Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian has won Iran’s runoff presidential election, beating hardliner Saeed Jalili by promising to reach out to the west and ease enforcement on the country’s mandatory headscarf law after years of sanctions and protests squeezing the Islamic Republic.

A vote count offered by authorities on Saturday morning put Pezeshkian as the winner with 16.3 million votes to Jalili’s 13.5 million after Friday’s voting.

Supporters of Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and longtime lawmaker, entered the streets of Tehran and other cities before dawn to celebrate as his lead grew and victory became apparent over Jalili – a former nuclear negotiator close to Iran’s supreme leader.

Pezeshkian promised no radical changes to Iran’s Shia theocracy in his campaign and long has held the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the final arbiter of all matters of state. But even Pezeshkian’s modest aims will be challenged by an Iranian government still largely held by hardliners.

The first round of voting on 28 June saw the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution. Iranian officials have long pointed to turnout as a sign of support for the country’s Shia theocracy, which has been under strain after years of sanctions crushing Iran’s economy, mass demonstrations and intense crackdowns on all dissent.

Government officials up to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, predicted a higher participation rate as voting got under way, with state television airing images of modest lines at some polling centres.

However, online videos purported to show some polls empty while a survey of several dozen sites in the capital, Tehran, saw light traffic amid a heavy security presence on the streets.

More than 61 million Iranians over the age of 18 were eligible to vote, with about 18 million of them between 18 and 30. Voting was to end at 6pm but was extended until midnight to boost participation.

The late president, Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a May helicopter crash, was seen as a protege of Khamenei and a potential successor as supreme leader. While Khamenei remains the final decision-maker on matters of state, whichever man ends up winning the presidency could bend the country’s foreign policy towards either confrontation or collaboration with the west.

Many knew Raisi for his involvement in the mass executions that Iran conducted in 1988, and for his role in the bloody crackdowns on dissent that followed protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained by police over allegedly improperly wearing the mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

In April, Iran launched its first ever direct attack on Israel, while militia groups that Tehran arms in the region – such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels – are engaged in the fighting and have escalated their attacks.

Iran is enriching uranium at near weapons-grade levels and maintains a stockpile large enough to build several nuclear weapons, should it choose to do so.

The campaign also repeatedly touched on what would happen if Donald Trump won the November election in the US. Trump withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. Iran has held indirect talks with Joe Biden’s administration, although there has been no clear movement back towards constraining Tehran’s nuclear programme in return for the lifting of economic sanctions.

With Associated Press

• Oil depots in Russia’s Krasnodar region were burning after drone attacks over Friday night, reports said. Tanks at Pavlovskaya and Leningradskaya were hit, Russian regional officials confirmed. Nasa’s global satellite fire monitoring system showed blazes corresponding with the reports. Unconfirmed videos online showed fires that were purported to be at the sites. In the Yeisk area, a cellular communications tower was hit, the Russian operational headquarters said.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s president, has said after the election of a new UK government: “I am grateful to Keir Starmer for his assurances that Britain’s support for Ukraine will remain unchanged in principle.” Starmer’s office said he told Zelenskiy in a phone call that the Labour government would keep providing “unwavering” support for Kyiv in its war against Russia. Zelenskiy said he had wished the new PM success in fulfilling the expectations of the British people. Zelenskiy also thanked the outgoing Conservative PM, Rishi Sunak, for his steadfast support.

• Zelenskiy said he and Starmer had “coordinated our positions” ahead of next week’s Nato summit at which Ukraine hopes to hear of possible steps to membership. A senior US official said Nato allies at their summit in Washington would unveil a “bridge to membership” for Ukraine and announce steps to bolster its air defences.

• Zelenskiy said on Friday that he sought to double Ukraine’s air defence capacity over the summer “and now we are starting to see results”. Ukraine has received its third German-supplied Patriot system, adding to those given or pledged by other countries. It also operates US Hawk, German Iris and other systems to shoot down Russian drones, missiles and aircraft. Zelenskiy said Ukraine had also received on Friday “additional support” from the US but gave no details.

• Ukraine and its western allies have hit out at the pro-Kremlin Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, after Vladimir Putin hosted him in Moscow. The visit came a few days after Orbán made a similar unannounced trip to Kyiv, as he tries to position himself as a peace broker. Orbán this week assumed the rotating EU presidency until the end of the year and told reporters in Moscow that he viewed his six-month tenure as a peace mission.

• The EU leadership in Brussels was quick to denounce the visit, stressing that Orbán had “not received any mandate from the EU council to visit Moscow” and did not speak for the EU, writes Pjotr Sauer. “Prime minister Viktor Orbán’s visit to Moscow takes place exclusively in the framework of the bilateral relations between Hungary and Russia. The Hungarian prime minister is thus not representing the EU in any form,” said Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief.

• Russian attacks on Friday killed eight people and injured at least 28 in Ukraine’s eastern frontline Donetsk region, the regional governor said. Five people were killed, and eight were injured when two Russian guided bombs struck the town of Selydove, west of the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk, said Vadym Filashkin. Separately, Russian troops dropped three guided bombs on the village of Komar, further south-west, killing a 32-year-old woman. Twenty others were injured, Filashkin said. Thirteen private houses, four shops and two residential buildings were damaged in the attack, he added, alongside two infrastructure facilities.

Viktor Orbán, Europe’s most pro-Russian leader, met Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Friday on a rare trip to Russia that drew strong condemnation from other European leaders.

Orbán’s visit to Moscow came days after he made a similar unannounced trip to Kyiv, as the Hungarian prime minister attempts to position himself as a peace broker between Russia and Ukraine.

Shortly after landing in Russia for his first trip to the country since Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Orbán published a photo with the caption: “The peace mission continues. Second stop: Moscow.”

At the Kremlin, the two leaders held talks that a senior Moscow aide described as a “frank conversation” covering all issues related to Ukraine.

Speaking at a joint conference with Orbán afterwards, Putin signalled he was not ready to compromise on the maximalist demands he made of Ukraine last month.

Putin repeated his earlier ultimatum to end the war, demanding Kyiv cede more land, withdraw troops deeper inside its own territory and drop its Nato bid.

These terms have already been firmly rejected by Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his western allies as they imply that Kyiv would have to relinquish four Ukrainian regions that Russia has “annexed” but does not fully control militarily.

Orbán this week assumed the rotating EU presidency until the end of the year and he told reporters in Moscow that he viewed his six-month tenure as a peace mission.

“Many steps are needed to end the war but we took the first step to restore dialogue,” Orban said, admitting that “points of view remained far from each other in Kyiv and Moscow”.

Brussels was quick to denounce the visit, stressing that Orbán did not speak for the EU and had “not received any mandate from the EU Council to visit Moscow”.

“Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s visit to Moscow takes place exclusively in the framework of the bilateral relations between Hungary and Russia. The Hungarian prime minister is thus not representing the EU in any form,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, wrote in a statement.

Ukraine condemned Orbán’s visit, saying it had been made “without approval or coordination” with Kyiv. The Ukrainian foreign ministry said in a statement that “the principle of ‘no agreements on Ukraine without Ukraine’ remains inviolable for our country”.

Hungary has been at odds with other western countries over Orbán’s continued cultivation of close ties to Russia and refusal to send arms to Ukraine. Budapest’s foreign minister called plans to help the country a “crazy mission” in May.

The Hungarian leader, who maintains links with rightwing groups around the globe, has long suggested Hungary could play a role in bringing peace to Ukraine. Aside from making vague calls for a ceasefire, he has not provided any details of a potential peace plan and has largely been ignored.

However, with elections in France later this week and a possible return to the US presidency for Donald Trump this year, Orbán may sense that the geopolitical winds are changing.

During his visit to Kyiv on Tuesday, Orbán said he had asked Zelenskiy to consider a quick ceasefire that could accelerate peace talks.

Both Zelenskiy and Putin rejected Orbán’s call for a ceasefire, with the Ukrainian leader saying his country “cannot just trust Putin in principle”.

“It is important that Hungary recognises that Russia is an aggressor,” Zelenskiy said in an interview after Orbán’s visit.

Ukrainians fear that without hard security guarantees, such as Nato membership, a ceasefire would simply allow Russia to regroup and attack again in the future.

Putin said Russia could not agree to a ceasefire “because it is not sure of Kyiv’s reciprocal actions”.

Orbán’s visit is the first by an EU leader to Russia since the Austrian chancellor, Karl Nehammer, made a fruitless effort to negotiate an end to Russia’s invasion in April 2022.

Friday’s trip caused further anxiety in Brussels and in EU member states, where many are already horrified that a leader who they feel has done everything to undermine European unity and the rule of law in recent years is now the bloc’s main representative for the next six months.

Citing Orbán, who said the trip would “serve as an important tool in making the first step towards peace”, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on social media: “The question is in whose hands this tool is.”

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, wrote on X: “Appeasement will not stop Putin. Only unity and determination will pave the path to a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine.”

Joe Biden has insisted that only “the Lord almighty” could persuade him to exit the US presidential race in a potential make-or-break TV interview aimed at quelling a burgeoning rebellion in the Democratic party.

In an exchange free from major gaffes but unlikely to appease his critics, Biden was asked by George Stephanopoulos of ABC News how he would feel if he were to remain the nominee and lose to Donald Trump. “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about,” the president replied.

In other responses his opponents may see as arrogant or out of touch, the 81-year-old claimed that he is “running the world” and no one is “more qualified” to be president.

The interview on Friday came at a critical stretch as the 81-year-old strives to salvage his imperiled re-election campaign after last month’s disastrous debate performance. Four members of Congress have called on Biden to step aside, and it was reported that Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, is looking to assemble a group of Democratic senators to ask the president to drop his re-election bid.

But on Friday, speaking to Stephanopoulos in Madison, Wisconsin, after a fiery campaign rally, the embattled president continued to strike a defiant tone. “Look. I mean, if the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get outta the race,’ I’d get outta the race,” he said, his voice sounding strained after the rally. “The Lord Almighty’s not comin’ down.”

Biden insisted that after meeting with Democratic leaders such as Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi and state governors, they continue to back him.

Stephanopoulos, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, pressed Biden on what he would do if told that his friends and supporters were concerned that his candidacy would cost Democrats the House of Representatives and Senate.

The president replied: “I’m not going to answer that question. It’s not going to happen.”

Stephanopoulos had begun the primetime interview by citing Pelosi, who this week questioned whether Biden’s feeble performance represented an episode or a condition.

“It was a bad episode,” Biden insisted. “No indication of any serious condition. I was exhausted. I didn’t listen to my instincts in terms of preparing and – I had a bad night.”

Stephanopoulos noted that Biden had returned from Europe 12 days before the debate and that he had spent six days at the presidential retreat Camp David. “Why wasn’t that enough rest time, enough recovery time?” he asked.

The president replied: “Because I was sick. I was feeling terrible. Matter of fact, the doc’s with me. I asked if they did a Covid test because they’re trying to figure out what was wrong. They did a test to see whether or not I had some infection, you know, a virus. I didn’t. I just had a really bad cold.”

Stephanopoulos asked whether Biden had watched the debate afterwards. Instead of giving a firm yes or no, he hedged: “I don’t think I did, no.”

The interviewer went on to ask what Biden had been experiencing during the debate and whether he had known how badly it was going. Just as he did on that night, the president zigzagged in his answer from one point to another. He said: “Yeah, look. The whole way I prepared, nobody’s fault, mine. Nobody’s fault but mine.

“I – I prepared what I usually would do sittin’ down as I did come back with foreign leaders or National Security Council for explicit detail. And I realised – partway through that, you know, all – I get quoted the New York Times had me down, 10 points before the debate, nine now, or whatever the hell it is.

“The fact of the matter is, what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times. I couldn’t – I mean, the way the debate ran, not – my fault, nobody else’s fault, no one else’s fault.”

Stephanopoulos challenged Biden that concerns about his fitness for office followed a pattern, citing a recent New York Times article that reported his lapses were becoming more frequent, pronounced and worrisome.

Biden said: “Can I run a 110 flat? No. But I’m still in good shape.”

Asked whether he would be willing to have an independent cognitive evaluation and release the results to the American people, Biden said: “Look, I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I’ve had tests. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, I’m running the world. And that sounds like hyperbole but we are the essential nation in the world.”

The interviewer asked: “Are you sure you’re being honest with yourself when you’re saying you have the mental and physical capacity to serve another four years?”

Biden shot back: “Yes, I am because, George, the last thing I want to do is not be able to meet that. I think as some of the senior economist and senior foreign policy specialists say, if I stopped now I’d go down in history as a pretty successful president. No one thought I could get done what we got done.”

The 22-minute interview was shown to a national audience on ABC. It was part of a major campaign offensive over the weekend to assuage doubts over Biden’s fitness for office and ability to beat Trump.

The Biden campaign’s response to the crisis over the past few days has frustrated many Democrats. Some financial backers are holding off or canceling upcoming fundraisers.

And at least four House Democrats have called for him to step down as the nominee: Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, Lloyd Doggett of Texas and Raúl Grijalva of Arizona and Mike Quigley of Illinois are pushing for an alternative. Massachusetts governor Maura Healey said in a carefully worded statement on Friday that Biden now has a decision to make on “the best way forward”.

In the interview, Biden dismissed those calls, as well as opinion polls that show he has a low approval rating and claimed that he remains better placed than other candidates to beat Trump. “I don’t think anybody is more qualified to be president or win this race than me,” he said, bristling.

Stephanopoulos followed up: “The heart of your case against Donald Trump is that he’s only out for himself, putting his personal interests ahead of the national interest. How do you respond to critics who say that by staying in the race you’re doing the same thing?”

Biden responded impatiently: “Oh, come on. I don’t think those critics know what you’re talking about. It’s wrong. Look, Trump is a pathological liar. You ever seen anything Trump did that benefited somebody else and not him?”

The president may have just days to make a persuasive case that he is capable of beating Trump. Early reactions to his rallies and interviews have been mixed.

John Fetterman, the Democratic senator for Pennsylvania, wrote on the social media platform X: “Democrats need to get a spine or grow a set — one or the other. Joe Biden is our guy.”

But David Axelrod, a former strategist for Barack Obama, posted: “The president is rightfully proud of his record. But he is dangerously out-of-touch with the concerns people have about his capacities moving forward and his standing in this race. Four years ago at this time, he was 10 points ahead of Trump. Today, he is six points behind.”

Joe Biden is pushing back against questions about whether he has the mental and physical stamina to serve another term is president, arguing, in a much-hyped Friday television interview, “I just had a bad night.”

In a pre-taped sit-down interview that aired on Friday evening, the 81-year-old president told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that he had been sick, exhausted, and had not prepared well for last week’s presidential debate with Donald Trump.

Biden’s performance was so poor that some Democrats, including Democratic members of Congress, are calling him to drop out of the race. But so far he has vowed to stay in the race.

Here are some key takeaways:

Donald Trump is trying to claim he has “nothing to do” with Project 2025, a political roadmap created by people close to him for his potential second term.

The project, which is led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank, seeks to crack down on various issues including immigration, reproductive rights, environmental protections and LGBTQ+ rights. It also aims to replace federal employees with Trump loyalists across the government.

Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social network: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

The former president’s post came a day after the Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, said the US was in the midst of a “second American revolution” that can be bloodless “if the left allows it to be”. He made the comments on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, adding that Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back”.

In response to Trump’s post, several critics were quick to point out that it appears unlikely that he is unaware of Project 2025, given that many individuals involved in the project are his closest allies.

“Many people involved in Project 2025 are close to Trump world & have served in his previous admin,” CNN’s Alayna Treene said.

Economist and Guardian columnist Robert Reich wrote: “Don’t be fooled. The playbook is written by more than 20 officials Trump appointed in his first term. It is the clearest vision we have of a 2nd Trump presidency.”

The Trump campaign has previously pushed back on claims that he would follow the policy ideas set out in Project 2025 or by other conservative groups. His campaign told Axios in November 2023 that the campaign’s own policy agenda, called Agenda47, is “the only official comprehensive and detailed look at what President Trump will do when he returns to the White House”, though the campaign added that it was “appreciative” of suggestions from others.

Still, Heritage claimed credit for a bevy of Trump policy proposals in his first term, based on the group’s 2017 version of the Mandate for Leadership. The group calculated that 64% of its policy recommendations were implemented or proposed by Trump in some way during his first year in office.

The Heritage Foundation also created the first Mandate for Leadership that heavily influenced Ronald Reagan’s administration in 1981.

The foundation claims that Reagan gave copies of the manifesto to “every member of his Cabinet” and that nearly two-thirds of the policy recommendations it laid out were either “adopted or attempted” by Reagan.

Hurricane Beryl has made landfall as a category 2 storm in Mexico’s top tourist destinations, triggering a red alert in the region following its deadly trail of destruction across several Caribbean islands.

The storm’s core shifted over the Yucatán, with winds slowing to approximately 100mph (160km/h) as it reached the north-eastern region of Tulum, famed for its white-sand beaches, lush landscapes and Mayan ruins.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) predicted that the storm will move towards north-eastern Mexico and southern Texas towards the end of the weekend. In anticipation of that, Texas officials on Friday urged coastal residents to prepare to deal with Beryl.

Video posted on social media on Friday showed fierce winds battering Tulum’s downtown.

A hurricane warning was issued for the coast from Puerto Costa Maya to Cancún, including Cozumel.

Hurricane Beryl, the first of the 2024 Atlantic season, was at one point a category 5 storm, making it the earliest storm of that magnitude on record. This extraordinary storm season is believed by scientists to be fueled by the climate crisis.

Mexico’s civil protection agency issued a red alert, signaling a maximum hazard threat. The agency has advised residents to remain in their homes or seek refuge in storm shelters.

The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, echoed this advice, urging those in the storm’s path to seek shelter. He emphasized the importance of prioritising life over material possessions in a social media post.

In Quintana Roo, home to Cancún, the governor, Mara Lezama, posted a video of Tulum’s downtown showing strong winds and rain already affecting the region. Posting on X, she urged residents to remain indoors, saying: “We’re asking everyone to stay in your homes, in your shelters, do not leave.”

Schools in Quintana Roo have been closed and the Mexico’s defense ministry has opened around 120 storm shelters in the area.

Before reaching Mexico, Hurricane Beryl wreaked havoc in the Caribbean. It swept through Jamaica, Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and northern Venezuela, claiming at least 11 lives, bringing down buildings and uprooting trees.

On Friday afternoon, Mexico’s civil protection agency said that no casualties had been reported in the country.

Beryl is expected to weaken rapidly as it crosses the Yucatán peninsula, but is forecast to regain strength when it moves over the Gulf of Mexico.

Hurricane Beryl forced the evacuation of around 3,000 tourists from Isla Mujeres, an island near Cancun, the island’s tourism director, Jose Magana, said. Many residents, including fishermen, have sought shelter in anticipation of the storm’s impact.

About 100 flights were canceled at the Cancún international airport on Thursday, causing many tourists to rush to catch the last outgoing flights.

Mexico’s major oil platforms, primarily located in the southern Gulf of Mexico, are not expected to be affected or shut down, but oil projects in US waters to the north may be affected if the hurricane continues on its expected path.

Research by the ClimaMeter consortium determined that the climate crisis, caused by human activities, significantly intensified Hurricane Beryl. According to the study, the storm’s severity, along with its associated rainfall and wind speed, saw an increase of 10-30% as a direct result of the climate emergency.

The French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, has urged all political parties to call for calm on a tense last day of campaigning for a snap election in which the far right hopes to win a majority in parliament.

“Violence and intimidation have no place in our society,” Attal wrote in a social media post.

The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said: “This campaign is short and yet we already have 51 candidates, substitutes and activists who have been physically assaulted.”

Darmanin told BFM TV that some of the assaults had been extremely serious and led to people being admitted to hospital. He said more than 30 arrests had been made across France and denounced what he called “a climate of great violence towards politics and all that it represents”.

It was too early to establish a “typical profile” of the people carrying out the attacks, but they ranged from people who had “spontaneously got angry” to “political activists either from the ultra-left or ultra-right”. The assaults had happened against people on all sides, he said.

About 30,000 police will be deployed across France after the results on Sunday, including 5,000 in Paris and the surrounding area. Darmanin said he feared “excesses” and had asked the Paris police chief to ban street protests expected outside parliament on Sunday night. He said he feared the “ultra-left” above all. He also said he anticipated demonstrations in Lyon, Rennes and Nantes or “anywhere there is the ultra-right or ultra-left”.

The Paris Bar Council has asked the public prosecutor’s office to open a case after a far-right website called for the “elimination” of lawyers who had signed an article against Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally (RN).

The far-right party has said it could win an absolute majority of 289 seats in parliament and form a government. Latest polling, however, suggests it will fall short of that target, but it is expected to become the largest party. An Ipsos poll forecast the RN would get between 175 and 205 seats and Ifop pollsters put the figure at between 170 and 210.

Polls also showed that tactical voting could limit the RN’s gains. Emmanuel Macron’s centrists and a broad leftwing coalition agreed this week to withdraw more than 200 candidates from the final round to avoid splitting the vote against the RN.

Polls suggest only between a third and a half of centrists could switch to the leftwing alliance to fend off the far right, while perhaps two-thirds of left-leaning voters could back a centrist.

If the RN and its allies do not win an absolute majority but end up as the largest party, there could be deadlock in parliament and a struggle to form a government.

Le Pen said on Friday that such deadlock would “not [be] chaos but a quagmire, a total standstill”, urging her supporters to turn out and give her party the biggest score possible. She said that if the RN did not have a clear majority, “no law will be voted … for a year, the country will be at standstill at the worst moment for France”.

If no party reaches a clear majority, there is uncertainty about how a government could be formed, weeks before Paris hosts the Olympics.

Attal, an ally of Macron, was campaigning on Friday in Paris and did not rule out his minority administration remaining in place for “as long as necessary” after polling day. That was understood to mean the government could continue for a brief period in case of deadlock in parliament, but Attal did not explain further.

The president’s decision to call a snap vote three years ahead of schedule after his party was trounced by the far right in European elections was seen as the biggest gamble of his political career. He said at the time that it would allow French people to reject extremes and reset parliament.

Predictions are hard to make before Sunday’s second round but polling showed Macron’s centrists losing ground and the far right gaining support.

The controversial social media influencer Andrew Tate will be allowed to leave Romania while awaiting trial on charges of human trafficking, a court has ruled.

Tate, 37, had been banned from leaving the country but will now be permitted to travel within the EU without restrictions while awaiting the trial.

The self-professed “misogynist influencer” was indicted in June 2023 along with his brother, Tristan, and two Romanian female suspects for alleged human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women, allegations they have all denied.

In April this year the Bucharest court ruled that their trial could start, a decision Tate has appealed against. Pending a ruling on his appeal, the four suspects had been banned from leaving Romania, but Friday’s court decision lifted the restriction within the EU.

The Bucharest tribunal’s decision was hailed by Tate’s spokesperson Mateea Petrescu as a “significant victory and a major step forward” in the case.

In a social media post on X, Tate wrote: “I am free. For the first time in 3 years I can leave Romania. The sham case is falling apart.”

In a video also posted on X, he said: “My judges decided … I’m allowed to leave Romania, so do we take the [Ferrari] SF90 to Italy, the [Maserati] MC20 to Cannes, the [Ferrari] 812 Competition to Paris, where do I go?”

Eugen Vidineac, one of Tate’s lawyers, said: “We embrace and applaud the decision of the court today, I consider it a reflection of the exemplary behaviour and assistance of my clients.”

He said the Tates were “still determined to clear their name and reputation”.

Vidineac said the ability to travel within the 27-country EU bloc would allow the Tates to “pursue professional opportunities without restriction”.

The brothers, who are dual UK-US nationals, were held in police custody during the criminal investigation from December 2022 until April 2023 to prevent them from absconding from Romania or tampering with evidence.

They were then under house arrest until August, when courts placed them under judicial control. In January a Romanian court rejected an appeal by Tate to ease the judicial control measures.

Tate, a kickboxer who has 9.1 million followers on X, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him.

He was previously banned from various social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and for hate speech.

The controversial social media influencer Andrew Tate will be allowed to leave Romania while awaiting trial on charges of human trafficking, a court has ruled.

Tate, 37, had been banned from leaving the country but will now be permitted to travel within the EU without restrictions while awaiting the trial.

The self-professed “misogynist influencer” was indicted in June 2023 along with his brother, Tristan, and two Romanian female suspects for alleged human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women, allegations they have all denied.

In April this year the Bucharest court ruled that their trial could start, a decision Tate has appealed against. Pending a ruling on his appeal, the four suspects had been banned from leaving Romania, but Friday’s court decision lifted the restriction within the EU.

The Bucharest tribunal’s decision was hailed by Tate’s spokesperson Mateea Petrescu as a “significant victory and a major step forward” in the case.

In a social media post on X, Tate wrote: “I am free. For the first time in 3 years I can leave Romania. The sham case is falling apart.”

In a video also posted on X, he said: “My judges decided … I’m allowed to leave Romania, so do we take the [Ferrari] SF90 to Italy, the [Maserati] MC20 to Cannes, the [Ferrari] 812 Competition to Paris, where do I go?”

Eugen Vidineac, one of Tate’s lawyers, said: “We embrace and applaud the decision of the court today, I consider it a reflection of the exemplary behaviour and assistance of my clients.”

He said the Tates were “still determined to clear their name and reputation”.

Vidineac said the ability to travel within the 27-country EU bloc would allow the Tates to “pursue professional opportunities without restriction”.

The brothers, who are dual UK-US nationals, were held in police custody during the criminal investigation from December 2022 until April 2023 to prevent them from absconding from Romania or tampering with evidence.

They were then under house arrest until August, when courts placed them under judicial control. In January a Romanian court rejected an appeal by Tate to ease the judicial control measures.

Tate, a kickboxer who has 9.1 million followers on X, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him.

He was previously banned from various social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and for hate speech.

Donald Trump moved on Friday to capitalize on the US supreme court’s decision to confer broad immunity to former presidents, asking the federal judge overseeing his criminal case for retaining classified documents to take a scalpel to any charges that were “official” acts that could not be prosecuted.

The supreme court this week held that former presidents enjoyed some immunity from criminal prosecution for certain conduct they undertook in office, which also meant evidence of immune acts could not be introduced as evidence at any trial even if they did not form part of the charges.

The framework of criminal accountability for former presidents, as laid out by the ruling, has three categories: core presidential functions that carry absolute immunity, official acts of the presidency that carry presumptive immunity, and unofficial acts that carry no immunity.

The request from Trump’s lawyers did not say which parts of the indictment they considered to be official conduct that was immune. But if the US district judge Aileen Cannon agrees to go through the charges, it would almost certainly further delay the case by months.

The filing not only showed the far-reaching ramifications of the immunity decision, which is now affecting Trump’s documents case in Florida even though the ruling originated from a pre-trial appeal in the former president’s 2020 election subversion case in Washington; it also demonstrated Trump’s intent to use it to destroy the substance of the cases.

The 10-page filing from Trump’s lawyers asked Cannon for permission to file new briefs, arguing the immunity decision gutted prosecutors’ position that he had no immunity and “further demonstrates the politically-motivated nature of their contention that the motion is ‘frivolous’”.

But Trump’s filing was doubly notable as it asked Cannon to pause all other proceedings in the case until she decided whether the special counsel, Jack Smith, and his prosecution team were authorized to bring the case in the first place.

In a recent motion to dismiss the case, Trump’s lawyers argued that Smith had been improperly appointed since he was not named to the role by the president or approved by the Senate like other federal officers are – and that the attorney general, Merrick Garland, had no legal power to do so by himself.

The motion appeared destined for denial after a recent hearing in federal district court in Fort Pierce, Florida, when prosecutors countered that Garland – under the appointments clause of the US constitution – had authority to name “inferior officers” like special counsels to act as subordinates.

But as part of the supreme court’s decision, Justice Clarence Thomas gave the notion new momentum. “If this unprecedented prosecution is to proceed, the lower courts should thus answer these essential questions concerning the special counsel’s appointment,” Thomas wrote, albeit with respect to the 2020 election case.

Hopes for a ceasefire in Gaza and de-escalation on the boundary between Israel and Lebanon were raised on Friday, as Israel’s intelligence chief was dispatched by the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Qatar to resume stalled negotiations as Hamas reportedly told its Lebanese ally Hezbollah it had accepted a ceasefire proposal.

An official for the Lebanese group, which said on Thursday that it had fired 200 rockets into Israel in retaliation for a strike that killed one of its top commanders, also told Reuters that the group would cease fire as soon as any Gaza ceasefire agreement takes effect, echoing previous statements.

“If there is a Gaza agreement, then from zero hour there will be a ceasefire in Lebanon,” the official said.

The efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages held for nearly nine months gained momentum this week as Hamas put forward a revised proposal outlining the terms of an agreement, and Israel expressed readiness to resume discussions that had previously come to a standstill.

The head of the Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, travelled alone to Doha to meet Qatar’s prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, to study proposals from Hamas to pause the nearly nine-month war, the Kan public broadcaster reported, citing senior Israeli officials.

He returned to Israel after an initial meeting, and negotiations will resume next week, Netanyahu’s office said late on Friday.

The United States appears to hold high expectations regarding the recently resumed contact between Israel and Hamas, with the White House describing the latest Hamas ceasefire proposal as a “breakthrough” establishing a framework for a possible hostage deal.

‘‘I think the framework is now in place and we have to work out the implementation steps,” a senior US official said. “What we got back from Hamas was a pretty significant adjustment to what had been their position, and that is encouraging. We have heard the same from the Israelis.”

The main obstacle in negotiations until this week had been widely differing views on how the agreement would move from its first phase to its second.

The first phase involves the release by Hamas of elderly, sick and female hostages during a six-week truce, an Israeli withdrawal from cities in Gaza, and the release of Palestinian detainees held by Israel.

The second phase would involve the release of all remaining hostages as well as the bodies of those who have died, a permanent end to hostilities and a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Phase three would mark the start of Gaza’s reconstruction.

The transition from the first to the second phase was to be negotiated during the first six-week truce, and the ceasefire would continue as long as good-faith negotiations continued, but Hamas wanted stronger guarantees over the path to a permanent ceasefire.

Netanyahu had publicly cast doubt on whether that would happen, vowing to complete the destruction of the group, which had run Gaza for nearly two decades before it launched its surprise attack on southern Israel on 7 October.

A Palestinian official close to the internationally mediated peace efforts told Reuters the new Hamas proposal could lead to a framework agreement if it is embraced by Israel.

He said Hamas was no longer demanding as a pre-condition an Israeli commitment to a permanent ceasefire before the signing of an agreement, and would allow negotiations to achieve that throughout a first six-week phase.

The White House said Biden and Netanyahu had on Thursday discussed the response received from Hamas on the possible terms of a deal, and that Biden had welcomed Netanyahu’s decision on resuming the stalled talks “in an effort to close out the deal”.

A source in the Israeli negotiating team told Reuters: “There’s a deal with a real chance of implementation.”

A Gaza ceasefire could also allow for the de-escalation between Hezbollah and Israel on the Lebanese boundary. Hezbollah has declared its attacks on Israel to be in support of Hamas and indicated its willingness to halt its assaults if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.

A Hamas delegation headed by the group’s deputy leader, Khalil al-Hayya, briefed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah about the latest developments at a meeting in Beirut, the sources said.

Its deputy secretary general Naim Qassem on Friday publicly indicated that the group is not anticipating a full-scale war with Israel, but remains prepared for any extreme scenarios, in an interview with Russian outlet Sputnik.

“The possibility of expanding the war is not at hand at the moment but the organisation is prepared for the worst,” he said.

Mothers of Hamas-held hostages demonstrating in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square urged Israeli leaders to make an agreement. “There is right now a deal on the table,” said Shira Albag, the mother of 19-year-old Liri Albag, calling on the prime minister to “show leadership and courage and sign it off”.

One of the main obstacles to the negotiations within Israel is the far-right faction of the Netanyahu coalition government. The national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, issued a warning about potentially exiting the coalition during a highly charged security cabinet session on Thursday evening.

According to media reports in Israel, Ben Gvir criticised Netanyahu for engaging in private discussions with the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and top security officials, painting the cabinet as merely a superficial facade.

“I want to make it abundantly clear, prime minister, that if you choose to act unilaterally, the consequences are solely your own to bear, and you will find yourself standing alone. I did not receive half a million votes to partake in a government where key security decisions are made outside the collective,” he was quoted as saying.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report.

Hackers claimed this week that they had obtained barcode data for hundreds of thousands of tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, demanding that Ticketmaster pay millions in ransom money or they would leak the information online.

The hacking group posted samples of the data to an online forum– ticket data on Swift’s shows in Indianapolis, Miami, and New Orleans – and alleged that it possessed an additional 30m million barcodes for other high-profile concerts and sporting events.

The ransom posts on the online forum were from the hacking group ShinyHunters, and an account that appeared to be associated with it called Sp1d3rHunters. The group has a history of claiming responsibility for major hacks against companies including Santander bank, AT&T, Microsoft and others.

Ticketmaster denied offering any money to the hackers, who had not engaged with the company about the ransom, according to a statement from parent Live National Entertainment. Ticketmaster also stated that its ticketing technology prevented such leaked barcodes from being used as tickets by refreshing barcodes every few seconds.

Hopeful Swifties probably won’t be able to attend their icon’s world tour with an ill-gotten ticket. Although the data appeared to be from the hacking group’s large scale breach of Ticketmaster and Live Nation earlier this year, cybersecurity experts who examined the leak agreed that the stolen data would not be useful for gaining access to an arena. The data could not be used as a ticket because the Ticketmaster mobile application uses dynamic barcodes, experts said, whereas the data in the hack is static.

“This data is almost certainly not sufficient to allow someone to recreate a barcode to get in,” said Don Smith, vice-president at the cybersecurity firm Secureworks. “If you’re running events of the size and scale of the Eras tour, you are not going to make it easy for someone to just get access to a database and then be able to create a fake ticket.”

Despite ShinyHunters’ ability to gain access to the Swift ticketing data, which included information on tickets for nine upcoming dates across the three US cities, experts said that companies such as Live Nation have more sophisticated measures to prevent that data from being used to actually steal tickets.

“If the thought here was that you’re going to create absolute chaos on all future Eras tour dates, I don’t think so,” Smith said.

The ransom threat to Live Nation is part of a broader rise in cyberattacks and ransomware in recent years. The attacks have targeted major corporations and public institutions, with analysts estimating that victims paid out $1.1bn in ransoms in 2023. The United Kingdom’s National Health Service is still reeling from a devastating attack by a Russia-based ransomware gang in June.

Earlier this year, ShinyHunters allegedly breached a third party contractor to gain access to Ticketmaster’s data that included the names, partial payment details, phone numbers, ticket sales and other information on around 560 million customers. LiveNation confirmed the hack in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in May after ShinyHunters took credit for the attack.

The hack added to Live Nation’s myriad of public relations problems and legal woes. The US Department of Justice sued the company in May, alleging it was illegally monopolizing ticket sales and seeking to break it up. Live Nation also faced widespread backlash over its handling of Swift’s Eras tour, with a botched sales process leading to hours-long waits, failure to handle consumer demand and tickets going on resale for exorbitant amounts. Swift herself has bashed the company repeatedly.

Swift’s tour has been the target of cyberattacks before. In February, hackers breached Australian events company Ticketek, breaking into individual accounts and reselling Eras tour tickets. The company set up pop-up stands outside Swift’s shows for fans to report their concerns and potentially regain their tickets.

ShinyHunters has also claimed responsibility for accessing bank and credit card numbers for around 30 million customers and employees at Santander bank earlier this year. The group attempted to sell that information to the highest bidder. In May, the FBI and US Department of Justice seized the online forum that ShinyHunters used to post information and ransom threats from its Live Nation and Santander hacks, but another site quickly popped up.