It comes amid a thaw in relations between the UK and Irish governments.

Earlier this month at a joint summit, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the administrations had “turned a page on the turbulent years” of Brexit, which strained relations with Dublin.

Speaking at Wednesday’s event he said that Northern Ireland was a place which was close to his heart and the Good Friday Agreement was the greatest achievement of The Labour Party in his lifetime.

Guests included TV presenter Dermot O’Leary, Olympic medallists Daniel Wiffen and Hannah Scott, Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Blu Hydrangea.

Dancers from Portstewart-based Innova Irish dance company performed for guests arriving at Downing Street.

O’Leary, whose parents are from Ireland, told Irish broadcaster RTÉ he had “never felt anything else but Irish”.

“It’s a very different upbringing, being brought up as Irish over here, or any second-generation identity,” he added.

The prime minister addressed those attending the event saying that it was a “chance to celebrate the incredible ties that bind us all together”.

Referring to the recent inaugural UK-Ireland Summit, the prime minister mentioned the event was “a real opportunity to make good on the reset of relations between the UK and Ireland with a real determination to take them forward with massive ambition”.

The prime minister said he had “personal connections to Northern Ireland”.

“I worked over there for five years, working with the Police Service of Northern Ireland on some of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement changes,” he told the crowd.

“Because I love Northern Ireland so much, soon after my wife Vic and I got married we flew over to Belfast, hired a car and drove around the entire island of Ireland.

“From Belfast, all the way around and then back out of Dublin for about three weeks. But we saw everything, but it was really, really fantastic to see, and a real big part of my life,” he added.

He also said he often wears his Donegal top when playing football which he got on his honeymoon but added that the taoiseach had given him an “upgraded” version .

Speaking about the Good Friday Agreement, he quoted Queen Elizabeth II’s words about “the ordinary people who yearned for the peace and understanding we now have between our two nations and between the communities”.

He said it was “worth remembering those words” and said it had been “an incredible piece of history that we have been living through”.

Here’s a glimpse of what we’ll be covering: 

Weather:Finally, we’ll wrap up with a weather forecast for the whole world.

Local News:We’ll start with the happenings in your town.

National News:We’ll then turn our attention to the major events unfolding across your country

International News:We’ll also provide updates on key international developments

Business News:We’ll have a segment dedicated to the latest business news and economic trends

Sports News:We’ll also be covering the latest sports news.

The show, by the well-known fashion brand Shivan & Narresh, was held last Friday at a ski resort in Gulmarg to display their skiwear collection. The label is the first big, non-local brand to hold a fashion show in Kashmir, a scenic Himalayan region which has seen decades of violence.

But it soon sparked outrage among locals, politicians and religious leaders in Muslim-majority Kashmir after fashion publisher Elle India posted a video on social media which showed some models wearing underwear or bikinis. Locals were also angry over another video – shared by online magazine Lifestyle Asia – of a party held after the show, which showed people drinking alcohol outdoors.

Many took offence with the show being held in the holy month of Ramadan – a time of fasting and prayer for Muslims – and accused the designers of “mocking their faith” and “disregarding local culture and sentiments”. Some clerics called the show “obscene” and said it was like “soft porn”.

Some others explained that the outrage had arisen not only from religious conservatism, but also from a fear of cultural imposition from “outsiders”. Kashmir has witnessed decades of armed separatist insurgency against Indian rule since the late 1980s.

The backlash prompted Elle India and Lifestyle Asia to delete their videos. Shivan Bhatiya and Narresh Kukreja, the designers behind the label, also apologised, saying that their “sole intention was to celebrate creativity” and that they didn’t intend to offend religious sentiments.

Kashmir – known as the land of saints and Sufism (Islamic mysticism) – has a rich tradition of spirituality which influences many aspects of peoples’ lives. The traditional attire is modest, with locals – both men and women – often wearing the pheran, a long, loose cloak.

The row also moved off social media and a discussion about the show and the after-party caused a ruckus in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly.

The opposition criticised the government, accusing it of giving permission for the event despite being aware of local sensitivities. Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah distanced his government from the event, saying it had been organised by private entities, and asking local authorities to investigate the matter and submit a report.

“If law has been violated, strict action will be taken,” he said in the assembly on Monday. The police have not yet given details about who organised the event and what laws, if any, have been violated.

The fashion brand did not respond to the BBC’s questions about the show, including about permissions it obtained.

It’s not surprising that scenic Gulmarg – one of India’s few skiing destinations and a favourite with tourists – was the choice of venue for a show highlighting a skiwear collection.

Fashion journalist Shefalee Vasudev says it’s not uncommon for designers to want to hold fashion shows in exquisite locations.

In fact, international designers like Alexander McQueen and Karl Lagerfeld are remembered as much for their creative, theatrical fashion shows as they are for their iconic designs.

But experimentation brings with it the risk of controversy and so, it’s important to be mindful of the political and cultural sensitivities of a place, Ms Vasudev told the BBC.

And this holds especially true in a place like Kashmir, which has witnessed wars and decades of armed conflict.

Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full but control it only in parts. Since India’s partition and the creation of Pakistan in 1947, the nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two wars over the territory.

Thousands of people have been killed since the late 1980s, when a separatist insurgency broke out against Indian rule. Though the separatist movement has lost steam over the years, many locals continue to view the administration in Delhi with distrust.

These sentiments have deepened since 2019 when the federal government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, stripped the region of its autonomy.

So some locals told the BBC that they were not surprised by the reactions to the show.

“Everything in Kashmir is political; people see things through a political prism,” says Mir, a professor at a local university (he asked for his surname to be withheld to protect his identity). He adds that people are sceptical about big corporate events like the fashion show and – even if they are organised by private players – they believe that the government is trying to dilute their culture.

Arshid Ahmad, a researcher, uses stronger words to express public angst. “The government is trying to dilute the spirit of resistance in Kashmiris,” he says.

This isn’t the first time an event held by non-locals has triggered a controversy in Kashmir. In 2013, separatists and human rights activists in the region protested against a show by renowned conductor Zubin Mehta. They said it was an attempt by the government to show the world that all was well in Kashmir when people were “suffering and dying”.

Some of the recent apprehensions around culture and identity can also be tied to the increase in tourists to Kashmir from other states in India. The federal government has often connected this boom in tourism to the abrogation of Article 370, which stripped the region of its autonomy.

Nousheen Fatima, 34, says because of government messaging, people outside Kashmir now see the region as being safer and “more assimilated with India”. But she alleges that many tourists do not respect the region’s culture.

Last year, a video showing tourists drinking alcohol during a boat ride on the famous Dal Lake in Srinagar evoked outrage from political and religious leaders, who called the behaviour “un-Islamic and unethical”.

In February, locals put up posters in Srinagar, asking tourists to “respect local culture and traditions” and “avoid alcohol and use of drugs”, but these were later pulled down by the police.

In an editorial for The Voice of Fashion magazine, Ms Vasudev argues that the outrage needs to be examined from a critical lens. She asks if it would have been all right for the show to have been held in another Indian city instead of Kashmir, where Muslims would also be observing Ramadan. And whether it would have been acceptable to hold the show in Kashmir if it featured only outfits perceived as modest.

She also points out that Kashmir is home to the “world’s finest wool yarn; some of the finest handspun, handwoven pashmina creations and its artisans”.

“What Kashmir creates and stands for cannot be replicated anywhere. Shouldn’t a fashion show at Gulmarg then, with innovative garments made with 100% wool, be seen as regenerating interest in untried ways?” she asks.

The blaze is said to have started around 03:00 (02:00 GMT) at the Pulse club in Kocani, a town around 100 km (60 miles) east of the capital, Skopje. Footage posted on social media shows the building engulfed in flames.

As many as 1,500 were said to have been attending a concert by the band DNK, a hip-hop duo popular in the country.

Interior Minister Pance Toskovski said that according to initial reports, the fire started from sparks caused by pyrotechnic devices.

He told reporters in front of the Kocani police station that sparks then hit the ceiling made of highly flammable material, before the fire spread through the club. He said some arrests had been made.

Footage shows the band playing on stage when two flares go off, sparks then catch on the ceiling before rapidly spreading.

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski wrote in a statement on Facebook that the government was “fully mobilised and will do everything necessary to deal with the consequences and determine the causes of this tragedy”

He called it “difficult and very sad day” for the country which has now lost “so many” young lives.

The hospital in Kocani initially reported 90 admissions, with many suffering severe burns. Some of the injured have since been transferred to hospitals in Skopje for further treatment.

On Wednesday, Thailand’s Supreme Administrative Court annulled a 50-year-old directive by the education ministry, which had previously set out rules on hairstyles for school students: short hair for boys and ear-length bobs for girls.

In practice, hairstyle rules have been gradually relaxed across many schools. But some still used the 1975 junta-issued directive as a guideline, and would cut the hair of students who didn’t adhere.

The 1975 directive violated individual freedoms protected by the constitution and was out of touch with today’s society, the court said.

The court decision this week came in response to a petition, filed by 23 public school students in 2020, which argued that the 1975 directive was unconstitutional.

Student activists have long campaigned for hairstyle rules to be relaxed, saying it infringes on their human dignity and personal freedom over their bodies.

One of them is Panthin Adulthananusak, who recently graduated from university.

“In the eyes of kids like us back then… even though it seemed impossible, we wanted to do something,” he told the BBC. “If no student in Thai history rose up to challenge the power of the adults that suppressed us, it would be a lifelong embarrassment.”

In response to such campaigns, the education ministry in 2020 allowed students to have longer hairstyles – but there remained some restrictions. Boys’ hair could not cover the nape of their necks, while girls with long hair had to tie it up.

Those regulations were revoked in 2023, with then education minister Trinuch Thienthong announcing that students, parents and school authorities should negotiate their own common ground on what is acceptable for hairstyles in their schools.

But through all these changes, some schools continued to follow the standard laid out in the original 1975 directive.

Schools have traditionally associated short hair with discipline and tidiness – an argument that has been repeated by many social media users this week. But in recent years reports of schools banning bangs or dyed hair have sparked public outcry across Thailand.

In some parts of the country, teachers are known to shoddily cut students’ hair during morning assembly to punish them for flouting hairstyle rules. Such practices have continued even as education authorities warned teachers against it.

In January, the Ministry of Education reiterated that it had repealed restrictions on hair length for all students, saying it recognised the “importance of promoting diversity and fairness in all aspects of education”.

Wednesday’s court decision, which also says that schools’ hairstyle rules should consider the freedom and dignity of students, reaffirms the official push to leave hair choices up to students themselves.

But Panthin said the revoking of the decades-old directive “still leaves a hole for schools to set their own rules”. In cases where schools have more conservative management, he suggested, restrictions could remain in place.

Nonetheless, Panthin said he “felt glad that what I had seen and fought all along was acknowledged and there was a tangible progress”.

“I hope this court’s ruling will set a new standard for the understanding about basic human rights at the school.”

The dish is found at the Erlong Funeral Home in the southwestern province of Guizhou.

The canteen caters to the funeral home’s customers, but as word began to spread about its noodles, hordes of diners – some posing as mourners – began showing up to try the food.

Erlong has since announced it will allow somemembers of the public to eat at its premises, as long as they donot disturb genuine mourners.

The funeral home offers various types of noodle dishes during breakfast and supper hours, which cost 10 yuan per bowl ($1.38; £1.09).

The most popular type is reportedly the noodles topped with minced pork and peanuts.

One Erlong worker told Jiupai News that they “only served customers who come to the funeral home to handle matters”.

But other people have been sneaking in to get a bowl of noodles, the worker said, adding that sometimes queues at Erlong are so long that diners sometimes have to wait a couple of hours to get their food.

“There have been people pretending to be relatives of the deceased, it’s hard to tell them apart when it gets crowded, and it’s hard to manage,” he said.

To meet the demand, the funeral home has since decided to offer 50 bowls of noodles to members of the public every day – for free – as long as “they do not affect people’s mourning”, according to Erlong’s chef in an interview with local media.

While the noodle dish was already popular among locals, the craze appeared to have ramped up earlier this month when a social media user posted about the dish while visiting a friend in Guizhou, which is known for its spicy and sour dishes.

“My friend says the food at this funeral home is so good,” they wrote earlier this month on Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote. “The queue for food is longer than the queue to lay flowers for the deceased.”

“I didn’t get to eat the noodles, because my friend’s mum didn’t know anyone who was holding a funeral service.”

Since then, many Chinese social media users have also shared their experiences eating the noodles.

On Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, one user shared a photo of the dining hall’s tickets, with what appeared to be a crowd queuing up for food.

“I heard the noodles here were very good,” they wrote. “I thought about how short life was, and got another bowl.”

It comes as Australia plans to implement a total social media ban for under-16s that is expected by the end of this year.

The country’s internet regulator, eSafety, found YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat were the most popular platforms used by young children.

The regulator accused the apps of “a lack of robust interventions” for checking the ages of their users.

The platforms which were examined for the study were Discord, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitch and YouTube.

Users of all of these platforms must be 13 and over to have an account, though there are some exceptions.

For example, YouTube has Family Link – when an account is accessible for children under the age of 13 under the supervision of a guardian – and the separate app YouTube Kids, which is specifically made for children.

In the report, usage of YouTube Kids was not included for this reason.

It has been reported that YouTube is likely to be spared from the social media ban when it comes into force.

“The findings of this report will be a helpful input to guide next steps,” said eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant.

Australia’s robust stance on social media for young people is being keenly watched by the rest of the world – including the UK which has not ruled out copying its ban for young users.

In its responses to the study, TikTok and Meta – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram – took the opportunity to criticise the Australian authorities over its stance on YouTube. “This report again shines a spotlight on the government’s decision to give an exclusive carve out to the most popular social media platform for young Australians from the under 16 ban,” said a TikTok spokesperson.

“Australian parents and guardians have a right to know what evidence, if any, supports the government’s decision.”

A Meta spokesperson said they believed the best way to ensure age verification was for a user’s real age to be determined when first using a device’s operating system and its app store, which would then be able to subsequently signal a user’s age to all the social media companies.

Researchers questioned over 1,500 children across Australia aged between eight and 15 about their usage of social media and messaging platforms.

They found 84% of the children aged between eight and 12 who were surveyed had used at least one social media or messaging service since the beginning of last year. Over half of them used it via the account of a parent or carer.

Staying with that age bracket, a third of the children who had used social media or messaging services had their own account, and 80% of them had help setting up their account/accounts from a parent or carer.

The study also found only 13% of children who had an account had them shut down by the social media companies or messaging services for being under the age of 13.

If you take YouTube out of the findings entirely, the report found 44% of children aged eight to 12 who were surveyed had used at least one other social media platform last year.

“These findings indicate there is inconsistency across industry regarding the steps taken to assess the age of end-users at various points in the user experience,” the report’s authors said.

“However, there is one thing they have in common: a lack of robust interventions at the point of account sign-up to a service to prevent someone under 13 from providing a false age or birthdate to set up an account.”

The regulator’s report also surveyed the platforms themselves, which were asked how they verify the ages of younger users.

Snapchat, TikTok, Twitch and YouTube told the authors they deployed tools and technology to detect whether a user may be under the age of 13 once they were using the service.

“Proactive tools and technologies may rely on a user actively engaging with a service (such as connecting with others, communicating with others, sharing and creating content) to detect relevant signals,” the report said.

“This may require time and engagement to detect a child under 13, and in that time the child may be exposed to risks and harms.”

“I make more in an hour going live, than a day spent in the shop,” she said.

A boom in online sales prompted Ms Mallows’ decision to close her flagship beauty store in Cardiff, instead selling her company’s body scrubs and skincare through TikTok’s live shopping stream.

But since the popularity of her products surged and hit the shelves in Superdrug and Boots, she is now pursuing her “dream” of opening a real-world shop once more.

Selling on TikTok requires a good product and a personality that attracts buyers to watch live as orders are packed on camera.

The social media platform, which plays host to more than 6,000 live shopping sessions every day, fulfills orders on behalf of sellers.

Anyone using the platform can access training and guides to help them join some of the 200,000 small and medium-sized businesses who are already there.

A small room, decorated for a TikTok audience, allows the team behind Mallows Beauty to sell products directly from their office in Llantrisant, south Wales.

“The progress has been wild,” said Ms Mallows.

It’s a process that also attracts instant feedback.

“People will definitely tell me if they think we’re doing something right or doing something wrong.

“And I think the big deal for me is that we’re just in this little office in Wales, and you don’t realise the impact.

“I’ll post videos thinking I’m just posting videos to my friends, and I don’t really think about it – not until you get recognized in New York, and people come up to you and ask for your selfies.

But despite so many people turning to this new way of buying, the UK’s high streets showed a surprising surge in shoppers last month.

Footfall increased by 6.6% in January compared to the same month in 2024, according to the British Retail Consortium.

It poses a dilemma for sellers like Ms Mallows, 33, who thrive online but also want a slice of real-world shoppers.

Ms Mallows is now once again focussed on opening her own shop.

While her business has boomed on TikTok, the platform has strict rules which prevent sellers from pointing to other platforms and some products are restricted.

Sellers say some words are banned and alluding to a personal website can lead to accounts being suspended.

The ambition to straddle both social media sales and the high street is being watched closely by the British Retail Consortium.

Its Welsh spokesperson, Sara Jones, said 2025 would be the year of “smart shopping” by consumers.

“We’re going to see both clicks and bricks,” she said, with “digital, online and in-store shopping experiences” being offered to shoppers.

“Those retailers that are going to do really well this year are going to be the ones that harness digital technology to encourage people back both to the high street, but alongside their online offering.”

Others are turning to platforms like TikTok shop to sell direct to customers after growth slowed through their existing online and high street outlets.

“It has doubled our sales,” said Shoned Owen, whose fake tan products Tanya Whitebits proved popular since she started selling them live online.

“I think people are craving live content. I attended a workshop in 2024 and it was predicted that live content was going to explode on TikTok during 2025.

“I thought, I’ve got to jump on this trend.”

As well as doubling her sales over the course of the year, Ms Owen said she had to “familiarise” herself with the rules of selling on TikTok.

There are “certain keywords you can’t use, you can’t direct them to your website or other sales channels”, she said, and “you can’t vape, you can’t smoke, there’s no nudity on TikTok”.

Ms Owen still sells through high street shops, and wants to recruit staff to help promote her online sales.

“My long term plan is that I’m looking at recruiting staff,” she said.

“Hopefully there will be employment opportunities for local people, because obviously they’ll have to be local to work in in the TikTok shop – and to do a live.”

TikTok said its live shopping was “like an extension of the brilliance of brick and mortar stores”.

“Through live shopping and shoppable content, TikTok shop allows their products to be discovered by millions and for them to create communities based on human connection in a way that no other online platform can,” said the head of TikTok Shop, Jan Wilk.

He said the platform had a “positive impact on the high street at large” as a “halo effect” often touched businesses who found that products trending on TikTok then became popular in high street stores.

Researchers who examined nine mummies found that though there was some difference in the intensity of their odours, all could be described as “woody”, “spicy” and “sweet”.

They say recreating the composition of the smells chemically will allow others to experience a mummy’s whiff – and help to tell when the bodies inside may be starting to rot.

“We want to share the experience we had smelling the mummified bodies, so we’re reconstructing the smell to be presented in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo,” Cecilia Bembibre, one of the researchers, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

During the mummification process, ancient Egyptians would surround the body with pleasant smells as an important part of preparing a spirit to enter the afterlife.

As a result, pharaohs and members of the nobility were adorned with oils, waxes and balms during the mummification process.

“In films and books, terrible things happen to those who smell mummified bodies,” said Dr Bembibre said.

“We were surprised at the pleasantness of them.”

The authors of the academic study, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on Thursday, had to get the smell from inside the sarcophagus without interfering with the mummy inside.

The researchers, from UCL and the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, did so by inserting a tiny tube so they were able measure the scent without taking any physical samples.

Dr Bembibre explained that heritage scientists are always trying to find “non-destructive” ways to discover new information.

Visitors who smell the scents in the museums will be able to experience ancient Egypt and the mummification process from a totally different perspective.

Ally Louks, an English literature supervisor at the University of Cambridge who wrote her PhD thesis on the politics of smell, described this as a “really innovative” way to communicate history.

“To engage your nose produces a strong emotional and physical reaction,” she told the BBC.

“We know smells were essential to social, religious and personal practises [in ancient Egypt],” Dr Louks said.

Matija Strlič, another member of the study team, told the Associated Press the scents may even suggest what social class a mummy was from.

“We believe that this approach is potentially of huge interest to other types of museum collections,” he said.

As well as providing museum-goers with a new sensory insight into mummies, the discovery also presents a potential breakthrough for mummy conservationists.

The researchers used a technique called gas chromatography to separate the different smells inside the sarcophagus that combined to make its scent.

They found odours relating to the break-down of animal fats used in the embalming process, which could indicate the body is beginning to decompose.

Because of these findings, it will be possible to “practically intervene” in the conservation of the mummies, identifying how best to store and wrap the bodies, the research paper said.

“This is useful for conservators who care for this collection [as] we can ensure it reaches future generations,” Dr Bembibre said.

An official from Reliance Retail, who did not wish to be named, told the BBC the firm has entered a long-term licensing deal with the parent company to sell products manufactured and sourced in India on the platform. The group has not yet made an official announcement.

Shein’s re-entry to the Indian market comes with strict terms, which include saving all data within the country, India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said in December.

In 2020 India banned Shein and dozens of other Chinese apps including TikTok.

It said this was in response to data security concerns and it followed a spike in tensions with China after clashes between the two countries’ armies in a disputed Himalayan border area.

The app was launched in India on Friday night and has so far been downloaded by more than 10,000 people. It is offering fashionwear for as little as 199 rupees ($2.30; £1.90).

Shein is currently delivering to consumers only in the cities of Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, but will soon offer services across India, according to a notification on the app.

Over the last decade, Shein has gone from a little-known brand among older shoppers to one of the biggest fast fashion retailers globally. Today, it ships to customers in 150 countries across the world.

Before the ban it became a big hit in India as it gave people a variety of options to buy trendy designs at an affordable price. The ban initially left a vacuum in the Indian market which was later filled by many local players.

Experts say that with Shein India, Reliance Retail – owned by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani – is diversifying from its existing strategy of selling international brands through its flagship Ajio online retailer.

The revival comes with strict conditions that give Reliance Retail full control over its operations and data while Shein will be a technological partner, Goyal told the Indian parliament in December.

All customer and application data will be stored in India and Shein will not have any access rights, he said.

Goyal also clarified that the app was banned in India, not the “sale of Shein-branded products”.

Shein will use India as a “supply source for its global operations” and will help Reliance Retail in “building the network” and training Indian garment manufacturers, as it aims to promote export of textile and garments from India, an official from Reliance Retail said.

Shein’s comeback under the deal with Reliance Retail is a rare exception to India’s ban on more than 200 Chinese apps over the last five years.

At the time, Indian officials said the ban followed many complaints against the apps for “stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorised manner”.

ByteDance’s TikTok and popular combat and survival game PlayerUnknown’s Battleground (PUBG) were also banned.

However PubG was later rebranded and launched for the Indian market under the name Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), which is held by Krafton India.