A US judge has ruled the government can deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate arrested last month by immigration officers.

Mr Khalil has been held at a Louisiana detention centre since 8 March, when US immigration officers told him he was being deported for taking part in campus protests against the war in Gaza.

The pro-Palestinian activist is a permanent legal US resident, and has not been charged with a crime. The government is seeking to remove him under a Cold War-era immigration law.

In a letter written from the facility, Mr Khalil has said his "arrest was a direct consequence" of speaking out for Palestine.

The judge said the Trump administration was allowed to move forward with its effort to deport Mr Khalil because the argument that he poses "adverse foreign policy consequences" for the US is "facially reasonable".

The judge gave Khalil's lawyers until 23 April to appeal against his deportation to Algeria or Syria.

"I would like to quote what you said last time that there's nothing that's more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness," Mr Khalil said in court.

"Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process," he said. "This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family."

An XL Bully believed to be the same dog which escaped when marksmen opened fire on it last week has been found and put down, police have said.

Armed police in Sheffield had attempted to shoot the dog on 3 April after it became "aggressive" while officers were investigating reports of a gun being fired at a property in Daniel Hill Street in Hillfoot, but it then fled the scene.

Police said that a dog found on Banks Hill Road at about 13:20 BST on Friday was thought to be the same animal and, on the advice of a vet, due to the nature of its injuries, it was decided it should be put down.

A force spokesperson said: "We have informed the dog's owner and the dog has been disclaimed by her."

The dog's escape last week led to a city-wide hunt, with officers urging people not to approach it, but to call 999 immediately as it had "the ability to show aggression and cause harm".

On Tuesday, South Yorkshire Police said forensic testing of blood at the scene where officers had attempted to shoot the dog had confirmed that it had been injured in the incident.

Ch Supt Jamie Henderson said: "I would like to thank the public for remaining vigilant when this animal was loose."

Five people had been arrested in connection with the initial firearms incident, and two men had since been charged with firearms offences, according to South Yorkshire Police.

Ch Supt Henderson said: "We are continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding the reported firearms discharge on 3 April."

Anyone who saw what happened, or who had information which could help the investigation, was asked to contact police.

Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.

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The price for a cup of coffee in the US is going up as tariffs put the squeeze on local café and bakery owners.

Some US businesses say the queues for a morning latte are already getting shorter as customers tighten their belts and imported beans become more expensive.

Americans spend $100bn (£76bn) a year on coffee, though that might be about to change.

Jorge Prudencio, who runs Bread Bite Bakery in Washington DC, says his Colombia-based coffee distributer just increased prices after the sweeping tariffs went into effect last week.

The vast majority of coffee in the US is imported.

In fact, the US is the world's second-leading importer of coffee, with the majority coming from Brazil and Colombia, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Since 5 April, coffee imports have been affected by the 10% US tariffs against most countries.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Prudencio said his coffee suppliers have told him his next order will carry yet another price hike.

He added that his bakery will "definitely" be increasing prices for customers just to break even.

Asked if he is worried, Mr Prudencio said: "Of course."

The manager of Au Lait café just down the street, Kamal Mortada, said he's been seeing the effect of steadily increasing prices for a while now. Inflation spiked to a 40-year high under former US President Joe Biden.

Before the tariffs kicked in, ground coffee reached the highest ever recorded price in March 2025, and was over a dollar more expensive than the previous year, and $3 above March 2020 prices.

"We have less customers for coffee," Mr Mortada said.

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"Most customers just get plain coffee," instead of adding syrups and milks, he said.

The prices on the menu have gone up by 25% and people are now buying smaller coffees.

Mr Mortada has also changed his own habits as a consumer. Instead of his regular trip to Starbucks, he brews coffee at home.

He said he has seen the price of a cup of coffee go up by at least half a dollar, and is worried prices will rise again.

On the opposite coast in San Francisco, another local coffee shop owner is grappling with what the tariffs will mean for her business.

Jenny Ngo, who runs Telescope Coffee, said she was waiting to hear how much her roaster will hike prices.

The coffee she sells is sourced from Ethiopia and Guatemala, both facing the standard 10% tariff. She also imports her iced coffee cups from China - and said she noticed the prices on those jumped overnight.

"We unfortunately project to raise prices again in order to sustain our business," she said.

Mr Prudencio remains confident that people will still come to his shop and buy coffee. He said it is something people need.

But recent inflation has also affected the price of eggs, crucial to his bakery side of the business.

He said they paid $42 per case when the bakery opened five months ago, but two weeks later it was more than $100 per case.

"Everybody is going through the same thing. We all pay the price."

The price of eggs is a key symbol of the health of the US economy, often an arguing point for politicians.

President Donald Trump has argued he will get the cost of eggs down, blaming rising prices on the Biden administration, which culled millions of egg-laying chickens amid a bird flu outbreak.

But in March, egg prices reached a record high at $6.22 per dozen, according to the Consumer Price Index.

Joel Finkelstein runs Qualia Coffee Roasters, a small business in Washington DC where he mostly sells coffee beans online and at farmers' markets.

The tariffs will represent just the latest in a series of price hikes, he told us.

He said he noticed the price of beans go up significantly after Trump took office and cut funding to USAID, which supported some coffee growers in South America. Now, he's expecting it to go up again.

"We are going to see a decrease in sales," Mr Finklestein said.

Parliament will be recalled on Saturday for an emergency debate on the future of British Steel's plant in Scunthorpe.

A government source says it is looking "to take control"' of the company, after its Chinese owner said its blast furnaces are "no longer financially sustainable".

Talks have been taking place this week talks to keep production going at the firm, which employs 2,700 people.

Politicians left Westminster for their Easter break on Tuesday, and were not due to return until 22 April.

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The UK government is poised to take control of a major British Steel plant in Scunthorpe, which is at risk of imminent closure.

MPs have been called back from their Easter break to pass an emergency law which would keep the Chinese-owned site operating.

What is British Steel and how many people work there?

British Steel's plant in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, employs 2,700 people, about three-quarters of the company's entire workforce.

It is the last plant in the UK capable of producing virgin steel, which is used in major construction projects like new buildings and railways.

Two huge blast furnaces are used to produce the steel, which has fewer imperfections than the recycled steel made elsewhere in the country.

Were the plant to cease producing virgin steel, then the UK would become the only member of the G7 group of leading economies without the ability to make it - a prospect the government views as a risk to the country's long-term economic security.

Who owns British Steel and why is it losing money?

Following a period of financial instability, British Steel was taken over by the government's insolvency service in 2019 and then acquired by Chinese steel-making firm Jingye the following year.

The company says the plant continues to lose £700,000 a day despite £1.2bn of investment. It has begun a 45-day consultation on job cuts.

Jingye says the blast furnaces are no longer sustainable, blaming "highly challenging" market conditions, tariffs and costs associated with transitioning to lower-carbon production techniques.

The blast furnaces generate the extreme heat needed to produce virgin steel and are fuelled by coking coal and iron pellets - but supplies of those raw materials at the Scunthorpe plant are running low.

That adds a time pressure to the British Steel talks because once a blast furnace shuts down, it is a costly and complex process to restart it again.

Last month, the company was accused by one of its customers of failing to order the raw materials needed to keep the site going, a claim which Jingye rejected.

UK steel production has been falling for several decades and the financial pressures facing the industry were heightened in March when the US imposed a 25% tariff on any steel it imports.

Global over-production of steel has created "a glut of steel on the international market", according to a UK government briefing on the industry, which has pushed prices down. British manufacturers also face higher costs, particularly on electricity, than elsewhere.

Could the UK government take control?

The government has ordered MPs to return from their Easter breaks for an unusual weekend sitting in the Commons, as it weighs up options to protect the site.

On Friday, Sir Keir Starmer announced plans to fast-track a law through Parliament which would give the government the power to assume control of some of the site's operations.

That would include the ability to order raw materials to keep the furnaces running and to direct the company's workforce and board.

The government has told the company's UK management to keep the site operational, and the emergency law will ensure that any employees who are sacked by the Chinese owners can be reinstated.

This intervention stops short of nationalisation - when a government takes ownership and control of a company - but Sir Keir said the government would do "everything possible" to "protect" the UK's steel industry.

The prime minister's decision to announce emergency legislation follows tense talks between the government and Jingye earlier this week, which appear to have largely broken down.

The government offered to buy the raw materials needed to keep the furnaces going but Jingye did not agree to that proposal.

Unions have said the situation is on a "cliff-edge", while the Community Union described the lack of supplies needed to keep the furnaces operational as an "extreme emergency".

Linda McCulloch from the Unite union said they would like the government to nationalise the site "to keep steelmaking alive in the UK".

The GMB trade union has raised concerns to the BBC about the way Jingye is operating the plant.

Who else produces steel in the UK?

There are 1,160 businesses in the UK steel industry, directly supporting 40,000 other firms across the country, according to government figures.

Tata Steel at Port Talbot in Wales was once the UK's largest virgin steel producer but it turned off its blast furnace in September 2024, saying it was losing £1.7m a day.

An agreement with the UK government was reached which saw it commit £500m to help the company move to greener forms of steelmaking.

Other steelmakers in the UK include Liberty Steel, Celsa, Marcegaglia and Outokumpu.

Liberty Steel also has a plant in Scunthorpe which is facing closure. More than 120 jobs are at risk, with bosses blaming high energy costs.

In 2023 the UK steel industry contributed £2.3 billion to the UK economy - equivalent to 0.1% of total UK economic output and 1.0% of manufacturing output.

In the same year, the UK produced 5.6 million tonnes of crude steel, or 0.3% of the world's total. In comparison, China produced more than 1,000 million tonnes, 54% of global production.

The EU produced 126 million tonnes of steel in 2023, 7% of the world's total. Compared with EU countries, the UK ranked as the eighth largest steel producer, after Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Austria, Poland and Belgium.

A US judge has ruled the government can deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate arrested last month by immigration officers.

Mr Khalil has been held at a Louisiana detention centre since 8 March, when US immigration officers told him he was being deported for taking part in campus protests against the war in Gaza.

The pro-Palestinian activist is a permanent legal US resident, and has not been charged with a crime. The government is seeking to remove him under a Cold War-era immigration law.

In a letter written from the facility, Mr Khalil has said his "arrest was a direct consequence" of speaking out for Palestine.

The judge said the Trump administration was allowed to move forward with its effort to deport Mr Khalil because the argument that he poses "adverse foreign policy consequences" for the US is "facially reasonable".

The judge gave Khalil's lawyers until 23 April to appeal against his deportation to Algeria or Syria.

"I would like to quote what you said last time that there's nothing that's more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness," Mr Khalil said in court.

"Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process," he said. "This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family."

The US Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a Maryland man, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador's notorious mega-jail.

The Trump administration had conceded that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported by accident, but appealed against a lower court's order to return him to the US.

On Thursday, in a 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court declined to block the lower court's order.

The judge's order "requires the Government to 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent", the justices ruled.

Mr Garcia, now 29, entered the US illegally as a teenager from El Salvador. In 2019 he was arrested with three other men in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities.

But an immigration judge granted him protection from deportation on the grounds that he might be at risk of persecution from local gangs in his home country.

He is being held at a maximum security prison in El Salvador known as the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), along with hundreds of other men the US has deported over the last few months over allegations of criminal and gang activity.

His wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, is a US citizen and has called for his release. He was reportedly working as a sheet metal worker when he was detained on 12 March.

On 4 April, Judge Paula Xinis of the Maryland district court had ordered the Trump administration to "facilitate and effectuate" the return of Mr Garcia.

The government has said Mr Garcia was deported on 15 March due to an "administrative error", although they also allege he is a member of the MS-13 gang, which his lawyer denies.

In its emergency appeal to America's highest court, the Trump administration argued the Maryland judge lacked authority to issue the order and that US officials cannot compel El Salvador to return Mr Garcia.

US Solicitor General D John Sauer wrote in his emergency court filing: "The United States does not control the sovereign nation of El Salvador, nor can it compel El Salvador to follow a federal judge's bidding."

He added: "The Constitution charges the president, not federal district courts, with the conduct of foreign diplomacy and protecting the nation against foreign terrorists, including by effectuating their removal."

On Monday, the Supreme Court put a temporary hold on the lower court's order while they considered the matter.

Teachers in England have said they would be willing to strike over the government's proposed 2.8% pay rise this year.

The offer was rejected by 93.7% of members of the National Education Union (NEU), England's largest teaching union, who took part in an informal ballot.

And 83.4% indicated they would be willing to strike in the vote, which aimed to gauge teachers' mood.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said "any move towards industrial action by teaching unions would be indefensible".

The vote does not mean teachers are about to strike.

They have to support industrial action in a formal ballot before that can happen, and enough of them have to vote.

A vote on the next steps will take place at the annual conference of the NEU in Harrogate next week.

Any formal ballot would be likely to take place in summer.

The government recommended a 2.8% pay rise for millions of public sector workers, including teachers, at the end of last year.

The NEU wants the government to fund the pay rise so that schools do not have to pay for it through existing budgets. At present, the government expects most schools will have to make "efficiencies" to afford the additional cost.

The NEU also says the pay rise needs to be higher to address a "crisis" in recruiting new teachers and keeping them in the profession.

Rachael Fidler, a school and college trust leader at Dixons Academies Trust, told the BBC that offering some flexible working made "life a little easier" for staff, but pay was an important part of attracting graduates.

"What other job can you say you make a massive difference to the world that you live in?" she asked.

"But we have to be realistic. We have to attract a new generation who can be offered flexible working in other sectors, who can be offered well-paid positions."

Rob Owens, a science teacher at Dixons Croxteth Academy, said the remit of his job had widened since he entered the profession 20 years ago.

"There's increasing demands on teachers now, more than there ever has been," he said.

"That is beyond planning and marking. There's now increasing demand on schools to support the most vulnerable students and families."

The results of the NEU's indicative ballot, which ran from 1 March until Friday, showed:

• 93.7% of members rejected the offer
• 83.4% of members would be willing to strike "to secure a fully funded, significantly higher pay award".

A total of 134,487 teachers voted, representing less than half (47.2%) of eligible members.

NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said the government "must listen to our profession and change course on teacher pay".

"It must recognise the dire state of school funding and invest in education, to give the next generation the best chance possible in life," he said.

Ms Phillipson said: "With school staff, parents and young people working so hard to turn the tide on school attendance, any move towards industrial action by teaching unions would be indefensible.

"Following a 5.5% pay award in a hugely challenging fiscal context, I would urge NEU to put children first."

NEU members went on strike over pay in the first half of 2023, forcing many schools to close on eight days of action.

It caused disruption for parents who had to take days off work or juggle childcare with working from home.

The NEU called off action after the government revised its 2023 offer to 6.5%.

Teachers were then given a 5.5% rise in 2024.

Ms Phillipson said last summer that she wanted to "reset" her department's relationship with the education workforce.

And the Department for Education says school funding is increasing by £3.2bn in the 2025-26 financial year.

But the teaching unions expressed concern when the government offered a 2.8% pay rise in December.

In a letter to Ms Phillipson, Mr Kebede and the leaders of three other unions said they had been clear that the 5.5% rise "must be only the first in a series of fully funded, above-inflation pay increases".

Jack Worth, an education economist at the National Foundation for Educational Research, told the BBC the 2.8% offer seemed "too much for schools" to cover from their budgets, but also "too little" to make teacher pay competitive in the wider labour market.

Additional reporting by Branwen Jeffreys and Hope Rhodes.

Businesses employing disabled people say they are owed hundreds of thousands of pounds by the government, and fear they may have to let staff go.

Under the Access to Work scheme, companies and employees can apply for grants to help support disabled people in the workplace.

But businesses have told the BBC there are backlogs and huge payment delays leaving them out of pocket.

One company told the BBC it is owed nearly £200,000 by the Access to Work scheme and is worried it may have to close.

Another said it had already been forced to shut down in part due to problems with the programme.

Access to Work was highlighted by ministers as a way of boosting the job prospects of disabled people when the government announced multi-billion pound welfare cuts last month.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said they had recently introduced a "streamlined claims process" to make swifter payments to businesses.

The programme can pay individuals with disabilities and the businesses that employ them for the extra costs associated with being in work. It covers a broad range of support, from paying for taxis to powered wheelchairs.

Yateley Industries is a near 90-year-old charity in Hampshire that employs almost 60 people, most of whom have disabilities, in a range of packaging jobs.

It says it is owed £186,000 by the Access to Work scheme.

"It's an existential threat to us," says chief executive, Sheldon McMullan. "If we don't get it, we could potentially close this magical place forever, and that would be a tragedy for the local community and for the government's agenda more broadly."

Yateley Industries is part of a nationwide forum of dozens of supported businesses - companies specialising in employing disabled people.

Mr McMullan says many others are affected by the backlog.

"The annoying thing is that it's money that's been granted to us," he adds. "We have the paperwork saying this is what each person's been awarded, but the claim system is not set up for us to draw down the money effectively."

Businesses say that as well as poor internal processes at the Department for Work and Pensions, there has also been a large increase in the bureaucracy associated with Access to Work in recent months, with many more forms having to be filled in and then posted – not uploaded or emailed – to the DWP.

"Until ministers realise that they've got this wrong, they're in danger of pushing so many disabled people out of the workplace," says Steven McGurk, president of the trade union, Community Union.

"Its very bureaucratic, very difficult to claim - it's the biggest threat to disabled people's employment."

In Newton Abbott in Devon, a cafe that employed people with learning disabilities shut last month. Its founders say new restrictions and problems with Access to Work contributed to the closure.

Sarah Thorp, who set up the No Limits cafe, said the scheme had in recent months started to refuse funding for people who wanted to get some work experience.

The decision came despite the local Job Centre recommending the individuals to the cafe. The change left the business with a shortfall of £800 a week.

"In the last 18 months, we've got 20 people into paid employment, all with disabilities," she says.

"When the issues around work experience changed in the last few months, we had to turn people down because we could not fund the support. It just seems really counter-intuitive when all the rhetoric is around getting disabled adults into work."

When the government unveiled cuts and restrictions to disability benefits last month, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, name-checked the Access to Work scheme as a programme that could help those who will lose out to get a job.

As well as businesses being able to claim, disabled people themselves can apply for help under the scheme.

They are also suffering delays and backlogs; in October, there were 55,000 outstanding applications, according to the DWP.

Some claimants are waiting more than six months to be assessed, with people writing on social media that the delays have resulted in them losing job offers.

The Department for Work and Pensions says it prioritises those who are newly offered a job.

Lucy Earle, 31, is a social media executive for a museum.

She has various disabilities and conditions, including agonising pain in her feet that means she needs to use a wheelchair.

It took six months for her claim to be looked at by Access to Work, and then she was assigned a wheelchair that wasn't suitable and left her upper body in pain.

"The last few weeks, I haven't been into work because I can't manage the pain of either using the wheelchair that isn't built for me, or being on my feet and not going very far."

She credits the Access to Work scheme with helping her stay in employment, but feels they are refusing reasonable requests.

"They're saying that the benefits are being cut so we can push more people into work, but then also Access to Work is having all these problems."

Steve Darling MP, the Lib Dem Work and Pensions spokesperson, says that while the principles behind Access to Work are excellent, "individuals and businesses are often covering significant sums from their own savings while waiting for payments from Access to Work, which risks pushing people into debt, or businesses even closing down. This is unacceptable."

Minister for Social Security and Disability, Sir Stephen Timms, said in February that Access to Work, established in 1994, "was not in a good shape at the moment."

Spending on the programme increased by 41% in 2023/24 to £257.8m.

"What we will need to do…is make some fairly significant reforms to Access to Work, look at whether employers can do more. There is quite a big issue here and the current style of Access to Work is unlikely to be sustainable in the long term," he said.

"We have to come up with something better and more effective, given the current very high level of demand."

In a statement, the Department for Work and Pensions said: "Last month we introduced a new streamlined claims process to ensure outstanding payments are made swiftly to businesses.

"We also continue to work with employers to explore how the Access to Work Plus claims process could be made easier for their employees and so people with high in-work support needs can thrive in employment."

The US Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a Maryland man, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador's notorious mega-jail.

The Trump administration had conceded that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported by accident, but appealed against a lower court's order to return him to the US.

On Thursday, in a 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court declined to block the lower court's order.

The judge's order "requires the Government to 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent", the justices ruled.

Mr Garcia, now 29, entered the US illegally as a teenager from El Salvador. In 2019 he was arrested with three other men in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities.

But an immigration judge granted him protection from deportation on the grounds that he might be at risk of persecution from local gangs in his home country.

He is being held at a maximum security prison in El Salvador known as the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), along with hundreds of other men the US has deported over the last few months over allegations of criminal and gang activity.

His wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, is a US citizen and has called for his release. He was reportedly working as a sheet metal worker when he was detained on 12 March.

On 4 April, Judge Paula Xinis of the Maryland district court had ordered the Trump administration to "facilitate and effectuate" the return of Mr Garcia.

The government has said Mr Garcia was deported on 15 March due to an "administrative error", although they also allege he is a member of the MS-13 gang, which his lawyer denies.

In its emergency appeal to America's highest court, the Trump administration argued the Maryland judge lacked authority to issue the order and that US officials cannot compel El Salvador to return Mr Garcia.

US Solicitor General D John Sauer wrote in his emergency court filing: "The United States does not control the sovereign nation of El Salvador, nor can it compel El Salvador to follow a federal judge's bidding."

He added: "The Constitution charges the president, not federal district courts, with the conduct of foreign diplomacy and protecting the nation against foreign terrorists, including by effectuating their removal."

On Monday, the Supreme Court put a temporary hold on the lower court's order while they considered the matter.

Sir Elton John says he is "blown away" after scoring the 10th UK number one album of his career.

Who Believes In Angels?, a collaboration with US country star Brandi Carlile, has topped the charts 52 years after the star's first number one.

"It seems quite extraordinary that my career has gone on so long," Sir Elton told the BBC.

"It always feels good to top a chart, no matter where it is. And with this album, I'm especially thrilled because I think it's the finest album I've done for a long time."

Written and recorded over three weeks in late 2023, Who Believes In Angels? has received rave reviews from critics, who have called it "a gutsy, flamboyant tearjerker" and a "late-career high".

But the album had a difficult gestation, which was captured in a warts-and-all documentary posted on YouTube.

Sir Elton was seen slamming down his headphones, shouting at his collaborators, ripping up song lyrics and threatening to quit.

'Bad behaviour moments'

The star was "nervous" and "irritable", partly because he was recovering from a hip replacement, he said, but also because he was working in a new way - writing live in the studio with Carlile, producer Andrew Watt and long-term lyricist Bernie Taupin.

"It was an enormous challenge, getting those four people together," he told the BBC. "And the challenge really was at my feet.

"I was very nervous [because] I wanted the album to stand a certain way, but you can't always guarantee it will.

"I think my nerves and my insecurities and my doubt led to a few bad behaviour moments, which was just about frustrations within myself."

Once they had recorded the opening track, The Rose of Laura Nyro, "everything fell into place", Sir Elton said.

"In two and a half weeks, we recorded 14 songs and finished them."

The album's release was delayed last year after an eye infection left the star with vision difficulties. Last week, he told the Times he could no longer watch his sons playing rugby.

With the album finally released, there has been particular praise for the single Swing For The Fences, which Carlile conceived as rallying call for the LGBTQ community.

"I'm a gay woman, Elton's a gay man and we both have families, and our dreams have come true," she told the NME.

"I was thinking, wouldn't it be cool to write an anthem for young gay kids out there that calls them into a bigger, more elegant, more fabulous life? Just like, 'Go, go! Don't let anything hold you back!'"

"It's a tough time out there for LGBTQ+ people," Sir Elton told BBC News.

"At the moment when Brandi wrote this lyric, she wanted to say, 'Listen, fight for yourself. Be proud of yourself who you are, never be ashamed of who you are, and you will win through.'"

In the UK, the album sold more than 15,000 copies in its first two days and was the week's best-seller on vinyl.

Sir Elton has now drawn level with Abba, Queen, Kylie Minogue and Michael Jackson on the list of artists with the most UK number one albums.

The Beatles and Robbie Williams share the top spot, with 15 number ones apiece.

Elton John's UK number one albums

• Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player (1973)
• Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973)
• Caribou (1974)
• Elton John's Greatest Hits (1974)
• Sleeping With The Past (1989)
• The Very Best Of Elton John (1990)
• Good Morning To The Night (with Pnau) (2012)
• Diamonds (2017)
• The Lockdown Sessions (2021)
• Who Believes In Angels? (2025)

The other new entry in this week's Top 10 came from Cambridge indie band Black Country, New Road, whose third album Forever Howlong debuted at number three.

The band's first release since the departure of frontman Isaac Wood, it trades itchy, off-centre guitar riffs for a more soothing, baroque-pop sound, with lyrics that focus on friendship and camaraderie.

It was the week's biggest-seller in independent record shops, according to the Official Charts Company.

In the singles chart, Alex Warren's Ordinary remained in pole position for a fourth week, with Chappell Roan's Pink Pony Club at number two.

Ed Sheeran had the highest new entry at number three with his comeback single Azizam.

The Persian-flavoured track is the star's 42nd Top 10 hit in the UK - but it's the first time since the start of his career that the lead single from an album has failed to enter the chart number one.

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has told the BBC that Gaza has become "hell on earth", as Israel's military assault there continues.

Mirjana Spoljaric's comments come on the same day the UN human rights office warned that Israel's tactics were threatening the viability of Palestinians continuing to live in Gaza at all.

The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions - internationally agreed rules of conduct in war - and normally only speaks confidentially to warring parties when it thinks violations are taking place.

But today Ms Spoljaric said publicly that what was happening in Gaza was an "extreme hollowing out" of international law.

Israeli bombardment has killed 1,542 people since it renewed the war on 18 March, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has also issued evacuation orders that have forced nearly 400,000 people to move. Israel has also imposed a complete blockade on the entry of food, medical supplies and all other goods since 2 March.

Israel insists it always follows international law in Gaza, and has also argued that the particular nature of this conflict, with Hamas fighters hidden among the civilian population, mean collateral damage can sometimes happen.

Israeli ministers insist there is enough food in Gaza and say the bombardment and seizure of territory aims to pressure Hamas into releasing the hostages it is still holding, whom it kidnapped during the 7 October 2023 attack.

Under the fourth Geneva Convention, occupying powers, as Israel is in Gaza, must ensure civilians have food and medicine, and protect hospitals and health workers. The convention also prohibits the forcible transfer of entire populations from occupied territories.

"No state, no party to a conflict... can be exempt from the obligation not to commit war crimes, not to commit genocide, not to commit ethnic cleansing," Ms Spoljaric said.

"These rules apply. They are universal."

Civilians were bearing the brunt of a relentless pursuit of military objectives, she added, being displaced multiple times, and their homes reduced to rubble.

Of 36 recent airstrikes verified by the UN human rights office, all those killed were women and children.

Israel has strenuously denied accusations it is committing genocide or genocidal acts in Gaza.

Israel's military said it was looking into an attack that killed members of one family in the city of Khan Younis and said it had struck 40 "terror targets" across the territory over the past day.

The ICRC's comments are the latest in a chorus of concern coming from the UN and other agencies.

On Friday the UN human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the "cumulative impact" of the IDF's conduct meant "the office is seriously concerned that Israel appears to be inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group in Gaza".

Israel was continuing to bomb tents in the al-Mawasi area it had told people to go to for their own safety, she added.

On Tuesday the UN secretary general warned that Israel's blockade of Gaza was violating the Geneva Conventions and the territory was becoming a "killing field". On Monday the heads of six UN aid agencies appealed to the world to act to save the people of Gaza, and to uphold basic international law.

The Geneva Conventions are founded on the following principles:

• Medical staff and hospitals in warzones must be protected and allowed to work freely
• Those wounded in battle and no longer fighting are entitled to medical treatment
• Prisoners of war must be treated humanely
• Warring parties are obliged to protect civilians (this includes a prohibition on the targeting of civilian infrastructure such as power and water supplies).

Twenty years ago, in what it called its war on terror, the US suggested that the Geneva Conventions might be outdated in modern warfare, but the ICRC insists they apply in all circumstances.

"It's not transactional," said Ms Spoljaric. "You have to comply with these rules no matter what the other side does."

She appealed for a renewal of the ceasefire, pointing out that during previous pauses in fighting, the ICRC had successfully been able to take Israeli hostages out of Gaza and reunite them with their families.

But she also warned of a growing "dehumanisation" during war, in which the international community was turning away even though it was clear war crimes were being committed.

The Geneva Conventions protecting civilians were created after World War Two, she pointed out, to make sure such dehumanisation never happened again. Diluting or abandoning them sends a dangerous signal that "everything is allowed".

The ICRC believes that sticking with the rules of war can help, eventually, to build a more sustainable peace. Once the fighting stops, the thinking goes, both soldiers and civilians will remember whether those on the other side obeyed international law, or whether they committed atrocities.

But Gaza, Ms Spoljaric believes "will haunt us. It will haunt us for a long time because you cannot undo the suffering… that will last for generations".

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 50,912 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Friday as Donald Trump urged the Russian president to "get moving" on a ceasefire in Ukraine.

It will be Witkoff's third meeting with Putin this year, during which the US has failed to get Russia to agree to a full ceasefire with Ukraine.

Trump has previously expressed frustration with Putin over the state of talks. On Friday, he wrote on social media: "Russia has to get moving. Too many people ere [sic] DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war."

The meeting comes as the UK and Germany chaired a gathering of Ukraine's allies in Brussels, where 50 nations agreed €21bn (£18.2bn) in military aid for Kyiv.

Before the talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was "no need to expect breakthroughs" as the "process of normalising relations is ongoing".

Before his talks with Putin, Witkoff first met Kirill Dmitriev at the Grand Hotel Europe in St Petersburg where a conference was being held on stainless steel and the Russian market.

Dmitriev, the 49-year-old head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, visited Washington DC last week and was the most senior Russian official to go to the US since the full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier this week, Washington and Moscow went ahead with a prisoner swap.

Ksenia Karelina, a Russian-American, was sentenced to 12 years in jail in Russia for donating $51 to a Ukrainian charity when the war began in February 2022.

The Los Angeles resident was freed on Thursday morning and exchanged for Arthur Petrov, a dual German-Russian citizen arrested in Cyprus in 2023.

He was accused of illegally exporting microelectronics to Russia for manufacturers working with the military.

Two police officers have been banned from serving after breaching honesty and integrity standards over a speeding ticket.

Sgt Harjit Singh, 48, and former PC Samuel Mitchell, 28, from West Mercia Police, were found guilty of gross misconduct and barred following a police conduct hearing on Thursday.

Mitchell had been driving a marked police vehicle above the speed limit in July 2022. He activated a speed camera and was issued with a speeding ticket. He submitted an exemption request form claiming that he had been trying to stop a vehicle that had been involved in an incident.

It was found this was not the case and he had no lawful exemption from speeding and that Sgt Singh had signed the form knowing it contained false information.

The Road Traffic Act exempts emergency vehicles from observing speed limits to lawfully undertake their duties.

Deputy chief constable Rachel Jones said: "We expect our police officers to act honestly and with integrity. These officers, collectively, behaved in a way that was dishonest and abused their position.

"Behaviour like this undermines public confidence in policing, and we make no apology for rooting out individuals who did not meet the standards the public rightly expect."

Both Mitchell and Singh had been based in a response unit at Kidderminster Police Station.

Mitchell resigned from his role in January 2024 but was told at the hearing he would have been dismissed had he not stepped down.

Sgt Singh was dismissed with immediate affect, and both officers were added to the College of Policing Barred List.

The Barred List prevents those added to it from ever working for a UK police service.

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A food wholesaler has been found guilty of fraud by falsely distributing chicken as halal meat and putting unsafe food on the market.

Hamil Miah, 46, from Cardiff, was the owner of Universal Food Wholesale Limited.

Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard chicken from Miah's warehouse in Bessemer Road, Cardiff was falsely sold as Halal meat to restaurants and takeaways.

He has been remanded in custody until the sentencing, but judge Vanessa Francis told Miah he could face up to 10 years in prison.

After deliberating for three hours on Friday, a jury found Miah guilty of 10 counts of fraud and food safety offences.

During the two-week trial, the jury heard Miah created a "smokescreen" of companies to mislead investigators, while he was actually running the entire operation himself.

The jury was also told the takeaways and restaurants believed they were dealing with a number of different companies and all believed they were buying halal chicken.

Some of the chicken was bought as halal, but poor hygiene and cross-contamination in the warehouse meant none of it could be truly classified as such.

There were also long periods of time when the warehouse did not receive halal meat from wholesalers, but continued to supply chicken to restaurants and takeaways who believed it was halal.

The sell-by date of some chicken was altered and labels did not have the correct information on them to enable the source of the meat to be properly traced.

Miah claimed he only ran Universal Food Wholesale Ltd, which used pre-processed halal chicken, and said on-site processing was handled by Universal Poultry Ltd, run by his childhood friend Noaf Rahman.

He denied any involvement in day-to-day processing, though Rahman had previously pleaded guilty to multiple food safety offences.

The court heard inspectors from Cardiff council and the Food Standards Agency had made multiple visits to the warehouse and suggested improvements.

There was also covert monitoring of the business, which revealed unrefrigerated chicken deliveries to west Wales and a van dumping waste at a tip before being reloaded with food without being cleaned.

A pre-sentence report was ordered for Miah, with sentencing for both him and Rahman to take place together.

Miah was granted bail, but the judge said she was "not making any promises" regarding sentence, telling him he would need to "get his affairs in order".

Parliament will be recalled on Saturday for an emergency debate on the future of British Steel's plant in Scunthorpe.

A government source says it is looking "to take control"' of the company, after its Chinese owner said its blast furnaces are "no longer financially sustainable".

Talks have been taking place this week talks to keep production going at the firm, which employs 2,700 people.

Politicians left Westminster for their Easter break on Tuesday, and were not due to return until 22 April.

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Michael Gove is among several ex-Conservative ministers to be given a seat in the House of Lords in Rishi Sunak's resignation honours list.

The former housing and education secretary served in the cabinets of four prime ministers before standing down as an MP ahead of last July's general election.

Meanwhile, former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly have been awarded knighthoods.

Now editor of the Spectator magazine, Gove was MP for Surrey Heath for nearly 20 years.

A key ally of Sunak, Gove was appointed his secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities in October 2022, a role he also held under Boris Johnson.

Other cabinet roles he has held include environment secretary, justice secretary and education secretary, when he brought in major changes to exams and the curriculum under David Cameron's coalition government.

A leading figure in the Brexit campaign alongside Johnson, the pair had a fraught relationship.

In 2016 Gove derailed his friend's leadership hopes by running against him. Later, in the dying days of Johnson's premiership he was sacked after urging the PM to resign.

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Ukraine's European allies have pledged €21bn (£18.2bn) in a new tranche of military support for Kyiv in what they described as "a critical year" for the war.

Members of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group met at Nato's headquarters in Brussels to pledge air defences, missiles and other gear as Europe sought to fill the gap left by the changed priorities of the US under Donald Trump.

Boris Pistorius, the German defence secretary, said Berlin would send €11bn in aid over four years. John Healey, his British counterpart, said the pledges would send a strong signal to Moscow.

Europe's defence ministers said they saw no sign of an end to the war, despite Trump's promise of a ceasefire.

Support announced on Friday also includes a £450m package from the UK and Norway to fund radar systems, anti-tank mines, vehicle repairs and hundreds of thousands of drones for Ukraine.

In January, the UK pledged £4.5bn in military aid to Ukraine - which Healey described as the highest contribution of aid to Ukraine this year. The £450m announced on Friday is part of that original figure.

Air defence was a priority at the meeting. Healey said Russian forces had dropped 10,000 glide bombs on Ukraine in the first three months of this year, as well as launching 100 one-way attack drones a day.

At this stage in the war, battlefield casualties on both sides inflicted by drones "way outnumber those inflicted by artillery", the UK defence secretary said.

"In our calculations, 70% to 80% of battlefield casualties are now caused and inflicted by drones," he added.

Defence ministers from 50 nations gathered in Brussels for the 27th gathering of the UDCG.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth joined the meeting remotely, telling allies that America appreciated all the work "you guys" are doing.

Pistorius said it Hegseth's decision was a matter of "schedules" rather than "priorities", and that the "most important fact was that he took part".

Other leaders also joined the meeting remotely, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Kyiv's defence minister Rustem Umerov, who was in Brussels, thanked Europe for "taking over the lead on security assistance" for his country.

He also acknowledged that Hegseth's attendance "means that the US is continuing its security assistance and is beside us".

The three European defence ministers - Healey, Pistorius and Umerov - all accused Russia of dragging its feet over a ceasefire, with the UK's Healey pointing out it had been more than a month since Russia rejected a US-backed peace settlement.

Pistorius noted that Russia was still not interested in peace.

Talks in Europe took place as US envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to Russia, once more, to press the Kremlin to accept a truce.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin and Witkoff would discuss the Ukraine war, but one should not expect any "breakthroughs".

On the ground in Ukraine, Russia's defence ministry said on Thursday that its forces had captured the village of Zhuravka, in Ukraine's northern border region of Sumy.

Ukrainian officials are yet to confirm this.

Earlier this week, President Zelensky said as many as 67,000 Russian soldiers were positioned north of the border of the Sumy region, in preparation for an attack on the city of Sumy.

Businesses employing disabled people say they are owed hundreds of thousands of pounds by the government, and fear they may have to let staff go.

Under the Access to Work scheme, companies and employees can apply for grants to help support disabled people in the workplace.

But businesses have told the BBC there are backlogs and huge payment delays leaving them out of pocket.

One company told the BBC it is owed nearly £200,000 by the Access to Work scheme and is worried it may have to close.

Another said it had already been forced to shut down in part due to problems with the programme.

Access to Work was highlighted by ministers as a way of boosting the job prospects of disabled people when the government announced multi-billion pound welfare cuts last month.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said they had recently introduced a "streamlined claims process" to make swifter payments to businesses.

The programme can pay individuals with disabilities and the businesses that employ them for the extra costs associated with being in work. It covers a broad range of support, from paying for taxis to powered wheelchairs.

Yateley Industries is a near 90-year-old charity in Hampshire that employs almost 60 people, most of whom have disabilities, in a range of packaging jobs.

It says it is owed £186,000 by the Access to Work scheme.

"It's an existential threat to us," says chief executive, Sheldon McMullan. "If we don't get it, we could potentially close this magical place forever, and that would be a tragedy for the local community and for the government's agenda more broadly."

Yateley Industries is part of a nationwide forum of dozens of supported businesses - companies specialising in employing disabled people.

Mr McMullan says many others are affected by the backlog.

"The annoying thing is that it's money that's been granted to us," he adds. "We have the paperwork saying this is what each person's been awarded, but the claim system is not set up for us to draw down the money effectively."

Businesses say that as well as poor internal processes at the Department for Work and Pensions, there has also been a large increase in the bureaucracy associated with Access to Work in recent months, with many more forms having to be filled in and then posted – not uploaded or emailed – to the DWP.

"Until ministers realise that they've got this wrong, they're in danger of pushing so many disabled people out of the workplace," says Steven McGurk, president of the trade union, Community Union.

"Its very bureaucratic, very difficult to claim - it's the biggest threat to disabled people's employment."

In Newton Abbott in Devon, a cafe that employed people with learning disabilities shut last month. Its founders say new restrictions and problems with Access to Work contributed to the closure.

Sarah Thorp, who set up the No Limits cafe, said the scheme had in recent months started to refuse funding for people who wanted to get some work experience.

The decision came despite the local Job Centre recommending the individuals to the cafe. The change left the business with a shortfall of £800 a week.

"In the last 18 months, we've got 20 people into paid employment, all with disabilities," she says.

"When the issues around work experience changed in the last few months, we had to turn people down because we could not fund the support. It just seems really counter-intuitive when all the rhetoric is around getting disabled adults into work."

When the government unveiled cuts and restrictions to disability benefits last month, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, name-checked the Access to Work scheme as a programme that could help those who will lose out to get a job.

As well as businesses being able to claim, disabled people themselves can apply for help under the scheme.

They are also suffering delays and backlogs; in October, there were 55,000 outstanding applications, according to the DWP.

Some claimants are waiting more than six months to be assessed, with people writing on social media that the delays have resulted in them losing job offers.

The Department for Work and Pensions says it prioritises those who are newly offered a job.

Lucy Earle, 31, is a social media executive for a museum.

She has various disabilities and conditions, including agonising pain in her feet that means she needs to use a wheelchair.

It took six months for her claim to be looked at by Access to Work, and then she was assigned a wheelchair that wasn't suitable and left her upper body in pain.

"The last few weeks, I haven't been into work because I can't manage the pain of either using the wheelchair that isn't built for me, or being on my feet and not going very far."

She credits the Access to Work scheme with helping her stay in employment, but feels they are refusing reasonable requests.

"They're saying that the benefits are being cut so we can push more people into work, but then also Access to Work is having all these problems."

Steve Darling MP, the Lib Dem Work and Pensions spokesperson, says that while the principles behind Access to Work are excellent, "individuals and businesses are often covering significant sums from their own savings while waiting for payments from Access to Work, which risks pushing people into debt, or businesses even closing down. This is unacceptable."

Minister for Social Security and Disability, Sir Stephen Timms, said in February that Access to Work, established in 1994, "was not in a good shape at the moment."

Spending on the programme increased by 41% in 2023/24 to £257.8m.

"What we will need to do…is make some fairly significant reforms to Access to Work, look at whether employers can do more. There is quite a big issue here and the current style of Access to Work is unlikely to be sustainable in the long term," he said.

"We have to come up with something better and more effective, given the current very high level of demand."

In a statement, the Department for Work and Pensions said: "Last month we introduced a new streamlined claims process to ensure outstanding payments are made swiftly to businesses.

"We also continue to work with employers to explore how the Access to Work Plus claims process could be made easier for their employees and so people with high in-work support needs can thrive in employment."

The five Spanish passengers who died in a helicopter crash in the Hudson River were all part of a globetrotting family which had made its mark in the corporate world as well as having close ties to one of Europe's biggest football clubs.

Agustín Escobar and Mercè Camprubí Montal died with their three children, reported to be aged four, five and 11. The pilot of the helicopter also died.

The parents both worked for Siemens and the company sent its condolences, saying: "We are deeply saddened by the tragic helicopter crash in which Agustín Escobar and his family died."

The five were taking a sightseeing ride over New York when the aircraft crashed.

Although the family were based in the Catalan city of Barcelona, Mr Escobar was originally from the industrial town of Puertollano in southern Spain.

He had recently taken up the post of CEO of rail infrastructure at Siemens Mobility, following a two-year stint as president and CEO of the German technology firm in Spain.

Mrs Camprubí Montal, a Barcelona native, also held a senior post at Siemens. She had been a global commercialisation manager with the company for just over three years at the time of her death.

She came from an influential family in the city known for textile manufacturing as well as its association with FC Barcelona, one of the biggest teams in world football.

Her great-grandfather, Agustí Montal Galobart, was president of the football club in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Her grandfather, Agustí Montal Costa, was also president, a tenure fondly remembered by fans for the arrival of the legendary Dutch player Johann Cruyff at the club in 1973.

Last year, Mrs Camprubí Montal's brother, Joan, emerged as a contender to compete for the presidency of FC Barcelona, although in recent weeks his candidacy has faded.

The careers of Mr Escobar and Mrs Camprubí Montal saw them travel extensively.

Recent posts by Mr Escobar on LinkedIn detail trips to the UK and India, and he described himself as being "passionate" about developing high-performing teams to "positively transform people and organisations".

A 27-year career at Siemens had taken him to postings in Latin America and the United States.

Juan Ignacio Díaz, a former colleague at Siemens, described him as "above all, a family man" in comments published by news site El Economista. "He was a loving, fun father, a really great guy."

Emiliano García-Page, president of the Castilla-La Mancha region, of which Mr Escobar was a native, said he was "deeply upset" by news of the deaths. Mr Escobar, he said, had been named a "favourite son" of the region.

According to Mrs Camprubí Montal's CV, she had been at Siemens for 16 years, also with postings in the United States and Latin America, before moving to the company's energy arm in 2018.

"I thrive in collaborative environments where I can leverage my international perspective," she wrote on her LinkedIn profile.

The far-right anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, has urged the Court of Appeal to let him out of prison early because he says it is making him ill.

In a highly unusual challenge to a sentence, Yaxley-Lennon's lawyers said his segregation from other prisoners at HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes was damaging his mental health in ways the judge who sentenced him did not anticipate.

Yaxley-Lennon was jailed for 18 months last October for contempt of court because he ignored an order not to repeat lies about a Syrian refugee.

The appeal will be ruled on at a later date - but last month Yaxley-Lennon lost a closely-related challenge to his segregation in the jail.

The 42-year-old was imprisoned after breaching a court order which has been put in place after he lost a hugely expensive libel trial in 2021.

The former leader of the now-defunct English Defence League had wrongly claimed in a viral video that a Syrian teenager was a violent thug.

Yaxley-Lennon began repeating the false allegation in 2024, including during a rally at London's Trafalgar Square, and ultimately admitted 10 breaches of the court order.

The judge who jailed Yaxley-Lennon last year acknowledged the impact prison would have on him, as it was likely he would need to be separated from other inmates for his own safety.

Yaxley-Lennon was also told the sentence would be cut by four months if he stopped repeating the false claims - something he has not done.

His barrister Alisdair Williamson KC told the Court of Appeal that it should consider fresh evidence that his client suffered from complex post-traumatic stress disorder and ADHD.

Yaxley-Lennon is due to be released on 26 July but his legal team argued there was a medical case for that to be brought forward.

Mr Williamson told the court: "He is being kept safe by the authorities in segregation but being kept safe is making him ill - and more ill than Mr Justice Johnson [the sentencing judge] could have foreseen on the information before him."

His client was "not currently in mental crisis", he said, but had demonstrated harmful behaviours after his previous releases from jail, raising fears in his family that he may try to kill himself.

Yaxley-Lennon is held on a closed wing at Woodhill away from other prisoners, but has contact throughout the day with officers and staff.

He is allowed out of his cell for at least three hours a day and has four hours use of a phone. He has made 1,250 social calls since November.

He has a laptop and access to email, a TV, DVDs and a CD player, the use of a gym and can work as a decorator around the jail - albeit on his own.

As of March, some 120 people had been allowed to see him over 93 visits, more than any other inmate.

The Solicitor General, the government law officer who oversees contempt of court cases, was represented by Aidan Eardley KC for the hearing.

He said there was no evidence the conditions experienced by Yaxley-Lennon were more severe than had been anticipated.

Mr Eardley said: "He remains defiantly in breach of the order [not to repeat the libel] and at the same time comes to this court and asks for an indulgence.

"There is no evidence that this is a condition that has got so bad that it cannot be managed in prison."

Yaxley-Lennon watched proceedings via a prison video link and appeared fidgety, occasionally rocking side to side.

At one point he held up a piece of paper claiming that the prison's governor had lied in a statement about his regime and freedoms - but that evidence has not been formally disputed by his legal team in court.

Baroness Sue Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, noticed the sign and said the court would ignore it.

She and other senior judges will rule at a later date.

In response to why Beijing is not backing down to Donald Trump on tariffs, the answer is that it doesn't have to.

China's leaders would say that they are not inclined to cave in to a bully – something its government has repeatedly labelled the Trump administration as – but it also has a capacity to do this way beyond any other country on Earth.

Before the tariff war kicked in, China did have a massive volume of sales to the US but, to put it into context, this only amounted to 2% of its GDP.

That said, the Communist Party would clearly prefer not to be locked in a trade war with the US at a time when it has been struggling to fix its own considerable economic headaches, after years of a real estate crisis, overblown regional debt and persistent youth unemployment.

However, despite this, the government has told its people that it is in a strong position to resist the attacks from the US.

It also knows its own tariffs are clearly going to hurt US exporters as well.

Trump has been bragging to his supporters that it would be easy to force China into submission by simply hitting the country with tariffs, but this has proven to be misleading in the extreme.

Beijing is not going to surrender.

China's leader Xi Jinping told the visiting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday that his country and the European Union should "jointly resist the unilateral bullying practices" of the Trump administration.

Sanchez, in turn, said that China's trade tensions with the US should not impede its cooperation with Europe.

Their meeting took place in the Chinese capital in the hours before Beijing again increased its tariffs on goods from the US - though it has said it will not respond to further US tariff increases.

Next week Xi will visit Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia. These are all countries which have been hit hard by Trump's tariffs.

His ministers have been meeting counterparts from South Africa, Saudi Arabia and India, talking up greater trade co-operation.

In addition, China and the EU are reportedly in talks about potentially removing European tariffs on Chinese cars, to be replaced by a minimum price instead, to rein in a new round of dumping.

In short, wherever you look, you can see that China has options.

And analysts have said that these mutual tariff increases by the two superpowers are now becoming almost meaningless, as they've already passed the point of cutting out much of the trade between them.

So, the tit-for-tat tariff increases in both directions have become more like symbolism.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning has, over the past two days, posted images of Chairman Mao on social media, including a clip during the Korean War when he told the US that "no matter how long this war lasts we will never yield".

Above this, she posted her own comments, saying: "We are Chinese. We are not afraid of provocations. We won't back down."

When the Chinese government wheels out Chairman Mao, you know they're getting serious.

The UK could see its hottest day of the year so far on Friday, with temperatures of 24C forecast in parts of the country.

South and south-eastern England are expected to see the best of the weather, with highs of 23C or 24C, while Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales could reach 21C or 22C.

To become the hottest day of the year, Friday would need to see temperatures higher than the 23.7C recorded on 4 April in Otterbourne, Hampshire.

The continued warm weather comes as fire services continue to warn of the risk of wildfires.

Recently the warmest weather has been seen across inland parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland.

On Thursday, the temperatures reached 21.8C at Castlederg in Northern Ireland on for the first time this year and Aboyne in Scotland reached 22.8C.

While daytime temperatures are above the mid- April average of 11C to 14C, the nights have been chilly.

The far north of Scotland will be cloudier on Friday with some patches of light rain.

Saturday brings the prospect of rain but there will still be lots of warm sunshine, with temperatures in the east and south-east of England potentially reaching 22C or 23C.

It will be slightly cooler in northern England and Scotland and significantly cooler by about 6C or 7C in Northern Ireland at 15C or 16C.

But cloud will arrive from the south-west bringing the chance of showers. Showers will move northwards into Scotland during the afternoon as cloud cover becomes more widespread.

Sunday is expected to be a drier and cooler day with variable cloud and a few scattered showers moving in from the west, these mainly across northern and western areas.

Fire services continue to warn of wildfires across the country.

London Fire Brigade (LFB) warned against using barbecues, saying the wildfire risk has increased due to low rainfall.

According to LFB, the service saw a 48% increase in calls last weekend compared with the same weekend last year.

In Northern Ireland, firefighters have tackled more than 200 wildfires in recent days, most of which were started deliberately according to the fire service.

Meanwhile in Scotland, the fire service has urged the public to "act responsibly" as an extreme wildfire warning remains in place across the country.

At least one person is dead after a helicopter crashed into the Hudson River in New York, authorities said on Thursday.

The New York police department said at least two people were pulled from the water, though their condition remains unclear, an official told CBS News, the BBC's US partner. It is not clear if the person reported dead was one of the two people pulled from the river.

Marine and land units are on the scene of the crash but it remains unclear how many people were on board.

Video circulating on social media shows some debris floating in the river.

The crash which occurred around 15:15 EDT (20:15 GMT) happened closer to the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.

The site of the crash appears to be near Pier 40 in New York City.

Boat traffic and street traffic in the area has been stopped.

A BBC journalist who was at the top of the World Trade Center at the time of the crash said there were about a dozen boats surrounding the site of the crash.

Tourists atop the building had gathered on one side of the tower to look down at the site of the crash, he added.

There were some heroic efforts overnight from Donald Trump and those around him to suggest the past seven days were something other than absolute chaos.

By this reading, Trump's 4D game of chess has left China in check. Certainly the Chinese economy faces a massive hit from punitive tariffs in its biggest market. But even accounting for the President's roll back, the US has still erected a massive protectionist tariff wall, not seen since the 1930s.

The world is left with a universal 10% tariff, irrespective of whether that country (for example the UK or Australia) actually sells less to the US than the US sells to it. There is now no difference between the EU, which clearly does have a massive trade deficit in goods and was preparing to retaliate, and the UK.

There is also an anxious wait to find out what comes next. One of the questions is whether President Trump pushes ahead with tariffs on medicines, the UK's second biggest goods export.

Plus there is potential logistical chaos on the cards from a little-noticed multi-million dollar port tax for every cargo vessel docking in the US that was "made in China". That is more than half of the global merchant fleet - and it is due next Friday.

Even with Trump's stated 90 day pause on implementing higher tariffs, there remains too much uncertainty for companies to go through the rigmarole of rerouting global trade.

The China fallout

The central issue today, however, is that the world's two great economic superpowers are now facing off against each other like rutting stags.

Tariffs at these sky-high rates are massively hitting business between two nations which together account for around 3% of the entire world's trade. The main motorway of the global economy is effectively shut.

The visible tangible consequences of all this will become very real very quickly: Chinese factories will close, workers will stroll from plant to plant looking for work.

Beijing will need to organise a stimulus package to account for the loss of whole percentage points of GDP, the kind of thing that happens when a natural disaster flattens a major city. Painful, but manageable at a cost, though not forever.

Meanwhile the US will see consumer prices surge. President Trump might try to order these US companies not to raise prices, but the effect will come through soon enough from the Amazon app to the iStore.

In theory this will be in sharp contrast to what is happening in other countries in the world. Across the border in Canada, or in Europe, not only will there not be such China-sourced price rises, there could be price cuts.

From trade wars to currency wars

Trade wars on this scale do not stay confined to the flow of goods. They tend to become currency wars.

What we saw last night was the trade turmoil spread to credit markets, especially the US bond market, having already hit share prices.

Indeed there was an invaluable reveal for the game theory of this conflict. The Trump administration revealed a key pressure point with its concern about the "yippy" - as Trump called it - bond market.

As trading in US government debt continued overnight in Asia, the effective interest rate on these bonds rose to 5%.

This sort of borrowing should not move in such an erratic fashion.

The last time this happened was in the "Dash for Cash", the key moment of financial fragility at the very beginning of the pandemic. The world was focussed on life or death in March 2020, but this potential further crisis was alleviated only by emergency action.

Effectively, the President's row back was a form of emergency policy change.

Was the Chinese government behind this rash of US government bond sales in Asia? Probably not. However, what happened on Wednesday highlighted a vulnerability for Trump.

China is the second biggest holder of US government debt in the world and if it chose to, dumping all that debt would be catastrophic for America. But doing so would be a form of mutually assured economic destruction - the losses for China would be huge.

More importantly, what the bond markets were telling Trump is that they are deeply sceptical about his tariff policy.

The US does have the Federal Reserve, which does have some power to tranquillise bond markets. But right now it does not look like its chairman Jerome Powell will ride to the rescue.

The bond market scepticism echoes the sentiment of the ascendant Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. He is now pushing for Trump to reach trade deals with their allies because the US needs them to take on China.

Given the US was previously calling these same close allies cheaters, looters and pillagers, there is no way this was the strategy all along.

This does matter. The US needs the EU, UK, the rest of the G7 on side in terms of China. China probably needs those countries just to stay neutral, and carry on soaking up its exports.

The rest of the world has seen Trump's team struggle to explain tariffing penguin islands or poor African economies and the President himself recirculating the suggestion he was crashing stock markets on purpose. And they've witnessed the fact that the tariff rates were changed after they came into effect and also the absurd nature of the equation used to calculate them.

It's in this context that Trump's handling of the situation has handed leverage back to the rest of the world, because neither friend nor foe will negotiate with America while things are as they are.

There is a calm, welcomed by all, but it could be rather brief.

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A derelict housing estate dubbed "Scotland's Chernobyl" for its eerie ghost-town like appearance is finally about to be razed to the ground.

The tenements at Clune Park in the Inverclyde town of Port Glasgow were built a century ago as housing for shipyard workers but have lain mostly abandoned for years.

A stand-off between private landlords and the local council has thwarted redevelopment, leaving the site frozen in time with just a handful of tenants remaining.

Demolition contractors are expected on site within days, preparing to take down a third of the buildings, including a fire-damaged school and crumbling church, after they were condemned as structurally unsafe.

The run-down estate has in recent years become a magnet for urban explorers and photographers, forcing the authorities to step up security patrols and issue danger warnings.

Comparisons have often been made with the Ukrainian city of Pripyat, abandoned after the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant led to a huge radiation leak.

Beyond superficial appearances, though, their stories are very different.

The red sandstone-fronted tenement blocks radiating off the town's Robert Street were built just after World War One by shipbuilder Lithgows to house its workforce.

Back then the waterfronts of Port Glasgow and neighbouring Greenock were filled with shipyards.

It was densely packed housing - 430 bedsits and flats, mostly in four-storey blocks - but there was a church, a school, local shops and a sense of community.

Former resident Karen Thomson and her husband Allan bought their first flat together as a married couple in Wallace Street in 1992, and stayed for six years.

"It was lovely - the neighbours were nice. It was a nice area, it was very friendly - everybody knew everybody," recalled Karen.

"It was very busy and the houses were sought after. It was very hard to get one of the houses in the area."

But Clyde shipbuilding had long been in decline, people were moving out and the cheap flats were increasingly bought up as rental investments.

Karen said: "The area was starting to fall down, they weren't keeping maintenance on it - the area started going to pot. I don't think they were putting money into it."

Clune Park fell into a spiral of decline, with property values plummeting further as it acquired a reputation for drug use and crime.

Retired forestry worker Marshal Craig, 73, is one of a handful of remaining residents.

He's lived at Clune Park for 20 years and his current rented flat on the edge of the estate is in far better condition than most. He describes it as the "posh end".

Some years ago he was hospitalised from smoke inhalation caused by one of the frequent deliberate fires in the abandoned buildings.

But as a keen reader, guitar player and nature lover, he values the quietness.

"There's seventeen different species of tree across the road," he said.

"At night you've got the foxes and owls and all the rest of it. I love that."

His block is not yet scheduled for demolition and his landlord is in no hurry to sell, so for the moment Marshal is staying put.

His home is well-decorated, boasts a large bay window and a Chesterfield sofa - all in stark contrast to the dereliction of the empty flats just a stone's throw away.

"People go how can you live there, are you not scared?" he says.

"I'm not scared. I'm a big guy - or I used to be. It suits me but it doesn't suit everybody and it doesn't suit the council."

A regeneration plan drawn up more than a decade ago proposed total demolition and rebuilding but ran into the buffers when some owners mounted a successful legal challenge.

Since then the council has steadily bought up the flats to the point where it now owns about two thirds of the properties.

The first phase of demolition will see the church, the school and 15 of the 45 tenement blocks taken down, 138 flats in total - but the plan is for them all to go eventually.

The former Clune Park Primary School is one of the oldest buildings on the site, founded in 1887 - the year of Queen Victoria's jubilee.

Busts of Victoria and Prince Albert jut out from either side of the doorway, while higher on the wall is the Port Glasgow coat of arms, a three-masted sailing ship and the Latin motto "Ter Et Quater Anno Revisens Aequor Atlanticum Impune".

It translates as "Three and four times a year revisiting the Atlantic with impunity" - a reference to the ships that once fetched huge logs from Canada, to be seasoned in the "timber ponds" of the Clyde before being used for shipbuilding.

The demolition contractors say they will try to preserve the best stonework features by removing them by hand.

When the school closed in 2008, former pupils reminisced on social media about the grand staircase, the comforting smell of wooden floors and favourite teachers.

The building is B-listed - meaning it has regional importance.

Under the council's original regeneration plan, the frontage would have been retained and the site developed into an energy centre, providing low emission heating.

But a fire in 2023 gutted the school and it is now deemed beyond repair.

Next to the school stands the shell of Clune Park Church, built in 1905 from red sandstone in the late Gothic "Modern Movement" style of architecture.

It has an ornate art nouveau-style window and, like the school, is B-listed by Historic Environment Scotland.

But the building's decay is now so far advanced, permission has been granted for demolition. The roof is long gone and huge timber roof trusses that once supported it have been stacked up in the street outside.

The Clune Park tenements are unusual in the west of Scotland in that they have flat concrete roofs which the council says are suffering from "corrosion swelling".

Inverclyde Council leader Stephen McCabe says back in the 1990s refurbishment was considered but no funding was available and a complete rebuild was thought better value.

But he says the council has faced a long "war of attrition" to identify owners and buy up the properties, with valuations often coming in at just a few thousand pounds.

Ultimately the plan is to replace the 430 flats with 165 new affordable homes with the investment coming from a social landlord.

"The start of the demolition will be a real sign that we're getting there and we will ultimately demolish all of those properties," said McCabe.

"That will be a day for celebration".

But with around 100 flats still in private hands there's no clear timescale for when that will happen.

The demolition contractors expect to start taking down the first buildings later this month.

While it marks the beginning of the end for "Scotland's Chernobyl" it may be some time yet before a new Clune Park rises from the rubble.

A new type of drug for one of the most common kinds of advanced breast cancer is now available on the NHS in England.

Some 3,000 women a year could benefit from capivasertib after a clinical trial showed it can slow progression of the disease, and shrink tumours in a quarter of people.

The drug has been given the green light for NHS funding by England's drug assessment body.

It's one of a range of treatment options available to people whose cancer has spread and is no longer curable, but a cancer charity said breast cancer drugs should be approved more quickly.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the UK, with one in seven women affected in their lifetimes and 75% surviving for 10 years or more after diagnosis.

If the cancer returns and spreads to other parts of the body, treatments aim to control it, reduce the symptoms and improve quality of life.

Possible treatments include chemotherapy, radiotherapy and drugs that help to stop the cancer growing - either by blocking hormones, boosting the body's immune system or targeting what makes cancer cells grow.

This new drug capivasertib is a targeted therapy. It works in a new way, blocking the activity of a protein molecule called AKT which drives cancer growth.

Scientists started working on the drug's development 20 years ago and say it's the most effective cancer drug they've seen for advanced cancer.

"It presents a very effective option that can work for a long time - many months, and in some people it can be years," said Prof Nick Turner, lead researcher and professor of medical oncology at the Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden.

In trials, in 708 women, when combined with hormone therapy, the drug doubled the time the cancer took to grow, from 3.6 months to 7.3 months. It also shrank tumours in 23% of patients.

"It can substantially delay chemotherapy which many women fear because of the side-effects," Prof Turner added.

"Advanced breast cancer is highly treatable and we want kinder, better treatments."

'Four years of extra time'

Linda Kelly, 67, is a keen gardener who keeps active by cycling 60 miles a week. She also does pilates.

Breast cancer has spread to her bones and chest wall.

But she's had "fantastic" results from the new drug capivasertib.

"It does let you have a normal kind of life and you forget you have cancer," she said.

"You feel the drug is working and you can be a lot calmer - it's given me nearly four years of extra time."

Linda and her husband are now planning to travel. She says the drug has given her hope.

"It does make you think about your life, and what you want to do with your life in the future - but at least you feel well enough to make those plans and confident enough as well to fulfil some of those plans."

The drug is suitable for those with certain gene mutations that affect up to half of people with hormone receptor positive secondary breast cancer - the most common type, which grows in the presence of oestrogen.

Professor Peter Johnson, clinical director for cancer at NHS England, said it offered "an additional option" for some whose cancer has progressed despite previous hormone therapy - but it wouldn't be suitable for everyone.

Claire Rowney, chief executive at charity Breast Cancer Now, said she was "delighted" that the drug would offer some people "the hope of more precious time to do what matters most to them".

But she said patients had "faced unnecessary delays in accessing it" after the drug was initially rejected by NICE, and breast cancer drugs should be approved more quickly for those who need them.

"NHS England must now put in place prompt genetic testing to ensure those eligible receive capivasertib without further delay," she said, adding that Scotland should also consider funding the treatment quickly so that patients across the UK would have access.

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