R&B singer Chris Brown has appeared in court accused of attacking a man in a nightclub.
The American singer was arrested at Manchester’s Lowry Hotel on Thursday and later charged over the alleged assault, which is said to have happened at the Tape club in London’s Mayfair in 2023.
Brown, 36, is alleged to have used a bottle to cause grievous bodily harm to music producer Abe Diaw.
The singer was in Manchester ahead of his planned tour of the UK in June and July, with dates at the city’s Co-Op Live Arena in Manchester and the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.
During the hearing, Brown, who was wearing black tracksuit bottoms and a plain t-shirt, spoke to confirm his full name as Christopher Maurice Brown and date of birth.
When asked to confirm his address he said The Lowry Hotel.
District Judge Joanne Hirst told Brown the case will be moved to Southwark Crown Court in London with the next hearing to be held on 13 June.
She said the nature of the offence of grievous bodily harm was too serious to to be dealt with by a magistrates’ court.
Brown did not enter a plea and was remanded in custody.
Fans gathered outside Manchester Magistrates’ Court ahead of the hearing.
One fan, who lives in Manchester, told the BBC she had cancelled her plans so she could spend the day outside court.
Candy, 35, said she has followed the star since she was 14 and when she heard the news of his arrest she could not sleep.
“I’m just here to support him,” she said.
“I love his music, his voice. I think he could have been the next MJ. Even my children are fans now.”
Watch: BBC joins Gazans airlifted abroad for treatment after 19 months of war
We were flying through the warm light of the setting sun. There were villages and small towns where the lights were coming on. It was a peaceful landscape where people walked and drove without constantly looking to the sky.
We were over the suburbs of Amman when Safa’a Salha held up her mobile phone so that I could read a message she’d written.
“Oh my God,” this Gaza mother wrote, “Jordan is so beautiful.”
The evacuees had come to the Jordanian border by road. I joined them there for the final part of the journey by helicopter to Amman.
Safa’a spoke very little English, and in any case the noise of the helicopter made it impossible to converse.
She showed me another message. “We used to see this [helicopter] every day and it was coming to bomb and kill. But today the feeling is totally different.”
Next to her sat her 16-year-old son Youssef who showed me the scar on his head from his last surgery. He smiled and wanted to speak, not of Gaza but ordinary things. How he was excited by the helicopter, how he liked football. Youssef said he was very happy and gave me a fist bump.
Beside him was nine-year-old Sama Awad, frail and scared-looking, holding the hand of her mother, Isra. Sama has a brain tumour and will have surgery in Amman.
“I hope she can get the best treatment here,” said Isra, when we were on the ground and the noise of the engines faded.
I asked a question which had been answered for me many times by looking at images, but not face to face by someone who had just left.
What is Gaza like now?
“It is horrible. It is impossible to describe. Horrible on so many levels. But people are just trying to get on with living,” Isra replied.
Thirty-three children have been evacuated in total to Jordan from Gaza to receive medical treatment
Four sick children were evacuated to Jordan along with twelve parents and guardians. They left Gaza by ambulance on Wednesday morning and travelled through Israel without stopping until they reached the border crossing.
The plan to evacuate children was first unveiled during a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Jordan’s King Abdullah in February.
Jordan’s stated aim is to bring 2,000 sick children to the kingdom for treatment. So far only 33 have been evacuated to Jordan, each travelling with a parent or guardian.
Jordanian sources say Israel has delayed and imposed restrictions and this – along with the resumption of the war – has impeded the evacuation process. Sick Gazans have also been evacuated to other countries via Israel.
We put the Jordanian concerns to the Israeli government organisation responsible – Cogat (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) – who told us that since “the beginning of the year, and especially in recent weeks, there has been a significant increase in the number of Gazans evacuated through Israel for medical care abroad.”
Cogat said thousands of patients and escorts had gone to countries, including Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, the US and others. The statement said that “the ongoing hostilities in the Gaza Strip pose a challenge to the implementation of these evacuation operations.”
Israel broke the last ceasefire in March launching a wave of attacks on what it said were Hamas positions.
Gaza remains a claustrophobic zone of hunger and death for its residents. Those who get out for medical treatment are the exception.
According to the UN the population of 2.1 million is facing the risk of famine. The organisation’s head of humanitarian affairs, Tom Fletcher, has appealed to the UN Security Council to act to “prevent genocide” in Gaza.
These are strong words for a man trained in the sober traditions of the British Foreign Office and who has served as an ambassador and senior government advisor.
The Israeli blockade is preventing essential aid supplies from reaching the population. That along with the continued bombing explain Isra Abu Jame’s description of a place horrible beyond words.
The children who arrived in Jordan on Wednesday from Gaza will join a small community of other wounded and sick youngsters in different Amman hospitals.
Since January we have been following the case of Habiba Al-Askari, who came with her mother Rana in the hope doctors might be able to save three gangrene infected limbs – two arms, and a leg.
But the infection – caused by a rare skin condition – had gone too far. Habiba underwent a triple amputation.
Habiba Al-Askari’s mother hopes she will return to Gaza one day.
When I met Habiba and Rana again this week, the little girl was using the toes of her remaining foot to scroll, and play children’s games on her mum’s phone. She blew kisses with the stump of her arm. This was a very different child to the frightened girl I met on the helicopter evacuation five months ago.
“She’s a strong person,” Rana said. Habiba will be fitted with prosthetic limbs. Already she is determined to walk, asking her mother to hold under her armpits while she hops.
Some day, Rana hopes, she will take Habiba back to Gaza. Mother and child are safe and well cared for in Amman, but their entire world, their family and neighbours are back in the ruins. Concerns about Habiba’s health make Rana reluctant to contemplate going back soon.
“We have no house. If we want go back where will we go? We would be going back to a tent full of sand…[but] I truly want to return. Gaza is beautiful, despite everything that has happened. To me Gaza will always be the most precious spot on this entire earth.”
They will return. But to war or peace? Nobody knows.
With additional reporting by Alice Doyard, Suha Kawar, Nik Millard and Malak Hassouneh.
Israeli ‘bunker buster’ bombs used in Gaza hospital strike, experts say
Israel is preparing a series of sites in Gaza that could be used as distribution centres for humanitarian aid in a controversial new plan, satellite images show.
The Israeli government suspended food and medicine deliveries into Gaza in March.
Ministers said the move, which has been condemned by UN, European and Middle Eastern leaders, was intended to put pressure on Hamas to release its remaining hostages. Israel also accused Hamas of stealing aid – an allegation the group has denied.
The UN has said the blockade has caused severe shortages of food, medicines and fuel, and an assessment on Monday warned that Gaza’s population of around 2.1 million people was at “critical risk” of famine.
The US confirmed last week that it was preparing a new system for providing aid from a series of hubs inside Gaza, which would be run by private companies and protected by security contractors and Israeli forces.
Images analysed by BBC Verify show that land has already been cleared, with new roads and staging areas constructed at a number of locations in southern and central Gaza in recent weeks.
Israel has not publicly said where the hubs will be, but humanitarian sources – briefed previously by Israeli officials – told BBC Verify that at least four centres will be built in the southern section of Gaza and one further north near the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land controlled by the military that effectively divides the territory.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – an organisation set up to support the plan – initially said food, water and hygiene kits would be supplied to 1.2 million people, less than 60% of the population.
On Wednesday it announced it would start operations before the end of May, and appeared to call for Israel to allow aid through normal channels until its distribution centres were fully operational. It also called for aid hubs to be built in northern Gaza, something not envisaged under the original plan and which had led to criticism that people would be forced to move south.
UN agencies have insisted they will not co-operate with the plan – which is in line with one previously approved by Israel’s government – saying it contradicted fundamental humanitarian principles.
A spokesperson for the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) accused Israel of seeking to use “food and fuel as leverage, as part of a military strategy”.
“All aid would be channelled through a handful of militarised hubs,” Olga Cherevko told BBC Verify.
“That kind of arrangement would cut off vast areas of Gaza – particularly the most vulnerable, who can’t move easily, or are otherwise marginalised – from any help at all.”
Meanwhile, Bushra Khalidi of Oxfam described the new plan as a “farce”.
“No logistical solution is going to address Israel’s strategy of forcible displacement and using starvation as a weapon of war. Lift the siege, open the crossings and let us do our job.”
It is understood that the proposed new system has not yet had final sign-off from the Israeli government.
‘Secure distribution sites’
BBC Verify used satellite imagery to identify four potential sites based on the limited available information about their locations.
The sites are similar in size, shape and design to existing open-air distribution sites inside Gaza, such as at Erez, Erez West and Kisufim. The largest site we’ve looked at is bigger – more comparable to the area inside Gaza at Kerem Shalom crossing.
Our analysis of the imagery shows significant development at one of the sites in south-west Gaza, close to the ruins of a village that is now an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) base.
Satellite photos since early April show the construction of a road there and a large staging area, surrounded by berms – large defensive barriers made of piled sand or earth – about 650m (2,130ft) from the border with Egypt.
A high-resolution image captured on 8 May shows bulldozers and excavators working on a section of land spanning about 20 acres (8 hectares). IDF armoured vehicles are at a fortified building nearby.
A photo taken on site, geolocated by BBC Verify, also shows lighting being installed on the perimeter.
Further imagery from 11 and 12 May shows this, along with three other sites, continuing to expand. One site is about half a kilometre from a collection of eight UN warehouses, and 280m from another large warehouse.
Stu Ray – a senior imagery analyst with McKenzie Intelligence – agreed the sites were likely to be secure distribution centres. He noted that some of the facilities are in “close proximity to IDF Forward Operating Bases which ties in with the IDF wishing to have some control over the sites”.
Analysts with another intelligence firm, Maiar, said the facilities appeared to be designed with separate entrances for trucks to move in and out, and with other gaps in the berms that would be suitable for pedestrian entrances.
The IDF did not comment on the potential aid centres when approached by BBC Verify, but said that its operations in Gaza were carried out “in accordance with international law”. Cogat – the Israeli body responsible for managing crossings into Gaza – did not respond to a request for comment.
Three of the four sites located by BBC Verify are south of the IDF’s newly created Morag Corridor.
What is the Morag Corridor?
This is an Israeli military zone that runs across the Gaza Strip and separates the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.
Since the IDF established a security zone there in early April, a six-mile (10km) road has been built covering two thirds of the width of Gaza, bordered by defensive berms and dotted with IDF outposts.
This new road leads directly to one of the development sites visible in satellite imagery, and a pre-existing road connects it to two more.
This entire area has been subjected to extensive land clearance by the IDF. BBC Verify has geolocated video and images of areas throughout the Morag Corridor, and south of it, filmed by Israeli forces, which show controlled demolitions using explosives and heavy machinery, and extensive destruction of buildings.
Humanitarian sources said Israeli briefings indicated that aid would enter Gaza via Kerem Shalom crossing.
Satellite imagery shows ongoing construction work happening there too over the past few months, with the apparent expansion of its storage areas, and new roads added.
Since Israel stopped new aid supplies in March, the UN has reiterated that it has an obligation under international law to ensure that the basic needs of the population under its control are met.
Israel has insisted that it is complying with international law and that there is no shortage of aid in Gaza.
Garfield, Puss in Boots, Aristocats’ Toulouse – cultural icons maybe, ginger most certainly.
And now scientists across two continents have uncovered the DNA mystery that has given our furry friends, particularly males, their notable colour.
They discovered that ginger cats are missing a section of their genetic code, which means the cells responsible for their skin, eye and fur tone produce lighter colours.
The breakthrough has brought delight to the scientists but also the thousands of cat lovers that originally crowdfunded the research.
The scientists hope solving the puzzle could also help shed light on whether orange coloured cats are at increased risk of certain health conditions.
It has been known for decades that it is genetics that gives orange tabby cats their distinctive colouring, but exactly where in the genetic code has evaded scientists till now.
Two teams of scientists at Kyushu University in Japan and Stanford University in the US have now revealed the mystery in simultaneous papers published on Thursday.
What the teams found was that in the cells responsible for giving a cat its skin, hair follicles and eyes their colour – melanocytes – one gene, ARHGAP36, was much more active.
Genes are made up of pieces of DNA which give instructions to a cat’s cells, like other living creatures, on how to function.
By comparing the DNA from dozens of cats with and without orange fur they found that those with ginger colouring had a section of DNA code missing within this ARHGAP36 gene.
Without this DNA the activity of the ARHGAP36 is not suppressed i.e. it is more active. The scientists believe that the gene instructs those melanocytes to produce lighter pigment.
Ginger cats mostly male
For decades scientists have observed that cats with completely ginger colouring are far more likely to be male. This tallies with the fact that the gene is carried on the X chromosome.
Chromosomes are larger sections of DNA, and male cats like other mammals have an X and a Y chromosome, which carry different number of genes.
As it is a gene only on the X chromosome, in this case controlling the pigment production, then one missing piece of DNA is enough to turn a cat fully ginger.
In comparison female cats have two X chromosomes so the DNA needs to be missing in both chromosomes to increase lighter pigment production to the same extent – it means a mixed colouring is more likely.
“These ginger and black patches form because, early in development, one X chromosome in each cell is randomly switched off,” explains Prof Hiroyuki Sasaki, geneticist at Kyushu University.
“As cells divide, this creates areas with different active coat colour genes, resulting in distinct patches.”
Getty Images
Calico and tortoiseshell cats with mixed colourings are more likely to be female
Although couched in science, the study originally started off as a passion project for Professor Sasaki.
He had retired from his university post, but as a cat lover said he wanted to continue working to uncover the orange cat gene in the hope it could “contribute to the overcoming of cat diseases”.
He and his team raised 10.6m yen (£55,109) via crowdfunding for the research from thousands of fellow cat lovers across Japan and the world.
One contributor wrote: “We are siblings in the first and third grades of elementary school. We donated with our pocket money. Use it for research on calico cats.”
Hiroyuki Sasaki/Kyushu University
Professor Sasaki compared the genes of calico cats to those without, using local cats and an international genome database
The ARHGAP36 gene is also active in many other areas of the body including the brain and hormonal glands, and is considered important for development.
The researchers think it is possible that the DNA mutation in the gene could cause other changes in these parts of the body linked to health conditions or temperament.
The ARHGAP36 gene is found in humans and has been linked to skin cancer and hair loss.
“Many cat owners swear by the idea that different coat colours and patterns are linked with different personalities,” said Prof Sasaki.
“There’s no scientific evidence for this yet, but it’s an intriguing idea and one I’d love to explore further.”
The simple truth is if Rashford sticks to his guns over his wages – and his United contract does not run out until 2028 – very few clubs in the world could afford him.
It means United have to offer an incentive to negotiate a sale, through a reduced fee or offering to pay a portion of his wages or both.
United sources previously said Villa would end up covering between 75% and 90% of Rashford’s salary depending on performances.
Villa reportedly turned down a £60m bid for their England forward Ollie Watkins from Arsenal in January and Emery subsequently picked Rashford ahead of Watkins for the club’s biggest games.
Rashford had harboured hopes of a move to Barcelona in January but no deal materialised. Ideally, he would prefer to play for a club who are in the Champions League next season.
It is not clear whether Liverpool or Manchester City would be interested, or whether the player would be prepared to join United’s fiercest rivals.
In addition, it is not certain whether Rashford would be inclined to stay at United should they lose next week’s Europa League final, and with Amorim’s future coming under more severe scrutiny than is currently the case.
Either way, another loan deal rather than a straight transfer cannot be ruled out.
An obvious comparison is Joao Felix, who became the fifth most expensive player in history when he joined Atletico Madrid from Benfica for 126m euros (£113m) in 2019, but then fell out with coach Diego Simeone and spent 18 months on loan, first at Chelsea, then Barcelona.
Portugal forward Felix joined Chelsea permanently for £45m last summer as England midfielder Conor Gallagher went the other way.
Despite signing a seven-year contract with the Blues, the 25-year-old started just three Premier League games before joining AC Milan on loan in February.
The charges relate to three incidents spanning a four-day period
A 21-year-old man has been charged after fires at two properties and a car linked to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, the Metropolitan Police has said.
Roman Lavrynovych, a Ukrainian national, was charged with three counts of arson with intent to endanger life on Thursday.
He was arrested at an address in Sydenham, south-east London, in the early hours of Tuesday. He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday.
The charges relate to three incidents – a vehicle fire in Kentish Town, north London, a fire at the prime minister’s private home on the same street and a fire at an address that he previously lived at in north-west London.
The investigation has been led by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command due to its links to a high-profile figure.
In the early hours of Monday 12 May, emergency services responded to a fire at the Kentish Town home where Sir Keir Starmer lived before becoming prime minister and moving into 10 Downing Street.
PA
Counter terrorism police have been leading the investigation
Police were alerted by the London Fire Brigade (LFB) to reports of a fire at the residential address at 01:35 BST.
Damage was caused to the property’s entrance but nobody was hurt.
The BBC understands the property was being rented out to the prime minister’s sister-in-law.
A car that Sir Keir had sold to a neighbour last year was set alight four days earlier on Thursday May 8 on the same street.
Just after 03:00 on Sunday 11 May, firefighters dealt with a small fire at the front door of a house converted into flats in nearby Islington.
One person was helped to safety by firefighters wearing breathing apparatus, LFB said.
It is understood that the prime minister lived there in the 1990s.
A few days on from seeking to sound muscular about his desire to squeeze legal migration, the prime minister is in Albania focusing on illegal arrivals.
The Balkan country has provided a rare British success story in the incredibly difficult politics and diplomacy of attempting to cut illegal migration.
In 2022, around 12,500 Albanians crossed the English Channel by small boat, but the number has since shrunk massively.
The last government, and latterly this one, set up campaigns to put people off attempting the journey and far more migrants have been returned.
Sir Keir Starmer wanted to lean into this inherited success from the Conservatives, and sought to make a virtue of being the first British prime minister to make an official visit to the country.
But he also wanted to talk up negotiations with a handful of unnamed European countries that might temporarily take failed asylum seekers who have exhausted all avenues to remain in the UK.
Downing Street told reporters the move could stop failed asylum seekers stalling deportation “using various tactics, whether it’s losing their paperwork or using other tactics to frustrate their removal”.
The PM’s spokesman added it would ensure they also cannot make their removal harder “by using tactics such as starting a family”.
Rwanda comparison
It is an interesting idea, which draws initial parallels with the last government’s plan to send some migrants to Rwanda, but is different.
The Conservatives wanted to send people to the African country immediately after their arrival in the UK, to lodge an asylum claim there or another “safe” country.
They argued, given the numbers arriving on small boats, a radical policy shift was needed to put people off.
Labour argued it was a vastly expensive waste of money, and scrapped the idea.
Now they are talking up their own, narrower plan.
But the curiosity is they chose to do just that while on a visit to a country that is not interested in hosting what are being called “return hubs”.
Awkward timing
And we were to find that out rather bluntly, when no sooner than Sir Keir Starmer had made the case for the idea, the man stood next to him, his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama, said they wouldn’t be doing any more deals than the one they already have with Italy, their neighbour over the Adriatic Sea.
Downing Street insisted its own deal with Albania was “never planned as part of the discussions.”
In short, though, they had failed to ensure the most eye-catching idea they were talking about matched the pictures, the backdrop, the stage they were on.
Cue the Conservatives, whose own record on small boat crossings was poor, but who can point to that specific success with Albania, seizing on Sir Keir’s awkward juxtaposition and branding it an “embarrassment”.
It is another episode that serves as a reminder of just how hard it is finding workable, practical, deliverable solutions to a massive and complex issue, which plenty in government acknowledge they simply have to get a grip of.
Thirteen people were injured when a car crashed into a crowd of fans outside the derby match between Espanyol and Barcelona on Thursday.
The match, in which Barcelona won the La Liga title thanks to a 2-0 victory, was delayed for several minutes in the early stages while the referee was briefed by police.
Police in Barcelona said four of those injured were taken to hospital but none were said to be in a serious condition.
In a statement on social media, police added that the incident did not present any danger to the crowd inside the stadium.
The car’s driver was arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving and causing injury.
Videos posted on social media showed a car had stopped between some bins outside the stadium and was surrounded by fans. It then drove into the crowd.
Local authorities said the incident occurred as Espanyol fans gathered to welcome the team’s coach.
Ten ambulances were sent to the scene. The most severe injury reported was a broken leg.
“It was an accident, some people were injured, but not seriously. There are no major incidents to report,” Salvador Illa, the president of the Government of Catalonia, who was present at the match, told Spanish TV channel Movistar Plus.
A British doctor has shared footage with the BBC from inside the European Gaza Hospital near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, moments after a deadly Israeli air strike.
Dr Tom Potokar, a consultant plastic surgeon who has been to Gaza 16 times to treat patients, was at the hospital when warplanes dropped six bombs, killing 28 people and injuring dozens.
Israel says it was a precise strike on Hamas. The hospital has since been evacuated
Dr Potokar shared this footage of what he saw.
He told the BBC it was a “snapshot” of what he had seen while working at the hospital.
“We’ve been treating patients with huge open wounds, some even with maggots in, infected, multiple amputations, children down to the age of two with significant nerve injuries, traumatic brain injuries,” he said.
When former Bayern Munich and Germany boss Flick arrived at Barcelona, he found a number of players were performing well below expectations.
Experienced stars like Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and Frenkie de Jong were low in confidence, simply because of the lack of trust they felt they had from their previous coach, Xavi.
Raphinha would rarely play more than 60 minutes before being replaced, while Lewandowski was made to play with his back to goal in a style alien to him.
In addition, none of the three felt particularly welcome at the club with De Jong rightly convinced that Barcelona wanted to sell him to help alleviate their financial plight.
One of the first things Flick did was to tell the three of them how important they were to his plans. This season Lewandowski is top scorer with 25 goals, while Raphinha has a league tally of 18.
Flick also sensed an established culture where the club’s irrepressible youth was not at the heart of the team, and not given the prominence they believed they merited.
Youngsters had been given their debuts because of financial constraints – and Xavi deserves praise for working under such restrictions – but they wanted more. They wanted to take over the team.
Flick’s approach allowed the likes of Gavi, Yamal, Alejandro Balde (21), and Marc Casado (also 21) to do just that. He helped them find their voices, even going as far as allowing them to pick the dressing-room music.
That trust was repaid a hundred times over and reflected on the pitch with a youthful and carefree – some might even say naive – style of play.
He also always remained very close to those who didn’t play regularly, stressing that with the inevitable injuries all clubs have to face, their time would come.
Flick has asked the club for very little so far, paying money for just Dani Olmo and Pau Victor in the summer and adding no-one in the winter transfer window.
The 60-year-old German also strongly believes no-one knows their fitness better than the players themselves. So, any plans to rest the likes of Yamal or Raphinha are not taken without asking them – again building the trust and his popularity among the team.
He also never allows himself to be influenced by the very powerful and demanding Barcelona media, and has remained honest to his players – an approach severely tested when they lost four games and collected just five points out of a possible 21 before the Christmas break.
Cristiano Ronaldo has topped the Forbes list of highest-paid athletes for the third consecutive year, while NBA star Stephen Curry has moved up to second.
The business magazine, external says Ronaldo, who has topped the list fives times during his career, has increased his estimated total earnings by $15m to $275m (approx £206m).
That figure has only been surpassed by former world champion boxer Floyd Mayweather, who earned $300m in 2015 (then £194m) and $275m in 2018 (then £205m).
Portugal forward Ronaldo, 40, moved to the lucrative Saudi Pro League with Al Nassr in December 2022 and has generated greater income through off-field endorsements and sponsorship deals backed by his social media followers, which currently total 939m.
Yuval Raphael told the BBC she had practiced singing to the sound of people booing to prepare for Eurovision
Israel has qualified for Eurovision’s grand final on Saturday, hours after protesters tried to disrupt the country’s dress rehearsal.
Yuval Raphael, 24, was performing New Day Will Rise during a preview show on Thursday afternoon when six people with whistles and “oversized” Palestinian flags obstructed her act. Under the arena rules, all flags are allowed but there are limits on size.
Swiss broadcaster SRG SSR, which is organising the event, said the audience members were quickly ejected from the St Jakobshalle arena.
Israel’s participation in Eurovision has been a source of controversy, as its military intensifies its bombardment of Gaza, and enforces blockades of all food and other humanitarian supplies.
Getty Images
Protesters unfurled a large Palestinian flag during dress rehearsals on Thursday
In recent weeks, broadcasters in Spain, Ireland and Slovenia have called for a debate on Israel’s involvement, and there have been small protests in the streets of Basel, Switzerland where this year’s contest is taking place.
The incident during Thursday’s dress rehearsal did not disrupt Raphael’s performance, and her appearance in the televised semi-final passed without further demonstrations.
Speaking to the BBC earlier this week, Raphael said her team had played audience noises over her rehearsals, “so I can practice when there is distractions in the background.”
The singer clasped her hands together, then blew a kiss towards the sky when it was announced she would progress to the final.
Despite the ongoing tension, her song is currently among the favourites to win, according to bookmakers.
Who qualified from the second semi-final?
Getty Images
The 10 acts who succeeded in Thursday’s public vote were:
Armenia: PARG – SURVIVOR
Austria: JJ – Wasted Love
Denmark: Sissal – Hallucination
Finland: Erika Vikman – ICH KOMME
Greece: Klavdia – Asteromáta
Israel: Yuval Raphael – New Day Will Rise
Latvia: Tautumeitas – Bur Man Laimi
Lithuania: Katarsis – Tavo Akys
Luxembourg: Laura Thorn – La Poupée Monte Le Son (pictured)
Malta: Miriana Conte – SERVING
Which means the six countries eliminated were Australia, Czechia, Georgia, Ireland, Montenegro and Serbia.
Australia’s elimination was the biggest shock. Their innuendo-laden pop anthem Milkshake Man had received a warm reception ahead of the contest but, on the night, viewers proved to be lactose intolerant.
Ireland also crashed out, a year after Bambie Thug earned the country a sixth-place finish.
The country has now failed to qualify on eight of their last 10 attempts. The continuation of that losing streak will cause much soul-searching in the nation that’s tied with Sweden for the most Eurovision victories of all time: Seven in total.
The second semi-final also gave viewers their first chance to see the UK’s act, Remember Monday.
The girl band delivered a whimsical staging of their song, What The Hell Just Happened? – dancing around a fallen chandelier in Bridgerton-inspired outfits, as they sang about a messy night on the tiles.
With effortless three-part harmonies, they put to rest the dodgy vocal performances that plagued Olly Alexander and Mae Muller in 2024 and 2023.
And they were spared the public vote, for now. The UK automatically qualifies for the final as one of the “Big Five” countries who make outsized financial contributions to Eurovision.
Corinne Cumming / EBU
Remember Monday’s routine traded on their experience in West End musicals
Swedish entry KAJ are currently favourites to win the 2025 contest, with their sweaty sauna anthem Bara Bada Bastu.
Austrian counter-tenor JJ, whose operatic pop song Wasted Love is the second favourite, was one of the 10 acts voted through after Thursday’s show.
In an eye-catching performance, the 24-year-old was tossed around the stage in a rickety sailing boat, reflecting the turbulent emotional waters of his lyrics.
Elsewhere, the contest had all the traditional Eurovision trappings: Spandex, sequins, gale-force wind machines, and no fewer than 10 on-stage costume changes.
Getty Images
French singer Louane showered the stage in sand, in a performance the ruminated on the passage of time and how grief mutates
Among the more novel elements were a “sand tornado” during France’s performance, and Maltese contestant Miriana Conte bouncing on a bright red medicine ball for her self-empowerment anthem, Serving.
Latvian folk band Tautumeitas took a more ethereal approach with their close-harmony incantation Bur Man Laimi, which literally translates as “a chant for happiness”.
Dressed in gold bodysuits with branch and vine detailing, they transported the audience to an enchanted forest for a song that emphasised the connection between humanity and nature.
The band were considered an outlier for the final, but leapfrogged over higher profile songs from Ireland and Czechia – precisely because they stood out.
Also making a mark was Finnish singer Erika Vikman, who ended the show with a bang.
Her track Ich Komme is a sex-positive club anthem that saw with the singer rising above the audience astride a giant, fire-spouting golden microphone.
Like her, it soared into Saturday’s grand final – where the song’s predicted to land in the top 10.
Sarah Louise Bennett / EBU
Erika Vikman’s death-defying performance was a highlight of the show
Saturday’s show will take place in Basel’s St Jackobshalle from 20:00 BST / 21:00 Swiss time.
The ceremony will be broadcast live on BBC One and BBC Radio 2, with full live commentary on the BBC News website.
The UK needs more nuclear energy to power the data centres needed for artificial intelligence (AI), the boss of the world’s largest cloud computing company has said.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is part of the retail giant Amazon, plans to spend £8bn on new data centres in the UK over the next four years.
A data centre is a warehouse filled with computers that remotely power services such as AI, data processing, and streaming, but a single one can use the same amount of energy as a small town.
Matt Garman, chief executive of AWS, told the BBC nuclear is a “great solution” to data centres’ energy needs as “an excellent source of zero carbon, 24/7 power”.
AWS is the single largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world and has funded more than 40 renewable solar and wind farm projects in the UK.
The UK’s 500 data centres currently consume 2.5% of all electricity in the UK, while Ireland’s 80 hoover up 21% of the country’s total power, with those numbers projected to hit 6% and 30% respectively by 2030.
The body that runs the UK’s power grid estimates that by 2050 data centres alone will use nearly as much energy as all industrial users consume today.
In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Matt Garman said that future energy needs were central to AWS planning process.
“It’s something we plan many years out,” he said.
“We invest ahead. I think the world is going to have to build new technologies. I believe nuclear is a big part of that particularly as we look 10 years out.”
French company EDF is currently building a giant new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset and a decision to build another one at Sizewell in Suffolk is pending. EDF’s UK Chair Alex Chisholm unsurprisingly agrees with Mr Garman.
“Why are data centre providers turning to nuclear? They will need a lot of energy, reliably,” Mr Chisholm told the BBC.
“Replication of Hinkley Point C, alongside the roll out of SMRs, can power Britain’s digital economy.”
SMRs refers to small modular reactors which are the size of a football stadium as opposed to the size of a whole town, like Sizewell or Hinkley.
Amazon is already partnering with SMR firms in Washington and Virginia to develop SMRs and would be a natural customer for Rolls Royce which is developing its own SMR designs here.
A spokesperson for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero told the BBC that modular reactors “will play a particularly important roles in growing energy-hungry sectors like AI and we’re shaking up the planning rules to make it easier to build nuclear power stations across the country”
But this technology is many years away and new grid connections already take years to establish.
Jess Ralston at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said: “Investors can be waiting years for grid connections holding back growth.”
“Nuclear could be a way of supply data centre’s power needs, but hardly any SMRs have been built anywhere in the world and traditional nuclear remains very expensive and takes a long time to build. So, it may be a while, if ever, for this to be a viable solution”.
AI regulation
AWS estimates that 52% of businesses are using AI in some way – with a new business adopting it at a rate of one a minute. Mr Garman said this is a good thing.
“AI is one of the most transformative technologies since the internet. It’s going to have a significant effect on almost every part of our lives.”
He said he understands why many are nervous.
“With any technology that is sufficiently new or hard to understand, people are probably appropriately scared of it initially, until they better understand it so that initial response is not particularly surprising.”
He added that he “would caution against” international regulation.
“The technology is moving at such a rate that I don’t believe there’s the knowledge of the folks that are building those regulations are going to be able to keep up.
“I think the most likely case is that those regulations would accomplish the exact inverse thing they are trying to do.”
However, he admitted he thinks a lot about the responsibility of releasing AI into the world.
“Anytime you’re building that much of a transformational technology, its important to think about those controls and guardrails so that it can go towards the betterment of society not the detriment.
“So absolutely. I think a ton about that, for sure.”
