Cardinals will meet next month in a secret conclave to elect the next pope, the Vatican has said.
The closed-door meeting will start inside the Sistine Chapel on 7 May and will involve some 135 cardinals from across the world.
It follows the death of Pope Francis who died at the age of 88 on Easter Monday and whose funeral was held on Saturday.
There is no timescale as to how long it will take to elect the next pope, but the previous two conclaves, held in 2005 and 2013, lasted just two days.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said cardinals will take part in a solemn mass at St Peter’s Basilica, after which those eligible to vote will gather in the Sistine Chapel for the secretive ballot.
Once they enter the Sistine Chapel, cardinals must have no communication with the outside world until a new Pope is elected.
There is only one round of voting on the first afternoon of the conclave, but the cardinals will vote up to four times every day afterwards.
A new pope requires a two-thirds majority – and that can take time.
Each cardinal casts his vote on a simple card that says, in Latin: “I elect as Supreme Pontiff” to which they add the name of their chosen candidate.
If the conclave completes its third day without reaching a decision, the cardinals may pause for a day of prayer.
Outside the Sistine Chapel the world will be watching for the smoke from the chimney.
If the smoke is black, there will be another round of voting. White smoke signals that a new pope has been chosen.
EPA
Pope Francis’ funeral was attended by heads of state, heads of government and monarchs from around the world
Hymns played out on giant speakers, occasionally drowned out by the sound of helicopters flying overhead, before 91-year-old Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re gave a homily on the pope’s legacy.
After a ceremony, huge crowds lined the streets of Rome to watch as the Pope’s coffin was carried in a procession to his final resting place, Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica.
Authorities said 140,000 people had lined the streets, clapping and waving as the hearse – a repurposed white popemobile – crossed the Tiber river and drove past some of Rome’s most recognisable sights: the Colosseum, the Forum and the Altare della Patria national monument on Piazza Venezia.
Use our tool to find out whether there is an election near you, who the candidates are and where you can vote.
Most of the councils up for election are county councils – large authorities like Lancashire and Kent that look after services including social care, education, road maintenance and libraries.
In parts of England with no district councils, like in Cornwall, Doncaster and Buckinghamshire, local authorities are responsible for the full range of services – these also include bin collections, public housing and planning.
Mayors in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Doncaster, North Tyneside, and the West of England are up for election. While in two areas – Hull and East Yorkshire, and Greater Lincolnshire – voters will have the chance to elect a mayor for the first time.
Crisps, croissants, doughnuts, muffins, sweets and hot dogs all count as ultra-processed food
People who eat lots of ultra-processed foods (UPF) may be at greater risk of dying early, a study in eight countries including the UK and the US suggests.
Processed meats, biscuits, fizzy drinks, ice cream and some breakfast cereals are examples of UPF, which are becoming increasingly common in diets worldwide.
UPFs tend to contain more than five ingredients, which are not usually found in home cooking, such as additives, sweeteners and chemicals to improve the food’s texture or appearance.
Some experts say it’s not known why UPFs are linked to poor health – there is little evidence it’s down to the processing itself and could be because these foods contain high levels of fat, salt and sugar.
‘Artificial ingredients’
The researchers behind the study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, looked at previous research to estimate the impact of ultra-processed food intake on mortality.
The study cannot definitively prove that UPFs caused any premature deaths.
This is because the amount of ultra-processed foods in someone’s diet is also linked to their overall diet, exercise levels, wider lifestyle and wealth, which can all also affect health.
The studies looked at surveys of people’s diets and at data on deaths from eight countries – Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, UK and US.
The report estimates that in the UK and the US, where UPFs account for more than half of calorie intake, 14% of early deaths could be linked to the harms they cause.
In countries such as Colombia and Brazil, where UPF intake is much lower (less than 20% of calorie intake), the study estimated these foods are linked to around 4% of premature deaths.
Lead study author Dr Eduardo Nilson, from Brazil, said UPFs affected health “because of the changes in the foods during industrial processing and the use of artificial ingredients, including colorants, artificial flavours and sweeteners, emulsifiers, and many other additives and processing aids”.
By their calculations, in the US in 2018, there were 124,000 premature deaths due to the consumption of ultra-processed food. In the UK, nearly 18,000.
The study says governments should update their dietary advice to urge people to cut back on these foods.
But the UK government’s expert panel on nutrition recently said there wasn’t any strong evidence of a link between the way food is processed and poor health.
What is ultra-processed food?
There is no one definition that everyone agrees on, but the NOVA classification is often used. Examples include:
cakes, pastries and biscuits
crisps
supermarket bread
sausages, burgers, hot dogs
instant soups, noodles and desserts
chicken nuggets
fish fingers
fruit yoghurts and fruit drinks
margarines and spreads
baby formula
Still questions to answer
The numbers in the study are based on modelling the impact of ultra-processed foods on people’s health.
Prof Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics, Open University, said the study makes lots of mathematical assumptions which make him cautious about what the findings mean.
“It’s still far from clear whether consumption of just any UPF at all is bad for health, or what aspect of UPFs might be involved.
“This all means that it’s impossible for any one study to be sure whether differences in mortality between people who consume different UPF amounts are actually caused by differences in their UPF consumption.
“You still can’t be sure from any study of this kind exactly what’s causing what.”
Dr Nerys Astbury, an expert in diet and obesity at the University of Oxford, also agrees there are limitations to the research.
It’s been known for some time that diets high in energy, fat and sugar can increase the risk of diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart conditions and some cancers, which can lead to premature death.
“Many UPF tend to be high in these nutrients,” she says, adding that studies to date haven’t been able to prove that the effects of UPFs are due to anything more than “diets high in foods which are energy dense and contain large amounts of fat and sugar”.
This type of research cannot prove that consumption of ultra-processed foods is harmful, says Dr Stephen Burgess at Cambridge University.
How physically fit someone is may be the main cause of poor health instead. But when numerous studies across many countries and culture suggest UPFs could be a risk to health, Dr Burgess says “ultra-processed foods may be more than a bystander”.
The Food and Drink Federation, which represents manufacturers, said the term ‘ultra-processed food’ “demonises a wide variety of food that can help people achieve a healthy balanced diet, such as yoghurt, pasta sauces or bread”.
It said all additives used by food manufacturers are approved by the Food Standards Agency, who ensure they are safe to eat and drink.
Marks and Spencer (M&S) customers have been telling the BBC of their frustration as disruption caused by the cyber attack which has hit the retailer continues into another trading week.
The incident – which it disclosed last Monday – has caused delayed parcels, paused online orders and suspended gift card payments, and has seen the retailer take down several parts of its operations over the last few days.
It has yet to disclose the nature of the cyber attack or when it expects operations to return to normal. Some customers told the BBC that M&S’ communication over affected orders has been “disappointing”.
Customers have been telling the BBC of the impact the situation is having on them.
Linda Sonntag, who lives in Norwich, told the BBC she was left “disappointed” after a flower delivery arranged for a friend never arrived.
She told the BBC she was still awaiting a refund and email with information about her order.
“In the meantime I’ve had to order flowers from somewhere else,” she said.
“I don’t blame them, they’ve had a cyber attack,” Ms Sonntag added.
“But I don’t think their attitude towards their customers is very helpful.”
Dawn Cunnington, of Exeter, agreed the company was not to blame, but said she had no communication from M&S about her own flower order not being fulfilled.
She had ordered flowers on Wednesday, on behalf of her 91-year-old mother, for her mother’s friend, who was celebrating their 90th birthday.
“I’d had nothing from them until I phoned up,” she told the BBC.
Ms Cunnington said she received a refund and a £10 apology voucher after calling M&S to find out what happened to the flowers, but was “a bit cross” they had allowed her to place the order in the first place, given it was aware of cyber incident.
Other customers have described having to cancel orders for clothes which they were expecting to collect before going on holiday, or being unable to return goods they had previously bought.
But some have expressed sympathy for the staff at the stores, who they say have been on the receiving end of abuse from angry customers, or having to deal with shopping abandoned at the tills when customers were unable to pay when contactless payments were down.
Working round the clock
M&S remains silent on how the cyber attack unfolded, the nature of the attack and how specifically it has been affected by it – leaving cyber security experts to speculate as to what might have happened.
It is known it has hired external cyber security experts, who are likely to be a team of incident response specialists who will be working around the clock either at the headquarters of the company or remotely.
Their first priority is likely to be find out where the hackers are in the IT system and kick them out.
Switching off computer servers used in their online ordering, payment or logistics systems might imply that security teams have isolated that portion as a way the hackers gained entry.
They might also have taken these offline to stop the hackers from spreading their malicious software into those previously unaffected areas.
It might also be the case that the company is taking all non-business critical services offline to help deal with the hack.
“In situations like this, in-store services are typically prioritised for recovery, which can mean online operations take slightly longer to restore,” said Sam Kirkman, a director at cyber-security firm NetSPI.
He told the BBC that while M&S taking steps like pausing services may make the incident seem “even more serious from the outside,” they would allow staff to contain any potential threats and begin recovery safely.
Reputational risk
About a third of M&S’s clothing and household goods’ sales in the UK are through its online platforms and were worth some £1.268bn in latest published financial results.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said even though M&S’s physical stores were still open, many of them “simply don’t stock the popular ranges from online”.
She added clothes sales were “likely to take a big hit” as the cyber-attack had occurred during a spell of warm weather when summer ranges would be “piling up in virtual baskets”.
Dan Coatsworth, investment analyst at AJ Bell, said M&S’s success was “built on trust” – and this was something customers may question after it suspended online orders.
“The longer it takes to draw a line under the cyber incident, the greater the risk to Marks & Spencer’s reputation,” he told the BBC.
“Shoppers want to know that their personal and financial details are safe when buying goods online and Marks & Spencer failing to give the all-clear implies that something is very wrong at its end.”
Speaking in court, Ms Hopkin said she worried about the girl’s future, while Ms Elias said the defendant had put her, her family and the entire school “through hell”.
Judge Paul Thomas KC, sentencing, said the girl had not shown remorse and had attacked the three for attention.
The jury heard she repeatedly stabbed Ms Elias saying “I’m going to kill you” and the teacher suffered wounds to both arms.
Fellow pupils said the defendant previously told them she would stab Ms Elias and “do something stupid” that would get her expelled.
Ms Hopkin intervened during the incident to try and restrain the girl and was also stabbed, receiving injuries to her neck, back, legs and arms, the court heard.
After a “stand off”, the girl then ran at a 14-year-old pupil with the knife and shouted “I’m going to kill you” before stabbing her, causing a wound to the upper arm.
Teachers Fiona Elias (left), Liz Hopkin (right) and a pupil were injured in the stabbing at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman last April
During the hearing, Ms Elias started reading her victim impact statement in tears and said she would never forget the moment she saw the tip of the blade.
“The image is etched in my mind,” she said, “it’s a moment that replays itself over and over”.
“The scars on my arms are a daily reminder of the pain I endured. She tried to murder me.”
Ms Elias said she has received counselling to “stop the spirals” before they “consume” her.
She said her daughter found out about her involvement in the incident on social media when a photo was shared of Ms Hopkin on a stretcher with the caption ‘RIP Mrs Elias’.
“Those three words have haunted her ever since,” she said.
PA Media
The teenager attacked the three using her father’s multi-tool knife
Ms Elias addressed the teenager in court and said: “Your motive was clear, you tried to murder me.
“Thankfully, thanks to Liz’s selfless actions, you didn’t manage to finish what you started.
“You have put me, my family and the entire school though hell.”
Ms Elias said she had not ruled out meeting with the teenager in future, and will use her experience to campaign for teachers’ safety.
She finished her statement with the words her husband wrote in a card following the incident.
“I always knew that you give your time to the school, give your heart to the school, but I never expected you to give your blood,” Ms Elias said.
“I will always give my heart to Ysgol Dyffryn Aman,” she added.
BBC Wales journalist Meleri Williams reports from Swansea Crown Court
Reading her statement, Ms Hopkin turned to look at the teenager and said her life had been changed forever due to the defendant’s “calculated violence”.
She told the court the scars from that day remain not only on her body but “deep within”.
“I was fighting for my life in a place where I should have felt safe,” she said, adding her son and husband who work at the school found her “in a pool of blood”.
“Although this has been the worst experience of my life, I’m glad it was me that was there that day,” she said.
“I’m glad I stopped you from killing [Fiona Elias]. I truly believe I saved you both that day. You are not a murderer.
“I would not let you carry out your plan. I’m still here, I’m still alive, though at the time I was sure I was going to die.”
Ms Hopkin said the girl had “been with her” every day since the attack.
Addressing the teenager, she said: “Despite what you did, I worry about your future.”
“I don’t want what happened that day to be what defines you.”
Pupils at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman went into lockdown following the stabbings during morning break on 24 April
On Monday Judge Thomas said he believed the girl was not sorry for what she did, and that she “actually enjoyed” the publicity “in a weird way”.
“In my view, you wanted as many of your fellow pupils as possible to see what you intended to do,” he said.
“I’ve watched you carefully over the two trials. I believe that what you did that day, you did above all, for attention. Attention, you perhaps haven’t had.”
Judge Thomas added the defendant had already “made serious threats to someone” since last April, and posed a potential risk even after custody.
“I hope you will go on to lead a good life,” he added as he passed the sentence.
The girl listened, her arms crossed, and she was taken back to the detention centre.
She will be almost 30 when her licence period ends.
Ms Hopkin says she would “give anything for it not to have happened”
Speaking outside the court, Ms Hopkin said: “While some might see today’s sentencing as a good result, there is no real good result when a child or young person finds themselves in a situation like this.”
“I would give anything for it never to have happened,” she added.
Ms Hopkin said “extreme violence” in schools was becoming more common and called for urgent action from leaders.
“We cannot keep pretending that they are rare or isolated, or confined to city schools hundreds of miles away,” she said.
“It’s happening in Wales, in small rural towns where people think it just won’t happen, it does and it will continue.”
When is a ceasefire a genuine attempt to secure peace? And when is it simply PR?
It’s a question that’s been asked a lot lately.
Mostly in relation to Russia’s president.
Short ceasefires are becoming quite the Kremlin thing.
First, Vladimir Putin declared a 30-hour cessation of hostilities over Easter, portraying it as a “humanitarian” gesture.
Now the Kremlin leader has announced a three-day unilateral truce for early May. It will run from 8 May to 10 May to coincide with events marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two.
In a statement, the Kremlin said that for 72 hours all military actions would cease. It cited “humanitarian” considerations (again) and made it clear Moscow expected Ukraine to follow suit.
In response to the proposal, Ukraine questioned why Russia could not commit to a ceasefire immediately and called for one to be implemented for at least 30 days.
“If Russia truly wants peace, it must cease fire immediately,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said, adding: “Why wait until May 8th?”
So, from the Russian president who launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, is this a sincere effort to end the fighting?
Or simply a public relations exercise by the Kremlin to impress Donald Trump?
Moscow had used its announcement of a 30-hour pause in the fighting to send a signal to the White House: that in this war Russia is the peacemaker and Kyiv the aggressor. It accused Ukraine of ignoring what Moscow presented as an olive branch and of prolonging the war.
Recent comments by Trump suggest the US president hasn’t bought that.
In a post on his Truth Social platform at the weekend, Trump wrote that “there was no reason” for Putin “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns [in Ukraine], over the last few days”.
“It makes me think,” he added, “that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
Cue today’s announcement of another Russian ceasefire. This one slightly longer: three days. And, again, that claim of “humanitarian” concerns.
Another attempt to signal to Washington that the Kremlin has only the best of intentions? That Russia is really the good guy in all of this?
If so, it doesn’t appear to have worked. Not immediately. The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt noted Moscow’s offer of a temporary ceasefire, but said: “The president [Donald Trump] has made it clear he wants to see a permanent ceasefire first to stop the killing, stop the bloodshed.
“He is increasingly frustrated with leaders of both countries,” Leavitt said.
Last month the Trump administration was pushing both Russia and Ukraine to agree to a 30-day comprehensive unconditional ceasefire. Ukraine had signed up to that. Russia did not.
Already senior Russian officials are using President Putin’s three-day ceasefire offer to try to cast Ukraine in a bad light.
“It is doubtful that [President] Zelensky will support the decision of our president and accept the ceasefire,” the speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, told Russian state TV.
Hardly an encouraging sign, so soon after the announcement of another brief ceasefire.
In truth, not being picked in the first round was not that big a shock as only a handful of teams were in the market for a first-round quarterback, and not many held a pressing need for a QB at all.
And despite what his famous father Deion Sanders proclaimed, the Colorado quarterback did not show truly elite, NFL talent in college.
Dropping down to the fifth round at pick 144 overall was a surprise though, as five other quarterbacks were taken before him – including by the Cleveland Browns who eventually picked up Sanders.
Sanders had a lavish draft party set up but had to watch as pick by pick and round by round went by without his name being called, and although he took it with good grace that really would have hurt.
Some say he has an entitled, arrogant personality that caused his slide, some say it was personal – but now he has to prove himself in a crowded quarterback room in Cleveland at a team that picked six other players, including a quarterback, ahead of him.
And such is the new way of college athletes being able to get paid, Sanders has already earned millions as a big name with lucrative marketing deals – but his draft slide has cost him, as his fifth-round contract will be about $5m (£3.7m), when even being a low first-round pick would have earned him about $18m (£13.5m).
Constance Marten has denied carrying her baby in a supermarket bag while on the run and said she considered handing the newborn to authorities, a court has heard.
Asked if her baby, Victoria, had been carried in a red bag for life at any point, Marten said “absolutely not” and added: “No-one is going to put their live baby who they are caring for and loving in a shopping bag.”
Marten, 37, and Mark Gordon, 50, are accused of manslaughter by gross negligence and causing or allowing the death of a child – charges they deny.
Marten returned to court on Monday to continue giving evidence in the retrial, but shortly after beginning around 11:00 BST said she needed a coffee to wake up.
She continued to give evidence after a short break, but the jury were sent home for the day after lunch, with the judge telling them a “matter of law” had arisen.
She was due to start giving evidence on Tuesday last week but said she had a headache and toothache. She did not come to court on Wednesday.
She started giving evidence on Thursday, still complaining of toothache and did not give evidence on Friday.
Marten and Gordon are facing a retrial at the Old Bailey. At the first trial both were found guilty of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice.
The couple’s baby girl was found dead in a shopping bag covered in rubbish, in a shed on a Brighton allotment in 2023.
On Monday, Marten told the jury why she and Gordon decided to go out onto the South Downs in Sussex with baby Victoria in a tent from Argos.
They were on the run after their car caught fire two days earlier and the police were hunting for them because they had found a placenta on the back seat.
The couple’s previous four children had previously been taken into care.
By 7 January 2023 they had arrived in East Ham in east London. Marten told the jury they were hoping to stand out less than they had in Harwich where people had started to recognise them.
“We thought with more people we might blend in more, but there were just more people looking at us. So we wanted to get away from prying eyes for a few days,” she said.
They took a taxi to Whitechapel and bought a tent from Argos, then, with the intention of trying to go abroad despite not having their passports, they attempted to get to Plymouth by taxi.
But when the driver was warned by a friend not to take them, they got a taxi to Haringey, north London, and then another taxi to Newhaven on the south coast.
They then set off onto the South Downs.
Marten said the couple only wanted to stay in the tent for a day or two while they figured out what to do next.
She told the court they had lots of ideas, and considered handing the baby in to the local authorities.
She also said she did not understand the need for the manhunt.
The conditions inside the tent were warm but not comfortable, Marten said, adding the baby would usually sleep on either her or Gordon’s chest. If they were awake, they would put the baby on a pillow between them, she added.
Marten told the court the baby died while she was asleep.
“I fell asleep and my head flopped forward,” she said, adding “when I woke up she was dead”.
She said the couple were in state of panic, shock and disbelief on realising the child had died.
On 1 March 2023 baby Victoria’s decomposed body was found under some rubbish in a bag for life in a shed on the allotment.
The government ended a wave of public sector strikes last summer when it accepted, in full, the recommendations of independent public sector pay review bodies to increase the pay of teachers, nurses and others.
But ministers might be facing another headache over pay and the possibility of a fresh threat of strikes from some unions.
BBC Verify examines why this pressure over public sector pay and industrial action has re-emerged.
What are the public sector pay review bodies recommending?
There is a new round of recommendations from these bodies every year and they traditionally deliver in the summer.
In September 2024, the government decided to speed up the process by asking for their recommendations by the spring for how much public sector pay should rise in each sector in the 2025-26 financial year.
These have not been made public yet, but reports suggest the recommendations are for more than the health and education departments have budgeted for this financial year.
Because education and health are devolved, the health and education departments set budgets for spending in England only. The teachers’ pay review body makes recommendations for England only but the NHS pay review body covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Public sector pay is set through a separate process in Scotland.
Why would the teachers’ pay review body recommend 4%?
The recommendation of an above-inflation pay rise for teachers is likely to be because of ongoing concerns about staff recruitment and retention in schools.
These have been raised in previous pay recommendations.
Calculations by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) show that, despite the 5.5% average cash pay rise teachers received in 2024-25, the average pay of most teachers in that year – when adjusted for inflation – was still lower than than it was back in 2010.
In the case of the most experienced teachers, pay was 9% lower than it was 15 years ago in real terms.
Official government data also shows widening gaps between the recruitment figures for teachers in specific subjects and their recruitment targets.
Just 17% of the target for secondary school physics teacher recruitment was achieved in 2023-24, down from 42% in 2019-20.
Overall teacher recruitment was 62% of the target, down from 87% in 2019-20
How much would it cost to meet these higher pay settlements?
We do not know what all the individual pay recommendations from the review bodies will be, but Verify has done some calculations that give a rough sense of the potential impact.
The previous Conservative government had budgeted for a 2% cash increase in public sector pay in 2024-25.
And last July, Labour said the cost of meeting the full 2024-25 pay recommendations would be an additional £9.4bn.
That implies that total public sector pay in 2024-25 will have been roughly £287bn, which is around a fifth of total government spending.
So, if the total bill across the public sector for 2025-26 went up by another 3% – rather than 2.8% – that would imply the government needing to find about an extra £550m.
But if it went up by 4% it would imply the need to find around an extra £3.5bn.
Where would the money come from?
The government said in the 2024 Autumn Budget that it would seek to fund any pay rises above what departments have budgeted for not by raising taxes or more borrowing but by “productivity improvements”.
In other words, departments would have to accommodate the additional pay rise by making cuts elsewhere in their budgets.
The government has reiterated this, with the prime minister’s spokesperson telling reporters in December 2024 that: “For pay awards to go beyond inflation they will have to be met by productivity improvements.”
What have the unions said?
The National Education Union (NEU), England’s largest teaching union, has already said it would resist any further effective cuts to the overall education budget.
And it is demanding any pay rise for teachers be fully funded with new money.
The NEU said in April 2025 that it would vote on taking strike action if the government stuck with its 2.8% pay offer for the 2025-26 academic year.
And when the government indicated in December 2024 that it could only afford a 2.8% pay rise in the health sector in England, the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing both said the figure was too low.
Why does the government not fully fund the recommended pay rise?
The government funded last year’s above inflation pay increase for public sector workers by increasing employers’ National Insurance contributions and Chancellor Rachel Reeves said in November that she did not want to increase taxes again this Parliament.
As for borrowing, she has left herself only £9.9bn of “headroom”, or leeway, against hitting her chosen fiscal rules in 2029-30 and taking on additional debt to pay for higher public sector pay would risk being on course to breach her rules.
But analysts also warn that it will be far from easy to pay for higher pay through increased public sector productivity.
“If the pay recommendations come in higher than what departments have planned for, that will create a budgeting challenge,” says Ben Zaranko of the IFS.
“If no additional funding is forthcoming, it will force ruthless prioritisation and tough choices elsewhere. Public service leaders are already being asked to find major efficiency savings, and there is a limit to what is realistic.”
Dozens of countries are expected to give evidence across five days of hearings
The UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has begun hearings for an opinion on Israel’s legal duty to allow aid to Palestinians and to co-operate with the UN’s Palestinian aid agency, Unrwa – both of which Israel has barred in Gaza.
Israel stopped allowing aid into Gaza on 2 March, which it said was to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages. The UN and aid agencies say food and supplies are running out in Gaza, which Israel denies.
Last year Israel severed ties with Unrwa, accusing it of colluding with Hamas.
The hearings at The Hague are expected to last for five days, though a ruling could take many months.
Ammar Hijazi, the Palestinian ambassador to International Organisations in The Hague, opened the hearings with a disturbing and graphic testimony.
He accused Israel of a “genocidal campaign” against the Palestinians, adding that Israel’s “crimes” put Palestinians at risk of irreparable harm.
The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, at times his voice breaking, hands shaking, told the judges it has “never been more painful to be Palestinian”.
He said Israel was seeking “deliberately to deprive the population in Gaza” to ensure it has “no way to survive” and that people were “trapped between death and displacement”.
He described Unrwa as a “shining example of multilateralism at the UN” and called for a place where Palestinian families could be “reunited in life rather than death”.
In a statement coinciding with the start of the hearings, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said it had decided “not to take part in this circus”.
“It is another attempt to politicise and abuse the legal process in order to persecute Israel,” he said.
Israel won’t be among the 39 countries speaking at the ICJ this week, but has provided a 37-page written submission to the court, in which it outlines the ways in which it claims Unrwa has been infiltrated by Hamas and argues that Israel is entitled to end cooperation with the organisation for the sake of its own security.
The only countries likely to defend Israel in court are the US and Hungary.
At issue are two bills passed by Israel’s parliament in October that declared Unrwa harboured terrorists, and ordered the government to end all co-operation and contact with the organisation, including the supply of visas to Unrwa international employees.
The focus of these hearings is to aid the judges in answering the question posed by the UN General Assembly, specifically whether Israel acted unlawfully in overriding the immunities and privileges of a UN body. But with statements live-streamed around the world from the Peace Palace, home to the ICJ in the Hague – the process is being used to highlight the wider concerns and context.
In December, a vast majority of countries at the UN General Assembly voted to get the ICJ involved for a definitive interpretation of the law and Israel’s obligations.
Since then, the humanitarian situation in Gaza has got worse.
Two weeks after cutting off aid, a ceasefire which had offered some respite for Gazans since January collapsed when Israel resumed its military offensive. Israel and Hamas blamed each other for the end of the truce.
The current Israeli blockade is the longest closure Gaza has ever faced.
The UN says Israel – as an occupying power – is obliged under international law to ensure supplies for the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel says it is complying with international law and there is no aid shortage.
EPA
According to the UN, malnutrition is spreading in Gaza
That’s something disputed by a number of humanitarian relief organisations operating on the ground in Gaza.
At the end of March, all 25 bakeries supported by the World Food Programme (WFP) there were forced to close after wheat flour and cooking fuel ran out.
According to the UN, malnutrition is spreading.
The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) says there are also severe shortages of medicine, medical supplies and equipment for hospitals overwhelmed by casualties from the Israeli bombardment, and that fuel shortages are hampering water production and distribution.
The WFP warned food prices had skyrocketed by up to 1,400% compared to during the ceasefire, and the shortages of essential commodities raised serious nutrition concerns for vulnerable populations, including children under five, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the elderly.
Earlier this month, the head of Unrwa said a “man-made famine” was “tightening its grip” across Gaza.
Human rights groups argue that Israel is using the aid blockade as a form of collective punishment and as political leverage in hostage release negotiations.
Hamas is holding 59 hostages, taken when it attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people. Israel responded with a massive military campaign, which has killed at least 52,243 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
France, Germany and the UK described the blockade as “intolerable” and condemned as unacceptable remarks by the Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, linking the supply of aid to political pressure on Hamas.
The Israeli foreign ministry said more than 25,000 lorries carrying almost 450,000 tonnes of aid had entered Gaza during the ceasefire, adding: “Israel is monitoring the situation on the ground, and there is no shortage of aid in Gaza.”
It also said Israel was not obliged to allow in aid because Hamas had “hijacked” supplies “to rebuild its terror machine”.
Hamas has previously denied stealing aid and the UN has said it has kept “a very good chain of custody on all the aid it’s delivered”.
The WFP says more than 116,000 tonnes of food supplies – enough to feed one million people for up to four months – is positioned at aid corridors and is ready to be delivered as soon as Israel reopens Gaza’s border crossings.
Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Mansour, warned the judges that “people are starving” while “food rots at the border”.
The hearings represent the biggest test of Israel’s compliance with international law since the ICJ’s landmark rulings in January, March and June of 2024 that ordered it to take immediate steps to allow aid to enter Gaza unrestricted and unhindered.
The UN has argued blocking Unrwa amounts to a violation of the Palestinians inalienable right to self-determination.
The ICJ judges’ advisory opinion is expected within months.
Rajasthan Royals’ 14-year-old batter Vaibhav Suryavanshi made history as the youngest player to hit a century in men’s T20s.
Suryavanshi pulled Rashid Khan for six to bring up the second fastest hundred in the Indian Premier League (IPL) – and fastest by an Indian player – from 35 balls.
The teenage left-hander smashed seven fours and 11 sixes before he was eventually bowled for a stunning 101 from 38 balls as the Royals romped to a eight-wicket win over Gujarat Titans.
Suryavanshi, who only turned 14 last month and was signed at last year’s auction for £103,789 (1.1 crore rupees), became the youngest player to feature in the IPL earlier in April and made an immediate impact by hitting his first ball for six.
He showed all of that same swagger in Jaipur as he dismantled the Gujarat attack to ensure Rajasthan made light work of a chase of 210 for victory.
Suryavanshi put on 166 with India batter Yashasvi Jaiswal, who ended unbeaten on 70 from 40, in a remarkable display of hitting.
A maximum over deep mid-wicket brought up the century in the 11th over and only West Indies great Chris Gayle, with a 30-ball ton for Royal Challengers Bengaluru against Pune Warriors in 2013, has got to the milestone quicker in the IPL.
Victory ended a run of five straight losses for Rajasthan to keep their slim hopes of making the knockout stages alive.
Meanwhile, Gujarat – for whom Shubman Gill made 84 from 50 balls and former England skipper Jos Buttler hit an unbeaten half-century in a losing cause – drop to third in the IPL table on net run-rate.
Ryan Hampson says his proudest moment was becoming a father but the child was not his
A man whose ex-partner forged paternity test results to make him believe he was the father of her child said what she did had ruined his life.
Ryan Hampson was at the child’s birth after rekindling his relationship with Beth Fernley after she forged DNA test results to make it appear there was a 99.9% probability he was the father.
Mr Hampson – whose name was on the child’s birth certificate – said his proudest moment was becoming a father, but when he found out it was a lie he was “left grieving over a child that was still alive”.
He called for a change in the law to allow for mandatory paternity testing before a birth is registered.
But the Home Office said there were no plans to do so.
Liverpool Echo
Beth Fernley forged documents claiming Mr Hampson was the child’s father
Mr Hampson told BBC North West Tonight that he asked for the DNA test in 2019 after Fernley told him she was pregnant.
The court heard how Fernley had asked Mr Hampson for £300 towards the test, and then sent him screenshots which she claimed were from company EasyDNA.
Mr Hampson then rekindled his relationship with Fernley.
She later forged another letter when the child was a toddler.
That letter suggested the DNA company had made a mistake and he was not the father, the court heard.
When Mr Hampson contacted the firm, the forgery and deception started to unravel.
He said: “They told me that there was no record of me.
“They never sent the letters to me and they actually told me to seek legal advice because they actually thought I was a victim of fraud.”
Ryan Hampson said he wants more recognition and punishment for paternity fraud
He described feeling “shocked”, “numb” and “devastated” at the news.
“I honestly couldn’t believe it,” he said.
His mother, Claire Hampson, said it was “heart-breaking” to watch her son’s “whole world fall apart” while trying to process “the fact there’s been so much deceit not just to Ryan, but to us as well”.
Mr Hampson contacted police in July 2022 and Fernley was arrested.
On sentencing, the Recorder of Liverpool, Judge Andrew Menary, described it as “a particularly dreadful offence”.
He said when police became involved she continued to deny she had lied, in a “perpetuation of sinister dishonesty”.
Ryan Hampson
Ryan Hampson said he “adored” the child
Mr Hampson and his family want more recognition and punishment for paternity fraud.
“The actions that were committed were utterly dire.
“We are a victim of fraud and I felt like this should have been taken a lot more seriously.”
He wanted to keep a relationship with the child who he said he “adored” but the biological father is now back.
“The hardest thing I ever done was to let [them] go,” he said.
“I felt like it was the only right thing for me to step away and I have done that to protect [them].”
Mr Hampson said he is having counselling and with the help of his family, was working to rebuild everything that was taken away from him.
‘No changes planned’
A Home Office spokesman said it took such cases seriously.
The spokesman said: “Fraud, and specifically paternity fraud, is a truly terrible crime, and those who provide false information on a birth certificate already face a criminal conviction.
“Work is under way on a new, expanded Fraud Strategy and we continue to work closely with private industry, law enforcement and tech companies to go after those committing fraud.”
However, he added: “There are no plans to change the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 to include mandatory paternity testing prior to a birth registration taking place.”
Mohamed Salah’s selfie celebration during Liverpool’s Premier League title-clinching win over Tottenham Hotspur has become an iconic moment.
The Egyptian scored the Reds’ fourth goal in Sunday’s 5-1 victory at Anfield and, after celebrating his strike, borrowed a phone from a staff member before taking a photograph of himself and the cheering Liverpool fans behind him.
But some have asked could it have been a marketing idea, because the phone Salah used is made by one of Liverpool’s sponsors.
“At the beginning of the season I always take selfies with players [who score], so for this one I said ‘OK, I have to think of something special because it’s a picture that’s going to be there forever’,” Salah told BBC Sport.
Salah, 32, has frequently posted selfies with Reds team-mates on social media, while his recent two-year contract extension announcement included a self-taken photograph.
Initially observers thought Salah had taken the phone off a fan in the crowd, but it was a Liverpool staff member located behind the advertising hoardings in front of the Kop.
The photograph, which Salah and Liverpool posted on their social media accounts, has millions of likes and views.
But it has courted some controversy with observers wondering if it was a natural celebration, or an advert for Google Pixel, an official partner of the club.
In response, others have pointed out they could not know Salah would have scored – and none of the first three goalscorers did this celebration – although it was his 33rd goal of the season so not much of a surprise.
Various Liverpool players have taken part in adverts for Google this season on social media and TV.
Arsenal’s run to the Champions League semi-finals has been a “beautiful story” but the Gunners “want much more”, says manager Mikel Arteta as they prepare to host Paris St-Germain.
Arteta said Tuesday’s first leg (20:00 BST) is “one of the biggest games the Emirates Stadium has seen”, and called on fans to “play every ball together”.
Arsenal beat reigning champions Real Madrid 5-1 on aggregate in the quarter-finals and will now face French side PSG, who they beat 2-0 in the league phase in October.
The Gunners, who have never won the Champions League, last reached the semi-finals in 2009 where they suffered a 4-1 aggregate defeat by Manchester United.
Managed by Arsene Wenger, they also lost the 2006 final to Barcelona.
“You feel [the weight of history],” said Arteta on the eve of the semi-final first leg.
“Especially because we have a lot of people who have worked at this club for many, many years and they’ve never been in this position. That tells you how unique and beautiful this is.
“We are making history. It’s a beautiful story right now – but we want much more.”
Arsenal’s season has been hampered by injuries to key players including Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Ben White.
They have won only one of their past four Premier League matches, which helped Liverpool clinch the title on Sunday with four games to spare.
But in Europe they have won six of their eight league-phase games and also beat PSV Eindhoven 9-3 on aggregate in the last 16 on their way to the semi-finals.
Arteta added: “The fact that we are here as one of the four best teams in Europe, it tells about the mindset, spirit and how much we really want it.”
His squad will be boosted by the return of Mikel Merino and White to training, but Arteta also challenged the Gunners faithful to create an even better atmosphere than in the 3-0 win against Real Madrid.
“I’m not exaggerating. Guys, bring your boots, your shorts and T-shirt and let’s play every ball together,” said Areta, who is eyeing his first major silverware at the club since the FA Cup in 2020.
“You want to do something special? That place has to be something special. Something we haven’t seen.”
Asylum seekers will be denied the right to stay in the UK if they have been convicted of sexual offences, the government has announced.
Terrorists, war criminals and any other criminals whose offences carry a sentence of one year or more can already be refused asylum under the Refugee Convention.
Under the changes, this will be extended to anyone convicted in the UK of a crime which places them on the sex offenders register, regardless of the length of their sentence.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said this would “ensure these appalling crimes are taken seriously” but the Conservatives said the measures were “too little, too late”.
The changes will be introduced through an amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament.
It is not clear how many cases the change could affect.
However, a Home Office source said ministers would be hoping to tackle instances like that of Abdul Ezedi, who was granted asylum despite being a convicted sex offender.
Ezedi killed himself within hours after he was suspected of dousing his ex-girlfriend with a corrosive liquid when he attacked her and her children in south London in January last year.
He was already on the sex offenders register, after pleading guilty to charges of sexual assault and exposure in 2018, when he was granted asylum in 2020 following two failed attempts.
The amendment will also set a 24-week target for appeal decisions on whether asylum seekers who are foreign offenders or are in government-funded accommodation have the right to remain in the UK or not, in a bid to cut the asylum backlog.
The home secretary said: “Sex offenders who pose a risk to the community should not be allowed to benefit from refugee protections in the UK.
“Nor should asylum seekers be stuck in hotels at the taxpayers’ expense during lengthy legal battles.
“That is why we are changing the law to help clear the backlog, end the use of asylum hotels and save billions of pounds for the taxpayer.”
The Home Office said that harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) for processing asylum claims could also save up to an hour per case by summarising interview transcripts and accessing country advice.
A range of measures to reform the asylum system are being introduced, including new powers for the Immigration Advice Authority to issue fines of up to £15,000 for anyone involved in advising fraudulent claims or posing as an immigration lawyer who is not registered.
There will also be restrictions on foreign offenders living in the community, including mandatory electronic tags, strict night-time curfews and enforced exclusion zones.
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, welcomed efforts to resolve asylum cases quickly, but warned the use of AI could “backfire” if it produced flawed decisions that end up in the courts.
The Law Society of England and Wales also raised concerns that the target for appeal decisions would be “unworkable” in practice as the justice system is already struggling to cope with current demand.
Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said the action would complement the government’s pledge to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.
“Foreign criminals pose a danger to British citizens and must be removed, but so often this is frustrated by spurious legal claims based on human rights claims, not asylum claims,” he said.
“The Conservatives had already tabled tough, clear reforms to remove all foreign criminals and to disapply the Human Rights Act so activists and lawyers cannot block deportations.
“But Labour voted against our measures – they are not serious about controlling our borders.”
Police tell travellers that Madrid’s Atocha train station is closed due to the outage
A sweeping power outage left millions of people in Spain, Portugal and parts of France without electricity on Monday, leading to chaotic scenes and widespread disruption.
A problem with the power connection between France and Spain was a contributing factor to the outage, the head of a trade body that represents Europe’s power industry said.
Kristian Ruby, of Eurelectric, told the BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight a “specific incident with an interconnector between France and Spain” occurred on Monday.
Mr Ruby said this “meant the Spanish grid was disconnected from the broader European grid”.
He added that the interconnector incident was unlikely to have caused the outage on its own and that there were “likely to have been other elements in this equation”.
A day of widespread disruption saw trains cancelled and evacuated in some regions, and traffic lights stop working as delays mounted at airports.
As of Monday evening, 11 trains remained stranded, Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente said.
With shops, homes and restaurants plunged into darkness – and some people stuck in lifts – Spain’s electricity network said by mid-afternoon that restoring power could take several hours.
By Monday night, 50% of power had been restored across Spain, according to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. While Portuguese energy provider REN said electricity had been restored to 750,000 customers.
But a state of emergency remained in place, with regions able to request the special status.
Sánchez said the cause of the outage was still being investigated and warned against speculation, while Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said there was “no indication” of a cyber attack.
When did the outage begin?
The first reports of an outagebegan around midday (10:00 GMT) on Monday and its impact quickly escalated.
As the scale of the disruption became clear, residents of Madrid were warned to stay put, keep off the roads and not to call emergency services unless “truly urgent”.
A Spanish operator said power restoration would take up to 10 hours, while Portugal’s power firm REN said getting back to full power could take up to a week.
Getty Images
Police enforced order as the power cut affected public transport in Madrid
Queues formed at cash machines as card payments were affected by the outage, and there were reports that some petrol stations are closed.
When the blackout hit the Madrid metro station network, commuters were left confused and panicking. One resident, Sarah Jovovich, described the sense of confusion underground when the lights went off in a metro station.
People were “hysterical” and “panicking”, she told the BBC. “It was quite chaotic really.”
Mobile phones had stopped working and nobody had any information, she said.
When she left the metro station and emerged into the streets, she found the roads gridlocked with heavy traffic. “No-one understood anything. Businesses were closed and buses were full,” she said.
The outage also left a number of people stuck in lifts.
Emergency workers were called to 286 buildings to free people trapped inside elevators in the Madrid region, the head of the regional government, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, told the television station Antena 3.
Spanish media reported that some hospitals had implemented emergency plans, including halting routine work, news agencies reported.
By early evening and after several hours of blackouts, residents in some parts of the country reported the lights were back on.
Power was being restored “in several areas of the north, south and west of the [Iberian] peninsula”, the Spanish grid operator said.
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Working in the dark quickly became the norm for workers at this store in Burgos, Spain
The authorities in Spain and Portugal were on Monday night still trying to work out what caused the power cuts.
“There are no indications of any cyberattack” at this point, the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, said.
As panic spread earlier in the day, residents of Madrid were warned to stay off the roads.
In a video on social media, the mayor of the Spanish capital, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, told residents to “keep their movements to an absolute minimum and, if at all possible, to remain where they are. We want to keep all roads clear.”
People should only call emergency services if it is “truly urgent”, he said.
“If emergency calls go unanswered, go to the police and the fire stations in person, where they will try to deal with all the emergencies.”
What has been the impact?
The country’s nuclear power plants automatically stopped when the blackout hit, and the Spanish oil company Moeve said it halted operations at its oil refineries.
People were left stranded on trains in difficult to access areas, with Transport Minister Puente saying there were issues with coupling locomotives.
Speaking to the BBC, Gabriela Chavez said she had been travelling between Seville and Madrid via train when the power went out and the AC and toilets stopped working.
“They have let everyone off the train but we have no idea how long we will have to wait for,” she told the BBC on Monday. “People at the top of the hill have flagged down cars who have dropped off water and crisps for us, which is kind [and] people from the village have come to drop off supplies for us.”
Flights were also impacted, with delays and cancellations at some airports. EasyJet said it was experiencing some disruption to operations at Lisbon and Madrid. It said the situation was “fluid” and told customers to check local advice.
As of Monday evening, aviation data company Cirium said 96 flights departing from Portugal – and 45 from Spain – had been cancelled.
Businesses have been severely affected. Some Ikea branches in Spain switched to backup generators and stopped customers from entering its stores.
The Madrid Open Tennis organisers have decided to cancel Monday’s event.
Elsewhere, Andorra and parts of France were also hit, but the Balearic and Canary Islands were not affected.
Ken Doherty, the 1997 world champion, played against the ‘Class of 92’ throughout his career and felt this match was “the tie of the round”.
“They’ve been at the top of the game since 1992, 33 years, and are still at the top and still producing,” the Irishman said.
“As you get older it becomes a lot more difficult as players like me, Stephen Hendry, Alan McManus, Peter Ebdon have all found out. It’s hard to cope in terms of tension, intensity and also to be able to devote your life to the game.
“You become a father, a family man and it’s hard to dedicate themselves to the game but they still have the appetite, willingness and hunger and that’s an incredible talent as well.
“I’ve been logging heads with them for 30 years. I’ve beaten them all but also lost to them all in big finals. I just had great times playing them and you used to relish it as it was a great test of your own game.”
Doherty, who is part of the BBC TV team for the competition, felt the atmosphere would be electric.
“When you see them coming into the Crucible for their match they will get a standing ovation as they did in the Masters,” he added. “We might not see the kind of these three again so we have to enjoy them while we can. They’ve given the sport great entertainment, great matches and are still delivering.”
Shaun Murphy tipped Judd Trump, who beat him 13-10 on Monday, to win the title but thought the Williams-Higgins clash would be “fabulous for the sport”.
He added: “The Class of 92 are three of the best players we’ve ever seen and it’s wonderful we still get to watch them.
“None of them would be here if they didn’t want to be, they obviously love it enough to put themselves through it.”
