US President Donald Trump has hailed an "amazing" meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, amid rising hopes for a de-escalation of tensions between the world's two biggest economies.

Beijing was less effusive, saying the two side had reached a consensus to resolve "major trade issues" during the leaders' first face-to-face meeting in six years.

Trump's trade war had set off tit-for-tat tariffs that shot past 100% on both sides, but they agreed to a truce in May - although tensions remained high.

Thursday's talks did not lead to a formal agreement but the announcements suggest they are closer to a deal - the details of which have long been subject to behind-the-scenes negotiations.

Trade deals normally take years to negotiate, and countries around the world have been thrown into resolving differences with the current Trump administration within a matter of months.

One key win for Trump is that China has agreed to suspend export control measures it had placed on rare earths, crucial for the production of everything from smartphones to fighter jets.

A jubilant president told reporters on Air Force One that he had also got China to start immediately buying a "tremendous amounts of soybeans and other farm products". Retaliatory tariffs on American soybeans by Beijing had effectively halted imports from the US, harming US farmers - a key voting block for Trump.

There was, however, no mention of a breakthrough on TikTok. The US has sought to take the video-sharing app's US operations away from Chinese parent company ByteDance for national security reasons.

Meanwhile, the US has said it will drop part of the tariffs it has levied on Beijing over the flow of ingredients used in making fentanyl to the US. Trump has imposed severe tariffs on the US's top trade partners for their perceived failure to clamp down on the drug.

However, it seems other tariffs, or taxes on imported goods, will remain in place, meaning that goods arriving in the US from China are still being taxed at a rate of over 40% for US importers.

Beijing will also be able to speak to Jensen Huang, the head of US tech firm Nvidia - according to Trump. Nvidia is at the heart of the two countries' fight over AI chips: China wants high-end chips but the US wants to limit China's access, citing national security.

Beijing has also extended an invitation to Trump to visit China in April - yet another sign of thawing relations.

'A good start'

But the meeting also showed the gulf between the two leaders' approaches.

Xi was self-contained, and said only what he had prepared. He entered the meeting knowing he had a strong hand. China had learned from Trump's first term, leveraging its chokehold on rare earths, and diversifying its trade partners so it is less reliant on the US.

Afterwards, he was far more measured in his language than Trump. The two sides would be working on delivering outcomes that will serve as a "reassuring pill" for both countries' economies, he said.

Trump was - as always - more ad-lib. But the US president was also noticeably more tense than he had been for the rest of his whirlwind trip to South East Asia - a reflection of the high stakes in Thursday's meeting.

The glamour and pageantry on show since he arrived at his first stop in Malaysia just five days ago was also absent.

Gone were the gold-laden palaces of the sort he was welcomed to in Japan on Tuesday. Instead, a building at an airport, lying behind barbed wire and security checkpoints.

The military bands which welcomed Trump to South Korea on Wednesday were nowhere to be seen.

Instead, the only sign something important was going on inside was the heavy police and media presence.

But despite the quieter public face, what was happening inside was arguably the most significant hour and 20 minutes of the trip.

Henry Wang, a former adviser to China's State Council, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Trump and Xi's talks "went very well".

It may not have been a trade deal, but a "framework and structure has been laid", he added - calling it "a good start".

The leader of Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has declared an investigation into what he called violations committed by his soldiers during the capture of el-Fasher.

The announcement by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, came after escalating reports of mass civilian killings following the RSF takeover of the city in the Darfur region on Sunday.

The UN Security Council is expected to hold a meeting on Sudan, which is in its third year of civil war between the army and the paramilitary fighters.

The RSF leader spoke after international outrage about reports of mass killings in el-Fasher, apparently documented by his paramilitary fighters in social media videos.

• Reports of mass killings in Sudan have echoes of its dark past
• New videos show executions after RSF militia takes key Sudan city
• A simple guide to what is happening in Sudan

Hemedti said he was sorry for the disaster that had befallen the people of el-Fasher and admitted there had been violations by his forces, which would be investigated by a committee that has now arrived in the city.

However, observers have noted that similar promises made in the past - in response to accusations of a massacre in the Darfuri city of el-Geneina in 2023, and alleged atrocities during the group's control of the central state of Gezira - were never fulfilled.

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) has said it is appalled and deeply shocked by reports that more than 460 civilians, including patients and their companions, were shot dead, at the last partially functioning hospital in el-Fasher.

The RSF denies widespread allegations that the killings in el-Fasher are ethnically motivated and follow a pattern of the Arab paramilitaries targeting non-Arab populations.

Activists have also stepped-up demands for international pressure on the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is widely accused of providing military support to the RSF.

The UAE denies this despite evidence presented in UN reports.

El-Fasher had been the army's last stronghold in the western region of Darfur, and was captured by the RSF after an 18-month siege marked by starvation and heavy bombardment.

The takeover of el-Fasher reinforces the geographic split in the country, with the RSF now in control of western Sudan and much of neighbouring Kordofan to the south, and the army holding the capital, Khartoum, central and eastern regions along the Red Sea.

The two warring rivals had been allies - coming to power together in a coup in 2021 - but fell out over an internationally backed plan to move towards civilian rule.

More BBC stories about the el-Fasher siege:

• My son's whole body is full of shrapnel
• Rare footage shows plight of civilians in besieged Sudan city
• Last surgeons standing in city's only hospital
• BBC smuggles in phones to reveal hunger and fear

People outside the UK can watch the documentary on YouTube.

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica

Israeli troops carried out an incursion into a south Lebanese town overnight, killing a municipal employee, state media report, amid an escalation of Israeli attacks in Lebanon.

The troops, accompanied by drones and light armoured vehicles, entered Blida and stormed the town hall, where the employee - named as Ibrahim Salameh - was sleeping, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency.

The Israeli military said its troops were conducting an operation to "dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure", without providing evidence that the building was being used by the group.

Israel's operation drew a furious response in Lebanon, where a ceasefire ended a war between them last November.

Israel's military says troops encountered a "suspect" inside the building and opened fire when an "immediate threat" was identified, it added. It was not clear whether Salameh had been the target of the operation.

Israel has stepped up its attacks on people and targets it says are linked to Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim group backed by Iran.

The Lebanese President, Joseph Aoun, instructed the commander of the Lebanese army to confront any Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam denounced the killing of Salameh and the incursion as a "flagrant violation of Lebanese institutions and sovereignty".

He said Lebanon would continue pressing the United Nations and ceasefire guarantors "to ensure a halt to the repeated violations and the implementation of a complete Israeli withdrawal from our lands".

Protests were held on Thursday morning in Blida and nearby towns, where residents blocked roads with burning tyres to denounce what they called a "blatant aggression" and the state's failure to protect civilians.

Over recent days, Israel intensified its strikes across Lebanon, saying it was targeting Hezbollah positions.

A second Israeli operation was reported overnight in the nearby village of Adaisseh, where residents say troops blew up a religious ceremonial hall.

Israeli warplanes also flew over parts of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley on Thursday, while drones were again seen circling low above Beirut's southern suburbs.

During a meeting of ceasefire monitors on Wednesday, US envoy Morgan Ortagus said Washington welcomed Lebanon's "decision to bring all weapons under state control by the end of the year", adding that the Lebanese army "must now fully implement its plan".

Under the ceasefire agreement, Israeli troops were to withdraw from southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah was to move its fighters north of the Litani river and dismantle its military infrastructure there - a plan the group and its allies strongly oppose.

Only the Lebanese army and the UN peacekeeping force, Unifil, are authorised to deploy armed personnel in the area south of the Litani, but Israel has maintained positions at several strategic border sites.

Almost one-third of the heatwave days India experienced in 2024 were driven by climate change, according to a new report by the medical journal The Lancet.

The report found that India recorded an average of 19.8 heatwave days last year, of which 6.6 days would not have occurred without human-induced climate change.

It also estimated that heat exposure in 2024 resulted in the loss of 247 billion potential labour hours, mostly in the agriculture and construction sectors. amounting to an economic loss of about $194bn (£151bn).

While heatwaves are not new to India, their frequency and intensity have been rising steadily over the past few decades because of global warming.

Prolonged exposure to extreme heat has serious repercussions on health. It can overwhelm the body's ability to regulate temperature, increasing the risk of dehydration, heatstroke, cardiovascular stress, and even death - particularly among the elderly, infants and outdoor workers.

And the 2025 Lancet Countdown report - which tracks the health impact of climate change and is widely regarded as a key scientific reference on the issue - warns that the health risks posed by rising global temperatures are now more severe than ever.

"Throughout last year,152 record-breaking extreme weather events were registered across 61 countries, and life-threatening, extreme heat events are becoming more intense than previously predicted," the report stated.

"The climate crisis is a health crisis. Every fraction of a degree of warming costs lives and livelihoods," said Jeremy Farrar, assistant director-general for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and Care at the World Health Organization (WHO).

The report found that heat-related mortality has increased by 23% worldwide since the 1990s, with an average of around 546,000 deaths each year.

It also found that the average person worldwide was exposed to 16 days of extreme heat last year that would not have occurred without climate change.

"This [report] paints a bleak and undeniable picture of the devastating health harms reaching all corners of the world," said Dr Marina Romanello, of University College London, who led the report's analysis.

"The destruction to lives and livelihoods will continue to escalate until we end our fossil fuel addiction," she added.

Air Quality

The report also mentioned that India's air quality has worsened over the past few years.

Every year as the winter sets in, the air quality in the Indo-Gangetic plains turns toxic. This year too, the air quality has remained between poor and very poor category - at times, reaching hazardous - for almost a month now.

The report mentioned that 1.7 million deaths in 2022 were caused due to atmospheric pollution, particularly because of the tiny PM2.5 pollutants that can cause a host of serious health issues. Harmful emissions from burning fossil fuel led to 44% of these deaths.

It also noted that the heavy reliance on biofuels such as wood, dung and crop residue for cooking continues to silently claim thousands of lives across the country - especially among women and children in rural areas.

The report was released ahead of the COP30 summit, which is going to take place in Brazil next month.

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Homeowners who say that botched insulation under government schemes left them living in mouldy conditions are calling for an investigation into the problem to be widened.

One woman has told the BBC that damage from works to her home in 2013 has left her bedroom too damp to sleep in, and may be causing her breathing difficulties.

Around 280,000 properties in Britain were offered free insulation - either external wall or other types of solid wall – under government schemes between 2013 and 2025. Billions of pounds of public money was spent on the projects.

Earlier this month, the government said that 92% of external wall insulation put in place under these schemes over the last three years has at least one major issue.

The government did not respond to a question from the BBC on why it was not reviewing all work carried out before 2022, but said it was "fixing the broken system by introducing comprehensive reforms".

Imran Hussain, the Labour MP for Bradford East, has called on the government to widen its investigation to include all insulation fitted under these schemes.

"Families who tried to do the right thing to make their homes warmer and greener have been left paying the price for failure and negligence," he says.

The BBC has been told that serious problems were known to the then-Conservative government as long as a decade ago.

One 2013 scheme in Preston, Lancashire, quickly became a byword for failure, according to Andrej Miller of the fuel poverty charity National Energy Action (NEA). He worked in the government's climate and energy teams for 18 years as a civil servant and says it was seen as "the ultimate project gone wrong".

Under the scheme, 350 homes in the town's Fishwick area were fitted with external wall insulation.

Bushra Rashid lives in one of these properties. She says she has been living with damp and mould for years. The 72-year-old has told the BBC she can't sleep in her own bedroom, where the damp plaster is crumbling, and she fears it's affected her health.

Bushra and her husband, Abdul, bought their home in the early 1970s. In 2013, insulation boards were fixed to the exterior brickwork of the Victorian homes and render applied with the purpose of making it waterproof.

The idea behind many of the government schemes was to cut carbon emissions by getting energy companies to install energy-saving measures, including insulation, on people's homes. The schemes were targeted at low-income households and paid for via the "green levy" on energy bills.

However, "bad design and bad workmanship" on the Fishwick project meant that rainwater got trapped behind the insulation and penetrated walls in houses such as the Rashids', according to building surveyor David Walter.

Abdul Rashid, who was a bus driver, died from Parkinson's disease four years ago. His son, Atif, says that despite his illness, his father knew the house was being destroyed by the botched installation.

"He spent time crying because he felt helpless,'' says Atif. He adds that his father ''felt betrayed'' and had ''nowhere to go'' to get help.

The Fishwick project had not even been completed before Preston City Council - which had encouraged residents to sign up for the insulation - started receiving complaints about the quality of the work.

"Horrifying" stories about poor workmanship, mushrooms growing on walls and light fittings being turned into "water features", were being reported back to Andrea Howe, the council's energy officer at the time.

The installer went bust soon after the project finished, and any guarantees were considered worthless because the insulation wasn't fitted properly.

Ms Howe says she took her concerns to the Department for Energy and Climate Change, and showed photographs of the damaged homes to officials. In the winter of 2015, a group of civil servants were taken on a tour of Fishwick's homes.

She recalls what one official told her he had seen: ''He went into one house and in the small child's bedroom there was a sheet kind of pinned all around the ceiling because the ceiling was falling down - it was that wet."

Ms Howe says he told her he was heartbroken: ''He said he had never seen anything like it.''

The problems at Fishwick highlight a "systemic issue in how government works" because ministers and officials have never been around long enough to find a solution, says Miller.

In 2018, the then-minister for energy and clean growth, Claire Perry, told MPs that 62 homes had received repairs following enforcement action by Ofgem.

NEA later completed repairs on a further 45 homes in Fishwick, at an average cost of £70,000 per property. The charity estimates it could cost up to £22m to fully rectify problems in that area, but it has run out of funding to carry out further work.

In 2019, a government-commissioned report estimated there was failure on all 350 properties in the Fishwick scheme, caused by poor design, assessment, ventilation and workmanship. It also suggested that many of the properties were unsuitable for the insulation in the first place. But the government never published the report or shared it with Fishwick residents.

Tasneem Hussain had external wall insulation installed on her home in Fishwick at about the same time as the Rashid family. She says she has been forced to redecorate more than 20 times over the last decade because of damp in her home, caused by the insulation.

She is also concerned about what effect the conditions could be having on her 14-year-old son, Mohammed, who has disabilities.

"He's prone to infections, and he had pneumonia a few months ago. I feel this is not going to be helping him," says Tasneem.

She says she does not know where to go or how to get help for her family's situation: "It needs to be sorted."

Preston City Council told the BBC the external wall insulation scheme in Fishwick was a "significant failure", but the council "did not directly deliver, oversee or have any project management oversight of the contractors and the work they completed".

It added: "It is hugely regrettable that neither the original installers nor indeed the government have provided the level of support so obviously required when the scale of failed external wall insulation became apparent."

It's unclear how many other schemes involving this type of insulation have gone wrong.

The National Audit Office's recent report suggests the government doesn't have an accurate picture of failure rates in earlier schemes.

It says of one scheme, ECO3, which ran from 2018 to 2022, ''we do not know how many measures were audited for quality compliance''.

Dr Peter Rickaby, an energy expert who contributed to an independent review of the sector published in 2016, said problems with external wall insulation can take up to 10 years before they appear as damp on people's homes.

Industry insiders have told the BBC that Fishwick is now regarded as an object lesson in how not to run an installation project.

However, similar problems have arisen in later government insulation schemes.

In February, BBC News reported on a scheme in County Durham, which was carried out in 2021.

Jean Liddle, 82, was among a number of Chilton residents who had external wall insulation fitted on her home. The work was organised by her local council, and paid for by central government.

"We were more or less pushed into it," Jean told the BBC.

She said that damp and mould had been spreading in her home since the insulation was installed. A survey report commissioned by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero highlighted what it called an ''immediate risk to the fabric of the building and health of the occupant''.

It said Jean should not be living in the property in its ''current condition'' and that substantial work would be required before it would be safe to live there.

The primary cause of the damp in Jean's home is believed to be a damaged drainage pipe. The subcontractor disputes that the damage was caused when the insulation was fitted.

The report was given to the council, but its warning about the danger to Jean's health was not shared with her. She eventually found out via a freedom of information request.

Some repair work has now been carried out on Jean's home, organised by the council and the subcontractor, but building surveyor David Walter believes it's still not safe for her to be living there, because of the presence of "dampness and mould and powder and dust".

Durham County Council said it was ''working with residents and the subcontractor to address any outstanding issues'' and gave ''sincere apologies for any distress caused''.

It added that conflicting findings from different surveys had complicated attempts to rectify the reported faults, and gave ''sincere apologies for any distress caused'

Jean accuses the council and the government of showing a disregard for her welfare: "I'm just nothing to them. I'm a number," she told the BBC.

In a statement, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said that the residents of Fishwick and Chilton had been ''let down by poor installation''.

It added that it was introducing comprehensive reforms, and in future, in cases "where rare things go wrong", there would be clear lines of accountability, and a guarantee to get any problems fixed quickly.

Meanwhile in Fishwick, Atif says he is disgusted by the behaviour shown by successive governments to his parents.

"I think people have to be held to account," he says. "Whether it's the government, the energy firms, their local suppliers, the councils... responsibility has to sit somewhere, and it shouldn't be the homeowners."

"It's been our busiest year yet for Halloween," says cafe and gift shop owner Charlotte Brennan.

"People have been asking for pumpkin spiced lattes since August, so I feel like it's getting earlier."

Charlotte says as soon as shopping for back-to-school essentials was in the bag, she saw a switch to "cosy" autumnal spending.

And there is some data to suggest what Charlotte is seeing is a wider trend of Halloween spending creeping in long before 31 October.

More than £100m was spent on sugar confectionery at British supermarkets in the four weeks to 5 October - up 5% on the same period a year ago, according to data from Worldpanel by Numerator.

Its figures also suggest more than a million shoppers had already bought pumpkins from the supermarkets by the start of October, with sales totalling £1.4m in the four weeks prior, doubling the amount spent in the similar pre-Halloween period in 2023.

Charlotte, who owns Bloom & Brew in Ormskirk says Halloween is now her second-busiest time of year, after Christmas.

She says social media food and decor trends heavily influence what and when people buy for Halloween and on TikTok "the build-up starts in July".

"For our sales, where previously it was just a two-week period from mid-October to the 31st, now it's much longer - people want pumpkins and decorations."

Ms Brennan says many of her customers bought one or two reusable decorative items for the season to build a collection, as they do for Christmas.

"When I was growing up, you'd get a couple of plastic throwaway items from the supermarket in the days before Halloween, and then they were binned," she says.

Overall spending on Halloween hit £2bn two years ago and is predicted to grow again this year. In 2024, as many as 91% of people bought something Halloween-related, Worldpanel's data suggests.

It's too early for this year's full Halloween spending data but last year's Worldpanel figures suggest the spooky spending period is getting longer.

There was a 37% growth in retail spending on categories associated with Halloween and autumn in the two weeks leading up to October 31 2024, compared with a standard two-week period.

And it's not just sellers of costumes and sweet treats benefiting: candles and pyjama sales were up nearly 20% too.

Vikash Kaansili, senior retail analyst at Kantar ,says the data suggests Halloween spending is about more than dressing up and carving pumpkins.

"Halloween is no longer just for kids. The growth in sales of pyjamas and candles suggests adults are embracing Halloween as an opportunity for a night in at home, not just for children's trick-or-treating.

"Despite cost-of-living pressures, Halloween continues to prove resilient," Mr Kaansili says.

"Shoppers made more trips in the two weeks leading up to Halloween [2024] and spent 16% more than they usually do, suggesting it's a "must-do" occasion that people are unwilling to cut back on.

Pumpkins remain the unofficial symbol of Halloween, and we're buying them earlier. Worldpanel data found in the four weeks to 29 September 2024, just under £1m was spent on pumpkins in British supermarkets, nearly doubling figures for the same period in 2023.

Supermarket Asda said this year it is on track to sell 400,000 mini, or "munchkin" pumpkins - for use in displays rather than in the kitchen - up from 200,000 last year.

And it's not just supermarkets and retailers getting in on the action: leisure and entertainment businesses now see it as a season in itself.

Fiona Eastwood, the boss of Merlin Entertainment, which owns Thorpe Park, Alton Towers and Legoland told the BBC that the lead up to Halloween now rivals its peak summer season in driving profits at some sites.

"Take Thorpe Park: increasingly Halloween is almost half of its annual profit and that's because we have special rides in the dark, you have mazes, and that whole thrill that we're tapping into," she told the BBC's Big Boss Interview podcast.

The season's popularity has also allowed other businesses, such as farming, to diversify.

The Halloween pumpkin patch has more than doubled at Andy Owens' farm in Herefordshire after the sheep and crop farmer set it up in 2021.

"Pumpkins for us only use a small amount of land, but generate income in October in what can be a volatile month.

"It's snowballed. When we set up only four years ago, there were only two others in the county. Now there are many more."

He charges £5 per person and after initial growth, visitor numbers are up around 10% so far in 2025 compared with last year.

"We're told the economy isn't doing well, but families still want a day out and we see that they still have money for pumpkins," he says.

Owens' five-acre pumpkin patch expanded last year to include a horror maze that employs local actors.

"Halloween in this country has grown massively. When I was growing up there was barely trick-or-treating, there was just The Simpsons Halloween special [on TV]. Now it's everywhere," he says