Millions of Indians are celebrating Diwali, the festival of lights, one of Hinduism's most significant and widely observed festivals.

While lamps and firecrackers light up homes and streets during the festival, they also worsen air pollution - a problem especially pronounced in northern India, where winter months already bring poor air quality.

This year, the Supreme Court has permitted the sale and use of "green crackers" in the capital, Delhi, to help curb air pollution, ending a ban on crackers that has been in place since 2020.

"Green crackers" claim to emit 20–30% less pollution than traditional firecrackers, but critics doubt their actual effectiveness in protecting the environment.

In recent years, several states have restricted or banned firecrackers to combat rising air pollution, but the rules are often flouted, further worsening air quality in the days after Diwali.

But Diwali is about much more than fireworks. Food plays a central role in the celebrations.

Families prepare a variety of traditional Indian sweets which are shared with friends and neighbours. Festive meals often include rich curries, savoury snacks, and special breads.

In the days leading up to the festival, people clean and decorate their homes, shop for new clothes, and buy traditional sweets to exchange as gifts with friends and family.

Many also create traditional and colourful rangoli designs outside their doors to invite luck and positivity. On Diwali itself, families worship Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth.

Diwali's appeal goes beyond religion, drawing people from different communities and faiths to join in the celebrations.

Across India's cities and towns, markets bustle with shoppers buying sweets, gifts, decorations, and firecrackers, giving a significant boost to the economy each year.

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A cargo plane has skidded off a runway at Hong Kong International Airport and landed in the sea, killing at least one person, local media have reported.

The Emirates flight, operating as Aerotranscargo, was arriving from Dubai just before 04:00 local time when it hit a vehicle on the north runway, local media reports.

Four crew members on board have been rescued and taken to hospital, but two ground staff "fell into the sea", a statement from the Civil Aviation department says. Their condition is unclear.

The affected runway is closed, but the airport's other two runways are still in operation.

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She's a Hollywood A-lister, with a mantelpiece groaning under the weight of awards. But Cate Blanchett has taken an unexpected diversion from her day job - to immerse herself in the world of the humble seed.

Her eyes light up as she enthuses about the banksia species from her native Australia.

"It's quite a brutal looking seed pod that only releases its seed in extremely high temperatures," she tells us.

"It does look like a cross between a mallet and a toilet brush. So they're not always pretty, but yet what comes out of them is so spectacular."

We meet her at Kew's Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) at Wakehurst botanic garden in Sussex. She lives locally and teamed up with the project as it celebrates its 25th anniversary.

"Really, I stumbled upon Wakehurst. I was just in awe of the landscape and I always feel regenerated by being in the natural world," she says.

"And then I discovered the seed bank, and I literally had my mind blown by the work that goes on here… and I thought, anything I can do to be connected to it - I found it so inspiring."

The MSB is home to more than 2.5 billion seeds collected from 40,000 wild plant species around the world.

The seeds, which come in every shape, size and colour, are carefully processed, dried and then stored in freezers at a chilly -20C.

The conservation project was opened by The King - then the Prince of Wales - in 2000. He's taken part in a special episode of a Kew podcast about the project called Unearthed: The Need For Seeds with Cate Blanchett.

In the recording he talks about his concerns that many plant species are being lost.

"I know how absolutely critical it all is, and the destruction of rainforests, the extinction of endless species, which have very likely remarkable properties," he tells the podcast.

When the seed bank first opened, it was seen as a doomsday vault - a back-up store of seeds to safeguard wild plants from extinction.

But 25 years on, the collection is being used for a different purpose: to restore environments that are under threat.

"We want those seeds to be back out in the landscape," explained Dr Elinor Breman from the MSB, who's been showing Cate Blanchett the team's work.

"We're just providing a safe space for them until we can get them back out into a habitat where they can thrive and survive."

This includes projects like one taking place on the South Downs. A special mix of seeds from the MSB are being sewn to help restore the rare chalk grasslands there.

And this restoration work is being repeated around the world.

"We've been to every kind of habitat, from sea level to about 5,000m, and from pole to pole - literally," explained Dr Breman.

"And we're involved in restoring tropical forest, dry deciduous forest, grassland, steppe - you name it - we're trying to help people put those plants back in place."

The seed bank also helped to restore plants after intense wildfires swept across Australia in 2019. Cate Blanchett says this meant a lot to her.

"There are almost 9,000 species of Australian plant that are stored [at the MSB]. And we know that bushfires are getting increasingly more intense. And it's sad to say - but knowing that insurance policy exists, is of great solace to me."

Working as an ambassador for Wakehurst has meant that the actor has had a chance to get hands on with the seeds.

"Have I got dirt under my fingernails? Well, I'm trying to turn my brown thumbs green," she laughs.

"You know, living in Sussex, you can't not but become a passionate gardener. So I've had a lot of questions about how one stores seeds as a lay person, and I've learned a lot about that. My seed management has definitely, definitely improved."

And after spending so much time with the researchers at the MSB, is she at all tempted to swap the film set for the lab?

"I wish I had the skill - maybe I could play a scientist," she laughs.

Cate Blanchett describes the seed bank as the UK's best kept secret - and believes that over the next 25 years its work will continue to grow in importance.

"You often think, where are the good news stories? And we're actually sitting inside one," she tells us.

"You come here, you visit the seed bank, you walk through such a biodiverse landscape, and you leave uplifted. You know change is possible and it's happening."

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The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is investigating claims Russian hackers stole hundreds of sensitive military documents and published them on the dark web.

The Mail on Sunday first reported the files on the dark web - an area of internet that can only be accessed through particular software - hold details of eight RAF and Royal Navy bases as well as MoD staff names and emails.

Maintenance and construction contractor Dodd Group confirmed it suffered a ransomware incident and it was taking the claims "extremely seriously".

The MoD said in a statement it was "actively investigating the claims that information relating to the MoD has been published on the dark web".

"To safeguard sensitive operational information, we will not comment any further on the details," it added in a statement.

The Mail on Sunday reported the documents hold information about a number of sensitive RAF and Navy bases, including RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, where the US Air Force's F-35 jets are based.

A Dodd Group spokesperson said: "We can confirm that the Dodd Group recently experienced a ransomware incident whereby an unauthorised third-party gained temporary access to part of our internal systems.

"We took immediate steps to contain the incident, swiftly secure our systems and engaged a specialist IT forensic firm to investigate what happened.

"We are taking these claims extremely seriously and are working hard to validate this."

The hacks follow a series of high-profile data breaches at the MoD.

In August it was revealed thousands of Afghans brought to safety in the UK had their personal data exposed after an MoD sub-contractor suffered a data breach.

Last year the personal information of an unknown number of serving UK military personnel was accessed in a significant data breach.

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There is an eerie emptiness at the seat of US economic power.

The US Treasury is in shutdown like much of the federal government.

Most staff are furloughed as the world's finance ministers and bankers jet in for the International Monetary Fund annual meetings a few blocks away, their delayed flights handled by a small number of unpaid air traffic controllers.

There is, however, one clear message the Trump administration is notably keen to get out, not so much for its domestic audience but for the bewildered world outside.

And they delivered it in the middle of last week to a small number of people ushered into the Treasury and what is said to be the finest room in Washington DC, the ornate and marbled Cash Room, which hosted the inaugural reception for post-civil war president, Ulysses Grant.

"Make no mistake," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent alongside Trade Ambassador Jamieson Greer, as they fired the latest salvo in the ongoing 2025 global trade war. "This is China versus the world."

This simple message connects several extraordinary economic currents swirling around the world right now.

They include China's new export controls on critical minerals, fears of an AI bubble bursting, the tariff chaos and even the development of an erotic chatbot by OpenAI.

The world always seems to tilt a little on its axis in the two weeks a year that top bankers and finance ministers mass in Washington DC for their meetings at the IMF.

It is rare that the host itself is the main source of upheaval. Normally it would be a developing country, or perhaps the eurozone in the 2010s and infamously the UK in 2022.

The decisions and uncertainty arising from US trade policy, dizzying markets and decisions over its interest rates, loom large.

The inescapable signal being sent by the two most powerful US trade negotiators as they spoke to a small group of media in the Treasury's Cash Room was that China last week fired perhaps its most potent weapon yet by dramatically increasing restrictions on the trade of rare earth components.

These are critical to the production of high-tech goods ranging from electric cars to military hardware.

Bessent called the move a "Chinese chokehold" on the world.

• China has found Trump's pain point - rare earths
• Europe strives for rare earth independence from China

China's "sweeping expansion" of export controls on rare earth elements and equipment, as well as electric vehicle battery tech, industrial diamonds and super hard materials is "an exercise in economic coercion on every country in the world", said Greer.

This accusation is being made as his own boss, President Donald Trump, attempts to redraw global trade relations by using tariffs to eliminate US trade deficits.

He may have produced what is the toughest tariffs system the world has seen since 1933 but the disruption it has caused has been surprisingly muted so far.

The biggest economy on the planet is now behind a significant tariff wall but it's yet to feel the impact, partly thanks to a wealth boom built on some rather frothy tech valuations.

The conclusion to take from that is either the world economy is more shock absorbent than thought or it is just a matter of timing, with the real pain ahead.

Companies exporting to the US have swallowed the cost of tariffs, which are effectively import taxes, in their profit margins. But is that only for the time being?

The wall of tariffs that the US has built around its economy has led to more trade, for example, from China to Europe and Africa.

The US itself has been protected, for now, from the profound uncertainties, higher prices and domestic living standards impacts of the tariffs and the 10% fall in the value of the dollar.

Some insulation has come from booming AI tech sector share valuations, creating a profound wealth effect in certain households across the US, calculated by JP Morgan economists as worth $180bn per year.

• Landmark deal to cut global shipping emissions in tatters
• China's electric cars are becoming slicker and cheaper

The thin line between boom and bubble is impossible to calculate. Sometimes, it can be felt.

I was standing outside the Nasdaq in New York's Times Square, where the high tech market which symbolises US private sector tech ascendancy publicises its latest IPOs (stock launches) to the world.

One of the dozens of funds which raises real cash to plough into crypto, joyously "rang the opening bell", despite their share price already having slumped.

The executives then filed out into the Square to watch a giant video of themselves ringing the bell, among confused tourists. In fact, inside the Nasdaq, there is no bell, or trading floor either, just a bank of futuristic screens. Is it just hubris?

Another screen reminds us it is the 20th anniversary of the Nasdaq flotation of another tech company which went public here, now worth $3tn, Google.

This week, OpenAI's Sam Altman revealed that ChatGPT was developing chatbot erotica options.

This comes at a time when analysts are taking a hard look at firms like Altman's which have emerged at the front of the pack in the AI race.

A raft of convoluted deals where major US firms including chipmakers are investing in their own suppliers and vice versa has raised eyebrows further about the potential that the billions being poured into data centres, AI start-ups and cutting-edge manufacturing plants could be fuelling an ever-growing bubble.

So are the Chinese trying to weaponise these fears that it's all about to burst?

This is what Jamieson Greer seemed to suggest when he said the Chinese export controls on minerals critical to many important semiconductors gives Beijing control over the entire global economy and the technology supply chain which powers the very firms that could be keeping the US economy afloat.

"This will impact artificial intelligence systems and high tech products," he said.

Bessent also joined in, saying US media reports that China was playing hardball and was prepared to use financial markets to hurt the US was like "taking dictation" from the Chinese communist party. He went on, unusually, to accuse a named Chinese negotiator of going rogue.

None of this seems like a game of chess.

This is not carefully considered maestros thinking out their strategies, six moves ahead of time. This is more like playing pool by smashing the balls indiscriminately around the table, and then attempting to break the cue, or the table, or both.

Tariffs, counter-tariffs and export controls amount to mutually assured destruction manoeuvres which are cloaked behind the general assumption that President Trump will always pull back from the brink. The more that is baked in, the higher the risk of a shock.

In this situation, it is sensible game theory to look for allies.

The China moves would affect the whole world, including Europe. UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves and other leading European finance ministers told me they would work with global partners to ensure the supply of these rare earth materials.

Reeves pointed to work with Canada especially on developing alternative supply chains. The US is now reopening mines, and refining facilities. Chinese dominance here is decades in the making, however.

At times like this, it is also fair to say there is some divergence between the public words of diplomacy and what is being said in private.

There was frustration and bafflement behind the scenes directed at the US for having liberally sprayed tariffs in all directions while asking the world to focus on China's trade distortions.

"It's hard to tell friend from foe," said one G20 finance minister.

"The Americans are basically trying to corral the rest of the world against China, using everything as leverage against China," one senior G7 official told me.

• What tariffs has Trump announced and why?
• India's exports to US plunge as tariffs bite

This climate of suspicion breeds uncertainty and the world's smaller central banks are ploughing their money into the so-called safe haven of gold for a reason, sending it to new records.

Back at the US Treasury Cash Room, where there is a lot of gold detail in the seven types of marble, there is another telling statement from US Treasury Secretary Bessent.

He sees the US going through a 1990s-style high-tech productivity boom. "That's the most analogous period to what we're seeing now."

In the coming weeks he will help choose the new chair of the US Federal Reserve in the mould of 1990s Alan Greenspan, who famously accommodated the run-up of the dotcom boom with low interest rates, considered by some to have contributed to the financial crash. Bessent has been rereading Greenspan's biography Maestro.

But in the 1990s the world's second biggest economy was not taking steps to interrupt the new tech supply chain and there was not a constantly rolling threat of more tariffs from China and the US.

These are centrifugal forces shaping the uneasy calm in the world economy.

The Road Runner moment has happened. Like the cartoon character, having headed off the edge of a cliff, global trade is defying gravity momentarily but the running has kept going, and even sped up.

The world's finance ministers on their field trip to Washington have had to assume the world economy will muddle through this.

It doesn't mean it will.

China's top leaders are gathering in Beijing this week to decide on the country's key goals and aspirations for the rest of the decade.

Every year or so, the country's highest political body, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, convenes for a week of meetings, also known as a Plenum.

What it decides at this one will eventually form the basis of China's next Five Year Plan - the blueprint that the world's second largest economy will follow between 2026 and 2030.

The full plan won't come until next year, but officials are likely to hint at its contents on Wednesday and have previously given more details within a week of that.

"Western policy works on election cycles, but Chinese policy making operates on planning cycles," says Neil Thomas, a fellow in Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

"Five Year Plans spell out what China wants to achieve, signal the direction the leadership wants to go in and move the resources of the state towards these predefined conclusions," he adds.

On the surface, the idea of hundreds of suited bureaucrats shaking hands and drawing up plans may appear drab - but history tells us that what they decide often has huge repercussions for the world.

Here are three times China's Five Year Plan reshaped the global economy.

1981-84: "Reform and Opening Up"

Pinpointing exactly when China began its journey to become an economic powerhouse is difficult, but many in the Party like to say it was on 18 December 1978.

For nearly three decades, China's economy had been rigidly controlled by the state. But Soviet-style central planning had failed to lift prosperity and many were still struggling in poverty.

The country was still recovering from Mao Zedong's devastating rule. The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution - campaigns led by Communist China's founder to reshape the nation's economy and society - resulted in millions of deaths.

Speaking at the 11th Committee's Third Plenum in Beijing, the country's new leader Deng Xiaoping declared that it was time to embrace some elements of the free market.

His policy of "reform and opening up" became integral to the next Five Year Plan, which began in 1981.

The creation of free trading Special Economic Zones - and the foreign investment they attracted - transformed the lives of people in China.

According to Mr Thomas, the aims of that Five Year Plan could not have been achieved more emphatically.

"China today is beyond the wildest dreams of people in the 1970s," he says. "In terms of restoring national pride as well as establishing its place amongst the great powers of the world," he says.

But it also fundamentally reshaped the global economy. By the 21st Century, millions of western manufacturing jobs had been outsourced to new factories in China's coastal regions.

Economists have called this "the China shock" and it's been one of the driving forces behind the rise of populist parties in former industrial parts of Europe and the United States.

For example, Donald Trump's economic policies - his tariffs and trade wars - are designed to bring back the American manufacturing jobs lost to China over the previous few decades.

2011-15: "Strategic emerging industries"

China's status as the workshop of the world was cemented once it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. But at the turn of the century, the Communist Party leadership was already planning its next move.

It was wary of China falling into the so-called "middle income trap". This happens when an upwardly mobile country can't offer ultra-low wages anymore, but at the same time doesn't have the innovative capacity to create the high-end goods and services of an advanced economy.

So instead of just cheap manufacturing, China needed to find what it called "strategic emerging industries" - a term first officially used in 2010. For China's leaders, this meant green technology, such as electric vehicles (EVs) and solar panels.

As climate change became increasingly important in Western politics, China mobilised an unprecedented amount of resources into these new industries.

Today, China is not only the undisputed world leader in renewables and EVs, it also has a near monopoly over the rare earth supply chains needed to build them.

China's stranglehold on these key resources - which are also crucial to chip-making and artificial intelligence (AI) - now puts it in a powerful position globally.

So much so that Beijing's recent move to tighten export controls on rare earths was labelled by Trump as an attempt to "hold the world captive".

Although "strategic emerging forces" was enshrined in the next Five Year Plan in 2011, green technology had been identified as a potential engine of growth and geopolitical power by China's then leader Hu Jintao in the early 2000s.

"This desire for China to be more self-reliant in its economy, in its technology, in its freedom of action, goes back a long way - it is part of the fibre of Chinese Communist Party ideology," explains Neil Thomas.

2021-2025: "High quality development"

This may explain why China's Five Year Plans more recently have turned their attention to "high quality development", formally introduced by Xi Jinping in 2017.

This means challenging American dominance in technology and putting China at the forefront of the sector.

Domestic success stories such as the video sharing app TikTok, telecommunications giant Huawei and even DeepSeek, the AI model, are all testament to China's technological boom this century.

But western countries increasingly see this as a threat to their national security. The subsequent bans or attempted bans on popular Chinese technology have affected millions of internet users around the world and have sparked bitter diplomatic rows.

Until now, China has powered its tech success using American innovation, such as Nvidia's advanced semiconductors.

Given their sale to China has now been blocked by Washington, expect "high quality development" to morph into "new quality productive forces" - a fresh slogan introduced by Xi in 2023, which tilts the focus more towards domestic pride and national security.

This means putting China at the cutting edge of chip-making, computing and AI - not reliant on Western technology and immune to embargoes.

Self-sufficiency in all areas, especially at the very top end of innovation, is likely to be one of the central tenets of the next Five Year Plan.

"National security and technological independence are now the defining mission of China's economic policy," Mr Thomas explains.

"Again, it goes back to that nationalist project that underpins communism in China, to ensure it never again is dominated by foreign countries".

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Virginia Giuffre says she feared she might "die a sex slave" at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and his circle, her posthumous memoir reveals.

The BBC has obtained a full copy of Nobody's Girl, written by the prominent accuser of convicted sex offender Epstein ahead of its publication on Tuesday, almost six months after she took her own life.

In the memoir, Ms Giuffre also says she had sex with Prince Andrew on three separate occasions, including once with Epstein and approximately eight other young women.

Prince Andrew, who reached a financial settlement with Ms Giuffre in 2022, has always denied any wrongdoing.

The memoir, which the BBC bought from a book store in central London days before its official release date, paints a picture of a web of rich and powerful people abusing young women.

At the centre of the abuse was Epstein and his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence on sex-trafficking charges.

Ms Giuffre says that even decades later, she remembers how much she feared them both.

Much of the book makes for extremely harrowing reading, as Ms Giuffre details the sadistic abuse that Epstein put her through.

She says Epstein subjected her to sadomasochistic sex which caused her "so much pain that I prayed I would black out".

On Friday, Prince Andrew announced that he was voluntarily deciding not to use his titles and giving up membership of the Order of the Garter - the oldest and most senior order of chivalry in Britain.

He will no longer use his Duke of York title, an honour received from his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II.

In his statement, he said: "I vigorously deny the accusations against me."

However the new book, written by Ms Giuffre and ghostwriter Amy Wallace, causes further embarrassment for the prince.

In the memoir, Ms Giuffre says she first met Prince Andrew in March 2001.

She writes that Maxwell woke her up and told her it was going to be a "special day" and that "just like Cinderella" she was going to meet a "handsome prince".

She says that when she met Prince Andrew later that day, Maxwell told him to guess her age.

The prince, who was then 41, "guessed correctly: seventeen", Ms Giuffre said. "My daughters are just a little younger than you," she recalls him saying.

That night, she says she attended London's Tramp nightclub with Prince Andrew, Epstein and Maxwell, where she says the prince "sweated profusely".

In a car on the way back to Maxwell's house afterwards, Ms Giuffre writes that Maxwell told her: "When we get home, you are to do for him what you do for Jeffrey."

She wrote that back at the house they had sex.

"He was friendly enough, but still entitled - as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright," she says.

"The next morning, it was clear that Maxwell had conferred with her royal chum because she told me: 'You did well. The prince had fun.'"

Ms Giuffre writes that she "didn't feel so great", adding: "Soon, Epstein would give me $15,000 for servicing the man the tabloids called 'Randy Andy' - a lot of money."

Ms Giuffre claims she had sex for a second time with the prince around a month later at Epstein's townhouse in New York.

She says the third occasion was on Epstein's island as part of what Ms Giuffre called "an orgy".

She writes that she said in a sworn declaration in 2015 that she was "around 18".

"Epstein, Andy, and approximately eight other young girls and I had sex together," she says.

"The other girls all appeared to be under the age of 18 and didn't really speak English.

"Epstein laughed about how they couldn't really communicate, saying they are the easiest girls to get along with."

Later in the book, Ms Giuffre touches on her 2022 out-of-court settlement with Prince Andrew after she brought a civil case against him.

"I agreed to a one-year gag order, which seemed important to the prince because it ensured his mother's Platinum Jubilee would not be tarnished any more than it already had been," she writes.

While Ms Giuffre's alleged interactions with Prince Andrew have been widely reported by the British press, the book's content is wider in scope - littered with sinister details of Epstein's sex trafficking.

The girls were required to look "childlike", Ms Giuffre says, and her childhood eating disorder was "only encouraged" under Epstein's roof.

"In my years with them, they lent me out to scores of wealthy, powerful people," she writes.

"I was habitually used and humiliated - and in some instances, choked, beaten, and bloodied.

"I believed that I might die a sex slave."

Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a person under the age of 18. He died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

On Sunday, the Metropolitan Police said it was "actively" looking into media reports that Prince Andrew tried to obtain personal information about Ms Giuffre through his police protection officer (PPO).

According to the Mail on Sunday, the prince asked the officer to investigate Ms Giuffre just before the newspaper published a photo in February 2011 of her first meeting with the prince.

A royal source told the BBC there are currently no plans for the removal of the prince title that Andrew was born with.

"The headlines are taking a lot of oxygen out of the royal room," they added, referring to press about Prince Andrew diverting attention away from King Charles's engagements.

In 2019, the prince repeatedly told BBC Newsnight that he did not remember meeting Ms Giuffre "at all" and that they "never had any sort of sexual contact."

Buckingham Palace has not commented.

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New vocational courses called V-levels will be rolled out for 16-year-olds under government plans to simplify a "confusing landscape" of qualifications in England.

They are set to replace Level 3 BTecs and other post-16 technical qualifications.

Ministers also plan to reduce the number of teenagers resitting maths and English GCSEs by introducing an alternative qualification.

The Sixth Form Colleges Association warned that V-levels may not fill the gap left by BTecs.

Ministers are expected to lay out proposals for higher education funding, including university tuition fees, on Monday afternoon.

The government has launched a consultation on its V-level plans, which form part of its post-16 education and skills white paper.

They come after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer stressed the importance of vocational training, announcing a target for two-thirds of young people to go to university or study a technical qualification.

Lola Marshall, 17, hopes to do an apprenticeship after her health and social care extended diploma at Leeds City College, and said there wasn't enough discussion about vocational routes at school.

"Everyone always talked about university and no one ever really helped me decide whether I wanted to do university or an apprenticeship," she said.

It is not yet clear when V-levels will be introduced, how they will be rolled out, or which subjects will be on offer - although the Department for Education (DfE) gave craft and design and media, broadcast and production as examples.

Skills minister Baroness Jacqui Smith said V-levels aimed to simplify options for students.

"There are over 900 courses at the moment that young people have the choice of, and it's confusing," she said.

"[V-levels] will build on what's good about BTecs and other alternative qualifications - the ability to be able to work practically, the concentration on things that are going to lead to employment."

Students will still be able to study A-levels or T-levels after their GCSEs, or start an apprenticeship.

Ministers expect many will want to mix and match between A-levels and V-levels.

T-levels, introduced in 2020, already offer a technical route for students, but the initial findings of a government-commissioned review said they shouldn't be the only option, partly because of their high entry requirements.

Students study one T-level geared towards a specific occupation, whereas they might study three A-levels in different subjects.

Baroness Smith said T-levels therefore suited students who "really know that's what [they] want to do", while V-levels would be better for those who were less sure.

Plans to scrap BTecs have been under way for a few years, and campaigners have stressed the importance of students having an alternative to A-levels and T-levels.

Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said students must be able to enrol on BTecs and other courses for the next two years.

"While the detail has yet to be established, there is a risk that the new V-levels will not come close to filling the gap that will be left by the removal of applied general qualifications," he said.

David Hughes, the chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said V-levels might bring more "clarity and certainty" to further education.

"We've seen before lots of attempts to raise the profile of vocational and technical learning – we've got to hope this time we get it right as a nation," he said.

Baroness Smith also said a new qualification would be introduced as an alternative to GCSE resits, helping students who "too often have been on this demoralising roundabout of taking exams and failing them".

In England, pupils who don't get at least a grade 4 in GCSE English and maths have to continue studying for it alongside their next course, and are expected to resit.

However, the resit pass rate is low and the policy has proved controversial.

The government said offering an alternative would "break down barriers to opportunity", because white working class pupils were twice as likely to need to resit than their better-off classmates.

Its white paper will also propose that teenagers are offered a choice of two "pathways" - one focused on study and one on work - which will set out which qualifications they'll need to achieve their goals.

Ministers are also due to set out plans for the funding of higher education in England, including setting university tuition fees.

Universities have expressed growing concerns about funding pressures after years of frozen tuition fees, with more than four in 10 universities in England believed to be in a financial deficit.

They say income from fees has failed to match rising costs, and there have been fewer international students - who pay higher rates - coming in to help make up the financial shortfall.

Prof Shearer West, vice chancellor of the University of Leeds, welcomed the fact that domestic tuition fees in England and Wales rose to £9,535 this year but hopes to see further change.

"We're being asked to do more research with less money and teach more students with fewer resources," she told the BBC.

"The only way that we can deal with a situation like that is really to cut our costs, which often means that we have to lose staff and you can see that happening across the sector."

Additional reporting by Branwen Jeffreys and Hope Rhodes

This weekend's "No Kings" demonstrations drew an estimated crowd of millions across the US to protest President Donald Trump's policies and his willingness to push the boundaries of presidential authority.

It was a moment for likeminded Democrats, liberals and some anti-Trump Republicans to rally together at a time when the American left has little formal power in national politics.

But where do they go from here?

By most accounts, the turnout at Saturday's events - in major US cities like Chicago, New York, Washington and Los Angeles, as well as hundreds of smaller towns – was higher than expected and surpassed the first "No Kings" rally in June.

Congressional Republicans had warned that the demonstrations would be "anti-American", and some conservative governors had put their law enforcement and National Guard on alert in case of violence.

The massive rallies turned out to be peaceful – a carnival, not carnage. In New York City, there were no protest-related arrests, and the gathering in Washington DC featured families and young children.

"Today all across America in numbers that may eclipse any day of protest in our nation's history, Americans are saying loudly and proudly that we are a free people, we are not a people that can be ruled, our government is not for sale," Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said in his speech to the Washington DC rally.

Just down the street from the No Kings gathering in the nation's capital, the White House responded to the protests with derision.

"Who cares," deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson wrote in response to multiple media inquiries about the marches.

Trump shared several AI-generated videos on his Truth Social website of him wearing a crown, including one where he was flying a jet that dumped what appeared to be human waste on the protesters.

While Republicans may be downplaying the significance of the marches, the scale of the turnout – along with Trump's net negative approval rating in major opinion polls - hints at a Democratic opportunity to rebound from last year's electoral defeats.

The party still has a long way to go, however.

Polls suggest only a third of Americans view it favourably - the lowest for decades - and Democrats are divided over how to mount an effective opposition to Trump when they no longer control either chamber of Congress.

Liberals took to the streets on Saturday for a variety of reasons. Trump's aggressive immigration enforcement, his tariff policies, his government cuts, his foreign policy, his deployment of National Guard in US cities and his norm-breaking use of presidential authority were all frequent topics of concern and outrage.

Some of the frustration was also directed at Democratic leaders.

"We're just taking it on the chin, and we're not speaking out," one march attendee in Washington DC told NBC News on Saturday. "You know, I think we need to throw some more elbows. Unfortunately, the high road doesn't work."

The Democrats have been more combative over the ongoing government shutdown, which is about to enter its fourth week. They have been unwilling to approve a short-term extension of current federal spending without a bipartisan agreement to address health-insurance subsidies for low-income Americans set to expire at the end of the year.

Because of Senate parliamentary rules, Democrats have some power despite being in the minority – and, at least so far, the public seems to be assigning at least as much, if not more, blame for the impasse to Trump and the Republican majority.

But the strategy comes with risks too. The pain from the shutdown – particularly for those in the Democratic coalition – is only going to increase as the weeks go by.

Many federal workers have missed paycheques and are facing financial hardship. Funding is expected to run out for low-income food support. The US judicial system is scaling back its operations. And the Trump administration is using the shutdown to order new cuts to the federal workforce and suspend domestic spending, targeting Democratic states and cities.

The reality is that Democratic leaders in the Senate will ultimately have to find a way out of the crisis. But they may be hard-pressed to reach terms that the protesters who took to the streets on Saturday will find acceptable.

"If we shake hands with President Trump on a deal, we don't want him then next week just firing thousands more people, cancelling economic development projects, cancelling public health funds," Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia said on Sunday in an interview on NBC's Meet The Press. "So we are trying to get an agreement that a deal is a deal."

There is a chance the government shutdown will still be happening in early November when voters in some states will head to the ballot box for the first time since last year's presidential contest.

Elections for governor and state legislatures could provide a barometer for whether the anti-Trump sentiment on display at the "No Kings" protests translates into electoral success for Democrats.

Four years ago, a Republican won the governor's race in Virginia, an electoral battleground that has trended left in recent presidential elections, providing an early sign of voter dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden. This time around, the Democrat – former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger – is leading her Republican opponent in the polls.

While Trump lost New Jersey in last year's presidential election, the margin of defeat - less than 6% - was dramatically down from Biden's 16% victory in 2020 and Hillary Clinton's 14% margin in 2017. November's governor's election shows a similarly close race.

At the No Kings rally in Montclair, New Jersey, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin urged attendees to vote in the upcoming election.

"It is one thing to show up at these protests," he said. "And it's another to move the needle and get back some power."

This November's elections will be a test of whether antipathy toward Trump is enough to get left-wing voters to support Democratic candidates.

They are, however, just a prelude to next year's midterm elections, which will decide which party controls both chambers of the US Congress and could provide Democrats with a real check on Trump's power for the last two years of his presidential term.

The priority at Saturday's protests was to unite around a Stop Trump message. Of less concern, at least for the moment, was what Democrats could do once they get back to power.

There have, however, been some indications that cracks remain within the party coalition.

Former Vice-President Kamala Harris's book tour, for example, has regularly been interrupted by pro-Palestinian protestors who object to the Biden administration's Middle East policies. Centrist proposals to focus on economic issues over social policies – including trans rights – have prompted condemnations from many on the left.

Maine, Massachusetts, California and Michigan are likely to have contentious primary battles to determine Democratic nominees in next year's elections – pitting older establishment politicians against younger candidates and liberals against centrists.

These battles could quickly open old political wounds that are hard to heal. In that case, marches alone may not be enough to solve what has ailed the party.