually start getting arrested,” says Allans. “The police are everywhere. They’re trying to push people back. People are even climbing on top of those water cannons.”

Despite the growing chaos outside, MPs remained in the chamber and the voting began.

By 14:00, protesters had pushed police all the way back to the north-eastern corner of parliament.

Inside at 14:14, the Finance Bill 2024 was voted in: 195 in favour, 106 against. Opposition MPs stormed out and word instantly reached the masses outside.

“This is when everybody is saying: ‘Whatever happens, we are going to enter the parliament and show the MPs that we believe in what we’re fighting for,'” says Allans.

At 14:20, protesters finally broke through the police blockade and reached the road running alongside parliament.

An abandoned police truck stationed outside the gates was set on fire. Fences were torn down and protesters set foot on parliamentary grounds. The incursion was short-lived. Parliamentary security forces quickly cleared them out.

At the same time, police officers went back up Parliament Road in force to drive the protesters back.

While this was happening, journalists were filming, producing minute-by-minute footage from many angles.

One of those videos captured a plain-clothes police officer shouting “uaa!”, the Swahili word for “kill”. Seconds later, a police officer knelt, gunshots were heard and protesters in the crowd collapsed – seven in total.

David Chege, a 39-year-old software engineer and Sunday-school teacher, and Ericsson Mutisya, a 25-year-old butcher, were shot dead. Five other men were wounded, one of whom was left paralysed from the waist down.

Footage shows Allans, the student journalist, holding up a Kenyan flag as he tried to reach Chege and another casualty bleeding out after the gunfire.

But who fired those shots?

In the video of the officer shouting, “uaa!”, the shooter’s back was to the camera. But the BBC compared his body armour, riot shield and headgear with that of every police officer at the scene.

In his case, he had an upturned neck guard. We matched his distinctive uniform to an officer in a video recorded seconds later. There, he made sure to hide his face before firing into the crowd. We do not know his name.

Even after the fatal shots, the plain-clothes officer could still be heard urging his colleagues forward to “kill”. He was not so cautious about concealing his identity: his name is John Kaboi.

Multiple sources have told the BBC he is based at the Central Nairobi Police Station.

The BBC put its allegations to Kenya’s police service, which said the force could not investigate itself, adding that the IPOA was responsible for investigating alleged misconduct.

Kaboi has been approached for comment and not replied.

No-one has been held accountable for the deaths of Chege or Mutisya. The BBC found that neither of them was armed.

But these would not be the only lives lost. Rather than spook the demonstrators, the killings galvanised them and they tried for parliament again.

At 14:57 they made it in.

Footage shows them breaking down the fences and walking across the parliament’s grounds. Many had their hands up. Others were holding placards or the Kenyan flag.

Warning shots were fired. The demonstrators ducked down, then continued towards the building, filming on their phones as they went.

Once inside, momentum turned to mayhem. Doors were kicked in, part of the complex was set alight and the last of the MPs fled the building.

The destruction was severe but, after five minutes, footage showed them leaving the same way they had come in.

At 15:04, shots rang out again and protesters tumbled across the flattened fence. As the smoke cleared, camera footage showed three bodies lying on the ground. Two were wounded – one raised his hand but could not get up.

The third, 27-year-old finance student Eric Shieni, was dead – shot in the head from behind as he was leaving the grounds. The BBC again found, as in the cases of Chege and Mutisya, that he had been unarmed.

BBC Africa Eye analysed more than 150 images taken during the minutes before and after Shieni was shot. We are able to identify the soldier who fired at the back of his head from 25m (82ft) away – again, we do not know his name.

“The video is very clear,” says Faith Odhiambo, president of the Law Society of Kenya.

“The aim was to kill those protesters. They could have had him arrested. But the fact that you shoot his head – it was clearly an intention to kill.

“You have become the judge, the jury and the sentence executioner for Eric.”

The Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF) told the BBC the IPOA had not forwarded any request to look into any of its personnel involved in the operations at parliament.

It added: “The KDF remains fully committed to upholding the rule of law and continues to operate strictly within its constitutional mandate.”

After the shooting Allans is seen again, leading the evacuation. Footage shows him carrying a man with blood gushing from his leg.

“I feared for my life, that my parents would never see me again,” he says.

“But I also feared to let other people die when I could help.”

As the sun set on 25 June, the country was reeling. After a week of protests, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights declared that 39 people had died and 361 had been injured around the country.

That evening President William Ruto thanked his security officers for their “defence of the nation’s sovereignty” against “organised criminals” who had “hijacked” the protests.

The following day, the finance bill was dropped.

“Listening keenly to the people of Kenya, who have said loudly that they want nothing to do with this Finance Bill 2024, I concede,” the president said in a national televised address, adding he would not sign it into law.

But to this day no security officer has been held to account for the deaths and no official investigation has been published.

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North Korea has for the first time confirmed that it sent troops to fight for Russia against Ukraine.

In a report on state news agency KCNA, Pyongyang’s military claimed its soldiers helped Russian forces “completely liberate” the Kursk border region, according to an order given by leader Kim Jong Un.

It comes just days after Russian Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov praised the “heroism” of North Korean troops during a Russian counter-offensive, the first time Moscow has publicly acknowledged their involvement.

He also claims Moscow regained full control of the country’s western Kursk region – a claim denied by Ukraine.

South Korean and Western intelligence have long reported that Pyongyang dispatched thousands of troops to Kursk last year.

The decision to deploy troops was in accordance with a mutual defense treaty between Pyongyang and Moscow, said KCNA.

“They who fought for justice are all heroes and representatives of the honour of the motherland,” Kim said according to KCNA.

North Korea and Russia demonstrated their “alliance and brotherhood” in Kursk, adding that a “friendship proven by blood” will greatly contribute to expanding the relationship “in every way”.

The KCNA did not say what would happen to the North Korean troops after their mission in Kursk has ended.

Reports that North Korean soldiers had been deployed emerged in October, following the deepening of bilateral ties between Kim and Putin. This included the signing of an accord where both Rusisan leader Vladimir Putin and Kim agreed to support each other if either country was dealing with “aggression”.

In January, Western officials told the BBC they believed at least 1,000 of the 11,000 troops sent from North Korea had been killed over three months.

The North Korean troops, reportedly from an “elite” unit called the Storm Corps, are said to be unprepared for the realities of modern warfare.

“These are barely trained troops led by Russian officers who they don’t understand,” former British Army tank commander, Col Hamish de Bretton-Gordon had said earlier this year.

Despite this, Ukraine’s top military commander Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi had earlier also warned that North Korean soldiers were posing a significant problem for Ukrainian fighters on the front line.

“They are numerous. An additional 11,000-12,000 highly motivated and well-prepared soldiers who are conducting offensive actions. They operate based on Soviet tactics. They rely on their numbers,” the general told Ukraine’s TSN Tyzhden news programme.

The Chinese coastguard has seized a tiny sandbank in the South China Sea, state media has reported, in an escalation of a regional dispute with the Philippines.

State broadcaster CCTV released images of four officers, wearing all black and holding the Chinese flag, standing on the disputed reef of Sandy Cay in the Spratly Islands.

CCTV said China had “implemented maritime control and exercised sovereign jurisdiction” on the reef earlier in April.

Both China and the Philippines have staked claims on various islands. The Philippines said later on Sunday that it had landed on three sandbanks, releasing an image of officers holding up their national flag in a pose that mimicked the Chinese photo.

It is unclear whether one of the sandbanks the Philippines security forces landed on was also Sandy Cay.

In a statement, the National Task Force West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS) said it witnessed “the illegal presence” of a Chinese Coastguard vessel 1,000 yards (914 metres) from one of the sandbanks, as well as seven Chinese militia vessels.

“This operation reflects the unwavering dedication and commitment of the Philippine Government to uphold the country’s sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea,” the statement said.

The dispute between the two nations has been escalating, with frequent confrontations including vessels colliding and scuffles.

Sandy Cay is near a Philippine military outpost on Thitu Island, also known as Pag-asa, which Manila reportedly uses to track Chinese movements in the area.

There is no sign that China is permanently occupying the 200 sq metre island and the coastguard is reported to have left.

The White House said reports of China seizing the reef were “deeply concerning if true”.

In comments reported by the Financial Times, James Hewitt, US National Security Council spokesperson, warned that “actions like these threaten regional stability and violate international law”, adding that the White House was “consulting closely with our own partners”.

The Chinese move comes as US and Philippine forces are carrying out their annual war scenario drills – called the Balikatan exercises. China has criticised the drills as provocative.

As many as 17,000 personnel are taking part in the coming days. Missiles from the US Marine Air Defense Integrated System were fired off the coast of the northern Philippines on Sunday, the system’s second live fire test and its first deployment to the Philippines. The drills are also set to feature the US anti-ship missile system NMESIS.

The Philippines military says the drills are a rehearsal for national defence but insists they are not directed at any particular country.

“This type of training is absolutely invaluable to us,” said Third Marine Littoral Regiment Officer John Lehane.

The exercise has helped allay fears among some US allies that Donald Trump may upend the years-long military support it has provided in the region.

On a visit to Manila last month, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said Washington was “doubling down” on its alliance with the country and was determined to “re-establish deterrence” against China.

There have been wrangles over territory in the South China Sea for centuries, but tension has grown in recent years.

China claims by far the largest portion of territory in an area demarcated by its so-called “nine-dash line”. The line comprises nine dashes which extends hundreds of miles south and east from its most southerly province of Hainan. Beijing has backed its expansive claims with island-building and naval patrols.

Competing claimants such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei have staked claims on islands and various zones in the sea.

Over the past week I have crossed a radically changing North America, from Arizona to Washington DC in the US and then on to Sasketchwan in Canada, witnessing clear evidence of the consequences of historic change in the way the world economy is run. Huge uncertainty means nobody really knows where it is headed.

The walk from the White House Rose Garden to the HQ of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) takes just 9 minutes. In the past few days, in this very short stroll, two very different worlds collided with each other.

The former is the place where at the start of this month, with an extraordinary chart and questionable equation, President Trump took on the world with his so-called “reciprocal tariffs”.

The latter is the place where just three weeks on from that, after rowback, market tumult, and confusion, the finance ministers of the entire world gathered to try to pick up the pieces, even as they were still rebounding off the ground.

At the IMF meetings that included gatherings of G7 and G20 members, something unique happened. The US representatives faced not open hostility, but exasperation, bewilderment and deep concern, from almost the entire rest of the world, for having sent the global economy back towards a crisis, just as it had finally emerged from four years of pandemic, war and energy shocks.

The concern was most acutely expressed by the East Asian countries, who had in early April been classed as “looters and pillagers” of American jobs because of the fact that these economies, many of them key allies of the US, export more goods to the US than the other way around.

The talk of the G7 was the quiet determined fury of the Japanese, who were said to feel betrayed by the US turn on trade, and whose confusion over what US trade negotiators actually wanted recently sparked a sell off of US government bonds. The finance minister Katsunobu Kato told the roundtable the US tariffs were “highly disappointing”, hurting growth and destabilising markets.

I was reminded of the time at the IMF in 2022 when developing country finance ministers asked me if everything was OK in Britain during the mini budget crisis of Liz Truss’ government. Then the UK was the source of fragility, trading like an emerging market, when its normal role was solving crises in those markets.

In the face of febrile bond markets, this week the faint sound of the bugle of retreat on the US trade war got louder. A forest of olive branches seemed to be on offer from the US to get the Chinese to come back to the table to negotiate, from respect for their economic achievements to the offer of a deal to do a “beautiful rebalancing” of the world economy. It was a far cry from the claims of “looting and pillaging”.

Yet a much hoped for meeting between US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his Chinese counterpart did not materialise.

Most of the rest of the world leaving their meetings with Bessent are reporting back an assumption that the US is edging away from what it cannot acknowledge was overreach.

And there is a widespread view that there is no need for countries to retaliate, when the CEOs of Walmart and Target are telling the President privately that there will be empty shelves from early May.

The collapse in container traffic from China to the port of Los Angeles – the main artery of the world economy for the first quarter of the 21st century – is the one to watch. The IMF’s boffins say they can start to see the impact from space as satellites track fewer, increasingly empty ships leaving China’s ports. Of course this will be denied by the US.

It is true that there was far more relative calm at the end of the IMF Meetings compared to the beginning. Why? Because the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has seized control of the tariff agenda and has almost single-handedly calmed markets and the rest of the world.

Financial diplomats put down the Bessent ascendancy and the critical 90 day pause in the so-called “reciprocal” tariffs to some farcical West Wing antics.

The story goes Bessent was able to get the ear of Trump regarding the bond market damage from his tariffs, only after a separate White House economic adviser managed to use the bait of a fake meeting to lure away the hardline tariff hawk and author of the infamous reciprocal tariff equation Pete Navarro from patrolling the Oval Office.

Wall Street bosses are thought to have suggested that only by firing Navarro, can some semblance of normality return. Insiders suggest that Trump will never get rid of his trade adviser, as he served time in jail after the January 6 riots in support of the President.

At best this sounds like the future of the world economy and all our livelihoods played out like a real time Hilary Mantel novel about the court of Trump. At worst it is leading to financiers and Governments starting to think the unthinkable about how much further the US or the rest of the world might go and currently, the uncertainty about everything is more concerning than the direct impact of the tariffs.

And that uncertainty is prompting some fairly wild theories about what might come next.

At times of acute global financial stress, “swap lines” between central banks exist to preserve financial stability, making sure there is a constant supply of US dollars.

But now some of the world’s central banks have started to game out what might happen if the US chose to use its dollar “swap lines” to the rest of the world as a form of diplomatic leverage or even a weapon.

Is it inconceivable that the US might deny them or veto the Federal Reserve handing them out? One just has to assume it is inconceivable, because in many instances there is no way to mitigate it. But the nightmarish scenario for the world financial system, however unlikely, is now not wholly implausible.

A little less unlikely perhaps is the idea that those countries with a trade surplus with the US could help fund the US with an effective tax on their holdings of US government debt. Some of these ideas have been floated in speeches and papers by US government advisers.

In this atmosphere, worrying but incorrect ideas can start to infect confidence. For example, there was a “whodunnit” about significant selling of US Government debt just after the original tariff reveal.

Some speculated it was China. But Tokyo currently happens to be the biggest overall creditor to the US. Was this Japanese selling that helped make the case to Trump for the tariff pause, an almost deliberate diplomatic tactic? Two very well connected officials suggested this scenario to me, which shows the febrility right now, even though it seems implausible.

While Bessent commanded the weekend airwaves in the US having assumed control of this process, it was still quite something to see him sending the message that “Investors need to know that the U.S. government bond market is the safest and soundest in the world”. If you have to say it…

Another significant finance minister told me of his global counterparts that “no one was crawling to the Americans” given the unbeatable effectiveness of the US having to negotiate with its own bond market.

Amid the uncertainty, no one seems to know if the “baseline” universal tariff of 10% is even negotiable. President Trump’s message that tariff revenue could be sufficient to “completely eliminate” income taxes for “many people” would rather suggest that it will stay.

“It depends on who you talk to on which day of week… I’ve heard three different positions articulated on the baseline, one by the White House, one by the Commerce Dept, and one by a US Trade representative,” said one senior G7 official. “Do you know what the final outcome will be? Whatever the president wants at that moment, shaped by industrial, market and political issues,” I was told.

This is of particular interest to the UK, because the baseline bites the UK hard. Alongside big tariffs on cars which are our biggest goods export and likely further ones on pharmaceuticals, our second most important export, the US hit to the UK appears inexplicable when by the White House’s own creative definition of “trade cheating” – running a goods surplus – the US is actually slightly “cheating” the UK.

I put this point to the Chancellor several times over two interviews in Washington. She diplomatically rejected that suggestion.

But eventually right at the end of our last interview, strolling around the famous reflecting pool in between the Lincoln Memorial and the National Monument, she volunteered something rather telling of the changing world. “I understand why there’s so much focus on our trading relationship with the US but actually our trading relationship with Europe is arguably even more important, because they’re our nearest neighbours and trading partners,” she told me. It caused a bit of a fuss back home, but it was not an off the cuff gaffe.

That’s because concessions to the US on food standards are off limits for domestic political reasons. This appears to have been accepted by the Americans after consistent UK diplomacy, as the focus remains on a technology prosperity deal. It seems pretty clear now that the UK is going to push ahead with a “high ambition high alignment” deal with the European Union. And word had got out here among finance ministers.

A very senior international official used the example of the UK-EU rapprochement as an example of the rest of the world coordinating and “doing its homework” as a response to US unreliability. “Brexit was a bitter divorce, but now I see you are dating again,” I was told privately.

There was also some relief that the US remained engaged with the World Bank and IMF. The Project 2025 plan that was published in April 2023 by the think tank The Heritage Foundation in anticipation of a second Trump presidency envisaged the US leaving those international organisations, and the Governor of the Bank of England recently expressed his concerns to me.

Bessent used the meetings to confirm US commitment to the Bank and the Fund, albeit with a return to their core functions and away from considerations of social issues and the environment. The Europeans counted that as a win.

But a bigger canvas remains. Will the US use this trade war in order to try to corral the rest of the world on to its side in a grand battle with China? It seems astonishing to have annoyed allies so significantly and fundamentally if this was the strategic point of all this. A test case here is Spain, which faces 20% tariffs as an EU member state.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez met President Xi in Beijing a fortnight ago. Spain’s booming economy (the fastest growing advanced economy last year – and forecast to be again this year) is the only one to be upgraded by the IMF. It is built on green energy, access to foreign labour, tourism and significant investment and technology transfer from China. The US took a dim view of the visit and held a “frank” discussion with its finance minister Carlos Cuerpo.

He appeared rather unmoved by all this, telling me at the Semafor World Economy Summit in DC: “There’s a huge trade deficit with China, and we need to correct that by opening up to China, by also attracting Chinese investment, of course, within an overall economic security umbrella. And that can only be done by engaging and actually talking to the Chinese authorities”.

Spain has secured notable Chinese electric vehicle factory investment and technology transfer. The US doesn’t like it. But if the US wanted to persuade the Spanish and EU of its reliable long term allyship against China, it is difficult to see the strategy in the past month’s tariff accusations and chaos.

Whoever wins in Canada’s election will bring that G7 economy firmly back into this globally transformative debate. Could the newly elected Canadian PM start a full fat negotiation with the UK too? And then he will chair the G7 Summit in Canada in June as President Trump’s 90 day deadline expires. It is presumed Donald Trump will travel to Alberta, to the country he claims should be part of his own.

There is a path to trade peace, calm and deescalation. But it could get much worse too. This is a critical few weeks for the world economy.

The morning after the heist, burglar Yunice Abbas went home to catch up on some sleep.

When he woke up, his wife was glued to the TV. The headline news of the day was that American reality TV star Kim Kardashian, 35, had been tied up and robbed at gunpoint in a luxury Paris apartment.

All her jewellery had been taken for a sum of about $10m (£7.5m) – including the engagement ring her then-husband and rapper Kanye West gifted her, which alone was worth $4m (£3m).

Yunice Abbas’ wife glared at him. “This has you written all over it,” she grumbled.

She was right. The 62-year-old had dabbled in crime his whole life, from petty offences to bank heists.

The Kardashian robbery, he later wrote in a memoir, was going to be his last job before retirement.

But a series of blunders meant the heist was doomed from the start and in early 2017 – three months after the robbery – Abbas and several of his alleged accomplices were arrested.

Ten of them will now be appearing in court in Paris in a trial set to last just under three weeks.

Out of those, five are accused of taking part in the heist, and six are accused of being accessories to the crime.

Most of them were born in the 1950s, leading French media to dub them the “grandpa robbers”.

Abbas and a 68-year-old man, Aomar Ait Khedache, have confessed; the others have not.

One has since passed away, and another, aged 81, will be excused as he is suffering from advanced dementia.

By the time the trial starts, almost nine years will have gone by since the heist.

On the night between 2 and 3 October 2016, Abbas and four accomplices allegedly staked out Kardashian’s discreet suite in Hotel de Pourtalès, in the glitzy Madeleine neighbourhood in Paris, not far from the Opéra and Place Vendome.

At around 03:00 local time, they burst into the hotel’s entrance hall, dressed as policemen and wielding a gun.

They threatened and handcuffed Abderrahmane Ouatiki, an Algerian PhD student who regularly took up shifts as night receptionist, and marched him up to Kardashian’s room.

She was resting on her bed, tired from days of attending Paris Fashion Week events, when she heard stomping up the stairs.

She called out for her sister Kourtney and her stylist Stephanie, but when they didn’t answer she panicked.

“I knew someone was there to get me,” she recalled in an interview with US interviewer David Letterman years later. “You just feel it.”

Kim dialled 911 but the number, of course, didn’t work outside of the US. As she was calling her then-security guard Pascal Duvier – who had accompanied her sister to a club – the men burst in, pushed her on the bed and started shouting.

“They kept on saying: the ring, the ring! And I was so startled that it didn’t compute for a minute,” she told Letterman.

The language barrier meant Ouatiki had to act as an interpreter.

They grabbed the ring and several other jewels, as well as 1000 euros in cash. One of the men grabbed her and pulled her towards him.

Because she was wearing a robe with nothing underneath, she thought he was going to assault her, Kim later told Letterman, wiping tears away.

But instead – using the technique of saucissonnage, or the practice of tying them up like a saucisson, a salami – the man bound her with zip ties and duct tape, and left her in the bathroom.

Then, he and the rest of the burglars fled on bikes and on foot. Kim freed herself of her restraints, and shortly after her security guard turned up.

Traumatised, Kim gave a statement to French police in the early hours of the morning and flew back to the US by dawn.

It wasn’t until the next morning, when Abbas caught a glimpse of the TV screen his wife was watching, that he understood who their victim was.

“There were breaking news alerts saying Kim Kardashian had been robbed at gunpoint – that’s how important it was,” says LA-based entertainment journalist KJ Matthews.

“We were so fascinated with her and her family and their rise to fame… When the heist happened we were so surprised. How could burglars have gotten so close to her?” Matthews says.

But while mistakes were made in terms of Kardashian’s security, serious errors were made on the burglars’ side, too.

“They didn’t take into account the progress made by police techniques, which can now find micro traces of DNA anywhere,” said Patricia Tourancheau, a crime reporter and the author of “Kim and the grandpa robbers” – a thorough account of the heist and of the lives of its perpetrators.

“When they dressed up as police they thought ‘that’s it, nobody will be able to recognise us’,” she adds.

But in 2016 Paris was still reeling from the terrorist attacks of the previous year, and there were a huge number of CCTV cameras all round the city, meaning police were able to spot the thieves and see them make off with the jewels.

Other details of this story suggest that the thieves’ planning was rather haphazard. When fleeing the scene on a bike, Abbas fell, dropping a bag of jewels.

The next day, a passer-by found a diamond-encrusted necklace and wore it all day at the office before watching the news and realising where it had come from.

Police arrested Abbas and several other people in January 2017 and later confirmed that they had been under surveillance for several weeks, after DNA traces left at the scene provided a match with Aomar Ait Khedache, also known as “Omar the Old”.

French media published a photo from the police stakeout, which shows several of the men having coffee and chatting at a Parisian café that winter, just before their arrest.

The question that remains – and which will undoubtedly be explored doing the trial – is just how the gang got wind of Kardashian’s schedule.

Court documents seen by the BBC show that both Khedache and Abbas stated that all the information they needed was posted online by Kardashian herself, whose very career was built on sharing details about her life and movements.

But how did the gang know that on the night of 2 October Kardashian would be alone in her room, without her security guard?

Court documents indicate police believe Gary Madar, whose brother Michael’s firm had provided transportation and taxis to the Kardashians for years, was an accessory to the heist and that he had fed information to the gang about Kim’s whereabouts.

Mr Madar was arrested in January 2017. His lawyer Arthur Vercken vehemently pushed back against the accusations, telling the BBC that “since the start the case was built on assumptions, theses, theories – but no proof [of Madar’s involvement] was ever found”.

He added that although the Madar brothers exchanged texts about the Kardashians during Fashion Week it was just because they were “bored” and that when the heist took place Gary was asleep.

Gary’s brother, Michael, is not a defendant.

“Five men did this. You don’t think one of them was keeping an eye on who was coming and going from her hotel?” he said, suggesting that Mr Madar had only been arrested “to prove that the French justice system works”.

The trial will also attempt to determine where the jewels ended up.

Police tracking of the gang’s phones showed that soon after the heist Omar the Old travelled from Paris to Antwerp in Belgium, where 50% of the world’s polished diamonds and 80% of rough diamonds are sold, according to the Diamond Investment Office.

Many jewels were reportedly melted or broken up and sold. Abbas got 75,000 euro (£64,000); others far less.

As for Kim Kardashian’s engagement ring, Omar the Old said the gang was too scared to sell it on as it would be too easily traceable. It has never been found.

Kim Kardashian was undoubtedly spooked by the event, which marked the start of her social media hiatus.

In an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, she tearfully recalled the night of the heist and said had been scared for her life; later she also said the robbery had made her a “less materialistic person”.

Soon after the incident her sister Khloe told The Ellen DeGeneres that, for safety reasons, the Kardashian family were making some changes to how freely they posted on social media.

“The biggest change was her security detail,” KJ Matthews told the BBC.

Patricia Tourancheau, the author of the book about the heist, said she was “fascinated” by the “clash between these old-style burglars from the Parisian banlieue and this global social media star”.

“They fled on bikes and she flies around on private jets,” she laughed.

“These are a group of elderly down-and-out thieves, they’re always broke, they’re forever involved in convoluted plans… and they’re facing a huge celebrity and they don’t even know who she is.”

The gang was not “elite” as it was suggested in the early days, she added.

“This isn’t the creme de la creme of French banditry. They’re a bit of a bunch of losers, really. They’re the same kind of people who in the 60s and 70s would burglar banks or post offices and who then rebranded to drug trafficking and then moved on to jewels because it was easier,” she said.

Around mid-May, Kim will face the suspects for the first time in years when she takes the stand as a witness.

Cameras are not allowed in French courts but her arrival to the tribunal on Ile de la Cité alone will inevitably spark the same media frenzy that has accompanied her for over a decade.

In his memoir, Abbas expressed the hope the victim’s status and the global resonance of the case would not influence judges unduly.

However, he also said that on the last day of the trial he would bring a duffle bag with his belongings, ready to be sent to jail.

“The problem with the past,” he wrote, “is that it sticks with you as long as you live”.

Israel carried out an air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday, after ordering an evacuation of a building that it said was being used by the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah.

The attack occurred despite a ceasefire that came into force five months ago which put an end to the conflict between Israel and the military group.

Israel said that it had targeted a Hezbollah store of “precision-guided missiles” that “poses a threat to the State of Israel and its civilians”.

The Lebanese presidency condemned the strike and called on the US and France – who brokered the ceasefire in November – to press Israel to cease its attacks on the country.

The attack marks the first time in almost a month that Israel has struck Beirut’s southern suburbs – called Dahieh – where Hezbollah is based.

This will put further pressure on the ceasefire. Despite the deal, Israel has struck targets it says are linked to Hezbollah almost every day. The Israeli government has said that it will respond to any perceived threats from Hezbollah.

Western officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have told the BBC that the militant group has been largely compliant with the truce, while accusing Israel of multiple violations that include air strikes and drone surveillance.

Live footage streamed by Reuters showed a giant plume of smoke billowing from the targeted building an hour after the Israeli army issued an evacuation order to residents of the Hadath neighbourhood.

Lebanon’s Civil Defence later said that no casualties had been recorded and rescue crews had extinguished the fire.

In a statement on X following the strike, the Lebanese Presidency said that President Joseph Aoun condemned the attack.

“The United States and France, as guarantors of the cessation of hostilities agreement, must assume their responsibilities and compel Israel to immediately cease its attacks,” it wrote.

“Israel’s continued undermining of stability will exacerbate tensions and expose the region to real threats to its security and stability.”

Israel’s government said that it had targeted a Hezbollah store of “precision-guided missiles”.

“The storage of missiles in this infrastructure site constitutes a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon, and poses a threat to the State of Israel and its civilians,” the Israeli military said in a statement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that Israel “will not allow Hezbollah to grow stronger”.

“The Dahiyeh neighbourhood in Beirut will not serve as a safe haven for the terrorist organisation Hezbollah,” it added.

UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, wrote on X that the strike “generated panic and fear of renewed violence among those desperate for a return to normalcy”.

“We urge all sides to halt any actions that could further undermine the cessation of hostilities understanding,” she added.

Earlier this month an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs killed four people, including a Hezbollah official.

Images of Pope Francis’s tomb at the Santa Maria Maggiore church in Rome have been released.

A single white rose was pictured lying on the stone tomb that bears the name he was known by during his pontificate, below a crucifix illuminated by a single spotlight.

The late pope was laid to rest at the church – one of four major basilicas in the Italian capital, and one he would regularly visit during his time as cardinal and pontiff – in a private ceremony following his public funeral in the Vatican on Saturday.

Thousands of mourners have been filing past the tomb since the church opened to the public on Sunday morning to pay their respects to Pope Francis, who died aged 88 on Monday.

• Why Pope Francis hasn’t been buried in the Vatican
• Who was at the funeral and where did they sit?

Among them was Rosario Correale, an Italian, who said it was “very emotional” seeing the tomb. “He really left a mark on us,” he told the Associated Press.

Polish pilgrim Maria Brzezinska felt the resting place befit the man. “I feel like it’s exactly in the way of the Pope. He was simple, and so is his place now,” she told the news agency Reuters after visiting.

Francis was particularly devoted to the Virgin Mary, and Santa Maria Maggiore was the first church to be dedicated to her when it was built in the 4th Century.

The basilica sits near the Colosseum, a stone’s throw from the city’s endlessly bustling and chaotic central Termini station – well beyond the limits of the Vatican, where popes are traditionally entombed.

But it was one the South American pontiff had a long-held affinity for.

Its senior priest previously told an Italian newspaper that Pope Francis had said he wished to be laid to rest there in 2022, citing inspiration from the Virgin Mary.

“I thought it was amazing that he wanted to be buried here in this basilica,” Amaya Morris, another pilgrim, told AP.

“Out of all of the [churches], he chose this one. So I thought that was really amazing. It’s really humbling to be able to be here.”

Francis’s funeral was attended by heads of state, heads of government and monarchs from around the world – as well as hundreds of thousands of Catholics who lined the streets leading to the Vatican to pay their respects.

Hymns played out on giant speakers, occasionally drowned out by the sound of helicopters flying overhead, before 91-year-old Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re gave a homily on the pope’s legacy.

The cardinal emphasised that Pope Francis had repeatedly urged the world to “build bridges, not walls”.

The funeral was also the venue for a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, which the latter said afterwards had the “potential to become historic”.

Trump later questioned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s willingness to end the now three-year war in Ukraine, a conflict which Pope Francis had regularly called for peace during his papacy.

Following the public funeral, Pope Francis’s coffin was carried through Rome in a slow procession.

Authorities said 140,000 people had lined the streets, clapping and waving as the hearse – a repurposed white popemobile – crossed the Tiber river and drove past some of Rome’s most recognisable sights: the Colosseum, the Forum and the Altare della Patria national monument on Piazza Venezia.

After a period of mourning, attention will soon turn to the selection of the next pope.

A date has not yet been set but it is thought it could start as early as 5 or 6 May, with 135 cardinals set to attend, making it the largest conclave in modern history.

Qatar’s prime minister says there has been “a bit of progress” in efforts to broker a new ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, but that there was still no “answer for the ultimate question: how to end this war”.

It follows his meeting with the head of Israel’s spy agency on Thursday.

Speaking in Doha, Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan said that Hamas appeared to be more receptive to negotiating a lasting solution to the war.

After rejecting Israel’s latest ceasefire offer more than a week ago, Hamas now seems set on an agreement that would see the release of all the remaining hostages as part of a deal to end hostilities for at least five years.

Hamas has suggested it could consider disarming as part of such a tradeoff, but only if Israel were to pull all its forces out of Gaza. The Israeli government appears to have no intention of doing this.

Israel imposed a complete blockade on Gaza in early March and resumed air and ground attacks later in the month.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says 2,151 Palestinians have been killed since then, including 51 in the 24 hours into Sunday morning.

Fighting between Hamas and Israel has also intensified, with the Israeli military saying an Israeli soldier and a police officer were killed on Friday.

On Thursday, Israel’s Mossad spy agency chief David Barnea met with Qatari PM Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha.

Sheik Mohammed said that there had been “a bit of progress compared to other meetings, yet we need to find an answer for the ultimate question: how to end this war”.

Last week, Hamas rejected an Israeli proposal for a 45-day ceasefire that called for the group’s complete disarmament and the release of 10 of the 59 remaining hostages.

Sheikh Mohammed said that they were “trying to find a breakthrough” but added that Israel and Hamas remained at odds on what a ceasefire would entail.

He said Hamas has agreed to hand over all the remaining hostages in an exchange to an end to the war, but that Israel wants the hostages released without offering a vision on an end to the conflict.

“When you don’t have a common objective, a common goal, between the parties, I believe the opportunities [to end the war] become very thin,” Sheik Mohammed said at a press conference in Doha.

A Hamas delegation held talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Saturday which reportedly focused on a ceasefire agreement and addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

A Palestinian official familiar with negotiations told the BBC that Hamas has signalled its readiness to hand over governance of Gaza to any Palestinian entity agreed upon “at the national and regional level”. The official said this could be the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) or a newly formed administrative body.

The US has also encouraged the idea of a reformed PA governing Gaza after the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has ruled out any role for the PA in Gaza and has said he opposes the formation of a Palestinian state.

On Saturday, PA President Mahmoud Abbas named close confidant Hussein al-Sheikh as his deputy in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the PLO said.

Abbas, 89, has led the PLO and PA since 2004 but has previously resisted internal reforms, including naming a successor.

The PA’s leadership has regularly insisted it is ready to take over running post-war Gaza. But it has been criticised by Palestinians for not speaking out enough or taking effective action.

In a fiery speech during a meeting of the Palestinian Central Council in Ramallah on Wednesday, Abbas lashed out at Hamas, calling the group “sons of dogs” and demanding they release the hostages, disarm and hand over control of Gaza.

Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah organisation, which dominates the PA, have been bitterly divided for decades, with their rift ensuring that no unified Palestinian leadership in both the West Bank and Gaza has been able to emerge.

On Sunday, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza announced that the deal toll from the war had risen to at least 52,243 people, after taking account of hundreds of individuals listed as missing whose deaths have now been confirmed.

“An additional 697 martyrs have been added to the cumulative statistics after their data was completed and verified by the committee monitoring missing persons,” the health ministry said.

The ministry had earlier denied that it had manipulated death toll figures after media reports highlighted anomalies between the August and October 2024 and March 2025 lists of fatalities.

Last week the UN World Food Programme has warned that all of its food stocks in Gaza have run out as a result of the Israeli blockade.

The UN says Israel is obliged under international law to ensure supplies for the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza. Israel says it is complying with international law and there is no aid shortage.

During the press conference in Doha, Sheikh Mohammed condemned what he described as Israel’s “starvation” policy.

The war began on 7 October 2023 when Hamas carried out a cross-border attack, killing around 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s military campaign in response has killed tens of thousands in Gaza and turned most of the strip to rubble.

From an office perched on the scalloped edge of the continent, Victoria Bradley jokes that she has the most beautiful doctor’s practice in Australia.

Outside her window, farmland rolls into rocky coastline, hemming a glasslike bay striped with turquoise and populated by showboating dolphins.

Home to about 3,000 people, a few shops, two roundabouts and a tiny hospital, Streaky Bay is an idyllic beach town.

For Dr Bradley, though, it is anything but. The area’s sole, permanent doctor, she spent years essentially on call 24/7.

Running the hospital and the general practitioner (GP) clinic, life was a never-ending game of catch up. She’d do rounds at the wards before, after and in between regular appointments. Even on good days, lunch breaks were often a pipe dream. On bad days, a hospital emergency would blow up her already punishing schedule.

Burnt out, two years ago she quit – and the thread holding together the remnants of the town’s healthcare system snapped.

Streaky Bay is at the forefront of a national crisis: inadequate government funding is exacerbating a shortage of critical healthcare workers like Dr Bradley; wait times are ballooning; doctors are beginning to write their own rules on fees, and costs to patients are skyrocketing.

A once-revered universal healthcare system is crumbling at every level, sometimes barely getting by on the sheer willpower of doctors and local communities.

As a result, more and more Australians, regardless of where they live, are delaying or going without the care they need.

Health has become a defining issue for voters ahead of the nation’s election on 3 May, with both of Australia’s major parties promising billions of dollars in additional funding.

But experts say the solutions being offered up are band-aid fixes, while what is needed are sweeping changes to the way the system is funded – reform for which there has so far been a lack of political will.

Australians tell the BBC the country is at a crossroads, and needs to decide if universal healthcare is worth saving.

Healthcare was the last thing on Renee Elliott’s mind when she moved to Streaky Bay – until the 40-year-old found a cancerous lump in her breast in 2019, and another one four years later.

Seeing a local GP was the least of her problems. With the expertise and treatment she needed only available in Adelaide, about 500km away, Mrs Elliott has spent hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars accessing life-saving care, all while raising three boys and running a business.

Though she has since clawed back a chunk of the cost through government schemes, it made an already harrowing time that much more draining: financially, emotionally and physically.

“You’re trying to get better… but having to juggle all that as well. It was very tricky.”

When Australia’s modern health system was born four decades ago – underpinned by a public insurance scheme called Medicare – it was supposed to guarantee affordable and accessible high-quality care to people like Mrs Elliott as “a basic right”.

Health funding here is complex and shared between states and federal governments. But the scheme essentially meant Australians could present their bright green Medicare member card at a doctor’s office or hospital, and Canberra would be sent a bill. It paid through rebates funded by taxes.

Patients would either receive “bulk billed” – completely free – care, mostly through the emerging public system, or heavily subsidised treatment through a private healthcare sector offering more benefits and choice to those who wanted them.

Medicare became a national treasure almost instantly. It was hoped this set up would combine the best parts of the UK’s National Health Service and the best of the United States’ system.

Fast forward 40 years and many in the industry say we’re on track to end up with the worst of both.

There is no denying that healthcare in Australia is still miles ahead of much of the world, particularly when it comes to emergency care.

But the core of the crisis and key to this election is GP services, or primary care, largely offered by private clinics. There has historically been little need for public ones, with most GPs choosing to accept Medicare rebates as full payment.

That is increasingly uncommon though, with doctors saying those allowances haven’t kept up with the true cost of delivering care. At the same time, staff shortages, which persist despite efforts to recruit from overseas, create a scarcity that only drives up prices further.

According to government data, about 30% of patients must now pay a “gap fee” for a regular doctor’s appointment – on average A$40 (£19.25; $25.55) out of pocket.

But experts suspect the true figure is higher: it’s skewed by seniors and children, who tend to visit doctors more often and still enjoy mostly bulk-billed appointments. Plus there’s a growing cohort of patients not captured by statistics, who simply don’t go to the doctor because of escalating fees.

Brisbane electrician Callum Bailey is one of them.

“Mum or my partner will pester and pester and pester… [but] I’m such a big ‘I’ll just suffer in silence’ person because it’s very expensive.”

And every dollar counts right now, the 25-year-old says: “At my age, I probably should be in my prime looking for housing… [but] even grocery shopping is nuts.

“[I] just can’t keep up.”

This is a tale James Gillespie kept hearing.

So his startup Cleanbill began asking the question: if the average Australian adult walked into a GP clinic, could they get a free, standard appointment?

This year, they called almost all of the nation’s estimated 7,000 GP clinics – only a fifth of them would bulk bill a new adult patient. In the entire state of Tasmania, for example, they couldn’t find a single one.

The results resonate with many Australians, he says: “It really brought it home to them that, ‘Okay, it’s not just us. This is happening nationwide’.”

And that’s just primary care.

Public specialists are so rare and so overwhelmed – with wait times often far beyond safe levels – that most patients are funnelled toward exorbitantly expensive private care. The same goes for a lot of non-emergency hospital treatments or dental work.

There are currently no caps on how much private specialists, dentists or hospitals can charge and neither private health insurance nor slim Medicare rebates reliably offer substantial relief.

The BBC spoke to people across the country who say the increasing cost of healthcare had left them relying on charities for food, avoiding dental care for almost a decade, or emptying their retirement savings to fund treatment.

Others are borrowing from their parents, taking out pay-day loans to buy medication, remortgaging their houses, or selling their possessions.

Kimberley Grima regularly lies awake at night, calculating which of her three children – who, like her, all have chronic illnesses – can see their specialists. Her own overdue health checks and tests are barely an afterthought.

“They’re decisions that you really don’t want to have to make,” the Aboriginal woman from New South Wales tells the BBC.

“But when push comes to shove and you haven’t got the money… you’ve got no other option. It’s heart-breaking.”

Another woman tells the BBC that had she been able to afford timely appointments, her multiple sclerosis, a degenerative neurological disease, would have been identified, and slowed, quicker.

“I was so disabled by the time I got a diagnosis,” she says.

The people missing out tend to be the ones who need it the most, experts say.

“We have much more care in healthier, wealthier parts of Australia than in poorer, sicker parts of Australia,” Peter Breadon, from the Grattan Institute think tank says.

All of this creates a vicious cycle which feeds even more pressure back into an overwhelmed system, while entrenching disadvantage and fuelling distrust.

Every single one of those issues is more acute in the regions.

Streaky Bay has long farewelled the concept of affordable healthcare, fighting instead to preserve access to any at all.

It’s why Dr Bradley lasted only three months after quitting before “guilt” drove her back to the practice.

“There’s a connection that goes beyond just being the GP… You are part of the community.

“I felt that I’d let [them] down. Which was why I couldn’t just let go.”

She came back to a far more sustainable three-day week in the GP clinic, with Streaky Bay forced to wage a bidding war with other desperate regions for pricey, fly-in-fly-out doctors to fill in the gaps.

It’s yet another line on the tab for a town which has already invested so much of its own money into propping up a healthcare system supposed to be funded by state and private investment.

“We don’t want a gold service, but what we want is an equitable service,” says Penny Williams, who helps run the community body which owns the GP practice.

When the clinic was on the verge of closure, the town desperately rallied to buy it. When it was struggling again, the local council diverted funding from other areas to top up its coffers. And even still most standard patients – unless they are seniors or children – fork out about A$50 per appointment.

It means locals are paying for their care three times over, Ms Williams says: through their Medicare taxes, council rates, and then out-of-pocket gap fees.

“No-one would say this is the Australia that we want, surely,” Elizabeth Deveny, from the Consumers Health Forum of Australia, tells the BBC.

Like many wealthy countries, the nation is struggling to cope with a growing population which is, on average, getting older and sicker.

There’s a small but increasing cohort which says it is time to let go of the notion of universal healthcare, as we’ve known it.

Many doctors, a handful of economists, and some conservative politicians have sought to redefine Medicare as a “safety net” for the nation’s most vulnerable rather than as a scheme for all.

Health economist Yuting Zhang argues free healthcare and universal healthcare are different things.

The taxes the government collects for Medicare are already nowhere near enough to support the system, she says, and the country either needs to have some tough conversations about how it will find additional funds, or accept reasonable fees for those who can afford them.

“There’s always a trade-off… You have limited resources, you have to think about how to use them effectively and efficiently.”

The original promise of Medicare has been “undermined by decades of neglect”, the Australian Medical Association’s Danielle McMullen says, and most Australians now accept they need to contribute to their own care.

She says freezes to Medicare rebates – which were overseen by both parties between 2013 and 2017 and meant the payments didn’t even keep up with inflation – were the last straw. Since then, many doctors have been dipping into their own pockets to help those in need.

Both the Labor Party and the Liberal-National coalition accept there is a crisis, but blame each other for it.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton says his government will invest A$9bn in health, including funds for extra subsidised mental health appointments and for regional universities training key workers.

“Health has become another victim of Labor’s cost of living crisis… we know it has literally never been harder or more expensive to see a GP than it is right now,” health spokesperson Anne Ruston told the BBC in a statement.

On the other side, Albanese – whipping out his Medicare card almost daily – has sought to remind voters that Labor created the beloved system, while pointing out the Coalition’s previously mixed support of the universal scheme and the spending cuts Dutton proposed as Health Minister a decade ago.

“At this election, this little card here, your Medicare card, is what is at stake,” Albanese has said.

His government has started fixing things already, he argues, and has pledged an extra A$8.5bn for training more GPs, building additional public clinics, and subsidising more medicines.

But the headline of their rescue packages is an increase to Medicare rebates and bigger bonuses for doctors who bulk bill.

Proposed by Labor, then matched by the Coalition, the changes will make it possible for 9 out of 10 Australians to see a GP for free, the parties claim.

One Tasmanian doctor tells the BBC it is just a “good election sound bite”. He and many other clinicians say the extra money is still not enough, particularly for the longer consults more and more patients are seeking for complex issues.

Labor has little patience for those criticisms, citing research which they claim shows their proposal will leave the bulk of doctors better off and accusing them of wanting investment “without strings attached”.

But many of the patients the BBC spoke to are sceptical either parties’ proposals will make a huge difference.

There’s far more they need to be doing, they say, rattling off a wish list: more work on training and retaining rural doctors; effective regulation of private fees and more investment in public specialist clinics; universal bulk billing of children for all medical and dental expenses; more funding for allied health and prevention.

Experts like Mr Breadon say, above all else, the way Medicare pays clinicians needs to be overhauled to keep healthcare access genuinely universal.

That is, the government needs to stop paying doctors a set amount per appointment, and give them a budget based on how large and sick the populations they serve are – that is something several recent reviews have said.

And the longer governments wait to invest in these reforms, the more they’re going to cost.

“The stars may be aligning now… It is time for these changes, and delaying them would be really dangerous,” Mr Breadon says.

In Streaky Bay though, locals like Ms Williams wonder if it’s too late. Things are already dangerous here.

“Maybe that’s the cynic in me,” she says, shaking her head.

“The definition of universal is everyone gets the same, but we know that’s not true already.”

Innovative rap group Outkast, pop star Cyndi Lauper and 1960s pioneer Chubby Checker have all won places in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

This year’s inductees were revealed live on American Idol, with the UK represented by hard rock band Bad Company and gravel-voiced eccentric Joe Cocker, 11 years after his death from lung cancer.

However, Manchester bands Oasis and Joy Division/New Order failed to qualify from the shortlist.

Performers become eligible for inclusion 25 years after the release of their first commercial recording. The nominations are voted on by more than 1,200 music historians, industry professionals and previously inducted artists.

The full list of performers to be inducted this year is:

• Bad Company
• Chubby Checker
• Joe Cocker
• Cyndi Lauper
• Outkast
• Soundgarden
• The White Stripes

Salt-N-Pepa, the first commercially successful female rap group, will also receive the musical influence award, alongside Warren Zevon – a cult singer-songwriter who was revered by Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan.

The induction ceremony will take place in Los Angeles on 8 November, and will be streamed live on Disney+.

“Each of these inductees created their own sound and attitude that had a profound impact on culture and helped to change the course of Rock & Roll forever,” said the Hall of Fame’s chairman John Sykes.

“Their music gave a voice to generations and influenced countless artists that followed in their footsteps.”

However, equal amounts of attention will be paid to the artists who didn’t make it into the hallowed hall, which encompasses all genres of popular music.

Mariah Carey’s omission, in particular, will be seen as an egregious oversight.

With 19 US number one singles, she is second only to The Beatles in terms of chart success.

Her self-titled debut album spent 11 weeks at the top of the Billboard chart in 1990, and her Christmas classic, All I Want For Christmas Is You, is the 11th best-selling single of all time.

This is the second time she has been overlooked by the Rock Hall’s voters.

Asked for her thoughts on being snubbed last year, Carey said: “My thoughts are, I didn’t get in.”

A second snub will embolden critics who say the Hall of Fame has a poor record of admitting women.

Lauper, who did make it through the voting process, was the only other woman on this year’s main ballot.

Oasis were also passed over for a second time, having been nominated in 2024.

But singer Liam Gallagher has previously criticised the institution, saying he wasn’t interested in receiving an award from “some geriatric in a cowboy hat”.

Veteran jam band Phish also missed out on a place – despite winning a fan vote that counted towards this year’s ceremony.

However, losing a nomination doesn’t mean an artist is disqualified from future ceremonies. Nile Rodgers and Chic famously had to sit through 11 nominations before they were finally inducted in 2017.

A similar story emerges this year for Checker, whose song The Twist became a global phenomenon in 1960.

The star, now 83, was ignored by the Rock Hall for years, even as contemporaries like Sam Cooke, Bill Haley, Wilson Pickett and Fats Domino were admitted.

In 2001, Checker took out a full-page ad in Billboard magazine calling on the Rock Hall to recognise him for the song that, he said, became “the biggest dance of the century”.

“I want my flowers while I’m alive,” he wrote. “I can’t smell them when I’m dead.”

Demanding a statue in the courtyard of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he added: “I will not have the music business ignore my position in the industry.”

That wish has finally been granted.

This year’s other inductees include Outkast – aka André 3000 and Big Boi.

Known for hits like Ms Jackson, Rosa Parks and Hey Ya!, their swampy Southern rhythms and bohemian take on hip-hop changed the sound of the genre in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Soundgarden, best known for grunge anthem Black Hole Sun, have also earned a place; as have The White Stripes – the garage rock band formed by Jack and Meg White in 1997, whose hits include Seven Nation Army, Hotel Yorba and Fell In Love With A Girl.

Fans will speculate about whether Meg, who hasn’t been seen in public since 2009, will attend the induction ceremony.

There are also musical excellence awards for Thom Bell, an architect of the Philadelphia Soul sound, and English pianist Nicky Hopkins, who contributed to records by The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and The Who.

US guitarist Carol Kaye, whose fretwork can be heard on classic tracks like You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling and the theme to Mission: Impossible, receives the same honour.

Finally, record executive Lenny Waronker, who helped develop acts like Madonna, REM and Prince, will receive the Ahmet Ertegun award, given to non-performers who have had a major influence on rock music.

At a rally in London, Ontario, on Friday, the crowd booed as Mark Carney delivered his core campaign line about the existential threat Canada faces from its neighbour.

“President Trump is trying to break us so that America could own us,” the Liberal leader warned.

“Never,” supporters shouted back. Many waved Canadian flags taped to ice hockey sticks.

Similar levels of passion were also on display at the union hall where Pierre Poilievre greeted enthusiastic supporters in the Toronto area earlier in the week.

The Conservative leader has drawn large crowds to rallies across the country, where “Bring it Home” is a call to arms: both to vote for a change of government and a nod to the wave of Canadian patriotism in the face of US tariff threats.

In the final hours of a 36-day campaign, Donald Trump’s shadow looms over everything. The winner of Monday’s election is likely to be the party able to convince voters they have a plan for how to deal with the US president.

National polls suggest the Liberals have maintained a narrow lead entering last stretch.

Still, Trump is not the only factor at play – he was only mentioned once in Poilievre’s stump speech.

The Conservative leader has focused more on voters disaffected by what he calls a “Lost Liberal decade”, promising change from a government he blames for the housing shortage and a sluggish economy, and for mishandling social issues like crime and the fentanyl crisis.

His pitch resonates with voters like Eric and Carri Gionet, from Barrie, Ontario. They have two daughters in their mid-20s and said they were attending their first ever political rally.

“We’re pretty financially secure – but I worry about them,” said Eric Gionet. While he and his wife could buy their first home while young, he said, “there’s no prospect” their children will be able to do the same.

“I’m excited to be here,” said Carri Gionet. “I’m hopeful.”

Tapping into voter frustration has helped opposition parties sweep governments from power in democracies around the world. Canada seemed almost certain to follow suit.

Last year, the Conservatives held a 20-point lead in national polls over the governing Liberals for months. Poilievre’s future as the country’s next prime minister seemed baked in.

Then a series of shockwaves came in quick succession at the start of 2025, upending the political landscape: Justin Trudeau’s resignation, Carney’s subsequent rise to Liberal leader and prime minister; and the return of Trump to the White House with the threats and tariffs that followed.

By the time the election was called in mid-March, Carney’s Liberals were polling neck-and-neck with the Conservatives, and by early April they had pulled slightly ahead, national surveys suggest.

It has been a stunning reversal of fortunes. Seemingly dead and buried, the Liberals now believe they could win a fourth successive election, and even a majority in Parliament.

Carney is pitching himself as the man most ready to meet this critical moment – a steady central banker who helped shepherd Canada’s economy through the 2008 financial crisis and later, the UK through Brexit.

For Conservative voter Gwendolyn Slover, 69, from Summerside in the province of Prince Edward Island, his appeal is “baffling”.

“Many people think Mark Carney is some kind of Messiah,” she said. “It’s the same party, he’s one person. And he’s not going to change anything.”

For Carney’s supporters, they see a strong CV and a poise that has calmed their anxieties over Trump’s threats of steep tariffs and repeated suggestions the country should become the 51st US state – though the president has been commenting less frequently on Canada during the campaign.

“I’m very impressed by the stability and the serious thought process of Mark Carney,” said Mike Brennan from Kitchener, Ontario, as he stood in line to meet the Liberal leader at a coffee shop in Cambridge, about an hour outside Toronto.

Mr Brennan is a “lifelong Liberal” who did not initially plan to vote for the party in this election because of his dislike for Trudeau.

The departure of former prime minister Trudeau, who had grown increasingly unpopular over his decade in power, released “a massive pressure valve”, said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, a non-profit public opinion research organisation.

“All of these angry Liberals who are either parking their votes with the [left-wing] NDP or parking their votes with the Conservatives start re-coalescing,” she said.

Then more disaffected Liberals and other progressive voters began to migrate towards Carney’s Liberals, driven by Trump, this election’s “main character”, Ms Kurl said.

“The threats, the annexation talk, all of that has been a huge motivator for left of centre voters.”

It has worked to Carney’s advantage, with Trump’s tariffs threats giving the political neophyte – he is the first prime minister never to have held elected public office – the chance to publicly audition to keep his job during the campaign.

Trump’s late-March announcement of global levies on foreign automobile imports allowed Carney to step away from the trail and take on the prime minister’s mantle, setting up a call with the president and meeting US Cabinet ministers.

He’s never been tested in a gruelling federal election campaign, with its relentless travel, high-pressure demands for retail politics and daily media scrutiny. Yet on the campaign trail, and in the high-stakes debate with party leaders, he is considered to have performed well.

Poilievre, in contrast, is a veteran politician and polished performer. But on the shifting political ground, Conservatives appeared to struggle to find their footing, pivoting their message from Canada being broken to “Canada First”.

Poilievre had to fend off criticism from political rivals that he is “Trump lite”, with his combative style, his vows to end “woke ideology”, and willingness to take on the “global elite”.

“I have a completely different story from Donald Trump,” he has said.

More on the Canadian election:

• Canada’s top candidates talk up fossil fuels as climate slips down agenda
• Patriotism surges in Quebec as Trump rattles Canada
• ‘My home is worth millions – but young people are priced out of this city’
• A simple guide to Canada’s federal election

Canadians have historically voted in either Conservative or Liberal governments, but smaller parties – like the NDP or the Bloc Québécois, a sovereigntist party that only runs candidates in the province of Quebec – have in the past formed Official Opposition.

In this campaign, both are languishing and face the possibility of losing a number of seats in the House of Commons as anxious voters turn towards the two main political parties.

If the Liberals and Conservatives both succeed in getting over 38% of the vote share nationally, as polls suggest is likely, it would be the first time that has happened since 1975.

The message from the NDP – which helped prop up the minority Liberals in the last government – in the final days of campaigning has been to vote strategically.

“You can make the difference between Mark Carney getting a super majority or sending enough New Democrats to Ottawa so we can fight to defend the things you care about,” leader Jagmeet Singh said earlier this week.

The campaign has also highlighted festering divides along regional lines.

With much of the campaign dominated by the US-Canada relationship and the trade war, many issues – climate, immigration, indigenous reconciliation – have been on the backburner.

Even when the campaigns have focused on other policies, the discussion has centred on the country’s economic future.

Both frontrunners agree in broad strokes on the priorities: the need to pivot away from dependence on the US; the development of oil, gas and mining sectors; protection for workers affected by tariffs; and increased defence spending.

But they disagree on who is best to lead Canada forward, especially when so much is at stake.

“It’s time for experience, not experiments,” Carney told his supporters in London.

Poilievre closing message was: “We can choose change on Monday. We can take back control of our lives and build a bright future.”

In Armenia tech education starts early.

In a typical three-storey state school in the suburbs of Yerevan, the Armenian capital, nine-year old Slavik is demonstrating his invention – a box with three LED lights.

“He has learned how to control it, and the programming language. You can see the code is written by him,” says Maria, the 21-year-old tech coach leading the class.

Next to them, 14-year-old Eric and Narek are showing their smart greenhouse model that monitors temperature and controls fans automatically through a mobile app.

Other children are enthusiastically showcasing their inventions: games, robots, apps and smart home projects.

Eleven-year-old Arakel is holding his cardboard model of a house with a retractable clothesline.

“I have made my mother’s work easy, one part of the device is set on the roof, and another is a motor,” he says. “When it rains the line goes under the roof to keep the clothes dry.”

These young inventors have been attending engineering lab classes where they learn programming, robotics, coding, 3D modelling and more.

The programme started in 2014, and is called Armath, which translates into English as “root”. Today there are 650 Armath labs in schools across Armenia.

The initiative was established by a business organisation called the Union of Advanced Technology Enterprises (UATE), which represents more than 200 high-tech Armenian companies.

“The vision is that we want to see Armenia becoming a tech centre powerhouse that delivers utmost values to Armenia and to the world,” says Sarkis Karapetyan, the chief executive of UATE.

In his spacious, open-plan office in Yerevan he says that there are now around 4,000 tech companies in Armenia.

Armath is part of the UATE’s education and workforce development programme. Mr Karapetyan says the programme is the most successful public-private partnership in the country.

“We raise capital expenditure from the private sector, we go to the schools and establish Armath labs, we donate the equipment,” he says. “And the government, the education ministry gives us a budget of $2m (£1.5m) annually to pay the salaries of the coaches.”

There are now more than 600 coaches, and 17,000 active students.

“The goal is to have 5,000 of the most talented kids decide to become engineers every year,” says Mr Karapetyan.

Armenia is a landlocked country of 2.7 million people, the smallest in the South Caucasus region, and its borders with neighbouring Azerbaijan and Turkey have been shut for decades due to unresolved territorial disputes.

Unlike its neighbours, Armenia does not have natural resources or access to the sea. But throughout the Soviet era it had been a centre of mathematics and computer science.

In 1956 the Yerevan Scientific Research Institute of Mathematical Machines was established in Armenia and by 1960 it had developed two first generation computers.

Today, the country is tapping into its legacy with the ambition to transform itself into the tech powerhouse of the Caucasus.

And there has been some success already. Picsart, a AI-powered photo and video editing website and app, was launched in Armenia in 2011. Today the company of the same name, which has dual headquarters in Yerevan and Miami, is valued at $1.5bn.

Krisp, which makes audio-processing software, and Service Titan, which provides business software, are other Armenian success stories.

Meanwhile, an annual report says that Armenia is the best country in the Caucuses region in which to launch a company, putting it in 57th place globally. This compares with Georgia in 70th position, and Azerbaijan in 80th.

A critical factor in boosting Armenia’s tech development is the nation’s global diaspora – some 75% of the world’s estimated Armenians, and people of Armenian descent, live elsewhere.

This worldwide community provides important connections, especially in the US tech industry. In the US there are as many as 1.6 million people of Armenian ancestry, centred on California.

Samvel Khachikyan, is director of programs at SmartGate, a venture capital firm based in both California and Armenia that focuses on tech investments.

He says that if you look at the top 500 companies in the US, “for sure you’ll find at least one or two Armenians” in the boardroom or one management level below.

Mr Khachikyan explains how his company helps Armenian entrepreneurs set up operations in the US.

“Imagine an Armenian start-up, two young people deciding to go to the US to try to operate there, they have no connections, no knowledge about the culture how it works.

“It’s gonna be hard, very hard. We are helping them, it’s like the launch of the rocket, the first couple of seconds is the hardest.”

SmartGate takes Armenian founders to Silicon Valley and Los Angeles for intensive networking with top US companies and investors.

But many Armenian start-ups first test their products in their home market.

Irina Ghazaryan, is the founder of an app called Dr Yan that is changing how Armenians access healthcare by enabling them to more easily book appointments with doctors.

Ms Ghazaryan was previously working in product and web design when, helped by the fact she comes from a family of doctors, she identified a gap in the market. “Patients couldn’t find the right doctors, and doctors were suffering from endless calls.”

The app operates on a subscription model, with doctors paying to be listed on the platform, and there are plans to expand.

“We are growing at least 25% revenue month by month,” adds Ms Ghazaryan. “We are almost break-even in Armenia and that gives us strength to start expanding to other markets, like Uzbekistan.”

Armenia’s tech ecosystem received an unexpected boost in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Thousands of Russian IT specialists left their country, and many chose to settle in Armenia.

Meanwhile, US chipmaking giant Nvidia moved its Russian office to Armenia.

Vasily is a Russian IT consultant who relocated to Armenia in 2023. “Armenia was the most friendly to people from Russia in order to help them move, adapt and so on,” he says.

He estimates that that the Russian IT community in Armenia now totals 5,000 to 8,000 people. This influx has said to have filled crucial skill gaps in Armenia’s tech sector, in areas such as data processing, cybersecurity, and financial technologies.

Yet Vasily says that Armenia can be expensive and the country needs to reduce the tax burden on IT firms if it wants them to stay in the country.

However, overall optimism remains high about Armenia’s tech future. Samvel Khachikyan expects the sector to boom. He points to Service Titan, which floated on the New York Stock Exchange last December, and is now worth more than $10bn.

During last year’s presidential campaign, Donald Trump constantly repeated his intention to bring about dramatic change as soon as he returned to the White House.

But few expected it to come at such breakneck speed.

In the three months since he took the oath of office, the 47th president has deployed his power in a way that compares to few predecessors.

In stacks of bound documents signed off with a presidential pen and policy announcements made in all caps on social media, his blizzard of executive actions has reached into every corner of American life.

To his supporters, the shock-and-awe approach has been a tangible demonstration of an all-action president, delivering on his promises and enacting long-awaited reforms.

But his critics fear he is doing irreparable harm to the country and overstepping his powers – crippling important government functions and perhaps permanently reshaping the presidency in the process.

Here are six turning points from the first 100 days.

For once, it wasn’t a Trump social media post that sparked an outcry.

Three weeks into the new term, at 10.13am on a Sunday morning, Vice-President JD Vance wrote nine words that signalled a strategy which has since shaped the Trump administration’s second term.

“Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” he declared on X.

In the media frenzy that followed, legal experts lined up to challenge that assertion, pointing to a 220-year-old principle which lies at the heart of American democracy.

Courts have the power to check and strike down any government action – laws, regulations and executive orders – they think violates the US Constitution.

Vance’s words represented a brazen challenge to judicial authority and, more broadly, the system of three co-equal branches of government crafted by America’s founders.

But Trump and his team remain unapologetic in extending the reach of the executive branch into the two other domains – Congress and the courts.

The White House has moved aggressively to wrest control of spending from Congress, unilaterally defunding programmes and entire agencies.

This erosion of its power has been largely met by silence on Capitol Hill, where Trump’s Republicans hold slim majorities in both chambers.

The courts have been more resistant, with well over 100 rulings so far halting presidential actions they deem to be unconstitutional, according to a tally by the New York Times.

Some of the biggest clashes have been over Trump’s immigration crackdown. In March, more than 200 Venezuelans deemed a danger to the US, were deported to El Salvador, many under sweeping wartime powers and without the usual process of evidence being presented in court.

A Republican-appointed judge on a federal appeals court said he was “shocked” by how the White House had acted.

“Now the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote.

Trump and White House officials have said they will obey court rulings, even as the president lambasts many of the judges who issue them and the administration at times moves slowly to fully comply.

It all amounts to a unique test of a constitutional system that for centuries has operated under a certain amount of good faith.

While Trump has been at the centre of this push, one of his principle agents of chaos is a man who wasn’t born in the US, but who built a business empire there.

Elon Musk, dressed in black from head to toe and wearing sunglasses, stood centre stage and basked in the adulation of the Conservative Political Action Conference crowd.

The richest man in the world, who wants to cut trillions of dollars from the federal government, said he had a special surprise.

Argentinian President Javier Milei, known for his own budget-slashing, emerged from backstage and handed him a shiny gold chainsaw.

“This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,” Musk exclaimed. “CHAINSAW!!”

It was a dramatic illustration not only of Musk’s enthusiasm for his “Department of Government Efficiency” (Doge) assignment, but also of the near rock-star status that the South African-born technologist has developed among the Trump faithful.

Since that appearance, Musk has dispatched his operatives across the federal government, pushing to access sensitive government databases and identify programmes to slash.

Although he has not come anywhere near to finding the trillions of dollars of waste he once promised, his cuts have drastically reduced dozens of agencies and departments – essentially shutting down the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and attempting to dismantle the Department of Education.

While pledges to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” in government and trim the ballooning federal deficit typically have broad appeal, the manner in which Musk has used his metaphorical chainsaw has led to conflict with senior government officials and stoked anger among some of the American public.

Some Trump supporters may approve of the administration’s aggressive budget-cutting but other constituents have berated Republican legislators at town hall events.

Hecklers have expressed fear that the cuts will adversely affect popular government programmes like Social Security retirement plans, veterans benefits, and health insurance coverage for the poor and elderly.

Their concerns may not be entirely misplaced, given that these schemes make up the bulk of federal spending.

If these programmes are not cut back, sweeping tax cuts that Trump has promised would further increase the scale of US government debt and put at risk arguably his biggest election promise – economic prosperity.

When trader Richard McDonald saw Trump hold up his charts in the White House Rose Garden showing a list of countries targeted by US tariffs, he knew he had to act fast.

“I jumped to my feet because I wasn’t expecting a board [of charts] – I was expecting an announcement,” he says.

McDonald expected tariff cuts of 10% or 20%, but says “nobody expected these huge numbers”.

He raced to understand which companies might be worst hit. Then he sold.

“There are billions being wiped off share prices every second, so it’s really ‘fastest finger first’.”

He is one of the many traders who were at the coal face of global markets when share prices plunged everywhere following Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” tariff announcement.

The S&P 500 index of the largest firms listed in the US was hit particularly hard – and even though the White House has reversed course on some of the highest tariffs, it hasn’t fully recovered since.

The economy was the biggest concern for US voters in November’s election, and Trump rode a tide of deep unhappiness over Biden’s handling of inflation all the way to victory.

His pledge to cut prices, pare back government regulation and boost homegrown industry was a pro-business message warmly welcomed on Wall Street and by many working Americans.

But as Trump tries to follow through on his promise of new tariffs, the economic costs, at least in the short term, have become painfully apparent.

The stock market is sinking, interest rates – including for home mortgages – are rising, and consumer confidence is down. Unemployment is also ticking up, in part due to the growing number of federal employees forced out of their jobs.

The Federal Reserve Bank, along with economic experts, warn Trump’s plan will shrink economic growth and possibly lead to a recession.

While the president’s approval ratings on his handling of the economy have tumbled, many of his supporters are sticking with him. And in former industrial areas hollowed out by the loss of manufacturing jobs, there are hopes that tariffs could even the global playing field.

“Trump has earned back the respect,” says truck driver Ben Maurer in Pennsylvania, referring to tariffs on China. “We are still the force to be reckoned with.”

Economic concerns have contributed to Trump’s overall decline in the polls, but in one key area, he is still largely on solid ground in the public’s eye – immigration.

“It’s him! It’s him! I recognise his features,” says Myrelis Casique Lopez, pointing at a photo of men shackled and cuffed on the floor of one of the most infamous prisons in the world.

She had spotted her son in the image, taken from above, of a sea of shaven heads belonging to men in white T-shirts sat in long, straight rows.

At home in Maracay, Venezuela, Ms Casique was shown the photograph, first shared online by the El Salvador authorities, by a BBC reporter.

When she last had contact with her son, he was in the US and facing deportation to Venezuela but now he was 1,430 miles (2,300 km) away from her, one of 238 men sent by US authorities to a notorious mega-jail in El Salvador.

The Trump administration says they are members of the Tren de Aragua gang – a powerful, multi-national crime operation – but Ms Casique insists her son is innocent.

A tough stance on immigration was a central plank of Trump’s re-election campaign, and the president has used his broad powers of enforcement to deliver that pledge.

Illegal border crossings were falling at the end of the Biden presidency, but are now at their lowest monthly total for more than four years.

A majority of the US public still backs the crackdown, but it has had a chilling effect on communities of foreign students who have found themselves caught up in the blitz.

Some, including permanent residents, have been detained and face deportation because of their role in pro-Palestinian campus protests. They have rejected accusations that they support Hamas.

Civil rights lawyers warn that some migrants are being deported without due process, sweeping up the innocent among the “killers and thugs” that Trump says are being targeted.

While so far there haven’t been the level of mass deportations that some hoped for and others feared, newly empowered immigration enforcement agents have taken action across the US in businesses, homes and churches.

They have been active in universities too, which have become a prominent target of President Trump in several other ways.

On 21 April, Harvard University’s president, Alan Garber, decided to confront the White House head-on.

In a letter to the university community, he announced a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s move to freeze billions of dollars in federal grants.

It was, he said, an illegal attempt to “impose unprecedented and improper control” over Harvard’s operations.

The White House said it had to take action because Harvard had not tackled antisemitism on campus – an issue that Garber said the university was taking steps to address.

But the Ivy League college’s move was the most prominent display of resistance against Trump’s use of presidential power to target American higher education, a longstanding goal energised by pro-Palestinian protests that engulfed campuses in 2024.

The president and his officials have since impounded or threatened to withhold billions of dollars in federal spending to reshape elite institutions like Harvard, which the president and many of his supporters think push a liberal ideology on students and researchers.

Earlier in the month, Columbia University in New York City had agreed to a number of White House demands, including changes to its protest policies, campus security practices and Middle Eastern studies department.

A similar dynamic has played out in the corporate and media worlds.

Trump has used the withholding of federal contracts as a way to pressure law firms to recruit and represent more conservatives.

Some of the firms have responded by offering the Trump administration millions of dollars in free legal services, while two firms have filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the administration’s punishments.

A defamation lawsuit Trump brought against ABC News has led to the media company contributing $15m (£11m) to Trump’s presidential foundation.

CBS is also in talks to settle a separate lawsuit over a Kamala Harris interview, as its parent company Paramount seeks federal approval for a merger with Skydance Media.

The Associated Press, by contrast, has resisted administration pressure to accept Trump’s “Gulf of America” name change despite the White House’s efforts to block the news agency from coverage of the president.

On the campaign trail, Trump warned about the runaway power of the federal government. Now in office, he is wielding that power in a way no previous modern president has attempted.

Nowhere, however, have the impacts of his efforts been more visible than within the federal government agencies and departments that he now controls.

The press conference at the White House began with a moment’s silence for the victims of an aircraft collision over the Potomac River.

Within seconds of the pause coming to an end, however, Trump was on the attack.

A diversity and inclusion initiative at the Federal Aviation Agency was partly to blame for the tragedy, the president claimed, because it hired people with severe intellectual disabilities as air traffic controllers. He did not provide any evidence.

It was a startling moment that was emblematic of the attack his presidency has launched against inclusivity programmes that have proliferated in recent years across the US government and corporate world.

Trump has directed the federal government to end its diversity and equity (DEI) programmes and investigate private companies and academic institutions thought to be engaged in “illegal DEI”.

His directive has accelerated moves among leading global companies like Meta and Goldman to cut back or eliminate these programmes.

First introduced in the 1960s in the wake of civil rights victories, early forms of DEI were an attempt to expand opportunities for black Americans. They later expanded to take in women, LGBT rights and other racial groups.

Efforts were stepped up and embraced by much of corporate America in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matters protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police officers.

But to its critics, DEI was putting politics and race above talent, creating division and was no longer needed in modern America.

While Trump’s directive seems to have support from a narrow majority of voters, some of the unexpected consequences have raised eyebrows.

Arlington National Cemetery scrubbed from its website all mentions of the history of black and female service members. And the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan was initially flagged for removal from Pentagon documents, apparently due to the word “gay”.

Donald Trump’s first 100 days have been an unprecedented display of unilateral power exercised by a modern American president.

His efforts to dismantle large swaths of the federal government will take years, if not decades, for subsequent presidents to restore – if they so desire.

In other ways, however, Trump’s efforts so far may end up being less permanent. Without the support of new laws passed by Congress, many of his sweeping reforms could be wiped away by a future president.

And so to what extent this whirlwind start leads to lasting change remains an open question.

Later this year, the narrow Republican majorities in Congress will attempt to provide the legislative backing for Trump’s agenda, but their success is far from guaranteed.

And in next year’s mid-term congressional elections, those majorities could be replaced by hostile Democrats bent on investigating the administration and curtailing his authority.

Meanwhile, more court battles loom – and while the US Supreme Court has a conservative tilt, its decisions on a number of key cases could ultimately cut against Trump’s efforts.

The first 100 days of Trump’s second term have been a dramatic show of political force, but the next 1,361 will be the real test of whether he can carve an enduring legacy.

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A young female South African doctor has sparked a nationwide conversation about a form of domestic abuse often shrouded in silence – financial abuse.

In a series of viral videos Dr Celiwe Ndaba opened up about how she said she had been financially exploited by her husband, how it had spiralled and led to their separation.

Often sitting in her car on her way to work, the mother of three vlogged over two weeks about how despite her successful career she had become trapped in a toxic marriage for years, feeling manipulated to fund her husband’s lifestyle – in particular his desire to drive a Mercedes Benz.

Taking out loans for him to buy such vehicles was the “worst decision” of her life, putting the family under huge financial pressure, said Dr Ndaba – who since sharing her story has reverted to using her maiden name and the number of her followers has ballooned.

Despite pleas for her husband to downgrade, she said he refused – accusing her of wanting to “turn him into a laughing stock by making him drive a small car”.

The medic said she was speaking out as she wanted to issue a warning to others – that it was not only “uneducated” and “less fortunate” women who find themselves in abusive relationships.

Her estranged husband, Temitope Dada, has not responded to a BBC request for comment.

In the wake of the social media storm, he set up a TikTok account, where in one of his first videos he acknowledged: “You may know me as… ‘Mr Benz or nothing.'”

The few posts he has made are accompanied by hashtags such as #divorcetrauma – saying the accusations are lies.

Nonetheless, the comments section on Dr Ndaba’s TikTok and other social media platforms have transformed into support groups, filled with female breadwinners sharing eerily similar stories.

“You are brave to speak out so publicly… I have been suffering in silence,” one person commented.

Bertus Preller, a lawyer based in Cape Town, believes this is because although South African women are becoming doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs, getting well-paid jobs does not necessarily free them from the clutches of the patriarchy.

Women’s financial independence clashes with “cultural norms that prioritise male authority”, he says.

If anything, their success appears to make them targets.

Financial abuse occurs when one partner dominates or exploits the other’s financial resources, the lawyer explains.

“It is a subtle yet potent tactic of domestic violence, aimed at keeping the victim under control,” he says.

In South Africa, this is legally classified as economic abuse under the Domestic Violence Act.

Mr Preller says things like “unjustly withholding money for essentials or interfering with shared assets,” are covered by the act.

A university lecturer, who requested anonymity, told the BBC how her husband had lied about his qualifications and eventually left her in financial ruin.

It started with her car that he mostly drove but never refuelled. Then loans she took out for his multiple failed business ventures. Finally, there came an eviction notice as she said he had stopped contributing towards rent, leaving her to shoulder all the expenses for their family, which included three children.

Despite this, they stayed together for close to a decade – even though he was also physically abusive.

“He’s very smart… I was in love with his smartness, his big dreams. But he couldn’t follow them up with actions. His pride was his downfall,” she said.

Even when he managed to get some money, he still did not contribute.

“He started withholding whatever money he had for himself. He’d go out drinking with his friends, come back – the salary is gone,” she said.

Legal financial expert Somila Gogoba says that beyond the control of money, financial abuse often has deep psychological roots.

“For the abuser, this behaviour may stem from feelings of inadequacy, fear of abandonment, or the need for dominance,” she told the BBC.

“For the victim, the psychological impact includes feelings of worthlessness, fear, and dependence, which can be paralysing.”

Research from the University of South Africa suggests these are not isolated cases – and that women who out-earn their partners face significantly higher risks of intimate partner violence.

Out of their in-depth study of 10 women who were the primary breadwinners of their families, only two were married.

“For eight of the participants, their choice of being single resulted from their experiences of physical, emotional and sexual violence… All the women said they believed that their role as female breadwinners was viewed as threatening to the traditional male role of a provider,” said researcher Bianca Parry.

Ms Gogoba says female breadwinners are less valued than their male counterparts, despite their economic contributions: “This cultural backdrop can encourage some partners to feel entitled to control the finances, even when they do not contribute equally.

“This control is not just about money – it is also about power and maintaining a grip on the relationship dynamics.”

Nombulelo Shange, sociologist lecturer at the University of the Free State, says it is part of a growing pattern in South Africa of middle-class women being financially exploited.

“Black women face a double patriarchy: Western expectations at work, traditional expectations at home. When these collide, harmful ideologies escalate,” she told the BBC.

She explained that balancing the pressures of being a successful woman, but playing the role of “the caregiver, the mother, the good wife, the good neighbour and community member who goes to church every Sunday”, was difficult as women were always taught to tiptoe around men’s egos.

Since Dr Ndaba’s revelations, women on social media have shared stories of giving their male partners their debit or credit cards when they go out to eat so it appears as though he is paying for the meal.

For Ms Shange this shows how the burden of a happy home is often placed on the woman’s shoulders.

“You think: ‘If I just get them a car, they’ll be happy.’ Love makes you blind. When your person struggles, you struggle too – you want to fix it,” she said.

By the time the university lecturer divorced her husband, she was left with debts of 140,000 rand ($7,500; £5,600) – all racked up in her name.

“Before, I could plan things like holidays. Now they are a luxury,” she said.

Dr Ndaba has been at pains to tell her followers, as she did on one vlog: “Finance is an important aspect of people’s marriages.”

The lecturer could not agree more, urging young women to take their time when getting to know their partners and have open, honest conversations.

“Talk about the finances, talk about your background, talk about emotions and character.”

Ms Gogoba urged more people to protect themselves from their partner, telling them to keep a separate bank account, keep their pins secure and monitor their credit cards.

They all agreed that women should understand that love should not come with an unsustainable price tag.

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Greenland’s new prime minister has said the island is not a “piece of property that can be bought”, in response to Donald Trump’s repeated calls for the US to take control of the autonomous Danish territory.

On a visit to Copenhagen on Sunday, Jens-Frederik Nielsen said Greenland and Denmark must stand together in the face of “disrespectful” US rhetoric.

He was speaking alongside Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in what has been viewed as another show of unity between the two leaders.

In a further symbolic gesture, Nielsen is due to return to Greenland on Monday with Denmark’s King Frederik, who will begin his four-day royal visit to the island.

“We will never, ever be a piece of property that can be bought by anyone, and that’s the message I think is most important to understand,” said Nielsen, who became Greenland’s prime minister this April.

He added that Greenland and Denmark needed to move closer together in light of the new foreign policy situation.

Trump has caused outrage in both Denmark and Greenland for repeatedly saying he wants to bring the Arctic island under US control.

During a speech to Congress in March, Trump said that control of Greenland was essential “for national security and international security”.

He has floated the idea of buying the island and has previously refused to rule out using military force, though US Vice-President JD Vance said last month: “We do not think that military force is ever going to be necessary.”

Despite their criticism of Trump’s words, both Nielsen and Frederiksen on Sunday said they would be willing to meet the US president for talks.

Nielsen also reiterated that Greenland was prepared to deepen ties with the US, saying: “We are ready for a strong partnership and more development, but we want respect.”

Nielsen’s visit to Denmark follows Frederiksen’s own trip to Greenland earlier this month.

“You can’t annex other countries,” was her message for the US president at the time.

It followed Vance’s whirlwind visit to the territory, widely criticised in both Denmark and Greenland, in which he reiterated Trump’s ambitions and claimed Copenhagen had “not done a good job” for Greenlanders.

Greenland, the world’s largest island, has been controlled by Denmark for about 300 years. The island governs its own domestic affairs, but foreign and defence policy decisions are made in Copenhagen.

The US has long had a security interest in the island. It has had a military base there since World War Two, and Trump may also have an interest in the rare earth minerals that could be mined.

Polls show that the vast majority of Greenlanders want to become independent from Denmark but do not wish to become part of the US.

Formed in March, Greenland’s new coalition government is led by Nielsen’s centre-right Democrats party, which favours a gradual approach to independence.

A senior figure from South Africa’s ruling ANC party has defended his country’s sovereignty amid growing tensions with the US over race relations and a new land law.

“We are a free country, we’re a sovereign country. We’re not a province of the United States and that sovereignty will be defended,” ANC National Chair Gwede Mantashe said on Sunday.

US President Donald Trump has hit out at South Africa’s new expropriation law, signing an executive order in February stating it was a means to which the government could “seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation”.

President Cyril Ramaphosa says the law ensures “public access to land in an equitable and just manner”.

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The expropriation law does allow the government to seize land without compensation, but only in certain circumstances.

Trump’s February order also opened the door for Afrikaners to be admitted to the US as refugees, describing them as “victims of unjust racial discrimination”.

Standing in for Ramaphosa in a speech at South Africa’s Freedom Day celebration in the eastern province of Mpumalanga, Mantashe criticised South African citizens who have called on Trump to “punish” the country.

“Now they are told to go there and be refugees, they are refusing. They must go,” he said.

Tensions have also played out publicly on Elon Musk’s X page, where he has described his country’s ownership laws as “racist”.

Currently white South Africans, who are a minority of the population, own most of the country’s private land and wealth, despite the racist system of apartheid ending decades ago.

In an effort to quell tensions which have rumbled on for months, South Africa appointed a special envoy to Washington earlier this month.

Mcebisi Jonas will be tasked with advancing the country’s “diplomatic, trade and bilateral priorities,” Ramaphosa said.

The move comes after Washington expelled South Africa’s ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, after he accused Trump of “dog whistle” politics.

Last month, officials from the all-white separatist town of Orania, founded by Afrikaners after the end of apartheid, visited the US as part of efforts to gain recognition as an autonomous state.

In his address on Sunday, Mantashe suggested he would seek to integrate the community in Orania.

“Black people must go and build there, and we mix them,” he said.

He added that “hatred can never survive peace. It is peace that builds a nation”.

A letter written by a Titanic passenger days before the ship sank has been sold for a record-breaking £300,000 ($400,000) at auction in the UK.

Colonel Archibald Gracie’s letter was purchased by an anonymous buyer at Henry Aldridge and Son auction house in Wiltshire on Sunday, at a price five times higher than the £60,000 it was expected to fetch.

The letter has been described as “prophetic”, as it records Col Gracie telling an acquaintance he would “await my journey’s end” before passing judgement on the “fine ship”.

The letter was dated 10 April 1912, the day he boarded the Titanic in Southampton, and five days before it sank after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic.

Col Gracie was one of about 2,200 passengers and crew on board the Titanic sailing to New York. More than 1,500 died in the disaster.

The first-class passenger, wrote the letter from cabin C51. It was posted when the ship dropped anchor in Queenstown, Ireland, on 11 April 1912. It was also postmarked London on 12 April.

The auctioneer who facilitated the sale said the letter had attracted the highest price of any correspondence written onboard the Titanic.

Col Gracie’s account of the sinking is among the best known.

He later wrote the book The Truth About The Titanic, recalling his experience onboard the doomed ocean liner.

He recounted how he survived by scrambling onto an overturned lifeboat in the icy waters.

More than half the men who had originally reached the lifeboat died from exhaustion or cold, he wrote.

Although Col Gracie survived the disaster, his health was severely affected by the hypothermia and physical injuries he suffered.

He fell into a coma on 2 December 1912, and died of complications from diabetes two days later.

Drag star Bianca Castro-Arabejo, who performed as Jiggly Caliente, has died aged 44, her family has said.

The performer, who found fame on the fourth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, had part of her leg amputated on Thursday after suffering a “severe infection”.

Caliente had served as a judge on the show’s Philippines spin-off, and also appeared in the hit US TV series Pose.

Her family wrote in a statement on Instagram: “It is with profound sorrow that we announce the passing of Bianca Castro-Arabejo, known to the world and cherished by many as Jiggly Caliente.”

They said she died in the early hours of Sunday morning “surrounded by her loving family and close friends”.

Caliente’s family paid tribute to her “infectious energy, fierce wit, and unwavering authenticity”, adding that she left a legacy of “love, courage and light”.

“She touched countless lives through her artistry, activism, and the genuine connection she fostered with fans around the world,” they said.

“Though her physical presence is gone, the joy she shared and the space she helped create for so many will remain forever.”

Fellow drag queens have left tributes to the Filipino-American performer online.

Laganja Estranja, who appeared on the sixth season of the US reality TV programme, said Caliente was a “kind, caring soul”.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Baga Chipz described Caliente as “one of the kindest, sweetest souls I’ve ever met”.

Cheryl The Queen, who also competed in the UK version of the show, wrote: “We will love you forever and always Jiggly.”

Tia Kofi, who won Drag Race UK versus the World, said Caliente was “someone I came to for advice, I looked up to, who gave me support when it was most needed and, I cannot lie, was always there for a good gossip!”

Drag Race judge Michelle Visage in her tribute said “the laughter was endless, our talks were special, your energy was contagious”.

“You were and remain so very loved. This world has lost an angel and we want you to soar high,” she added.

Born in the Philippines in 1980, Caliente moved to the Queens neighbourhood of New York City with her family when she was a child.

She quickly became a fan favourite on RuPaul’s Drag Race for her sense of humour and memorable interactions with other queens, when she appeared on the show in 2012.

In one particularly memorable moment, while arguing with Caliente, fellow contestant Lashauwn Beyond coined the catchphrase “this is not RuPaul’s Best Friend Race”, which has been frequently repeated in later series.

Caliente went on to embark on an acting career, appearing in episodes of sitcoms Broad City and Search Party.

She played the role of Veronica in the TV drama Pose, which chronicled New York’s LGBT ball culture in the 1980s and 90s.

Caliente, who publicly came out as transgender in 2016, later returned to the Drag Race universe, competing in the sixth series of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars in 2021 and judging the spin-off show Drag Race Philippines for three series.

Prior to her death, the drag performer’s family had said on Thursday that she had suffered a “serious health setback” which led to the loss of “most of her right leg”.

There had been rumours. There had been aerial photographs. There had been the written testimony of a few escapees. But it took liberation for the revelation of the shocking reality of the Nazis’ concentration camps.

Nowhere was this more true than when British and Canadian troops advanced on the camp at Bergen-Belsen, near Hanover, in April 1945.

A truce with local German commanders enabled them to enter without a fight. They were met with a stomach-churning vista of death, a torrid panorama of human suffering.

The troops calculated there were 13,000 unburied corpses. A further 60,000 emaciated, diseased, spectral-like survivors stood and lay amongst them.

To mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Belsen, more than a thousand survivors and families attended commemoration events at the camp on Sunday.

Row after row, they listened to people recount the horrors of the camp.

They included Mala Tribich from London, 14 then, 94 now. Belsen was, she says, “a place of skeletons, where the dead were piled up and the living shuffled around… There was death everywhere”.

Mala said she saw guards pulling the corpses along on blankets or by their limbs.

Another survivor, Esther Alice, who was aged 11 at the time, recalled the “horrible” memory of her mother dying in her arms in hut 221.

The sun shone down on Sunday’s spectacle, but Belsen still has the capacity to chill.

“To me, Belsen was the ultimate blasphemy,” wrote one British soldier, Michael Bentine, who, after World War Two, went on to become a famous entertainer.

Other chroniclers, film-makers and diarists struggled to convey in words and pictures the scenes that made unwanted incursions into their minds.

The BBC’s Richard Dimbleby was the first broadcaster to enter the camp shortly after liberation. In his landmark broadcast he included the words: “This day at Belsen was the most horrible of my life.”

Belsen’s notoriety soon stood out, not just because of the chillingly vivid accounts of journalists, soldiers and photographers, whose testimonies were sent around the world, but because it was found with all its grotesqueness intact.

Other camps further east, like the death camps of Treblinka, Sobibor and Auschwitz, had either been destroyed by the Germans to hide their crimes in the face of Soviet advances or emptied of their inmates.

At Belsen, the huts, the barracks, the evidence, remained.

At Belsen, there were witnesses, perpetrators, victims.

It was where many of those eastern concentration camp prisoners ended up. Overcrowding led to dysentery, malnutrition and typhus.

There were no gas chambers at Belsen. It was Nazi cruelty and incompetence that accounted for the 500 deaths a day that the camp endured.

And most of it came in the final weeks of the war, well into April 1945.

As the Third Reich collapsed and freedom came to those in other occupied territories, the dying continued at Belsen: between 50,000 and 70,000 people in total, more than 30,000 of those between January and April 1945.

Around 14,000 of the prisoners died after liberation, their digestive systems unable to cope with the highly calorific, rich sustenance offered by well-meaning cooks and medics.

The vast majority were Jews, with Soviet prisoners of war, Sinti and homosexuals among other groups to be engulfed by the horrors of the camp.

• Belsen: What They Found – directed by Sam Mendes

Sunday’s anniversary was a commemoration to those who never left here, forever to be a part of a crime that continues to arc its way across history.

Among the survivors and relatives who attended the event were 180 British Jews. Their journey was organised by Ajex, the Jewish Military Association.

Wreaths were laid by Ajex veterans, as well as dignitaries, including Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner.

A psalm was read by UK Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis.

They did so amid the verdant surroundings of Lower Saxony, where the watch towers, fences and buildings have gone.

That’s because, in the end, to contain disease, the British soldiers decided they had to burn the huts at Belsen.

And so, today, little remains. A visitor centre is a focal point, near to where a handful of memorial stones and crosses have been erected.

The inscription on one reads: here rest 5,000 dead.

It is just one of the graves, one of the memories, that haunt the grassed landscape.

US President Donald Trump has said he thinks his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky is willing to give up Crimea to Russia as part of a peace deal – despite Kyiv’s previous rejections of any such proposal.

Asked if he thought the Ukrainian president was ready to cede control of its southern peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, Trump replied: “I think so.”

Trump also urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to “stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal” to end the fighting, suggesting this could be achieved within two weeks.

He made the comments to reporters after returning from the Vatican, where he held a brief meeting with Zelensky before Pope Francis’ funeral.

Trump said that meeting had “gone well” and that Crimea had been discussed “very briefly”.

He also said that Zelensky now seemed “calmer”, in what could have been a reference to a very public clash between the two presidents at the White House in February.

Ukraine has repeatedly rejected making any territorial concessions, stressing that issues about land should only be discussed once a ceasefire is agreed.

Neither Zelensky nor Russian President Vladimir Putin have publicly responded to Trump’s latest comments.

Earlier on Sunday, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius warned Ukraine not to agree to a deal which involves sweeping territorial concessions in return for a ceasefire.

He told German public broadcaster ARD that Kyiv “should not go as far as the latest proposal by the American president”, which he said would amount to a “capitulation”.

The German minister said that Ukraine knew it might have to part with some territory to secure a truce.

“But they will certainly not go as far – or should not go as far – as the latest proposal by the American president.

“Ukraine could have got a year ago what was included in that proposal, it is akin to a capitulation. I cannot discern any added value,” Pistorius said.

Trump said last week that “most of the major points [of the deal] are agreed to”. Reports suggest that Ukraine could be asked to give up large portions of land seized by Russia, including Crimea.

The BBC has not seen the exact details of the latest US plan.

On Friday, Reuters news agency reported that it had seen proposals from the US that included American legal acceptance of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian control of other occupied areas, including all of Luhansk in the east of the country.

Reuters says it has also seen counter-proposals from Europe and Ukraine, which reportedly say the sides will only discuss what happens to occupied Ukrainian territory once a ceasefire has come into effect.

The US plan also rules out Ukraine’s membership in the Nato military alliance and sees a UK-France led “coalition of the willing” providing a security guarantee once a ceasefire is in force without the involvement of the US.

Meanwhile the Europeans want the US to give “robust” guarantees in the form of a cast-iron Nato-style commitment to come to Ukraine’s aid if it is attacked.

The US reportedly further proposes to take control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – currently occupied by Russia – which would then provide electricity to both Russia and Ukraine. The counter-plan makes no mention of giving Russia power.

In an interview with Time magazine this week, Trump once again blamed Kyiv for starting the war, citing its ambitions of joining Nato.

The US president also told Time: “Crimea will stay with Russia.”

On Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Russia and Ukraine to move forward to secure a peace deal.

“It needs to happen soon,” Rubio told NBC. “We cannot continue to dedicate time and resources to this effort if it’s not going to come to fruition.”

The US has recently warned it would walk away from negotiations if progress was not made.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls almost 20% of Ukrainian territory.

During last year’s presidential campaign, Donald Trump constantly repeated his intention to bring about dramatic change as soon as he returned to the White House.

But few expected it to come at such breakneck speed.

In the three months since he took the oath of office, the 47th president has deployed his power in a way that compares to few predecessors.

In stacks of bound documents signed off with a presidential pen and policy announcements made in all caps on social media, his blizzard of executive actions has reached into every corner of American life.

To his supporters, the shock-and-awe approach has been a tangible demonstration of an all-action president, delivering on his promises and enacting long-awaited reforms.

But his critics fear he is doing irreparable harm to the country and overstepping his powers – crippling important government functions and perhaps permanently reshaping the presidency in the process.

Here are six turning points from the first 100 days.

For once, it wasn’t a Trump social media post that sparked an outcry.

Three weeks into the new term, at 10.13am on a Sunday morning, Vice-President JD Vance wrote nine words that signalled a strategy which has since shaped the Trump administration’s second term.

“Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” he declared on X.

In the media frenzy that followed, legal experts lined up to challenge that assertion, pointing to a 220-year-old principle which lies at the heart of American democracy.

Courts have the power to check and strike down any government action – laws, regulations and executive orders – they think violates the US Constitution.

Vance’s words represented a brazen challenge to judicial authority and, more broadly, the system of three co-equal branches of government crafted by America’s founders.

But Trump and his team remain unapologetic in extending the reach of the executive branch into the two other domains – Congress and the courts.

The White House has moved aggressively to wrest control of spending from Congress, unilaterally defunding programmes and entire agencies.

This erosion of its power has been largely met by silence on Capitol Hill, where Trump’s Republicans hold slim majorities in both chambers.

The courts have been more resistant, with well over 100 rulings so far halting presidential actions they deem to be unconstitutional, according to a tally by the New York Times.

Some of the biggest clashes have been over Trump’s immigration crackdown. In March, more than 200 Venezuelans deemed a danger to the US, were deported to El Salvador, many under sweeping wartime powers and without the usual process of evidence being presented in court.

A Republican-appointed judge on a federal appeals court said he was “shocked” by how the White House had acted.

“Now the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote.

Trump and White House officials have said they will obey court rulings, even as the president lambasts many of the judges who issue them and the administration at times moves slowly to fully comply.

It all amounts to a unique test of a constitutional system that for centuries has operated under a certain amount of good faith.

While Trump has been at the centre of this push, one of his principle agents of chaos is a man who wasn’t born in the US, but who built a business empire there.

Elon Musk, dressed in black from head to toe and wearing sunglasses, stood centre stage and basked in the adulation of the Conservative Political Action Conference crowd.

The richest man in the world, who wants to cut trillions of dollars from the federal government, said he had a special surprise.

Argentinian President Javier Milei, known for his own budget-slashing, emerged from backstage and handed him a shiny gold chainsaw.

“This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,” Musk exclaimed. “CHAINSAW!!”

It was a dramatic illustration not only of Musk’s enthusiasm for his “Department of Government Efficiency” (Doge) assignment, but also of the near rock-star status that the South African-born technologist has developed among the Trump faithful.

Since that appearance, Musk has dispatched his operatives across the federal government, pushing to access sensitive government databases and identify programmes to slash.

Although he has not come anywhere near to finding the trillions of dollars of waste he once promised, his cuts have drastically reduced dozens of agencies and departments – essentially shutting down the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and attempting to dismantle the Department of Education.

While pledges to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” in government and trim the ballooning federal deficit typically have broad appeal, the manner in which Musk has used his metaphorical chainsaw has led to conflict with senior government officials and stoked anger among some of the American public.

Some Trump supporters may approve of the administration’s aggressive budget-cutting but other constituents have berated Republican legislators at town hall events.

Hecklers have expressed fear that the cuts will adversely affect popular government programmes like Social Security retirement plans, veterans benefits, and health insurance coverage for the poor and elderly.

Their concerns may not be entirely misplaced, given that these schemes make up the bulk of federal spending.

If these programmes are not cut back, sweeping tax cuts that Trump has promised would further increase the scale of US government debt and put at risk arguably his biggest election promise – economic prosperity.

When trader Richard McDonald saw Trump hold up his charts in the White House Rose Garden showing a list of countries targeted by US tariffs, he knew he had to act fast.

“I jumped to my feet because I wasn’t expecting a board [of charts] – I was expecting an announcement,” he says.

McDonald expected tariff cuts of 10% or 20%, but says “nobody expected these huge numbers”.

He raced to understand which companies might be worst hit. Then he sold.

“There are billions being wiped off share prices every second, so it’s really ‘fastest finger first’.”

He is one of the many traders who were at the coal face of global markets when share prices plunged everywhere following Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” tariff announcement.

The S&P 500 index of the largest firms listed in the US was hit particularly hard – and even though the White House has reversed course on some of the highest tariffs, it hasn’t fully recovered since.

The economy was the biggest concern for US voters in November’s election, and Trump rode a tide of deep unhappiness over Biden’s handling of inflation all the way to victory.

His pledge to cut prices, pare back government regulation and boost homegrown industry was a pro-business message warmly welcomed on Wall Street and by many working Americans.

But as Trump tries to follow through on his promise of new tariffs, the economic costs, at least in the short term, have become painfully apparent.

The stock market is sinking, interest rates – including for home mortgages – are rising, and consumer confidence is down. Unemployment is also ticking up, in part due to the growing number of federal employees forced out of their jobs.

The Federal Reserve Bank, along with economic experts, warn Trump’s plan will shrink economic growth and possibly lead to a recession.

While the president’s approval ratings on his handling of the economy have tumbled, many of his supporters are sticking with him. And in former industrial areas hollowed out by the loss of manufacturing jobs, there are hopes that tariffs could even the global playing field.

“Trump has earned back the respect,” says truck driver Ben Maurer in Pennsylvania, referring to tariffs on China. “We are still the force to be reckoned with.”

Economic concerns have contributed to Trump’s overall decline in the polls, but in one key area, he is still largely on solid ground in the public’s eye – immigration.

“It’s him! It’s him! I recognise his features,” says Myrelis Casique Lopez, pointing at a photo of men shackled and cuffed on the floor of one of the most infamous prisons in the world.

She had spotted her son in the image, taken from above, of a sea of shaven heads belonging to men in white T-shirts sat in long, straight rows.

At home in Maracay, Venezuela, Ms Casique was shown the photograph, first shared online by the El Salvador authorities, by a BBC reporter.

When she last had contact with her son, he was in the US and facing deportation to Venezuela but now he was 1,430 miles (2,300 km) away from her, one of 238 men sent by US authorities to a notorious mega-jail in El Salvador.

The Trump administration says they are members of the Tren de Aragua gang – a powerful, multi-national crime operation – but Ms Casique insists her son is innocent.

A tough stance on immigration was a central plank of Trump’s re-election campaign, and the president has used his broad powers of enforcement to deliver that pledge.

Illegal border crossings were falling at the end of the Biden presidency, but are now at their lowest monthly total for more than four years.

A majority of the US public still backs the crackdown, but it has had a chilling effect on communities of foreign students who have found themselves caught up in the blitz.

Some, including permanent residents, have been detained and face deportation because of their role in pro-Palestinian campus protests. They have rejected accusations that they support Hamas.

Civil rights lawyers warn that some migrants are being deported without due process, sweeping up the innocent among the “killers and thugs” that Trump says are being targeted.

While so far there haven’t been the level of mass deportations that some hoped for and others feared, newly empowered immigration enforcement agents have taken action across the US in businesses, homes and churches.

They have been active in universities too, which have become a prominent target of President Trump in several other ways.

On 21 April, Harvard University’s president, Alan Garber, decided to confront the White House head-on.

In a letter to the university community, he announced a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s move to freeze billions of dollars in federal grants.

It was, he said, an illegal attempt to “impose unprecedented and improper control” over Harvard’s operations.

The White House said it had to take action because Harvard had not tackled antisemitism on campus – an issue that Garber said the university was taking steps to address.

But the Ivy League college’s move was the most prominent display of resistance against Trump’s use of presidential power to target American higher education, a longstanding goal energised by pro-Palestinian protests that engulfed campuses in 2024.

The president and his officials have since impounded or threatened to withhold billions of dollars in federal spending to reshape elite institutions like Harvard, which the president and many of his supporters think push a liberal ideology on students and researchers.

Earlier in the month, Columbia University in New York City had agreed to a number of White House demands, including changes to its protest policies, campus security practices and Middle Eastern studies department.

A similar dynamic has played out in the corporate and media worlds.

Trump has used the withholding of federal contracts as a way to pressure law firms to recruit and represent more conservatives.

Some of the firms have responded by offering the Trump administration millions of dollars in free legal services, while two firms have filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the administration’s punishments.

A defamation lawsuit Trump brought against ABC News has led to the media company contributing $15m (£11m) to Trump’s presidential foundation.

CBS is also in talks to settle a separate lawsuit over a Kamala Harris interview, as its parent company Paramount seeks federal approval for a merger with Skydance Media.

The Associated Press, by contrast, has resisted administration pressure to accept Trump’s “Gulf of America” name change despite the White House’s efforts to block the news agency from coverage of the president.

On the campaign trail, Trump warned about the runaway power of the federal government. Now in office, he is wielding that power in a way no previous modern president has attempted.

Nowhere, however, have the impacts of his efforts been more visible than within the federal government agencies and departments that he now controls.

The press conference at the White House began with a moment’s silence for the victims of an aircraft collision over the Potomac River.

Within seconds of the pause coming to an end, however, Trump was on the attack.

A diversity and inclusion initiative at the Federal Aviation Agency was partly to blame for the tragedy, the president claimed, because it hired people with severe intellectual disabilities as air traffic controllers. He did not provide any evidence.

It was a startling moment that was emblematic of the attack his presidency has launched against inclusivity programmes that have proliferated in recent years across the US government and corporate world.

Trump has directed the federal government to end its diversity and equity (DEI) programmes and investigate private companies and academic institutions thought to be engaged in “illegal DEI”.

His directive has accelerated moves among leading global companies like Meta and Goldman to cut back or eliminate these programmes.

First introduced in the 1960s in the wake of civil rights victories, early forms of DEI were an attempt to expand opportunities for black Americans. They later expanded to take in women, LGBT rights and other racial groups.

Efforts were stepped up and embraced by much of corporate America in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matters protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police officers.

But to its critics, DEI was putting politics and race above talent, creating division and was no longer needed in modern America.

While Trump’s directive seems to have support from a narrow majority of voters, some of the unexpected consequences have raised eyebrows.

Arlington National Cemetery scrubbed from its website all mentions of the history of black and female service members. And the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan was initially flagged for removal from Pentagon documents, apparently due to the word “gay”.

Donald Trump’s first 100 days have been an unprecedented display of unilateral power exercised by a modern American president.

His efforts to dismantle large swaths of the federal government will take years, if not decades, for subsequent presidents to restore – if they so desire.

In other ways, however, Trump’s efforts so far may end up being less permanent. Without the support of new laws passed by Congress, many of his sweeping reforms could be wiped away by a future president.

And so to what extent this whirlwind start leads to lasting change remains an open question.

Later this year, the narrow Republican majorities in Congress will attempt to provide the legislative backing for Trump’s agenda, but their success is far from guaranteed.

And in next year’s mid-term congressional elections, those majorities could be replaced by hostile Democrats bent on investigating the administration and curtailing his authority.

Meanwhile, more court battles loom – and while the US Supreme Court has a conservative tilt, its decisions on a number of key cases could ultimately cut against Trump’s efforts.

The first 100 days of Trump’s second term have been a dramatic show of political force, but the next 1,361 will be the real test of whether he can carve an enduring legacy.

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The Chinese coastguard has seized a tiny sandbank in the South China Sea, state media has reported, in an escalation of a regional dispute with the Philippines.

State broadcaster CCTV released images of four officers, wearing all black and holding the Chinese flag, standing on the disputed reef of Sandy Cay in the Spratly Islands.

CCTV said China had “implemented maritime control and exercised sovereign jurisdiction” on the reef earlier in April.

Both China and the Philippines have staked claims on various islands. The Philippines said later on Sunday that it had landed on three sandbanks, releasing an image of officers holding up their national flag in a pose that mimicked the Chinese photo.

It is unclear whether one of the sandbanks the Philippines security forces landed on was also Sandy Cay.

In a statement, the National Task Force West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS) said it witnessed “the illegal presence” of a Chinese Coastguard vessel 1,000 yards (914 metres) from one of the sandbanks, as well as seven Chinese militia vessels.

“This operation reflects the unwavering dedication and commitment of the Philippine Government to uphold the country’s sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea,” the statement said.

The dispute between the two nations has been escalating, with frequent confrontations including vessels colliding and scuffles.

Sandy Cay is near a Philippine military outpost on Thitu Island, also known as Pag-asa, which Manila reportedly uses to track Chinese movements in the area.

There is no sign that China is permanently occupying the 200 sq metre island and the coastguard is reported to have left.

The White House said reports of China seizing the reef were “deeply concerning if true”.

In comments reported by the Financial Times, James Hewitt, US National Security Council spokesperson, warned that “actions like these threaten regional stability and violate international law”, adding that the White House was “consulting closely with our own partners”.

The Chinese move comes as US and Philippine forces are carrying out their annual war scenario drills – called the Balikatan exercises. China has criticised the drills as provocative.

As many as 17,000 personnel are taking part in the coming days. Missiles from the US Marine Air Defense Integrated System were fired off the coast of the northern Philippines on Sunday, the system’s second live fire test and its first deployment to the Philippines. The drills are also set to feature the US anti-ship missile system NMESIS.

The Philippines military says the drills are a rehearsal for national defence but insists they are not directed at any particular country.

“This type of training is absolutely invaluable to us,” said Third Marine Littoral Regiment Officer John Lehane.

The exercise has helped allay fears among some US allies that Donald Trump may upend the years-long military support it has provided in the region.

On a visit to Manila last month, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said Washington was “doubling down” on its alliance with the country and was determined to “re-establish deterrence” against China.

There have been wrangles over territory in the South China Sea for centuries, but tension has grown in recent years.

China claims by far the largest portion of territory in an area demarcated by its so-called “nine-dash line”. The line comprises nine dashes which extends hundreds of miles south and east from its most southerly province of Hainan. Beijing has backed its expansive claims with island-building and naval patrols.

Competing claimants such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei have staked claims on islands and various zones in the sea.

At a rally in London, Ontario, on Friday, the crowd booed as Mark Carney delivered his core campaign line about the existential threat Canada faces from its neighbour.

“President Trump is trying to break us so that America could own us,” the Liberal leader warned.

“Never,” supporters shouted back. Many waved Canadian flags taped to ice hockey sticks.

Similar levels of passion were also on display at the union hall where Pierre Poilievre greeted enthusiastic supporters in the Toronto area earlier in the week.

The Conservative leader has drawn large crowds to rallies across the country, where “Bring it Home” is a call to arms: both to vote for a change of government and a nod to the wave of Canadian patriotism in the face of US tariff threats.

In the final hours of a 36-day campaign, Donald Trump’s shadow looms over everything. The winner of Monday’s election is likely to be the party able to convince voters they have a plan for how to deal with the US president.

National polls suggest the Liberals have maintained a narrow lead entering last stretch.

Still, Trump is not the only factor at play – he was only mentioned once in Poilievre’s stump speech.

The Conservative leader has focused more on voters disaffected by what he calls a “Lost Liberal decade”, promising change from a government he blames for the housing shortage and a sluggish economy, and for mishandling social issues like crime and the fentanyl crisis.

His pitch resonates with voters like Eric and Carri Gionet, from Barrie, Ontario. They have two daughters in their mid-20s and said they were attending their first ever political rally.

“We’re pretty financially secure – but I worry about them,” said Eric Gionet. While he and his wife could buy their first home while young, he said, “there’s no prospect” their children will be able to do the same.

“I’m excited to be here,” said Carri Gionet. “I’m hopeful.”

Tapping into voter frustration has helped opposition parties sweep governments from power in democracies around the world. Canada seemed almost certain to follow suit.

Last year, the Conservatives held a 20-point lead in national polls over the governing Liberals for months. Poilievre’s future as the country’s next prime minister seemed baked in.

Then a series of shockwaves came in quick succession at the start of 2025, upending the political landscape: Justin Trudeau’s resignation, Carney’s subsequent rise to Liberal leader and prime minister; and the return of Trump to the White House with the threats and tariffs that followed.

By the time the election was called in mid-March, Carney’s Liberals were polling neck-and-neck with the Conservatives, and by early April they had pulled slightly ahead, national surveys suggest.

It has been a stunning reversal of fortunes. Seemingly dead and buried, the Liberals now believe they could win a fourth successive election, and even a majority in Parliament.

Carney is pitching himself as the man most ready to meet this critical moment – a steady central banker who helped shepherd Canada’s economy through the 2008 financial crisis and later, the UK through Brexit.

For Conservative voter Gwendolyn Slover, 69, from Summerside in the province of Prince Edward Island, his appeal is “baffling”.

“Many people think Mark Carney is some kind of Messiah,” she said. “It’s the same party, he’s one person. And he’s not going to change anything.”

For Carney’s supporters, they see a strong CV and a poise that has calmed their anxieties over Trump’s threats of steep tariffs and repeated suggestions the country should become the 51st US state – though the president has been commenting less frequently on Canada during the campaign.

“I’m very impressed by the stability and the serious thought process of Mark Carney,” said Mike Brennan from Kitchener, Ontario, as he stood in line to meet the Liberal leader at a coffee shop in Cambridge, about an hour outside Toronto.

Mr Brennan is a “lifelong Liberal” who did not initially plan to vote for the party in this election because of his dislike for Trudeau.

The departure of former prime minister Trudeau, who had grown increasingly unpopular over his decade in power, released “a massive pressure valve”, said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, a non-profit public opinion research organisation.

“All of these angry Liberals who are either parking their votes with the [left-wing] NDP or parking their votes with the Conservatives start re-coalescing,” she said.

Then more disaffected Liberals and other progressive voters began to migrate towards Carney’s Liberals, driven by Trump, this election’s “main character”, Ms Kurl said.

“The threats, the annexation talk, all of that has been a huge motivator for left of centre voters.”

It has worked to Carney’s advantage, with Trump’s tariffs threats giving the political neophyte – he is the first prime minister never to have held elected public office – the chance to publicly audition to keep his job during the campaign.

Trump’s late-March announcement of global levies on foreign automobile imports allowed Carney to step away from the trail and take on the prime minister’s mantle, setting up a call with the president and meeting US Cabinet ministers.

He’s never been tested in a gruelling federal election campaign, with its relentless travel, high-pressure demands for retail politics and daily media scrutiny. Yet on the campaign trail, and in the high-stakes debate with party leaders, he is considered to have performed well.

Poilievre, in contrast, is a veteran politician and polished performer. But on the shifting political ground, Conservatives appeared to struggle to find their footing, pivoting their message from Canada being broken to “Canada First”.

Poilievre had to fend off criticism from political rivals that he is “Trump lite”, with his combative style, his vows to end “woke ideology”, and willingness to take on the “global elite”.

“I have a completely different story from Donald Trump,” he has said.

More on the Canadian election:

• Canada’s top candidates talk up fossil fuels as climate slips down agenda
• Patriotism surges in Quebec as Trump rattles Canada
• ‘My home is worth millions – but young people are priced out of this city’
• A simple guide to Canada’s federal election

Canadians have historically voted in either Conservative or Liberal governments, but smaller parties – like the NDP or the Bloc Québécois, a sovereigntist party that only runs candidates in the province of Quebec – have in the past formed Official Opposition.

In this campaign, both are languishing and face the possibility of losing a number of seats in the House of Commons as anxious voters turn towards the two main political parties.

If the Liberals and Conservatives both succeed in getting over 38% of the vote share nationally, as polls suggest is likely, it would be the first time that has happened since 1975.

The message from the NDP – which helped prop up the minority Liberals in the last government – in the final days of campaigning has been to vote strategically.

“You can make the difference between Mark Carney getting a super majority or sending enough New Democrats to Ottawa so we can fight to defend the things you care about,” leader Jagmeet Singh said earlier this week.

The campaign has also highlighted festering divides along regional lines.

With much of the campaign dominated by the US-Canada relationship and the trade war, many issues – climate, immigration, indigenous reconciliation – have been on the backburner.

Even when the campaigns have focused on other policies, the discussion has centred on the country’s economic future.

Both frontrunners agree in broad strokes on the priorities: the need to pivot away from dependence on the US; the development of oil, gas and mining sectors; protection for workers affected by tariffs; and increased defence spending.

But they disagree on who is best to lead Canada forward, especially when so much is at stake.

“It’s time for experience, not experiments,” Carney told his supporters in London.

Poilievre closing message was: “We can choose change on Monday. We can take back control of our lives and build a bright future.”

The morning after the heist, burglar Yunice Abbas went home to catch up on some sleep.

When he woke up, his wife was glued to the TV. The headline news of the day was that American reality TV star Kim Kardashian, 35, had been tied up and robbed at gunpoint in a luxury Paris apartment.

All her jewellery had been taken for a sum of about $10m (£7.5m) – including the engagement ring her then-husband and rapper Kanye West gifted her, which alone was worth $4m (£3m).

Yunice Abbas’ wife glared at him. “This has you written all over it,” she grumbled.

She was right. The 62-year-old had dabbled in crime his whole life, from petty offences to bank heists.

The Kardashian robbery, he later wrote in a memoir, was going to be his last job before retirement.

But a series of blunders meant the heist was doomed from the start and in early 2017 – three months after the robbery – Abbas and several of his alleged accomplices were arrested.

Ten of them will now be appearing in court in Paris in a trial set to last just under three weeks.

Out of those, five are accused of taking part in the heist, and six are accused of being accessories to the crime.

Most of them were born in the 1950s, leading French media to dub them the “grandpa robbers”.

Abbas and a 68-year-old man, Aomar Ait Khedache, have confessed; the others have not.

One has since passed away, and another, aged 81, will be excused as he is suffering from advanced dementia.

By the time the trial starts, almost nine years will have gone by since the heist.

On the night between 2 and 3 October 2016, Abbas and four accomplices allegedly staked out Kardashian’s discreet suite in Hotel de Pourtalès, in the glitzy Madeleine neighbourhood in Paris, not far from the Opéra and Place Vendome.

At around 03:00 local time, they burst into the hotel’s entrance hall, dressed as policemen and wielding a gun.

They threatened and handcuffed Abderrahmane Ouatiki, an Algerian PhD student who regularly took up shifts as night receptionist, and marched him up to Kardashian’s room.

She was resting on her bed, tired from days of attending Paris Fashion Week events, when she heard stomping up the stairs.

She called out for her sister Kourtney and her stylist Stephanie, but when they didn’t answer she panicked.

“I knew someone was there to get me,” she recalled in an interview with US interviewer David Letterman years later. “You just feel it.”

Kim dialled 911 but the number, of course, didn’t work outside of the US. As she was calling her then-security guard Pascal Duvier – who had accompanied her sister to a club – the men burst in, pushed her on the bed and started shouting.

“They kept on saying: the ring, the ring! And I was so startled that it didn’t compute for a minute,” she told Letterman.

The language barrier meant Ouatiki had to act as an interpreter.

They grabbed the ring and several other jewels, as well as 1000 euros in cash. One of the men grabbed her and pulled her towards him.

Because she was wearing a robe with nothing underneath, she thought he was going to assault her, Kim later told Letterman, wiping tears away.

But instead – using the technique of saucissonnage, or the practice of tying them up like a saucisson, a salami – the man bound her with zip ties and duct tape, and left her in the bathroom.

Then, he and the rest of the burglars fled on bikes and on foot. Kim freed herself of her restraints, and shortly after her security guard turned up.

Traumatised, Kim gave a statement to French police in the early hours of the morning and flew back to the US by dawn.

It wasn’t until the next morning, when Abbas caught a glimpse of the TV screen his wife was watching, that he understood who their victim was.

“There were breaking news alerts saying Kim Kardashian had been robbed at gunpoint – that’s how important it was,” says LA-based entertainment journalist KJ Matthews.

“We were so fascinated with her and her family and their rise to fame… When the heist happened we were so surprised. How could burglars have gotten so close to her?” Matthews says.

But while mistakes were made in terms of Kardashian’s security, serious errors were made on the burglars’ side, too.

“They didn’t take into account the progress made by police techniques, which can now find micro traces of DNA anywhere,” said Patricia Tourancheau, a crime reporter and the author of “Kim and the grandpa robbers” – a thorough account of the heist and of the lives of its perpetrators.

“When they dressed up as police they thought ‘that’s it, nobody will be able to recognise us’,” she adds.

But in 2016 Paris was still reeling from the terrorist attacks of the previous year, and there were a huge number of CCTV cameras all round the city, meaning police were able to spot the thieves and see them make off with the jewels.

Other details of this story suggest that the thieves’ planning was rather haphazard. When fleeing the scene on a bike, Abbas fell, dropping a bag of jewels.

The next day, a passer-by found a diamond-encrusted necklace and wore it all day at the office before watching the news and realising where it had come from.

Police arrested Abbas and several other people in January 2017 and later confirmed that they had been under surveillance for several weeks, after DNA traces left at the scene provided a match with Aomar Ait Khedache, also known as “Omar the Old”.

French media published a photo from the police stakeout, which shows several of the men having coffee and chatting at a Parisian café that winter, just before their arrest.

The question that remains – and which will undoubtedly be explored doing the trial – is just how the gang got wind of Kardashian’s schedule.

Court documents seen by the BBC show that both Khedache and Abbas stated that all the information they needed was posted online by Kardashian herself, whose very career was built on sharing details about her life and movements.

But how did the gang know that on the night of 2 October Kardashian would be alone in her room, without her security guard?

Court documents indicate police believe Gary Madar, whose brother Michael’s firm had provided transportation and taxis to the Kardashians for years, was an accessory to the heist and that he had fed information to the gang about Kim’s whereabouts.

Mr Madar was arrested in January 2017. His lawyer Arthur Vercken vehemently pushed back against the accusations, telling the BBC that “since the start the case was built on assumptions, theses, theories – but no proof [of Madar’s involvement] was ever found”.

He added that although the Madar brothers exchanged texts about the Kardashians during Fashion Week it was just because they were “bored” and that when the heist took place Gary was asleep.

Gary’s brother, Michael, is not a defendant.

“Five men did this. You don’t think one of them was keeping an eye on who was coming and going from her hotel?” he said, suggesting that Mr Madar had only been arrested “to prove that the French justice system works”.

The trial will also attempt to determine where the jewels ended up.

Police tracking of the gang’s phones showed that soon after the heist Omar the Old travelled from Paris to Antwerp in Belgium, where 50% of the world’s polished diamonds and 80% of rough diamonds are sold, according to the Diamond Investment Office.

Many jewels were reportedly melted or broken up and sold. Abbas got 75,000 euro (£64,000); others far less.

As for Kim Kardashian’s engagement ring, Omar the Old said the gang was too scared to sell it on as it would be too easily traceable. It has never been found.

Kim Kardashian was undoubtedly spooked by the event, which marked the start of her social media hiatus.

In an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, she tearfully recalled the night of the heist and said had been scared for her life; later she also said the robbery had made her a “less materialistic person”.

Soon after the incident her sister Khloe told The Ellen DeGeneres that, for safety reasons, the Kardashian family were making some changes to how freely they posted on social media.

“The biggest change was her security detail,” KJ Matthews told the BBC.

Patricia Tourancheau, the author of the book about the heist, said she was “fascinated” by the “clash between these old-style burglars from the Parisian banlieue and this global social media star”.

“They fled on bikes and she flies around on private jets,” she laughed.

“These are a group of elderly down-and-out thieves, they’re always broke, they’re forever involved in convoluted plans… and they’re facing a huge celebrity and they don’t even know who she is.”

The gang was not “elite” as it was suggested in the early days, she added.

“This isn’t the creme de la creme of French banditry. They’re a bit of a bunch of losers, really. They’re the same kind of people who in the 60s and 70s would burglar banks or post offices and who then rebranded to drug trafficking and then moved on to jewels because it was easier,” she said.

Around mid-May, Kim will face the suspects for the first time in years when she takes the stand as a witness.

Cameras are not allowed in French courts but her arrival to the tribunal on Ile de la Cité alone will inevitably spark the same media frenzy that has accompanied her for over a decade.

In his memoir, Abbas expressed the hope the victim’s status and the global resonance of the case would not influence judges unduly.

However, he also said that on the last day of the trial he would bring a duffle bag with his belongings, ready to be sent to jail.

“The problem with the past,” he wrote, “is that it sticks with you as long as you live”.

Images of Pope Francis’s tomb at the Santa Maria Maggiore church in Rome have been released.

A single white rose was pictured lying on the stone tomb that bears the name he was known by during his pontificate, below a crucifix illuminated by a single spotlight.

The late pope was laid to rest at the church – one of four major basilicas in the Italian capital, and one he would regularly visit during his time as cardinal and pontiff – in a private ceremony following his public funeral in the Vatican on Saturday.

Thousands of mourners have been filing past the tomb since the church opened to the public on Sunday morning to pay their respects to Pope Francis, who died aged 88 on Monday.

• Why Pope Francis hasn’t been buried in the Vatican
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Among them was Rosario Correale, an Italian, who said it was “very emotional” seeing the tomb. “He really left a mark on us,” he told the Associated Press.

Polish pilgrim Maria Brzezinska felt the resting place befit the man. “I feel like it’s exactly in the way of the Pope. He was simple, and so is his place now,” she told the news agency Reuters after visiting.

Francis was particularly devoted to the Virgin Mary, and Santa Maria Maggiore was the first church to be dedicated to her when it was built in the 4th Century.

The basilica sits near the Colosseum, a stone’s throw from the city’s endlessly bustling and chaotic central Termini station – well beyond the limits of the Vatican, where popes are traditionally entombed.

But it was one the South American pontiff had a long-held affinity for.

Its senior priest previously told an Italian newspaper that Pope Francis had said he wished to be laid to rest there in 2022, citing inspiration from the Virgin Mary.

“I thought it was amazing that he wanted to be buried here in this basilica,” Amaya Morris, another pilgrim, told AP.

“Out of all of the [churches], he chose this one. So I thought that was really amazing. It’s really humbling to be able to be here.”

Francis’s funeral was attended by heads of state, heads of government and monarchs from around the world – as well as hundreds of thousands of Catholics who lined the streets leading to the Vatican to pay their respects.

Hymns played out on giant speakers, occasionally drowned out by the sound of helicopters flying overhead, before 91-year-old Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re gave a homily on the pope’s legacy.

The cardinal emphasised that Pope Francis had repeatedly urged the world to “build bridges, not walls”.

The funeral was also the venue for a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, which the latter said afterwards had the “potential to become historic”.

Trump later questioned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s willingness to end the now three-year war in Ukraine, a conflict which Pope Francis had regularly called for peace during his papacy.

Following the public funeral, Pope Francis’s coffin was carried through Rome in a slow procession.

Authorities said 140,000 people had lined the streets, clapping and waving as the hearse – a repurposed white popemobile – crossed the Tiber river and drove past some of Rome’s most recognisable sights: the Colosseum, the Forum and the Altare della Patria national monument on Piazza Venezia.

After a period of mourning, attention will soon turn to the selection of the next pope.

A date has not yet been set but it is thought it could start as early as 5 or 6 May, with 135 cardinals set to attend, making it the largest conclave in modern history.

In Iran, mourning is turning to anger after a huge blast at its largest commercial port killed at least 40 people and injured more than 1,000.

The explosion happened on Saturday morning at Shahid Rajaee port. Many people rushed to hospitals up and down the country to give blood.

A day later, fires are still blazing as a thick black cloud of toxic chemicals hangs over the surrounding area.

People in nearby towns and cities have been told by the health ministry to stay indoors “until further notice” and wear more protective clothes.

In the nearby southern city of Bandar Abbas, home to the Iranian Navy’s main base, all schools and offices were ordered to shut on Sunday to allow authorities to focus on the emergency effort, state TV said.

A local festival not far from Shahid Rajee Port that was supposed to be a celebration spontaneously turned into a solemn occasion for remembering the dead and praying for the injured.

Authorities declared a day of national mourning on Monday, with an additional two days of mourning in Hormozgan province.

It is a reminder that while Iran has been rocked physically by the blast – residents up to 50km (31 miles) away reported feeling the effects – the country is now being rocked by a growing blame game too.

Ambrey Intelligence, a private maritime risk consultancy, said it believed that intense fires that could be seen spreading between containers before the explosion were a result of “improper handling of a shipment of solid fuel intended for use in Iranian ballistic missiles”.

The firm said it believed the affected containers had contained solid fuel destined for ballistic missiles, and was aware that an Iran-flagged ship “discharged a shipment of sodium perchlorate rocket fuel at the port in March 2025”.

The New York Times quoted a person with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, speaking on condition of anonymity, as saying that what exploded was sodium perchlorate – a major ingredient in solid fuel for missiles.

Some Iranians are asking whether they should believe speculation on social media which said Iran’s military and Revolutionary Guard were storing rocket fuel that they had recently imported from China at the port – a claim which has been denied by an army spokesman.

Many in Iran are blaming the authorities for incompetence and worse, asking: How could so much inflammable material apparently be left on the port without due care?

That is a question that the Iranian regime will need to address. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian visited the scene of the explosion on Sunday, saying: “We have come to see first-hand if there is anything or any issue that the government can follow up on.”

Pezeshkian had previously ordered an investigation into the cause of the blast, sending the interior minister to the region to lead it.

Defence ministry spokesman Reza Talaei-Nik later told state TV that “there has been no imported or exported cargo for military fuel or military use in the area”.

The port’s customs office said in a statement carried by state television that the explosion probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazardous and chemical materials’ storage depot.

There is also the question of whether Iran’s economy may be affected, given the port handles nearly 80% of the country’s imports.

On Saturday, authorities were warning of possible food shortages in the near term with the port out of action for some time.

A day later, they were playing that down, saying that the explosion only affected a part of the port and that the rest is functioning normally.

An image from Iran’s Tasnim news agency on Sunday showed a helicopter flying through a sky blackened by smoke to drop water on the disaster-struck area, AFP reported.

Others showed firefighters working among toppled and blackened cargo containers, and carrying out the body of a victim. The authorities have closed off roads leading to the site.

The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered that multiple specialist firefighting aircraft be sent to Iran to help deal with the aftermath of the disaster.

Beijing’s foreign ministry said in a statement to AFP on Sunday that three Chinese victims were in a “stable” condition and that it had received no further reports of casualties.

Among the condolences being sent were from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Turkey, the United Nations and Russia.

The explosion ripped through the port as Iranian and US delegations were meeting via mediators in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme, with both sides reporting progress.

Iran has said it is open to curbs on its nuclear programme in return for sanctions easing but has insisted it will not stop enriching uranium. It insists its nuclear programme is for civilian use.

Police have charged a 30-year-old man with eight counts of second degree murder after a car was driven into a crowd at a street festival in Vancouver, Canada.

The attack at the annual Lapu Lapu event, which celebrates Filipino culture, left 11 dead and dozens more injured.

Work to identify some victims was continuing on Sunday evening, and investigators said the suspect – Kai-Ji Adam Lo, a resident of the city – was likely to be charged with further murders.

The festival organisers said the city’s tight-knit Filipino community was “grieving” and that the attack’s impact will be felt for years to come.

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Earlier, police said the ages of the victims ranged from five to 65. Their identities have not been disclosed.

Investigators have yet to reveal a motive for the attack, but said they do not believe it was an act of terrorism.

The suspect was known to police and had a history of mental health problems.

The attack took place at around 20:14 local time on Saturday (03:14 GMT) at East 43rd Avenue and Fraser in the south of Vancouver.

At the scene on Sunday, people began laying flowers and paying their respects.

One woman doubled over sobbing before walking off. Another woman, named Donna, said she lived in the neighbourhood for more than 50 years.

She was at the festival and said it was packed with young people and families.

“People were here to celebrate and have fun,” she told the BBC. “This is tragic.”

Speaking at a news conference the following day, RJ Aquino, the head of the Filipino BC organisation, said that “last night was extremely difficult and the community will feel this for a long time.”

“We know that there’s a lot of questions floating about and we don’t have all the answers, but we want to tell everybody that we’re grieving,” he added.

Mr Aquino said that the attack caused considerable confusion and chaos in the city’s tight-knit Filipino community, with many residents calling one another to check on their loved ones.

“I don’t think my phone has buzzed that much in my entire life,” he said. “There was a lot of panic and, you know, relief, when somebody answers.”

At a separate news briefing on Sunday, acting Vancouver police chief Steve Rai said it was the “darkest day” in the city’s history.

He said “dozens” of people were injured in the attack, some seriously.

“The number of dead could rise in the coming days or weeks,” he told reporters, adding that men, women and young people were among the victims.

Lo was taken into custody by police officers after being detained by bystanders at the scene.

While Rai declined to specify any potential motive, he said that he “can now say with confidence that the evidence in this case does not lead us to believe this was an act of terrorism”.

The suspect, he added, has “a significant history of interactions with police and healthcare professionals related to mental health”.

The festival in Vancouver – home to over 140,000 Canadians of Filipino descent – takes place every year to commemorate Lapu-Lapu, a national hero who resisted Spanish colonisation in the 1500s.

Tens of thousands of people were in attendance at the event.

According to Rai, police had conducted a threat assessment ahead of the festival, and had partially closed a road on a street behind a school where the bulk of the festivities were taking place.

There was nothing to indicate a higher threat level for the event, he added.

The street where the attack took place was largely being used by food trucks and there were no barriers in place.

Rai said that the incident would be a “watershed moment” for city officials and first responders.

The attack came just before Canada’s federal election on 28 April, prompting Prime Minister Mark Carney to cancel large gatherings of Liberal Party supporters in Calgary and Richmond.

Smaller community-focused events in Saskatoon and Edmonton were expected to continue as planned.

In a televised address to Canadians, Carney said he was “heartbroken” and “devastated” by the attack.

His campaign said he would visit Vancouver on Sunday.

The main opposition candidate, Pierre Polievre, continued campaigning, but made an unscheduled stop at a church in Mississauga – a suburb of Toronto – to meet with members of the Filipino community.

Appearing alongside his wife Anaida Poilievre, the Conservative leader expressed his condolences. “I wanted to be here with you in solidarity,” he told the church attendees.

Meanwhile, the leader of the British Columbia New Democratic Party David Eby, said he was “shocked and heartbroken”.

One Canadian political leader, the New Democrats’ Jagmeet Singh, was among those who attended the Lapu Lapu festival on Saturday, and subsequently changed his planned events on Sunday.

He said it was “heart-breaking” to see that “such joy can be torn apart so violently.

“I saw families gathered together, I saw children dancing, I saw pride in culture, in history and community,” he added.

Drag star Bianca Castro-Arabejo, who performed as Jiggly Caliente, has died aged 44, her family has said.

The performer, who found fame on the fourth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, had part of her leg amputated on Thursday after suffering a “severe infection”.

Caliente had served as a judge on the show’s Philippines spin-off, and also appeared in the hit US TV series Pose.

Her family wrote in a statement on Instagram: “It is with profound sorrow that we announce the passing of Bianca Castro-Arabejo, known to the world and cherished by many as Jiggly Caliente.”

They said she died in the early hours of Sunday morning “surrounded by her loving family and close friends”.

Caliente’s family paid tribute to her “infectious energy, fierce wit, and unwavering authenticity”, adding that she left a legacy of “love, courage and light”.

“She touched countless lives through her artistry, activism, and the genuine connection she fostered with fans around the world,” they said.

“Though her physical presence is gone, the joy she shared and the space she helped create for so many will remain forever.”

Fellow drag queens have left tributes to the Filipino-American performer online.

Laganja Estranja, who appeared on the sixth season of the US reality TV programme, said Caliente was a “kind, caring soul”.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Baga Chipz described Caliente as “one of the kindest, sweetest souls I’ve ever met”.

Cheryl The Queen, who also competed in the UK version of the show, wrote: “We will love you forever and always Jiggly.”

Tia Kofi, who won Drag Race UK versus the World, said Caliente was “someone I came to for advice, I looked up to, who gave me support when it was most needed and, I cannot lie, was always there for a good gossip!”

Drag Race judge Michelle Visage in her tribute said “the laughter was endless, our talks were special, your energy was contagious”.

“You were and remain so very loved. This world has lost an angel and we want you to soar high,” she added.

Born in the Philippines in 1980, Caliente moved to the Queens neighbourhood of New York City with her family when she was a child.

She quickly became a fan favourite on RuPaul’s Drag Race for her sense of humour and memorable interactions with other queens, when she appeared on the show in 2012.

In one particularly memorable moment, while arguing with Caliente, fellow contestant Lashauwn Beyond coined the catchphrase “this is not RuPaul’s Best Friend Race”, which has been frequently repeated in later series.

Caliente went on to embark on an acting career, appearing in episodes of sitcoms Broad City and Search Party.

She played the role of Veronica in the TV drama Pose, which chronicled New York’s LGBT ball culture in the 1980s and 90s.

Caliente, who publicly came out as transgender in 2016, later returned to the Drag Race universe, competing in the sixth series of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars in 2021 and judging the spin-off show Drag Race Philippines for three series.

Prior to her death, the drag performer’s family had said on Thursday that she had suffered a “serious health setback” which led to the loss of “most of her right leg”.

Israel carried out an air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday, after ordering an evacuation of a building that it said was being used by the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah.

The attack occurred despite a ceasefire that came into force five months ago which put an end to the conflict between Israel and the military group.

Israel said that it had targeted a Hezbollah store of “precision-guided missiles” that “poses a threat to the State of Israel and its civilians”.

The Lebanese presidency condemned the strike and called on the US and France – who brokered the ceasefire in November – to press Israel to cease its attacks on the country.

The attack marks the first time in almost a month that Israel has struck Beirut’s southern suburbs – called Dahieh – where Hezbollah is based.

This will put further pressure on the ceasefire. Despite the deal, Israel has struck targets it says are linked to Hezbollah almost every day. The Israeli government has said that it will respond to any perceived threats from Hezbollah.

Western officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have told the BBC that the militant group has been largely compliant with the truce, while accusing Israel of multiple violations that include air strikes and drone surveillance.

Live footage streamed by Reuters showed a giant plume of smoke billowing from the targeted building an hour after the Israeli army issued an evacuation order to residents of the Hadath neighbourhood.

Lebanon’s Civil Defence later said that no casualties had been recorded and rescue crews had extinguished the fire.

In a statement on X following the strike, the Lebanese Presidency said that President Joseph Aoun condemned the attack.

“The United States and France, as guarantors of the cessation of hostilities agreement, must assume their responsibilities and compel Israel to immediately cease its attacks,” it wrote.

“Israel’s continued undermining of stability will exacerbate tensions and expose the region to real threats to its security and stability.”

Israel’s government said that it had targeted a Hezbollah store of “precision-guided missiles”.

“The storage of missiles in this infrastructure site constitutes a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon, and poses a threat to the State of Israel and its civilians,” the Israeli military said in a statement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that Israel “will not allow Hezbollah to grow stronger”.

“The Dahiyeh neighbourhood in Beirut will not serve as a safe haven for the terrorist organisation Hezbollah,” it added.

UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, wrote on X that the strike “generated panic and fear of renewed violence among those desperate for a return to normalcy”.

“We urge all sides to halt any actions that could further undermine the cessation of hostilities understanding,” she added.

Earlier this month an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs killed four people, including a Hezbollah official.