Machias Seal Island is a tiny dot on maps of North America.

But the uninhabited, fogbound rock is significant for its location in an area known as the "Grey Zone" – the site of a rare international dispute between Canada and the United States.

The two neighbours and long-time allies have each long laid claim to the island and surrounding water, where the US state of Maine meets Canada's New Brunswick province – and with that claim, the right to catch and sell the prized local lobsters.

John Drouin, a US lobsterman who has fished in the Grey Zone for 30 years, tells of the mad dash by Canadian and American fishermen to place lobster traps at the start of the summer catching season each year. "People have literally lost parts of their bodies, have had concussions, [their] head smashed and everything," he says.

The injuries have been caused when lobstermen have been caught up in each other's lines. He says one friend lost his thumb after it became caught up in a Canadian line, what Mr Drouin calls his battle scar from the Grey Zone.

The 277 square miles of sea around Machias Seal Island has been under dispute since the late 1700s – and in 1984, an international court ruling gave both the US and Canada the right to fish in the waterway.

It has stood as a quirk – an isolated area of tension in what had been, until now, an otherwise close relationship between the two countries.

But that could all be about to change. US President Donald Trump's return to the White House, steep tariffs on Canadian imports and rhetoric about making the country the 51st state has sparked a series of fresh flashpoints, with the possibility that he may ultimately wish to subsume Canada into the US hanging over everything. Amid the biggest shift in the relationship between the two countries in decades, the question is, what does he really want from Canada?

Lobster wars

Cutler, Maine, is the closest US town to the Grey Zone. It has a collection of scattered houses, one supply store and, for good reason, a lobster wholesaler.

Aside from a few big-city retirees and holiday-goers, Cutler owes its existence to the bountiful crustaceans that inhabit the offshore waters. And for the lobstermen of Cutler, the international limbo of the Grey Zone is their everyday reality, as they scatter their traps along the bottom of the Gulf of Maine to catch the prized lobsters and bring them to market.

During lobster season, the Grey Zone is packed with boats and buoys marking the location of their traps. When the waters get crowded and livelihoods are at stake, things can get ugly.

"Do we like it? Not in the least," says Mr Drouin. He has caught lobsters in the Grey Zone for 30 years. "I will continue to complain about it until I can't breathe anymore."

Another Maine lobsterman, Nick Lemieux, said he and his sons have had nearly 200 traps stolen in recent years – and he blames their rivals to the north.

"This is our area, and it's all we have to work with," he said. "Things like that don't sit very well with us."

Americans accuse the Canadians of operating under a different, more accommodating set of rules that allow them to catch larger lobsters.

Canadians counter that the Americans have higher catch limits and are surreptitiously fishing in their territorial waters.

The union representing Canada's border officials recently complained that Americans have responded to their enforcement efforts with threats of violence – and some of its officers have refused to work in the Grey Zone.

Canada regularly dispatches maintenance workers to Machias Seal Island to check on an automated lighthouse – evidence, they say, of their control. The Americans point to US Marines who occupied the island during World War One as their proof of sovereignty.

A series of border disputes

The dispute appears to be going nowhere, but during Trump's first presidency, events in the Grey Zone did not appear to be intruding greatly on the overall warmth between the US and Canada.

When Trump hosted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House in 2017, he spoke about the US-Canada relationship in glowing terms, remarking on the "special bonds" between the two nations that "share much more than a border".

Yet his rhetoric has since changed sharply.

In recent months, Trump has repeatedly called Canada the "51st state" of the US – and the White House has expressed a willingness to open up new areas of dispute all along the US-Canada border.

In September, the president voiced designs on Canadian water in British Columbia in the west of the country, for instance, suggesting it could be piped to drought-parched California: "You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north… they have essentially a very large faucet".

Approximately 1,500 miles further east, the Great Lakes could become another site of potential conflict, as US officials told their Canadian counterparts they are considering withdrawing from treaties over their coordinated environmental regulation.

And even further east, a library has become the unlikely setting for a flashpoint: built deliberately to straddle the Vermont-Quebec border as a symbol of cooperation between Canada and the US, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House used to be open to residents from both nations.

However in March, America changed the rules so that Canadians are required to pass through immigration control before they access the building, with the US Department of Homeland Security claiming it was in response to drug trafficking.

Battling for natural resources

Natural resources are another source of dispute. Canada has vast supplies of rare earth metals, gold, oil, coal and lumber – the kind of natural wealth that Trump has long prized.

While Trump has disavowed any desire for Canada's lumber, energy stockpiles or manufactured products, in February Trudeau reportedly told a closed-door meeting of Canadian business and labour leaders that he saw it differently.

"I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may even be why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state. They're very aware of our resources, of what we have, and they very much want to be able to benefit from those," the CBC quoted Trudeau as saying.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings, a Canadian journalist and host of The Big Story podcast, believes Trump wants Canadian resources, and that the president's annexation comments should be taken seriously.

"He likes the idea of being the guy to bring in a huge land mass," says Mr Heath-Rawlings. "He probably wants the Arctic, which is obviously going to become much more valuable in the years to come."

For Trump, even the US-Canadian border itself is suspect. "If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it between Canada and the US," he said in March. "Somebody did it a long time ago, and it makes no sense."

Needless to say, Trump's comments have rankled Canadian leaders, who warn of the president's ultimate designs on their homeland.

In March, Trudeau accused the US president of planning "a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that will make it easier to annex us".

The previous month, after Trump first announced new tariffs on Canada, Trudeau had said: "Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that [annexing Canada] is absorbing our country. And it is a real thing."

If US territorial ambitions for Canada are, in fact, a "real thing", it presents a simple, vexing question. Why? Why would the US, which has had the closest of diplomatic, military, economic and cultural ties with its northern neighbour for more than a century, put all of that at risk?

Exception rather than the norm

Some see a pattern in Trump's designs on Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal – one that reflects a dramatic change in how the US sees itself in the world.

It has been most clearly articulated by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said in January that the post-World War Two dominance of the US was more the exception than the norm.

"Eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multi-polar world, multiple great powers in different parts of the planet," he said. "We face that now with China and to some extent Russia, and … rogue states like Iran and North Korea."

According to Michael Williams, professor of international affairs at the University of Ottawa, if the current Trump administration thinks that American world dominance is no longer possible or even desired, the US might pull back from far-flung conflicts and European commitments.

Instead, says Prof Williams, the US would prioritise its "territorial core", creating a continental fortress of sorts, insulated on both sides by the vastness of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

"If this is your plan, you seek to control key geographic choke points," he says. "You maximise access to natural resources, of which Canada has plenty, and you reshore industry whenever possible."

Such a geopolitical outlook is hardly new. In the 1820s, US President James Monroe articulated a new global order in which America and Europe confined themselves to their own hemispheres.

But it does represent a remarkable shift in US foreign policy since the end of World War Two.

A plan or a whim?

Prof Williams acknowledges that it's difficult to figure out exactly what the US president is thinking – a view wholeheartedly endorsed by John Bolton, who served as Trump's national security adviser for more than a year of his first presidential term.

"Trump has no philosophy," he says. "He gets ideas, but does not follow a coherent pattern. There is no underlying strategy."

The president is currently fixated on minerals and natural resources, he said, but Mr Bolton argues the best way to go about doing that is through the private sector, not by floating the idea of annexing an ally. Canada, for its part, has offered to work with US companies on joint mining partnerships.

Prof Williams and Mr Bolton agree that whatever the motivations behind Trump's designs on Canada, the diplomatic damage that's being done will be difficult to undo – and the possibility of unanticipated consequences is high.

Broken trust

"Trump likes to say in a lot of contexts that other people don't have any cards," says Prof Williams. "But the further you push people to the wall, the more you may find that they have cards that you didn't know they had – and they might be willing to play them. And even if you have more cards, the consequences of doing so can easily spiral out of control in some really bad ways."

Canadians have already been boycotting US products and cancelling winter trips south, which has had an impact on tourist communities in Florida.

"We're not looking for a fight, but Canada's ready for one," says Mr Heath-Rawlings.

The idea that the trust between the US and Canada has been broken is one that's been embraced by the country's new prime minister, Mark Carney, as a general election looms.

"The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over," he said recently. "I reject any attempts to weaken Canada, to wear us down, to break us so that America can own us."

Back in the 19th Century, territorial conflicts and flare-ups along the US-Canada border were a more frequent occurrence. Americans made multiple unsuccessful attempts to capture Canadian territory during the 1812 War.

In 1844, some Americans called for military force if the UK wouldn't agree to its claims in the Pacific Northwest.

The 1859 "pig dispute" involved contested islands near Vancouver and the unfortunate shooting of a British hog that had intruded on an American's garden.

All that seemed the stuff of dusty history books, where the Grey Zone was a diplomatic oddity – an exception to a peaceful norm in the modern world of developed and integrated democracies.

But that calm is now broken, and no one is sure where these stormy waters will lead either country.

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The owner of Pontins holiday parks has been charged with corporate manslaughter after an air conditioning duct fell on guests at a resort.

Eighteen people were injured at Pontins Brean Sands, Somerset. when a section of the ceiling and ducting inside its entertainment centre, called The Fun Factory, collapsed in February 2019.

Among them was grandmother Wendy Jones, 68. She spent the final six months of her life in hospital before she died on 4 August 2019.

Pontins' parent company, Britannia Jinky Jersey, will appear in court next month.

Pontins is part of the Britannia Hotels group. The BBC has contacted Britannia for comment.

In addition, contractor Stephen Bennison, 58, from Faringdon in Lancashire, has been charged with an offence under Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

A BBC News special report into the incident last year highlighted the concerns from a former employee about the installation of insulation on top of the ceiling and ducting in 2015.

Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue said in 2019 that the incident involved the collapse of approximately 40m (131ft) of structural ducting and ceiling sections, exposing live damaged electrics.

About 100 people were in the entertainment hall about to play bingo when the collapse happened.

The charges follow a joint investigation by Avon and Somerset Police and Somerset Council.

Ch Supt Roger Doxsey, senior investigating officer, said: "First and foremost our thoughts are with the family of Wendy Jones.

"This has been a complex investigation and we're grateful for the support of Somerset Council and other partners to reach this stage."

The defendants are due to appear at Bristol Magistrates' Court on 6 May.

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More low-deposit mortgages are available to choose from than at any time since the financial crisis of 2008, according to new figures.

The number of deals that need a deposit of 5% or 10% have risen to their highest level since then, data from financial information service Moneyfacts suggests.

The extra choice is a boost for first time buyers, although house prices and mortgage rates are higher than they were for much of the last 17 years.

And competition is tough, with homes typically listed for just over a month before a sale is agreed, according to separate figures from property website Zoopla show

The UK housing market has been relatively settled in recent times, although buyers still need to navigate uncertainty over interest rates and changes to stamp duty in England and Northern Ireland.

'Flourishing choice'

For buyers able to offer a deposit of 5% of the home loan, there are 442 mortgages to choose from, according to Moneyfacts.

Two years ago, the choice was from fewer than half of that total, at 204.

Borrowers able to pay a 10% deposit now have 845 products to choose from, up from 684 in April 2023.

However, they still have to pay a mortgage rate of well over 5% on average, while a borrower who pays a 40% deposit typically pays a rate of under 5%.

It has been hard for many prospective first-time buyers to save due to the rising cost of renting in recent years.

But Rachel Springall, from Moneyfacts, said there was a flourishing choice of mortgages for those whose ability to pay a deposit is stretched.

"A rise in product availability for aspiring homeowners is a healthy step in the right direction," she said.

However she said only 6% of all deals available to borrowers across fixed and variable mortgages had a deposit requirement of 5%, so there was still "room for improvement".

Mortgage rates remain difficult to predict owing to uncertainty created by US tariff policy on the wider economy.

While securing a mortgage is one thing, buyers also need to act relatively quickly when it comes to finding a new home, data suggests.

Homes in England and Wales spend an average of 36 days on the market before a sale is agreed, according to news figures from the property portal Zoopla.

Sales were agreed on half of homes within two months of being listed, it said. To complete a sale, sellers and buyers will typically need another four to six months, depending on the complexity of the transaction.

The fastest sales were agreed for two-bedroom homes, at an average of 23 days, while homes with four bedrooms or more typically took an extra 15 days.

Homes in northern regions of England tended to sell faster than homes in the south, where prices are higher, it said.

Even so, the fastest selling, with an agreed sale taking an average of 19 days, had a north-south mix, with Manchester and the London borough of Waltham Forest hitting that mark.

"Households that are thinking about listing their home and moving in 2025 need to set their asking price at the right level and take the advice of local agents," said Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla.

"Buyers have a lot more choice of homes for sale than a year ago. Aiming too high on the asking price is likely to impact saleability and how long you may have to wait to agree a sale."

Zoopla uses a median average figure (the mid-point) for its data. It also discards homes that have been listed for more than six months, as it considers them to be unlikely to sell.

The number of plays and musicals staged by the UK's main subsidised theatres last year was down by almost a third compared with 10 years earlier, BBC research suggests.

In 2024, the 40 best-funded theatre companies that make their own productions - ranging from the National Theatre to the Colchester Mercury - opened 229 original productions, compared with 332 in 2014, a drop of 31%.

Funding cuts and rising costs took much of the blame, with National Theatre executive director Kate Varah recently saying many in the industry are at "breaking point".

But some venues said the shows they do stage are on a bigger scale than a decade ago, with the aim of running for longer on tour or in the West End.

Last week, actress Lesley Manville warned that new talent had "less opportunity" to develop than when she was starting out in the 1970s.

"It's going to be a diminishing discipline, because there's not always the amount of stage work available for them to go and do," she told BBC Radio 4 after winning an Olivier Award.

'Serious problem'

Leeds Playhouse chief executive and artistic director James Brining said the venue had cut its number of homegrown shows from 12 to eight a year.

"That decision to contract has been forced upon theatres because it's so expensive, and increasingly so, to make work," he told BBC News.

"We love making work. So it's heartbreaking that the amount of work you can make is reducing, and it is reducing the pipeline opportunities for artists at the beginning of their careers."

British theatre has "a serious problem" with the reduction in opportunities, added Brining, who is about to move from Leeds Playhouse to run the Edinburgh Lyceum.

Many performers and crew start their careers in theatres before going on to work in TV and film, arts education consultant and theatre blogger Carl Woodward said.

"A lot of Netflix stars and a lot of those people we see on dramas like Mr Bates vs the Post office and Adolescence cut their teeth in regional theatres.

"And if those opportunities are no longer there, then those pathways don't exist. And that is a national scandal, I think."

The theatre industry's financial pressures have had an impact on the workforce, with "chronic low pay, job insecurity, poor work/life balance," he added.

Many venues said they now co-produce more shows with other theatres or commercial operators to spread the costs and risks. That also means those productions can be on a bigger scale.

"Some individual productions that are made with the commercial sector are much, much bigger than anything we ever used to make," Birmingham Rep chief executive Rachael Thomas said.

"So for us, yes there are fewer productions coming out, but we are spending more because the productions that we are making are so much bigger than they ever used to be."

However, the Rep has lost all of its annual local council funding - once worth more than £1m a year - and smaller shows have often been squeezed out, Thomas said.

"I suppose the subsidy enables you to take the risk on the productions that are never going to recoup what they've cost, and often that will be the smaller-scale productions."

In 1995, the Rep's studio theatre staged the premiere of East Is East, four years before it became a hit British film. It couldn't afford to do a play of that scale in its studio today.

"I cannot see a world in which we could now launch a play which has got a cast size of nine or 10 in our 133-seater studio space now as a new play," Thomas said.

"For our model, and I would say for the vast majority of regional producing theatres, that is nigh on impossible."

'Less serious drama'

Salisbury Playhouse artistic director Gareth Machin said audience tastes had also changed, meaning it's harder to put on "serious drama", especially outside London.

"When money is tight, people want a good night out and they don't want to take a risk," he said.

"They're probably not coming out as much as they were, so when they do come out they don't want to take a chance on something they're not sure is going to be entertaining and a fun experience.

"So there's less misery and risk."

Nottingham Playhouse chief executive and UK Theatre joint president Stephanie Sirr said she didn't recognise the picture of a drop in productions, pointing out that "it does fluctuate from year to year".

"I do think it's more difficult to produce these days," she continued.

"The costs have gone up exponentially. Things like the energy costs really impact you if you're building scenery all day, or if you're running theatre lanterns all night."

However, making more co-productions is a positive thing in most ways, and has meant "we've been able to really increase the scale of the work we produce", she said, with Nottingham's production of Dear Evan Hansen now on a major UK tour.

'More with less'

A handful of venues staged more original shows in 2024 than 2014. They include Leicester Curve, which has put a focus on making musicals in collaboration with commercial producers, which can then go on the road.

Curve has doubled its box office receipts over the past decade.

"By sharing resources and risk, we're able to, by default, do more work and create and present more work," chief executive Chris Stafford said.

"We are doing more with less in terms of public investment," he continued, but said the biggest challenge for many theatres would be affording essential building repairs and upgrades in the coming years.

Annual funding from Arts Councils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Scottish equivalent has largely been stagnant for the past 10 years - while inflation has risen sharply - and many venues have had their local council subsidies cut. Many are also still recovering from the fallout from the pandemic.

Last year, a survey by the group Freelancers Make Theatre Work depicted "a workforce that is at breaking point".

Performer and group spokesman Paul Carey Jones said the BBC research "would come as no surprise to most theatre freelancers in the UK, who have been struggling with low rates of pay, career precarity and vulnerability, a lack of job certainty and a skills retention crisis for many years now.

"It shows the need for action from government in terms of funding for the arts, but also from the theatre industry to support its freelance workforce, on which it entirely depends."

The research for this story counted original and co-productions that opened in 2014 and 2024, including revivals, transfers and tours. They had to be professional in-person theatre productions, at least an hour long, and to have run for at least a week. If a co-production was jointly made by more than one theatre, it was counted as a single production.

The research covered the 40 venues, festivals and touring companies that produce original theatre, were operating in 2014 and 2024, and had the highest annual grants in 2024/25 from the Arts Councils of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Creative Scotland and the Scottish government.

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has taken the witness stand in a landmark antitrust trial to defend his company against allegations that his company operates a social media monopoly.

His testimony is part of a case first brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2020 during the final days of the first Trump administration.

The US competition watchdog alleges Meta unfairly dominated the market through its acquisitions of photo-sharing app Instagram in 2012 and the messaging service WhatsApp in 2014.

The FTC is seeking to break up Meta by forcing a spinoff of Instagram or WhatsApp. Meta says there's plenty of competition in social media, including from apps such as TikTok, Elon Musk's X, and Google's YouTube.

Wearing a dark suit and light blue tie, Mr Zuckerberg was the first witness in the case on Monday at a federal court in Washington DC. The trial is expected to last for two months.

The FTC pointed to a 2011 email Mr Zuckerberg sent saying: "Instagram seems like it's growing quickly."

The following year, he sent another email saying the company was "so far behind that we don't even understand how far behind we are... I worry that it will take us too long to catch up".

On the stand, Mr Zuckerberg defended his statements, calling the emails "relatively early" conversations about buying the app. He added that Meta had improved Instagram over the years.

Mr Zuckerberg also said he wanted to buy Instagram because of its camera technology, not because of its social network. He is expected to continue his testimony on Tuesday.

The FTC says the company overpaid when it acquired Instagram for $1bn and WhatsApp for $19bn as a defensive move.

"They decided that competition was too hard and it would be easier to buy out their rivals than to compete with them," said FTC lawyer Daniel Matheson in his opening statement at Monday's trial.

Meta countered that the lawsuit from the FTC, which originally reviewed and approved both those acquisitions, was "misguided".

Meta "acquired Instagram and WhatsApp to improve and grow them alongside Facebook", the company's attorney Mark Hansen argued.

The FTC lawyer cited a 2012 memo from Mr Zuckerberg in which he discusses the importance of "neutralising" Instagram.

Mr Matheson called that message "a smoking gun".

Meta, on the other hand, said the purchases made the consumer experience better.

"Acquisitions to improve and grow" have never been found unlawful, Meta's lead litigator, said on Monday, "and they should not be found unlawful here".

More than 400 people have been killed in recent attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan's Darfur region, says the UN citing "credible sources".

Last week, the RSF launched an intense ground and aerial assault on refugee camps surrounding the city of El-Fasher in an attempt to seize the last state capital in Darfur held by their rival, the Sudanese army.

The two warring sides have been locked in a bloody power struggle since April 2023. This has created the world's largest humanitarian crisis and forced millions to flee their homes.

The UN said it had verified 148 killings between Thursday and Saturday, but warned the toll was much higher.

UN spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told the BBC their verification process was still ongoing and their number didn't include Sunday's violence.

"Credible sources have reported more than 400 killed," said Ms Shamdasani.

At least nine humanitarian aid workers were among those killed, the UN said.

The refugee camps that surround El-Fasher - Zamzam and Abu Shouk - provide temporary homes to more than 700,000 people, many of whom are facing famine-like conditions.

In a statement released on Saturday, the RSF said it was not responsible for attacks on civilians and that scenes of killing in Zamzam were staged to discredit its forces.

The following day, the group said it had completed a "successful liberation" of the camp from Sudan's army. The RSF accused the army of using Zamzam as "a military barracks, and innocent civilians as human shields".

El-Fasher is the last major town in Darfur under army control and has been under siege by the RSF for a year. Sudan's brutal civil war will enter its third year on Tuesday.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk called on all parties involved to "renew their resolve to take meaningful steps towards resolving the conflict".

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More than a thousand people have been left with respiratory problems after a sandstorm swept across Iraq's central and southern parts of the country, health officials said.

One official in Muthanna province reported to the AFP news agency at least 700 cases of what they said was suffocation.

Footage shared online showed areas cloaked in a thick orange haze, with local media reporting power cuts and the suspension of flights in a number of regions.

Dust storms are common in Iraq, but some experts believe they are becoming more frequent due to climate change.

Pedestrians and police wore face masks to protect themselves from the dust and paramedics were on site to assist people with difficulty breathing, according to AFP.

Hospitals in Muthanna province in southern Iraq received at least "700 cases of suffocation", a local health official said.

More than 250 people were taken to hospital in Najaf province, and at least 322 patients including children were sent to hospitals in Diwaniyah province.

A further 530 people reported breathing issues in Dhi Qar and Basra provinces.

The sandstorm blanketed Iraq's southern provinces in an orange cloud that reduced visibility to less than one kilometre (0.62 mile).

The authorities were forced to shut down airports in the provinces of Najaf and Basra.

Conditions are expected to gradually improve by Tuesday morning, according to local weather services.

Iraq is listed by the UN as one of the five countries most vulnerable to climate change as it encounters regular sandstorms, sweltering heat and water scarcity.

A severe sandstorm in 2022 left one person dead and more than 5,000 needing treatment for respiratory illnesses.

Iraq will be experiencing more "dust days" in the future, according to its environment ministry.

British Steel's blast furnaces are set to continue running with a delivery of enough raw materials to keep them alight for the "coming weeks" due on Tuesday, the government has said.

Coking coal and iron ore from the US will be unloaded at Immingham docks and transported to the Scunthorpe site after a scramble for supplies.

A separate shipment of materials is back on its way to the UK from Australia after a legal dispute over who owned the cargo was resolved between the government and British Steel's owner Jingye.

The government seized control of the business over the weekend following a breakdown in talks with its Chinese owner amid accusations it was planning to switch the furnaces off.

If the furnaces were starved of fuel and went out, the UK would no longer have the capability to produce so-called virgin steel, due to the process of restarting them being extremely difficult and costly.

Virgin steel-making involves iron being extracted from its original source to be purified and treated to make all types of steel used in major construction projects, such as new buildings and railways.

Scunthorpe's furnaces produce molten iron by splitting rocks containing iron ore in a chemical reaction that requires intense heat. Even if the temperature of the furnaces drops too low, it can lead to permanent damage.

The government said the materials from the US would be enough to keep the steel-producing furnaces running for the coming weeks and added officials were working to "get a steady pipeline of materials to keep the fire burning".

The materials have been paid for by the government, but the cost has not been revealed. The plant, which employs 2,700 people, is said to be in a "far better position" as a result of the government's intervention, according to union officials.

On Tuesday, the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds will travel to Immingham in north east Lincolnshire where the raw materials will be unloaded and transported to British Steel.

He said the government had moved "decisively" to secure the raw materials needed to "help save British Steel", adding that UK industries depended on the company.

Beijing has accused the British government of "politicising trade co-operation", and said its move to take control of British Steel had raised doubts about investment in the UK.

On Saturday, an emergency law was rushed through Parliament, giving the government control of the site to prevent Jingye from closing the furnaces against ministers' wishes.

The government has appointed two long-standing British Steel employees to run the plant on an interim basis.

The situation at the site has raised questions about Chinese investment in industries the government has deemed strategically critical.

The government has so far stopped short of taking British Steel back into full public ownership, but has not ruled out nationalisation, while also looking for potential private investors to fund operations.

China's embassy in the UK has urged ministers to negotiate with Jingye to "find a solution acceptable to all parties".

In March, Jingye said its Scunthorpe site was losing £700,000 a day, which it said was "no longer financially sustainable", and the company began a consultation on job cuts.

Government talks with Jingye last week failed to produce a breakthrough. The government said the company had rejected an offer of £500m in public money to help keep the furnaces operating, and had demanded more than twice as much with few guarantees it would keep the plant open.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said it "became clear" to the government that Jingye was intent on closing down the blast furnaces no matter the financial support offered, prompting it to secure control of the site from its owner.

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Pop star Katy Perry and five other women are set to blast into space aboard Jeff Bezos' space tourism rocket.

The singer will be joined by Bezos's fiancée Lauren Sánchez and CBS presenter Gayle King.

The New Shepard rocket is due to lift off from its West Texas launch site and the launch window opens at 08:30 local time (14:30 BST).

The flight will last around 11 minutes and take the crew more than 100km (62 miles) above Earth, crossing the internationally recognised boundary of space and giving the crew a few moments of weightlessness.

Also on board are former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

The spacecraft is fully autonomous, requiring no pilots, and the crew will not manually operate the vehicle.

The capsule will return to Earth with a parachute-assisted soft landing, while the rocket booster will land itself around two miles away from the launch site.

"If you had told me that I would be part of the first-ever all-female crew in space, I would have believed you. Nothing was beyond my imagination as a child. Although we didn't grow up with much, I never stopped looking at the world with hopeful WONDER!" Mrs Perry said in a social media post.

Blue Origin says the last all-female spaceflight was over 60 years ago when Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel into space on a solo mission aboard the spacecraft Vostok 6.

Since then, there have been no other all-female spaceflights but women have made numerous significant contributions.

Blue Origin is a private space company founded in 2000 by Bezos, the billionaire entrepreneur who also started Amazon.

Although Blue Origin has not released full ticket prices, a $150,000 (£114,575.85) deposit is required to reserve a seat—underlining the exclusivity of these early flights.

Alongside its suborbital tourism business, the company is also developing long-term space infrastructure, including reusable rockets and lunar landing systems.

The New Shepard rocket is designed to be fully reusable and its booster returns to the launch pad for vertical landings after each flight, reducing overall costs.

According to US law, astronauts must complete comprehensive training for their specific roles.

Blue Origin says its New Shepard passengers are trained over two days with a focus on physical fitness, emergency protocols, details about the safety measures and procedures for zero gravity.

Additionally, there are two support members referred to as Crew Member Seven: one provides continuous guidance to astronauts, while the other maintains communication from the control room during the mission.

The rise of space tourism has prompted criticism that it is too exclusive and environmentally damaging.

Supporters argue that private companies are accelerating innovation and making space more accessible.

Professor Brian Cox told the BBC in 2024: "Our civilisation needs to expand beyond our planet for so many reasons," and believes that collaboration between NASA and commercial firms is a positive step.

But critics raise significant environmental concerns.

They say that as more and more rockets are launched, the risks of harming the ozone layer increases.

A 2022 study by Professor Eloise Marais from University College London found that rocket soot in the upper atmosphere has a warming effect which is 500 times greater than when released by planes closer to Earth.

The high cost of space tourism makes it inaccessible to most people, with these expensive missions out of reach for the majority.

Critics, including actress Olivia Munn, questioned the optics of this particular venture, remarking "There's a lot of people who can't even afford eggs," during an appearance on Today with Jenna & Friends.

Astronaut Tim Peake has defended the value of human space travel, especially in relation to tackling global issues such as climate change.

At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Peake voiced his disappointment that space exploration was increasingly seen as a pursuit for the wealthy, stating: "I personally am a fan of using space for science and for the benefit of everybody back on Earth, so in that respect, I feel disappointed that space is being tarred with that brush."

Watch Blue Origin's Last Spaceflight on the New Shepard Rocket

Additonal reporting by Victoria Gill and Kate Stephens, BBC Climate and Science.

El Salvador will not return Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran national who the US government mistakenly deported to his home country where he is being held in a notorious mega-prison.

President Nayib Bukele made the comments during a meeting on Monday at the White House with Donald Trump, with whom he shares a strong relationship.

The US Supreme Court ruled last week that the Trump administration must "facilitate" the return of Mr Ábrego García, who lives in Maryland with his family and was granted protection from deportation by a court in 2019.

The Trump administration argues it cannot bring him home, and Attorney General Pam Bondi said during the meeting that it's "up to El Salvador if they want to return him".

Trump praised Bukele for a new partnership under which the US can deport people it alleges are gang members to the Central American nation. Mr Garcia, whose lawyer said he is not a gang member, was among 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans the Trump administration deported to El Salvador's Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (Cecot).

On Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said another 10 alleged gang members were sent there, despite legal challenges over those it already deported. The Us considers them suspected members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs, which are designated as "foreign terrorist organisations" by Trump.

In response to an earlier ruling by the US Supreme Court that the administration should facilitate the return of Mr Ábrego García to the US, lawyers wrote on Sunday that the issue was a matter of foreign policy - and outside the control of the courts.

Trump told reporters last week that if the Supreme Court said "bring somebody back, I would do that".

The government has conceded Mr Ábrego García was deported due to an "administrative error", though it also claims he is a member of the MS-13 gang - something his lawyer denies.

Officials were ordered to provide daily updates on steps being taken to bring Mr Ábrego García back to the US.

• Man mistakenly deported to El Salvador 'alive and secure', US says
• What is the 1798 law that Trump used to deport migrants?
• Mother spots son deported from US in mega-prison footage

Relations between Trump and Bukele have flourished since Trump's return to the White House in January, after Bukele agreed to take US deportees which has assisted Trump in his pledge to enact mass deportations.

Writing on X, Rubio said the alliance was an "example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere".

Ahead of Bukele's trip to Washington, Trump praised his counterpart, who has positioned himself as a strongman leader who is tough on crime.

Trump said Bukele was doing a "fantastic job" at imprisoning some "very bad people... that should never have been allowed into our country".

Trump's team has so far sent to El Salvador more than 200 migrants, who were accused of being gang members. Many of them were removed from the country using a law that dates back to 1798.

Family members of some previous deportees to the notorious maximum security Salvadoran prison, known as Cecot, have denied they have gang ties.

One woman in Venezuela, Myrelis Casique López, recently told BBC Mundo she became certain her son was among the detainees when she saw a photo of him being taken to Cecot.

She suggested he was targeted by American authorities due to his tattoos.

Announcing the removal of 10 more "criminals" in a social media post on Sunday, Rubio did not say whether the latest group was sent to Cecot specifically.

The administration previously published images of deportees arriving at the facility - and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem paid a visit last month.

Asked whether he had concerns over allegations of human rights abuses at Cecot, Trump told reporters: "I don't see it."

Pop star Katy Perry and five other women are set to blast into space aboard Jeff Bezos' space tourism rocket.

The singer will be joined by Bezos's fiancée Lauren Sánchez and CBS presenter Gayle King.

The New Shepard rocket is due to lift off from its West Texas launch site and the launch window opens at 08:30 local time (14:30 BST).

The flight will last around 11 minutes and take the crew more than 100km (62 miles) above Earth, crossing the internationally recognised boundary of space and giving the crew a few moments of weightlessness.

Also on board are former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

The spacecraft is fully autonomous, requiring no pilots, and the crew will not manually operate the vehicle.

The capsule will return to Earth with a parachute-assisted soft landing, while the rocket booster will land itself around two miles away from the launch site.

"If you had told me that I would be part of the first-ever all-female crew in space, I would have believed you. Nothing was beyond my imagination as a child. Although we didn't grow up with much, I never stopped looking at the world with hopeful WONDER!" Mrs Perry said in a social media post.

Blue Origin says the last all-female spaceflight was over 60 years ago when Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel into space on a solo mission aboard the spacecraft Vostok 6.

Since then, there have been no other all-female spaceflights but women have made numerous significant contributions.

Blue Origin is a private space company founded in 2000 by Bezos, the billionaire entrepreneur who also started Amazon.

Although Blue Origin has not released full ticket prices, a $150,000 (£114,575.85) deposit is required to reserve a seat—underlining the exclusivity of these early flights.

Alongside its suborbital tourism business, the company is also developing long-term space infrastructure, including reusable rockets and lunar landing systems.

The New Shepard rocket is designed to be fully reusable and its booster returns to the launch pad for vertical landings after each flight, reducing overall costs.

According to US law, astronauts must complete comprehensive training for their specific roles.

Blue Origin says its New Shepard passengers are trained over two days with a focus on physical fitness, emergency protocols, details about the safety measures and procedures for zero gravity.

Additionally, there are two support members referred to as Crew Member Seven: one provides continuous guidance to astronauts, while the other maintains communication from the control room during the mission.

The rise of space tourism has prompted criticism that it is too exclusive and environmentally damaging.

Supporters argue that private companies are accelerating innovation and making space more accessible.

Professor Brian Cox told the BBC in 2024: "Our civilisation needs to expand beyond our planet for so many reasons," and believes that collaboration between NASA and commercial firms is a positive step.

But critics raise significant environmental concerns.

They say that as more and more rockets are launched, the risks of harming the ozone layer increases.

A 2022 study by Professor Eloise Marais from University College London found that rocket soot in the upper atmosphere has a warming effect which is 500 times greater than when released by planes closer to Earth.

The high cost of space tourism makes it inaccessible to most people, with these expensive missions out of reach for the majority.

Critics, including actress Olivia Munn, questioned the optics of this particular venture, remarking "There's a lot of people who can't even afford eggs," during an appearance on Today with Jenna & Friends.

Astronaut Tim Peake has defended the value of human space travel, especially in relation to tackling global issues such as climate change.

At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Peake voiced his disappointment that space exploration was increasingly seen as a pursuit for the wealthy, stating: "I personally am a fan of using space for science and for the benefit of everybody back on Earth, so in that respect, I feel disappointed that space is being tarred with that brush."

Watch Blue Origin's Last Spaceflight on the New Shepard Rocket

Additonal reporting by Victoria Gill and Kate Stephens, BBC Climate and Science.

Officials are working to deliver essential raw materials to British Steel's Scunthorpe plant, the government has said, as it races to keep its blast furnaces burning.

An emergency law rushed through Parliament on Saturday gave the government control of the Lincolnshire site to prevent its Chinese owner shutting it down.

The government said work was under way on Monday to obtain the coking coal and iron ore that power the plant's two furnaces - materials it previously said owners Jingye had been selling off.

"My team are already hard at work on the ground to keep jobs going and furnaces burning," the business secretary said in a statement.

Dozens of businesses including steel producers Tata and Rainham Steel have offered help and to supply their raw materials, the government added.

How quickly materials get to the site is important because blast furnaces can sustain permanent damage if their temperature drops too low.

Restarting a furnace that has shut down is also a costly and complex process.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: "When I said steelmaking has a future in the UK, I meant it.

"That's why we've passed these new powers to save British Steel at Scunthorpe and that's why my team are already hard at work on the ground to keep jobs going and furnaces burning."

It comes after Reynolds refused to confirm on Sunday whether the government could obtain the materials in time.

"I'm not going to get into that," he told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, but said the takeover gave the "opportunity" to obtain the materials needed.

The Scunthorpe plant employs 2,700 people and is the last site in the UK that can produce virgin steel.

The government fast-tracked legislation which gave it control of the plant after talks with Jingye to save it appeared to break down.

The company said in March it was losing £700,000 a day at the site, which it called "no longer financially sustainable," and began a consultation on its closure.

Reynolds told the BBC it "became clear" during negotiations that Jingye was intent on closing down the blast furnaces no matter the financial support offered.

The government said Jingye refused an offer of some £500m and demanded more than twice as much money, with few guarantees it would keep the plant open.

"It might not be sabotage, it might be neglect," Reynolds said of the company's actions.

The Conservatives have criticised the government for not stepping in sooner to save the plant.

Tory shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said the party had supported the emergency law because "it's the least worst option on the table".

The fate of the Scunthorpe steel works has shone a fresh spotlight on Chinese investment in the UK economy with critics raising questions over potential security risks.

The British Steel plant had been owned by China's Jingye Steel.

But the UK government has now taken control of the Scunthorpe site, amid claims the Chinese owners were planning to permanently decommission its two blast furnaces and use its rolling mills to process imported Chinese-made metal instead.

BBC Verify looks at what we know about the extent of Chinese investment in the UK economy - and how much of a concern it should be.

How much Chinese investment is there in the UK in total?

Data from the Office for National Statistics suggests total Chinese investment in the UK in 2023 amounted to about £4.3bn - a small fraction of the total £2 trillion of overseas investment in the British economy in that year.

However, this is likely to be a considerable underrepresentation of the true scale of Chinese investment in the UK because the official data only includes the immediate investing country, not the ultimate source of the money - and because of a lack of transparency from Beijing when it comes to overseas ownership stakes.

Independent estimates from the American Enterprise Institute think tank, using corporate reports, suggest total public and private Chinese investment in the UK between 2005 and 2024 added up to $105bn, or £82bn.

This would have made Britain the third largest national destination of Chinese investment over this period, after only the US and Australia.

What have Chinese firms invested in?

There is a wide range of Chinese investment in the UK, ranging from critical energy and transport infrastructure, to stakes in private companies and football clubs.

Significant Chinese investments in UK infrastructure include a 10% stake in London's Heathrow airport by the China Investment Corporation, a sovereign wealth fund wholly owned by the Chinese state.

The Hong Kong-based industrialist Li Ka-shing's investment group owns UK Power Networks, which operates electricity distribution infrastructure across London, the South East of England and the East of England.

The billionaire's group also owns a 76% stake in Northumbrian Water Group, which provides water supply and sewerage in the north east of England.

There is also a large Chinese investment in the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset.

China General Nuclear Power Group originally had a 33.5% stake, with the rest owned by the French company EDF.

But EDF reports that the Chinese company has stopped contributing additional financing to the joint project - which has been running over budget - and, as a result the Chinese stake at the end of last year had declined to 27.4%.

The same Chinese company has an even larger stake - 66.5% - in the proposed Bradwell B nuclear site in Essex, according to the project website. EDF owns the rest.

There is also Chinese investment in other sectors of the UK economy, such as transport.

The Hangzhou-based Chinese car company, Geely Auto, owns the Coventry-headquartered London EV Company, which manufactures electric black taxis.

Chinese firms have some investment in consumer brands too.

Li Ka-shing's group owns the Suffolk-headquartered pub chain and brewery Greene King.

Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club is owned by the Shanghai-based conglomerate Fosun.

While Jingye steel had total control of the Scunthorpe steel plant, it's important to bear in mind that Chinese investors do not always have majority stakes in UK businesses, which would interfere with their ability to determine those companies' operational decisions.

Some of these organisations such as airports and water utilities are also tightly regulated, potentially limiting the freedom of manoeuvre of their Chinese owners in controlling the assets.

Chinese investors are also estimated to have considerable holdings of UK land and buildings.

The Leadenhall Building, known as the "cheesegrater", in the City of London was acquired by a Chinese property investor for £1.15bn in 2017.

How much of a threat could these investments pose?

The potential danger posed by Chinese investment in UK infrastructure has been extensively debated in recent years - and a particular flashpoint was the involvement of the Shenzhen-based Chinese technology company Huawei in building the UK's 5G communications infrastructure.

Huawei was founded by Ren Zhengfei, a former Chinese army officer, in 1987.

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre initially judged in 2019 that any risk posed by Huawei was manageable.

But the UK, nevertheless, required the Chinese company to begin pulling out of the UK's telecoms infrastructure in 2020, after coming under pressure from the US government during Donald Trump's first term as President.

The involvement of Huawei in UK networks was also opposed by a number of MPs.

Grace Theodoulou, policy fellow on China at the Council on Geostrategy, says there are two main potential threats to consider for Chinese investment in UK critical infrastructure.

"The first is the potential for espionage – for example, having Chinese-made audiovisual equipment installed in government buildings or devices.

"The second is the infrastructure can be controlled by the manufacturer and, as such, could be disrupted for geopolitical leverage," she said.

Some analysts argue that Chinese law - which mandates all Chinese companies to align closely with Chinese Communist Party directives and to assist with national intelligence efforts - represents an inherent security risk in all Chinese investments in Western infrastructure.

"A likely scenario where it might be in China's interests [to harm UK infrastructure] would be to impede Britain's ability to impose sanctions against Beijing in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

"If China were to invade Taiwan, and should they have control over parts of our critical infrastructure, it would highly impact the potential to enforce sanctions or similar measures," Ms Theodoulou said.

However, other analysts are sceptical over whether it would be in the financial interest of Chinese investors to sabotage UK infrastructure or firms, as such actions would collapse the value of their investments and likely lead to their appropriation by the UK government.

"This threat is asserted and not proven, and these companies are profit-driven so it is not in their interests to sabotage our infrastructure," said Prof Giles Mohan of the Open University.

And they argue that a distinction should be drawn between Chinese investments in vital infrastructure and investments into UK firms which own consumer brands where the potential for public harm is considerably lower.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

The families of five people murdered by Hashem Abedi in the Manchester Arena bombing have told the justice secretary of their "absolute disbelief" that he was allowed to attack prison officers in HMP Frankland.

Despite being held in a high-security unit, Abedi, 28, attacked three prison officers on Saturday with improvised blades and hot cooking oil.

In a letter seen by the BBC, the families say Abedi "should not have access to anything that he can weaponise" and urged the government to ensure he "cannot be allowed to hurt anyone else".

Abedi was jailed for life with a minimum 55 years in prison after being convicted of murdering 22 people in the 2017 attack carried out by his brother, Salman.

Since the letter was sent to Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood on Monday, inmates of separation centres have been barred from using kitchens.

Abedi had been held in a separation centre - which holds a small number of inmates deemed to be dangerous and extremist - at Frankland.

He moved to Frankland after carrying out an earlier attack on prison officers in London's Belmarsh prison in 2020, for which three years and 10 months was added to his sentence.

Two prison officers remain in hospital with serious injuries from the latest attack, while a third had been discharged.

The letter says "we are writing in absolute disbelief" that, once again, the "evil Hashem Abedi has been allowed to cause danger to life".

They go on: "As the families of Megan Hurley, Eilidh Macleod, Chloe Rutherford, Liam Curry, and Kelly Brewster, our beautiful, beloved children who were so tragically murdered along with 16 others in the Manchester Arena terror attack in May 2017, we find this situation beyond comprehension."

The families say they understood prison to mean "confinement in a cell for 23 hours a day, meals served through a hatch, and a single hour outside the cell, accompanied by a prison officer" - which they described as "the very minimum measure of justice for the devastation he caused".

They write: "In our view, he should not be allowed any privileges whatsoever while serving a sentence for the deaths of 22 innocent lives and the injuring of many more.

"He should not have access to anything that he can weaponise, such as hot oil or items he can turn into blades."

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has said there would be a full, independent review into the incident, which saw the three prison officers suffer stab wounds and burns.

The families asked Mahmood to "consider the full gravity of Abedi's actions when determining any further punishment".

They wrote "His continuing violence in prison, attacking prison officers in Belmarsh and now attempting to murder three more, shows he feels no remorse and has no respect for human life.

"We send our heartfelt sympathies to the three prison officers who were injured on Saturday, as well as their families. Hashem Abedi cannot be allowed to hurt anyone else.

"As broken families, we firmly believe the appropriate punishment for this individual should be permanent solitary confinement. In truth, anything harsher would be more fitting."

The MoJ said in a statement responding to the letter: "Our thoughts remain with the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing and their families who are understandably concerned by the shocking attack at HMP Frankland this weekend.

"We've already taken immediate action to suspend access to kitchens in separation and close supervision centres."

It added that it would be setting out the terms and scope of the review into the incident in the coming days.

Mahmood has said separately that she will be pushing for the "strongest possible punishment" for Abedi.

With his brother, the suicide bomber Salman Abedi, Hashem Abedi planned and prepared the attack on the Ariana Grande concert in 2017.

He was in Libya when the blast took place and was later extradited to the UK to face trial.

Hashem Abedi was found guilty in 2020 of 22 counts of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to cause an explosion likely to endanger life, and sentenced to a minimum term of at least 55 years before he could be considered for parole.

The sentence was a record for a fixed-length prison term.

It is understood that Hashem Abedi has been moved to the separation centre at HMP Full Sutton following the kitchen attack.

Officials are working to deliver essential raw materials to British Steel's Scunthorpe plant, the government has said, as it races to keep its blast furnaces burning.

An emergency law rushed through Parliament on Saturday gave the government control of the Lincolnshire site to prevent its Chinese owner shutting it down.

The government said work was under way on Monday to obtain the coking coal and iron ore that power the plant's two furnaces - materials it previously said owners Jingye had been selling off.

"My team are already hard at work on the ground to keep jobs going and furnaces burning," the business secretary said in a statement.

Dozens of businesses including steel producers Tata and Rainham Steel have offered help and to supply their raw materials, the government added.

How quickly materials get to the site is important because blast furnaces can sustain permanent damage if their temperature drops too low.

Restarting a furnace that has shut down is also a costly and complex process.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: "When I said steelmaking has a future in the UK, I meant it.

"That's why we've passed these new powers to save British Steel at Scunthorpe and that's why my team are already hard at work on the ground to keep jobs going and furnaces burning."

It comes after Reynolds refused to confirm on Sunday whether the government could obtain the materials in time.

"I'm not going to get into that," he told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, but said the takeover gave the "opportunity" to obtain the materials needed.

The Scunthorpe plant employs 2,700 people and is the last site in the UK that can produce virgin steel.

The government fast-tracked legislation which gave it control of the plant after talks with Jingye to save it appeared to break down.

The company said in March it was losing £700,000 a day at the site, which it called "no longer financially sustainable," and began a consultation on its closure.

Reynolds told the BBC it "became clear" during negotiations that Jingye was intent on closing down the blast furnaces no matter the financial support offered.

The government said Jingye refused an offer of some £500m and demanded more than twice as much money, with few guarantees it would keep the plant open.

"It might not be sabotage, it might be neglect," Reynolds said of the company's actions.

The Conservatives have criticised the government for not stepping in sooner to save the plant.

Tory shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said the party had supported the emergency law because "it's the least worst option on the table".

Nick Frost, Paapa Essiedu, Janet McTeer and Paul Whitehouse will appear in the forthcoming Harry Potter TV series, US network HBO has confirmed.

Frost has been cast as Hagrid, McTeer will play Minerva McGonagall, and Essiedu will portray Severus Snape. All three were reported to be in talks with the network in recent weeks.

HBO have now formally confirmed their casting, and announced that Whitehouse, well known for the Fast Show and Harry & Paul, will play Argus Filch.

The network also confirmed John Lithgow's announcement in February that he will play Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

The show is due to begin filming this summer, with the first series airing potentially as early as next year.

The actors playing Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger have not yet been cast.

HBO launched an open casting call for the three lead roles, which reportedly attracted more than 30,000 submissions.

Who are the confirmed actors?

• John Lithgow, who will play Dumbledore, recently starred in the Oscar-winning Conclave, and has also appeared in 3rd Rock from the Sun, Footloose and The Crown. He won an Olivier Award last week for playing Roald Dahl in stage play Giant, which soon transfers to the West End
• Paapa Essiedu, who will portray Hogwarts teacher Severus Snape, shot to fame in the TV series I May Destroy You, and has also appeared in Gangs of London and The Lazarus Project. Last year, he starred in The Outrun with Saoirse Ronan, and will appear in a new stage production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons in the West End later this year
• Janet McTeer, who has been cast as Professor McGonagall, has appeared in films including Wuthering Heights, Albert Nobbs and The Menu, as well as the TV series Ozark and Jessica Jones. Later this year, she will be seen in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
• Nick Frost, who will play the friendly half-giant Hagrid, is best known for appearing in comedy films Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World's End and Paul. His TV credits include Spaced and Into the Badlands, and he voices SM-33 in Star Wars: Skeleton Crew
• Paul Whitehouse, who will play Argus Filch, appeared in the BBC sketch comedy series The Fast Show and opposite Harry Enfield in Harry & Paul. He also appears in Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, with Bob Mortimer, while his stage credits include Only Fools and Horses The Musical
• Luke Thallon, who will play Quirinus Quirrell, has appeared in stage productions including Patriots, Albion and Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt. He is currently starring in a touring Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet, playing the titular role

Showrunner Francesca Gardiner and executive producer Mark Mylod said they were "delighted to have such extraordinary talent onboard, and we can't wait to see them bring these beloved characters to new life".

JK Rowling's phenomenally successful series of novels has previously been adapted into a film franchise starring Daniel Radcliffe as Potter.

The TV series, however, will have more breathing space to explore the plot lines from the books without the time constraints of the film.

Rowling will serve as an executive producer on the TV series, which HBO has said will be a "faithful adaptation" of her books.

Further casting announcements are expected to follow soon, with rumours swirling about other actors reportedly in discussions about joining, including Cillian Murphy as a possible Voldermort.

The World Health Organization has said conditions at hospitals in Gaza are "beyond description", after a major facility was put out of service by an Israeli air strike.

Spokeswoman Dr Margaret Harris told the BBC it was seeing "attack after attack" on hospitals and healthcare workers, and medical supplies were critically low due to Israel's blockade of the territory.

On Sunday, staff at al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City said an Israeli strike had destroyed its laboratory and damaged its emergency room. They did not report any direct casualties, but said a child died due to disruption of care.

The Israeli military said it hit a "command-and-control centre" used by Hamas to plan attacks.

The hospital is run by the Church of England, whose bishops said they shared "grief, sorrow and outrage" with Palestinians over the attack and called on Israel to provide evidence to support its claim.

A ceasefire in Gaza ended when Israel resumed its air and ground campaign four weeks ago, saying that military pressure would force Hamas to release the hostages it is still holding.

Al-Ahli hospital was struck by two missiles around midnight on Sunday - the fifth time it has been hit since the beginning of the war.

According to the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem, the two-storey genetic laboratory was demolished and the pharmacy and emergency department buildings were damaged. Surrounding buildings were also damaged, including St Philip's Church.

The diocese said the Israel military gave a 20-minute warning to hospital staff and patients to evacuate before the attack.

There were no casualties as a result of the strike, but one child who had previously suffered a head injury died as a result of the rushed evacuation process, it added.

Later, WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the UN agency had been told by al-Ahli's director that the emergency room, laboratory, emergency room X-ray machines, and the pharmacy were "destroyed".

The hospital was forced to move 50 patients to other hospitals, but 40 patients in a critical condition could not be moved, he added.

"Hospitals are protected under international humanitarian law. Attacks on health care must stop. Once again we repeat: patients, health workers and hospitals must be protected."

The Israeli foreign ministry said it was a "precise strike on a single building that was used by Hamas as a terror command and control centre" and where there was "no medical activity take place".

It also stressed that an "early warning" was issued, and that the strike was "carried out while avoiding further damage to the hospital compound, which remained operational for continued medical treatment".

Hamas condemned the attack as a "savage crime" and rejected the claim that it was using the facility for military purposes.

On Monday, the Church of England's House of Bishops said in a statement they were "dismayed that hospitals have become battlegrounds in Gaza" and that Israel had "yet to provide clear and compelling evidence to substantiate its claim" that the hospital was being used by Hamas.

"Against that backdrop, we call for an independent, thorough and transparent investigation into this attack as well as the alleged misuse of the hospital."

The bishops also said that "the extremely limited time given to staff and patients to evacuate the hospital was a further assault on fundamental human rights and basic human dignity".

WHO representative Dr Rik Peeperkorn meanwhile told the BBC that al-Ahli was now unable to receive new patients pending repairs, and that this would "heavily impact trauma patients".

"Al-Ahli was a key trauma hospital north of Wadi Gaza. It is the hospital with the only functional CT scanner north of Wadi Gaza," he said, referring to the valley that effectively divides the territory in two because it is an Israeli-designated "no-go" area.

The charity Medical Aid for Palestinians also quoted an orthopaedic surgeon at al-Ahli as saying that the level of care the hospital could provide to the 40 remaining patients was "quite similar to that of a hostel".

"We are unable to perform any surgical procedures, as these patients require laboratory diagnostics, pharmacy support, and emergency referrals in case of complications - all of which have ceased entirely due to the recent attack," Dr Ahmed al-Shurafa said.

The ICRC's head of sub-delegation in Gaza, Adrian Zimmermann, also warned that the wider shortage of medical supplies "puts the life and the wellbeing of Gazans who require healthcare services at risk".

Dr Peeperkorn said they were running critically low because Israel had not allowed in any deliveries of humanitarian aid for more than six weeks.

He added that the WHO had stockpiled some supplies in its warehouses during the recent ceasefire, but that the Israeli military was not facilitating transfers between northern and southern Gaza.

"Last week, we had a discussion with one of the medical specialists at al-Ahli. He was telling us that they had to use the same surgical gowns and the same surgical gloves for various operations, while we have surgical gloves and gowns in our warehouse in Deir al-Balah [south of Wadi Gaza]," he recalled. "We want to bring them, but we are not facilitated."

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

More than 50,980 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

A ceasefire deal that began in January and lasted two months saw Hamas release 33 Israeli hostages – eight of them dead – and five Thai hostages in exchange for about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and a surge in humanitarian aid entering Gaza.

Israel resumed its offensive on 18 March, blaming Hamas's refusal to accept a proposal for an extension of the agreement's first phase and the release of more of the 59 hostages it is still holding, up to 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

Hamas accused Israel of violating the original deal, according to which there would be a second phase where all the remaining living hostages would be handed over and the war brought to a permanent end.

On Monday, a Hamas delegation led by the group's chief negotiator left Cairo without making any progress in talks with Egyptian mediators aimed at reaching a new ceasefire agreement, a senior Palestinian official familiar with the talks told the BBC.

"No breakthrough was achieved due to Israel's refusal to commit to ending the war and withdrawing from the Gaza Strip," the official said.

"Hamas showed flexibility, regarding the number of hostages to be released in order to make progress. But Israel wants the hostages back without ending the war," he claimed.

Israel has said it is waiting for a response to its latest proposal, sent at the end of last week.

It is understood to have reduced slightly the number of hostages it is demanding should be released in exchange for an extension of the truce and the entry of humanitarian aid.

A group of hostages' families, known as the Tikvah Forum, said on Monday that the parents of Eitan Mor had been told by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the government was working on a deal that would see 10 hostages freed - down from 11 or 12.

A strike by bin workers in Birmingham is set to continue after the latest pay offer by the city council was "overwhelmingly" rejected.

It follows a month-long stand-off between members of the Unite union and the Labour-run authority as bin bags and fly-tipped rubbish have piled high on streets.

Unite said the city council's "partial" offer was "totally inadequate" did not address the potential pay cuts for 200 drivers.

The council has previously said the offer on the table was a fair one.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: "The rejection of the offer is no surprise as these workers simply cannot afford to take pay cuts of this magnitude to pay the price for bad decision after bad decision."

The dispute centres around the council's decision to remove Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) roles.

The union argued that the role brought safety expertise to an "often dirty and dangerous job", and said about 170 affected workers faced losing up to £8,000 annually due to the decision.

Birmingham City Council, which disputes both the number of staff affected and the sums of money quoted by the union, said the WRCO role was not industry standard, and did not exist in other councils.

At the end of March, the council declared a major incident, saying that some 17,000 tonnes of rubbish was lining the city's streets.

Some residents have also reported an increase in rats and other vermin.

In recent days, military planners have been called in to help deal with the situation.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said that was not about "boots on the ground" but it would help get waste cleared.

Other neighbouring authorities have also stepped in to help clear rubbish.

"We've got over two-thirds of the rubbish cleared off the streets now, this week we'll start to see cleaning up the pavements and streets as well as the clearance of all of that rubbish, I'm very pleased about that," Rayner said.

"The kids are off school - obviously it's Easter holidays, we want that rubbish cleared."

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The government has suspended kitchen use in prison separation centres that are used to house a small number of the UK's most dangerous and extremist inmates, it is understood.

It comes after the Manchester Arena bomber Hashem Abedi attacked three prison officers on Saturday in HMP Frankland.

Two male officers remain in hospital with serious injuries. A female officer was discharged from hospital on Saturday.

Abedi threw hot oil at the officers and stabbed them with blades fashioned from cooking trays, the prison officers' association has said.

Abedi had access to the kitchen in Frankland's separation centre, one of only two separation centres currently in use.

It is understood that Hashem Abedi was moved to the separation centre at HMP Full Sutton following the kitchen attack.

The Ministry of Justice has said there will be a full review into the incident.

Abedi was jailed for life with a minimum sentence of 55 years for helping his brother carry out the 2017 suicide bombing of an Ariana Grande concert.

Abedi had been a long-term inmate at HMP Frankland's separation centre, which holds fewer than 10 prisoners and is used to house those considered the most dangerous and extremist.

He moved to Frankland after carrying out an earlier attack on prison officers in London's HMP Belmarsh in 2020.

Earlier that same year, Abedi was found guilty of 22 counts of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to cause an explosion likely to endanger life over the Manchester Arena attack.

A man who died in a house explosion that saw dozens of people evacuated from their homes has been named as David Howard.

Emergency services were called to John Street, Worksop, Nottinghamshire, on Saturday shortly before 20:00 BST.

Nottinghamshire Police said officers recovered the 53-year-old's body from under debris following the blast.

His daughters have been informed and are being supported by specially trained officers, the force added.

A major incident was declared by emergency services following the explosion on Saturday evening.

One terraced house was destroyed and two more partially collapsed.

Eight further properties and 20 cars were damaged by debris, police said, with one other person treated for minor injuries.

The force said 35 houses were evacuated on the night but residents had since been able to return to all but 16.

Temporary accommodation is being provided to those still unable to return.

Det Ch Insp Ruby Burrow, from Nottinghamshire Police, said: "Our thoughts are very much with David's loved ones at this devastating time.

"He has lost his life in truly tragic circumstances, and we would ask everyone to respect his daughters' privacy.

"Our investigation to establish exactly what happened is ongoing and we are working hard to find the answers his family needs.

"We would ask that while the investigation is being carried out that people avoid speculation both online and in the community."

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Chinese officials are calling on US President Donald Trump to "completely cancel" his so-callled reciprocal tariffs, as a trade war between the world's two biggest economies grinds on.

This week, Trump announced a 90-day pause for a host of global tariffs he had planned, but increased levies on Chinese imports to 145%.

"We urge the US to take a big step to correct its mistakes, completely cancel the wrong practice of 'reciprocal tariffs' and return to the right path of mutual respect," China's commerce ministry said in a statement.

The Trump administration offered a concession on Friday by announcing that some technological products - including many produced in China - would be exempted.

The Chinese commerce ministry called the exemptions a "small step" by the US, and said that Beijing was "evaluating the impact" of the move.

Trump's technology exemptions - which include smartphones, computers and semiconductors - offered hope for tech giants and consumers who worried the price of gadgets would skyrocket as a result of the tariffs.

• Trump's iPhone olive branch is a significant trade war retreat
• Trump's changing tariffs leave shoppers feeling paralysed

But there was no immediate prospect of a thaw in the two rival's protectionist posture.

US trade representative Jamieson Greer was asked whether there were any plans for Trump to speak with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, during an appearance on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday.

"Right now we don't have any plans on that," he said.

Trump imposed a tariff amounting to 54% on imports of products from China at the beginning of April, before escalating to the current 145% rate.

In its own tit-for-tat tariffs, China imposed levies of 34% on US goods, before increasing it to 84% and then 125%, which took effect on Saturday.

In announcing its latest tariffs, China's commerce ministry said last week that it would "fight to the end" if the US "insists on provoking a tariff war or trade war".

• What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?
• US coffee shops worried about bitter price hike after tariffs

Late on Saturday, while travelling to Miami, Florida, Trump said he would give more details of the exemptions at the start of next week.

The White House has argued that it is using tariffs as a negotiating tactic to extract more favorable trade terms from other countries.

Trump has said his policy will redress unfairness in the global trading system, as well as bring jobs and factories back to the US.

However, his interventions have seen massive fluctuations in the stock market and raised fears of a decrease in global trade that could have a knock-on effect on jobs and individual economies.

Labour MP and former minister Tulip Siddiq has accused the Bangladeshi authorities of a "politically motivated smear campaign" after they issued an arrest warrant against her.

The country's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has been investigating allegations Siddiq illegally received land as part of its wider probe of the regime of her aunt, Sheikh Hasina, who was deposed as prime minister in August.

The Hampstead and Highgate MP, who quit as economic secretary to the Treasury in January, was named in the arrest warrant alongside more than 50 others over the weekend.

Responding to the arrest warrant, Siddiq told reporters the Bangladeshi authorities were conducting a "trial by media".

More than 100 civilians, among them at least 20 children and a medical team working for a humanitarian charity, have been killed in a series of attacks beginning on Friday in Sudan's western Darfur region, the UN has said.

The assaults – on the city of el Fasher and two nearby camps housing people forced from their homes by the civil war – have been blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The camps, Zamzam and Abu Shouk, provide temporary homes to more than 700,000 people, many of whom are facing famine-like conditions.

News of the attacks come on the eve of the second anniversary of the civil war between the RSF and the army.

The UN's humanitarian co-ordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, said she was "appalled and gravely alarmed" by reports of what had happened.

"This represents yet another deadly and unacceptable escalation in a series of brutal attacks on displaced people and aid workers," she added in a statement.

Aid organisation Relief International said nine of its workers "were mercilessly killed including doctors, referral drivers and a team leader" in the attack on Zamzam.

• BBC finds fear, loss and hope in Sudan's ruined capital
• Sudan war: A simple guide to what is happening
• Fear and prayers in Sudan city under siege

The charity, which said it was the last provider of critical health services in the camp, alleged RSF fighters were to blame.

"We understand that this was a targeted attack on all health infrastructure in the region to prevent access to healthcare for internally displaced people.

"We are horrified that one of our clinics was also part of this attack - along with other health facilities in el-Fasher."

Contacting the BBC on Sunday morning, one Zamzam resident who works at a community kitchen providing food for those in the camp, said the situation was "extremely catastrophic".

"We've lost a large number of young people, those who were working in the community kitchen have been killed, and the doctors who were part of the initiative to reopen the hospital were also killed," Mustafa, 34, said in a WhatsApp audio message.

"My uncle and my cousin were killed. People are wounded, and there is no medicine or hospital to save them - they are dying from bleeding.

"The shelling is still ongoing, and we are expecting more attacks in the morning."

He added that all roads out of the camp were closed and it was "surrounded from all four directions".

The war - a power struggle between the army and the RSF - has created the world's largest humanitarian crisis, forcing more than 12 million people from their homes and pushing communities into hunger.

It began on 15 April 2023, after the leaders of the army and RSF fell out over the political future of the country.

El-Fasher is the last major town in Darfur under army control and has been under siege by the RSF for almost a year.

Additional reporting by Mohamed Zakaria

More BBC stories on Sudan:

• The children living between starvation and death in Darfur
• Civil war survivors tell of killings and rapes
• Thousands flee fresh ethnic killings in Darfur
• 'I saw bodies dumped in Darfur mass grave'

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

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

Fifteen people including former Conservative MP Craig Williams have been charged with betting offences by the Gambling Commission.

The investigation was launched last year following bets placed on the timing of the 2024 general election.

The commission said the investigation focused on individuals "suspected of using confidential information - specifically advance knowledge of the proposed election date - to gain an unfair advantage in betting markets".

Those charged will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on 13 June 2025.

Before the election was called, Williams was the Conservative MP for Montgomeryshire and an aide to then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Laura Saunders, who was the Conservative candidate in Bristol North West at the general election, is also on the list of those who have been charged by the commission.

On 22 May, Rishi Sunak announced the general election would be held on 4 July - a decision that overturned expectations of an autumn poll.

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

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

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Pop star Katy Perry and five other women are set to blast into space aboard Jeff Bezos' space tourism rocket.

The singer will be joined by Bezos's fiancée Lauren Sánchez and CBS presenter Gayle King.

The New Shepard rocket is due to lift off from its West Texas launch site and the launch window opens at 08:30 local time (14:30 BST).

The flight will last around 11 minutes and take the crew more than 100km (62 miles) above Earth, crossing the internationally recognised boundary of space and giving the crew a few moments of weightlessness.

Also on board are former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

The spacecraft is fully autonomous, requiring no pilots, and the crew will not manually operate the vehicle.

The capsule will return to Earth with a parachute-assisted soft landing, while the rocket booster will land itself around two miles away from the launch site.

"If you had told me that I would be part of the first-ever all-female crew in space, I would have believed you. Nothing was beyond my imagination as a child. Although we didn't grow up with much, I never stopped looking at the world with hopeful WONDER!" Mrs Perry said in a social media post.

Blue Origin says the last all-female spaceflight was over 60 years ago when Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel into space on a solo mission aboard the spacecraft Vostok 6.

Since then, there have been no other all-female spaceflights but women have made numerous significant contributions.

Blue Origin is a private space company founded in 2000 by Bezos, the billionaire entrepreneur who also started Amazon.

Although Blue Origin has not released full ticket prices, a $150,000 (£114,575.85) deposit is required to reserve a seat—underlining the exclusivity of these early flights.

Alongside its suborbital tourism business, the company is also developing long-term space infrastructure, including reusable rockets and lunar landing systems.

The New Shepard rocket is designed to be fully reusable and its booster returns to the launch pad for vertical landings after each flight, reducing overall costs.

According to US law, astronauts must complete comprehensive training for their specific roles.

Blue Origin says its New Shepard passengers are trained over two days with a focus on physical fitness, emergency protocols, details about the safety measures and procedures for zero gravity.

Additionally, there are two support members referred to as Crew Member Seven: one provides continuous guidance to astronauts, while the other maintains communication from the control room during the mission.

The rise of space tourism has prompted criticism that it is too exclusive and environmentally damaging.

Supporters argue that private companies are accelerating innovation and making space more accessible.

Professor Brian Cox told the BBC in 2024: "Our civilisation needs to expand beyond our planet for so many reasons," and believes that collaboration between NASA and commercial firms is a positive step.

But critics raise significant environmental concerns.

They say that as more and more rockets are launched, the risks of harming the ozone layer increases.

A 2022 study by Professor Eloise Marais from University College London found that rocket soot in the upper atmosphere has a warming effect which is 500 times greater than when released by planes closer to Earth.

The high cost of space tourism makes it inaccessible to most people, with these expensive missions out of reach for the majority.

Critics, including actress Olivia Munn, questioned the optics of this particular venture, remarking "There's a lot of people who can't even afford eggs," during an appearance on Today with Jenna & Friends.

Astronaut Tim Peake has defended the value of human space travel, especially in relation to tackling global issues such as climate change.

At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Peake voiced his disappointment that space exploration was increasingly seen as a pursuit for the wealthy, stating: "I personally am a fan of using space for science and for the benefit of everybody back on Earth, so in that respect, I feel disappointed that space is being tarred with that brush."

Watch Blue Origin's Last Spaceflight on the New Shepard Rocket

Additonal reporting by Victoria Gill and Kate Stephens, BBC Climate and Science.

From the end of April, the 500-year-old Royal Mail will be controlled by a Czech billionaire who co-owns a football club and is a major investor in a British supermarket - so, why would he want this ailing institution?

Listen to the audio version of this on BBC Sounds

"A pair of scissors, one empty teapot and some hot water, please." The slightly baffled staff at Claridge's scrambled to comply with Daniel Kretinsky's breakfast order as he sanitised and moisturised his hands.

The upscale hotel has been serving tea to the global elite for decades but Mr Kretinsky brought along his own packet of Chinese green tea, which he snipped open (hence the scissors) and poured into the empty pot.

He was tall, perfectly groomed, steely-eyed but unfaultingly polite and thoughtful. If you told anyone in the dining room he was a billionaire, they would have no problem believing it.

Known as the Czech Sphinx for his enigmatic style, Mr Kretinsky, who is 49, is worth £6bn according to the Sunday Times Rich List. He lives in plush mansions in Paris and London, was originally a lawyer and made his fortune in European energy markets.

Our meeting was at Claridge's in June 2024 - I was trying to convince him to give me an interview about his audacious attempt to buy a British institution that was once seen as a national treasure: Royal Mail.

His profile as a buyer was one that that unions and ministers typically would be wary of because of his historic connections with Russia - his companies own a gas pipeline that has transported Russian gas to Europe.

But six months on, his bid to buy Royal Mail's parent company was cleared by the UK government after he agreed "legally binding" undertakings.

It was agreed that the government would retain a so-called "golden share", requiring it to approve any major changes to Royal Mail's ownership, headquarters location and tax residency. The deal was also blessed by unions.

Earlier this month, the owner of Royal Mail said that the takeover could be completed by the end of April as the deal cleared the final regulatory hurdles standing in the way.

But step back and Royal Mail seems a strange target for a globally mobile oil and gas billionaire investor to set his sights on. It begs the question why would anyone, let alone a successful international entrepreneur, want to buy this faded relic?

How Royal Mail's crown slipped

Royal Mail was founded by Henry VIII more than 500 years ago and still carries the royal cipher on its vans. It is part of the fabric of British life and many people still have a fond relationship with their 'postie', who walks down their path bringing their letters and parcels to their door.

But in recent years Royal Mail's crown has slipped. It is losing money and market share, has been fined for missing delivery targets and has made an enemy of its own workforce through a series of bitter strikes.

Royal Mail's letter business is in steep decline too. It has gone from a peak of 20 billion letters sent in 2004 to under seven billion sent last year.

In December 2024, it was fined £10.5m by the regulator Ofcom for failing to meet delivery targets for first and second class mail.

While the boom in e-commerce has seen the volume of parcels rise, Royal Mail's share of that more profitable business has been falling as new competitors like DPD, DHL, Amazon and Evri have eaten into its market share.

Royal Mail was split off from the Post Office in 2012 and privatised in 2013 at a value of £3.3bn. Its shares immediately rocketed by 38% on the first day of trading, leading to criticism - from the National Audit Office, among others - that it had been sold on the cheap.

At its peak in Covid-era May 2021, the company was worth more than £6bn but had slumped to just over £2bn when Mr Kretinsky launched his takeover bid last April.

He sealed the deal at £3.6bn - 63% higher than before he signalled his intent, but barely more than it was worth at privatisation over a decade ago.

"Royal Mail is a business that has historically found it difficult to grow revenues by more than costs," says Alex Paterson, an analyst at Peel Hunt stockbrokers. "It has seen its parcels market share eroded by more dynamic competition that has been able to invest more in technology, and it has struggled with industrial relations to keep staff working towards a common goal.

"This is not a challenge to underestimate nor one that can be overcome quickly, but that requires considerable long-term investment in infrastructure, technology and staff."

Part of the challenge, and one that puts Royal Mail at a disadvantage compared with its rivals, is that unlike them, Royal Mail has to meet a string of legal and regulatory obligations, says Hazel King, the editor of Parcel and Post Technology International.

Under what is called the universal service obligation (USO), Royal Mail is required by law to deliver letters six days a week and parcels five days a week to every address in the UK. So it cannot pick and choose which business it wants to do.

"Royal Mail must meet their universal service obligation while trying to compete with private firms who often cherry-pick the most profitable business," says Ms King.

The 'Czech Sphinx's' plan

Mr Kretinsky says he has a plan. His success in the energy sector allowed him to buy a 27.5% stake in Royal Mail's parent company, International Distribution Services (IDS). And his company – EP Group – intends to build a pan-European conglomerate built on three pillars: energy, retail and logistics.

He sees IDS as the cornerstone of the logistics pillar, with a plan to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Deutsche Post DHL, DPD and Amazon.

The USO has been under review by Ofcom, with Royal Mail hoping that the regulator will reduce the requirement to deliver second-class letters from six days a week to every other weekday. That single move could save Royal Mail £300m a year – putting it back on a break-even footing.

Mr Kretinsky told me during our interview that he would honour the USO "as long as I am alive", but he is unsurprisingly very much in favour of changing its terms. He said he hopes that "rational minds prevail" when reforming a service that is unsustainable in its current form.

So far, the noises from Ofcom seem to be supportive. The regulator's chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes told the BBC there were "real questions about what the service needs to be going into the future".

Given letter numbers are falling, "we have to think about what is economical", she said, adding Ofcom would be publishing plans for the regulation of Royal Mail "to make sure it is sustainable".

While Royal Mail generally welcomed the proposed changes to the Universal Service Obligation, Royal Mail pushed back against proposed new delivery time and business customer requirements.

Royal Mail said last week that the level at which Ofcom is proposing to set the new delivery targets – 99.5% of First Class letters delivered within three days, and the same percentage of Second Class letters within five – is "over specified and will add significant cost to the delivery of the Universal Service".

It also expressed concerns that proposals to add a new category of regulation to ensure timely delivery for business users like direct mail companies "goes against the wider government drive to reduce unnecessary regulation".

European parcel know-how

But there are other factors that may have driven the sale. Some analysts have speculated that there is another jewel in the crown of IDS - and that Mr Kretinsky may really be after a different part of the business.

Along with Royal Mail, IDS also owns a European parcels business called GLS which it acquired in 1999 – long before Royal Mail was split off from the Post Office and privatised.

Last year GLS made a profit of £320m, compared to Royal Mail, which lost £348m as letter volumes continued to plunge and new competitors ate into its market share of the more profitable parcels business.

"GLS has been a profitable growth business, which has seen investment whereas Royal Mail has been a perpetual underperformer, as the board of parent company IDS has invested where it thinks it will see the best returns," says Mr Paterson.

Mr Kretinsky rejects suggestions from some quarters that he wants to break up the group and has committed to keeping it together for at least five years. Even beyond that, he says the plan is to grow the company rather than shrink it, so a disposal of GLS would be "nonsensical".

In fact, Mr Kretinsky says he hopes to bring the European parcel know-how at GLS to bear on Royal Mail's operations.

What the unions are hoping, and Kretinsky is promising, is that Royal Mail will see greater investment and over time begin to look a bit more like GLS and its European counterparts such as Deutche Post DHL.

Catching up with competitors

Given all the challenges Royal Mail faces, there's an obvious question - why would a billionaire want to chance his arm on turning round something that others couldn't, while up against powerful competitors?

Well, if you believe as Kretinsky does - and he is surely right - that getting parcels to people is a profitable and growing industry, then buying Royal Mail and GLS gives you a way to become a big European player in logistics quickly.

Add to that a powerful and historic brand, a database with every single UK address and a frontline workforce that most of its customers are fond of and pleased to see when they walk down the path - then, despite the challenges, it begins to make sense.

Mr Kretinsky is convinced future growth lies in out-of-home (OOH) delivery. The parcel lockers found in supermarket car parks and elsewhere, operated by the likes of Amazon, Evri and UPS, have grown quickly across Europe.

Earlier this month it was reported that Sainsbury's would be the first supermarket to partner with Royal Mail and install parcel lockers at supermarkets. Some are already operating at several stores including ones in Clapham, Kidderminster and Chislehurst.

Royal Mail has also trialled a new postbox that can take small parcels. Customers procure a barcode from an app, then at the postbox they scan the barcode and drop the parcel into a drawer - this is all powered by solar panels on the box.

Emma Gilthorpe, Royal Mail chief executive, called it an "historic change" to give postboxes "a new lease of life".

All of this boils down to the same thing: convenience. It means customers don't have to wait at home for a delivery - the sender or parcel business emails or texts a code to unlock the locker. For the business it's more efficient, allowing couriers to deliver lots of parcels to one place - meaning fewer miles on the road and less time.

"If they can grow the parcels business and claw back market share, there is every chance that they can add new jobs that could offset the reduction in jobs in the declining letters business," says Mr Paterson.

"There is a significant long-term opportunity to run Royal Mail more successfully with regulatory changes to the USO and greater investment in technology and out-of-home deliveries."

But Royal Mail still has a lot of catching up to do with its competitors. It currently has 1,500 lockers in the UK and aims to grow this figure to at least 20,000 over time. By contrast, Amazon already has 5,000 lockers across the UK and InPost has 7,500 across the UK.

Winning over doubters

That Mr Kretinsky has pulled off the takeover is no easy feat. Royal Mail is, after all, considered vital national infrastructure and as such the deal required review under national security laws.

Then there is the fact that his companies own a gas pipeline that has transported Russian gas to Europe – paid for and approved by EU member states. The small amount that was transported was reduced to zero at the end of 2024 when Ukraine refused to renew permission for any gas to flow across its borders.

Speaking in front of MPs in November, UK Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds referred to Mr Kretinsky as a "legitimate business figure" whose alleged links to Russia had already been reviewed and dismissed when he became the biggest shareholder in the company two years ago.

Getting the unions on board seemed even more of a challenge and the Communication Workers Union was wary of Mr Kretinsky. "The CWU believes Royal Mail should be in public hands," Dave Ward, the CWU's general secretary, told the BBC in June. "We know there are legitimate concerns about Royal Mail Group being owned by a foreign private equity investor."

But during negotiations, union representatives secured a series of time-limited commitments from him, including guarantees that he will protect Royal Mail's pension surplus, that there will be no compulsory redundancies for two years, no sell-off or break-up of any operational part of the existing company and no outsourcing of grades represented by the CWU.

Mr Kretinsky also agreed to restrictions on moving dividends out of Royal Mail Group and to respect agreements with and recognition of the CWU. He said he would keep the brand name and Royal Mail's headquarters and tax residency in the UK for the next five years.

Union bosses told me that a life under Mr Kretinsky "couldn't be any worse than what we have had for the last 10 years".

So, as Mr Kretinsky looks certain to pull off the sale, what will customers notice?

The frequency of second-class deliveries may be reduced after the Ofcom review. We will see new Royal Mail lockers appearing in our neighbourhoods. And the price of first-class mail may go up: second-class stamps are regulated by Ofcom, while first-class ones are not.

The monarch's head will still be on those stamps, but there is a new king of our mail system. And his name is Daniel Kretinsky.

Top image credit: Getty

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