“Relieved is an understatement”.

That’s how one senior government figure described their mood as the prime minister, his foreign secretary and the Number 10 team left the White House having cemented Sir Keir and President Trump’s personal relationship; secured a commitment to NATO; the prospect of a trade deal that could spare the UK from tariffs and the presidential nod on the Chagos deal.

That gives you a sense of just how much was at stake going into talks with a president that has heaped criticism on many old allies in recent weeks.

That the Starmer-Trump meeting went as well as it did is proof, say those around the prime minister, of how much legwork and meticulous planning has gone into pulling it off.

The work began in opposition with Keir Starmer calling President Trump after the assassination attempt, while his foreign secretary courted vice president JD Vance.

There was the dinner in Trump Tower in September and, ever since then a prime minister who has swerved any personal or public criticism of the president.

When the visit was confirmed, the Number 10 team war-gamed all the possibilities with the prime minister, I’m told, going through all the detail and planning with aides to “make the most of the visit”.

They came out feeling that all the pieces fell into place with wins for the UK on trade and a “special” Keir Starmer coming through talks with President Trump that you could have a positive relationship with President Trump.

There were a few factors that helped the prime minister.

The first was the president’s genuine love for the UK and Sir Keir’s team’s understanding that President Trump is driven by personal relationships.

Get that right and much of the rest falls into place, say those who have seen him up close.

Sir Keir Starmer, the ponderous lawyer, has I’m told also built a genuinely warm relationship with President Trump: “They genuinely like each other and find each other easy to speak to,” is how one observer put it.

Then came the deployment of soft power.

I was in the Oval Office when the prime minister procured a personal letter from his jacket pocket from the King inviting President Trump for a second state visit.

Mr Trump was genuinely delighted as he read the letter, marvelled at King Charles’s signature and pointed out that this was the first time in history that anyone had been afforded such an “incredible” honour.

The prime minister also brought something to the table for a president that loves a deal.

The decision to lift defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 went down extremely well on Capitol Hill with Republicans and signalled to President Trump that the UK was an ally that had heeded his message on defence spending.

There were wins too.

Keir Starmer’s deal to transfer sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, where the US has a critical military base, to Mauritius, was backed by President Trump, a hugely welcome moment for a PM who has been heavily criticised about the deal back home.

And when I asked the president about his sharp remarks on EU tariffs – he said the union had been constructed to “screw” the US on trade – he told me he’d been having problems with the EU bit was in a “very different place” with the UK.

“I have a great warm spot for your country,” President Trump told me before the talks.

Afterwards, he told reporters at the press conference in the East Wing of the White House that there was a “very good chance” of a trade deal in which tariffs were not necessary.

Of course, there is a long way to go, but against a backdrop of a president threatening tariffs on a number of countries, that was a big win for the PM.

But if going out of this short visit was a story of trade, going into it was a focus on security guarantees for Ukraine.

Sir Keir said securing a backstop for European peacekeepers in Ukraine is the only way to contain President Putin.

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On this, President Trump was rather more noncommittal, stressing that the priority was to do the deal first and that the mineral agreement he is poised to sign with President Zelenskyy on Friday should be deterrent enough.

On Sunday, the PM will host 18 leaders in London to discuss what to do next.

Ultimately, Europe will need to know that the US has its back on Ukraine – the PM didn’t come away from the Trump meeting assured of that yet.

Although, the message for more NATO investment was heard loud and clear again, with an expectation from the British camp that more commitment on defence spending from Europe will be required by President Trump as part of any backstop deal.

What is clear coming out of this meeting is that Sir Keir and the UK could genuinely become the bridge between the US and Europe as the deteriorating relationship between Brussels and Washington offers Sir Keir the opportunity to take the centre stage.

After a bumpy start to his premiership, the prime minister has found in his endeavour on Ukraine, a means to show leadership – and perhaps a way to win doubtful voters back around.

He has managed to find a way with President Trump. Sunday’s summit is his next test as he brings together President Zelenskyy with fellow European leaders to try to hammer out a plan to support any peace deal.

Starmer was an unlikely war footing leader.

But he is finding a way.

Mexico has sent 29 drug cartel figures, including a most wanted drug lord, to the US as the Trump administration cranks up the pressure on the crime groups.

The early days of the new US president’s second term were marked by him triggering trade wars with his nearest allies, where he threatened to hike tariffs with Mexico, and Canada, insisting the country crack down on drug cartels, immigration and the production of fentanyl.

With the imposition of the 25% tariffs just days away, drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, one of the FBI’s “10 most wanted fugitives”, was one of the individuals handed over in the unprecedented show of cooperation.

It comes as top Mexican officials are in Washington ahead of Tuesday’s deadline.

Those sent to the US on Thursday were rounded up from prisons across Mexico and flown to eight US cities, according to the Mexican government.

Prosecutors from both countries said the prisoners sent to the US faced charges including drug trafficking and homicide.

“We will prosecute these criminals to the fullest extent of the law in honour of the brave law enforcement agents who have dedicated their careers – and in some cases, given their lives – to protect innocent people from the scourge of violent cartels,” US attorney general Pamela Bondi said in a statement.

‘Cartel kingpin’

Quintero was convicted of the torture and murder of US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena in 1985.

The murder marked a low point in US-Mexico relations.

Quintero was described by the US attorney general as “a cartel kingpin who unleashed violence, destruction, and death across the United States and Mexico”.

After decades in jail, and atop the FBI’s most wanted list, he walked free in 2013 when a court overturned his 40-year sentence for killing Mr Camarena.

Quintero, the former leader of the Guadalajara cartel, returned to drug trafficking and triggered bloody turf battles in the northern Mexico state of Sonora until he was arrested a second time in 2022.

The US sought his extradition shortly after, but the request remained stuck at Mexico’s foreign ministry for reasons unknown.

President Claudia Sheinbaum’s predecessor and political mentor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador severely curtailed Mexican cooperation with the DEA to protest undercover US operations in Mexico targeting senior political and military officials.

‘The Lord of The Skies’

Also sent to the US were cartel leaders, security chiefs from both factions of the Sinaloa cartel, cartel finance operatives and a man wanted in connection with the killing of a North Carolina sheriff’s deputy in 2022.

Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, a once leader of the Juarez drug cartel, based in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, and brother of drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as “The Lord of The Skies”, who died in a botched plastic surgery in 1997, was among those turned over to the US.

As were two leaders of the now defunct Los Zetas cartel, brothers Miguel and Omar Trevino Morales, who were known as Z-40 and Z-42.

The brothers have been accused of running the successor Northeast Cartel from prison.

Trump-Mexico relations

The removal of the cartel figures coincided with a visit to Washington by Mexico’s foreign affairs secretary Juan Ramon de la Fuente and other top officials, who met with their US counterparts.

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Mr Trump has made clear his desire to crack down on drug cartels and has pressured Mexico to work with him.

The acting head of the DEA, Derek Maltz, was said to have provided the White House with a list of nearly 30 targets in Mexico wanted in the US on criminal charges and Quintero was top of the list.

It was also said that Ms Sheinbaum’s government, in a rush to seek favour with the Trump administration, bypassed the usual formalities of the countries’ shared extradition treaty in this incident.

This means it could potentially allow US prosecutors to try Quintero for Mr Camarena’s murder – something not contemplated in the existing extradition request to face separate drug trafficking charges in a Brooklyn federal court.

Hollywood legend Gene Hackman and his wife have been found dead, with authorities saying the couple had seemingly been deceased for some time when their bodies were discovered.

Hackman, 95, and his 63-year-old wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their New Mexico home on Wednesday, it was announced on Thursday. One of their pet dogs also died.

Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Denise Avila said deputies found the bodies while carrying out a welfare check on Wednesday at around 1.45pm local time.

The actor’s body was discovered in a mudroom while Arakawa was found in a bathroom next to a heater, detectives from the sheriff’s office wrote in a search warrant.

There were scattered pills and an open prescription bottle on a countertop near the 63-year-old.

There was no indication they had been shot and they had no other wounds, Ms Avila said. The warrant added the door to the property was found ajar and there were no signs of forced entry.

A German Shepherd was found dead in a bathroom closet near Arakawa, police added. Two healthy dogs were on the property.

The police have since said the deaths of Hackman and his wife are “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation”.

Preliminary findings from a medical investigation have found the couple suffered “no external trauma”.

Official results of post-mortem examinations and toxicology reports are pending and the manner and cause of death have not yet been determined, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The actor’s daughter had earlier suggested they may have been killed by carbon monoxide – but the cause of death remains unclear. Speaking to TMZ, Elizabeth Jean Hackman said the family was not sure but thought the couple may have died from toxic fumes.

The local utility company tested gas lines in and around the home after the bodies were found and did not find any sign of problems, the warrant said.

In a statement issued to Sky News, the sheriff’s office said: “We do not believe foul play was a factor in their deaths, however exact cause of death has not been determined at this time.”

Hackman’s daughters, Elizabeth and Leslie, and granddaughter, Annie, said: “He was loved and admired by millions around the world for his brilliant acting career, but to us he was always just Dad and Grandpa.

“We will miss him sorely and are devastated by the loss,” they added in a statement.

Hackman won an Oscar for a leading role in The French Connection, a 1971 action movie by William Friedkin, and another for best supporting actor in Clint Eastwood’s 1992 western, Unforgiven.

He was also known for playing Lex Luthor in the Superman films of the late 1970s and 1980s.

Roles in the Francis Ford Coppola mystery thriller The Conversation and in the historical drama Mississippi Burning, where he starred as an FBI agent alongside Willem Dafoe, helped cement his career as one of Hollywood’s greats.

Long career

The former US Marine appeared in more than 80 films, as well as on television and the stage, during a lengthy career that started in the early 1960s.

He earned his first Oscar nomination for his breakout role as the brother of bank robber Clyde Barrow in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde.

He is also remembered for playing Captain Frank Ramsey alongside Denzel Washington in the 1995 thriller Crimson Tide.

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In the early 2000s, he starred as an eccentric patriarch in The Royal Tenenbaums by Wes Anderson.

Hackman’s final film appearance was in 2004’s Welcome To Mooseport, after which he retired from acting and began co-writing adventure novels with friend and underwater archaeologist Daniel Lenihan.

“It’s very relaxing for me,” Hackman told Empire Magazine in 2020. “I don’t picture myself as a great writer, but I really enjoy the process.”

‘He could play anyone’

Michael Caine revered Hackman as “one of the greatest actors” he had known while presenting him with the Cecil B DeMille Award in 2003.

Arakawa was a classical pianist. The couple married in 1991 and lived outside Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Hackman had three children, Christopher, Elizabeth Jean and Leslie Anne, with his late ex-wife, Faye Maltese, who died in 2017.

Star Trek star George Takei said: “We have lost one of the true giants of the screen,” in a tribute on X.

“Gene Hackman could play anyone, and you could feel a whole life behind it.

“He could be everyone and no one, a towering presence or an everyday Joe. That’s how powerful an actor he was,” Takei wrote on X.

“He will be missed, but his work will live on forever.”

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Irish comedian Dara O Briain called Hackman “the finest screen actor ever”.

“Not a single duff performance, in a long, long career,” he wrote in a post on X.

Hackman was versatile on screen, working with a face that he described to the New York Times in 1989 as that of “your everyday mine worker.”

StudioCanal, the UK arm of the leading European film studio, called Hackman’s death “a colossal loss for cinema” in a tribute posted on X.