The government has defended its net-zero policies after Sir Tony Blair said limiting fossil fuels was "doomed to fail" and a new approach was needed.

The former Labour prime minister argued the debate on climate change had become "irrational" and people in rich countries no longer wanted to make financial sacrifices "when they know that their impact on global emissions is minimal".

His comments have been seized on by opposition parties as an attack on Sir Keir Starmer's plan to achieve net zero carbon emissions in the UK by 2050.

But Labour ministers insist the drive to net zero will not involve any financial sacrifices and have minimal impact on people's lives.

It comes as a highly critical report by the independent Climate Change Committee says Labour has made very little progress in preparing the UK for the growing threats posed by rising temperatures since coming to power.

Environment Secretary Steve Reed told Times Radio that Sir Tony had made "a valid and important contribution" to the climate change debate.

"I agree with much of what he said, but not absolutely every word and dot and comma of it," he added.

"But this government is moving to clean energy because it's best for Britain. It's more energy security for Britain."

He said the government's plan to replace nearly all fossil fuels for electricity generation with wind, solar and wave energy by 2030 was aimed at breaking the UK's "dependency" on "fossil fuel dictators" like Vladimir Putin and it would lead to lower energy bills.

In a report by the Tony Blair Institute, Sir Tony argues that the expected global rise in fossil fuel use and the doubling of airline travel over the next 20 years undermines current climate policies.

"These are the inconvenient facts, which mean that any strategy based on either 'phasing out' fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail," he wrote.

The report says existing carbon targets should be kept in place to give certainty to business but a rethink of how they are achieved was urgently needed.

It says the focus should instead be on emerging technologies such as carbon capture and storage and nuclear fusion - and new international effort to persuade the world's biggest economies, such as China and India, to cut their emissions.

Conservative shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins said it sent a "clear message" to the government that it needs to "rethink" its approach to net zero.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch recently ditched her party's support for net zero by 2050, which the party had pursued in government.

Atkins said there was "consensus across the board" on the need to protect the environment, but that "we have to take the public with us".

Sir Tony's intervention has highlighted divisions in Labour over net zero.

Some on the right of the party argue that the government is not doing enough to support workers and save jobs in the oil and gas sector in the transition to clean power.

But Labour-supporting environmental campaigners have accused Sir Tony of handing ammunition to the Conservatives and Reform UK.

One told the BBC the publication of his report on the eve of local elections was a sign that Sir Tony was losing influence over Sir Keir Starmer.

"This is an oddly public and oddly-timed intervention that would usually be made by someone struggling for access," he added.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.

The Met Police officer who was cleared of murder after shooting Chris Kaba will face a gross misconduct hearing, the police watchdog has said.

Sgt Martyn Blake, an officer in the specialist firearms unit MO19, shot Mr Kaba in the head after he tried to ram his way out of a police vehicle stop in Streatham on 5 September 2022.

Met Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor said: "We made strong representations that he should not face any further action due to the extensive evidence tried and tested at court and the not guilty verdict returned by the jury."

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said its decision was "based on examining all the evidence [and] views of all parties".

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on X to get the latest alerts.

An Australian woman accused of cooking a fatal mushroom meal admits to picking wild funghi, lying to police and disposing of evidence, but will argue the "tragedy" was a "terrible accident".

The Supreme Court trial of Erin Patterson, 50, began in the small Victorian town of Morwell on Wednesday and is expected to last six weeks.

She is charged with the murder of three relatives and the attempted murder of another, with the case centring on a beef wellington lunch at her house in July 2023.

Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty and her defence team says she "panicked" after unintentionally serving poison to family members she loved.

Three people died in hospital in the days after the meal, including Ms Patterson's former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

A single lunch guest survived - local pastor Ian Wilkinson - after weeks of treatment in hospital.

The fact that the lunch of beef wellington, mash potatoes and green beans contained death cap mushrooms and caused the guests' illnesses is not in contention, the court heard.

"The overarching issue is whether she intended to kill or cause very serious injury," Judge Christopher Beale said.

Opening the trial on Wednesday, prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC said this case was "originally thought to be a mass food poisoning event".

But she alleges Ms Patterson "deliberately poisoned" her guests "with murderous intent", after after inviting them for lunch "on the pretence she'd been diagnosed with cancer".

Dr Rogers said the jury would hear evidence that Ms Patterson had travelled to a location, near her home in Leongatha, where death cap mushroom sightings had been logged on a naturalist website.

And in the days after the lunch, she took a number of steps to "conceal" what she had done, the prosecution alleged.

There'd be evidence that she lied to investigators about the source of the mushrooms in the dish - saying they'd come from an Asian grocery in Melbourne and she'd never foraged wild ones. And she made a trip to a local dump to dispose of a food dehydrator prosecutors say she used to prepare the toxic meal.

"You might be wondering, 'What is the motive?'" Dr Rogers said to the jury, "You might still be wondering this at the end of this trial."

The prosecution will not be suggesting a specific motive, she explained.

"You do not have to be satisfied what the motive was, or even that there was one."

What the jury could expect to hear, she said, was testimony from a range of witnesses, including: Mr Wilkinson, Ms Patterson's estranged husband Simon Patterson, medical staff who treated the lunch guests, and police who investigated.

However the defence, in opening their case, reminded the jury they had not heard any actual evidence yet and needed to keep an open mind.

Barrister Colin Mandy says while the prosecution will try to cast Ms Patterson's behaviour after the lunch as "incriminating", jurors should consider how someone might react in that situation.

"Might people say or do things that are not well thought out... and might make them look bad?"

"The defence case is that she panicked because she was overwhelmed by the fact that these four people had become so ill because of the food she had served them. Three people died."

He said Ms Patterson did not deliberately serve poisoned food to her guests.

"She didn't intend to cause anyone any harm on that day... what happened was a tragedy, a terrible accident."

Singer Katy Perry has admitted feeling "battered and bruised" by the backlash following her recent space trip, but reassured fans she is OK as would "keep looking to the light".

Writing two weeks after the much-derided Blue Origin voyage, which saw her take an 11-minute flight with five other women, the US star said the "online world" had tried to make her a "human Piñata".

Her comments came after fans paid for a billboard in New York to show their support for her ahead of her world tour.

Responding to a fan account that posted a video of the billboard, Perry said she was "so grateful" for her fans, adding they were "in this beautiful and wild journey together".

Perry has been one of pop's most successful singers over the past two decades, but the narrative around her has become more negative in the past year.

A poorly received album was accompanied by a lead single, Woman's World, which had a music video which many viewed as regressive.

She was then criticised for her part in Jeff Bezos's all-female Blue Origin space flight, during which she sung Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World to her fellow passengers, and held up the setlist for her new tour to an in-flight camera.

Some commentators said it was "tone deaf" for celebrities to be taking part in such a fleeting and expensive trip at a time of economic struggle.

However, singer Lily Allen apologised this week for "being mean" about Perry, saying that although she disagreed with the flight, there was no need to join the "pile on" against the singer.

Some fans showed their support for Perry by clubbing together to pay for a digital billboard message in New York's Times Square for 24 hours.

A Brazillian fan account on Instagram explained fans had done it to "remind her that she is never alone; our love for her is boundless, unwavering, and eternal".

"We're so proud of you and your magical journey and we love you to the moon and back.

"Know that you are safe, seen and celebrated. We'll see you around the world, this is just the beginning."

'Unhinged and unhealed' internet

Perry left a comment expressing her gratitude, telling fans: "I love you guys and have grown up together with you and am so excited to see you all over the world this year!

"Please know I am OK, I have done a lot work around knowing who I am, what is real and what is important to me."

She said she is "not perfect", but rather on a "human journey playing the game of life with an audience of many and sometimes I fall".

"But I get back up and go on and continue to play the game and somehow through my battered and bruised adventure I keep looking to the light and in that light a new level unlocks."

She added: "When the 'online' world tries to make me a human Piñata, I take it with grace and send them love, cause I know so many people are hurting in so many ways and the internet is very much so a dumping ground for unhinged and unhealed."

The singer, whose hits include Roar, Firework and I Kissed A Girl, has just started a world tour, which will run until December and visit the US, Canada, South America, Canada, Europe and the United Arab Emirates.

Perry said she was looking forward to "seeing your faces every night, singing in unison, reading your notes, feeling your warmth".

An Australian woman accused of cooking a fatal mushroom meal admits to picking wild funghi, lying to police and disposing of evidence, but will argue the "tragedy" was a "terrible accident".

The Supreme Court trial of Erin Patterson, 50, began in the small Victorian town of Morwell on Wednesday and is expected to last six weeks.

She is charged with the murder of three relatives and the attempted murder of another, with the case centring on a beef wellington lunch at her house in July 2023.

Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty and her defence team says she "panicked" after unintentionally serving poison to family members she loved.

Three people died in hospital in the days after the meal, including Ms Patterson's former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

A single lunch guest survived - local pastor Ian Wilkinson - after weeks of treatment in hospital.

The fact that the lunch of beef wellington, mash potatoes and green beans contained death cap mushrooms and caused the guests' illnesses is not in contention, the court heard.

"The overarching issue is whether she intended to kill or cause very serious injury," Judge Christopher Beale said.

Opening the trial on Wednesday, prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC said this case was "originally thought to be a mass food poisoning event".

But she alleges Ms Patterson "deliberately poisoned" her guests "with murderous intent", after after inviting them for lunch "on the pretence she'd been diagnosed with cancer".

Dr Rogers said the jury would hear evidence that Ms Patterson had travelled to a location, near her home in Leongatha, where death cap mushroom sightings had been logged on a naturalist website.

And in the days after the lunch, she took a number of steps to "conceal" what she had done, the prosecution alleged.

There'd be evidence that she lied to investigators about the source of the mushrooms in the dish - saying they'd come from an Asian grocery in Melbourne and she'd never foraged wild ones. And she made a trip to a local dump to dispose of a food dehydrator prosecutors say she used to prepare the toxic meal.

"You might be wondering, 'What is the motive?'" Dr Rogers said to the jury, "You might still be wondering this at the end of this trial."

The prosecution will not be suggesting a specific motive, she explained.

"You do not have to be satisfied what the motive was, or even that there was one."

What the jury could expect to hear, she said, was testimony from a range of witnesses, including: Mr Wilkinson, Ms Patterson's estranged husband Simon Patterson, medical staff who treated the lunch guests, and police who investigated.

However the defence, in opening their case, reminded the jury they had not heard any actual evidence yet and needed to keep an open mind.

Barrister Colin Mandy says while the prosecution will try to cast Ms Patterson's behaviour after the lunch as "incriminating", jurors should consider how someone might react in that situation.

"Might people say or do things that are not well thought out... and might make them look bad?"

"The defence case is that she panicked because she was overwhelmed by the fact that these four people had become so ill because of the food she had served them. Three people died."

He said Ms Patterson did not deliberately serve poisoned food to her guests.

"She didn't intend to cause anyone any harm on that day... what happened was a tragedy, a terrible accident."

Swedish police have arrested a teenager after a fatal triple shooting in the city of Uppsala on Tuesday.

The shooter reportedly fled on a scooter following the attack in a hair salon in the centre of the city, triggering a manhunt.

Police confirmed on Wednesday that the person arrested for the shooting is under the age of 18.

All three victims were aged between 15 and 20 years old, Swedish police told a news conference, though the region's chief of police Erik Åkerlund said their identities have not been "100%" confirmed.

Police are investigating the possibility the deaths are related to gang crime, Swedish media reported.

One of those murdered at the hair salon is reportedly known to the police, local media said.

The victim was involved in a police investigation over a planned attack against a relative of gang leader Ismail Abdo, according to the reports. The person was never charged.

Abdo, nicknamed 'jordgubben' or 'the strawberry', is a well-known gang leader.

A new, violent chapter in Sweden's gang wars began when Abdo's mother was murdered in 2023 at her home in Uppsala, north of Stockholm.

Sweden has seen a wave of teenage gang crime in recent years, with suspects accused of a range of offences from vandalism to murder.

The Swedish government has proposed new legislation that would allow police to wiretap children under the age of 15 in an attempt to grapple with the problem.

In a pre-planned press conference on gang violence on Wednesday, the Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer suggested police would not need concrete evidence to conduct the wiretaps.

While he has acknowledged the proposals involve a major breach of privacy, Strömmer has suggested the measures are necessary to stop the recruitment of children as young as ten and 11 to gangs, Swedish media reported.

The government has also said it wants to tighten the country's gun laws.

The attack came on the eve of the Walpurgis spring festival, when large crowds are expected to descend on the streets of Uppsala, a university town north of Stockholm.

Known in Sweden as Valborg, university students gather in the city for champagne breakfasts, herring lunches and a raft race on the river.

There is a huge bonfire on the outskirts of the city planned for Wednesday evening.

Åsa Larsson, a local police chief in Uppsala and Knivsta, said that Swedes planning to visit Uppsala for its annual Valborg spring festival events, popular with students, should not change their plans.

However, visitors were urged to contact police if they spotted anything they were concerned about.

She said that there would be a large police presence across Uppsala in the coming days, but that there were "no guarantees" that further violence could be avoided.

Following the shooting, police officers cordoned off a large area near the hair salon.

"Everything happened so fast. It just went bang, bang, bang," a witness told Swedish channel TV4.

Another man said he was cooking at home when he heard "two bangs that sounded a bit like fireworks" going off outside on the street.

He told Swedish television he was "very surprised and scared" and shortly after "swarms of police and ambulances" started blocking off the street and telling people to move back.

US President Donald Trump has celebrated the 100th day of his second term in office with a campaign-style speech, touting his achievements and targeting political foes.

Hailing what he called a "revolution of common sense", he told a crowd of supporters in Michigan that he was using his presidency to deliver "profound change".

The Republican mocked his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, and aimed fresh criticism at the US Federal Reserve's chairman, while dismissing opinion polls that show his own popularity slipping.

Trump has delivered a dramatic fall in the number of migrants crossing illegally into the US, but the economy is a political vulnerability as he wages an international trade war.

"We've just gotten started, you haven't seen anything yet," Trump told the crowd on Tuesday in a suburb of Detroit.

Speaking at the hub of America's automative industry, Trump said car firms were "lining up" to open new manufacturing plants in the Midwestern state.

But earlier in the day he softened a key element of his economic plan - tariffs on the import of foreign cars and car parts - after US car-makers warned of the danger of rising prices.

At his rally, Trump also said opinion polls indicating his popularity had slipped were "fake".

According to Gallup, Trump is the only post-World War Two president to have less than half the public's support after 100 days in office, with an approval rating of 44%.

But the majority of Republican voters still firmly back the president. And the rival Democratic Party is also struggling in polling.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) said Trump's first 100 days were a "colossal failure".

"Trump is to blame for the fact that life is more expensive, it's harder to retire, and a 'Trump recession' is at our doorstep," the DNC said.

• Trump's breakneck start is fraught with political risk
• 'Kicking butt' or 'going too fast'? Trump voters reflect on 100 days

Trump conducted his own informal poll in Tuesday's remarks, asking the crowd for their favourite Biden nicknames. He also mocked his Democratic predecessor's mental agility and even how he appears in a swim suit, while continuing to insist he was the real victor of the 2020 election, which he lost.

Other targets of his ire included Jerome Powell, head of the US central bank, whom the president said was not doing a good job.

Trump touted progress on immigration – encounters at the southern border have plummeted to just over 7,000, down from 140,000 in March of last year.

On Tuesday the White House also said almost 65,700 immigrants had been deported in his term so far, although that is a slower pace than in the last fiscal year when US authorities deported more than 270,000.

Part of the way through his speech Trump screened a video of deportees being expelled from the US and sent to a mega-prison in El Salvador.

His immigration crackdown has faced a flurry of legal challenges, as has his effort to end the automatic granting of citizenship to anyone born on US soil.

During Tuesday's speech he insisted egg prices had declined 87%, a claim contradicted by the latest government price figures.

Inflation, energy prices and mortgage rates have fallen since Trump took office, although unemployment has risen slightly, consumer sentiment has sagged and the stock market was plunged into turmoil by the tariffs.

Before the speech, Joe DeMonaco, who owns a carpentry business in Michigan, said Trump's patchwork of on-again, off-again import taxes were starting to increase prices, which he will have to pass on to his customers.

"I was hoping... he would approach things a little bit differently seeing that he's a little seasoned coming into a second term," Mr DeMonaco told the BBC. "But we're just treading water and seeing if things get better from here."

But it's clear that Trump's most steadfast supporters stand by him.

"I'm just thrilled," said Teresa Breckinridge, owner of the Silver Skillet Diner in Atlanta, Georgia.

"He's handling things wherever he can, multiple times a day, and he's reporting back to the people… I think the tariffs will end up definitely being in our favour."

President Trump used a rally in Michigan to mark what he claimed had been "the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country, according to many, many people".

He highlighted his efforts to tackle illegal immigration, to bring back jobs to the US and end what he called "the inflation nightmare".

BBC Verify has looked into some of the main claims from his speech.

Are petrol prices down 'by a lot'?

Trump said "gasoline prices are down by a lot" since he took office.

On 29 April, the average price for a gallon of "regular" gas - or petrol - across the US was $3.16 (£2.36), according to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA).

That is slightly up from the $3.125 (£2.33) recorded by the AAA on the day Trump entered the White House.

In his speech, he added that gas prices had "just hit $1.98 in a lot of states".

This is a claim he has made several times but we cannot find evidence of prices this low.

As of 29 April, no state had an average gas price lower than $2.67 (£1.99), according to the AAA.

Are egg prices down 87%?

The US president also spoke about the cost of eggs - a concern for many US consumers due to an ongoing bird flu outbreak - and said: "Since I took office, the cost of eggs is down 87%."

This claim is false.

The average national price for consumers of a dozen large Grade A eggs when Trump entered office in January was about $4.95 (£3.70).

This rose to a record high of around $6.23 (£4.65) per dozen in March - according to the latest available figures.

The White House has pointed to wholesale egg prices as evidence of improvement.

Wholesale prices have gone down since Trump took office - but by about 52% - from $6.55 (£4.89) for a dozen large white eggs in January to $3.15 (£2.34) in the past week, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Are border crossings the lowest on record?

Trump spoke at length about his efforts to tackle illegal immigration - a key campaign issue in last year's election.

He said: "For two months in a row, we have set all time records for the lowest number of illegal border crossings ever recorded."

This claim is backed up by the latest monthly figures on "encounters" of illegal migrants recorded by officials at the US-Mexico border.

In March, there were 7,181 encounters of migrants there and in February there were 8,346.

These are the the lowest numbers since these monthly records began in 2000.

By comparison, there were about 140,000 encounters at this border in each of those months last year under President Biden.

His term saw record numbers of border crossings which then fell towards the end of his presidency.

The Migration Policy Institute think tank has studied monthly averages of annual figures available before 2000 and says this year's illegal border crossings are the lowest since the late 1960s, rather than the lowest for "all time".

Has Doge saved $150bn?

President Trump praised Elon Musk's work at the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) saying: "They've saved over $150bn on waste, fraud and abuse".

Doge, an advisory body, publishes a running total of its estimated savings on its website - it was $160bn the last time the site was updated on 20 April.

However, less than 40% of this figure is broken down into individual savings - which include cancelling government contracts, grants and leases.

Analysis by BBC Verify found only about half of these itemised savings had a link to a document or other form of evidence.

Doge says it is working to upload all receipts in a "digestible and transparent manner".

Federal contract experts we spoke to also raised questions about Doge's biggest claimed savings and said some had been overstated.

How many jobs has the Trump administration created?

Trump said: "In three months we have created 350,000 jobs."

This claim is backed up by official figures.

During Trump's first two full months in office up until March (the latest available data) 345,000 jobs have been added, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, over the same period last year 468,000 jobs were added under President Biden.

Trump also said: "For the first time in recent memory, job gains for native-born Americans now exceed job gains for foreign workers."

It is true that during President Trump's first two full months in office more jobs have been created for native-born workers than foreign-born workers.

This also happened between February and April last year under President Biden.

Additional reporting by Gerry Georgieva and Tom Edgington

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Shops and services may have to be forced to accept cash in the future to help protect vulnerable people who rely on it, MPs have said.

A Treasury Committee report into cash acceptance stopped short of recommending a change in the law, but said the government had to improve its monitoring of the issue.

"There may come a time in the future where it becomes necessary for HM Treasury to mandate cash acceptance if appropriate safeguards have not been implemented for those who need physical cash," the report said.

Some countries, such as Australia or parts of the EU, are planning requirements to accept cash for essential services in some circumstances.

Poverty premium

In evidence to the inquiry, a government minister said there were no plans to make cash acceptance mandatory.

Shops and services can currently accept whichever form of payment they want.

With an increasing number going card-only, the committee said prices would rise for essential goods and services in the remaining outlets that accepted cash.

That would create a poverty premium for those who wanted to use cash to budget, as well as for vulnerable groups such as people with learning difficulties and the elderly.

"A sizeable minority depend on being able to use cash," said Dame Meg Hillier, who chairs the influential Treasury Committee.

She said the report should be a "wake-up call" about the risks of ignoring those affected by the falling use of banknotes and coins.

The committee called on the government to "vastly improve" monitoring and reporting of cash acceptance levels.

Otherwise it warned it risked people being excluded from leisure centres, theatres or public transport. It also heard evidence about frustrated motorists unable to pay by cash in car parks.

"The government is in the dark on how widely cash is being accepted and that is completely unsustainable," said Dame Meg.

There was particular concern for victims of domestic and economic abuse who need cash to avoid being traced through card transactions or to gain financial independence from abusive partners.

'Cash or card, madam?'

The committee's report is one of the most significant developments in the debate over the future of notes and coins since the Access to Cash Review, published in 2019 which called for urgent action on the viability of cash.

Among this latest report's findings is a conclusion that for some businesses, such as market stallholders, cash remains fundamental to the preservation of their trade.

There has been a market in Epsom, Surrey, for centuries - but it is only in recent years that traders have seen the majority of shoppers switch to electronic payments.

Chris Ilsley has been running his plant stall - CI Plants - on the market for 13 years.

When he started it was 100% cash, now it is 70% to 80% card payments.

Speaking surrounded by geraniums, he said he was happy to take any form of payment, although card was slightly easier albeit slower to process.

"We'll take anything," the 47-year-old said. "I prefer the older generation to use card and put their purse away [for safety]."

Over at The Fruit Machine greengrocer stall, Tom Cresswell also has a long line of customers, and he said most paid by card.

"The youngsters don't ever pay by cash; they pay with their phones and their watches," the 52-year-old said.

"The older gentlemen tend to use cash. Whatever is easier for the customer."

The report comes as the Post Office announced a renewed deal with banks to ensure customers can access basic banking services at post office counters.

The deal, which runs until the end of 2030 allows customers of 30 banks and building societies to use their local post office to withdraw and deposit cash, make balance queries and deposit cheques.

Some campaigners have called for cash acceptance to be enforced by the law now.

Ron Delnevo, from the Payments Choice Alliance, said he was disappointed about the "procrastinating approach" of the committee.

The Treasury said the government was committed to seeing 350 banking hubs in place.

"We welcome businesses who do want to continue accepting cash and new rules introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority support this by helping them to make deposits," a spokesman said.

An Australian woman accused of cooking a fatal mushroom meal admits to picking wild funghi, lying to police and disposing of evidence, but will argue the "tragedy" was a "terrible accident".

The Supreme Court trial of Erin Patterson, 50, began in the small Victorian town of Morwell on Wednesday and is expected to last six weeks.

She is charged with the murder of three relatives and the attempted murder of another, with the case centring on a beef wellington lunch at her house in July 2023.

Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty and her defence team says she "panicked" after unintentionally serving poison to family members she loved.

Three people died in hospital in the days after the meal, including Ms Patterson's former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

A single lunch guest survived - local pastor Ian Wilkinson - after weeks of treatment in hospital.

The fact that the lunch of beef wellington, mash potatoes and green beans contained death cap mushrooms and caused the guests' illnesses is not in contention, the court heard.

"The overarching issue is whether she intended to kill or cause very serious injury," Judge Christopher Beale said.

Opening the trial on Wednesday, prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC said this case was "originally thought to be a mass food poisoning event".

But she alleges Ms Patterson "deliberately poisoned" her guests "with murderous intent", after after inviting them for lunch "on the pretence she'd been diagnosed with cancer".

Dr Rogers said the jury would hear evidence that Ms Patterson had travelled to a location, near her home in Leongatha, where death cap mushroom sightings had been logged on a naturalist website.

And in the days after the lunch, she took a number of steps to "conceal" what she had done, the prosecution alleged.

There'd be evidence that she lied to investigators about the source of the mushrooms in the dish - saying they'd come from an Asian grocery in Melbourne and she'd never foraged wild ones. And she made a trip to a local dump to dispose of a food dehydrator prosecutors say she used to prepare the toxic meal.

"You might be wondering, 'What is the motive?'" Dr Rogers said to the jury, "You might still be wondering this at the end of this trial."

The prosecution will not be suggesting a specific motive, she explained.

"You do not have to be satisfied what the motive was, or even that there was one."

What the jury could expect to hear, she said, was testimony from a range of witnesses, including: Mr Wilkinson, Ms Patterson's estranged husband Simon Patterson, medical staff who treated the lunch guests, and police who investigated.

However the defence, in opening their case, reminded the jury they had not heard any actual evidence yet and needed to keep an open mind.

Barrister Colin Mandy says while the prosecution will try to cast Ms Patterson's behaviour after the lunch as "incriminating", jurors should consider how someone might react in that situation.

"Might people say or do things that are not well thought out... and might make them look bad?"

"The defence case is that she panicked because she was overwhelmed by the fact that these four people had become so ill because of the food she had served them. Three people died."

He said Ms Patterson did not deliberately serve poisoned food to her guests.

"She didn't intend to cause anyone any harm on that day... what happened was a tragedy, a terrible accident."

If you say the name Donald Trump in the halls of wholesale markets and trade fairs in China, you'll hear a faint chuckle.

The US president and his 145% tariffs have not instilled fear in many Chinese traders.

Instead, they have inspired an army of online Chinese nationalists to create mocking memes in a series of viral videos and reels – some of which include an AI-generated President Trump, Vice-President JD Vance and tech mogul Elon Musk toiling on footwear and iPhone assembly lines.

China is not behaving like a nation facing the prospect of economic pain and President Xi Jinping has made it clear that Beijing will not back down.

"For more than 70 years, China has always relied on self-reliance and hard work for development… it has never relied on anyone's gifts and is unafraid of any unreasonable suppression," he said this month.

His confidence may come in part because China is far less dependent than it was 10 years ago on exports to the US. But the truth is Trump's brinkmanship and tariff hikes are pushing on pressure points that already exist within China's own struggling economy. With a housing crisis, increasing job insecurity and an ageing population, Chinese people are simply not spending as much as their government would like.

Xi came to power in 2012 with a dream of a rejuvenated China. That is now being severely tested – and not just by US tariffs. Now, the question is whether or not Trump's tariffs will dampen Xi's economic dreams, or can he turn the obstacles that exist into opportunities?

Xi's domestic challenges

With a population of 1.4 billion, China has, in theory, a huge domestic market. But there's a problem. They don't appear willing to spend money while the country's economic outlook is uncertain.

This has not been prompted by the trade war – but by the collapse of the housing market. Many Chinese families invested their life savings in their homes, only to watch prices plummet in the last five years.

Housing developers continued to build even as the property market crumbled. It's thought that China's entire population would not fill all the empty apartments across the country.

The former deputy head of China's statistics bureau, He Keng, admitted two years ago that the most "extreme estimate" is that there are now enough vacant homes for 3 billion people.

Travel round Chinese provinces and you see they are littered with empty projects – lines of towering concrete shells that have been labelled "ghost cities". Others have been fitted out, the gardens have been landscaped, curtains frame the windows, and they appear filled with the promise of a new home. But only at night, when you see no lights, can you tell that the apartments are empty. There just aren't enough buyers to match this level of construction.

The government acted five years ago to restrict the amount of money developers could borrow. But the damage to house prices and, in turn, consumer confidence in China, has been done and analysts have projected a 2.5% decline in home prices this year, according to a Reuters poll in February.

And it's not just house prices that worry middle-class Chinese families.

They are concerned about whether the government can offer them a pension – over the next decade, about 300 million people, who are currently aged 50 to 60, are set to leave the Chinese workforce. According to a 2019 estimate by the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the government pension fund could run out of money by 2035.

There are also fears about whether their sons, daughters and grandchildren can get a job as millions of college graduates are struggling to find work. More than one in five people between the ages of 16 and 24 in urban areas are jobless in China, according to official data published in August 2023. The government has not released youth unemployment figures since then.

The problem is that China cannot simply flip a switch and move from selling goods to the US to selling them to local buyers.

"Given the downward pressure on the economy, it is unlikely domestic spending can be significantly expanded in the short term," says Prof Nie Huihua at Renmin University.

"Replacing exports with internal demand will take time."

According to Prof Zhao Minghao, deputy director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, "China does not have high expectations for talks with the Trump administration… The real battleground is in the adjustment of China's domestic policies, such as boosting domestic demand."

To revive a slowing economy, the government has announced billions in childcare subsidies, increased wages and better paid leave. It has also introduced a $41bn programme offering discounts on items such as consumer electronics and electric vehicles (EVs) to encourage more people to spend. But Prof Zhang Jun, the Dean of Economics at Fudan University, believes this is not "sustainable".

"We need a long-term mechanism," he says. "We need to start increasing residents' disposable income."

This is urgent for Xi. The dream of prosperity he sold when he took power 13 years ago has not become reality.

A political test for Xi

Xi is also aware that China has a disheartened younger generation worried about their future. That could spell bigger trouble for the Communist Party: protests or unrest.

A report by Freedom House's China Dissent Monitor claims that protests driven by financial grievances saw a steep increase in the last few months.

All protests are quickly subdued and censored on social media, so it is unlikely to pose a real threat to Xi for now.

"Only when the country does well and the nation does well can every person do well," Xi said in 2012.

This promise was made when China's economic rise looked unstoppable. It now looks uncertain.

Where the country has made huge strides over the past decade is in areas such as consumer electronics, batteries, EVs and artificial intelligence as part of a pivot to advanced manufacturing.

It has rivalled US tech dominance with the chatbot DeepSeek and BYD, which beat Tesla last year to become the world's largest EV maker.

Yet Trump's tariffs threaten to throw a spanner in the works.

The restrictions on the sale of key chips to China, including the most recent move tightening exports from US chip giant Nvidia, for instance, are aimed at curbing Xi's ambitions for tech supremacy.

Despite that, Xi knows that Chinese manufacturers are at a decades-long advantage, so that US manufacturers are struggling to find the same scale of infrastructure and skilled labour elsewhere.

Turning a challenge into an opportunity

President Xi is also trying to use this crisis as a catalyst for further change and to find more new markets for China.

"In the short term, some Chinese exporters will be greatly impacted," says Prof Zhang. "But Chinese companies will take the initiative to adjust the destination of exports to overcome difficulties. Exporters are waiting and looking for new customers."

Donald Trump's first term in office was China's cue to look elsewhere for buyers. It has expanded its ties across South East Asia, Latin America and Africa – and a Belt and Road trade and infrastructure initiative shored up ties with the so-called Global South.

China is reaping the rewards from that diversification. More than 145 countries do more trade with China than they do with the US, according to the Lowy Institute.

In 2001, only 30 countries chose Beijing as their lead trade partner over Washington.

Geopolitical gains

As Trump targets both friend and foe, some believe Xi can further upend the current US-led world order and portray his country as a stable, alternative global trade partner and leader.

The Chinese leader chose South East Asia for his first trip abroad after the tariff announcement, sensing his neighbours would be getting jittery about Trump's tariffs.

Around a quarter of Chinese exports are now manufactured or shipped through a second country including Vietnam and Cambodia.

Recent US actions may also present a chance for Xi to positively shape China's role in the world.

"Trump's coercive tariff policy is an opportunity for Chinese diplomacy," says Prof Zhang.

China will have to tread carefully. Some countries will be nervous that products being manufactured for the US could end up flooding into their markets.

Trump's tariffs in 2016 sent a glut of cheap Chinese imports, originally intended for the US, into South East Asia, hurting many local manufacturers.

According to Prof Huihua, "about 20% of China's exports go to the US - if these exports were to flood any regional market or country, it could lead to dumping and vicious competition, thereby triggering new trade frictions".

There are barriers to Xi presenting himself as the arbiter of free trade in the world.

China has subjected other nations to trade restrictions in recent years.

In 2020, after the Australian government called for a global inquiry into the origins and early handling of the Covid pandemic, which Beijing argued was a political manoeuvre against them, China placed tariffs on Australian wine and barley and imposed biosecurity measures on some beef and timber and bans on coal, cotton and lobster. Some Australian exports of certain goods to China fell to nearly zero.

Australia's Defence Minister Richard Marles said earlier this month that his nation will not be "holding China's hand" as Washington escalated its trade war with Beijing.

China's past actions may impede Xi's current global outreach and many countries may be unwilling to choose between Beijing and Washington.

Even with all the various difficulties, Xi is betting that Beijing will be able to withstand any economic pain longer than Washington in this great power competition.

And it does appear that Trump has blinked first, last week hinting at a potential U-turn on tariffs, saying that the taxes he has so far imposed on Chinese imports would "come down substantially, but it won't be zero".

Meanwhile, Chinese social media is back in action.

"Trump has chickened out," was one of the top trending search topics on the Chinese social media platform Weibo after the US president softened his approach to tariffs.

Even if or when talks do happen, China is playing a longer game.

The last trade war forced it to diversify its export market away from the US towards other markets – especially in the Global South.

This trade war has China looking in the mirror to see its own flaws – and whether it can fix them will be up to policies made in Beijing, not Washington.

Top picture credit: Getty Images

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If last year's general election was all consuming and everywhere, this year's local elections, in truth, are neither.

That is not to denigrate for a moment how much they matter in the places where they are happening, nor the extent to which they will mould the mood of national politics in their aftermath.

But the reality is there are not many contests this year, not least because some have been postponed because of an imminent shake-up in local government structures in some places.

So there is a very good chance you are reading this in a part of the country without any contests.

And there is a good chance too, given what I hear from the political parties, that your heart might not be pulsating in ecstasy even if the community centre down the road is morphing into a polling station tomorrow.

I detect a curious paradox right now: anger confronts an expectation of widespread indifference.

Turnout in local elections that do not coincide with a general election are almost always shrivelled.

But what I pick up anecdotally – I've just spent the last few days in Lincolnshire, reporting on the race to be the county's first directly elected mayor – matches what the research group More in Common has picked up in focus groups.

The group's UK Director, Luke Tryl, diagnoses a "despondency or misery about the state of Britain that doesn't feel sustainable".

Put that sentiment, reduced turnout and a splintering of party support in all sorts of directions into the mixer and what you end up with is a wildly unpredictable politics where the margins between victory and defeat could be very narrow indeed.

Or to put it more bluntly: if not many votes in total then go in lots of different directions, two things are likely: the gap between the winner and the runners-up might be rather limited, and the share of the vote needed to win could be very small.

And winning on a small share of the vote raises immediate questions about your mandate.

The elections analyst Sir John Curtice argues in the Telegraph that "the mainstream is dead", five parties have a chance of making real inroads in these contests and what stands out now is that both Labour and the Conservatives are struggling, rather than the conventional dynamic of one being up while the other is down.

The Conservatives have spent weeks talking up how down they feel about these elections.

And senior Labour folk too are cranking up the gloom in the conversations I have with them.

Which then leaves us with Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and an often overlooked element of local English democracy – independents.

This is a huge moment for Reform.

One of the standout trends in British politics since the general election last year has been the party's rising support in the opinion polls.

What Thursday will test is the extent to which that translates into real votes in real elections.

The party's talk is big – they say they can win the next general election. The next few days will give us a sense of how or whether, albeit up to four years out from choosing the next government, that is a plausible claim.

When you wake up on Friday morning. if, unlike political nerds, you have actually been to bed, the headlines that will greet you will be about Reform.

That is because a lot of the contests where there is an expectation that they could win are being counted overnight.

There is the parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby near Liverpool and the race to be Lincolnshire's first mayor, for a start.

Later in the day on Friday, the emphasis will shift somewhat, as local authorities particularly but not exclusively in the south of England do their counting, and the Liberal Democrats will be looking to make extensive gains against the Conservatives in particular and we will be able to assess if the Green Party's collection of councillors has grown again.

It is only by Friday teatime that we will have a rounded picture of how all of the parties and the independents contesting these elections have fared.

And then the debate on what it all means will begin.

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The government has made very little progress in preparing the UK for the growing threats posed by rising temperatures since coming to power, its climate watchdog has warned.

In a highly critical report, the independent Climate Change Committee says progress is "either too slow, has stalled, or is heading in the wrong direction".

From hospitals and care homes to food and water supplies, this could leave the UK vulnerable to serious economic and health impacts in the decades ahead, the CCC warns.

In response, the government pointed to its investment in flood defences, but acknowledged more work was needed.

Floods Minister Emma Hardy told BBC News that preparing for the changing climate was "something we're really committed to".

"We are putting £2.65bn into upgrading, maintaining and building new flood defences.

"But we absolutely know, of course, there's more that needs to be done."

Fuelled by climate change, the UK's weather extremes are intensifying, from the 40C heat of July 2022 to England's wettest 18 months on record between October 2022 to March 2024.

Such events are only likely to become more severe and happen more often, as the planet continues to get hotter due to humanity's emissions of planet-warming gases.

Better preparation can limit the damage by making the country more resilient, but the CCC says this is not happening at anywhere near the required pace.

"We are seeing climate impact happening faster and more intensely and increasing [but] government just doesn't yet seem to be taking it seriously," Baroness Brown, chair of the Adaptation Committee at the CCC, told BBC News.

"The manifesto said it was going to address this issue of resilience and yet, so far, it's done nothing," she added.

"We've heard some warm words… but nothing has come out yet."

None of the 46 areas assessed were found to be making "good" progress in adapting to climate change. Only three had "good" plans and policies in place for the future.

These are mostly unchanged from the CCC's last report in 2023.

Health is one of the areas that remains most poorly prepared.

The CCC points to the rising number of deaths linked to extreme heat and hospitals themselves being vulnerable to hot weather.

Baroness Brown highlights the case of Guy's and St Thomas', the biggest hospital trust in London, which was hit by a failure to its data centres during the extreme heat of July 2022.

This meant it was unable to operate its appointments system at a time of intense demand, and it had to move to paper appointments.

"We lost thousands of crucial appointments for people for critical tests," she said.

"We're trying to improve the NHS. Unless we take into account that it has to be resilient to the climate, we're going backwards."

Flooding is another challenging area. Plans and policies to ensure places are resilient to river and coastal flooding are found to have worsened since the CCC's previous report.

The ancient town of Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire is a case in point. It's been flooded repeatedly in the last four years, most recently in November 2024.

Polly Pearce described how her charity shop flooded.

"It was so quick... [like] a tsunami," she said.

"[The water] came up as high as the panelling right up on the wall... we had all our Christmas stuff ready but lost it."

The main street is studded with empty shops, many reportedly put out of business by the cost of repeated floods.

Shop owners say insurance companies either won't insure their properties or that the premiums are now so high many shop keepers say they simply can't afford it.

And the Environment Agency has said it can't afford the £25m-£30m cost of flood protection for the town.

The government says it is committed to helping residents, however, and that work to improve the flood resilience of properties will begin in the summer.

The CCC notes progress in some other areas of climate adaptation, such as plans to identify risks to businesses and financial institutions.

'A huge mistake'

At the heart of these discussions is the question of cost.

But putting off efforts to prepare the UK for the changing climate in an attempt to save cash would be "a huge mistake" and could increase economic damage in the long run, Baroness Brown said.

"We are very worried about their spending review," she added, in an unusually strong plea from the Committee.

"This is not a tomorrow problem; it's a today problem. If we don't address it today, it becomes a disaster tomorrow."

A freedom of information request submitted by the BBC found there are just 18 members of staff working fully on climate adaptation at the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra).

That's just 0.3% of Defra's nearly 6,600 full-time-equivalent core staff.

Defra said some of these employees also worked on climate adaptation part-time, and the figures don't include those working in other parts of government.

Additional reporting by Miho Tanaka

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The Prince and Princess of Wales are spending their 14th wedding anniversary in Scotland on the Isle of Mull.

William and Kate will tour the island over two days and visit community halls that their Royal Foundation is helping to refurbish.

The couple, who married at Westminster Abbey on 29 April 2011, will stay at a self-catering cottage on Mull following official engagements.

William and Kate, known by their Scottish titles the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay when in Scotland, met while studying at the University of St Andrews.

The island on Scotland's west coast is part of lands once ruled by the Lord of the Isles - one of a number of Scottish titles William inherited from his father when Charles became King.

The visit will begin with a tour of Aros Hall, home to a community fridge saving food from landfill, a charity shop and a children's indoor play area.

Later they will visit the nearby harbour to chat to makers and creators at Tobermory Producers Market.

They will end their day by travelling to a combined croft and restaurant on the west coast of Mull, touring some of its 50 acres of land, seeing the Hebridean sheep farmed on site, and helping select garden produce for the menu.

William and Kate will also spend time privately at Pennyghael Community Hall and on the island of Iona after taking the public ferry from Mull and meeting those who use and run the service.

The visit aims to highlight the importance of communities and protecting and championing the natural environment.

The Royal Foundation's Community Impact Programme is providing undisclosed grants for the renovation of facilities at Aros Hall in Tobermory, where popular BBC children's TV series Balamory was filmed.

Communal spaces will also be updated and roof repairs undertaken at Pennyghael Community Hall.

Interior designer Banjo Beale, presenter of the BBC's Designing The Hebrides programme and a Mull resident, will work with islanders to ensure community-owned centres in Mull's main town of Tobermory and the village of Pennyghael reflect the area's culture.

He said: "It's an absolute joy to be working with the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales to redesign and preserve these vital community spaces.

"Together, we're not just restoring old walls - we're reimagining what's possible when community and creativity come together. I'm excited to breathe new life into beloved buildings and celebrate the island's warmth, resilience and quiet magic."

US President Donald Trump has called Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to congratulate him on his victory in the country's general election and the two have agreed meet in the near future.

The two countries were expected to enter talks about a new economic and security relationship after Monday's vote.

Trump's trade tariffs and repeated comments undermining Canada's sovereignty overshadowed the race, which ended with Carney's Liberals projected to win a minority government, according to public broadcaster CBC.

That result will make Carney's pressing tasks of negotiating with his US counterpart and tackling a range of domestic issues more of a challenge, as he'll need to wrangle support from other political parties.

In their first call since the election, Trump congratulated Carney on his victory, according to the prime minister's office on Tuesday.

The office also said the two leaders had "agreed on the importance of Canada and the United States working together – as independent, sovereign nations – for their mutual betterment".

The Liberals will need to rely on their support to pass legislation through the House of Commons.

They also face possible defeat in any vote of confidence in the chamber.

The Liberals are most likely to find willing partners with the diminished left-wing New Democrats, who have in the past supported the Liberals, and the Bloc Québécois.

The Liberals are projected to have won 169 seats, three short of the 172 needed for a majority in Canada's House of Commons.

It still marks a historic turnaround for a party that had seemed on course for collapse just months ago.

Carney, a former central banker for Canada and the UK, will continue as prime minister, having stepped into the role last month following his unpopular predecessor Justin Trudeau's resignation.

One issue where it may be easy for the Liberals to find support in the House is in passing legislation to help workers and industries affected by US tariffs - something all parties swung behind on the campaign trail.

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On Tuesday morning, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet suggested Carney could benefit from at least a period of stability in the House.

Blanchet urged a "truce" among parties while Canada negotiated trade with the US, saying it was clear Canadians wanted political stability in unstable times.

He said it wasn't time for other parties to "threaten to overthrow the government anytime soon" and didn't see any scenario "other than collaboration for a period of slightly over a year".

The leader of the sovereigntist party, which only runs candidates in Quebec, did urge Carney to avoid pressing the province on certain issues, noting that collaboration goes both ways.

On Tuesday, the White House commented on Carney's win, with deputy press secretary Anna Kelly saying: "The election does not affect President Trump's plan to make Canada America's cherished 51st state."

In an interview with the BBC, Carney said that Canada deserves "respect" from the US and he will only allow a Canada-US trade and security partnership "on our terms".

Carney has told the BBC that a 51st state scenario was "never, ever going to happen".

Meanwhile, new US ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, said in a video statement that he is "committed to making progress in this great relationship".

Carney has also promised action on a range of domestic issues, including tackling the country's housing crisis and tax cuts for lower- and middle-income Canadians.

The prime minister also needs to prepare for the G7 summit in June, which Canada is hosting in the province of Alberta.

In Monday's election, both the Liberals and the Conservatives saw a significant rise in their share of the national vote compared with four years ago.

The Conservative Party came in second, on track to win 144 seats, and will form Official Opposition.

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

Voter turnout for the election was 67%.

Both Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh lost their seats, with Singh announcing he will step down as leader of the left-wing party.