President Volodymyr Zelensky appears to have come away empty-handed from a White House meeting after US President Donald Trump indicated he was not ready to supply sought-after Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine.

Zelensky said after the cordial bilateral that he and Trump had talked about long-range missiles, but decided not to make statements on that issue "because the United States does not want an escalation".

Following the meeting, Trump took to social media to call for Kyiv and Moscow to "stop where they are" and end the war.

The Trump-Zelensky meeting came a day after Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin and agreed to meet him in Hungary soon.

While Trump did not rule out supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine, his tone at the White House on Friday was non-committal.

"Hopefully they won't need it, hopefully we'll be able to get the war over without thinking about Tomahawks," the US president said, adding that America needed the weapons.

Trump said sending the missiles would be "an escalation, but we'll be talking about it".

Asked by the BBC if the Tomahawks had prompted Putin to meet Trump, the US president said: "The threat of that [the missiles] is good, but the threat of that is always there."

The Ukrainian leader suggested Ukraine could offer drones in exchange for the Tomahawks, prompting smiles and nodding from Trump.

Zelensky also complimented Trump on his role in securing a peace deal in the Middle East, suggesting the US leader could build on that momentum to help end Russia's war in Ukraine.

Outside afterwards, Zelensky was asked by a reporter if he thought Putin wanted a deal or was just buying time with the planned meeting with Trump in Budapest.

"I don't know," he said, adding that the prospect of Ukraine having Tomahawks had caused Russia to be "afraid because it is a strong weapon".

Asked if he was leaving Washington more optimistic that Ukraine would get the Tomahawks, he said: "I am realistic."

Zelensky believes using Tomahawks to strike at Russian oil and energy facilities would severely weaken Putin's war economy.

In recent days, Trump had shown an openness to the idea of selling the Tomahawks, although Putin warned that such a move would further strain the US-Russian relationship.

On Thursday, Trump said "great progress" was made during a phone call with Putin, with the pair agreeing to face-to-face talks soon in Hungary.

Asked whether Zelensky would be involved in those talks, Trump said before his meeting sitting alongside the Ukrainian president that there was "bad blood" between Putin and Zelenksy.

"We want to make it comfortable for everybody," he said. "We'll be involved in threes, but it may be separated." He added that the three leaders "have to get together".

Trump said his call, the first with Putin since mid-August, was "very productive", adding that teams from Washington and Moscow would meet next week.

Trump had hoped a face-to-face summit in Alaska in August would help convince Putin to enter into comprehensive peace talks to end the war, but that meeting failed to produce a decisive breakthrough.

They spoke again days later when Trump interrupted a meeting with Zelensky and European leaders to call Putin.

Back in Ukraine, the BBC spoke on Friday to a couple repairing the small store they own in a suburb of Kyiv, after it was obliterated by Russian missiles last month.

When the store-owner, Volodymyr, was asked about Trump's forthcoming summit meeting with Putin, he began to say: "We appreciate all support".

But he stepped away as tears welled up in his eyes. After a long pause, he composed himself and started again.

"Truth and democracy will win, and all the terrorism and evil will disappear," he said. "We just want to live, we don't want to give up, we just want them to leave us alone."

US President Donald Trump has commuted the sentence of George Santos, a former Republican congressman serving seven years in prison for fraud and identify theft, ordering his immediate release.

In a post on social media, Trump said Santos "has been horribly mistreated", adding: "Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!"

The former lawmaker was only the sixth in US history to be expelled from Congress, after a damning ethics report in 2023.

Santos, who admitted to stealing the identities of 11 people - including family members, is currently serving his sentence at a minimum-security jail in New Jersey.

In April when Santos was sentenced a judge told him: "You got elected with your words, most of which were lies."

He reportedly cried in court and begged for forgiveness, saying: "I cannot rewrite the past, but I can control the road ahead."

Prosecutors argued that the novice politician had lied about his background and misused campaign funds to finance his lifestyle.

In his post, Trump justified the move by criticising a Democratic lawmaker, Senator Richard Blumenthal, whom he accused of fabricating his US military service.

"This is far worse than what George Santos did, and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!" Trump wrote.

Trump has previously called for an investigation into Blumenthal over the claim. The Democrat has acknowledged that he misspoke on numerous occasions about his time in the military, but has said the mishaps were more than a decade old.

"This allegation of 15 years ago has been really rejected by the voters of Connecticut three times, overwhelmingly reelecting me," Blumenthal told CNN earlier this month.

A lawyer for Santos told the Associated Press that it remains unclear when his client would be released.

"The defence team applauds President Trump for doing the right thing," said Andrew Mancilla.

"The sentence was far too long."

Santos's downfall began after the New York Times in 2022 published an investigation revealing the freshman congressman had lied about his CV, including having a university degree and working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

From there, the lies continued to pile up, including allegations that he stole money from a fundraiser for a dying dog and that he lied about his mother surviving the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Shortly afterwards, local and federal officials began to investigate.

He was eventually charged with 23 federal felony crimes, and in 2023 he became the first expelled member of Congress in more than 20 years, and only the sixth in history.

A report from the House ethics panel accused him of misusing campaign funds for personal benefits, including Botox and subscriptions on the OnlyFans website.

Santos defeated a Democratic incumbent in 2022, flipping the district that encompasses parts of New York's Long Island and Queens, where he grew up.

Earlier this week, Santos published an open letter to Trump in the South Shore Press newspaper in Long Island, repeating his plea to be pardoned.

The letter, which was titled a "passionate plea to President Trump" asked for "the opportunity to return to my family, my friends, and my community."

He wrote that he had been kept in solitary confinement after a death threat in August, and apologised for his actions.

"Mr President, I am not asking for sympathy. I am asking for fairness - for the chance to rebuild," he wrote.

"I know I have made mistakes in my past. I have faced my share of consequences, and I take full responsibility for my actions.

"But no man, no matter his flaws, deserves to be lost in the system, forgotten and unseen, enduring punishment far beyond what justice requires."

Trump has issued pardons to at least two other former Republican lawmakers since re-taking office in January.

In May, he pardoned former congressman Michael Grimm, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to tax crimes.

He also pardoned former Connecticut Governor John Rowland, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to corruption and fraud charges.

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There are not many sports that can keep an audience enraptured through 45 minutes of ceremony before the first point is even contested.

And yet, the intricate traditions unfolding in a small clay ring - virtually unchanged in hundreds of years - managed to do just that.

Welcome, then, to the Grand Sumo Tournament - a five-day event at the Royal Albert Hall featuring 40 of the very best sumo wrestlers showcasing a sport which can date its first mention back to 23BC.

London's Victorian concert venue has been utterly transformed, complete with six-tonne Japanese temple roof suspended above the ring.

It is here the wrestlers, known as rikishi, will perform their leg stomps to drive away evil spirits, and where they will clap to get the attention of the gods.

And above all this ancient ceremony, a giant, revolving LED screen which wouldn't look out of place at an American basketball game, offering the audience all the stats and replays they could want.

Sumo may be ancient, and may have strict rules governing every aspect of a rikishi's conduct, but it still exists in a modern world.

And that modern world is helping spread sumo far beyond Japan's borders.

It was a "random video" which first caught Sian Spencer's attention a couple of years ago.

This was quickly followed by the discovery of dedicated YouTube channels for a couple of the sumo stables, where rikishi live and train, waking up early to practice, followed by a high protein stew called a chankonabe, and then an afternoon nap - all in the service of bulking up.

Then she discovered the bi-monthly, 15 day championships, known as basho, and from there, she was hooked.

The London tournament was simply a "once-in-a-lifetime", not-to-be-missed, opportunity to see it all in real life, the 35-year-old says.

Julia and her partner Cezar, who live in Edinburgh, discovered sumo through a more traditional route: a trip to Japan six years ago.

"We saw it as a very touristy activity, but we actually ended up loving the sport," says Julia, 34.

"From there on, we tried to find communities, information, just to learn more and more about it," Cezar, 36, adds.

Colleagues, friends and family, they found, could be quite taken aback by their new passion.

"It's the only sport we watch," explains Julia - so they found like-minded people on messaging apps like Telegram.

"We found Italian groups, English groups," says Julia.

"Outside of Japan, online is the only way to interact with the sport," adds Cezar.

Going to Japan is almost the only way to see a top-flight sumo tournament.

This week's event in London is only the second time the tournament has visited the city - the first time was in 1991 - while the last overseas trip was to Jakarta in 2013.

But even going to Japan isn't a guarantee of getting a seat. Last year was the first time in 24 years that all six of the bi-monthly, 15-day events had sold out in 28 years, Kyodo News reported - fueled by interest at home, and by the tourist boom which saw more than 36m foreigners visit in 2024.

So for many, the London tournament is the first time they have watched sumo in person - and it doesn't disapoint.

"Seeing it up close, you get a sense of the speed and the power which you don't get on TV. It was incredible," says Caspar Eliot, a 36-year-old fan from London. "They are so big."

To win, one man needs to push another out of the ring or to the ground using brute strength. The majority use one of two styles to achieve this, often in split seconds - pushing, or grappling.

Either way, the sound of the two rikishi colliding in the first moment of the match reverberates around the hall.

Caspar and his wife Megha Okhai had been among those lucky enough to get tickets when they visited Japan last year - only for them not to arrive in the post in time.

It didn't stop them falling head over heels, however, and they have watched every basho this year. So when it came to the London Grand Sumo Tournament, they weren't taking chances.

"I think we had four devices trying to book tickets," Caspar tells the BBC ahead of the event, displaying his sumo towels proudly - a must for diehard fans. "We got front row seats, on the cushions."

The cushions right next to the ring are of course highly prized - but also, a bit risky.

On Thursday, it was all 181kg and 191cm of Shonannoumi which went plummeting into the crowd - perhaps making those in the slightly cheaper seats breathe a sigh of relief.

Of course, the size of the rikishi is one of the first things most people think of when they think of sumo. The Albert Hall's director of programming revealed to The Guardian earlier this week that they "had to source and buy new chairs which can take up to 200kg in weight".

But sumo - for all its sell-out events - is not without its troubles behind the scenes. A series of scandals over the last couple of decades around bullying, match fixing and sexism have dented its image.

And then there is the fact that last year - while being a bumper one for ticket sales - saw the lowest number of new recruits joining the stables.

Perhaps the strict life of a rikishi doesn't look as appealing as it once might have. Its popularity among young Japanese is also being threatened by other sports, like baseball. As Thomas Fabbri, the BBC's resident sumo fan, said: "My Japanese friends think I'm mad, as they see it as a sport for old people."

Japan's falling birthrate will also not help - nor is the Japanese Sumo Association's rule which restricts each stable to just one foreign rikishi. Despite this, Mongolians have dominated for the past few years - and one of the most exciting rising stars hails from Ukraine.

Not that any of this has worried fans in London.

"Seeing all this ritual and ceremony that goes with sumo is quite special," fan Sian says. "Now, seeing it in person, you feel like you are more part of it."

Julia and Cesar agree in a message the next day.

"It's a Japanese sport but we didn't feel out of place, so many people from all around the world around us."

For Megha, the drama "made it so incredible" - as did meeting the other fans.

"Getting out of a very niche Reddit community and being able to see all these sumo fans in person and being able to chat with other people who are just as into this as we are - it was worth every penny of sumo gold."

Additonal reporting by Thomas Fabbri

Want to watch? Audiences can tune in via BBC iPlayer, the BBC Red Button, the BBC Sport website and app.

Kayla first tried fentanyl as a troubled 18-year-old, growing up in the US state of North Carolina.

"I felt like literally amazing. The voices in my head just completely went silent. I got instantly addicted," she remembers.

The little blue pills Kayla became hooked on were probably made in Mexico, and then smuggled across the border to the US - a deadly trade President Donald Trump is trying to crack down on.

But drug cartels aren't pharmacists. So, Kayla never knew how much fentanyl was in the pill she was taking. Would there be enough of the synthetic opioid to kill her?

"It's scary to think about that," Kayla says, reflecting on how she could have overdosed and died at any moment.

In 2023, there were over 110,000 drug-related deaths in the US. The march of fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin, seemed unstoppable.

But then came a staggering turnaround.

In 2024, the number of fatal overdoses across the US fell by around 25%. That's nearly 30,000 fewer deaths – dozens of lives saved every day. Kayla's state, North Carolina, is at the forefront of that trend.

Why fatal overdoses have fallen so sharply

One of the explanations is a commitment to harm reduction. This means promoting policies that prioritise drug users' health and wellbeing rather than criminalising people - a recognition that in an era of fentanyl, drug-taking too often ends with death by overdose.

In North Carolina, where Kayla still lives, and where overdose fatalities are currently down by an impressive 35%, harm reduction strategies are well-developed.

Kayla no longer takes street drugs. And she's a client of an innovative law enforcement assisted diversion (LEAD) programme in Fayetteville. It's a partnership between the town's police and the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition. Together, they work to divert substance users away from crime, and get them on the road to recovery.

"If someone's stealing from a grocery store, we run their criminal history. And often we see that the crimes they're committing appear to fund the addiction they have," says Lt Jamaal Littlejohn.

This might make them a candidate for the LEAD programme, meaning they can get support to tackle their addiction, and can start thinking about secure housing and employment.

The proponents of LEAD say it isn't about being soft on crime. Drug dealers still go to prison in Fayetteville. "But if we can get people the services they need, it gives law enforcement more time to deal with bigger crimes," argues Lt Littlejohn, who watched his own sister struggle with a substance use disorder.

• Listen to Assignment: Drugs, Overdose, Hope on The Documentary Podcast on the BBC World Service

Kayla has blossomed. She's such a long way now from the days when she used prostitution to fund her fentanyl habit. As part of the LEAD process, her criminal record has been wiped. She recently graduated as a certified nurse assistant, and is now working in a residential home.

"It's like the best thing ever. This is the longest time I've been clean," she says.

Critical to Kayla's recovery has been treatment. She's been taking methadone for nearly a year when she tells her story to the BBC. "It's keeping me from going back," she believes.

Methadone and buprenorphine are medications used to treat opioid use disorder. They stem cravings and stop painful withdrawal. Nationwide, treatment has played a role in puncturing the overdose fatality statistics.

In North Carolina, it's been a game-changer: more than 30,000 people were enrolled in a programme in 2024, with numbers climbing in 2025.

'You're still playing Russian roulette, but your odds improve'

At 09:00 at one of the Morse Clinics in the state capital of Raleigh, two or three people wait their turn in reception.

"The busiest time is 5.30am to 7am, so before work," says Dr Eric Morse, an addiction psychiatrist running nine clinics offering medication assisted treatment (MAT) in North Carolina. "Most of our folks are working - once they're sober, they show up to work on time every day."

The clinic runs a finely-tuned operation. After patients check in, they're called to a dosing window to receive their prescription. They're in and out in minutes.

They'll randomly be drug tested for illicit narcotics. Dr Morse says around half his patients are still testing positive for opioids bought on the street, but he doesn't see this as failure.

"Maybe you're using once a week and you're used to using three times a day… You're still playing Russian roulette with fentanyl but you've taken a whole bunch of bullets out of the chamber, so your survival rate goes up significantly," says Dr Morse.

This is harm reduction. So rather than be expelled from the treatment programme, patients who get a positive drug test are given extra support and counselling. Dr Morse says 80-90% will eventually stop using street drugs altogether. And in time, many will taper off their medication too.

The abstinence debate

Not everyone thinks this is the right approach.

Mark Pless is a Republican who sits in North Carolina's state House of Representatives, and used to be a full-time paramedic. He points out that illegal drug-taking starts with a choice.

And he doesn't believe in harm reduction. In particular he's against treating opioid use disorder with medications like methadone or buprenorphine.

"You're replacing an addictive product with another addictive product," he says. "If you have to take it in order to stay clean, it's still addictive. We've got to figure out how to get people to where they can do better – we can't leave them on drugs forever."

He favours abstinence treatment programmes, when drug users go "cold turkey".

But there's pushback from health professionals in North Carolina.

"I believe there are multiple paths to recovery," says Dr Morse. "I'm not pooh-poohing abstinence-based treatment - except when you look at the medical evidence."

Dr Morse references a Yale University study from 2023 analysing the risk of death for opioid users in a treatment programme compared to people not in treatment. The study suggested that someone in abstinence treatment was as likely - or more more likely - to have a fatal overdose as a person who wasn't in treatment and was continuing to use street opioids like fentanyl.

• How does fentanyl get into the US?

Treatment aside, another drug is helping.

Naloxone is widely available, and used as a nasal spray it reverses the effect of an opioid overdose, helping someone breathe again. In North Carolina in 2024, it was administered more than 16,000 times. That's potentially 16,000 lives saved – and these are only the overdose reversals that have been reported.

"This is as close to a miracle drug as we can ever imagine," says Dr Nabarun Dasgupta, a scientist specialising in street drugs at the University of North Carolina.

Many users of narcotics like cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin want to know that what they're taking won't kill them. Some people use test-strips to check for fentanyl, because they know it's been implicated in so many fatal overdoses.

But the strips don't identify all potentially harmful substances. Dr Dasgupta runs a national drugs-testing laboratory. Users send him a tiny bit of their drug supply via local non-profit organisations.

"We've analysed close to 14,000 samples from 43 states over the last three years," he says.

A generational shift

Testing drugs for potentially dangerous additives is an additional weapon in the harm reduction armoury. Dr Dasgupta believes another reason for decreasing overdose fatalities in the US is that young people are avoiding opioids like fentanyl.

"We see a demographic shift. Generation Z are dying of overdose much less frequently than their parents or their grandparents' generations were at the same age," he says.

Dr Dasgupta isn't entirely surprised 20-somethings are steering clear of opioids. A shocking four out of 10 American adults know someone whose life has been ended by an overdose.

It was this epidemic of death, set in train in the 1990s by prescription opioids, that motivated North Carolina's former attorney general - now the state governor - to move against powerful corporations benefitting from so many Americans' dark spiral down into addiction.

Josh Stein picked up the phone to his counterparts in other states, and took a leading role in co-ordinating legal action against opioid manufacturers, distributors and retailers.

"There was a Republican attorney general in Tennessee, I'm Democrat in North Carolina… But we're all caring about our people and we're all willing to fight for them," Stein reflects.

The upshot, after years of intense negotiations, was an Opioid Settlement totalling some $60bn (£45bn). This is money that huge companies have agreed to pay to US states, to be used for the "abatement of the opioid epidemic". North Carolina's share is around $1.5bn.

"It has to be spent in four ways – drug prevention, treatment, recovery, or harm reduction. I think it's transformative," says Governor Stein.

Meanwhile, funding from the national government is uncertain. The cuts to Medicaid included in President Trump's One Big, Beautiful Bill Act could have a tremendous impact on this area.

In the Morse Clinics in Raleigh, 70% of patients depend on Medicaid. If they lose health insurance, will they end treatment and become more vulnerable to death by overdose? Although North Carolina's drug fatality statistics look optimistic, thousands of people are still dying - and the state's black, indigenous and non-white populations haven't experienced the same rates of decrease.

And there remain other states that have witnessed a stubbornly slower rate of decrease in lethal overdoses - including Nevada and Arizona.

No one is complacent. Least of all Kayla.

In the grip of fentanyl for three long years, she never overdosed herself, but she did have to save her friends. Kayla's parents didn't know what to do with her.

"They kind of gave up on me - they thought I was gonna be dead," she remembers.

Kayla credits Charlton Roberson, her harm reduction mentor, as being instrumental in her recovery. Her aim now is to taper off methadone and become medication- and drug-free. She also wants to find a job in a hospital.

"I feel more alive than I ever did when I was using fentanyl," she says.

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

The waters of the north Pacific have had their warmest summer on record, according to BBC analysis of a mysterious marine heatwave that has confounded climate scientists.

Sea surface temperatures between July and September were more than 0.25C above the previous high of 2022 - a big increase across an area roughly ten times the size of the Mediterranean.

While climate change is known to make marine heatwaves more likely, scientists are struggling to explain why the north Pacific has been so hot for so long.

But all this extra heat in the so-called "warm blob" may have the opposite effect in the UK, possibly making a colder start to winter more likely, some researchers believe.

"There's definitely something unusual going on in the north Pacific," said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a research group in the US.

Such a jump in temperatures across a region so large is "quite remarkable", he added.

The BBC analysed data from the European Copernicus climate service to calculate average temperatures between July and September across a large area of the north Pacific, sometimes known as the "warm blob".

The region extends from the east coast of Asia to the west coast of North America, the same area used in previous scientific studies.

The figures show that not only has the region been warming quickly over the past couple of decades, but 2025 is markedly higher than recent years too.

That the seas are getting hotter is no surprise. Global warming, caused by humanity's emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases, has already trebled the number of days of extreme heat in oceans globally, according to research published earlier this year.

But temperatures have been even higher than most climate models - computer simulations taking into account humanity's carbon emissions - had predicted.

Analysis of these models by the Berkeley Earth group suggests that sea temperatures observed across the north Pacific in August had less than a 1% chance of occurring in any single year.

Natural weather variability is thought to be part of the reason. This summer has seen weaker-than-usual winds, for example. That means more heat from the summer sunshine can stay in the sea surface, rather than being mixed with cooler waters below.

But this can only go so far in explaining the exceptional conditions, according to Dr Hausfather.

"It certainly is not just natural variability," he said. "There's something else going on here as well."

One intriguing idea is that a recent change to shipping fuels might be contributing to the warming. Prior to 2020, dirty engine oil produced large amounts of sulphur dioxide, a gas harmful to human health.

But that sulphur also formed tiny, Sun-reflecting particles in the atmosphere, known as aerosols, which helped to keep a lid on rising temperatures.

So removing that cooling effect in shipping hotspots like the north Pacific could be revealing the full impact of human-caused warming.

"It does seem like sulphur is the primary candidate for what's driving this warming in the region," said Dr Hausfather.

Other research suggests that efforts to reduce air pollution in Chinese cities has played a role in warming the Pacific too.

That dirty air did a similar job to shipping in reflecting sunlight away, while cleaning it up could have had the unintended consequence of allowing more ocean heating.

Possible impacts for the UK?

The north Pacific's marine heatwave has already had consequences for weather on both sides of the Pacific, likely boosting very high summer temperatures in Japan and South Korea and storms in the US.

"In California, we've seen supercharged thunderstorms because the warm ocean waters in the Pacific provide heat and moisture," said Amanda Maycock, professor in climate dynamics at the University of Leeds.

"In particular, there are things we call atmospheric rivers… bands of air, which contain very high amounts of moisture that fuel themselves from the ocean waters," she added.

"So if we have warm ocean waters… they can then bring a lot of moisture onto the land, which then falls out as rain, or in the wintertime can precipitate out as snow."

Long-term weather forecasting is always challenging, but extreme heat in the north Pacific has the potential to affect the UK and Europe in the coming months too.

That's because of relationships between weather in different parts of the world known as teleconnections.

"Although the current warm conditions are located in the north Pacific, these can generate wave motions in the atmosphere that can alter our weather downstream into the north Atlantic and into Europe," said Prof Maycock.

"That can tend to favour high-pressure conditions over the continent, which brings us more of an influence from the Arctic, where we have colder air," she added.

"That can be drawn over Europe and bring us colder weather in early winter."

A colder outcome is by no means certain, as this is a complex area of science. Several other weather patterns also affect UK winters, which are typically getting milder with climate change.

And a warm north Pacific appears to have different effects later in the winter, favouring milder and wetter conditions in some parts of Europe.

Emerging La Niña in the tropical Pacific

Another factor to throw into the mix is what's happening further south in the eastern tropical Pacific.

There, surface waters are unusually cool - a classic sign of the weather phenomenon known as La Niña.

La Niña, and its warm sibling El Niño, are natural patterns, although research published this week highlighted that global warming could itself impact the swings between them.

Weak La Niña conditions are expected to persist over the next few months, according to NOAA, the US science agency.

All else being equal, La Niña generally increases the risk of a cold start to winter in the UK, but also brings a higher chance of a mild end, the Met Office says.

"These two drivers in the north and tropical Pacific will be acting together this winter," said Prof Maycock.

"But since the La Niña is quite weak this year, the extreme warmth in the north Pacific could be more important for forecasting the winter ahead."

Additional reporting by Muskeen Liddar and Libby Rogers

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There are not many sports that can keep an audience enraptured through 45 minutes of ceremony before the first point is even contested.

And yet, the intricate traditions unfolding in a small clay ring - virtually unchanged in hundreds of years - managed to do just that.

Welcome, then, to the Grand Sumo Tournament - a five-day event at the Royal Albert Hall featuring 40 of the very best sumo wrestlers showcasing a sport which can date its first mention back to 23BC.

London's Victorian concert venue has been utterly transformed, complete with six-tonne Japanese temple roof suspended above the ring.

It is here the wrestlers, known as rikishi, will perform their leg stomps to drive away evil spirits, and where they will clap to get the attention of the gods.

And above all this ancient ceremony, a giant, revolving LED screen which wouldn't look out of place at an American basketball game, offering the audience all the stats and replays they could want.

Sumo may be ancient, and may have strict rules governing every aspect of a rikishi's conduct, but it still exists in a modern world.

And that modern world is helping spread sumo far beyond Japan's borders.

It was a "random video" which first caught Sian Spencer's attention a couple of years ago.

This was quickly followed by the discovery of dedicated YouTube channels for a couple of the sumo stables, where rikishi live and train, waking up early to practice, followed by a high protein stew called a chankonabe, and then an afternoon nap - all in the service of bulking up.

Then she discovered the bi-monthly, 15 day championships, known as basho, and from there, she was hooked.

The London tournament was simply a "once-in-a-lifetime", not-to-be-missed, opportunity to see it all in real life, the 35-year-old says.

Julia and her partner Cezar, who live in Edinburgh, discovered sumo through a more traditional route: a trip to Japan six years ago.

"We saw it as a very touristy activity, but we actually ended up loving the sport," says Julia, 34.

"From there on, we tried to find communities, information, just to learn more and more about it," Cezar, 36, adds.

Colleagues, friends and family, they found, could be quite taken aback by their new passion.

"It's the only sport we watch," explains Julia - so they found like-minded people on messaging apps like Telegram.

"We found Italian groups, English groups," says Julia.

"Outside of Japan, online is the only way to interact with the sport," adds Cezar.

Going to Japan is almost the only way to see a top-flight sumo tournament.

This week's event in London is only the second time the tournament has visited the city - the first time was in 1991 - while the last overseas trip was to Jakarta in 2013.

But even going to Japan isn't a guarantee of getting a seat. Last year was the first time in 24 years that all six of the bi-monthly, 15-day events had sold out in 28 years, Kyodo News reported - fueled by interest at home, and by the tourist boom which saw more than 36m foreigners visit in 2024.

So for many, the London tournament is the first time they have watched sumo in person - and it doesn't disapoint.

"Seeing it up close, you get a sense of the speed and the power which you don't get on TV. It was incredible," says Caspar Eliot, a 36-year-old fan from London. "They are so big."

To win, one man needs to push another out of the ring or to the ground using brute strength. The majority use one of two styles to achieve this, often in split seconds - pushing, or grappling.

Either way, the sound of the two rikishi colliding in the first moment of the match reverberates around the hall.

Caspar and his wife Megha Okhai had been among those lucky enough to get tickets when they visited Japan last year - only for them not to arrive in the post in time.

It didn't stop them falling head over heels, however, and they have watched every basho this year. So when it came to the London Grand Sumo Tournament, they weren't taking chances.

"I think we had four devices trying to book tickets," Caspar tells the BBC ahead of the event, displaying his sumo towels proudly - a must for diehard fans. "We got front row seats, on the cushions."

The cushions right next to the ring are of course highly prized - but also, a bit risky.

On Thursday, it was all 181kg and 191cm of Shonannoumi which went plummeting into the crowd - perhaps making those in the slightly cheaper seats breathe a sigh of relief.

Of course, the size of the rikishi is one of the first things most people think of when they think of sumo. The Albert Hall's director of programming revealed to The Guardian earlier this week that they "had to source and buy new chairs which can take up to 200kg in weight".

But sumo - for all its sell-out events - is not without its troubles behind the scenes. A series of scandals over the last couple of decades around bullying, match fixing and sexism have dented its image.

And then there is the fact that last year - while being a bumper one for ticket sales - saw the lowest number of new recruits joining the stables.

Perhaps the strict life of a rikishi doesn't look as appealing as it once might have. Its popularity among young Japanese is also being threatened by other sports, like baseball. As Thomas Fabbri, the BBC's resident sumo fan, said: "My Japanese friends think I'm mad, as they see it as a sport for old people."

Japan's falling birthrate will also not help - nor is the Japanese Sumo Association's rule which restricts each stable to just one foreign rikishi. Despite this, Mongolians have dominated for the past few years - and one of the most exciting rising stars hails from Ukraine.

Not that any of this has worried fans in London.

"Seeing all this ritual and ceremony that goes with sumo is quite special," fan Sian says. "Now, seeing it in person, you feel like you are more part of it."

Julia and Cesar agree in a message the next day.

"It's a Japanese sport but we didn't feel out of place, so many people from all around the world around us."

For Megha, the drama "made it so incredible" - as did meeting the other fans.

"Getting out of a very niche Reddit community and being able to see all these sumo fans in person and being able to chat with other people who are just as into this as we are - it was worth every penny of sumo gold."

Additonal reporting by Thomas Fabbri

Want to watch? Audiences can tune in via BBC iPlayer, the BBC Red Button, the BBC Sport website and app.

President Volodymyr Zelensky appears to have come away empty-handed from a White House meeting after US President Donald Trump indicated he was not ready to supply sought-after Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine.

Zelensky said after the cordial bilateral that he and Trump had talked about long-range missiles, but decided not to make statements on that issue "because the United States does not want an escalation".

Following the meeting, Trump took to social media to call for Kyiv and Moscow to "stop where they are" and end the war.

The Trump-Zelensky meeting came a day after Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin and agreed to meet him in Hungary soon.

While Trump did not rule out supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine, his tone at the White House on Friday was non-committal.

"Hopefully they won't need it, hopefully we'll be able to get the war over without thinking about Tomahawks," the US president said, adding that America needed the weapons.

Trump said sending the missiles would be "an escalation, but we'll be talking about it".

Asked by the BBC if the Tomahawks had prompted Putin to meet Trump, the US president said: "The threat of that [the missiles] is good, but the threat of that is always there."

The Ukrainian leader suggested Ukraine could offer drones in exchange for the Tomahawks, prompting smiles and nodding from Trump.

Zelensky also complimented Trump on his role in securing a peace deal in the Middle East, suggesting the US leader could build on that momentum to help end Russia's war in Ukraine.

Outside afterwards, Zelensky was asked by a reporter if he thought Putin wanted a deal or was just buying time with the planned meeting with Trump in Budapest.

"I don't know," he said, adding that the prospect of Ukraine having Tomahawks had caused Russia to be "afraid because it is a strong weapon".

Asked if he was leaving Washington more optimistic that Ukraine would get the Tomahawks, he said: "I am realistic."

Zelensky believes using Tomahawks to strike at Russian oil and energy facilities would severely weaken Putin's war economy.

In recent days, Trump had shown an openness to the idea of selling the Tomahawks, although Putin warned that such a move would further strain the US-Russian relationship.

On Thursday, Trump said "great progress" was made during a phone call with Putin, with the pair agreeing to face-to-face talks soon in Hungary.

Asked whether Zelensky would be involved in those talks, Trump said before his meeting sitting alongside the Ukrainian president that there was "bad blood" between Putin and Zelenksy.

"We want to make it comfortable for everybody," he said. "We'll be involved in threes, but it may be separated." He added that the three leaders "have to get together".

Trump said his call, the first with Putin since mid-August, was "very productive", adding that teams from Washington and Moscow would meet next week.

Trump had hoped a face-to-face summit in Alaska in August would help convince Putin to enter into comprehensive peace talks to end the war, but that meeting failed to produce a decisive breakthrough.

They spoke again days later when Trump interrupted a meeting with Zelensky and European leaders to call Putin.

Back in Ukraine, the BBC spoke on Friday to a couple repairing the small store they own in a suburb of Kyiv, after it was obliterated by Russian missiles last month.

When the store-owner, Volodymyr, was asked about Trump's forthcoming summit meeting with Putin, he began to say: "We appreciate all support".

But he stepped away as tears welled up in his eyes. After a long pause, he composed himself and started again.

"Truth and democracy will win, and all the terrorism and evil will disappear," he said. "We just want to live, we don't want to give up, we just want them to leave us alone."

Israel's military says the Red Cross has retrieved a coffin of a deceased hostage in the southern Gaza Strip and is now "on the way to IDF [Israel Defence Forces] troops" in the territory.

Posting on X, the IDF urged the public to "act with sensitivity and wait for the official identification, which will first be provided to the families".

It also stressed that Hamas was required to "return all the deceased hostages" in accordance with a Gaza ceasefire agreement.

This follows an earlier statement from Hamas that it would hand over the body of an Israeli hostage to the Red Cross.

Hamas has returned the bodies of nine of the 28 dead hostages in Gaza, and freed all 20 living hostages.

Israel has freed 250 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and 1,718 detainees from Gaza as part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal.

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US President Donald Trump has commuted the sentence of George Santos, a former Republican congressman serving seven years in prison for fraud and identify theft, ordering his immediate release.

In a post on social media, Trump said Santos "has been horribly mistreated", adding: "Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!"

The former lawmaker was only the sixth in US history to be expelled from Congress, after a damning ethics report in 2023.

Santos, who admitted to stealing the identities of 11 people - including family members, is currently serving his sentence at a minimum-security jail in New Jersey.

In April when Santos was sentenced a judge told him: "You got elected with your words, most of which were lies."

He reportedly cried in court and begged for forgiveness, saying: "I cannot rewrite the past, but I can control the road ahead."

Prosecutors argued that the novice politician had lied about his background and misused campaign funds to finance his lifestyle.

In his post, Trump justified the move by criticising a Democratic lawmaker, Senator Richard Blumenthal, whom he accused of fabricating his US military service.

"This is far worse than what George Santos did, and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!" Trump wrote.

Trump has previously called for an investigation into Blumenthal over the claim. The Democrat has acknowledged that he misspoke on numerous occasions about his time in the military, but has said the mishaps were more than a decade old.

"This allegation of 15 years ago has been really rejected by the voters of Connecticut three times, overwhelmingly reelecting me," Blumenthal told CNN earlier this month.

A lawyer for Santos told the Associated Press that it remains unclear when his client would be released.

"The defence team applauds President Trump for doing the right thing," said Andrew Mancilla.

"The sentence was far too long."

Santos's downfall began after the New York Times in 2022 published an investigation revealing the freshman congressman had lied about his CV, including having a university degree and working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

From there, the lies continued to pile up, including allegations that he stole money from a fundraiser for a dying dog and that he lied about his mother surviving the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Shortly afterwards, local and federal officials began to investigate.

He was eventually charged with 23 federal felony crimes, and in 2023 he became the first expelled member of Congress in more than 20 years, and only the sixth in history.

A report from the House ethics panel accused him of misusing campaign funds for personal benefits, including Botox and subscriptions on the OnlyFans website.

Santos defeated a Democratic incumbent in 2022, flipping the district that encompasses parts of New York's Long Island and Queens, where he grew up.

Earlier this week, Santos published an open letter to Trump in the South Shore Press newspaper in Long Island, repeating his plea to be pardoned.

The letter, which was titled a "passionate plea to President Trump" asked for "the opportunity to return to my family, my friends, and my community."

He wrote that he had been kept in solitary confinement after a death threat in August, and apologised for his actions.

"Mr President, I am not asking for sympathy. I am asking for fairness - for the chance to rebuild," he wrote.

"I know I have made mistakes in my past. I have faced my share of consequences, and I take full responsibility for my actions.

"But no man, no matter his flaws, deserves to be lost in the system, forgotten and unseen, enduring punishment far beyond what justice requires."

Trump has issued pardons to at least two other former Republican lawmakers since re-taking office in January.

In May, he pardoned former congressman Michael Grimm, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to tax crimes.

He also pardoned former Connecticut Governor John Rowland, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to corruption and fraud charges.