At least four people have been killed by a series of powerful explosions at an ammunitions depot in Burundi's largest city, Bujumbura, local residents have told the BBC.

The blasts erupted late on Tuesday at the facility, located in the suburb of Musaga, due to an electrical fault, an army spokesperson said.

Shrapnel and debris were propelled more than 5km (three miles) and several houses in nearby districts were destroyed by the force of the explosions.

The authorities have not yet provided any casualty figures but family members and eyewitnesses told the BBC of four separate deaths in the city. The AFP news agency quotes security sources as saying that dozens of people had died.

One woman told BBC Gahuza that a relative, who had been detained at Mpimba Central Prison, had died after a bomb hit the facility.

Numerous inmates at the prison, which is located near the ammunitions store, are reported to have been injured.

In the north-eastern neighbourhood of Gisandema, witnesses told BBC Gahuza that a bomb had destroyed a house and killed a domestic worker.

The authorities have said they cannot yet comment on the number of casualties as they are still assessing the extent of the damage.

The explosions sent plumes of smoke rising above the city, sparking panic in the city of more than a million people.

President Evariste Ndayishimiye, in a message on X, expressed his condolences to all Burundians, adding that the authorities are "here to help".

More BBC stories about Burundi:

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

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President Donald Trump's address from the White House on Wednesday evening was - despite some speculation beforehand - largely a rehash of what he has been saying for days about the Iran war.

In a 20-minute primetime speech, he said the "core strategic objectives" of the US-Israeli military operation were "nearing completion" after a month of war and projected it would last another two to three weeks.

There were the usual threats against Iran, too, including a repeated pledge to bomb the country "back to the stone age".

If you were to copy and paste his posts on Truth Social over the last week or so, you would not be far off this address to the nation.

The president did attempt to persuade Americans of the merits of this war. There is good reason for that, as polls suggest a consistent majority of voters disapprove of the military operation he launched on 28 February.

Trump urged Americans to see this war as an "investment" in their future, and suggested it was nothing compared to other conflicts over the past century or more in which the US has ended up being involved for far longer.

But there was little here for those hoping for clear answers on where this war is heading or potential exit ramps for the US. There were glaring omissions which leave a plethora of questions unanswered.

Firstly, Israel is still attacking Iran and taking incoming drone and missile attacks – including earlier on Wednesday in Tel Aviv just hours before the beginning of Passover.

A key question is whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government agrees with the timetable of a few more weeks that was provided by Trump. We simply do not know at this point in time.

Secondly, what happened to the 15-point peace plan the White House was urging Iran to accept just days ago? There was no mention of it by Trump on Wednesday night. Is Washington now ditching many of those demands, including the retrieval of its stockpile of enriched uranium?

That, too, is unclear.

The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's busiest oil shipping channels which has been effectively closed off by Iran, is a central issue in this conflict.

The president, however, does not appear to have a settled view on it.

One moment he is demanding Iran allow tankers through, and the next he is telling allies to go and sort it out for themselves. "Go to the strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves," he said on Wednesday. "The hard part is done, so it should be easy."

He then simply said, without expanding further, that the strait would reopen "naturally" when the war was over. That is unlikely to reassure those concerned about oil prices.

Trump's pointed criticism of some allies - he said at one point that they should "build up some delayed courage" and lead an operation to reopen the strait - came after he floated the idea of pulling out of the Nato military alliance in an interview earlier on Wednesday.

But that rhetoric was completely absent from this speech, despite briefings suggesting it would be a key part of his words tonight.

Another key unanswered question relates to ground troops. What are the thousands of marines and paratroopers actually going to be doing in the region as they continue to arrive?

The truth is that after this national address, we are really none the wiser about what the president sees as victory in this war.

And given the often conflicting nature of his statements from one day to the next, everything could change at any time.

Meanwhile, the average price of gas in the US has topped $4 for the first time in nearly four years and the president's approval ratings are cratering, just months before the crucial midterm elections which will determine control of Congress.

This is a US president looking for a way out of this war – and he is still casting about to find one.

A 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck in the Molucca Sea off Indonesia's Ternate island early Thursday, killing at least one person.

The quake, which struck at 06:48 local time (22:48 GMT) at a depth of 35km, sparked tsunami warnings which have since been withdrawn.

A 70-year-old woman in North Sulawesi died after being crushed by building debris, and another person broke their leg after jumping off a building, Indonesia's national news agency Antara reported.

While the region experiences high levels of seismic activity, some residents told the BBC this was one of the strongest earthquakes they have felt in at least the past six years.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center initially warned that tsunami waves less than 0.3m (1 ft) "were possible" along the coasts of Guam, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Taiwan. The tsunami alert was lifted after two hours.

Journalist Isvara Safitri, who lives in central Manado, recalled how furniture in her room shook for several seconds.

"It was really strong... My head even felt dizzy," Safitri told BBC Indonesian.

Even the roads outside the house were shaking, she said, adding that the earthquake "feels like the strongest" she's experienced over the past six years.

Yayuk Oktiani, who lives in Bitung, a city on the north-eastern coast of Sulawesi, said she often experiences tremors, "but they're never as strong as this one".

Oktiani was at the market when "everything started shaking". Several stores experienced power outages and as the tremors got stronger, people fled, she told the BBC.

She headed straight for her child's school, which is located "very close" to the sea.

"The situation there was chaotic... The teachers immediately told parents to bring their children home, even though they had only just arrived," she told the BBC.

In Ternate, resident Budi Nurgianto said the walls in his house vibrated for what felt like more than a minute. He rushed outside, into a scene of panic.

"There were many people outside... I even saw some people leaving their house without having finished their shower," he told AFP news agency.

Manado and Bitung are located on the island of Sulawesi, while Ternate is a volcanic island in the North Maluku province.

The epicentre of the quake was roughly midway between Manado and Ternate.

At least two aftershocks, with magnitudes 5.5 and 5.2, followed the major quake, with authorities warning of more to come.

The national geological agency reported "damage to buildings and injuries" about an hour after the initial tremor, but did not provide further detail.

Footage from a search and rescue team in Manado shows residents and officials walking through the rubble at a sports complex, with some shouting "oh my God".

Large pieces of furniture were flung onto the ground, with some metallic structures bent out of shape.

A patient at Siloam Hospital in Manado recalled the frantic efforts to evacuate staff and patients.

"We were sitting there drinking tea... [Initially we] didn't realise it was an earthquake. And then we heard a child scream, 'Come down, hurry up,' " said Admini, 69.

Nurses and doctors quickly set up makeshift treatment areas, out in the open and inside vehicles.

"Everyone was huddled together outside," Admini said. "Some were in wheelchairs, others were helping each other."

Additional reporting by Heyder Affan in Jakarta

The Supreme Court appeared sceptical of President Donald Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship, a sign the high court could strike down a key element of his immigration agenda.

A majority of the court's justices on Wednesday seemed unconvinced that the US should stop granting citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants and some temporary US visitors.

The administration has argued that its effort to limit birthright citizenship is necessary to help rein in illegal immigration. Opponents argue it would upend more than a century of precedent and unravel a cornerstone of US immigration law enshrined by the 14th Amendment.

Trump attended the oral arguments in person on Wednesday, a rare move by a sitting president that underscored the high stakes of the case.

A defeat for Trump would mark a second straight setback at the high court, following the decision last month that invalidated the president's global tariffs. A win would help Trump deliver on his pledge to reshape America's immigration policies.

During more than two hours of arguments, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer sought to convince the justices that the 14th Amendment - which establishes the concept of birthright citizenship and was extended formerly to enslaved people - and subsequent court rulings and laws passed by Congress all mistakenly expanded birthright citizenship.

Chief Justice John Roberts, a key swing vote on the court, questioned Trump's authority to exclude the children of undocumented immigrants from receiving US citizenship.

"I'm not quite sure how you can get to that big group," Roberts said.

• Trump says he will attend birthright citizenship arguments at Supreme Court
• Trump wants to end birthright citizenship. Where do other countries stand?

The oral arguments turned on a key clause in the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the US who are "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

Bauer argued that the clause should only apply to the children of foreign diplomats and a few other limited groups. Parents who are in the country illegally when their children are born have "allegiance" to their home countries and therefore don't fall under the jurisdiction of US law, he said.

"Jurisdiction means allegiance," Sauer said. Citing a previous court opinion, he later argued that "permanent residence and domicile decides [citizenship]. That's what the court should be bound by."

But several justices said that interpretation would fundamentally reshape how Americans and people living around the world understand the US birthright citizenship process.

Justice Elena Kagan said the administration was seeking to undo a legal tradition of birthright citizenship that dates back to English common law. "What the 14th Amendment did was accept that tradition and not attempt to put any limitations on it. That was the clear rationale," Kagan said.

Several justices also pointed to the 1898 Supreme Court ruling, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the landmark decision that upheld birthright citizenship in the case of a child born to Chinese immigrants living in the US.

Cecillia Wang, an ACLU attorney representing the plaintiffs in court on Wednesday, used the decision to argue that Trump's executive order should be overturned.

"If we agree with you how to read Wong Kim Ark, then you win," Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. "That could be just a short opinion."

Whether the court ultimately issues a broad or narrow opinion remains to be seen. The difference between a sweeping ruling on constitutional grounds versus a more tailored opinion on statutory grounds is a critical one, legal experts said.

The justices could choose to focus on a 1952 law passed by Congress that codified birthright citizenship and not wade into the larger constitutional debate, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law expert.

"The court does not like to rule on constitutional issues if it doesn't have to," Yale-Loehr said. "The court could argue that the Trump executive order is invalid on statutory grounds."

The court is expected to issue its decision in June. It would be the first major immigration case decided by the court on its merits since Trump started his second term. The court has taken up other immigration cases, but has so far sent them back to lower courts for further review.

Trump's push to end birthright citizenship is one part of his larger immigration crackdown. But it's nevertheless a longtime goal of many on the right, and something Trump has supported since his first term in office. A victory in this case would help Trump make the case that he is delivering on his campaign pledge to limit illegal immigration.

A loss would be a setback to Trump's immigration agenda. But it would also represent a larger blow to his efforts to aggressively expand executive power since returning to office. The ruling in February overturning Trump's sweeping global tariffs showed the justices are not willing to give Trump a blank check to bypass Congress and the courts.

Trump signaled his interest in the case by attending the oral arguments on Wednesday. Critics said his appearance was an improper effort to influence the court ahead of a decision that will have major repercussions for his domestic policy agenda.

"We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow 'Birthright' Citizenship!" Trump said incorrectly on social media after leaving the court.

President Donald Trump has told the nation in a televised speech that the US military has nearly completed its goals in the Iran war.

He vowed to strike Iran "extremely hard" over the next two to three weeks and finish the job "very fast", without setting any timeline for ending the conflict.

In his primetime address, Trump called for countries that receive oil through the Strait of Hormuz to show "courage" and seize the key waterway, which has been effectively closed by Iranian attacks since the conflict began.

The president is grappling with rocketing gas prices and sliding personal popularity ratings as the war continues into its fifth week and US midterm elections loom in November.

Wednesday night's speech did little immediately to reassure global oil markets that disruption to the Strait of Hormuz shipping route will ease anytime soon.

The price of benchmark Brent crude was trading at about $100 a barrel before the president started speaking. Afterwards it rose to $105.

In the 20-minute speech from the White House, Trump said the US was "nearing completion" of its "core strategic objectives" in the conflict, and had "decimated" Iran's navy drone and ballistic missile forces.

"Very shortly, we are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks," Trump said.

However, he provided little insight into the state of what he described as "ongoing" discussions with Iran's leadership, leaving open the possibility of hitting Iranian energy infrastructure if negotiations prove fruitless.

"If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard, and probably simultaneously," the US president said.

"We have not hit their oil, even though that's the easiest target of all, because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding."

Earlier in the day, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Iran had asked for a ceasefire - a claim that Iran's foreign ministry quickly described as "false and baseless".

In his speech on Wednesday night, as he has done several times in recent days, Trump called on US allies to do more to secure shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz.

He urged them to "build up some delayed courage".

"Go to the Strait and just take it," he added.

Trump made no specific mention of the future of the Nato alliance, after earlier telling the British newspaper the Telegraph that he'd reconsider the US role in what he described as a "paper tiger".

His address to the nation came shortly after it emerged that Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, who is known as "the Trump whisperer" because of his influence with the president, is planning to visit the White House next week.

The president's political opponents were quick to criticise his speech. New York Democrat and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described the address as "rambling, disjointed and pathetic".

"Donald Trump's actions in Iran will be considered one of the greatest policy blunders in the history of our country, failing to articulate objectives, alienating allies, and ignoring the kitchen table problems Americans are facing," Schumer wrote on X. "He is completely unfit to be Commander-in-Chief and the whole world knows it."

According to an update by US Central Command on Wednesday, American forces have struck more than 12,300 targets across Iran since Operation Epic Fury began, including Iranian naval vessels and facilities, missile launchers and defence manufacturing plants.

But despite his claims of victory, Iranian attacks across the region continued on Wednesday, with authorities in both the United Arab Emirates and Qatar responding to missile and drone strikes.

In separate incidents, British troops said they brought down 10 Iranian drones in countries including Jordan, Bahrain and Cyprus.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week suggested that two-thirds of Americans believe the US should end the war quickly, even if it means not achieving Trump's goals. In the survey, 60% of respondents disapproved of the military strikes on Iran, while 35% approved.

Officials in Utah have formally closed a 51-year-old cold case after using new DNA technology to identify a murdered teenager as a victim of serial killer Ted Bundy.

Laura Ann Aime, 17, disappeared after leaving a party on Halloween in 1974. Her body was discovered about one month later by hikers in the American Fork Canyon.

On Wednesday, the Utah County Sheriff's Office announced that new testing "confirmed irrefutably that DNA evidence recovered from Laura's body verified the existence of DNA belonging to Bundy".

Between February 1974 and February 1978 Bundy murdered at least 30 women. He has also been linked to many more killings throughout the country.

Before he was executed in Florida in 1989, Bundy confessed to Laura's killing, but since he would not elaborate or give any detail to his actual involvement in her death, "the Sheriff's Department elected to keep this case open until investigators could prove, without a shadow of doubt", that he was her killer, the sheriff said in a statement.

"This case is now officially closed," Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith declared during a news conference, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

The sheriff added that if Bundy were still alive, prosecutors would pursue the death penalty against him.

Bundy is among America's most infamous serial killers, and began his spree by attacking victims throughout the Pacific Northwest of the US. He later killed victims in Colorado, Utah and Florida.

At the time of Laura's death, he was living in Salt Lake City and studying law at the University of Utah.

The sheriff's statement said Laura is remembered as an "outgoing free spirit who enjoyed outdoor activities and shared a passion for riding horses, hunting, and caring for her several siblings".

Bundy was known to often approach women in public places, gain their trust with his charm or a fake injury, and then lure them to secluded areas and kill them.

He was first arrested in 1975 for kidnapping a woman and sentenced to 15 years in jail.

But in 1977 he escaped by jumping out of a prison library window.

He was recaptured for eight days and then escaped again, continuing to kill until he was finally caught in 1978.

The Supreme Court appeared sceptical of President Donald Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship, a sign the high court could strike down a key element of his immigration agenda.

A majority of the court's justices on Wednesday seemed unconvinced that the US should stop granting citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants and some temporary US visitors.

The administration has argued that its effort to limit birthright citizenship is necessary to help rein in illegal immigration. Opponents argue it would upend more than a century of precedent and unravel a cornerstone of US immigration law enshrined by the 14th Amendment.

Trump attended the oral arguments in person on Wednesday, a rare move by a sitting president that underscored the high stakes of the case.

A defeat for Trump would mark a second straight setback at the high court, following the decision last month that invalidated the president's global tariffs. A win would help Trump deliver on his pledge to reshape America's immigration policies.

During more than two hours of arguments, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer sought to convince the justices that the 14th Amendment - which establishes the concept of birthright citizenship and was extended formerly to enslaved people - and subsequent court rulings and laws passed by Congress all mistakenly expanded birthright citizenship.

Chief Justice John Roberts, a key swing vote on the court, questioned Trump's authority to exclude the children of undocumented immigrants from receiving US citizenship.

"I'm not quite sure how you can get to that big group," Roberts said.

• Trump says he will attend birthright citizenship arguments at Supreme Court
• Trump wants to end birthright citizenship. Where do other countries stand?

The oral arguments turned on a key clause in the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the US who are "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

Bauer argued that the clause should only apply to the children of foreign diplomats and a few other limited groups. Parents who are in the country illegally when their children are born have "allegiance" to their home countries and therefore don't fall under the jurisdiction of US law, he said.

"Jurisdiction means allegiance," Sauer said. Citing a previous court opinion, he later argued that "permanent residence and domicile decides [citizenship]. That's what the court should be bound by."

But several justices said that interpretation would fundamentally reshape how Americans and people living around the world understand the US birthright citizenship process.

Justice Elena Kagan said the administration was seeking to undo a legal tradition of birthright citizenship that dates back to English common law. "What the 14th Amendment did was accept that tradition and not attempt to put any limitations on it. That was the clear rationale," Kagan said.

Several justices also pointed to the 1898 Supreme Court ruling, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the landmark decision that upheld birthright citizenship in the case of a child born to Chinese immigrants living in the US.

Cecillia Wang, an ACLU attorney representing the plaintiffs in court on Wednesday, used the decision to argue that Trump's executive order should be overturned.

"If we agree with you how to read Wong Kim Ark, then you win," Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. "That could be just a short opinion."

Whether the court ultimately issues a broad or narrow opinion remains to be seen. The difference between a sweeping ruling on constitutional grounds versus a more tailored opinion on statutory grounds is a critical one, legal experts said.

The justices could choose to focus on a 1952 law passed by Congress that codified birthright citizenship and not wade into the larger constitutional debate, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law expert.

"The court does not like to rule on constitutional issues if it doesn't have to," Yale-Loehr said. "The court could argue that the Trump executive order is invalid on statutory grounds."

The court is expected to issue its decision in June. It would be the first major immigration case decided by the court on its merits since Trump started his second term. The court has taken up other immigration cases, but has so far sent them back to lower courts for further review.

Trump's push to end birthright citizenship is one part of his larger immigration crackdown. But it's nevertheless a longtime goal of many on the right, and something Trump has supported since his first term in office. A victory in this case would help Trump make the case that he is delivering on his campaign pledge to limit illegal immigration.

A loss would be a setback to Trump's immigration agenda. But it would also represent a larger blow to his efforts to aggressively expand executive power since returning to office. The ruling in February overturning Trump's sweeping global tariffs showed the justices are not willing to give Trump a blank check to bypass Congress and the courts.

Trump signaled his interest in the case by attending the oral arguments on Wednesday. Critics said his appearance was an improper effort to influence the court ahead of a decision that will have major repercussions for his domestic policy agenda.

"We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow 'Birthright' Citizenship!" Trump said incorrectly on social media after leaving the court.

Of all the warnings in President Trump's arsenal, quitting the Nato military alliance is among those he's wielded the most.

Now he's doing it again.

Asked by Britain's Telegraph newspaper if he is reconsidering US membership of Nato, he said: "Oh yes… I would say [it's] beyond reconsideration" – fuming again that his partners weren't joining America's military operations, alongside Israel, against Iran.

"I just think it should be automatic," he emphasised in his remarks to the paper.

Trump's invective underlines again his misunderstanding of how this 32-member alliance works.

Nato's Article 5 does commit it to collective defence. An attack against one member is deemed to be an attack against all but invoking this principle requires a consensus. And the 1949 treaty only referred to crises in Europe and North America.

One ally after another has held back from joining a war they weren't consulted on, given they still don't understand its goals in the face of mixed messaging from the Trump administration.

Article 5 has only been triggered once, in the wake of the September 11th attacks on the US in 2001.

Trump also referenced Ukraine in the Telegraph, saying: "We've been there automatically, including Ukraine."

After Russia's audacious full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the then-US President Joe Biden did take a leading role in shaping the response of individual Western governments because he believed President Putin's actions threatened them all.

Nato, as an alliance, provided assistance but avoided the dangerous prospect of becoming directly involved as a party to this conflict.

Even before Trump entered the White House in 2017, he repeatedly dismissed Nato as a "paper tiger," described it as "obsolete", and said that it was "costing a fortune" for the US.

This year, he's mocked the alliance, saying Russia would have occupied all of Ukraine if the US had not been Nato's enforcer.

Trump almost walked out in early 2019, during his first term in office.

"We saw clear signs that Trump was preparing to act on his threat," the former Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrote in his recent memoir, On my Watch.

Stoltenberg recounted how he went on Fox News and credited Trump with pressuring Nato allies to increase their military spending.

In his telling, Trump immediately acknowledged that praise on social media and then didn't make the speech the White House had reportedly drafted for a US pullout.

At the centre of Trump's concerns was the 2014 agreement that countries should spend 2% of their GDP on defence; at the time, it was only described as a "guideline".

Military spending has ramped up significantly by almost all Nato members, partly in response to Trump's threats, partly because of Russia's growing menace.

This new crisis will again strengthen the resolve of European countries and Canada to bolster their own defences and depend on themselves for their own security. But there's still that cold hard fact that the might of the US military matters - immensely.

The US's contribution now makes up some 62% of Nato's budget and the Pentagon has assets and intelligence capabilities others still can't match.

This time, his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who calls himself a former supporter of the alliance, has also chimed in.

"I think there's no doubt, unfortunately, after this conflict is concluded we are going to have to re-examine that relationship," he told Fox News.

Referring to US bases in Europe he said not using them "to defend America's interests" meant "Nato is a one-way street."

Britain initially refused access to US warplanes but later changed tack, saying bases could be used for "defensive operations." That delay continues to be derided by Trump and his secretary of defence, the self-styled Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. They've repeatedly taunted Prime Minister Starmer as being "no Churchill" – a reference to Britain's leader during the Second World War.

On Tuesday, Italy denied US aircraft permission to land as they were en route to the Middle East for combat operations. Spain has closed its airspace to US planes conducting missions against Iran.

Rubio added it was "ultimately" up to the President to decide this issue.

But it's not his alone.

The US Congress voted at the end of 2023 to prohibit the president from unilaterally withdrawing from Nato without the approval of a two-thirds Senate majority or an act of Congress.

Nato leaders, and most of all its current secretary general Mark Rutte, will need to spend time again trying to convince and cajole Trump that it's in his interest, and America's, to stay.

Rutte, like Stoltenberg, is called the "Trump whisperer" for his efforts in public, and private, to keep the unpredictable president on side. Rutte, the former Dutch leader armed with his toolbox of praise, is widely seen as having played a significant role in pulling Trump back from the brink in his threats to "take" Greenland – a semi-autonomous territory of fellow Nato member Denmark - earlier this year.

But Rutte has also come under fire from other Nato states for going too far with his staunch support for a war against Iran he said Trump was doing "to make the whole world safe."

But his top priority is keeping his 77-year-old coalition intact as it confronts growing threats in Ukraine, the Middle East – and the White House.

Relatives of the 57 people who died in Greece's worst ever train disaster crowded into a courtroom on Wednesday, demanding justice for the victims.

The trial had already been postponed once because of the chaotic start last week.

Most of the victims of the crash three years ago were students, killed when their intercity service from Athens to Thessaloniki smashed head-on into a goods train on the same line near Tempi in the centre of the country.

Some of the victims are thought to have burnt to death after surviving the initial collision.

Many relatives were unable to get into the courtroom in the central town of Larisa last week, and the situation was little different when it resumed on Wednesday.

Police officers allowed in only participants who were legally scheduled to attend.

Some relatives complained that two rows of seats had been taken up by police, while others said they still could not witness proceedings clearly enough.

Defence lawyer Zoe Konstantopoulou appealed for the proceedings to be filmed as access for families had been restricted.

The February 2023 disaster is widely known in Greece as the "Tempi crime" - with many arguing it encapsulates negligence and corruption at the heart of the state.

Thirty-six people are on trial in a case that is expected to hear from 350 witnesses and set to last years.

Among those killed was 20-year-old Anastasia Plakias, a student at the University of Thessaloniki.

She, like so many other victims, was travelling back to lectures in the northern city after spending a public holiday with her family.

In the weeks after the crash, her grieving father Dimitris told the BBC he would always be proud of his daughter who "only had love to give".

He said: "We relatives call it a state assassination of our children, and all the people who were aboard that train… in which European country could this be possible?"

Anastasia had been travelling with her 20-year-old twin cousins, Thomi and Chrysa, who were also killed.

Thirty-three of the defendants face up to life in prison if convicted.

Among those in the dock is a station master who failed - along with everyone else - to spot that the two trains had been travelling towards each other on the same line for 10 minutes.

Other railway officials are also on trial along with two Italian former employees of the trains' parent company, Ferrovie dello Stato.

The Tempi disaster provoked widespread anger and protest across Greece.

The railway network had not made use of EU funding intended to improve safety. The head of the European Public Prosecutor's Office, Laura Kovesi, later said the collision could have been avoided if the money had been spent on modernising the signalling system in time.

Trade unions in Greece had warned that some sort of catastrophe on the railway network was waiting to happen.

To the amazement of some, the crash site was bulldozed within days, which experts say destroyed potentially crucial evidence.

This fuelled claims of a cover-up, which authorities have denied.

Despite the public outcry, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was re-elected soon after the disaster and has survived two related no-confidence votes in parliament.

Mitsotakis apologised to the families of the victims in the days after the crash and has asked repeatedly for public patience so that justice can take its course.

To the frustration of many campaigners, no politician is among those on trial.

The case is taking place in a remodelled conference hall that cost hundreds of thousands of euros and Mitsotakis has said it is "among the most functional and modern in Europe".

More than 60,000 pages on evidence is to be presented and 200 lawyers are involved in the case, but proceedings descended into chaos on 23 March when the courtroom became overcrowded.

Survivors of the disaster and family members of the deceased were forced to sit in the seats of the accused, most of whom were absent.

Lawyers argued health and safety regulations were being violated.

Maria Karystianou, who lost her 19-year-old daughter Marthi, said relatives had been "packed like sardines" and the spectacle was "an absolute disgrace".

Across the world on Wednesday night, millions of people will tune in to watch Donald Trump deliver a primetime update on the war in Iran. Many will hope for some insight on how the war ends and what might come after.

The Trump administration has, so far, given little clue as to what prompted the hastily-arranged remarks, or whether they will mark the beginning of the end of the conflict or a potentially bloody escalation.

This ambiguity is, at least partly, by design. Trump often changes course or leaves his thinking a mystery to all but a small inner circle of supporters, which he has acknowledged leaves friend and foe alike wondering about his next move.

The president also knows that the address comes at a critical time in his presidency and amid mounting domestic pressure to find a way out of the conflict.

Poll after poll has shown that Americans have little appetite for a protracted conflict in Iran, particularly if it involves the prospect of US soldiers on Iranian soil.

A Reuters poll released this week, for example, found that two-third of Americans believe the US should work to swiftly wrap up its involvement in the war, even if the administration's stated military objections are not fully accomplished.

Closer to home, many Americans are increasingly wary of higher prices at the petrol pump, which this week crossed the average of $4 a gallon for the first time in years.

For a president who, pre-war, often pointed to lower petrol prices as a mark of success, this trend represents a challenge.

Imran Bayoumi, a geostrategy expert with the Atlantic Council in Washington DC and former policy adviser to the defence department, told the BBC that the "deep domestic unpopularity" of the war, along with the economic fall-out, "both pose a problem ahead of midterm elections" if the war were to drag on.

The US president will also likely present his view on how the conflict - or at least US involvement in it - will come to a close.

This has shifted repeatedly, from initial calls for an "unconditional" Iranian surrender to a potential negotiated agreement. Just yesterday, he abruptly shifted course, saying that the war could end in "two to three" weeks even without any deal.

This morning, he again seemed to shift, posting on Truth Social that Iran's "much less radicalised" president had asked the US for a ceasefire, but that the US would not consider it until the Strait of Hormuz is open.

Until then, Trump promised, the US will be "blasting Iran into oblivion, or as they say, back to the Stone Ages".

According to Bayoumi, what constitutes victory for Trump is "loosely defined", which provides the president with some flexibility.

"Not having clearly defined goals going into the conflict allows Trump to declare victory at any time," he said. "[He] has mentioned that he's halted the nuclear threat from Iran, but it's not clear he actually has."

While on a tactical level the US-Israeli operation has been successful in severely degrading Iran's military, Trump's assertion that the war is winding down soon leaves a very narrow window for more complex military options, such as seizing control of Iran's highly-enriched uranium or opening the Strait.

On the latter point, we are likely to hear the president dismiss the Nato alliance as one that he believes has proven itself unwilling to help advance US interests.

What he says tonight will be carefully scrutinised by US allies and adversaries, some of whom will wonder whether it constitutes a ruse.

In Tehran, the country's remaining leadership will remember that Trump had publicly endorsed negotiations he said were ongoing and positive nearly until the moment US bombers struck Iranian nuclear facilities during Operation Midnight Hammer.

"Now or never," Peter Magyar has been telling Hungarians, in a breathless campaign across the country in the run-up to 12 April elections that opinion polls suggest he can win.

This 45-year-old former Fidesz party insider represents the biggest threat to Viktor Orban's rule in Hungary since he won the first of four consecutive victories in 2010.

Magyar's slogan dates back to a revolutionary poet's 19th Century rallying cry to rise up for the homeland.

After more than 100 campaign stops his message has been shortened to "Now": the words "or never" have been crossed out, adding to the urgency.

He is on course to visit all of Hungary's 106 constituencies, and he has given four, five, even six speeches a day. Magyar has built a powerful support base in more than two years of touring the country, even in the small towns and villages were Fidesz traditionally dominates.

Last year he walked 300km (185 miles) from Budapest to the Romanian border in a campaign to "reunite" the nation, in a bid to bring natural Fidesz voters to his side.

Magyar promises to tackle corruption, improve the economy and he has sought to woo Hungary's disadvantaged Roma community. He has also promised to unlock billions of euros in EU funds, frozen largely because of concerns over Hungary's rule of law.

But Orban has depicted him as a "puppet" of the EU and Ukraine, and he has been wary of getting too close to Brussels and has promised voters "we are the real party of peace".

His self-confidence stems from a deep understanding of the rival he faces.

Until February 2024, Magyar was very much part of the Fidesz family.

He joined the party at university and married one of its rising stars in Judit Varga, with whom he had three children.

Then Magyar stunned Hungarians with a live appearance on a pro-opposition YouTube Channel called Partizán.

In a country of 9.6 million people, a million watched as a solemn Peter Magyar explained why he had had enough of his own party.

"Everyone warned me against it, friends, family people I know," he told presenter Márton Gulyás. "Obviously I've been in this system, in this circle, for a very long time."

Hungary was in the midst of a scandal in which President Katalin Novak had granted a pardon to a man who had helped cover up sexual abuse in a Hungarian state-run children's home.

She resigned, and so did Magyar's ex-wife. Varga had been justice minister and had co-signed the pardon. Two leading Fidesz women were left to carry the can. Varga had been destined for big things in Fidesz, having left her job as minister to spearhead Fidesz European election campaign. That career was over.

Now she was no longer part of the Fidesz machine, Peter Magyar sensed this was his moment.

"I do not want to be part of a system in which the real people in charge hide behind women's skirts," he wrote on Facebook.

Towards the end of his Partizán interview Magyar spoke of his hope for political change, while realising it would be very difficult while Orban was still in power.

The current opposition was totally inept, he complained, so change would have to come from within. But one day there would be change and when it did happen it could be fast, he predicted.

His YouTube appearance went viral.

"It was not a planned move," he later told the BBC. "My mother called me not to go, but I did the opposite. Everybody knew the situation in Hungary - it's not very safe to go against this government."

Peter Magyar's high-profile party marriage had fallen apart in 2023 but he was still an important figure in Fidesz even if he was little known to the wider public.

He was a natural fit for Orban's social conservatives.

The son of two lawyers - his mother was as senior judge - Peter Magyar also counts a former Hungarian president as his godfather, and he was very interested in politics from an early age.

Magyar went to an elite Catholic boys' high school near the centre of Budapest before studying law at a Catholic university in Budapest while Orban was serving his first term as prime minister from 1998-2002.

Magyar joined the party after Orban's election defeat, and the woman he married, Judit Varga, was destined for Fidesz success, becoming justice minister in 2019, nine years after Orban's return to office.

Magyar himself became a diplomat at Hungary's permanent mission in Brussels, later running Orban's team working with the European Parliament. He went on to serve on the boards of state-owned companies.

His disaffection with the party was gradual.

"After a while I became more and more critical, openly and just among friends. I can tell you that the Fidesz we see today is very very different from the one I joined in 2002."

"I was always told by the politicians it's necessary to keep power - I accepted it for a time. But of course the turning point was in 2024," he told the BBC's Budapest correspondent Nick Thorpe.

For a while, Magyar worried if he had made a mistake: "I have three kids, I love them very much and I was very much worried about their future as well."

If the YouTube interview was the turning point, the next big moment came on 15 March 2024, a national holiday marking the anniversary of Hungary's failed revolution in 1848.

While Orban spoke from the steps of Budapest's National Museum, condemning the EU and calling for the "occupation of Brussels", Peter Magyar was addressing an estimated 10,000 people, alleging corruption and mishandling the economy at the top.

He announced he was forming a new party, with only weeks to go before Hungarians voted in European elections.

He doubled down on his accusations of corruption, releasing a secret recording made of a conversation with his ex-wife in 2023 in which she speaks about a high-profile trial.

Judit Varga said she was appalled by Magyar's actions, accusing him of abuse which he denied. He also fell out with a former friend, Orban minister Gergely Gulyás - who said Magyar was "one who first betrays his family, then betrays his country as an agent of Brussels".

Asked what he thought of his challenger, Orban told the BBC: "He left Fidesz, that's all."

By now Varga's ex-husband was making big strides politically and forming new friendships, among them popular actor Ervin Nagy.

Magyar took over a dormant party called Tisza, and won 29.6% of the vote and seven seats in the European Parliament. Tisza was well behind Orban's ruling Fidesz on 44.8%, but Magyar had made a powerful statement.

By autumn 2024, Magyar's new party was ahead of Fidesz in the polls and he tore into Orban's close ties with Russia as they led rival marches marking Hungary's 1956 uprising against the Soviet Union.

While Orban labelled Tisza as "warmongers" indulging in a "Brussels war march", Magyar taunted the prime minster as the man who had in 1989 called for Russian troops to leave Hungary but now trampled on the legacy of 1956 and was "the most loyal ally of the Kremlin".

"Mr Prime Minister, why won't you say 'Russians go home' any more?" he asked.

Magyar is no liberal. He has openly derided the liberal opposition that tried to take Orban on in the past, only to see the Fidesz leader storm to a two-thirds majority it needed to mould the constitution.

One key to his success has been his demolition of the fragmented, old opposition parties. He sees former Socialist leader Ferenc Gyurcsany as no better than Orban.

And he has not been afraid to take on the pro-Orban new outlets that dominate Hungary's media landscape.

Earlier this year he alleged he had been the target of an attempted "Russian-style" smear campaign involving a sex tape.

Journalists had been sent a black-and-white surveillance image apparently showing drugs on a table near a bed. The implication was that more footage was to come and Magyar moved to pre-empt it.

He admitted having consensual sex with an ex-girlfriend but was adamant he had not touched anything on the table and said he had been lured into a "honey-trap" set up by the secret services.

"My conscience is clear," he said, adding later that he had taken a drug test on 22 March to prove he had not consumed any drugs during the past months, and pointing out he had had similar negative tests in the past.

Until now, none of the accusations and barbs directed at Peter Magyar have stuck. As a former Fidesz adviser, he believes this gives him an advantage.

"I know them, I know their tricks. I know they're very much frightened," he said.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, not for Peter Magyar but for the country."

Leaning against a wall near a news-stand in central Rome, Tommaso Silvestri, 65, scans the morning's front pages, their headlines swinging between "apocalypse," "scandal" and "disaster" after Italy's latest footballing collapse.

"We've made a real mess of it," he says, shaking his head. "We had players who couldn't even find the target."

"The golden days of Italian football are well and truly gone."

On Tuesday night in Zenica, four-time World Cup winners Italy failed to qualify for the tournament for a third consecutive time, losing 4-1 on penalties to Bosnia and Herzegovina after being reduced to 10 men before halftime.

Since winning the World Cup in 2006, the Azzurri have largely disappointed in international tournaments - with the exception of their surprise victory at the Euros in 2021 against England at Wembley.

"We are what our results say we are," Silvestri said. "When you shoot and can't even hit the goal, you're not going to go far. When it comes to taking the game home, Italy just doesn't get there anymore."

Last night's defeat drew swift and emotional reactions across Italian politics and society.

"Everything has a limit," lamented Ignazio La Russa, president of the Senate and a senior figure in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy party.

In a post on X, he wrote: "We're not going to the World Cup. We supported them, we hoped, we even railed against a couple of questionable refereeing decisions... but deep down we feared it. In fact, we knew it."

Gomorrah author and anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano also weighed in, pointing to deeper structural failures in Italian football, from governance to youth development.

"Clubs are corrupt and at the mercy of criminal organisations. True laundering vaults. No investment in young players, no care for second-generation talent. It's easier to buy foreign players than to develop new athletes," he said in a post on Instagram.

Across Italy, a legendary football nation with a rich history of producing world-class talent, many are wondering what went wrong. Giovanni Colli, 71, rolling his eyes while sipping an espresso at a café near the Pantheon, says he feels "betrayed."

"Not going to the World Cup three times in a row, how on earth did it happen? What a huge disappointment. Everyone should resign. Give the young players a chance," he says.

Italy's World Cup heartbreak was crystallised in the tear-streaked face of coach Rino Gattuso, who struggled to hold back his emotions after the national team's defeat.

"We don't deserve this, it's not fair. I'm sorry I couldn't make it happen," Gattuso said, eyes glistening, before retreating to the dressing room.

The legendary 2006 World Cup-winning midfielder was only given the job of coach last June.

Despite the disappointment, Gattuso expressed pride in his players: "I'm proud of my boys and what they gave on the pitch."

The match, decided on penalties after Italy were reduced to 10 men following Alessandro Bastoni's early red card, gave a brief moment of hope to Italians with Moise Kean's goal, only for it to end in dismay.

Gattuso admitted the team's shortcomings: "When you have chances and don't take them, football punishes you."

Reflecting on their elimination, he added: "This hurts. We gave everything we could. It's a real shock."

Sport journalist Elisabetta Esposito of La Gazzetta dello Sport told the BBC that Italian football was facing a difficult period - one that would take time to overcome, during which loyalty to individual clubs was outweighing support for the national team.

"The risk is that this third consecutive failure to qualify will deepen young people's disengagement from the Azzurri," she said.

"The disappointment is profound, but the country is not only disappointed but almost disillusioned. It's as if a new generation no longer knows what it means to cheer for their country."

Reflecting on Tuesday's match, Esposito added: "From a technical standpoint, everything went wrong. The team hasn't worked together enough. Rebuilding will require a long-term strategy, chasing immediate wins with rushed decisions won't succeed."

On a busy street in central Rome, 56-year-old Teresa is walking her dog among tourists and commuters rushing to work.

"Oh, we are not going to the World Cup?" she asks. "I don't know much about football, but that's a bit of disaster, isn't it?"

At least four people have been killed by a series of powerful explosions at an ammunitions depot in Burundi's largest city, Bujumbura, local residents have told the BBC.

The blasts erupted late on Tuesday at the facility, located in the suburb of Musaga, due to an electrical fault, an army spokesperson said.

Shrapnel and debris were propelled more than 5km (three miles) and several houses in nearby districts were destroyed by the force of the explosions.

The authorities have not yet provided any casualty figures but family members and eyewitnesses told the BBC of four separate deaths in the city. The AFP news agency quotes security sources as saying that dozens of people had died.

One woman told BBC Gahuza that a relative, who had been detained at Mpimba Central Prison, had died after a bomb hit the facility.

Numerous inmates at the prison, which is located near the ammunitions store, are reported to have been injured.

In the north-eastern neighbourhood of Gisandema, witnesses told BBC Gahuza that a bomb had destroyed a house and killed a domestic worker.

The authorities have said they cannot yet comment on the number of casualties as they are still assessing the extent of the damage.

The explosions sent plumes of smoke rising above the city, sparking panic in the city of more than a million people.

President Evariste Ndayishimiye, in a message on X, expressed his condolences to all Burundians, adding that the authorities are "here to help".

More BBC stories about Burundi:

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A judge in Brazil has blocked a project to build a zipline connecting the famous Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro to a nearby hill, Morro da Urca.

The attraction's developer said it would allow visitors to descend from Sugarloaf Mountain at speeds of almost 100km/h (62mph) via four ziplines covering a distance of 755m (0.47 miles).

The project - which started four years ago - had triggered protests from locals and environmentalists, who argued that the construction work was causing irreparable damage to the Unesco World Heritage Site.

The developer is expected to appeal against the decision.

Gricel Osorio Hor-Meyll, one of the activists who had led the campaign against the zipline told AFP news agency that the ruling was "a huge victory".

Those opposed to the attraction argued that in order to build the platforms needed to access the zipline, the rock on top of Sugarloaf Mountain would have to be excavated.

The company which manages the site said that excavation would be kept to a minimum by using areas with existing construction.

The project had the approval of both Rio City Council and the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Institute (IPHAN).

As part of Tuesday's ruling, the judge ordered that IPHAN and the project's developer pay 30m reals ($5.77m, £4.35m) in damages, stressing the "inestimable value of Sugarloaf Mountain, not only for Brazilians but for people worldwide".

The project has been at the centre of a legal battle for years and construction had been halted on a number of occasions as the company argued its case in court.

In January, construction work restarted after the high court had ruled that stopping would cause more damage than finishing the project at this late stage.

It added that the project was 95% completed.

That decision has now been overturned by Tuesday's ruling.

However, the legal saga is likely to continue with the company behind the project expected to lodge an appeal.

South Africa's army has officially been deployed to several parts of the country to help overwhelmed police clamp down on violent crimes, including illicit mining and gangs.

President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this year announced the deployment of 2,200 soldiers to five of the country's nine provinces hardest hit by criminal activities.

Authorities say the deployment, set to run for a year, is aimed at restoring order to crime-ridden areas, but critics warn that using the military in civilian policing rarely delivers lasting results.

Illicit mining and gang violence are major problems in South Africa, which has one of the world's highest murder rates.

According to the latest crime statistics, covering the period between October and December 2025, around 71 people were killed each day.

An initial group of soldiers was deployed to several parts of Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, in March.

The second, and main cohort, will help with operations in the Eastern Cape, Free State, North West and Western Cape provinces from 1 April for a year.

The BBC spoke to several residents in a Johannesburg suburb, Eldorado Park, a few weeks after soldiers arrived in the area. It is one of the three Johannesburg suburbs targeted in the initial military deployment due to the high levels of gang violence there.

Some of those interviewed expressed scepticism about the soldiers' presence in their neighbourhood.

Leola Davies, a 74-year-old pensioner, described Eldorado Park as a "hell-hole to live in".

"Sodom and Gomorra have nothing on this place. I stay indoors all day because I just don't want to be the next victim. Things are getting worse," she said.

Elviena le Roux, a mother of three, told the BBC she doesn't believe having the military in the area will help, saying it will only "make the violence worse".

Ronald Rabie, 56, said that while seeing the army patrolling the streets makes some difference, as it creates a safer environment for families, this peace is short-lived.

"Once they leave, things return to chaos – they need to be here permanently," the father of three said.

This is not the first time Ramaphosa has deployed troops to help bring down the country's high crime levels.

In 2023, over 3,000 soldiers were roped in to help tackle illicit mining across the country for six months.

In July 2021, the army was also deployed to help quell the deadly riots that had hit the country after the arrest of former South African President Jacob Zuma.

Under South Africa law, soldiers can only arrest civilians under rare circumstances and must then hand the suspect over to the police as soon as possible.

Security experts have repeatedly warned that the military is trained for combat - not for the kind of community-based policing needed to build trust.

And there is also history to contend with. The racist apartheid regime used the military to enforce their rule - a legacy that still shapes how some South Africans view soldiers on their streets today.

Criminologist Guy Lamb told the BBC he was not convinced the deployment would deliver lasting results, saying soldiers are "not designed to engage in policing" but rather to engage in combat and use maximum force.

"There's danger that they will escalate situations or respond very aggressively in... tense situations," he said.

He cited their conduct during the Covid-19 pandemic as an example. The army's deployment during that period, meant to help enforce the curfew and other restrictions, drew sharp criticism as reports came out of soldiers using excessive force, unlawfully detaining and harassing civilians.

Authorities have expressed optimism that the soldiers' presence will make a difference this time around but Lamb is not completely convinced.

He said that without "a dedicated plan... to try and address why crime is so violent in these sort of places", there was a strong likelihood it would flare up again once the soldiers leave.

"So we're likely to see this happening into the foreseeable future, because this plan of addressing what are the root causes of crime [in these] areas is not in place."

Additional reporting by Khanyisile Ngcobo

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A mass robotaxi outage in the Chinese city of Wuhan caused at least a hundred self-driving cars to stop mid-traffic, sparking renewed debate around the safety of driverless vehicles.

Local police said initial findings suggested a "system malfunction" caused multiple vehicles to stop in the middle of the road on Tuesday.

Videos on social media have documented the outage, with one appearing to show it resulting in a highway collision, although police said no injuries had been reported and passengers exited their vehicles safely.

Baidu did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the police statement, posted on social media site Weibo, the cause of the incident is still under further investigation.

Baidu operates its Apollo Go driverless taxi service in dozens of cities across the world, mostly in China.

In December 2025, ride-sharing apps Uber and Lyft announced partnerships with the Chinese technology giant to test its Apollo Go cars on UK roads, aiming to start trials in 2026.

However, both still need approval from regulators before they can begin the pilot programmes.

While driverless tech may be safer on average than human drivers, this incident showed it could "still go wrong in completely new ways," said Jack Stilgoe, professor of science and technology policy at University College London.

"If we're going to make good choices about this technology, we need to understand entirely new types of risk," he told BBC News.

The outage is not the first time self-driving cars have faced technical difficulties.

In December 2025, a large power outage in San Francisco led Waymo taxis to stop working around the city, causing huge traffic jams.

Meanwhile in August 2025, an Apollo Go robotaxi carrying a passenger in Chongqing fell into ​a construction pit.

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Israel has intensified its attacks on Lebanon this week, hitting areas outside of Hezbollah's control on Tuesday.

Strikes without warning hit a vehicle north of Beirut and the Jnah neighbourhood in the heart of the capital.

Attacks also continued in the city's southern suburbs and the country's south, both where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

A building was destroyed on the road to Beirut's airport after an evacuation order, and in the south, a strike hit a health facility, killing a paramedic, according to Lebanon's health ministry.

Israel's military said it had hit Hezbollah infrastructure in Beirut and killed a senior commander and another senior figure from the Iran-backed armed group.

Hezbollah joined the ongoing regional war on 2 March, sending missiles towards Israel, after the US and Israel attacked the armed group's ally Iran on 28 February.

Israeli attacks have kept bombarding Lebanon as its troops have moved into the country's south.

On Tuesday, a vehicle was targeted in the Mansourieh area, a predominantly Christian residential neighbourhood north of Beirut.

Meanwhile, the Jnah neighbourhood in the heart of the capital was attacked after midnight. The Lebanese health ministry said the Al-Zahraa Hospital had received and treated "a number of those injured in the air strike".

Hassan Jalwan, who lives near Jnah, told AFP he heard several "big explosions" overnight.

"Nobody knows what's happening," he said, adding that "displaced people have been sleeping in the open" in the area.

The Dahieh neighbourhood to the south of Beirut, where Hezbollah has a strong presence, continues to be a target. A building was destroyed on Tuesday in Ghobeiry on the road to the airport following an evacuation order.

Also on Tuesday, Lebanon's health ministry said at least seven people had been killed by Israeli strikes in the country's south, including the paramedic.

The number of health workers who have been killed since the start of the war has now reached 53.

Earlier, the Lebanese army cleared its last positions in the south, pulling out from Ain Ibel and Rmeish villages a day after an army checkpoint was hit and a soldier was killed by an Israeli air strike, according to the Lebanese Armed Forces. The Israeli military has not appeared to have commented yet on the reported death.

However, some residents of the villages refuse to leave.

In the predominantly Christian village of Rmeish, Father Najib Al Amil appeared in a video on social media, where he said: "There is grass and soil. We rely on God and will stay in our village. We either all die together and lose our land or live and our villages will live with us."

Israel has announced its decision to control large swathes of land in southern Lebanon - up to the Litani River, about 30km from the border with Israel - to create a buffer security zone.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would keep security control over the territory even after the end of the current war against Hezbollah. The plan has drawn criticism from the UN.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to leave the south, but there are still tens of thousands who have refused to go.

Supply lines to the south have been cut by Israel targeting bridges and infrastructure, making villages in the south uninhabitable.

Katz said more than 600,000 displaced Lebanese residents would be "completely prohibited" from returning to that area until the safety of residents of northern Israel was guaranteed.

The Israeli defence minister also said all houses in villages near the border in Lebanon will be destroyed "according to the model of Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza".

In total, 1,268 people in Lebanon have been killed since the beginning of the attacks, the country's health ministry said on Tuesday.

More than one million people have been displaced, the UN reported.

This is critical time for Lebanon and the residents of the south. Many see Israel's strategy in the south mimicking that of Gaza - destruction, depopulation and occupation.

The government said earlier that this constitutes a violation of the country's sovereignty.

South Lebanon previously lived under Israeli occupation for nearly 18 years, between 1982 and 2000.

Some Lebanese have lived the displacement and loss of land generation after generation.

Many in Lebanon believe that Israel is more powerful than Hezbollah and capable of destroying the south with its advanced missiles and drones. At the same time, if Israel is to stay in the south, Hezbollah is more powerful on the ground and can engage in a guerrilla war to wear out the Israelis and prevent them from staying put.

In short, for the hundreds of thousands who have been forced out of their homes, this war is not ending anytime soon.

A Russian military plane has crashed in the occupied Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, killing 29 people on board, the Russian defence ministry has said.

Wreckage of the An-26 aircraft was found on Tuesday after the plane lost contact with authorities during a "routine flight", according to the ministry.

It blamed a "technical failure" and reported no external damage to the aircraft, implying that missiles, drones or birds are not suspected of causing the crash.

Seven crew members and 23 passengers had been on board as it flew over the Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.

Russia's Investigative Committee confirmed the crash and said it had opened an inquiry into a flight safety violation.

News agency Tass reported that communication with the plane was lost at about 18:00 local time (15:00 GMT) on Tuesday, and the wreckage was found following a search and rescue effort.

Ukraine has not commented on the crash.

The An-26 is a Soviet-era aircraft mainly used in a military capacity to transport heavy cargo and smaller numbers of passengers over a short-to-medium distance. It is manufactured by the Ukrainian aerospace company Antonov.

The planes have been used since the late 1960s, and have been involved in several deadly crashes.

Twenty-six people, mostly cadets, were killed when a Ukrainian An-26 came down in Kharkiv in 2020. The following year, 28 people were killed in a crash in the Russian Far East and in 2022, one person was killed in a crash in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region.

Fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces has been ongoing in Crimea since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion four years ago.

Ukrainian strikes have largely targeted Russian military bases in the peninsula, which borders the partly Russian-occupied Kherson region in southern Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly demanded Russia withdraw from Crimea as part of a ceasefire. In November, a US-backed peace plan proposed Kyiv would cede control of Crimea.

Authorities in the Democratic Republic Congo have declared Wednesday a public holiday after the national football team qualified for their first World Cup in 52 years.

The Leopards reached the finals on Tuesday when Axel Tuanzebe's extra-time goal gave them a 1-0 win over Jamaica in the play-off.

DR Congo's ministry of labour and employment said that as a result of the "historic" victory, the nation could have the day off work to "celebrate in unity, fervour and national pride".

The central African nation has only played in the World Cup once before - in 1974 when the country was named Zaire.

Tuesday's match was an intense affair, with former Manchester United player Tuanzebe only breaking the deadlock in the 100th minute.

Videos of elated football fans celebrating in the capital, Kinshasa, have been circulating on social media. In the neighbourhood of Kingabwa, supporters took to the streets chanting "Christiano Ronaldo is next".

DR Congo's first match will be against Ronaldo's Portugal in the US city of Houston on 17 June.

They will also play Colombia and Uzbekistan in the group stages.

DR Congo are the 10th African nation to reach this year's expanded World Cup finals, hosted by the US, Mexico and Canada.

Additional reporting from Emery Makumeno in Kinshasa

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Divorced couples in Japan are now allowed to share custody of their children, after a landmark revision to Japan's Civil Code took effect on Wednesday.

Before the amendment was approved by parliament in 2024, Japan was the only G7 country that did not recognise the legal concept of joint custody.

Custody was typically granted to one parent - in most cases the mother - who had power to cut off the other parent's access to their children.

Domestic and international criticism has been mounting against the sole custody system in Japan, which critics say led many divorcees to become estranged from their children after losing custody of them.

Previously, divorcing couples in Japan were free to decide custody and visitation arrangements. But if they went to court over it, custody would only be awarded to one parent.

Under the new law, a family court can decide whether to grant sole or joint custody to divorcing couples.

Parents who divorced under the old system are also now eligible to have their custody arrangement reviewed by the family court.

The Civil Code revision also mandates child support payments after divorce, allowing the parent living with the child to claim 20,000 yen (£95; $125) from their ex-spouse every month.

Some are hopeful that the changes will help prevent cases of parental abduction, which have come into the spotlight in recent years - especially after allegations made by foreigners with Japanese ex-spouses.

In 2023, Japanese table tennis star Ai Fukuhara was accused by her Taiwanese ex-husband of abducting their son. He said she had cut off contact with him and refused to bring their son back to Taiwan. The pair later came to a settlement.

During the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, a French father who was based in Japan staged a hunger strike, calling attention to what he said was the kidnapping of his children by his ex-wife.

While some see the joint custody bill as a way to solve such controversies, not everyone is supportive of the revision. Some previously told BBC that they feared joint custody would force women to maintain ties with husbands even in cases of domestic violence.

Under the new law, the court will grant sole custody to divorcing couples if it finds instances of domestic violence or abuse.

Australia's Prime Minister has warned the economic shock from the war involving Iran will "be with us for months", as he delivered a rare televised address to the nation.

Speaking on Wednesday, Anthony Albanese said the conflict had driven the biggest spike in petrol and diesel prices in history, and households were already feeling the strain.

"Australia is not an active participant in this war. But all Australians are paying higher prices because of it," he added.

Addresses of this kind have been used at moments of international importance, last seen in the country during the Covid pandemic and before that the 2008 financial crisis.

Australia is among a host of nations that have seen fuel prices increase sharply since the start of the US-Israel war with Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The near-total blockade of international shipping in the vital waterway - through which around 20% of the world's oil and natural gas flows - has led governments around the world to begin implementing measures to conserve fuel.

Albanese has previously sought to reassure motorists following reports of panic-buying and petrol stations running dry.

During the address, he acknowledged that the "months ahead may not be easy", and said that no government could fully shield Australians from the global pressures.

The Australian government has announced a series of temporary measures aimed at easing immediate cost pressures, including halving fuel excise - a sales tax - and scrapping road user charges for heavy vehicles for three months.

Officials are also seeking to shore up domestic supply and increase fuel imports through regional partners as part of a newly agreed National Fuel Security Plan.

Alongside government action, Albanese urged Australians to limit unnecessary usage of fuel, including switching to public transport where possible to preserve supplies for essential industries.

"You should go about your business and your life, as normal", he said.

"Enjoy your Easter. If you're hitting the road, don't take more fuel than you need - just fill up like you normally would. Think of others in your community, in the bush and in critical industries.

"And over coming weeks, if you can switch to catching the train or bus or tram to work, do so".

The address ended on a note of unity and said the country will "deal with these global challenges, the Australian way".

"Working together - and looking after each other. As we always have".

Tech giant Oracle made "significant" job cuts on Tuesday, according to senior employees posting online, as it makes big investments in artificial intelligence (AI).

Some 10,000 people are believed to have lost their jobs so far, one employee told the BBC, citing a drop in the number of staff active on Oracle's internal messaging system Slack.

Oracle declined to comment, but one senior staff member said online the cuts were not performance based.

Oracle has been using AI tools internally and executives have previously said they are seeing fewer employees able to do more work.

"The use of AI coding tools inside Oracle is enabling smaller engineering teams to deliver more complete solutions to our customers more quickly," Mike Silicia, Oracle's other co-chief executive, said earlier this month.

Silica noted at the time that such AI tools had helped create new ways of generating sales leads and the automatic selling of Oracle services. He said the company recently used AI to build out its new company website.

Oracle is one of the largest tech companies in the world and it offers software and cloud computing infrastructure to other companies.

Larry Ellison, one of the richest people in the world, is Oracle's co-founder, chairman, and chief technology officer.

Michael Shepard, a senior manager, was not affected by the job cuts but wrote on LinkedIn on Tuesday "senior engineers, architects, operations leaders, program managers, and technical specialists" had been let go.

Shepard said the "significant reduction in force" was not based on employee performance.

"The individuals affected were not let go because of anything they did or didn't do," he added.

His was one of dozens of such posts describing the layoffs.

Former Oracle employee Kendall Levin said on LinkedIn her role was "eliminated as part of the company's mass reduction in force".

She added that she remains "a genuine believer" in where the firm is headed.

Several others described receiving early morning emails informing them they were no longer employed and would receive one month of severance pay.

Talk inside Oracle of a significant layoff began earlier this year.

Similar claims of being able to use AI tools to do more worth with fewer employees have come from tech leaders like Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Jack Dorsey of Block.

Both executives have also overseen layoffs at their companies already this year.

However, such leaders in the tech industry have been conducting mass layoffs every year for the last several years. Previous rounds of cuts have not been blamed on AI.

Other tech companies that have cut jobs this year include Amazon, Pinterest and Epic Games.

Stargate Initiative

The job cuts at Oracle come as it has invested heavily in AI, spending both on its own infrastructure and on partnerships with other companies like OpenAI.

It plans to spend at least $50bn (£37.8bn) on infrastructure this year, and it has also raised $50bn in debt in order to "meet demand" for even more AI infrastructure.

Oracle is also part of the Stargate initiative, alongside OpenAI, Softbank and MGX, an AI investment fund backed by US President Donald Trump.

Stargate is a $500bn project to build up data center capacity in the US, which backers say is needed for planned increases in AI processing and power requirements over the next several years.

"Investing in AI infrastructure is capital-intensive, but our operating model is optimized to ensure profitability," Clayton Magouyrk, Oracle's co-chief executive, said earlier this month.

"It's unprecedented to scale a capital-intensive business so quickly."

As the war in the Middle East enters its second month, choking the world's energy supply and sending oil prices soaring, China is trying to step in as a peacemaker.

It comes as President Donald Trump says US military action in Iran could end in "two to three weeks", but there is no clear sense yet of how that will happen or what comes after.

China joins Pakistan, which has emerged as an unlikely mediator in the US-Israel war against Iran. Officials in Beijing and Islamabad have presented a five-point plan with the aim of bringing about a ceasefire and re-opening the vital Strait of Hormuz.

Pakistan, which has been a US ally in the past, seems to have won over Trump to mediate this conflict.

Beijing, however, is entering the fray as a rival to Washington, and ahead of a crucial trade talks between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump next month.

China's backing on this is "very important," says Zhu Yongbiao, a Middle East expert and director of the Centre for Afghanistan Studies at Lanzhou University.

"Morally, politically and diplomatically, China is providing comprehensive support with the hope that Pakistan can play a more distinctive role."

It is also a turnaround for Beijing, whose official response to the war has so far been quite muted. So why is China stepping in now?

The peace plan was drafted after Pakistan's foreign minister flew to Beijing to ask for Chinese support for the country's efforts to negotiate an end to this conflict.

His efforts appear to have worked. China's Foreign Ministry said the two were making "new efforts towards advocating for peace." The joint statement agreed that dialogue and diplomacy were "the only viable option to resolve conflicts", and it called for waterways, including the blockaded strait, to be protected.

It's not just about oil, although that will be a concern. China, the biggest importer of crude oil in the world, has enough stockpiled to get it through the next few months.

Beijing will likely have decided to play the role of peacemaker because the war in Iran jeopardises something Xi covets: stability. China needs a stable global economy as it is heavily reliant on selling goods around the world as it tries to revive an ailing domestic economy.

"If the rest of the world begins to slow down economically because of an energy shock, that's going to be tough for China's factories and exporters," says Matt Pottinger, Chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy's China Program.

"That's why I think when I see China's foreign minister just this week advising Iran that we need to find a way to end this war, I think there's some sincerity there. I think that Beijing is a little bit worried about where this could lead if it turns into a real energy shock that is protracted."

There are already fears that China's industrial heartland, which serves as the factory of the world, will be impacted in the long term if this crisis continues.

Paying a higher price for oil affects the whole supply chain, from the plastics needed to make toys and games, to the raw materials for modern synthetic fabrics, to the hundreds of components that go into phones, electric cars and semiconductors.

The US trade war with China during Trump's first term led many business owners across the country to look for new markets around the world.

As a result, China's exports to the Middle East grew nearly twice as fast as its exports to the rest of the world last year. The region has become the fastest growing market for electric cars, and China is also the largest investor in desalination in the Middle East, where potable water is scarce.

The Power Construction Corporation of China has projects in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Oman and Iraq.

As a result of its economic ties, China has cultivated relationships across the region with both US allies, such as Saudi Arabia, and foes, such as Iran.

Tehran and Beijing have a partnership dating back decades. China is Iran's leading trade partner and it buys around 80% of Iranian oil.

The Chinese government has played the role of peacemaker in the Middle East before, with limited success.

In 2023 it brokered a deal between bitter rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, which lave long stood on opposing sides in proxy wars in the Middle East. They severed ties in 2016 when Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shia Muslim scholar, triggering protests in Iran with crowds attacking its embassy in Tehran.

After China took up the mantel as mediator, the two sides agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations. This was in China's interest. Beijing will have hoped that better diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran would reduce the likelihood for regional tensions.

A year later, Beijing played host to the leaders of 14 Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas. The talks resulted in a national unity government for the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

The declaration was more an expression of intent rather than a comprehensive agreement, but once again, it highlighted the role China can play in the region, and its interest in stability in the Middle East.

China's partnerships across the world come with no security guarantees or military backing.

For Beijing, its economy comes first - and it is this economic interdependence with countries across the region which gives it leverage and helps it project some influence.

"China is cautious about being drawn into broader conflicts," says Zhu. "Its priority, both domestically and in foreign policy, is economic development. There is a broad consensus that China shouldn't recklessly get involved in a war."

But this approach has its limits. China doesn't have the military capabilities in the region to step in even if it wished to do so.

The US has bases in each of the Gulf states. China's closest base is in Djibouti in East Africa and was only established in 2017. It is a logistics hub for anti-piracy operations rather than a base for projecting power.

During the Israel-Iran war in 2025, China stayed on the sidelines and offered minimal support revealing the limitations of its role as a partner.

As for this latest peace plan, both the US and Iran have yet to respond, but pushing forward this initiative allows Xi to play the role of neutral broker and peacemaker - and once again stand in contrast to the leader of the other major superpower, the US.

Beijing's credibility to portray itself as a pragmatic international player comes with plenty of caveats. Its alignment with Russia has consistently sparked questions about its neutrality. Its increasing control of Hong Kong and its repeated threats to take self-governed Taiwan by force if required are still huge concerns.

And China's authoritarian leaders avoid any discussion about human rights, and never condemn regimes for rights abuses or misuse of power. All of this makes it President Xi an unlikely spokesperson for a global rules-based order.

But China is a powerful global player driven by strategic interests. It has shown it has some influence in the Middle East, and it certainly has ambitions to gain more leverage in the future.

Rapper Megan Thee Stallion had to be taken to hospital mid-way through her performance of Moulin Rouge! The Musical, in New York on Tuesday night, her representative has confirmed.

"Megan started feeling very ill and was promptly transported to a local hospital, where her symptoms are currently being evaluated," the spokesperson told US media outlets.

"We will share additional updates as more information becomes available."

The musician, 31, is performing as Zidler – the show's eccentric master of ceremonies – marking her highly anticipated Broadway debut.

Her hair stylist, Kellon Deryck, wrote on X: "Everyone say a prayer for Megan, we are all at the hospital."

Megan Thee Stallion, whose real name is Megan Pete, is scheduled to play Zidler until 17 May, the Moulin Rouge website says. Ahead of her premiere, she expressed excitement for briefly substituting concerts with theatre performances.

'HOTTIES IM ON BROADWAY!!" she wrote on social media after her first performance on 24 March, referencing her fanbase, called the "hotties".

Megan Thee Stallion is best-known for hits including Savage, WAP and Body.

In 2021, she won three Grammy awards for Best Rap Song, Best New Artist and Best Rap Performance. The following year she was nominated for Album of the Year.

Harold Zidler was first played by Danny Burstein in the original Broadway cast of Moulin Rouge, and won a coveted Tony award in 2020 for it. More recently, celebrity drag artist Bob the Drag Queen played Zidler in the musical for eight weeks earlier this year.

The BBC has contacted Megan Thee Stallion's team for comment.

Tirayut Wongsantisuk and his wife moved to Chiang Mai in the 2010s, drawn by the hilly region's cool air and lush greenery.

But worsening air quality in the Thai city, especially during this time of the year, have prompted them to consider relocating for the sake of their children.

Two of their daughters have experienced frequent nosebleeds. "I've been thinking, maybe we really should move during this time... because if something bad happens to our child, we'll feel terrible forever," Tirayut , 41, told the BBC.

Smoke from raging fires have choked parts of northern Thailand this past week, with Chiang Mai ranking among the world's most polluted cities, according to monitoring group IQAir.

A thick blanket of haze hovered over the horizon when BBC Thai visited Tirayut and other families in Chiang Mai, covering what once were mountainous views. There was a persistent burning smell in the air.

Satellite data showed a record number of 4,750 hotspots across Thailand on Tuesday, mostly in forested areas.

As of Wednesday morning, Chiang Mai's PM2.5 level, which refers to the concentration of tiny, hazardous particles smaller than 2.5 micrometres, was classified as "very unhealthy".

The months of November to March mark peak fire season in the region as farmers burn off fields before new seeds are sown. In addition to these are wildfires that break out naturally because of dry conditions in forests and farmlands.

Photographs on local media show mountains engulfed by flames, with some residents likening the blazes to "volcanoes erupting", according to local news outlet Khaosod.

Earlier this week, authorities ordered the closure of parks with high fire risk and warned that anyone found entering those areas to start fires would be arrested immediately.

In Thailand, those convicted of illegal forest burning face up to 20 years in prison and a 2m baht ($61,100; £46,200) fine.

Exposure to haze can cause various health issues, from itchy eyes and nose bleeds to heart attacks.

Tirayut says his oldest daughter, six, "had nosebleeds, a rash, and an allergic reaction in her eyes, to the point where her eyelids were swollen".

Benjamas Jaiparkan has sent her children to the neighbouring Phayao province, where the air quality is better, to temporarily live with relatives. But the 35-year-old is thinking of leaving Chiang Mai permanently.

Benjamas, a public school teacher, is especially worried about her four-year-old son, who started getting nosebleeds last year.

"I feel so sorry for him because I don't know how much more his lungs can take," she said.

Over the years, activists and residents in Thailand have filed lawsuits to demand government action against pollution.

In July 2023, about 1,700 people in Chiang Mai brought a case against former Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and two state agencies for failing to exercise their authority to reduce pollution in the north, which they say was shortening each of their lives by about five years.

In January 2024, a Chiang Mai court ordered the government to come up with an emergency plan to improve air quality within 90 days.

Hazardous haze has also been choking people elsewhere in South East Asia, with the most number of hotspots flaring up across Malaysia and Indonesia in seven years.

Does your house have a concrete roof or a thatched one?

What is your main cereal? Do you have internet access - or just a basic mobile phone? And how many married couples live under your roof?

These are among the 33 questions that more than a billion Indians will be asked as the country launches the world's largest census on Wednesday, marking the first population count in more than 15 years.

The two-phase exercise, billed as the world's most ambitious of its kind, will see more than three million officials spend a year counting every person in India.

India's 16th census - the eighth since independence in 1947 - will also include caste data and is seen as crucial for policy, welfare delivery and political representation in the world's most populous country.

With more than 1.4 billion people, India overtook China in 2023, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

Yet, falling fertility and a median age of 28 mean it remains one of the world's youngest countries, with nearly 70% of its population of working age.

The last census was held in 2011, with the 2021 round delayed by the pandemic and later pushed back further due to administrative and electoral scheduling - the first time the decennial exercise missed its schedule.

The exercise will span 36 states and federally-administered territories, more than 7,000 sub-districts, over 9,700 towns and nearly 640,000 villages, with fieldwork carried out by enumerators and supervisors - typically schoolteachers, government staff and local officials.

For the first time, the census will be conducted digitally, with enumerators using mobile apps to collect and upload data.

Authorities have introduced self-enumeration, letting residents submit details online via a 16-language portal that generates a unique ID for verification by census workers.

There will be two phases of ⁠physical door-to-door surveys.

The first phase, known as the House Listing and Housing Census, will gather information on housing conditions, amenities and household assets.

The second phase - population enumeration - is scheduled for February 2027 and will collect detailed data on demographics, education, migration and fertility.

It will also include caste enumeration, a politically sensitive issue that has long been debated.

The initial rollout will begin in selected regions, including Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Delhi, Goa, Karnataka, Mizoram and Odisha.

In these areas, self-enumeration will run from 1 to 15 April, followed by a house listing and housing survey between 16 April and 15 May.

From its origins as a rudimentary headcount under colonial rule, India's census questionnaire has steadily expanded in scope, mirroring the state's changing priorities.

The first attempt in 1872 contained 17 questions and was essentially a house register - recording who lived where, along with basic markers such as age, religion, caste and occupation.

By 1881, when the first synchronous nationwide census was conducted, the template had stabilised around identity (name, gender, marital status), social markers (caste, religion, language) and rudimentary education and disability categories.

Over the next decades, questions on language, literacy and occupation were refined, adding secondary work and dependency details.

English proficiency - a colonial preoccupation - was one of 16 questions in the 1901 census.

A shift began with the 1941 census, when its 22-question schedule moved from "who you are" to also "how you live".

Fertility, employment status, economic dependency, migration and job search entered the frame, signalling a growing administrative focus on economic behaviour.

After independence, this widened further: the 1951 and 1961 rounds incorporated nationality, displacement (in the shadow of Partition), land ownership and more work categories.

From the 1970s onwards, the census took on a distinctly socio-economic lens.

Migration histories, duration of residence, fertility patterns and detailed employment classifications became standard.

In more recent decades, especially in 2001 and 2011, the census has tracked the modernising economy: commuting patterns, marginal versus main work, education attendance and increasingly detailed disability and fertility data.

That evolving lens is now extending to how households themselves are defined. In the latest census, a couple in a live-in relationship can be recorded as married if they consider their "relationship as a stable union" - signalling a quiet shift towards recognising changing social realities.

But as the scope of data collection has widened, so too have concerns around how such information might be used.

Some analysts say recent efforts to build databases - including the National Population Register (NPR) - and intensive revisions of electoral rolls have sharpened public anxieties around official counting, often linking it to questions of citizenship and inclusion.

"Although the census has nothing to do with citizenship, this can create anxiety, prompting some families to over-report or list absent migrant members during the census to avoid any perceived exclusion," says KS James, an Indian demographer at Princeton University.

Beyond these concerns, there is a more fundamental problem: India has been making policy without a recent population baseline.

In the absence of a fresh census, it has relied on sample surveys - from consumption expenditure to labour force data - with the statistics ministry working to keep them broadly representative.

For economists like Ashwini Deshpande of Ashoka University, the census is essential to update the basic map of India itself - what counts as rural, urban or increasingly peri-urban.

Much of that classification still rests on 2011 data, even though many areas have since transformed, blurring the lines that underpin policy.

"That has real consequences for India's vast welfare and public spending system," says Deshpande.

If eligibility for schemes is based on faulty or outdated data, the number of beneficiaries can be misjudged, distorting delivery. Programmes like the nationwide rural jobs guarantee, for instance, depend on an accurate sense of which areas are still "rural" - a category that may have shifted significantly over 15 years.

Without current data, millions of urban migrants - often in informal jobs and housing - remain poorly captured in policy design, a gap laid bare during the pandemic.

"This census is crucial - it is the definitive snapshot of India, capturing everything from caste and religion to jobs, education and amenities, and offering the most complete picture of how the population lives," says Deshpande.

The crews of two military helicopters seen hovering outside musician Kid Rock's home have been suspended from flight duties, the US Army has said.

The Army is reviewing the circumstances surrounding the mission, Spokesman Maj Montrell Russell told the BBC in a statement, including whether the crews complied with federal flying regulations and aviation safety protocols.

Kid Rock, a supporter of President Donald Trump, posted a video of himself gesturing at the AH-64 Apaches above his swimming pool on Saturday, prompting many to question why the helicopters would visit his home.

Trump, when asked about the incident on Tuesday, said in a joking manner: "Maybe they were trying to defend him."

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said the crews "probably shouldn't have been doing it. You're not supposed to be playing games".

"They like Kid Rock. I like Kid Rock," he added.

The Army confirmed that two of its Apache helicopters from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade at Fort Campbell conducted a flight on 28 March in the Nashville area in the state of Tennessee, where Kid Rock lives and owns two restaurants.

"The Army takes any allegations of unauthorized or unsafe flight operations very seriously and is committed to enforcing standards and holding personnel accountable," Russell said, adding that the crews would be suspended during the ongoing investigation.

Kid Rock told local outlet WKRN-TV on Monday that it is not uncommon for helicopters from the nearby Fort Campbell Army base to fly near his home.

He noted that he has performed for troops at Fort Campbell and overseas.

"I think they know this is a pretty friendly spot," the musician said. "I've talked to some of these pilots. I've told them, 'You guys see me waving when you come by the house?' I'm like, 'You guys are always welcome to cruise by my house, any time.'"

Kid Rock, who also performed at the Republican convention in 2024 insulted California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has feuded with him and Trump, in the caption of the footage he posted.

One clip shows Kid Rock, whose real name is Robert Ritchie, standing poolside next to a replica of the Statue of Liberty, clapping and saluting as the aircraft hovers before flying away.

"God Bless America and all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend her," the caption reads.

Another video shows the Born Free singer pumping his fist before a second gunship appears to fly by his mansion, which he has dubbed the Southern White House.

Two Indonesian peacekeepers were killed on Monday by a "roadside explosion" in southern Lebanon, UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix has said, citing the findings of an initial investigation.

In a separate statement, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) said the explosion was of "unknown origin" and "destroyed" the peacekeepers' vehicle near Bani Hayyan.

A third peacekeeper was "severely" injured in the explosion, and a fourth was hurt, Unifil said.

It was the second such fatal incident in 24 hours. Another peacekeeper - who was also Indonesian - was killed on Sunday when a projectile, also of unknown origin, exploded in Adchit Al Qusayr, southern Lebanon.

Unifil said it had launched investigations to determine what happened in both incidents.

The findings of an "initial" investigation into the incident on Monday "point to a roadside explosion striking the convoy", Lacroix told the UN Security Council earlier.

Their deaths had "most likely" been caused by an IED (improvised explosive device), Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, later said at a briefing.

Speaking about the other incident, on Sunday, Dujarric said it was likely caused by "an explosive that landed in the position that the Indonesians were holding".

The deaths come shortly after the Israeli military announced it would step up ground and air attacks against the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia as well as a political party, has fired rockets into Israel in retaliation for the ongoing US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

In a statement on Telegram, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its own review had concluded that the Bani Hayyan explosion "was not caused by IDF activity".

It went on: "A comprehensive operational examination indicates that no explosive device was placed in the area by IDF troops, and that no IDF troops were present in the area at all."

Separately, the IDF said on Tuesday that four of its soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon. Another soldier was severely wounded and a reservist moderately wounded, the IDF said.

Dujarric, of the UN, said the peacekeepers in Lebanon were "soldiers sent there on behalf of the international community... and everyone needs to ensure that they are protected and never targeted".

He urged Lebanon and Israel to use the Unifil mechanism for dialogue, saying "the bottom line is that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon needs to be respected".

Antara, an Indonesian government-owned news agency, named the soldier killed on Sunday as Chief Private Farizal Rhomadhon. The two soldiers killed on Monday were named as Captain Zulmi Aditya Iskandar and First Sergeant Muhammad Nur Ichwan.

In a statement, Unifil said: "We extend our sincerest condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of those brave peacekeepers who gave their lives in service of peace."

Created by the UN Security Council in 1978, Unifil has since served as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon.

The peacekeeping force patrols the "Blue Line" - the de facto border between Lebanon and Israel, in collaboration with the Lebanese army.

Around 339 peacekeepers have been killed since the mission was established.

Despite a November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, brokered after violence flared between the two over the war in Gaza, Israel has conducted near-daily strikes on Hezbollah targets.

It says the armed group has not abided by the terms of the ceasefire - under which Hezbollah was meant to disarm and leave its positions in the south - and has accused Unifil and the Lebanese army of not doing enough to remove its militants from the region.

Israel says its latest operation in southern Lebanon was intended to ensure the security of communities in the north.

Since the ceasefire began, 1,268 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese health ministry, including 124 children.