The top United Nations court has ruled that Israel’s settlement policies and use of natural resources in the occupied Palestinian territories violate international law.

The international court of justice said “the transfer by Israel of settlers to the West Bank and Jerusalem as well as Israel’s maintenance of their presence, is contrary to article 49 of the fourth geneva convention”.

The panel of 15 judges from around the world also said the use of natural resources was “inconsistent” with its obligations under international law as an occupying power.

The ICJ president, Nawaf Salam, was reading out the court’s full opinion in a Friday session expected to take about an hour.

Israel has been engaged in a military assault on Gaza since the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel in October.

In a separate case, the ICJ is considering a South African claim that Israel’s campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide, a claim vehemently denied by Israel.

Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in 1967 six-day war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for an independent state.

Israel considers the West Bank to be disputed territory, the future of which should be decided in negotiations. It has moved people there in settlements to solidify its hold. It has annexed East Jerusalem in a move that is not recognised internationally, while it withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but maintained a blockade of the territory after Hamas took power in 2007. The international community generally considers all three areas to be occupied territory.

At hearings in February, the then Palestinian foreign minister, Riad Malki, accused Israel of apartheid and urged the ICJ to declare that Israel’s occupation of lands sought by the Palestinians is illegal and must end immediately and unconditionally for any hope of a two-state future to survive.

Israel, which normally considers the UN and international tribunals as unfair and biased, did not send a legal team to the hearings. It submitted written comments, saying that the questions put to the court were prejudiced and “fail to recognise Israel’s right and duty to protect its citizens”, address Israeli security concerns or acknowledge Israel-Palestinian agreements to negotiate issues, including “the permanent status of the territory, security arrangements, settlements, and borders”.

The Palestinians presented arguments in February along with 49 other nations and three international organisations.

The UN general assembly voted by a wide margin in December 2022 to ask the ICJ for the advisory opinion. Israel vehemently opposed the request which was promoted by the Palestinians. Fifty countries abstained from voting.

Israel has built well over 100 settlements, according to the anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now. The West Bank settler population has grown by more than 15% in the past five years to more than 500,000 Israelis, according to a pro-settler group.

Israel also considers the entire city of East Jerusalem to be its capital. An additional 200,000 Israelis live in settlements built in East Jerusalem that Israel considers to be neighbourhoods of its capital. Palestinian residents of the city face systematic discrimination, making it difficult for them to build new homes or expand existing ones.

The international community considers all settlements to be illegal or obstacles to peace since they are built on lands sought by the Palestinians for their state.

It is not the first time the ICJ has been asked to give its legal opinion on Israeli policies. Two decades ago, the court ruled that Israel’s West Bank separation barrier was “contrary to international law.” Israel boycotted those proceedings, saying they were politically motivated.

Israel says the barrier is a security measure. Palestinians say the structure amounts to a land grab because it frequently dips into the West Bank.

A Russian court has found the US journalist Evan Gershkovich guilty of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in prison, after a trial widely described as a sham.

Gershkovich, 32, denied the charges and pleaded not guilty during the secretive court proceedings in Yekaterinburg, mostly held behind closed doors. His employer, the Wall Street Journal, described the verdict as a “disgraceful, sham conviction”.

The trial was concluded with unusual haste, raising hopes of a prisoner swap involving the journalist, something that has long been the subject of private discussions between Russian and US officials.

Footage from the courtroom showed Gershkovich, dressed in a T-shirt, watching impassively from inside a glass defendant’s box, as the judge read out the sentence of “imprisonment for a term of 16 years in a penal colony with a strict regime”.

The court ordered his mobile phone and reporter’s notebook to be destroyed. Earlier on Friday, the prosecution had asked for an 18-year jail term.

President Joe Biden said the US government was pushing hard for Gershkovich’s release, adding: “There is no question that Russia is wrongfully detaining Evan. Journalism is not a crime.” The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, called the sentence “despicable”.

Gershkovich was arrested while reporting in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg last March, becoming the first US journalist since the cold war to be accused of spying in Russia. He had been held in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison, but was returned to Yekaterinburg for trial.

The prosecutors claimed Gershkovich was collecting secret information about a military factory in the Urals involved in Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine on the orders of the CIA, a claim he, the Wall Street Journal and the US state department have dismissed as ludicrous. He had been granted official accreditation to work as a journalist by the Russian foreign ministry.

“This disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist,” the Wall Street Journal said in a statement released after the verdict.

“We will continue to do everything possible to press for Evan’s release and to support his family. Journalism is not a crime, and we will not rest until he’s released. This must end now.” .

The press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders described the sentence as “outrageous” and called for Gershkovich to be released immediately.

The US embassy in Moscow said: “Regardless of what Russian authorities claim, Evan is a journalist. He did not commit any illegal actions. Russian authorities have been unable to provide evidence that he committed a crime or justification for Evan’s continued detention.”

The United Nations human rights office said it had serious concerns with the sentencing. “Journalists should be able to perform their essential professional functions work in a safe environment without fear of reprisals – in line with Russia’s international human rights obligations,” it said in a statement.

The trial was held behind closed doors, which is common in espionage cases. Journalists were allowed briefly into the courtroom when the hearings began last month. Gershkovich appeared with a shaved head, in line with Russian regulations.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, claimed on Wednesday that Moscow had “irrefutable evidence” Gershkovich was involved in espionage, but gave no details. Russian authorities have made nothing public that would suggest guilt, and many see the arrest as an attempt to use jailed Americans as bargaining chips in an exchange for Russian intelligence operatives and assassins held in western jails.

The speed of the case, with this week’s hearings brought forward by more than a month and the prosecution racing through witness testimony in one afternoon, may indicate that a long-discussed swap deal is close. Russia usually concludes court proceedings in such instances before a swap.

Vladimir Putin, in an interview in February with the US broadcaster Tucker Carlson, said discussions on a swap were under way. “The special services are in contact with one another. They are talking … I believe an agreement can be reached,” the president said.

He hinted that Russia would like to exchange Gershkovich for Vadim Krasikov, who is serving time in a German jail for assassinating a Chechen exile in Berlin in 2019.

Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of Vietnam’s ruling Communist party and the country’s most powerful politician, has died aged 80, creating a power vacuum.

Trong died early on Friday afternoon “after a period of illness”, according to his medical team, state media reported.

Trong held Vietnam’s most powerful position, general-secretary of Vietnam’s ruling Communist party, since 2011, one of the longest-serving leaders in decades. He also served as president from 2018 to 2021.

During his time in office, he oversaw a period of rapid economic growth as well as a balancing of ties with China and Vietnam’s former foe, the US. Trong was known for his “blazing furnace” anti-corruption drive, under which even senior political figures, including former presidents, were forced to resign.

There had been speculation about Trong’s health for months, fuelled by his absences from recent meetings.

“General secretary of the central committee of the party, Nguyen Phu Trong, passed away at 13.38 on 19 July 2024, at the 108 Central Military hospital due to old age and serious illness,” the Nhan Dan newspaper said.

On Thursday, it was announced he would step back from his role as head of the Communist party, due to unspecified health concerns, with president To Lam instead taking over his duties. Trong was awarded the Gold Star medal, the country’s highest honour for public officials, on the same day.

Trong will be remembered for his anti-corruption campaigns, which were unprecedented in the history of the party. Since 2016, more than 139,000 party members have been punished for corruption – a crackdown so vast it was blamed for negative impacts on the economy, with officials reluctant to sign off approvals, fearful of being accused of wrongdoing.

In pursuing such crackdowns, he “consolidated an unrivalled level of power within the political system,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at the Vietnam studies programme of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

Any plans that he had for an orderly succession transition had gone unrealised, he added, and his death risks creating a power vacuum.

Giang added: “I think this will lead [to] a very difficult time for Vietnam, for the political allies to negotiate among themselves who will assume the position of Nguyen Phu Trong. That might lead to a succession crisis where different factions would not agree.”

Given Trong’s power and popularity, analysts say any successor is unlikely to deviate from his policies in relation to the economy, foreign policy, or the lack of tolerance for government critics.

There are now more than 160 people held in prison for peacefully exercising their civil and political rights, according to Human Rights Watch.

The courts convicted at least 28 rights campaigners and sentenced them to long prison terms during the first 10 months of 2023, the group said.

In his foreign policy, Trong pursued a so-called “bamboo diplomacy” – which “sways with the winds” and avoids picking sides in international disputes – including in relation to the rivalry between the US and China.

In 2015, he became the first general secretary of the Communist party to pay an official visit to the US, where he met with the former president Barack Obama.

Last year Trong hosted the US president, Joe Biden, and upgraded ties with Washington, as well as with Australia and Japan. China’s president, Xi Jinping, also made a state visit three months later.

China’s Communist party central committee said the Chinese people had lost a “good comrade, brother and friend”, Chinese state media reported.

The Japanese government has begun to consult young people about their interest in marriage – or lack thereof – as Japan continues to struggle with a demographic crisis that is expected to result in a sharp population decline over the next decades.

The Children and Families Agency, launched in April 2023, held its first working group meeting on Friday to support young people in their efforts to find partners through dating, matchmaking and other means. Attenders included those considering marriage in the future and experts versed in the challenges facing younger people.

The government recognised that ideas about marriage among young people are different from what was once considered standard, an agency official said. The government has been seeking experts’ views and now wants those of single people.

“The main premise is that marriage and child-rearing should be based on the respect for diverse values ​​and ways of thinking of individuals,” Ayuko Kato, the minister of state for policies related to children, told the gathering. “We would be grateful if we could hear your real voices – what you are thinking, what is preventing you from making your wishes come true.”

The agency cited the results of a survey of single people, aged 25 to 34, showing 43.3% of men and 48.1% of women said they had no opportunity to meet potential partners in 2021. Many said they had not done anything to increase their chances, such as attending matchmaking events or asking friends for introductions.

Because comparatively few children are born to unmarried people in Japan, the decline of marriage has been cited as a significant reason for its low birthrate and dwindling, ageing population. In 2023, the number of marriages dropped below 500,000 for the first time since the 1930s. Meanwhile, births dropped 5.1% to 758,631, a new record low and almost reaching 755,000, a figure the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research had predicted for 2035.

Surveys have shown that many young Japanese are reluctant to marry or have families because of concerns about the high cost of living in big cities, a lack of good jobs, and a work culture that makes it difficult for both partners to have jobs, or for women to return to full-time employment after having children.

Local governments have responded with measures ranging from daycare to matchmaking. In June, the Tokyo metropolitan government said it would launch a dating app as early as this summer.

The economist Takashi Kadokura said on a Yahoo Japan news blog that local government efforts to promote marriage were not working and marriages were not increasing because of the growing number of non-regular workers who found it financially difficult to start a family.

The Japanese government has begun to consult young people about their interest in marriage – or lack thereof – as Japan continues to struggle with a demographic crisis that is expected to result in a sharp population decline over the next decades.

The Children and Families Agency, launched in April 2023, held its first working group meeting on Friday to support young people in their efforts to find partners through dating, matchmaking and other means. Attenders included those considering marriage in the future and experts versed in the challenges facing younger people.

The government recognised that ideas about marriage among young people are different from what was once considered standard, an agency official said. The government has been seeking experts’ views and now wants those of single people.

“The main premise is that marriage and child-rearing should be based on the respect for diverse values ​​and ways of thinking of individuals,” Ayuko Kato, the minister of state for policies related to children, told the gathering. “We would be grateful if we could hear your real voices – what you are thinking, what is preventing you from making your wishes come true.”

The agency cited the results of a survey of single people, aged 25 to 34, showing 43.3% of men and 48.1% of women said they had no opportunity to meet potential partners in 2021. Many said they had not done anything to increase their chances, such as attending matchmaking events or asking friends for introductions.

Because comparatively few children are born to unmarried people in Japan, the decline of marriage has been cited as a significant reason for its low birthrate and dwindling, ageing population. In 2023, the number of marriages dropped below 500,000 for the first time since the 1930s. Meanwhile, births dropped 5.1% to 758,631, a new record low and almost reaching 755,000, a figure the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research had predicted for 2035.

Surveys have shown that many young Japanese are reluctant to marry or have families because of concerns about the high cost of living in big cities, a lack of good jobs, and a work culture that makes it difficult for both partners to have jobs, or for women to return to full-time employment after having children.

Local governments have responded with measures ranging from daycare to matchmaking. In June, the Tokyo metropolitan government said it would launch a dating app as early as this summer.

The economist Takashi Kadokura said on a Yahoo Japan news blog that local government efforts to promote marriage were not working and marriages were not increasing because of the growing number of non-regular workers who found it financially difficult to start a family.

Britain will not help Ukraine hit targets in Russia, the defence secretary has said, as Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed directly to the cabinet to use British-made weapons more freely.

John Healey did not rule out accepting the Ukrainian president’s request to use British-made missiles against Russian territory, but added that Britain would not be involved in any such attacks.

Healey was speaking hours before Zelenskiy spoke at an extraordinary meeting of the British cabinet on Friday, the first foreign leader to do so in nearly 30 years.

The defence secretary told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We’re providing weapons to Ukraine for their defence of their sovereign country. And that does not preclude them hitting targets in Russia, but that must be done by the Ukrainians. It must be done within the parameters and the bounds of international humanitarian law.”

Keir Starmer had previously indicated Ukraine would be able to use the Storm Shadow missiles against targets in Russia, but only for “defensive” purposes. The prime minister said last week: “It is for defensive purposes, but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes.”

Zelenskiy spoke to the cabinet on Friday to appeal to ministers to use Storm Shadow missiles against Russian targets. He also urged ministers to help build up Europe’s defence industrial base, as leaders around the world adjust to the possibility of a second, more isolationist, Trump administration.

Downing Street said afterwards British ministers had “reaffirmed their commitment to supporting Ukraine on all fronts – from military and financial support, to ensuring that Ukrainians living here are supported and feel Britain’s central message that we are all united behind them”.

Officials added that in a separate conversation, Starmer and Zelenskiy had discussed making sure western weapons reached the Ukrainian frontlines as soon as possible. Zelenskiy told the BBC on Thursday night Ukraine had still not received F-16 fighter jets, despite them having been promised 18 months ago.

The Ukrainian president also said he believed Starmer would remain as committed to his country’s cause as the previous government had been.

“I don’t think Britain’s position would change,” he said. “But I would like for Prime Minister Starmer to become special – speaking about international politics, about defending world security, about the war in Ukraine.”

Speaking as Donald Trump prepared to give his keynote speech at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Zelenskiy said dealing with a second Trump administration would be “hard work … But we are hard workers.”

Starmer is expected to promise his Ukrainian counterpart the UK will do more to tackle the growing “phantom fleet” of tankers carrying Russian oil around the world.

The two countries are to sign a defence export support treaty to boost weapons supplies to the battlefield, including a £3.5bn support package for Ukraine’s armed forces.

Healey said: “We’ll also be signing a treaty in Downing Street which makes export finance available to British companies to boost industrial production directed towards Ukraine and also to replenishing our own British stockpiles.

“And that really is a reflection of the fact that this is a war of industrial production, not just a war of forces on the battlefield.”

Starmer and the Irish taoiseach, Simon Harris, have expressed interest in providing bomb shelters for schools after Zelenskiy appealed to European leaders gathered in the UK on Thursday to help protect children returning to school after the summer.

The poliovirus has been found in sewage samples from Gaza putting thousands of people living in crowded displaced persons’ camps at risk of contracting the highly infectious disease that can cause deformities and paralysis.

The Gaza ministry said tests carried out with the UN children’s agency, Unicef, “showed the presence of poliovirus” in the territory that has endured a devastating Israeli military offensive since the 7 October Hamas attacks.

The Israeli health ministry said poliovirus type 2 was detected in Gaza sewage samples tested in an Israeli laboratory. It said the World Health Organization had made similar findings.

“The presence of poliovirus in wastewater that collects and flows between displacement camp tents and in inhabited areas because of the destruction of infrastructure marks a new health disaster,” the Gaza ministry said.

It highlighted “severe overcrowding” and “scarce water” that is becoming contaminated with sewage and the accumulation of rubbish. The ministry said Israel’s refusal to let hygiene supplies into Gaza “creates a suitable environment for the spread of different diseases”.

“The detection of poliovirus in wastewater threatens a real health disaster and places thousands of people at risk of contracting polio.”

UN agencies have been campaigning for four decades to eradicate polio, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, but there has been a resurgence in recent years in Afghanistan and Pakistan and some isolated cases in Nigeria.

The ministry called for a halt to the Israeli offensive so that safe water can be brought in and sewage treatment can be restarted.

Authorities in the central Gaza town of Deir el-Balah said this week that wastewater treatment stations had been shut down because of a lack of fuel. They warned that roads “will be flooded by wastewater” and that 700,000 civilians, most of them displaced, would be put at risk of catching sewage-borne diseases.

Israel’s health ministry said the samples “raise concerns about the presence of the virus in this region”. It added that Israeli health authorities were “monitoring and evaluating necessary steps to prevent the risk of disease in Israel”.

A communications blackout has been imposed in Bangladesh, with mobile internet access blocked and news broadcasts shut down, as the country continues to be rocked by protests that have killed 39 people this week.

On Thursday night, the government said it was shutting down mobile internet for security reasons amid growing protests led by tens of thousands of students, and access to social media was blocked.

On Friday morning, television news channels remained off air after the state broadcasting headquarters in Dhaka was stormed and set alight by protesters.

The protests began this month on university campuses as students demanded an end to a quota system that reserves 30% of government jobs for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971.

Those protesting have argued that the policy is unfair and discriminatory and particularly benefits members of the ruling Awami League party, which is led by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.

The demonstrations have escalated into some of worst unrest seen in a decade as pro-government student groups were accused of attacking the protesters, and police fired teargas and rubber bullets into the crowds.

Clashes between heavily armed riot police and protesters, many armed with batons and bricks, spread across the country, with vehicles set ablaze in the streets and thousands left injured.

The Dhaka Times said one of its reporters, Mehedi Hasan, was killed while covering clashes in the capital.

On Thursday protesters stormed the headquarters of the state broadcaster, Bangladesh Television, and set it on fire. Authorities said the building was safely evacuated.

Access to social media was restricted after the telecommunications minister, Zunaid Ahmed Palak, said it had been “weaponised as a tool to spread rumours, lies and disinformation”.

Hasina, 76, ordered that all universities and colleges be shut indefinitely. In a speech on Wednesday night, she had condemned the “murder” of students killed in the protests and promised justice, telling students to wait until a high court order on the quota system was given, but it did little to quell the unrest.

On Friday morning the sounds of gunfire and stun grenades could be heard coming from areas close to universities in Dhaka.

Witnesses on the ground said the protests had begun to take on a much broader anti-government tone against Hasina and her party, with slogans calling her an “authoritarian dictator”.

Hasina has ruled since 2009 and has overseen a vast and severe crackdown on political opponents and critics. Critical figures are routinely picked up in “enforced disappearances” by paramilitary forces and tens of thousands of political opponents have been jailed. She was brought back to power in January in an election that was widely documented as being heavily rigged.

The prime minister further inflamed the anger of protesters when she appeared to refer to them using the derogatory slur “razakars”, meaning those who betrayed the nation by collaborating with the enemy, Pakistan, during the war of independence.

The quotas that sparked the protests were abolished in 2018 but brought back last month after a court ruling, prompting outrage among students. Youth unemployment is high in Bangladesh and government jobs are seen as one of the few means of secure employment. Young people say the quotas make it very difficult to get the jobs on merit.

Hasina’s party, which was begun by her father who led the independence fight for Bangladesh, is accused of disproportionately benefiting from the system.

Pierre Prakash, the Asia director of the International Crisis Group, said the protests were a reflection of growing frustration on the streets at the lack of democracy and representation of the issues of the people.

“The protests reflect deep political and economic tensions in Bangladesh. For several years Bangladesh’s economy has been struggling and youth unemployment is a serious problem,” he said. “With no real alternative at the ballot box, discontented Bangladeshis have few options besides street protests to make their voices heard.”

Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson for the UN secretary general, said they were following developments in Bangladesh and urged restraint on all sides.

A fierce heatwave is continuing to roll across southern and central Europe, bringing temperatures of up to 44C (111.2F) to parts of Spain, sparking forest fires in Greece and Croatia, and prompting governments to urge people to take special care as the mercury rises.

In Spain, the state meteorological agency, Aemet, said temperatures on Friday could hit 40C across large parts of the country – and even 44C in areas of Andalucía – as the first heatwave of the summer hit. Aemet said the high temperatures, caused by a mass of “very hot, dry and dusty air” from North Africa, were expected to last until Saturday.

“Today is forecast to be the hottest day of this heat episode, with temperatures that could exceed 40C in large areas of the southern half of Spain, in the Ebro valley and in the interior of Mallorca,” said Luis Bañon, a spokesperson for Aemet.

“Today, the skies will remain full of sand from the Sahara, especially in the south-east of the peninsula, in Ceuta, Melilla, the Balearics and the eastern Canaries.”

Spain’s health ministry issued alerts for large parts of the country, calling on people to take all necessary precautions against the high temperatures: “When it comes to the heat: protect yourself; hydrate yourself; refresh yourself, and take care of more vulnerable people.”

Héctor Tejero, the ministry’s head of health and climate change, said people needed to take the heat seriously and change their behaviour accordingly.

“We’re not talking about polar bears and all that stuff, we’re talking about something that affects your health,” he said in an interview with the online newspaper elDiario.es on Friday.

“The heat is killing 3,000 people a year and it’s going to get worse. But while exposure to extreme heat is going to rise, we can also step up our adaptation to it … Although it’s hotter in Spain than it was 20 years ago, fewer people are dying because homes are better adapted, because we have air conditioning, and because people are getting into a culture of dealing with the heat.”

In Greece, the second heatwave of the summer brought hot, dry winds, forest fires and temperatures of up to 43C on Thursday.

Firefighters fought two large blazes on Thursday, one near a village on the outskirts of the northern city of Thessaloniki, and a brush fire on the island of Kea, near Athens. Emergency services ordered the evacuation of two areas on Kea, while local media said the fire near Thessaloniki had damaged several homes.

“We appeal to the public to be particularly careful as over the next few days there is a very high risk of the outbreak of serious wildfires,” a government spokesperson, Pavlos Marinakis, said. “Even one spark can cause a major catastrophe.”

The authorities shut all archaeological sites in Athens for a second consecutive day on Thursday and restricted outdoor work.

Like many countries in Europe, high temperatures have disrupted daily activities repeatedly since June. Hundreds of wildfires, which scientists link to the climate emergency, have broken out following the warmest winter on record.

Faced with what is forecast to be the country’s longest heatwave on record, the government has ordered some businesses not to let their employees perform heavy outdoor duty from midday until 5pm this week as the mercury is expected to reach 42C in parts of the country.

Italy, meanwhile, put 14 cities under the highest level of alert as temperatures were expected to climb past 40C, particularly in central and southern regions. The health ministry said it would further extend the red alert to 17 Italian cities on Friday, as the intense heat was forecast to continue until Sunday.

Dozens of firefighters and three water-bombing planes were tackling a forest fire that broke out late on Thursday near Croatia’s popular coastal resort of Trogir, officials said.

About 70 firefighters prevented the blaze from spreading to houses and a hotel complex, the national firefighting association said.

The fire near Trogir, on the central Adriatic coast, was under control and additional firefighting forces were arriving in the area, it added. “There is no threat to houses and tourists,” the chief fire commander, Slavko Tucakovic, said.

In the village of Seget Donji, the fire engulfed a large forest area by the sea near a tourist camping site, the state-run HRT television reported.

Croatia, like the rest of the Balkans, has been hit by a prolonged heatwave that started earlier this month, with temperatures exceeding 37C. On Tuesday, Serbia’s state power company reported record consumption due to the use of air conditioning.

Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Bob Newhart, the revered US comedian and star of two classic sitcoms known for his deadpan delivery, died on Thursday at the age of 94.

The Chicago native and titular star of game-changing sitcoms The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart in the 1970s and 80s, died at his home in Los Angeles after a period of short illnesses, his publicist Jerry Digney confirmed in a statement.

A former accountant who began moonlighting in comedy venues, Newhart first rose to fame in the 1960s for his observational humor and droll delivery. His breakthrough album, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, recorded over several days in Houston before Newhart had any stand-up experience, netted him Grammys for best new artist and album of the year in 1961.

“In 1959, I gave myself a year to make it in comedy; it was back to accounting if comedy didn’t work out,” he once said, according to Digney’s statement. Newhart was 30 years old and years into a career as a Chicago accountant when the album went No 1 on the sales charts, the first comedy album to do so.

The comic went on to dominate the sitcom landscape for nearly two decades with two beloved TV shows, first with The Bob Newhart Show, which aired on CBS from 1972 until 1978. The show, in which Newhart starred as a befuddled psychologist in Chicago, became one of the most popular sitcoms of all time.

The follow-up, Newhart, starred Newhart and Mary Frann as an author and his wife who open a rural inn in Vermont. It ran from 1982 until 1990 and featured one of the more admired finales in TV history, in which Newhart’s character wakes up next to his wife from the Bob Newhart Show, played by Suzanne Pleshette, suggesting the entire second series was a dream.

Newhart was nominated for several Emmys for his TV work, though he didn’t win one until 2013, for guest-starring as Arthur Jeffries on CBS’s The Big Bang Theory. He is also famous to younger audiences as Papa Elf, the adoptive father to Will Ferrell’s Buddy, in the 2003 holiday comedy Elf.

Mayim Bialik, who starred on The Big Bang Theory with Newhart said in a statement : “As a child, the Bob Newhart Show provided countless hours of enjoyment for me – it constituted some of my earliest training in the art of sitcom. When I got to work with alongside him on TBBT, it was absolutely a dream come true. He was effortlessly professional, poised, hilarious and incredibly approachable. Working with Bob was working in the presence of a true comedy legend.”

Born on 5 September 1929 in Oak Park, Illinois, George Robert Newhart ushered in a new style of comedy in the 1960s, breaking from the mold of vaudeville and Borscht Belt routines for bits based in observation and psychology. His performance style incorporated stammering, deadpan delivery and quietly subversive material that appealed widely; his debut was the first comedy album to top the Billboard charts, and his first two albums held the top two spots simultaneously, a feat not accomplished again until Guns N’ Roses in 1991.

In his later years, Newhart took on a number of feature film roles, including In & Out and Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde. He also continued performing standup into his 70s, giving about 30 shows a year as of 2006.

“Comedy has given me a wonderful life,” he said. “When I first started out in standup, I just remember the sound of laughter. It’s one of the great sounds of the world.”

The comedy great Carol Burnett posted on social media: “I had the great pleasure of working with Bob and being his friend. He was as kind and nice as he was funny. He will be missed.” The two worked together on The Carol Burnett Show.

Among others paying tribute to Newhart were Judd Apatow, Jamie Lee Curtis and Bill Prady. Apatow, who co-directed Bob and Don: A Love Story about the lifelong friendship of Newhart and Don Rickles, posted on social media: “I was so lucky to get to spend that time with my hero. His brilliant comedy and gentle spirit made everyone he encountered so happy.”

Prady reflected on his importance to comedy: “Hard to explain how important Bob Newhart was to every comedian and comedy writer who came after him.”

Curtis wrote in a tribute on her Instagram, “They will be laughing wherever people go when they leave us. God, he was funny! Bob Newhart. You will be missed!”

The comedian was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Hall of Fame in 1993, and won the second-ever Mark Twain prize for humor, presented by the Kennedy Center, in 2002. In 2007, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was chosen as one of 25 entries for the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.

Newhart’s wife, Ginnie, whom he married in 1963, died last year at the age of 82. He is survived by his four children, Robert, Timothy, Courtney and Jennifer, and 10 grandchildren.