Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has pressed Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu on the “dire” humanitarian situation in Gaza in talks that she described as frank, adding “I will not be silent.”

In comments that were closely watched for signs of a shift from Joe Biden’s policy approach, the US vice-president said after the meeting: “What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time.”

She acknowledged that “Israel has a right to defend itself” and denounced Hamas as a brutal terrorist organisation that triggered the war and had committed ‘“horrific acts of sexual violence” but she made clear that how Israel defended itself mattered, adding later: “We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies [in Gaza]. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent.”

She called for the establishment of a Palestinian state and for Netanyahu and Hamas to agree a ceasefire and hostage release deal to end a war she said had led to the deaths of far too many innocent civilians. “As I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done,” she said.

Hours earlier, Israel’s prime minister had enjoyed a more cordial greeting from Biden in the Oval Office, saying: “From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish-American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel.”

According to a White House account of their meeting, the two leaders discussed the ceasefire and hostage negotiations “in detail”, and Biden “expressed the need to close the remaining gaps, finalize the deal as soon as possible, bring the hostages home, and reach a durable end to the war in Gaza”.

Harris’ forceful remarks on Thursday, which were sharp and serious in tone, reflected what might mark a departure from Biden in how she deals with Netanyahu. Some noted the significance of Harris being the one to give public remarks after both she and Biden had separately met the prime minister.

During the meeting, Harris brought up the repeated displacement of Palestinians since the start of the war, sparked by Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October in which 1,200 civilians were killed and 250 hostages taken.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Harris also recalled planting trees for Israel as a child and said that as a senator from California and as vice-president she has had an “unwavering commitment to the existence of the state of Israel” and its people. She said Israel has “a right to defend itself and how it does so matters.”

Harris’s backers say that she is more likely to engage in public criticism of Netanyahu than Biden and to focus attention on the civilian toll among Palestinians from the war in Gaza – even if she would maintain US military aid and other support for Israel that has been a mainstay of Biden’s foreign policy.

White House officials say Israel and Hamas are “closer now than we’ve been before” to reaching a ceasefire deal, with a senior administration official saying a framework for the deal had been agreed upon but that “serious implementation issues … still had to be resolved. “I don’t expect the meeting to be a yes or no,” the official said. “It’s a kind of like: ‘How do we close these final gaps?’”

Netanyahu promised “total victory” in the Gaza war in a raucous speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, saying that there were “intensive” efforts to bring the hostages home but giving little detail about how that would be achieved.

Harris – the presiding officer of the Senate – did not attend Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday but released a careful statement saying that her absence should not be interpreted as a boycott of the event.

Netanyahu said on Thursday he met Tesla CEO Elon Musk in Washington on Wednesday after his address to Congress. “We discussed the opportunities and challenges in AI, its impact on the economy and society, and explored ways for technological cooperation with Israel,” Netanyahu said in a post on X.

Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet Trump on Friday at his residence in Mar-a-Lago. The two men have had a strained relationship since Netanyahu congratulated Biden on his victory in the 2020 election, which Trump has claimed without evidence was manipulated.

With Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse

White House officials said Israel and Hamas were “closer now than we’ve been before” to reaching a ceasefire deal as Benjamin Netanyahu met Joe Biden on Thursday to discuss an end to the nine-month conflict in Gaza.

The talks at the White House came amid unprecedented political turmoil in the US and domestic pressure on the Israeli prime minster to rescue the dozens of hostages still being held captive after Hamas’s 7 October attack. Netanyahu also met the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, who is likely to replace Biden as the Democratic candidate for November’s election.

“We’ve got a lot to talk about,” Biden said when he welcomed Netanyahu to the Oval Office. “From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish-American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel,” Netanyahu told Biden at the start of their meeting.

The president thanked Netanyahu and noted that his first meeting with an Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, was in 1973, soon after he was elected to the Senate.

Biden was expected to put pressure on Netanyahu to commit to at least the first stage of a three-part deal that would see some hostages released in exchange for a temporary ceasefire. A senior administration official said that a framework for the deal had been agreed upon but that “serious implementation issues … still had to be resolved.

“I don’t expect the meeting to be a yes or no,” the official said. “It’s a kind of like: ‘How do we close these final gaps?’”

At a press conference while the two leaders were meeting, John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, said gaps in the ceasefire deal could be overcome. “We need to get there soon,” he said. “We are closer now than we’ve been before. Both sides have to make compromises.”

The state department spokesperson, Matt Miller, said: “I think the message from the American side in that meeting will be that we need to get this deal over the line.”

More than 39,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed in the conflict, and the international criminal court has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The US does not recognise the court’s jurisdiction.

Harris met with Netanyahu separately as she began her late campaign to challenge Donald Trump in November’s presidential election. The vice-president must prove her mettle as a negotiator in one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.

During a “frank and constructive meeting”, Harris said she pressed Netanyahu about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“Israel has a right to defend itself. And how it does so matters,” Harris told reporters after the meeting. She said she raised her serious concerns about the scale of human suffering. “I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there,” she said. “I will not be silent.”

She has spoken forcefully about the need for a ceasefire and about the plight of Palestinian civilians in the conflict, and there is a possibility that she could win back some Democratic voters who believe that the Biden administration has done too little to end the conflict or limit sales of arms to Israel.

Harris – the presiding officer of the Senate – did not attend Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday but released a careful statement saying that her absence should not be interpreted as a boycott of the event.

A senior administration official told the Associated Press there was “no daylight between the president and vice-president” on Israel.

On Thursday, Harris issued a statement forcefully condemning pro-Palestine protesters who had demonstrated against Netanyahu’s speech in Washington.

She said: “Yesterday, at Union Station in Washington DC we saw despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and dangerous hate-fuelled rhetoric.

“I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organisation Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the state of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation.”

The vice-president added: “I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way.

“I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.”

Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet Trump on Friday at his residence in Mar-a-Lago. The two men have had a strained relationship since Netanyahu congratulated Biden on his victory in the 2020 election, which Trump has claimed without evidence was manipulated.

Netanyahu promised “total victory” in the Gaza war in a raucous speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, saying that there were “intensive” efforts to bring the hostages home but giving little detail about how that would be achieved.

About 40 Democratic lawmakers – including the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi – boycotted the speech, and only half of congressional Democrats attended.

“Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation in the House Chamber today was by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States,” Pelosi wrote on X.

Thousands protested on the streets of the capital, with both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups saying Netanyahu was using the conflict as cover for his own political problems at home.

He did not mention the word “ceasefire” or the negotiations with Hamas once during the speech. Instead, he called for expedited deliveries of US arms to “help us finish the job faster”.

“I will not rest until all their loved ones are home,” said Netanyahu during the speech, referring to the families of the hostages, and the hostages. “All of them. As we speak, we’re actively engaged in intensive efforts to secure their release, and I’m confident that these efforts can succeed. Some of them are taking place right now. I want to thank President Biden for his tireless efforts on behalf of the hostages and for his efforts to the hostage families as well.”

It is unclear whether Biden’s recent decision to end his presidential campaign will allow him to use greater leverage to convince Netanyahu to sign on to a deal.

“The framework of the deal is basically there,” said a senior administration official. “There are some very serious implementation issues that still have to be resolved, and I don’t want to discount the difficulty of those … There are some things we need from Hamas, and there are some things we need from the Israeli side, and I think you’ll see that play out here over the course of the coming week.”

Reuters contributed reporting

Dozens of US doctors and nurses who worked in Gaza have written to Joe Biden claiming that the true death toll from Israel’s months-long assault is much higher than previously reported, demanding the US withdraw diplomatic and military support for Israel until there is a ceasefire.

The eight-page letter, delivered on Thursday and addressed to Biden, the first lady, Jill Biden, and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, said the medics saw evidence of widespread violations of laws governing the use of US weapons supplied to Israel, and of international humanitarian law.

Forty-five surgeons, emergency room physicians and nurses who volunteered in several Gaza hospitals over recent months laid out what they described as the “massive human toll from Israel’s attack on Gaza, especially the toll it has taken on women and children”.

“We cannot forget the scenes of unbearable cruelty directed at women and children that we witnessed ourselves,” they wrote.

“Every single signatory to this letter treated children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head.”

Several of the signatories previously told the Guardian they believed Israeli snipers were targeting children and reported the devastating impact on civilians of weapons designed to spray high levels of shrapnel.

The medics, who volunteered with the World Health Organization and other relief groups, told the president the real death toll is much higher than the Palestinian ministry of health’s casualty figure of more than 39,000 people killed, the majority being women and children.

“It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 92,000, an astonishing 4.2% of Gaza’s population,” they wrote.

The medics added almost no one in Gaza has escaped the consequences of the Israeli attack.

“With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured or both. This includes every national aid worker, every international volunteer and probably every Israeli hostage: every man, woman and child,” they said.

The letter warned that “epidemics are raging in Gaza” and described Israel’s repeated displacement of a malnourished and sick civilian population to areas without running water and toilets as “absolutely shocking”.

At the beginning of the letter, the medics preempted accusations of sympathy for the 7 October Hamas assault on Israel in which 1,139 people, mostly Israelis, were killed and 251 abducted. It is unclear how many of the captives are still held by Hamas in Gaza and whether they are alive.

“None of us support the horrors committed on October 7 by Palestinian armed groups and individuals in Israel,” the letter said.

But the signatories said that the subsequent “catastrophe” in Gaza requires the US to withdraw material support for Israel.

“President Biden and Vice-President Harris, any solution to this problem must begin with an immediate and permanent ceasefire. We urge you to withhold military, economic and diplomatic support from the state of Israel and to participate in an international arms embargo of both Israel and all Palestinian armed groups until a permanent ceasefire is established, and until good faith negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians lead to a permanent resolution of the conflict,” the medics wrote.

The letter details the individual experiences of some of the signatories including surgeons, paediatricians, trauma nurses and anaesthesiologists. Some have worked in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Others are US military veterans.

Mark Perlmutter, an orthopaedic surgeon, wrote: “Gaza was the first time I held a baby’s brains in my hand. The first of many.”

Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma and critical care surgeon, said he had “never seen such horrific injuries, on such a massive scale, with so few resources”.

Asma Taha, a paediatric nurse practitioner, described the challenges of maternity care.

“Every day I saw babies die. They had been born healthy. Their mothers were so malnourished that they could not breastfeed, and we lacked formula or clean water to feed them, so they starved,” she said in the letter.

The medics said that those who worked with pregnant women regularly saw stillbirths and maternal deaths that were easily preventable in normal circumstances.

“Women underwent C-sections without anesthesia, and were given nothing but Tylenol afterwards because no other pain medications were available,” they wrote.

The letter said that “Israel has directly targeted and deliberately devastated Gaza’s entire healthcare system”.

The medics described their Palestinian colleagues as “among the most traumatized people in Gaza, and perhaps in the entire world” who kept working despite losing family members and their homes. Many were malnourished while working grueling hours without pay.

The letter said that working as as healthcare providers marked Palestinians out.

“Israel has targeted our colleagues in Gaza for death, disappearance and torture. These unconscionable acts are entirely at odds with American law, American values and international humanitarian law,” they wrote.

The medics made a direct appeal to the Bidens.

“President and Dr Biden, we wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them,” they said.

“We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget. We cannot believe that anyone would continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children after seeing what we have seen.”

The US justice department has arrested two leaders of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, including the cartel’s co-founder, for leading deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.

The attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced the charges against cartel leaders Ismael Zambada Garcia, known as “El Mayo”, one of the group’s co-founders, and Joaquin Guzman. Both men face several charges in the United States for allegedly leading the cartel’s criminal operations.

“Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced,” said Garland on Thursday. “The justice department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.”

The arrests were made in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday.

The charges are part of a crackdown on Sinaloa cartel leaders. Last year, the US justice department charged more than two dozen members of the Sinaloa cartel, including the sons of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, accusing them of supplying precursor chemicals required to make fentanyl.

The Sinaloa cartel, which operates around Sonoyta, a Mexican city along the border with Arizona, has smuggled millions of pounds of illegal drugs, millions of US dollars and weapons between the two countries, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).

Zambada founded the Sinaloa cartel along with Guzman, and he faces several charges for crimes relating to drug trafficking and organized crime in the United States.

US federal prosecutors in February charged Zambada with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute fentanyl.

The arrests come a month after the DoJ indicted two dozen people, accusing Chinese “underground bankers” of helping Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel launder over $50m in drug proceeds.

The investigation revealed a partnership between Sinaloa cartel associates and a Chinese criminal syndicate to launder drug money, exploiting Chinese nationals’ demand for US dollars.

Reuters contributed reporting

A spectacular boat procession down the Seine at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games could be used by national delegations seeking to show “solidarity” with the Palestinian cause.

Around 90 vessels carrying 10,500 athletes and officials are due to float in convoy through Paris on Friday night, including a delegation from Israel. Pro-Palestine organisers said discussions were taking place about a high-profile demonstration.

A “show of solidarity” could involve some unnamed national delegations flying the Palestinian flag or wearing messages on clothing, sources said, as part of a policy of those opposed to Israel’s involvement in the Games to target open-air events over the next three weeks.

A spokesman for Team Israel said that none of their athletes had opted out of taking part in the convoy down the river but he declined to comment on the number of individuals that will be boarding for the 6km (3.7 miles) trip.

Stephanie Adam, a campaigner with the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, said: “While the International Olympic Committee and host country France would like to hide the dissent, including through repressive and underhanded tactics, the strong popular opposition to genocidal Israel’s presence in the Olympics made itself heard and seen at the Israel-Mali Olympic football match on Wednesday. The dissent will only grow during the Games.

“We call on participating delegations to join calls for a ceasefire now and to stop Israel’s Gaza genocide. We urge Olympic athletes to use their platform to take a stand for Palestinian rights.”

Security will be tight at the opening ceremony, with 45,000 police and gendarme being supplemented by a further 2,000 security guards, according to Bruno Le Ray, the Games’ director of security.

Le Ray said he was satisfied with the first few days of events at the Games, saying: “The first lesson we can draw from this is that in terms of safety and security we have had no incident on any site, on any of the football matches, despite the fact that some of the meetings have been deemed to be slightly more sensitive, particularly the match between Israel and Mali.”

When questioned about a pitch invasion in Saint-Étienne that led to a match between Argentina and Morocco being suspended for more than an hour before resuming behind closed doors, Thomas Collomb, the deputy director of security, said the crowd had believed that the game was over. He said: “The event of yesterday was a security instance but not a major incident. Five hundred people were on site to secure the game … but following the last goal, when the referee blew the whistle, people thought it was the end of the match. They flooded the pitch because they were happy because they thought it was the end of the match. As far as we are concerned the security link was very low. There was no major security incident at all throughout this event.”

A spate of violent threats have been made against Israeli athletes ahead of the Games and on Thursday Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, sent a letter to his French counterpart, Stéphane Séjourné, with a fresh warning of an Iranian-backed plot to attack the Israeli delegation.

“There are those who seek to undermine the celebratory nature of this joyous event,” Katz wrote. “We currently have assessments regarding the potential threat posed by Iranian terrorist proxies and other terrorist organisations who aim to carry out attacks against members of the Israeli delegation and Israeli tourists during the Olympics.”

Katz expressed “gratitude” to French officials for the “unprecedented security measures” to protect Israelis at the Games, as well as the French government’s rejection of calls to ban Israel from the Olympics.

The 88 Israeli athletes at the Games are subject to round-the-clock protection from the French security services, and are also being guarded by officials from the Shin Bet intelligence agency.

Meanwhile, police in Belgium arrested seven people on Thursday on suspicion of preparing a “terrorist attack”, following 14 raids nationwide. A spokesman for the federal prosecutors’ service said there was no evidence of any link to the Paris Olympics.

There are “no details at this time as to the locations or targets but what was found leads us to believe an attack was being prepared”, the spokesman said.

A spectacular boat procession down the Seine at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games could be used by national delegations seeking to show “solidarity” with the Palestinian cause.

Around 90 vessels carrying 10,500 athletes and officials are due to float in convoy through Paris on Friday night, including a delegation from Israel. Pro-Palestine organisers said discussions were taking place about a high-profile demonstration.

A “show of solidarity” could involve some unnamed national delegations flying the Palestinian flag or wearing messages on clothing, sources said, as part of a policy of those opposed to Israel’s involvement in the Games to target open-air events over the next three weeks.

A spokesman for Team Israel said that none of their athletes had opted out of taking part in the convoy down the river but he declined to comment on the number of individuals that will be boarding for the 6km (3.7 miles) trip.

Stephanie Adam, a campaigner with the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, said: “While the International Olympic Committee and host country France would like to hide the dissent, including through repressive and underhanded tactics, the strong popular opposition to genocidal Israel’s presence in the Olympics made itself heard and seen at the Israel-Mali Olympic football match on Wednesday. The dissent will only grow during the Games.

“We call on participating delegations to join calls for a ceasefire now and to stop Israel’s Gaza genocide. We urge Olympic athletes to use their platform to take a stand for Palestinian rights.”

Security will be tight at the opening ceremony, with 45,000 police and gendarme being supplemented by a further 2,000 security guards, according to Bruno Le Ray, the Games’ director of security.

Le Ray said he was satisfied with the first few days of events at the Games, saying: “The first lesson we can draw from this is that in terms of safety and security we have had no incident on any site, on any of the football matches, despite the fact that some of the meetings have been deemed to be slightly more sensitive, particularly the match between Israel and Mali.”

When questioned about a pitch invasion in Saint-Étienne that led to a match between Argentina and Morocco being suspended for more than an hour before resuming behind closed doors, Thomas Collomb, the deputy director of security, said the crowd had believed that the game was over. He said: “The event of yesterday was a security instance but not a major incident. Five hundred people were on site to secure the game … but following the last goal, when the referee blew the whistle, people thought it was the end of the match. They flooded the pitch because they were happy because they thought it was the end of the match. As far as we are concerned the security link was very low. There was no major security incident at all throughout this event.”

A spate of violent threats have been made against Israeli athletes ahead of the Games and on Thursday Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, sent a letter to his French counterpart, Stéphane Séjourné, with a fresh warning of an Iranian-backed plot to attack the Israeli delegation.

“There are those who seek to undermine the celebratory nature of this joyous event,” Katz wrote. “We currently have assessments regarding the potential threat posed by Iranian terrorist proxies and other terrorist organisations who aim to carry out attacks against members of the Israeli delegation and Israeli tourists during the Olympics.”

Katz expressed “gratitude” to French officials for the “unprecedented security measures” to protect Israelis at the Games, as well as the French government’s rejection of calls to ban Israel from the Olympics.

The 88 Israeli athletes at the Games are subject to round-the-clock protection from the French security services, and are also being guarded by officials from the Shin Bet intelligence agency.

Meanwhile, police in Belgium arrested seven people on Thursday on suspicion of preparing a “terrorist attack”, following 14 raids nationwide. A spokesman for the federal prosecutors’ service said there was no evidence of any link to the Paris Olympics.

There are “no details at this time as to the locations or targets but what was found leads us to believe an attack was being prepared”, the spokesman said.

A fast-moving wildfire has destroyed parts of Jasper, the old mountain town in the Canadian Rockies, with the mayor warning the damage was “beyond description and comprehension”. The blaze had forced more than 25,000 people to flee earlier this week.

Jasper national park officials said the fire entered the southern edge of the town on Wednesday evening. But, given the speed and intensity of the blaze, fire crews working to protect key infrastructure were ordered to retreat.

Video shared to social media on Thursday showed swaths of the town incinerated by fire. The video, taken by an anonymous official from inside a truck, shows the smouldering remains of the town.

The truck pauses briefly in front of a destroyed home and a voice can be heard saying: “That’s Mom and Dad’s house.”

In an emotional update, Alberta’s premier, Danielle Smith, held back tears as she mourned the destruction of the national park.

“We have all seen on the news and social media that horrific pictures and videos coming out of Jasper, homes and businesses have been lost to a wildfire that people are calling a ‘wall’ of flames,” she said. “There is no denying that this is the worst nightmare for any community.”

Earlier in the day, Jasper’s mayor, Richard Ireland, told residents in a video message that the scope of damage had left him and others with “profound sorrow”.

“The destruction and loss that many of you are facing and feeling is beyond description and comprehension; my deepest sympathies go out to each of you,” he said.

Justin Trudeau said on Thursday that his government had approved Alberta province’s request for federal assistance, adding that it was deploying military resources and evacuation support, as well as coordinating firefighting and airlift assistance.

“Alberta, we’re with you,” Canada’s prime minister posted on X.

A Parks Canada spokesperson, James Eastham, said the “intense” fire behaviour quickly overwhelmed teams on the ground. “Fire crews were witnessing 300 to 400ft flames in a fully involved, continuous crown fire and a fire spread rate of approximately 15 metres per minute,” he said.

Helicopters flying overhead with buckets did little to dampen the ferocity of the fire and water bomber airplanes could not approach the area because of poor flying conditions, Parks Canada said on social media. A final, frantic effort to use controlled burns to direct the fire away from the community was unsuccessful.

First responders were ordered to relocate to Hinton, a town 50 miles (80km) north-east. Structural firefighters remained in the town. The withdrawal of crews meant fire guards were not able to be completed.

Eastham later told reporters outside Jasper that the town was filled with smoke and there “has been structural loss”.

“At this point, I can’t confirm how many, locations or specific structures. The fire continues to burn,” he said.

Images of the Maligne Lodge hotel and the WickedCup cafe, both fully consumed by flames, spread on social media.

On X, the account for Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge said the flames had reached the hotel’s grounds, but the extent of damage, if any, is not yet known.

Parks Canada said firefighters were working to save “as many structures as possible and to protect critical infrastructure, including the wastewater treatment plant, communications facilities, the Trans Mountain pipeline and others”.

Jasper is being hit by fires from the north and south, and the town’s 5,000 residents – along with 20,000 more park visitors – fled at short notice late Monday night when the fires first flared.

Smith said she was “heartbroken”.

“We’re going to do whatever we can to put this fire out,” she said in a video posted to social media.

A record number of wildfires in 2023 forced more than 235,000 people across Canada to evacuate and sent thick smoke into parts of the US, leading to hazy skies and health warnings in multiple cities.

The northern fire was spotted about 3 miles (5km) from Jasper earlier on Wednesday. The southern fire had been reported about 5 miles (8km) away from the town but Katie Ellsworth, of Parks Canada, said strong gusts swooping in sent it racing and fire perimeters changed minute by minute.

Ellsworth said the decision to relocate all first responders to Hinton, just outside the eastern edge of the park, “has not been made lightly”.

She said: “Given the intensity of fire behaviour being observed, the decision has been made to limit the number of responders exposed to this risk.”

The United Nations designated the parks that comprise the Canadian Rockies, including Jasper, a world heritage site in 1984 because of the striking mountain landscape. Last year, the park received a record 2.48 million visitors.

Local people and visitors streamed out by the thousands late on Monday and Tuesday, and officials said on Wednesday the evacuation of the town of Jasper was complete.

Alberta has been baking under scorching temperatures that have already forced another 7,500 people out of remote communities. About 177 wildfires were burning across the province.

Leanne Maeva Joyeuse, who lives in Jasper, was relieved but exhausted after reaching the Grand Prairie evacuation centre following 20 hours on the road with her grandmother, parents and younger brother.

“We’re just waiting to go back home and see how many days we’re going to be stuck here,” Joyeuse said.

Some respite is expected, with heavy rain forecast in Jasper, possibly taming the blaze and giving fire crews a chance to regroup and to survey the toll of the wildfire.

Alberta’s premier expressed optimism that the town would “rebuild stronger” to ensure future generations could visit a place prized by Albertans and Canadians.

“To those in Alberta and around the world who have experienced the magic – the magic is not lost and never will be,” Smith said.

• The Pentagon has found $2bn worth of additional errors in its calculations for ammunition, missiles and other equipment sent to Ukraine, increasing the improperly valued material to a total of $8.2bn, a US government report revealed on Thursday. In 2023, the Pentagon said staff used “replacement value” instead of “depreciated value” to tabulate the billions in materials sent to Ukraine. The $6.2bn error created a path for billions more to be sent to Kyiv.

• Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has called on Hong Kong to prevent Russia and Russian businesses from using the region to circumvent sanctions. Kuleba met with Hong Kong leader John Lee as part of a visit to China. He called on the administration to prevent Russia from using Hong Kong to circumvent restrictions resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to a statement from the Ukrainian foreign affairs ministry. “These restrictive measures are necessary to weaken Russia’s potential to wage war and kill people in Ukraine,” the statement said.

• A court in Moscow on Thursday ordered the head of a defense ministry’s construction division to be detained for two months on suspicion of abuse of power, Russian news agencies reported, the latest in a series of arrests of high-ranking ministry officials this year. Andrei Belkov heads the Military Construction Company, which builds bases, hospitals, schools and other facilities for the military, according to its website.

• Russian and Chinese bombers flew together for the first time in international airspace off the coast of Alaska, in a new show of expanding military cooperation that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday raises concerns. The flights Wednesday were not seen as a threat but it was the first time that Chinese bomber aircraft have flown within the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone. And it was the first time Chinese and Russian aircraft have taken off from the same base in northeast Russia.

• The Turkish navy intercepted a marine drone in the Black Sea off Istanbul, authorities said, with media reporting that it contained explosives and might be Ukrainian. Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a number of mines suspected of having floated down from the conflict zone have been spotted off the Turkish coast. The public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation.

• Debris from what is believed to be a Russian drone landed in a rural area of Romania, the country’s Defense Ministry said Thursday, in the latest apparent incident of drone wreckage from the war in neighbouring Ukraine falling on to the Nato member’s soil.

• The Netherlands and Denmark are to deliver 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine “before the end of summer”, the Dutch defence minister announced Wednesday, saying Kyiv “urgently” needed more military support. The two countries bought the German-made tanks last year for 165mn euros ($186m) before sending them for refurbishment.

With Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters

Kamala Harris has accused Donald Trump of “backpedaling” from a previously agreed presidential debate in September, as the Trump campaign said that it would not agree to finalizing plans until Harris formally becomes the Democratic nominee.

Harris told reporters on Thursday that she was “ready to debate Donald Trump”. A debate, hosted by ABC News, was planned for 10 September.

“I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on the debate stage,” she said after landing at Joint Base Andrews following a trip to Indiana and Texas.

The September debate was one of two debates that Joe Biden and Trump had agreed on. The first one was hosted by CNN on 27 June, during which Biden delivered a disastrous performance that revived concerns he was too old for a second term and ultimately accelerated his decision to stand down as the Democratic candidate.

Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris as his successor, and Democrats have since rallied around her. This week the vice president earned enough delegate support to make her the nominee, but is not set to formally accept the nomination until the Democratic national convention in mid-August.

“General election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee,” said Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign communications director, in a statement late on Thursday.

“It would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds.”

Trump has said he would prefer to shift the debate to Fox News, but he would be willing to face off with Harris more than once.

Alex Conant, a Republican consultant, said the debate could be “decisive.” “It’s the only time voters really tune in,” he said.

This year’s campaign has already shown the potential power of a debate. Biden halting performance caused his support within the Democratic party crumbled, and he ended his re-election bid on Sunday.

Kamala Harris has accused Donald Trump of “backpedaling” from a previously agreed presidential debate in September, as the Trump campaign said that it would not agree to finalizing plans until Harris formally becomes the Democratic nominee.

Harris told reporters on Thursday that she was “ready to debate Donald Trump”. A debate, hosted by ABC News, was planned for 10 September.

“I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on the debate stage,” she said after landing at Joint Base Andrews following a trip to Indiana and Texas.

The September debate was one of two debates that Joe Biden and Trump had agreed on. The first one was hosted by CNN on 27 June, during which Biden delivered a disastrous performance that revived concerns he was too old for a second term and ultimately accelerated his decision to stand down as the Democratic candidate.

Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris as his successor, and Democrats have since rallied around her. This week the vice president earned enough delegate support to make her the nominee, but is not set to formally accept the nomination until the Democratic national convention in mid-August.

“General election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee,” said Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign communications director, in a statement late on Thursday.

“It would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds.”

Trump has said he would prefer to shift the debate to Fox News, but he would be willing to face off with Harris more than once.

Alex Conant, a Republican consultant, said the debate could be “decisive.” “It’s the only time voters really tune in,” he said.

This year’s campaign has already shown the potential power of a debate. Biden halting performance caused his support within the Democratic party crumbled, and he ended his re-election bid on Sunday.

A vast majority of Black Americans trust Kamala Harris and distrust Donald Trump – 71% compared to 5% – according to the largest-known survey of Black Americans since the Reconstruction era. The survey of 211,219 Black people across all 50 states showed that the presumptive Democratic nominee may have a higher chance of winning over Black voters than the Republican candidate.

At a virtual press conference on Thursday afternoon, the Black-led innovation thinktank Black Futures Lab, revealed findings from its 2023 Black Census, which was conducted with the help of 50 Black-led grassroots organizations and national partners across the country from February 2022 to October 2023. The latest survey garnered seven times the respondents from the first census in 2018, which received 30,000 responses. Two-thirds of the respondents were women, a majority were from the south, and nearly half were from 45 to 64 years old. Black Futures Lab believes that the census results will help inform voter mobilization efforts ahead of presidential and local elections.

“For us to be powerful in politics, we must control the agenda,” said Black Futures Lab’s field director Natishia June at the press conference. “This is why the Black Census is crucial.”

The top three issues that Black Americans are concerned about were low wages at 38%, gun violence at 33% and failing schools at 31%, according to the survey. Economic concerns were top of mind for survey respondents, with 97% reporting that they want college to be made more affordable, 95% want minimum wage increased to $15 an hour and 94% desire an expansion of government aid for those who need it. Government aid, according to survey respondents, could range from helping small businesses to increasing access to affordable housing.

“There’s this narrative in the media, and amongst folks that attack Black people, that Black folks just want handouts – and that’s further from the truth,” said the group’s principal, Kristin Powell. “What Black people want is the support that they’re investing in. If we’re giving tax dollars to this country, we want to get paid back.”

Black Americans trust small businesses more than any institutions, while they trust corporations, elected officials and police the least. “Small businesses being the most trusted makes a lot of sense,” said Powell, “as Black folks are investing more in building their own businesses and want that support to do that.”

When looking at party affiliation, the survey also revealed that 70% of respondents identified as Democratic, while 2% identified as Republican. Of the 23% of people who identify as independent, they still lean Democratic.

“There’s so much rhetoric about the independent voters, even Black independent voters, and that they’re up for grabs by either party. But the data doesn’t support that,” Powell added. “What the data says is that Black voters lean Democrat, and when they don’t feel like they’re delivered for, they then don’t vote at all.”

The data did reveal a voter turnout gap when it came to local elections: although respondents spoke at length about issues in their communities, they voted less in local elections compared to federal ones. “It’s really important that although there’s a presidential race happening right now, that we educate and activate voters around mayor’s races, city council, school boards, state legislature races,” Powell said, “in order to really make the bigger impact on their daily lives.”

The New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan nonprofit that engages Black and brown voters in Georgia, said that it will use the data to support policy positions that offer solutions to the local community’s concerns. The nonprofit was one of the local partner organizations that surveyed people face-to-face by tabling at large community events and at other hotspots.

Organizers plan to return to the areas where they collected the data to share the results with respondents “so that they can see themselves in this type of insight,” said the New Georgia Project’s research director, Ranada Robinson. The New Georgia Project also plans to use the research to show voters the power that they hold in local elections. The secretary of state decides who stays on the voter rolls, for instance, while the agricultural commissioner determines whether neighborhoods have fresh food.

“Research related to undercounted and underrepresented populations has to be designed to account for the skepticism and the lack of trust in systems that are usually not inclusive, but also to acknowledge the joy and hope that sustain our communities,” said Robinson. “Black voters need consistent interest and conversation and seeing the results of their civic engagement to build long-term power systems.”

The Manhattan prosecutors who secured Donald Trump’s historic criminal conviction disputed the former US president’s claim that the verdict should be set aside in the wake of a US supreme court ruling on presidential immunity.

In a court filing dated 24 July and made public on Thursday, the prosecutors said the supreme court’s ruling had no bearing on their case, which stemmed from hush money paid to a porn star.

“All of the evidence that he complains of either concerned wholly unofficial conduct, or, at most, official conduct for which any presumption of immunity has been rebutted,” prosecutors with Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office wrote.

Trump, the Republican nominee in the 5 November election, was convicted on 30 May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump.

Trump denies any encounter with Daniels and has vowed to appeal the guilty verdict. He is the first US president past or present to be convicted of a crime.

In a 6-3 ruling, the supreme court on July 1 ruled that presidents cannot face criminal charges over official acts, and that evidence of official acts cannot be used in a prosecution on private matters.

Legal experts say Judge Juan Merchan is unlikely to grant Trump’s request to toss the verdict, since much of the conduct at issue predated Trump’s 2017-21 presidency and relates to personal matters, not official acts.

But Merchan delayed Trump’s sentencing from 11 July to 18 September, less than two months before the election, to allow his lawyers the chance to make their case.

Two weeks ago, Trump’s defense lawyers urged the judge to toss the jury’s guilty verdict because prosecutors relied on evidence of his official acts during the trial, which they said was improper in light of the justices’ ruling.

Trump’s lawyers took issue with introduction of evidence of Twitter posts Trump made in 2018 about Cohen, which prosecutors said showed Trump was aware that his former lawyer had paid off Daniels. Defense lawyers said those posts were official communications.

In their Thursday filing, prosecutors said Trump made the posts in his “unofficial capacity”.

Merchan has said he will decide on Trump’s arguments by 6 September. If the conviction is upheld, the case will proceed to sentencing. Once he is sentenced, Trump could formally appeal the verdict and the sentencing to a higher-level state court.

OpenAI is testing a new search engine that uses generative artificial intelligence to produce results, raising the prospect of a significant challenge to Google’s dominance of the online search market.

SearchGPT will launch with a small group of users and publishers before a potential wider rollout, the company announced on Thursday. OpenAI ultimately intends to incorporate the search features into ChatGPT, rather offer a standalone product.

OpenAI said SearchGPT is a temporary prototype that will combine the company’s AI models, such as ChatGPT, with the ability to search the internet. It will respond conversationally to searches, while providing up-to-date information with “clear links to relevant sources”.

The search feature positions the company as a direct competitor to major search engines, most notably Google but also Bing, a product of OpenAI’s biggest investor Microsoft.

Integrating generative AI into search engines has become something of an arms race among tech companies, even as AI has a track record of producing inaccurate results and posing copyright concerns.

“Getting answers on the web can take a lot of effort, often requiring multiple attempts to get relevant results,” OpenAI said in a blogpost which hailed “a new way” to search. “We believe that by enhancing the conversational capabilities of our models with real-time information from the web, finding what you’re looking for can be faster and easier.”

Depending on how SearchGPT presents and cites the sources of its information, it risks intensifying a pushback from publishers on how OpenAI uses their content.

Multiple news outlets and media organizations, including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Intercept and a host of local papers, have taken legal action against the company in recent months over alleged copyright violations. They argue that OpenAI illegally trained its AI models on their published work without consent or compensation, profiting off of protected material and in effect plagiarizing their work.

OpenAI has rejected the contention that its use of copyrighted data in training products like ChatGPT was illegal, instead arguing that its services create something new and fall under the doctrine of “fair use”.

Other companies’ forays into AI-generated search have also resulted in backlash from users and publishers. Google recently launched its own AI-enabled search feature, called AI Overviews, that summarizes content from search results without requiring users to click through to other websites.

Although Google touted the feature’s success in an earnings call this week, its rollout was met with criticism from publishers and creators concerned that AI Overviews sap traffic and advertising revenue away from their sites.

Another prominent AI-powered search engine, Perplexity, can produce results that are nearly identical to text from the news articles it uses as sources. Multiple publishers have sent Perplexity legal threats and demanded the search engine cease using their content in results.

OpenAI said it was partnering with publishers for SearchGPT, and offering them options about how their content appears within its results, as well as seeking to ensure it promotes trusted sources.

The company’s press release included statements from the CEO of the Atlantic and the chief executive of News Corp, both of whom struck reportedly lucrative content deals with OpenAI, praising AI-enabled search as the future of the internet.

OpenAI’s possible shake-up to the online search industry comes as Google faces a looming court decision in a landmark antitrust lawsuit brought by US Department of Justice. The suit alleged that the tech giant illegally monopolized the internet search industry through multibillion-dollar deals with companies such as Apple and Samsung to make it the default browser on their devices.

A “sadistic and manipulative” former Spandau Ballet singer has been found guilty of rape and sexual assault.

Ross Davidson, 36, was convicted of assaults against three women at Wood Green crown court on Thursday. The former singer, who fronted the band between 2017 and 2019 under the stage name Ross Wild, expressed no emotion when the verdict was read out.

The court was told that Davidson wanted intercourse up to six times a night and forced himself on women who refused him. The singer had denied a series of sex offences dating between 2013 and 2023, telling the court: “I have never raped, sexually assaulted or coerced any woman in my life.”

He was found guilty of raping one woman and of sexually assaulting two others. Jurors acquitted him of one count of sexual assault against the woman he raped. Davidson was also convicted of voyeurism.

He was cleared of a charge of controlling and coercive behaviour relating to one of the victims. The guilty verdicts were reached with a majority of either 10-2 or 11-1 after 11 hours and 57 minutes.

The court heard that Davidson had a secret desire to have sex with women while they slept and “got a kick” out of filming the abuse.

He told the court he was interested in “dress up, sleep play, and I’m open to other [kinks]”. “What sleep play is for me is a little sex game where somebody is pretending to be asleep and trying not to react while someone stimulates them sexually,” he said.

“It never lasts more than a couple of minutes before both sides can’t help but take part in it. It’s like a cheeky game.”

The prosecutor, Richard Hearnden, described Ross at an earlier hearing as a “bit of a sex symbol” with a “darker side”.

Hearnden said: “He is very good looking and physically fit. He sings, plays the guitar, and is said to be charming and charismatic. His darker side is not the first thing that many women and girls notice about him.

“But the women in this case can all attest to that sinister part of his personality. He has raped and sexually assaulted a number of young women over the last decade.”

Davidson was arrested at his home on 30 March 2021. He was interviewed by police, to whom he insisted “everything was consensual between him and the women concerned and played up that he was unconventional in his sexual tastes”.

Davidson will be remanded in custody until his sentencing on 6 September.