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A self-styled “beauty consultant”, whose celebrity client list includes Katie Price, is offering potentially dangerous cosmetic procedures to clients and handing over medication illegally – a BBC investigation has discovered.

Ricky Sawyer specialises in liquid Brazilian butt-lifts (BBLs) – which involves injecting dermal filler into buttocks to lift them and make them look bigger.

BBC News has spoken to five of his clients who needed emergency hospital treatment after their procedures. We have also been shown the testimonies of more than 30 women who say they have been left with serious complications such as sepsis and necrosis (tissue death).

One woman told us she felt at the time she would rather “have died” than continue with the pain she was in following the treatment.

Several local authorities have banned Mr Sawyer from practising in their areas.

Our undercover filming captured Mr Sawyer handing out antibiotics without a valid prescription – a criminal offence. He is not qualified to prescribe and the pills were not labelled for a specific patient.

He also offered to inject increasing doses of local anaesthetic without a prescriber present – again illegal – and did not ask for our reporter’s weight, thus putting her at risk of an overdose.

Posing as a potential client and her friend, we had booked a 45-minute appointment with Mr Sawyer through his Instagram page. We told him we wanted a 200ml (7fl oz) liquid BBL injection costing £1,200. We paid a £200 deposit.

Despite having advertised that all liquid BBLs would be carried out under the guidance of an “ultrasound specialist doctor”, none was present at his pop-up clinic. He was working out of a small room in an east London office block – a non-clinical environment which would have increased the risk of infection.

Within five minutes of being in his office, Mr Sawyer had begun to encourage our reporter to think about increasing the amount of filler. “You might be surprised about how much product you can have and still look natural,” he suggested.

By the end of the appointment, Mr Sawyer had offered to inject a litre of filler – 500ml (almost a pint) per buttock – at a cost of £2,000.

We did not go through with it and later returned to put our allegations to him – but he refused to answer our questions and slammed the door on our reporter.

Reviewing our footage, plastic surgeon Dalvi Humzah, who sits on the Joint Council of Cosmetic Practitioners, said Mr Sawyer’s actions were “shocking”, “very dangerous”, and putting patients at a huge risk of infection and potentially fatal complications.

“Putting that volume in, in one sitting, is really dangerous,” said Mr Humzah. “The buttocks are such a large area that if they become infected it can overwhelm the body and could end in sepsis – or even death.”

The filler used for liquid BBLs is often made up of hyaluronic acid, which is commonly used in facial filling treatments. Because large amounts of the acid are involved in BBLs, and there is a risk of serious side effects such as blood clots and sepsis, it is regarded as one of the most dangerous cosmetic procedures.

Mr Sawyer boasted on camera that he did up to seven procedures a day, six days a week. He can charge thousands of pounds per appointment.

One of the women who said she had experienced serious complications after receiving a liquid BBL from Mr Sawyer was Joanne. A mum of two from south Wales, who only wants us to use her first name, she travelled seven hours to Essex for the treatment.

Having had other cosmetic treatments before and having been persuaded by Ricky Sawyer’s many adverts and celebrity endorsements, a liquid BBL didn’t seem like such a big step to her.

All she wanted, she says, was a “peachy bum”.

But when Joanne arrived, she began to have second thoughts.

She had only been sent a postcode and says she seemed to be walking into an industrial estate.

In the end, she found a small door into a block of flats and says she was told to wait in a “dingy little hallway” for about half an hour.

“I should have turned and ran,” she says, “but I had paid £600 deposit and travelled all this way.”

She was taken into a small room where there “was only a bed, a tiny stool and a worktop”, and that is where she says she first met Ricky Sawyer.

After counting out the rest of her cash – £2,000 in total – she says he told her to stand in front of him while he sat on the stool.

As he started to inject her with a litre (1.8 pints) of filler, the pain quickly became unbearable.

“I felt dizzy, sick and like shaky. My legs didn’t even move properly. And that was all within a minute of him starting,” she says. “I remember looking round and he had white gloves on that were full of blood.”

By the end of the procedure, Joanne was in agony: “I was in so much pain, my bottom was completely disfigured.”

She says she could barely sit down. By the time she got home the swelling had started and she could hardly walk.

“I messaged Ricky loads of times to say how bad I was feeling and how worried I was. He just told me to take my antibiotics.”

By this point, sepsis had begun to set in.

“My temperature kept on going up and I felt terrible,” says Joanne. “I had to phone 999. I was dripping with sweat and screaming.”

In hospital, she was attached to intravenous antibiotics. At one point, a surgeon drew on her buttock to indicate where they might need to cut, because the infection was spreading so quickly.

After messaging Ricky Sawyer saying she was in hospital with sepsis, she says he blocked her from his Instagram account.

Fortunately, Joanne did not need an operation.

Another of Mr Sawyer’s clients, Louise Moller, did need life-saving emergency surgery.

Four days after receiving a liquid BBL at his Essex clinic in October 2023, the 28-year-old from Bolton was in hospital.

She rang her mother, Janet, from Salford Royal’s A&E department saying: “Mum, I think I’m going to die.”

Louise had contracted sepsis and was warned by surgeons that she could die at any minute. To stop the infection from moving through her body, they cut dead tissue out of an area almost covering her entire left buttock.

Janet promised her daughter she would prevent this from happening to anyone else and reported Ricky Sawyer to their local police station in Bolton.

“How can he carry on knowing he could kill someone?” she told the BBC.

However, Louise’s case highlights the difficulty in holding practitioners like him accountable.

Janet says she was told by police in Bolton that the file would need to be passed to Essex Police, where the incident happened.

A prosecution could be difficult however, she was warned, because Louise had signed a consent form.

BBC News has approached both Greater Manchester Police and Essex Police to get an update on the case – both have said it is down to the other to investigate.

From a legal point of view, there is little to stop Mr Sawyer from practising.

Injecting dermal fillers is seen as non-surgical and is unregulated, which means anyone can do it – and they can’t be struck off and stopped.

In September 2024, Alice Webb is believed to have become the first person to die after receiving a liquid BBL in the UK. Her procedure was not carried out by Ricky Sawyer.

Following her death, Save Face – a group that campaigns for greater regulation to cover non-surgical procedures – called for a new law banning liquid BBLs from being carried out by anyone other than surgeons registered with the General Medical Council (GMC).

Save Face’s founder, Ashton Collins, says her organisation has received complaints from 39 women about Ricky Sawyer.

All the women, she says, have told her they have been left needing urgent hospital treatment. Each of them, she says, had a BBL and suffered complications such as sepsis, necrosis and disfigurement.

“We’ve encouraged these women to report their experiences to the police,” she says. “Some have, and nothing has been done.”

So far, the most effective action has been taken by local authorities, three of which – Glasgow City Council, Epping Forest District Council and Brentwood Council – confirmed they had issued prohibition notices under Health and Safety law to protect the public from serious injury.

But “he just moves on to different areas of the country and carries on”, says Ms Collins.

We put our evidence to the Department of Health and Social Care which said it was “urgently looking at options for tougher regulation”.

It said our findings were “shocking” and that those caught “dispensing medication without a licence should feel the full force of the law”.

We attempted to put our allegations to Ricky Sawyer in person, by confronting him at his east London clinic.

As soon as he saw the camera he tried to slam the door on us, before hiding behind it.

We asked him if he was breaking the law by handing out prescription-only medicine, and if he had anything to say to the women who say they were left with such serious injuries that they needed emergency care.

“No,” he said – and told us to leave.

The dangers of unregulated cosmetic surgery should be taken far more seriously, says Ashton Collins.

“The general vibe that you pick up is that these are silly women that have made silly choices, driven through vanity, and it’s their own fault.”

It is an attitude that needs to change, she adds: “People are out there taking risks with people’s lives, and they can do so with impunity.”

If you have information about this story and would like to share your experiences please contact shona.elliott@bbc.co.uk directly or use the form below. Do include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist.

A second woman is confirmed to have died in flooding which has inflicted “incredible” devastation on communities in northern Australia.

Police said the 82-year-old woman’s body was found in a cane paddock in Queensland on Tuesday, two days after a 63-year-old woman died when a dinghy she was in overturned during a rescue attempt.

The region has been inundated since Saturday, with parts of northern Queensland seeing nearly 2m (6.5 ft) of rain.

By Tuesday, conditions were starting to ease – although Queensland Premier David Crisafulli warned it was still “a disaster that’s going to test the resolve of people” during an interview with broadcaster ABC.

He described the devastation as “incredible”, but noted weather conditions had been “really kind” in recent hours. Thousands had begun to return to their homes.

In Townsville, locals woke on Tuesday to grey skies and drizzle, and the news that predicted flooding levels had not materialised there. It was a stark contrast to the intense downpours which have battered the region over the past few days.

“We believe that the danger has passed,” Townsville Local Disaster Management Group chair Andrew Robinson told reporters.

Pointing to earlier forecasts which had suggested up to 2,000 Townsville homes could have faced flood risks, Crisafulli said that “the city had dodged a bullet”.

Local resident Jo Berry told the BBC she and her family were among those returning home on Tuesday, after spending a sleepless night monitoring the rainfall.

“People talk about PTSD when it rains here and I totally understand,” says Ms Berry, formerly from Leicester in the UK.

“We’ve been in the house here for over 20 years, and have been through a few cyclone events and the 2019 flooding so it is not our first rodeo,” she adds, referring to a flooding disaster which caused A$1.24bn (£620m; $770m) in damage.

On Monday night, other local residents told the BBC they were “on a knife edge” as they waited to see whether their houses would survive.

But further north in the state, power outages and damaged roads have made it difficult to assess the full extent of the destruction in towns such as Ingham and Cardwell.

Crisafulli said early reports suggested the damage was “quite frankly incredible” and that Ingham, which is almost entirely without electricity, “remains the biggest challenge”.

“There are people who have been inundated at home, in their businesses and in their farms,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

Footage published in local media showed long lines at the town’s supermarket as people waited for critical supplies. Crisafulli said that amid the blackout the local hospital was operating as normal, and a petrol station was open.

The flooding has caused damage to the area’s homes, crops and coastline, local MP Nick Dametto said in a video posted online.

“The inundation is something that I have never seen before,” he said.

Home to fewer than 5,000 people, Ingham was already reeling after the 63-year-old woman died when a State Emergency Service (SES) dinghy capsized during a rescue attempt on Sunday.

The second woman’s body was found on Tuesday just north of Ingham after a neighbour raised the alarm. She was last seen on Monday night in a house, Queensland Police said in a statement.

More than 8,000 properties remain without power across northern Queensland, according to the state’s energy provider, and the partial collapse of a critical highway continues to hinder efforts to assist some of the hardest-hit areas.

Crisafulli said the recovery effort would “take some time” and that the priority in the coming hours would be to work with the army to get power generators to isolated communities and “bring them back online”.

He added that federal funding would help reconstruct the battered Bruce Highway – the state’s main thoroughfare which stretches 1,673km (1,039 miles) from the south.

Located in the tropics, northern Queensland is vulnerable to destructive cyclones, storms, and flooding.

Speaking to the BBC in Townsville, Scott Heron, a local resident and climate expert, said the latest disaster was not unexpected.

“For a long time, climate scientists have been clear that extreme weather events will become more extreme, and we are seeing that,” said Prof Heron , who works at James Cook University and is the Unesco Chair on Climate Vulnerability of Heritage.

Prof Heron urged politicians to consider this as they planned recovery and rebuilding efforts, such as to the Bruce Highway.

It would be “wasting public money” if infrastructure planning, particularly for long-term projects including roads and bridges, did not “incorporate changing threats due to climate change”, he said.

Additional reporting by Hannah Ritchie in Sydney.

Last month, a school teacher in the western Indian city of Pune found her six-year-old son upset about homework.

“I had erased some words and asked him to write them. I assumed he was angry and that’s why he was not holding the pencil properly,” she told the Indian Express newspaper.

She never imagined his struggle to hold a pencil was the first sign of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), a rare disorder where the immune system attacks nerve cells, causing muscle weakness and paralysis.

Within days, the boy was in intensive care, unable to move his arms or legs. As his condition worsened, he lost the ability to swallow, speak, and eventually breathe, requiring ventilator support. He is now recovering.

The boy is among around 160 reported cases of GBS since early January in Pune, an education and IT hub, ringed by industrial towns and villages. There have been five suspected deaths. Currently, 48 patients are in intensive care, 21 on ventilator, and 38 have been discharged, according to official figures.

GBS begins with tingling or numbness in the feet and hands, followed by muscle weakness and difficulty moving joints. Symptoms worsen over two to four weeks, typically starting in the arms and legs. The reported mortality rate varies between three and 13%, depending on severity and quality of health care support.

The outbreak in Pune is being traced to a pathogen called campylobacter jejuni, a leading cause of foodborne infections, and the biggest driver of GBS worldwide. The link between the two was discovered in the 1990s in rural China, where the pathogen was common in chickens, and GBS outbreaks occurred every monsoon as children played in water contaminated by chicken or duck droppings.

GBS is not entirely uncommon in India. Monojit Debnath and Madhu Nagappa, of Bangalore-based National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), studied 150 GBS patients over a five year period between 2014 and 2019.

Their findings showed 79% of the patients had evidence of prior infections, with a third testing positive for campylobacter. Notably, co-infections were more common, occurring in 65%, suggesting a complex interplay of bacteria and viruses.

More recently, outbreaks linked to the pathogen have been reported from all over the world. In the first seven months of 2023, Peru reported over 200 suspected cases and at least four deaths of GBS, prompting the government to declare a national health emergency and strengthen public health measures. Two-thirds of the cases were linked to campylobacter.

In countries with good hygiene, fewer GBS cases are linked to campylobacter, with respiratory infections being a major contributor, say experts. There have been other triggers as well. In 2015 Brazil reported a cluster of GBS cases linked to the Zika virus. Vaccines can rarely trigger GBS, but one Covid vaccine was reportedly linked to a few hundred GBS cases in the UK in 2021.

“Campylobacter is endemic with hundreds of thousands of cases taking place all the time. It is always existing in the environment,” Hugh Willison, a professor of neurology at University of Glasgow told me.

Yet, it is not easy to develop GBS, scientists say.

There’s a specific strain of campylobacter, which has a sugar-coated outer layer, and in rare cases, its molecular structure matches the coating of human nerve cells.

When the patient’s immune system attacks the bacteria, it may end up targeting the nerves as well – a process called molecular mimicry – leading to GBS. However, a small fraction of campylobacter strains have this nerve-like coat.

“In Pune, a strain of campylobacter with this molecular feature is likely to be circulating, and a surge in infections with this strain consequently leads to a higher number of GBS cases,” says Prof Willison.

Most experts estimate that about one in 100 campylobacter strains carry the GBS risk, and one in 100 people infected with such a strain develop GBS, making the overall risk roughly one in 10,000.

That creates what Prof Willison describes as an “immunological Russian roulette”, triggering an “acute neurological tsunami” that surges through the peripheral nervous system. Once the immune response subsides, the attack wanes – but the body still needs time, medical care, and support to repair the damage.

What makes things worse is that there is no cure for GBS.

In GBS, the body produces antibodies against campylobacter, which then attack the nerves. Physicians use “plasma exchange”, a process that filters blood to remove the harmful antibodies, along with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), a therapeutic antibody derived from normal blood, to help reduce the severity of the disease.

The other challenge is that there is no single test to diagnose GBS. The diagnosis, say physicians, is mainly based on clinical features. It presents itself as a form of paralysis which can be also caused by polio, viruses or rare neurological disease.

“The diagnosis is a constellation of clinical features. Misdiagnosis or no diagnosis or late diagnosis can happen easily,” says Prof Willison.

India’s uneven public health system presents a challenge, as doctors in rural areas may struggle to diagnose GBS. One reason, possibly, why the World Health Organization (WHO) teams are in Pune, is collaborating with federal and state health workers to trace, test, and monitor cases, and analysing trends to support effective treatment.

Authorities say they have surveilled more than 60,000 houses, picked up 160 water samples for tests, and asked people to drink boiled water and eat fresh and clean food, and not have “stale food and partially cooked chicken or mutton”.

While most cases of GBS around the world come from undercooked poultry, it can also spread through water, similar to cholera or salmonella, experts say.

Contaminated water used for washing or preparing street food makes it easy for the bacteria to spread. Clearly, in Pune, a campylobacter strain with the distinctive molecular feature is circulating, affecting a large number of people.

What is not clear is whether this has been due to large scale contamination of water supply or a lot of people consuming infected poultry. “We appeal to people not to panic,” says a health department advisory. But in the face of uncertainty, it is easier said than done.

El Salvador has offered to take in criminals deported from the US, including those with US citizenship, and house them in its mega-jail.

The deal was announced after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele during his visit to the central American nation.

Bukele – whose iron-fist approach to gangs has won him plaudits from voters but been heavily criticised by human rights groups – said he had offered the US “the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system”.

Rubio said the US was “profoundly grateful” to Bukele, adding that “no country’s ever made an offer of friendship such as this”.

Rubio told reporters: “He has offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those with US citizenship and legal residency.”

Referring to two of the region’s most notorious transnational crime gangs, Rubio added that El Salvador would also take in deported migrants and “criminals from any nationality, be the MS-13 or Tren de Aragua”.

Bukele later confirmed the offer on X, specifying that “we are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted US citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee”.

He added that “the fee would be relatively low for the US but significant for us, making our entire prison sustainable”.

Since he came into office in 2019, Bukele has made cracking down on crime his government’s priority.

The newly built maximum-security jail he referred to, Cecot [Terrorism Confinement Centre], is at the centre of his drive to lock up and punish the most violent gang members.

The government celebrated the opening of the jail – which it says can hold up to 40,000 inmates – by releasing photos and videos of shaven-headed and tattooed prisoners stripped down to the waist being frogmarched along its corridors.

The treatment of inmates at Cecot, where scores of inmates are locked up in each windowless cell, has been criticised by rights groups.

But Bukele’s crackdown on crime continues to be very popular with the vast majority of Salvadoreans who say they can go about their lives without threats from gang members for the first time in years.

However, some relatives of the tens of thousands of people which have been rounded up and jailed under emergency measures brought in by Bukele say their loved ones have been wrongfully rounded up in sweeping police round-ups.

Amnesty International has criticised the “gradual replacement of gang violence with state violence” in the country – a criticism dismissed by Bukele, who points out that his hardline approach to crime last February won him re-election to a second term with more than 84% of the votes.

El Salvador was the second stop on Secretary of State Rubio’s first overseas tour as the US top diplomat.

His first stop was Panama, where he demanded that Panama make “immediate changes” to what he called the “influence and control” of China over the Panama Canal.

On Tuesday, he will hold meetings with officials in Costa Rica and Guatemala expected to focus on migration as well as countering Chinese influence in the region.

Since coming to office, US President Donald Trump has focused on speeding up the removal of undocumented migrants, with the promise of “mass deportations”.

If China was angry at the United States for imposing an extra 10% tariff on all Chinese goods, it did a good job of hiding it.

It urged Washington to start talks after repeated warnings that there would be no winners in a trade war.

It held its fire until midnight in Washington – and then just as the tariffs on China kicked in, Beijing announced retaliatory tariffs of 10-15%, starting 10 February, on various US imports, including coal, crude oil and large cars.

The Chinese government may have remained calm in the hope of doing a deal with Washington to avoid further tariffs – and to keep the relationship between the world’s two largest economies from spiralling out of control.

After all, US President Donald Trump agreed to reprieves with Canada and Mexico just hours before the tariffs on them took effect. Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping are expected to talk this week.

The US levy will sting – especially because it adds to a slew of tariffs Trump imposed in his first term on tens of billions of dollars of Chinese imports. And China’s population is already concerned about their sluggish economy.

Beijing and Washington have gone toe-to-toe on tariffs before. But a lot has changed since Trump 1.0.

For one, the Chinese economy is not as reliant on the US as it was back in 2020. Beijing has strengthened its trade agreements across Africa, South America and South East Asia. It is now the largest trading partner of more than 120 countries.

A deal could still be in the offing but the additional 10% may not offer the leverage that Trump wants, says Chong Ja Ian from Carnegie China.

President Xi Jinping may also see a bigger opportunity here.

Trump is sowing division in his own backyard, threatening to hit even the European Union (EU) with tariffs – all in his first month in office. His actions may have other US allies wondering what is in store for them.

In contrast, China will want to appear a calm, stable and perhaps more attractive global trade partner.

“Trump’s America-first policy will bring challenges and threats to almost all countries in the world,” says Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Stimson Centre.

“From the perspective of US-China strategic competition, a deterioration of US leadership and credibility will benefit China. it is unlikely to turn well for China on the bilateral level, but Beijing surely will try to make lemonade…”

As a leader of the world’s second-largest economy, Xi has made no secret of his ambition for China to lead an alternative world order.

Since the end of the Covid pandemic, he has travelled extensively, and he has supported major international institutions such as the World Bank and agreements such as the Paris climate accords.

Chinese state media have portrayed this as embracing countries across the world and deepening diplomatic ties.

Before that, when Trump halted US funding to the WHO in 2020, China pledged additional funds. Expectations are high that Beijing may step in to fill America’s shoes again, following Washington’s exit from the WHO.

The same applies for the aid freeze that is causing such chaos in countries and organisations that have long depended on US funding – China may wish to fill the gap, despite an economic downturn.

On his first day back in office, Trump froze all foreign assistance provided by the US, which is by far the world’s biggest aid donor. Hundreds of foreign aid programmes delivered by USAID ground to a halt. Some have since restarted, but aid contractors describe ongoing chaos as the future of the agency hangs in the balance.

Trump’s “America First” doctrine could further weaken Washington’s position as a global leader, says John Delury, a historian of modern China and Professor at Yonsei University in Seoul.

“The combination of tariffs on major trade partners and freezing of foreign assistance sends a message to the Global South and OECD alike that the US is not interested in international partnership, collaboration,” he tells the BBC.

“President Xi’s consistent message of ‘win-win’ globalisation takes on a whole new meaning as America retreats from the world.”

In its bid for global governance, Beijing has been looking for a chance to upend the the American-led world order of the last 50 years – and the uncertainty of Trump’s presidency may well be it.

“Whether it really confers Beijing a key advantage – of that I’m a little less sure,” Mr Chong says.

“Many US allies and partners, especially in the Pacific, have a reason to work with Beijing, but they also have reasons to be wary. That’s why we’ve seen Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia move closer together, in part because of the apprehensions they harbour towards China.”

There is “gathering momentum” for a possible trilateral relationship among Australia, Japan and South Korea, motivated by “the impact of a second Trump administration”, according to The Australian Institute of International Affairs.

All three are concerned about China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, along with the Philippines. They are also worried about a possible war over the self-governed island of Taiwan – Beijing sees it as a breakaway province that will, eventually, be part of the country, and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve this.

Taiwan has long been one of the most contentious issues in US-China relations, with Beijing condemning any perceived support from Washington for Taipei.

But it may be difficult for Washington to hit back at signs of Chinese aggression when Trump repeatedly threatens to annex Canada or buy Greenland.

Most countries in the region have used a military alliance with Washington to balance their economic relationship with China.

But now, wary of Beijing and unsure of the US, they could create new Asian alliances, with neither of the world’s biggest powers.

Trump announced the US tariffs on the weekend, as Chinese families were celebrating the New Year and inviting the God of Fortune into their homes.

Bright red lanterns currently swing over empty Beijing streets as most workers have left for their hometowns during the biggest holiday of the year.

At first, China’s only response had been that it would take legal action and use the World Trade Organisation to air its grievances.

But this poses little threat to Washington. The WTO’s dispute settlement system has been effectively shut down since 2019 when Donald Trump – in his first term then – blocked the appointment of judges to handle appeals.

Then China announced retaliatory tariffs. As the holiday draws to a close and party officials return to Beijing and to work, they have decisions to make.

Officials had been encouraged in recent weeks by signs that the Trump administration may want to keep the relationship stable especially after the two leaders had what Trump called “a great phone call” last month.

But that is going to get harder, as both Republicans and Democrats increasingly view China as America’s biggest foreign policy and economic threat.

“Mr Trump’s unpredictability, his impulsiveness and recklessness will inevitably lead to significant shocks in the bilateral relationship,” says Wu Xinbo, professor and director at the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University.

“Additionally, his team contains quite a few hawks, even extreme hawks on China. It is unavoidable that the bilateral relationship will face serious disruption over the next four years.”

China is certainly concerned about its relationship with the US and the harm a trade war could do to its slowing economy.

But it will also be looking for ways to use the current political pendulum to swing the international community its way and within its sphere of influence.

President Donald Trump has suspended for 30 days the hefty tariffs on Mexico and Canada that he threatened after last-minute negotiations with the two US neighbours.

He can point to concessions on border and crime enforcement as a victory. But Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum also can claim political wins.

A trade war that would send economic shockwaves through North America and beyond is on hold – for now.

So who blinked first and what happens next?

By Courtney Subramanian, BBC News, Washington DC

President Trump’s high-stakes confrontation with the United States’ closest trading partners appears to have paid off, with both Mexico and Canada agreeing to stricter border security and taking bigger steps to address fentanyl trafficking.

The strategy to leverage the US economy to force concessions from other countries notches a win for Trump’s “America first” agenda, allowing him to follow through on core domestic issues without American consumers feeling the sting of the economic consequences of a continental trade war.

His tariff playbook is hardly new.

Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium during his first term prompted backlash from Mexico, Canada and the European Union, but economists say those measures were more limited in scope.

This time, Trump has promised sweeping tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, and China, which is still set to see a 10% tariff increase on goods starting at midnight on Tuesday.

But it remains unclear whether Trump will follow through on his threats to Canada and Mexico once the 30-day deadline is up. That uncertainty stirs fears that could see businesses reducing their reliance on American markets, holding off on investing in building new factories or hiring workers until the trade stand-off becomes more clear.

By Jessica Murphy, BBC News, Toronto

That was not a January Arctic blast from the north – it was a widespread sigh of relief from Canadian politicians and business leaders at the 30-day pause on US tariffs.

While the threat of tariffs remains, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can claim a political win: a temporary truce in what was shaping up to be a devastating trade war.

Canadian politicians have been scrambling to figure out what exactly would satisfy Trump – a situation not helped by Canada’s domestic politics, with Trudeau wrapping up his last weeks in power as a lame-duck prime minister.

The border security measures announced on Monday aren’t all new.

In December, Canada announced C$1.3bn ($900m; £700m) in measures that included efforts to disrupt the fentanyl trade, new tools for law enforcement and enhanced co-ordination with US law enforcement.

Canadian surveillance drones and two Black Hawk helicopters recently began patrolling the boundary between the two countries.

Officials have cited those efforts for weeks to show they are taking Trump’s border concerns seriously.

A new element appears to be the appointment of a “fentanyl tsar” and a C$200m intelligence directive to fight organised crime and fentanyl.

One question that remains is what this means for the future of the Canada-US relationship. The partnership between the allies has been deeply shaken by Trump’s economic threats.

By Will Grant, BBC Central America and Cuba Correspondent, Mexico City

Throughout this trade crisis, President Claudia Sheinbaum has called for “cool heads” and “calm”.

Even on Friday, she said she was confident of a last-minute reprieve from the 25% tariffs on Mexican goods. And so it proved, following an early morning telephone call with President Trump.

Announcing the agreement soon after, she could barely wipe the smile from her face and her supporters have heralded what they see as a masterclass in how to negotiate with Donald Trump.

Yes, she agreed to send National Guard troops to the border to focus on fentanyl-smuggling, but crucially she secured what she wanted from Trump, too.

As well as the obvious – a pause on tariffs – she also got Trump to “promise” the US would do more to tackle the traffic of high-powered weapons from the US into Mexico, to prevent them from ending up in the arms of cartel gunmen.

But she also bought herself another vital commodity: time.

She now has several weeks to build on the points agreed in that phone call and turn the temporary hold on tariffs into a permanent one.

The expectation is that now Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Mexico soon to discuss these matters and a joint group on fentanyl will be established with Mexican and US health and security officials.

If in fact Sheinbaum does manage to prevent further trade hostilities, it will go down as the first significant victory of her new government, having only been in office since October. And it may set the tone for future interactions with President Trump and his administration.

Chelsea striker Samantha Kerr called a Met Police officer “stupid and white” during an incident at a police station in south-west London, a jury has been told.

The Australian footballer is on trial charged with causing racially aggravated harassment to PC Stephen Lovell, in the early hours of 30 January 2023.

It is alleged that Ms Kerr and her partner, fellow footballer Kristie Mewis, had been out drinking when they were driven to Twickenham police station by a taxi driver who complained the passengers refused to pay clean-up costs after one of them was sick, and that one of them smashed the vehicle’s rear window.

Ms Kerr, 31, denies any wrongdoing.

At the police station, Ms Kerr is alleged to have become “abusive and insulting” towards PC Stephen Lovell.

Footage from the officer’s body worn camera was played to a jury sitting at Kingston Crown Court on Monday, in which Ms Kerr uses an expletive and tells the officer he was “stupid and white”.

Prosecution barrister Bill Emlyn Jones KC told the jury the comments left PC Lovell “shocked, upset, and humiliated”.

Ms Kerr described the entire situation as distressing and “a heated moment”.

Grace Forbes, defending, said: “Nobody disputes the words that were said.

“But simple words, even words like these, do not make you guilty of a criminal offence.”

She added: “The words were a comment, however poorly expressed, about positions of power, about privilege, and how those things might colour perception.”

According to the prosecution, Ms Kerr and Ms Mewis had been drinking on the night of 29 January 2023, before deciding to take a taxi home.

The driver later called the police to complain that a woman inside his taxi was trying to smash the rear window.

The operator advised the taxi driver to pull up outside Twickenham police station and to seek the assistance of police officers there, the court heard.

PC Lovell and a fellow PC were in a marked police vehicle driving towards the station, and arrived at the same time as the taxi at about 02:20 GMT.

Mr Emlyn Jones said: “The officers saw Ms Kerr crawling out of the broken rear window of the taxi.”

The court heard that both Ms Kerr and Ms Mewis approached the police car in a “distressed state”.

The prosecution continued: “Inside the police station Ms Kerr said the taxi driver had collected them but had then refused to take them to Ms Kerr’s address.

“They felt that the taxi driver was kidnapping them, and so they broke the rear window in order to escape and raise the alarm.

“PC Lovell went back outside to inspect the damage to the taxi.

“The taxi driver explained one of his passengers had been sick and he had asked them to pay for the cost of cleaning it up, and they refused.

“It was at that point that he had called the police.”

Jurors were told PC Lovell tried to explain what the taxi driver had said, but they kept interrupting him.

Ms Kerr can be heard on body camera footage claiming she had herself tried to call the police when she was in the taxi, but that they had hung up on her.

When PC Lovell replied “They wouldn’t do that”, Ms Kerr swore at the officers and twice called them “stupid and white”.

The trial continues.

The future of the US government’s main overseas aid agency has been cast into doubt, with employees locked out and the Trump administration planning to merge it with the US Department of State.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) would continue to function as a branch of the state department, but the plan involves a significant reduction in its funding and the workforce, CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, reports.

On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused USAID’s leadership of “insubordination” and said he was now its “acting head”.

US President Donald Trump and one of his top advisers, billionaire Elon Musk, have been strongly critical of the agency.

But the move to shut it down could have a profound impact on humanitarian programmes around the world.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was set up in the early 1960s to administer humanitarian aid programmes on behalf of the US government around the world.

It employs around 10,000 people, two-thirds of whom work overseas. It has bases in more than 60 countries and works in dozens of others. However, most of the work on the ground is carried out by other organisations that are contracted and funded by USAID.

The range of activities it undertakes is vast. For example, not only does USAID provide food in countries where people are starving, it also operates the world’s gold-standard famine detection system, which uses data analysis to try to predict where food shortages are emerging.

Much of USAID’s budget is spent on health programmes, such as offering polio vaccinations in countries where the disease still circulates and helping to stop the spread of viruses which have the potential to cause a pandemic.

The BBC’s international charity BBC Media Action, which is funded by external grants and voluntary contributions, receives funding from USAID. According to a 2024 report, USAID donated $3.23m (£2.6m), making it the charity’s second-largest donor that financial year.

According to government data, the US spent $68bn (£55bn) on international aid in 2023.

That total is spread across several departments and agencies, but USAID’s budget constitutes more than half of it at around $40bn.

The vast majority of that money is spent in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Europe – primarily on humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

The US is the world’s biggest spender on international development – and by some margin.

To put it into context, the UK is the world’s fourth-largest aid spender. In 2023, it spent £15.3bn – around a quarter of what the US provided.

Trump is a long-term critic of overseas spending and has said it does not represent value for money for American taxpayers. He has singled out USAID for particularly strong criticism, describing senior officials there as “radical lunatics”.

Abolishing the agency would likely enjoy popular support. Opinion polls have long suggested that American voters favour slashing foreign aid spending. According to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, polling data going back to the 1970s has indicated broad support for cuts.

One of Trump’s first actions after returning to office was signing an executive order pausing almost all international spending for 90 days while a review could be carried out.

A memo was then issued by the State Department which halted the vast majority of work being done on the ground. Waivers were later issued for humanitarian programmes, but the announcement upended the world of international development and caused widespread disruption to services.

Programmes including those providing medication to the world’s poorest and installing clean water supplies had to stop overnight. One veteran humanitarian worker told the BBC the pause was “like an earthquake across the aid sector”.

Tensions between the White House and USAID escalated over the weekend when officials working for Elon Musk – who Trump has tasked with identifying spending cuts in the federal budget – were reportedly denied access to secure financial data at USAID headquarters. Two senior security officials there were placed on leave in the aftermath, according to reports.

On Monday, Musk – who was speaking in a public conversation on X, the social media platform he owns – said: “With regards to the USAID stuff, I went over it with [the president] in detail and he agreed that we should shut it down.”

USAID’s website has gone offline and employees were told to stay at home on Monday.

Later on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused USAID’s leadership of “insubordination” and said he was now its “acting head”. He added that “a lot of functions” carried out by the agency would continue but that spending “has to be in alignment with the national interest”.

While it is clear the White House wields significant influence over USAID, that power is theoretically limited.

USAID came into being after Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act in 1961. That law mandated for a government agency to be set up and tasked with administering overseas spending.

Shortly after, then-President John F Kennedy set up USAID using an executive order. Another law was passed in 1998 which confirmed USAID’s status as an executive agency in its own right.

In short, that means Trump cannot necessarily simply abolish USAID by signing an executive order, and any attempt to do so would almost certainly face strong challenges in the courts and Congress.

Closing USAID altogether would likely require an act of Congress – where Trump’s Republican Party holds slim majorities in both houses.

One of the options reportedly being considered by the Trump administration is effectively making USAID a branch of the State Department, as opposed to it being a government agency in its own right.

That type of arrangement would not be completely unheard of: in 2020, then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson merged the Department for International Development with the Foreign Office.

Ministers said at the time that it would ensure international spending supported the government’s wider foreign policy goals – but critics warned it would reduce expertise in the aid sector and damage the UK’s overseas standing and influence.

Given the disproportionate amount of funding which comes from the US, any changes to how that money is spent will doubtless be felt around the world.

USAID’s activities range from providing prosthetic limbs to soldiers injured in Ukraine, to clearing landmines and containing the spread of Ebola in Africa. The effects could be truly global.

After the 90-day overseas spending freeze was announced, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “every dollar” must be “justified” by evidence that it makes the US safer, stronger and more prosperous.

Democratic Party politicians have called the moves illegal and have said they would jeopardise national security, citing reports that prison guards in Syria, who were charged with securing thousands of Islamic State fighters, nearly walked off the job when US funding was temporarily cut off.

Trump has made it clear he wants overseas spending to be closely aligned with his “America First” approach and the international development sector is braced for more shockwaves.

There are also questions about how much the US will spend overseas in years to come, as Musk – empowered by Trump – attempts to cut billions from the government’s budget.

A French film director has been found guilty of sexually assaulting actor Adèle Haenel when she was underage.

Christophe Ruggia, 60, was given a four-year sentence, two of which were suspended. He will spend two years under house arrest, when he will also have to wear an electronic bracelet.

In addition to the sentence, Ruggia has been ordered to pay €15,000 (£12,500) to Haenel in compensation, as well as €20,000 for the years of psychological therapy she had as a result of the abuse.

The court president said Ruggia had “taken advantage” of his influence over Haenel, who was aged between 12 and 15 at the time of the assaults.

Ruggia’s lawyer Fanny Collin said he would appeal the sentence.

Haenel, now 35, was applauded by women’s rights activists as she left the courtroom in Paris, as had been the case during the earlier phases of the trial.

Reporters in court on Monday said she appeared nervous before the verdict but showed no reaction as Ruggia’s sentencing was read out.

Haenel alleged that Ruggia started molesting her during the shoot of his 2002 film Les Diables (The Devils), when she was 12, which he denied.

The film is an incestuous tale of a relationship between a boy and his autistic sister, and features sex scenes involving the children including close-ups of Haenel’s naked body.

Before the trial, investigators had spoken to members of the film’s crew who told them of their unease at Ruggia’s behaviour on set.

A summary of the charges quoted by French media says Ruggia and Haenel continued to see each other every Saturday after the shooting of the film wrapped up, “under the guise of film lessons” during which Ruggia would allegedly touch her sexually and put his hands in her underwear.

During interviews with French media, Haenel also said she was controlled and manipulated by Ruggia when she was a child and that nobody protected her when she was “asked to do things in the name of art”.

In court late last year, Ruggia denied the accusations, arguing that he had merely tried to “protect” Haenel during the early days of her fame.

Investigators had also said they had found notes on Ruggia’s computer in which he wrote about 12-year-old Haenel’s “overflowing sensuality”.

Ruggia said Haenel had been “radicalised” and that he thought he was a lightning rod for France’s #MeToo movement.

His comments eventually led Haenel to shout at him to “shut up” before storming out in the middle of the trial last December.

Haenel starred in the acclaimed 2019 film Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

The same year, she gave a lengthy and emotional interview to French outlet Mediapart in which she detailed what she called the “sexual harassment” she suffered at Ruggia’s hands.

She said she had decided to speak out about her alleged abuse after watching the documentary Leaving Neverland, which explored the singer Michael Jackson’s relationships with children.

“It made me see I had clung for too long to the version of Ruggia, that it had all been a story of love,” she said, adding that it made her understand the mechanisms of “control and fascination”.

Haenel quit the French film industry in 2023 in protest at what she called its “complacency” towards sexual predators.

Since then, actor Gérard Depardieu has been accused of rape and is due to stand trial next month. Film directors Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon have also been accused of rape and sexual offences by actress Judith Godrèche.

Director Céline Sciamma, Haenel’s ex-partner and the director of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and Godrèche were in the courtroom to hear the verdict on Monday.

Jenni Hermoso has told the trial of Spain’s former football chief Luis Rubiales that the kiss he gave her at the 2023 World Cup “stained one of the happiest days of my life”.

The Spanish world champion footballer was the first witness in Rubiales’ trial over the kiss, where he is accused of sexual assault and coercion.

She told the court in Madrid: “My boss was kissing me, and this shouldn’t happen in any social or work setting.”

Rubiales sparked major controversy when he kissed the athlete on the lips during the medal ceremony for the side’s World Cup victory in Australia, triggering protests and calls for his resignation. He denies any wrongdoing.

Hermoso told the court that she had never given permission to be kissed and felt “disrespected” as a woman.

“I greeted the queen, I greeted her daughter. The next thing was meeting Rubiales.”

Hermoso said she and the then-president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation hugged and celebrated.

“The next thing he did was to grab me by the ears and kiss me on the mouth.”

“I didn’t hear or understand anything,” she said.

She went on: “A kiss on the lips is only given when I decide so”.

“No one came to ask me how I was” after the kiss, she told the trial on Monday.

The footballer said she felt “completely abandoned by the federation”.

She continued to celebrate “the greatest achievement” of her life with her teammates, Hermoso explained.

“There was no place for me to be crying or lying in the corner of the dressing room.”

The other players initially made fun of the incident before one, Irene Paredes, intervened to say: “Stop, this is serious.”

Hermoso said she was pulled aside soon after the kiss and asked to consent to a statement minimising the incident, which she refused to do.

She added that Rubiales asked her to record a video with him on the flight home because he was being accused of assault on social media.

“I said no, that I was not going to do anything, that I was not the cause of this.”

She said people were huddled around Rubiales during the flight, and that she saw his daughters crying.

The footballer said her life had been “on stand-by” until the trial began on Monday.

She said she had received death threats that prompted her to leave Madrid with her family. She now plays club football in Mexico, as well as for Spain’s national team.

Prosecutors are calling for Rubiales, 47, to receive a one-year prison sentence for sexual assault.

They are also calling for him to be given a sentence of a year-and-a-half for coercion, for allegedly trying to pressure Hermoso into saying publicly that the kiss was consensual.

Rubiales denies the charges.

At the time, Rubiales said the kiss had been consensual and denounced a so-called witch-hunt by “fake feminism,” before resigning from his position.

Three of his former colleagues are also on trial accused of coercing Hermoso into saying the kiss was consensual.

Jorge Vilda, coach of the World Cup-winning side, Rubén Rivera, the federation’s former head of marketing, and former sporting director, Albert Luque all deny the charges.

Spain’s Equality Minister Ana Redondo thanked Hermoso for her “bravery” in a post on X, shortly before the trial started.

The trial runs until 19 February.

US President Donald Trump has sparked a trade war by declaring he will impose tariffs on imports from his country’s neighbours Canada and Mexico.

Canada has said it will retaliate in kind. Mexico also pledged to hit back, although US tariffs on that country have now been paused for a month.

The three countries have deeply integrated economies and supply chains, with an estimated $2bn (£1.6bn) worth of manufactured goods crossing the borders daily.

Trump says he wants to protect American industry, but many economists warn the taxes, which are still due to come into force on Canadian imports on Tuesday, could lead to prices rising for consumers in the US.

That’s because tariffs are paid by the domestic company importing the goods, who may choose to pass the cost on to customers directly, or to reduce imports, which would mean fewer products available.

So what could get more expensive if Trump’s tariff threats go ahead?

Cars are likely to go up in price – by about $3,000 according to TD Economics.

That’s because parts cross the US, Canadian and Mexican borders multiple times before a vehicle is assembled.

As a result of higher taxes paid on the importing of parts to build the cars, it is likely the costs will be passed on to customers.

“Suffice it to say that disrupting these trends through tariffs… would come with significant costs,” said Andrew Foran, an economist at TD Economics.

He added “uninterrupted free trade” in the car-making sector had “existed for decades”, which had led to lower prices for consumers.

Popular Mexican beers Modelo and Corona could get more expensive for US customers if the American companies importing them pass on the increased import taxes.

However, it’s also possible that rather than passing on the cost increase, firms could just import less.

Modelo became the number one beer brand in the US in 2023, and remains in the top spot, for now.

It’s more complex when it comes to spirits. The sector has been largely free of tariffs since the 1990s. Industry bodies from the US, Canada and Mexico issued a joint statement in advance of the tariffs being announced saying they were “deeply concerned”.

They say that certain brands, such as Bourbon, Tennessee whiskey, tequila and Canadian whisky are “recognized as distinctive products and can only be produced in their designated countries”.

So given the production of these drinks cannot simply be moved, supplies might be impacted, leading to price rises. The trade bodies also highlighted that many companies own different spirit brands in all three countries.

Imports of Canadian lumber are set to be hit by import tariffs to the US. Trump has said the US has “more lumber than we ever use”.

However, the National Association of Home Builders has urged the president to exempt building materials from the proposed tariffs “because of their harmful effect on housing affordability”.

The industry body has “serious concerns” that the tariffs on lumber could increase the cost of building homes – which are mostly made out of wood in the US – and also put off developers building new homes.

“Consumers end up paying for the tariffs in the form of higher home prices,” the NAHB said.

When it comes to the trade war with Canada, the “most obvious” household impact is on the price of Canadian maple syrup, according to Thomas Sampson, associate professor of economics at the London School of Economics.

Canada’s billion-dollar maple syrup industry accounts for 75% of the world’s entire maple syrup production.

The majority of the sweet staple – around 90% – is produced in the province of Quebec, where the world’s sole strategic reserve of maple syrup was set up 24 years ago.

“That maple syrup is going to become more expensive. And that’s a direct price increase that households will face,” Mr Sampson said.

“If I buy goods that are domestically produced in the US, but that are produced using inputs from Canada, the price of those goods is also going to go up,” he added.

Canada is America’s largest foreign supplier of crude oil. According to the most recent official trade figures, 61% of oil imported into the US between January and November last year came from Canada.

While 25% has been slapped on Canadian goods imported to the US, its energy faces a lower 10% tariff.

Now the US doesn’t have a shortage of oil, but the type its refineries are designed to process means it depends on so-called “heavier” – i.e. thicker – crude oil from mostly Canada and some from Mexico.

“Many refineries need heavier crude oil to maximize flexibility of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel production,” according to the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.

That means if Canada decided in its retaliation to the US tariffs to reduce crude oil exports, that could lead to prices rising at the gas pumps.

One food import that American consumers may see a significant price increase in is avocados. Grown primarily in Mexico due to its warm, humid climate, Mexican avocados make up nearly 90% of the US avocado market each year.

However, with the introduction of new tariffs, the US Agriculture Department has warned that the cost of avocados – along with popular avocado-based dishes like guacamole – could surge, especially by Super Bowl Sunday on 9 February.

Canada’s retaliatory tariffs against the US – an initial C$30bn tranche is set to begin on Tuesday – meaning prices will likely increase for consumers north of the border as well.

Ottawa has released a list of all the US imports that will immediately be targeted with matching 25% tariffs. They include grocery store staples, like oranges – a produce that Canada cannot grow in abundance due to its cooler climate.

Alcohol originating from the US will also be harder for Canadians to find. Provinces like Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia say they will pull all American booze off their shelves starting on Tuesday.

Any US alcohol – including beer and wine – that Canadians could find would likely see a price increase, as it’s on the menu for retaliatory tariffs.

Canadian shoppers might feel the pinch from a weaker Canadian dollar if shopping online.

Additional reporting by Lucy Acheson and Nadine Yousif

Sunday night saw Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar win big at the Grammy Awards, which was dedicated to fundraising for wildfire relief efforts in Los Angeles.

It also saw plenty of memorable performances, impassioned speeches and stunning red carpet looks for everyone to emulate over the course of the next year (leather chaps are back, in case you were wondering).

Let’s take a closer look at some of the other highlights and lowlights from the ceremony.

Well, now we’re in a pickle.

On her eighth solo record, Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé sang about the Grammys’ constant, stubborn refusal to award her album of the year.

“AOTY, I ain’t win,” she sang. “Take that s— on the chin.“

But now she has won, for the album that contains that very lyric. Will she have to go back and re-record it? At the very least, we expect a rewrite on the tour she just announced.

Joking aside, this victory was long, long overdue.

In 2017, Adele even flirted with the idea of handing back her album of the year trophy, saying the music on her album, 25, couldn’t compare to Beyoncé’s “monumental… beautiful and soul-baring” Lemonade.

Eyebrows were raised again in 2023, when Harry Styles’ fun, but conceptually flimsy, Harry’s House bested Beyoncé’s Renaissance – a meticulous exploration of how oppressed black and queer musicians found salvation through house music.

In the end, it took Beyoncé to approach a genre that conservative Grammy voters could understand – country – in order to secure a victory.

But that’s not to downplay the scale of her achievement. Cowboy Carter is a masterpiece that weaves hundreds of musical threads into a thesis about America’s cultural past, and the futility of gatekeeping musical genres along racial lines.

The arguments it makes are both timely and urgent, without suffocating the songs.

As the second part of a planned trilogy, this surely won’t be Beyoncé’s last trip to the podium.

Sabrina Carpenter has literally been practising for this moment all her life. She made her TV debut in 2011, aged 12 years old, and has been hovering on the fringes of pop superstardom pretty much ever since.

So, after a huge breakthrough in 2024, she was primed and ready for the Grammy stage.

Or was she?

She emerged in a razzle-dazzle showgirl outfit and instantly missed her spotlight. Then she dropped the cane she was supposed to dance with. And, as she descended a grand pearlescent staircase, she suddenly disappeared through a trap door.

Luckily, it was all a humorous ruse! Carpenter skipped back to the stage for a big band version of Espresso, complete with ankle-endangering tap routine.

After changing into a blue, crystal-studded Victoria’s Secret bodysuit, she segued effortlessly into Please, Please, Please… And then the set collapsed on her.

As she leapt into the safety of a dancer’s arms, she couldn’t contain her laughter.

It was a perfect piece of vaudeville, and the audience lapped it up. Host Trevor Noah, however, wasn’t so impressed.

“That was amazing and funny, which I didn’t appreciate,” the comedian said. “Really, Sabrina? You’re just gonna take my job like that?”

Five years ago, people were stunned when The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights – the most-streamed song of all time – failed to pick up a single Grammy nomination.

Among those people were Abel Tesfaye – aka The Weeknd himself.

He declared the awards were “corrupt” and criticised their lack of “transparency”. Since then, he’s refused to submit any of his music for consideration.

So it was something of a coup when he gave an unannounced, unexpected performance in the middle of Sunday’s ceremony.

He was introduced by the Recording Academy’s CEO, Harvey Mason Jr, who acknowledged the star’s criticisms, and described his efforts to revamp the Grammys’ electorate, by boosting the number of women and people of colour.

After that, the star took to the stage with two songs from his brand new album, Cry For Me and Timeless.

It was meant to be a celebration of people’s ability to learn and grow, but the music was so oppressively drab – with the Weeknd constantly shrouded in smoke and shadow – that you wondered whether he’d simply returned to sabotage the Grammys from within.

BBC Sound of 2025 winner Chappell Roan cantered into the Grammys with a theatrical performance of Pink Pony Club – her love letter to LA, as well as a celebration of queer discovery.

Backed by dancers dressed as rodeo clowns, Roan – herself wearing a sequinned cowboy hat and sparkly boots – rode a a giant pink carousel pony, complete with an 80s perm.

“‘My Little Pony’ grew up!” joked host Trevor Noah afterwards.

The performance was part of a segment that raised awareness and funds for wildfire relief.

Roan, real name Kayleigh Amstutz, later received a standing ovation for using her best new artist winning speech to call on record labels to provide up-and-coming artists with liveable wages and healthcare.

Quite a night for the 26-year-old, who might be feeling a little horse in the morning.

Rapper Kanye West arrived on the red carpet dressed in black with his wife Bianca Censori, who was, to all intents and purposes, naked.

As the couple stopped to pose for cameras, the Australian model removed her black fur coat to reveal a sheer body stocking that left little to the imagination.

The pair then made a swift exit, electing to skip the ceremony, driving off into the LA night.

Early reports suggested they had been kicked out, but the BBC understands they left of their own accord, with one source saying that West, “walked the carpet, got in his car and left”.

They may well have been home by the time West’s track Carnival lost out to Kendrick Lamar in the best rap song category.

But he probably won’t mind: He already has 24 Grammy awards, and now he has the headlines he craves, too.

Among the three awards Charli XCX picked up was one of the night’s most obscure: Best artwork.

At first glance, that might seem odd. The album cover is a plain green square, with the word “brat” printed in a deliberately low-resolution Arial font.

But the cover took five months to put together, with designer Brent David Freaney testing around 500 shades of green to produce a garish, nausea-inducing effect.

Charli wanted the artwork to be deliberately off-putting – reflecting the album’s dual themes of partying and self doubt. And she said it was important to challenge the convention of women dressing provocatively to promote their music.

“Why should anyone have that level of ownership over female artists?” she asked Vogue magazine.

She added: “I wanted to go with an offensive, off-trend shade of green to trigger the idea of something being wrong. I’d like for us to question our expectations of pop culture – why are some things considered good and acceptable, and some things deemed bad?

“I’m interested in the narratives behind that and I want to provoke people. I’m not doing things to be nice.”

Towards the end of the ceremony, the star’s live performance of Von Dutch and Guess saw her transform the biggest and glitziest night in music into a packed and sweaty nightclub.

Emerging from a black SUV, she strutted towards the camera, throwing a glass of champagne against the wall of a parking garage, before launching into what appeared to be an underground rave.

As the performance progressed, she appeared on stage with model Julia Fox and hundreds of dancers, who were then showered in underwear (a reference to the song’s lyrics).

The Grammys said all of the unworn garments were donated to domestic violence survivors after the show.

I can’t be the only person desperate to know what Taylor is whispering, right?

Beyoncé’s stunned reaction to winning best country album is a gif that will never stop gif-ing.

The Grammys have a wobbly history with hip-hop. They didn’t introduce a rap category until 1989, a full decade after the Sugarhill Gang introduced the genre to a wide audience with Rapper’s Delight. And no rap act has won album of the year since OutKast in 2001.

So it was a rare victory when Compton-born rapper Kendrick Lamar won all five of the awards in which he was nominated for Not Like Us, a furious takedown of his musical rival, Drake.

Among those awards were the prestigious record and song of the year – categories that have only ever recognised a rap song once before (Childish Gambino’s This Is America in 2019).

Lamar didn’t perform at the ceremony – he plays the Super Bowl halftime show next week instead – but, dressed head to toe in denim, he delivered a powerful message to Grammy voters.

“At the end of the day, nothing is more powerful than rap music. I don’t care what it is. We are the culture… respect the art form”.

Music lost one of its biggest legends in 2024, when Quincy Jones died at the age of 91.

As the producer for everyone from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson, the Grammys gave him a star-studded send-off that lasted almost 20 minutes.

Cynthia Erivo and Herbie Hancock played a beautiful version of Fly Me To The Moon; while Stevie Wonder’s sang We Are The World with choirs from two schools affected by the devastating LA fires.

But it was Janelle Monaé’s performance of Michael Jackson’s Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough that blew the roof off.

Dressed in MJ’s Billie Jean outfit, she pirouetted and moonwalked and jumped on the tables as if she’d been possessed by the man himself.

Towards the end of the performance, she threw off her jacket to reveal a t-shirt bearing the legend “I Love QJ”.

And guess who caught it and wore it for the rest of the night?

Taylor Swift.

Even with 94 awards to consider, some people will get overlooked – but nobody expected two of the Grammys’ biggest darlings to go home empty-handed.

Taylor Swift was blanked despite scoring six nominations. Voters clearly decided that The Tortured Poets Department wasn’t worthy of comparison with her four previous album of the year winners (Fearless, 1989, Folklore and Midnights).

Billie Eilish’s wipeout was even more unexpected. She had been the bookmakers’ favourite for album of the year, for her third release Hit Me Hard And Soft – but she lost all seven of the categories she was nominated for.

Still, there was a lot of competition this year, especially in the pop categories. And Swift has spoken in the past about how losing album of the year for Red inspired her pop opus, and biggest-seller to date, 1989.

Don’t count either of these artists out just yet.

There’s a reason they keep inviting Trevor Noah back to host the Grammys: He’s got the tone right.

He’s relaxed, he’s engaged with the music, and his humour never punches down.

Here are some of his best quips from the night:

• “Yesterday, Beyonce announced her new tour. Everyone saw that. I will say, though, Beyonce, there’s tariffs. We can’t afford a new tour, right? Maple syrup is about to be $50.”
• “Taylor Swift could become the first artist ever to win album of the year five times. Which means she would break the record of four wins, set all the way back in 2024 by Taylor Swift. I’m just gonna say Taylor, if you break Taylor’s record, the Swifties are gonna come for you. And you don’t wanna mess with them.”
• “The Beatles are nominated tonight for Record of the Year. Yes, the legendary band from Liverpool used AI to put out a new song after 53 years. So good luck to the Beatles. I think if they win, this could open up a few doors for them.”
• “And who knows, through the power of AI, one day, we could even get another Rihanna album.”