Demands for Joe Biden to step aside as the Democrats’ presidential pick to face Donald Trump have slowed since the Republican survived an assassination attempt last weekend, to the extent that on Wednesday one “prominent strategist” was moved to say of the rebellion: “It’s over.”

The strategist spoke anonymously to the Hill – and before the influential California congressman Adam Schiff said publicly that Biden should quit.

Nonetheless, in Milwaukee, at a press conference during the Republican national convention, Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and a party grandee, said Biden would be confirmed as the Democratic nominee by virtual vote between 1 and 7 August, before the Chicago convention.

Walz told reporters: “We need to get these things done. We need to get the roll call done. But it won’t happen before 1 August.”

Debate over Biden’s age and cognitive fitness was still stoking nasty public splits.

On Wednesday morning, as a new ABC-Norc poll found nearly two-thirds of Democrats saying Biden should withdraw, the blogger and podcaster Nate Silver linked to video of moments in a speech in Las Vegas the night before, in which the 81-year-old president seemed to struggle.

Silver said: “It’s just so weird living through this real-life Emperor Has No Clothes Moment. He obviously shouldn’t be president for four more years. Everyone knows this.”

Calls for Biden to step down accumulated after the first debate in Atlanta last month, in which he appeared frail, struggled for coherence and failed to counter Trump’s lies and invective.

On Wednesday, Schiff followed reports that he predicted heavy Democratic losses under Biden by going public on the matter.

Biden “has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history” but it was time “to pass the torch”, Schiff, now the Democratic candidate for US Senate, told the Los Angeles Times.

“A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the president can defeat Donald Trump in November.”

Schiff’s move meant 20 House members and one senator have now called for the president to step aside, while Biden insists he is up to the job, telling one interviewer he will be the nominee “unless I get hit by a train”.

Silver also said it was “incredibly revealing which people are willing to lie” about Biden’s age and the problem facing his party.

That was a reference to Silver’s public argument on Tuesday with Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chair, over plans to confirm Biden’s nomination before the convention, officially related to uncertainty over elections law in Ohio and the deadline for ballot inclusion.

Harrison wrote: “Love y’all but when it comes to election law and ballot access, I put my trust in our legal team who make a living understanding these laws and processes and not in the pollster who promised us the red wave. #ClassDismissed.”

He was referring to predictions that the 2022 midterms would see Republicans retake the Senate and strengthen their hold on the House, which did not transpire.

Silver answered: “Jaime, I’m not a pollster and I didn’t promise a red wave. The data is here. Actual experts have weighed in and said you’re spreading misinformation. You should probably stop lying.

“You and the White House have run the whole campaign on the premise that you could bullshit your way through things. It’s early enough so as not to be unsalvageable, but you’ve put Democrats in an incredibly difficult position. Enough with the BS.”

Silver also accused Harrison and the DNC of “blatantly lying” about a need to confirm Biden before the convention, adding: “The good news is that there very much will be consequences if they force Biden’s nomination [through] and he loses.”

Harrison said: “Nate … you can call me a lot of things but a liar is definitely not one of them. I know you THINK you know every thing but class is now truly in session. Pull up a chair.”

He then offered an explanation of the plan for an early confirmation, in light of events in Ohio. Silver said he was “trying to gaslight people based on a technicality”.

Elsewhere, the Ohio secretary of state said the elections law issue was “resolved”, adding that Democrats “know that and should stop trying to scapegoat Ohio for their own party disfunction”.

Amid it all, Ron Klain entered the chat.

The former White House chief of staff, who remains close to Biden and his campaign, posted a FiveThirtyEight prediction of a Biden electoral college victory and said: “But I thought he had ‘no path’ according to donors and the electeds following the donors?”

Klain added: “Based on working in two campaigns against Trump I am unchanged in my view that Joe Biden is uniquely capable of defeating him – that’s my gut view based on experience.”

Silver said: “You’d say that whether you really believed it or not. But come on the podcast Ron and we’ll see how many mental gymnastics you’re willing to do to defend this position.”

Klain, Silver added, was “the one person on the campaign who might be smart enough to know he’s full of shit and will write a memoir in five years saying Biden’s inner circle was incorrigible and he had to provide the most help he could to Biden under the circumstances”.

Also on social media, Simon Rosenberg, a pollster and strategist who correctly said there would be no “red wave” in 2022, made an appeal for sanity.

“Fellow Dems,” Rosenberg wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, “every moment you attack other [Democrats] you are helping Trump win. Stop it. It’s self-indulgent, counter-productive and reckless. Take responsibility for every tweet, for the sentiment you put out. We build up Dems[,] explain who they are. That’s how we win.”

Harrison reposted the message.

Adam Schiff, the high-profile California Democrat and US Senate candidate, on Wednesday called on Joe Biden to end his presidential campaign, stating he had “serious concerns” about the president’s ability to beat Donald Trump in November.

In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles-area congressman joined almost 20 other congressional Democrats in asking the president to step aside. Biden “has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history”, Schiff said, but it was time “to pass the torch”.

“A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the president can defeat Donald Trump in November,” Schiff told the newspaper.

The development comes as an increasing number of Democrats express doubts about whether Biden can win in November and concerns over his age and cognitive abilities following his debate performance against Trump.

A new survey published this week found that nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to withdraw. Only about three in 10 Democrats are extremely or very confident that Biden has the mental capability to serve effectively, the AP-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research survey also found.

Some of Biden’s top donors have said that he should bow out, and have paused donations until he does so. It was reported on Tuesday that Schiff had told donors he believed Democrats would lose the presidency, and probably the House and Senate as well, if Biden remained on the ticket. “I think if he is our nominee, I think we lose,” the New York Times reported Schiff told donors in New York.

With Democrats in turmoil, the party backtracked on Wednesday on plans to expedite a virtual roll call to officially select Biden as its presidential nominee before August after facing opposition from several House members. The members had planned to send a letter to the DNC calling a proposal to fast-track Biden’s nomination a “terrible idea”.

“We’re glad to see that the pressure has worked and the DNC will not rush this virtual process through in July,” said a spokesperson for the congressman Jared Huffman, a California Democrat.

The Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, who heads the DNC’s rules committee, confirmed during a press conference in Milwaukee on Wednesday morning that the roll call vote will not be conducted this month. The governor’s spokesperson later confirmed that the process should wrap up by 7 August.

The extended deadline buys Democrats more time for continued internal debate over whether Biden should remain the party’s nominee.

For his part, Schiff said on Wednesday he would support whoever is the Democratic nominee, including Biden, and will do anything to help the ticket succeed.

“There is only one singular goal: defeating Donald Trump. The stakes are just too high,” he told the LA Times.

Joe Biden faced withering criticism over his recent claim that he had done “more for the Palestinian community than anybody”, as Israel continues to strike Gaza with some of the fiercest bombardments in months.

The comments were made in an interview with Complex’s Chris “Speedy” Morman that was recorded last week in Detroit and published on Monday.

While defending his administration’s response to the conflict in Gaza, Biden said: “By the way, I’m the guy that did more for the Palestinian community than anybody. I’m the guy that opened up all the assets. I’m the guy that made sure that I got the Egyptians to open the border to let goods through, medicine and food.”

More than 38,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, have been killed since the war began 10 months ago, according to Gaza’s health ministry. About 1,200 Israelis were killed in Hamas’s cross-border assault on 7 October.

“Putting aside active US complicity in the war in Gaza, you’d think someone who had 38,000 Palestinians killed under his tenure would have a bit more humility,” Mai El-Sadany, executive director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, wrote on X.

Layla Elabed, leader of the Uncommitted movement, which began in Michigan as a way to pressure the president to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and stop US funding and arms to the Israeli government, also condemned the remark.

“Biden claiming he’s done the most for Palestinians is like an arsonist taking credit for tossing a splash of water on the fire he’s still fueling,” she said in a statement on Monday.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) called the remark “tone deaf” and a “deeply disturbing boast” that “completely ignores the genocidal campaign of mass slaughter, ethnic cleansing, and forced starvation that the Israeli government has launched against the Palestinian people with US support”.

This year, Biden approved a foreign aid package that included $26bn in additional wartime assistance to Israel and humanitarian aid.

In the statement, Cair’s national deputy director, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, also accused Biden of “misstating his own Gaza policy” by saying that he had denied Israel “offensive weapons”, including 2,000lb bombs.

The administration paused a shipment of powerful bombs this year. But a Reuters analysis of weapons shipments found that there had been “no significant drop-off in US military support” for Israel, despite mounting calls by Democratic lawmakers and progressive groups to limit weapons supplies.

Biden is facing a sustained backlash from Arab, Muslim and Palestinian Americans as well as young people and anti-war progressives over his handling of the conflict. In Michigan, Arab American support could prove crucial to winning the battleground state – and the White House.

In the interview, Morman asked Biden: “Given the measure of your support for Israel, why would a Muslim or an Arab American vote for you for re-election?”

“For the same reason why Arab Americans in the region support me,” Biden replied. “It’s the best way to keep peace and to ensure a two-state solution in the region.”

The Teamsters’ social media account attacked its own president on Wednesday, saying “unions gain nothing from endorsing the racist, misogynistic, and anti-trans politics of the far right,” two days after Sean O’Brien addressed the Republican national convention in Milwaukee.

O’Brien spoke at the convention on Monday night in Milwaukee, becoming the first leader of the union to appear at the convention in the union’s history.

O’Brien’s meeting with Donald Trump and his convention appearance have angered some Teamsters and others in the labor movement. Joe Biden has touted himself as the most pro-labor president in American history; Trump, in contrast, has been heavily criticized by unions for his administration’s anti-labor record. Anti-union groups have also criticized O’Brien’s appearance at the convention.

The union is facing a backlash from members and progressive groups over O’Brien’s appearance and the union’s consideration of abstaining from making an endorsement in the 2024 presidential election, including from the union’s social media manager.

In a now deleted tweet, the Teamsters posted a response to O’Brien retweeting an op-ed by the Republican senator Josh Hawley, in which O’Brien wrote: “Hawley is 100% on point.”

The deleted social media post said: “Unions gain nothing from endorsing the racist, misogynistic, and anti-trans politics of the far right, no matter how much people like Sen Hawley attempt to tether such bigotry to a cynical pro-labor message.

“The message this sends to Teamsters of color, Teamster women, and LGBTQ Teamsters is that they are not welcome in the union unless they surrender their identity to a new kind of anti-woke unionism. You don’t unite a diverse working class by scoffing at its diversity.”

“The message is clear – it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat, Republican, or Independent – the working class in America must be respected,” the Teamsters said in a post promoting O’Brien’s appearance at the convention.

O’Brien became president of the Teamsters in March 2022, after winning an election on being more aggressive in contract negotiations with UPS and new organizing efforts. The win came after James Hoffa, the son of Jimmy, had led the union the previous two decades.

Last year, in contract negotiations with UPS, O’Brien took a hardline approach, threatening to strike before reaching a deal ahead of the contract expiration. He also made headlines over arguments during appearances at Senate hearings with Republican senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.

During his speech at the RNC convention, O’Brien emphasized bipartisanship while criticizing systemic corruption and corporations.

“That’s why I’m here today. Because I refuse to keep doing the same things my predecessors did. Today the Teamsters are here to say we are not beholden to anyone or any party,” O’Brien said. “We will create an agenda and work with a bipartisan coalition, ready to accomplish something real for the American worker.”

Ahead of the convention appearance, the Teamsters have noted they are considering making no endorsement in the 2024 presidential election. The union has endorsed Democratic presidential nominees, including Biden in 2020, since making a non-endorsement during Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996. The Teamsters endorsed Bill Clinton in 1992, but endorsed George Bush Sr in 1988 and Ronald Reagan in 1984.

“It’s certainly a possibility on O’Brien’s part. I’m not sure what the rest of the board would do,” said John Palmer, vice-president-at-large at Teamsters International. “I certainly will endorse whatever Democratic candidate emerges. I don’t know how many of the rest of the board would stand against O’Brien if he pushed a no endorsement.”

O’Brien rejected criticism of his appearance at the convention.

He said: “I don’t care about getting criticized. Its an honor to be the first Teamster in our 121-year history to address the Republican national convention. Think about this. The Teamsters are doing something correct if the extremes in both parties think I shouldn’t be on this stage,” he continued. “The Teamsters are not interested if you have a D, R, or I next to your name. We want to know one thing: what are you doing to help American workers.”

Other Teamsters members did not feel the same way, criticizing O’Brien’s appearance for providing support and publicity for politicians who have fought against workers’ rights.

The group, Bold Progressives, have started a petition urging the Teamsters not to stay neutral in the 2024 president election, asking members to sign on to the petition.

“It is misinformation for the Teamsters to stay neutral in 2024 if Trump and Republicans won’t publicly match the Democratic party’s strong pro-worker agenda – especially after Republicans have spent decades undermining workers and unions. No neutrality when Democrats are the clear pro-worker party,” the petition noted.

The group noted it has never petitioned a major labor union before.

“We have no objection to O’Brien speaking at the Republican convention. But he’s actively participating in 2024 misinformation by giving his stamp to Trump without calling on him to match the Democratic party’s strong pro-worker agenda,” the group said in announcing the petition.

“It’s even worse that he threatens to keep the Teamsters neutral in 2024, signaling that the parties are the same when he knows better.”

JD Vance will give his first major address as Donald Trump’s running mate on Wednesday and Republicans will turn their focus to foreign policy during the third day of the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Vance will be preceded by Donald Trump Jr and introduced by his wife, Usha. The theme for Wednesday – “Make America Strong Once Again” – comes amid internal divisions on how to handle the war in Ukraine. Earlier this year, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, only narrowly passed a bill to provide additional funding for Ukraine over the loud objection of some Republicans.

Other speakers reportedly include the former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, who was released from prison on Wednesday after serving a four-month sentence for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena.

The North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum, who was a top contender to be Trump’s running mate, the representatives Matt Gaetz, Nancy Mace and Ronny Jackson as well as the former House speaker Newt Gingrich are also expected to address the convention.

The day will also offer an opportunity for Republicans to attack Joe Biden over his handling of the US military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the war between Israel and Gaza.

Some Republicans have already started attacking Biden’s foreign policy.

“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,” Nikki Haley, said on Tuesday.

The focus on foreign policy comes after Republicans addressed crime and safety on Tuesday and on the economy on Monday.

“Each one of these has a theme, like last night was ‘bend the knee and grovel’ apparently,” Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, said at a Democratic press conference in Milwaukee. “And today is ‘celebrate Russia day’, I guess,” he added.

Walz also discussed the Democratic timeline for formally nominating Biden with a roll call vote amid pressure for him to drop out. “We need to get these things done. We need to get the roll call done,” Walz said. “But it won’t happen before the first of August.”

The four-day event has marked a full-on coronation for Trump, who has made his dramatic return to the campaign trail after surviving an assassination attempt over the weekend.

It has also underscored the firm hold he has on the party.

Haley and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who challenged Trump for the GOP nomination, both unequivocally backed Trump in speeches from the convention floor on Tuesday. “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,” Haley said in her remarks.

Other speakers on Tuesday highlighted crimes they blamed on the Biden administration. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, for example, highlighted Americans who had been killed by undocumented people. Madeline Brame, one of several ordinary Americans picked to speak during the convention, blamed Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg for not prosecuting her son’s killer.

Other speakers on Tuesday included the Arkansas governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, Ben Carson, Rick Scott and Tom Cotton.

Joan E Greve contributed reporting

John Hinckley Jr, who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981, has waded into the discourse around the recent attempted assassination of Donald Trump in a social media post seemingly disavowing his own past actions.

“Violence is not the way to go. Give peace a chance,” Hinckley wrote on X on Wednesday, sentiments that drew a welter of bemused and often ironic responses.

The post followed the attempt on the life of Trump, the former president who will later on Wednesday accept the Republican nomination as its 2024 candidate at the party’s national convention in Milwaukee, by a 20-year-old gunman at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

Trump suffered a wound to his right ear in the shooting, while a rally-goer was killed and two others injured. The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot dead by security officers.

Hinckley, 69 – who was unconditionally released by a judge in 2022 after 41 years of living in custody or under supervision for trying to kill Reagan – did not immediately expand on his post.

He has previously expressed remorse for the assassination attempt outside the Washington Hilton hotel on 31 March 1981, which left the then president seriously wounded and resulted in injuries to the White House press secretary, James Brady, that left him permanently paralysed.

A police officer and a Secret Service officer also suffered bullet wounds.

Since his release, Hinckley has tried to forge a new life as a folk musician and a painter. In March, he told a Connecticut radio station: “I stand for peace now.”

Hinckley was 25 and suffering from acute psychosis when he tried to assassinate Reagan, motivated by a desire the impress the actor Jodie Foster, whom he had become obsessed with after seeing her in Taxi Driver.

He was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982 and ordered to stay in a psychiatric hospital. In 2016, a judge ordered that he could be released from psychiatric care with conditions attached as he was no longer considered a threat. The conditions were lifted unconditionally in 2022.

A picture obtained by a Pittsburgh-area TV station shows a cellphone and detonator carried by the gunman who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at the Butler county show grounds in western Pennsylvania last Saturday.

The items were shown on the rooftop from which Thomas Matthew Crooks used an AR-15-style rifle to fire on the former president and Republican presidential nominee.

Trump suffered an injury to his right ear. One rally-goer was killed and two injured.

The 20-year-old gunman was shot dead by security officers.

In a febrile and partisan national atmosphere, the shooting appears to have boosted Trump’s image in his campaign against Joe Biden.

The Democratic president has called for a cooling of political invective. At the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Trump has worn a prominent bandage on his ear as speakers have celebrated his narrow escape.

WPXI, an NBC-affiliate station, obtained and reported the picture of Crooks’s phone and detonator on Tuesday.

The gunman’s motives remained unclear, though officials said they had been able to access his phone. Sources told the Washington Post “cracking the phone did not crack the case”, though it offered leads to pursue.

Crooks’s car was found to contain a metal box of explosives connected to a receiver, CNN reported, adding that investigators were considering the idea Crooks intended to create a distraction during the shooting.

WPXI also reported on continuing confusion over why the gunman was seen by witnesses and by law enforcement but not conclusively confronted.

Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the US Secret Service, has said local police officers were inside the building from which Crooks shot.

“We did share support for that particular site and the Secret Service was responsible for the inner perimeter,” Cheatle told ABC News. “And then we sought assistance from our local counterparts for the outer perimeter.

“There was local police in that building – there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building.”

WPXI reported that local police were never stationed in the building concerned.

Tom Knight, the Butler township manager, said: “So the building was outside the event area and there was conversations about the logistical coverage for the building, what the building had for access points and what access points could be controlled.”

WPXI said sources said Crooks was still on the ground when Trump began speaking.

Knight said there was then “a radio transmission indicating that there was a suspicious individual on the rooftop, [and it] was my understanding [that] was our officers’ first notification to begin moving towards that building.

“Two of the officers went to what appeared to be the lowest point from ground to roof. One of the officers actually boosted the second officer up high enough for him to grab hold of the roof. He did in fact see an individual on the roof with a weapon.”

Crooks pointed his rifle at the officer, Knight said, as the officer hung on to the roof with both hands, unable to reach his radio or his own weapon.

The officer “lost his own grip and fell approximately eight feet to the ground”.

Shortly after that, Crooks opened fire.

Cheatle faces mounting calls to resign. She has said she will not.

On Wednesday, Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker from Louisiana, told Fox News: “I’m going to call for resignation as well. I think it’s inexcusable.”

Of comments in which Cheatle said the “sloped roof” of the building Crooks climbed had created safety concerns for snipers, Johnson said: “It doesn’t wash, and I think she’s shown what her priorities are. I don’t know her personally, but we’ll be asking lots of questions.”

Cheatle is due to appear before the House oversight committee on Monday. At least five other congressional committees have said they want to investigate.

Johnson said: “I’ll be setting up … a special taskforce within the House. And the reason we’re going to do it that way, is because that is a more of a precision strike.”

After Donald Trump survived a shooting at a campaign rally that officials were investigating as a domestic terror attack and an attempted assassination, the former president suggested he had been changed by the near-death experience and wanted to project a message of unity.

But two days after Trump said he would try to bring the country together, it was unclear whether the message would catch on – and how long it might last.

Trump told the New York Post in an interview on Sunday that he had intended to deliver biting remarks against Joe Biden in his speech at the Republican national convention until the shooting at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, prompted him to throw it out.

Trump is understood to have been reworking his remarks with his speechwriter Ross Worthington since the shooting, according to a person close to the former president, and has discussed making himself sound like he is still the president, as opposed to just a candidate.

The conventional political approach to a unity theme would revolve around calling to move past partisan divides or to tone down incendiary rhetoric, but whether Trump adopts or sustains such a message remains unclear.

It may yet be that Trump now considers himself as the unifier-in-chief – taking the mantle from Biden who campaigned on that message in the 2020 election to great effect – and will leave it to his surrogates pursue the more caustic and ad hominem attacks against Biden. This was on display to some extent in speeches from senators and allies at the convention on Tuesday night.

Still, at an event hosted by Georgetown University on the sidelines of the Republican nominating convention, Trump’s co-campaign chief Chris LaCivita suggested the unity messaging would not come at the expense of winning the election in November.

“This is obviously an opportunity to bring our country together. But let’s not forget we’re in the middle of a campaign,” LaCivita said. “Our focus is very much on putting everything back squarely on the issues that are hurting everyday Americans and providing them an answer to those.”

At a separate event on Tuesday hosted by Axios, Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr, suggested that even if Trump shifted to a gentler tone, his core political attacks were likely to continue.

“You can be nicer on the margins but you still have to call out insanity when you see insanity,” Don Jr said when asked about more caustic language turning off potential voters, for instance on transgender issues. “That’s different, that’s not about tone.”

Don Jr also said that even though he believed that Trump’s unity tone would last until the vice-presidential debate, he expected Trump to counter-punch if attacked by Biden, who recently urged the country to tone down the political rhetoric in a televised address from the Oval Office.

“I think he’s going to be tough when he has to be,” Don Jr said when asked if Trump’s tone will be permanently changed. “That’s never going to change. He’s not going to just take an attack. My father will always be a fighter, that’s never going to change, but he’s going to do his best to moderate that.

“He’s never going to stop being Trump when attacked, that’s what makes him an effective leader because he doesn’t cower under fire – quite literally.”

Don Jr’s comments may be the rationalization that surrogates and top Republicans have been searching for, after struggling to balance the unity message with attacking Biden often using jarring language in front of a Republican party animated for years by Trump’s partisan grievances.

The test of whether Trump will lead the effort to promote a spirit of unity, or whether it was more of a directive aimed at his surrogates, will probably come on the final day of the convention when he delivers his speech on Thursday.

Hot enough to melt metal and blanketed by a toxic, crushing atmosphere, Venus ranks among the most hostile locations in the solar system. But astronomers have reported the detection of two gases that could point to the presence of life forms lurking in the Venusian clouds.

Findings presented at the national astronomy meeting in Hull on Wednesday bolster evidence for a pungent gas, phosphine, whose presence on Venus has been fiercely disputed.

A separate team revealed the tentative detection of ammonia, which on Earth is primarily produced by biological activity and industrial processes, and whose presence on Venus scientists said could not readily be explained by known atmospheric or geological phenomena.

The so-called biosignature gases are not a smoking gun for extraterrestrial life. But the observation will intensify interest in Venus and raise the possibility of life having emerged and even flourished in the planet’s more temperate past and lingered on to today in pockets of the atmosphere.

“It could be that if Venus went through a warm, wet phase in the past then as runaway global warming took effect [life] would have evolved to survive in the only niche left to it – the clouds,” said Dr Dave Clements, a reader in astrophysics at Imperial College London, told the meeting.

The surface of Venus reaches about 450C, hot enough to melt lead and zinc, the atmospheric pressure is 90 times that of the Earth’s surface and there are clouds of sulphuric acid. But about 50km (31 miles0 above the surface the temperature and pressure are closer to conditions on Earth – and potentially just about survivable for very hardy microbes.

On Earth, phosphine gas is produced by microbes in oxygen-starved environments, such as badger guts and penguin faeces. Other sources, such as volcanic activity, tend to be so inefficient that on rocky planets the gas is considered a marker for life.

A high-profile claim of phosphine detection on Venus in 2020 was followed by controversy after subsequent observations failed to replicate the finding. Clements and colleagues’ latest observations with the James Clerk Maxwell telescope (JCMT), based in Hawaii, aimed to resolve the dispute. By tracking the phosphine signature over time, they were able to strengthen evidence for the presence of the gas and found that its detection appeared to follow the planet’s day-night cycle.

“Our findings suggest that when the atmosphere is bathed in sunlight the phosphine is destroyed,” Clements said. “All that we can say is that phosphine is there. We don’t know what’s producing it. It may be chemistry that we don’t understand. Or possibly life.”

In a second talk, Prof Jane Greaves, an astronomer at Cardiff University, presented preliminary observations from the Green Bank telescope indicating ammonia, which on Earth is made through either industrial processes or by nitrogen-converting bacteria.

Greaves said: “Even if we confirmed both of these [findings], it is not evidence that we have found these magic microbes and they’re living there today,” adding that there were not yet “any ground truths”.

Prof Nikku Madhusudhan, an astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge, who was not involved with either paper, said that in general proof of a biosignature required the signal to be robust and the molecules to be convincingly tied to life.

“When it comes to Venus, both of those are open questions,” he said. “If they really confirm phosphine and ammonia robustly it raises the chances of biological origin. The natural next thing will be new people will look at it and give support or counter-arguments. The story will be resolved by more data.”

He added: “All of this is grounds for optimism. If they can demonstrate the signals are there, good for them.”

Dr Robert Massey, the deputy executive director at the Royal Astronomical Society, said: “These are very exciting findings but it must be stressed that the results are only preliminary and more work is needed to learn more about the presence of these two potential biomarkers in Venus’s clouds. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to think that these detections could point to either possible signs of life or some unknown chemical processes. It will be interesting to see what further investigations unearth over the coming months and years.”

US prosecutors on Wednesday formally appealed a federal judge’s decision just two days ago to throw out the criminal case accusing Donald Trump of illegally stashing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence and elsewhere after leaving the White House in 2021.

The office of special counsel Jack Smith filed a notice in court in Florida indicating it would ask the 11th US circuit court of appeals, based in Atlanta, to revive the case and reverse the 15 July ruling by Florida-based US district judge Aileen Cannon, who unexpectedly decided that Smith had been unlawfully appointed in the first place by the US attorney general, Merrick Garland.

Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by the former president in 2020 during his one-term presidency, ruled that Smith’s 2022 appointment by the Department of Justice violated the US constitution.

She argued the violation was because the US Congress did not authorize Garland to name a special counsel with the degree of power and independence wielded by Smith.

The decision shocked many legal experts and was the latest in a series of legal victories for Trump, in his series of cases and following his conviction in a New York criminal case earlier this year. The US supreme court ruled on 1 July that Trump has broad immunity from prosecution for official actions taken as president – a decision that has tied up another case brought by Smith involving Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Trump still falsely claims he won the 2020 presidential election, not Biden Biden, claims and related actions that have landed Trump in court in Washington DC and Georgia on election interference charges.

Cannon’s decision broke with decades of rulings by other federal courts that have upheld the authority of the attorney general to empower a special counsel to handle politically sensitive investigations.

The practice has been used for decades by administrations of both political parties. Special counsels have also investigated Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

Cannon’s ruling dismissed the charges against Trump and co-defendants Walt Nauta, a personal aide to Trump, and Carlos De Oliveira, a property manager at Mar-a-Lago, where the documents were found during an FBI search.

Trump was accused of illegally retaining sensitive national security documents, including records related to the US nuclear program, and Trump and the two co-defendants also were accused of obstructing the federal investigation, which they all deny.

Six of the 12 active judges on the 11th circuit were appointed by Trump. The 11th circuit has dealt Trump a defeat earlier over the classified documents case. In 2022, before the charges were filed, a three-judge 11th circuit panel reversed a ruling by Cannon to appoint a third-party “special master” to vet evidence FBI agents seized during a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.

Reuters contributed reporting.

US prosecutors on Wednesday formally appealed a federal judge’s decision just two days ago to throw out the criminal case accusing Donald Trump of illegally stashing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence and elsewhere after leaving the White House in 2021.

The office of special counsel Jack Smith filed a notice in court in Florida indicating it would ask the 11th US circuit court of appeals, based in Atlanta, to revive the case and reverse the 15 July ruling by Florida-based US district judge Aileen Cannon, who unexpectedly decided that Smith had been unlawfully appointed in the first place by the US attorney general, Merrick Garland.

Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by the former president in 2020 during his one-term presidency, ruled that Smith’s 2022 appointment by the Department of Justice violated the US constitution.

She argued the violation was because the US Congress did not authorize Garland to name a special counsel with the degree of power and independence wielded by Smith.

The decision shocked many legal experts and was the latest in a series of legal victories for Trump, in his series of cases and following his conviction in a New York criminal case earlier this year. The US supreme court ruled on 1 July that Trump has broad immunity from prosecution for official actions taken as president – a decision that has tied up another case brought by Smith involving Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Trump still falsely claims he won the 2020 presidential election, not Biden Biden, claims and related actions that have landed Trump in court in Washington DC and Georgia on election interference charges.

Cannon’s decision broke with decades of rulings by other federal courts that have upheld the authority of the attorney general to empower a special counsel to handle politically sensitive investigations.

The practice has been used for decades by administrations of both political parties. Special counsels have also investigated Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

Cannon’s ruling dismissed the charges against Trump and co-defendants Walt Nauta, a personal aide to Trump, and Carlos De Oliveira, a property manager at Mar-a-Lago, where the documents were found during an FBI search.

Trump was accused of illegally retaining sensitive national security documents, including records related to the US nuclear program, and Trump and the two co-defendants also were accused of obstructing the federal investigation, which they all deny.

Six of the 12 active judges on the 11th circuit were appointed by Trump. The 11th circuit has dealt Trump a defeat earlier over the classified documents case. In 2022, before the charges were filed, a three-judge 11th circuit panel reversed a ruling by Cannon to appoint a third-party “special master” to vet evidence FBI agents seized during a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.

Reuters contributed reporting.

Keir Starmer has pledged to “fix the foundations” of the country for the long-term by boosting economic growth with reforms to energy and planning in Labour’s first king’s speech in a decade and a half.

The new prime minister said the government would require “patient work and serious solutions” to restore trust in British politics and rebuild the country, with 40 bills in the government’s new legislative programme.

The plans would also help to counter the “snake oil charm of populism”, he told MPs, as his new administration grapples with how to respond to the rise of the populist right.

Speaking to MPs, Starmer said his government would “turn the page on an era of politics as noisy performance and return it to public service and start the work of rebuilding our country”.

He said the administration was already “finding new and unexpected marks of their chaos – scars of the past 14 years, where politics was put above the national interest, and decline deep in the marrow of our institutions”.

But at the heart of his plans, he said, were measures to “take the brakes off” Britain and start to grow the economy, which he said were only the starting point for what he promised would be a lasting transformation.

“The era of politics as performance and self-interest above service is over,” he told MPs. “The challenges we face require determined, patient work and serious solutions, rather than the temptation of the easy answer.”

Almost immediately, ministers will publish a bill to nationalise troubled rail companies, bringing the franchises back into public ownership as the contracts expire, in an attempt to drive up performance and productivity.

Within weeks, the government will begin radical reform of the planning system, after Starmer pledged his party would be “builders, not blockers”, overturning the previous government’s de facto ban on onshore windfarms.

Local councils will have to adopt mandatory housing targets within months under new planning reforms, relaxed by the Conservatives last year amid pressure from backbenchers, and work together to identify regional infrastructure needs in an attempt to stop individual authorities blocking plans.

A new employment rights bill has been promised to take effect within 100 days. It will ban zero-hours contracts unless an employee requests one, and most “fire and rehire” practices – although unions have complained that some aspects have been watered down after lobbying from business.

It will grant workers rights such as maternity pay and sick pay from day one of their employment, making flexible working the default, and simplify the process of trade union recognition. Labour will also repeal the last government’s controversial anti-strike laws.

A bill will be introduced to set up Great British Energy (GBE), another election pledge, with £8.3bn public money over the course of the parliament, defining for the first time in law that it will be an energy production company rather than solely an investment vehicle.

There had been fears within the sector that Labour would row back on plans for GBE to develop and own assets. The company is expected to be headquartered in Scotland and will own, manage and operate clean power projects.

The national wealth fund bill will set out one of the government’s main wealth-creating efforts, a £7.3bn capitalised fund to spread investment, while an English devolution bill will hand more powers to local decision-makers.

However, there will be other bills designed to make a material difference to people’s day-to-day lives, which No 10 hopes will help tackle the rise of rightwing populism and start to restore faith in politics.

Starmer said of his programme: “It is a rejection, in this complicated and volatile world, of those who can only offer the easy answer, the snake oil charm of populism. As the past 14 years have shown, that road is a dead end for this country.”

Bills include some interventionist public health and antisocial behaviour measures such as restrictions on the sale and flavours of vapes, a progressive total ban on tobacco smoking, bans on some junk food advertising, new “respect orders” aimed at persistent antisocial behaviour, and direct powers to tackle the use of noisy off-road bikes on streets.

After an angry election debate over migration, the government will create a new Border Security Command and put stronger penalties in place for migrant smuggling gangs as part of the effort to curb crossing of the Channel. The government also confirmed it can stop a £100m payment to Rwanda for the scrapped deportation scheme.

Yet one glaring omission in the king’s speech was a pledge to lift the deeply unpopular two-child benefit cap, despite intense pressure from Labour MPs. In an apparent attempt to keep the anger at bay, Liz Kendall, the welfare secretary, launched a new government taskforce to devise a child poverty strategy.

There will, however, be a focus on children’s wellbeing with breakfast clubs for all primary schoolchildren, a limit on expensive school uniform items and new local authority registers to make sure fewer pupils slip under the radar when they are not in school.

There was no detailed plan for adult social care, with Downing Street aides saying there was “no quick legislative fix” to tackle the crisis, but adding that a new fair pay agreement could help deal with staffing problems.

Starmer has said that he wants to see a more robust approach to standards in public life, adding: “We are all responsible for the tone and standards that we set.” His plans for a new ethics and integrity commission do not require primary legislation to put in place.

A new Hillsborough law will put a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities, which the government said would address the “unacceptable defensive culture prevalent across too much of the public sector”.

There is also a new law to put water companies into “special measures” to clean up rivers, lakes and seas, with bosses facing personal criminal liability for lawbreaking and a beefed-up regulator having the power to ban bonus payments if environmental standards are not met.

Plans to end the “outdated and indefensible” presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords have been introduced, but the retirement age of 80 has been delayed, along with votes for 16-year-olds, which is expected closer to the next election.

There was also an overtly political bill from Labour – a duty to consult the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) before making substantial tax changes, which former prime minister Liz Truss failed to do before her disastrous mini-budget.

Rishi Sunak, the Conservative leader, sought to push back against the government painting “as bleak a picture as possible” on its inheritance, adding that the economy was on an “upward trajectory”.

He said the opposition would “hold the government to its own promises” not to raise taxes beyond their manifesto, adding that “it would be difficult for them to claim that things are worse than they thought and then renege on those pledges”.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has rejected calls for an immediate independent inquiry into the security failures that allowed the deadliest attack in his country’s history.

Speaking to Israel’s parliament, Netanyahu told lawmakers: “First, I want to beat Hamas.”

A spokesperson for Netanyahu said the Israeli prime minister is not seeking to dodge an inquiry but that “the government is completely focused on winning this war”.

“What people want us to do right now, they don’t want us to go into a dramatic internal investigation while our hostages are still being held, and so many soldiers have abandoned their lives to protect the country,” said the spokesperson. “Of course there will be an investigation, but right now we’re focused on winning this war.”

The Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, had last week called for the formation of a state-commission inquiry for the 7 October attacks.

“It must examine all of us: the decision-makers and professionals, the government, the army and security services, this government – and the governments over the last decade that led to the events of 7 October,” Gallant told a military graduation ceremony, reportedly to applause.

A video of the three-hour meeting at the prime minister’s office, described in the Israeli media as “tense,” aired on television shortly afterwards, showing a series of confrontations between the bereaved families and the prime minister, who rejected their demands for an apology over his role in the security failures.

Netanyahu appeared surprised when the families described how their daughters had repeatedly warned of an impending attack, despite widespread reporting in the months since 7 October describing how the spotters were ignored when they tried to tell their commanding officers of the risk.

One participant in the meeting told Netanyahu that her daughter had “just finished her on-job training. She started her stint as an observation soldier just the week before. She came home and told us, Mum … there’s going to be an invasion.”

The meeting marks the highest-level acknowledgment of the Israeli military’s failure to listen to the lookout unit in Nahal Oz, where dozens of soldiers were killed and others taken hostage on the 7 October, part of a unprecedented attack by Hamas and other militants on towns and kibbutzim around the Gaza Strip.

Human Rights Watch accused Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam brigades, and at least four other Palestinian armed groups of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the assault, in which almost 1,200 people were killed and 250 people taken hostage.

In a new report, the rights organisation pointed to a broad pattern of attacks on civilians, which they said amounted to “war crimes and crimes against humanity of murder, hostage-taking and other grave offences”.

An Israeli air and ground campaign targeting Gaza in the months since has killed more than 38,000 people, with thousands more believed buried underneath the rubble.

Netanyahu has repeatedly resisted calls for an inquiry into the military and security failures that preceded the Hamas-led attacks, despite a string of resignations and apologies from high-ranking members of the Israeli security establishment.

Last week, a leading member of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency known only by the initial “Aleph” resigned, reportedly saying in his farewell speech he was leaving amid deep disappointment that his department had failed to avert the attack.

The Israel Defense Forces’ intelligence chief, Maj Gen Aharon Haliva, resigned in April, making him the highest-ranking official to step down over the attack. “The intelligence division under my command did not live up to the task assigned to it,” he wrote in his resignation letter.

Despite protests calling on him to resign, as well as demands from a wide spectrum of Israeli society that he apologise for the security failures of 7 October, Netanyahu has strenuously resisted.

“The prime minister has been very forthright about the failures that led to 7 October,” said David Mencer, a spokesperson for Netanyahu, when asked why the PM had declined to apologise.

“Israel is a democracy and in the past has always had very far-reaching investigations, no-holds-barred investigations into why things have happened … I think there is no doubt that there will be one of those no-holds-barred investigations, but the prime minister believes that this should happen after the war has been won.”

Less than two weeks before Venezuela’s presidential election, the head of security for a key opposition figure has been arrested, further raising concerns that the country will not see a fair contest on 28 July, when Nicolás Maduro will seek a third term.

María Corina Machado, the opposition’s outspoken figurehead, wrote on X that her security chief, Milciades Ávila, had been detained early on Wednesday, the latest in string of arrests of opposition activists and staffers.

Machado herself was barred from running by a court decision over alleged fraud violations, which she denies. She tried to appoint a substitute, who was also blocked.

Since then, the opposition has rallied around the candidacy of the retired diplomat Edmundo González, who is leading the polls. He posted a video in which he “denounced the arbitrary detention” of Ávila.

Machado wrote on X: “​​Maduro has made violence and repression his campaign.”

She wrote that her head of security had been part of her team for the last 10 years, adding: “Ávila has accompanied me around the country and risked his life defending me.

“Early this morning, he was abducted by the regime, accused of gender violence against some women who last Saturday tried to attack Edmundo and me,” she wrote.

Last Saturday, her party, Vente Venezuela, published on social media that “unidentified men and women forcibly entered a restaurant in La Encrucijada where María Corina and Edmundo González and their teams were eating.”

A video posted on X shows two women confronting the politicians. A group of men stands in front of them, and one of the women shouts: “Don’t touch me.”

María Corina Machado wrote: “There are dozens of witnesses and videos proving that this act was a planned provocation to leave us without protection 11 days before 28 July.

The Venezuelan NGO Foro Penal reported that, this year alone, Venezuelan authorities had arrested 102 people linked to Edmundo González’s campaign.

The NGO’s vice-president, Gonzalo Himiob Santomé, said that the arrests reflected “a clear pattern of action against activists, militants, and even collaborators or individuals who provide their services” to the opposition leaders.

“This constitutes a serious and unambiguous indication that a systematic and widespread scheme of restriction is being executed from power against the citizenry due to the specific identity of a group of citizens who identify with the political option proposed by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González,” said Santomé.

Global stocks fell on Wednesday as technology shares sank after a report said the US plans tighter import controls on companies that share chipmaking technology with China.

London’s FTSE 100 edged 0.1% higher to 8,169.24 as data showed the inflation rate remained steady at the Bank of England’s 2% target in June. That hit hopes for a central bank rate cut, though the better-than-expected data pushed the British pound above $1.30 early on Wednesday.

Germany’s DAX lost 0.3% to 18,615.00 and the CAC 40 in Paris declined 0.1% to 7,568.69. The future for the S&P 500 sank 0.7% and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1%.

A report by Bloomberg that the US plans tighter import controls on companies that share chipmaking technology with China pulled technology shares lower.

The unconfirmed report said Joe Biden was considering using a wide-sweeping regulation, the foreign direct product rule, to further restrict sales of critical chipmaking equipment to China.

The United States has blocked Chinese access to advanced chips and the equipment to make them, citing security concerns, and urged its allies to follow suit. Most have strengthened their controls but many companies in the industry continue to do business with China.

Shares in Tokyo Electron plunged 7.5%. Precision tools maker Disco Corp sank 4.5% and Lasertec, which makes equipment for inspecting for defects in computer chips, dropped 5%.

The Dutch chip equipment maker ASML Holding NV dived 7.4% in pre-market trading, while Nvidia fell 3.3%.

ASML is the world’s only producer of machines that use extreme ultraviolet lithography to make advanced semiconductors. In 2023, China became ASML’s second-largest market, accounting for 29% of its revenue as Chinese companies bought up equipment before the licensing requirement took effect.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index declined 0.4% to 41,097.69. Taiwan’s Taiex shed 1% as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp lost 2.4%.

Markets in Taiwan were rattled by comments by Donald Trump to Bloomberg criticizing the self-governed island claimed by Beijing.

“Taiwan should pay us for defense,” Trump said according to a transcript of an interview published by Bloomberg. “Taiwan took our chip business from us, I mean, how stupid are we?” he said.

In currency dealings, the US dollar fell to 156.34 Japanese yen from 158.34 yen on Wednesday. It had traded last week near 162 yen but the yen rallied sharply on Friday. Reports said the finance ministry might have intervened in the currency market Wednesday and that it had stepped in last week, buying nearly 6tn yen ($37bn) to support the yen.

Elsewhere in Asia, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 advanced 0.7% to 8,057.90 after hitting an all-time high of 8,083.70 during morning trading. South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.8% to 2,843.29.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.1% to 17,739.41, while the Shanghai Composite index lost 0.5% to 2,962.85.

Traders are awaiting the outcome of a top level policy-setting meeting of the ruling Communist party, which wraps up on Thursday. The closed-door gathering in Beijing is expected to endorse leader Xi Jinping’s vision for investing heavily in strengthening China’s self-sufficiency in advanced technologies.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 climbed 0.6% to 5,667.20, setting an all-time high for the 38th time this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average leaped 1.9% to 40,954.48, and the Nasdaq composite lagged with a gain of 0.2% to 18,509.34, as the stars dimmed for some of the year’s biggest winners.

A report showed sales at US retailers held firm last month despite economists’ expectations for a decline.

Still, many market players believe inflation is slowing enough to convince the Federal Reserve to begin cutting interest rates soon. The Fed has been keeping its main interest rate at the highest level in more than two decades in hopes of slowing the economy just enough to get inflation fully under control.

In other dealings, US benchmark crude oil added 36 cents to $81.12 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Brent crude, the international standard, picked up 23 cents to $83.96 a barrel.

The euro rose to $1.0934 from $1.0897.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? New Yorkers were puzzled by the sound of a loud boom and shaking sensations on Tuesday morning. The probable answer: an out-of-this-world visitor in the shape of a fiery meteor that exploded high over midtown Manhattan.

Nasa Meteor Watch estimates that the meteor – essentially a chunk of space debris – passed over the city in broad daylight and “was first sighted at an altitude of 49 miles above Upper Bay (east of Greenville Yard)”. But the group underscored this estimation was “crude and uncertain” since it was based on witness accounts and no camera or satellite data was currently available.

Fireballs are “exceptionally bright meteors that are spectacular enough to be seen over a very wide area”, Nasa says. Daylight fireballs are very rare.

Nasa said the meteor, traveling at 34,000mph, “descended at a steep angle of just 18 degrees from vertical, passing over the Statue of Liberty before disintegrating 29 miles above midtown Manhattan”.

Nasa said nearby military activity could also account for the shaking or boom that some residents reported.

Reports of the unusual sound and shaking also came from southern New Jersey and parts of Queens and Brooklyn, according to NYC Emergency Management (NYCEM).

NYCEM’s executive director of public information, Aries Dela Cruz, wrote on X: “Emergency Management has received no reports of damage or injuries related to this event. Monitoring of the situation and communication with our partner agencies continues. For life safety concerns please call 911, 311 for non-emergencies.”

The American Meteor Society receives hundreds of fireball reports each year.

Robert Lunsford, the American Meteor Society’s fireball report coordinator, said it suspected Tuesday’s fireball was “probably about the size of a beach ball”, according to the local New York outlet the City.