In a dramatic overnight operation, India said it launched missile and air strikes on nine sites across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, targeting what it called militant positions based on “credible intelligence”.

The strikes, lasting just 25 minutes between 01:05 and 01:30 India time (19:35 and 20:00 GMT on Tuesday), sent shockwaves through the region, with residents jolted awake by thunderous explosions.

Pakistan said only six locations were hit and claimed to have shot down five Indian fighter jets and a drone – a claim India has not confirmed.

Islamabad said 26 people were killed and 46 injured in Indian air strikes and shelling across the Line of Control (LoC) – the de facto border between India and Pakistan. Meanwhile, India’s army reported that 10 civilians were killed by Pakistani shelling on its side of the de facto border.

• Follow the latest updates
• What we know about the air strikes

This sharp escalation comes after last month’s deadly militant attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, pushing tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals to dangerous new heights. India says it has clear evidence linking Pakistan-based terrorists and external actors to the attack – a claim Pakistan flatly denies. Islamabad has also pointed out that India has not offered any evidence to support its claim.

In 2016, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri, India launched “surgical strikes” across the LoC.

In 2019, the Pulwama bombing, which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead, prompted airstrikes deep into Balakot – the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971 – sparking retaliatory raids and an aerial dogfight.

Experts say the retaliation for the Pahalgam attack stands out for its broader scope, targeting the infrastructure of three major Pakistan-based militant groups simultaneously.

India says it struck nine militant targets across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, hitting deep into key hubs of Lashkar-e- Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Hizbul Mujahideen.

Among the closest targets were two camps in Sialkot, just 6-18km from the border, according to an Indian spokesperson.

The deepest hit, says India, was a Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters in Bahawalpur, 100km inside Pakistan. A LeT camp in Muzaffarabad, 30km from the LoC and capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, was linked to recent attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir, the spokesperson said.

Pakistan says six locations have been hit, but denies allegations of there being terror camps.

“What’s striking this time is the expansion of India’s targets beyond past patterns. Previously, strikes like Balakot focused on Pakistan-administered Kashmir across the Line of Control – a militarised boundary,” Srinath Raghavan, a Delhi-based historian, told the BBC.

“This time, India has hit into Pakistan’s Punjab, across the International Border, targeting terrorist infrastructure, headquarters, and known locations in Bahawalpur and Muridke linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba. They’ve also struck Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahideen assets. This suggests a broader, more geographically expansive response, signalling that multiple groups are now in India’s crosshairs – and sending a wider message,” he says.

The India-Pakistan International Border is the officially recognised boundary separating the two countries, stretching from Gujarat to Jammu.

Ajay Bisaria, a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, told the BBC that what India did was a “Balakot plus response meant to establish deterrence, targeting known terrorist hubs, but accompanied by a strong de-escalatory message”.

“These strikes were more precise, targeted and more visible than in the past. Therefore, [they are] less deniable by Pakistan,” Mr Bisaria says.

Indian sources say the strikes were aimed at “re-establishing deterrence”.

“The Indian government thinks that the deterrence established in 2019 has worn thin and needs to be re-established,” says Prof Raghavan.

“This seems to mirror Israel’s doctrine that deterrence requires periodic, repeated strikes. But if we assume that hitting back alone will deter terrorism, we risk giving Pakistan every incentive to retaliate – and that can quickly spiral out of control.”

The majority of experts agree that a retaliation from Pakistan is inevitable – and diplomacy will come into play.

“Pakistan’s response is sure to come. The challenge would be to manage the next level of escalation. This is where crisis diplomacy will matter,” says Mr Bisaria.

“Pakistan will be getting advice to exercise restraint. But the key will be the diplomacy after the Pakistani response to ensure that both countries don’t rapidly climb the ladder of escalation.”

• India and Pakistan are in crisis again – here’s how they de-escalated in the past

Pakistan-based experts like Ejaz Hussain, a Lahore-based political and military analyst, say Indian surgical strikes targeting locations such as Muridke and Bahawalpur were “largely anticipated given the prevailing tensions”.

Dr Hussain believes retaliatory strikes are likely.

“Given the Pakistani military’s media rhetoric and stated resolve to settle the scores, retaliatory action, possibly in the form of surgical strikes across the border, appears likely in the coming days,” he told the BBC.

But Dr Hussain worries that surgical strikes on both sides could “escalate into a limited conventional war”.

Christopher Clary of the University at Albany in the US believes given the scale of India’s strikes, “visible damage at key sites”, and reported casualties, Pakistan is highly likely to retaliate.

“Doing otherwise essentially would give India permission to strike Pakistan whenever Delhi feels aggrieved and would run contrary to the Pakistan military’s commitment to retaliating with ‘quid pro quo plus’,” Mr Clary, who studies the politics of South Asia, told the BBC.

“Given India’s stated targets of groups and facilities associated with terrorism and militancy in India, I think it is likely – but far from certain – that Pakistan will confine itself to attacks on Indian military targets,” he said.

Despite the rising tensions, some experts still hold out hope for de-escalation.

“There is a decent chance we escape this crisis with just one round of reciprocal standoff strikes and a period of heightened firing along the Line of Control,” says Mr Clary.

However, the risk of further escalation remains high, making this the “most dangerous” India-Pakistan crisis since 2002 – and even more perilous than the 2016 and 2019 standoffs, he adds.

Experts in Pakistan note that despite a lack of war hysteria leading up to India’s strike, the situation could quickly shift.

“We have a deeply fractured political society, with the country’s most popular leader behind bars. Imran Khan’s imprisonment triggered a strong anti-military public backlash,” says Umer Farooq, an Islamabad-based analyst and a former correspondent of Jane’s Defence Weekly.

“Today, the Pakistani public is far less eager to support the military compared to 2016 or 2019 – the usual wave of war hysteria is noticeably absent. But if public opinion shifts in central Punjab where anti-India feelings are more prevalent, we could see increased civilian pressure on the military to take action. And the military will regain popularity because of this conflict.”

Dr Hussain echoes a similar sentiment.

“I believe the current standoff with India presents an opportunity for the Pakistani military to regain public support, particularly from the urban middle classes who have recently criticised it for perceived political interference,” he says.

“The military’s active defence posture is already being amplified through mainstream and social media, with some outlets claiming that six or seven Indian jets were shot down.

“Although these claims warrant independent verification, they serve to bolster the military’s image among segments of the public that conventionally rally around national defence narratives in times of external threat.”

India is once again walking a fine line between escalation and restraint.

Shortly after the attack in Pahalgam, India swiftly retaliated by closing the main border crossing, suspending a water-sharing treaty, expelling diplomats and halting most visas for Pakistani nationals. Troops on both sides have exchanged small-arms fire, and India barred all Pakistani aircraft from its airspace, mirroring Pakistan’s earlier move. In response, Pakistan suspended a 1972 peace treaty and took its own retaliatory measures.

This mirrors India’s actions after the 2019 Pulwama attack, when it swiftly revoked Pakistan’s most-favoured-nation status, imposed heavy tariffs and suspended key trade and transport links.

The crisis had escalated when India launched air strikes on Balakot, followed by retaliatory Pakistani air raids and the capture of Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, further heightening tensions. However, diplomatic channels eventually led to a de-escalation, with Pakistan releasing the pilot in a goodwill gesture.

“India was willing to give old-fashioned diplomacy another chance…. This, with India having achieved a strategic and military objective and Pakistan having claimed a notion of victory for its domestic audience,” Mr Bisaria told me last week.

On Wednesday morning, dozens of people gathered on the perimeter of a sprawling complex in the Pakistani city of Muridke to see the damage for themselves.

Overnight, Indian missiles had pounded buildings at this site, which lies not far from the border with India in Pakistan’s Punjab region, and just a short drive from the major city of Lahore.

No one was being allowed into the complex – but even from a distance as BBC reporters peered through the barbed wire fence surrounding it, the damage was unmistakable.

The BBC spoke to people on the ground who witnessed the bombardment first-hand.

“It was the main mosque that got targeted,” one man said. “The sky lit up and it felt like the sky turned red.”

Another said: “A sudden missile appeared and there was a blast. I immediately got out the house.

“I had only reached the mosque near my house when there were three more consecutive blasts. I heard all three, they were really loud.”

When a BBC team arrived in Muridke, security service personnel were closely controlling access to the site.

From a road surrounded by dense housing, the BBC’s team could see a partially collapsed building and rubble spread over a huge area.

Emergency workers were still searching the wreckage for any injured or dead.

This complex houses a hospital, school and mosque, while India said it had hit sites linked to what it calls terror organisations – so why was it targeted? The answer appears to lie in its past.

Until a few years ago, it was originally used by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based militant group which is designated as a terror organisation by the United Nations.

It was later used by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which observers have described as a front group for LeT.

Both groups have been banned by the Pakistani government, which has since taken over the facilities in Muridke.

But on Tuesday night, this complex was in the crosshairs of an Indian military which has vowed to respond to the killing of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month.

India’s government says its strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir targeted what it described as terrorist infrastructure. Pakistan’s government has denied any links to the Pahalgam attack.

One man told us the Muridke complex usually houses children from miles around who come to study at the madrasa, though it was largely evacuated a week ago.

Later in the day, camera crews were allowed to access the site and see the damage up close.

The roof of one building had crumpled under the force of an explosion.

Holes had been torn through the walls of another and a large amount of debris was scattered across the ground.

Across this region, people are hoping there is not more debris before long.

India’s strikes on Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir have unleashed a wave of misinformation online, with unrelated videos purporting to be from the strikes gaining millions of views.

Dramatic clips debunked by BBC Verify have claimed to show attacks on an Indian army base and an Indian fighter jet shot down in Pakistan.

One video, which had more than 400,000 views on X at the time of writing, claiming to show an explosion caused by a Pakistani response was actually from the 2020 Beirut Port explosion in Lebanon.

An expert told BBC Verify that in moments of heightened tension or dramatic events, misinformation is more likely to spread and fuel distrust and hostility.

“It’s very common to see recycled footage during any significant event, not just conflict,” Eliot Higgins, the founder of the Bellingcat investigations website, said.

“Algorithmic engagement rewards people who post engaging content, not truthful content, and footage of conflict and disasters is particularly engaging, no matter the truth behind it.”

One of the most viral clips, which gained over 3 million views on X in a matter of hours, claimed to show blasts caused by the Indian strikes on Pakistan-administered Kashmir. A search for screengrabs from the video on Google found the footage actually showed Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip on 13 October 2023.

• Follow live: Tensions escalate as Pakistan vows response to Indian strikes
• What we know about India’s strike on Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir
• Why India and Pakistan fight over Kashmir

While much of the debunked footage has purported to show the immediate aftermath of the Indian strikes, some clips analysed by BBC Verify appeared to be trying to portray the Pakistani response as being more severe than it actually was.

One video, which has racked up almost 600,000 views on X, claimed to show that the “Pakistan army blew up the Indian Brigade headquarters”. The clip, which shows blasts in the darkness, is actually from an unrelated video circulating on YouTube as early as last month.

Elsewhere, one set of photos purported to show an operation carried out by the Pakistan Air Force targeting “Indian forward air-bases in the early hours of 6 May 2025”. The images – which appeared to be captured by a drone – were actually screengrabs taken from the video game Battlefield 3.

The Pakistani military says it destroyed five jets on Wednesday morning local time. That announcement has led to some users sharing unrelated clips which they claimed showed the wreckage of Indian fighter jets. Some of these videos have obtained millions of views.

But two widely shared images actually showed previous Indian air force jet crashes – one from an incident in Rajasthan in 2024 and another in the Punjab state in 2021. Both crashes were widely reported.

Prof Indrajit Roy of York University said that the images “are being generated with a view to get support for the military in Pakistan”. One clip circulated by the Pakistani military itself was later withdrawn by news agencies after it turned out to be from an unrelated event.

“We have jingoists on both sides of the border, and they have a huge platform on Twitter (X). You can see how fake news, as well as some real news, gets amplified, distorted and presented in ways designed to generate hostility, animosity and hatred for the other side.”

The conflict in Kashmir has long attracted a high degree of misinformation online. In the aftermath of the deadly militant attack on Indian tourists in Pahalgam last month, AI images circulated – with some seeking to dramatise actual scenes from the attack.

Vedika Bahl, a journalist with France 24, said the Pahalgam attacks had prompted a sharp “uptake in misinformation from both sides surrounding the conflict”.

“Lots of this misinformation begins on X,” she said. “Eventually this trickles down over time from X to WhatsApp which is the communication tool which is most used in South Asian communities.”

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Two weeks after a deadly militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, India has launched a series of strikes on sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The Indian defence ministry said the strikes – named “Operation Sindoor” – were part of a “commitment” to hold “accountable” those responsible for the 22 April attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, which left 25 Indians and one Nepali national dead.

But Pakistan, which has denied any involvement in that attack, described the strikes as “unprovoked”, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif saying the “heinous act of aggression will not go unpunished”.

Sharif on Wednesday said the Pahalgam attack “wasn’t related” to Pakistan, and that his country was “accused for the wrong” reasons.

• Follow the latest updates
• Why India and Pakistan fight over Kashmir
• BBC reports from Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir

Pakistan’s military said at least 31 people were killed and 57 injured in the strikes on Tuesday night. India’s army said at least 15 civilians were killed and 43 injured by Pakistani shelling on its side of the de facto border.

Pakistan’s military says it shot down five Indian aircraft and a drone. India has yet to respond to these claims.

Late on Wednesday, Sharif said the air force made its defence – which was a “reply from our side to them”.

Delhi said in the early hours of Wednesday morning that nine different locations had been targeted in both Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Pakistan.

It said these sites were “terrorist infrastructure” – places where attacks were “planned and directed”.

It emphasised that it had not hit any Pakistani military facilities, saying its “actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”.

In the initial aftermath of the attacks, Pakistan said three different areas were hit: Muzaffarabad and Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and Bahawalpur in the Pakistani province of Punjab. Pakistan’s military spokesperson, Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif, later said six locations had been hit.

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told GeoTV in the early hours of Wednesday that the strikes hit civilian areas, adding that India’s claim of “targeting terrorist camps” was false.

The strikes come after weeks of rising tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours over the shootings in the picturesque resort town of Pahalgam.

The 22 April attack by a group of militants saw 26 people killed, with survivors saying the militants were singling out Hindu men.

It was the worst attack on civilians in the region in two decades, and the first major attack on civilians since India revoked Article 370, which gave Kashmir semi-autonomous status, in 2019.

Following the decision, the region saw protests but also witnessed militancy wane and a huge increase in the number of tourists.

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

However, India initially did not name any group it believed was behind the attack in Pahalgam.

But Indian police alleged that two of the attackers were Pakistani nationals, with Delhi accusing Pakistan of supporting militants – a charge Islamabad denies. It says it has nothing to do with the 22 April attacks.

On 7 May, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group carried out the attack.

In the two weeks since, both sides had taken tit-for-tat measures against each other – including expelling diplomats, suspending visas and closing border crossings.

But many expected it would escalate to some sort of cross-border strike – as seen after the Pulwama attacks which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead in 2019.

Kashmir is claimed in full by India and Pakistan, but administered only in part by each since they were partitioned following independence from Britain in 1947.

The countries have fought two wars over it.

But more recently, it has been attacks by militants which have brought the two countries to the brink. Indian-administered Kashmir has seen an armed insurgency against Indian rule since 1989, with militants targeting security forces and civilians alike.

In 2016, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri, India launched “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control – the de facto border between India and Pakistan – targeting militant bases.

In 2019, the Pulwama bombing, which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead, prompted airstrikes deep into Balakot – the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971 – sparking retaliatory raids and an aerial dogfight.

Neither spiralled, but the wider world remains alert to the danger of what could happen if it did. Attempts have been made by various nations and diplomats around the world to prevent this.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres quickly called for “maximum restraint” – a sentiment echoed by the European Union and numerous countries, including Bangladesh.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged “dialogue” and “de-escalation”.

US President Donald Trump – who was one of the first to respond – told reporters at the White House that he hoped the fighting “ends very quickly”. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, said he was keeping a close eye on developments.

“Not even in my wildest imagination did I think this would happen,” said Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, describing the day he found out that he had been appointed a cardinal.

He was speaking to the BBC at his cathedral in Caloocan, on the outskirts of the Philippine capital Manila. He was leaving the next day for Rome to join the conclave, one of three cardinals from the country who will take part in choosing the next pope.

“Normally you would expect archbishops to become cardinals, but I am only a humble bishop of a little diocese where the majority of the people are slum dwellers, urban poor, you know.

“But I thought just maybe, for Pope Francis, it mattered that we had more cardinals who are really grounded there.”

Cardinal David has only been in the job for five months, after his surprise elevation last December. But in some ways he personifies the late pontiff’s legacy in his country.

Pope Francis had set himself the goal of bringing a Catholic church he believed had lost its common touch, back closer to the people.

“Apu Ambo”, as Cardinal David is affectionately called by his congregation, fits that mission well, having spent his life campaigning for the poor and marginalised.

The Philippines has the largest Roman Catholic population in Asia, nearly 80% of its 100 million people, and the third-largest in the world.

It’s one reason why Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle is believed to be a papabile, or frontrunner to replace Pope Francis – Tagle was also talked of as a contender in the last papal conclave 12 years ago.

The country is considered a bright spot for the Roman Catholic church, where faith is strong, its rituals woven into the fabric of society.

Yet the church is facing headwinds there. Its doctrines on divorce and family planning are being challenged by politicians, and newer charismatic churches are winning converts.

Pope Francis helped restore morale in the Philippines church, though he did not offer answers to these challenges beyond being more welcoming of diversity and urging the clergy to be more responsive to the needs of the poor.

But those on the activist wing of the church did feel encouraged by his support.

For Cardinal David that support was critical when he faced his greatest test, during the war on drugs declared by former President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016.

He took me to see a plaque he had erected in front of his cathedral in memory of Kian Delos Santos, a 17 year-old boy from his diocese who was gunned down by police in August 2017.

Kian was just one of many thousands who died in Duterte’s campaign – estimates range from 6,300 to 30,000. What made his case different from most was that the usual police justification, that he was armed and had resisted arrest, was contradicted by eyewitnesses and security camera videos.

The police officers had murdered him as he pleaded for his life. Three officers were eventually convicted of the murder, a rare instance of accountability in the drug war.

The cardinal is still visibly affected by the hundreds of killings that happened in his diocese – a cluster of low-income neighbourhoods typical of the areas targeted by the police in their notorious tokhang, or “knock and plead” raids, against alleged drug dealers and users.

“It was just too much seeing dead bodies left and right,” Cardinal David says.

“And you know, when I would ask people what they thought, you know, why these people were targeted. They said they’re drug users. I said, so what? So what? Who told you that just because people use drugs, they deserve to die?”

He began offering sanctuary to those who feared they were on police hit lists, and then drug-rehabilitation programmes, in the hope this might protect them.

He also did something the church as a whole did not do for several months: he openly criticised the drug war as illegal and immoral.

As a result, he received many death threats. President Duterte accused him of taking drugs, and talked about decapitating him. The government also filed sedition charges against him, though these were eventually dropped.

In those difficult years Cardinal David found he had a powerful backer, in Rome.

On a visit to the city in 2019 Pope Francis had taken him aside to give him a special blessing, saying he knew what was happening in his diocese and urging him to stay safe.

When they met again in 2023, and he reminded the Pope that he was still alive, he says the pontiff laughed and told him: “You have not been called to martyrdom yet!”

The role of the Roman Catholic church in the Philippines has changed over its 500-year history in the archipelago.

It was closely associated with the Spanish conquest, Spanish friars acting as de facto colonial administrators and the church becoming a big landowner. When the US replaced Spain as the colonial ruler in 1898, enforcing a separation of church and state, the political influence of the Catholic clergy waned.

But the church retained the allegiance of most of the population; even today, after inroads made by charismatic protestant churches, nearly 80% of Filipinos identify as Roman Catholic.

Since independence in 1946 the church has had an uneasy relationship with power. Its deep roots and establishment status have made it an influential player, wooed by political factions but also needing their support to protect its interests.

Attitudes began changing in the 1970s and 80s, the time when a young Pablo David and many other senior church figures today were studying to enter the priesthood.

This was the era of “liberation theology”, which came out of Latin America and argued that it was the duty of the clergy to fight against the pervasive poverty and injustice all around them.

When then-President Marcos, father of the current president of the Philippines, declared martial law in 1972 and began jailing and killing his critics, some priests even went underground to join the armed resistance.

But the church hierarchy continued what it called “critical collaboration” with the Marcos dictatorship.

That changed dramatically in February 1986, when the then-Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Jaime Sin, called on people to come out on the streets and oppose Marcos, sparking the famous “people power” uprising which deposed the president.

Cardinal Sin would reprise that role in 2001 when he helped overthrow another beleaguered president, Joseph Estrada.

After that, though, church leaders were accused of cosying up to Estrada’s successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, partly to gain her support in opposing growing political and social pressure to expand access to family planning and legalise divorce.

And they were reluctant to condemn President Duterte’s drug war because, despite the appalling human cost, it remained popular with the Filipino public, at least away from the poorer areas where the killings took place.

Nearly 40 years after its pivotal role in overthrowing the Marcos regime, the church’s influence once again seems to be waning, as it did a century ago.

For instance, the Church’s fervent opposition could not prevent the Philippines Congress from passing the Reproductive Health Law of 2012 that made family planning easily accessible.

This is despite the fact that many Filipino Catholics remain conservative on issues like gender and divorce, says Jayeel Cornelio, a sociologist who has written extensively on Catholicism in the Philippines.

The church’s defeat over family planning, he says, is indicative of its diminished sway over national politics.

“The Catholic church was practically sidelined during the Duterte presidency. When Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos ran for president in 2022, many Catholic leaders and institutions expressed their dissent and even endorsed the opposition. But Marcos still won.”

Many Filipinos welcome this, including, it seems, Cardinal David.

“It is not the business of the church to govern, neither is it the business of government to run a church”, he said.

“But we can complement one another – I cannot say we will be apolitical. So long as we stick to our role as a moral and spiritual leader, we can give guidance, even about political and economic matters.”

Even that more limited view of the church’s proper role, though, has run into opposition.

Thirteen years after overcoming ecclesiastical objections to the Reproductive Health Bill, the Philippines Congress is now trying to get a bill passed which would legalise divorce, something else the church disagrees with.

“I do not expect them to change their official doctrine, but in my job as a lawmaker, I try to address the problems that Filipinos face, and I don’t want them to meddle in my work. It is against our constitution to legislate in favour of any religion,” says Geraldine Roman, the first transgender member of Congress in the Philippines.

A practicing Catholic, she credits Pope Francis with creating a more welcoming environment for LGBTQ+ people with his “who am I to judge” statement.

“Nobody misgenders me in my church now,” she says.

But she objects to the Catholic church lobbying against the divorce bill, which she argues will free thousands of Filipino women trapped in abusive marriages.

“The church is free to try to indoctrinate Catholics into sticking it out in their marriages. But in the end, it is the decision of the couple, and not even the church can meddle in that decision.”

Other challenges include a congregation which is increasingly disengaged. While the number of Roman Catholics has fallen only slightly in the past three decades, the number attending mass at least once a week has dropped by half, to just over one third of those surveyed recently.

Then there are the various scandals associated with the Catholic church, especially the sexual abuse of minors, which critics say Pope Francis, while he did tackle the issue, did not do enough to address.

Cardinal David recalled how President Duterte “loved to wave” a book called “Altar of Secrets”, an expose of alleged scandals in the Filipino church, and how he would say, “oh, those hypocrites. Don’t listen to them. They don’t practice what they what they preach. They are abusers. I must say some people swallowed it hook, line and sinker. So I am not surprised that our moral credibility has been challenged.”

But, he adds, defensiveness is not the way the Church can win back its credibility.

“It should be humility. As Pope Francis advised, dare to be vulnerable. Dare to be criticised. Try not to remain on that pedestal where people cannot reach you, show your humanity.

Chris Pelkey died in a road rage shooting in Arizona three years ago.

But with the help of artificial intelligence, he returned earlier this month at his killer’s sentencing to deliver a victim’s statement himself.

Family members said they used the burgeoning technology to let Mr Pelkey use his own words to talk about the incident that took his life.

While some experts argue the unique use of AI is just another step into the future, others say it could become a slippery slope for using the technology in legal cases.

His family used voice recordings, videos and pictures of Mr Pelkey, who was 37 when he was killed, to recreate him in a video using AI, his sister Stacey Wales told the BBC.

Ms Wales said she wrote the words that the AI version read in court based on how forgiving she knew her brother to be.

“To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” said the AI version of Mr Pelkey in court. “In another life, we probably could have been friends.”

“I believe in forgiveness, and a God who forgives. I always have and I still do,” the AI verison of Mr Pelkey – wearing a grey baseball cap – continues.

The technology was used at his killer’s sentencing – Horcasitas already had been found guilty by a jury – some four years after Horcasitas shot Mr Pelkey at a red light in Arizona.

The Arizona judge who oversaw the case, Todd Lang, seemed to appreciate the use of AI at the hearing. He sentenced Horcasitas to 10-and-a-half years in prison on manslaughter charges.

“I loved that AI, thank you for that. As angry as you are, as justifiably angry as the family is, I heard the forgiveness,” Judge Lang said. “I feel that that was genuine.”

Paul Grimm, a retired federal judge and Duke Law School professor, told the BBC he was not surprised to see AI used in the Horcasitas sentencing.

Arizona courts, he notes, already have started using AI in other ways. When the state’s Supreme Court issues a ruling, for example, it has an AI system that makes those rulings digestible for people.

And Mr Grimm said because it was used without a jury present, just for a judge to decide sentencing, the technology was allowed.

“We’ll be leaning [AI] on a case-by-case basis, but the technology is irresistible,” he said.

But some experts like Derek Leben, a business ethics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, are concerned about the use of AI and the precedent this case sets.

While Mr Leben does not question this family’s intention or actions, he worries not all uses of AI will be consistent with a victim’s wishes.

“If we have other people doing this moving forward, are we always going to get fidelity to what the person, the victim in this case, would’ve wanted?” Mr Leben asked.

For Ms Wales, however, this gave her brother the final word.

“We approached this with ethics and morals because this is a powerful tool. Just like a hammer can be used to break a window or rip down a wall, it can also be used as a tool to build a house and that’s how we used this technology,” she said.

Walt Disney has announced plans to open its first theme park in the Middle East.

The resort, which will be in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island, is a collaboration between Walt Disney and local leisure and entertainment company Miral.

Disney already has six theme parks spanning North America, Europe and Asia. Its most recent opening was in 2016 in Shanghai.

Miral is responsible for the development of Yas Island as a tourist destination and already operates SeaWorld and Warner Bros World where it is developing a Harry Potter-themed park.

In a statement announcing the new facility, Disney said the UAE was located within a four-hour flight of one-third of the world’s population, making it a “significant gateway for tourism”.

It added that 120 million passengers travel through Abu Dhabi and Dubai every year, making the Emirates the biggest global airline hub in the world.

Disney chief executive Robert Iger described the plans for the new park as a “thrilling” moment for the company and said Disneyland Abu Dhabi would be “authentically Disney and distinctly Emirati”.

The 10-sq-mile (25-sq-km) Yas Island is 20 minutes from downtown Abu Dhabi and 50 minutes from Dubai.

Miral’s boss Mohamed Abdalla Al Zaabi said bringing a Disney theme park resort to the area marked a “milestone in our journey to further advance the island’s position as a global destination for exceptional entertainment and leisure”.

He said the development would “support sustained economic growth in Abu Dhabi and beyond”.

The company’s first theme park, Disneyland, opened in Anaheim, California in 1955. It was followed in 1971 by Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

International expansion began in 1983 with a park in Tokyo; Disneyland Paris opened in 1992, then came Hong Kong in 2005 and, most recently, Shanghai in 2016.

Also on Wednesday, Disney announced better than expected results for the first three months of 2025, with revenue up by 7% to $23.6bn (£17.7bn).

The Disney+ streaming business added 1.4 million customers. Previously Disney had predicted a slight decline in subscribers due to a price increase.

Attendance rose at US parks with visitors spending more and there was also a rise in cruise ship bookings following the launch of the new ship Disney Treasure.

“Despite questions around any macroeconomic uncertainty or the impact of competition, I’m encouraged by the strength and resilience of our business,” said Mr Iger.

Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell said at a time when so many businesses in the US were “worried about the potential impact of tariffs on consumer spending, on household budgets, Disney is feeling confident”.

For the past three years, when peers of Australia’s former Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton were grilled over his divisive persona, they’d often profess his celebrity status in the north.

“Peter is one of us… He’s very popular in Queensland,” said the leader of the Nationals, the Liberal’s coalition partner, earlier this year.

But on election night, it was Dutton’s home state that delivered Labor its election win, with the red landslide ousting the veteran MP from his own seat of Dickson.

While votes are still being counted, Labor could pick up as many electorates in Queensland as it did across every other state and territory combined.

And that’s thanks, in no small part, to a new bloc of young voters and women who are disillusioned with the Coalition, and attribute the party’s emphatic loss to the “Dutton effect”.

As 65-year-old coalition voter Sue, who didn’t share her last name, bluntly puts it: “This is where [Dutton’s] from… People know him and they don’t like him.”

The Moreton Bay region, about an hour north of Brisbane, is supposed to be Dutton heartland. Before Australia’s federal election on 3 May, all three seats here were Liberal-held – though only by small leads, with Dutton’s electorate of Dickson having the narrowest in the state.

Dutton’s family have deep roots here, with his dairy farming great-grandparents having settled in the area in the 1860s.

When he first entered parliament 24 years ago, the region was made up of urban pockets and industrial estates surrounded by swathes of semi-rural land. Not quite metropolitan or rural, is how the former police officer described it in his maiden speech as MP.

Now Brisbane is one of the fastest growing cities in Australia, and these outer northern suburbs are one of the main places it is squeezing people in. Residential development has exploded, and more families, priced out of locations closer to the city, have moved in to Moreton Bay.

Full of the “quiet Australians” Dutton said would deliver him the election, outer-suburban neighbourhoods like these were at the heart of the Coalition’s strategy.

The average household in Moreton Bay earns less than both the state and national average, with many of them relying on the health, trade and hospitality sectors for work. The Coalition hoped promises to cut fuel expenses, improve housing affordability and back small businesses would woo voters concerned about the cost of living.

Many Moreton Bay residents, like campaign volunteer Kenneth King, also felt Dutton’s links to the area would give them a boost.

“I’ve known Peter Dutton for a lot of years,” the Dickson local told the BBC on polling day. “He’s always been someone of high character, serious about effective policies and a lot of empathy for ordinary Australians.”

“He’s very well respected in the community… People know him.”

But there’s a difference between being well known and well liked, says Aleysha, a swing voter in the neighbouring electorate of Petrie, who declined to give her surname.

“I don’t know whether he appeals to the everyday person,” the 26-year-old nurse says. “He doesn’t put himself in the people’s shoes.”

Her vote over the years has gone to a range of parties from right across the political spectrum – except the Greens, she adds with a quick laugh.

“I don’t sit with any party. Being a Christian, it’s whatever party aligns closest to my values,” she says, adding that the future of her two young children is the other major consideration.

This election, that meant her vote went to Coalition incumbent Luke Howarth, who she knows personally from her church.

But while she’s praying for a miracle, with the final votes still being counted, she’s not surprised to find Howarth may be on his way out.

She says Labor ran very visible campaigns in the area, but tells the BBC that it was driving past the image of Howarth and his leader on billboards which stuck in her mind.

“Unfortunately I think that’s what did it,” she says.

“Peter Dutton’s face behind him was a huge turnoff – for me personally too.”

Sue, who lives in the same electorate and is generally a conservative voter, says this election she was torn at the ballot box.

“I had a huge hesitation over it,” she says. “I don’t like Albanese; I think he’s like, weak.

“[But] Dutton’s an unattractive personality… He thinks he’s presenting himself as strong, but he presents himself as a bit of a bully.”

Ultimately Sue also voted for Howarth – and she’s similarly convinced Dutton lost him the seat.

“I spoke to a few friends… some did change their votes because of Peter Dutton,” she says. “People, rightly or wrongly, aligned Dutton with Trump. And that’s very negative for just about any sane person.”

Many of the constituents the BBC spoke to stressed they did not want American style politics here.

Drew Cutler grew up in the seat of Longman, which shares borders with both Dickson and Petrie – and though he no longer lives in the area, the 28-year-old was so invested in the outcome he came back to campaign for Labor.

Won by Coalition MP Terry Young on a margin of 3% last election, it is now too close to call.

Mr Cutler, a former Labor party staffer, believes Labor ran very strong local campaigns. But he also thinks Dutton’s policy flip-flopping and the aura of instability that projected was potent.

That included announcing, and then walking back, public service job cuts and plans to end work-from-home arrangements, as well as a fluctuating stance on electric vehicle taxes.

Such optics were especially damaging, Mr Cutler argues, when contrasted with the image of strong, decisive leadership Dutton tries to convey.

“I almost think the Australian people would have respected him more if he stuck to it… and said, ‘This is what I’m putting forward – if you don’t like it, don’t vote for it’,” Mr Cutler tells the BBC.

Back in Dickson, Rick – a retiree and fresh Liberal Party member – said on election night that he also felt confusion played a role in the party’s defeat, particularly among young people.

“I think people couldn’t understand Dutton’s policies,” he said.

But 30-year-old April, who didn’t provide her last name, says it is Dutton who didn’t understand.

She can’t remember a time when he wasn’t in power in Dickson, and feels that over time he has lost touch with his own constituents and the country more broadly.

For her, the last straw was his instrumental role in the defeat of the Voice to Parliament referendum, which sought to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the constitution and simultaneously establish a parliamentary advisory body for them.

“I think he has caused a lot of harm to a lot of minority groups across the scale,” she says.

For others in the electorate though, the last straw was watching Dutton fly to a fundraiser in Sydney as the area in and around Dickson was hit by Cyclone Alfred in February.

April didn’t feel like Labor Party’s offering was strong either, especially on climate action, so she decided to campaign for Ellie Smith, the so-called ‘teal’ independent running in the seat.

Disappointment – borderline embarrassment – that Dutton was from her local area had crystallised into determination: “I felt like it was a duty in a way… our responsibility to get him out.”

Ultimately, the Coalition lost at least six seats to Labor in Queensland – all bar one in Brisbane. And while they are a few votes ahead in Longman as the count continues, they could still lose that too.

Queensland has long been a bit of a political wildcard, and often finds itself in the “spotlight” at federal elections, says Frank Mols.

The University of Queensland politics lecturer points out the state helped deliver Kevin Rudd’s historic election win in 2007 and Scott Morrison’s “miracle” victory in 2019. Last election, as a record number of people across the nation voted for candidates outside the two major parties, Queensland surprised the nation by giving the Greens three seats – up from none.

There are a couple of factors that make the state more “volatile” and likely to deliver upsets, Dr Mols says.

Firstly, it is the only state or territory, except for the island of Tasmania, where more than half of the population live outside the capital city of Brisbane.

“We talk about Queensland always being two elections, one in the south-east corner, and then the rest – and they often get very different patterns.”

There’s also more political fragmentation in the state, Dr Mols says, which combined with Australia’s preferential voting system can make political equations here tighter, and trends harder to predict.

But he – like many of the voters the BBC spoke to – largely puts last weekend’s surprise for the Coalition down to Dutton and his broadly-criticised campaign performance.

While there’s a tendency to attribute success or failure to policy issues, more often its really about voters’ emotional response to candidates and leaders, Dr Mols says.

“If you do the barbecue test, is Dutton a person you would walk up to? Is he somebody you would warm to or gravitate towards?

“You can wonder: was Peter Dutton, in hindsight, the Labor Party’s best asset?”

But Dutton may have had the opposite effect for the Greens Party, which has lost at least two of the three seats it gained in Brisbane in 2022. Their party leader, Adam Bandt, also appears to have been defeated in Melbourne, an electorate he’d held for 15 years.

“Perhaps in desperation, [Dutton] was gravitating towards culture war issues, sort of echoing Trumpian themes, if you like, and that has been punished,” Dr Mols says. “But also the Greens… who were perhaps seen as being at the other end of that shouting match, have not done well.”

Dr Mols also believes that desperation to keep Dutton out may have seen some former Greens voters prioritise Labor this time – though he points out more centrist Teal independents appear to have bucked that trend.

In any case, he doesn’t see the result in Queensland as a groundswell of love for Labor. The state was still the only jurisdiction in Australia where there were more first preference votes for the Coalition than Labor.

“There has to be enough of a swing towards a party, but it’s often that preferencing that actually tilts it over the line,” he says.

“This is more of a Liberal loss.”

For many Coalition voters, that loss is deeply felt. Rick describes it as a “real rout”.

But among others, like Aleysha, there is an inexplicable element of mirth.

“I think it’s quite funny, that he slipped as much as he did,” she says. “And I can’t tell you why.”

Three former officers charged with murder in the fatal beating of a black man that triggered nationwide protests against police brutality have been acquitted by a state jury in Memphis, Tennessee.

Tyre Nichols, who was beaten during a traffic stop in 2023, died three days after sustaining numerous blows to the head, according to a post-mortem report.

Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith, Jr were found not guilty on all charges on Wednesday, including second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

All three have been convicted of separate federal charges, and still face long prison sentences.

Two other officers involved in the death, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills, have pleaded guilty to federal charges, avoiding trial.

Federal charges are ones that violate federal laws enacted by Congress. They are brought by the Department of Justice and usually carry stiff sentences.

The five officers, who are all black, were members of the Memphis police department’s Scorpion Task Force, a since-disbanded street unit that was tasked with bringing down crime levels in the city.

• Who was Tyre Nichols?
• Five key questions raised by Tyre Nichols video

Video footage of the incident shows Mr Nichols being pulled over by police for alleged reckless driving.

A scuffle develops and officers use pepper spray and a Taser on Mr Nichols as he breaks free.

The five policemen caught up with him about a block away and began to assault him as he cried out for his mother.

He died three days later, with a post-mortem examination ruling it a homicide from blunt-force trauma.

On Wednesday, the state jury o took over eight hours to reach their verdict, following an emotional nine-day trial.

The proceedings took place in Hamilton County, over 300 miles (480km) away from Memphis after the judge ruled that the trial should take place outside of the Memphis.

Defence lawyers had argued that it would be difficult to find an impartial jury in the city.

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told reporters that he and the Nichols family were “disappointed” and “devastated” by the verdict.

“I think we can understand why they’d be outraged by this result given the evidence,” he said on Wednesday. “We respect the jury’s decision but we obviously very strongly disagree with it.”

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Nichols’ family, issued a statement calling the verdicts “a devastating miscarriage of justice”.

“The world watched as Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by those sworn to protect and serve.”

During the trial, prosecutors said that the officers had become “overcome by the moment”.

“Nobody is going to call them monsters,” said prosecutor Paul Hagerman. “It doesn’t take monsters to kill a man.”

Defence lawyers blamed Mr Nichols for running from the officers, and for resisting as they attempted to place him in handcuffs.

The verdict in the state trial comes in sharp contrast to the defendants’ federal trial in 2024, when the officers were found guilty of witness tampering charges in the case.

Haley was also found guilty of deprivation of civil rights and deliberate indifference resulting in serious bodily injury.

Bean and Smith each face up to 20 years in jail, while Haley faces a life sentence in the federal trial.

Federal sentencing hearings had been delayed until the conclusion of the state trial.

The US Justice Department in December 2024 found that the Memphis Police Department regularly used excessive force against black residents.

The findings were released after a 17-month investigation.

Masked pro-Palestinian protesters have occupied part of the main library at Columbia University, with authorities asking the New York police for assistance.

Two university security officers were injured when protesters forced their way into Butler Library on Wednesday, according to a statement from University President Claire Shipman, who called their actions “outrageous”.

She said that many protesters are not students, and that those who remain in the library are being forced to show ID to leave.

“At the direct request of Columbia University, the NYPD is responding to an ongoing situation on campus where individuals have occupied a library and are trespassing,” the NYPD posted on X.

Video posted on social media showed chanting protesters entering the library, many wearing keffiyeh headscarves and masks, defying a ban imposed by the Trump administration.

Some protesters were seen vandalising book shelves by writing “free Palestine”.

At least three people were seen being taken into custody, according to CBS, the BBC’s US partner.

“While this is isolated to one room in the library, it is completely unacceptable that some individuals are choosing to disrupt academic activities as our students are studying and preparing for final exams,” the university president said.

Mrs Shipman, who took over the role in March after the previous president resigned, asked students to stay away from the library.

“We will not tolerate hate or violence in any form in our city,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in a post on X.

Columbia has drawn ire from US President Donald Trump, who claims many universities have tolerated antisemitism and harassment of Jewish students.

Trump has already threatened to withhold some $400m (£309m) in federal funding for Columbia, as his administration continues to target those involved in previous campus protests with deportation.

In March, Columbia agreed to several demands from the Trump administration, including a ban on face masks at protests and a change in oversight of some academic programmes, after the administration said it planned to withhold millions in federal funds.

It is unclear whether the funds will be reinstated, though a lawsuit was filed by some of the faculty members over the cuts.

The New York college was the epicentre of pro-Palestinian protests against the war in Gaza and US support for Israel on college campuses last year.

On Tuesday, Trump also terminated $2.2 billion in taxpayer funds to Harvard University after ordering a review of its federal financing.

The Trump administration has warned 60 universities that funding may be cancelled if allegations of antisemitism on campuses are not addressed.

WeightWatchers has filed for bankruptcy in the US as it struggles with debt and fierce competition from fat-loss jabs like Ozempic and Mounjaro.

The legal process will see $1.15bn (£860mn) of the 60-year-old diet brand’s debt written off while it agrees new terms for paying back its lenders.

WeightWatchers said it will remain “fully operational” during the process with “no impact to members”.

It follows the meteoric rise in popularity of weight loss injections in what the firm said was a “rapidly changing weight management landscape”.

“For more than 62 years, WeightWatchers has empowered millions of members to make informed, healthy choices, staying resilient as trends have come and gone,” said chief executive Tara Comonte.

The plans have “the overwhelming support of our lenders”, she said.

In a statement, the brand said its weight-loss programme, “telehealth” scheme, and weight-loss workshops will continue.

The company vowed that it was “here to stay” and that it was not going out of business.

It said it had a “significant amount of debt on its balance sheet, some of it dating back decades” and that filing for bankruptcy would allow it to restructure its balance sheet.

Some customers would get court notifications as part of the process, but they shouldn’t need to take any action, the firm added.

WeightWatchers began as weekly weight-loss support group meeting with 400 attendees, and eventually gained millions of members across the globe.

But demand for its programmes has dropped while the popularity of weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound has risen – although the brand does sell weight medications as part of its programmes.

In February Ms Comonte said WeightWatchers could help people looking for “sustainable” weight loss after coming off medication.

“At the same time, WeightWatchers is in a period of significant transition as we navigate industry shifts and reposition our business for long-term growth,” she said at the time.

The brand reported a net loss of $346m (£260m) last year, while its subscription revenues fell 5.6% compared with the year before.

On Tuesday, it reported that subscription revenues in the first three months of 2025 were down 9.3% – although its clinical business, which includes weight-loss medication, saw revenues up more than 57%.

The brand’s total liabilities of $1.88bn are greater than the value of its assets. It said it “expects [the] reorganisation plan to be confirmed in approximately 40 days and to emerge as a publicly traded company.”

WeightWatchers renamed itself “WW” in 2018 as it shifted to focus on promoting health beyond weight-loss.

“These,” says Dr Anas al-Hourani, “are from a mixed mass grave.”

The head of the newly-opened Syrian Identification Centre is standing next to two tables, covered in femurs. There are 32 of the human thigh bones on each laminated white tablecloth. They have been neatly aligned and numbered.

Sorting is the first task for this new link in the long chain from crime to justice in Syria. A “mixed mass grave” means that corpses were thrown one on top of another.

The chances are, these bones belong to some of the hundreds of thousands believed to have been killed by the regimes of the ousted president Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez, who together ruled Syria for more than five decades.

If so, says Dr al-Hourani, they were among the more recent victims: they died no more than a year ago.

Dr al-Hourani is a forensic odontologist: teeth can tell you so much more about a body, he says, at least when it comes to identifying who the person was.

But with a femur the lab workers in the basement of this squat grey office building in Damascus can begin the task: they can learn the height, the sex, the age, what sort of job they had; they might also be able to see whether the victim was tortured.

The gold standard in identification is of course DNA analysis. But, he says, there is just one DNA testing centre in Syria. Many were destroyed during the country’s civil war. And “because of sanctions, a lot of the precursor chemicals that we need for the tests are currently not available”.

They’ve also been informed that “parts of the instruments could be used for aviation and so for military purposes”. In other words, they could be deemed “dual use”, and so proscribed by many Western countries from export to Syria.

Add to that, the cost: $250 (£187) for a single test. And, says Dr al-Hourani, “in a mixed mass grave, you have to do about 20 tests to gather all the parts of one body”. The lab relies entirely on funding from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The new government of Islamist rebels-turned-rulers says that what they call “transitional justice” is one of their priorities.

Many Syrians who have lost relatives, and lost all trace of them, have told the BBC that they remain unimpressed and frustrated: they want to see more effort from the people who finally chased Bashar al-Assad from power last December after 13 years of war.

During those long years of conflict, hundreds of thousands were killed, and millions displaced. And, by one estimate, more than 130,000 people were forcibly disappeared.

At the current rate, it can take months to identify just one victim from a mixed mass grave. “This,” says Dr al-Hourani, “will be the work of many, many years.”

Eleven of those “mixed mass graves” are slung around a beautiful, barren hilltop outside Damascus. The BBC are the first international media to see this site. The graves are quite visible now. In the years since they were dug, their surface has sunk into the dry, stony earth.

Accompanying us is Hussein Alawi al-Manfi, or Abu Ali, as he also calls himself. He was a driver in the Syrian military. “My cargo,” says Abu Ali, “was human bodies.”

This compact man with a salt and pepper beard was tracked down thanks to the tireless investigative work of Mouaz Mustafa, the Syrian-American executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a US-based advocacy group. He had persuaded Abu Ali to join us, to bear witness to what Mouaz calls “the worst crimes of the 21st Century”.

Abu Ali transported lorry loads of corpses to multiple sites for more than 10 years. At this location, he came, on average, twice a week for roughly two years at the start of the demonstrations and then the war, between 2011 and 2013.

The routine was always the same. He’d head to a military or security installation. “I had a 16m (52ft) trailer. It wasn’t always filled to the brim. But I’d have, I guess, an average of 150 to 200 bodies in each load.”

Of his cargo, he says he is convinced they were civilians. Their bodies were “mangled and tortured”. The only identification he could see were numbers written on the cadaver or stuck to the chest or forehead. The numbers identified where they had died.

There were a lot, he said, from “215” – a notorious military intelligence detention centre in Damascus known as “Branch 215”. It is a place we will re-visit in this story.

Abu Ali’s trailer did not have a hydraulic lift to tip and dump his load. When he backed up to a trench, soldiers would pull the bodies into the hole one after another. Then a front-loader tractor would “flatten them out, compress them in, fill in the grave.”

Three men with weathered faces from a neighbouring village have arrived. They corroborate the story of the regular visits by military lorries to this remote spot.

And as for the man behind the wheel: how could he do this for week after week, year after year? What was he telling himself each time he climbed into his cab?

Abu Ali says he learned to be a mute servant of the state. “You can’t say anything good or bad.”

As the soldiers dumped the corpses into the freshly excavated pits, “I would just walk away and look at the stars. Or look down towards Damascus.”

Damascus is where Malak Aoude has recently returned, after years as a refugee in Turkey. Syria may have been freed of the chokehold of the Assads’ dynastic dictatorship. Malak is still serving a life sentence.

For the past 13 years, she has been locked into a daily routine of pain and longing. It was 2012, a year after some of the people of Syria had dared to raise a protest against their president, that her two boys were disappeared.

Mohammed was still a teenager when he was conscripted into Assad’s army, as the demonstrations spread and the regime’s deadly crackdown sparked a full-blown war.

He hated what he was seeing, his mother says. Mohammed started absconding, and even went on the demos himself. But he was tracked down.

“They broke his arms and beat his back,” says his mother. “He spent three days unconscious in hospital.”

Mohammed went AWOL again. “I reported him missing,” says Malak. “But I was hiding him.”

In May 2012, 19-year-old’s Mohammed luck ran out. He was caught along with a group of friends. They were shot. Malak says there was no formal notification. But she has always assumed he was killed.

Six months later, Mohammed’s younger brother Maher was dragged from school by officers. It was Maher’s second arrest. He’d gone to the protests in 2011, aged 14. That had led to his first arrest. When he was let out of detention, a month later, he was in his underwear, covered, says his mother, in cigarette burns, wounds and lice. “He was terrified.”

Malak thinks Maher was disappeared from school in 2012 because the authorities had found that she had been hiding his older brother. Now, for the first time in 13 years, Malak returns to that school, desperate to get any clue about what happened to Maher.

The new headteacher produces a couple of battered red ledgers. Malak traces the rows of names with her finger, and then finds her son’s name. December 2012, the record flatly states: Maher has been excluded from school because he has failed to turn up for lessons for two weeks.

There is no explanation that it is the state which has disappeared him. There is something else, though: a folder with Maher’s school records has been found. Its cover is adorned with a photograph of a wise Bashar al-Assad, gazing thoughtfully into the distance. Malak picks up a pen from the headteacher’s desk and scribbles over the photo. Six months ago, that gesture could have been lethal.

For years, the only scraps Malak had to cling to were two men who say they saw Maher in “Branch 215” – that same military detention centre which produced so many corpses for Abu Ali to transport.

One of the witnesses told Malak that her boy had told him something about his parents that, his mother says, only he could have known. It was definitely him. “He asked this man to tell me he was doing fine.” Malak heaves and leaks tears, stuffs a tattered tissue into the corners of her eyes.

For Malak, like so many Syrians, the fall of Assad was not just a day of joy, but of hope. “I thought there was a 90% chance Maher would walk out of prison. I was waiting for him.”

But she has not even been able to find her son’s name on the prison lists. And so the throb of pain continues to course through her. “I feel lost and confused,” she says.

Her own younger brother, Mahmoud, had been killed by a tank firing on civilians in 2013.

“At least he had a funeral.”

Foxconn, the maker of Apple’s iPhones, has announced plans to produce electric vehicles (EV) for Japanese car giant Mitsubishi Motors.

Under the agreement in principle, a Foxconn joint venture will design and build cars in Taiwan for Mitsubishi.

The companies say they expect the new model to be available by the end of next year, under what would be Foxconn’s first major contract in the booming and highly competitive EV industry.

Japanese car makers like Mitsubishi have faced growing competition from mainland Chinese rivals, particularly in markets in South East Asia, South America and Europe.

The companies said the cars will be built by Foxtron – Foxconn’s EV joint venture with Taiwanese car maker, Yulon Motor.

“Foxtron will provide design and manufacturing management services and this model is expected to enter the Australia and New Zealand markets in the second half of 2026,” they added.

At this stage, the agreement is a so-called memorandum of understanding – a non-binding deal between the two companies. The companies have said they “will proceed with discussions towards a definitive agreement.”

Foxconn is the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer and counts major technology companies such has Apple among its customers.

It previously said it would consider buying a stake in Japan’s Nissan Motor for “co-operation” as it looked to get into the motor industry.

Mitsubishi Motors is a junior partner in an alliance between Nissan and French car maker Renault.

The moves come as China’s car industry has expanded rapidly in recent years and the world’s second largest economy has emerged as a leader in the growing EV market.

Established car makers around the world have struggled to compete as major Chinese players like BYD continue to win new customers.

Denmark’s foreign minister says he will summon the US ambassador to address a report that Washington’s spy agencies have been told to focus on Greenland amid Donald Trump’s threats to take over the island.

“It worries me greatly because we do not spy on friends,” Lars Løkke Rasmussen said, responding to the report in The Wall Street Journal.

According to the newspaper, US spy agencies were told to focus efforts on the semi-autonomous country’s independence movement, and American goals to extract mineral resources there.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accused the Journal of attempts to “undermine” President Trump “by politicizing and leaking classified information”.

While not denying the report, she accused the newspaper of “breaking the law and undermining our nation’s security and democracy”.

Rasmussen, who was attending an EU ministers meeting in Warsaw, said the report was “somewhat disturbing”.

“We are going to call in the US acting ambassador for a discussion at the foreign ministry to see if we can confirm this information,” Rasmussen said.

“It doesn’t seem to be strongly rejected by those who speak out. That worries me.”

The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) declined to comment on the article, but told Danish media that it had “naturally” taken note of US interest in Greenland.

Based on international interest in Greenland in general, the agency said, there was an increased espionage threat against it and Denmark.

President Trump has repeatedly vowed to take control of Greenland, most recently telling NBC News on Sunday that he had not ruled out using military force to seize the arctic island.

“I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything,” he said. “We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we’ll take care of, and we’ll cherish them, and all of that. But we need that for international security.”

• Greenland’s politicians unite against Trump
• In Depth: Greenland’s dark history – and does it want Trump?

During a speech to Congress in March, Trump told US lawmakers that “one way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

Danish officials also condemned a visit to Greenland by Vice-President JD Vance in March.

Danish PM Mette Frederiksen said the visit to a remote US military base “completely unacceptable pressure on Greenland, Greenlandic politicians and the Greenlandic population”.

Former President Joe Biden, speaking to BBC News in his first interview since leaving office in January, condemned Trump’s calls for the US to take back the Panama Canal, to acquire Greenland and to make Canada the 51st state.

“What the hell’s going on here? What president ever talks like that? That’s not who we are,” Biden told the BBC’s Nick Robinson.

“We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity, not about confiscation.”

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

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

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

Australia has announced a National Rugby League (NRL) team will be established in Western Australia (WA) for the first time.

The WA state government will invest A$65m (£31m; $42m) to set up and support the new club over the next seven years.

WA premier Roger Cook said the announcement is “great news for sports fans” in the state, which has traditionally been Aussie Rules country, and will also benefit its economy.

The news comes as the NRL has been trying to broaden its appeal – both in Australia and globally – by expanding to new markets, including hosting exhibition matches in the US and inviting Papua New Guinea (PNG) to join the league full-time.

The new team, the name and colours of which are yet to be announced, is expected to compete in the NRL Premiership competition in 2027 or 2028.

Cook said all funding from the state government will be spent in WA and the club will be chaired by a local Western Australian.

“Not only will this be great news for sports fans, it will be great news for our economy and great news for jobs,” he said in a social media video.

Negotiations between the WA state government and the Australian Rugby League Commission had persisted for months before Wednesday’s announcement.

It is estimated the new club will deliver A$28m annually in economic value once it begins competing, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The NRL has been trying to broaden its reach and attract new audiences for years.

Last year, the Australian government, in partnership with the league, announced it will invest A$600m over ten years to set up a new team in PNG – a deal that required the Pacific nation to shun security ties with China.

The league has also partnered with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to expand the Australian sport’s appeal in the US, this year for the second time opening the season with marquee matches in Las Vegas.

For the past three years, when peers of Australia’s former Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton were grilled over his divisive persona, they’d often profess his celebrity status in the north.

“Peter is one of us… He’s very popular in Queensland,” said the leader of the Nationals, the Liberal’s coalition partner, earlier this year.

But on election night, it was Dutton’s home state that delivered Labor its election win, with the red landslide ousting the veteran MP from his own seat of Dickson.

While votes are still being counted, Labor could pick up as many electorates in Queensland as it did across every other state and territory combined.

And that’s thanks, in no small part, to a new bloc of young voters and women who are disillusioned with the Coalition, and attribute the party’s emphatic loss to the “Dutton effect”.

As 65-year-old coalition voter Sue, who didn’t share her last name, bluntly puts it: “This is where [Dutton’s] from… People know him and they don’t like him.”

The Moreton Bay region, about an hour north of Brisbane, is supposed to be Dutton heartland. Before Australia’s federal election on 3 May, all three seats here were Liberal-held – though only by small leads, with Dutton’s electorate of Dickson having the narrowest in the state.

Dutton’s family have deep roots here, with his dairy farming great-grandparents having settled in the area in the 1860s.

When he first entered parliament 24 years ago, the region was made up of urban pockets and industrial estates surrounded by swathes of semi-rural land. Not quite metropolitan or rural, is how the former police officer described it in his maiden speech as MP.

Now Brisbane is one of the fastest growing cities in Australia, and these outer northern suburbs are one of the main places it is squeezing people in. Residential development has exploded, and more families, priced out of locations closer to the city, have moved in to Moreton Bay.

Full of the “quiet Australians” Dutton said would deliver him the election, outer-suburban neighbourhoods like these were at the heart of the Coalition’s strategy.

The average household in Moreton Bay earns less than both the state and national average, with many of them relying on the health, trade and hospitality sectors for work. The Coalition hoped promises to cut fuel expenses, improve housing affordability and back small businesses would woo voters concerned about the cost of living.

Many Moreton Bay residents, like campaign volunteer Kenneth King, also felt Dutton’s links to the area would give them a boost.

“I’ve known Peter Dutton for a lot of years,” the Dickson local told the BBC on polling day. “He’s always been someone of high character, serious about effective policies and a lot of empathy for ordinary Australians.”

“He’s very well respected in the community… People know him.”

But there’s a difference between being well known and well liked, says Aleysha, a swing voter in the neighbouring electorate of Petrie, who declined to give her surname.

“I don’t know whether he appeals to the everyday person,” the 26-year-old nurse says. “He doesn’t put himself in the people’s shoes.”

Her vote over the years has gone to a range of parties from right across the political spectrum – except the Greens, she adds with a quick laugh.

“I don’t sit with any party. Being a Christian, it’s whatever party aligns closest to my values,” she says, adding that the future of her two young children is the other major consideration.

This election, that meant her vote went to Coalition incumbent Luke Howarth, who she knows personally from her church.

But while she’s praying for a miracle, with the final votes still being counted, she’s not surprised to find Howarth may be on his way out.

She says Labor ran very visible campaigns in the area, but tells the BBC that it was driving past the image of Howarth and his leader on billboards which stuck in her mind.

“Unfortunately I think that’s what did it,” she says.

“Peter Dutton’s face behind him was a huge turnoff – for me personally too.”

Sue, who lives in the same electorate and is generally a conservative voter, says this election she was torn at the ballot box.

“I had a huge hesitation over it,” she says. “I don’t like Albanese; I think he’s like, weak.

“[But] Dutton’s an unattractive personality… He thinks he’s presenting himself as strong, but he presents himself as a bit of a bully.”

Ultimately Sue also voted for Howarth – and she’s similarly convinced Dutton lost him the seat.

“I spoke to a few friends… some did change their votes because of Peter Dutton,” she says. “People, rightly or wrongly, aligned Dutton with Trump. And that’s very negative for just about any sane person.”

Many of the constituents the BBC spoke to stressed they did not want American style politics here.

Drew Cutler grew up in the seat of Longman, which shares borders with both Dickson and Petrie – and though he no longer lives in the area, the 28-year-old was so invested in the outcome he came back to campaign for Labor.

Won by Coalition MP Terry Young on a margin of 3% last election, it is now too close to call.

Mr Cutler, a former Labor party staffer, believes Labor ran very strong local campaigns. But he also thinks Dutton’s policy flip-flopping and the aura of instability that projected was potent.

That included announcing, and then walking back, public service job cuts and plans to end work-from-home arrangements, as well as a fluctuating stance on electric vehicle taxes.

Such optics were especially damaging, Mr Cutler argues, when contrasted with the image of strong, decisive leadership Dutton tries to convey.

“I almost think the Australian people would have respected him more if he stuck to it… and said, ‘This is what I’m putting forward – if you don’t like it, don’t vote for it’,” Mr Cutler tells the BBC.

Back in Dickson, Rick – a retiree and fresh Liberal Party member – said on election night that he also felt confusion played a role in the party’s defeat, particularly among young people.

“I think people couldn’t understand Dutton’s policies,” he said.

But 30-year-old April, who didn’t provide her last name, says it is Dutton who didn’t understand.

She can’t remember a time when he wasn’t in power in Dickson, and feels that over time he has lost touch with his own constituents and the country more broadly.

For her, the last straw was his instrumental role in the defeat of the Voice to Parliament referendum, which sought to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the constitution and simultaneously establish a parliamentary advisory body for them.

“I think he has caused a lot of harm to a lot of minority groups across the scale,” she says.

For others in the electorate though, the last straw was watching Dutton fly to a fundraiser in Sydney as the area in and around Dickson was hit by Cyclone Alfred in February.

April didn’t feel like Labor Party’s offering was strong either, especially on climate action, so she decided to campaign for Ellie Smith, the so-called ‘teal’ independent running in the seat.

Disappointment – borderline embarrassment – that Dutton was from her local area had crystallised into determination: “I felt like it was a duty in a way… our responsibility to get him out.”

Ultimately, the Coalition lost at least six seats to Labor in Queensland – all bar one in Brisbane. And while they are a few votes ahead in Longman as the count continues, they could still lose that too.

Queensland has long been a bit of a political wildcard, and often finds itself in the “spotlight” at federal elections, says Frank Mols.

The University of Queensland politics lecturer points out the state helped deliver Kevin Rudd’s historic election win in 2007 and Scott Morrison’s “miracle” victory in 2019. Last election, as a record number of people across the nation voted for candidates outside the two major parties, Queensland surprised the nation by giving the Greens three seats – up from none.

There are a couple of factors that make the state more “volatile” and likely to deliver upsets, Dr Mols says.

Firstly, it is the only state or territory, except for the island of Tasmania, where more than half of the population live outside the capital city of Brisbane.

“We talk about Queensland always being two elections, one in the south-east corner, and then the rest – and they often get very different patterns.”

There’s also more political fragmentation in the state, Dr Mols says, which combined with Australia’s preferential voting system can make political equations here tighter, and trends harder to predict.

But he – like many of the voters the BBC spoke to – largely puts last weekend’s surprise for the Coalition down to Dutton and his broadly-criticised campaign performance.

While there’s a tendency to attribute success or failure to policy issues, more often its really about voters’ emotional response to candidates and leaders, Dr Mols says.

“If you do the barbecue test, is Dutton a person you would walk up to? Is he somebody you would warm to or gravitate towards?

“You can wonder: was Peter Dutton, in hindsight, the Labor Party’s best asset?”

But Dutton may have had the opposite effect for the Greens Party, which has lost at least two of the three seats it gained in Brisbane in 2022. Their party leader, Adam Bandt, also appears to have been defeated in Melbourne, an electorate he’d held for 15 years.

“Perhaps in desperation, [Dutton] was gravitating towards culture war issues, sort of echoing Trumpian themes, if you like, and that has been punished,” Dr Mols says. “But also the Greens… who were perhaps seen as being at the other end of that shouting match, have not done well.”

Dr Mols also believes that desperation to keep Dutton out may have seen some former Greens voters prioritise Labor this time – though he points out more centrist Teal independents appear to have bucked that trend.

In any case, he doesn’t see the result in Queensland as a groundswell of love for Labor. The state was still the only jurisdiction in Australia where there were more first preference votes for the Coalition than Labor.

“There has to be enough of a swing towards a party, but it’s often that preferencing that actually tilts it over the line,” he says.

“This is more of a Liberal loss.”

For many Coalition voters, that loss is deeply felt. Rick describes it as a “real rout”.

But among others, like Aleysha, there is an inexplicable element of mirth.

“I think it’s quite funny, that he slipped as much as he did,” she says. “And I can’t tell you why.”

There’s a strong chance you will have seen Alicia Vikander on screen in the past decade, thanks to performances in films such as Tomb Raider, Ex Machina and her Oscar-winning role in The Danish Girl.

One place you won’t have seen her during that time, however, is on stage.

The Swedish actress hasn’t appeared in the theatre for 17 years, when she was a teenager. But that’s about to change.

Vikander will star in a new West End production of Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea, which will also be her UK theatre debut.

Speaking to BBC News, Vikander, 36, said she was “thrilled” to be returning to the stage, but added it was a “daunting thing to do… it’s my first time on stage as an adult”.

The production will play at London’s Bridge Theatre for eight weeks from 10 September, organisers announced on Wednesday.

“I grew up being at the theatre a lot, my mother [Maria Fahl] was a stage actress, and I think even when I was dreaming of becoming an actress myself, being on stage was the journey that I kind of visualised,” Vikander said.

“Back in Sweden, where I’m from, if you’re an actor then really what you are is on stage. And you’re lucky to maybe have a TV show or film every couple of years, because that’s how small the industry is in Sweden.

“So I think that’s what I always saw in front of me. And then life happened, and throughout the years [theatre] has always been something I’ve been waiting for and thinking ‘it will happen’.”

The play has been adapted and directed by Simon Stone, and will also star The Walking Dead’s Andrew Lincoln.

Vikander will play lead character Ellida, the sea-loving daughter of a lighthouse-keeper.

Ellida is married to a Norwegian doctor, but when a sailor she used to be engaged to suddenly returns, she is forced to choose between her current and former lover.

The play marks the introduction of the character Hilde Wangel, one of the doctor’s daughters from a previous marriage.

Hilde goes on to appear in one of Ibsen’s later plays, The Master Builder, a new adaptation of which is coincidentally also currently in the West End, starring Ewan McGregor.

An adaptation of another Ibsen play, Enemy of the People, opened in London last year starring Doctor Who actor Matt Smith.

Director Stone has previously helmed films such as The Dig and The Daughter, while his extensive theatre credits include productions of Yerma, Phaedra, Medea and Angels in America.

“He once again is going to take a classic and reinvent it and make it be something that is relatable to our modern audience today,” Vikander said.

“And when I was told he was doing Ibsen and The Lady from the Sea, I guess that going back to my Scandinavian and Swedish heritage, it kind of felt like a perfect match.”

Vikander said she felt the reason many of the classics are still being performed in the West End is they tackle many of the same subjects society still grapples with today.

“I have discussions with my friends, I just passed 35, I’m getting close to my 40s soon and I have my kids, but I still feel extremely young. Really young. Sometimes I’m like, ‘I’m 25 still!’

“But then I also realise I’m entering this very new chapter which is really exciting, but I think if you are in a place where you feel like you haven’t fulfilled certain dreams or tried things, you’re still wondering where these choices or action would have led you, then I think it’s extremely human thing.

“Women throughout history have been held back, maybe because they didn’t have the same opportunities, or they financially couldn’t do some things, or ended up in situations where it was harder to break away from the role of being a mother.

“So therefore when I read it, I feel like I totally understand the turmoil this woman goes through, and I don’t think humans have changed that much from a core, emotional point of view. And I think that’s why we’re interested in these stories.”

She added: “It’s incredible that the big universal questions are something we’re still battling in the same way.”

Vikander said she was “super excited and wonderfully nervous” to begin the workshopping process with Stone in the coming weeks, out of which he will begin to produce the final script.

As the show is still being developed, it has not yet been confirmed what the setting will be for this production.

Another UK adaptation of The Lady from the Sea performed in 2017 at the Donmar Theatre moved the story to the Caribbean in the 1950s.

The new adaptation is billed as her UK stage debut, but Vikander notes it’s actually her first theatre of any kind since she was 19.

“I did theatre for my teens for a lot of years, like a child actor, and then the last thing I did was when I was a dancer for the Stockholm Opera House,” she explained.

“I grew up watching my mother doing theatre, and I ‘d always watch from afar, and I can’t wait to try and do it myself.

“It’s a daunting thing to do, obviously, it’s my first time on stage as an adult, and it’s on the London stage, and obviously I want to make sure people get their ticket money’s worth! But I’m really excited.”

In an exclusive and remarkably candid interview – the first since he left office – Joe Biden discusses what he really thinks of his successor’s first 100 days, plus his fears for the future if the Atlantic Alliance collapses

It is hard to believe that the man I greet in the Delaware hotel where he launched his political career more than half a century ago was the “leader of the free world” little over 100 days ago.

Joe Biden is still surrounded by all the trappings of power – the black SUVs, the security guys with curly earpieces, the sniffer dogs sent ahead to sweep the room for explosives. And yet he has spent the last three months watching much of what he believes in being swept away by his successor.

Donald Trump has deployed the name Biden again and again – it is his political weapon of choice. One recent analysis showed that Trump said or wrote the name Biden at least 580 times in those first 100 days in office. Having claimed that rises in share prices were “Trump’s stock market” at work, he later blamed sharp falls in share prices on “Biden’s stock market”.

Until this week, President Biden himself (former presidents keep their titles after they leave office) has largely observed the convention that former presidents do not criticise their successors at the start of their time in office. But from the moment we shake hands it is clear that he is determined to have his say too.

In a dark blue suit, the former president arrives smiling and relaxed but with the determined air of a man on a mission. It’s his first interview since leaving the White House, and he seems most angry about Donald Trump’s treatment of America’s allies – in particular Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

• Trump appeasing Putin with pressure on Ukraine, Biden tells BBC
• Five key takeaways from the interview
• Political Thinking with Nick Robinson: Listen to the full interview on BBC Sounds, or watch on BBC iPlayer or on YouTube

“I found it beneath America, the way that took place,” he says of the explosive Oval Office row between Trump and Zelensky in February. “And the way we talk about now that, ‘it’s the Gulf of America’, ‘maybe we’re going to have to take back Panama’, ‘maybe we need to acquire Greenland, ‘maybe Canada should be a [51st state].’ What the hell’s going on here?

“What President ever talks like that? That’s not who we are. We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity – not about confiscation.”

After just over 100 action-packed days of Trump there was no shortage of targets for President Biden to choose from.

But his main concern appears to be on the international stage, rather than the domestic one: that is, the threat he believes now faces the alliance between the United States and Europe which, as he puts it, secured peace, freedom and democracy for eight decades.

Just before our interview, which took place days before the 80th anniversary of VE Day, Biden took a large gold coin out of his pocket and pressed it into my hand. It was a souvenir of last year’s D-Day commemoration. Biden believes that the speech he delivered on that beach in Normandy is one of his most important. In it, he declared that the men who fought and died “knew – beyond any doubt – that there are things worth fighting and dying for”.

I ask him whether he feels that message about sacrifice is in danger of being forgotten in America. Not by the people, he replies but, yes, by the leadership. It is, he says, a “grave concern” that the Atlantic Alliance is seen to be dying.

“I think it would change the modern history of the world if that occurs,” he argues.

“We’re the only nation in a position to have the capacity to bring people together, [to] lead the world. Otherwise you’re going to have China and the former Soviet Union, Russia, stepping up.”

Now more than ever before that Alliance is being questioned. One leading former NATO figure told the BBC this week that the VE Day celebrations felt more like a funeral. President Trump has complained that the United States is being “ripped off” by her allies, Vice President JD Vance has said that America is “bailing out” Europe whilst Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has insisted that Europe is “free-loading”.

Biden calls the pledge all members of Nato – the Atlantic Alliance – make “to defend each and every inch of Nato territory with the full force of our collective power” a “sacred obligation”.

“I fear that our allies around the world are going to begin to doubt whether we’re going to stay where we’ve always been for the last 80 years,” Biden says.

Under his presidency, both Finland and Sweden joined Nato – something he thinks made the alliance stronger. “We did all that – and in four years we’ve got a guy who wants to walk away from it all.

“I’m worried that Europe is going to lose confidence in the certainty of America, and the leadership of America in the world, to deal with not only Nato, but other matters that are of consequence.”

I meet President Biden in the place he has called home since he was a boy, the city of Wilmington in Delaware. It is an hour and a half Amtrak train ride from Washington DC, a journey he has been making for 50 years since becoming a Senator at the age of just 30. He has spent more years in government than any other president.

He was 82 when he left the Oval Office. His age has invited no end of scrutiny – an “at times addled old man” is how the journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson describe him in their book, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.

His calamitous live TV debate performance last June prompted further questions, as Biden stumbled over his words, lost his thread mid-sentence and boasted, somewhat bafflingly, that “We finally beat Medicare!”. He withdrew from the election campaign soon after.

Today, Biden is still warm and charismatic, with the folksy charm that made him an election winner but he is a much slower, quieter and more hesitant version of the leader he was once. Meeting with him in person, I found it hard to imagine he could have served for another four years in the White House, taking him closer to the age of 90.

I ask Biden if he’s now had to think again about his decisions last year. He pulled out of the presidential race just 107 days before election day, leaving Kamala Harris limited time to put together her own campaign.

“I don’t think it would have mattered,” he says. “We left at a time when we had a good candidate, she was fully funded.

“What we had set out to do, no-one thought we could do,” he continues. “And we had become so successful in our agenda, it was hard to say, ‘No, I’m going to stop now’… It was a hard decision.”

One he regrets? Surely withdrawing earlier could have given someone else a greater chance?

“No, I think it was the right decision.” He pauses. “I think that… Well, it was just a difficult decision.”

Biden says he went into politics to fight injustice and to this day has lost none of his appetite for the fight. Last year at the D-Day celebrations he warned: “We’re living in a time when democracy is more at risk across the world than at any point since the end of World War Two.”

Today, he expands on this: “Look at the number of European leaders and European countries that are wondering, Well what do I do now? What’s the best route for me to take? Can I rely on the United States? Are they going to be there?”

“Instead of democracy expanding around the world, [it’s] receding. Democracy – every generation has to fight for it.”

Speaking in Chicago recently, Biden declared that “nobody’s king” in America. I asked him if he thinks President Trump is behaving more like a monarch than a constitutionally limited president.

He chooses his reply carefully. “He’s not behaving like a Republican president,” he says.

Though later in our interview, Biden admits he’s less worried about the future of US democracy than he used to be, “because I think the Republican Party is waking up to what Trump is about”.

President Biden relished his role as the leading figure in Nato, deploying normally top secret intelligence to tell a sceptical world back in 2022 that Vladimir Putin was about to launch a full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Since taking office President Trump has charted a different course, telling Ukraine that it must consider giving up territory to Russia if it wants the war to end.

“It is modern day appeasement,” Biden says of Trump’s approach.

Putin, he says, sees Ukraine as “part of Mother Russia. He believes he has historical rights to Ukraine… He can’t stand the fact that […] the Soviet Union has collapsed. And anybody who thinks he’s going to stop is just foolish.”

He fears that Trump’s approach might signal to other European countries that it’s time to give in to Russia.

Yet Biden has faced accusations against him concerning the Ukraine War. Some in Kyiv and her allies, as well as some in the UK, claim that he gave President Zelensky just enough support to resist invasion but not enough to defeat Russia, perhaps out of fear that Putin would consider using nuclear weapons if cornered.

When Putin was asked point blank on TV this week whether he would use nuclear weapons to win the war, he declared that he hoped that they would “not be necessary,” adding that he had the means to bring the war to what he called his “logical conclusion”.

I point out to Biden that it has been argued that he didn’t have the courage to go all the way to give Ukraine the weapons it needed – to let Ukraine win.

“We gave them [Ukraine] everything they needed to provide for their independence,” Biden argues. “And we were prepared to respond more aggressively if in fact Putin moved again.”

He says he was keen to avoid the prospect of “World War Three, with nuclear powers,” adding: “And we did avoid it.

“What would Putin do if things got really tough for him?” he continues. “Threaten the use of tactical nuclear weapons. This is not a game or roulette.”

Biden’s belief in the Atlantic Alliance – as the last living President born during World War Two – is clearly undiminished.

When he first arrived in the Oval Office, Biden hung a portrait of America’s wartime leader Franklin D. Roosevelt on the wall. He was born two and a half years before the defeat of the Nazis, into the world FDR helped to create – a world of American global leadership and solidarity. But the United States voted to reject Biden’s policies and values and instead to endorse Donald Trump’s call to put America First.

The world is changing from what people like Joe Biden have taken for granted.

“Every generation has to fight to maintain democracy, every one,” Biden says. “Every one’s going to be challenged.

“We’ve done it well for the last 80 years. And I’m worried there’s the loss of understanding of the consequences of that.”

Former US President Joe Biden has given his first in-depth interview since he left the White House in January, speaking to the BBC about his legacy, foreign policy and his view of President Donald Trump’s first 100 days.

He said that he had few regrets, but he offered grave warnings about global affairs as Europe marks 80 years since the end of World War Two on the continent.

Biden spent much of his time in public office – as a senator, vice-president and president – focusing on US foreign policy, and it remains a top concern.

The former president also reflected on his decision to drop out of the 2024 election race – but he had less to say about any mistakes he and the Democrats may have made along the way.

Here are five key takeaways from his interview with Nick Robinson for BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Biden’s ill-fated decision to seek a second presidential term may haunt Democrats for a generation. Three months removed from power, however, the former president said he didn’t think “it would have mattered” if he had abandoned his re-election ambitions earlier, before a disastrous debate forced his hand in July 2024.

Kamala Harris, who became the nominee after Biden dropped out just four months before the election, was a “good candidate” who was “fully funded”, he said.

Democratic strategists have lamented that the last-minute handover left their campaign flat-footed, ultimately aiding Trump’s path to the White House, even as Democrats held a financial advantage in the 2024 race.

Biden boasted of being “so successful on our agenda” – a reference to the major legislation enacted in his first two years in office on the environment, infrastructure and social spending, as well as the better-than-expected Democratic performance in the 2022 midterm elections.

“It was hard to say now I’m going to stop,” he said. “Things moved so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away.”

Ultimately, quitting was “the right decision”, he said, but it was “just a difficult decision”.

• Trump appeasing Putin with pressure on Ukraine, Biden tells BBC
• Biden on Trump: ‘What president ever talks like that? That’s not who we are’
• Political Thinking with Nick Robinson: Listen to the full interview on BBC Sounds, or watch on BBC iPlayer or on YouTube

Biden described the Trump administration’s suggestion that Ukraine give up territory as part of a peace deal with Russia as “modern-day appeasement” – a reference to European allies that allowed Adolf Hitler to annex Czechoslovakia in the 1930s in an ill-fated attempt to prevent a continent-wide conflict.

“I just don’t understand how people think that if we allow a dictator, a thug, to decide he’s going to take significant portions of land that aren’t his, that that’s going to satisfy him. I don’t quite understand,” Biden said of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The term “appeasement” gets kicked around a lot in American politics, and the list of foreign leaders compared with modern-day “Hitlers” is a long one.

Though Biden’s repeated assertion that Russian tanks would be rolling through central Europe if America and its allies didn’t support Ukraine is impossible to prove, he views the threat posed by Putin as serious and worthy of the comparison.

Biden also said that if the US allowed a peace deal that favoured Russia, Putin’s neighbours would be under economic, military and political pressure to accommodate Moscow’s will in other ways. In his view, the promise of American support to European allies becomes less believable and less of a deterrent.

Under Biden, the US helped expand the Nato to include Finland and Sweden – one of the former president’s signature foreign policy achievements. Now, he says Trump is turning his back on America’s European allies and threatening the very foundations of Nato and its mutual defence agreement.

The former president described the thought of Nato breaking apart as a “grave concern”. Already, he warned, US allies were doubting American leadership.

“I think it would change the modern history of the world if that occurs,” he said. “We are not the essential nation, but we are the only nation in position to have the capacity to bring people together to lead the world.”

There are some in Trump’s circle – perhaps including the president himself – who believe that a more restrained America, less concerned with global security and more focused on regional self-sufficiency, is best way to ensure long-term prosperity in a world of competing global powers. They argue that America’s post-Cold War dominance was a historical anomaly.

Biden, whose political career spans those decades of American supremacy, disagrees.

In his interview, Biden sounded like most modern American presidents before him. He used words like freedom, democracy and opportunity to describe American principles.

But in Biden’s view, those principles also include a sense of decorum, especially towards long-standing allies.

He said Trump’s February meeting-turned-argument with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office was “sort of beneath America”. He argued Trump’s territorial designs on Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal were “not who we are”.

“What president ever talks like that? That’s not who we are. We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity, not about confiscation,” he said.

When asked about Trump’s first 100 days in office – which included dramatic attempts to expand presidential power – Biden said he would let history judge his successor, but “I don’t see anything that’s triumphant”.

It was the kind of understatement that surely will irk some on the left. Since the start of Trump’s second term, rank-and-file Democrats have been clamouring for their party to do more to resist the president’s agenda.

Biden said he didn’t think Trump would succeed in flouting courts or the law, or diminishing congressional power, in part because the president’s fellow Republicans are “waking up to what Trump is about”.

“I don’t think he’ll succeed in that effort,” he said.

The idea that members of Trump’s own party will turn on him is a recurring one for Biden. In 2019, he predicted there would be an “epiphany” among Republicans once Trump was out of the White House, ushering in a new era of bipartisanship.

It didn’t exactly work out that way in 2024.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Even a stellar international business career cannot prepare you for the hard realities of politics in Ivory Coast, where some are questioning the democratic credentials of the West African nation most famous for being the producer of much of the world’s cocoa and some of its finest footballers.

That is the painful lesson Tidjane Thiam is learning as he waits to see whether deal-making in the corridors of power and popular pressure from the street can rescue his bid to become president of Ivory Coast.

Seemingly relentless progress towards the election set for this October came to a juddering halt on 22 April when a judge ruled that the 62-year-old had lost his Ivorian citizenship by taking French nationality decades previously and not revoking it until too late to qualify for this year’s vote.

Moving back to Ivory Coast in 2022 after more than two decades in global finance, Thiam had immediately been seen as a potential contender to succeed current head of state Alassane Ouattara who, at 83, is now in the final year of his third term of office.

A scion of a traditional noble family and a great nephew of the country’s revered founding President, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, he had impressed as a top government official and minister in the 1990s, overseeing infrastructure development and radical economic reforms.

A military coup then pushed Thiam to seek a fresh career abroad, which culminated in high-profile stints as chief executive of UK insurance giant Prudential and then the banking group Credit Suisse.

But returning home at last, three years ago, he embarked on a steady advance towards the next Ivorian presidential election.

After the death in 2023 of former President Henri Konan Bédié, long-serving leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI), Thiam was perfectly positioned to take his place and then on 17 April this year he was chosen as the party’s candidate for the upcoming presidential race.

That was no guarantee of victory, and especially if – as seems quite plausible Ouattara opts to run for a fourth term, backed by all the assets and advantages of incumbency and a track record of four successive years of annual economic growth above 6%.

However, Thiam stood out as the prime alternative.

As an opponent of the ruling Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP), he offered Ivorian voters the chance to change their government.

Yet with his centrist politics and solid technocratic credentials, his candidacy offered reassuring competence and the prospect of continuing the impressive economic progress that Ouattara has piloted since 2011.

Now that potential trajectory is blocked. If the court decision stands – and Ivorian law offers no option of appeal for this particular issue – Thiam will be out of October’s contest.

It is a race from which past court convictions have already excluded three other prominent opposition figures – former President Laurent Gbagbo, former Prime Minister Guillaume Soro and a former minister, Charles Blé Goudé – all central actors in the political crises and civil conflicts that brutally paralysed the progress of Ivory Coast between 1999 and 2011.

The prospect now is that Ouattara or any chosen RHDP successor candidate will approach the election without facing any heavyweight political challenge.

That can only deepen Ivorians’ already widespread popular disillusionment with the country’s political establishment.

This is against the wider context of a West Africa where the radical anti-politics rhetoric of the soldiers who have seized power in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger already finds a sympathetic audience among many disenchanted young people.

That really matters in societies where, typically, three-quarters of the population is under 35.

Amidst this crisis for West African democracy, there have been some moments of encouragement.

In Liberia in 2023 and in Senegal and Ghana last year, incumbent governments were voted out, in free and fair elections whose results were accepted by all contestants without argument.

The Senegalese result, in particular, owed much to the massive enthusiastic mobilisation of young people.

Many hoped that Ivory Coast could offer a further positive example of democratic choice and the offer of change, and an example that might be all the more influential because the country is a prosperous regional powerhouse.

It is the economic engine of the CFA franc single currency bloc and besides the cocoa industry, it is also a key hub for business services and finance and a leading political voice in the regional grouping, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas).

What happens in Ivory Coast really matters and is widely noticed, across West Africa and indeed, also right across francophone Africa more generally.

Ouattara is one of the continent’s most prominent statesmen, commanding broad respect internationally too.

And yet now the run-up to the country’s crucial next presidential election has become ensnared in a return version of the identity politics that so soured the bitter disputes and instability of the 1990s and 2000s.

Back then, the governments of first Bédié and then Gbagbo used the contentious “ivoirité”, meaning “Ivorian-ness” law to shut Ouattara out of standing for the presidency on the grounds that his family allegedly had foreign origins.

It was only in 2007 that the government scrapped the ban on his candidacy and only in 2016 – when he was already in office – that a new constitution at last ended the requirement that the stated parents of presidential candidates be native-born Ivorians.

The poisonous mobilisation of identity issues had been a major contributing factor to the civil wars, street violence and northern separatist partition that brutally scarred Ivory Coast for more than a decade, up to 2011, at a cost of thousands of lives.

Today the country feels far from such large-scale conflict.

There is no popular appetite for a return to confrontation and politicians are staying well away from the incendiary rhetoric of the past.

But the Thiam saga shows how identity issues, even in a more legalistic form and in this hopefully more peaceful era, can still weigh heavily.

Ivory Coast only permits dual nationality under certain limited conditions.

So in its 22 April ruling, an Abidjan court declared that, under the terms of a little-used post-independence law, Thiam had automatically lost his Ivorian citizenship almost four decades ago when he acquired French nationality – after several years’ study in Paris.

Although he officially surrendered that this February, and thus automatically recovered his original citizenship, this was too late for inclusion on this year’s register of eligible voters or candidates.

In vain, his lawyers had argued that, through his father, Thiam had French nationality from birth – which, if accepted, would exempt him from the dual nationality ban.

Seeking to highlight the absurdity and inconsistencies of the situation, he argued that, logically, the country should now hand back its prized 2024 Africa Cup of Nations football title because many of the players also have French nationality.

“If we apply the law the way [that] they just applied it to me, we have to give the cup back to Nigeria – because half of the team was not Ivorian,” he told the BBC.

And Thursday could bring yet another setback in a scheduled court hearing where a judge may now rule that Thiam cannot, as a non-national, lead the PDCI.

The past two weeks have seen continuing political and legal debate over this whole saga, with the Thiam camp hoping that a combination of popular pressure and discreet political negotiation will lead to a compromise that lets him back into the presidential race, perhaps along with the other excluded contenders.

And Ouattara, should he chose not to run, might want to safeguard his impressive track record and secure his international reputation by intervening with some kind of deal that allows Thiam to run.

With months to go before the polls, there is still time for that. But no-one is counting on it.

• No wigs please – the new rules shaking up beauty pageants
• Easter eggs costs rise as climate change hits crops
• A love letter to attiéké, Ivory Coast’s timeless culinary treasure
• The artist ‘not surprised’ to be a best-seller
• The powerful new use for cocoa

For the second time in just eight days, a US fighter jet has been lost to the Red Sea after falling from the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier, US officials say.

An F/A-18F Super Hornet was attempting to land on the Truman’s flight deck on Tuesday when a manoeuvre failed, “causing the aircraft to go overboard”, an official told the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

The two crew members inside the aircraft ejected, and sustained minor injuries in the incident. The jets are reportedly worth around $67m (£50m) each.

“Both aviators safely ejected and were rescued by a helicopter assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 11,” the official told CBS.

It comes after another Super Hornet went overboard into the same sea last Monday in a separate incident.

It was “under tow in the hangar bay when the move crew lost control of the aircraft”, a US Navy statement said. A sailor sustained minor injuries, and a tractor that had been towing the aircraft was also pulled into the water.

During the second incident, officials said there was a failure of an arrestment – referring to a cable that is used to help slow down a jet as it lands.

The incident is still under investigation, and the aircraft has yet to be recovered.

The jet may have tipped overboard after the aircraft carrier made a sharp turn while taking evasive action against Houthi militants in Yemen, US officials told CBS.

Just hours earlier on Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced that the US would stop attacking the Iran-backed Houthis if the group stopped targeting shipping in the Red Sea.

The Truman has been involved in several incidents in its Red Sea deployment, including last December, when the USS Gettysburg mistakenly shot down another F/A-18 fighter jet that was operating from the carrier. Both crew members survived.

South African firebrand opposition politician Julius Malema says he has been denied a visa to attend a conference in the UK on 10 May.

Malema said the UK had no “substantial justification” for its decision, and he saw it as an “attempt to silence a dissenting political perspective”.

In a leaked letter to Malema’s deputy, the UK High Commissioner to South Africa, Antony Phillipson, said the Home Office had been unable to process his visa application in time for his trip.

Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, is a fierce critic of what he sees as “Western imperialism”, and also advocates the nationalisation of white-owned land in South Africa.

A Home Office spokesperson told the BBC that they do not comment on individual cases.

In a post on X, the EFF said the High Commission had “actively delayed the processing and approval” of their leader’s visa so that he could not speak at the University of Cambridge on 10 May.

He had been invited by the university’s African Society to address its Africa Together Conference, the EFF added.

In his letter, which the BBC has been told is genuine, Mr Phillipson said that he wanted to “personally apologise” that the Home Office in the UK had been “unable to process the application in time owing to the necessary steps required to consider visa applications and the unfortunate timing of some recent UK Bank Holidays”.

He added that he had taken a “personal interest in the issue” over the last week.

“I recognise that this will be deeply disappointing, especially as the delegation applied in advance and some paid for priority service,” Mr Phillipson said, in the letter to the EFF’s Godrich Gardee.

Mr Phillipson added that the Home Office had agreed to refund the application fee.

Malema said on X that the EFF delegation had been promised that “everything would be sorted”, but received a “regret letter just hours before our departure”.

“This is unacceptable and spineless,” he added.

The UK had a bank, or public, holiday on 5 May.

• Is it checkmate for South Africa after Trump threats?
• Polygamy and pageantry on display at a mass wedding in South Africa
• How royal divorce papers have shaken the Zulu kingdom

The Israeli embassy in London was the alleged target of five Iranian men arrested on suspicion of preparing an act of terrorism, the BBC understands.

Police have not yet confirmed that the embassy in Kensington was the suspected target, as first reported by the Times, citing operational reasons. But the BBC understands the report is accurate.

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism command, said it was a “fast-moving” investigation and there were “significant operational reasons” why the force could not provide further details.

Iran “categorically rejects” any involvement, said the Iranian foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, on the social media site X.

He added his country was ready to assist with the investigation.

The men – two aged 29, a 40-year-old, a 24-year-old and another aged 46 – were arrested on Saturday over an alleged plan to target “a specific premises”, the Met said.

The men were arrested in Swindon, west London, Stockport, Rochdale and Manchester.

Four of the men are continuing to be questioned under the Terrorism Act. The fifth man, who was detained under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), was released on bail until a date in May.

Officers carried out searches at a number of addresses in Greater Manchester, London and Swindon as part of the investigation.

Footage showed armed officers taking a man from a house in Rochdale, while another man was dragged through the street in Swindon with plastic bags over his arms.

Commander Murphy said “as soon as possible we will look to share further details and in the meantime we would ask the public to remain vigilant.”

Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, Home Office minister Dan Jarvis said hundreds of officers were carrying out forensic investigations at different sites across the country.

He said the arrests were “some of the largest counter-state threats and counter-terrorism actions that we have seen in recent times”.

The five arrests took place on the same day as three other Iranian men were arrested as part of a separate counter-terrorism investigation.

They were arrested under section 27 of the National Security Act 2023, which authorises police to detain those suspected of “foreign power threat activity”.

Liam Payne left behind money, property and possessions worth more than £24m when he died last year, official records show.

The One Direction singer died aged 31 in Argentina in October without making a will.

If someone dies without making a will, the rules say any children will normally inherit their estate if there is no living husband, wife or civil partner. Payne never married but he and former Girls Aloud singer Cheryl had a son, Bear, who is now aged eight.

Cheryl, who was Payne’s partner for more than two years, and music industry lawyer Richard Bray have been named administrators of his estate. They will manage the money, but they currently have limited authority and cannot distribute it.

Payne died at the age of 31 after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires.

A court in Argentina dropped charges in February of criminal negligence against three out of the five people who had been charged in connection with Payne’s death.

His death shocked the music world and millions of fans of One Direction, one of the most successful pop groups of the 2010s.

Probate documents show that the total gross value of his estate was £28.6m, but was reduced to £24.3m when any debts and expenses were deducted.

Cheryl and Bray have been given a limited grant of representation, described as being “to allow the administrator power to preserve the deceased’s estate until a general grant is made”.

Four anonymous housekeepers are suing Motown legend Smokey Robinson for $50 million (£37 million), accusing him of sexual assault.

A complaint filed in Los Angeles superior court accuses the 85-year-old of sexual battery, false imprisonment, negligence and gender violence, in addition to a number of labour violations related to wages, breaks, meal times and overtime pay.

The lawsuit also names Robinson’s wife, Frances Robinson, claiming she contributed to a hostile work environment, and used “ethnically pejorative words and language”.

Representatives for the Robinsons did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and the accusations could not be independently verified.

Robinson was Motown’s first hitmaker, writing number one hits like Mary Wells’ My Guy and the Temptations’ My Girl.

Born William Robinson Jr in Michigan, he was both a talent scout for the record label and one of its most prominent recording artists, known for songs like Tracks of My Tears, Shop Around and Tears of a Clown.

He has spots in both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Halls of Fame, and claims to have credits on more than 4,000 songs.

Robinson’s reputation and stature was an intimidating factor for his accusers, who were made to feel “powerless”, their lawyer said at a press conference in Los Angeles.

“They’re Hispanic women who were employed by the Robinsons earning below minimum wage,” said John Harris.

“As low-wage women in vulnerable positions, they lacked the resources and options necessary to protect themselves from sexual assaults.”

The women are suing under the pseudonyms Jane Doe 1, 2, 3 and 4, due to the sexual misconduct allegations, including rape, being levelled against the musician.

Three are former housekeepers and one was the singer’s personal assistant, cook and hairdresser, according to court documents.

In the lawsuit, all four women claim that Robinson would summon them to various areas of his properties in Chatsworth, Bell Canyon and Las Vegas, at times when his wife was away.

Sometimes emerging naked from a shower, he forced them to have various types of sex over a number of years, starting in 2006, the lawsuit alleges.

Jane Does 1, 3 and 4 all allege Robinson sexually assaulted them in the “blue bedroom” of his Chatsworth residence, claiming he would lay down a towel to protect the bed sheets prior to the assaults.

Jane Doe 2’s allegations state that Robinson raped her in the laundry room and garage of his Chatsworth residence, where closed-circuit cameras were unable to see.

The women claim that during the alleged assaults, Robinson used physical barriers and threats of force to prevent them from fleeing.

The lawsuit also includes several allegations of workplace violations.

All four women say they worked 10 hours a day, for six days a week without being paid minimum wage or overtime. They also claim to have worked holidays without receiving a holiday rate.

According to their lawsuit, the employees all quit because of the alleged sexual misconduct and hostile work environment.

The BBC has contacted Robinson’s representatives for a response to the lawsuit.

No police reports or criminal charges have been filed against the musician.

A spokesperson for Los Angeles County District Attorney said the women’s claims were not under review because law enforcement had not presented a case.

Los Angeles police said they had no statement on the matter.

Russia is expected to begin a self-declared three-day pause in fighting against Ukraine on Wednesday night, in a move derided by many Ukrainians and described by President Volodymyr Zelensky as little more than a “theatrical show”.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin proposed the three-day ceasefire to coincide with the anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe – a public holiday in Russia on Friday known as Victory Day.

But in doing so Putin has rejected a much more substantial proposal from the Trump administration for a 30-day ceasefire and negotiations – a proposal that was accepted by Ukraine.

Zelensky has in turn rejected Russia’s unilateral three-day ceasefire and said that Ukraine will not guarantee the safety of a celebratory military parade in Moscow’s Red Square on 9 May.

Rosenberg: Russians remember WW2 with victory on their minds

The Russian proposal has been met with widespread cynicism in Ukraine, where polls consistently suggest that about 95% of the population distrusts Russia.

“I don’t believe there will be any ceasefire,” said Tetyana Kondratenko, 42, a shopkeeper in Khotin Village in Sumy, a heavily bombarded region about six miles (10km) from the Russian border.

“Lately the shelling has only intensified, for half the day today we have heard boom after boom,” Ms Kondratenko said in a phone interview.

Zelensky was right to reject the proposal “because you know how they operate, like what happened at Easter”, she added, referring to the Russians.

“They announced a ceasefire, then used it to bring in more equipment and started attacking again. What kind of ceasefire is that?”

Last month, around Easter, Russia proposed a similar 30-hour cessation in hostilities but was later accused by Ukraine of violating its own suggested truce nearly 3,000 times.

On that occasion, rather than rejecting the proposal outright, Ukraine said it would mirror Russia’s actions.

A senior Ukrainian military officer told the BBC at the time that frontline units received an order to stop firing at Russian positions, but to record evidence of Russian violations and return fire if needed.

By Wednesday Ukrainian officials had not said categorically whether they would adjust their military action over the three-day period. Asked if Ukrainian forces planned to continue military operations, a source in the presidential office told the BBC: “We’ll see.”

From Novosofiivka village, in the very badly hit region of Zaporizhzhia, Antonina Sienina, 35, said that any ceasefire worth agreeing to should come with “solid guarantees” for Ukraine’s safety and sovereignty – not something included in Putin’s plan for the next three days.

• How Russia took record losses in Ukraine in 2024
• Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia

But Ms Sienina had mixed feelings. Her parents were killed in a Russian strike, her brother has been wounded, and her village has been pounded, so “maybe it wasn’t right to refuse” the three-day proposal, she added.

“Because honestly, we would be happy even for just one day without explosions. Just to take the kids somewhere, to a shopping mall, to a playground, to some attractions,” she said.

“We dream of the war being over, or at least a temporary ceasefire, because my children are exhausted. The nerves, the medications, the sleepless nights. It’s too much.”

Residents of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv were kept awake in the early hours of Wednesday morning by Russian drone and missile strikes on the city. A ballistic missile was successfully shot down by air defence systems but a drone hit a block of flats, killing a mother and her son and injuring at least six more, including a child.

The mayor of Moscow said on Wednesday that Russian air defences had downed 14 Ukrainian drones overnight. The Kremlin said that the drone attacks had no bearing on its plans to pause fighting for three days.

The pause is not being taken seriously in Ukraine, for the most part. It has been greeted instead as more of a propaganda exercise. Pavlo Klimkin, the former foreign minister of Ukraine, told the BBC it was simply another Russian show of force.

“This is all about Russia framing the agenda on its own terms,” Klimkin said. “It has nothing to do with a real ceasefire. It is all about messaging – messaging internally, messaging to the US, messaging to Europe to say that we, Russia, are in control.”

Talks directed at a substantial ceasefire process began back in February, with US President Donald Trump sending officials to negotiate separately with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine has since agreed to a US proposal for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, Russia has not.

The months since have been a deadly period in the war. Russia has intensively targeted Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles, killing 19 people including nine children last month in a strike on a playground in Kryvyi Rih and 35 people a week later in an Easter strike on the city of Sumy.

According to the UN, at least 848 civilians were killed between 1 and 24 April – a 46% increase on the same period last year.

The level of civilian deaths meant that any ceasefire should be accepted, even on Russian terms, said Oleksii Kamchatnyi, 38, a scientist living in Kyiv.

“It is about saving lives,” Mr Kamchatnyi said. “I’m originally from Donbas, from Pokrovsk. I managed to evacuate my mother but my father stayed there. I haven’t had any contact with him since 9 March.”

Still, Mr Kamchatnyi supported the temporary ceasefire, he said, “even if it means giving up territory.”

Ukrainian polling suggests that a majority of the public would accept the idea of ceding some control of territory seized by the Russians during the full-scale invasion, though not surrendering formal sovereignty over the land, according to Anton Grushetsky, director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

“There is for certainly a lot of fatigue and there is a lot of desire to have a stable peace in Ukraine,” Mr Grushetsky said.

But based on previous polling, the majority of Ukrainians would likely view the proposed three-day ceasefire as “either a trap or simply a ploy to avoid attacks on Moscow during the holiday”, he added.

There is also suspicion among many in Ukraine that the ceasefire proposal is simply a ploy by Russia to move its forces to strategic places on the battlefield, make reinforcements where needed, and prepare for offensives.

Ukraine had already made clear that it was ready for a full, unconditional ceasefire, and had no obligation to take part in Russia’s agenda, said Mykhailo Samus, a Ukrainian military analyst and director of the New Geopolitics Research Network.

“Why would we play Putin’s game? We are ready for a real ceasefire,” Mr Samus said. “If he wants to organise a parade to show that he is a great leader, that is his business.”

At least 33 Palestinians have been killed and dozens wounded in two Israeli strikes on a crowded restaurant and market on the same street in Gaza City, medics and the Hamas-run health ministry say.

Graphic videos posted on social media showed bodies slumped at tables the Thailandy restaurant, in the northern Rimal neighbourhood, which was also operating as a community kitchen.

Footage from the nearby marketplace showed a small child with a rucksack lying dead in the street.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.

Earlier, hospitals said at least 59 people had been killed in attacks since Tuesday night, most of them at two schools serving as shelters for displaced families.

The strikes come as Israel says it is preparing to intensify and expand its military campaign against Hamas after 19 months of war.

The two strikes on al-Wahda street in Rimal – one of Gaza’s busiest commercial hubs – happened almost simultaneously on Wednesday afternoon, about 100m (330ft) apart.

Footage from the scene shortly afterwards showed wounded people being transported on chairs and in the backs of cars.

A woman carrying a baby in her arms and accompanied by two other children told Reuters news agency that they were inside the Thailandy restaurant when it was struck.

“Everyone died,” she said. “The blood was like a lake, oh my baby, pools of blood.”

Photos shared by local activists, which could not immediately be verified, showed a number of bodies. They appeared to include a boy selling coffee, two parents and their young son, and a market vendor sitting by his small stall.

Palestinian journalist Yahya Sobeih was also killed, colleagues said, only hours after his wife gave birth to their first child.

In another video, the owner of the nearby Palmyra restaurant, Abu Saleh Abdu, said many children, elderly people and passersby were killed.

Addressing the Israeli military, he asked: “What do [you] want to achieve? You haven’t bombed any fighters or any weapons. You’ve only hit civilians.”

The Thailandy restaurant was destroyed during last year’s Israeli ground operation at the nearby al-Shifa hospital, but it had been rebuilt recently using tents and makeshift structures.

In addition to selling basic meals, the restaurant was also preparing hundreds of hot meals daily for humanitarian organisations to distribute to poor and displaced people.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Government Media Office accused the Israeli military of committing war crimes by “deliberately targeting gatherings of civilians and displaced people” in four separate incidents over 24 hours.

Women and children were among 33 people who were killed when the UN-run Abu Humeisa school in Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza, was bombed twice on Tuesday, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency.

Witness Ali al-Shaqra said on Wednesday that 300 families had been staying at the school and that the effect of the strike was like an “earthquake”.

The Israeli military said it struck “terrorists who were operating within a Hamas command-and-control centre”.

The military has not yet commented on a strike on the al-Karama school in the eastern Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City on Wednesday morning, which the Civil Defence said killed another 15 people.

It comes amid international condemnation of Israel’s plans to expand and intensify its ground offensive against Hamas.

Israeli officials have said they include seizing all of the territory indefinitely, forcibly displacing Palestinians to the south, and taking over aid distribution with private companies despite protests from the UN and its humanitarian partners.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that his security cabinet had decided on a “forceful operation” to destroy Hamas and rescue its remaining hostages. He said Gaza’s 2.1 million population “will be moved, to protect it”, and that troops “will not enter and come out”.

Israel cut off all supplies to Gaza on 2 March and resumed its offensive two weeks later after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire, saying it was putting pressure on Hamas to release its 59 remaining hostages.

The renewed Israeli strikes and ground operations have already resulted in hundreds of casualties and the displacement of an estimated 423,000 people, with about 70% of Gaza placed under Israeli evacuation orders, within an Israel-designated “no-go” zone, or both, according to the UN.

Aid agencies have also warned that mass starvation is imminent unless the blockade ends.

The UN has said Israel is obliged under international law to ensure food and medical supplies for Gaza’s population. Israel has said it is complying with international law and that there is no aid shortage because thousands of lorry loads entered Gaza during the ceasefire.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, who is based in the occupied West Bank, told the BBC that the situation in Gaza was “a real catastrophe”.

“This cannot continue. It’s a siege, famine. No water, no electricity, no hope,” he said.

Mustafa urged the international community to step up efforts to broker a new ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas as quickly as possible, warning: “People are dying every day in Gaza, and this should not happen anymore.”

An Israeli official said on Monday that the expanded offensive would not begin until after US President Donald Trump’s visit to the region next week, providing what he called “a window of opportunity” to Hamas to agree a deal.

However, a senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said on Tuesday that there was “no point” to negotiations while Israel continued what he called a “starvation war”.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 52,653 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 2,545 since the Israeli offensive resumed, according to the territory’s health ministry.

In a dramatic overnight operation, India said it launched missile and air strikes on nine sites across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, targeting what it called militant positions based on “credible intelligence”.

The strikes, lasting just 25 minutes between 01:05 and 01:30 India time (19:35 and 20:00 GMT on Tuesday), sent shockwaves through the region, with residents jolted awake by thunderous explosions.

Pakistan said only six locations were hit and claimed to have shot down five Indian fighter jets and a drone – a claim India has not confirmed.

Islamabad said 26 people were killed and 46 injured in Indian air strikes and shelling across the Line of Control (LoC) – the de facto border between India and Pakistan. Meanwhile, India’s army reported that 10 civilians were killed by Pakistani shelling on its side of the de facto border.

• Follow the latest updates
• What we know about the air strikes

This sharp escalation comes after last month’s deadly militant attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, pushing tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals to dangerous new heights. India says it has clear evidence linking Pakistan-based terrorists and external actors to the attack – a claim Pakistan flatly denies. Islamabad has also pointed out that India has not offered any evidence to support its claim.

In 2016, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri, India launched “surgical strikes” across the LoC.

In 2019, the Pulwama bombing, which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead, prompted airstrikes deep into Balakot – the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971 – sparking retaliatory raids and an aerial dogfight.

Experts say the retaliation for the Pahalgam attack stands out for its broader scope, targeting the infrastructure of three major Pakistan-based militant groups simultaneously.

India says it struck nine militant targets across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, hitting deep into key hubs of Lashkar-e- Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Hizbul Mujahideen.

Among the closest targets were two camps in Sialkot, just 6-18km from the border, according to an Indian spokesperson.

The deepest hit, says India, was a Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters in Bahawalpur, 100km inside Pakistan. A LeT camp in Muzaffarabad, 30km from the LoC and capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, was linked to recent attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir, the spokesperson said.

Pakistan says six locations have been hit, but denies allegations of there being terror camps.

“What’s striking this time is the expansion of India’s targets beyond past patterns. Previously, strikes like Balakot focused on Pakistan-administered Kashmir across the Line of Control – a militarised boundary,” Srinath Raghavan, a Delhi-based historian, told the BBC.

“This time, India has hit into Pakistan’s Punjab, across the International Border, targeting terrorist infrastructure, headquarters, and known locations in Bahawalpur and Muridke linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba. They’ve also struck Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahideen assets. This suggests a broader, more geographically expansive response, signalling that multiple groups are now in India’s crosshairs – and sending a wider message,” he says.

The India-Pakistan International Border is the officially recognised boundary separating the two countries, stretching from Gujarat to Jammu.

Ajay Bisaria, a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, told the BBC that what India did was a “Balakot plus response meant to establish deterrence, targeting known terrorist hubs, but accompanied by a strong de-escalatory message”.

“These strikes were more precise, targeted and more visible than in the past. Therefore, [they are] less deniable by Pakistan,” Mr Bisaria says.

Indian sources say the strikes were aimed at “re-establishing deterrence”.

“The Indian government thinks that the deterrence established in 2019 has worn thin and needs to be re-established,” says Prof Raghavan.

“This seems to mirror Israel’s doctrine that deterrence requires periodic, repeated strikes. But if we assume that hitting back alone will deter terrorism, we risk giving Pakistan every incentive to retaliate – and that can quickly spiral out of control.”

The majority of experts agree that a retaliation from Pakistan is inevitable – and diplomacy will come into play.

“Pakistan’s response is sure to come. The challenge would be to manage the next level of escalation. This is where crisis diplomacy will matter,” says Mr Bisaria.

“Pakistan will be getting advice to exercise restraint. But the key will be the diplomacy after the Pakistani response to ensure that both countries don’t rapidly climb the ladder of escalation.”

• India and Pakistan are in crisis again – here’s how they de-escalated in the past

Pakistan-based experts like Ejaz Hussain, a Lahore-based political and military analyst, say Indian surgical strikes targeting locations such as Muridke and Bahawalpur were “largely anticipated given the prevailing tensions”.

Dr Hussain believes retaliatory strikes are likely.

“Given the Pakistani military’s media rhetoric and stated resolve to settle the scores, retaliatory action, possibly in the form of surgical strikes across the border, appears likely in the coming days,” he told the BBC.

But Dr Hussain worries that surgical strikes on both sides could “escalate into a limited conventional war”.

Christopher Clary of the University at Albany in the US believes given the scale of India’s strikes, “visible damage at key sites”, and reported casualties, Pakistan is highly likely to retaliate.

“Doing otherwise essentially would give India permission to strike Pakistan whenever Delhi feels aggrieved and would run contrary to the Pakistan military’s commitment to retaliating with ‘quid pro quo plus’,” Mr Clary, who studies the politics of South Asia, told the BBC.

“Given India’s stated targets of groups and facilities associated with terrorism and militancy in India, I think it is likely – but far from certain – that Pakistan will confine itself to attacks on Indian military targets,” he said.

Despite the rising tensions, some experts still hold out hope for de-escalation.

“There is a decent chance we escape this crisis with just one round of reciprocal standoff strikes and a period of heightened firing along the Line of Control,” says Mr Clary.

However, the risk of further escalation remains high, making this the “most dangerous” India-Pakistan crisis since 2002 – and even more perilous than the 2016 and 2019 standoffs, he adds.

Experts in Pakistan note that despite a lack of war hysteria leading up to India’s strike, the situation could quickly shift.

“We have a deeply fractured political society, with the country’s most popular leader behind bars. Imran Khan’s imprisonment triggered a strong anti-military public backlash,” says Umer Farooq, an Islamabad-based analyst and a former correspondent of Jane’s Defence Weekly.

“Today, the Pakistani public is far less eager to support the military compared to 2016 or 2019 – the usual wave of war hysteria is noticeably absent. But if public opinion shifts in central Punjab where anti-India feelings are more prevalent, we could see increased civilian pressure on the military to take action. And the military will regain popularity because of this conflict.”

Dr Hussain echoes a similar sentiment.

“I believe the current standoff with India presents an opportunity for the Pakistani military to regain public support, particularly from the urban middle classes who have recently criticised it for perceived political interference,” he says.

“The military’s active defence posture is already being amplified through mainstream and social media, with some outlets claiming that six or seven Indian jets were shot down.

“Although these claims warrant independent verification, they serve to bolster the military’s image among segments of the public that conventionally rally around national defence narratives in times of external threat.”

India is once again walking a fine line between escalation and restraint.

Shortly after the attack in Pahalgam, India swiftly retaliated by closing the main border crossing, suspending a water-sharing treaty, expelling diplomats and halting most visas for Pakistani nationals. Troops on both sides have exchanged small-arms fire, and India barred all Pakistani aircraft from its airspace, mirroring Pakistan’s earlier move. In response, Pakistan suspended a 1972 peace treaty and took its own retaliatory measures.

This mirrors India’s actions after the 2019 Pulwama attack, when it swiftly revoked Pakistan’s most-favoured-nation status, imposed heavy tariffs and suspended key trade and transport links.

The crisis had escalated when India launched air strikes on Balakot, followed by retaliatory Pakistani air raids and the capture of Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, further heightening tensions. However, diplomatic channels eventually led to a de-escalation, with Pakistan releasing the pilot in a goodwill gesture.

“India was willing to give old-fashioned diplomacy another chance…. This, with India having achieved a strategic and military objective and Pakistan having claimed a notion of victory for its domestic audience,” Mr Bisaria told me last week.

“Not even in my wildest imagination did I think this would happen,” said Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, describing the day he found out that he had been appointed a cardinal.

He was speaking to the BBC at his cathedral in Caloocan, on the outskirts of the Philippine capital Manila. He was leaving the next day for Rome to join the conclave, one of three cardinals from the country who will take part in choosing the next pope.

“Normally you would expect archbishops to become cardinals, but I am only a humble bishop of a little diocese where the majority of the people are slum dwellers, urban poor, you know.

“But I thought just maybe, for Pope Francis, it mattered that we had more cardinals who are really grounded there.”

Cardinal David has only been in the job for five months, after his surprise elevation last December. But in some ways he personifies the late pontiff’s legacy in his country.

Pope Francis had set himself the goal of bringing a Catholic church he believed had lost its common touch, back closer to the people.

“Apu Ambo”, as Cardinal David is affectionately called by his congregation, fits that mission well, having spent his life campaigning for the poor and marginalised.

The Philippines has the largest Roman Catholic population in Asia, nearly 80% of its 100 million people, and the third-largest in the world.

It’s one reason why Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle is believed to be a papabile, or frontrunner to replace Pope Francis – Tagle was also talked of as a contender in the last papal conclave 12 years ago.

The country is considered a bright spot for the Roman Catholic church, where faith is strong, its rituals woven into the fabric of society.

Yet the church is facing headwinds there. Its doctrines on divorce and family planning are being challenged by politicians, and newer charismatic churches are winning converts.

Pope Francis helped restore morale in the Philippines church, though he did not offer answers to these challenges beyond being more welcoming of diversity and urging the clergy to be more responsive to the needs of the poor.

But those on the activist wing of the church did feel encouraged by his support.

For Cardinal David that support was critical when he faced his greatest test, during the war on drugs declared by former President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016.

He took me to see a plaque he had erected in front of his cathedral in memory of Kian Delos Santos, a 17 year-old boy from his diocese who was gunned down by police in August 2017.

Kian was just one of many thousands who died in Duterte’s campaign – estimates range from 6,300 to 30,000. What made his case different from most was that the usual police justification, that he was armed and had resisted arrest, was contradicted by eyewitnesses and security camera videos.

The police officers had murdered him as he pleaded for his life. Three officers were eventually convicted of the murder, a rare instance of accountability in the drug war.

The cardinal is still visibly affected by the hundreds of killings that happened in his diocese – a cluster of low-income neighbourhoods typical of the areas targeted by the police in their notorious tokhang, or “knock and plead” raids, against alleged drug dealers and users.

“It was just too much seeing dead bodies left and right,” Cardinal David says.

“And you know, when I would ask people what they thought, you know, why these people were targeted. They said they’re drug users. I said, so what? So what? Who told you that just because people use drugs, they deserve to die?”

He began offering sanctuary to those who feared they were on police hit lists, and then drug-rehabilitation programmes, in the hope this might protect them.

He also did something the church as a whole did not do for several months: he openly criticised the drug war as illegal and immoral.

As a result, he received many death threats. President Duterte accused him of taking drugs, and talked about decapitating him. The government also filed sedition charges against him, though these were eventually dropped.

In those difficult years Cardinal David found he had a powerful backer, in Rome.

On a visit to the city in 2019 Pope Francis had taken him aside to give him a special blessing, saying he knew what was happening in his diocese and urging him to stay safe.

When they met again in 2023, and he reminded the Pope that he was still alive, he says the pontiff laughed and told him: “You have not been called to martyrdom yet!”

The role of the Roman Catholic church in the Philippines has changed over its 500-year history in the archipelago.

It was closely associated with the Spanish conquest, Spanish friars acting as de facto colonial administrators and the church becoming a big landowner. When the US replaced Spain as the colonial ruler in 1898, enforcing a separation of church and state, the political influence of the Catholic clergy waned.

But the church retained the allegiance of most of the population; even today, after inroads made by charismatic protestant churches, nearly 80% of Filipinos identify as Roman Catholic.

Since independence in 1946 the church has had an uneasy relationship with power. Its deep roots and establishment status have made it an influential player, wooed by political factions but also needing their support to protect its interests.

Attitudes began changing in the 1970s and 80s, the time when a young Pablo David and many other senior church figures today were studying to enter the priesthood.

This was the era of “liberation theology”, which came out of Latin America and argued that it was the duty of the clergy to fight against the pervasive poverty and injustice all around them.

When then-President Marcos, father of the current president of the Philippines, declared martial law in 1972 and began jailing and killing his critics, some priests even went underground to join the armed resistance.

But the church hierarchy continued what it called “critical collaboration” with the Marcos dictatorship.

That changed dramatically in February 1986, when the then-Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Jaime Sin, called on people to come out on the streets and oppose Marcos, sparking the famous “people power” uprising which deposed the president.

Cardinal Sin would reprise that role in 2001 when he helped overthrow another beleaguered president, Joseph Estrada.

After that, though, church leaders were accused of cosying up to Estrada’s successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, partly to gain her support in opposing growing political and social pressure to expand access to family planning and legalise divorce.

And they were reluctant to condemn President Duterte’s drug war because, despite the appalling human cost, it remained popular with the Filipino public, at least away from the poorer areas where the killings took place.

Nearly 40 years after its pivotal role in overthrowing the Marcos regime, the church’s influence once again seems to be waning, as it did a century ago.

For instance, the Church’s fervent opposition could not prevent the Philippines Congress from passing the Reproductive Health Law of 2012 that made family planning easily accessible.

This is despite the fact that many Filipino Catholics remain conservative on issues like gender and divorce, says Jayeel Cornelio, a sociologist who has written extensively on Catholicism in the Philippines.

The church’s defeat over family planning, he says, is indicative of its diminished sway over national politics.

“The Catholic church was practically sidelined during the Duterte presidency. When Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos ran for president in 2022, many Catholic leaders and institutions expressed their dissent and even endorsed the opposition. But Marcos still won.”

Many Filipinos welcome this, including, it seems, Cardinal David.

“It is not the business of the church to govern, neither is it the business of government to run a church”, he said.

“But we can complement one another – I cannot say we will be apolitical. So long as we stick to our role as a moral and spiritual leader, we can give guidance, even about political and economic matters.”

Even that more limited view of the church’s proper role, though, has run into opposition.

Thirteen years after overcoming ecclesiastical objections to the Reproductive Health Bill, the Philippines Congress is now trying to get a bill passed which would legalise divorce, something else the church disagrees with.

“I do not expect them to change their official doctrine, but in my job as a lawmaker, I try to address the problems that Filipinos face, and I don’t want them to meddle in my work. It is against our constitution to legislate in favour of any religion,” says Geraldine Roman, the first transgender member of Congress in the Philippines.

A practicing Catholic, she credits Pope Francis with creating a more welcoming environment for LGBTQ+ people with his “who am I to judge” statement.

“Nobody misgenders me in my church now,” she says.

But she objects to the Catholic church lobbying against the divorce bill, which she argues will free thousands of Filipino women trapped in abusive marriages.

“The church is free to try to indoctrinate Catholics into sticking it out in their marriages. But in the end, it is the decision of the couple, and not even the church can meddle in that decision.”

Other challenges include a congregation which is increasingly disengaged. While the number of Roman Catholics has fallen only slightly in the past three decades, the number attending mass at least once a week has dropped by half, to just over one third of those surveyed recently.

Then there are the various scandals associated with the Catholic church, especially the sexual abuse of minors, which critics say Pope Francis, while he did tackle the issue, did not do enough to address.

Cardinal David recalled how President Duterte “loved to wave” a book called “Altar of Secrets”, an expose of alleged scandals in the Filipino church, and how he would say, “oh, those hypocrites. Don’t listen to them. They don’t practice what they what they preach. They are abusers. I must say some people swallowed it hook, line and sinker. So I am not surprised that our moral credibility has been challenged.”

But, he adds, defensiveness is not the way the Church can win back its credibility.

“It should be humility. As Pope Francis advised, dare to be vulnerable. Dare to be criticised. Try not to remain on that pedestal where people cannot reach you, show your humanity.

India’s strikes on Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir have unleashed a wave of misinformation online, with unrelated videos purporting to be from the strikes gaining millions of views.

Dramatic clips debunked by BBC Verify have claimed to show attacks on an Indian army base and an Indian fighter jet shot down in Pakistan.

One video, which had more than 400,000 views on X at the time of writing, claiming to show an explosion caused by a Pakistani response was actually from the 2020 Beirut Port explosion in Lebanon.

An expert told BBC Verify that in moments of heightened tension or dramatic events, misinformation is more likely to spread and fuel distrust and hostility.

“It’s very common to see recycled footage during any significant event, not just conflict,” Eliot Higgins, the founder of the Bellingcat investigations website, said.

“Algorithmic engagement rewards people who post engaging content, not truthful content, and footage of conflict and disasters is particularly engaging, no matter the truth behind it.”

One of the most viral clips, which gained over 3 million views on X in a matter of hours, claimed to show blasts caused by the Indian strikes on Pakistan-administered Kashmir. A search for screengrabs from the video on Google found the footage actually showed Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip on 13 October 2023.

• Follow live: Tensions escalate as Pakistan vows response to Indian strikes
• What we know about India’s strike on Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir
• Why India and Pakistan fight over Kashmir

While much of the debunked footage has purported to show the immediate aftermath of the Indian strikes, some clips analysed by BBC Verify appeared to be trying to portray the Pakistani response as being more severe than it actually was.

One video, which has racked up almost 600,000 views on X, claimed to show that the “Pakistan army blew up the Indian Brigade headquarters”. The clip, which shows blasts in the darkness, is actually from an unrelated video circulating on YouTube as early as last month.

Elsewhere, one set of photos purported to show an operation carried out by the Pakistan Air Force targeting “Indian forward air-bases in the early hours of 6 May 2025”. The images – which appeared to be captured by a drone – were actually screengrabs taken from the video game Battlefield 3.

The Pakistani military says it destroyed five jets on Wednesday morning local time. That announcement has led to some users sharing unrelated clips which they claimed showed the wreckage of Indian fighter jets. Some of these videos have obtained millions of views.

But two widely shared images actually showed previous Indian air force jet crashes – one from an incident in Rajasthan in 2024 and another in the Punjab state in 2021. Both crashes were widely reported.

Prof Indrajit Roy of York University said that the images “are being generated with a view to get support for the military in Pakistan”. One clip circulated by the Pakistani military itself was later withdrawn by news agencies after it turned out to be from an unrelated event.

“We have jingoists on both sides of the border, and they have a huge platform on Twitter (X). You can see how fake news, as well as some real news, gets amplified, distorted and presented in ways designed to generate hostility, animosity and hatred for the other side.”

The conflict in Kashmir has long attracted a high degree of misinformation online. In the aftermath of the deadly militant attack on Indian tourists in Pahalgam last month, AI images circulated – with some seeking to dramatise actual scenes from the attack.

Vedika Bahl, a journalist with France 24, said the Pahalgam attacks had prompted a sharp “uptake in misinformation from both sides surrounding the conflict”.

“Lots of this misinformation begins on X,” she said. “Eventually this trickles down over time from X to WhatsApp which is the communication tool which is most used in South Asian communities.”

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Chris Pelkey died in a road rage shooting in Arizona three years ago.

But with the help of artificial intelligence, he returned earlier this month at his killer’s sentencing to deliver a victim’s statement himself.

Family members said they used the burgeoning technology to let Mr Pelkey use his own words to talk about the incident that took his life.

While some experts argue the unique use of AI is just another step into the future, others say it could become a slippery slope for using the technology in legal cases.

His family used voice recordings, videos and pictures of Mr Pelkey, who was 37 when he was killed, to recreate him in a video using AI, his sister Stacey Wales told the BBC.

Ms Wales said she wrote the words that the AI version read in court based on how forgiving she knew her brother to be.

“To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” said the AI version of Mr Pelkey in court. “In another life, we probably could have been friends.”

“I believe in forgiveness, and a God who forgives. I always have and I still do,” the AI verison of Mr Pelkey – wearing a grey baseball cap – continues.

The technology was used at his killer’s sentencing – Horcasitas already had been found guilty by a jury – some four years after Horcasitas shot Mr Pelkey at a red light in Arizona.

The Arizona judge who oversaw the case, Todd Lang, seemed to appreciate the use of AI at the hearing. He sentenced Horcasitas to 10-and-a-half years in prison on manslaughter charges.

“I loved that AI, thank you for that. As angry as you are, as justifiably angry as the family is, I heard the forgiveness,” Judge Lang said. “I feel that that was genuine.”

Paul Grimm, a retired federal judge and Duke Law School professor, told the BBC he was not surprised to see AI used in the Horcasitas sentencing.

Arizona courts, he notes, already have started using AI in other ways. When the state’s Supreme Court issues a ruling, for example, it has an AI system that makes those rulings digestible for people.

And Mr Grimm said because it was used without a jury present, just for a judge to decide sentencing, the technology was allowed.

“We’ll be leaning [AI] on a case-by-case basis, but the technology is irresistible,” he said.

But some experts like Derek Leben, a business ethics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, are concerned about the use of AI and the precedent this case sets.

While Mr Leben does not question this family’s intention or actions, he worries not all uses of AI will be consistent with a victim’s wishes.

“If we have other people doing this moving forward, are we always going to get fidelity to what the person, the victim in this case, would’ve wanted?” Mr Leben asked.

For Ms Wales, however, this gave her brother the final word.

“We approached this with ethics and morals because this is a powerful tool. Just like a hammer can be used to break a window or rip down a wall, it can also be used as a tool to build a house and that’s how we used this technology,” she said.

Two weeks after a deadly militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, India has launched a series of strikes on sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The Indian defence ministry said the strikes – named “Operation Sindoor” – were part of a “commitment” to hold “accountable” those responsible for the 22 April attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, which left 25 Indians and one Nepali national dead.

But Pakistan, which has denied any involvement in that attack, described the strikes as “unprovoked”, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif saying the “heinous act of aggression will not go unpunished”.

Sharif on Wednesday said the Pahalgam attack “wasn’t related” to Pakistan, and that his country was “accused for the wrong” reasons.

• Follow the latest updates
• Why India and Pakistan fight over Kashmir
• BBC reports from Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir

Pakistan’s military said at least 31 people were killed and 57 injured in the strikes on Tuesday night. India’s army said at least 15 civilians were killed and 43 injured by Pakistani shelling on its side of the de facto border.

Pakistan’s military says it shot down five Indian aircraft and a drone. India has yet to respond to these claims.

Late on Wednesday, Sharif said the air force made its defence – which was a “reply from our side to them”.

Delhi said in the early hours of Wednesday morning that nine different locations had been targeted in both Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Pakistan.

It said these sites were “terrorist infrastructure” – places where attacks were “planned and directed”.

It emphasised that it had not hit any Pakistani military facilities, saying its “actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”.

In the initial aftermath of the attacks, Pakistan said three different areas were hit: Muzaffarabad and Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and Bahawalpur in the Pakistani province of Punjab. Pakistan’s military spokesperson, Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif, later said six locations had been hit.

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told GeoTV in the early hours of Wednesday that the strikes hit civilian areas, adding that India’s claim of “targeting terrorist camps” was false.

The strikes come after weeks of rising tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours over the shootings in the picturesque resort town of Pahalgam.

The 22 April attack by a group of militants saw 26 people killed, with survivors saying the militants were singling out Hindu men.

It was the worst attack on civilians in the region in two decades, and the first major attack on civilians since India revoked Article 370, which gave Kashmir semi-autonomous status, in 2019.

Following the decision, the region saw protests but also witnessed militancy wane and a huge increase in the number of tourists.

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

However, India initially did not name any group it believed was behind the attack in Pahalgam.

But Indian police alleged that two of the attackers were Pakistani nationals, with Delhi accusing Pakistan of supporting militants – a charge Islamabad denies. It says it has nothing to do with the 22 April attacks.

On 7 May, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group carried out the attack.

In the two weeks since, both sides had taken tit-for-tat measures against each other – including expelling diplomats, suspending visas and closing border crossings.

But many expected it would escalate to some sort of cross-border strike – as seen after the Pulwama attacks which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead in 2019.

Kashmir is claimed in full by India and Pakistan, but administered only in part by each since they were partitioned following independence from Britain in 1947.

The countries have fought two wars over it.

But more recently, it has been attacks by militants which have brought the two countries to the brink. Indian-administered Kashmir has seen an armed insurgency against Indian rule since 1989, with militants targeting security forces and civilians alike.

In 2016, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri, India launched “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control – the de facto border between India and Pakistan – targeting militant bases.

In 2019, the Pulwama bombing, which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead, prompted airstrikes deep into Balakot – the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971 – sparking retaliatory raids and an aerial dogfight.

Neither spiralled, but the wider world remains alert to the danger of what could happen if it did. Attempts have been made by various nations and diplomats around the world to prevent this.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres quickly called for “maximum restraint” – a sentiment echoed by the European Union and numerous countries, including Bangladesh.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged “dialogue” and “de-escalation”.

US President Donald Trump – who was one of the first to respond – told reporters at the White House that he hoped the fighting “ends very quickly”. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, said he was keeping a close eye on developments.

For the past three years, when peers of Australia’s former Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton were grilled over his divisive persona, they’d often profess his celebrity status in the north.

“Peter is one of us… He’s very popular in Queensland,” said the leader of the Nationals, the Liberal’s coalition partner, earlier this year.

But on election night, it was Dutton’s home state that delivered Labor its election win, with the red landslide ousting the veteran MP from his own seat of Dickson.

While votes are still being counted, Labor could pick up as many electorates in Queensland as it did across every other state and territory combined.

And that’s thanks, in no small part, to a new bloc of young voters and women who are disillusioned with the Coalition, and attribute the party’s emphatic loss to the “Dutton effect”.

As 65-year-old coalition voter Sue, who didn’t share her last name, bluntly puts it: “This is where [Dutton’s] from… People know him and they don’t like him.”

The Moreton Bay region, about an hour north of Brisbane, is supposed to be Dutton heartland. Before Australia’s federal election on 3 May, all three seats here were Liberal-held – though only by small leads, with Dutton’s electorate of Dickson having the narrowest in the state.

Dutton’s family have deep roots here, with his dairy farming great-grandparents having settled in the area in the 1860s.

When he first entered parliament 24 years ago, the region was made up of urban pockets and industrial estates surrounded by swathes of semi-rural land. Not quite metropolitan or rural, is how the former police officer described it in his maiden speech as MP.

Now Brisbane is one of the fastest growing cities in Australia, and these outer northern suburbs are one of the main places it is squeezing people in. Residential development has exploded, and more families, priced out of locations closer to the city, have moved in to Moreton Bay.

Full of the “quiet Australians” Dutton said would deliver him the election, outer-suburban neighbourhoods like these were at the heart of the Coalition’s strategy.

The average household in Moreton Bay earns less than both the state and national average, with many of them relying on the health, trade and hospitality sectors for work. The Coalition hoped promises to cut fuel expenses, improve housing affordability and back small businesses would woo voters concerned about the cost of living.

Many Moreton Bay residents, like campaign volunteer Kenneth King, also felt Dutton’s links to the area would give them a boost.

“I’ve known Peter Dutton for a lot of years,” the Dickson local told the BBC on polling day. “He’s always been someone of high character, serious about effective policies and a lot of empathy for ordinary Australians.”

“He’s very well respected in the community… People know him.”

But there’s a difference between being well known and well liked, says Aleysha, a swing voter in the neighbouring electorate of Petrie, who declined to give her surname.

“I don’t know whether he appeals to the everyday person,” the 26-year-old nurse says. “He doesn’t put himself in the people’s shoes.”

Her vote over the years has gone to a range of parties from right across the political spectrum – except the Greens, she adds with a quick laugh.

“I don’t sit with any party. Being a Christian, it’s whatever party aligns closest to my values,” she says, adding that the future of her two young children is the other major consideration.

This election, that meant her vote went to Coalition incumbent Luke Howarth, who she knows personally from her church.

But while she’s praying for a miracle, with the final votes still being counted, she’s not surprised to find Howarth may be on his way out.

She says Labor ran very visible campaigns in the area, but tells the BBC that it was driving past the image of Howarth and his leader on billboards which stuck in her mind.

“Unfortunately I think that’s what did it,” she says.

“Peter Dutton’s face behind him was a huge turnoff – for me personally too.”

Sue, who lives in the same electorate and is generally a conservative voter, says this election she was torn at the ballot box.

“I had a huge hesitation over it,” she says. “I don’t like Albanese; I think he’s like, weak.

“[But] Dutton’s an unattractive personality… He thinks he’s presenting himself as strong, but he presents himself as a bit of a bully.”

Ultimately Sue also voted for Howarth – and she’s similarly convinced Dutton lost him the seat.

“I spoke to a few friends… some did change their votes because of Peter Dutton,” she says. “People, rightly or wrongly, aligned Dutton with Trump. And that’s very negative for just about any sane person.”

Many of the constituents the BBC spoke to stressed they did not want American style politics here.

Drew Cutler grew up in the seat of Longman, which shares borders with both Dickson and Petrie – and though he no longer lives in the area, the 28-year-old was so invested in the outcome he came back to campaign for Labor.

Won by Coalition MP Terry Young on a margin of 3% last election, it is now too close to call.

Mr Cutler, a former Labor party staffer, believes Labor ran very strong local campaigns. But he also thinks Dutton’s policy flip-flopping and the aura of instability that projected was potent.

That included announcing, and then walking back, public service job cuts and plans to end work-from-home arrangements, as well as a fluctuating stance on electric vehicle taxes.

Such optics were especially damaging, Mr Cutler argues, when contrasted with the image of strong, decisive leadership Dutton tries to convey.

“I almost think the Australian people would have respected him more if he stuck to it… and said, ‘This is what I’m putting forward – if you don’t like it, don’t vote for it’,” Mr Cutler tells the BBC.

Back in Dickson, Rick – a retiree and fresh Liberal Party member – said on election night that he also felt confusion played a role in the party’s defeat, particularly among young people.

“I think people couldn’t understand Dutton’s policies,” he said.

But 30-year-old April, who didn’t provide her last name, says it is Dutton who didn’t understand.

She can’t remember a time when he wasn’t in power in Dickson, and feels that over time he has lost touch with his own constituents and the country more broadly.

For her, the last straw was his instrumental role in the defeat of the Voice to Parliament referendum, which sought to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the constitution and simultaneously establish a parliamentary advisory body for them.

“I think he has caused a lot of harm to a lot of minority groups across the scale,” she says.

For others in the electorate though, the last straw was watching Dutton fly to a fundraiser in Sydney as the area in and around Dickson was hit by Cyclone Alfred in February.

April didn’t feel like Labor Party’s offering was strong either, especially on climate action, so she decided to campaign for Ellie Smith, the so-called ‘teal’ independent running in the seat.

Disappointment – borderline embarrassment – that Dutton was from her local area had crystallised into determination: “I felt like it was a duty in a way… our responsibility to get him out.”

Ultimately, the Coalition lost at least six seats to Labor in Queensland – all bar one in Brisbane. And while they are a few votes ahead in Longman as the count continues, they could still lose that too.

Queensland has long been a bit of a political wildcard, and often finds itself in the “spotlight” at federal elections, says Frank Mols.

The University of Queensland politics lecturer points out the state helped deliver Kevin Rudd’s historic election win in 2007 and Scott Morrison’s “miracle” victory in 2019. Last election, as a record number of people across the nation voted for candidates outside the two major parties, Queensland surprised the nation by giving the Greens three seats – up from none.

There are a couple of factors that make the state more “volatile” and likely to deliver upsets, Dr Mols says.

Firstly, it is the only state or territory, except for the island of Tasmania, where more than half of the population live outside the capital city of Brisbane.

“We talk about Queensland always being two elections, one in the south-east corner, and then the rest – and they often get very different patterns.”

There’s also more political fragmentation in the state, Dr Mols says, which combined with Australia’s preferential voting system can make political equations here tighter, and trends harder to predict.

But he – like many of the voters the BBC spoke to – largely puts last weekend’s surprise for the Coalition down to Dutton and his broadly-criticised campaign performance.

While there’s a tendency to attribute success or failure to policy issues, more often its really about voters’ emotional response to candidates and leaders, Dr Mols says.

“If you do the barbecue test, is Dutton a person you would walk up to? Is he somebody you would warm to or gravitate towards?

“You can wonder: was Peter Dutton, in hindsight, the Labor Party’s best asset?”

But Dutton may have had the opposite effect for the Greens Party, which has lost at least two of the three seats it gained in Brisbane in 2022. Their party leader, Adam Bandt, also appears to have been defeated in Melbourne, an electorate he’d held for 15 years.

“Perhaps in desperation, [Dutton] was gravitating towards culture war issues, sort of echoing Trumpian themes, if you like, and that has been punished,” Dr Mols says. “But also the Greens… who were perhaps seen as being at the other end of that shouting match, have not done well.”

Dr Mols also believes that desperation to keep Dutton out may have seen some former Greens voters prioritise Labor this time – though he points out more centrist Teal independents appear to have bucked that trend.

In any case, he doesn’t see the result in Queensland as a groundswell of love for Labor. The state was still the only jurisdiction in Australia where there were more first preference votes for the Coalition than Labor.

“There has to be enough of a swing towards a party, but it’s often that preferencing that actually tilts it over the line,” he says.

“This is more of a Liberal loss.”

For many Coalition voters, that loss is deeply felt. Rick describes it as a “real rout”.

But among others, like Aleysha, there is an inexplicable element of mirth.

“I think it’s quite funny, that he slipped as much as he did,” she says. “And I can’t tell you why.”

Denmark’s foreign minister says he will summon the US ambassador to address a report that Washington’s spy agencies have been told to focus on Greenland amid Donald Trump’s threats to take over the island.

“It worries me greatly because we do not spy on friends,” Lars Løkke Rasmussen said, responding to the report in The Wall Street Journal.

According to the newspaper, US spy agencies were told to focus efforts on the semi-autonomous country’s independence movement, and American goals to extract mineral resources there.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accused the Journal of attempts to “undermine” President Trump “by politicizing and leaking classified information”.

While not denying the report, she accused the newspaper of “breaking the law and undermining our nation’s security and democracy”.

Rasmussen, who was attending an EU ministers meeting in Warsaw, said the report was “somewhat disturbing”.

“We are going to call in the US acting ambassador for a discussion at the foreign ministry to see if we can confirm this information,” Rasmussen said.

“It doesn’t seem to be strongly rejected by those who speak out. That worries me.”

The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) declined to comment on the article, but told Danish media that it had “naturally” taken note of US interest in Greenland.

Based on international interest in Greenland in general, the agency said, there was an increased espionage threat against it and Denmark.

President Trump has repeatedly vowed to take control of Greenland, most recently telling NBC News on Sunday that he had not ruled out using military force to seize the arctic island.

“I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything,” he said. “We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we’ll take care of, and we’ll cherish them, and all of that. But we need that for international security.”

• Greenland’s politicians unite against Trump
• In Depth: Greenland’s dark history – and does it want Trump?

During a speech to Congress in March, Trump told US lawmakers that “one way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

Danish officials also condemned a visit to Greenland by Vice-President JD Vance in March.

Danish PM Mette Frederiksen said the visit to a remote US military base “completely unacceptable pressure on Greenland, Greenlandic politicians and the Greenlandic population”.

Former President Joe Biden, speaking to BBC News in his first interview since leaving office in January, condemned Trump’s calls for the US to take back the Panama Canal, to acquire Greenland and to make Canada the 51st state.

“What the hell’s going on here? What president ever talks like that? That’s not who we are,” Biden told the BBC’s Nick Robinson.

“We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity, not about confiscation.”

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

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

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

WeightWatchers has filed for bankruptcy in the US as it struggles with debt and fierce competition from fat-loss jabs like Ozempic and Mounjaro.

The legal process will see $1.15bn (£860mn) of the 60-year-old diet brand’s debt written off while it agrees new terms for paying back its lenders.

WeightWatchers said it will remain “fully operational” during the process with “no impact to members”.

It follows the meteoric rise in popularity of weight loss injections in what the firm said was a “rapidly changing weight management landscape”.

“For more than 62 years, WeightWatchers has empowered millions of members to make informed, healthy choices, staying resilient as trends have come and gone,” said chief executive Tara Comonte.

The plans have “the overwhelming support of our lenders”, she said.

In a statement, the brand said its weight-loss programme, “telehealth” scheme, and weight-loss workshops will continue.

The company vowed that it was “here to stay” and that it was not going out of business.

It said it had a “significant amount of debt on its balance sheet, some of it dating back decades” and that filing for bankruptcy would allow it to restructure its balance sheet.

Some customers would get court notifications as part of the process, but they shouldn’t need to take any action, the firm added.

WeightWatchers began as weekly weight-loss support group meeting with 400 attendees, and eventually gained millions of members across the globe.

But demand for its programmes has dropped while the popularity of weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound has risen – although the brand does sell weight medications as part of its programmes.

In February Ms Comonte said WeightWatchers could help people looking for “sustainable” weight loss after coming off medication.

“At the same time, WeightWatchers is in a period of significant transition as we navigate industry shifts and reposition our business for long-term growth,” she said at the time.

The brand reported a net loss of $346m (£260m) last year, while its subscription revenues fell 5.6% compared with the year before.

On Tuesday, it reported that subscription revenues in the first three months of 2025 were down 9.3% – although its clinical business, which includes weight-loss medication, saw revenues up more than 57%.

The brand’s total liabilities of $1.88bn are greater than the value of its assets. It said it “expects [the] reorganisation plan to be confirmed in approximately 40 days and to emerge as a publicly traded company.”

WeightWatchers renamed itself “WW” in 2018 as it shifted to focus on promoting health beyond weight-loss.

In an exclusive and remarkably candid interview – the first since he left office – Joe Biden discusses what he really thinks of his successor’s first 100 days, plus his fears for the future if the Atlantic Alliance collapses

It is hard to believe that the man I greet in the Delaware hotel where he launched his political career more than half a century ago was the “leader of the free world” little over 100 days ago.

Joe Biden is still surrounded by all the trappings of power – the black SUVs, the security guys with curly earpieces, the sniffer dogs sent ahead to sweep the room for explosives. And yet he has spent the last three months watching much of what he believes in being swept away by his successor.

Donald Trump has deployed the name Biden again and again – it is his political weapon of choice. One recent analysis showed that Trump said or wrote the name Biden at least 580 times in those first 100 days in office. Having claimed that rises in share prices were “Trump’s stock market” at work, he later blamed sharp falls in share prices on “Biden’s stock market”.

Until this week, President Biden himself (former presidents keep their titles after they leave office) has largely observed the convention that former presidents do not criticise their successors at the start of their time in office. But from the moment we shake hands it is clear that he is determined to have his say too.

In a dark blue suit, the former president arrives smiling and relaxed but with the determined air of a man on a mission. It’s his first interview since leaving the White House, and he seems most angry about Donald Trump’s treatment of America’s allies – in particular Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

• Trump appeasing Putin with pressure on Ukraine, Biden tells BBC
• Five key takeaways from the interview
• Political Thinking with Nick Robinson: Listen to the full interview on BBC Sounds, or watch on BBC iPlayer or on YouTube

“I found it beneath America, the way that took place,” he says of the explosive Oval Office row between Trump and Zelensky in February. “And the way we talk about now that, ‘it’s the Gulf of America’, ‘maybe we’re going to have to take back Panama’, ‘maybe we need to acquire Greenland, ‘maybe Canada should be a [51st state].’ What the hell’s going on here?

“What President ever talks like that? That’s not who we are. We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity – not about confiscation.”

After just over 100 action-packed days of Trump there was no shortage of targets for President Biden to choose from.

But his main concern appears to be on the international stage, rather than the domestic one: that is, the threat he believes now faces the alliance between the United States and Europe which, as he puts it, secured peace, freedom and democracy for eight decades.

Just before our interview, which took place days before the 80th anniversary of VE Day, Biden took a large gold coin out of his pocket and pressed it into my hand. It was a souvenir of last year’s D-Day commemoration. Biden believes that the speech he delivered on that beach in Normandy is one of his most important. In it, he declared that the men who fought and died “knew – beyond any doubt – that there are things worth fighting and dying for”.

I ask him whether he feels that message about sacrifice is in danger of being forgotten in America. Not by the people, he replies but, yes, by the leadership. It is, he says, a “grave concern” that the Atlantic Alliance is seen to be dying.

“I think it would change the modern history of the world if that occurs,” he argues.

“We’re the only nation in a position to have the capacity to bring people together, [to] lead the world. Otherwise you’re going to have China and the former Soviet Union, Russia, stepping up.”

Now more than ever before that Alliance is being questioned. One leading former NATO figure told the BBC this week that the VE Day celebrations felt more like a funeral. President Trump has complained that the United States is being “ripped off” by her allies, Vice President JD Vance has said that America is “bailing out” Europe whilst Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has insisted that Europe is “free-loading”.

Biden calls the pledge all members of Nato – the Atlantic Alliance – make “to defend each and every inch of Nato territory with the full force of our collective power” a “sacred obligation”.

“I fear that our allies around the world are going to begin to doubt whether we’re going to stay where we’ve always been for the last 80 years,” Biden says.

Under his presidency, both Finland and Sweden joined Nato – something he thinks made the alliance stronger. “We did all that – and in four years we’ve got a guy who wants to walk away from it all.

“I’m worried that Europe is going to lose confidence in the certainty of America, and the leadership of America in the world, to deal with not only Nato, but other matters that are of consequence.”

I meet President Biden in the place he has called home since he was a boy, the city of Wilmington in Delaware. It is an hour and a half Amtrak train ride from Washington DC, a journey he has been making for 50 years since becoming a Senator at the age of just 30. He has spent more years in government than any other president.

He was 82 when he left the Oval Office. His age has invited no end of scrutiny – an “at times addled old man” is how the journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson describe him in their book, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.

His calamitous live TV debate performance last June prompted further questions, as Biden stumbled over his words, lost his thread mid-sentence and boasted, somewhat bafflingly, that “We finally beat Medicare!”. He withdrew from the election campaign soon after.

Today, Biden is still warm and charismatic, with the folksy charm that made him an election winner but he is a much slower, quieter and more hesitant version of the leader he was once. Meeting with him in person, I found it hard to imagine he could have served for another four years in the White House, taking him closer to the age of 90.

I ask Biden if he’s now had to think again about his decisions last year. He pulled out of the presidential race just 107 days before election day, leaving Kamala Harris limited time to put together her own campaign.

“I don’t think it would have mattered,” he says. “We left at a time when we had a good candidate, she was fully funded.

“What we had set out to do, no-one thought we could do,” he continues. “And we had become so successful in our agenda, it was hard to say, ‘No, I’m going to stop now’… It was a hard decision.”

One he regrets? Surely withdrawing earlier could have given someone else a greater chance?

“No, I think it was the right decision.” He pauses. “I think that… Well, it was just a difficult decision.”

Biden says he went into politics to fight injustice and to this day has lost none of his appetite for the fight. Last year at the D-Day celebrations he warned: “We’re living in a time when democracy is more at risk across the world than at any point since the end of World War Two.”

Today, he expands on this: “Look at the number of European leaders and European countries that are wondering, Well what do I do now? What’s the best route for me to take? Can I rely on the United States? Are they going to be there?”

“Instead of democracy expanding around the world, [it’s] receding. Democracy – every generation has to fight for it.”

Speaking in Chicago recently, Biden declared that “nobody’s king” in America. I asked him if he thinks President Trump is behaving more like a monarch than a constitutionally limited president.

He chooses his reply carefully. “He’s not behaving like a Republican president,” he says.

Though later in our interview, Biden admits he’s less worried about the future of US democracy than he used to be, “because I think the Republican Party is waking up to what Trump is about”.

President Biden relished his role as the leading figure in Nato, deploying normally top secret intelligence to tell a sceptical world back in 2022 that Vladimir Putin was about to launch a full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Since taking office President Trump has charted a different course, telling Ukraine that it must consider giving up territory to Russia if it wants the war to end.

“It is modern day appeasement,” Biden says of Trump’s approach.

Putin, he says, sees Ukraine as “part of Mother Russia. He believes he has historical rights to Ukraine… He can’t stand the fact that […] the Soviet Union has collapsed. And anybody who thinks he’s going to stop is just foolish.”

He fears that Trump’s approach might signal to other European countries that it’s time to give in to Russia.

Yet Biden has faced accusations against him concerning the Ukraine War. Some in Kyiv and her allies, as well as some in the UK, claim that he gave President Zelensky just enough support to resist invasion but not enough to defeat Russia, perhaps out of fear that Putin would consider using nuclear weapons if cornered.

When Putin was asked point blank on TV this week whether he would use nuclear weapons to win the war, he declared that he hoped that they would “not be necessary,” adding that he had the means to bring the war to what he called his “logical conclusion”.

I point out to Biden that it has been argued that he didn’t have the courage to go all the way to give Ukraine the weapons it needed – to let Ukraine win.

“We gave them [Ukraine] everything they needed to provide for their independence,” Biden argues. “And we were prepared to respond more aggressively if in fact Putin moved again.”

He says he was keen to avoid the prospect of “World War Three, with nuclear powers,” adding: “And we did avoid it.

“What would Putin do if things got really tough for him?” he continues. “Threaten the use of tactical nuclear weapons. This is not a game or roulette.”

Biden’s belief in the Atlantic Alliance – as the last living President born during World War Two – is clearly undiminished.

When he first arrived in the Oval Office, Biden hung a portrait of America’s wartime leader Franklin D. Roosevelt on the wall. He was born two and a half years before the defeat of the Nazis, into the world FDR helped to create – a world of American global leadership and solidarity. But the United States voted to reject Biden’s policies and values and instead to endorse Donald Trump’s call to put America First.

The world is changing from what people like Joe Biden have taken for granted.

“Every generation has to fight to maintain democracy, every one,” Biden says. “Every one’s going to be challenged.

“We’ve done it well for the last 80 years. And I’m worried there’s the loss of understanding of the consequences of that.”

Nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan have fought two wars and a limited conflict over Kashmir.

But why do they dispute the territory – and how did it start?

• What we know about India’s strike on Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir
• Indian air strikes – how will Pakistan respond? Four key questions
• LIVE: Tensions escalate as Pakistan vows response to Indian strikes after Pahalgam killings

Kashmir is an ethnically diverse Himalayan region famed for the beauty of its lakes, meadows and snow-capped mountains.

Even before India and Pakistan won their independence from Britain in August 1947, the area was hotly contested.

Under the partition plan provided by the Indian Independence Act, Muslim-majority Kashmir was free to accede to either India or Pakistan.

The maharaja (local ruler), Hari Singh, initially wanted Kashmir to become independent – but in October 1947 chose to join India, in return for its help against an invasion of tribesmen from Pakistan.

• Kashmir profile – Timeline

A war erupted and India asked the United Nations to intervene. The UN recommended holding a plebiscite to settle the question of whether the state would join India or Pakistan. However, the two countries could not agree to a deal to demilitarise the region before the referendum could be held.

In July 1949, India and Pakistan signed an agreement to establish a ceasefire line as recommended by the UN and the region became divided.

A second war followed in 1965. Then in 1999, India fought a brief but bitter conflict with Pakistani-backed forces.

By that time, India and Pakistan were declared nuclear powers. Today, Delhi and Islamabad both claim Kashmir in full, but control only parts of it.

Within Indian-administered Kashmir, opinions about the territory’s rightful allegiance are diverse and strongly held. Many do not want it to be governed by India, or prefer a return to the semi-autonomous status that they had until 2019. Some also want outright independence.

Religion is also an important factor: Indian-administered Kashmir is more than 60% Muslim, making it the only part of India where Muslims are in the majority.

An armed revolt has been waged against Indian rule in the region since 1989, claiming tens of thousands of lives.

India accuses Pakistan of backing militants in Kashmir – a charge its neighbour denies.

In 2019, Indian-administered Kashmir was stripped of its semi-autonomous status by the government in Delhi amid a huge security crackdown.

For several years after the revocation of the region’s special status, militancy waned and tourist visits soared.

In 2016, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri, India launched “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control – the de facto border between India and Pakistan – targeting alleged militant bases.

In 2019, the Pulwama bombing, which left more than 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead, prompted Indian airstrikes deep into Balakot – the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971 – sparking retaliatory raids and an aerial dogfight.

Tensions rose again in April 2025 after years of relative calm when militants killed 26 people in an attack on tourists near the resort town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir. It was the deadliest attack on civilians in two decades.

India responded two weeks later with missile strikes on targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, once again raising fears of further escalation and calls for restraint.

Kashmir remains one of the most militarised zones in the world.

India and Pakistan did agree a ceasefire in 2003.

In 2014, India’s current Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power promising a tough line on Pakistan, but also showed interest in holding peace talks.

Nawaz Sharif, then prime minister of Pakistan, attended Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in Delhi.

But a year later, India blamed Pakistan-based groups for an attack on its airbase in Pathankot in the northern state of Punjab. Modi also cancelled a scheduled visit to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, for a regional summit in 2017.

Since then, there hasn’t been any progress in talks between the neighbours.