A man arrested on suspicion of murder after three people, including a four-year-old girl, died in a house fire at a converted railway station has been released without charge.

Emergency services were called to the Grade II-listed property in Rushton, near Kettering, at about 22:30 GMT on Friday.

Northamptonshire Police has confirmed the other two people who died were a 23-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman. The victims’ next of kin have been informed.

The arrested man, 54, from Kettering, was held on Saturday but has now been “released with no further action”, police said.

Det Ch Insp Ruby Burrow, of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit said: “It is only right that an incident such as this is treated with the utmost seriousness.

“After rigorous examination of the available information, we do not believe there is any evidence of criminal wrongdoing at this point.

“As a result the arrested man has been released without charge and will now be supported by specialist officers as he continues to assist the investigation team.”

“This is a heartbreaking situation,” added Det Ch Insp Burrow.

“My thoughts, and those of everyone involved in responding to this fire, are with the people who died and those who love them.”

Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service sent crews from across the county to the scene. They remained there throughout Saturday.

Specialist fire investigators and investigation dogs are at the property to help police establish the cause of the fire.

“Due to the intensity of the fire we are managing a very challenging and dangerous scene, and are working to safely and respectfully recover the deceased to enable formal identification to take place,” added Det Ch Insp Burrow.

“An incredibly thorough and complex investigation is under way to make sure we get the answers that loved ones need and deserve.”

Villagers told the BBC they had been “traumatised” by the tragedy, with one saying “everyone is very sad”.

At a media conference on Sunday, Ch Insp Paul Cash said: “This investigation is well under way but remains in its early stages, and it will take time to fully establish what has happened.

“We know this incident has caused significant distress locally and our officers will remain in the area to provide reassurance and help where we can.”

Drone pictures show a large hole burned through the roof of the building, which is a 19th Century former station master’s house at the now-closed Glendon and Rushton railway station.

According to the Historic England website, it has been a Grade II-listed building since 1981, and is now believed to be a residential property.

After Friday’s fire, one person was taken to hospital by the East Midlands Ambulance Service. Three police officers also needed to be checked in hospital after breathing in smoke.

Mike Brightman, vice chairman of Rushton Parish Council, said it had been a “very sad day for the village, losing some of our residents in such a horrific way”.

The MP for Kettering, Rosie Wrighting, said she was “saddened by this tragic fire” and said her thoughts were with the “family and friends of those involved and everyone in the Rushton community”.

Four more people have been pulled from rubble nearly 60 hours after a powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar on Friday, killing at least 1,700 people in the South East Asian country.

The survivors were rescued from a collapsed school building in the northern Sagaing region, from which a body was also recovered, Myanmar’s fire service said.

Hundreds of people remain missing, with search and rescue efforts under way in both Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand.

The death toll has risen to 18 people in the Thai capital, Bangkok, where 76 workers are still missing following the collapse of a high-rise building that had been under construction.

Friday’s earthquake occurred near Myanmar’s second-largest city Mandalay, along the Sagaing fault – with tremors affecting several other nations.

Although rescue efforts have been under way since Friday, and international aid is starting to reach Myanamar, there have been delays in reaching the worst-hit areas, leaving locals to attempt to dig survivors out by hand.

On Saturday night, an elderly woman was rescued in Myanmar’s capital, Nay Pyi Taw, after being trapped for 36 hours under the rubble of a hospital.

Footage showed her being carried on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance, surrounded by emergency workers.

Twenty-nine people were also rescued from a collapsed apartment block in Mandalay, the local fire authority said on Sunday.

The earthquake struck around 12:50 local time (06:20 GMT) on Friday, just 10km (6.2 miles) from the surface – meaning its effects at ground level were felt more strongly than a deeper quake.

A second earthquake struck 12 minutes later, with a magnitude of 6.4 and an epicentre 18km (11 miles) south of Sagaing, the regional capital, which sits near Mandalay.

Aftershocks have continued since. On Sunday a magnitude-5.1 tremor was recorded north-west of Mandalay.

In Bangkok, where soft soil made the shaking more intense, an unfinished tower block collapsed, burying many who had been working at the site.

Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said on Sunday that rescuers had detected signs of life under the rubble at the site, but cautioned that they were weak.

“Anomalies” have been found in the steel used in the building’s construction, and samples have been collected for testing, Thailand’s Industry Minister Akanat Promphan told the media on Sunday.

Families have been anxiously waiting for updates. One woman in Thailand, whose husband was working on the tower when it collapsed, told the BBC she would wait “for as long as it takes”.

International rescue teams have been joining the disaster effort, with several countries sending assistance to Myanmar. These include:

• China sending an 82-person rescue team
• A 51-strong team arriving from Hong Kong on Sunday
• India sending an aid flight carrying a rescue team and emergency supplies
• Malaysia’s foreign ministry saying it would send a 50-person team to support disaster relief operations
• The Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Ireland, South Korea, Russia, New Zealand and the US are also sending rescue teams
• UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy pledging £10m in aid to help “those most in need”

Meanwhile, Myanmar’s ruling military junta has continued bombing parts of the civil war-gripped country. The UN described the attacks as “completely outrageous and unacceptable”.

Pro-democracy rebel groups that are fighting to remove the military from power have reported aerial bombings in the Chaung-U township in the Sagaing region.

The military regime seized power in a coup in 2021, but it no longer controls many parts of the country, which are divided among rebel groups.

The National Unity Government, which represents the ousted civilian administration, said that its armed forces would begin a two-week pause in “offensive military operations, except for defensive actions” in areas affected by the earthquake from Sunday.

People in Myanmar could face further displacement when the monsoon season arrives.

Last year there was “severe flooding which damaged homes [and] sanitation facilities”, Lauren Ellery, of the International Rescue Committee, told BBC Breakfast.

“We are coming into monsoon season again in May, with rain starting in April,” she said.

France’s Marine Le Pen faces a make-or-break moment on Monday, as a judge rules on whether she should be banned from the next presidential election.

The hard-right leader, who is ahead of all her rivals in the 2027 race, will be in court at 10:00 local time (09:00 BST) for the verdict of a party-funding trial targeting her National Rally (RN) party.

At the trial’s conclusion in November, the state prosecutor demanded guilty verdicts for Le Pen and 24 others accused of using EU parliamentary money to pay party salaries.

But to general surprise the prosecutor also said that Le Pen’s punishment should be not just a €300,000 (£250,000) fine and prison term, but also ineligibility from running for public office for five years.

Crucially, he said the ineligibility should kick in straightaway – and not be suspended pending the appeal that Marine Le Pen is expected to file if convicted.

The three judges are not obliged to follow the prosecutor’s recommendations.

But if they do, it would mean Le Pen, who is 56, being barred from standing in a presidential election in which she is tipped as a potential winner.

“It’s my political death they are after,” she said in November.

Many French commentators – and not only those who support Le Pen – have warned of grave consequences for democracy if the judiciary is seen as interfering in the choice of the country’s leader.

“The justice system has the fate of Marine Le Pen in its hands… For her to be convicted for any wrong-doing is perfectly normal. But stopping her from running in the presidential [election] – that’s another matter entirely,” wrote veteran analyst Franz-Olivier Giesbert in the centre-right Le Point magazine.

“Is it not hazardous – not to say perilous – to give to judges the task of determining whether this or that candidate has the capacity to run for office?” said Bruno Jeudi, editor of La Tribune Dimanche newspaper on Sunday.

Marine Le Pen told the same newspaper: “Personally I’m not nervous. But I can see why people think I might be. The judges have the power of life or death over the movement. But I don’t think they will go so far as to do it.”

Various scenarios for the verdict are under scrutiny.

First, Le Pen could be cleared of blame in the EU parliamentary money affair. This is widely seen as unlikely.

Second, the judges could convict her but make the ineligibility not automatic. In that case, she would immediately appeal and the ineligibility would not apply until after a second trial (and conceivably a third to the high court of appeal).

That would leave her free to run in 2027, though with the handicap of a conviction for misuse of public money. However it is far from clear that a conviction would do her cause much damage, given the series of party funding scandals that have affected all French parties over the years.

Third, the judges could follow the prosecutor and order automatic ineligibility. In this case she would appeal, and the other parts of the sentence (fine and prison) would be suspended. However she would be unable to run in 2027.

Fourth, the court could give her a shorter term of automatic ineligibility – say one year – making it theoretically possible for her to run.

2027 would be Marine Le Pen’s fourth presidential race, and the one offering the greatest chance of victory.

A poll in the right-wing newspaper JDD Sunday gave her between 34-37% of the first round vote, well ahead of any of her possible rivals.

In the last two presidentials, she fell foul of the two-round system which allowed opponents of left, centre and right to rally behind a single candidate – Emmanuel Macron – to keep her from power.

But years of “detoxification” after she eclipsed her father Jean-Marie Le Pen at the head of the party have made the anti-RN vote far less cohesive than it used to be, while victories for the hard-right in other countries have helped lift the taboo of an RN government.

If Le Pen is barred from running, her logical replacement would be Jordan Bardella, the 29-year-old party president who was being groomed to be her eventual prime minister.

However party insiders admit there has been little internal preparation for what would be widely seen as a huge and destabilising political earthquake.

One result of Le Pen being declared unable to run in 2027 could be to weaken still further the minority French government of Prime Minister François Bayrou. With 120 members in the National Assembly, the RN has the power to vote with the left in a vote of no-confidence to bring the government down.

Until now, Marine Le Pen has held back her troops. She might feel less inclined to, if she feels she has been the victim of an establishment stitch-up.

An Anglican church in Dublin has been unable to reopen a historic crypt to the public since the remains of mummified bodies were damaged in an arson attack.

One of the damaged mummified bodies in St Michan’s Church of Ireland is that of a man, known as the Crusader, who died about 800 hundred years ago.

A 39-year-old man, Cristian Topiter, who had an address at Grand Canal House, Lower Rathmines Road, Dublin 6, was jailed for six years last month.

He had pleaded guilty to the 2024 arson attack which the church described as “an act of desecration and sacrilege”.

More than nine months after the attack last June, the crypt remains out of bounds to visitors and tourists.

The main entrance gates to the grounds of St Michan’s Church are closed and locked.

Inside the grounds, a heavy steel lid and a steel gate leading the crypt are also locked.

The church facilitated a visit to the site by BBC News NI.

“As a parish, as the vicar of the parish and as parishioners, we’re custodians of the whole church,” said Archdeacon David Pierpoint.

“Not just above the church, but what’s below the church, and it’s a rather heavy burden to bear.”

Speaking about the damage to the estimated 800-year-old remains of the Crusader.

He explained: “All his body has been charred, spine, his hands, one of his legs is completely missing, and there’s a huge amount of damage done to him.”

The vicar of St Michan’s said the damage caused to the remains of the Crusader and the remains of another man, who is believed to have been buried alive about 400 years ago, is “irreparable”.

The closure of the church for most of the past year has caused a significant drop in parish income because the church has had no option but to stop tour groups from visiting until the remains have been removed.

Thousands of people usually visit the church each year.

Archdeacon Pierpoint is hopeful the groups can return soon once permission is granted by the diocesan authorities and Dublin City Council for reinternment.

The vicar of St Michan’s says it’s important to reopen the crypts as soon as possible to ensure the church has sufficient funds to maintain the centuriesold church-

But, he said, it’s also important to allow visitors from home and abroad “to see the phenomenon of what this actually is”.

Most of the present St Michan’s building dates from the 17th Century, except for the 12th Century tower.

The arson attack last summer was one of several incidents in recent years during which the church and crypt were targeted.

In 2019, vandals broke in and decapitated the Crusader.

The skull was later recovered and reattached with the help of the nearby National Museum of Ireland, according to Archdeacon Pierpoint.

The crypt was also damaged during another break in, also in 2019, and the church said at the time that several mummified remains – including the 400-year-old remains of a nun – were desecrated.

The Church of Ireland crypts are also the resting place of Barristers Henry and John Sheares, two brothers who were leaders of the United Irishmen during the 1798 Rebellion.

The site includes a copy of their execution order issued by the English authorities in Ireland at the time.

All the mummified remains in the various crypts, apart from the Crusader are of people who died between 400 and 450 years ago, according to the Church.

Despite the current restricted access to the church grounds, St Michan’s remains open for worship every Sunday.

The first church on the site is believed to have been established in 1095, but the current church dates back to the 1680s with further renovations taking place between 1723 and 1725, in 1767 and in 1825.

It was restored in 1998.

The remains of many of Dublin’s most influential 17th, 18th and 19th Century families are also entombed in St Michan’s.

The limestone walls of the crypts and atmosphere within them is believed to have helped preserve the remains.

The church’s organ is housed within the case of an organ case constructed by John Baptiste Cuvillie around 1725.

The alarm is sounding in the UK’s first drug consumption room.

A man in his 30s has overdosed in the “using space” – a room in the Glasgow facility where nurses supervise injections in eight booths.

He had only arrived at The Thistle minutes earlier, animated about being searched by police on the Gallowgate.

Staff rush to help, bringing him from his seat to a crash mat on the floor.

Our film crew is ushered out of the area while an ambulance is called and staff work to save his life.

Eddie Kearney, a harm reduction worker, tells us that the man had already taken drugs three times that day.

“He’s using a ‘snowball’, he’s using heroin and cocaine,” he explains.

“He’s been in there two minutes and he’s on the floor.”

We are filming in the centre after being granted two days of exclusive access to the pioneering and controversial consumption room.

Less than an hour later, the alarm sounds again, for another man in his 30s.

He had been led to reception by workers from a charity, then made his way to the booths to inject heroin.

Lynn Macdonald, the service manager, tells us it is another medical emergency.

“The first four weeks, there were no medical emergencies, and then this week we’ve had five.

“It could be a batch of drug that is problematic. People are noticing a difference in the heroin when they making it up, saying they are noticing a green tinge to it.”

More paramedics are on their way, she says.

Both men are brought round using the overdose reversal drug Naloxone, before being seen by paramedics. The second is taken to hospital.

Lynn Macdonald later told us: “I am absolutely convinced that had we not been present during the overdoses we’ve seen within the Thistle, then people would not have survived.”

In the 12 weeks since The Thistle opened in the east end of Glasgow, there have been 16 such overdose incidents.

A total of 180 people have visited the unit and more than 1,200 injections of street-bought heroin and cocaine have been supervised.

A total of 27 people have been referred to other services, including housing, by staff.

The service, which follows similar programmes in 18 other countries, seeks to reduce drug-related harm in a hardcore population of injecting users in one of the most deprived communities in Glasgow.

It is hoped that by providing a safer space it will allow medical staff to prevent overdose deaths, reduce blood-borne viruses and clean-up a local area that, historically, has had a major issue with discarded needles and drug debris.

David Clark has been using drugs for 26 years and has spent long periods of his life on the streets.

He allowed BBC Scotland to follow his progress over a three-month period as he attempted to move on from a city centre hostel and stop using heroin and cocaine.

The 47-year-old told Disclosure he used The Thistle service to inject cocaine in February.

From there, staff referred him to new supported accommodation. At the time of his interview, he had been abstinent for two weeks.

He said: “When I went [to the consumption room], it wasn’t what I expected.

“I thought you would go in, do what you’re doing and out. But it’s not like that.

“The members of staff in there supported me and helped me get to where I’m at now.

“It’s helped me massively. I feel better in myself.”

During our visit in early March, we met James – not his real name – who has been injecting drugs for several years. Now in his mid-20s, he was among the first to attend The Thistle.

He says the facility is “brilliant”.

“It’s a lot safer. I was going to car parks, the side of the railway tracks, forests – anywhere I could feel safe enough to do it without getting caught.”

He admitted his drug use in public was dangerous. “Especially on my own, as well. I have OD’d umpteen times.”

The centre remains controversial in the nearby community of Calton.

During the consultation meetings which were held before the project was given the go-ahead, locals had expressed concerns about the area becoming a drug tolerance zone and fears that it would encourage increased drug dealing in the streets.

Linda Watson, one of the most vocal residents, said the centre was already attracting more people to the area to use drugs.

She took Disclosure on a tour of Calton’s known using spots and said there was evidence of freshly discarded needles.

Linda also expressed anger at a lack of investment in the area.

“When we were going to the meetings at first, the drug workers were: ‘We are providing a facility for your community, this will make your community better’.

“But it’s not for people who live in our community. It’s for people who come into our community to buy the drugs, take the drugs and leave all this stuff lying around.

“Why are they not helping us for this not to have happened in the first place? Why have we just got to accept that this is what this place is going to be like all the time?

“Do we not deserve more than that?”

Dr Saket Priyardarshi, associate medical director of drug services at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said the drug consumption room was not just there to address the health needs of the people using the service.

“It will also improve the social environment for communities, residents, businesses and visitors to these areas,” he said.

“The Thistle will hopefully reduce the drug-related death rates for the population that it serves. But that is a relatively small population compared with Scotland as a whole.

“Its contribution to the national drug death figures won’t be very significant. We have to be honest about that.”

Dr Priyadarshi said much of the anger emanating from the community related to a lack of resources for other services in the area.

“Sometimes I worry that the focus on residential rehab or drug consumption rooms, a focus on debates and discussions about this, takes our eyes off the bigger picture,” he added.

“What are the key drivers here? The key drivers are communities who experience high levels of deprivation and inequality are the ones that experience the highest rates of drug-related deaths and drug-related harms.”

The consumption room was first proposed in 2017 as a response to an HIV outbreak among Glasgow’s injecting drug users, the worst seen in the UK for 30 years.

Health authorities had hoped that offering a sterile place for users to inject would reduce the risk of blood-borne viruses.

However, critics of the scheme said more money should be provided to other recovery services.

Then-Lord Advocate James Wolffe rejected the proposals, which were also turned down by the UK Home Office.

The plan was resurrected in 2021 when the Scottish government announced its national mission to reduce the country’s record drug death totals.

After changes to prosecution policy, which allowed users to bring drugs to the centre without fear of being charged, the centre was approved in September 2023.

It will cost £2.3m per year to run, with funds being provided by the Scottish government over a three-year pilot period.

The government says it is part of a range of measures being introduced to tackle drug deaths in Scotland, which has the highest recorded death rate in Europe.

A final report on the overall impact of the unit is due after the end of the pilot period in 2028.

• Additional reporting by Kevin Anderson and Katie McEvinney

Recruitment agents who scam foreign nationals applying to work in the UK care sector have been exposed by BBC secret filming.

One of the rogue agents is a Nigerian doctor who has worked for the NHS in the field of psychiatry.

The Home Office has acknowledged the system is open to abuse, but the BBC World Service’s investigation shows the apparent ease with which these agents can scam people, avoid detection, and continue to profit.

Our secret filming reveals agents’ tactics, including:

• Illegally selling jobs in UK care companies
• Devising fake payroll schemes to conceal that some jobs do not exist
• Shifting from care to other sectors, like construction, that also face staff shortages

Reports of immigration scams have increased since a government visa scheme – originally designed to let foreign medical professionals work in the UK – was broadened in 2022 to include care workers.

To apply for the visa, candidates must first obtain a “Certificate of Sponsorship” (CoS) from a UK employer who is licensed by the Home Office. It is the need for CoS documents that is being exploited by rogue relocation agents.

“The scale of exploitation under the Health and Care Work visa is significant,” says Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of Work Rights Centre, a charity that helps migrants and disadvantaged people in the UK access employment justice.

“I think it has turned into a national crisis.”

She says there is “systemic risk inherent” in the sponsorship system, because it “puts the employer in a position of incredible power” and has “enabled this predatory market of middlemen to mushroom”.

The BBC sent two undercover journalists to approach relocation agents working in the UK.

One met Dr Kelvin Alaneme, a Nigerian doctor and founder of the agency, CareerEdu, based in Harlow, Essex.

His website states his business is a “launchpad for global opportunities catering to young Africans”, claiming to have 9,800 “happy clients”.

Believing the BBC undercover journalist was well connected in the UK care sector, Dr Alaneme tried to recruit her to become an agent for his business, saying it would be very lucrative.

“Just get me care homes. I can make you a millionaire,” he said.

As a potential business partner, our journalist was then given unprecedented insight into how immigration scams by agents like Dr Alaneme actually work. Dr Alaneme said he would pay £2,000 ($2,600) for each care home vacancy she was able to procure, and offered £500 ($650) commission on top.

He then said he would sell the vacancies to candidates back in Nigeria.

Charging candidates for a job is illegal in the UK.

“They [the candidates] are not supposed to be paying because it’s free. It should be free,” he said, lowering his voice.

“They are paying because they know it’s most likely the only way.”

The BBC began investigating him following a series of online complaints about his relocation services.

Praise – from south-east Nigeria and in his mid 30s – was one of those who complained, claiming he paid Dr Alaneme more than £10,000 ($13,000) for a job in the UK. He says he was told he was going to be working with a care company called Efficiency for Care, based in Clacton-on-Sea. It was only when he arrived that he realised the job didn’t exist.

“If I had known there was no job, I would have not come here,” he says. “At least back home in Nigeria, if you go broke, I can find my sister or my parents and go and eat free food. It’s not the same here. You will go hungry.”

Praise says he messaged Efficiency for Care and Dr Alaneme for months, asking when he could start working. Despite promises of assistance from Dr Alaneme, the job never materialised. Almost a year later, he found a position with another care provider willing to sponsor him to remain in the UK.

Our investigation found that Efficiency for Care employed – on average – 16 people in 2022, and 152 in 2023. Yet a letter sent from the Home Office to the company dated May 2023 – and seen by the BBC – showed it had issued 1,234 Certificates of Sponsorship to foreign workers between March 2022 and May 2023.

Efficiency for Care’s sponsorship licence was revoked in July 2023. The care company can no longer recruit from abroad, but continues to operate.

It told the BBC it strongly refutes the allegation it colluded with Dr Alaneme. It said it believed it lawfully recruited staff from Nigeria and other countries. It has challenged the Home Office’s revocation of its sponsorship licence, it said, and the matter is now in court.

In another secretly filmed meeting, Dr Alaneme shared an even more sophisticated scam involving sponsorship documents for jobs that did not exist.

He said the “advantage” of having a CoS that is unconnected to a job “is that you can choose any city you want”.

“You can go to Glasgow. You can stay in London. You can live anywhere,” he told us.

This is not true. If a migrant arrives in the UK on a Health and Care Work visa and does not work in the role they have been assigned, their visa could be cancelled and they risk being deported.

In the secret filming, Dr Alaneme also described how to set up a fake payroll system to mask the fact the jobs are not real.

“That [a money trail] is what the government needs to see,” he said.

Dr Alaneme told the BBC he strenuously denied services offered by CareerEdu were a scam or that it acted as a recruitment agency or provided jobs for cash. He said his company only offered legitimate services, adding that the money Praise gave him was passed on to a recruitment agent for Praise’s transport, accommodation and training. He said he offered to help Praise find another employer free of charge.

The BBC also carried out undercover filming with another UK-based recruitment agent, Nana Akwasi Agyemang-Prempeh, after several people told the BBC they had collectively paid tens of thousands of pounds for care worker positions for their friends and family that, it transpired, did not exist.

They said some of the Certificates of Sponsorship Mr Agyemang-Prempeh gave them had turned out to be fakes – replicas of real CoS issued by care companies.

We discovered Mr Agyemang-Prempeh had then begun offering CoS for UK jobs in construction – another industry that allows employers to recruit foreign workers. He was able to set up his own construction company and obtain a sponsorship licence from the Home Office.

Our journalist, posing as a UK-based Ugandan businessman wanting to bring Ugandan construction workers over to join him, asked Mr Agyemang-Prempeh if this was possible.

He replied it was – for the price of £42,000 ($54,000) for three people.

Mr Agyemang-Prempeh told us he had moved into construction because rules are being “tightened” in the care sector – and claimed agents were eyeing other industries.

“People are now diverting to IT,” Mr Agyemang-Prempeh told the undercover journalist.

More than 470 licences in the UK care sector were revoked by the government between July 2022 and December 2024. Those licensed sponsors were responsible for the recruitment of more than 39,000 medical professionals and care workers from October 2020.

Mr Agyemang-Prempeh later asked for a downpayment for the Certificates of Sponsorship, which the BBC did not make.

The Home Office has now revoked his sponsorship licence. Mr Agyemang-Prempeh’s defence, when challenged by the BBC, was that he had himself been duped by other agents and did not realise he was selling fake CoS documents.

In a statement to the BBC, the Home Office said it has “robust new action against shameless employers who abuse the visa system” and will “ban businesses who flout UK employment laws from sponsoring overseas workers”.

BBC investigations have previously uncovered similar visa scams targeting people in Kerala, India, and international students living in the UK who want to work in the care sector.

In November 2024, the government announced a clampdown on “rogue” employers hiring workers from overseas. Additionally, from 9 April, care providers in England will be required to prioritise recruiting international care workers already in the UK before recruiting from overseas.

Investigation team: Olaronke Alo, Chiagozie Nwonwu, Sucheera Maguire, Nyasha Michelle, and Chiara Francavilla

The UK is hosting a two-day international meeting to tackle what it calls the global threat of illegal migration.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is expected to urge the summit, which will welcome representatives from more than 40 countries, to disrupt the “vile trade” of people-smuggling gangs and avoid pitting “nations against one another”.

The talks, which begin on Monday and are seen as the first of their kind, will aim to deliver “concrete outcomes” and increase international co-operation.

Immigration is seen as a key issue for the government politically, with both the Conservatives and Reform UK accusing Labour of failing to get a grip on the issue.

Ahead of the summit, the Home Office announced that £33m would be spent to disrupt people-smuggling networks and boost prosecutions.

Officials from Vietnam, Albania and Iraq – countries from which many migrants have travelled to the UK – will attend the summit at London’s Lancaster House, alongside French, Chinese and US representatives.

Delegations from the Kurdish Regional Government, Interpol and social media companies including Meta, X and TikTok, are also involved in discussions on how to disrupt a criminal trade worth an estimated $10bn (£7.7bn) a year.

More than 6,000 people have crossed the Channel so far in 2025, making it a record start to a year for small boat arrivals.

The UK has previously announced a series of agreements with other countries in an effort to tackle the number of such arrivals.

Sir Keir wants the UK to be seen as leading the global response to irregular migration and the summit underlines the government’s conviction that only international co-operation along the smuggling routes can tackle the issue.

The PM is set to suggest the event will strengthen UK borders and take the burden away from British public services, while “giving hotels back to the local economy”.

In comments expected to be delivered at the summit, the prime minister will refer to working across borders when he was director of public prosecutions to “foil numerous plots”, including preventing planes from being “blown up over the Atlantic”.

“I believe we should treat organised immigration crime in the same way,” he will add.

He is also expected to say: “This vile trade exploits the cracks between our institutions, pits nations against one another and profits from our inability at the political level to come together.”

The summit will deliver “concrete outcomes” for nations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and North America, according to the Home Office.

Among developments aimed at tackling illegal migration ahead of the gathering:

• £30m of funding for the Border Security Command will be used to tackle supply chains, finance and trafficking routes across Europe, the Balkans, Asia and Africa. A further £3m will help the Crown Prosecution Service increase its ability to deal with people-smuggling cases, the government said
• The government is expanding right-to-work checks to cover gig economy workers by making amendments to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. Businesses that do not carry out the checks could be fined up to £60,000, or face closures, director disqualifications and up to five years in prison
• Home Secretary Yvette Cooper signalled she wanted to crack down on the number of people who had arrived in the UK on a student or work visa and had gone on to claim asylum
• The Government is reviewing how Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the right to family life, applies to migration cases, Cooper said. Several deportation attempts have been halted by how the ECHR clause has been interpreted in UK law
• Some £1 million in UK funding will go towards strengthened efforts to root out people-smuggling kingpins in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, the Home Office announced
• The UK has launched an advertising campaign on Vietnamese social media and messenger app Zalo, warning people about trusting people-smuggling gangs

On Sunday, Tory shadow minister Alex Burghart told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that Labour should never have scrapped the Rwanda deportation plan.

Earlier, Cooper told the show that plans for new checks on unauthorised working would help cut levels of illegal migration.

Donald Trump has said he is “very angry” and “pissed off” with Russian President Vladimir Putin after weeks of attempting to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine.

In an NBC News interview, the US president said he was angry with Putin for attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s credibility, and threatened to impose a 50% tariff on countries buying Russian oil if he did not agree to a ceasefire.

“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault – which it might not be… I am going to put secondary tariffs… on all oil coming out of Russia,” he said.

The comments mark a shift in Trump’s tone toward Putin and Russia.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

European leaders had worried that Trump was cosying up to Putin as negotiations on a ceasefire in Ukraine continued.

Over the past six weeks, Trump has harangued Zelensky in the Oval Office and demanded numerous concessions from Ukraine’s president. In turn, he has flattered Putin and largely given in to the Russian president’s demands.

This appears to be a departure from that dynamic. It is the first time the US has seriously threatened Russia with consequences for dragging its feet in ceasefire negotiations, which would seem to put the diplomatic ball back in Moscow’s court.

NBC News reported that, in a 10-minute phone interview, Trump said he was very angry and “pissed off” when Putin criticised the credibility of Zelensky’s leadership, although the president has himself called Ukraine’s leader a dictator and demanded that he hold elections.

“You could say that I was very angry, pissed off, when… Putin started getting into Zelensky’s credibility, because that’s not going in the right location,” Trump said.

“New leadership means you’re not gonna have a deal for a long time,” he added.

When speaking about Putin, Trump said that the Kremlin knew of his anger, but noted that he had “a very good relationship” with the Russian leader and “the anger dissipates quickly… if he does the right thing”.

If Russia does not follow through with a ceasefire, Trump threatened to target its economy further if he thought it was Putin’s fault.

“There will be a 25% tariff on oil and other products sold in the United States, secondary tariffs,” Trump said, noting that the tariffs on Russia would come in a month without a ceasefire deal.

Secondary tariffs are sanctions on countries that do business with another country. They could constitute up to 50% on goods entering the US from countries still buying oil from Russia. The biggest such buyers by a long margin are China and India.

Zelensky wrote on social media following the interview that “Russia continues looking for excuses to drag this war out even further”.

He said that “Putin is playing the same game he has since 2014”, when Russia unilaterally annexed the Crimean peninsula.

“This is dangerous for everyone – and there should be an appropriate response from the United States, Europe, and all our global partners who seek peace.”

Trump said he would speak to Putin later in the week.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour, Ukraine, in February 2022. It currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

Over 100,000 people fighting for Russia’s military have now died as the war in Ukraine enters the fourth year, according to data analysed by BBC Russian, independent media group Mediazona and volunteers who have been counting deaths since February 2022.

Ukraine last updated its casualty figures in December 2024, when President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged 43,000 Ukrainian deaths among soldiers and officers. Western analysts believe this figure to be an under-estimate.

Also in the NBC interview on Sunday, Trump said he was “not joking” when he said he would not rule out seeking a third term in the White House, despite it being prohibited by the US Constitution.

“A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump said. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go.”

During the call with NBC, he also again threatened to bomb Iran if it did not agree to a nuclear deal. Trump earlier this month sent a letter to the regime demanding negotiations.

“It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before,” he said, noting he would also impose secondary tariffs.

On Sunday, Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian said the country would not enter into direct negotiations with Washington concerning their nuclear programme, but indirect talks were possible.

“We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far,” he said. “They must prove that they can build trust.”

It is being dubbed “awful April” with a range of household bills set to go up in the next few days.

There is nothing much you can do if your council tax is increasing, or you are buying a house and facing a higher stamp duty bill.

But when it comes to other bills, such as energy, water or broadband, here are three strategies that could help ease the pressure.

For some services you can often get a better deal simply by calling the company you are with and saying you are considering leaving.

“Shop around for better deals, and haggle with your existing provider,” says Alice Haine, from professional services group Evelyn Partners.

“It’s always worth haggling. Haggle for everything.”

That applies to a whole range of bills, including insurance, energy, and broadband.

“Our research shows that switching providers if you’re out of contract can slash broadband, pay TV and mobile bills by up to £235,” says Emily Seymour, from consumer group Which?

Gas and electricity are often the biggest bills people face and the price cap set by the regulator is rising by 6%, so it is worth finding the best deal for you.

That may include choosing a fixed rate deal, says Ms Seymour. If you charge an electric vehicle or use appliances overnight, look for a deal with a cheaper night tariff.

“We’d also recommend taking a meter reading as close to 31 March as possible to ensure you’re billed the correct amount for your energy usage,” she says.

One surefire way to keep your bills down is to reduce what you use.

Taking shorter showers and putting in a showerhead with a slower flow will save money on your water and energy bills.

“You have to treat water as an expensive resource,” Ms Haine says.

Getting a water meter fitted may save you money, she adds.

Smart meters for electricity and gas can also help you keep tabs on what is pushing up your energy bills most, the Energy Saving Trust says.

The trust advises draught-proofing your home, including round floorboards, pipework and old extractor fans, and setting the thermostat to the lowest comfortable temperature. For most people, it says, that is between 18°C and 21°C.

MoneySavingExpert says you can save money by using the principle: “heat the human, not the home”. Using hot water bottles and electric blankets should work out cheaper than turning up the radiators.

You can also change the settings on combi or conventional boilers to save money, says Martin Lewis at MoneySavingExpert.

When it comes to transport bills, you can’t avoid the vehicle tax rise unless you ditch the car altogether.

But if you are taking the train it is also worth checking whether a railcard will help, points out Ms Seymour.

“To cut costs on rail fares, we’d recommend booking tickets in advance and splitting fares where possible,” she says.

If you are struggling to pay your household bills, don’t panic, says Richard Lane, chief client officer at the StepChange Debt Charity. He suggests creating a detailed budget that captures all your income and expenditure.

“This will allow you to get a clear picture of your finances and see how much you have leftover to pay toward any debts or make savings,” he says.

Then check what support you are entitled to.

Water companies offer lower “social” and hardship tariffs for people on very low incomes, so it is worth calling your provider. People claiming benefits can often also get lower tariffs for broadband.

“These organisations have a regulatory responsibility to treat customers fairly and will be able to offer you tailored support,” Mr Lane added.

There is the government’s Warm Home Discount, for people with high energy costs on a very low income, including Pension Credit. And people on low incomes are also eligible for a reduction in council tax.

Check if you qualify for a free TV licence. If you are over 75 and on Pension Credit or live with someone who is, then you will.

You may also be able to boost your income. Check which benefits you are entitled to on the independent MoneyHelper website, backed by the government, or using benefits calculators run by Policy in Practice and charities Entitledto and Turn2us.

If you are struggling with debt here are some other organisations that may be able to help.