US President Donald Trump has hailed an "amazing" meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, amid rising hopes for a de-escalation of tensions between the world's two biggest economies.

Beijing was less effusive, saying the two side had reached a consensus to resolve "major trade issues" during the leaders' first face-to-face meeting in six years.

Trump's trade war had set off tit-for-tat tariffs that shot past 100% on both sides, but they agreed to a truce in May - although tensions remained high.

Thursday's talks did not lead to a formal agreement but the announcements suggest they are closer to a deal - the details of which have long been subject to behind-the-scenes negotiations.

Trade deals normally take years to negotiate, and countries around the world have been thrown into resolving differences with the current Trump administration within a matter of months.

One key win for Trump is that China has agreed to suspend export control measures it had placed on rare earths, crucial for the production of everything from smartphones to fighter jets.

A jubilant president told reporters on Air Force One that he had also got China to start immediately buying a "tremendous amounts of soybeans and other farm products". Retaliatory tariffs on American soybeans by Beijing had effectively halted imports from the US, harming US farmers - a key voting block for Trump.

There was, however, no mention of a breakthrough on TikTok. The US has sought to take the video-sharing app's US operations away from Chinese parent company ByteDance for national security reasons.

Meanwhile, the US has said it will drop part of the tariffs it has levied on Beijing over the flow of ingredients used in making fentanyl to the US. Trump has imposed severe tariffs on the US's top trade partners for their perceived failure to clamp down on the drug.

However, it seems other tariffs, or taxes on imported goods, will remain in place, meaning that goods arriving in the US from China are still being taxed at a rate of over 40% for US importers.

Beijing will also be able to speak to Jensen Huang, the head of US tech firm Nvidia - according to Trump. Nvidia is at the heart of the two countries' fight over AI chips: China wants high-end chips but the US wants to limit China's access, citing national security.

Beijing has also extended an invitation to Trump to visit China in April - yet another sign of thawing relations.

'A good start'

But the meeting also showed the gulf between the two leaders' approaches.

Xi was self-contained, and said only what he had prepared. He entered the meeting knowing he had a strong hand. China had learned from Trump's first term, leveraging its chokehold on rare earths, and diversifying its trade partners so it is less reliant on the US.

Afterwards, he was far more measured in his language than Trump. The two sides would be working on delivering outcomes that will serve as a "reassuring pill" for both countries' economies, he said.

Trump was - as always - more ad-lib. But the US president was also noticeably more tense than he had been for the rest of his whirlwind trip to South East Asia - a reflection of the high stakes in Thursday's meeting.

The glamour and pageantry on show since he arrived at his first stop in Malaysia just five days ago was also absent.

Gone were the gold-laden palaces of the sort he was welcomed to in Japan on Tuesday. Instead, a building at an airport, lying behind barbed wire and security checkpoints.

The military bands which welcomed Trump to South Korea on Wednesday were nowhere to be seen.

Instead, the only sign something important was going on inside was the heavy police and media presence.

But despite the quieter public face, what was happening inside was arguably the most significant hour and 20 minutes of the trip.

Henry Wang, a former adviser to China's State Council, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Trump and Xi's talks "went very well".

It may not have been a trade deal, but a "framework and structure has been laid", he added - calling it "a good start".

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has admitted breaking housing rules by unlawfully renting out her family home without a licence.

Reeves has told Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, as well as the independent ethics adviser and Parliament's standards commissioner of the error, which was first reported in the Daily Mail.

It is understood the chancellor used a letting agency but was not told the house was in an area that needed a "selective licence" to rent the property.

Reeves rented out her Southwark home after moving into a flat in Downing Street after last year's election win.

A spokesperson for Reeves said it was an "inadvertent mistake" and she has now applied for the licence.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has called for a "full investigation".

In a social media post, Badenoch said if the chancellor broke the law, the prime minister must "show he has the backbone to act".

The family home in London was put up for rent after Labour won the election in July 2024 for £3,200 a month.

It is in an area where Southwark Council requires private landlords to hold a "selective licence".

The council's website states: "You can be prosecuted or fined if you're a landlord or managing agent for a property that needs a licence and do not get one."

A spokesperson for Rachel Reeves said: "Since becoming chancellor Rachel Reeves has rented out her family home through a lettings agency.

"She had not been made aware of the licencing requirement, but as soon as it was brought to her attention she took immediate action and has applied for the licence.

"This was an inadvertent mistake and in the spirit of transparency she has made the prime minister, the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards aware."

Writing on social media, Badenoch said Sir Keir "once said 'lawmakers can't be lawbreakers'. If, as it appears, the chancellor has broken the law, then he will have to show he has the backbone to act."

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The UK government has chartered flights to help British nationals leave Jamaica in the wake of Hurricane Melissa.

As many as 8,000 Britons are understood to be on the Caribbean Island. The Foreign Office has urged them to register their presence to receive updates on the disaster response.

It did not specify how many planes had been chartered, but said Brits and their immediate family would be able to take them as long as they held valid travel documents.

The rare category five storm - the strongest type - made landfall on Jamaica on Tuesday, leaving a trail of destruction, flooding and dozens of people dead, before continuing to move through the Caribbean.

At least five people are known to have died in Jamaica, with at least another 20 fatalities confirmed dead in Haiti.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the chartered flights were to "bolster commerical capacity and ensure people who wish to return to the UK can do so as soon as possible".

She added: "The strong links between the UK and Jamaica mean many British nationals were there during the devastation of the hurricane, and we need to ensure they can get safely home, as we know how worrying and difficult the last few days will have been."

The Foreign Office is urging those in Jamaica to contact their airlines first to see if commercial flights are available.

It added that Windrush generations with indefinite leave to remain in the UK were also eligible for the government flights.

Jamaica's Transport Minister Daryl Vaz said on Wednesday that some airports - including Norman Manley in Kingston - would initially open only for humanitarian relief flights only.

Some commercial flights from the capital, Kingston, are scheduled to begin operating again on Thursday.

Sangster International Airport, which serves the badly hit Montego Bay, will reopen on Thursday for relief flights only, with commercial flights to resume at a yet-to-be-determined time later, Vaz said.

The Foreign Office announcement comes a day after the UK government pledged £2.5m to help with the relief effort, with the funds going towards delivering emergency supplies such as shelter kits, water filters and blankets.

Technical experts have also been deployed to assist with the disaster response and recovery efforts.

Melissa first hit Jamaica's southern coast with maximum sustained winds of 295km/h (185mph) - the strongest hurricane so far this year.

Those speeds were above those of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, one of the worst storms in history. With communications largely crippled, the full extent of the disaster remains unclear.

Early images show homes and other structures razed to the ground, debris littering streets and fast-moving floodwater streaming through neighbourhoods.

Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared the island a "disaster area" on Tuesday, warning of "devastating impacts" and "significant damage" to hospitals, homes and businesses.

Three-quarters of the country had no electricity overnight and many parts of Jamaica's western side are under water.

• How do hurricanes form and are they getting stronger?
• What makes Melissa such a dangerous storm?
• 'We are all terrified', say locals in path of Hurricane Melissa

While Melissa has now cleared Jamaica and is moving towards the Atlantic, there will still be some thunderstorms across the island.

The US National Hurricane Center warns that an additional 8-15cm (3-6 inches) of rain is possible in parts, with up to 76cm over mountainous areas, posing an ongoing risk of flash flooding and landslides.

The remnants of Melissa are forecast to move across the UK next week.

The weather system will move across the far north-west late on Sunday and into early Monday - likely as a largely "business as usual" storm, the Met Office said.

Virgin Trains will be able to launch rail services through the Channel Tunnel after the UK's rail regulator approved its application to share a depot with Eurostar.

The decision by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) means Eurostar's monopoly on passenger services is set to be broken for the first time since the tunnel opened in 1994.

Temple Mills railway storehouse in east London is the only depot in the UK able to accommodate the larger trains used in continental Europe and which is already linked to the cross-Channel line.

Virgin says it wants to start running services from 2030, but the ORR says several steps will need to be taken first.

The ORR had said the Temple Mills depot had enough space to either house an expanded Eurostar fleet or accommodate a rival company's trains – but not both.

The regulator said a number of steps needed to be taken before new international services could run. Virgin needs to enter into a commercial agreement with Eurostar, will have to secure finance, access to track and stations, and have to get safety approvals from UK and EU authorities.

But the ORR said its decision unlocked plans for around £700m of investment and could create 400 new jobs, describing it as "a win for passengers, customer choice, and economic growth".

Martin Jones, deputy director of Access and International at the ORR, said: "While there is still some way to go before the first new services can run, we stand ready to work with Virgin Trains as their plans develop."

Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, said: "The ORR's decision is the right one for consumers – it's time to end this 30-year monopoly and bring some Virgin magic to the cross-Channel route."

Several firms had wanted to start operating services between London and mainland Europe, including Spanish start-up Evolyn, Richard Branson's Virgin and a partnership between Gemini Trains and Uber.

The ORR only approved Virgin's application on Thursday and rejected applications from Evolyn, Gemini and Trenitalia.

Virgin said it planned to launch rail services from London St Pancras to Europe from 2030.

This will include services to Paris Gare du Nord, Brussels-Midi and Amsterdam Centraal, with future plans to expand further across France, and into Germany and Switzerland.

Today it sits as a nondescript car park behind a large council office.

Yet hundreds of years ago an unassuming patch of land in Dumbarton was the location for some of Scotland's darkest moments - as locals who had been accused of witchcraft were led there to be executed.

More than two dozen people in the town were accused and tortured in the belief that they were doing Satan's bidding, as religious fervour swept the area during the 17th Century.

Now campaigners are hoping to spotlight the names of those accused and pay tribute to them with a memorial.

In 2022 Nicola Sturgeon offered a formal apology to people accused of witchcraft between the 16th and 18th Centuries.

About 4,000 Scots, mostly women, were accused of breaking the Witchcraft Act between 1563 and 1736, and the vast majority were executed.

Louise Wilson has been researching the history of witches in Dumbarton, where she believes suspicion of witchcraft was common.

Through historical records she has already found 32 cases of people accused from 1624 to 1697 - with 22 of those executed.

Of the remaining 10, one fled the region while the fates of the other nine have been lost to history.

"Port towns had a lot of accused in Scotland," explains Louise, the secretary of Remembering The Accused Witches of Scotland.

"A lot of hustle and bustle leads to more accusations, so as well as Dumbarton it was the same on the coast of Fife and in Ayr. The failing of the crops, or bad trade or a ship having trouble – these would all be blamed on witches."

Witch hunts took place in many countries during that period, but academics have previously said Scotland's execution rate was five times the European average.

For Louise, the most terrifying aspect of the accusations lies in how easily they could be made, often with little evidence.

"These were ordinary people doing ordinary jobs, but if you argue with your neighbour you could end up accused of witchcraft," says Louise.

"There is a woman called Jonet Boyd, in 1628. A man called Robert Glen, who was a notary, accused her.

"He had met her on the street and said she threw words and obscenities at him, grabbed his clock, whipped him around and threw a stone at him. Two witnesses also confirmed this happened.

"The next morning he accused her of witchcraft – however there is nothing in the records about whether he had done something to her to make her act like that. Maybe she turned him down – we don't know."

Jonet Boyd was executed as a result of the accusations from Robert Glen.

Not all the accused were women, though the majority were. Louise recounts a slater called John McWilliam, who fled to Stranraer after being accused of witchcraft for a second time, before going on trial in Edinburgh.

He was then executed in 1655.

Other signs of witchcraft listed in local records include not attending church and talking to animals, which were assumed to be a witch's familiar - meaning a supernatural creature helping the accused.

If someone was accused, they would be subject to brutal torture aimed at securing a confession.

However methods often associated with witch trials, such throwing them into water with hands tied behind their back, were more common in England rather than Scotland.

Scottish alternatives were not any more pleasant, however.

"Things like dooking or hanging weren't done in Scotland – they were strangled and burned instead," says Louise.

"They would be kept awake for three days and three nights, getting beaten told to keep walking while have accusations screamed at them. They also used thumb and finger screws, iron boots and crimp claws.

"They would be stripped naked and their hair shaved, then brought in front of a judiciary of ministers and highly ranked men in the town.

"Someone would search for the devil's mark to prove they were in league with Satan - that could be something like a mole or a birthmark. So by the time they were executed they looked the typical stereotype of a Halloween witch."

Those stereotypes might bring to mind images of black hats, broomsticks and cackling over cauldrons, common in much media.

However for the accused, the effect of the accusations - even if later cleared - were immense.

In Dumbarton the situation was stoked by zealous local ministers, with the Covenanter movement having considerable influence at the time.

"You had ministers saying witches were among us, they are in thrall to Satan and it was being drummed in people that witches were among the community.

"This lasted for over 150 years but it's not well known about, it's not being taught in history classes."

Louise and the rest of the RAWS team are now seeking to place a memorial at the execution site off Church Street in Dumbarton.

They will also host a conference at Maryhill Burgh Halls on 8 November.

Earlier councillors discussed the matter, and agreed that it was important to remember the victims.

A West Dunbartonshire Council spokesperson said: "We have been engaging with Remembering the Accused Witches of Scotland who are keen to install a fitting memorial."

For Louise, a display would be important, as would telling the stories of those accused to future generations.

"When you say their names and tell their stories, it's a way of remembering them."

The scale of devastation left by Hurricane Melissa is becoming clear after the record-setting storm tore through Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba, leaving at least 32 people dead.

Although downgraded from a Category 5 to a Category 1 storm, Melissa gathered speed as it swept through the Bahamas on Thursday and is expected to make landfall in Bermuda later.

The strongest storm to strike the Caribbean island in modern history, the hurricane sustained winds of 298 km/h (185 mph) at its peak - stronger than Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, killing 1,392 people.

The US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) reported sustained winds of 165km/h at 09:00 GMT on Thursday.

It warned of possible coastal flooding as the storm accelerated northeastward.

Authorities in the Bahamas have since lifted hurricane warnings for the central and southern islands, as well as for the Turks and Caicos.

The country's Minister of State for Disaster Risk Management, Leon Lundy, urged residents to remain vigilant, saying: "Even a weakened hurricane retains the capacity to bring serious devastation."

Nearly 1,500 people were evacuated from vulnerable areas in what officials described as one of the largest operations in Bahamian history.

While flooding has disrupted parts of the archipelago, the ministry of tourism said the majority of the country - including Nassau, Freeport, Eleuthera and the Abacos - remained largely unaffected and open to visitors.

Across the wider Caribbean, Melissa's powerful winds have torn apart homes and buildings, uprooted trees and left tens of thousands without power.

In Cuba, residents of the country's second-largest city Santiago de Cuba worked with machetes to clear streets buried in debris. President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the hurricane had caused "considerable damage" but did not provide a casualty figure.

In Jamaica, the impact was most severe in the southwestern parish of St Elizabeth, where knee-deep mud and washed-out bridges left towns such as Black River cut off. On the road west out of the capital Kingston we saw minimal damage - some structures torn down, trees strewn across roads and gardens.

But once we arrived in central Jamaica we started to see how severely the island had been hit. The town of Mandeville has been, for want of a better word, flattened. A petrol station lost its roof and most of its pumps.

Dana Malcolm of the Jamaica Observer described "very, very slow progress" along roads still blocked by landslides when reaching St Elizabeth. She told the BBC: "I was standing in what used to be main street yesterday and I was knee-deep in mud where the road should have been."

Communication across Jamaica has been all but severed, with power lines and mobile networks down in much of the southwest. Many families have spent days unable to contact relatives in the hardest-hit parishes.

In Black River, the New York Times reported, the relative of one victim walked 15 miles (24km) to the police station to report their loved one dead.

Desmond McKenzie, the minister of local government, shared the news that "amidst all this, a baby was safely delivered under emergency conditions. So there is... a baby Melissa".

Haiti, already mired in gang violence and humanitarian crisis, suffered at least 23 deaths - 10 of them children - largely due to flooding after days of relentless rain, despite the country avoiding a direct hit.

The storm is also responsible for at least eight deaths in Jamaica and one in the Dominican Republic, officials have said.

The NHC said floodwaters across the Bahamas were expected to subside by Thursday, though conditions in Cuba, Jamaica and Hispaniola would remain hazardous for several days.

Well, at least nobody is asking Rachel Reeves about tax rises today.

Not that this will feel like a pleasant episode for the chancellor.

Her failure to apply for a selective licence before renting out her family home is at the very least embarrassing.

But is it more than that?

That's a question that can be answered on multiple levels: ethical, political and legal.

Start with the ethics - specifically, ministerial ethics.

All government ministers are required to abide by the ministerial code, a 34-page document about standards in public life.

A breach of the ministerial code can often result in a minister's resignation, including less than two months ago that of Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister.

That is why the exchange of letters released between Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer just before midnight was so important, and why Downing Street was not willing to wait for the morning.

The prime minister said that he had consulted Sir Laurie Magnus, the Conservative-appointed independent ethics adviser, whose unflinching approach did for Rayner and several other ex-ministers besides and that they had agreed that no further investigation would be necessary.

Sir Keir said that this was because the breach was inadvertent, Reeves had acted promptly to rectify it by applying for the licence, and had apologised.

"The ministerial code makes clear that in certain circumstances, an apology is a sufficient resolution," Sir Keir wrote.

In terms of the prime minister drawing a line that Reeves's position as chancellor is not at all in question here, he could not have been clearer.

That said, there is still an outstanding question.

Is the prime minister's position that his chancellor did break the ministerial code but that the apology is sufficient resolution?

Or is it that the apology is sufficient for there not to be an investigation into whether she broke the ministerial code?

This may sound niche but it does matter - the chancellor breaking the ministerial code in any way, however minor, is worth noting.

Of course the political implications of this will depend on much less technical questions than that.

The Conservative Party smells vulnerability.

"It's one rule for the Chancellor and another for everyone else," a spokesperson said.

"Keir Starmer pledged to restore integrity to politics, but now he's laughing in the face of the British public. He should grow a backbone and sack the chancellor now."

However, Kemi Badenoch appeared to slightly muddy the position this morning, suggesting that Reeves should be sacked only if she is found to have broken the law.

A demand that Starmer sack his chancellor is not par for the course.

In fact, for all their criticism of Reeves's stewardship of the economy over the past 16 months or so, this is the first time the Conservatives have called for her to be sacked.

It's an important strategic judgment they have made.

Potential fine

As pungent as our political discourse may often be, calling for a sacking still has an extra severity to it. That's a card the Conservatives have now played.

This morning, some in Labour think this is a histrionic overreaction from Kemi Badenoch's party, which would significantly lower the bar for ministerial sackings.

Yet the Conservatives believe that they can make the most toxic charge in politics stick: one rule for them, another for the rest of us.

Whether they are right or wrong may depend in large part on the legal dimension to all this.

Will Southwark Council take action against Reeves for not having had the right licence? We don't yet know.

Would they generally take action against other individuals, non-politicians, caught up in this scenario?

In this pretty niche area of housing law, we don't yet know, though we are trying to find out.

A Freedom of Information request by Direct Line Group in 2024 found that in the financial year 2023-24, 245 councils had levied fines totalling £2.5m for non-compliance with selective licensing rules.

The level of fines imposed can vary massively between different parts of the country.

Under section 95 of the Housing Act 2004. it can be a criminal offence not to have the right licence as a landlord, unless the landlord can show that they had a "reasonable excuse".

Importantly, sources close to the chancellor are adamant that her letting agent had told her it would advise her if a selective licence was needed and did not do so.

Would this typically be considered a reasonable excuse in the eyes of the authorities?

We do not know but are trying to get an answer from experts.

Political judgement

Away from some of these technicalities, the risk for the chancellor is that this episode folds into deeper, pre-existing questions about her personal and political judgment.

Should the kind of person prudent enough to be chancellor at a time of global economic turmoil have been prudent enough to double-check the licensing situation for herself?

Not least given she had backed the expansion of selective licensing in her own Leeds West and Pudsey constituency?

These are the kinds of questions which may now be asked.

Before the general election Labour MPs had a deep and consistent trust in Reeves's decisions on matters big and small.

Her credibility as an economist and an individual was at the heart of Labour's election pitch and its ability to convince the public to trust the party again with the public finances.

After a turbulent period in office so far that perception is under threat like never before.

And even if this development merely goes down as an embarrassing but fleeting row, the Budget looms.

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Jaywick, near Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, has been named the most deprived neighbourhood in England for the fourth consecutive time since 2010, new data shows.

Seven areas in Blackpool are also among the 10 most deprived, alongside one in Hastings and one in Rotherham, according to stats published by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) on Thursday.

Half of the neighbourhoods in Middlesbrough are very deprived, making it the local authority with the highest proportion, ahead of Birmingham and Hartlepool.

Deprivation is spread across the country, with 65% of local authorities containing at least one highly deprived neighbourhood, up from 61% in 2019.

The MHCLG's Index of Multiple Deprivation looks at living conditions across an area - but does not mean that everyone in a highly deprived neighbourhood will be struggling, nor will all those in a less deprived area be well off.

The new figures do not show whether an area has become more or less well off since the previous report, but instead can show patterns of how areas have changed relative to each other.

There are pockets of deprivation surrounded by less deprived places in every region of England.

Jaywick topped the list having been previously found to be the most deprived area in the last three reports, released in 2010, 2015 and 2019.

The MHCLG found 82% of areas found to be the most deprived in 2025 were already in that category in 2019.

The department used a number of weighted metrics to determine a neighbourhood's level of deprivation, including income, crime and barriers to housing.

They are then assessed as more or less deprived compared to other neighbourhoods.

The report found that Tower Hamlets and Hackney in London had the highest levels of income deprivation among households with children.

Meanwhile, nine of the 10 local authority districts with the highest levels of income deprivation among older people are in London.

The report is the latest in a long-running series that are used by central and local government and other bodies to target resources for local services.

The government's recently announced Pride in Place funding - offering "overlooked" communities a share of £5bn - was allocated in part based on the deprivation figures from 2019.

Areas with a history of heavy industry or mining are particularly affected, the report's authors highlight, along with parts of East London and several coastal towns including Jaywick.

The former holiday resort was visited by the UN special rapporteur for extreme poverty as part of a fact-finding mission in 2018.

And last year, its local district council, Tendring, agreed a £126m 20-year improvement plan.

The previous Conservative government also used deprivation figures, along with other criteria, when deciding where would receive "Levelling Up" grants.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also have Indices of Multiple Deprivation which are each published separately. No dates have yet been announced for these updates.

How is deprivation measured?

The Index of Multiple Deprivation ranks all of England's 33,755 neighbourhoods, each with an average of 1,500 people, by their deprivation score.

The score is calculated from data on income, employment, education, crime, health and disability, barriers to housing and services, and the living environment.

Once all the neighbourhoods are ranked, they are split into 10 equal groups called deciles, where the first decile is the 3,375 most deprived neighbourhoods and so on.

We are using terms like "highly deprived" and "most deprived" to refer to this group of neighbourhoods. There are areas of deprivation throughout England and not everyone in a neighbourhood will experience deprivation equally.

Additional reporting by Jess Carr, Libby Rogers and Lucy Dady

The moment Darren Wheatley had to tell his seven-year-old son that his mother had died is something that will stay with him for the rest of his life.

Nicola Wheatley, 40, was one of four paddleboarders killed after descending a weir in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, on 30 October 2021.

Paddleboard firm owner and ex-police officer Nerys Lloyd is currently serving a 10-and-a-half year sentence for causing their deaths.

Darren and his family had spent a frantic morning at Withybush Hospital desperately waiting for news before he was asked to identify Nicola's body while his son Oscar waited nearby with relatives.

"I won't forget the look on his face," said Darren, in his first interview, which marks the fourth anniversary of the tragedy.

Several hours later, 80 miles (128km) away in Merthyr Tydfil, police would tell Teresa Hall they believed her only daughter Morgan Rogers, 24, had also been killed in the incident.

It wasn't until the next day that she was able to identify her body.

"I just remember going over to her and shaking her, trying to wake her up… this couldn't have happened, how could this have happened?" said Teresa, who is also speaking for the first time.

Army veteran and dad-of-three Paul O'Dwyer, 42, also died that day.

Dental hygienist and mother-of-one, Andrea Powell, 41, was resuscitated at the scene but died six days later due to her injuries.

On the day of the tragedy both Darren and Teresa knew nothing of Nerys Lloyd.

More than a year later, a report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) would find the deaths were "tragic and avoidable" and identify a catalogue of errors on the day they died.

Lloyd would eventually plead guilty to gross negligence manslaughter and a judge would criticise her "abysmal" approach to health and safety.

Both Darren and Teresa said they lived with huge anger towards Lloyd, for the errors she made that day, because she has never apologised to her victims' families, and for the way she behaved in the months after the tragedy and while at court.

"She's destroyed my family life, she's destroyed my children's family life… their mother will never come back," said Darren.

"Anger doesn't even come close to how I feel," said Teresa.

"I am in torture... no parent should have to bury their child [because of] something that was so unnecessary."

Recalling the last time she saw her daughter is agonising for Teresa.

"That last conversation we had, I go over it and over it and over it and I just wish I'd told her not to go," said Teresa through tears.

"I just said to look after herself and I hope she had a good time and I gave her a hug.

"I was doing dinner on the Sunday and I said to her 'you couldn't get me some runner beans on your way home?'

"I thought she'd be safe, she was going with what I thought was a reputable tour but it turned out to be the worst mistake of her life."

'Take care, my baby boy'

Darren said Nicola had been excited about going on the trip run by Lloyd's Salty Dog Co Ltd.

Weeks earlier he and her mother had bought her a paddleboard for her 40th birthday.

He too had waved her off on the Friday from the home they shared in Pontarddulais, Swansea, with Oscar and their daughter Ffion.

After spending the Friday night at a rented property in Tenby with the rest of the group, Nicola phoned Darren at 06:40 BST that Saturday morning.

Oscar had been unwell overnight so she wanted to speak to them both to check how he was doing.

"The weather was atrocious and I said to Nicola 'really you're going on the water?'... she said 'they've said to us it's safe, we can do it'."

He broke down recalling the last thing he heard Nicola say.

"Nicola's last words to Oscar were 'take care, my baby boy'... and that's the last I spoke to her," said Darren.

The MAIB report, published in December 2022, sets out exactly what happened that day.

Just before 08:00 the group of nine arrived in a van in Haverfordwest

Before parking up, Lloyd and Paul O'Dwyer, Lloyd's co-instructor, stopped off in the town centre to inspect the river.

By about 08:49 everyone from the group was afloat and they set off downriver heading for Burton Ferry, with Lloyd out in front and Paul at the back.

They passed through Haverfordwest town centre five minutes later, with one of the group playing music through a portable speaker.

Minutes later they approached the weir.

Lloyd instructed those close by to follow her and keep to the centre of the river.

At 08:56, kneeling on her SUP, Lloyd was the first to descend the fish pass in the centre of the weir and was swept quickly downriver.

Andrea was the third paddleboarder to descend, Nicola was the sixth and Morgan was the eighth.

While the rest of the group was washed clear and swept downstream, Andrea, Nicola and Morgan were sucked into the hydraulic jump, or spin, a recirculating flow similar to a washing machine at the foot of the weir.

Monitoring from the rear of the group, Paul saw something was wrong, paddled to the right hand side of the river and left the water.

On spotting some of the group were in difficulty, he removed his leash connecting his SUP to his leg, grabbed his SUP and jumped into the river above the weir before being carried over the right hand side of the weir.

At 09:02 a passerby spotted paddleboarders in difficulty in the water and dialled 999.

He then fetched a lifebuoy and repeatedly threw a line to the struggling paddleboarders but none were able to grasp it.

Eight minutes later, emergency services began to arrive at the scene.

A multi-agency response followed, involving coastguard rescue teams and helicopter, police, fire and ambulance services, air ambulance and RNLI.

Andrea was recovered from the water close to the weir by members of the public.

She was resuscitated at the scene but died six days later due to injuries caused by drowning.

Nicola and Morgan's bodies were recovered from the river by fellow paddleboarders but both died at the scene.

Paul's body was located further downriver by the coastguard helicopter at about 11:00.

Three days after Nicola's funeral, her daughter Ffion turned three.

"It was just hell, it was awful, it was at that point that I crumbled," said Darren, who moved the family in with his parents for support.

Then as they prepared for the first Christmas since losing their loved ones, both Darren and Teresa said Lloyd's social media posts added to their distress.

A photo she shared of herself enjoying a festive day out over Christmas left both reeling.

"We had the worst Christmas I've ever had in my life," said Darren.

"I had crying, grieving children that wanted their mammy there for Christmas morning… Nerys was just living her life as if nothing had happened."

This hit Teresa hard too.

"It's Christmas and I've lost my daughter and she's out and about in Cardiff having a good old time, enjoying her life," she said.

"She's callous, so callous."

Both spent much of that Christmas not knowing the facts of what happened to their loved ones that day. By the following Christmas, the picture was becoming more clear.

What went wrong?

In December 2022, the MAIB report aimed at preventing future incidents found:

• The tour leaders were qualified to teach stand-up paddleboarding to beginners and novices in benign conditions but not lead tours on fast-flowing rivers
• The paddleboarders lost their lives because the leaders were unaware of the treacherous conditions at the weir. They had not visited the weir before setting off so were unaware of the high river level and tidal conditions
• They did not heed a flood alert which was in force at the time of the incident
• The participants were not briefed on the presence of the weir or how to descend it
• The group did not heed a sign close to their launch point which warned users the weir was dangerous and advised them to exit the river and carry their craft around it
• The use of personal protective equipment such as clothing, buoyancy aids and leashes was inconsistent across the group
• The group did not follow recognised advice that stand-up paddleboarders on fast-flowing water should wear a quick-release waist leash and a personal flotation device. At Lloyd's sentencing Mrs Justice Stacey said: "The ankle leashes attached to the boards of those stuck in the hydraulic spin, which are totally unsuitable for fast-flowing water, made it even harder for them to get free."
• Lloyd had not produced a written risk assessment for the trip
• The competency of tour members who had not been previous customers of Salty Dog Co Ltd were not assessed
• Participants were not required to complete a legal disclaimer, medical declarations, or provide emergency contact details before starting the tour, which delayed the police contacting the families of those who had died

The findings left Darren bewildered.

"Why didn't you tell the party there was a weir they were going over?" he said.

"Why didn't you tell them it was there because I'm damned sure Nicola wouldn't have got on that water… you don't go over a weir on a paddleboard."

"I want to know why," said Teresa.

"Why didn't she do the safety checks and is she sorry? Is she actually sorry?"

Lloyd pleaded guilty to gross negligence manslaughter and was sentenced during a two-day hearing at Swansea Crown Court in April.

"She came with an entourage of people, supporters - this woman had just destroyed four families and she still carried on as though nothing had happened," said Darren.

"She turned it into a circus," added Teresa.

Darren said he lived with anger every day.

"We haven't even had an apology," he said.

"We've had no acknowledgment of what she's done. Yes, she's put her hands up and pleaded guilty but she's never said anything to us as families."

It has now been four years since the tragedy.

Teresa has taken on Morgan's beloved dog Peaches.

"Peaches was her everything, her best friend," she said.

"I will always look after that to the best I can. She's still Morgan's, she's not mine."

Darren has taken early retirement from work so he can focus on his children.

It pains him knowing that Nicola has missed out on seeing their children grow up.

"She never got to see Ffion start nursery school and the pain of that is horrible," he said.

"But I've got to carry on."

Singer Lily Allen has announced she will perform her new album in its entirety when she tours the UK in March 2026.

West End Girl has become one of the most talked about albums of the year since its release last Friday, due to its candid lyrics.

The album details some of the events that led to the breakdown of her marriage to US actor David Harbour, best known for appearing in Stranger Things.

The tour will stop in Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle, Manchester, Nottingham, Cambridge, Bristol and Cardiff, before concluding with two nights at the London Palladium.

Allen last toured between 2018 and 2019, following the release of her fourth studio album No Shame.

She has only made occasional live appearances since then, such as appearing in Glastonbury sets by Olivia Rodrigo and Shy FX.

However, in the intervening years, Allen has also become a successful stage actress, starring in the first production of 2:22 - A Ghost Story when it opened in the West End shortly after the pandemic.

This period is what inspired the title of the album, West End Girl, and Allen appears to sing about how being cast the play sparked the chain of events that led to her separation from Harbour.

In interviews, Allen has stressed the lyrics aren't necessarily the gospel truth - because she "wasn't sure what was real, and what was in my head" as she processed the end of the relationship.

The album's lyrics, as well as interviews she gave at the time, suggest that Harbour was surprised and envious that Allen had secured a leading West End role without having to audition, and that his "demeanour started to change" after she was cast.

She sings that starring in 2:22 led to a distance developing between the couple, both literally and metaphorically, which resulted in Harbour suggesting an open relationship.

Allen sings on the record about how this led to an "arrangement" with Harbour where he could be with other women, but the rules were "there had to be payment, it had to be with strangers".

But, before long, Allen hears of a relationship her husband appears to have with "Madeline" - a pseudonym - which falls outside their arrangement.

Harbour has not publicly commented on the content of the album.

However, he appears to still have a relationship with Allen and her children, and was seen taking her daughters to a theme park last weekend.

All 14 songs on West End Girl were written by Allen, mainly in collaboration with her musical director Blue May.

Allen has suggested that some of the songs are written "in character", saying that the lyrics "could be considered autofiction" - a genre that combines autobiography and fiction.

She rose to fame in 2006 with her debut album Alright, Still, and had number one hits including Smile, The Fear, and her cover of Keane's Somewhere Only We Know, which was featured in a John Lewis advert.

She had two number one albums in the UK, It's Not Me It's You and Sheezus, while her 2018 record No Shame was nominated for the Mercury Prize.

She released a candid memoir, My Thoughts Exactly, in the same year, but took a break from music shortly afterwards, and began dating Harbour in 2019.

The singer will perform West End Girl in the order the songs appear on the record for her tour in March.

Tickets for the tour, which launches in March 2026, go on sale on 7 November.

Donald Trump came away from his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping full of bombastic optimism.

He called it a "great success" and rated it 12, on a scale of 1 to 10. China was less enthusiastic. Beijing's initial statement sounds like an instruction manual, with Xi urging teams on both sides to "follow up as soon as possible".

Trump is after a deal that could happen "pretty soon", while Beijing, it appears, wants to keep talking because it's playing the long game.

There was a more detailed second Chinese statement that echoed what Trump had said on board Air Force One.

Among other things, the US would lower tariffs on Chinese imports, and China would suspend controls on the export of rare earths, critical minerals without which you cannot make smartphones, electric cars and, perhaps more crucially, military equipment.

There is no deal yet, and negotiators on both sides have already been talking for months to iron out the details. But Thursday's agreement is still a breakthrough.

It steadies what has become a rocky relationship between the world's two biggest economies and it assures global markets.

But it is only a temporary truce. It doesn't solve the differences at the heart of such a competitive relationship.

"The US and China are going in different directions," says Kelly Ann Shaw who was an economic advisor to President Trump in his first term.

"It's really about managing the breakup in a way that does a limited amount of damage, that preserves US interests, and I think from China's perspective, preserves their own interests. But this is not a relationship that is necessarily going to improve dramatically anytime soon."

'Struggle, but don't break'

There is an art to doing a deal with Donald Trump.

It involves flattery, and most countries have tried it, including on his trip to Asia so far. South Korea gave him an enormous golden crown, while Japan's prime minister nominated him for a Nobel Peace prize.

But the Chinese leader offered only a meeting at a South Korean air base, where he and Trump would cross paths - as one flew in to the country, and the other departed.

It didn't feel out of step with China's guarded but defiant response from the start of Trump's trade war. Just days after the American president increased tariffs on Chinese goods, Beijing retaliated with its own levies.

Chinese officials told the world that there would be no winners in a trade war. Like Trump, Xi too believed he had the upper hand – and he seemed to have a plan.

He decided to use the country's economic weight - as the world's factory, as a massive market for its goods - to push back.

Unlike Trump, he does not need to worry about elections or a worried vote base.

That doesn't mean that Xi faces no pressures - he certainly does. He needs China's economy to grow, and create jobs and wealth so the Chinese Communist Party's power is not challenged by instability or discontent.

And yet, despite the country's current challenges - a real estate crisis, high youth unemployment and weak consumer spending - China has shown it is willing to absorb the pain of Trump's tariffs.

Beijing would "fight until the bitter end" was the message from various ministries.

"China's main principle is struggle, but don't break," says Keyu Jin, author of The New China Playbook.

"And it has escalated to de-escalate, which is a very new tactic."

Xi had a plan

That is, China hit Trump where it hurt. For the first time it limited exports of rare earths to the US - and China processes around 90% of the world's rare earth metals.

"The nuance often missed in the rare earths debate is that China has an overwhelming position over the most strategic bit of the rare earth supply chain: the heavy rare earths used in advanced defence systems," says Jason Bedford, macroeconomics expert and investment analyst.

"That advantage is far harder to dislodge than other parts of the rare earths industry."

So getting China to relax those export controls became a priority for Washington - and that was a key bit of leverage for Xi when he sat down with Trump.

China had also stopped buying US soybeans, which was aimed at farmers in Republican states - Trump's base.

Reports this week say Beijing has already started buying soybeans from the US again.

"If the US thinks that it can dominate China, it can suppress China, I think has proven to be wrong," Ms Jin says.

"This is really signalling to the world, especially the United States, that China needs to be respected, that it will not kowtow or give too many political or economic concessions."

Trump's team has found itself dealing with a stronger China compared to his first term. Beijing has learnt lessons too.

It spent the last four years finding new trade partners and relying less on US exports - nearly a fifth of Chinese exports once went to the US but in the first half of this year that figure dropped to 11%.

Xi showed up in South Korea, after officially confirming the meeting with Trump just the day before, to take part in political theatre that seemed to underline a position of strength.

As usual, he was in front of Trump for the handshake. He stood unblinking as Trump leaned forward to whisper in his ear - the kind of ad lib moment China abhors.

At the end of the meeting Trump ushered Xi to his waiting car where the Chinese leader was immediately surrounded by his security team. The US President was then forced to wander off camera to find his vehicle alone.

And yet there are many positives to take away from this superpower summit, the first of Trump's second term in office.

"China wants to be in a position of strength when it comes to negotiations, but it won't break the relationship, because that is in nobody's interest, including China's, Ms Jin says.

For starters, businesses, the markets and other countries caught in between the rivals will welcome the calm. But observers are not sure it will last.

"I think over the medium to long-term, the US and China have very serious differences, and I would not be surprised to see some more destabilisation in the next three to six months," says Ms Shaw.

Has Trump got the bigger, better deal with China he always wanted? Not yet.

Even if he does get a deal, and the two sides put ink on paper, Beijing has now shown that it is not willing to bend to Washington - and that it is more resilient.

The rivalry between the two sides is likely to continue, if or even when there is ever a done deal.

Emerging evidence of systematic killings in the Sudanese city of el-Fasher have prompted human rights and aid activists to describe the civil war between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the military as a "continuation of the Darfur genocide".

The fall of el-Fasher, in the Darfur region, after an 18-month RSF siege brings together the different layers of the country's conflict – with echoes of its dark past and the brutality of its present-day war.

The RSF emerged from the Janjaweed, Arab militias who massacred hundreds of thousands of Darfuris from non-Arab populations, in the early 2000s.

The paramilitary force has been accused of ethnic killings since its power struggle with the army erupted into violence in April 2023. The RSF leadership has consistently denied the accusations - although on Wednesday its leader Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo admitted to "violations" in el-Fasher.

The current charges are based on apparent evidence of atrocities provided by the RSF fighters themselves.

They have been sharing gruesome videos reportedly showing summary executions of mostly male civilians and ex-combatants, celebrating over dead bodies, and taunting and abusing people.

• New videos show executions after RSF militia takes key Sudan city
• A simple guide to what is happening in Sudan

Accounts from exhausted survivors also paint a picture of terror and violence.

"The situation in el-Fasher is extremely dire and there are violations taking place on the roads, including looting and shooting, with no distinction made between young or old," one man told the BBC Arabic service. He had escaped to the town of Tawila, a hub for those displaced from el-Fasher.

Another woman, Ikram Abdelhameed, told the Reuters news agency that RSF soldiers separated fleeing civilians at an earthen barrier around the city and shot the men.

And satellite images collected by Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab show evidence of what seem to be massacre sites – clusters of bodies and reddish patches on the earth that the analysts believe could be blood stains.

El-Fasher "appears to be in a systematic and intentional process of ethnic cleansing of… indigenous non-Arab communities through forced displacement and summary execution", the Yale researchers say in a report.

There is a clear ethnic element to the battle for el-Fasher, because local armed groups from the dominant Zaghawa tribe, known as the Joint Force, have been fighting alongside the army.

The RSF fighters see Zaghawa civilians as legitimate targets.

That is what many survivors of the paramilitary takeover of the Zamzam displaced persons camp next to el-Fasher reported earlier this year, according to an investigation by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

The army has also been accused of targeting ethnic groups it sees as support bases for the RSF in areas it has recaptured, including the states of Sennar, Gezira and some parts of North Kordofan.

"Whether you're a civilian, wherever you are, it is not safe right now, even in Khartoum," says Emi Mahmoud, strategic director of the IDP Humanitarian Network which helps coordinate aid deliveries in Darfur.

"Because at the flip of a hat, the people in power who have the guns, they can and will continue to falsely imprison, disappear, kill, torture, everyone."

Both sides have been accused of war crimes - ethnically motivated revenge attacks are part of that.

It was Sudan's military government in 2003 that weaponised ethnicity – enlisting the Janjaweed to put down rebellions by black African groups in Darfur who accused Khartoum of politically and economically marginalising them.

The pattern of violence established then has been repeated in Darfur now, says Kate Ferguson, the co-founder of NGO Protection Approaches.

This was most evident in the 2023 massacre of members of the Masalit tribe in el-Geneina in West Darfur, which the UN says killed up to 15,000 people.

"For more than two years, the RSF have followed a very clear, practiced and predicted pattern," Ms Ferguson said at a press briefing.

"They first encircle their target town or city, they weaken it by cutting off access to food, to medicine, to power supplies, the internet. Then when it's weakened, they overwhelm the population with systematic arson, sexual violence, massacre and the destruction of vital infrastructure. This is a deliberate strategy to destroy and displace, and that's why I feel the appropriate word is genocide."

The RSF has denied involvement in what it has called "tribal conflicts", but Gen Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti, appeared to be hearing expressions of mounting international outrage, including from the UN, the African Union, the European Union and the UK.

He released a video saying he was sorry for the disaster that had befallen the people of el-Fasher in a war that had been "forced upon us" and admitted there had been violations by his forces, promising they would be investigated by a committee that has now arrived in the city.

Any "soldier or any officer who committed a crime or crossed the lines against any person… will be immediately arrested and the result [of the investigation] to be announced immediately and in public in front of everyone," the general pledged.

However, observers have noted that similar promises made in the past - in response to the accusations over el-Geneina, and alleged atrocities during the group's control of the central state of Gezira - were never fulfilled

It is also not clear how much control the RSF leadership has over its foot soldiers – a loose mix of hired militias, allied Arab groups, and regional mercenaries, many from Chad and South Sudan.

"The reality is that the way that the RSF is, it's very, very hard to believe that a command is going to be given by Hemedti, and then people on the ground are going to follow it," says aid co-ordinator Ms Mahmoud. "By that time, we'll have lost many, many people."

Aid groups and activists warn that if the pattern of the past two years is allowed to continue, it could happen again. They stress that the el-Fasher killings were entirely predictable, but the international community failed to act to protect civilians despite ample warning.

"The reality is that we laid these options out multiple times over six meetings with UN Security Council elements, with the US government, with the British government, with the French government, basically saying they had to be ready for a protection kinetic option [direct military action] in the summer of last year," says Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab.

"This cannot be something settled by a press conference. It has to be something settled by immediate action."

In particular, activists are urging pressure on the United Arab Emirates, which is widely accused of providing military support to the RSF. The UAE denies this despite evidence presented in UN reports and international media investigations.

"This is exactly like the siege of Sarajevo," says Ms Mahmoud, referring to the Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnia war, which galvanised international action. "This is the Srebrenica moment."

More BBC stories on Sudan:

• Sudan's years of war - BBC smuggles in phones to reveal hunger and fear
• A pregnant woman's diary of escape from war zone
• El-Fasher siege: My son's whole body is full of shrapnel
• Sudan's fertile region where food is rotting amid famine and war

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

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