Category: Trending Now

No survivors are expected after a passenger plane collided in mid air with a helicopter near Washington DC on Wednesday evening, officials in the US say.

The plane was carrying 64 passengers and crew when it landed in the Potomac River after the collision, while the helicopter had three soldiers on board.

Figure skaters from the US were among those who were on board the aeroplane. Russia has confirmed that some of its citizens were also on board.

Search and rescue teams worked through the night to scour the waters in freezing temperatures. Authorities say they have now switched to a recovery operation.

At around 21:00 local time (02:00 GMT) on Wednesday, a PSA Airlines jet operating as American Airlines 5342 collided with a US Army helicopter as it approached Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The passenger plane broke into multiple pieces and sunk several feet into the river, while the helicopter ended up upside down on the water, reports said.

The plane, a Bombardier CRJ700, departed from Wichita, Kansas and was carrying 60 passengers and four crew, American Airlines said.

The Pentagon said the helicopter involved was a Sikorsky H-60 that took off from Fort Belvoir in Virginia.

Three US soldiers were on board, Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said. Another official said it was on a training flight, and it belonged to B Company, 12th Aviation Battalion from Fort Belvoir in Virginia.

A clip published online by LiveATC.net, which streams air traffic, purports to capture the air traffic control conversation in the moments before the crash. A controller can reportedly be heard warning the helicopter about the plane, but receiving no reply. The audio has not been verified by the BBC.

The FAA said it would investigate the incident, together with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said in a Thursday morning update that officials “don’t believe there are any survivors from this accident”.

He said teams had recovered 27 bodies from the plane, and one from the helicopter.

A law enforcement source familiar with the investigation earlier told CBS that a higher number of at least 30 bodies had already been found.

US Figure Skating said “several members of our skating community were sadly aboard” the flight. It said this group comprised athletes, coaches and family members who were returning home from a development camp in Kansas.

Russian citizens were also on board, the Kremlin confirmed – after local media reported that ice skating coaches and former world champions Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were on the plane.

About 300 responders on rubber boats were earlier deployed to search for survivors, Donnelly said in an earlier update. “The challenge is access, there is wind, pieces of ice (on the water). It is dangerous and hard to work in,” he said.

Ari Schulman told NBC Washington that he saw the plane crash while driving on the George Washington Parkway, which runs along the airport.

He said the plane’s approach looked normal, until he saw the aircraft bank hard to the right, with “streams of sparks” running underneath, illuminating its belly.

At that point, he said he knew that it looked “very, very wrong”. Having seen plane landings there in the past, he said a plane’s underside should not have been visible in the dark.

The sparks, he said, resembled a “giant roman candle” and went from the plane’s nose to its tail.

Jimmy Mazeo said he saw the crash while having dinner with his girlfriend at a park near the airport.

He recalled seeing what looked like a “white flare” in the sky. He said planes flying into Ronald Reagan Airport appeared to have been flying in “irregular patterns”.

Mr Mazeo said he did not think much of what he saw until emergency services started arriving at the scene.

President Donald Trump said he had been fully briefed on the the “terrible accident” and that he was monitoring the situation closely.

“May God Bless their souls,” he said in a statement. “Thank you for the incredible work being done by our first responders.

On his TruthSocial social media account, he has also raised questions about how the incident could have happened, writing: “This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”

Vice-President JD Vance asked for prayers for those who were in the incident.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, whose appointments were just recently confirmed, also said they were monitoring the situation.

Asked if flight paths near Ronald Reagan airport would be changed after the incident, Duffy said “we will take appropriate action if necessary”. He added: “There will be a review of what happened here tonight.”

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom expressed his “deep sorrow” about the collision in a video which has been posted to the airline’s website.

That was echoed by Roger Marshall, a US senator representing Kansas, where the plane had travelled from. He described a “heartbreak beyond measure”.

Major incidents of this kind are relatively rare in the US. The most recent comparable crash was in 2009, according to a list compiled by Reuters.

That year, an aircraft crashed on approach to landing in Buffalo, New York, killing all 49 people on board and one person on the ground.

The airspace above Washington DC is both busy and highly controlled. It is used by domestic and international traffic using two airports, and there are extra factors of presidential flights, heavy military traffic and flights around the Pentagon.

Passenger airliners must follow fixed flight plans, said the BBC’s transport correspondent Sean Dilley. In uncontrolled airspace, military pilots operate under strict instruction of air traffic controllers but unlike their civilian counterparts, they have freedom to deviate and a duty to “see and avoid” other aircraft.

On the night of 11 January 2005, a family of five attempted to escape a violent storm battering their home on the island of South Uist.

Winds gusting to 124mph had coincided with a high tide, and a surging sea was threatening to overwhelm the MacPhersons’ house.

The conditions were so severe that wind and waves hurled sand and rocks against the outside walls.

Archie and Murdina MacPherson, their children Andrew, seven, and Hannah, five, along with Murdina’s father Calum Campbell set off in two cars.

They hoped to reach the safety of Archie’s parents’ home, just over a mile away, but they never made it; their cars were swept away.

Archie and Murdina had grown up in the Hebrides before moving away to the mainland for jobs.

Archie worked as a joiner in Glasgow and Murdina had been a personal assistant to the head of Gaelic at BBC Scotland.

They had returned home to the isles to raise their young family.

Archie took on work as a self-employed builder and Murdina was secretary at a local school.

Some of those closest to the family have spoken publicly for the first time about the tragedy in a new BBC Alba documentary, Eòrpa: After the Storm.

Murdina’s close friend Cirsty Macinnes said: “It’s been 20 years but I still find it hard to look at her house when I have to drive past it.

“The house is still there, but they’re not.”

South Uist is home to about 1,800 people and one of the southern isles in the 160-mile (257km) length of the Western Isles, a chain of islands off Scotland’s west coast.

On the west side of the Hebridean islands is the North Atlantic, with nothing but open ocean until North America.

Islanders are long accustomed to wild winter weather.

But the suddenness and severity of the 11 January storm shocked many of them.

The storm had started days earlier as a low depression hundreds of miles away off America’s east coast.

By the time it reached the Western Isles it had increased in intensity.

The atmospheric pressure alone raised the sea level by almost 70cm (27in).

The bad weather coincided with a high spring tide, further raising the height of the water.

The Western Isles were hit by strong winds and heavy, driving rain.

Waves overtopped sand dunes on the low-lying island of South Uist.

Causeways, which are crossings carrying roads over short sections of sea between islands, contributed to raising flood levels as the storm roared in.

Power went out across the islands and mobile phone reception was lost.

Archie’s father David MacPherson was working a shift at a Ministry of Defence missile range in West Gerinish, South Uist, unaware of the tragedy unfolding near his home.

He recalled how the lights went out in his building at 15:00.

An emergency generator kicked in but it ran out of fuel at 20:00.

He said: “There was a light at the emergency exit that lasted until midnight, but that went out too.

“I was in darkness. I’ll never forget it, how terrifying it was.

“And no idea what was happening a few miles down the road.

“A terrible night.”

Murdina’s brother Neil Campbell had planned to meet his sister and her family that evening.

He said: “I’d been away for Christmas and we were going to have dinner together.

“We had presents to give each other.”

But on his drive from the neighbouring island of Benbecula he was stopped by the storm and forced to turn back.

“The wind hit the car and seawater started gushing through in front of me,” he said.

“I just froze.”

Neil said his sister’s house was on the edge of an area of coastal meadow called machair next to the sea.

He said: “The storm surge had surrounded them.

“There was sand and rocks thrown up against the wall of the house.

“They must have been terrified.

“I think they just fled.”

The family’s cars are believed to have been caught up in the storm surge, which breached the coastline and caused extensive flooding.

The vehicles were later discovered to have been swept into an inland loch.

The bodies of Archie, 36, Murdina, 37, and Calum, 67, were found first before the children’s in the following days.

Neil said: “You’re waiting all day for something, and then they tell you they’ve found them.

“It’s a relief in one way. But at the same time, they’re telling you you’ve lost everyone.

“That’s what’s difficult to deal with. You never deal with it.”

Cirsty remembered the anger and grief she felt in the wake of the storm.

She said: “The priest at the time said they went to God together.

“I was so angry, I said they didn’t. I said what kind of god would do such a terrible thing to such good people?

“To children who were so lovely and innocent?”

She said Murdina had been a great friend to her and was funny, generous and strong.

Mourners travelled from across the isles to attend the funeral in St Mary’s Church at Griminish in Benbecula.

Five coffins were laid in a row before the congregation – the adults rested in three brown coffins and the children in coffins of brilliant white.

Large floral tributes spelling out each of their names were placed at the foot of the altar.

Three priests were joined by Archie’s uncle, The Reverend John Smith, for the service.

He told the packed church that life had been better because of the family’s existence.

There were prayers, readings, hymns and accordion playing.

Widower and former joiner Calum had been a piping instructor in local schools and a piper played as the coffins were carried from the church.

Mairi Macinnes was headteacher of Iochdar School, where Andrew and Hannah were pupils at the time, and where Murdina was a secretary.

She told the documentary how Murdina had spoken of the coming storm, but without any fear or expectation of the destruction it would bring.

Mairi said: “I remember well, on the afternoon beforehand when news came that there was really bad weather coming.

“I can still see Murdina standing there saying the school would be off, that there was a storm on the way.”

The Australian government has been told by Moscow that one of its citizens in Russian captivity is still alive.

Oscar Jenkins, a 32-year-old teacher, was captured last year while fighting for Ukraine.

“The Australian government has received confirmation from Russia that Oscar Jenkins is alive and in custody,” Foreign Minster Penny Wong said in a statement on Wednesday.

Earlier, there were reports that Mr Jenkins had been killed while in captivity, with the Australian government citing “grave concerns” for his welfare.

“We still hold serious concerns for Mr Jenkins as a prisoner of war,” Wong’s statement added.

It also called on Russia to release him and reiterated Australia’s stance that the Russian Federation was obligated to treat all prisoners of war in accordance with international humanitarian law.

Prisoners of war are protected from all acts of violence or intimidation by the Geneva convention.

Earlier, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had said that the government was “urgently seeking” confirmation that Mr Jenkins was alive.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia was quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as saying that it was “good news” but called on Moscow to provide “video proof” of his well being.

Mr Jenkins is thought to be the first Australian to have been held as a prisoner of war while fighting for Ukraine.

A video surfaced in December last year showing Mr Jenkins, with his hands tied, being hit in the face and questioned by Russian forces.

He explains he is a teacher and also a soldier who lives in both Australia and Ukraine.

They ask him if he is being paid to fight in Ukraine.

The maker of ChatGPT, OpenAI, has complained that rivals, including those in China, are using its work to make rapid advances in developing their own artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

The status of OpenAI – and other US firms – as the world leaders in AI has been dramatically undermined this week by the sudden emergence of DeepSeek, a Chinese app that can emulate the performance of ChatGPT, apparently at a fraction of the cost.

Bloomberg has reported that Microsoft is investigating whether data belonging to OpenAI – which it is a major investor in – has been used in an unauthorised way.

The BBC has contacted Microsoft and DeepSeek for comment.

OpenAI’s concerns have been echoed by the recently appointed White House “AI and crypto czar”, David Sacks.

Speaking on Fox News, he suggested that DeepSeek may have used the models developed by OpenAI to get better, a process called knowledge distillation.

“There’s substantial evidence that what DeepSeek did here is they distilled the knowledge out of OpenAI’s models,” Mr Sacks said.

“I think one of the things you’re going to see over the next few months is our leading AI companies taking steps to try and prevent distillation… That would definitely slow down some of these copycat models.”

In a statement, OpenAI said Chinese and other companies were “constantly trying to distil the models of leading US AI companies”.

“As we go forward… it is critically important that we are working closely with the U.S. government to best protect the most capable models,” it added.

The accusation of disrespecting intellectual property rights is however far from a new one in tech – and has been frequently levelled at major US AI firms.

US officials are also considering the national security implications of DeepSeek’s emergence, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“I spoke with [the National Security Council] this morning, they are looking into what [the national security implications] may be,” said Ms Leavitt, who also restated US President Donald Trump’s remarks a day earlier that DeepSeek should be a wake-up call for the US tech industry.

The announcement comes after the US navy reportedly banned its members from using DeepSeek’s apps due to “potential security and ethical concerns”.

According to CNBC, the US navy has sent an email to its staff warning them not to use the DeepSeek app due to “potential security and ethical concerns associated with the model’s origin and usage”.

The Navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BBC News.

Data safety experts have warned users to be careful with the tool, given it collects large amounts of personal data and stores it in servers in China.

Meanwhile, DeepSeek says it has been the target of cyber attacks. On Monday it said it would temporarily limit registrations because of “large-scale malicious attacks” on its software.

A banner showing on the company’s website says registration may be busy as a result of the attacks.

Yuyuan Tantian, a social media channel under China’s state broadcaster CCTV, claims the firm has faced “several” cyber attacks in recent weeks, which have increased in “intensity”.

America’s AI industry has been shaken by DeepSeek’s apparent breakthrough, especially because of the prevailing view that the US was far ahead in the race.

A slew of trade restrictions banning China’s access to high-end chips was believed to have cemented this.

Although China has boosted investment in advanced tech to diversify its economy, DeepSeek is not one of the big Chinese firms that have been developing AI models to rival US-made ChatGPT.

Experts say the US still has an advantage – it is home to some of the biggest chip companies – and that it’s unclear yet exactly how DeepSeek built its model and how far it can go.

Additional reporting from Fan Wang

Drivers have been recorded travelling at 164mph (264km/h) on Britain’s roads, prompting a warning from police for people to stop being so selfish and to realise speed kills.

More than 24,000 vehicles were caught on camera being driven at more than 100mph (161km/h) between 2019 and 2023, police data shows.

One car on the M25 in Kent and one in Greater Manchester were found to be speeding at 164mph (264km/h), with cars in London and the Humberside police force area detected being driven at 163mph (262km/h).

Ch Insp Craig West, head of roads policing at Kent Police, says the consequences of high-speed crashes can be “devastating for families and friends”.

The BBC sent freedom of information requests to police forces asking what the highest recorded speeds were over a five-year period.

Of the 45 police forces contacted, 27 were able to provide data to the BBC.

Greater Manchester Police said a driver clocked at 164mph (264km/h) on the M62 in 2023 was using a cloned number plate.

Kent Police confirmed they were unable to trace the driver of a Seat Leon travelling at the same speed on the M25 in Swanley in 2022.

In both cases, this was more than double the motorway speed limit of 70mph (113km/h).

Meanwhile a Porsche driver was banned for six months for driving at 163mph (262km/h) on the M1 in north London at the start of the Covid pandemic, and a driver travelling at the same speed in Humberside was disqualified from driving for four months and fined £950.

South Yorkshire Police said a driver caught driving at 162mph (260km/h) in 2019 was issued with six penalty points on their licence and received fines of £1,210.

Ch Insp Craig West said: “Speed does kill.

People need to reduce their speed and not drive to the full speed limit.”

He told the BBC: “It’s devastating for the families and friends of the victims and for the officers.

“It really has a lasting impact on a lot of people, which is why it’s important to get that message across to the small minority of selfish drivers that continue to speed.”

Jillie Slope from West Sussex is calling for more enforcement following the death of her son, Callum Chapman, who was a passenger in a speeding car that crashed into trees on the A24 near Southwater in December 2020.

Ms Slope said the vehicle had been travelling at speeds of up to 103mph.

“The driver got out more or less unharmed, but Callum didn’t last very long. It’s ripped my heart out,” she said.

“It just feels like Callum’s death was in vain, it’s not made any difference and people are still speeding.”

“There’s not enough police, cameras, technology in cars – something needs to be done,” Ms Slope said.

The driver pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and was jailed for three years and disqualified from driving for four-and-a-half years.

The court heard he had been racing against another car.

The driver of that car admitted dangerous driving and was jailed for six months, and disqualified for 21 months.

In 2023, Department for Transport (DfT) figures showed that 314 people died in crashes on Britain’s roads in which a driver exceeding the speed limit was a contributory factor.

This was at least a 10-year high.

Sussex Police Chief Constable, Jo Shiner, the roads policing lead at the National Police Chiefs Council, says every casualty is “one too many”.

“Nearly 3,000 people are killed or seriously injured on our roads each year as a result of excessive speed.

“For each one of those people there will be multiple friends, families and communities affected so the true impact is almost impossible to quantify,” Ms Shiner said.

“Driving in excess of the speed limit is a conscious decision.”

The Sentencing Council says the maximum fine for speeding is £1,000, unless the offence is recorded on the motorway, in which case it would be £2,500.

Drivers speeding at more than 100mph are at serious risk of disqualification according to David Sonn, a road-traffic lawyer, who has represented a driver caught at 163mph.

“If there are no other aggravating features and a relatively clean driving licence and you are doing just over 100[mph], in my experience you may very well avoid disqualification.”

He says a ban is “almost inevitable” for drivers caught speeding at more than 110mph, “depending on the circumstances” and could prompt a prosecution for dangerous driving.

“That can attract up to two years in prison and will attract a minimum mandatory ban of one year and you cannot resume driving until you’ve passed an extended driving test.”

Shaun Helman, chief scientist for behavioural sciences at the Transport Research Laboratory in Berkshire, said: “Many new cars are now fitted with intelligence speed assistance technology.”

“The car can warn the driver if it’s over the speed limit and in some systems can intervene and reduce the speed of the car gradually to get down to the speed limit.”

Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said: “Eight in 10 new cars are available with driver assistance systems, such as advanced emergency braking.”

He says the technology has led to a 38% reduction in rear-end crashes

“Ultimately, however, motorists must drive responsibly, as while technology can help mitigate accident risk, human error is, regrettably, still the cause of most crashes,” he added.

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “There’s no excuse for those who risk the lives of others through speeding.

“We continue to assess how motorists can benefit from the latest technology, ensuring journeys are safe, reliable, and cut emissions.”

Sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich could owe the UK up to £1bn after a botched attempt to avoid tax on hedge fund investments, evidence seen by the BBC suggests.

Leaked papers reveal investments worth $6bn (£4.7bn) were routed through companies in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). But evidence suggests they were managed from the UK, so should have been taxed there.

Some of the money that funded Chelsea FC when Mr Abramovich owned it can be traced back to companies involved in the scheme, the BBC and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) also found.

The oligarch’s lawyers said he “always obtained independent expert professional tax and legal advice” and “acted in accordance with that advice”.

Mr Abramovich – who now reportedly divides his time between Istanbul, Tel Aviv and the Russian resort of Sochi – denies having any knowledge of or being personally responsible for any unpaid tax.

Joe Powell, a Labour MP who leads a Parliamentary group on fair taxation, called on HM Revenue and Customs to “urgently” investigate the case to recover what could be “very significant amounts of money that could be invested in public services”.

At the heart of the scheme was Eugene Shvidler, a former Chelsea FC director and a billionaire businessman in his own right, who is currently challenging the UK government’s decision to sanction him for his close links to Mr Abramovich.

Mr Shvidler moved to the USA after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but from 2004 until 2022 he lived in the UK, with properties in London and Surrey.

A tax expert told the BBC that evidence Mr Shvidler had been making strategic decisions on the investments while based in the UK, and not in the BVI, was “a pretty big smoking gun”, suggesting the companies should have been paying UK tax.

Lawyers for Mr Shvidler said the BBC was basing its reporting on “confidential business documents that present an incomplete picture” and had “drawn strong and erroneous conclusions as to Mr Shvidler’s conduct”.

They said “the structure of investments” was “the subject of very careful and detailed tax planning, undertaken and advised on by leading tax advisors”.

The scheme involving Mr Abramovich’s hedge fund investments was revealed in a huge leak of data that the BBC and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism have been examining for over a year – thousands of files and emails from a Cyprus-based company that administered Mr Abramovich’s global empire.

The BBC and its media partners, including The Guardian, have been reporting on the leaked files since 2023 as part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Cyprus Confidential investigation. On Tuesday, we revealed how Mr Abramovich had dodged millions in VAT on the running costs of his yacht fleet.

The leaked data shows how Mr Abramovich invested a large part of the wealth he acquired in the 1990s through a corrupt deal – ploughing it into a company in the BVI called Keygrove Holdings Ltd.

A network of British Virgin Islands companies owned by Keygrove invested this money – up to $6bn (£4.8bn) between the late 1990s and early 2020s – into Western hedge funds, according to the leaked files.

These investments made the oligarch an estimated $3.8bn (£3.1bn) in profits over almost two decades. By making the investments through companies in the BVI, which does not levy tax on corporate profits, the scheme appears to be set up to ensure as little tax as possible was paid.

It is not unusual for businesses to legally avoid paying tax on their profits by making their investments from companies in tax havens. But the companies involved must be managed and controlled offshore where they are incorporated.

If an offshore company’s strategic decisions are being taken by someone in the UK, its profits could be taxed as if it were a UK company.

The leaked documents show how the directors of the BVI investment companies handed sweeping powers over them to Mr Shvidler, who was living in the UK and gained British citizenship in 2010.

The BBC has seen “general power of attorney” documents dated between 2004 and 2008, that gave him the “broadest possible powers” and “full power to do everything and anything” to investment companies in the BVI.

From 2008, Mr Shvidler appears to have acquired the power to direct the investments of Keygrove, which owned the BVI companies, through another company.

Millennium Capital Ventures Ltd, which was owned indirectly by Mr Shvidler’s wife and appointed him as a director in 2000, became Keygrove’s investment manager. It was assigned “full power and authority to supervise and direct” the investment of the assets, “all without prior consultation with client”.

Further evidence of Mr Shvidler’s crucial role in the investment decisions of the BVI companies emerged in a court case brought in September 2023 by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against a New York firm called Concord Management.

The SEC filing says that Concord had only one client, since identified as Mr Abramovich. The company advised on investment decisions for the oligarch’s BVI companies.

It identifies a “longtime close associate” of Mr Abramovich, referred to as “Person B”, who “made investment decisions” for Mr Abramovich.

It says he was “the point of contact for receiving investment advice” and “for either deciding or communicating the decision whether to go forward with recommended transactions”.

Using the leaked documents, the BBC was able to identify “Person B” as Eugene Shvidler.

The evidence suggests Mr Shvidler was making the decisions described by the SEC, managing and controlling Mr Abramovich’s investments, from the UK rather than the BVI.

Tax expert Rita de le Feria told the BBC that evidence a UK resident, such as Mr Shvidler, was taking “strategic big decisions” on the hedge fund investments was a “clear indication” the huge profits should have been taxed by the UK.

“I think this is a pretty big smoking gun. That would be, again, strong evidence that the effective management of the company was not taking place in the BVI,” she said.

Mr Shvidler’s lawyers said there can be “no question of Mr Shvidler, either knowingly or negligently, being involved in an unlawful scheme to avoid paying tax”.

Lawyers for Mr Abramovich said that in addition to the advice he obtained over his tax affairs, he “expects that similar advice was sought” by those with responsibility for running companies related to him.

The leaked documents also reveal how large amounts of the untaxed profits from Mr Abramovich’s hedge fund investments passed through a network of the oligarch’s companies before flowing into Chelsea FC.

The hedge fund investments flowed back into his companies in the BVI and then into Keygrove, their parent company.

Keygrove then loaned out money to other companies in Mr Abramovich’s network, which in turn lent money to Camberley International Investments Ltd – a company set up to bankroll Chelsea FC.

By 2021, when Chelsea won the Champions League, Club World Cup and UEFA Super Cup, hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to the club could be traced back to companies benefiting from Mr Abramovich’s untaxed hedge fund investments.

If HMRC were to investigate, how much could Mr Abramovich or the companies concerned owe?

We have assessed the profits made by the investment companies in the BVI from 1999 to 2018.

The leaked documents only contain complete accounts for the companies investing in hedge funds from 2013 to 2018.

But we can estimate how much money the companies involved were likely to have made over the entire period by looking at their “revenue reserves”. These are profits kept in the businesses, rather than being paid out to shareholders. By the end of 2018 this amounted to $3.8bn.

Applying historical UK corporation tax and currency conversion rates to the revenue reserves up to 2012, and the yearly profits to 2018, amounts to a potential tax bill of more than £500m owed to HMRC.

But in the event of an enquiry into unpaid tax, HMRC can also impose late payment interest and penalties for failure to notify the authorities.

If tax has gone unpaid, then depending on whether an investigation concluded those responsible knew but did not tell HMRC, or whether they did not know, the total amount due could range from almost £700m to over £1bn.

There is a possibility that some tax on the profits could not be recovered, as HMRC investigations can only go back a maximum of 20 years.

However, our calculations are also likely to be an underestimate, because we have applied the lowest rate of corporation tax that existed between 1999 and 2012, and it is possible profits had been extracted from the companies in that period that we have not included in our sums.

In any event, Mr Abramovich’s tax bill could dwarf the £653m bill imposed on Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone in 2023.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the British government allowed Roman Abramovich to sell Chelsea FC to Todd Boehly. It did so on the condition that £2.5bn from the proceeds would be donated to charities supporting victims of the war in Ukraine.

Nearly three years later, the money still sits in a frozen Barclays bank account, reportedly due to disagreement over how it should be spent, with Mr Abramovich wanting the money to go to “all the victims” of the war, and the UK government insisting it should be spent solely on humanitarian aid in Ukraine.

The BBC’s investigation suggests that, just as Ukrainians are waiting for money from the former Chelsea boss, so is the British taxpayer.

Cyprus Confidential is international collaborative investigation launched in 2023 led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) into Cyprus firms provided corporate and financial services to associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Media partners include The Guardian, the investigative newsroom Paper Trail Media, the Italian newspaper L’Espresso, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ).

TBIJ reporting team: Simon Lock and Eleanor Rose.

President Donald Trump has offered buyout packages to almost all federal workers who do not want to return to the office, a major move designed to shrink the US government.

In an email sent to millions of employees on Tuesday, his administration told workers they had to decide by 6 February whether they wanted to be part of a “deferred resignation program”.

If they agreed to leave their jobs by that date, the message said, they would receive about eight months of salary as a severance package.

The Trump administration expects up to 10% of employees to accept the offer, or around 200,000 of the more than two million workers the federal government employs, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

Senior Trump officials told US media that the buyouts could save the government up to $100bn (£80bn).

Workers wishing to take the deal on Tuesday were asked to reply to the email with the word “resign” written into the subject line. The offer includes both pay and benefits for workers until 30 September.

Certain employees did not receive the offer, including postal workers, members of the military, immigration officials, and some national security workers, according to the email.

The message from the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s HR agency, on Tuesday evening also warned of future downsizing that could impact those who choose to stay.

“We cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity,” it reads.

The email follows Trump’s earlier announcement that federal employees who had been working remotely since the Covid pandemic would be required to return to the office five days a week.

Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, said the government’s two million workers were “overwhelmingly left of centre”, adding it was “essential” for Trump to “get control of government”.

Trump repeatedly pledged to cut the size of the government and slash federal spending while on the campaign trail.

He tasked Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy with leading an advisory body focused on cutting regulations, spending, and headcounts within the federal government. Ramaswamy has since left the “Department of Government Efficiency” (Doge).

But the email on Tuesday bears a resemblance to one sent to Twitter, now X, employees in late 2022 after Musk bought the social media platform. He asked for an emailed response if they wanted to remain at the company.

The mass buyout offer came at the end of an at-times chaotic day in Washington, following a memo Trump issued which said he would pause federal grants, loans and other assistance.

A district judge suspended the order – which was initially set to go into effect on Tuesday afternoon – until next Monday.

In the hours before that decision, there was widespread confusion over which federal programmes and organisations would be impacted. The White House repeatedly sought to assuage concerns that Social Security payments and Medicaid access could be disrupted.

In a letter to the White House, top Democrats expressed “extreme alarm” about the plan to pause funding.

Also on Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order aimed at restricting gender care for young people.

The order, titled ‘Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation’, says it will prevent those aged under 19 from making “life-altering” choices.

“It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another,” the order says.

It is unclear, however, how the order would be implemented and it is likely to be challenged in court.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second presidential term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

The emergence of Chinese AI app DeepSeek has shocked financial markets, and prompted US President Donald Trump to describe it as “a wake-up call” for the US tech industry.

DeepSeek’s claim that its R1 artificial intelligence (AI) model was made at a fraction of the cost of its rivals has raised questions about the future about of the whole industry, and caused some the world’s biggest companies to sink in value.

DeepSeek has become the most downloaded free app in the US just a week after it was launched.

So how does it compare to its much more established and apparently much more expensive US rivals, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini?

When you ask ChatGPT what the most popular reasons to use ChatGPT are, it says that assisting people to write is one of them.

From gathering and summarising information in a helpful format to even writing blog posts on a topic, ChatGPT has become an AI companion for many across different workplaces.

As a proud Scottish football fan, I asked ChatGPT and DeepSeek to summarise the best Scottish football players ever, before asking the chatbots to “draft a blog post summarising the best Scottish football players in history”.

DeepSeek responded in seconds, with a top ten list – Kenny Dalglish of Liverpool and Celtic was number one. It helpfully summarised which position the players played in, their clubs, and a brief list of their achievements.

DeepSeek also detailed two non-Scottish players – Rangers legend Brian Laudrup, who is Danish, and Celtic hero Henrik Larsson. For the latter, it added “although Swedish, Larsson is often included in discussions of Scottish football legends due to his impact at Celtic”.

For its subsequent blog post, it did go into detail of Laudrup’s nationality before giving a succinct account of the careers of the players.

ChatGPT’s answer to the same question contained many of the same names, with “King Kenny” once again at the top of the list.

Its detailed blog post briefly and accurately went into the careers of all the players.

It concluded: “While the game has changed over the decades, the impact of these Scottish greats remains timeless.” Indeed.

For this fun test, DeepSeek was certainly comparable to its best-known US competitor.

The emergence of advanced AI models has made a difference to people who code.

When ChatGPT experienced an outage last week, X had a number of amusing posts from developers saying they couldn’t do their work without the faithful tool by their side.

How does DeepSeek compare here?

Javier Aguirre, an AI researcher at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, South Korea, specialises in researching in medicine and AI.

In a post on LinkedIn on Tuesday, he wrote: “I am quite impressed with Deepseek. While coding, we usually try to explode AI chatbots to the limit to see their capabilities in assisting with coding.

“Today I had a really tricky and complex problem. Even chatGPT o1 was not able to reason enough to solve it. I gave a try to Deepseek and it solved it at once and straight to the point.”

He also pointed out that for coders, the combination of models can lead to success. This was echoed by Addy Osmani, who is the Head of Chrome Developer Experience at Google.

In a post to his 208k followers on LinkedIn, he spoke about combining DeepSeek with US AI firm Anthropic’s tool Claude Sonnet. In 2023, Amazon invested $4bn into Anthropic.

Mr Osmani said: “Code with AI? DeepSeek R1 + Claude Sonnet may be the best new hybrid coding model. Yes, engineers are using them together.”

Mr Osmani also said DeepSeek was “significantly cheaper” to use than both Claude Sonnet and OpenAI’s o1 model.

What about brainstorming? I asked ChatGPT and DeepSeek to give me “ideas for a story for children about a boy who lives on the moon”.

ChatGPT responded in seconds with six neatly summarised ideas. One was about a boy called Max who worked as a postman on the moon and was sent on an adventure. Another was about Oliver, who was drawn by the sounds of a mysterious orchestra made up of aliens.

None of these stories are going to challenge Harry Potter or Roald Dahl any time soon, but it is a start for more refined ideas to flourish perhaps.

DeepSeek, on the other hand, responded with just one idea – “Luna and the Boy Who Chased the Stars”. Its response was 387 words (with no mention of anyone or thing called “Luna”), and comprised a story about a curious boy called Milo who lived on the moon.

It struck me that while ChatGPT gave me ideas, DeepSeek wrote a full story. It wasn’t particularly good, with a simple focus on a character going from A to B, but it was a start – and it was impressive how quickly it delivered it.

One of my memories from high school is my history teacher explaining to us how the First World War came about following a complex situation regarding many European powers, with the conflict finally sparked by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914.

How would the chatbots deal with explaining such a complex and nuanced piece of history? Pretty well.

ChatGPT gave a detailed account and outlined the key factors. DeepSeek’s account was not as detailed, but its brief overview did cover all the main points and events.

Google’s Gemini assistant gave a similar synopsis to ChatGPT and DeepSeek, and also gave the user the opportunity to click on links from reputable sources such as the Imperial War Museum in the UK.

As I saw on other tasks and prompts, DeepSeek was certainly comparable to its US competitors.

The tasks I set the chatbots were simple but they point to something much more significant – the winner of the so-called AI race is far from decided.

For all the vast resources US firms have poured into the tech, their Chinese rival has shown their achievements can be emulated.

Prof Neil Lawrence, DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at Department of Computer Science and Technology, at the University of Cambridge, said this was just the start.

“I think it’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the type of innovation we can expect in these models,” he said.

He highlighted an example from history – James Watt is synonymous with the steam engine, even though he improved it rather than invented it.

“There’s plenty of space for budding James Watts to emerge, and that they are less likely to come from established players,” he said.

Fourteen members of an Australian religious group have been convicted of killing an eight-year-old diabetic girl who was denied insulin for almost a week.

Elizabeth Struhs died at home in 2022, having suffered from diabetic ketoacidosis, which causes fatally high blood sugar.

The court heard that Elizabeth’s treatment was withheld because the group, known as the Saints, opposed medical care, believing God would heal her.

Her father Jason Struhs and the group’s leader Brendan Stevens were on trial for murder but were convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter. Twelve other members, including Elizabeth’s mother and brother, were also convicted of manslaughter. All had pleaded not guilty.

When handing down his almost 500-page verdict on Wednesday, Justice Martin Burns said that although it was clear Elizabeth’s parents and “every member of the church including all other accused” had adored her, their actions had resulted in her death.

“It cannot be doubted that Elizabeth was lovingly cared for in almost every way,” he said.

“However, due to a singular belief in the healing power of God… she was deprived of the one thing that would most definitely have kept her alive.”

The Saints are not affiliated with an established church in Australia and have roughly two dozen members from three families.

The judge-alone trial in the Supreme Court of Queensland began in July last year and lasted several months.

Prosecutors called 60 witnesses and painted a picture of an “intelligent” child who suffered greatly in her final days.

“She was described as speaking little, needing help going to the toilet, and being incontinent,” prosecutor Caroline Marco said, adding that the girl would have endured vomiting, extreme lethargy, and a loss of consciousness.

The congregation, meanwhile, had prayed and sung for Elizabeth, whose health deteriorated as she lay on a mattress at her home in Toowoomba, about 125km (78 miles) west of Brisbane.

No effort was made to call a doctor, and authorities were not notified until 36 hours after her death, as the group believed she could be brought back to life, the court heard.

The 14 defendants, aged between 22 and 67, represented themselves at trial, having all refused legal representation or to enter pleas. The court was required to enter not guilty pleas on their behalf.

Most had been charged because they had either counselled or aided her father in his decision to withhold Elizabeth’s insulin, the court heard.

Prosecutors said that Jason Struhs, 53, had converted to the church much later than his wife Kerrie Struhs, 49, and that he had previously supported giving Elizabeth medicine.

They argued he changed his mind after being baptised into the group and that ultimately he knew the decision would end his daughter’s life.

Speaking through tears when it was his turn to take the stand at trial, Jason Struhs said that he and Elizabeth had agreed to “stop the insulin” together, and that he still believed his daughter would be resurrected.

“Elizabeth is only sleeping, and I will see her again,” he told the court.

Stevens, 63, defended the group’s actions as faith-based and described the trial as an act of “religious persecution”.

He said that the group was within its “rights to believe in the word of God completely” and that their decision not to enter pleas was because the congregation had “no intention of fighting” the case by using law.

Elizabeth’s sister Jayde Struhs told the trial she had left the Saints and fled her family home at 16, after coming out as gay, and was now estranged from them.

She and other witnesses described the congregation as having increasingly strict views, including that mainstream healthcare should be shunned and that both Christmas and Easter were “pagan” or ungodly festivals.

The court also heard that Elizabeth’s life had been in danger in 2019 when she was admitted to hospital in a diabetic coma weighing just 15kg (2st 5lb), after having become too weak to walk.

She was then diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and her family was told she would need daily insulin injections.

Both parents were charged over that incident – however Jason Struhs testified against his wife and received a more lenient sentence.

At the time, he said his wife – who had been a member of the Saints for years – did not believe in providing their kids with medical treatment for religious reasons. He also openly expressed regret for having “let his daughter down”.

The court heard he later helped provide her with insulin for a period while his wife was in jail, but that he then faced pressure from other members of the religious group to stop doing so.

Giving his verdict, Justice Burns said that Jason Struhs and Stevens couldn’t be convicted of murder because prosecutors had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the pair had intended to kill or cause grievous bodily harm to Elizabeth.

But all 14 defendants were guilty of manslaughter, he ruled, because they were jointly involved in a crime that resulted in her death.

Jayde Struhs said that while she was pleased with the verdict, the “system had failed” her sister.

“We are only here today because more wasn’t done sooner to protect her or remove her from an incredibly unsafe situation in her own home,” she said in a statement outside court.

The group is expected to be sentenced next month.

Toowoomba has long had a “colourful array of sectarian Christian groups and independent churches of various kinds”, say Bernard Doherty, who studies new religious movements.

“The Saints appear to be one of these small independent churches which form around a few families,” he told the BBC, adding that little is known about the close-knit congregation.

Jayde Struhs said the Saints had attended the Revival Centres International church in Brisbane, but they broke away after Stevens failed to become a pastor there. They then formed their own parish and held sermons at his house multiple times a week, she said.

A US judge temporarily halted President Donald Trump’s order to freeze hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants and loans, minutes before it was set to come into effect on Tuesday.

Judge Loren AliKhan’s order to pause the plan until next Monday at 17:00 EST (22:00 GMT) came in response to a lawsuit filed earlier in the day by a group of organisations representing grant recipients.

The lawsuit claims the White House’s temporary freezing of already approved funding violates the law.

In the hours before the order was due to take effect, there was widespread confusion about which agencies and programmes would be impacted.

The acting head of the White House budget office had instructed agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all federal financial assistance”.

It said the move was intended to give the new administration time to assess what grants and loans were in step with their agenda.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s plan to pause billions of dollars in US government funding was about being “good stewards of tax dollars”.

Speaking to reporters in her first ever briefing, she said the pause in funding would allow governments to cut back spending for “woke” gender issues and diversity programmes.

But it prompted confusion, as well as anger from opposition figures, on Tuesday as those who receive federal loans and grants – such as non-profits and research organisations – reckoned with the reality of swiftly losing funding.

Judge AliKhan on Tuesday said she was issuing a brief stay that would “preserve the status quo” until she can hold an oral argument, now set for Monday morning.

The White House directive could have impacted billions of dollars meant for federal programmes, from disaster relief to cancer research.

In a post on X, Diane Yentel, the president of the National Council of Nonprofits, the organisation that brought the lawsuit, celebrated the ruling.

“Our lawsuit was successful – the US district court is blocking OMB (Office of Management and Budget) from moving forward on its reckless plan to halt federal funding,” she wrote.

In the lawsuit, her organisation wrote that Trump’s order seeks to “eradicate essentially all federal grant programs”.

It argues that Trump’s order is “devoid of any legal basis or the barest rationale” and will have ripple effects throughout the entire United States and beyond.

This is separate from an action by a coalition of Democratic states who filed a lawsuit later on Tuesday to block the order, calling it unconstitutional.

Stephen Miller, the White House’s deputy chief of staff, also defended the directive before the judge’s decision was announced, telling reporters that this would allow the government to get “credit control”.

“It does not impact any federal programmes that Americans rely on,” he said, answering a question about whether “Meals on Wheels” food delivery programme would be affected.

On Tuesday, several states reported issues accessing funds through Medicaid, a government health insurance programme for low-income people. The White House later said the programme would not be affected and that the problem would be resolved soon.

It also said Social Security benefits would not be affected, nor would any programme “that provides direct benefits to individuals”, including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps.

In a letter to the White House, top Democrats expressed “extreme alarm” about the plan to pause funding.

“The scope of what you are ordering is breathtaking, unprecedented, and will have devastating consequences across the country,” wrote Washington Senator Patty Murray and Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro.

Democratic minority leader of the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, said the move would cause missed payrolls and rent payments, and cause “chaos”.

Trump’s nominees for top health jobs agree that Americans need to lose weight, but they disagree on whether they should provide drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy to achieve that aim – especially when those medicines are quite so expensive.

As a weight management doctor, Mollie Cecil has seen first-hand how the latest weight-loss drugs help her patients.

She knows from personal experience, too. After a year on one medication, the West Virginia doctor lost 40 pounds. Her cholesterol and arthritis improved, allowing her to be more active with her young children.

“I just felt like a new person on them,” she said.

But she worried about the same obstacle facing many of her patients – losing insurance coverage – so she tapered off the drugs as a precaution.

It turned out she was right. Dr Cecil later learned her new non-profit insurance plan could not afford to cover the cost of the drugs.

She gradually gained back most of the weight she lost.

The latest class of weight-loss drugs – also known as GLP-1 agonists – are “the most potent weight-loss medications we have ever had”, Dr Cecil said.

“But when I can’t get them to [my patients], as a physician who really cares about taking care of people … it just feels helpless,” she said.

The new class of drugs – often not covered by private insurance – can cost $1,000 (£809) a month on average. Federal law bans Medicare from covering the drugs when used for weight loss, though they usually are covered when used to treat diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Only 13 states provide coverage under Medicaid for weight loss purposes.

To make them more accessible, then-President Joe Biden recently proposed that Medicare and Medicaid cover them, but now that will be up to President Donald Trump’s new administration.

Its weight-loss drug policy would fall to Trump’s pick for health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, and Mehmet Oz, Trump’s choice to lead Medicare and Medicaid services. But this could mean a potential clash: Kennedy is a vocal critic of the weight-loss drugs while Oz is an ardent advocate.

The Trump administration did not respond to a request for comment about how it would handle the Biden administration’s proposal for Medicare – federal insurance for those 65 and older – and Medicaid – government insurance for low-income people – to cover the drugs.

Trump’s future approach remains unclear, with several people in his inner circle holding contradictory views, said Jonathan Zhang, a professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.

“GLP-1, Ozempic, this is a drug that has so much patient demand,” Mr Zhang said. “It’s really taken on a life of its own on social media. So the Trump administration – or any administration – faces a tonne of pressure to do something about this in the near term.”

During his presidential run last year, Kennedy made tackling the obesity epidemic a central part of his platform. Over 100 million people in the US are obese, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

After dropping out and endorsing Trump, Kennedy launched his “Make America Healthy Again” initiative to reduce obesity by eliminating ultra-processed foods and additives, among other more controversial ideas.

But the 71-year-old has been outspoken about weight-loss drugs, telling Fox News in October: “They’re counting on selling [weight-loss medications] to Americans because we’re so stupid and so addicted to drugs.”

“If we just gave good food, three meals a day, to every man, woman and child in our country, we could solve the obesity and diabetes epidemic overnight,” Kennedy added.

Shortly after Trump chose Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), he announced that he selected Oz, a former TV show host and surgeon, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), an agency within HHS that administers the government health insurance.

As a television show host, Oz spent years promoting various weight-loss drugs, including more recently, GLP-1 drugs.

“For those who want to lose a few pounds, Ozempic and other semaglutide medications can be a big help,” Oz posted on Instagram in 2023. “We need to make it as easy as possible for people to meet their health goals, period.”

Another popular drug, Wegovy, also comes under the semaglutide category to which Oz was referring.

Decisions about Medicare and Medicaid drug coverage would likely involve leaders from both HHS and CMS, experts said.

Spokespeople for Oz and Kennedy did not respond to requests for comment about how they would handle the policy decision. Neither has been confirmed to their appointments yet.

The high price of GLP-1 drugs – which are patented, meaning cheaper copycat versions can’t be made – has led to a debate among insurance companies, said Benjamin Rome, a health policy researcher at Harvard Medical School.

The companies have to decide whether to raise insurance premiums, in general, to cover the costs, or to forgo coverage of GLP-1s altogether, he said.

Many have decided not to cover them. Others cut off coverage to patients once they lose weight and reach a body mass index (BMI) below the obesity range of 30 or higher, Dr Cecil said.

When Dr Cecil was on a GLP-1 using her previous insurance, she said she wouldn’t allow herself to lose as much weight as she wanted to avoid crossing the BMI threshold.

“They’ll cut off coverage, saying, ‘Well, you don’t need it anymore. You’ve lost weight.’ But of course, the reason they lost weight is because of the medicine,” she said.

Getting off anti-obesity drugs too quickly also can cause unpleasant withdrawal effects, and many gain back the weight.

Government insurance faces a similar cost predicament when it comes to covering the new weight-loss medications.

“Although there’s obviously a lot of interest in doing so to make these highly effective drugs more available to patients who need them, the cost of doing so would be enormous because so many people are eligible and because the prices are so high,” Dr Rome said.

When Biden officials issued the rule requiring Medicare and Medicaid to cover the anti-obesity medications, they did so after the election, knowing it would not be up to them to carry the policy out, said Mark Fendrick, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design.

The federal government said last year that it could cost about $25b for Medicare and $11b for Medicaid to provide the drugs over the next 10 years.

“How do we pay for that?” Dr Fendrick asked.

The Biden-era rule must go through a public comment period before the Trump administration ultimately decides whether to move forward with it, experts said.

Dr Cecil said the government and private insurance companies may remain hesitant to foot the bill for such expensive medications.

But she believes the savings that would come from tackling obesity for millions of Americans would greatly outweigh the short-term costs.

“Five to ten years is when we would really see a huge payoff, because that’s when we would really start to see trending downwards for some of these more serious long term complications,” Dr Cecil said.

“If everyone who needed the drugs could afford them and wanted to take them, it would be pretty game changing.”

Donald Trump’s “border tsar” has vehemently defended a drive to deport unlawful migrants after singer and actress Selena Gomez posted a tearful video saying: “All my people are being attacked, and children.”

The star, who has Mexican heritage, sobbed uncontrollably on camera, adding: “I wish I could do something but I can’t.” She captioned her video with “I’m sorry” alongside a Mexican flag emoji.

But Tom Homan, responding to Gomez and others with similar views, told Fox News: “If they don’t like it, then go to Congress and change the law. We’re going to do this operation without apology.”

Trump ordered a nationwide immigration crackdown after returning as president, with 956 arrests on Sunday, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Gomez deleted her original Instagram video but returned to social media to respond to her critics, writing: “Apparently it’s not OK to show empathy for people.”

She later also removed the follow-up message as well.

The Mexican government is preparing for thousands of deportees they expect to arrive from the United States in the coming weeks, with the “Remain in Mexico” policy from Trump’s first-term to be reinstated.

Homan, a veteran immigration official and ex-police officer, told Fox: “We’re going to make our community safer… It is all for the good of this nation. And we’re going to keep going. No apologies. We’re moving forward.”

He said they had only arrested “public security threats and national security threats, bottom line”.

Previously, Homan has repeatedly said that undocumented people caught up in raids of criminals who are without documentation, will be deported too.

In a second Fox interview, he questioned where Gomez’s tears were for sex trafficking victims.

“We got a half a million children who were sex trafficked into this country, separated from their families, put in the hands of criminal cartels to be smuggled into the country. This administration can’t find over 300,000. Where’s the tears for them?”

Many of Gomez’s fans defended her, as did rapper Flavor Flav, who posted on X: “Team Selena Gomez. Again. That woman is always so brave to share her truth, and so many are quick to bully her.”

But others, including Trump-supporting TV host Megyn Kelly, were not impressed.

“She deleted it after her fans taught her that the majority of the country stands behind these policies, but I’m sure she was shocked to get any blowback whatsoever,” she said on Monday’s episode of The Megyn Kelly Show.

Gomez hails from Texas and has more than 400 million Instagram followers.

In 2019, she fronted a Netflix documentary series called Living Undocumented, which followed eight immigrant families in the US.

She currently stars in hit Disney TV series Only Murders in the Building, and recently received a Bafta nomination for her role in musical film Emilia Perez, which leads this year’s Oscar race.