Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, was killed by a strike in Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday morning, only hours after Israel said it had killed a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut.

The dual assassinations are heavy blows to Hamas and Hezbollah, but also raise the stakes for Iran, which backs both groups and vowed revenge. They will fuel growing fears that the war in Gaza could escalate into a broader regional conflict.

A senior Hamas official described Haniyeh’s killing as a “cowardly act that will not go unpunished”. Mediators Qatar and Egypt warned it would set back talks on a ceasefire and a deal to release hostages held in Gaza.

Haniyeh was targeted by an airstrike at a “residence in Tehran”, Hamas said, after he travelled to the Iranian capital for the inauguration of the country’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that because the attack took place in Tehran, “we consider his revenge as our duty”. Pezeshkian said his country would defend its territorial integrity and honour, and make the “terrorist occupiers regret their cowardly action”.

The Israeli government officially declined to comment on Haniyeh’s death, but the strike was widely acknowledged as an Israeli operation both inside the country and beyond.

Israel vowed to kill all Hamas leaders after the 7 October attacks, and its intelligence services have a history of carrying out covert killings inside Iran, mostly targeting scientists working on the country’s nuclear programme.

The retired general Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate, described the attacks on Wednesday night as “two quality operations of Israel defence forces against two top terrorists, one in Beirut and one in Tehran”.

The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, speaking after the assassinations, said the Biden administration was “doing things to take the temperature down” but would come to Israel’s defence if it were attacked.

US officials have led a global months-long diplomatic effort to prevent the war in Gaza escalating into a broader regional conflict, but they now face an even steeper challenge.

Austin, who is visiting the Philippines, said he believed a wider conflagration could be avoided, despite the threat of revenge. “I don’t think war is inevitable. I maintain that,” he told reporters.

The senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk told a Hamas-run TV channel that Haniyeh’s killing was a “cowardly act that will not go unpunished”. Sami Abu Zuhri, another official, told Reuters it was “a grave escalation” that would not achieve its goals.

Hamas has survived past assassinations of its top leaders, including Haniyeh’s mentor Ahmed Yassin in 2004, and Haniyeh did not command operations on the ground in Gaza after leaving for exile in 2019.

Hamas fighters inside Gaza are led by Yahya Sinwar, thought to be the mastermind of the 7 October attacks in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage.

The Biden administration has been pushing hard in recent months for at least a temporary ceasefire and hostage-release deal in Gaza, where the territory’s health authorities says nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 90,000 wounded since 8 October.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Wednesday that Washington had not been aware of or involved in Haniyeh’s assassination, and that a ceasefire deal for Gaza was still vital.

But negotiations are likely to be frozen after the attacks of recent days, and particularly after the killing of Haniyeh, who played a key role in talks from his Doha base. Qatar described the attack as a “dangerous escalation” that put ceasefire talks in jeopardy.

“How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” the country’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, wrote on X, joining a regional chorus of condemnation.

Russia and Turkey condemned Haniyeh’s assassination, with Moscow describing it as a “completely unacceptable political killing”, the Tass news agency reported.

Haniyeh’s funeral will be held in Iran on Thursday, and the country has declared three days of mourning. His body will then be flown to Doha for burial.

Haniyeh’s death came hours after Israel claimed it had killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukur, in an airstrike on a south Beirut suburb launched in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed 12 children at the weekend.

Hezbollah confirmed on Wednesday that Shukur had been in the building Israel struck, but said it was still waiting for news of his fate.

“Civil defence teams have been working diligently, but slowly, to remove the rubble due to the state of the destroyed layers,” the group said in a statement. “We are still waiting for the result.”

Lebanon’s foreign minister said the strike was a shock after assurances from Israel’s allies that the country planned a “limited response” that “would not produce a war”.

“That’s what we’re afraid of,” Abdallah Bou Habib told the Guardian. “We did not expect to be hit in Beirut. We thought these were red lines that the Israelis would respect.”

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, condemned Haniyeh’s assassination, calling it a “cowardly act and dangerous development”.

Streets in Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority is based, were empty after Palestinian national and Islamic factions called for a general strike and mass demonstrations.

Haniyeh had repeatedly urged Palestinians to be “steadfast” after Israel killed his mentor and members of his family. His own death is likely to elicit a similar response from other Hamas leaders.

After an airstrike killed three of his sons and four grandchildren in April he insisted in an interview with Al Jazeera that his personal loss would not prompt Hamas to shift its position in negotiations.

News of the assassinations was largely greeted with delight in Israel, as part completion of a promise to hunt down the men responsible for the 7 October atrocity.

Social media was filled with triumphant memes. The cabinet minister Amichai Chikli shared footage of Haniyeh apparently nodding to chants of “death to Israel”, with the caption “Careful what you wish for” in a post on X.

It was also seen as revindication for the security forces after the failures of 7 October. “It really revives a little bit of the lost dignity of the intelligence community of Israel,” said Tamir Hayman, a retired general who like Yadlin served as head of defence intelligence.

But the tactical impact of two complex strikes in the heart of regional capitals would not change Israel’s overall position, 10 months into its war in Gaza, he said.

“I’m not neglecting the importance of this, but in terms of the overall strategic posture of Israel and the complicated situation we are facing to stop the war and achieve all our goals, it really does not change a lot,” he said.

He called on the government to use its military advantage now to push for a ceasefire deal and the return of hostages, and then turn its attention to securing the northern border. “If we continue [relying] on those very good tactical achievements, we are basically in the same place we have been yesterday,” he said.

Sufian Taha contributed reporting

Avenging the assassination of the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, is now Tehran’s duty as his killing occurred while he was a “dear guest” on Iranian soil, the country’s supreme leader has warned in his first reaction to the killing.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described Haniyeh’s killing, which Tehran views as a provocation designed to escalate the conflict in the Middle East, as a “bitter and difficult incident that happened in the territory of the Islamic republic”.

The episode has plunged Masoud Pezeshkhian, the newly inaugurated Iranian president, into a major crisis in his first days in office as he faces internal demands to respond to what amounts to a humiliating targeting of an ally while visiting Tehran to attend his own inauguration – even as he seeks better ties with the west. Pezeshkhian vowed his country would “defend its territory” and make the attackers regret their action.

Mohammad Reza Aref, the newly appointed vice-president, said the west was complicit in the manifestation of “state terrorism” through its silence at the actions of Israel, whom Tehran and Hamas have blamed for the assassination.

He said: “This desperate act was based on sinister goals, including creating a new crisis at the regional level and challenging the regional and international relations of the Islamic Republic of Iran at this point in time, especially at the beginning of the ‘government of national unity’.”

The powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said: “This crime of the Zionist regime will face a harsh and painful response from the powerful and huge resistance front.”

The choice of Tehran, as opposed to Qatar, where Haniyeh mainly resides, or Turkey which he regularly visited, is likely to be about more than just opportunity. It is also a chance to show to a global audience that the IRGC cannot defend its most prized political assets, even in its own capital.

Worse still, is the fact that Haniyeh was in Tehran with 110 other foreign delegations, including leaders of the supposed “axis of resistance”, to attend Pezeshkian’s inauguration, underlining to others how little protection the IRGC can, in practice, provide to its dearest diplomatic allies.

Pezeshkian, who is in the midst of forming a reformist cabinet, was elected partly on a strategy of building better relations with the west, as a way of boosting the ailing Iranian economy and lifting economic sanctions, but that already internally controversial strategy now looks harder to follow.

The 85-year-old Khamenei had displayed his scepticism about the strategy on Sunday, when he said he would only support better relations with Europe if the continent first changed its attitude towards Tehran. Iran’s future, he stressed, lay with China and Russia, the policy adopted by Pezeshkian’s opponents in the election campaign.

The non-attendance of any Europeans at the inauguration apart from Enrique Mora, the deputy to the EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, and the EU chief nuclear negotiator showed how relations with Europe have fallen away. Reformist newspapers noted the absence of European leaders, or even ambassadors, at the ceremony.

It is striking by contrast that at the time of the election of the last reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, in May 1997, the then Israeli foreign minister, David Levy, suggested a momentous transition was taking place that needed to be followed closely.

This time Emmanuel Macron, the French president, spent an hour on the phone with Pezeshkian on Monday, testing the waters to see if his surprise election might mark an opening for better relations. But if there was any chance of a diplomatic breakthrough – and there was no sign of one judging from the read-outs of the call issued by both sides – the opportunity will have slipped away for now. Macron had been probing to see if Iran would stop sending arms to Moscow for use in Ukraine, an issue of muffled debate inside Tehran.

It is also easy to exaggerate, partly based on the Khatami experience, both the president’s powers in security issues and the extent to which Pezeshkian marked a break with the past. After voting in the first round of the presidential election, the reformist candidate himself told reporters he hoped his country would try to have friendly relations “with all countries except for Israel”.

Pezeshkian has also mocked the west’s support for human rights and its refusal to stop the 35,000 deaths in Gaza.

One of his first acts on 8 July after his election was to send a personal letter of reassurance to the Hezbollah secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has always supported the resistance of the people in the region against the illegitimate Zionist regime,” Pezeshkian wrote. “Supporting the resistance is rooted in the fundamental policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will continue with strength.”

Hezbollah, reeling from the killing of Fuad Shukr, a top military commander in the group’s stronghold of southern Beirut, will now want to know how deep that support is in practice.

A meeting of the Iranian National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian parliament will be held later on Wednesday, but already Iranian leaders are describing Haniyeh’s death as the crossing of a red line, meaning some form of military response is inevitable.

Inside Iran there is no sense that Haniyeh was a legitimate target as the leader of a movement that mounted the attack on Israel on 7 October.

The Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani, said the killing of Haniyeh would strengthen the unbreakable bond between Iran and Palestine.

Indeed such is the humiliation for the IRGC that voices inside Tehran are reopening questions as to whether the former president Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter accident, was truly the victim of engine failure or instead something more sinister. The revival of the rumours also underlines how official commentary on security events are disbelieved.

The last time Israel and Iran took direct military action against one another was over the killing on 1 April of eight IRGC al-Quds force commanders in the Iranian consulate in Damascus, including Brig Gen Mohammad Zahedi, the al-Quds force’s commander for Syria and Lebanon. Iran responded with a barrage of more than 300 missiles and drones on 13 April, the first direct attack ever launched against Israel from Iranian soil. Then on 19 April, Israel destroyed part of an Iranian S-300 long-range air defence system in Isfahan.

The two sides walked across a choreographed tightrope, warning one another through intermediaries of the likely scale and limits of their reprisals. Israel said it could have gone further such as hitting Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility and its broader air defence system. Both sides signalled they were not seeking war with one another.

But since then other assassinations have taken place; Iran believes Israel’s right-wing leadership is blocking a Gaza ceasefire agreement; and the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon has been steadily headed to the brink.

Iranian diplomats say the crisis presents severe problems for the west in that, by defending Israel’s security, it has muted itself in the face of an Israeli prime minister who uses methods widely regarded as counter-productive.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, the prime minister of Qatar, who has acted as a mediator in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, vented his frustration on X, writing: “Political assassinations and continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue leads us to ask, how can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side? Peace needs serious partners and a global stance against the disregard for human life.”

Coincidentally, both the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, and the defence secretary, John Healey, are currently in Qatar. In parliament on Tuesday, Lammy said: “If we get that immediate ceasefire, if the Biden plan is adopted, it will allow de-escalation across the region. That is why we need to see that plan adopted by both sides as soon as possible.”

Although he blamed Iran for the overall escalation of tensions in the region, he will have to ask himself if the killing of Haniyeh at this point in Tehran brings the Biden plan or instead chaos closer.

Like all prominent Hamas figures, Ismail Haniyeh lived under the constant threat of assassination; his death in the Iranian capital of Tehran in a reported missile strike appears to be the latest daring Israeli operation targeting its enemies around the world.

In the aftermath of the Palestinian militant group’s brutal 7 October attack, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Hamas’s leadership, including those outside the Gaza Strip, were “marked for death”.

The timing and location of Haniyeh’s killing, however, means it could be yet another destabilising factor in a conflict already on the verge of escalating into a regional war. Missteps in this choreography of airstrikes and targeted killings are an ever-present possibility, and the stakes keep getting higher.

Assassinating the head of Hamas’s political bureau is ostensibly a major morale boost for Israel, a boon for the unpopular Netanyahu, and a heavy blow to the Palestinian group.

After almost 10 months of fighting in Gaza, Israel had until now failed to take out Hamas’s top leaders: the mastermind of 7 October, Yahya Sinwar, is still at large in Gaza. It is also unclear whether a massive airstrike earlier this month targeting the group’s military commander, Mohammed Deif, was successful.

The Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk confirmed that Haniyeh had died during a visit to Tehran for the inauguration of the new Iranian president. Marzouk called the killing a “grave escalation” that “will not go unpunished”, although the Islamist movement’s capacity to respond is severely diminished after almost a year of war against Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.

A response could instead come from Hamas’s allies, bringing the Middle East closer to a regional war between Israel and Iran and its proxies. Haniyeh’s death came just hours after Israel claimed it killed a top Hezbollah commander in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and the region is already bracing for the powerful Shia militia’s reaction.

Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting a war of attrition on the blue line that separates Lebanon and the Jewish state since Hezbollah joined the fighting on 8 October, and tensions have soared since an airstrike on Saturday that killed 12 children in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Hezbollah has denied it was responsible for the attack.

Unable to protect one of its most important allies on its own soil, Iran needs to save face. A spokesperson for Iran’s supreme national security council said early on Wednesday that the perpetrators of the Tehran attack would receive “a response”, according to Lebanese network Al-Mayadeen.

Iranian state television also said the assassination would prompt “retaliation” from the Shia axis of militias around the Middle East backed by Iran. Several of these proxies, including Yemen’s Houthis, have already fired missiles and drones at Israel and US assets in the region over the last nine months, ostensibly to aid Hamas’s war effort.

The people of Gaza and Israeli hostages held in Hamas’s tunnels are the immediate victims here because a breakthrough in the protracted ceasefire talks is now even less likely.

As the head of the group’s politburo, based in the Qatari capital of Doha, Haniyeh was a key figure in talks mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the US aimed at a lasting ceasefire and hostage and prisoner release deal. Iranian state television said that Haniyeh’s death would delay the negotiations by “several months”.

While Hamas is used to having to replace and promote new leaders in the wake of Israeli assassinations, the loss of a globally famous figure such as Haniyeh will have a major operational impact. The 62-year-old Hamas veteran managed the movement’s relationships with allies in Tehran and around the region, including Hezbollah.

The politburo leader was also widely considered to be more pragmatic and open to negotiation with Israel than hardliners such as Sinwar, the group’s leader in Gaza.

Haniyeh was an early advocate inside Hamas for political and diplomatic efforts alongside armed resistance, and adopted his predecessor’s revised 2017 charter, which implicitly accepted the existence of Israel.

The 7 October assault was carried out partly in response to hardening attitudes towards the Palestinians in Israel as the country shifted to the right politically. It has led inevitably to intense scrutiny of Hamas’s apparent previous willingness to pursue a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

How much Haniyeh knew about the attack beforehand is not clear, although he was quick to champion it. His removal is unlikely to prompt the group to move towards a more propitiatory position.

The launch of Kamala Harris’s campaign has injected newfound energy into her party with fewer than 100 days to go in the election cycle and raised Democrats’ hopes of winning battleground states that once seemed irretrievably lost to Donald Trump, according to a set of memos exclusively shared with the Guardian.

The memos show that Democratic parties in battleground states saw a dramatic surge in contributions and volunteer sign-ups in the past week, in addition to the Harris campaign’s record-breaking fundraising haul of $200m.

They arrive as a new poll shows Harris has gained ground against Trump in six of the seven swing states since Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. Conducted on July 24-28, the Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll of registered voters shows Harris leading Trump in Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada, with a two-point advantage in each, and leading in Michigan by 11 percentage points; Trump polled ahead of Harris in Pennsylvania by four points and in North Carolina by two points, and the candidates were tied in Georgia.

The memos, which were shared by the coordinated campaign between Harris for President and the Democratic National Committee, offer further promising signs for the vice-president.

In Georgia, where Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by just 12,000 votes, or 0.2 points, in 2020, more than 1,000 new volunteers signed up in the 24 hours after Harris announced her candidacy, marking the largest single-day total of the campaign. Georgia Democrats also collected $200,000, as donations to the state party increased by 320% compared with the week before.

The show of force is notable given that earlier polls indicated that Trump had a solid lead in Georgia. An Emerson College poll conducted earlier this month showed Trump with a 5-point advantage over Biden, 44% to 39%, but the outlet’s most recent survey showed Harris had cut that lead down to 2 points.

“Democrats up and down the ticket are seeing unprecedented support from voters across the nation,” said Abhi Rahman, deputy communications director for the DNC. “We are confident that in these battleground states, Democrats will win at every level of the ballot in November.”

The pattern has played out in other states where Trump’s lead over Biden appeared to be growing in the weeks after the president’s disastrous debate performance. In Arizona, where Biden won by about 10,000 votes, or 0.3 points, in 2020, more than 2,000 new Democratic campaign volunteers signed up in the past week. The Emerson College polls conducted in the past month show that Harris slashed Trump’s lead in Arizona from 10 points to 5 points.

In the key battleground state of Wisconsin, where Biden won by 0.6 points in 2020, the state party raked in $400,000 over the past week after out-raising its Republican counterpart by a margin of 14 to 1 in the first half of the year.

Wisconsin Democrats also saw 3,500 new volunteers sign up for the campaign since Harris entered the race. More than 2,000 Wisconsin volunteers completed a shift in the past week, with at least 175,000 voters contacted. That outreach could prove decisive in a state that was decided by roughly 20,000 votes four years ago.

Before Biden withdrew from the race this month, most polls indicated he was running a close race against Trump in Wisconsin. But one particularly worrisome survey conducted for AARP in the days after the debate found Trump had a 6-point lead there. The most recent Emerson College polling showed Harris and Trump tied, 47% to 47%, in Wisconsin.

Harris’s campaign launch also seems to have motivated grassroots donors, some of whom are contributing for the first time this election cycle. Of the Harris campaign’s $200m haul, 66% came from first-time donors. In Michigan, where Biden won by roughly 3 points in 2020, the state party reported a surge in small-dollar donations over the past week, collecting $100,000 from more than 1,000 individual donors. The most recent Emerson College polling showed that Michigan remains highly competitive, with Trump at 46% and Harris at 45%.

Democrats hope the financial boon will help them regain a cash advantage in the presidential race, after Trump closed his earlier gap with Biden thanks to a fundraising blitz in recent months. The Harris campaign is already putting its new money to use with a $50m advertising push in the weeks leading up to the Democratic national convention, which will take place in Chicago next month.

But Trump is not sitting on the sidelines. On Tuesday, his campaign unveiled a new ad attacking Harris over the Biden administration’s management of the US-Mexico border while mocking the vice-president as “weak” and “dangerously liberal”.

The dueling ads foreshadowed what is expected to be a hard-fought and grueling race to the finish in the presidential contest. The two candidates have even less time than it may appear to sway the electorate, as many states will start early voting in late September or early October. In Arizona, for example, early voting begins on 9 October.

French city officials have hailed a “historic day” after the Olympic triathlon competitions were held in the River Seine just a day after it was deemed unsafe for swimming.

Tests on the water showed the men’s and women’s competitions could go ahead on Wednesday morning, resulting in victory – against all odds – for the city as well as for French athletes who took medals in the women’s and men’s events.

Pierre Rabadan, the former French rugby international, now a deputy mayor of Paris in charge of sport and the Olympic Games, called the event a “historic day for Paris and the Olympics … and for ecology and the environment.

“We have faced a certain scepticism for several years now and this morning was the best response. We said we would hold the triathlon in the River Seine 10 years ago and we did it,” Rabadan said.

He added: “It was a challenge; we had a plan, we stuck to it and it was good that we did because we succeeded.”

The men’s triathlon was cancelled at the last minute on Tuesday when the water failed quality tests. Despite the rain overnight, the races were back on Wednesday morning when the water was declared “satisfactory” for the men’s and women’s triathlons. Samples were taken from four points at the Olympic site and found to be well below the international limit for bacteria, including E coli.

Asked how the water quality had suddenly improved, Rabadan said soaring temperatures and the sun had helped. “We don’t play with the health of anyone, especially not the health of athletes. It’s not a game, it’s a scientific process and we follow the regulations. There is no question of a conspiracy. We are dealing with facts,” he said.

Antoine Guillou, a deputy mayor in charge of waste, cleaning and sanitation for the city authority, said that for more than a century, during which swimming in the river was banned, the Seine had been used as an overflow for the sewage system.

“We have reversed the tide of history, more than 100 years of history during which the Seine was considered almost as a sewer. That is an enormous satisfaction for us. We had a bet and it paid off. A symbolic line has been crossed,” he said.

Earlier this month, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, led 100 athletes, officials and local people by taking a dip in the river after a series of tests showed it was safe.

The lengthy clean-up operation that cost €1.4bn (£1.2bn) included linking more than 300 boats moored along the banks of the Seine to the city sewage system and the construction of a massive holding and treatment tank to siphon off bacteria-laden stormwater that would normally run into the river during heavy rains.

The “heat dome” causing scorching temperatures across western Europe and north Africa, and boiling athletes and spectators at the Olympic Games in Paris, would have been impossible without human-caused global heating, a rapid analysis has found.

Scientists said the fossil-fuelled climate crisis made temperatures 2.5C to 3.3C hotter. Such an event would not have happened in the world before global heating but is now expected about once a decade, they said. Continued emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide will make them even more frequent, the researchers warned.

“Climate change crashed the Olympics on Tuesday,” said Dr Friederike Otto, a climatologist at Imperial College London and part of the World Weather Attribution group behind the analysis. “The world watched athletes swelter in 35C heat. If the atmosphere wasn’t overloaded with emissions from burning fossil fuels, Paris would have been about 3C cooler and much safer for sport.”

Numerous athletes, including the gymnastics superstar Simone Biles, have suffered in the heat, with one tennis player having called it “crazy” and sailing competitors having worn ice vests to keep cool. Fans watching the beach volleyball near the Eiffel Tower were sprayed with hoses, while misting fountains have been set up at skateboarding and other venues and millions of bottles of water have been handed out at train and Métro stations.

“However, many people across the Mediterranean do not have the luxury of ice-packs, air conditioning or cooling breaks at work,” she said. “For these people, extreme heat can mean death.”

The analysis assessed the dangerous heat in July that sent temperatures soaring past 40C in many places, increasing the spread of wildfires in Portugal and Greece and worsening water shortages in Italy and Spain. In Morocco, temperatures reached 48C, with one hospital reporting 21 deaths.

The heat will have caused many more people to die prematurely across the region. But assembling the required data, where it exists, takes time. Extreme heat in the European summer of 2022 is now known to have led to 61,000 early deaths.

Dr Mariam Zachariah, a research associate at Imperial College London, said: “[Our new] analysis helps people understand that climate change is not a distant threat, but an immediate one that is already making life on Earth much more dangerous.”

Heat action plans, which involve early warning systems, water and first aid stations, and changed hours for outdoor workers, have been implemented in France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, but not yet in Morocco.

The July heatwave was caused by a large-scale high-pressure ridge, often referred to as a “heat dome”. It occurred after 13 months of extreme heat globally, with each of the last 13 months being the hottest ever recorded.

The climate crisis is making all heatwaves hotter, longer and more frequent around the world. The scientists assessed the impact of human-caused global heating on the extreme July heat by comparing how these events have changed between today’s climate, with about 1.3C of global heating, and the cooler preindustrial climate.

The analysis built on studies of heatwaves in the Mediterranean region in April and July 2023, which used weather data and computer climate models. This foundation meant that only weather data was needed for the new analysis, allowing it to be produced almost immediately.

Many hundreds of these attribution studies have now been completed, covering heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, floods and storms. They include a growing number of otherwise impossible events and demonstrate how human-caused heating has already supercharged extreme weather across the globe.

“As long as humans burn oil, gas and coal, heatwaves will get hotter and more people will die premature deaths,” said Otto. “The good news is that we don’t need some magic solution to stop things from getting worse. We know exactly what we need to do and have the technology and knowledge needed to do it – replace fossil fuels with renewable energy and stop deforestation. The faster we do this, the better.”

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said last week: “I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world’s wealthiest countries.” He spoke a day after the Guardian revealed a surge in fresh oil and gas exploration in 2024 with countries such as the US and the UK leading the charge, handing out a record 825 oil and gas licences in 2023.

More than 50 police officers were injured and four men arrested after far-right riots in Southport, which broke out as the town reeled from a knife attack that killed three children.

The Merseyside chief constable, Serena Kennedy, said the four were arrested in connection with riots in which 53 police officers were injured, 49 from Merseyside police and four from Lancashire. Three police dogs, Zoe, Ike and Quga, were also hurt.

Kennedy said the rioters were there “purely for hooliganism and thuggery”. She estimated 200-300 people had been involved and said more rioters would be arrested.

A 31-year-old man from St Helens, a 31-year-old man from West Derby, Liverpool and a 39-year-old man from Southport were all arrested on suspicion of violent disorder, while a 32-year-old man from Manchester with a probation address in Southport was arrested on suspicion of affray and possession of a bladed article.

Special powers – known as section 60 and section 34 orders – are in place giving officers authority to stop and search individuals and direct people who are engaging in antisocial behaviour.

As police dealt with the fallout of the riot, detectives were granted more time to question the 17-year-old boy held in connection with the atrocity in which three girls, aged six, seven and nine, were killed, and eight other children and two adults were injured.

The boy, from the nearby village of Banks, was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder after the horror unfolded at a Taylor Swift-themed children’s holiday club on Monday.

Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, were fatally stabbed, while five children and two adults remain in critical condition.

Tuesday’s riot, near Southport mosque, marred a night of remembrance for the girls. The 53 police officers were seriously injured when bricks, stones and bottles were thrown and cars set alight after the vigil.

Baseless rumours had been spread on social media misidentifying the suspect and falsely claiming he was an asylum seeker. He was born in Cardiff.

On Wednesday, the metro mayor of Liverpool, Steve Rotheram, speaking in Southport, said: “What we saw last night was infiltration by people from all over the country, stirred up by social media and then whipped up into a frenzy whereby they were attacking the very people that everybody earlier in the day was celebrating for being the heroes, for running towards danger. It leaves a very sour taste in the mouth that these people believe they can come here and divide our community.”

Jenni Stancombe, Elsie’s mother, intervened in a bid to cool tensions, writing on Facebook: “This is the only thing that I will write, but please, please stop the violence in Southport tonight. The police have been nothing but heroic these last 24 hours and they and we don’t need this.”

After the violence, people rallied together to support the Muslim community and clear up the mess left by rioters.

Dozens of residents were outside Southport mosque with brushes and shovels on Wednesday morning, and cleared bricks from a wall knocked down during the rioting.

The mosque chair, Ibrahim Hussein, told the Guardian he had been “barricaded” inside the building with eight worshippers while hundreds of rioters descended on the mosque. He said: “It really was terrifying and it was uncalled for. There was no reason for it whatsoever. We just have to keep on going, there’s nothing else we can do.”

Merseyside police said “a large group of people – believed to be supporters of the English Defence League [EDL]” – began to throw items such as bricks towards the mosque … at about 7.45pm”.

The EDL is a far-right, Islamophobic group founded in 2009 by Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s former first minister, called for the EDL to be banned under terror laws. Robinson insists the group no longer exists.

The deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, later said Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, would “be looking at” whether EDL should be proscribed under terrorism laws.

More than 50 police officers were injured and four men arrested after far-right riots in Southport, which broke out as the town reeled from a knife attack that killed three children.

The Merseyside chief constable, Serena Kennedy, said the four were arrested in connection with riots in which 53 police officers were injured, 49 from Merseyside police and four from Lancashire. Three police dogs, Zoe, Ike and Quga, were also hurt.

Kennedy said the rioters were there “purely for hooliganism and thuggery”. She estimated 200-300 people had been involved and said more rioters would be arrested.

A 31-year-old man from St Helens, a 31-year-old man from West Derby, Liverpool and a 39-year-old man from Southport were all arrested on suspicion of violent disorder, while a 32-year-old man from Manchester with a probation address in Southport was arrested on suspicion of affray and possession of a bladed article.

Special powers – known as section 60 and section 34 orders – are in place giving officers authority to stop and search individuals and direct people who are engaging in antisocial behaviour.

As police dealt with the fallout of the riot, detectives were granted more time to question the 17-year-old boy held in connection with the atrocity in which three girls, aged six, seven and nine, were killed, and eight other children and two adults were injured.

The boy, from the nearby village of Banks, was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder after the horror unfolded at a Taylor Swift-themed children’s holiday club on Monday.

Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, were fatally stabbed, while five children and two adults remain in critical condition.

Tuesday’s riot, near Southport mosque, marred a night of remembrance for the girls. The 53 police officers were seriously injured when bricks, stones and bottles were thrown and cars set alight after the vigil.

Baseless rumours had been spread on social media misidentifying the suspect and falsely claiming he was an asylum seeker. He was born in Cardiff.

On Wednesday, the metro mayor of Liverpool, Steve Rotheram, speaking in Southport, said: “What we saw last night was infiltration by people from all over the country, stirred up by social media and then whipped up into a frenzy whereby they were attacking the very people that everybody earlier in the day was celebrating for being the heroes, for running towards danger. It leaves a very sour taste in the mouth that these people believe they can come here and divide our community.”

Jenni Stancombe, Elsie’s mother, intervened in a bid to cool tensions, writing on Facebook: “This is the only thing that I will write, but please, please stop the violence in Southport tonight. The police have been nothing but heroic these last 24 hours and they and we don’t need this.”

After the violence, people rallied together to support the Muslim community and clear up the mess left by rioters.

Dozens of residents were outside Southport mosque with brushes and shovels on Wednesday morning, and cleared bricks from a wall knocked down during the rioting.

The mosque chair, Ibrahim Hussein, told the Guardian he had been “barricaded” inside the building with eight worshippers while hundreds of rioters descended on the mosque. He said: “It really was terrifying and it was uncalled for. There was no reason for it whatsoever. We just have to keep on going, there’s nothing else we can do.”

Merseyside police said “a large group of people – believed to be supporters of the English Defence League [EDL]” – began to throw items such as bricks towards the mosque … at about 7.45pm”.

The EDL is a far-right, Islamophobic group founded in 2009 by Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s former first minister, called for the EDL to be banned under terror laws. Robinson insists the group no longer exists.

The deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, later said Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, would “be looking at” whether EDL should be proscribed under terrorism laws.

The Southport MP, Patrick Hurley, has said rioters must face the “full force of the law” after 39 police officers suffered serious injuries during violent protests following a vigil for the victims of Monday’s knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club.

Merseyside police said those involved in the violent unrest in the north-west seaside town on Tuesday evening – who they believe included supporters of the English Defence League – set alight cars, threw bricks at a local mosque, damaged a local convenience store and set wheelie bins on fire.

The violent protests, which began at about 7.45pm, followed a peaceful vigil for the victims of the attack outside Southport’s Atkinson arts venue attended by hundreds of people, with many in tears as they laid flowers and cards of remembrance.

The mother of one of the three girls killed in the knife attack made an impassioned plea to “stop the violence”.

Jenni Stancombe, the mother of Elsie Dot Stancombe, wrote on Facebook: “This is the only thing that I will write, but please please stop the violence in Southport tonight. The police have been nothing but heroic these last 24 hours and they and we don’t need this.”

Elsie, seven, Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, and Bebe King, six, were fatally stabbed in Southport on Monday. Eight other children suffered stab wounds and five are in a critical condition, alongside two adults who were also critically injured, police said.

A 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, remains in custody.

North West ambulance service said 27 officers were taken to hospital, with 12 others being treated and discharged at the scene of the rioting. Merseyside police said eight officers suffered serious injuries including fractures, lacerations, a suspected broken nose and concussion. Three police dogs were also injured.

Hurley said the violence was the result of “propaganda and lies” circulated on social media about the identity of the attacker within minutes of Monday’s tragic incident.

The MP condemned “beered-up thugs” who threw bricks, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “These were thugs who got the train in, these were not the people from Southport.

“They were using the horrific incident on Monday, the deaths of three little kiddies, for their own political purposes and actually to attack the very same first responders and the very same police, who had been on the scene on Monday, were then being pelted with bricks the day after by these thugs.”

He hit out at the “swirling morass” of social media “lies and propaganda”, saying they had fuelled rumours about the attacker’s identity as well as criticism of politicians. False claims had spread online that the suspect was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK by boat.

He told Times Radio: “We’d had all sorts of lies being spread and misinformation being spread about the alleged perpetrator and some people with the best of intentions then they tried to rebut this, they tried to argue back, but all that happens is you’re just amplifying people’s false messaging.”

He added: “This misinformation doesn’t just exist on people’s internet browsers and on people’s phones. It has real-world impact.”

Dozens of people turned up outside Southport mosque on Wednesday morning with brushes and shovels to help with the clean-up operation.

Writing on X, Keir Starmer, the prime minister, said on Tuesday night: “The people of Southport are reeling after the horror inflicted on them yesterday. They deserve our support and our respect. Those who have hijacked the vigil for the victims with violence and thuggery have insulted the community as it grieves.”

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, described the rioting as “violent attacks from thugs on the streets”, which she branded “appalling”.

In a post on social media, Merseyside police said shops had been broken into and looted, adding that “those responsible will be brought to justice”.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, Alex Goss, a Merseyside police assistant chief constable, said: “The actions in Southport tonight will involve many people who do not live in the Merseyside area or care about the people of Merseyside.

“There has been much speculation and hypothesis around the status of a 17-year-old male who is currently in police custody, and some individuals are using this to bring violence and disorder to our streets.

“We have already said that the person arrested was born in the UK and speculation helps nobody at this time.”

The suspect, who was born in Cardiff, is from the village of Banks, just outside Southport. A road in the area was cordoned off by detectives on Monday afternoon.

Police have said that, although the motive for the attack was unclear, it was not believed to be terror-related.

A 32-year-old man from Standish was arrested on suspicion of possession of a flick-knife in Eastbank Street, near where the vigil took place on Tuesday evening.

He was taken into custody and there were no reports that anyone was injured during the incident, Merseyside police said.

The US has suspended $95m in assistance to Georgia after its parliament adopted legislation related to foreign agents that critics say was inspired by a Russian law used to crack down on political dissent and that sparked weeks of mass protests.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said on Wednesday that he had decided to pause the Georgian aid, which would directly benefit the government, in response to “anti-democratic” actions the government has taken.

The US has also already imposed visa bans on a number of Georgian politicians and law enforcement officials for suppressing free speech, particularly voices in favor of Georgia’s integration with the west.

“The Georgian government’s anti-democratic actions and false statements are incompatible with membership norms in the EU and Nato,” Blinken said in a statement released as he was flying from Singapore to Mongolia at the end of a six-nation tour of Asia.

Despite the suspension, Blinken said the US would continue to fund programs in Georgia that promote democracy, the rule of law, independent media and economic development.

“We will remain committed to the Georgian people and their Euro-Atlantic aspirations,” he said, noting that the US has provided more than $6.2bn in assistance to Georgia over the past three decades since it won independence from the Soviet Union.

The Georgian parliament passed the legislation in May, overriding a veto by the president. The law requires media and nongovernmental organizations to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad.

Critics say that it closely resembles legislation the Kremlin used to silence opponents and that it will obstruct Georgia’s bid to join the EU.

A Guinean court is expected to deliver a long-awaited verdict in the trial of the former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara over a massacre and mass rape in September 2009, despite impending protests and a lawyers’ strike.

Camara is accused with 10 others of ordering a crackdown on thousands of unarmed protesters who were aggrieved that he had decided to stand for election the following year.

At least 150 people were killed after several hundred soldiers opened fire. Dozens of women were raped in the chaos that followed after the gendarmerie entered the Stade du 28 Septembre, named after the 1958 referendum when the former French colony voted for independence.

“This trial is symbolic, marking without a doubt a new era of breaking with a system of impunity,” said Halimatou Camara (no relation to the former dictator), a lawyer representng one of the survivors.

Tamara Aburamadan, an international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch, said: “It is a moment that has been long overdue. Victims have been waiting for it for so long … this is a moment that is not only important for the victims of this particular massacre, but for all Guineans.”

The fight for justice has not been without challenges. The trial has been adjourned multiple times, while the matter of sufficient compensation and medical assistance for the survivors is also yet to be decided.

Among the 11 people on trial is Aboubacar “Toumba” Diakité, who, as head of Camara’s presidential guard, admitted in December 2009 that he shot his former boss at point-blank range during a row over who should take the blame for the massacre.

Last November, Camara escaped from Conakry’s central prison during an apparent jailbreak by masked gunmen. He was later returned to the prison by security officials. Claude Pivi, another defendant who fled, is still at large.

Guinea’s current military administration, led by Mamady Doumbouya who took power after a 2021 coup, has been lauded locally for pushing for the trial.

But in the run-up to the verdict, civil society groups are also requesting the release of two activists, Oumar Sylla and Mamadou Billo Bah, detained since 9 July. A protest is due to take place on Wednesday.

On 16 July, lawyers in the country embarked on a two-week strike to protest against sporadic arrests of the pair and other citizens, defying a nationwide ban on demonstrations.

On the eve of the trial, the junta submitted a draft to amend the 2020 constitution to parliament. If ratified in a referendum, it will reduce presidential term limits from six years to five and not bar current members of the ruling military council from contesting the next election. Dates for the referendum and election are yet to be announced.

Human rights activists say the trial is an important moment in a country with a long history of dictators and could spur further change.

Aburamadan said she hoped the trial and verdict would “inspire other opportunities to pursue justice” for other serious crimes that had been committed in the country.

The death toll from a series of landslides in Kerala has risen to 166 and almost 200 people are still missing as the southern Indian state reels from one of its worst disasters in years.

Hundreds of homes were swept away and crushed by two huge consecutive landslides in the hilly district of Wayanad in the middle of the night on Tuesday.

The landslides occurred after the steep terrain was hit by five times the normal amount of rain, with some regions reporting more than 300mm (1ft) of rainfall within 24 hours.

Entire villages were submerged in mud as the large volume of rain caused the Eruvazhanji River to overflow and change course, gushing through places where hundreds of people were asleep in their homes. Several tea and cardamom plantations were also devastated.

Hundreds of workers took part in the rescue operation on Wednesday, pulling bodies from the mud and debris, but it was hampered by adverse weather conditions and access difficulties after key roads and bridges were washed away in the disaster. At the end of the second day of rescue efforts, about 190 people were still missing or unidentified, children among them, and fears were fading for their survival.

The Indian army evacuated more than 5,500 people from the area, including hundreds of stranded tourists, and took them to dozens of relief camps as the heavy rains continued.

A political row broke out over the disaster after India’s home minister, Amit Shah, said warnings had been given to the Kerala state government – ruled by an opposition party – about the potential threat of landslides in the region due to heavy monsoon rains.

“Teams were sent in Kerala in advance. The Kerala government did not evacuate people in time,” Shah told parliament on Wednesday. However, Kerala’s chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, said a red alert had been given only after the landslides and that this was not the time for a “blame game”.

Jayan, a resident of the Chooralmala village, one of the worst-hit areas, told the Indian Express that 11 of his family members were still missing. “We have only got three dead bodies so far and the remaining are still missing,” he said.

Landslides have become increasingly common in Kerala in the monsoon season as the climate crisis has triggered unusually intense periods of rainfall, causing havoc on the state’s hilly terrain.

Environmentalists have also warned that the problem has been worsened by increased construction of houses on unstable hill terrain and the clearing of forests to make way for plantations, which has destabilised the soil and made the area more vulnerable to landslides.

The death toll from a series of landslides in Kerala has risen to 166 and almost 200 people are still missing as the southern Indian state reels from one of its worst disasters in years.

Hundreds of homes were swept away and crushed by two huge consecutive landslides in the hilly district of Wayanad in the middle of the night on Tuesday.

The landslides occurred after the steep terrain was hit by five times the normal amount of rain, with some regions reporting more than 300mm (1ft) of rainfall within 24 hours.

Entire villages were submerged in mud as the large volume of rain caused the Eruvazhanji River to overflow and change course, gushing through places where hundreds of people were asleep in their homes. Several tea and cardamom plantations were also devastated.

Hundreds of workers took part in the rescue operation on Wednesday, pulling bodies from the mud and debris, but it was hampered by adverse weather conditions and access difficulties after key roads and bridges were washed away in the disaster. At the end of the second day of rescue efforts, about 190 people were still missing or unidentified, children among them, and fears were fading for their survival.

The Indian army evacuated more than 5,500 people from the area, including hundreds of stranded tourists, and took them to dozens of relief camps as the heavy rains continued.

A political row broke out over the disaster after India’s home minister, Amit Shah, said warnings had been given to the Kerala state government – ruled by an opposition party – about the potential threat of landslides in the region due to heavy monsoon rains.

“Teams were sent in Kerala in advance. The Kerala government did not evacuate people in time,” Shah told parliament on Wednesday. However, Kerala’s chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, said a red alert had been given only after the landslides and that this was not the time for a “blame game”.

Jayan, a resident of the Chooralmala village, one of the worst-hit areas, told the Indian Express that 11 of his family members were still missing. “We have only got three dead bodies so far and the remaining are still missing,” he said.

Landslides have become increasingly common in Kerala in the monsoon season as the climate crisis has triggered unusually intense periods of rainfall, causing havoc on the state’s hilly terrain.

Environmentalists have also warned that the problem has been worsened by increased construction of houses on unstable hill terrain and the clearing of forests to make way for plantations, which has destabilised the soil and made the area more vulnerable to landslides.

Two Russian deep-cover spies arrested in Slovenia have admitted their guilt, in a swift court case that potentially paves the way for them to be included in a prisoner exchange between Russia and the west.

The pair, whose real names are thought to be Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva, were arrested in late 2022, and are believed to be “illegals” – deep-cover Russian spies trained to impersonate foreigners, who spend years living abroad in their cover identities. They posed as Ludwig Gisch and Maria Mayer, an Argentinian couple, and spoke to their two children in Spanish. She ran an online art gallery and he had an IT business, but all the while they secretly worked for Russian intelligence.

The couple pleaded guilty to charges of spying and falsifying documents, the Ljubljana regional court said in a statement. The court sentenced them to more than a year and a half in prison, equivalent to time served, and ordered their expulsion from the country. They were also banned from returning to Slovenia for a period of five years.

It is believed the couple took advantage of Slovenia’s position inside the Schengen free movement zone to perform tasks across Europe for Russian intelligence. One source previously told the Guardian that during a search of an office used by the pair, police found so much cash that it took hours to count. The pair’s two children were taken into foster care after their arrest and continued to attend an international school in Ljubljana. It is not clear what will happen to them now.

After the hearing, the pair were escorted by police from a rear entrance of the court. They held papers up to their faces in an effort not to be caught on camera. Last year, a source in Ljubljana with knowledge of the case said the couple had refused to cooperate after their arrest and had said nothing to investigators, but added that Russian officials had swiftly admitted in private that the pair were intelligence officers and discussions had started over a possible exchange.

The Slovenian news outlet N1 cited anonymous sources claiming the two spies would be part of an imminent prisoner exchange. The speculation comes amid reports that numerous Russian prisoners have been moved from their last known locations, including a number of political prisoners. On Tuesday, a German sentenced to death in Belarus, a staunch Russia ally, was pardoned by the country’s authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko.

Washington and Moscow have been locked in low-profile negotiations for months over a possible prisoner swap, with the White House keen to free US prisoners held in Russian jails, including the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was sentenced earlier this month to 16 years for espionage, charges denied by Gershkovich, his employer and the US government.

Russian authorities have been accused of ordering the arrest of Gershkovich and others with a view to obtaining “bargaining chips” for use in a potential exchange. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has made clear that his key target for release is Vadim Krasikov, a Russian assassin who shot dead a Chechen exile in a Berlin park in 2019.

As protests over Venezuela’s disputed presidential election spread across the country, opposition supporters have focused their fury on president Nicolás Maduro’s predecessor and political mentor, Hugo Chávez.

At least seven statues of the former leader have been attacked, some beheaded with sledgehammers, and some completely torn down.

In the seaside city of La Guaira, 30km from the capital Caracas, a group of protesters tore down a 3.5-metre Chávez monument which had been inaugurated in 2017 by Maduro, shouting: “This government is going to fall.”

Once removed, the statue was dragged by motorcycles across the plaza, doused in gasoline, and set on fire, the Associated Press reported.

In Coro, the capital of Falcón state, protesters were filmed attacking a concrete statue of Chávez, the former paratrooper who ruled Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013. Cheers erupted as the monument fell, and a protester waved a Venezuelan flag over the crumbled remains.

In the city of Calabozo, in Guárico state, protesters used hammers and a metal pole to push over another effigy of the saluting strongman.

This is not the first time that statues of Chávez have been attacked: several were targeted down during a previous wave of unrest in 2017, which more than 160 people died.

But the sheer number of monuments defaced is something new, said Jesús Castellanos, a consultant for the NGO Transparencia Electoral.

“The destruction of so many statues at once is a product of the level of dissatisfaction and discontent over the national electoral council (CNE) calling a victory for Maduro, which does not reflect the reality of what occurred on Sunday,” said Castellanos.

The government-controlled electoral court officially declared Maduro the winner on Monday after a campaign in which opinion polls indicated a strong lead for the main opposition candidate, Edmundo González.

Since then, the opposition, independent observers and neighbouring countries – including the leftwing governments of Colombia and Brazil – have called on the CNE to release voting tally sheets, which it has refused to do so far.

“This is very serious, especially when there are serious doubts about whether the data is accurate,” said Castellanos.

On Tuesday evening the Atlanta-based Carter Center, an NGO founded by Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter focused on conflict resolution, said it was unable to verify the results, blaming authorities for a “complete lack of transparency” in declaring Nicolas Maduro the winner without providing any individual polling tallies.

The Associated Press called the statement “perhaps the harshest rebuke yet” of Venezuela’s chaotic election process because it came from one of just a handful of outside groups invited by the Maduro government to observe the vote.

“The electoral authority’s failure to announce disaggregated results by polling station constitutes a serious breach of electoral principles,” the Carter Center said. The group, which had a technical mission of 17 experts spread out in four cities across Venezuela, added that the election did not meet international standards and “cannot be considered democratic.”

The opposition leader, the conservative former lawmaker María Corina Machado, claimed on earlier Tuesday to have copies of 84% of the voting tallies from polling stations. “They are irrefutable and irreversible proof that we won,” said Machado, who led González’s campaign.

Meanwhile, protests are facing harsh repression from the authoritarian government.

According to the NGO Foro Penal, at least 11 people have been killed by the security forces, including a 15-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl.

“Unfortunately, the government does not respond to the protests with dialogue and conversations; instead, political protests are repressed,” the NGO’s president, Alfredo Romero, told the NTN24 TV channel.

Addressing supporters outside the presidential palace on Tuesday afternoon, Maduro said security forces were pursuing those behind the attacks – which he has likened to the images from revolutions in post-Soviet states including Ukraine and Georgia, which he claimed were fomented by the US.

“They have been captured, they are under arrest and they will be punished with the full force of the law,” Maduro vowed, before bellowing: “Respect history! Respect the law!”

Additional reporting by Associated Press

The former BBC presenter Huw Edwards faces a possible jail sentence after admitting accessing indecent photographs of children as young as seven.

Edwards, 62, who spent 40 years at the corporation, during which he was a fixture in its coverage of major political and royal events, pleaded guilty at Westminster magistrates court on Wednesday to three charges of making indecent images of children.

The court heard that Edwards had been involved in an online chat with an adult male on WhatsApp between December 2020 and August 2021 who sent him 377 sexual images, including 41 indecent images of children, of which seven were category A (the worst), 12 category B and 22 category C.

Wearing a dark suit, Edwards, who had been flanked by eight police officers on his arrival at the court, sat staring into the distance after admitting the charges, adjusting his tie as the prosecutor, Ian Hope, laid out the case against him.

The guilty pleas represent a dramatic fall from grace for Edwards, who less than two years ago announced Queen Elizabeth II’s death on the BBC and presented coverage of her funeral before anchoring the broadcast of King Charles’s coronation last year.

He took over election coverage from the long-serving David Dimbleby in 2019 and was the corporation’s highest paid newsreader – with a pay bracket of £475,000 to £479,999 for the year 2023-24 for 160 presenting days – at the time of his resignation on medical grounds in April this year.

His departure from the BBC followed his suspension by the broadcaster in July last year over allegations he received inappropriate images from a younger person and gave them money. The young person at the heart of the allegations described the claims as “rubbish” and blamed their parents for going public.

Police found no evidence of criminal behaviour relating to the controversy, but on Monday the Met revealed that he had been charged relating to images shared on a WhatsApp chat.

Of the category A images, the estimated ages of most of the children were between 13 and 15, but one was aged between seven and nine, the court was told.

On 2 February 2021, the man Edwards was corresponding with online asked whether what he was sending was too young, in response to which Edwards told him not to send any underage images, the court heard.

The final indecent image was sent in August 2021, a category A film featuring a young boy.

The man told Edwards that the boy was quite young-looking and that he had more images that were illegal but the former newsreader told him not to send any illegal images and his request was complied with, the court was told.

Sentencing guidelines set the starting point for any jail term for possession of a category A image at 12 months, with a range of 26 weeks to three years. The starting point is 26 weeks for a category B image and a community order for category C.

Hope told the court that, where there is the prospect of rehabilitation, a community order and sexual offender treatment programme could be considered as alternatives to a custodial sentence and that a suspended sentence may be considered for Edwards.

The court heard that aggravating features to be taken into account included that some of the content consisted of moving images and the young age of the child, thought to be seven to nine years old, in two of the category A images.

Mitigating factors were said to be the early guilty plea, Edwards’ previous good character, his mental health problems and what Hope said was “genuine remorse”.

Edwards’ barrister, Philip Evans KC, said his client “did not keep any images, did not send any to anyone else and did not and has not sought similar images from anywhere else”.

He said Edwards had “both mental and physical” health problems.

Claire Brinton, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: “Accessing indecent images of underage people perpetuates the sexual exploitation of children, which has deep, long-lasting trauma on these victims.

“This prosecution sends a clear message that the CPS, working alongside the police, will work to bring to justice those who seek to exploit children, wherever that abuse takes place.”

Edwards will appear at the same court again on 16 September.

Eating processed red meat could be a significant risk factor for dementia, according to a large study that tracked more than 100,000 people over four decades.

Processed red meat has previously been shown to increase the risk of cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Now US researchers say they have uncovered a potential link to dementia.

The study also found that replacing processed red meat with healthier foods such as nuts, beans or tofu could help reduce the risk of dementia. The findings were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association international conference in the US.

The number of people living with dementia globally is forecast to nearly triple to 153 million by 2050, and studies looking at diet and risk of cognitive decline has become a focus of researchers.

In the latest research, experts studied the health of 130,000 nurses and other health workers working in the US. They were tracked for 43 years and provided data on their diet every 2 to 5 years.

The participants were asked how often they ate processed red meat including bacon, hotdogs, sausages, salami and other sandwich meat.

They were also asked about their consumption of nuts and legumes including peanut butter, peanuts, walnuts and other nuts, string beans, beans, peas, soy milk and tofu.

More than 11,000 cases of dementia were identified during the follow-up period.

Consuming two servings of processed red meat each week appeared to raise the risk of cognitive decline by 14% compared with those eating about three servings a month, the researchers reported.

The study also suggested that replacing one daily serving of processed red meat for a daily serving of nuts, beans or tofu every day could lower the risk of dementia by 23%.

The lead author of the study, Dr Yuhan Li, an assistant professor at the Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston, said: “Study results have been mixed on whether there is a relationship between cognitive decline and meat consumption in general, so we took a closer look at how eating different amounts of both processed and unprocessed meat affects cognitive risk and function.

“By studying people over a long period of time, we found that eating processed red meat could be a significant risk factor for dementia.”

Li, who conducted the study while at the Harvard TH Chan school of public health in Boston, added: “Dietary guidelines could include recommendations limiting it to promote brain health.

“Processed red meat has also been shown to raise the risk of cancer, heart disease and diabetes. It may affect the brain because it has high levels of harmful substances such as nitrites [preservatives] and sodium.”

Dr Heather Snyder, of the Alzheimer’s Association, said: “Prevention of Alzheimer’s disease and all other dementia is a major focus, and the Alzheimer’s Association has long encouraged eating a healthier diet – including foods that are less processed – because they’ve been associated with lower the risk of cognitive decline. This large, long-term study provides a specific example of one way to eat healthier.”

Dr Richard Oakley, of the Alzheimer’s Society in the UK, said: “In this study more people who ate processed red meat went on to develop dementia and had worse memory and thinking skills.”

However, he urged caution because the research found only an association between processed red meat and dementia – and did not prove cause and effect.

“It’s important to remember that this doesn’t mean that eating processed red meat is directly related to developing dementia. It may be that people who avoid processed red meat are generally more health conscious and avoid other unhealthy habits that increase dementia risk.”