Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, once Donald Trump’s biggest rivals in the Republican party, both gave full-throated endorsements to Trump’s presidential candidacy on Tuesday, a call for unity that served to underscore the former president’s control of the Republican party.

On the second night of the Republican national convention, Haley and DeSantis, who both unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination earlier this year, spoke back to back in the 8pm hour of the convention as Trump grinned and applauded from his box elevated above the floor of the Fiserv Forum, where the convention is taking place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

“I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” Haley said. She said her speech was aimed at those “who don’t agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time”.

“You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him. Take it from me. I haven’t always agreed with President Trump. But we agree more often than we disagree,” she said.

Haley, who served as the governor of South Carolina and Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, rattled off what she saw as Trump’s foreign policy accomplishments.

“When Donald Trump was president, Putin did nothing. No invasions. No wars. That was no accident. Putin didn’t attack Ukraine because he knew Donald Trump was tough. A strong president doesn’t start wars. A strong president prevents wars,” she said, receiving loud applause.

DeSantis also immediately made it clear that he was backing Trump.

“Let’s send Joe Biden back to his basement and let’s send Donald Trump back to the White House,” he said.

Neither Haley nor DeSantis initially had speaking slots at the convention, but they were added after the attempt on Trump’s life on Saturday as Republicans sought to project unity.

“President Trump asked me to speak to this convention in the name of unity. It was a gracious invitation and I was happy to accept,” Haley said.

Trump could be seen on the Jumbotron grinning widely as both gave their speeches. And he had reason to do so: just months ago, Haley and DeSantis were the most prominent Republicans critical of Trump.

“He’s made it chaotic. He’s made it self-absorbed. He’s made people dislike and judge each other. He’s left that a president should have moral clarity, and know the difference between right or wrong, and he’s just toxic,” Haley said of Trump during an interview on The Breakfast Club in January.

Haley, who has also called Trump “thin-skinned and easily distracted”, didn’t say she was voting for Trump until May.

Austin Weatherford, the Biden campaign’s national director for Republican engagement, highlighted Haley’s words in a statement after her speech Tuesday.

“Ambassador Haley said it best herself: someone who doesn’t respect our military, doesn’t know right from wrong, and ‘surrounds himself in chaos’ can’t be president,” he said.

“That’s why millions of Republicans cast their votes in protest of Donald Trump and his attacks on our institutions, our nation’s allies, and civility.”

DeSantis endorsed Trump shortly after dropping out of the presidential race in January, but reportedly continued to privately criticize him. He needled him on the campaign trail, saying America didn’t need a president who had “lost the zip on their fastball”.

DeSantis and Haley took slightly different tacks in their speeches on Tuesday, emphasizing their different approaches to campaigning.

Haley spoke about the need to expand the Republican party in comments that were met with tepid applause from the delegates on the convention floor – many of whom represent some of the party’s most loyal base.

“We must not only be a unified party, we must also expand our party,” she said. “We are so much better when we are bigger. We are stronger when we welcome people into our party who have different backgrounds and experiences.”

DeSantis, by contrast, leaned into attacking Biden. “America cannot afford four more years of a Weekend at Bernie’s presidency,” he said. He touted the success that Republicans have had in recent years, saying “the woke mind virus is dead and Florida is a solid Republican state”.

DeSantis went on to detail a rightwing policy wishlist, including severe restrictions on immigration and the destruction of the “administrative state”.

Even though DeSantis’s Trump-like appeal was not enough to win him the Republican nomination, his hard-right talking points triggered a much more boisterous response from the delegates than Haley’s talk of unity and party outreach.

A threat from Iran prompted the US Secret Service to boost protection around Donald Trump before Saturday’s attempted assassination of the former president, though it appears unrelated to the rally attack, according to two US officials.

Upon learning of the threat, the Biden administration contacted senior officials at the Secret Service to make them aware, the officials said, adding it was shared with the lead agent on Trump’s protection detail and the Trump campaign. That prompted the agency to surge resources and assets. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations dismissed the allegations as “unsubstantiated and malicious”.

The additional resources did not prevent Saturday’s attack at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania that left Trump injured to the ear, killed one rallygoer and severely injured two more when a 20-year-old with an AR-style rifle opened fire from a nearby rooftop.

“As we have said many times, we have been tracking Iranian threats against former Trump administration officials for years, dating back to the last administration,” said the national security council spokesperson, Adrienne Watson. “These threats arise from Iran’s desire to seek revenge for the killing of Qassem Soleimani. We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority.

“At this time, law enforcement has reported that their investigation has not identified ties between the shooter and any accomplice or co-conspirator, foreign or domestic,” Watson added.

Trump ordered the killing of Soleimani, who led the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds Force, in 2020. He reportedly later told friends that he was afraid Iran would try to assassinate him in revenge.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations said: “From the perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Trump is a criminal who must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law for ordering the assassination of General Soleimani. Iran has chosen the legal path to bring him to justice.”

In 2022, the US charged an alleged member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) with attempting to hire a hitman for $300,000 to kill John Bolton, the former national security adviser in the Trump administration.

The Department of Justice said Shahram Poursafi, also known as Mehdi Rezayi, offered the money in November 2021 to an unidentified person in the US to “eliminate” Bolton, apparently to avenge the drone killing of Suleimani.

Poursafi is alleged to have said that after Bolton was killed, there would be another job, for which the hitman would be paid $1m.

When Poursafi’s indictment was unsealed in August 2022, Iran denied the allegations.

Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting

Speakers at the Republican national convention ramped up their rhetorical attacks on Democrats on Tuesday night despite Donald Trump’s presidential campaign signalling that the party would adopt a message of unity in the face of political violence.

Kari Lake, a Trump ally and Republican candidate for senate in Arizona, used her speech time to launch an attack on the media, which she called “fake news”, and said more Americans were no longer tuning in to mainstream media.

She then turned her attention to illegal drugs and crime, part of the Tuesday theme, “Make America Safe Once Again”. She attributed the issues to the Biden administration and Democrats. “The problems we face are huge – the problems caused by the Democrat party – but the solutions are simple. First of all, stop the Biden-vasion and build a wall,” she said.

The convention floor erupted with chants of “build that wall”.

Other speakers repeatedly slammed Joe Biden, seeking to portray his time in government as a threat to the American way of life. They also heaped praise on Trump, often referring to him as a friend and telling anecdotes of their interactions with him.

Meanwhile, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis took the stage, making the case for Trump to their primary voters in a move that finally pulled the entire party publicly together behind Trump and ended any lingering divisions with his former arch-rivals for the party nomination.

“I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” said Haley, who entered the stage to a mix of applause and boos. She went on to speak to voters with mixed feelings about Trump. Haley cast the election in dramatic terms. “We have a country to save,” said Haley. “And a unified Republican party is essential for saving her.”

DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, who has generally been supportive of Trump since abandoning his White House bid in January, opened by slamming Biden and suggesting the president lacks the cognitive ability to lead.

“America cannot afford four more years of a Weekend at Bernie’s presidency,” said DeSantis, referring to the 80s comedy in which two salesmen accidentally kill their boss and then pretend he is still alive. “Let’s be honest here. Biden is just a figurehead.”

The speeches come after Republicans opened their nominating convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on a high-energy note. Trump began the convention on Monday with the announcement that JD Vance, the Ohio senator, would serve as his running mate, ending months of heated speculation over who would join the former president at the top of the ticket.

The decision to try a change in tone of the campaign came after Saturday’s assassination attempt at a Trump rally, in which Trump’s ear was injured and one attendee was killed.

But the message did not seem to filter down to the parade of speakers taking the convention stage. During her speech Tuesday, New York representative Elise Stefanik called Biden “feckless and failed” and accused him of causing “chaos”.

Florida senator Rick Scott, meanwhile, levied an inflammatory – and false – accusation at Democrats, whom he accused of rigging elections by allowing “all the non-citizens to vote”.

Immigration reform has become a rallying cry for Republicans, with Trump and his allies repeatedly and falsely accusing Biden of supporting “open borders”.

Trump has previously called for the deportation of 15 million to 20 million undocumented immigrants if he wins re-election, and Vance voiced his own support for mass deportation in an interview with Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, on Monday.

“We have to deport people,” Vance told Hannity. “We have to deport people who broke our laws who came in here. And I think we need to start with the violent criminals.”

Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, doubled down on therhetoric, invoking a series of anecdotal examples of women killed by undocumented immigrants.

“We are facing an invasion on our southern border – not figuratively, a literal invasion,” Cruz exclaimed. “These aren’t just stories or statistics. They’re our daughters, sisters, friends.” Cruz later claimed that Democrats wanted “votes from illegals”.

While Republicans rally, Biden and his Democratic allies are resuming some campaign communications after suspending their planned anti-Trump ads in response to the assassination attempt. At a press conference in Milwaukee on Tuesday, Biden campaign officials said that the assassination attempt against Trump would not change their messaging strategy.

“The president and the vice-president have been very clear on their vision when it comes to the agenda that they want to put forward for Americans. Our campaign has been talking about that for months,” said Quentin Fulks, Biden’s principal deputy campaign manager. “And we’re going to continue to draw the contrast of what that work actually means and what it means for the lives of those American people.”

As of now, it seems like Biden still needs to sell more voters on that message. National polls show a neck-and-neck race, and Biden appears to be in trouble in several states he won in 2020. In a more worrisome sign for Biden, 19 congressional Democrats have called on him to drop out of the race following his disastrous debate performance last month.

Speaking at a brunch in Milwaukee on Tuesday, Chris LaCivita, the co-manager of Trump’s campaign, expressed the utmost confidence in their chances of victory this fall.

“We have nearly 20 paths to get to where we need to get,” LaCivita said. “They have one, maybe two.”

Police officers in Milwaukee shot and killed a man about a mile from the Republican national convention on Tuesday, authorities and witnesses of the shooting said.

Security arrangements for the convention have come under the microscope since Saturday, when Donald Trump, the former president and Republican nominee for president in November’s election, was the subject of an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.

The officers involved in Tuesday’s shooting were from Columbus, Ohio, a police union statement said, adding that no officers were injured. Body-camera footage released Tuesday night showed the man, who was identified by a family member as Samuel Sharpe Jr, brandishing a knife at another man before he was shot by officers.

Neighbors said the man killed was a regular at a homeless encampment in the neighborhood. The man did not appear to have any connection to the convention, or any plans to go closer.

In the aftermath of the shooting, activists and neighbors responded with outrage at Sharpe’s killing and the presence of out-of-state officers apparently patrolling a Milwaukee neighborhood.

“Milwaukee has blood on its hands,” said Ryan Clancy, a state representative from Milwaukee. “This is not near the RNC. The police should not be here.”

About 4,000 officers from other states and cities are in Wisconsin for the convention. Columbus, Ohio, provided a “police dialogue team” to work on demonstrations.

The Milwaukee fire and police commission suspended the city’s policy of releasing body-camera footage within 15 days of a police shooting for the duration of the RNC. Alan Chavoya, outreach chair of the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, a group that lobbied against the suspension of the body-camera policy, decried the Ohio officers for “coming here and treating our people this way”.

“I was shocked,” said Sonia, a resident of the apartment complex adjacent to the site of the shooting, who spoke to the Guardian but asked to be referred to by her first name for privacy. “The police let people in the area know before the [convention] we wouldn’t have to deal with out-of-town law enforcement, but here you go.”

Citing law enforcement sources, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said the shooting happened near North 14th Street and West Vliet Street, about a mile outside the Republican national convention security perimeter.

Linda Sharpe, who identified herself as the cousin of the man killed, said she wanted answers. “He had a dog, he loved people and he loved animals,” she said.

At least 60 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, health officials have said, including in an attack on a school sheltering displaced people and another on an Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone”, as ceasefire talks in the nearly 10-month-old conflict appeared to stall again.

The Red Crescent said on Tuesday that 17 people were killed in a bombing near a petrol station in Mawasi, an area on the Mediterranean shoreline packed with hundreds of thousands of displaced people that Israel had previously declared an evacuation zone. Another 16 were killed in a strike that targeted the UN-run al-Awda school in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, medics at a nearby hospital said.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Hamas militants were present at the school. There was no immediate comment on the strike in Mawasi but the army said the air force had struck about 40 targets in Gaza on Tuesday, including sniping and observation posts, military structures and buildings rigged with explosives.

The armed wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Hamas ally, said their fighters had attacked Israeli forces in several locations with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs. Islamic Jihad’s armed wing said it had fired missiles at Sderot in southern Israel, but no damage or casualties were reported.

Over the past two weeks, Israel has hit the besieged Palestinian territory with some of the fiercest bombardments in months, the deadliest of which targeted Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s military commander, in a bombing in Mawasi on Saturday that killed more than 90 people. It is still unclear whether Deif, wanted by Israel for decades, was killed in the strike.

In a statement on Tuesday, the IDF said it had “eliminated” approximately half of the Hamas leadership in Gaza and 14,000 soldiers since the war broke out after the Palestinian militant group’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October in which 1,200 people were killed and another 250 taken hostage. More than 38,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory operation in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-administered territory, and the population of 2.3 million people is in dire need of food, water, medicine and shelter.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas on Israel’s claim. Killing Deif would be a much-needed morale boost for Israel, which in almost 10 months of fighting has so far failed to take out any of the top three Hamas leaders in Gaza.

The targeting of Deif and subsequent deadly attacks on Gaza appear to have contributed to an impasse in ceasefire and hostage-prisoner swap negotiations being held in Qatar and Egypt. The talks stalled on Saturday, Egyptian mediators told local media.

Hamas has sent conflicting messages over its future participation in the talks, which were the most promising of a series of failed negotiations since an initial ceasefire and hostage release deal brokered in November. That truce broke down after a week, following what the US said was Hamas’s inability or unwillingness to release more Israeli captives.

The latest statement from Hamas’s Qatar-based political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, on Sunday stressed that the group was pulling out of the indirect talks in protest at the recent Israeli “massacres” but that the group was ready to return to the negotiation table if Israel “demonstrates seriousness in reaching a ceasefire agreement and a prisoner exchange deal”.

A Palestinian official close to the negotiations told Reuters that Hamas did not want to be seen as halting negotiations despite the stepped-up Israeli attacks. “Hamas wants the war to end, not at any price. It says it has shown the flexibility needed and is pushing the mediators to get Israel to reciprocate,” the official said.

The group has accused the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of seeking to derail a deal and an end to the war for his own political gain. On Tuesday, however, Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, still appeared hopeful, telling the families of five female soldiers kidnapped during Hamas’s 7 October attack that “this is the closest we have ever been to a deal”, according to Israel’s Channel 12.

Disagreements over the identities and numbers of the Israeli hostages and Palestinians held in Israeli jails have repeatedly scuppered truce talks. The situation has been complicated by the fact that in May Israel seized control of the Rafah border crossing into Egypt, which Hamas and international delegations insist must be returned to Palestinian control.

The US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, told reporters that two senior advisers to Netanyahu had said Israel was still committed to reaching a ceasefire. He also criticised the “unacceptably high” civilian casualties of the last few days.

Washington, Israel’s most important ally, has provided significant military and diplomatic cover for Israel’s war in Gaza, despite domestic blowback.

Also on Monday, the EU added to a wave of international measures against extremist Israelis, announcing new sanctions on three well-known Israeli settler leaders in the occupied West Bank and a pro-settlement group, Regavim, which was founded by the current Israeli finance minister, the far-right Bezalel Smotrich.

Under American pressure, Israel has pledged to deliver large quantities of humanitarian aid into the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. But at the same time, the US and Israel have allowed tax-deductible donations to far-right groups that have blocked that aid from being delivered.

Three groups that have prevented humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza – including one accused of looting or destroying supplies – have raised more than $200,000 from donors in the US and Israel, the Associated Press and the Israeli investigative site Shomrim have found in an examination of crowdfunding websites and other public records.

Incentivizing these donations by making them tax-deductible runs counter to America’s and Israel’s stated commitments to allow unlimited food, water and medicine into Gaza, say groups working to get more aid into the territory. Donations have continued even after the US imposed sanctions against one of these groups.

By not cracking down on these groups, Israel is showing a “lack of coherence” in its Gaza aid policy, said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli non-profit that has long called on Israel to improve conditions in the territory.

“If you’re on the one hand saying you’re allowing aid in but then also facilitating the actions of groups that are blocking it, can you really say you’re facilitating aid?” she said.

Israeli officials did not respond to requests for comment. The US state department said it was committed to ensuring the delivery of aid, but had no comment on the fundraising efforts by the far-right groups.

Israel has said repeatedly it does not restrict humanitarian aid and that the United Nations has failed to distribute thousands of truckloads of goods that have reached the territory. The UN and aid groups say deliveries have repeatedly been hampered by military operations, lawlessness inside Gaza and delays in Israeli inspections.

The three groups examined by AP and Shomrim have slowed the delivery of aid by blocking trucks on their way to Gaza at the main Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.

While these organizations are not the primary impediment to aid shipments, they have received tacit support from some Israeli leaders. Israel’s ultranationalist minister for national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has said aid shipments to Gaza should be blocked and he supported the right of opponents to demonstrate.

One of the groups, Mother’s March, has raised the equivalent of over $125,000 via Givechack, an Israeli crowdfunding site, the AP and Shomrim found. The group also raised some $13,000 via JGive, a US and Israeli crowdfunding site. Donations to charitable organizations are tax-deductible in Israel and the US.

Mother’s March does not raise the money directly. Instead, it works with an allied group called Torat Lechima that raises funds on its behalf.

Torat Lechima, whose name translates loosely as “combat doctrine”, is active in Israeli nationalist circles and works to “strengthen the Jewish identity and fighting spirit” among Israeli soldiers, according to its website. Torat Lechima continues to solicit funds for Mother’s March on the JGive site in the US.

Until it was sanctioned last month, a third group, Tzav 9, raised over $85,000 from close to 1,500 donors in the US and Israel via JGive. JGive said that donations made to Tzav 9 were frozen even before the sanctions were imposed and not delivered to the group.

All three groups, which have ties with Israel’s ultranationalist far right, say Israel should not be aiding the Palestinians as long as Hamas is holding dozens of people hostage. They also claim that Hamas is stealing much of the aid, though they have not offered any evidence to support that allegation.

“No to ‘humanitarian’ aid that grants fuel to the enemy who kills us! No to the hundreds of trucks that pass every day through Kerem Shalom – and drag out the war!” Mother’s March said in a recent crowdfunding campaign.

Hundreds of activists set up tents at Kerem Shalom for several nights in early February to stop the delivery of aid. The head of Mother’s March, Sima Hasson, was briefly detained by Israeli police in January after temporarily blocking trucks.

Israeli news reports have shown large convoys of cars blocking aid trucks from traveling on Israeli highways, as well as activists looting trucks and destroying supplies.

In its sanctions order, the White House accused Tzav 9 of violently blocking roads, damaging aid trucks and dumping supplies on the road. Last week, the White House imposed sanctions on the group’s co-founders. On Monday, the European Union also sanctioned Tsav 9.

Israeli police, who fall under the authority of Ben-Gvir, have made few arrests, though the group appears to have stopped its activities in recent weeks.

Tzav 9 defended its actions as “within the framework of the law, in a democratic protest”. It called the sanctions from the US “anti-democratic intervention”.

Neither Mother’s March nor Torat Lechima responded to requests for comment.

Those who violate the sanctions against Tsav 9 could have their assets frozen or face travel and visa bans.

It is unclear how effective these sanctions will be. Extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank say similar US sanctions imposed on them have had little effect, in part because Israeli leaders helped circumvent them.

The office of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declined to comment. The justice ministry, which regulates non-profits, said it would investigate but had no further comment.

JGive said it complies with Israeli laws. In addition to freezing Tzav 9’s donations, it noted that the Mother’s March campaign ended over four months ago.

Hary, of the Israeli activist group Gisha, said that the efforts of Mother’s March and Tzav 9 appear to have quieted down in recent weeks, but could resume activities at any moment.

“They’re getting signals from various places in the government that Gaza should be completely cut off,” she said.

The suspect in the killings of two Australians and their Filipina companion at a hotel in a popular resort city south of Manila was a former pool cleaner who allegedly wanted to retaliate against the hotel for firing him.

The suspect claimed that he randomly barged into the victims’ room last week because its window was open, Philippine officials said on Wednesday.

A hotel worker found the bodies of three victims, whose hands and feet were tied, on 10 July in a room at a hotel in the popular resort of Tagaytay city, south of Manila.

The victims were Sydney man David James Fisk, 57, his partner, Lucita Barquin Cortez, 55, a Philippine-born Australian citizen, and a younger relative of Cortez’s Filipina daughter-in-law.

In a pre-dawn news conference at the city hall, Tagaytay mayor Abraham Tolentino and police officials presented the handcuffed suspect, who was wearing a hoodie, dark eyeglasses and a face mask. The man, whose identity was not released, will face criminal complaints for the killings and robbery, Tagaytay police chief Charles Daven Capagcuan said.

The mayor repeated an apology to the victims’ families and to Australia for the killings.

“We are pleased to present to you the main suspect in this brutal crime and as promised that within a week, we will resolve and give justice,” Tolentino said.

Capagcuan told reporters ahead of the news conference that the breakthrough in the case came when the suspect was allegedly identified by at least three hotel employees based on his image, which was captured by security cameras showing a part of his face when his mask slid down.

The identification and information from witnesses eventually led authorities to the suspect’s Batangas home province near Tagaytay, where he decided to surrender on Tuesday, the police chief said.

“He wanted to get back at the hotel management for his dismissal,” Capagcuan claimed, adding that the suspect used to work as a swimming pool cleaner but was allegedly fired by the hotel in March after he was linked to a robbery in one of the rooms.

Police officials planned to file criminal complaints of robbery in addition to the killings against the suspect.

The man allegedly took the watch and shoes of the Australian male victim after attacking him with a knife and suffocating his partner and her daughter-in-law, Capagcuan said.

“He barged randomly with a knife into the room because its window was open,” Capagcuan said.

The Australian woman and her daughter-in-law are to be buried in their family’s home province in the Philippines while the remains of the Australian man would be flown to Sydney on Tuesday, Tolentino said.

The Australian couple had planned to fly back to Australia on 10 July, the day they were killed, but decided to briefly take a vacation in Tagaytay, the Filipino son of the slain Australian-Filipino woman said.

Tagaytay, about 60km south of Manila, is popular among local and foreign tourists who flock there for its cool weather and to view one of the world’s smallest active volcanos in a lake from elevated ridges teeming with restaurants, viewing decks and hotels, including the one where last week’s killings took place.

A “mega den” with as many as 2,000 rattlesnakes isn’t top binge-watching for many people. But a round-the-clock webcam in Colorado is providing a viewing bonanza for scientists and other snake enthusiasts whose observations are helping to broaden understanding of these unusual – and undeservedly maligned – reptiles.

The remote site on private land in northern Colorado is on a hillside full of rock crevices where the snakes can keep warm and hide from predators.

“This is a big, big den for rattlesnakes. This is one of the biggest ones we know of,” Emily Taylor, a California Polytechnic State University biology professor leading the Project RattleCam research, said Tuesday.

The Cal Poly researchers set up the webcam in May, working off their knowledge from a previous webcam they set up at a rattlesnake den in California. The exact location in Colorado is kept secret to discourage snake lovers – or haters – Taylor said.

The high-elevation Colorado rattlesnakes take refuge in the den for winter and emerge in the spring for a short season of activity compared to rattlesnakes in the south-west. This time of year, only pregnant female snakes are at the den while males move into the lower country nearby.

In August, the babies will be born. They’re called pups and, unlike nearly all other reptiles, they do not hatch from eggs but are born alive.

Also unlike other snakes, rattlesnake mothers care for their young, protecting them against predators and shielding them with their bodies. Sometimes rattlesnakes even care for the young of others.

“Rattlesnakes are actually really good mothers. People don’t know that,” Taylor said.

A webcam helps scientists observe snake behaviour without interfering. Meanwhile, people watching online tip off scientists to events they miss, or clue them in with their own knowledge about the local environment.

“It truly is a group effort, a community science effort, that we couldn’t do on our own as scientists,” Taylor said.

Now and then, there’s drama.

Red-tailed hawks circle above, awaiting a chance to swoop in for a meal. Once a magpie – a relative of crows with black, white and blue colouring and a long tail – caught a baby rattlesnake.

When it rains, the rattlesnakes coil up and catch water to drink from the cups formed by their bodies.

Taylor expects a surge in activity after the pups are born – and even more in September as snakes return from surrounding areas in preparation for winter.

Rattlesnakes get a bum rap as creepy and threatening. But the webcam shows they’re social animals that don’t go out of their way to be aggressive, Taylor pointed out.

“I try to speak up for the underdog and to show people that rattlesnakes have this other side that’s really worthy of our admiration,” said Taylor.

Six people have been found dead at a luxury hotel in central Bangkok, in what authorities say could be a case of poisoning.

The bodies of three women and three men were found inside a hotel suite on the fifth floor of the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel by a hotel worker late on Tuesday afternoon.

They were Vietnamese, and two had American citizenship, the Thai prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, said.

It is assumed the six had been dead for at least 24 hours before their bodies were discovered, police said, adding that the room had been locked from the inside, but that the staff member was able to enter through a separate door.

The cause of death is not yet known. However, Srettha said there was no sign of robbery or an attack, adding the cause was “presumably something related to consumption which needs to be investigated”.

Police shared images of hotel food found in the suite, which was still sealed in clingfilm and appeared to be untouched. However, six cups did appear to have been used, police said.

“The food was untouched but all six cups were used. We will check all of it. We could not find anything else around, even on the floor, but we found some kind of powder in the bottom of a cup,” said Metropolitan police bureau commissioner Thiti Saengsawang.

“We need to find out the motives,” he said, adding that the deaths were not the result of suicide, but of a “killing.”

Srettha said he had met the Vietnamese ambassador to discuss the matter and has ordered a swift investigation into the case.

The deceased had been booked to stay at the hotel as a group of seven people, but only five checked in, police said, while six people had been found dead. Police said they were now searching for the seventh individual.

“We are tracing every step since they got off the plane,” Thiti said.

Part of the group were staying on the fifth floor, and were due to check out on Tuesday, while others were staying on the seventh floor and had been due to check out on Monday but did not do so. Images from inside the hotel showed their luggage had been packed up.

The Grand Hyatt Erawan is a five-star hotel in Bangkok’s commercial and diplomatic district.

“The prime minister has ordered all agencies to urgently take action to avoid impact on tourism,” the Thai government said in a statement.

The US state department was “closely monitoring the situation and [we] stand ready to provide consular assistance,” a spokesperson said.

The incident comes at a time when Thailand is trying to boost its tourism industry, which was badly affected by the pandemic and is crucial to the economy.

The tourism sector has previously been shaken by a shooting at a luxury mall in Bangkok last October, in which two foreigners were killed.

Six people have been found dead at a luxury hotel in central Bangkok, in what authorities say could be a case of poisoning.

The bodies of three women and three men were found inside a hotel suite on the fifth floor of the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel by a hotel worker late on Tuesday afternoon.

They were Vietnamese, and two had American citizenship, the Thai prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, said.

It is assumed the six had been dead for at least 24 hours before their bodies were discovered, police said, adding that the room had been locked from the inside, but that the staff member was able to enter through a separate door.

The cause of death is not yet known. However, Srettha said there was no sign of robbery or an attack, adding the cause was “presumably something related to consumption which needs to be investigated”.

Police shared images of hotel food found in the suite, which was still sealed in clingfilm and appeared to be untouched. However, six cups did appear to have been used, police said.

“The food was untouched but all six cups were used. We will check all of it. We could not find anything else around, even on the floor, but we found some kind of powder in the bottom of a cup,” said Metropolitan police bureau commissioner Thiti Saengsawang.

“We need to find out the motives,” he said, adding that the deaths were not the result of suicide, but of a “killing.”

Srettha said he had met the Vietnamese ambassador to discuss the matter and has ordered a swift investigation into the case.

The deceased had been booked to stay at the hotel as a group of seven people, but only five checked in, police said, while six people had been found dead. Police said they were now searching for the seventh individual.

“We are tracing every step since they got off the plane,” Thiti said.

Part of the group were staying on the fifth floor, and were due to check out on Tuesday, while others were staying on the seventh floor and had been due to check out on Monday but did not do so. Images from inside the hotel showed their luggage had been packed up.

The Grand Hyatt Erawan is a five-star hotel in Bangkok’s commercial and diplomatic district.

“The prime minister has ordered all agencies to urgently take action to avoid impact on tourism,” the Thai government said in a statement.

The US state department was “closely monitoring the situation and [we] stand ready to provide consular assistance,” a spokesperson said.

The incident comes at a time when Thailand is trying to boost its tourism industry, which was badly affected by the pandemic and is crucial to the economy.

The tourism sector has previously been shaken by a shooting at a luxury mall in Bangkok last October, in which two foreigners were killed.

At least three Democrats in the US House of Representatives were preparing to sign a letter protesting against a plan to speed up the official party approval of Joe Biden’s re-election bid, the lawmakers’ offices said on Tuesday.

The three are among a growing number of Democrats upset by plans to hold a “virtual roll call” vote on Biden’s becoming the nominee as soon as 21 July, instead of waiting for the convention being held from 19 to 22 August in Chicago.

Democratic representatives Susan Wild, Mike Quigley and Jared Huffman plan to sign the letter, representatives of each lawmaker said when contacted by Reuters.

“Stifling debate and prematurely shutting down any possible change in the Democratic ticket through an unnecessary and unprecedented ‘virtual roll call’ in the days ahead is a terrible idea,” said a copy of the draft letter seen by Reuters.

“It could deeply undermine the morale and unity of Democrats.”

The virtual nomination was originally planned to beat an Ohio state deadline for placing candidates on the ballot for the 5 November election that fell before the Democrats’ August convention. But Ohio extended the deadline, negating that obstacle, the letter to the Democratic National Committee argued.

In response to criticism, DNC chair Jaime Harrison said on X that the Ohio extension would not take effect in time. He also disputed reports that he has said the virtual vote could happen as soon as next week. “The only thing you have heard us say is that we must get this done by August 5 to give us time to comply by August 7,” he said.

Pass the Torch, Joe, a group pressuring Biden to drop out of the presidential race, accused the DNC in a statement of potentially engaging in “an undemocratic, and perhaps even Trumpian, maneuver”, deepening the Democrats’ internal bickering.

The latest effort follows a call by 19 congressional Democrats for Biden, 81, to end his campaign after his halting 27 June debate performance against Donald Trump.

Adam Schiff, a California Democrat running for his state’s open senate seat, who was not one of the 19, warned donors in a private meeting that his party would likely suffer major losses if Biden continued his re-election bid, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. A spokesperson for Schiff’s campaign declined to comment.

Last month’s debate raised concerns in the party about both Biden’s ability to beat Trump and his fitness to hold the high-pressure job for another four years.

Thirty-nine percent of Democratic respondents to a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Tuesday said they believed that Biden should end his White House run, a slightly higher reading than the 32% who said the same in a Reuters/Ipsos poll days after the debate.

The letter from the three lawmakers has not yet been sent to the DNC and was being circulated widely among House Democrats, according to congressional sources.

Democrats fear that a poor performance by Biden in the election could cost their party not only control of the White House but both chambers of Congress, setting the stage for a second Trump administration that would be able to pursue its policy goals with almost no Democratic opposition.

Republicans followed their party’s standard procedure in officially nominating Trump at their convention in Milwaukee on Monday.

If Biden were to drop out of his re-election campaign, the Democrats’ top choice for presidential nominee would be Kamala Harris, multiple sources have said.

Some Democrats, however, could insist on a more open process that would allow other potential candidates to vie for the nomination, less than three months before the general election.

A foreign policy specialist who once worked for the CIA and on the White House national security council (NSC) has been indicted on US charges she worked as an unregistered agent of South Korea’s government in exchange for luxury goods and other gifts.

Sue Mi Terry advocated South Korean policy positions, disclosed nonpublic US government information to South Korean intelligence officers, and facilitated access for South Korean government officials to their US counterparts, according to an indictment made public on Tuesday in a Manhattan federal court.

In return, the South Korean intelligence officers allegedly provided Terry with Bottega Veneta and Louis Vuitton handbags, a Dolce & Gabbana coat, dinners at Michelin-starred restaurants, and more than $37,000 in “covert” funding for a public policy program on Korean affairs that she ran.

Terry’s alleged work as an agent began in 2013, two years after she left US government employment, and lasted a decade.

She is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, according to the thinktank’s website, and an expert on east Asia and the Korean Peninsula, including North Korea.

Terry did not immediately respond to a request for comment but her lawyer, Lee Wolosky, said in a statement: “These allegations are unfounded and distort the work of a scholar and news analyst known for her independence and years of service to the United States.”

“In fact, she was a harsh critic of the South Korean government during times this indictment alleges that she was acting on its behalf. Once the facts are made clear it will be evident the government made a significant mistake,” he added.

The Council on Foreign Relations put Terry on unpaid administrative leave, and will cooperate with any investigation, a spokesperson said.

South Korea is not a defendant. Its Washington embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The office of US Attorney Damian Williams in Manhattan did not immediately respond to similar requests.

According to Terry’s online biography, she is a frequent guest on TV, radio and podcasts, and has testified multiple times before congressional panels.

Born in Seoul and raised in Virginia, Terry was a senior CIA analyst from 2001 to 2008, and director of Korean, Japan and Oceanic Affairs at the NSC from 2008 to 2009 under Republican president George W Bush and Democratic president Barack Obama.

She now lives in New York, her biography says.

The indictment charges Terry with failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and conspiring to violate that law.

It says she acknowledged in a voluntary June 2023 FBI interview that she was a “source” for South Korea’s intelligence service, “meaning that she provided valuable information.”

A popular US food seasoning mix created for “yummifying the tops of bagels” is the subject of an intensifying crackdown in South Korea, where poppy seeds – one of its key ingredients – are banned.

Trader Joe’s Everything But the Bagel seasoning blend – a crunchy mix of sesame seeds, salt, dried garlic, dried onion and poppy seeds – has been on South Korea’s list of restricted foods since 2022, but travellers say it has been the subject of increased confiscation in airports in recent weeks.

Signs at Incheon international airport in Seoul single out the savoury contraband.

A user on X shared a photo of an airport sign that featured a picture of the product. The sign, in Korean, read: “We would like to inform you that the following products containing poppy seeds are restricted from being brought into the country as ‘Papaver Somniferum L,’ an ingredient of the poppy family designated as narcotic substance under South Korea’s narcotic drugs control law has been detected.”

The Washington Post reported that agents at Incheon airport have been showing travellers pictures of the product and confiscating jars. One South Korean national, returning from her honeymoon in the US, said she was made to fill out a customs form declaring she had brought a narcotic item into the country after she was found carrying nuts coated with the bagel seasoning.

In recent years, Everything But the Bagel seasoning has spilled out of US supermarkets and gained a huge following around the world.

Influencers on social media show it sprinkled on everything from bagels to fried eggs, soups and roast salmon. Trader Joe’s also has a wide following in parts of east Asia – in Japan the grocery store’s canvas tote bag is a fashion symbol.

According to an airport spokesperson who spoke to CNN: “Seed products with narcotic substances have always been banned from being brought into Korea. Recently, the customs offices have been strengthening crackdown on narcotic related items.”

While poppy seeds do not contain opium, authorities fear they could be contaminated with opiates, a class of drugs that can relieve pain and cause drowsiness.

In February 2023, the US defence department advised service members against eating foods with poppy seeds lest they produce a “codeine positive urinalysis result” in drug tests.

According to the United States Anti-Doping Agency, “it may be possible to exceed the morphine threshold by eating foods with poppy seeds and USADA can’t predict how long morphine or morphine metabolites from poppy seeds will stay in your system”.

South Korea is not the only country to restrict poppy seeds – they are also prohibited in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and Singapore.

Munich, home of Germany’s world-renowned Oktoberfest beer festival, will on Thursday open its first alcohol-free Biergarten (beer garden) in a nod to changing consumption habits among the party set and growing frustration with public binge drinking.

Die Null (The Zero) near the Bavarian capital’s main railway station will serve its patrons exclusively soft drinks, mocktails, juices, water and non-alcoholic beers in an attempt to strip the area of its boozy, seedy image.

Operators of nearby restaurants, hotels and cultural venues, who will be running the beer garden jointly, have long complained about tourists pouring out of trains drinking to excess alongside locals in keeping with Munich’s global image as a beer haven.

Guests at the open-air establishment will be allowed to bring their own food, and there will be free live entertainment provided by bands, choirs and solo artists as well as DJ dance nights and youth parties.

Munich’s aim is for the area to be “upgraded” and once again “anchored in the centre of society”, its city administration said, as beer drinking continues to steadily decline in Germany.

Bar owner Florian Schönhofer, one of Die Null’s backers, said the point of the venture was not to turn away from alcohol permanently but to show that there were attractive alternatives.

Over the last 20 years in the trade he had noticed a “dissolution of boundaries” when it comes to alcohol, Schönhofer said, with “young guys in business suits thinking nothing of drinking their end-of-workday beer on the commuter train”.

He said the reaction to the plans had so far been positive.

“Nevertheless we’ll probably make a loss,” he told weekly Die Zeit, noting that while there were patrons who could drink 10 beers in a night, few would order 10 fruit juices.

A municipal taskforce has been working to repel the raucous, alcohol-fuelled crowds from Munich’s railway station and city parks to make them safer and more inviting while cracking down on violent crime and drug dealing.

Die Null, which will be opened by the city’s mayor, Dieter Reiter, will run until 15 September, just under a week before the start of Oktoberfest.

Last year a church convention in Nuremberg experimented with a one-day non-alcoholic beer garden while a pub in nearby Großenohe, which was already gluten and lactose free, recently took alcohol off the menu too.

German beer drinking has been on a downward slide since the 1990s. With average per capita consumption at 88 litres a year, Germany is now behind its neighbours the Czech Republic, Austria and Poland.

The change in customs has threatened the survival of some age-old German breweries while others are pivoting to non-alcoholic beers, which have won fans by offering an excellent taste with lower calorie counts and no hangovers.

Germany this year also became the first big EU country to legally allow personal recreational use of cannabis.

Were scientists to concoct an experiment that was all but guaranteed to unleash full-on, cheek-reddening embarrassment, then filming adolescents singing Let It Go from Frozen and playing back their performance might well do the job.

And so to researchers at the University of Amsterdam who invited dozens of young volunteers into the lab before breaking the news as to what was required. In front of a camera, and without the benefit of a shot or two, they were asked to sing the Arendelle anthem or another choice track, before they and others watched the rendition back from inside a brain scanner.

Through such pre-meditated mortification, and measurements from temperature sensors stuck to the participants’ cheeks, scientists hoped to uncover the signature of blushing in the brain, the neural activity underpinning what Darwin called “the most human of all expressions”.

Psychologists speak of two broad theories when it comes to blushing. The one favoured by Darwin proposes that reddening cheeks come on when we consider how we must look to onlookers. The other suspects something simpler is afoot: a more spontaneous response to feeling exposed.

“Is it just being in the social situation where you are exposed and centre of attention, and you feel the exposure, and attention from others,” said Dr Milica Nikolic, a psychologist and first author on the study. “Or is it more complex and that we start thinking about how we look and appear to other people?”

After advertising for young people to take part in research that involved a “social task” and watching videos in a brain scanner, the scientists heard from more than 60 young people aged between 16 and 20. All but two were males, leading to a decision to focus purely on young women.

On the first visit to the lab, each volunteer was asked to perform karaoke while being filmed. The songs were restricted to Let It go, Adele’s Hello, Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You and All The Things She Said by t.A.T.u – tracks that are deemed hard to do well and thus were contenders to cause the maximum embarrassment. Cue awkward smiles, arm scratching and some justifiably nervous warbling.

A week later, the volunteers were back in the lab. This time, they watched their performance, along with those of others, while lying in a brain scanner. They were told others were watching their performance at the same time, a ruse designed to add to their embarrassment.

People, as expected, blushed more readily watching themselves than others. But analysis of the brain scans revealed that the sudden reddening of the cheeks might not be triggered the way Darwin thought. Blushing went hand in hand with greater activity in the cerebellum, which the researchers link to emotional arousal, and signs in the visual cortex that people were paying close attention to their performance. Nothing in the scans suggested that people were thinking about how others might judge them, the researchers found.

“Blushing can come simply from being exposed,” said Nikolic. “In that very short moment you maybe don’t think about how do I look and so on. I think it’s more automatic than the theory says.”

Details are published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.