The first daily pill for treating endometriosis symptoms has been approved for use on the NHS in England - but only for patients who have tried all other options.

Endometriosis affects 1.5 million women in the UK, causing pain and extreme tiredness as a result of tissue similar to the womb lining growing elsewhere in the body.

The new tablet, known as relugolix combination therapy, has been approved by drug assessment body the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and, unlike current injectable treatments, it can be taken at home.

The charity Endometriosis UK said the pill gives patients more choice, but will help only a relatively small number of people.

What are the symptoms of endometriosis?

• severe period pain that stops you from doing normal activities
• very heavy periods
• pain when you poo or pee
• other symptoms can include pain in your lower tummy, pain after sex, fatigue, shortness of breath, low mood, anxiety
• difficulty getting pregnant

The new combination therapy pill works by blocking specific hormones that contribute to the condition, while also providing replacement hormones that are needed.

It will only be available on the NHS for people who have already tried all other medical and surgical treatments and found they did not help, NICE said - equivalent to 1,000 women a year.

This includes treatments such as hormonal contraceptives and intrauterine delivery systems.

Helen Knight, director of medicines evaluation at NICE, said it marked "a potential step-change in how we manage endometriosis, putting control back in patients' hands while ensuring value for the taxpayer".

She said the treatment could be stopped and started more easily than other treatments, which is important for those planning to have children and for managing side effects.

That could also reduce pressure on NHS services, she added.

NICE initially rejected the drug, but new evidence was provided by the manufacturer on its effectiveness and value for money.

'Collapsing in pain'

Ami Clarke, 27, from St. Albans, started experiencing endometriosis symptoms after her very first period, aged 13.

She was not diagnosed until 10 years later - by then she had tried six different contraceptive pills to find a way of helping her pain, but nothing seemed to work.

"I came off the pill and that's when my periods became absolutely, completely unmanageable. They took over my life. I wasn't going to university, I wasn't going to work," Ami says.

"If I was going to work, I was collapsing in pain consistently every single month."

Ami kept going back to her GP because the pain was "completely unbearable".

"I was just so desperate, my mental health was on the floor. I don't even know how I survived. It was like 20 to 25 days out of the month where I was just completely bed-bound," she told the BBC.

Ami had her first surgery in October 2021, which reduced the pain for seven or eight months, but then it gradually came back. A second operation in April 2024 was not as successful. She is now trying to raise enough money to have a third surgery, privately.

Ami says it is good to hear that further treatment is being developed for endometriosis because "a lot of the time it feels like you're being left in the dark".

Usually, the first treatments for endometriosis, after pain relievers, are hormone injections which temporarily shut down the body's production of estrogen. This is the hormone that causes endometriosis tissue to grow and cause pain.

However, patients often need to travel to hospitals to have the injections, which last for up to three months.

With the new all-in-one tablet, there is no need for patients to remember to take hormone replacement therapy as a separate tablet.

It can be stopped quickly if side effects are difficult and taken up until the menopause.

"It's a step forward and will give patients more choice, but it will impact a relatively small number of people," says Emma Cox, chief executive of Endometriosis UK.

"We need to see more investment in other research and treatments," she added.

The treatment will cost £72 for a 28-day supply, NICE said.

The Queen sent a personal letter of support to French rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot, Buckingham Palace has confirmed.

Ms Pelicot was drugged and raped by her ex-husband, who also recruited dozens of men to also abuse her, over nearly a decade.

Queen Camilla, a long-standing campaigner on domestic and sexual violence, was said to be "tremendously affected" by Ms Pelicot's ordeal and wanted to recognise her "extraordinary dignity and courage", Newsweek reports.

In December, judges in the French city of Avignon sentenced 72-year-old Dominique Pelicot to 20 years in prison.

The palace declined to comment on the contents of the letter, which is standard protocol for private correspondence sent from the Queen and other members of the royal family.

But a royal aide told Newsweek despite Ms Pelicot's "personal suffering" she had helped "highlight a very significant societal problem".

They added: "It was very much [the Queen's] instigation and determination to write to express support from the highest level."

Ms Pelicot's case, and France's largest rape trial, brought global attention as she waived her right to anonymity to throw the court's doors open. In her words, she did it to make the "shame swap sides" from the victim to the rapist - something which turned the 72-year-old into a figurehead for feminism.

During the trial, groups of women lined up outside court to applaud her strength, sometimes offering flowers.

• How an ordinary woman shook attitudes to rape in France

Her ex-husband's crimes were only uncovered when he was caught taking photographs up women's skirts in a supermarket.

Pelicot filmed the rapes of his wife, collecting hundreds of videos he stored on a hard disk. He stood trial alongside 50 other men.

Of his co-defendants, 46 were found guilty of rape, two were found guilty of attempted rape, and two guilty of sexual assault.

Pelicot was also convicted of taking indecent images of his daughter, Caroline, and his daughters-in-law, Aurore and Celine, after photos of them were also discovered on his hard drive.

Dominique and Gisèle's daughter, Caroline Darian, is now pressing charges against her father, accusing him of drugging and raping her.

Ms Darian, 46, says she is clearly unconscious in the two photographs of her found on her father's hard drive.

Pelicot has always denied sexually abusing his daughter.

The Queen has vowed to campaign for victims of domestic violence throughout her lifetime, and has called for a "culture change" to stop violence against women.

She has worked with a number of charities and refuges, and supported campaigns through royal visits over a number of years.

In November last year, an ITV documentary followed the Queen's campaign work. In the film, she said domestic abuse should not be a taboo subject, and called for it to be talked about more openly.

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

An arrest warrant has been issued for a senior member of Lighthouse, the life-coaching group which was the subject of the BBC podcast series, A Very British Cult.

The warrant was issued for Shaun Cooper, a director of the group's business entity Lighthouse International Group Holdings Trading LLP, for failing to attend court.

Cooper is the first senior member of the group that the authorities have taken this kind of action against.

Lighthouse began as a life coaching organisation founded by a man called Paul Waugh. But a BBC investigation exposed it as an organisation that ruined the lives of its members and tried to silence any critics.

In the two years since the BBC published its investigation, several people have left the group and are rebuilding their lives. But a small, committed group of members - now calling themselves Lighthouse Global Media - remain devoted to Paul Waugh. They deny that Lighthouse is a cult.

Following a separate investigation into Lighthouse conducted by the Insolvency Service, the High Court in London shut down the business entity "in the public interest" in March 2023, on the grounds that it had filed false or misleading accounts and not cooperated with the investigation.

The Insolvency Service investigation established that, between August 2014 and July 2022, the group received more than £2.4m income - even though it had not declared any assets or income.

Since then, the High Court has requested that all four company directors – Paul Waugh, Chris Nash, Shaun Cooper and Warren Vaughan – cooperate with the Official Receiver's ongoing efforts to identify any assets to pay those owed money by Lighthouse.

• Listen: A Very British Cult
• Inside Lighthouse, the life coaching cult that takes over lives

Paul Waugh, the leader, moved to South Africa shortly after the company was shut down, along with Chris Nash. Both Waugh and Nash have failed to comply with a November 2024 court order to turn over Lighthouse's financial records. According to Lighthouse's letters to the court, this is because both are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

According to Daniel Curthoys, in court for the Official Receiver, Shaun Cooper had also failed to turn up for any of the numerous interviews arranged by investigators.

At a hearing on the 25 February 2025, the court was told, in a letter from Cooper's Lighthouse colleagues, that he was suffering from depression and anxiety, and had left the country. The letter was accompanied by heavily-redacted medical notes.

Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Sebastian Prentis said Lighthouse's letter was "a very long way short" of explaining why Cooper had failed to appear or provide any information to the two-year investigation into Lighthouse.

Granting the application for an arrest warrant, he noted that despite the claims made in Lighthouse's letter, Cooper was apparently well enough to leave Britain. Cooper's whereabouts are currently unknown.

Of the four former directors, only Warren Vaughan has so far cooperated. At an earlier court hearing, he told the investigators he had left Lighthouse.

In response to the investigation by the Insolvency Service, Lighthouse set up a website criticising the service, accusing it of "bullying" the group.

The site says that "Lighthouse refuses to comply with the Insolvency Service's demands, beyond the bear [sic] minimum necessary, on the basis that any 'investigation' has been falsely triggered by malicious and vindictive individuals and is thereby corrupt and invalid."

A 91-year-old man says he lost his life savings to rogue traders who came to repair a few loose tiles but ended up replacing the whole roof.

Allan, from Hornsea, East Yorkshire, said he was visited by builders after Storm Darragh last December, believing they would fix some minor damage.

Instead, he claims they put up scaffolding, replaced all of his tiles and gave him a bill for £31,680.

Humberside Police is investigating.

Allan said a passing window cleaner told him he had a loose slate in the days after Storm Darragh swept across East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

On Sunday 15 December, builders arrived and started putting up scaffolding.

Allan said he cannot remember whether he asked them to come, or whether it was a cold call.

"A ladder appeared, three people appeared and started stripping the roof, so I thought well they know what they are doing, and bit by bit all the slates disappeared," he said.

"They were put on the back of a wagon, and then they drove away with them and came back and started putting new slabs on the roof, just like that."

Allan said he was confused by the size of the job the roofers were doing, and that he had not asked for it.

"It was so overwhelming," he explained. "Once it started there wasn't anything I could do about it."

Allan claimed no price for the work was mentioned, but once it was finished he was presented with a bill for £31,680.

"I think he knew how much money I had because I had a bank statement in there [the next room]," Allan said.

"It was all the money I had."

Allan said the roofers told him that if he paid them upfront, he would be able to claim the work on insurance, but when he contacted his insurers NatWest Home Insurance, they said they could not cover the cost for remedial work that they had not signed off in advance.

A spokesperson for NatWest encouraged customers to contact them before agreeing for any repair work to be done, "so we can advise on their claim and validate any work that needs to be carried out".

They added that they would be providing Allan with "ongoing additional support" after the scam.

'It's killing people'

The BBC has seen the quote and invoice, both dated 18 December, which Allan paid in full by cheque.

Dr Tim Day, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) lead officer for doorstep crime, scams and consumer vulnerability, said this type of scam represents 95% of his caseload - and often the mental toll on victims is far greater than the financial one.

He said that research by the Home Office in 2003 suggested older victims of rogue trader crime were two-and-a-half times more likely to have died or gone into residential care in the two years following an incident than those who had not been victimised.

"It is, unfortunately, robbing people of their independence and it's no exaggeration to say, quite literally, it's killing people," he said.

He added that the market was "flooded" with rogue traders like the ones who targeted Allan.

Fraud is the most common crime type in the UK, amounting to around 40% of all crime in England and Wales, according to the government.

Dr Day said the government should bring in a compulsory national licensing scheme to make traders more accountable.

"Currently, you've got a situation where anyone can set themselves up, you don't need any experience, or knowledge, or training, and they don't need to be legitimate in any way.

"The trade that they represent, as is often the case at the moment, can purely be a means by which they perpetrate fraud."

A spokesperson for the Department for Business and Trade said there was "no clear evidence that a licensing scheme would improve standards".

They said the department supports the TrustMark scheme for helping people to find competent traders, and that local authorities would have new powers from April to allow for tougher fines against businesses that rip off customers.

Allan said he had accepted that he had lost his money, but when his family tried to call the roofers to try to get the scaffolding down, they did not respond.

The scaffolding was left on his property for more than two months before another builder offered to take it away for him.

Allan's close friend, Fred Bree, said the extent to which he had been taken advantage of "beggars belief".

"Allan is a very proud and independent man, he doesn't seek help - but he's vulnerable," Mr Bree added.

Seeing similar scams

The local Trading Standards team at East Riding of Yorkshire Council said it saw similar scams "day in day out".

The details for the firm on Allan's invoice appear to match up with a company that was dissolved in 2022, according to Companies House.

The BBC has decided not to name the company for Allan's safety.

Humberside Police said it was investigating a number of lines of inquiry.

Det Insp Mark Hawley added: "Those who choose to defraud and carry out such unscrupulous crimes against elderly and vulnerable people are a disgrace to our society.

"I would always encourage anyone who is suspicious that they, or someone they know, may be a victim of fraud to talk to someone about it. If it seems too good to be true, or you feel under pressure to make a quick decision, then that is a potential red flag that something isn't right."

Details of support with fraud are available at BBC Action Line.

Are we turning into a nation of shoplifters? That's the question Stacey Dooley asks in her latest documentary.



The presenter reveals she herself shoplifted as a teenager, as part of the BBC programme on the rise in retail theft in the UK.



Dooley explains she would steal eyeliner and mascara at around 13 or 14 years old.

"It would have been disingenuous not to mention it" in the documentary, she says.

"There's not a world where I could sit here and try and justify it, you know, there was no reason, there was no need for me to be out there behaving like that."

She adds that she "wasn't thinking about the girls on the shop floor" and "wasn't thinking about anybody else other than myself".

The documentary-maker spent eight months looking into the rise in shoplifting in the UK - and says "shoplifting has never been more prolific than it is now".

And this comes as retail theft and violence and abuse towards shop workers is rising, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

Based on the latest weighted BRC-Opinium survey with 2,000 participants, the BRC estimates almost a quarter (24%) of the UK population witnessed shoplifting in the 12 months to February 2025.

In Meet the Shoplifters, Dooley asks shoplifters about their motivations. Some see it as an act of defiance against big corporations, while others say they find it "really degrading" but do it to get things like nappies and milk for their children.

One shoplifter Dooley spoke to, for example, was a mother stealing milk and bread to feed her child. "She was riddled with guilt," Dooley says of the mother. "It was out of sheer desperation."

Tom Holder from the BRC says shoplifting in the UK is becoming worse and worse, adding: "We're now just reaching new heights. People think that they can get away with it, without consequence."

The recent BRC survey also estimates 23% of customers witnessed the physical or verbal abuse of shop staff in the year to February 2025. This can include racial or sexual abuse, physical assault or threats with weapons.

Dooley spoke to retail worker Dips, who works in a cosmetics store in Manchester, and says "as each year has gone on, it's got worse for us".

"It's not a victimless crime. Somebody always pays the price for it down the line. And for us, it's the staff in here," she adds.

Dooley also explains how shoplifting is being documented on social media. "We've seen shop assistants be, you know, verbally abused, physically abused," she says.

Helen Dickinson, the chief executive of the BRC, adds that while an incident can be "over in a matter of seconds", it can have "life-long consequences" on those who experience it, making them think twice about visiting their local high streets.

When speaking to shoplifters, Dooley says some of them "don't even see it as a crime, necessarily".

And she adds that on social media, some people use hashtags to offer other shoplifters advice.

But shoplifting cost UK retailers £2bn in one year, according to a recent estimate.

And Holder says shoplifting puts pressure on retail prices, adding: "That money has to come from somewhere, so it ends up being spread across everything that we buy."

Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault

"He was on top of me - we were kissing and having sex, then suddenly he put his forearm on my neck and pressed hard with his full weight. I just froze."

Rachel* had never slept with the man before. Speaking to the BBC, she says while the sex was consensual, the man began choking her without warning and without her consent - and that was deeply frightening.

"He just did it like it was normal and it caught me by surprise, so I just went with it," the 26-year-old says. "I didn't lose consciousness, but this numbness came over me and I just waited for it to stop."

It happened again a fortnight later, Rachel says, with another man whom she had met on a dating site. Like the previous occasion, there was no discussion about choking beforehand.

"The actual strangling is a blank in my memory," she says. "His hands were round my neck, and then I disassociated with it until it ended.

"You go from feeling safe to losing control of the situation. I didn't have sex for a year afterwards because of how it made me feel alienated from my body."

Both incidents were distressing for Rachel, who assumes the men who choked her must have seen it in pornography.

"It felt like it was - in their minds - just a normal part of sex."

A recent government review found porn involving non-fatal strangulation (NFS) was "rife" and that its prevalence online was contributing to choking filtering into some people's sex lives - particularly among young people. The BBC has spoken to women who've experienced choking during sex - both willingly and not - and to experts who say, while it may be more common, it is illegal and highly dangerous.

When someone is strangled, pressure on the neck cuts off the blood supply to the brain, which can lead to feeling dizzy and light-headed. The level of oxygen in the body suddenly drops, while the build-up of carbon dioxide significantly increases. This can cause brain damage or even death.

Other risks include loss of consciousness, strokes, seizures, and speech disorders. Choking can also lead to psychological problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and contribute to depression.

Despite the health risks, a recent survey by the government-funded charity the Institute For Addressing Strangulation (IFAS), suggests strangling is most common in the 16-34 age group, with 35% of respondents reporting they had been choked by a partner during consensual sex.

Some 16% of all UK-based respondents (385 out of 2,344) have been strangled once or more during consensual sex, and the data shows a slightly higher proportion of women have experienced it compared with men.

Half of the sample who had experienced it said they had agreed to it, while 17% said they hadn't.

Some people who engage in sexual asphyxiation say it intensifies pleasure - like Amanda*, who told the BBC she is regularly strangled by her boyfriend during what she calls rough sex.

"It gets us both off," the 28-year-old says. "I find the idea of turning him on a turn on, and I trust that he won't go too far and put lots of pressure on.

"It's an intimate thing with the person you trust the most, so you feel safe."

A quick search on a mainstream adult website, and it takes just seconds to find a series of porn films featuring long sequences of non-fatal strangulation (NFS).

The influence of pornography has resulted in strangulation becoming "standard behaviour" according to Prof Hannah Bows, from Durham University's Centre for Research into Violence and Abuse.

"What we've seen in the last 10 to 15 years is that it's become a glamorised, fantasised and celebrated form of 'normal' sexual encounters," she says.

Her conclusions are reinforced by the findings of the porn industry review commissioned by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. It found content involving NFS was "rife on mainstream platforms", and recommended making, possessing or publishing porn showing women being strangled during sex, a crime. It isn't currently illegal to depict online.

The government also said further action is needed to address the findings that graphic strangulation is becoming normalised in real life.

Details of help and support with sexual abuse or violence are available in the UK at BBC Action Line

NFS was made a specific offence in England and Wales in 2022, with a maximum prison sentence of five years. About 700 offenders were sentenced for non-fatal strangulation or suffocation offences between July 2022 and June 2023, crime statistics shared with the BBC show.

There are no statistics on the number of people who have died from strangulation while having sex. The latest femicide census shows of the 2,000 women aged 14 or above who had been killed in the UK since 2014, strangulation was used in 550 (27%). Some 372 were strangled by an intimate partner.

The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) warns NFS can be used to control and coerce a partner by using physical strength to create fear - and studies suggest victims are seven times more likely to be murdered by their partner if there had been non-fatal strangulation beforehand.

Amanda didn't know choking could be an offence in England and Wales, even if done consensually and for pleasure. "I had no idea," she says, "but it's our business and it's our sex life - and it's not like we both haven't talked about it."

Her boyfriend agrees: "It's hot. We watch it on porn and so you think, 'if they do it and it works, why not us?' I might be more careful now though."

However, Harriet Smailes, from the IFAS, says there is "no safe way to strangle".

"We also know that consent for these acts is not always sought in advance, and an individual's ability to provide ongoing consent can be impeded by being strangled."

Kama Melly KC, who specialises in prosecuting sexual offence cases, says NFS often occurs as an act of domestic violence, and can be difficult to prove due to a lack of visible injuries, eye witnesses, CCTV or forensic findings.

"The fact that there can be a loss of consciousness after just a few seconds - that means the victim doesn't have a very clear narrative of events," she adds.

Ms Melly says defendants can claim strangulation during sex was consensual, although such a defence is not possible if the victim suffers serious harm.

Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe, the NPCC's lead for domestic abuse, wants people to think twice before engaging in sexual asphyxiation.

"I would say get yourself informed and really understand, because you're not a medical expert," she says. "You may feel that you're doing something that's safe, but all the research and evidence would suggest it's not.

"It's incredibly dangerous, so think through the consequences."

*Names have been changed

Parents who don't want their children on Roblox should not let them use it, the chief executive of the gigantic gaming platform has said.

The site, which is the most popular in the UK among young gamers aged eight to 12, has been dogged by claims of some children being exposed to explicit or harmful content through its games, alongside multiple reported allegations of bullying and grooming.

But its co-founder and CEO Dave Baszucki insisted that the company is vigilant in protecting its users and pointed out that "tens of millions" of people have "amazing experiences" on the site.

When asked what his message is to parents who don't want their children on the platform, Mr Baszucki said: "My first message would be, if you're not comfortable, don't let your kids be on Roblox."

"That sounds a little counter-intuitive, but I would always trust parents to make their own decisions," he told BBC News in an exclusive interview.

Gaming giant

US-based Roblox is one of the world's largest games platforms, with more monthly users than Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation combined. In 2024 it averaged more than 80 million players per day – roughly 40% of them below the age of 13. Its vast empire includes some 40 million user-generated games and experiences.

In the UK the Online Safety Act, which comes in to force in April, has strict laws for all tech firms specifically aimed at protecting children from online harms.

But Mr Baszucki says he remains confident in Roblox's safety tools and insists the firm goes above and beyond to keep its users safe.

"We do in the company take the attitude that any bad, even one bad incident, is one too many," he says.

"We watch for bullying, we watch for harassment, we filter all of those kinds of things, and I would say behind the scenes, the analysis goes on all the way to, if necessary, reaching out to law enforcement."

Players who choose not to display what he calls "civility" can face temporary time-outs and longer bans, and Roblox claims to analyse all communications that pass between members on the platform, increasingly using more advanced AI systems and other tech to do so — and anything flagged is sent for further investigation.

In November last year, under 13s were banned from sending direct messages, and also from playing in "hangout experiences" which features chat between players.

Safety filters bypassed

However, the BBC was able to create two fake accounts, one aged 15 and one aged 27, on unlinked devices and exchange messages between the two.

While the filters caught our attempts to overtly move the conversation onto a different platform, we found easy ways to re-word requests to chat elsewhere and make suggestions about playing more adult games.

When we showed the Roblox boss these findings, he argued that our example highlighted the comparative safety of Roblox: that people felt they had to take content which might breach Roblox's rules to other platforms.

"We don't condone any type of image-sharing on our own platform, and you'll see us getting more and more, I think, way beyond where the law is on this type of behaviour," Mr Baszucki says.

He admits there is a delicate balance between encouraging friendships between young people, and blocking opportunities for them come to harm, but says he is confident Roblox can manage both.

We also put to him some Roblox game titles that the BBC has discovered were recommended by the platform to an 11 year-old recently, including:

• 'Late Night Boys And Girls Club RP'
• 'Special Forces Simulator''
• 'Squid Game'
• 'Shoot down planes…because why not?'

When we asked whether he thought they were appropriate, he said he puts his faith in the platform's age rating systems.

"One thing that's really important for the way we do things here, is it's not just on the title of the experience, it's literally on the content of the experience as well," he says.

He insists that when Roblox rates experience, they go through rigorous guidelines and that the company has a "consistent policy" on that.

Mr Baszucki founded the platform with Eric Cassel in 2004 and released it to the public in 2006 – a year before the first Apple iPhone appeared, heralding the start of the smartphone era.

Mr Baszucki describes his younger self as "less of a gamer, and more of an engineer", and the pair's first company was an education software provider called Knowledge Revolution. But they soon noticed that kids weren't only using the product to do their homework.

"They wanted to play and build stuff. They were making houses or ships or scenery, and they wanted to jump in, and all of that learning was the germination of Roblox," he says.

The name Roblox was a mash-up of the words "robot" and blocks" – and it stuck. The platform grew quickly in popularity – and there were also early warning signs of its future issues.

Mr Cassel noticed some players "starting to act out" and not always behaving in a "civilised" way a couple of months after it launched, recalls Mr Baszucki.

He says the roots of building a "trust and safety system" therefore began "very, very early" and that in those earlier days there were four people acting as safety moderators.

"It kind of is what launched this safety civility foundation," he adds.

But despite attracting decent numbers, it was a year later, when the firm launched its digital currency Robux, that it really started to make money.

Players buy Robux and use it to purchase accessories and unlock content. Content creators now get 70% of the fee, and the store operates on dynamic pricing, meaning popular items cost more.

Mr Baszucki says there was some initial resistance among the leadership team about Roblox becoming more than a hobby for its players, with the introduction of a digital economy.

Robux stayed, and the firm is now worth $41bn (£31bn).

Its share price has fluctuated since it went public in 2021, but overall Roblox shares are worth about one third more than they were six months ago, at the time of writing. Like many big tech firms its value peaked during Covid, when lockdowns meant millions of people were indoors.

Mr Baszucki compares his experience of building Roblox with how Walt Disney may have felt about his creations.

He describes his job as "a little like having the opportunity he had a long time ago when he was designing the Magic Kingdom", and is focused on Roblox's ongoing evolution into a Metaverse-style experience where people go about their daily lives in a virtual world, in avatar form.

They have also been public in their ambitions to eventually attract 10% of the world's gamers.

Asked to describe Roblox in three words, he replies: "The future of communication."

We finish our time together playing a couple of his favourite games: Natural Disaster Survival and Dress to Impress.

We use his account and he's constantly recognised by other players — but we still get smashed to pieces by a blizzard outside the Natural Disasters mansion.

Additional reporting by Ammie Sekhon

Retailer John Lewis has said its staff will not received a bonus for the third year in a row, despite reporting a jump in annual profits.

The employee-owned retail partnership, which also includes the Waitrose supermarket chain, said profits last year rose by 73% to £97m.

However, it has not restored the staff bonus, saying its wants to invest in its business and workers' pay instead.

The John Lewis Partnership employs about 73,000 people, and earlier this month it said shop workers would receive a 7.4% pay rise this year.

The results are the first under the partnership's new chairman, Jason Tarry.

"We have made good progress with much more still to do," Mr Tarry said.

"Looking forward, I see significant opportunity for growth from both our Waitrose and John Lewis brands."

Waitrose sales grew 4.4% to £8bn, and it sold more of its own-brand products.

John Lewis said that while it expected the economic environment to be "challenging for our customers and our business" in the year ahead, it was still confident it could push up profits.

This is the fourth time in five years that John Lewis has not paid a bonus.

The string of freezes started in 2020 - the first time it had scrapped them since 1953 - after it was hit by Covid lockdown store closures.

Charles Allen, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, said the lack of bonus "had been signalled".

"I also think we have to put in the light of another big pay raise that's coming through in line with the minimum wage jump.

"And then of course, although the partners don't see it, you've got a very large rise in employer national insurance as well."

A SpaceX mission that aimed to clear the way for two stranded astronauts to get back to earth has been postponed.

The launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was put back due to a hydraulic ground issue. There is another possible launch opportunity on Thursday.

The rocket aimed to fly four new crew members to the International Space Station (ISS) and pave the way for the return of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.

The two NASA astronauts flew to space in June but were not able to return on a Boeing spacecraft after it was deemed unsafe. The pair would be able to return to earth within days of the SpaceX mission reaching the ISS.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

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Many people in and around the Italian city of Naples have spent the night on the streets and in their cars after an earthquake shook buildings and brought rubble crashing down.

Italian seismologists said the 4.4 magnitude tremor struck at 01:25 local time on Thursday (00:25 GMT) at a shallow depth of three kilometres (two miles). The US Geological Survey measured it as a 4.2 tremor 10km deep.

Power supply in parts of Naples was disrupted.

In the nearby town of Pozzuoli, close to the quake's epicentre, one injured person was pulled from the rubble of a partially collapsed house.

Naples sits on the Phlegraean Fields, a volcanic basin that makes the area in southern Italy prone to quakes.

Thursday's earthquake was felt in several areas of the Campania region, Italian media reported.

The tremor was followed by at least two weaker aftershocks.

People have been seen leaving their homes and gathering on the streets of Naples, fearing more tremors.

Photos later emerged showing one damaged house and a car with a smashed windscreen.

A rescue co-ordination centre has been set up to assess the damage.

Schools in Pozzuoli and two nearby neighbourhoods will be closed on Thursday so building stability checks can be carried out, the Corriere Della Sera newspaper reported.

• Naples sits on volcanic monsters - and one of them threatens to consume the city

The government faces a "now or never moment" to hit its target of recruiting 6,500 new teachers in England by the end of its term, a new report has suggested.

Analysis by the National Foundation of Educational Research (NFER) says unfilled vacancies are at a record high and recruitment into teacher training remains "persistently low."

All but five secondary subjects missed this year's recruitment targets for new trainee teachers, which are set by the Department for Education (DfE).

The government says "work has already begun" to reach its target, including investing £233m next year to encourage more trainee teachers into shortage subjects.

The report says more funding will be needed from this summer's spending review, which decides how much will be allocated to different government departments over the next few years, if the target is going to be met.

During the election campaign, Labour promised "to recruit 6,500 new expert teachers in key subjects'' over the course of its five-year parliamentary term, funded by changing the VAT rules for private schools.

At the Commonweal Secondary School, in Swindon, head teacher Chas Drew agrees more needs to be done.

He is hoping there will be no resignations at his school in the next two months.

"March to May is silly season," he says.

"Anybody who wants to resign to take up a new job or promotion in September has to hand in their notice by the May half term, and you think: 'Am I going to be stuck with a gap to fill?'"

Over the last few years, the school has had to make some GCSE class sizes slightly bigger in subjects like maths and science, and has had to cut human biology classes entirely.

Mr Drew says the school benefits from its good reputation, and that word of mouth is "the single best recruiter" of new teachers.

Recent bursary changes in some shortage subjects has increased the supply of teachers in some areas. Starting salaries also recently increased to £30,000, while teachers received an average pay rise of 5.5% last year, fully funded by the government.

But recruitment targets are still being missed, the NFER says.

For primary schools, the number of teacher trainees has fallen from 94% of the government's target last year, to 88% this year, according to DfE figures.

And in secondary schools, though the number of teachers has grown by 3% since 2015, pupil numbers have grown by 15% in the same time - meaning the number of students in class sizes above 30 has increased.

The NFER's school workforce lead, Jack Worth, says more students are now being taught by unqualified or non-specialist teachers, with the impact felt more acutely by students living in disadvantaged areas.

"The spending review in June is a real now or never moment. Not taking that opportunity will really risk not delivering [on the 6,500 promise] and not having anything to show the electorate at the end of the parliament."

Mr Worth says "pay increases above average earnings", reducing teacher workload and bursaries and career retention payments are all important for attracting more teachers.

The NFER report also predicts teacher recruitment in subjects like English will decline slightly next year.

Bethan Harvey is a qualified history teacher, but is currently teaching English full-time due to the demand for more teachers in the subject.

"I thought, 'I can do this, I did A-level English,'" she says.

Ms Harvey is now doing a part-time masters degree in English to become a specialist in the subject.

Teaching unions have backed the NFER's recommendation of a fully-funded pay rise for next year, as well as a 6.1% increase over the next two years, in order to retain teachers and attract new ones into the profession.

The government has suggested a 2.8% pay rise for this year and is currently waiting for the review body's recommendation before making a decision.

The National Education Union is currently balloting members on industrial action over the government's initial recommendation.

The NFER is also calling for school leaders to consider more flexible working practices, but acknowledges the difficulties of making that happen.

A DfE spokesperson said next year's £233m of funding is there "to encourage more talented people into the classroom to teach subjects including maths, physics, chemistry and computing".

On top of last year's 5.5% pay award, they said schools were also being encouraged to allow staff to work more flexibly to ease teachers' workloads and improve wellbeing.

Sir Keir Starmer will pledge to slash the costs of regulation with an "active government" in a speech later.

He will take aim at a "cottage industry of checkers and blockers slowing down delivery for working people", as he argues the state has become bigger but weaker.

New AI and tech teams will be sent into public sector departments to drive improvements in efficiencies.

It comes after Sir Keir told his ministers they should take more responsibility for decisions, rather than "outsourcing" them to regulators.

A push to reduce the role of quangos - or non-governmental bodies - is expected to be part of the prime minister's plan.

Incoming governments have often sought to cut the number of quangos - but what are they and what do they do?

What is a quango?

Quango stands for Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation but the government calls them "arm's length bodies". They are organisations funded by taxpayers but not directly controlled by central government, such as regulators, cultural institutions and advisory bodies.

They range from huge organisations like NHS England and HMRC, to smaller bodies like the Gambling Commission and the British Film Institute.

How many quangos are there?

The number of quangos has fallen by more than half since 2010 but there are still more than 300 across the UK.

Under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition nearly 300 were axed - dubbed the "bonfire of the quangos" - in an attempt to improve accountability and cut costs.

Despite Sir Keir indicating he would also like to reduce the role of quangos, the new Labour government has set up more than 20 since winning power.

These include Great British Energy, which will invest in renewable energy to help meet the government's clean power goals, and the Border Security Command, which aims to tackle small boat crossings.

Asked earlier this week if the government was planning another "bonfire of the quangos", Downing Street said the PM wanted to see a more "active and agile state", rather than "outsourcing" decisions to other bodies.

How much do they cost?

Almost 60% of day-to-day government spending is channelled through quangos, with 90% of this going to the largest 10 bodies.

The total budget for quangos in 2022/23 - the latest published figures - was £353.3bn.

Why are they controversial?

Campaign groups like the TaxPayers' Alliance have long criticised quangos, claiming they allow ministers to dodge responsibility for mistakes and can be inefficient and costly.

The Institute for Government think tank says in some cases scrapping public bodies can save money and improve how services are delivered.

It gives the example of how merging JobCentre Plus into the Department for Work and Pensions helped cut the department's workforce and office space by a third.

But the think tank argues abolitions also cost money and time in the short term, with services disrupted when powers are transferred.

Moving activities into departments, while improving accountability, can also dilute expert knowledge.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to read top political analysis, gain insight from across the UK and stay up to speed with the big moments. It'll be delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

US President Donald Trump has pledged to impose more tariffs after his latest move to introduce import taxes on steel and aluminium entering the US prompted retaliation from the European Union (EU) and Canada.

Trump said "of course" he would respond to the countermeasures, repeating his warning to reveal "reciprocal" tariffs next month on countries around the world.

"Whatever they charge us with, we're charging them," he said.

The threat marked a further escalation of a trade war which has rattled financial markets amid concerns over the impact on the economies and consumers in many countries around the world, including the US.

On Wednesday, Trump moved forward with a plan to widen US tariffs on steel and aluminium, imposing a blanket duty of 25% and ending exemptions that the US had previously granted for shipments from some countries.

That followed an order earlier this month that raised levies on Chinese imports into the US to at least 20%.

Trump has also threatened tariffs - which are taxes applied to goods as they enter a country - on a range of more specific items, including copper, lumber and cars.

Leaders in Canada and Europe called the new metals taxes unjustified and struck back with their own tariffs on a range of US products.

Other countries that are key US suppliers of metals, including the UK, Australia, Mexico and Brazil, held off on any immediate retaliation.

"Like everybody else, I'm disappointed to see global tariffs in relation to steel and aluminium but we will take a pragmatic approach," said UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

"We are...negotiating a deal which covers and includes tariffs if we succeed. But we will keep all options on the table."

Canada said from Thursday it would start charging a 25% tax on nearly C$30bn ($20bn; £16bn) worth of US products, including steel, computers and sports equipment.

The EU said it would raise its levies on up to €26bn ($28bn; £22bn) worth of US goods, including boats, bourbon and motorbikes, from 1 April.

EU President Ursula von der Leyen said the response was intended to be "strong but proportionate" and added that the EU stood "ready to engage in a meaningful dialogue".

"Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business and worse for consumers," she said, warning the economic disruption put jobs at stake and would send prices higher.

"Nobody needs that – on both sides, neither in the European Union nor in the United States."

Trump had said he wants to boost US steel and aluminium production in the longer run, but critics say in the immediate term the taxes on imports of the metals will raise prices for US consumers and dent economic growth.

Major packaged food makers including Quaker Oats and Folgers coffee asked Trump for targeted exemptions from tariffs on imports such as cocoa and fruit, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

PepsiCo, Conagra and J M Smucker, also requested the president exempt ingredients not available from US sources in the letter, which was sent by the trade group the Consumer Brands Association.

Coffee, oats, cocoa, spices, tropical fruit and tin mill steel, used for some food and household goods, are among the imports listed as unavailable domestically, Reuters reported.

The import taxes are also expected to reduce demand for steel and aluminium that is not made in the US - a blow to makers of the metals elsewhere.

The EU estimated that the latest US tariffs affect about 5% of its total exports to the US, while the US is the destination for roughly 90% of Canada's steel and aluminium exports.

Shares in the US were mixed on Wednesday, after two days of sharp decline. The Dow closed down 0.2%, while the S&P 500 ended nearly 0.5% higher and the Nasdaq jumped 1.2%.

In an appearance at the White House with the Irish prime minister, Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Trump said he did not plan to back down from his trade fight, saying he was "not happy" with EU trade policies.

He cited concerns about legal penalties it has imposed on Apple and rules he claimed put US farm products and cars at a disadvantage.

"They're doing what they should be doing perhaps for the European Union but it does create ill will," he said.

Repeating his threat to hit European cars with tariffs, he added later: "We're going to win that financial battle."

Canada's Prime Minister-designate Mark Carney has said he is ready to negotiate a renewed trade deal with President Donald Trump, as long as there is "respect for Canadian sovereignty".

Carney made these comments during a visit to a steel plant in Hamilton, Ontario, as Canada unveiled C$29.8 billion ($20.7 billion) in reciprocal tariffs on US imports.

It comes after Trump slapped 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminium coming into the country.

Since President Trump took office in January, the two countries have been involved in an escalating trade war, with the US president repeatedly threatening to annex its neighbour.

Carney on Wednesday condemned the latest round of US tariffs as "unjustified".

"We're all going to be better off when the greatest economic and security partnership in the world is renewed, relaunched," he said.

Canada, which is the biggest foreign supplier of steel and aluminium to the US, is heavily exposed to the tariffs.

Trump has justified the tariffs, claiming they are necessary for US national security and to boost demand for domestic producers, which he argues has been "depressed" by foreign competition.

• What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?
• Is the US really heading into a recession?

The US president implemented a blanket 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, citing concerns over drugs and migrants crossing the US border.

The tariffs on steel and aluminium, effective Wednesday, mark the end of exemptions previously granted to several countries, including Canada.

In retaliation, Canada announced tariffs on US goods, including steel and aluminium, with additional measures set to take effect at 00:01 EST (04:01 GMT) on Thursday.

The new tariffs cover a range of products, including C$12.6 billion on steel, $3 billion on aluminium, as well as tools, computer equipment, water heaters, sports equipment, and cast-iron products.

Experts say the growing trade dispute threatens economic stability for both countries.

On Wednesday, Canada's central bank cut interest rates to 2.75% from 3% to prepare the country's economy for disruption.

Canadian Finance Minister Dominic Leblanc told a news conference that the country was still seeking to de-escalate.

"If you're racing to the basement, there's no real prize for the first person to get to the basement," Leblanc said.

On Thursday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, along with federal representatives, will meet US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Lutnick told Fox Business Network that at the meeting he plans to try to "level set" things between the two nations.

Mark Carney, who was elected leader of the governing Liberal Party on Sunday, is set to be sworn in as prime minister, replacing Justin Trudeau. He has promised to win the trade war against Trump, following his landslide victory.

With reporting from Jonathan Josephs and Lisa Lambert

Thousands of sites potentially contaminated with toxic chemicals have never been checked by councils, a BBC investigation has found.

Nine out of 10 "high-risk" areas have not been tested by councils responding to a BBC Freedom of Information request, and scientists fear they could pose a health risk.

The sites are thought to contain substances such as lead or arsenic.

The BBC Shared Data Unit found of 13,093 potentially toxic sites that councils have identified as high risk, only 1,465 have been inspected.

The UK government has said that local unitary authorities have a statutory duty to inspect potentially contaminated sites but councils claim they do not have the money to do it.

The research comes after the release of new Netflix drama Toxic Town which tells the story of families fighting for justice following one of the UK's biggest environmental scandals.

The BBC's findings raise fresh questions about what exactly has been left beneath our feet from the UK's heavy industrial past.

"What we don't do in this country is do a full economic evaluation on the cost of things, including health and that feels almost criminal," said Dr Ian Mudway, a leading expert on the effect of pollution on human health.

"I'm not even certain we've achieved the point of scratching the surface."

Contaminated land is a site that might have been polluted from its previous use - it could have been a factory, power station, a railway line, landfill site, petrol station or dry cleaners.

If you live in a property constructed after 2000, any contamination issues should be covered by updated planning laws.

How much land is contaminated in the UK?

But if you live in a property built before 2000, the rules are less clear.

The Environmental Protection Act requires councils to list all potential contaminated sites, and inspect the high-risk ones to make sure people and property are not at risk.

But after contacting all 122 unitary authorities in Wales, Scotland and England about their contaminated land, 73 responded to the BBC's Shared Data Unit Freedom of Information request which revealed there were 430,000 potential sites identified in the early 2000s.

Of those, 13,093 were considered to be potentially high-risk, which experts said should have then been subject to physical testing. Yet, more than 11,000 of them remain unchecked to this day.

Half of Wales' 22 councils told the BBC they could not or would not give us figures - but those that did, identified 698 high-risk sites of which 586 have not been inspected.

Where Robin Morris lives is home to more than 400 of Wales' 1,300 abandoned metal mines and its three rivers, the Ystwyth, Rheidol and the Clarach, are some of the most heavily-polluted in the UK.

The Cwmystwyth mines in north Ceredigion date back to the Bronze Age and were abandoned in 1950, but spoils including a high level of zinc, cadmium and lead scatter the landscape and have polluted the River Ystwyth below.

Many Cwmystwyth locals, like Robin, have filtration systems installed if they receive their water from the hills where the old mines were.

"We installed an advance filtration system and were assured it would take absolutely everything," he said.

'Alarm bells'

The BBC took a soil sample from Robin's garden on the banks of the Ystwyth and it revealed a very high reading of lead - well above the recommended safe level for gardening.

"It causes alarm bells to ring," Robin told BBC Wales Investigates.

"In light of the figures from your soil sample, we should have stopped growing vegetables long ago."

It's just one sample, but other things that have happened in the past now seem to make more sense.

"We had ducks and chickens, a couple of the ducks went lame and we did consult the vet, he thought it was because of lead contamination," added Robin.

Ceredigion council said it was liaising with Wales' environmental body National Resources Wales to continually assess the health impact from the area's mining legacy.

Dr Mudway insists there was "no safe level" of lead and told the BBC it could impact children's development as well as kidney and cardiovascular disease in adults.

"Nothing is more of a forever chemical than lead," added the environmental toxicologist at Imperial College London.

"This is a hazard that has not gone away and is still a clear and present danger to the population.

"It's one of the few chemical entities for which we can calculate a global burden of disease - between half a million to just under a million premature deaths per year because of the release of lead into our environment.

"When you talk about the cost of ensuring that land is safe... that costs money up front.

"The costs of potential health effects, especially if they contribute to chronic diseases which people live with for 10 or 20 years, or the costs of remediating land, after when you realise that it's a high-level, dwarf the profits made at the other end of that cycle. That feels almost criminal.

"The health cost is hardly considered at all."

When Manon Chiswell was a toddler she suddenly stopped talking - doctors advised her family she was showing lots of autistic traits.

"I do have memories of being very closely monitored in Meithrin [nursery]... I always had an adult with me," said Manon, now 20.

"I couldn't speak... they had to use a traffic light system, and yes or no cards to redirect me and help me communicate."

But a blood test later found high levels of lead in Manon's blood.

She was not autistic, she had been poisoned.

Her father, Huw Chiswell, believed Manon was most likely poisoned at their home in Cardiff, which was near an old industrial site.

"She used to eat earth [as a toddler] in the garden," he said.

"There were railway sidings not far from where we lived at the time, so it's difficult to draw any other conclusions really, because once she'd stopped the eating, she got better."

But it is not just about lead - a government report suggests that sites posing the greatest health risks were also contaminated by chemicals such as arsenic, nickel, chromium, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) found in soil or water.

Campaigners want a new law forcing councils to keep a public register of all potential contaminated sites.

It is led by the parents of a seven-year-old boy who died from poisonous gas after the River Thames flooded their home in 2014, and they believe the fumes came from a nearby landfill.

Zane's law - named after Zane Gbangbola - also calls for measures such as more money for councils to identify and test possible sites.

"You have to know that it exists before you can protect yourself," said Zane's dad Kye Gbangbola, who was left paralysed after the gas poisoning.

"Until we have Zane's Law people will remain unprotected."

When tighter regulations on dealing with potentially contaminated land became law 25 years ago, the minister that pushed them through wanted just that.

Now John Selwyn Gummer feels UK government funding cuts has meant far fewer inspections.

"There is no way in which local authorities can do this job without having the resources," said Lord Deben.

"Successive governments have under-provided for the work that we need to do."

'There's a possibility some people's health is being threatened'

Several councils have told the BBC that funding is the reason they had stopped checking possible contaminated land.

Phil Hartley was one of hundreds of officers across the UK that used to check potential sites and Newcastle's former council contamination officer.

He said the central government grant removal had led to a "collapse" in checks.

"Since the money dried up very, very few councils proactively go out looking for contaminated land sites because the council doesn't want to take the risk of finding them," said Mr Hartley.

"There's a possibility that some people's health is being threatened, which is not great."

The UK government said local authorities had a statutory duty to inspect potentially contaminated sites, require remediation and maintain a public register of remediated land.

"Any risk to public health from contaminated land is a serious matter," a spokesperson from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.

They also asked the Environment Agency to produce a new state of contaminated land report to provide the "best possible baseline of data to measure future policies related to contaminated land against".

The bodies that represent councils in Wales and England both said a lack of cash meant they could not fulfil their duty.

The Welsh Local Government Association said while Wales' 22 councils took their responsibility to check sites "seriously", progress was "increasingly constrained by a lack of dedicated funding and specialist resources".

England's Local Government Association said: "Without adequate funding, councils will continue to struggle to provide crucial services - with devastating consequences for those who rely on them."

You can watch Britain's Toxic Secret on BBC iPlayer and BBC One on Thursday 13 March at 20:30 GMT

A SpaceX mission that aimed to clear the way for two stranded astronauts to get back to earth has been postponed.

The launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was put back due to a hydraulic ground issue. There is another possible launch opportunity on Thursday.

The rocket aimed to fly four new crew members to the International Space Station (ISS) and pave the way for the return of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.

The two NASA astronauts flew to space in June but were not able to return on a Boeing spacecraft after it was deemed unsafe. The pair would be able to return to earth within days of the SpaceX mission reaching the ISS.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on X to get the latest alerts.

A SpaceX mission that aimed to clear the way for two stranded astronauts to get back to earth has been postponed.

The launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was put back due to a hydraulic ground issue. There is another possible launch opportunity on Thursday.

The rocket aimed to fly four new crew members to the International Space Station (ISS) and pave the way for the return of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.

The two NASA astronauts flew to space in June but were not able to return on a Boeing spacecraft after it was deemed unsafe. The pair would be able to return to earth within days of the SpaceX mission reaching the ISS.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on X to get the latest alerts.

Thousands of sites potentially contaminated with toxic chemicals have never been checked by councils, a BBC investigation has found.

Nine out of 10 "high-risk" areas have not been tested by councils responding to a BBC Freedom of Information request, and scientists fear they could pose a health risk.

The sites are thought to contain substances such as lead or arsenic.

The BBC Shared Data Unit found of 13,093 potentially toxic sites that councils have identified as high risk, only 1,465 have been inspected.

The UK government has said that local unitary authorities have a statutory duty to inspect potentially contaminated sites but councils claim they do not have the money to do it.

The research comes after the release of new Netflix drama Toxic Town which tells the story of families fighting for justice following one of the UK's biggest environmental scandals.

The BBC's findings raise fresh questions about what exactly has been left beneath our feet from the UK's heavy industrial past.

"What we don't do in this country is do a full economic evaluation on the cost of things, including health and that feels almost criminal," said Dr Ian Mudway, a leading expert on the effect of pollution on human health.

"I'm not even certain we've achieved the point of scratching the surface."

Contaminated land is a site that might have been polluted from its previous use - it could have been a factory, power station, a railway line, landfill site, petrol station or dry cleaners.

If you live in a property constructed after 2000, any contamination issues should be covered by updated planning laws.

How much land is contaminated in the UK?

But if you live in a property built before 2000, the rules are less clear.

The Environmental Protection Act requires councils to list all potential contaminated sites, and inspect the high-risk ones to make sure people and property are not at risk.

But after contacting all 122 unitary authorities in Wales, Scotland and England about their contaminated land, 73 responded to the BBC's Shared Data Unit Freedom of Information request which revealed there were 430,000 potential sites identified in the early 2000s.

Of those, 13,093 were considered to be potentially high-risk, which experts said should have then been subject to physical testing. Yet, more than 11,000 of them remain unchecked to this day.

Half of Wales' 22 councils told the BBC they could not or would not give us figures - but those that did, identified 698 high-risk sites of which 586 have not been inspected.

Where Robin Morris lives is home to more than 400 of Wales' 1,300 abandoned metal mines and its three rivers, the Ystwyth, Rheidol and the Clarach, are some of the most heavily-polluted in the UK.

The Cwmystwyth mines in north Ceredigion date back to the Bronze Age and were abandoned in 1950, but spoils including a high level of zinc, cadmium and lead scatter the landscape and have polluted the River Ystwyth below.

Many Cwmystwyth locals, like Robin, have filtration systems installed if they receive their water from the hills where the old mines were.

"We installed an advance filtration system and were assured it would take absolutely everything," he said.

'Alarm bells'

The BBC took a soil sample from Robin's garden on the banks of the Ystwyth and it revealed a very high reading of lead - well above the recommended safe level for gardening.

"It causes alarm bells to ring," Robin told BBC Wales Investigates.

"In light of the figures from your soil sample, we should have stopped growing vegetables long ago."

It's just one sample, but other things that have happened in the past now seem to make more sense.

"We had ducks and chickens, a couple of the ducks went lame and we did consult the vet, he thought it was because of lead contamination," added Robin.

Ceredigion council said it was liaising with Wales' environmental body National Resources Wales to continually assess the health impact from the area's mining legacy.

Dr Mudway insists there was "no safe level" of lead and told the BBC it could impact children's development as well as kidney and cardiovascular disease in adults.

"Nothing is more of a forever chemical than lead," added the environmental toxicologist at Imperial College London.

"This is a hazard that has not gone away and is still a clear and present danger to the population.

"It's one of the few chemical entities for which we can calculate a global burden of disease - between half a million to just under a million premature deaths per year because of the release of lead into our environment.

"When you talk about the cost of ensuring that land is safe... that costs money up front.

"The costs of potential health effects, especially if they contribute to chronic diseases which people live with for 10 or 20 years, or the costs of remediating land, after when you realise that it's a high-level, dwarf the profits made at the other end of that cycle. That feels almost criminal.

"The health cost is hardly considered at all."

When Manon Chiswell was a toddler she suddenly stopped talking - doctors advised her family she was showing lots of autistic traits.

"I do have memories of being very closely monitored in Meithrin [nursery]... I always had an adult with me," said Manon, now 20.

"I couldn't speak... they had to use a traffic light system, and yes or no cards to redirect me and help me communicate."

But a blood test later found high levels of lead in Manon's blood.

She was not autistic, she had been poisoned.

Her father, Huw Chiswell, believed Manon was most likely poisoned at their home in Cardiff, which was near an old industrial site.

"She used to eat earth [as a toddler] in the garden," he said.

"There were railway sidings not far from where we lived at the time, so it's difficult to draw any other conclusions really, because once she'd stopped the eating, she got better."

But it is not just about lead - a government report suggests that sites posing the greatest health risks were also contaminated by chemicals such as arsenic, nickel, chromium, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) found in soil or water.

Campaigners want a new law forcing councils to keep a public register of all potential contaminated sites.

It is led by the parents of a seven-year-old boy who died from poisonous gas after the River Thames flooded their home in 2014, and they believe the fumes came from a nearby landfill.

Zane's law - named after Zane Gbangbola - also calls for measures such as more money for councils to identify and test possible sites.

"You have to know that it exists before you can protect yourself," said Zane's dad Kye Gbangbola, who was left paralysed after the gas poisoning.

"Until we have Zane's Law people will remain unprotected."

When tighter regulations on dealing with potentially contaminated land became law 25 years ago, the minister that pushed them through wanted just that.

Now John Selwyn Gummer feels UK government funding cuts has meant far fewer inspections.

"There is no way in which local authorities can do this job without having the resources," said Lord Deben.

"Successive governments have under-provided for the work that we need to do."

'There's a possibility some people's health is being threatened'

Several councils have told the BBC that funding is the reason they had stopped checking possible contaminated land.

Phil Hartley was one of hundreds of officers across the UK that used to check potential sites and Newcastle's former council contamination officer.

He said the central government grant removal had led to a "collapse" in checks.

"Since the money dried up very, very few councils proactively go out looking for contaminated land sites because the council doesn't want to take the risk of finding them," said Mr Hartley.

"There's a possibility that some people's health is being threatened, which is not great."

The UK government said local authorities had a statutory duty to inspect potentially contaminated sites, require remediation and maintain a public register of remediated land.

"Any risk to public health from contaminated land is a serious matter," a spokesperson from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.

They also asked the Environment Agency to produce a new state of contaminated land report to provide the "best possible baseline of data to measure future policies related to contaminated land against".

The bodies that represent councils in Wales and England both said a lack of cash meant they could not fulfil their duty.

The Welsh Local Government Association said while Wales' 22 councils took their responsibility to check sites "seriously", progress was "increasingly constrained by a lack of dedicated funding and specialist resources".

England's Local Government Association said: "Without adequate funding, councils will continue to struggle to provide crucial services - with devastating consequences for those who rely on them."

You can watch Britain's Toxic Secret on BBC iPlayer and BBC One on Thursday 13 March at 20:30 GMT

The first daily pill for treating endometriosis symptoms has been approved for use on the NHS in England - but only for patients who have tried all other options.

Endometriosis affects 1.5 million women in the UK, causing pain and extreme tiredness as a result of tissue similar to the womb lining growing elsewhere in the body.

The new tablet, known as relugolix combination therapy, has been approved by drug assessment body the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and, unlike current injectable treatments, it can be taken at home.

The charity Endometriosis UK said the pill gives patients more choice, but will help only a relatively small number of people.

What are the symptoms of endometriosis?

• severe period pain that stops you from doing normal activities
• very heavy periods
• pain when you poo or pee
• other symptoms can include pain in your lower tummy, pain after sex, fatigue, shortness of breath, low mood, anxiety
• difficulty getting pregnant

The new combination therapy pill works by blocking specific hormones that contribute to the condition, while also providing replacement hormones that are needed.

It will only be available on the NHS for people who have already tried all other medical and surgical treatments and found they did not help, NICE said - equivalent to 1,000 women a year.

This includes treatments such as hormonal contraceptives and intrauterine delivery systems.

Helen Knight, director of medicines evaluation at NICE, said it marked "a potential step-change in how we manage endometriosis, putting control back in patients' hands while ensuring value for the taxpayer".

She said the treatment could be stopped and started more easily than other treatments, which is important for those planning to have children and for managing side effects.

That could also reduce pressure on NHS services, she added.

NICE initially rejected the drug, but new evidence was provided by the manufacturer on its effectiveness and value for money.

'Collapsing in pain'

Ami Clarke, 27, from St. Albans, started experiencing endometriosis symptoms after her very first period, aged 13.

She was not diagnosed until 10 years later - by then she had tried six different contraceptive pills to find a way of helping her pain, but nothing seemed to work.

"I came off the pill and that's when my periods became absolutely, completely unmanageable. They took over my life. I wasn't going to university, I wasn't going to work," Ami says.

"If I was going to work, I was collapsing in pain consistently every single month."

Ami kept going back to her GP because the pain was "completely unbearable".

"I was just so desperate, my mental health was on the floor. I don't even know how I survived. It was like 20 to 25 days out of the month where I was just completely bed-bound," she told the BBC.

Ami had her first surgery in October 2021, which reduced the pain for seven or eight months, but then it gradually came back. A second operation in April 2024 was not as successful. She is now trying to raise enough money to have a third surgery, privately.

Ami says it is good to hear that further treatment is being developed for endometriosis because "a lot of the time it feels like you're being left in the dark".

Usually, the first treatments for endometriosis, after pain relievers, are hormone injections which temporarily shut down the body's production of estrogen. This is the hormone that causes endometriosis tissue to grow and cause pain.

However, patients often need to travel to hospitals to have the injections, which last for up to three months.

With the new all-in-one tablet, there is no need for patients to remember to take hormone replacement therapy as a separate tablet.

It can be stopped quickly if side effects are difficult and taken up until the menopause.

"It's a step forward and will give patients more choice, but it will impact a relatively small number of people," says Emma Cox, chief executive of Endometriosis UK.

"We need to see more investment in other research and treatments," she added.

The treatment will cost £72 for a 28-day supply, NICE said.

A SpaceX mission that aimed to clear the way for two stranded astronauts to get back to earth has been postponed.

The launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was put back due to a hydraulic ground issue. There is another possible launch opportunity on Thursday.

The rocket aimed to fly four new crew members to the International Space Station (ISS) and pave the way for the return of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.

The two NASA astronauts flew to space in June but were not able to return on a Boeing spacecraft after it was deemed unsafe. The pair would be able to return to earth within days of the SpaceX mission reaching the ISS.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

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In January, Simon Vickers was found guilty of murdering his 14-year-old daughter Scarlett after a jury rejected his claim he had killed her in a play-fight. His partner, Scarlett's mother, is adamant it was an accident.

It's the question Sarah Hall will hear for the rest of her life - how can she possibly support the man who was convicted of murdering her daughter?

"I know he'd never harm Scarlett," she insists.

Ms Hall claims 5 July had been a normal Friday night at the family's Darlington home.

She says the close-knit trio, who dubbed themselves the Three S's, called them "happy Fridays" as it meant another week of work and school was over.

Scarlett ate her dinner and spent the evening in her bedroom, chatting with friends and playing games online.

Her parents drank wine and watched the men's European Football Championships on TV in the living room.

Vickers also smoked some cannabis, something he regularly did to ease backache caused by his manual job in a factory, Ms Hall says.

At about 22:00 BST, the teenager joined her parents in their small kitchen where her mother was putting the finishing touches to the adults' tea, spaghetti bolognese and garlic bread.

Ms Hall becomes very emotional when she describes what happened next.

She and her daughter were throwing grapes into each other's mouths, she says, having "just a fun fight".

Vickers also joined in. As Ms Hall was busy draining off the pasta in the sink, her partner of 27 years and their daughter were "mucking about by the back door".

Precisely what happened next is still the source of much confusion for her, but she is certain it was not criminal.

During the play-fight, Ms Hall says she accidentally nipped Vickers with the kitchen tongs.

He reacted and Scarlett "jokingly" called him a wimp, Ms Hall says.

Vickers replied "how would you like it" and swiped the tongs across the worktop towards his daughter, Ms Hall says.

A kitchen knife had been placed next to the tongs, ready to cut the garlic bread, and Ms Hall believes the utensil caught the knife and wedged it against a granite chopping board, leaving the blade protruding out from the bench.

At that same moment, Scarlett moved towards her dad, perhaps in a bid to grab the tongs, and ran on to the blade, Ms Hall says.

'Something seriously wrong'

During Vickers' trial, he also claimed the injury was inflicted accidentally, but a pathologist said it was "practically impossible" for it to have been caused by anything other than a knife being held firmly in a hand.

Vickers initially said he hurled a knife instead of what he thought was a spatula, but also told paramedics and police at the scene Scarlett had "lunged" towards him and the blade "just went in".

Sentencing Vickers, judge Mr Justice Cotter said he had "no doubt" Scarlett's father had been holding the knife.

What Ms Hall knows for sure is her daughter cried "ow", then blood started to pour from her side.

"I just thought 'that's not right, there's something seriously wrong'," Ms Hall says.

Ms Hall grabbed a tea towel to try and stem the bleeding, her daughter collapsing to the floor.

Vickers took over from her and shouted at Ms Hall to call 999.

It took the ambulance what "felt like forever" to come, but paramedics were actually there within minutes and immediately started trying to save Scarlett's life.

Their efforts were in vain.

Scarlett died from a single 4in-deep (11cm) stab wound to her chest.

The blade needed only mild force to pass between her ribs and into her heart, causing catastrophic bleeding, a pathologist would later say.

'Becoming an incredible woman'

The police arrived and Ms Hall and Vickers were arrested for attempted murder and taken to separate police stations.

When Ms Hall was given the news her daughter had died, she cried: "No, no, please no. My little girl."

She was given a sedative and put into a cell where she remembers waking up intermittently, crying, before lapsing back into her medicated sleep.

Scarlett was the girl who had always made her parents laugh.

She was bursting with energy, beautiful, boisterous and sassy, her mother says.

"She was an incredible girl and she was becoming an incredible young woman."

Both Ms Hall and Vickers were initially charged with murdering their daughter, but the case against her was quickly dropped and Vickers alone stood trial at Teesside Crown Court in January.

The strongest evidence against him was from pathologist Dr Jennifer Bolton, who concluded the knife must have been being firmly held in a hand to cause the injuries it did.

After a 10-day trial, during which Ms Hall gave evidence in support of Vickers, and about 13 hours of deliberation, jurors found him guilty of murder with a 10 to two majority.

Vickers could have pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter but Ms Hall says he said he needed "to stand up in court and tell them that he would never, ever harm" Scarlett.

Jailing him for life with a minimum prison term of 15 years, Mr Justice Cotter said a "momentary but devastating act of anger" had robbed Scarlett of her life, adding Vickers' account of it being a "freak accident" was "unconvincing and wholly implausible".

Ms Hall says that is "absurd", adding her partner "never had a flash of anger".

"I was there that night," she says. "There were no arguments. There was no temper, no shouting."

She says she was shocked when the verdict was announced, adding: "I thought I'd misheard.

"It's just been a never-ending nightmare."

Responding to social media speculation in the aftermath of the trial that Vickers must have been a controlling and abusive partner, Ms Hall said: "No, never.

"He was understanding, comforting.

"[Our relationship] was very supportive, never controlling."

Ms Hall says her family was a happy one and they "did everything together".

Vickers and Scarlett had a very loving relationship, Ms Hall says, adding they were "as daft as each other".

When challenged about how she can stay with Vickers, Ms Hall says she is still resolutely supporting him.

"How can I blame him for an accident when I know he's in as much pain as I am?" she says.

"If I thought he'd done it deliberately then no, I wouldn't have been here [doing this interview].

"I would have protected her with my life, as would he."

At Vickers' sentencing, the court heard Ms Hall's and Vickers' parents remained "resolute in their belief" he "did not intend Scarlett any harm".

'It was a happy house'

Ms Hall dreams about her daughter every night, remembering with horror each morning that she's really gone.

"I just want her back so much," she says. "I'm not sleeping well, I'm not eating well. I'm just existing."

She has only been back to their home on Geneva Road three times since Scarlett's death.

The semi-detached house is now just a "shell" because "they're not here", she says.

"It was a happy house," she says. "I see the memories everywhere.

"Even going back into [Scarlett's] bedroom, she left a blazer there with all her school stuff still in.

"Everything was just left how it was."

Vickers' sentence is set to be reviewed by the Court of Appeal, after Solicitor General Lucy Rigby KC said she thought it was too lenient.

A list of organisations in the UK offering support and information with some of the issues in this story is available at BBC Action Line

Follow BBC North East on X and Facebook and BBC Cumbria on X and Facebook and both on Nextdoor and Instagram.

A new offence to cover lone individuals planning non-terrorist mass killings should be considered in the wake of the Southport attacks, the UK's terror watchdog has said.

However the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, says the definition of terrorism should not be expanded or changed.

Last summer, Axel Rudakubana stabbed six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Stancombe and nine-year-old Alice Aguiar to death at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday class.

He also tried to murder eight other young girls, and two adults who tried to save them, including the class organiser Leanne Lucas.

Police officers discovered ricin pulp and a copy of an al-Qaeda manual at Rudakubana's house, but did not find any clear ideological reason for his attack, so did not classify it as terrorism.

Other evidence suggested he was interested in Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan, the Rwandan genocide and school massacres.

Following the attacks, Sir Keir Starmer said Britain faced a new threat from "extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms".

In January he asked Mr Hall to identify any changes needed to the law as a result of the Southport murders.

Mr Hall considered whether the definition of terrorism itself should be changed to include mass violence without a political, religious, racial or other ideological motivation, but concluded it should not.

"Redefinition would alter the landscape. It would risk major false positives – the prosecution of people who by no stretch of the imagination are terrorists – and extend terrorism liability into novel terrain," Mr Hall said.

"People swapping violent war footage would be at risk of encouraging terrorism, resulting in unacceptable restrictions on freedom of expression."

However, Mr Hall said there was a clear risk to the public of people who are interested in carrying out acts of mass violence, including school massacres.

Currently there is no law against preparing for such an attack which "means that no prosecution would be available if the police raided an address and found careful handwritten but uncommunicated plans for carrying out a massacre".

As a result, he is recommending the government considers creating a new offence, similar to the offence of preparing an act of terrorism.

The offence would make it illegal to "engage in any conduct" in preparation of the killing of two or more people, what he calls "non-terrorist mass casualty attack-planning".

He suggests that the maximum sentence should be life imprisonment.

A government spokesperson said legislation would now be amended to incorporate Mr Hall's recommendations, adding today's report was "an important step" towards preventing an attack like this from happening again.

Downing Street also said police were looking into how misinformation spreads online after false information about the killings sparked riots across England and Northern Ireland.

The spokesperson added: "We have asked the Law Commission to conclude its own review into the rules around contempt of court as soon as possible."

As part of his report Jonathan Hall KC considered what should happen with young people like Axel Rudakubana, who are referred to the counter-terrorism Prevent programme, but are not taken on because they do not have a clear ideology.

"If they are not to be managed by counter-terrorism police, who will 'own' the risk?", he asked.

He said lessons should be learned from counter-terrorism, and generally it should be the police that take responsibility for public protection, rather than leaving it to other agencies like mental health services.

Mr Hall added that police should have been able to give more information to the media about the suspected attacker in the aftermath of the Southport murders.

"In the digital era, if the police do not take the lead in providing clear, accurate and sober details about an attack like Southport, others will."

"Following Southport, the disinformation generated on social media, combined with widespread allegations of a 'cover-up', risked far more prejudice to any trial than the placement of undisputed facts about the attacker in the public domain," he said.

In Brussels, it was just after 06:00 on Wednesday. But it was midnight in Washington DC when President Donald Trump's 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium took effect on major US trading partners.

It took less than 10 minutes for the European Union to respond.

"Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business, and worse for consumers," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The EU's initial countermeasures will take effect on US products on 1 April, ranging from jeans and motorbikes to peanut butter and bourbon, just as they were with the Trump administration's first tariffs in 2018 and 2020.

But there will be more to come in mid-April. A whole swathe of textiles, home appliances, food and agricultural products could be included, depending on a two-week consultation with stakeholders.

A list of items almost 100 pages long is being circulated that features meat, dairy, fruit, wine and spirits, toilet seats, wood, coats, swimwear, nightdresses, shoes, chandeliers and lawnmowers.

For consumers, higher prices loom on Europe's supermarket shelves, especially for American products. But for businesses and some industries, especially steel, there is real danger.

The head of Germany's BGA federation of wholesale, foreign trade and service, Dirk Jandura, warned that Germans might have to dig deeper into their pockets to pay for American products in the supermarkets.

Orange juice, bourbon and peanut butter were the most likely products to be hit. "Margins in trade are so low that this cannot be absorbed by the companies," he said.

In total, the EU will target €26bn (£22bn) of US exports.

"We're not going to go into hypotheticals other than to say we've been preparing assiduously for all these outcomes," said EU spokesman Olof Gill.

• How will latest Trump tariffs affect UK?
• Trump complains of 'massive' trade imbalance with Irish PM

António Costa, the EU's Council President, called on the US to de-escalate, although there was little sign of that on Wednesday, as Trump vowed to hit back at the EU's countermeasures.

"We've been abused for a long time and we will be abused no longer," he said.

In Austria too, there was concern about the escalation.

"The US is the second most important export market for Austrian products after Germany - and the most important for Germany," said Christoph Neumayer, who is head of the Federation of Austrian Industries. It was "essential that Europe acts together and decisively", he added.

One EU official pointed out that products such as soybeans and orange juice could easily be sourced from Brazil or Argentina, so consumers would not be hit too hard.

And there was a suggestion that some of the US exports targeted were also from US states under Republican control: soybeans from Louisiana or meat from Nebraska and Kansas.

A relatively large number of US exports enter the EU via the Dutch port of Rotterdam or Antwerp in Belgium.

Dutch Economic Affairs Minister Dirk Beljaarts said nobody stood to benefit from a "tariffs war", but he was hopeful it would not hit his own country's economy too hard: "It has an impact on companies and consumers - particularly consumers in the US."

One area that will be hit especially hard on both sides of the Atlantic is in the drinks sector.

Pauline Bastidon of Spirits Europe said producers in the EU and US stood united, with risks facing European companies that produced US spirits and US companies that were heavily invested in Europe.

Chris Swonger, of the US Distilled Spirits Council, said that in the three years since the suspension of the EU's earlier 25% tariff on American whiskey, US distillers had "worked hard to regain solid footing in our largest export market".

Reimposing tariffs from 1 April was "deeply disappointing" and he called for a return to "zero-for-zero" tariffs.

For cognac producers in France, the prospect of a 25% US import tax is also a major problem as most of their produce is for export, either to the US or China.

French producers have already been hit by Chinese measures that have slapped heavy taxes on cognac.

"Morale is down in the dumps," Bastien Brusaferro of the general winegrowers' union told France Info.

Thousands of jobs are at stake in the Charente region alone, he says: "Cognac is a product that's made for export."

There was a dire warning too from the head of the European Steel Association, Henrik Adam.

"President Trump's 'America First' policy threatens to be a final nail in the coffin of the European steel industry," he warned.

Trump's initial tariffs on European steel in 2018 saw EU steel exports to the US fall by more than a million tonnes, and for every three tonnes of steel that did not enter the US, two-thirds of it entered the EU instead.

"These new measures imposed by Trump are more extensive, therefore the impact of the US tariffs is likely to be far greater."

US officials are headed to Russia to discuss a potential ceasefire in Ukraine, according to President Donald Trump.

The news comes after Ukrainian officials agreed to a 30-day ceasefire following a highly anticipated meeting with American officials in Saudi Arabia.

Earlier, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the "ball is truly in their [Russia's] court" and that the US believes the only way to end the fighting is through peace negotiations.

The Kremlin has said it is studying the ceasefire proposal, and that a phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin is possible.

Following the meeting in Jeddah on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky said it was now up to the US to convince Russia to agree to the "positive" proposal.

Speaking alongside Ireland's Taoiseach - or Prime Minister - Micheál Martin in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said he had received "positive messages" about the possibility of a ceasefire.

• UK helped Ukraine and US reach ceasefire deal - government sources
• US set to present 30-day ceasefire offer to Russia

"But a positive message means nothing," he said. "This is a very serious situation."

Trump did not specify what officials he was referring to.

However, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the White House that National Security Secretary Mike Waltz spoke to his Russian counterpart.

Earlier this week, a source familiar told the BBC that Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff would head to Moscow for negotiations following the talks in Jeddah.

The White House confirmed the plans on Wednesday.

"We urge the Russians to sign on to this plan. This is the closest we have been to peace in this war," Leavitt said.

The Kremlin has said it is studying the proposed ceasefire and further details, which spokesman Dmitry Peskov said will come "via various channels" over the course of the next several days.

In the Oval Office, Trump said that he believes a ceasefire would make sense for Russia, adding - without further details - that there is a "lot of downside to Russia" as well.

"We have a very complex situation solved on one side. Pretty much solved. We've also discussed land and other things that go with it," Trump added. "We know the areas of land we're talking about, whether it's pull back or not pull back."

To pressure Russia, Trump said that he "can do things financially".

"That would be very bad for Russia," he said. "I don't want to do that because I want to get peace."

The meeting in Jeddah was the first between US and Ukrainian officials since a 28 February meeting between Zelensky, Trump and Vice President JD Vance descended into a shouting match and, ultimately, a pause in US military assistance and intelligence sharing.

The pause was lifted following the meeting in Jeddah, and Trump said that he believes that the "difficult" Ukrainian side and Zelensky now want peace.

Even as negotiations over a potential ceasefire are ongoing, fighting has raged in Ukraine.

Russian drones and missiles reportedly struck targets in Kryvyy Rih - Zelensky's hometown - overnight, as well as in the port city of Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv.

Clashes also continued in Russia's Kursk region, where Peskov said Russian troops were "successfully advancing" and recapturing areas held by Ukrainian forces.

And later on Wednesday, the Kremlin said President Putin had visited a command post in the region. He was shown in footage released by the Kremlin walking alongside his military chief Valery Gerasimov, with both men wearing combat gear.

It marked the Russian president's first visit to the region since Ukraine's incursion across the border in August last year.

Russian media report that President Putin ordered the military to "fully liberate" the region during the visit. He is yet to comment on the ceasefire proposal agreed by Ukraine and the US on Tuesday.

The head of Ukraine's military, Oleksandr Syrsky, also indicated on Wednesday that some of its troops were withdrawing from Kursk. In a post on the Telegram messaging app, he said: "In the most difficult situation, my priority has been and remains saving the lives of Ukrainian soldiers."

The requirement for a High Court judge to approve assisted dying applications has been dropped by the committee considering the bill.

The clause had been heralded by the bill's supporters as a safeguard that made it the strictest such legislation in the world.

But the Ministry of Justice and senior judges raised concerns about the impact on the courts.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who is bringing the bill, suggested replacing the role of High Court judges with a three-person panel featuring a senior legal figure, a psychiatrist and a social worker to review applications.

The committee is expected to insert those details at a later stage.

After the bill committee voted 15 to seven in favour of dropping the High Court judge's role, Leadbeater said the change would make the law "even more robust".

"And it is much safer than the current ban on assisted dying, which leaves terminally ill people and their families without any such protections at all," she said.

"I have been encouraged that in the course of this debate there have been positive responses to the proposal for a commissioner and a multi-disciplinary panel from colleagues across the committee, regardless of how they voted at [its] second reading.

"That tells me that whatever our views on the Bill itself, there is a shared commitment to getting protections for terminally ill adults right. That means we are doing our job."

However a group of 26 of her fellow Labour MPs warned that scrapping the High Court's oversight "breaks the promises made by proponents of the bill, fundamentally weakens the protections for the vulnerable and shows just how haphazard this whole process has become".

In a statement, the group - made up almost entirely of MPs who voted against the bill at second reading - said: "It does not increase judicial safeguards but instead creates an unaccountable quango and to claim otherwise misrepresents what is being proposed."

US President Donald Trump has pledged to impose more tariffs after his latest move to introduce import taxes on steel and aluminium entering the US prompted retaliation from the European Union (EU) and Canada.

Trump said "of course" he would respond to the countermeasures, repeating his warning to reveal "reciprocal" tariffs next month on countries around the world.

"Whatever they charge us with, we're charging them," he said.

The threat marked a further escalation of a trade war which has rattled financial markets amid concerns over the impact on the economies and consumers in many countries around the world, including the US.

On Wednesday, Trump moved forward with a plan to widen US tariffs on steel and aluminium, imposing a blanket duty of 25% and ending exemptions that the US had previously granted for shipments from some countries.

That followed an order earlier this month that raised levies on Chinese imports into the US to at least 20%.

Trump has also threatened tariffs - which are taxes applied to goods as they enter a country - on a range of more specific items, including copper, lumber and cars.

Leaders in Canada and Europe called the new metals taxes unjustified and struck back with their own tariffs on a range of US products.

Other countries that are key US suppliers of metals, including the UK, Australia, Mexico and Brazil, held off on any immediate retaliation.

"Like everybody else, I'm disappointed to see global tariffs in relation to steel and aluminium but we will take a pragmatic approach," said UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

"We are...negotiating a deal which covers and includes tariffs if we succeed. But we will keep all options on the table."

Canada said from Thursday it would start charging a 25% tax on nearly C$30bn ($20bn; £16bn) worth of US products, including steel, computers and sports equipment.

The EU said it would raise its levies on up to €26bn ($28bn; £22bn) worth of US goods, including boats, bourbon and motorbikes, from 1 April.

EU President Ursula von der Leyen said the response was intended to be "strong but proportionate" and added that the EU stood "ready to engage in a meaningful dialogue".

"Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business and worse for consumers," she said, warning the economic disruption put jobs at stake and would send prices higher.

"Nobody needs that – on both sides, neither in the European Union nor in the United States."

Trump had said he wants to boost US steel and aluminium production in the longer run, but critics say in the immediate term the taxes on imports of the metals will raise prices for US consumers and dent economic growth.

Major packaged food makers including Quaker Oats and Folgers coffee asked Trump for targeted exemptions from tariffs on imports such as cocoa and fruit, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

PepsiCo, Conagra and J M Smucker, also requested the president exempt ingredients not available from US sources in the letter, which was sent by the trade group the Consumer Brands Association.

Coffee, oats, cocoa, spices, tropical fruit and tin mill steel, used for some food and household goods, are among the imports listed as unavailable domestically, Reuters reported.

The import taxes are also expected to reduce demand for steel and aluminium that is not made in the US - a blow to makers of the metals elsewhere.

The EU estimated that the latest US tariffs affect about 5% of its total exports to the US, while the US is the destination for roughly 90% of Canada's steel and aluminium exports.

Shares in the US were mixed on Wednesday, after two days of sharp decline. The Dow closed down 0.2%, while the S&P 500 ended nearly 0.5% higher and the Nasdaq jumped 1.2%.

In an appearance at the White House with the Irish prime minister, Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Trump said he did not plan to back down from his trade fight, saying he was "not happy" with EU trade policies.

He cited concerns about legal penalties it has imposed on Apple and rules he claimed put US farm products and cars at a disadvantage.

"They're doing what they should be doing perhaps for the European Union but it does create ill will," he said.

Repeating his threat to hit European cars with tariffs, he added later: "We're going to win that financial battle."

The UK has revoked accreditation for a Russian diplomat and a diplomatic spouse after two British officials were ordered to leave Russia on Monday.

In the latest in a series of tit-for-tat expulsions, the UK Foreign Office said it was taking "immediate reciprocal action" after Moscow accused a British diplomat and the spouse of another diplomat of spying

The Foreign Office in a statement accused Russia of fabricating the accusations "to justify their increasing harassment of UK diplomats" and "actively seeking to drive the British Embassy in Moscow towards closure".

Russia's embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Russia's ambassador to the UK Andrei Kelin was summoned by a senior Foreign Office official on Wednesday, the statement read.

The official "made clear that the UK will not stand for intimidation of British embassy staff and their families," and that the accreditation of the Russian diplomat and diplomatic spouse was being revoked as a result.

An accreditation is a recognition by a government of a diplomat's status.

The Foreign Office accused Moscow of pursuing "an increasingly aggressive and coordinated campaign of harassment against British diplomats" and "pumping out malicious and completely baseless accusations about their work" for 12 months.

The statement alleged Russia was seeking to drive the UK embassy in Moscow to close and Russia had "no regard for the dangerous escalatory impact of this".

The UK government believes in "maintaining diplomatic channels of communication" with Russia, "despite the extremely difficult bilateral relations caused by Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine and long-running campaign of hostile action against the UK", the statement continued.

• Russia expels two more British diplomats

The UK's move follows Russia ordering two British officials to leave within two weeks, after the country's domestic security service accused the men of "intelligence and subversive work".

The Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed they had declared false information about themselves when receiving permission to enter Russia.

Multiple expulsions of diplomats have taken place amid worsening Russia-UK relations since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In the past year alone, there have been seven British diplomats expelled from Russia, with Moscow accusing them of espionage - allegations denied by the UK.

In February, a Russian diplomat was expelled from the UK after Moscow ordered a British official to leave in November 2024.

In September 2024, Russia announced that the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow had been revoked, requiring them to leave the country.

In May 2024, British diplomat Capt Adrian Coghill was given a week to leave Russia.

It came days after the Russian defence attaché was expelled from London for alleged espionage as an "undeclared military intelligence officer".

A number of British politicians and journalists have also been barred from entering Russia since the war began.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was added to Russia's "stop list" in 2022, barring his entry to the country.

Big swings in spring

What's causing the cold weather?

The prime minister's policy team has been meeting Labour MPs behind closed doors in Downing Street ahead of significant cuts to the welfare budget.

These could be twice as deep as the savings that were signalled at last autumn's Budget - somewhere between £5bn and £6bn.

The meetings are focussing on the principles of reform – not the detail.

The escalating costs and numbers of people designated as unfit for work were set out in a slideshow presentation.

And the prime minister himself told MPs in the Commons that the current system was "indefensible, economically and morally" and "must be reformed".

But his team has had to listen to serious concerns from MPs who are usually loyal.

The full scale of the cuts won't be set out until the Spring Statement, while Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall will give a major speech next week and publish a "Green Paper".

Despite the name, that's a blueprint for reform.

There are those on the Left of the party who don't believe any cuts should be made.

At Prime Minister's Questions Richard Burgon – a frontbencher under Jeremy Corbyn – urged Sir Keir Starmer to consider a wealth tax rather than a welfare cut.

Unsustainable welfare

Broadly speaking, though, the parliamentary party has accepted the argument that – without reform – the welfare bill is going to become unsustainable in years to come.

And Labour strategists believe that appearing to get a handle on welfare is an essential weapon in the anti-Reform UK armoury.

The strongest argument the government can muster in favour of reform is that too many people who are regarded as long-term sick are in effect thrown on the unemployment scrapheap when, with the right help, they could engage in the world of work.

And it's understood that the Treasury won't swallow up all of the welfare savings.

Kendall will be able to redirect a significant sum – perhaps as much as £1bn – into the kind of intensive support which some claimants would need to get off benefits.

This, of course, would be expected to lead to savings in due course but won't bring instant rewards.

Another argument being made is that the system currently provides a perverse incentive which encourages sickness over work.

If you were to be assessed as having a limited capacity to work or work-related activity you could be paid around £400 more a month than someone who is unemployed actively looking for work.

That gap is likely to be narrowed.

Where the government has a bigger challenge is to convince its own MPs that the level of Personal Independence Payments (PIP) - which are not means tested and are made to people who have a long-term physical or mental health condition - ought to change, and future eligibility restricted.

At PMQs Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey asked Sir Keir to "calm anxieties" by giving an assurance that disability benefits for those who can't work wouldn't be cut.

He didn't receive it.

Here, the politics are tricky.

PIP cuts don't fit in to the narrative of providing opportunities to people who are languishing on the dole.

Some of those who receive PIP payments are in work and would argue that these provide essential support which enables them to remain in employment.

The Department for Work and Pensions has consulted with charities, but even before the Green Paper has seen the light of day some of those organisations have been firing off denunciatory press releases.

The state of the public finances means the Treasury needs to rein in spending if the chancellor is to meet her own fiscal rules, including having debt fall as a share of national income on a five-year horizon.

The expectation is that PIP payments will be frozen next year – so their value will erode - and that some of those in receipt of PIP are likely to face re-assessment and may lose their payments entirely.

Loyalty tested to the limit?

It's here in particular that some the usually loyal MPs - not associated with the party's Left - are expressing concerns.

We have spoken to some of them who listened to the PM make the case for welfare reform at a private meeting on Monday, or who attended the private meetings on Wednesday.

An attendee said there was too little detail to reach a definitive view but cutting disabled benefits was likely to be a red line. Others were more outspoken.

One told us: "People won't wear it. The costs of being disabled aren't going down.

"They cant just force this through like the winter fuel cut."

Another said: "If we're freezing PIP that is unforgivable. These are people who can never ever work.

"Some people have very complex disabilities. Part of the social contract is they are supported."

And a usual supporter of Sir Keir said: "Most of us broadly agree that there are lots of people who don't work but should, and have no problem with getting them into work.

"But punishing those who are especially vulnerable and have severe disabilities is unacceptable."

Another added: "The government needs to stop talking about everyone who is on disability benefits as if they are all the same because they are not."

We were told some "heartfelt conversations" were had with the No 10 team on Wednesday and there is a hope that the potential PIP freeze can be thawed.

"This is still a live conversation," one MP said.

Some MPs also felt that the timing of the welfare cuts was wrong.

For example, they said NHS waiting lists needed to come down first – which should also bring savings in PIP and incapacity benefits - and should be done against the backdrop of a growing, not stagnant, economy.

It is worth remembering, though, that the government has a large majority and the prime minister himself is hugely determined not to duck difficult decisions on welfare.

And that recently-formed Get Britain Working Group of Labour MPs – most of who are from the 2024 intake - will vocally support the need for radical welfare reform.

However one of the 36 signatories to the group's supportive letter to Kendall has withdrawn her name.

Stoke South MP Allison Gardner said on social media that her name should not have been included, because the letter didn't do enough to reflect the needs of those with severe disabilities who simply can't work.

It seems it easier to get agreement in principle to welfare reform than to put it in to practice.

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