Joe Biden on Sunday forcefully condemned political violence and appealed to a nation still reeling from the attempted assassination of Donald Trump to reject “extremism and fury”.

In a primetime address from the Oval Office, Biden said Americans must strive for “national unity,” warning that the political rhetoric in the US had gotten “too heated” as passions rise in the final months before the November presidential election.

“There is no place in America for this kind of violence – for any violence. Ever. Period. No exception,” the president said. “We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.”

Biden’s plea for Americans to “cool it down” came as Trump said that he would use his speech at the Republican national convention to bring “the whole country, even the whole world, together.”

“The speech will be a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago,” Trump told the Washington Examiner, adding that the reality of what had happened was “just setting in.”

Biden ordered an independent review into how a gunman was able to get on to a roof overlooking a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, and fire multiple shots at the former president from an “elevated position” outside of the venue. The FBI warned on Sunday that online threats of political violence, already heightened, had spiked since the shooting.

The attack, which is being investigated as an attempted assassination and a potential act of domestic terrorism, left Trump injured at the ear, but it killed a spectator, identified as a former fire chief, and critically injured two others.

“We cannot, we must not go down this road in America,” Biden added, citing a rising tide of political violence that included the assault on the US Capitol, the attack on the husband of the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, and a kidnapping plot against Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan.

Biden also praised Corey Comperatore, the 50-year-old former fire chief who was killed as he dove to shield his wife and daughter. Comperatore, Biden said, was a “hero” and extended his “deepest condolences” to his family.

Investigators were still searching for the motive of the 20-year-old suspect, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.

More than 24 hours after the attack, the investigation into how Crooks managed to open fire, reportedly using a AR-15 bought legally by his father, at the rally remained fluid. Investigators have seized several of Crooks’s devices and are starting to piece together his communications before the event. Authorities said they had discovered potential explosive devices in Crooks’s car.

Meanwhile, details have begun to emerge about the suspect, who was shot and killed by Secret Service counter-snipers.

As a junior in high school, Crooks donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a political action committee aligned with the Democratic party, but eight months later he registered to vote as a member of the Republican party.

Former classmates described the man as a smart, and quiet student. One former classmate told Reuters that Crooks had not shown a particular interest in politics in high school, and would rather would discuss computers and games.

“He was super smart. That’s what really kind of threw me off was, this was, like, a really, really smart kid, like he excelled,” the classmate told Reuters. “Nothing crazy ever came up in any conversation.”

Another young man who described himself as a former classmate of Crooks at Bethel Park high school spoke with reporters on Sunday, recalling how his ex-companion “was bullied almost every day” on campus.

The president, who was at church in Delaware during the time of the shooting, cut short his weekend and returned to Washington to confront the situation, arriving at the White House after midnight. He and Trump spoke late on Saturday.

Biden spoke briefly from the White House earlier on Sunday, delivering a similar message from the Roosevelt room after receiving a briefing on the investigation in the Situation Room.

In those comments, Biden asked the public not to “make assumptions” about the shooter’s motives or affiliations, as conspiracy theories and misinformation swirl online.

The Republican national convention will begin on Monday in Milwaukee, where Trump is expected to receive a hero’s welcome by the party’s rank and file, rattled but defiant. Trump, who arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday evening, is not scheduled to address the convention until Thursday evening, after he is formally nominated as the party’s nominee.

Speaking to the New York Post while en route to Milwaukee, Trump said he was “supposed to be dead”, adding: “The doctor at the hospital said he never saw anything like this, he called it a miracle.”

Biden’s remarks came at a fragile moment in the election, a re-match between the president and Trump already defined by exceptional tumult and deep political polarization.

For weeks, the president has been fighting calls from elected officials in his own party to abandon his re-election campaign after a disastrous debate performance last month that underscored concerns about his age and fitness for office. The 81-year-old Biden has insisted he will not be pushed out as the party’s nominee, but has done little to quell the swirl of doubt that he is the best candidate to defeat Trump in November.

Trump earlier this year became the first former president to be convicted of felonies, and faces several more legal challenges related to his role in the 6 January Capitol attack and efforts to overturn the results of a lost election. At least one Republican senator, Mike Lee of Utah, has called for the criminal cases against Trump to be dropped in light of the assassination attempt.

In his remarks on Sunday evening, Biden was realistic about the challenge of heeding his words, accepting that national unity was “the most elusive of goals” in an America deeply divided into camps. Already, Republicans were blaming the violence on the president, arguing that Biden’s attempts to portray Trump as a threat to American democracy helped fuel a toxic political environment.

Yet the attack has drawn condemnation from Republican and Democratic officials across the country as well as world leaders.

“We need to turn the temperature down,” House speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday, in an interview on CNN.

The president acknowledged that he and Trump offer drastically competing visions, and that their supporters diverged sharply. In Milwaukee, Republicans would offer sustained critiques of Biden’s record, the president said, while he planned to travel on Monday to Nevada, where he would rally supporters around his agenda. Because of the attack, he postponed a trip to Texas, where he was scheduled to speak at the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the Lyndon B Johnson presidential library.

“We debate and disagree. We compare and contrast the character of the candidates, the records, the issues, the agenda, the vision for America,” he said, arguing that the contest should be settled at the “ballot box” and “not with bullets”.

After the attack on Saturday night, the Biden campaign reportedly moved to pull down its television ads “as quickly as possible” and pause all “outbound communications”.

“Politics must never be a literal battlefield or, god forbid, a literal killing field,” Biden emphasized in his address on Sunday night. He urged Americans to “get out of our silos” and echo chambers where misinformation is rampant.

“Remember: though we may disagree,” he said, “we are not enemies.”

FBI officials said on Sunday they were assessing the shooting of Donald Trump at a campaign rally on Saturday as a possible domestic terrorism attack and assassination attempt, as federal investigators executed a flurry of warrants in trying to determine a motive.

The officials said there was no evidence that the 20-year-old suspected gunman, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was operating as part of a larger group. But his reasons for scaling the roof of a building overlooking the rally to shoot at Trump remained unclear.

By Sunday evening, dozens of federal investigators with the FBI, the ATF and all three US attorney’s offices in Pennsylvania were involved in an expanding investigation that had seized several of Crooks’ devices and started to piece together some of his communications before the rally.

The other major development was the discovery of potential explosive devices in Crooks’ car. Former prosecutors suggested that those could indicate Crooks expected to survive the shooting.

The devices and the AR-15-style rifle, which officials said was bought legally, were sent to the bureau’s lab in Quantico, Virginia.

The ATF identified the owner of the gun through its national tracing center and using business records from a gun dealer. The results of the trace were provided to the FBI within 30 minutes, the agency’s spokesperson Katrina Mastropasqua said.

The shooting at the campaign rally has raised the stakes and the significance of Trump’s appearance at the Republican national convention starting Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he will formally accept the GOP nomination for president and will unveil his running-mate.

It also cast the 2024 presidential race into uncertainty. The campaigns for both Trump and Joe Biden pulled back on political functions over the weekend, as they moved to grapple with the immediate fallout of the situation.

In Washington, Biden spoke with Trump on a call described by a source familiar as “brief and very respectful” before receiving a briefing from top US officials including the attorney general, Merrick Garland, the FBI director Christopher Wray, the Secretary for Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

In brief remarks to the nation from the White House, Biden called the assassination attempt “contrary to everything we stand for us as a nation, everything. It’s not who we are as a nation. It’s not American. And we cannot allow this to happen”.

Biden said he had demanded a national security review that he would share publicly, and that he had directed the US secret service to review security arrangements for the Republican convention.

Later, in a primetime address, the president called for unity. The shooting “calls on all of us to take a step back,” Biden said. “We stand for an America of decency and grace … politics must never be a killing field.”

Trump, for his part, huddled with senior advisers at his Bedminster club in New Jersey, keeping to his planned schedule as he prepared for the Republican convention, The Guardian previously reported. Trump’s next appearance is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday in Milwaukee, where he arrived on Sunday evening.

“Based on yesterday’s terrible events, I was going to delay my trip to Wisconsin, and The Republican National Convention, by two days, but have just decided that I cannot allow a ‘shooter,’ or a potential assassin, to force change to scheduling, or anything else,” Trump wrote.

The assassination attempt placed the secret service under intense scrutiny, with lawmakers from both parties moving to open investigations into the security arrangements and calling for the agency’s director, Kimberly Cheatle, to account for the decisions.

At issue remains how a single man with a semi-automatic rifle managed to access a roof 140 yards away from the stage where Trump was speaking at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The House homeland security committee ordered the secret service’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, to produce documents and communications related to the security apparatus for the rally and whether any requests for more resources had been rebuffed.

Donald Trump has the stagecraft but Joe Biden still commands the biggest stage.

A day after the former US president displayed his preternatural genius for spectacle – forcing the Secret Service to pause so he could show bloody defiance after a near-death experience – the spotlight turned back to his beleaguered election opponent.

On Sunday, Biden delivered an Oval Office address for only the third time in his presidency, having previously done so when a deal was reached to avoid a breach of the debt ceiling and to comment on the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

The set piece allowed him to demonstrate the power of incumbency, sending a message to Democratic rebels who want the 81-year-old to step aside amid concerns he lacks the mental agility to beat Trump.

The familiar trappings of the Resolute Desk against a backdrop of family photos, window, flags and curtains also sought to project the image of Biden as president rather than candidate, an elder statesman rising above the fray to call for national unity after a traumatic moment.

It was a solemn duty that came with relative ease to a man who, during 36 years in the Senate, made bipartisanship a cornerstone of his political identity.

There is a need to “lower the temperature in our politics”, said Biden, his voice more solid and less throaty than during a recent debate and press conference. “And to remember: while we may disagree, we are not enemies.”

The president urged everyone to take a “step back” and recognise the chilling pattern of the January 6 insurrection, the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, the intimidation of election officials, the kidnapping plot against Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and the assassination attempt against Trump.

“We cannot allow this violence to be normalised. The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down. We all have a responsibility to do this.”

Biden, embracing his role as repairer of the breach, made a plea: “In America, we resolve our differences at the ballot box – you know that’s how we do it, at the ballot box, not with bullets. The power to change American should should always rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of a would-be assassin.”

Biden nodded towards a return to politics as usual soon, noting that the Republican convention starts on Monday and highlighting his own campaign efforts.

But some of the old glitches did not disappear. While Biden showed his generous spirit by saying he had called his opponent and prayed for him, he referred to “former Trump” instead of “former President Trump”.

The cold, dispassionate reality is that the failed assassination of Trump has strengthened the hand of both presidential candidates. Biden had been desperate to change the post-debate narrative and that happened in a way he would not have wished.

Democrats have privately admitted that this is not the time to mount a challenge to his leadership, when they are concerned about the safety of their staff. But in the mind of the electorate, the perception of Biden as doddery and declining is likely to persist.

For Trump, the gain is greater. What happened on Saturday turned the old maxim – what does not kill him makes stronger – literal. The circus master’s presence of mind, raising a fist and shouting “Fight!” to his supporters, produced a photograph for the ages and guaranteed his status as both messiah and martyr.

This week the spotlight will turn firmly back in his direction. Come Thursday, instead of the august setting of the Oval Office, there will be the kitsch theatrics of a primetime speech at the Republican convention.

Trump could do something truly historic by echoing Biden’s address, insisting that violence has no place in politics, accepting that his own narrow escape is a cathartic moment and now America must pull back from the brink. The rest of the election campaign could be one of decency and grace.

Commentators would gush that Trump had become “presidential” and of course it wouldn’t last. Biden might have the bully pulpit but Trump remains the bully to beat.

A fleet of more than one hundred lorries would take 15 years to clear Gaza of almost 40m tonnes of rubble in an operation costing between $500m (£394m) and $600m, a UN assessment has found.

The conclusions will underline the immense challenge of rebuilding the Palestinian territory after months of a grinding Israeli offensive that has led to massive destruction of homes and infrastructure.

According to the assessment, which was published last month by the UN Environment Programme, 137,297 buildings had been damaged in Gaza, more than half of the total. Of these, just over a quarter were destroyed, about a 10th severely damaged and a third moderately damaged.

Massive landfill sites covering between 250 and 500 hectares (618 to 1,235 acres) would be necessary to dump the rubble, depending on how much could be recycled, the assessment found.

In May, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said rebuilding homes in Gaza destroyed during the war could take until 2040 in the most optimistic scenario, with total reconstruction across the territory costing as much as $40bn. That assessment, which was published as part of a push to raise funds for early planning for the rehabilitation of Gaza, also found the conflict could reduce levels of health, education and wealth in the territory to those of 1980, wiping out 44 years of development.

“The damage to infrastructure is insane … In [the southern Gaza City] Khan Younis, there is not one building untouched,” one UN official based in Gaza told the Guardian last week.

“The actual topography has changed. There are hills where there were none. The 2,000lbs [907kg] bombs dropped [by Israel] are actually altering the landscape.”

Schools, health facilities, roads, sewers and all other critical infrastructure have all suffered massive damage.

Humanitarian officials welcomed a move by Israel to increase the capacity of a key desalination plant that serves Gaza but pointed out that with most pipes damaged, distribution of water within the territory remained extremely difficult.

The UNDP said the possible price tag of reconstruction of Gaza is now twice estimates made by UN and Palestinian officials in January and was rising every day.

The mountains of rubble are full of unexploded ordnance that leads to “more than 10 explosions every week”, causing more deaths and loss of limbs, Gaza’s Civil Defence agency has said.

In April, Pehr Lodhammar, a former United Nationals Mine Action Service chief for Iraq, said that on average about 10% of weapons failed to detonate when they were fired and had to be removed by demining teams.

Sixty-five per cent of the buildings destroyed in Gaza were residential, Lodhammar said, adding that clearing and rebuilding them would be slow and dangerous work because of the threat from shells, missiles or other weapons buried in collapsed or damaged buildings.

The war began when Hamas launched a surprise attack into southern Israel in October, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 250 others. More than 38,000 people have now been killed in Israel’s offensive in Gaza, according to Palestinian officials in the territory.

People in Rwanda are going to the polls for elections in which Paul Kagame is widely expected to extend his rule of the central African country.

This is the fourth presidential ballot since more than 800,000 people, mostly members of the Tutsi ethnic minority, were killed in a genocide in the country 30 years ago.

Kagame, who led the Rwandan Patriotic Front rebel group to defeat Hutu extremist forces and end the genocide, was elected president by parliament in 2000 after the resignation of Pasteur Bizimungu.

He has won more than 90% of the vote in the three previous elections since then – in 2003, 2010 and 2017.

Running on the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) ticket, Kagame is seeking a fourth term after a constitutional amendment in 2015 extended presidential term limits.

Kagame is credited with transforming Rwanda from ethnic division to being a united country and regional business hub. But critics accuse his administration of censorship and curtailing human rights in the country of 13 million people, more than 9 million of whom are eligible to vote in Monday’s ballot.

In this election, he faces the same opponents as in 2017: Frank Habineza, of the Democratic Green party of Rwanda, and Philippe Mpayimana, an independent candidate.

Rwanda’s national electoral commission disqualified six others, including vocal Kagame critics Victoire Ingabire, Diane Rwigara and Bernard Ntaganda, for various reasons.

Long lines of voters formed as early as 5am at the polling station at the Remera Catholic primary school in the capital, Kigali, one of five polling stations visited by the Guardian. Voting was taking place peacefully at all the sites. Observers from the African Union were present.

“Kagame has ruled us well and I am going to vote for him again,” said Frank Munyaneza, a driver. “He has brought development and we have security under his rule.”

Kagame’s campaign priorities have included security, stability, unity and economic development.

“We chose to rebuild ourselves and our country, which was destroyed by bad politics and irresponsible leaders,” he said at a rally in the northern Gakenke district on Thursday.

“As for you, you have rebuilt yourselves, you have built your skills, and you have competent leaders at all levels. Therefore, you must do everything possible to ensure that Rwanda continues its path towards sustainable progress.”

Habineza, a former RPF member, is advocating for changes to tax and land policies and for modernisation of agriculture.

Mpayimana, a senior expert in the ministry of national unity and civic engagement and a former journalist, is pushing to downsize parliament, increase agricultural productivity, and improve education and student welfare.

In the last election, Habineza and Mpayimana each got less than 1% of votes. Analysts say they continue to lack sufficient name recognition, financial resources and organisational ability to significantly challenge Kagame.

RPF has been the ruling party since 1994, and its members occupy 75% of the seats in parliament.

David Kiwuwa, an associate professor of international studies at the University of Nottingham, said: “On the whole, Rwanda is a dominant party system, with RPF occupying a supersized political space and as such in the foreseeable future has no challenger.”

Rachel Nicholson, Rwanda researcher at Amnesty International, said the election could be an “opportune time for political leadership to choose to recommit to human rights” and investigate enforced disappearances, killings and other human rights cases to ensure that victims get justice.

“Regardless of whether leadership changes or not, it’s a moment of change,” she said. “It’s a moment that leaders can choose if they want to.”

Rwandans are also voting on Monday for members of the lower house of parliament.

The results of the elections are expected this week.

Argentina won their second straight Copa América championship, overcoming Lionel Messi’s second-half leg injury to beat Colombia 1-0 on Sunday in extra-time.

Messi’s night ended early when he emotionally exited the field in the 64th minute with an apparent leg injury on Sunday night, and cameras showed him later on the bench with a badly swollen right ankle.

The 37-year-old appeared to suffer a non-contact injury while running at full speed with the game at 0-0. Messi immediately looked toward the Argentina bench as he went to the ground and remained down for several minutes as he waited on the trainers to come out. He was helped to his feet and immediately took his shoe off his right foot.

As he walked off the field, the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner took off his captains armband and threw his shoe to the ground in frustration. An emotional Messi was then shown covering his face, sobbing in his seat.

Messi went down in the first half after landing awkwardly when chasing a ball out of bounds. He rolled over several times as he grabbed at his lower right leg. Trainers worked on the area for a few minutes before helping him to his feet. He walked slowly toward the sideline before returning to the game.

Messi had been dealing with a leg injury and discomfort through much of the tournament and missed Argentina’s group stage finale. He had one shot attempt in the first half Sunday.

There had been speculation during the tournament that it would be Messi’s last competition in an Argentina shirt. But Messi said before the final that he intends to continue beyond this summer.

“As I’ve said before, I intend to continue,” Messi said after Argentina’s semi-final win. “I intend to keep living day by day without thinking about what will come in the future or whether I’ll continue or not. It’s something I just live each day. I’m 37 years and only God knows when the end will be.”

The final did mark the end of Ángel Di María’s international career, who announced his retirement at 36 years old.

“We’ve enjoyed him so much,” Messi said. “He’s always given his all and the best of himself and that he will retire in a final is something he simply deserves.”

South American World Cup qualifying resumes in September, with each team scheduled to play 12 more matches. Messi was expected to return to MLS action for Inter Miami against the Chicago Fire on 21 July. Miami are second in the Eastern Conference, but their form has been erratic while Messi has been away on international duty. They will now nervously wait on the status of their star.

An Asian elephant at Houston zoo in the US has received the first mRNA vaccine against herpes, which is the leading killer of Asian elephants calves in captivity.

Tess, a 40-year-old Asian elephant, was injected with the trial vaccine at the Texas zoo in June, after a spate of deaths in juveniles in zoos around the world from the elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV).

Dr Paul Ling, who researches herpes in humans at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, developed the elephant mRNA vaccine, which is designed to boost the immunity of young elephants.

“When elephants are born, they have a tremendous amount of antibodies that they get from their mother,” he said. “When the female elephant gives birth, she’s probably already had this virus so she gives protective antibodies to her baby, and they last for a certain period of time. Our vaccine is designed to give these young elephants enough immunity that they’ve lost over time.”

The mRNA vaccine is similar in design to the Covid-19 vaccines used in humans during the recent pandemic, and aims to prevent serious illness and death from EEHV in young Asian elephants.

The virus can cause a lethal hemorrhagic disease in Asian elephants, similar to the effects Ebola has on humans. Researchers believe it is passed among Asian elephants through their trunks. First discovered in 1990 and scientifically described in 1999, the virus is a major driver of Asian elephant deaths in captivity.

This month, two juveniles died from the virus at Dublin zoo. Zoos in Chester, Melbourne and Zurich are among those that have lost several baby Asian elephants to the disease. In symptomatic elephants, it has a mortality rate of about 70%.

While the virus has been recorded in wild populations and fatalities have been recorded, experts are unsure how much impact it is having on wild Asian elephants or whether a vaccination programme would be practical. There are fewer than 50,000 of the species in the wild and they are threatened with extinction. Habitat loss, poaching and genetic isolation are all considered bigger threats to their survival.

A Chester zoo spokesperson said they thought the elephant herpes virus was a threat to the long-term survival of the Asian elephant, adding that reports of fatalities in India, Nepal, Myanmar and Thailand were on the rise.

“The only long-term solution to beating EEHV is to find a safe and effective vaccine, which is most likely to be achieved through zoo-led research,” the spokesperson said.

“While the global conservation community has made significant steps towards finding a viable vaccine, further work and time is needed before we have the answer we’re all so desperately searching for – scientific confirmation that the vaccine is effective in preventing EEHV.”

Researchers are monitoring the health of Tess, and Houston zoo plans to inoculate more Asian elephants later this year if no side effects are recorded. The mRNA was developed in a partnership between Houston zoo, Baylor College of Medicine and the Dallas-based “de-extinction” company Colossal.

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features

An Asian elephant at Houston zoo in the US has received the first mRNA vaccine against herpes, which is the leading killer of Asian elephants calves in captivity.

Tess, a 40-year-old Asian elephant, was injected with the trial vaccine at the Texas zoo in June, after a spate of deaths in juveniles in zoos around the world from the elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV).

Dr Paul Ling, who researches herpes in humans at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, developed the elephant mRNA vaccine, which is designed to boost the immunity of young elephants.

“When elephants are born, they have a tremendous amount of antibodies that they get from their mother,” he said. “When the female elephant gives birth, she’s probably already had this virus so she gives protective antibodies to her baby, and they last for a certain period of time. Our vaccine is designed to give these young elephants enough immunity that they’ve lost over time.”

The mRNA vaccine is similar in design to the Covid-19 vaccines used in humans during the recent pandemic, and aims to prevent serious illness and death from EEHV in young Asian elephants.

The virus can cause a lethal hemorrhagic disease in Asian elephants, similar to the effects Ebola has on humans. Researchers believe it is passed among Asian elephants through their trunks. First discovered in 1990 and scientifically described in 1999, the virus is a major driver of Asian elephant deaths in captivity.

This month, two juveniles died from the virus at Dublin zoo. Zoos in Chester, Melbourne and Zurich are among those that have lost several baby Asian elephants to the disease. In symptomatic elephants, it has a mortality rate of about 70%.

While the virus has been recorded in wild populations and fatalities have been recorded, experts are unsure how much impact it is having on wild Asian elephants or whether a vaccination programme would be practical. There are fewer than 50,000 of the species in the wild and they are threatened with extinction. Habitat loss, poaching and genetic isolation are all considered bigger threats to their survival.

A Chester zoo spokesperson said they thought the elephant herpes virus was a threat to the long-term survival of the Asian elephant, adding that reports of fatalities in India, Nepal, Myanmar and Thailand were on the rise.

“The only long-term solution to beating EEHV is to find a safe and effective vaccine, which is most likely to be achieved through zoo-led research,” the spokesperson said.

“While the global conservation community has made significant steps towards finding a viable vaccine, further work and time is needed before we have the answer we’re all so desperately searching for – scientific confirmation that the vaccine is effective in preventing EEHV.”

Researchers are monitoring the health of Tess, and Houston zoo plans to inoculate more Asian elephants later this year if no side effects are recorded. The mRNA was developed in a partnership between Houston zoo, Baylor College of Medicine and the Dallas-based “de-extinction” company Colossal.

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features

China’s economy slowed more than expected in the June quarter, increasing the likelihood that a gathering of top officials in Beijing this week will unveil efforts to rekindle growth.

The world’s second-largest economy expanded by 4.7% in the April-June period from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday. That result was down from 5.3% growth in the March quarter and the 5.1% rate economists had predicted.

The property sector continued to retreat, with total sales of new commercial buildings down 25% in the first half of 2024. Retail sales in June were down 0.12% from May, underscoring weak consumer sentiment that could make it hard for China to meet its full-year GDP growth target of about 5%.

The relatively weak quarterly result was bolstered by a record trade surplus of almost $US100bn in June alone as surplus manufactured goods were shipped overseas. The threat of rising trade barriers, particularly if Donald Trump is re-elected US president later this year, adds to the pressure for China’s leaders to reignite growth at home.

The figures came as top Chinese officials gathered in Beijing on Monday at a key political meeting that has historically seen officials unveil big-picture economic policy changes.

“Turning these [economic] trends around should be front and centre of this week’s third plenum,” said Harry Murphy Cruise, an economist with Moody’s investor services.

Still, the five-yearly event may end up disappointing those seeking major economic changes as “big policy pivots can be taken as an admission of failure and a sure-fire way to lose face” in China, he said. “Instead, we expect a modest policy tweak that expands high-tech manufacturing and delivers a sprinkling of support to housing and households.”

China’s president, Xi Jinping, will oversee the ruling Communist party’s secretive gathering. Beijing has offered few hints about what might be on the table.

State media in June said the delayed four-day gathering would “primarily examine issues related to further comprehensively deepening reform and advancing Chinese modernisation”, and Xi has said the party is planning “major” reforms.

Analysts are hoping those pledges will result in badly needed support for the economy.

“The upcoming plenum can’t come soon enough,” Sarah Tan and Harry Murphy Cruise wrote for Moody’s Analytics last week.

Beijing should take decisive action to reform the property sector, loosen restrictions on internal migration, boost high-skilled jobs for graduates and modify the tax system to ease local government debt, they said.

But they added that leaders would “probably not” make sweeping reforms, instead choosing “a modest policy tweak that expands hi-tech manufacturing and a sprinkling of supports to housing”.

The People’s Daily, the Communist party’s official newspaper, appeared to confirm those lower expectations when it warned last week that “reform is not about changing direction and transformation is not about changing colour”.

Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, said the meeting was “intended to generate and discuss big, long-term ideas and structural reforms instead of making short-term policy adjustments”.

The third plenum has previously been an occasion for the party’s top leadership to unveil major economic policy shifts.

In 1978, then-leader Deng Xiaoping used the meeting to announce market reforms that would put China on the path to rapid economic growth by opening it to the world.

More recently, after the closed-door meeting in 2013, the leadership pledged to give the free market a “decisive” role in resource allocation, as well as other sweeping changes to economic and social policy.

Authorities have been clear they want to reorient the economy away from state-funded investment and instead base growth around hi-tech innovation and domestic consumption.

But economic uncertainty is fuelling a vicious cycle that has kept consumption stubbornly low.

Among the most urgent issues facing the economy is the beleaguered property sector, which long served as a key engine for growth but is now mired in debt, with several top firms facing liquidation.

Authorities have moved in recent months to ease pressure on developers and restore confidence, including by encouraging local governments to buy up unsold homes.

NAB senior economist Gerard Burg said the property sector had contracted year-on-year for the past 28 months. Investment in real estate fell 7.4%, accelerating from May’s 4.7% decline from a year earlier.

“Conditions in China’s residential property sector remain broadly negative – with sales falling by 14.3% year-on-year in June, while construction starts fell by 18.3%,” Burg said.

June retail sales after removing inflation were 1.8% higher than for the same month in 2023. That was the weakest result since December 2022, which was negatively impacted by the Omicron wave of Covid-19 and the sudden end of zero-Covid policies.

“This continues to point to the soft domestic demand conditions that have persisted since the pandemic,” he said.

Analysts say much more is required for a full rebound, as the country’s economy has yet to bounce back more than 18 months after damaging Covid-19 restrictions ended.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

A man has been charged with two counts of murder over the deaths of two men whose remains were found in suitcases in Bristol last week, the Metropolitan police said.

Yostin Andres Mosquera, 34, was charged on Monday morning, the Met said.

The men, whose remains were discovered in suitcases on Clifton Suspension Bridge, have been named by the Met as 62-year-old Albert Alfonso and Paul Longworth, 71, who had previously been in a relationship.

The pair lived together at a flat in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, and were known to the suspect, the Met said.

Mosquera, 34, was arrested in Bristol in the early hours of Saturday morning and has been charged with two counts of murder. He will appear in custody later on Monday at Wimbledon magistrates court.

Longworth was British, while Alfonso was originally from France but had obtained British citizenship, the force added.

The Met said Mosquera had been staying with the victims at a flat in Scotts Road for a “short period of time”.

Evidence in the investigation so far has not pointed to a homophobic motive, Scotland Yard added, but it has been classified as a hate crime under national guidelines.

Deputy assistant commissioner Andy Valentine said: “My thoughts are first and foremost with Albert and Paul’s loved ones who are coming to terms with this terrible news.

“While we do not believe either of them had any close family, we have identified other next of kin who have been informed and are being supported by specialist officers. We are continuing to try and identify any extended family members.

“I know that this awful incident will cause concern not just among residents in Shepherd’s Bush but in the wider LGBTQ+ community across London.

“I hope it will be of some reassurance that whilst inquiries are still ongoing and the investigation is at a relatively early stage, we are not currently looking for anyone else in connection with the two murders.”

Avon and Somerset police were called at 11.57pm last Wednesday after a man was reported to have been seen acting suspiciously on Clifton Suspension Bridge.

Officers arrived less than 10 minutes later and the man had left the scene, leaving behind one suitcase. A second suitcase was found nearby a short time later. Both were found to contain human remains.

Inquiries carried out by officers from Avon and Somerset police and the Met suggested a suspect had travelled to Bristol from London earlier the same day. As a result, the Met took over the investigation.

On Friday, police found further human remains in a flat in Scotts Road, Shepherd’s Bush, west London, with the two incidents believed to be connected.

Conflicts have hampered efforts to vaccinate children across the world, health leaders have warned, as new figures showed about 14.5 million children had not received a single immunisation dose.

More than half of the children live in countries where armed conflicts or other humanitarian crises had created fragile and vulnerable situations, according to data from the UN children’s agency, Unicef, and the World Health Organization.

The war in Sudan has led to a huge rise in numbers of unvaccinated children, from about 110,000 in 2021 to an estimated 701,000 last year. Yemen has 580,000 unvaccinated children, up from 424,000 three years ago.

In addition to the 14.5 million “zero-dose” children in 2023, 6.5 million children were “under-vaccinated”, meaning they had not received all their recommended doses.

Both figures were up from 2022, officials said on Monday, warning that despite progress in some regions, an international goal to halve the number of zero-dose children by 2030 was off-track.

Dr Katherine O’Brien, the director of the WHO’s immunisation and vaccines department, said: “This puts the lives of the most vulnerable children at risk.”

She said children in humanitarian settings “also lack security, they lack nutrition, they lack healthcare, and are most likely as a result of those things to die from a vaccine-preventable disease if they get it”.

Global vaccine coverage has yet to return to 2019’s levels, before the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted immunisation programmes. That year, 12.8 million children were classed as “zero-dose” and a further 5.5 million as under-vaccinated.

More than half of the world’s zero-dose children live in 10 countries, which officials said were “a mix of those with large birth cohorts, weak health systems or both”.

They include Nigeria, India, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia. In 2023, Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan joined the list.

Douglas Hageman, Unicef’s Sudan representative, said the country’s health system had collapsed during the war.

“National vaccination coverage has plummeted from 85% before the war to around 50% currently, with rates averaging 30% in active conflict areas and as low as 8% in South Darfur,” he said.

Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, rubella and polio were common, Hageman added.

Vaccinations in Yemen were “alarmingly low”, said Peter Hawkins, Unicef’s representative in the country.

“A combination of factors that have further worsened in recent years, including a lack of access to healthcare, vaccine hesitancy and worsening socioeconomic and political crisis, have exacerbated the situation,” he said.

O’Brien warned that misinformation circulating during the pandemic was “continuing to reverberate in many countries, and is actually resulting in deaths”.

The UN report said there had been a strong increase in coverage of the HPV vaccine, which can protect against cervical cancer, but it still needed to be introduced in 51 countries, including China and India.

In Barcelona visitors have been sprayed with water pistols in an expression of local people’s anger about over-tourism. By contrast in Copenhagen, tourists are to be given financial and other incentives to come – as long as they act responsibly.

The Danish capital appears to be bucking the trend of other travel hotspots struggling under the burden of too many tourists, by attempting to lure only the well-behaved, socially and environmentally conscious traveller.

The national tourist board has introduced a programme to encourage climate-friendly, sustainable behaviour. From Monday, it will reward those who choose to ride a bike, take public transport or undergo a bit of work like gardening or rubbish collection at the harbour or in the city’s parks.

People who turn up with their own reusable coffee cups can expect to receive a free brew at selected venues, while other perks for good behaviour include a complimentary cocktail on a rooftop bar, or extra time spent on the city’s artificial ski slope complex.

“All our choices have an environmental impact, so why not make conscious decisions that benefit us all and be rewarded for them?” the organisers behind CopenPay suggest.

Mikkel Aarø-Hansen of the official tourist board Wonderful Copenhagen said he hoped the idea would act as an inspiration for other cities to adopt as they seek to find a workable way to create a more mutually beneficial and less onerous relationship between tourists and local people.

“We need to ensure that tourism rather than being a burden for the environment is transformed into a power for positive change,” he said. He added that by embracing elements of the so-called experience economy the programme would also encourage more positive encounters between tourists and local people.

“Our core goals are to make travelling more sustainable. We’ll only manage this though if we are able to overcome the big divide between the desire of visitors to behave in a sustainable way and their actual behaviour.” He added that the challenge was “more complicated than it sounds”.

“We want visitors to make more conscious, more climate-friendly decisions and in so doing to hopefully have a more rewarding travel experience,” Aarø-Hansen added.

The “warm welcome” offered by the city, as crooned by Danny Kaye in the eponymous song, should be a given, in contrast to the unwelcome scenes tourists have faced at other destinations that have failed to manage visitor supply and demand, the city’s leaders say.

Barcelona is not the only popular tourist destination to find itself overwhelmed, and with local people taking drastic measures in an attempt to curb or control the travel boom.

Day trippers to Venice now have to pay a new daily tax of €5, while tourists in the old port city of Dubrovnik were recently urged to avoid using rolling suitcases or lift them up, due to the cacophony they make when pulled along the cobbled streets. Mallorca, Ibiza and other Balearic islands meanwhile have introduced tight restrictions on alcohol consumption. Other destinations are experimenting with a range of methods, from entrance fees to restricted visitor zones to control the flow.

CopenPay, which will initially last until 11 August, is being viewed by authorities as something of a pilot project, which could be repeated and expanded if successful. This may in future involve rewarding visitors who take the train rather than the plane to get to Copenhagen.