The opposition leader battling to bring the curtains down on Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime has urged the Venezuelan strongman to accept that his exit from power is inevitable. The call came as thousands of protesters hit the streets to repudiate Maduro’s disputed claim to have won a third term in power.

Venezuela’s incumbent president was officially proclaimed the victor of Sunday’s election by the government-controlled electoral authority on Monday morning. Maduro called his supposed victory “irreversible” despite widespread international doubts over the veracity of his claim to have won.

But speaking to the Guardian, María Corina Machado, the charismatic conservative who is the driving force behind Maduro’s opponent in Sunday’s election, urged the president to come to terms with the end of his 11-year rule during which Venezuela fell into a devastating economic and humanitarian crisis that has forced millions to flee abroad.

“He should understand that he was defeated,” she said of Maduro, who was democratically elected after the 2013 death of his mentor, president Hugo Chávez, but has since taken Venezuelan in an increasingly repressive and anti-democratic direction.

Machado rejected Maduro’s earlier claim that his re-election was “irreversible”. “I would say his departure is irreversible,” she said.

Minutes earlier, Machado and Edmundo González, a former diplomat who ran for the presidency in her place after she was banned, claimed their campaign now had hard evidence that González had secured a landslide victory in Sunday’s vote.

Maduro has claimed he beat González, with more than 5.1m votes to his rival’s 4.4m. But Machado, who some call Venezuela’s “iron lady”, insisted her candidate had in fact prevailed with more than 6.2m votes compared to Maduro’s 2.7m.

“Edmundo González is the president-elect,” she declared to ecstatic cheers from hundreds of supporters who had packed the street outside their hillside campaign HQ beneath Caracas’s towering El Ávila mountain.

As Machado addressed the throng, thousands of dissenters remained on the streets of Caracas and other cities after a day of demonstrations that saw several violent clashes with security forces and pro-Maduro paramilitaries.

Remarkably, many of those protesters came from sprawling hillside slums long considered bastions of the chavismo movement that has governed Venezuela for the last 25 years.

As Rafael Cantillo marched through Caracas alongside hundreds of fellow residents of one such community, he shook with rage. “Maduro stole these elections … it’s a swindle – everyone knows it,” fumed the 45-year-old who hails from a vast working-class enclave called Petare.

Nearby, another community leader from Petare, ️Katiuska Camargo, claimed Maduro had suffered a conclusive defeat in such communities where residents were tired of the deprivation his administration had overseen. “This man did not win. He did not!” she said as the crowd swelled.

As the Petare protesters strode west towards the city centre and the presidential palace, they chanted: “Petare is here. And Edmundo is presidente!”

Throughout the day social media filled with reports of opposition marches originating in poor communities across town and clashes with security forces and pro-Maduro motorbike gangs known as colectivos who were filmed shooting into the air.

“What is happening isn’t just fraud, it is a coup d’état,” said Jesús Herrera, a 37-year-old cook, as he joined one march. Herrera said the people who had taken to the streets were “moved by [Maduro’s] lie”. “It’s such an obvious lie,” he said of the president’s claim to have won re-election when polls had given his rival a major lead. “Everyone thinks the same thing.”

There were also protests in other parts of Venezuela, with at least three statues of Hugo Chávez torn down during the day. Many compared those scenes to the dramatic images of a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled in downtown Baghdad during the Iraq war. In Portuguesa state, protesters were filmed vandalizing a propaganda billboard featuring a photograph of Maduro and a slogan promising “More changes and transformation”.

On Monday night there were also reports that protesters had stormed the Maiquetía international airport on the coast just north of Caracas. At least one incoming flight was delayed.

Maduro’s allies, who blame Venezuela’s economic woes on US sanctions, called its own protests for Tuesday afternoon in an attempt to show popular support likely to further inflame tensions on the streets of Caracas.

In a televised address, Maduro claimed groups of “delinquents” had invaded the regional offices of the electoral authority in the city of Coro. The president said such actions were part of “a violent counter-revolution” being waged by criminal and fascist far-right extremists.

“The law must be respected,” Maduro declared, claiming such activities were designed to spark “an escalation of violence” that would ultimately lead to the opposition’s “golden dream – seizing power”.

“The gringos are behind this plan,” Maduro claimed.

A frantic diplomatic push to deter Israel from striking Beirut in response to a deadly rocket attack on the Golan Heights was under way on Monday, as the government of the UK, Germany, France and America issued travel warnings to their citizens, calling on them to leave Lebanon or avoid travel there.

British foreign secretary David Lammy said events were “fast-moving” and that British nationals were advised “to leave Lebanon and not to travel to the country.”

In its travel guidance, the UK Foreign Office warned events in the region could escalate with “little warning” and leave commercial routes out of Lebanon severely disrupted. “Do not rely on FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] being able to evacuate you in an emergency,” it added.

Rena Bitter, the assistant secretary for consular affairs at the US embassy in Beirut used a video on X to tell Americans in Lebanon to “create a crisis plan of action and leave before the crisis begins”.

Some flights to and from Beirut’s international airport have been cancelled this week, with Jordan’s flag carrier, Royal Jordanian, becoming the latest on Monday, suspending flights until at least Tuesday.

Washington is racing to avert a full-blown war between Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah after the attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan killed 12 youths at the weekend. Israel and the US have blamed Hezbollah for the rocket strike, though the group has denied responsibility.

The US has reportedly focused its high-speed diplomacy on constraining Israel’s response by urging it against targeting densely populated Beirut, the southern suburbs of the city that form Hezbollah’s heartland, or key infrastructure like airports and bridges.

Lebanon’s deputy parliament speaker Elias Bou Saab, who said he had been in contact with US mediators since Saturday’s Golan attack, told Reuters that Israel could avert the threat of major escalation by sparing the capital and its environs.

“If they avoid civilians and they avoid Beirut and its suburbs, then their attack could be well calculated,” he said.

A spokesperson for the national security council told the Guardian that Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu had not spoken since the rocket attack but stressed that US officials had been in regular contact with both Lebanese and Israeli officials since the strike.

Lebanese foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib said the flurry of diplomatic activity has sought to contain the anticipated Israeli response, but an attack was expected.

“Israel will escalate in a limited way and Hezbollah will respond in a limited way … These are the assurances we’ve received,” Bou Habib said in an interview with local broadcaster Al-Jadeed.’

The Israeli calculation that it could conduct a large volume of strikes deeper into Lebanese territory, strike targets in Beirut or even hit facilities belonging to the Lebanese state rather than the militant group could prove to be high-risk strategies, Danny Citrinowicz, an analyst with Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, said.

On Monday, Netanyahu, promised a “harsh” response to the rocket strike on the occupied Golan Heights, saying, “the state of Israel will not and cannot let this pass.

In a briefing to reporters, John Kirby, the White House national security council communications adviser, called warnings of all-out war “exaggerated”.

“Nobody wants a broader war, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to avoid such an outcome,” Kirby said. “I’ll let the Israelis speak to whatever their response is going to be.”

Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian, whose country supports Hezbollah and Hamas, warned Israel against attacking Lebanon, which he said would be “a great mistake with heavy consequences”.

Pezeshkian spoke with French president Emmanuel Macron on Monday, with the Élysée Palace saying Macron told his counterpart “all must be done to avoid a military escalation” and urging Tehran to “cease its support for destabilising actors”.

Reuters, Agence France-Presse and PA Media contributed to this report

An investigation by the Israeli military into the alleged abuse of a Palestinian detainee at a notorious military detention camp for prisoners captured in Gaza has sparked protests from members of Israel’s far right.

The Israeli military said on Monday the office of its advocate general ordered an inquiry “following suspected substantial abuse of a detainee” at the Sde Teiman facility, which holds Palestinian detainees, including alleged members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba forces involved in the 7 October attack.

Israel’s army radio said military police arrived at Sde Teiman as part of their investigation of 10 reserve IDF soldiers who were suspected of abusing the prisoner, a member of the Nukhba forces who has been classed as an “illegal combatant”.

The alleged abuse took place three weeks ago, they added. The detainee was found “in a very serious condition”, requiring his evacuation to a nearby hospital where he underwent surgery.

Nine soldiers were detained, accused of “serious abuse of a detainee”, according to Israel’s army radio, while the 10th was expected to be arrested later as he was not at the base when the police arrived.

But the operation triggered an angry confrontation between the military police and IDF soldiers at Sde Teiman, captured on video by a reporter from Israel’s public broadcaster Kann News.

The detentions also prompted outcry from members of Israel’s far right, including a coalition of extreme-right members of parliament and their supporters who attempted to storm the military base in protest. Late on Monday, protesters also targeted a second base where the soldiers were being questioned, with violent confrontations continuing into the evening.

Natan Sachs, head of the centre for Middle East policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, called the protests “a sign of a very, very troubled time”.

“I am very worried about the tensions that this reflects in society,” he said.

Officials from Israel’s military and political establishment were quick to condemn the intrusion on to the military base, but some limited their comments on the alleged abuse – and its potential impact on Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has pledged “total victory” in Gaza, “strongly condemned” the attempted break-in at Sde Teiman, but made no comment on the allegations.

The defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said that “even in difficult times, the law applies to everyone – nobody may trespass into IDF bases or violate the laws of the state of Israel”.

The Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, called for calm, but said that hatred towards some of those accused of terrorist acts “is surely understandable and justified”.

The IDF’s chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, defended the investigation, and said: “The incident of breaking into the Sde Teiman base is extremely serious and against the law … we are at war, and actions of this kind endanger the security of the country.”

But Yariv Levin, Israel’s minister of justice and a member of Netanyahu’s political party, said he was “shocked” to see the images of soldiers arrested at Sde Teiman, “in a way suitable for arresting dangerous criminals”.

He added: “It is impossible to accept this, even if there is no debate regarding the obligation to observe the law and the orders of the army.”

A recent report by the UN Palestinian affairs agency, Unrwa, detailed extensive abuse at Sde Teiman, where detainees were “subjected to beatings while made to lie on a thin mattress on top of rubble for hours without food, water or access to a toilet, with their legs and hands bound with plastic ties”.

Detainees including children “reported being forced into cages and attacked by dogs”, they said, while others had lasting wounds from their beatings, including with metal bars.

Detainees also described abuse that included “insults and humiliation such as being made to act like animals or getting urinated on, use of loud music and noise, deprivation of water, food, sleep and toilets, denial of the right to pray and prolonged use of tightly locked handcuffs causing open wounds and friction injuries”, the report said.

The UN said in June that an estimated 27 detainees have died in custody on Israeli military bases, including Sde Teiman, while at least four more have died in the Israeli prison system due to beatings or denial of medical treatment.

Rights groups including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel have petitioned Israel’s high court to close Sde Teiman due to widespread reports of abuse.

While officials have pledged to remove most of the detainees from the facility and transfer them into the Israeli prison system, which has also been accused of abusing detained Palestinians, the nature of any closure or transfers at Sde Teiman remains opaque.

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel said “since the beginning of the war, we claimed that the Sde Teiman was operating as an ‘ex-territory’, and the soldiers stationed there were acting outside any law – first in their treatment of detainees, and now towards military law enforcement agents.”

They added: “Instead of absolute condemnation, some Israeli far-right leaders have rallied to support the suspects of abuse, which is emblematic of the root causes that enable such abuse to happen in the first place.”

Democrats have expressed outrage after Donald Trump told a group of Christian supporters on Friday that if he wins the presidency in November, they would never need to vote again.

“Christians, get out and vote, just this time,” the former president and current presidential nominee told the crowd at at Turning Point Action’s Believers’ Summit on Friday. “You won’t have to do it any more. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians.”

“You got to get out and vote,” Trump continued. “In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”

A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign told the Washington Post that Trump “was talking about uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt”.

But Trump’s comments spread quickly across media, causing outrage and alarm among many Democrats and others, who called the remarks “terrifying”, authoritarian and anti-democratic.

The Kamala Harris 2024 campaign said in a statement responding to Trump’s remarks, that the upcoming election was about freedom, adding that democracy was “under assault” by Trump.

“After the last election Trump lost, he sent a mob to overturn the results,” the statement reads. “This campaign, he has promised violence if he loses, the end of our elections if he wins, and the termination of the constitution to empower him to be a dictator to enact his dangerous Project 2025 agenda on America.”

The representative Adam Schiff echoed that democracy was on the ballot in November, adding that “if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism.”

Trump’s remark, he said, “helpfully reminds us that the alternative is never having the chance to vote again”.

The congressman Daniel Goldman, who represents New York, also chimed in, stating: “the only way ‘you won’t have to vote anymore’ is if Donald Trump becomes a dictator”, and the representative Pramila Jayapal called the remarks “terrifying” on social media.

The constitutional and civil rights attorney Andrew Seidel replied to video of Trump’s comments on Friday by writing: “This is not subtle Christian nationalism. He’s talking about ending our democracy and installing a Christian nation.”

Caty Payette, the communications director for the Democratic US senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, added in a separate X post: “When we say Trump is a threat to democracy, this is exactly what we’re talking about.”

Jaime Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, pointed to past comments Trump has made, where he said he would be a dictator on “day one” if he wins the presidency.

During that December town hall on Fox News, the host Sean Hannity asked the former president: “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?”

“Except for day one,” Trump responded, adding: “I wanna close the border and I wanna drill drill drill.”

Last month, the former president made similar suggestions in front of a different Christian audience, according to the Washington Post.

“You gotta get out and vote, just this time,” Trump said at that time. “In four years you don’t have to vote, ok? In four years don’t vote, I don’t care. But we’ll have it all straightened out, so it’ll be much different.”

Trump has also flirted with the idea of being president for three terms.

“You know, FDR 16 years – almost 16 years – he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” Trump said in May to the annual convention of National Rifle Association in Dallas, prompting some in the crowd to yell “three!” Politico reported.

Questions continued to mount about the political transformation of Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, after the release of emails from a former friend in which Vance called Trump a “morally reprehensible human being” and said: “I hate the police.”

The messages between Vance and Sofia Nelson, who sent them to the New York Times, were largely dated between 2014 and 2017. In one, Vance sent Nelson a section of Hillbilly Elegy, his bestseller about his Appalachian boyhood.

“Here’s an excerpt from my book. I send this to you not just to brag, but because I’m sure if you read it you’ll notice reference to ‘an extremely progressive lesbian’,” Vance wrote.

“I recognise now that this may not accurately reflect how you think of yourself, and for that I am really sorry. I hope you’re not offended, but if you are, I’m sorry! Love you, JD.”

Nelson answered: “If you had written gender queer radical pragmatist, nobody would know what you mean.”

Nelson told the Times that after his transition-related surgery, Vance brought baked goods and expressed support.

“The content of the conversation was, ‘I don’t understand what you’re doing, but I support you,’” he explained. “And that meant a lot to me at the time, because I think that was the foundation of our friendship.”

Vance last year introduced a bill, the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, to ban minors from accessing puberty blockers, hormone therapy and other transition-related medical care.

His remarks to Nelson about Trump seem to follow a similar pattern of support for positions he has since come to reject totally, an issue that has dogged Vance since his introduction as Trump’s running mate at the Republican convention this month.

He has previously called Trump “America’s Hitler” and “cultural heroin”. And in one of the emails from 2016, Vance told Nelson: “The more white people feel like voting for Trump, the more Black people will suffer. I really believe that.”

He also called Trump “a disaster” and “a bad man”. Later, after Trump beat Hillary Clinton, Vance told Nelson he was “deeply pessimistic”.

Bad polling, awkward speeches and Democrats seizing on Vance’s misogynistic remarks about women without children, whom he called “cat ladies”, have spurred some reports that high-profile Republicans view Trump’s pick as a mistake.

A spokesperson said: “Senator Vance … has been open about the fact that some of his views from a decade ago began to change after becoming a dad and starting a family, and he has thoroughly explained why he changed his mind on President Trump. Despite their disagreements, Senator Vance cares for Sofia and wishes Sofia the very best.”

But Nelson’s emails showed Vance voicing other opinions starkly at odds with Trumpist views.

In 2014, after the killing of Michael Brown, a young Black man from Ferguson, Missouri, Vance wrote: “I hate the police. Given the number of negative experiences I’ve had in the past few years, I can’t imagine what a Black guy goes through.”

Vance and Nelson also discussed reparations and the flying of Confederate flags.

“I think you’re my only liberal friend with whom I talk openly about politics on a deeper sense,” Vance wrote.

In 2015, as Trump homed in on the Republican nomination, Vance discussed the real estate magnate and reality TV star’s appeal.

“If you look at the polling, the issue where Trump gets the most support is on the economy,” Vance said. “If the response of the media, and the elites of both right and left, are to just say, ‘Look at those dumb racists supporting Trump,’ then they’re never going to learn the most important lesson of Trump’s candidacy.

“… If he would just tone down the racism, I would literally be his biggest supporter.”

Vance also said he was “outraged at Trump’s rhetoric, and I worry most of all about how welcome Muslim citizens feel in their own country. And there have always been demagogues willing to exploit the people who believe crazy shit. What seems different to me is that the Republican party offers nothing that’s as attractive as the demagogue.”

By 2021, though, Vance was exploring an entry into Republican politics. The messages reveal that he and Nelson disagreed about transgender issues, particularly relating to children.

Nelson wrote: “I know I can’t change your mind but the political voice you have become seems so far from the man I got to know in law school.”

“I will always love you, but I really do think the left’s cultural progressivism is making it harder for normal people to live their lives,” Vance replied.

Kamala Harris will announce her running mate for the US presidential election against Donald Trump and JD Vance “in the next six, seven days”, an influential Democratic campaign co-chair said.

“I would imagine we’ll know who her running mate is, and we’ll get ready for the convention,” Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, told CBS on Monday, referring to Democrats’ national gathering in Chicago next month.

Whitmer also said she was not under consideration herself.

“I have communicated with everyone, including the people of Michigan, that I’m going to stay as governor until the end of my term at the end of 2026,” Whitmer said.

Harris is widely reported to have narrowed her field of possible picks to three – all white men from states expected to play key roles in the November election. On Sunday, a new poll said the navy pilot and astronaut turned Arizona senator Mark Kelly was seen most favourably by voters.

According to ABC News and Ipsos, 22% of respondents saw Kelly in a favourable light against 12% who did not, giving him a net favourability of +10.

The two other men widely reported to be in the final reckoning are the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, and Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania. In the ABC/Ipsos poll, Walz scored -1 for favourability, Shapiro +4.

Strikingly, Kelly’s favourability rating was a striking 25 points better than that of Vance, the Ohio senator whose first steps in support of Trump have been beset by controversy and Democratic attacks, leading to reports of doubts among senior Republicans.

Under fire for misogynistic comments including disparaging leading Democrats as “childless cat ladies”, and widely shown to have said he despised Trump before changing his tune, Vance’s favourability rating in the ABC/Ipsos poll was -15, a poor score surpassed only by Trump himself, at -16.

Lest Kelly supporters get too confident, the ABC/Ipsos poll also noted that he and most other potential Democratic picks “remain unknown to large sections of the American public”. Among all possible Democratic nominees for vice-president, the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg (+4 favourability), and the governor of California, Gavin Newsom (-12), were the best-known to voters.

Harris was seen favourably by 43% of voters and unfavourably by 42%. Among possible picks who might help boost that rating, Kelly represents a border state, central to the fight over immigration, and is married to Gabby Giffords, a former congresswoman who survived a shooting and campaigns for gun control reform.

Shapiro governs a rust belt state that proved pivotal in 2016, when Trump won it, and in 2020, when it went for Joe Biden.

Walz’s state, Minnesota, has voted for the Democrat in every presidential election since 1976 but Trump has targeted it this year, trumpeting polling gains before Biden dropped out of the race.

Biden, 81, withdrew from his re-election campaign amid polling that showed most Americans thought him too old to be president. That means that, at 78, Trump is now the oldest candidate ever to run for the White House.

Whitmer told CBS she expected a “convention of happy warriors” in Chicago. Harris advisers are reportedly placing emphasis on potential running mates’ ability to take the fight to Vance, who they want to portray as too inexperienced to step up should Trump fail to serve a full term.

Now 39, Vance was a US marine, a bestselling author and a venture capitalist before winning a US Senate seat in 2022.

On Monday, Mitch Landrieu, a Harris campaign co-chair, called Vance “one of the most unprepared people … ever put up to hold the vice-presidency of the United States”.

Landrieu told CNN: “He’s never run anything. And he’s about to be one heartbeat away from the largest entity in the world, and the one that’s the most important.

“So it’s a fair question to ask: ‘How would we know whether you have the capability to run domestic and national security policy for the most powerful country in the world, which you may be called to do on a moment’s notice?’”

Kelly, 60, was elected to the Senate in 2020. Walz, 60 and a former teacher and national guard sergeant, was a US congressman for six terms from 2006 before being elected governor of Minnesota in 2018. Shapiro, 51, sat in the Pennsylvania state house before becoming state attorney general in 2017, then governor in 2023.

CNN quoted “a Harris adviser” as saying the running-mate selection process would be informed by Harris’s own experience.

Now 59, Harris was a former California attorney general and US senator when she was picked by Biden in 2020. Her four years as vice-president have generated reports of struggles but also effective displays on key campaign issues, particularly threats to abortion rights.

“She knows the challenges of this world in a way that you have to have somebody who has a deep amount of resilience,” the unnamed adviser told CNN.

A campaign spokesperson, James Singer, told the same network Harris would “select a vice-president who is qualified and ready to serve the American people, protect their freedoms, and fight for their future”.

All three men reportedly under closest consideration have chosen their words with care.

“This is not about me,” Kelly told reporters. “But always, always when I’ve had the chance to serve, I think that’s very important to do.”

Walz said: “Being mentioned is certainly an honour. I trust Vice-President Harris’s judgment … I would do what is in the best interests of the country.”

Shapiro said Harris would “make that decision when she is ready, and I have all the confidence in the world that she will make that decision, along with many others, in the best interests of the Amercian people”.

Two lawmakers seen as strong contenders in the race to become Kamala Harris’s running mate have announced that they are not in the running. On Monday, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and North Carolina governor Roy Cooper both said that while they support the vice-president, they will be staying in their posts in their respective states.

“This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket,” Cooper said in a statement posted to Twitter/X on Monday. “As I’ve said from the beginning, she has an outstanding list of people from which to choose, and we’ll all work to make sure she wins.”

In an interview with CBS, Whitmer said that she has not been vetted by Harris’s office and expects Harris’s to announce her pick within the week, which would confirm the Democratic ticket at least two weeks before the Democratic national convention begins on 19 August in Chicago.

“I have communicated with everyone, including the people of Michigan, that I’m going to stay as governor until the end of my term at the end of 2026,” Whitmer said.

Others rumored to be potential running mates are all white men who govern in swing states that can decide the 2024 election. They include: Kentucky governor Andy Beshear; Minnesota governor Tim Walz; Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro; and Mark Kelly, a US Senator in Arizona.

While all four have been asked about their willingness to serve as Harris’s running mate if tapped, all have signaled that they would step up if asked but none have hinted at their engagements with her campaign.

“This is not about me. But I’ve always, always said when I’ve had the chance to serve, I think that’s very important to do,” Kelly told reporters on 25 July.

“Being mentioned is certainly an honor … I trust Vice-President Harris’s judgement, she’ll make the best choice she’s going to,” Walz told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday. “But one way or another, she’s going to win in November and that’s gonna benefit everyone … Either way it’s gonna be a win.”

During a campaign stop for Harris in Pittsburgh, Shapiro said: “It’s a decision she needs to make who she wants to govern with, who she wants to campaign with, and who can be there to serve alongside her.”

And Beshear, who has also been stumping for Harris in red and purple jurisdictions, told the Des Moines Register newspaper: “I’m honored to be considered and, regardless of what happens, I’m going to work every day between now and Election Day to make sure that Kamala Harris is the next president of the United States.”

Wind turbines and solar panels have overtaken fossil fuels to generate 30% of the European Union’s electricity in the first half of the year, a report has found.

Power generation from burning coal, oil and gas fell 17% in the first six months of 2024 compared with the same period the year before, according to climate thinktank Ember. It found the continued shift away from polluting fuels has led to a one-third drop in the sector’s emissions since the first half of 2022.

Chris Rosslowe, an analyst at Ember, said the rise of wind and solar was narrowing the role of fossil fuels. “We are witnessing a historic shift in the power sector, and it is happening rapidly.”

The report found EU power plants burned 24% less coal and 14% less gas from the first half of 2023 to the first half of 2024. The shift comes despite a small uptick in electricity demand that has followed two years of decline linked to the pandemic and Ukraine war.

“If member states can keep momentum up on wind and solar deployment then freedom from fossil power reliance will truly start to come into view,” said Rosslowe.

Europe is among the biggest historical polluters that have contributed the planet-heating gas that has made extreme weather more violent, but it also has some of the most ambitious targets to clean up its economy. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European leaders have sped up their shift to renewables with stronger rhetoric and looser permitting rules.

But while solar power has boomed, the wind industry has struggled with high inflation on top of continued opposition from politicians and the public. The EU installed a record 16.2GW of new wind power capacity in 2023, according to the lobby group Wind Power Europe, but this was about half of what was needed that year to meet its climate targets for the end of the decade.

Scenarios modelled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and International Energy Agency show that most of the electricity needed to power a clean economy will come from rays of sunlight shining on panels and gusts of wind spinning turbines.

The Ember report found 13 member states generated more electricity from wind and solar than from fossil fuels in the first half of the year. Germany, Belgium, Hungary and the Netherlands hit that milestone for the first time, the authors found.

Andrea Hahmann, a scientist at Denmark Technical University who co-wrote an IPCC report chapter on energy systems, said the development was “significant but not surprising”.

“Strong winds were prevalent during the first six months of 2024 in northern Europe, where most wind energy is generated,” she said. “The ‘crossing of the lines’ demonstrates that the EU’s electricity transition is possible, and we should not give in to pessimism. The renewable energy targets that must be met are substantial but achievable with the proper policy measures.”

Wind turbines and solar panels have overtaken fossil fuels to generate 30% of the European Union’s electricity in the first half of the year, a report has found.

Power generation from burning coal, oil and gas fell 17% in the first six months of 2024 compared with the same period the year before, according to climate thinktank Ember. It found the continued shift away from polluting fuels has led to a one-third drop in the sector’s emissions since the first half of 2022.

Chris Rosslowe, an analyst at Ember, said the rise of wind and solar was narrowing the role of fossil fuels. “We are witnessing a historic shift in the power sector, and it is happening rapidly.”

The report found EU power plants burned 24% less coal and 14% less gas from the first half of 2023 to the first half of 2024. The shift comes despite a small uptick in electricity demand that has followed two years of decline linked to the pandemic and Ukraine war.

“If member states can keep momentum up on wind and solar deployment then freedom from fossil power reliance will truly start to come into view,” said Rosslowe.

Europe is among the biggest historical polluters that have contributed the planet-heating gas that has made extreme weather more violent, but it also has some of the most ambitious targets to clean up its economy. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European leaders have sped up their shift to renewables with stronger rhetoric and looser permitting rules.

But while solar power has boomed, the wind industry has struggled with high inflation on top of continued opposition from politicians and the public. The EU installed a record 16.2GW of new wind power capacity in 2023, according to the lobby group Wind Power Europe, but this was about half of what was needed that year to meet its climate targets for the end of the decade.

Scenarios modelled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and International Energy Agency show that most of the electricity needed to power a clean economy will come from rays of sunlight shining on panels and gusts of wind spinning turbines.

The Ember report found 13 member states generated more electricity from wind and solar than from fossil fuels in the first half of the year. Germany, Belgium, Hungary and the Netherlands hit that milestone for the first time, the authors found.

Andrea Hahmann, a scientist at Denmark Technical University who co-wrote an IPCC report chapter on energy systems, said the development was “significant but not surprising”.

“Strong winds were prevalent during the first six months of 2024 in northern Europe, where most wind energy is generated,” she said. “The ‘crossing of the lines’ demonstrates that the EU’s electricity transition is possible, and we should not give in to pessimism. The renewable energy targets that must be met are substantial but achievable with the proper policy measures.”

Authorities in EU member states are not doing enough to investigate credible reports of violations of human rights, including deaths, on their borders, an EU human rights body has said.

The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) said human rights agencies and NGOs were reporting “serious, recurrent and widespread rights violations against migrants and refugees during border management” but despite “credible” reports many were not investigated.

An increasing number of cases are going to the European court of human rights, raising questions about border management in at least three countries, it said.

“National authorities in Greece, Croatia and Hungary did not effectively investigate incidents of ill treatment and loss of life during border management.

“Examples include insufficient efforts to locate and hear victims and witnesses, hindering lawyers in their work and not having access to key evidence (eg footage from border surveillance).”

Greece’s migration policies have been in the spotlight since the Adriana, an overcrowded fishing boat, sank in June last year with the loss of an estimated 500-650 lives.

The FRA cited five examples highlighting what it considered a flawed approach to loss of life and allegations of violence across Europe’s frontier states. In one of the most egregious cases, it cited the discovery of an unaccompanied child who was found unconscious with a fractured skull and swollen lip in France by volunteers.

The child had been apprehended by police after hiding in a truck destined for the UK. The case, and allegations of possible police involvement, was reported to the public prosecutor in Boulogne-sur-Mer but the child could not be found later.

In 2020, the Croatian police intercepted four Afghans who entered the country irregularly. According to the rights agency, they were held for two days, humiliated and beaten. The incident is being investigated but according to the victims’ lawyer the perpetrators have not been identified.

In April 2020, Maltese authorities instructed a fishing vessel to take a boat in distress back to Libya. In six days at sea 12 people died or went missing. A magistrate concluded there was no prima facie evidence for criminal charges, the FRA said.

In June 2022, two Palestinians recognised by Greece as refugees were allegedly subjected to physical and sexual abuse and abandoned on a life raft at sea after being stopped by police in Kos. The Turkish coastguard rescued them and an official complaint is still pending before the Greek public prosecutor.

The FRA director, Sirpa Rautio, said: “There are too many allegations of human rights violations at the EU’s borders. Europe has a duty to treat everyone at the borders fairly, respectfully and in full compliance with human rights law.”

The agency has drawn up a 10-point plan including regular guidance and training for local prosecutors and investigators on how to protect victims and how to collect and preserve evidence, including mobile phone data.

Facilitation of victims’ participation in criminal proceedings and their protection was paramount, the report said.

The report added: “Investigative authorities should request records of border surveillance and body cameras, global position systems, records of patrol cars and officers’ phones”.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has begun working from the presidential palace in the country’s ambitious new administrative capital, the flagship project of his two terms in office but which has been plagued by delays.

The capital is due to move from traffic-clogged and sinking Jakarta to the planned city of Nusantara in East Kalimantan province on Borneo, but the $33bn project announced in 2019 is months – even years – behind schedule.

“I couldn’t sleep well … maybe because it was my first time,” Jokowi, as the president is known, told reporters after his first night in the palace on Monday. The palace is 90% complete and Jokowi said that thousands of workers were still on site.

“They still clean and furnish it. Everything is in good progress,” he said. “There’s no problem with the water and electricity … The internet also works well.” It was not clear how long he planned to work there.

Nusantara is scheduled to hold its first ever Indonesia Independence Day celebration on 17 August, which is also expected to be the official transfer of the capital city from Jakarta, about 1,200 km (750 miles) away.

Its relocation plan has come into question, however, amid slow construction progress and missed deadlines, forcing the resignations of the head of the Nusantara Capital Authority and his deputy last month.

Most of the new city’s buildings are unfinished, with several ministry buildings only with their lower floors usable. Delays have also affected plans to relocate 12,000 civil servants to Nusantara starting from July. Administrative and bureaucratic reform minister Abdullah Azwar Anas has said the relocation timeline will be adjusted according to “infrastructure readiness”.

Earlier this month Jokowi said Nusantara would be about 15% complete by Independence Day, but the whole city is not expected to be complete until 2045.

Widodo’s administration has relied heavily on private investment to build the city, with the state only shouldering 20% of the cost, mainly covering the construction of basic infrastructure, buildings, and utilities within the “core area” of the government.

In a bid to lure investment, earlier this month Widodo signed a presidential regulation that grants investors certain rights, including land rights of up to 190 years in the future capital.

Public works and housing minister Basuki Hadimuljono said the government was still working to procure another 40 megawatts to power the city, but the current capacity of 10 megawatts produced by a solar power plant has been established in Nusantara.

A nearby reservoir provides “more than enough to meet the needs” for clean drinking water in the new city, he said.

Despite the progress made, questions still remain as to when the new capital will officially be relocated as Widodo is yet to issue the official decree. Until the decree is signed, Jakarta remains the country’s capital.

Widodo has signalled that the decree might be issued by president-elect Prabowo Subianto, who will be inaugurated on 20 October.

The delay in formalising the decree has raised questions about the location of the presidential inauguration, as in accordance with the Indonesian constitution, the swearing into office must take place in the nation’s capital.

The lack of investors in the megaproject also puts Prabowo in a difficult position once he is sworn in. Promising continuity as his campaign platform during the presidential election, Prabowo has pledged to resume Widodo’s landmark projects, including Nusantara.

Sulfikar Amir, an associate professor of science, technology, and society at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, has questioned the speed at which the ambitious project has been implemented, saying the rush has significantly affected the project’s financing and planning.

“Who wants to work in the middle of the forest with [a] lack of infrastructure?” he said.

Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency has claimed it was involved in an ambush that killed fighters from Russia’s Wagner group in the west African nation of Mali, thousands of miles away from the frontline in Ukraine.

A Telegram channel linked to the Wagner leadership on Monday admitted the group had suffered heavy losses during fighting in Mali last week.

It said Wagner and the Malian armed forces had “fought fierce battles” over a five-day period against a coalition of Tuareg separatist forces and jihadi groups, who had used heavy weapons, drones and suicide bombers. Numerous Wagner fighters, including a commander, Sergei Shevchenko, were killed, the channel said.

Andrii Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency, said on Monday that “the rebels received necessary information, and not just information, which enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals”.

Yusov did not say whether Ukrainian military personnel were involved in the fighting or were present in the country. He said the agency “won’t discuss the details at the moment, but there will be more to come”.

The Mali government, which has been fighting various insurgencies in the north of the country for more than a decade, requested help from Wagner after a military junta took power in 2020.

In May last year, the US imposed sanctions on the head of Wagner in Mali, accusing the group of using its operation there as a conduit for military equipment for the war in Ukraine.

The Kyiv Post on Monday published a photograph it said showed Malian rebels holding a Ukrainian flag, which it said had been authenticated by a defence source in Kyiv. It was not possible to verify the image independently.

Ukrainian forces are believed to be active in Sudan, another place where Wagner troops have been heavily involved in fighting, in a further sign that Kyiv’s fight with Moscow has taken on a global dimension.

The Wagner group was set up by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an old acquaintance of Vladimir Putin who built up the fighting force as a way for Moscow to intervene in conflicts without official use of the Russian military.

It has carried out much of the most fierce fighting in Ukraine, often using former prisoners who were pardoned in exchange for a stint on the frontline.

The group is also active across Africa, and continues to be so even after Prigozhin was disgraced following a failed coup attempt last summer. He later died after an explosion onboard his plane, widely believed to have been ordered by the Kremlin, but Wagner’s influence in Africa remains.

“For Moscow, the African countries where Wagner is present is just a zone of interest that allows it to get hold of resources – gold, diamonds, gas and oil – and the money goes to finance Russian aggression,” said Serhii Kuzan, director of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center in Kyiv, explaining why Ukraine might want to target Wagner in Africa.

He added that the raids had additional benefits for Kyiv: “liquidating” some of the most experienced Wagner fighters and lowering the overall military potential of the group, and also exacting revenge for war crimes in Ukraine.

“A significant part of the destroyed fighters got military experience in Ukraine, where they carried out hundreds or thousands of war crimes … these crimes should be punished, and Russian war criminals should know that they will never be safe,” said Kuzan.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency has claimed it was involved in an ambush that killed fighters from Russia’s Wagner group in the west African nation of Mali, thousands of miles away from the frontline in Ukraine.

A Telegram channel linked to the Wagner leadership on Monday admitted the group had suffered heavy losses during fighting in Mali last week.

It said Wagner and the Malian armed forces had “fought fierce battles” over a five-day period against a coalition of Tuareg separatist forces and jihadi groups, who had used heavy weapons, drones and suicide bombers. Numerous Wagner fighters, including a commander, Sergei Shevchenko, were killed, the channel said.

Andrii Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency, said on Monday that “the rebels received necessary information, and not just information, which enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals”.

Yusov did not say whether Ukrainian military personnel were involved in the fighting or were present in the country. He said the agency “won’t discuss the details at the moment, but there will be more to come”.

The Mali government, which has been fighting various insurgencies in the north of the country for more than a decade, requested help from Wagner after a military junta took power in 2020.

In May last year, the US imposed sanctions on the head of Wagner in Mali, accusing the group of using its operation there as a conduit for military equipment for the war in Ukraine.

The Kyiv Post on Monday published a photograph it said showed Malian rebels holding a Ukrainian flag, which it said had been authenticated by a defence source in Kyiv. It was not possible to verify the image independently.

Ukrainian forces are believed to be active in Sudan, another place where Wagner troops have been heavily involved in fighting, in a further sign that Kyiv’s fight with Moscow has taken on a global dimension.

The Wagner group was set up by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an old acquaintance of Vladimir Putin who built up the fighting force as a way for Moscow to intervene in conflicts without official use of the Russian military.

It has carried out much of the most fierce fighting in Ukraine, often using former prisoners who were pardoned in exchange for a stint on the frontline.

The group is also active across Africa, and continues to be so even after Prigozhin was disgraced following a failed coup attempt last summer. He later died after an explosion onboard his plane, widely believed to have been ordered by the Kremlin, but Wagner’s influence in Africa remains.

“For Moscow, the African countries where Wagner is present is just a zone of interest that allows it to get hold of resources – gold, diamonds, gas and oil – and the money goes to finance Russian aggression,” said Serhii Kuzan, director of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center in Kyiv, explaining why Ukraine might want to target Wagner in Africa.

He added that the raids had additional benefits for Kyiv: “liquidating” some of the most experienced Wagner fighters and lowering the overall military potential of the group, and also exacting revenge for war crimes in Ukraine.

“A significant part of the destroyed fighters got military experience in Ukraine, where they carried out hundreds or thousands of war crimes … these crimes should be punished, and Russian war criminals should know that they will never be safe,” said Kuzan.

They’re not lovin’ it. McDonald’s global sales fell for the first time in nearly four years in the second quarter as inflation-weary consumers skipped eating out or chose cheaper options. The company said it expects same-store sales to be down for the next few quarters and is working on fixes like meal deals and new menu items.

“Consumers still recognise us as the value leader versus our key competitors, it’s clear that our value leadership gap has recently shrunk,” McDonald’s chairman, president and CEO Chris Kempczinski said on Monday during a conference call with investors. “We are working to fix that with pace.”

Sales at locations open at least a year fell 1% in the April-June period, the first decline since the final quarter of 2020, when the pandemic shuttered stores and millions stayed home.

In the US, sales fell nearly 1%. McDonald’s saw fewer customers but it said those who came spent more because of price increases. Kempczinski defended the higher menu prices, saying the costs for paper, food and labour increased as much as 40% in some markets over the last few years.

The company’s net income fell 12% to $2bn, or $2.80 a share. Excluding one-time items such as restructuring charges, McDonald’s earned $2.97 a share. That was far from the per-share profit of $3.07 that industry analysts had forecast.

In May, McDonald’s CEO Joe Erlinger said in an open letter that the price of Big Macs had risen 21% since 2019.

Falling sales goes beyond the Chicago burger giant. Customer traffic at US fast-food restaurants fell 2% in the first half of the year compared to the same period a year ago, according to Circana, a market research company. David Portalatin, a food industry adviser for Circana, expects high inflation and rising consumer debt will also dent traffic in the second half of 2024.

McDonald’s also reported lower store traffic in France and the Middle East, where people have been boycotting the chain because of a perception that it supports Israel in the war in Gaza. Kempczinski said weak consumer sentiment in China has customers fleeing to lower-priced rivals.

McDonald’s warned in April that more of its inflation-weary customers were seeking better value and affordability. The company introduced a $5 meal deal at US restaurants on 25 June, which was late in this financial reporting period.

McDonald’s US President Joe Erlinger said Monday that $5 meal deal sales are running ahead of expectations and are getting lower-income consumers back into McDonald’s stores. Erlinger said 93% of McDonald’s franchisees have agreed to run the promotion through August.

Other countries, such as Germany and the United Kingdom, are also seeing success with meal deals, the company said. But Kempczinski said McDonald’s needs to be providing broader value and boosting that message with better marketing.

“Trying to move the consumer with one item or a few items is not sufficient for the context that we’re in,” he said.

New menu items are also in the works. The company is testing its value-oriented Big Arch double burger in three international markets through the end of this year, Kempczinski said.

For the second quarter, revenue was flat at $6.5bn and just off the $6.6bn that Wall Street was expecting, according to analysts polled by FactSet.

Investors appeared satisfied with the plans McDonald’s has to reverse its slide. McDonald’s shares rose 4% in morning trading Monday.

Joe Biden, in a Monday address calling for sweeping reforms of the US supreme court, said the recent decision granting some immunity to presidents from criminal prosecution makes them a king before the law.

Speaking in Austin at the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Biden said a president is no longer is restrained by the law and that this is “a fundamentally flawed principle, a dangerous principle”.

The decision in Trump v United States, which gives broad immunity from later prosecution for a president exercising his authority in his official capacity, is one of several recent court rulings – from the gutting of the Voting Rights Act to casting down Roe v Wade as the precedent on abortion rights – that stands in stark contrast to the era 50 years ago in which civil rights legislation passed, Biden said.

“The extreme opinions that the supreme court has handed down have undermined long established civil rights principles and protections,” Biden said, invoking the specter of Project 2025 as a looming threat.

“They’re planning another onslaught attacking civil rights in America,” he said.

“For example, Project 2025 calls for aggressively attacking diversity, equity and inclusion all across all aspects of American life. This extreme Maga movement even proposes to end birthright citizenship. This is how far they’ve come.”

Biden said he is proposing a new constitutional amendment that explicitly applies the criminal code to presidents. The conduct of Donald Trump demand legislative changes, he said.

“No other former president has asked for this kind of immunity and none should have been given it,” Biden said. “The president must be accountable to the law … We are a nation of laws, not kings and dictators.”

A constitutional amendment requires two-thirds of both the US House and Senate to agree to it, followed by the government of three-quarters of the states.

Biden also said that the scandals involving supreme court justices have caused public opinion to question the court’s fairness and independence and impeded its mission.

He said: “The supreme court’s current code of conduct is weak and even more frighteningly voluntary.”

Biden called for a binding code of conduct for the supreme court and term limits for justices, noting that the United States was the only western democracy that gives lifetime appointments to its high court.

The term limiting proposal would create staggered 18-year terms for justices, beginning with the next justice to leave the court.

The idea for term limits and a binding code of ethics for the court is not new but has perhaps become more urgent. Biden’s proposal closely resembles legislation first proposed by Georgia representative Hank Johnson, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee and the likely banner carrier for legislative movement on this issue if he regains the committee chairmanship in a Democratic House.

Johnson’s Term Act would apply term limits to existing supreme court justices, giving each president appointments in the first and third year of their administration.

“Right now, three justices have already served in excess of 18 years,” Johnson said. “And so, those judges would be replaced over a six-year period.”

Johnson described term limiting legislation as “important foundational, structural change that will prevent the court from becoming the kind of court that this one is; one that, because of tenure, has become unaccountable, arrogant, and destructive to our democracy.”

Johnson also has proposed the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act, legislation binding supreme court judges ethically.

But what if the court rules that this legislation itself is unconstitutional?

“There would be nothing that would stop them from ruling it unconstitutional,” Johnson said. “But if we get to that point, we could have we would say goodbye to the rule of law in this country.”

Johnson likened the prospect to the reaction of President Andrew Johnson rejecting a supreme court ruling on Native American removals in Georgia nearly two centuries ago, with a federal government effectively ignoring the court. Ruling “something that’s clearly constitutional was unconstitutional would really be the end of our democracy, because there would no longer be respect for the rule of law”, he said.

Mexico’s president has taken the unusual step of issuing a public appeal to drug cartels not to fight each other following last week’s detention of the top Mexican drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said at his daily press briefing that he trusted that drug traffickers knew they would only suffer if they stepped up the internal wars that already plague the Sinaloa cartel.

“Those who are engaged in these illegal activities know they resolve nothing with confrontations,” López Obrador said, adding “they would go out and risk the lives of other human beings, and why make families suffer?

“I trust that there will be no confrontations,” he said, despite the army announcing over the weekend that it had sent an additional 200 elite soldiers from a paratrooper unit to the state of Sinaloa just in case.

There were no immediate reports of increased violence over the weekend. But the Sinaloa cartel has been riven for years by fighting between followers of Zambada, and rivals who follow the sons of the imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the father of Guzmán López. Other sons are still at large.

Both Zambada and Guzmán’s son played leading roles in the Sinaloa cartel, and both were detained on Thursday when they arrived in Texas onboard a private airplane. López Obrador has a record of publicly appealing to drug gangs for peace, sometimes even praising them.

In 2021, López Obrador praised the largely peaceful voting in elections that year and sent a message of recognition to the drug cartels that fuel much of the country’s violence.

“People who belong to organized crime behaved very well, in general, there were few acts of violence by these groups,” the president said at the time. “I think the white-collar criminals acted worse.”

The detention of Zambada and Guzmán López has proved a major embarrassment for the president. Mexican officials were forced to admit they knew nothing about the operation until it was all over.

Zambada had eluded authorities for decades and had never set foot in prison until a plane carrying him and Guzmán López landed at an airport in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, near El Paso, Texas, on Thursday. Both men, who face various US drug charges, were arrested and remain jailed.

Zambada’s lawyer pushed back on Sunday against claims that his client was tricked into flying into the country, saying he was “forcibly kidnapped” by Guzmán López. If that were true, it could stoke accusations of betrayal, and additional fighting, between the factions.

López Obrador said there were indications that US authorities had been negotiating with Guzmán López to turn himself in for some time, possibly for months or years before the drug lord apparently decided to do so.

But the Mexican president said nothing was known about how Zambada ended up on the flight, and that Mexican prosecutors were investigating to see if he was kidnapped.

Frank Perez, Zambada’s attorney, said his client did not end up at the New Mexico airport of his own free will.

“My client neither surrendered nor negotiated any terms with the US government,” Perez said in a statement. “Joaquín Guzmán López forcibly kidnapped my client. He was ambushed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed by six men in military uniforms and Joaquin. His legs were tied, and a black bag was placed over his head.” Perez went on to say that Zambada, 76, was thrown in the back of a pickup truck, forced on to a plane and tied to the seat by Guzmán López.

Donald Trump said he would sit for an interview with the FBI, as the bureau continues to investigate what motivated 20-year-old Thomas Crooks to try and assassinate Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

“They’re coming in on Thursday to see me,” Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview on Fox News that aired on Monday.

Police noticed the man who tried to assassinate Trump more than an hour before the 13 July shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, and took a photo to share with other law enforcement officers, an FBI official said on Monday.

“The shooter was identified by law enforcement as a suspicious person,” Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, told reporters at a briefing on the agency’s investigation into the assassination attempt.

He said a local officer took a photo of Crooks and sent it to other law enforcement officials at the scene of Trump’s rally that day. Some 30 minutes later, Rojek said, Swat team operators saw Crooks using a rangefinder and browsing news sites.

Crooks was seen carrying a backpack around 5.56pm, less than 20 minutes before the shooting took place, and at 6.08pm he was caught on a police dashboard camera walking on the roof from where he ultimately fired the shots, Rojek said.

Although the FBI is not the agency responsible for investigating any lapses in Trump’s security, FBI personnel are putting together a timeline of events, he said.

FBI officials said they had yet to identify a motive for Crooks, who was shot dead by a Secret Service agent after opening fire.

But they said he had conducted online searches on prior mass shooting events, on improvised explosive devices and on the attempted assassination of the Slovakian prime minister in May.

Trump, who has been highly critical of the FBI, agreed to sit for a standard victim’s interview, which “will be consistent with any victim interview we do”, Rojek said. “We want to get his perspective.”

Rojek confirmed Trump was struck by a bullet, whether “whole or fragmented into smaller pieces”.

FBI officials have described Crooks as a loner who had no close friends or acquaintances, with his social circle limited primarily to immediate family members.

Using encrypted applications, Crooks made 25 firearm-related purchases and six chemical precursors used to make explosive devices, FBI officials told reporters.

Crooks’ slongtime interest in science and doing science experiments did not rouse any suspicion by his parents, whom the FBI said have been cooperative with the investigation.

During the Monday Fox News interview, Trump also said he would continue to hold outdoor rallies despite the shooting and insistence from the Secret Service.