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Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK will “keep all options on the table” as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium take effect.

The UK exports hundreds of millions of pounds worth of steel to the US per year, which will be subject to the 25% levy.

The EU, facing the same tariffs, said on Wednesday it would impose counter-tariffs on €26bn (£22bn) of US goods, and Canada also responded with countermeasures.

Sir Keir said the UK was taking a “pragmatic” approach and was pushing for a trade deal, but opposition politicians called for a more “robust” response.

When Sir Keir visited the White House last month, trade was high on the agenda, with the PM seeking a trade deal and exemptions to Trump’s tariffs.

Asked at the time if the prime minister had convinced him not to impose trade tariffs on the UK, Trump said “he tried”, adding: “He was working hard, I’ll tell you that. He earned whatever the hell they pay him over there.”

It is understood tariffs were also discussed during a phone call between Sir Keir and Trump on Monday.

However, as the latest tariffs came into effect, there were no exemptions for any country.

European Union President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU’s retaliatory tariffs were “strong but proportionate” and that the EU remains “open to negotiations”.

The EU tariffs will be imposed on “products ranging from boats to bourbon to motorbikes,” the EU said. They will be partially introduced on 1 April and fully in place on 13 April.

Canada will impose C$29.8bn (£16bn) of retaliatory tariffs on US exports from Thursday, Canada’s Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said.

Alongside steel and aluminium, the levies will apply to computers, sports equipment, and cast iron products, LeBlanc said.

Tariffs could lead to US companies buying less from overseas. A knock-on effect could be more cheap steel flooding other markets, including the UK, as trade is redirected, putting additional pressure on domestic producers.

Gareth Stace, director general at industry body UK Steel, said the US move was “hugely disappointing”.

Some steel company contracts have already been cancelled or been put on hold, he said.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham called on the government to “act decisively” to protect the steel industry.

The Community union called for a UK tax on carbon-intensive steel, produced with a bigger environmental footprint, which would include exports from China and India.

The UK exports a relatively small amount of steel and aluminium to the US, around £700m in total. However the tariffs also cover products made with steel and aluminium, worth much more, about £2.2bn, or about 5% of UK exports to the US last year.

Sir Keir’s comments at Prime Minister’s Questions came in response to Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, who called for the UK to be “more robust” with the US president “like the Europeans and like the Canadians”.

Conservative shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said Labour “can’t even get themselves in the room” to negotiate with the US”.

Sir Keir said: “We are… negotiating an economic deal which covers and will include tariffs if we succeed, but we will keep all options on the table.”

There have been frequent talks between ministers and US officials since the measures were first proposed in February, the BBC understands.

The UK hasn’t ruled out retaliation in the long term, but that seems unlikely for now.

Trump hopes the tariffs will boost US steel and aluminium production in the longer run, but critics say in the immediate term they will raise prices for US consumers and dent economic growth.

US share prices sank on Monday and Tuesday as traders and analysts expressed recession fears.

The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) lobby group said the tariffs would boost US steel manufacturing, create jobs, and close a system of exemptions, exclusions and quotas that allowed foreign producers to avoid tariffs.

Others in the US do not support the tariffs.

Michael DiMarino runs Linda Tool, a Brooklyn company that makes parts for the aerospace industry, said he was concerned prices for steel would rise.

“If I have higher prices, I pass them on to my customers. They have higher prices, they pass it on to the consumer,” Mr DiMarino said.

The American Automotive Policy Council, a group that represents car giants such Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, said they were concerned tariffs on Canada and Mexico would add significant costs” for car makers’ suppliers.

In 2018, during his first term as president, Trump imposed similar tariffs on metal imports, but carve-outs were eventually negotiated for many countries.

On Tuesday, Trump u-turned on doubling the tariffs on Canada specifically in response to a surcharge Ontario had placed on electricity.

Additional reporting by Michelle Fleury in New York, plus Ben King and Henry Zeffman in London.

Children should completely avoid “slushy” ice drinks containing glycerol, which can make them very ill, until they are at least eight years old, say researchers calling for official health advice to change.

The researchers studied the cases of 21 two-to-seven-year-olds in the UK and Ireland who needed emergency treatment soon after drinking a slushy product.

The brightly coloured drinks are designed to appeal to children – but most contain the naturally occurring sweetener glycerol, instead of sugar, to stop them freezing solid and give the slushy effect.

Current Food Standards Agency (FSA) advice says under-fives should avoid the drinks and under-11s should have no more than one.

The advice is due to concerns that if a young child drinks a slushy too quickly, glycerol intoxication could cause shock, hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar) and loss of consciousness.

Arla, two, and Albie, four, both ended up in hospital after drinking slushies.

All of the children in the study, published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, needed accident-and-emergency (A&E) treatment after becoming acutely ill within an hour of having the drinks, mostly between 2018 and 2024.

Doctors said they had “glycerol intoxication syndrome” and were affected in a variety of ways:

• most lost consciousness and showed signs of low sugar and high acidity in the blood.
• four needed brain scans
• one had a seizure

The children all recovered and were discharged from hospital, with advice to avoid slushies.

Lead study author Professor Ellen Crushell, from Dublin, warned that the 21 cases looked at in the study could be the “tip of the iceberg”, although she stressed that thousands of children drink slushies worldwide every day without suffering ill-effects.

There could be a “milder cohort” who may not need hospital treatment but still suffer symptoms such as “nausea and vomiting”, she added.

The paediatricians behind the study – all working in the UK and Ireland – say it’s difficult for parents to work out how much glycerol is contained in slushy ice drinks.

Recommendations based on a child’s weight are hard for parents to interpret, they say, and how quickly a slushy is drunk and whether it’s taken with a meal or after exercise can also be factors in the side-effects experienced.

“Estimating a safe dose is therefore not easy,” the researchers say, who recommend changing the advice based on a child’s age instead.

Dr Sally Anne Wilson, chair of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s safer care committee, told BBC Breakfast: “As a parent you want to make sensible decisions for what you buy your child and if you’re not aware that there’s glycerol in the slushie and what that can do, then you’re not going to have any qualms about buying the said slushie.”

Dr Wilson said age-based advice on the drinks is difficult because there’s a variation in children’s weight, but added “there’s definitely an argument” for increasing the minimum age because it would solve that problem.

One reason for the recent rise in children becoming ill may be the lower sugar content of the slushies, which is attractive to parents, the study says.

In countries with no sugar tax, they contain much more glucose and often no glycerol at all, the authors say.

Rebecca Sudworth, director of policy at the Food Standards Agency, said it was considering the finding of the review “carefully”.

“We continue to strongly encourage parents to follow [our] advice which is that slushie drinks should not be given to children under four years old. Retailers are also advised to make parents fully aware of this guidance.”

The FSA added: “While the symptoms of glycerol intoxication are usually mild, it is important that parents are aware of the risks – particularly at high levels of consumption.”

The UK was “intimately involved” in helping Ukraine and the US reach an agreement over a proposed ceasefire deal with Russia, according to UK government sources.

Ukrainian President Zelensky has said he is ready to accept an immediate 30-day ceasefire but that it is up to the US to convince Russia to agree, after talks in Saudi Arabia.

The BBC has been told that over the past week there has been a concerted European effort, led by Sir Keir Starmer, to get the US and Ukraine back in good favour with one another.

Sir Keir praised the “remarkable breakthrough” and called it an “important moment for peace in Ukraine”.

Following the announcement, the Trump administration said it would reinstate military aid to Ukraine and restart intelligence-sharing with Kyiv – after abruptly halting this after Donald Trump and Zelensky’s row in the Oval Office.

The UK sources say that last week the prime minister’s National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, worked with his US counterpart Mike Waltz, and German and French officials, to fashion a plan for a ceasefire and the steps that might follow.

Over the weekend Powell travelled to Kyiv to meet Zelensky and help draft a written proposal which included a temporary pause in fighting, then confidence-building measures such as an exchange of prisoners-of-war, the return of Ukrainian children taken by Russia and the release of civilians.

That proposal was agreed by the Ukrainians and the Americans, setting the stage for what happened in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

Following the talks between White House and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia, Sir Keir congratulated the two men on the agreement, adding “we now all need to redouble our efforts” to secure a peace deal for Ukraine.

He said: “As both American and Ukrainian delegations have said, the ball is now in the Russian court. Russia must now agree to a ceasefire and an end to the fighting too.”

Trump told reporters that US officials would discuss the deal with Moscow either late on Tuesday or Wednesday as he wanted to “get this show on the road”.

When asked about the 30-day ceasefire proposal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “let’s not get ahead of ourselves”.

Speaking at a daily press briefing, he said Russia was “carefully studying the statements made after the meeting” and that the Kremlin needed to be briefed by the US on the outcome of US-Ukrainian talks in Saudi Arabia before commenting on whether a proposed ceasefire was acceptable to Russia.

Peskov did not rule out the need for a phone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Trump.

Labour MP Dame Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said Britain has played a “big part” in where things currently stand in the war in Ukraine, including proposals for a halt in fighting.

“I think we need to just pause this moment and appreciate the calm and optimism and hope,” she told the BBC’s Today programme.

“We might have peace in Ukraine, this is a step along that road, it could happen and I think we need to at this stage kind of appreciate what it is that we have achieved and I think that Britain has played a big part in that.”

She also said that Powell had “earnt his money”, noting that the work he has done in helping Ukraine and the US reach an agreement over a proposed ceasefire deal with Russia is an “achievement”.

On Saturday, Sir Keir will host a phone call of leaders which he has dubbed the “coalition of the willing” to discuss peacekeeping efforts aimed at deterring Russian President Putin from launching future incursions into Ukraine.

Those joining the call are “ready to help bring an end to this war in a just and permanent way that allows Ukraine to enjoy its freedom”, he said.

One aim of the European teams working behind the scenes has been to ensure that it is now Russia that is in the spotlight: does it want peace?

A UK source said “the ball is firmly in the Russian court. Will they reciprocate and stop the fighting to allow serious negotiations on a lasting peace or will they continue to slaughter innocent civilians?”.

Hundreds of thousands of people, most of them soldiers, are believed to have been killed or injured on both sides, and millions of Ukrainian civilians have fled as refugees, since Russia invaded Ukraine just over three years ago.

Russia’s attacks on Ukraine have continued with Ukrainian authorities confirming one missile attack in President Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih – which killed one person – and an attack on a cargo ship in the port city of Odessa – which killed four Syrian nationals and damaged port infrastructure and grain storage facilities.

A reverend whose house was sold without him knowing has had the property returned to him nearly four years on, after a family was ordered to leave.

Rev Mike Hall returned to his Luton home from Wales in 2021 to find someone impersonating him had sold it on for £131,000, after his identity was stolen.

Land Registry eventually put his name back on the title, but when he returned again in 2023 he found a family living there.

At Luton County Court on Monday, Judge Elaine Vignoli granted Mr Hall outright possession of the home in 14 days.

Mr Hall said he was “quite angry about the way in which this has played out”, and “quite sad” for both himself and the family living there.

While working in north Wales in 2021, Mr Hall was alerted by neighbours that someone was in his house and all the lights were on.

Mr Hall drove back to Luton and found a new owner carrying out building work.

“I tried my key in the front door, it didn’t work and a man opened the front door to me – and the shock of seeing the house completely stripped of furniture, everything was out of the property,” he said.

BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours programme obtained the driving licence used to impersonate Mr Hall, details of a bank account set up in his name to receive the proceeds of the sale, and phone recordings of a man claiming to be Mr Hall instructing solicitors to sell the house.

After he reclaimed ownership two years later, a BBC reporter visited the home and spoke to a man and a woman with a young child who had a bogus rental contract.

Mr Hall went to Luton County Court to take possession of the home once more. A woman, following proceedings through a Romanian interpreter, and a child also attended.

Mr Hall’s lawyer, Lewis Colbourne, said there were “two innocent parties in court”.

The occupants had been told by police 18 months ago to stop paying rent, which did not go to Mr Hall, and the judge heard an investigation remained ongoing.

The court was told the occupants did not oppose the application and the judge granted Mr Hall possession and that “persons unknown” must pay his costs.

Mr Hall said: “I am quite sad that the [woman] has now got to find a new home for herself.”

You can listen to the full interview with Mr Hall on Radio 4’s You and Yours at 12:00 GMT on Wednesday.

A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.

It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people – including world leaders – at the conference in November.

The state government touts the highway’s “sustainable” credentials, but some locals and conservationists are outraged at the environmental impact.

The Amazon plays a vital role in absorbing carbon for the world and providing biodiversity, and many say this deforestation contradicts the very purpose of a climate summit.

Along the partially built road, lush rainforest towers on either side – a reminder of what was once there. Logs are piled high in the cleared land which stretches more than 13km (8 miles) through the rainforest into Belém.

Diggers and machines carve through the forest floor, paving over wetland to surface the road which will cut through a protected area.

Claudio Verequete lives about 200m from where the road will be. He used to make an income from harvesting açaí berries from trees that once occupied the space.

“Everything was destroyed,” he says, gesturing at the clearing.

“Our harvest has already been cut down. We no longer have that income to support our family.”

He says he has received no compensation from the state government and is currently relying on savings.

He worries the construction of this road will lead to more deforestation in the future, now that the area is more accessible for businesses.

“Our fear is that one day someone will come here and say: ‘Here’s some money. We need this area to build a gas station, or to build a warehouse.’ And then we’ll have to leave.

“We were born and raised here in the community. Where are we going to go?”

His community won’t be connected to the road, given its walls on either side.

“For us who live on the side of the highway, there will be no benefits. There will be benefits for the trucks that will pass through. If someone gets sick, and needs to go to the centre of Belém, we won’t be able to use it.”

The road leaves two disconnected areas of protected forest. Scientists are concerned it will fragment the ecosystem and disrupt the movement of wildlife.

Prof Silvia Sardinha is a wildlife vet and researcher at a university animal hospital that overlooks the site of the new highway.

She and her team rehabilitate wild animals with injuries, predominantly caused by humans or vehicles.

Once healed, they release them back into the wild – something she says will be harder if there is a highway on their doorstep.

“From the moment of deforestation, there is a loss.

“We are going to lose an area to release these animals back into the wild, the natural environment of these species,” she said.

“Land animals will no longer be able to cross to the other side too, reducing the areas where they can live and breed.”

The Brazilian president and environment minister say this will be a historic summit because it is “a COP in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon”.

The president says the meeting will provide an opportunity to focus on the needs of the Amazon, show the forest to the world, and present what the federal government has done to protect it.

But Prof Sardinha says that while these conversations will happen “at a very high level, among business people and government officials”, those living in the Amazon are “not being heard”.

The state government of Pará had touted the idea of this highway, known as Avenida Liberdade, as early as 2012, but it had repeatedly been shelved because of environmental concerns.

Now a host of infrastructure projects have been resurrected or approved to prepare the city for the COP summit.

Adler Silveira, the state government’s infrastructure secretary, listed this highway as one of 30 projects happening in the city to “prepare” and “modernise” it, so “we can have a legacy for the population and, more importantly, serve people for COP30 in the best possible way”.

Speaking to the BBC, he said it was a “sustainable highway” and an “important mobility intervention”.

He added it would have wildlife crossings for animals to pass over, bike lanes and solar lighting. New hotels are also being built and the port is being redeveloped so cruise ships can dock there to accommodate excess visitors.

Brazil’s federal government is investing more than $81m (£62m) to expand the airport capacity from “seven to 14 million passengers”. A new 500,000 sq-m city park, Parque da Cidade, is under construction. It will include green spaces, restaurants, a sports complex and other facilities for the public to use afterwards.

Some business owners in the city’s vast open-air Ver-o-peso market agree that this development will bring opportunities for the city.

“The city as a whole is being improved, it is being repaired and a lot of people are visiting from other places. It means I can sell more and earn more,” says Dalci Cardoso da Silva, who runs a leather shoe stall.

He says this is necessary because when he was young, Belém was “beautiful, well-kept, well cared for”, but it has since been “abandoned” and “neglected” with “little interest from the ruling class”.

João Alexandre Trindade da Silva, who sells Amazonian herbal medicines in the market, acknowledges that all construction work can cause problems, but he felt the future impact would be worth it.

“We hope the discussions aren’t just on paper and become real actions. And the measures, the decisions taken, really are put into practice so that the planet can breathe a little better, so that the population in the future will have a little cleaner air.”

That will be the hope of world leaders too who choose to attend the COP30 summit.

Scrutiny is growing over whether flying thousands of them across the world, and the infrastructure required to host them, is undermining the cause.

During his election campaign last year, Donald Trump promised Americans he would usher in a new era of prosperity.

Now two months into his presidency, he’s painting a slightly different picture.

He has warned that it will be hard to bring down prices and the public should be prepared for a “little disturbance” before he can bring back wealth to the US.

Meanwhile, analysts say the odds of a downturn are increasing, pointing to his policies.

So is Trump about to trigger a recession in the world’s largest economy?

In the US, a recession is defined as a prolonged and widespread decline in economic activity typically characterised by a jump in unemployment and fall in incomes.

A chorus of economic analysts have warned in recent days that the risks of such a scenario are rising.

A JP Morgan report put the chance of recession at 40%, up from 30% at the start of the year, warning that US policy was “tilting away from growth”, while Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, upped the odds from 15% to 35%, citing tariffs.

The forecasts came as the S&P 500, which tracks 500 of the biggest companies in the US sank sharply. It has now fallen to its lowest level since September in a sign of fears about the future.

The market turmoil is being driven partly by concerns about new taxes on imports, called tariffs, which Trump has introduced since he took office.

He has hit products from America’s three biggest trade partners with the new duties, and threatened them more widely in moves that analysts believe will increase prices and curb growth.

Trump and his economic advisers have been warning the public to be prepared for some economic pain, while appearing to dismiss the market concerns – a marked change from his first term, when he frequently cited the stock market as a measure of his own success.

“There will always be changes and adjustments,” he said last week, in response to pleas from businesses for more certainty.

The posture has increased investor worries about his plans.

Goldman Sachs last week raised its recession bets from 15% to 20%, saying it saw policy changes as “the key risk” to the economy. But it noted that the White House still had “the option to pull back if the downside risks begin to look more serious”.

“If the White House remained committed to its policies even in the face of much worse data, recession risk would rise further,” the firm’s analysts warned.

For many firms, the biggest question mark is tariffs, which raise costs for US businesses by putting taxes on imports. As Trump unveils tariff plans, many companies are now facing lower profit margins, while holding off on investments and hiring as they try to figure out what the future will look like.

Investors are also worried about big cuts to the government workforce and government spending.

Brian Gardner, chief of Washington policy strategy at the investment bank Stifel, said businesses and investors had thought Trump intended tariffs as a negotiating tool.

“But what the president and his cabinet are signalling is actually a bigger deal. It’s a restructuring of the American economy,” he said. “And that’s what’s been driving markets in the last couple of weeks.”

The US economy was already undergoing a slowdown, engineered in part by the central bank, which has kept interest rates higher to try to cool activity and stabilise prices.

In recent weeks, some data suggests a more rapid weakening.

Retail sales fell in February, confidence – which had popped after Trump’s election on several surveys of consumers and businesses – has fallen, and companies including major airlines, retailers such as Walmart and Target, and manufacturers are warning of a pullback.

Some analysts are worried a drop in the stock market could trigger a further clampdown in spending, especially among higher income households.

That could deliver a major hit to the US economy, which is driven by consumer spending and has grown increasingly dependent on those richer households, as lower income families face pressure from inflation.

The head of the US central bank, Jerome Powell, offered assurances in a speech last week, noting that sentiment had not been a good indicator of behaviour in recent years.

“Despite elevated levels of uncertainty, the US economy continues to be in a good place,” he said.

But the US economy is currently deeply linked to the rest of the world, warned Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB.

“The fact that tariffs could disrupt that at the same time that there were signs that the US economy was weakening anyway .. is really fuelling recession fears,” she says.

The unease in the stock market isn’t all about Trump.

Investors were already jittery about the possibility of a correction, after big gains over the last two years, driven by the sharp run-up in tech stocks fuelled by investor optimism about artificial intelligence (AI),

Chipmaker Nvidia, for example, saw its share price jump from less than $15 at the start of 2023 to nearly $150 in November of last year.

That type of rise had stirred debate about an “AI bubble” – with investors on high alert for signs of it bursting, which would have a big impact on the stock market, regardless of the dynamics in the wider economy.

Now, with views of the US economy darkening, optimism about AI is getting even harder to sustain.

Tech analyst Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management wrote on social media this week that his optimism had “taken a step back” as the chance of a recession increased “measurably” over the past month.

“The bottom line is that if we enter a recession, it will be extremely difficult for the AI trade to continue,” he said.

Residents of Greenland are going to the polls in a vote that in previous years has drawn little outside attention – but which may prove pivotal for the Arctic territory’s future.

US President Donald Trump’s repeated interest in acquiring Greenland has put it firmly in the spotlight and fuelled the longstanding debate on the island’s future ties with Copenhagen.

“There’s never been a spotlight like this on Greenland before,” says Nauja Bianco, a Danish-Greenlandic policy expert on the Arctic.

Greenland has been controlled by Denmark – nearly 3,000km (1,860 miles) away – for about 300 years. It governs its own domestic affairs, but decisions on foreign and defence policy are made in Copenhagen.

Now, five out of six parties on the ballot favour Greenland’s independence from Denmark, differing only on how quickly that should come about.

Voting takes place over 11 hours at 72 polling stations, and ends at 20:00 local time on Tuesday (22:00G).

The debate over independence has been “put on steroids by Trump”, says Masaana Egede, editor of Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq.

The island’s strategic location and untapped mineral resources have caught the US president’s eye. He first floated the idea of buying Greenland during his first term in 2019.

Since taking office again in January, he has reiterated his intention to acquire the territory. Greenland and Denmark’s leaders have repeatedly rebuffed his demands.

Addressing the US Congress last week, however, Trump again doubled down. “We need Greenland for national security. One way or the other we’re gonna get it,” he said, prompting applause and laughter from a number of politicians, including Vice-President JD Vance.

In Nuuk, his words struck a nerve with politicians who were quick to condemn them. “We deserve to be treated with respect and I don’t think the American president has done that lately since he took office,” Prime Minister Mute Egede said.

Still, the US interest has stoked calls for Greenland to break away from Denmark, with much of the debate focused on when – not if – the process of independence should begin.

Greenland’s independence goal is not new, Nauja Bianco points out, and has been decades in the making.

A string of revelations about past mistreatment of Inuit people by the Danes have hurt Greenlandic public opinion about Denmark. Earlier this year, PM Egede said the territory should free itself from “the shackles of colonialism”.

But it is the first time the subject has taken centre stage in an election.

Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), the party of Prime Minister Mute Egede, favours gradual steps towards autonomy. “Citizens must feel secure,” he told local media.

Arctic expert Martin Breum says Egede’s handling of the challenge from Trump and strong words against Denmark over past colonial wrongdoings “will give him a lot of votes”.

Smaller rivals could also gain ground and potentially shake up alliances.

Opposition party Naleraq wants to immediately kick-off divorce proceedings from Copenhagen and have closer defence dealings with Washington.

Pointing to Greenland’s EU departure and Brexit, party leader Pele Broberg has said that Greenland could be “out of the Danish kingdom in three years”.

Naleraq is fielding the largest number of candidates and has gained momentum by riding the wave of discontent with Denmark.

“Naleraq will also be a larger factor too in parliament,” predicts Mr Breum, who says party candidates have performed well on TV and on social media.

However, the centre-right Demokraatit party believes it is too soon to push for independence.

“The economy will have to be much stronger than it is today,” party candidate Justus Hansen told Reuters.

Greenland’s economy is driven by fishing, and government spending relies on annual subsidies from Denmark.

Talk of Trump and independence has overshadowed other key issues for voters, says newspaper editor Masaana Egede.

“It’s an election where we should be talking about healthcare, care of the elderly and social problems. Almost everything is about independence.”

According to recent polls, almost 80% of Greenlanders back moves towards future statehood.

About 44,000 people are eligible to vote, and given the low numbers and few polls, results are difficult to forecast.

Even though a majority of Greenlanders favour independence, a survey has shown that half would be less enthusiastic about independence if that meant lower living standards.

One poll found that 85% of Greenlanders do not wish to become a part of the United States, and nearly half see Trump’s interest as a threat.

One fear among some Greenlanders, says Masaana Egede, is how long the Arctic island could remain independent and whether it would break off from Denmark only to have another country “standing on our coasts and start taking over”.

Experts say it is this worry that could steer votes towards keeping the status quo.

Although Greenland’s right to self-determination is enshrined into law by the 2009 Self-Rule Act, there are several steps to take before the territory could break away from Denmark, including holding a referendum.

This means getting full independence could take “about 10 to 15 years,” says Kaj Kleist, a veteran Greenlandic politician and civil servant who prepared the Self-Rule Act.

“There is lot of preparation and negotiations with the Danish government before you can make that a reality,” he adds.

Whatever the election’s outcome, experts do not believe Greenland could become independent before Trump’s second term is over in 2028.

The results are expected in the early hours of Wednesday.

Russia poses the greatest threat to Sweden due to its aggressive attitude towards the West, the Scandinavian nation’s security service Sapo has said.

It wrote in its annual report that while Sweden joining the Nato military alliance had strengthened its security, it had also led to increased Russian intelligence activity. Russia denies any wrongdoing.

Sapo also said that the security situation in Sweden was serious – with foreign powers operating in more threatening ways, with hybrid warfare, alongside incidents of violent extremism.

Charlotte von Essen, the head of Sapo, said there was a “tangible risk that the security situation can deteriorate further” in a way that may be hard to predict.

Sweden became a Nato member last year, seeing it as the best guarantee against Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

That January, its civil defence minister warned “there could be war in Sweden” in the near future due to Russian aggression.

Sapo said on Tuesday that Russia’s intelligence activities were primarily aimed at undermining cohesion between Nato members, counteracting Western support for Ukraine, and circumventing sanctions.

It said these activities showed Russia was becoming “increasingly offensive and risk-prone” in the face of a build-up of Swedish, and wider European, defences.

“When gathering intelligence, the Russian security and intelligence services use a wide range of resources and different platforms,” the agency wrote, adding that these activities had been limited by expelling intelligence officers.

Ms von Essen said Swedes needed to be vigilant about “widespread anti-state narratives and conspiracy theories” that seek to act as a destabilising force, adding that it was “important that we do not normalise the new situation”.

In its report, Sapo mentioned suspicious incidents involving infrastructure and which countries may have been behind them “in some cases”.

A series of undersea cables and gas pipelines have been damaged in suspected attacks since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, prompting Nato to launch a monitoring mission in the sea.

The latest such breach was reported last month near Gotland – Sweden’s largest island.

Russia denies any involvement in efforts to interfere with countries’ democratic systems or of seeking to sabotage their economies.

The Swedish government also identified Iran and China as posing significant security threats to the Nordic country.

Last year, Sapo accused Iranian intelligence of hacking into a text messaging service to send 15,000 messages to Swedes, after several Quran burnings. Iran calls any such allegations “baseless”.

Sapo’s 2025 report said foreign intelligence threats included cyber-attacks, technology theft and tracking the movement of foreign dissidents living in Sweden – the latter two allegedly carried out by China. Beijing also denies any such involvement.

Sapo also said the threat of terrorism remains high, but was diversifying to not just include “ideologically motivated actors”, but also violence instigated by a foreign power and young people with a fascination with violence who have been radicalised online.

Ms von Essen said that Sapo had seen examples of nations including Russia and Iran inducing individuals, often young people, to carry out acts of violence.

Serious attacks have occurred in France, Germany and Austria, the Sapo chief said.

Sweden itself was dealing with the aftermath of “the terrible incident in Orebro”, she noted, referring to Sweden’s worst mass shooting last month, in which a gunman attacked an education centre in central Sweden, killing nine people.

Sapo said violent Islamist extremism and violent right-wing terrorism remained prominent threats.

Sweden remains on high alert for terrorism – with the threat level assessed at four out of a five-point scale.

Actor Gene Hackman was alone.

The two-time Academy Award winner didn’t make any calls and missed meals.

Medical experts say it’s possible the 95-year-old, who was in declining health and suffering from advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease, did not even realise his wife of more than 30 years was dead in the home where he was living.

If he did, experts told the BBC, he likely went through various stages of confusion and grief, trying to wake her up before the disease caused him to become distracted or too overwhelmed to act – a process that likely repeated for days before he, too, died.

Officials in New Mexico say Betsy Arakawa, 65, died of a rare virus about seven days before Hackman perished on 18 February of natural causes.

The pair – and one of their dogs – were found dead in their Santa Fe home after neighbourhood security conducted a welfare check and saw their bodies on the ground through a window.

Authorities, at first, said the grim discovery was “suspicious enough” to launch an investigation.

Their remains were discovered in advanced stages of decomposition. Arakawa was found in a bathroom with scattered pills nearby. Hackman was found near the kitchen with a cane and sunglasses. One of their three dogs was found dead in a crate.

But a police investigation found no foul play.

Instead, the case has shed light on the grim realities of Alzheimer’s disease, which damages and destroys cells in one’s brain over time – taking away memory and other important mental functions.

“It’s like he was living in a reel,” Catherine V Piersol, PhD, an occupational therapist with decades of experience in dementia care, told the BBC of how Hackman may have experienced the repeated loss of his wife.

She noted patients with advanced Alzheimer’s disease like the actor live in the present and are unable to both look back at moments in the past or look forward and act.

“I imagine he would be trying to wake her up and not being successful. But then [he] could have been distracted in another room because of one of the dogs or something,” she described.

Then later, he’d again notice his wife on the ground and would “live through it again”, she said.

Though no one knows how Hackman spent his last days alive, the grim nature of the possibilities were discussed by authorities and the area’s medical examiner.

At a press conference last week, Dr Heather Jarrell, New Mexico’s chief medical examiner, said Arakawa died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), a respiratory illness caused by exposure to infected rodents. Hackman’s death was the result of significant heart disease, with Alzheimer’s disease as a contributing factor.

Given Hackman’s advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease, it is “quite possible that he was not aware that she [his wife] was deceased”, Dr Jarrell said.

His autopsy indicated he had not eaten recently, though he showed no signs of dehydration. Officials found no evidence that he had communicated with anyone after his wife’s death and could not determine whether he was able to care for himself.

Ms Piersol said patients with advanced Alzheimer’s aren’t able to pick up on environmental cues like light and darkness, making it harder to determine when he should eat, sleep or bathe.

“Those [cues] are oftentimes just, no longer available to people at this stage of dementia,” she said.

Dr Brendan Kelley, a neurologist who specialises in memory and cognition at UT Southwestern Medical Center, explained why Hackman may also not have been able to call authorities for help. He said Alzheimer’s disease can leave patients caught between emotional discomfort and the inability to act on it.

“A person might feel worried or frightened, but at the same time they might not be capable to take the actions that you or I might normally think to do in order to alleviate that worry or concern, such as calling somebody else, or going to speak to a neighbour.”

Dr Kelley says Alzheimer’s patients experience emotions like pain and sadness, and experience physical needs like hunger and thirst, it’s just harder for them to identify what they are feeling.

He said missing meals could also increase levels of confusion and agitation.

The couple’s deaths and the startling details of Hackman living in the home for a week after his wife’s passing has shocked the Santa Fe area, where the couple had lived for more than 20 years.

“It’s just absolutely devastating,” says Jeffery Gomez, a long-time resident of the city, who remembers seeing Hackman around town in his different cars, always with a smile on his face.

His partner, Linda, said the details were triggering, explaining she cared for her elderly mother with dementia. “Even when you have help, it’s a lot,” she said.

“We know Gene and his wife were very private people and she was probably trying to shield him from the public,” she added, “but the thought of doing that alone? It’s a lot to shoulder.”

Laura N Gitlin, PhD, a behavioural scientist who researches ways to support caregivers told the BBC, this is becoming a common problem among caregivers.

“With the aging of a population, we also simultaneously have a shrinking of the number of people in the family, number of children, or relatives who live nearby,” she explained.

Ms Gitlin noted along with there being fewer caregivers, there is less support for these individuals on making big decisions – such as when it’s time to place a loved one in a home instead of caring for them by yourself.

Jeffery Gomez said he couldn’t understand how no one checked in on the couple for such a long while.

“It breaks my heart he was alone so long.”

A list of organisations in the UK offering support and information with some of the issues in this story is available at BBC Action Line.

US President Donald Trump has said he will double the tariffs he previously announced on Canadian steel and aluminium imports into the US, taking the levies to 50% in total.

In the latest twist in a deepening trade war, Trump said it was in retaliation for a 25% surcharge Ontario announced on electricity it sends to northern US states on Monday.

Trump said if tariffs, including those on agricultural products were not dropped, he would hike taxes on the car industry, “which will, essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada”.

Ontario premier Doug Ford said: “Until the threat of tariffs is gone for good, we won’t back down.”

Ford added in a post on X that Trump had “launched an unprovoked trade and tariff war with America’s closest friend and ally”.

He has previously said he will “not hesitate to shut off electricity completely” if the US “escalates”.

Tariffs are taxes charged on goods imported from other countries.

The companies that bring the foreign goods into the country pay the tax to the government.

But firms may pass then on some or all of the cost of levies to customers.

Writing on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said his tariffs would go into effect on Wednesday morning, and that he would declare “a national emergency on electricity” in those states.

He also said Canada relied on the US for “military protection”, and reiterated that he wanted the country to become the 51st US state.

He add that it “would make all tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear” if Canada were to join the US as a state.

Canadian Prime Minister-designate Mark Carney posted on X, “President Trump’s latest tariffs are an attack on Canadian workers, families, and businesses. My government will ensure our response has maximum impact in the US and minimal impact here in Canada, while supporting the workers impacted.”

“My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect and make credible, reliable commitments to free and fair trade.”

The announcement comes during a turbulent time for markets.

The S&P 500 index of the largest firms listed in the US fell a further 0.5% on Tuesday after dropping 2.7% on Monday, which was its biggest one-day drop since December.

The UK’s FTSE 100 share index, which had edged lower earlier on Tuesday, fell further following Trump’s latest comments and closed down more than 1%. The French Cac 40 index and German Dax followed a similar pattern.

Monday’s stock market sell-off had begun after Trump said the economy was in a “transition” when asked about whether the US was heading for a recession.

Investors have been concerned about the economic effects of Trump’s trade policies, which it is feared could push up inflation in the US and beyond.

Even before Tuesday’s comments, Trump’s tariffs had already been causing concern for US businesses.

On Monday, Jason Goldstein, founder of Icarus Brewing, a small beer-maker in New Jersey that employs 50 people, told the BBC that previous tariff announcements had prompted a slew of emails from his suppliers.

They have been warning that price increases for everything from grain and aluminium cans are likely to be coming.

Mr Goldstein has stockpiled an extra month’s supply of cans and held off on new purchases as a result of the uncertainty and rapidly changing situation.

“It’s definitely a worrying time for us,” he said.

“Never before in my life have I had to read so much news, watch so much news to know, here’s what my industry’s going to look like tomorrow.”

Additional reporting by Natalie Sherman

US President Donald Trump has said he will “buy a brand new Tesla” after shares in the electric car firm fell more than 15%.

Trump blamed “radical left lunatics” boycotting the firm to “attack and do harm” to Tesla owner Elon Musk.

However, stock analysts said the main reason for the poor performance of the shares was fear about Tesla meeting production targets and a drop in sales over the past year.

Trump’s own economic policies on tariffs are also making investors nervous, analysts said.

US markets slumped on Monday as investors concerned about the economic effects of Trump tariffs sold shares.

This came after the US president hinted at a potential US recession, telling a TV interviewer that the world’s biggest economy was in a “period of transition”.

Investors fear Trump’s tariffs could push up the pace of price rises and hit economic growth as firms pass on the costs of bringing goods into the country onto customers.

As part of the sell-off, shares in technology firms dropped, with Tesla stock sinking by 15.4%, while artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia, Facebook owner Meta, Amazon, and Google-parent Alphabet also fell sharply.

Tesla’s shares recovered somewhat – rising 3.6% – when US markets opened on Tuesday. Other US tech stocks also regained some lost ground.

Tesla’s initial drop came after a UBS analyst warned on Monday that new Tesla deliveries could be much lower than expected this year.

On Tuesday, Trump took to his Truth Social platform trying to drum up Tesla sales, asking “Republicans, Conservatives, and all great Americans” to support Musk, who has been putting his energies into trying to slash federal government jobs.

Despite his comments, Trump policies so far have been designed to limit electric car sales, including his revoking a 2021 order by former president Joe Biden that half of all car sales should be electric by 2030, and halting unspent government funds for charging stations.

Trump’s tariffs could also hurt the manufacturer. Tesla chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja said in January Tesla parts sourced from Canada and Mexico would be subject to the levies and that this could hit profitability.

Trump said on Tuesday Musk is doing a “fantastic job”, but “radical left lunatics” are “trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla” in an effort “to attack and do harm to Elon”.

“I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American,” Trump added.

Tesla shares are back to around the level they were before the US election.

They spiked after Trump’s win as investors bet on Musk’s business benefitting from his backing the president.

Mr Musk has been heading up the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which is not an official US government agency.

Doge has been trying to make huge cuts to federal funding, and Musk himself has has been voicing support for far-right politics.

His stance has been drawing criticism in the US. About 350 demonstrators protested outside a Tesla dealership in Portland, Oregon, last week, and nine demonstrators were arrested outside a New York City Tesla dealership earlier in March.

Linsay James, an investment strategist at Quilter Investors, said that although there is “an element” of Elon Musk’s politics “having a brand impact”, there were other reasons for the share price fall.

Ultimately the drop “comes down to hard numbers”, she said.

“When we look at new orders, for example in Europe and China, you can see that they’ve effectively halved over the last year,” she said.

Sales in Europe have fallen sharply this year. Across the continent, they were down 45% in January compared to the same month in 2024, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA).

There has also been a steep decline in China – a key market – and Australia.

Other experts have said Tesla is over-valued, so the fall is seen as a correction, while others have pointed to rising competition from some of Chinese electric vehicle companies.

Investors are “certainly getting more worried about an economic slowdown too, so the richest-valued companies like Tesla have been hit hardest in recent days”, she added.

They have also been concerns that Musk has not been focusing on his firms.

In an interview with Fox Business on Monday, he said he was combining the Doge role with running his businesses “with great difficulty”.

Alongside Tesla, his businesses include Space X, which has experienced serious failures in the last two launches of its giant Starship rocket, and the social media network X, which suffered an outage on Monday.

Patients prescribed drugs for movement disorders – including restless leg syndrome (RLS) – say doctors did not warn them about serious side effects that led them to seek out risky sexual behaviour.

Twenty women have told the BBC that the drugs – given to them for RLS, which causes an irresistible urge to move – ruined their lives.

A report by drugs firm GSK – seen by the BBC – shows it learned in 2003 of a link between the medicines, known as dopamine agonist drugs, and what it described as “deviant” sexual behaviour. It cited a case of a man who had sexually assaulted a child while taking the drug for Parkinson’s.

While there is no explicit reference to this side effect in patient leaflets, the UK medicines regulator told us there was a general warning about increased libido and harmful behaviour. GSK says a risk of “altered” sexual interest is also referred to in the leaflets.

Some of the women who described being drawn to risky sexual behaviour told us they had no idea of what was causing it. Others said they felt compelled to gamble or shop with no history of such activities. One accumulated debts of more than £150,000.

Like many women, Claire first developed RLS during her pregnancies. The relentless need to move was often accompanied by sleeplessness and a crawling sensation under her skin.

The condition persisted after giving birth and she was prescribed the dopamine agonist drug Ropinirole. She says she was not warned by doctors of any side effects. It initially worked wonders for her RLS, she says, but after a year or so she began feeling unprecedented sexual urges.

“The only way I could describe it is it was just deviant,” she tells us – using that word without any knowledge of the GSK research which had established a link with such behaviour.

Claire says she began leaving her house in the early hours of the morning to cruise for sex. Wearing a see-through top and jacket, she would flash her chest at any man she could find. She did this regularly, she says, and in increasingly dangerous locations, despite having a partner.

“There remains an element in your head that knows what you’re doing is wrong, but it affects you to the point that you don’t know you’re doing it.”

Claire says it took years to connect these urges with her medication – and they disappeared almost immediately when she stopped taking it. She feels complete “shame” and is “mortified” at the danger she placed herself in.

Impulsive behaviours, including gambling and increased sex drive, have long been listed as side effects in medicine leaflets for dopamine agonist drugs – and are thought to affect between 6% to 17% of RLS patients taking them, according to health guidance body NICE. A “common” side effect of any medicine is considered to only affect 1% of people who take it, according to the NHS.

The drugs work by mimicking the behaviour of dopamine, a natural chemical in our brains which helps regulate movement. It is known as the “happy hormone” because it is activated when something is pleasurable or we feel rewarded.

But agonist drugs can over-stimulate these feelings and under-stimulate the appreciation of consequences – leading to impulsive behaviour, according to academics.

The cases of what the GSK report from 2003 described as “deviant behaviour” involved two men who were prescribed Ropinirole for Parkinson’s disease. In one, a 63-year-old-man sexually assaulted a seven-year-old girl, leading to a custodial sentence.

The documents said the perpetrator’s libido had increased significantly from the start of his treatment with Ropinirole and his “libido problem subsequently resolved” after his dose was reduced.

In the second case, a 45-year-old man carried out “uncontrolled acts of exhibitionism and indecent behaviour”. His sex drive was reported to have increased prior to being prescribed Ropinirole but his urges “intensified” after the treatment.

Prevalence rates of what GSK calls “deviant” sexual behaviours caused by the drugs are unknown and tend to be under-reported by those who experience them, according to Valerie Voon, a professor of neuropsychiatry at the University of Cambridge.

“There’s a lot of stigma and shame attached to it, and people don’t realise that it’s associated with a medication,” she says.

Prof Voon believes risky sexual behaviours – beyond a purely increased libido – should be specifically warned about and screened by the NHS, because their impact can be “devastating”.

RLS is believed to affect about one in 20 adults – and women are about twice as likely to suffer as men.

The 20 sufferers we spoke to say not only had doctors failed to tell them of the potentially serious side effects of the drugs, but also failed to review the impact of the medication on their bodies subsequently.

Sarah was in her 50s when she was prescribed another dopamine agonist drug made by a different manufacturer.

“Previously I’d have had no interest if Brad Pitt walked in the room naked,” she says. “But it turned me into this raging woman who kept taking sexual addiction further.”

Sarah began selling used underwear and videos of sex acts online – and organising telephone sex with strangers. She also began shopping compulsively – ending up with £30,000 of debt.

To combat the effects of the dopamine agonist, she began self-medicating by taking pain-relieving opioids and sleeping pills. She ended up being admitted to rehab – but that meant her driving licence was taken away and she lost her job.

“I turned to things that weren’t healthy – I knew that the behaviour wasn’t me, but I couldn’t control it,” she tells the BBC.

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A third woman, Sue, says she was prescribed two different dopamine agonist drugs without being warned of compulsive behaviour side effects on either occasion. She even mentioned recent gambling behaviour when the second drug was prescribed, she says. She went on to rack up debts of £80,000.

“The effect on my family was horrific – it was life-changing money to lose,” she says. “But at the time I didn’t know it was no fault of my own.”

A class action was brought against GSK in 2011 by four sufferers of Parkinson’s disease – the BBC has learned. They said Ropinirole led to gambling debts and broken relationships.

They also complained that despite a link between such behaviours and the drug having been established in medical studies as early as 2000, GSK had failed to include any warnings in its product literature until March 2007. The class action was settled but GSK denied liability.

Cases of serious side effects have also been reported in other countries, particularly in relation to the use of drugs for Parkinson’s disease.

In France, a court awarded damages to a father of two who complained that Ropinirole had given him compulsive homosexual urges, while another man without a criminal record began torturing cats.

In the US, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends the drugs should only be used for short-term treatment, such as end-of-life care.

Many of the women the BBC spoke to also complained that prolonged use of the drugs also worsened their underlying RLS. It meant their dosage had been increased which, in turn, had exacerbated their compulsive behaviour – a process known as augmentation.

Dr Guy Leschziner, a consultant neurologist, says the drugs still play an important role but he believes that drug companies, health authorities and doctors need to better warn patients of these side effects.

“Not everybody knows the kinds of really quite dramatic changes that can occur,” he says.

In a statement, GSK told the BBC Ropinirole had been prescribed for more than 17 million treatments and undergone “extensive clinical trials”. It added the drug had proven to be effective and had a “well-characterised safety profile”.

“As with all medicines, [it] has potential side effects and these are clearly stated in the prescribing information,” it said.

In response to its 2003 research that had found a link with “deviant” sexual behaviour, GSK told us this was shared with health authorities and had informed updates in prescribing information – which now lists “altered or increased sexual interest” and “behaviour of significant concern” as side effects.

The current patient information leaflet for Ropinirole makes specific reference to changes in sexual interest on five occasions – almost exclusively warning about the frequency or strength of such feelings as potentially “abnormally high”, “excessive” or “increase[d]”.

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), said that while a specific reference to “deviant” sexual behaviour is not included in warnings, such impulses vary and a general warning about activities which may be harmful is included.

It also said that it is important for healthcare professionals to explain the possible risk to patients and not all experience these types of side effects.

The Department of Health and Social Care declined to comment.

Some names have been changed in this article to protect people’s identities.