News
Putin urged to prove Russia wants peace ahead of Trump talks
Scientists at Antarctic base rocked by alleged assault
King's Vatican visit still on despite Pope's illness
Can China's $40bn spending spree get people to open their wallets?
No evidence for Trump claim about 'void' Biden pardons and autopen
Angry protests after North Macedonia nightclub disaster
'End of an era': Last surviving Battle of Britain pilot dies
Germany set to vote on historic increase in defence spending
Are you cleaning your water bottle enough?
How did Nasa's Suni and Butch fill nine months in space?
Netflix drama Adolescence hailed as 'flawless' TV
The expelled envoy at the heart of the latest US-South Africa row
Local hero or Russian ally? The billionaire dividing Georgians
South v North: The battle over redrawing India's electoral map
King meets Carney in symbolic support for Canada
Subsea fibre cables can 'listen out' for sabotage
Jury discharged in high-profile Australia beach murder
Rwanda severs ties with Belgium over 'neo-colonial delusions'
Lithuania accuses Russia over Ikea store fire in Vilnius
Prince Harry's US visa records must be released, judge rules
'Everything is finished': Ukrainian troops relive retreat from Kursk
Israel conducting 'extensive strikes' on the Gaza Strip
Conor McGregor due to meet Trump at White House
Police release new evidence in timeline of Hackman and his wife's death
Business
Trade turmoil forecast to slash growth in Canada and Mexico
Jonathan Anderson steps down as creative director of Loewe
Small electric cars were said to be the future – but SUVs now rule the road
Trump moves to close down Voice of America
Forever 21 files for bankruptcy in the US
'I'm a little angry': Canadian firms boycott US products
Why Marissa Mayer wants you to spend less time tapping your phone screen
US government shutdown averted as Senate passes spending bill
Clothes brand gets 100 complaints a day that models are 'too fat'
Musk says first mission to Mars will launch next year
It's not a competition! The collaborative video game loved by players
Germany is back, says Merz after historic spending deal
Does cutting benefits actually work?
How Britain's former top banker became Canada's prime minister
Musk's Tesla raises concern over Trump tariffs
Apple encrypted data row hearing begins in secret
Gold price hits $3,000 as trade tensions mount
The unexpected knock-on effect of Trump's minerals 'deal of the century'
UK economy shrank unexpectedly in January
Every McDonald's warned over staff sexual abuse
The blunt-speaking Canadian taking his fight with Trump to Washington
Car sharing switches to electric to boost appeal
Innovation
The explosive potential of custard powder
'Stranded astronauts' Butch and Suni set to begin journey home
'I skipped college to make games - now I'm Roblox's top developer'
Telegram founder allowed to leave France following arrest
The Japanese town turning cowpats into hydrogen fuel
Are you cleaning your water bottle enough?
What does spending a long time in space do to the human body?
Seven ways to improve your sleep according to science
Spinning through space: The astronomers watching the skies for asteroids
The global challenge of iron deficiency – and why scientists can't agree if supplements are the answer
How a tiny village became India's YouTube capital
'Meat intolerance': Can our bodies forget how to digest flesh?
Market alters application rules after AI complaints
AI offers 'generational opportunity' for schools
Shut vile death video site, families say, as Ofcom gets new powers
'The ice melted beneath our feet': The huskies that revealed the rapid shrinking of Greenland's ice
SpaceX capsule docks as astronauts prepare return after nine months
Alphonso the robot waiter delighting cafe visitors
Culture
Drag star The Vivienne died after taking ketamine, family says
Cannes award-winning actress Dequenne dies at 43
Will Snow White be a 'victim of its moment'? How the Disney remake became 2025's most divisive film
As if! Cult 90s film Clueless gets musical makeover
BBC presenters settle sex and age discrimination dispute
Ted Lasso returns to TV for fourth series
'I was shaped by growing up in segregation': Wynton Marsalis on how jazz connects democracy and liberation
'Conventions were exploded to make something with the remains': Jean-Luc Godard on the film that changed cinema
'It’s an extremely sexy story': How the legendary tale of 'rebel' saint Mary of Egypt became a medieval blockbuster
Why these 1970s cabins are the 'perfect' holiday home
Rembrandt to Picasso: Five ways to spot a fake masterpiece
From Doechii to Nicole Kidman: Why celebrities and Gen Z women love the jacket-and-tie look
'By bribery, by bluff, by corrupting officials': How Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jewish people during World War Two
Ofcom drops investigations after GB News ruling
Cancelled Cambridge Folk Festival lost £320,000
Forty years celebrating disabled artists across UK
'I'm appearing on my eighth reality TV show'
The Sidemen's reality show, and Selena Gomez's 'love story' album: What to stream this week
Nightclub's closure 'likely' despite cash backing
Arts
Is this the face of teenage queen Lady Jane Grey?
Banksy take on Vettriano work sells for £4.3m
Wales' slavery legacy explored in new play
Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd-Webber write new songs
Artworks previewed before sculpture trail begins
City's community dance day will 'welcome everyone'
Unrecorded Constable work sells for £300k
Display of 400 umbrellas highlights neurodiversity
Travel
A second chance for Malta's paradise island turned 'hell on Earth'
Mürren: The stunning car-free village reached by cable car
Road to close for tree felling and survey works
Call for dedicated minister as tourism costs rise
Increase in visitors to island in 2024 - figures
Search for people shown in nostalgic Cunard photos
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A wild road to the highest city in North America
An Italian cultural ambassador's guide to Rome
Lithuania's fermented drink to ward off a cold
Om Ali: An 'unforgettable' sweet with a sinister history
The art curator saving the world's rarest fruit
The grannies who saved Albanian cuisine
An ethical guide to hiking the Inca Trail
The US island that speaks Elizabethan English
The African elephant in the room: Is there such a thing as guilt-free safari?
Six European walking tours that celebrate women
Japan's spectacular bike ride through six remote islands
Kek lapis: The most beautiful cake for Ramadan
Rubbish and revelry: Can Mardi Gras go 'green'?
Earth
Net zero by 2050 'impossible' for UK, says Badenoch
Disasters spur investment in flood and fire risk tech
Surveys seek views on conservation area updates
Huge ship set to carry turbines to North Sea farm
Three villages set to benefit from solar panel scheme
Operation Atacama: The $1m cactus heist that led to a smuggler's downfall
Why worm poaching is threatening India's wetlands
'You look up and see light coming through': The divers venturing under the ice in the name of science
What we've learned about cleaning up major oil spills since Deepwater Horizon
A virtual reality pangolin made me cry and care more about the planet: Is this the real power of VR headsets?
Pads, pants or cups: Which period product is the most climate-friendly?
UK homes install subsidised heat pumps at record level
The world's strongest ocean current should be getting faster – instead, it is at risk of failing
The UK and France have urged Russia's President Vladimir Putin to prove he wants a peace deal with Ukraine, ahead of talks between Putin and Donald Trump on Tuesday.
French President Emmanuel Macron hailed the "courage" of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenksy in agreeing to a ceasefire proposal, and challenged Russia to do the same.
"Enough deaths. Enough lives destroyed. Enough destruction. The guns must fall silent," Macron said in a post on X.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Putin should agree to a "full and unconditional ceasefire now", telling MPs he had seen "no sign" that Putin was serious about a peace deal.
He warned that the UK and its allies have "more cards that we can play" to help force Russia to negotiate "seriously".
The White House sounded a more upbeat note on the eve of the Trump-Putin talks, expected to take place by phone, saying peace in Ukraine has "never been closer".
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday that Trump was "determined" to secure the peace deal.
On what the talks might cover, she said: "There's a power plant that is on the border of Russia and Ukraine that was up for discussion with the Ukrainians, and he will address it in his call with Putin tomorrow."
The facility is likely to be the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. It has been occupied by Russian forces since March 2022, and fears of a nuclear accident have persisted due to fighting in the area.
Asked on Sunday what concessions were being considered in the ceasefire negotiations, Trump said: "We'll be talking about land. We'll be talking about power plants [...] We're already talking about that, dividing up certain assets."
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on what the leaders would discuss, responding, "We never do that."
While Putin has previously said he supports a ceasefire, he also set out a list of conditions for achieving peace.
One of the areas of contention is Russia's Western Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a military incursion last August and captured some territory.
Russia had pushed to recapture it in recent weeks, and Putin now claims it is fully back in control of Kursk.
He has also raised numerous questions about how a ceasefire could be monitored and policed along the frontline in the east, and has said he would not accept Nato troops on the territory.
The peace proposal on the table was discussed by Ukrainian and American delegates in Saudi Arabia last week.
After hours locked away in a room, they announced proposals for a 30-day ceasefire, which Ukraine said it was ready to accept.
France's President Macron and newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who met on Tuesday, stressed their nations would continue their "unwavering" support of Ukraine and demand "clear commitments" from Russia.
A group of scientists due to work together for months at a remote Antarctic research station has been rocked after a member of the team was accused of assault.
About 10 researchers typically stay at the South African-run base, which sits about 170km (about 105 miles) from the edge of the ice shelf and is difficult to reach.
But a spokesperson for the South African government told the BBC "there was an assault" at the station, following earlier allegations of inappropriate behaviour from inside the camp.
In a further message seen by the BBC, the South African environment ministry said it was responding to the concerns with "utmost urgency".
South Africa's Sunday Times, which was first to report the story, said members of the team had pleaded to be rescued.
The ministry also said that those in the team had been subject to "a number of evaluations that include background checks, reference checks, medical assessment as well as a psychometric evaluation by qualified professionals", which all members had cleared.
The Sanae IV research base is located more than 4,000km from mainland South Africa and harsh weather conditions mean scientists can be cut off there for much of the year.
The current team were expected to be at the Sanae IV base until December.
South African research expeditions have been taking place since 1959. The team to the Sanae IV base typically comprises a doctor, two mechanics, three engineers, a meteorological technician and a couple of physicians.
These expeditions, with harsh weather conditions mandating a lot of time spent in a confined indoor space, normally run without incident, and team members have to undergo a range of psychological assessments before travelling.
But on Sunday, South Africa's Sunday Times reported that one member of the team had sent an email warning of "deeply disturbing behaviour" by a colleague and an "environment of fear".
A South African government spokesperson told the BBC that the alleged assault was triggered by "a dispute over a task the team leader wanted the team to do – a weather dependant task that required a schedule change".
Incidents in Antarctica are rare, but not unprecedented. In 2018 there were reports of a stabbing at the Russian-operated Bellingshausen research station.
Psychologists point to the effect that isolation can have on human behaviour.
"One thing we know from these rare occurrences, when something bad happens in enforced isolation or capsule working, is that it's often the small things, tiny things that can blow up into conflict," said Craig Jackson, professor of workplace health psychology at Birmingham City University, and a chartered member of the British Psychological Society.
"So issues about hierarchy, about workload allocation, even small things about leisure time or rations or food portions can rapidly flare up to become something much larger than they typically are," he told the BBC.
Gabrielle Walker, a scientist and author who has been on expeditions to Antarctica, said working in such close proximity to a small group of colleagues had risks.
"You know exactly how they put their coffee cup down and what direction the handle points in; you know that they scratch their nose three times before they sit down; you know everything about them.
"And in the bad circumstances, it can start to irritate you… because there's nothing else – there's no other stimulus and you're with people 24/7," she said.
Sources within the Antarctic research community have told the BBC that South Africa has access to an ice-capable ship and aircraft if needed.
But any rescue operation would have to contend with the harsh climate, with temperatures well below freezing and the possibility of strong winds.
Additional reporting by Ed Habershon and Miho Tanaka
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King Charles III and Queen Camilla are going ahead with the state visit to Italy and the Vatican, including plans for a meeting with Pope Francis.
The Pope has been ill - but Buckingham Palace says the trip will continue as planned, from 7-10 April, with engagements in Rome and Ravenna.
The King had privately sent a letter to the Pope, when he was taken ill - but a photo released by the Vatican at the weekend appeared to show the 88-year-old was slowly recovering.
The visit will see a symbolic building of links between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, of which King Charles is the Supreme Governor.
As well as meeting the Pope, the King will attend an ecumenical service in the Sistine Chapel.
And in what the Palace says is a "historic first", he will also visit the Papal Basilica of Saint Paul's Outside the Walls.
Kings dating back to the Anglo-Saxon era helped support and fund this church, where Saint Paul is buried - and the visit by King Charles will be seen as a sign of reconciliation and bringing together these historic threads.
There will also be a personal dimension to the state visit, as the trip to Rome coincides with the King and Queen's 20th wedding anniversary.
Joint flypast
The visit will support the modern-day relationships between the UK and Italy, reflecting "shared values, history and culture".
That includes Italian food - and as a warm-up to the visit, the King hosted a dinner at Highgrove, with the menu inspired by American-Italian actor Stanley Tucci.
The King will meet Italy's president and prime minister and become the first UK monarch to address both houses of the Italian parliament.
The royal visitors will be guests at a state banquet.
And military links will be promoted with a joint flypast over Rome by the Italian air force and the UK's Red Arrows.
In Ravenna, the royal couple will view the tomb of the Italian writer Dante, and the Queen will tour a museum commemorating the poet Lord Byron.
The Chinese government has promised new childcare subsidies, increased wages and better paid leave as part of its latest push to revive a slowing economy.
That's on top of a $41bn discount programme that covers a wide range of things, from dishwashers and home decor to electric vehicles and smartwatches. It's a spending spree that will encourage Chinese people to crack open their wallets.
Simply put, they are not spending enough.
Monday brought some positive news. Official data said retail sales grew 4% in the first two months of 2025, a good sign for consumption recovery. But, with a few exceptions like Shanghai aside, new and existing home prices continued to decline compared to last year.
While the US and other major powers have struggled with post-Covid inflation, China is experiencing the opposite: deflation - when the rate of inflation falls below zero, meaning that prices decrease. In China, they fell for 18 months in a row in the past two years.
Prices dropping might sound like good news for consumers. But a persistent decline in consumption - a measure of what households buy - signals deeper economic trouble. When people stop spending, businesses make less money, hiring slows, wages stagnate and economic momentum grinds to a halt.
That is a cycle China wants to avoid, given it's already battling sluggish growth in the wake of a prolonged crisis in the property market, steep government debt and unemployment.
The cause of low consumption is straightforward: Chinese consumers either don't have enough money or don't feel confident enough about their future to spend it.
But their reluctance comes at a critical moment. With the economy aiming to grow at 5% this year, boosting consumption is a top priority for President Xi Jinping. He is hoping that rising domestic consumption will absorb the blow US tariffs will inflict on Chinese exports.
So, will Beijing's plan work?
China is getting serious about spending
To tackle its ailing economy and weak domestic demand, Beijing wrapped up its annual National People's Congress last week with increased investment in social welfare programmes as part of its grand economic plan for 2025.
This included a 20 yuan ($3; £2) increase in minimum pensions. Then came this week's announcement with bigger promises, such as employment support plans, but scant details.
Some say it is a welcome move, with the caveat that China's leaders need to do more to step up support. Still, it signals Beijing's awareness of the changes needed for a stronger Chinese consumer market - higher wages, a stronger social safety net and policies that make people feel secure enough to spend rather than save.
A quarter of China's labour force is made up of low-paid migrant workers, who lack full access to urban social benefits. This makes them particularly vulnerable during periods of economic uncertainty, such as the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rising wages during the 2010s masked some of these problems, with average incomes growing by around 10% annually. But as wage growth slowed in the 2020s, savings once again became a lifeline.
The Chinese government, however, has been slow to expand social benefits, focusing instead on boosting consumption through short-term measures, such as trade-in programmes for household appliances and electronics. But that has not addressed a root problem, says Gerard DiPippo, a senior researcher at the Rand think tank: "Household incomes are lower, and savings are higher".
The near-collapse of the property market has also made Chinese consumers more risk-averse, leading them to cut back on spending.
"The property market matters not only for real economic activity but also for household sentiment, since Chinese households have invested so much of their wealth in their homes," Mr DiPippo says. "I don't think China's consumption will fully recover until it's clear that the property sector has bottomed out and therefore many households' primary assets are starting to recover."
Some analysts are encouraged by Beijing's seriousness in targeting longer-term challenges like falling birth rates as more young couples opt out of the costs of parenthood.
A 2024 study by Chinese think tank YuWa estimated that raising a child to adulthood in China costs 6.8 times the country's GDP per capita - among the highest in the world, compared to the US (4.1), Japan (4.3) and Germany (3.6).
These financial pressures have only reinforced a deeply ingrained saving culture. Even in a struggling economy, Chinese households managed to save 32% of their disposable income in 2024.
That's not too surprising in China, where consumption has never been particularly high. To put this in perspective, domestic consumption drives more than 80% of growth in the US and UK, and about 70% in India. China's share has typically ranged between 50% to 55% over the past decade.
But this wasn't really a problem - until now.
When shopping fell and savings rose
There was a time when Chinese shoppers joked about the irresistible allure of e-commerce deals, calling themselves "hand-choppers" - only chopping off their hands could stop them from hitting the checkout button.
As rising incomes fuelled their spending power, 11 November in China, or Double 11, came to be crowned as the world's busiest shopping day. Explosive sales pulled in over 410 billion yuan ($57bn; £44bn) in just 24 hours in 2019.
But the last one "was a dud," a Beijing-based coffee bean online seller told the BBC. "If anything, it caused more trouble than it was worth."
Chinese consumers have grown frugal since the pandemic, and this caution has persisted even after restrictions were lifted in late 2022.
That's the year Alibaba and JD.com stopped publishing their sales figures, a significant shift for companies that once headlined their record-breaking revenues. A source familiar with the matter told the BBC that Chinese authorities cautioned platforms against releasing numbers, fearing that underwhelming results could further dent consumer confidence.
The spending crunch has even hit high-end brands - last year, LVMH, Burberry and Richemont all reported sales declines in China, once a backbone of the global luxury market.
On RedNote, a Chinese social media app, posts tagged with "consumption downgrade" have racked up more than a billion views in recent months. Users are swapping tips on how to replace expensive purchases with budget-friendly alternatives. "Tiger Balm is the new coffee," said one user, while another quipped, "I apply perfume between my nose and lips now – saving it just for myself."
Even at its peak, China's consumer boom was never a match for its exports. Trade was also the focus of generous state-backed investment in highways, ports and special economic zones. China relied on low-wage workers and high household savings, which fuelled growth but left consumers with limited disposable income.
But now, as geopolitical uncertainties grow, countries are diversifying supply chains away from China, reducing reliance on Chinese exports. Local governments are burdened by debt, after years of borrowing heavily to invest, particularly in infrastructure.
Xi Jinping has already vowed "to make domestic demand the main driving force and stabilising anchor of growth". Caiyun Wang, a National People's Congress representative, said, "With a population of 1.4 billion, even a 1% rise in demand creates a market of 14 million people."
But there's a catch in Beijing's plan.
For consumption to drive growth, many analysts say, the Chinese Communist Party would have to restore the consumer confidence of a generation of Covid graduates that is struggling to own a home or find a job. It would also require triggering a cultural shift, from saving to spending.
The more households spend, the less there is in the pool of savings that China's state-controlled banks rely on to fund key industries - currently that includes AI and innovative tech that would give Beijing an edge over Washington, both economically and strategically.
That is why some analysts doubt that China's leaders want to create a consumer-driven economy.
"One way to think about this is that Beijing's primary goal is not to enhance the welfare of Chinese households, but rather the welfare of the Chinese nation," David Lubin, a research fellow at Chatham House says.
Shifting power from the state to the individual may not be what Beijing wants.
China's leaders did do that in the past, when they began trading with the world, encouraging businesses and inviting foreign investment. And it transformed their economy. But the question is whether Xi Jinping wants to do that again.
President Trump has said "many" pardons issued by Joe Biden are void because the former president signed them with "autopen" - a device which reproduces a person's signature - rather than by hand.
Trump did not provide evidence for his claim - which was posted on Truth Social.
BBC Verify has found several instances of Biden signing pardons by hand rather than by autopen.
And US government documents have the same presidential signature when they're stored in the Federal Register - a digital archive - and this was the case under Trump as well as under Biden.
Legal experts also told us that there is nothing in US law which would invalidate pardons signed by autopen.
Did Biden sign documents using autopen?
On Truth Social, Trump said that: "The 'Pardons' that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!".
Trump didn't specify which pardons he was referring to but he has previously referred to the house select committee investigating the 6 January riots as the "unselect committee", and has criticised Biden for pardoning family members.
BBC Verify looked through official photographs of Biden in the White House and ones posted on the official White House X account and found a number of examples of him signing pardons by hand.
In October 2022, Biden was pictured signing an order pardoning those in jail for marijuana possession.
In the same year, he also signed a pardon for non-violent offenders.
It is not known whether Biden has signed any pardons only using autopen.
In May last year, CNN did report that he signed a bill for a one-week extension for federal aviation funding using autopen.
BBC Verify has asked Biden's office for his record of using autopen and the White House for the evidence behind Trump's claim.
Trump appears to have taken his cue from the Oversight Project - part of the Conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation - which has claimed that Biden's 19 January pardons - of some family members and political figures including Anthony Fauci - all had the same autopen signature.
We have asked the Heritage Foundation for its workings. Previously, it has highlighted other Biden documents which it says had autopen signatures, along with screenshots taken from the Federal Register.
The register is the official, daily publication of various presidential and other government documents - which all have a standard signature created from a single sample.
A National Archives spokesperson told the fact-checking website Snopes that: "At the beginning of each administration, the White House sends a sample of the President's signature to the Federal Register, which uses it to create the graphic image for all Presidential Documents published in the Federal Register,"
We looked through presidential documents archived by the Federal Register under both Trump administrations and found identical signatures on documents.
That includes Trump's pardons for the 6 January rioters.
Trump had already signed these pardons by hand, as this video showed in January.
Are documents signed with autopen legally binding?
Legal experts who we spoke to told us that there is nothing in US law which says official documents signed by US presidents - including pardons - are not legally binding if they were signed with autopen.
Andrew Moran, a politics professor at London Metropolitan University, says that previous presidents have used autopen before.
"On lower-level importance documents, it's not unusual for an autopen to be used.
"But I would have thought that with something as serious as a pardon Biden would have actually signed it [by hand]", he said.
A 2005 memo from the Department of Justice during the Bush administration stated that the President does not have to physically sign a bill for it to become law.
"The President may sign a bill within the meaning of Article I, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the President's signature to such a bill, for example by autopen", the memo said.
Although George W. Bush did not use autopen himself, President Obama used it in 2011.
Autopen has also been used by earlier presidents including JFK and Harry Truman.
Can presidents declare pardons void?
Professor Erin Delaney, director of the Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism at UCL, says that an attempt by Trump to rescind Biden's pardons would be a "violation of unwritten constitutional norms".
Critically, he would not be able to pursue this action without prosecuting, or re-prosecuting the individuals who were given immunity, she argues.
Legally challenging Biden's pardons because of autopen would also call into question other aspects of US governance that use automatic signatures, such as bills passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, she added.
Professor Moran says that a president revoking his predecessor's pardon is extremely rare.
"Historically, the only example I'm aware of is towards the end of Andrew Johnson's presidency in the 1860s, when he issued some pardons which were revoked before they were accepted. But that's a very small number.
"If he [Trump] decides that he wants to go after the people who were pardoned, that will end up in the courts and then that would become the point where the constitution is really tested", he said.
Additional reporting by Tamara Kovacevic and Shayan Sardarizadeh
What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?
Thousands of people have protested in the North Macedonian town of Kocani, demanding justice and action against corruption after a nightclub fire killed 59 people, many of them teenagers.
"Nobody should die like that – nobody," a teenage boy told the BBC. "Those kids, they had a future, they had talents."
The Pulse nightclub was packed with fans watching DNK, a popular hip-hop band, when sparks from flares apparently set a patch of ceiling ablaze.
About 20 people have been detained for questioning over the disaster, including the nightclub owner and some former government ministers.
Many in Kocani believe that corruption had allowed the improvised venue to operate with inadequate safety measures.
Relatives of children who are still missing have been queueing outside a hospital to give DNA samples to help with identification.
Kocani, a town of about 25,000 people, lies some 100km (60 miles) east of the capital, Skopje.
More than 160 people were injured in the blaze, including 45 suffering very serious injuries. Many of them have been flown to hospitals in neighbouring Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Turkey for specialist treatment.
At the protest rally, the uncle of a 19-year-old man who died said "those scenes should never be repeated".
"When there was a war here, it wasn't as bad as that. So many young people have died."
After a long time standing in silence the crowd started chanting "we are asking for justice!"
Mourners lit candles, hugged and cried, and wrote messages of condolence in the central square.
A group of teenagers targeted a bar, smashing windows and ransacking it, believing it to belong to the Pulse club owner.
The deadly fire began around 02:30 local time (01:30 GMT) on Sunday and spread rapidly as the ceiling was made of flammable material, Interior Minister Pance Toskovski said.
He said there are "grounds for suspicion that there is bribery and corruption" linked to the fire.
There were 500 people inside the venue at the time, well over capacity for the 250 tickets sold, he said.
Officials say the club's licence had been obtained illegally and the venue was a converted carpet warehouse, whose single emergency exit was locked at the time.
There were just two fire extinguishers and no fire alarm or sprinkler system, state prosecutor Ljupco Kocevski said.
A civic group in North Macedonia has called for people across the country to gather in city centres on Tuesday.
The last surviving Battle of Britain pilot, John "Paddy" Hemingway, has died at the age of 105.
Mr Hemingway, who was originally from Dublin, joined the Royal Air Force [RAF] as a teenager before World War Two.
At 21, he was a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, a three-month period when air force personnel defended the skies against a large-scale assault by the German air force, the Luftwaffe.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has paid tribute to Mr Hemingway, saying that his courage and those of all RAF pilots "helped end WWII and secure our freedom".
Those who fought in the three-and-a-half-month battle came to be known as 'The Few' after a speech by prime minister, Sir Winston Churchill.
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few," he had said of their sacrifices in battle.
In a statement, the RAF said that Mr Hemingway "passed away peacefully" on Monday.
The pilot's squadron shot down 90 enemy aircraft during an 11-day period in May 1940, and provided fighter cover for allied troops during the Battle of France.
During the war, Gp Capt Hemingway was shot down four times.
During dogfights – or one-on-one aerial combats - in August 1940, Mr Hemingway was forced to bail out of his Hurricane [single seat fighter aircraft] on two occasions, landing in the sea off the coast of Essex and in marshland.
The wreckage of his Hurricane was recovered in 2019 with the control column and the gun-button still set to "fire".
In July 1941, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross - awarded to RAF personnel for an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty while flying in active operations.
On the way to receive his medal from the King, he was forced to escape from a Blenheim aircraft, which had crashed during take-off.
While serving with the 85 Squadron in RAF Hunsdon near Hertfordshire, Mr Hemingway was forced to bail out of his Havoc night fighter at 600ft (183m) due to instrument failure in bad weather.
He broke his hand on the tail section, and his parachute failed to open, with the chute catching on the branches of a tree.
He was forced to bail out a fourth time while fighting near Ravenna, Italy when his Spitfire was hit multiple times. He landed in enemy territory, and made contact with Italian citizens, who helped him back to the Allies.
Speaking to BBC News NI in 2023, Gp Capt Hemingway said he never looked for fame for being part of "The Few".
"I don't think we ever assumed greatness of any form," he said.
"We were just fighting a war which we were trained to fight."
Mr Hemingway said that his biggest regret was the loss of friends, in particular the loss of his friend, Richard "Dickie" Lee in August 1940.
'End of an era'
The RAF said that Mr Hemingway's passing marks "the end of an era and a poignant reminder of the sacrifices made by those who fought for freedom during World War II", they added.
"His courage in the face of overwhelming odds demonstrated his sense of duty and the importance of British resilience."
The statement said that Mr Hemingway "always had a twinkle in his eyes as he recalled the fun times with colleagues in France and London".
"This quiet, composed, thoughtful and mischievous individual may not have wanted to be the last of 'The Few', but he embodied the spirit of all those who flew sorties over this green and pleasant land," it added.
Chief of RAF Air Staff, Sir Rich Knighton, said he had spent time with Mr Hemingway in Dublin earlier this year.
"Paddy was an amazing character whose life story embodies all that was and remains great about the Royal Air Force."
What happens today, here in Berlin, will impact the entire future of Europe's defence and its ongoing support for Ukraine.
Germany's Parliament, the Bundestag, is voting on whether to take the brakes off defence spending. This could pave the way for a massive uplift in military investment just as Russia makes gains in Ukraine and Washington signals that Europe can no longer rely on US protection.
"This vote in the Bundestag is absolutely crucial," says Prof Monika Schnitzer, who chairs Germany's Council of Economic Experts.
"After the Munich Security Conference, then the Trump-Zelensky row, Europe got a wake-up call. For the first time Europeans may not be able to rely on Washington. A lot of people had sleepless nights after that."
"The outlook for European defence spending hinges on developments in Germany, as the holder of the region's largest defence budget," agrees Dr Fenella McGerty, senior fellow for defence economics at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Defence spending in Germany rose by 23.2% last year, helping to drive a record 11.7% rise in European defence outlay.
"The remarkable initiatives announced in Germany are key to enabling further growth," adds Dr McGerty.
"Without them, any progress made on strengthening Germany's military capability may have stalled."
Germany's incoming new Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is in a race against time.
The new parliament convenes on 25 March and not everyone is in favour of all this money being spent, especially on defence.
Both the far-right AfD party and the far-left Linke have vowed to oppose it. The vote needs two-thirds in favour to go through, so Merz has a better chance of this happening today, under the existing (old) parliament. It then needs to be approved by Germany's upper house.
Meanwhile Europe is still coming to terms with the shock of announcements coming from the Trump administration.
At last month's Munich Security Conference I watched as delegates sat open-mouthed listening to US Vice-President JD Vance's blistering attack on Europe's policies on migration and free speech.
This was preceded days earlier by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth telling Nato members that America's 80-year-long defensive umbrella for Europe should no longer be taken for granted.
Defence strategists in Europe are already planning for the unthinkable: a semi-victorious Russia making gains in Ukraine, then rebuilding its army and threatening Nato's eastern members, such as the Baltic states, within three years or less.
This, at a time when the US commitment to Europe's defence is looking extremely shaky. President Trump is being urged by some in his circle to pull US troops out of Europe and even to withdraw from Nato altogether.
Historical caution
There is talk of France extending its national nuclear deterrent to cover other European nations.
Meanwhile, most European governments are under pressure to raise defence spending after years of cuts.
The British Army has now shrunk to its smallest size since the Napoleonic Wars, over 200 years ago, and experts predict it would run out of ammunition within two weeks of fighting a full-scale conventional war in Europe.
Germany has long been cautious about defence spending, not just for historical reasons dating back to 1945, but also due to the global debt crisis of 2009.
Which brings us back to today's crucial vote in the Bundestag. It is not just about defence. One part is about freeing up €500bn (£420bn) for German infrastructure – fixing things like bridges and roads, but also to pay for climate change measures, something the Green Party insisted on.
The other part is about removing the restrictions in the constitution on borrowing that could, in theory, free up unlimited billions of euros for defence spending, both for Germany's armed forces and for a pan-European defence fund. On 4 March European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen announced plans for an €800bn defence fund called The ReArm Europe Fund.
The proposal being voted on in Berlin is that any spending on defence that amounts to more than 1% of Germany's GDP (national wealth) would no longer be subject to a limit on borrowing. Until now this debt ceiling has been fixed at 0.35 pct of GDP.
Other countries will be watching closely to see if this proposal passes. If it does not, then the EU Commission's 'ReArm Europe' project could be off to a shaky start.
The challenge today for Europe's security is a stark one. If the US no longer has its back, or at the very least cannot be relied upon to come to Europe's defence, then what does the continent need to do to fill the gap?
Let's start with the numbers. According to the Kiel Institute, which meticulously tracks these things, Europe spends just 0.1% of its wealth on helping to defend Ukraine, while the US has been spending 0.15%.
"That means," says the Kiel Institute's Giuseppe Irto, "that if Europe is to make up the shortfall then it needs to double its contribution to 0.21%."
But regardless of what happens today in Berlin this is not just about money.
Many of the most sought-after weapons in Ukraine's armoury have come from the US, like Patriot air defence and long-range artillery systems like Himars. The Kiel Institute puts the proportion of Ukraine's rocket artillery at 86% coming from the US, with 82% of its howitzer ammunition also being US-sourced.
Then there is the whole question of US intelligence aid for Kyiv, much of it derived from satellites and geospatial imagery. If Washington were to permanently switch that off, then Ukrainian forces risk being partially blinded.
If America's nuclear arsenal is taken out of the equation then there is a massive disparity between Russia's 5,000-plus warheads and the combined total of Britain and France's nukes which amount to less than a tenth of that. But that still theoretically leaves enough to act as a nuclear deterrent.
Culture shift
When it comes to "conventional", ie. non-nuclear arms, Western defence chiefs are fond of saying that Nato's combined forces are superior to Russia's.
Maybe, but if there is one glaring lesson to come out of the Ukraine war it is that "mass" matters. Russia's army may be of poor quality but President Putin has been able to throw such huge numbers of men, drones, shells and missiles at Ukraine's front lines that the Russians are inexorably advancing, albeit slowly and at huge cost.
This should not come as a surprise. Moscow put its economy on to a war footing some time ago. It appointed an economist as its defence minister and retooled many of its factories to churn out vast quantities of munitions, especially explosive-tipped drones.
While many European nations have dragged their feet over raising defence spending much above the Nato-mandated 2% of GDP, Russia's is closer to 7%. Around 40% of Russia's national budget is spent on defence.
So Europe has a fair bit of catching up to do if it is to even come close to shoring up its defence and security.
"If the vote passes then it will be significant for Germany and for Europe," says Ed Arnold, senior research fellow for European security at the Royal United Services Institute think tank.
"It will set a precedent and allow others to follow... However, three years on from the invasion of Ukraine the case of Germany is a reminder that more money for defence is necessary but not sufficient.
"Europe needs defence and security leaders who are able to navigate a rapidly deteriorating Euro-Atlantic security environment. Cultural, rather than financial reform, would be most valuable to Europe right now."
Every time you take a sip from your water bottle, you are depositing bacteria inside and over the course of a day these can multiply by the millions. Here's what scientists say you can do about it.
Carl Behnke had always wondered how clean his reuseable water bottle was. When he stuffed some paper towels inside and smeared them around, he was in for a shock.
"The towels were white – until I pulled them out," says Behnke, an expert in food safety at Purdue University in Indiana, US. "I realised that the slippery sensation I felt in the interior of the bottle was not because of the material but rather because of a bacterial build-up."
His next step was to design a study. Behnke and colleagues stopped passers-by in a corridor at Purdue and asked if they would be happy to loan their water bottles to them as part of their research – to see how clean they were.
"One thing that stood out from the project was the number of people who didn't want to know the results," recalls Behnke. "Basically, they knew that their cleaning habits were poor to non-existent – something the data later confirmed." The results confirmed that those bottles were brimming with bacteria.
The global reusable water bottle market was worth around $10bn (£7.7bn) in 2024. One study on Italian healthcare workers suggested that half of them used reusable bottles, while research involving university students suggests somewhere between 50% and 81% of participants used these drinking vessels.
But while they help people to stay hydrated, drinking from water bottles regularly, and taking them with us everywhere we go, may also pose health risks. So, should we ditch them, or can those risks be managed?
What exactly is inside reusable water bottles?
While it's usually safe to drink, water from our kitchen taps is not devoid of microbial life. This is why leaving water in your bottle for a few days will encourage bacteria to grow, says Primrose Freestone, associate professor in clinical microbiology at the University of Leicester, in the UK.
Bacteria that can cause human infections thrives at around 37C (98F) Freestone says, but it can also multiply at room temperature, around 20C (68F).
"The longer water in a bottle is stored at room temperature, the more bacteria will grow," she says.
One study conducted in Singapore using boiled tap water – which should have killed most bacteria in it – found that bacteria populations can grow rapidly inside water bottles as they are used throughout an average day. On average they found that reusable bottles used by adults went from around 75,000 bacteria per millilitre in mid-morning to more 1-2 million per millilitre over the course of 24 hours.
One way to slow bacterial growth down is to store your bottle in the fridge between sips, Freestone says, though this doesn't stop it from growing altogether.
But while some of a water bottle's bacterial activity comes from the water itself, most contamination is actually introduced by the drinker. Whether you take your bottle to work, the gym, or even just keep it in the house, the outside of your bottle will carry many microbes. And these microbes are easily transferred into the contents of the bottle, along with bacteria from your mouth every time you take a sip, Freestone says.
Water bottle users who don't wash their hands regularly will also find that their bottles can harbour bacteria such as E. coli, Freestone says.
"Poo-associated bacteria, such as E. coli, can come from our hands and end up on our lips if we're not good at toilet hygiene," she says.
And we can pass on, or catch, viruses by sharing water bottles with others. Diseases such as norovirus could easily be passed on in this way.
People generally have between 500 and 600 different species of bacteria living in their mouths says Freestone. "What isn't necessarily disease-causing for you isn't always the case for others. You can carry an infection and not realise it, because our immune systems are so good at protecting us," she adds.
Another way you can encourage bacterial growth in your bottle is by putting anything other than fresh water in them. Drinks that nourish you also feed microbes – so any drinks containing sugar, for example, can stimulate the growth of any bacteria or mould present in your bottle, Freestone says.
"Anything other than water is heaven for bacteria and fungi, especially protein shakes," she says.
If you've ever left milk in a glass for a few hours, you may have noticed that it leaves behind a thin film on the glass when you pour it away. Bacteria happen to adore this film, Freestone says.
How can this bacteria affect us?
We are all surrounded by bacteria in the soil, air and on our bodies, but it's worth remembering that most bacteria are harmless or even beneficial.
Water that's been contaminated with bacteria such as E. coli can cause diarrhoea and vomiting but not all the time. E. Coli are a large group of bacteria found naturally in the environment but also are common natural inhabitants of the human gut. It is only when the bacteria turn pathogenic – in other words they pick up certain traits that make them harmful – that they make people ill.
Most microbes aren't harmful to humans, but people whose immune systems are impaired can be more prone to infections, Freestone says.
Also, getting sick with a stomach bug can, in some cases, lead to long-term changes in the gut.
"Our guts are changing all the time, but there are over 1,000 species present in the gut so it's hard to shift in terms of composition," says Freestone. "There are too many variables to say, but getting food poisoning from the bacteria in a water bottle will never lead to a positive change."
People who've recently taken antibiotics that can affect their gut microbiome can also experience changes that leave them more vulnerable to other infections. One swab of a reusable water bottle taken at a newspaper office in the UK also revealed that these bottles can be a breeding ground for emerging strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Researchers discovered a bacterium called Klebsiella grimontii– which is capable of forming biofilms on otherwise sterile surface –in the sample taken from the water bottle. While it can be found as part of the normal microflora of the gastrointestinal tract, it can also cause severe diarrhoea in people who have recently taken antibiotics.
More like this:
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If mould or fungi grows in your bottle, this can trigger symptoms in anyone with allergies.
It's worth noting, however, there are no examples of severe illness that have been traced back to reusable water bottles in the scientific literature. This doesn't mean they don't happen, of course, as identifying single point sources of infection is notoriously difficult.
How should we clean reusable bottles?
For Behnke, it was the creeping sense that he should perhaps be cleaning his own water bottle more thoroughly that made him look closer at what could be inside it. He'd been using a filtered water bottle and had started to notice that the water he was drinking from it tasted bad.
"Every now and then I would flush it with hot water, but never really did anything more than that," he says.
After his paper towel-based investigations revealed how manky his water bottle was, the study he and colleagues carried out went on to look at people's water bottle habits in greater detail.
Behnke found that just over half of the 90 participants surveyed during the research said they share their bottle with others, and 15% said they never cleaned their bottles. Unsurprisingly, whether or not people rinsed or washed their water bottles affected the contamination level. However, Behnke found that how often they cleaned the bottles, or how they cleaned them, didn't enormously affect how contaminated the containers were.
People who washed their bottle with tools such as a brush or used a dishwasher tended to have the lowest counts of bacteria inside. Behnke and his colleagues also suggest using a dishwasher with a sanitisation cycle could be the most effective approach.
However, the study's conclusion states that these findings may have been skewed by the fact the researchers were relying on participants self-reporting their cleaning behaviours, and they may have changed their answers to appear more socially acceptable.
The study also found that bottles containing tea, coffee or juice were more contaminated than bottles that only contained water.
Cleaning our water bottles regularly and properly is the only way to be confident you are not consuming harmful bacteria alongside your water. Even if the water inside it is sterile, Freestone says, your saliva will end up in the bottle, along with trace levels of nutrients, which bacteria happily feed on.
Rinsing your bottle out with cold water isn't sufficient, Freestone says, because this won't get rid of biofilms – the slimy layer of bacteria that can build up on the inner surface of your bottle, which provides the perfect environment in which bacteria can thrive.
Freestone recommends cleaning reusable bottles with hot water (over 60C (140F) as this temperature kills most pathogens), and using washing-up liquid – swirling it around, and leaving the bottle for 10 minutes before rinsing well with hot water.
Then, allowing the bottle to air-dry is the best way to avoid a build-up of bacteria in your bottle, because microorganisms prefer moist environments.
You should clean your bottle this way after each use – or at the very least, several times a week, Freestone says. And never wait until it starts to smell, she warns.
"If your bottle starts to smell, you've reached a point where you should chuck it away," she says.
Once you have a nice, clean bottle, Freestone adds, remember to wash your hands before touching it.
Behnke, for one, is now a reformed water bottle-user. He washes and air dries his bottle every week using a bleach spray and bottle brush, which he uses to clean the spout or nozzles and other small surfaces.
Is there any type of water bottle we should avoid?
Although some studies have found that the bacterial load of plastic bottles can be higher than those of stainless steel bottles, the cleaning strategy used tends to make a far bigger difference. The most hygienic bottles are simply those that are the easiest to clean, Freestone says. It's important, she adds, to ensure you clean every part of the water bottle, including the outside, the lid and straw, if it has one.
However, there may be another reason to opt for metal over plastic.
"Plastics usually have chemical additives that lend them their advantages: their flexibility, durability, heat-resistance and how lightweight they are," says Amit Abraham, assistant professor of clinical population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar.
"These additives are physically bound to plastics, which means they can leach into the water," Abraham says,
Some research suggests that these additives, such as BPA, can interfere with our hormone function, and may be linked to increased risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other chronic diseases.
They also appear to leach into water, Abraham says, regardless of whether the bottle is made of disposable or reusable plastic. Also, the plastic material itself can break down, increasing the concentration of microplastics in bottled water. Bottles made of glass or stainless steel may be safer alternatives.
Whatever water bottle you opt for, it seems that good hygiene habits are fundamental to ensuring that the water you end up drinking isn't overflowing with harmful bacteria.
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Voting, enjoying Christmas dinner and keeping fit in zero gravity - that's just some of what has kept Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams busy during their prolonged stay on the International Space Station (ISS).
So what has life been like for the Nasa astronauts orbiting 250 miles (400km) above us, and how have they passed the time?
Of course there was a lot of serious space stuff to keep them occupied.
Suni, 59, and Butch, 62, have been helping ongoing missions at the station with maintenance and experiments, and have conducted spacewalks.
Suni ventured outside in mid-January with fellow astronaut Nick Hague to perform repairs on the craft. She and Butch went out together later in the month.
Their tasks included repairing equipment that governs station orientation, adding light filters on the NICER X-ray telescope, and replacing a reflector device on an international docking adapter.
Reflecting on planet Earth
Butch and Suni have taken the situation in their stride, saying in a news conference in September that they have been trained to "expect the unexpected".
They have definitely had opportunities for reflection about life back home - and for watching a lot of sunrises and sunsets.
As the space station makes 16 orbits of Earth every 24 hours, it travels through 16 sunrises and sunsets, treating those on board to a sunrise or sunset every 45 minutes.
Living with such a unique view of the Earth gives plenty of room for contemplating it, something Suni has acknowledged.
"It opens up the door to making you think a bit differently. It's the one planet we have and we should be taking care of it," she said.
"There are so many people on Earth sending us messages it makes you feel right at home with everybody."
Voting for a president from space
Butch and Suni and the two other Americans who were on board with them, Don Pettit and Nick Hague, each had the opportunity to vote in last year's US election.
"It's a very important duty that we have as citizens," Suni said to reporters.
Butch said Nasa had made it "very easy" for them to be included in elections.
To facilitate their voting, the Mission Control Center in Houston sent ballot papers via encrypted email to the ISS.
The astronauts then filled them out and transmitted them to satellites which relayed them to a ground terminal in New Mexico.
From there, landlines transmitted the ballots to Mission Control, who then electronically sent them to the astronauts' county clerks for filing.
Keeping fit in zero gravity
For Butch, the day starts at 04:30, and as for Suni, she makes a slightly kinder 06:30 start.
Both have said they enjoy the two hours or more of exercise they must do daily to combat the loss of bone density from living in space.
"Your joints don't hurt, which is quite nice," Butch has said.
Three different machines help to counter the effect of living in zero gravity.
The Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) is used for squats, deadlifts, and rows that work all the muscle groups. For treadmills crews must strap in to stop themselves floating away, and there is also a cycle ergometer for endurance training.
Letting your hair... up, at Christmas
At Christmas, astronauts on the International Space Station posted a festive message in which they wished their friends and family on Earth a merry Christmas.
The team dressed in Santa hats and reindeer antlers, throwing the slowly gyrating microphone to each other to speak while candy canes floated around their heads.
It was a chance for the crew to let their hair down, though in Suni's case it was more a case of letting it 'up'. Zero gravity has given her a style that would take a lot of product to achieve on Earth.
One of Butch and Suni's final duties on board the ISS was to make their replacements feel welcome.
On 16 March a SpaceX capsule carrying a new crew arrived at the ISS. It was a deeply significant event for Butch and Suni, as it paved the way for them to come home.
Capturing the excitement, Don Pettit, who will remain on the ISS, posted this video shot through the window of it approaching and docking.
Butch rang a ceremonial bell as Suni handed over command to cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin.
Viewers and critics have heaped praise on Netflix's hard-hitting drama Adolescence, with many hailing it as a landmark TV show.
The four-part British series was released last week and is the most-watched show on the platform around the world over the weekend.
The Times' Tom Peck described it as "complete perfection", a view echoed by the Guardian's Lucy Mangan, who said it was "the closest thing to TV perfection in decades".
Fans on social media ranged from US director Paul Feig, who called the first episode "one of the best hours of television I've ever seen", to Jeremy Clarkson, who called it "masterful".
Adolescence shows the aftermath of the stabbing of a teenage girl, with a 13-year-old boy from her school arrested for her murder.
Jamie, the young suspect, is played by newcomer Owen Cooper, with Stephen Graham as his dad.
Its story shines a light on the corrosive impact of social media and misogynyst influencers on some teenage boys.
Graham said he was inspired to make the show after seeing two separate reports of boys stabbing girls to death.
"I just thought, what's going on in society where this kind of thing is becoming a regular occurrence?" he told BBC's The One Show.
"I just couldn't fathom it. So I wanted to really have a look and try and shine a light on this particular thing."
Male rage
Writer Jack Thorne said they wanted to "look in the eye of male rage".
The central character had been "indoctrinated by voices" like Andrew Tate's and "voices a lot more dangerous than Andrew Tate's", Thorne told Radio 4's Front Row.
Erin Doherty, who plays a child psychologist, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "This show has the bravery to just peel back the layers and go, let's talk about this thing, because we're still dealing with it today. There are still issues cropping up in the news today.
"So all we can hold ourselves accountable for is having the discussion, and hopefully that's what it does. It just allows parents, aunties, uncles, even just friends, to engage in the conversation."
Each episode was filmed in a single, uninterrupted take.
In the Guardian, Mangan said its technical accomplishments "are matched by an array of award-worthy performances and a script that manages to be intensely naturalistic and hugely evocative at the same time".
She added: "Adolescence is a deeply moving, deeply harrowing experience."
Peck's review in the Times began: "Wow. Just wow. I'm tempted to type out the word 'wow' a further 700 times or so, followed by, 'Don't miss Adolescence on Netflix,' and then be done with it."
The Telegraph's TV critic Anita Singh said it was "a devastating watch", adding: "It is a drama so quietly devastating that I won't forget it for a very long time."
Singh said the single-shot technique "can feel like a gimmick" but that the acting is "phenomenal".
Graham is "the best actor working today", but "the truly remarkable performance" is by Cooper, she wrote.
"He moves between vulnerability, anger, bravado and fear. What he does here is astonishing."
Fantastic performances
Elsewhere, Deadline's Jake Kanter wrote: "Adolescence is as flawless a four hours of TV drama I have ever seen. It lingers in the mind long after the credits have rolled. Astonishing telly."
Rolling Stone's Alan Sepinwall said it was "among the very best things - and an early contender for the best thing - you will see on the small screen this year".
The New York Times' Margaret Lyons called it "a rich work of social critique", describing the standout episode, the third, as "one of the more fascinating hours of TV I've seen in a long time".
On BBC Radio 5 Live's Must Watch, Hayley Campbell said the drama doesn't attempt to solve the problems it raises.
"It's bringing it up, it's looking at it. It's about the rise of misogyny, especially in young boys, brought about by people like Andrew Tate, who's namechecked in this, but only once. It's not about him.
"The drama is more about the horror of how little control you have over your kid and what they're doing on their phone."
Fellow critic Scott Bryan added: "The performances are absolutely fantastic. I would say this is flawless. The person, though, I think who deserves the most recognition is 15-year-old Owen Cooper."
As a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle and himself a victim of the inequities of that racist system of government, Ebrahim Rasool was always unlikely to mince his words when it came to assessing the new US administration.
But in a message to family and friends, South Africa's top envoy in Washington sounded almost relaxed about the diplomatic ructions that he had caused.
Soon after it was announced at the weekend that he was going to be expelled from the US, Ambassador Rasool wrote that he and his family were "all packed up and looking forward to returning to South Africa" and said he was leaving the US with "no regrets".
On Friday, his prepared remarks on the new government in the US were delivered in a thoughtful, measured manner – with no hint of the trouble that they would trigger.
In a webinar organised by a South African think-tank, the 62-year-old veteran of the struggle against apartheid was speaking about the policies of President Donald Trump and the implications for Africa.
The talk was coming after weeks of pressure on South Africa from Washington over a controversial land law that resulted in the US cutting off funding to the country.
The US government alleged that South Africa's white minority was being unfairly targeted. An allegation robustly refuted by the government in Pretoria.
In Rasool's view he thought that President Trump was "mobilising a supremacism" and trying to "project white victimhood as a dog whistle" as the white population faced becoming a minority in the US.
The comments resulted in sharply divided opinions locally and internationally over whether he was walking a "fine line" as a diplomat in giving an "honest assessment" or "crossed a line" that no ambassador should cross.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was unequivocal in his response, saying that Rasool was "no longer welcome" in the US because he was a "race-baiting politician who hates America" and Trump.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's office said the US decision to expel Rasool was "regrettable" as the president himself defended the "great deal of progress" the ambassador had been making prior to his expulsion.
"So this is actually a hiccup... that we are working on straightening out," Ramaphosa told reporters on Monday repeating a stance aimed at cooling temperatures.
Officials in his government however, were more scathing in their assessment of the diplomat's actions, telling South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper, in an anonymous briefing, that Rasool's actions were an "isolated incident of somebody who crossed a line that diplomats know they shouldn't cross".
In the US, the chairperson of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jim Risch, lauded Rubio for calling out Rasool's "disgraceful" remarks.
But to those in South Africa who know Rasool, his views on the White House's policies and the way he expressed them came as no surprise.
Growing up in Cape Town and classified as "coloured" by the apartheid system, Rasool, as a young boy, along with his family, was forced to leave his home in the centre of the city.
The racial zoning imposed by the government meant that people who were not classified as "white" had to live in poorly provisioned areas a long way from the heart of Cape Town.
Rasool's activism began in the 1970s during his school years.
"I really had no idea where I was going until after I tasted my first tear gas, saw my first rubber bullet and fled my first whop from the police when I entered high school in 1976," Georgetown University quoted him as saying for a profile piece in 2015.
"That experience was life-altering. It gave me a crash course in politics."
This activism would later result in his imprisonment near Cape Town, where he crossed paths with Nelson Mandela, who would go on to be South Africa's first democratically elected president.
Rasool served in various leadership positions within the governing African National Congress and South Africa before being appointed to his first stint as US ambassador from 2010 to 2015, when Barack Obama was president.
He was named as ambassador again in 2024, because of his previous experience and extensive network of Washington contacts.
Faiez Jacobs, who has known Rasool for over 30 years, first as fellow activists fighting against apartheid and then within the ANC, came to his defence over his recent comments.
He was one of the attendees at the virtual event.
According to Mr Jacobs, Rasool was asked to provide an analysis on the current situation in the US and did so in a "very objective, academic" way. He added that though the envoy was explaining his honestly held views and was not trying to stir up trouble, he detected another motive for the reaction.
"The fact that he [is] a Muslim, the fact that he represented our country's views on Palestine… Those are all the real reasons why he's been he's been targeted," Mr Jacobs told the BBC.
Last year, South Africa took Israel to the International Court of Justice alleging that Israel was engaging in "genocidal acts" in Gaza, which it denied.
University of Johannesburg international relations expert Oscar van Heerden said that on his appointment Rasool was "dealt a bad hand" and "knew and understood" what he was getting himself into this time around.
"Knives were already out for Rasool before he even arrived in Washington… [and] by the time he arrived it was a mere formality to find a reason to be able to get rid of him," Dr Van Heerden said.
The academic first crossed paths with Rasool in 1985 while he was a student and the diplomat was a high school teacher who was "guiding youngsters" like himself and giving them the "necessary political education".
He described Rasool as a "devout Muslim" who "stands for the Palestinian cause of self-determination".
On Rasool's view of the Trump government, Dr Van Heerden said the diplomat was caught in a "difficult position" because he had to deal with an "openly antagonistic" host nation that in his opinion had weaponised diplomacy and foreign policy.
And while plans are reportedly under way to find a replacement for Rasool, Dr Van Heerden argued that no amount of experience or seniority would be enough to appease the Trump administration and that only someone they "completely agree with" may succeed.
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Most of the villagers in Chorvila in north-west Georgia adore Bidzina Ivanishvili, their proudest son who's widely seen as the country's real man in power.
It's a picture postcard settlement where the roads are good, the houses well-maintained and there are plenty of blue and yellow flags of the ruling Georgian Dream party.
"All this area where you can see new houses and roads was made by our man. There was nothing without him and he did everything for us," says resident Mamia Machavariani, pointing at the village from a nearby forest.
Ivanishvili founded Georgian Dream (GD) and the party has been in power for 12 years.
For more than four months, Georgians have taken to the streets across the country to accuse Ivanishvili's party of rigging elections last October and accusing GD of trying to move the country away from its path to the EU and back into Russia's sphere of influence.
GD denies that and in Chorvila you will not find anyone with a bad word to say about its billionaire son.
Ivanishvili made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, first by selling computers before he acquired banks and metal assets. He returned to Georgia in 2003.
Every newlywed couple in Chorvila receives a cash gift of $3,000 (£2,300) from Ivanishvili, according to Temuri Kapanadze, who teaches history at the village school where Ivanishvili went as a boy.
Unlike most schools in rural Georgia, it has its own swimming pool and an indoor basketball court.
"He reconstructed the hospital, he built two churches, he fixed all the roads, he made all roofs across the region," Temuri says.
"I personally received a refrigerator, TV, a gas stove and for five years Mr Bidzina has been helping us by paying 200 laris (£55) every month."
Here they accuse the opposition of orchestrating the pro-EU anti-government protests and using young people as their "tools".
"We also want Europe but with our traditions, and that's what the government wants too," says resident Giorgi Burjenidze. "We are a Christian country, and our traditions means that men must be men, and women must be women. President Trump thinks like us too."
The view that Europe has been trying to impose values alien to Georgian traditions, such as gay rights, is often repeated by state ministers and pro-government media.
They have also been dismissive of the daily protests sparked by the Georgian Dream's decision to suspend talks with the European Union on the country's future membership.
"Fire to the oligarchy" has become one of the main slogans at the ongoing protests to address what people say is the overwhelming influence of Bidzina Ivanishvili on the country's politics.
"Georgia currently is ruled by an oligarch who has a very Russian agenda," says Tamara Arveladze, 26, who has joined the protests in the capital Tbilisi almost every day, to fight what she sees as Ivanishvili's overwhelming influence.
"He owns everything, all the institutions and all the governmental forces and resources. He sees this country as his private property, and he is ruling this country as if it were his own business."
Last month, Tamara and her boyfriend were caught up in an incident which was captured on mobile phones and went viral. They were driving towards the protest site, and shouted the words "fire to the oligarchy" when a number of masked policemen surrounded the car and tried to break in.
"It happened in seconds, but it felt like hours. I was shocked how aggressively they were trying to do this, if they'd happened to take us out of the car I don't know what would have happened."
Tamara's boyfriend has had his driving license revoked for a year and could face a jail term for swearing at police. She has been fined $3,600, an enormous sum in Georgia, where the average monthly salary is closer to $500.
Since the disputed parliamentary election, criticised by international observers, the Georgian opposition has been boycotting the parliament, leaving the ruling Georgian Dream to rubber stamp any proposed changes to law.
"We are witnessing the abuse of the law-making," says Tamar Oniani, human rights programme director at the Georgian Young Lawyers' Association.
"First it was banning the face masks, and then they deployed the face recognition cameras in Tbilisi. So it makes it easier for them to detect who is appearing at the rally and then order high fines."
Last month fines went up ten-fold for blocking the road or disobeying the police and Tamar Oniani says in one day alone they received 150 calls from protesters who had been fined.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has recently denounced the protesters as an "amorphous mass" and sarcastically thanked them for "replenishing the state budget" with heavy fines.
Tamar Oniani says the "judiciary is fully captured" and acts as one of the instruments against the demonstrators, who she says have been beaten in custody.
"They were tortured just for being part of the protest and being a supporter of Georgia's European future."
The government denies these allegations.
Since the protests began last November, hundreds of civil servants have lost their jobs after they signed petitions criticising the government's decision to suspend talks with the EU.
"The government decided to cleanse the public sector of employees who were not loyal to them," says Nini Lezhava, who was among those to lose their jobs.
She was in a senior position in Georgia's parliamentary research centre, which had been tasked with providing unbiased reports for members of parliament and has since been abolished.
"They don't need it anymore. They have their own policy and they do not want anyone with independent analytical capacity," she says.
Nini says a similar "cleansing" has been taking place at the defence and justice ministries, and other government institutions: "It is happening in the entire public sector of Georgia".
"They are trying to create another Russian satellite in this region. And that goes beyond Georgia and beyond the Black Sea, beyond the South Caucasus, because we see what is happening in the world. And that is a bigger geopolitical shift."
In Chorvila, history teacher Temuri Kapanadze sees the government's approach towards Russia very differently: "There are no friends and enemies forever. Yesterday's enemy can become today's friend."
Hear more on this story here, on BBC World Service's Assignment
A political storm is brewing in India, with the first waves already hitting the southern part of the country.
Leaders there are calling for mass mobilisation to protect the region's political interests amid a heated controversy over the redrawing of electoral seats to reflect changes in population over time.
In a high-stakes push, they are urging citizens to "have more children", using meetings and media campaigns to amplify their message: that the process of delimitation could shift the balance of power.
"Delimitation is a Damocles' sword hanging over southern India," says MK Stalin, chief minister of Tamil Nadu, one of India's five southern states, and an arch rival of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). (The other four are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Telangana.)
These five states account for 20% of India's 1.4 billion people. They also outperform the rest of the country in health, education and economic prospects. A child is less likely to be born here than in the north, due to lower population growth rates.
Their leaders are worried that the more prosperous south may lose parliamentary seats in the future, a "punishment" for having fewer children and generating more wealth. Wealthier southern states have always contributed more to federal revenue, with poorer, highly populated states in the north receiving larger shares based on need.
India's Constitution mandates that seats be allocated to each state based on its population, with constituencies of roughly equal size. It also requires reallocation of seats after each census, reflecting updated population figures.
So India redrew parliamentary seats three times based on the decennial census in 1951, 1961 and 1971. Since then, governments of all stripes have paused the exercise, fearing an imbalance of representation due to varying fertility rates across states.
The next delimitation exercise is set for 2026, but uncertainty looms as India hasn't conducted a census since 2011, with no clear timeline for when it will take place.
This has set the stage for a potential crisis. "Tamil Nadu is leading the charge and India is on the brink of a federal deadlock," says Yamini Aiyar, a senior fellow at Brown University
The number of seats in the Lok Sabha - the lower house of parliament representing directly elected MPs - has risen from 494 to 543 and has remained constant since then. The freeze means that despite India's growing population since 1971, the number of Lok Sabha seats per state has stayed the same, with no new seats added.
In 1951, each MP represented just over 700,000 people. Today, that number has surged to an average of 2.5 million per MP - more than three times the population represented by a member of the US House of Representatives. In comparison, a UK MP represents around 120,000 people.
Experts say all Indians are underrepresented – though not equally so – because constituencies are too large. (The original Constitution capped the ratio at one MP for 750,000 people)
That's not all. Using census data and population projections, economist Shruti Rajagopalan of George Mason University has highlighted the "severe malapportionment" - unequal distribution of political representation - in India.
Consider this. In Uttar Pradesh (UP), India's most populous state with over 240 million people, each MP represents about three million citizens.
Meanwhile, in Kerala, where fertility rates are similar to many European countries, an MP represents roughly 1.75 million.
This means the average voter in Kerala in the south has 1.7 times more influence in choosing an MP than a voter in UP in the north.
Ms Rajagopalan also notes that Tamil Nadu and Kerala now have nine and six seats more than their population share, while populous, poorer states like Bihar and UP have nine and 12 seats fewer than their proportion. (Stalin warns that Tamil Nadu could lose eight seats if delimitation occurs in 2026, based on projected population figures.)
By 2031, the problem will intensify: UP and Bihar will fall a dozen seats short of their population proportion, while Tamil Nadu will likely have 11 seats more than its proportion, with other states falling "somewhere in between," according to Ms Rajagopalan.
"Consequently," she says, "India is no longer living up to its fundamental constitutional principle of 'one-person, one vote'." To make this principle meaningful, constituency sizes must be roughly equal.
Experts have proposed several solutions, many of which will require strong bipartisan consensus.
One option is to increase the number of seats in the lower house.
In other words, India should revert to the original constitutional ratio of one MP for every 750,000 people, which would expand the Lok Sabha to 1,872 seats. (The new parliament building has the capacity for 880 seats, so it would need a major upgrade.)
The other option is for the total number of seats in Lok Sabha to increase to the extent that no state loses its current number of electoral seats – to achieve this the number of seats in the Lok Sabha would need to be 848, by several estimations.
Accompanying this move, experts like Ms Rajagopalan advocate for a more decentralised fiscal system.
In this model, states would have greater revenue-raising powers and retain most or all of their revenue. Federal funds would then be allocated based on development needs. Currently, states receive less than 40% of the total revenue but spend about 60% of it, while the rest is raised and spent by the central government.
A third solution is to reform the composition of the upper house of the parliament. The Rajya Sabha represents states' interests, with seats allocated proportionally to population and capped at 250.
Rajya Sabha members are elected by state legislatures, not directly by the public. Milan Vaishnav of Carnegie Endowment for Peace suggests a radical approach would be to fix the number of seats per state in the upper house, similar to the US Senate.
"Transforming the upper house into a real venue for debate of states' interests could potentially soften the opposition to a reallocation of seats in the lower house," he argues.
Then there are other proposals like splitting big states - India's top five states have more than 45% share of total seats.
Miheer Karandikar of Takshashila Institution, a Bangalore-based think-tank, cites UP as an example of how big states skew things. UP's share of total votes cast in India is around 14% currently. He estimates this would likely increase to 16% after delimitation, "which allows it to retain its status as the most significant state politically and in terms of legislative influence". Splitting a state like UP could help matters.
For now, the anxious southern leaders - whose rhetoric is partly political with Tamil Nadu elections looming next summer - have been joined by counterparts in Punjab to urge the government to maintain current seats and freeze electoral boundaries for the next 30 years, beyond 2026. In other words, it's a call for more of the same, preserving the status quo.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made little significant statement so far. Home Minister Amit Shah claimed southern states would not lose "even a single seat" in the upcoming delimitation, though the meaning remains unclear. Meanwhile, the federal government's decision to withhold education funds and label Tamil Nadu's leadership as "undemocratic and uncivilised" over a contentious education policy has deepened divisions.
Political scientist Suhas Palshikar warns that the north-south divide threatens India's federal structure. "The north-south prism is only likely to persuade people and parties of the north to push for a delimitation that would give them an advantage. Such a counter-mobilisation in the north can make it impossible to arrive at any negotiated settlement, Mr Palshikar noted.
He believes that expanding the size of the Lok Sabha and ensuring that no state loses its current strength is not only "politically prudent step", but something which will "enrich the idea of democracy in the Indian context." Balancing representation will be the key to preserving India's strained federal spirit.
King Charles gave a warm welcome to the new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney when he visited Buckingham Palace.
It was another symbolic gesture of support for Canada from a King, wearing a red tie, who has to send coded signals rather than spell things out in words, as Canada faces threats from US President Donald Trump.
But the King has sought to make clear his commitment to Canada - and if it had not been for his cancer diagnosis, the BBC understands he would have travelled there for an intended visit in 2024.
There are also suggestions that once Canada's election is out the way, a visit to Canada will be a priority, where he can further demonstrate his support.
The new Canadian prime minister told the King that his Order of Canada pin had broken this morning. The King joked: "Do you want another one?"
"There's much to catch up on," said the King, ushering Carney to a seat, and perhaps hoping that the broken pin was not a symbol of a Commonwealth relationship under strain.
"These are important matters," said the King, ahead of a 30-minute meeting with no one else in attendance.
Because the meeting with Carney is the latest moment in an intricate diplomatic balancing act for a King who is head of state of both the UK and Canada.
King Charles has to show solidarity with Canada without disrupting the UK's relationship with Trump, who is antagonising Canadians with his economic threats and calls for Canada to become the US 51st state.
The King also has to avoid getting directly involved in politics - and has to speak on advice of ministers. Whatever he might personally believe about Trump's comments about taking over Canada, the King has to keep his thoughts to himself.
Adding to this complicated choreography is that the royals are one of the strongest cards the UK can play with President Trump. He seemed delighted by his second state visit invitation from the King.
So messages from the King are sent in symbolic displays. In case anyone missed the signs over Canada, there have been multiple moments. And then some more.
When the King visited aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales, he appeared wearing a set of Canadian medals.
The 60th anniversary of Canada's maple leaf flag might usually have passed without any royal intervention, but there was a fulsome message sent by the King, praising the "proud, resilient and compassionate country".
A ceremonial sword for Canada became an event at Buckingham Palace with a formal presentation by the King.
At a tree planting ceremony in Buckingham Palace, the tree chosen was a maple. And when the King sat down at the Commonwealth Service last week, it was on a Canadian chair.
If any of these moments were accidental, they were not being rejected by Buckingham Palace, with royal sources emphasising the King's commitment to Canada.
But there is no avoiding the tensions and contradictions in this balancing act. Emails from Canadians to the BBC's Royal Watch newsletter show that many want a much more robust defence from the King.
"What a cop out! Throw Canada to the wolves. Giving us back pats for our flag's anniversary doesn't quite cut it. Here sits a monarchist who is seriously rethinking his allegiance to the crown!" emailed Brian, a Canadian military veteran.
Carol in Vancouver was unhappy at the invitation from the UK for a second state visit by President Trump.
"I feel ashamed for the Brits feeling they have to follow through with inviting such a boor for dinner. For the life of me I do not understand why he has this power over you," she wrote.
"As a Canadian, the invitation is a slap in the face to the people of Canada. If the King is our King (as we are a Commonwealth country), and Trump is basically at war with us, how dare King Charles give him any credence?" emailed Patricia.
"As a Canadian I am saddened, appalled, disgusted and angry that King Charles appears to be joining the conga line of supplicants," said Jo-Ann in Ontario.
But King Charles will have to keep to the line set by ministers, and if that means maintaining good relations with Trump, he is unlikely to be saying anything more outspoken.
Sign up here to get the latest royal stories and analysis straight to your inbox every week with our Royal Watch newsletter. Those outside the UK can sign up here.
The diver had found the fibre optic cable lying on the seabed of the North Sea. He swam closer, until it was near enough to touch.
He reached out his hand. But someone could tell he was lurking there. Someone was watching.
"He stops and just touches the cable lightly, you clearly see the signal," says Daniel Gerwig, global sales manager at AP Sensing, a German technology company. "The acoustic energy which travels through the fibre is basically disturbing our signal. We can measure this disturbance."
Multiple reports of damaged telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea have raised alarm in recent months.
So important are these cables, which carry huge volumes of internet data between countries, that Nato has launched a mission called "Baltic Sentry", to patrol the Baltic Sea with aircraft, warships and drones.
The EU is also stepping up measures to monitor and protect cables.
Despite those efforts the authorities cannot be everywhere at once.
So, some companies are trying to monitor what's going on in the vicinity of any cable – by using fibre optic signals to listen out for surreptitious underwater drones, or hostile vessels dragging their anchors along the seabed.
It was during tests of AP Sensing's system last year – not a real attempt at sabotage – that the diver patted his hand on the subsea cable watched over by the firm.
The company also deployed ships, drones and divers with sea scooters to find out how accurately its software could pick out and identify the presence of these vehicles.
And, the team tested whether their cable could "hear" a vessel plunging its anchor into the water.
When pulses of light travel along a fibre optic strand, tiny reflections sometimes bounce back along that line. These reflections are affected by factors including temperature, vibrations or physical disturbance to the cable itself.
Noticing a temperature change along part of a buried cable could reveal that part has become unburied, for example.
AP Sensing shows me a video of a man walking across a lawn before lifting up a rifle and firing it during a test. A fibre optic cable buried in the ground a few metres away picked up the whole sequence.
"You see every single footstep," says Clemens Pohl, chief executive, as he points to a chart revealing disturbances in the fibre optic signal. The footsteps appear as brief blips or lines and the gunshot as a larger splodge.
With this technology, it is even possible to work out the approximate size of a vessel passing above a subsea cable, as well as its location and, in some circumstances, its direction of travel. That could be correlated with satellite imagery, or even automatic identification system (AIS) records, which most ships broadcast at all times.
It is possible to add monitoring capabilities to existing fibre optic cables if one unused, "dark" fibre is available, or a lit fibre with enough free channels, the firm adds.
There are limitations, however. David Webb at Aston University says that fibre optic sensing technology cannot pick up disturbances from very far away, and you need to install signal listening devices, or interrogators, every 100km (62 miles) or so along a cable.
AP Sensing says that it can pick up vibrations hundreds of metres away but "usually not several kilometres away". The company confirms that its technology is currently deployed on some cable installations in the North Sea, though declines to comment further.
"People really need an early warning in order to determine what to do," says Paul Heiden, chief executive of Optics11, a Dutch firm that also makes fibre optic acoustic sensing systems.
Mr Heiden argues that cables installed solely for the purpose of monitoring marine activity could be especially useful – one might place such listening cables, say, 100km from a vital port, or in the vicinity of a key gas pipeline or telecommunications cable, rather than within those assets themselves.
That could give operators an overview of vessel traffic in the area, and potentially advance notice of a ship heading towards a critical asset.
Optics11's fibre optic listening technology can be deployed on military submarines, Mr Heiden adds, and he says the firm is soon to begin testing a monitoring cable installed somewhere on the floor of the Baltic Sea.
Demand for fibre optic sensing technology is growing, says Douglas Clague at Viavi Solutions, a network testing and measurement company: "We do see the number of requests increasing."
Some of the cables damaged in recent incidents were made by Swedish cable company Hexatronic, says Christian Priess, head of Central Europe, Middle East, Africa and submarine cable business at the firm.
Acoustic sensing is an emerging technology that Mr Priess suggests will become more common in the future. But there's relatively little one can do to protect a cable from sabotage, in terms of physical strengthening.
Today's fibre optic cables already have metal casings folded and welded shut around the fibres, he says. There is also "armoury wire", thick metal cords, running along the outer parts of the cable and in some cases there are two layers of these cords. "On the UK side of the Channel where you have a lot of rocks and a lot of fishing, you want to have it double-armoured," says Mr Priess.
But should a vessel deliberately drag its heavy anchor across even a double-armoured cable, it will almost certainly still damage it, Mr Priess says – such is the force of the collision or pulling action.
While it is possible to bury cables in the seabed for additional protection, this might become prohibitively expensive over long distances and at depths below a few dozen metres.
"Cables break all the time," says Lane Burdette, research analyst at TeleGeography, a telecoms market research firm. "The number of cable faults per year has really held steady over the last several years," she adds, explaining that the 1-200 faults that typically occur annually has not risen despite ever more subsea cables being installed during that period.
Ms Burdette also notes that, even when a cable is severed, telecommunications networks typically have significant redundancy built into them, meaning that end users often don't notice much disruption to their service.
Still, the visible military response to cable breakages in the Baltic Sea is welcome, says Thorsten Benner, co-founder and director of the Global Public Policy Institute, a think tank: "It's good that Nato and the European Union have woken up."
And while cable sensing technology might be useful, its efficacy in terms of preventing damage rests on how quickly coastguard or military patrols could receive alerts about potential sabotage and react. "The question is how quickly you could establish contact with a vessel," Says Benner.
A jury in the trial of a former nurse accused of murdering a woman on a remote Australian beach has been discharged, after they could not reach a verdict.
Toyah Cordingley was stabbed at least 26 times while out walking her dog in October 2018.
The 24-year-old's body was discovered by her father, half-buried in sand dunes on Wangetti beach between the popular tourist hotspots of Cairns and Port Douglas.
Rajwinder Singh, 40, who travelled to India the day after Ms Cordingley's body was found, was charged with murder. He was arrested and then extradited to Australia in 2023.
But jurors at Cairns Supreme Court said they were deadlocked, and unable to reach a unanimous decision on his guilt after two-and-half days of deliberations. The judge thanked the jury for their "diligence".
Under Queensland law, jury verdicts in murder cases must be unanimous. So Mr Singh will face another trial.
Originally from Buttar Kalan in the Indian state of Punjab, Mr Singh had been living in Innisfail at the time of the killing, a town about two hours south from the crime scene.
Prosecutors said they did not have a motive for the killing of Ms Cordingley - a health store worker and animal shelter volunteer - and there was no evidence of a sexual assault.
The trial at Cairns Supreme court heard that DNA highly likely to be Mr Singh's was discovered on a selfie stick in the victim's grave.
Data from mobile phone towers also suggested Ms Cordingley's phone had moved in a similar pattern to Mr Singh's blue Alfa Romeo car on the day the victim went missing.
The prosecution also suggested the hurried way Mr Singh left Australia without saying goodbye to his family or colleagues pointed to his guilt.
Mr Singh had denied murder – and had told an undercover police officer he had seen the killing, then left the country, leaving behind his wife and children because he feared for his own life.
His defence lawyer said he was "a coward" but not a killer, and accused police of a "flawed" investigation that did not look sufficiently at other possible suspects.
They said DNA found at the scene, on the victim's discarded selfie stick, did not match Mr Singh's profile.
"There is an unknown person's DNA at that grave site," defence barrister Angus Edwards told the jury.
Rwanda has cut diplomatic ties with Belgium, saying it has been "consistently undermined" by the European nation during the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Brussels has been leading calls for European nations to sanction Rwanda over its support for the M23, a rebel group at the centre of DR Congo's crisis.
The authorities in Kigali, Rwanda's capital, have given Belgian diplomats 48 hours to leave the country.
Belgium, which is the former colonial power, has said it will respond to these measures and labelled Rwanda's decision "disproportionate".
Despite assertions from the UN and US, Rwanda has denied backing the M23.
In its statement on Monday, Kigali accused Brussels of attempting to "sustain its neo-colonial delusions".
"Belgium has clearly taken sides in a regional conflict and continues to systematically mobilise against Rwanda in different forums, using lies and manipulation to secure an unjustified hostile opinion of Rwanda, in an attempt to destabilise both Rwanda and the region," the statement said.
Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot responded to Rwanda's measures on social media, saying: "This is disproportionate and shows that when we disagree with Rwanda they prefer not to engage in dialogue."
Prevot said Rwandan diplomats in Belgium will be declared "persona non grata".
This declaration can lead to the removal of diplomatic status and often results in the expulsion or the withdrawal of recognition of envoys.
Around 7,000 people have been killed in the fighting between the M23 and DR Congo's armed forces in the east of the country since the beginning of the year, the Congolese authorities have said.
According to the UN children's agency, Unicef, more than 850,000 people have been forced to flee their homes since the conflict increased in intensity in January.
In the past two months, the M23 have taken control of two key cities - Goma and Bukavu.
In an attempt to pressure Rwanda into withdrawing its support for the M23 Britain has cut some of its aid to the country.
Last month, the UN Security Council demanded that the M23 end hostilities and that Rwanda should pull its troops out of DR Congo.
Before Kigali cut ties with Brussels, Rwandan President Paul Kagame vowed that his country would "stand up" to Belgium.
"We would ask [Belgium]: 'Who are you by the way? Who put you in charge of us?' Rwandans believe in God, but did God really put these people in charge of Rwanda?" Kagame asked in an address on Sunday.
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Lithuanian prosecutors say Russia's military intelligence service GRU was behind an arson attack on an Ikea furniture store in the Baltic state's capital Vilnius last year.
Two Ukrainian suspects have been arrested – one in Lithuania, the other in Poland – over the attack, which prosecutor Arturas Urbelis called "an act of terrorism".
He said investigation of intermediaries had established that "this is connected with the military intelligence, with the security services".
Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Lithuania had "confirmed our suspicions that responsible for setting fires to shopping centres in Vilnius and Warsaw are the Russian secret services."
A US court has ordered that Prince Harry's immigration files must be made public by Tuesday.
District Judge Carl Nichols ordered the release of the documents based on a freedom of information (FOI) request by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative US think tank in Washington DC.
The foundation alleges that the prince concealed his past use of drugs, which should have disqualified him from obtaining a US visa.
The allegations centre around the Duke of Sussex's claims in his memoir Spare, where he referenced to taking cocaine, marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms.
In the book, published in January 2023, Prince Harry wrote that he first tried cocaine at the age of 17.
"It wasn't much fun, and it didn't make me particularly happy, as it seemed to make everyone around me, but it did make me feel different, and that was the main goal," he added.
He also wrote about using marijuana, saying "cocaine didn't do anything for me", but "marijuana is different, that actually really did help me".
Application forms for US visas specifically ask about current and past drug use.
Admissions of drug use can lead to non-immigrant and immigrant visa applications being rejected, although immigration officers have discretion to make a final decision based on different factors.
The Heritage Foundation alleges that Prince Harry lied about his use of drugs to US immigration authorities, which can lead to a lifetime ban from the United States.
The BBC has contacted the White House and the duke's office for comment.
The court's ruling comes after a 2024 ruling by the same judge which said that there was not enough public interest in disclosing Prince Harry's immigration records.
The Heritage Foundation contested that ruling and pushed for the judgement to be changed.
Prince Harry moved to the US with his wife Meghan in 2020 after stepping down as a working royal. It is not clear what visa he entered the country on, while the duchess is a US citizen.
President Donald Trump previously ruled out deporting Prince Harry in February, telling the New York Post "I'll leave him alone... He's got enough problems with his wife. She's terrible."
Meghan has been a vocal critic of Trump in the past, labelling him a "misogynist".
Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Russia's Kursk region have described scenes "like a horror movie" as they retreated from the front lines.
The BBC has received extensive accounts from Ukrainian troops, who recount a "catastrophic" withdrawal in the face of heavy fire, and columns of military equipment destroyed and constant attacks from swarms of Russian drones.
The soldiers, who spoke over social media, were given aliases to protect their identity. Some gave accounts of a "collapse" as Ukraine lost Sudzha, the largest town it held.
Ukrainian restrictions on travel to the front have meant it is not possible to get a full picture of the situation. But this is how five Ukrainian soldiers described to us what had happened.
Volodymyr: 'Drones around the clock'
On 9 March, "Volodymyr" sent a telegram post to the BBC saying he was still in Sudzha, where there was "panic and collapse of the front".
Ukrainian troops "are trying to leave - columns of troops and equipment. Some of them are burned by Russian drones on the road. It is impossible to leave during the day."
Movement of men, logistics and equipment had been reliant on one major route between Sudzha and Ukraine's Sumy region.
Volodymyr said it was possible to travel on that road relatively safely a month ago. By 9 March it was "all under the fire control of the enemy - drones around the clock. In one minute you can see two to three drones. That's a lot," he said.
"We have all the logistics here on one Sudzha-Sumy highway. And everyone knew that the [Russians] would try to cut it. But this again came as a surprise to our command."
At the time of writing, just before Russia retook Sudzha, Volodymyr said Ukrainian forces were being pressed from three sides.
Maksym: Vehicle wrecks litter the roads
By 11 March, Ukrainian forces were battling to prevent the road being cut, according to telegram messages from "Maksym".
"A few days ago, we received an order to leave the defence lines in an organised retreat," he said, adding that Russia had amassed a significant force to retake the town, "including large numbers of North Korean soldiers".
Military experts estimate Russia had amassed a force of up to 70,000 troops to retake Kursk – including around 12,000 North Koreans.
Russia had also sent its best drone units to the front and had was using kamikaze and first-person-view (FPV) variants to "take fire control of the main logistics routes".
They included drones linked to operators by fibre-optic wires - which are impossible to jam with electronic countermeasures.
Maksym said as a result "the enemy managed to destroy dozens of units of equipment", and that wrecks had "created congestion on supply routes".
Anton: The catastrophe of retreat
The situation on that day, 11 March, was described as "catastrophic" by "Anton".
The third soldier spoken to by the BBC was serving in the headquarters for the Kursk front.
He too highlighted the damage caused by Russian FPV drones. "We used to have an advantage in drones, now we do not," he said. He added that Russia had an advantage with more accurate air strikes and a greater number of troops.
Anton said supply routes had been cut. "Logistics no longer work – organised deliveries of weapons, ammunition, food and water are no longer possible."
Anton said he managed to leave Sudzha by foot, at night – "We almost died several times. Drones are in the sky all the time."
The soldier predicted Ukraine's entire foothold in Kursk would be lost but that "from a military point of view, the Kursk direction has exhausted itself. There is no point in keeping it any more".
Western officials estimate that Ukraine's Kursk offensive involved around 12,000 troops. They were some of their best trained soldiers, equipped with western-supplied weapons including tanks and armoured vehicles.
Russian bloggers published videos showing some of that equipment being destroyed or captured. On 13 March, Russia said the situation in Kursk was "fully under our control" and that Ukraine had "abandoned" much of its materiel.
Dmytro: Inches from death
In social media posts on 11-12 March, a fourth solider, "Dmytro" likened the retreat from the front to "a scene from a horror movie".
"The roads are littered with hundreds of destroyed cars, armoured vehicles and ATVs (All Terrain Vehicles). There are a lot of wounded and dead."
Vehicles were often hunted by multiple drones, he said.
He described his own narrow escape when the car he was travelling in got bogged down. He and his fellow soldiers were trying to push the vehicle free when they were targeted by another FPV drone.
It missed the vehicle, but injured one of his comrades. He said they had to hide in a forest for two hours before they were rescued.
Dmytro said many Ukrainians retreated on foot with "guys walking 15km to 20km". The situation, he said, had turned from "difficult and critical to catastrophic".
In a message on 14 March, Dmytro added: "Everything is finished in the Kursk region... the operation was not successful."
He estimated that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers had died since the first crossing into Russia in August.
Artem: 'We fought like lions'
A fifth soldier sounded less gloomy about the situation. On 13 March, "Artem" sent a telegram message from a military hospital, where he was being treated for shrapnel wounds suffered in a drone attack.
Artem said he had been fighting further west – near the village of Loknya where Ukrainian forces were putting up a stiff resistance and "fighting like lions".
He believed the operation had achieved some success.
"It's important that so far the Armed Forces of Ukraine have created this buffer zone, thanks to which the Russians cannot enter Sumy," he said.
What now for Ukraine's offensive?
Ukraine's top general, Oleksandr Syrskyi, insists that Ukrainian forces have pulled back to "more favourable positions", remain in Kursk and would do so "for as long as it is expedient and necessary".
He said Russia had suffered more than 50,000 losses during the operation - including those killed, injured or captured.
However, the situation now is very different to last August. Military analysts estimate two-thirds of the 1,000 sq/km gained at the outset have since been lost.
Any hopes that Ukraine would be able to trade Kursk territory for some of its own have significantly diminished.
Last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he believed the Kursk operation had "accomplished its task" by forcing Russia to pull troops from the east and relieve pressure on Pokrovsk.
But it is not yet clear at what cost.
The Israeli military says it is carrying out "extensive strikes" in the Gaza Strip.
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was targeting what it called "terror targets" belonging to Hamas.
Three houses were hit in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, a building in Gaza City, and targets in Khan Younis and Rafah, Reuters reported, citing medics and witnesses.
This is the largest wave of airstrikes in Gaza since the ceasefire began on 19 January. Talks to extend the Gaza ceasefire have failed to reach an agreement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the strikes on Tuesday morning, according to a statement from the PM's office.
"This follows Hamas's repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators," it said.
"Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength," it added.
The plan for the strikes "was presented by the IDF over the weekend and approved by the political leadership", it said.
Negotiators have been trying to find a way forward after the first phase of the temporary truce ended on 1 March.
The US proposed extending the first phase until mid-April, including a further exchange of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
But a Palestinian official familiar with the talks told the BBC that Israel and Hamas disagreed over key aspects of the deal set out by Witkoff at the indirect talks.
Controversial Irish MMA fighter Conor McGregor is due to hold a St Patrick's Day meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington DC.
He appeared at the White House press briefing room lectern on Monday with press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who confirmed the meeting was scheduled for later in the day.
Ms Leavitt said she "couldn't think of a better guest to have with us on St Patrick's Day".
Last week, during a meeting at the White House with Taoiseach (Irish PM) Micheál Martin, the US president praised McGregor's tattoos.
In 2024, a woman who accused McGregor of raping her in a Dublin hotel won a claim against him for damages in a civil case.
A jury found that he had assaulted her and ordered him to pay more than €248,000 (£206,000).
On Monday, Irish broadcaster RTÉ reported that the fighter said he planned to "raise the issues the people of Ireland face".
McGregor has previously spoken out against Ireland's policies on immigration and asylum seekers.
Posting on X about McGregor's White House visit the Taoiseach Micheál Martin said: "St Patrick's Day around the world is a day rooted in community, humanity, friendship and fellowship.
"Conor McGregor's remarks are wrong and do not reflect the spirit of St Patrick's Day, or the views of the people of Ireland."
The boxer also attended President Trump's inauguration in January.
Authorities have discovered new information changing the timeline of when they believe Academy Award winning actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, died.
The couple were found dead in their New Mexico home last month with officials saying the pair had been dead for some time before they were discovered by neighbourhood security.
Officials initially said they believed Arakawa died on 11 February and Hackman died one week later.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office now says they have confirmed that Arakawa made multiple calls to a health clinic on 12 February for medical treatment, which the clinic told BBC she never was able to receive.
The sheriff's office said they learned of the calls when they received cell phone data from her phone.
They said there were three calls made that morning to Cloudberry Health, a personalized concierge medical practice in the area. She received a fourth call, also from the clinic.
The sheriff's office noted it never reported an official date of death for her and said that initially they'd stated that Arakawa's last known activity was on 11 February. Authorities say she'd exchanged emails with a massage therapist and visited a grocery store, pharmacy and a pet store. Garage clicker data showed she returned home around 5:15 p.m. that day.
Dr Josiah Child, who leads Cloudberry Health, told the BBC that while the clinic had never treated Hackman or Arakawa, she had reached out for medical advice.
US President Donald Trump's escalating trade tariffs will hit world growth and raise inflation, the OECD has predicted in its latest forecast.
Canada and Mexico are forecast to see the biggest impact as they have had the harshest tariffs imposed on them, but US growth is also expected to be hit.
The OECD has more than halved its growth outlook for Canada for this year and next, while it expects Mexico to be pushed into a recession.
Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports. The US has also imposed 25% tariffs on other imports from Mexico and Canada - with some exemptions - and a 20% levy on Chinese goods.
* Canada's economy is predicted to grow by just 0.7% this year and in 2026, compared with the previous forecast of 2% for both years
* Mexico is now forecast to contract by 1.3% this year and shrink a further 0.6% next year, instead of growing by 1.2% and 1.6% as previously expected
* Growth in the US has also been downgraded, with growth of 2.2% expected this year and 1.6% in 2025, down from previous forecasts of 2.4% and 2.1%
* Despite the US imposing tariffs on China, the OECD has increased its growth forecast for the country slightly to 4.8%.
Fashion designer Jonathan Anderson has stepped down as the creative director of Spanish luxury fashion house Loewe after 11 years.
Anderson, from Magherafelt in County Londonderry, is also the founder of his own label, JW Anderson.
He is known for his innovative styles and gender-fluid designs, and has created some iconic looks such as singer Rihanna's Super Bowl half-time performance attire.
Posting on Instagram, Anderson said he has been "lucky enough to be surrounded by people with the imagination, the skills, the tenacity, and the resourcefulness to find a way to say 'yes' to all my wildly ambitious ideas".
"While my own chapter draws to a close, Loewe's story will continue for many years to come and I will look on with pride."
The move is part of a major reshuffling of jobs at global fashion brands following some resignations and forced departures.
While Anderson did not detail his next steps, Women's Wear Daily reports it is "practically an open secret" that the designer is set for Christian Dior.
In January, British designer Kim Jones, stepped down as artistic director for menswear at the French fashion house.
The position has yet to be filled, "giving credence to the idea" Anderson could take over both sides of the business, reports the New York Times.
Loewe said that under Anderson's direction, the brand "experienced exceptional growth and established itself as a pioneer in presenting a modern vision of luxury fashion and culture".
Anderson trained at the London College of Fashion, before beginning his career in Prada's marketing department.
He launched his eponymous brand in 2008, before being appointed as the creative director at Loewe - a Spanish leather goods brand founded in 1846 - in 2013.
He has won a number of high-profile awards, including Designer of the Year at the 2024 Fashion Awards in December for the second year in a row.
He is also the son of former Ireland rugby captain, Willie Anderson.
Across the globe more and more Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) are being spotted on – and off – the roads.
This is despite predictions from the United Nations of an inevitable pivot towards smaller and more environmentally friendly vehicles because of the urgency of the climate crisis and the rising cost of living.
That pivot has not materialised: globally, 54% of the cars sold in 2024 were SUVs, including petrol, diesel, hybrids and electric makes. This is an increase of three percentage points from 2023 and five percentage points from the year before, according to GlobalData.
Of the SUVs which are now on the road – both new and older models – 95% are burning fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Manufacturers, however, say their new fleets of such cars are increasingly becoming electric, and that not all SUVs now being sold cause an increase in emissions.
SUVs are hard to miss. They are heavy and larger with spacious interiors, higher ground clearance and a high driving position with a better view of the road, although smaller versions are also on the market.
Environmental campaigners such as Greenpeace see SUVs as one of the villains of the climate crisis and argue that their manufacturing consumes significant resources given their size.
Experts also say they require larger batteries to power their electric versions, which then further increases the demand for critical minerals, putting even more pressure on the planet.
Momentum was thought to be with smaller, energy-efficient electric vehicles. But the sales of standard-sized electric vehicles (EVs) has actually decreased in major markets such as Japan and Germany, and their sales growth has slowed in India.
And in Europe, sales of SUVs have outpaced those of EVs despite indications more than half a decade ago of an opposite trend. In Europe in 2018, 3.27 million small hatchbacks – both those powered by fossil fuels and those by electricity – were sold while 2.13 million were sold in 2024, according to GlobalData.
Its sales forecast manager Sammy Chan said: "This is partly because of the SUV alternatives being offered in smaller [sizes] whose sales in Europe have now grown to nearly to 2.5 million in 2024 from 1.5 million in 2018."
China saw the largest sales of nearly 11.6 million SUVs in 2024 followed by the US, India and Germany, according to GlobalData.
What is driving this SUV growth?
Industry experts say people's purchasing power has been improving in many fast-emerging economies, making SUVs the likelier choice of car.
"Manufacturers respond to consumer demand and, increasingly, drivers are attracted to dual purpose vehicles given their practicality, comfort and good view of the road," said Mike Hawes who is the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
Automobile industry analysts also say that manufacturers are attracted to high profit margins from SUVs: they can make more money from SUVs even though they make fewer vehicles.
"It is the industry that has driven the demand through huge marketing and advertising campaigns in recent years," said Dudley Curtis, the communications manager at the European Transport Safety Council.
"SUVs offered the industry a simple way of charging more for a vehicle that does the same thing [as others]," he said.
Are SUVs an issue?
Because of the robust growth in SUVs sales, the IEA says oil consumption of these vehicles has increased by 600,000 barrels per day globally between 2022 and 2023, accounting for more than a quarter of the total annual rise in global oil demand.
"If ranked among countries, the global fleet of SUVs would be the world's fifth largest emitter of CO2, exceeding the emissions of Japan and various other major economies," said Apostolous Petropolous, an energy modeller with the IEA.
The agency says that even when compared to medium-sized cars that run on petrol and diesel, SUVs burn 20% more of such fuels as they weigh up to 300 kg more on average.
In fact, road transport is responsible for more than 12% of global carbon emissions which is the main driver of global warming. Scientists say all sectors must rapidly decarbonise if we are to avoid a climate catastrophe.
But industry representatives say in response that not all SUVs now being sold cause an increase in emissions.
"Around two in five of these [new] vehicle models are zero emission as their body type lends itself well to electrification with longer battery range that can reassure consumers concerned about charging accessibility," said Hawes, from the SMMT.
"This has led to the average CO2 emissions of new dual purpose cars more than halving since 2000, helping the segment lead the decarbonisation of UK road mobility."
Although the vast majority of new SUVs still burn fossil fuels, IEA officials have said that over 20% of SUVs sold in 2023 were fully electric, up from 2% in 2018.
As for hybrids that can run on both electricity and fossil fuels, a study in Europe by the International Council on Clean Transportation in 2022 found only around 30% of the total distance driven by plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (all types including SUVs) was in electric mode on average.
Similar results were found in other major economies such as the US and China.
Overall, the back-gear towards SUVs, some experts say, has caused a significant setback in the decarbonisation of the transport sector.
"The trend toward heavier and less efficient vehicles such as SUVs (in countries where it is happening) has largely nullified the improvements in energy consumption and emissions achieved elsewhere in the world's passenger car fleet," said the IEA.
The UK Parliament's climate change committee had a similar finding in its 2024 report on decarbonisation in the country.
US President Donald Trump has signed an order to strip back federally funded news organisation Voice of America, accusing it of being "anti-Trump" and "radical".
A White House statement said the order would "ensure taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda", and included quotes from politicians and right-wing media criticising the broadcaster.
VOA, still primarily a radio service, was set up during World War Two to counter Nazi propaganda. It says it currently reaches hundreds of millions of people globally each week.
Mike Abramowitz, VOA's director, said he and virtually his entire staff of 1,300 people had been put on paid leave.
Abramowitz said that the order left VOA unable to carry out its "vital mission... especially critical today, when America's adversaries, like Iran, China, and Russia, are sinking billions of dollars into creating false narratives to discredit the United States".
The National Press Club, a leading representative group for US journalists, said the order "undermines America's long-standing commitment to a free and independent press".
It added: "If an entire newsroom can be sidelined overnight, what does that say about the state of press freedom?
"An entire institution is being dismantled piece by piece. This isn't just a staffing decision - it's a fundamental shift that endangers the future of independent journalism at VOA."
The president's order targets VOA's parent company US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which also funds non-profit entities such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, which were originally set up to counter communism.
It tells managers to "reduce performance… to the minimum presence and function required by law".
CBS, the BBC's US news partner, said that VOA employees were notified in an email by Crystal Thomas, the USAGM human resources director.
A source told CBS that all freelance workers and international contractors were told there was now no money to pay them.
Emails obtained by CBS notified the bosses of Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that their federal grants had been terminated.
VOA and other stations under USAGM say they serve more than 400 million listeners. They are broadly equivalent to the BBC World Service, which is part-funded by the British government.
The Czech Republic's Foreign Minister, Jan Lipavský, said he hoped the European Union could help keep Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty running in Prague.
He said he would ask European foreign ministers at a meeting on Monday to find ways to at least partially maintain the broadcaster's operations.
Elon Musk, the billionaire and top adviser to Trump who has been overseeing sweeping cuts to the US government, has used his social media platform X to call for VOA to be shut down.
The US president also cut funding to several other federal agencies - including those responsible for preventing homelessness, and funding museums and libraries.
Trump was highly critical of VOA in his first term. He has recently appointed staunch loyalist Kari Lake to be a special adviser for the USAGM.
The president regularly states that mainstream media outlets are biased against him. He called CNN and MSNBC "corrupt" during a speech at the justice department.
Voice of America launched in 1942 with a mandate to combat Nazi and Japanese propaganda. Its first broadcast - made on a transmitter loaned to the US by the BBC - stated a modest purpose.
Gerald Ford, a former president, signed VOA's public charter in 1976 to safeguard its editorial independence.
By 1994, the Broadcast Board of Governors, with oversight over non-military broadcasting, was established.
In 2013, a shift in legislation allowed VOA and affiliates to begin broadcasting in the US.
Forever 21 could be a step closer to shutting down operations in the US after the brand's operating company filed for bankruptcy protection.
The firm said in a statement that its stores and website in the US will remain open as it "begins its process of winding down".
Forever 21 was once a favourite of young women around the world, but it has struggled to attract customers to its shops because of rising prices and the growing popularity of online shopping.
The company filed for bankruptcy protection for the first time in 2019, but a group of investors ended up buying it through a joint venture.
"We have been unable to find a sustainable path forward, given competition from foreign fast-fashion companies... as well as rising costs, economic challenges impacting our core customers," Brad Sell, the company's chief financial officer said in a statement.
The firm said it would conduct liquidation sales at its stores and that some or all of its assets would be sold in a court-supervised process.
"In the event of a successful sale, the Company may pivot away from a full wind-down of operations," the firm's statement said.
Chapter 11 protection postpones a US company's obligations to its creditors, giving it time to reorganise its debts or sell parts of the business.
Forever 21's shops and e-commerce platforms outside of the US are operated by other licence-holders and will not be affected by the bankruptcy protection filing.
The fast-fashion retailer was founded in Los Angeles in 1984 by South Korean immigrants.
Its inexpensive, trendy clothes and accessories became increasingly popular with young people over the next few decades and the brand became a competitor of fast-fashion giants such as Zara and H&M.
At its peak in 2016, there were 800 Forever 21 shops around the world, 500 of which were located in the US.
Made in Canada.
Three words that are now a common presence on Canadian shelves, after Donald Trump's tariffs sparked a trade war with the US's northern neighbour.
In Canada the economic measures against it have been met with a wave of patriotism, with some consumers and businesses boycotting American products.
Others with operations in the US face a choice - ride out the uncertainty or bring their enterprise back home.
"Right now, I'm a little angry. I don't want to invest in American companies," says Joanna Goodman, owner of Au Lit Fine Linens, a Toronto-based bedding and nightwear company.
"It's about having your eggs in one basket. And right now, that basket is very reckless and very precarious," she continues.
On a tour around one of her firm's two stores, housed in a giant warehouse, Ms Goodman highlights elegantly made-up beds, mannequins in silk pyjamas, and shelves full of sweet-smelling candles – most of it made in Canada.
But one fifth of the stock currently comes from the US. Ms Goodman is quick to point out, "you see how big the store is, so even 20% is a lot".
"I have a lot of inventory here of American brands that I've had relationships with for 20 years. I'm not going to throw it away," she says. "The question is, will I reorder?"
To show Au Lit Fine Linens' commitment to Canadian manufacturers, its stores now highlight everything that is Canadian made. This is mirrored on its website, which has a "shop all made in Canada" section, and says "made right here at home".
From Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, to the Ukraine war, global events in recent years have given rise to a more recent phenomenon – reshoring.
Bringing business operations back to home shores, it is the reversal of offshoring.
Business leader and recently-appointed new member of Canada's Senate, Sandra Pupatello, says that reshoring is "really obvious" to support.
Pupatello, who had previously been Ontario's Minister of Economic Development and Trade, points to the Covid-19 pandemic, when rules of trade "went right out the window".
She specifically cites the example of US mask manufacturer 3M coming under pressure from the White House in 2020 to halt exports to Canada and Latin America.
In that moment Pupatello thought: "We've got to be prepared for the worst".
Shortly after, she established Reshoring Canada, a non-partisan group advocating for a more resilient supply chain in Canada.
Pupatello tells the BBC: "If the going gets tough, Canada is on its own. And if we know that's the case, let us plan for it."
A Canadian government report from last year found that there had "not been signs of either large-scale or any notable increased reshoring by businesses", but things could now be changing.
Ray Brougham has been trying to make inroads into the Canadian car manufacturing sector since establishing his company Rainhouse Manufacturing Canada in 2001. Based in British Columbia, it manufactures parts for a number of industries.
The North American car industry's integrated supply chains can see parts crossing the borders between the US, Mexico, and Canada multiple times before a vehicle is finally assembled.
US President Donald Trump said he would temporarily spare US carmakers from a new 25% import tax imposed on Canada and Mexico, just a day after the tariffs came into effect in March.
But in the shadow of a trade war, Mr Brougham says he has had "good communications" with a large Canadian auto parts company for the first time ever. "All of a sudden they are interested in working closer with other Canadian companies."
For Mr Brougham and others, the benefits of reshoring are clear. From giving a leg up to small companies that have struggled to compete with manufacturers overseas, to ensuring fair wages, and the environmental benefits of importing and exporting fewer goods.
Others, including Graham Markham, director of a food sector supplier, believe it's about adding value to products Canada already produces.
His Canadian firm New Protein International is currently constructing Canada's first soy protein manufacturing plant in southwest Ontario, just miles from the US border.
Canada is the world's fourth-largest exporter of the crop, but most of it is processed overseas.
"We don't process those value-added ingredients into more valuable ingredients here at home," says Mr Markham.
From critical minerals and uranium to lumber and soybeans, he argues that this is the moment to change.
"Canada has long been a successful supplier of raw materials to the world. The opportunity now is to stop exporting the job creation and innovation that comes from processing those materials domestically."
So, could manufacturing start coming back to Canada? Economist Randall Bartlett says it is too early to tell.
"There's a lot more smoke than there is fire when it comes to actual reorganisation of supply chains and moving them domestically," says Mr Bartlett, senior director of Canadian economics at Quebec-based Desjardins.
"I think there has been some movement toward reshoring, but I think there's a lot more narrative around it than there is actual re-establishing of manufacturing capacity."
There are major hurdles too.
The highly-integrated auto industry, for example, would take years to untangle. Reshoring it would require "many tens of hundreds of billions of dollars in both private and public sector investment to make happen", according to Mr Bartlett.
Then there's the reality of global trade.
"Some countries are better at producing some things than other countries are," Mr Bartlett says, suggesting that rather than a full reshoring push, diversifying Canada's trade partners might be more practical.
He says that Canada should focus on "those industries where we have a comparative advantage", which he says include renewable energy and processing steel and aluminium. Those two metals have now been hit with a 25% tariff if they are exported to the US.
Back at Au Lit Fine Linens in Toronto, Joanna Goodman steps into a vast stockroom, filled with the sound of carboard boxes being packed.
"We're shipping orders to the US that came in pre-tariffs," she explains, before pausing. "We did get an order the day of the tariffs starting, and it was a very decent-sized order."
She says that she doesn't know whether the US buyer understands that tariffs will now apply. "He has to ask Mr Trump [why]".
As for what comes next? "These tariffs could be gone any day. Let's see how it all unfolds, then we'll start making decisions," says Ms Goodman.
Like many Canadian businesses, she's waiting for the dust to settle before deciding where to buy, where to sell, and what Made in Canada really means for the future.
The former Google and Yahoo executive believes AI should simplify our lives but warns the real battle for the future will be determined by how the US and China embrace this technology.
Marissa Mayer has spent her career at the centre of some of Silicon Valley's biggest moments. She was among Google's earliest employees and its first female engineer, helping to shape the search engine's user experience. She played a key role in many of the company's other now well-known products including maps and Gmail during her 13 years there. Later she would spend five-years as Yahoo's CEO and president, leading the company during a particularly challenging period. Throughout her career, Mayer has always been drawn to the intersection of technology and consumer experience.
Recently, she's been tackling a new challenge at Sunshine, her AI-driven startup focused on making everyday tasks more seamless, starting with managing users' phone contacts and reminding them about birthdays. The company's latest AI-powered photo sharing app reflects Mayer's broader vision for how technology can enhance personal connections and interactions.
"I'm a techno-optimist," Mayer tells the BBC. "I believe that AI, when applied thoughtfully, can free up time, strengthen relationships and ultimately bring more joy."
Over the years, Mayer has served on the boards of companies including Walmart and AT&T while also backing startups such as Minted and Square. In 2018, a year after resigning from Yahoo following the sale of its operating business to Verizon for $4.48bn (£3.6bn), Mayer co-founded Lumi Labs with former colleague Enrique Muñoz Torres, with the ambition of bringing AI to everyday consumer tasks. The company rebranded in 2020 as Sunshine after unveiling its first product, Sunshine Contacts, which aimed to use AI to rearrange smartphone users' contacts, delete duplicates and keep information up-to-date. Later it would launch Sunshine Birthdays, which promised to help avoid missing someone's birthday ever again by reminding users and allowing them to order gifts or cards within the app.
The company has since pivoted to Shine: Photo Messaging, a free AI-powered app that claims to help users organise and share photos with facial recognition and automation. It's focused on recognising friends in photos and understanding who was together – whether for a BBQ, wedding or baseball game – by using contacts, location data and facial recognition to cluster images and automatically share them without the usual hassle. Still, like many AI-driven platforms, particularly those using facial recognition, the concept raises questions about data privacy and storage. (The company's website says it puts privacy first by requiring user consent before sharing photos but does store data and disclose certain information to third parties but does not sell it).
Although she sees AI's potential to make people's lives easier, Mayer acknowledges there are challenges ahead, particularly when it comes to regulation, consumer trust, and ethical oversight of this emerging technology.
Mayer spoke to the BBC about her vision for Sunshine, the evolving role of AI in daily life and what keeps her up at night.
After spending years running Yahoo and parts of Google, how did you decide what you wanted to do next?
I always wanted to be an entrepreneur and try founding something. I've always thought about how technology can bring people closer together and give people more time back. There were lots of things I loved about Google Search for the decade that I ran it, and one was giving people information and their time back because search was better, faster and more efficient. When I founded Sunshine, I really wanted to think about how we could make people's relationships stronger, and how people could spend less time on the screen tapping on things, and more time with each other doing things that are of higher value.
What do you make of big tech's close relationship with President Donald Trump's administration?
I'm by no means a political expert. So, I think that's an area I'm really remiss to comment on. I know overall I respect a lot of the players who are in the space and in that political dialogue on both sides. But I think it's really hard to say… particularly in the tech space where things are moving so quickly.
Are you concerned about tariffs on trade and imports impacting your company? For example, a memo signed by President Donald Trump recently promised to impose tariffs on digital services from countries that placed burdensome regulations on US technology companies.
I think eventually it may touch the company, but right now we're very focused on the US and English-speaking markets – and it's all digital goods. At the moment, I think the tariffs are unlikely to affect us.
You've long been one of the more prominent female leaders in tech. How do you view the progress made for women in the industry? What are some of the biggest remaining challenges there?
A lot has happened over the past 25 years of my career. I've been lucky to have been at places that are very empowering to women. That was true both at Google and Yahoo and it certainly is at Sunshine. It's also been true in my board work within those companies. I would like to see more women entering tech. It involves acquiring talent and retaining talent by having the right environment where they can be promoted and thrive. One of the things we identified early at Google was that, yes, there needs to be more women, but you also need to have an environment with men who are good at working with women. It's about selecting for an accepting environment.
Silicon Valley has long been associated with a "tech bro" culture. How have you seen the culture evolve over time?
At Google, we were so focused… that gender really did fade into the background. I didn't think about the fact that I was one of a few technical women there. In my leadership team at Yahoo, we had more than half women. Here at Sunshine, more than half of our engineers are women. I've always been in playing fields where I think women have been really respected and very much on equal footing, even if we weren't at equal numbers. From that perspective, I didn't necessarily have a hard time because I started my career at Google and was there for the first 13 years. A lot of strong women came out of that culture… including Jen Fitzpatrick [senior VP of core systems and experiences], who's very senior there now, and Sheryl Sandberg [former chief operating officer at Meta].
What did you learn during your time at Yahoo and Google that you're bringing over to Sunshine?
So many things. I will say that focus on the product and a great user experience at the center of the design and development process has been part of all the companies I've been involved with. It's a very centering force. It's what really drives our ambition… and turns out superior technologies.
You joined Yahoo at a time when it faced challenges in innovation and competition. What do you believe was your greatest accomplishment there?
On the product side, I came to Yahoo to bring the company into the mobile era. When I arrived, we basically had no mobile products… and less than 30 global engineers in the company of 18,000. In fairness to Yahoo, it was 2012. I had really sold the board on the idea that much of what Yahoo had in its arsenal was stock, sports scores, news, weather, email and things that could thrive on the phone. But to do that, we had to build a mobile team.
The first half of my time there – two and a half years – we had 600 mobile engineers. Apple identified us as the biggest iOS shop in the world. We won back-to-back app of the year awards – when Apple was only giving one a year – for Yahoo weather and Yahoo user Digest. We transformed that product suite and really brought it into the mobile era and ultimately started generating almost $2bn (£1.6bn). And part of that was the growth of mobile. So I'm really proud of what we accomplished in terms of the product offering and making it mobile first.
How does Shine differentiate itself in a marketplace crowded with photo sharing services?
For the first few years at Sunshine, we worked on contacts and built what I believe is a best-of-breed contacts app. We are really overall excited about it, but it is not viral. No one walks around saying, oh my gosh, my contact manager is so great. So this past year, we've pivoted and gone to something in the space that everyone else is more passionate about, and that's photos and events. But it's the same idea… how do you apply AI to everyday tasks? How can these technologies bring people closer together and give them time back?
Tell us how Shine does that for photos.
Right now, we're really focused on how we can help people share photos more efficiently by recognising your friends in photos and making it easier to share in small groups. If you're just going to share a photo person-to-person, you can text. If you want to share it with hundreds of people, there's always Instagram and Threads. But if you actually want to take a whole set of photos from [an experience] and then share it with anywhere from five to a few hundred people, that almost certainly involves cross-platforms between iOS and Android, which means neither Google Photos nor Apple Photos is really often the right solution for that group.
It's often so much trouble that people just don't share the photos at all. So it's taking things like facial recognition, an understanding of your contacts and location and really trying to put together a whole picture of: who is this group, why were they together, and how would they want to share that photo.
As an AI startup, do you worry about AI regulations?
Partnerships between the government and thought leaders on both sides, both pessimists and optimists, are going to be absolutely critical. Even experts and people who are trying to stay apprised of everything, and really understand where things are and where they're going, have blind spots. It's very hard right now to keep up. I worry that sometimes we [in the US] get into a mindset that's very isolationist, thinking just about the US or the West. We don't necessarily think about the fact that there are a lot of AI technologies being developed elsewhere – in China in particular. They may have very different value systems than what we have. If we pump the brakes too hard with regulation and regulate this innovation, I don't think that same slowing will happen there.
I think DeepSeek makes the point more obvious now. The real competition in terms of how AI is developed and adopted is between the US and China, not between any two companies. Inherent to the US-China AI competition is a tension between the common good and individual liberties, particularly in terms of how the AI is used. Which country is the leader in the AI space will fundamentally impact our global future. This isn't necessarily a values-based statement about which is better, but it raises questions like whether AI should prioritise public safety through large-scale surveillance or uphold strict privacy protections even at the risk of reduced oversight.
Where do you think we'll be with AI in the next year or even five to 10 years?
I'm incredibly optimistic about AI. I hope that it touches most of what we do. There's an adage that people tend to overestimate the short term and underestimate the long term, and that's true generally in technology. I remember being five and watching the Jetsons and being like, wow, when I'm 30 they'll be flying cars. I'll be almost 50... and we're well past that mark and nowhere close to a safe flying car yet, but they are getting closer all the time.
At the same time, when I was five, the internet didn't even exist. It has really transformed everything in terms of how we work, learn and navigate the world. AI is moving very fast. I wonder if this is going to be one of the first technologies that breaks that adage where it actually might surpass our expectations in the near term. I certainly think it's going to surpass our expectations in the longer term in terms of what it can do and what can happen.
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The US has averted a government shutdown after the Senate passed a Republican-led measure to keep the government funded for the next six months.
The stopgap funding bill passed in the Senate 54-46, as two Democrats joined all but one Republican senator in voting yes. President Donald Trump had signed it into law, a White House spokesman said on Saturday.
The key vote came earlier when some Senate Democrats, after fierce debate, allowed the measure to pass a procedural hurdle.
The Senate minority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, and nine others broke with their colleagues to vote to advance the bill to its final Friday evening vote.
The boss of online clothing brand Snag has told the BBC it gets more than 100 complaints a day that the models in its adverts are "too fat".
Chief executive Brigitte Read says models of her size 4-38 clothing are frequently the target of "hateful" posts about their weight.
The brand was cited in an online debate over whether adverts showing "unhealthily fat" models should be banned after a Next advert, in which a model appeared "unhealthily thin", was banned.
The UK's advertising watchdog says it has banned ads using models who appear unhealthily underweight rather than overweight due to society's aspiration towards thinness.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received 61 complaints about models' weight in 2024, with the vast majority being about models who appeared to be too thin.
But it only had grounds to investigate eight complaints and none were about Snag.
Catherine Thom read the BBC report about the Next advert ban and got in touch to say she found it "hypocritical to ban adverts where models appear too thin for being socially irresponsible, however when models are clearly obese we're saying it's body positivity".
The 36-year-old from Edinburgh was one of several people who contacted the BBC with this view, while a Reddit thread had more than 1,000 comments with many along the same theme.
Mrs Thom says she was "bombarded with images of obese girls in tights" after buying from Snag when she was pregnant.
"I see Snag tights plastering these morbidly obese people all over social media," she says.
"How is that allowed when the photo of the Next model isn't? There should be fairness, not politically correct body positivity. Adverts normalising an unhealthy weight, be it obese or severely underweight, are equally as harmful."
'Fat phobia'
But Snag founder Ms Read says: "Shaming fat people does not help them to lose weight and actually it really impacts mental health and therefore their physical health."
She thinks the idea of banning adverts showing models with bigger bodies is a symptom of society's "fat phobia".
Of her 100 staff, 12 are dedicated "just to remove negative comments and big up those promoting body positivity".
"Fat people exist, they're equally as valid as thin people, they buy clothes and they need to see what they look like on people that look like them," she says.
"You are not worth less the bigger you are. Models of all sizes, shapes, ethnicities and abilities are valid and should be represented."
Sophie Scott is a 27-year-old salon owner from Lossiemouth in Scotland who has modelled for Snag, and received positive and negative comments about her size on social media.
"I get either 'you're so beautiful' or 'you need to lose weight'. When I started modelling I was a size 30. Having lost weight since then I'm still on the receiving end of hate comments because it will never be enough for some people."
Sophie is used to online comments telling her she is "unhealthy", but says, "fitness is not measured by the way you look. They are making assumptions, they don't know me or my activity levels.
"People say 'you're glorifying obesity' but I don't think anyone is looking at me and saying 'I want to look like that'. Perhaps some people are looking at me and saying 'she has a similar body type to me'.
"When I get a message from someone saying 'we are the same size and you've inspired me to wear what I want', it takes away from every hate comment I get.
"If I've helped one person accept their body then the hate comments don't really bother me."
Fashion journalist Victoria Moss believes the "depressing" debate shows society is not used to seeing bigger bodies in advertising campaigns.
"You'd be pretty hard pushed to find genuine plus-size models on retailers' websites because even a mid-size is a 10/12 and plus is 14/16 which is actually around the average size for a woman in the UK," she says.
"The issue with adverts showing very small or very big models is the context and the provocation. We know people with eating disorders seek out images of very thin people as 'thinspiration'. But if anyone sees a picture of a bigger person they're not going to drive to buy 10 McDonald's to try to get fatter."
Jess Tye at the ASA told the BBC the watchdog gets about 35,000 complaints a year about all advertising, and in 2024 received 61 complaints about 52 adverts relating to the model's weight.
She says an advert will be investigated if it could be seen to be encouraging people to aspire to an unhealthy body weight. Adverts simply promoting body confidence and using a model who is relevant to the product's size range would not be investigated.
"It's to do with the wider societal context. We know in the UK currently society tends to view thinness as aspirational and that's not the case for being overweight."
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said his Starship rocket will head to Mars by the end of next year, as the company investigates several recent explosions in flight tests.
Human landings could begin as early as 2029 if initial missions go well, though "2031 was more likely", he added in a post on his social media platform X.
Starship - the largest rocket ever created standing at 123m - is crucial to Musk's ambitions to colonise the planet Mars.
However it has suffered multiple failures in tests - one of the rockets exploded minutes after it was launched from Texas as part of a test last week, the second failure this year after a similar "rapid unscheduled disassembly" in January.
SpaceX said it would review data "to better understand [the] root cause" of the most recent explosion and noted it happened after the loss of "several" engines.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the company would be required to conduct an investigation before it could fly again.
Nasa hopes to use a modified version of the spaceship as a human lunar lander for its Artemis missions to return to the Moon.
The tech billionaire has grand designs that the rocket system will one day take humans to the Moon, and then on to Mars, making humans "multi-planetary".
Musk has long targeted a trip to Mars. In 2016, he said he was planning to send his Dragon spacecraft as early as 2018.
The billionaire said in 2020 that he remained confidant that his company would land humans on Mars six years later.
In 2024, he said he would launch the first Starships to Mars in 2026, with plans to send crewed flights in four years.
Musk has said that the coming Mars mission would carry the Tesla humanoid robot "Optimus", which was shown to the public last year.
Musk said the robot would one day be able to perform everyday tasks, and cost between $20,000 and $30,000.
On Friday, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket carrying a crew to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of a plan to bring two astronauts back home.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were due to be on the ISS for only eight days, but because of technical issues with the experimental spacecraft they came on, which was built by Boeing, they have been there for more than nine months.
Think of video games, and you'll probably think of something competitive.
Some of the most popular titles in the world, such as Fortnite and Call of Duty, are focused on outgunning, outrunning or outclassing opponents.
But, as Josef Fares and his studio Hazelight have shown, that's not the only thing gamers want.
His latest, Split Fiction, is a collaborative experience where two players work together to solve puzzles and beat obstacles.
The adventure game has received rave reviews, sold one million copies in 48 hours and is currently among the most-watched titles on streaming platform Twitch.
It's not a one-off. His previous title, It Takes Two, featured similar "couch co-op" gameplay and sold 20 million copies and won a Game of the Year Award.
What draws players to these friendlier experiences?
A report from analytics company Midia Research found that couch co-op was especially popular among people aged 16 to 24.
It surveyed 9,000 gamers worldwide, and said roughly 40% of respondents in the age range reported it was their preferred way to play.
The report said "social play is a key part of gaming for younger consumers," and suggested more developers could look to incorporate collaborative elements.
Co-operative games are also big with streamers - watching players bicker as they try to conquer a new title is a great source of viral moments.
Last year Chained Together, where players work together to escape the depths of hell, was a hit thanks to huge names like Kai Cenat and IShowSpeed getting in on the action.
Couple Melissa and Jonn-Mark, from Middlesbrough, have been uploading clips of themselves playing Split Fiction together to TikTok.
The game centres around fantasy author Zoe and sci-fi writer Mio, who become trapped in simulated versions of their own stories.
Melissa, a keen reader, says the plot appealed to her, but the chance to team up got her invested.
"A lot of the time when you play video games you are isolated from other people and it's just nice to be together, spend that quality time together," Melissa tells Newsbeat.
Jonn-Mark says popular online games are often very competitive, which can be stressful.
"I don't want to have to come home tired and have to focus 100% to just be able to do ok at a game," he says.
"Whereas this one, I can just sit back, relax and just enjoy the experience."
What Hazelight does is unique, but other companies do implement co-op features into their titles.
Guildford-based Supermassive Games, which specialises in "interactive horror movies", made couch co-op a standard mode in its titles after publishing its breakout hit Until Dawn.
They found players were going through the single-player title in groups, passing the pad between them as the narrative - which changes based on choices made in-game - progressed.
Competitive social play is also popular. Some of the best-selling games on Nintendo's Switch system - Mario Kart 8 and the Mario Party series - are frequently played with mates around the TV.
In recent years, developers have tried to replicate the success of games like Fortnite - so-called "live service" titles that constantly update and retain players for months, if not years.
If you get it right, the potential financial rewards are huge, but cutting through in a saturated market is difficult.
And as the video games industry continues to deal with mass layoffs, studio closures and decreased spending on premium games, not many publishers want to take a risk.
Josef believes there may be too much focus on the bottom line.
"Publishers need to step up and really trust the developer," he says.
"But also developers, I think, need to have a clear vision and stick with what they believe in."
He does admit, though, that not everyone has his studio's history, nor his personality.
"I am a - what do you say? - a different breed," says Josef.
When he was directing his first game, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, feedback from some early playtests was "super bad".
"I'm like, they're wrong, they're wrong, because I know it's great," he says.
He's spoken before about resisting pressure to put micro-transactions - in-game purchases - in his projects, and is uncompromising despite his studio's close relationship with EA, one of the world's biggest publishers.
"I don't expect everybody to be like me, but that's me with my extreme confidence," he says.
"What we do, I love it.
"We're sticking to the vision of what we believe in. Stick with the vision, go with it.
"And I think if you really love what you do people love it as well."
Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.
Germany's conservative leader, Friedrich Merz, has clinched an enormous financial package to revamp defence and infrastructure, ahead of a crunch vote in parliament next Tuesday.
Merz, who aims to lead a government with the Social Democrats in the coming weeks, is in a rush to push through a big boost in spending on defence and creaking infrastructure.
After winning elections last month, he said it was his absolute priority to strengthen Europe because President Donald Trump appeared indifferent to its fate.
After 10 hours of talks with the Greens, he said the deal sent a clear message to his country's allies: "Germany is back."
* A big boost in spending on defence, civil protection and intelligence - with spending over 1% of GDP (economic output) exempt from debt restrictions
* A special €500bn (£420bn) infrastructure fund for additional investments over 10 years, including €100bn to cover climate-protection initiatives
* Germany's 16 states will be allowed to borrow up to 0.35% of GDP above the debt limit.
It meant that the government could not borrow more than 0.35% of Germany's gross economic output, while the country's rail and bridge infrastructure creaked from years of underinvestment and ministers tried to boost military spending.
Social Democrat chairman Lars Klingbeil said Friday's agreement sent a "historical signal" for Germany that would make the country stronger and "strengthen Germany's role in Europe too".
Although the Greens were in the old government, they will not be part of Merz's coalition. However, the party was delighted that the €100bn secured for climate funding would go "in the right direction".
Outgoing Greens Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also hailed the defence package as not just making Germany safer but sending "a clear signal to Ukraine, Europe and the world".
Germany was taking responsibility in turbulent times, she added.
AfD co-leader Alice Weidel was less impressed, and accused Merz of bending the constitution and loading future generations with a "gigantic burden".
"This is nothing less than a financial coup," she complained.
* Cutting the level of benefit payments
* Tightening the eligibility for benefits
* Attempting to get people off benefits and into work
Cutting payments
The working-age health and disability benefits bill has certainly been increasing in recent years, and is rising rapidly.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the official forecaster, has projected that total state spending on these benefits for people in the UK aged between 18 and 64 will increase from £48.5bn in 2023-24 to £75.7bn in 2029-30.
That would represent an increase from 1.7% of the size of the UK economy to 2.2%.
By 2030, around half of the expenditure is projected to be on incapacity benefit, which is designed to provide additional income for people whose health limits their ability to work.
The other half is projected to be on Personal Independence Payments (PIP), which are intended to help people of working age with disabilities manage the additional day-to-day costs arising from their disability.
One straightforward way for ministers to curb this projected rise would be to hold payments flat in cash terms, rather than allowing them to rise in line with prices each year.
"Reducing award amounts is the easiest way to get savings in the short term," says Eduin Latimer of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Freezing incapacity benefits in cash terms until 2030 would save £1bn a year, according to the Resolution Foundation.
But you can only receive incapacity benefit if your income and savings are below a certain level, so freezing payments would impact people who are worse off.
Also, people on disability benefits such as PIP are considerably more likely to be in poverty and material deprivation.
Under previous governments between 2014 and 2020, most working-age benefits did not rise in line with inflation - to save money.
And from 2015, more and more people claimed incapacity benefit.
So cutting the value of individual payments might save some money up front, but still not have a dramatic impact on the overall bill in the longer term if claimants continue to rise.
Tighten eligibility
Rather than cutting the value of these benefits for all recipients, the government could seek to save money by making it harder for people to claim them in the first place.
For instance, the previous government had proposed making it harder for people with mental health conditions to claim PIP, arguing that the monthly payment was not proportionate to the additional financial needs created by their conditions.
But it is important to note that efforts to change the eligibility criteria for these benefits over the past 15 years have not yielded the results hoped for.
PIP was introduced in 2013 to replace the old Disability Living Allowance, with the intention it would lead to savings of £1.4bn a year relative to the previous system by reducing the number of people eligible.
PIP was initially projected to reduce the number of claimants by 606,000 (28%) in total.
Yet the reform ended up saving only £100m a year by 2015 and the number of claimants rose by 100,000 (5%).
Another attempt in 2017 to limit access to PIP was also reversed.
The reason was that many people appealed against refusals that had been triggered by the tightened eligibility criteria. Also, the emergence of cases in the media which seemed unfair meant ministers, often under pressure from their own backbench MPs, ultimately ordered the eligibility rules to be relaxed.
Official decisions not to award PIP and incapacity benefit to claimants are still often challenged and around two-thirds are ultimately decided in the challenger's favour at an independent tribunal.
"Britain's chequered history of benefit reform shows that the government should proceed cautiously, rather than rush ahead to find savings which could backfire," says Louise Murphy of the Resolution Foundation.
Encourage work
Another way for the government to try to achieve savings is by encouraging more people to come off these benefits and enter work.
Around 93% of incapacity benefit claimants are not in work and the same is true of 80% of PIP claimants.
One potential route to increase employment rates could be regular reassessments of people in receipt of incapacity benefit and a requirement for them to start looking for jobs if they are found to be fit for work.
The fall in the number of people claiming incapacity benefit in the early 2010s has been attributed by the OBR to reassessments of a large number of people in receipt of an older form of the benefit.
However, an aggressive or onerous reassessment regime could risk imposing distress on people who are unable to work and could also create unexpected distortions in the system.
The OBR has suggested the sanctions introduced to the wider benefits system by the last government, requiring people judged fit to work to be actively looking for employment or risk losing their benefits, had the counterproductive effect of increasing the incentive for people to try to claim incapacity benefits (for which these work-searching requirements did not apply).
Another potential policy avenue to boost employment rates is through providing much greater support to find jobs.
Some advocate increasing government investment in official schemes, working with employers, to help people to enter the workplace.
There have been various schemes designed to achieve this over the past 15 years, though they have not been on a large scale.
Evaluations have shown some positive employment effects from them.
However, the OBR concluded last year that the evidence base was still limited and did not suggest such programmes have, so far, made a "significant contribution" to getting people into work.
That implies the official forecaster may hesitate to assume greater state investment in these schemes will pay for itself through higher employment and tax revenues, and result in net savings in public expenditure.
Nevertheless, some experts argue it would make sense for the government to re-assess more regularly whether people in receipt of health and disability benefits are still unable to work and - if their circumstances are found to have changed - to provide them with additional support to get into the workforce.
"Not doing reassessments and work-focused interviews definitely makes things worse," says Jonathan Portes, a former chief economist at the Department for Work & Pensions.
Correction 17 March: an earlier version of this article wrongly stated the percentage of claimants' appeals upheld, based on DWP appeals. The article has been updated to reflect the full proportion, upheld at independent tribunal.
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Early life and childhood
Although Carney has travelled the globe, working in places like New York, London and Tokyo, he was born in the remote northern town of Fort Smith, in the Northwest Territories.
With three out of four grandparents hailing from County Mayo in Ireland, Carney holds both Irish and Canadian citizenship. He got British citizenship in 2018, but recently said he intends to relinquish his British and Irish citizenship because he thinks the prime minister should only hold Canadian citizenship.
The son of a high-school principal, he went to Harvard University on scholarship where he played the most Canadian of sports, ice hockey.
In 1995, he earned his PhD in economics from Oxford University, where he wrote his thesis on whether domestic competition can make an economy more nationally competitive - a subject that is sure to come up as Canada works to make internal trade easier in the face of American tariffs.
"Mark was an extraordinarily versatile student, rapidly mastering new approaches, perspectives and challenges," recalled his former doctoral supervisor Meg Meyer, in a press release sent by the university after Carney won the leadership race.
"These skills will undoubtedly serve him well as he leads Canada during these turbulent times."
Previous experience
In 2003, he left the private sector to join the Bank of Canada as a deputy governor, then worked for the Department of Finance as senior associate deputy minister.
In 2007, he was appointed governor of the Bank of Canada, shortly before global markets crashed, sending the country into a deep recession. His leadership at the central bank is widely praised for helping the country avoid the worst of the crisis.
Although central bankers are notoriously circumspect, he was open about his intentions to keep interest rates low for at least a year, after dramatically cutting them.
That move would be credited for helping businesses keep investing even when the markets sank. He would go on to take a similar approach when he was lured back to London - this time as the governor of the Bank of England.
He is credited with modernising the Bank, appearing much more frequently in the media than his predecessor.
In 2015, the Bank reduced the number of interest rate meetings from 12 to eight a year, and started publishing minutes alongside the announcement of interest rate decisions.
Interest rates were anchored at historic lows when he took over, but he introduced a policy of "forward guidance", where the Bank would try to further support the economy and encourage lending by pledging not to raise rates until unemployment fell below 7%.
Confusion about this policy saw an MP compare him to an "unreliable boyfriend", a moniker that stuck around long after the original controversy died down.
Unlike previous governors who generally kept a low profile, he made controversial interventions ahead of two big constitutional referendums.
In 2014 he warned that an independent Scotland might have to surrender powers to the UK if it wanted to continue using the pound.
Before the Brexit referendum, he warned that a vote to leave the EU could spark a recession.
In the wake of the leave vote, after David Cameron resigned as prime minister and the pound plunged, he addressed the nation in a bid to reassure the country that the financial system would operate as normal.
He described it as his "toughest day" on the job, but said the contingency plans the Bank put in place worked effectively.
The Bank later cut interest rates from 0.5% to 0.25% - and restarted its quantitative easing programme to support the economy.
His final week in March 2020 saw the start of the acutest phase of the Covid pandemic - the Bank cut rates by 0.5% to support the economy, and Carney told the country that the economic shock "should be temporary".
Crossing paths with Trump
Carney's time at the Bank gave him plenty of experience dealing with Donald Trump - who has not only imposed steep tariffs on Canada since returning to office in January, but has also suggested that America should annex its less powerful neighbour.
From 2011-18, Carney was chair of the Financial Stability Board, which co-ordinated the work of regulatory authorities around the world, giving him a key role in the global response to the policies of the first Trump presidency.
He was a regular at the G20 meetings, with a pitch-side view of Trump on the global stage.
Although he kept his thoughts on the US president to himself at the time, he has been much more frank in recent days.
After Trump made repeated comments about making Canada the 51st state, he was less diplomatic, comparing him to the villain in the Harry Potter books.
"When you think about what's at stake in these ridiculous, insulting comments of the president, of what we could be, I view this as the sort of Voldemort of comments," Carney said.
"Like I will not even repeat it, but you know what I'm talking about."
He seems prepared to dig in his heels as the trade war continues, noting he would continue to impose counter-tariffs "until the Americans show us respect … and [make] credible and reliable commitments to free and fair trade".
Political ambitions
The Liberals have reportedly courted him for a decade, but until recently the 59-year-old had brushed off the idea.
"Why don't I become a circus clown?" he told a reporter in 2012.
Things changed, however, when Trudeau stepped down in January after his finance minister, Chrystia Freeland quit his cabinet, sparking a party squabble that, coupled with Trudeau's tanking poll numbers, led the prime minister to announce his resignation.
Reports suggested Trudeau had intended to replace Freeland with Carney in the finance post.
Freeland - a personal friend - even ran against him in the race to replace Trudeau. But Carney won by a landslide, pitching himself as the best equipped to take on Trump, who has imposed steep tariffs on Canadians goods.
"I know how to manage crises," Carney said during a leadership debate late last month. "In a situation like this, you need experience in terms of crisis management, you need negotiating skills."
Still, his time in the world of finance has opened him up to criticism from political rivals in Canada.
The Conservatives have accused Carney of lying about his role in moving investment firm Brookfield Asset Management's head office from Toronto to New York, though Carney says the recent formal decision to relocate the firm was made after he quit the board.
They have also pushed him to disclose his financial assets, which Carney currently does not need to do as he is not an elected member of parliament.
His team has said he will comply with all applicable ethics rules and guidelines once he is prime minister.
Where does Carney stand on issues?
In addition to Carney's get-tough-on-Trump approach, he has proposed a number of policies to address at-home issues as well.
He is known as an advocate for environmental sustainability. In 2019 he became a UN special envoy for climate change, and in 2021 launched the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, a grouping of banks and financial institutions working to combat climate change.
One of the most contentious parts of Trudeau's platform has been the carbon tax, which saw Canadians pay a tax on carbon emissions, and receive a rebate. Conservatives repeatedly promised to end the tax, which they say does little for the environment.
Shortly after being sworn in, Carney signed an order-in-council scrapping the tax from 1 April. "This will make a difference to hard-pressed Canadians," he said.
On immigration, Carney has advocated for a cap on current immigration targets, in order to ensure that Canada's housing and healthcare systems are not stressed. The issue had come to the fore last year, with Trudeau lowering targets amid critics saying the country's immigration system was overrun.
His biggest mission, he had said, will be to keep Canada's economy growing, despite slowed trade with the US.
There are early signs that Carney's rhetoric is being well received - a recent poll, conducted before Carney became PM, indicated Canadians believe Carney is better able to deal with Trump than Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
Elon Musk's electric carmaker Tesla has warned it and other US exporters could be harmed by countries retaliating to Donald Trump's trade tariffs.
Mr Musk is a close ally of the US president and is leading efforts to reduce the size of the federal government.
But in an unsigned letter addressed to the US trade representative, Tesla said while it "supports" fair trade it was concerned US exporters were "exposed to disproportionate impacts" if other countries retaliated to tariffs.
The letter was dated the same day that Trump hosted an event at the White House where he promised to buy a Tesla in a show of support for Mr Musk.
It is unclear who at Tesla wrote the letter as it is unsigned, or if Mr Musk was aware of it.
Tesla's share price has dropped 40% since the start of the year. Mr Musk is the carmaker's chief executive and while some have argued his alignment with the Trump administration is hurting its brand, market analysts say the share fall is more about worries over Tesla meeting production targets and a drop in sales over the past year.
In the letter, Tesla said it was making changes to its supply chains to find as many local suppliers for its cars and batteries so it was less reliant on foreign markets.
"None the less," it warned, "even with aggressive localisation of the supply chain, certain parts and components are difficult or impossible to source within the US."
The US president has imposed an additional 20% tariff on all imports from China, prompting Beijing to respond with retaliatory levies including on cars. China is Tesla's second biggest market after the US.
"For example, past trade actions by the United States have resulted in immediate reactions by the targeted countries, including increased tariffs on EVs imported into those countries," the letter reads.
The EU and Canada have both threatened sweeping retaliations for tariffs on steel and aluminium imports into the US, which went into effect earlier this week.
Demonstrators have targeted Tesla showrooms in recent weeks in protest against Mr Musk's cost-cutting role in Trump's administration, where he is head of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
Earlier this week, Trump hosted an event at the White House where he said people protesting against Tesla should be labelled domestic terrorists, while sitting in the driver's seat of a brand new red Tesla that he said he planned to buy.
Trump said demonstrators were "harming a great American company", and anyone using violence against the electric carmaker would "go through hell".
Apple's encrypted data case against the UK government has begun in secret at the Royal Courts of Justice.
The Home Office has demanded the right to access data from Apple users that have turned on Advanced Data Protection (ADP), a tool that prevents anyone other than the user - including the tech giant - from reading their files.
Apple says it is important for privacy - but the UK government says it needs to be able to access data if there is a national security risk.
The BBC - along with civil liberties groups and some US politicians - argue the case should be heard in public.
But Friday's session of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal - which is hearing the matter - was held behind closed doors.
It is not clear whether later phases of the case will be opened to the public - the BBC has submitted a written argument that it should be.
As well as the BBC, journalists from the Guardian, the Telegraph, PA, Bloomberg, and Computer Weekly attended the Royal Courts of Justice but were not admitted into the court room.
Sir James Eadie KC, who previously represented the government in significant cases such as Shamima Begum's citizenship appeal, was seen entering the hearing.
On Thursday, five US politicians from across the political divide urged the court to remove what they call the "cloak of secrecy" surrounding the row - which they say has major security implications.
A group of civil liberties groups made a similar plea, saying barring the media would be an "affront to the global privacy and security issues that are being discussed."
Security v Privacy
The case is about balancing national security against privacy rights.
ADP is end to end encrypted, meaning no-one can access files that have been secured with it apart from their owner.
Other end to end encrypted services in the UK include Signal, Meta's WhatsApp, and Apple's iMessage.
In February, it emerged the UK government was seeking the right to be able to access data protected in this way using powers granted to it under the Investigatory Powers Act.
The Act allows it to compel firms to provide information to law enforcement agencies.
Apple responded by pulling ADP in the UK and then launching legal action to challenge the government's demand.
Apple says agreeing to what the UK is asking for it would require the creation of a so-called backdoor, a capability critics say would eventually be exploited by hackers.
"As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services and we never will," Apple says on its website.
The Home Office has previously told the BBC: "The UK has a longstanding position of protecting our citizens from the very worst crimes, such as child sex abuse and terrorism, at the same time as protecting people's privacy.
"The UK has robust safeguards and independent oversight to protect privacy and privacy is only impacted on an exceptional basis, in relation to the most serious crimes and only when it is necessary and proportionate to do so."
The price of gold has hit the $3,000 per ounce mark for the first time as demand for the precious metal surges amid economic uncertainty over the impact of a global trade war.
Gold touched a record $3,004.86 per ounce on Friday, with prices having risen by 14% since the start of 2025.
Gold is seen as a safer asset for investors and is often sought after in times of economic instability.
The escalating trade war between the US and many of its largest trading partners has unsettled financial markets and raised concerns about the impact on economies and consumers across the world.
The introduction of tariffs, which are taxes charged on businesses importing goods from overseas, has fuelled fears of price inflation, which has driven investors to gold.
When tariffs are imposed on goods, businesses face extra costs, which could be passed on through the price tags of the products sold to consumers - increasing the cost of living.
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump threatened a 200% tariff on any alcohol coming to the US from the European Union (EU) in the latest twist of the trade war.
The announcement was in response to the EU's plans for a 50% tax on imports of US-produced whiskey as part of the bloc's first retaliation to Trump's blanket tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports to the US from any country.
The US president has also raised levies on Chinese imports into the US to at least 20%.
"In a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty and ongoing tariff changes, appetite for gold remains strong," said Suki Cooper, a precious metals analyst at Standard Chartered.
Victoria Hasler, head of fund research at Hargreaves Lansdown, suggested there were two main drivers behind the gold price at present.
"Between Trump's tariffs and social media comments and the ongoing tensions in both the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine, uncertainty is high and seems to be rising," she said.
"Markets hate uncertainty. This dynamic has helped to drive the gold price to new highs."
The second big driver was central banks buying up gold, Ms Hasler said, but the exact reasons for this were difficult to determine. "It's probably safe to assume that at least part of the reason is a desire to diversify reserves away from US dollars.
"Both of the above drivers remain intact and I can't see them diminishing in the near future."
Peaks and troughs of the gold price have occurred at some of the key moments in economic history. At the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2007, investors bought gold as a haven asset, which led to a rise in its price.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, cited World Gold Council figures, which showed central banks had added some 1,045 tonnes of gold to their reserves last year - the third year in a row more than 1,000 tonnes had been bought.
He said we were in an "era in which gold is really starting to shine".
Since the metal dipped below $1,200 an ounce in late 2018, Mr Mould said prices had "marched inexorably higher", driven by several factors including the Covid pandemic and higher government deficits pushing investors to "warm to gold once more".
"Quite which of these issues is now the main driver of gold's renaissance is hard to divine, especially as Donald Trump's tariffs are prompting a debate about how inflationary (or stagflationary) they may prove to be, and how effective they may be at funding the new US President's hoped-for tax cuts," he said.
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Donald Trump's return to the White House is a "major blow to global climate action". So said Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief, after he was elected in November.
Since taking office, Trump has withdrawn the US from what is considered the most important global climate pact, the Paris Climate Agreement. He has also reportedly prevented US scientists from participating in international climate research and removed national electric vehicle targets.
Plus, he derided his predecessor's attempts to develop new green technology a "green new scam".
And yet despite his history on the issue of climate, Trump has been eager to make a deal with the Ukrainian president on critical minerals. He has also taken a strong interest in Greenland and Canada – both nations rich in critical minerals.
Critical mineral procurement has been a major focus for Trump since he took office. These minerals are crucial in industries including aerospace and defence, but intriguingly, they have another major use too - to manufacture green technology.
So, could Trump's focus on obtaining these minerals have a knock-on effect, and help unlock the US's potential in the green technology sector?
The Elon Musk effect?
Trump's right-hand man understands more than most the importance of critical minerals in the green transition. Space X and Tesla – the companies Elon Musk leads - rely heavily on critical minerals like graphite (in electric vehicles), lithium (in batteries) and nickel (in rockets).
Elizabeth Holley, an associate professor of mining engineering at Colorado School of Mines, explains that each nation has its own list of critical minerals, but they are generally made up of rare earths and other metals like lithium.
She says demand is booming - in 2023, demand for lithium grew by 30%. This is being driven mostly by the rapid growth in the clean energy and electric vehicle sectors.
Within two decades, they will make up almost 90% of the demand for lithium, 70% of the demand for cobalt, and 40% for rare earths, according to the International Energy Agency.
Such has been Musk's concern with getting hold of some of these minerals that three years ago he tweeted: "Price of lithium has gone to insane levels! Tesla might actually have to get into the mining & refining directly at scale, unless costs improve."
He went on to write that there is no shortage of the element, but the pace of extraction is slow.
The US position in the global race
The weakness of the US position in rare earths and critical minerals (such as cobalt and nickel) was addressed in a report published by a US Government Select Committee in December 2023. It said: "The United States must rethink its policy approach to critical mineral and rare earth element supply chains because of the risks posed by our current dependence on the People's Republic of China."
Failure to do so, it warned, could cause "defense production to grind to a halt and choke off manufacturing of other advanced technologies".
China's dominance in the market has come from its early recognition of the economic opportunities that green technology offers.
"China made a decision about 10 years ago about where the trend was going and has strategically pursued the development of not just renewables but also electric vehicles and now dominates the market," says Bob Ward, policy director at The London School of Economics (LSE) Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
Daisy Jennings-Gray, head of prices at price reporting agency Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, explains that they are critical minerals because they are geologically restricted. "You cannot guarantee you will have economically recoverable reserves in every country."
Some minerals like lithium are abundant on Earth, but often they are located in difficult to reach places, so the logistics of a mining project can be very expensive. In other cases, there is dependency on one country that produces a large share of global supply – like cobalt from the the Democratic Republic of Congo. This means that if there is a natural disaster or political unrest it has an impact on the price, says Ms Jennings-Gray.
China has managed to shore up supply by investing heavily in Africa and South America, but where it really has a stronghold on the market is in processing (or the separation of the mineral from other elements in the rock).
"China accounts for 60% of global rare earth production but processes nearly 90% - [it] is dominant on this stage," says Gracelin Baskaran, director of the critical minerals security program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC.
She says the country understands how important this is in economic trade - a few days after Trump introduced tariffs on China its government hit back by imposing export controls on more than 20 critical minerals including graphite and tungsten.
What is motivating Trump is a fear of being at a disadvantage, argues Christopher Knittel, a professor of applied economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
"I think what is driving this is because China is the dominant player on the processing side," he says. "It is that processing stage, which is the high-margin stage of the business, so China is making a lot of money."
As he puts it, it is a "happy coincidence" that this could end up supporting green technology.
The key question, though, is whether the US is too late to fully capitalise on the sector.
A stark warning for the US
In the early days, the green transition was "framed as a burden" for countries, according to LSE's Bob Ward.
The Biden administration was highly supportive of green technology industries through its introduction of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022, which offers tax credits, loans and other incentives to technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, from battery technologies for electric vehicles to solar panels.
By August 2024, it was estimated to have brought $493bn (£382bn) of investment to US green industry, according to the think tank Clean Investment Monitor.
And yet little work was done to support upstream processes like obtaining critical minerals, says Ms Gray from Benchmark Intelligence. Instead, the Biden administration focused heavily on downstream manufacturing - the process of getting products from the manufacturer to the end consumer.
But Trump's recent moves to procure these critical minerals suggest a focus on the upstream process may now be happening.
"The IRA put a lot of legislation in places to limit trade and supply only from friendly nations," explains Ms Gray.
"Trump is changing tack and looking at securing critical minerals agreements that owes something to the US."
Whispers of another executive order
There could be further moves from Trump coming down the line. Those working in the sector say whispers in the corridors of the White House suggest that he may be about to pass a "Critical Minerals Executive Order", which could funnel further investment into this objective.
The exact details that may be included in the executive order remain unclear, but experts knowledgeable with the issue have said it may include measures to accelerate mining in the US, including fast tracking permits and investment to construct processing plants.
Although work may now be under way to secure these minerals, Prof Willy Shih of Harvard Business School thinks that the US administration lacks understanding of the technical complexity of establishing mineral supply chains, and emphasises the time commitment required. "If you want to build a new mine and processing facility, it might take you 10 years."
As a policy of his predecessor, and one that is so obviously pro-climate action, Trump has been vocally opposed to maintaining the IRA. But its success in red states mean that many Republican senators have been trying to convince him to keep it in some form in his proposed "big, beautiful bill" - the plan to pile all of Trump's main policy goals into one mega-bill - due to be revealed later this month.
Analysis by the Clean Investment Monitor shows in the last 18 months Republican-held states had received 77% of the investment.
MIT's Dr Knittel says for states like Georgia, which has become part of what is now known as the "battery belt" following a boom in battery production following IRA support, these tax credits are crucial for these industries to survive.
He adds that failure to do so poses a real political threat for US representatives who are up for re-election in less than two years.
If Trump loses even just one seat to the Democrats in the 2026 mid-terms, then he loses the house majority - limiting his ability to pass key pieces of legislation.
Carl Fleming was an advisor to former President Biden's Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee and is a partner at law firm McDermott, Will & Emery, advising clients in the clean tech and energy space. He says that despite the uncertainty, investors remain confident. "In the last month, my practice has been busier than ever, and this is since quadrupling last year following the IRA."
He also believes that there is a recognition of the need to maintain parts of the IRA – although this may be alongside expansion of some fossil fuels. "If you are really trying to be 'America First' and energy secure, you want to pull on all your levers. Keep solar and keep battery storage going and add more natural gas to release America's energy prowess."
But the uncertainty of the US position is little consolation for its absence on the international climate stage, says LSE's Bob Ward. "When the Americans are on the ball it helps to move people in the right direction and that's how we got the Paris Climate Agreement."
For those in the climate space, Trump is certainly not an environmentalist. What's clear is he is not concerned with making his legacy an environmental one but an economic one - though he could achieve the former if he can be convinced it will boost the economy.
Top picture credit: Getty Images
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The UK economy shrank unexpectedly in January, in a blow to the government ahead of its Spring Statement later this month.
The economy contracted by 0.1%, which was weaker than forecast, driven mainly by a decline in the manufacturing sector.
The government has made boosting growth its key priority, but the weakness of the economy is expected to affect Chancellor Rachel Reeves's decisions as she seeks to meet her self-imposed rules on tax and spending.
Reeves said the government needed to go "further and faster" on the economy, but the Conservatives accused it of being a "growth killer".
Economists had predicted the economy would grow by 0.1% in January, after 0.4% growth in December. Monthly readings can be volatile, and the ONS said the economy was estimated to have grown by 0.2% over the three months to January.
But the overall picture for the UK was one of weak growth, said Liz McKeown, ONS director of economic statistics.
Construction and oil and gas extraction had a weak month, she said.
But this was partially offset by retail, particularly food shops, "as people ate and drank at home more", she said.
With tax rises coming into force in April, concerns remain that economic growth will remain sluggish for some time.
Businesses have warned that paying more in National Insurance, along with minimum wages rising and business rates relief being reduced, could affect the economy's ability to grow, with employers expecting to have less cash to give pay rises and create new jobs.
In addition, firms are facing new uncertainty surrounding the tariffs being imposed by US President Donald Trump, while the government is also under pressure to increase defence spending.
Responding to the latest growth figures, Reeves said: "The world has changed and across the globe we are feeling the consequences."
She said the government was "launching the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War", but this comes as public spending plans are under pressure as the chancellor seeks to meet self-imposed budget rules.
Last month, the Bank of England halved its growth forecast for the UK this year. At the Spring Statement later this month, the independent forecaster the Office for Budget Responsibility is also likely to downgrade its growth prediction.
This has led to expectations that government spending will have to be reined in so that Reeves can meet her tax and spending rules.
The government is expected to set out significant cuts to the welfare budget next week, as part of these cost savings.
* What is GDP?
Conservative shadow chancellor Mel Stride said the Labour government was "a growth killer" after raising taxes and "crushing business with their extreme employment legislation".
Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem Treasury spokeswoman, said Reeves's plan for growth leaves the economy "on life support", with tax changes "set to hammer small businesses".
Tax changes 'will be tough'
John Dipre, the owner of Ashstead Park garden centre near Epsom in Surrey, said that changes to National Insurance contributions, less help with rates, and an increased minimum wage will "hit us hard".
"It's going to be very tough," he said. "If you really want to support growth, you need to be supporting small businesses, that's what England's all about."
Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said predictions of "sluggish growth" mean Reeves will probably "tighten purse strings" in the Spring Statement.
The recent cut to UK aid to fund an increase in defence spending "is a preview that some departments will see their spending plans squeezed", she added.
Anna Leach, chief economist at the Institute of Directors, said a slight rise or fall in GDP for one month was not significant, but the important point was the economy overall is "quite weak and therefore quite vulnerable".
Car manufacturers in particular have "notable weaknesses" with trade uncertainty from Trump tariffs, and "chopping and changing in the targets of the adoption of electric vehicles".
She said the UK growth figures "certainly won't help" in the lead-up to the Spring Statement.
Every McDonald's in Britain has been warned its owners could face legal action if they fail to take steps to protect staff from sexual abuse.
The equality watchdog has written to all 1,400 branches telling them they must comply with their legal duties, or risk enforcement action, after a BBC investigation uncovered claims of a toxic culture of sexual assault and harassment.
In January, McDonald's workers told us they still faced sexual harassment more than a year after its chief executive promised to clean up behaviour at the fast-food chain.
McDonald's said it was "committed" to doing everything it can to ensure a safe working environment for all employees.
It added: "We are confident that the plan we have in place is working."
The BBC has exclusively seen the letter from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
We asked one current McDonald's employee, who works for a franchise restaurant in southwest Scotland, for his reaction to it. He told us he hoped the intervention would lead to ''concrete change'' for people like him.
The 19-year-old worker, who we're calling Alan, told us in January he had been repeatedly subjected to "degrading and humiliating" verbal abuse by his colleagues, and faced "homophobic slurs".
Alan still works there. He says things are not much different and he wants to "get away" from it.
The letter from the EHRC called the allegations in our investigation "troubling" and noted there have been "repeated incidents".
The vast majority of McDonald's restaurants are run by franchises, which means individual operators are licensed to run the outlets and employ the staff.
In February 2023, the watchdog entered into a legally binding agreement with McDonald's to prevent sexual harassment in its restaurants.
Franchises were not covered by that agreement.
But in its latest letter, the EHRC said all businesses in Britain, small or large, must comply with the Equality Act.
''It is your duty to ensure that any anti-discrimination and harassment measures you currently have in place are effective, and to take any necessary steps to protect your workers," the chief executive of the EHRC, John Kirkpatrick, told the restaurants.
Unlimited fines
The letter sets out the ''reasonable steps" that restaurants could take to prevent sexual harassment.
These include regular risk assessments, ensuring younger and more vulnerable workers are properly safeguarded and ensuring complaints are dealt with sensitively and effectively through an established procedure.
It added that any franchise restaurant that does not comply with its legal duties "may be at risk of enforcement action''.
The EHRC has a range of statutory enforcement powers open to it, including the ability to launch formal investigations.
If an organisation repeatedly refuses to comply, then the watchdog can take it through the courts, where an unlimited fine could be issued.
'Totally and utterly unacceptable'
Liam Byrne, chair of the Business and Trade Select Committee, said the BBC's investigation of abuse at McDonald's had "exposed malpractice which was totally and utterly unacceptable".
He called for the EHRC to explain "why it is only now writing to McDonald's restaurants about their new duty under the law, to prevent sexual harassment from taking place, when it came into effect nearly six months ago".
He said it was "especially concerning because the regulator has known about hundreds of allegations of harassment for several years".
He added: "Parliamentary committees have now twice found the vigour of their enforcement to be disappointing. It's now vital the public are reassured they're on top of the problem - and not behind the curve."
EHRC head John Kirkpatrick told the BBC's Today programme that the letter was a "starting point".
"If it's not proving successful, we can investigate further. If we can find legal robust evidence of breaches of the law then we can impose an action plan on them and if they don't follow that, a court can impose fines on them," he said.
"The most effective and efficient way to make progress is through agreements but if that's not progressing adequately that's when we can take stronger and further action."
The BBC first began investigating working conditions at McDonald's more than two years ago, after the fast-food chain signed its agreement with the EHRC.
In July 2023, we published our initial investigation, which reported claims by workers, some as young as 17, of being groped and harassed almost routinely.
At the time, McDonald's apologised and set up a new unit to deal with complaints.
Since then, more than 160 people have approached the BBC with allegations while the EHRC has heard 300 reported incidents of harassment.
Other claims the BBC heard include:
* A 19-year-old worker said managers would "touch up" other members of staff and some colleagues were scared of going into work. He quit the branch in the Midlands last year.
* A 21-year-old worker said managers inappropriately touched her and customers sexually harassed her. When she raised it, she said she was told to "suck it up". She quit her job in the West Midlands at the end of 2023.
* A 16-year-old employee based in the West Midlands, who said he was bullied, shouted at and sworn at by managers.
* A 20-year-old who said a male manager sent her topless pictures. She left her McDonald's branch in the East of England in August.
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Trump's recent willingness to turn down the heat, however, signals that Ford may be succeeding in grabbing the attention of the US, said Shakir Chambers, a Canadian Conservative strategist at the Toronto-based Oyster Group.
"That's how you deal with Trump, through a position of strength," Mr Chambers told the BBC. "Ford understands the language of Trump's people and inner circle."
It at least earned him a rare compliment from the US president, who for several months has berated Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau repeatedly by calling him "governor," while expressing his desire to absorb Canada and make it "the 51st state".
Also rare is seeing the Oval Office pay attention to the premier of a Canadian province, whose day-to-day is ordinarily preoccupied with domestic matters such as infrastructure projects, healthcare funding and co-operating with the federal government.
But these are no ordinary times in Canada. The country is in the middle of a transfer of power, from outgoing Trudeau to Prime Minister-designate Mark Carney.
It is also facing what has been referred to as an "existential threat" from its neighbour and long-time ally to the south.
Ieva Mackeviciute lives in Kaunas, Lithuania's second-largest city, but works in the capital, Vilnius.
She takes the hour-long train into her company's Vilnius office once a week, where she uses a car-sharing service to drive herself to client meetings throughout the day.
Through an app, she can find where the nearest available car is, and drive off, paying by the minute - a system she finds convenient and flexible.
Some providers even include parking in the price, and if she takes an electric car, it's even better, as they qualify for free parking around the city.
"The ability to move around a big city quickly, and not worry about parking, helps me have a more flexible schedule and better control of my time," says Ms Mackeviciute, 30, who works in communications.
Yet despite being a regular car-sharing user, Ms Mackeviciute still owns a car in Kaunas, which she regularly uses for visiting family living in the countryside. And even while working in Vilnius, occasional issues with car sharing can disrupt Ms Mackeviciute's day.
"It can sometimes be hard to find a vehicle nearby. And sometimes, when you're in a rush the closest vehicle can have not one, but a few, maintenance lights on. While I do understand that fleet maintenance is a challenge, especially as a business grows, it is still disappointing," she says.
When it comes to cars, most people feel like Ms Mackeviciute - they still want to own one.
In the UK, for example, while 61% of people drive daily and 68% are worried about the rising cost of car ownership, 78% don't know what car sharing is, and fewer than 20% of Londoners would consider signing up to such a scheme, according to a report by car rental company SIXT.
Despite brands like Zipcar being around since 2000, industry data shows car sharing to still be a niche service.
There are just two million car sharing users in the UK, while around 35 million people still own a car.
"Consumers are still tied to exclusive access to their car. Clear scepticism about the ability for car-sharing options to provide a car to hand whenever they need it, and concerns about hassle, are the biggest issues," explains Felicity Latcham, associate partner at OC&C Strategy Consultants.
"This concern gets greater for families and older individuals who are particularly tied to being able to leave things in their vehicle."
But the growing electrification of the car sharing market might be attractive to younger, eco-conscious drivers.
In a 2023 McKinsey survey of 4,000 people in the UK, France and Germany, 32% of those in the Gen Z bracket said they wanted to use shared-mobility schemes more, wishing to reduce private car reliance.
The survey also suggested that 50% of Gen Z also want their next car to be fully electric.
The car-sharing industry is heading in that direction.
Almost a quarter of European car sharing companies now offer a 100% electric fleet.
A third of shared cars in the EU are electric vehicles, data from Statista shows. Meanwhile, Zipcar doubled its electric fleet in 2023 in the UK, with plans to go fully electric this year.
Spark, the Lithuanian car-sharing company Ms Mackeviciute frequently uses, launched with a fully electric fleet in 2016.
Its recent performance has been encouraging, with a registered user base up by 30% since 2022, and annual trip numbers up by 11%.
Since July last year, users of the Bolt ride-sharing app - the Baltic states' answer to Uber - can also now book Spark vehicles.
Spark founder Nerijus Dagilis is confident that the increasing availability of electric vehicles can get more people on board with car sharing, especially with the support of the city of Vilnius, which, on top of free parking for electric cars, allows them to be driven in bus lanes, too.
"Our customer pool is increasing every month, so that means we are creating a certain value for people, who prefer electric cars for sustainability reasons. It's becoming a daily habit for many people, especially families - we see more of them downsizing from two cars to one," says Mr Dagilis.
"The performance of electric cars is improving quickly, so while there is still some scepticism, as soon as an electric car can drive 500km on a single charge, I think people's anxiety should disappear."
Canada's Kite is a car sharing company with a twist. Not only is it fully electric, but it partners with property developers to offer Kite cars to apartment building residents as either an included service, or for a subsidised membership fee, akin to a gym or pool.
A Kite hub is installed usually on the first level of the building's underground parking, for residents to book their choice of up to 40 fully charged electric cars.
In some locations, Kite users have the option of returning their car to a different building. Kite is currently live in 20 buildings across Canada, with plans to add 70 more in the next 18 months, adding properties in the US and Europe.
Kite founder, Scott MacWillam, says the convenience and saving they offer to prospective residents is a draw.
"There's a growing trend of more people with a busy city life wanting a 'turnkey' lifestyle. Real estate developers see this as a sales and marketing advantage," says Mr MacWilliam.
"Residents can save money by kind of ditching their privately-owned car, and that cost saving means they now can afford to live in the building, or maybe they can even upgrade their apartment."
Mr MacWilliam says Kite gives thousands of building residents the chance to try both car sharing, and an electric vehicle, without any pressure or commitment, in a package where everything is covered - from charging and maintenance to insurance.
Kite is also hoping to install Kite hubs at train stations and introduce autonomous cars.
"What I'm most excited about, is we could fundamentally change the way buildings are built, forever," he says.
Custard powder makes a delicious dessert but also has a rather less savoury potential – in certain conditions, it can be a powerful explosive.
Instant custard powder is a staple of many kitchens. Just add water and heat, and the powdery mixture of cornstarch and flavourings will transform into an unctuous treat. It's hard to imagine anything more inoffensive. But on 18 November 1981, at the Bird's Custard factory in Oxfordshire, the substance showed its dark side. A hopper of powder overflowed, and the resulting dust cloud ignited, exploding into flame.
Nine people were injured in the explosion. They were lucky – powder explosions can be lethal. Fourteen people were killed in Minnesota in 1871 when a flour mill went up. Forty-four people, including a child, lost their lives to a cornstarch-based explosion in 1919 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which levelled part of the town. "The main explosion seemed to lift great buildings and hold them in tension for a moment, letting them drop with their own weight," one observer wrote later.
Dust explosions, of various substances, have continued to take lives – in 2014, 97 people died when dust in a factory in Kunshan, China, ignited. In 2022, one industry report counted 50 such explosions globally, although not all of them involved foodstuffs.
How can the makings for a simple dessert cause carnage, though? In all dust explosions, there are a few common factors. The powder must be made of a flammable substance – that means you're safe from sand, which is made of minerals like silica. But flour, cornstarch, sugar, coal dust, powdered plastic, and aluminium powder can all burn, meaning that if they get airborne, the risk for a truly devastating explosion goes up.
That's because, suspended in a cloud, all those particles have an enormous surface area exposed to oxygen. That makes them swift to combust. If a few of them heat up to ignition – and in each of these cases, there was a source of heat like friction or static electricity involved – then the fire can spread almost instantaneously to the rest of the cloud. Like a pile of confetti ignited in a fireplace, suspended dust burns fast.
That evening at the Bird's Custard factory, there were 20 workers on duty. Several noticed that cornstarch was pouring out of the top of one of the bins, according to the accident report. "At this point several witnesses saw a flash near the top of the bin and a wall of flame spreading outwards and downwards from the bin top," the report continues. "Descriptions were of a gale-force wind with a flame front behind, which flashed through the area." Later inspection revealed that the machinery meant to pour cornstarch into various bins had malfunctioned, so cornstarch continued to pour into the container until it overflowed.
Keeping the risk of such explosions down means coming at the problem from many angles – grounding all the machines in a factory to reduce static electricity, building in filtration systems that remove dust from the air, and diligent patrolling for any dust build-up are all recommended by health and safety agencies.
Look at a spoonful of cornstarch or custard powder, and it is nearly impossible to imagine it as an engine of destruction. Very few of us have any direct experience of these events, so it is hard to see these substances the way you might see a sheet of paper held near a candle, or a cigarette smouldering by a pile of leaves, as an accident waiting to happen.
There are situations in which you might encounter this dangerous chemistry in real life, however, outside of a custard factory or flour silo.
Parties in which coloured powder, often cornstarch, is shot into crowds, inspired by the Hindu festival of Holi, are popular spring-time events. In 2015, at a water park in Taiwan, coloured cornstarch sprayed over a concert audience ignited, provoking a maelstrom in which more than 500 people were injured. Twenty people died as a result of their injuries.
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The park's management stated that they had no knowledge that such explosive fires were possible as a result of cornstarch clouds. In fact, coloured powders are often sold with labels incorrectly marking them as non-flammable, a team of scientists found in 2023 when they tested the combustible qualities of various powders.
At Bird's Custard, that day in 1981, the wall of flame thankfully did not kick up any dust that could have provoked a secondary explosion. But it's not uncommon for dust explosions to go from bad to worse as lingering dust is kicked up and rises into the air. The only way to prevent these disasters is to pre-empt them, say consultants who assess the risks for companies.
Keep spaces where powders are used clean, patrol for sources of heat and, above all, have a healthy respect for the destructive potential in innocent, edible powder like custard.
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After an epic nine months in space, Nasa astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are finally getting ready to head home.
Their stay on the International Space Station (ISS) was only supposed to last eight days, but their mission was dramatically extended after the spacecraft that they arrived on suffered technical problems.
The pair are travelling back to Earth in a SpaceX capsule along with Nasa astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
They are expected to undock from the ISS at 0505 GMT (0105 EDT) on Tuesday and then splash down off the coast of Florida later that day at 2157 GMT (1757 EDT) .
Their landing time, however, could change if the weather conditions are not good enough.
It will mark the end of a mission that has grabbed the world's attention, however the final stages of their journey won't be easy.
The SpaceX Dragon capsule will make a fast and fiery re-entry through the Earth's atmosphere, enduring temperatures of up to 1600C.
As it rapidly slows, the astronauts will experience significant g-forces, about four times the Earth's gravity.
Finally, four large parachutes will open, allowing the craft to land gently in the ocean.
Helen Sharman, Britain's first astronaut, said the thrilling ride would be worth it.
"They're experienced astronauts but they will feel fantastic to be back on Earth. The fresh air is the first thing that gets you," she told BBC News.
The saga of Butch and Suni began in June 2024.
They were taking part in the first crewed test flight of the Starliner spacecraft, developed by aerospace company Boeing.
But the capsule suffered several technical problems during its journey to the space station, and it was deemed too risky to take the astronauts home.
Starliner returned safely to Earth empty in early September, but it meant the pair needed a new ride for their return.
So Nasa opted for the next scheduled flight: a SpaceX capsule that arrived at the ISS in late September.
It flew with two astronauts instead of four, leaving two seats spare for Butch and Suni's return. The only catch was this had a planned six month mission, extending the astronauts stay until now.
The arrival of a replacement crew on Sunday was the final step needed for Butch and Suni's return – and after a short hand over with the new team, their mission is now at an end.
The Nasa pair have embraced their longer than expected stay in space.
They've carried out an array of experiments on board the orbiting lab and conducted spacewalks, with Suni breaking the record for the woman who's spent the most hours outside of the space station.
And despite the astronauts being described as "stranded" they never really were.
Throughout their mission there have always been spacecraft attached to the space station to get them - and the rest of those onboard - home if there was an emergency.
Speaking in the weeks before their departure, Butch Wilmore said they weren't fazed when their mission was extended.
"We came up prepared to stay long, even though we plan to stay short. That's what we do in human space flight. That's what your nation's human space flight programme is all about," he said.
Suni added that she was sad this would probably be her last mission.
"I think just the fact that we're living up here, in this very unique place, gives you an amazing perspective," she said. "I don't want to lose that spark of inspiration when I leave, so I'm going to have to bottle it somehow."
The pair's mission attracted even more publicity last month after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that the astronauts had been left in space for political reasons, and his company could have brought them home sooner.
But Nasa officials said their decisions were based on flight scheduling and the space station's needs.
Garrett Reisman, a former Nasa astronaut and former director of space operations at SpaceX, said there were good reasons why Nasa didn't opt for a dedicated rescue mission.
"It wasn't going to reduce the amount of time that Butch and Suni spent in space by very much - I mean, you'd shave a couple of months off, so the benefit wasn't that great," he told BBC News.
"And the cost was high - these crew missions cost hundreds of millions of dollars…. I think Butch and Suni would have been the first ones to say 'no, that's not worth it'."
Once the astronauts have arrived home, they will be taken to the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, where they will be checked over by medical experts.
Long duration missions in space take a toll on the body, astronauts lose bone density and suffer muscle loss. Blood circulation is also affected, and fluid shifts can also impact eyesight.
It can take a long time for the body to return to normal, so the pair will be given an extensive exercise regime as their bodies re-adapt to living with gravity. But the first priority for Butch and Suni will be to see their families, friends - and pets.
Garrett Reisman has been in touch with his friend Suni while she's been in space.
"I had an email from Suni just the other day where she talked about missing sitting on the porch in her house in Maine with the dogs, and smelling the fresh air, feeling the sun on your face," he told the BBC.
"It's the basic things about life here on Earth that you miss."
When Osian Taubman-Edwards came across an advert for Roblox on YouTube, it immediately sparked his interest.
Over a decade later, the 32-year-old is Roblox's top developer with over 11 billion visits to his profile and five million new people playing his games every month.
Osian, from Mold, Flintshire, has created over 20 games for the platform and is ranked among the top 250 creators out of 300,000.
"This has opened a whole new world of opportunity for me and I'm only gaining more recognition each day," he said.
Osian started creating games on gaming platform Roblox in 2014 when he was studying music at college.
"I always had a creative mind and wanted to pursue something that can challenge my mind," he said.
"I had a deep passion for music but I also had a massive passion for video games."
Once he became aware he could build and create his own games, Osian said it was "instantly my calling", although his parents urged him to continue his studies.
"As I left to say goodbye they would watch me out the window to catch my bus.
"I would then get off at the second stop and wait for my parents to leave.
"I then went into the back window [at home] and I started grafting away at Roblox, completely disregarding my education," he said.
One of Osian's most popular games starting out was Castle Battles in the Sky, which became "a hit" on Roblox.
"Back then a hit game would only consist of around 50 to100 players. I hit the 105 players and I couldn't believe it," he said.
The most popular game to date on Osian's profile, Platinum Falls, is Barry's Prison Run, which has gained a total of 3.1 billion visits.
Roblox has over 80 million daily users and is mostly used by children aged between eight and 12 in the UK.
The platform allows users to create and share games with others.
Over the years there have been claims of some children being exposed to explicit or harmful content through its games, alongside multiple allegations of bullying and grooming.
But its co-founder and CEO Dave Baszucki has insisted the company is vigilant in protecting its users.
Mr Taubman-Edwards, who has been creating games on the platform from a young age, agrees and said the system blocks out harmful content.
"I have heard about parents' safety concerns, but Roblox is really strict with it now and there's a system if someone is causing problems to someone.
"If someone sends bad messages, Roblox completely blanks it out and it goes to a system where they can completely get rid of that person. So it's pretty good," he told Radio Cymru.
He added parents could set age restrictions to protect children from inappropriate material.
"So if they don't want their kids to bump into anything inappropriate, they can put the setting 'parental choice' on the phone to avoid their kids watching anything out of their age bracket," he said.
So what does it take to make a popular game on Roblox?
While Osian does not put any pressure on himself, he said he liked to create games he would play himself.
"To be honest I'm in tune with my inner child and I create games that I would have liked as a child," he said.
"When I was a child I liked lots of different games so I've taken inspiration from that. I just love it and if you love something, it's going to do well."
While Osian has worked with the likes of Warner Bros and Universal Studios, he hopes to start his own game studio.
"I never thought working from under my staircase, making sure my parents wouldn't find me when they thought I was in college, would be my success," he added.
Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of social messaging app Telegram, has been allowed to fly home to Dubai as French authorities continue their unprecedented case against him.
The tech billionaire was arrested in August after being accused of failing to properly moderate his app to reduce criminality.
Mr Durov denies failing to cooperate with law enforcement over drug trafficking, child sexual abuse content and fraud. Telegram has previously denied having insufficient moderation.
It is the first time a tech leader has been arrested for criminality taking place on their platform.
Mr Durov said in a post on his Telegram channel: "The process is ongoing but it feels great to be home."
The 40-year-old was arrested in August 2024 as he arrived in Paris on his private jet, and French judges initially did not allow him to leave France.
But in a statement on Monday, the French court said "the obligations of judicial supervision" had been suspended between 15 March and 7 April.
No further details were given about the conditions of his release from France.
Mr Durov lives in Dubai and was born in Russia, where he has citizenship, as well as in France, the United Arab Emirates and the Caribbean island nation of St Kitts and Nevis.
Telegram is particularly popular in Russia, Ukraine and former Soviet Union states as well as Iran.
'Relentless efforts'
Telegram is used by around 950 million people worldwide and has previously positioned itself as an app focussed on its users' privacy, rather than the normal policies prioritised by other global social media companies.
But reporting from the BBC and other news organisations highlighted criminals using the app to advertise drugs as well as offer cybercrime and fraud services and, most recently, child sexual abuse material.
It led one expert to brand it "the dark web in your pocket".
The firm has previously said his arrest is unfair, and he should not be held liable for what users do on the platform.
From his home in Dubai, Mr Durov thanked the French judges for letting him go home.
He also thanked his lawyers for their "relentless efforts in demonstrating that, when it comes to moderation, cooperation, and fighting crime, for years Telegram not only met but exceeded its legal obligations".
However, since the arrest, Telegram has made a series of changes to the way it operates.
It has joined the Internet Watch Foundation programme, which aims to help find, remove and report child sexual abuse material being shared online.
It has also announced IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate its rules will be handed over to police in response to valid legal requests.
And it has published transparency reports about how much content is taken down – a standard industry practice it had previously refused to comply with.
In Japan, a smelly waste product is being reimagined as a potential clean fuel of the future that is powering cars and tractors.
We're being eyed suspiciously by dozens of cows. Their breath fogs cartoonishly from their nostrils.
It's a brisk morning in snowy Hokkaido, an island in the north of Japan. The cold air carries the distinct scent of cow manure – a smelly yet familiar side-effect of the region's thriving dairy industry. Accounting for 20% of the country's landmass, this island is the second-largest in Japan. It's also home to over a million cows, which produce over half of the country's milk and dairy products.
We are visiting one farm in Hokkaido that wants to transform the source of the pungent aroma in the air into something valuable. They are turning cattle manure into hydrogen.
When it is burned, hydrogen does not emit carbon, making it an attractive alternative to fossil fuels. There are widespread hopes it could be used as a sustainable fuel to heat homes and power cars, trains, aircraft and ships in the future.
But the most common way of producing hydrogen today involves using methane – a fossil fuel piped up from deep underground, meaning it is still associated with significant carbon emissions. Hydrogen can also be produced by splitting water using electricity, but this can be expensive and is only low carbon if renewable sources of electricity are used.
The Shikaoi Hydrogen Farm, however, is using a different source – a waste product that there is no shortage of on Hokkaido. Around 20 million tonnes of cow manure is generated in Hokkaido annually. If not treated correctly, it can be an environmental burden, producing significant methane emissions as well as affecting water quality if allowed to leak into streams and rivers. So can it instead be used as a source of sustainable energy?
"This project to produce hydrogen from livestock manure originated in Japan and is unique to this place," says Maiko Abe from Air Water, one of several companies involved in the hydrogen farm project. We are visiting the facility in Shikaoi, a town in central Hokkaido, to film an upcoming episode of the BBC's TechXplore focusing on Japan. "Shikaoi accounts for 30% of Hokkaido’s cow waste and urine, so it has great potential for renewable energy."
Launched in 2015 by Japan’s Ministry of the Environment, the project aims to convert agricultural by-products into hydrogen to supply the local, rural community in a circular economy. The cow excrement and urine is collected from local dairy farms before being fed into a anaerobic digester at a central facility. Here bacteria break down the organic waste to produce biogas and a liquid fertiliser. The biogas is then purified into methane that is used to manufacture hydrogen.
The plant now has a hydrogen production capacity of 70 cubic metres (18,500 gallons), with an onsite fuelling station that can fill around 28 vehicles fitted with hydrogen fuel cells per day, says Abe. Although the fuel can be used by cars with fuel cells, the plant's fuelling station has been specially designed to accommodate agricultural vehicles such as tractors and forklift trucks. These farm vehicles are difficult to electrify with batteries due to their size and the type of work they do. The hydrogen-powered vehicles are used around the farms' sites, reducing the emissions that would otherwise be created by using other fuel sources.
Cattle-made-hydrogen is also stored in canisters that are transported to provide power and heat to other facilities in the area, including a local sturgeon fish farm and the nearby Obihiro Zoo.
But hydrogen isn't without its problems. It needs to be stored in high-pressure tanks as a gas, and can be prone to leakage due to its low molecular weight. It can also degrade metal storage containers, leaving them embrittled, and is easily ignited and so requires additional safety precautions when handling it.
Hydrogen can also be stored as a liquid by chilling it to cryogenic temperatures of below –253C (-423F), but this can be energy intensive and requires large amounts of additional infrastructure.
Hydrogen has nearly three times the energy content of petrol (gasoline) when taken by mass alone. But its low molecular weight also means that by volume, the energy packed into a litre of liquid hydrogen is a quarter that of petrol. Put simply, as the lightest gas in the Universe, hydrogen takes up more space kilogram for kilogram than petrol. This means a lot more storage space is needed for hydrogen compared to fossil fuels like petrol, diesel and natural gas. It also means producing and storing it at scale can require large amounts of energy and infrastructure.
But as well as these hurdles, the hydrogen farm project in Hokkaido also faces other challenges specific to northern Japan's climate.
Hokkaido's subzero winters means new technologies are needed to produce the hydrogen stably without the small amounts of water vapour in the methane freezing.
Using agricultural waste as a methane source to produce hydrogen is relatively uncommon, but it ultimately uses the same process as is used to produce hydrogen from natural gas: steam reforming. Here, steam heated to 800C (1,472F) reacts with the methane to produce hydrogen, along with the byproducts carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide (CO2).
In the case of cow manure, however, says Abe, the project remains sustainable as this carbon originated in the grass the cows grazed on: "Since it was originally in the atmosphere, it is considered carbon neutral."
In addition, it helps to prevent the methane that would otherwise have been emitted from the manure from getting into the atmosphere, where it is a potent greenhouse gas.
Leftover slurry from the manure after the biogas has been extracted is sprayed as fertiliser onto nearby fields, while formic acid – which is both used in and created by the processes – could be offered as a preservative for cattle feed, says Abe.
Currently, the electricity needed to produce and store the hydrogen comes from the national grid. But Abe says there's potential to shift to green energy, given Hokkaido’s promising sea, wind and geothermal potential, thus reducing the carbon emissions of this electricity.
Still, other challenges remain. The high cost of the hydrogen compared to fossil fuels and low demand mean expanding the operation is difficult.
"The construction costs of hydrogen stations are very high," says Abe. "Since hydrogen vehicles are not yet widespread, we're keeping our filling capacity low to manage initial investment. As adoption increases, we'll expand supply."
To encourage hydrogen vehicle adoption in the area, hydrogen prices are subsidised by the plant, matching the cost of petrol. Hydrogen refuelling stations are also being developed in major Hokkaido cities like Sapporo and Muroran.
Japan is the world leader in hydrogen vehicles and has invested considerably in developing the technology. But for now battery-powered electric vehicles remain cheaper than hydrogen powered ones.
Though it's unlikely that cow manure alone will ever meet Japan's hydrogen demand, it could contribute significantly, and Shikaoi is creating a model for a circular economy that it hopes will show how costs can fall with the economies of scale.
And there is growing interest in other parts of the world in using waste materials to produce hydrogen, with pig dung, poultry waste and even coconut husks having been explored as potential feedstocks. In Thailand, vehicle manufacturer Toyota is even exploring the use of hydrogen made from chicken waste to fuel its vehicles.
Meanwhile, engineers at the University of Illinois Chicago in the US recently developed another promising method to make hydrogen involving manure. In their case, they used the manure, along with sugarcane waste and corn husks, to make biochar, a carbon-rich substance which vastly reduces the amount of electricity needed to convert water to hydrogen.
"We are the first group to show that you can produce hydrogen utilising biomass at a fraction of a volt," says Meenesh Singh, a chemical engineer at the University of Illinois Chicago who led the project.
In the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka, on Kyushu, meanwhile, another waste product is being used to produce hydrogen – and here the dung is from humans.
For more than a decade, hydrogen has been created at the city's sewage treatment plant for use in hydrogen-powered vehicles. Most recently it has been used to fuel a fleet of zero-emission rubbish trucks.
Akira Miyaoka, hydrogen utilisation manager for Fukuoka City, says trucks that transport daily products are the town's main source of CO2, rather than large factories as in many other cities. "So we are working to reduce CO2 emissions from commercial trucks," she says.
The initiative started as a collaboration between Kyushu University and Fukuoka City, but now involves several major companies including Toyota.
"Sewage is something that is steadily discharged every day in the daily lives of citizens, so by making effective use of that sewage and extracting hydrogen as energy, we can achieve local production and local consumption of energy," says Miyaoka.
Generating hydrogen from human waste starts with water from various household sources – including showers, dishwashers and toilets – arriving at the treatment plant. As the water is cleaned, the residual sludge is kept as a source of biogas and converted into hydrogen.
"Sewage and biogas contain various impurities, so the process begins with the process of removing those impurities, which I think is a little different from other hydrogen production processes," says Miyaoka.
In 2024, Toyota helped the city launch Japan’s first hydrogen-powered service vehicle fleet, including ambulances, delivery vans and bin trucks. Officials at the sewage treatment plant say it is capable of producing 300kg (661lbs) of hydrogen in 12 hours – enough to fuel 30 trucks.
The rubbish trucks head out six nights each week, each collecting 1.7 tonnes (3,700lb) of rubbish, all while running silently and emission-free on the bodily waste of the people they are collecting other waste from.
Fukuoka's sewage-to-hydrogen fuelling station has been around since 2015, and several other countries around the world are now adopting a similar approach.
Concord Blue has developed waste-to-energy plants in Germany, India, Japan and the US, converting waste and biomass into hydrogen and bioenergy. Several water authorities in the UK are also working on projects to derive hydrogen from sewage.
A prototype race car has also been developed using sewage-derived hydrogen in the UK. The Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), in partnership with Severn Trent Water, is harnessing microbes that generate hydrogen fuel from waste. They anticipate the technology could hit the mainstream within five years, despite existing challenges. (Read about how sewage-powered cars could be the future of motorsport.)
On a larger scale, aviation accounts for 2% of global carbon emissions, and researchers in a UK lab have developed jet fuel made entirely from human sewage.
Still, despite the promise, all of these technologies have yet to be delivered at significant scale.
Whether in rural or city landscapes, the Japanese projects we've seen during in filming are inspiring because they have the local community at their heart.
While adoption of hydrogen cars has stalled, hydrogen truck adoption is increasing gradually and it is these larger heavier industrial vehicles that contribute most significantly per vehicle to greenhouse gas emissions.
By reimagining waste as a resource, these projects demonstrate that energy can be found in even the most unlikely of places.
* Paul Carter is the presenter of TechXplore. You can watch his report from the Shikaoi Hydrogen Farm and on other sustainable technologies in Japan in TechXplore Japan: From North to South when it airs on 15 March 2025 on BBC News.
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Every time you take a sip from your water bottle, you are depositing bacteria inside and over the course of a day these can multiply by the millions. Here's what scientists say you can do about it.
Carl Behnke had always wondered how clean his reuseable water bottle was. When he stuffed some paper towels inside and smeared them around, he was in for a shock.
"The towels were white – until I pulled them out," says Behnke, an expert in food safety at Purdue University in Indiana, US. "I realised that the slippery sensation I felt in the interior of the bottle was not because of the material but rather because of a bacterial build-up."
His next step was to design a study. Behnke and colleagues stopped passers-by in a corridor at Purdue and asked if they would be happy to loan their water bottles to them as part of their research – to see how clean they were.
"One thing that stood out from the project was the number of people who didn't want to know the results," recalls Behnke. "Basically, they knew that their cleaning habits were poor to non-existent – something the data later confirmed." The results confirmed that those bottles were brimming with bacteria.
The global reusable water bottle market was worth around $10bn (£7.7bn) in 2024. One study on Italian healthcare workers suggested that half of them used reusable bottles, while research involving university students suggests somewhere between 50% and 81% of participants used these drinking vessels.
But while they help people to stay hydrated, drinking from water bottles regularly, and taking them with us everywhere we go, may also pose health risks. So, should we ditch them, or can those risks be managed?
What exactly is inside reusable water bottles?
While it's usually safe to drink, water from our kitchen taps is not devoid of microbial life. This is why leaving water in your bottle for a few days will encourage bacteria to grow, says Primrose Freestone, associate professor in clinical microbiology at the University of Leicester, in the UK.
Bacteria that can cause human infections thrives at around 37C (98F) Freestone says, but it can also multiply at room temperature, around 20C (68F).
"The longer water in a bottle is stored at room temperature, the more bacteria will grow," she says.
One study conducted in Singapore using boiled tap water – which should have killed most bacteria in it – found that bacteria populations can grow rapidly inside water bottles as they are used throughout an average day. On average they found that reusable bottles used by adults went from around 75,000 bacteria per millilitre in mid-morning to more 1-2 million per millilitre over the course of 24 hours.
One way to slow bacterial growth down is to store your bottle in the fridge between sips, Freestone says, though this doesn't stop it from growing altogether.
But while some of a water bottle's bacterial activity comes from the water itself, most contamination is actually introduced by the drinker. Whether you take your bottle to work, the gym, or even just keep it in the house, the outside of your bottle will carry many microbes. And these microbes are easily transferred into the contents of the bottle, along with bacteria from your mouth every time you take a sip, Freestone says.
Water bottle users who don't wash their hands regularly will also find that their bottles can harbour bacteria such as E. coli, Freestone says.
"Poo-associated bacteria, such as E. coli, can come from our hands and end up on our lips if we're not good at toilet hygiene," she says.
And we can pass on, or catch, viruses by sharing water bottles with others. Diseases such as norovirus could easily be passed on in this way.
People generally have between 500 and 600 different species of bacteria living in their mouths says Freestone. "What isn't necessarily disease-causing for you isn't always the case for others. You can carry an infection and not realise it, because our immune systems are so good at protecting us," she adds.
Another way you can encourage bacterial growth in your bottle is by putting anything other than fresh water in them. Drinks that nourish you also feed microbes – so any drinks containing sugar, for example, can stimulate the growth of any bacteria or mould present in your bottle, Freestone says.
"Anything other than water is heaven for bacteria and fungi, especially protein shakes," she says.
If you've ever left milk in a glass for a few hours, you may have noticed that it leaves behind a thin film on the glass when you pour it away. Bacteria happen to adore this film, Freestone says.
How can this bacteria affect us?
We are all surrounded by bacteria in the soil, air and on our bodies, but it's worth remembering that most bacteria are harmless or even beneficial.
Water that's been contaminated with bacteria such as E. coli can cause diarrhoea and vomiting but not all the time. E. Coli are a large group of bacteria found naturally in the environment but also are common natural inhabitants of the human gut. It is only when the bacteria turn pathogenic – in other words they pick up certain traits that make them harmful – that they make people ill.
Most microbes aren't harmful to humans, but people whose immune systems are impaired can be more prone to infections, Freestone says.
Also, getting sick with a stomach bug can, in some cases, lead to long-term changes in the gut.
"Our guts are changing all the time, but there are over 1,000 species present in the gut so it's hard to shift in terms of composition," says Freestone. "There are too many variables to say, but getting food poisoning from the bacteria in a water bottle will never lead to a positive change."
People who've recently taken antibiotics that can affect their gut microbiome can also experience changes that leave them more vulnerable to other infections. One swab of a reusable water bottle taken at a newspaper office in the UK also revealed that these bottles can be a breeding ground for emerging strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Researchers discovered a bacterium called Klebsiella grimontii– which is capable of forming biofilms on otherwise sterile surface –in the sample taken from the water bottle. While it can be found as part of the normal microflora of the gastrointestinal tract, it can also cause severe diarrhoea in people who have recently taken antibiotics.
More like this:
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If mould or fungi grows in your bottle, this can trigger symptoms in anyone with allergies.
It's worth noting, however, there are no examples of severe illness that have been traced back to reusable water bottles in the scientific literature. This doesn't mean they don't happen, of course, as identifying single point sources of infection is notoriously difficult.
How should we clean reusable bottles?
For Behnke, it was the creeping sense that he should perhaps be cleaning his own water bottle more thoroughly that made him look closer at what could be inside it. He'd been using a filtered water bottle and had started to notice that the water he was drinking from it tasted bad.
"Every now and then I would flush it with hot water, but never really did anything more than that," he says.
After his paper towel-based investigations revealed how manky his water bottle was, the study he and colleagues carried out went on to look at people's water bottle habits in greater detail.
Behnke found that just over half of the 90 participants surveyed during the research said they share their bottle with others, and 15% said they never cleaned their bottles. Unsurprisingly, whether or not people rinsed or washed their water bottles affected the contamination level. However, Behnke found that how often they cleaned the bottles, or how they cleaned them, didn't enormously affect how contaminated the containers were.
People who washed their bottle with tools such as a brush or used a dishwasher tended to have the lowest counts of bacteria inside. Behnke and his colleagues also suggest using a dishwasher with a sanitisation cycle could be the most effective approach.
However, the study's conclusion states that these findings may have been skewed by the fact the researchers were relying on participants self-reporting their cleaning behaviours, and they may have changed their answers to appear more socially acceptable.
The study also found that bottles containing tea, coffee or juice were more contaminated than bottles that only contained water.
Cleaning our water bottles regularly and properly is the only way to be confident you are not consuming harmful bacteria alongside your water. Even if the water inside it is sterile, Freestone says, your saliva will end up in the bottle, along with trace levels of nutrients, which bacteria happily feed on.
Rinsing your bottle out with cold water isn't sufficient, Freestone says, because this won't get rid of biofilms – the slimy layer of bacteria that can build up on the inner surface of your bottle, which provides the perfect environment in which bacteria can thrive.
Freestone recommends cleaning reusable bottles with hot water (over 60C (140F) as this temperature kills most pathogens), and using washing-up liquid – swirling it around, and leaving the bottle for 10 minutes before rinsing well with hot water.
Then, allowing the bottle to air-dry is the best way to avoid a build-up of bacteria in your bottle, because microorganisms prefer moist environments.
You should clean your bottle this way after each use – or at the very least, several times a week, Freestone says. And never wait until it starts to smell, she warns.
"If your bottle starts to smell, you've reached a point where you should chuck it away," she says.
Once you have a nice, clean bottle, Freestone adds, remember to wash your hands before touching it.
Behnke, for one, is now a reformed water bottle-user. He washes and air dries his bottle every week using a bleach spray and bottle brush, which he uses to clean the spout or nozzles and other small surfaces.
Is there any type of water bottle we should avoid?
Although some studies have found that the bacterial load of plastic bottles can be higher than those of stainless steel bottles, the cleaning strategy used tends to make a far bigger difference. The most hygienic bottles are simply those that are the easiest to clean, Freestone says. It's important, she adds, to ensure you clean every part of the water bottle, including the outside, the lid and straw, if it has one.
However, there may be another reason to opt for metal over plastic.
"Plastics usually have chemical additives that lend them their advantages: their flexibility, durability, heat-resistance and how lightweight they are," says Amit Abraham, assistant professor of clinical population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar.
"These additives are physically bound to plastics, which means they can leach into the water," Abraham says,
Some research suggests that these additives, such as BPA, can interfere with our hormone function, and may be linked to increased risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other chronic diseases.
They also appear to leach into water, Abraham says, regardless of whether the bottle is made of disposable or reusable plastic. Also, the plastic material itself can break down, increasing the concentration of microplastics in bottled water. Bottles made of glass or stainless steel may be safer alternatives.
Whatever water bottle you opt for, it seems that good hygiene habits are fundamental to ensuring that the water you end up drinking isn't overflowing with harmful bacteria.
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The record for a single trip into space currently stands at 437 days, but prolonged periods in orbit can alter an astronaut's body in some surprising ways, changing their muscles, brains and even their gut bacteria.
Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore never intended to stay for nine months. Their initial trip to the International Space Station onboard the Boeing Starliner spacecraft was scheduled to be just eight days in June 2024. But after technical problems with the spacecraft meant it had to return to Earth without them, their stay in space has been longer than expected.
Of course, neither are new to the rigours of space travel. They are both experienced astronauts. But any extended time in the strange, low gravity environment of space is likely to have affected their bodies. To understand how, we need to look at those who have stayed for longer.
The longest single spaceflight by an American to date was by Nasa astronaut Frank Rubio after he spent 371 days living aboard the American-football-field-sized collection of modules and solar panels that make up the ISS.
His time in orbit – which surpassed the previous US record of 355 consecutive days – was extended in March 2023 after the spacecraft he and his crewmates had been due to fly home in developed a coolant leak. He eventually came home in October 2023. The extra months in space allowed Rubio to clock up a total of 5,963 orbits around the Earth, travelling 157.4 million miles (253.3 million km).
Even so, he was still around two months short of the record for the longest ever spaceflight by a human – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov spent 437 days onboard the Mir Space Station in the mid 1990s.
And in September 2024, two Russian cosmonauts – Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub – broke the record for the longest stay on the ISS after spending 374 days in orbit. The pair departed the ISS in the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft along with US astronaut Tracy Dyson, who had spent six months onboard. With a huge grin on his face, Kononenko gave a double thumbs up as he was helped from the re-entry capsule after it bumped back to Earth in a cloud of dust near the remote town of Dzhezkazgan on the Kazakhstan Steppe. He now also holds the record for the longest cumulative time in space – a total of 1,111 days in orbit.
Kononenko and Chub travelled more than 158 million miles during their 5,984 orbits of the Earth in the latest mission to the ISS. But spending so much time in the low gravity environment of the space station took a toll on their bodies, so they had to be lifted out of the capsule by the recovery teams.
Rubio's own extended trip in space provided valuable insights into how humans can cope with long-duration spaceflight and how best to counteract the problems it can present. He is the first astronaut to participate in a study examining how exercising with limited gym equipment can affect the human body.
While the results have yet to be published, it is information that will prove vital as humans set their sights on sending crews on missions to explore deeper into the Solar System. A return journey to Mars, for example, is expected to take around 1,100 days (just over three years) under current plans. The spacecraft they will travel in will be far smaller than the ISS, meaning smaller lightweight exercise devices will be needed.
But problems keeping fit aside, just what does spaceflight do to the human body?
Muscles and bones
Without the constant tug of gravity on our limbs, muscle and bone mass quickly begins to diminish in space. The most affected are those muscles that help to maintain our posture in our back, neck, calves and quadriceps – in microgravity they no longer have to work nearly as hard and begin to atrophy. After just two weeks muscle mass can fall by as much as 20% and on longer missions of three-to-six months it can fall by 30%.
Similarly, because astronauts are not putting their skeletons through as much mechanical strain as they do when subject to Earth's gravity, their bones also start to demineralise and lose strength. Astronauts can lose 1-2% of their bone mass every month they spend in space and up to 10% over a six-month period (on Earth, older men and women lose bone mass at a rate of 0.5%-1% every year). This can increase their risk of suffering fractures and increase the amount of time it takes to heal. It can take up to four years for their bone mass to return to normal after returning to Earth.
To combat this, astronauts undertake 2.5 hours a day of exercise and intense training while in orbit on the ISS. This includes a series of squats, deadlifts, rows and bench presses using a resistive exercise device installed in the ISS's "gym", alongside regular bouts tethered to a treadmill and on an exercise bike. They also take diet supplements to help keep their bones as healthy as possible.
A recent study, however, highlighted that even this exercise regime was not enough to prevent losses in muscle function and size. It recommended testing whether higher loads in resistance exercises and high intensity interval training might help to counteract this muscle loss.
The lack of gravity pulling down on their bodies can also mean that astronauts find they grow a little taller during their stay on the ISS as their spines elongate slightly. This can lead to issues such as back pain while in space and slipped disks once back on Earth. During a briefing onboard the ISS ahead of his return to Earth, Rubio himself said his spine was growing and said it might help him to avoid a common neck injury that astronauts can suffer when their spacecraft hit the ground if they try to crane out of their seats to see what is happening.
"I think my spine has extended just enough that I'm kind of wedged into my seat liner, so I shouldn't move much at all," he said.
Weight loss
Although weight means very little while in orbit – the microgravity environment means anything not tethered down can float around the ISS habitat freely, including human bodies – maintaining a healthy weight is a challenge while in orbit. Although Nasa tries to ensure its astronauts have a diverse range of nutritious foods, including most recently a few salad leaves grown on board the space station, it can still affect an astronaut's body. Scott Kelly, a Nasa astronaut who took part in the most extensive study of the effects of long-term spaceflight after staying onboard the ISS for 340 days while his twin brother stayed back on Earth, lost 7% of his body mass while in orbit.
Eyesight
On Earth, gravity helps to force the blood in our bodies downward while the heart pumps it up again. In space, however, this process becomes messed up (although the body does adapt somewhat), and blood can accumulate in the head more than it normally would. Some of this fluid can pool at the back of the eye and around the optic nerve, leading to oedema. This can lead to changes in vision such as decreased sharpness and structural changes in the eye itself. These changes can start to occur after just two weeks in space but as that time goes on, the risk increases. Some of the vision changes reverse within about a year of astronauts returning to Earth, but others can be permanent.
Exposure to galactic cosmic rays and energetic solar particles can also lead to other eye problems. The Earth's atmosphere helps to protect us from these but once in orbit on the ISS, this protection disappears. While spacecraft can carry shielding to help keep out excess radiation, astronauts onboard the ISS have reported seeing flashes of light in their eyes as cosmic rays and solar particles hit their retina and optical nerves.
Neural shuffling
After his long stay on the ISS, however, Kelly's cognitive performance was found to have changed little and had remained relatively the same as his brother's on the ground. However, researchers did notice that the speed and accuracy of Kelly's cognitive performance did decrease for around six months after he landed, possibly as his brain readjusted to the Earth's gravity and his very different lifestyle back home.
A study on a Russian cosmonaut who spent 169 days on the ISS in 2014 also revealed some changes to the brain itself seem to occur while in orbit. It found there were changes in the levels of neural connectivity in parts of the brain relating to motor function – in other words, movement – and also in the vestibular cortex, which plays an important role in orientation, balance and perception of our own motion. This is perhaps unsurprising given the peculiar nature of weightlessness while in space; astronauts often have to learn how to move efficiently without gravity to anchor them to anything and adjust to a world where there is no up or down.
A more recent study has raised concerns about other changes in brain structure that can occur during long-term space missions. Cavities in the brain known as the right lateral and third ventricles (responsible for storing cerebrospinal fluid, providing nutrients to the brain and disposing of waste) can swell and take up to three years to shrink back to normal size.
Friendly bacteria
It is apparent from research in recent years that a significant key to good health is the make up and diversity of the microorgansims that live in and on our bodies. This microbiota can influence how we digest food, affect the levels of inflammation in our bodies and even alter the way our brains work.
Researchers examining Kelly after his trip to the ISS found that the bacteria and fungi living in his gut had altered profoundly compared to before he flew into space. This is perhaps not entirely surprising, given the very different food he was eating and the change in the people he spent his days with (we obtain a horrifying amount of gut and oral microorganisms from the people we live alongside). But exposure to radiation and the use of recycled water, along with changes to his physical activity could all also have played a role. (Find out more about how exercise affects your gut microbes.)
Skin
Although there have now been five Nasa astronauts who have spent more than 300 days in orbit, we have Kelly to thank again for insights into how his skin fared while in orbit. His skin was found to have heightened sensitivity and a rash for around six days after he returned from the space station. Researchers speculated that a lack of skin stimulation during the mission may have contributed to his skin complaint.
Genes
One of the most significant findings from Kelly's prolonged journey into space were the effects it had on his DNA. At the end of each strand of DNA are structures known as telomeres, which are thought to help protect our genes from damage. As we age, these get shorter, but research on Kelly and other astronauts has revealed that space travel seems to alter the length of these telomeres.
"Most striking, however, was the finding of significantly longer telomeres during spaceflight," says Susan Bailey, a professor of environmental and radiological health at Colorado State University who was part of the team studying Kelly and his brother. She has done separate studies with another 10 unrelated astronauts who have taken part in shorter missions of around six months. "Also unexpected was that telomere length shortened rapidly on return to Earth for all crewmembers. Of particular relevance to long-term health and ageing trajectories, astronauts in general had many more short telomeres after spaceflight than they did before."
Exactly why this happens is still being unravelled, she says. "We have some clues, but additional long-duration crewmembers – like Rubio, who spent one year in space – will be critical to really characterising and understanding this response and its potential health outcomes."
One possible cause could be exposure to the complex mix of radiation while in space. Astronauts who experience long-term exposure while in orbit show signs of DNA damage, she says.
There were also some changes in gene expression – the mechanism that reads the DNA to produce proteins in cells – seen in Kelly that may have been related to his journey into space. Some of these related to the body's response to DNA damage, bone formation and the immune system's response to stress. Most of these changes, however, had returned to normal within six months of his return to Earth.
In June 2024, a new study highlighted some potential differences between the way the immune systems of male and female astronauts respond to spaceflight. Using gene expression data from samples obtained from the crew of the SpaceX Inspiration 4 mission, who spent just under three days in orbit in the autumn of 2021, it identified changes in 18 proteins related to the immune system, ageing and muscle growth.
Comparing their gene activity to those of 64 other astronauts on previous missions, the study found in the expression of three proteins that play a role in inflammation compared to before the flight. The men tended to be more sensitive to spaceflight, with more disruption to their gene activity and they took longer to return to a normal state after returning to Earth.
In particular, the researchers found the gene activity of two proteins known as interleukin-6, which helps to control levels of inflammation in the body, and interleukin-8, which is produced to gulde immune cells to sites of infection, were more affected in the men compared to the women. Another protein, called firbrinogen, which is involved in blood clotting, was also affected more in male astronauts.
But the researchers say they still need to unravel why women appear to be less sensitive to these particular effects of spaceflight, but it could be related to their response to stress.
You can hear Nasa astronaut Peggy Whitson describe how her own time in space has changed her body in the video below. With an accumulated 675 days in space, she has spent more time in orbit than any other American, although the world record is currently held by Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, who has clocked up 878 days in space.
Immune system
Kelly received a series of vaccines before, during and after his trip into space and his immune system was found to react normally. But Bailey's research has found that astronauts do suffer some decreases in white blood cell counts that fall in line with the doses of radiation they receive while in orbit.
There are still many questions to be answered, however, about what impact space travel can have on a bipedal, big-brained species that evolved to live on Earth. As researchers pour over Rubio's medical tests, blood samples and scans following his 371 days in space, they will doubtless be hoping they will learn more.
* This article was originally published on 27 September 2023. It was updated on 12 June 2024 to include details of the study from the SpaceX Inspiration 4 mission and on 25 September 2024 to include details of Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub's spaceflight on the ISS. It was updated on 13 March 2025 to include details about Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.
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To celebrate World Sleep Day, here's our science-based guide to getting the best slumber you can – from varying sleep with the seasons to taking inspiration from the past.
It's a typical weekday morning, and you're just beginning to stir in bed. There's light streaking through the windows, while the many chirps and caws of birds announce that it's probably time to get up… but surely that can't be right? Cue the familiar feeling of dread, as you remember a night filled with restless, low-quality sleep.
Across the world, people are struggling with insufficient sleep. In the US alone, it's been estimated that between 50 and 70 million people suffer from the affliction, and on a global scale, it has even been called an epidemic. However, there are some simple adjustments – both psychological and physical – that might help to improve the quality of your sleep. Here's our guide to having a delicious, restful slumber, inspired by the latest scientific research and some long-forgotten historical tricks.
Slumber in two shifts
Today, when people wake up in the middle of the night, it's not unusual to panic – after all, we tend to believe that we should sleep for a continuous eight hours. But this has not always been the case. For millennia, people had a short first sleep – and then they woke up. These little slumber-gaps were filled with an endless variety of activities, from household chores to gossip in the dark (and even the occasional murder). Then after a couple of hours, people went back to bed and slept through until the morning.
This is the forgotten ancient practise of "two sleeps". It was rediscovered by Roger Ekirch, a university distinguished professor of history at Virginia Tech, Virginia, in the 1990s. He believes that an awareness of the habit's historical prevalence might help to reframe the experiences of those who suffer from insomnia today – and perhaps lessen their anxiety about waking up in the night. Read more about the lost ancient habit of "biphasic sleep" in this article by Zaria Gorvett.
Vary your sleep with the seasons
As spring arrives, you might notice that you need less sleep and are finding it easier to leave your bed in the morning. Research shows that we need more sleep during the dark, cold winter months than we do during the summer. This is because humans experience seasonal sleep. According to one German study, people experienced both longer REM and deep sleep in December than in June. REM sleep is the most active stage of sleep, when we dream and our heart rate increases, while deep sleep is when the body repairs muscle and tissues and is important for the consolidation of long-term memory. Read more about the seasonality of human sleep in this article by Isabelle Gerretsen.
Try a nap
In many countries having a catnap is a daily ritual, and research shows that regular naps are good for our health. According to a 2023 study, habitual napping helps keep our brains bigger for longer and can delay brain ageing by between three to six years. A smaller brain volume has been linked to diseases such as Alzheimer's and vascular dementia.
There are also short-term benefits. Short naps, lasting no longer than 15 minutes, can immediately improve how well we perform mentally, with results lasting up to three hours after we wake up. The key to power naps is to keep them short (after 20 minutes we start drifting into deep sleep) and to make sure you have one mid-afternoon so that it doesn't disrupt your sleep at night. Read more about the health benefits of napping here.
Beware the danger of microsleeps
But not all naps are good for us. Some last mere seconds and these microsleeps can result in serious harm if they occur when you're driving. Analysis of dashcam footage from 52 drivers from a single truck company in Japan found that three quarters of them showed signs of microsleep before they were involved in a collision.
Microsleeps are more common among people who suffer from narcolepsy or people who don't get enough sleep at night. One study found that when people slept for just six hours a night for 14 days in a row, they had as many microsleeps as those who missed a whole night's sleep. If you're regularly experiencing microsleeps, it's therefore probably a sign that you're not getting enough sleep generally. Read more about the naps that only last a few seconds in this article by Claudia Hammond.
Get cosy and cuddle up
As we snuggle up in bed for the night – particularly if it's just with a good podcast – we might wonder why it's so cold under the covers, or even a bit lonely.
Historically, having your own bed was highly unusual. Like it or not, most people had to share – and not just with their siblings in childhood, or as a married couple. Until the 19th Century, the majority of people would have slept communally, routinely slumbering alongside friends, colleagues and even total strangers. A good bedfellow would provide warmth and conversation into the early hours of the morning – though you might have to overlook their morning breath and contribution to a bedful of biting parasites. Read more about the forgotten habit of communal sleep in this article by Zaria Gorvett.
Aim for quality over quantity
How much sleep we all need can vary from person to person, with most recommendations for between seven and nine hours. But the amount of sleep you get is only one part of the equation. Quality matters as much, if not more.
Most of us will have experienced feeling less refreshed after a night of tossing and turning. That's partly because when we sleep, our brains flood with cerebrospinal fluid to clear out accumulated debris and toxins. This waste-clearance system is called the glymphatic system, which works best at the same time every day. This means that when we get our shuteye is important. Syncing sleep with our natural circadian rhythms – the brain's 24-hour internal clock that regulates the cycle of alertness and sleepiness – gives rise to the best-quality rest. Read more about the importance of sleep quality in this feature by Sandy Ong.
Be thankful for modern beds
Today most people in the Western world are lucky enough to wake up on a soft bed, perhaps with a spring mattress or memory foam. However, things have not always been so comfortable.
In the medieval era, many people opened their eyes each morning to stuffy air and pitch-blackness – the conditions inside a "box bed". These popular sleeping-cupboards were completely enclosed, and helped to keep people warm at night, though they were sometimes not much bigger than a wardrobe. Slightly later there came the "tick" mattress, a bag of cheap materials such as straw or leaves. Unfortunately, they also provided the ideal hiding place for ticks, fleas and bedbugs. But the true inventors of a bad night's sleep might arguably have been the Victorians, who created a variety of unpleasant solutions for homeless people, from rows of coffin-beds to a rope to hang oneself over for a rest. Read more about the curious history of beds through the centuries, or top up your knowledge on why medieval people slept in cupboards, in these articles by Zaria Gorvett.
So, find yourself some bedfellows, allow for more sleep in the winter, and if you occasionally wake up in the night, consider yourself a modern pioneer of the lost ancient habit of biphasic sleep. We still can't promise that you'll be leaping out of bed on a Monday morning, but it's a start.
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This story was originally published on 15/03/2024.
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Sue Nelson explores how asteroids can inform our understanding of the Earth's past – or threaten our future.
Each year, according to Nasa, a chunk of rock the size of a car hurtles through space on a collision course with our planet. Fortunately, thanks to the Earth's atmosphere acting as a natural shield, instead of crash landing on the ground, the asteroid burns up and produces an impressive light show, streaking across the sky as a meteor or fireball.
Unfortunately, other, much larger asteroids have the potential to be far more threatening than entertaining. "Asteroids come in all sizes," says Michael Küppers, a planetary scientist for the European Space Agency (ESA). "The really big ones, like the 10km (6.21 mile) [wide] or so asteroid that we think led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, happen maybe once every 100 million years."
The asteroid 2024 YR4, which was discovered in December 2024, has been making headlines around the world recently. At around 40-90m (131-295ft) wide, it is larger than a 12-storey building. In January this year, the ESA calculated the rock's trajectory and initially predicted that there was a 1.2% chance of impact with Earth on 22 December 2032.
This officially crossed the comfortable threshold of risk for a near-Earth object – 1% – and triggered the need for investigation by several planetary defence organisations, as well as the US President and US Congress.
Luckily YR4 is not large enough to be capable of making our species extinct but it could still be a "city killer", according to some experts, if it is at the upper end of the estimated size range and landed in a heavily populated area.
In February 2025, the risk of the asteroid hitting the Earth briefly climbed to 3.1% or one in 32. Luckily, humanity managed to avoid mass panic and the risk has since reduced to a more reassuring 0.001%. But where did this asteroid come from in the first place? And how concerned should we be about a similar scenario emerging in the future?
A distant belt
When it comes to understanding asteroids, astronomers and scientists are still being dealt the cards in order to understand the rules of this potentially risky celestial game.
"Scientifically there's a huge amount we can learn from asteroids," says Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queens University Belfast and a member of one of Nasa's sky surveys that searches and tracks Near Earth Objects (NEOs). These are asteroids whose orbit brings them within 195 million km (121 million miles) of the Sun.
"Any asteroid we detect is generally a fragment of a much larger body that was formed at the birth of our Solar System" says Fitzsimmons. "So by studying their chemical make-up we get some idea of the conditions in the initial Solar System as since then, over 4.6 billion years, it has evolved dynamically."
These ancient rocky remnants are sometimes referred to as minor planets. Often irregular and cratered, they can also be spherical. They can spin slow, fast or tumble. Usually solitary, they can sometimes be found in pairs (binary or double asteroids) and some even have their own moon. Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's website keeps tabs on their numbers and at the last count there are over 1.4 million in our Solar System. The majority are located within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter but millions more are too small to be detected.
Most of the time these asteroids remain restrained within that interplanetary belt by Jupiter's gravitational field, unable to coalesce into a larger body. But occasionally another asteroid or the influence of Jupiter's gravity can nudge some into another orbit around the Sun, towards the inner Solar System.
Celestial clues
Once an asteroid has been ejected from its usual path and is potentially heading our way, the first challenge is to detect it.
"All an asteroid looks like in a telescope is a point of light against other points of lights that are stars, except it's moving," says Kelly Fast, Nasa's acting planetary defence officer, "and it's reflecting sunlight."
The brighter the asteroid, the bigger it will be. But its colour also affects the brightness as a small white asteroid might reflect more light than a much larger dark one. It's not an exact science, which is why YR4's size is estimated at 40-90m (131-295ft) wide. The more information we have, however, the more precise that number will become.
"A team at Nasa and an ESA team will be using the James Webb Space Telescope to take infrared observations of YR4," says Fast. These measurements of an asteroid's thermal emissions "may be helpful for constraining that size range", she adds.
YR4, in common with most asteroids, is from the asteroid belt. "Which part of the belt is hard to tell," says Fitzsimmons. "One clue that we have is a spectrum of its surface." By examining the intensity of light emitted over a range of wavelengths, specific materials on the surface of the asteroid can be identified. "YR4 is a rocky asteroid that's deficient in lighter elements such as carbon, which tells us that it probably came from the inner asteroid belt," says Fitzsimmons. "But exactly where we don't know – and we may never know."
Asteroids are not all the same either. "There are different populations," says Fast. "Some are stony, some are carbonaceous and some have metallic content depending on the parent bodies they came from."
While there are rare types of asteroids, more than three out of four are carbonaceous, or C-type, and contain carbon, appearing black as coal. The rest are mostly S-type or silicaceous – a mix of metal and silicate crystals – or metallic or M-type asteroids, which contain predominantly iron and nickel.
One asteroid scientists are particularly interested in is – a large, metal-rich rock the shape of a potato, which inhabits the Solar System's main asteroid belt. It's thought this asteroid could be up to 95% nickel and iron, which is similar to the Earth's core. Studying it will therefore increase our understanding of how our own planet formed. Nasa's Psyche mission is currently on its way there and is due to arrive in August 2029.
In terms of metal content, asteroids like Psyche 16 are also potentially extremely valuable – it's thought to contain resources worth approximately US$10 quadrillion (£7.8 quadrillion). In the future, if asteroid mining ever became necessary as well as economically and technically feasible, it's thought they could provide an abundance of resources.
Knowing an asteroid's composition is key for defence reasons too. An iron-rich asteroid, for example would do more damage on impact than carbonaceous ones as it is more dense, has more mass and would have more energy if it smashed into a moon or planet. The Earth's Moon, as can be seen, is littered by asteroid impact craters since it only has a thin atmosphere, or exosphere, which cannot protective it. Although the Earth is unlikely to receive an impact by YR4, there remains a 1.7% chance it could hit our Moon.
The level of damage also depends on the asteroid's structure. "If you know more about the structure of these objects," says Fitzsimmons, "then you can calculate more accurately what happens when it hits the Earth's atmosphere.Most asteroids below 10km [6.2 miles] across are almost all either heavily fractured solid objects or rock piles – smaller fragments of asteroids grouped together mostly by gravity."
Does this mean a rubble pile asteroid would be more likely to burn up in the atmosphere and therefore be less dangerous? "Unfortunately not," says Fitzsimmons. "If an asteroid is hitting the Earth at 17km per second (over 38,000 mph), it's in the atmosphere for less than 10 seconds before it reaches impact."
While the Earth's atmosphere acts as a protective barrier, that still doesn't prevent all damage. "Something the size of YR4 would probably only make it to a few kilometres above the Earth's surface. It will lose its energy and explode at altitude. Although we wouldn't get a crater, we would have an air blast and that could be just as devastating as if it hit the ground," says Fitzsimmons.
At the moment we don't know if YR4 is one solid object or whether it's a rock pile, but an air blast could have been significant considering what happened in 2013. A fireball – which is what an asteroid is called once it enters Earth's atmosphere – exploded about 14 miles (22.5km) above the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia. Eyewitnesses described the light as brighter than the Sun, and the blast's shockwave damaged over 4,000 buildings and injured 1,200 people.
"The asteroid was around 20m (66ft) in size," says Küppers. "This is maybe about the limit size where you would start worrying if it hits populated areas."
Coincidentally, on the day of the Chelyabinsk event, a United Nations committee was underway in Vienna about defending Earth from future asteroid impacts. The meeting resulted in the International Asteroid Warning Network, chaired by Nasa, and a Space Missions Planning Advisory Group for space agencies around the world to collaborate.
Fortunately, there have already been a number of missions which have studied asteroids, starting with Galileo when it flew past two asteroids in the early 1990s. In 2000, Nasa's Near Shoemaker became the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid, Eros, and – a year later – to land on one too. The Japanese Huyabusa 2 mission visited the C-type asteroid 162173 Ryugu in 2018 and 2019 and even sent back a sample to Earth in a hermetically sealed container in 2005.
The US OSIRIS-REx mission (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security–Regolith Explorer) collected dust and rocks from asteroid Bennu and returned them to Earth in 2023. Earlier this year, the first in-depth analysis of the samples' minerals and molecules were published. It included finding 14 of the 20 amino acids used by life to make proteins on Earth. The spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX, is now on its way to explore asteroid Apophis.
All these missions, and more, have allowed scientists to study the composition and particle size of several asteroids, as well as the magnetic properties of samples to inform our understanding of the Solar System's early magnetic field. But there is another reason for studying asteroids, brought home by the concerns over YR4: to protect our planet.
In 2022, Nasa's Dart (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission deliberately aimed itself at a harmless – from the Earth's point of view – binary asteroid system consisting of asteroid Didymos (780m, or 2,559 ft) and its smaller orbiting asteroid or moonlet, Dimorphos (160m, or 525ft). The spacecraft used itself as a kinetic impactor, targeting Dimorphos at around 22,530km (14,000 miles) per hour. This was Nasa's first test to see if it could deflect an asteroid's path and it was a success. After impact, Dimorphos' orbit was altered. Does this mean, in future, that Nasa asteroid missions will focus on planetary defence rather than understanding more about the science?
"We're very much interested in both," says Fast, "and it's a really good partnership. The planetary defence coordination office at Nasa sits inside of the planetary science division because there is so much asteroid science involved in it. We want to protect the planet but we also want to study these amazing leftovers from the formation of the Solar System, both to understand the history of the Solar System and to see what the effects might be should they impact, or should we need to deflect one in space."
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A lack of this vital nutrient is one of the world's leading causes of disability – but exactly when it becomes a problem, and the best way to treat it, remains unclear.
When Megan Ryan first noticed her fatigue, she assumed it was normal. After all, she was a single parent to a three-year-old. She also worked full-time. Almost every day, when she picked her son up from daycare, she'd fall asleep with him during his afternoon nap. She didn't think much about it. "I just thought, 'Oh, this is motherhood'," says Ryan, who lives in upstate New York, US. At a routine medical check-up in June 2023, her doctor asked if she felt exhausted. Blood test results showed that Ryan had iron deficiency anaemia.
Looking back, there had been other signs. Despite regularly working out, Ryan had suddenly started to feel winded on routine hikes. She had also had iron deficiency before, during pregnancy. That time, her midwife suspected it after Ryan mentioned that her only pregnancy craving was ice – a classic sign of pica, which is, in turn, a symptom of iron deficiency.
Iron deficiency is the most common micronutrient deficiency in the world today, affecting roughly one in three people. It is especially prevalent among children as well as women of reproductive age, including pregnant women.
The condition can cause a wide range of consequences. When a pregnant woman doesn't have adequate iron stores, for example, it can affect the foetus' brain development and there is also a higher risk of low birth weight, preterm birth, dying during pregnancy and stillbirth. For babies and toddlers, not having enough iron can affect long-term development, with studies finding that children are at risk of exhibiting behavioural issues – they are less happy and contented, and tend to be more socially inhibited. It can also influence children's motor skills, and cognitive ability even years after a deficiency has been corrected. In adults, iron deficiency is one of the world's leading causes of disability. In rare cases, it can be life-threatening.
A widespread issue
"It's a major global problem," says Michael Zimmermann, professor of human nutrition at the University of Oxford in the UK and a long-time researcher of micronutrient deficiencies. "It's very common. It's not going away very fast. And it is associated with a lot of disability."
Most scientists agree that iron deficiency is a common condition. But other questions persist, such as how exactly to define iron deficiency, or how likely it is, in the absence of other symptoms, to raise the risk of poor health outcomes. So, when should, and shouldn't, someone supplement their iron?
What isn't disputed is that some groups are more susceptible to iron deficiency than others.
In women, for example, iron-deficiency anaemia – where the body does not have enough iron to make sufficient red blood cells – is a leading cause of disability worldwide. One study of first-time US blood donors found that iron levels were low in 12% of women, but in less than 3% of men, reflecting the impact made by regular blood loss through menstruation. Then there's the impact of pregnancy, which diverts nutrition to the foetus, meaning that women in this group are particularly at risk. One study found that 46% of UK women had anaemia at some point during pregnancy – though not all cases stemmed from iron deficiency.
Endurance athletics, vegetarianism or veganism and frequent blood donation can all put both men and women at increased risk. People with certain health conditions might also be prone to lower iron levels. Kidney disease and coeliac disease can decrease iron absorption, for example.
A critical time
But children are among the most vulnerable group to iron deficiency because the mineral is so important for their development.
"What's the most rapid period of growth in our entire lifespan? Infancy," says Mark Corkins, chair of the Committee on Nutrition at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). "You triple your birth weight by a year of age. You double your length." As our bodies grow, they need more blood. And red blood cells are built – in part – on iron. Without that necessary iron, says Corkins, you risk not able to produce enough red blood cells to deliver oxygen to your growing tissues, including the brain.
Iron deficiency is especially common in children from lower income countries. "In studies I've done in Africa, 70% of babies between six and 12 months of age have clear iron-deficiency anaemia," says Zimmermann.
Even in wealthier countries, which have better overall nutrition and which are more likely to fortify certain food products with iron, this deficiency persists. Up to 4% of toddlers in the US, for example, have iron-deficiency anaemia, while some 15% have iron deficiency.
Just because someone is iron deficient does not necessarily mean they will have anaemia. "Iron deficiency can be considered a stage prior to anaemia," says clinical haemotologist Sant-Rayn Pasricha, the head of the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health who specialises in iron deficiency and related conditions.
The severity of the deficiency plays a key role, Pasricha explains. When someone gets low on iron, their body begins to form red blood cells differently, he says. They get smaller and, eventually, the amount of oxygen-carrying haemoglobin in that person's blood drops below a healthy level. "That's when we reach iron deficiency anaemia," Pasricha says.
Iron deficiency and anaemia are generally diagnosed with a blood test – usually one that examines levels of ferritin, a protein that helps store iron, or haemoglobin.
A matter of debate
Some specialists question whether iron deficiency is always a cause for concern – especially if it arises in the absence of any physical symptoms and if the patient does not have anaemia.
Pasricha co-authored a review to help inform the World Health Organization's guidelines on iron supplementation in women. In that research, he found something interesting.
While those women in clinical trials who were iron deficient and reported feeling fatigued found that their fatigue improved upon taking iron supplements, the intervention didn't change the energy levels of women who were also iron deficient, but who had not reported fatigue.
"This hints to us that, at least in adults, if you're clinically unwell with an iron deficiency, then of course you should be treated and that will improve how you feel," Pasricha says. "But it also suggests that, if you're feeling perfectly fine, and someone just finds that you have a low iron level – then it's hard to be sure that that treating you then would boost you to feel any different."
Overall, iron deficiency in the absence of anaemia has been studied less than iron-deficiency anaemia. But there are some broad conclusions we can make, researchers say.
"The consensus is that iron-deficiency anaemia is certainly worse," says Zimmermann. "But iron deficiency is also associated with impairment."
According to some studies, the effects of iron-deficiency anaemia – particularly in children – can be long-lasting. "It's not just about [poor health outcomes] – it is that you didn't maximise your development," Corkins says.
One review, for example, found a "consistent association" between children with iron-deficiency anaemia having poorer cognitive performance compared to controls. However, the researchers note, perhaps it's not iron-deficiency anaemia that's the problem. It could be the effect of anaemia in general, which depresses energy levels. The researchers also say in their review that it is hard to rule out the influence of socioeconomic factors on children’s behaviour and cognition.
This complexity lies at the heart of all nutrition research: is it the absence of a nutrient itself that's the problem, or is that deficiency a sign of something else going on?
To complicate matters further, the criteria for defining iron deficiency in children is still up for debate, says Zimmermann. Because children are growing so fast, he adds, iron deficiency normally quickly leads to anaemia – which means it's not easy to find, and study, iron-deficient children who are not anaemic.
To supplement or not to supplement
Given that, and the potential consequences for their development, guidelines often advise supplementing children with iron at any sign of deficiency – or even to supplement as a prevention measure.
In the US, for example, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies who are exclusively breastfed receive iron drops from four months old, for example. This is because breastmilk has low levels of iron, while formula milk is usually fortified.
But some researchers question this approach.
Pasricha was involved in the largest trial to date that has examined the effect of supplementation on child development, he says. The study, of 3,300 eight-month-old babies in Bangladesh, randomised children into groups that received either daily iron supplementation for three months, or a placebo. He and colleagues measured the children's neurodevelopment before and after the supplementation. "We did not see any evidence of a functional benefit," he says, although they also saw no harm either way.
"We did see that haemoglobin and iron status did improve in the children that received iron – but we didn't see that affect child development," says Pasricha. The "why", he says, "is something that the team is really grappling with".
Other research has yielded similar findings. For example, in one study, even after infants with iron-deficiency anaemia received supplementation that corrected their anaemia, they continued to show more restless sleep patterns than their cohorts – sometimes even years later.
One possible reason might be that even a brief period of deficiency can lead to long-lasting harm. One study, for example, found that when children had had iron deficiency at birth, they had less activation in the regions of their brain related to cognitive control at eight to 11 years old – even if their iron levels had been corrected.
But another possibility, Pasricha says, is that it isn't the low iron itself that causes poorer development, but that low iron is an indicator of something else – such as other nutrients in a person's diet that are missing.
Meanwhile, there could also be downsides to supplementing children who don't actually have a deficiency. Some studies have found that babies and toddlers who had adequate iron levels, but received supplementation, had poorer weight gain and less growth compared to controls. Randomised controlled trials have found that babies randomly assigned to high-iron formula milk scored more poorly on cognitive tests of abilities like visual memory, reading comprehension and mathematics at both 10 years old and 16 years old, compared to those on a low-iron formulation. However, exactly how much iron supplementation would avoid these effects remains unclear, the researchers say as other factors could also be involved.
Given results like this, however, some experts have criticised US guidelines to supplement all breastfed infants.
Supplements can also have other side effects. Zimmermann, for example, has studied how supplementation can affect people's microbiome. Bacteria thrive on iron, he says. The very small amount of iron that breastmilk has is bound to protective substances like lactoferrin, which helps to keep iron away from potential pathogens in the gut – especially protective for babies, who have immature immune systems. Giving a baby aged six months old micronutrient powders containing iron, which is what many experts recommend, could result in a negative outcome, says Zimmermann.
"These powders have very high amounts of iron in them… which can cause a very rapid shift in the microbiome," says Zimmermann. The babies can't absorb all that iron, which ends up impacting their gut microbiome – potentially towards a balance favouring "the pathogens we worry most about in babies", he says. This includes E. coli, which grows prolifically in the presence of iron.
Many clinicians and researchers agree, however, that when someone has iron deficiency or iron-deficiency anaemia along with symptoms, supplementing can be one of the fastest ways to help them improve. One review of iron deficiency in endurance athletes, for example, found that supplementation not only improved ferritin and haemoglobin, but athletes' aerobic capacity, too.
Whether to take supplements – or give them to a child – is something that people should decide with the help of a doctor, experts say.
A balanced diet
But in an ideal world, people would get sufficient iron by eating a balanced diet that includes iron-rich foods, and avoid developing a deficiency in the first place – though this is not always possible. Ingredients such as liver or red meat, pulses, including kidney and edamame beans and chickpeas, as well as nuts and dried fruits are all considered good sources of iron.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that infants aged six to 12 months need 11 mg of iron per day. For toddlers, they recommend 7 mg, and for four- to eight-year-olds, 10 mg.
Part of the higher recommendation for younger babies is because of their rapid development, experts say. But it's also because there is an assumption being made that most infants' first solids will be foods like iron-fortified cereals, as well as fruits and vegetables – non-heme sources of iron, which the body absorbs less readily than heme sources, which are animal-derived, like meat, fish and eggs.
"Diet is the best approach. Your body tends to take it up better. Your body tends to use it better," Corkins says. "Now, if someone is profoundly anaemic, and you're trying to get them fixed faster – then you do supplementation."
As for Ryan, she was able to correct her iron deficiency both times it happened: in pregnancy, with a supplement, and in 2023, with iron infusions, administered at her hospital, every two weeks for five months. "It wasn't a quick fix," she says. With time, however, she noticed her fatigue fade.
Disclaimer
All content within this column is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of a doctor or any other health care professional. The BBC is not responsible or liable for any diagnosis made by a user based on the content of this site. The BBC is not liable for the contents of any external internet sites listed, nor does it endorse any commercial product or service mentioned or advised on any of the sites. Always consult your own GP if you're in any way concerned about your health.
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In Tulsi, a village in central India, social media has sparked an economic and social revolution. It's a microcosm of YouTube's effect on the world.
As villagers head into the fields of Tulsi, a village outside Raipur in central India, on a muggy September morning, 32-year-old YouTuber Jai Varma asks a group of women to join him for his latest video. They gather around him – adjusting their sarees and sharing a quick word and a smile.
Varma places an elderly woman on a plastic chair, asks another to touch her feet and a third to serve water, staging a scene of a rural village festival for fans who will enjoy his content from cities and countries thousands of kilometres away. The women, familiar with this kind of work, are happy to oblige. Varma captures the moment, and they return to their farmwork.
A few hundred metres away, another group is busy setting up their own production. One holds up a mobile phone, filming as 26-year-old Rajesh Diwar moves to the rhythm of a hip-hop track, his hands and body animated in the expressive style of a seasoned performer.
Tulsi is like any other Indian village. The small outpost in the central state of Chhattisgarh is home to one-storey houses and partially paved roads. A water storage tank peers out above the buildings, overseeing the town. Banyan trees with concrete bases serve as gathering spots. But what sets Tulsi apart is its distinction as India's "YouTube Village".
Some 4,000 people live in Tulsi, and reports suggest more than 1,000 of them work on YouTube in some capacity. Walk around the village itself and it's hard to find someone who hasn't appeared in one of the many videos being filmed there.
The money that YouTube brings has transformed the local economy, locals say, and beyond financial benefits, the social media platform has become an instrument for equality and social change. The residents who've launched successful YouTube channels and found new streams of income include a number of women who previously had few opportunities for advancement in this rural setting. Under the banyan trees, conversations have turned to technology and the internet.
February 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of YouTube. Approximately 2.5 billion people use the platform per month by some estimates, and India is one of YouTube's biggest markets by far. Over the decades, YouTube has changed not only the web but the entire way we think about creating and consuming human culture. In a way, Tulsi village is a microcosm of YouTube's effect on the world itself, where for some, their entire lives revolve around online videos.
"It is keeping the children away from bad habits and crime," says Netram Yadav, 49, a farmer in Tulsi and one of the many admirers of the village's burgeoning social media scene. "These content creators have made everyone in the village proud for what they have been able to achieve and do."
A social media revolution
Tulsi's Youtube transformation started back in 2018, when Varma and his friend Gyanendra Shukla launched a YouTube channel called Being Chhattisgarhiya."We were not content with our routine lives, and wanted to do something that would allow our creative juices to flow," Varma says.
Their third video, about a young couple being harassed on Valentines Day by members of Bajrang Dal, a right wing Hindu nationalist group, was the first to go viral. The mix of comedy and social commentary struck a chord. "The video was humorous, but it also had a message, and we left it open for viewers to interpret," Varma says.
The duo gained tens of thousands of followers in a matter of months, a number that's since spread to over 125,000 subscribers and a cumulative viewership exceeding 260 million. Their families' concerns about dedicating so much time to social media were silenced when the money started flowing in. "We were earning over 30,000 rupees [about £278 or $346] a month, and were able to support the team members who helped us," Shukla says. He and Varma left their jobs to pursue YouTube full-time.
Their success was soon an inspiration to other Tulsi residents. Shukla says his team paid their actors and even provided training for others in editing and script writing. Some villagers created their own channels, while others were content to volunteer.
It was enough to attract attention from local officials. Impressed by the success of the village content creators, the state government established a state-of-the-art studio in the village in 2023. Sarveshwar Bhure, former collector – a senior civil servant – of the Raipur district which includes Tulsi, says he saw the village's YouTube work as an opportunity to address the digital divide. "I wanted to bridge the gap between rural and urban life by providing this studio," Bhure says. "Their videos are impactful, with strong themes, and have reached millions. Setting up a studio was a way to motivate them."
The bet paid off. YouTube has created a livelihood for hundreds of young people in the village, Bhure says. It's stoking a regional entertainment industry and launching some Tulsi YouTubers out of their small-town life.
From the cellphones to the big screen
Of all the social media stars born in Tulsi's YouTube frenzy, none has risen higher than 27-year-old Pinky Sahoo. Growing up in a remote village built around agriculture, Sahoo's aspirations of becoming an actress and dancer felt like a distant fantasy – thanks especially to disapproval from family and neighbours who saw acting as taboo.
Despite their criticism, Sahoo started posting dance videos on Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. Her breakthrough came when the founders of Being Chhattisgarhiya spotted her videos and recruited her for their own productions. "It was a dream come true," Sahoo recalls. "They recognised my talent and honed my skills.”
The momentum continued as her work with Being Chattisgarhiya caught the attention of local filmmakers in Chattisgarh's regional cinema business, and Sahoo was cast in her first movie role. She's since appeared in seven films. Anand Manikpuri, a producer and director in the nearby city of Bilaspur, was impressed by her YouTube performances. "I was looking for a fresh face who could act, and Sahoo had it all," he says.
Tulsi resident Aditya Bhagel was still in college when, inspired by Varma and Shukla, he decided to start his own channel. Adapting their techniques, he grew to over 20,000 followers within a year and started earning money from YouTube. Eventually, Varma recruited him for a writing and directing job on the Being Chattisgarhiya team. "It was like meeting celebrities," Bhagel says, recalling his first meeting with Varma and Shukla.
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A job in the production house in the nearby city of Raipur soon followed, where he was hired based on his YouTube work. That streak continued when Bhagel landed a role as a scriptwriter and assistant director for an upcoming, big-budget movie titled Kharun Paar. "I can only hope that one day I get to work in tinsel town," he says.
Yet another YouTuber turned cinema professional is 38-year-old Manoj Yadav. He had his first acting role as a child, portraying a young Lord Rama in an annual reenactment of the Hindu epic the Ramayana. Yadav never imagined that those claps would one day echo in cinema halls across Chhattisgarh.
After years of showcasing his talent in YouTube videos, Yadav landed a role in a regional film, one that earned widespread praise for his acting skills. Today, Yadav has not only made a name for himself but built an entire livelihood through his craft. "None of this would have been possible without YouTube," he says "I can't put my feelings into words."
Empowering women
In Tulsi, YouTube has paved the way for women to take centre stage in this technological revolution.
According to Draupadi Vaishnu, the former Sarpanch, or village head of Tulsi, YouTube can play a crucial role in challenging biases and changing societal norms in India, where domestic abuse remains a prevalent issue. "It's common for women to perpetuate [misogynistic practices], especially in how they treat their daughters-in-law. These videos help break those cycles," Vaishnu says.
Recently the 61-year-old starred in a video addressing the subject. "I was glad to take on that role because it promoted the importance of treating women with respect and equality, a value I championed during my time as village head," she says.
Rahul Varma (no relation to Jai Varma), a 28-year old wedding photographer who learned the art from YouTube from his fellow villagers, says the platform has been transformative. "At first, our mothers and sisters were just helping out. Now, they're running their own channels. It's not something we would have imagined before," he says. Even his 15-year-old nephew assists the village content creators, Varma says. "It is a serious business here, everyone participates."
There was an explosion of rural content creators in India during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly on TikTok, before India banned the app in 2020. That initial wave was primarily driven by men, says Shriram Venkatraman, an assistant professor at the University of Southern Denmark who studies the impacts of social media in India. However, there are a lot more women running successful social media channels post pandemic, Venkatraman says, and that's created new economic opportunities.
"The amount of global connections that it has brought about is transformative, to say the least," he says, for both men and women. "Some even start other businesses from YouTube using their subscribers and content consumers as their initial customer base, for example, hair oil and homemade spices/masalas."
But for some, money is beside the point. "I love contributing to the videos produced by my village’s channels, and I do it without expecting anything in return," says 56-year-old Ramkali Varma (also no relation to Jai Varma), a homemaker who has emerged as the go-to actress for roles portraying loving mothers, making her one of the village's most sought-after talents.
Ramkali's acting roles often address gender issues. A favourite was a supportive mother-in-law who encourages her daughter-in-law to pursue further education, she says. "I've been able to advocate for women's education and success. Acting brings me satisfaction and peace of mind."
Now a successful and self-reliant actress, Sahoo hopes to inspire other young girls. "If I can achieve my dreams, they can too," she says, reflecting on the pride of watching her performance on the big screen with her father. In Tulsi, Sahoo has become a role model for young women. "Seeing girls dream big and aim high is the most rewarding part of my journey. There are girls now who aspire to become filmmakers," she says.
As the sun sets over Tulsi, Diwar and his team work tirelessly to perfect their hip hop beats. "Switching from content creation to rap music hasn't been easy," says Diwar, whose channel's name is Lethwa Raja, which loosely translates to "Amazing King".
Diwar hopes YouTube can be a vector for other cultural shifts for his people. "Not many people rap in our language, but I believe I can change that," he says. "I want to bring a new sound to our region and make Tulsi known for its music as much as its videos."
*Correction: A previous version of this story misstated Shriram Venkatraman's university affiliation. He is an assistant professor at the University of Southern Denmark. This article was originally published on 18 February 2025 and updated on 11 March 2025.
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Some people who stop eating meat have reported unpleasant effects when they return to it. Can your body forget how to digest flesh?
Eating less meat is one of the simplest ways to reduce your carbon footprint.
If everyone in the UK moved to a low-meat diet, eating less than 50g, or one Cumberland sausage’s worth of meat a day, it would save as much carbon as if eight million cars were parked for good, researchers have calculated. Data from the UK government shows that meat consumption is dropping – between 1980 and 2022, consumption of beef, pork, and lamb fell by 62% – and though the reasons cited vary, and may have more to do with rising costs than an environmental conscientiousness, more and more people are clearly experimenting with saying no to meat.
But if you go a long time without eating it, does that change your body's ability to digest it? Vegetarians and vegans sometimes post on social media, asking whether going back to meat could cause stomach pain, bloating, and other symptoms. Others weigh in with their own experiences, and a great, late-night whirlwind of curiosity and cramps is born.
However, there isn’t much research on whether consuming meat after a long break can trigger an upset stomach, says Sander Kersten, a professor of nutrition at Cornell University in the US. "A lack of evidence doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it's just that people haven't studied it," he reflects. "That's not always a satisfying situation or answer, but it's just what you have to deal with sometimes."
It is possible – though it is very rare – to be allergic to meat. Alpha-gal syndrome, in which the immune system recognises animal proteins as invaders, can lead to anaphylaxis and death. But this allergy, which can crop up after a lifetime of cheerful meat eating, is not related to switching to a low-meat diet. You can, for example, develop the condition after a tick bite.
For many who are avoiding meat, discovering that they have unknowingly consumed it can be emotionally painful – it can feel like a personal violation, says Kersten, who is a vegetarian himself. "That would make some people extremely sad," he explains. " I don't know if that would lead to physical symptoms. It certainly could trigger a lot of anger."
But when you consider the biology of digestion, it is not as plausible as you might imagine that the body could, over a long period of time, lose the ability to digest meat. Meat is generally very easily digested, unlike the fibre in fruits, vegetables, and legumes. To break that up, our bodies require help from our microbiome, whose microbes do possess the enzymes necessary for digesting it.
Moreover, the enzymes used to digest plant proteins are the same as those used on meat proteins. These enzymes recognise and sever particular chemical bonds in proteins. Whether they come from plants or animals, the proteins are made of building blocks called amino acids. Enzymes can generally break them up no matter where they came from.
This process is different from the case of, say, animal milk sugars like lactose. To digest lactose, your body requires a specific enzyme called lactase, and people who do not produce enough of the enzyme, making them lactose intolerants, can suffer a tummy upset after eating dairy products.
But with meat proteins, it does not make sense to think of the body somehow ceasing to make the enzymes necessary to digest a hamburger comfortably – they're always there, breaking down any protein that comes through, be it from pea, soybeans, or steaks, says Kersten.
The human gut microbiome does morph and change depending on what its host eats, though. Sometimes this means that the specific types of bacteria there change; sometimes it's just that the microbes make other enzymes. While there are differences between the microbiomes of omnivores and vegetarians and vegans, they do not seem to be radically divergent, so long as the omnivores consume a variety of plants, research has found.
Microbiomes can shift quickly as a result of dietary changes, however – one study in which people switched to a fully animal-based diet showed that a shift away from their baseline microbiome was visible within a day (it swiftly reverted back to normal once the diet ended). Subjects were encouraged to report any discomfort they felt, but nothing made it into the paper.
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If anything, it's the sudden consumption of large amounts of fibre after a long hiatus that could cause digestive problems. It's better to ease into such dietary changes. "Depending on the fibre, you can have some pretty strong reactions to it," says Kersten.
In short, worrying about your body somehow losing the ability to digest meat shouldn't impair any plans you have to extend Veganuary into the spring. If you're among those who've had an upset stomach after eating meat following a long hiatus, a loss of enzymes is not likely to be the culprit, though this phenomenon remains understudied, Kersten says.
"The body is quite adaptable," he continues. "It can do more than you think."
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The organisers of an arts market in Leeds have amended the application process after visitors complained about the amount of AI-generated art on sale at a recent trading event.
It is the first time the Alternative Market, which has been running since 2017 and receives hundreds of applications from potential vendors, has faced complaints about AI, say organisers.
After more than 100 comments appeared on Reddit after the event on Saturday, organisers at the Leeds Festival of Gothica have promised to engage with the community about the issue of AI-generated art.
The market, which took place at Leeds Kirkgate, included more than 100 traders of antiques, fashion, homeware and art.
"When viewing applicants, we are unfortunately only able to make our decisions based off of photographs and social media submitted by the vendors themselves. This can sometimes mean surprises along the way," a spokesperson said.
Organisers say that, from now on, they will ask those registering for a spot to declare any use of AI and where they have used it in their products - to enable the team make informed decisions.
"At Leeds Festival of Gothica [LFOG], we cherish creativity and value honesty. All of our captions are scribed by our team and all of our artwork is hand-illustrated by resident artist Midnight Vipers," the spokesperson said.
"This human touch is what allows us to curate a uniquely LFOG experience, and is not something we will be sacrificing as we continue to offer these events, which have become beloved amongst the community."
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A group of teachers has discussed how artificial intelligence (AI) might play a part in classrooms during an event held in Stoke-on-Trent.
Organised by the Good Future Foundation, it was hosted by Belgrave St Bartholomew's Academy, and also attended by Stoke-on-Trent South MP Allison Gardner.
More than 40 teachers attended the full-day session, and discussed ways they might use AI in their teaching as well as the challenges it could pose.
Labour MP Gardner said the government believed AI was a "generational opportunity" for the country and that it offered teachers a lot of potential.
The foundation said just over a quarter of teachers felt confident about AI, and said it planned to roll out further sessions across the country.
"The government has already outlined how vital AI can be to the future of education in Britain," the foundation's executive director Daniel Emmerson said.
"It is vital that our educators are given the support they need to understand and implement this technology in the classroom to confidently prepare all students to benefit from and succeed in an AI infused world."
Attendees discussed and designed practical ways of using the technology in their own schools, including using AI to communicate more effectively with families with English as an additional language and using automated chatbots to help parents access school resources.
'Generational opportunity'
Labour MP Gardner commended St Bartholomew's for its use of AI in teaching, and said: "I want children from Stoke, in our community, to lead the way in utilising this opportunity so they are able to have the best start in life."
Daniel Drakeley, deputy head teacher at St Paul's C of E Primary in Stoke-on-Trent, said he had been using AI in the classroom and believed most teachers did.
"Whilst we want to ensure that we are at the forefront of harnessing new technology for the betterment of our pupils, we have responsibilities to protect our students from potential dangers," he said.
"I found it incredibly reassuring to hear from other teachers experiencing the same concerns," he added.
George Barlow, principal of Belgrave St Bartholomew's added that harnessing innovation to improve lessons was "fundamental" in how their school approaches teaching.
"We can ensure that our children are the ones who are equipped with the right skills and education to take advantage of the opportunities," he said.
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Bereaved families are calling on the online regulator Ofcom to shut down a "vile" website which promotes videos of the deaths of their loved ones.
The website, which we are not naming, has more than three million members and contains thousands of graphic photos and videos of real-life killings and suicides as well as executions carried out by extremists. Past members include those who have gone on to commit school shootings and murders, the BBC can reveal.
From Monday, Ofcom gets new powers to crack down on illegal content, but it may not be enough to close the site.
The site's admin team have said they would give their "full attention" to any Ofcom requests.
Under the Online Safety Act, the regulator can now take action over illegal content and that includes videos promoting terrorism or banned extremist groups.
All websites will now have to show they have systems in place to remove illegal material. If they fail to do so, the regulator can get court orders to block platforms or impose fines of up to £18m.
And from the summer all sites must have robust age verification systems to prevent children accessing a range of content.
But critics believe the legislation itself is weak and that Ofcom is not being robust enough in how it plans to police sites.
Mike Haines' brother David was murdered by members of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria in 2014. The full uncensored video of his killing is on the site.
Mr Haines says the website is "vile" and describes the content on it as "horrifying". He points out there is no effective age verification and worries about the impact on children.
"It's like a drug," he says, "once you've had your first taste, you want another taste.
"So you want to see more, and it becomes more violent and more graphic and more disgusting".
David Haines' daughter, Bethany, says the comments on the videos are horrendous. "For years I have been trying to keep track and report sites such as this one. I have a fear that my son will one day see the video of his grandfather."
Mr Haines says the authorities must act now. "Every second that we delay in shutting this site down, we are endangering our youth."
Ofcom has spent the past 18 months since the Online Safety Act was passed drawing up the codes of practice that platforms have to follow.
The regulator can now start to exercise its powers to investigate and fine platforms for hosting illegal material.
Videos on the website are categorised into groups, which include executions by extremist groups as well as people being burned alive, decapitated by passing cars and crushed by trains.
Although violent and distressing, not all videos on the site would be deemed illegal.
Experts are concerned that viewing such content normalises extreme violence and helps in the radicalisation of young people.
BBC research into user names on the site has also identified a number of known online extremists, including two people who recently carried out school shootings in the US.
Last December, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow killed two and injured six at her conservative Christian school, in Madison, Wisconsin.
And in January, 17-year-old Solomon Henderson opened fire in a school cafeteria in Antioch, Tennessee, killing one student and injuring another before turning the gun on himself.
Both were members of the website, which offers a "school shooting compilation" video.
In the UK, it's known that Nicholas Prosper, 19, who pleaded guilty to killing his mother and two siblings, was also a member of the site.
When he was arrested by police in September last year a shotgun and 30 cartridges were found nearby. It's thought he was planning to carry out an attack at his old primary school in Luton.
Prosper had an interest in mass shootings, including the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, one of the most infamous massacres in the US.
Dr Olivia Brown, who studies radicalisation and extremism at the University of Bath, says repeated viewing of these kinds of videos, especially school shootings, desensitises users.
"What might have seemed like an impossible solution to what someone might be feeling, would then become something that might feel like a viable option," she says.
The site is also deeply distressing for grieving families.
A video of base jumper Nathan Odinson has been put in the "falling" category of the website by site administrators.
The 33-year-old from Cambridgeshire was an experienced skydiver, but died when his parachute failed to open after jumping from a 29-storey tower in Pattaya, Thailand, last year.
A Thai friend was filming at the time and the video was posted first on local social media.
"Nathan was a family member that we loved," said his brother Ed Harrison.
"I found it amazing, literally, that people could be so half-witted as to share that video. I don't suppose these forum members have such thoughts in respect to their own family members."
Another video on the site shows Ian Price who died in hospital after he was attacked by two XL Bullies in September 2023.
From today Ofcom says platforms must have systems in place to remove illegal content.
"We won't hesitate to take enforcement action where necessary against platforms that fall short."
The challenge for Ofcom is that the death website is hosted in the US and its owner and administrators remain anonymous.
Ofcom told us "this content is deeply disturbing".
In a statement, the website's admin team said it "routinely receives reports from many government agencies and industry watchdogs".
It said any reports from Ofcom "will have our full attention".
If you have been affected by issues in this story, help and support is available at BBC Action Line
In 2019, climate scientist Steffen Olsen took a startling photo of huskies appearing to walk on water. The photo quickly went viral as it revealed the reality of Greenland's rapidly melting ice.
In June 2019, a striking image of husky dogs apparently walking on water in Greenland stunned the world and quickly went viral.
The photo was taken by Steffen Olsen, a climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute and lead of Blue Action, a European project which investigates the effect of a changing Arctic on weather and climate.
"The reaction surprised me," says Olsen. "It surprised me that so many people saw this as a beautiful photo. I saw it as a scary situation."
That's because the dogs were in fact wading through ankle-deep meltwater on top of sea ice in Inglefield Bredning, an 80km-long (49.7 miles) system in northwestern Greenland.
"I learned to see the photo as an illusion. People don't see sea ice, but dogs walking on water," Olsen says.
Olsen captured the photo while travelling with a team of scientists who were monitoring sea and ice conditions near the town of Qaanaaq, one of the world's most northerly towns. They were retrieving scientific instruments they had deployed during the winter.
"We had been travelling for some hours and it became clear that the melting was very extreme… [the ice] more or less melted beneath our feet while we were travelling on it," says Olsen. "The local hunters and I were very surprised… we were searching for dry spots to get the dogs and the sleds out of the water and there were none in sight. We turned around and made it back to the coast."
The dogs are typically very hesitant to get their paws wet, says Olsen. "Usually when we meet water, it's because there are cracks in the sea ice and the dogs have to jump over the water…they hate it. But it was actually very warm so I think they were happy to have cold feet," he says, adding that temperatures reached 14C (57F) on the day.
The scientists managed to retrieve their instruments a few days later once the water had drained away through small cracks in the ice sheet. "Then you have a short period of time when you can then travel again before the ice collapses and breaks up," says Olsen.
Olsen says he was extremely surprised by the rapid melting he witnessed when he took the photo on 13 June 2019. He has only experienced such an extreme event once during his 15 years carrying out research in Greenland. It's unusual for melting to occur that quickly, Olsen explains.
"It requires a sudden onset of warm air while you still have fresh snow on the ice and solid sea ice. So it's an example of an extreme event developing early in the season... The local community have told me: 'you will have to wait 100 years to see [such an event] again'."
Melting events such as the one Olsen witnessed would normally not occur until later in the season, in late June and July, but in 2019 melting started in mid-April, around six to eight weeks before the 1981-2020 average, and affected roughly 95% of Greenland's ice sheet, according to the US' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Such early melting events can have a "snowball effect" and lead to more melting as there is less snow and ice to reflect the Sun's rays back into space and keep the surface cool, explains Bianca Perren, a paleoclimatologist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), who studies sediment cores from polar regions to understand the long-term variability of the climate.
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Greenland experienced record ice loss in 2019, shedding a total of 532 billion tonnes from its giant ice sheet, according to a 2020 study. On average, Greenland loses 234 billion tonnes of ice per year – enough to pack into 6,324 Empire State Buildings.
"2019 was a really unusually warm year, but so was 2012," says Kelly Hogan, a marine geophysicist at BAS who studies the impacts of Greenland's melting ice sheet. In 2012, the summer period (June-August) was more than 2C (4F) warmer than the average for 1981-2010, and more than 1.5C (3F) warmer for the entire ice sheet. "Those extremes are coming round more frequently than we had thought they would. They're happening every few years," says Hogan.
"What's really distinctive about Greenland is how much melting you get on the surface in the summer, because you don't get anywhere near as much as that in Antarctica," says Hogan. "When you see huge volumes of water [on the ice], it is really shocking."
But it's rare to see "giant pools of water" on the surface like in Olsen's photo, says Perren, as usually the water seeps through cracks in the ice. "It basically pops the ice sheet up and floats it out to the coast. So often you don't have this pooling of water, but instead you have warm water that's being sent down into the bowels of the Greenland ice sheet, basically warming the whole thing," she says.
The rapid melting of the ice is already affecting local communities' way of life. "They are having to adapt the way they hunt and fish," says Olsen.
If the ice is unsafe to travel on, it also makes it more difficult for scientists to carry out their research, Olsen adds. "We will have to adapt and rely more on automatic instruments instead of community-based monitoring."
Safety is already a concern, says Perren, adding: "I have promised my son that I will not step foot on the ice sheet because it's so dangerous."
The photo has helped raise awareness of Greenland's vulnerability to climate change, says Olsen. "I have definitely found that you can get a lot of attention for the problem with a photo… so it has been very efficient.
"But I've also been challenged by people saying: 'how can you take a photo of climate change?' And I agree, you cannot take one photo and call it climate change, because that is something that unfolds over a longer time period," says Olsen. "We need to explain the photo and provide the right context."
Photos are useful tools for starting conversation about the environment and explaining scientific phenomena, says Perren. "Science has a communication problem," she says.
"When I first saw it in 2019 I remember thinking: 'oh my gosh, this is such a shocking image,'" adds Perren. "It's a symbolic image of what climate change looks like in Greenland. But there's also a scientific side to it: maybe this is unprecedented but it also [paints] a very good, kind of emblematic picture of what the future would look like."
Hogan says that photo "really drives home the extent of the problem". "It looks like the dogs are skating on something without a bottom… it feels like they could just sink at any moment, which is maybe some sort of metaphor for the ice sheet and the future."
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A SpaceX capsule carrying a new crew has docked at the International Space Station (ISS), paving the way for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to come home.
The pair were due to be on the ISS for only eight days, but because of technical issues with the experimental spacecraft they arrived on, they have been there for more than nine months.
The astronauts are due to begin their journey back to Earth later this week. Steve Stich, manager of Nasa's commercial crew programme said he was delighted at the prospect.
"Butch and Suni have done a great job and we are excited to bring them back," he said.
Live footage showed the SpaceX Crew Dragon docking with the ISS and opening a hatch. Shortly after 0545 GMT, the astronauts embraced and hugged their counterparts.
The astronauts, along with their ISS workmates, Nasa's Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, will be relieved by four astronauts, from Russia, Japan and two from the US.
There will be a two-day handover after which the old crew are due to begin their journey back to Earth. But there could be a small further delay, as they wait for conditions on Earth to be right for a safe re-entry of the returning capsule, according to Dana Weigel, manager, of the ISS programme.
"Weather always has to cooperate, so we'll take our time over that if it is not favourable," she told reporters.
Ms Weigel explained that the astronauts had begun getting ready for the handover last week.
"Butch rang a ceremonial bell as Suni handed over command to cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin," she said.
The astronauts have consistently said that they have been happy to be on board the space station, with Suni Williams describing it as her "happy place". But Dr Simeon Barber, of the Open University, told BBC News that there would likely have been a personal cost.
"When you are sent on a work trip that is supposed to last a week, you are not expecting it to take the best part of a year," he said.
"This extended stay in space will have disrupted family life, things will have happened back home that they will have missed out on, so there will have been a period of upheaval."
Butch and Suni arrived at the ISS at the beginning of June 2024 to test an experimental spacecraft called Starliner, which was built by the aerospace firm Boeing, a rival to SpaceX.
The mission had been delayed by several years because of technical issues in the spacecraft's development, and there were problems during its launch and docking on to the ISS. This included issues with some of Starliner's thrusters, which would be needed to slow the spacecraft for re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, and leaks of helium gas in the propulsion system.
Nasa decided that it would not take even a small risk in bringing back Butch and Suni on Starliner, when they had the option of returning them on SpaceX's Dragon capsule. Nasa decided the best option was to do this during a scheduled crew rotation, even though it would mean keeping the astronauts on the space station for several months.
Boeing has consistently argued that it would have been safe to bring Butch and Suni back on Starliner, and were unhappy about the decision to use a rival's capsule instead, which will be "embarrassing" for Boeing, according to Dr Barber.
"It's not a good look for Boeing to see astronauts they took into space come back in a competitor's craft."
Both President Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk have said that Butch and Suni could have been brought home sooner, most recently in a joint interview with Fox News in February.
President Trump states: "They got left in space."
When the interviewer, Sean Hannity, elaborates, saying "They were supposed to be there eight days. They're there almost 300," Mr Trump responds with one word: "Biden." Mr Musk follows up asserting: "They were left up there for political reasons."
The assertion is denied by Nasa's Steve Stitch.
"We looked at a wide range of options and worked hand-in-hand with SpaceX to look at what was the best thing to do overall and when we laid all that out the best option was to have the one we are embarking upon," he said.
That decision was supported by Dr Libby Jackson, who is head of space at the Science Museum in London and worked at Europe's control centre for the ISS.
"Butch and Suni's wellbeing would always have been at the very forefront of everybody's minds as the decisions were being made for how best to deal with the circumstances that they were presented," she said.
"Nasa made those decisions based on good technical reasons, on programmatic reasons, and found the right solution that has kept Butch and Suni safe.
"I really look forward to seeing them return to Earth, safe and sound, along with the rest of their crewmates."
An AI robot waiter named Alphonso is delighting a cafe's customers while helping staff, according to its manager.
No. 30 Coffee Lounge in Brandon, Suffolk, recently welcomed Alphonso that has the capability of serving and interacting with customers.
Manager Nicki Plume said it had become the talk of her customers and the robot had been "very helpful".
She stressed however he was not there to replace staff.
"It's just helpful for the girls during the day and we open in evenings as an Italian restaurant, so it's helpful to bring the food over, clearing the tables," she explained.
"He's not going to replace anyone, he's just helping.
"The kids really like him... we were the talk of the old people's home as well they were talking about him down there, so we've had lots of old people come in and ask to be served by Alphonso."
Other restaurants across the country are using similar robots, which can in some cases cost about £18,500 to buy.
It is not just robots changing our High Streets however, as even more technology influences consumer habits and experiences.
Digital Ipswich Innovation Showcase has been taking place, showing how technology can "revitalise" town centres through artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).
James Lee Burgess, 51, is the founder of Urban Tech Creative and attended the event to give visitors the chance to experience a 'phygital' - physical and digital - retail experience through headsets.
"The idea is we have digital content for brands that can be provided anywhere or any place using [an empty shelf] as a backdrop."
He likened it to "an infinite shop front" enabling a number of brands to show their products through the headsets.
Also at the Ipswich event was Nana Parry, 38, co-founder of Cluso.
It is a tool that makes it easier for the public to give feedback on consumer experiences through voice note recordings, which he believed could improve Ipswich.
"One of the great things about Ipswich is everything in terms of regeneration," he said.
"So we know that it's really important to get people back into the towns, experiencing the High Street.
"One of the ways of doing that is by using Cluso, getting the public to share exactly what they want from these experiences."
Jack Norris, 35, is director of Zubr, offering people the chance to experience AR and VR through digital binoculars.
It was being used at the Ipswich event to show what the town's waterfront may have looked like during the 1890s.
He believed the technology could become "street furniture", giving visitors looks into the past.
"The very familiar looking nature of it also appeals to older people who perhaps would never install a 3D app on a phone.
"They'll just come and have a look through it thinking they might see the real world and being surprised hopefully impressed by seeing our historical visuals instead."
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James Lee Williams, better known as drag star The Vivienne, died from a cardiac arrest caused by the effects of taking ketamine, their family has said.
The performer's sister Chanel Williams said her family "continue to be completely devastated" by the death of the 32-year-old and will be working with a substance abuse charity to raise awareness of the dangers of the drug.
The RuPaul's Drag Race UK winner was found dead at their home in Cheshire in January, with celebrities and fans around the world paying tribute.
An inquest is scheduled to take place in June.
Cheshire Police said there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding the performer's death.
Simon Jones, Williams' manager and close friend, said the family felt it was important to share the circumstances of their death.
He said: "I hope by us releasing this information we can raise awareness about the dangers of ongoing ketamine usage and what it can do to your body."
Williams, who grew up in Colwyn Bay in north Wales before moving to Liverpool, won the first series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK in 2019 and went on to have a varied career in TV and theatre.
They later became the only queen from a UK series to compete on the US version of Drag Race All Stars.
Their family said they "brought the sparkle to life" and will be missed "for eternity" during an emotional vigil in Liverpool shortly after Williams' death.
Celebrities including singer Jade Thirlwall and Ian "H" Watkins from Steps, as well as several fellow drag queens, attended the funeral alongside family and friends in Bodelwyddan, Denbighshire, at the end of January.
The Vivienne was praised for raising awareness of substance abuse during their time competing on series one of RuPaul's Drag Race UK, where they openly discussed how they sought help for their ketamine addiction.
The Williams family now hopes to continue this legacy by working with substance abuse charity Adferiad on a campaign aimed at opening up conversations about substance abuse and addiction.
Speaking for the family, Ms Williams said: "Ketamine is an extremely dangerous drug that is becoming more and more prevalent in the UK.
"If we can help raise awareness of the dangers of this drug and help people who may be dealing with ketamine addiction then something positive will come from this complete tragedy."
Ketamine, a powerful horse tranquiliser and anaesthetic, is a licensed drug and can be prescribed medically, but its usage as an illegal substance is growing among young people.
In England, the number of under-18s entering drug treatment who describe ketamine as one of their problem substances rose from 335 to 917 between 2020-21 and 2023-24, according to the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System.
Donna Chavez, a spokesperson for Adferiad, which runs a specialist detox and rehabilitation centre, said they were "incredibly grateful" to Williams' family for their support.
She added: "Their courage in sharing James' story will help raise vital awareness of the devastating impact substance use can have.
"We are seeing a worrying rise in the number of people using ketamine, often unaware of the serious risks it poses to their physical and mental health.
"By opening conversations and challenging misconceptions, we can help prevent further tragedies and support those in need to find hope and recovery."
If you've been affected by the issues raised in this article, help and support is available via BBC Action Line.
Award-winning Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne has died from cancer at the age of 43.
Dequenne shot to fame when she won the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival at the age of 18 for the film Rosetta in 1999.
She won another Cannes award for À Perdre la Raison (Our Children) in 2012, and received a Cesar, one of France's top film honours, for Les Choses Qu'on Dit, les Choses Qu'on Fait (The Things We Say, the Things We Do) in 2021.
She mainly acted in French-language films but also appeared as police officer Laurence Relaud in 2014 BBC TV drama The Missing.
Rosetta, a poignant tale about a teenager's struggle to overcome a life of misery, was Dequenne's first screen role.
She had been unemployed after losing her job in a food factory when she was picked for the role.
"The first day she filmed in front of a real camera, she managed to bring the whole team together," Luc Dardenne, who directed it with his brother Jean-Pierre, said in a tribute to broadcaster RTBF.
"It got better and better as the shoot progressed... She was magnificent and the film owes a lot to her."
In The Missing, she played Laurence Relaud, which starred James Nesbitt as the father of a boy who disappears during a family holiday.
Her other films included 2009's La fille du RER (The Girl on the Train), 2014's Pas Son Genre (Not My Type) and 2022 Cannes nominee Close.
Others paying tribute included French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati, who wrote: "Francophone cinema has lost, too soon, a talented actress who still had so much to offer."
Dequenne revealed in October 2023 that she was suffering from adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC), a cancer of the adrenal gland.
In one of her last Instagram posts, for World Cancer Day in February, she wrote: "What a tough fight! And we don't choose..."
The live-action version of the classic fairy-tale animation sounded like a surefire hit. But even before it's reached cinemas, the response to it has been loud and often hostile.
You wouldn't think that the war in Gaza would have much impact on a Disney remake. But the live-action Snow White, a revamped version of the 1937 animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, has become a flashpoint for social and political divisions, even before its global release next week.
There was some backlash to the casting of Rachel Zegler, of Colombian descent, as the heroine. More recently, there has been blowback both about Zegler's pro-Palestinian comments and about pro-Israel comments by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who plays Snow White's stepmother, the Evil Queen. And there is an ongoing debate about whether there should have been dwarfs at all, live or CGI. The film's director, Marc Webb, said in Disney's official production notes, "I think all good stories evolve over time. They become reflections of the world that we live in". He has likely got more than he bargained for, as reactions to Snow White inadvertently reflect the most polarised aspects of the world today. Like political rhetoric in countries around the world, responses to the film's production have been loud, irate and sometimes ugly.
Snow White has been in the works since 2019, and began in earnest with Zegler's casting in 2021. Since then attacks on its so-called "wokeness" have proliferated, making the film a lightning rod for opinions that have little to do with the fairy tale it is based on. A recent Hollywood Reporter article asked, "Have some PR missteps combined with anti-woke outrage turned marketing the film into a poisoned apple?" And alongside such measured reporting there have been heated responses in the media. The editorial board of the New York Post – owned by Rupert Murdoch, the conservative mogul whose company also owns Fox News – weighed in this week, declaring the film a financial disaster before it has opened, writing: "Disney 'Snow White' controversy proves it again: Go woke, go broke!"
The debate over updating
The original film needed an update if it was going to be remade at all. In its day it set a high bar for Disney's future animated films, but it also introduced the song Someday My Prince Will Come, blighting the expectations of generations of girls by setting them up to wait for a Prince Charming to make their lives complete. Meanwhile, Snow White happily sweeps the floor for the dwarfs until he shows up to rescue her with a kiss after she bites the Queen's poisoned apple. Soon after her casting announcement, Zegler told the television show Extra that in the old Snow White "there was a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her". In fact, the original film states that he "searched far and wide" to find her after falling in love at first sight, and he disappears for most of the film, so no need to take that comment too seriously. Zegler was excited and laughing when she said it. But in an early sign of the blinkered reactions to come, social media posts complained that she was anti-love.
Some people also rejected the idea that a Latina actress could play a character called Snow White; alongside criticisms of such non-traditional casting, Zegler was subject to racist trolling. This was a similar reaction to that experienced by the black actress Halle Bailey when she was cast as Ariel in 2023's The Little Mermaid.
The film stumbled into more trouble simply because its lead actresses expressed political opinions. On X in August 2024, Zegler thanked fans for the response to the Snow White trailer, adding, "and always remember, free Palestine".
Gadot has posted her support for Israel on social media, and especially since the 7 October attacks by Hamas has been outspoken in defence of her country and against anti-semitism. That led to some short-lived calls by pro-Palestinian social media users to boycott the film simply because she is in it.
The fallout on the film intensified after the 2024 US presidential election. Zegler posted on Instagram that she was "heartbroken" and fearful, and that she hoped "Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace". In response Megyn Kelly, the former Fox news personality, attacked Zegler, saying on her radio show, "This woman is a pig," and that Disney was going to have to recast the role. Zegler apologised to Trump voters, saying "I let my emotions get the best of me".
The issue of the dwarfs
Even when people reacting to the film have agreed on a basic principle, like more opportunities for actors who have dwarfism, they have disagreed on how to get there. Peter Dinklage, perhaps the world's most well-known actor with dwarfism, questioned the entire project before many details were known, calling the 1937 film "a backwards story of seven dwarfs living in a cave together". Disney announced the next day, "To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters."
As it turned out, the seven characters are CGI, and Disney has reclassifed them as "magical creatures", not dwarfs. What do they look like? Even a glimpse at the trailer reveals that they look exactly like CGI dwarfs. They are still named Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Doc, Bashful and Dopey.
The changes have caused a backlash from some people with dwarfism, who have rebutted Dinklage and accused Disney of depriving them of acting roles. As recently as this week, one told the Daily Mail, "I think Disney is trying too hard to be politically correct, but in doing so it's damaging our careers and opportunities."
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Amidst this swirl of controversies, Disney altered the traditional red-carpet treatment it would usually give such a major film. The premiere took place in Spain on 12 March, and the Los Angeles premiere is due to take place today at an unusual, afternoon hour. The regular red-carpet journalists have not been invited, even though as a group they are not known to ask hard-hitting questions.
Trying to avoid more political and social discord isn't Disney's only Snow White problem, though. There is much online speculation that the film might just be bad. The first full trailer was greeted with a rush of complaints about the underwhelming CGI, with The Guardian calling the trailer "the ugliest thing ever committed to screen". The film has new songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the team behind La La Land, but the one released as a video, Waiting On a Wish, has a bland, generic Disney style. Box-office tracking predicts an opening weekend of around $50m (£39m), solid but at the low end for a would-be blockbuster that reportedly cost over $200m (£155m) to make.
Of course, given the Disney juggernaut – the recent Moana 2 has made more than $1bn (£773m) and Mufasa: The Lion King, which had a slow start, more than $712m (£550m) – the debacle leading up to Snow White's opening may not hurt it at the box office at all. Or the film may become the victim of its moment, a fairy-tale princess covered in mud.
Snow White is released internationally on March 21
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Cher Horowitz has brought her life of Beverly Hills high fashion, friendship and matchmaking to London's West End, as classic 1990s teen film Clueless has been given a musical makeover.
Clueless has been brought to the stage by the film's original writer and director Amy Heckerling - who says keeping the 90s theme was integral to the show.
Heckerling insists she has "no interest in being modern" - which will come as a relief to the audiences who grew up quoting "As if!" and aspiring to Cher's plaid and Prada-filled wardrobe.
The story follows the life of the naïve and lovably spoiled teenager, who plays matchmaker with her friends before ultimately finding love herself.
An adaption of Jane Austen's Emma, Clueless captured the teen spirit of the 90s and inspired countless school dramas like Mean Girls, Gossip Girl and Legally Blonde.
The stage version has songs in the form of an original score by singer-songwriter KT Tunstall.
Speaking to the BBC, Tunstall says the film was "omnipotent" in the 90s and influenced everything from the clothes people wore to the music people listened to.
The Scottish singer, best known for songs like Black Horse and the Cherry Tree and Suddenly I See, says working on the show was a "dream project".
She says the original soundtrack was a big inspiration, and describes the music as "a mixtape of all your favourite 90s bangers".
The process of creating the soundtrack for Clueless: The Musical was intense for Tunstall, who says it's no easy feat to add music to an adaptation of a film that didn't originally have it.
"You really have to think about whether a song fits the structure and flow of the story and whether it actually helps the audience understand the narrative better," she says.
Heckerling says she actually wishes the film had been a musical because "there were natural moments in the script where characters could have sung".
"Those types of films weren't very common in the 90s but I'm glad we could add in music now," she says.
Critics had mixed thoughts about the new songs - the Guardian called them "disappointingly flat-footed" in a two-star review and said the lyrics "too often serve as exposition rather than raising the emotional drama".
Similarly, the Telegraph's Dominic Cavendish wrote that the show has "numbers designed to sound in keeping with the period but which are so generic they don't ring with real-world authenticity".
But What'sOnStage praised Tunstall's "infuriatingly catchy tunes" and Glenn Slater's "nifty, witty lyrics".
For Emma Flynn, who is making her West End debut as Cher, the music has another important function in the show - it allows characters to easily share their inner thoughts with the audience.
"In the film you hear these really funny inner monologues of Cher, but the great thing about this show is you can hear all of the character's thoughts, which makes you feel more connected to them."
Flynn has been praised by critics, with the Evening Standard noting her "powerfully-sung breakout performance" and describing it as channelling "both Alicia Silverstone in the original movie and Sabrina Carpenter today, while making the role entirely her own".
Co-star Keelan McAuley, who plays nerdy Josh, tells the BBC he loves the play's nostalgia factor.
"The flip phone was the most advanced technology they had in the 90s and there's something so enchanting about a time where there was no access to social media," he says.
Nostalgia fest
The show stays almost entirely true to the 1995 film, with everyone sporting the latest 90s fashions, carrying a glitzy pager, and listening to angsty teen bangers on a Walkman.
While it may feel like a nostalgia fest, Heckerling admits she doesn't "like to stick to real life", and even her sunny film was far from the reality of what the 90s were like for most teenagers in LA, with race riots and other political problems.
The Independent's three-star review says the show "sticks to the original movie like chewing gum to the underside of a school desk" at first, but changes tack by the second half.
"[Director Rachel] Kavanaugh and Heckerling gain the confidence to part ways a bit from the movie's script, and to let the story's heart show," Alice Saville wrote.
For Tunstall, what sets Clueless apart from traditional rom-coms and high school dramas is that there isn't a typical villain and there's no nastiness or bad intentions from the main characters.
Jane Austen famously thought her main character wouldn't be a widely liked heroine, but Tunstall says she is often people's favourite character because of her honesty and depth.
"People can relate to her on a deeper level, like how she is trying to process the death of her mother and help keep her family in order.
"Those themes are universal and that's what makes this story so enduring."
Four female news presenters have agreed a settlement in a dispute with the BBC over claims including sex and age discrimination.
Martine Croxall, Annita McVeigh, Karin Giannone and Kasia Madera claimed they lost their roles on the BBC News Channel following a "rigged" recruitment exercise.
The BBC has insisted its application process was "rigorous and fair".
BBC News understands a settlement has been reached with no admission of liability, and a three-week tribunal to hear the presenters' claims, which had been due to start on Monday, will now not go ahead.
Analysis
By Katie Razzall, BBC News culture and media editor
So who's won?
The BBC has not admitted liability. In other words, it has not accepted it did anything wrong.
The presenters remain in their current roles. Apart from McVeigh, who was appointed a chief presenter on the BBC News channel in February 2024, the others will not return to the full presenter roles they had and then lost in the restructuring recruitment process, which sparked two years of attrition.
Through that lens, it looks like a stalemate.
The losers, though, are licence fee payers who have seen hundreds of thousands of pounds spent on BBC presenters who were off work on full pay for at least a year, on top of whatever the costs of this settlement add up to. That may never be made public.
The pressure is on to justify the financial waste.
Why did it take so long to reach an agreement?
Both sides were entrenched. For two years, they were in conflict, with the presenters off screen for half of that time.
Contracts are binding. Employees remain on full pay while internal disputes are resolved. But this one took a long time, and they continued to fight when they returned to work. Only, on the brink of the tribunal, was there a resolution.
The BBC will have had licence fee payers in mind when weighing up whether to proceed to a full tribunal or settle. It apparently decided it wasn't worth going through three damaging weeks, with all the headlines and media attention that would have generated.
A settlement is always likely to bring down costs. The impact of a tribunal can be substantial, and there is also the potential for appeals and further hearings that increase the financial impact.
But the optics of the last two years, ending in a settlement, aren't good. And there is frustration inside the BBC about the impact of it all, at a time when budgets are shrinking.
Emmy Award-winning Ted Lasso is returning to TV for a fourth series, Apple TV+ has revealed.
Its US star Jason Sudeikis is back in the role of Ted, who coaches fictional English Premier League football club AFC Richmond, having returned to the US in series three.
No further casting has been confirmed, but the comedy's other stars include Hannah Waddingham, Nick Mohammed, Juno Temple and Phil Dunster.
In a cryptic statement, Sudeikis said: "As we all continue to live in a world where so many factors have conditioned us to 'look before we leap', in season four the folks at AFC Richmond learn to leap before they look, discovering that wherever they land, it's exactly where they're meant to be."
In series three, Roy Kent, played by Brett Goldstein, became assistant coach, alongside coach Beard (Brendan Hunt), while Ted dealt with personal issues at home.
Sudeikis also co-produces the show, while Goldstein is also an executive producer and writer for the show.
So far, Ted Lasso's 36 episodes across its three seasons have picked up 13 Emmys and 61 nominations since it was first broadcast in 2020.
Sudeikis also won Emmys for lead actor in a comedy series in 2021 and 2022.
Apple TV+ has yet to announce when the new series will be broadcast.
Wynton Marsalis made history when he became the first musician to win classical and jazz Grammy Awards in the same year. He tells the BBC's Katty Kay about jazz's unique connection to liberation and how his father's relationship with music shaped his approach.
Legendary musician Wynton Marsalis is no stranger to making history. But as he brings his one-of-a-kind blend of classical and jazz to audiences everywhere, he's reflecting on history, too.
During an appearance on Influential with Katty Kay, Marsalis shares that every time he plays, he understands that he's bringing his family's legacy into the spotlight with him. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1961, the 63-year-old star was surrounded by performers from the start. His father, Ellis Marsalis Jr, was a jazz pianist and his mother, Dolores Marsalis, a singer.
"I did not want to be famous. I wanted to learn how to play. My standard was my father and all the musicians that I grew up respecting and loving," Marsalis tells Kay, between showing off his trumpet and playing her a few bars. His humility is tinged with a signature sense of humour. He tells Kay that at first he didn't want to play the instrument that would make him famous. "I did not want to play trumpet because I did not want to get that ring around my lips. I figured the girls would not kiss you."
As the first musician – and still the only one – to win a Grammy Award in classical and jazz categories in the same year, Marsalis is open about the ways he jumps between genres to create something true to himself. He credits his unique blend to growing up in the American South during segregation and witnessing change firsthand.
After he began to take music more seriously at the age of 12, he would go on to become the only black musician in the New Orleans Civic Orchestra, and played with the New Orleans Philharmonic. That early success was jarring to someone who saw his father struggle. While he'd played on some of the biggest stages in his hometown, Marsalis was unsure that had the chops to compete with professional musicians in the wider field.
"I had to step back and recalibrate, like what am I going to be able to do? Am I going to be good enough to actually play jazz? That is what I wanted to play. I wanted to be a jazz musician, but it was so few people playing the type of jazz I wanted to play," Marsalis says.
Once Marsalis joined the prestigious New York City music school Julliard aged 17, he was surrounded by a whole new group of performers – and introduced to new styles of music. As he found his footing in the musical scene, he also found a passion for social justice. He notes that being outspoken seemed to come just as naturally as the trumpet.
"I was shaped by growing up in segregation and having to be integrated into schools where you were not necessarily wanted. You were not wanted," he says. "I was post-civil rights. So, I was speaking about things that people do not speak about, and I was also very serious about those things."
Later, he would sign a contract with Colombia Records after shifting his focus from classical music to jazz – thanks in part to touring with Herbie Hancock and the Art Blakey band in Europe. Through it all, he felt jazz in everything he experienced. Touring, not a formal education, would be the thing to show him that his style of music and performing mattered.
"Anything that has a harmonic progression and a melody, you can hear jazz in," he says.
Marsalis notes that, unlike other genres, jazz makes its performers work together without any singular voice dominating. Instead of stealing the spotlight, jazz musicians must find a balance.
"Sometimes, you do not like what people are doing because you do not understand what they are doing. Sometimes, you do not like what they are doing because you want to control everything that goes on. That's not what our music is. We are playing together," he says.
This, too, is the throughline he sees between jazz and social justice. When everyone commits to a common cause, whether its racial equality or musical harmony, it takes leaving egos out of the equation.
"Our music is serious because it liberates people. But it is very difficult to learn how to play and to play well, because it requires you to be in balance with somebody else. That is a hard thing to want to be," he says.
Reflecting on what he's doing to help the musicians following in his storied footsteps, Marsalis is straightforward about his approach. He wants to be whom he hoped to have as he rose in the ranks.
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"I try not to make the mistakes I feel all the musicians made towards me when I was younger," he says, of mentoring others. Jazz, Marsalis notes, is not a place for one-upmanship.
"Jazz is the opposite of all that. We will elevate you. Let me share my space with you. Let me be quiet and let you talk. Let me leave space for your soul," he says.
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Stylish and experimental, Breathless heralded a new era of film-making when it was released 75 years ago. In 1964, its director told the BBC why he broke every rule he could.
Jean-Luc Godard was crystal clear about what he planned to do with his feature-length film debut, Breathless (À bout de souffle), which was released 75 years ago this month. He wanted to blow up the whole idea of what cinema was. In 1964, the director told the BBC's Olivier Todd: "It was a film which took everything the cinema had done – girls, gangsters, cars – exploded all this and put an end once and for all to the old style."
Stylish and semi-improvised, Breathless seemed revolutionary when it hit French screens on 16 March 1960. With its fragmented editing, offbeat dialogue and nonchalant approach to storytelling, it helped rewrite the language of modern cinema. As renowned US film critic Roger Ebert wrote: "No debut film since Citizen Kane in 1942 has been as influential."
On its surface, Breathless's plot resembles that of a hard-boiled crime thriller. It tells the story of amoral, impulsive petty criminal Michel Poiccard (played by Jean-Paul Belmondo) and his doomed relationship with the enigmatic Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg), an American journalism student living in Paris. The film's plot plays out as Michel tries to evade arrest after murdering a policeman: he struggles to collect the money necessary to fund his escape and to convince the ambivalent Patricia to flee with him to Italy. But its director was not so much concerned with its crime narrative as he was with shattering cinematic conventions.
Born in 1930 to wealthy Franco-Swiss parents, Godard had spent the decade preceding Breathless's release immersed in cinema. At the beginning of the 1950s he had begun working as a film critic for the influential French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. When he started, French cinema was dominated by studio-produced literary adaptations which valued polished storytelling over innovation. Godard, along with his fellow cinephiles at the magazine, railed against these films, arguing that they failed to capture any real emotion or show how people really behaved.
At the same time, US films that had been banned during the Nazi occupation were being shown in French cinemas. Following the Second World War, France had signed the Blum-Byrnes agreements which had opened up its markets to US products in return for eradicating its war debt. This led to a flood of US films that were enthusiastically embraced by these young French critics. They especially admired westerns and detective thrillers – genres they regarded as critically underappreciated. It was Italian-born French film critic Nino Frank who coined the term film noir or dark film. The Cahiers du Cinéma writers also revered film-makers who could stamp their own unique creative visions onto Hollywood productions, such as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks. They regarded these directors as the true "auteurs" or authors of those films, rather than the studio which produced them or the stars who appeared in them.
Throughout the 1950s, these critics would debate and discuss the shortcomings of French cinema while developing their own ideas of what it should be. Many of the writers Godard worked alongside at Cahiers du Cinéma, such as François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol, would also end up becoming directors and leading proponents of the influential movement that would become known as La Nouvelle Vague (The New Wave).
With Breathless, Godard saw his chance to put the ideas he and his friends discussed into practice. He explained to the BBC in 1964 that he purposely set out to break rules he felt were holding back cinema. "Conventions were exploded to make something with the remains, just as the debris is collected after an explosion. And when there is nothing useful left, we can start from scratch on fresh ground," he said.
Out in the streets
The film's story was written by Truffaut, who based it loosely on a 1952 news article about a Paris criminal, Michel Portail. However, when Godard came to filming, he would pretty much abandon Truffaut's script. Instead, he got his actors to improvise scenes, or he would feed them lines from behind the camera while filming. This gave the dialogue a spontaneous and personal feel. But it meant that much of Breathless needed to be shot sequentially, so Belmondo and Seberg would know what had happened earlier in the story.
Due to its limited budget, Godard's plan was to make the cheapest film possible. So instead of shooting in a studio where he would be able to control the lighting, the sound and the set, he took to the streets of Paris with his cinematographer, Raoul Coutard, who filmed on location using a lightweight handheld camera and relying on natural light. The camera, while portable and effective at filming in low-light conditions, was both noisy and unable to record synchronised sound. This meant that nearly all of the improvised lines of dialogue needed to be written down as Belmondo and Seberg ad-libbed, and then dubbed in post-production. This resulted in the later recorded dialogue often not matching the actors' lips, leading to debates that continue to this day about what the characters are actually saying.
Because much of Breathless's guerilla-style filming was done without permits or permission, random people going about their everyday lives in Paris's bustling streets and cafes were often captured in shot, lending an authenticity to its depiction of life in the city. Coutard had been a war photographer, and his reportage style of filming captured an immediacy and intimacy that made the film seem, at times, documentary-like. His camera moves restlessly around, capturing small everyday moments as the characters meet, talk and hang out. Sometimes the camera almost seems to be a participant in the action, sitting in the passenger seat of the car Michel has just stolen while he talks to it as if it were a friend. Breathless's lack of a conventional film crew added to its inventiveness. One of its most famous scenes, where Michel and Patricia are seen walking down the Champs-Élysées chatting as she advertises a newspaper, was achieved by Godard pulling Coutard along in a wheelchair while he filmed the actors walking towards him.
"The freedom of shooting on the Champs-Élysées, Jean Seberg walking down the curb with her unforgettable chanting, 'New York Herald Tribune'. It was like the invention of a mythology for me," the Italian director of Last Tango in Paris and The Last Emperor, Bernardo Bertolucci, told the BBC's The Film Programme in 2009.
But Godard wasn't trying to convince audiences that they were seeing unfiltered reality. He had been influenced by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who believed that a story could so absorb an audience that they became passive and unthinking. So, to keep viewers critically engaged, Brecht would remind them that they were watching a play and not real life.
Godard embraced this idea, using a range of stylistic devices to make it impossible for viewers to forget that they were watching a film. Characters regularly break the fourth wall, addressing their dialogue directly to the audience. Often, they comment on their own situation, shaking the viewer's feeling of being an unseen spectator. And while a typical film's soundtrack subtly suggests the mood of a scene, in Breathless the music starts and stops suddenly, often disconnected from what is happening on screen at the time.
No easy answers
But it was Godard's rejection of the usual cinematic editing rules that would become the signature of the film. "I was incredibly passionate about the style, the language of À bout de souffle," Bertolucci told the BBC. "There were these jump cuts, for example. At school they were always telling you how to avoid jump cuts which were considered mistakes, and the movie was full of jump cuts."
Breathless's use of jump cuts – abrupt transitions forward in time within the same scene – came about partly by accident. The finished film turned out to be much longer than intended, and Godard needed a way to cut it down to a manageable length. But instead of dropping whole scenes or sequences, the director chose to condense its running time by cutting out sections within takes. Often, he removes material from a continuous shot of movement or dialogue while making no attempt to match the edits, breaking the viewer's immersion in the film and giving it an energetic, skittish rhythm.
This jittery editing style lent Breathless a feeling of unpredictability, grabbing the audience's attention and forcing them to be aware of the film-making process. Godard also did this by referencing other films, while at the same time subverting the very conventions that make those films work. Otto Preminger's 1950 film noir thriller Whirlpool is playing when Patricia enters a cinema in an effort to lose the police trailing her. In another scene, when she looks through a rolled-up poster at Michel, the shot mimics a scene in the western Forty Guns (1957) which is seen through a gun barrel. The admired French director of gangster films, Jean-Pierre Melville, has a cameo appearance playing a fictional celebrity author, while Godard himself crops up as a bystander on the street who recognises the fugitive Michel from the newspaper articles.
In another homage to Godard's influences, the protagonist, Michel, dresses like his hero Humphrey Bogart and practises trying to emulate his onscreen mannerisms. At one point, while gazing at the poster for Bogart's last film, The Harder They Fall (1956), he whispers "Bogey" in admiration. But Michel's behaviour, unlike that of a Bogart hero, comes across as neither heroic nor courageous. He displays no conscience over his crimes or remorse over his actions. His girlfriend, Patricia, who goes on to betray him to the police, could be seen as a classic femme fatale character, but instead of being driven by passion, their relationship seems oddly detached and her motives remain opaque. The meaning in Breathless is never simply spelt out for its audience, and its freewheeling plot and morally ambiguous characters provide no easy answers. The film leaves it to the viewer to come to their own interpretations and judgements.
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With its distinctive storytelling, imaginative camerawork and photogenic young leads, who imbued it with an effortless sense of cool, Breathless was an immediate critical and commercial hit. It seemed to capture the mood of the times and people flocked to see it. "They were in a sense ready for it," Professor James Williams told Kirsty Lang on the BBC's Last Word in 2022. "I mean, people wanted something new and different." It would go on to win Godard the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 1960 Berlin International Film Festival.
For the aspiring directors who saw Breathless, its effect was electric. "As a potential film-maker, it was like just being free, it was like being on a drug or something. It was just amazing," Get Carter's director Mike Hodges told the BBC's The Film Programme in 2006.
"It broke all the rules – and rules of film-making are quite frightening in many ways. You've got to get the angles right, and you have lines that you don't cross. This was in the classical tradition. So in a sense, cinema was very like the classical painters, whereas when you saw Godard's film, it was like the impressionists coming to life, but on the screen."
Breathless's impact would be felt in many of the US films that followed its release, with Godard influencing the Hollywood studios that had so affected him. Breathless's characters' moral ambiguity and its abrupt shifts in tone could be seen in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), its innovative camera angles and examination of relationship uncertainty were reflected in The Graduate (1967), and its low-budget filming techniques and improvised dialogue were embraced in Easy Rider (1969).
The Bob Dylan of cinema
In the 1970s, a slew of young directors inspired by the French New Wave, such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, would put their own singular "auteur" visions of cinema on the screen. The director Quentin Tarantino, who named his production company A Band Apart, after Godard's 1964 film Bande à part, has long acknowledged the effect the director had on him. He told Film Comment in a 1994 interview that "Godard did to movies what Bob Dylan did to music: they both revolutionised their forms".
Part of Breathless's continuing influence on film-makers is in persuading them that it is possible for the viewer to do just what Godard did. As Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright wrote after Godard died in 2022: "It was ironic that he himself revered the Hollywood studio film-making system, as perhaps no other director inspired as many people to just pick up a camera and start shooting."
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In 11th-Century England, a dark-skinned saint with a promiscuous past became a boundary-breaking cultural and religious icon. A new study is hoping to reassert her place in history.
She was old. She was dark-skinned. As a young woman, she had been promiscuous and enjoyed sex. But after rejecting the world and spending 47 years living naked in the desert, Saint Mary of Egypt became a wise and virtuous teacher of Christian scripture – or so 11th Century readers were led to believe.
When the extraordinary legend of Saint Mary was first translated into Old English from Latin by an unknown author just over a millennium ago, it became the medieval equivalent of a blockbuster, copied multiple times and translated into Old Norse, Welsh, Irish and eventually Middle English.
Now, Cambridge University is seeking to solve the mystery of how and why the tale of this "rebellious" saint appealed to readers in 11th-Century England, and reassert the rightful place in history of Saint Mary – an elderly Egyptian woman – as a role model for medieval English Christians.
"There has never been a full in-depth study of why this legend resonated in England," says Alexandra Zhirnova, a Cambridge scholar who is giving a talk on Saint Mary of Egypt on 22 March as part of the Cambridge Festival – a showcase of the research underway at Cambridge University. "I want to bring this story into the light, because it dispels a lot of the negative stereotypes that we have heard about the Middle Ages, and how medieval Europeans only have negative perceptions of women, particularly women with darker skin. My talk shines a light on how Mary gets adopted as a saint in England during a time when the Church was very concerned with gender norms and how women ought to behave," Zhirnova tells the BBC.
In this period, adopting a saint was not a formal eclestiastical process. "It just involves people worshipping you as a saint and your legend being known to lots of people," says Zhirnova. Mary of Egypt, who is said to have lived in 4th-Century Egypt, had already attained the status of a saint across Europe. "But it was only when the story was translated into Old English that it became accessible to ordinary people in England," says Zhirnova.
Zhirnova will argue in her talk that the legend directly challenges commonly held views of what a holy woman should look like, and that it counteracts the misogynistic teachings of men of the time who emphasised passive obedience to the Church, particularly in the case of women, and strict adherence to rules governing how women should conduct themselves sexually.
The legend is told from the perspective of an arrogant monk who purports to have met Mary in the desert after she has been living there naked for 40 years.
"She rejects the world to the point that she stops wearing clothes, because she doesn't need them," says Zhirnova. She then becomes "like a priest" to the monk, explaining to him what's wrong with his relationship with God, and quotes to him from scripture, even though she's never read the Bible. Despite her promiscuity – she had multiple lovers in her youth, it is revealed in the story – the monk looks up to her and realises he hasn't understood what a true Christian was before.
"She's held up as an example of fantastic Christian spirituality," Zhirnova notes. Yet at the time, most popular female saints were virgins, who became saints after being persecuted for choosing to stay chaste and devote themselves to God.
The existence of Saint Mary – a sexually experienced, naked, elderly Egyptian woman – utterly undermines this stereotype. Yet, Zhirnova says, "the tale suggests this woman, who breaks every single convention that the Church has established for holy women, is a lesson for men on how to be a better Christian."
Mary's debated identity
Although she is described as having "blackened" skin, it is not entirely clear whether or not Saint Mary is black, Zhirnova says.
The Old English translation of the tale states she was "extremely black in her body because of the sun's heat".
However, medieval readers did not understand or perceive racial differences in the way we do today. "At that point, they believed that people who have dark skin are dark because they live in places with a lot of sun. So, for example, Ethiopia is a sunny place, therefore people from there have darker skin," Zhirnova says.
Whether or not Saint Mary is black or just tanned may not have been an issue medieval readers were particularly concerned about. "I truly don't know to what extent it would have been important to them to make a distinction between being born with dark skin and having it due to being outside a lot, but I think certainly they would have thought of her as culturally different," Irina Dumitrescu, professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn, tells the BBC.
In her opinion "what's important about her dark skin is that it demonstrates that the culture of medieval England is a more cosmopolitan culture that many people tend to assume. They have trade that goes wider than people might think, and they're interested in learning and stories from North Africa and the Middle East – so their imagination encompasses these areas."
She adds that lighter skin was idealised in women in medieval England and associated with virginity: "There is often a connection made between brightness of colouring – blonde hair, for example – and purity. So Mary's darker skin could be associated with a kind of sexuality. That sense of difference is there."
Why Mary's story was such a hit
Dumitrescu believes that descriptions of Saint Mary's "very naughty" youth may account for some of the legend's popularity among medieval readers. "It's an extremely sexy story," she said. "There's a lot of erotic detail in it. She talks about going on a boat to the Holy Land from Egypt, and how she taught all the people on the boat unspoken lewd acts. It's a little bit ribald and tantalising."
She thinks another reason this remarkable legend became so popular was because "it's a very human thing to want to know that God also loves imperfect people… The Mary of Egypt tale has a very important lesson that you cannot teach with tales of virgin saints – which is God's grace. The Church has always needed stories of sinners who can be saved."
At a time when many of the monastic readers and copyists of the story were living out their whole lives enclosed in an institution, the legend of Saint Mary presented "a very disturbing figure", according to Dumitrescu, which may be part of her appeal.
Unlike other tales of saints who went off to the desert to devote themselves to God (an ascetic practice known as desert monasticism), Mary of Egypt does not stay in one place. "She is quite unusual, because she's not even a hermit in a little cave somewhere. She just wanders the desert. She roams freely. She becomes one with nature. She's naked. She doesn't seem to be a regular person in any way, even in the way hermits are," says Dumitrescu. "She's rogue."
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For devout Christians living "very regulated" lives, the idea of an exotic naked woman roaming freely in the desert and communing with God would have been exciting and "kind of tempting", Dumitrescu adds. "She is very much an anti-institutional figure. And I think it's absolutely fascinating to have a vision of this woman who is unlike anything women are told to be, and yet God loves her the most."
Zhirnova’s research suggests this moral may lie at the heart of the tale's popularity in medieval England. Around the same time the story was translated and began to be circulated, there was a power struggle in the Church that threatened to restrict the freedoms of Christian women who were living in monasteries and had devoted themselves to God.
Its possible role in a church battle
Benedictine reformists like the English abbot Ælric of Eynsham were advocating for men and women who worked side by side in monasteries – often under a female leader – to be separated. "There was a long tradition in England at that time of what they called double monasteries, so mixed gender communities. But the reformers said this should not be allowed, because it creates temptation for both men and women," said Zhironova.
These reformers wanted the visibility of chaste monastic women to be restricted for their own protection, and for these women to be shut away and separated from monastic men. Wise elderly women, who were in positions of power in the monasteries, would be particularly affected. "Instead of having these prominent positions, they had to be enclosed within the walls of the monastery, and not really allowed to leave," says Zhirnova. "That also restricted a lot of the activities that religious women could be involved with, such as teaching, writing manuscripts and preaching to lay people."
The legend of Saint Mary of Egypt, known as the Life of Mary, may have been translated or circulated by people who were not in favour of such reforms, Zhirnova believes. "In this legend, we see a woman who resists standard notions of authority. Women aren't allowed to teach – but Mary teaches."
Saint Mary also upended standard contemporary notions of female saintly beauty and sexual behaviour, such as those put forward in tales translated by Ælric at the same time that the Life of Mary was translated. "Whiteness is associated with beauty in this period in medieval England, and a lot of the saints that readers will have heard about have white skin, youth and beauty – these qualities go hand in hand," says Zhirnova.
That tells us medieval people in England were open to models of sanctity that weren't white, young and obedient.
"One of the key things about Mary is that she resists this almost objectification of female sanctity. She is purposefully not fitting this standard. And I think her dark skin fits into that and is part of her image as rejecting all of the other expectations of holy women."
Zhirnova hopes that her study will do what the Life of Mary did in 11th-Century England and make people more aware of Saint Mary, and her way of being a "pious Christian". Just as Saint Mary defied religious establishment norms, the story suggests, so "she has more spiritual authority than the virginal man she teaches," says Zhirnova. "She's a rebellious saint."
Zhirnova also hopes her study will challenge some of the stereotypes about England in the Middle Ages that are perpetuated by the far right. "Many people on the far right use the Middle Ages as an example of a time when everybody was white and everybody praised white skin as the ideal," says Zhirnova. "In the life of Mary, we see a saint who does not adhere to medieval conceptions of Christian piety as white. That tells us medieval people in England were open to models of sanctity that weren"t white, young and obedient. They were open to the otherness of Mary."
Mary of Egypt: A Black Saint in Anglo-Saxon England?, a free talk by Alexandra Zhirnova about her research, will take place at 4.15pm on 22 March during the Cambridge Festival, along with hundreds of other talks about the world-leading research happening at Cambridge.
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In pockets of the British countryside, it's possible to stumble across clusters of beautifully designed, Scandi-style cabins. These aren't a product of the latest trend for off-grid retreats, but were created half a century ago by a pair of Welsh architects, Hird & Brooks. How did they become gripped by crafting the perfect holiday home? And why were they so inspired by Denmark?
By the 1970s, John Hird and Graham Brooks had already won a slew of major awards for their sleek, modernist post-war villas across the Vale of Glamorgan in Wales. But the highpoint of their careers was the prefabricated timber cabins they designed in the 1970s and 1980s for holiday parks in Wales and Forestry Commission sites in Scotland, and the English counties of Cornwall and Yorkshire.
For Brooks, the cabins were an opportunity to distil his design ethos into its clearest, purest, most compact form, says Peter Halliday, co-author with Bethan Dalton of Cabin Crew: Hird & Brooks and the Pursuit of the Perfect Holiday House. "He could do away with the tiresome necessities of domesticity that have to be accommodated in a conventional house, and focus on what really matters."
Professor Richard Weston, an architect and former Chair of Architecture at Cardiff University, echoes this. "[Brooks] always said the holiday cabins were the highlight of his career," he writes in the book. "They are a distillation of everything Graham stood for – the love of wood, the appreciation of proper architecture, the orientation of the Sun, and the feel for detailing and space – all stripped down for essential living."
Hird & Brooks were part of a worldwide boom in simple holiday homes. Many Danes and Swedes already spent their leisure time in cabins, or sommerhuse, along the coast or in forests. In 1960, Denmark had around 50,000 summerhouses. By 1975, the number had trebled, according to Cabin Crew.
Meanwhile, the summer cottage (a close relation of the dacha) was becoming a staple of Soviet society in the Baltic states and much of Central Europe. Everyone, it seems, was at it, even the big-name architects. Le Corbusier, the grand master of modernism, created his Cabanon de Vacances in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in the south of France in the early 1950s. And in the US, architect Paul Rudolph was behind a series of simple wooden structures on the Florida Keys.
The mushrooming of cabins in the UK was in part a result of increased car ownership from the 1930s, as well as the Holidays with Pay Act of 1938, explains Cabin Crew. The latter led to the construction of mass-scale seaside holiday camps equipped with prefab accommodation.
Getting back to nature
Hird & Brooks' cabins – some to be bought, others to be rented – drew on the duo's many study trips to Denmark, because Brooks was Denmark mad. "His heroes were Danish architects, his reference points were the Danish architectural press, and his new wife helped him to embed a Danish design aesthetic into their everyday lives," the book explains.
"It was all about simple, intelligent design, woodland settings, and a close affinity with nature," Halliday tells the BBC. "The entire Hird & Brooks team became fascinated, and were eager to apply the same principles here in the UK."
The firm completed their first holiday homes, for Bierwood near Tenby in Pembrokeshire, in the early 1970s. Timber-framed with exposed roof beams, these lodges were clad in pine match-boarding and had corrugated tiled roofs and Sun terraces. Inside, features included built-in beds and a galley kitchen. The colour pallet – a blue-grey stain on the exterior timber facings, and orange-red window frames and doors – was inspired by those Danish study trips.
"The clearest Scandinavian influence is the use of wood – from the big exposed structural beams to the cedar cladding to the built-in furniture to the little details like the wooden door handles and fitted coat hooks," says Halliday. He also cites the space-saving wetrooms, "which were a complete novelty in the UK, and the wood-burning stoves, which were commonplace in Scandinavia but not available here, so the architects designed their own, and had them manufactured locally". And for all the Welsh cabins, Brooks looked at the orientation of the Sun before positioning each cabin on its plot, so as to ensure that users could enjoy as much sunshine as possible – even if sunshine wasn't always abundant in Wales.
Later, the Forestry Commission – a national organisation owning huge swathes of British countryside – brought in Hird & Brooks to design holiday cabins for its sites at Deerpark in Cornwall, Keldy Castle in North Yorkshire, and Taynuilt in Scotland. "For the Forestry Commission cabins, it was all about imparting a sense of adventure," says Halliday. "That was the intended function, and everything about the design reflects it."
Some were A-frame designs, some were flat-roofed, and others had standard-pitch roofs. There was also some playfulness. Inside, the second bedrooms had a staggered stack of three bunks. "High-level sleeping and play platforms offered views into the forest, and large slatted terraces with integrated benches blurred the distinctions between indoors and outdoors – all of which added to the sense of adventure the Forestry Commission was so keen to impart," write Cabin Crew's authors. Soft furnishings stayed with the distinctive red and orange colourways that the firm had introduced in earlier cabins.
By the end of the 1970s, there were at least 35 UK companies manufacturing or promoting kit-built chalets, and more than 350 holiday parks offering them. Meanwhile, on the continent, the Dutch modernist architect Jacob Berend Bakema produced designs for the holiday village chain Center Parcs.
At this time, the British cabin movement was in part a reaction against the "white heat of technology", a term used by Prime Minister Harold Wilson in the 1960s to promote science. Bruce Peter, Professor of design history at Glasgow School of Art, expands on this in the book's introduction. "A growing environmental consciousness emerged, at least among the more politically progressive and culturally engaged. This manifested itself in growing interests in wholefoods, alternative medicine and natural living."
The simple life
And for Peter, with the benefit of half-a-century's hindsight, Hird & Brooks' holiday cabins "appear very successfully to have withstood the test of time. Back in the 1970s, environmentalism was mostly considered to be a fringe concern, but, in recent decades, it has moved into the mainstream. The cabins' construction – using mostly natural materials in an era when synthetics were all the rage – now appears to have been highly prescient. And, with reasonable maintenance, their timber external finishes have tended to weather well." What's more, he writes, the type of outdoor-centred holiday-making for which the cabins were intended has also proven enduringly popular, at least among particular demographics.
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A few factors coming together means that there is now a renewed interest in the cabins, Dalton tells the BBC. First, she cites the popularity of mid-century architecture and interior design, "especially among those of us who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. It evokes a nostalgic charm, reminding us of the spaces and styles we fondly remember from childhood."
Then there's the "tiny house" movement, with cabin life appealing to people seeking a simpler, more minimal way of life, off-grid and immersed in nature. "A cabin holiday offers a taste of that lifestyle without the full-time commitment," says Dalton. "And, of course, in this digital age, people are always looking for an Instagrammable holiday image, and these cabins certainly have that covered with their striking red-painted windows and doors."
So perhaps it's no surprise that some of Brooks' cabins have endured. And several of them are still in the hands of the original families. "For the most part, the cabins look to be in near-pristine condition," the authors write. "Clearly, the owners like things the way they are."
Cabin Crew: Hird & Brooks and the Pursuit of the Perfect Holiday House by Peter Halliday and Bethan Dalton is published by The Modernist.
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The recent discovery of an art forger's workshop reminds us of the long history of fraudulent artworks – here are the simple rules to work them out.
It's everywhere: fake news, deep fakes, identity fraud. So ensnared are we in a culture of digitised deceptions, a phenomenon increasingly augmented by artificial intelligence, it would be easy to think that deceit itself is a high-tech invention of the cyber age. Recent revelations however – from the discovery of an elaborate, if decidedly low-tech, art forger's workshop in Rome to the sensational allegation that a cherished Baroque masterpiece in London's National Gallery is a crude simulacrum of a lost original – remind us that duplicity in the world of art has a long and storied history, one written not in binary ones and zeroes, but in impossible pigments, clumsy brushstrokes and suspicious signatures. When it comes to falsification and phoniness, there is indeed no new thing under the Sun.
On 19 February, Italy's Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage uncovered a covert forgery operation in a northern district of Rome. Authorities confiscated more than 70 fraudulent artworks falsely attributed to notable artists from Pissarro to Picasso, Rembrandt to Dora Maar, along with materials used to mimic vintage canvases, artist signatures, and the stamps of galleries no longer in operation. The suspect, who has yet to be apprehended, is thought to have used online platforms such as Catawiki and eBay to hawk their phoney wares, deceiving potential buyers with convincing certificates of authenticity that they likewise contrived.
News of the clandestine lab's discovery was quickly followed by publicity for a new book, due for release this week, alleging that one of The National Gallery's highlights is not at all what it seems. According to artist and historian Euphrosyne Doxiadis, author of NG6461: The Fake National Gallery Rubens, the painting Samson and Delilah – a large oil-on-wood attributed to the 17th Century Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens and purchased by the London museum in 1980 for £2.5m (then the second-highest price ever paid for a painting at auction) – is three centuries younger than the date of 1609-10 that sits beside it on the gallery wall and is incalculably less accomplished than the museum believes.
Doxiadis's conclusion corroborates one reached in 2021 by the Swiss company, Art Recognition, which determined, through the use of AI, that there was a 91% probability that Samson and Delilah is the work of someone other than Rubens. Her assertion that the brushwork we see in the painting is crass and wholly inconsistent with the fluid flow of the Flemish master's hand is strongly contested by The National Gallery, which stands by its attribution. "Samson and Delilah has long been accepted by leading Rubens scholars as a masterpiece by Peter Paul Rubens", it said in a statement given to the BBC. "Painted on wood panel in oil shortly after his return to Antwerp in 1608 and demonstrating all that the artist had learned in Italy, it is a work of the highest aesthetic quality. A technical examination of the picture was presented in an article in The National Gallery's Technical Bulletin in 1983. The findings remain valid."
The divergence of opinion between the museum's experts and those who doubt the work's authenticity opens a curious space in which to reflect on intriguing questions of artistic value and merit. Is there ever legitimacy in forgery? Can fakes be masterpieces? As more sophisticated tools of analysis are applied to paintings and drawings whose legitimacy has long been in question (including several works attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, such as the hotly disputed chalk and ink drawing La Bella Principessa), as well as those whose validity has never been in doubt, debates about the integrity of cultural icons are only likely to accelerate. What follows are a handful of handy principles to keep in mind when navigating the impending controversies – five simple rules for spotting a fake masterpiece.
Rule 1: Pigments never lie
To be a successful art forger requires more than technical proficiency and a misplaced ethical compass. It isn't enough to approximate the dibby-dabby dots of a Georges Seurat, say, or the thick expressive swirls of Vincent van Gogh. You need to know your history as well as your chemistry. Anachronistic pigments will give you away every time and were the downfall of German art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi and his wife Helene, who succeeded in selling makeshift modernist masterpieces for millions before a careless squeeze of prefab paint onto their audacious palettes in 2006 sealed their fate.
Beltracchi, whose modus operandi was to create "new" works by everyone from Max Ernst to André Derain, rather than recreate lost ones, was always careful to mix his own paints to ensure they contained only ingredients available to whomever he was attempting to impersonate. He only slipped up once. And that was enough. Fabricating a wonky Der Blaue Reiter-ish red landscape of jigsawed horses that he attributed to the German Expressionist Heinrich Campendonk, Beltracchi reached for a readymade tube of paint, which he hadn't realised contained a pinch of titanium white – a relatively new pigment to which Campendonk would not have had access. It was all investigators would need to prove the work, which had sold for €2.8m, was a fake.
Beltracchi was unlucky. The gap between titanium white's availability and its potential use by Campendonk was only a few years. On occasion, the divide is shockingly wide. Analysis of a Portrait of Saint Jerome, once attributed to the Italian master Parmigianino and sold by Sotheby's auction house in 2012 for $842,500, exposed the prevalence throughout the work of phthalocyanine green, a synthetic pigment invented in 1935, four centuries after the 16th-Century Renaissance artist worked. Artists may be visionaries, but they're not time travellers.
Rule 2: Keep the past present
It is uplifting to believe that one's value, as a person, is not tethered to the past. Not so with art. A painting, sculpture, or drawing without a heavy history is not, alas, more inspiring for its lack of baggage. It is suspicious. Or rather, it should be. All too often, greed can interfere in the clear-sightedness of assessing the authenticity of a painting or sculpture. Things have histories we want them to have. That was certainly the case with a succession of phoney Vermeers that issued from the workshop of a Dutch portraitist, Han van Meegeren – one of the most prolific and successful forgers of the 20th Century. Desperate to believe that the miraculous appearance of canvases, including a depiction of Christ and The Men at Emmaus, might be lost masterpieces from the same hand that made Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Milkmaid, collectors were blind to the glaring absence of any trace of the paintings' provenance – their prior ownership, exhibition history, and proof of sales. Everyone was fooled.
In authenticating the painting in the Burlington Magazine, one expert insisted "in no other picture by the great Master of Delft do we find such sentiment, such a profound understanding of the Bible story – a sentiment so nobly human expressed through the medium of the highest art". But it was all a lie. In a remarkable twist, Van Meegeren eventually chose to expose himself as a fraudster shortly after the end of World War Two, after being charged by Dutch authorities with the crime of selling a Vermeer – therefore a national treasure – to the Nazi official Hermann Göring. To prove his innocence, if innocence it might be called, and demonstrate that he had merely sold a worthless fake of his own forging, not a real Old Master, Van Meegeren performed the extraordinary feat of whisking up a fresh masterpiece from thin air before the experts' astonished eyes. Voilà, Vermeer.
More recently, in a 2017 episode of BBC's popular arts programme Fake or Fortune?, presenter Philip Mould's long-held hunch that a painting he once sold for £35,000 was really a priceless original by the English Romantic artist John Constable – an alternative, and previously undocumented, view of the landscape artist's 1821 masterpiece The Hay Wain – was dramatically confirmed after Mould and fellow presenter Fiona Bruce excavated long-buried financial records. Having traced the painting's ownership back to a sale by the artist's son, the team recalculated the canvass true value to be £2m, proving that some pasts are worth hanging onto.
Rule 3: Squint
Artists' gestures – their simultaneously studied and instinctive brushwork and draughtsmanship – are nothing less than fingerprints writ large across canvases and works on paper. One artist's lightness of touch and another's sturdiness of stroke are exceedingly tricky to falsify, especially if you are conscious that every twitch of your brush and jot of your pen will be scrutinised by suspicious eyes and cutting-edge equipment. Pressure under pressure is hard to maintain, an obstacle that the British forger Eric Hebborn (who died under suspicious circumstances in Rome in 1996 after a career spent counterfeiting more than 1,000 works attributed to everyone from Mantegna to Tiepolo, Poussin to Piranesi) overcame with alcohol.
By all accounts, brandy was Hebborn's tipple of choice for calming his rattling nerves. It allowed him to inhabit, without inhibition, the mind and muscle of whichever old master he was channelling. Whereas fakes from the hands of Beltracchi and Van Meegeren have since been found under closer inspection to be riddled with incoherent gestures, the fluidity of drawings falsified by the tipsy Hebborn in his heyday in the 1970s and 80s continues to confound the experts. To this day, institutions that possess works that passed through his hands refuse to accept they are all fakes, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art's pen and ink drawing View of the Temples of Venus and of Diana in Baia from the South, a work it still insists is from the circle of Jan Brueghel the Elder. What do you think?
Rule 4: Go deeper
When the analysis of pigments, provenance, and paintbrush pressure still leaves you stumped, it may be necessary to dive a little deeper. For 20 years since the 1990s, the authenticity of a still life purportedly by Vincent van Gogh was serially confirmed and refuted by experts. To some, the garish reds and submarine blues that echoed eerily from the bouquet of roses, daisies, and wildflowers didn't have the ring of truth and seemed at odds with the painter's palette. The absence of any ownership record for the painting didn't help.
But an X-ray undertaken in 2012 put questions to rest when it revealed that the artist, pinching pennies, reused a canvas on which he had created another image entirely – one to which he makes explicit reference in a letter from January 1886. "This week", Van Gogh remarked to his brother Theo, "I painted a large thing with two nude torsos – two wrestlers… and I really like doing that." As if proleptically anticipating the ensuing scholarly wrangle over the work's authenticity that the painting would in time trigger, the static tussle of the two athletes, trapped beneath paint for over a century, not only rescued the work from unfair allegations of illegitimacy, it created a kind of fresh composite painting, a vivid compression – a freeze frame of a restless mind forever scuffling with itself, desperate to survive.
Rule 5: It's the little things that give you away
As a final safeguard in authenticating a work of art, run the spell check. Doing so would have saved the collector Pierre Lagrange $17m – the price he paid in 2007 for an otherwise compelling forgery of a small 12x18in (30x46cm) painting falsely attributed to the American Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock. Famous for his drippy style, Pollock has a surprisingly legible signature, an unmistakable "c" before the final "k". The skipped consonant would do more than expose a single forgery; it would shatter the reputation of an entire gallery.
The sloppy signature was just one of many missed red flags in works falsely attributed to Rothko, De Kooning, Motherwell and others that the Knoedler & Co gallery, one of New York's oldest and most esteemed art institutions, succeeded in selling for $80m. The fraudulent works had been supplied by a dubious dealer who claimed they came from an enigmatic collector, "Mr X". Just before the scandal erupted in the press, the gallery closed its doors after 165 years, while the suspected perpetrator of the fakes, a self-taught Chinese septuagenarian by the name of Pei-Shen Qian, who had operated from a forger's workshop in Queens, vanished; he later turned up in China.
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From the catwalk to the red carpet, the jacket-and-necktie combo is back for women – it's a statement of power and authority, say fans of the look.
The jacket-and-necktie combination has been a staple of male dress for centuries, but it's always been most striking and subversive when worn by women. Now, it's making a comeback in women's fashion once more.
On runways, designers are re-inventing the look. In her recent London Fashion Week collection, Tolu Coker showcased oversized leather blazers, paired with satin ties and tailored shirts. While at New York Fashion Week, Thom Browne teamed classic pattern ties with structured patchwork jackets.
The trend isn't limited to the catwalk. Viewers of the recent Grammy awards may have noticed Sabrina Carpenter's Dolce & Gabbana show-girl outfit, a Swarovski crystal-encrusted black blazer, with matching tie and skirt. Billie Eilish even offers a tie as part of her official merchandise.
The red carpet is adopting the look, too. At the Berlin Film Festival, Vicky Krieps wore an oversized Bottega Veneta suit. Meanwhile, Doechii styled a Thom Browne exaggerated trouser with a cropped jacket and tie to accept her Grammy win. Nicole Kidman has gone for the jacket-and-tie look too in YSL, joining a growing list of celebrities including Rihanna, Bella Hadid and Iris Law, who have all embraced the label's style of tailoring.
Yasmine Tangou is also in the fan club. The content creator and architect, who lives in Paris, likes the oversized, masculine style of a YSL suit, in contrast to other styles of jacket that accentuate curves.
Since moving to the French capital from Milan, Tangou has trawled vintage shops in search of men's suits. She prefers their structure. "I like the movement in a men's garment and the wider, boxier silhouette," she tells the BBC.
On TikTok, Tangou showcases her outfits to thousands of viewers, pairing ties with bomber jackets, trench coats and blazers. "From a social point of view, I really like that wearing a tie and jacket is bold," she tells the BBC. "People don't expect it on a woman."
When it comes to corporate-style looks, Tangou prefers the jacket and tie to the recent office-siren trend because it feels "unsexualised," she says. "I thought the office-siren look was really cool, but it was about showing off the body, whereas this look is about the garment."
"Wearing a broad-shouldered jacket makes a statement," she says. "There is power in strong silhouettes." To balance the masculine structure of her outfits, Tangou draws inspiration from YS's approach. "I always add a feminine touch," she explains. "That could be a full face of makeup, a floral clutch bag or a pair of heels."
Power dressing
Although the jacket-and-tie look is experiencing a revival, this isn't the first time women's fashion has embraced it.
Fashion historian Linda Welters traces the trend back to the 19th Century, starting with bowties. She points to John Singer Sargent's 1897 painting of Mr and Mrs Stokes. In it, Mr Stokes stands behind his wife, who wears a bowtie and a shirtwaist – a women's blouse styled like a men's shirt, which was representative of the "new woman", in rejecting Victorian ideas of femininity.
Welters, a professor at the University of Rhode Island, notes the necktie has long been associated with power and authority in both men's and women's fashion. It's why some suffragettes wore ties at the beginning of the 20th Century, while campaigning for the vote.
Later, in 1930, Marlene Dietrich created an iconic style moment when she wore a suit and bowtie in the film Morocco. It was in the 1960s, though, when the suit and bowtie were first embraced by major fashion houses. In 1966, Yves Saint Laurent unveiled the Le Smoking tuxedo suit for women. Alas it was deemed ahead of its time among the designer's haute couture fans, with only one suit selling. However the version created for Saint Laurent's ready-to-wear line Rive Gauche was a big success, attracting a younger clientele. Saint Laurent then went on to include it in each of his collections until his retirement in 2002.
While women are increasingly turning to the tie and jacket, in recent years, the look has fallen out of favour in men's fashion, something that is noticeable in both politics and business. Some attribute this to the rise of remote work during Covid, while others see it as an attempt by powerful figures to appear more approachable. Some of the world's wealthiest and most influential businessmen, from Mark Zuckerberg to Jeff Bezos, rarely wear jackets and ties. President Zelensky avoids the suit as a mark of solidarity with Ukrainian soldiers.
Welters points out that, "men have considered the jacket and tie optional for the last 15 years, with open-collar shirts becoming more common". She says this shift in menswear has paved the way for womenswear to "claim and feminise the look".
She also connects the trend to global politics. "Fashion labels are responding to a rise in conservative values," she says. "Theres a growing perception that married women do fine at home, but designers are challenging this by styling women in jackets and ties which project authority and power."
However Dr Gaby Harris, a fashion cultures sociologist and lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, sees it differently. Although she agrees the trend is politically influenced, she links it to the era of dominant male leaders, such as President Donald Trump.
“Jackets and ties have long been symbols of the powerful class – we refer to 'white-collar' workers,” Harris tells the BBC. “Over time, this style has become associated with dominance. Women adopting this look are aligning with a traditionally male expression of power, at a time when strong, macho leaders are in office."
Harris also attributes the trend to personal branding: "We place significant value on individuals as brands, so wearing a jacket and tie make sense because it's a symbol of authority and competence. By wearing a tie and jacket on a red carpet, celebrities are projecting themselves as leaders and CEOs."
Not everyone believes it's political though. For Holly Beddingfield, the suit revival is about a new generation enjoying office-wear for the first time. The editor of Capsule, a fashion and pop culture newsletter, describes herself as a "Zillennial", as she is at the older end of the Gen-Z age bracket.
She explains that for her generation office attire is a novelty. "We haven't worked in formal environments before, and since lots of offices are ending working from home, we're thinking, 'why not have fun with dressing for work?'"
Ties are not only a fun way to experiment with style but, as Beddingfield notes, "a cheap way of making you feel put together".
"I really like masculine-inspired fashion," she tells the BBC. "I wear lots of oversized-men's items, but that can stray into the territory of looking lazy and like I don't care. But a tie can take a boyish outfit, and make it look polished, in the same way having my nails done and wearing jewellery does too.”
It’s a sentiment that suit-and-tie loving Bella Freud agrees with. In an interview last year with the BBC, the British designer recalled that as a teenager, "I put on this boy's shirt, and I stared at myself in the mirror. Suddenly I felt agile and powerful. It was a real moment for me".
As a teenager who idolised tie-loving pop-rock stars Avril Lavigne and Hayley Williams in the Noughties, Beddingfield says she has waited a long time for them to be back in fashion, so when BoyGenius wore them for much of their tour last year, she was thrilled. "It was always cool in America," she jokes, "and finally it’s becoming cool in the UK too".
For anyone wanting to introduce a jacket and tie combination to their wardrobe, Beddingfield advises "keeping it simple".
"Take your current favourite bottoms, whether that's jeans or a skirt, and add a shirt, tie and your most-loved jacket," she says. "Don't completely re-invent a new look because you won't feel comfortable – instead build on an outfit you already love."
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The Nazis carried out the final "liquidation" of the Kraków Jewish ghetto on 13 March 1943, an act of violence that shocked a factory owner into becoming a saviour. These events were depicted in Thomas Keneally's novel Schindler's Ark and Steven Spielberg's film Schindler's List. But in 1982, Keneally told the BBC that Oskar Schindler's story was handed to him during a chance meeting with a luggage salesman.
Oskar Schindler was living in relative obscurity when his story was first featured on the BBC in 1964. Journalist Magnus Magnusson told viewers of the current affairs programme, Tonight: "You may not have heard of him yet, but one day you will. Today, he lives in Germany; sick, unemployable and penniless. In fact, he lives on charity, but not the poor-box kind. The money that keeps him and his family alive comes from the 1,300 Jews whose lives he personally saved in the last war. Many of them are pledged to give one day's pay a year to the man they call the Scarlet Pimpernel of the concentration camps."
Schindler was in the news that day because it had been announced that a Hollywood film called To the Last Hour was to be made about his life. It came about because a few years earlier, Holocaust survivor Poldek Pfefferberg had shared with MGM producer Martin Gosch the almost preposterous story of how he was among thousands saved by a Nazi war profiteer: a handsome, womanising drunk and wheeler-dealer from Czechoslovakia who had previously demonstrated few heroic qualities. While that particular film would get stuck permanently in development hell, in 1980 Pfefferberg had a chance meeting with an unsuspecting Australian writer that would change both their lives.
Thomas Keneally was killing time at the end of a Los Angeles promotional trip ("I was being put up in unaccustomed grandeur by my publishers at a big hotel in Beverly Hills") and window-shopping for a new briefcase before returning home to Sydney. He told the BBC's Desert Island Discs in 1983 that the leather goods shop owner, "being a good central European," came out to greet him and give him the hard sell.
Keneally said: "[Pfefferberg] did produce a very good briefcase, and while I was waiting for the charges to be cleared on my credit cards – they're very slow to clear Australian credit cards, I've noticed; it's the convict reputation – he began to talk to me about his wartime experience.
"He knew I was a writer, and he said, 'I've got a book for you. I was saved, but so was my wife, saved from Auschwitz by an extraordinary German, a big handsome Hitlerite dream of a man called Oskar Schindler. I have many Oskar Schindler documents. In the 1960s, a movie was nearly made about Oskar, and while we're waiting for your credit card to be cleared, have a look at this material.'
"He told his son to mind the shop, and he took me up to the bank on the corner, open on Saturdays. He talked them into running off photocopies of all this remarkable material, and at once I understood that here was a most astounding European character."
One of those documents was what would become known as Schindler's list. "The list is life," Keneally would go on to write in his best-selling novel Schindler's Ark, and "all around its cramped margins lies the gulf".
From opportunist to saviour
Pfefferberg was born into a Jewish family in Kraków, where he had worked as a high school teacher and physical education professor until 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. He joined the Polish army and was wounded in battle. He told Keneally that when Poland fell to the Nazis and was partitioned between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union, he had to make a tough decision: "We officers had to decide to go east or west. I decided not to go east, even though I was Jewish. If I had, I would have been shot with all the other poor sons of bitch in Katyn Forest." He was imprisoned in the Kraków ghetto, a segregated area established in 1941 by the Nazis. About 15,000 Jewish people were herded into an area that previously housed about 3,000 residents, and forced to live in dehumanising conditions.
It was also in Kraków that the Nazi Party member Oskar Schindler was exploiting wartime misery for money, taking over several confiscated Jewish-owned businesses including an enamelware factory. At first, most of Schindler's workers were non-Jewish Poles, but he later began to employ Jewish forced labourers from the ghetto. Pfefferberg became one of his employees. Meanwhile, the Nazis began rounding up groups of Jewish people at gunpoint and deporting them to nearby concentration camps. For those left behind, it was a time of terror.
Schindler was forever changed in March 1943 by the brutality of the Nazis' final "liquidation" of the Kraków ghetto. Those deemed able to work were transported to the nearby Płaszów labour camp. Thousands more who were considered unfit for work were either murdered in the streets or sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. To save his workers from the camps, Schindler turned to using his talent for corruption and deceit. He continued to persuade Nazi officials that his workers were vital to the German war effort, bribing high-ranking SS officers with money and alcohol. His factory also produced ammunition shells to ensure it was regarded as a vital resource, and he listed the names, birthdates and skills of his Jewish workers, emphasising their importance to the Nazi war machine.
Keneally told the BBC: "What he virtually did was set up a benign concentration camp, not once but twice, and he kept on losing his people and getting them back by bribery, by bluff, by corrupting officials, and by exploiting the extraordinary SS bureaucracy that was involved in a preposterously systematic manner in the Holocaust."
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When the war ended, Schindler struggled with failed businesses and turned to alcohol. Those whom he had rescued would end up trying to rescue him, helping to support him financially. He died in 1974, aged 66. Survivors brought his remains to Israel, where he was buried in the Catholic Cemetery of Jerusalem. The inscription on his grave reads: "The unforgettable rescuer of 1,200 persecuted Jews."
Among those saved were Pfefferberg and his wife Mila. After the war, the couple made their way to the US, and ended up in Beverly Hills. Pfefferberg sometimes went by the name Leopold Page. Keneally noted in his 2008 memoir Searching for Schindler that this was a name foisted on him upon arrival at Ellis Island in 1947. He told the BBC that writing this companion volume had been on his to-do list since Pfefferberg's death in 2001. "I felt that, as big a character as Schindler was, the man who had brought me to him was also an extraordinary character," he said.
An award-winning book and an award-winning film
When Steven Spielberg won the best director Oscar for Schindler's List at the 1994 Academy Awards, in his speech he said: "This never could have gotten started without a survivor called Poldek Pfefferberg… All of us owe him such a debt. He has carried the story of Oskar Schindler to all of us."
The film was based on Keneally's novel, Schindler's Ark, which won the UK's prestigious Booker Prize in 1982. Some argued that it should not have been classified as fiction, as the author had applied imaginative literary techniques to real-life events in the manner of works such as Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. Looking back in 2008, while discussing his Schindler memoir, Keneally told the BBC that the debate had been good for business. "These days archbishops don't do writers the great benefit of banning them from the pulpit, but a literary controversy does nearly as well as the archbishops of the past did in promoting a book," he said.
In his Booker Prize acceptance speech, Keneally thanked Pfefferberg and other survivors who helped him tell the story. He said: "I'm in the extraordinary position that's akin to that of a Hollywood producer when he humbly accepts his Oscar, and thanks so many people. Normally a writer doesn't have to thank so many people, but most of my characters are still alive. And I'd also like to remember the extraordinary character whom Oskar was."
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Ofcom has dropped all of its remaining impartiality investigations into politicians' TV and radio programmes, following a High Court decision to overturn the media regulator's past rulings against Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg's GB News show.
Last month, a judge decided that Ofcom had unlawfully ruled that Sir Jacob's programme had broken its impartiality code.
Ofcom has now discontinued the remaining six investigations into possible breaches of rules prohibiting politicians from presenting news programmes.
It has dropped probes into Reform UK leader Nigel Farage on GB News, Foreign Secretary David Lammy on LBC, and Conservative former minister Jake Berry on TalkTV and Local TV.
It has also discontinued investigations into a show hosted by former Brexit Party MEP Alex Phillips on TalkTV, and another fronted by former Reform UK deputy leader David Bull when he was guest host of Morning Glory on the same channel.
Last week, Ofcom also withdrew three previous rulings against GB News programmes hosted by Conservative MP Esther McVey and her husband, former MP Philip Davies.
GB News chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos said: "Since the recent landmark High Court ruling finding that Ofcom acted unlawfully, a total of 11 cases against GB News and other UK broadcasters have now either been quashed, unwound or abandoned.
"Following the withdrawal of five breach decisions against GB News, now Ofcom has revealed that it is 'not pursuing' the case against the GB News programme, Farage and five others from other UK broadcasters - another vindication of GB News editorial decision making."
He added that the broadcaster would "vigorously defend the channel and our presenters' freedom of speech rights".
Following the High Court ruling, Ofcom said it would consult on changes to its broadcasting code, which says a politician can't be a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in a news programme "unless, exceptionally, it is editorially justified". The current rules say they can, however, front current affairs shows.
Headliners investigation
Meanwhile, Ofcom has launched an investigation into comments a GB News presenter made about the LGBT community.
During an episode of Headliners on 22 January, while discussing a sermon given by a US bishop, presenter Josh Howie appeared to suggest the LGBT community included paedophiles.
Howie has since said his programme is a comedy show and his comment was intended as a "joke about paedophilia in the church".
Ofcom said it had received 1,382 complaints directly, while The Good Law Project had gathered 71,851 complaints.
An Ofcom spokesperson said: "We are investigating whether this programme broke our rule which requires that material which may cause offence must be justified by the context."
Mr Frangopoulos said he did "not believe there was a breach of the rules" in the programme.
One of the oldest folk festivals in England was cancelled after making a £320,000 loss last year, council documents have revealed.
The annual four-day Cambridge Folk Festival, organised by Cambridge City Council, first began in 1965 and has been hosted in the grounds of Cherry Hinton Hall.
Papers published by the council ahead of an upcoming meeting on Thursday cited the "financial difficulties faced by the folk festival".
It said it had "earmarked £75,000 to deliver an alternative programme of folk-related events in 2025" ahead of the full festival's return in 2026.
The cancellation of this summer's event was announced in January.
The festival has hosted global headliners such as Robert Plant, Joan Baez, James Taylor, Van Morrison, Nick Cave, Lady Blackbird, Peggy Seeger and Suzanne Vega, and typically attracts about 14,000 people.
Robert Dryden, a Labour city councillor for the area, said in January that the cancellation came as a "big shock" that would "disappoint lots of people".
Labour-run Cambridge City Council has published papers ahead of a scrutiny meeting on 20 March which will look at the reasons behind the cancellation.
The council said the papers would "clearly outline the decisions taken by the festival organisers... to ensure the successful future of the much-loved Cambridge Folk Festival".
The papers continue: "The UK music festival industry is facing widespread financial pressures.
"These have dramatically impacted the continuation of festivals in the recent years.
"Large corporations... dominate the festival landscape.
"In 2024, Latitude, which is normally held on the penultimate weekend in July, chose to move to the last weekend in July, in direct competition with the Cambridge Folk Festival."
The council said it analysed feedback from attendees in 2024 and said some alluded to reduced crowd sizes, and "attributed this to clashes with other festivals including Latitude".
The paper adds: "In 2024, the folk festival incurred a provisional loss of £0.32m. In the years prior to the Covid pandemic it returned an average profit of over £0.2m to fund free community events in Cambridge."
The council said that "while revenues have remained broadly stable, costs have increased significantly as they have for the whole of the UK festival sector".
It said it was "committed to the long-term success of the internationally acclaimed Cambridge Folk Festival".
"During the 2025 fallow year, the council will review the format of the festival so that it can return in 2026."
It said it was planning other entertainment "including free outdoor events and venue-based folk concerts", more details of which it would announce in April.
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An artist who has quadriplegic cerebral palsy is one of many showcasing her creativity at a 40th anniversary festival to celebrate disabled and deaf artists.
Lisa Simpson, who has no verbal communication, is taking part in Liverpool's DaDaFest International, which was founded by the disability arts organisation, DaDa.
The organisation, founded in Liverpool in 1984, has been campaigning for equality and access for disabled artists across the arts sector for 40 years.
Ms Simpson, who communicates via a Simpson board by choosing words with her eyes, said the festival marks an "opportunity for disabled artists to show what they can do".
The Simpson Board enables Ms Simpson to create her own work, helping her to have a glittering career as a choreographer and workshop leader.
Her husband, John Glass, said she was "probably the only non-verbal choreographer in the world".
Ms Simpson said: "The Simpson Board is my creative voice. It's my means of communicating.
"Through my work I am able to unlock my creativity and I am able to express movements through my dancers that I am unable to make myself."
The festival, which began in 2001, has a theme of rage for this year's event, reflecting many disabled artists' frustration at the "continued uphill battle for equity and inclusion", organisers said.
Rachel Rogers, executive producer at DaDaFest, said: "For an organisation to make 40 years is an achievement in itself.
"For me personally it is just fantastic to see people who have come back who we have worked with for a long time.
"For us that is one of the biggest things, bringing people together."
Hundreds came together to attend the festival's opening night at the Open Eye Gallery on Mann Island, where artwork from disabled women artists and activists were displayed.
Liverpool artist, Maisie Gordon, said: "Being a disabled person in 2025 is obviously a lot better than it used to be.
We are progressing really far. There has been a lot of changes, a lot of brilliant activism that's been happening.
"But we've still got a long way to go."
The festival runs across Liverpool until the end of March, showcasing various events and displays from artists all over the UK.
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"The reason I started applying for TV shows was down to my dad - he was inspiring me all of the time."
Tomasz Wisniewski's father was his idol, a lover of all things entertainment, he was a professional dancer from Poland and told his son to "live life to the fullest".
Before Tomasz took up his current role as a firefighter in Nottingham, he appeared on several reality TV shows.
He decided to step away because he "did not want this anymore", in part due to the death of his parents while living in the UK.
But after 10 years away, he has temporarily swapped the heat of his day job for the scorching temperatures of the Malaysian rainforest in Channel 4's Tempting Fortune.
Born in Wadowice, Poland, Tomasz came over to the UK aged 20 in 2005 and "didn't speak a word of English".
He came to Nottingham with his father, who he worked alongside in Turkey as a performer in hotels.
The plan was to stay for three months but that soon changed.
He said he always wanted to live in the UK due to his "love of the Spice Girls" as a child.
"I fell in love with the UK when I got here and I decided to stay - it's the best thing that ever happened in my life.
"This country has given me so many amazing opportunities, I am so grateful to everyone here."
After working various jobs, he learned the language and "immersed himself" in the culture - including the country's love of reality TV.
Tomasz, now 40, said he "doesn't take himself too seriously" and applied for a variety of shows.
His larger-than-life personality and hairstyle caught the eye of producers.
His resumé includes Channel 4's Come Dine With Me, Total Wipeout, to which Tomazs eagerly points out he won, as well as a stint on BBC shows So You Think You Can Dance and Snog, Marry Avoid?
His first appearance was on So You Think You Can Dance? and it became quite clear he was "not talented" and was the show's "joke".
"It's funny looking back now... I honestly thought I could actually dance," he said.
"The reason I actually started applying for TV shows was down to my dad - he was inspiring me all of the time.
"He told me I would work in the entertainment industry and I would have so much to offer to other people - he told me to live life to the fullest.
"Do what you enjoy in life, I just threw myself into everything because life is too short to be boring. You don't know what is behind the next door."
Tomazs said this outlook on life came from his father and mother passing away from cancer before they both reached the age of 60.
He described them as his "best friends".
"If I have 10 years left of being crazy then I will take it," he added.
Tomazs spent five years in London working in the Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square but felt he "needed something more from life" and left TV behind him.
That career switch took him away from the glitz and the glamour of casino high-rollers to HMP Pentonville in north London.
He worked as a prison officer before he moved back to Nottingham to care for his father after he had been diagnosed with cancer.
With his caring duties, he transferred to HMP Nottingham in 2017.
"I loved it there, it was an incredible job. I felt I could really help people," he said.
He then joined Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service as a firefighter in 2019.
On his decade-long break from TV, he said: "Losing my parents was a massive factor in my life at that point.
"I needed to focus on something else, it was a breakdown for me, I needed to withdraw from this happy world."
Tomasz, who is still with the fire service in a job he "absolutely loves", was contacted by a friend in London to apply for the reality TV show.
Tempting Fortune consists of 12 strangers spending three weeks in "paradise".
They will arrive with basic survival gear and in order to win the prize they will have to resist the temptation to spend any of the prize money.
"I was quite happy not to do anything like that again and I wouldn't have applied but my best friend said the show was made for me," he said.
After making it through several auditions, Tomasz touched down in the Malaysian jungle alongside his fellow contestants.
He described the show as a "holiday" to start with but that quickly changed.
"The pressure does get intense and when there's big personalities. I include myself in that, it really ramps up."
"It was brutal, it was extreme but it was such good fun. I couldn't get the fire going which was ironic with me being a firefighter."
The first episode of the new series of Tempting Fortune was broadcast at 21:00 GMT on Sunday.
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This week, social media stars The Sidemen are bringing their reality TV show, called Inside, to Netflix.
But that's not all the week has in store.
Selena Gomez's joint album with her fiancé Benny Blanco is coming out, Snow White is - finally - being released in cinemas, and gamers are getting set for Assassin's Creed Shadows.
Read on for this week's biggest releases...
The Sidemen take their reality show to Netflix
Last year, British YouTube superstars the Sidemen launched their own reality show, locking 10 influencers in a house for a week to battle for a prize worth up to £1m.
The first episode of Inside attracted 14 million views on YouTube, with fans tuning in to see contestants compete in a series of challenges.
The second season is out on Monday, but this time, it will be on Netflix instead of YouTube. The streaming giant will also make a US version.
The Sidemen - a seven-strong group that includes content creators, musicians and boxer KSI - said they wanted to "shake up the game" of reality TV.
"We all grew up watching reality TV and are big fans of the drama and jeopardy that come with it," they said.
"Combining that with a prize fund and the challenges that our fans know us for, we knew people would be hooked."
Selena and Benny's 'love story'
Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco have had a busy few months.
The pair announced their engagement in December, and now, they are releasing a joint album, I Said I Love You First, which comes out on Friday.
It marks Gomez's return to music after starring in operatic musical Emilia Perez, which scored her two Golden Globe nominations.
We already got a taste of what's in store with their new single, Sunset Blvd. The lyrics are sultry and full of innuendo, with Gomez singing about "holding you naked" in central Los Angeles.
So it might not surprise you that the album is designed to celebrate "the pair's love story".
"It chronicles their entire story - before they met, falling in love and looking to what the future holds," according to a press release.
I’m just intrigued to find out who actually said I love you first.
Disney's Snow White is here... finally
Once upon a time, Disney set out to remake the classic film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
So far, so good, but this fairy tale has been beset by challenges.
Early on, Latina star Rachel Zegler faced abuse online by people who disagreed with her casting in the role of a character deemed to have skin "as white as snow".
The film continued to stir controversy after Zegler indicated she found the original version scary - and suggested the prince was a “stalker”.
The reboot was criticised by Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage, who has a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia, for being "backward". Disney said it was going to "avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film" (note dwarfs have been dropped from the title).
The live-action adaptation - which also stars Gal Gadot - was originally scheduled for release in 2024, but was delayed a year amid the Hollywood actors' strikes.
A pared-down premiere was held last Wednesday, and the film finally lands in UK cinemas on Friday.
Get ready for Assassin's Creed Shadows
By Tom Richardson, Newsbeat reporter
Since 2007 the Assassin's Creed series has allowed players to hack, slash and sneak their way through a range of historical settings.
And the latest instalment, Shadows, creeping on to PS5, Xbox and PC from Thursday, grants fans' long-held wish for an adventure set in feudal Japan.
It mixes the stealth gameplay of the recent Assassin's Creed Mirage with the combat-focused approach of mega-hit Valhalla and throws ninjas into the mix. A sure-fire hit, right?
But it's being seen by many as a make-or-break title for French publisher Ubisoft, one of the biggest gaming companies in the world.
After a lacklustre 2024, there's a lot of hope that the twice-delayed Shadows will replicate the sales of previous games in the Assassin's Creed series.
Early previews have been positive, but in today's unpredictable video games market you can't count your shurikens until they've knocked out a sentry in a perfect takedown, preferably millions of times.
Other highlights this week...
* Sunrise on the Reaping, the new book in The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, is out on Tuesday
* Leaving Neverland 2: Surviving Michael Jackson premieres on Channel 4 on Tuesday
* BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival starts on Wednesday
* Spring: The Story of a Season, by Michael Morpurgo, is out on Thursday
* Last One Laughing UK is released on Amazon Prime on Thursday
* Greentea Peng's new album, Tell Dem It's Sunny, drops on Friday
* Will Smith's album, Based On A True Story, is out on Friday
* Japanese Breakfast's album, For Melancholy Brunettes (And Sad Women), also drops on Friday
* Flow, an animated film, will be released in UK cinemas on Friday
* The Alto Knights, starring Robert De Niro, is also out in UK cinemas on Friday
A nightclub regularly named one of the best in the world is "increasingly likely" to close when its lease expires in July.
The team behind Bristol's Motion nightclub said it had submitted a "strong, carefully thought-out bid" supported by "significant financial backing" to its landlords but still fear they will have to leave.
They announced that the club's future was at risk in November, the following month it was once again listed in DJ magazine's annual Top 100 Clubs.
The owners of 74-78 Avon Street - where Motion is located - have previously said they will consider any bids put forward by the club.
A post on the club's Instagram said: "Our bid makes it crystal clear: Motion isn't just a nightclub. It's a vital piece of Bristol's cultural and economic ecosystem."
It said efforts were also being made to have the club listed as an Asset of Community Value.
"We'll keep pushing, we'll keep fighting and we'll keep working towards a future where Motion - and spaces like it - can thrive," the post said.
The venue opened in 2003 as a skatepark called SK8 & Ride.
In 2007, the venue expanded to accommodate larger crowds.
Since then it has hosted events such as club nights, theatre shows, live music, festivals, sporting events, corporate hires and private events.
The club has hosted artists such as Jeff Mills, Floating Points, Chase & Status, JME, Hunee, Mr Scruff, Patrick Topping and The Chemical Brothers.
Experts believe they have uncovered enough evidence to suggest a Tudor-era portrait could be the only known image of Lady Jane Grey painted in her lifetime.
She was "the nine days queen", whose brief reign was an unsuccessful bid by Protestants to prevent the accession of her Catholic cousin Mary I (1553 to 1558).
Executed aged just 17, if the image is of her, it was changed over the centuries to depict her as a "subdued, Protestant" martyr. The painting is on loan to Wrest Park, Silsoe, Bedfordshire, its previous home.
"While we can't confirm this is definitely Lady Jane Grey, our results certainly make a compelling argument," said Rachel Turnbull, of English Heritage.
English Heritage worked alongside the Courtauld Institute of Art and dendrochronologist Ian Tyers to discover "evidence of a once perhaps more elaborate costume", the senior collections conservator said.
"It is possible that we are looking at the shadows of a once more royal portrait of Lady Jane Grey, toned down into subdued, Protestant martyrdom after her death," she added.
Who was Lady Jane Grey?
* Born at Bradgate Park, Leicestershire, in about 1537, she was Henry VIII's great-niece
* Her high-status family made sure she received as good an education as the king's daughters, learning Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French and Italian
* Protestant King Edward VI (1547-1553) hoped to make her queen after his death instead of his Roman Catholic sister Mary
* She was proclaimed queen on his death by her father-in-law the Duke of Northumberland, but her reign only lasted from 10 July to 19 July 1553
* She was executed at the Tower of London in the wake of a Protestant uprising against Mary in 1554
All known portraits of the teenager were painted after her death.
The most famous is probably The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, painted in 1822 by Paul Delaroche.
In it, she is helpless and blindfolded in front of the executioner's block.
Historical novelist and historian Philippa Gregory, who saw the portrait at English Heritage's conservation studio, said: "Certainly, the features are similar to those of her portrait at the National Portrait Gallery.
"This is such an interesting picture posing so many questions, and if this is Jane Grey, a valuable addition to the portraiture of this young heroine, as a woman of character – a powerful challenge to the traditional representation of her as a blindfolded victim."
What is the newly revealed evidence?
* Infra-red reflectography shows significant changes to the sitter's costume after the portrait was completed, including to her sleeves and coif - the linen cap worn over her hair
* Her eyes, mouth and ears were deliberately scratched out, probably an iconoclastic attack in which the image was destroyed for religious or political reasons
* Dendrochronological analysis (tree ring dating) of the painted panel suggests it was used between 1539 and 1571. It was made from Baltic oak boards
* The back of the panel displays a merchant or cargo mark identical to one used on a royal portrait of Edward VI
The painting was acquired by one of Wrest Park's former owners in 1701 as an image of Lady Jane Grey.
"It remained the defining image of the 'nine days queen' for more than 300 years, until its attribution was thrown into doubt and its identity rejected," said Peter Moore, the stately home's curator.
It is on loan from a private collection, alongside six other paintings with a connection to the house and its former owners.
"It is thrilling to have this painting back at Wrest and the new research provides tantalising evidence which brings us much closer to the assertion that this could be Lady Jane Grey," he added.
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A Banksy reimagining of a work by the late Scottish painter Jack Vettriano has sold at auction for £4.3m ($5.4m).
Crude Oil (Vettriano) was put up for sale by Blink 182 bassist Mark Hoppus, who acquired the painting in 2011.
It depicts the Fife-born artist's best known work, The Singing Butler, which features a couple dancing on a storm-swept beach accompanied by their butler and maid, but with two figures in yellow hazmat suits disposing of an oil drum in the background.
The sale to a private collector at Sotheby's in London on Tuesday evening came just days after Vettriano was found dead aged 73 at his apartment in France.
The work was initially projected to fetch between £3m and £5m in the sale.
The entirely hand-painted work, created using oil and spray paints, was first exhibited in 2005.
It was initially placed in a disused shop window in Notting Hill in full view of passers-by.
Vettriano's original version sold at Sotheby's in 2004 for £744,800 – the highest price for any Scottish artwork sold at auction at the time.
Hoppus bought the painting following a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art (Moca) in Los Angeles.
He described it as "unmistakeable," adding that he and wife Skye "fell in love" with the work from the moment they saw it.
A portion of the funds raised will go towards supporting the charities Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Cedars Sinai Haematology Oncology Research.
The couple will also donate some of the proceeds to the California Fire Foundation following the devastating wildfires which destroyed parts of the city earlier this year.
Hoppus said: "We loved this painting since the moment we saw it. Unmistakably Banksy, but different. We bought it because we loved it. It's borne witness to our family over these past dozen years.
"It hung over the table in London where we ate breakfast and our son did his homework. It hung in our living room in Los Angeles. It's seen laughter and tears and parties and arguments. Our son has grown up in front of it.
"This painting has meant so much to us and been such an amazing part of our lives, and now I'm excited for it to be out there in the world, seen by as many as possible."
Vettriano was found dead at his apartment in Nice on Saturday. His publicist confirmed his death on Monday.
There were no suspicious circumstances around his death, police in Southern France said.
The artist was self-taught after being gifted watercolour paints for his 21st birthday.
His breakthrough came in 1989 when he submitted two paintings to the Royal Scottish Academy's annual show and both sold on the first day, inspiring him to become a full-time artist.
His works later garnered international acclaim, leading to exhibitions in cities including London, Hong Kong, Johannesburg and New York.
It is important not to forget the "atrocities the British Empire was involved in," a playwright has said as her debut hit play heads to London.
Azuka Oforka, 43, was one of two winners of the best writer at the Stage Debut Awards last year for The Women of Llanrumney.
It explores Welsh links to slavery and the role of Sir Henry Morgan - the Welsh plantation owner and later Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica.
Azuka was inspired to write the play after a visit to Cardiff's Llanrumney Hall where she first learnt about Wales' connection to the Atlantic slave trade.
Azuka Oforka grew up in London but moved to Cardiff in 2012.
The English actress is known for her role in Casualty but has gone through a "whirlwind" 18 months writing her play.
"It's a debut that many writers would dream of. Hopefully it opens the door to tell many more stories," she said.
She was inspired after seeing a portrait of Sir Henry Morgan in Llanrumney Hall, the man who set up the Llanrumney sugar plantation in 18th Century Jamaica.
"It was captioned Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. I just knew that grandiose title had obscured a real brutal legacy of slavery," she said.
The Sherman Theatre in Cardiff was looking for stories that spoke to a Welsh audience at the time and representatives contacted Azuka, who felt it was her "call to arms" to explore Wales' links with slavery and the British Empire.
Sir Henry Morgan (1635-1688), the Llanrumney-born Caribbean buccaneer and one-time acting governor, became a plantation owner on the island and is commemorated in Morgan's Valley in Clarendon, a parish in Jamaica.
Azuka said she was "completely unaware" of his links to slavery, despite him being "a founding father of a slave colony".
"I would not have written this play had I been based anywhere else," she added.
The Women of Llanrumney will be played at London's Stratford East Theatre before returning to The Sherman in April.
Azuka said it has resonated with audiences who she was keen not to "patronize".
"This hidden history is brought to life in a rich electric, thought-provoking and thrilling night of theatre," she said.
The Atlantic slave trade "still shapes the modern world" according to Azuka, which makes this story relevant, despite it being set hundreds of years ago.
"It built vast wealth for Britain and it's left a legacy of economic, racial and social inequalities," she said.
Azuka would like to see more schools have an "honest conversation" about British history with their pupils.
"We don't really learn about the 400 years of immense wealth that it built for Britain and the people's lives that it affected generation after generation."
Azuka is "really excited" about the future and said she was brimming with ideas for her next play.
"I'm inspired to tell stories of marginalized women, working class women, black people," she said.
She is also keen to uncover more of Wales' hidden history.
Chris Evans, a history professor at University of South Wales and author of Slave Wales, said the nation had a "quite intimate relationship with the Caribbean".
"It had a niche role to play in that it supplied particular inputs to the wider Atlantic economy and to the Caribbean economy."
Demand for copper and brace led to the creation of the copper smelting industry in south Wales, and the district of Swansea becoming "Europe's leading copper producing region by the end of the 18th Century".
He said people would "become wealthy in the Caribbean then invest their money in real estate in Wales".
One person who benefited enormously was Sir Henry Morgan.
"He goes to the West Indies because he's not somebody who has many prospects in Wales or in England," said Prof Evans.
"He makes his money there and, like most people in the 17th Century, he reinvests what money he has in enslaved human beings.
"Caribbean planters were simply stupendously rich, I mean they were the oligarchs of their day."
While the planters have a past that is enshrouded in exploitation, their impact on Wales is still visible today.
"People of African descent in Wales tend to be one of two sorts. One is that they are children of Caribbean planters, that's to say, of a Welsh father and an African or Afro descendant.
"We can think of people like that, like Nathaniel Wells, who inherits a major estate in Monmouthshire."
Prof Evans said it was a "critical part" of Welsh history.
He added: "The more we look the more the linkages between the 18th Century Atlantic world, Britain as a society and a culture become apparent."
Oscar-winning lyricist Sir Tim Rice has said he has not ruled out teaming up again with former musical partner Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber to create a brand new musical, but warned it would have to be an idea he was "really turned on by".
The pair, who penned a trio of theatrical smashes in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Evita, have written songs for a new comedy entitled Sherlock Holmes and the 12 Days of Christmas.
It premieres at The Birmingham Rep Theatre in November.
Sir Tim told BBC South East: "He and I have written a few songs and it has been great fun."
The lyricist, who went to school at Lancing College in West Sussex, said: "It's a comedy all about a serial killer who is murdering people linked to the song The Twelve Days of Christmas.
"It's primarily a comedy - a laugh a minute!"
Asked about the chemistry of working with his former writing partner again, he said:
"We have always done the odd thing here and there, the odd album track for somebody.
"We did an extra song for Madonna in Evita, so we were always in touch here and there but there was no great musical idea that appealed to the both of us.
" I think it [the chemistry] is always there."
Sir Tim Rice and Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber were one of theatre's most successful writing partnerships but went their separate ways in the 1980s to pursue different projects.
Lloyd-Webber went on to write musicals like Cats, Starlight Express and Phantom of the Opera.
Meanwhile Rice worked with Abba's Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus to create the musical Chess.
He went on to team up with Disney, writing songs for Aladdin and The Lion King amongst others.
He won Oscars for Best Original Song for A Whole New World from Aladdin, Can You Feel The Love Tonight from The Lion King and You Must Love Me from Evita.
Sir Tim has worked with a number of collaborators over the years including Elton John, Rick Wakeman and Burt Bacharach.
One of his biggest regrets though, he said, was not working more with the late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.
He said: "I did a couple of songs with Freddie.
"It's a tragedy he died. I feel we could have written something really great."
Sir Tim Rice is touring the UK from April in a show entitled: My Life In Musicals – I Know Him So Well.
Amongst other places he comes to Guildford, Worthing and Eastbourne.
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Sculptures that will create an art trail in a seaside town have been shown in a preview ahead of their installation.
Great Yarmouth Borough Council (GYBC) has invested £330,000 in the project through the government's Town Deal funding.
A dozen works, created by local, national and international artists, will be installed across the Norfolk town over the next few weeks, with the whole trail set to be unveiled in June.
"It's part of a wider scheme around tourism and attracting visitors into the town," said project manager Tracey Reed.
"We want to be a 365-day tourism economy, and this fits with the work we're doing at the Winter Gardens to help us achieve that."
The Winter Gardens, on the town's seafront, are due to be restored as part of an £18m project.
Of the sculptures, Natasha Hayes, the council's executive director of place, said: "It's so hard to choose your favourite because they're all iconic in their own right.
"We've got Vorte Breath, which is picking up on the wind and offshore side of things that happen off our coastline; we've got the seahorses, which are just resplendent and celebrate our natural resources.
"The sculpture that's arrived [on a lorry] is a heart on a pillar that's got some glass-coloured inserts that will reflect the sun.
"It's going at the bottom of Regent Road and the idea is it celebrates our tourism.
"The Juggler celebrates circus, so I can't choose a favourite because I love them all and I can't wait to see them installed."
Daniel Candon, Conservative cabinet member for economic development and growth, said: "One of the key aims of this is to improve the visitor experience and this is a trail that will be available all year round.
"And [it will] amplify the pride of place for local communities. We have an incredible offer of heritage and culture in Great Yarmouth and it is about being loud and proud about it."
He acknowledged some public art, such as graffiti murals, had been defaced by vandals, but said he hoped the community would play its part in protecting the sculptures.
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The organisers of a community dance day said they hoped the event would bring people together through music and movement.
Peterborough-based arts organisation Jumped Up Theatre is hosting the event at the city's Key Theatre on Sunday.
The workshops - most of which cost £5 to join for adults - include Indian classical and Lithuanian dance styles.
"There is no judgement on the shape or age of bodies, or any definitions of what good dancing," said Kate Hall, creative producer at Jumped Up Theatre.
"Whether it's in your kitchen on a Friday night, at a family celebration, or in front of an audience, we always feel better after we get moving to music.
"This first Community Dance Day will also feel like that – everyone is welcome."
The day's schedule is also due to include live performances and film screenings.
Ms Hall said the venue was fully accessible for all visitors, and there would be a British Sign Language interpretation available all day and for the evening show.
People are required to book tickets in advance for most of the events. Some of them are free-of-charge.
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A previously unknown work by one of the UK's best-known landscape painters has sold for more than £300,000 at auction, beating forecasts.
The sketch by John Constable, titled Dedham Vale looking towards Langham, sold for £320,000 at a North Yorkshire auction house on Saturday, far surpassing its estimated price of £150,000-£200,000.
The work, which is believed to have been painted between 1809-14, had been kept in a private family collection before being put up for sale at Tennants Auctioneers in Leyburn.
Jane Tennant, director and auctioneer at Tennants, said the discovery of the painting had been a source of "great excitement" in the auction world.
She said: "It's certainly exciting that it's a painting that hasn't previously been recorded in any of the Constable literature."
Constable, who died aged 60 in 1837, lived and painted in the Dedham Vale on the border of Essex and Suffolk, and is known for his depictions of the surrounding landscape.
He is best known for his 1821 oil painting The Hay Wain which became a sensation in the art world after winning a gold medal at the Paris Salon in 1824.
Dedham Vale looking towards Langham, measuring 12in by 15in (30cm by 38cm), is thought to be the basis of Constable's oil painting Dedham Vale, which was completed in 1825 and is part of the Scottish National Gallery's permanent collection.
Ms Tennant said: "Oil sketches, much like drawings, have an immediacy – a direct link to the mind and working practices of an artist."
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Hundreds of brightly coloured umbrellas will be suspended above a city shopping centre for six months to raise awareness of neurodiversity.
The Umbrella Project is launching its latest installation in Milton Keynes on Saturday to symbolise "the wide spectrum of neurodivergent experiences", including autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia.
Four hundred umbrellas - covering 860 sq m (2,821 sq ft) - will be on display at Midsummer Place, in Midsummer Boulevard.
"An umbrella provides protection, much like the neurodiversity movement advocates for acceptance, understanding, and inclusion," said Jane Lambert, one of the project leaders.
"We invite people to visit the centre, experience The Umbrella Project and learn about the neurodivergent community around them," she added.
One of the speakers at Saturday's day-long launch event, which begins at 10:00 GMT and includes talks and performances, is Bekka Prideaux, from Leighton Buzzard, who runs a business consultancy.
She said she wanted to join the MK Umbrella project "because I don't want other people to go through the negative experiences I did, especially at school and early in my career".
"I was asked to speak as I am a dyslexic thinker and this has been instrumental in my career success.
"As a child I was labelled 'stupid', as I was not able to read and write or do my times tables.
"I knew I saw the world differently and that there were things I found easy that others found hard.
"By learning to use my strengths, I have been able to solve complex business problems," said Ms Prideaux.
The project, run by the charity the ADHD Foundation, has previously visited Watford, Liverpool, Cardiff and Aberdeen.
It hoped "to position Milton Keynes as a city that backs the wider social movement towards more understanding, acceptance and celebration of neurodiversity".
Hester Grainger, from Norfolk, is also speaking at Saturday's launch.
She runs a consultancy called Perfectly Autistic with her husband, Kelly. They both have ADHD and her husband is also autistic.
"Being officially diagnosed with ADHD in my forties and being mum to two autistic/ADHD teens, it will be great to connect with others who are on a similar journey.
"It can often feel isolating, whether you have ADHD or are autistic, or parenting neurodivergent children, so this fantastic event will be an amazing opportunity to come together and embrace the positives that being neurodivergent brings," said Ms Grainger.
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The tiny Mediterranean paradise of Comino has long been overrun by tourists, many lured by social media to photograph its iconic Blue Lagoon. Now, the island is fighting back.
Sitting in a cafe in Marfa Bay, Malta, Colin Backhouse gazes out at a tiny landmass on the horizon: the 3km-by-5km islet of Comino, a sun-baked slab of rock surrounded by a shimmering sea that shifts from deep blue to bright turquoise. Once a near-empty haven, today it is one of the most contested tourist destinations in the Maltese archipelago.
With more than 51,000 followers on his popular Facebook page, Malta Holiday Experiences, Backhouse dedicates his time to recommending the best spots to explore across the Maltese Islands. But there's one place he refuses to endorse.
"It's wonderful at this time of year," he says, nodding toward the car-free islet located between Malta and Gozo. "But in summer? You couldn't pay me to go near it. It’s hell on Earth."
Luring tens of thousands of visitors annually from across the globe, Comino’s Blue Lagoon is a photographer's dream and one of the Mediterranean's most iconic destinations. The bay's vivid hue, caused by sunlight reflecting off the white limestone seabed, sparkles under the Mediterranean sun, making it a perfect subject for stunning photos.
In the December to February low season, the bay’s waters remain barely disturbed, except for the gentle ripple of a landing gull. The shoreline is silent, the coastline untouched. But summer tells a different story. Shoulder-to-shoulder crowds jostle for space, litter spills from overflowing bins and tangles in trampled rock rose shrubs, while gas-guzzling powerboats blast music and leave behind a trail of environmental damage.
Backhouse remembers a time when Comino felt like a secluded escape. "I first visited in 1980. Back then, you could have the whole place to yourself. Unfortunately, I've seen first-hand the destruction over the decades. I really don't know why people bother anymore."
He's not alone in his sentiment. Frustration over Comino's overtourism has been growing for years, with some disillusioned visitors going as far as to call the day-trip experience from Malta a "scam". Overcrowded boats, limited amenities and worsening environmental degradation have led to mounting pressure on authorities to act.
In response, activists have stepped in. In 2022, a local group called Movimenti Graffiti took matters into their own hands by stripping the island of its deckchairs and sunbeds, protesting what they saw as an exploitation of public space for private profit. Their message was clear: Comino should be protected, not plundered.
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The isle's ascent to a dream destination is an interesting one. Having served as a backdrop in films and series such as The Count of Monte Cristo, Troy and even briefly in Game of Thrones, The Blue Lagoon was already a well-known cinematic gem. But social media caused its popularity to soar. Its surreal iridescent waters began attracting travellers from around the world in search of the perfect photo.
"It's at the top of many visitors' bucket lists when they come to the Maltese islands," says Rebecca Millo, head of commercial operations at KM Malta, the country's national airline. "Many people just want to go straight there."
But change is finally coming. This year, in an effort to curb mass tourism and relieve pressure on the islet, which is a designated Natura 2000 site, Maltese authorities are introducing a daily visitor cap – reducing the number of tour boat day-trippers from 10,000 to 5,000. It's a significant step in the right direction, but for environmental advocates like Mark Sultana, CEO of BirdLife Malta, it's only a partial fix.
"Limiting numbers is a good start," he says. "But we need a public sustainability plan that doesn't just focus on crowd control but also on preserving Comino's fragile ecosystem. We are insisting it should have a ticket control system where only a capped number of tickets can be issued each day."
Comino's struggles are not unique. Across the Mediterranean, governments are tightening regulations to combat overtourism. Venice has introduced entry fees for day-trippers, while Athens has capped daily visitor numbers to the Acropolis. These shifts signal a broader push towards more sustainable travel.
Seasoned Malta tour guide Joanne Gatt hears a recurring complaint from tourists: visiting the tiny isle isn't the experience they signed up for. "They go to Comino expecting paradise and leave disappointed," she says. "Overcrowded, chaotic. Hopefully the cap on visitors will make a real difference."
With the new regulations in place, the hope is that Comino can regain some of its lost charm, offering a more enjoyable experience while safeguarding its ecosystem. But some feel the damage is already done. "With so many people wearing it down year after year, I just hope there's something left for future generations to enjoy," Gatt reflects.
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Throughout history, this medieval hamlet has remained relatively secluded from the outside world. But now, the world's steepest cable car whisks travellers to the 430-person village.
On a freezing day in December 2024, I took a scenic three-hour train ride from Geneva to Lauterbrunnen, an Alpine village nestled between Interlaken and the Jungfrau massif in central Switzerland. I was now at the gateway to the car-free mountain hamletof Mürren.
For most of Mürren's history, residents would lead their mules three hours down to gather essential supplies in the valley before trekking back up. Then in 1891, a narrow-gauge railway opened, connecting Mürren to the nearby mountain village of Grütschalp and a funicular that reached Lauterbrunnen. In 1965, a single-track cableway opened that could ferry residents down to another traffic-free village, Gimmelwald, above the valley.
But the day I arrived, this formerly secluded 430-person hamlet perched 1638m in the Bernese Oberland became directly connected with the outside world and valley below through the opening of the world's steepest cable car: the Schilthornbahn, which whisks travellers 775m up through some of the Swiss Alps' most jaw-dropping scenery in just four minutes.
After arriving at the Stechelberg car park, I was soon being hoisted from the valley floor up in a glass-enclosed cabin, staring down towards the storybook cottages below and surrounded by craggy mountains and snow-covered pines. The trip up the vertical Mürrenfluh rockface was so smooth that I barely noticed the 159.4% gradient (the world's previous steepest cable car, the Loen Skylift in Norway, rises 133%), until my ears started to pop.
Perched on a natural terrace at the foot of the Schilthorn summit (2970m) overlooking the Lauterbrunnen valley, Mürren is a 13th-Century village with traditional stone and timber cottages that looks like it's clinging to the edge of a cliff. Because of its unique position, engineers have never been able to connect it to the outside world by road.
"Taking the cable car to school might seem unusual to many, but it was an everyday ritual for me," said Mürren native Michael Abegglen. "Most everyday necessities and services are available in Mürren, but every time we need a doctor, hairdresser or dentist, we need to go down to the valley where many of us have our cars parked."
According to Abegglen, the village's few year-round residents have long relied on one another. "When you grow up here like I did, you know almost everyone, and there's a strong close-knit community," Abegglen adds. "Some guests are like locals, as they return to Mürren every single year."
After checking into the Hotel Alpenruh, and admiring the awe-inspiring, 360-degree views of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau peaks from my balcony, I soon discovered that – unsurprisingly – this pocket-sized, car-free village is best explored on foot.
Mürren's few streets are lined with cosy inns; rustic restaurants serving Alpine cheeses and dry sausages; bars offering evening aperitifs; and quaint souvenir shops selling postcards, fine Swiss chocolates, cuckoo clocks and cowbells. One of Mürren's main landmarks is the Hotel Mürren Palace, built in 1874 and nicknamed "Switzerland's first palace" after its history of hosting celebrity skiers and Hollywood actors like Rita Hayworth. Oozing elegance and grandeur, its ballroom served as a meeting point for high society back in the 20th Century. As the snow fell, I popped into the pub at the Eiger Guesthouse to warm up over a mug of glühwein (traditional mulled wine).
Despite its diminutive size, Mürren is a major winter sports hub. This former sleepy Walser settlement transformed in the late 1800s when British skiers discovered the village and fell in love with its scenery (and slopes).
"My great-grandfather Henry Lunn first came to Mürren in the 1890s and was smitten by its breathtaking beauty," said Bernard Lunn, a self-proclaimed "ski bum" and village resident. "He soon started bringing British tourists here to witness the glorious 'triumvirate' of [the] Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau peaks. Later, my mountaineer grandfather Arnold Lunn and his wife Mabel started living here, and in 1922, Arnold founded the [world's] first slalom ski races. Mabel and a group of British Women established the Ladies' Ski Club here as well."
Arnold's arrival also paved the way for the formation of the Kandahar Ski Club in 1924 and the inauguration of the country's first ski school in Mürren in 1930.A year later, the first Alpine World Ski Championships kicked off in this tiny town in February 1931.
Nearly a century later, the surrounding mountains are laced with 54km of fresh, powdery pistes connected through cable cars, funiculars and chairlifts. When snow conditions allow, you can ski 16km from the Schilthorn summit to the valley floor in Lauterbrunnen.
"A coffee at the peak and a trip down on skis with family and friends is how I love spending my winter days in Mürren," said Alan Ramsay, a sociable Scot who has called the village home for more than 25 years and helps organise the International Inferno, the world's biggest amateur ski race held in the town annually (21-24 January 2026).
But locals say there's more to Mürren than just skiing. From June through September, the area becomes a popular paragliding destination, offering magnificent birds-eye views over the region's soaring crags, turquoise lakes and more than 70 cascadingwaterfalls.You can also stroll the flower-studded trails and meadows dotted with grazing sheep.
"The mountains are an ever-changing canvas," said Belinda Bühler, an avid trail runner who has lived her whole life in Mürren. "In the winter, they wear a beautiful white coat. In the summer, the mood changes depending on whether we are having hot, rainy or foggy days. However, as winter slowly departs, you can already smell the scent of spring. As the earth starts to warm up, you see early summer blossoms and soon there are flower-filled meadows."
Bühler's main advice for those coming outside of ski season? "Get out into nature onto the trails. You don't have to walk too far but as soon as you're on a trail, you're alone and can savour the stillness and beauty most palpably. The air is so pure and clean. I have grown up in Murren but I always call myself a local tourist, as I still tend to stop and take photos during my hikes. What I feel, see and hear on the trails in Mürren is indescribable!"
Bernard's wife, Julia Lunn, who leads families and women on hikes in Murren added, "People don't come here to shop or sightsee, but to experience life through skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, or simple pleasures like taking in the unrivalled views in solitude and dipping into the streams or the unspoiled Grauseeli lake."
At Ramsay's advice, I decided to experience one of those simple pleasures for myself. After grabbing a wooden sledge from the local Intersport rental shop, I took the funicular up to the Allmendhubel mountain station (the starting point of the infamous 3km Bob Chase featured in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service). After a few quick practice runs, I whisked down the soft, powdery slopes of the Blumental Valley, peppered with pines and chalet-like holiday homes with a sense of wonder and a child-like grin plastered across my face.
"When growing up in Mürren as a child, I didn't realise how lucky I was because I took [this] all for granted," said Bühler. "As a teenager, I even found the village too small and limiting. However, after I travelled around a bit and returned to Murren, I fell in love with it all over again, especially with the sense of freedom it gave me. Today, I often feel speechless when I wake up here and find it hard to describe Mürren, because no words seem to do its beauty justice. It is a place that needs to be experienced and felt."
Even after just a two-day visit, I think I know what she means.
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A major route connecting the south of the Isle of Man with the capital is set to close for tree felling and wind turbine transportation survey works.
The Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture (Defa) will close the A5 New Castletown Road in Santon from Fairy Bridge to Blackboards Corner from 09:30 to 15:30 from Monday to Wednesday.
A single lane closure with temporary traffic lights will then continue from 09:30 to 16:30 on Thursday and Friday.
Manx Utilities said its contractors Wardell Armstrong would use the opportunity of the tree felling closure to undertake assessments on transporting wind turbine blades from Douglas Port to the south of the island.
It would include visual surveys in bat activity and woodland to understand the extent of pruning that may be required of trees, the authority said.
The project would see the installation of up to four turbines in Earystane Plantation, which would generate a quarter of the Island's annual electricity needs.
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The head of a regional tourism industry body is calling for a dedicated minister to help the sector to grow and raise its profile within government.
Pete Waters, executive director of Visit East of England, says tourism is worth £12bn pounds a year to the local economy and could grow very quickly with the right encouragement.
However, he warned that many businesses were worried about rising costs and bills when the increase in National Insurance (NI) contributions takes effect next month.
The government said it was committed to driving growth within the sector.
At the moment the tourism portfolio is overseen by Sir Chris Bryant, the Minister of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
But he is also responsible for arts and libraries, museums, heritage and the National Archives leaving some in the tourism industry to wonder how much influence he has when other ministries like the Department for Transport, Local Government department and the Home Office are also making decisions which affect the sector.
"Having a dedicated tourism minister would be crucially important to the industry because it is one of the largest in the country, one of the biggest employers and one of the biggest contributors to the Treasury," Mr Waters told the BBC's Politics East programme.
"We can grow this sector quite quickly given the right circumstances and given the right direction and help from the government," he said.
He was supported by Blake Stephenson, the Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire, who will hold a special debate in Parliament on tourism next week.
"Chris Bryant is a great guy, but he's got a lot of big portfolios to look after," he said.
"The government has high expectations in terms of the number of visitors it wants to drive to the country and I think a dedicated portfolio might be helpful."
There have been calls over the years for successive governments to create a dedicated tourism minister.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport would not comment on these latest calls but pointed out that Sir Chris had recently set up a new Visitor Economy Advisory Council to boost collaboration within the industry and to help it grow.
Some in the industry believe a dedicated minister may have cushioned tourism from some of the tax rises announced in the budget.
Woburn Safari Park in Bedfordshire says it will increase admission prices next month because its wage bill has increased by £325,000, a third of that due to the rise in employer NI contributions. It says the increase in the minimum wage will also have an impact.
"In the last seven years we've seen a 50% increase in staff costs and energy bills are double what they were in 2020-21," said managing director Drew Mullin.
"We've got no positives at the moment. We are also uncertain about business rates. We are aware they will change and based on what's happened with National Insurance contributions we expect them to go up."
Mr Waters from Visit East of England described the NI rise as "the perfect example of the law of unintended consequences. Rather than boost the economy, [the Chancellor] has done the opposite".
"We've got tens of thousands of SMEs [small and medium sized enterprises] which could be family-run businesses , husband and wife teams... entrepreneurs all wanting to get on, who are being stifled by this budget," he said.
The government has argued that increasing the tax for employers rather than workers is fair and will fund improvements to public services.
It also said that staff would benefit from the rise in the minimum wage.
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More tourists visited Jersey last year than in 2023, new figures have shown.
Visit Jersey said there were 568,000 tourists last year - 40,000 more than in 2023.
People from the UK contributed about 70% of visits in 2024, while 17% came from France and 3% from Germany, the figures showed.
Visit Jersey chief executive Tricia Warwick said the figures were a "positive sign" but "there is still work to be done".
The tourism body said the island's tourism had seen a "steady recovery" since the Covid pandemic, but it had been at a "slower pace" due to the cost of living.
The latest figures showed Jersey had 311,000 overnight leisure visits in 2024 - 24,000 more than in 2023.
Total overall visits had recovered to 74% of 2019 levels by the end of 2024, said Visit Jersey.
'Extremely competitive'
Ms Warwick said Visit Jersey's marketing strategy was having an impact.
"The UK remains Jersey's largest source market, contributing nearly 70% of all visits, but notably we saw growth in all key markets last year, including a 25% increase in visitors from France," she said.
"Today's global tourism landscape is extremely competitive, therefore we have to be creative and forward-thinking in order to gain marketing cut through for our island.
"An example of this is Visit Jersey's support for the new Bergerac series, which has achieved phenomenal marketing and publicity reach beyond what could ever be accomplished through a typical marketing campaign."
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Celebrated cruise liner company Cunard is hoping to track down people depicted in photos from years gone by for a nostalgic photo exhibition to celebrate 185 years of ocean travel.
To mark its anniversary, the luxury shipping firm has collected images from former guests, workers and newspaper archives and wants to uncover some of the stories behind them.
One of the photographs, which will go on display in the Sea of Glamour exhibition in Liverpool in May, shows a couple leaning in for a kiss as British troops bid farewell before leaving Southampton on the QE2 during the Falklands War in 1982.
The liner was converted into a troop ship at the time.
Organisers also hope to identify a team of cleaners on board the QE2 in 1975.
The 26 women, in matching uniforms, posed on the deck for the newspaper photo, with the caption revealing they were known as "cyclic cleaners" because of the constant circle of work in keeping the ship clean.
It named one of them as Linda McAndrew, from Bournemouth, Dorset, who would help clean seven spiral staircases - each 13 storeys high.
In the piece, she said: "Often I'm cleaning one side and they're already dropping sweet papers and cigarette ash on the side I've just cleaned."
The team behind the exhibition also want to track David Lawrence, shown in a picture from 1982 standing on the QE2's lifeboat, which he bought at auction and kept in the drive of his semi-detached home in the village of Llanharry, outside Cardiff.
A group of young men shown in 1967 playing football beneath the hull of the QE2 at the Clydebank shipyard, near Glasgow - where it was built - are also featured in the exhibition.
If they are tracked down, their stories could be included in the display.
Lee Powell, vice president of brand and product at Cunard, said they had been "overwhelmed by the incredible response to our call for photos".
"Among the wonderful submissions, these particular images truly stood out to us, capturing some of the behind-the-scenes moments of the curation of our ships and the remarkable people who have helped shape Cunard's rich history," he said.
"We would love to uncover the stories behind these photographs and we're hoping the public can help us reconnect with the people featured so their stories can become a memorable part of our Sea of Glamour exhibition."
Organisers appealed for anyone with relevant information to send details to cunardphotography@cunard.co.uk.
The Sea of Glamour exhibition will be curated by photographer Mary McCartney, daughter of Beatles star Sir Paul McCartney, and will launch at the Liver Building on 28 May before sailing around the world on the Cunard fleet.
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The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has permanently restricted non-essential helicopter operations around Reagan National Airport following a deadly mid-air collision with an American Airlines regional jet in January.
The change is an attempt to improve safety around the airport, which is just outside of the nation's capital in Washington DC.
In January, a US Army Black Hawk helicopter with a crew of three collided with an American Airlines jet carrying 64 people. Both aircraft crashed near the airport. All 67 aboard were killed.
The FAA's announcement followed the release of a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigating the crash.
The FAA also announced on Friday it will eliminate helicopter and fixed-wing mixed traffic by the airport.
It said it was evaluating other routes for helicopters, which are commonly used in Washington.
The new restrictions will allow helicopters to only fly through the airport's airspace on urgent matters - such as for life-saving medical reasons, priority law enforcement or presidential transport - but it aims to keep them a distance away from airplanes, according to the agency.
Additionally, runways 15 and 33, near where the doomed American Airlines flight was seconds away from landing, will also be blocked for aircraft when helicopters are in the area.
US air crash investigators earlier this week recommended restricting helicopter flights in certain areas near the airport.
The FAA is also assessing other cities with chartered helicopter routes, including Boston, New York, Detroit, Dallas, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles.
"To make us more predictive, we are using machine learning and language modelling to scan incident reports and mine multiple data sources to find themes and areas of risk," according to a statement from the agency.
Located on a lonely mountain plain in Colorado ski country, the silver-rush-era town of Leadville holds secrets as deep as its tunnels and old mine workings.
The highway climbs through aspen forest glinting gold in the Sun, rising through zigzag gullies, escarpments and precipices onto a high mountain plain so lonesome it seems to hum with silence. Snowdrifts huddle at the road's verges and on it goes persistently, almost gasping for air, past lonely farms beneath besieging summits.
There are many superlative road trips to take in North America, but if you find yourself on US Route 24, driving through Lake County in Colorado's Rocky Mountains, know you are on an old road to somewhere extraordinary.
Among the places on this storied route is Leadville, with a reputation often chalked up to its elevation. At 3,109m (10,200ft), it's the highest incorporated city in North America. But while the town is always in danger of being dwarfed by the surrounding landscape, the setting also reveals much mythology about Colorado's most lionised subjects: the gold rush and the Wild West.
"So many people, Americans included, are so unfamiliar with our story," said Katie Hild, manager of Leadville's Tourism and Visitor Center, housed today in the original red sandstone American National Bank building. "This is a town that's been shaped by bust and boom – so much has happened here."
The triumph of Leadville, as Hild puts it, is its many strata. The first mineral deposits were found in the area's California Gulch in 1860, and, within a year, around 10,000 prospectors had flooded the high plain, with more than $3m in ore extracted. By 1880, Leadville was served by three railroads, and between 1878 and 1884 the town had freighted 54 million ounces of silver. Soon, rich seams of zinc, iron, gold and lead were being quarried.
"Mining is our root and some of the largest pockets of precious ores on the continent have been found here," added Hild. "At its peak, there were 30,000 people in Leadville, but by 1893 silver prices had plummeted and the glory days were over nearly as quickly as they'd begun."
Exploring Leadville nowadays is a kind of treasure hunt – and much of this deep history can be absorbed in the Mining District outside town in the foothills below Mount Sherman. The Route of the Silver Kings, once the backdrop for one of the richest mining camps in the US, reveals 14 original structures and 20 sites from the era that visitors can explore on a signposted gravel road. Incredibly, the US Bureau of Mines estimates there are 1,329 shafts, 1,628 prospect holes and more than 200 miles of workings, all hidden beneath the surface.
For many, the 21-mile circuit represents more than just a charmingly loose collection of mineshafts. Rather, the ghost towns and, most dramatically of all, the buckled headframes and mining camp hoists have come to embody an idealisation of the American dream. It is telling that the names of the camps are Silver Spoon, Diamond Dolly, Upper Oro and Hopemore. But those with a silver gleam in their eyes are advised against any Indiana Jones type antics: all treasure hunting and metal detecting is strictly forbidden.
Leadville's name evokes tin-hatted miners picking through ore, but the town turns out to be equally infused with the spirit of a Wild West film set. There are around a dozen beautiful buildings that sag characterfully, bringing to mind the rootin' tootin' cowboy country of Buffalo Bill and Doc Holliday, both of whom visited during their late-19th-Century heyday. Walk south down Harrison Avenue from the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum and on the left is the Delaware Hotel, once a premier lodging for mining magnates. A few blocks away, you see the Tabor Opera House, constructed by silver baron Horace Tabor in 1879, and where miners and madams once mingled.
Locals might tell you Oscar Wilde once performed there, while such was the fiscal boom that an additional door was built to get circus elephants into the opera house. One night, illusionist Harry Houdini is also said to have disappeared through the stage's trap door. It's easy to understand how he must have felt. Entering Leadville today feels like slipping through a portal into another time.
Perhaps the most engrossing example of the street's preserved architecture is a timber-clad landmark across the road: the Silver Dollar Saloon, where tipplers can still order a whiskey under the diamond dust mirrors at the original wooden bar from 1879.
"You couldn't label Leadville as the capital of the Old Wild West, especially when weighed against other legendary towns like Dodge City or Tombstone, but it certainly played a pivotal role during the transformative gold and silver rush eras," said Adam Ducharme, Lake County's tourism and economic development director. "Walk into the Silver Dollar Saloon and you're not just stepping into a bar – it's an immersion into a living relic of this time."
But wherever you go in Colorado in winter these days, the subject everyone is obsessed with is not silver dollars, but snowfall — and 11 miles farther along US Route 24, the next chapter in Leadville's untold history is slowly revealed.
Ski Cooper isn't Colorado's most celebrated mountain resort, but where it beats others in the state is it retains the authenticity of a mountain as it used to be. Non-profit and municipality owned, it looks out to Mount Elbert, the state's highest mountain at 4,399m (14,433ft). More than that, the landscape has the emptiness that purists seek away from the surrounding busier towns.
"Cooper is not a resort, but a place to come skiing," said head of operations Patrick Torsell. "We only have three lifts – nothing compared to the mega-resorts – but Leadville locals have a strong relationship with us and our history. It's a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches in the parking lot kind of place."
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Likewise, this is a mountain that covers its tracks well. For this is where Colorado's ski culture began.
The story starts with the first mountain unit in US military history, the 10th Mountain Division of World War Two. In summer 1941, its soldiers received extensive training in winter warfare on Cooper Hill, constructing what was then the world's longest draglift. Then, in the winter of 1944-1945, three of its regiments marshalled a series of surprise attacks during a surprise offensive in Italy's Apennine Mountains. It's a melancholy tale: around 1,000 soldiers were killed and 4,000 injured. And yet, their actions were instrumental in Germany's later surrender.
What many don't know is following their return to the Rockies, the 10th's veterans shaped the American ski industry. More than 66 ski resorts were managed or founded by former military personnel, including Aspen, Vail and Arapahoe Basin – and this taps into a broader strain of patriotism among locals today.
At Arapahoe Basin, during the 1953-1954 season, for instance, the unit installed the first Poma lift in the US. Then, in 1957 at Winter Park, they constructed two draglifts said to be the fastest in the world. The division's backcountry cabins, once used for deep-snow combat training, are now open to visitors to book year-round.
But that's not all. Six miles from Leadville in the Pando Valley, the 10th Mountain Division trained at Camp Hale. Sitting between sheer-sided rocky spurs and snow-daubed mountains with the Eagle River winding nearby, it was once a sprawling encampment of 14,000 soldiers, 226 barracks, 100 mess halls, three theatres, a chapel, horse and mule barns and a hospital. Little remains nowadays, but a 10-stop self-guided tour of relics snakes past ammunition bunkers, a guard shack and a field house. To be so rapidly transplanted from pistes to pistols fires the imagination.
The best story at Camp Hale concerns the CIA, which took over the base in the 1950s to train secretive special ops teams. At one time, 170 Tibetans were drafted in for secret operations against the Communist government in China. The unexpected coda is locals were told it was a test site for bombs. Nowadays, with snowshoe, hiking, biking and horse-riding trails, it is a less-assuming and simpler world away from the currents of history.
In few places in Colorado are the ghosts of the past so alive as on US Route 24. Leadville, this Wild West city in the clouds, is faithful to this picture. It then comes as a bit of a shock to head out on the road out of town, to leave the Old West and silver-rush-era mines behind in the rearview, to return to the 21st-Century of haulage trucks, roadside fast food stops and gas stations framed by the Rockies, in all their glory.
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Alberto Angela has made a career out of exploring his hometown. Here are his favourite spots to unearth Rome's millennia of secrets, from the Vatican Museums to Ostia Antica.
From the 1st-Century BCE ruins of the Imperial Forum to the Trevi Fountain’s Baroque splendour, Rome packs such an overwhelming myriad of postcard-worthy landmarks that digging through its historical layers can make any visitor feel like they've turned into an archaeologist.
Alberto Angela, a TV presenter, global ambassador for Italian heritage, art, history and culture, and a familiar face in Italian living rooms for nearly four decades knows a thing or two about his hometown's 2,000 years of history – and he's ready to help visitors discover it, especially as this year's Jubilee newly puts it into the limelight.
"Rome has two faces," says Angela. "The Papal – that of the rich – and its working-class soul, the one that is closest to us… the most interesting," he says.
In a city where grand basilicas lie next to shady alleyways, Angela recommends exploring without cramming in too many sights – so that one can "immerse oneself in the world of the ancients".
Having followed in the footsteps of his famous father, Piero Angela – Italy's most well-known documentarist often called a "national treasure" – the younger Angela attributes his career and love of history to growing up in the Italian capital.
"You breathe history here," he says. "Anyone who comes to Rome can see the same afterglow Caesar would have seen. You aren't in a place that doesn't exist anymore. Rome was rebuilt on top of its ancient structures."
For Angela, this is what makes Rome so unique. "The city did not cancel its history, unlike many others," he says. "Living here, you understand the ancients."
Emerging from a small market settlement on the Tiber, the city of Rome was at an intersection between the Mediterranean and mainland Europe, making it a crossroads that swelled into the world’s first true metropolis. Angela believes that the city's immense global-reaching political and symbolic impact throughout history means everyone has a "piece" of Rome inside them – which is why it can have such a profound impact on those who visit it.
Here are Angela's favourite ways to experience ancient history in modern Rome.
1. Best place to experience ancient Rome: The Palatine Hill
Much of central Rome's labyrinthine urban grid is a direct heir of the former imperial capital, with public spaces like the Baroque Piazza Navona or Campo de’ Fiori piazza taking their shape from a bygone stadium and theatre, respectively.
But on the Palatine Hill, the mythical birthplace of Rome, you can actually walk on the same stones where emperors Augustus and Nero once dwelled.
"It's the place where the Caesars lived and died," Angela says.
As the legend goes, twin brothers Romulus and Remus received an omen from the gods and decided to lay the foundations of a new city on the Palatine Hill in 753 BCE. In the subsequent centuries, the Palatine developed into an exclusive neighbourhood of patrician villas and Imperial palaces – indeed, it’s where the word “palace” takes its root.
One of the legendary seven hills of the ancient city, offering an incomparable vantage point with a 360 panorama, Palatine Hill offers what Angela describes as "a beautiful walk", with arguably the best views of the Colosseum – the unmistakable "star of ancient Rome".
Visiting the Palatine is a full immersion into the life of the Roman empire, with a plethora of impressive ruins, including the mosaic floors of Augustus's palace, Domitian's hippodrome and the balcony overlooking the Circus Maximus racecourse.
Website: https://colosseo.it/en/area/the-palatine/
Address: Parco archeologico del Colosseo, Via di S. Gregorio 30, 00186
Phone: + 39 06 21115 843
Instagram: @parcocolosseo
2. The Vatican's best-kept secret: The Necropolis
As the centre of Catholicism and one of the most important sites in Christendom, the Unesco-listed Vatican is firmly entrenched among Rome's unmissable sights. In honour of the 2025 Jubilee, tourists and pilgrims alike are flocking to Saint Peter's Basilica to walk through its Holy Door, opened for the occasion every quarter of a century.
But while much of the Holy See's architectural majesty is immediately apparent – from the Michelangelo- and Giacomo della Porta-designed designed dome of Saint Peter's all the way to the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museums – some of its greatest treasures are hidden underground.
"Once in Saint Peter's, you walk on beautiful marble floorings, you look up to the Baldachin," says Angela, renowned for his 2015 TV miniseries Alla Scoperta dei Musei Vaticani (Discovering the Vatican Museums). "But you can go underground. The Popes' tombs can be found underneath, but under those is the ancient Roman graveyard where Peter the Apostle himself was buried. The foundations of [the Basilica] are a graveyard."
The Vatican Necropolis, excavated only in the 1940s, features mausoleums belonging to citizens of many faiths, as well as a cluster of tombs called "Field P”, suspected by some scholars to hold the burial chamber of the Church founder himself.
"It's a trip into ancient Rome that you wouldn't expect to find [there]", Angela says. "It makes you understand how Rome really is."
Visitors must book visits to the Necropolis on the official website of Saint Peter’s Basilica. The dress code mandates covered shoulders and below-the-knee clothing.
Website: https://www.basilicasanpietro.va/en/san-pietro/the-necropolis
Address: Piazza San Pietro, 00120 Città del Vaticano, Vatican City
Phone: +39 06 6988 5318
Instagram: @basilicasanpietro.va
3. Best church for experiencing all of Rome's historical eras in one fell swoop: The Basilica of San Clemente al Laterano
Rome has more than 900 Catholic sites of worship built over the course of the centuries. Now and then, there's one that best encapsulates the city's multi-millennial history, like Angela's pick, the Basilica of San Clemente.
"This Basilica conceals the three souls of Rome – Baroque, medieval and ancient," Angela says. "Anyone who comes across it is enchanted."
Tucked behind the Colosseum and a composite of two different churches, San Clemente – dedicated to the third pope of the same name – has been a site of worship since ancient Roman times, when it served as a temple for the Zoroastrian cult of Mithras.
The temple eventually swelled into its grand current form, featuring an intricate overlay of architectural styles – from its Renaissance courtyard and the Mannerist facade of the main Basilica, all the way to its underground, early medieval second structure, which hides ancient Roman remnants.
"The exterior is beautiful and well-maintained, from the 16th Century, with a Cosmatesque [geometric] marble flooring, and then you take the stairs and arrive at the medieval Basilica," says Angela. "And you find yourself right in ancient Rome, in a Roman temple."
Website: https://www.basilicasanclemente.com/eng/
Address: Piazza di S. Clemente, 00184
Phone: +39 06 774 0021
Instagram: @sanclementeroma
4. Best off-the-beaten-path museum: The Museo della Comunicazione Scritta dei Romani
From 17th-Century Villa Borghese to the Capitoline, the city’s oldest art gallery, Rome has no shortage of museums displaying a vast array of artefacts – matched by equally colossal crowds of spectators.
While Angela certainly recommends visitors enjoy the time-worn classics, he also suggests a quieter, quirkier alternative: the Museo della Comunicazione Scritta dei Romani.
Conveniently located a mere five-minute walk from the Termini train station, the museum is found inside the Baths of Diocletian, where the majestic 4th-Century Imperial termae have survived in remarkable condition. It is also home to a curious collection of esoteric Roman artefacts, showing how the ancients dabbled in the occult.
"It's a museum dedicated to how Romans expressed themselves," Angela says. "But there's a part dedicated to magic, voodoo of sorts."
Superstition was the unspoken crux of ancient Roman life, but one that we often overlook. "It's a world that often gets left behind, that of spiritual beliefs," he adds. "They found the objects in a parking lot."
Among the objects on display is a large copper cauldron, curse tablets (defixiones), ritual tools and even Christian spells.
"For someone coming from the station, especially if it rains, it's quite an intriguing thing to visit," says Angela.
Website: https://museonazionaleromano.beniculturali.it/terme-di-diocleziano/il-museo-della-comunicazione-scritta-dei-romani/
Address: Viale Enrico de Nicola 78, 00185
Phone: +39 06 684 851
Instagram: @museonazionaleromano
5. Best for exploring Baroque Rome: Palazzo Doria Pamphilj
The 16th to 18th Centuries were a crucial time for Rome's urban development, as the city's aristocratic families – including the Farnese, Borghese, Doria and Pamphilj – vied for social dominance through commissioning lavish building projects, all designed in the Baroque style favoured by the Papal Counter-Reformation.
"I'd advise anyone coming to visit Rome to see the palaces of the powerful Roman families," says Angela.
While listing a few examples – Palazzo Colonna and Palazzo Farnese among them – few rival the opulence of the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, Rome's very own "Versailles", in Angela's words.
The product of an alliance of noble families, what resulted was a Baroque fantasy come to life and an impressive art collection featuring the works of many of Italy's greats, from Titian to Raphael.
Its crown jewel is its Hall of Mirrors, commissioned by Gabriele Valvassori in the 1730s and featuring whimsical frescos, gilded Venetian frescos and ornate gold-plated furniture.
"I had never been prior to shooting [a TV special] and it's truly spectacular," he says. "It truly surpasses anything else."
Website: https://www.doriapamphilj.it/roma/
Address: Via del Corso 305, 00186
Phone: +39 06 679 7323
Instagram: @galleriadoriapamphilj
6. Best historic landmark outside of the centre: Ostia Antica
Many visitors coming to Rome don't know that the city has what Angela considers its very own "Pompeii" around 32km from the city centre: Ostia Antica.
Once Rome's sea port, potentially from as early as the 7th Century BCE, Ostia Antica developed into a bustling seaside suburb, reaching a peak of 75,000 inhabitants in the late Imperial age. While the city declined after the empire’s fall, and the coastline ended up advancing by 3.2km, much of the ancient town that once stood there has been preserved.
"You lose yourself there, you can see everything," Angela says. "Bakeries, public bathrooms (latrines), homes, apartment blocks… street businesses, not too dissimilar to those of today."
A tour of Ostia Antica can show you much of the amenities and features of ancient Roman life – from its 1st-Century BCE theatre, to its forum, public baths and necropolis.
For Angela, Ostia Antica best preserves the "popolare" (working-class) soul of ancient Rome – one which its newer counterpart, the beach suburb Lido di Ostia, has carried on in modern form.
Ostia Antica is a roughly 30-minute drive from central Rome, and can be reached in around the same time by taking the Metromare commuter rail from the Porta S Paolo station.
BBC Travel's The SpeciaList is a series of guides to popular and emerging destinations around the world, as seen through the eyes of local experts and tastemakers.
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Sweet, tangy and packed with probiotics, gira has long been a go-to winter tonic – and is now making a comeback in craft breweries and kombucha-style artisanal brands.
When Tadas Eidukevičius was crafting his latest winter menu at Demoloftas in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Michelin-starred chef turned to an unassuming staple: the turnip. But rather than deconstructing the simple ingredient beyond recognition, Eidukevičiusd slow-roasted and lightly smoked the root vegetable before serving it with gira, Lithuania's traditional fermented beverage.
"I wanted to create a dish that highlights the traditions of Lithuania on a plate, and using gira to make the glaze brought so many flavours together without over-complicating things – it was a no brainer," says Eidukevičius. "The gira adds acid, sweetness and a pleasant tang, which gives more complexity to the otherwise simple vegetable."
While Eidukevičius' creative approach no doubt helped capture the attention of Michelin inspectors, gira remains largely absent from Lithuania's fine-dining scene. Instead, the naturally fermented drink is a household staple, enjoyed chilled in summer or as a soothing remedy for a sore throat. Once brewed in homes out of necessity – particularly during Soviet times when things were scarce – in recent years, its increased popularity has led it to be mass produced and sold by the can in soft-drink aisles of supermarkets and corner shops throughout the country.
Dating back to ancient times, gira is more commonly known as kvass across north-eastern Europe where it can be made with grains, fruits or vegetables, and is widely popular in Baltic and Slavic countries where fermentation traditions run deep.
"Traditionally, [in Lithuania] it was a homemade drink using old rye bread because it was a smart way to use up leftovers," says Tomas Josas, a beer historian and 2023 beer sommelier champion of Lithuania who grew up drinking his grandparents' homebrewed gira. "Fermentation not only preserved nutrients but also lowered the pH, killing harmful bacteria – meaning kvass was often safer to drink than water."
A traditional recipe involves soaking toasted or dried-out rye bread in hot water to extract the flavour. Once cooled, yeast and maybe sugar in the form of raisins are added to kickstart the natural fermentation process. It is then cooled, strained and bottled, to be consumed within three to five days. The result is a slightly tart, mildly effervescent drink with an ABV of up to 1.2%, akin to traditionally brewed kombucha, and contains healthy probiotics that benefit gut health and immunity. In Lithuania, traditionalists see it as a tonic for the common cold because it can be made with honey, ginger and other herbs as an immunity booster.
"When I was little, my grandmother would make gira for Easter and Christmas as a festive drink but I also remember drinking gira when I was sick – consuming it more commonly as a natural remedy," explained Ieva Šidlaitė, a cultural historian and the author of Naturally Fermented who teaches fermentation classes on her farm outside Vilnius. "In the 20th Century, when sugar was available to everyone, it became sweet," she added. "Before this time, it was completely fermented and a sour liquid without any bubbles. It was mostly used to acidify food, make soups and also sauces because in our culture, food is dominated by a sour taste."
Josas agrees. "Many believed kvass was good for digestion and immunity, thanks to its probiotics. My great-grandparents made traditional homebrewed gira, very different from today's commercial versions [that are sweeter]. It had a funky, tangy flavor from lactobacillus – like sauerkraut has, but in liquid form. I wasn't a fan as a child since it lacked sugar, but once I got into beer, I learned to love its complexity," he says.
The early '80s is what Josas describes as "the golden age of gira" with mobile barrels selling it on every street corner during summer. However as global soft drinks like Coke flooded the Baltic market, gira struggled to compete, losing its appeal and audience. To survive, manufacturers began mass-producing the drink using sugar for appeal and cheap malt extract to speed up the process, shifting it closer to soda than traditional fermentation.
"Kvass lacks a strong identity, a clear drinking culture or an image that appeals to younger generations," says Josas, noting that while gira shares the same probiotic qualities of kombucha, it has never been "hyped" as a health drink. But things are changing, he says. Artisanal gira brands are reviving traditional methods, tapping into kombucha's success.
One of Lithuania's largest producers of beer and gira is Gubernija Brewery in northern Lithuania who, despite their large-scale production, still make their gira traditionally: with black grain bread. However, the 360-year-old brewery is also adapting for modern palates.
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"We have created different varieties of kvass to widen our audience in the last few years," says Jogailė Čojūtė, export specialist for Gubernija Brewery. "For example, our white wheat bread gira is aimed at younger consumers who like trendy soft drinks. The taste is much milder. Another popular item we have is the dark rye bread gira with hemp and hints of lime; it is a unique and refreshing twist to our traditional recipe and proves that gira really can stand the test of time."
"In 2024, we observed an 18% increase in the sales volume of owned gira brands compared to the previous year," she continues, "while export sales volume grew by 47%."
Globally, interest in non-alcoholic beverages and low-ABV drinks is soaring, and kvass is catching on. In the US, breweries, bakeries and even restaurants have released their own versions of kvass with great success. Dan Woods of Beaver Brewing Company in Pennsylvania produces kvass in his nanobrewery; while at Honey's in East Williamsburg in New York, kvass made an appearance on tap. Made with chunks of toasted dark sourdough rye bread which were left to ferment, the slightly tart drink was sweetened with a touch of honey and also served as a cocktail.
In Australia, a string of bakeries have collaborated with local craft breweries to make stronger alcoholic versions, such as Three Mills Bakery in the nation’s capital, Canberra; while in Leeds in the UK, Northern Monk releases a seasonal kvass each year.
While some international versions exceed 4% ABV, for Lithuanians, it remains a drink with cultural significance that should only be fermented to 1.2% ABV at most. "It should not be considered a direct substitute for beer," says Čojūtė.
Instead, Eidukevičius says, the beauty of the unassuming drink lends itself to a nice refresher anytime of the day with its sweet, acidic, tangy and even funky taste.
"Gira, for all its refreshing qualities, can be a bit of a mischievous drink," Eidukevičius adds. "There's a running joke in Lithuanian households about 'gira explosions' because it ferments in closed containers where enormous pressure can build up like a bottle of Champagne. There's nothing quite like walking into a cellar and finding gira sprayed across the walls and ceiling like some kind of fizzy, rye-bread-scented geyser. It's a testament to how alive this drink is. It's a reminder that we're working with natural processes, and sometimes, those processes have a mind of their own."
So, if you find yourself in Lithuania looking for a low-alcohol beverage, consider a glass of gira. "Drinking gira is a connection to our land and to the traditions that have shaped Lithuania's culture," says Eidukevičius."It has a long tradition in my beautiful country as more than just a beverage; it's a part of our cultural heritage and a link to our ancestors' traditions."
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As millions of people break their Ramadan fast, many believers around the world reach for a wildly popular dish tied to an unbelievable legend.
On a hot and sultry August evening in 2011, I sat at a table in my favourite restaurant in Kuwait City, facing the calm waters of the Persian Gulf, waiting for my iftar platter to arrive. The elaborate meal – consisting of fresh juices, stuffed dates, vegetable samosas, lamb pilaf, shish tawook (a marinated chicken kebab), local bread, coffee and desserts – was delicious.
Yet, what still lingers on my tongue and in my mind more than a decade later isn't the delightful crunch of the samosa or the sapid juiciness of the shish tawook but the sweet taste of Om Ali, a simple-but-flavourful Egyptian dessert with a surprisingly dark history.
Flash forward to 2025 and I'm standing in a small confectionery store in downtown Cairo, sharing another bowl of Om Ali, this time with my 12-year-old son, and I still can't stop drooling over the dish, despite having tried it in every Middle Eastern city I've visited during the last 14 years.
"A good bowl of Om Ali is unforgettable," says Nermine Mansour, a former Egyptian diplomat-turned-food writer and founder of the food blog, Chez Nermine. "It is the perfect balance of flavours, textures and nutrition – the star of Egyptian cuisine," she adds.
Om Ali (also known as Umm Ali or Oum Ali) is a decadent bread pudding made from spice-infused milk, puff pastry, roasted nuts and sugar. Traditionally baked in a deep clay dish for about 20-25 minutes, it has a crunchy, caramelised coating at the top and a silky, creamy layer at the bottom, giving the dessert a unique texture. According to Mansour, the creaminess of the milk, the juiciness of the soaked puff pastry, the crunch from the nuts and the sweet earthiness of lent by the clay pot come together to give Om Ali a rare appeal, making it one of the most popular desserts in Egypt.
Om Ali is also a favourite across the Middle East, particularly during Ramadan and Eid celebrations when dessert consumption skyrockets. Earlier this year, B Laban, one of the fastest-growing Middle Eastern dessert companies, posted a video of Om Ali on Instagram and thousands of people quickly swooned over it.
"I get why Om Ali is so popular. It is affordable, easy to digest and can be prepared quickly using ingredients available at home, making it equally accessible to the rich and the poor," says Moustafa Omran, an Egyptologist and my local tour guide in Cairo. "Despite the fame of this dish, a question always lingers in the minds of [Om Ali] lovers: who is Ali and who is his mother, after whom this dish is named?" Omran points out, drawing my attention to the dessert's name.
With my mouth stuffed with soaked puff pastry and my mind going nuts over the creaming pudding at El Malky, one of the most famous dessert chains serving Om Ali in Cairo, I cannot help but agree.
Om Ali, which means "Mother of Ali" in Arabic, is an admittedly unusual name for a dessert. Yet, what's even more unusual, as many Egyptians tell me, is that it is rumoured to be named after a murderer.
Om Ali was the first wife of the first sultan of the Mamluk dynasty, which ruled Egypt from the mid-13th to early 16th Centuries. In 1250, her then-husband, Izz Al-Din Aybak overthrew the Ayyubid dynasty and established the Mamluk reign in Egypt, marrying Al-Durr, the last Ayyubid queen, to solidify his rule. The marriage was merely a political union and Al-Durr had frequent disagreements with Aybak before finally deciding to murder him as he took a bath.
In a bizarre turn of events, Om Ali decided to avenge her husband's death by beating Al-Durr to death with wooden clogs. After killing Al-Durr, Om Ali instructed her cook to bake something special to commemorate her success and the eponymous dessert was allegedly born and named in her honour.
As surprised as I am to learn that Om Ali's origins may be rooted in murder and betrayal, deeper research reveals that the dish's origins are even more complex, and still baffle historians.
"There are no historical records that tell us if the dessert Om Ali is connected to the murder of Al-Durr," says Dr Mennat-Allah El Dorry, a food historian at the American University in Cairo. "Although we know for sure that Queen Om Ali killed Al-Durr, we do not have any concrete evidence linking the dessert to the murder… I have absolutely no idea how the narrative came about and how the dessert got its name."
Further, the oldest recorded recipe for Om Ali comes from a more recent 19th-Century Arabic cookbook titled Kitāb nasị̄hạt al-anām fī hụsn al-tạʻām, which adds another layer of mystery to the dish's origins and nomenclature.
Yet, according to Mansour, the 13th-Century Om Ali narrative may hold some truth. "Egyptians have eaten a thin phyllo bread called roqaq since ancient times," she says. According to the book The Pharaoh's Kitchen by Magda Mehdawy and Amr Hussein, roqaq has been a staple at Nubian banquets since the 3rd Century BCE. "So, it is quite possible that Om Ali's cook used the leftover roqaq in the palace and baked it with milk and nuts to create the iconic dessert that we all love today."
Despite the dessert's muddled origins, its connection to the killer of Al-Durr live on in Egyptian popular culture. Today, the name Om Ali is synonymous with good triumphing over evil – in this case, the unjust queen.
"We love it because of its association with the story of the victory of justice over injustice," says Omran. "Also, we [Egyptians] love stories; therefore, this dish has gained immense popularity," he explains. The legend continues to endure in social media, food blogs and television, such as the 2004 popular drama series Abbas Al Abiad Fi Al Yawm Al Aswad, in which famous Egyptian actor Yehia El-Fakharany recounts the legend of Om Ali to his onscreen family.
The popularity of Om Ali swells during Ramadan, as sugar-based desserts take centre stage in iftar meals around the globe, providing instant nourishment to a fasting body that has run out of glucose. "In addition to sugar, Om Ali contains protein and calcium from milk, vitamins and fibre from nuts, and carbohydrates from bread," Mansour points out. "That's why, [Om Ali] is a guilty pleasure you can easily justify. It feels like a warm hug in a clay pot filled with goodness," she adds. (A calorie analysis reveals that Om Ali has fewer calories compared to other Middle Eastern desserts like kunefe and baklava.)
Besides, Om Ali is an easy dessert to make. "It requires only simple ingredients found in every Egyptian kitchen," Mansour adds. Depending on the size of the iftar parties, this dish can be scaled up or down, making it a favourite among chefs and home cooks during Ramadan and Eid.
Om Ali holds a special place in Egyptian cuisine because it is simple, nutritious and evokes feelings of warmth and goodness. "The creaminess of the pudding, the crunch of roasted nuts and the story of the victory of good over bad – a bowl of Om Ali just feels right and makes me happy after a long day of fasting," says Omran.
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Former Tate Modern director Vicente Todolí founded Todolí Citrus Fundació to preserve rare citrus varieties and compile a catalogue of farming knowledge to inspire future generations.
Our preconceptions of lemons are very rarely challenged. But on a crisp November morning on Spain's leafy Valencian coastline, Vicente Todolí is showing me the secret side of citrus – and it's unlike anything I've seen on supermarket shelves.
The most weird and wonderful specimens are arranged on a table in his Sun-soaked orchard. There's one shaped like an octopus with fat tentacles, a wart-covered citron the size of a newborn baby and a colourful pear-shaped fruit splattered in a tie-dye of green and yellow.
They're not at all what I was expecting, and they're not entirely safe, either. "You will get burned," Todolí warns, pointing at a grass-greenbergamot. The oil is phototoxic, causing the skin to burn if it's exposed to UV light (it isn't dangerous to eat, but it is very acidic). "Want to taste?" he asks. I hold a slice up to the sun and eye it suspiciously; the golden segments light up like a stained-glass window. I tip my head back and squeeze drops into my mouth, being careful not to touch my lips. Eye-watering acidic needles stab my tongue. I'm reeling and wiping away tears, but Todolí is already on to the next fruit, squeezing the pearly contents of a finger lime into my hand. The little balls pop like lime-flavoured caviar in my mouth.
There are hundreds more unusual fruits to try at Todolí Citrus Fundació, a not-for-profit farm dedicated to researching and preserving rare citrus varieties. Hidden on a sleepy street in the town of Palmera, this is Todolí's passion project. He was born and raised on this farm, going on to study art history before serving as director at esteemed galleries such as Tate Modern in London and Milan's Pirelli HangarBicocca, where he works today.
Now, Todolí considers himself a fifth-generation orange farmer. He's fiercely protective of his old family farm, which is one of the reasons Todolí Citrus Fundació came to be. In 2010, a project was launched to raze Palmera's orange groves to make room for real estate. He tried to derail it through official channels and lost. "I was called a romantic enemy of progress," he recalls. But Todolí did not desist. Changing tack, he began buying plots of land. Some were abandoned patches of weeds and others were established orchards. He acquired around 4.5 hectares in total, an impenetrable fortress of precious farmland. "When I started it was a matter of urgency, I had to save the land," he says.
Around the same time, Todolí was working as cultural advisor to Ferran Adrià, former head chef of the iconic (and sadly closed) El Bulli (once-billed as the world's best restaurant). One day, the pair visited a garden on the outskirts of Perpignan which had more than 400 types of citrus trees, some exceedingly rare. The south of France is a little too chilly for citrus, so the trees are planted in pots. In summer they bask outside, and in October the gardeners heave them into a greenhouse to keep warm. During their visit Todolí asked, "How is it possible that they have done this amazing project with citrus, and in my area no one has done it?" Adrià replied: "Why not do it yourself?"
Todolí was inspired. He knew Palmera had the perfect microclimate for citrus; there would be no need for pots. Todolí Citrus Fundació is 3km from the sea and backed by a ripple of mountains. When the warm wind travels across the Mediterranean Sea, it becomes humid, and when it hits the mountains, it drops bathtubs of rain. The water trickles down the mountainside to Palmera, absorbing organic matter along the way. The fertile, nutrient-rich soil is known as alluvial soil, and Todolí is blessed with buckets of it.
Palmera's crisp mornings also help to balance the flavour of fruit, Todolí explains. "In January it's one or two degrees in the morning and around 20C in the afternoon. That's what creates the balance between acidity and sweetness. If you're in Florida, for example, it's too hot. They're sweeter but they're bland. In Japan, it's colder so they have more acidity. Here and Sicily are the perfect areas for citrus."
For inspiration, he turned to history's most illustrious citrus gardens. He studied the Italian gardens of the Medici family in the 1500s and opulent Arabic palaces like the Alhambra. "For the Arabs, gardens appealed to the senses. It was a paradise on Earth, an immersive experience," says Todolí.
Likewise, the sights, smells and sounds of Todolí Citrus Fundació seduce visitors. Chirping locusts the size of frogs hop in the mallow and honeybees buzz between wildflowers. While licking sour juice from fingertips, there's a soundtrack of water trickling along an ancient Arabic irrigation route and the frenetic chirping of goldfinches in the aviary. The zesty scent of lemons perfumes visitors' hands for the rest of the day.
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There are other farms nearby, but they don't look like this. The surrounding countryside is an orderly grid of single-crop fields, with rows upon rows of orange trees. Spain is the world's leading exporter of citrus, shipping around 4 million tonnes a year. In order to produce such vast quantities, most farms lean heavily on mono-cropping, which can leave soil depleted and plants more vulnerable to disease outbreaks. Todolí Citrus Fundació, on the other hand, is a genetic diversity bank; a motley bunch of more than 500 varieties. Some of the rarest plants include ancient Valencian orange trees used as rootstock. The grafts were made around 150 years ago and Todolí cut the scion back to allow the roots to grow freely.
"It's like Jurassic Park," he says. "We can see resurrected varieties that were in extinction."
As well as tours of the farm, the garden comes alive with events throughout the year. Poets read stanzas on a stage decorated with lemons at the annual Poecítrics festival (14 June 2025), while Cine de Vanguardia is a celebration of experimental cinema.
Back on the tour, and Todolí's right-hand man Ton Gjekaj is waiting at the final tasting table. He has cut the last slices of fruit. There are wedges of passionfruit-tasting trifoliate orange, apple-sour calamansi and rosewater-scented Palestinian sweet lime, still warm from the Sun. I greedily eat them all, popping whole carpels into my mouth. I try to jot down the flavours but by now my notepad is covered in juice, my camera's buttons sticky.
There's just time to peep inside The Laboratory, a high-tech kitchen and library. This is a hub of experimentation, used by experts from around the world who come to play with Todolí's extraordinary pantry. Chefs make ice cream from bergamots; bartenders pickle lemon rind for gin and tonics; and perfumiers extract oils from nearly extinct oranges.
Agustina Basilico Miara, head of beverage at London's Toklas restaurant, has visited three times and says she always goes home with new ideas. "It's incredible. Every time we go, we take as many people as possible from the restaurant," Miara says. "Especially after being in cloudy London, to arrive in an explosion of colours is super inspiring."
Miara uses leftover peel from the kitchen (like fragrant blood orange and chandler red pomelo) to make a tea, which she turns into a syrup. She uses it for a variety of cocktails, like her zingy take on the classic whisky highball. "We've also done a martini with chinotto. The vodka is infused with chinotto and then we candy the fruit," Miara says. "It adds another layer, like an olive brine element to the flavour, it's very aromatic."
After flicking through some books (every mention of citrus has been bookmarked, resulting in a pleasing rainbow of Post-it notes along the spines) we conclude the tour by tasting marmalade. The most delicious is made from Borneo lemon – not technically a lemon, but a cross between a pomelo and a key lime. Delicate and creamy, the marmalade tastes like well-balanced lemon curd.
For Todolí, this open-air gallery is his legacy. It's a place to challenge preconceptions, encourage biodiversity and foster local culture. "For me, it's like a museum where you don't have to refresh the collection because it changes every day," he says. "People think that citrus is what they see in the supermarkets. They don't know that it started eight million years ago, that it's one of the oldest fruits in the world. It has been so important in literature, poetry and art."
Todolí can see the art of citrus – and from his otherworldly orchard, he's helping the rest of the world to see it too.
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After being sealed off from the outside world for decades and experiencing a mass exodus, Albania is leaning into its culinary roots with the help of grandma chefs.
Tefta Pajenga, aged 76, is one of many pension-age TV chefs in Albania. In her nationally televised cooking show, the retired teacher instructs a younger housewife how to cook japrakë, a traditional platter of vine leaves stuffed with rice and herbs.
Japrakë holds a special place in Albanian hearts. It's typically prepared by families together and then shared on Christian and Muslim feast days in this religiously diverse nation. Like so many dishes in this culinary crossroads, the recipe comes from elsewhere (the name derives from the Turkish word for "leaf", courtesy of Albania's more-than 500 years under Ottoman rule). Yet, the ingredients are all local: dill, peppers and mint from northern Albania.
Today, Albanian grannies like Pajenga are teaching multiple generations in one of Europe's youngest-aged countries how to cook age-old dishes. That's because the Balkan nation has suffered not one, but two bouts of culinary amnesia over the past 80 years.
First, from 1946 to 1991, Albania was ruled by hardline communists who effectively sealed the small, mountainous nation off from the outside world, leading Edi Rama, the nation's current prime minister, to say it was once "the North Korea of Europe". During this period, cookbooks were burnt, imports were prohibited, foreign travel was banned, food was collectivised and shortages were widespread. It was a recipe for disaster.
Second, in the violent build-up and aftermath of communism's collapse in the 1990s, 710,000 citizens – 20% of the population – fled Albania from 1989 to 2001 in search of work in other countries. Over time, Pajenga said that many of these emigrants forgot their grandmothers' recipes as they adapted to new countries and cultures. Between the widespread food shortages during communism and the subsequent emigration after it, by the early 21st Century, many Albanians at home and abroad had forgotten how to prepare traditional Albanian cuisine – except for women of a certain age.
Ironically, Pajenga says that the Albania's transition to democracy compounded the problem. "During communism, people had one fixed job from 07:00 until 15:00," she recalls. "When democracy came, you needed more than one job to feed the family." Therefore, many of those who did recall how to prepare traditional Albanian dishes now no longer had the time to make them.
So, when Pajenga started her TV show in 2004, "my audience was not for chefs but for housewives" and also young people, "who were lacking the knowledge or had forgotten how to make traditional cuisine".
Albania's culinary culture has long reflected its status as a stepping stone between East and West. The Romans introduced grapes, olives and other modern Albanian staples when they took hold of the area in the 2nd Century BCE. Starting in the 16th Century, dishes like Arnavut ciğeri (Albanian liver) spread east from Albania across the Ottoman Empire, while sutlijaš (rice pudding) likely arrived in Albania courtesy of the Ottomans. And after World War Two, imported dishes like ajvar (a relish made from roasted red peppers, aubergine and spices) migrated south from the northern Balkans.
Some indigenous foods, like mishavinë (a type of white, grainy cheese), cannot be found anywhere else. Its preparation method, in which curd is packed tightly for three months inside animal fat until it ferments into a piquant cheese, has been passed down by generations of transhumant herders in the Albanian Alps. Other age-old Albanian dishes include flia, a pancake with crepe-like layers brushed with cream, and byrek me mish, a Turkish-style borek laced with paprika.
Gjyste Bici, 67, learned centuries-old recipes at her grandmother's knee in Albania's northern Alps, where snowy winters can still cut off residents for months at a time. "Even before communism there was little material published, so recipes were always passed from grandmothers to younger generations," she says.
Many Albanian recipes have a religious root. This was frowned upon under communism, especially after 1967, when authoritarian ruler Enver Hoxha banned all religious practices.
"The dictatorship tried to destroy all religions," recalls Dallendyshe Xhahysa, a 91-year-old amateur chef who memorised Albanian recipes from her ancestors and made them through the country's near-half century of communist rule. According to Xhahysa, "recipes used in Muslim and Christian celebrations never would have survived if it wasn't for the efforts of grandmothers like me".
"We had to cook special dishes secretly during Easter or Ramadan," continues Xhahysa. One such dish was halva, a dense, fudge-like dessert traditionally shared on the holiest day of Ramadan, Lailat al Qadr.
"If you cooked halva over Ramadan, neighbours would spy on you in order to get a bonus from the state," Xhahysa remembers. So as not to attract attention, the ingredients were purchased weeks in advance. "We would cook halva with the windows closed or curtains drawn" to curtail the fragrant waft of sugar, nuts and rosewater.
The punishment if caught preparing a religious feast was harsh. "We could be taken to a re-education camp for many months to be given a bad job, like cleaning a jail in a remote area," recalls Xhahysa, shuddering.
Extreme food shortages led to the loss of other recipes. "Very few people were allowed to keep animals or farm land," explains Bici. Only those in rural areas were allowed to work a 50-sq-m plot and keep a few chickens. "It was forbidden to own a pig or sheep."
Everything was rationed, continues Bici. "Each month you were allowed 10kg of potatoes and 2kg of cheese per family."
Without easy access to ingredients or cookbooks, centuries-old recipes like tavë krapi (a baked carp casserole) were largely forgotten due to the prohibition of private fishing.
When Albania's borders finally opened up in the 1990s and its national television networks were no longer controlled by the state, many grannies started using TV to revive the nation's long-lost culinary heritage.
Bici began cooking on the show The Albanian Sunday in 2007, showcasing recipes she says were cooked "for thousands of years", like lakror me arra (an Albanian pie often made with layered ricotta, nettles, leeks, lamb and nuts).
But while Bici and Pajenga's cooking shows were helping to revive traditional recipes, they were fighting against another tide: farmers in rural Albania were migrating to Tirana in search of work and many rural villages became ghost towns. "Farming has still not fully recovered from what happened [in the decades after communism]," says Pajenga.
Bici has made it her mission to ensure Albania's traditional recipes aren't forgotten a third time. The grandmother has collated age-old cooking methods in a book, Unique Cuisine of the Albanian Highlands. She also cooks mountain recipes on the TV show Histori Shqiptare (Albanian History).
"I have many requests from Instagram for old recipes," Bici says. "If youngsters follow my recipe for lakror on TikTok, that's fine too."
Xhahysa, now a great-grandmother, is also still sharing her knowledge. She started cooking with her grandmother in the 1930s and contributed recipes to Albania's first farm-to-fork restaurant, Uka Farm, a Tirana-based wine bar and agrotourism that has inspired 100 rural farm stays across Albania.
Xhahysa's recipe of fërgesë (a baked vegetable dish with cheese) is a popular appetiser at Uka Farm. The farm's butter-fried peppers served with a big dollop of gjizë (a ricotta-style cheese) is a taste of Albania’s forgotten past.
Inspired by Pajenga, Bici and other TV-cooking grannies, a 2018 event in Tirana pairing 12 grandmothers with 12 top chefs became an instant Albanian sensation, spawning several granny-meets-millennial TV shows like Gjyshet Milionere ("Millionaire Grandmothers").
The event was hosted by one of Albania's most famous chefs, Bledar Kola, who has dedicated much of his career to championing traditional Albanian cuisine. "Not being too cocky," says Kola, "but this show started a small spark on a big fire."
After a career working in Europe's top restaurants, including stages at Le Gavroche in London and noma in Copenhagen, Kola returned to Tirana a decade ago to present ancient Albanian recipes in a more modern way at the capital's top restaurant Mullixhiu. In the absence of cookbooks, he also picked up skills from an Albanian granny.
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Now Kola is going one step further by opening a traditional restaurant in Gjirokaster, a Unesco-inscribed city in southern Albania. At the forthcoming rural restaurant Mullixhino (which is expected to open in late 2025), the focus is squarely on Albania's age-old dishes. "The cuisine will be garden-inspired, everything cooked on an open fire, in an open kitchen," says Kola.
The restaurant's recipes are an homage to Albanian grandmothers. "We've been meeting grandmothers for coffee to come up with a great concept," says Kola. "We will serve traditional food from Albania's south, influenced by grandmothers in the region."
A new foodie almanac containing 7,000 Albanian ingredients, dishes and cooking methods – many sourced from grandmothers – is also in progress and is being co-written by Kola's brother Nikolin, alongside nine academics.
Nikolin believes the book "will raise awareness of Albanian food, like what René [Redzepi] did for Danish cooking".
Thanks to grannies, Albanian cuisine is finally being reborn.
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The fabled route leading to Machu Picchu is one of the world's most jaw-droppingly beautiful treks – but it's also plagued by controversies that travellers can avoid.
At 2,840m above sea level, the trail leaves the rushing Urubamba River that carves Cusco's Sacred Valley and winds its way uphill. It ascends past Andean cloud forests to Warmiwañusca, the infamous "Dead Woman's Pass" at 4,215m, before descending to the ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, one of the Seven New Wonders of the World.
This is the legendary Inca Trail, South America's most popular hike and one of the world's most jaw-droppingly beautiful treks. In an effort to protect the path, which was designed and built more than 600 years ago by Inca engineers, the Peruvian government limits the number of passes available to visitors during the trail's March-to-January opening (the trail opens 31 March 2025). As a result, every year permits for the 43km hike sell out quickly as travellers try to secure one of the roughly 200 daily passes allocated daily for tourists.
Ironically, the Inca Trail's popularity contrasts with frequent protests that often leave hundreds of travellers stranded, as the porters tasked with hauling hikers' gear across the mountains petition for better working conditions. While these protests rarely reach English-language publications, the Porters' Voice Collective (an organisation aiming to elevate the rights of Inca Trail workers) released a documentary in 2024 detailing these struggles.
How can such an idyllic place hike generate so much conflict? According to the trail's Indigenous guides, the problem is a lack of law enforcement governing porters' working conditions.
Since mules are prohibited on the Inca Trail because their hooves would destroy the ancient stone paving and stairs, trekkers are required to hire porters to haul their camping equipment. Porters' days often begin at 05:00 and end after 22:00. While a 2022 law mandates that porters receive s/650 Peruvian Nuevo Soles (£140 or $176) for the four-day trek, very few trekking agencies abide by this and pay as little as s/350 (£75 or $95) per trek. Since the law was passed, trekking agency lawyers have been fighting it, and in the meantime refusing to pay the legal wage.
In addition to trekking agencies not compensating porters properly, many companies require their porters to carry more weight than the 20kg maximum that is also stipulated in the law.
"Most [male] porters carry about 30kg, and I've seen 40kg packs," says Natalia Amao Huillca, who has been guiding travellers along the Inca Trail since 2007. "About 80% of the injuries I see in porters are knee injuries. The others are mostly back injuries. They frequently ask me for pain pills in the evening."
According to Cenovia Quispe Flores, who has worked as a porter for Evolution Treks Peru since 2018, "The law for women is 15kg," but she says she has seen women working for other companies carrying 25 to 30kg. To get around weight limits, many companies either send gear around the first checkpoint where porters' backpacks are weighed or simply pay those off who enforce these limits.
"In theory, the checkpoint is strict, but in practice, it's not strict for everybody," explains Shandira Arque Lucana, who has guided hikers on the Inca Trail since 2016. She says that big companies cut deals with people working the checkpoints but that small companies don't have enough influence to evade enforcement.
Even companies that want to play by the rules can find themselves stymied by the strict limit of 500 total people (which includes 300 non-tourist porters and guides) allowed on the trail each day. Sometimes there is extra weight but no way to add an extra porter.
"I've seen many porters working with hernias, bad knees and ankle problems," says Pedro, a guide who asked not to be identified by his real name. "I know a porter who became an alcoholic because he couldn't get treatment for his injured knee. He still works on the Inca Trail, and he dulls the pain with cañazo (a liquor made from sugarcane)".
Porters also suffer from dehydration. They drink unclean water from streams and handwashing taps near bathrooms, though paying customers get filtered and boiled water.
With all this in mind, what should travellers know if they want to trek South America's most famous ruins in a responsible, ethical way? According to local guides, the first thing to remember is that there are other treks that lead to Machu Picchu.
"The Inca Trail is not the only option," says Liz Montesinos Pumayalle, who has worked as a guide on the Inca Trail for eight years and notes that mules are used instead of porters on all other trails. "People who want to connect with Indigenous communities should hike the Lares Trek. The Salkantay Trek (which has two options that connect to Machu Picchu directly and other routes that connect indirectly) is best for people who want to sleep in eco-domes or lodges, rather than tents."
Amao Huillca notes that companies who hire many female porters often treat their staff better than those who only have one or none. "I like working with porter teams that are half women and have a woman head porter," she says. "Most companies send one or two token women porters." She says that because female porters are more inclined to go to a doctor when they're injured than their male colleagues, tourists who request women porters are more likely to trek with healthier porters.
"One way to ensure that porters are treated and paid well is for there to be women porters," echoes Inca Trail guide Edson Lucana Mejía. He explains that it has historically been common for male porters to sleep in the dining tent, which doesn't have a floor and is often muddy. Women usually insist on individual tents, so in a team with more women, you can be sure that more porters have a decent place to sleep.
Marco Antonio Carrión, who has been guiding treks on the Inca Trail for 20 years offers other recommendations. "Look for photos of porters with ergonomic backpacks and for reviews that mention something about how porters are treated," he says. "If a company is sustainable and treats the porters well, it will show in the online reviews."
In addition, Carrión says travellers should ask if porters are required to wear their employer's uniforms. While it may be a small detail in some cultures, for many Indigenous Peruvians, traditional Quechua clothing is an important part of their identity.
Despite allegations of mistreatment by certain Inca Trail operators, many guides and porters not only feel fulfilled, but also fortunate to work in such a stunning natural setting. "I love this work" says Quispe Flores. "I like the mountains and working with my friends, the other women porters. Working in agriculture is harder and doesn't pay."
While it isn't always easy to determine which companies follow the law and which don't, Lucana Mejía has one message he wishes the many thousands of travellers hoping to hike the fabled route will remember: "Without porters, there is no Inca Trail."
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Native Americans, English sailors and pirates all came together on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina to create the only American dialect that is not identified as American.
I'd never been called a "dingbatter" until I went to Ocracoke, North Carolina for the first time. I've spent a good part of my life in the state, but I'm still learning how to speak the Hoi Toider brogue. The people here just have their own way of speaking: it's like someone took Elizabethan English, sprinkled in some Irish tones and 1700s Scottish accents, then mixed it all up with pirate slang. But the Hoi Toider dialect is more than a dialect. It's also a culture, one that's slowly fading away. With each generation, fewer people play meehonkey, cook the traditional foods or know what it is to be "mommucked".
In an effort to put his "America first" stamp on the nation's speech, US President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order making English the country's official language. It marks the first time in the US's nearly 250-year history that the nation has had an official language. Yet, on this small 9.6-square-mile island surrounded by the swirling waters of the Atlantic, residents still speak what is arguably the most English version of English in the country – and many Americans don't understand it.
As the island's official website proudly proclaims: "With origins dating back to the 1600s, Ocracoke brogue is about as American as it gets."
Located 20 miles from the North Carolina mainland, Ocracoke Island is fairly isolated. You can't drive there as there are no bridges, and most people can’t fly either as there are no commercial flights. If you want to go there, it has to be by boat. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, that meant Ocracoke was a perfect spot for pirates to hide, as no soldiers were going to search 16 miles of remote beaches and forests for wanted men.
William Howard was one of those outlaws, serving as quartermaster on Blackbeard’s ship Queen Anne’s Revenge. Leaving before Blackbeard’s final battle in 1718, Howard made his way to Virginia, eventually taking the general pardon offered by King George I to all pirates. But unlike some, Howard had a plan. For several decades, he dropped out of sight, only to reappear in 1759 when he bought Ocracoke Island for £105 from a man named Richard Sanderson, a justice and later a General Assembly member in mainland North Carolina.
Howard settled down along with some other ex-pirates and started building a community with boat pilots who had been stationed on the island to help guide merchant ships around sandbars in the area. A mainland North Carolina Native American tribe also interacted with the early settlers. The Woccon tribe had set up fishing and hunting outposts on the island, which they called Woccocock. Through misspellings and mispronunciations, it became Wokokon, Oakacock and Okercock, before finally arriving at the current version of Ocracoke in the mid-1700s. So at this point, there were Native Americans, English sailors and pirates from a variety of places all in one location. And that isolated community of just under 200 started blending words and dialects, and eventually building its own way of speaking.
"It's the only American dialect that is not identified as American," said Dr Walt Wolfram, a North Carolina State University professor who studied the Ocracoke dialect for more than 20 years and currently works as the director of NC State’s Language and Life Project. "That's fascinating to me. You can find pronunciation, grammar structures and vocabulary on Ocracoke that are not found anywhere else in North America."
Howard's community lived in near-isolation for almost two centuries. Electricity didn't arrive at the island until 1938 and a ferry service didn't start until 1957, leaving the islanders cut off except for the occasional supply trip to the mainland. Even today, things are a bit different for the island's 676 residents than on mainland North Carolina.
"You have to be a certain type of individual to enjoy living here," said Chip Stevens, an island resident directly descended from Howard and the former owner of the local hotel Blackbeard's Lodge. "There isn't a Lowes or a Harris Teeter or any [supermarkets]. Rarely does anyone go off the island without a cooler [to bring back supplies]. You have to be almost a holistic person, capable of dealing with less of a hectic nightlife lifestyle."
Yes, mobile phones and laptops still work here, and if you want to sit down and watch some Major League Baseball in a pub, there are plenty of options. But in many other ways, the island is a throwback to a time before internet and television. Instead of cinemas, there are outdoor theatre groups. Local teashops, spice markets and other family-owned stores take the place of chain supermarkets. Cars are allowed on the 16 mile-long island, but most people just park them and walk everywhere. The island's children all attend one school, while residents work as everything from fishermen to brewery owners to woodworkers.
"It's amazing how coming across that ferry is almost like going to a different country," Stevens said, sitting on the hotel's front porch. "You feel that separation. It's a really nice feeling, being able to give your kids some freedom. When I was a kid, we'd leave [home] after breakfast, eat lunch at somebody else's house, walk to the beach, take a rowboat out in the water, and our parents never had to worry about us. We've maintained a lot of that."
And they've still – just – maintained their unique way of speaking.
When older Ocracoke natives, or "O'cockers" as they call themselves, speak, the "I" sound is an "oi", so they say "hoi" instead of "high". That's where the Hoi Toider name comes from: it's based on how the O'cockers say "high tide".
Then there are the phrases and vocabulary, many of which are also kept over from the original British and Irish settlers. For example, when you're on Ocracoke, someone might "mommuck a buck before going up the beach", which means "to tease a friend before going off the island".
"We have a lot of words that have been morphed to make our own," said Amy Howard, another of William Howard's descendants, who runs the Village Craftsmen, a local arts and crafts store. "[Hoi Toider] is a combination from a whole blend of cultures. A lot of the early settlers were well travelled, so they ran into lots of different types of people. For example, the word "pizer" we use comes from [a European] word which means porch. So if you're going to be sitting on your pizer, you're sitting on your porch."
There's a long list of words in Ocracoke vocabulary that are taken from countries across the globe. "Quamish", for example, means sick or nauseated. It comes from the 16th-Century English word "qualm". Then there's "buck", which means a male friend. You can trace that back to 13th-Century Germany, where it originally meant a male deer, as it does in most English-speaking places today.
Locals even made up words in some cases. For example, early settler children played a game of hide and seek called meehonkey. Everyone would hide and call out "meehonkey" while one person tried to find them. According to island tradition, Amy told me, the kids believed meehonkey was the sound a goose made as it flew by. Then there's "dingbatter", which is used for anyone who isn’t a native.
But with each generation, the dialect is starting to disappear. The world is coming to the island through television and the internet, as well as with the long line of tourists who show up every summer. There's also more people from the mainland moving in.
"What's happening is that some of these small dialects that thrive on isolation are dying because isolation is a thing of the past," said Dr Wolfram. "They still pick up terms and vocabulary, but when a kid from the island retains a strong dialect, that was the norm and now it’s an exception."
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In the past, kids adopted the dialect because that was the only version they heard. Now there are hundreds of dialects and languages that most will encounter before they graduate high school. In fact, as of 2024, on this island of 676 people, fewer than half actually speak with the full Hoi Toider brogue.
"Within one to two generations, it'll be gone," said Dr Wolfram. "It's dying out and we can’t stop that."
Yet while the dialect may be in danger, the islanders are managing to hold onto their unique culture in other ways. In the beginning, settlers often had to come up with alternatives when they didn't have the right ingredients for a recipe. That same concept holds true today: with limited stores on the island, if you run out of supplies, you can either head to the mainland for what you need or just find a replacement.
"Ocracoke is really good at adapting," said Amy. "I joke that we need to make a cookbook for Ocracoke that says what the recipe is and then what you can actually get, because almost inevitably, you get a quirky recipe and you won’t have everything you need."
That's actually how the fig cake, which is now Ocracoke's signature dish, came to be. The story goes that in 1964, island resident Margaret Garrish was making a date cake and she had all the ingredients mixed in, except one.
"She found she didn't have any [dates], so she did what we all do and looked in her cupboard and found a jar of fig preserves," Amy said, explaining that figs are a holdover from the original settlers, and you can find fig trees in almost every yard. "She threw them in the cake, mixed them up and now we have fig cakes."
Now every year in August, the island holds a Fig Festival, complete with a fig cake bake-off, fig tastings, a square dance and traditional games like meehonkey.
But while some traditions stand strong, residents do see the island changing.
New York native Daphne Bennink came to the island 35 years ago and never left. For her, the change, in some ways, reflects the same wealth of experience those original settlers brought.
"I see more and more people coming here," Bennink said. "On Ocracoke, you have this kind of patchwork quilt of all people from all walks. It’s a little bit of a melting pot."
As for what type of culture that melting pot will create? Everyone I talked to pretty much said the same thing: no matter what changes, some things will stay the same on Ocracoke. If someone is sick, the community will pitch in. If one business owner needs help, 14 others will show up to solve the problem. The dialect may change, but the intent behind those words will remain the same.
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Electric Jeeps and carbon credits are unlikely to make up for gas-guzzling private flights and building mini towns in the remote savannah. So, what should travellers be looking for?
Fourteen Jeeps idle near the dozing lion cubs, burning fuel. The smell of petrol hangs in the morning air as a couple of guides illegally park off-road in Botswana's Chobe National Park, crushing the vegetation so their guests can get a better view. One by one the vehicles pull away towards other animals or to their lodges where their passengers will have lunch – likely flown and driven in from South Africa – before boarding a tiny bush plane themselves.
Gas-guzzling private flights and building mini towns in the remote savannah might seem at odds with one of the industry's most notable movements: green travel. Yet responsible safaris play an important role in conservation by expanding protected areas, investing in environmental research and creating economic support for local communities. Now, as the pressure of climate change rises, an increasing numbers of travellers are seeking out environmentally and socially ethical safaris that minimise their carbon footprint. According to one report by B Corp-certified travel advisor Go2Africa, interest in sustainable safaris has grown by more than 1000% over the last four years.
In response, many of the continent's largest and most popular safari operators tout carbon-neutral (and even carbon-positive) trips, swapping out traditional Jeeps with electric vehicles, installing fields of solar panels and purchasing carbon credits to make up for their guests' air travel. With them, it's promised, travellers can enjoy a guilt- and carbon footprint-free vacation.
But some sustainability experts suggest that these efforts might be a savvy attempt to tap into society's rising climate anxiety, which is at an all-time high according to a recent survey by the World Economic Forum. At best, safari operators simply know what will grab the attention of eco-conscious travellers.
"It's called green-crowding," says Judy Kepher-Gona, executive director of Sustainable Travel and Tourism Africa, a consulting company that helps destinations and businesses achieve their sustainability goals. "Marketers in the tourism industry are smart. If you talk about carbon neutrality, people hear you more than when you talk about sustainability generally. It's easier to understand and, for lack of a better word, sexier – so they crowd around that term."
Greenwashing or a model for green living?
The African elephant in the room: is there such a thing as a true carbon-neutral safari?
"I suppose that in a spreadsheet it might be possible," says Lisa Scriven, general manager of Fair Trade Tourism and Africa Coordinator of Green Destinations.
Data manipulation, loopholes and even differing opinions of what defines a "carbon-neutral" camp make it difficult to know how strict safari operators are being when they tout the label. For example, Scriven says that some lodges claim to be carbon neutral yet decline to calculate their Scope 3 emissions, which include everything they don't produce. In remote Africa, where every supply, guest, employee and bottle of imported Champagne must travel long distances to reach a private concession in the middle of the Serengeti or Okavango Delta, this cost can quickly skyrocket.
Both Kepher-Gona and Scriven also warn against blindly buying into the promise of carbon offsetting, which most carbon-neutral operators include automatically as a levy or offer for a fee to guests. To be effective, reputable carbon-offset programmes should be linked directly to the destination you're visiting and invest in climate justice. When in doubt about the legitimacy of a camp's initiative, Scriven suggests checking with a third-party such as Credible Carbon. In the worst-case scenario, a well-meaning lodge may not purchase their carbon credits wisely; unfortunately, the market has become rife with scams.
Even when a safari comes close to carbon neutrality, sustainability experts agree that achieving net-zero carbon emissions alone is not enough to ensure a long-term, eco-friendly future. In fact, it can distract from bigger, more relevant issues.
"I think when a business says they're carbon neutral, there's immediate awe," says Scriven "It's not greenwashing because maybe they are carbon neutral. But it can be very misleading in terms of the potential burden they're placing on the destination."
Grant Cumings, managing director of Chiawa Safaris in Zambia, agrees. "Just because a company is climate positive, that does not mean it's taking good care of the wildlife, habitat, local people or the economy of Zambia. All these are just as important – in my view, more important."
Leading the charge on holistic sustainability standards
There's good news, however. More responsible safari brands than ever before are reducing their carbon emissions while simultaneously developing multifaceted standards that extend throughout their business. Segera, the founding member of The Long Run – a network of nature-based tourism businesses that includes some of Africa's top purpose-driven safaris such as Singita Kruger National Park and Tswalu – defines its commitment through the 4Cs framework: conservation, community, culture and commerce.
Originally a cattle ranch, the property has transformed into East Africa's largest private conservancy reforestation project and a thriving wildlife sanctuary, with plans to reintroduce critically endangered rhinos in 2025. Located in Laikipia, Kenya, a region known for historic land injustices since the colonial British government pushed the Maasai out in the early 20th Century, Segera prioritises its relationship with neighbouring villages.
"Carbon neutrality is one part of sustainability, but we focus a lot more on the community," says Joy Juma, programme manager of the ZEITZ Foundation that spearheads Segera's sustainable initiatives. "We empower them to be part of the value chain by providing employment opportunities, bursaries, education and medical care."
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In addition to community work, conservation is a key standard. Protecting animals from poachers, using environmentally responsible building materials and reducing waste are a starting point, but forward-thinking brands are taking the initiative a step further with transformative biodiversity and environmental management projects. In South Africa, &Beyond Phinda are working on a pangolin reintroduction programme while workers are creating a critical buffer zone for mountain gorillas at Rwanda's Singita lodge.
What travellers should look for
With so many layered aspects of sustainability to consider, it's understandable that the average traveller might become easily overwhelmed and feel tempted to fall back on a single metric, such as carbon neutrality. To avoid greenwashing, experts suggest choosing a property that's received a recognised, well-regarded sustainability certification – legitimate organisations do independent, on-site audits at least every three years. Dr Andrea Ferry, group sustainability coordinator at Singita, also suggests checking a lodge's website for clear data about their spending on conservation and community projects. Partnering with nonprofits is another good sign.
"Lodges that have a high sustainability maturity level are likely to have a separate fund or trust that performs the conservation and community work," she says.
Guests must also be bold enough to ask the right questions prior to booking in order to hold operators accountable, says Kepher-Gona. "Ask them: what are your sustainability principles? Have the claims that you make been verified by a third party? How do you measure your targets? Where is your last report? What have you done for the local community in the last 30 years?" A legitimately sustainable property should be proud of their answers. According to Ferry, some lodges are excited to invite guests to view their recycling facilities, rainwater harvesting, solar power system and more.
Above all, camps must prioritise accountability and transparency while acknowledging room for improvement and growth. For example, Segera hopes to reduce fuel use and switch to electric vehicles for game viewing, while Singita is working towards a system to calculate full Scope 3 carbon emissions and better manage water consumption.
"Sustainability is multifaceted and it is rare to find perfect solutions," says Ferry. "The more holistically one can think, the better the solution."
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From Manchester to Reykjavík, innovative tours are highlighting forgotten stories and re-incorporating female legacies into the popular tourist narrative.
A bouquet of white roses hangs from the bronze wrist of Emmeline Pankhurst. But her rallying stance – hand outstretched towards Manchester's former Free Trade Hall where she organised the first suffragette meetings that would change the course of British history – remains defiantly unchanged. Further bunches of white flowers, symbolising the purity of the women's suffrage movement and its fight for female political equality, have been tucked at her feet, wilting gently in the spring sunlight that filters through the city's skyscrapers. They are a reminder of the immense progress made in British women's rights since Pankhurst's early 20th-Century campaigns – and, perhaps, of how far there is left to go.
Manchester has long touted its association with the historic struggle for gender parity, yet the city's civic championing of the women who helped shape its progress is muted at best. When Pankhurst's bronze likeness (titled "Rise Up, Women") was unveiled in 2018, it became the first statue of a woman to be erected in a public space in the city since a monument of Queen Victoria was installed in Piccadilly Gardens in 1905. Even now, it is one of only four city-centre statues of named women, compared to 18 of men.
But a counter-revolution is quietly brewing. I'm visiting the Pankhurst statue as part of a new self-guided walking route, the Feminist Tour of Manchester, which explores little-known stories of its impactful women and historically marginalised LGBTQ+ figures.
Though the suffragettes naturally feature, it emphasises those who never became household names: for example, Mary Fildes, a trailblazing 19th-Century birth control activist; and Enriqueta Rylands, who founded the Neo-Gothic masterpiece that is the John Rylands Library, becoming the first woman to receive honorary Freedom of the City of Manchester. There's a thought-provoking stop at the Peterloo Massacre Memorial (commemorating those who lost their lives in a peaceful working-class protest for parliamentary representation and universal suffrage that turned violent); while the neon jumble of Chinatown's alleyways provides the backdrop to the story of the author and campaigner Alicia Little, whose work highlighted – and eventually helped change – the poor status of women's rights in British marital law.
"People have a feeling that there is feminist history in Manchester, but they can't pinpoint what it is," says Zakia Moulaoui Guery, founder of Invisible Cities, the social enterprise behind the tour, which launches this month. "It's not too late to retrieve those stories or to have more of that representation."
Manchester isn't the only city where under-represented women are getting their moment in the spotlight. Across Europe, feminist walking tours that uncover "forgotten" stories that have often been preserved in letters and diaries or handed down through word of mouth are gaining popularity. Here are five more tours re-incorporating female legacies into the popular tourist narrative.
Reykjavík
Iceland regularly ranks at the top of the World Economic Forum's gender gap index, yet the urban planning of its capital, Reykjavík, doesn't necessarily reflect its progressive values. "We don't even have a statue up of the first female democratically elected president in the world – there's no statue of her anywhere in Reykjavík," says resident Tinna Eik Rakelardóttir, referring to Iceland's former president Vigdís Finnbogadóttir.
Inspired by a tour she took in Ljubljana, Eik Rakelardóttir launched the Reykjavík Feminist Walking Tour, unpicking 200 years of the nation's drive for gender equality and providing context from her experience as a woman in contemporary Icelandic society. The scenic walk begins in the neighbourhood of Mæðragarður before moving downtown through the capital's manicured squares, concluding at the historic school Kvennskólinn (Reykjavík Women's Gymnasium). Participants learn about Finnbogadóttir – who happened to be Eik Rakelardóttir's neighbour growing up – alongside lesser-known women and marginalised groups whose influence on gender progress she feels should be more publicly visible. After all, she concludes: "We should know what methods they used and let those stories inspire us."
Prague
French gender and science researcher Averil Huck first noticed an absence of female representation upon moving to Prague and taking walking tours around the Czech capital, where just 5% of street names honouring people reference women. She began conducting her own research and launched Prague Feminist Tours in summer 2023. Her popular tour To the Roots of Czech Women's Emancipation leads participants through the city's spellbinding historic streets, taking in fabled landmarks such as the Charles Bridge, National Theatre and Old Town Square, while regaling them with the tales of those who fought for access to education, careers and voting rights in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.
She has since launched three additional tours, including one held around the festival of Dušičky (All Souls' Day) on 2 November, which takes place in the city's Olšany Cemeteries and pays tribute to nine of its most important female historical and cultural figures. "We stop in front of their graves and light a little candle or leave a flower and I tell the stories of these people," says Huck. "I like to do it in the fall because this cemetery is really overgrown with nature and the colours become beautiful."
London
Criminals such as Jack the Ripper brought gritty infamy to the streets of London's East End in the 19th Century, yet the neighbourhood has also been home to scores of influential women – notably Mary Wollstonecraft, the writer and philosopher often dubbed Britain's first feminist; or prominent textile designer Anna Maria Garthwaite. Women of London, a tour company founded by Becky Laxton-Bass, spotlights both figures and countless other women who inhabited the vibrant neighbourhood from the 1660s through to the 1940s, analysing how they lived and highlighting the social issues they faced. "I think it's an area of London lots of people don't really know, so it attracts both locals and tourists," says Laxton-Bass.
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The company also runs walking tours of Westminster and Bloomsbury, unearthing women's stories rarely relayed by traditional tours and crafting a narrative that blends historical and contemporary feminist issues. "My hope," says Laxton-Bass, "is that people realise that women's history is everywhere."
Paris
In Paris, Julie Marangé launched her first walking tour, focussing on feminist street art, after being disappointed by the French reaction to the #MeToo movement. It led to the creation of Feminists in the City, which now operates in the French capital as well as Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Marseille, and spotlights women through history and culture via walking tours, conferences and masterclasses. Its most popular tour is currently The Witch Hunt, Powerful Women of Paris, which uncovers the powerful women accused of sorcery from the Middle Ages onwards. Another centres on female sexual liberation in the lively streets of the Pigalle neighbourhood, delving into the rebellious and subversive feminist roots of the French can-can dance now associated with the Moulin Rouge and the story of the venue's first known female clown, Cha-U-Kao. The tours are extensively researched by Marangé with the help of the historian and women’s rights specialist Claudine Monteil, who was a close friend of the legendary feminist Simone de Beauvoir. "We're not re-writing history, we are just telling a different story," says Marangé. "It's a different angle, a different perspective; really it's about making women visible in the story of humanity."
Amsterdam
Amsterdam's modern feminist history is inherently synonymous with the story of Anne Frank, the Jewish diarist who spent more than two years hidden in a secret annexe in the city alongside her family during World War Two and became one of the most famous victims of the Holocaust. These days, Anne Frank's House receives more than one million visitors annually – but the Dutch capital's gabled canal-front buildings have cultivated plenty of other female legends.
Many of them are brought to light on Martine Bontjes' Women of Amsterdam tour that loops through the city's historic centre, taking in the work of pioneering figures such as Lijsbeth Vaas, an 18th-Century undercover police officer. Bontjes, whose viewpoint is also inspired by her grandmother's experiences as a woman securing financial independence in post-WW2 Amsterdam, launched her popular tour in 2022 and now runs it every week. "It's something that so many women are now connected to, since there are so many laws now under pressure," she says. "I believe that this really is the time for women to come together and to share stories."
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The 70km Shimanami Kaido, webbed with fishing harbours, hillside citrus orchards and historic shrines, is often regarded as one of the world's most incredible bike journeys.
As I cycled along the asphalt road, the rural Japanese landscape of rolling hills merged with the sea at low tide. Rifts of sunlight gleamed dimly on the water, minutes before dusk. The small, round body of a stone-carved Jizo Bosatsu – a custodian Buddhist deity – was seated on the rocky shore, guarding people from maritime accidents. It felt like a scene from Japanese folklore.
On a month-long trip to Japan last November, I was actively looking to avoid the busy cities and experience a rural slice of the country instead. This was how I came across Shimanami Kaido, a 70km-long cycling route that links the main islands of Honshu and Shikoku, weaving through six smaller islands floating in the Seto Inland Sea, a vast body of water that spreads for 400km connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Japan.
For millennia, these small, mountainous islands were only accessible by boat until the Nishi Seto Expressway was constructed for road transport in 1999. The Shimanami Kaido cycle path runs parallel to the motorway, connecting Onomichi in Honshu Island to Imabari in Shikoku Island via some of the world's longest suspension bridges. Designated as Japan's first "National Cycling Route" in 2019, Shimanami Kaido, webbed with fishing harbours, hillside citrus orchards and historic shrines, is often regarded as one of the world's most incredible bike journeys.
Cyclist Mei Nakamura says that the trail offers a perfect mix of rural Japan's relaxed charm with opportunities to enjoy great cuisine and fresh seafood. "What makes the Shimanami Kaido special is that it's enjoyable for everyone," she explains, "from experienced road cyclists like myself to people who usually ride city bikes." And the slow, peaceful rhythm of the Seto Inland Sea creates a calm and welcoming vibe. "It's one of the things I love most about it."
Yet, it is more than just a cycling route that crisscrosses seaside villages. Yoshi Kubota, general manager of the boutique hotel Azumi Setoda in Ikuchijima Island – a key stop along the way – says that Shimanami Kaido can be a great model for addressing overtourism. Nearly 35 million tourists flocked to Japan in 2024, most of them visiting tourist sites in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. But as demand for cycle tourism grows globally, bike routes like Shimanami Kaido help bring visitors to other parts of Japan to experience a relaxing atmosphere, bucolic scenery and local culture.
"You can promote cycle tourism and encourage people to stay longer in smaller communities. It helps distribute visitors evenly while benefiting the local economy," Kubota says. "When you interact with locals, you get the feeling of actually living there. And you experience the slow life on the islands."
When I arrived at the small seaport city of Onomichi to begin my journey, I could see what Kubota was talking about. On a sunny autumn day it felt as if time had lost its meaning here. Families flocked to the harbourfront to enjoy matcha ice cream, lemonade bars lined the pedestrian alleys and narrow lanes cut through the hillside town past a series of Buddhist shrines known as the Temple Walk. As I climbed up to the famous Senkoji Temple, the cityscape unravelled before me. Cargo vessels were moored to the pier. Beyond them was a chain of jungle-studded islets, bound by the sea's vastness.
Although experienced cyclists can finish the entire 70km length in a few hours, I decided to cycle a 50km stretch over a single day. I was – quite ambitiously – armed with my experience as a child cyclist who leisurely pottered behind my father during his weekend rides in Sri Lanka. Luckily for me – and other beginners – Shimanamai Kaido is safe and easy to navigate, with luggage delivery services, rest spots, vending machines and bicycle repair shops along the way. The entire bike path is clearly indicated by a blue line painted on the side of the road, and is mostly car-free and flat with gradual inclines near the bridges with dedicated cycle passageways. Several companies offer bike rentals (including e-bikes), and cyclists can rent and drop off their bikes along the way.
Although a bridge connects Onomichi with the neighbouring Mukaishima Island, I opted for the short ferry ride between the two. When I rolled off the ferry in Mukaishima, I set off along the blue-lined pathway and rode past along the seafront, from where I could see the distant bridges of Shimanami Kaido as ferries drifted across the water. Before long, the next-door Iwashi Island came into view and I wheeled in along the circling road to my first crossing, the 770m-long Innoshima Bridge.
Over the next few hours, I took several detours through Innoshima Island. Although fit cyclists can ride up to Mount Shirataki along a steep, twisty road, many find it easier to tackle on foot. The observation deck, surrounded by 700 stone Buddhas, looks over the expressway that snakes past the green thicket before it joins the Innoshima bridge. Forested islands and the Inland Sea stretch off into the distance. It's said that the temple here was built by the Murakami Suigun, a maritime clan who controlled the trade in these treacherous sea routes from the 13th to 16th Centuries, and the island's Suigun Museum showcases their artefacts.
As I rode through Innoshima, patches of citrus groves clung to the hilly vistas, and I stopped for daifuku (Japanese rice cake) – stuffed with sweet, sour and slightly bitter local hassaku oranges – at the Hassakuya confectionery. With mild weather throughout the year and fewer typhoons, the Setouchi region (as the area surrounding the Seto Inland Sea is called) produces most of Japan's lemons. In fact, the town of Setoda on Ikuchijima Island, almost at the midpoint of Shimanami Kaido, is regarded as the origin of lemon cultivation in Japan. It's still a key production area, evident in a series of shops, restaurants and cafes that line the 600m picturesque main drag selling everything citrus-made from lemon ramen to lemon beer, tarts, cakes, juice and gelato.
After a long day, I decided to stay the night at a guesthouse. But first I headed to Setoda's Kosanji Temple. Built over a span of 30 years by the steel merchant Kosanji Kozo in memory of her mother, the temple's colourful pagoda replicates architectural styles from all over Japan and a dimly lit cave illustrates a Buddhist hell. It also houses an Italian white-marble garden called Miraishin no Oka (meaning "eternal hope for the future") with gleaming towers. A couple of blocks away, I soaked at the town's sento (public bath) where navy-blue mosaics cover the walls with murals of the sea.
In recent years, Setoda, like the surrounding islands, has seen a rise in accommodations, cafes and restaurants. When I spoke to Kubota later, she told me that Shimanami Kaido has helped revive the region where most locals have left for cities for better opportunities. With new businesses cropping up, she explained that some of the island's younger people are now returning home. As locals, too, frequent these establishments, it's now "gradually transforming the town", she says.
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The next afternoon, I set off for another 9km with the plan of returning to Setoda for one more night. The palm-lined cycle path followed the coast, from where I could see, hear and feel the rhythm of the Seto Inland Sea. As I continued, other cyclists rode past and men gathered to fish. Ferries sailed. Grandmothers rode their bikes with groceries. At Setoda Sunset Beach, families came together for a weekend picnic, their laughter filling the air.
I cycled past a few scattered settlements as the road ascended through lemon farms towards the impressive, 1,480m Tatara Bridge with its long, fan-like cables. After traversing my third bridge of the journey, I entered the island of Omoshima, where I watched local families setting up their tents on a camping ground as I munched on onigiri (rice balls) inside a small wooden hut next to a convenience store by the sea.
Heading back, I reached Setoda just in time for sunset. The waterfront was brimming with people catching the last light of the day. As I settled in for homemade lemonade from a nearby cafe, I thought about how cycling here helped me see a different side of Japan filled with stunning nature and the slow, idyllic atmosphere of the islands. By then, the novice cyclist in me was already planning a return trip next autumn.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly spelled Mukaishima Island. This has now been fixed.
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The cake is a sublime art form, involving numerous colours and flavours commingling into an oh-so-soft and delicious cake that hides a kaleidoscope of intricate geometric patterns.
The rich, buttery aroma of kek lapis (layer cake) greets me when I walk into Seri's (short for Sharifah Zainon) small baking studio at her home near Kuala Lumpur. The alluring aroma is not surprising, given that Malaysia is gearing up to celebrate Raya, which is short for Hari Raya (the Day of Celebration in Malay), and refers to the festive occasion marking the end of Ramadan. Kek lapis is an integral part of these festivities.
Seri puts her academic training as an engineer to good use in her current career as a baker. Watching her hands spreading the batter evenly on the pan, I think that baking a kek lapis is a bit like conducting a scientific experiment. Preparing this multi-layered Malaysian cake with colourful and complex patterns not only requires knowledge and skill, but also oodles of patience, an eye for precision and a steady hand.
A degree in the sciences seems to come in handy for kek lapis bakers, seeing the elaborate designs that Karen Chai, another engineer turned baker, creates at her baking studio in a quiet Kuala Lumpur suburb. When Chai returned to Malaysia after studying pastry arts at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, she decided to focus on kek lapis, using her mother's recipe as a starting point. "Learning about the science of baking has been very useful in making kek lapis," she said.
This layer cake first came to Malaysia from neighbouring Indonesia through the state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. In the mid-19th Century, Dutch colonisers introduced the plain European spit cake – made with layers of dough deposited one by one onto a cylindrical rotating spit – to the nation then known as Batavia (now Jakarta). Indonesians added local spices such as cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg and turned it into the lapis legit, often known as the thousand-layer cake.
Upon its arrival in neighbouring Malaysia in the 1970s, Sarawakians elevated the cake to a sublime art form, involving multiple layers and numerous colours and flavours commingling into the oh-so-soft and delicious kek lapis. While the classic kek lapis often looks like a plain loaf on the outside, cutting it reveals a kaleidoscope of intricate geometric patterns.
Also called the Sarawak layer cake, kek lapis typically has a minimum of 12 layers. The cake is created by carefully adding one thin layer of batter after another onto a baking pan every few minutes, broiling (or grilling) each layer in the oven to ensure the lower layers are never burnt. The plain version alternates light and dark strips of cake batter, whereas the coloured cakes have geometric patterns that, depending on the final pattern, can involve 20 or more layers.
The final cake is cooled and then cut into strips, with different pieces reassembled using thick jam or condensed milk as adhesive. Often, multiple cakes have to be baked, and pieces from each of them are assembled to create a complex pattern. This is then wrapped up in a thin cake layer of a single colour, or arranged between two sets of plain (ie, with no colours or patterns) multi-layered cakes.
If all this sounds confusing, then imagine what it is like for the baker. Even the most experienced of them first draws these patterns on paper, clearly marking out sizes and colours, after which they get to work with the batter. A complex design can take up to eight hours to complete, with several chances for error at every step in the assembly process.
Chai explains that as opposed to other complex layered cakes, it is particularly tough with kek lapis, since the error often becomes apparent only after the baker has finished assembling the pieces, "so all the hard work goes down the drain".
She then shows me photos of her mother's signature 16-piece design that was born out of an error in calculation. "She baked a few extra layers by mistake and didn't want to throw those pieces away. She just cut that up and tried to form another block, and this design came out. So this is not something that you will find from other bakers," she said.
Both Seri and Chai say that the long and laborious baking process is worth the reward of seeing a perfectly executed design. "But there are no short cuts," Chai warned. Indeed, seeing Seri at work, cutting and sticking these long strips together with a generous lashing of raspberry jam, brings to mind a complicated jigsaw puzzle slowly taking shape. "It's like therapy, [but] it's also fun and creative" she said.
When I visited in mid-February, the bakers had been working non-stop for weeks, fulfilling Raya orders received through their social media channels. Back in their hometowns in Sarawak, kek lapis is part of every holiday celebration, including Chinese New Year, Raya, Christmas and the midyear harvest festival of Gawai Dayak, cutting across communal and religious boundaries.
Seri's long-term client and self-professed cake lover, Farazaila Wahet, said, "This is an anytime cake for me, but of course for Raya, it is a must." The Sarawak native, who moved to Kuala Lumpur more than 10 years ago, said that the satisfaction she gets from kek lapis is unparalleled, because "the texture is heavier and the taste is richer compared to any other cake."
Kek lapis is available in many flavours, such as chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, red velvet and pandan (a tropical plant with a strong aroma, commonly used in Southeast Asian cooking). Even popular malted drinks like Horlicks and Milo are used for flavouring. And now, artisanal bakers like Seri and Chai are trying to modernise this traditional cake to make it relevant to younger generations, while also staying true to the original recipe.
Seri, for instance, makes exquisite chocolate batik art on the top layer to make her cakes even more attractive. "Batik is traditional to Malaysia, so is kek lapis, and I love to combine the two to create this new version," she said.
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Chai keeps experimenting not just with more complicated patterns, but also new ingredients and flavour pairings. In the past, she has created gluten-free kek lapis using coconut flour with peanut butter topping, and another unique version with fig, apricot and cinnamon.
Baking a good kek lapis requires a lot of time and high-quality ingredients, which means that they are also expensive, with prices going up to RM300 (roughly £50) or more for a square, one-kilogram cake. But thankfully for the small-batch bakers, this traditional cake is constantly in demand from individual clients and it's also gaining in popularity as corporate gifts and wedding favours.
These bakers are on a mission to maintain this Sarawak culinary tradition, despite all the long hours and thin margins. As Seri said, "Every time I make a kek lapis, it feels like a piece of home to me."
BBC.com's World's Table "smashes the kitchen ceiling" by changing the way the world thinks about food, through the past, present and future.
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A successful Mardi Gras used to be measured by how much waste it produced. Now, the world's largest free festival is trying to clean up.
The mood is festive as I board the pink and purple Mardi Gras float. Beautiful glass beads hang from hooks lined up above my head while burlap bags full of sustainable "throws" – the local moniker for items thrown to parade viewers, including biodegradable glitter and colourful but sustainably packaged beignet mix – sit at my feet. A jaunty brass rendition of the song "Do whatcha wanna", a Mardi Gras classic, fills the air as marching bands do quick practice runs of their sets. The Krewe of Freret, the first Mardi Gras parade to completely outlaw plastic throws, is ready to roll, kicking off a party that is both one of the most beloved and one of the most environmentally damaging festivals in New Orleans.
The Mardi Gras revelry in this city is known the world over. New Orleans welcomes millions of visitors during carnival season and more than 50 parades roll down the main streets of St Charles and Canal. Local bars and music venues are packed to the walls with tourists while elaborate Mardi Gras balls and other events meant mostly for locals happen behind closed doors. All in all, nearly $900m in income comes from the festivities, according to a recent Economic Impact study – almost 4% of the city's annual revenue.
The celebration lasts for more than a month, with "local" parades like the dog-themed Barkus, where people dress their furry friends in Mardi Gras costumes and parade them through the French Quarter, rolling as early as three weeks before the final – and most famous – parades on "Fat Tuesday". These often include celebrity guests, massive floats and the iconic and ubiquitous plastic beads thrown by the handful into the crowds.
Unfortunately, all this fun also leads to an equal amount of rubbish. It's estimated that Mardi Gras creates around 1,000 tons of waste every year. In 2018, 93,000lb of plastic beads were found clogging up the city's sewer system, a dire situation in a city that lies partially below sea level and whose sewer systems are needed to keep the city dry. After the parades, rubbish can be knee-deep in the streets, and beads and streamers hang from trees like the Spanish moss native to the area. Though the city's Department of Sanitation does an almost miraculous job of cleaning the streets between parades, refuse still makes its way into the waterways in and around the city, posing a threat to both wildlife and people.
This year, however, a coalition of grassroots organisations, and individual "krewes", the local groups responsible for putting on the Mardi Gras parades, are attempting a transformation with the help of the city and some supportive sponsors. From massive recycling projects to biodegradable throws, New Orleans is doing its best to clean up its act.
A party with a toxic problem
According to a 2020 report by the Ecology Center, the plastic used to make Mardi Gras beads is toxic, containing high concentrations of arsenic, chlorine and lead. Further, the report found strong evidence that these beads are made from recycled e-waste, plastic from electronics treated with flame retardants. The sheer volume of beads that end up in the streets and sewers raises fears that these toxins will leach into their surroundings. Indeed, the areas around parade routes have already been found to have elevated lead levels and some of the chemicals found in the beads have been linked to increased cancer risk.
For a city that's both at major risk of flooding and located in what's known as Cancer Alley – an 85-mile stretch along the banks of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge where residents have higher rates of cancer due to pollution from nearby petrochemical and manufacturing plants – continuing to throw a massive party that stands to increase the risk of both may seem ill advised. However, the tradition of cheap plastic throws in some ways fuels the entire event.
"It is the largest celebration in the world, but who pays for it?" asked Brett Davis, founding director of Grounds Krewe, one of the nonprofits spearheading the movement to make the festival more sustainable. "It's the parading organisations and the krewes themselves. They do it with membership dues, they do it with balls and fundraisers, but more and more over the last 20 years [they do it] by importing huge quantities of cheap parade throws and selling them to all the people in their krewe for like a 600% markup."
As Davis explains, the cheap beads are sold to locals or visitors who want to climb aboard a float and throw these trinkets to the crowds. And these sales fund the parades themselves, as it's the krewes, not the city, who put on Mardi Gras. A strict rule against any corporate advertising, intended to keep it feeling like a community event, makes it difficult to divest from the practice of selling plastic beads to members as throws.
And there's more at stake than just a free street party. Mardi Gras, and the traditions that take place in and around the festival, are part of the fabric of the city.
Reconciling tradition with sustainability
It's hard to overstate the importance of Mardi Gras in the larger culture of the New Orleans. Media representations of the event often focus on the drunken debauchery of Bourbon Street; however, most of the event is quite family friendly and something the entire city gets involved in. The Uptown parades, which take place on St Charles Avenue during the day, are crowded with children playing and elderly neighbours resting in lawn chairs waiting for the next float to pass by.
"Having the perspective of riding on a float and throwing what we're considering just junk beads to a young child… and their face lights up. It just brings tears to your eyes," said Linda Baynham, the Director of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility at the New Orleans Ernest N Morial Convention Center.
She says the practice of throwing to the crowd can be meaningful despite the mess it causes. "I like some beads," she added, showing off a small collection of purple, green and gold throws she'd already caught from passing floats that weekend. "If you get this much from one parade, there's nothing wrong with that. If there's no beads, it gets to be a little disappointing."
It's easy to see why locals and visitors are hesitant to give up the experience of "playing catch with a city", as several float riders put it. There's a community-building aspect to Mardi Gras that's hard to put into words, and for many, losing the traditions and celebrations that make up carnival season would feel like losing a major part of the city's soul. Simply outlawing throws altogether would likely lead to massive pushback from residents.
For Suzannah Powell, a producer and performing artist who serves as a sustainability advisor to the Krewe of Freret, part of her job was figuring out that balance between tradition and sustainability when making decisions about what is allowed on the floats and what isn't.
"We [still] have those plastic cups, which are everywhere. I'm a member of the plastic pollution coalition and in our ideal world, those things aren't even present. However, I actually advised that we should keep those as an offering because they're culturally such a huge thing," she explained. "They're a sought-after throw and people like to keep them and have different ones across different years. In terms of trying to make a cultural shift, I thought that those cups are specifically a really great example of the bridge that we're crossing. You can't just come in and start swiping everything up with a machete. You have to make concessions for where people are actually at."
So, what is the solution? Is it possible to make changes that will preserve the important cultural and financial benefits of Mardi Gras while also mitigating the extreme impact it has on the local environment?
New Orleans' recycling superheroes
One of the krewes that marches in the Boehme parade, one of the local parades that rolls through the French Quarter during the earlier part of the carnival season, is the Krewe of Recyclists. The group dresses up as comedic versions of recycling-themed superheroes, including Hans Can-Crusher, played by Kevin Fitzwilliam who is the founder of Atlas Beads, an organisation that distributes eco-friendly alternatives to plastic beads. Created as a pun based on Hans and Franz from Saturday Night Live, the character crushes cans with his muscles for recycling along the parade route to the amusement of party goers.
But New Orleans' recycling heroes are not just fictional characters created for carnival. The coalition of organisations, volunteers and sponsors that make up the Recycle Dat Initiative are working to help Mardi Gras, and the city of New Orleans, maintain both its traditions and the environment for years to come.
Started three years ago by Davis, Recycle Dat began as a handful of local volunteers with small recycling stations set up along the St Charles parade route, but has expanded exponentially since then, offering an alternative to the efficient, but less meticulous clean up done by the Department of Sanitation, which sends everything they capture to the landfill.
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Last year, Recycle Dat collected 4,302lb of aluminium cans, 4,288lb of glass and around 12,697lb of beads and throws. Now with a new larger, more visible set up, they expect those numbers to be even larger. This year, the programme launched Recycle World, an interactive recycling station on St Charles and Louisiana Avenues where festival goers can drop off their unwanted throws and rubbish, volunteer to help sort cans, bottles and throws for recycling and even participate in an art project created out of recyclable materials gathered on site.
Grounds Krewe are also instrumental in making sure alternatives to plastic beads are available to krewes during the season. The organisation offers a variety of sustainable throws, including jambalaya mix, soap and biodegradable glitter, to name just a few – all of which can be individually branded according to the krewe's themes.
For those still interested in throwing necklaces, Atlas Beads offers handmade creations by a women's collective in Uganda; their beautiful beaded necklaces, bracelets and earrings, lovingly spun from discarded magazine paper, are much more likely to be prized by parade-goers than left behind as rubbish.
A movement gaining momentum
In the end it's the krewes who decide which throws to use, but even there, a sustainable groundswell seems to be taking hold. This year was the first time that the Krewe of Freret completely outlawed plastic beads from their floats, opting instead to throw glass beads and other more useable items, a move they say garnered massive support from the community.
"The reaction [to Freret banning plastic beads] was huge," Powell said. "It actually sent ripples around the city. The [krewe's] website shut down that day because there was so much traffic and this was the biggest year that the Krewe of Freret has ever been. They had to add two additional floats just to accommodate the new members."
Not only did their actions encourage more members to join the Krewe of Freret, the grassroots movement to green carnival may also have inspired one of the largest Mardi Gras krewes, the Krewe of Rex, to experiment with using more sustainable throws, such as stainless-steel cups, wildflower kits and natural fibre tote bags. The Krewe of Rex are known as the "King of Carnival" because so many of the Mardi Gras traditions started with them – including the tradition of throwing beads – so their use of sustainable throws this year is a massive sign that things are changing.
Over two days, traversing the city of New Orleans from Uptown to the French Quarter, everyone I spoke to was thrilled to learn about the efforts to make Mardi Gras more sustainable. One visitor, who described wading through waist-deep debris to retrieve a dropped phone, was particularly enthused. There was also widespread interest, and ideas, regarding potential new kinds of throws, with suggestions ranging from local art to food to books.
Green or not, it's clear that no one wants to see the end of Mardi Gras. The question is whether this movement can catch on in time to make an impact on an already beleaguered urban ecosystem. Fitzwilliam believes the artists and activists working on the issue are on track to make it happen in classic New Orleans style: "Garnering support for a more environmentally friendly Mardi Gras is best accomplished by simply having more fun than the other side."
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Kemi Badenoch has said it is "impossible" for the UK to meet its net zero target by 2050 - a goal set by a previous Conservative government.
The UK is legally committed to reaching net zero by 2050 under a law passed by Theresa May in 2019. It means the UK must cut carbon emissions until it removes as much as it produces, in line with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
Badenoch said net zero cannot be achieved by 2050 "without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us".
The Conservative leader did not set out a replacement for the target, but her words mark a sharp break from years of political consensus.
A source close to Badenoch said the Conservative leader still backs net zero, but not by 2050.
In a preview of a speech on Tuesday, Badenoch called lower energy costs and environmental protection "noble aims" but said current policies were "largely failing" to improve nature, while raising energy prices.
She said: "We're falling between two stools - too high costs and too little progress.
"Net zero by 2050 is impossible.
"I don't say that with pleasure. Or because I have some ideological desire to dismantle it - in fact, we must do what we can to improve our natural world."
She will say she is not making a "moral judgment" on net zero or debating whether climate change exists.
But she said her Tory party is going to "deal with the reality" of the target, something she argues Labour and past Conservative governments ignored.
Badenoch's speech kicks off a new chapter in her leadership, launching an overhaul of Conservative policies - starting with energy and net zero.
Badenoch won her party's leadership on a promise to return the Conservatives to "first principles" before setting out detailed policies.
In her speech, Badenoch will announce details of a "policy renewal programme" - putting each of her shadow cabinet in charge of a policy area.
* reducing air travel
* minimising energy use
* improving home insulation and energy efficiency
* switching to electric vehicles
* replacing gas central heating with electric systems such as heat pumps
* cutting consumption of red meat
A Labour spokesperson said: "Kemi Badenoch claims she's ready to 'deal with reality' while remaining in complete denial about the reality of the Tories' appalling record in government.
"The Tory leader's position is at odds with her own historic views. In government, she openly championed net zero.
"It's clear the Conservatives stand for nothing and have learned absolutely no lessons. They haven't changed."
As a minister, Badenoch promoted the 2050 target as "crucial" to "achieve a cleaner, green future".
Some Conservative voices criticised her latest move.
Sam Hall, Director of the Conservative Environment Network, called it a "mistake" and argued Badenoch's speech "undermines the significant environmental legacy of successive Conservative governments".
He said Badenoch was right to criticise Labour's approach, but argued "the net zero target is driven not by optimism but by scientific reality; without it climate change impacts and costs will continue to worsen".
But Lord Craig Mackinlay, a Conservative peer and net zero sceptic, praised Badenoch's "reality check" on the 2050 target.
"Most of the world has already given up any pretence that it is affordable or achievable," said Lord Mackinlay, founder of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group.
"Intermittent renewables that only stack up on the back of buckets of taxpayer cash are not the answer when we need cheap, reliable and secure energy."
Her comments suggest she is not expecting to go as far as Reform UK, which has called for net zero targets to be scrapped in their entirety.
Last month, Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice said his party "will scrap net stupid zero" if it won the next general election, and recover money paid in subsidies to wind and solar companies via a series of new taxes.
When Storm Babet hit the town of Trowell in Nottingham in 2023, Claire Sneddon felt confident her home would not be affected.
After all, when she bought the property in 2021, she was told by the estate agent that a previous flood the year before, which had reached but not effected the property, was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and that flooding measures to protect the properties on the cul-de-sac would be put in place.
However, when Storm Babet tore through the UK two years later, Ms Sneddon's home flooded after several days of rain.
"We knew there would be water on the cul-de-sac but no one expected it to flood internally again. However, water entered the property for five hours," she said.
"It reached to the top of the skirting boards. We had to have all the flooring, woodwork and lower kitchen replaced, which took nearly 12 months."
Their final insurance bill was around £45,000.
She says they were fortunate to have qualified for a government scheme providing affordable insurance for homeowners in areas of high-flood risk.
Although she loves the area, her neighbours and the house, the weather is now a cause of stress. "We constantly worry about the weather, if it is going to rain longer than a couple of days or there is a named storm.
"We do wish we had taken more steps to understand the risk. The survey showed that the property was in a medium flood zone but there wasn't much detail other than flood zone maps."
Climate change is increasing the likelihood and intensity of natural disasters such as floods, wildfires and hurricanes.
While it might be too late for Ms Sneddon and other homeowners, new tools are being developed to help people and companies assess climate risk.
Last December, the UK Environment Agency updated its National Flood Risk Assessment (NaFRA), showing current and future flood risk from rivers, the sea and surface water for England.
It used its own data alongside that of local authorities and climate data from the Met Office.
It also brought up to date the National Coastal Erosion Risk Map (NCERM). They were both last updated in 2018 and 2017 respectively.
The new NaFRA data shows as many as 6.3 million properties in England are in areas at risk of flooding from rivers, the sea or surface water, and with climate change this could increase to around 8 million by 2050.
"We have spent the last few years transforming our understanding of flood and coastal erosion risk in England, drawing on the best available data... as well as improved modelling and technological advances," said Julie Foley, director of flood risk strategy at the Environment Agency.
"When we account for the latest climate projections, one in four properties could be in areas at risk of flooding by the middle of the century."
The Environment Agency plans to launch a portal where users can check their long-term flood risk.
Similar resources exist for Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales through the ABI.
"We can no longer rely on historical data," says Lukky Ahmed, co-founder of Climate X.
The London-based climate risk firm offers a digital twin of the Earth, which simulates different extreme weather events and their potential impact on properties, infrastructure and assets under different emissions scenarios.
It combines artificial intelligence with physics-based climate models.
"While many climate models might tell you how much rainfall to expect, they don't say what happens when that water hits the ground," says
"Our models simulate, for example, what happens when the water hits, where it travels and what the impact of the flooding will be.
While banks are lenders are testing their product, property companies are currently using their services when considering new developments.
"They log into our platform and identify locations and existing building stock and in return they receive risk rating and severity metrics tied to hazards," says Mr Ahmed.
Many parts of the world have much more extreme weather than the UK.
In the US in January, devastating wild fires tore through parts of Los Angeles. Meanwhile hurricane Milton, which landed last October, is likely to be one of the costliest hurricanes to hit west Florida.
To help insurers manage those costs, New York-based Faura analyses the resilience of homes and commercial buildings.
"We look at the different elements of a property to understand how likely it is to survive and pinpoint resilience and survivability of a property," says Faura co-founder Valkyrie Holmes.
"We tell companies and homeowners whether their property will still be standing after a disaster, not just whether a disaster will happen in an area," he adds.
Faura bases its assessments on satellite and aerial imagery and data from surveys and disaster reports.
"Insurance companies technically have the data to be able to do this but have not build out the models to quantify it," says Mr Holmes.
Other services are popping up for homebuyers. For the properties it markets, US firm Redfin, estimates the percentage chance of natural disasters, such as flooding and wildfires, occurring up to the next 30 years across each property.
"If people are looking at two homes with the same layout in the same neighbourhood, then climate risk will make or break [their decision]," says Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather.
As for Ms Sneddon, following her personal experience, she now works for flood risk company The FPS Group.
"Flood risk is only going to get worse over the coming years so it is essential to find out as much as you can about the flood risk to a property," she advises.
"Flooding has a huge impact on communities and mental health. You are supposed to feel safe in your home, it shouldn't be a place of worry and anxiety."
Views are being sought on proposed updates for three conservation areas in part of south Devon.
Torbay Council said online and paper surveys had been set up for the new conservation area appraisals for Torquay Harbour, Paignton Old Town and Brixham Town.
In October, the council said it had decided to update the appraisals - which analyse elements of an areas' special architectural or historic interest - through a partnership with the National Lottery Heritage Fund's Heritage Places scheme.
The council said the surveys would remain open until 7 April and public events to discuss the plans had been arranged in Torquay, Paignton and Brixham.
Council bosses said the authority had entered into a 10-year partnership with the lottery in a bid to support the bay's heritage.
It was decided to review the three chosen appraisals as they had not been updated for at least 15 years, the council said.
The authority added the updates to the conservation area appraisals would include a review of the boundaries of each area.
'Celebrating local heritage'
Councillor Jackie Thomas, cabinet member for tourism, culture and events, said the council would "love" to hear local views.
She said: "As a council we are committed to protecting and celebrating our local heritage.
"This work will also complement a range of other projects currently taking place in the Bay, such as the public realm works in Torquay and Paignton and investment in Brixham Harbour, as well as the delivery of the Torbay Heritage Strategy 2021-2026."
The council said the first two public events to look at the plans would be held from 10:00 GMT to 14:00 in Unit 24 at the Fleet Walk upper gallery on Wednesday and Saturday.
Events had also been planned at Paignton Library and Community Hub on 25 and 28 March from 10:00 to 14:00, officials said.
Two sessions in Brixham had been organised at the Scala Hall on 1 April and in Fore Street on 4 April, both running from 10:00 to 14:00, they added.
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The first turbines for a major wind farm off the East Yorkshire coast will be installed "in the coming weeks", officials have said.
A purpose-built vessel, the Wind Peak, has arrived in Hull to carry components across 80 miles (129km) of the North Sea to the site on the Dogger Bank.
Officials said the vessel, which is 162m (530ft) long and 60m wide, was capable of transporting and installing seven turbine sets per load.
Sven Utermöhlen, the chief executive of RWE, which is developing the wind farm, said it was the energy firm's "largest offshore construction project globally" and was on track to generate its first power this year.
RWE said more than half of the turbine foundations had been installed, along with substations and cabling.
The first of 150 wind turbine blades, manufactured in Hull by Siemens Gamesa, are also ready for installation. Each will be recyclable, which the firm has described as "pioneering".
Mark Becker, the head of offshore at Siemens Gamesa, said: "This is a major landmark moment: Sofia, one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world, will be the first in UK waters to feature this industry-leading innovation."
Officials said the wind farm was expected to generate 1.4GW of electricity and feed energy to more than a million homes by the end of the year.
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Three villages are set to benefit from solar panels following funding of £50,250.
Peterborough City Council (PCC) said Marholm Village Hall Trust, Wansford Parish Council and Northborough Parish Council will get help towards new solar panels and lighting to help reduce carbon emissions and energy costs.
The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA) provided the funding as part of the Net Zero Villages initiative, which will see solar panels and solar lighting installed on buildings owned by the groups.
Having declared a climate emergency in 2019, the authority said it is committed to reducing its organisational emissions to net zero by 2030.
Previously, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reported that PCC needed an investment of £8.8bn to help meet its 2040 net zero carbon emissions target.
This came as the council launched the second phase of the Local Area Energy Plan (LAEP) to accelerate its carbon reduction and reach its climate targets.
Councillor Angus Ellis, cabinet member for environment and transport, said: "We are fully committed to working with partners and community groups to help reduce carbon emissions and are making good progress with this ongoing vital work.
"I would like to thank everyone involved in this project for their efforts and I look forward to seeing the new solar panels and lights installed. I'm sure that this work will have a positive effect in these communities for years to come."
Dr Nik Johnson, Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, said: "The net zero villages initiative is a vital programme empowering rural communities with the funding they need to make environmentally friendly changes and achieve our national carbon net zero goals."
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After thousands of rare Chilean cacti were found in the house of an Italian collector, a years-long trial slowly unravelled how they got there – and is setting a precedent for dealing with crimes of this kind.
At first sight, orange and off-white shards of rocks surrounded by dust and dirt are all you can see for thousands of desolate kilometres in the Atacama Desert of Chile. This is one of the driest places on Earth. Looking around, it feels impossible that any speck of life could survive.
But reaching out of nooks in the cracked crust along the desert's coast, there lie thousands of Copiapoa cacti. A cactus group made up of more than 30 species, Copiapoa are found only in Chile. They grow a mere centimetre each year in scorching, breathtaking desert conditions by absorbing the local evening fog, known as camanchaca.
These rare, aubergine-shaped succulents exemplify life's ability to adapt to extremes – one of the traits that has made them highly sought after by plant collectors.
They've also just been at the heart of a landmark trial over an international cactus heist that might revolutionise how biodiversity crimes are dealt with the world over.
Ranging from dark grey to blueish-green, and from the size of a coin to that of a small car, Copiapoa have thick dark spines along their geometrical ridges. Their fluffy friars head flowers white, yellow and sometimes orange once a year.
While they might look unassuming at first, their beauty, resilience and rarity have certainly not been lost on Andrea Piombetti.
A well-known personality in the Italian plant world, Piombetti has been cactus collector and trader for decades and is said to take great pride in his unique knowledge of the realm. His Facebook profile picture is a rugged backpack sitting on top of a cluster of cacti in the field. His WhatsApp status reads: "The King of the Cactus Pirates". He's been spotted clad in a jacket with "The King of Chile" printed on its back.
When called on his mobile number for this story, though, he refused to comment and hung up without saying a word. His lawyers were also contacted, but refused to comment.
In 2013, customs at Milano Malpensa Airport intercepted an unusual shipment of 143 cactus plants with visibly suspicious forged phytosanitary documents directed straight to his house in Senigallia, Ancona. Upon further inspection, police found even more boxes of cacti at his home and the home of a friend in a town nearby.
The team's botany expert was able to rapidly identify the cacti were Copiapoa, many of older than Piombetti himself. Soil forensics soon found they had been illicitly extirpated from their natural habitat in Chile and had no business in this man's home. Police issued an internal police warning across Europe about the discovery and the Italian government initiated prosecution. The case's statute of limitations, however, expired before the case verdict.
The case was dropped, and Lt Col Simone Cecchini, chief of the trade of endangered species unit of the local police force, believed any illicit trading had ceased. But when Cecchini returned to Piombetti's home again in February 2020, after receiving a complaint the collector had allegedly snuck out a rare sapling from a local nursery owned by botanist Andrea Cattabriga, Piombetti was resistant to letting the police into his home. He barricaded himself for about 10 minutes, says Cecchini.
Police did not find the rare sapling there, but once they gained entry what they found started a "much more interesting" case, says Cecchini. More than 1,000 Copiapoa cacti sat on Piombetti's veranda and in another locked room that he initially told police he'd lost the key for, together with other rare cacti. "It was by chance," says Cecchini of the discovery.
Piombetti also said he'd lost his passport, but police soon found it had been slid on top of his wardrobe. "He'd maybe thrown it there in a rush," says Cecchini. The document confirmed he'd visited Chile five times between 2016 and 2019.
Records found on his laptop and mobile helped police identify a close local accomplice, Mattia Crescentini, as well as a network of 10 other illegal plant traders and 10 regular buyers. The plants were usually sold online through specialised auction websites and bought by people with private ornamental collections all over the world. Crescentini posted his cactus on an Instagram account called Cactus_Italy. A Japanese buyer who works in the fashion industry, for instance, had been sending Piombetti sums of €2,500 (£2,100/$2,600) each month. Piombetti was also buying plants himself for hundreds of dollars.
The stolen plants discovered on that day were valued by the police at higher than €1m (£800,000/$1.1m).
Pictures of the crime scene were sent for plant identification – including to Cattabriga, who is local cactus expert. "These were incredible plants, they were ancient plants, hundreds of years old," says Cattabriga. Piombetti is known for having a keen, selective eye for high-quality specimens and precise collective methods, Cattabriga says. "They were perfect."
Forensic botanists from the botanical garden of Milan ran soil analyses to confirm that about 1,000 Copiapoa plants had been illicitly extracted straight from the Atacama Desert, and several hundred smaller, juvenile plants had been grown and propagated from seeds collected during those extirpation stints. While seed collecting in the wild is not illegal in Chile, removing and exporting plants without proper documentation is. In Italy, importing plants into the country without documentation is illegal, while Copiapoa are also protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites).
The cacti had been shipped from Chile to Greece and Romania, then to Italy. Another seizure in November 2020 found more illegally traded cacti from the United States, Mexico and Argentina.
The case was dubbed Operation Atacama and has become known as one of the largest illegal cactus operations to date in Europe. As a result, the Italian government initiated a new prosecution against Piombetti and his accomplice in 2020 for breaking the Cites convention. The ensuing five-year trial, which ended in January 2025, resulted in many firsts in the history of biodiversity crimes.
For one, after being seized by the police, about 840 of the stolen Copiapoa were sent back to Chile. "This is biodiversity patrimony, and it should go back to Chile. It wasn't even a question for me what should have been done with the plants," says Barbara Goettsch, co-chair of the IUCN SSC Cactus and Succulent Plants Specialist Group.
She helped design a protocol for the plants to be safely repatriated, quarantined and safeguarded. "I don't know of any other case where plants have been sent back to their country," says Goettsch. "I think it was definitely a success."
The cacti are now in an Atacama Desert greenhouse managed by the National Forest Corporation of Chile (Conaf), although some local reports suggest some of the plants may have gone missing. Conaf did not respond to a request for comment about their status, and said it could not grant the BBC access to the greenhouse until April 2025.
Despite their extreme resilience – having survived trips to the other side of the world and back – the confiscated plants will never truly return home. They cannot be reintroduced into the wild as there are no records of which areas they came from in the first place. They will likely be used for genetic and botanical research and propagation experiments. In the meantime, Goettsch's team has developed the nation's first Copiapoa conservation action plan to strategise future safeguarding efforts in the wild, set for official publication in March 2025.
After hours of walking in the Atacama Desert, it becomes almost difficult to breathe. Yet Mauricio Gonzalez and Rodrigo Castillo, two middle-aged men each with a slight limp in their walk, are climbing the huge desert hills questing for their beloved Copiapoa.
"This one is maybe 100 years old," Gonzalez says, pointing at a girthy cactus leaning crooked to the left, sprouting out of a crack in the chapped land.
Gonzalez and Castillo are part of the Caminantes del Desierto (desert walkers) a group of volunteer educators who spread awareness of desert flora and fauna in the Chilean region of Antofagasta.
Copiapoa is one of their favourite cacti to encounter. "They've evolved over years and years and years to adapt to this territory," says Gonzalez, the president of the group.
Piombetti is far from the only cactus connoisseur with an interest in these rare succulents. The Caminantes say many less-experienced locals get contracted online by international collectors and get sent to rob the Copiapoa in bulk. They can end up eradicating any and all plants they find along the way, often leaving some uprooted ones on the path behind them. At least three or four times a year, the Caminantes find some of their favourite trails have been wiped out completely. Whenever they post a picture from one of their walks, they field hundreds of ill-intentioned messages on social media.
"There are trends, this year Copiapoa atacamensis is the most fashionable," says Gonzalez, whose usual trail includes sightings of the species atacamensis, cineria and the rarer solaris. "We see it very clearly, once somebody has it, everybody else wants to have it too.
Sometimes the volunteers hide their favourite plants under rock slates to conceal them from potential poachers. Since the cacti tend to have highly localised endemisms with small populations found only in specific sites, poachers can wipe out a whole species with a couple of flicks of a chisel, they say.
An increase in road construction and irregular housing has allowed more and more people to access the harsh and secluded desert habitat where Copiapoa live. "You open the window for poaching," says Pablo Guerrero, a cactus researcher at the Universidad de Concepción in Chile. Social media has also made it easier for collectors to find each other, while regulation and enforcement are much slower to catch up.
"Most countries in the world are very naive in the face of this kind of poaching," says Guerrero. "They say, 'They're plants, who cares, they're cacti, they all look the same'."
Poaching is not the only threat facing Copiapoa. Most of the cacti we encounter on this daytime expedition are dying. They are shrivelling up, collapsing onto themselves and turning black like ash due to the desert's rising temperatures, fluctuations in rainfall patterns and rapid changes in moisture patterns along the coast. The camanchaca fog is changing trajectory, and Copiapoa is now becoming a legacy of millennia when the environment was different from today's. Changes in land use and the expansion of the local mining industry also pose a threat to the plants.
The Caminantes organise yearly cactus watering tours, but it's little in the face of the desert's extended droughts. "Yeah this one is dying," says Castillo, nudging a dark, deflated sack of spines. "This one too."
Research by the scientists Guerrero and Goettsch found that 76% of all Copiapoa species are endangered due to climate change and illegal trafficking.
"They are in very rapid decline," says Guerrero "Some will go extinct in the wild soon, it is very dramatic."
The raid and ensuing court case didn't stop Piombetti. In September 2024, while still pending judgement in Italy, he flew to Chile one more time. He was arrested at the airport upon landing in Santiago, as he was now also wanted for illegal wildlife trafficking in Chile. Cecchini says a Chilean prosecutor reached out to him personally on WhatsApp after hearing about the repatriation of the smuggled cacti in February 2024, and as a result he initiated a case against Piombetti. The collector underwent a fast-tracked trial in an Atacama court and Chilean authorities fined him 5,000,000 pesos (£4,200/$5,300) and banned him from entering the country for 10 years. Such ban from the country is likely the most effective deterrent from future smuggling, Cecchini says.
On 31 January 2025, the Italian court issued a first-instance decision, seen by the BBC, against Crescentini and Piombetti. It sentenced Piombetti to 18 months' imprisonment and a fine of €25,000 (£21,000/$26,000) and Crescentini to 12 months' imprisonment and a fine of €18,000 (£15,000/$19,000). The verdict was published on 14 February and the defendants now have 30 days to appeal.
For biodiversity experts, though, the court case also produced another ground-breaking outcome.
The court recognised that Piombetti's crime wasn't just against the law; it was against nature. The cactus conservation organisation Associazione per la Biodiversità e la sua Conservazione (ABC), founded by Cattabriga, was included in the case as an affected civil party. Piombetti and his accomplice now have to pay an additional €20,000 (£17,000/$21,000) in civil remedies to ABC as reparations for the damage done to their conservation work. The funds will be directly invested into cacti research, awareness and conservation, according to Cattabriga.
"We're giving to plants a right, a right to not be destroyed, because they are beings," says Cattabriga.
More like this:
• The rewilded golf courses teeming with life
• Why some animals thrive on being alone
• The farmers protecting Nepal's snow leopards
Too often nature itself doesn't get any justice in crimes against biodiversity, says Jacob Phelps, a lecturer in tropical environmental change and policy at Lancaster University and co-founder of the biodiversity law organisation Conservation-Litigation.org, which consulted on the case. The case outcome sets a precedent to create a system of retribution for the harm caused to the environment, he says.
Some similar verdicts have been reached in the past. For instance, in 2019 a French national park received compensation for ecological harm caused by fish poachers, and in 2021 an Indonesian environmental non-profit sued a local zoo for keeping protected species at its zoo without legal permission. "But they are rare," says Phelps.
There is an under-explored option to have biodiversity organisations "act like the Lorax and speak for the trees", says Phelps, who wrote a paper describing these legal frameworks in the journal Conservation Letters. "These types of legal provisions exist in loads of countries, but they've never been used, or if they've been used, they've been used erratically… This case is really important because it shows us that we can do this."
In an effort to replicate such success, Phelp's team already has similar cases under development at various stages in Uganda, the Philippines and Indonesia. "It's slow to convince the government to have the courage to use this," says Phelps. "But we think of this as a new wave of green litigation."
But Gonzalez and Castillo, as they patrol the desert as volunteer custodians of the Copiapoa, are hesitant about its future. "I don't believe in fairytales," says Gonzalez, lighting himself another cigarette halfway through the trek. "I tell it how it is."
While the volunteers hope the trial's outcome can help raise awareness of the dangers of wildlife poaching, they know the verdict is far from a silver bullet. During our afternoon trip in the desert, we only meet four other cars. Anybody could hop out of their vehicle and slice up millions of years of species evolution, adaptation and resilience. They'd go unnoticed.
And droughts will continue to shrink up the plants from their insides no matter how many times the Caminantes walk out into the open desert with their watering cans.
Still, there is excitement in their eyes as the sun starts to set and they reach their final destination of the day. In a dip between two hills of the coast, where the camanchaca fog is so thick above us it feels like the sky has dropped closer to the Earth, there are Copiapoa everywhere.
This whole Western slice of land is freckled with the rare succulents. Some have up to 20 thick, water-filled branches and others flaunt small baby ones just a couple of years old. Several have flowered in the past couple of days and others are on the brink of their next bloom.
"We've found one," says Castillo, pointing to a Copiapoa being pollinated by a small red ant, right as we peek inside its blossom.
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India's bristle worms are often overlooked. But they are crucial to the health of the country's wetlands – which is why local women are working to catch the poachers decimating their population.
Jyothi, 40, will never forget the day she almost died. The morning started off like any other at Pulicat Lake, part of one of three important wetlands that attracts monsoon rain clouds from October to December. Located on the east coast of India, 50km (30 miles) from the city of Chennai, Pulicat Lake is an enchanting lagoon, roughly half the size of the city of London. Pink flamingos dot its sandy banks. Migratory birds flock to its many islets in their thousands, while fishermen cast their nets into the glassy waters.
On that day in May 2022, Jyothi, who goes by only one name, had set off to work by 09:00 with 10 other women. Rain had soaked the mud paths, making the way treacherously slippery, but the women were adept at navigating the rough terrain. Their job was to wade ankle-deep in the marshy waters of the lagoon's inlets, hunting for fresh fish, shrimp and crab. Two to three kilos of catch, a good day's haul, could fetch ₹500 (£5/$6.25).
As Jyothi waded into the lagoon, she felt something close over her right foot. She slipped. Her head went under. Entangled in the roots and shrubs, she couldn't surface on her own. Terrified, gulping marshy water, she only avoided drowning thanks to the other women who pulled her to safety.
After she was back on the marshy banks, she looked closely at what had caused her to slip. It was a white bucket, the width of her foot. When she had accidentally stepped into it and lost her balance, she couldn't pry it off. Now she saw why it was there: shimmering inside were squiggling, translucent pink creatures known as bristle worms, or polychaetes.
Ten species of polychaetes have been identified so far at Pulicat, all of them endemic. They are a crucial part of the lagoon's ecosystem. Among other roles, they are a main source of food for its fish and crustaceans – which feed not only humans, like those who buy catch from Jyothi, but birds and animals too.
The worms also are a prize of local poachers. Often, the poachers fix empty buckets, like the one that had caught Jyothi's foot, in the muddy floors of the shallow waters to fill with worms, collecting them later. They sell the worms as feed to the dozens of aquaculture farms, many illegal, that dot the banks of Pulicat.
"I realised at that moment that it was human greed, and not the worms itself, that almost cost me my life," Jyothi says now.
But Pulicat's worm poaching threatens other consequences for Jyothi – and for the entire area.
"Pulicat Lake is what is known as an 'ecotone' – a transition zone between two ecosystems, in this case, land and water," says soil biologist and ecologist Sultan Ahmed Ismail, one of the pioneers of worm research in India. The species that thrive in these ecotones, called "edge species", are integral to the ecosystem's wellbeing. The polychaetes are among these edge species, particularly a group of worms called nereis.
Like fish, these nereids need the dissolved oxygen in the saline waters to survive. They get this oxygen by burrowing into the soil and breathing through the surface of their bodies; some species have external gills. They eat detritus: the organic matter produced by the decomposition of other organisms and waste products that settles at the water bottom. This detritus contains dead phytoplankton, which is highly nutritious for fish, crabs and other crustaceans, says Ismail.
The fish and crustaceans rely on this detritus, which they get by consuming the worms. While it may seem more efficient for the fish and crabs to directly eat the detritus, there are several reasons why they prefer to eat the worms themselves, says Ismail. The nutrients from the detritus concentrate in the worms; the worms also are easier to digest than the detritus itself. "These poachers aren't just stealing worms, they're destroying an entire ecosystem by breaking the food chain, a vital link that keeps it together," says Ismail.
"When natural predators take away the worms, it's a gradual process and they're soon replenished. But when hundreds and thousands of worms are dug out of the soil and taken away by force, their numbers cannot be replenished at the same rate. There aren't enough adult worms left to accomplish that," Ismail says.
If the worms start to dwindle, so will the fish, crab and the livelihoods of locals, including Jyothi.
"Worm poaching has been happening for years, and it's particularly affecting the livelihoods of 2,000 tribal women who depend on hand fishing for a living in these parts," says S Meerasa, founder and director of the non-governmental organisation the Mangrove Foundation of India.
The poachers usually sell the worms to fish farms, which pay 1,000-4,000₹ (£10-40/$12-50) to poachers for every kilogram of worms they harvest. The worms are fed to fish and prawns. "The amino acids in the worms add to the colour of the fish, so they're in great demand," says Ismail. While some fishing is legal, there are also numerous illegal farms in Pulicat, which are frequently ordered to shut down.
"The poachers steal the worms in broad daylight, and they usually start digging from 6:00," says Lakshmi, 60, who hauls fish with Jyothi and also goes by one name. "They've erected makeshift sheds and pitched tents on the outskirts of our villages." The women describe the poachers as "brash and thoughtless". They've scooped out so many worms from the soil that there are now huge craters along the wetlands, they say, some two or three feet deep. "Elderly people who are afraid of falling into them have stopped handpicking," Lakshmi says.
"I have friends and neighbours who have been badly hurt," Jyoti adds. "Some have broken hands and legs, and worst of all, hips, while falling into the craters."
The pockmarked wetlands are a serious hazard to everyone. But the stress on the ecosystem is also concerning. "Ten years ago, I could walk a kilometre from my home and handpick fish from the mangroves outside," Jyoti says. "Today, we need to walk 5km to the nearest handpicking spot and even there, fish and crab which once used to be abundant are dwindling at an alarming rate."
There is also a vicious cycle that will occur as the worms become scarcer, Ismail says. The fewer there are, the less arable the soil becomes. And the less arable the soil becomes, the fewer worms will survive. "These are very sensitive worms," he says. "Any change in the water content and the salinity of the soil (which can happen when poachers dig out chunks of them) can affect the remaining ones too."
It isn't just animals that are suffering from the worms' decline. Worm poaching could be one of the causes for a slow decline of mangrove vegetation at Pulicat Lake, Meerasa says. This is a problem, as mangroves reduce the risk of soil erosion, protect coasts from tsunamis, and aid in the capture of carbon that can slow global warming.
Various NGOs, including the Mangrove Foundation of India, have tried to fill the ecological gaps. Since 2021 alone, the Mangrove Foundation has planted around 50,000 mangrove saplings. In 2012, Meerasa says they began a community effort to dig canals to support the transplanted mangroves. In some spots of the lagoon, especially in interior villages, a lack of water circulation for the mangroves was a growing problem. Digging the canals was a community effort, however, the worm poachers have hampered progress. "When they dig up the worms, they end up filling in the mud bunds of the canal with dirt and silt, impeding the water flow and disrupting our efforts."
With the government authorities taking little action, locals say, it has been up to nearby communities – particularly handpickers like Jyoti and Lakshmi – to try to oppose the poachers. "Women from our community have chased poachers away from key handpicking areas. We've taken turns standing vigil at many spots around our village," says Jyoti. The Tamil Nadu Forest Department, which oversees the region, did not respond to the BBC's requests for comment.
Some villages have had more luck than others. In the Palaverkadu area of Pulicat, locals say worm poaching has reduced substantially.
With other women from the union, Veeramal, who goes by one name, has taken a three-step strategy: watching out for suspicious activity, trying to speak to the would-be poachers, and finally, reporting them. Not reporting them to the authorities, but to a network of fishermen and other prominent members of the community, who then try to reason with the poachers further. "When women put their mind to it, they can do anything," says Veeramal, 46, a former treasurer of the Thiruvallur District Fish Worker Welfare Association, a local union.
"We are hyper-alert to small groups of men who may not be from our particular village. When we see them skulking around, especially with trowels, shovels and buckets, we know that they're here to poach worms," she says. "I engage firmly and kindly… I talk to them about the repercussions of what they're doing." Sometimes she says the reasoning works, and the men retreat – at least on that occasion.
It doesn't always work. If she finds that the men are rude, physically abusive or just not open to discussion, she calls on her network. "I call the men of our village, and they take over," she says. "Instinctively, if I suspect a group of poachers could be violent, I call to report them before engaging. But we've never given up on engagement."
This approach has not worked in all of the surrounding villages. Often, women say, villagers themselves are bribed to look the other way. "We can't be everywhere and their numbers keep increasing," says Jyoti.
Officials from the Tamil Nadu Forest Department, responsible for law enforcement in the Pulicat area, did not respond to the BBC's requests for comment.
Worm poaching is not just limited to Pulicat. "Worm poaching is a problem across India," says Ismail. "We just don't hear about it." The worms are found in similar ecosystems in parts of Mumbai, Kochi and Chilika Lake in Odisha, which is India's largest brackish water ecosystem.
The solution Ismail suggests may seem surprising: not punishing the poachers, but rather legalising the worm trade, restricting it to a very small area of Pulicat Lake. This would keep poachers from running roughshod over the entire ecosystem, he says. And in this predefined area, the worms can be cultured from the larval stage to meet the needs of the aquaculture industry. This would require careful monitoring, he says. Meerasa adds that this could be coupled with significantly raising fines for illegal activity.
"[Poachers] are only thinking of the here and now, the money they will earn today, but what about tomorrow?" Veeramal asks. "In the end, we try to tell them that what they're stealing aren't just worms – it's our future."
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It is a world cut off from our own by thick blankets of floating ice, but some scientists are taking the plunge to learn how these frozen depths are changing.
There is a 70cm-thick (28in) layer of ice capping the surface of this lake, in a remote corner of Lapland, northern Finland. Gathered around a hole cut into the ice is a group of around 20 people, peering down into the inky depths with some trepidation. The seemingly lifeless water below the ice has a temperature only slightly above 0C (32F). Some of them are about to jump down there to venture under the ice.
Sophie Kalkowski-Pope is one of the divers preparing to visit this strange, upside-down world where she will swim below a ceiling of smooth ice. The marine biology graduate from the University of Queensland, Australia, is part of an ice-diving training party that has gathered here. She is wearing a dry suit and anticipating the initial cold shock when that frigid water will hit the exposed skin on her face.
It's so numbing in these Arctic waters that, even with thermal clothing and special insulating gloves, divers find it hard to use their hands after just 30 minutes underwater. There are other dangers, too, so strict safety protocols are in place. Divers are tethered to the surface using a safety rope, with a handler on the surface communicating with the diver via rope signals. One tug for "ok", two tugs for "stop", three for "come back".
A standby diver waits nearby in full gear, ready to enter the water if there's an emergency. And there are two holes cut in the ice next to each other so there are two exit points.
The lines of rope linking divers back to the surface could become entangled in submerged branches or logs, other debris, or even the diver's own equipment such as fins or tanks.
The training here on a frozen lake is practice for work that will be done out on the sea ice of the Arctic and Antarctic, where there are added dangers – large seals sometimes gather at the dive holes, preventing divers from leaving the water.
With one final check of her equipment, Kalkowski-Pope puts her breathing apparatus in her mouth – and flings herself in.
Today, ice is still a key feature of the Arctic but it is becoming less and less common. Because of climate change, the Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world. Satellite data reveals the area of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean has declined by around 13.2% per decade, on average, since monitoring began in 1979.
Scientists, driven to understand the changes unfolding here, are going to extremes to carry out their fieldwork. Some are learning ice diving techniques, so that they may observe underwater Arctic ecosystems and document the hastening retreat of the ice. Their short, and sometimes dangerous, expeditions are revealing the secrets of a rapidly thawing world.
"Once you get in the water, you realise what a beautiful environment you're in and you calm down a bit," says Kalkowski-Pope as she describes the natural trepidation that people have ahead of an ice dive.
She has come to Kilpisjärvi in Lapland, over 248 miles (400km) north of the Arctic Circle, to join other divers from all over the world on an ice diving training course. The trainees plod gingerly around two rectangular entry holes that they've cut in the lake's ice.
It may be the middle of March but it still feels very much like winter here. The lake is frozen over and surrounded by Finland's highest fells, still draped in thick snow.
Perry Brandes, a commercial diver from Florida, where he is used to a far warmer climate, has just completed his first ice dive. "It's very peaceful," he says. "You look up and see light coming through. It's like looking at a city from afar." This, he explains, is the sun peeking through holes in the ice above. Those twinkling lights are like beacons that guide the divers back to the surface. (You can read more about what it is like under the ice in Antarctica in Katherine Latham's fascinating article about this upside down ice-scape.)
Kalkowski-Pope and Brandes are two of 12 participants on the week-long polar research diving course, which has been organised by the University of Helsinki.
All of those taking part are already seasoned divers who have honed their skills in temperate and tropical waters. This is the next level. Should they master ice diving here, it could enable them to join scientific diving expeditions in the Arctic or Antarctic.
"There's probably only a few hundred people in the world who can do polar base diving work at the moment," says Edd Stockdale, coordinator of the Finnish Scientific Diving Academy, who leads the course. "The polar areas are melting. We need scientists who are able to monitor what's happening," he explains.
Scientific research in the polar regions is critically important for climate change monitoring. The melting of polar ice contributes to rising sea levels around the world. By studying changes in sea ice, scientists are able to gain a better understanding of how quickly climate change is unfolding.
Ice diving, in particular, allows researchers to collect first-hand data on ice thickness, density and movement as well as water temperatures and salinity. The polar regions also have unique flora and fauna adapted to living in extremely cold conditions, and some of these organisms are visible during ice dives.
In 2017, Alf Norkko, a professor of marine research at the University of Helsinki, and his team discovered big changes on the seafloor under Antarctic sea ice since their previous diving expedition in the same area in 2009.
"There was a remarkable increase in the abundance of life," he says. Levels of chlorophyll and other plant compounds deposited in the sediment on the sea floor had risen dramatically, indicating that the amount of plankton and algae in the water had increased. "In just a few years, the sea ice had got thinner, which allowed more light to get through so there was more food supply for starfish, worms, sponges and sea spiders on the seafloor."
A recently published study of kelp forests off the coast of the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard saw divers make repeated trips to the same site over a 25 year period to examine how warming temperatures were affecting these important ecosystem by changing the mix of seaweed growing there.
Data collected by research divers from the British Antarctic Survey's Rothera Research Station also recently helped to show that the coastal seabed off the West Antarctic Peninsula is more frequently being struck by icebergs due to reductions in sea ice. These collisions cause catastrophic damage, killing almost everything in their path and scouring enormous scars along the seabed.
Norkko adds that it is helpful for scientists from many different fields to take part in the ice dives. "It's not enough for a marine biologist to go down and count the starfish on the sea floor," he says. "We need multidisciplinary teams with a chemist and a physicist to go down and connect the dots." This enables researchers to more comprehensively describe the range of physical and biological processes that occur in these waters.
However, such fieldwork is risky. "It's dangerous. You can't make any mistakes," warns Finnish explorer Pata Degerman, who also teaches on the course. "It's like diving in a cave in a sense that the ice is a roof above your head. You can't just go up anywhere you need to find an exit hole."
Pre-dive, the trainees don special clothing to protect themselves from the extreme cold: thermal underwear beneath a dry suit, gloves, and a neoprene hood that covers their head and neck. Even so, they can't stay in the water for long. Their hands lose dexterity quickly in the freezing conditions. Instructors say most divers can't use their hands properly after about 30 minutes beneath the ice.
Divers on the training course descend into the water in pairs to a depth of 12m (39ft) while tethered to a safety line, which is standard procedure for ice diving. This safety line takes the form of a sturdy rope that physically connects divers to the surface. On the training course at Kilpisjärvi, each line is tended by one of the trainees, who is tasked with managing slack and making sure the line doesn't get entangled.
"Your guideline is like a baby's umbilical cord. You can see you're connected and you feel safe," says Brandes.
The safety line is also the only means of communication that divers have with their colleagues at the surface. Five minutes after entering the water, a diver will pull hard on the rope to signal that they are OK and that things are progressing as planned. The tender on the surface pulls their end of the cord to acknowledge the message. "This gets repeated every five minutes during the dive," explains Degerman. "It's very simple but it works."
If there's no reply, or the tenders feel that something is wrong, emergency procedures kick in. A diver is always waiting on standby at the surface, ready to attach themselves to the line and jump in to find out what's going on. Once they reach the silent diver, they might need to give them air or even push them upwards and back out of the hole, adds Degerman.
Among the things that can go wrong are problems with regulators, the devices divers use to breathe while underwater. The moisture in a diver's breath can actually freeze and cause the regulator to malfunction, says Degerman.
During the week-long course, there were a number of "free flows", situations in which the regulator delivered air continuously at full flow, rather than in a controlled manner synchronized with a diver's inhalations. These free flow events are more likely when diving in cold water as regulators can freeze more easily. When a diver inhales, the regulator reduces high-pressure air from the tank to ambient pressure. In freezing water, this can cause moisture in the regulator to form ice that can jam the valve open, leading to a continuous flow of air making it hard to breathe properly.
To remedy the problem, divers can switch over to their backup system. If that doesn't work, they have to get the attention of their diving buddy so that they can begin sharing their air supply and return to the surface.
Ice divers don't wear a full face mask because that would make it difficult to remove during a free flow incident. But this means they experience a significant cold shock upon entering the water.
"I'd never dived in cold water before," says Kalkowski-Pope. "Going beneath the ice layer for the first time and feeling the cold water on my face was really unique."
Despite the challenges of ice diving, Norkko says he's never had an accident on any of his polar expeditions. He puts that down to preparedness, training, and assessing and managing risks carefully.
"People worry about different things but I think the biggest risk is dry suit flooding, especially in Antarctica," he says. "We have salt water there that freezes less easily: it's -2C (28F), which gives you a bad cold shock."
Seals sometimes sit over dive holes, blocking a diver's exit from the water. "You can't get past a 300kg (47st) seal," laughs Norkko. "That's why we always have two holes."
While there are clearly risks in doing this work, the chance to gather crucial data makes them worth taking, says Anni Makinen, who works as a scientific diver for an environmental consultancy in Finland: "I'd like to help to get some scientific knowledge that will influence politicians."
Ice diving research projects still need willing humans like Makinen. While robots and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are increasingly important for scientific fieldwork, including in the Arctic, there are things that machines will never be able to do, stresses Rodd Budd from New Zealand's National Institute of Atmospheric Research and coordinator of Antarctica New Zealand's dive operations.
"An ROV can only see what's directly in front of it, so it may go past something interesting," he explains. In some cases wild animals such as seals or white whales have been used to collect data from under the ice by attaching sensors to them, but they can't be controlled to go where researchers might want. Human divers, on the other hand, naturally take in a wider field of view and can adjust their explorations depending on what they deem most important to investigate.
Plus, humans are less intrusive, says Perry Brandes, the Floridian diver, who notes that ROVs create a lot of noise and shine powerful lights ahead of them. Human divers can be much less disruptive. "Many of the animals actually look at us divers," adds Brandes. "There's an interaction between us."
Norkko says that he and his fellow scientists are so dedicated to this work because they are aware of the urgency of climate change. At present, there is a race afoot to understand it, and to respond to it.
"Climate change is progressing at such a rate that decisions are sometimes not made with the best available scientific knowledge. This is a problem. We need to keep science at the front," says Norkko.
But there is also the alluring thrill of fieldwork like this. Going to places where few humans can, in order to document our planet a little better. That, too, says Norkko, keeps researchers like him returning to the dark world under the ice. "There is, of course, also an element of adventure that drives us."
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Major oil spills can be catastrophic for seabirds and marine life. Nearly 15 years on from the biggest marine spill in history, are we any better at cleaning up oil at sea? Jocelyn Timperley examines the latest science of ocean clean-ups.
On April 20, 2010, a blowout caused a huge explosion on the offshore drilling rig operated by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven people were killed. Two days later, the rig collapsed. Oil began seeping into the sea, and it continued to flow for almost three months.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster is among the most lamented environmental catastrophes of the past century. It's hard to comprehend how incredibly huge the spill was. It was the world's largest ever marine oil spill, releasing an estimated 4.9 million barrels of crude oil (779 million litres, or over 300 Olympic swimming pools-worth). Up to a million seabirds were killed outright, and the human health and socioeconomic effects are still being felt today.
BP, rig operator Transocean, and several government agencies immediately tried to limit the damage, with BP's chief executive saying the company was "determined to do everything in our power" to contain the spill. Booms were deployed to try to contain the oil, skimmer ships nibbled at the edges of the widening slick and fires were set to try to burn it off the sea surface. Various devices were deployed deep below the surface to try to contain or capture the oil. BP also began to spray the oil with enormous amounts of dispersants both on the sea surface and 1.5km (0.9 miles) underwater, where oil was gushing from the wellhead.
However, it is thought that these measures recovered or dispersed only around a third of the spilled oil. The BP spill sparked a huge amount of research into oil spills and their impacts. But 14 years on, what hope is there for better measures should another oil spill occur?
Jeffrey Short, an expert in oil spills and now-retired scientist from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), was working for Oceana, a marine conservation organisation when the BP spill occurred. When a colleague told him about the spill at lunchtime, he felt sick.
"I knew immediately that this would be ecologically and economically disastrous, that it would wreck tens of thousands of people's lives, and that it would dominate my professional life for the next several years," he says. "All of which proved true."
Oil spills are the third largest source of oil in the sea, after land-based runoff (largely from cities and vehicles) and natural oil seeps. The problem with spills, of course, is the sheer volume of oil that enters the sea all at once. This means that oil spills – especially big ones – are "much, much more dangerous per unit oil released", says Short.
While no spill has since surpassed Deepwater Horizon's in sheer volume, Noaa responds to more than 150 oil spills every year. Just last month, oil began spewing from a submerged oil tanker and at least two other sunken vessels in Manila Bay, in the Philippines, after they were hit by monsoon rains and Typhoon Gaemi. Another oil tanker hit by projectiles from Yemen's Houthi movement remains in a precarious position in the Red Sea. However, the number of oil spills from tankers is today far lower than in the 1970s, due to improved standards.
When oil spills occur, the first step is to control the source, "whether that be a ship, pipeline, or leaking well", says Doug Helton, regional supervisor of the emergency response division at Noaa's Office of Response and Restoration. "The second priority is recovering oil at sea."
The major priority is to avoid the oil reaching the shoreline, where it can do the most damage. Shoreline cleanups can last days to years, depending on the type of oil and severity of contamination, says Helton.
Spilt oil tends to spread quickly into a thin layer on the sea surface. Within days, centimetres-thick layers become a film of a millimetre or less, spread in drifting patches over a wide area. Efforts to scoop up the oil from the sea surface therefore offer diminishing returns as time goes on. "Floating oil spreads very quickly and there is a limited window of time – days – when at-sea tools are effective," says Helton.
Hundreds of skimmers were deployed to clean up the BP Deep Horizon spill. Skimmers are boats that scoop up spilled oil from the water's surface, usually after the slick is first surrounded with floating booms to keep it from spreading. They do this in various ways – some, for example, suck up the oil like a vacuum cleaner, while others use oil-attracting "conveyor belts" or gravity to carry the spilled oil into a reservoir.
But hopes at the time that the skimmers could pick up oil "like a lawnmower cutting grass" proved to be overblown. They only recovered an estimated 3% of the oil. "At sea, the oil may spread more rapidly than the skimming vessels trying to capture oil," says Helton. "Going faster is not an easy option because the bow wave from the ship will push the oil away."
The satellite photos of the BP disaster "speak volumes", says Short. "You'll see a half a dozen surface skimming boats that, from the sea surface next to the boat, look quite large and quite effective. But from a satellite, you realise that you are [...] just having a nearly negligible effect on the size of the spill."
In fact, a 2020 review of 30 large offshore oil spills found only 2-6% of oil was recovered using mechanical methods like skimmers. Short says that mechanical recovery has improved in recent decades, with better booms to corral the oil and better systems to remove it from the sea surface. But even with improvements, mechanical methods can't have much impact on a large spill, he says.
In recent years a plethora of studies and reports have emerged looking at different ways to soak up oil spills, from laser-treated cork and textiles based on leaves to graphene, magnets and even hair and fur. These mostly rely on the oil-attracting and water-hating properties of the material, with various forms of oil-attracting sponges a particularly common solution. But the difficulty of handling oil-soaked materials means these techniques are typically only useful for small spills.
When Guihua Yu, a professor of materials science at the University of Texas at Austin, and his team began considering whether a new material his lab was working on could be used to help clean up oil spills, he says he was surprised about the lack of focus on how these innovative materials could be used in practice.
One central problem, he says, is that most can only be used in a non-continuous way, requiring processing to remove the oil before the same material can be used again.
Yu and his team landed on a solution which he thinks could help. In a 2023 paper, his lab developed a prototype with a collection speed 10 times faster than current clean up rates.
The lab produced their own super oleophilic gel capable of 99% separation of oil from water, which they used to cover a mesh filter. But they also designed a continuous roller system, which Yu says would be attached to the front of a ship. This conveyer belt picks up oil from the water surface, then rolls it round to beside an induction heater, which heats the oil, detaching it and allowing it to drip down to a collector in the middle. The roller is freed up to be directly reused as it rolls down to the water again.
"The most important [innovation in our work] is probably higher throughput," says Yu. "I personally felt it's very unique and very different from what is conventional."
The invention has so far only been tested on a small motor oil spill in a lake in China using a metre-scale prototype, but Yu says he has had conversations with industry potentially interested in scaling it up. The overall costs, he believes, would be reasonable. However, he admits his current design does not address the bow-wave issue of oil being pushed away from the ship, noting that how to balance collection and bow wave is "worthy of further investigation".
But Short says that, for large spills which require more than a day to clean up, movement of oil during the night (when operations can usually not be carried out) will always limit the efficacy of collecting oil on the sea surface.
"The following day, the oil must first be located before response equipment can be effectively deployed," he says. "For large spills, especially when response equipment is limited, these challenges may limit the amount of recoverable oil to less than 10% of the initial spill volume."
Still, improvements have been made in tracking the oil too. Noaa now uses drones and satellites to help find and track oil spills, and tools for mapping and coordination have advanced. Undersea manned and autonomous tools that can tap into sunken vessels to extract oil have also been developed since the Deepwater Horizon spill, says Helton.
Burning is another, more controversial, way to remove floating oil at sea. An estimated 5% of the BP oil spill was burnt off the surface.
Burning requires concentrating the oil on the sea surface to at least 2-3mm – relatively thick for an oil spill. It also requires quick action, and lucky weather conditions. In the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska in 1989, a storm dispersed the oil over a wide area into a film too thin to catch alight.
Improved boom designs to better corral oil have improved the effectiveness of burning over the years, says Short. But successful burning also has its own problems for the environment and human health in the form of air pollution.
The impacts of air pollution on the workers attempting to clean up the BP oil spill are still being investigated today. A major 2022 study found that workers involved in cleaning up the spill were 60% more likely to be diagnosed with asthma or experience asthma symptoms one to three years after the spill, compared with those who did not work on the cleanup.
Burning is not the only culprit for air pollution. The evaporation of the oil itself is also highly toxic, as is another controversial way to try to dissipate the impacts of oil spills: dispersants.
During the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP sprayed roughly 1.84 million gallons (8.37 million litres) of the dispersant Corexit on the surface and deep into the water column – the largest volume of dispersant ever used for an oil spill.
Dispersants work by breaking down the oil into smaller droplets that can mix with the water below, which both helps it to degrade and removes it from the surface, where it tends to do most damage (especially to diving seabirds, surfacing marine mammals, turtles and young fish). But it needs to be added quickly after oil spills.
Little was known about exactly how this quantity of dispersant would affect the environment in the BP spill, but the hope was that it would stop the oil from reaching shoreline habitats. But the sheer volume used has been widely criticised as largely ineffective as well as harmful to the environment and humans. It's thought just 8% of the oil was dispersed using Corexit.
In Short's view, prior knowledge about oil spills meant that in the Deepwater Horizon spill "you can be quite certain in advance" that the continued application of dispersants on parts of the oil slick which had already emulsified was "a waste of time" beyond the first few days. "But it shows the public that you're doing something."
Environmentalists and scientists have a term for these kinds of reactions to oil spills – "response theatre". It describes when companies responsible for a spill focus more on being seen to do something about the spill than necessarily doing the best thing.
Some researchers, however, say the dispersants were relatively effective and may have helped avoid further air pollution by getting rid of the oil. A 2019 report from the US National Academies found that dispersants can help cope with oil spills in some circumstances, but that limitations in the research make it hard to make conclusions about whether it improves the human health aspect compared to not using dispersants.
Still, counterintuitive as it may sound, there are occassions where some interventions could be a worse option than leaving an oil spill alone. In many places, ocean microbes have developed to eat the oil seeping naturally into the environment. These same bacteria and fungi can munch away at oil spills too – albeit relatively slowly and some more than others – but if they are impacted by chemicals, such as those in dispersants, this process could be disrupted.
Bioremediation – such as adding nutrients to encourage oil-degrading bacteria – has a long history of use in oil spills. But scientists are still at the beginning of understanding the complex interactions between microbial communities and chemical dispersants, as well as how these interact with environmental factors like temperature and sunlight. Research, for example, has shown that sunlight levels impact oil degradation in different microbes differently.
A study published in 2024 became the first to use an advanced microbiology technique to look at these interactions. Rather than look at the DNA of microbes, as previous studies have done, the scientists examined the protein expression of microbes in waters off the coast of Florida – a technique usually only used in medical or clinical science.
Using these techniques can show far more detail than looking at DNA alone, says Sabine Matallana-Surget, an associate professor of environmental and molecular microbiology at the University of Stirling, Scotland, who led the study. If she did a similar study on humans, for example, she would be able to tell when they had lunch by tracking the enzymes involved in food digestion.
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Her team found that Corexit induces a high expression of proteins involved in oxidative stress in oil-degrading bacteria. "I have never seen so many proteins involving DNA damage [and] repair, [as] when you introduce the Corexit to your microbial community," says Matallana-Surget. More sunlight also increased the toxicity of Corexit and oil in their experiment, creating a "double pill effect", she adds.
The team plan to conduct similar experiments in other places with natural seepages of oil, with different microbes, temperature and sunlight levels. If there is another oil spill in one of these places, Matallana-Surget says, these findings could inform the optimum level of Corexit to use in that particular location for maximum oil recovery. "I'm hoping that in the near future, if there was an accident somewhere else, we would be able to say, 'Well, listen, no, you shouldn't apply Corexit in that region, or not as much, or maybe this concentration.'"
Dispersants aren't the only intervention after oil spills that have caused concern. "We have found after lengthy research that aggressive cleanup of some environments can cause more harm than the oil," says Helton. "Marshes and sheltered intertidal habitats, for example, are often treated very carefully."
The high-pressure, hot-water washing used to clean the ecologically sensitive shorelines of Prince William Sound in Alaska after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, for example, sterilised the beaches, inadvertently killing bacteria as well as larger animals. Research has shown that areas not cleaned by the hot water recovered faster than the treated sites.
If a spill like Deepwater Horizon happened today, says Matallana-Surget, the reaction would be completely different. "There have been huge conversations around what happened with applying tonnes of [a] chemical [where] we have no idea what's going in the environment. I think nobody in any part of the world would do that."
Ultimately, since spills are so hard to clean up, avoiding them happening in the first place remains the most important thing. "Prevention is going to be the most fruitful line of approach," says Short. "Continuing to implement safety measures and especially being vigilant." The problem is that standards are expensive to maintain, he says. If years go by without a spill, they "tend to start slipping".
Major changes have been made to US regulations governing offshore oil and gas operations, as well as advances in preventing blowouts in the first place. New performance measures and enforcement mechanisms have been introduced to improve pipeline safety. However, there are also new potential risks for oil spills: deeper drilling, ageing infrastructure, transport of new types of oil and through different routes such as the Arctic, and climate impacts like sea-level rise and more intense and frequent storms.
A report released by BP in September 2010 concluded that decisions made by "multiple companies and work teams", including BP and others, had contributed to the spill. The unprecedented costs – over $65bn (£49bn) – to BP of the Deepwater Horizon has acted as an incentive to companies maintain the vigilance to avoid future disasters, says Short. "I think that's really got a lot of attention in the industry, that this is not a trivial operating expense that you can just write off as business as usual."
BP also quickly announced $500m (£380m) for a 10 year research programme, which has been credited with galvanising advancement in oil spill science.
But while risks can be reduced, so long as oil is being produced, "you're not going to get rid of [spills]", adds Short. Oil supply is set to reach a record high this year, with the US last year producing more oil than any country ever has before. Until oil dependence begins to fall, sadly the risks of another oil spill will stay with us.
Both BP and ExxonMobil declined to comment for this article.
* Jocelyn Timperley is a senior journalist for BBC Future. Find her on Twitter @jloistf
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This story was originally published on 6 September 2024. It was updated with details of the collision of an oil tanker and cargo ship in the North Sea on 10 March 2025.
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For many, constant bad news numbs our reaction to climate disasters. But research suggests that a new type of immersive storytelling about nature told through virtual reality (VR) can both build empathy and inspire us to act.
I'm crying into a VR headset. I've just watched a VR experience that tells the story of a young pangolin called Chestnut, as she struggles to survive in the Kalahari Desert. A vast, dusty landscape extends around me in all directions, and her armoured body seems vulnerable as she curls up, alone, to sleep. Her story is based on the life of a real pangolin that was tracked by scientists.
Chestnut hasn't found enough to ants to eat, since insect numbers have dwindled due to climate change. Her sunny voice remains optimistic even as exhaustion takes over. In the final scenes, she dies, and I must clumsily lift my headset to dab my eyes.
VR experiences can be a lot more than just moving or fun, research suggests. Scientists are discovering that nature experiences shown through VR can affect our attitudes and behaviours – and that these arresting depictions of nature might nudge us into taking better care of our environment.
My powerful VR experience with Chestnut's story was made by Habitat XR, a production studio based in Johannesburg. Founder Ulrico Grech-Cumbo launched the company in 2016, following many trips to the African bush during which he captured its green, dusty landscapes and iconic wildlife on camera. He had experience working in VR, and realised that he could translate his footage into something more immersive.
"I thought it would be a hell of a lot of fun being inside a natural history documentary," he says.
Habitat XR is just one of the companies experimenting with VR technology to create nature experiences. Wild Immersion, based in Paris, take their immersive movies of underwater worlds and snowscapes to science centres and aquariums. And UK artist collective Marshmallow Laser Feast have created immersive experiences that show the forest through the eyes of a dragonfly, and take the viewer "inside" a tree.
The nature experiences developed by Habitat XR are situated in a virtual version of the African savannah. In one, I find myself in a misty landscape dotted with squat, flat-topped acacias. Suddenly a rhinoceros emerges, dangerously close, its enormous horn scything the air as it walks towards me and lowers its head.
Despite the pixelated graphics, I instinctively look down to where my knee should be – to where the rhino's horn ought to have grazed it. The beast lets out a breathy snort and, mercifully, retreats.
I'm beginning to see how emotionally compelling this kind of storytelling can be. And I'm not alone – when an environmental NGO took one of Habitat XR's VR experiences to a fundraising gala, Grech-Cumbo saw the powerful effect it had on those who watched it. "High net worth individuals were strolling around with expensive watches and glasses of champagne," he says. "We'd sit them down in a dark room and put a VR headset on them, and five minutes later, they'd be crying. That's not something I've ever seen a film do [to] 50 people at a time."
Grech-Cumbo's observation is reflected in scientific research, which finds that VR tends to trigger stronger emotions than other media. Engaging in a VR experience about a Syrian refugee elicits more intense emotions than reading an article showing the same images and information, for example.
There may be particular benefits to VR content that deals with nature. One nature experience depicting a forest of majestic trees, for example, made people more likely to take action to protect the environment, such as signing a petition on plastic reduction or taking flyers to spread the word about the petition. Another, of a journey through the Amazon rainforest, found that participants who experienced the forest through VR reported feeling more connected to nature and expressed greater commitment to the environment than participants who watched the same rainforest visuals on a standard computer screen.
VR is particularly good at making us feel a complex and impactful emotion: awe. Psychologists describe awe as the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world. It can make us feel wonder, but also uncertainty. And research suggests that experiencing awe can make us more inclined to make personal sacrifices for the environment.
These recent scientific analyses of awe build on a long history of its exploration in philosophy and the arts. It particularly obsessed certain 18th-Century poets and writers, whose experience of what they called "the sublime" was often inspired by nature. (Learn more about the power of awe in this article by Richard Fisher about the upsides of feeling small.)
Alice Chirico, a psychologist at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, Italy, has studied VR's ability to make us feel awe, and how this might impact people's relationship to the natural world. She has found that VR nature experiences prompt us to feel awe when they induce a sense of vastness – like huge mountains and tall trees. In another study, she found that these kinds of awe-inspiring virtual nature experiences made people more likely to take social actions geared towards protecting the environment
"Awe is able to support positive attitudes towards the environment and also a sense of attachment towards the environment – a kind of nature connectedness, the feeling of being included within something that is much bigger than us," Chirico says.
VR can do this in ways that other media formats can't, she says, because it can drop us into a story and create the illusion that we're part of it. VR "manipulates the sense of presence", Chirico says, creating "the illusion of being really there in that specific place in that specific moment, as if it is reality itself".
The immersive advantage VR may have over other media such as articles or videos could have real world impacts. Researchers have found that people are more inclined to save energy at home when they learn about the need for pro-environmental behaviours through VR, rather than from an article or video. They suggest that the difference is because of what they call the "presence mechanism" – the feeling of truly being inanother world.
These experiences typically bring the viewer up close to their subject – face to face with a gorilla, or inside a migrating wildebeest herd. Feelings of immersion in such scenes might be limited by current technology, however. For me, the horn-swinging rhino was striking, though not visually believable. Researchers suggest that rich, high resolution imagery is important for immersing the viewer in the experience. VR tech likely to improve in the coming years, as accessories heighten the realism of virtual worlds. There is even a glove able to convince its wearer that a spider is crawling across their hand, for example.
Despite decades of excitement over VR, the technology has struggled to break into the mainstream. Even today, relatively few people have access to VR headsets, with only around 10 million of the devices sold across the globe every year. Reports suggest that Apple's long-awaited Vision Pro headset, for example – which costs $3,499 in the US and £3,499 in the UK – has achieved a fraction of its expected sales.
"Even though I've been working in this world for 10 years, there's probably a nine out of 10 chance that if I put a headset on a person, it's their first time wearing a VR headset," Grech-Cumbo says.
Even if the technology were more accessible, could dazzling virtual experiences undermine our appreciation for local, everyday nature? It is important, Grech-Cumbo acknowledges, that eye-catching VR nature experiences don't distract us from the real forests, parks and mountain ranges near to where we live.
"This is about understanding our own relationship with nature, wherever we are," he says.
With this in mind, Habitat XR is now working on a project that will bring virtual nature into cities, starting with Johannesburg. Their plans for a VR "Zoo of the Future" will include a web of life experience, in which people will be able to virtually pick up individual species – flowers, grasses, bugs, animals – from an ecosystem map, and see their ecological links to other species.
"[We want to] put an emphasis on the fact that we are all connected – whether we believe it or not, whether we like it or not," Grech-Cumbo says.
Chirico emphasises that VR's goal should not be to replace reality and nature. There are lots of things virtual nature can't do. Studies suggest it can't boost our mood in the same way real nature can, for instance. However, it could be democratising. "People don't [always] have full or easy access to nature, so the goal is to provide it in a cheaper way," Chirico says.
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In the US, for example, 100 million people, including 28 million children, reportedly do not have access to parks close to their homes. VR nature experiences might, in such cases, enable people to interact with an unreal yet informative and inspiring version of nature. Plus, adds Chirico, "There's the fact that you don't have to move from your home, so the emissions are reduced – you can explore amazing panoramas that otherwise would require hours and hours of traveling by plane or car."
As I blinked through tears towards the end of Habitat XR's story about Chestnut the pangolin, some white text floated in front of me before the credits rolled: "This isn't a story about pangolins. Or ants. Or even climate change. This is a story about us," it read – a reminder that humans are part of the same ecosystems as plants and other animals.
"The overarching message," Grech-Cumbo says, "is that we are a part of nature, not the opposite of nature."
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Twenty billion disposable menstrual products are discarded each year in the US. There's a huge array of reusable options, from pads to pants to menstrual cups. Ana Santi explores which is the most sustainable and how safe they are.
During a weekend away with my girlfriends a few years ago, one of them mentioned that she was wearing period pants, an environmental decision to move away from single-use pads and tampons. I'd vaguely heard of them, but didn't know anyone who wore them and I'd always been a little sceptical – would they be absorbent enough? My friend convinced me otherwise and they've remained my product of choice ever since. But as I browse the shelves of menstrual products in my local supermarket today, I'm overwhelmed by the choice available: so many pads and tampons (some organic, most not), numerous types of cups, a few period pants.
And still, 49 billion single-use period products are used every year in Europe alone. In the US, it's about 20 billion discarded each year, generating 240,000 tonnes of solid waste. Globally, disposable sanitary pads – which can contain up to 90% plastic and end up largely in landfill – are the most commonly used menstrual product.
I set out to find the most sustainable period product available.
Given that 1.8 billion people across the world menstruate every month, a group of academics based in France and the US conducted a life-cycle assessment of menstrual products across four product groups: disposable non-organic and organic pads and tampons (with applicators); reusable pads; period underwear; and menstrual cups, which are made from soft, flexible silicone or rubber and can hold 20-30ml (around two tablespoons) of menstrual blood. Comparing eight environmental impact indicators – global warming potential, fossil resources, land use, water use, carcinogenic effects, ecotoxicity, acidification and eutrophication – and conducted over one year across three countries (France, India and the US), the assessment considers impacts from production to disposal.
Across all the three countries and environmental impacts, the menstrual cup was a clear winner, followed by period underwear, reusable pads and, in last place, single-use pads and tampons. Small and lightweight, one person's menstrual cup can last up to 10 years.
Disposable pads – both organic and non-organic – had the highest impacts across all eight categories except water use, with non-organic pads scoring the highest for global warming potential and resource depletion. The global warming potential – greenhouse gas emissions' ability to absorb heat and warm the atmosphere over a given time period – came from manufacturing, with almost half of the impact from production of polyethylene (a petroleum-based plastic). But one of the most surprising results – not least to the report's authors – was that organic cotton pads had the highest impact of all, across five categories.
"The impacts are mostly linked to raw material manufacturing and organic production, which can have higher environmental impacts," explains Mélanie Douziech, one of the study's co-authors from Mines Paris-PSL university. The yield of organic farming is lower than conventional farming, meaning more water and land is needed to produce the same amount of organic as conventional cotton. Similar results were found for organic and non-organic cotton tampons.
Depending on the product, different parts of the lifecycle influence the emissions. "For disposable products, it's the raw material production and manufacturing, as a lot of these products have plastics in them, which have quite a large global warming impact," says Douziech. "With reusable products, it is the manufacturing and use phases, especially the electricity requirements."
Water and electricity are needed to wash all reusable products between wear, but period pants perform better than reusable pads, in part because otherwise another form of underwear would be worn – and washed – regardless. "Even though the menstrual cup is a clear winner, period underwear is also an alternative product that really reduces the environmental impacts," says Douziech. How we care for them can also affect the overall impact, such as washing at lower temperatures and as part of a full load.
The assessment did not consider plastic pollution, but according to the study each conventional pad, including wrappers, wings and adhesives, adds some 2g of non-biodegradable plastic – the equivalent of four plastic bags – to the environment and take an estimated 500 to 800 years to decompose. The study adds that, in the US, 80% of conventional tampons and 20% of conventional pads are flushed down toilets, blocking sewers and releasing microplastics into oceans.
Prior to this report, an analysis of several life-cycle analyses comparing the environmental impacts of menstrual products, including emissions and resource depletion, was commissioned by the UN Environment Programme in 2021. Co-author Philippa Notten, director of the Cape Town-based non-profit TGH Think Space, which focuses on energy, climate change and sustainability projects, says that, due to a lack of data, the impact of plastic at menstrual products' end of life is not well documented in life-cycle assessments. "Plastic tends to get modelled as if it ends up in a landfill or incinerator. Counterintuitively, landfill actually looks good from a carbon footprint point of view because plastic takes hundreds of years to degrade, so those carbon emissions are locked up in the landfill, which acts like a carbon sink," she says. "In reality, the product doesn't always end up in a formal waste management stream; it ends up as litter on beaches, as microplastics in the sea. And there is still a lot of carbon in the production of plastics."
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In UNEP's report, the menstrual cup also comes out on top by a considerable margin. "It's quite rare for this to happen to a product," Notten says. "It's not that the cup doesn't have a carbon footprint, but because it's such a small, light product, the impact is also small relative to other products."
"We always talk about 'break even points' in these studies: how many times do you have to use a renewable product before it has made up for the emissions caused in its manufacturing and use phases, compared to a single-use product?" Notten says. "For many products, it's often really high, like 100 times. With a menstrual cup, you only have to use it for a month before it breaks even on its carbon footprint."
Both studies express the importance of context and highlight that greenhouse gas emissions are only one of the many consequences of products and processes. "No matter what we do, we are going to have an impact, but the idea is to minimise this impact as much as possible," says Paula Pérez-López, co-author of the France and US study and a researcher at Mines Paris-PSL university.
The life-cycle assessment recommends that women consider factors beyond environmental impact, including social and cultural attitudes and infrastructures. "This was out of our field of environmental assessment expertise, but in some African countries, reusable products, in particular menstrual cups, could be the difference between going to school and not for some girls, who don't have access to a period product," says Pérez-López. "Of course, the problem of access extends to all kinds of products, but a menstrual cup could be much easier to access because it's a small product that lasts a long time."
But recent reports have warned of the consequences of a poorly fitted, incorrectly sized menstrual cup, with one woman developing temporary kidney problems and some women suffering from pelvic organ prolapse. Shazia Malik, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Portland Hospital in London, is reluctant to recommend menstrual cups to teenagers unless they are carefully taught how to use and care for them. "In the last eight years, I've seen patients – women and teenagers – who use menstrual cups develop infections," she says. "If you don't insert [the cup] properly, it can compress the bladder or rectum, and it won't effectively collect menstrual blood."
Malik also warns of the dangers of using the same menstrual cup for many years. Her advice is to have two cups on the go, sterilise them after each use – including every morning and night – and to replace them as soon as there is any wear and tear. "We also need more awareness on choosing the right menstrual cup size, depending on your flow and whether you've had a vaginal birth. With education, the menstrual cup is a fantastic period product," Malik says.
In the UK, the Women's Environmental Network, a non-profit, is calling for a Menstrual Health, Dignity and Sustainability Act to combat period poverty, environmental waste and toxic chemicals found in period products. WEN cites a new policy in the Spanish region of Catalonia as an example to follow. From March 2024 all women in Catalonia were given access to free, reusable menstrual products.
Among the network's concerns is a US study that detected 16 types of metals, including lead, in tampons, and a report by Which?, a UK consumer magazine, which found "unnecessarily high levels of silver" in some period pants, used as an antimicrobial agent to combat concerns about smell and hygiene.
Helen Lynn, a campaign manager focusing on the environmental impacts of menstrual products at WEN, says that such chemicals are harmful to human health and the environment, with innovation happening faster than regulation. "[The life-cycle assessment] is an interesting study but it doesn't take into account chemical residues and additives in menstrual products because businesses aren't obliged to disclose them, so studies like these can only look at the main materials disclosed by manufacturers," she says. "A lack of transparency means that people don't know what's in these products and they put them next to a very absorbent part of the body."
Some legislative progress is being made, with Europe leading the way. In September 2023, the European Commission established a new EU Ecolabel criteria for absorbent hygiene products and reusable menstrual cups, awarded to products that fulfil limit environmental impacts along their lifecycle. In Nordic countries, the Nordic Swan Ecolabel, which promotes resource efficiency, reduced climate impact, a non-toxic circular economy and conservation of biodiversity, is currently in a consultation period to revise the criteria of its sanitary products.
In 2024, Vermont became the first US state to adopt a new law to ban the "forever chemicals" PFAs in menstrual products, while a bill led by New York congresswoman Grace Meng calls for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study the make-up of menstrual products.
Marina Gerner, professor at New York University's Stern School of Business and author of The Vagina Business, would welcome a US equivalent to the EU Ecolabel, but is calling for a global initiative. "Companies need to disclose the ingredients of their period products and toxic ingredients need to be banned by regulators," Gerner says. "The reason this hasn't happened yet is because women's health has historically been under researched and underfunded. The modern tampon was invented in 1931 and the first study on metal levels in tampons was only published last year."
Several years ago, I switched to mostly using period pants. They last between two to three years and cost about £45 ($56.7) for three pairs. At approximately £2.75 ($3.48) for a pack of 10 pads, and using two packs per month, I would have spent up to £200 ($252.7) on pads in the same period. A menstrual cup is approximately £20 ($25.2) and, for people comfortable using tampons, it is relatively easy to insert, but removal, cleansing and re-insertion when away from home or in public toilets can make it less accessible.
As a regular swimmer, I plan to try period swimwear next, although the possibility of leakage makes me anxious (I've been assured by people who wear them that this doesn't happen). Even though the life-cycle assessment ranked disposable organic products as the worst environmental offender, on occasions when period pants aren't convenient, I use a disposable, organic cotton, plastic-free and compostable brand that you can discard in your food bin (it is readily available in supermarkets and health stores). Pérez-López says that the study did not model composting at end-of-life. "This would need to be investigated further."
When trying to make better environmental choices, it is rare to find a relative silver bullet, like the menstrual cup. But I think that most people who are in a position to choose their menstrual products would prefer a range of options. "And that is a great solution," says Pérez-López. "Choose a reusable product when you can, but if you're uncomfortable using a certain type of product for your whole cycle, or you can't rely on a reusable product for a particular reason, combine several products. You will still be making a difference."
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The number of UK homes installing heat pumps supported by government-funded incentives rose to a record level last year.
Figures released on Thursday showed 52% more of the low-carbon heating systems were installed than in 2023.
Experts said part of the rise was due to an increase in the grant offered by the government's Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) to persuade people to switch from gas boilers.
But the heat pump industry warned that running costs needed to fall for the government to hit its targets to install hundreds of thousands of the devices each year as part of its Net Zero plan to tackle climate change.
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: "The energy shocks of recent years have shown the urgent need to upgrade British homes and help more people benefit from homegrown energy.
"That's why we have almost doubled the budget for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme to £295 million for the next financial year, and just launched a new campaign to help make more families aware of our offer of a £7,500 heat pump grant."
Most UK homes use gas boilers to meet their heating needs but gas is a fossil fuel that when burnt produces planet-warming gases.
With home heating accounting for 14% of the UK's carbon emissions, switching households from gas boilers to heat pumps is a key part of the government's climate pledges.
Heat pumps use electricity rather than gas, so as the country moves to generating electricity from renewable energy sources, like solar and wind, heat pumps will be responsible for far fewer planet-warming emissions than boilers.
About half of heat pumps currently being installed in the UK are supported by government funding - the remainder are made up of commercial installations and new builds which do not receive support.
One of the most popular government support mechanisms is the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which provides a £7,500 grant to households to offset the cost of installation.
Ed Matthew, UK programme director for think tank E3G, said the decision by the previous government to increase the grant by 50% has had the biggest impact on the installation figures.
"It has been absolutely critical for making it affordable for households to buy this technology," he said.
In its first year, the scheme only spent a third of the funding allocated due to low public interest. But for 2024-2025 it is expected to overspend its budget.
Mr Matthews said it was critical that in the government's June spending review it recommits to the programme and provides greater funding for low-income households as the current costs - even with the grant - can be prohibitive.
"They do not want to take their foot off the brake here. If they suddenly start slashing the heat pump grant that's going to make the market crash," he said.
He also "strongly welcomed" the government's announcement on Thursday that it was launching a new communication campaign to build public understanding of heat pumps, which he hoped would combat misinformation about the technology.
Despite the progress, the total number of heat pump sales, including those not supported by government programmes, was just shy of 100,000 last year, according to the Heat Pump Association (HPA). This is significantly below the government's target of 600,000 a year by 2028.
But Charlotte Lee, chief executive of the HPA, remained positive because of future planning policy changes expected later this year.
"The future homes and building standards will see the market move. 200,000 homes are potentially being built every year, [and] the vast majority of those will be required to have a heat pump - it will absolutely create a gear change in the market," she said.
Madeleine Gabriel, head of sustainable mission at charity Nesta, agreed that changes to planning rules could also help to address the regional disparities in installation.
"The key thing is removing a rule that meant that you could only install a heat pump if you were more than one metre away from your property boundary, which made it difficult if you've got a small garden," she said.
This explains why dense urban areas, like London, has some of the lowest installation rates as a large share of people live in flats, she added.
Ms Gabriel and Mr Matthew agreed with the UK government's independent climate advisors, the UK Climate Change Committee (UKCCC), that the biggest barrier is the high price of electricity.
In a major report published last month, the UKCCC said that the cost of electricity could be brought down if the levies applied to electricity bills, to fund the cost of social and environment schemes, were removed or placed on gas bills.
"Once the consumer can save money [with heat pumps], I think it really changes the level of interest. We're moving from early adopters that think it's the right thing to do to, actually, this is just a sensible financial investment choice," Ms Lee said.
Additional reporting by Justin Rowlatt.
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Antarctica's remote and mysterious current has a profound influence on the climate, food systems and Antarctic ecosystems. Can we stop it weakening by 2050?
Flowing clockwise around Antarctica, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is the strongest ocean current on the planet. It's five times stronger than the Gulf Stream and more than 100 times stronger than the Amazon River.
It forms part of the global ocean "conveyor belt" connecting the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. The system regulates Earth's climate and pumps water, heat and nutrients around the globe.
But fresh, cool water from melting Antarctic ice is diluting the salty water of the ocean, potentially disrupting the vital ocean current.
Our new research suggests the Antarctic Circumpolar Current will be 20% slower by 2050 as the world warms, with far-reaching consequences for life on Earth.
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is like a moat around the icy continent.
The current helps to keep warm water at bay, protecting vulnerable ice sheets. It also acts as a barrier to invasive species such as southern bull kelp and any animals hitching a ride on these rafts, spreading them out as they drift towards the continent. It also plays a big part in regulating the Earth's climate.
Unlike better known ocean currents – such as the Gulf Stream along the United States' east coast, the Kuroshio Current near Japan, and the Agulhas Current off the coast of South Africa – the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is not as well understood. This is partly due to its remote location, which makes obtaining direct measurements especially difficult.
The influence of climate change
Ocean currents respond to changes in temperature, salt levels, wind patterns and sea ice extent. So the global ocean conveyor belt is vulnerable to climate change on multiple fronts.
Previous research suggested one vital part of this conveyor belt could be headed for a catastrophic collapse.
Theoretically, warming water around Antarctica should speed up the current. This is because density changes and winds around Antarctica dictate the strength of the current. Warm water is less dense (or heavy) and this should be enough to speed up the current. But observations to date indicate the strength of the current has remained relatively stable over recent decades.
This stability persists despite melting of surrounding ice, a phenomenon that had not been fully explored in scientific discussions in the past.
Advances in ocean modelling allow a more thorough investigation of the potential future changes.
We used Australia's fastest supercomputer and climate simulator in Canberra to study the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The underlying model, Access-OM2-01, has been developed by Australian researchers from various universities as part of the Consortium for Ocean-Sea Ice Modelling in Australia.
The model captures features others often miss, such as eddies. So it's a far more accurate way to assess how the current's strength and behaviour will change as the world warms. It picks up the intricate interactions between ice melting and ocean circulation.
In this future projection, cold, fresh melt water from Antarctica migrates north, filling the deep ocean as it goes. This causes major changes to the density structure of the ocean. It counteracts the influence of ocean warming, leading to an overall slowdown in the current of as much as 20% by 2050.
Far-reaching consequences
The consequences of a weaker Antarctic Circumpolar Current are profound and far-reaching.
As the main current that circulates nutrient-rich waters around Antarctica, it plays a crucial role in the Antarctic ecosystem.
Weakening of the current could reduce biodiversity and decrease the productivity of fisheries that many coastal communities rely on. It could also aid the entry of invasive species such as southern bull kelp to Antarctica, disrupting local ecosystems and food webs.
A weaker current may also allow more warm water to penetrate southwards, exacerbating the melting of Antarctic ice shelves and contributing to global sea-level rise. Faster ice-melting could then lead to further weakening of the current, commencing a vicious spiral of current slowdown.
This disruption could extend to global climate patterns, reducing the ocean's ability to regulate climate change by absorbing excess heat and carbon in the atmosphere.
The need to reduce emissions
While our findings present a bleak prognosis for the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the future is not predetermined. Concerted efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could still limit melting around Antarctica.
Establishing long-term studies in the Southern Ocean will be crucial for monitoring these changes accurately.
With proactive and coordinated international actions, we have a chance to address and potentially avert the effects of climate change on our oceans.
This article is adapted from a piece that originally appeared on The Conversation, and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.
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