A screenprint of the late Queen Elizabeth II by artist Andy Warhol is among dozens of images of the royal family which have gone on display in Edinburgh.

Royal Portraits: A Century Of Photography is due to run until 7 September at The King’s Gallery in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, having previously been exhibited at Buckingham Palace.

The exhibition chronicles the evolution of royal portrait photography from the 1920s until the coronation of the King in 2023, with more than 90 prints, proofs and documents from the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives.

Many images are being shown in Scotland for the first time and all the photographs are original vintage prints.

The earliest surviving colour print of a member of the royal family was taken by Madame Yevonde, a pioneer of the craft in 1935, showing Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester – and sister-in-law to King George VI and Edward VIII – on her wedding day.

Among the photographs in the exhibition are those taken to mark milestone birthdays, including “coming of age” images of Princess Anne to mark her 21st birthday in 1971, which were taken by Norman Parkinson in Frogmore House gardens.

Some of Cecil Beaton’s most memorable photographs taken over 60 years are on show, including original coronation portraits of Queen Elizabeth II.

A dramatic image of her in the countryside at Balmoral taken by Julian Calder in 2010 shows her wearing the mantle of the Order of the Thistle and was inspired by paintings of clan chiefs.

The Queen Mother’s famed 1939 shoot in Buckingham Palace gardens, dressed in gowns designed by Norman Hartnell, is also on display.

Images of Princess Margaret, taken by her husband Lord Snowdon before and after their marriage in 1960, form another section of the exhibition.

A photograph taken in 1966 to mark the 18th birthday of Prince Charles shows him dressed in a kilt in Balmoral tartan in the library of the castle, and was taken by Godfrey Argent.

Later 20th century photographs and more recent portraits include Andy Warhol’s diamond dust-sprinkled screen print and fashion photos by David Bailey, Nick Knight and Annie Leibovitz.

The exhibition concludes with the official coronation portraits taken by Hugo Burnand in May 2023.

Alessandro Nasini, curator of the exhibition, said: “Portrait photography is a creative process, and it has been fascinating to discover the careful decisions that were made to achieve such unforgettable portraits of the royal family, taken by some of the most celebrated photographers of the past century – from Dorothy Wilding and Cecil Beaton to David Bailey and Glasgow-born Rankin.

“Although we may be used to seeing photographs on screens, the opportunity to see the original prints up close is rare, as they can’t often be on display for conservation reasons.

“With archival material providing context into how these photographs were made and used, I hope visitors will enjoy going behind the scenes into the process of creating royal portraits.”

International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds has resigned over the prime minister’s cuts to the aid budget.

In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, Dodds said the cuts to international aid, announced earlier this week to fund an increase in defence spending, would “remove food and healthcare from desperate people – deeply harming the UK’s reputation”.

She told the PM she had delayed her resignation until after his meeting with President Trump, saying it was “imperative that you had a united cabinet behind you as you set off for Washington”.

The Oxford East MP, who attended cabinet despite not being a cabinet minister, said it was with “sadness” that she was resigning.

She said that while Sir Keir had been clear he was not “ideologically opposed” to international development, the cuts were “being portrayed as following in President Trump’s slipstream of cuts to USAID”.

Ahead of his trip to meet the US president, Sir Keir announced aid funding would be reduced from 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3% in 2027 in order to fund an increase in defence spending.

Defending the move, the prime minister said it was “not a decision I wanted to make” but added there was “no driver of migration and poverty like conflict”.

In her resignation letter, Dodds said she welcomed an increase to defence spending at a time when the post-war global order had “come crashing down”.

She added that she understood some of the increase might have to be paid for by cuts to ODA [overseas development assistance].

However, she expressed disappointment that instead of discussing “our fiscal rules and approach to taxation”, the prime minister had opted to allow the ODA to “absorb the entire burden”.

She said the cuts would “likely lead to a UK pull-out from numerous African, Caribbean and Western Balkan nations – at a time when Russia has been aggressively increasing its global presence”.

“It will likely lead to withdrawal from regional banks and a reduced commitment to the World Bank; the UK being shut out of numerous multilateral bodies; and a reduced voice for the UK in the G7, G20 and in climate negotiations.”

The spending cuts mean £6bn less will be spent on foreign aid each year. The aid budget is already used to pay for hotels for asylum seekers in the UK, meaning the actual amount spend on aid overseas will be around 0.15% of gross national income.

The prime minister’s decision to increase defence spending came ahead of his meeting in Washington – the US president has been critical of European countries for not spending enough on defence and instead relying on American military support.

He welcomed the UK’s commitment to spend more, but Sir Keir has been attacked by international development charities and some of his own MPs for the move.

Dodds held off her announcement until the prime minister’s return from Washington, in order not to overshadow the crucial visit, and it was clear she did not want to make things difficult for the prime minister.

But other MPs have been uneasy about the decision, including Labour MP Sarah Champion, who chairs the international development committee, who said that cutting the aid budget to fund defence spending is a false economy that would “only make the world less safe”.

Labour MP Diane Abbott, who had been critical of the cuts earlier in the week, said it was “shameful” that other ministers had not resigned along with Dodds.

Dodds’s resignation also highlights that decisions the prime minister feels he has to take will be at odds with some of the views of Labour MPs, and those will add to tensions between the leadership and backbenchers.

In a post on X, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said: “I disagree with the PM on many things but on reducing the foreign aid budget to fund UK defence? He’s absolutely right.

“He may not be able to convince the ministers in his own cabinet, but on this subject, I will back him.”

However one of her backbenchers – and a former international development minister – Andrew Mitchell backed Dodds, accusing Labour of trying “disgraceful and cynical actions”. “Shame on them and kudos to a politician of decency and principle,” he added.

Liberal Democrat international development spokesperson Monica Harding said Dodds had “done the right thing” describing the government’s position as “unsustainable.

She said it was right to increase defence spending but added that “doing so by cutting the international aid budget is like robbing Peter to pay Paul”.

“Where we withdraw our aid, it’s Russia and China who will fill the vacuum.”

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said she was “sorry to hear” of Dodds’s resignation.

“It is a really difficult decision that was made but it was absolutely right the PM and cabinet endorse the PM’s actions to spend more money on defence,” she said.

Dodds first became a Labour MP in 2017 when she was elected to represent the Oxford East constituency.

Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party she served as a shadow Treasury minister and was promoted to shadow chancellor when Sir Keir took over.

Following Labour’s poor performance in the 2021 local elections, she was demoted to the women and equalities brief.

Since July 2024, she has served as international development minister.

Dodds becomes the fourth minister to leave Starmer’s government, following Louise Haigh, Tulip Siddiq and Andrew Gwynne.

The US-UK trade deal warmly suggested by President Donald Trump should help insulate the UK from the direct impact of global trade tensions.

It signals that the White House has accepted the statistical logic that the US and UK have a balanced trade position.

Essentially each country roughly exports the same amount of goods to one another. Indeed, rather helpfully, according to the US numbers it exports more.

There is no general case that the UK is, in the words and logic of the president, “ripping off” or “screwing” the US, as he has suggested of many other countries and the EU.

So a deal to avoid the further trade barriers is very much on the cards.

But this is not the wideranging US-UK free trade agreement to lower almost all existing tariffs, that was the subject of so much debate in the Brexit era.

It is important to remember that the wider deal was never properly prioritised by Trump’s own team, because, as they told me, they never truly believed that the UK would find it in its interest to make the necessary hard break from the EU.

It is difficult to see that the UK government would want to further aggravate farmers, or its own base, by putting US farm imports or NHS pricing on the table.

In addition, on goods trade, the government is already prioritising its “Brexit reset” – a food standards deal, and some customs arrangements to bring down newish trade barriers with the European Union. Tellingly, the top official on that negotiation was in the Oval Office.

The narrower “economic deal”, as it was termed by Sir Keir Starmer, centres around technology and what the UK has referred to as the “further integration of our two countries’ tech sectors”.

Perhaps the best analogy is that the tech expertise held within the London-Oxford-Cambridge triangle could become for a booming AI-driven Silicon Valley what London’s financial City became to New York’s Wall Street. The fact that Vice President and big tech ally JD Vance will be leading some of the US negotiation is key here.

This strategy will have consequences. Trump’s team are already railing against digital services taxes.

The UK’s digital services tax was introduced in 2020 and imposes a 2% charge on revenues made by big tech firms running social media, internet search engines or online marketplaces.

While the £700m-£1bn a year it raises in the UK is smallish beer, since the UK and France introduced a hit to big tech’s revenues, many other countries have followed suit.

The White House wants to “stop the contagion”, and that could mean persuading the UK to lower or abolish it. Chancellor Rachel Reeves advocated raising it from 2% to 12% just four years ago.

Likewise the vice president in the Oval Office mentioned US tech firms being unfairly affected by what he called “freedom of speech” issues.

This appears to be a reference to the Online Safety Act. This aims to make social media firms and search engines protect children and adults in the UK from illegal, harmful material, although some have argued it risks stifling free expression online. My understanding is that, right now, movement may be less likely here.

The prize will be integration into the massive investments from the best capitalised tech companies in the world.

Could the UK start to attract back some of the investments lost to Dublin, for example? Would the EU stand back and allow the UK to develop as an offshore hub for US tech companies to service the whole of Europe?

There are two other significant issues. It is not unknown for warm words in the Oval Office to be somewhat contradicted by actions soon after. While sat next to the PM, President Trump described the EU’s levying of VAT as a trade restriction, seemingly unaware that the UK does exactly the same thing.

And even if it avoids direct new tariffs from President Trump, the open UK economy would be affected by any wide-ranging trade war involving most of the G7 and other countries.

That is still on the cards. Not only would that collapse world growth and potentially spike up inflation again, but could upend entirely the workings of the World Trade Organization.

The PM says the UK doesn’t have to choose between the US and other allies, but it may appear like that to them.

The strategy appears to be to become the Switzerland of global economics. Neutrality in a world of trade turmoil, not so much sat on a fence, but tiptoeing along a rather wobbly one.

US President Donald Trump has said he has a “lot of respect” for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the eve of their talks at the White House.

Asked by the BBC if he would apologise for recently calling him a “dictator”, he said he could not believe he had said this. He also called Zelensky “very brave”.

Trump was speaking after talks with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer about ending the war between Ukraine and Russia.

He predicted a “very good meeting” with Zelensky on Friday, saying efforts to achieve peace were “moving along pretty rapidly”.

This week’s meetings come after the Trump administration shocked its Western partners by holding the first high-level US talks with Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine just over three years ago.

America’s new president had appeared to blame Zelensky for the war and chided him for not starting peace talks earlier.

“You’ve been there for three years,” he had said last Tuesday. “You should have ended it… You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”

But this Thursday, speaking after meeting Sir Keir, Trump told reporters asking about his forthcoming talks with Zelensky: “I think we’re going to have a very good meeting tomorrow morning. We’re going to get along really well.”

Asked by the BBC’s Chris Mason if he still thought Zelensky was a “dictator”, he replied: “Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that.”

Zelensky will be hoping to win some kind of security guarantees for his country that would underpin any peace deal that may be negotiated.

Asked about these on Thursday, Trump only said he was “open to many things” but he wanted to get Russia and Ukraine to agree a deal before deciding what measures might be put in place to enforce it.

On his visit on Friday, Zelensky is expected to sign a deal that will give the US access to Ukraine’s rare earth mineral resources.

Trump suggested that the presence of US mining concerns in Ukraine would act as a deterrent against future Russian attacks on Ukraine.

“It’s a backstop, you could say,” he said on Thursday. “I don’t think anybody’s going to play around if we’re there with a lot of workers and having to do with rare earths and other things which we need for our country.”

The British prime minister had said earlier that the UK was prepared to send troops to Ukraine after the war as part of a peacekeeping force but only if the US, Nato’s leading member, provided a “backstop”.

Asked if the US would aid British peacekeepers if they were attacked by Russia, Trump said: “The British have incredible soldiers, incredible military and they can take care of themselves. But if they need help, I’ll always be with the British, okay?”

Nato’s Article 5 holds that Nato members will come to the defence of an ally which comes under attack.

Praising Trump’s “personal commitment to bring peace” in Ukraine, Sir Keir said the UK was “ready to put boots on the ground and planes in the air to support a deal”.

“We’re focused now on bringing an enduring end to the barbaric war in Ukraine,” he said.

But, he added, it must not be a peace deal “that rewards the aggressor or that gives encouragement to regimes like Iran”.

Asked whether Vladimir Putin was trustworthy, the UK prime minister said his views on the Russian president were well-known.

Asked in turn why he seemed to trust Putin and Sir Keir did not, Trump said: “I know a lot of people that you would say no chance that they would ever deceive you, and they are the worst people in the world.

“I know others that you would guarantee they would deceive you, and you know what, they’re 100% honourable, so you never know what you’re getting.”

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who had been due to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington before he cancelled the talks “due to scheduling issues”, told BBC News that Putin and Russia did “not want to have peace”.

“For any peace agreement to function, it needs the Europeans as well as Ukrainians on board,” she added.

Stopping off in the Irish Republic on Thursday en route to the US, Zelensky met the Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin at Shannon Airport.

“We discussed the steps to end the war with guaranteed peace for Ukraine and the whole of Europe,” he said later.

Following the overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president in 2014, Moscow annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and backed pro-Russian separatists in bloody fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The conflict burst into all-out war when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people, most of them soldiers, have been killed or injured, and millions of Ukrainian civilians have fled as refugees.

As well as Crimea, Russia now occupies parts of four other regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

The Kremlin warned on Thursday that Russia would make no territorial concessions to Ukraine as part of a peace deal.

“All territories that have become subjects of the Russian Federation… are an integral part of our country, Russia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “This is an absolutely indisputable fact and a non-negotiable fact.”

Separately, Russian and US officials met in the Turkish city of Istanbul for talks on rebuilding diplomatic ties.

The two nuclear superpowers expelled one another’s embassy staff when Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, was in the White House.

Andrew and Tristan Tate, the controversial British-American social media influencers accused of rape, human trafficking and money laundering, have been freed from travel restrictions in Romania after several high-level White House officials took an interest in their case.

It’s unclear what, if any, role Donald Trump’s administration may have played in their release, but one of Trump’s top envoys met with Romania’s Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu at a security conference in Munich earlier this month.

Andrew Tate rose to fame after appearing on the UK reality show Big Brother, and later making a series of extreme and controversial statements about women and politics on social media.

The pair ran a web cam business and were charged with human trafficking and rape along with two Romanian female suspects in June 2023.

They also face separate, unrelated allegations of rape and human trafficking in the UK, and civil suits in the US and UK. They deny all the allegations, which their US lawyer calls “defamatory and unequivocally false”.

On Thursday the brothers arrived in Florida after previously being banned from leaving Romania while the case against them is pending.

Lawyers for the pair say they will return to Bucharest for court hearings.

When asked about the Tates at the White House on Thursday, President Trump said: “I know nothing about that.”

But the brothers have been the subject of recent high-level discussions between the US and Romania.

Romanian officials say US counterparts brought up the brothers’ case with the Romanian government earlier this month, a story first reported by the Financial Times.

And Trump special envoy Richard Grenell raised the issue again at a security conference in Munich.

Hurezeanu said the Tates were mentioned during that conversation, but denied being pressured to release the pair.

The Tate brothers are Trump supporters and also have ties to his administration.

One of Tate’s lawyers now works as White House liaison to the US justice department.

Paul Ingrassia was part of a team representing the Tate brothers in a defamation lawsuit they filed in Florida against several of their alleged victims.

Ingrassia also acted as Tate’s publicist and says he got the influencer onto a show hosted by Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host.

He has praised Tate in online posts. In one dating from July 2023, he called Tate “an extraordinary human being” who was offering “a dying West some hope for renewal”.

Ingrassia did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

The Tates have also been talked about by several people in Trump’s orbit, including Donald Trump Jr and Elon Musk.

Trump Jr once called Tate’s detention in Romania “absolute insanity”.

Musk reinstated Andrew Tate’s account, which had been banned on X, and suggested, perhaps in jest, that Tate would make a good UK prime minister.

Joseph McBride, a lawyer representing the Tates in a defamation case they have filed against several of their accusers in Florida, said in a statement: “They feel secure in America for several reasons, the primary one being that Donald Trump is the president.”

The statement alleged that the Tates and others are victims of “weaponised legal systems” and “politically motivated prosecutions”.

McBride did not respond to questions about what role, if any, White House officials played in the removal of travel restrictions against the Tate brothers.

Trump and his advisers know the political power of the manosphere – a popular and very online subculture that attracts fans of mixed martial arts fighting, video games, cryptocurrencies and other stereotypically male pursuits.

It’s a sprawling scene that includes men who reject the company of women entirely, a “pick-up artist” scene filled with tips on how to find casual hookups, and plenty of mainstream podcasts and YouTube channels filled with bro-type humour.

The president’s advisers targeted the same audiences during last year’s election campaign, when Trump, JD Vance and others in his orbit went on podcasts and did interviews with new media outlets.

The views of the Tate brothers lie at one of the manosphere’s extreme edges. Andrew Tate himself has made no secret of his self-described misogynist – women-hating – and sexist views.

On podcasts and online clips he talks about how women are property, how men shouldn’t allow girlfriends to go out without them or talk to other men.

In extremely graphic language, he’s described violence against women and talks about how sexual assault victims bear responsibility for rape.

Tate and his brother at the same time sell a glamorous lifestyle of expensive properties, cigars and luxury cars that includes self-improvement messages directed at young men – an image that garnered him a large audience before he was booted off most mainstream social media platforms.

He told the BBC in a 2023 interview: “I preach hard work, discipline. I’m an athlete, I preach anti-drugs, I preach religion, I preach no alcohol, I preach no knife crime. Every single problem with modern society I’m against.”

Like many other extreme influencers, in the face of criticism he often claims his posts are satire or jokes, mocking his detractors as his messages spread further, propelled by online outrage.

The pair’s supporters were thrilled with his release and eager to proclaim their innocence, despite the outstanding charges against them.

Others were less enthusiastic. Four British women who have filed a civil lawsuit against Andrew Tate issued a statement calling on UK authorities to “take action”.

And support for the Tates is far from universal among Trump supporters and American conservatives, many of whom moved to immediately distance themselves from the brothers.

Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, where Tates landed on Thursday, said of their activities: “Florida is not a place where you’re welcome with that type of conduct.”

The state’s attorney general later said he would open a preliminary inquiry into the Tates and said Florida has “zero tolerance for human trafficking and violence against women”.

In the conservative Washington Examiner, podcaster Brady Leonard wrote: “Tate’s obnoxious, misogynistic brand is toxic to everyone besides electorally insignificant corners of social media.”

Matt Lewis, a US conservative political commentator who has been critical of Trump in the past, said advocating on behalf of Tate “fits in with the ethos of the Maga world right now, which is: ‘let’s be tough guys'”.

“But I also think it speaks to a legitimate problem, which we have seen in the last couple decades, a problem with men…where there’s an epidemic of loneliness, a sense the world is passing them by, a sense that modernity has made it harder to be successful as a husband and a father. I think that’s had some real psychic effects,” he said.

“There’s a pretty good contingency of Trump’s supporters who are probably going to welcome this guy and probably even see him as a victim of persecution.”

Oscar-winning US actor Gene Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa and their dog have been found dead at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In a wide-ranging career spanning more than six decades, Hackman won two Academy Awards for his work on The French Connection and Unforgiven.

A statement from the Santa Fe County Sheriff in New Mexico said: “We can confirm that both Gene Hackman and his wife were found deceased Wednesday afternoon at their residence on Sunset Trail.

“This is an active investigation – however, at this time we do not believe that foul play was a factor.”

Hackman was 95, and his wife – a classical pianist – 63.

He won the best actor Oscar for his role as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in William Friedkin’s 1971 thriller The French Connection, and another for best supporting actor for playing Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s Western film Unforgiven in 1992.

His other Oscar-nominated roles were in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde – as Buck Barrow in his breakthrough role, opposite Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway – and 1970’s I Never Sang for My Father, as well as playing the agent in Mississippi Burning in 1988.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office said: “On 26 February, 2025, at approximately 1:45pm, Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to an address on Old Sunset Trail in Hyde Park where Gene Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa, and a dog were found deceased.”

Much-celebrated actor Hackman played more than 100 roles in total, including supervillain Lex Luthor in the Christopher Reeve-starring Superman movies in the 1970s and 1980s.

Hackman acted opposite many Hollywood heavyweights including Al Pacino in 1973’s Scarecrow, Gene Wilder in 1974’s Young Frankenstein and Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton in 1981’s Reds.

He also starred in the hit movies Runaway Jury, Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation.

Coppola led the tributes to the late star on Thursday, calling him “a great artist”. Posting on Instagram, the director wrote: “Gene Hackman a great actor, inspiring and magnificent in his work and complexity. I mourn his loss, and celebrate his existence and contribution.”

Valerie Perrine, who featured alongside Hackman in Superman (1978) as his character’s on-screen girlfriend Eve Teschmacher, described the late actor as “a genius” and one of the “greatest to grace the silver screen”.

She posted on X: “His performances are legendary. His talent will be missed. Goodbye my sweet Lex Till we meet again.”

Star Trek actor George Takei posted that “we have lost one of the true giants of the screen”.

“Gene Hackman could play anyone, and you could feel a whole life behind it,” he wrote. “He could be everyone and no one, a towering presence or an everyday Joe. That’s how powerful an actor he was. He will be missed, but his work will live on forever.”

Slumdog Millionaire star Anil Kapoor also called Hackman a “genius” performer. “A true legend whose legacy will live on,” he wrote.

As well as his Oscar wins, Hackman also collected two Baftas, four Golden Globes and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

He took a comedic turn playing a conservative senator in 1996’s The Birdcage alongside Robin Williams and Nathan Lan, who starred as a gay couple.

His last big screen appearance came as Monroe Cole in Welcome to Mooseport in 2004, after which he stepped back from Hollywood for a quieter life in New Mexico.

Born in California in 1930, Hackman’s family moved frequently, and after lying about his age at 16, he enlisted in the US Marine Corps serving for four-and-a-half years.

He was stationed in China, Hawai’i and Japan before being discharged in 1951.

Following his military service, Hackman lived and worked in New York and studied journalism and television production at the University of Illinois, before deciding to move back to California to pursue his childhood acting dream.

He joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California, where he befriended a young Dustin Hoffman.

“I suppose I wanted to be an actor from the time I was about 10, maybe even younger than that,” he once said. “Recollections of early movies that I had seen and actors that I admired like James Cagney, Errol Flynn, those kind of romantic action guys.

“When I saw those actors, I felt I could do that. But I was in New York for about eight years before I had a job. I sold ladies shoes, polished leather furniture, drove a truck.

“I think that if you have it in you and you want it bad enough, you can do it.”

He added that he “wanted to act” but had “always been convinced that actors had to be handsome”.

“That came from the days when Errol Flynn was my idol. I’d come out of a theatre and be startled when I looked in a mirror because I didn’t look like Flynn. I felt like him.”

He moved back to New York in 1963, performing in Off-Broadway productions – including at the Music Box Theatre for the comedy Any Wednesday – and smaller TV roles.

But he began to really make his name in the 1970s, becoming a leading man as New York City detective Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle in The French Connection.

From then on he became a fixture on the big screen in the likes of 1972 disaster film The Poseidon Adventure.

He also appeared in Children From Their Games at the former Morosco Theatre, Poor Richard at Helen Hayes Theatre and The Natural Look at Longacre Theatre, before later returning in 1992 to perform Death And The Maiden at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.

Hackman and his first wife, Faye Maltese, were together for 30 years and raised three children before getting divorced in 1986.

In his later years, he and his second wife, Betsy stayed out of the spotlight, bar for a rare public appearance together at the 2003 Golden Globe Awards, where he won the Cecil B. deMille award.

In 2008 he told Reuters that despite the lack of any official announcement, he was “not going to act any longer”.

“I’ve been told not to say that over the last few years, in case some real wonderful part comes up, but I really don’t want to do it any longer.”

He also explained he was focusing his attentions away from the big screen and towards his quieter, calmer passion for writing novels.

“I was trained to be an actor, not a star. I was trained to play roles, not to deal with fame and agents and lawyers and the press,” he once said.

“It really costs me a lot emotionally to watch myself on-screen. I think of myself, and feel like I’m quite young, and then I look at this old man with the baggy chins and the tired eyes and the receding hairline and all that.”

For decades, children on Mull have been divided by the location of the island’s only high school.

Pupils living in the north of Scotland’s fourth largest island go to school in Tobermory, its main settlement.

But most of those living an hour-and-a-half’s drive away in the south face having to leave their families and catch a ferry to Oban on the Scottish mainland, where they stay in boarding school hostels during the week.

With Tobermory High School falling into a state of disrepair and plans being made to build a multi-million pound replacement, many of those in the south see it as a chance to put right what they regard as being a historical injustice.

They are campaigning for the new school to be based in a more central location such as Craignure, which is home to the main ferry port and the island’s hospital.

This would allow pupils from both ends of the island to attend the same school – so children in the south would be able to stay at home once they reach secondary school age.

But the parents in the north of the island want the new school to be built on the site of the existing high school in Tobermory.

Argyll and Bute Council has shortlisted four options for the location of the new school, and had been due to make a decision on Thursday – but the vote has been delayed until a special meeting of the council on 7 March.

The council’s preferred option is to build a replacement school in Tobermory but the “like-for-like” element of the funding means the island’s capital would then lose its early years and primary school provision.

Many community members had hoped that a “split option” would be made available allowing a central high school to be built as well a new primary school and nursery for the community of Tobermory, but the council says that is too expensive.

Marion MacLean lives in Tobermory and her two daughters currently attend the high school.

While the decision won’t directly impact on her family, Marion feels this is the “one chance to get it right for every child that lives on the island”.

While she feels its important not be “remiss of the feelings” of families in the Ross of Mull, she has concerns about the impact on the village she has called home all her life.

She told BBC Scotland News: “Tobermory can’t lose its primary school.

“It would have a huge impact on the businesses on the high street, and I think we would lose that community feel of having the children around the town during the day.”

Four miles off the main road through the Ross of Mull is the village of Carsaig, which is home to Amy Simpson and her daughters Daisy, six, and Rosie, four.

Amy said that if the council’s preferred option of a new school in Tobermory is selected she would feel forced to leave her village when her kids reach secondary school age, rather than be separated from them if they had to board in Oban.

She added: “We love our life here, we have become an integral part of our community.

“We don’t want to leave and we don’t want to take our kids out of this community, this is where they were born and where they are growing up.”

Fifty miles south of Tobermory, a journey which takes around an hour-and-a-half in a car due to the single track roads, is the village of Bunessan.

Rob Claxton-Ingham, who lives on a croft with his husband, said the future was uncertain as he doesn’t know where his foster child will attend secondary school.

As things stand, she faces travelling and boarding in Oban every week – like all children on the south of the island.

He told BBC Scotland News: “As a foster carer, our child has faced separation and loss already from her birth family and has had to transition to us as her substitute carers.

“The thought of her transitioning again at the age of 11 to a school, over the sea, where she has to get a ferry, where she won’t get our day-to-day support, is hard.”

Rob said high school has always been “an issue” for the community, and people have “learned to be as ok as they can be with it”.

“But this situation is developing something new and it really hurts that Argyll and Bute Council could develop something new and, actually while doing that plan, to continue excluding people at this end of the island,” he added.

Rebekah MacLean and her four kids also live in the village of Bunessan.

Her youngest children attend the local primary school, but for her secondary-aged children things are a little bit more complicated.

She said: “For me, what I am seeking is equality across the island for all children whether that’s primary age, early education or secondary students.

“One key aspect of that is the secondary school being centrally based, so all the children can attend and no child has to be put in the position of choosing between education and family.”

Rebekah has managed to make arrangements with her son, Jude, 15, to stay with a family friend in Tobermory during the week so he is slightly closer to home, while her daughter, Acacia, 14, is home-schooled.

Jude is also in favour of a centrally-located school so that when it comes to his siblings’ time to go to high school, they can stay at home and have a less uninterrupted education than him.

He said: “I do worry that because I have to travel so far, I have less time in school.

“I want to be an engineer, that requires straight As.

“I worry I won’t be able to get those because I have to travel so much and I’m maybe behind in class.”

It is clear that the debate on where the new school should be built is an issue that is consuming islanders.

Everywhere you go, everyone has an opinion on it.

Argyll and Bute Council said: “Building a new 2-18 campus on Mull is Argyll and Bute Council’s single biggest investment, estimated at £43m.

“Following extensive community engagement and detailed assessments, councillors will consider a report recommending a preferred site on 27 February with a motion already tabled to hold a special meeting to consider the issue on 7 March.”

The Stormont Executive has agreed a long-awaited programme for government, BBC News NI understands.

A virtual meeting of ministers lasted about 40 minutes on Thursday morning, a day after plans to agree the document were withdrawn at the last minute.

The first and deputy first ministers hailed it as an important milestone in a press conference on Thursday.

The document will have to be delivered to the assembly first on Monday before it can be published to the wider public.

The programme for government comes just over a year since the Northern Ireland Executive reformed in February 2024.

It is understood the document contains a number of targets alongside the executive’s nine main priorities.

A draft version of the programme, an 88-page document entitled Our Plan: Doing What Matters Most, was unveiled last September before an eight-week public consultation.

Meanwhile a visit by Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin to Belfast today has been postponed.

He was due to visit Stormont for the first time since being re-elected taoiseach last month.

The Irish government said that the meeting has been pulled due to a schedule change.

Irish national broadcaster RTÉ has reported that Martin is to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Shannon Airport.

Zelensky is to make a brief stop in Ireland before travelling to the United States to meet President Trump.

The priorities set out in the draft were described by First Minister Michelle O’Neill as “ambitious and focused”.

There were nine key priorities:

• Grow a globally competitive and sustainable economy
• Deliver more affordable childcare
• Cut health waiting lists
• Ending violence against women and girls
• Better support for children and young people with special educational needs
• Provide more social, affordable and sustainable housing
• Safer communities
• Protect Lough Neagh and the environment
• Reform and transformation of public services

It has been some time since a Stormont executive agreed a finalised programme for government.

The last time an executive managed to get one over the line was during the assembly’s fourth term between 2011 and 2015.

One was also agreed in 2016 and went out to public consultation.

But before it could be passed, the power-sharing institutions collapsed following the resignation of then Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

In a crowded control centre, surrounded by dozens of TV screens, the Taliban’s police force proudly shows off its newly-acquired network of 90,000 CCTV cameras – used to watch over the day-to-day lives of millions of people.

“We monitor the entire city of Kabul from here,” says Khalid Zadran, a spokesperson for the Taliban police chief, pointing to one of the screens.

The authorities say such surveillance will help fight crime, but critics fear it will be used to clamp down on dissent and to monitor the strict morality code enforced by the Islamist Taliban government under their interpretation of Sharia law.

The BBC are the first international journalists allowed to see the system in action.

Inside the control room, police officers sit in rows watching the live streams from thousands of cameras, keeping tabs on the lives of the six million people who live in Kabul.

From car licence plates to facial expressions, everything is monitored.

“In certain neighbourhoods, when we notice groups of people and suspect they might be involved in drug use, criminal activities, or something suspicious, we quickly reach out to the local police,” says Zadran.

“They arrive swiftly to investigate the nature of the gathering.”

Under the previous government, Kabul was threatened daily with attacks from the Taliban and so-called Islamic State militants, as well as high profile kidnappings and car-jackings. When the Taliban retook power in 2021, they promised to crack down on crime.

The dramatic increase in the number of surveillance cameras in the capital is a sign of growing sophistication in the way the Taliban enforce law and order. Before their return, just 850 cameras were in place in the capital, according to a spokesman for the security forces that were driven from power.

However, in the past three years, the Taliban authorities have also introduced a range of draconian measures limiting people’s rights and freedoms, especially those of women. The Taliban government has not been formally recognised by any other country.

The surveillance system the BBC is shown in Kabul features the option to track people by facial recognition. On the corner of one screen images pop up with each face categorised by age range, gender, and whether or not they have a beard or a face mask.

“On clear days, we can zoom in on individuals [who are] kilometres away,” says Zadran, highlighting a camera positioned up high that focuses on a busy traffic junction.

The Taliban even monitor their own personnel. At a checkpoint, as soldiers popped open the trunk of a car for inspection, the operators focused their lenses, zooming in to scrutinise the contents within.

The interior ministry says the cameras have “significantly contributed to enhancing safety, curbing crime rates, and swiftly apprehending offenders”. It adds the introduction of CCTV and motorcycle controls have led to a 30% decrease in crime rates between 2023 and 2024 but it is not possible to independently verify these figures.

However, rights groups are concerned about who is being monitored and for how long.

Amnesty International say installing cameras “under the guise of ‘national security’ sets a template for the Taliban to continue their draconian policies that violate fundamental rights of people in Afghanistan – especially women in public spaces”.

By law women are not allowed to be heard outside their houses, although in practice this is not being strictly enforced. Teenage girls are prevented from accessing secondary and higher education. Women are barred from many forms of employment. In December, women training as midwives and nurses told the BBC they had been ordered not to return to classes.

While women continue to be visible on the streets of cities like Kabul, they are required to wear a face covering.

Fariba*, a young graduate who lives with her parents in Kabul, has been unable to find work since the Taliban came to power. She tells the BBC there is “significant concern that surveillance cameras may be used to monitor women’s hijabs [veils]”.

The Taliban say only the city police have access to the CCTV system and the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Ministry – the Taliban’s morality police – does not use it.

But Fariba is concerned the cameras will further endanger those opposed to Taliban rule.

“Many individuals, especially ex-military members, human rights advocates and protesting women, struggle to move freely and often live in secrecy,” she says.

“There is significant concern that surveillance cameras will be used to monitor women’s hijabs too,” she says.

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, says Afghanistan does not have the data protection laws in place to regulate how the collected CCTV footage is held and used.

The police say the data is kept only for three months, while, according to the interior ministry, the cameras do not pose a threat to privacy as they “are operated from a special and completely confidential room by a specific and professional person in charge”.

The cameras appear to be Chinese-made. The control room monitors and branding on the feeds the BBC saw carried the name Dahua, a Chinese government-linked company. Earlier reports that the Taliban were in talks with China’s Huawei Technologies to buy cameras were denied by the company. Taliban officials refused to answer BBC questions about where they sourced the equipment.

Some of the cost of installing the new network is falling on ordinary Afghans who are being monitored by the system.

In a house in central Kabul the BBC spoke to Shella*, who was asked to pay for some of the cameras installed on the streets near her home.

“They demanded thousands of afghanis from every household,” she says. It’s a large amount in a country where those women who have jobs may earn only around 5,000 afghanis ($68; £54) a month.

The humanitarian situation in Kabul, and in Afghanistan in general, remains precarious after years of war. The country’s economy is in crisis, but international aid funding has been largely stopped since the Taliban came back to power.

According to the United Nations, 30 million people are in need of aid.

“If families refused to pay [for the cameras], they were threatened with water and power cuts within three days,” Shella adds. “We had to take loans to cover the costs.

“People are starving – what good are these cameras to them?”

The Taliban say that if people do not want to contribute, they can put in an official complaint.

“Participation was voluntary, and donations were in the hundreds, not thousands,” Khalid Zadran, the Taliban police spokesperson, insists.

Despite the assurances, rights campaigners both inside and outside Afghanistan continue to have concerns over how such a powerful surveillance system will be used.

Jaber, a vegetable seller in Kabul, says the cameras represent another way in which Afghans are made to feel powerless.

“We are treated like trash, denied the opportunity to earn a living, and the authorities regard us as worthless,” he told the BBC.

“We can do nothing.”

*The names of the women interviewed for this piece were changed for their safety

With additional reporting by Peter Ball

Ukraine says it has agreed to the terms of a major deal that would give the US access to its deposits of rare earth minerals.

Kyiv hopes the deal – which would give the US a financial stake in the country – will encourage the White House to protect Ukraine if the war with Russia reignites after a potential ceasefire.

US President Donald Trump said an agreement would help American taxpayers “get their money back” for aid sent to Ukraine throughout the war and would give Ukraine “the right to fight on” against Russia.

But Ukrainian President Zelensky said no US security guarantees had been agreed yet, but he hoped the agreement would “lead to further deals”.

Key details have not yet been made public, but on Wednesday Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Ukraine and the US had finalised a version of the agreement.

Speaking to Ukrainian TV, Shmyhal said the preliminary agreement envisages that an “investment fund” will be set up for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

Kyiv and Washington will be managing the fund on “equal terms”, the prime minister added.

He said Ukraine would contribute 50% of future proceeds from state-owned mineral resources, oil and gas to the fund, and the fund would then invest in projects in Ukraine itself.

The New York Times reported, citing a draft document, that the US would own the maximum amount of the fund allowed under US law, but not necessarily all of it.

A minerals deal was at the centre of a rift between Trump and Zelensky last week, with the Ukrainian president rejecting an initial request for $500bn (£395bn) in revenue from rare minerals.

Media reports say this demand has since been dropped.

“The provisions of the deal are much better for Ukraine now,” a source in Ukraine’s government told the BBC.

On Tuesday, Trump said the US had given Ukraine between $300bn (£237bn) and $350bn (£276bn) in aid, and that he wanted to “get that money back” through a deal.

BBC Verify analysis did not find evidence for this figure.

Zelensky has been pushing for a deal to include a firm security guarantee from the US.

But on Wednesday, Ukraine’s leader said no such guarantee had been made.

“I wanted to have a sentence on security guarantees for Ukraine, and it’s important that it’s there,” he said.

Asked by the BBC if he would be prepared to walk away from the agreement if Trump did not offer the guarantees he wanted, Zelensky said: “I want to find a Nato path or something similar.

“If we don’t get security guarantees, we won’t have a ceasefire, nothing will work, nothing.”

Despite this, Ukrainian PM Shmyhal said on Wednesday the US supported “Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees to build lasting peace”.

He said Ukraine would not sign the deal until Zelensky and Trump “agree on security guarantees” and decide on how to “tie this preliminary agreement” to a US security guarantee.

Yuri Sak, adviser to Ukraine’s ministry of strategic industries, told the BBC earlier on Wednesday: “There’s no point in signing any deal on critical minerals if Russians can reinvade one month after signing the deal.”

He said discussions about security guarantees needed to continue.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna, who has been leading negotiations, told the Financial Times that the deal was “part of a bigger picture”.

The prospect of a minerals deal was first proposed by Zelensky last year as a way to offer the US a tangible reason to continue supporting Ukraine.

Trump said on Tuesday that Ukraine would get “the right to fight on” in return for access to its minerals, though he did not confirm an agreement had yet been reached.

He suggested the US would continue to supply equipment and ammunition to Ukraine “until we have a deal with Russia”.

He also said there would be a need for “some form of peacekeeping” in Ukraine following any peace deal, in a form that would need to be “acceptable to everyone”.

Trump said on Monday that Russia was open to accepting European peacekeepers in Ukraine, but Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Kremlin would not consider this as an option.

Shmyhal said the US and Ukraine have prepared a final version of the agreement, which Ukraine’s government will authorise for signing on Wednesday.

Trump has said he expects Zelensky to sign the deal on a visit to Washington on Friday.

Zelensky said he would be “very direct” with Trump by asking whether the US would continue supporting Ukraine or not.

Kyiv estimates that about 5% of the world’s “critical raw materials” are in Ukraine.

This includes some 19m tonnes of proven reserves of graphite, which the Ukrainian Geological Survey state agency says makes the nation “one of the top five leading countries” for the supply of the mineral. Graphite is used to make batteries for electric vehicles.

Ukraine also has significant deposits of titanium, lithium and rare earth metals – a group of 17 elements that are used to produce weapons, wind turbines, electronics and other products vital in the modern world.

Vladimir Putin has not yet addressed reports that the terms of a deal between the US and Ukraine have been agreed.

But on Monday evening he told state TV he was ready to “offer” resources to American partners in joint projects, including mining in Russia’s “new territories” – a reference to parts of eastern Ukraine that Russia has occupied since launching a full-scale invasion three years ago.

Putin said a potential US-Ukraine deal on rare minerals was not a concern and that Russia “undoubtedly have, I want to emphasise, significantly more resources of this kind than Ukraine”.

“As for the new territories, it’s the same. We are ready to attract foreign partners to the so-called new, to our historical territories, which have returned to the Russian Federation,” he added.

Gardaí (Irish police) are continuing to question a man in connection with the death of a woman on board a ferry sailing from Wales to Ireland.

The incident occurred on Tuesday afternoon, on the 14:00 GMT Stena Line sailing from Fishguard to Rosslare in County Wexford.

Gardaí and emergency services attended the scene after being alerted to what police described as “an unexplained death” shortly after 17:00 local time. They then boarded the ship, which is currently docked at Rosslare Harbour.

The woman was later pronounced dead. Gardaí are currently awaiting the results of a post-mortem.

Irish broadcaster RTÉ reported that the ship’s captain made an emergency call about half an hour before the ship docked.

On Tuesday evening, the 19:00 outbound Stena sailing from Rosslare to Fishguard was cancelled with passengers being accommodated by Irish ferries on the 20:45 sailing from Rosslare to Pembroke, according to the company.

Wexford councillor Ger Carthy said locals reacted with “shock and sadness” at the “tragic events”.

“What transpired here last night and the response that was given by the gardaí and the state agencies was second to none,” he added.

In a statement, Stenaline said: “We can confirm that An Garda Síochána is investigating an incident that occurred on the 14:00 ferry crossing from Fishguard to Rosslare on Tuesday February 25.

“As this is a live police matter, we cannot provide any further detail on the incident at this time.

“In order to assist with the Garda investigation, last night’s 19:30 and 01:30 Stena Nordica sailings were cancelled. Today’s 08:30 sailing from Rosslare and return from Fishguard at 14:00 have also been cancelled. At this time, Stena Nordica’s next expected departure will be at 19:30 from Rosslare.”

A spokesperson for the Wexford coronor said: “The coroner has been informed of this death and as this is an ongoing investigation no future details will be given at this stage.

“An inquest will be held but not until all investigations have been concluded and the result of the post mortem has been received.”