Joe Biden has caught Covid-19 and cancelled a speaking engagement at the last minute, before he was due to address a conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday afternoon, the White House has confirmed.

The US president had developed symptoms, and just before he was going to address the UnidosUS annual conference in Nevada – after a long delay – the organization’s president and chief executive, Janet Murguía, told those gathered he would not be taking the podium.

Shortly afterwards, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, issued a statement saying, in part: “Earlier today following his first event in Las Vegas, President Biden tested positive for Covid-19.”

She added: “He is vaccinated and boosted and he is experiencing mild symptoms. He will be returning to Delaware where he will self-isolate and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time. The White House will provide regular updates on the president’s status as he continues to carry out the full duties of the office while in isolation.”

The news came at a time when Biden is under severe pressure in his campaign for re-election, facing calls to step down as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee because of his age and episodes of slipping acuity, most notably a dire debate performance against Donald Trump last month.

On Wednesday, the California congressman and Senate candidate Adam Schiff became the most high-profile Democratic representative to call for Biden to quit his campaign. His statement was followed by a report from Jonathan Karl of ABC News that Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader and a staunch ally of the president, had told Biden on Saturday that he should end his bid for another term in the White House.

After news that he had tested positive, Biden was seen walking very slowly up the steps of Air Force One in Las Vegas, preparing to return to Delaware, where he resides when he is not at the White House. He told reporters traveling with him that he felt good.

Jean-Pierre had earlier included with her statement from the White House a “note from the president’s doctor” saying that the president had a runny nose, a non-productive cough and “general malaise” and would be taking the anti-viral drug Paxlovid.

The note continued that Biden “felt OK for his first event of the day, but given that he was not feeling better, point-of-care testing for Covid-19 was conducted, and the results were positive for the Covid-19 virus”.

It went on: “Given this, the president will be self-isolating in accordance with [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidance for symptomatic individuals. PCR confirmation testing will be pending. His symptoms remain mild … [He] has received his first dose of Paxlovid. He will be self-isolating at his home in Rehoboth [Delaware].”

Biden previously had Covid in 2022.

Pressure for Joe Biden to step aside as the Democrats’ presidential pick to face Donald Trump had eased since the Republican survived an assassination attempt last weekend, but began to rise again on Wednesday.

Adam Schiff, the influential California representative, said publicly that Biden should quit, becoming the most well-known lawmaker so far to do so openly.

Then ABC News reported that Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader and the most senior Democrat in Congress, had told Biden in a meeting on Saturday it would be better for the country and the Democratic party if the president ended his re-election campaign.

Also on Wednesday afternoon, David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama as president, increased his persistent pressure campaign on Biden as he warned that the president had not done enough to relieve voters’ concern about his age since last month’s hapless debate performance.

“I’ve said for a long time, it’s not in any way a commentary on his record, which I think will be honoured more by history than it is by voters right now, but it’s a very hard case to make that anyone should be elected president in the United States at the age of 82, not for political reasons but for actuarial reasons,” Axelrod told the Guardian in Milwaukee.

Having already riled Biden with criticism of his re-election bid, Axelrod continued the attack at an event on the sidelines of the Republican national convention, where Trump is expected to receive the official party nomination on Thursday.

Asked whether he thinks Biden can survive as the Democrats’ presumptive nominee, the chief strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns replied: “That’s entirely in his hands.”

His and Schiff’s comments followed one “prominent strategist” who was moved to say of the internal rebellion against Biden’s candidacy for re-election: “It’s over,” in a sign of how sharply divided the party stands. The strategist spoke anonymously to the Hill.

At a press conference in Milwaukee, 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.”

The debate over Biden’s age and cognitive fitness is likely to stoke more 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.”

Schiff followed reports that he had 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 a 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.”

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 election 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 Democratic National Committee 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 election 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, posting on X, in part: “Fellow Dems, every moment you attack other [Democrats] you are helping Trump win. Stop it.”

Harrison reposted the message.

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 included 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 Nancy Mace and Ronny Jackson as well as the former House speaker Newt Gingrich are also expected to address the convention.

Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman, took to the stage on Wednesday with a brief but charged-up speech that took aim at Democrats, and in particular, at Kamala Harris.

“Appointing Kamala Harris to oversee the border is like appointing Bernie Madoff to oversee your retirement plan,” said Gaetz, to jeers and applause.

With some Democrats urging Joe Biden to step down amid concerns over the president’s health and cognition following a devastating debate in early July, the possibility of Harris at the top of the Democrats’ 2024 presidential ticket seemed top of mind for Republican convention speakers.

Gaetz also told attendees of Vance’s vice presidential nomination: “JD looks like a young Abraham Lincoln.” His speech otherwise focused on Trump’s economic agenda, and railing on voter ID laws.

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.

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

China has suspended talks over arms control and nuclear proliferation with the US in protest against arms sales to Taiwan, the democratically governed island aligned with Washington that China claims as its own territory.

The decision, announced by China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday, halts the early nuclear-arms talks in a period of growing tensions between China and the US, with both US presidential candidates calling for increased trade restrictions and efforts to contain Chinese influence in east Asia.

The US is Taiwan’s main international partner and largest arms supplier. The House of Representatives in June approved $500m in foreign military financing for Taiwan to strengthen military deterrence against China, along with $2bn in loans and loan guarantees. The US also approved $300m in spare and repair parts for Taiwan’s F-16 fighter jets.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that the US had continued to sell arms to Taiwan despite “strong Chinese opposition and repeated negotiations”.

He added: “Consequently, the Chinese side has decided to hold off discussion with the US on a new round of consultations on arms control and nonproliferation. The responsibility fully lies with the US.”

Lin said China was willing to maintain communication on international arms control, but that the US “must respect China’s core interests and create necessary conditions for dialogue and exchange”.

In response, the US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, accused China of “following Russia’s lead” by holding arms control negotiations hostage to other conflicts in the bilateral relationship.

“We think this approach undermines strategic stability, it increases the risk of arms-race dynamics,” Miller told reporters.

“Unfortunately, by suspending these consultations, China has chosen not to pursue efforts that would manage strategic risks and prevent costly arms races, but we, the United States, will remain open to developing and implementing concrete risk-reduction measures with China.”

China is estimated to have 500 nuclear warheads, but the US department of defence expects Beijing to produce more than 1,000 by 2030. The US and China held arms talks in November for the first time in five years and discussed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and other nuclear security issues, as well as compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention, and outer space security and regular arms control, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

Donald Trump has signalled that US support for Taiwan may come with a higher price tag in the future, and has dodged questions on whether the US would defend Taiwan in the case of an invasion by China.

“Taiwan should pay us for defence,” Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “You know we’re no different than an insurance company.”

The Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, has signalled strong support for Taiwan, saying that US backing of Ukraine has diverted Washington’s attention from providing arms to Taiwan in case of a conflict.

The US military-built pier for carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza will be dismantled and brought home, ending a mission that has been fraught with repeated weather and security problems that limited how much food and other supplies could get to starving Palestinians.

Vice Adm Brad Cooper, deputy commander at US Central Command, told reporters in a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday that the pier had achieved its intended effect in what he called an “unprecedented operation”.

As the US military steps away from the sea route for humanitarian aid, questions swirl about Israel’s new plan to use the port at Ashdod as a substitute. There are few details on how it will work and lingering concerns about whether aid groups will have enough viable land crossings to get assistance into the territory besieged by war between Israel and Hamas.

Cooper said the Ashdod corridor would be more sustainable and it has already been used to get more than a million pounds of aid into Gaza.

“Having now delivered the largest volume of humanitarian assistance ever into the Middle East, we’re now mission complete and transitioning to a new phase,” said Cooper. “In the coming weeks, we expect that millions of pounds of aid will enter into Gaza via this new pathway.”

Sonali Korde, assistant to the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, told reporters that aid groups had confidence that “Ashdod is going to be a very viable and important route into Gaza”.

But, she said, “the key challenge we have right now in Gaza is around the insecurity and lawlessness that is hampering the distribution once aid gets into Gaza and to the crossing points”.

Israel controls all of Gaza’s border crossings and most are open, although Israel has been criticised by aid organisations for limiting the amount and type of aid allowed through and accused of using starvation as a “weapon of war”.

Critics call the pier a $230m boondoggle that failed to bring in the level of aid needed to stem a looming famine. The US military, however, has maintained that it served as the best hope as aid only trickled in during a critical time of near-famine in Gaza and that it got close to 20m lb (9m kg) of desperately needed supplies to Palestinians.

Joe Biden, who announced the building of the pier during his State of the Union speech in March, expressed disappointment in the pier, saying: “I was hopeful that would be more successful.”

Aid groups criticised the US military pier as a distraction, saying the US should have instead put pressure on Israel to open more land crossings and allow the aid to flow more quickly and efficiently through them.

Planned as a temporary fix to get aid to starving Palestinians, the project was panned from the start by aid groups that condemned it as a waste of time and money. While US defense officials acknowledged that the weather was worse than expected and limited the days the pier could operate, they also expressed frustration with humanitarian groups for being unable and unwilling to distribute the aid that got through the system, only to have it pile up on shore.

A critical element that neither the aid groups nor the US military could control, however, was the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), whose military operation in Gaza put humanitarian workers in persistent danger and in a number of cases cost them their lives.

As a result, the pier operated for fewer than 25 days after its installation on 16 May, and aid agencies used it only about half that time due to security concerns.

Stuck in the middle were the more than 1,000 US soldiers and sailors who largely lived on boats off the Gaza shore and struggled to keep the pier working but spent many days repairing it or detaching it, moving it and reinstalling it due to the bad weather. It has not been used since June, when it was moved to Ashdod due to rough seas.

The tensions played out until the final moments, as senior Biden administration officials signalled the end of the pier project days ago but US Central Command balked, holding out hope the military could reinstall it one last time to move any final pallets of aid ashore.

The UN has long said maritime deliveries are no substitute for land access.

It said land routes needed to remain the focus of aid operations in the enclave, where a global hunger monitor last month said there is a high risk of famine.

Aid officials say about 600 trucks of humanitarian and commercial supplies are needed in Gaza daily to meet the needs of the population.

Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday that a new Pier 28 would soon be established at Israel’s Ashdod port for delivering aid to the Gaza Strip as a replacement for the US military-built pier. The Israeli defense minister did not say when it would start operating.

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.”

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 chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association has been fired by her employer, the Wall Street Journal, weeks after being appointed as the head of the embattled union.

Selina Cheng said she was “appalled” that her first press conference as HKJA chair was to announce that she had been “fired for taking up this position in a press union”.

Cheng believes her termination was linked to her taking up the position at the HKJA on 22 June. Cheng said she was pressed by her employer not to stand for election for chair of the union, and was told that the role would be “incompatible with my employment at the Wall Street Journal”.

When she was fired on Wednesday, Cheng was told that it was due to restructuring. Cheng covered China’s automobiles and energy sectors for the WSJ.

Cheng said in a statement on Wednesday that the WSJ laid off several reporters from its Hong Kong bureau in early May, but she was kept on, with her reporting area highlighted as one of the biggest stories in Asia. The Guardian understands that the WSJ plans to move Cheng’s role out of Hong Kong.

The WSJ denies that there was any link between Cheng’s HKJA position and her termination. A spokesperson for Dow Jones, the WSJ’s parent company, said: “While we can confirm that we made some personnel changes today, we don’t comment on specific individuals.

“The Wall Street Journal has been and continues to be a fierce and vocal advocate for press freedom in Hong Kong and around the world.”

The HKJA is one of Hong Kong’s last remaining civil society groups after Beijing’s crackdown on freedoms in the city. It has been under increasing pressure and criticised by government officials in recent months. It has been described in Chinese state media as “a base for anti-China separatist forces”.

The HKJA said on Wednesday that it was “disappointed and outraged” by the WSJ’s decision.

“By pressuring employees not to take part in the HKJA, a key advocate for both local and international journalists working in Hong Kong, the WSJ risks hastening the decline of what space for independent journalism remains,” it said.

The HKJA said other potential candidates for board positions had been pressed by their employers to stand down.

Cheng said she was told by her editor that WSJ employees should not be seen as advocating for press freedom in “places like Hong Kong” because it could create a conflict of interest, given that the newspaper reports on incidents relating to press freedom in the city.

In May, the WSJ published an editorial about the global decline of press freedom, identifying China and Hong Kong in particular as dangerous places to be a journalist.

Cheng told the Guardian she was surprised at her treatment. “I saw what they’ve done to support and campaign for my colleague Evan Gershkovich and I deeply believed that the Journal was supporting media freedoms and the rights of journalists to operate safely,” Cheng said, referring to the WSJ reporter detained in Russia on spying charges that his employer says are politically motivated.

Hong Kong’s employment law protects the rights of workers to be a member or officer of a trade union. Cheng said that she was considering taking legal action against the WSJ.

Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Georgetown Centre for Asian Law, said Cheng’s dismissal “could amount to a form of anti-union discrimination in domestic and international legal terms … Sadly, [the] WSJ is enabling the further erosion of press freedom and trade union rights for journalists in Hong Kong”.

Hong Kong’s basic law also guarantees press freedom, but that has been in rapid decline in recent years. Between 2019, the year of the pro-democracy protests, and 2023, it dropped more than 60 places on Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

The chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association has been fired by her employer, the Wall Street Journal, weeks after being appointed as the head of the embattled union.

Selina Cheng said she was “appalled” that her first press conference as HKJA chair was to announce that she had been “fired for taking up this position in a press union”.

Cheng believes her termination was linked to her taking up the position at the HKJA on 22 June. Cheng said she was pressed by her employer not to stand for election for chair of the union, and was told that the role would be “incompatible with my employment at the Wall Street Journal”.

When she was fired on Wednesday, Cheng was told that it was due to restructuring. Cheng covered China’s automobiles and energy sectors for the WSJ.

Cheng said in a statement on Wednesday that the WSJ laid off several reporters from its Hong Kong bureau in early May, but she was kept on, with her reporting area highlighted as one of the biggest stories in Asia. The Guardian understands that the WSJ plans to move Cheng’s role out of Hong Kong.

The WSJ denies that there was any link between Cheng’s HKJA position and her termination. A spokesperson for Dow Jones, the WSJ’s parent company, said: “While we can confirm that we made some personnel changes today, we don’t comment on specific individuals.

“The Wall Street Journal has been and continues to be a fierce and vocal advocate for press freedom in Hong Kong and around the world.”

The HKJA is one of Hong Kong’s last remaining civil society groups after Beijing’s crackdown on freedoms in the city. It has been under increasing pressure and criticised by government officials in recent months. It has been described in Chinese state media as “a base for anti-China separatist forces”.

The HKJA said on Wednesday that it was “disappointed and outraged” by the WSJ’s decision.

“By pressuring employees not to take part in the HKJA, a key advocate for both local and international journalists working in Hong Kong, the WSJ risks hastening the decline of what space for independent journalism remains,” it said.

The HKJA said other potential candidates for board positions had been pressed by their employers to stand down.

Cheng said she was told by her editor that WSJ employees should not be seen as advocating for press freedom in “places like Hong Kong” because it could create a conflict of interest, given that the newspaper reports on incidents relating to press freedom in the city.

In May, the WSJ published an editorial about the global decline of press freedom, identifying China and Hong Kong in particular as dangerous places to be a journalist.

Cheng told the Guardian she was surprised at her treatment. “I saw what they’ve done to support and campaign for my colleague Evan Gershkovich and I deeply believed that the Journal was supporting media freedoms and the rights of journalists to operate safely,” Cheng said, referring to the WSJ reporter detained in Russia on spying charges that his employer says are politically motivated.

Hong Kong’s employment law protects the rights of workers to be a member or officer of a trade union. Cheng said that she was considering taking legal action against the WSJ.

Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Georgetown Centre for Asian Law, said Cheng’s dismissal “could amount to a form of anti-union discrimination in domestic and international legal terms … Sadly, [the] WSJ is enabling the further erosion of press freedom and trade union rights for journalists in Hong Kong”.

Hong Kong’s basic law also guarantees press freedom, but that has been in rapid decline in recent years. Between 2019, the year of the pro-democracy protests, and 2023, it dropped more than 60 places on Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

A former Syrian military official who oversaw a prison where human rights officials say torture and abuse routinely took place has been arrested in Los Angeles, court documents show.

Samir Ousman al-Sheikh, 72, was taken into custody last week at Los Angeles international airport on immigration fraud charges, specifically that he denied on his US visa and citizenship applications that he had ever persecuted anyone in Syria, according to a criminal complaint filed on 9 July. Investigators are considering additional charges, the complaint shows.

Al-Sheikh was in charge of Syria’s infamous Adra prison from 2005 to 2008 under President Bashar al-Assad. Human rights groups and UN officials have accused the Syrian government of widespread abuses in its detention facilities, including torture and arbitrary detention of thousands of people, in many cases without informing their families about their fate. Many remain missing and are presumed to have died or been executed.

“This is the highest-level Assad regime official arrested anywhere in the world … This is a really big deal,” Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, said Wednesday.

Moustafa said one of his staff members, a former Syrian detainee, was first tipped off in 2022 by a refugee that there was “potentially a war criminal” in the US. His organization alerted several federal agencies and began working with them to build a case against Al-Sheikh.

Investigators interviewed five former prisoners at the Syrian facility, who described being hanged by their arms from the ceiling, severely beaten by electrical cables, and witnessing other prisoners being branded by hot rods, according to court documents. One inmate described how he had his back broken by guards.

According to the complaint, al-Sheikh, a resident of Los Angeles since 2020, stated in his citizenship application that he had “never persecuted (either directly or indirectly) any person because of race, religion, national origin, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” and “never been involved in killing or trying to kill someone”. This was false, as al-Sheikh persecuted political dissidents and ordered the execution of prisoners while he was head of Adra from 2005-08, the complaint states.

Al-Sheikh began his career working police command posts before transferring to Syria’s domestic intelligence agency, which focused on countering political dissent, the complaint says. He became head of Adra Prison and brigadier general in 2005. He also served for one year as the governor of Deir Ez-Zour, a region north-east of the Syrian capital of Damascus, where there were violent crackdowns against protesters.

He had purchased a one-way plane ticket to depart LAX on 10 July, en route to Beirut, according to the complaint. Lebanon shares a border with Syria.

Syria’s civil war, which has left nearly half a million people dead and displaced half the country’s prewar population of 23 million, began as peaceful protests against Assad’s government in March 2011.

Other players in the war, now in its 14th year, have also been accused of abuse of detainees, including insurgent groups and the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which guard suspected and convicted Islamic State members imprisoned in north-eastern Syria.

In May, a French court sentenced three high-ranking Syrian officials in absentia to life in prison for complicity in war crimes in a landmark case against Assad’s regime and the first such case in Europe.

The court proceedings came as Assad had begun to shed his longtime status as a pariah because of the violence unleashed on his opponents. Human rights groups involved in the case hoped it would refocus attention on alleged atrocities.

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 the 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.

The supreme court’s ruling has had a domino effect on the other charges Trump faces, with a delay to sentencing in the New York hush-money trial in which he was convicted of 34 felonies. Trump has also used the ruling to try to block evidence and delay hearings on the election subversion charges brought by Smith.

Trump still falsely claims he won the 2020 presidential election, not Joe 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.

But her decision aligned with arguments Trump’s lawyers have made and with Clarence Thomas, the US supreme court justice, who wrote in a concurring opinion to the presidential immunity ruling that the special counsel didn’t have the authority to pursue the case. Cannon cited his concurrence in her ruling multiple times. It is part of a pattern where Thomas’s writings signal to the rightwing legal world potential strategies and theories to use in court.

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”.

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”.

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.

Support for democracy is falling in Africa amid a string of military coups and dissatisfaction with corruption and mismanagement, according to a report by Afrobarometer. However, Africans still have a stronger preference for democratic governance than many parts of the world.

Two-thirds of people in 30 African countries prefer democracy, surveys conducted in 2021 or 2023 found, down seven percentage points from a decade earlier.

There have been eight successful military takeovers in Africa since 2020, mostly in west Africa in what has become known as the “coup belt”. The last few years have also seen an increase in protests against tax rises and subsidy cuts by the continent’s increasingly youthful population, often in countries where leaders are also seen as corrupt.

South Africa saw the steepest drop in support for democracy, with those agreeing that “democracy is preferable to any other kind of government” falling 29 percentage points to 43%, amid chronically high unemployment, failing public services and graft scandals.

In Mali, which is ruled by a military junta after coups in 2020 and 2021, only 39% of respondents rated democracy above other forms of government, down 23 percentage points from 10 years ago. Meanwhile, disapproval of military rule plunged from 70% to just 18%.

The report by Afrobarometer, a pan-African survey organisation, said: “Africans’ preference for democracy remains resilient to deterioration on many indicators of socioeconomic performance. Instead, shifts in popular support over the past decade are related to changes in political conditions such as declining election quality, increasing levels of corruption and failure to promote the rule of law.”

The surveys found Africans have also become less satisfied with the way democracy works in their countries over the last decade, with the growing discontent linked to perceptions that economic conditions have worsened and that corruption and impunity have increased.

The biggest falls in satisfaction were in some of the continent’s most stable democracies – South Africa, Botswana and Mauritius. Meanwhile, more citizens said they were happy with the way democracy was working in six countries, including Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Morocco.

Young people on the continent are more likely to support military rule. “A combination of trust in the military, frustration with poor governance, and waning (or lacking) memories of the harsh realities experienced during a previous era of military governments may be chipping away at resistance to this particular form of authoritarian rule,” the report said.

Despite the poor performance of many elected governments, Africans still prefer democracy to a greater extent than people in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, it said.

Zambia, where voters booted out Edgar Lungu in 2021 after the country defaulted on its debts and inflation soared, topped the table in its preference for democracy. Ethiopia, which experienced a devastating civil war from 2020 to 2022, was in second place, followed by Senegal, which elected an anti-establishment president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, in March after his predecessor, Macky Sall, tried to delay the vote to the end of the year.

The largest and most complete stegosaurus fossil ever discovered sold for $44.6m at Sotheby’s in New York on Wednesday to become the most valuable fossil sold at auction.

The dinosaur remains, nicknamed “Apex”, exceeded its pre-sale low estimate by more than 11 times.

It was discovered on privately owned land in Moffat County, Colorado, fittingly near the town of Dinosaur, by commercial palaeontologist Jason Cooper at his property in 2022.

“Apex” measures 3.4 metres (11ft) tall and 8.2 metres (27ft) long from nose to tail, more than 30% larger than “Sophie”, the previously most intact stegosaurus specimen, which was on display in London’s Natural History Museum.

It was sold to an anonymous buyer who intends to explore loaning the specimen to a US institution. After the sale, the buyer remarked: “Apex was born in America and is going to stay in America!”

Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s global head of science and popular culture, said: “‘Apex’ lived up to its name today, inspiring bidders globally to become the most valuable fossil ever sold at auction.

“This sale has been years in the making, and at every turn, we have worked closely with Jason Cooper, from the moment of its discovery in Dinosaur, Colorado, to its sale in New York.

“I am thrilled that such an important specimen has now taken its place in history, 150m years since it roamed the planet. This remarkable result underscores our unwavering commitment to preserving these ancient treasures.”

“Apex” ranks high among the most complete skeletons ever found, with 254 fossil bone elements of an approximate total of 319.

The skeleton belonged to a large, robust adult and there was evidence of rheumatoid arthritis, indicating that it lived to an advanced age, according to Sotheby’s.

The specimen showed no signs of combat-related injuries or evidence of postmortem scavenging.

It was preserved in hard sandstone, which protected the bones from being distorted.

“Apex” was the star attraction of Sotheby’s natural history auction, with other lots including meteorites, minerals, gogottes and, for the first time, paleolithic tools.

The auction made $45.8m (£35.2m) overall, the highest ever total for a natural history auction.