An urgent national cabinet meeting on men’s violence against women will be convened for Wednesday, with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, saying all governments nationwide – including his own at the federal level – must make changes and focus more on stopping perpetrators.

Albanese and senior ministers stopped short of announcing new violence prevention policies or funding as they supported a series of rallies nationwide this weekend, but the prime minister said public attitudes toward the scourge of abuse needed to shift. With the federal budget less than a fortnight away, those attending a large rally outside Parliament House urged the government to “walk the walk” and commit to concrete actions.

“Society and Australia must do better. We need to change the culture and we need to change attitudes. We need to change the legal system,” Albanese told the No More rally, organised by advocacy group What Were You Wearing.

“It’s not enough to support victims. We need to focus on the perpetrators, focus on prevention.”

The Canberra rally followed numerous other events across Australia, with community advocates and politicians demanding an end to violence against women. Rally organisers said more than 30 women had been killed in incidents of men’s violence in 2024, including domestic violence and the Bondi Junction stabbing where police believe women were the offender’s main target.

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In Victoria, the federal attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, and the state premier, Jacinta Allan, joined thousands at a Federation Square rally. Speaking to reporters, Allan said: “We need to stop talking about women’s safety and get on and tackle men’s violence.”

“There were women at the march today, like me, [who have] been marching on this issue for decades and decades and decades,” she said.

“We’ve had enough of being angry and outraged and sad and grieving for women who’ve lost their lives, for women who have been seriously injured, for women who are too traumatised to participate in the workplace, to participate as members of our community.”

Albanese, the minister for women, Katy Gallagher, and the social services minister, Amanda Rishworth, were among numerous federal politicians who joined thousands in Canberra for a three-kilometre walk across Lake Burley Griffin and on to Parliament House.

“We’re here today to demand that governments of all levels must do better, including my own, including every state and territory government,” Albanese told the rally.

“It’s up to men to change men’s behaviour as well.”

He said he would call state and territory leaders for a national cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Albanese later tweeted there would be “one issue on the agenda: immediate, meaningful and practical action to address family violence”.

Albanese noted ongoing government work including a national plan to end violence against women and children, $2.3bn of funding allocated to the issue under this government, including funding for 500 domestic violence workers and the implementation of 10 days domestic violence leave.

To some heckling from the audience, including demands for more, Albanese replied: “I agree it’s not enough.”

“I said that we need to do more.”

Before Albanese came to the microphone, rally organiser Sarah Williams addressed the crowd and asked the government members to commit to changes including declaring violence against women a national emergency, and more funding. A lack of response from the ministers drew some jeering and heckling in the crowd.

Some audience members called out to the ministers including “shame on you,” “walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk”, and “we want action”.

Gallagher told a press conference the government would keep talking with rally organisers about their requests. Also the finance minister, Gallagher stopped short of promising new funding in May’s federal budget, but said the government would have “more to say” soon.

“There’s areas that federal government can work in, largely around prevention, and we see that as our responsibility,” she said.

“We want to see progress, but it’s not going to happen overnight. But we’ve got the plan in place, we’ve got resources that underpin it.”

Walking with the march, Albanese was met by numerous attenders who approached him to ask for more government action.

To one woman, holding a sign saying “stop killing women”, Albanese said “it’s a pretty simple message”. He said “the whole government” was united in a push to do more.

Thousands of people have rallied in Sydney calling for an end to violence against women amid growing anger at the number of those being killed in violent attacks across the country.

No More: National rallies against gender based violence were held in Sydney, Hobart and Adelaide on Saturday, with more due to be held across the country on Sunday, calling for greater action, including calls for a royal commission, to address the epidemic of women killed in violent attacks.

It comes as the federal attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, rejected the idea of holding a royal commission into domestic violence, saying that it should be dealt with via cooperation between the federal government working with state and territory governments.

“I think we’ve actually identified a whole range of actions already that need to be taken, and I think what we probably can say is that we need to be working harder on the kinds of actions that have already been identified,” he said.

The Sydney crowd chanted and sang as they marched from Belmore Park to Hyde Park in Sydney’s CBD, before speakers demanded policy and cultural change to address the violence.

Organised by advocacy group What Were You Wearing (WWYW), the rally was attended by people young and old, many holding signs calling for an end to violence, and greater accountability.

Twenty-six women have been violently killed in the first 114 days of the year, according to data compiled by advocacy group Destroy the Joint’s project Counting Dead Women.

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The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is due to attend the rally in Canberra, with the minister for women, Katy Gallagher.

In a statement posted to X, Albanese said a woman had been killed every four days so far this year.

Protesters said they were “horrified” and “outraged” by the growing violence, with figures from the Destroy the Joint’s Counting Dead Women and Femicide Watch’s Red Heart Campaign showing that an average of one woman is murdered in domestic violence incidents every four days across the country. Last year, that figure was one woman a week.

“I’m here today because I am horrified at the continued number of deaths and serious assaults against women in this country,” said Siobhan Ferguson, one of the protesters at the rally on Saturday.

“Not enough is being done, in my opinion, to change people’s mindset and to change legislation.”

But Ferguson said she felt heartened by the turnout, that stretched through the city and closed multiple major streets.

“I get the sense there are a broad range of feelings but I’d say people are disappointed and angry, predominantly, and wanting action.”

“They want to see things moving, they’re trying to raise awareness,” she said.

The writer Emmy Hee said she had attended because she was “incensed” by the violence women have been facing.

“We’re just incensed by the loss of life, and by the beautiful women who’ve had their lives cut short, and if ever there was a time to come together, it’s now.”

She added: “I think we can build from here, I can feel the momentum.”

Hee said she did not feel it was just anger that defined the rally, but a sense of grief and solidarity.

“We feel angry but we also feel the pain. And we want to see cultural change, not just empty words. We need action on every level.”

The business owner Helen Cooper said she was attending to support the women affected by domestic violence across the country.

“Solidarity is an important part of today, we aren’t just hear to march, we are here to be together in this time.

“We have definitely seen a spike in violence against women this year, we can all feel it, and not enough is being done.”

Cooper said the turnout made her feel “supported” and hoped all the attenders felt similarly.

“Especially for the people attending alone like me, this makes me feel like I am not alone, like I am supported by everyone here.

“Things are changing, but slowly,” she added.

Speaking at a press conference in Ipswich, Queensland on Saturday morning, Dreyfus added that the rallies organised over the weekend reflected the huge level of community distress about the number of women who are dying in violent incidents.

“We have in this country an epidemic of male violence and we all need to step up. We need to do more about it. What these rallies are about are reflecting that level of community distress.

“I’m going to keep saying it: men need to step up. Men need to talk to their sons, to their brothers, to their colleagues at work and try to work together. It cannot be left to women to do something about this,” he said.

Here are where the rallies will take place on Sunday:

• Melbourne: State Library at 10am

• Perth: Parliament House at 1pm

• Brisbane: King George Square at 11am

• Canberra: Commonwealth Park at 2pm

• Bendigo: Rosalind Park at 11am

• Geelong: Market Square Mall at 11am

• Coffs Harbour: Jetty foreshore at 11am

• Sunshine Coast: Foundation Park at 11am

• Gold Coast: Broadwater Parklands at 11am

• Orange: Robertson Park at 2.30pm

• Cobram: Federation Park at 11am

• Wagga Wagga: Victory Memorial Gardens at 11am

• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 988 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org

People who drive dangerously, evade police and cause death or grievous bodily harm could face 20 years in prison under proposed laws in Queensland.

Drivers who leave a crash scene after causing death or grievous bodily harm could also face 20 years in prison under the laws, a six-year increase on the current maximum penalty.

The maximum penalty for dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death or grievous bodily harm will increase to 14 years, up from 10.

The police minister, Mark Ryan, said the new laws would send a “clear message” to anyone driving dangerously.

“Who knows what goes on in the mind of a criminal but if they’ve even got a skerrick of intelligence they’ve got to reflect on the significant penalty of evading [police] and the possible tragic consequences that go along with that,” he said.

Claudine Snow’s mother Susan Zimmer, 70, sister Steffi Zimmer, 35, and her mother’s partner Chris Fawcett, 79, died in a collision with another car at Bonogin in December 2022.

Snow has advocated for harsher penalties for dangerous drivers since the tragedy in the Gold Coast hinterland.

The changes are set to be called Susan’s Law in her mother’s honour.

“I know that my mum is pushing me to do this and she’d be very happy,” Snow said.

“They were just completely innocent people and they just wouldn’t want to see anyone else get hurt … I’m sure they’re proud.”

The premier, Steven Miles, said the legislation targeting dangerous drivers would be introduced to parliament his week.

“These new penalties target those who show reckless disregard for the directions of police and the welfare of other people in our community,” he said.

Ahead of a historic appearance at Victoria’s Indigenous-led truth-telling inquiry, the premier, Jacinta Allan, said Australia’s failed voice referendum had strengthened her resolve to help “present the facts” about the state’s history and inequalities faced by the First Nations people.

Allan on Monday will become Australia’s first state leader to provide evidence at an Indigenous-led truth-telling inquiry, which has the same powers as a royal commission. The Yoorrook Justice Commission is now holding public hearings investigating land injustice.

Last October, Australians rejected a proposal to enshrine an Indigenous advisory body in the constitution.

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Speaking to Guardian Australia ahead of her appearance at Yoorrook, the nation’s first Indigenous-led truth-telling inquiry, Allan said after the referendum defeat she was “more determined to work incredibly hard”.

“There is absolutely a responsibility of government to present the facts,” she said.

“In being leaders in the community, it is incumbent upon us to explain what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, why the impact of colonisation continues today to see such high levels of disadvantage across a whole range of different sectors: education, [the] justice system, health.”

Allan was unable to discuss specific evidence ahead of her testimony, but said she was “deeply humbled” to appear before the commission.

“The truth-telling process is such an important part, indeed, a critical part of treaty, of the treaty process,” she said.

“At times, that truth-telling has been challenging, challenging for governments, challenging for organisations and institutions, but it must be done because we can’t have treaty without telling the truth about how our state was colonised.”

Yoorrook’s findings are expected to inform Victoria’s treaty process. The state’s First Peoples’ Assembly – the democratically elected Indigenous body – will begin negotiating a state-wide treaty with the government this year.

Allan said the state government wanted to ensure Yoorrook’s evidence and findings reached many Victorians.

“There is also the opportunity for us as a government to think about how we promote this more, talk to people more, say ‘go and look at the Yoorrook website, watch videos on the impacts of dispossession of land and water, the impacts that came about from colonisation in our justice system today,” she said.

Yoorrook has a mandate to investigate and create a public record of the systemic injustice experienced by First Nations people in Victoria since colonisation, including inequalities that persist today.

It is due to deliver a final report by June next year that will make recommendations for reform and redress.

In an interim report, released last September, the commission recommended a major overhaul of the state’s child protection and criminal justice systems. The government’s response, released earlier this month, accepted four recommendations in full and 24 in principle. The government said another 15 recommendations were under consideration.

The government’s response sparked criticism from some Indigenous leaders, with the First Peoples’ Assembly arguing it showed the government was not moving fast or hard enough on reform ahead of treaty negotiations.

But Allan said Yoorrook’s reports and findings would be an important part of the state’s treaty negotiations.

Victoria is the furthest progressed jurisdiction in implementing the voice, truth and treaty elements of the Uluru statement from the heart at a state level.

Ahead of the voice referendum last year, the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, flagged he was open to a truth-telling process, which is also under way in Queensland and Tasmania.

South Australia has committed to implementing a state-based treaty process before truth-telling.

Queensland’s historic truth-telling and healing inquiry will begin on 1 July as the government moves ahead on its path to treaty with the state’s First Nations people.

The state government on Friday made long-awaited announcements about the members of the inquiry and First Nations Treaty Institute.

The landmark path to treaty legislation was passed in a regional parliament sitting in Cairns last May and heralded as a “history-making moment”. But how will it work?

Bernie Sanders has hit back fiercely at Benjamin Netanyahu over the Israeli prime minister’s claim that US universities were being overrun by antisemitism on a scale comparable to the rise of Nazism in Germany.

In a video posted on X, the progressive senator from Vermont – who is Jewish – accused Netanyahu of “insult[ing] the intelligence of the American people” by using antisemitism to distract attention from the policies of his “extremist and racist government” in the military offensive in Gaza.

“No Mr Netanyahu, it is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that, in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed over 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 78,000, 70% of whom are women and children,” Sanders said.

The two-and-a-half minute video listed a catalogue of further consequences of the war in the Palestinian coastal territory, including the destruction of infrastructure, hospitals, universities and schools, along with the killing of more than 400 health workers.

Sanders, who sponsored an unsuccessful Senate bill in January to make US aid to Israel conditional on its observance of human rights and international law, said Netanyahu’s government had unreasonably blocked humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza, causing “thousands of children [to] face malnutrition and famine”.

In a blistering conclusion, he said: “Mr Netanyahu, antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people.

“But please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal policies of your extremist and racist government. … It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable for your actions.”

Sanders’ comments were a riposte to a video posted on social media by Netanyahu in which he waded in to protests sweeping American university campuses and claimed not enough was being done to combat a “horrific” rise in antisemitism.

“Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” Netanyahu said. “They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s.

“It has to be stopped. It has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally, but that’s not what happened. The response of several university presidents was shameful. Now fortunately, state, federal and local officials, many of them, have responded differently. But there has to be more.”

Netanyahu’s comments came against the backdrop of police deployments to break up pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and numerous other US campuses. In some universities, faculty members have been arrested, including the chair of the philosophy department and a professor of English and Indigenous studies at Emory University in Atlanta.

Jewish students have reported feeling threatened by the protests and heated atmosphere that followed Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October, resulting in the deaths of about 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of more than 200 others.

Videos posted on social media have depicted anti-Israel protesters shouting “go back to Poland” and “go back to Belarus”, apparently at Jewish students. A congressional hearing earlier in April into a reported upsurge of antisemitism at Columbia heard allegations that Jewish students had been subjected to taunts of “F the Jews”.

Last October’s attack triggered an overwhelming and continuing Israeli military response that has so far killed more than 34,000 Palestinians – according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza – and led to a burgeoning humanitarian disaster, accompanied by accusations that Israel is committing “genocide”.

In his video, Netanyahu said Israel was being “falsely accused” of genocide and called it part of an “antisemitic surge”.

“Israel tries to defend itself against genocidal terrorists who hide behind civilians,” he said. “Yet it is Israel that is falsely accused of genocide. Israel that is falsely accused of starvation and sundry war crimes. It’s all one big libel.

“But that’s not new. We’ve seen in history that antisemitic attacks were always preceded by vilification and slander.”

The Joe Biden White House, while resisting pressure to condition or limit weapon supplies to Israel, has voiced frustration over its resistance to allowing more humanitarian aid freely into Gaza and roundly criticised the recent strikes that killed seven workers from celebrity chef Jose Andres’s World Central Kitchen charity.

Protests on campuses across the US continued on Saturday, with some protesting student bodies and universities locked in a standoff that saw demonstrators vowing to keep their movements going at the same time as college authorities moved to close down the encampments.

Police in riot gear cleared protest tents on the campus of Northeastern University in Boston, while students shouted and jeered at them, the Associated Press reported. The university said the protest had been “infiltrated by professional organisers” with no connection to the institution, while some demonstrators had used antisemitic slurs.

The picture of campus antisemitism run amok was lent further credence by Lawrence Summers, a former Harvard president and ex-US treasury secretary, who accused authorities at his former university of failing to act decisively against protesters occupying Harvard Yard.

“This is the predictable culmination of the Harvard Corporation’s failure to effectively address issues of prejudice and breakdowns of order on our campus,” he posted on X. “There can be no question that Harvard is practicing an ongoing double standard on discrimination between racism, misogyny and antisemitism.”

His comments provoked a sharp response from critics of Israel. “Your efforts to portray student demonstrators challenging Israel’s genocidal actions as ‘antisemitic’ are cheap & disingenuous,” wrote Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn). “These students should be commended for their courage & compassion, risking suspension & smears (like yours), to fight the most heinous crimes underway in Gaza.”

What is happening with ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas?

There has been a recent flurry of activity around the talks, with an uptick of optimism about progress.

According to Axios’s Barak Ravid, the Israeli proposal is for a potential deal with Hamas for a ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages and talks over the “restoration of sustainable calm” in Gaza.

In recent days Hamas has also broadcast several proof-of-life videos of hostages who might be expected to be exchanged at some point during in a deal, which could increase domestic political pressure on Israel, where the issue of the hostages’ return is a potent issue.

The language is instructive. “Sustainable calm” suggests a solution somewhat short of the “total victory” repeatedly touted by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to dismantle Hamas. Intriguingly it also mirrors a suggestion for a truce from a senior Hamas official, Khalil al-Hayya, last week who floated the idea of a hudna, a word used in Islamic jurisprudence to describe a kind of long-term truce or “calm”.

However the messaging coming out of the talks has been very contradictory. While the Qataris, who represent one mediation route, have talked publicly about their frustration over stalled talks, there has been more activity in recent days around Egyptian-Israeli talks – a forum that has delivered ceasefires in previous conflicts. A senior Israeli official told Hebrew media that talks with the Egyptians were “very good, focused, held in good spirits and progressed in all parameters”.

The position of the US, which has been pushing for a ceasefire deal, is that there is a good deal on the table, with the onus on Hamas to budge.

With Hamas saying it is looking at the new Israeli offer, reports in the Israeli media on Sunday indicated recent meetings of the Israeli security cabinet suggested a more “flexible” position. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is also expected to visit Israel in the coming days to discuss the negotiations.

What about Israel’s threat to launch an offensive against Rafah?

Israel has made it very clear that it is using the prospect of a Rafah operation, and its visible preparations for it – including the construction of large tented encampments – as an explicit threat to Hamas, essentially saying that this represents the last opportunity for a ceasefire.

Complicating the issue, however, is the fact that Hamas is abundantly aware of the strong opposition internationally to Israel going into Rafah, not least in Washington, which has undercut this message.

Underlining this, the New York Times said on Friday that the Biden administration was considering imposing restrictions on defence exports to Israel if it launched a large-scale operation in Rafah.

Making the link explicit, Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, told Channel 12 after meeting the Egyptian delegation: “If there is a deal, we will suspend the operation. The release of the hostages is a deep priority for us.”

Some Israeli commentators are also pointing to speculation that the international criminal court may be considering issuing arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials as driving a renewed openness to talks.

What’s on the table?

The essential shape of any deal hasn’t changed that much. It would be presented as a “humanitarian ceasefire”. At the heart of talks is a ceasefire-for-hostages arrangement. Hamas would release hostages in exchange for a ceasefire lasting weeks and the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The talks have stalled around both major issues – Hamas’s maximalist demand that Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza and end the conflict – and granular detail, not least about numbers and which Palestinian prisoners should be released.

The current formula would apparently allow the release of a slightly smaller number of hostages, 33 sick, elderly and wounded – representing the number of surviving hostages in the humanitarian category – in exchange for unspecified numbers of Palestinian prisoners.

What is unclear is what the release of the humanitarian hostages would mean for those in other groups, including captive soldiers.

Some reports have suggested that Israel has indicated willingness to make further concessions in the future, including withdrawing forces who are cutting the Gaza Strip in half and allowing the return of residents to the north.

There are also suggestions that the conversation in Israeli security circles may have moved from the destruction of the last four largely intact Hamas battalions in Rafah to whether closing the Hamas arms-smuggling routes from Egypt would achieve the same long-term objective, requiring a new agreement with Egypt over control of – and monitoring of – the so-called Philadelphi route on the border.

Are the talks in good faith?

We have been here before, and there is a lot of cynicism in the positioning on both sides. Both Israel and Hamas will be manoeuvring to be able to suggest the other side is responsible for any failure in the current ceasefire talks.

However there seems to be some genuine movement for now, although the devil is in the detail, not least over which Palestinian prisoners would be released.

While the dynamics on the Hamas side remain largely opaque, not least around the position of the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, Netanyahu’s difficulties with his own coalition remain in evidence. Far-right coalition partners, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, remain opposed to any deal. However, a recent uptick in public support for Netanyahu, and drop in support for the senior cabinet member Benny Gantz, may have taken some of the pressure off him.

Speaking to Haaretz, a senior Qatari official accused both sides of sabotaging the process each time they came close to a deal.

For the Israeli communities evacuated from the country’s far north in the aftermath of 7 October, there is no longer any doubt about whether full-scale war with Hezbollah in Lebanon is going to happen. For most people, the only question is when.

Nissan Zeevi, 40, has spent the past six months working as a first responder in Kfar Giladi, a kibbutz that grows apples and avocados. His wife and two young boys are living near the Sea of Galilee and are yet to come home; it’s just him, bulldog Joy, and his M16 rifle, keeping an eye on the Lebanese villages and Hezbollah outposts clearly visible from the garden, just a few kilometres away.

“The Iron Dome was a strategic mistake,” the agro-tech entrepreneur said during the Observer’s visit on a hot dry day last week, referring to Israel’s state-of-the-art air defence system, first deployed in 2011. “It normalised rockets hitting Israel, it gave us the feeling of security. But feeling secure is not the same as being secure. After 7 October we woke up.

“We can’t put off decisions any more. Everyone knows something is going to happen, because we have to push Hezbollah back to be safe.”

The day after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched its devastating attack on southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting another 250, Iran-allied Hezbollah joined the fray, firing rockets and mortars at the exposed villages and farms abutting the UN-controlled Blue Line that separates the two countries.

In the first days after Israel began its retaliatory offensive in Gaza, US president Joe Biden dissuaded Israel’s war cabinet from also launching a preventative ground offensive on Hezbollah that could trigger a regional conflict. Instead, on Israel’s northern front, the two sides have found themselves fighting a war of attrition, but the situation is unsustainable and getting more dangerous by the day.

About 60,000 people living in northern Israel were given evacuation orders and another 20,000 left of their own accord, damaging harvests and shuttering businesses. Weeds have grown tall in deserted gardens and parks. On the Lebanese side of the border, approximately 100,000 people have fled their homes, but without government funding to stay in repurposed hotels or holiday apartments. No one, on either side, knows when they will be able to safely return.

“We can’t go back if Hezbollah stays on the border,” said Shai Mor Yosef, 40, who was helping his daughter Adele with her maths homework in the lobby of their temporary home, a shabby hotel in Tiberias. “We didn’t do anything. They started this.”

The entire region is home now only to an eerie quiet, punctuated by the blare of air raid sirens, rockets, artillery, missiles and drones. Back-and-forth fire between Hezbollah and Israel has killed 16 Israeli soldiers and 11 civilians, as well as 71 Lebanese civilians and about 500 fighters from the powerful Iran-allied group and other factions. Estimates suggest that more militants in Lebanon have now been killed than in the last Lebanon war, fought over 34 days in the summer of 2006.

Hostilities are now ramping up more quickly as the two sides fire deeper into each other’s territory. Hezbollah fighters have tried to infiltrate the Israeli side of the Blue Line on dozens of occasions, and on 15 April, for the first time, the Israeli military confirmed that four of its soldiers had been injured during an operation inside Lebanon.

Iran’s first ever direct attack on Israel two weeks ago, carried out in response to the bombing of a consular building in Damascus, has only reinforced the sense for northerners that the Hezbollah threat must be removed. The Shia movement is Tehran’s most potent proxy force and has built up a formidable arsenal since 2006. It would certainly be involved in any future wider war.

Zeevi and about 4,000 others are now part of a group called Lobby 1701, named for the UN resolution that ended the 2006 war. It required Hezbollah to withdraw north of the Litani river, which runs parallel to the Blue Line – but they never complied.

The group has lost faith in diplomatic efforts spearheaded by France and the US to avoid a new war, he said, and are taking matters into their own hands, pressuring Knesset committees not to forget the plight of the displaced northern communities.

Lobby 1701 wants the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to create a 10km buffer zone in Lebanese territory which will keep their communities out of reach of anti-tank missiles. Zeevi and others are also toying with the idea of bringing their families home, before the government says it is safe to do so, to force the issue. Everyone is willing to pay the price of a major war, he said.

“We can’t abandon the Galilee – it would be the worst Israeli defeat in history,” he said. “And think about it: if you lose the Galilee, then the centre, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, they become closer to the threat.”

Polling from earlier this year suggests that the majority of Israelis believe a war with Hezbollah is necessary for people displaced from the north to go home. What is less clear is whether the public fully understands the consequences of taking on a much more powerful enemy than Hamas.

Israelis are used to western standards of living, but infrastructure such as power stations, water supplies and transportation would be Hezbollah targets. The impact on Israel’s strong economy would be immense.

Lebanon, a country of six million scarred by sectarianism and under the de facto control of the Islamist movement, is in the grips of a dire financial crisis; its people are in no position to bear the brunt of another war. The Observer’s conversations with Beirutis over the past few weeks suggest that the Lebanese still believe the cross-border hostilities can be contained, as Hezbollah does not want to antagonise its base.

For the time being, what happens in the north is dependent on the trajectory of Israel’s war in Gaza. Despite international calls for restraint, including from Israel’s closest ally, the US, the IDF appears to finally be gearing up for its long-threatened offensive on Rafah.

The town on the Egyptian border is the only corner of the Palestinian territory that has not seen fierce ground fighting and where more than half of the population of 2.3 million has sought shelter in a war that has killed 34,000 people.

An Israeli ground operation there is likely to cause thousands of civilian casualties and further disrupt meagre aid deliveries. Protracted ceasefire talks mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar have gained traction again in the past week or so, but it remains uncertain whether any truce and hostage release deal can be struck that would spare Rafah from an Israeli offensive in the next few weeks.

The IDF is loath to stretch troops across two major fronts, so a wider operation in the north is unlikely to come before Rafah’s fate is decided. For its part, Hezbollah has vowed to continue fighting until Israel completely withdraws from Gaza.

In the rundown hotel in Tiberias, Enav Levi’s family, from Moshav Zar’it, right on the Blue Line, were playing cards by the pool and snacking on watermelon in the hot weather. Her four children are now in a local school, the 36-year-old said; her husband has stayed behind as a first responder, and overall, things could be worse.

“Of course we are not going home soon,” she said. “The war hasn’t even started yet.”

It’s almost enough to make you stop doomscrolling: dull devices are now cool.

The Boring Phone is a new, featureless flip phone that is feeding the growing appetites of younger people who want to bin their smartphones in favour of a dumbphone.

The latest model is a collaboration between Heineken beer and the fashion retailer Bodega, and caused a storm when it was unveiled this month at Milan design week, the place where trends are anointed by the world’s designers. The Boring Phone is part of a new dumbphone boom, built on the suspicion of gen Z towards the data- and attention-harvesting technologies they have grown up with. That suspicion has fuelled reinventions of retro cultural artefacts – a trend known as Newtro – and seen in the revival of vinyl records, cassettes, fanzines, 8-bit video games and old-fashioned mobile phones.

“I’ve always hated being available to everyone,” said Rana Ali. The 29-year-old former finance worker, who is now a music producer and rapper recording as Surya Sen, added: “The idea that if you send a WhatsApp to someone and they don’t respond immediately then something’s wrong. I’ve had periods of having a smartphone but I always revert back to having a burner phone.”

Nostalgia for the Nokia 3310, the “brick” phone with seemingly everlasting battery life, prompted its relaunch in 2017, but the boom really began in the US last year and was, ironically, fuelled by TikTokers posting under the #bringbackflipphones hashtag. HMD, which was behind the Nokia relaunch, saw its flip phone sales double by April 2023, while Punkt, which prefers to call them feature phones or minimalist phones, has also seen substantial sales increases.

But Apple and Samsung are not under threat yet, according to Mintel. Nine out of 10 phones are smartphones and dumbphones remain niche, said Joe Birch, a technology analyst at the research firm.
“However, there is evidence of this generation modifying their smartphone behaviour, with concerns around the negative impacts of being constantly digitally connected driving this,” Birch added. “Three in five gen-Zers say they’d like to be less connected to the digital world, for instance.”

This move to offlining, or digital minimalism, is also seen in gen Z’s declining use of social media. They are the only generation whose time on social media has fallen since 2021, according to GWI, another research company, although older people are digitally detoxing too – including Lars Silberbauer, HMD’s chief marketing officer. “For the first four hours, you’re getting a bit of anxiety,” he said. “But then suddenly you start focusing and you get back to behaviours you used to have.”

Twentysomethings are also more concerned about privacy, according to the technology analyst Portulans Institute, in an internet that can seem more like a surveillance tool for brands, governments and scammers than a place to pursue interests and find interesting people.

Older technologies can create more freedom: sampling in hip-hop and dance music has become almost impossible for emerging artists, since Spotify or YouTube’s algorithms will spot uncleared samples and prevent tracks from uploading. But an underground artist can press 500 vinyl EPs and sell them to DJs and fans without difficulty.

The problem with offlining is that the world is increasingly difficult for people without a smartphone. There are 2.4m households in the UK that cannot afford a mobile phone contract and 2 million young people who have no access to a learning device, said Hannah Whelan, coordinator of the Data Poverty Lab at the Good Things Foundation charity. “Most essential services are now online – education, healthcare, universal credit,” she said. People who cannot scan a QR code to fill in a form or order food are at least at a disadvantage, and some systems require them.

The Luddite Club, a group of New York schoolchildren who announced in December 2022 they were giving up their iPhones in favour of flip phones, would still need their smartphones, said Petter Neby, the founder of Punkt. “It’s impossible,” he said. “In UK schools you’re talking about banning the smartphone but you have a school system that relies on online activity, for scheduling, for homework. I would love to ban smartphones for my children, but it’s a much deeper question. We need to have a balance.”

Piers Garrett, a 27-year-old tech sales executive, tried to achieve that balance by getting a Light Phone – a device that uses the same electronic ink used for e-readers and has no apps – but eventually gave up.

“The idea was amazing, but I only lasted six months,” he said. “Everyone communicates via WhatsApp. So now I have a happy medium. I’m very strict with my apps – just banking apps and train apps, and I turn off all my notifications. Now when I wake up in the morning, I do things for myself – have a coffee, read a book. And I noticed the change – so much more clarity in my mind.”

It’s almost enough to make you stop doomscrolling: dull devices are now cool.

The Boring Phone is a new, featureless flip phone that is feeding the growing appetites of younger people who want to bin their smartphones in favour of a dumbphone.

The latest model is a collaboration between Heineken beer and the fashion retailer Bodega, and caused a storm when it was unveiled this month at Milan design week, the place where trends are anointed by the world’s designers. The Boring Phone is part of a new dumbphone boom, built on the suspicion of gen Z towards the data- and attention-harvesting technologies they have grown up with. That suspicion has fuelled reinventions of retro cultural artefacts – a trend known as Newtro – and seen in the revival of vinyl records, cassettes, fanzines, 8-bit video games and old-fashioned mobile phones.

“I’ve always hated being available to everyone,” said Rana Ali. The 29-year-old former finance worker, who is now a music producer and rapper recording as Surya Sen, added: “The idea that if you send a WhatsApp to someone and they don’t respond immediately then something’s wrong. I’ve had periods of having a smartphone but I always revert back to having a burner phone.”

Nostalgia for the Nokia 3310, the “brick” phone with seemingly everlasting battery life, prompted its relaunch in 2017, but the boom really began in the US last year and was, ironically, fuelled by TikTokers posting under the #bringbackflipphones hashtag. HMD, which was behind the Nokia relaunch, saw its flip phone sales double by April 2023, while Punkt, which prefers to call them feature phones or minimalist phones, has also seen substantial sales increases.

But Apple and Samsung are not under threat yet, according to Mintel. Nine out of 10 phones are smartphones and dumbphones remain niche, said Joe Birch, a technology analyst at the research firm.
“However, there is evidence of this generation modifying their smartphone behaviour, with concerns around the negative impacts of being constantly digitally connected driving this,” Birch added. “Three in five gen-Zers say they’d like to be less connected to the digital world, for instance.”

This move to offlining, or digital minimalism, is also seen in gen Z’s declining use of social media. They are the only generation whose time on social media has fallen since 2021, according to GWI, another research company, although older people are digitally detoxing too – including Lars Silberbauer, HMD’s chief marketing officer. “For the first four hours, you’re getting a bit of anxiety,” he said. “But then suddenly you start focusing and you get back to behaviours you used to have.”

Twentysomethings are also more concerned about privacy, according to the technology analyst Portulans Institute, in an internet that can seem more like a surveillance tool for brands, governments and scammers than a place to pursue interests and find interesting people.

Older technologies can create more freedom: sampling in hip-hop and dance music has become almost impossible for emerging artists, since Spotify or YouTube’s algorithms will spot uncleared samples and prevent tracks from uploading. But an underground artist can press 500 vinyl EPs and sell them to DJs and fans without difficulty.

The problem with offlining is that the world is increasingly difficult for people without a smartphone. There are 2.4m households in the UK that cannot afford a mobile phone contract and 2 million young people who have no access to a learning device, said Hannah Whelan, coordinator of the Data Poverty Lab at the Good Things Foundation charity. “Most essential services are now online – education, healthcare, universal credit,” she said. People who cannot scan a QR code to fill in a form or order food are at least at a disadvantage, and some systems require them.

The Luddite Club, a group of New York schoolchildren who announced in December 2022 they were giving up their iPhones in favour of flip phones, would still need their smartphones, said Petter Neby, the founder of Punkt. “It’s impossible,” he said. “In UK schools you’re talking about banning the smartphone but you have a school system that relies on online activity, for scheduling, for homework. I would love to ban smartphones for my children, but it’s a much deeper question. We need to have a balance.”

Piers Garrett, a 27-year-old tech sales executive, tried to achieve that balance by getting a Light Phone – a device that uses the same electronic ink used for e-readers and has no apps – but eventually gave up.

“The idea was amazing, but I only lasted six months,” he said. “Everyone communicates via WhatsApp. So now I have a happy medium. I’m very strict with my apps – just banking apps and train apps, and I turn off all my notifications. Now when I wake up in the morning, I do things for myself – have a coffee, read a book. And I noticed the change – so much more clarity in my mind.”

Authorities need to consult multicultural communities to ensure labelling violent crimes a terror act does not alienate people, an independent MP says.

Dai Le, who represents the western Sydney electorate of Fowler where a bishop was stabbed during a sermon, has called for police to be culturally aware of what declaring a terrorism incident could do to a community.

It could stoke fear and increase Islamophobia, Le warned.

“When we talk about a terror act, we just need to be aware of how that language lands in a community like Fowler,” she told ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.

She questioned how fast it took law enforcement to designate the 15 April stabbing of Assyrian bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at a church an act of terror, echoing the concerns raised by the Australian National Imams Council.

The council on Friday contrasted the terrorism declaration with authorities’ response to a stabbing massacre at a Sydney shopping centre, which it said was “quickly deemed a mental health issue”.

There had to be a strong connection between police and the community to ensure people felt safe, Le said.

“Many of our communities who escaped tyrannical regimes … with that word, what it brings on is people are feeling, ‘Oh my God, terror has followed us’. That will make people live on edge,” she said.

“I hope that they know what they’re doing when they label a criminal act with such a label and that they will reassure our community as soon as possible to ensure that people who have escaped terrorism from the Middle East, that they feel they are safe here.”

Police and intelligence agencies should engage with multicultural communities to inform their advice, the independent MP said.

The disparity in police response was a double standard and affected the perception of law enforcement and the judicial process within the community, Australian National Imams Council’s Ramia Abdo Sultan said on Friday.

The teenager accused of attacking the bishop was charged with committing a terrorist act.

Five other teens allegedly linked to the 16-year-old were charged last week after raids across Sydney.

The arrests of the boys, all under the age of 17, followed an investigation into a group allegedly adhering to religiously motivated violent extremist ideology.

Police will allege the group was planning a future event, NSW police commissioner Karen Webb said.

It was concerning some of the teenagers arrested had images of beheadings on their phones, she said.

“Those images have been circulating for years now unfortunately, but it does concern us greatly where we’ve got young people with those images on their phone,” she told Sky News on Sunday.

Queensland man Joel Cauchi, 40, killed six people during a stabbing rampage at Westfield Bondi Junction on 13 April before being shot dead by police.

A former employee of one of Australia’s biggest job network providers has spoken up about the extreme methods they use to claim public money when jobseekers find employment.

One researcher called the process – supposedly designed to help people enter the workforce or increase their hours – a “crazy system that doesn’t work for anyone”.

Jobseekers must sign up with a private job provider to receive Centrelink benefits, which they can continue to claim if they have work but are earning below a certain threshold.

The providers can claim “outcome payments” when a client on their books has completed four, 12 and 26 weeks of employment, regardless of whether the client or provider found the job, using payslips as proof of the client’s employment. In 2022-23 providers received $329m in outcome payments.

But jobseekers, employers and former staff at the providers say the requirement to obtain payslips has led providers to put unreasonable pressure on clients – who are not obliged to hand over the information – and employers.

In some cases providers trying to obtain payslips have forced jobseekers’ Centrelink payments to be suspended.

Prof Jo Ingold of the Peter Faber business school at the Australian Catholic University said the system did not work for jobseekers, providers or employees.

“It is … obviously very stressful and horrible for somebody to go through effectively having their payments suspended because they’re not providing information that … it is within their right not to provide,” she said.

“But then the providers desperately scramble to get evidence to meet their claim for the outcome payment. It’s just a crazy system that doesn’t work for anyone.”

‘They would track them down’

Alan* worked as an employment consultant for a job provider in Western Australia last year.

He said there was a member of his team whose sole job it was to check whether jobseekers had employment and try to get the details so that the provider could claim an outcome payment when they reached the four-, 12- or 26-week milestone.

“Their job was to collate all the claims we had and go through and notify us as individual employment partners when we had claims coming up and who we should be tracking … If we weren’t able to get hold of them, they would … try to track them down.

“They’ll look at them on Facebook, they’ll … phone their employers out of the blue … They’re doing this on a daily basis.”

He said the team was encouraged to target participants who were long-term unemployed or Indigenous, as the provider gets a higher payout when they become employed.

He said the company had an internal system to track how many weeks a jobseeker had been in work, and which prompted providers to ask for payslips at certain points.

“These are jobs we haven’t had anything to do with,” he said. “A lot of the time, people are getting their own jobs and all we’re doing is claiming money for them.”

To keep receiving benefits, jobseekers must meet “mutual obligations” requirements such as applying for jobs and courses, and attending interviews with their providers.

Alan said one method of forcing jobseekers to pass on payslips was to set up a requirement the provider knew the client could not meet, which would trigger a suspension of their benefits.

“If somebody’s working you can just book them in for an appointment that you know they can’t attend if you’re not getting the payslips. When they don’t attend, you just say ‘not attended’ and it’s cut the payment off automatically.”

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Alan said employees of the provider were also told to put pressure on jobseekers to hand over payslips by withholding grants from the employment fund – a pool of money providers can use to help jobseekers find work by covering costs such as new work boots or car registration.

He said his manager told him not to spend money from the fund “unless there was something in it” for the provider.

“As part of our mandate, we should be offering these things, but my particular manager would only allow us to do this if we were ‘tracking for a claim’.”

Pressure on employers

Dani*, who lives in Victoria, said in March her provider threatened to put her Centrelink payments on hold unless she gave them the payslips for the cleaning job she has had for seven years.

Providers can sometimes claim payments even when the jobseeker found a job before starting with them. In March Guardian Australia revealed the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations paid providers more than $3.6m in the past five years for pre-existing employment.

“She wouldn’t put my hours in the system … without a payslip,” Dani said.

“You’re not obligated to provide it, they can ask, but I said ‘no, I won’t be doing that’.”

After the phone call she was sent a message saying her payments would be suspended because she had not met her requirements. Dani has been unable to transfer to a different provider because that alleged failure is now on her record in the system.

“I’ve been working since I was 15,” she said. “I’m a single mum, I try to do the right thing.

“[They’re] just money hungry. They don’t really want [to help] me unless they can get their outcome payment.”

Jim Daly ran a business in South Australia for seven years, employing up to 20 staff. He said he would routinely get calls from job providers asking for his staff’s payslip details.

“None of my staff ever came to me through the services of a job network provider,” Daly said.

“But they were on the phone to me every Monday or Friday, demanding information about the people who I did have on the books.”

He said he always refused, leaving it to his staff to declare their hours if they wished – but they would still ring him. He said at one point in 2019 a provider threatened to suspend his employees’ benefits.

“[They said] if you do not provide us with the information that we are asking for, we will contact Centrelink and have their payments cut off.”

Will privatisation be rolled back?

A spokesperson for the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) said it had regularly told providers not to press jobseekers for payslip details.

“Providers should not repeatedly ask or pressure clients for payslips under any circumstance,” they said. “This has been made clear to providers on a number of occasions.

“While providers are allowed to ask for payslip details, jobseekers are under no obligation to hand over the details.”

Guardian Australia put questions to the job providers referred to in the above examples, but all either failed to respond or declined to comment on individual cases.

The chief executive of the National Employment Services Association, Kathryn Mandla, said the organisation had “advocated that the overarching principle for the employment services system … is that the best interests of jobseekers should be paramount”.

“Employment service providers are legally required by government to assist each participant on their caseload to progress towards and sustain suitable employment.”

Simone Casey is a research associate at RMIT’s Centre for People, Organisation and Work. She said DEWR needed to make the rules clear and enforce them.

“Overall, there’s a lack of clarity about the circumstances in which providers should be seeking payslips. There’s inconsistency in guidelines … And DEWR is not telling providers clearly that jobseekers have the right to decline requests for payslips.

“Providers wield their power, threatening people with cutting off their payments to obtain the information about the employers without respecting or complying with the actual information and privacy protection laws.”

Kristin O’Connell of the Antipoverty Centre said the information job providers were trying to get access to was already known to Centrelink.

“We already report our income to Centrelink … the job agency has no need for that information, except to maximise the amount of money they extract out of the system for jobs that we find ourselves,” she said.

“There’s no reason these job agencies need these payslips. The government absolutely has the power to direct them to stop being intrusive, and requesting this information from people who don’t want to give it. It’s really that simple.”

Last year’s federal inquiry into the sector found the privatisation of the employment services system had failed and recommended the establishment of a large government-run provider.

The government has yet to respond to the recommendation, but the national secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union, Melissa Donnelly, said it should be adopted without reservation.

“Privatisation puts profit before people and has led to a compromised and ineffective employment services system,” she said.

“This system doesn’t work for people looking for a job or for employers looking for workers, and no amount of tweaking the existing system will fix that.”

* Names have been changed

In the past fortnight Fumio Kishida has been mentioned as a possible recipient of the Nobel peace prize and praised for a speech to congress in which he urged the US not to retreat into isolation.

But since his return to Tokyo after a successful summit with Joe Biden, Japan’s prime minister has been buffeted by domestic political headwinds that this weekend could spell the beginning of the end of his administration.

Kishida, who came to office in late 2021 promising a “new capitalism”, a more robust Japan on the international stage and solutions to the country’s demographic crisis, faces the toughest test of his premiership when voters go to the polls in three byelections on Sunday.

His Liberal Democratic party (LDP) was unable to find candidates for the votes in two constituencies, where the LDP incumbents were tainted by scandal – and is pinning its hopes on the Shimane 1st district.

The rural constituency on the coast of the Sea of Japan is considered a conservative stronghold, but it is a measure of the size of the problems facing Kishida that speculation is mounting that his party could be unseated.

Despite wooing his American audience – a feat that earned him a bump in his approval ratings – Kishida has little else to endear himself or his party to Japanese voters.

The yen is in freefall against the dollar, the cost-of-living crisis shows little sign of easing, and there are questions over how to fund policies to address Japan’s low birth rate and its biggest military build-up since the end of the war.

But the longest shadow is cast by a funding scandal, first reported last year, that has become a focal point for public anger amid growing doubts about Kishida’s ability to lead the LDP to victory in the next lower house elections.

While that vote is not due for well over a year, the scandal, in which 85 LDP lawmakers were found to have siphoned unreported profits from the sale of tickets to party gatherings into slush funds, has denied Kishida any room for manoeuvre.

Instead, defeat in Shimane, added to certain victory for non-LDP candidates in Sunday’s other byelections, could trigger an early challenge to his leadership when the party holds presidential elections in September, with the winner automatically made prime minister.

Victory in the byelection, on the other hand, could give Kishida enough momentum to call a “put up or shut up” snap election this summer.

But days before the Shimane vote, Japanese media reported that the LDP candidate, a former finance ministry bureaucrat, was trailing his rival from the main opposition Constitutional Democratic party.

That, say analysts, reflects a wider dissatisfaction with Kishida’s administration, whose approval ratings have plunged to record lows well under 30% – the point at which Japanese governments are said to be entering choppy electoral waters.

“If the LDP loses Shimane … Kishida is likely to come under pressure from within his party in a way that he has not yet experienced since winning the party leadership race [in September 2021],” said James Brady, vice president of the Teneo advisory firm.

“The party’s response to the slush fund issue has been consistently unconvincing to the public, and there is little reason to think that the planned reforms would change that trend.”

Attempts to repair the damage inflicted by the funding scandal, and the promise of reform to political funding laws, have also failed to defuse criticism in the media, with one newspaper describing Kishida’s response as “utterly unacceptable”.

While 39 LDP lawmakers were punished, Kishida escaped sanction despite evidence that his own faction had also under-reported ticket sales – apparent double standards that risk sparking a factional power struggle that would leave him bloodied as he attempts to retain his party’s endorsement as LDP president this autumn.

Kishida may have taken comfort from the suggestion last week by the US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell that he should be the joint recipient, with South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol, of the Nobel peace prize for their attempts to address their countries’ bitter historical legacy and show a united front against nuclear-armed North Korea.

But even as he implored the US to overcome “self-doubt” over its global leadership – with a cautious eye on the possible return of Donald Trump – his focus was on the storm that awaited him in Japan.

Greeted by cheers as only the second Japanese leader to address a joint session of congress – the first was Shinzo Abe – Kishida could not resist a gentle dig at his parliamentary colleagues back home: “I never get such nice applause from the Japanese Diet [Japan’s version of congress].”

In the past fortnight Fumio Kishida has been mentioned as a possible recipient of the Nobel peace prize and praised for a speech to congress in which he urged the US not to retreat into isolation.

But since his return to Tokyo after a successful summit with Joe Biden, Japan’s prime minister has been buffeted by domestic political headwinds that this weekend could spell the beginning of the end of his administration.

Kishida, who came to office in late 2021 promising a “new capitalism”, a more robust Japan on the international stage and solutions to the country’s demographic crisis, faces the toughest test of his premiership when voters go to the polls in three byelections on Sunday.

His Liberal Democratic party (LDP) was unable to find candidates for the votes in two constituencies, where the LDP incumbents were tainted by scandal – and is pinning its hopes on the Shimane 1st district.

The rural constituency on the coast of the Sea of Japan is considered a conservative stronghold, but it is a measure of the size of the problems facing Kishida that speculation is mounting that his party could be unseated.

Despite wooing his American audience – a feat that earned him a bump in his approval ratings – Kishida has little else to endear himself or his party to Japanese voters.

The yen is in freefall against the dollar, the cost-of-living crisis shows little sign of easing, and there are questions over how to fund policies to address Japan’s low birth rate and its biggest military build-up since the end of the war.

But the longest shadow is cast by a funding scandal, first reported last year, that has become a focal point for public anger amid growing doubts about Kishida’s ability to lead the LDP to victory in the next lower house elections.

While that vote is not due for well over a year, the scandal, in which 85 LDP lawmakers were found to have siphoned unreported profits from the sale of tickets to party gatherings into slush funds, has denied Kishida any room for manoeuvre.

Instead, defeat in Shimane, added to certain victory for non-LDP candidates in Sunday’s other byelections, could trigger an early challenge to his leadership when the party holds presidential elections in September, with the winner automatically made prime minister.

Victory in the byelection, on the other hand, could give Kishida enough momentum to call a “put up or shut up” snap election this summer.

But days before the Shimane vote, Japanese media reported that the LDP candidate, a former finance ministry bureaucrat, was trailing his rival from the main opposition Constitutional Democratic party.

That, say analysts, reflects a wider dissatisfaction with Kishida’s administration, whose approval ratings have plunged to record lows well under 30% – the point at which Japanese governments are said to be entering choppy electoral waters.

“If the LDP loses Shimane … Kishida is likely to come under pressure from within his party in a way that he has not yet experienced since winning the party leadership race [in September 2021],” said James Brady, vice president of the Teneo advisory firm.

“The party’s response to the slush fund issue has been consistently unconvincing to the public, and there is little reason to think that the planned reforms would change that trend.”

Attempts to repair the damage inflicted by the funding scandal, and the promise of reform to political funding laws, have also failed to defuse criticism in the media, with one newspaper describing Kishida’s response as “utterly unacceptable”.

While 39 LDP lawmakers were punished, Kishida escaped sanction despite evidence that his own faction had also under-reported ticket sales – apparent double standards that risk sparking a factional power struggle that would leave him bloodied as he attempts to retain his party’s endorsement as LDP president this autumn.

Kishida may have taken comfort from the suggestion last week by the US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell that he should be the joint recipient, with South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol, of the Nobel peace prize for their attempts to address their countries’ bitter historical legacy and show a united front against nuclear-armed North Korea.

But even as he implored the US to overcome “self-doubt” over its global leadership – with a cautious eye on the possible return of Donald Trump – his focus was on the storm that awaited him in Japan.

Greeted by cheers as only the second Japanese leader to address a joint session of congress – the first was Shinzo Abe – Kishida could not resist a gentle dig at his parliamentary colleagues back home: “I never get such nice applause from the Japanese Diet [Japan’s version of congress].”

Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor and Republican vice-presidential hopeful, saw polling numbers plummet after the Guardian revealed that she writes in a new book about the day she shot dead a hunting dog and an un-castrated goat, a revelation that ignited a political storm.

Announcing what it called its “Noem Puppy Murder Poll Findings”, New River Strategies, a Democratic firm, said 81% of Americans disapproved of Noem’s decision to shoot Cricket, a 14-month-old wire-haired pointer who Noem says ruined a pheasant hunt and killed a neighbour’s chickens, thereby earning a trip to a gravel pit to die.

According to Noem’s account, the goat, which Noem did not name, followed Cricket to the pit because Noem deemed his odour and behaviour unacceptable on her farm. By Noem’s own detailed admission, it took two blasts from a shotgun, separated by a walk back to her truck for more shells, to finish the goat off.

Noem’s book – No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward – will be published in May. The Guardian obtained a copy.

The governor’s extraordinary admission made news because she has long been seen to be auditioning to be picked for vice-president by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

On Friday, amid widespread disbelief that Noem chose to tell such a horrific story in such detail in a campaign book, most observers thought her chances of winning the Trump veepstakes were over.

Wrote Meghan McCain, a conservative pundit whose father, John McCain, in 2008 made one of the most disastrous vice-presidential picks of all time, in the form of extremist Sarah Palin: “You can recover from a lot of things in politics, change the narrative etc – but not from killing a dog.

“All I will distinctly think about Kristi Noem now is that she murdered a puppy who was ‘acting up’ – which is obviously cruel and insane. Good luck with that VP pick[,] lady.”

According to New River Strategies: “While 37% of Republicans are still not sure if [Noem] would be a good choice, 84% of them report liking or loving dogs – not a promising sign.”

Fourteen percent of respondents to the poll still thought Noem would be a good choice for vice-president to Trump. Among Republicans, 21% thought Noem would be a good pick, to 42% who did not.

Among self-identified “very conservative voters”, 28% said Noem would be a good choice, against 32% who said she would not.

New River noted: “A plurality of Americans who do not like dogs still disapprove of the governor’s action. While 87% of Americans who love dogs disapprove of what the governor did, so too do 48% of Americans who do not care for the animals.”

Politico, which reported the New River poll, also noted Noem had fallen in a ranking of potential Trump running mates offered by PredictIt, an online betting firm.

By Saturday, Noem had fallen from second, behind Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator, to fourth, also behind Elise Stefanik, the New York representative, and Tulsi Gabbard, a former representative and Democratic presidential hopeful whose own campaign book, out on Tuesday, does not contain any scenes of shooting puppies.

Noem responded to reports about her book by saying: “We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm.” She added that her family recently put down three horses.

Her communications director, Ian Fury, cited polling showing Noem as the only potential Trump vice-presidential pick with a positive favourability rating in four battleground states: Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“This is why the liberal media is so eager to attack Kristi Noem,” Fury said. “She’s the potential running mate they fear most.”

The poll from Kaplan Strategies, which describes itself as bipartisan, was conducted the previous weekend but released on Friday, the day the Guardian broke the story of Noem, Cricket the dog and the unnamed goat.

On Saturday, the Guardian attempted to contact public figures whose glowing recommendations of Noem’s book are printed on its jacket and introductory pages.

In his blurb, Trump calls Noem “a tremendous leader, one of the best”, adding: “This book, it’s a winner … you’ve got to read it!”

Asked whether Trump had read the whole book before recommending it, and whether he had comment about the controversy over Noem’s tale of killing domestic animals, the former president’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, did not immediately respond.

Fox News spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Rachel Campos-Duffy, a host whose quote on Noem’s book salutes her “common sense and fearless fight for freedom”, adding: “Get ready to be inspired!”

No Going Back is also blurbed by Chaya Raichik, creator of the trolling Libs of TikTok social media account; James Golden, also known as Bo Snerdley, formerly sidekick to the late rightwing shock jock Rush Limbaugh; and Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer who campaigns against transgender participation in women’s sports.

By Saturday, Raichik had not commented about Noem’s dog-killing confession. Snerdley had reposted a Daily Mail version of the Guardian report.

Gaines, who calls Noem’s book “the perfect blueprint for young Americans on how to move our nation forward”, did not comment on the controversy over Noem’s decision to kill a 14-month-old dog. She did, however, post a video of eight puppies sleeping in a pile on a pink rug.

“The pups have arrived!” she wrote. “Be still my heart.”

The disgraced former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has been hospitalized in New York City for a series of tests, his lawyer said.

Weinstein’s hospitalization comes after the New York court of appeals overturned his 2020 rape conviction on Thursday. According to the court’s ruling, the judge who oversaw the watershed case during the peak of the #MeToo era prejudiced Weinstein with “egregious” improper rulings and was mistaken in allowing women whose accusations were not part of the case to testify against him.

In a statement on Saturday, Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala said: “They examined him and sent him to Bellevue [hospital]. It seems like he needs a lot of help, physically. He’s got a lot of problems. He’s getting all kinds of tests. He’s somewhat of a train wreck health-wise,” the Associated Press reports.

Aidala added that he spoke to Weinstein on Friday afternoon as Weinstein was being transported from the upstate jail Mohawk correctional facility to New York City’s department of correction following the appeals court’s ruling. According to Aidala, Weinstein’s issues are physical and the former movie mogul is mentally “sharp as a tack” with “feet [that] are firmly planted on the ground”.

Aidala went on to say that Weinstein had been treated poorly in jail, with prison staff allegedly refusing to offer “a sip of water”, food and bathroom breaks to Weinstein. “He was not treated well … He’s a 72-year-old sickly man,” said Aidala, the Associated Press reports.

Weinstein’s defense team has repeatedly argued that Weinstein suffers from various health issues including cardiac issues, diabetes, sleep apnea and eye problems. In 2021, his lawyers said Weinstein had lost four teeth in prison.

On Thursday, the New York court of appeals vacated his conviction after concluding that a trial judge permitted jurors to see and hear too much evidence not directly related to the charges he faced. It also erased his 23-year prison sentence and ordered a retrial.

Prosecutors said they intend to retry him on charges that he forcibly performed oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and raped an aspiring actor in 2013.

Weinstein remained in custody after the appeals ruling because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Thomas Mailey, a state corrections spokesperson, had no comment when Aidala’s remarks about Weinstein’s treatment were read to him over the phone.

Aidala said he was told that Bellevue doctors planned to run a lot of tests on Weinstein before he will be returned to the Rikers Island jail complex.

The lawyer said he is scheduled to meet with Weinstein on Monday. He added that he plans to tell a judge when Weinstein goes to court on Wednesday in Manhattan that a retrial should occur after Labor Day.

The overturning of Weinstein’s conviction earlier this week was swiftly met with outrage. Ashley Judd, an actor who was among the first people to go on record with her allegations against Weinstein, condemned the ruling, saying: “This is unfair to survivors. We still live in our truth.”

Meanwhile, Rosanna Arquette, another actor who was among the first people to share details of Weinstein’s sexual abuse, said: “Harvey was rightfully convicted. It’s unfortunate that the court has overturned his conviction. As a survivor, I am beyond disappointed.”

Rose McGowan, an actor who accused Weinstein of rape, said: “No matter what they overturn, they cannot take away who we are and what we know, what we’ve gone through and what we can achieve in this life. We are not victims. We are people that were injured by evil.”

Associated Press contributed to this report

The Australian government has announced a new $100m assistance package for Ukraine, which includes munitions and military equipment, during a visit to the country by the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles.

Australia’s package will include $50m in military assistance, including $30m towards uncrewed aerial systems, and $15m towards other high-priority equipment such as combat helmets, rigid hull inflatable boats, boots, fire masks and generators.

It will also include the delivery of air-to-ground precision munitions and $50m in short-range air defence systems.

During his visit, Marles met the Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, and deputy minister of defence, Lt Gen Ivan Havryliuk.

He said Australia remained committed to the Ukrainian war effort, as the country struggles to hold back Russian advances.

“Australia remains committed to supporting Ukraine to resolve the conflict on its terms,” he said.

“I am pleased to announce an additional $100m of military assistance, including world-leading drone technology, with the support of local Australian defence industry.”

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As part of his visit, Marles met members of the armed forces of Ukraine during training exercises and had the opportunity to tour the local defence industry, which has been integral in Ukraine’s defence against Russia.

Marles said his meeting with Shmyhal “reaffirmed” that the spirit of the Ukrainian people remained strong, with the war recently crossing the two-year mark.

“Ukraine and its people have endured more than two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion but their spirit remains strong. This was reaffirmed during my meeting with prime minister Shmyhal.

“Australia is proud to be working with our partners, including Poland, to support Ukraine’s self-defence,” he said.

Marles also reaffirmed Australia’s commitment to the multinational program to train Ukrainian armed forces personnel in the UK, through Operation Kudu.

As part of his trip, he also visited Poland, and met with the deputy prime minister and minister of defence, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz.

As part of his conversation with his counterpart, Marles thanked the Polish government for its support of the recent six-month deployment of a Royal Australian Air Force E-7A Wedgetail which helped protect a vital gateway of international humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine.

The new package brings Australia’s overall support to Ukraine to more than $1bn, which includes $880m in assistance for Ukraine’s military.

That support has included providing 120 Bushmaster vehicles, six M777 155mm lightweight towed howitzers, 56 M113AS4 armoured vehicles, 14 special operations vehicles as well as munitions.

The government also announced a $50m grant to the International Fund for Ukraine in February, and said it would extend and expand Operation Kudu over two years to deliver additional support for Ukraine.

Another key housing fight looms for the Albanese government. This time, it’s the Help to Buy scheme – a policy the prime minister has declared would “open the door of home ownership to tens of thousands of Australians”.

In a nutshell, the proposal is known as a shared equity scheme and it aims to help eligible applicants get into the housing market by loaning them 30% (for an existing build) or 40% (new build) of the purchase price. This reduces the bank loan to 60% or 70%, so those eligible will require smaller deposits and loans.

In its current form, the scheme will be limited to 10,000 applicants a year, for four years.

But to pass the bill, Labor faces a combative upper house where it does not hold a majority.

The Greens and the Coalition have already publicly shared their distaste for the idea – for different reasons – and without support from either of them, it’s unlikely to ever become a reality.

Let’s look at how the policy stacks up.

What does Labor think it can achieve?

Labor says instead of directly bringing down house prices, the government will help those earning a modest wage to get into home ownership.

A Labor-chaired parliamentary committee tasked with looking at the bill’s merits concluded in April that the scheme addresses “access and affordability hurdles” of home ownership by reducing the upfront costs along with the long-term mortgage repayments.

But not everyone agrees this is the best way forward.

What do the opposition and crossbench think about it?

While the committee’s majority report assessing the bill was largely positive, the Coalition and the Greens issued their own dissenting reports.

The Liberal senators Andrew Bragg and Dean Smith called it an “entirely warped approach”.

Part of their criticism centres around the value for money. The scheme will be offered to a maximum of 40,000 participants at a cost of $5.5bn to the federal government. It extends to single-income households earning up to $90,000 or couples with a joint income of up to $120,000.

There is also a price limit on eligible homes so, for example, a participant cannot apply to use the shared equity scheme to buy a home in Sydney above $950,000 (in Sydney the median dwelling costed about $1.1m in January).

Bragg and Smith say the policy is “shuffling deck chairs as the Titanic sinks”.

The Greens, meanwhile, have already signalled they won’t pass Labor’s bill unless the government budges on removing negative gearing and lowering capital gains tax discounts.

The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi said the housing affordability crisis could not be solved by this “unambitious”, which offers a hand to a “lucky few”.

The Greens say they also want the federal government to invest in increasing public housing stock.

“This is a deeply unambitious policy, introduced at a critical point, where homelessness, rental and mortgage stress are skyrocketing,” the dissenting report said.

But the independent ACT senator David Pocock is broadly supportive of the scheme. Pocock said the bill should pass but recommended the cap of 10,000 eligible households a year be changed to a floor of 30,000 households. He also recommended a third of the scheme’s houses be set aside for historically disadvantaged cohorts, such as older women and First Nations peoples.

Are economists and housing experts on board?

During the inquiry, concerns were raised about whether the policy might unintentionally raise housing prices, but most of the economists who appeared said the impacts were quite small given the scheme’s proposed size.

The Grattan Institute’s economics program director, Brendan Coates, described the scheme as “modest” but a “piece of the puzzle” in solving the housing crisis.

“I don’t think we should judge this scheme on does it solve housing in Australia? Because it doesn’t,” he said. “What we should judge it on is: does it fill in a piece of the puzzle that we need it to fill in? … And I think it does.”

Matt Grudnoff, a senior economist at The Australian Institute, was lukewarm on whether the policy would achieve its intended outcome – increasing home ownership rates – but said its small size meant it was unlikely to impact housing prices. He suggested the focus should be on limiting negative gearing and scrapping the capital gains tax discount instead.

The chief economist of Master Builders Australia, Shane Garrett, said the program was “not huge”, noting the amount of first home buyers in 2023 was 117,000. Garrett said Help to Buy would be “still better to have … than not”.

What do housing advocacy groups say?

Maiy Azize, spokesperson for the national campaign to address the housing crisis, Everybody’s Home, said the scheme was “perfectly fine” but “not a solution to affordability”.

National Shelter, the peak body for improving housing affordability, said the scheme could give disadvantaged groups a shot at home ownership, but it recommended the fund extend beyond its intended four years to support low-income homebuyers into the future.

Support is mixed, so where does it go now?

The Greens have warned Labor that it will hold the bill hostage in the Senate unless it agrees to negotiate on the related tax policies – negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts.

However, the Albanese government has already signalled it is unwilling to bargain with the minor party over these issues.

The stalemate continues for now but just like last time there was a housing impasse, someone will surely budge.