'The women's game is growing rapidly'

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The new EU trade chief responsible for post-Brexit negotiations with the UK has told the BBC that a "pan-European [customs] area is something we could consider" in reset discussions due to start this year.

Maros Sefcovic was referring to the idea, pushed by some UK business groups of Britain rejoining the Pan Euro Mediterranean Convention. The PEM allows for manufacturers to use parts or ingredients from dozens of countries, from Iceland to Turkey in tariff-free trade.

The previous Conservative government chose not to pursue PEM as part of it's post-Brexit trade deal, but some businesses say it will help Britain rejoin complex supply chains that have been hit by Brexit customs barriers.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Sefcovic said the idea has not been "precisely formulated" by the UK yet and the "ball is in the UK's court".

The BBC understands that the UK government has begun consultations with business over the benefits of the PEM plan that could help cut down on red tape and improve trade. No final decision has been made yet.

Mr Sefcovic also said that a full scale veterinary agreement that helped reduce frictions on farm and food trade would also require review.

The EU-UK fisheries deal expires next year. "A solution for fisheries is very important for the EU, again, we communicated this on multiple occasions".

Single market treatment for UK food and farm exports would mean "we would have to have the same rules and we have to upgrade them at the same time, we call it dynamic alignment".

Mr Sefcovic said that he was surprised that the Commission's offer on youth exchanges had been "spun". "It's not freedom of movement. It's a bridge building proposal. We do not want to look like the demanders here, because we believe this is good for the UK," he said

The Trade Commissioner said UK-EU relations were "definitely" in a better placeand his UK counterpart Nick Thomas-Symonds was "on speed dial".

The Prime Minister will attend a defence and security focussed EU summit next month.

He acknowledged that the EU needed to be "extremely cautious and responsible" in addressing trade relationships with Donald Trump's America, but that he was willing to negotiate. He said while the EU did have a surplus in goods such as cars, the US had a surplus in services

People who lost thousands of pounds after the collapse of a pre-paid funeral firm have hit out at the "tiny" sums they are set to be repaid after three years of waiting.

Some 46,000 people invested in a fund to cover the future cost of their funerals with Safe Hands Plans Ltd before the company fell into administration in 2022.

The administrator for Safe Hands, FRP Advisory, has said planholders could receive initial repayments - of between 8.5p and 12.5p for every pound they lost - by the end of June.

"Getting some money back is better than nothing - but it's a slap in the face," Denise Hudson, who shelled out nearly £2,500, said.

The 58-year-old, from Derby, paid for a Safe Hands plan in 2017 after seeing the firm advertised on television, and said she thought her investment was "foolproof".

She is among planholders who are owed an estimated £70.6m in total.

A major fraud investigation into the dealings of Safe Hands, and its parent company, SHP Capital Holdings Ltd, was launched in October 2023.

In October last year, in an update to creditors, FRP Advisory said there would be repayments.

Then, on 3 January, administrators confirmed planholders will get some money back - adding what people will get back is above the rate of 1p to 10p per each pound lost in typical administration cases.

But Ms Hudson said: "We paid in full. We need the full money back.

"We put our trust in people and we have all been let down.

"Everyone will still lose an awful lot."

'Just anger is left'

Ms Hudson said she had to deal with the death of her mother Daisy and brother Rupert in 2024 as she was trying to get her money back.

"[Mum] had a brilliant funeral plan and that saved us a lot of time, everything was set out," she said.

"I thought that is what would happen with me.

"Nobody would have had to go to any trouble, everything would have been sorted out - but that wasn't to be."

She accused Safe Hands's bosses of doing "an underhanded, ruthless thing".

"It's appalling they could take people's hard-earned savings," she added.

"I did think I had done everything right. I did do my homework.

"I felt embarrassed more than anything else - that I'd handed my money over and lost it. Now just anger is left."

Since July 2022, pre-paid funeral providers have required approval to operate from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Safe Hands was one of dozens of companies operating in the previously unregulated sector, and collapsed four months before the measures came in.

In 2017, Sandie and David Beatty, from Bingham in Nottinghamshire, paid Safe Hands £3,395 to cover the funeral costs for the first of them to die.

Mrs Beatty, 73, said they felt "angry, disappointed, sick" when the firm collapsed.

"Compared to what we put in, what we'll get back is a tiny amount," she said.

"When we get it, it might be enough to buy a pizza, and we'll have a little party.

"For us, it's not about the money now. We just want someone to be held to account.

"Our money went somewhere."

Mr Beatty, 80, said: "There's nothing we can do about it. We want justice but realistically we won't get our money back.

"People have been taken for a ride and that stings."

Aimee Geary, 50, from Anstey in Leicestershire, paid £3,000 to Safe Hands in 2017.

The NHS worker said she took out the plan because she thought funeral costs would rise in the future.

"I felt quite happy," Ms Geary said. "Other people thought I was young [to be planning my funeral].

"They thought I was mad. I'm very organised, and I didn't want anyone else to have a job when I'm not here.

"It's sad that you try to plan something and it has been taken away from you."

She was told, in 2022, she would probably get £1 out of every £100 back.

"I'm disappointed," she added. "Somebody else has to now find the money and arrange my funeral when I'm not here because I would never buy another [funeral plan]."

Heather Mould, 77, and her partner Mike took out Safe Hands plans in 2017 - each paying £3,500.

Mrs Mould, from Allington in Lincolnshire, said: "It was quite a loss when you are on a pension.

"We were told we might get back 10p in the pound. It's something, but it's not a lot.

"I felt let down but we were pleased to find out before either of us had died so we could arrange something else."

FRP told the BBC the Safe Hands administration case had been "complex" and had required extensive legal action both in the UK and abroad - including in the Cayman Islands - to trace funds that are due to creditors.

'Significant loss'

It said it had so far recovered £11.4m for planholders and was focused on getting the best return for them.

FRP said it was "working towards" making an initial distribution to planholders before the end of the second financial quarter in June 2025, and had ringfenced a minimum of £1.6m to that end.

"While we understand the current estimated return of 8.5p to 12.5p in the pound still represents a significant loss to planholders, it's important to note this exceeds the typical returns in administration cases, where unsecured creditors usually receive between 1p to 10p in the pound," a spokesperson said.

The administrator said its continuing efforts were running parallel to the ongoing Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation.

The spokesperson added: "We fully understand and deeply sympathise with the distress Safe Hands planholders are experiencing.

"The loss of funeral plan savings has created significant worry for many families, and we take our responsibility to recover funds for planholders extremely seriously."

The SFO confirmed it was progressing an active criminal investigation into alleged fraud by Safe Hands Plans Limited and its parent company SHP Capital Holdings Limited.

A spokesperson said: "We recognise there is significant public interest in this case and are committed to sharing further information as soon as possible."

Both former owners of Safe Hands - David Milson and Richard Philip Wells - were contacted for comment by the BBC but have not responded.

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A new fast-moving wildfire has erupted in Los Angeles County, triggering evacuations in a region already reeling from the most destructive fires in its history.

The Hughes fire ignited north of the city on Wednesday afternoon, near Castaic Lake in a mountainous area that borders several residential areas and schools.

The out-of-control blaze has grown to more than 5,000 acres in just two hours fuelled by strong winds. No homes or businesses have been damaged.

The new fire is burning north of the two mammoth blazes - which are still burning - that destroyed multiple neighbourhoods in Los Angeles County earlier this month.

Two other fires have ignited further south near San Diego and Oceanside, officials said.

They are both smaller - 85 acres for the Lilac fire near Oceanside and 3.9 acres for the Bernardo fire - but were burning in populated areas. Fire crews appeared to have a handle on both of the blazes and evacuation orders had been mostly lifted and forward progress stopped.

In Los Angeles County, local news showed those near the Hughes fire hosing down their homes and yards with water and others rushing to evacuate neighbourhoods.

Orange flames lined the mountains as aircraft dropped water and flame retardant.

The region is once again under a red flag warning, which cautions of a high fire risk due to strong winds and dry, low-humid conditions.

Winds in the area are blowing around 20 to 30 mph but are forecast to strengthen throughout the day, which could allow the blaze to grow and make it harder for air crews to continue their battle from above.

One woman who evacuated her home told NBC 4 that she was stuck on Interstate 5, a major highway that cuts through the area and runs north and south through California.

"It looked like a cloud, but as you got close, it looked like we were driving into hell," she said of the dark smoke and red flames she saw. "It was pretty terrifying to be honest with you."

She acknowledged being on edge after watching the Palisades and Eaton fires burn nearby, killing at least 28 people and decimating more than 10,000 homes and businesses.

"I don't know why they keep popping up," she said. "It's definitely a scary time in this area."

"We're killing a priest!" says Minah, dressed head to toe in a dark green cloak. "I know. Oh my God! Lord have mercy," giggles Charlotte in a soft Welsh accent. Only Charlotte, a contestant in gameshow The Traitors, isn't really Welsh and their "victim" was pretending not to be a priest until episode five.

There's another twist, too - because although Minah thinks she and Charlotte are a rock-solid team, Charlotte seems to be preparing to throw Minah under a bus.

The UK, it appears, can't get enough of betrayal, backstabbing and all-out duplicity. The first episode of the latest series of The Traitors - the finale of which airs on Friday - has been has been watched by over 10m viewers to date.

In the latest series a group of 25 strangers set out to unmask so-called traitors in their midst to win a prize fund of up to £120,000; the traitors, in turn, "murder" the others (known as faithfuls) each episode, in their attempt to keep the winnings for themselves.

It's an engaging concept. But could the popularity of this show, based on deception and double-dealing, tell us something fundamental about the contemporary British psyche?

Last year Dr David Shepherd, a criminologist at the University of Portsmouth, led a study on the UK public's tendency towards dishonesty - it suggested that the nation was becoming a more dishonest place where disapproval of various underhand activities had fallen noticeably.

He argues that this showed that "overall, there has been a decline in honesty" across the UK.

Is the UK becoming more dishonest?

This isn't the first time that it has been suggested that the UK is becoming more dishonest. The British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, an annual statistical study that has been running since 1983, also offered some insight.

Given a scenario in which unemployed person on benefits took a casual job that he did not declare, leaving him £500 in pocket, some 53% of respondents in 2022 believed that this was wrong - down from 68% in 2016.

Asked about a scenario where the sum was £3,000, the percentage who said it was wrong fell from 80% to 66% in the same period.

Wilf Webster, 32, a former charity worker who was a contestant on the first UK series of the show - and won popularity among fellow contestants despite being cast in the role of a traitor - says that he has observed an increased prevalence of lying in day-to-day life.

"We all have this little bit of deceitfulness inside us," he argues. "It's become a lot more acceptable. If you tell your friends, 'Oh I've just pulled a sickie,' people laugh about it."

The average Briton lies 2.08 times a day, according to a study from 2014. But there is no recent equivalent study to compare this to. And dishonesty can be very difficult to measure. After all, people might not want to admit too readily to lying.

"Where you're dealing with deceitfulness or lying, or things that are potentially morally wrong, it's a little bit more difficult than subjects that are less contentious to get people's unequivocal view," says Alex Scholes, research director at the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen).

Measuring serious dishonesty

Nonetheless, in 2023 Dr Shepherd and his team attempted to quantify the extent to which the UK's tendency towards dishonesty had changed over time.

They revisited a study published in 2011 about the UK public's attitudes towards various acts that could be considered errant or dishonest. These included keeping excess change that was given mistakenly in a shop; lying in one's own interests; and committing benefit fraud.

The original respondents had been asked to what extent these behaviours could be justified on a scale of one to four and given an "integrity score". Twelve years on, Dr Shepherd's researchers repeated the exercise with 1,000 British adults.

They found that when it came to relatively minor dishonest acts or those which were not illegal - such as lying in one's own interests, dodging a fare, falsifying a CV, or having an affair while married - the proportion who said they were never acceptable was much the same in 2023 as in 2011.

However, when it came to more serious dishonesty of a criminal nature, the 2023 survey observed there had been a noticeable fall in the number of people who said particular acts were never acceptable. These included buying stolen goods, accepting a bribe and falsifying a benefits claim. The latter saw the biggest decline, dropping 18 percentage points from 85% to 67%.

And this large drop in the British public's disapproval of these more serious acts was steep enough for Dr Shepherd to conclude that honesty across the UK had declined overall.

"We can see a change in dishonest disposition over that decade or so," he says.

Old vs young, men vs women

Dr Shepherd believes it may be relevant that the shift in attitudes towards more serious acts of dishonesty was driven principally by "young people, especially younger men".

"Younger people are more dishonest, and males are more dishonest than females", he adds, based on the findings of his study.

As for older age groups, the scores of those aged 55 and above had not noticeably shifted. "The dishonesty of younger men has shifted more than any other age category," he argues.

In all, 28% of males aged 18-25 were found to have "high-honesty dispositions", compared with 98% of females aged 66 and above.

"In other words, dishonesty is prevalent amongst 72% of young men compared to 2% of older women," concludes Dr Shepherd.

From politicians to social media

Given this sharp age divide, Dr Shepherd speculates that social media may have had a role in encouraging toxic behaviour, offline. But in his view that is not the only factor.

"Look at the bad behaviour of some corporations. Look at the bad behaviour of our politicians, even sports people - and how those behaviours are lauded in certain circles."

Wilf Webster agrees. "Years ago, we'd look up to politicians," he says. But high-profile scandals have, in his view, led more people to conclude "if they're doing it, I'm doing it too."

"I remember looking at politicians very differently [after leaving The Traitors," he continues. "I remember thinking, when they go into Parliament it's as though they put on these green cloaks. It's like being in the castle, you don't know who to trust and whether people are telling the truth."

But whatever the underlying causes, any rise in deceitfulness would be a troubling one. A modern market economy like the UK depends on a basic assumption of truthfulness, points out Dr David Hugh-Jones, a social scientist formerly based at the University of East Anglia.

"If you have an advanced capitalist society, it kind of runs on trust to a certain degree. You can't have a stock market without a basic level of trust in the accounts of the companies you're investing in," he says.

"If I take my car into the mechanics, I've got to trust that he's not just going to bash it with his spanner and charge me a grand."

A troubling trend for society

There are certain reasons to be cautious about the extent to which we can say with confidence that the UK has become more dishonest.

Take the BSA figures showing a decline in the proportion of people who think £500 worth of benefit fraud is wrong. This is a "notable trend", says Alex Scholes of NatCen, which carries out the survey, but he argues that there are certain caveats.

Firstly, defrauding £500 from the system in 2016 was a different matter to doing the same in 2022, simply because of the rate of inflation.

There are also indications that attitudes have become "a bit more sympathetic" towards benefit claimants in general, Mr Scholes says - and in turn, this, rather than a rise in dishonesty, could be driving the change in responses to the £500 question.

Paul Whiteley, emeritus professor of government at the University of Essex, who authored the 2011 study that Dr Shepherd and his team later revisited, points to a separate research project about values and beliefs, conducted by social scientists, which found much less of a change over the years in answers to certain questions about honesty. This included some scenarios also involving government benefits.

That separate study also indicates that "cheating on taxes and accepting bribes has become more unacceptable", argues Prof Whiteley. "So there isn't really a uniform trend."

How Japan, China and Turkey fared

There is at least some evidence, too, to suggest that the UK is fairly honest compared with other countries.

In 2016, a study compared the honesty of people in 15 different countries by asking more than 1,500 participants to take part in two tests - a coin flip and an online quiz - after which it was possible to determine if they had cheated.

With the coin flip, the estimated rate of dishonesty ranged from 3.4% in the UK to 70% in China. In the quiz, Japanese respondents were the most honest, with the UK in second place and those from Turkey coming last.

The person behind the study - Dr David Hugh-Jones, a social scientist then based at the University of East Anglia - determined that Britons, like most other nationalities, typically think their fellow countryfolk are more dishonest than they actually are. "People tend to be very pessimistic about the honesty of their own country," he says.

"If you ask them 'Will people in your country be honest?' they are usually rather pessimistic but they naively believe that people in other countries are much better."

So even if the British are becoming more dishonest, they might not necessarily be any worse than their neighbours.

A more dishonest future?

As for the future, Prof Whiteley speculates the UK may be about to become somewhat less honest. He puts this down to crime incidents rising 10% in the year to June 2024, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.

This, he says, is "going to make people less trusting and possibly more dishonest".

If he's correct, there will be plenty of worthy candidates for future series of The Traitors.

The show has some echoes of a party game called Mafia - also known as Werewolf - which is generally acknowledged to have been invented in the 1980s by Dmitry Davidoff at Moscow State University's psychology department. Invented amid the paranoia and mistrust of the crumbling Soviet system, the game quickly became a huge hit.

So while it's tempting to look at what The Traitors phenomenon tells us about the state of contemporary society, there's another possible explanation - that it speaks to an eternal truth about humans' disposition to dishonesty down the ages.

As Wilf Webster puts it: "We all have an instinct to be deceitful.

"Probably not one person I've spoken to in my life has never told a lie for their own benefit."

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'The women's game is growing rapidly'

Major infrastructure projects like nuclear plants, train lines and wind farms will be built faster under new planning rules, the government has pledged.

Prime Minster Sir Keir Starmer said Nimby (Not in My Back Yard) "blockers" of major infrastructure projects will have fewer chances "to frustrate growth" through repeated legal challenges.

Currently, infrastructure schemes can be challenged in the courts up to three times - ministers intend to reduce that to once in most cases.

Tory shadow levelling up secretary Kevin Hollinrake accused Labour of "taking forward Conservative initiatives" but warned their efforts would fail unless they stopped "blocking our attempts to cut EU legacy red tape".

Existing rules open up projects approved by elected officials to years of delays and hundreds of millions of pounds of additional costs, the government said.

Opponents of schemes currently have three opportunities to secure permission for a judicial review of a major infrastructure projects in England and Wales: writing to the High Court, attending an oral hearing and appealing to the Court of Appeal.

Under the government's proposals, the written stage would be scrapped - meaning campaigners will have to convince a judge in person.

Additionally, any challenges deemed "totally without merit" by a High Court judge would be unable to go over their heads to the Court of Appeal.

Scotland has its own legal and Judicial Review system.

Ministers said overhauling the rules, via the upcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill, would send a strong signal to global firms looking to do business - that the UK is a "great place to invest".

Sir Keir said it was time to fix "a broken system that has slowed down our progress as a nation".

"For too long, blockers have had the upper hand in legal challenges – using our court processes to frustrate growth," he said.

"We're putting an end to this challenge culture by taking on the Nimbys and a broken system that has slowed down our progress as a nation."

Labour has placed planning reforms at the heart of its mission to drive economic growth, also promising to deliver 1.5 million new homes in five years.

During the election Sir Keir's election pledged to back "builders, not blockers" and promised Labour would prioritise infrastructure to boost growth and expand green energy.

The government has promised to make 150 major infrastructure project decisions by the next election.

The latest announcement follows a review by planning lawyer Lord Charles Banner, who recommended streamlining the judicial review process so claimants had "fewer bites of the cherry" when seeking permission to bring a case.

The review found that around a third of applications for judicial review of major projects were refused permission to proceed entirely, although it was not clear how many had been deemed "totally without merit".

Welcoming the changes Lord Banner said "reducing the number of permission attempts to one for truly hopeless cases should weed out the worst offenders".

"I look forward to seeing these changes help to deliver a step change in the pace of infrastructure delivery in the months and years ahead."

According to the government, more than half of decisions on nationally significant infrastructure projects are taken to court - causing an average delay of 18 months and adding millions to costs.

Officials pointed to cases including the approval of Sizewell C in Suffolk, where campaigners spent 16 months seeking permission for a judicial review despite their case being described as "unarguable" at every stage.

However, only some of the grounds in the Sizewell C case were deemed "totally without merit", meaning the remaining grounds could still have been reconsidered by the Court of Appeal.

In response to the government's proposals Hollinrake said: "While we welcome the government taking forward Conservative initiatives to streamline the planning system, Labour's blocking of our efforts to cut EU legacy red tape, such as nutrient neutrality, so they can align more closely with the European Union will hold Britain back."

The world's largest iceberg is on a collision course with a remote British island, potentially putting penguins and seals in danger.

The iceberg is spinning northwards from Antarctica towards South Georgia, a rugged British territory and wildlife haven, where it could ground and smash into pieces. It is currently 173 miles (280km) away.

Countless birds and seals died on South Georgia's icy coves and beaches when past giant icebergs stopped them feeding.

"Icebergs are inherently dangerous. I would be extraordinarily happy if it just completely missed us," sea captain Simon Wallace tells BBC News, speaking from the South Georgia government vessel Pharos.

Around the world a group of scientists, sailors and fishermen are anxiously checking satellite pictures to monitor the daily movements of this queen of icebergs.

It is known as A23a and is one of the world's oldest.

It calved, or broke off, from the Filchner Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 1986 but got stuck on the seafloor and then trapped in an ocean vortex.

Finally, in December, it broke free and is now on its final journey, speeding into oblivion.

The warmer waters north of Antarctica are melting and weakening its vast cliffs that tower up to 1,312ft (400m), taller than the Shard in London.

It once measured 3,900 sq km, but the latest satellite pictures show it is slowly decaying. It is now around 3,500 sq km, roughly the size of the English county of Cornwall.

And large slabs of ice are breaking off, plunging into the waters around its edges.

A23a could break into vast segments any day, which may then hang around for years, like floating cities of ice cruising uncontrollably around South Georgia.

This isn't the first huge iceberg to threaten South Georgia and Sandwich Islands.

In 2004 one called A38 grounded on its continental shelf, leaving dead penguin chicks and seal pups on beaches as massive ice chunks blocked their access to feeding grounds.

The territory is home to precious colonies of King Emperor penguins and millions of elephant and fur seals.

"South Georgia sits in iceberg alley so impacts are to be expected for both fisheries and wildlife, and both have a great capacity to adapt," says Mark Belchier, a marine ecologist who advises the South Georgia government.

Sailors and fisherman say icebergs are an increasing problem. In 2023 one called A76 gave them a scare when it came close to grounding.

"Chunks of it were tipping up, so they looked like great ice towers, an ice city on the horizon," says Mr Belchier, who saw the iceberg while at sea.

Those slabs are still lingering around the islands today.

"It is in bits from the size of several Wembley stadiums down to pieces the size of your desk," says Andrew Newman from Argos Froyanes, a fishing company that works in South Georgia.

"Those pieces basically cover the island - we have to work our way through it," says Captain Wallace.

The sailors on his ship must be constantly vigilant. "We have searchlights on all night to try to see ice - it can come from nowhere," he explains.

A76 was a "gamechanger", according to Mr Newman, with "huge impact on our operations and on keeping our vessel and crew safe".

All three men describe a rapidly changing environment, with glacial retreat visible year-to-year, and volatile levels of sea ice.

Climate change is unlikely to have been behind the birth of A23a because it calved so long ago, before much of the impacts of rising temperatures that we are now seeing.

But giant icebergs are part of our future. As Antarctica becomes more unstable with warmer ocean and air temperatures, more vast pieces of the ice sheets will break away.

Before its time comes to an end though, A23a has left a parting gift for scientists.

A team with the British Antarctic Survey on the Sir David Attenborough research vessel found themselves close to A23a in 2023.

The scientists scrambled to exploit the rare opportunity to investigate what mega icebergs do to the environment.

The ship sailed into a crack in the iceberg's gigantic walls, and PhD researcher Laura Taylor collected precious water samples 400m away from its cliffs.

"I saw a massive wall of ice way higher than me, as far as I could see. It has different colours in different places. Chunks were falling off - it was quite magnificent," she explains from her lab in Cambridge where she is now analysing the samples.

Her work looks at what the impact the melt water is having on the carbon cycle in the southern ocean.

"This isn't just water like we drink. It's full of nutrients and chemicals, as well as tiny animals like phytoplankton frozen inside," Ms Taylor says.

As it melts, the iceberg releases those elements into the water, changing the physics and chemistry of the ocean.

That could store more carbon deep in the ocean, as the particles sink from the surface. That would naturally lock away some of the planet's carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change.

Icebergs are notoriously unpredictable and no-one knows what exactly it will do next.

But soon the behemoth should appear, looming on the islands' horizons, as big as the territory itself.

When Zhang Junjie was 17 he decided to protest outside his university about rules made by China's government. Within days he had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital and treated for schizophrenia.

Junjie is one of dozens of people identified by the BBC who were hospitalised after protesting or complaining to the authorities.

Many people we spoke to were given anti-psychotic drugs, and in some cases electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), without their consent.

There have been reports for decades that hospitalisation was being used in China as a way of detaining dissenting citizens without involving the courts. However, the BBC has found that an issue which legislation sought to resolve, has recently made a comeback.

Junjie says he was restrained and beaten by hospital staff before being forced to take medication.

His ordeal began in 2022, after he protested against China's harsh lockdown policies. He says his professors spotted him after just five minutes and contacted his father, who took him back to the family home. He says his father called the police, and the next day - on his 18th birthday - two men drove him to what they claimed was a Covid test centre, but was actually a hospital.

"The doctors told me I had a very serious mental disease… Then they tied me to a bed. The nurses and doctors repeatedly told me, because of my views on the party and the government, then I must be mentally ill. It was terrifying," he told the BBC World Service. He was there for 12 days.

Junjie believes his father felt forced to hand him over to the authorities because he worked for the local government.

Just over a month after being discharged, Junjie was once again arrested. Defying a fireworks ban at Chinese New Year (a measure brought in to fight air pollution) he had made a video of himself setting them off. Someone uploaded it online and police managed to link it to Junjie.

He was accused of "picking quarrels and troublemaking" - a charge frequently used to silence criticism of the Chinese government. Junjie says he was forcibly hospitalised again for more than two months.

After being discharged, Junjie was prescribed anti-psychotic drugs. We have seen the prescription - it was for Aripiprazole, used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

"Taking the medicine made me feel like my brain was quite a mess," he says, adding that police would come to his house to check he had taken it.

Fearing a third hospitalisation, Junjie decided to leave China. He told his parents he was returning to university to pack up his room - but, in fact, he fled to New Zealand.

He didn't say goodbye to family or friends.

Junjie is one of 59 people who the BBC has confirmed - either by speaking to them or their relatives, or by going through court documents - have been hospitalised on mental health grounds after protesting or challenging the authorities.

The issue has been acknowledged by China's government - the country's 2013 Mental Health Law aimed to stop this abuse, making it illegal to treat someone who is not mentally unwell. It also explicitly states psychiatric admission must be voluntary unless the patient is a danger to themselves or others.

In fact, the number of people detained in mental health hospitals against their will has recently surged, a leading Chinese lawyer told the BBC World Service. Huang Xuetao, who was involved in drafting the law, blames a weakening of civil society and a lack of checks and balances.

"I have come across lots of cases like this. The police want power while avoiding responsibility," he says. "Anyone who knows the shortcomings of this system can abuse it."

An activist called Jie Lijian told us he had been treated for mental illness without his consent in 2018.

Lijian says he was arrested for attending a protest demanding better pay at a factory. He says police interrogated him for three days before taking him to a psychiatric hospital.

Like Junjie, Lijian says he was prescribed anti-psychotic drugs that impaired his critical thinking.

After a week in the hospital, he says he refused any more medication. After fighting with staff, and being told he was causing trouble, Lijian was sent for ECT - a therapy which involves passing electric currents through a patient's brain.

"The pain was from head to toe. My whole body felt like it wasn't my own. It was really painful. Electric shock on. Then off. Electric shock on. Then off. I fainted several times. I felt like I was dying," he says.

He says he was discharged after 52 days. He now has a part-time job in Los Angeles and is seeking asylum in the US.

Or watch on YouTube outside the UK.

In 2019, the year after Lijian says he was hospitalised, the Chinese Medical Doctor Association updated its ECT guidelines, stating it should only ever be administered with consent, and under general anaesthetic.

We wanted to find out more about the doctors' involvement in such cases.

Speaking to foreign media such as the BBC without permission could get them into trouble, so our only option was to go undercover.

We booked phone consultations with doctors working at four hospitals which, according to our evidence, are involved with forced hospitalisations.

We used an invented story about a relative who had been hospitalised for posting anti-government comments online, and asked five doctors if they had ever come across cases of patients being sent in by police.

Four confirmed they had.

"The psychiatric department has a type of admission called 'troublemakers'," one doctor told us.

Another doctor, from the hospital where Junjie was held, appears to confirm his story that police continued surveillance of patients once discharged.

"The police will check up on you at home to make sure you take your medicine. If you don't take it you might break the law again," they said.

We approached the hospital in question for comment but it did not respond.

We have been given access to the medical records of democracy activist Song Zaimin, hospitalised for a fifth time last year, which makes it clear how closely political views appear to be tied to a psychiatric diagnosis.

"Today, he was… talking a lot, speaking incoherently, and criticising the Communist Party. Therefore, he was sent to our hospital for inpatient treatment by the police, doctors, and his local residents' committee. This was an involuntary hospitalisation," it says.

We asked Professor Thomas G Schulze, president-elect of the World Psychiatric Association, to review these notes. He replied:

"For what is described here, no-one should be involuntarily admitted and treated against his will. It reeks of political abuse."

Between 2013 and 2017, more than 200 people reported they had been wrongfully hospitalised by the authorities, according to a group of citizen journalists in China who documented abuses of the Mental Health Law.

Their reporting ended in 2017, because the group's founder was arrested and subsequently jailed.

For victims seeking justice, the legal system appears stacked against them.

A man we are calling Mr Li, who was hospitalised in 2023 after protesting against the local police, tried to take legal action against the authorities for his incarceration.

Unlike Junjie, doctors told Mr Li he wasn't ill but then the police arranged an external psychiatrist to assess him, who diagnosed him with bipolar disorder, and he was held for 45 days.

Once released, he decided to challenge the diagnosis.

"If I don't sue the police it's like I accept being mentally ill. This will have a big impact on my future and my freedom because police can use it as a reason to lock me up any time," he says.

In China, the records of anyone ever diagnosed with a serious mental health disorder could be shared with the police, and even local residents' committees.

But Mr Li was not successful - the courts rejected his appeal.

"We hear our leaders talking about the rule of law," he told us. "We never dreamed one day we could be locked up in a mental hospital."

The BBC has found 112 people listed on the official website for Chinese court decisions who, between 2013 and 2024, attempted to take legal action against police, local governments or hospitals for such treatment.

Some 40% of these plaintiffs had been involved in complaints about the authorities. Only two won their cases.

And the site appears to be censored - five other cases we have investigated are missing from the database.

The issue is that the police enjoy "considerable discretion" in dealing with "troublemakers," according to Nicola MacBean from The Rights Practice, a human rights organisation in London.

"Sending someone to a psychiatric hospital, bypassing procedures, is too easy and too useful a tool for the local authorities."

Eyes are now on the fate of vlogger Li Yixue, who accused a police officer of sexual assault. Yixue is said to have recently been hospitalised for a second time after her social media posts talking about the experience went viral. It is reported she is now under surveillance at a hotel.

We put the findings of our investigation to the UK's Chinese embassy. It said last year the Chinese Communist Party "reaffirmed" that it must "improve the mechanisms" around the law, which it says "explicitly prohibits unlawful detention and other methods of illegally depriving or restricting citizens' personal freedom".

Additional reporting by Georgina Lam and Betty Knight

On 14 October 2023, an unusual event was held in Ukraine's most prestigious venue, Palace Ukraine in Kyiv.

Anton Tymoshenko became the first Ukrainian stand-up comedian to give a solo performance there.

"I grew up in a village with fewer people than Palace Ukraine can hold," he said after the concert. "So many people had told me: It's not going to happen... stand-up comedy has not reached that level."

It has now, to a large extent because of the full-scale invasion launched by Russia.

The invasion turned many Ukrainians away from the previously popular and lavishly promoted Russian acts and triggered a renewed interest in Ukrainian culture.

Key Ukrainian comedians say they are now making jokes to help the public deal with the grim reality of war and also help the army by raising funds.

"Stand-up comedy is a budget version of psychotherapy," Anton Tymoshenko tells the BBC.

"I like to relieve social tension with my jokes. When that happens, that's the best thing."

Another popular performer, Nastya Zukhvala, says Russia's full-scale invasion in February gave stand-up comedy in Ukraine "a boost," albeit for darker reasons.

"The demand for comedy looks totally natural to me now because comedy supports and unites.

"It can also make reality look less catastrophic. It is a tool which can help us process this stream of depressing information," she tells me.

"To stay optimistic or even sane, we've got no other choice."

So what are the jokes that are making Ukrainians laugh?

This kind of humour is grim, says comedian Hanna Kochehura, but making fun of the danger makes it easier to cope with.

"It looks even darker from abroad, and it's clear why. Anyone who's in Ukraine knows that there are no safe places here," she says.

"You never know if this air raid is going to be your last. You don't know if a Shahed drone is going to target your house or your family's house.

"Naturally, all our themes are related to the war. Because it's our life now. Stand-up comedy is a frank genre where comedians speak about their own experiences or thoughts," Ms Kochehura says.

Here's an example - a joke from Anton Tymoshenko's performance at Palace Ukraine:

"I never worried about a nuclear attack because I know it would mean death for rich residents of Kyiv. I live on the outskirts - but the nukes will hit central parts. Before fallout reaches me, it will have to make two changes on the metro.

"More realistically, I'll get killed by Iranian Shahed drones. The sad thing is - did you hear the noise they make? They sound very demotivating, like the cheapest kind of death."

"People can laugh at the news," Anton tells me.

"If we're not allowed to use [Western] missiles against targets in Russia — yes, that is funny because it is absurd. I build upon this absurd fact, and it becomes funny.

"Of course, Ukrainians find it funny."

Western allies were initially reluctant to allow Ukraine to use their missiles against targets in Russia for fear of escalation. But the permission was granted after months of pleading by Kyiv: first shorter-range weapons in May 2024, then long-range missiles in November.

Joking about the war is fraught with pitfalls.

Anton Tymoshenko says he is trying not to "trigger" his audiences or add to the trauma from which they may already be suffering.

"Stand-up comedy in wartime is the most difficult type. Making jokes without offending anyone is possible to do, but that would be like joking in a vacuum," he says.

But, it is usually possible to see where the line lies according to Nastya Zukhvala:

"I feel what other Ukrainians feel. If I find something sad or tragic, I don't see any need to turn it into stand-up comedy."

There's also a very practical side to stand-up comedy in Ukraine - helping its army.

"Almost all of the comedians I know have been helping the armed forces. All of us are involved in raising funds [for the Ukrainian army]. We hold charity shows and many perform in front of the military," says Hanna Kochehura.

Some, like Nastya Zukhvala's husband Serhiy Lipko, a comedian himself, are in the army.

"Culture, humour or psychology - that's all fine and well, but everything must be of practical use to the military. When so many missiles are on the way to hit you, you're not as interested in talking about art alone," says Mr Tymoshenko.

"My main task is holding concerts so I can raise funds for them."

He says he has donated more than 30m hryvnyas (£580,000; $710,000) since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A song recorded for Tina Turner's blockbuster album Private Dancer, that was presumed lost, has been rediscovered and will receive its first play on BBC Radio 2 later.

Hot For You, Baby, was cut at Capitol Studios in Hollywood and originally intended to be an album track.

But it was ultimately jettisoned in favour of era-defining pop hits such What's Love Got To Do With It, Better Be Good To Me and the album's title track.

Presumed missing, the master tape was recently rediscovered as her record label compiled a 40th anniversary re-release of Private Dancer.

An up-tempo rocker, full of showboating guitar chords and an extremely 1980s cowbell, Hot For You, Baby is a prime example of Turner's raspy, physical style of soul.

The track will receive its first play on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show on Thursday, between 08:30 and 09:00 GMT.

Produced by John Grant, the record executive who masterminded her mid-career comeback, it was written by Australian musicians George Young and Harry Vanda.

It had already been recorded once by Scottish-Australian singer John Paul Young, the voice behind disco classic Love Is In The Air.

However, his version largely flew under the radar when it was released in 1979.

Private Dancer, released in May 1984, launched an unprecedented second act in Tina Turner's career.

She had escaped an abusive marriage to musician Ike Turner at the end of the 1970s, but the divorce left her penniless, living off food stamps and playing ill-conceived cabaret shows to pay her debts.

The music industry had largely written her off - but in England, where pop was in thrall to American R&B, she still had some heavyweight fans.

In 1981, Rod Stewart invited Turner to play with him on Saturday Night Live; and the Rolling Stones asked her to be part of their US tour. More importantly, perhaps, David Bowie told Capitol Records that Turner was his favourite singer.

A landmark album

But the turning point came when she hooked up with British producers Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, of the band Heaven 17, to record a synth-pop version of the Temptations' 1970 hit Ball of Confusion.

A huge hit in Europe, its success persuaded Capitol to let her record an album, but they hardly threw their weight behind it.

The budget only paid for two weeks in the studio, and many of the songs Turner recorded were other artists' cast-offs (both Cliff Richard and Bucks Fizz had turned down What's Love Got To Do With It).

But she used her time wisely - recording all but one of Private Dancer's songs in the UK with five different British production teams.

With the country in the grips of new wave and the new romantics, Turner was steered away from raw, fiery soul that first made her famous. But somehow, her electrifying vocals were a perfect fit for the chilly, programmed grooves she was given.

"Turner seems to completely understand the touch that each of these songs needed," wrote Debby Miller, in a contemporaneous review of Private Dancer for Rolling Stone magazine.

In the New York Times, Stephen Holden described the record as "a landmark, not only in the career of the 45-year-old singer, who has been recording since the late 1950s, but in the evolution of pop-soul music itself".

The album went on to sell more than 10 million copies, and earned three Grammys, including record of the year for What's Love Got To Do With It.

Turner also performed the song on the live TV broadcast, wowing audiences with her vocals despite fighting a bad case of the flu.

A support slot on Lionel Richie's US tour in 1984 reminded audiences of her ability to tear the roof off any venue she set foot in.

By 1985, Turner was one of the world's biggest acts in an era of stadium superstars like Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince.

The decision to withhold Hot For You, Baby from the original tracklist of Private Dancer makes sense. It sounds a little cheesy next to the sultry, sophisticated material that eventually populated the record.

But fans will welcome the chance to hear Turner let rip, back in her prime, with a promise to "love you all night long".

Mark Goodier, who is currently covering the Radio 2 breakfast show, said: "To have something new to hear from Tina Turner is a treat for fans of all generations and a reminder of her unique talent.

"I'm lucky enough to have both interviewed Tina and seen her perform live. She was an outrageously good performer and at the same time a remarkable graceful lady, whose every note was shaped by her incredible life."

As well as being released as a single, the track will feature on a new five-disc deluxe edition of Private Dancer, which is due for release in March.

The collection will also feature B-sides, remixes and live tracks, as well as a film of Turner playing Birmingham's NEC Arena in March 1985, featuring guest appearances by David Bowie and Bryan Adams.

Turner died in 2023 at the age of 83. No cause of death was given, but she was known to be struggling with a kidney disease, intestinal cancer and other illnesses.

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Sandra said she used to depend on her winter fuel payment, but when it became means tested her pension pushed her £20 a week over the threshold so she lost it.

"I've had to take out a credit card, overdraft and a credit account to be able to pay for things this winter," she told the BBC.

Sandra is one of the 11 million pensioners who lost the payments, worth up to £300, just as temperatures dropped.

The government said it was committed to supporting pensioners but charity Age UK said it had seen a 60% increase in calls to its advice line during the worst of the cold snap.

"I have £4 in my [bank] account currently," said Sandra, 66, who lives alone in County Durham. "I'm paying off my credit [card] account month by month, something that is a direct result of losing the winter fuel allowance.

"Psychologically, it makes you feel a bit of a failure.

"We're still in the middle of winter, so I'm just hoping and praying we don't get another cold snap because I don't have anywhere to go if I can't pay my bills."

The winter fuel payment is a lump sum of £200 a year for pensioners under 80, increasing to £300 for over 80s. It is paid in November or December and used go to all pensioners regardless of their income.

Last year the government announced it would be restricted to those who qualify for pension credit and other means-tested benefits.

Age UK said the number of calls to its Advice Line increased by 50% in the first full week of January, rising to 60% the week after.

A spokesperson said: "The cold weather is one of the biggest topics callers are worried about at the moment.

"Even though the date to claim pension credit by, to be awarded the winter fuel payment this year has now passed, we are still seeing enquiries for benefit checks due to the increased worry of meeting the cost of living."

'A lot of money to lose'

Earlier this month, temperatures dropped so low in the small village of Sedbergh in Cumbria that cold weather payments were triggered.

The one-off £25 sum is paid to those on benefits during prolonged cold weather.

Next door neighbours Rosemary, 93, and Marjorie, 92, have known each other since primary school. Neither of them qualified for winter fuel allowance or cold weather payments this year.

"It's a lot of money to lose," Rosemary said. "It makes a big difference. You shouldn't rely on it but you did rely on it, I though 'oh well I can get a bit of extra food I can get another bag of coal in'."

Marjorie's home is old and poorly insulated. "I find it difficult to heat my home because I've got all outside walls and they're stone," she said.

Data from the Department for Levelling Up shows that the area to the north of Sedberg is the worst in England for energy efficient homes.

17.7% of homes in and around Penrith have the lowest EPC ratings – F or G.

'They're not turning the heating on'

At the Grange Community Centre in Blackpool, Rachel Denby advises pensioners on how to make their homes more energy efficient and keep their bills down.

"An elderly person might pay all the bills, stay on top of payments and not be in any debt so from the outside it doesn't look like there's an issue, but in reality they're not eating or they're not turning the heating on," she told the BBC.

The government said it did not want to see anyone suffer this winter and was committed to supporting pensioners with millions set to see their state pension rise in April.

It's been three days since President Donald Trump took office. And he has come out swinging.

On the 2024 campaign trail, he promised to bring rapid and sweeping change to American government and society if he were re-elected.

Some of his policies and reforms will take time – and congressional legislation – to enact. Other moves might be blocked by the courts.

In the first days of his presidency, however, Trump has already made waves with dozens of unilateral orders and actions that represent a substantial expansion of White House power.

That has been cause for concern among some. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, publicly asked Trump during a prayer service on Tuesday at the National Cathedral, to "have mercy upon people in our country who are scared now".

But for many of his supporters - so far - it looks like he has delivered on many of his promises.

"He signed all the executive orders that he told us he was going to do," said 68-year-old Rick Frazier, a loyal Trump supporter from Ohio who has attended more than 80 of his rallies. "I'm satisfied with all that."

Nowhere has this display of presidential authority been more prominent than on the topic of immigration, which polls suggest was a significant concern for many voters.

Just hours after taking office, Trump declared an emergency at the US-Mexico border, allowing him to deploy more US military personnel to the area.

He effectively closed the country to all new asylum-seekers and suspended already approved resettlement flights for refugees.

Mr Frazier's daughter died of a heroin overdose last year. He told the BBC that the southern border was his top issue in the 2024 election.

"In my opinion had the border been closed, my daughter would not have had access to the compound that killed her," he said.

Trump has also ordered authorities to stop granting automatic citizenship to the children of undocumented migrants born on American soil – setting up a lengthy legal battle over what had previously been viewed by courts as a constitutional guarantee.

One step that Trump repeatedly promised – but has yet to show signs of implementing – is mass deportations of migrants who crossed illegally into the US, something he said would start on day one of his presidency.

While some Trump officials have said the deportation process has begun, there have been no signs yet of the kind of law-enforcement raids or other expansive actions that would be necessary to detain and remove the millions of undocumented migrants who currently reside in the US.

Bryan Lanza, who previously served as a senior adviser to Trump, told the BBC's Americast podcast that the total number of deportations is less important than the message it sends.

"It's never about a number," he said. "It's more about the PR."

If you deport a million undocumented migrants, he said, than the rest will start wondering if they're next – and take steps to return to their home countries.

"Illegals aren't welcomed here," he said. "Every other country is allowed to say that. Why shouldn't we?"

• LIVE: Follow BBC's live coverage
• ANALYSIS: Six Trump executive orders to watch
• IN DEPTH: Relationship with Europe this time may be very different
• PARDONS: Jan 6 defendants get nearly everything they wanted

Immigration was a major issue that helped propel Trump to the White House, but in terms of voter concerns it was still dwarfed by worries about the economy and inflation.

So far the president has focused on energy policy - tying it directly to the high prices that millions of Americans have struggled with.

"When energy comes down, the prices of food and the prices of everything else come down," Trump said on Tuesday evening. "Energy is the big baby."

To that end, Trump declared a "national energy emergency" and rescinded Biden-era protections for fossil fuel extraction in Alaska and in American coastal waters. He also started the process of withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement, which commits nations to slashing emissions to try to avoid the most extreme effects of climate change.

Even optimistic estimates suggest these moves will take time to show any results, but Aziz Wehbey, a Syrian-American Republican voter in Allentown, Pennsylvania, said he was pleased by what he had seen so far.

"That's a good sign for the economy, and for those of us who run businesses," he said. "The economy is starting to move and not be frozen. Everyone will notice that."

One topic that Trump has mentioned, but hasn't acted on yet, is tariffs. He had pledged to slap them on some of America's biggest trade partners on day one to protect American industries and generate new revenue to fund his favoured government programmes.

Economists, including some in the Trump administration, have cautioned that tariffs could drive up consumer costs and hurt American businesses that rely on imports in their supply chain. It could be a reason why Trump, with his eye on the stock market and economic growth, is treading more carefully when it comes to trade.

Many of President Trump's other early executive actions focused on reshaping the vast federal workforce.

He has reinstated rules that allow him to fire senior-level civil servants, suspended new regulations and hiring, and ordered all federal employees involved in DEI - diversity, equity and inclusion - programmes to be put on paid leave.

He also renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and instructed the US government to only recognise two sexes, male and female, in all official documents and forms. The changes, while controversial, have also been extremely popular with Trump's base – a sign that the president will continue to lean in to contentious cultural issues.

Trump's second term is just getting started. He promises more significant presidential actions in the days ahead – moves that will almost certainly test the limits of presidential power.

But the big splash, the noise, the drama, says former adviser Lanza, isn't a problem for the president. It's his strength.

"Where we are in modern politics today, which people haven't figured out, is that from our standpoint, to communicate to voters are supportive of our issues, controversy enhances the message," he said.

How do you get your message heard amid the overwhelming din of modern politics?

"It's the controversy."

Understand that, and the strategy behind Trump's frenetic first days in office begins to come into focus.

With additional reporting from Bernd Debusmann Jr and Madeline Halpert

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

A new fast-moving wildfire has erupted in Los Angeles County, triggering evacuations in a region already reeling from the most destructive fires in its history.

The Hughes fire ignited north of the city on Wednesday afternoon, near Castaic Lake in a mountainous area that borders several residential areas and schools.

The out-of-control blaze has grown to more than 5,000 acres in just two hours fuelled by strong winds. No homes or businesses have been damaged.

The new fire is burning north of the two mammoth blazes - which are still burning - that destroyed multiple neighbourhoods in Los Angeles County earlier this month.

Two other fires have ignited further south near San Diego and Oceanside, officials said.

They are both smaller - 85 acres for the Lilac fire near Oceanside and 3.9 acres for the Bernardo fire - but were burning in populated areas. Fire crews appeared to have a handle on both of the blazes and evacuation orders had been mostly lifted and forward progress stopped.

In Los Angeles County, local news showed those near the Hughes fire hosing down their homes and yards with water and others rushing to evacuate neighbourhoods.

Orange flames lined the mountains as aircraft dropped water and flame retardant.

The region is once again under a red flag warning, which cautions of a high fire risk due to strong winds and dry, low-humid conditions.

Winds in the area are blowing around 20 to 30 mph but are forecast to strengthen throughout the day, which could allow the blaze to grow and make it harder for air crews to continue their battle from above.

One woman who evacuated her home told NBC 4 that she was stuck on Interstate 5, a major highway that cuts through the area and runs north and south through California.

"It looked like a cloud, but as you got close, it looked like we were driving into hell," she said of the dark smoke and red flames she saw. "It was pretty terrifying to be honest with you."

She acknowledged being on edge after watching the Palisades and Eaton fires burn nearby, killing at least 28 people and decimating more than 10,000 homes and businesses.

"I don't know why they keep popping up," she said. "It's definitely a scary time in this area."

US President Donald Trump has warned he will impose high tariffs on Russian goods and impose further sanctions if it fails to end the war in Ukraine.

Writing on his social media platform Truth Social, he said that by pushing to settle the war he was doing Russia, and its President Vladimir Putin, a "very big favour".

Trump has previously said he would negotiate a settlement to the conflict, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, in a single day.

Russia has not yet responded to the remarks, but senior officials have said in recent days that there is a small window of opportunity for Moscow to deal with the new US administration.

Putin has said repeatedly that he is prepared to negotiate an end to the war, but that Ukraine would have to accept the reality of Russian territorial gains, which are currently about 20% of its land. Kyiv meanwhile says it is not prepared to give up its territory.

On Tuesday Trump told a news conference he would be talking to Putin "very soon" and it "sounds likely" that he would apply more sanctions if the Russian leader did not come to the table.

But in his Truth Social post on Wednesday, he went further: "I'm going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR," he wrote.

"Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT'S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don't make a 'deal', and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries."

Continuing, he said: "Let's get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way - and the easy way is always better. It's time to "MAKE A DEAL"."

• LIVE: Follow BBC's live coverage
• ANALYSIS: Six Trump executive orders to watch
• IN DEPTH: Relationship with Europe this time may be very different
• PARDONS: Jan 6 defendants get nearly everything they wanted

Russia's deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy earlier told Reuters news agency that the Kremlin would need to know what Trump wants in a deal to stop the war before the country moves forward.

Meanwhile Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the World Economic Forum on Tuesday that at least 200,000 peacekeepers would be needed under any agreement.

And he told Bloomberg that any peacekeeping force for his country would have to include US troops to pose a realistic deterrent to Russia.

"It can't be without the United States... Even if some European friends think it can be, no it will not be," he said, adding that no-one else would risk such a move without the US.

While Ukraine's leaders might appreciate this tougher-talking Trump - they have always said Putin only understands strength - the initial reaction in Kyiv to the US president's comments suggest that it is actions people are waiting for, not words.

Trump has not specified where more economic penalties might be aimed, or when. Russian imports to the US have plummeted since 2022 and there are all sorts of heavy restrictions already in place.

Currently, the main Russian exports to the US are phosphate-based fertilisers and platinum.

On social media, there was a generally scathing response from Ukrainians. Many suggested that more sanctions were a weak reply to Russian aggression. But the biggest question for most is what Putin is actually open to discussing with Ukraine at any peace talks.

In Moscow meanwhile, some people are seeing signs that the Kremlin may be readying Russians to accept less than the "victory" once envisaged, which included tanks rolling all the way west to the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa.

TV editor Margarita Simonyan, who is stridently pro-Putin, has begun talking of "realistic" conditions for ending the war, which she suggests could include halting the fighting along the current frontline.

That would mean the four Ukrainian regions that Putin illegally pronounced as Russian territory more than two years ago, like Zaporizhzhia, still being partially controlled by Kyiv.

Russian hardliners, the so-called "Z" bloggers, are furious at such "defeatism".

In his social media post, Trump also couched his threat of tariffs and tighter sanctions in words of "love" for the Russian people and highlighted his respect for Soviet losses in World War Two – a near-sacred topic for Putin - though Trump massively overestimated the numbers and appeared to think the USSR was Russia alone. In reality, millions of Ukrainians and other Soviet citizens also lost their lives.

That said, the man who previously said he could "understand" Russia's concerns about Ukraine joining Nato - which for Kyiv is tantamount to saying Putin was provoked - does seem to be shifting his tone.

Trump's position matters. But after 11 years of war with Russia and a history of poor peace deals, Ukrainians are not inclined to be hopeful.

During his inaugural address, President Donald Trump doubled down on his assertion that China runs the Panama Canal.

"China is operating the Panama Canal and we didn't give it to China. We gave it to Panama and we're taking it back," he said.

The 51-mile (82km) Panama Canal cuts across the Central American nation and is the main link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Up to 14,000 ships use it each year as a shortcut to a journey which, before the canal was built, would have taken them on a lengthy and costly trip around the tip of South America.

What has Trump said about the canal?

The mention of Panama in his inaugural speech is not the first time he has focused on the Central American nation and its transoceanic canal.

On Christmas Day, Trump posted on social media that the "wonderful soldiers of China" were "lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal" - a claim which was swiftly denied by officials in Panama City and Beijing.

At the time, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino described the claim as "nonsense", stressing that there was "absolutely no Chinese interference" in the canal.

Trump has also threatened to take the canal back by force, citing "exorbitant" fees being allegedly charged for US vessels to pass through it - another claim rejected by Panamanian authorities.

Following Trump's inauguration address, President Mulino again stressed that there was "no presence of any nation in the world that interferes with our administration" of the Panama Canal.

The strategic waterway, which handles about 5% of global maritime trade volume, is operated by the Panama Canal Authority, an agency of the Panamanian government, not Chinese soldiers.

However, Mr Trump's inaccurate claim reflects the concerns of some US officials over China's significant investments in the canal and its surrounding infrastructure.

What is the history of Panama Canal?

Historically, the US played a pivotal role in the construction and administration of the passage, which links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

After a failed attempt by the French to build it, the US secured the rights to undertake the project. The canal's construction was completed in 1914.

It remained under US control until 1977, when then President Jimmy Carter signed a treaty to gradually hand it over to Panama, which Trump has referred to as "foolish".

Since 1999, the Panama Canal Authority has held exclusive control over the operations of the waterway.

The treaties signed by both the US and Panama stipulated that it shall remain permanently neutral, but the US reserves the right to defend any threat to the canal's neutrality using military force under this deal.

What is China's role in the operations of the canal?

There is no public evidence to suggest that the Chinese government exercises control over the canal, or its military. However, Chinese companies have a significant presence there.

From October 2023 to September 2024, China accounted for 21.4% of the cargo volume transiting the Panama Canal, making it the second-largest user after the US.

In recent years, China has also invested heavily in ports and terminals near the canal.

Two of the five ports adjacent to the canal, Balboa and Cristóbal, which sit on the Pacific and Atlantic sides respectively, have been operated by a subsidiary of Hutchison Port Holdings since 1997.

The company is a subsidiary of the publicly listed CK Hutchison Holdings, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate founded by Hong Kong businessman Li Ka-shing. It has port operations in 24 countries, including the UK.

It has port operations in 24 countries, including the UK.

Although it is not state-owned by China, says Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, there have been concerns in Washington over how much control Beijing would be able to exert over the company.

A wealth of potentially useful strategic information on ships passing through the waterway flows through these ports.

"There is an increasing geopolitical tension of economic nature between the US and China," Mr Berg says. "That kind of information regarding cargo would be very useful in the event of a supply chain war."

CK Hutchison did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.

The bids to operate those ports faced almost no competition, according to Andrew Thomas, a professor at the University of Akron who has written a book on the canal. "The US at the time didn't really care about these ports and Hutchison faced no objection," he says.

Chinese companies, both private and state-owned, have also strengthened their presence in Panama through billions of dollars in investments, including a cruise terminal and a bridge to be built over the canal.

This "package of Chinese activities", as described by Mr Thomas, might have prompted Trump's assertion that the canal is "owned" by China, but operation of those ports does not equate to ownership, he stresses.

Beijing has repeatedly said that China's ties with Latin America are characterised by "equality, mutual benefit, innovation, openness and benefits for the people".

What are China's broader interests in Panama?

Panama's strategic location means China has been vying to increase its influence in the country for years and expand its footprint on a continent that has traditionally been considered the "backyard" of the US.

In 2017, Panama broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan and established formal relations with China – a huge win for Chinese diplomacy.

Months later, Panama became the first Latin American country to join China's signature Belt and Road Initiative, a trillion-dollar global infrastructure and investment initiative.

The Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras followed suit and also severed ties with Taipei in favour of Beijing.

China has slowly expanded its soft power by opening its first Confucius Institute in the country and providing a grant to build a railway. Chinese companies have also sponsored "media training" for Panamanian journalists.

The fire that killed at least 76 people at the Grand Kartal Hotel in the early hours of Monday is one of the deadliest disasters of its kind in Turkish history.

Some survivors have said they did not hear an alarm and experts have told the BBC they would not have expected such a high death toll in a hotel where fire protection systems were working properly.

What went wrong?

The 12-storey hotel at Turkey's popular Kartalkaya ski resort hosts tens of thousands of visitors every year, so Turks understandably want to know how such a terrible tragedy could have happened at the start of a two-week school holiday.

The interior minister said the fire started at 03:27 (00:27 GMT) in the restaurant area on the fourth floor and firefighters arrived within 45 minutes.

Some survivors have described smelling smoke as much as an hour earlier.

Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said the hotel had a fire competence certificate "issued by the fire department".

But that has been challenged by local mayor Tanju Ozcan, who said the fire department had not issued a positive report since 2007.

Some survivors say they heard no alarm, while there have been claims of inadequacies in the hotel's fire extinguishing systems.

"My wife smelled the fire," said Atakan Yelkovan, who said he was staying on the third floor of the hotel.

"We went down earlier than others. The alarm did not go off... It took about an hour to an hour-ad-a-half for the fire brigade to come. In the meantime, the fourth and fifth floors were burning. People on the upper floors were screaming."

Some guests on higher floors tried to escape with their bedding and some jumped to their deaths.

Eylem Senturk said the fire alarm did not go off until she was out of the building. Her husband had to jump off the hotel porch because of the smoke: "We are very lucky to have survived."

The BBC has tried to contact the hotel's managers regarding these allegations but has so far received no response.

Nine people, including the hotel owner, have been detained as part of the Turkish investigation.

Hotel managers have issued a statement saying they mourn the losses and are co-operating fully with the authorities.

What should have happened?

In such a big building where fire systems are fully operational, experts say fire detectors are expected to respond to a fire within seconds and send an alert to a fire control dashboard.

"In a good business, there should be someone in charge of this panel 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Kazim Beceren, president of the Turkish Fire Protection and Education Foundation, told the BBC.

The death toll is also extremely high, which raises further questions.

"There will always be fires, but we would not expect so many people to die in this type of building," said Prof Sevket Ozgur Atayilmaz, head of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Yildiz Technical University, who has worked on fire safety planning.

"If the structure is designed correctly for fire, if there are escape routes, and if the smoke is evacuated correctly, it is possible to overcome the fire without loss of life."

The interior minister said there were two fire escapes, but there are indications they were not of a good standard.

Were fire safety measures in place?

An official from the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) in Bolu, Erol Percin, said the way the fire had spread suggested that fire warning, detection and extinguishing systems might not have been present.

He said the building's exterior wooden facade should have been 100% fire-resistant, but that did not appear to be the case.

The head of the Turkish Fire Protection and Education Foundation told the BBC that the size of the fire suggested that "the fire system either does not exist or was not designed in accordance with the standards".

There were 238 people staying in the Grand Kartal Hotel at the time.

Kazim Beceren said fire safety systems were designed with the aim of taking three minutes to evacuate each floor - and a facility with more than 200 people could be evacuated in 15 to 30 minutes under ideal conditions.

When an alarm goes off, the person in charge of the fire control dashboard is expected to check the location, according to the head of the Turkish Fire Protection and Education Foundation.

If there is no indication of a false alarm or if a second detector sends a warning, fire alarms are then normally activated throughout the building.

In a properly installed system, people are then directed by announcement to the nearest fire exits, with flashing lights for people who are hearing-impaired or audible warnings for those sleeping.

As fires can spread very quickly, sprinkler systems are seen as highly important for intervention at an early stage.

So too is a back-up power source. According to fire protection regulations, signs pointing to emergency exits and lights showing the paths to these exits have to work for one to three hours, even if there is a power outage.

The engineers' and architects' union in Bolu said in a statement that "an automatic sprinkler system is mandatory" in buildings of this size.

"The photos on the hotel's website show that the automatic sprinkler system, which was supposed to be installed in 2008, was not installed. Because of this failure, the fire spread rapidly and there were casualties."

BBC Turkish has not been able to independently confirm the allegations about either the wooden cladding on the building or the hotel's fire extinguishing system.

Who checked the hotel's fire safety?

One of the big questions is whether the hotel's fire systems were properly inspected.

Bolu Mayor Tanju Ozcan said the ministry of tourism was responsible as the hotel was beyond the boundary of his town. Erol Percin agreed.

The mayor said that the last time Bolu's municipality had given a report stating the hotel was fireproof was in 2007, and there had been no such checks since then.

However, Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said the hotel did have a fire competence certificate "issued by the fire department" and inspections were down to them.

There have also been calls for relatively old structures to come under scrutiny because of changing legislation.

"Places should stop operating if they do not comply with current standards, in crowded places such as hotels, residences, nursing homes or kindergartens," says Prof Atayilmaz of Yildiz Technical University.

The Royal Navy has been monitoring a Russian spy ship after it entered British waters, the defence secretary has told MPs.

John Healey said the vessel, Yantar, was used for gathering intelligence and mapping the UK's critical underwater infrastructure.

He said the incident was "another example of growing Russian aggression".

Healey added: "I also wanted President Putin to hear this message: we see you, we know what you're doing and we will not shy away from robust action to protect this country."

Russia describes Yantar as an oceanic research vessel and it is operated by the country's Ministry of Defence.

Western nations have often tracked the ship operating in European waters and they suspect part of its mission has been to map undersea cables.

They also believe Russia has been stepping up this activity since it launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine.

As well as surveillance equipment the ship can operate submersible drones capable of reaching the ocean floor.

Undersea infrastructure is crucial for energy supply through power cables and pipelines, while more than 95% of internet traffic is also secured via undersea cables.

Healey said Yantar was currently in the North Sea, after passing through UK waters and being detected 45 miles off the British coast in the English Channel on Monday.

"For the last two days the Royal Navy has deployed HMS Somerset and HMS Tyne to monitor the vessel every minute through our waters," he said.

"I changed the Royal Navy's rules of engagement so that our warships can get closer and better track the Yantar. So far, the ship has complied with international rules of navigation."

The defence secretary said it was the second time the vessel had entered British waters in recent months, with Yantar also detected "loitering over UK critical undersea infrastructure" in November.

He said an Royal Navy submarine had been authorised to surface close to Yantar "strictly as a deterrent measure" and "to make clear that we have been covertly monitoring its every move".

"The ship then left UK waters without further loitering and sailed down to the Mediterranean," he added.

Axel Rudakubana did not appear out of the blue.

By the time he carried out the brutal murders of three young girls, the teenager was well known to police, anti-extremism authorities and a number of other public agencies.

But despite repeated concerns about Rudakubana's taste for violence, there was only ever limited intervention.

The government now says several opportunities were missed to stop him turning his dark obsessions into a reality. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the state had failed.

This is what we know about his journey to becoming a killer - and whether it could have been prevented.

Early warning signs

The first serious signs Rudakubana was capable of inflicting harm date back to when he was in year nine at Range High School in Formby, Merseyside.

At the age of 11, he had appeared in a BBC Children In Need campaign video, which he had been put forward for by an acting casting agency.

But over his adolescence, Rudakubana began to exhibit anger issues and a propensity for violence. Fellow pupils remember him being obsessed with figures such as Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan.

His time at Range High School ended in October 2019 when he took a knife into school. It would later emerge he told the Childline call centre that he did so because he had experienced racist bullying.

Rudakubana did not use the knife on that occasion but the incident was serious enough that he was permanently expelled from the school.

He returned to the school about two months later with a hockey stick and attacked another child with it. He had to be restrained by staff.

From the point at which he was thrown out of Range High School, Rudakubana largely fell out of the formal education system.

Local health workers determined he had an autism spectrum disorder and he was later enrolled in two other schools for children with special needs: The Acorns School and Presfield High School & Specialist College.

He attended sixth form at the latter only for a few days and was largely dealt with by home visits. The school sometimes requested police accompany teachers when visiting his home, such were the concerns about his violent behaviour.

Lancashire Child Safeguarding Partnership said Rudakubana failed to "re-integrate" into education after his exclusion from Range High School, a situation "exacerbated by the pandemic". His attendance, they said, was "limited".

At around the same time it was noted Rudakubana experienced "anxiety which prevented him from leaving his home".

On the radar

During the years in which he stopped attending school, several local agencies had various levels of contact with Rudakubana.

He was convicted of assault and referred to the youth justice service after the incident when he took a knife into school. He completed rehabilitation activities aimed at young offenders who have pleaded guilty to a first offence.

However, Lancashire Constabulary had "several" further interactions with the teenager between October 2019 and May 2022 - including four calls from his home address relating to concerns about his behaviour.

On each occasion, officers made contact with MASH - a local grouping of agencies tasked with overseeing vulnerable people in the area.

Children's Social Care carried out an initial assessment into Rudakubana, which found social work support was not required. It recommended "early help", which covers forms of less intensive intervention.

Contact was made with Rudakubana and his family and they were offered guidance on his "emotional wellbeing and behaviours".

He had involvement with local mental health services but "stopped engaging" in February 2023.

A spokesperson representing local agencies said his "participation and engagement remained a challenge" throughout this period, despite the efforts of professionals to engage with him.

An independent review into whether more could have been done to intervene is under way.

Dark obsessions

Rudakubana's twisted interest in violence began to emerge both before and after the attack in Southport on 29 July 2024.

He came to the attention of the government's anti-extremism Prevent programme because he had expressed an interest in school shootings, the London Bridge attack, the IRA, MI5 and the Middle East.

He was referred to Prevent three times between 2019 and 2021 over concerns about his interest in violence.

The full scale of his obsessions became clearer after the attack when his home and digital devices were searched.

Police found his devices contained images from conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Korea, as well as copious academic material relating to war and genocide.

His search history revealed an interest in Nazi Germany, ethnic violence in Somalia and Rwanda, and slavery.

Detectives also found an American academic study of an al-Qaeda training document, which had been downloaded at least twice since 2021.

The attack

These twisted interests provide the backdrop to the horror that would unfold on 29 July.

On 7 July, an advert was posted on Instagram advertising a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop for young children. It sold out within 11 days.

The class got under way at 10:00 BST and photos taken at the scene and reviewed by police show 26 children laughing and playing at the start of the school holidays.

At 11:10, Rudakubana left his home. His face was obscured by a hood and a surgical mask.

He was carrying a 20cm-long kitchen knife purchased on Amazon on 13 July. Police say he used encryption software to conceal his identity when he bought it.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has called it a "disgrace" that a teenager with a history of violence was able to easily acquire the blade. Amazon says it has launched an urgent investigation.

Shortly before leaving the house, Rudakubana deleted his IP address from his tablet, one of several pieces of evidence uncovered by police that revealed he took efforts to conceal his online movements. He also searched for material on the stabbing of a bishop in Sydney in April 2024.

A taxi picked him up at 11:30 and he stayed silent throughout the journey.

He left the car without paying and made his way to a garage. The driver followed him and there was a confrontation.

When the garage owner told him to pay for his ride, Rudakubana replied: "What are you going to do about it?"

Fifteen minutes later, he was inside the dance studio and began to stab at will.

His target - the most vulnerable people in society, young children - appeared to have been chosen to create the maximum horror and disgust.

Rudakubana killed six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar. He tried to kill others by stabbing them in the back as they fled.

By 11:59 he had been arrested but said nothing when formally questioned by police.

Missed opportunities?

In the days and weeks after the Southport attack, it became clear to investigators that Rudakubana was hell-bent on creating carnage and death, fuelled by his wide-ranging obsessions with human suffering.

When police searched his home, they found a cache of weapons, including a machete, a set of arrows and a sealed box containing an unknown substance. Tests at Porton Down, the government's biological warfare laboratory, confirmed the substance was ricin, a poison for which there is no cure. There is no evidence he ever deployed it.

It has also emerged that one week before the murders, Rudakubana tried to return to Range High School, the scene of his expulsion five years earlier.

He was wearing the same hooded sweatshirt and surgical mask he would wear during the attack the following week, but was prevented from making the journey when his father pleaded with a taxi driver not to take him.

It is not known whether Rudakubana intended to attack people that day but his movements bear a striking similarity to the events of the following week. On that second occasion, he made sure to book the taxi after leaving the house.

The amount of information known before the murders about Rudakubana's violent obsessions has prompted serious questions over whether more could have been done to stop him - in particular, whether Prevent could have acted.

Despite the three referrals over Rudakubana, it has been established concerns about him were never escalated up the chain, meaning he was not put under enhanced monitoring.

An urgent Prevent review carried out over the summer found this was because, while there was evidence he had an obsession with violence, he did not appear to fit the mould of a would-be extremist.

There were no signs of any allegiance to a single cause - which is why despite pleading guilty to downloading a terror manual, his case has never been treated as a terror investigation.

His case has prompted concerns over whether Prevent is equipped to identify dangerous people who fall outside the traditional view of what constitutes an extremist.

The urgent review found that, given Rudakubana's age and complex needs, his case should have been escalated. It concluded Prevent put too much weight on his apparent lack of adherence to a single radical ideology.

The home secretary said the "cumulative significance" of Rudakubana's three repeat referrals was "not properly considered" by Prevent, while Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said it was "clearly wrong" he was not deemed to meet the programme's threshold for intervention.

A wider review of the Prevent programme is being carried out.

Rudakubana will be sentenced for his crimes on Thursday - but the questions posed by his descent into violence will be agonised over for years to come.

Closing all of Parliament's bars could lead to greater security risks for MPs, the leader of the House of Commons has suggested.

Lucy Powell said she was open to "having a debate" on the future of drinking venues on the Parliamentary estate after one bar was temporarily closed for a security review linked to an alleged drink-spiking incident.

But she argued that MPs and staff would visit venues outside Parliament's secure zone if bars, restaurants, hair salons and other facilities were shut down.

She told BBC Radio 5Live's Matt Chorley said "there is no point spending the millions of pounds" on security if staff were encouraged to leave the estate.

Parliament's most famous pub, the Strangers' Bar, is currently shut while police investigate a report a woman had her drink spiked on 7 January.

Powell said she was in favour of reopening Strangers following a review of its security arrangements.

"We definitely need to look at this and make sure we have the measures in place so that people are not in the situation where they think they have been spiked or showing the effects of being spiked," Powell said.

She said she was open to having a public debate "on whether there should be any bars on the estate at all".

But not all of the sprawling eight-acre (32,000 sq-m) Palace of Westminster is a workplace, she told Matt Chorley, and there were were several venues serving alcohol for MPs and their guests.

She said she did not "get the sense that there's a groundswell" of support for closing these down.

In the evening members of staff and others who "might want a drink" are "not at work at that point," she argued.

She said they would MPs be less well protected attending venues "where they have not got the security protection", she added.

"They have not got police around and also they would be less covered by the Independent Complaints and Grievance Service (ICGS)," which investigates allegations of sexual misconduct and bullying by parliamentary staff.

The ICGS has previously argued parliament's bars and associated culture of drinking fuels inappropriate behaviour in Westminster.

Parliament had increased security "with good reason" because "there are a lot of people trying to attack MPs and attack Parliament" she said.

"That is why we provide services on the estate.

"There is no point spending the millions of pounds we spend keeping everyone secure and on this estate - if we then actually just encourage people to pop off to go and get their hair cut or have lunch with a journalist off the estate."

A two-year-old boy and a man aged 41 have been killed in a stabbing in a German park.

Police confirmed that a 28-year-old man from Afghanistan was arrested following the attack in Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg. German reports suggested he had a history of mental health issues.

Two others were taken to hospital with serious injuries and the public park was cordoned off by officers.

Markus Söder, the Bavarian state premier, called the attack a "cowardly and despicable act". It is the latest fatal knife attack in Germany in recent months, and comes weeks before a federal election on 23 February.

Police said their investigation into the stabbing was ongoing, but that the attack had taken place at about 11:45 (10:45 GMT) at Schöntal Park in Aschaffenburg, about 22 miles (36 kilometres) south-east of Frankfurt.

The attack involved a kindergarten group according to the Spiegel website, which said other children were among those hurt.

Söder described the man killed as "a helper who paid for his civil courage with his own life".

The suspect was arrested close to the scene after officers were called at around 11:45 local time (10:45 GMT). Officers said a second person was initially detained at the scene but was now being treated as a witness.

Police said there was no danger to the public.

Markus Söder said it was a terrible day and called for a pause: "We mourn the loss of a small, innocent child."

Police said they were investigating a motive and the background to the attack remained unclear. The suspect was said to have been staying in accommodation for asylum seekers.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was on a visit to France, condemned an "unbelievable act of terror". He posted on social media that he was tired of seeing "such acts of violence every few weeks" and urged authorities to find out why the suspect was still in Germany.

The German government has come under increasing pressure to take a harder line on immigration after a number of fatal attacks, and with federal elections due on 23 February, the anti-immigration, far-right AfD is second in the polls.

Five people were killed when a man rammed his car into a crowd at Magdeburg's Christmas market in December. A Saudi doctor has been charged with the attack.

In August, three people were fatally stabbed in the town of Solingen. The suspect was a Syrian national facing deportation after a failed asylum.

That attack led to the German government expanding border checks and tightening controls on knives, and fuelled an intense debate over asylum rules that has continued in the run up to next month's election.

The conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) currently lead the polls and Olaf Scholz's centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP) are behind in third place.

The election was called after Scholz's three-party coalition collapsed in November.

The Trump administration has expanded the process to swiftly deport undocumented immigrants who cannot prove they have lived in the US continuously for two years or more.

The "expedited removal" policy, which has traditionally been limited to undocumented migrants detained within 100 miles (160km) of the country's international borders, now allows officers to use it anywhere in the US.

Trump has promised mass deportations and declared a national emergency at the US-Mexico border that he says will allow the government to deploy troops and surge additional resources.

The decision is one of a flurry of immigration and border-related actions taken by Trump in the first week of his administration.

A notice posted on the website of the Federal Register says the policy took effect on the evening of 21 January.

"The effect of this change will be to enhance national security and public safety - while reducing government costs - by facilitating prompting immigration determinations," the notice reads.

It adds that the change will allow the Department of Homeland Security to address "the large volume of aliens" in the US illegally and ensure the "prompt removal...of those not entitled to enter, remain, or be provided relief or protection".

The expanded policy could be challenged in court.

Until now, "unauthorised" immigrants detained in the US were given a notice to appear in immigration court, where they could present their case for asylum.

Deportation proceedings typically couldn't begin until a judge issued a decision.

From behind his Oval Office desk on the first day of his administration on 20 January, Trump signed a flurry of executive orders and decrees aimed at cracking down on immigration.

The orders included tackling the definition of birthright citizenship and declaring illegal immigration at the border a national emergency.

• LIVE: Follow BBC's live coverage
• ANALYSIS: Six Trump executive orders to watch
• IN DEPTH: Relationship with Europe this time may be very different
• PARDONS: Jan 6 defendants get nearly everything they wanted
• WATCH: Bishop asks Trump to show mercy to LGBT people and migrants

In another significant departure from the Biden administration's immigration policies announced on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security has rescinded existing guidelines that prevent immigration officers from entering "sensitive" areas such as schools.

In a statement, DHS said that the guidelines "thwart" law enforcement.

"This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP [Customs and Border Protection] and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens - including murderers and rapists - who have illegally come into our country," a DHS spokesman said.

The spokesman added that "the Trump administration will not tie the hands" of law enforcement, and expects them to "use common sense."

A second directive stops the use of humanitarian parole, which helped migrants of certain categories enter the US. Individuals will now be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

An internal memo obtained by CBS, the BBC's US partner, also shows that the State Department has cancelled all refugee processing and travel into the US.

Officials were instructed to stop the refugee referral process overseas and to pause a Biden administration programme that allows private American citizens to sponsor refugees, according to the document.

One of the people who served jail time for taking part in the US Capitol riot four years ago has refused a pardon from President Donald Trump, saying: "We were wrong that day."

Pamela Hemphill, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 60 days in prison, told the BBC that there should be no pardons for the riot on 6 January 2021.

"Accepting a pardon would only insult the Capitol police officers, rule of law and, of course, our nation," she said.

"I pleaded guilty because I was guilty, and accepting a pardon also would serve to contribute to their gaslighting and false narrative."

Hemphill, who was nicknamed the "Maga granny" by social media users - in reference to Trump's "make America great again" slogan - said she saw the Trump government as trying to "rewrite history and I don't want to be part of that".

"We were wrong that day, we broke the law - there should be no pardons," she told the BBC World Service's Newsday programme.

• Proud Boys and Oath Keepers among those pardoned over riot

Trump's decision to pardon or commute the sentences of nearly 1,600 people involved in the attempt to violently overturn the 2020 election came just hours into his presidency.

In a news conference on Tuesday at the White House, he said: "These people have already served years in prison, and they've served them viciously.

"It's a disgusting prison. It's been horrible. It's inhumane. It's been a terrible, terrible thing."

However, the move has drawn an uneasy reaction from some Republican politicians.

Senator Thom Tillis, from North Carolina, said he "just can't agree" with the move, adding that it "raises legitimate safety issues on Capitol Hill".

Another Republican US senator, James Lankford from Oklahoma, told CNN: "I think we need to continue to say we are a party of law and order."

He added: "I think if you attack a police officer, that's a very serious issue and they should pay a price for that."

Also among those pardoned was one of the riot's most recognisable figures, Jacob Chansley, the self-styled QAnon Shaman, who was released from jail in 2023 after serving 27 months of his 41-month jail sentence.

He told the BBC that he heard the news from his lawyer while he was at the gym.

He added: "I walked outside and I screamed 'freedom' at the top of my lungs and then gave a good Native American war cry."

• LIVE: Follow BBC's live coverage
• ANALYSIS: Six Trump executive orders to watch
• IN DEPTH: Relationship with Europe this time may be very different
• PARDONS: Jan 6 defendants get nearly everything they wanted
• WATCH: Bishop asks Trump to show mercy to LGBT people and migrants

Prince Harry has settled a legal case against the publisher of the Sun over claims of unlawful intrusion into his life after it agreed to pay "substantial damages" and offer an "unequivocal apology".

The Duke of Sussex alleged journalists and private investigators working for News Group Newspapers (NGN) used unlawful techniques to pry on his private life - and executives then allegedly covered it up.

NGN apologised for "serious intrusion" by the Sun between 1996 and 2011, and admitted "incidents of unlawful activity" were carried out by private investigators working for the newspaper, in a statement read out in court.

It also apologised for distress it caused Harry through the "extensive coverage" and "serious intrusion" into the private life of his late mother, Princess Diana.

The statement did not disclose how much the damages would be.

The settlement was announced after barrister David Sherborne, representing Harry, asked the judge to delay the start of the High Court trial on Tuesday, as the two sides were involved in potential settlement talks.

When he launched his claim, Prince Harry alleged that more than 200 articles published by NGN between 1996 and 2011 contained information gathered by illegal means.

He repeatedly said he wanted the case to go to trial so that he could get "accountability" for other alleged victims of unlawful newsgathering of private information by NGN journalists.

NGN was "surprised by the serious approach by Prince Harry for settlement in recent days", a source told the BBC.

A source close to the Duke of Sussex responded that the apology "provides all the insight you need".

Speaking outside court on behalf of Harry, Mr Sherborne described the settlement as a "monumental victory", and said NGN had been "finally held to account for its illegal actions and its blatant disregard for the law".

Labour's former deputy leader Lord Tom Watson was a second complainant in the case.

He alleged his phone was targeted around the time he was investigating newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch while an MP, at the height of the scandal almost 15 years ago.

NGN also issued an apology to Lord Watson for intrusion into his private life by those working for the News of the World.

"This includes him being placed under surveillance in 2009 by journalists at the News of the World and those instructed by them," the court statement said, adding he would also be given substantial damages.

• Read the full statement here

NGN has apologised for unlawful practices at the now-defunct News of the World, but previously denied similar claims against The Sun - as well as Prince Harry's wider allegation of a corporate-wide cover-up.

While it admitted no illegality, NGN acknowledged in its statement on Wednesday that its response to the arrests of News of the World staff who hacked royal phones and those of celebrities - and its subsequent actions - were "regrettable".

Journalist Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator, were later jailed for intercepting voicemails on phones belonging to the princes' aides.

Harry was 12 when his mother, the Princess of Wales, was killed in a car crash in a Paris tunnel while being followed by paparazzi.

The prince has long been at odds with the tabloid press, which he said last year had been "central" to the breakdown of his relationship with the rest of the Royal Family.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex said they were ending their co-operation with tabloid newspapers after stepping back from their royal duties in 2020 - and Harry has since filed other legal cases against British tabloids.

He settled a case last year against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) alleging the publishers had gathered information on him in unlawful ways from 1996 to 2010. MGN had to cover all of the duke's legal costs, and more than £300,000 in damages.

The settlement between Prince Harry and News Group Newspapers is a dramatic, high stakes, turnaround. But it's courtroom drama without the court.

Prince Harry's team hailed the deal that stopped the trial as a "monumental victory", receiving an undisclosed amount of "substantial damages" and an "unequivocal apology".

They say he's been vindicated - but will there also, deep down, be some mixed feelings about not getting his day in court? Was this really "slaying dragons" of the tabloid press, as he'd celebrated after a previous win when he'd given evidence in court against Mirror Group Newspapers?

Co-claimant Lord Tom Watson paid tribute to Prince Harry's tenacity in pursuing this case for so long, praising his "bravery and astonishing courage".

While on the opposing side of the scrapped case, NGN says the agreement "draws a line under the past" and they reject the claims that would have been made in court about a corporate cover-up.

When NGN has spent £1bn on previous claims, they might think any extra spent on staying out of court was a win for them too.

Why did Prince Harry strike a deal now?

It seems a change from Prince Harry being adamant that this was about "accountability".

"The goal is accountability. It's really that simple," Prince Harry told a media event in New York last month, about why he was taking on the Murdoch press.

"The scale of the cover up is so large that people need to see it for themselves," he said.

He was fully aware of the financial risks built into such civil disputes, but seemed determined to press on, not just for himself but for 1,300 claimants who he said had settled but had "no justice".

"Accountability" was mentioned again in a statement read out on behalf of Prince Harry and Lord Watson.

"The time for accountability has arrived," but it meant in terms of calling on Parliament and the police to pursue what they called the "unlawful activity now finally admitted" and "the perjury and cover ups along the way".

There was a similar call for a follow-up when Prince Harry won against the Mirror group newspapers, but there has been no imminent sign of action.

Perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise that there was a deal.

There has always been immense pressure for a settlement, because the curve of civil law bends so strongly in that direction.

Even if a claimant wins a case, they could end up paying the costs of their opponents, if the damages award is less than they have been offered.

The legal costs and damages at stake in this case could have been £10m. That's a big poker hand decision for anyone. Plus the unknown jeopardy of what might happen in the court case and what questions Harry might have faced on the witness stand. He might have had his case ruled out of time or had his claims rejected.

The psychological cards would all have been stacked towards doing a deal. Does everyone have a price? Even when they're seen as the last man standing?

In terms of the amount of damages paid to Prince Harry, or what he might do with the money, that hasn't been made public.

But what Prince Harry's team have seized upon is the skyscraper scale of the apology - seeing it as a "collapse" of the NGN's denials.

They might argue that even if he had fought the court battle and won, there wouldn't be any more to be gained.

This has always been a very personal battle for Prince Harry, the battle with the tabloids touching on his childhood as well as his adult life. So it's significant that the apology includes an admission of a "serious intrusion" into the "private life of Diana, Princess of Wales".

That could mean more to him than any financial deal.

Prince Harry's team also repeated the claim that "the Sun, the flagship title for Rupert Murdoch's UK media empire, has indeed engaged in illegal practices".

This references the apology's mention of "unlawful activities carried out by private investigators working for the Sun".

NGN's statement emphasises that this applies to the activities of external private investigators, "not by journalists" on the Sun.

But it narrows some of the fastidious distancing that there's between what had happened at the shut down News of the World and the Sun.

While the statement from Prince Harry's team lambasts those presiding over a "toxic culture" in parts of the media, past and present, and repeats its claim about a corporate cover-up, these are attack lines from a court case that will now never happen.

NGN rejects the claims of a cover-up and the destruction of evidence. But the overall tone of the response is relief at the end of arguments over old battles, and that this now draws a line under all these disputes over front pages from decades ago.

"Indeed the judge made it clear in remarks in court at the end of the hearing that these cases are likely to be the last liable to go to trial," said NGN.

The bombshell case that was going to see Prince Harry giving evidence against his tabloid tormentors is over before it began. Who, in the end, will be more pleased about that?

Tributes have been paid to a 12-year-old boy stabbed to death in Birmingham who has been named as Leo Ross by police.

The West Midlands force said he was stabbed in the stomach and found near Scribers Lane in Hall Green at about 15:40 GMT on Tuesday and died in hospital later.

Leo, a pupil at Christ Church C of E Secondary Academy, was a "lively and happy young man" and "had many very good friends", executive head teacher Diane Henson said.

A 14-year-old boy was earlier arrested on suspicion of murder. Police said the teenager had also been arrested in connection with an unrelated assault on a woman in her 80s on 19 January.

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Axel Rudakubana did not appear out of the blue.

By the time he carried out the brutal murders of three young girls, the teenager was well known to police, anti-extremism authorities and a number of other public agencies.

But despite repeated concerns about Rudakubana's taste for violence, there was only ever limited intervention.

The government now says several opportunities were missed to stop him turning his dark obsessions into a reality. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the state had failed.

This is what we know about his journey to becoming a killer - and whether it could have been prevented.

Early warning signs

The first serious signs Rudakubana was capable of inflicting harm date back to when he was in year nine at Range High School in Formby, Merseyside.

At the age of 11, he had appeared in a BBC Children In Need campaign video, which he had been put forward for by an acting casting agency.

But over his adolescence, Rudakubana began to exhibit anger issues and a propensity for violence. Fellow pupils remember him being obsessed with figures such as Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan.

His time at Range High School ended in October 2019 when he took a knife into school. It would later emerge he told the Childline call centre that he did so because he had experienced racist bullying.

Rudakubana did not use the knife on that occasion but the incident was serious enough that he was permanently expelled from the school.

He returned to the school about two months later with a hockey stick and attacked another child with it. He had to be restrained by staff.

From the point at which he was thrown out of Range High School, Rudakubana largely fell out of the formal education system.

Local health workers determined he had an autism spectrum disorder and he was later enrolled in two other schools for children with special needs: The Acorns School and Presfield High School & Specialist College.

He attended sixth form at the latter only for a few days and was largely dealt with by home visits. The school sometimes requested police accompany teachers when visiting his home, such were the concerns about his violent behaviour.

Lancashire Child Safeguarding Partnership said Rudakubana failed to "re-integrate" into education after his exclusion from Range High School, a situation "exacerbated by the pandemic". His attendance, they said, was "limited".

At around the same time it was noted Rudakubana experienced "anxiety which prevented him from leaving his home".

On the radar

During the years in which he stopped attending school, several local agencies had various levels of contact with Rudakubana.

He was convicted of assault and referred to the youth justice service after the incident when he took a knife into school. He completed rehabilitation activities aimed at young offenders who have pleaded guilty to a first offence.

However, Lancashire Constabulary had "several" further interactions with the teenager between October 2019 and May 2022 - including four calls from his home address relating to concerns about his behaviour.

On each occasion, officers made contact with MASH - a local grouping of agencies tasked with overseeing vulnerable people in the area.

Children's Social Care carried out an initial assessment into Rudakubana, which found social work support was not required. It recommended "early help", which covers forms of less intensive intervention.

Contact was made with Rudakubana and his family and they were offered guidance on his "emotional wellbeing and behaviours".

He had involvement with local mental health services but "stopped engaging" in February 2023.

A spokesperson representing local agencies said his "participation and engagement remained a challenge" throughout this period, despite the efforts of professionals to engage with him.

An independent review into whether more could have been done to intervene is under way.

Dark obsessions

Rudakubana's twisted interest in violence began to emerge both before and after the attack in Southport on 29 July 2024.

He came to the attention of the government's anti-extremism Prevent programme because he had expressed an interest in school shootings, the London Bridge attack, the IRA, MI5 and the Middle East.

He was referred to Prevent three times between 2019 and 2021 over concerns about his interest in violence.

The full scale of his obsessions became clearer after the attack when his home and digital devices were searched.

Police found his devices contained images from conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Korea, as well as copious academic material relating to war and genocide.

His search history revealed an interest in Nazi Germany, ethnic violence in Somalia and Rwanda, and slavery.

Detectives also found an American academic study of an al-Qaeda training document, which had been downloaded at least twice since 2021.

The attack

These twisted interests provide the backdrop to the horror that would unfold on 29 July.

On 7 July, an advert was posted on Instagram advertising a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop for young children. It sold out within 11 days.

The class got under way at 10:00 BST and photos taken at the scene and reviewed by police show 26 children laughing and playing at the start of the school holidays.

At 11:10, Rudakubana left his home. His face was obscured by a hood and a surgical mask.

He was carrying a 20cm-long kitchen knife purchased on Amazon on 13 July. Police say he used encryption software to conceal his identity when he bought it.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has called it a "disgrace" that a teenager with a history of violence was able to easily acquire the blade. Amazon says it has launched an urgent investigation.

Shortly before leaving the house, Rudakubana deleted his IP address from his tablet, one of several pieces of evidence uncovered by police that revealed he took efforts to conceal his online movements. He also searched for material on the stabbing of a bishop in Sydney in April 2024.

A taxi picked him up at 11:30 and he stayed silent throughout the journey.

He left the car without paying and made his way to a garage. The driver followed him and there was a confrontation.

When the garage owner told him to pay for his ride, Rudakubana replied: "What are you going to do about it?"

Fifteen minutes later, he was inside the dance studio and began to stab at will.

His target - the most vulnerable people in society, young children - appeared to have been chosen to create the maximum horror and disgust.

Rudakubana killed six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar. He tried to kill others by stabbing them in the back as they fled.

By 11:59 he had been arrested but said nothing when formally questioned by police.

Missed opportunities?

In the days and weeks after the Southport attack, it became clear to investigators that Rudakubana was hell-bent on creating carnage and death, fuelled by his wide-ranging obsessions with human suffering.

When police searched his home, they found a cache of weapons, including a machete, a set of arrows and a sealed box containing an unknown substance. Tests at Porton Down, the government's biological warfare laboratory, confirmed the substance was ricin, a poison for which there is no cure. There is no evidence he ever deployed it.

It has also emerged that one week before the murders, Rudakubana tried to return to Range High School, the scene of his expulsion five years earlier.

He was wearing the same hooded sweatshirt and surgical mask he would wear during the attack the following week, but was prevented from making the journey when his father pleaded with a taxi driver not to take him.

It is not known whether Rudakubana intended to attack people that day but his movements bear a striking similarity to the events of the following week. On that second occasion, he made sure to book the taxi after leaving the house.

The amount of information known before the murders about Rudakubana's violent obsessions has prompted serious questions over whether more could have been done to stop him - in particular, whether Prevent could have acted.

Despite the three referrals over Rudakubana, it has been established concerns about him were never escalated up the chain, meaning he was not put under enhanced monitoring.

An urgent Prevent review carried out over the summer found this was because, while there was evidence he had an obsession with violence, he did not appear to fit the mould of a would-be extremist.

There were no signs of any allegiance to a single cause - which is why despite pleading guilty to downloading a terror manual, his case has never been treated as a terror investigation.

His case has prompted concerns over whether Prevent is equipped to identify dangerous people who fall outside the traditional view of what constitutes an extremist.

The urgent review found that, given Rudakubana's age and complex needs, his case should have been escalated. It concluded Prevent put too much weight on his apparent lack of adherence to a single radical ideology.

The home secretary said the "cumulative significance" of Rudakubana's three repeat referrals was "not properly considered" by Prevent, while Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said it was "clearly wrong" he was not deemed to meet the programme's threshold for intervention.

A wider review of the Prevent programme is being carried out.

Rudakubana will be sentenced for his crimes on Thursday - but the questions posed by his descent into violence will be agonised over for years to come.