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A woman in her 40s has died in a Valentine’s Day shooting outside a village pub in Kent as police continue to search for the suspect.

Kent Police said it was treating the shooting at the Three Horseshoes on Main Road, Knockholt, just after 19:00 GMT on Friday, as a murder inquiry.

The woman, who had gunshot wounds, died at the scene, officers said.

Police later recovered a vehicle that contained a gun on the Queen Elizabeth II bridge, which crosses the River Thames near Dartford.

Det Ch Insp David Higham said call handlers had received reports of a man on the wrong side of the barrier on the bridge.

He said: “We are not ruling out the possibility that he may have entered the water.

“We are currently only looking for one suspect and do not believe there to be an ongoing risk to the public.

“Specialist officers continue to work with the families of both parties involved to support them following this tragic incident.”

The suspect, a man who is believed to be known to the victim, left the area following the shooting, police said earlier.

On Saturday morning, Kent Police said it was working to identify and locate “all persons potentially involved”.

Local resident Chris Warner told the BBC: “It’s a really quiet area. Everybody knows everyone.

“It’s just so shocking that something like this could happen here.”

In a statement posted on its Facebook page, the Three Horseshoes pub expressed its “sincere condolences to the victim’s family and friends”.

It added: “We also want to send our support to anyone else in the local and surrounding community who have been impacted by this.

“Please be respectful of everyone involved at this difficult time.”

MP for Sevenoaks and Swanley Laura Trott wrote on Facebook that she was “devastated to hear about the incident”.

“I know our community will be shocked at the news but this is a live investigation and we must allow the police to do their job,” she said.

Steve Maines, a parish councillor in Knockholt, told the BBC he heard a “commotion” outside the venue and was told someone had been shot.

He said: “We were sitting having our Valentine’s Day meal when all of a sudden we heard this huge commotion outside in the car park.

“We were told someone had been shot so we had to leave.”

Villager Dorothy Wong said: “I heard around three to four bangs outside and loud shouting from a woman’s voice.”

Ray Picot has lived in the village for 30 years.

He said: “We looked out and saw the whole area cordoned off with ambulances, police and flashing lights.”

A separate notice on the pub’s Facebook page said it would be closed on Saturday “following a tragic incident outside the pub last night”.

The Three Horseshoes is located about five miles (8km) north-west of Sevenoaks.

BBC reporter Daniel MacLaren said on Saturday morning the area immediately around the pub was cordoned off with police tape.

Police officers were standing by at the scene to prevent access.

Hamas has released another three Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners following a week in which the fragile ceasefire deal appeared under threat.

American-Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, Argentinian-Israeli Yair Horn, 46, and Russian-Israeli Alexander Troufanov, 29, were freed in return for 369 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

So far 19 hostages and more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners have been freed in the first phase of ceasefire deal which began on 19 January.

The swap came days after Hamas said it would pause the release of hostages, accusing Israel of violating the terms of the deal – an allegation denied by Israel.

Israel, backed by US President Donald Trump, said “intense” fighting would resume unless the hostages were handed over. Hamas later said it remained committed to the ceasefire, and that Israel was “responsible for any complications or delays”.

But on Saturday the sixth swap went ahead, with the hostages handed over to Red Cross workers in a highly-choreographed public show in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Surrounded by heavily armed Hamas militants, the men briefly addressed a crowd of Palestinians before being transferred into Red Cross vehicles.

They did not look as gaunt as the hostages freed a week earlier – their appearance had aroused anger in Israel and elsewhere.

Under the first six-week stage of the ceasefire deal, 33 hostages and 1,900 prisoners are supposed to be freed.

The three men were airlifted by military helicopters to a hospital in central Israel, where they underwent medical tests and were reunited with relatives.

Yair Horn and his brother Eitan, 37, had been abducted from a kibbutz during the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas. Eitan remains in captivity in Gaza.

Pictures showed Yair Horn hugging his mother and his brother Amos in hospital, and a message where he wrote “Eitan, you’re next”.

US citizen Sagui Dekel-Chen also reunited with his wife, where he learned that he had one-year-old daughter. His wife had been eight months pregnant with their third child when he was captured by Hamas in October 2023.

US President Donald Trump marked the hostage release on Saturday, noting Hamas had not followed through with their threat.

“They seem to be in good shape,” he said.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, posting on social media, said the hostages had been “forced to endure” a “despicable and cynical ceremony”.

In a social media post, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would continue to work with the US to “ensure that all hostages return to Israel soon”.

The majority of the freed Palestinians were taken to Gaza, although some were taken to the West Bank. In both areas, crowds gathered to welcome the former prisoners.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society told the BBC that five of those released in the West Bank city of Ramallah were taken straight to hospital.

“They all have chronic illnesses,” said Mohammad Faqih, an official from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, adding that one man had a broken leg.

Most of the 36 Palestinians serving life sentences will reportedly be deported to Egypt.

The latest releases mean that under the ceasefire, Hamas is due to free another 14 hostages.

However Israel says eight are of them are dead, meaning six living Israelis are still expected to be returned in the first phase.

A total of 141 hostages have now been freed, including 81 Israelis and 24 foreign nationals released as part of a previous deal between Israel and Hamas.

About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken back to Gaza as hostages when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023.

This triggered a massive Israeli military offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

The family of a British couple in custody in Iran say they are united in their determination to secure their safe return.

Craig and Lindsay Foreman were arrested in January, but news of their detention emerged on Thursday when state-run Iranian media reported they were being held on unspecified security charges.

The couple, both aged 52, had been on a motorbike trip across the world, and had planned to be in Iran for only five days.

A statement issued by the Foreign Office on their family’s behalf said: “This unexpected turn of events has caused significant concern for our entire family, and we are deeply focused on ensuring their safety and wellbeing during this trying time.”

The family called it a “distressing situation”, adding: “We are actively engaging with the British government and relevant authorities, working diligently to navigate the complexities of this matter.”

They said the “emotional burden of this situation weighs heavily on us”, and “the outpouring of support from friends, family, and the community” had “provided us with strength and encouragement as we face this ordeal”.

Mr and Mrs Foreman were heading for Australia on their journey across the globe.

They had crossed into Iran from Armenia on 30 December and had planned to be in Pakistan by 4 January.

After staying in the cities of Tabriz, Tehran and Isfahan, accompanied by a tour guide, they travelled on to Kerman, in east-central Iran, but never checked into their hotel there.

In a series of social media posts before they were detained, the couple described their joy at being in Iran.

Lindsay Foreman, a life coach with a doctorate in psychology, said she was “having an amazing time”.

Her husband Craig, who is a carpenter, spoke of the “lovely people” of a “lovely country”.

Mrs Foreman posted a picture of herself on 3 January meeting a cleric in the town of Isfahan. Writing on Instagram, she said: “Travel continues to teach me that humanity’s core is shared: kindness, humility, and respect for one another.”

On Facebook that day she wrote: “Despite differences in culture, language, and traditions, we’ve seen something beautifully universal: kindness, humour, hospitality – and a shared love of good food!”

The Iranian authorities have not said what the couple are accused of.

The pair moved from East Sussex to start a new life in Andalucia, Spain, in 2019 and had appeared on an episode of Channel 4’s A New Life in the Sun in 2022 to showcase their lives as expats.

Mrs Foreman is reported to have been carrying out a research project on their journey to Australia, asking people what it means to be human and what constitutes a good life.

She was due to present her findings at a conference on positive psychology in Brisbane in July.

Posting on Instagram, she acknowledged travelling to the Iran, against Foreign Office advice, and to Pakistan was risky and “slightly scary”.

“Yes, we’re aware of the risks,” she wrote. “But we also know the rewards of meeting incredible people, hearing their stories, and seeing the breathtaking landscapes of these regions could far outweigh the fear.”

She added: “From the vast deserts of Iran to the towering peaks of Pakistan, we hope to share the beauty, hospitality, and humanity that often go unnoticed.”

The Foreign Office says it is in contact with the local authorities in Iran, and is providing the couple with consular assistance.

A photograph of the couple, with their faces blurred, meeting the British ambassador Hugo Shorter at the public prosecutor’s office in Kerman was published on Wednesday.

The Foreign Office currently advises British nationals to avoid all travel to Iran.

“British and British-Iranian dual nationals are at significant risk of arrest, questioning or detention,” advice says. “Having a British passport or connections to the UK can be reason enough for the Iranian authorities to detain you.”

Over the past few years, dozens of foreign and dual nationals have been arrested in Iran on vague security-related charges.

Human rights groups say they are often used by the Iranian authorities for political leverage.

For the final 15km (9.3 miles) of the journey from Toulouse to the hamlet of Les Pequiès, you travel on narrow winding roads through hilly, dense woodlands. Without a reliable GPS system you can get lost very quickly, especially at night.

I expected the home of Andrew and Dawn Searle, the British couple found dead earlier this month, to be remote. That’s the suggestion from the photos of the crime scene I had seen. But I was surprised when I arrived to find it well within shouting distance of several homes.

It’s an important detail because Dawn’s partly naked body was discovered outside the front of the house on Thursday morning last week. The prosecutor in charge of the case, Nicolas Rigot-Muller, said she had severe head wounds caused by a blunt weapon. Any screams would have been heard very clearly by neighbours.

Her husband’s body was found hanging inside the back of the house. The prosecutor says no weapon has been found, that there’s no obvious sign of a burglary nor evidence that Andrew put up a fight, nor of a sex crime.

A friend discovered Dawn’s body when she came around to the house with her dog. The couple had two big dogs of their own, and they often walked with the friend or several other dog owners I talked to in the quiet hamlet.

One woman, Bénédicte, said the couple were “absolutely adorable, we would often meet like this simply walking our dogs around the village”.

“We are very shocked, of course we are,” she said.

Lydie, a butcher, sells her produce at local markets with her husband. Their property overlooks the Searle’s home, just a fallow field separates them.

“They were a great couple who smiled a lot and since I once lived in England I was able to talk to them in English,” she told me. “They were well integrated and every year invited everyone over for a party.”

But not everyone I approached wanted to talk. Their looks give away that this is a very difficult moment for this rural community in the glare of a criminal investigation.

The railroad crossing next to the village doesn’t have safety barriers, just a stop sign, which tells you how little traffic there is here normally. Now, you can feel the presence of the Gendarmerie, the branch of the French military which is leading the investigation.

While I was providing live coverage for BBC Scotland a large car with tinted windows drove past me slowly, inside four stony-faced officers from the Toulouse homicide and organised crime branch.

There is no question locals are scared. Several officers from the Gendarmerie photographed our car and asked to see our ID cards and urged us to be discreet. They said the residents were frightened and that their presence was partly to reassure them.

There is bright yellow Gendarmerie tape strapped to the front gate of the Searle’s home. The dogs are gone and their swimming pool has a cover over it. Two large candles have been lit in the driveway and a leaflet taped to the gate has a phone number for anyone who feels they need psychological counselling or moral support, provided by local social services. The same leaflet has been taped to a community board in the centre of the hamlet.

The Searle couple retired to this region five years ago, and other mailboxes in the hamlet indicate they are not the only expatriates in the region. This isn’t surprising: there are no official statistics but in the time I have been based in Toulouse, Foreign Office staff have told me at various times they believe around 30,000 Brits live full-time in the south west, making it the biggest British expat population in France outside of Paris.

On top of that tens of thousands more have holiday homes in this region, called Occitanie, which is one of the fastest growing areas of France, attracting people from not just the UK but Belgium, the Netherlands and Paris.

What attracts them here is the quality of life, wide open spaces, relatively cheap property and achingly beautiful countryside and architecture.

The nearby town of Villefranche-de-Rouergue has one of the most beautiful medieval stone arcade-lined central squares in a region teeming with them. In summer, an open-air market in the square is crammed with holiday makers, including many Brits, carrying woven baskets filled with local produce.

Various conspiracy theories circulate about how the couple died – I’ve been asked about them by countless French national TV and radio media outlets. But all we know for sure is that the prosecutor and his team are still trying to determine, as he reiterated to me on Wednesday night, “whether the tragedy resulted from a domestic crime followed by suicide or involved a third party”.

Ever since the deaths I’ve been speaking to the prosecutor leading the case, who revealed to me late this week that he was handing over the investigation to a senior judge in Montpellier with more resources available.

I asked him if that means he was leaning towards the idea that the Searle couple were both murdered.

He replied that he was not ruling anything out. He added that if they were murdered, and it goes to trial, he would lead the prosecution.

Dr Remy Sevigne, the psychologist who answers the counselling hotline from the leaflets, told me that so far around a dozen people had called him for some sort of support. They were all local, he said, and all knew the couple personally.

They were all either frightened or in shock, he said.

Life for Mike Elvis Tusubira, a motorcycle taxi rider with HIV in Uganda, has been turned upside down since US President Donald Trump halted foreign aid last month.

Not only does the 35-year-old fear for his own survival as he takes life-saving anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs – but he says he will have to split up from his wife as they can no longer have safe sex.

His partner is HIV-negative and relies on PrEP, a medicine that reduces the risk of contracting HIV.

“It means that even my marriage will end, because actually without the preventive measures, she’s not going to stay,” he told the BBC.

“No condoms, no [anti-HIV] lubricants, no PrEP, nothing. We can’t stay in marriage without meeting. It means that I have to stay single.”

All the couple’s medicines and contraceptives were supplied thanks to funding from the US government’s main overseas aid agency USAID.

Since the sudden shutdown, which he heard about on social media, they have not been able to replenish their supplies. His wife has completely run out of PrEP now and they are both afraid that relying just on condoms – they have some left – is too risky.

Trump ordered the 90-day pause on foreign aid on his first day back in office, after which stop-work orders began to be issued to organisations funded by USAID.

Waivers were subsequently issued for humanitarian projects, but by that time the HIV programme Mr Tusubira was part of – run out of Marpi Clinic in the north of the capital, Kampala – had closed.

He phoned his counsellor at the Kiswa Health Centre III in the city to find out what was going on.

“My counsellor was in the village. He told me that he is no longer at the clinic.”

The father of one, who tested positive for HIV in 2022, has since missed a test to determine how much virus is in his blood and the strength of his immune system.

“I’m moving in the dark, in the darkness. I don’t know whether my viral load is suppressed. I’m traumatised.”

He does not think his job driving a motorbike taxi – known locally as a “boda-boda” – will be able to help his family get over the hurdles they now face.

“Some other people say that the drugs will be in private pharmacies… as a boda-boda rider I don’t know whether I can raise the money to sustain my treatment.”

They have also been impacted by the loss of services provided by non-government organisations (NGOs) that received funding from USAID, he says.

His wife was getting her PrEP via an NGO at Marpi and his five-year-old son was benefitting from one that provided school and food for vulnerable children.

“My child is no longer at school now,” he said.

Uganda’s health sector is heavily reliant on donor funding, which supports 70% of its Aids initiatives.

The East African nation is among the top 10 recipients of USAID funds in Africa. According to US government data, the country received $295m (£234m) in health funding from the agency in 2023 – ranking third after Nigeria which received $368m and Tanzania with $337m.

USAID also supports its malaria, tuberculosis and leprosy programmes – as well as funding maternal and child health services and emergency health assistance.

Thousands of healthcare workers have been impacted by the US funding freeze.

Dr Shamirah Nakitto, a clinician with Reach Out Mbuya (Rom) – a faith-based community organisation providing medical and psychosocial support to people living with HIV in Uganda – was based at Kisenyi Health Centre IV, which serves a densely populated slum in Kampala.

On average, she attended to 200 patients with HIV/Aids and tuberculosis daily. But after the stop-work order, all Rom-supported health workers were laid off.

Its tuberculosis unit now stands silent and its orphans and vulnerable children section has also been shut at Kisenyi.

“We are waiting for the 90 days. So, this compulsory leave, I hadn’t prepared for it,” she told the BBC.

“It was so abrupt. We didn’t have a proper handover at the facility. We just stopped working.”

Uganda’s health ministry says it is exploring ways to minimise disruptions.

Dr Diana Atwine, the top civil servant at the ministry, urged staff “willing to continue working in the spirit of patriotism as volunteers” to get in contact.

Further south in Malawi, USAID-funded activities have also ground to a halt.

The country received $154m from USAID’s health budget in 2023, making it the 10th largest recipient in Africa.

In the northern city of Mzuzu, the gates are shut at a clinic that has been a key provider of HIV services in the region. Vehicles sit idle; there is no sign of activity at the Macro Mzuzu Clinic. Workers locked the doors, turned off the lights and went home 18 days ago.

Despite the US State Department’s waiver on 28 January allowing the delivery of medicine such as ARVs, many clinics have closed as without the critical staff who co-ordinate USAID’s activities, distributing medicines is a challenge.

Even where services are technically permitted to resume, many contracts remain in limbo. Health workers are unsure of what they can and cannot do.

The Trump administration plans to reduce USAID staff by more than 90%.

Atul Gawande, USAID’s former global health assistant administrator, posted on X that the agency’s workforce would be slashed from 14,000 to 294 – with only 12 staff assigned to Africa.

More than 30 NGOs in Malawi have also been severely impacted by the funding freeze.

Eddah Simfukwe Banda, a 32-year-old subsistence farmer, has been getting ARVs since 2017 from the Macro clinic, where various NGOs were providing HIV programmes.

She is worried about her own fate – and that of her sister-in-law, who also relies on donor-funded medication – and says they little option but to pray.

“We have to pray as Malawians. Those of us that believe depend on a God who opens doors when one is closed,” she told the BBC.

The mother of three, who has a three-week supply of ARVs left, also said systemic failures were to blame: “As Malawians, we depend too much on receiving aid. At times we are lazy and squander and rely on other countries to help us.

“Let this be a lesson that we have to be independent,” she said.

But this is difficult for one of the poorest and most aid-dependent countries in the world. According to the World Bank, Malawi is vulnerable to external shocks – including prolonged droughts, cyclones and erratic rainfall.

A disruption of this magnitude in its healthcare system presents an enormous challenge.

For decades, the US has been Africa’s most significant public health partner.

In particular through its ground-breaking programme to counter the global spread of HIV, which was launched in 2003. Called the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), it has saved more than 25 million lives.

According to head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), USAID gave $8bn of aid assistance to Africa over the past year.

“Seventy-three per cent went to healthcare,” Jean Kaseya told BBC Newsday last month.

Health experts warn that replacing this funding will be extremely difficult.

African governments have made strides in reducing aid dependency. Kenya now funds nearly 60% of its HIV response. South Africa covers almost 80%.

But for many low-income nations, debt burdens, climate disasters and economic shocks make self-sufficiency nearly impossible.

Amref Health Africa, one of the leading health NGOs on the continent, warns that without urgent action, global health security is at risk.

“This would require African governments and Africa CDC to increase their own funding, which is almost impossible under the current debt distress conditions,” its CEO Dr Githinji Gitahi told the BBC.

“With accelerating outbreaks from climate change and human-environmental conflict, this would leave the world fragile and unsafe – not only for Africa but for everyone.”

Worldwide in 2023, there were 630,000 Aids-related deaths and 1.5 million new infections.

While infection rates have been declining in the worst-affected countries, the impact of the USAID shutdown could reverse these gains.

“If you take away this major contribution by the United States government, we expect that in the next five years, there’ll be an additional 6.3 million Aids-related deaths,” Winnie Byanyima, the head of UNAids, told the BBC’s Africa Daily podcast this week.

“There will be 8.7 million new infections, 3.4 million additional Aids orphans. I don’t want to sound like a prophet of doom, but I have a duty to give the facts as we see them.”

The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has also warned of the dangers of interrupting HIV treatments.

“HIV medicines must be taken daily or people run the risk of developing resistance or deadly health complications,” Tom Ellman, from MSF Southern Africa, has said in a statement.

Back in Uganda, Mr Tusubira feels bleak about the future.

He has about 30 days left of his ARV medication – and may opt to leave Kampala and go home to his village after that.

“At least it will be a bit simpler. If I die, they just bury me there, instead of disturbing my people here in Kampala.

“Because I have no way I can live here without ARV services.”

It’s the early hours of the morning in March 2024 and Ben is woken by shouting and swearing. It’s aimed at him, and he says it feels threatening. It’s the woman who lives in the flat below.

An hour before, Ben could see and hear threats on the screen of his doorbell camera. It’s been rung multiple times and he says he’s barely slept.

This is the 78th incident on a meticulous log Ben has been keeping since the anti-social behaviour started about a year before.

He says he’s been “abused” and “physically threatened that we would be shot, stabbed and have our knees broken if we leave the house”. He says he now lives in a constant state of fear.

Ben bought the ex-council flat in Wandsworth almost three years ago and around six months later, Drina Gray moved into the flat below. He says the issues began soon after.

As well as threats, he says he and his girlfriend Emma are plagued by noise from her flat below, including the tenant’s dogs barking, music, shouting and vacuuming all through the night.

He says the disruption even affected his ability to work.

“Because I was so sleep-deprived, I was getting to work quite late. I couldn’t focus on my job. Ultimately due to just so much stress, so much anxiety, I lost my job.”

Ben eventually got a new job but says he’s been left feeling “really helpless” and says the whole experience has had a detrimental impact on his mental health.

Emma adds that she too has been left “terrified”.

“We just feel trapped,” she says.

Ben and Emma are not alone in experiencing anti-social behaviour. According to the latest official data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, 36% of people experienced or witnessed anti-social behaviour last year, up from 34% the previous year.

Ben is a leaseholder in a council-owned block and says many of his complaints to Wandsworth Council went unanswered.

He says he feels ignored, despite mentioning concerns about mental health and violent threats.

Ben and Emma have called the police to their address more than 20 times and say while local neighbourhood officers have been helpful, they feel failed by the system and “let down” by response times when they call 999.

In August, an official review panel – made up of police and public officials – found there had “not been good communication between agencies” and “none of the agencies has taken ownership of the case”.

Wandsworth council has accepted it “could have acted more swiftly.”

Ben has now complained to the housing ombudsman.

Over the last year, across the UK, the Housing Ombudsman has ruled that of the 809 anti-social behaviour cases he has presided over, 67% of social landlords hadn’t dealt with the issue to an adequate standard.

Richard Blakeway, the Housing Ombudsman, said: “Anti-social behaviour can cause unimaginable distress to people, have a profound impact on the community, and be complex for landlords to manage.”

He added that he repeatedly sees cases where “failures prolong issues and leaves residents feeling unheard and continuing to suffer”.

The BBC showed some of Ben’s footage to Baroness Helen Newlove, the victims’ commissioner for England and Wales.

“It shows that the system isn’t working, once again, to protect innocent people,” she says.

Baroness Newlove’s husband Garry died in hospital after being attacked outside his home in Warrington, Cheshire, in August 2007 by three youths after he went to speak to a gang he believed had been vandalising his wife’s car.

She says 17 years later, agencies still don’t understand the impact anti-social behaviour has on victims. She fears it will take another death for it to be taken more seriously and for it not be treated as “low-level” crime.

She says her inbox is full of complaints from victims about anti-social behaviour.

Baroness Newlove hopes new powers in the Crime and Policing Bill, being drafted this year, will improve protection for victims.

In December, Ben’s neighbour, Drina Gray, pleaded guilty to charges including harassment and criminal damage and will be sentenced in March.

Ben says the anti-social behaviour has continued and Gray has been rearrested multiple times since. She returned to the flat after the first arrest but the BBC understands she is temporarily staying elsewhere as per her bail conditions.

The council says following the court case, it is now seeking possession of the property.

But Ben says he has no idea when Gray will be permanently moved.

In a statement, Wandsworth Council said it “takes criminal and anti-social behaviour very seriously, and we work with partners to both support residents and to take the appropriate action against those responsible.

“This is a complex case where housing officers have been working closely with a number of different agencies, including the Police, to resolve the matter.”

A spokesperson for the Met Police said: “Any form of anti-social behaviour is taken seriously and we work in partnership with local authority colleagues to ensure that issues raised are addressed”.

Addressing Ben and Emma’s specific case, the spokesperson said the police were working to “ensure that the offender is brought before the courts when there is evidence to support it”.

The BBC contacted Drina Gray for comment.

Warning: This report contains some disturbing details

An Indian court’s ruling that a man’s forced “unnatural sex” with his wife is not an offence has led to huge outrage and sparked renewed calls for better protections for married women.

The controversial order has also brought back into the spotlight the issue of marital rape in a country which has stubbornly refused to criminalise it.

Earlier this week, a high court judge in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh set free a 40-year-old man who was convicted by a trial court in 2019 of rape and unnatural sex with his wife, who died within hours of the alleged assault.

The lower court had also found the man guilty of “culpable homicide not amounting to murder”. He was sentenced to “rigorous imprisonment for 10 years” on each count, with all the sentences to run concurrently.

But on Monday, the High Court’s Justice Narendra Kumar Vyas acquitted the man of all charges, saying that since India did not recognise marital rape, the husband could not be considered guilty of non-consensual sex or any non-consensual unnatural sexual act.

The judgement has been met with anger, as activists, lawyers and campaigners renew their calls to criminalise marital rape in India.

“To watch this man walk away is unacceptable. This judgement may be correct legally, but it is ethically and morally abhorrent,” said lawyer and gender rights activist Sukriti Chauhan.

“An order that absolves a man of such a crime, to say it’s not a crime, is the darkest hour in our legal system,” she told the BBC.

“It has shaken us to the core. This needs to change and change quickly.”

Priyanka Shukla, a lawyer in Chhattisgarh, said a judgement like this “sends out the message that because you’re the husband, you have rights. And you can do anything, you can even get away with murder”.

She added that this is not the first time a court has given such a judgement, and there is always anger.

“This time, the outrage is more because it is so gruesome and the woman died.”

The court documents make for grim reading.

According to the prosecution, the incident took place on the night of 11 December 2017, when the husband, who worked as a driver, “committed unnatural sex with the victim against her will… causing her a lot of pain”.

After he left for work, she sought help from his sister and another relative, who took her to hospital where she died a few hours later.

In her statement to the police and her dying declaration to a magistrate, the woman said she became ill “due to forceful sexual intercourse by her husband”.

A dying declaration carries weight in court and legal experts say it is generally enough for conviction, unless contradicted by other evidence.

While convicting the man in 2019, the trial court had relied heavily on her dying declaration and the post-mortem report, which stated “the cause of death was peritonitis and rectal perforation” – simply put, severe injuries to her abdomen and rectum.

Justice Vyas, however, saw matters differently – he questioned the “sanctity” of the dying statement, noted that some of the witnesses had retracted their statements and, most importantly, said that marital rape was not an offence in India.

The lower court’s conviction was “a rarest of rare case”, Ms Shukla said, “probably because the woman died”.

“But what is shocking about the high court order is that there’s not even one sympathetic comment from the judge.”

Considering the nature of the assault, the high court’s order has come as a shock for many, who believe the judge should not have dismissed the case so lightly.

India is among more than 30 countries – along with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia – where marital rape is not a criminal offence.

A number of petitions have been filed in recent years seeking to strike down Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, which has been in existence since 1860.

The British colonial-era law mentions several “exemptions” – or situations in which sex is not rape – and one of them is “by a man with his own wife” if she is not under 15 years.

Britain outlawed marital rape in 1991 but India, which recently rewrote its criminal code, retained the regressive law in its new statute book.

The idea is rooted in the belief that consent for sex is “implied” in marriage and that a wife cannot retract it later. Campaigners say such an argument is untenable in this day and age, and that forced sex is rape, regardless of who does it.

But in a country where marriage and family are considered sacrosanct, the issue has polarised opinions and there’s strong resistance to the idea of criminalising marital rape.

The Indian government, religious leaders and men’s rights activists have strongly opposed the move.

In October last year, the government told the Supreme Court that criminalisation of marital rape would be “excessively harsh”. The federal home ministry said it “may lead to serious disturbances in the institution of marriage”.

Authorities also insist that there are enough laws to protect married women against sexual violence. But campaigners say India cannot hide behind archaic laws to deny women bodily agency.

“A lot of people say the constitution cannot enter your bedroom,” Ms Chauhan said.

“But doesn’t it grant women – like all citizens – fundamental rights to safety and security? What kind of redundant country do we live in that we remain quiet when a woman has to face this level of violence?” she asks.

Violence within marriage is rampant in India.

According to a recent government survey, 32% of married women face physical, sexual or emotional violence by their husbands and 82% have experienced sexual violence by their husbands.

And even that doesn’t give the true scale of the problem, Ms Shukla said, because a majority of women do not report violence, especially sexual violence, out of shame.

“In my experience, women are not trusted when they complain, everyone says it must be fake. The only time such cases are taken seriously is when a woman dies or the assault is particularly gruesome,” the lawyer said.

Ms Chauhan believes nothing will change until the law changes.

“We need to criminalise marital rape. The wife not getting justice after such a gruesome incident deserves a nationwide campaign, which is not born of anger but is serious [and] well thought out.”

She added that the government and men’s activists try to project it as a “man versus woman debate”.

“But the demand for criminalising marital rape is not against men, but for the safety and wellbeing of women. Is it not important to ensure women’s safety?”

Donald Trump is threatening to introduce big tariffs on EU car imports, unhappy that Europeans don’t buy more American vehicles. But why are US cars, with the notable exception of Tesla, not more popular in Europe?

Italy’s ancient towns and cities, with their narrow, cobbled streets, offer an obvious explanation why, in the words of US President Donald Trump, Europeans “don’t take our cars”.

Or as car industry analyst Hampus Engellau puts it: “Try to go around Italy in a big SUV. I’ve done it, and it’s very difficult”.

Add cost to the question, and it becomes obviously why you don’t see too many American pick-up trucks on European roads, observes Mike Hawes, CEO of The Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders, which represents the industry in the UK.

“We tend to have higher fuel prices than the Americans, so we prefer smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, while they generally prefer larger vehicles.”

Mr Engellau, who works for Swedish investment bank Handelsbanken Capital Markets, also highlights petrol prices being substantially cheaper in the US. “They pay per gallon what we pay per litre,” he says. There are 3.8 litres to one US gallon.

Yet these differences have done little to deter European carmakers from gaining market share in the US. Again, in the words of Mr Trump, the US has “millions of cars coming in – BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen and many others”.

In 2022, 692,334 new EU-made cars were exported to the US, worth €36bn ($37bn; £30bn). While only 116,207 new US-made cars went in the opposite direction, for €5.2bn.

This imbalance is caused by unfair trading rules and needs correcting, according to Mr Trump.

“Mr Trump is concerned because the terms of trade are not really equal,” explains Mr Engellau, pointing out that the EU’s 10% tariffs on cars imported from the US far exceeds the 2.5% tariffs the US – currently – charges on cars imported from the EU.

These disparities have prompted Trump to say he wants to raise US tariffs on European automotive imports. He has already announced 25% import tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, two metals crucial for carmakers.

Trump’s move appears to have prompted EU officials to consider reducing their own tariffs in order to protect Europe’s automotive industry from a potential trade war.

Trump’s intervention has not impressed Jim Farley, the boss of US carmaker Ford. “So far what we’ve been seeing is a lot of cost and a lot of chaos,” NBC News recently reported him as saying.

In fact, the very focus on trade is perhaps misplaced, according to automotive industry veteran Andy Palmer, formerly the chief operating officer of Nissan and CEO of Aston Martin, and currently a consultant. “If you can help it, you don’t want to ship cars around the world. They’re big boxes of expensive air,” he says.

The automotive industry is global, adds the SMMT’s Mr Hawes, so carmakers generally want to “manufacture close to where the customer is based”.

As such, several European carmakers, most notably marques such as BMW, Mercedes and Audi, are making some of their largest cars in North America, and some of these vehicles are exported back to Europe.

US carmakers have historically pursued similar strategies in Europe. General Motors owned and manufactured European marques such as Opel/Vauxhall and Saab, but it sold the former in 2017, and shut the latter back in 2009.

Meanwhile, Ford offloaded Aston Martin in 2007, Jaguar and Land Rover in 2008, and Volvo in 2010.

After years of losing money, Ford is currently redirecting its European business towards electric and commercial vehicles and away from small, affordable cars, such as its Focus models.

Ford plans to cut 800 jobs in the UK and 2,900 jobs in Germany by 2027, which represents a 14% reduction in its 28,000-strong European workforce.

Elon Musk’s Tesla has a factory near Berlin in Germany, where it makes its Model Y cars for the European market, but even here there are headwinds as low-cost Chinese imports in particular see their share of Europe’s market for electric cars grow.

Europe is a very tough marketplace for carmakers, according to Jose Asumendi, head of European automotive research at JP Morgan, an investment bank. “You need to have the right products, and you need to run the manufacturing plants well.”

He also points to brands having a competitive advantage in their home countries, be it BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen and Audi in Germany, Peugeot, Citroen and Renault in France, or Fiat and Alfa Romeo in Italy.

“There’s a natural inclination for people to buy local champions, especially in Germany, France and Italy,” explains Mr Asumendi.

He adds that while other European countries are more open to different brands, the market is crowded, with a slew of Japanese, South Korea, and, increasingly, Chinese cars.

Adding to Europe’s complexities for overseas carmakers are different taxation regulations, and the need to communicate in many different languages.

Mr Palmer does not think “European customers have any particular objections to American cars”, and Mr Asumendi agrees. “I think Europeans do like American brands, but there are many other brands available in Europe, so competition is fierce,” he says.

Mr Trump’s ambition is to make the US car industry stronger, by bringing more production and innovation home. But Mr Palmer insists that a car trade war with Europe will not deliver this.

Not least, he says, since tariffs tend to “insulate the beneficiaries from the free market, and this merely makes them lazy, so they stop innovating and fail to remain competitive”.

“It’s not about trade,” adds Mr Palmer. “It’s about investment and collaboration.”

Elon Musk’s children have been to places many will never see.

From meetings with foreign leaders to the control room of a SpaceX launch, Musk’s children have debuted as constant sidekicks to their father’s endeavors in tech, business and now, politics.

They have made frequent appearances in the nation’s capital since President Donald Trump tapped the tech billionaire and Tesla co-founder to lead the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency.

Musk’s four-year-old, “Lil X”, hung on the corner of the Resolute desk in the Oval Office on Wednesday sporting a tan pea coat and a collared shirt.

On Thursday, X and two of his siblings exchanged gifts with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi while their father discussed technology and innovation with the foreign leader.

Musk has frequently been seen with his children even before coming to Washington – at a meeting with the president of Turkey, a memorial service at Auschwitz concentration camp, and a Time magazine ceremony where he was named the 2021 person of the year.

But why do Musk’s children tag along?

“The inclusion of the kids in many public appearances is very much a politician move or a political move to make him seem a bit more personable (and) take a human approach to how the public views him,” says Kurt Braddock, an American University professor of public communication.

Still, Mr Braddock thought the decision to bring Musk’s preschooler to the Oval Office was unusual.

X appeared bored during the 30-minute press briefing as he mimicked his father, sat on the floor and received the occasional side glance and smile from the leader of the free world. At one point, it appeared he told someone in the room to “shush” their mouth.

Mr Braddock said he believes their inclusion is intentional – a distraction that benefits both Musk and Trump.

“I do think that there is a bit of a strategy here trying to draw attention to some things while diverting attention to other things,” he said.

Jon Haber, a strategic communication consultant who has worked with five presidential campaigns and teaches at Harvard, said Musk’s children making frequent appearances – and creating viral moments – is beneficial for Trump.

“For Trump, the more chaos, the more he floods the zone, the less anybody can really focus on. Chaos works for him,” Mr Haber said.

Grimes, Musk’s ex-girlfriend and the mother of X, criticised her son’s appearance in the Oval Office.

“He should not be in public like this,” she wrote in a post on X. “I did not see this… but I’m glad he was polite. Sigh.”

In a 2022 Vanity Fair article, she said that she wasn’t a fan of her son being in the spotlight.

“Whatever is going on with family stuff, I just feel like kids need to stay out of it, and X is just out there. I mean, I think E is really seeing him as a protégé and bringing him to everything and stuff.… X is out there. His situation is like that. But, yeah, I don’t know.”

Long before politics, Musk allowed his children to tag along.

A decade ago, when he was still building his profile and eager to draw attention to his electric-vehicle maker Tesla, it wasn’t unusual to see them at events.

As analysts and reporters waited for one unveiling to begin at a Tesla facility in Silicon Valley in 2015, his five children could be seen running through the hallways chasing after each other and shrieking with laughter.

Despite being forced to wait for hours for attendees, the presence of Musk’s children created an atmosphere that felt relaxed and even joyous.

It was a departure from the stiff, far more formal events held by other companies for which the prospect of seeing an executive’s very young children would have come across as odd.

Musk has had 12 children with three different women.

His most-recognised son, X Æ A-12?, goes by “Lil X”, the same letter Musk used to re-name Twitter when he purchased the social media company.

The four-year-old has been dubbed an “emotional support human” by Musk himself.

Walter Isaacson, the author of Musk’s biography, said on The Diary of a CEO podcast that Musk is “deeply committed” to his children and is “almost obsessed by them”.

“With his own children, his lovers, his wives, there is the same intensity that is baked into everything he does,” Mr Isaacson said.

“He always likes having some of his children around him. He always likes having a companion, but that doesn’t mean that he likes calmness.”

An 86-year-old man in Kansas City, Missouri, has pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in the shooting of Ralph Yarl, a teen who accidentally visited the wrong address.

Andrew Lester on Friday agreed the lesser charge as part of a plea deal, according to US media. His trial was due to begin next week.

In April 2023, Ralph Yarl, 16, rang Lester’s doorbell as he went to pick up his younger brothers. Prosecutors say Lester shot the teen without speaking to him. The boy survived.

His was one of several cases at the time of unarmed people being shot after confusing addresses, which launched debate over stand your ground laws in some US states that allows use of deadly force to prevent death or great bodily harm.

The case prompted protests and attracted attention from civil rights and racial justice advocates, who argued that Ralph Yarl’s race was a factor in the shooting. Ralph is black and Lester is white.

Police initially said there was a “racial component” to the shooting, but authorities ultimately opted not to charge Lester with a hate crime.

Lester and his lawyers said that he was acting in self-defence and thought the teenager was trying to break into his home.

In a 2023 court appearance, he initially pleaded not guilty to the assault and armed criminal action charges. He faced life in prison if convicted at trial.

He will be sentenced 7 March for the lesser charge. He faces up to seven years behind bars.

“We remain hopeful that his sentencing will not be merely a slap on the wrist but a decision that upholds the seriousness of his crime.” the Yarl family said in a statement to local media.

Ralph Yarl told authorities that his mother sent him to pick up his siblings around 22:00 local time that night. He mixed up similar street names – Northeast 115 Street and Northeast 115th Terrace – which put him on Lester’s doorstep and about a block away from the house he was trying to visit.

After he rang the doorbell, Lester shot him twice – once in the forehead and once in the arm. Prosecutors have said that he “did not cross the threshold” of Lester’s home and survived after fleeing to neighbouring homes for help.

Police initially detained Lester for questioning and released him without charges, sparking protests in Kansas City. Lester later turned himself in after an arrest warrant was issued.

Ralph Yarl, who has since graduated from high school, is expected to deliver a victim impact statement at a sentencing hearing next month.

The protests, which drew support from celebrities including Halle Berry, Kerry Washington and Jennifer Hudson, called for racial justice and drew attention to stand your ground laws. Critics argued they contributed to gun violence against black people in the US.

The case was also one of several in the spring of 2023 in which Americans – many of them children and teens – were injured after minor mistakes were met with gun violence.

Donald Trump has ordered his team to come up with plans to impose a new set of taxes – known as tariffs – on goods coming into the United States.

Trump wants to introduce “reciprocal tariffs” – taxes on imports to the US which are set at a similar rate to taxes other countries put on goods they import from the US.

The president says other countries often have higher tariffs on imports from the US than the other way round and believes America “has been treated unfairly by trading partners, both friend and foe”.

BBC Verify has explored whether he has a valid case.

First, it is important to understand the rules of global trade.

Under the terms of membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), countries are permitted to impose tariffs on imports.

Those tariffs can differ depending on the item being imported.

So, for instance, a nation can impose a 10% levy on rice imports and a 25% tariff on car imports.

But under WTO rules, they are not supposed to discriminate between nations when setting the tariff they charge on a particular imported good.

So Egypt, for example, would not be allowed to impose a 2% tariff on wheat coming from Russia, but a 50% tariff on wheat coming from Ukraine.

This is known as the “Most Favoured Nation” (MFN) principle in international trade: everyone has to be subject to the same tariff by the country imposing the tariff.

There is an exception when two nations sign a free trade agreement between themselves that covers most of their trade. Under these circumstances they can charge no tariffs on goods passing between them but maintain tariffs on goods coming from everywhere else in the world.

While most countries have a range of tariff rates covering different goods imports, they also report an average external tariff to the WTO, which reflects the overall average tariff rate applied to all imports.

The US had an average external tariff of 3.3% in 2023.

That was slightly lower than the UK’s average tariff of 3.8%.

It was also below the European Union’s average tariff of 5% and China’s average tariff of 7.5%.

America’s average tariff was considerably lower than the average tariff of some of its other trading partners.

For instance, India’s average tariff was 17%, while South Korea’s was 13.4%.

America’s average tariff was lower than Mexico’s (6.8%) and Canada’s (3.8%), though trade agreements between the US and these countries mean that American exports to them are not subject to tariffs. The same is true for South Korea, with which the US has a free trade agreement

But, broadly speaking, it is legitimate for Trump to point out that some countries have a higher average tariff on imports than America’s.

And those tariffs push up the cost of many American exports to those countries, which might be said to disadvantage US exporters relative to exporters in those countries selling into the US.

However, whether this amounts to unfair trade that serves to harm the US is not clear cut.

Most economists judge that the costs of import tariffs are, ultimately, borne by households in the country that imposes them because they can mean that imported goods become more expensive.

This could mean nations with higher average external tariffs than the US would be penalising their own consumers rather than Americans.

On 10 February, Trump suggested it could mean the US imposing the same average external tariff on imports from each individual nation as those countries impose.

He told reporters: “If they charge us, we charge them. If they’re at 25, we’re at 25. If they’re at 10, we’re at 10.”

This would likely break the MFN rules of the WTO, which require a nation to impose the same tariff on particular goods, regardless of where they came from.

If the US imposed, say, a tariff of 9.4% on all goods coming from Vietnam but 3.8% on all goods coming from the UK (the same as their own average external tariffs) that would be a breach of the rules.

If the US could show the targeted country was already itself breaching the organisation’s rules in some way it might be able to claim that specific retaliatory tariffs against that country are justified under WTO rules.

But simply imposing reciprocal tariffs as a general principle would likely constitute a breach.

Another possibility is that Trump could attempt to match not average national tariff rates, but tariff rates on individual items imposed by different countries.

For example, the EU imposes a 10% tariff on all imported cars from outside the bloc, including from America.

But the US imposes only a 2.5% tariff on imported cars, including those from the EU.

The US might decide to impose a 10% tariff on cars from the EU in order to level the playing field.

However, if it tried to match tariffs on every type of import with every different country this would be an extremely lengthy and complex exercise, given the vast range of goods involved in global trade and the distinct tariff regimes operated by the 166 members of the WTO.

Trump’s official memorandum outlining the policy said the administration’s reciprocal tariffs might also be designed to offset so called “non-tariff barriers” to trade such as other countries’ regulations, domestic subsidies, currency values and Value Added Taxes (VAT).

America does not charge VAT on goods, but most other nations do, including the UK.

This could make the exercise of designing the tariffs even more complex.

While economists agree that domestic regulations and subsidies can constitute important non-tariff barriers to trade, they insist that VAT does not fall into this category because it is levied on all goods sold domestically, and therefore does not lead to any relative cost disadvantage for imports from the US.

The WTO does not list VAT as a trade barrier.

If Trump were serious about exactly matching individual tariffs from other nations it could also, in theory, require the US to lower some tariffs, not to raise them.

The US has higher tariffs on certain agricultural products than some of its trading partners.

For instance, the US currently imposes effective tariffs on many milk imports of more than 10%. But New Zealand, a major global milk producer, has 0% tariffs on its dairy imports.

The US milk tariffs are designed to protect US dairy farmers, including many in the swing state of Wisconsin, and lowering the tariff for milk exporters from New Zealand would likely face political resistance from politicians from that state.

Similarly, a genuinely reciprocal US tariff regime based on individual goods would pose challenges for the US automotive industry.

The US imposes a 25% tariff on imported trucks, including from the EU.

But the EU’s own tariff on imported trucks, including from the US, is only 10%.

So a US reciprocal tariff with the EU on imported trucks would, in theory, mean the US lowering its tariff here.

While a reciprocal tariff on EU cars might be welcomed by American automakers, a reciprocal tariff on EU trucks might not be.

However, Trump on Thursday made clear that some of his planned tariffs such as on steel and aluminium would be “over and above” his reciprocal tariffs, suggesting that true reciprocity on trade is not, in fact, his principal objective.

The first thing kayaker Adrián Simancas noticed after he was eaten by a whale was the slime.

“I spent a second realising I was inside the mouth of something, that maybe it had eaten me, that it could have been an orca or a sea monster,” the 23-year-old told BBC Mundo.

Adrián had started to think how he might survive inside the humpback whale “like Pinocchio” – then the creature spat him back out.

The Venezuelan kayaker had been paddling through the Strait of Magellan, off Chile’s Patagonian coast, with his father when he felt something “hit me from behind, closing in on me and sinking me”.

His father, Dall, was able to capture the short-lived ordeal on video just metres away.

“I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, I realised I was inside the whale’s mouth,” Adrián told the BBC.

“I felt a slimy texture brush my face,” he recalled, adding that all he could see was dark blue and white.

“I wondered what I could do if it had swallowed me since I could no longer fight to stop it,” he said.

“I had to think about what to do next.”

But within seconds, Adrián started to feel as though he was rising toward the surface.

“I was a little afraid of whether I would be able to hold my breath because I didn’t know how deep I was, and I felt like it took me a long time to come up.

“I went up for two seconds, and finally I got to the surface and realised that it hadn’t eaten me.”

In a nearby kayak, Adrián’s father Dall Simancas watched on in disbelief.

The pair had just crossed Eagle Bay – down the coast from Punta Arenas, Chile’s southernmost city – when he heard a crash behind him. “When I turned around, I didn’t see Adrián.”

“I was worried for a second, until I saw him coming up out of the sea,” the 49-year-old said.

“Then I saw something, a body, which I immediately interpreted as most likely being a whale because of its size.”

Dall had fixed a camera to the back of his kayak to record the rising waves – which captured his son’s remarkable experience.

Watching the footage back, Adrián – who moved with his father to Chile from Venezuela seven years ago in search of a better quality of life – was shocked to see just how enormous the whale had been.

“I hadn’t seen the moment when the back appears, and the fin is visible. I didn’t see it, I heard it. That made me nervous,” he said.

“But later, with the video, I realised that it actually appeared before me in such a huge size that perhaps if I had seen it, it would have scared me even more.”

For Adrián, the experience was not just about survival – but he said felt he had received a “second chance” when the whale spat him out.

The “unique” experience in one of the most extreme places on Earth had “invited me to reflect on what I could have done better up until that point, and on the ways I can take advantage of the experience and appreciate it as well”, he added.

But there is a simple reason he was able to escape the whale so quickly, according to a wildlife expert.

Humpback whales have narrow throats “about the size of a household pipe” designed for swallowing small fish and shrimp, Brazilian conservationist Roched Jacobson Seba told the BBC.

“They physically cannot swallow large objects like kayaks, tires, or even big fish like tuna,” he said.

“Ultimately, the whale spit out the kayak because it was physically impossible to swallow.”

The humpback whale likely engulfed Adrián by accident, Mr Seba suggested.

“The whale was likely feeding on a school of fish when it unintentionally scooped up the kayak along with its meal.

“When whales surface too quickly while feeding, they can accidentally hit or engulf objects in their path.”

He warned that the encounter served as “an important reminder” to avoid using paddleboards, surfboards or other silent vessels in areas where whales usually swim.

Boats used for whale watching and research must always keep their engines on, he added, as the noise helps whales detect their presence.

Additional reporting by Luis Barrucho and Maia Davies.