The world has baked for 12 consecutive months in temperatures 1.5C (2.7F) greater than their average before the fossil fuel era, new data shows.

Temperatures between July 2023 and June 2024 were the highest on record, scientists found, creating a year-long stretch in which the Earth was 1.64C hotter than in preindustrial times.

The findings do not mean world leaders have already failed to honour their promises to stop the planet heating 1.5C by the end of the century – a target that is measured in decadal averages rather than single years – but that scorching heat will have exposed more people to violent weather. A sustained rise in temperatures above this level also increases the risk of uncertain but catastrophic tipping points.

Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which analysed the data, said the results were not a statistical oddity but a “large and continuing shift” in the climate.

“Even if this specific streak of extremes ends at some point, we are bound to see new records being broken as the climate continues to warm,” he said. “This is inevitable unless we stop adding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the oceans.”

Copernicus, a scientific organisation that belongs to the EU’s space programme, uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to track key climate metrics. It found June 2024 was hotter than any other June on record and was the 12th month in a row with temperatures 1.5C greater than their average between 1850 and 1900.

Because temperatures in some months had “relatively small margins” above 1.5C, the scientists said, datasets from other climate agencies may not confirm the 12-month temperature streak.

Whether pumped out the chimney of a coal-burning power plant or ejected from the exhaust pipe of a passenger plane, each carbon molecule clogging the Earth’s atmosphere traps heat and warps weather. The hotter the planet gets, the less people and ecosystems can adapt.

“This is not good news at all,” said Aditi Mukherji, a director at research institute CGIAR and co-author of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. “We know that extreme events increase with every increment of global warming – and at 1.5C, we witnessed some of the hottest extremes this year.”

Some ecosystems are more vulnerable than others. In its latest review of the science, the IPCC found that 1.5C of warming will kill off 70-90% of tropical coral reefs, while warming of 2C will wipe them out almost entirely.

A Guardian survey of hundreds of IPCC authors this year found three-quarters expect the planet to heat by at least 2.5C by 2100, with about half of the scientists expecting temperatures above 3C. The increments sound small but can mean the difference between widespread human suffering and “semi-dystopian” futures.

Mukherji compared 1C of global heating to a mild fever and 1.5C a medium-to-high grade fever. “Now imagine a human body with [that] temperature for years. Will that person function normally any more?”

“That’s currently our Earth system,” she added. “It is a crisis.”

François Gemenne, an IPCC author and director of the Hugo Observatory at the University of Liège, said the climate crisis is not a binary issue. “It is not 1.5C or death – every 0.1C matters a great deal because we’re talking about global average temperatures, which translate into massive temperature gaps locally.”

Even in a best-case scenario, he said, people need to prepare for a warmer world and “beef up” response plans. “Adaptation is not an admission that our current efforts are useless.”

Joe Biden insisted he was the person to reunite America in a second term in the White House and was “up for the job” as he hit the trail in Pennsylvania on Sunday – but the number of high-profile Democrats doubting his position as the presumptive party nominee only grew amid a campaign in crisis.

Pressure on the US president increased even further following his poor debate performance against Donald Trump last month and an underwhelming ABC interview last week, as a group of Democratic representatives met online with House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries on Sunday.

Congressmen Jerry Nadler of New York and Jamie Raskin of Maryland were reportedly among a clutch of lawmakers who told Jeffries that Biden should leave the presidential race.

Congress will be back on Monday from its latest recess and the focus among Democrats is whether Biden can continue to campaign for re-election. House Democrats are expected to meet in person with Jeffries on Tuesday to discuss the president.

Biden’s fresh blitz on Sunday to rally voters, donors and campaign staff also came as prominent House Democrat Adam Schiff said Vice-President Kamala Harris could beat Trump and the president should “pass the torch” to someone else if he can’t win “overwhelmingly”.

The US president made no mention of his health and fitness when he told a loudly supportive Philadelphia church congregation in the morning: “We must unite America again … that’s my goal. That’s what we’re going to do.”

But Schiff, who is likely to become California’s next senator in the November election, said he thought Harris could decisively win the election against presumptive Republican party nominee Trump, if Biden drops out.

He warned that the US president either “has to win overwhelmingly, or he has to pass the torch to someone who can”.

Meanwhile, reports began emerging after the virtual meeting with Jeffries on Sunday, via CBS and CNN, that as well as Nadler and Raskin, representatives Mark Takano of California, Adam Smith of Washington state, Jim Himes of Connecticut, Joe Morelle of New York and Susan Wild of Pennsylvania told him they wanted Biden to quit as the race, the outlets said, citing unnamed sources. Many want Harris to take over as the nominee.

Democrats Maxine Waters and Bobby Scott told Jeffries they support Biden to become the nominee and fight for re-election, while Jeffries did not reveal his hand, CNN reported.

As the chaos continued, Biden was on a three-stop swing in Pennsylvania, first addressing the church service in a majority Black neighborhood in north-western Philadelphia before expecting to head to the state capital of Harrisburg about 100 miles away in the afternoon.

He was introduced at the Mount Airy church of God in Christ in Philadelphia as “our honored guest” and senior pastor Louis Felton told the congregation that if they stand together “there is no election that we cannot win”, adding, “We love our president. We pray for our president.”

One demonstrator outside the church underlined the conflicting views within the party and even normally loyal Democratic voters, carrying a sign that read: “Thank you Joe, but time to go.”

But Felton said: “God knew Biden needs some love.” He described Biden as a president of vision and integrity and said: “President Biden is coming back. He’s a comeback kid. He’s a fighter. He’s a champion.”

He concluded: “Never count Joseph out,” as congregants chanted “four more years” when Biden finished speaking.

In Harrisburg, Biden joked that “Dark Brandon is coming back,” to a supporter who asked about the nickname, the Hill reported, which was originally a mistaken interpretation of a Republican insult that then was reclaimed by Biden’s election campaign as a humorous show-of-strength meme.

Then as Biden was later departing for the White House, he responded to a reporter asking: “Will you have to convince Nato you’re up for the job again?” ahead of the gathering of defense alliance leaders in Washington DC this week.

Biden gave a thumbs up and said “I’m up for the job,” having earlier shouted “yes” with a big smile when asked if his party was behind him.

Meanwhile Mark Warner, another prominent Democrat and US senator for Virginia, reportedly is wrangling Senate Democrats to ask Biden at the White House on Monday to step down as the presumptive nominee.

On Sunday morning, Schiff told NBC News’s Meet the Press show: “The [ABC] interview didn’t put concerns to rest. No single interview is going to do that. And what I do think the president needs to decide is, can he put those concerns aside? Can he demonstrate the American people that what happened on the debate stage was an aberration?”

Schiff then weighted Harris’s prospects if she became the party nominee not Biden, as her profile rises fast.

“I think she very well could win overwhelmingly, but before we get into a decision about who else it should be, the president needs to make a decision about whether it’s him.”

Bernie Sanders, the independent US senator from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, signaled continued support for Biden.

He told CBS: “What we are talking about now is not a Grammy award contest for best singer. Biden is old. He’s not as articulate as he once was. I wish he could jump up the steps on Air Force One – he can’t,” Sanders admitted, while adding a challenge to the president to continue to run on policies that help working-class voters.

“Whose policies will benefit the vast majority of the people in this country, who has the guts to take on corporate America?” Sanders asked, saying the Democratic nominee needed to fight for health insurance coverage, selectively higher taxes and benefits.

“Those are the issues he’s talked about. He’s got to bring them up in the fallt,” Sanders said.

Democratic US senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said “the clock is ticking” for the president to quell doubts and that this was a crucial week for him.

South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham added his voice on Sunday to a chorus calling for cognitive and physical evaluations for Joe Biden – but also called for the same for Donald Trump and others.

The Republican lawmaker recommended such tests for all future presidential nominees as well as those who may take over from a president or a nominee.

“All nominees for president going into future should have neurological exams as part of an overall physical exam … Let’s test Trump. Let’s test Biden. Let’s test the line of succession”, the 68-year-old Graham told CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday.

“This is a wake-up call for the country,” he added. “We need to make sure that the people who are going to be in the line of succession are capable of being commander-in-chief under dire circumstances.”

Graham’s call for cognitive tests came after California Democrat Adam Schiff said he’d be “happy” if both Biden and Trump took tests – and predicted: “frankly, a test would show Donald Trump has a serious illness of one kind or another”. Schiff also said Biden should “pass the torch” if he can’t win “overwhelmingly”.

The issue of presidential cognitive testing comes as Biden, 81, the oldest US president in history, struggles to free himself from claims that his admittedly bad debate performance against Trump 10 days ago was not symptomatic of a broader mental decline – and that he was fit to remain the presumptive Democratic nominee for reelection this November.

Graham added: “I’m offended by the idea that he [Biden] shouldn’t take a competency test, given all the evidence in front of us,” Graham said, adding that he thinks Biden is in denial and that’s dangerous.

Asked if Trump, 78, should, too, Graham said: “Yes, yes, I think both.”

With pressure mounting on the White House, Graham said: “Most of us are concerned with the national security implications of this debate about President Biden’s health”, adding: “I’m worried about Biden … Biden being the commander in chief for the next four months.”

Graham also predicted that Biden will “most likely will be replaced” as the Democratic nominee with the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, being the most obvious choice.

“If she does become the nominee, this is a dramatically different race than it is right now, today. I hope people are thinking about that on our side”, he said.

In the initial chaos of the Hamas attack on 7 October, Israel’s armed forces employed what is known as the Hannibal protocol, a directive to use force to prevent the kidnapping of soldiers even at the expense of hostages’ lives, according to a report.

The Israel daily Haaretz reported on Sunday, nine months to the day after the assault in which about 1,200 people were killed and another 250 abducted to the Gaza Strip, that the operational procedure was used at three army facilities attacked by Hamas, potentially endangering civilians as well.

Another message given to Israel’s Gaza division at 11.22am, about five hours after the attack began, ordered: “Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza.”

A southern command source told the paper: “Everyone knew by then that such vehicles could be carrying kidnapped civilians or soldiers … Everyone knew what it meant to not let any vehicles return to Gaza.”

Haaretz said it was still unclear whether civilians or soldiers were harmed as a result of these orders, or how many, but documents and testimonies of soldiers, as well as mid-level and senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers, suggested the practice was used in a “widespread” manner on 7 October amid a lack of clear information as the IDF struggled to respond to the attack.

In response to the report, an IDF spokesperson said internal investigations into what transpired on 7 October and the preceding period were under way. “The aim of these investigations is to learn and to draw lessons which could be used in continuing the battle. When these investigations are concluded, the results will be presented to the public with transparency,” the statement said.

The Haaretz investigation is the latest reporting by Israeli media shedding light on failures in military intelligence and operational responses around the Hamas offensive, the deadliest single attack on Israeli soil since the founding of the state in 1948.

Israel’s ensuing campaign in Gaza has still to achieve several of its stated objectives, leading to fears the conflict is on the brink of morphing into sustained insurgency-style warfare. More than 38,000 people have been killed by Israeli operations in the Palestinian territory, according to the local health ministry, and almost all of the 2.3 million population have been displaced from their homes in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

Allegations first surfaced in January that the IDF may have used the Hannibal protocol to prevent Hamas fighters from returning to Gaza with hostages. While the directive has only ever been used in relation to soldiers, a high-profile incident at the Be’eri kibbutz, in which a brigadier general ordered a tank to fire shells at a house with Hamas militants and 14 Israelis inside, killing 13 of the hostages, has raised questions about operational procedures causing civilian casualties.

The Israeli military probably killed more than a dozen of its own citizens during the 7 October attack, a UN investigation found last month.

Also on Sunday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that a sophisticated early-warning system on the Gaza border developed by Unit 8200, part of the IDF’s military intelligence directorate, had not been properly maintained and was known to frequently malfunction. A dossier presented by Unit 8200 officers before 7 October detailed Hamas’s elaborate invasion plans, including raids on Israeli towns and military posts, hostage scenarios and potential outcomes, the report said.

In November, members of the women-only “spotters” unit deployed at two points along the Gaza perimeter said they had tried to warn their superiors on numerous occasions about unusual activity along the border fence before Hamas’s attack, but had been ignored. Fifteen spotters were killed on 7 October and another six taken hostage.

The Israeli government has been accused of attempting to sabotage a US-backed ceasefire proposal, according to Israeli media, by introducing new demands despite previously accepting the plan.

Hopes for a ceasefire in Gaza had risen in recent days following reports that Hamas had given initial approval for a new proposal for a phased deal, after ninth months of war since the attack on 7 October.

Egyptian officials and representatives of Hamas said the Islamist militant organisation had dropped a key demand that Israel commit to a definitive end to the war before any pause in hostilities, Reuters and the Associated Press reported.

Two Hamas officials told Reuters they were now waiting for a response from Israel, where protesters took to the streets on Sunday to press the government to reach an accord to bring back the hostages still being held in Gaza.

However, David Barnea, the chief of the Mossad foreign intelligence service, who was dispatched over the weekend to Qatar, where talks are being held, was reported to have provided the mediators with a list of new reservations, according to Israeli media.

The Haaretz newspaper cited a source familiar with the details as saying Israel’s new demands were expected to delay negotiations, and that it was not clear whether Hamas would accede to them.

“Hamas has already agreed to the latest position presented by Israel,” the source told Haaretz. “But in Friday’s meeting, Israel presented some new points it demands that Hamas accept.”

Negotiations with Hamas were expected to last “at least three weeks” before the deal could be carried out, Haaretz reported.

Once again, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is facing criticism from opposition parties, media and families of Israeli hostages, who accuse him of undermining efforts to reach a ceasefire and secure the release of the hostages, for his own political survival.

“We appeal to the heads of the security agencies and the negotiating team – all eyes are on you. Do not let Netanyahu sabotage the deal again. We must rescue all the hostages,” the families said at a news conference near the defence ministry in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

As a potential agreement draws near, Netanyahu has shown a pattern of retreating from hostage negotiations. On multiple occasions in recent months, he has been accused of obstructing progress that could bring an end to the conflict, whether through public pronouncements, covert communications, or by limiting the negotiating team’s authority.

There are concerns over the substantial influence wielded by the far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, whom Netanyahu relies on for his ruling coalition and who are opposed to a ceasefire.

A few hours after Netanyahu sent Barnea to Doha to study the proposal, Ben-Gvir threatened to quit and collapse the governing coalition. In a post on social media on Saturday, Smotrich said he would “not be part of a government that agrees to the proposed outline and ends the war without destroying Hamas and bringing back all the hostages”.

In a statement, Netanyahu said Israel would maximise the number of live hostages returned, and late on Sunday Netanyahu’s office issued a document entitled Principles for a Hostage Release Deal demanding that “any deal enable Israel to resume its offensive operations until it achieves its war goals”, to “prevent Hamas from smuggling arms from Egypt”, and to prevent “thousands of terrorists from returning to northern Gaza”, Haaretz reported.

The document, which risks further hindering negotiations, was heavily criticised by the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, who said: “What good does this do? We are at a crucial moment in the negotiations, the lives of the hostages depends on this. Why make such taunting announcements? How does this help the process?”

Netanyahu’s popularity plummeted after the 7 October attack by Hamas, which exposed serious flaws in Israeli security. Most political observers say Netanyahu would lose elections if they were held now. At an anti-government protest in Tel Aviv on Sunday, Orly Nativ, a 57-year-old social worker, joined the hundreds of flag-wielding demonstrators. “Enough is enough,” Nativ said.

The head of the National Unity party, Benny Gantz, who in June quit the emergency government in a sign of divisions over Netanyahu’s post-conflict plans for Gaza, said: “Netanyahu, not everything depends on you. But you must show commitment, determination and sincere intentions this time as well. You know as well as I do that since the previous proposal, we have lost many of the hostages, who died in captivity.”

Pressure is mounting on Israel, as a Gaza ceasefire could also allow for de-escalation between Hezbollah and Israel. The Lebanese group took responsibility on Sunday for a rocket barrage on the Lower Galilee, claiming to have targeted an Israeli military base near Tiberias. An Israeli man was seriously wounded by shrapnel from a rocket impact, medics said. 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.

In Gaza, Palestinian health officials said at least 15 people were killed in separate Israeli military strikes across the territory on Sunday.

The conflict was triggered on 7 October, when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel from Gaza, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.

At least 38,153 Palestinians have been killed and 87,828 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since then, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Labour is seeking a sweeping joint declaration with the EU to usher in a wide-ranging security pact covering defence, energy, the climate crisis, pandemics and even illegal migration, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, has said.

As part of the new government’s plan to reset its relations with the EU and bring “an end to the Brexit era”, Lammy told the Guardian that a broadly defined security deal would not undermine Labour’s commitment to remain outside the EU’s single market and customs union.

Under Labour plans, the pact would see the UK work more closely with the bloc on a slew of areas related to security, ideally without the need for a legally binding deal, which could take years to agree.

Lammy has also accepted an invitation from the EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, to attend the October meeting of the EU foreign affairs council – something that was rejected by the previous Conservative government.

It is rare for non-EU states to attend the foreign affairs council, and Labour thinks it may be possible to go on an irregular basis if the planned security pact develops.

In an interview during his first trip to Europe as foreign secretary, Lammy said: “We said in our manifesto we wanted an ambitious security pact, and that’s because we have been speaking to Europe about this for the last few years, and I think there is an appetite, particularly following the war in Ukraine and the challenges that EU faces in relation to energy and climate, to go broader than just defence.

“So you have to obviously get into discussions with Europe and find those issues of mutual interest. My hope is that once, of course, the new European leadership is in place, we can progress this with a joint declaration of some kind. Obviously, underneath that would be buckets of work streams.”

Labour is said to be leaning against a legally binding joint document that, as well as taking years to negotiate, could also start to conflict with separate work on reviewing the UK-EU Trade Cooperation Agreement, a negotiation that may last until 2026 and is unlikely to begin until a new EU Commission has been appointed.

Labour thinking in relation to a security pact is to see if it can establish something similar to the EU-US technology council that has a number of subcommittees, and holds an annual summit. The UK is one of the few external partners with which the EU holds no annual summit.

Asked whether the security cooperation could extend to issues such as cybersecurity, illegal migration, pandemics, decarbonisation and access to critical minerals, Lammy said: “Yes, it could.”

He added: “Particularly on critical minerals, we do need to cooperate with our European partners. And post-pandemic, we are very aware of our capability in health, in pharmaceuticals and in higher education. So there, I think we are talking about things that Europe wants to talk to us about.

“I’ve said that I’m very keen for us to get to a place where we’ve got structured dialogue with the EU, so I hope we can arrive at that.”

After Labour won a landslide victory in Thursday’s election, Lammy embarked on a trip to meet his counterparts in Poland, Germany and Sweden.

He said: “I’m serious about a reset. I sensed in Poland and Germany they were delighted to have a new [UK] government. We are absolutely clear that we want to look to the future. I think there’s a lot of issues that we have to coordinate on, but it is all a matter of negotiation and discussion. But I’ve set the direction of travel.”

The broad issue was raised by Lammy with the Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who said they had discussed “some creative ideas” on future cooperation.

Poland holds the presidency of the EU next year, and is likely to be a key ally in persuading other EU states that the UK is not seeking a back-door way into accessing the single market without taking on its responsibilities.

Within the EU, the need for greater defence cooperation alongside Nato has normally been championed by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the UK is aware that Anglo-French bilateral defence cooperation is in a period of flux, as Macron fights for his political survival.

Lammy was reluctant to commit on whether he would revive plans for a EU-wide youth mobility scheme. Both the previous government and Labour had rejected EU plans to make it easier for 18- to 30-years-olds in the bloc and the UK to study and work abroad. Under the scheme, UK participants would be able to stay only in the first EU country that accepted them.

But he said the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, had raised with him the issue of school visits.

“There’s lots of concern in Germany, for example, about the fall-off in our young people meeting one another. If this goes on, you can have a generation of people that really have no contact. She herself was a student of LSE. I hope we can fix that school visits issue, but issues about mobility are broader issues that do raise more complex issues.”

He insisted that Labour remained clear that it was not going to return to a system of free movement of labour. He said there were problems with the European Commission proposals, but added: “In the spirit of openness, I am very happy to hear what they have to say.”

Labour is seeking a sweeping joint declaration with the EU to usher in a wide-ranging security pact covering defence, energy, the climate crisis, pandemics and even illegal migration, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, has said.

As part of the new government’s plan to reset its relations with the EU and bring “an end to the Brexit era”, Lammy told the Guardian that a broadly defined security deal would not undermine Labour’s commitment to remain outside the EU’s single market and customs union.

Under Labour plans, the pact would see the UK work more closely with the bloc on a slew of areas related to security, ideally without the need for a legally binding deal, which could take years to agree.

Lammy has also accepted an invitation from the EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, to attend the October meeting of the EU foreign affairs council – something that was rejected by the previous Conservative government.

It is rare for non-EU states to attend the foreign affairs council, and Labour thinks it may be possible to go on an irregular basis if the planned security pact develops.

In an interview during his first trip to Europe as foreign secretary, Lammy said: “We said in our manifesto we wanted an ambitious security pact, and that’s because we have been speaking to Europe about this for the last few years, and I think there is an appetite, particularly following the war in Ukraine and the challenges that EU faces in relation to energy and climate, to go broader than just defence.

“So you have to obviously get into discussions with Europe and find those issues of mutual interest. My hope is that once, of course, the new European leadership is in place, we can progress this with a joint declaration of some kind. Obviously, underneath that would be buckets of work streams.”

Labour is said to be leaning against a legally binding joint document that, as well as taking years to negotiate, could also start to conflict with separate work on reviewing the UK-EU Trade Cooperation Agreement, a negotiation that may last until 2026 and is unlikely to begin until a new EU Commission has been appointed.

Labour thinking in relation to a security pact is to see if it can establish something similar to the EU-US technology council that has a number of subcommittees, and holds an annual summit. The UK is one of the few external partners with which the EU holds no annual summit.

Asked whether the security cooperation could extend to issues such as cybersecurity, illegal migration, pandemics, decarbonisation and access to critical minerals, Lammy said: “Yes, it could.”

He added: “Particularly on critical minerals, we do need to cooperate with our European partners. And post-pandemic, we are very aware of our capability in health, in pharmaceuticals and in higher education. So there, I think we are talking about things that Europe wants to talk to us about.

“I’ve said that I’m very keen for us to get to a place where we’ve got structured dialogue with the EU, so I hope we can arrive at that.”

After Labour won a landslide victory in Thursday’s election, Lammy embarked on a trip to meet his counterparts in Poland, Germany and Sweden.

He said: “I’m serious about a reset. I sensed in Poland and Germany they were delighted to have a new [UK] government. We are absolutely clear that we want to look to the future. I think there’s a lot of issues that we have to coordinate on, but it is all a matter of negotiation and discussion. But I’ve set the direction of travel.”

The broad issue was raised by Lammy with the Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who said they had discussed “some creative ideas” on future cooperation.

Poland holds the presidency of the EU next year, and is likely to be a key ally in persuading other EU states that the UK is not seeking a back-door way into accessing the single market without taking on its responsibilities.

Within the EU, the need for greater defence cooperation alongside Nato has normally been championed by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the UK is aware that Anglo-French bilateral defence cooperation is in a period of flux, as Macron fights for his political survival.

Lammy was reluctant to commit on whether he would revive plans for a EU-wide youth mobility scheme. Both the previous government and Labour had rejected EU plans to make it easier for 18- to 30-years-olds in the bloc and the UK to study and work abroad. Under the scheme, UK participants would be able to stay only in the first EU country that accepted them.

But he said the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, had raised with him the issue of school visits.

“There’s lots of concern in Germany, for example, about the fall-off in our young people meeting one another. If this goes on, you can have a generation of people that really have no contact. She herself was a student of LSE. I hope we can fix that school visits issue, but issues about mobility are broader issues that do raise more complex issues.”

He insisted that Labour remained clear that it was not going to return to a system of free movement of labour. He said there were problems with the European Commission proposals, but added: “In the spirit of openness, I am very happy to hear what they have to say.”

Labour is considering plans to release offenders after they serve just 40% of their sentence in a bid to tackle prison overcrowding, the Guardian has been told.

While the proposed plan – first reported by the Daily Telegraph – is just one of several options the Ministry of Justice is weighing, prison overcrowding has emerged as one of the most urgent issues facing the new government, with governors warning that the prison estate in England and Wales will be effectively full within the next week or so.

One government source told the Guardian: “No one wants to do it, but their hands have been forced by the inaction of the last lot. It’s very much an option though and not a done deal yet.”

The new proposal would release prisoners on “determinate” sentences between 40% and 43% of the way through their sentence. Offenders jailed for sex crimes, violence or terrorism would be excluded from the scheme, as would any offender subject to Parole Board decisions upon their release. The plan would replace the current 10-week early release scheme.

Another government insider added: “We haven’t made any decisions yet, we’re just kicking the tyres on all the options. But the crisis is acute and there are no easy decisions ahead of us.”

As of May, the prison population was at 87,505, with an official usable capacity at 88,895. Earlier this year, the government formally triggered a crisis measure to ease prison overcrowding by using police cells to house inmates, following a decision to consider releasing some prisoners 70 days before their sentences were due to end.

In his first press conference as prime minister on Saturday, Keir Starmer highlighted prisons as one of the biggest issues facing his government, saying it would be impossible to stop the current policy of releasing prisoners early because of the lack of capacity in jails.

“We’ve got too many prisoners, not enough prisons,” Starmer said.

His decision to appoint James Timpson, the businessman and rehabilitation campaigner, as the new prisons minister has been hailed by prison reform experts. More than 10% of Timpson’s workforce are former prisoners, and Timpson has previously argued that only a third of people in prison should really be there.

While Starmer stood by his appointment of Timpson, he steered clear of endorsing that view, though he said he wanted early intervention to stop young boys in particular from getting on the “escalator” of a life of knife crime and going to prison numerous times.

• Chinese military personnel are to begin joint “anti-terrorist training” with their counterparts in Belarus on Monday, close to the border with Poland. The “Eagle Assault” exercises by the two Russian allies amid the war in Ukraine will be held over 11 days in the border city of Brest, Belarus, and will involve tasks such as hostage rescue and anti-terrorism operations, China’s Ministry of National Defence said. It comes days after Belarus officially joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization led by China and Russia, deepening their coordination on military, economic and political matters. The Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko has been a key ally of Vladimir Putin since the invasion of Ukraine, holding tactical nuclear drills with Russia last year and agreeing to store tactical nuclear warheads for Moscow on its soil.

• The Netherlands will begin sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine “without delay”, after export licences were granted, foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp said during a visit to Kyiv at the weekend. “Now that we’ve got clearance on the first F-16s, they will be delivered without delay,” Veldkamp said Saturday in a press conference in the Ukrainian capital. Details of the trip were kept secret until Sunday for security reasons. Veldkamp is part of a new ruling coalition in which Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) is the largest party. Ukraine hopes the advanced US-made jets will help it gain air superiority over Russia and better protect its troops and cities from daily bombardments by Moscow’s troops. Kyiv has been calling for F-16s since shortly after Russia invaded in February 2022.

• The UK’s new defence minister pledged on Sunday to deliver more artillery guns, ammunition and missiles to Ukraine, stressing ongoing support for Kyiv during a visit to the southern city of Odesa. John Healey, appointed defence minister on Friday, was visiting the port city, a frequent target of Russian missile and drone strikes, on his first international trip. “There may have been a change in government, but the UK is united for Ukraine,” Healey said, according to a statement published by Britain’s defence ministry. Healey pledged a new package of assistance including artillery guns, 250,000 rounds of ammunition, de-mining vehicles, small military boats, missiles and other equipment, the defence ministry said.

• US House Speaker Mike Johnson will meet with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday during the Nato summit in Washington, according to Johnson’s schedule. Support for Ukraine is expected to be a focus at the summit in Washington this week, amid concerns about the future of US support for Kyiv should Donald Trump win the presidential election in November. Johnson in April spearheaded a $95bn bipartisan aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that was opposed by allies of Trump in Congress.

• Campaigners are urging Britain’s new Labour government to prevent Ukraine being sued in the UK courts if it defaults on its debts to private creditors. A two-year suspension of Ukraine’s debt payments was scheduled to expire on 1 August, Debt Justice said, and action was needed to protect Kyiv from the possibility of legal action. Ukraine is in negotiations with bondholders and is seeking a debt write down of 60% on the $24bn (£18.7bn) it owes to private creditors. Bondholders – which include big investment groups such as BlackRock, Pimco, Fidelity and AllianceBernstein – have said they are willing to take a 20% loss.

Brazil’s ministry of foreign affairs has been forced to apologise to the embassies of Canada, Gabon and Burkina Faso after three diplomats’ teenage children – all of whom are Black – were searched at gunpoint by police officers.

The incident emerged when the mother of a Brazilian boy in the group posted a security camera video online, prompting outrage – but also a weary recognition that such experiences are all too typical for Black youths in Rio de Janeiro.

The three diplomats’ children were in Rio for a five-day holiday with a white Brazilian friend, celebrating the end of the school year. All attend the same school in Brasília, where they live. It was their first trip without their parents.

Late Wednesday, they were returning from a day at the beach and were about to enter a building in the wealthy neighbourhood of Ipanema when a military police patrol car drew up. Two officers jumped out, ordered the boys to face the wall and searched them at gunpoint.

Rhaiana Rondon, the mother of one of the Brazilian boys, said the Black teens were singled out by the police officers during the search.

Rondon, who posted the video, said the footage made it clear that her son and his cousin were treated very differently from the Black foreigners.

“The officer guided my son much more gently because he is white, while the three Black youths had guns pointed at their heads,” she said.

In a statement to a state parliament committee, the teenagers said the officers “even demanded that they showed their private parts to check if there was any drugs underneath”.

One of the boys wrote to his parents saying that “when the agents left, they told us not to walk around, or we would be searched again”.

Rondon said: “The footage, testimonies, and the children’s accounts are clear: the search was racist.”

The three foreign boys are the sons of the Gabon and Burkina Faso ambassadors, and the other is the son of a Canadian diplomat.

Julie-Pascale Moudoute-Bell, the wife of the Gabonese ambassador, expressed her indignation to TV Globo, saying: “The police are there to protect. How could they point guns at the heads of 13-year-old boys? … We trust in the Brazilian justice system and we want justice, that’s all.”

On Friday, the ambassadors of Gabon, Burkina Faso and Canada were invited the foreign ministry in Brasília, where they received a “formal apology” from the Brazilian government.

The ministry stated that it called on the Rio state government to conduct a “thorough investigation and ensure appropriate accountability of the police officers involved in the incident”.

Amnesty International Brazil’s executive director, Jurema Werneck, said: “There’s nothing besides racism to explain the attack these Black teenagers suffered.”

But she added that such incidents happen daily in Brazil “in the favelas, outskirts, poor and Black communities”.

“Unfortunately, the brutality suffered by these teenagers is not the first and, sadly, won’t be the last. … In Brazil, no young Black person is safe”.

A recent report found that, in 2022, of the more than 1,300 people killed by the police in Rio, 87% were Black, a figure far above the proportion of Afro-Brazilians in the state’s population, which is 58%.

Rio’s military police, which is responsible for patrol duties, said that body camera footage from the two officers involved will be analysed to determine “if there was any excess”. The separate civil police, which handles investigations, said that two of its units – tourist assistance station and racial crimes – are probing the case.

Rondon said that the teenagers had been left badly shaken by the incident.

“On Thursday, they saw the same patrol car passing by, got really scared, and hid in an ice cream parlour,” said the Brazilian mother. “When they hear a siren now, even if it’s from an ambulance or the fire brigade, they get scared.

Rondon said she had given her son all kinds of guidance before the trip because she was worried about violence in Rio.

“I warned him to be careful with his phone on the street, not to leave his backpack on the beach chair,” she wrote. “But I never imagined that the police would be the biggest threat.”

A ruling described by activists as “historic,” a court in Ecuador has ruled that pollution has violated the rights of a river that runs through the country’s capital, Quito.

The city government appealed the ruling, which is based on an article of Ecuador’s constitution that recognizes the rights of natural features like the Machángara River.

“This is historic because the river runs right through Quito, and because of its influence, people live very close to it,” said Darío Iza, whose group Kitu Kara filed the complaint on behalf of the river.

The court ruled that while appeals proceed, the government will have to come up with a plan to clean up the Machángara.

The city of 2.6 million people dumps all sorts of effluents and contaminants into the Machángara, which starts high in the Andes mountains. But by the time it runs through Quito, it encounters problems such as a near-total lack of treatment of the waste water that is dumped into it.

“The river carries away tons of garbage that comes down from gullies and hillsides,” according to the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.

The river has average levels of 2% oxygen, which makes it difficult for aquatic life to thrive.

In some parts of Latin America and North America, inhabitants have constitutional rights to a clean environment, but Ecuador is one of the few countries that recognize the rights of natural features not to be degraded or polluted.

A ruling described by activists as “historic,” a court in Ecuador has ruled that pollution has violated the rights of a river that runs through the country’s capital, Quito.

The city government appealed the ruling, which is based on an article of Ecuador’s constitution that recognizes the rights of natural features like the Machángara River.

“This is historic because the river runs right through Quito, and because of its influence, people live very close to it,” said Darío Iza, whose group Kitu Kara filed the complaint on behalf of the river.

The court ruled that while appeals proceed, the government will have to come up with a plan to clean up the Machángara.

The city of 2.6 million people dumps all sorts of effluents and contaminants into the Machángara, which starts high in the Andes mountains. But by the time it runs through Quito, it encounters problems such as a near-total lack of treatment of the waste water that is dumped into it.

“The river carries away tons of garbage that comes down from gullies and hillsides,” according to the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.

The river has average levels of 2% oxygen, which makes it difficult for aquatic life to thrive.

In some parts of Latin America and North America, inhabitants have constitutional rights to a clean environment, but Ecuador is one of the few countries that recognize the rights of natural features not to be degraded or polluted.

In the early hours of 30 June 1966 a fire swept through the home of the managing director of a miso maker in Shizuoka, central Japan. After the fire was put out, police found the bodies of the executive, his wife, and their two teenage children. They had all been stabbed to death.

Iwao Hakamada, who had worked for the firm as a live-in employee, was arrested on suspicion of murdering the family, setting fire to their home and stealing 200,000 yen (£973) in cash. Two years later he was found guilty of murder and arson and sentenced to hang. He maintained innocence throughout his 45 years awaiting execution – the longest any prisoner worldwide has spent on death row.

In a country where condemned prisoners can spend long periods awaiting execution, Hakamada’s case took a critical turn in 2014. The court that had originally convicted him ruled some of the evidence unsafe and ordered his release. A higher court later ordered a retrial.

The lower court said evidence presented at his trial by the police “may have been fabricated”, while his lawyers said DNA tests on bloodstained clothes retrieved from a vat of miso proved the blood was not his.

Hakamada has always contended that he was forced to confess during interrogations that typically lasted 12 hours a day. Almost six decades after he was condemned to die, prosecutors continue to call for his execution in a case that has become a cause célèbre for opponents of Japan’s use of the death penalty, even as other countries abolish capital punishment.

The former professional boxer, now aged 88 and battling physical and mental illness, will learn his fate in late September when the Shizuoka district court rules in his retrial, which started in March 2023. He has not appeared in court, having been declared mentally unfit to give credible evidence. His long incarceration has exposed what campaigners call inhumane treatment of death row inmates in Japan.

In most cases, people sentenced to death have been found guilty of multiple murders, often committed with other crimes such as robbery, rape or theft. Condemned prisoners typically spend years – even decades – in solitary confinement on death row while appeals slowly make their way through the courts. When their conviction is finalised, they are given just hours’ notice of their execution, and no opportunity to speak with lawyers or families. Their final conversation is usually with a Buddhist priest.

Japan, the only G7 country along with the US to retain capital punishment, has drawn international criticism of its “secret” executions, with campaigners using Hakamada’s case to accuse it of driving prisoners insane and subjecting them to “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment.

Hideko Hakamada, the condemned man’s sister, is optimistic, although lawyers believe the prosecutors could appeal a not-guilty verdict. “Now the goal is in sight,” she told reporters in Tokyo on Wednesday. “This has felt like a neverending process. I’m doing this not just for the sake of my brother but for other people who have been falsely accused and imprisoned.”

Hideko, who has spent decades protesting her brother’s innocence, added: “I never used to give much thought to the death penalty as it has always been there, but because of what happened to my brother I am now opposed to it.”

Hakamada’s defence lawyer, Hideyo Ogawa, said his client’s ordeal had only hardened his opposition to capital punishment. “Seeing Iwao-san over the past 10 years has shown me what the death penalty does to a person … it is like he is not here with us, but in a world of his own. That is the impact it has on someone when there has been a false conviction, and that should not be allowed to happen in today’s society.”

Japan is one of only 55 countries including, China, North Korea and the US, that retain capital punishment, while more than 140 others, including all members of the European Union, have abolished the death penalty in law or practice, according to Amnesty International. Japan has observed de facto moratoriums on hangings, but there is little political appetite for abolition that would spare the 106 people currently on death row. Opinion polls have consistently shown strong support for the death penalty – a sentiment that strengthened after a doomsday cult carried out a fatal sarin gas attack.

Hakamada has always faced near-impossible odds. Around 99% of criminal cases that go to trial in Japan end in convictions, and retrials are rare. He is one of only a handful of death row inmates to secure a retrial, although precedent suggests he has cause for optimism, as the other cases ended in acquittals.

In November 1973, in one of thousands of letters he wrote from prison, first to his mother and then his sister, Hakamada protested his innocence. “I am a prisoner on death row who has been wrongfully convicted,” he wrote. “I am forced to live with enduring grief that permeates my body. My heart grows cold beyond description out of unending fear of the unknown … execution. My whole body trembles as if being hit by a cold winter blast.”

Speaking at the final hearing in his retrial last month, Hideko told of her brother’s last chance to clear his name. “I am now 91 and my brother is 88,” she said.

“We are close to the end of our lives. I would like to ask the court to let Iwao live out his remaining days like a human being.”

A reconstituted Hurricane Beryl is expected to come ashore in south Texas early Monday, possibly slamming into land as a powerful category 2 hurricane, with the heavily-populated greater Houston area anticipating wind, heavy rain and possible tornadoes.

The storm was expected to strengthen into a category 1 hurricane later on Sunday as it travels over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued hurricane warnings across much of the Texas coast.

Beryl was already lashing Texas in the shape of a tropical storm with rain and intensifying winds on Sunday evening as coastal residents boarded up windows, left beach towns under evacuation orders and prepared for the tempest that has already cut a deadly path through parts of Mexico and the Caribbean.

Temperatures near the Texas coast are forecast at above 90F (32C) in the coming days, including heat indices as high as 108F on Sunday. Parts of eastern Texas were on flood watch ahead of the storm, which had maximum wind speeds of 60mph as of Sunday morning.

“Preparations should be rushed to completion in Texas,” the NHC posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday afternoon.

The potential hurricane was projected to come ashore in the middle of the Texas coast around Matagorda Bay, an area about 100 miles south of Houston, but officials cautioned on Sunday evening that the path could still change.

“One of the things that kind of trigger our concern a little bit, we’ve looked at all of the roads leaving the coast and the maps are still green,” said Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, who is serving as the state’s acting governor while governor Greg Abbott is traveling overseas. “So we don’t see many people leaving.”

Officials warned the storm would cause power outages and flooding and also expressed worry that not enough coastal residents and beach vacationers in Beryl’s path were heeding warnings to leave.

More than 120 counties were under disaster declaration on Sunday, following statements from Patrick that Beryl was a “serious threat to Texans”.

The US NHC has been issuing frequent updates as the storm approaches, after Hurricane Beryl hit the Caribbean causing devastation as the earliest category 5 hurricane to form in the Atlantic on record. The climate crisis continues to fuel hurricanes and an above average season is projected to be in store this summer.

“Anybody living within this storm surge watch area, if you live in the storm surge evacuation zone, please start making preparations in case you are asked to evacuate by local officials,” National Hurricane Center director Michael Brennan told the Houston Chronicle. “Get ready to potentially leave your home, especially in those barrier islands.

On Sunday, the port of Corpus Christi was closed because of gale force winds expected and other ports along the Texas coast, principally serving the oil industry, also started to close or restrict vessel traffic.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has its launch site Starbase on South Padre island, said via a Nasa post on Instagram that cranes had lowered and Ship 31 had been rolled back to the production site in preparation for the storm’s arrival.

Over the past week, Beryl has smashed into the south-east Caribbean as a category 4 hurricane, killing 10, wrecking buildings and displacing hundreds of people before coming ashore again in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula as a category 2 hurricane, then moving north-west across excessively warm sea waters as a tropical storm.

Once Texas has been drenched, the storm is expected to disperse as a post-tropical cyclone, bringing rain and flooding to the US midwest and upper midwest.

“The fastest rate of intensification is likely to occur right before landfall, and the latest intensity forecast still shows Beryl becoming a hurricane again in 24 hours, with some additional intensification possible right up until landfall,” the hurricane center said.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 109 tropical systems have made landfall in Texas since 1850. The most recent was Hurricane Nicholas, a category 1 hurricane, that killed two and did $1bn in damage.

Hurricane Harvey devastated the Houston area in 2017.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed reporting

Campaigners are urging Britain’s new Labour government to prevent Ukraine being sued in the UK courts if the country defaults on its debts to private creditors.

Debt Justice said a two-year suspension of Ukraine’s debt payments was scheduled to expire on 1 August, and that action was needed to protect Kyiv from the possibility of legal action from its creditors.

Ukraine is in negotiations with bondholders and is seeking a debt writedown of 60% on the $24bn (£18.7bn) it owes to private creditors. Bondholders – which include big investment groups such as BlackRock, Pimco, Fidelity and AllianceBernstein – have said they are willing to take a 20% loss.

Ukraine’s official bilateral creditors, including the UK, have agreed to continue suspending Kyiv’s debt payments until 2027, but there has been no agreement to extend the arrangement with private creditors. The relief offered by private creditors is worth around 12% of Ukraine’s annual national output (GDP).

Unless a deal is struck or an extension to the two-year moratorium is agreed by the end of this month, Ukraine will formally default on its debts in September.

Kyiv fears that once the 1 August deadline expires, asset managers will sell their bonds to hedge funds, which will then sue. Ukraine’s bonds are all governed by English law, so any legal case would be brought in the UK.

Debt Justice said Ukraine’s bonds were trading at 28-31 cents on the dollar, closer to Kyiv’s suggested 60% haircut than the 20% bondholders have proposed.

Heidi Chow, Debt Justice’s executive director, said: “Ukraine is resisting an invasion. It should not have to fight off shameless bondholders at the same time, who are trying to squeeze every ounce of profit out of Ukraine.

“These loans were given at high interest because of the supposed risk. That risk materialised the day Russia invaded.”

Ukraine’s bonds “are governed by UK law, so an incoming UK government could pass a law to support Ukraine by making it clear that no lenders can sue the country while the war carries on”, she said.

The Commons international development select committee called last year for legislation that would force private creditors to take part in debt relief, and in opposition Labour expressed support for the idea.

Debt Justice is urging the government to change the law so that a debtor country negotiating in good faith with its creditors could not be sued. It says this would give Ukraine the political and legal protection to maintain the current debt suspension until bondholders were willing to accept the scale of debt restructuring required.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Ukraine will just about manage to balance the books if there is a 60% debt writedown.

The IMF says Kyiv and its private creditors are working hard to reach an agreement, and that a deal is possible by the end of the month despite the rapidly looming deadline.

Chow said: “Lower-income countries are facing the worst debt crisis in 30 years. An incoming UK government can show leadership by introducing new legislation to ensure private lenders take part in debt restructuring in a swift and comprehensive way.”

A visitor to Death Valley national park died Sunday from heat exposure and another person was hospitalized as the temperature reached 128F (53.3C) in eastern California, officials said.

The two visitors were part of a group of six motorcyclists riding through the Badwater Basin area amid scorching weather, the park said.

The person who died was not identified. The other motorcyclist was hospitalized in Las Vegas for “severe heat illness”, the statement said. The other four members of the party were treated at the scene.

“High heat like this can pose real threats to your health,” said park superintendent Mike Reynolds.

“Besides not being able to cool down while riding due to high ambient air temperatures, experiencing Death Valley by motorcycle when it is this hot is further challenged by the necessary heavy safety gear worn to reduce injuries during an accident,” Reynolds said.

The death comes as a long-running heatwave has shattered temperature records across the US, with about 36 million people – roughly 10% of the country – under excessive heat warnings, National Weather Service’s (NWS) meteorologist Bryan Jackson said.

Dozens of locations in the west and Pacific north-west were expected to tie or break previous heat records, he said.

That was certainly the case over the weekend: many areas in northern California surpassed 110F (43.3C), with the city of Redding topping out at a record 119F (48.3C). Phoenix set a new daily record Sunday for the warmest low temperature: it never got below 92F (33.3C).

Triple-digit temperatures were common across Oregon, where several records were toppled – including in Salem, where on Sunday it hit 103F (39.4C), topping the 99F (37.2C) mark set in 1960.

Rare heat advisories were extended even into higher elevations including around Lake Tahoe, on the border of California and Nevada, with the weather service in Reno, Nevada, warning of “major heat risk impacts, even in the mountains”.

The NWS is also warning of increased wildfire risks due to a mix of hot, dry and windy conditions. In Southern California, residents were ordered late Saturday to evacuate parts of Santa Barbara County where the Lake Fire has scorched more than 13,000 acres since Friday, according to Cal Fire.

Each of the past 12 months have ranked as the warmest on record in year-on-year comparisons across the globe, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, European Union’s climate change monitoring service, which links human activities like the combustion of fossil fuels to climate change-causing greenhouse gas emissions.

Last week, Joe Biden’s administration proposed the first-ever safety standard intended to protect workers and communities from the impacts of extreme heat.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting