Suddenly, Donald Trump’s trade war is in much sharper focus.

Rather than a fight on all fronts against the world, this now looks far more like a fight on familiar Trumpian territory: America v China.

The 90-day pause on the higher “retaliatory” tariffs levied on dozens of countries still leaves a universal across-the-board tariff of 10% in place.

But China – which ships everything from iPhones to children’s toys and accounts for around 14% of all US imports – has been singled out for much harsher treatment with an eye-watering rate of 125%.

Trump said the increase was due to Beijing’s readiness to retaliate with its own 84% levy on US goods, a move the president described as showing a “lack of respect”.

But for a politician who first fought his way to the White House on the back of an anti-China message, there is much more to this than simple retaliation.

For Trump, this is about the unfinished business of that first term in office.

“We didn’t have the time to do the right thing, which we’re doing now,” he told reporters.

The aim is nothing less than the upending of an established system of global trade centred on China as the factory of the world, as well as the once widely held view that underpinned it – the idea that more of this trade was, in and of itself, a good thing.

To understand just how central this is to the US president’s thinking, you need to go back to the time before anyone ever thought of him as a possible candidate for office, let alone a likely winner.

In 2012, when I first reported from Shanghai – China’s business capital – increased trade with the country was seen by almost everyone – global business leaders, Chinese officials, visiting foreign governments and trade delegations, foreign correspondents and learned economists – as a no brainer.

It was boosting global growth, providing an endless supply of cheap goods, enriching China’s army of new factory workers increasingly embedded in global supply chains, and providing lucrative opportunities to multinational corporations selling their wares to its newly minted middle classes.

Within a few of years of my arrival, China had surpassed the US to become the world’s biggest market for Rolls Royce, General Motors and Volkswagen.

There was a deeper justification, too.

As China got richer, so the theory went, Chinese people would begin to demand political reform.

Their spending habits would also help China transition to a consumer society.

But the first of those aspirations never happened, with China’s ruling Communist Party only tightening its grip on power.

And the second one didn’t happen fast enough, with China not only still dependent on exports, but openly planning to become ever more dominant.

Its infamous policy blueprint – published in 2015 and entitled Made in China 2025 – set out a huge state-backed vision of becoming a global leader in a number of key manufacturing sectors, from aerospace to ship building to electric vehicles.

And so it was that just one year later, a complete political unknown began an outsider-run for US president, making the case repeatedly on the campaign trail that China’s rise had hollowed out the American economy, driven rustbelt decline and cost blue-collar workers their livelihoods and dignity.

Trump’s first-term trade war broke the mould and shattered the consensus. His successor, President Joe Biden, kept much of his tariffs on China in place.

And yet, even though they have undoubtedly caused China some pain, they have not done much to change the economic model.

China now produces 60% of the world’s electric cars – a large proportion of them made by its own homegrown brands – and 80% of the batteries that power them.

So, now Trump is back, with this tit-for-tat escalation on levies.

It would, arguably, be the biggest shock ever delivered to the established global trading system, were it not for all the other on-again off-again tariff measures the US president has rolled out in recent days.

What happens next depends on two key questions.

Firstly, whether China takes up that offer to negotiate.

And secondly, assuming it eventually does, whether China is willing to make the kind of major concessions that America is looking for, including a complete overhaul of its export driven economic model.

In answering them, the first thing to say is that we are in completely unchartered territory, so we should be wary of anyone who says they know how Beijing is likely to react.

But there are certainly reasons to be cautious.

China’s vision of its economic strength – one based on strong exports and a tightly protected domestic market – is now closely bound up with its idea of national rejuvenation and the supremacy of its one-party system.

Its tight control over the information sphere means it will be unlikely to drop its barriers to American technology companies, for example.

But there is a third question, and it is one for America to answer.

Does the US still believe in free trade? Donald Trump often suggests that tariffs are a good thing, not merely as a means to an end, but as an end in themselves.

He talks about the benefit of a protectionist barrier for America, in order to stimulate domestic investment, encourage American companies to bring those foreign supply chains back home, and raise tax revenues.

And if Beijing believes that is indeed the primary purpose of the tariffs, it may decide there is nothing to negotiate anyway.

Rather than championing the idea of economic co-operation, the world’s two biggest superpowers may find themselves locked in a fight for winner-takes-all economic supremacy.

If so, that really would mark a shattering of the old consensus, and a very different, possibly very dangerous, future.

A share of the revenue streaming services make from subscription fees should be paid into a fund to support British high-end TV production, an influential group of MPs has said.

In a new report, the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) committee urged the government to improve support measures for producers while safeguarding the creation of distinctly British content.

It follows an inquiry into the UK TV and film industry which examined the effects of the rise of streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon and Apple TV.

The report noted how “vital” dramas such as Adolescence are to the country’s “identity, national conversations and talent pipeline”, which they say is now “under threat”.

It is “time for streamers to put their money where their mouth is”, the report read, suggesting that streaming companies pay “5% of their UK subscriber revenue into a cultural fund to help finance drama with a specific interest to British audiences”.

Chair of the CMS committee, MP Dame Caroline Dinenage, noted how recent “big box-office blockbusters made in Britain have showcased the UK’s world-class film and high-end television industry like never before”.

“But the boom in inward investment of recent years now risks crowding out our many talented independent British producers,” she said.

She added: “While streamers like Netflix and Amazon have proved a valuable addition for the industry and economy, unless the government urgently intervenes to rebalance the playing field, for every Adolescence adding to the national conversation, there will be countless distinctly British stories that never make it to our screens.”

Adolescence, created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, tells the story of a 13-year-old boy who is charged with killing a female classmate.

This week, it became fourth most popular English-language series in Netflix’s history with 114 million views.

A Netflix spokeswoman said: “The UK is Netflix’s biggest production hub outside of North America – and we want it to stay that way.

“But in an increasingly competitive global market, it’s key to create a business environment that incentivises rather than penalises investment, risk taking and success. Levies diminish competitiveness and penalise audiences who ultimately bear the increased costs.”

The Association for Commercial Broadcasters and On-Demand Services (COBA) said a levy risks damaging streamers’ investment in the UK.

Coba executive director Adam Minns said: “Especially in this economic climate, a levy risks impacting existing content budgets for UK shows, jobs, and growth, along with raising costs for businesses.

“Ironically, it could actually damage public service broadcaster dramas by reducing co-production budgets at streamers.”

He added pressure on domestic production stemmed from the real terms decline in the TV licence fee.

The report released on Thursday noted how last year there was a 27% decrease in the number of domestic high-end TV productions made in the UK and a 25% fall in spend.

The calls for greater help come after Wolf Hall director Peter Kosminsky told the BBC last month that the industry was in crisis, and that public service broadcasters including the BBC and ITV could no longer afford to make high-end British drama.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) said: “We acknowledge the challenges facing our brilliant film and TV industry and are working with it through our industrial strategy to consider what more needs to be done to unlock growth and develop the skills pipeline.

“We thank the committee for its report which we will respond to in due course.”

The report also noted while the introduction of tax breaks for independent British films, and for film and TV studios in England may have helped, it was not a “silver bullet” for solving many of the issues facing British producers.

As well as providing greater support and resources for UK TV production workforces, the report also suggested that lawmakers should consider cutting VAT on cinema tickets as well as doing more to meet the challenges posed by AI.

Paul W Fleming, general secretary of Equity, which represents British performers, said the government should “heed the call” for the licensing of creative works in all cases where they are used to train artificial intelligence models.

“AI is being built illegally by stealing Equity members’ life’s works,” he said.

Big tech firms “must be held to account”, he added, “brought to the table and made to pay creators what they owe.”

The cross-party committee recommended the government and British Film Institute (BFI) should launch a national awareness campaign, highlighting the employment opportunities offered by film and high-end TV, and “the range of skills the industry requires”.

It stressed how the industry “benefits hugely from the flexibility afforded by a predominantly freelance workforce” and therefore more should be done to “support freelancers when they are out of work”; such as the introduction of a minimum hourly wage or guaranteed basic income.

Head of industry union Bectu, Philippa Childs, said: “We welcome this timely and incisive report from the committee which identifies many of the urgent challenges currently facing the industry and its workforce.”

She added: “It’s essential that the industry does not become too skewed towards large streamers, which risks the homogenisation of content and the loss of much of the UK’s unique and distinctive output.”

A source close to the Universal UK project has told the BBC what fans can expect from the new park being built in Bedford.

James Bond, Paddington and Lord of the Rings are among the brands set to appear at the park, the BBC had learned.

Rides and attractions related to Harry Potter are not expected to be included.

On its website, Universal Destinations has claimed “it is too early” to know what attractions will be at the park.

Construction on the site at Kempston Hardwick, Bedfordshire, is expected to start next year if planning permission is granted.

While the source is confident that these concepts are happening, the theme park is not expected to open until 2031, which means some plans could change.

Universal aims to provide distinct attractions at each of its parks, with the Bedfordshire one set to feature unique attractions not found elsewhere.

The BBC has been told that other themed zones and rides at the park will be inspired by Back to the Future, Jurassic Park and Minions.

The source insisted “contracts have been signed” and it would be unlikely things would change.

“At this point it will be little details they tweak, like ‘Let’s use a different shade of paint on that Lord of the Rings castle’,” they said.

The locations can be seen on the map of what the site could look like, although specific details, such as the Hill Valley clock from Back to the Future, have been obscured.

Rides have already been designed, with the majority planned as indoor attractions.

Rollercoasters based on Back to the Future, Jurassic Park and Minions are among the few rides that will not be under cover.

There will be a stunt show based on 007, similar to the The Bourne Stuntacular in Florida.

“If you look at Epic Universe, the newest park they’re opening in Florida, a lot of those rides are indoors, too,” the source said.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told BBC Breakfast the theme park would be an opportunity to show off “great British creations to the world”.

“These are things like James Bond, Paddington Bear, these are things like Harry Potter. We’ve got so much to be proud of,” she said.

Notably, a Harry Potter-themed area will not be part of the park, as it is situated just a 40-minute drive from the Warner Bros Studio Tour in Leavesden, Hertfordshire.

The source told the BBC that “watertight exclusivity contracts” made it difficult to include Hogwarts in the plans, although it could be reconsidered alongside other brands such as Nintendo or Wicked if the park were to expand in the future.

“Warner Bros has the UK rights to Harry Potter attractions. They tried to find a way round it but couldn’t. That could change in years to come, though,” the source said.

Warner Bros Studio Tour has been invited to comment.

Universal Destinations and Experiences is expecting 8.5 million visitors a year at the park.

Transport links close to the site will require significant improvements to accommodate the new arrivals, which the government says it is committed to.

Universal previously described the site as “an ideal location with convenient, fast rail links to London and London Luton Airport”.

The borough’s mayor, Tom Wootton, a Conservative, said: “Bedford is the perfect place for this investment – well-connected, full of talent and ready to grow.

“We’re proud to be chosen as the home of Universal in the UK. I’m delighted that our residents and communities will benefit in the years and decades ahead.”

Luton Airport is hoping to double annual passenger numbers to 32 million by 2043, after Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander recently approved its expansion plans.

Visitors to the park who land at the airport could catch a train at Luton Airport Parkway on the Midland Main Line line to Wixams, which will be Universal’s nearest station.

That is currently expected to open next year with two platforms, but Universal said it would upgrade the station, potentially with extra platforms, to meet visitor demand.

The East West Rail line is currently being built to link Oxford and Cambridge. Although it is not expected to be fully operational until the 2030s, Universal has said there would be a new railway station near the park.

A car park is in the conceptual art of the park. Drivers would access it via the A421, which was closed last year after it was flooded during heavy rain.

Universal plans to install new slip roads on the A421 to meet increased demand.

Maximo Peña had been coming to the Jet Set nightclub every single Monday for the past 30 years.

This week, excited to see a concert by the popular Dominican singer Rubby Pérez, he took his wife and his sister. Now all three are buried beneath the rubble of the collapsed discotheque, after the roof caved in part way through the performance, leaving at least 184 dead.

“I haven’t heard any news about any of them,” says Shailyn Peña, Maximo’s 17-year-old daughter as she sits on a wall outside the devastated venue.

“It was just another Monday night for them. In fact, my dad invited my mum to come too but at the last minute she decided not to go. It was a blessing in disguise.”

Behind her as she speaks, a team of rescue workers is meticulously going through the rubble inside the building, listening for the slightest sound of a survivor beneath them. They have been joined by Israeli and Mexican search teams and are using sophisticated heat-seeking equipment to try to locate anyone still alive.

Shailyn tells me her cousin is one of the rescue workers, sifting through the debris for her own uncle, which brings her peace of mind that a relative is inside, doing everything in her power to try to track him down.

But the uncertainty and the endless wait for information are becoming unbearable, Shailyn says.

“I feel the urge to just go in there and push aside all the rocks and pull him out. But as much as I want to, I really can’t. I just have to sit here and wait it out.”

For their part, the authorities are doing what they can to keep the public informed, delivering grim updates on the number of dead, which has risen steadily with every passing hour. At regular intervals, a team emerges from the site carrying a body covered by a blanket on a stretcher.

Occasionally, although more rarely now, someone is brought out alive, bolstering the hopes of the relatives. The emergency services insist survivors can still be reached in the debris.

“Nothing can be ruled out,” said the Director of the Emergency Operations Centre, Juan Manuel Mendez. “We are going to go over every inch of the rubble here to give the families of those caught up in the disaster some kind of closure.”

The President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, declared three days of national mourning, a reflection of the scale of the tragedy unfolding at the site.

Among those confirmed to have lost their lives in the accident were some well-known national figures including Pérez himself, two much-loved former baseball players, Octavio Dotel and Tony Blanco, and a regional governor. And alongside them, scores of merengue music-lovers and Pérez fans also died in the collapse.

For as long as there is a feasible chance of success, the authorities’ focus remains on the search and rescue operation. However, eventually the questions will turn to the cause of the collapse and government investigators will have to provide meaningful answers to the families in due course.

One theory is already circulating outside the venue. Many are pointing the finger of blame at a fire at the nightclub around two years ago. Some fear the blaze structurally weakened the site or that any repairs carried out were insufficient or not up to code.

The owner of the Jet Set nightclub, Antonio Espaillat, delivered a video message via social media expressing his condolences and those of “all the Jet Set family”, to the victims’ relatives.

He also insisted that he and his team were co-operating “totally and transparently with the authorities” over the disaster.

Shailyn Peña has heard about the fire at the nightclub and is among those who thinks it played a part. However, for now she has bigger worries. Despite the family’s efforts to protect them, her younger stepsisters found out that their father and mother were trapped under the rubble from other children at school.

They are “terrified”, she added.

It is Shailyn’s birthday on Thursday, a day she would normally celebrate alongside her father, stepmother and aunt.

Instead, she must endure it in the worst possible circumstances, waiting for news of her missing loved ones, caught inside the worst such tragedy in her country’s modern history.

Many of Thursday’s papers lead on President Donald Trump suspending his slate of punitive tariffs while singling out China.

The Financial Times says Trump showed the “first signs of retreat” when he ordered his 90-day pause.

For the Times, Trump performed a “dramatic U-turn” when he said he wanted “fair deals with everyone”. The paper says it was a radical change in tone from the night before, when he told Republican senators that countries were “kissing my ass”.

The main editorial in the Daily Mail says the president’s mind may have been changed by a fire sale in US government bonds.

“Donald Ducks” is the Sun’s headline.

“Great WAR of China” is the Daily Mirror’s, as it describes Trump as “erratic” and “making a new gamble”, with his elevated 125% levy on Chinese goods.

The Daily Telegraph’s leader column says Trump is taking the world on an increasingly bizarre and dangerous rollercoaster ride. The paper warns of “considerable implications” for UK pensions and mortgages if turmoil on the bond markets continues to push up government borrowing costs.

The i Paper reports that ministers are considering bringing forward announcements planned for the Spending Review in June aimed at protecting the steel, medicines and car industries.

The Daily Express leads on the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch urging the prime minister to, in the paper’s words, ‘maximise the UK’s Brexit freedoms’, in the face of global economic turmoil. In an interview with the Express, Badenoch says Labour appears to be “just sitting back and letting it happen” instead of reaching out to countries in a Pacific trading bloc, whose British membership she negotiated as a minister.

Meta is expanding Teen Accounts – what it considers its age-appropriate experience for under 18s – to Facebook and Messenger.

The system involves putting younger teens on the platforms into more restricted settings by default, with parental permission required in order to live stream or turn off image protections for messages.

It was first introduced last September on Instagram, which Meta says “fundamentally changed the experience for teens” on the platform.

But campaigners say it’s unclear what difference Teen Accounts has actually made.

“Eight months after Meta rolled out Teen Accounts on Instagram, we’ve had silence from Mark Zuckerberg about whether this has actually been effective and even what sensitive content it actually tackles,” said Andy Burrows, chief executive of the Molly Rose Foundation.

He added it was “appalling” that parents still did not know whether the settings prevented their children being “algorithmically recommended” inappropriate or harmful content.

Matthew Sowemimo, associate head of policy for child safety online at the NSPCC, said Meta’s changes “must be combined with proactive measures so dangerous content doesn’t proliferate on Instagram, Facebook and Messenger in the first place”.

But Drew Benvie, chief executive of social media consultancy Battenhall, said it was a step in the right direction.

“For once, big social are fighting for the leadership position not for the most highly engaged teen user base, but for the safest,” he said.

However he also pointed out there was a risk, as with all platforms, that teens could “find a way around safety settings.”

The expanded roll-out of Teen Accounts is beginning in the UK, US, Australia and Canada from Tuesday.

Companies that provide services popular with children have faced pressure to introduce parental controls or safety mechanisms to safeguard their experiences.

In the UK, they also face legal requirements to prevent children from encountering harmful and illegal content on their platforms, under the Online Safety Act.

Roblox recently enabled parents to block specific games or experiences on the hugely popular platform as part of its suite of controls.

How Teen Accounts work depend on the self-declared age of the user.

Those aged 16 to 18 will be able to toggle off default safety settings like having their account set to private.

But 13 to 15 year olds must obtain parental permission to turn off such settings – which can only be done by adding a parent or guardian to their account.

Meta says it has moved at least 54 million teens globally into teen accounts since they were introduced in September.

It says that 97% of 13 to 15 year olds have also kept its built-in restrictions.

The system relies on users being truthful about their age when they set up accounts – with Meta using methods such as video selfies to verify their information.

It said in 2024 it would begin using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify teens who might be lying about their age in order to place them back into Teen Accounts.

Findings published by the UK media regulator Ofcom in November 2024 suggested that 22% of eight to 17 year olds lie that they are 18 or over on social media apps.

Some teenagers told the BBC it was still “so easy” to lie about their age on platforms.

In coming months, younger teens will also need parental consent to go live on Instagram or turn off nudity protection – which blurs suspected nude images in direct messages.

Concerns over children and teenagers receiving unwanted nude or sexual images, or feeling pressured to share them in potential sextortion scams, has prompted calls for Meta to take tougher action.

Prof Sonia Livingstone, director of the Digital Futures for Children centre, said Meta’s expansion of Teen Accounts may be a welcome move amid “a growing desire from parents and children for age-appropriate social media”.

But she said questions remained over the company’s overall protections for young people from online harms, “as well as from its own data-driven and highly commercialised practices”.

“Meta must be accountable for its effects on young people whether or not they use a teen account,” she added.

Mr Sowewimo of the NSPCC said it was important that accountability for keeping children safe online, via safety controls, did not fall to parents and children themselves.

“Ultimately, tech companies must be held responsible for protecting children on their platforms and Ofcom needs to hold them to account for their failures.”

There is a magnificent, snow-white wolf on the cover of Time Magazine today – accompanied by a headline announcing the return of the dire wolf.

This now extinct species is possibly most famous for its fictional role in Game of Thrones, but it did exist – more than 10,000 years ago – when it roamed across the Americas.

The company Colossal Biosciences is behind today’s headlines. It announced that it used “deft genetic engineering and ancient DNA” to breed three dire wolf puppies and to “de-extinct” the species.

But while the young wolves – Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi – represent an impressive technological breakthrough, independent experts say they are not actually dire wolves.

Zoologist Philip Seddon from the University of Otago in New Zealand explained the animals are “genetically modified grey wolves”.

Colossal publicised its efforts to use similar cutting edge genetic techniques to bring back extinct animals including the woolly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger.

Meanwhile experts have pointed to important biological differences between the wolf on the cover of Time and the dire wolf that roamed and hunted during the last ice age.

Paleogeneticist Dr Nic Rawlence, also from Otago University, explained how ancient dire wolf DNA – extracted from fossilised remains – is too degraded and damaged to biologically copy or clone.

“Ancient DNA is like if you put fresh DNA in a 500 degree oven overnight,” Dr Rawlence told BBC News. “It comes out fragmented – like shards and dust.

“You can reconstruct [it], but it’s not good enough to do anything else with.”

Instead, he added, the de-extinction team used new synthetic biology technology – snipping out pieces of DNA and inserting them into the genetic code of a living animal that has its entire biological blueprint in tact, in this case a grey wolf.

“So what Colossal has produced is a grey wolf, but it has some dire wolf-like characteristics, like a larger skull and white fur,” said Dr Rawlence. “It’s a hybrid.”

Dr Beth Shapiro, a biologist from Colossal Biosciences, said that this feat does represent de-extinction, which she described as recreating animals with the same characteristics.

“A grey wolf is the closest living relative of a dire wolf – they’re genetically really similar – so we targeted DNA sequences that lead to dire wolf traits and then edited grey wolf cells… then we cloned those cells and created our dire wolves.”

According to Dr Rawlence though, dire wolves diverged from grey wolves anywhere between 2.5 to six million years ago.

“It’s in a completely different genus to grey wolves,” he said. “Colossal compared the genomes of the dire wolf and the grey wolf, and from about 19,000 genes, they determined that 20 changes in 14 genes gave them a dire wolf.”

The edited embryos were implanted in surrogate domestic dog mothers. According to the article in Time, all three wolves were born by planned caesarean section to minimise the risk of complications.

Colossal, which was valued at $10bn (£7.8bn) in January, is keeping the wolves on a private 2,000-acre facility at an undisclosed location in the northern US.

The pups certainly look like many people’s vision of a dire wolf and the story has gathered global attention. So why is this scientific distinction important?

“Because extinction is still forever,” Dr Rawlence told BBC News. “If we don’t have extinction, how are we going to learn from our mistakes?

“Is the message now that we can go and destroy the environment and that animals can go extinct, but we can bring them back?”

The Green Party of England and Wales is aiming for a “record” number of councillors as it looks to increase its power base for an eighth election in a row, party co-leader Adrian Ramsey has said.

The party is looking to build on its successes, after passing 800 councillors for the first time last year.

The local elections in England on 1 May will be a major test for the Greens who quadrupled their number of MPs to four at last year’s general election – but have failed to match the poll increases seen by Reform UK.

Speaking at the Green Party’s campaign launch on Tuesday, co-leader Carla Denyer said her party offers a “positive change” compared to “old tired parties”.

The Green Party leadership predict these elections will lead to a “record-breaking” year for the party.

The party is seeking to win over voters “disillusioned” with mainstream politics.

Ramsey argued the UK was at a “crossroads”, where political instability means smaller parties can help shape the future direction of the country.

Reform is “throwing everything” at the local election “because they want to take advantage of voters feeling understandably let down by Labour and the Conservatives”, Denyer told campaigners.

“But we are here to say that voters have another choice – a positive choice – instead of one of the tired old parties, or worse a party that is divisive, dishonest, in disarray,” she added.

The Greens have failed to match the recent polling successes of Reform, which has overtaken the Tories and been neck-and-neck with Labour in recent national polls.

In contrast the Greens have remained on around 9% in the polls since the general election – while the Liberal Democrats have remained around 14%.

Asked about the party’s polling, Ramsey to BBC Breakfast: “The polls that matter are how people vote in elections.”

The Greens argued their “track record of delivering” is a key point of difference with smaller parties like Reform who are also looking to make in-roads at the local elections.

Green councillors are part of the ruling administration on 40 councils – including Bristol City Council, where the party took control in 2024.

Last year the Greens also became the largest party on Hastings Borough Council and have big numbers on councils including East Hertfordshire, Babergh, East Suffolk, Mid Suffolk, Lewes, Folkestone and Hythe and the Forest of Dean.

The party unveiled its local election pitch in Warwickshire – where the Greens are the largest party on Warwick District Council.

Green leadership of Warwick Council had led to a £5m investment “in improving the quality of council homes to keep bills down and keep homes warm”, Ramsey said.

He added: “These are the sorts of practical things that Green councillors are doing – both for the environment, for people and for affordable housing right around the country.”

About 1,650 seats will be contested on 14 county councils, eight unitary authorities, one metropolitan district, and in the the Isles of Scilly.

There will also be mayoral elections in the West of England, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and – for the first time – in Hull and East Yorkshire and Greater Lincolnshire.

Elections to all 21 county councils in England were due to take place.

But last month, the government announced elections would be postponed in nine areas, where the councils are undertaking reorganisation and devolution.

Those areas are Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Thurrock, Surrey, East and West Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

Some lenders are set to cut rates on mortgages after turmoil from US President Donald Trump’s tariff policy raised expectations that UK interest rates could be cut further this year.

TSB Bank said it will reduce some two-year fixed rate mortgages by up to 0.25 percentage points on Wednesday, following MPowered Mortgages which trimmed rates across a number of its deals.

Financial markets and economists are predicting that the Bank of England will cut interest rates by more than expected this year to avoid an economic downturn.

The Bank’s main rate stands at 4.5%. It was forecast to reduce it twice this year but the uncertainty created by US tariffs has changed the expectation to three cuts.

Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the Bank of England, and other countries’ central banks, “will be really looking to cut interest rates as much as possible in order to support growth”.

“And of course mortgage companies start to price that in right away and we’ve already seen mortgage rates start to fall and we should see plenty of that in the coming days,” she added.

The average mortgage rates on two-year and five-year fixed deals were unchanged on Tuesday, at 5.32% and 5.17% respectively, according to financial information company Moneyfacts, although it said rates were expected to come down in the coming weeks.

Mortgage brokers told the BBC that if so-called swap rates, which lenders use to price loans, stay as they are then some mortgage rates may fall to as low as 3.79% in the coming weeks.

However, the lowest rate deals will not be available to all borrowers, particularly first-time buyers, and may come with a hefty fee.

And many homeowners coming off fixed deals signed before interest rates started rising in mid-2021 will still find themselves in a higher mortgage rate environment.

According to the Bank of England, around a third of those on households will be looking to renew in the next year or two.

A detailed analysis of a full-sized digital scan of the Titanic has revealed new insight into the doomed liner’s final hours.

The exact 3D replica shows the violence of how the ship ripped in two as it sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912 – 1,500 passengers lost their lives in the disaster.

The scan provides a new view of a boiler room, confirming eye-witness accounts that engineers worked right to the end to keep the ship’s lights on.

And a computer simulation also suggests that punctures in the hull the size of A4 pieces of paper led to the ship’s demise.

“Titanic is the last surviving eyewitness to the disaster, and she still has stories to tell,” said Parks Stephenson, a Titanic analyst.

The scan has been studied for a new documentary by National Geographic and Atlantic Productions called Titanic: The Digital Resurrection.

The wreck, which lies 3,800m down in the icy waters of the Atlantic, was mapped using underwater robots.

More than 700,000 images, taken from every angle, were used to create the “digital twin”, which was revealed exclusively to the world by BBC News in 2023.

Because the wreck is so large and lies in the gloom of the deep, exploring it with submersibles only shows tantalising snapshots. The scan, however, provides the first full view of the Titanic.

The immense bow lies upright on the seafloor, almost as if the ship were continuing its voyage.

But sitting 600m away, the stern is a heap of mangled metal. The damage was caused as it slammed into the sea floor after the ship broke in half.

The new mapping technology is providing a different way to study the ship.

“It’s like a crime scene: you need to see what the evidence is, in the context of where it is,” said Parks Stephenson.

“And having a comprehensive view of the entirety of the wreck site is key to understanding what happened here.”

The scan shows new close-up details, including a porthole that was most likely smashed by the iceberg. It tallies with the eye-witness reports of survivors that ice came into some people’s cabins during the collision.

Experts have been studying one of the Titanic’s huge boiler rooms – it’s easy to see on the scan because it sits at the rear of the bow section at the point where the ship broke in two.

Passengers said that the lights were still on as the ship plunged beneath the waves.

The digital replica shows that some of the boilers are concave, which suggests they were still operating as they were plunged into the water.

Lying on the deck of the stern, a valve has also been discovered in an open position, indicating that steam was still flowing into the electricity generating system.

This would have been thanks to a team of engineers led by Joseph Bell who stayed behind to shovel coal into the furnaces to keep the lights on.

All died in the disaster but their heroic actions saved many lives, said Parks Stephenson.

“They kept the lights and the power working to the end, to give the crew time to launch the lifeboats safely with some light instead of in absolute darkness,” he told the BBC.

“They held the chaos at bay as long as possible, and all of that was kind of symbolised by this open steam valve just sitting there on the stern.”

A new simulation has also provided further insights into the sinking.

It takes a detailed structural model of the ship, created from Titanic’s blueprints, and also information about its speed, direction and position, to predict the damage that was caused as it hit the iceberg.

“We used advanced numerical algorithms, computational modelling and supercomputing capabilities to reconstruct the Titanic sinking,” said Prof Jeom-Kee Paik, from University College London, who led the research.

The simulation shows that as the ship made only a glancing blow against the iceberg it was left with a series of punctures running in a line along a narrow section of the hull.

Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable, designed to stay afloat even if four of its watertight compartments flooded.

But the simulation calculates the iceberg’s damage was spread across six compartments.

“The difference between Titanic sinking and not sinking are down to the fine margins of holes about the size of a piece of paper,” said Simon Benson, an associate lecturer in naval architecture at the University of Newcastle.

“But the problem is that those small holes are across a long length of the ship, so the flood water comes in slowly but surely into all of those holes, and then eventually the compartments are flooded over the top and the Titanic sinks.”

Unfortunately the damage cannot be seen on the scan as the lower section of the bow is hidden beneath the sediment.

The human tragedy of the Titanic is still very much visible.

Personal possessions from the ship’s passengers are scattered across the sea floor.

The scan is providing new clues about that cold night in 1912, but it will take experts years to fully scrutinise every detail of the 3D replica.

“She’s only giving her stories to us a little bit at a time,” said Parks Stephenson.

“Every time, she leaves us wanting for more.”

It doesn’t take long to make David Hockney laugh.

At nearly 88 years old, he is frail but still very dapper in his beige, red and black houndstooth suit with a white silk handkerchief poking out of the pocket, and trademark round yellow glasses perched on his nose.

Britain’s most popular artist chuckles a lot, his throaty laugh betraying his many years of smoking.

But, he tells me, as a young student from Bradford at the Royal College of Art in London in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the other students laughed at him.

“People would mock my accent,” he says. But it didn’t faze him. Hockney knew his worth even then. “I’d look at their artworks and I’d think, well, if I drew like that, I’d keep my mouth shut.”

What would the young boy growing up in Bradford think about the life he’d go on to have and the work he’d create?

“He’d have thought it was pretty daft.”

For decades, Hockney has been among the world’s greatest living artists, and he is now opening his biggest ever show.

As we sit together in a vast gallery at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, a stunning museum designed in reflective glass on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, I ask him what he thinks of the exhibition.

He says it’s his best ever, and bursts into laughter again.

It’s an expression of pure delight at the 11 rooms filled across four floors with his art – and at being alive to see it. “I’m just laughing, I mean we made it!”

Two years ago, when they started planning the exhibition, “I just thought I probably wouldn’t be here”, he says. “I’m still a smoker, a happy smoker fed up of bossy people telling you what to do… but I didn’t know.”

Hockney is sporting a badge that says “End Bossiness Now” in a gallery dedicated to his love of spring. During the pandemic in 2020, Hockney, who was living in Normandy, used his iPad to paint the trees and flowers blooming as spring arrived.

Those 220 iPad works adorn this gallery, floor to ceiling, the walls bursting with blossom and pure joy, made at a time when the world wasn’t feeling very hopeful.

Visitors to the show are greeted at the entrance by Hockney’s message from that time: “Do remember they can’t cancel the spring.”

Hockney has been in poor health. He now has two full-time carers, who have accompanied him to Paris from London, where he now lives. Portraits of both, sitting in their dark blue nurses’ uniforms, are the most recent works in the exhibition, made earlier this year.

A self-portrait of Hockney, painting and smoking a cigarette (his two great loves) is also very new.

He still paints for four to six hours every day, he tells me.

He believes you can’t judge a painter until their last work is done – but looking at his own work gathered together in Paris, “I can see what I was always trying to do, really”.

And he promises that “anybody who has just a little visual sensibility will really enjoy this show”.

His great-nephew Richard Hockney, who has regularly sat for him for 28 years, since he was four years old, including for this exhibition, tells me everyone was determined the artist would make it to Paris.

The night before, Hockney got into a car with his dachshund Tess to be driven across the Channel. And on the morning before they left, they were playing him variations of the jazz classic April in Paris.

Having arrived, “he is glowing”, Richard says. “I think this will keep him going for a long, long time, to be honest.”

And with spring unfolding in the French capital, it’s entirely appropriate that the artist known for chronicling spring would open his exhibition, David Hockney 25, now.

This is a man who would fly back from his home in Los Angeles when he heard the hawthorn had begun to blossom in his native Yorkshire, just so he could paint the dazzling spectacle.

Some of his earliest works, including probably his most famous, A Bigger Splash, are also on show in Paris.

That painting, capturing the moment of a swimmer diving into a Santa Monica pool, is on the wall next to Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), the south of France pool painting that broke records when it sold at auction in 2018 for £70m.

Next to those are Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, another of Hockney’s most recognisable works, which depicts his good friend Celia Birtwell and her husband Ossie Clark, with their white cat on his knee. Seeing them brought together in one room is spectacular.

But the show’s main focus is the last 25 years because “it’s 2025”, he says. “People think it’s miserable, but in 1925 they’d had the First World War.”

It’s a visual feast, full of the bright colours and optimism for which Hockney has become known.

“I’ve always had it. I’ve always thought it was an absurd world.”

A world to laugh at, to look at closely, as Hockney does, and to paint vibrantly.

Some of the iPad paintings are huge. He’s “amazed they could be blown up so big” when they were created on something so small.

One room is almost pitch dark to show off paintings he did of the Moon, made possible by advances in iPad technology.

There’s also a floor devoted to his portraits (about 60), including a 2022 painting of singer Harry Styles in a striped cardigan with a set of pearls around his neck.

But the rest are the friends and family Hockney knows well – Birtwell, her children and grandchildren, the show’s curator Sir Norman Rosenthal wearing full regalia, Hockney’s partner JP, sometimes with Tess the dog – and two of Richard.

Even though they’re related, when he’s having a portrait done “it’s very surreal looking at him and then realising you’re being painted by David Hockney”, he tells me. “You know he’s always going to create a masterpiece.”

His great uncle chooses to paint people he loves because “he sees the truer representation of yourself than you do”. In one of the portraits, Richard is grinning, in a green and white striped T-shirt.

Because Hockney likes Richard’s cheeky grin, “he will sit there and grin at me because he knows it’s going to make me grin… after six hours, it aches a bit”.

King Charles went to visit Hockney at home in London before he travelled. “He’s a very nice man, thoughtful, I thought,” the artist says. “He does watercolours himself.”

But he doesn’t fancy painting the King. “The problem there is the majesty, isn’t it really? I would find that a bit difficult, I think.”

He does, though, have a work on the go, a new painting of his great-nephew.

Richard tells me Hockney “says he’s still got a lot of work to do, which is good”, adding: “As long as that’s in his head, then he’ll keep going.”

The artist says he’ll finish his painting of his great nephew and then “I will paint somebody else. And I just carry on.”

David Hockney 25 is at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, from 9 April until 31 August.

A 15-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl have been found guilty of killing an 80-year-old man who was filmed being punched and kicked during a fatal attack at a park.

Leicester Crown Court heard the boy racially abused Bhim Kohli, and slapped him in the face with a slider shoe while he was on his knees during the “intense attack”, while the girl encouraged the violence and filmed it on her phone while laughing.

Mr Kohli died the day after the assault, which occurred yards from his home while he was walking his dog Rocky in Franklin Park, Braunstone Town, Leicestershire, on 1 September.

The boy was charged with murder and manslaughter, but was acquitted of the more serious charge on Tuesday.

Neither defendant can be named because of their ages.

The boy was remanded in custody, while the girl was released on conditional bail.

They will be sentenced on 19 and 20 May.

When the verdicts were read out, the boy leaned forward in the dock while the girl cried, and hugged her mother when she was released.

Addressing the girl, Mr Justice Turner said: “I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that the fact that bail is being granted should not be taken as any indication as to the sentence when the time comes.”

The judge, who will consider a media application to lift reporting restrictions on 19 May, thanked the jury – which deliberated for more than six hours – for their “obvious hard work”.

After the hearing, Mr Kohli’s daughter Susan Kohli recalled the moment she found her dad at the park “screaming out” in pain.

“It was horrendous, we have never seen him like that before. We all thought he would go to hospital to be treated and he would then be fine. We never imagined he wouldn’t return home. My dad passed away before our eyes, surrounded by his family,” she said.

“We feel anger and disgust towards the teenagers who took dad away from us. They humiliated an 80-year-old man, assaulted him, filmed it and laughed at him.

“The boy… used violence so severe that he broke three of dad’s ribs and neck which caused trauma to his spinal column.”

Mrs Kohli told of watching the video of her father being hit by the slider shoe.

“A loud horrible slapping sound is heard when the boy struck dad,” she said. “Hearing the girl laugh at this assault on dad is utterly disgusting. This sound plays over and over in our heads. Also captured on video is dad’s attempt to call for help as he shouted out for his grandson.”

Mrs Kohli said her father was a “devoted life partner to my mum for 55 years”, as well as a retired businessman, a close friend to many and a “very active” man who had three allotment plots where he grew fruit and vegetables.

“He was an amazing man who loved life. He never took himself seriously. He was good fun to be around and very chatty,” she said.

“He was the person who knitted our family together and we miss him every second of every day.

“The area we have loved for so many years and called home feels so different now and we will never feel safe.

“Having happened only a minute’s walk of where we live is something we cannot get away from and it is a constant reminder.

“Every time my mum opens the front door she thinks about what happened to her husband.”

Both defendants were among a group of children who encountered Mr Kohli in the park on the day he was fatally injured, the trial, which lasted more than five weeks, heard.

Opening the prosecution case, Harpreet Sandhu KC said: “[Bhim Kohli] left his home on Bramble Way. Having left his home, he walked a few yards to the entrance of Franklin Park, where he was going to take his dog for a walk.

“However, Mr Kohli would not get the opportunity to walk his dog for long and never would he return home. That is because in Franklin Park, Mr Kohli had the misfortune to encounter these two defendants.”

Mr Sandhu told the court the boy and girl had spent the afternoon together at Braunstone Park before going to the boy’s home, where he changed his clothes and wore black sliders – a loose-fitting type of shoe similar in appearance to flip-flops – which the barrister said were used in the attack.

He said CCTV footage showed Mr Kohli walked with his dog to Franklin Park at about 18:18 BST, followed by the two defendants and three other children a few minutes later.

The footage of the assault was shown to the jury.

Jurors heard Mr Kohli was discovered by two of his children “on the ground and in obvious pain”.

Mr Kohli, the court heard, had told his daughter he had been punched in the face, kicked, and racially abused.

His cause of death was given as a neck injury causing spinal cord damage, and he had a number of other injuries including fractured ribs.

The boy told a friend he would go “on the run” to Hinckley, in Leicestershire, the day after the attack but was arrested by police minutes later while hiding in a bush, the court heard.

In a letter written by the boy, after he had been charged, to a professional who was working with him, he said: “I am so nervous, well scared and worried. I accept I did it and I’m doing time, I’m just scared about how long I have to do.”

He also said in the letter that his girlfriend had broken up with him and he had been “struggling with that”, so he “needed anger etc releasing”.

When the professional told the boy that the contents of his letter would need to be disclosed, the boy said “that’s my manslaughter plea gone”, Mr Sandhu told the jury.

As Birmingham’s bin strikes enter their fifth week, the health secretary has said he is concerned about the impact of the walkout on public health.

Speaking to Times Radio, Wes Streeting said: “I certainly am concerned about the public health situation and the poor conditions we’re seeing for people in Birmingham.

“As the bin bags are piling up, we see rats and other vermin crawling around.”

Birmingham City Council said on Tuesday morning: “All of our waste wagons have been deployed from our three depots citywide this morning.”

Asking residents to leave their bins out as they normally would, the authority said it would collect them “asap” and apologised for what it called “the current situation”.

Natasha, whose 11-week-old son’s immune system is impaired due to being born prematurely, told BBC Radio WM part of her street in Winson Green was “quite literally a waste site”, blocking her route to the bus stop.

“That pathway is basically covered in black bin bags and physical household waste bins that are overflowing,” she said. “You can clearly see where rodents have actually bitten into the bin bags and they’ve been opened up.

“Do I walk past that tip point, where all that rubbish is, where all the rodents are accumulating, and all the pests are?

“Or do I… walk on the road with my son’s pushchair?

“Essentially, I’m having to choose between my son becoming possibly critically ill or being hit by a car.”

Talks between bin workers and the city council ended on Monday without an agreement being reached and are due to resume on Tuesday.

The strike has made headlines around the world, and last week the city council declared a major incident.

With the backlog of waste growing by 1,000 tonnes a week, neighbouring Lichfield District Council is due to start sending crews to help clear it.

The impact of fly-tipping on communities in the West Midlands, due to the strike, is being debated in the Commons on Tuesday.

“I understand industrial disputes happen,” Streeting added. “I understand people have the right to withdraw their labour, that’s part and parcel of industrial relations in our country.

“But what is not acceptable is allowing these sorts of… unsanitary conditions… to occur on people’s streets.”

Bin workers began indefinite strike action on 11 March, although walkouts have been taking place since January.

They are fighting plans to remove some roles and downgrade others.

Birmingham City Council said only a small number of workers would be facing pay cuts, and it desperately needs to save money after effectively declaring itself bankrupt in 2023.

Unite the Union, which is representing the workers, said Monday’s talks had been “productive” despite the lack of resolution.

But it would not go into the details of what had been discussed.

“All I can say is we both want an end to this dispute,” said Unite regional officer Zoe Mayou.

England’s health secretary’s comments reflect the crisis point many in Birmingham feel the situation has reached.

Speaking to the BBC, one resident said he felt like he was “living in a Third World country“, while others have complained of having to take their rubbish to temporary collection sites after coming home from long overnight shifts.

The council is advising people to continue putting out their household waste on collection days, saying workers who are not on strike will do their best to remove it.

A previous bin strike in 2017 went on for seven weeks before an agreement was reached.