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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three men have been arrested in Japan for attempting to smuggle hermit crabs out of the country.

The suspects, aged 24, 26 and 27, and widely identified in Japanese media as being Chinese nationals, were detained on Amami, a southerly island where the spiral-shelled crustaceans are a protected species.

Authorities were alerted to the men's live cargo when hotel staff, who had been asked to look after their luggage, noticed the suitcases making a "rustling noise", police told local media.

Officers subsequently discovered "thousands" of hermit crabs, weighing around 95kg. The third man was found to have a further 65kg in another set of three suitcases.

"Our investigation is ongoing to identify whether they had [the crabs] to sell them, or to keep them as pets, or to eat them," a police spokesman told the news agency AFP following the arrests on Wednesday. "We are reviewing all possibilities."

Police said the hermit crabs were "a national treasure", being a part of Amami Island's plant and animal diversity.

Hermit crabs - so named because they scavenge shells to live in - can regularly be seen on the beaches of the popular tourist destination.

The crabs can be worth up to ¥20,000 (£103), according to the Japan Times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

India and Pakistan have accused each other of "violations" hours after the two nations said they had agreed to a ceasefire following days of cross-border military strikes.

After sounds of explosions were heard in Indian-administered Kashmir, India's Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said there had been "repeated violations of the understanding we arrived at".

A short while later, Pakistan's foreign ministry said it remained "committed to faithful implementation of a ceasefire...notwithstanding the violations being committed by India in some areas".

The fighting between India and Pakistan over the last four days has been the worst military confrontation between the two rivals in decades.

The use of drones, missiles and artillery started when India struck targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in response to a deadly militant attack in Pahalgam last month. Pakistan had denied any involvement.

After four days of cross-border strikes, India and Pakistan said they had agreed on a full and immediate ceasfire.

US President Donald Trump announced the news on his Truth Social Platform on Saturday morning. He said it had been brokered by the US.

Pakistan's Foreign Minister later confirmed the agreement had been reached by the two countries, adding that "three dozen countries" were involved in the diplomacy.

But hours after the announcement, residents - and BBC reporters - in the main Indian-administered Kashmiri cities of Srinagar and Jammu reported hearing the sounds of explosions and seeing flashes in the sky.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said: "For the last few hours, there have been repeated violations of the understanding we arrived at earlier this evening.

"This is a breach of the understanding arrived at earlier today."

Misri said India's armed forces was "giving an appropriate response" and he concluded his briefing by "calling upon Pakistan to address these violations".

In response, a spokesman for Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: "Pakistan remains committed to faithful implementation of ceasefire between Pakistan and India, announced earlier today.

"Notwithstanding the violations being committed by India in some areas, our forces are handling the situation with responsibility and restraint.

"We believe that any issues in smooth implementation of the ceasefire should be addressed through communication at appropriate levels.

"The troops on ground should also exercise restraint."

Kashmir is claimed in full by India and Pakistan, but administered only in part by each since they were partitioned following independence from Britain in 1947.

It has been a flashpoint between the two nuclear-armed nations and they have have fought two wars over it.

Confirming the ceasefire, India's external affairs minister S Jaishankar said the two nations had "worked out an understanding on stoppage of firing and military action".

"India has consistently maintained a firm and uncompromising stance against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. It will continue to do so," he added.

Later, in an address to the nation, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the ceasefire had been reached "for the benefit of everybody".

Speaking after the ceasefire announcement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said India and Pakistan had agreed to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site.

He said he and US Vice-President JD Vance had spent 48 hours with senior Indian and Pakistani officials, including their respective Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he welcomed "all efforts to de-escalate the conflict".

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said Britain has been "engaged" in talks for "some days", with Foreign Secretary David Lammy speaking to both sides.

"I'm pleased to see today that there's a ceasefire," Sir Keir said. "The task now is to make sure that that is enduring and is lasting."

The recent fighting came after two weeks of tension following the killing of 26 tourists in the resort town of Pahalgam.

Survivors of the 22 April attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which killed 25 Indians and one Nepali national, said the militants were singling out Hindu men.

The Indian defence ministry said its strikes this week were part of a "commitment" to hold "accountable" those responsible for the attack. Pakistan described them as "unprovoked".

Pakistan said Indian air strikes and cross-border fire since Wednesday had killed 36 people in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, while India's army reported at least 21 civilians deaths from Pakistani shelling.

Fighting intensified overnight on Friday, with both countries accusing each other of targeting airbases and other military sites.

India's military said Pakistan had launched mass drone attacks and shelling along its western border, endangering civilians - a claim Pakistan denied.

Pakistan said it had taken retaliatory action for Indian missile strikes on airbases at Rawalpindi - 10km (6.2m) from Pakistan's capital Islamabad - Chakwal and Shorkot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet at the outset, the US appeared strikingly standoffish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But that did not stop one of the inmates.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

US President Donald Trump's administration is "actively looking at" suspending habeas corpus, the principle that a person should be able to challenge their detention in court.

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, says the legal principle is a "privilege" that could be suspended to make it easier to detain and deport immigrants.

Recent court challenges by migrants and dissenting students who have been held in immigration detention centres have cited habeas corpus as a reason for their release.

But what the legal procedure does - and what could happen if it were to be suspended - is complex.

What does habeas corpus mean?

Scholars say the principle that a person should not be illegally imprisoned pre-dates the Magna Carta, and has been a cornerstone of the legal system in the UK, US and other democratic countries around the world for centuries.

Roughly translated from Latin, habeas corpus means "you should have the body" - as in, a person must be able to appear before a court so that a judge can assess if that person has been lawfully detained.

Also known as the "Great Writ of Liberty", habeas corpus grants prisoners the right to challenge their imprisonment in a court of law.

Is habeas corpus a right in the US Constitution?

Article One of the US Constitution states that "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it".

While this is the only time habeas corpus is mentioned in the Constitution, it has become an important part of US law - and has frequently been fought over in the courts, including the US Supreme Court.

Has habeas corpus been suspended before?

Abraham Lincoln became the first US president to suspend habeas corpus in 1861, during the American Civil War.

That lead to a showdown with Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, who said it was Congress - not the executive branch of government - that had the power to suspend the writ.

Lincoln continued to suspend habeas corpus in specific incidences, according to the National Constitution Center, and in 1863 Congress approved suspending it for the duration of the war when "the public safety may require it".

It was also suspended several times in the years following the Civil War, during the Reconstruction period, to quash rebellions by the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan group.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbour by the Japanese in World War Two, habeas corpus was suspended in Hawaii, which paved the way for the arrest of Japanese Americans on the island.

What do modern courts say about habeas corpus?

The courts have found that both US citizens and non-citizens have the right to habeas corpus. In 2008, the US Supreme Court extended this to include non-citizens detained in a foreign prison - such as Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

But just because prisoners have the right to challenge their detention, it does not guarantee they will be able to leave custody.

Succeeding with a habeas corpus petition is extremely rare - most people who are detained have been detained for lawful reasons, courts have generally found.

Asadullah Haroon Gul was the first Guantanamo detainee to win a habeas corpus petition in 2021. He was transferred back to Afghanistan more than a decade after the US Supreme Court found that detainees had habeas corpus privileges.

But as Trump's administration has ramped up arrests of illegal immigrants and student dissenters, habeas corpus has received renewed legal interest.

In April, the Supreme Court ruled that migrants being deported under Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act must be given enough notice of their removal to file petitions. It temporarily blocked some deportations in Texas for this reason.

Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained after becoming a leading figure in pro-Palestinian campus protests, has filed his own habeas corpus petition, as he is in the middle of deportation hearings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesego Chombo's enthusiasm for life is as infectious as her achievements are impressive: she has won the Miss Botswana 2022 and Miss World Africa 2024 crowns, is a working lawyer, has set up her own charitable foundation - and made history in November, becoming Botswana's youngest cabinet minister.

She was just 26 years old at the time - and had clearly impressed Botswana's incoming President Duma Boko, whose Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) had just won a landslide, ousting the party that had governed for 58 years.

It was a seismic shift in the politics of the diamond-rich southern African nation - and Boko, a 55-year-old Harvard-trained lawyer, hit the ground running.

His main focus, he said, was fixing an economy too reliant on diamonds, telling the BBC ahead of his inauguration that he wanted young people to be the solution - "to become entrepreneurs, employ themselves and employ others".

Key to this was finding a suitable ambassador - and Chombo was clearly it: a young woman already committed to various causes.

He made her minister of youth and gender.

"I've never been more proud to be young," she told the BBC at the ministry's headquarters in the capital, Gaborone.

"I'm a young person living in Botswana, passionate about youth development, gender equality, but also so passionate about the development of children."

The beauty queen did not campaign to be an MP - she is what is called a specially elected member of parliament - and is now one of just six female MPs in the 69-member National Assembly.

Chombo said becoming an MP and then minister came as a complete surprise to her.

"I got appointed by a president who had never met me," she said.

"Miss World and the journey that I thought I was supposed to pursue as my final destination was only the platform through which I would be seen for this very role."

It was her crowning as Miss Botswana in 2022 that raised her profile and enabled her to campaign for social change, while trying to inspire other young women.

It also gave her the opportunity to set up the Lesego Chombo Foundation, which focuses on supporting disadvantaged youngsters and their parents in rural areas – and which she is still involved with, its projects funded by corporate companies and others.

"We strive to have a world where we feel seen and heard and represented. I'm very thrilled that I happen to be the very essence of that representation," she said.

As she prepared for last year's Miss World pageant, she said: "I really put myself in the zone of service. I really channelled it for this big crown."

Now in political office, she is aware of the expectations placed on her in a country where approximately 60% of the population is below 35 years.

It also has a high level of unemployment - 28%, which is even higher for young people and women who have limited economic opportunities and battle systemic corruption.

Chombo said this was something she was determined to change: "Currently in Botswana, the rates of unemployment are so high.

"But it's not just the rate of unemployment, it's also just the sphere of youth development.

"It's lacking, and so my desire is to create an ecosystem, an environment, a society, an economy in which youth can thrive."

Chombo said her plan was to develop a comprehensive system that nurtured youth-led initiatives, strengthened entrepreneurship and ensured young people had a seat at the table when decisions were being made.

With Botswana's anti-corruption policy undergoing a rigorous review, she said this would ensure that quotas for young entrepreneurs - when state departments and agencies put out tenders for goods and services - were actually reached.

The government has begun a 10-month forensic audit of government spending that will include 30 state-owned enterprises.

Indeed President Boko is intent on cracking down on corruption, seeing this as a way to bolter investor confidence and diversify the economy - something his deputy has been seeking to do on recent trips to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Switzerland.

And a key deal has now been secured with UAE-based CCI Global, a provider of business process outsourcing, to open a hub in Botswana.

While youth development is a central pillar of her work, gender equity also remains close to her heart.

Her short time in office has coincided with a growing outcry over gender-based violence.

According to a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report, over 67% of women in Botswana have experienced abuse, more than double the global average.

"It hurts to know that it could be me next," she admitted.

A month into her appointment, she was criticised for voting against an opposition motion in parliament to create "peace desks" at police stations and magistrate courts to quickly deal with victims.

At the time she said such provisions already existed within the law and what was needed was more public awareness.

This was followed in January by a police report noting that at least 100 women had been raped and another 10 murdered during the festive season - this caused public outrage with many lashing out at her on social media over the issue.

The minister reiterated - on several occasions, including before parliament in March - that Botswana had many laws and strategies in place and what was important was to ensure these they were actually applied.

But she told the BBC the government would be pushing for the implementation of a Gender-Based Violence Act, aimed at closing legal loopholes that have long hindered justice for survivors.

She said she was also advocating a more holistic approach, involving the ministries of health, education and local government.

"We want curriculums that promote gender equity from a young age," Chombo said.

"We want to teach children what gender-based violence is and how to prevent it.

"It will boil down to inclusion of teaching gender equity at home, how parents behave around their children, how they model good behaviour."

She has also been vocal about the need to address issues affecting men, particularly around mental health and positive masculinity, encouraging chiefs "to ensure that our patriarchal culture is not actively perpetuating gender violence".

"I hear a lot of people say: 'Why do you speak of women more than men?'

"It's because as it stands in society, women are mostly prejudiced [against].

"But when we speak of gender equality, we're saying that it should be applied equally for everyone. But what we strive for is gender equity."

Chombo, who studied law at the University of Botswana, said she was thankful to her mother and other strong women for inspiring her - saying that women had to work "10 times harder" to succeed.

"[My mother] has managed to create an environment for me to thrive. And growing up, I got to realise that it's not an easy thing.

"As women, we face so many pressures: 'A woman cannot do this. A woman can't do that. A woman can't be young and in leadership.' I'm currently facing that."

She also credited Julia Morley, the CEO of Miss World, for helping her: "She has managed to create a legacy of what we call beauty with a purpose for so many young girls across the world.

"She has just inspired us so deeply to take up social responsibility."

Chombo is serious about this. The beauty queen-cum-lawyer-cum-minister knows she has made history - but is also aware that her real work has only just begun.

"Impact. Tangible impact. That's what success would look like to me," she said.

"I want to look back and see that it is there and it is sustainable. That when I leave, someone else is able to carry it through."

Additional reporting from Innocent Selatlhwa in Gaborone

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

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Symone has been using weight loss injections for nearly a year. She says they have done what the diet industry could never do for her - free her from a life controlled by food.

From a very young age, the 34-year-old could not switch off the constant noise in her head. When would her next meal come? What would it be? Would there be enough for her?

"The food noise was just so loud, it could be unbearable," she says. "I have tried every single diet going - I've done Atkins, eating clean, SlimFast, Slimming World, meal-replacement shakes - you name it - I've done it and none have them worked for me."

Several years ago, weighing 16st (102kg), she was one of the many millions who signed up to WeightWatchers, downloading the app and meticulously following its points plan, scanning in everything she ate and staying within her daily points budget.

WeightWatchers attributes points to food and drink, stating that it uses a "groundbreaking algorithm" to assess their nutritional makeup and then uses a point system to inform its members which food is better to eat.

But after a few weeks, Symone says she started to feel like she was being set up to fail.

"How could I lose weight long term if I had to follow this mad points system? Food is not measured in points - it's measured in calories, fat, macro nutrients.

"I felt trapped, and the more research I did, the more I educated myself, the more I thought this is not for me."

The only thing that has ever worked in her quest to lose weight, she says, is weight loss injection Mounjaro, which she started using nearly a year ago.

"I was at my heaviest, just over 21 stone, and the doctor told me I was pre-diabetic. I knew something had to change - I've got two children who depend on me too."

She was advised to start on the weight loss medication but with a two-year wait, she decided to buy it privately online and within just a few days, she was crying with relief.

"I couldn't believe that I had control over food. For the first time, I wasn't panicking about when I would next eat."

Weight loss jabs work by mimicking a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which suppresses people's appetites and makes them feel full.

Symone has now lost 4st 7lb (26kg) and is losing weight gradually, documenting her experiences on social media.

"I don't want a quick fix," she says, "I'm using weight loss injections to give me the control I never had."

Lost a million members

For many, weight loss jabs can produce rapid results, but some experts are concerned about the meteoric rise in their popularity and how people will be affected by them long term - both physically and mentally.

At its peak, WeightWatchers was seen as being synonymous with safe and controlled weight loss. With 4.5million subscribers globally, its workshops were held in most towns, on most high streets, popping up in local church halls - they were everywhere.

Now, after dominating the diet industry for more than half a century, it has lost more than a million members and filed for bankruptcy, struggling to compete in a market transformed by social media influencers and weight loss injections.

The company has stressed that it is not going out of business and that filing for bankruptcy will help it resolve its debt of $1.25bn (£860m).

In a statement, the brand says its weight loss programme (which also includes its own brand of weight loss jabs) and weight loss workshops will continue.

The company says it has been the brand with the most scientific backing in the diet industry for over 60 years, and that there have been more than 180 published studies showing the effectiveness of its approach.

WeightWatchers says it uses an "holistic model of care" to support "the whole person" with "access to obesity-trained clinicians and registered dietitians".

It is also one of several companies GPs can use for weight loss referrals, with the NHS paying for patients to attend weekly meetings in the community.

"It's no longer about calorie control and diets," Deanne Jade, clinical director of the National Centre for Eating Disorders, told the BBC.

"There's a new movement out there and it's all about wellbeing.

"People like to move in tribes – it used to be the WeightWatchers tribe, counting points and calories, now millions follow different ways to lose weight or be healthy through social media influencers, through weight loss drugs, and they're forming new tribes."

She is not convinced that medication will be the answer that so many are looking for.

"None of these pharmaceutical interventions protect people from regaining the weight when they stop injecting."

She believes they are not a quick fix, and that the best way to effectively lose weight and keep it off is to understand the psychological reasons behind overeating.

More holistic approach

Dr Joanne Silver, lead psychologist at the London-based eating disorder clinic, Orri, agrees. She says the weight loss injections "completely silence what the body is asking for", which is counterintuitive to understanding what the body needs.

"People can binge eat because of psychological reasons – they can use food to manage their emotions, to soothe themselves.

"Eating disorders are not just about food."

Food and nutrition have become just one part of a more holistic approach so many are now adopting when it comes to their overall wellbeing.

Jennifer Pybis, a fitness coach based in Liverpool, works with clients both online and in person. She says achieving a healthy lifestyle is not just about hitting a target weight.

"I encourage the women I work with to consider lots of ways to measure their progress rather than just jumping on the scales.

"Thinking about how they feel, comparing photographs of themselves to see how their bodies have changed shape, how their sleep is, their resting heart rate, their improvements in the gym - all of that is so important."

The diet industry might be transforming but there are many who still prefer the more traditional model of sitting together and sharing their experiences, supporting others in their community to lose weight.

In a small church hall in Winsford, Cheshire, a group of women are waiting patiently to get on the scales.

Muttering and good-natured laughter can be heard as they share their latest weights with each other.

"I've put on a pound! I did have a little bit - well maybe a lot - of wine at the weekend."

"Why didn't you have gin?" another one asks, "it's only 55 calories a shot!"

They're here for their weekly check-in at the BeeWeighed slimming group. Some of the women have lost several pounds, others have a put on a pound or two, but overall, since joining the class, they have all lost weight.

They are learning about how to eat in moderation, how to exercise safely and how to feel good about themselves.

At first glance, it could be a WeightWatchers class – women meeting up to share their stories of weight loss and support each other – but there are crucial differences, says BeeWeighed owner and founder Lynda Leadbetter.

She was a group leader for WeightWatchers for 18 years but left to set up her own group in 2018.

"I think WeightWatchers did provide something different and something hopeful for so many women but I think it has lost its way," she says.

"I teach nutrition, I educate, I don't sell anything extra. I feel WeightWatchers became about selling extra products, it was always about pushing those extra sales, and not about supporting people to lose weight properly."

She's sceptical about the effectiveness of weight loss medications, and some members who have turned to the likes of Ozempic and WeGovy have left her groups, but many have stayed – continuing to attend the meetings for support while using weight loss injections.

Kathryn Brady, 38, has been a member of BeeWeighed since 2023, and in that time, she's lost over three stone. But with her wedding in a matter of weeks, the burlesque dancer has started to take Mounjaro to lose weight more rapidly.

It's not quite worked out as she had hoped.

"I've been on Mounjaro for over a month now, and while I lost 6lb in the first week or so, I've put half of that back on.

"Having absolutely no appetite for two weeks was really weird and I'm paying a lot of money to not lose that much weight."

She's going to keep on using it, but she's not completely sold yet.

"Even if I continue with the skinny jab, I'll still attend BeeWeighed, having others there supporting me keeps me going."

India and Pakistan have accused each other of "violations" hours after the two nations said they had agreed to a ceasefire following days of cross-border military strikes.

After sounds of explosions were heard in Indian-administered Kashmir, India's Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said there had been "repeated violations of the understanding we arrived at".

A short while later, Pakistan's foreign ministry said it remained "committed to faithful implementation of a ceasefire...notwithstanding the violations being committed by India in some areas".

The fighting between India and Pakistan over the last four days has been the worst military confrontation between the two rivals in decades.

The use of drones, missiles and artillery started when India struck targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in response to a deadly militant attack in Pahalgam last month. Pakistan had denied any involvement.

After four days of cross-border strikes, India and Pakistan said they had agreed on a full and immediate ceasfire.

US President Donald Trump announced the news on his Truth Social Platform on Saturday morning. He said it had been brokered by the US.

Pakistan's Foreign Minister later confirmed the agreement had been reached by the two countries, adding that "three dozen countries" were involved in the diplomacy.

But hours after the announcement, residents - and BBC reporters - in the main Indian-administered Kashmiri cities of Srinagar and Jammu reported hearing the sounds of explosions and seeing flashes in the sky.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said: "For the last few hours, there have been repeated violations of the understanding we arrived at earlier this evening.

"This is a breach of the understanding arrived at earlier today."

Misri said India's armed forces was "giving an appropriate response" and he concluded his briefing by "calling upon Pakistan to address these violations".

In response, a spokesman for Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: "Pakistan remains committed to faithful implementation of ceasefire between Pakistan and India, announced earlier today.

"Notwithstanding the violations being committed by India in some areas, our forces are handling the situation with responsibility and restraint.

"We believe that any issues in smooth implementation of the ceasefire should be addressed through communication at appropriate levels.

"The troops on ground should also exercise restraint."

Kashmir is claimed in full by India and Pakistan, but administered only in part by each since they were partitioned following independence from Britain in 1947.

It has been a flashpoint between the two nuclear-armed nations and they have have fought two wars over it.

Confirming the ceasefire, India's external affairs minister S Jaishankar said the two nations had "worked out an understanding on stoppage of firing and military action".

"India has consistently maintained a firm and uncompromising stance against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. It will continue to do so," he added.

Later, in an address to the nation, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the ceasefire had been reached "for the benefit of everybody".

Speaking after the ceasefire announcement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said India and Pakistan had agreed to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site.

He said he and US Vice-President JD Vance had spent 48 hours with senior Indian and Pakistani officials, including their respective Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he welcomed "all efforts to de-escalate the conflict".

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said Britain has been "engaged" in talks for "some days", with Foreign Secretary David Lammy speaking to both sides.

"I'm pleased to see today that there's a ceasefire," Sir Keir said. "The task now is to make sure that that is enduring and is lasting."

The recent fighting came after two weeks of tension following the killing of 26 tourists in the resort town of Pahalgam.

Survivors of the 22 April attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which killed 25 Indians and one Nepali national, said the militants were singling out Hindu men.

The Indian defence ministry said its strikes this week were part of a "commitment" to hold "accountable" those responsible for the attack. Pakistan described them as "unprovoked".

Pakistan said Indian air strikes and cross-border fire since Wednesday had killed 36 people in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, while India's army reported at least 21 civilians deaths from Pakistani shelling.

Fighting intensified overnight on Friday, with both countries accusing each other of targeting airbases and other military sites.

India's military said Pakistan had launched mass drone attacks and shelling along its western border, endangering civilians - a claim Pakistan denied.

Pakistan said it had taken retaliatory action for Indian missile strikes on airbases at Rawalpindi - 10km (6.2m) from Pakistan's capital Islamabad - Chakwal and Shorkot.

European leaders have called US President Donald Trump to discuss proposals for a 30-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine from Monday while on a visit to Kyiv.

The call came after leaders of the so-called "coalition of the willing" held a meeting to discuss advancing peace talks.

The leaders of France, Germany, the UK and Poland were hosted in person by Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, while others joined remotely.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the coalition backed a "full and unconditional" ceasefire - originally mooted by Trump - and that the EU was ready to "impose further biting sanctions" if it was broken.

• Follow updates on this story

The presence of UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Polish PM Donald Tusk and new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Ukrainian capital was a symbolic response to the more than 20 leaders who joined Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday.

In a joint statement ahead of the visit, they said they "will stand in Kyiv in solidarity with Ukraine against Russia's barbaric and illegal full-scale invasion".

The leaders added: "Alongside the US, we call on Russia to agree a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire to create the space for talks on a just and lasting peace."

A 30-hour ceasefire, unilaterally called by Putin to mark Russia's Victory Day, is due to end on Saturday. It has seen a decrease in fighting but both sides have accused the other of breaches.

The "coalition of the willing" was formed to reinforce any eventual peace agreement with security guarantees, including the possibility of placing troops in Ukraine.

Trump earlier reiterated the call for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire after a phone call with Zelensky.

"If the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions," he wrote on social media.

As the meeting was going on, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was already "used to sanctions" and knew how to minimise their impact, adding: "There is no point in trying to scare us with these sanctions."

Meanwhile, Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and now deputy head of Russia's Security Council, told the European allies to "shove these peace plans".

Other leaders who joined the meeting remotely included Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Canadian PM Mark Carney, von der Leyen, and Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of Nato.

Reports of Russian attacks across Ukraine continue, despite Russia's claims of a temporary ceasefire.

In northern Sumy region, an 85-year-old woman was killed, three others were injured, 19 residential homes and 10 other buildings were destroyed or damaged, Ukrainian police said.

In Kostyantynivka, eastern Donetsk region, one person was injured and two apartment blocks caught fire after Russian attacks, Ukrainian state emergency service DSNS said.

And in the southern city of Kherson, a 58-year-old local resident sought medical help after being attacked by a Russian drone carrying explosives, the regional administration said.

Part of a Soviet-era spacecraft is expected to crash back to Earth this week after being stuck in orbit for more than half a century.

Kosmos 482 was launched in 1972 as part of a mission to Venus but it never escaped low Earth orbit and separated into four pieces, according to Nasa.

One of those pieces, believed to be the lander probe, is expected to re-enter our atmosphere around 10 May and at least part of it could survive the journey without burning up, according to Nasa.

There is much we don't know about the re-entry, including where it might land, but even if any of it does survive, 70% of the planet is covered by sea so it is unlikely to cause significant damage.

"It's much more likely that you win the lottery than that you get impacted by this piece of space debris." said Mr Stijn Lemmens, Senior Space Debris Mitigation Analyst at the European Space Agency.

The lander capsule is a tough, spherical object about a metre wide and weighs nearly half a tonne.

It was built to survive the extreme heat and pressure of Venus's atmosphere, meaning it has a robust heat shield and durable structure.

This is why experts think it may survive an uncontrolled descent through Earth's atmosphere.

The parachute system, originally intended to slow the lander's descent towards Venus, is likely long since degraded after more than 50 years in space.

The risk to people on the ground is considered low, but the capsule's projected flight path could see it land anywhere between 51.7° north and south latitude, covering most of the inhabited world.

This means it could potentially land anywhere from as far north as London to as far south as the southern tip of South America.

Uncontrolled space debris incidents have occurred before.

Mr Lemmens explained that the "re-entry of human-made objects into Earth's atmosphere occurs quite frequently," happening weekly for bigger spacecraft and daily for smaller ones. Objects typically burn up in the earth's atmosphere before they reach the ground.

China's Long March 5B booster re-entered over the Indian Ocean in 2022, and the Tiangong-1 space station mostly burned up over the Pacific in 2018.

Kosmos 482 is now being closely tracked by international space agencies.

Mr Lemmens said that future spacecraft "should be designed in such a way that they can take themselves out of orbit safely, preferably by doing controlled re-entries".

This allows for precise predictions of landing locations, reducing the risk of any debris impacting populated areas, thereby protecting people and property while "managing the environmental impact of space debris."

European leaders have called US President Donald Trump to discuss proposals for a 30-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine from Monday while on a visit to Kyiv.

The call came after leaders of the so-called "coalition of the willing" held a meeting to discuss advancing peace talks.

The leaders of France, Germany, the UK and Poland were hosted in person by Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, while others joined remotely.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the coalition backed a "full and unconditional" ceasefire - originally mooted by Trump - and that the EU was ready to "impose further biting sanctions" if it was broken.

• Follow updates on this story

The presence of UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Polish PM Donald Tusk and new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Ukrainian capital was a symbolic response to the more than 20 leaders who joined Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday.

In a joint statement ahead of the visit, they said they "will stand in Kyiv in solidarity with Ukraine against Russia's barbaric and illegal full-scale invasion".

The leaders added: "Alongside the US, we call on Russia to agree a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire to create the space for talks on a just and lasting peace."

A 30-hour ceasefire, unilaterally called by Putin to mark Russia's Victory Day, is due to end on Saturday. It has seen a decrease in fighting but both sides have accused the other of breaches.

The "coalition of the willing" was formed to reinforce any eventual peace agreement with security guarantees, including the possibility of placing troops in Ukraine.

Trump earlier reiterated the call for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire after a phone call with Zelensky.

"If the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions," he wrote on social media.

As the meeting was going on, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was already "used to sanctions" and knew how to minimise their impact, adding: "There is no point in trying to scare us with these sanctions."

Meanwhile, Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and now deputy head of Russia's Security Council, told the European allies to "shove these peace plans".

Other leaders who joined the meeting remotely included Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Canadian PM Mark Carney, von der Leyen, and Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of Nato.

Reports of Russian attacks across Ukraine continue, despite Russia's claims of a temporary ceasefire.

In northern Sumy region, an 85-year-old woman was killed, three others were injured, 19 residential homes and 10 other buildings were destroyed or damaged, Ukrainian police said.

In Kostyantynivka, eastern Donetsk region, one person was injured and two apartment blocks caught fire after Russian attacks, Ukrainian state emergency service DSNS said.

And in the southern city of Kherson, a 58-year-old local resident sought medical help after being attacked by a Russian drone carrying explosives, the regional administration said.

Taylor Swift's representatives have told the BBC she is being brought into a legal row between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively to create "tabloid clickbait".

The 35-year-old singer was summoned to a US court after it was alleged she encouraged Baldoni to accept script re-writes by Lively for It Ends With Us, a film that both starred in and is the centre of a sexual harassment case.

Baldoni says he was invited to Lively's New York home in 2023 to discuss script changes, where Lively's husband, Ryan Reynolds, and Swift were there to serve as her "dragons".

Representatives for Swift said "she was not involved in any casting or creative decision" and "never saw an edit or made any notes on the film".

Lively, 37, sued Baldoni, 41, in December 2024, accusing him of sexual harassment and a smear campaign. Baldoni is counter-suing Lively and her husband, the actor Ryan Reynolds, on claims of civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy.

Lively and Baldoni have been locked in a dispute since the film, which is an adaption of a Colleen Hoover novel, was released last summer.

According to Baldoni, there were tensions over the 2023 re-write of the scene, at which he was surprised to find Reynolds and Swift present.

He alleges Lively wrote in a text to him: "If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones, you'll appreciate that I'm Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons. For better or worse, but usually better. Because my dragons also protect those I fight for."

Baldoni says he responded supportively, writing: "I really love what you did. It really does help a lot. Makes it so much more fun and interesting. (And I would have felt that way without Ryan and Taylor).

"You really are a talent across the board. Really excited and grateful to do this together."

It is also alleged that Swift was involved in the casting of Isabela Ferrer in the film, who played a younger version of Lively's character, Lily Bloom.

Speaking at the New York premiere of It Ends With Us, Ferrer said: "She [Taylor Swift] was a helpful part of the audition, which I found out later when I got it, and that rocked my world."

But Swift's representatives said the only involvement she had in the film was permitting the use of her song, My Tears Ricochet, noting that she was among 20 artists featured in the film.

Swift "never set foot on the set of this movie, she was not involved in any casting or creative decisions, she did not score the film, [and] she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film", they said.

They added that Swift did not see It Ends With Us until "weeks after its release" as she was "travelling around the globe" on tour at the time.

The popstar's spokespeople argued that the subpoena "designed to use Taylor Swift's name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case".

Donald Trump's administration is "actively looking at" suspending habeas corpus - the right of a person to challenge their detention in court - one of the US president's top aides has said.

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, told reporters on Friday that the US Constitution allowed for the legal liberty to be suspended in times of "rebellion or invasion".

His comments come as judges have sought to challenge some recent detentions made by the Trump administration in an effort to combat illegal immigration, as well as remove dissenting foreign students.

"A lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not," Miller said.

There are several pending civil cases against the Trump administration's deportation of undocumented migrants based on habeaus corpus.

Most recently, a federal judge ordered the release of a Turkish university student who had been detained for six weeks after writing an article that was critical of Israel.

Last week, another judge ordered a Columbia University student detained over his advocacy for Palestinians be released after a petition on habeas corpus grounds.

However, other judges have sided with the Trump administration in such disputes.

Miller described habeas corpus as a "privilege", and said Congress had already passed a law stripping judicial courts of jurisdiction over immigration cases.

Legal experts have questioned the veracity of his interpretation of US law.

One of Trump's key campaign pledges was to deport millions of immigrants from the US, and his administration has pursued different means of expediting deportations since returning to the White House.

In March, a federal judge's order prevented the Trump administration from invoking a centuries-old wartime law to justify deporting more than 200 Venezuelans, despite the flights going ahead.

But deportations have lagged behind detentions - while one person has been deported erroneously.

• Trump's first 100 days in office

CNN reported, citing unnamed sources, that Trump was personally involved in the discussions around suspending habeas corpus.

Trump himself has not mentioned the suspension of habeas corpus, but has said he would take steps to combat injunctions against his actions on deportation.

• Listen: The President's Path: Doubling Down on Deportations

"There are ways to mitigate it and there's some very strong ways," he said in April.

"There's one way that's been used by three very highly respected presidents, but we hope we don't have to go that route."

Habeas corpus - which literally means "you should have the body" - allows for a person to be brought before a judge so the legality of their detention can be decided by a judge.

The legal right has been suspended four times in US history: during the American Civil War under Abraham Lincoln, in Hawaii following the 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, in the Philippines during US ownership in 1905, and while combat the activities of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan group in the 19th Century.

It is unclear if Trump will attempt to suspend habeaus corpus without the approval of Congress.

Earlier this year, Deborah Grushkin, an enthusiastic online shopper from New Jersey, "freaked out".

US President Donald Trump had signed an order to stop allowing packages from China worth less than $800 (£601) to enter the country free of import taxes and customs procedures.

It was a move, backed by traditional retailers, that had been discussed in Washington for years amid an explosion of packages slipping into the US under the limit.

Many countries, including the UK, are considering similar measures, spurred in part by the rapid ascent of Shein and Temu.

But in the US, Trump's decision to end the carve-out while ordering a blitz of new trade tariffs, including import taxes of at least 145% on goods from China, has delivered a one-two punch that has left businesses and shoppers reeling.

US-based e-commerce brands, which were set up around the system, are warning the changes could spark failures of smaller firms, while shoppers like Deborah brace for price hikes and shortages.

With the 2 May deadline bearing down, the 36-year-old last month rushed in some $400 worth of items from Shein - including stickers, T-shirts, sweatshirts, Mother's Days gifts and 20 tubes of liquid eyeliner.

"I felt like maybe it was my last sort of hurrah," she says.

Use of rules known as "de minimis", which allow low-value packages to avoid tariffs, customs inspections and other regulatory requirements, has surged over the last decade.

Take-up accelerated during Trump's first term in office, when he raised tariffs on many Chinese goods.

By 2023, such shipments represented more than 7% of consumer imports, up from less than 0.01% a decade earlier. Last year, nearly 1.4 billion packages entered the country using the exemption - more than 3.7 million a day.

Advocates of the carve-out, which include shipping firms, say the system has streamlined trade, leading to lower prices and more options for customers.

Those in favour of change, a group that includes lawmakers from both parties, say businesses are abusing rules intended to ease gifts between family and friends, and the rise has made it easier to slip products that are illegal, counterfeit or violate safety standards and other rules into the country.

Trump recently called de minimis a "scam", brushing off concerns about higher costs. "Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls," he said.

However, polls suggest concerns about his economic policies are rising as the changes start to hit home.

Krystal DuFrene, a retired 57-year-old from Mississippi who relies on disability payments for her income, says she has nervously been checking prices on Temu for weeks, recently cancelling an order for curtains after seeing the price more than triple.

Though she eventually found the same item for the original price in the platform's US warehouse network, she says the cost of her husband's fishing nets had more than doubled.

"I don't know who pays the tariff except the customer," she says. "Everywhere is selling cheap stuff from China so I actually prefer being able to order directly."

When the rules around de minimis changed last week, Temu said it would stop selling goods imported from China in the US directly to customers from its platform, and that all sales would now be handled by "locally based sellers", with orders fulfilled from within the US.

'End of an era'

Even without the latest tariffs, economists Pablo Fajgelbaum and Amit Khandelwal had estimated that ending de minimis would lead to at least $10.9bn in new costs, which they found would be disproportionately borne by lower income and minority households.

"It does kind of feel like the end of an era," says Gee Davis, a 40-year-old author from Missouri, who used Temu during a recent house move to buy small items such as an electric can opener and kitchen cabinet organisers.

She says it was a relief to be able to easily afford the extras and the new rules felt like a "money grab" by the government to benefit big, entrenched American retailers like Amazon and Walmart that sell similar products - but at a bigger mark-up.

"I don't think it's right or fair that little treats should be [restricted] to people who are richer.

"It just would be a real bummer if everyone who was under a certain household income threshold was just no longer able to afford anything for themselves."

As with other Trump policy changes, questions remain about the significance of the shift.

The president was already forced to suspend the policy once before, as packages began piling up at the border.

Lori Wallach, director at Rethink Trade, which supports ending de minimis for consumer safety reasons, says the end of the exemption is significant "on paper", but she fears the administration is taking steps that will weaken its implementation.

She points to a recent customs notice, which said products affected by many of the new tariffs could enter the country through the informal process, a move that eases some regulatory requirements.

"Practically, because all of this stuff can come though informal entry, it's going to be extremely hard to collect tariffs or to be able to inspect really very much more than before the change happened," she says.

'An insurmountable shift'

Customs and Border Protection deny the move will undermine enforcement, noting that firms are still required to supply more information than before.

Businesses have indicated they are taking the changes seriously.

Both Shein and Temu last month warned customers that prices would rise, while Temu says it is rapidly expanding its network of US-based sellers and warehouses to protect its low prices.

Other business groups say many smaller, less high-profile American brands that manufacture abroad for US customers are struggling - and may not survive.

"If the tariffs weren't in place, it would be like taking a little bit of bitter medicine," says Alex Beller, board member of the Ecommerce Innovation Alliance, a business lobby group and a co-founder of Postscript, which works with thousands of smaller businesses on text messaging marketing.

"But paired with the other tariffs, especially for brands that manufacture in China, it just becomes an insurmountable shift."

In a letter to the government last month, men's clothing company Indochino, known for its custom suits made-to-order in China, warned that ending de minimis posed a "significant threat to the viability" of its business and other mid-size American firms like it.

Steven Borelli is the chief executive of the athleisure clothing firm CUTS, which manufactures outside the US, shipping products to a warehouse in Mexico, from where packages are mailed to customers in the US.

His firm has been pushing to reduce its reliance on China, halting orders in the country months ago. Still, he says he is now considering price increases and job cuts.

He says his business has room to manoeuvre, since it caters to higher income customers, but he expects "thousands" of other brands to die without changes to the situation.

"We want more time," he says. "The speed at which everything is happening is too fast for businesses to adjust."

The 2025 Eurovision Song Contest pops its cork on Sunday, with a "turquoise carpet" parade featuring competitors from all 37 nations.

But the competition really begins on Tuesday, when the first semi-final will see five countries unceremoniously kicked out.

Another six will lose their place at the second semi-final on Thursday, before the Grand Final takes place in Basel, Switzerland, on Saturday, 17 May.

This year's entrants include two returning contestants, one professional opera singer, a thinly veiled allusion to sexual emissions and a dance anthem about a dead space dog.

It's a lot to take in.

To help you prepare, here's a guide to all 37 songs in the contest, which I've sorted into rough musical categories, mainly for my own sanity (it didn't work).

Left-field pop bangers

Win or lose, UK contestants Remember Monday have given headline writers a gift with the title of their entry: What The Hell Just Happened?

A souped-up, full throttle pop anthem, it cherry-picks the best bits of Queen, Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Beatles, presumably to remind voters of Britain's rich musical heritage.

With eight tempo changes, it could prove tricky for voters to grasp, but the band's stellar harmonies and sparkling personalities should carry them through.

Crucially, the song avoids the Eurovision cliches of jackhammer dance anthems and windswept balladry – something Remember Monday have in common with this year's favourites.

Sweating it out at the top are Swedish representatives KAJ, whose song Bara Bada Bastu is an ode to the restorative powers of the sauna, complete with dancers in skimpy towels.

Unreasonably catchy, it's won the approval of Abba's Bjorn Ulvaeus, whose been singing the track in his own private sauna. As you do.

Stiff competition comes from Austrian singer JJ, and his operatic ballad Wasted Love.

A timeworn story of unrequited love, it leans on his training as a counter-tenor, before exploding into an unexpected techno breakdown.

A favourite with the bookies, the song's only Achilles heel is its similarity to last year's winner, Nemo.

Distinctive in a different way is Ireland's entry, Laika Party – a 90s rave track about a dog who was sent to space by Russia and left to die there.

Singer Emmy aims for a hopeful spin on a tragic story but, despite a peppy performance, it's a bit of a downer.

More palatable is Luxembourg's Laura Thorn, whose La Poupée Monte Le Son is a callback to France Gall's 1965 winning entry, Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son.

Where the original was about a "fashion doll" operated by songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, Thorn's response is all about taking control.

"If you think a man like you can manipulate me, go back to your mum," she scolds. Yeouch.

Other countries sucking up to Italy

Rome must be blushing. This year features not one, but two, songs about the vibrant culture of Il Bel Paese.

The first comes, not surprisingly, from San Marino – the independent microstate that nestles inside north-central Italy.

Titled Tutta L'Italia, it celebrates everything from the county's football team and its vineyards, to the Mona Lisa (under her Italian name Gioconda).

Written by Gabry Ponte – one of the brains behind Eiffel 65's Blue (Da Ba Dee) – it's a slight, but fun, mixture of dance beats, traditional accordion playing and the folk dances of Calabria.

The staging could be its downfall, though, with Gabry marooned behind his DJ decks while the singers, who for some reason wish to remain anonymous, obscure their faces with masks.

More memorable, but definitely more unhinged, is Estonia's Espresso Macchiato.

Performed by Tommy Cash (the only Eurovision contestant to have appeared on a Charli XCX record) it's an affectionate-ish caricature of Italian stereotypes, featuring the indelible lyric: "Life is like spaghetti, it's hard until you make it".

Smut!

I'm trying to give up sexual innuendo, but Eurovision is making it har... difficult.

A trio of artists are trying to sneak smut past the censors, led by Malta's Miriana Conte, with a throbbing club track called Serving.

In its original form, the song's chorus revolved around the phrase "serving kant" – the word kant being Maltese for "singing" and a homophone for an English term that definitely doesn't mean singing.

It's a reference to a well-known phrase in the drag / ballroom world; but several countries complained it broke broadcasting guidelines, prompting a hasty re-write.

If the stunt was meant to generate headlines it worked, but now that Miriana has our attention, she's not letting go.

Her performance, featuring a giant disco ball pursed between two red lips, is gloriously OTT, and she has an enviable set of pipes. Too bad the song is riddled with Europop cliche.

Another contestant doubling his entendres is Australia's Go-Jo, who wants us to "take a sip" of milkshake from his "special cup". Interpret that how you want but I'd be wary of hitching a lift in his ice cream van, if I were you.

With a smattering of Electric Six's saucy disco funk, Milkshake Man is tasty enough to get Australia back in the finals after only achieving a semi last year.

Finally, we have Finland's Erika Vikman, whose song Ich Komme is billed as a "joyous message of pleasure, ecstasy and a state of trance".

Structured to mimic the pneumatic realities of lovemaking, it recalls iconic gay anthems such as Kylie's Your Disco Needs You and Donna Summer's Hot Stuff – and ends with Erika shooting into the sky astride a massive gold microphone that's definitely not a stand-in for a phallus.

Three songs inspired by cancer

Little in life is more devastating than the phrase "I'm afraid it's cancer".

The disease will affect one in two of us and, although survival rates have dramatically improved, the impact can be devastating.

This year, three separate Eurovision contestants have been touched by cancer, inspiring songs of unmatched heartbreak and reflection.

French singer Louane captures it best. Her song Maman, is an intimate conversation with her mother, who died when she was just 17 years old.

Over three verses, Louane describes the "emptiness" she was felt; and how she filled the void with bad behaviour and meaningless love affairs. But, as the song progresses, she tells her mum she's settled down and found purpose... by becoming a mother herself.

She sings it beautifully, with a mixture of regret and strength. And when her daughter's voice appears in the final moments of the song, it would take a steely heart not to shed a tear.

Over in Norway, 19-year-old Kyle Alessandro shared a similar story, when his mother was diagnosed with cancer in autumn 2023. Thankfully, she's now in remission, but something she said during her treatment inspired his Eurovision entry: "Never lose your light."

Kyle took that phrase and turned it into a thumping pop song about surviving adversity. "Nothing can burn me now," he sings. "I'm my own Lighter."

Klemen Slakonja, meanwhile, is a comedian best known in Slovenia for his impressions of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin - but his ballad, How Much Time Do We Have Left was written after his wife, actress Mojca Fatur, was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer.

As he sings, Klemen's dancers raise him into the air and hold him upside down, to represent the disorientation the family felt.

"When she read her diagnosis, our world turned upside down and I felt that rush of blood in my head, the same one I feel whenever I am upside down in the performance," he told Eurovision World.

Defying the odds, Mojca survived, and joins him on stage at Eurovision. It's a deeply intimate and moving moment.

The bops

Listening to this year's line-up, it's like the contestants all heard Cascada's Evacuate the Dancefloor and went, "Nah, we're good, thanks".

There are club bangers everywhere, with Belgium's Red Sebastian (named after the crab in The Little Mermaid, bless him) submitting an entire song about the loved-up liberation of an all-night rave.

"Where no words are needed to feel the connection / Where clocks never tick and where love is the ending."

A favourite with fans, the 90s rave elements of Strobe Lights feel a little dated to me, but his meticulously-choreographed performance is a treat.

Denmark's Sissal takes a similar sound, with a throwback Euro-bop called Hallucination that effortlessly evokes two-time Eurovision winner Loreen.

Sissal said her biggest goal was for the audience to feel they couldn't sit down during the song. Mission accomplished.

Germany, meanwhile, have been hoping to reverse their 15-year losing streak with Baller, a super-catchy trance anthem that wouldn't sound out of place at Berlin superclub Berghain.

Performed by Austrian siblings Abor & Tynna, it's languishing in the middle of the field, after Tynna developed laryngitis, robbing the duo of the chance to impress fans at Eurovision's various pre-parties. But now that she's recovered, the song could rise up the rankings.

That's less likely for Væb, aka the Icelandic Jedward. Their energetic dance-rap song, Roá, is all about rowing from Iceland to the Faroe Islands, "because no matter what happens in life you just keep on rowing through the waves".

Sadly, it's not as deep as it sounds.

Spanish star Melody fares better with Esa Diva, a pumping house track with a sprinkling of flamenco guitar, that documents her journey to fame.

And Azerbaijan's Mamagama go all Maroon 5 on Run With U, a smooth pop song elevated by a twinkling riff on the saz – a long-necked plucked instrument similar to the lute.

Post-immigrant pop

OK, so I've stolen that description from Shkodra Elektronike.

They're an Albanian duo living in Italy, who fuse the ethnic music of their hometown, Shkodër, to a progressive electronic sound.

Their song Zjerm (Fire) imagines a time when cross-cultural understanding would lead to peace and harmony – a world without a need for soldiers and ambulances, and where "oil would smell like lilac" (no, me neither).

Greece's entry, Asteromáta, is also rooted in history and memory, as Klavdia describes the unbreakable bond that refugees share with their homeland.

"Even if they cross the seas / They shall never forget the sacred earth they called home," she sings, in a haunting ballad that blends traditional Greek and Pontic elements with soaring strings.

Taking a more upbeat approach is Dutch singer Claude. A refugee from the bloody civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he moved to the Netherlands at the age of nine and fell in love with Eurovision while waiting in the refugee centre.

His song, C'est La Vie, is a tribute to his mum, who taught him to see the positive in their situation.

Fizzing with freedom and joy, it combines elements of chanson and French-Caribbean zouk, and looks set for a top 10 placing.

Witchcraft, sorcery and moody goth boys

The success of "goth gremlin witch" Bambie Thug at last year's Eurovision has conjured a veritable coven of imitators in 2025.

Polish singer Justyna Steczkowska, representing her country for the second time, even includes a Slavic magic spell in her song, Gaja – summoning the spirit of the mother Earth to "cleanse" her of a toxic relationship.

It's a suitably intense performance, with Justyna singing long sustained notes and playing a furious violin solo, before being hoiked into the rafters on a pair ropes.

What a time to be alive.

Marko Bošnjak, meanwhile, is cooking up a Poison Cake to feed to his tormentors - chiefly the people who bombarded him with homophobic hate messages after he was selected to represent Croatia.

The criticism was so intense that he lost his voice and couldn't leave the house for five days.

His song is suitably melodramatic, replete with guttural synths and creepy playground chants. It's a little overbaked, but should still sail through to the finals.

Taking a more ethereal approach are Latvian group Tautumeitas, whose song Bur Man Laimi translates as "a chant for happiness".

Reminiscent of Bjork and Enya, its overlapping folk harmonies are based on traditional Latvian wedding songs, making it one of this year's most captivating entries. I fear it may be too subtle to score well, though.

Further mystery is provided by, Theo Evan, Cyprus's answer to Nick Jonas. The lyrics to his song, Shh, are a riddle, written by former tennis player Elke Tiel, whose "hidden truth will only be revealed on the Eurovision stage in May".

He opens his performance perched between two pieces of scaffolding in a recreation of Leonardo da Vinci's famous Vitruvian Man sketch – so there's a clue.

Shh is one of a number of gothic pop songs, sung by brooding young men with interesting hair.

Among the best is Kiss Kiss Goodbye, by Czechia's Adonxs, who divebombs from an angelic falsetto to an unsettling baritone as he confronts his absent father.

Lithuanian band Katarsis are an interesting experiment, with a deliberately downbeat rock song that declares "the foundations of everything have begun to rot".

Titled Tavo Akys (your eyes), it builds to a compelling climax, but it's hard to see it being a vote-winner, unless Eurovision suddenly attracts an audience of depressed emo teens.

Rounding out the field are Armenian singer Parg, with the Imagine Dragons-inspired Survivor and Serbia's Princ, whose overwrought ballad is called Mila.

Both performers give it their all, but the songs don't feel strong enough to survive the semi-finals.

70s rock throwbacks

Four years after Måneskin's victory, Eurovision's rock revival continues apace.

Italy are back at it again, thanks to Lucio Corsi – think David Bowie as Pierrot – and his glam rock ballad Volevo Essere Un Duro (I wanted to be tough).

A delicate anthem for people who feel they don't fit in, it recalls how Lucio was bullied as a kid, and how he's grown to embrace his fragility. At one point, he sings: "Instead of a star, [I'm] just a sneeze."

It's a timeless bit of songwriting that pulls off that crucial Eurovision trick of sounding new and familiar all at once.

Portuguese indie band Napa also have a 70s vibe, channelling Paul McCartney's Wings on the soft rock tear-jerker Deslocado (out of place).

It's another song about migration, written after the band were forced to relocate from Madeira to the Portuguese mainland due to the economic crisis.

"Even though we've been here for a few years we always have that desire to go back, and that anguish of saying goodbye to family," said singer Guilherme Gomes.

Last but not least are Ukraine's Ziferblat, who continue the country's astonishing run of high-quality entries in the midst of a war with Russia.

Their song, Bird Of Pray, is an unexpected mix of 70s new wave band Cars, birdsong and the guitar riff from Rachel Stevens' Sweet Dreams My LA Ex – while the lyrics are full of hope for a peaceful reunion with their loved ones.

It's better than that makes it sound.

The ballads

Where would Eurovision be without a raven-haired woman bellowing into a wind machine set to "hurricane"?

Israel has strong form in this category, and sets the bar again with New Day Will Rise, a melancholy piano ballad sung in a mixture of English, French and Hebrew.

The song's performed by Yuval Raphael, a 24-year-old who narrowly escaped with her life at the 2023 Nova music festival, where an attack by Hamas claimed the lives of 378 people and triggered Israel's ongoing offensive in Gaza.

It's hard not to interpret her lyrics as a response to those events – "everyone cries, don't cry alone". As a result, her participation hasn't received the same level of criticism as Eden Golan, who represented Israel last year.

That can't be said for Georgia's contestant, Mariam Shengelia, who has been booed during pre-Eurovision appearances for her alleged support of the country's authoritarian, pro-Russian, anti-LGBT ruling party, Georgian Dream.

Shengelia has denied the accusations, pointing out that her song – a stirring, quasi-militaristic ballad called Freedom – is about "freedom of choice, freedom to love, freedom to live as you want to live".

"No amount of manufactured hate will change that," she told the Eurovision fan site Wiwibloggs.

Montenegro's Nina Žižić tackles domestic abuse in Dobrodošli, a brooding and refined orchestral ballad.

The singer, who previously entered Eurovision in 2015 with the cyborg pop oddity Igranka, delivers her lyrics with passion and sincerity, but somehow the song never quite takes off.

Last but not least, we have defending champions Switzerland, represented by 24-year-old Zoë Më, who describes herself as a "little fairy".

Appropriately enough, her self-penned song, Voyage is delicate as a fairy's wings, fluttering with a soft-spoken plea to treat each other with kindness.

Automatically qualifying for the final, it's a welcome oasis of calm amidst the steamy sauna sessions, moody goth haircuts and thrusting innuendo.

But that's Eurovision for you. All human life is here. See you in Basel!

The US-China trade war could be letting up, with the world's two largest economies set to begin talks in Switzerland.

Top trade officials from both sides will meet on Saturday in the first high-level meeting since US President Donald Trump hit China with tariffs in January.

Beijing retaliated immediately and a tense stand-off ensued as the two countries heaped levies on each other. Those now stand at 125%, although some Chinese imports to the US face duties as high as 245%.

There have been weeks of stern, and sometimes fiery, rhetoric where each side sought to paint the other as the more desperate party.

And yet this weekend they will face each other over the negotiating table.

So why now?

Saving face

Despite multiple rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs, both sides have been sending signals that they want to break the deadlock. Except it wasn't clear who would blink first.

"Neither side wants to appear to be backing down," said Stephen Olson, senior visiting fellow at Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and a former US trade negotiator.

"The talks are taking place now because both countries have judged that they can move forward without appearing to have caved in to the other side."

Still, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian emphasised on Wednesday that "the talks are being held at the request of the US".

And the commerce ministry framed it as a favour to Washington, saying it was answering the "calls of US businesses and consumers".

The Trump administration, however, claims it's Chinese officials who "want to do business very much" because "their economy is collapsing".

"They said we initiated? Well, I think they ought to go back and study their files," Trump said at the White House on Wednesday.

But as the talks drew closer, the president struck a more diplomatic note: "We can all play games. Who made the first call, who didn't make the - it doesn't matter," he told reporters on Thursday. "It only matters what happens in that room."

The timing is also key for Beijing because it's during Xi's visit to Moscow. He was a guest of honour on Friday at Moscow's Victory Day parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the World War Two victory over Nazi Germany.

Xi stood alongside leaders from across the Global South - a reminder to Trump's administration that China not only has other options for trade, but it is also presenting itself as an alternative global leader.

This allows Beijing to project strength even as it heads to the negotiating table.

The pressure is on

Trump insists that the tariffs will make America stronger, and Beijing has vowed to "fight till the end"- but the fact is the levies are hurting both countries.

Factory output in China has taken a hit, according to government data. Manufacturing activity in April dipped to the lowest level since December 2023. And a survey by news outlet Caixin this week showed that services activity has reached a seven-month low.

The BBC found that Chinese exporters have been reeling from the steep tariffs, with stock piling up in warehouses, even as they strike a defiant note and look for markets beyond the US.

"I think [China] realises that a deal is better than no deal," says Bert Hofman, a professor at the East Asian Institute in National University Singapore.

"So they've taken a pragmatic view and said, 'OK, well we need to get these talks going.'"

And so with the major May Day holiday in China over, officials in Beijing have decided the time is right to talk.

On the other side, the uncertainty caused by tariffs led to the US economy contracting for the first time in three years.

And industries that have long depended on Chinese-made goods are especially worried. A Los Angeles toy company owner told the BBC that they were "looking at the total implosion of the supply chain".

Trump himself has acknowledged that US consumers will feel the sting.

American children may "have two dolls instead of 30 dolls", he said at a cabinet meeting this month, "and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally".

Trump's approval ratings have also slid over fears of inflation and a possible recession, with more than 60% of Americans saying he was focusing too much on tariffs.

"Both countries are feeling pressure to provide a bit of reassurance to increasingly nervous markets, businesses, and domestic constituencies," Mr Olson says.

"A couple of days of meetings in Geneva will serve that purpose."

What happens next?

While the talks have been met with optimism, a deal may take a while to materialise.

The talks will mostly be about "touching base", Mr Hofman said, adding that this could look like an "exchange of positions" and, if things go well, "an agenda [will be] set for future talks".

The negotiations on the whole are expected to take months, much like what happened during Trump's first term.

After nearly two years of tit-for-tat tariffs, the US and China signed a "phase one" deal in early 2020 to suspend or reduce some levies. Even then, it did not include thornier issues, such as Chinese government subsidies for key industries or a timeline for scrapping the remaining tariffs.

In fact, many of them stayed in place through Joe Biden's presidency, and Trump's latest tariffs add to those older levies.

What could emerge this time is a "phase one deal on steroids", Mr Olson said: that is, it would go beyond the earlier deal and try to address flashpoints. There are many, from the illegal fentanyl trade which Washington wants China to crack down harder on to Beijing's relationship with Moscow.

But all of that is far down the line, experts warn.

"The systemic frictions that bedevil the US-China trade relationship will not be solved any time soon," Mr Olson adds.

"Geneva will only produce anodyne statements about 'frank dialogues' and the desire to keep talking."

Catholicism has rarely been more prominent in US politics as the Trump administration openly embraces advisers and officials who proudly say faith has shaped their politics.

But any jubilation on the American Make America Great Again right about the new Pope this week quickly dissipated as key voices from Donald Trump's Maga movement came to a disappointed conclusion: the first American Pope does not appear to be "America first".

Little is known about the political leanings of Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago.

He has voiced concerns for the poor and immigrants, chosen a name that may reference more liberal church leadership, and he appears to have both supported the liberal-leaning Pope Francis and criticised the US president's policies on social media.

But the president so far has said only that Leo's election was a "great honour" for the US. Still, some of Trump's most prominent supporters were quick to attack Pope Leo, lambasting him as a possible challenge to Trump and on the perception that he will follow Pope Francis in areas like immigration.

"I mean it's kind of jaw-dropping," Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon told the BBC on Friday, speaking of Leo's election.

"It is shocking to me that a guy could be selected to be the Pope that had had the Twitter feed and the statements he's had against American senior politicians," said Bannon, a hard-right Trump loyalist, practising Catholic and former altar boy.

And he predicted that there's "definitely going to be friction" between Leo and Trump.

• Pope Leo XIV calls Church 'a beacon to illuminate dark nights' in first Mass
• Pope's first speech in full
• Who is Robert Prevost, the new Pope Leo XIV?

The Pope's brother, John Prevost, told The New York Times that he thinks his brother would voice his disagreements with the president.

"I know he's not happy with what's going on with immigration," he said. "I know that for a fact. How far he'll go with it is only one's guess, but he won't just sit back. I don't think he'll be the silent one."

Recent survey data shows that about 20% of Americans identify as Catholic, according to the non-partisan Pew Research Center.

About 53% identify with or lean towards the Republican Party, though there's plenty of nuance, too: America's two Catholic presidents, John F Kennedy and Joe Biden, were both Democrats. And nearly two-thirds of US Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances - a departure from the Church's current stance.

US Catholics also broadly supported Pope Francis: 78% of those surveyed in February viewed him favorably, including a majority of Catholic Republicans.

A number of Catholics in the new Pope's home city of Chicago on Thursday aired disappointment with President Trump and said they hoped Pope Leo XIV would follow the path of his predecessor.

"We hope he'll continue with Francis's agenda going forward," said Rick Stevens, a Catholic deacon from New Jersey who happened to be visiting Chicago when he heard the news.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which leads and coordinates US Catholic activities, celebrated Pope Leo's election and the message it sends.

"Certainly, we rejoice that a son of this nation has been chosen by the cardinals, but we recognise that he now belongs to all Catholics and to all people of good will," the conference said in a statement. "His words advocating peace, unity, and missionary activity already indicate a path forward."

Though Maga supporters represent a small subset of US Catholics, it's one with outsized access to conservative media and Trump's ear.

On Bannon's War Room podcast - known for its hard-right, pro-Trump bent - one guest after another heaped criticism on the new Pope.

"This guy has been massively embraced by the liberals and the progressives," said Ben Harnwell, a journalist who led Bannon's efforts to establish what he calls a "gladiator school" for the "Judeo-Christian West" outside of Rome.

"He is one of their own… he has [Pope] Francis's DNA in him," Harnwell said.

Jack Posobiec, another Maga commentator dialing in from Rome, was blunt: "This choice of the American cardinal was done as a response, as a message to President Trump."

The full picture of what led to Pope Leo's selection on Thursday is still emerging and church decisions don't map neatly onto US politics. Still, watchers around the world have pored over Pope Leo's social media profiles in search of clues about his leanings and beliefs.

An X account under his name, with tweets going as far back as 2015, shares links to criticism of Trump's approach to immigration and hints at other political views, such as stricter gun control.

In February, the account sharply rebuked the US vice-president by posting a link to an opinion piece titled "JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others".

The account also posted a link to a letter from Pope Francis after he clashed with Vance over church doctrine and immigration. Vance – a Catholic convert – had given an interview in defence of the Trump administration's immigration policies.

Vance has routinely invoked his faith in defense of the administration, particularly immigration policies, which the White House has said put "America first".

"There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritise the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that," Vance told Fox News.

• What is behind the new Pope's chosen name, Leo?
• Reaction: 'I flipped out, I said no way!' - Chicago celebrates hometown Pope
• Analysis: Continuity the key for Pope seen as unifier in the Church

But US Democrats were not spared either on the account, which has more than a decade of posts. They appear to support Catholic employers who refuse to pay for contraceptives via employee health plans, and following the 2016 US presidential election, one post links to an article accusing Democrat Hillary Clinton of ignoring pro-life Catholic voters.

The BBC asked the Vatican to confirm the account was Leo's, but did not receive a response.

Vice-President Vance told conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt on Friday: "I try not to play the politicisation of the Pope game.

"I'm sure he's going to say a lot of things that I love. I'm sure he'll say some things that I disagree with, but I'll continue to pray for him and the Church despite it all and through it all, and that'll be the way that I handle it."

The new Pope's LGBTQ views are also unclear, but some groups, including the conservative College of Cardinals, believe he may be less supportive than Pope Francis.

Matt Walsh, a commentator with the conservative Daily Wire, wrote: "There are some good signs and bad signs with this new Pope. I want to see what he actually does with his papacy before I pass any kind of judgment."

But some of the most dedicated Maga supporters already have made up their minds.

Laura Loomer, a far-right influencer who has Trump's ear, swaying the president on top personnel decisions, called the new Pope "anti-Trump, anti-Maga, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis".

Bannon, who had suggested Leo as a dark horse for the papacy, predicted tensions between the White House and Vatican - and said they could even tear apart American Catholics.

"Remember, President Trump was not shy about taking a shot at Pope Francis," he said.

"So if this Pope - which he will do - tries to come between President Trump and his implementation of the mass deportation programme, I would stand by."

Additional reporting by Cai Pigliucci

A diver has died during preliminary operations to recover British tech tycoon Mike Lynch's superyacht from the waters off the coast of northern Sicily, local police said.

The accident happened on Friday happened while the diver was underwater in Porticello, police said, adding the precise cause of death was still unknown.

According to local Italian media, the diver was a 39-year-old Dutch national who worked for a specialist salvage company.

It comes as salvage ships arrived earlier this month to waters off the small port of Porticello, near Palermo, where the Bayesian vessel sank during freak weather last August.

Seven of the 22 people onboard the Bayesian last summer were killed, including Mr Lynch, 59, and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah.

Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, 70, and his wife, Judy, 71, US lawyer Chris Morvillo, his wife Neda Morvillo and the yacht's chef Recaldo Thomas, who was originally from Antigua, also died in the sinking on 19 August.

Fifteen people managed to escape on a lifeboat including a one-year-old and Mr Lynch's wife Angela Bacares.

The cause of the sinking is still under investigation with naval experts saying a yacht of Bayesian's calibre should have been able to withstand the storm and certainly should not have sunk as rapidly as it did.

The salvage operation is being overseen by British marine consultancy TMC Marine and led by Dutch-based companies Hebo, a maritime services company from Rotterdam, and SMIT Salvage, with support from Italian specialists.

About 70 specialist personnel have been deployed to Sicily from across Europe to work on the recovery operation.

• The 16 minutes that plunged the Bayesian yacht into a deadly spiral
• Bayesian sinking: The key questions for investigators
• Tributes to 'brilliant' Mike and Hannah Lynch as family speak of shock
• 'For two seconds I lost my baby in the sea' - Sicily yacht survivor

On Thursday, the team said on-site preparations were on schedule and "significant progress" had been made over the past five days.

Analysis of the yacht and the surrounding seabed confirmed there had been no change to its condition since the last inspection, meaning plans to raise the vessel can now go ahead.

Work to move the Bayesian into an upright position and lift it to the surface was scheduled to begin later this month - subject to suitable weather and sea conditions.

Before the vessel is transported to port, sea water will be pumped out of it.

Before the Bayesian is raised it will be held in position by steel slings, as salvage workers detach the vessel's extensive rigging and 72m (236ft) mast, thought to be one of the tallest in the world.

These will then be stored on the seabed and recovered after the team has recovered the ship's hull, which investigators say is a primary source of evidence.

There has not been any pollution from the yacht reported, with conditions being monitored and efforts made to secure its tank vents and openings.

Inquest proceedings in the UK are looking at the deaths of Mr Lynch and his daughter, as Mr and Mrs Bloomer, who were all British nationals.

Mr Lynch and his daughter were said to have lived in the vicinity of London, and the Bloomers lived in Sevenoaks in Kent.

The tycoon founded software giant Autonomy in 1996 and was cleared in June last year of carrying out a massive fraud over the sale of the firm to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.

The boat trip was a celebration of his acquittal in the case in the US.

Earlier this year, Deborah Grushkin, an enthusiastic online shopper from New Jersey, "freaked out".

US President Donald Trump had signed an order to stop allowing packages from China worth less than $800 (£601) to enter the country free of import taxes and customs procedures.

It was a move, backed by traditional retailers, that had been discussed in Washington for years amid an explosion of packages slipping into the US under the limit.

Many countries, including the UK, are considering similar measures, spurred in part by the rapid ascent of Shein and Temu.

But in the US, Trump's decision to end the carve-out while ordering a blitz of new trade tariffs, including import taxes of at least 145% on goods from China, has delivered a one-two punch that has left businesses and shoppers reeling.

US-based e-commerce brands, which were set up around the system, are warning the changes could spark failures of smaller firms, while shoppers like Deborah brace for price hikes and shortages.

With the 2 May deadline bearing down, the 36-year-old last month rushed in some $400 worth of items from Shein - including stickers, T-shirts, sweatshirts, Mother's Days gifts and 20 tubes of liquid eyeliner.

"I felt like maybe it was my last sort of hurrah," she says.

Use of rules known as "de minimis", which allow low-value packages to avoid tariffs, customs inspections and other regulatory requirements, has surged over the last decade.

Take-up accelerated during Trump's first term in office, when he raised tariffs on many Chinese goods.

By 2023, such shipments represented more than 7% of consumer imports, up from less than 0.01% a decade earlier. Last year, nearly 1.4 billion packages entered the country using the exemption - more than 3.7 million a day.

Advocates of the carve-out, which include shipping firms, say the system has streamlined trade, leading to lower prices and more options for customers.

Those in favour of change, a group that includes lawmakers from both parties, say businesses are abusing rules intended to ease gifts between family and friends, and the rise has made it easier to slip products that are illegal, counterfeit or violate safety standards and other rules into the country.

Trump recently called de minimis a "scam", brushing off concerns about higher costs. "Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls," he said.

However, polls suggest concerns about his economic policies are rising as the changes start to hit home.

Krystal DuFrene, a retired 57-year-old from Mississippi who relies on disability payments for her income, says she has nervously been checking prices on Temu for weeks, recently cancelling an order for curtains after seeing the price more than triple.

Though she eventually found the same item for the original price in the platform's US warehouse network, she says the cost of her husband's fishing nets had more than doubled.

"I don't know who pays the tariff except the customer," she says. "Everywhere is selling cheap stuff from China so I actually prefer being able to order directly."

When the rules around de minimis changed last week, Temu said it would stop selling goods imported from China in the US directly to customers from its platform, and that all sales would now be handled by "locally based sellers", with orders fulfilled from within the US.

'End of an era'

Even without the latest tariffs, economists Pablo Fajgelbaum and Amit Khandelwal had estimated that ending de minimis would lead to at least $10.9bn in new costs, which they found would be disproportionately borne by lower income and minority households.

"It does kind of feel like the end of an era," says Gee Davis, a 40-year-old author from Missouri, who used Temu during a recent house move to buy small items such as an electric can opener and kitchen cabinet organisers.

She says it was a relief to be able to easily afford the extras and the new rules felt like a "money grab" by the government to benefit big, entrenched American retailers like Amazon and Walmart that sell similar products - but at a bigger mark-up.

"I don't think it's right or fair that little treats should be [restricted] to people who are richer.

"It just would be a real bummer if everyone who was under a certain household income threshold was just no longer able to afford anything for themselves."

As with other Trump policy changes, questions remain about the significance of the shift.

The president was already forced to suspend the policy once before, as packages began piling up at the border.

Lori Wallach, director at Rethink Trade, which supports ending de minimis for consumer safety reasons, says the end of the exemption is significant "on paper", but she fears the administration is taking steps that will weaken its implementation.

She points to a recent customs notice, which said products affected by many of the new tariffs could enter the country through the informal process, a move that eases some regulatory requirements.

"Practically, because all of this stuff can come though informal entry, it's going to be extremely hard to collect tariffs or to be able to inspect really very much more than before the change happened," she says.

'An insurmountable shift'

Customs and Border Protection deny the move will undermine enforcement, noting that firms are still required to supply more information than before.

Businesses have indicated they are taking the changes seriously.

Both Shein and Temu last month warned customers that prices would rise, while Temu says it is rapidly expanding its network of US-based sellers and warehouses to protect its low prices.

Other business groups say many smaller, less high-profile American brands that manufacture abroad for US customers are struggling - and may not survive.

"If the tariffs weren't in place, it would be like taking a little bit of bitter medicine," says Alex Beller, board member of the Ecommerce Innovation Alliance, a business lobby group and a co-founder of Postscript, which works with thousands of smaller businesses on text messaging marketing.

"But paired with the other tariffs, especially for brands that manufacture in China, it just becomes an insurmountable shift."

In a letter to the government last month, men's clothing company Indochino, known for its custom suits made-to-order in China, warned that ending de minimis posed a "significant threat to the viability" of its business and other mid-size American firms like it.

Steven Borelli is the chief executive of the athleisure clothing firm CUTS, which manufactures outside the US, shipping products to a warehouse in Mexico, from where packages are mailed to customers in the US.

His firm has been pushing to reduce its reliance on China, halting orders in the country months ago. Still, he says he is now considering price increases and job cuts.

He says his business has room to manoeuvre, since it caters to higher income customers, but he expects "thousands" of other brands to die without changes to the situation.

"We want more time," he says. "The speed at which everything is happening is too fast for businesses to adjust."

The 2025 Eurovision Song Contest pops its cork on Sunday, with a "turquoise carpet" parade featuring competitors from all 37 nations.

But the competition really begins on Tuesday, when the first semi-final will see five countries unceremoniously kicked out.

Another six will lose their place at the second semi-final on Thursday, before the Grand Final takes place in Basel, Switzerland, on Saturday, 17 May.

This year's entrants include two returning contestants, one professional opera singer, a thinly veiled allusion to sexual emissions and a dance anthem about a dead space dog.

It's a lot to take in.

To help you prepare, here's a guide to all 37 songs in the contest, which I've sorted into rough musical categories, mainly for my own sanity (it didn't work).

Left-field pop bangers

Win or lose, UK contestants Remember Monday have given headline writers a gift with the title of their entry: What The Hell Just Happened?

A souped-up, full throttle pop anthem, it cherry-picks the best bits of Queen, Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Beatles, presumably to remind voters of Britain's rich musical heritage.

With eight tempo changes, it could prove tricky for voters to grasp, but the band's stellar harmonies and sparkling personalities should carry them through.

Crucially, the song avoids the Eurovision cliches of jackhammer dance anthems and windswept balladry – something Remember Monday have in common with this year's favourites.

Sweating it out at the top are Swedish representatives KAJ, whose song Bara Bada Bastu is an ode to the restorative powers of the sauna, complete with dancers in skimpy towels.

Unreasonably catchy, it's won the approval of Abba's Bjorn Ulvaeus, whose been singing the track in his own private sauna. As you do.

Stiff competition comes from Austrian singer JJ, and his operatic ballad Wasted Love.

A timeworn story of unrequited love, it leans on his training as a counter-tenor, before exploding into an unexpected techno breakdown.

A favourite with the bookies, the song's only Achilles heel is its similarity to last year's winner, Nemo.

Distinctive in a different way is Ireland's entry, Laika Party – a 90s rave track about a dog who was sent to space by Russia and left to die there.

Singer Emmy aims for a hopeful spin on a tragic story but, despite a peppy performance, it's a bit of a downer.

More palatable is Luxembourg's Laura Thorn, whose La Poupée Monte Le Son is a callback to France Gall's 1965 winning entry, Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son.

Where the original was about a "fashion doll" operated by songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, Thorn's response is all about taking control.

"If you think a man like you can manipulate me, go back to your mum," she scolds. Yeouch.

Other countries sucking up to Italy

Rome must be blushing. This year features not one, but two, songs about the vibrant culture of Il Bel Paese.

The first comes, not surprisingly, from San Marino – the independent microstate that nestles inside north-central Italy.

Titled Tutta L'Italia, it celebrates everything from the county's football team and its vineyards, to the Mona Lisa (under her Italian name Gioconda).

Written by Gabry Ponte – one of the brains behind Eiffel 65's Blue (Da Ba Dee) – it's a slight, but fun, mixture of dance beats, traditional accordion playing and the folk dances of Calabria.

The staging could be its downfall, though, with Gabry marooned behind his DJ decks while the singers, who for some reason wish to remain anonymous, obscure their faces with masks.

More memorable, but definitely more unhinged, is Estonia's Espresso Macchiato.

Performed by Tommy Cash (the only Eurovision contestant to have appeared on a Charli XCX record) it's an affectionate-ish caricature of Italian stereotypes, featuring the indelible lyric: "Life is like spaghetti, it's hard until you make it".

Smut!

I'm trying to give up sexual innuendo, but Eurovision is making it har... difficult.

A trio of artists are trying to sneak smut past the censors, led by Malta's Miriana Conte, with a throbbing club track called Serving.

In its original form, the song's chorus revolved around the phrase "serving kant" – the word kant being Maltese for "singing" and a homophone for an English term that definitely doesn't mean singing.

It's a reference to a well-known phrase in the drag / ballroom world; but several countries complained it broke broadcasting guidelines, prompting a hasty re-write.

If the stunt was meant to generate headlines it worked, but now that Miriana has our attention, she's not letting go.

Her performance, featuring a giant disco ball pursed between two red lips, is gloriously OTT, and she has an enviable set of pipes. Too bad the song is riddled with Europop cliche.

Another contestant doubling his entendres is Australia's Go-Jo, who wants us to "take a sip" of milkshake from his "special cup". Interpret that how you want but I'd be wary of hitching a lift in his ice cream van, if I were you.

With a smattering of Electric Six's saucy disco funk, Milkshake Man is tasty enough to get Australia back in the finals after only achieving a semi last year.

Finally, we have Finland's Erika Vikman, whose song Ich Komme is billed as a "joyous message of pleasure, ecstasy and a state of trance".

Structured to mimic the pneumatic realities of lovemaking, it recalls iconic gay anthems such as Kylie's Your Disco Needs You and Donna Summer's Hot Stuff – and ends with Erika shooting into the sky astride a massive gold microphone that's definitely not a stand-in for a phallus.

Three songs inspired by cancer

Little in life is more devastating than the phrase "I'm afraid it's cancer".

The disease will affect one in two of us and, although survival rates have dramatically improved, the impact can be devastating.

This year, three separate Eurovision contestants have been touched by cancer, inspiring songs of unmatched heartbreak and reflection.

French singer Louane captures it best. Her song Maman, is an intimate conversation with her mother, who died when she was just 17 years old.

Over three verses, Louane describes the "emptiness" she was felt; and how she filled the void with bad behaviour and meaningless love affairs. But, as the song progresses, she tells her mum she's settled down and found purpose... by becoming a mother herself.

She sings it beautifully, with a mixture of regret and strength. And when her daughter's voice appears in the final moments of the song, it would take a steely heart not to shed a tear.

Over in Norway, 19-year-old Kyle Alessandro shared a similar story, when his mother was diagnosed with cancer in autumn 2023. Thankfully, she's now in remission, but something she said during her treatment inspired his Eurovision entry: "Never lose your light."

Kyle took that phrase and turned it into a thumping pop song about surviving adversity. "Nothing can burn me now," he sings. "I'm my own Lighter."

Klemen Slakonja, meanwhile, is a comedian best known in Slovenia for his impressions of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin - but his ballad, How Much Time Do We Have Left was written after his wife, actress Mojca Fatur, was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer.

As he sings, Klemen's dancers raise him into the air and hold him upside down, to represent the disorientation the family felt.

"When she read her diagnosis, our world turned upside down and I felt that rush of blood in my head, the same one I feel whenever I am upside down in the performance," he told Eurovision World.

Defying the odds, Mojca survived, and joins him on stage at Eurovision. It's a deeply intimate and moving moment.

The bops

Listening to this year's line-up, it's like the contestants all heard Cascada's Evacuate the Dancefloor and went, "Nah, we're good, thanks".

There are club bangers everywhere, with Belgium's Red Sebastian (named after the crab in The Little Mermaid, bless him) submitting an entire song about the loved-up liberation of an all-night rave.

"Where no words are needed to feel the connection / Where clocks never tick and where love is the ending."

A favourite with fans, the 90s rave elements of Strobe Lights feel a little dated to me, but his meticulously-choreographed performance is a treat.

Denmark's Sissal takes a similar sound, with a throwback Euro-bop called Hallucination that effortlessly evokes two-time Eurovision winner Loreen.

Sissal said her biggest goal was for the audience to feel they couldn't sit down during the song. Mission accomplished.

Germany, meanwhile, have been hoping to reverse their 15-year losing streak with Baller, a super-catchy trance anthem that wouldn't sound out of place at Berlin superclub Berghain.

Performed by Austrian siblings Abor & Tynna, it's languishing in the middle of the field, after Tynna developed laryngitis, robbing the duo of the chance to impress fans at Eurovision's various pre-parties. But now that she's recovered, the song could rise up the rankings.

That's less likely for Væb, aka the Icelandic Jedward. Their energetic dance-rap song, Roá, is all about rowing from Iceland to the Faroe Islands, "because no matter what happens in life you just keep on rowing through the waves".

Sadly, it's not as deep as it sounds.

Spanish star Melody fares better with Esa Diva, a pumping house track with a sprinkling of flamenco guitar, that documents her journey to fame.

And Azerbaijan's Mamagama go all Maroon 5 on Run With U, a smooth pop song elevated by a twinkling riff on the saz – a long-necked plucked instrument similar to the lute.

Post-immigrant pop

OK, so I've stolen that description from Shkodra Elektronike.

They're an Albanian duo living in Italy, who fuse the ethnic music of their hometown, Shkodër, to a progressive electronic sound.

Their song Zjerm (Fire) imagines a time when cross-cultural understanding would lead to peace and harmony – a world without a need for soldiers and ambulances, and where "oil would smell like lilac" (no, me neither).

Greece's entry, Asteromáta, is also rooted in history and memory, as Klavdia describes the unbreakable bond that refugees share with their homeland.

"Even if they cross the seas / They shall never forget the sacred earth they called home," she sings, in a haunting ballad that blends traditional Greek and Pontic elements with soaring strings.

Taking a more upbeat approach is Dutch singer Claude. A refugee from the bloody civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he moved to the Netherlands at the age of nine and fell in love with Eurovision while waiting in the refugee centre.

His song, C'est La Vie, is a tribute to his mum, who taught him to see the positive in their situation.

Fizzing with freedom and joy, it combines elements of chanson and French-Caribbean zouk, and looks set for a top 10 placing.

Witchcraft, sorcery and moody goth boys

The success of "goth gremlin witch" Bambie Thug at last year's Eurovision has conjured a veritable coven of imitators in 2025.

Polish singer Justyna Steczkowska, representing her country for the second time, even includes a Slavic magic spell in her song, Gaja – summoning the spirit of the mother Earth to "cleanse" her of a toxic relationship.

It's a suitably intense performance, with Justyna singing long sustained notes and playing a furious violin solo, before being hoiked into the rafters on a pair ropes.

What a time to be alive.

Marko Bošnjak, meanwhile, is cooking up a Poison Cake to feed to his tormentors - chiefly the people who bombarded him with homophobic hate messages after he was selected to represent Croatia.

The criticism was so intense that he lost his voice and couldn't leave the house for five days.

His song is suitably melodramatic, replete with guttural synths and creepy playground chants. It's a little overbaked, but should still sail through to the finals.

Taking a more ethereal approach are Latvian group Tautumeitas, whose song Bur Man Laimi translates as "a chant for happiness".

Reminiscent of Bjork and Enya, its overlapping folk harmonies are based on traditional Latvian wedding songs, making it one of this year's most captivating entries. I fear it may be too subtle to score well, though.

Further mystery is provided by, Theo Evan, Cyprus's answer to Nick Jonas. The lyrics to his song, Shh, are a riddle, written by former tennis player Elke Tiel, whose "hidden truth will only be revealed on the Eurovision stage in May".

He opens his performance perched between two pieces of scaffolding in a recreation of Leonardo da Vinci's famous Vitruvian Man sketch – so there's a clue.

Shh is one of a number of gothic pop songs, sung by brooding young men with interesting hair.

Among the best is Kiss Kiss Goodbye, by Czechia's Adonxs, who divebombs from an angelic falsetto to an unsettling baritone as he confronts his absent father.

Lithuanian band Katarsis are an interesting experiment, with a deliberately downbeat rock song that declares "the foundations of everything have begun to rot".

Titled Tavo Akys (your eyes), it builds to a compelling climax, but it's hard to see it being a vote-winner, unless Eurovision suddenly attracts an audience of depressed emo teens.

Rounding out the field are Armenian singer Parg, with the Imagine Dragons-inspired Survivor and Serbia's Princ, whose overwrought ballad is called Mila.

Both performers give it their all, but the songs don't feel strong enough to survive the semi-finals.

70s rock throwbacks

Four years after Måneskin's victory, Eurovision's rock revival continues apace.

Italy are back at it again, thanks to Lucio Corsi – think David Bowie as Pierrot – and his glam rock ballad Volevo Essere Un Duro (I wanted to be tough).

A delicate anthem for people who feel they don't fit in, it recalls how Lucio was bullied as a kid, and how he's grown to embrace his fragility. At one point, he sings: "Instead of a star, [I'm] just a sneeze."

It's a timeless bit of songwriting that pulls off that crucial Eurovision trick of sounding new and familiar all at once.

Portuguese indie band Napa also have a 70s vibe, channelling Paul McCartney's Wings on the soft rock tear-jerker Deslocado (out of place).

It's another song about migration, written after the band were forced to relocate from Madeira to the Portuguese mainland due to the economic crisis.

"Even though we've been here for a few years we always have that desire to go back, and that anguish of saying goodbye to family," said singer Guilherme Gomes.

Last but not least are Ukraine's Ziferblat, who continue the country's astonishing run of high-quality entries in the midst of a war with Russia.

Their song, Bird Of Pray, is an unexpected mix of 70s new wave band Cars, birdsong and the guitar riff from Rachel Stevens' Sweet Dreams My LA Ex – while the lyrics are full of hope for a peaceful reunion with their loved ones.

It's better than that makes it sound.

The ballads

Where would Eurovision be without a raven-haired woman bellowing into a wind machine set to "hurricane"?

Israel has strong form in this category, and sets the bar again with New Day Will Rise, a melancholy piano ballad sung in a mixture of English, French and Hebrew.

The song's performed by Yuval Raphael, a 24-year-old who narrowly escaped with her life at the 2023 Nova music festival, where an attack by Hamas claimed the lives of 378 people and triggered Israel's ongoing offensive in Gaza.

It's hard not to interpret her lyrics as a response to those events – "everyone cries, don't cry alone". As a result, her participation hasn't received the same level of criticism as Eden Golan, who represented Israel last year.

That can't be said for Georgia's contestant, Mariam Shengelia, who has been booed during pre-Eurovision appearances for her alleged support of the country's authoritarian, pro-Russian, anti-LGBT ruling party, Georgian Dream.

Shengelia has denied the accusations, pointing out that her song – a stirring, quasi-militaristic ballad called Freedom – is about "freedom of choice, freedom to love, freedom to live as you want to live".

"No amount of manufactured hate will change that," she told the Eurovision fan site Wiwibloggs.

Montenegro's Nina Žižić tackles domestic abuse in Dobrodošli, a brooding and refined orchestral ballad.

The singer, who previously entered Eurovision in 2015 with the cyborg pop oddity Igranka, delivers her lyrics with passion and sincerity, but somehow the song never quite takes off.

Last but not least, we have defending champions Switzerland, represented by 24-year-old Zoë Më, who describes herself as a "little fairy".

Appropriately enough, her self-penned song, Voyage is delicate as a fairy's wings, fluttering with a soft-spoken plea to treat each other with kindness.

Automatically qualifying for the final, it's a welcome oasis of calm amidst the steamy sauna sessions, moody goth haircuts and thrusting innuendo.

But that's Eurovision for you. All human life is here. See you in Basel!

As the continuing India-Pakistan crisis takes a dangerous turn, nations around the world are urging calm.

The initial thinking was that after India launched air strikes, and with Pakistan claiming to have shot down several Indian jets - a claim Delhi has not confirmed - both sides could claim "victory" and de-escalate.

But there's a danger that any protracted tit-for-tat attacks could lead them to a far more damaging prospect.

During past conflicts, such as in 2019 and 2016, it was the United States and a few other global powers that put pressure on Delhi and Islamabad to bring the situation under control and de-escalate.

Now passions are running high and the nationalist rhetoric has reached a crescendo on both sides. The neighbours are closer to war than in recent decades.

• Kashmir: Why India and Pakistan fight over it
• What we know about India's strikes on Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir

“The World community is keeping quiet; that’s dangerous,” Ayesha Siddiqa, a Pakistani academic who is a senior fellow at King’s College London.

“Though the flare up has been happening for decades, this is the first time the two countries find themselves in a conflict without anyone monitoring them or forcefully telling them to stop,” she said.

Unless Washington gets more involved, Islamabad and Delhi may continue with their accusations and counter-accusations.

Although US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been telling the senior leaders of India and Pakistan to de-escalate, the message from other American leaders is different.

US Vice-President JD Vance has said that a potential war between India and Pakistan would be "none of our business" during an interview with Fox News.

"We want this thing to de-escalate as quickly as possible. We can't control these countries, though," Vance said.

Vance was on a visit to India when the militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which killed 26 civilians, took place.

US President Donald Trump had earlier called rising tension between India and Pakistan a "shame".

During previous India-Pakistan skirmishes, for example in 2019, tension was defused quickly after India carried out what it called “surgical strikes” on what it called terrorist camps inside Pakistan.

One Indian military jet was shot down in the aftermath of the crisis and the pilot was captured by Pakistan. He was released two days later after reported intervention from Washington and other world powers.

But the intensity of the current conflict is different and passions are running high on both sides.

While the Trump administration’s priorities are more about tariffs, China and Ukraine-Russia, it may require a concerted attempt by the international community to lower tension between the two nuclear-armed rivals.

The other world power which has a stake in South Asia is China. Beijing has close economic and military ties with Islamabad. It has invested more than $50bn (£37.5bn) in Pakistan as parts of its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to boost trade.

China also has unresolved border issues with India and the two countries recently had a border clash in the Himalayan region 2020. Despite the tension, China is the second largest trading partner of India.

"If the US is uninterested [in resolving India-Pakistan tension] then other permanent members of the UN Security Council – P5 - should get involved. It is their responsibility as well," Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international affairs expert tells the BBC.

As India accuses Pakistan of supporting the Kashmiri separatist rebels, who carried out the deadly attack on tourists last month, the Chinese academic says "the P-5 members can launch a credible investigation into the incident", to address India's concerns.

Gulf states like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have close ties to both the countries, could step up their mediation efforts.

Saudi Arabian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir arrived in Delhi on 7 May in what was seen as a surprise visit amid the backdrop of a spike in tensions between India and Pakistan.

“A good meeting with Adel Al-Jubeir," Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said, adding that his counterpart “shared India’s perspective on firmly countering terrorism”.

The Saudi minister arrived in Islamabad on Friday for talks with Pakistan's leaders.

There are an estimated 2.6 million Pakistanis living and working in the Gulf Kingdom. Riyadh has considerable influence in Pakistan.

Saudi Arabia has loaned billions of dollars to Pakistan to bail out the country during economic crises over the years.

One way out of the current crisis could be a situation where both sides can claim victory to satisfy their audience.

Delhi says the missile strikes on suspected militant hideouts inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir were part of a commitment to hold “accountable” those responsible for the last month’s attack in Pahalgam.

“India has already said it has achieved its objectives. Now, the ball is in Pakistan’s court. If they wish to retaliate then that would elicit a strong response from India,” retired Indian Lt Gen D S Hooda said.

For Pakistan, especially for its powerful military, it would want to show its people that it can stand up against India and teach it a lesson once again by downing five of the Indian air force jets during a dog fight.

India has not acknowledged the loss of any of its fighter jets in the current skirmish.

But according to Pakistani academic Siddiqa, how the current crisis ends depends on what India’s stated objectives are.

“India’s goal posts keep changing day by day – from punishing Pakistan to attaining something more,” she said.

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