Hong Kong has released four former opposition lawmakers who were among dozens of pro-democracy leaders jailed under the city’s controversial National Security Law (NSL).

The four – Claudia Mo, Kwok Ka-ki, Jeremy Tam and Gary Fan – had pleaded guilty and were each sentenced to four years and two months behind bars in November.

They were released on Tuesday because the fact they had been in prison since their arrests in 2021 was taken into account when calculating their sentence.

The four lawmakers were part of a group known as the Hong Kong 47. They were accused of trying to overthrow the government by running an unofficial primary to pick opposition candidates for local elections.

Police said they had left their correctional facilities early on Tuesday.

This was the biggest trial under the national security law (NSL) which China imposed on the city shortly after explosive pro-democracy protests in 2019.

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in a months-long standoff against Beijing. Triggered by a proposed government treaty that would have allowed extradition to mainland China, the protests quickly grew to reflect wider demands for democratic reform.

Beijing and Hong Kong authorities argue the law is necessary to maintain stability and deny it has weakened autonomy.

But critics have called it “the end of Hong Kong” and say it has created a climate of fear in the city.

The Hong Kong 47 included famous figures like Joshua Wong and Benny Tai, who were icons of the 2014 pro-democracy protests that rocked Hong Kong.

Others were arrested after they stormed the city’s Legislative Council (LegCo) and spray-painted Hong Kong’s emblem in what became a pivotal moment in the 2019 protests.

A total of 45 people were jailed for conspiring to commit subversion. Two of the defendants were acquitted in May.

The sentences were widely condemned by the international community including the UK and the US.

Claudia Mo, known affectionately in Cantonese as Auntie Mo, is among the most well known of the group.

A prominent opposition lawmaker, the 67-year-old helped set up the now disbanded opposition Civic Party in 2006 and by 2012 she had won a seat in LegCo.

She was among 15 lawmakers who resigned en masse from LegCo after four pro-democracy lawmakers were ousted in November 2020. The move left LegCo with no opposition presence.

Kwok Ka-ki and Jeremy Tam were also former Civic Party lawmakers. Gary Fan was a co-founder of another opposition party, the Neo Democrats.

The Duchess of Sussex used the title HRH on a card sent with a personal gift but not for any public purpose, sources close to her have said.

A video accompanying a podcast shows a gift basket for US cosmetics entrepreneur Jamie Kern Lima, which includes a card saying: “With the Compliments of HRH The Duchess of Sussex.”

When Prince Harry and Meghan stepped down as working royals there was an agreement to stop using HRH, which stands for Her/His Royal Highness, but they still hold the titles.

Sources close to the California-based couple reject that this card was a breach of the agreement struck on their departure from royal duties.

According to sources, the couple do not use HRH in commercial or public settings – and this was only a private use of the title and was for a gift given more than a year ago.

This distinction would mean the HRH title was not being used to promote the jams and food products in Meghan’s As Ever range or her Netflix cookery series.

The card was shown in a video of a podcast hosted by Jamie Kern Lima, who said that when she had been “super-stressed” that Meghan had cheered her up by dropping round some ice cream and “home made strawberry sauce”.

Mrs Kern Lima said the gift showed great empathy and gave something that “adds value to my life”.

Prince Harry and Meghan lost the use of the titles when they stopped being working royals in 2020 and left the UK, initially to move to Canada and then to the US.

“The Sussexes will not use their HRH titles as they are no longer working members of the Royal Family,” said a statement from Buckingham Palace at the time.

They also stopped receiving public funding as they embarked on “the next chapter of their lives”.

But this agreement did not remove the title, it restricted how it was used, with this card suggesting that it has still been used in private.

Another non-working royal, Prince Andrew, also does not use HRH in any official capacity, but still has the title.

The podcast with Jamie Kern Lima also included Meghan discussing her relationship with Prince Harry: “You have to imagine at the beginning, everyone has, like, butterflies.

“Then we immediately went into the trenches together. Yeah, right out of the gate, like six months into dating.

“So now, seven years later, when you have a little bit of breathing space, you can just enjoy each other in a new way, and that’s why I feel like it’s more of a honeymoon period for us now.”

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Prosecutors have dropped some of the charges against an Australian woman accused of killing three relatives and seriously injuring another with a toxic mushroom lunch.

Erin Patterson will not face trial over allegations she also attempted to murder her husband, after those charges were withdrawn.

She still faces four charges: three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.

The 50-year-old has always maintained her innocence and has pleaded not guilty, with her trial to begin in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Wednesday.

Three people died in hospital days after the July 2023 lunch, including Patterson’s former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

Heather’s husband, 68-year-old Baptist pastor Ian Wilkinson, survived after weeks of treatment in hospital.

The jury has been picked and is receiving instructions from the judge ahead of opening statements, which are expected Wednesday.

Justice Christopher Beale told the jury that most if not all them would probably have been aware of the previous charges in relation to Patterson’s husband, but said that the Director of Public Prosecutions had dropped them.

“In other words… you must put them out of your mind,” he said.

He also urged them to “dispassionately” weigh the evidence in the case, using their heads and not their hearts.

The trial is being held at a small courthouse in Morwell, about 60km (37 miles) from Leongatha, Victoria, where prosecutors allege the lunch took place.

The Israeli military has released a Palestinian paramedic detained when Israeli troops killed 15 other emergency workers in southern Gaza last month, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.

Assad al-Nassasra was missing for three weeks until the International Committee of the Red Cross received information he was in Israeli detention.

He was reportedly one of 10 detainees freed at an Israeli border crossing with Gaza on Tuesday.

The Israeli military has not commented. But it had confirmed it was holding Mr Nassasra during a briefing on an internal inquiry into the attack, which identified “several professional failures”.

The PRCS denounced the findings as an attempt to justify a “war crime”.

Eight PRCS paramedics, six first responders from Gaza’s Civil Defence agency, and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) were killed when their ambulances, a fire engine and a UN vehicle came under fire in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah during an emergency call-out early on 23 March.

Their bodies were found buried in shallow graves a week later next to the crushed vehicles.

One other PRCS paramedic survived and said he was released by Israeli forces after being detained alongside Mr Nassasra.

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

But it later said that account was “mistaken” after a video found on the mobile phone of one of the dead paramedics – Rifaat Radwan, who was in the same ambulance as Mr Nassasra – showed the convoy was using its emergency lights.

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

On 20 April, the military released a summary of its internal inquiry which said the shooting of the 14 PRCS and Civil Defence workers resulted from “an operational misunderstanding” by troops from a reconnaissance battalion “who believed they faced a tangible threat”.

It found the killing of the Unrwa employee meanwhile “involved a breach of orders during a combat setting”.

The military said the deputy commander of the reconnaissance battalion was dismissed “due to his responsibilities as the field commander in this incident and for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief”.

The PRCS condemned the report, saying it was evidence of what it called Israel’s “policy of systemic distortion of the truth” to protect its soldiers from accountability.

“The results of the occupation’s investigation hold the usual fallacious allegations of rescue teams in Gaza being part of Hamas in order to justify the war crime of targeting medical missions in general, and the war crime of attacking teams and vehicles carrying the protected emblems of the Geneva Conventions in particular,” it said.

A senior UN humanitarian official in Gaza warned “a lack of real accountability undermines international law and makes the world a more dangerous place”.

One week after a devastating militant attack near the mountain resort of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 people, the town wears a look of quiet desolation, although tourists have begun trickling back in small numbers.

The main high street, abandoned by visitors last week – with shops shuttered and hotels completely emptied out – is seeing fleeting signs of life again.

Last Tuesday, militants opened fire on people, mostly tourists, who were visiting Baisaran, a mountain-top meadow three miles (5 km) from Pahalgam, often described as the “Switzerland of India”.

The attack was one of the deadliest in recent years, devastating the lives of many families and sparking widespread anger in India.

In the days since, tensions between India and Pakistan, which both claim Kashmir in full but administer it only in part, have significantly risen, with each side announcing retaliatory measures against the other.

There is now growing speculation about whether there will be a military response from Delhi. The government in Kashmir has closed down over half the tourist destinations in the valley, as authorities review the security situation and carry out search operations.

While violence has often broken out in the region, with militants targeting security forces and civilians since an insurgency broke out in 1989, the brazen killing of tourists has been rare and has shocked local businesses and tourists alike.

Tourism is a mainstay of the economy in places like Pahalgam and there’s now fear that many livelihoods might be irrevocably hit.

At a “selfie point” outside town, overlooking lush meadows and a rushing river, Akshay Solanki, a tourist from Mumbai, said there was “panic” among his group of travellers on the day of the attack. But they had decided to continue with their journey because flights back home had become unaffordable.

Other tourists said constant reassurances from the locals and security forces had given them a sense of comfort. A driver who had brought visitors from the capital, Srinagar, told BBC Hindi that he was pleading with those visiting not to “distance” themselves from Kashmir.

After a washout three days, shawl-seller Rafi Ahmed said he’d managed to sell just a few pieces and feared for his livelihood in the long run if tourists stopped coming.

Among those exhorting tourists to come to Pahalgam was Bollywood actor Atul Kulkarni, who visited the town days after the attack. He told BBC Hindi, if the message from the militants was “don’t come here, we should respond by coming in even larger numbers”.

“Don’t cancel bookings, cancel your other plans and come here,” Kulkarni said.

But uncertainty and apprehension loom large in Pahalgam and it could take several years before a sense of normalcy is restored, local business owners and residents told the BBC.

Indian authorities have launched combing operations in the region, detaining hundreds of people and destroying homes belonging to alleged militants.

India and Pakistan have also reportedly exchanged small arms fire across the border.

The escalation in tensions is keeping tourists and business owners on tenterhooks.

Indian authorities have often claimed Kashmir witnessed a period of relative peace after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked its autonomous status in 2019. Ahead of India’s general elections in 2024, Modi hailed the “freedom” that had come to the region, saying Kashmir was touching new heights of development because it was breathing freely.

Top leaders pointed to high tourism numbers – some 23 million last year and millions more in the years before – as proof of a big boom after years of unquiet. But last week’s attacks have, yet again, shattered any idea of lasting peace in the restive valley.

“This [attack] is a blot on us…How we wipe it off is a long-term concern,” Rafi Ahmed Meer, a politician from Pahalgam told BBC Hindi, urging tourists to remember that it was local Kashmiris who rushed to help after the attacks, even picking up bodies.

The cancellation rate for trips planned from cities like Pune, Mumbai and Bengaluru are very high, Abhishek Sansare, a Mumbai-based tour operator told the BBC. A group of prominent tour operators said in a press conference that some 80-90% of all bookings had been cancelled.

“After the attack, there’s a sense that a war is looming. So tourists are confused about what to do,” said Sansare. “Some of those who’ve already made advance bookings are going ahead with their plans. I’m also going there on the 2nd of next month.”

The attack on tourists is also likely to weigh on Kashmir in other ways. The inauguration of the world’s highest single-arch rail bridge, set to connect the Kashmir valley with the rest of India was slated to happen this month after several delays.

The timeline for the opening of this showpiece project now “looks uncertain”, a source told the BBC.

The region was just beginning to attract fledgling business investments, but those too could dry up if hostilities go up.

“People who were investing in logistics and other sectors will now think twice because of the security environment. Until they regain some confidence, I don’t foresee investments coming to Kashmir immediately,” said Ubair Shah, who owns one of Kashmir’s largest cold storage facilities for fruits in Pulwama district in south Kashmir.

As the region continues to boil over, local leaders have expressed deep anguish to the families who lost their loved ones.

In an impassioned speech in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly on Monday, the state’s chief minister and tourism minister Omar Abdullah paid tributes to the victims by reading out names of all the 26 people.

He said people from every part of the country had come under attack, and while they’d come to Kashmir at his invitation he could not ensure their safe return.

“I had no words to apologise to them. What could I say to the children who saw their father drenched in blood? To the widow of the navy officer who was married barely a few days ago?

“Some people told me they’d come to Kashmir for the first time, but will have to pay for their holiday life long,” he said, adding that the attack had “hollowed out” Kashmir.

A teenager has been charged after Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton’s office was vandalised for the third time during the election campaign.

The Liberal Party leader’s office in Arana Hills, Brisbane was splattered in red paint, and covered with posters criticising his stance on a number of issues.

Police say four people seen acting suspiciously at the site in the early hours of the morning fled when officers arrived, but an 18-year-old woman was tracked by the dog squad and charged with causing wilful damage.

Australians vote in an election on Saturday, 3 May, and Dutton has in recent days caused controversy for his comments about ceremonial Aboriginal rites.

The opposition leader has been criticised by some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, including former party colleagues, after saying Aboriginal “welcome to country” ceremonies are “overdone”. The short ritual has become standard at public events and recognises traditional land owners.

One of the posters plastered on his office said “always was, always will be Aboriginal land”. Others criticised his comments about finding “common ground” with Donald Trump, his stance on the Israel-Gaza war, and his links to mining billionaire Gina Rinehart.

The same office was vandalised earlier this month, with the words “maggot” and “scum” written in black, and again a few days later, with a window smashed and white paint splashed across the entrance.

Dutton is yet to comment on the vandalism, but members of his party have previously said attacks on political offices are “out of control”.

“Unfortunately this is an increasingly frequent occurrence, not just targeting Peter’s office – although his has been targeted a number of times – but targeting members of parliament all around the country with graffiti and even more serious acts of violence,” James Paterson told Sky News Australia last week.

Malta’s so-called golden passport scheme that lets people become citizens through financial investment is contrary to European law, the EU’s top court has ruled.

The EU commission took Malta to court in 2022 over the scheme, which grants foreigners a Maltese passport and thereby the right to live and work in any EU country in return for paying at least €600,000 (£509,619), buying or renting property of a certain value, and donating €10,000 to charity.

The EU’s Court of Justice said the scheme “amounts to rendering the acquisition of nationality a mere commercial transaction”.

Malta’s government has not yet responded to the ruling, which former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat called “political”.

He said he believed the scheme could continue with “some changes”.

The country risks hefty fines if it does not comply with the judgment.

The EU’s Court of Justice said “the acquisition of Union citizenship cannot result from a commercial transaction.”

Malta has repeatedly insisted that it was correct in its interpretation of EU treaties, Reuters news agency reported.

In 2022, it suspended the scheme for Russian and Belarusian nationals in the wake of Russia’s invasion and Europe’s crackdown on Kremlin-linked individuals.

Tuesday’s ruling goes against a report last October from the court’s Advocate General at the time, Anthony Collins.

He said the commission had failed to prove that EU law requires a “genuine link” between the person and the country to grant lawful citizenship, adding it is for each member state to decide who is “to be one of their nationals and, as a consequence, who is an EU citizen”.

Although each EU member state determines how they grant nationality, the court said Malta’s scheme “jeopardises the mutual trust” between member states.

The EU has previously called on countries to end the practice, noting that investor citizenship schemes carried “inherent” security issues, as well as risks of money laundering, tax evasion and corruption.

Leading human rights organisations have renewed calls for investigations into the killing of protesters by Kenya’s security forces during demonstrations against a rise in taxes last June.

It follows a BBC Africa Eye investigation, exposing members of the security forces who shot dead three protesters at Kenya’s parliament, igniting public outrage and demands for justice.

Amnesty International and the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) said the officers identified in the documentary should “face the law”.

Kenya’s government spokesman has responded by saying “every life is important”, the police watchdog is conducting an investigation and criticised the BBC documentary for being “one-sided”.

“Those who did the documentary should have sought government opinion… so that they can be fair and balanced,” Isaac Mwaura said.

“For example, they show the parliament being burnt, but they don’t show who is doing it; they seem to minimise the vandalisation that happened in parliament.”

He admitted the protesters had legitimate concerns about the finance bill but said: “We cannot have a country that also is led through anarchy and mayhem.”

The BBC had asked the government to take part in the documentary.

It was briefly discussed in Kenya’s parliament on Tuesday when MP John Kiarie accused the BBC of “pushing a foreign agenda”, while another MP, Millie Odhiambo, said the government and parliament should deal with the aftermath of the protests “soberly”, without gagging the media.

“The BBC documentary has created more anger among young people… You can’t stop the media,” Odhiambo said.

In response to the documentary before it was aired, the police service said the force could not investigate itself, adding that Kenya’s Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) was responsible for investigating alleged misconduct.

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.

• ‘They aimed to kill’ – BBC identifies security forces who shot Kenya anti-tax protesters

BBC Africa Eye’s Blood Parliament documentary revealed how security forces brutally responded to youthful protesters who breached Kenya’s parliament on 25 June 2024, the day lawmakers voted to approve the proposed tax hikes.

The controversial finance bill was aimed at raising $2.7bn (£2bn) the government said it needed to cut its reliance on external borrowing – but had sparked widespread.

Using open-source data and user-generated content, the BBC’s analysis of more than 5,000 images identified uniformed security personnel – a policeman and solider – who opened fire killing three unarmed protesters at parliament.

The wider clampdown by the security forces on a series of protests against the finance bill left at least 65 people dead, resulted in the forcible disappearance of 89 others and the arrest of thousands, according to Amnesty International.

The Kenyan government put the death toll at 42.

On Monday, the BBC said it had cancelled a private screening of the documentary in Kenya’s capital Nairobi “due to pressure from the authorities”.

“We are very disappointed not to have been able to share the documentary and panel discussion as planned,” a BBC spokesperson said.

“In the meantime, audiences can watch the film on BBC Africa’s YouTube channel,” the spokesperson added.

Amnesty said the documentary corroborated the group’s earlier report that “unnecessary and excessive lethal force was used against protesters”.

It called on the police and the army to “publicly state the actions being taken with regard to the findings of the BBC exposé”.

The rights group urged Kenyans to sign a petition calling for a public inquiry into the killings during what were dubbed the #OccupyParliament protests.

The KHRC said the BBC documentary revealed how “organised criminals in police and military uniforms” were deployed “to murder innocent Kenyans”.

It said the “responsibility rests with [President William] Ruto, who must be held accountable for these deaths”.

Kenyans expressed their anger online, pressing the government to hold security officers accountable for the killings and injuries of peaceful protesters.

Ruto has previously defended police against accusations of brutality and recently warned Kenyans against commenting on military matters.

Police have also repeatedly denied involvement in the abductions and killings. No officers have been charged.

On Monday, following the release of the BBC Africa Eye documentary, the IPOA gave an update on the investigations.

The authority revealed that so far, of the 60 deaths under investigation, 41 involved gunshot wounds.

The IPOA said it had completed 22 investigations, while it was actively pursuing 36, and that two cases were currently before the courts.

The investigating agency said it had recorded 233 injury cases during the demonstrations.

In a statement, the main opposition coalition said the “execution of peaceful protesters was premeditated and sanctioned at the highest levels”.

Mr Mwaura said the documentary risked “inciting Kenyans to violence” while one legislator called for the BBC to be banned in Kenya.

George Peter Kaluma, said that the 37-minute-long documentary risked “destabilising” the country.

But a senator, Edwin Sifuna, defended the documentary saying there were no “fabrications” in it.

“We must encourage these stories to be told from all angles for the sake of truth and justice. Those who are uncomfortable with this are wrestling with their own consciences and we cannot help them with that,” Sifuna posted on X.

• Batons, tear gas, live fire – Kenyans face police brutality
• New faces of protest – Kenya’s Gen Z anti-tax revolutionaries
• Kenyan tax protesters take on Christian leaders
• Kenyan president’s humbling shows power of African youth

One of Prince Andrew’s prized business assets was administered for two years by a company controlled by the controversial millionaire Doug Barrowman, the BBC can reveal.

After the prince’s disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019, legal ownership of his Dragons’ Den-style start-up competition, Pitch@Palace Global, was transferred to a Barrowman-linked firm, Knox House Trustees (UK).

Barrowman and his wife, lingerie boss Baroness Michelle Mone, hit the headlines when she admitted they had lied about their links to a company that won large government contracts during the Covid pandemic after she recommended it to ministers.

A lawyer for Mr Barrowman said he “at no time… had any business or personal involvement with the duke”.

Pitch@Palace Global remained the prince’s company, under his control. But in line with longstanding royal practice, it was owned under the names of other people or companies, acting on his behalf as so-called “nominees”.

Documents filed at Companies House show that from 2021, the nominee owner was Knox House Trustees (UK), which was controlled and ultimately owned by Mr Barrowman until 2023.

Prince Andrew’s finances have been under intense scrutiny, with questions about how he can afford to live in his Royal Lodge mansion in Windsor after he was cut off financially by his brother, King Charles.

The prince’s choice of business associates has long been controversial. In December, he said he “ceased all contact” with Yang Tengbo, who led the Chinese arm of Pitch@Palace, after receiving advice from the UK government which alleged that he was a spy.

Mr Yang has denied being a spy or doing anything unlawful.

Mr Barrowman has attracted plenty of controversy too. In 2017, HMRC began an investigation into one of his companies, AML Tax (UK), which it said “aggressively promoted” tax avoidance schemes. It was fined £150,000 in 2022.

In January that year, the Guardian newspaper first reported links between Mr Barrowman, Baroness Mone and PPE Medpro. The pair denied involvement until December 2023, when she admitted in a BBC interview that they had lied about their links with the company.

The National Crime Agency is now investigating suspected criminal offences at the firm. Mr Barrowman and Baroness Mone both deny any wrongdoing.

Author Andrew Lownie, who is writing a biography of the prince, said: “Andrew has a long history of associating with dubious business figures and disguising his business activities behind nominee and offshore accounts. There really needs to be a full investigation into the duke’s financial activities.”

Pitch@Palace was a start-up competition, founded in 2014, where entrepreneurs would pitch their ideas to possible investors in the hope of winning their backing. It had two parts:

• a UK-based version, set up as a community interest company, which cannot pay profits to shareholders
• an international arm, Pitch@Palace Global Ltd, which held competitions in places such as Australia, Bahrain and China, and was set up as a for-profit UK company

Both arms of Pitch@Palace suspended operations following the Newsnight interview in 2019 about the prince’s links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which led to Andrew stepping down as a working royal.

Nonetheless, the international operation has emerged as a possible way for the duke to fund his lifestyle. In a court witness statement from 2023, Mr Yang wrote that the duke had needed money “and saw the relationships with China through Pitch as one possible source of funding”.

Earlier this year a Dutch company said it was in talks to buy it, saying it saw “immense value” in the network, even though it had suspended operations.

However, Prince Andrew has never held the company in his own name.

Founded in 2017, Pitch@Palace Global Ltd was initially held in the name of Amanda Thirsk, the prince’s private secretary, in an arrangement often used by the Royal Family.

But early in 2021, the legal ownership was transferred to Knox House Trustees (UK) Limited.

This company had been set up the year before, and Mr Barrowman was named as having “significant influence and control” over it.

Corporate filings in the Isle of Man show Knox House Trustees (UK) was ultimately owned by Knox Limited, whose sole shareholder is Mr Barrowman.

In 2023, ownership of Knox House Trustees (UK) Ltd – which still owned Pitch@Palace Global – was transferred to Arthur Lancaster, an accountant who has a longstanding working relationship with both the prince and Mr Barrowman. This remains the situation today.

The same year Mr Lancaster took over as the sole director and shareholder of PPE Medpro. He was also a director of many of the companies involved in the AML tax avoidance case.

The judge in that case called him “evasive” and said he had “real concerns as to the reliability of Mr Lancaster’s evidence”, which contained “significant inconsistencies”.

After the case, his lawyer wrote to the court arguing that the conclusions were “unnecessarily harsh”, that Mr Lancaster had been a “diligent and truthful witness”, and that his efforts to provide information had been hampered by the Covid pandemic.

For decades the Royal Family has held investments through nominees, and still does. In the past this has served to keep details of their holdings private, though not in this case. Prince Andrew’s involvement in Pitch@Palace Global is well known, and he is listed as having “significant influence or control” over the company on Companies House.

Mr Barrowman’s lawyer said in a statement: “Mr Lancaster was a director of KHT (UK) Ltd which provided company administration services to a number of external companies, including Pitch@Palace, a company wholly owned by the duke. Mr Lancaster acted for the duke in a personal capacity at all times and has been an associate of the duke for many years.”

Mr Lancaster declined to comment. Prince Andrew did not respond to requests for comment.

Mark Carney’s Liberals have won Canada’s federal election – riding a backlash of anti-Trump sentiment to form the next government.

It is a stunning political turnaround for a party who were widely considered dead and buried just a few months ago.

It’s not yet clear if the party – which has been in power for almost a decade – will be able to secure a majority as results continue to roll in.

Either way, the prime minister faces major challenges, including divisions in the country laid bare by the campaign.

Here are five takeaways from an election which saw the Conservative opposition make major gains but still lose.

There is no doubt the US president’s tariff threats and comments undermining Canada’s sovereignty played an outsized role in this election, suddenly making leadership and the country’s economic survival the defining issues of the campaign.

Mark Carney used it to his advantage, running as much against Trump as he did against his main opposition rival, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

Carney warned Canada was at a crisis moment, saying frequently on the campaign trail – and in his victory speech – that Trump “wants to break us so America can own us”.

Poilievre brought Trump up much less frequently during the campaign, focusing his message on domestic issues – the cost of living, the housing affordability crisis, and crime – and targeting the Liberals for their record on those matters.

Carney – who has declared the old relationship with the US “over” – plans to start negotiations on a new economic and security relationship immediately following the election.

Kevin O’Leary, a Canadian businessman close to Trump who previously ran for the Conservative leadership, acknowledged it was a successful campaign strategy.

“Right now Canadians are very frustrated with America and Carney has used that to his advantage,” he told the BBC just before polls closed. “He was able to distract Canadians from his own mistakes… and say ‘Stop looking at that. Look south of the border and I can save you’.”

At the start of the year, Carney was a former central banker with no experience as a politician. By mid-March, he was being sworn in as prime minister – the first to have never held elected public office before – after a resounding win in the Liberal leadership race.

Now, he’s faced the Canadian electorate as a first time campaigner, won an Ottawa-area seat in the House of Commons and steered his party to an unlikely victory.

Carney had long flirted with entering Canadian politics – and he seized his moment, swooping in after former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s sudden resignation in January.

He also took full advantage of the new political landscape, leaning into his experience helping Canada and the UK navigate previous crises at a time when Canadians were feeling anxious about their economic future.

Trump’s late-March announcement of global levies on foreign automobile imports gave Carney the chance to publicly audition to keep his job during the campaign. He was able to step away from the trail and take on the prime minister’s mantle, setting up a call with the president and bringing together his ministers on the US file.

• REACTION: Follow the latest live
• RESULTS: How Canada voted – in charts
• ANALYSIS: A turnaround victory made possible by Trump
• EXPLAINER: What happens next?

In a different election, this would have been a successful one for the Conservatives.

In 2011, the Conservatives won a majority with 39.6% of the vote. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is on track to beat that this time, with roughly 41.4% of the vote with most polls reporting, according to Elections Canada.

They are currently projected to have won 144 seats – that’s up from 120 at dissolution, when the election was called in March.

But with the progressive vote coalescing around the Liberals, those numbers weren’t enough this time.

The bitter blow was Poilievre losing his riding (parliamentary seat) in Carleton, Ontario.

Only months ago his party had a clear path to victory and they will now need to figure out a way forward after a series of electoral defeats.

Whether that includes the diminished figure of Poilievre as leader is the first big question for them to face.He is the third leader they’ve had since the Liberals swept the 2015 election.

The election results have highlighted divisions in Canada that could pose a challenge for Carney.

Notably, the Liberals are largely shut out of Alberta and Saskatchewan – oil-rich and gas-rich prairie provinces where a sense of alienation from the centre of power in Ottawa has long festered.

Even before the election, some in those regions were warning of a national unity crisis if the Liberals won another mandate.

Carney touched on those divisions in his victory speech, acknowledging the millions who had voted for a different outcome.

“I intend to govern for all Canadians,” he said.

Meanwhile, Poilievre’s message, which relentlessly focused on cost of living issues, especially on housing affordability, resonated with many young people.

Support for the Conservatives outpaced Liberals by 44% to 31.2% among 18 to 34 year olds, a Nanos poll on 25 April indicated. The divide was more stark among younger men.

Separately, Abacus Data polling found that about 18% of 18 to 29 year olds were worried about Trump. That jumped to 45% for voters over 60, suggesting a polarisation on issues between generations.

On Monday night, Poilievre remarked on demographic breakthroughs Conservative had made, including with younger Canadians.

“We gave voices to countless people across the country who’ve been left out and left behind for far too long,” he said.

In this election, the smaller political parties have taken a hit as Canadians choose to park their votes with either the Liberals or the Conservatives – especially the left-wing New Democrats, or NDP.

Some of the smaller parties have lost a significant amount of vote share – particularly the NDP who have received just 6% of votes counted across Canada so far, compared with 18% in 2021.

Jagmeet Singh, who has been NDP leader for almost eight years, lost his own riding in British Columbia and announced he will step down.

“Obviously I know this night is a disappointing night for New Democrats,” he said, adding: “We’re only defeated if we stop fighting.”

The Greens have also seen their vote share cut in half from 2% to 1%.

Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, a non-profit public opinion research organisation, told the BBC that Trump’s rhetoric was behind the shift to the Liberals.

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

The sovereigntist Bloc Québécois have maintained a vote share of around 7%. They are on track to win 23 seats in Quebec.

This is based on around 97% of polls reporting.

Canada doesn’t have a two-party system, even though it has historically voted in conservative or liberal governments in some form.

In the country’s political system, these smaller parties still play a role in Parliament. Both the NDP and the Bloc have at some points formed Official Opposition in the House of Commons.

As life in Spain and Portugal stutters back to normal, the big questions are not just what went wrong but how to prevent such a full-scale power failure from happening again.

It was not until 11:15 (09:15 GMT) on Tuesday, almost 23 hours after the system collapsed that Spain’s electricity grid declared it was back to normal.

The trains have started running again although some lines are suspended and most homes have got their power back.

So how did it get back up and running and why did it take so long?

For most of Monday, Spain was in chaos.

The issue appears to relate to two separate connection problems in the south west within moments of each other and then a disconnection from the French network for almost an hour.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez highlighted the sudden loss of 15 gigawatts of electricity at 12:33 on Monday, when about 60% of Spain’s power generation suddenly vanished.

Eduardo Prieto, the director of operations for the grid Red Eléctrica, said the systems had been stable, until a loss of power generation in southwestern Spain.

Only the Canary Islands, the Balearics and Ceuta and Melilla on the North African coast were unaffected.

An increasing number of public figures are blaming a saturation of solar power and an over-reliance on renewable energy.

Minutes before the outage, Spain was running on 60.64% solar photovoltaic generation, with 12% wind and 11.6% nuclear.

However diversified and advanced Spain’s energy mix is, the national power collapse at 12:35 on Monday required an enormous effort to get Spain back up and running.

The initial focus was to get the northern and southern power generating regions working again, which grid operator Red Eléctrica said was key to “gradually re-energising the transmission grid as the generating units are connected”.

The risk lay in overloading the system by turning everything on at the same time and triggering another massive outage.

So everything had to be carefully phased for what experts call a “black start” working out as a success.

The initial focus was on hydro-electric plants, in particular pumped-storage plants with reservoirs full at this time of year and able to produce electricity fast from a standing start.

Combined-cycle gas plants also played a significant part in repowering the grid, but four nuclear power reactors at Almaraz, Ascó and and Vandellós were automatically shut down by the outage, and three others were already offline anyway.

Spain’s neighbours France and Morocco also came to its aid.

Morocco said 900MW of power had been transferred through two high-voltage lines that cross the Strait of Gibraltrar from Fardioua to Tarifa in southern Spain.

French operator RTE said it had been “gradually transferring more electricity to the Spanish border” via its power lines supplying Catalonia in north-east Spain and the Basque country in the north-west.

RTE said the Iberian network had been disconnected from 12:38 to 13:30 on Monday, when the 400kV line to Catalonia was restored. Within minutes, France had supplied 700MW and RTE said it was later able to increase that by up to 2,000 MW.

Power was then eventually restored to Spain’s electricity substations in the north, south and west of the peninsula.

By 19:20 on Monday, the grid operator said more than a fifth of demand had been restored by way of Spain’s own electricity generation and from France.

Electricity provider Endesa said it had restored almost 3.5 million customers by 19:15 and had prioritised hospitals and other strategic infrastructure.

Just over an hour later the head of Red Eléctrica boss Eduardo Prieto said about 9,200 MW of demand – about 35.1% – had been restored.

That figure rose steadily to 61.35% by midnight on Monday and more than 99% by 07:00 on Tuesday.

• How massive power cut unfolded in Spain and Portugal

Spain is only now beginning to count the cost. The CEOE bosses’ organisation has estimated a €1.6bn hit on the economy.

And the political blame game has already begun.

The conservative head of the Madrid community, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, said the government’s response had been slow and ineffective, while the leader of her People’s Party Alberto Núñez Feijóo complained of a “lamentable” image of Spain being sent around the world.

Despite all the problems, Spaniards were praised by the government for rising to the occasion and showing solidarity.

Hospitals had back-up diesel-operated generators so they were able to keep critical care going.

Spain’s Guardia Civil police force said it had rescued 13,000 passengers trapped on trains.

Residents in the southern town of Villanueva de Córdoba came to the aid of passengers stranded on a Ouigo train.

Local police in Barcelona returned to the old ways, regulating traffic in the Plaça España because the lights were out.

Passengers on the Barcelona metro had to walk to safety using the torches on their mobile phones when their trains became stuck in tunnels.

A conference centre in Girona was converted into a 180-bed shelter for people stranded by rail disruptions.

Although flights across the country were affected, airports operator Aena kept going throughout the disruption with the aid of generators.

Phone batteries ran down, TVs were on the blink and for many Spaniards their only lifeline to the outside world was from a car or battery-operated radio, as radio stations soldiered on through the blackout.

In Madrid there has been an urgent call for blood donations ahead of the big public holiday weekend.

Pedro Sánchez is determined that lessons will be learned and such a crisis will not happen again.

But energy expert Carlos Cagigal told Spanish TV there was a risk that it might, because Spain’s infrastructure was simply not in a position to cope with all the renewable energy being produced.

The power grid operator warned earlier this year of the risks of excessive renewable energy while closing nuclear plants.

But a clip of its president Beatriz Corredor has gone viral from 2021, in which she insisted that Spain had “one of the safest and most advanced” electrical systems in the world and there was no reason to worry.

The world’s rainforests are often referred to as the “lungs of the earth”.

They store billions of tonnes of carbon and in doing so help to reduce the impacts of climate change.

But with more than one and half trillion trees, measuring exactly how much carbon they store has been virtually impossible, until now.

On Tuesday, the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully launched a first-of-a-kind satellite which uses a special radar system to reveal what lies beneath the canopy.

It is hoped it will help scientists better understand the importance of rainforests in storing carbon and the impact of deforestation.

The rocket took off from ESA’s Kourou station in French Guiana and flying over the Amazon, one of the rainforests it will study.

The satellite on board has been affectionately named “space brolly” for its giant 12m diameter antenna which will send out signals.

“We really want to interrogate these forests. We can actually look inside,” Prof John Remedios, director of The National Centre for Earth Observation, which proposed the idea to ESA, said after the launch.

He said that it would be a major achievement “to actually know for the first time with high accuracy how much is actually in the Amazon, Congo, Indonesia”.

The antenna is using P-band radar which has a very long wavelength – allowing it to see deeper inside forests and reveal branches and trunks obscured by the canopy.

“Most radars that we have in space today take wonderful images of icebergs, but when they look at forests they see the tops of the forest, the little twigs, the little leaves, they don’t penetrate down into the forests,” explained Dr Ralph Cordey, head of geosciences at Airbus.

“But what we found was that by using a much longer radar wavelength, we could see down into the depths of trees and forests,” he said.

The 1.2-tonne satellite will use an approach not dissimilar to that used in a CT scan, and analyse slices through the trees on repeat passes to build up a picture of how much woody material is present.

It is this material that can be used as a proxy for the amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide stored.

Currently scientists have been measuring individual trees and trying to extrapolate, but this presents a “huge challenge” said Prof Mat Disney, professor of remote sensing, at University College London.

“Our current understanding is really patchy, because it’s really, really difficult to measure,” he said. “Essentially, what we’re talking about is trying to weigh the amount of carbon that’s stored in one and a half trillion trees across the tropics.

“Satellites are really the only way you can do that consistently.”

On the ground measurements will continue to take place after the satellite is launched to verify the data it is sending back.

The satellite was built in the UK and first conceived by University of Sheffield academic Professor Shaun Quegan, but he said it was an international effort: “The mission is the culmination of decades of highly innovative work in partnership with some of the best scientists in Europe and the US.”

Despite decades of testing, the deployment of the satellite has many challenging stages beyond the rocket launch.

“Certain things on the satellite are big, that includes its big 12-metre, deployable antenna. It’s a bit like deploying an umbrella in space, only a very big one, so we will be looking for that to happen smoothly,” said Dr Cordey.

Airbus brought in engineers from the American company L3Harris Technologies to their site in Stevenage to oversee the construction of the antenna-reflector.

L3Harris are specialists in these large, unfurlable systems – expertise which is not currently possessed in Europe.

The team is hoping to produce the first maps within six months, and will then continue to gather data for the next five years.

These annual maps will not only show how much carbon is stored but how much is being lost through deforestation.

“The kind of observations that we’ve had for 50 years from [other] satellites like Landsat are affected very heavily by clouds. And in tropical regions, we have clouds a lot of the time, so you may not see a chunk of tropical forest,” said Prof Disney.

Another advantage of the longer wavelength of the Biomass satellite is that it can penetrate clouds giving a consistent, comparable view of a forest from one year to the next.

It is this outcome which has motivated the scientists who have worked on the project for more than 20 years.

“It’s exciting, because it’s going to tell us about how something that we perhaps take for granted,” said Dr Cordey. “Our forests, our trees, how they are contributing to the processes which govern our planet, and in particular, the processes behind climate change which are so important to us today and for the future.”

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Now predominantly Muslim, North Africa was once a Christian heartland, producing Catholic popes who left their mark on the Church to this day.

Their papacies were in the era of the Roman Empire, which stretched across modern-day Tunisia, the north-east of Algeria and the coast of western Libya.

“North Africa was the Bible Belt of ancient Christianity,” says Prof Christopher Bellitto, a historian at Kean University in the US.

Many Catholics in Africa are hoping that the papacy will return to the continent for the first time in more than 1,500 years, as a successor to Pope Francis is chosen.

Here, we look at the three previous African popes – and how they got Christians to celebrate Easter Sunday and St Valentine’s Day.

All three have been recognised in the Church as saints.

Thought to be of Berber origin, Pope Victor I was in charge of the Catholic Church at a time when Christians were sometimes being persecuted by Roman officials for refusing to worship Roman gods.

He is perhaps best known for ensuring Christians celebrate Easter on a Sunday.

In the 2nd Century, some Christian groups from the Roman province of Asia (in modern-day Turkey) celebrated Easter on the same day that Jews celebrated Passover, which could fall on different days of the week.

However, Christians in the Western part of the Empire believed that Jesus was resurrected on a Sunday, so Easter should always be celebrated on that day.

The debate over when the resurrection took place made it an extremely contentious issue.

The “Easter controversy” was symbolic of larger conflicts between East and West, and whether or not Christians should follow Jewish practices.

Victor I called the very first Roman Synod – a gathering of Church leaders – to resolve the impasse.

He did this by threatening to excommunicate from the Church those bishops who refused to comply with his wishes.

“He was a rather forceful voice for getting everyone on literally the same page,” Prof Bellitto told the BBC.

This was an impressive feat, the historian said, because “he was the Bishop of Rome when Christianity was illegal in the Roman empire.”

Another important part of Victor I’s legacy was to introduce Latin as the common language of the Catholic Church. Previously Ancient Greek was the primary language of the Catholic Liturgy as well as official communication for the Church.

Victor I himself wrote in – and spoke – Latin, which was widely spoken in North Africa.

Pope Miltiades is believed to have been born in Africa.

During his reign, Christianity gained increasing acceptance from successive Roman emperors, eventually becoming the Empire’s official religion.

Before this, the persecution of Christians had been widespread at different points in the Empire’s history.

However, Prof Bellitto pointed out that Miltiades was not responsible for this change, saying the Pope was the “recipient of the Roman benevolence” rather than being a great negotiator.

Miltiades was given a palace by the Roman Emperor Constantine, becoming the first pope to have an official residence.

He was also granted permission by Constantine to build the Lateran Basilica, now the oldest public church in Rome.

While modern popes live and work in the Vatican, the Lateran church is sometimes referred to in Catholicism as “the mother of all churches”.

Gelasius I is the only one of the three African popes who historians believe was not born in Africa.

“There’s a reference to him being… Roman-born. So we don’t know if he [ever] lived in North Africa, but it seems clear that he was of North African descent,” Prof Bellitto explained.

He was the most important of the three African church leaders, according to Prof Bellitto.

Gelasius I is widely recognised as the first pope to officially be called the “Vicar of Christ”, a term that signifies the Pope’s role as Christ’s representative on Earth.

He also developed the Doctrine of the Two Swords, which emphasised the separate-but-equal powers of the Church and the state.

Gelasius I made the critical distinction that both powers were given to the Church by God, who then delegated earthly power to the state, making the Church ultimately superior.

“Later on, in the Middle Ages, popes sometimes tried to veto the selection of an emperor or a king, because they said God gave them that power,” said Prof Bellitto.

Gelasius I is remembered, too, for his response to the Acacian Schism – a split between the Eastern and Western Christian Churches from 484 to 519.

During this period, Gelasius I asserted the supremacy of Rome and the papacy over the entire Church, East and West, which experts believe went further than any of his predecessors.

Gelasius is also responsible for a popular celebration which is still marked every year – establishing St Valentine’s Day on 14 February in 496 to commemorate the Christian martyr St Valentine.

Some accounts say Valentine was a priest who continued to perform weddings in secret when they were banned by Emperor Claudius II.

Historians believe that Valentine’s Day is rooted in the Roman love and fertility festival, Lupercalia, and was a move by Gelasius I to Christianise pagan traditions.

Prof Bellitto says there is no way of knowing with any degree of accuracy what the three popes looked like.

“We have to remember that the Roman Empire, and indeed the Middle Ages, didn’t think of race as we think of it nowadays. It had nothing to do with skin colour,” he told the BBC.

“People in the Roman Empire didn’t deal with race, they dealt with ethnicity.”

Prof Philomena Mwaura, an academic at Kenya’s Kenyatta University, told the BBC that Roman Africa was very multicultural, with local Berber and Punic groups, freed slaves and people who had come from Rome found there.

“The North African community was quite mixed, and it was a trade route also for many people who were involved in trade in the earlier antiquity,” she explained.

Rather than identifying with specific ethnic groups, “most people who belonged to areas within the Roman Empire regarded themselves as Roman”, Prof Mwaura added.

• Who will be the next Pope?
• How a Pope is elected
• Why the conclave is so unpredictable

None of of the 217 popes since Gelasius I are believed to have come from Africa.

“The church in North Africa was weakened by very many forces, including the fall of the Roman Empire and also the incursion of Muslims [into North Africa] in the 7th Century,” Prof Mwaura said.

However, some experts argue that the prevalence of Islam in North Africa does not explain the absence of a pope from the entire continent over more than 1,500 years.

Prof Bellitto said the process of electing a new pontiff became an “Italian monopoly” for many years.

However, he said there was a strong chance of a pope from Asia or Africa in the near future because Catholics in the southern hemisphere outnumber those in the north.

In fact, Catholicism is expanding more rapidly in sub-Saharan Africa today than anywhere else.

The latest figures show there were 281 million Catholics in Africa in 2023. This accounts for 20% of the worldwide congregation.

Three Africans are in the race to succeed Pope Francis – the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Ghana’s Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson and Guinea’s Robert Sarah.

But Prof Mwaura argued that “although Christianity is very strong in Africa, the power of the Church is still in the north, where the resources have been”.

“Maybe, as it continues to be very strong within the continent and supporting itself, then a time will come when there could be an African pope,” she said.

• Will the next pope be from Africa?
• Africa remembers Pope who spoke for the continent
• Extraordinary photos from the funeral of Pope Francis

One week after a devastating militant attack near the mountain resort of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 people, the town wears a look of quiet desolation, although tourists have begun trickling back in small numbers.

The main high street, abandoned by visitors last week – with shops shuttered and hotels completely emptied out – is seeing fleeting signs of life again.

Last Tuesday, militants opened fire on people, mostly tourists, who were visiting Baisaran, a mountain-top meadow three miles (5 km) from Pahalgam, often described as the “Switzerland of India”.

The attack was one of the deadliest in recent years, devastating the lives of many families and sparking widespread anger in India.

In the days since, tensions between India and Pakistan, which both claim Kashmir in full but administer it only in part, have significantly risen, with each side announcing retaliatory measures against the other.

There is now growing speculation about whether there will be a military response from Delhi. The government in Kashmir has closed down over half the tourist destinations in the valley, as authorities review the security situation and carry out search operations.

While violence has often broken out in the region, with militants targeting security forces and civilians since an insurgency broke out in 1989, the brazen killing of tourists has been rare and has shocked local businesses and tourists alike.

Tourism is a mainstay of the economy in places like Pahalgam and there’s now fear that many livelihoods might be irrevocably hit.

At a “selfie point” outside town, overlooking lush meadows and a rushing river, Akshay Solanki, a tourist from Mumbai, said there was “panic” among his group of travellers on the day of the attack. But they had decided to continue with their journey because flights back home had become unaffordable.

Other tourists said constant reassurances from the locals and security forces had given them a sense of comfort. A driver who had brought visitors from the capital, Srinagar, told BBC Hindi that he was pleading with those visiting not to “distance” themselves from Kashmir.

After a washout three days, shawl-seller Rafi Ahmed said he’d managed to sell just a few pieces and feared for his livelihood in the long run if tourists stopped coming.

Among those exhorting tourists to come to Pahalgam was Bollywood actor Atul Kulkarni, who visited the town days after the attack. He told BBC Hindi, if the message from the militants was “don’t come here, we should respond by coming in even larger numbers”.

“Don’t cancel bookings, cancel your other plans and come here,” Kulkarni said.

But uncertainty and apprehension loom large in Pahalgam and it could take several years before a sense of normalcy is restored, local business owners and residents told the BBC.

Indian authorities have launched combing operations in the region, detaining hundreds of people and destroying homes belonging to alleged militants.

India and Pakistan have also reportedly exchanged small arms fire across the border.

The escalation in tensions is keeping tourists and business owners on tenterhooks.

Indian authorities have often claimed Kashmir witnessed a period of relative peace after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked its autonomous status in 2019. Ahead of India’s general elections in 2024, Modi hailed the “freedom” that had come to the region, saying Kashmir was touching new heights of development because it was breathing freely.

Top leaders pointed to high tourism numbers – some 23 million last year and millions more in the years before – as proof of a big boom after years of unquiet. But last week’s attacks have, yet again, shattered any idea of lasting peace in the restive valley.

“This [attack] is a blot on us…How we wipe it off is a long-term concern,” Rafi Ahmed Meer, a politician from Pahalgam told BBC Hindi, urging tourists to remember that it was local Kashmiris who rushed to help after the attacks, even picking up bodies.

The cancellation rate for trips planned from cities like Pune, Mumbai and Bengaluru are very high, Abhishek Sansare, a Mumbai-based tour operator told the BBC. A group of prominent tour operators said in a press conference that some 80-90% of all bookings had been cancelled.

“After the attack, there’s a sense that a war is looming. So tourists are confused about what to do,” said Sansare. “Some of those who’ve already made advance bookings are going ahead with their plans. I’m also going there on the 2nd of next month.”

The attack on tourists is also likely to weigh on Kashmir in other ways. The inauguration of the world’s highest single-arch rail bridge, set to connect the Kashmir valley with the rest of India was slated to happen this month after several delays.

The timeline for the opening of this showpiece project now “looks uncertain”, a source told the BBC.

The region was just beginning to attract fledgling business investments, but those too could dry up if hostilities go up.

“People who were investing in logistics and other sectors will now think twice because of the security environment. Until they regain some confidence, I don’t foresee investments coming to Kashmir immediately,” said Ubair Shah, who owns one of Kashmir’s largest cold storage facilities for fruits in Pulwama district in south Kashmir.

As the region continues to boil over, local leaders have expressed deep anguish to the families who lost their loved ones.

In an impassioned speech in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly on Monday, the state’s chief minister and tourism minister Omar Abdullah paid tributes to the victims by reading out names of all the 26 people.

He said people from every part of the country had come under attack, and while they’d come to Kashmir at his invitation he could not ensure their safe return.

“I had no words to apologise to them. What could I say to the children who saw their father drenched in blood? To the widow of the navy officer who was married barely a few days ago?

“Some people told me they’d come to Kashmir for the first time, but will have to pay for their holiday life long,” he said, adding that the attack had “hollowed out” Kashmir.

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.

• Myanmar military announces temporary ceasefire
• Inside Mandalay: BBC finds huge devastation and little help for Myanmar quake survivors

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.

Women with endometriosis are at a significantly higher risk for developing a range of autoimmune diseases, new research has shown.

The new study, involving researchers from the University of Oxford, has identified a significant genetic link between conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, coeliac disease and multiple sclerosis to endometriosis.

Women with endometriosis were found to have a 30-80% increased risk of developing autoimmune diseases.

The research team said the new information could be used “to look for new treatment avenues that may work across these conditions”.

Endometriosis, a condition where cells similar to those in the lining of the womb grow in other parts of the body, affects about 1.5 million women in the UK.

Symptoms include severe period pain and it causes extreme tiredness.

The study used data from the UK Biobank to analyse more than 8,000 endometriosis cases and 64,000 clinical disease cases.

The researchers examined the association between endometriosis and 31 different immune conditions.

Prof Krina Zondervan, joint senior author and head of the Nuffield Department of Women’s and Reproductive Health at the University of Oxford, said such large studies provided “valuable new insights into disease biology”.

“In this case, we have provided solid evidence of a link between endometriosis and subsequent risk of diseases such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, and we have shown this has a biological basis,” she said.

“This new information can now be leveraged to look for new treatment avenues that may work across these conditions.”

The team said that understanding “opens up exciting possibilities” for new therapeutic approaches, such as drug repurposing or the development of combined treatments.

The findings also suggest that women with endometriosis should be more closely monitored for the development of immunological conditions.

The research was mainly funded by Wellbeing of Women UK.

Chief executive Janet Lindsay said it was “an important step” in building a more accurate understanding of endometriosis.

“For too long there has been too little investment in research into women’s health issues like endometriosis,” she said.

“It is crucial that we increase research investment in the next generation of women’s health researchers to expand our knowledge and improve patient outcomes.”

The full paper can be read in the Human Reproduction journal.

Author Philip Pullman has revealed details of the sixth and final book in his series about Lyra Silvertongue, the character at the heart of His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust trilogies.

The Rose Field will be published on 23 October, and will follow his heroine’s story up to her early 20s.

She was 11 when she was introduced in the best-selling and award-winning first His Dark Materials book, Northern Lights, in 1995.

Pullman, 78, said he was “relieved” to have “come out of the end alive and able to see it being made into a book and published”.

The Rose Field refers to a magnetic or gravitational field, and was mentioned in the opening chapters of Northern Lights, when scholars at Lyra’s Oxford college secretly discussed a mysterious phenomenon called Dust.

“In this final book, Lyra is on the verge of discovering what Dust is and what it means, and the story is about how that happens,” the author told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One.

The story also deals with the nature of imagination, the former Oxford English teacher said. “I’ve got a view of what the imagination is, and Lyra discovers what she thinks the imagination is, so we’re talking about that as well.”

Beyond the world of Dust and daemons, this book has been influenced by real-life global events, including the rise of tech billionaires, Pullman revealed.

“It has become clear to me in the last 10 years that the influence of money and the power of the billionaire class, the power of the tech industry and all those extractive things like oil and gas and so on, have a much deeper effect on the world than I had thought,” he said.

“And in thinking about that, and seeing the way the story’s gone, and seeing what Lyra has to face and endure and decide about, I’ve thought about it more deeply myself.

“The world has changed enormously. We’re either at the end of a long period of American power, which will end, presumably, like the end of any empire, in chaos, destructiveness, and then the gradual coming together of nations in a new form. That’ll be interesting to watch, if I’m still alive to watch it.

“But we’re also at a time when we can look back, with the resources of the internet and so on… We’re at an age where we’ve got the wisdom of centuries and millennia to draw on. It’ll be interesting to see if we do or we don’t. I suspect that most of us won’t, but some of us might.”

The Rose Field comes six years after the publication of the previous book in The Book of Dust series.

The trilogy’s first two books have sold 49 million copies around the world, publisher Midas said.

Pullman said he would now turn his attention to planning a memoir, which would be titled Before I Forget.

“I’ve been talking for quite a while about writing a memoir before I forget everything, and that’s something that’s possibly on the horizon,” he said.

“I was born in 1946 I was brought up as a child of the British Empire, which still existed then. And I’ve seen a very great number of changes, as everyone of my age has.

“There’s nothing remarkable about that, but I’ve seen a lot of things that I loved, enjoyed, made me happy, made me excited in various ways. And I’d like to remember those and write them down, because I think it’s a shame if they’re not celebrated and remembered.”

Iran’s interior minister has said negligence was a factor in the massive explosion and fire at the country’s largest container port, as the death toll rose to at least 70.

Eskandar Momeni said Saturday’s blast at Shahid Rajaee port in Bandar Abbas, which also injured more than 1,000 people, was caused by “shortcomings, including noncompliance with safety precautions and negligence”.

“Some individuals deemed responsible” had been summoned for questioning, he added.

Customs authorities have said imported cargo caught fire and exploded. The defence ministry has denied foreign reports that it was a shipment of a missile fuel chemical.

The crisis management director for Hormozgan province, Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, also said on Monday that the firefighting effort at the port was “almost in its final stages”.

Hormozgan Governor Mohammad Ashouri Taziani meanwhile said clearing-up operations at the port could continue for several more days, and that it could take one to two weeks before the situation there returned to normal.

He estimated that 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) – almost two-thirds of the site – were severely affected by the explosion.

The Customs Administration said the cargo which caught fire and exploded had neither been registered nor formally declared before the incident, according to the Isna news agency.

On Sunday, the CEO of the firm that was operating the affected area, Sina Marine and Port Services Development Company, blamed “a repeated and catastrophic error involving false declarations of hazardous goods”.

Iran’s defence ministry denied reports that the explosion was caused by the improper handling of a shipment of sodium perchlorate, a solid fuel used for ballistic missiles.

Spokesman Brig Gen Reza Talai-Nik said on Sunday that there “were and are no import or export of fuel shipments or cargo for military use in the vicinity of the incident”, and accused foreign media of spreading “fake news”.

Ambrey Intelligence, a private maritime risk consultancy, told the Associated Press that the port received a shipment of sodium perchlorate last month, and that the blast was “reportedly the result of improper handling”.

The New York Times also cited an unnamed person with ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as saying that sodium perchlorate exploded.

Mark Carney’s Liberal Party is expected to win enough seats in the House of Commons to form a government in Canada. However, they are still short of the majority they wanted in the House of Commons.

Carney is set to remain prime minister, having only assumed the role in early March following Justin Trudeau’s resignation.

His main rival, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, is projected to have lost his own seat as has Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP).

Carney’s Liberals are leading in 168 seats but would need 172 for a majority.

The Conservatives are set to remain in opposition as the second-largest party and are leading in 144 seats, with 99% of polls having reported results.

Bloc Québécois is leading in 23 seats and only runs candidates in the province of Quebec. The NDP is leading in seven seats and the Green Party in one.

Both the Liberals and the Conservatives have seen a significant rise in their share of the national vote compared with four years ago.

Increased support for Canada’s two largest parties has come at the expense of smaller parties, particularly the New Democratic Party (NDP) whose share of the popular vote is down by around 12 percentage points.

The increased support for the Conservatives was not enough to save Mr Poilievre, who is projected to have lost his own seat in Carleton, Ontario.

The 45-year-old had promised a return to “common sense politics”.

Opinion polls at the start of the year had the Conservatives over 20 percentage points ahead of the Liberals. But after the resignation of former Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the arrival of new PM Mark Carney and the tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump, that lead evaporated.

In his own seat, Mr Poilievre had 90 opponents, mostly independent candidates linked to a group calling for electoral reform.

The NDP’s leader, Jagmeet Singh, also lost his own seat in the House of Commons and came third behind the Liberal and Conservative candidates.

Canada has a “first-past-the-post” electoral system.

The candidate who gets the most votes in each electoral district, or riding, wins that seat and become a Member of Parliament (MP).

The Liberals and the Conservatives have dominated the popular vote, with both parties receiving more than 40% each of ballots counted across Canada so far.

This has them on track to win a combined 90% of seats.

The NDP has received just over 6% of the total vote declared so far, but this translates to just 2% of seats in the House of Commons.

Bloc Québécois has just over 6% of the vote and a similar share of seats.

The Liberals are on course to win the most seats in the key provinces of Ontario and Quebec, which account for 200 of Canada’s 343 electoral districts.

The Conservatives are ahead in Alberta, while there is little to choose between the two main parties in British Columbia.

One of the most closely-watched areas was around Toronto. The “905” are places that all share the same telephone code.

While the Liberals are projected to have won in most of Toronto, including a seat they lost in a by-election last year, the Conservatives were able to flip some of the ridings in the surrounding region.

The NDP are also projected to have lost a seat, Hamilton Centre, that they’d held for over 20 years.

After Ontario, Quebec is the second most populated province of Canada and has a big impact on the results of federal elections.

Bloc Québécois, which focuses on Quebec interests and only runs candidates in the province, was defending 35 seats, a number which changed after boundaries were reviewed. It is projected to have lost 12.

Most of those have flipped to the Liberal party while one is narrowly projected to have gone to the Conservatives.

In Montmorency-Charlevoix, the Conservatives were leading the Bloc by 688 votes, with just one more poll left to report.

The riding of Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou is one of the largest in Canada by land area and is projected to have flipped from the Bloc to the Liberals.

The NDP held on to their seat in Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie in Montreal.

About two-thirds of registered electors voted, according to the preliminary results from Elections Canada. This is in up on the last election in 2021 and similar to 2015 and 2019.

More than 7 million Canadians cast their ballots in advance, setting a new record for early voter turnout, Elections Canada said.

• LIVE: Follow BBC’s coverage of the election
• RESULTS: How Canada voted – in charts
• ANALYSIS: Why Carney’s Liberals won – and the Conservatives lost
• WATCH: How Canada’s election night unfolded
• PROFILE: Who is Mark Carney, Canada’s new PM?
• VOTERS: How I decided who gets my vote
• US VIEW: A turnaround victory made possible by Trump

The Duchess of Sussex used the title HRH on a card sent with a personal gift but not for any public purpose, sources close to her have said.

A video accompanying a podcast shows a gift basket for US cosmetics entrepreneur Jamie Kern Lima, which includes a card saying: “With the Compliments of HRH The Duchess of Sussex.”

When Prince Harry and Meghan stepped down as working royals there was an agreement to stop using HRH, which stands for Her/His Royal Highness, but they still hold the titles.

Sources close to the California-based couple reject that this card was a breach of the agreement struck on their departure from royal duties.

According to sources, the couple do not use HRH in commercial or public settings – and this was only a private use of the title and was for a gift given more than a year ago.

This distinction would mean the HRH title was not being used to promote the jams and food products in Meghan’s As Ever range or her Netflix cookery series.

The card was shown in a video of a podcast hosted by Jamie Kern Lima, who said that when she had been “super-stressed” that Meghan had cheered her up by dropping round some ice cream and “home made strawberry sauce”.

Mrs Kern Lima said the gift showed great empathy and gave something that “adds value to my life”.

Prince Harry and Meghan lost the use of the titles when they stopped being working royals in 2020 and left the UK, initially to move to Canada and then to the US.

“The Sussexes will not use their HRH titles as they are no longer working members of the Royal Family,” said a statement from Buckingham Palace at the time.

They also stopped receiving public funding as they embarked on “the next chapter of their lives”.

But this agreement did not remove the title, it restricted how it was used, with this card suggesting that it has still been used in private.

Another non-working royal, Prince Andrew, also does not use HRH in any official capacity, but still has the title.

The podcast with Jamie Kern Lima also included Meghan discussing her relationship with Prince Harry: “You have to imagine at the beginning, everyone has, like, butterflies.

“Then we immediately went into the trenches together. Yeah, right out of the gate, like six months into dating.

“So now, seven years later, when you have a little bit of breathing space, you can just enjoy each other in a new way, and that’s why I feel like it’s more of a honeymoon period for us now.”

Sign up here to get the latest royal stories and analysis every week with our Royal Watch newsletter. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Malta’s so-called golden passport scheme that lets people become citizens through financial investment is contrary to European law, the EU’s top court has ruled.

The EU commission took Malta to court in 2022 over the scheme, which grants foreigners a Maltese passport and thereby the right to live and work in any EU country in return for paying at least €600,000 (£509,619), buying or renting property of a certain value, and donating €10,000 to charity.

The EU’s Court of Justice said the scheme “amounts to rendering the acquisition of nationality a mere commercial transaction”.

Malta’s government has not yet responded to the ruling, which former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat called “political”.

He said he believed the scheme could continue with “some changes”.

The country risks hefty fines if it does not comply with the judgment.

The EU’s Court of Justice said “the acquisition of Union citizenship cannot result from a commercial transaction.”

Malta has repeatedly insisted that it was correct in its interpretation of EU treaties, Reuters news agency reported.

In 2022, it suspended the scheme for Russian and Belarusian nationals in the wake of Russia’s invasion and Europe’s crackdown on Kremlin-linked individuals.

Tuesday’s ruling goes against a report last October from the court’s Advocate General at the time, Anthony Collins.

He said the commission had failed to prove that EU law requires a “genuine link” between the person and the country to grant lawful citizenship, adding it is for each member state to decide who is “to be one of their nationals and, as a consequence, who is an EU citizen”.

Although each EU member state determines how they grant nationality, the court said Malta’s scheme “jeopardises the mutual trust” between member states.

The EU has previously called on countries to end the practice, noting that investor citizenship schemes carried “inherent” security issues, as well as risks of money laundering, tax evasion and corruption.

Mark Carney’s Liberals have won Canada’s federal election – riding a backlash of anti-Trump sentiment to form the next government.

It is a stunning political turnaround for a party who were widely considered dead and buried just a few months ago.

It’s not yet clear if the party – which has been in power for almost a decade – will be able to secure a majority as results continue to roll in.

Either way, the prime minister faces major challenges, including divisions in the country laid bare by the campaign.

Here are five takeaways from an election which saw the Conservative opposition make major gains but still lose.

There is no doubt the US president’s tariff threats and comments undermining Canada’s sovereignty played an outsized role in this election, suddenly making leadership and the country’s economic survival the defining issues of the campaign.

Mark Carney used it to his advantage, running as much against Trump as he did against his main opposition rival, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

Carney warned Canada was at a crisis moment, saying frequently on the campaign trail – and in his victory speech – that Trump “wants to break us so America can own us”.

Poilievre brought Trump up much less frequently during the campaign, focusing his message on domestic issues – the cost of living, the housing affordability crisis, and crime – and targeting the Liberals for their record on those matters.

Carney – who has declared the old relationship with the US “over” – plans to start negotiations on a new economic and security relationship immediately following the election.

Kevin O’Leary, a Canadian businessman close to Trump who previously ran for the Conservative leadership, acknowledged it was a successful campaign strategy.

“Right now Canadians are very frustrated with America and Carney has used that to his advantage,” he told the BBC just before polls closed. “He was able to distract Canadians from his own mistakes… and say ‘Stop looking at that. Look south of the border and I can save you’.”

At the start of the year, Carney was a former central banker with no experience as a politician. By mid-March, he was being sworn in as prime minister – the first to have never held elected public office before – after a resounding win in the Liberal leadership race.

Now, he’s faced the Canadian electorate as a first time campaigner, won an Ottawa-area seat in the House of Commons and steered his party to an unlikely victory.

Carney had long flirted with entering Canadian politics – and he seized his moment, swooping in after former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s sudden resignation in January.

He also took full advantage of the new political landscape, leaning into his experience helping Canada and the UK navigate previous crises at a time when Canadians were feeling anxious about their economic future.

Trump’s late-March announcement of global levies on foreign automobile imports gave Carney the chance to publicly audition to keep his job during the campaign. He was able to step away from the trail and take on the prime minister’s mantle, setting up a call with the president and bringing together his ministers on the US file.

• REACTION: Follow the latest live
• RESULTS: How Canada voted – in charts
• ANALYSIS: A turnaround victory made possible by Trump
• EXPLAINER: What happens next?

In a different election, this would have been a successful one for the Conservatives.

In 2011, the Conservatives won a majority with 39.6% of the vote. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is on track to beat that this time, with roughly 41.4% of the vote with most polls reporting, according to Elections Canada.

They are currently projected to have won 144 seats – that’s up from 120 at dissolution, when the election was called in March.

But with the progressive vote coalescing around the Liberals, those numbers weren’t enough this time.

The bitter blow was Poilievre losing his riding (parliamentary seat) in Carleton, Ontario.

Only months ago his party had a clear path to victory and they will now need to figure out a way forward after a series of electoral defeats.

Whether that includes the diminished figure of Poilievre as leader is the first big question for them to face.He is the third leader they’ve had since the Liberals swept the 2015 election.

The election results have highlighted divisions in Canada that could pose a challenge for Carney.

Notably, the Liberals are largely shut out of Alberta and Saskatchewan – oil-rich and gas-rich prairie provinces where a sense of alienation from the centre of power in Ottawa has long festered.

Even before the election, some in those regions were warning of a national unity crisis if the Liberals won another mandate.

Carney touched on those divisions in his victory speech, acknowledging the millions who had voted for a different outcome.

“I intend to govern for all Canadians,” he said.

Meanwhile, Poilievre’s message, which relentlessly focused on cost of living issues, especially on housing affordability, resonated with many young people.

Support for the Conservatives outpaced Liberals by 44% to 31.2% among 18 to 34 year olds, a Nanos poll on 25 April indicated. The divide was more stark among younger men.

Separately, Abacus Data polling found that about 18% of 18 to 29 year olds were worried about Trump. That jumped to 45% for voters over 60, suggesting a polarisation on issues between generations.

On Monday night, Poilievre remarked on demographic breakthroughs Conservative had made, including with younger Canadians.

“We gave voices to countless people across the country who’ve been left out and left behind for far too long,” he said.

In this election, the smaller political parties have taken a hit as Canadians choose to park their votes with either the Liberals or the Conservatives – especially the left-wing New Democrats, or NDP.

Some of the smaller parties have lost a significant amount of vote share – particularly the NDP who have received just 6% of votes counted across Canada so far, compared with 18% in 2021.

Jagmeet Singh, who has been NDP leader for almost eight years, lost his own riding in British Columbia and announced he will step down.

“Obviously I know this night is a disappointing night for New Democrats,” he said, adding: “We’re only defeated if we stop fighting.”

The Greens have also seen their vote share cut in half from 2% to 1%.

Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, a non-profit public opinion research organisation, told the BBC that Trump’s rhetoric was behind the shift to the Liberals.

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

The sovereigntist Bloc Québécois have maintained a vote share of around 7%. They are on track to win 23 seats in Quebec.

This is based on around 97% of polls reporting.

Canada doesn’t have a two-party system, even though it has historically voted in conservative or liberal governments in some form.

In the country’s political system, these smaller parties still play a role in Parliament. Both the NDP and the Bloc have at some points formed Official Opposition in the House of Commons.

Prosecutors have dropped some of the charges against an Australian woman accused of killing three relatives and seriously injuring another with a toxic mushroom lunch.

Erin Patterson will not face trial over allegations she also attempted to murder her husband, after those charges were withdrawn.

She still faces four charges: three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.

The 50-year-old has always maintained her innocence and has pleaded not guilty, with her trial to begin in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Wednesday.

Three people died in hospital days after the July 2023 lunch, including Patterson’s former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

Heather’s husband, 68-year-old Baptist pastor Ian Wilkinson, survived after weeks of treatment in hospital.

The jury has been picked and is receiving instructions from the judge ahead of opening statements, which are expected Wednesday.

Justice Christopher Beale told the jury that most if not all them would probably have been aware of the previous charges in relation to Patterson’s husband, but said that the Director of Public Prosecutions had dropped them.

“In other words… you must put them out of your mind,” he said.

He also urged them to “dispassionately” weigh the evidence in the case, using their heads and not their hearts.

The trial is being held at a small courthouse in Morwell, about 60km (37 miles) from Leongatha, Victoria, where prosecutors allege the lunch took place.

The White House has hit back against a reported plan by Amazon to detail the price impact of Donald Trump’s trade tariffs to its customers, calling it a “hostile” political act.

Amazon told the Washington Post it had looked into itemising the costs for customers using Amazon Haul, a low-cost site it launched in the US last year to compete with Shein and Temu.

But it denied such a move had been under consideration for its primary e-commerce platform.

Still, the White House decision to go on the attack over the report is an indication of the pressure it is facing over its new import taxes, which analysts say will lead to higher prices for consumers and increase the chances of a recession.

At a press conference marking the president’s 100 days in office, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said she had discussed Amazon’s reported move with the president and claimed it represented “another reason why Americans should buy American”.

“This is a hostile and political act by Amazon,” she said. “Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?”

Trump has ramped up tariffs since re-entering office in January, measures he argues will boost manufacturing and raise tax revenue for the US.

Even after rolling back some of his initial plans this month, Trump’s announcements have left many foreign imports facing new duties of at least 10%, while products from China are facing import taxes of at least 145%.

The measures have prompted a sharp drop in trade between the two countries, and has raised fears of supply shocks and product shortages from baby prams to umbrellas, items for which China is a major supplier.

On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the government’s economic record and promised trade talks with many of America’s biggest partners were under way.

However, he dodged questions about whether the US was in negotiations with China, the third largest source of imports to the US after the European Union and Mexico last year.

Some businesses are starting to detail the costs of the measures for customers, with Shein and Temu among the online platforms to already announce price hikes.

Merchants from China represent about half of the sellers on Amazon in the US, according to analysts.

Amazon’s plan to detail the tariff impact for customers was first reported by Punchbowl News on Tuesday, citing an anonymous source. The company has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who privately owns the Washington Post, met with Trump after the election and has praised his push for deregulation and lower taxes.

Amazon was among the many businesses to donate money to the president’s inauguration and Mr Bezos was given a seat of honour at the event.

But the two men have had a tense relationship in the past.

Trump repeatedly criticised Amazon and the Washington Post during his first term, while Mr Bezos in 2016 accused Trump of using rhetoric that “erodes our democracy around the edges” and once joked about blasting him to space in a rocket.

In 2019, Amazon filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon, alleging that it had been denied a $10bn contract due to Trump’s decision to “pursue his own personal and political ends” to harm Mr Bezos, “his perceived political enemy”.

Lily Allen has apologised to Katy Perry for “being mean” about her when she joined in the backlash against the recent space flight carrying the US singer.

“There was actually no need for me to bring her name into it, and it was my own internalised misogyny,” Allen said on her BBC podcast Miss Me.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and it was just completely unnecessary to pile on with her. I mean, I disagree with what it was that they did, but she wasn’t the only person that did it.”

The English pop star and actress was one of a number of high-profile critics of the Blue Origin flight, which briefly took Perry and five other women to the edge of space two weeks ago.

“She was possibly the most famous, and the one that divides people the most, and so there was something in me that decided to choose her as the person that should [be singled out],” Allen continued.

“Well, anyway, I’m just sorry. I would have been hurt if it had been me and someone in my industry used me and my name, and I saw that, and I’m sorry.”

Allen’s apology came after she discussed “Katy Perry and her mates all going up to space for 12 minutes” with co-host Miquita Oliver in a previous episode.

“I mean, what the… hell was all that about?” Allen said. “I mean, in all seriousness, what? Why? For why?

“It’s so out of touch. Like, we’re on the brink of recession. People are really… struggling to make ends meet and put food on their tables.”

She added: “And the fact that they’ve, like, made it like some sort of feminist thing…”

The flight, on a rocket designed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin, marked the first all-female mission to space since 1963.

Perry said beforehand: “It’s an important moment for the future of commercial space travel and for humanity in general and for women all around.”

Also on board were Bezos’s fiancée Lauren Sánchez, TV presenter Gayle King, former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

But Perry bore the brunt of the ridicule after it emerged she sang Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World, and held up the setlist for her new tour to an in-flight camera.

Fast food chain Wendy’s posted on social media, “Can we send her back”, before adding several days later that they had “a ton of respect for Katy Perry and her out-of-this-world-talent”.

Model Emily Ratajkowski was among the other critics of the flight, saying she was “disgusted”, and took aim at Bezos in a follow-up video arguing that taking “his fiancée and a few other famous women to space for space tourism is not progress”.

US actress Olivia Munn described the flight as “gluttonous”, explaining: “It’s so much money to go to space, and there’s a lot of people who can’t even afford eggs. What’s the point? Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride?”

But King hit back, saying she was “very disappointed and very saddened” by the backlash. “Have you been?” she asked the haters. “If you’ve been and you still feel that way after you come back, please let’s have a conversation.”

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – set up to cut US government spending – claims to have saved, on average, more than $10bn a week since President Trump entered office.

“We’re talking about almost $200bn and rising fast,” Trump told the BBC when talking about Mr Musk’s cost-cutting drive on 23 April.

Doge’s website says it is focusing on cancelling contracts, grants and leases put in place by previous administrations, as well as tackling fraud and reducing the government workforce.

BBC Verify has looked at the agency’s biggest claimed savings, examining the figures and speaking to experts.

Our analysis found that behind some of the large numbers, there is a lack of evidence to back them up.

In October, Mr Musk pledged to cut “at least $2 trillion” from the federal government budget. He subsequently halved this target and on 10 April talked about making savings of $150bn from “cutting fraud and waste” by the end of the next financial year in 2026.

The US federal budget for the last financial year was $6.75tn.

Doge publishes a running total of its estimated savings on its website – which stood at $160bn the last time the site was updated on 20 April.

However, less than 40% of this figure is broken down into individual savings.

We downloaded the data from the Doge website on 23 April and added up the total claimed savings from contracts, grants and leases.

Our analysis found only about half of these itemised savings had a link to a document or other form of evidence.

US media has also highlighted some accounting errors, including Doge mistakenly claiming to have saved $8bn from cancelling an immigration contract which in fact had a total value of $8m.

Doge says it is working to upload all receipts in a “digestible and transparent manner” and that, as of 20 April, it has posted receipts “representing around 30% of all total savings”. It also lists some receipts as being “unavailable for legal reasons”.

• What is Doge and why is Musk stepping back?

BBC Verify examined the four largest savings listed on the Doge website which had receipts attached.

The department claims these add up to $8.3bn, but after examining the evidence provided and speaking to people familiar with federal contracts, this figure appears to be overstated.

For three of the savings, Doge links to documents on the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). This is a database which records contracts given out by the US government.

The documents show a contract’s start and end date, the maximum amount the government has agreed to spend, and how much of that has been spent.

David Drabkin, a federal contracts expert who helped develop the FPDS database, said the maximum figure listed should be treated with caution.

“FPDS does not reflect the actual paid price until some period of time after the contract has been completed and the contract actions have been recorded,” he says.

“For example, when buying research and development into a vaccine no one really knows how much that’s going to cost – so when a price is set, it’s not a definite price but rather an upper limit.”

So if Doge counts the maximum figure, that can represent projected spending over a number of years, rather than a direct saving from the country’s yearly spending.

Doge’s largest listed individual saving is $2.9bn.

It comes from cancelling a contract – which started in 2023 under President Biden – for a facility in Texas to house up to 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children.

Doge appears to have taken the “total contract value” until 2028 – the end date listed – and subtracted the amount spent so far to get the $2.9bn figure.

But the contract was reviewed annually, meaning renewing it until 2028 was not guaranteed.

A source familiar with this contract – who spoke on condition of anonymity – told BBC Verify that Doge’s figure is “based on speculative, never-used figures” and that the actual spending depended on how many children were placed at the facility and the services they required.

“In truth, the government never incurred those costs and could never reach that ceiling amount. The real, documentable savings from early termination were approximately $153 million”, they estimated.

They say this figure comes from tallying up the $18m per month fixed running costs (for things like staffing and security at the facility) from February – when Doge announced the cut – to November – when the contract was subject to annual review.

They also told us that the site – which closed on the same day as the Doge announcement – never reached its maximum capacity of 3,000 children, and about 2,000 stayed at the Texas facility at its peak, before numbers fell significantly as border crossings decreased.

We contacted the Administration for Children and Families and the Department for Health and Human Services which awarded the contract but are yet to hear back.

The second largest saving listed by Doge comes from cancelling a contract between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and an IT company called Centennial Technologies which it claims was worth $1.9bn.

The document which Doge links to has a total contract value of $1.9bn and all of the other cost fields, including the amount already spent, are for $0.

However, Mr Drabkin told us this does not necessarily mean that nothing had been spent on the contract.

He said several government departments have poor recording keeping, meaning the amount spent during some contracts might not always be updated in a timely fashion.

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The contract start date is listed as August 2024 and was estimated to run until 2031.

However, Centennial Technologies’ CEO told the New York Times that the agreement had actually been cancelled last autumn during the Biden administration.

The company did not respond to our requests for further comment.

Another IT contract, this time with the Department of Defense, is the third largest claimed saving.

Doge says $1.76bn was saved by cancelling a contract with an IT services company called A1FEDIMPACT.

On the contract document, the total value is listed as $2.4bn. An online database of government contracts called Higher Gov says this amount was the ceiling value.

Again, there is $0 recorded for the amount that had been spent at the time the contract was terminated.

It is unclear where Doge’s figure of $1.76bn comes from – we have asked the Pentagon and the supplier about it.

The fourth largest claimed saving of $1.75bn comes from cancelling a USAID grant to Gavi, a global health organisation, which campaigns to improve access to vaccines.

Doge links to a page on USASpending.gov. It shows a grant was paid to Gavi in three instalments, during the Biden administration, totalling $880m.

Gavi confirmed that $880m had been paid out by USAID but said it had not been told the grant had been terminated.

“Gavi has not received a termination notice related to this grant,” a spokesperson told us.

We have not found any evidence for the $1.75bn saving claimed by Doge, and a source familiar with the contract said it was unclear where it comes from.

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We asked the USAID Office of Inspector General about the grant but it did not respond to us.

While Doge may have cut a significant amount of government spending, the lack of evidence provided for its biggest claimed savings makes it impossible to independently confirm exactly how much.

Doge does not have a press office but BBC Verify has contacted the White House to ask for more evidence of these claimed savings.

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Authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir have demolished the houses of at least 10 alleged militants and detained more people for questioning as investigations continue into last week’s killings of 26 people.

Indian security forces have used explosives to destroy the properties since last Tuesday’s attack on tourists. At least one was reportedly linked to a suspect named in the shootings.

India accuses Pakistan of supporting militants behind the killings, but has named no group it blames. Islamabad rejects the allegations.

It was the deadliest attack on civilians in two decades in the disputed territory. Both India and Pakistan claim the region and have fought two wars over it.

Troops from both sides have traded intermittent small-arms fire across the border for the past few days.

Speculation continues over whether India will respond with military strikes against Pakistan, as it did after deadly militant attacks in 2019 and 2016.

Authorities said last week they had conducted extensive searches in Indian-administered Kashmir, detaining more than 1,500 people for questioning since the attack near the tourist town of Pahalgam. More people have been detained since then, although the numbers are unclear.

Officials have not spoken publicly about the demolitions but the houses targeted reportedly belonged to families of alleged militants active in the region or those who have crossed over to Pakistan.

The demolitions at various locations across the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley began last Thursday, with the most recent occurring overnight on Saturday into Sunday.

The region’s top leaders have supported action against alleged militants but questioned the demolitions of the homes of suspected militants’ families.

Without mentioning the demolitions, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the guilty must be punished without mercy, “but don’t let innocent people become collateral damage”.

Former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti also criticised the demolitions, cautioning the government to distinguish between “terrorists and civilians”.

Last November, India’s Supreme Court banned so-called “bulldozer justice”, a practice which has been on the rise in recent years in India.

Since the Pahalgam attack, a number of Kashmiri students enrolled in colleges in different parts of India have also reported being attacked or threatened by locals, asking them to leave.

Kashmir, which India and Pakistan claim in full but administer only in part, has been a flashpoint between the two nuclear-armed countries since they were partitioned in 1947.

Indian-administered Kashmir has seen an armed insurgency against Indian rule since 1989, with militants targeting security forces and civilians alike.

India has not named any group it suspects carried out the attack in Pahalgam and it remains unclear who did it. A little-known group called the Resistance Front, which was initially reported to have claimed it carried out the shootings, issued a statement denying involvement. The front is reportedly affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group.

Indian police have named three of four suspected attackers. They said two were Pakistani nationals and one a local man from Indian-administered Kashmir. There is no information on the fourth man.

Many survivors said the gunmen specifically targeted Hindu men.

The attack has sparked widespread anger in India, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly saying the country will hunt the suspects “till the ends of the earth” and that those who planned and carried it out “will be punished beyond their imagination”.

Tensions between India and Pakistan rose within hours of the killings, resulting in tit-for-tat measures.

India immediately suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, a World Bank-brokered water sharing agreement between the two countries, prompting protests from Pakistan which said the stoppage or diversion of water would be “considered as an act of war”.

Pakistan retaliated further by suspending the 1972 Simla agreement in which both countries had promised to resolve their disputes by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations.

The neighbours have also expelled many of each other’s diplomats and revoked civilians’ visas – already difficult to procure – leaving many stranded on both sides of the border. At least 500 Pakistani nationals, including diplomats and officials, have left India through the Attari-Wagah land border since the attack.

As tensions spiral, India has alleged firing by Pakistan along the Line of Control, the de facto border between the two countries, for four nights in a row. Pakistan has not confirmed it yet.

On Sunday, Modi repeated his promise to get justice to families of those killed in the attack, saying it was meant to disrupt the normalcy the region was returning to after years of violence.

“The enemies of the country, of Jammu and Kashmir, did not like this,” he said in his monthly radio address.

Over the weekend, a US state department spokesperson told Reuters that Washington was in touch with the governments of India and Pakistan and wanted them to work towards a “responsible resolution”, while the British foreign secretary David Lammy spoke to his counterparts in India and deputy prime minister in Pakistan.

Mark Carney will return to the Canadian parliament with a strengthened mandate, after his Liberal Party triumphed in a snap election that he called soon after becoming prime minister.

Although one of his most pressing tasks is to deal with his US counterpart President Donald Trump – who has targeted Canada with trade tariffs and even vowed to make the country the 51st state of America – Carney has also promised action on a range of domestic issues.

In his victory speech in the early hours of Tuesday, Carney pledged to “build, baby, build” – an apparent nod to Trump’s pledges on oil drilling.

“It’s time to build twice as many homes every year with an entirely new housing industry using Canadian technology, Canadian skilled workers, Canadian lumber,” Carney told supporters.

Housing prices have skyrocketed across the country in the last decade. By doubling the rate of building, Carney hopes to have a supply of 500,000 new homes a year.

The Liberals want to create a standalone federal entity that would act as a developer for affordable housing. They plan to use this body to supply tens of billions of Canadian dollars in debt-financing for prefabricated home builders.

Like people in other countries, Canadians have been grappling with higher prices for everyday goods while wages have failed to keep up – an issue over which Carney’s party was criticised while under the stewardship of his predecessor Justin Trudeau.

The Liberals have proposed a slight tax cut for those in the lowest bracket, who are due to see their rate reduce from 15% to 14%.

Carney’s party has also vowed to scrap sales taxes on homes under C$1m ($720,000; £540,000) for first-time buyers.

It also wants to make dental care available to lower-income Canadians by extending a national insurance programme to 4.5 million people aged 18 to 64. The plan currently covers children, the elderly and some disabled Canadians.

The Liberals have vowed to maintain the push on reducing emissions – as part of the fight against climate change – while ensuring Canadian companies are still competitive.

Carney has promised to build a national “east to west” electricity grid to reduce energy dependence on the US.

One of his first moves as PM, before the election, was to repeal Trudeau’s unpopular carbon pricing programme, which was designed to give financial incentives for people and firms to turn away from fossil fuels.

But Carney maintained a similar tax on large carbon emitters.

In his victory speech, he said: “It’s time to build Canada into an energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy.”

Carney has vowed to raise defence spending to 2% of Canada’s GDP, which is the target for all countries in the Nato military alliance. Last year, it spent less than 1.4%.

Trump has been critical of countries not meeting the 2% benchmark, and says Canada relies too much militarily on the US.

And Trump’s pursuit of Canada as a “51st state” of the US has focused minds north of the border on their own security independence.

The Liberals say they will spend C$18bn on defence over the next four years, which will go to purchasing new equipment like submarines and heavy icebreakers that can be used in Canada’s north.

Carney has pledged to find new ways to trade in light of the impediments placed on cross-border commerce by Trump’s tariffs regime.

In his speech on Tuesday, Carney vowed new “trade and energy corridors working in partnership with the provinces, territories, and Indigenous peoples”.

Among his plans are an “all-in-Canada” network for vehicle parts, under which more manufacturing will happen domestically – meaning less reliance on imports from the US.

The Liberals also want to invest C$5bn in national ports, railways, roads and other infrastructure that would help the country further diversify its trading partners.

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