Care workers will no longer be recruited from overseas as part of a crackdown on visas for lower-skilled workers, the home secretary has told the BBC.

Yvette Cooper said "it is time to end that care worker recruitment from abroad" and rules will change this year - instead requiring firms to hire domestically or extend visas of overseas workers already in the UK.

The government plans to unveil a series of changes to visa and recruitment laws on Monday in a bid to cut net migration, and says measures will cut up to 50,000 lower-skilled workers coming to the UK over the next year.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the plans were "too little" and called for an annual cap on migration.

Successive governments have battled largely in vain to reduce net migration, which is the number of people coming to the UK minus the number leaving.

Net migration climbed to a record 906,000 in June 2023, and last year it stood at 728,000.

The Home Office has not yet officially confirmed what will be in its immigration White Paper, due early next week.

But speaking on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Cooper said changes to skilled and care worker visas "will come in in the course of this year and those changes... we expect to lead to a reduction of up to 50,000 fewer lower-skilled visas over the course of the next year".

She added targets for net migration would not be set, saying "they undermined the credibility of anything that governments do".

Philp told the same programme that the Conservatives would push for a Parliament vote on installing an annual cap on migration. When asked what the cap would be, he said "we're working on the detail to specify that number", but it would be "a further reduction of significantly more than 50,000".

Cooper also said there would be "some changes" to rules around international students and graduates.

"We will let them continue to come and to stay and to work afterwards," she added.

"We are making some changes, particularly around the standards and the compliance for universities, because, again, we've had problems where some universities haven't had proper standards in place.

"They've recruited people to come as international students who then haven't completed their courses, have either overstayed or... other problems with compliance of the system."

The government has already tightened rules around care sector worker after coming to power last July.

Since 9 April, care providers who want to recruit a new worker from overseas have had to first prove they have attempted to recruit a worker from within England.

But the new rules will now require care companies to recruit from domestic workers or a pool of over 10,000 care workers in the UK with cancelled sponsorships before hiring from abroad.

Alongside this Cooper promised "to bring in a new fair pay agreement for care workers" to make care jobs more attractive to UK workers and reduce overseas demand.

A second teenager has died after getting into difficulty in the water near Buncrana in County Donegal.

The boy was rescued after a search operation and taken to Letterkenny University Hospital, where he died in the early hours of Sunday, gardaí (Irish police) have confirmed.

On Saturday evening the body of an 18-year-old male was recovered from the water.

A third teenage boy was also rescued from the water and taken to hospital.

Police said the local coroner has been notified and a post-mortem examination will be arranged in due course.

Gardaí investigations are ongoing.

The Irish Coast Guard told BBC News NI that an alert was raised shortly before 16:00 local time by a member of the public after reports there were a number of people in difficulty in the water.

The multi-agency operation was led by Malin Head Coast Guard with assistance from police and the ambulance service.

An Irish Coast Guard helicopter was also involved in the search along with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

In a statement, the Irish Coast Guard thanked all the search and rescue units and members of the public who had assisted in the search.

The Eurovision Song Contest was watched by around 163 million people last year – meaning there are potentially 163 million different opinions on what makes a perfect entrant.

Do you go for a soulful ballad, guaranteed to leave Europe misty-eyed and full of love and peace?

Or do you opt for a cheesy extravaganza, complete with saucy takes on regional costumes and eye-popping staging that will have the entire continent (and Australia) raving in their living rooms?

The perfect song

Forensic musicologist at Boston's Berklee College of Music Joe Bennett has analysed hundreds of Eurovision finalists, identifying two dominant musical styles.

One is the "Euro-banger" - high-energy, 120+ BPM songs with kick drums and synth-heavy production, like Sweden's winning entries Euphoria (Loreen, 2012) and Heroes (Måns Zelmerlöw, 2015).

The other is the slow-burning ballad - typically around 70 BPM, such as Portugal's Amar Pelos Dois (Salvador Sobral, 2017) and the Netherlands' Arcade (Duncan Laurence, 2019).

There is a cliché that Eurovision songs are only about love and peace – reinforced by a song performed during the 2016 contest's interval about writing a perfect Eurovision song, called Love Love Peace Peace.

According to Bennett, there is some validity to this, with every Eurovision song falling under six broad lyrical themes: "love, unity, self-assertion, partying, history and songs about making music".

He adds that "songs of self-assertion or lyrical self-empowerment do very well" - as seen with Austria's 2014 winner Rise Like a Phoenix (Conchita Wurst).

Keep staging simple and effective

Acts might be tempted to go over the top on staging, but this may not be the way to secure victory, according to our experts.

Songwriter Thomas Stengaard co-wrote Denmark's 2013 winner Only Teardrops (as well as this year's UK entry What the Hell Just Happened by Remember Monday). He puts his success down, in part, to its simple staging, which he says made it easy to remember.

"If you asked a kid to draw that staging, they could. It was a girl with no shoes on, two guys playing the drums and a flute guy. Very simple, but it worked."

Vocal coach Carrie Grant, who led the UK's jury in 2014 and came sixth in the contest as part of Sweet Dreams in 1983, agrees.

"There is nothing worse than having an artist whose stage has lots of money but their performance doesn't warrant it," she says. "It makes that performance seem worse."

The 2014 winner (and Carrie's personal favourite) was Conchita Wurst – the first act to win the contest without backing singers or dancers on stage since 1970.

What made Conchita stand out was that she was a bearded drag queen. Carrie believes Eurovision fans love things that are quirky and that "embrace the LGBT community".

But she adds that Conchita wasn't a gimmick but instead "a brilliant singer who could deliver what we call in vocal coaching 'money moments'".

The key is key

Minor-key songs increasingly dominate Eurovision.

Bennett debunks the idea that "major equals happy, minor equals sad", adding that "minor keys are more a shorthand for emotional depth".

In 2023, 85% of finalists performed in minor keys, according to the Press Association. In the last 20 years, only two major-key songs have won - 2011's Running Scared (for Azerbaijan) and 2017's Amar Pelos Dois.

Professor Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, a researcher in music cognition at Princeton, highlights source sensitivity – our instinct to associate a song's sound with its intended context. A few bars of a techno song, for example, and we have a mental image of a dark nightclub, and of the sort of DJ who might perform there.

This means certain minor keys now immediately signal "Eurovision-ness" to audiences.

Remember Monday's What the Hell Just Happened was written at a songwriting camp, with multiple songwriters working together at a countryside retreat to write the perfect song for this year's UK act.

The song was intentionally written in a major key to stand out in a sea of minor-key songs - similar to the UK's 2022 second-place entry, Spaceman by Sam Ryder (B Major).

Have a surprise up your sleeve

Repetition is important to make a song stick in the mind, says Margulis. But songs should avoid being too repetitive. Margulis says that what particularly makes a song catchy is "not only when they are heard repeatedly, but also when they throw in some kind of surprise twist".

Bucks Fizz's 1981 winner for the UK, Making Your Mind Up, is a classic example. First, the song changes key, quickly followed by a memorable costume change in which the female singers' skirts were ripped off to reveal shorter skirts – a joint visual and musical twist.

Earlier Eurovision winners were often mocked for their nonsense lyrics, like Sweden's 1984 winner Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley, but Bennett argues this highlights Eurovision's strong focus on melody.

"Eurovision really needs big melodic hooks. You want people across Europe to be singing that melody. The need for a very accessible, catchy chorus is essential."

Key changes have long been a way to introduce novelty into Eurovision songs. The 2000s saw multiple winners follow this formula, including Olsen Brothers' Fly on the Wings of Love for Norway (2000), and Serbia's Molitva in 2007.

But as Bennett points out, though they are still present in around a fifth of finalists, no song with a final chorus key change has won since Molitva almost 20 years ago.

Stengaard's song for this year's UK act Remember Monday is certainly full of surprises. BBC music correspondent Mark Savage said the song featured "a dizzying array of key changes and tempo shifts".

The song is the songwriter's answer to the question he asks himself whenever he writes for Eurovision: "How do you stand out in a contest where everyone wants to stand out?"

Queues of passengers stretched outside an airport's terminal early on Sunday as an "IT issue" caused delays.

A post on X by London Stansted Airport at 06:20 BST said: "Due to an ongoing IT issue, a number of airport systems have been affected, including check-in, baggage and security.

"The issue has now been resolved but some arrivals and departures may be subject to delays," it continued.

One passenger, who did not wish to be named, said she had been stuck in queues at the terminal for hours and had missed her flight.

She said she arrived at the Essex airport at 04:45 and passengers were queuing "out the door".

"I spoke to one woman who had already been standing for an hour and we were getting nowhere near the entrance," she said.

"The queue for security was out the door and around the corner."

The woman, from Chelmsford, said after more than two hours she left, as her flight to Greece was boarding and she was told it was taking off without the rest of the passengers.

In its post, the airport added: "Engineers are working hard to fully restore all systems as soon as possible."

It updated the post at 08:00 to say some flights may still be subject to delays.

The airport apologised to passengers and advised them to stay in touch with their airlines.

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A "large-scale air and ground search" is continuing for a British hiker who has been missing for a week in New Zealand.

More than 40 staff and volunteers are hunting for Eli Sweeting, who is originally from Bristol. The 25-year-old was reported missing on May 4 after failing to return from a solo hike up Mitre Peak, a steep mountain in Milford Sound area of Fiordland National Park on the country's South Island.

New Zealand Police has said they "remain positive" despite the challenging terrain, which means at times they can only progress 250 metres (0.1miles) an hour.

Helicopters, dogs and locals have been assisting with the hunt, and some of his family have also flown out to help.

In a fundraising post, his sister Serena Sweeting described her brother as one of the "kindest, most compassionate people".

"We just want him home safe," she said.

The search party has been focusing on a route heading down the mountain after spotting a light there, but the dense area makes it hard for infrared cameras to detect any signs of movement.

The operation was briefly halted on Wednesday and Thursday due to weather warnings, but resumed again on Friday and Saturday.

Police confirmed this weekend there was "large-scale air and ground search effort planned for the coming days".

The area where Mr Sweeting has hiking has incredibly steep rough terrain, but police said they remained hopeful as Mr Sweeting is an "experienced hiker".

The police spokesperson added: "While the [man] has not yet been located, police remain positive as the search remains ongoing.

"A Land Search and Rescue team stayed near Mitre Peak overnight to continue the search early this morning."

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Volodymyr Zelensky has given a cautious and diplomatic response to Vladimir Putin's late-night offer of direct talks in Istanbul next Thursday.

The Ukrainian leader might have been expected to slam his opposite number in Moscow for not committing to a 30-day ceasefire, as demanded by Kyiv and its Western allies on Saturday.

Instead, writing on X, Zelensky called it "a positive sign that the Russians have finally begun to consider ending the war".

Zelensky added that Ukraine expected Russia to confirm it would abide by the proposed 30-day ceasefire, starting on Monday.

It's hard to tell if Zelensky really sees Putin's offer of direct talks as a "positive sign". This is as much about optics as anything else.

Neither Putin nor Zelensky want to be seen by US President Donald Trump as the obstacle to peace.

Trump's reaction was markedly upbeat. Writing on his Truth Social platform earlier, he hinted once again that this war was close to ending. He wrote: "A potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!"

Putin said he wants to address what he calls "the root causes of the conflict".

From his perspective, that means Ukraine's unacceptable ambition to be part of a prosperous, democratic Europe rather than returning to Moscow's orbit and become a pliant, satellite nation like Belarus.

He will also want a firm undertaking that Ukraine will never join Nato.

Moscow demanded on Saturday that, before any ceasefire can start, the West must stop arming Ukraine.

That of course would leave this country that much less able to fend off Russia's gradual advances on the frontline - or, worse, a new full-scale offensive to take more land.

What Ukraine badly needs from its allies is an uninterrupted flow of air defences to fend off the ever-growing numbers of drones and missiles being fired across the common border at Kyiv and other major cities.

Shortly after dawn on Sunday, we were woken by an air raid alert and sirens went off as more Russian drones were launched.

On 9 May, the US Embassy in Kyiv issued a warning to its citizens that there was "a significant risk of air raids in the coming days".

One of the biggest concerns is that the Kremlin may launch another Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile like the one its forces fired at a factory in Dnipro last November.

With its velocity approaching 10 times the speed of sound, Russia boasts that this missile is "unstoppable".

So now the key question is what Trump does next - and this could go either way.

He could decide that his opposite number in Moscow is simply stringing him along, finding one excuse after another not to agree to a ceasefire.

Or, given his historic warm relations with Putin, will he throw the Russian leader a diplomatic lifeline and put pressure on Ukraine instead to sit down in Istanbul and listen to Moscow's demands, irrespective of whether there is a ceasefire come Monday?

Pope Leo XIV will give his first Sunday blessing and address to a crowd in St Peter's Square in the Vatican today.

He will recite the Regina Caeli prayer, in honour of the Virgin Mary, in his first public address since his election was announced with white smoke on Thursday.

After delivering Sunday mass, Pope Leo will bless those gathered on the square outside - and deliver his reflections.

On Saturday, he visited a shrine outside Rome and then prayed before the tomb of his late predecessor Francis inside the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

Pope Leo will be formally inaugurated at a mass in St Peter's Square next week on 18 May.

The Pope was chosen as the new leader of the Catholic Church on Thursday, following a two-day conclave in Vatican City.

It has been a busy week for the pontiff, who held his first Mass as Pope in the Sistine chapel on Friday before speaking to cardinals on Saturday.

During this meeting, he described himself as an unworthy choice for Pope, and vowed to continue the "precious legacy" of his predecessor.

He highlighted the importance of missionary work and discussion – as well as care for those he called the "least and the rejected".

He explained he had chosen the name Leo after a 19th-century Pope known for his teaching on social justice.

The new Pope also suggested the development of artificial intelligence and other advances meant the church was necessary today for the defence of human dignity and justice.

He is due to hold an audience with the media on Monday ahead of his inauguration next Sunday.

As part of that mass he will deliver a homily in the presence of numerous heads of state and dignitaries.

The 69-year-old is the 267th occupant of the throne of St Peter, and the first American to become a pontiff. He will lead members of the Catholic Church's global community of 1.4bn people.

Born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago, he worked for many years as a missionary in Peru before being made an archbishop there. He also has Peruvian nationality.

Although Leo was born in the US, the Vatican described him as the second pope from the Americas. Pope Francis, from Argentina, was the first.

Pope Leo is widely seen as a moderate who can offer "continuity" and "unity" following the death of his predecessor last month.

The new pontiff is believed to have shared Francis' views on migrants, the poor and the environment.

In his first speech he told the crowds he wanted "to walk together with you as a united Church searching all together for peace and justice".

The parents of a four-year-old boy who became very unwell after a trip to a petting farm have described the "nightmare" of his symptoms developing while on holiday abroad.

Public health officials are examining 74 cases of cryptosporidium linked to visits to Cowbridge Farm Shop at Marlborough Grange Farm in Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan, during April.

Cryptosporidium is a parasite, often linked to contact with young farm animals, that can infect your bowels and cause an unpleasant and sometimes dangerous illness.

Public Health Wales (PHW) said 16 of those affected had been in hospital for at least one night.

The farm shop, which the BBC has approached for comment, has voluntarily suspended its feeding and petting sessions and is cooperating fully with the ongoing investigation, PHW said.

Gareth Carpenter and Kate Wiejak, from Bridgend, said their son Michael visited the farm on 11 April with his grandmother, Margaret Carpenter, while they packed for a family holiday.

Kate, 39, said: "We go every single year, we love lamb petting, it's an amazing attraction for kids."

Kate said Margaret "made sure" Michael washed his hands afterwards, and also used hand sanitiser.

The following day, the family - including Kate's 16-year-old daughter and both of Michael's grandmothers - flew to Spain, renting a villa in Malaga with another family.

"We were looking forward to a nice holiday," said Gareth, adding they "wouldn't dream" of getting on the flight if there had been any sign of illness beforehand.

But by 14 April, Michael had begun to feel unwell, with a raised temperature and diarrhoea.

"We put it down to the food, or that he'd had too much sun as we'd been out by the pool for a couple of hours," said Gareth, 46.

"We thought, give him some sleep and a bit of Calpol and by the morning he'd be right as rain."

But Michael continued to be very unwell throughout the night and so, the following morning, they called the emergency medical services who advised them to take Michael to hospital.

They said "luckily" there was a private hospital just a five minutes' drive away.

The couple paid an €850 (£719) deposit to get Michael seen - €5,000 (£4,229) in total, later claimed back through their insurance - but said staff were "absolutely amazing" despite significant language barriers.

"We literally saw a doctor within 10 minutes, I was shocked," said Kate.

Doctors said Michael had a serious infection and he spent three days in hospital.

"It was an absolute nightmare," said Kate.

On their return to Wales that weekend, which was a bank holiday, Michael still had a "bad belly" and so they took him to see a GP on 22 April, who requested a stool sample.

"We were driving ourselves crazy," said Gareth.

"We were thinking, was it a bit of chicken he ate, or an ice cream his Nana gave him - she was feeling terrible about that - or was it something in the water?"

Gareth said he received a call from Public Health Wales the following day to say the test result had shown Michael was infected with cryptosporidium, and they asked him if Michael had been around any animals.

When Gareth shared the details of the farm visit, he said he was told that there were a number of other cases of the infection linked to the same venue.

Both Kate and Gareth later became unwell with similar, but much milder, symptoms and Gareth said he was still experiencing stomach cramps, more than four weeks after Michael's contact with the animals.

But they said Michael had now made a full recovery, and no one else in their holiday party had contracted it.

Kate said Margaret "blames herself" for taking Michael to the farm, but said she wished "more information" had been given to people attending the petting sessions about the potential risks.

"It's only when something happens that you realise how serious it is," said Gareth.

"I would hate to see another parent go through the same thing."

What is cryptosporidium?

• Cryptosporidium is a microscopic parasite that can cause an unpleasant and sometimes dangerous illness called cryptosporidiosis.
• It lives in the intestines of infected humans and animals and is passed out in their poo.
• It can then spread to water sources like lakes, rivers, and swimming pools, as well as food like raw milk.
• The illness can affect anyone but is most common in children aged one to five.
• Symptoms, which can last for around two weeks, include severe watery diarrhoea, vomiting, stomach cramps, nausea, fever, and loss of appetite.
• There is no specific treatment but most people feel better within a month.

Source: UK Health Security Agency

Su Mably, consultant in health protection for Public Health Wales, said: "We are continuing to work with our partners to investigate this outbreak.

"Although cryptosporidium infection is usually mild and clears up on its own, it can cause more serious illness in young children and people with weakened immune systems.

"If you visited the farm and feel unwell, please contact your GP or call NHS 111.

"It is possible for this infection to be passed on from one person to another, for example if someone is caring for a family member who is unwell.

"It is important to protect yourself by washing your hands well, particularly before preparing food."

They should have been on a round-the-world cruise for the next three years - instead they were stranded in Belfast.

The Villa Vie Odyssey cruise ship was to depart from Northern Ireland last May, but issues with its rudder stocks meant its guests were marooned in the city for more than four months.

Shipmates Angela Harsanyi and Gian Perroni met while commuting daily from hotel accommodation to the ship, where they were allowed to work remotely during the day while repairs were carried out.

Behind schedule, and on the dry dock, the maintenance work was long enough for the pair of strangers to meet, fall in love and get engaged by the River Lagan.

They "started to become friends, then best friends, and then romance bloomed", Gian said.

From delays to departure, the next step was "I do" - on board the liner itself, off the coast of Costa Rica in April.

They got engaged on the banks of the River Lagan in Belfast - and Gian said the location was "just as exotic" as Costa Rica.

It was to be Angela's first time down the aisle, while Gian has children from a previous marriage.

The couple also got matching Celtic trinity knot tattoos.

They told BBC News NI the wedding ceremony on board was "incredible".

"It's been magical, it's beyond my wildest dreams," said Angela.

"We're on a perpetual honeymoon now, for real.

"After we got engaged, he looked at me so sincerely and said, 'you know honey, I'm going to take you on a world cruise for our honeymoon'.

"I just cracked up laughing of course, because that's what any woman would want to hear, but it's our life, so it's pretty wonderful. He was a man of his word."

'From Belfast to Forever'

The pair had a private ceremony with family and friends on board, before a second ship-wide event with 300 guests the following day, including around 100 of their original Belfast shipmates.

They had friends and family fly in "from the four corners" to the wedding off the coast of Costa Rica, before sailing north towards central America.

Celebrations included conga lines, bubble machines, dolphins swimming in the ocean alongside them, and sunsets burning orange on the horizon.

Belfast delay 'a funny story'

Their foundations in Northern Ireland played a part in the nuptials 5,000 miles away.

"From Belfast to Forever" was inscribed on the flooring used as the wedding aisle for Angela to walk down.

Both the officiators at the two ceremonies mentioned Belfast in the weddings. The second ceremony was officiated by the ship's captain which the couple described as an "honour".

Gian added: "He was there for the whole four months in Belfast as well, and he understood the frustrations.

"At the time it was a sore point - 'we're still here' - but now it's kind of a funny story."

Gian said the couple will return to Belfast as soon as they can.

"We can't wait to visit again to retrace our steps," he said.

"I'm half-Irish myself, but I truly understand the luck of the Irish now. It's pretty cool."

The couple's families had met before the wedding, but it was a chance to meet each other's friends for the first time.

"It was really nice to get everyone in one place, and for them to have that destination wedding."

What is Villa Vie Residences' Odyssey?

The Odyssey is a residential, around-the-world cruise that was scheduled to depart from Belfast in May 2024, but was beset by months of delays as the ship underwent repair work.

The company's website states that the cost of buying a cabin can range from $99,999 to $899,000 (£75,000-£685,000).

Passengers on the cruise were given the option of buying their cabin outright rather than paying a daily rate for their room like a traditional hotel.

It allows them to remain onboard beyond the Odyssey's initial three-year tour.

Residents on the cruise are encouraged to treat the ship like their home, with some opting to bring pets aboard for the journey.

In a dramatic turn of events, US President Donald Trump took to social media on Saturday to announce that India and Pakistan - after four tense days of cross-border clashes - had agreed to a "full and immediate ceasefire".

Behind the scenes, US mediators, alongside diplomatic backchannels and regional players, proved critical in pulling the nuclear-armed rivals back from the brink, experts say.

However, hours after a ceasefire deal, India and Pakistan were trading accusations of fresh violations - underscoring its fragility.

India accused Pakistan of "repeated violations" while Pakistan insisted it remained committed to the ceasefire, with its forces showing "responsibility and restraint."

Before Trump's ceasefire announcement, India and Pakistan were spiralling towards what many feared could become a full-blown conflict.

After a deadly militant attack killed 26 tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month, India launched airstrikes inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir - triggering days of aerial clashes, artillery duels and, by Saturday morning, accusations from both sides of missile strikes on each other's airbases.

The rhetoric escalated sharply, with each country claiming to have inflicted heavy damage while foiling the other's attacks.

• Why India and Pakistan fight over Kashmir
• Drone war opens a new chapter in India-Pakistan conflict

Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, says US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's call to Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir on 9 May "might have been the crucial point".

"There's still much we don't know about the roles of various international actors, but it's clear over the past three days that at least three countries were working to de-escalate - the US, of course, but also the UK and Saudi Arabia," she says.

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar told Pakistani media that "three dozen countries" were involved in the diplomacy - including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the US.

"One question is whether, if this call had come earlier - right after the initial Indian strikes, when Pakistan was already claiming some Indian losses and an off-ramp was available - it might have prevented further escalation," Ms Madan says.

This isn't the first time US mediation has helped defuse an India–Pakistan crisis.

In his memoir, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo claimed he was woken up to speak with an unnamed "Indian counterpart", who feared Pakistan was preparing nuclear weapons during the 2019 standoff.

Former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria later wrote that Pompeo overstated both the risk of nuclear escalation and the US role in calming the conflict.

But diplomats say there is little doubt the US played an important role in defusing the crisis this time.

"The US was the most prominent external player. Last time, Pompeo claimed they averted nuclear war. While they'll likely exaggerate, they may have played the primary diplomatic role, perhaps amplifying Delhi's positions in Islamabad," Mr Bisaria told the BBC on Saturday.

Yet at the outset, the US appeared strikingly standoffish.

As tensions flared, US Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday that the US was not going to get involved in a war that's "fundamentally none of our business".

"We can't control these countries though. Fundamentally, India has its gripes with Pakistan... America can't tell the Indians to lay down their arms. We can't tell the Pakistanis to lay down their arms. And so we're going to continue to pursue this thing through diplomatic channels, " he said in a television interview.

Meanwhile, President Trump said earlier this week: "I know both [leaders of India and Pakistan] very well, and I want to see them work it out... I want to see them stop, and hopefully they can stop now".

Ejaz Haider, a Lahore-based defence analyst, told the BBC this appeared to be the only difference from previous occasions.

"The American role was a continuation of past patterns, but with one key difference - this time, they initially stayed hands-off, watching the crisis unfold instead of jumping in right away. Only when they saw how it was playing out did they step in to manage it," Mr Haider told the BBC.

Experts in Pakistan say as the escalation cycle deepened, Pakistan sent "dual signals", retaliating militarily while announcing a National Command Authority (NCA) meeting - a clear reminder of the nuclear overhang.

The NCA controls and takes operational decisions regarding Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

This was around the time US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stepped in.

"The US was indispensable. This outcome would not have occurred without Secretary Rubio's efforts," Ashley J Tellis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the BBC.

What also helped was Washington's deepening ties with Delhi.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal rapport with Trump, plus the US's broader strategic and economic stakes, gave the US administration diplomatic leverage to push both nuclear-armed rivals towards de-escalation.

Indian diplomats see three key peace tracks that happened this time, much like after Pulwama–Balakot in 2019:

• US and UK pressure
• Saudi mediation, with the Saudi junior foreign minister visiting both capitals
• The direct India-Pakistan channel between the two national security advisors (NSAs)

Despite shifting global priorities and a hands-off posture at first, the US ultimately stepped in as the indispensable mediator between South Asia's nuclear rivals.

Whether overstated by its own officials or underacknowledged by Delhi and Islamabad, experts believe the US's role as crisis manager remains as vital - and as complicated - as ever.

Doubts do, however, linger over the ceasefire's durability after Saturday's events, with some Indian media reporting it was essentially brokered by senior military officials of the two countries - not the US.

"This ceasefire is bound to be a fragile one. It came about very quickly, amid sky-high tensions. India appears to have interpreted it differently than did the US and Pakistan," Michael Kugelman, a foreign policy analyst, told the BBC.

"Also, since it was put together so hastily, the accord may lack the proper guarantees and assurances one would need at such a tense moment."

Danny Dyer has said receiving a letter from his daughter Dani while at a rehab facility in 2016 was what convinced him to continue his treatment.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, the actor said he'd "had enough" of the treatment he'd received and was "going to go".

"Then they read a letter out from home, from my daughter Dani, and it made me sit back down in that seat," he told presenter Lauren Laverne.

Whilst he did not share what his then 20-year-old daughter had written, he said he "grew up and understood this is my life and fame and all that stuff is toxic".

Dyer said the letter from Dani made him reflect on the pain he'd caused his family and commit to continuing his treatment at the facility in South Africa.

Dani Dyer shot to fame on Love Island, winning the 2018 series. She and her father have since appeared together on Celebrity Gogglebox, an Italian travel series, and on their podcast Sorted With The Dyers.

'A lot of bad decisions'

Danny Dyer, who shot to fame in the 1999 film Human Traffic, has gone on to become one of the most recognisable stars of British TV and film.

In his interview, the 47-year-old spoke about how fame has affected his personal life, leading him to make "a lot of bad decisions".

He said at one stage of his career, he was "doing a lot of drugs".

"I'd go to nightclubs and DJ sometimes but in general just wave off of balconies and I'd get paid quite a lot of money to do it," he added.

Dyer says looking back is "awful" and that his days of "hedonism" and "mad behaviour" are over.

He said one of his turning points came in 2013, when he was offered the role of Queen Vic landlord Mick Carter in EastEnders, which he says he took because he "had no money".

"I had bailiffs [coming round], no-one would hire me and the more I'm doing these club appearances, the more drugs I'm taking, and drink, so I'm in this weird spiral."

Four years later, he made the decision to go to rehab in Cape Town during an awards show after-party at his house.

"I remember I had this moment where I was sitting in my ensuite trying to work out how to put a pair of jeans on - I was that off my head.

"I looked up, I looked at my wife and I could just see how tired she looked and I could hear kids running around downstairs, and I thought 'I need to sort my life out'," he added.

Dyer says it made him realise how addiction "affects so many people around you, not just yourself".

Dyer, who is nominated for best male comedy performance at Sunday's Bafta TV Awards for his role in Mr. Bigstuff, has also experienced success with Disney hit Rivals this year.

He said a lot of the work he took in the early stages of his career was due to the lack of money he had and the added pressure of becoming a first-time parent with his now-wife Joanne at the age of 19.

"I'd made a few films but I just wasn't getting paid any money and I was desperate to get on the property ladder," he said.

"I was still living on a council estate with my daughter and Jo."

Dyer says he then got offered a documentary series in 2006 called The Real Football Factories and "couldn't believe the money that was offered to me".

"I can't watch them back now [the documentaries], I cringe at them, but I needed to earn money, I needed to get a house and I needed to the right thing," he added.

Donald Trump says there has been a "total reset" in US-China trade relations following the first day of talks between American and Chinese officials in Switzerland.

In a social media post, the US president described the talks as being "very good" and said change had been "negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner".

An escalating trade war between Washington and Beijing has seen the US president hit Chinese imports to the US with tariffs of 145%. China retaliated with levies of 125% on some US goods.

Following months of back-and-forth, the two countries are meeting in Geneva this weekend for the first time since Trump hit China with tariffs at the start of the year.

Little information beyond the US president's Truth Social post has so far emerged from the talks. They are due to continue on Sunday and are taking place between China's vice-premier He Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

"We want to see, for the good of both China and the U.S., an opening up of China to American business. GREAT PROGRESS MADE!!!" Trump added.

On Friday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Washington would not lower tariffs unilaterally, and China would need to make its own concessions.

Both sides issued various other warnings ahead of the meeting, with Beijing saying the US must ease tariffs while Bessent stressed that the focus was on "de-escalation" and this was not a "big trade deal".

Chinese state media reported that Beijing had decided to engage with the US after fully considering global expectations, the country's interests and appeals from American businesses.

Last month, the BBC found that Chinese exporters were struggling with the US's tariffs - one company, Sorbo Technology, reported that half of its products were normally sold to the US and were now sat in boxes in a warehouse in China.

Meanwhile, the US economy was found to have shrank in the first three months of the year - contracting at an annual rate of 0.3% - as firms raced to get goods into the country.

The trade war between China and the US intensified last month after President Trump announced a universal baseline tariff on all imports to the United States, on what he called "Liberation Day".

Around 60 trading partners, which the White House described as the "worst offenders", were subjected to higher rates than others. The list included China and the European Union.

Trump said this was payback for years worth of unfair trade policies for the US.

He also separately announced a 25% import tax on all steel and aluminium coming into the US, and a further 25% tariff on all cars and car parts.

It was announced last week that the US and UK had agreed a deal, in which the 25% will be cut to 10% for a maximum of 100,000 UK cars - matching the number of cars the UK exported last year.

Cars are the UK's biggest export to the US, worth about £9bn last year.

Pope Leo XIV will give his first Sunday blessing and address to a crowd in St Peter's Square in the Vatican today.

He will recite the Regina Caeli prayer, in honour of the Virgin Mary, in his first public address since his election was announced with white smoke on Thursday.

After delivering Sunday mass, Pope Leo will bless those gathered on the square outside - and deliver his reflections.

On Saturday, he visited a shrine outside Rome and then prayed before the tomb of his late predecessor Francis inside the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

Pope Leo will be formally inaugurated at a mass in St Peter's Square next week on 18 May.

The Pope was chosen as the new leader of the Catholic Church on Thursday, following a two-day conclave in Vatican City.

It has been a busy week for the pontiff, who held his first Mass as Pope in the Sistine chapel on Friday before speaking to cardinals on Saturday.

During this meeting, he described himself as an unworthy choice for Pope, and vowed to continue the "precious legacy" of his predecessor.

He highlighted the importance of missionary work and discussion – as well as care for those he called the "least and the rejected".

He explained he had chosen the name Leo after a 19th-century Pope known for his teaching on social justice.

The new Pope also suggested the development of artificial intelligence and other advances meant the church was necessary today for the defence of human dignity and justice.

He is due to hold an audience with the media on Monday ahead of his inauguration next Sunday.

As part of that mass he will deliver a homily in the presence of numerous heads of state and dignitaries.

The 69-year-old is the 267th occupant of the throne of St Peter, and the first American to become a pontiff. He will lead members of the Catholic Church's global community of 1.4bn people.

Born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago, he worked for many years as a missionary in Peru before being made an archbishop there. He also has Peruvian nationality.

Although Leo was born in the US, the Vatican described him as the second pope from the Americas. Pope Francis, from Argentina, was the first.

Pope Leo is widely seen as a moderate who can offer "continuity" and "unity" following the death of his predecessor last month.

The new pontiff is believed to have shared Francis' views on migrants, the poor and the environment.

In his first speech he told the crowds he wanted "to walk together with you as a united Church searching all together for peace and justice".

Public funding for the Royal Household has tripled in real terms since 2012, official figures show, with the rise driven largely by repairs and building work at Buckingham Palace.

The Sovereign Grant, which provides taxpayer support for the monarchy, was introduced in 2012 at £31m per year. That has now risen to £132m, data from the House of Commons Library shows, and once inflation has been taken into account, that represents about a threefold increase.

The grant rose 53% in April, from £86.3m to £132.1m. Royal aides say this was because of a Buckingham Palace building project and the grant will come down again, adding that the monarchy represents good value.

Lord Turnbull, a crossbench peer and a former Cabinet Secretary, called the way the grant was calculated "complete and utter nonsense" but said that the budget isn't high compared with other presidential heads of state.

The Sovereign Grant provides funding for the official duties of the monarchy. In the most recent figures, for 2023-24, the biggest items were property maintenance and staff payroll, with smaller amounts for travel and hospitality and housekeeping.

The analysis by the House of Commons Library shows how much the Sovereign Grant has risen over time - using a measure that takes into account inflation, with comparisons using 2023-24 values as a benchmark.

Using that measure, the Sovereign Grant in 2012-13 was worth £41.5m – which rose to almost £100m in 2018-19, to cover renovations in Buckingham Palace, and then rose in 2025-26 to being worth £129.3m, again for work on Buckingham Palace.

A Bank of England inflation calculation also shows the grant's value having trebled since 2012, although Buckingham Palace uses a separate figure which is slightly below a threefold real-terms increase.

Buckingham Palace says the current figures are higher because of a 10-year, £369m project to modernise facilities in the Palace, including cabling, plumbing, wiring and lifts. It's a project that the National Audit Office says has been well-run and delivers "good value for money".

The Palace says it's misleading to compare this year's figures with earlier levels of grants. They say the big increase is due to the element of the grant that pays for Buckingham Palace building works, rather than the "core" grant for other running costs.

"The Sovereign Grant remained virtually flat for five years from 2020, during a period of high inflation. The majority of the increase in this year's Sovereign Grant is to fund the Buckingham Palace Reservicing Programme, which is ensuring that the Palace, a national asset, is accessible and protected from fire and flood," said a Palace spokesperson.

"A temporary increase in the grant across two years was approved to provide the remainder of the funding agreed in 2016 for this reservicing work. It has always been anticipated that the level of the Sovereign Grant will drop once the project is completed," said the spokesperson.

This could mean taxpayer funding reducing after 2027.

The sharp increase over the past decade has been during difficult years for public finances, including periods of austerity and tight controls over budgets.

For example, a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies showed that public spending on education in England went down by 11% in real terms between 2010-11 and 2023-24, although the IFS says that it is difficult to compare such big multi-billion budgets with changes in relatively smaller amounts such as the Sovereign Grant.

Before the Sovereign Grant was introduced, state funding for the monarchy came through a mix of grants, government department spending and a "civil list" payment.

Figures from the House of Commons Library, going back to 1995, show the pre-Sovereign Grant totals as lower than than they are today - for instance, using 2023-24 values, it was worth £67m in 2000 and £56m in 2005.

The Sovereign Grant was introduced as a more "modern, transparent" way of bringing together royal funding, presented to MPs in 2011 as being likely to reduce the royal income.

The grant is based on a percentage of the profits of the independent property and landowning business, the Crown Estate. The grant is not from the Crown Estate, it comes from the Treasury, but the Crown Estate is used as a benchmark.

Sovereign Grant was initially set at 15% of Crown Estate profits, which rose to 25% to cover the cost of renovating Buckingham Palace.

It's now being reduced to 12%. But because of increased profits for the Crown Estate from selling leases for offshore wind farms, the actual cash amount has risen sharply, because it's a percentage based on a much bigger total.

The increase in the Sovereign Grant's value is blamed by former Lib Dem Home Office minister Norman Baker, a prominent critic of royal finances, on what he calls the "completely absurd" way it's calculated and "weak-kneed" governments that don't want to challenge it.

"The Royal Family has been very efficient in persuading the public purse to keep coughing up more money," he says.

"Buckingham Palace has been used again and again to justify the increases.

"We're told public finances are tight, we can't afford a winter fuel allowance, but we can pay for an increase for the Royal Family. It's completely wrong."

Lord Turnbull, a former Cabinet Secretary and Permanent Secretary at the Treasury in the 1990s and 2000s, is also critical of the way the grant is calculated. He says successive governments have used the Crown Estate calculation as a convenient way of avoiding debate and stopping a "lot of bolshy backbenchers moaning about the cost of the monarchy".

He says it would be much better to have a straightforward grant to pay for the monarchy, which could be debated on its own merits.

But he also says it's a "red herring" to focus on the headline increase in the Sovereign Grant, when that figure has been driven by work to preserve Buckingham Palace, rather than underlying running costs. He says that if you have a monarchy it has to be properly funded. "You either have one or you don't," says Lord Turnbull.

Pauline Maclaran, a royal commentator from Royal Holloway, University of London, says the monarchy "generates a great deal of money and goodwill."

This is often seen in terms of boosting tourism and promoting business links, but Prof Maclaran says increasingly it needs to recognise the impact of royal "soft power".

US President Trump is a self-professed fan of King Charles and if those warm feelings helped with UK and US trade and tariff negotiations the benefits would hugely outweigh any annual costs of the monarchy, says Prof Maclaran.

But the royals can't be immune to questions about finances, she says: "The public wants to know if they're of value."

Royal expert Richard Palmer says this year's increase has "raised eyebrows".

"Of course the head of state and those who support him need to be funded properly, but so do other parts of the state - the health service, schools, the military, for example," says Mr Palmer.

Royal sources say there is transparency and funding is subject to the approval of Parliament. The Royal Trustees overseeing the grant are the prime minister, chancellor and the keeper of the privy purse, who looks after the monarch's finances.

You can dig into the accounts and see from 2023-24 that the royals spent over £1m on helicopter flights, there was an electricity bill of £2.2m and that travel for the Duke of Kent over three days to attend regimental events in Scotland cost more than £23,000.

There are also details of what the monarchy provides in a year – including hosting 400 events, inviting 105,000 guests to receptions, garden parties and official lunches. There were also 2,300 public engagements, supporting charities and good causes.

There are national and international events, including state visits which help to promote UK trade. There's a constitutional role, such as the state opening of Parliament and regular meetings with the prime minister.

Republic, a group campaigning for an elected head of state, have argued that other costs need to be included, such as security, which is not covered by the Sovereign Grant.

They also want the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall to count as public funding, rather than private incomes for the King and Prince of Wales. A report from the group claims that the total cost of the monarchy is about £510m per year.

Opinion polls suggest the monarchy remains popular, with a YouGov survey in February 2025 suggesting 55% viewed the monarchy positively compared with 36% who saw it negatively.

But there is less certainty about funding. Another YouGov survey in December 2024 suggested strong public opposition to government money being spent on Buckingham Palace – by 56% to 29%.

And there are divisions by age groups – with 74% of the over-65s thinking the royals are good value for money, compared with 44% of 25 to 49 year olds.

Sign up here to get the latest royal stories and analysis every week with our Royal Watch newsletter. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

A second teenager has died after getting into difficulty in the water near Buncrana in County Donegal.

The boy was rescued after a search operation and taken to Letterkenny University Hospital, where he died in the early hours of Sunday, gardaí (Irish police) have confirmed.

On Saturday evening the body of an 18-year-old male was recovered from the water.

A third teenage boy was also rescued from the water and taken to hospital.

Police said the local coroner has been notified and a post-mortem examination will be arranged in due course.

Gardaí investigations are ongoing.

The Irish Coast Guard told BBC News NI that an alert was raised shortly before 16:00 local time by a member of the public after reports there were a number of people in difficulty in the water.

The multi-agency operation was led by Malin Head Coast Guard with assistance from police and the ambulance service.

An Irish Coast Guard helicopter was also involved in the search along with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

In a statement, the Irish Coast Guard thanked all the search and rescue units and members of the public who had assisted in the search.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for "direct talks" with Ukraine, saying they should "start without delay, as early as 15 May".

"We seek serious talks... to remove the root causes of the conflict and start moving towards a lasting, strong peace", he said on Saturday, in a rare televised late-night address from the Kremlin.

It comes hours after European leaders - including UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron - visited Ukraine and urged Russia to agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said Moscow would "have to think this through" - but warned that "trying to pressure us is quite useless".

When Charlie Hopkins thinks back to the three years he spent in one of America's most famous prisons, he remembers the "deathly quiet" the most.

In 1955, Hopkins was sent to Alcatraz - a prison on an isolated island off the coast of San Francisco - after causing trouble at other prisons to serve a 17-year sentence for kidnapping and robbery.

Falling asleep at night in his cell on the remote island, he said, the only sound was the whistle of ships passing.

"That's a lonely sound," Hopkins said. "It reminds you of Hank Williams singing that song, 'I'm so lonesome I could cry.'"

Now 93 and living in Florida, Hopkins said the San Francisco National Archives informed him that he is likely the last surviving former Alcatraz inmate. The BBC could not independently verify this.

In an interview with the BBC this week, Hopkins described life at Alcatraz, where he made friends with gangsters and once helped plan an unsuccessful escape. Although it closed decades ago, President Donald Trump claimed recently that he wants to re-open it as a federal prison.

When Hopkins was transferred to the high-security prison in 1955 from an Atlanta facility, he remembers it being clean, but barren. And there were few distractions - no radio at the time, and few books, he said.

"There was nothing to do," he said. "You could walk back and forth in your cell or do push-ups."

Hopkins kept busy part of the time with his job cleaning Alcatraz, sweeping the floors and buffing them "until they shined", he said.

He was sent to prison in 1952 in Jacksonville, Florida, for his role in a series of robberies and kidnappings. He was part of a group that took hostages to get through roadblocks and steal cars, he said.

• 'The cleverest escape in the prison's 30 years': The men who broke out of Alcatraz with a spoon

At Alcatraz, Hopkins had some infamous neighbours. The facility housed many violent criminals over its 30 years - Al Capone; Robert Stroud, a murderer known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz"; and crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger - making it the subject of a host of films and television shows.

A 22-acre island, 1.25 miles (2 kilometres) off San Francisco and surrounded by freezing waters with strong currents, Alcatraz was originally a naval defence force. It was rebuilt in the early 20th century as a military prison. The Justice Department took it over in the 1930s, transforming the facility into a federal prison to address rampant organised crime at the time.

Even in the high-security prison, Hopkins said he still managed to get into trouble and spent many days in the facility's "D Block" - solitary confinement where inmates who misbehaved were held and rarely let out of their cells.

His longest stint there - six months - came after he tried to help several other prisoners, including notorious bank robber Forrest Tucker, escape Alcatraz, Hopkins said. He helped steal hacksaw blades from the prison's electric shop to cut the prison bars in the basement kitchen.

The plan didn't work - prison guards discovered the blades in other inmates' cells, Hopkins said. "A few days after they locked them up, they locked me up," he said.

But that did not stop one of the inmates.

In 1956, when Tucker was taken to a hospital for a kidney operation, he stabbed his ankle with a pencil so prison guards would have to remove his leg irons, Tucker told the New Yorker. Then, as he was taken to get an X-ray, he overpowered hospital orderlies and ran away, he said.

He was captured in a hospital gown in a cornfield hours later.

As more prisoners attempted to escape Alcatraz over the years, officials ramped up security, Hopkins said.

"When I left there in 1958, the security was so tight you couldn't breathe," he said.

All told, there were 14 separate attempts over the years involving 36 inmates, according to the National Park Service. One of the most famous involved Frank Morris, and brothers Clarence and John Anglin, who escaped in June 1962 by placing papier-mâché heads in their beds and breaking out through ventilation ducts. They were never found, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded they drowned in the cold waters surrounding the island.

A year later, the prison shut down after the government determined it would be more cost-effective to build new prisons than to keep the remote island facility in operation.

Now it's a publicly run museum visited by millions each year that generates about $60m year in revenue for park partners.

The building is decrepit, with peeling paint, rusted pipes, and crumbling toilets in each cramped cell. Construction on the main prison facility began in 1907, and more than a century of exposure to the elements has rendered the place all but uninhabitable.

Trump said this week, however, that he wants his government to re-open and expand the island prison for the country's "most ruthless and violent offenders".

Alcatraz "represents something very strong, very powerful" - law and order, Trump said.

But experts and historians said Trump's proposal to re-establish the prison is far-fetched, as it would cost billions to repair and bring up to date with other federal facilities.

Hopkins agrees. "It would be so expensive," he said.

"Back then, the sewage system went into the ocean," he added. "They'd have to come up with another way of handling that."

Hopkins left Alcatraz five years before it closed its doors for good. He had been transferred to a prison in Springfield, Missouri and given psychiatric medication that improved his behaviour and helped him heal psychological issues, he said.

But the avid Trump supporter said he does not believe the president's proposal is serious.

"He don't really want to open that place," Hopkins said, adding that Trump was trying to "get a point across to the public" about punishing criminals and those who enter the US illegally.

Hopkins was released in 1963, working first at a truck stop before taking on other jobs. He went back to his home state of Florida, where now he has a daughter and grandson.

After several decades reflecting on his crimes and life in Alcatraz, he wrote a 1,000-page memoir, with nearly half of the book detailing his troubled behaviour, he said.

"You wouldn't believe the trouble I caused them when I was there," he said. "I can see now, looking back, that I had problems."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for "direct talks" with Ukraine, saying they should "start without delay, as early as 15 May".

"We seek serious talks... to remove the root causes of the conflict and start moving towards a lasting, strong peace", he said on Saturday, in a rare televised late-night address from the Kremlin.

It comes hours after European leaders - including UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron - visited Ukraine and urged Russia to agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said Moscow would "have to think this through" - but warned that "trying to pressure us is quite useless".

Danny Dyer has said receiving a letter from his daughter Dani while at a rehab facility in 2016 was what convinced him to continue his treatment.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, the actor said he'd "had enough" of the treatment he'd received and was "going to go".

"Then they read a letter out from home, from my daughter Dani, and it made me sit back down in that seat," he told presenter Lauren Laverne.

Whilst he did not share what his then 20-year-old daughter had written, he said he "grew up and understood this is my life and fame and all that stuff is toxic".

Dyer said the letter from Dani made him reflect on the pain he'd caused his family and commit to continuing his treatment at the facility in South Africa.

Dani Dyer shot to fame on Love Island, winning the 2018 series. She and her father have since appeared together on Celebrity Gogglebox, an Italian travel series, and on their podcast Sorted With The Dyers.

'A lot of bad decisions'

Danny Dyer, who shot to fame in the 1999 film Human Traffic, has gone on to become one of the most recognisable stars of British TV and film.

In his interview, the 47-year-old spoke about how fame has affected his personal life, leading him to make "a lot of bad decisions".

He said at one stage of his career, he was "doing a lot of drugs".

"I'd go to nightclubs and DJ sometimes but in general just wave off of balconies and I'd get paid quite a lot of money to do it," he added.

Dyer says looking back is "awful" and that his days of "hedonism" and "mad behaviour" are over.

He said one of his turning points came in 2013, when he was offered the role of Queen Vic landlord Mick Carter in EastEnders, which he says he took because he "had no money".

"I had bailiffs [coming round], no-one would hire me and the more I'm doing these club appearances, the more drugs I'm taking, and drink, so I'm in this weird spiral."

Four years later, he made the decision to go to rehab in Cape Town during an awards show after-party at his house.

"I remember I had this moment where I was sitting in my ensuite trying to work out how to put a pair of jeans on - I was that off my head.

"I looked up, I looked at my wife and I could just see how tired she looked and I could hear kids running around downstairs, and I thought 'I need to sort my life out'," he added.

Dyer says it made him realise how addiction "affects so many people around you, not just yourself".

Dyer, who is nominated for best male comedy performance at Sunday's Bafta TV Awards for his role in Mr. Bigstuff, has also experienced success with Disney hit Rivals this year.

He said a lot of the work he took in the early stages of his career was due to the lack of money he had and the added pressure of becoming a first-time parent with his now-wife Joanne at the age of 19.

"I'd made a few films but I just wasn't getting paid any money and I was desperate to get on the property ladder," he said.

"I was still living on a council estate with my daughter and Jo."

Dyer says he then got offered a documentary series in 2006 called The Real Football Factories and "couldn't believe the money that was offered to me".

"I can't watch them back now [the documentaries], I cringe at them, but I needed to earn money, I needed to get a house and I needed to the right thing," he added.

When Charlie Hopkins thinks back to the three years he spent in one of America's most famous prisons, he remembers the "deathly quiet" the most.

In 1955, Hopkins was sent to Alcatraz - a prison on an isolated island off the coast of San Francisco - after causing trouble at other prisons to serve a 17-year sentence for kidnapping and robbery.

Falling asleep at night in his cell on the remote island, he said, the only sound was the whistle of ships passing.

"That's a lonely sound," Hopkins said. "It reminds you of Hank Williams singing that song, 'I'm so lonesome I could cry.'"

Now 93 and living in Florida, Hopkins said the San Francisco National Archives informed him that he is likely the last surviving former Alcatraz inmate. The BBC could not independently verify this.

In an interview with the BBC this week, Hopkins described life at Alcatraz, where he made friends with gangsters and once helped plan an unsuccessful escape. Although it closed decades ago, President Donald Trump claimed recently that he wants to re-open it as a federal prison.

When Hopkins was transferred to the high-security prison in 1955 from an Atlanta facility, he remembers it being clean, but barren. And there were few distractions - no radio at the time, and few books, he said.

"There was nothing to do," he said. "You could walk back and forth in your cell or do push-ups."

Hopkins kept busy part of the time with his job cleaning Alcatraz, sweeping the floors and buffing them "until they shined", he said.

He was sent to prison in 1952 in Jacksonville, Florida, for his role in a series of robberies and kidnappings. He was part of a group that took hostages to get through roadblocks and steal cars, he said.

• 'The cleverest escape in the prison's 30 years': The men who broke out of Alcatraz with a spoon

At Alcatraz, Hopkins had some infamous neighbours. The facility housed many violent criminals over its 30 years - Al Capone; Robert Stroud, a murderer known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz"; and crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger - making it the subject of a host of films and television shows.

A 22-acre island, 1.25 miles (2 kilometres) off San Francisco and surrounded by freezing waters with strong currents, Alcatraz was originally a naval defence force. It was rebuilt in the early 20th century as a military prison. The Justice Department took it over in the 1930s, transforming the facility into a federal prison to address rampant organised crime at the time.

Even in the high-security prison, Hopkins said he still managed to get into trouble and spent many days in the facility's "D Block" - solitary confinement where inmates who misbehaved were held and rarely let out of their cells.

His longest stint there - six months - came after he tried to help several other prisoners, including notorious bank robber Forrest Tucker, escape Alcatraz, Hopkins said. He helped steal hacksaw blades from the prison's electric shop to cut the prison bars in the basement kitchen.

The plan didn't work - prison guards discovered the blades in other inmates' cells, Hopkins said. "A few days after they locked them up, they locked me up," he said.

But that did not stop one of the inmates.

In 1956, when Tucker was taken to a hospital for a kidney operation, he stabbed his ankle with a pencil so prison guards would have to remove his leg irons, Tucker told the New Yorker. Then, as he was taken to get an X-ray, he overpowered hospital orderlies and ran away, he said.

He was captured in a hospital gown in a cornfield hours later.

As more prisoners attempted to escape Alcatraz over the years, officials ramped up security, Hopkins said.

"When I left there in 1958, the security was so tight you couldn't breathe," he said.

All told, there were 14 separate attempts over the years involving 36 inmates, according to the National Park Service. One of the most famous involved Frank Morris, and brothers Clarence and John Anglin, who escaped in June 1962 by placing papier-mâché heads in their beds and breaking out through ventilation ducts. They were never found, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded they drowned in the cold waters surrounding the island.

A year later, the prison shut down after the government determined it would be more cost-effective to build new prisons than to keep the remote island facility in operation.

Now it's a publicly run museum visited by millions each year that generates about $60m year in revenue for park partners.

The building is decrepit, with peeling paint, rusted pipes, and crumbling toilets in each cramped cell. Construction on the main prison facility began in 1907, and more than a century of exposure to the elements has rendered the place all but uninhabitable.

Trump said this week, however, that he wants his government to re-open and expand the island prison for the country's "most ruthless and violent offenders".

Alcatraz "represents something very strong, very powerful" - law and order, Trump said.

But experts and historians said Trump's proposal to re-establish the prison is far-fetched, as it would cost billions to repair and bring up to date with other federal facilities.

Hopkins agrees. "It would be so expensive," he said.

"Back then, the sewage system went into the ocean," he added. "They'd have to come up with another way of handling that."

Hopkins left Alcatraz five years before it closed its doors for good. He had been transferred to a prison in Springfield, Missouri and given psychiatric medication that improved his behaviour and helped him heal psychological issues, he said.

But the avid Trump supporter said he does not believe the president's proposal is serious.

"He don't really want to open that place," Hopkins said, adding that Trump was trying to "get a point across to the public" about punishing criminals and those who enter the US illegally.

Hopkins was released in 1963, working first at a truck stop before taking on other jobs. He went back to his home state of Florida, where now he has a daughter and grandson.

After several decades reflecting on his crimes and life in Alcatraz, he wrote a 1,000-page memoir, with nearly half of the book detailing his troubled behaviour, he said.

"You wouldn't believe the trouble I caused them when I was there," he said. "I can see now, looking back, that I had problems."

The Eurovision Song Contest was watched by around 163 million people last year – meaning there are potentially 163 million different opinions on what makes a perfect entrant.

Do you go for a soulful ballad, guaranteed to leave Europe misty-eyed and full of love and peace?

Or do you opt for a cheesy extravaganza, complete with saucy takes on regional costumes and eye-popping staging that will have the entire continent (and Australia) raving in their living rooms?

The perfect song

Forensic musicologist at Boston's Berklee College of Music Joe Bennett has analysed hundreds of Eurovision finalists, identifying two dominant musical styles.

One is the "Euro-banger" - high-energy, 120+ BPM songs with kick drums and synth-heavy production, like Sweden's winning entries Euphoria (Loreen, 2012) and Heroes (Måns Zelmerlöw, 2015).

The other is the slow-burning ballad - typically around 70 BPM, such as Portugal's Amar Pelos Dois (Salvador Sobral, 2017) and the Netherlands' Arcade (Duncan Laurence, 2019).

There is a cliché that Eurovision songs are only about love and peace – reinforced by a song performed during the 2016 contest's interval about writing a perfect Eurovision song, called Love Love Peace Peace.

According to Bennett, there is some validity to this, with every Eurovision song falling under six broad lyrical themes: "love, unity, self-assertion, partying, history and songs about making music".

He adds that "songs of self-assertion or lyrical self-empowerment do very well" - as seen with Austria's 2014 winner Rise Like a Phoenix (Conchita Wurst).

Keep staging simple and effective

Acts might be tempted to go over the top on staging, but this may not be the way to secure victory, according to our experts.

Songwriter Thomas Stengaard co-wrote Denmark's 2013 winner Only Teardrops (as well as this year's UK entry What the Hell Just Happened by Remember Monday). He puts his success down, in part, to its simple staging, which he says made it easy to remember.

"If you asked a kid to draw that staging, they could. It was a girl with no shoes on, two guys playing the drums and a flute guy. Very simple, but it worked."

Vocal coach Carrie Grant, who led the UK's jury in 2014 and came sixth in the contest as part of Sweet Dreams in 1983, agrees.

"There is nothing worse than having an artist whose stage has lots of money but their performance doesn't warrant it," she says. "It makes that performance seem worse."

The 2014 winner (and Carrie's personal favourite) was Conchita Wurst – the first act to win the contest without backing singers or dancers on stage since 1970.

What made Conchita stand out was that she was a bearded drag queen. Carrie believes Eurovision fans love things that are quirky and that "embrace the LGBT community".

But she adds that Conchita wasn't a gimmick but instead "a brilliant singer who could deliver what we call in vocal coaching 'money moments'".

The key is key

Minor-key songs increasingly dominate Eurovision.

Bennett debunks the idea that "major equals happy, minor equals sad", adding that "minor keys are more a shorthand for emotional depth".

In 2023, 85% of finalists performed in minor keys, according to the Press Association. In the last 20 years, only two major-key songs have won - 2011's Running Scared (for Azerbaijan) and 2017's Amar Pelos Dois.

Professor Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, a researcher in music cognition at Princeton, highlights source sensitivity – our instinct to associate a song's sound with its intended context. A few bars of a techno song, for example, and we have a mental image of a dark nightclub, and of the sort of DJ who might perform there.

This means certain minor keys now immediately signal "Eurovision-ness" to audiences.

Remember Monday's What the Hell Just Happened was written at a songwriting camp, with multiple songwriters working together at a countryside retreat to write the perfect song for this year's UK act.

The song was intentionally written in a major key to stand out in a sea of minor-key songs - similar to the UK's 2022 second-place entry, Spaceman by Sam Ryder (B Major).

Have a surprise up your sleeve

Repetition is important to make a song stick in the mind, says Margulis. But songs should avoid being too repetitive. Margulis says that what particularly makes a song catchy is "not only when they are heard repeatedly, but also when they throw in some kind of surprise twist".

Bucks Fizz's 1981 winner for the UK, Making Your Mind Up, is a classic example. First, the song changes key, quickly followed by a memorable costume change in which the female singers' skirts were ripped off to reveal shorter skirts – a joint visual and musical twist.

Earlier Eurovision winners were often mocked for their nonsense lyrics, like Sweden's 1984 winner Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley, but Bennett argues this highlights Eurovision's strong focus on melody.

"Eurovision really needs big melodic hooks. You want people across Europe to be singing that melody. The need for a very accessible, catchy chorus is essential."

Key changes have long been a way to introduce novelty into Eurovision songs. The 2000s saw multiple winners follow this formula, including Olsen Brothers' Fly on the Wings of Love for Norway (2000), and Serbia's Molitva in 2007.

But as Bennett points out, though they are still present in around a fifth of finalists, no song with a final chorus key change has won since Molitva almost 20 years ago.

Stengaard's song for this year's UK act Remember Monday is certainly full of surprises. BBC music correspondent Mark Savage said the song featured "a dizzying array of key changes and tempo shifts".

The song is the songwriter's answer to the question he asks himself whenever he writes for Eurovision: "How do you stand out in a contest where everyone wants to stand out?"

Every fortnight, Samii Wood snuggles up with a group of strangers for a "cuddle puddle".

These gatherings see attendees melt into a large nest of cushions and blankets, offering each other platonic touch and comfort.

Samii, who is 41 and based in Bedford, is a professional cuddler, who also offers one-to-one cuddle therapy.

She believes human touch is not just comforting but also has measurable health benefits.

"Your serotonin levels, which is your feel-good hormone, are boosted and so is your oxytocin level, which is your love and bonding hormone," she says.

Touch can also lower your levels of stress hormone cortisol and "can regulate the nervous system", she adds.

Samii's clients are sometimes suffering with nervous system issues, post-traumatic stress disorder or loneliness.

"People think that my service will be just full of creepy guys," she says.

"It's not like that. I have a variety of ages and males and females that come to these events."

Pep Valerio, 36, from Bedford, has been attending Samii's cuddle puddles for a couple of months.

"It's healing without words. You don't need to know people's problems; you just know your touch is providing aid to them," he said.

Samii describes how in group sessions, attendees are told to imagine certain scenarios to give specific emotional context.

"Sometimes I say, 'Imagine the person you're hugging is the person you'd most like to hug just one more time'," she adds.

"That always chokes me up, and and we've had men and women both literally just sobbing on each other."

One-to-one sessions are catered more towards an individual's needs.

They can range from simply sitting close together and talking with an arm around them, to lying down and spooning.

It can also involve other nurturing touch, such as back stroking or cradling.

Some might raise an eyebrow at the thought that people are paying for this, but Sammi stresses it is a "fully clothed, platonic, nurturing service".

To safeguard all involved, she screens clients before taking them on and gets them to sign consent forms that explicitly state boundaries.

"It's very client-led, so they tell me what they want and what they're comfortable with. It's an ongoing dialogue," Samii says.

She acknowledges that intimate touch can lead to arousal, but in those cases she enforces a break or change of position to refocus clients on the nurturing aspect of the session.

There is no regulatory body in the UK for this type of therapy, but professionals like Samii can gain accreditation from Cuddle Professionals International (CPI).

This body insists its members are taught to observe "ethical touch protocols" that rely on informed consent.

While many practices may uphold professional standards, it is potentially an easy environment to misuse and exploit.

Samii says people can report any wrongdoing to the police, local authority or CPI.

The body was founded by wellness expert Claire Mendelsohn, who according to her website, "recognised the need for regulation within the profession".

CPI is now a registered college with the Complementary Medical Association, and approved by the International Institute for Complementary Therapists to deliver training.

Samii discovered cuddle therapy after watching a documentary showing how popular it was overseas.

However, in the UK, she finds that people are more reluctant to touch and be touched.

She blames the Covid pandemic and lockdowns for simultaneously making people "crave it more" but also be "more fearful of having it".

She explains: "It's huge in America and in Europe, not so much over here, but we really need it and people wouldn't come to professional cuddlers like myself if we did not need that.

"We think we're all connected because we're online, but that's why we're so much more disconnected.

"We're all seeking that connection and there's no shame in saying, 'I just want to be held by someone and I want to be hugged. I want to be seen and drop my walls and and have that'."

The science of cuddles

Touch can benefit physical and mental health, according to a paper by Danish neuroscientist Dr Julian Packheiser and his colleagues from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.

They found there was no difference in health benefits in adults between touch from a familiar person or a health care professional.

However, Sophie Scott, professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London, argues that while touch has demonstrable benefits, the relationship between people involved is important.

Referring to another study, she says: "They put people in a scanner and physically hurt them; you could see the brain responding to the pain.

"However, when a partner held their hand, they had a reduced response to the pain. So there are chemical changes making you feel better, but that isn't a random person; that is your partner.

"What worries me slightly about somebody doing that professionally is you need to develop that relationship. You wouldn't just let anybody hold your hand.

"People like going to get their haircut or a manicure. Those are quite neutral parts of the body. Hugging might get a bit closer to their danger zones.

"What I'm saying is people would need to feel safe. If they didn't feel safe, it would be highly adversive to do that".

Numerous other studies have highlighted the benefit of touch and its potential to benefit mental and physical health.

Mr Valerio had been exploring alternative methods of healing, such as tapping and tai-chi, when he came across cuddle therapy.

"It relieves stress, promotes relaxation and togetherness," he says.

He says Samii has created a safe environment by playing a soothing soundtrack and getting people to take part in warm-up hug-based exercises at the start.

"Once you've done a few exercises, to break down those walls, it feels like the most natural thing lie on the floor and cuddle a lot of strangers," he says.

"There are people are crying before we have settled into the cuddle puddle, just based on the hug-based exercises we've done and some of the emotions that are brought up."

He has also taken part in one-to-one exercises with Samii, which he says allow for "a deeper bond".

"Spooning feels vulnerable, especially being the guy spooned by a woman. It allows you to experience holding and being held," he says.

"Afterwards I feel held, I feel supported, I feel as if I've shed some of my load and my wall has been lowered."

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At the end of a waitressing shift, Kristina Lampert used to separate her tips in two piles: Canadian cash and American.

But it's been weeks since she has done that.

Freighters, the restaurant where she works, is one of the first places people can grab a bite after crossing the US-Canada border between Sarnia, Ontario, and Port Huron, Michigan.

The Blue Water Bridge, which connects the US and Canada, is in full view from the restaurant's windows.

"A lot of people used to come over and say 'we're here for the view'," she says of Canadian diners. "I haven't heard that at all recently."

Border towns noticed almost instantly when US President Donald Trump began imposing tariffs on countries around the world and saying he wanted to make Canada the 51st US state - because the number of Canadians crossing the border plummeted.

Border crossings between the US and Canada are down some 17% since Trump started bringing in tariffs, according to CBP data.

Canadians car trips to the US are down almost 32% compared to March 2024, according to Statistics Canada.

Like many of the towns that dot along the 5,525 mile (8,891 km) border, the economies of Port Huron and Sarnia are linked and in some ways dependent on one another. Port Huron is a manufacturing town of less than 30,000 people with a quaint downtown and lots of retail, offering visitors an enticing opportunity for a day-trip.

On a day where there is little traffic, a Sarnia resident can cross the border and be in Michigan in a matter of minutes.

Many of these towns faced their first test more than five years ago when the Covid-19 pandemic shut crossings down for 19 months and left local economies reeling.

Now, they are seeing a second economic hit due to Trump's trade war, with many Canadians choosing to "Buy Canadian" - purchase Canadian-made goods - and reducing travel to the US in response to the fraying relationship between the two neighbouring countries.

One place this is being felt is at Sarnia's Duty Free, the last place you can purchase goods before leaving Canada and entering the US. The shelves of perfume and liquor are fuller and the parking lot is emptier since tariffs tensions began.

Barbara Barett, the executive director of Frontier Duty Free Association, says some of the 32 land-border duty frees in Canada have seen as much as an 80% decrease in sales since Trump's return to the White House. Most stores have seeing a 50-60% drop in business.

"We're 100% reliant on the travel across the border," she says of duty frees. "Our stores are often pillars of these communities; communities depend on them."

And while the crossing at Port Huron-Sarnia is faring better than most, on a Friday in May the parking lot of the Sarnia Duty Free is almost empty.

Tania Lee, who runs the store with her family, says that has become the new norm.

On Easter weekend - usually one of their busiest of the year, as Canadians take advantage of the break to stop in at a favourite restaurant and go to a church service in Port Huron - cars were few and far between and sales were not what they should have been, she says.

"We are suffering because of collateral damage at the border," Ms Lee says of her second-generation family business.

Ms Lee notes that people who live in border towns often cross the boundary multiple times a week. She, for example, has a mailbox at a shipping facility in Port Huron that she visits regularly, as do her neighbours.

People across the Blue Water Bridge are feeling the effects too, Mayor Anita Ashford says.

She has heard from both residents of her town and Canadians frustrated about the increased tension between the nations.

Nationally, a 10% drop in Canadian tourism would cost the US up to 14,000 jobs and $2.1bn (£1.56b) in business, according to the US Travel Association.

Michigan is one of the places likely to see the brunt of that impact. In 2023, Canadians visitors spent a collective $238m in the state, according to tourism officials.

That money is essential for border towns like Port Huron, its mayor says.

"I hope people in Washington will start to understand what they're doing to the people," she says. "We are not responsible for this, the [federal] government put us in this position and now we have to deal with it respectfully."

"We need each other," she says.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for "direct talks" with Ukraine, saying they should "start without delay, as early as 15 May".

"We seek serious talks... to remove the root causes of the conflict and start moving towards a lasting, strong peace", he said on Saturday, in a rare televised late-night address from the Kremlin.

It comes hours after European leaders - including UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron - visited Ukraine and urged Russia to agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said Moscow would "have to think this through" - but warned that "trying to pressure us is quite useless".

Baby Reindeer and Mr Bates vs the Post Office will go head to head at the Bafta TV Awards, which take place later at London's Royal Festival Hall.

The event is one of the most prestigious in the TV calendar, and will see shows broadcast in 2024 compete for awards voted for by the British Academy.

First screened by ITV n January 2024, Mr Bates vs the Post Office was one of the most impactful shows of the year and led to widespread public outcry about the wrongful convictions of hundreds of sub-postmasters.

Baby Reindeer, meanwhile, was a breakout viral hit for Netflix about an aspiring comedian and his stalker, but it also prompted a defamation claim from the woman said to have inspired it.

The TV Baftas mark the final stop on the awards circuit for both shows, after wins at other events such as the Emmys, Golden Globes, SAG and National Television Awards.

Which shows have the most Bafta nominations?

• 4 nominations - Baby Reindeer, Mr Bates vs The Post Office
• 3 - Rivals, Slow Horses, Mr Loverman, Say Nothing, The Traitors
• 2 - Sherwood, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, Gavin & Stacey: The Finale

Scroll down for the nominations list in full

The above tallies include nominations for the memorable moment prize, the only award voted by the public.

The numbers do not include the shows' earlier nominations and wins at the Bafta Craft Awards, which took place last month and saw Baby Reindeer's Richard Gadd take home best comedy writing, with Slow Horses and Inside No. 9 among the other winners.

The Post Office scandal is widely considered the biggest miscarriage of justice in modern British history, and saw hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly prosecuted and convicted of crimes they didn't commit, based on inaccurate data from the Horizon software system.

The story was reported in the media over several years, but ITV dramatisation Mr Bates vs the Post Office brought it a new league of public attention and prompted the government to announce new legislation to exonerate and compensate victims.

Meanwhile, Baby Reindeer told the story of a struggling stand-up comedian, the woman who stalks him, and the powerful man in the TV industry who mentors and then sexually assaults him. Richard Gadd's partly autobiographical drama became one of the most dissected series of the year.

Other nominees include Rivals, a Disney+ adaptation of a Jilly Cooper novel about two powerful men battling for control of a local TV network, and Slow Horses, about a dysfunctional unit within MI5 made up of disgraced agents.

Say Nothing, which followed the lives of those growing up during the troubles in Belfast, is also nominated, alongside Mr Loverman, a screen adaptation of Bernadine Evaristo's novel about an elderly man whose marriage falls apart after his long-term affair with his male friend is revealed.

Sherwood focused on a Nottinghamshire community still reeling from the 1980s miners' strike, while Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light continued Hilary Mantel's trilogy about Thomas Cromwell's continued rise to power and eventual fall from grace.

Other nominees include reality series The Traitors, a game of deception played in a Scottish castle, and Gavin & Stacey: The Finale, which saw the long-running series about two families from from Billericay in Essex and Barry in Wales reach an emotional conclusion.

Who is hosting the Bafta TV Awards?

Actor and TV presenter Alan Cumming will take over hosting duties this year, and we hope he brings just as much drama as he did to the latest cracking series of The Traitors US.

The Scottish star's film credits include Eyes Wide Shut, GoldenEye and Emma, as well as two absolute masterpieces of 1990s cinema - Spice World: The Movie and Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.

Bafta's executive director of awards and content, Emma Baehr, said Cumming would "definitely bring a playful sense of mischief and fun to the ceremony".

Elsewhere in the ceremony, Jessie J will deliver her first TV performance in six years, singing the appropriately titled The Award Goes To, while Tom Grennan will perform his new single Full Attention.

Awards will be presented by stars including Dame Mary Berry, Billy Porter, Suranne Jones, Ashley Walters, Katie Piper, Sir David Suchet, Big Zuu, Ellie Simmonds, Owen Cooper, Rose Ayling Ellis, Stacey Dooley and Baroness Benjamin.

How to watch the Bafta TV Awards

The ceremony will be broadcast on BBC One at 19:00 BST.

But it actually takes place a couple of hours earlier, so that some sections of the ceremony can be edited down before the show airs.

BBC News will be running spoiler-free coverage, with winners revealed on our live page in line with when they are announced on BBC One.

The Bafta TV nominations in full

Drama series

• Blue Lights - BBC One
• Sherwood - BBC One
• Supacell - Netflix
• Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light - BBC One

Limited drama

• Baby Reindeer - Netflix
• Lost Boys And Fairies - BBC One
• Mr Bates Vs The Post Office - ITV1
• One Day - Netflix

Scripted comedy

• Alma's Not Normal (BBC Two)
• Brassic (Sky Max)
• G'Wed (ITV1)
• Ludwig (BBC One)

Leading actress

• Anna Maxwell Martin - Until I Kill You (ITV1)
• Billie Piper - Scoop (Netflix)
• Lola Petticrew - Say Nothing (Disney+)
• Marisa Abela - Industry (BBC One)
• Monica Dolan - Mr Bates vs The Post Office (ITV1)
• Sharon D Clarke - Mr Loverman (BBC One)

Leading actor

• David Tennant - Rivals (Disney+)
• Gary Oldman - Slow Horses (Apple TV+)
• Lennie James - Mr Loverman (BBC One)
• Martin Freeman - The Responder (BBC One)
• Richard Gadd - Baby Reindeer (Netflix)
• Toby Jones - Mr Bates vs The Post Office (ITV1)

Supporting actress

• Jessica Gunning - Baby Reindeer (Netflix)
• Katherine Parkinson - Rivals (Disney+)
• Maxine Peake - Say Nothing - (Disney+)
• Monica Dolan - Sherwood (BBC One)
• Nava Mau - Baby Reindeer (Netflix)
• Sue Johnston - Truelove (Channel 4)

Supporting actor

• Ariyon Bakare, Mr Loverman (BBC One)
• Christopher Chung, Slow Horses (Apple TV+)
• Damian Lewis, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (BBC One
• Jonathan Pryce, Slow Horses (Apple TV+)
• McKinley Belcher III, Eric (Netflix)
• Sonny Walker, The Gathering (Channel 4)

Female performance in a comedy

• Anjana Vasan - We Are Lady Parts (Channel 4)
• Kate O'Flynn - Everyone Else Burns (Channel 4)
• Lolly Adefope - The Franchise (Sky Comedy)
• Nicola Coughlan - Big Mood (Channel 4)
• Ruth Jones - Gavin & Stacey: The Finale (BBC One)
• Sophie Willan - Alma's Not Normal (BBC Two)

Male performance in a comedy

• Bilal Hasna - Extraordinary (Disney+)
• Danny Dyer - Mr Bigstuff (Sky Comedy)
• Dylan Thomas-Smith - G'Wed (ITV2)
• Nabhaan Rizwan - Kaos – Sister (Netflix)
• Oliver Savell- Changing Ends (ITV1)
• Phil Dunning - Smoggie Queens (BBC Three)

Soap

• Casualty (BBC One)
• Coronation Street (ITV1)
• EastEnders (BBC One)

Entertainment programme

• The 1% Club (ITV1)
• Michael McIntyre's Big Show (BBC One)
• Taskmaster (Channel 4)
• Would I Lie To You? (BBC One)

Entertainment performance

• Anthony McPartlin, Declan Donnelly - Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway - (ITV1)
• Claudia Winkleman - The Traitors (BBC One)
• Graham Norton - The Graham Norton Show (BBC One)
• Joe Lycett Late Night Lycett - (Channel 4)
• Romesh Ranganathan, Rob Beckett Rob & Romesh Vs (Sky Max)
• Stacey Solomon Sort Your Life Out - (BBC One)

Factual entertainment

• In Vogue: The 90s (Disney+)
• Race Across The World (BBC One)
• Rob And Rylan's Grand Tour (BBC Two)
• Sort Your Life Out (BBC One)

Reality

• Dragons' Den (BBC One)
• The Jury: Murder Trial (Channel 4)
• Love Is Blind (Netflix)
• The Traitors (BBC One)

Daytime

• Clive Myrie's Caribbean Adventure (BBC Two)
• Loose Women (ITV1)
• Morning Live (BBC One)
• Richard Osman's House Of Games (BBC Two)

International

• After The Party (Channel 4)
• Colin From Accounts (BBC Two)
• Say Nothing (Disney+)
• Shōgun (Disney+)
• True Detective: Night Country (Sky Atlantic)
• You Are Not Alone: Fighting The Wolfpack (Netflix)

Live event coverage

• D-Day 80: Tribute To The Fallen (BBC One)
• Glastonbury 2024 (BBC Two)
• Last Night Of The Proms (BBC Two)

Current affairs

• Life and Death in Gaza - Storyville (BBC Two)
• Maternity: Broken Trust - Exposure (ITV1)
• State of Rage (Channel 4)
• Ukraine's War: The Other Side (ITV1)

Single documentary

• Hell Jumper (BBC Two)
• Tell Them You Love Me (Sky Documentaries)
• Ukraine: Enemy In The Woods (BBC Two)
• Undercover: Exposing The Far Right (Channel 4)

Factual series

• American Nightmare (Netflix)
• Freddie Flintoff's Field Of Dreams On Tour (BBC One)
• The Push: Murder On The Cliff (Channel 4)
• To Catch A Copper (Channel 4)

Specialist factual

• Atomic People (BBC Two)
• Billy & Molly: An Otter Love (National Geographic)
• Children of the Cult (ITV1)
• Miners' Strike 1984: The Battle For Britain (Channel 4)

News coverage

• BBC Breakfast: Post Office Special (BBC News/BBC One)
• Channel 4 News: Inside Sednaya – The Fall Of Assad (Channel 4 News/Channel 4)
• Channel 4 News: Undercover Inside Reform's Campaign (Channel 4 News/Channel 4)

Sports coverage

• Euro 2024 (BBC Sport/BBC One)
• Paris 2024 Olympics (BBC Sport/BBC One)
• Wimbledon 2024 (BBC Sport/Wimbledon Broadcast Services/BBC One)

Memorable moment

• Bridgerton - "THE" carriage scene where Colin admits his true feelings for Penelope (Netflix)
• Gavin & Stacey: The Finale - Smithy's Wedding: Mick Stands Up (BBC One)
• Mr Bates Vs The Post Office - Jo Hamilton phones the Horizon helpline (ITV1)
• Rivals - Rupert Campbell-Black and Sarah Stratton are caught in a game of naked tennis (Disney+)
• Strictly Come Dancing - Chris McCausland and Dianne Buswell Waltz to You'll Never Walk Alone (BBC One)
• The Traitors - "Paul isn't my son… but Ross is!" (BBC One)

Short form

• Brown Brit (Channel 4)
• Peaked (Channel 4)
• Quiet Life (BBC Three)

Read more about the Bafta nominees:

• Baby Reindeer stars win big at Emmy Awards
• Netflix fails to get Baby Reindeer lawsuit dropped
• The power of Mr Bates vs The Post Office in bringing about justice
• Mr Bates vs Post Office drama lost £1m, ITV boss says
• Rivals: Dame Jilly Cooper on why jogging is ruinous for our sex lives
• Gary Oldman wants to play shabby secret agent 'for the long run'
• Marian Price to sue Disney over Say Nothing murder scene
• Life and Death in Gaza: 'I say bye to my kids, in case we don't wake up'
• Scoop: Why Gillian Anderson found it 'scary' to play Emily Maitlis
• Bankers 'neither villains nor rock stars', says Industry creator
• 'I was told Mr Loverman was too niche for TV'
• Martin Freeman: The Responder star on why TV viewers can 'smell lies'
• UK TV industry in crisis, says Wolf Hall director
• Eric: Benedict Cumberbatch says dressing as monster is 'one of the most ludicrous things I've done'
• Sherwood actress aims to break Down's syndrome barriers
• TV drama Truelove puts seaside town 'on the map'
• We Are Lady Parts: Why Anjana Vasan is done people pleasing
• Nicola Coughlan: Why I hate on-screen vanity, in new show Big Mood
• Gavin and Stacey tops Christmas Day TV ratings
• Gavin & Stacey: An exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the Christmas finale
• Alma's Not Normal: How anger and spa breaks fuelled new series
• Extraordinary: Peat & Diesel music to feature on new Disney show
• Blue Lights series two promises 'absolute chaos'
• Supacell: Superhero series tackling knife crime and sickle cell
• Lost Boys and Fairies writer proud of adoption drama
• One Day: I rarely saw people like me in lead roles, says Ambika Mod
• Derek Thompson: Casualty's Charlie Fairhead exits after 38 years
• Coronation Street's Gail bids farewell after 50 years
• EastEnders gets ratings bump for 'flawless' live episode
• Why is Race Across the World so popular?
• Rylan Clark and Rob Rinder: 'The tour that helped mend our broken hearts'
• Sort Your Life Out: How to plump up your saggy sofa
• Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway: More than 4m tune in for final show
• The Traitors finale was most-watched live episode in show's history
• Late Night Lycett: Joe Lycett behind Banksy mural hoax
• Michael McIntyre's Big Show: LeAnn Rimes in duet with Harrogate mum
• Romesh and Roisin remember the original Taskmaster
• Sara Davies to 'step away' from Dragons' Den
• Matt and Emma Willis on a 'very British' Love is Blind
• Shogun: A guide to the hit Japanese samurai epic as its finale cuts deep
• King and Queen hear first-hand D-Day veteran stories
• Glastonbury 2024: 15 magical and memorable moments
• Thousands wave flags to classics at Last Night of the Proms
• Maternity: Broken Trust: Parents hope documentary will help maternity inquiry bid
• Hell Jumper: Story of Ukraine war victims' rescuer told in film
• Freddie Flintoff: Star returns to BBC with second Field of Dreams series
• To Catch a Copper: Avon and Somerset Police staff 'betrayed' by Channel 4 documentary
• Atomic People: 'Atomic bomb hell must never be repeated' say Japan's last survivors
• BBC Breakfast: Post Office Special: 'I carried the shame - I refuse to carry it any longer'
• Euro 2024 final in numbers
• Paris 2024: How is France preparing for the Olympics and Paralympics?
• Five Wimbledon storylines to look out for
• Bridgerton or Strictly? Bafta opens vote on best TV moments of 2024
• Peaked: Actress returns home for Derbyshire-set comedy

A pedigree livestock farmer plans to take legal action against East Midlands Airport, claiming a leaking pipe polluted the brook that runs through his rented grazing land.

David Thornley claims 25 of his 100 ewes lost their valuable pedigree lambs after drinking from Diseworth Brook in Leicestershire in 2022.

In April, East Midlands International Airport Ltd pleaded guilty to charges of exceeding the limits of its environmental permits when it released water containing chemicals from holding ponds in January and February 2022.

The airport denies any link between the discharge and bacterial pollution in the brook.

Environmental studies show de-icing chemicals, washed from airport runways, can affect water quality because they encourage the growth of "sewage fungus", or "undesirable river biofilms".

With more than 20 years' experience as a prize-winning breeder, Mr Thornley says typically he would expect to lose just 2-3% of pregnancies after embryo transfer.

So in January 2022, when veterinary scans showed 25% of his impregnated ewes were no longer carrying lambs, he began to investigate.

Approaching Diseworth Brook, he says he was hit by a smell that "took your breath away".

He took photos of the brook covered in a brown substance, which he now believes was sewage fungus.

When he and his son walked upstream, they found "black sludge" emerging from an outlet pipe below the airport's holding ponds.

"There was nothing coming from above [that part of] the stream," he says.

"It was clear as clear, and it smelt lovely until it got to that pipe."

'Small leak identified'

Mr Thornley immediately reported his pollution concerns to the Environment Agency (EA), which attended the following day.

When he contacted the airport in January 2022, its reply, seen by the BBC, confirmed: "There was an incident... where a small leak was identified into Diseworth Brook."

The airport said in its email to Mr Thornley it was working with the EA, which was "now happy the issue had been resolved and there were no further impacts to the local watercourse".

In February 2022, Mr Thornley asked a specialist company to take water samples.

The laboratory results showed the water was polluted with bacteria and unfit for livestock to drink.

However, the results did not prove a link between the bacteria and airport de-icing chemicals.

"It's devastating," says Mr Thornley. "[Losing the lambs] has a big impact on the family. You can't replace those bloodlines or that breeding overnight. It's tens of years of breeding and investment to breed the right quality stock."

Mr Thornley is asking for compensation of £50,000.

The EA asked Mr Thornley to give evidence in its case against the airport.

But that evidence was never heard.

The agency told the farmer he was no longer required after the airport's lawyers unexpectedly entered guilty pleas to three of six charges at a pre-trial review.

The EA says those charges relate to the discharge of contaminated wastewater into the River Trent between 14 January 2022 and 4 February 2022, but declined to comment or give more detail until sentencing on 25 July.

Mr Thornley said airport staff had seemed sympathetic in initial meetings.

For two years, the airport paid his rent for extra grazing land to keep his stock away from the brook between November and April.

Those are the months when the airport has EA permits to discharge water containing de-icing chemicals from balancing ponds holding run-off from its runways.

But Mr Thornley says the airport is now refusing to continue the rental arrangement and claims he has not had a reply to letters from his insurance company lawyers.

He says he no longer trusts the airport to keep him informed about water quality and will continue to keep his livestock away from the brook from November to April.

'Victorian legacy'

The EA's case against the airport was supported by members of the Derby Railway Angling Club, who blame de-icing chemicals for causing large plumes of sewage fungus in the River Trent and threatening rare fish.

Before he retired, member Gary Cyster was a senior fisheries inspector for the EA.

He says he is disappointed that the agency did not pursue three further charges against the airport, including one linking airport chemical discharges to plumes of sewage fungus in the River Trent.

"Sewage fungus is like a legacy from the Victorian times," he says.

"We shouldn't be seeing any sewage fungus. If effluent is going into the River Trent, there should be a finite limit for BOD [biological oxygen demand]."

Mr Cyster says the Trent is home to some of the rarest fish in the country, including the spined loach and the bullhead, and these could be threatened by sewage fungus and low oxygen levels caused by de-icing chemicals.

He says he has research indicating that East Midlands Airport is the only airport in the country which does not have a finite BOD limit for discharging into a major river. Instead its "load-based" EA permit says that discharges should not have "adverse effects" on plants or animals in the water and that there should be "no significant adverse visual effect".

"We feel like the River Trent has been sold down the river," he says.

He is also concerned about the airport's continuing expansion and plans for the East Midlands Freeport.

"This is going to affect all the watercourses around the area. So it's about time that we had a modern treatment works there and they stop this pollution."

What the airport says

East Midlands Airport said: "We take our environmental responsibilities very seriously and work closely with the Environment Agency on the operation of our water drainage system.

"We are aware of Mr Thornley's concerns, take them seriously and have always responded to his correspondence.

"However, the issues he raises do not form any part of the evidence in the case that the Environment Agency has brought to court.

"The pollutants identified in the sample testing he undertook are not found in the de-icer products used by the airport but were instead contaminants associated with sewage, which the airport does not discharge to the brook.

"We are unable to comment further until the case reaches its full conclusion."

How do de-icing chemicals affect streams and rivers?

For safety reasons, UK airports routinely use de-icing chemicals during winter months to protect aircraft and runways.

They pose a pollution danger, so airports are required to have treatment systems in place. Discharges should be monitored by the environmental regulator.

Bangor University researcher Dr Ben Exton investigated the impact of de-icing chemicals such as propylene glycol for his PhD.

He likens the effect of these chemicals on water-born bacteria to offering hungry humans a roomful of fattening fast food.

"It's a bit like an unlimited flood of burgers... [the bacteria] grow extremely quickly, and as they grow, they deplete dissolved oxygen and stress other species," he says.

"They blanket the river bed, and that kills off other things in the river."

Numerous studies have shown de-icing chemicals cause habitat loss and poor water quality for invertebrates and fish.

"It's been going on for years," says Dr Exton.

"It's really difficult to treat the de-icer contaminated water because, unlike things like sewage, it comes in fluxes.

"Biological systems that break down these compounds don't ramp up and down well."

A document on East Midlands Airport's website flags de-icing chemicals as a "challenge". The document outlines its permit limits and how it treats the run-off in winter and summer ponds to protect local waterways.

Its guilty pleas last month relate to breaching those permits.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for "direct talks" with Ukraine, saying they should "start without delay, as early as 15 May".

"We seek serious talks... to remove the root causes of the conflict and start moving towards a lasting, strong peace", he said on Saturday, in a rare televised late-night address from the Kremlin.

It comes hours after European leaders - including UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron - visited Ukraine and urged Russia to agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said Moscow would "have to think this through" - but warned that "trying to pressure us is quite useless".

Victims of forced adoption have gathered in Cornwall for a public event condemning the treatment of unmarried mothers in post-war Britain.

They unveiled a plaque at Rosemundy House in St Agnes - formerly a home for unmarried mothers - while calling for a formal "adoption apology" from the government.

Dr Phil Frampton, who was born at the Rosemundy Mother and Baby Home in 1953, said: "We want an apology, not only for the mothers but also for their children who suffered."

Lyn Rodden, from Camborne, who was one of those forced to give up her baby, said: "It means everything that we've been recognised at last."

'Struggle for an apology'

It is estimated up to 250,000 women in Britain were forced to give up their babies in the decades after World War Two.

Campaigners also want "restorative actions" from the government, such as providing counselling and search support for mothers and those forcibly adopted.

Dr Frampton, a member of the Rosemundy Commemoration Committee, said he spent years in foster care after he was separated from his mother as a baby.

He said: "It's really pleasing to be here today, it's the start of a new chapter in the struggle for an apology for all those unmarried mothers who suffered in the post-war period."

Mr Frampton said the day was "part of a day of healing, part of a day of recognising the grief of those mothers..."

He added: "This is not something that's just in the past, for a lot of women they lived with this, you hear women today 80, 88 years old, who are still having to live with what happened, and the children live with it, and families live with it."

Mr Frampton said it was "important" to be able to give the mothers, children, and families affected by forced adoptions "a sense of relief and release".

Another plaque is due to be unveiled by the campaigners in Kendal, Cumbria, on 23 May.

'Cried all the way home'

In September 1956, 19-year-old Lyn Rodden from Camborne, Cornwall, gave birth to her son at the Rosemundy home.

She said she was forced to get on a train and take her son to Bath to be adopted.

Ms Rodden said: "For everybody else the parents came here and took them away from here, but I had to get on a train and take my son up to Bath, and leave him in an office.

"A woman just came out and said 'name' and 'I'll take the baby' and she took him into the back office, came out and said 'hurry up' she said, 'catch your train' she said, 'and back to St Agnes, you'll be there for another six weeks'.

"That was it. I cried all the way home..."

Ms Rodden said she was eventually reunited with her son 50 years later when he found her.

"[It was] like the final piece of a jigsaw being fitted," she said.

She added: "To think that although slavery was abolished in the 1800s, a Dickensian way of life was gone, but not at Rosemundy.

"It was still in the past, and that was it really, and it means everything that we've been recognised at last..."

A Government spokesperson said: "This abhorrent practice should never have taken place, and our deepest sympathies are with all those affected.

"We take this issue extremely seriously and continue to engage with those impacted to provide support."

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