Porsche exits sports car maker Bugatti Rimac

South Korean police said on Tuesday they were investigating firms suspected of hoarding medical syringes, as the Middle East war hits supplies of an oil-derived component crucial for making many plastic goods.

The US-Israeli strikes on Iran and the virtual closure of the Strait of Hormuz have rattled deliveries of naphtha, a liquid essential for making a key ingredient in many medical supplies.

The disruption has particularly affected petrochemical sectors in Asia and forced governments to take action, with South Korea imposing a ban this month on hoarding syringes and needles to guard against shortages.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency told AFP on Tuesday that it "promptly began an investigation" into four medical device distributors suspected of violating the ban, following a complaint by the food and drug safety ministry.

The agency vowed to strengthen inspections across the supply chain to crack down on illicit behaviour.

Under the ban, companies must not hold more than 150 percent of last year's average monthly sales volume in syringes and needles for five days or longer, or refuse sales without a valid reason.

But some firms appear to be exploiting the supply crunch by stockpiling syringes and selling them at higher prices, according to the ministry.

One distributor was found to have held excess inventory of about 130,000 units for more than five days, it said.

More than half of South Korea's naphtha imports last year came via the Strait of Hormuz, according to the presidential office.

President Lee Jae Myung pledged in a social media post on Saturday to take the "strongest possible" action against "antisocial behaviour that exploits community crises to worsen them and profit from them".

Lee's chief of staff announced this month that South Korea had secured an additional 2.1 million tonnes of naphtha from countries including Saudi Arabia and Oman via routes that do not pass through the strait.

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Desmond Bane scored 22 points to lead the upstart Orlando Magic over top seed Detroit 94-88 on Monday, pushing the Pistons to the brink of NBA playoff elimination.

Franz Wagner scored 19 points for Orlando before being benched with a sore right calf while Paolo Banchero added 18 and grabbed eight rebounds.

The Magic seized a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference first-round series and can eliminate the Pistons on Wednesday in Detroit.

The Pistons, whose 60-22 record topped the East, must win three in a row to avoid an epic upset defeat at the hands of Orlando, which was eighth this season at 45-37.

Cade Cunningham led Detroit with 25 points while Tobias Harris added 20 for the Pistons, who committed 20 turnovers, twice as many as Orlando.

The Magic have not reached the second round of the playoffs since 2010, dropping six series in the first round and missing the post-season nine times.

The Pistons have not reached the second round since 2008, dropping four first-round matchups and missing the playoffs 13 times.

Orlando seized a 19-7 edge but then missed 13 shots in a row as Detroit closed the first quarter on a 20-7 run for a 27-26 lead.

The Magic closed the second quarter on a 17-6 run for a 54-52 halftime edge but Detroit stayed close into the fourth quarter.

Bane banked in a three-point shot with 1:16 remaining to give the Magic a 92-86 lead and Orlando added late free throws to seal Detroit's fate, the Pistons going more than five minutes without a basket from the floor.

In later games, the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder and the Minnesota Timberwolves will try to become the first teams to advance to the second round of the NBA playoffs.

The top-seeded Thunder, who boast the top scoring attack and defensive statistics in the NBA playoffs, have a 3-0 Western Conference series lead over Phoenix and hope to complete a sweep with a road victory.

The T-Wolves visit Denver with a 3-1 edge in their West matchup but will be without two top guards.

Anthony Edwards will miss at least a week with a bone bruise and hyper-extended left knee while Donte DiVincenzo will miss the remainder of the playoffs with a ruptured right Achilles tendon.

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Australia unveiled draft laws on Tuesday that would tax tech giants Meta, Google and TikTok unless they voluntarily strike deals to pay local outlets for news.

Traditional media companies around the world are in a battle for survival as readers increasingly consume their news on social media.

Australia wants big tech companies to compensate local publishers for sharing articles that drive traffic on their platforms.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said tech giants Meta, Google and TikTok would be given a chance to strike content deals with local news publishers. 

If they refused, they faced a compulsory levy that amounted to 2.25 percent of their Australian revenue, he said.

"Large digital platforms cannot avoid their obligations under the news media bargaining code," Albanese told reporters.

"At this point the three organisations are Meta, Google and TikTok."

The three firms were singled out based on a combination of their Australian revenues and large numbers of domestic users. 

Meta, Google and TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The draft laws have been designed to stop the tech giants from simply stripping news from their platforms -- something Meta and Google have done in the past.

"What we are encouraging is for them to sit down with news organisations and get these deals done," Albanese said. 

When Canberra mooted similar laws in 2024, Facebook parent Meta announced that Australian users would no longer be able to access the "news" tab. 

Meta had previously announced it would not renew content deals with news publishers in the United States, Britain, France and Germany.

- 'Only fair' -

Google has similarly threatened to restrict its search engine in Australia if forced to compensate news outlets. 

Journalism needed to have a "monetary value attached to it", Albanese said. 

"It shouldn't be able to be taken by a large multinational corporation and used to generate profits with no compensation."

Supporters of such laws argue that social media companies attract users with news stories and hoover up online advertising dollars that would otherwise go to struggling newsrooms.

Australia's University of Canberra has found that more than half the country uses social media as a source of news.

"People are increasingly getting their news directly from Facebook, from TikTok and Google," Communications Minister Anika Wells said.

"We believe it's only fair that large digital platforms contribute to the hard work that enriches their feeds and that drives their revenue."

The draft laws were presented for public consultation on Tuesday, which will close in May. 

They would then be introduced into parliament later this year. 

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Tigers are so feared in Bangladesh's vast Sundarban mangroves that locals invoke spirits to protect against them. But experts say it is the big cats themselves that need defending.

Abdul Goni Gazi was among the first to raise the alarm for the creatures struggling to grow their numbers under pressure from habitat loss, poaching and climate change.

Known locally as "Goni Tiger", the 45-year-old devoted his life to promoting coexistence between the big cats and the people living on the forest's edge.

Despite the danger, this activist claims to have saved 36 Bengal tigers from guns or traps -- and 106 local residents from the animals' jaws.

He has pulled furious villagers back from the brink of killing tigers -- and, in some cases, dragged home the dismembered bodies of others.

"If we want the Sundarbans and the thousands of people dependent on it to survive, we need the Bengal tigers," he said.

Stretching 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 square miles) across sprawling mangrove forests and tidal rivers, the UNESCO-listed World Heritage site straddles both Bangladesh and India.

Tigers eat grazing animals in the forest, which has the knock-on effect of allowing mangroves to grow and thus help protect coastlines from erosion and storms.

"If a tiger is killed in the Sundarbans, it creates a turmoil in the ecosystem," said Mohammad Abdul Aziz, a zoology expert at Bangladesh's Jahangirnagar University.

The creatures' power is also deeply embedded in people's culture, prompting them to seek the blessings of dozens of spirits before entering the forest.

"If someone chants the name of Mother Bonbibi, she will save his life from tigers, snakes, and crocodiles," said villager Ashutosh Mandal, 63, referring to a deity whose idol is worshipped at temples.

A blend of Islamic and Hindu beliefs has long served as a conservation code, with supernatural guardians believed to punish anyone who plunders the forest for greed.

- 'Safeguard the ecosystem' -

"If the Sundarbans had 400-500 tigers, they themselves would safeguard the ecosystem -- without the need for human intervention," Goni told AFP.

The South Asian nation of 170 million people pledged in 2010 to double its tiger population, then placed at 414.

But a more rigorous camera-trap census in 2015 revised the population down to 106, followed by counts of 114 in 2018, and 125 in 2024 -- a rise of roughly two tigers per year.

The slow growth has drawn scrutiny over the effectiveness of the nation's conservation efforts, including the latest $4.2 million tiger project.

Chief Conservator of Forests Amir Hossain Chowdhury said habitat loss remains the core challenge.

Rising sea levels and surging tides from increasingly powerful storms -- resulting in an increase in soil salinity -- have degraded agricultural lands, pushing people into tiger territory.

"Human encroachment has pushed (the Sundarbans tigers) into a corner, creating conditions that are not suitable for most species, let alone tigers," Chowdhury said.

Storms, rising tides, and shifting water systems have widened some rivers beyond what tigers can swim, limiting their range.

Chowdhury said earth mounds have been built to provide refuge for tigers and other animals during highwater.

- 'Kill tigers on demand' -

Tigers also face other, more direct threats.

Poachers and villagers still kill tigers, undeterred by penalties of a 12-year jail term or $15,000 fine.

"Sometimes they kill tigers on demand -- from home and abroad," said wildlife trafficking expert Nasir Uddin. 

"And sometimes they do it for their own safety, so that tigers cannot attack them, when they anchor their boats near forest canals."

Some of the armed bandits who prowl the forests have even used freshwater ponds dug to help the tigers as a trap.

"Poachers sometimes lure thirsty animals there by placing poisoned bait," Chowdhury said.

Several people are arrested every year selling or buying tiger hides, teeth, claws and bones, prized in traditional Chinese medicine.

Tiger parts are smuggled to India, Myanmar, China, Malaysia, and even further to buyers in Australia, Britain and Germany, Uddin said.

The hunting of their favourite prey also threatens the future of the tigers -- especially that of deer, which make up 80 percent of their diet. 

A 2013 study estimated that 11,000 deer are killed illegally every year for meat.

"Killing spotted deer indiscriminately creates food insecurity... and can push tigers into human settlements, leading to attacks on villagers," Aziz, the zoology professor, said.

But despite the challenges, Abishek Harihar from wild cat conservation organisation Panthera said there is "hope for the species" globally.

"Conservation efforts since the 1970s have prevented a tremendous collapse of tiger numbers," he said, saying that had "possibly placed the species on a trajectory of recovery and long-term survival."

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A full-size replica of a Spanish galleon stares out into Manila Bay, the centrepiece of a museum that will transport visitors back to the 17th century, when conscripted Philippine mariners hastened the era of globalisation.

The Museo del Galeon, which focuses on the hulking Espiritu Santo, aims to tell the story of Spain's 250-year-long Pacific galleon trade from the perspective of the Filipinos who built and crewed the towering vessels.

"This is a land with a great tradition of seafaring, but often under inhumane and degrading conditions," the museum's executive director Manuel Quezon told AFP, noting Filipinos still make up a quarter of the world's sailors.

"And it is one that we don't flinch from telling."

Built with forced labour in 1603, the Espiritu Santo was one of 181 treasure ships that made hundreds of trips between Manila and the Mexican port of Acapulco between 1565 and 1815 under harrowing conditions that historians say killed one in three crewmen.

"It was the first global trade, connecting three continents," said Francis Navarro, director of archives at the Ateneo de Manila University.

"It made the world smaller."

- Ravaged forests, families -

Sailing west across the Pacific for three months, the ships brought silver coins from Spain's American colonies to Manila, where they would be exchanged for luxury goods like silk, porcelain and jade from China.

The return voyage lasted as long as a year, with cargo then transported across Mexico by mule before heading to Spain, completing a trade loop between the old and new worlds.

The galleons brought more than silver to the Philippines. They brought ideas, disease, food, religion, fashion and more -- the things that "made us who we are", Quezon said.

The colonial trade also ravaged the archipelago's forests and wrecked communities, with able-bodied men required to offer 40 days of unpaid service to fell trees and build ships under Spanish foremen.

Others were forced into service as sailors for up to 10 years at a time.

Cramped inside vessels overladen with precious cargo, crewmembers subsisted on a miserable diet of hardtack, an unleavened bread, and salted meat and fish that routinely spoiled and left many gravely ill.

"You had an astounding mortality rate of about 30 percent per voyage," Quezon said.

Deadly rebellions were sparked in some areas where galleons were built, Navarro added, including on the Cavite coast along Manila Bay.

The multi-continent trade would only end with Mexico's fight for independence from Spain.

- 'Filling in the blanks' -

Fourteen years after its conception, museumgoers will starting May 1 be able to walk the replica ship's decks, immersed in a giant, wrap-around LED display of star-studded night skies.

Artefacts from voyages line exhibits surrounding the vessel, including part of a Chinese tomb that once served as ballast in the hold of a galleon.

"We're filling the blanks in with this museum," Quezon told AFP on a tour ahead of its opening. 

"The child who comes through, we want them to realise that many of the things that they take for granted have absolutely amazing stories behind them."

Funding for the "billion-peso" ($16.5 million) project came from the Philippines' wealthiest families after bids to secure financing from the government and a Mexican billionaire faltered.

But while the Espiritu Santo is a physical marvel, it will never set sail.

Early in the process, Quezon, a historian and grandson of a former Philippine president, learned to his dismay that the local hardwood and water-resistant species used to build the galleons had long been wiped out.

A wooden galleon of Espiritu Santo's size would have required 800 trees that could now only be found in the forests of Myanmar, said Quezon.

While the museum representation is scrupulously faithful to what is known of the original vessel's design and dimensions, it was built largely with fibreglass and other man-made materials.

"In those days, you would have levelled entire forests just to be able to produce a single galleon," he said.

"That would have been irresponsible, particularly because it wasn't meant to float."

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Oil prices edged up and stocks wavered Tuesday as Donald Trump weighed an Iranian proposal that would reportedly re-open the Strait of Hormuz and end the eight-week-old war.

Investors were also gearing up for key central bank meetings and earnings reports from Wall Street giants this week.

Tehran was reported to have passed "written messages" to Washington via Pakistan spelling out its red lines in peace talks, including on its nuclear programme and the future of the crucial waterway.

The White House said the US president and his met Monday to discuss the offer but spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt refused to say if Trump would accept the proposal.

Iran's proposed interim deal is said to see it reopen the Strait of Hormuz -- through which a fifth of oil and LNG usually flows -- in exchange for Washington ending its blockade of Iranian ports.

The plan also postpones more complex negotiations over its nuclear programme, a major sticking point for Trump.

Hopes for a deal had been rising going into last weekend but Trump dashed them on Saturday by scrapping a planned trip by his envoys  Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Islamabad.

Iran's envoy to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani told a Security Council session the country would first need guarantees Washington and Israel would not attack again if it was to offer security assurances in the Gulf.

But Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran's stance on the Strait of Hormuz did not meet US demands.

"If what they mean by opening the straits is, 'yes, the straits are open as long as you coordinate with Iran, get our permission or we'll blow you up and you pay us,' that's not opening the straits," Rubio told Fox News.

Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin told Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi that Russia would do everything it could to halt the Middle East war, as the two met in Saint Petersburg.

Oil prices extended gains Tuesday, with Brent heading back towards $110 a barrel, while stock markets struggled.

Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Sydney led losses, though there were gains in Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and Jakarta.

That came after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq once again hit record highs in New York. 

IG analyst Tony Sycamore pointed out that Tehran could be more willing to strike a deal soon as its ageing storage facilities were expected to hit maximum capacity this week.

He added that "if forced shut‑ins follow, Tehran risks irreversible long‑term damage to its reservoirs and a serious hit to future production and revenue streams".

However he said that while Iran's latest offer was a positive, "it is hard to see the US accepting anything less than a comprehensive deal that both opens the Strait of Hormuz and addresses Iran’s nuclear weapons programme".

Focus is also on a host of central bank meetings this week, with the Bank of Japan seen holding pat on interest rates later Tuesday.

The Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of England are expected to follow suit amid growing concerns about a fresh spike in inflation caused by the surge in energy costs.

Tech giants Apple Meta Platforms and Microsoft are also due to report, as are older industrial companies including Ford and ExxonMobil.

- Key figures at 0230 GMT -

West Texas Intermediate: UP 1.0 percent at $97.32 a barrel

Brent North Sea Crude: UP 1.0 percent at $109.27 a barrel

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.5 percent at 60,238.21 (break)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.3 percent at 25,851.82

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.2 percent at 4,079.78

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1718 from $1.1722 

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3531 from $1.3534

Dollar/yen: UP at 159.50 yen from 159.39 yen

Euro/pound: DOWN at 86.60 pence from 86.61 pence

New York - Dow: DOWN 0.1 percent at 49,167.79 (close)

London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.6 percent at 10,321.09 (close)

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Members of the armed forces and the police may put their lives on the line for their country but even they have their mental and physical limits and often it is horses, not humans, who can provide salvation.

Former Royal Air Force reservist John Lewis contemplated suicide, serving police officer Nick Morton had a mental health breakdown and ex- military intelligence operative Al Strudwick lost his self-confidence after having both his legs amputated because of sepsis.

All three shared a fear of horses, but it was to be the animals and not the therapists who would bring the trio back from the depths of despair after being put in touch with British charity Warrior Equine.

Such has been Warrior Equine's success that it has been selected as the charity for the prestigious Royal Windsor Horse Show, which takes place on May 14-17.

Morton had over 20 years of experience, but the accumulation of dealing with traumatic incidents, such as child murders, took its toll. 

"We are sometimes seen as that knight in shining armour, unflappable," he told AFP.

"But actually we're human beings. Same as our military colleagues are, we're all humans. 

"We weren't born police officers or soldiers," added Morton.

- 'Overwhelmingly controlling' -

To keep costs at a minimum Warrior Equine, which was founded in 2019, has no permanent facilities or horses and uses both civilian equestrian centres and military horses for their three-day courses, of which between six and eight are held annually.

Warrior Equine was the brainchild of Ele Milwright, though she and equine instructor Jim Goddard had been working with veterans for several years before that.

As the wife of an RAF officer, Milwright had an inkling of how troubled some service personnel were after tours of duty.

"I did notice a lot of our friends and colleagues were coming back a little bit quirky," she said.

"You couldn't quite put your finger on it, but they came back and it was different.

"Nobody told you what to do about it. It was the elephant in the room. 

"So three things, understanding the value of horses, understanding how horses think, their psychology, and my commitment to help people with a military background or those who serve, all came together." 

The work involves the attendee leading the horse into a pen and using body language and energy to encourage the horse to move and interact.

As the attendees practise emotional self-regulation techniques, such as softening their body language, slowing their breathing and lowering their heart rate, they will aim to achieve a calm but focused state, which the horse will find safe to be around.

Lewis said the experience rescued him from the darkest of places.

The father of two had contemplated suicide after he suffered multiple fractures and spent months in hospital when a school bus squashed him between it and his vehicle.

"That vulnerability became exacerbated every time I was away from my family and my kids," he said.

"It became so overwhelmingly controlling. Even if I went into a supermarket to buy a loaf of bread and there wasn't any bread on the shelf, that was me failing to be able to protect them.

"Then I would get into conflict in the supermarket just because there wasn't bread on the shelf."

- 'Quite comical' -

Lewis had tried several types of therapy and was so sceptical about Warrior Equine he turned back three times on his way to attend a course.

However, he eventually realised "I had to give this a go because ultimately, I was going to leave my kids with no dad."

It proved to be a cathartic moment.

"The point where the horse can detect that you're in control of those stress emotions going on inside you, they will, of their own free will, walk over to you and follow you around with no lead," said Lewis.

"They'll sit on your shoulder in this amazing way. And the way it's been described to us, and you can really see it, is that they just want to sit there and trust you."

Lewis says it has transformed his life and rid him of the excessive controlling behaviour.

"That dark tunnel doesn't even stare me in the face," he said.

"I know it's there. But I'm able to turn my back on it every single time."

Such has been the positive impact on Strudwick's self-confidence he climbed the Pen y Fan mountain in Wales -- part of the test for candidates for the British SAS special forces -- in a wheelchair.

"It made me realise how far I had come, from lying in a hospital bed for 50 nights, and being released with shot-away kidneys and a slowly recovering liver, to climbing a mountain," he said.

Despite the double amputation, Strudwick is blessed with self-deprecatory humour -- his forthcoming book is titled "Finding My Feet Again" -- as is his wife.

Shedding his prosthetic legs on a crowded beach in Cornwall, he went swimming with her.

"My little stumps kept sticking out of the water, which was quite comical," he said.

"My wife joked when we were about to get out of the water that I should crawl up the beach screaming 'shark!' and see people's reaction to it."

He resisted.

"It would have traumatised the youngsters!"

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More than 50 governments meet in Colombia on Tuesday against the backdrop of the Iran war and a global energy crunch for the first international talks on phasing out planet-heating fossil fuels.

Ministers and climate envoys aim to revive the transition from fossil fuels at the inaugural conference in Santa Marta, one of the country's busiest coal hubs in a nation heavily reliant on energy exports.

The two-day conference bypasses the United Nations climate talks and reflects a growing impatience with its failure to tackle fossil fuels, the main driver of global warming.

"People seem refreshed to be able to talk about these issues without having to sort of argue the existential question of -- do we need to do this at all?" the UK's special climate envoy Rachel Kyte told AFP in Santa Marta on Monday.

As government delegates arrived Monday, climate activists and Indigenous groups protested against fossil fuels on the streets and beaches of the Caribbean port town where coal tankers dot the ocean horizon.

The conference is not expected to produce binding commitments but a scientific panel has asked governments taking part to consider a halt on new fossil fuel expansion, among other proposals.

On the list of attendees are major fossil fuel producers Canada, Norway and Australia and developing oil giants Nigeria, Angola and Brazil.

They join major energy consuming nations in the European Union, coal-reliant emerging markets Turkey and Vietnam, and small island nation states extremely vulnerable to climate shocks.  

The world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases -- including the United States, China and India -- are not attending, nor are oil-rich Gulf states.

- 'Good faith' -

The conference was announced late last year but organizers say the US-Israel attacks on Iran had bolstered the case for a fossil fuel phaseout as nations confronted a sudden shortage of oil and gas.

"Fossil fuels are now clearly to be seen as a source of instability," Kyte told AFP in an interview.  

Many nations "are here in good faith to really work through what is a very complex challenge made more urgent by the crisis," she added.

This includes developing nations highly dependent on fossil fuel revenue like Colombia, which is co-hosting the conference with the Netherlands. 

Among other agenda items, nations will consider how to equitably reduce fossil fuel production and consumption, and reforming subsidies that throw up barriers to renewable energy investment.

Analysis by the International Institute for Sustainable Development on Monday showed that governments still spent five times more public money on fossil fuels than renewable alternatives.

- 'Fossil fuel ban' -

On Sunday, a scientific panel released a 12-point "menu" of policy options that included "halting all new and expanding fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure projects."

"Without a doubt, there is no justification whatsoever for any new exploration of fossil fuels," the Brazilian scientist Carlos Nobre, a former member of the UN's climate advisory panel, told AFP in Santa Marta.

Even as record amounts of investment flows into renewable energy, scientists warn the pace is still too slow to keep global temperature rises to safer levels.

"Even if we carried out no new exploration, the amount of fossil fuels -- oil, coal, and natural gas -- that already exists will push temperatures up to two and a half degrees by 2050," Nobre said. 

The world has already warmed about 1.4C above pre-industrial times and is tracking to blow past 1.5C in a matter of years. 

Above that threshold, scientists warn that coral reefs and Greenland ice sheets could disappear, among other catastrophic and irreversible impacts.

np-app/sla

Los Angeles Lakers guards Marcus Smart and Luke Kennard were fined by the NBA on Monday for criticism of officiating following a playoff loss at Houston, the league announced.

Smart was fined $35,000 for questioning the integrity of game officials. Smart complained to referee James Williams about unnecessary ejections.

Kennard was fined $25,000 for directing inappropriate language toward referees.

Both incidents took place in the moments after Houston's 115-96 triumph over the Lakers on Sunday, which lifted the Rockets within 3-1 in the best-of-seven Western Conference first round playoff series.

The Lakers can advance to the second round with a home victory over the Rockets on Wednesday.

The Rockets avoided a sweep but must win on Wednesday to force a sixth game on Friday at Houston.

A winner-take-all seventh game, if needed, would be played on Sunday in Los Angeles.

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Britain's King Charles III will receive a full ceremonial welcome from Donald Trump at the White House and make a rare address to Congress on Tuesday as he seeks to mend a transatlantic rift over the Iran war.

On the second day of a four-day state visit, Charles is expected to call in his speech for "reconciliation and renewal," with the so-called special relationship between Washington and London under strain.

Much of the day will be given over to pomp and ceremony, with King Charles and Queen Camilla receiving a traditional arrival ceremony that's expected to feature a 21-gun salute and an inspection of troops.

The US leader and First Lady Melania Trump will then host the royals in the Oval Office behind closed doors. In the evening they will return to the White House for a grand state dinner.

The first day of the trip featured a more informal welcome, with the Trumps treating Charles and Camilla to tea and cakes in the White House before showing them beehives on the famed lawn.

In a symbolic moment just two days after a shooting at a gala dinner attended by Trump, the US president showed off a painting of the assassination attempt he narrowly escaped in 2024.

The royals then attended a garden party at the British embassy, with cucumber sandwiches and scones on the menu.

But the second day will feature perhaps the most public-facing moment, when Charles becomes the first British monarch to address Congress since his mother, queen Elizabeth, in 1991.

It comes at a hugely delicate moment, with Britain trying to repair ties after Trump raged over London's refusal to help with his war in Iran.

- 'Liberty and equality' -

In the 20-minute speech, Charles is expected to appeal to Trump in guarded terms, saying that defending common democratic ideals is "crucial for liberty and equality" in a time of international challenges.

The king will also stress the importance of the long-standing US-UK alliance, in a visit which marks the 250th anniversary of US independence from its British ancestors.

"Time and again, our two countries have always found ways to come together," he is expected to say.

Charles, 77, will stress "reconciliation and renewal" over the past 250 years that has given rise to "one of the greatest alliances in human history."

Charles is also expected to give a shorter speech at the state dinner in the White House. 

It is expected to be held in the State Dining Room -- whose small size prompted Trump to start construction on a massive and controversial $400 million ballroom.

The UK government is hoping to capitalize on Trump's fascination with the royals. His mother hailed from Scotland and Trump received a gala state visit to Britain last year.

But it will have its work cut out to placate the mercurial Republican.

Trump has repeatedly lambasted British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his war opposition, alongside his government's immigration and energy policies.

Starmer has publicly criticized the war, but defended the state visit. An early April YouGov poll found 48 percent of Britons supported cancelling it.

The royals will visit New York on Wednesday, touring the 9/11 memorial, before departing Thursday for Bermuda.

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