Stock markets in London, Paris and Berlin fell as trading began on Thursday after US President Donald Trump's sweeping announcements on tariffs.

The UK's FTSE 100 share index was down 1% while France's Cac 40 fell 1.7%.

Earlier Asian markets had slid, while the price of gold, which is seen as a safer assest in times of turbulance, climbed to a record high.

Traders are concerned about the global economic impact of Trump's tariffs, which they fear could stoke inflation and stall growth.

Markets across Asia had fallen sharply after Trump's announcement, with the Nikkei in Japan closing down nearly 3% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index 1.5% lower.

The price of gold hit a record high of $3,167.57 an ounce at one point on Thursday, before falling back.

A combination of a 10% baseline levy and higher duties on a number of other trading partners reverses decades of liberalisation that shaped the global trade order.

"This is the worst-case scenario," said Jay Hatfield, chief executive at Infrastructure Capital Advisors.

"Enough to potentially send the US into a recession," he added, echoing nervous market sentiment.

• Live: Follow the latest reaction to the tariff announcement
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George Saravelos, head of FX at Deutsche Bank Research, said the new US trade tariffs were a "highly mechanical" reaction to trade deficits, rather than the "sophisticated assessment" the White House had promised.

He warned the move "risks lowering the policy credibility of the [Trump] administration".

"The market may question the extent to which a sufficiently structured planning process for major economic decisions is taking place. After all, this is the biggest trade policy shift from the US in a century," he said.

Donald Trump announced a sweeping new set of reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday, arguing that they would allow the United States to succeed.

Trump's tariffs, which he will impose via executive order, are expected to send economic shockwaves around the world. The White House released a list of roughly 100 countries and the tariff rates that the US would impose in kind.

Here are the basic elements of the plan.

10% baseline tariff

In a background call before Trump's speech, a senior White House official told reporters that the president would impose "baseline tariffs" on all countries.

That rate is set at 10% and will go into effect on 5 April.

Trump argued that Americans were being "ripped off," and that raising tariffs on foreign imports would help restore US manufacturing, reduce taxes, and pay down the national debt.

Trump and White House staffers portrayed the current tariff rates as lenient, compared to the maximum the administration could impose.

Some countries will only face the base rate. These include:

• United Kingdom
• Singapore
• Brazil
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Turkey
• Colombia
• Argentina
• El Salvador
• United Arab Emirates
• Saudi Arabia

Custom tariffs for 'worst offenders'

White House officials also said that they would impose specific reciprocal tariffs on roughly 60 "worst offenders", to go into effect on 9 April.

These countries impose higher tariffs on US goods, impose "non-tariff" barriers to US trade or have otherwise acted in ways the government feels undermine American economic goals.

The White House official said each tariff would be tailored to the specific targeted country.

"We're being very kind," Trump said at his White House event. The tariffs were not fully reciprocal he said, because he would impose a "discounted" reciprocal rate less than what his staff had determined to fully match the trade impact of a given country's trade policies.

The key trading partners subject to these customised tariff rates include:

• European Union: 20%
• China: 34%
• Vietnam: 46%
• Thailand: 36%
• Japan: 24%
• Cambodia: 49%
• South Africa: 30%
• Taiwan: 32%

No additional tariffs on Canada and Mexico

Canada and Mexico are not mentioned in these new tariff announcements.

The White House says that they would deal with both countries using a framework set out in previous executive orders, which imposed tariffs on Canda and Mexico as part of the administration's efforts to address fentanyl and border issues.

He previously set those tariffs at 25%, before announcing some exemptions and delays to their implementation.

• Trump agrees to pause tariffs on Canada and Mexico

25% tariffs on auto imports

In addition, the president announced the US would impose a "25% tariff on all foreign made-automobiles".

Those tariffs would go into affect almost immediately, at midnight on 3 April.

US President Donald Trump has announced fresh import taxes on goods being imported to America in the latest escalation of the global trade war.

The UK has been hit with a 10% tariff on all of its goods being brought into the US, which Trump says is a retaliation to UK tariffs on American goods, but uncertainty remains over the potential impact on British consumers.

Here's how you and your money could be affected.

1. Prices could go up, but could also go down

The tariffs Trump has just announced will be paid for by the businesses which import goods into the US.

Clarissa Hahn, economist at Oxford Economics, says this means that the initial impact of price rises will be on US consumers, as American firms are likely to pass on the extra costs to their customers.

However, she adds people in the UK could subsequently be affected by the measures, which come into effect on 5 April.

One way is via the value of the pound and exchange rates, which dictate the cost to UK businesses importing goods and raw materials from abroad. If import costs go up, these extra costs could be passed on to consumers through higher prices.

Following Trump's speech on Wednesday, exchange rates between the dollar and pound fluctuated. If the value of the dollar strengthens as some economists have predicted, import costs could rise for UK firms importing goods.

Higher prices in the UK could also "prompt workers to demand higher wages", which would further raise costs for businesses, according to Ahmet Ihsan Kaya, principal economist, at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

Ms Hahn adds if the UK government decides to retaliate with tariffs of its own on US goods entering the UK, there is a risk UK prices could rise if British businesses pass on extra costs to customers.

However, some economists have suggested prices could also initially fall as a result of Trump's decision to impose tariffs.

Swati Dhingra, economist and member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, which sets interest rates, has suggested that firms which normally send their goods to the US, may instead send them to counties such as the UK which don't have such steep tariffs, potentially leading to a flood of cheaper goods in the UK.

"Tariffs of the proposed magnitude are likely to prompt firms that export to the US to lower their prices to retain demand for their products," she suggests.

2. It could affect your job

British companies which export goods to the US are set be the hardest hit from the latest measures.

The UK exported almost £60bn worth of goods to the US last year, mainly machinery, cars and pharmaceuticals. Other industries, which are big exporters to the US, include fishing and electronics.

If US demand for UK products dwindles due to the extra charges importers face, this could hit profit margins and ultimately lead to UK job cuts unless British firms find new customers outside the US.

According to the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank, Jaguar Land Rover and the Mini factory in Cowley, Oxford, appear to be the most exposed to US tariffs on cars.

It says more than 25,000 jobs in the UK car manufacturing industry "could be at risk" with a 25% tariff coming into effect on Thursday, with one in eight UK-built cars exported to the US.

The pharmaceutical industry is also heavily reliant on trade with the US, says Ms Hahn, of Oxford Economics.

The US makes up 40% of AstraZeneca's sales and 50% of GSK's. Although both British-headquartered firms have manufacturing facilities in America, raw ingredients for life-saving medicines and vaccines travel between the UK, EU and US. Under tariffs the firms could be hit with multiple tax charges as they cross borders to be developed.

There is also the issue of how tariffs work when they collide with pricing caps that both the NHS and other health organisations set for buying drugs in bulk.

3. Interest rates may stay higher for longer

UK interest rates dictate the costs households have to pay to borrow money for things such as mortgages, credit cards and loans. Higher rates also boost returns for savers.

They are currently at 4.5%, but economists are predicting two more rate cuts by the end of the year.

However, the Bank of England highlighted US tariffs as a reason why it avoided cutting rates further last month, saying economic and global trade uncertainty had "intensified".

If prices are pushed up for long enough to affect the rate of inflation - this could mean interest rates stay higher for longer.

Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England governor, said it was Bank's job "to make sure that inflation stays low and stable" and that would be "looking very closely" at the impact of tariffs.

Hungary's government has announced it is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The move was announced by a senior official in Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government hours after Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who is sought under an ICC arrest warrant, arrived in Hungary for a state visit.

Orban had invited Netanyahu as soon as the warrant was issued last November, saying the ruling would have "no effect" in his country.

In November, ICC judges said there were "reasonable grounds" that Netanyahu bore "criminal responsibility" for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas. Netanyahu has condemned the ICC's decision as "antisemitic".

The ICC, a global court, has the authority to prosecute those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Hungary is a founding member of the ICC, which counts 125 member states, and will be the first European Union nation to pull out of it.

The US, Russia, China and North Korea are among the nations that are not part of the ICC, and therefore do not recognise its jurisdiction.

Israel is also not part of the treaty, but the ICC ruled in 2021 that it did have jurisdiction over the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, because the UN's Secretary General had accepted that Palestinians were a member.

Hungary now needs to send written notification to the UN Secretary General to leave the treaty, with the withdrawal taking effect one year later, according to article 127 of the Rome Statute.

Since the warrant was issued, Hungarian authorities should technically arrest Netanyahu and hand him over to the court in the Hague, although member states do not always choose to enforce ICC warrants.

In Europe, some ICC member states said they would arrest the Israeli leader if he set foot in their country, while others, such as Germany, announced that he would not be detained if he visited.

The White House had said the US rejected the ICC decision and Netanyahu has visited the country since the warrant was issued in November. His visit to Hungary marks Netanyahu's first trip to Europe since then.

Hungarian Defence Minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky, greeted Netanyahu on the tarmac of Budapest airport on Wednesday night, welcoming him to the country.

Soldiers lined a red carpet laid out for the Israeli leader as he exited his plane. After military honours at the presidential palace, he will meet Orban on Thursday.

Israel is appealing against the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and strongly rejects the accusations. It both denies the authority of the ICC and the legitimacy of the warrants.

In the same ruling, ICC judges also issued a warrant against Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, whom Israel says is dead.

The visit comes as Israel announced it was expanding its Gaza offensive and establishing a new military corridor to put pressure on Hamas, as deadly Israeli strikes were reported across the Palestinian territory.

The war in Gaza was triggered by the deadly Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed some 1,200 people and led to 251 hostages being taken to Gaza. Since then, more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, Palestinian health authorities say.

French officials investigating the deaths of a British couple in their home in south-west France have said it was murder followed by suicide.

The bodies of Andrew and Dawn Searle, who previously lived in East Lothian, were found on 6 February at their home in Les Pequies, about a hour north of Toulouse.

Mrs Searle's body was found in the garden with severe wounds to her head, while her husband's body was found hanging inside.

The prosecutor in charge of the case has told the BBC there is no evidence that another person was involved in their deaths.

Mrs Searle grew up in Eyemouth in the Scottish Borders, and Mr Searle was originally from England.

They previously lived in Musselburgh and married in France in 2023.

Prosecutors said they had lived in the Aveyron region for five years.

According to his LinkedIn page, Mr Searle previously worked in financial crime prevention at companies including Standard Life and Barclays Bank.

Dawn Searle's son, the Hollyoaks actor Callum Kerr, issued a statement on social media at the time of the deaths

He said: "At this time, Callum Kerr and Amanda Kerr are grieving the loss of their mother, Dawn Searle (née Smith, Kerr) while Tom Searle and Ella Searle are mourning the loss of their father, Andrew Searle."

He requested that the family's privacy be respected during this "difficult period".

Mr Kerr, 30, walked his mother down the aisle when she married Mr Searle at a ceremony in France in 2023.

The government is sitting on its hands over the Birmingham bin strike as negotiations in the dispute descend into farce, a union boss says.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has told Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner the government can no longer say it is "nothing to do with us. We can't get involved".

In a letter to Rayner, leaked to the BBC, Graham also claims "false narratives" have been used in government statements on the dispute that has left more than 17,000 tonnes of waste on city streets.

Birmingham City Council said it was "grateful for the government's support", while the government said the dispute should remain "locally led" while calling for "an immediate agreement".

"Every attempt being made to solve the dispute by Unite negotiators in the room, is being met with 'a computer says no' answer," Graham told Rayner in her letter.

Unite has claimed a planned restructuring of Birmingham's refuse service would see 50 workers lose £8,000 a year and about 20 lose £2,000 per annum.

However, the local authority rejects that and says under its pay restructuring plan a total of only 17 workers would face up to a £6,000 loss per year. Councillors have added that under other deals offered, "no worker needed to lose a penny".

"Let me be very clear that the pay of these workers is being cut by a Labour council under your watch. That is a fact that can't be avoided," Graham wrote to Rayner.

"The current escalation increasingly looks like a declaration of war on these workers."

In a statement to the House of Commons on Tuesday, local government minister Jim McMahon relied on "false narratives" around the proposals and demonstrated a lack of understanding about the dispute, Graham wrote.

She goes on to argue councillors involved in negotiations have no power to make decisions.

"This predetermined charade is played out after 'consultation' with those outside the room - namely the government-appointed commissioner Max Caller, who is directly under your department and your authority," she said.

"Mr Caller is supposed to be acting in an advisory capacity. However, he has been acting as the principal decision maker."

Caller was brought in by the previous Conservative government in 2023, when the council declared itself essentially bankrupt, having paid out more than £1bn in equal pay claims.

The payouts were part of a wider financial crisis that left the council with the greatest level of debt of any local authority in England.

"I am of course acutely aware of the financial position of the council," wrote Graham.

"But it is clear to me that my members' pockets are being picked to make savings due to historic debts.

"Indeed, Birmingham council are currently making repayments (including interest) of £250m per year, almost all of it to the Treasury, on a £3.9bn debt."

While accepting the government has no "appetite for debt cancellation", she said reducing the repayment period and the rate of interest the council is paying the government over its debts could be reviewed.

'Full-blown crisis'

”We need to have an emergency meeting with the leader of the council, regarding debt restructuring and immediately investigate the role of the commissioner in the dispute," she said.

"We can then remove the threat of cutting £8,000 per year from our members‘ pay packets and discuss sensible solutions."

Without addressing these problems with councils more widely, Graham said "we are looking at a full-blown crisis in local government".

A government spokesperson said: "It is right that this continues to be a locally led response, as is usual in the case of council-run services.

"But we are monitoring the situation closely and will not hesitate to act should the council require additional support."

The city council said the need to "modernise the waste service and eliminate any future equal pay risk" was unrelated to its debt issues.

"A fair and reasonable offer remains on the table which would bring this dispute to an end," a spokesperson added.

Analysis

By Elizabeth Glinka, West Midlands Political Editor

The Unite general secretary has been notable largely by her absence during this strike.

Sharon Graham seldom pulls her punches, but apart from giving a few quotes, she has not been on picket lines, and failed to give interviews bashing the council or the government.

As her letter indicates, senior figures have conversations behind the scenes, but so far this dispute appears intractable and as the weather forecast predicts highs of 20C, the mood in the city continues to sour.

With some union members under threat of redundancy and the declaration of a major incident just this week, the council position appears to be hardening. This letter to the deputy prime minister seems to be an attempt to shift the dial.

The council says the changes it is making to pay grades within the refuse service, are inextricably linked to equal pay. It must change or face more equal pay claims.

Those claims running into three quarters of a billion pounds were one of the driving factors that pushed the council into effective bankruptcy in 2023.

Ms Graham appears to be saying to the government – help the council with its debt, and my members might have more of a chance of a deal.

Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.

Donald Trump's politics have shifted considerably over his decades in the public sphere. But one thing he has been consistent on, since the 1980s, is his belief that tariffs are an effective means of boosting the US economy.

Now, he's staking his presidency on his being right.

At his Rose Garden event at the White House, surrounded by friends, conservative politicians and cabinet secretaries, Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on a broad range of countries – allies, competitors and adversaries alike.

In a speech that was equal parts celebration and self-congratulation, regularly punctuated by applause from the crowd, the president recalled his longtime support of tariffs, as well as his early criticism of free trade agreements like Nafta and the World Trade Organization.

The president acknowledged that he will face pushback in the coming days from "globalists" and "special interests", but he urged Americans to trust his instincts.

"Never forget, every prediction our opponents made about trade for the last 30 years has been proven totally wrong," he said.

• Trump to charge tariffs of up to 50% on 'worst offenders' globally
• UK firms react to Trump tariffs: 'It's a huge blow to Scotland's whisky industry'
• No additional US tariffs for Canada, but no relief either

Now, in a second term in which he is surrounded by like-minded advisers and is the dominant force in a Republican Party that controls both chambers of Congress, Trump is in a position to turn his vision of a new America-focused trade policy into reality. These policies, he said, had made the United States into a wealthy nation more than a century ago and would again.

"For years, hard working American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense," he said. "With today's action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again - greater than ever before."

It is still an enormous risk for this president to take.

Economists of all stripes warn that these massive tariffs – 53% on China, 20% on the European Union and South Korea, with a 10% baseline on all nations – will be passed along to American consumers, raising prices and threatening a global recession.

Ken Roggoff, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, predicted that the chances of the US, the world's largest economy, falling into recession had risen to 50% on the back of this announcement.

"He just dropped a nuclear bomb on the global trading system," Mr Roggoff told the BBC World Service, adding that the consequences for this level of taxes on imports into the US "is just mind-boggling".

Trump's move also risks escalating a trade war with other countries and alienating allies that America has otherwise tried to strengthen ties with. The US, for instance, sees Japan and South Korea as a bulwark against Chinese expansionist ambitions. But those three countries recently announced that they would work together to respond to America's trade policies.

If Trump is successful, however, he would fundamentally reshape a global economic order that America had originally helped to construct from the ashes of World War 2. He promises that this will rebuild American manufacturing, create new sources of revenue, and make America more self-reliant and insulated from the kind of global supply chain shocks that wreaked havoc on the US during the Covid pandemic.

It's a tall order – and one that many believe to be highly unrealistic. But for a president who seems fixated on cementing his legacy, whether through ending wars, renaming geographic locations, acquiring new territory or dismantling federal programmes and its workforce, this is the biggest, most consequential prize to be won.

It would be, he styled, America's "liberation day".

What appears clear, however, is that Wednesday's announcement, if he follows through, is almost certain to mark a historic change. The question is whether it will be a legacy of achievement or one of notoriety.

Trump's speech was triumphant - one that belied the potentially high costs his moves would impose on the American economy and on his own political standing.

But, he said, it was worth it - even if, at the very end of his remarks, a small shadow of presidential doubt may have peaked through the bravado.

"It's going to be a day that - hopefully - you're going to look back in years to come and you're going to say, you know, he was right."

Donald Trump announced a sweeping new set of reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday, arguing that they would allow the United States to succeed.

Trump's tariffs, which he will impose via executive order, are expected to send economic shockwaves around the world. The White House released a list of roughly 100 countries and the tariff rates that the US would impose in kind.

Here are the basic elements of the plan.

10% baseline tariff

In a background call before Trump's speech, a senior White House official told reporters that the president would impose "baseline tariffs" on all countries.

That rate is set at 10% and will go into effect on 5 April.

Trump argued that Americans were being "ripped off," and that raising tariffs on foreign imports would help restore US manufacturing, reduce taxes, and pay down the national debt.

Trump and White House staffers portrayed the current tariff rates as lenient, compared to the maximum the administration could impose.

Some countries will only face the base rate. These include:

• United Kingdom
• Singapore
• Brazil
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Turkey
• Colombia
• Argentina
• El Salvador
• United Arab Emirates
• Saudi Arabia

Custom tariffs for 'worst offenders'

White House officials also said that they would impose specific reciprocal tariffs on roughly 60 "worst offenders", to go into effect on 9 April.

These countries impose higher tariffs on US goods, impose "non-tariff" barriers to US trade or have otherwise acted in ways the government feels undermine American economic goals.

The White House official said each tariff would be tailored to the specific targeted country.

"We're being very kind," Trump said at his White House event. The tariffs were not fully reciprocal he said, because he would impose a "discounted" reciprocal rate less than what his staff had determined to fully match the trade impact of a given country's trade policies.

The key trading partners subject to these customised tariff rates include:

• European Union: 20%
• China: 34%
• Vietnam: 46%
• Thailand: 36%
• Japan: 24%
• Cambodia: 49%
• South Africa: 30%
• Taiwan: 32%

No additional tariffs on Canada and Mexico

Canada and Mexico are not mentioned in these new tariff announcements.

The White House says that they would deal with both countries using a framework set out in previous executive orders, which imposed tariffs on Canda and Mexico as part of the administration's efforts to address fentanyl and border issues.

He previously set those tariffs at 25%, before announcing some exemptions and delays to their implementation.

• Trump agrees to pause tariffs on Canada and Mexico

25% tariffs on auto imports

In addition, the president announced the US would impose a "25% tariff on all foreign made-automobiles".

Those tariffs would go into affect almost immediately, at midnight on 3 April.

The impact of these tariffs on the world economy will be huge.

They can be measured by the lines on a chart of US tariff revenue jumping to levels not seen in a century - beyond those seen during the high protectionism of the 1930s.

Or in the overnight stock market falls, especially in Asia.

But the true measure of these changes will be significant changes to long-standing global avenues of trade.

At its heart this is a universal tariff of 10% on all imports into the US for everyone, coming in on Friday night. On top of that dozens of "worst offenders" will be charged reciprocally for having trade surpluses.

The tariffs on Asian nations are truly remarkable. They will break the business models of thousands of companies, factories, and possibly entire nations.

Some of the supply chains created by the world's biggest companies will be broken instantly. The inevitable impact will surely be to push them towards China.

• Live: Follow the latest reaction to the tariff announcement
• Trump's plan at a glance
• UK firms react: 'It's a huge blow'

Is this just a grand negotiation? Well the US administration appears to be claiming the tariff revenue for planned tax cuts. The scope for quick adjustment seems limited. As one White House official said bluntly: "This is not a negotiation, it's a national emergency".

The aim of the policy is to get the US trade deficit "back to zero". This is a total rewiring of the world economy.

But shifting factories will take years. Tariffs at this scale on East Asia especially at 30 or 40% will hike prices of clothes, toys and electronics much more quickly.

The question now is how the rest of the world responds.

There are opportunities for some consumers in Europe to benefit from cheaper diverted trade in clothes and electronics. Outside of an inward-looking number one world economy, the rest of the big economies may choose to integrate trade more closely.

As Tesla's slumping sales may illustrate, only part of this story is about the response of governments. These days consumers can retaliate too. It may be a new sort of social media trade war.

Europe could decide not to continue buying the consumer brands created in the US, and loved across the world.

The monopoly in the provision of social media services by big US tech could be shaken up.

And US authorities may need to raise interest rates to combat the inevitable spike in inflation.

A messy global trade war looks inevitable.

It's 10am, and in a little over two hours, Wayne Hawkins will be dead.

The sun is shining on the bungalow where the 80-year-old lives in San Diego, California with his wife of more than five decades, Stella.

I knock on the door and meet his children - Emily, 48, and Ashley, 44 - who have spent the last two weeks at their father's side.

Wayne sits in a reclining chair where he spends most of his days. Terminally ill, he is too weak to leave the house.

He has invited BBC News to witness his death under California's assisted dying laws - because if MPs in London vote to legalise the practice in England and Wales, it will allow some terminally ill people here to die in a similar way.

Half an hour after arriving at Wayne's house, I watch him swallow three anti-nausea tablets, designed to minimise the risk of him vomiting the lethal medication he plans to take shortly.

Are you sure this day is your last, I ask him? "I'm all in," he replies. "I was determined and decided weeks ago - I've had no trepidation since then."

His family ask for one last photo, which I take. As usual, Stella and Wayne are holding hands.

Shortly after, Dr Donnie Moore arrives. He has got to know the family over the past few weeks, visiting them on several occasions alongside running his own end-of-life clinic. Under California law, he is what is known as the attending physician who must confirm, in addition to a second doctor, that Wayne is eligible for aid in dying.

Dr Moore's role is part physician, part counsellor in this situation, one he has been in for 150 assisted deaths before.

On a top shelf in Wayne's bedroom sits a brown glass bottle containing a fine white powder - a mixture of five drugs, sedatives and painkillers, delivered to the house the previous day. The dosage of drugs inside is hundreds of times higher than those used in regular healthcare and is "guaranteed" to be fatal, Dr Moore explains. Unlike California, the proposed law at Westminster would require a doctor to bring any such medication with them.

When Wayne signals he is ready, the doctor mixes the meds with cherry and pineapple juice to soften the bitter taste - and he hands this pink liquid to Wayne.

No one, not even the doctor, knows how long it will take him to die after taking the lethal drugs. Dr Moore explains to me that, in his experience, death usually occurs between 30 minutes and two hours of ingestion, but on one occasion it took 17 hours.

This is the story of how and why Wayne chose to die. And why others have decided not to follow the same course.

We first met the couple a few weeks earlier, when Wayne explained why he was going ahead with the decision to have an assisted death - a controversial measure in other parts of the world.

"Some days the pain is almost more than I can handle," he said. "I just don't see any merit to dying slow and painfully, hooked up with stuff - intubation, feeding tubes," he told me. "I want none of it."

Wayne said he had watched two relatives die "miserable", "heinous" deaths from heart failure.

"I hate hospitals, they are miserable. I will die in the street first."

Wayne met Stella in 1969; the couple married four years later. He told us it was something of an arranged marriage, as his mother kept inviting Stella for dinner until eventually the penny dropped that he should take her out.

They lived for many years in Arcata, northern California, surrounded by sweeping forests of redwood trees, where Wayne worked as a landscape architect, while Stella was a primary school teacher. They spent their holidays hiking and camping with their children.

Now Wayne is terminally ill with heart failure, which has already brought him close to death. He has myriad other health issues including prostate cancer, liver failure and sepsis which brings him serious spinal pain.

He has less than six months to live, qualifying him for an assisted death in California. His request to die has been approved by two doctors and the lethal medication is self-administered.

It was during our first meeting that he asked the BBC to return to observe his final day, saying he wanted terminally ill adults in the UK to have the same right to an assisted death as him.

"Britain is pretty good with freedoms and this is just another one," he said. "People should be able to choose the time of their death as long as they meet the rules like six months to live or less."

Stella, 78, supports his decision. "I've known him for over 50 years. He's a very independent man. He's always known what he wants to do and he's always fixed things. That's how he's operating now. If this is his choice, I definitely agree, and I've seen him really suffer with the illness he's got. I don't want that for him."

Wayne would also qualify under the proposed new assisted dying law in England and Wales. The measures return to the House of Commons later this month, when all MPs will have a chance to debate and vote on changes to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

The proposed legislation, tabled by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, says that anyone who wants to end their life must have the mental capacity to make the choice, that they must be expected to die within six months, and must make two separate declarations - witnessed and signed - about their wish to die. They must satisfy two independent doctors that they are eligible.

MPs in Westminster voted in favour of assisted dying in principle last November but remain bitterly divided on the issue. If they ultimately decide to approve the bill, it could become law within the next year and come into practice within the next four years.

There are also divisions here in California, where assisted dying was introduced in 2016. Michelle and Mike Carter, both 72 and married for 43 years, are each being treated for cancer - Mike has prostate cancer that has spread to his lymph nodes, and Michelle's advanced terminal ovarian cancer has spread throughout much of her body.

"I held my mother's hand when she passed; I held my father's hand when he passed," Michelle told me. "I believe there's freedom of choice however for me, I choose palliative care… I have God and I have good medicine."

Michelle's physician, palliative care specialist Dr Vincent Nguyen, argued that assisted dying laws in the US state lead to "silent coercion" whereby vulnerable people think their only option is to die. "Instead of ending people's lives, let's put programmes together to care for people," he said. "Let them know that they're loved, they're wanted and they're worthy."

He said the law meant that doctors have gone from being seen as healers to killers, while the message from the healthcare system was that "you are better off dead, because you're expensive and your death is cheaper for us".

Some disability campaigners say assisted dying makes them feel unsafe. Ingrid Tischer, who has muscular dystrophy and chronic respiratory failure, told me: "The message that it sends to people with disabilities in California is that you deserve suicide assistance rather than suicide prevention when you voice a desire to end your life.

"What does that say about who we are as a culture?"

Critics often say that once assisted dying is legalised, over time the safeguards around such laws get eroded as part of a "slippery slope" towards more relaxed criteria. In California, there was initially a mandatory 15-day cooling off period between patients making a first and second request for aid in dying. That has been reduced to 48 hours because many patients were dying during the waiting period. It's thought the approval process envisaged in Westminster would take around a month.

'Goodbye,' Wayne tells his family

Outside Wayne's house on the morning of his death, a solitary bird begins its loud and elaborate song. "There's that mockingbird out there," Wayne tells Stella, as smiles flicker across their faces.

Wayne hates the bird because it keeps him awake at night, Stella jokes, hand in hand with him to one side of his chair. Emily and Ashley are next to Stella.

Dr Moore, seated on Wayne's other side, hands him the pink liquid which he swallows without hesitation. "Goodnight," he says to his family - a typical touch of humour from a man who told us he was determined to die on his terms. It's 11.47am.

After two minutes, Wayne says he is getting sleepy. Dr Moore asks him to imagine he is walking in a vast sea of flowers with a soft breeze on his skin, which seems appropriate for a patient who has spent much of his life among nature.

After three minutes Wayne enters a deep sleep from which he will never wake. On a few occasions he lifts his head to take a deep breath without opening his eyes, at one point beginning to snore softly.

Dr Moore tells the family this is "the deepest sleep imaginable" and reassures Emily there is no chance her dad will wake up and ask, "did it work?"

"Oh that would be just like him," Stella says with a laugh.

The family start to reminisce about hiking holidays and driving around in a large van they converted to become a camper. "Me and dad insulated it and put a bed in the back," says Ashley.

On the walls are photos of Emily and Ashley as small children next to huge carved Halloween pumpkins.

Dr Moore is still stroking Wayne's hand and occasionally checking his pulse. For a man who Emily says was "always walking, always outdoors, always active", these are the final moments of life's journey, spent surrounded by those who mean most to him.

At 12.22pm Dr Moore says, "I think he's passed… He's at peace now."

Outside, the mockingbird has fallen silent. "No more pain," says Stella, embracing her children in her arms.

I step outside to give the family some space, and reflect on what we have just seen and filmed.

I have been covering medical ethics for the BBC for more than 20 years. In 2006, I was present just outside an apartment in Zurich where Dr Anne Turner, a retired doctor, died with the help of the group Dignitas - but California was the first time I had been an eyewitness to an assisted death.

This isn't just a story about one man's death in California - it's about what could become a reality here in England and Wales for those who qualify for an assisted death and choose to die this way.

Whether you're for or against the proposed new Westminster law, the death of a loved one is a deeply personal and emotional time for a family. Each death leaves an imprint, as will Wayne's.

Additional reporting by Josh Falcon

Outrage is a precious political currency and France's far right has spent this week attempting, furiously and predictably, to capitalise on the perceived injustice of a court's decision to block its totemic leader, Marine Le Pen, from standing in the 2027 presidential election.

The airwaves have been throbbing with indignation.

"Be outraged," said one of Le Pen's key deputies, on French television, in case anyone was in doubt as to what their reaction should be.

But it remains unclear whether Le Pen's tough sentence will broaden support for her party, the National Rally (RN), or lead to greater fragmentation of the French far right. Either way, it has created a feverish mood among the nation's politicians.

Le Pen and her allies have boldly declared that France's institutions, and democracy itself, have been "executed", are "dead", or "violated". The country's justice system has been turned into a "political" hit squad, shamelessly intervening in a nation's right to choose its own leaders. And Marine Le Pen has been widely portrayed, with something close to certainty, as France's president-in-waiting, as the nation's most popular politician, cruelly robbed of her near-inevitable procession towards the Élysée Palace.

"The system has released a nuclear bomb, and if it is using such a powerful weapon against us, it is obviously because we are about to win the elections," Le Pen fumed at a news conference, comparing herself to the poisoned, imprisoned, and now dead Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

As France assesses its latest political tremors, an uneven pushback has begun.

No clear frontrunner for president

Nervous about the impact the judgement may have for the country's frail coalition government, the Prime Minister François Bayrou has admitted to feeling "troubled" by Le Pen's sentence and worried about a "shock" to public opinion.

But other centrist politicians have taken a firmer line, stressing the need for a clear gap between the justice system and politics.

An early opinion poll appears to show the French public taking a calm line, bursting – or at least deflating – the RN's bubble of outrage. The poll, produced within hours of the court's ruling, showed less than a third of the country – 31% - felt the decision to block Le Pen, immediately, from running for public office, was unjust.

Tellingly, that figure was less than the 37% of French people who recently expressed an interest in voting for her as president.

In other words, plenty of people who like her as a politician also think it reasonable that her crimes should disqualify her from running for office.

And remember, French presidential elections are still two years away – an eternity in the current political climate.

Emmanuel Macron is not entitled to stand for another term and no clear alternative to Le Pen, from the left or centre of French politics, has yet emerged. Le Pen's share of the vote has consistently risen during her previous three failed bids for the top job but it is premature, at best, to consider her a shoo-in for 2027.

Le Pen's crime and punishment

Anyone who followed the court case against her and her party colleagues in an impartial fashion would struggle to conclude that the verdicts in Le Pen's case were unreasonable.

The evidence of a massive and coordinated project to defraud the European Parliament and its associated taxpayers included jaw-droppingly incriminating emails suggesting officials knew exactly what they were doing, and the illegality of their actions.

That the corruption was for the party, not for personal gain, surely changes nothing. Corruption is corruption. Besides, other parties have also been found guilty of similar offences.

Regarding the punishments handed out by the court, here it seems fair to argue that Le Pen and her party made a strategic blunder in their approach to the case.

Had they acknowledged the facts, and their errors, and cooperated in facilitating a swift trial rather than helping to drag the process out for almost a decade, the judges – as they've now made clear – might have taken their attitude towards the case into consideration when considering punishments.

"Neither during the investigation nor at the trial did [Le Pen] show any awareness of the need for probity as an elected official, nor of the ensuing responsibilities," wrote the judges in a document explaining, often indignantly, why they'd delivered such a tough sentence.

They berated Le Pen for seeking to delay or avoid justice with "a defence system that disregards the uncovering of the truth".

Hypocrisy among the elite

It is worth noting, here, the wider hypocrisy demonstrated by elites across France's political spectrum who have recently been muttering their sympathy for Le Pen. It is nine years since MPs voted to toughen up the laws on corruption, introducing the very sanctions - on immediately banning criminals from public office - that were used by the judges in this case.

That toughening was welcomed by the public as an antidote to a judicial system stymied by an indulgent culture of successive appeals that enabled – and sometimes still enables - politicians to dodge accountability for decades.

Le Pen is now being gleefully taunted by her critics online with the many past instances in which she has called for stricter laws on corruption.

"When are we going to learn the lessons and effectively introduce lifelong ineligibility for those who have been convicted of acts committed while in office or during their term of office?" she asked in 2013.

Reasonable people can reasonably disagree about the court's sentencing decisions in Le Pen's case. But the notion – enthusiastically endorsed by populist and hard-right politicians across Europe and the US – that she is a victim of a conspiratorial political plot has clearly not convinced most French people.

At least not yet.

Future of France's far right

So where does this verdict – clearly a seismic moment in French politics – leave the National Rally and the wider far-right movement?

The short answer is that no one knows. There are so many variables involved – from the fate of Le Pen's fast-tracked appeal, to the RN's succession strategy, to the state of France's precarious finances, to the broader political climate and the see-sawing appetite for populism both within France and globally – that predictions are an even more dubious game than usual.

The most immediate question – given the slow pace of the legal appeal that Le Pen has vowed to initiate – is whether the RN will seek prompt revenge in parliament by attempting to bring down the fragile coalition government of François Bayrou.

That could lead to new parliamentary elections this summer and the possibility that the RN could capitalise on its victim status to increase its lead in parliament and perhaps, even, to push the country towards a deadlock in which President Macron might – yet another "might" – feel obliged to step down.

One person who will now be facing extra scrutiny is Le Pen's almost but not quite anointed successor, 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, who could be drafted in as a replacement presidential candidate if Le Pen's own "narrow path" towards the Élysée remains blocked on appeal.

If social-media-savvy Bardella's popularity among French youth is any indication of his prospects, he could well sweep to victory in 2027. He has found a way to tap into the frustrations of people angry about falling living standards and concerns about immigration.

But turning youthful support into actual votes is not always straightforward, and other, more experienced and mainstream figures on the right may well be sensing an opportunity too.

The Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, is widely seen to be emerging as a potential contender. Some even wonder if the provocative television personality, Cyril Hanouna, might become a serious political force on the right of French politics.

Meanwhile, Bardella, like the RN in general, has been on a highly disciplined mission to detoxify the party's once overtly racist and antisemitic brand. In February, for instance, he abandoned plans to speak at America's far-right CPAC event after Donald Trump's former advisor Steve Bannon made a Nazi salute.

But this week's events have revealed that the RN is enthusiastically committed to the distinctly Trump-ian and populist strategy of blaming its misfortunes on a "swamp" of unelected officials. Bardella, meanwhile, complained about the recent closure of two right-wing media channels alongside his party's own legal struggles.

"There is an extremely serious drift today that does not reflect the idea we have of French democracy," he said.

It's the sort of language that goes down well with the RN's core constituency, but its broader appeal may be limited in a country that remains, in many ways, deeply attached to its institutions.

To frame it another way, will French voters be more motivated by the belief that Le Pen was unfairly punished, or by concern that the judges involved have since been the victims of death threats and other insults?

As for Marine Le Pen, she has vowed that she will not be sidelined. But her destiny is not entirely in her own hands now. At the age of 56 she has become a familiar figure, fiery at times, but personally approachable, warm and, in political terms, profoundly influential and disciplined. So what next for her?

France has had one Le Pen or other (Marine's father, Jean-Marie ran four times) on their presidential ballot paper since 1988. Always unsuccessfully.

History may well look back on this week as the moment Marine Le Pen's fate was sealed, in one of three ways: as France's first female and first far-right president, swept to power on a tide of outrage. As the four-time loser of a French presidential election, finally denied power by the taint of corruption. Or as someone whose soaring political career was brought to an early and shuddering halt by her own miscalculations over a serious embezzlement scandal.

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Myanmar's junta chief Min Aung Hlaing will travel to Thailand for a regional summit as his country reels from an earthquake that killed thousands and left cities in ruins.

The earthquake in central Myanmar last Friday killed 3,085 people and injured 4,715, the junta has said. Hundreds more are missing and the toll is expected to rise.

A spokesman for the Myanmar army said Min Aung Hlaing is scheduled to fly to Bangkok on Thursday, on the eve of a summit that will gather leaders of the seven countries that border the Bay of Bengal.

His attendance will be unusual as sanctioned leaders are typically barred from these events.

Host Thailand, where the earthquake was felt and killed 21 people, has proposed that the leaders issue a joint statement on the disaster. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka are also part of the summit.

Countries around the world have sent aid and rescue teams to Myanmar since the quake, but poor infrastructure and an ongoing civil war has complicated relief efforts.

The junta announced a temporary ceasefire late on Wednesday to expedite these efforts, after earlier rejecting proposals from armed ethnic rebel groups.

Before this, the military had continued its airstrikes in rebel-held areas, including those badly hit by the earthquake.

On Tuesday night, troops opened fire at a Chinese Red Cross convoy carrying relief supplies. The junta said the troops fired after the convoy refused to stop despite being signalled to do so.

Myanmar has been gripped by a bloody civil war since the military seized power in 2021, which led to the rise of an armed resistance that has been fighting alongside armed ethnic groups, some of which have been fighting the military for decades.

Years of violence have crippled the economy, supercharged inflation, and plunged the country into a humanitarian crisis.

Now, the earthquake has worsened the crisis. Humanitarian groups have urged the junta to lift any remaining obstructions to aid.

The UN has also urged the global community to ramp up aid before the monsoon season hits in about a month.

A record number of victims of so-called revenge porn reported intimate image abuse to a dedicated UK helpline last year.

In 2024, the Revenge Porn Helpline, funded by the Home Office, recorded 22,227 new cases, a 20.9% increase from the previous year.

Non-consensual intimate image (NCII) abuse is illegal in the UK, and occurs when sexual photos or videos are produced, published or reproduced without consent, both online and offline.

The helpline manually reports non-consensual intimate images for removal on behalf of victims, by using reverse image searches, and contacting the platforms where the content was shared.

The service helped to remove 81,000 intimate images last year, but despite this, re-victimisation rose by 260%, with 61,213 previously reported images continuing to circulate online.

Helpline manager Sophie Mortimer said revenge porn was one of "the most significant and concerning digital harms affecting adults".

'The shame shouldn't be on me'

Jasmine, 28, says she never thought she would become a victim of revenge porn when she shared intimate topless images of herself with an ex-boyfriend.

"You only send photos to people you trust, I'd known him for years. I never would have suspected that he would do it," she said.

"A close friend at the time messaged me to say, 'hey, look, I've come across you on these websites', and that was the first I'd heard of it. I'm not sure how long it had been happening before then," she added.

Jasmine describes feeling "constant paranoia" ever since her intimate images were shared eight years ago.

"It's horrendous, to be honest, even to the point where if a man smiles at me on the street, I'm like: 'Are you polite? Or have you seen me on one of these websites?'"

"For years I didn't talk about it, but now I've started. The shame shouldn't be on me, it should be on him. I refuse to have that shame."

Jasmine says she reported the matter to the police and the individual was given a verbal warning.

Non-consensual intimate image abuse can appear in different forms, such as sextortion, voyeurism, synthetic sexual content - also known as deepfakes and threats to share.

In the 10 years since its launch, the helpline has removed a total of 387,000 intimate images.

Manager Sophie Mortimer says the numbers coming to the helpline are just the "tip of an enormous iceberg".

She believes the true number of those affected is much higher than the reported figures show.

"What we need is really robust and detailed data collection that is consistent across all our police forces and that is then tied up with prosecution outcomes."

"We're not seeing patterns from police data, or whether there are any regional variations or what different police forces are seeing, as well as what those outcomes are like."

"Prosecution rates remain painfully low and victims deserve better outcomes."

As of 31 January 2024, prosecutors no longer need to prove intent to cause distress when a person shares non-consensual intimate images.

But it is still legal to possess them.

The Women and Equalities Committee says the law needs to be strengthened to make possession of non-consensual intimate images illegal.

Frances Ridout, director of the Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre, says those convicted of sharing intimate images without consent are sometimes given their devices back.

She says deprivation orders, which would strip offenders of this right, are not used enough.

Official police data on revenge porn is hard to quantify because there is no national database.

Each police force records data independently and follows different procedures for data collection so it is hard to get a national picture. The information provided by the Revenge Porn Helpline helps show the scale of the problem.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Women have the right to feel safe wherever they are, in both the online and offline world." Last year laws were strengthened to ensure platforms must take steps to proactively remove this material.

Jasmine says the images were removed after she reported them to the police but she regrets sharing intimate images.

"It's not worth the momentary fun versus stress for potentially the rest of your life," she says.

"Young girls need to be aware that those images can follow you for the rest of your life if they're in the wrong hands.

"And you will never know if it's the wrong hands until it's too late."

If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, help is available via the BBC Action Line

Prospective buyers say they feel "lied to" and "angry" after losing thousands of pounds reserving unfinished flats.

People paid up to £5,000 as a "reservation deposit" for apartments in Tollesbury House, Ipswich, with some being told it was expected to be finished in November 2022.

The development remains uninhabited and, after losing the fee when she pulled out, one buyer has been left asking "how long do you wait for something to be built?".

The JaeVee group, the developer, denied any misconduct and said "buyers were required to exchange contracts within an agreed timeframe", adding they lost their non-refundable reservation deposits because they did not comply with contractual deadlines as was normal in the industry.

The group has ongoing plans for more than 500 properties - mostly flats - across Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and London.

But some sites have faced years of delay, including Tollesbury House, a 16-apartment development in Ipswich's Duke Street, near the waterfront and university.

The BBC has seen a Facebook promotional video posted in January 2019 of JaeVee director Ben James Smith saying the development was expected to be finished in "15 to 18 months".

In 2022 - and with the flats still not completed - Janeane Slinn paid a £5,000 reservation deposit for an apartment.

The agreement was done with a "view to formally exchange sale contracts within six weeks" after receiving a pack from solicitors and stated an "anticipated completion date" of 29 November 2022.

Ms Slinn pulled out in March 2023 with the building still unfinished, but has been left out of pocket despite asking for her deposit back.

She said: "There must be something somewhere that says they've got to hold up their end of the deal as well as me holding up my end of the deal – they haven't built something."

Ms Slinn added: "You just feel a bit stupid, don't you? You think 'how gullible can you be to give £5,000 to people you don't even know who they are?'."

Asked about the delays at Tollesbury House, the developer said there had been a challenging economic environment across the sector during the past few years which had led to industry-wide delays.

Retired engineer Paul Sigston, 65, was looking for a home after moving back to the UK from the Netherlands in 2022. He also paid £5,000 as a "reservation deposit" and was given the same anticipated completion date in his reservation agreement.

But he asked for his money back in October 2022, writing in a letter to JaeVee that the walls weren't finished, there were no windows and "I don't think there is any chance the project will be ready for completion in November [2022]."

He said he received "absolutely no reply" to that letter and has not got his money back.

Two years later, Catherine Bullough paid £2,500 - a half-price discount for first-time buyers - in March 2024 to take a flat "off the market".

"From then on in the problems began," she claimed.

The 32-year-old was given an "anticipated completion date" of 8 May 2024 and visited weekly, excited to see progress, but "there was just absolutely nothing happening".

"Even the management office that was there when I went to look around had packed up and left," she said.

"I was being put under real pressure by the sales team to exchange contracts. I was getting phone calls most days... yet the property remained looking exactly the same."

Ms Bullough pulled out in September 2024 and while she was aware her deposit was non-refundable believed the agreement was void "because they hadn't fulfilled their end of the contract".

"I feel like the whole experience from start to finish was one of being lied to, being told false information time and time again about what was happening with the sale and with the property and it's impacted me massively," she said.

Ms Bullough said she "can't believe" others were "in the same position" as her.

"We all handed our money over, we've all not seen any of what we were promised and it makes me so angry."

Director of JaeVee Mr Smith told the BBC "at no stage did [JaeVee] say the apartments were ready at the point of reservation".

He said: "Withdrawals occurred due to buyers failing to exchange, not due to [JaeVee's] actions.

The company said the building work at Tollesbury House, which is part of a much larger phased development, would be finished in May.

The developer pointed to a challenging economic environment across the sector over the last few years which had caused industry wide delays.

What about other developments?

The JaeVee-linked group uses private investment to help fund the purchase of sites for development, like Tollesbury House, and advertises returns to investors of up to 100% when those properties are developed and then sold.

The BBC has spoken to an investor who - tempted by these sorts of returns - invested more than £84,000 combined in JaeVee's Ferry Boat Inn project in Norwich and Eastern Escape in north London in the summer of 2019.

More than five years on, one of the JaeVee subsidiary companies developing the sites is in administration and the other is in receivership.

The investor said communication had been sporadic but JaeVee "did like to contact [us] when they were looking for money for more investments – that seemed to happen a lot more frequently than giving updates on the current ones".

The JaeVee group has said it is in the process of buying back both the Eastern Escape and the Ferry Boat Inn sites using a bridging loan and that the interests of investors in these projects were being protected.

The investor - who has expressed fears for their money - said they had felt some reassurance as JaeVee was sending out more detailed updates on projects than it had in the past, but they are still waiting to see results.

Director Mr Smith said the "situation highlights a broader issue within the unregulated property development finance sector" and claimed lenders can exert pressure on put development companies "to extract additional fees and penalties from borrowers".

While seven Jaevee group-linked companies are in administration or receivership, Mr Smith told the BBC the group had an "extensive portfolio of successful developments, demonstrating our commitment to investor success and project delivery".

They include a "boutique" hotel in Wymondham, Norfolk, "high-end" residential homes in Northbourne, Kent, and turning a former seafront hotel in Sheringham, Norfolk, into flats.

He claimed "these examples reinforce that JaeVee has consistently acted in the best interests of its investors".

Office lights in some corners of Westminster were on much later than usual last night.

Why? Because ministers and officials, just like so many others, were watching the telly to see what President Trump would have to say, the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds among them.

The president, brandishing a giant rectangular piece of card packed with the new tariff increases, unleashing waves of anxiety across factory floors, boardrooms and government ministries the world over.

Folk in government in the UK had picked up a sense of the mood music – a sense that the UK was "in the good camp rather than the bad camp" as one figure put it to me – but they had no idea in advance precisely what that would mean.

We now do know what it means.

I detect a sense of relief among ministers, but make no mistake they are not delighted – the tariffs imposed on the UK will have significant effects, and the tariffs on the UK's trading partners will have a profound impact on jobs, industries and global trading flows in the weeks, months and years to come.

It will be "hugely disruptive," as one government source put it.

There is an acute awareness in particular about the impact on the car industry.

• Trump's tariffs on China, EU and more, at a glance
• UK to keep pushing for deal after Trump imposes 10% tariff
• How Trump's tariffs might affect the UK and your money
• Trump to charge tariffs of up to 50% on 'worst offenders' globally

Negotiations with America over a trade deal continue.

I am told a team of four UK negotiators are in "pretty intensive" conversation with their American counterparts – talking remotely, but willing to head to Washington if signing a deal appears imminent.

Let's see.

Those on the UK side characterise the discussions as "more like a corporate conversation than a trade negotiation", putting that down to the personnel, outlook and biographies of plenty in the Trump administration.

The other point being seized upon at Westminster, in particular by the Conservatives, is the difference between how the UK is being treated compared to the European Union – with plenty pointing to it as a dividend of Brexit.

The Liberal Democrats, by contrast, think the UK should work with Commonwealth and European allies to stand up to President Trump and impose retaliatory tariffs "if necessary".

The Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is meeting affected businesses on Thursday and the business secretary will address the Commons.

The next chapter of this economic revolution begins now, with how the world reacts, in rhetoric and retaliation.

This in itself will have a huge impact.

Whether, how and when some choose to respond will have economic and political consequences at home and abroad.

The global story of Donald Trump's tariffs is only just beginning.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.

It's 10am, and in a little over two hours, Wayne Hawkins will be dead.

The sun is shining on the bungalow where the 80-year-old lives in San Diego, California with his wife of more than five decades, Stella.

I knock on the door and meet his children - Emily, 48, and Ashley, 44 - who have spent the last two weeks at their father's side.

Wayne sits in a reclining chair where he spends most of his days. Terminally ill, he is too weak to leave the house.

He has invited BBC News to witness his death under California's assisted dying laws - because if MPs in London vote to legalise the practice in England and Wales, it will allow some terminally ill people here to die in a similar way.

Half an hour after arriving at Wayne's house, I watch him swallow three anti-nausea tablets, designed to minimise the risk of him vomiting the lethal medication he plans to take shortly.

Are you sure this day is your last, I ask him? "I'm all in," he replies. "I was determined and decided weeks ago - I've had no trepidation since then."

His family ask for one last photo, which I take. As usual, Stella and Wayne are holding hands.

Shortly after, Dr Donnie Moore arrives. He has got to know the family over the past few weeks, visiting them on several occasions alongside running his own end-of-life clinic. Under California law, he is what is known as the attending physician who must confirm, in addition to a second doctor, that Wayne is eligible for aid in dying.

Dr Moore's role is part physician, part counsellor in this situation, one he has been in for 150 assisted deaths before.

On a top shelf in Wayne's bedroom sits a brown glass bottle containing a fine white powder - a mixture of five drugs, sedatives and painkillers, delivered to the house the previous day. The dosage of drugs inside is hundreds of times higher than those used in regular healthcare and is "guaranteed" to be fatal, Dr Moore explains. Unlike California, the proposed law at Westminster would require a doctor to bring any such medication with them.

When Wayne signals he is ready, the doctor mixes the meds with cherry and pineapple juice to soften the bitter taste - and he hands this pink liquid to Wayne.

No one, not even the doctor, knows how long it will take him to die after taking the lethal drugs. Dr Moore explains to me that, in his experience, death usually occurs between 30 minutes and two hours of ingestion, but on one occasion it took 17 hours.

This is the story of how and why Wayne chose to die. And why others have decided not to follow the same course.

We first met the couple a few weeks earlier, when Wayne explained why he was going ahead with the decision to have an assisted death - a controversial measure in other parts of the world.

"Some days the pain is almost more than I can handle," he said. "I just don't see any merit to dying slow and painfully, hooked up with stuff - intubation, feeding tubes," he told me. "I want none of it."

Wayne said he had watched two relatives die "miserable", "heinous" deaths from heart failure.

"I hate hospitals, they are miserable. I will die in the street first."

Wayne met Stella in 1969; the couple married four years later. He told us it was something of an arranged marriage, as his mother kept inviting Stella for dinner until eventually the penny dropped that he should take her out.

They lived for many years in Arcata, northern California, surrounded by sweeping forests of redwood trees, where Wayne worked as a landscape architect, while Stella was a primary school teacher. They spent their holidays hiking and camping with their children.

Now Wayne is terminally ill with heart failure, which has already brought him close to death. He has myriad other health issues including prostate cancer, liver failure and sepsis which brings him serious spinal pain.

He has less than six months to live, qualifying him for an assisted death in California. His request to die has been approved by two doctors and the lethal medication is self-administered.

It was during our first meeting that he asked the BBC to return to observe his final day, saying he wanted terminally ill adults in the UK to have the same right to an assisted death as him.

"Britain is pretty good with freedoms and this is just another one," he said. "People should be able to choose the time of their death as long as they meet the rules like six months to live or less."

Stella, 78, supports his decision. "I've known him for over 50 years. He's a very independent man. He's always known what he wants to do and he's always fixed things. That's how he's operating now. If this is his choice, I definitely agree, and I've seen him really suffer with the illness he's got. I don't want that for him."

Wayne would also qualify under the proposed new assisted dying law in England and Wales. The measures return to the House of Commons later this month, when all MPs will have a chance to debate and vote on changes to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

The proposed legislation, tabled by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, says that anyone who wants to end their life must have the mental capacity to make the choice, that they must be expected to die within six months, and must make two separate declarations - witnessed and signed - about their wish to die. They must satisfy two independent doctors that they are eligible.

MPs in Westminster voted in favour of assisted dying in principle last November but remain bitterly divided on the issue. If they ultimately decide to approve the bill, it could become law within the next year and come into practice within the next four years.

There are also divisions here in California, where assisted dying was introduced in 2016. Michelle and Mike Carter, both 72 and married for 43 years, are each being treated for cancer - Mike has prostate cancer that has spread to his lymph nodes, and Michelle's advanced terminal ovarian cancer has spread throughout much of her body.

"I held my mother's hand when she passed; I held my father's hand when he passed," Michelle told me. "I believe there's freedom of choice however for me, I choose palliative care… I have God and I have good medicine."

Michelle's physician, palliative care specialist Dr Vincent Nguyen, argued that assisted dying laws in the US state lead to "silent coercion" whereby vulnerable people think their only option is to die. "Instead of ending people's lives, let's put programmes together to care for people," he said. "Let them know that they're loved, they're wanted and they're worthy."

He said the law meant that doctors have gone from being seen as healers to killers, while the message from the healthcare system was that "you are better off dead, because you're expensive and your death is cheaper for us".

Some disability campaigners say assisted dying makes them feel unsafe. Ingrid Tischer, who has muscular dystrophy and chronic respiratory failure, told me: "The message that it sends to people with disabilities in California is that you deserve suicide assistance rather than suicide prevention when you voice a desire to end your life.

"What does that say about who we are as a culture?"

Critics often say that once assisted dying is legalised, over time the safeguards around such laws get eroded as part of a "slippery slope" towards more relaxed criteria. In California, there was initially a mandatory 15-day cooling off period between patients making a first and second request for aid in dying. That has been reduced to 48 hours because many patients were dying during the waiting period. It's thought the approval process envisaged in Westminster would take around a month.

'Goodbye,' Wayne tells his family

Outside Wayne's house on the morning of his death, a solitary bird begins its loud and elaborate song. "There's that mockingbird out there," Wayne tells Stella, as smiles flicker across their faces.

Wayne hates the bird because it keeps him awake at night, Stella jokes, hand in hand with him to one side of his chair. Emily and Ashley are next to Stella.

Dr Moore, seated on Wayne's other side, hands him the pink liquid which he swallows without hesitation. "Goodnight," he says to his family - a typical touch of humour from a man who told us he was determined to die on his terms. It's 11.47am.

After two minutes, Wayne says he is getting sleepy. Dr Moore asks him to imagine he is walking in a vast sea of flowers with a soft breeze on his skin, which seems appropriate for a patient who has spent much of his life among nature.

After three minutes Wayne enters a deep sleep from which he will never wake. On a few occasions he lifts his head to take a deep breath without opening his eyes, at one point beginning to snore softly.

Dr Moore tells the family this is "the deepest sleep imaginable" and reassures Emily there is no chance her dad will wake up and ask, "did it work?"

"Oh that would be just like him," Stella says with a laugh.

The family start to reminisce about hiking holidays and driving around in a large van they converted to become a camper. "Me and dad insulated it and put a bed in the back," says Ashley.

On the walls are photos of Emily and Ashley as small children next to huge carved Halloween pumpkins.

Dr Moore is still stroking Wayne's hand and occasionally checking his pulse. For a man who Emily says was "always walking, always outdoors, always active", these are the final moments of life's journey, spent surrounded by those who mean most to him.

At 12.22pm Dr Moore says, "I think he's passed… He's at peace now."

Outside, the mockingbird has fallen silent. "No more pain," says Stella, embracing her children in her arms.

I step outside to give the family some space, and reflect on what we have just seen and filmed.

I have been covering medical ethics for the BBC for more than 20 years. In 2006, I was present just outside an apartment in Zurich where Dr Anne Turner, a retired doctor, died with the help of the group Dignitas - but California was the first time I had been an eyewitness to an assisted death.

This isn't just a story about one man's death in California - it's about what could become a reality here in England and Wales for those who qualify for an assisted death and choose to die this way.

Whether you're for or against the proposed new Westminster law, the death of a loved one is a deeply personal and emotional time for a family. Each death leaves an imprint, as will Wayne's.

Additional reporting by Josh Falcon

Outrage is a precious political currency and France's far right has spent this week attempting, furiously and predictably, to capitalise on the perceived injustice of a court's decision to block its totemic leader, Marine Le Pen, from standing in the 2027 presidential election.

The airwaves have been throbbing with indignation.

"Be outraged," said one of Le Pen's key deputies, on French television, in case anyone was in doubt as to what their reaction should be.

But it remains unclear whether Le Pen's tough sentence will broaden support for her party, the National Rally (RN), or lead to greater fragmentation of the French far right. Either way, it has created a feverish mood among the nation's politicians.

Le Pen and her allies have boldly declared that France's institutions, and democracy itself, have been "executed", are "dead", or "violated". The country's justice system has been turned into a "political" hit squad, shamelessly intervening in a nation's right to choose its own leaders. And Marine Le Pen has been widely portrayed, with something close to certainty, as France's president-in-waiting, as the nation's most popular politician, cruelly robbed of her near-inevitable procession towards the Élysée Palace.

"The system has released a nuclear bomb, and if it is using such a powerful weapon against us, it is obviously because we are about to win the elections," Le Pen fumed at a news conference, comparing herself to the poisoned, imprisoned, and now dead Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

As France assesses its latest political tremors, an uneven pushback has begun.

No clear frontrunner for president

Nervous about the impact the judgement may have for the country's frail coalition government, the Prime Minister François Bayrou has admitted to feeling "troubled" by Le Pen's sentence and worried about a "shock" to public opinion.

But other centrist politicians have taken a firmer line, stressing the need for a clear gap between the justice system and politics.

An early opinion poll appears to show the French public taking a calm line, bursting – or at least deflating – the RN's bubble of outrage. The poll, produced within hours of the court's ruling, showed less than a third of the country – 31% - felt the decision to block Le Pen, immediately, from running for public office, was unjust.

Tellingly, that figure was less than the 37% of French people who recently expressed an interest in voting for her as president.

In other words, plenty of people who like her as a politician also think it reasonable that her crimes should disqualify her from running for office.

And remember, French presidential elections are still two years away – an eternity in the current political climate.

Emmanuel Macron is not entitled to stand for another term and no clear alternative to Le Pen, from the left or centre of French politics, has yet emerged. Le Pen's share of the vote has consistently risen during her previous three failed bids for the top job but it is premature, at best, to consider her a shoo-in for 2027.

Le Pen's crime and punishment

Anyone who followed the court case against her and her party colleagues in an impartial fashion would struggle to conclude that the verdicts in Le Pen's case were unreasonable.

The evidence of a massive and coordinated project to defraud the European Parliament and its associated taxpayers included jaw-droppingly incriminating emails suggesting officials knew exactly what they were doing, and the illegality of their actions.

That the corruption was for the party, not for personal gain, surely changes nothing. Corruption is corruption. Besides, other parties have also been found guilty of similar offences.

Regarding the punishments handed out by the court, here it seems fair to argue that Le Pen and her party made a strategic blunder in their approach to the case.

Had they acknowledged the facts, and their errors, and cooperated in facilitating a swift trial rather than helping to drag the process out for almost a decade, the judges – as they've now made clear – might have taken their attitude towards the case into consideration when considering punishments.

"Neither during the investigation nor at the trial did [Le Pen] show any awareness of the need for probity as an elected official, nor of the ensuing responsibilities," wrote the judges in a document explaining, often indignantly, why they'd delivered such a tough sentence.

They berated Le Pen for seeking to delay or avoid justice with "a defence system that disregards the uncovering of the truth".

Hypocrisy among the elite

It is worth noting, here, the wider hypocrisy demonstrated by elites across France's political spectrum who have recently been muttering their sympathy for Le Pen. It is nine years since MPs voted to toughen up the laws on corruption, introducing the very sanctions - on immediately banning criminals from public office - that were used by the judges in this case.

That toughening was welcomed by the public as an antidote to a judicial system stymied by an indulgent culture of successive appeals that enabled – and sometimes still enables - politicians to dodge accountability for decades.

Le Pen is now being gleefully taunted by her critics online with the many past instances in which she has called for stricter laws on corruption.

"When are we going to learn the lessons and effectively introduce lifelong ineligibility for those who have been convicted of acts committed while in office or during their term of office?" she asked in 2013.

Reasonable people can reasonably disagree about the court's sentencing decisions in Le Pen's case. But the notion – enthusiastically endorsed by populist and hard-right politicians across Europe and the US – that she is a victim of a conspiratorial political plot has clearly not convinced most French people.

At least not yet.

Future of France's far right

So where does this verdict – clearly a seismic moment in French politics – leave the National Rally and the wider far-right movement?

The short answer is that no one knows. There are so many variables involved – from the fate of Le Pen's fast-tracked appeal, to the RN's succession strategy, to the state of France's precarious finances, to the broader political climate and the see-sawing appetite for populism both within France and globally – that predictions are an even more dubious game than usual.

The most immediate question – given the slow pace of the legal appeal that Le Pen has vowed to initiate – is whether the RN will seek prompt revenge in parliament by attempting to bring down the fragile coalition government of François Bayrou.

That could lead to new parliamentary elections this summer and the possibility that the RN could capitalise on its victim status to increase its lead in parliament and perhaps, even, to push the country towards a deadlock in which President Macron might – yet another "might" – feel obliged to step down.

One person who will now be facing extra scrutiny is Le Pen's almost but not quite anointed successor, 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, who could be drafted in as a replacement presidential candidate if Le Pen's own "narrow path" towards the Élysée remains blocked on appeal.

If social-media-savvy Bardella's popularity among French youth is any indication of his prospects, he could well sweep to victory in 2027. He has found a way to tap into the frustrations of people angry about falling living standards and concerns about immigration.

But turning youthful support into actual votes is not always straightforward, and other, more experienced and mainstream figures on the right may well be sensing an opportunity too.

The Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, is widely seen to be emerging as a potential contender. Some even wonder if the provocative television personality, Cyril Hanouna, might become a serious political force on the right of French politics.

Meanwhile, Bardella, like the RN in general, has been on a highly disciplined mission to detoxify the party's once overtly racist and antisemitic brand. In February, for instance, he abandoned plans to speak at America's far-right CPAC event after Donald Trump's former advisor Steve Bannon made a Nazi salute.

But this week's events have revealed that the RN is enthusiastically committed to the distinctly Trump-ian and populist strategy of blaming its misfortunes on a "swamp" of unelected officials. Bardella, meanwhile, complained about the recent closure of two right-wing media channels alongside his party's own legal struggles.

"There is an extremely serious drift today that does not reflect the idea we have of French democracy," he said.

It's the sort of language that goes down well with the RN's core constituency, but its broader appeal may be limited in a country that remains, in many ways, deeply attached to its institutions.

To frame it another way, will French voters be more motivated by the belief that Le Pen was unfairly punished, or by concern that the judges involved have since been the victims of death threats and other insults?

As for Marine Le Pen, she has vowed that she will not be sidelined. But her destiny is not entirely in her own hands now. At the age of 56 she has become a familiar figure, fiery at times, but personally approachable, warm and, in political terms, profoundly influential and disciplined. So what next for her?

France has had one Le Pen or other (Marine's father, Jean-Marie ran four times) on their presidential ballot paper since 1988. Always unsuccessfully.

History may well look back on this week as the moment Marine Le Pen's fate was sealed, in one of three ways: as France's first female and first far-right president, swept to power on a tide of outrage. As the four-time loser of a French presidential election, finally denied power by the taint of corruption. Or as someone whose soaring political career was brought to an early and shuddering halt by her own miscalculations over a serious embezzlement scandal.

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The UK's Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is launching an appeal to help the thousands of people injured and displaced as a result of last week's powerful earthquake which struck Myanmar and the wider region.

Made up of 15 UK aid agencies, including the British Red Cross, Oxfam and Save the Children, the DEC is asking the British public for donations before the monsoon season arrives in two months.

More than 2,800 people have died and more than 4,500 have been injured, according to the leaders of Myanmar's military government, with figures expected to rise.

The charities say shelter, medicine, food, water and cash support is "urgently needed".

Baroness Chapman, minister for development, said public donations to the DEC appeal would be matched pound-for-pound by the government, up to the value of £5m.

DEC's chief executive Saleh Saeed said the situation was "ever more critical."

"Funds are urgently needed to help families access life-saving humanitarian aid following this catastrophe," he said.

Multiple international aid agencies and foreign governments have dispatched personnel and supplies to quake-hit regions.

• Inside Mandalay: BBC visits makeshift hospital treating earthquake victims in Myanmar

Myanmar was already facing a severe humanitarian crisis before the 7.7 magnitude earthquake due to the ongoing civil war there, with the DEC estimating a third of the population is in need of aid.

The country has been gripped by violence amid the conflict between the junta - which seized power in a 2021 coup - and ethnic militias and resistance forces across the country.

On Wednesday, Myanmar's military government announced a temporary ceasefire lasting until 22 April, saying it was aimed at expediting relief and reconstruction efforts.

Rebel groups had already unilaterally declared a ceasefire to support relief efforts earlier this week, but the military had refused to do the same until Wednesday's announcement.

Aid workers have come under attack in Myanmar. On Tuesday night, the army opened fire at a Chinese Red Cross convoy carrying earthquake relief supplies.

Nine of the charity's vehicles came under attack. The UN and some charities have accused the military junta of blocking access.

The US Geological Survey's modelling estimates Myanmar's death toll could exceed 10,000, while the cost in damages to infrastructure could surpass the country's annual economic output.

Roads, water services and buildings including hospitals have been destroyed, especially in Mandalay, the hard-hit city near the epicentre.

In Thailand, at least 21 people have died.

The Red Cross has also issued an urgent appeal for $100m (£77m), while the UN is seeking $8m in donations for its response.

"People urgently require medical care, clean drinking water, tents, food, and other basic necessities," the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said on Monday.

The DEC brings together 15 leading UK aid charities to provide and deliver aid to ensure successful appeals.

The appeal will be broadcast on the BBC and other media outlets throughout Thursday.

Councils are exposing homeless children to serious health and safeguarding risks by housing them in unsuitable temporary accommodation, an inquiry by MPs has found.

MPs said a "crisis in temporary accommodation" in England had left a record 164,000 children without a permanent home.

The inquiry concluded many children were living in "appalling conditions" and suffering significant impacts to their health and education as a result.

In a report, the MPs urged ministers to deliver more affordable homes and take urgent action to support families living in temporary accommodation.

In England, some local authorities have a legal duty to support the homeless, including providing temporary accommodation.

Temporary accommodation is meant as a short-term solution for those experiencing or at risk of homelessness and can include hostels and rooms in shared houses.

The inquiry was launched last year by MPs on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, which condemned the state of some temporary accommodation as "utterly shameful".

The inquiry heard evidence of "egregious hazards" to children, including serious damp, mould, and mice infestations, and families living in temporary housing for years.

Florence Eshalomi, the Labour MP who leads the committee, told the BBC evidence showing the deaths of 74 children had been linked to temporary housing "should shock all of us".

"That should send alarm bells ringing," she said. "What was most shocking as well was the fact that over 58 of those young children were under the age of one. Where have we gone wrong?"

Eshalomi said when she was a child, she once lived in temporary accommodation filled with damp.

She said: "I think about what I went through as a young person and it pains me to think that many years later now as an MP, I see that still happening in the constituency I represent."

In its report, the committee set out recommendations, including requiring councils to check housing is safe to be used as temporary accommodation.

Another key recommendation was the proposal to give more powers to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which investigates complaints about the treatment of people placed in temporary housing.

In response to the inquiry, a government spokesperson said the findings were shocking, adding that the government was taking "urgent action to fix the broken system we inherited, investing nearly £1bn in homelessness services this year to help families trapped in temporary accommodation".

They said: "Alongside this, we are developing a long-term strategy to tackle homelessness, driving up housing standards and delivering the biggest boost in social and affordable homes in a generation."

In extreme cases, the ombudsman can ask councils to compensate people whose complaints are upheld - and data shared with the BBC shows a marked rise in those payouts.

Last year, the ombudsman upheld 176 complaints against councils and recommended 144 payouts in those cases.

The number of payouts last year - some worth thousands of pounds - was greater than the 121 in 2022-23 and the 73 in 2021-22.

Sam Revell, a mum of three, received a payout of about £2,000 in 2023.

The ombudsman found multiple faults in the way Bromley Council in London handled her request for temporary accommodation in 2022.

Sam said she ended up homeless after separating from her partner and approached the council for help.

"I couldn't get hold of an actual person to speak to," Sam said. "All my emails just went unanswered."

At one stage, she and her children slept overnight in her car when they had nowhere else to go.

"I think the one thing as a parent, you just put a roof over your children's head," Sam said.

"That for me, is just basic, and I couldn't even do that. I got a good job. I was in full-time employment, and the kids were in school and everything."

The ombudsman said the council eventually placed them in unsuitable interim accommodation, which was too far from her children's school and her workplace.

"It was like 33 miles in total and it took us sort of an hour each way," Sam said.

Sam said the council did not take account of her child's need to continue attending the primary school where she received specialist support.

She said the flat itself was "horrendous" and claimed neighbours were regularly taking drugs near her front door.

The ombudsman said the council did not respond properly to Sam's reports about delays in getting repairs done in this accommodation and incidents when she was threatened and physically assaulted by neighbours.

Sam and her children were allocated alternative accommodation in September 2022 but she had to wait three months before she could move in.

She accused the council of leaving her "in such a vulnerable situation that it was just so dangerous" and said the experience still affects her children to this day.

A council spokesperson said a national housing shortage meant offering homeless residents temporary accommodation they "would have chosen for themselves".

The spokesperson said: "We accept that mistakes were made in this case and extend our apology to this resident, recognising the continued understandable disquiet this experience has had.

"It is important to note Bromley Council co-operated fully with the ombudsman's investigation, which was two years ago, and agreed with the proposed remedial action, which has been fully implemented and lessons have been learnt."

Cameron Black, a spokesman for the ombudsman, said the payouts recognise "the gravity of the injustice that's caused to the individuals in these cases".

He said there was a growing but small number of councils who are resistant to the ombudsman's findings and recommendations.

He said the ombudsman is calling for more powers to monitor whether councils are meeting their legal duties to support homeless people.

The rise in payouts comes as councils struggle to cover the costs of their legal duty to support the growing number of homeless families.

Local authorities spent around £2.29bn on temporary accommodation in 2023/24.

The Local Government Association said the scale of the challenge facing councils on temporary accommodation and homelessness "are immense".

"Government needs to use the upcoming Spending Review to ensure that councils are sufficiently resourced, including by urgently increasing the temporary accommodation subsidy," said Adam Hug, housing spokesperson for the LGA.

Donald Trump announced a sweeping new set of reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday, arguing that they would allow the United States to succeed.

Trump's tariffs, which he will impose via executive order, are expected to send economic shockwaves around the world. The White House released a list of roughly 100 countries and the tariff rates that the US would impose in kind.

Here are the basic elements of the plan.

10% baseline tariff

In a background call before Trump's speech, a senior White House official told reporters that the president would impose "baseline tariffs" on all countries.

That rate is set at 10% and will go into effect on 5 April.

Trump argued that Americans were being "ripped off," and that raising tariffs on foreign imports would help restore US manufacturing, reduce taxes, and pay down the national debt.

Trump and White House staffers portrayed the current tariff rates as lenient, compared to the maximum the administration could impose.

Some countries will only face the base rate. These include:

• United Kingdom
• Singapore
• Brazil
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Turkey
• Colombia
• Argentina
• El Salvador
• United Arab Emirates
• Saudi Arabia

Custom tariffs for 'worst offenders'

White House officials also said that they would impose specific reciprocal tariffs on roughly 60 "worst offenders", to go into effect on 9 April.

These countries impose higher tariffs on US goods, impose "non-tariff" barriers to US trade or have otherwise acted in ways the government feels undermine American economic goals.

The White House official said each tariff would be tailored to the specific targeted country.

"We're being very kind," Trump said at his White House event. The tariffs were not fully reciprocal he said, because he would impose a "discounted" reciprocal rate less than what his staff had determined to fully match the trade impact of a given country's trade policies.

The key trading partners subject to these customised tariff rates include:

• European Union: 20%
• China: 34%
• Vietnam: 46%
• Thailand: 36%
• Japan: 24%
• Cambodia: 49%
• South Africa: 30%
• Taiwan: 32%

No additional tariffs on Canada and Mexico

Canada and Mexico are not mentioned in these new tariff announcements.

The White House says that they would deal with both countries using a framework set out in previous executive orders, which imposed tariffs on Canda and Mexico as part of the administration's efforts to address fentanyl and border issues.

He previously set those tariffs at 25%, before announcing some exemptions and delays to their implementation.

• Trump agrees to pause tariffs on Canada and Mexico

25% tariffs on auto imports

In addition, the president announced the US would impose a "25% tariff on all foreign made-automobiles".

Those tariffs would go into affect almost immediately, at midnight on 3 April.

US President Donald Trump has unveiled a list of tariffs on countries across the world that send their products to America.

The UK will be subject to 10% tariffs on imports from the UK and 20% on European Union imports.

We've spoken to firms which export to the US from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland about what they think the impact on their businesses will be.

'We will try to keep the shelf price as it was'

For Scotch whisky makers, the US is its most important overseas market - worth £971 million a year.

Anthony Wills runs the Kilchoman distillery on the island of Islay and says he feels "deflated" at the prospect of tariffs. "It's a huge blow for the industry," he says.

"For us personally, it represents 10% of our sales. So it's clearly going to be a big blow, especially with the current economic headwinds that we're all experiencing, we're all going to find this very difficult and very challenging."

The industry has been hit with US tariffs before, with a 25% levy on single malts back in 2019. The Scottish Whisky Association estimates that for the 18 months the tariffs were in place, the industry lost £600m in sales.

Mr Wills says he split the cost of the tariff with his US importer so the price would stay the same for their American customers.

"I imagine we'll be doing what we did last time, and trying to keep the shelf price as it was before," he says.

"We have to react and we will be discussing this with our importer and deciding what the best way forward is."

'I'm not panicking - they don't make our products in the US'

Wales sold £2.2bn of goods to the US last year - most of it was machinery and equipment manufactured by small companies.

Newport-based company, Tomoe Valve, makes high performance butterfly valves that are used in a wide variety of projects all over the world.

The firm hit £6m in sales in 2024/25 and its biggest order worth £1.2m ($1.6m) came from the US - a huge valve for a battery plant.

Financial director Denise Cole says she does not want tariffs on her products but understands why President Trump has brought them in.

"I've seen UK manufacturing decimated and the same has happened in America so he's looking after his own which is exactly what it says on the tin with Trump."

She says there was a lot of panic over tariffs and any changes could be "short-lived".

"I really don't think it's going to impact us in a negative way," she says. "The specialist products we sell, they don't manufacture in the US anyway, they would struggle to get them elsewhere.

"Our own government has done me more damage by increasing employer National Insurance Contributions," she says. "That's added £35,000 to my costs - that's a whole person's wages. I would have taken on a new member of staff this year as we have some big orders but I won't be able to now."

The Treasury has previously said it was delivering the stability businesses need to invest and grow.

'This could put car industry jobs at risk'

A new import tax of 25% on cars entering the US came into effect today, and car parts will face the same tax at some point in the next few months.

Some 17% of UK car exports went to the US last year, making it the second largest export market after the EU.

Barkley Plastics in Sutton Coldfield supplies parts to carmakers including Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, Toyota and Mini.

Managing director Matt Harwood says: "The new tariffs will affect [car manufacturers] greatly, which in turn affects businesses like us in their supply chain."

He says the UK's automotive industry was already under pressure before the tariffs were announced. The UK produced more than 1.5 million cars a year before the pandemic - that's now down to 800,000 a year.

Mr Harwood says: "Covid-19, chip shortages, and broader supply chain disruptions have made volumes unpredictable in recent years. These new US tariffs threaten to push that number even lower, which would be particularly damaging for smaller suppliers like us, who operate on tight margins.

"A further downturn in demand could quickly translate into job losses or even business closures," he says. "So our main concern is how the US tariffs put tens of thousands of jobs at risk within the UK automotive supply chain."

'This could affect my sales in the US'

In 2022, Northern Ireland exported goods worth £1.9bn to the US, making it the third biggest external market for goods behind Great Britain (£11bn) and Ireland (£4.6bn).

Belfast watchmaker Nomadic makes 22% of its sales in the US.

Its founder Peter McAuley says there was huge potential for his business to grow in the US, but that's now in doubt.

He says America is a strong market with a good trading environment, but he believes tariffs will have an impact on his sales - although he remains confident about the future of the trading relationship between Northern Ireland and the US.

Additional reporting by Oliver Smith and Jennifer Meierhans.

US President Donald Trump has announced fresh import taxes on goods being imported to America in the latest escalation of the global trade war.

The UK has been hit with a 10% tariff on all of its goods being brought into the US, which Trump says is a retaliation to UK tariffs on American goods, but uncertainty remains over the potential impact on British consumers.

Here's how you and your money could be affected.

1. Prices could go up, but could also go down

The tariffs Trump has just announced will be paid for by the businesses which import goods into the US.

Clarissa Hahn, economist at Oxford Economics, says this means that the initial impact of price rises will be on US consumers, as American firms are likely to pass on the extra costs to their customers.

However, she adds people in the UK could subsequently be affected by the measures, which come into effect on 5 April.

One way is via the value of the pound and exchange rates, which dictate the cost to UK businesses importing goods and raw materials from abroad. If import costs go up, these extra costs could be passed on to consumers through higher prices.

Following Trump's speech on Wednesday, exchange rates between the dollar and pound fluctuated. If the value of the dollar strengthens as some economists have predicted, import costs could rise for UK firms importing goods.

Higher prices in the UK could also "prompt workers to demand higher wages", which would further raise costs for businesses, according to Ahmet Ihsan Kaya, principal economist, at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

Ms Hahn adds if the UK government decides to retaliate with tariffs of its own on US goods entering the UK, there is a risk UK prices could rise if British businesses pass on extra costs to customers.

However, some economists have suggested prices could also initially fall as a result of Trump's decision to impose tariffs.

Swati Dhingra, economist and member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, which sets interest rates, has suggested that firms which normally send their goods to the US, may instead send them to counties such as the UK which don't have such steep tariffs, potentially leading to a flood of cheaper goods in the UK.

"Tariffs of the proposed magnitude are likely to prompt firms that export to the US to lower their prices to retain demand for their products," she suggests.

2. It could affect your job

British companies which export goods to the US are set be the hardest hit from the latest measures.

The UK exported almost £60bn worth of goods to the US last year, mainly machinery, cars and pharmaceuticals. Other industries, which are big exporters to the US, include fishing and electronics.

If US demand for UK products dwindles due to the extra charges importers face, this could hit profit margins and ultimately lead to UK job cuts unless British firms find new customers outside the US.

According to the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank, Jaguar Land Rover and the Mini factory in Cowley, Oxford, appear to be the most exposed to US tariffs on cars.

It says more than 25,000 jobs in the UK car manufacturing industry "could be at risk" with a 25% tariff coming into effect on Thursday, with one in eight UK-built cars exported to the US.

The pharmaceutical industry is also heavily reliant on trade with the US, says Ms Hahn, of Oxford Economics.

The US makes up 40% of AstraZeneca's sales and 50% of GSK's. Although both British-headquartered firms have manufacturing facilities in America, raw ingredients for life-saving medicines and vaccines travel between the UK, EU and US. Under tariffs the firms could be hit with multiple tax charges as they cross borders to be developed.

There is also the issue of how tariffs work when they collide with pricing caps that both the NHS and other health organisations set for buying drugs in bulk.

3. Interest rates may stay higher for longer

UK interest rates dictate the costs households have to pay to borrow money for things such as mortgages, credit cards and loans. Higher rates also boost returns for savers.

They are currently at 4.5%, but economists are predicting two more rate cuts by the end of the year.

However, the Bank of England highlighted US tariffs as a reason why it avoided cutting rates further last month, saying economic and global trade uncertainty had "intensified".

If prices are pushed up for long enough to affect the rate of inflation - this could mean interest rates stay higher for longer.

Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England governor, said it was Bank's job "to make sure that inflation stays low and stable" and that would be "looking very closely" at the impact of tariffs.

President Donald Trump has unveiled plans for sweeping new import taxes on all goods entering the US, in a watershed moment for global trade.

The plan sets a baseline tariff on all imports of at least 10%, consistent with a proposal Trump made on the campaign last year.

Items from countries that the White House described as the "worst offenders", including the European Union, China, Vietnam and Lesotho, would face far higher rates for what Trump said was payback for unfair trade policies.

Trump's move breaks with decades of American policy embracing free trade, and analysts said it was likely to lead to higher prices in the US and slower growth in the US and around the world.

The White House said officials would start charging the 10% tariffs on 5 April, with the higher duties starting on 9 April.

"It's our declaration of economic independence," Trump said in the White House Rose Garden against a backdrop of US flags.

• Live updates and reaction to Trump tariffs

The Republican president said the US had for years been "looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike".

"Today we are standing up for the American worker and we are finally putting America first," he said, calling it "one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history."

On the campaign trail last year, Trump called for new tariffs that he said would raise money for the government and boost manufacturing, promising a new age of American prosperity.

He has spent weeks previewing Wednesday's announcement, which follows other orders raising tariffs on imports from China, foreign cars, steel and aluminium and some goods from Mexico and Canada.

The White House said the latest changes would not apply to Mexico and Canada, two of America's closest trading partners.

Goods from the UK are set to face a new 10% tariff, while import taxes on items from the European Union would go to 20%.

The charge for goods imported from China will be 34%, while it will be 24% for Japan, and 26% on India.

Some of the highest rates will be levied on smaller countries, with goods from the southern African nation of Lesotho facing 50%, while Vietnam and Cambodia will be hit with 46% and 49% respectively.

The latter two have both seen a rush of investment in recent years, as firms shifted supply chains away from China following Trump's first term.

Together the moves will bring effective tariff rates in the US to levels not seen in decades.

Trump also confirmed that a 25% tax on imports of all foreign-made cars, which he announced last week, would begin from midnight.

The barrister representing convicted child serial killer Lucy Letby has said he will hand over "fresh" medical evidence to the body responsible for investigating alleged miscarriages of justice.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is reviewing an application by Letby's legal team.

Mark McDonald said he would travel to the CCRC's offices to hand over the full findings of a panel of neonatologists and paediatric specialists who said their analysis found no evidence that Letby harmed any babies.

Mr McDonald will also deliver a separate report from seven medical experts claiming the results of insulin tests on Baby F and Baby L, who a jury concluded Letby had poisoned, were unreliable.

The former nurse's legal team are asking for her case to be referred to the Court of Appeal for a full hearing.

Letby, 35, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, between June 2015 and June 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

At a press conference earlier this year, Dr Shoo Lee, a Canadian neonatal care expert, said there were alternative explanations for each of Letby's convictions for murder or attempted murder.

He said at the time: "In all cases death or injury were due to natural causes or just bad medical care".

But lawyers for the families of Letby's victims rubbished findings of the 14-strong international panel as "full of analytical holes" and "a rehash" of the defence case heard at trial.

Mr McDonald said a separate insulin report stated the jury in Letby's trial were misled in a number of "important areas" including medical and evidential facts, and that key information on the insulin testing procedure was not submitted.

It added the biomechanical test used in both cases "can give rise to falsely high insulin results" due to the presence of antibodies which can interfere with the outcome.

The report's authors, made up of seven experts including two consultant neonatalogists, a retired professor in forensic toxicology and a paediatric endocrinologist, said: "Our inescapable conclusion is that this evidence significantly undermines the validity of the assertions made about the insulin and C-peptide testing presented in court."

Speaking of both reports, Mr McDonald claimed they represented "fresh evidence" that "totally undermined" the prosecution case.

"This is the largest international review of neonatal medicine ever undertaken, the results of which show Lucy Letby's convictions are no longer safe," he said.

"The conclusions of the report on Babies F and L clearly demonstrate that the case must go back to the Court of Appeal as a matter of urgency.

"I hope the CCRC will realise this and refer the case without undue delay."

Letby lost two bids last year to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal, in May for seven murders and seven attempted murders, and in October for the attempted murder of a baby girl which she was convicted of by a different jury at a retrial.

Lady Justice Thirlwall is due to publish in November the findings from the public inquiry into how the former nurse was able to commit her crimes.

In written submissions to the inquiry, Richard Baker KC, said families of Letby's victims were concerned that Letby's legal team was trying to "generate maximum publicity".

The mother of one of Letby's victims, Child C, told the inquiry the "media circus" around the case was causing their families "distress".

Cheshire Constabulary is continuing a review of deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the neonatal units of the Countess of Chester Hospital and the Liverpool Women's Hospital during Letby's time as a nurse from 2012 to 2016.

Senior investigating officer Det Supt Paul Hughes said much criticism of Letby's convictions was "ill-informed" and based on a "very partial knowledge of the facts".

He went on: "It is out of a deep sense of respect for the parents of the babies that we have not and will not get drawn into the widespread commentary and speculation online and in the media.

"They have suffered greatly and continue to do so as this case plays out in a very public forum."

He said the force would assist the CCRC if needed.

Additional reporting by PA Media.

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US President Donald Trump has unveiled a list of tariffs on countries across the world that send their products to America.

The UK will be subject to 10% tariffs on imports from the UK and 20% on European Union imports.

We've spoken to firms which export to the US from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland about what they think the impact on their businesses will be.

'We will try to keep the shelf price as it was'

For Scotch whisky makers, the US is its most important overseas market - worth £971 million a year.

Anthony Wills runs the Kilchoman distillery on the island of Islay and says he feels "deflated" at the prospect of tariffs. "It's a huge blow for the industry," he says.

"For us personally, it represents 10% of our sales. So it's clearly going to be a big blow, especially with the current economic headwinds that we're all experiencing, we're all going to find this very difficult and very challenging."

The industry has been hit with US tariffs before, with a 25% levy on single malts back in 2019. The Scottish Whisky Association estimates that for the 18 months the tariffs were in place, the industry lost £600m in sales.

Mr Wills says he split the cost of the tariff with his US importer so the price would stay the same for their American customers.

"I imagine we'll be doing what we did last time, and trying to keep the shelf price as it was before," he says.

"We have to react and we will be discussing this with our importer and deciding what the best way forward is."

'I'm not panicking - they don't make our products in the US'

Wales sold £2.2bn of goods to the US last year - most of it was machinery and equipment manufactured by small companies.

Newport-based company, Tomoe Valve, makes high performance butterfly valves that are used in a wide variety of projects all over the world.

The firm hit £6m in sales in 2024/25 and its biggest order worth £1.2m ($1.6m) came from the US - a huge valve for a battery plant.

Financial director Denise Cole says she does not want tariffs on her products but understands why President Trump has brought them in.

"I've seen UK manufacturing decimated and the same has happened in America so he's looking after his own which is exactly what it says on the tin with Trump."

She says there was a lot of panic over tariffs and any changes could be "short-lived".

"I really don't think it's going to impact us in a negative way," she says. "The specialist products we sell, they don't manufacture in the US anyway, they would struggle to get them elsewhere.

"Our own government has done me more damage by increasing employer National Insurance Contributions," she says. "That's added £35,000 to my costs - that's a whole person's wages. I would have taken on a new member of staff this year as we have some big orders but I won't be able to now."

The Treasury has previously said it was delivering the stability businesses need to invest and grow.

'This could put car industry jobs at risk'

A new import tax of 25% on cars entering the US came into effect today, and car parts will face the same tax at some point in the next few months.

Some 17% of UK car exports went to the US last year, making it the second largest export market after the EU.

Barkley Plastics in Sutton Coldfield supplies parts to carmakers including Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, Toyota and Mini.

Managing director Matt Harwood says: "The new tariffs will affect [car manufacturers] greatly, which in turn affects businesses like us in their supply chain."

He says the UK's automotive industry was already under pressure before the tariffs were announced. The UK produced more than 1.5 million cars a year before the pandemic - that's now down to 800,000 a year.

Mr Harwood says: "Covid-19, chip shortages, and broader supply chain disruptions have made volumes unpredictable in recent years. These new US tariffs threaten to push that number even lower, which would be particularly damaging for smaller suppliers like us, who operate on tight margins.

"A further downturn in demand could quickly translate into job losses or even business closures," he says. "So our main concern is how the US tariffs put tens of thousands of jobs at risk within the UK automotive supply chain."

'This could affect my sales in the US'

In 2022, Northern Ireland exported goods worth £1.9bn to the US, making it the third biggest external market for goods behind Great Britain (£11bn) and Ireland (£4.6bn).

Belfast watchmaker Nomadic makes 22% of its sales in the US.

Its founder Peter McAuley says there was huge potential for his business to grow in the US, but that's now in doubt.

He says America is a strong market with a good trading environment, but he believes tariffs will have an impact on his sales - although he remains confident about the future of the trading relationship between Northern Ireland and the US.

Additional reporting by Oliver Smith and Jennifer Meierhans.

The Slovak cabinet has approved a plan to shoot around a quarter of the country's brown bears, after a man was mauled to death while walking in a forest in Central Slovakia.

Prime Minister Robert Fico's populist-nationalist government announced after a cabinet meeting that 350 out of an estimated population of 1,300 brown bears would be culled, citing the danger to humans after a spate of attacks.

"We can't live in a country where people are afraid to go into the woods," the prime minister told reporters afterwards.

A special state of emergency allowing bears to be shot has now been widened to 55 of Slovakia's 79 districts, an area that now covers most of the country.

The government in Bratislava has already loosened legal protections allowing bears to be killed if they stray too close to human habitation. Some 93 had been shot by the end of 2024.

The plans to shoot even more were condemned by conservationists, who said the decision was in violation of international obligations and could be illegal.

"It's absurd," said Michal Wiezek, an ecologist and MEP for opposition party Progressive Slovakia.

"The Environment Ministry failed desperately to limit the number of bear attacks by the unprecedented culling of this protected species," he told the BBC.

"To cover up their failure, the government has decided to cull even more bears," he continued.

Wiezek argued that thousands of encounters a year passed without incident, and he hoped the European Commission would intervene.

Slovak police confirmed on Wednesday that a man found dead in forest near the town of Detva in Central Slovakia on Sunday night was killed by a bear. His wounds were consistent with an attack.

The 59-year-old man had been reported missing on Saturday after failing to return from a walk in the woods.

He was found with what authorities described as "devastating injuries to the head". Evidence of a bear's den was found nearby, a local NGO told Slovak newspaper Novy Cas.

Bears have become a political issue in Slovakia after a rising number of encounters, including fatal attacks.

In March 2024, a 31-year-old Belarusian woman fell into a ravine and died while being chased by a bear in northern Slovakia.

Several weeks later a large brown bear was captured on video running through the centre of the nearby town of Liptovsky Mikolas in broad daylight, bounding past cars and lunging at people on the pavement.

The authorities later claimed to have hunted down and killed the animal, although conservationists said later there was clear evidence they had shot a different bear.

Environment Minister Tomas Taraba said on Wednesday there were more than 1,300 bears in Slovakia, and that 800 was a "sufficient number", as the population was growing.

However, experts say the population remains more or less stable at around 1,270 animals.

Bears are common across the Carpathian mountain range, which stretches in an arc from Romania through western Ukraine and on to Slovakia and Poland.

One month since Israel closed all crossings to Gaza for goods, all UN-supported bakeries have closed, markets are empty of most fresh vegetables and hospitals are rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

It is the longest blockade yet of Israel's nearly 18-month-long war against Hamas. This week, during the normally festive Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, many Gazans say they have gone hungry.

"This was the worst ever Eid for us," Um Ali Hamad, a displaced woman from Beit Lahia, told the BBC as she searched for food in Gaza City. "We can't eat or drink. We couldn't enjoy it. We're exhausted."

"We can no longer find things to eat like tomatoes, sugar or oil. They're not available. I can barely find one meal a day. Now, there are no charity food handouts."

"I only have one grandchild; he was born during the war. He's three months old and we can't find milk or nappies for him."

Israel said it was imposing a ban on goods entering Gaza on 2 March due to Hamas's refusal to extend the first phase of the January ceasefire deal and release more hostages.

Hamas has continued to demand a move to the second phase of the original agreement, which would see the remaining living hostages it holds being released and a full end to the war.

A two-month long truce, which started on 19 January, saw the return of 33 Israeli hostages - eight of them dead - in exchange for about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and a big surge in humanitarian aid entering the devastated territory.

Aid agencies are now calling for world powers to force Israel to allow essential goods into Gaza - including food, medicines, hygiene products and fuel - pointing to the country's obligations under international humanitarian law.

They say they are making tough decisions about how to manage their dwindling stocks in the territory. Fuel, for example, is needed for vehicles to move aid, bakeries, hospital generators, wells and water desalination plants.

The NGO ActionAid called the month-long Israeli ban on aid entering Gaza "appalling" and warned a "new cycle of starvation and thirst" loomed.

On Tuesday, the UN dismissed as "ridiculous", an Israeli assertion that there was enough food in Gaza to last its roughly two million residents for a long time.

"We are at the tail end of our supplies," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

Cogat, the Israeli military body that controls crossings, says that during the recent ceasefire some 25,200 lorries entered Gaza carrying nearly 450,000 tonnes of aid.

"That's nearly a third of the total trucks that entered Gaza during the entire war, in just over a month," Cogat wrote in a post on X. "There is enough food for a long period of time, if Hamas lets the civilians have it."

Israeli officials accuse Hamas of hoarding supplies for itself. However, Dujarric said the UN had kept "a very good chain of custody on all the aid it's delivered".

Shutters are down, ovens off and the shelves empty at a bakery in Gaza City - one of 25 that worked with the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) across the strip. With shortages of fuel and flour, a sign says it is closed "until further notice".

"Closing the bakery is a catastrophe because bread is the most important staple for us," said a grandfather, Abu Alaa Jaffar, looking on despairingly.

"Without it, people don't know how to deal with the situation. There will be starvation much worse than we saw before."

He and other passersby told the BBC that a 25kg (55lb) bag of flour had gone up as much as 10-fold and could now fetch 500 shekels ($135; £104) on the black market.

For months, Israel has prevented commercial goods from entering Gaza - saying that this trade benefited Hamas - and local food production has stopped almost completely because of the war.

While many food kitchens supported by international NGOs have recently stopped working as their supplies have run out, the WFP expects to continue distributing hot meals for a maximum of two weeks.

It says it will hand out its last food parcels within two days. As a "last resort" once all other food is exhausted, it has emergency stocks of fortified nutritional biscuits for 415,000 people.

Meanwhile, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), the biggest aid agency operating in Gaza, says it has only a few days' worth of food left to give out.

"We're seeing a very quick depletion of what we have in our warehouses," said communications director Tamara al-Rifai. "Everyone is rationing everything because it's not clear whether and when there is an end in sight."

"What's extremely striking to us is how fast the positive impact of the ceasefire - if I can use the word 'positive', namely being able to bring food and other supplies - is how fast that impact has evaporated in four weeks."

Israel resumed the war in Gaza on 18 March. Its renewed air and ground operations have once again made it difficult for aid workers to move around and have led to hundreds of casualties, overwhelming hospitals.

The UN's World Health Organisation (WHO) says over half of the hospitals receiving trauma cases are now virtually full.

Devices to stabilise broken bones have run out, while anaesthesia, antibiotics and fluids for wounded patients are dwindling. The WHO warns that vital supplies for pregnant mothers will run out imminently.

Dr Mark Perlmutter, an American surgeon who was recently working in Gaza, told the BBC that he was forced to use drill bits to fix a fracture in a child's leg and that there was no working X-ray machine in the two hospitals where he was based.

He added that he was unable to clean wounds before operating or even wash his hands as soap had run out.

Another mass casualty event would mean "people are going to die from wounds that could have been corrected", Dr Perlmutter said.

So far, at least 1,066 Palestinians have been killed - about one third of whom are children - since Israel began its renewed military offensive in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The WHO also warns of serious public health concerns after the facilities for diagnosing infectious diseases were forced to close.

The international health charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is calling on Israel to halt what it calls the "collective punishment of Palestinians".

It says some patients are being treated without pain relief and that those with conditions requiring regular medication, such as epilepsy or diabetes are having to ration their supplies.

Last year, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to "take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip".

South Africa has brought an ongoing case before the UN's top court, alleging that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel rejects the claim as "baseless."

The war in Gaza was triggered by the deadly Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed some 1,200 people and led to 251 hostages being taken to Gaza. Since then, more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, Palestinian health authorities say.

Arab mediators are continuing to try to resurrect the ceasefire.

Hamas said on Saturday that it had accepted a new proposal from Egypt. Israel said it had made a counterproposal in coordination with the US, which has also been mediating.

There have been no signs of an imminent breakthrough or an end to the Israel closure of crossings into Gaza.

Nintendo has revealed the Switch 2, the long awaited successor to one of the best-selling consoles in history, will be released on June 5.

Fans have been impatiently waiting to find out more since January, when the Japanese gaming giant ended months of speculation by confirming basic information about the new device.

In a Nintendo Direct online presentation, watched by more than a million people, it gave further details of the hardware, as well as confirming it would be accompanied by Mario Kart World, a new edition of Nintendo's most famous game.

It also announced a series of other new titles for the console, including Elden Ring and Street Fighter 6.

The company said the new device would have better graphics and audio than its predecessor, and a chat button allowing players to speak to each other while playing.

The price will vary in different markets but in the UK it will retail at £395, or £429 with Mario Kart.

What games were announced?

As well as huge interest in the device itself, fans have been keen to find out what games they will be able to play on it.

Most eye-catching was Mario Kart World - in which the franchise appears to have been given a significant refresh.

Water graphics, character tweaks, big sprawling race tracks seen from a distance with varying weather and climates - Nintendo is firmly showing fans this console has more under the hood than its predecessor.

The games made by third party developers - such as Elden Ring - are notable too because they are the kind of high-profile games that typically have not come to Nintendo consoles in recent years.

They included:

• Cyberpunk 2077
• Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
• Hitman World of Assassination
• The Duskbloods

The firm also said a new Donkey Kong platforming adventure was in development, and announced Kirby Air Riders will be coming in 2025, a sequel to a fan favourite game released back in 2005.

Nintendo also confirmed that "compatible" Switch games will work on the Switch 2. Others will get Switch 2 editions, meaning they will have updated graphics and gameplay.

The company did not say how much the upgrades will cost.

Mouse, camera and chat function

The console itself has a bigger screen than its predecessor at 7.9imches, with a better display - 1080p compared to the Switch's 720p, with HDR support and showing up to 120fps.

Marginal changes - such as larger buttons and control sticks - will get attention. But more interesting is that both controls can be used as a mouse, as with a PC, in supported games.

Nintendo argues its 3D audio tech will create a surround sound experience, but this is unlikely to be the feature that sways people to picking up the device.

256GB of internal storage is a big upgrade, as Nintendo has historically been stingy on this front.

The C button on the switch controller is the new bit of hardware for the Switch 2.

It appears to help control a voice chat feature which is built into the system.

Players pop up at the bottom of the screen, appearing almost like Zoom or Teams - complete with a quite low frame rate screen share - and Nintendo claims its tech will isolate your voice regardless of background noise.

A tough act to follow

The original Nintendo Switch is one of the best-selling consoles of all time, having shifted more than 150 million units since its 2017 release.

Only Sony's PS2 and Nintendo's own DS have proved more popular.

Its hybrid format - allowing players to use it as a handheld device or hooked up to a TV in a more traditional home console set-up - is thought to be one of the big reasons behind its success.

Even if the new device replicates that level of interest, it may need to overcome other challenges.

Console launches are often hit with hardware shortages - a trend that was particularly evident when the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles were launched in late 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nintendo's president Shuntaro Furukawa previously told investors the long wait for the new console was partly to ensure the company could manufacture enough machines to meet demand.

Since then the global trading picture has been affected by President Donald Trump launching a wave of tariffs - it is not yet clear how they could affect the production and sales of the Switch 2.

Women in England and Wales are likely to continue having babies later in life, and having smaller families, than previous generations, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) projections.

The ONS says girls turning 18 in 2025 are likely to have an average of one child per woman by the age of 35 - unlike their mothers' generation, which had an average of one child per woman by the time they were 31.

They are also projected to have an average of 1.52 children during their lifetimes - down from 1.95 children for their mothers and 2.04 children for their grandmothers.

The new analysis marks the first time the ONS has explored how fertility levels could change in future generations.

It looks at fertility patterns for women born in 1978 alongside patterns for their mothers' generation - assumed to be those born in 1951 - and projections for their daughters' generation - considered to be those born in 2007, who turn 18 this year.

It shows those born in 1978 on average have one child by the time they reach 31. For their mothers' generation, this occurred by the age of 26.

By projecting this trend forwards into the future, the ONS found that women born in 2007 are likely to have an average of one child by the time they are 35.

For girls born in 2025, this is projected to occur by the time they are 36.

Kerry Gadsdon, from the ONS, said the trend may be driven by "financial pressures and the timing of other life events such as partnership formation and moving into your own home generally happening later".

The data also shows the largest average family size for women born in England and Wales over the past 100 years was for girls born in 1934 and 1935, who went on to have an average of 2.42 children.

Projections suggest a steady fall began in the early 1980s - to an average of 1.80 children for women born in 1990, 1.54 for those born in 2000, 1.52 for those born in 2007 - who turn 18 this year - and 1.46 for girls born this year.

Women born in 2007 are projected to have most of their children after they have turned 30. By contrast, women born in the first few decades of the 20th century had already had most of their children by the time they had reached the same age.

The latest analysis comes months after the ONS published data which found the fertility rate in England and Wales had dropped to its lowest rate on record.

Only 591,072 babies were born in 2023, fewer than in any year since 1977 and a fall of more than 14,000 on the previous year, the ONS said.

Research suggests pregnancy at older ages increases the risk of complications during pregnancy and labour.

There is also research to suggest more women in their late 30s will experience difficulties conceiving than women in their late 20s or early 30s.