A major new poll puts Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump in three key swing states, signaling a dramatic reversal in momentum for the Democratic party with three months to go until the election.

The vice-president leads the ex-president by four percentage points in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, 50% to 46%, among almost 2,000 likely voters across the three states, according to new surveys by the New York Times and Siena College.

The polls were conducted between 5 and 9 August, in the week Harris named midwesterner Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and a former high-school teacher, as her running mate on November’s Democratic ticket.

It provides the clearest indication from crucial battleground states since Joe Biden pulled out of the race and endorsed Harris amid mounting concerns about the 81-year-old’s cognitive wellbeing and fitness to govern for a second term. The results come after months of polling that showed Biden either tied with or slightly behind Trump.

Harris is viewed as more intelligent, more honest and more temperamentally fit to run the country than Trump, according to the registered voters polled.

The findings, published on Saturday by the New York Times, will boost the Democrats, as Harris and Walz continue crisscrossing the country on their first week on the campaign trail together, holding a slew of events in swing states that are likely to decide the outcome of the election.

On Saturday, the candidates held a rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, a state the Biden-Harris ticket won by more than two points in 2020.

While only a snapshot, Democrats will probably be heartened to see that 60% of the surveyed independent voters, who always play a major role in deciding the outcome of the race, said they are satisfied with the choice of presidential candidates, compared with 45% in May.

The swing appears to be largely driven by evolving voter perceptions of Harris, who has been praised for her positivity and future-focused stump speeches on the campaign trail. In Pennsylvania, where Biden beat Trump by just more than 80,000 votes four years ago, her favorability rating has surged by 10 points since last month among registered voters, according to Times/Siena polling.

Harris will need to win Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan – crucial battleground states that Biden clinched in 2020 – if the Democrats are to retain the White House.

The latest polls will probably further anger Trump, whose few recent campaign events have largely been dominated by ire – and apparent disbelief – at the rapid shift in momentum since naming JD Vance, the Ohio senator and former venture capitalist, as his running mate amid a celebratory atmosphere at the Republican national convention less than a month ago.

Vance, who has been derided as “weird” by the Democrats as he doubles down on 2021 comments about the US being run by “childless cat ladies”, is broadly viewed unfavorably or unenthusiastically by the majority of independents, Democrats and registered Republicans, the new poll found.

But Democrats still have work to do to communicate Harris’s vision for the country. The poll found that 60% of registered voters think Trump has a clear vision of the country, compared with only 53% when asked about Harris.

Crucially, Trump is also still leading when it comes to confidence over handling the economy and immigration – two of the three key issues for voters, according to polls.

Still, Harris has a 24-point advantage over Trump when it comes to abortion, an issue which Democrats hope will help get out the vote in key swing states such as Arizona and Wisconsin. Harris is also viewed significantly more favorably when it comes to democracy than Trump, who continues to face charges related to his alleged role in subverting the 2020 election results and the 6 January insurrection in Washington.

In a statement to the Times, Tony Fabrizio, the Trump campaign’s chief pollster, said the new polls “dramatically understated President Trump’s support”, citing surveys conducted in the days before the 2020 election that overestimated the margin of Biden’s victory.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz wrapped up their first week together on the campaign trail with a rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, as the Democratic party seeks to further galvanize its base and win over undecided voters in battleground states such as Nevada.

In what was the vice-president and Minnesota governor’s fifth rally in five days, the pair hoped to continue building on the renewed wave of enthusiasm and engagement among some voters and organizers since Joe Biden stepped down from the presidential race amid growing concerns over his cognitive health and entrenched support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

Harris told supporters at the rally she supported eliminating taxes on tips, taking a similar position to her rival, Donald Trump, in an effort to win over service workers, an important constituency in the state.

“It is my promise to everyone here when I am president we will continue to fight for working families, including to raise the minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers,” Harris said.

A major poll by the New York Times and Siena College published on Saturday found Harris leading Trump by four points in three key states – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, reversing the downward trend for Democrats as Biden’s popularity and performance tanked.

Also on Saturday, Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt clarified to the Associated Press that Walz “misspoke” over a 2018 video about “weapons of war that I carried in war”. His recent rise has led to many Republicans, including the vice-presidential nominee, Ohio senator JD Vance, to question Walz’s military record.

Some of the criticism centered on comments by Walz in a 2018 video circulated on social media by the Harris campaign in which he speaks out against gun violence and says: “We can make sure that those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at.” The comment suggests Walz portrayed himself as someone who spent time in a combat zone.

Walz served 24 years in various army national guard units but he was never in a combat zone.

“Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country – in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way,” Hitt said.

“In making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the governor misspoke. He did handle weapons of war and believes strongly that only military members trained to carry those deadly weapons should have access to them, unlike Donald Trump and JD Vance who prioritize the gun lobby over our children.”

Harris-Walz’s introductory swing-state tour – with stops in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona – comes amid a string of new endorsements including on Friday the local affiliate of the Culinary Union, which represents 60,000 workers in casino resorts, hotels and restaurants in Las Vegas and Reno.

Also on Friday, in what will be regarded as a significant coup, the historically politically neutral League of United Latin American Citizens (Lulac), the oldest Latino civil rights group, broke with tradition to endorse the Democratic ticket.

“The politics of hate-mongering and scapegoating Latinos and immigrants must be stopped,” said Domingo Garcia, the chairman of Lulac Adelante Pac, in a statement. “Latinos understand how much is at stake in this election, for not only our community but our democracy.”

On Friday, an estimated 15,000 people braved the 105F (40C) heat to attend the Harris and Walz event in Glendale, Arizona, a record turnout, according to her campaign, in a state the Democrats will need to throw everything at to win over the diverse coalition of voters that delivered them victory in 2020.

The candidates were introduced by Senator Mark Kelly, the Arizona Democrat and former contender for the vice-president nomination who is also a navy veteran and former astronaut.

In her speech, Harris focused on immigration and abortion, two key issues in the border state and nationally, and she addressed the state’s Indigenous communities who played a crucial role in Biden’s 2020 victory.

“As president, I will tell you, I will always honor tribal sovereignty and respect tribal self-determination,” she told the enthusiastic, sweltering crowd. Arizona is home to 22 Native American tribes, who account for just more than 5% of the population.

The vice-president responded to pro-Palestinian protesters by calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the freeing of hostages – a marked contrast to her tetchy response to a similar interruption at a rally in Detroit earlier this week, which frustrated some progressives who want the US to stop arming Israel.

“Now is the time, and the president and I are working around the clock every day to get that ceasefire deal done and bring the hostages home,” Harris said to cheers after briefly pausing her stump speech.

The Harris campaign said more than 12,000 people were in the arena in Las Vegas on Saturday and police turned away roughly 4,000 more because people in line were becoming ill in the Nevada heat as temperatures reached 109F (40C).

Harris was due to travel to San Francisco in her home state of California on Sunday, to attend a fundraiser with the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Nearly 700 people were expected at the event, predicted to raise more than $12m, a campaign official said.

Trump was in Montana on Friday to try to boost a close Senate race. Montana is another state with a large and diverse Indigenous community but it is reliably Republican, having voted for only two Democratic candidates since 1952. Trump broke from his usual rambling monologue to play two video collages of Harris in an effort to paint the former attorney general of California as a leftist radical.

In a sign of how Harris has shifted momentum in the election, analysts at the Cook Political Report recently changed their take on the winnability of some swing states, switching Arizona, Nevada and Georgia from “lean Republican” when Biden was the candidate to a “toss-up” with Harris leading the ticket.

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said on Saturday it had been hacked.

Campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung released a statement about the alleged hack, following reports from Politico that it had begun receiving emails from an anonymous account with internal documents from the campaign.

“These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” Cheung said in a statement reported by Reuters.

Cheung said: “On Friday, a new report from Microsoft found that Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high-ranking official’ on the US presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice-presidential nominee.”

He added: “The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House.”

The campaign cited a Microsoft report released on Friday about alleged hackers with ties to the Iranian government who “sent a spear-phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign from the compromised email account of a former senior adviser”.

Microsoft did not disclose details on the official or senior adviser’s identities, or the hack’s origin.

Trump’s campaign has not provided direct evidence of the alleged hack and the Guardian has contacted Trump’s campaign and Microsoft for comment.

Following the assassination attempt on Trump last month, reports emerged that a threat from Iran prompted the Secret Service to increase protection around him prior to his assassination attempt, though it appears unrelated to the rally attack in Butler county, Pennsylvania.

Earlier this week, the US justice department announced that a Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran had been charged over a foiled conspiracy to carry out political assassinations on American soil.

According to a criminal complaint, 46-year old Asif Merchant tried to recruit people in the US to carry out the plot in retaliation for the US’s 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ top commander.

FBI investigators believe that Trump, who approved the drone strike on Soleimani, was one of the intended targets, according to a US official, CNN reported at the time.

• Russia said it was evacuating tens of thousands of people from its Kursk region, which has been invaded by Ukrainian troops. Alexei Smirnov, the acting governor, said on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday that he had “instructed” the head of the Belovsky district of the region, in Kursk’s south-west, to “speed up” the carrying out of the orders to evacuate. Local officials detailed the scale of civilian evacuations from towns and villages close to the combat zone. “More than 76,000 people have been temporarily relocated to safe places,” the state-run TASS news agency quoted an official from the regional emergency situations ministry as saying at a press briefing.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged for the first time on Saturday that Ukrainian forces were fighting in Russia’s Kursk region and said the operation was part of Kyiv’s drive to restore justice after Russia’s 2022 invasion. Ukraine’s president had previously stayed silent about the operation. In his Saturday evening address, he said he had discussed the operation with the top Ukrainian commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, “and our actions and pushing the war into the aggressor’s territory”. Thanking the soldiers involved, he added: “Ukraine is proving that it can really bring justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor.”

• At least 13 people were injured in the city of Kursk after debris from a destroyed Ukraine-launched missile fell onto a nine-storey residential building, officials in the region said on Sunday. Residents of the building were to be evacuated to a temporary accommodations centre, said the Kursk mayor, Igor Kutsak. He added that the whole city was under air raid alerts.

• Russia’s defence ministry claimed it prevented Ukraine from advancing further on the fifth day of the attack into Kursk, Dan Sabbagh reports. Fighting was said to be taking place in three villages between seven and 11 miles from the international border – Ivashkovskoye, Malaya Loknya and Olgovka – similar locations to where Ukraine was estimated to have advanced previously. Russia’s FSB domestic security agency imposed a “counter-terrorism” regime on Kursk and two neighbouring oblasts, Bryansk and Belgorod, giving the authorities sweeping powers to lock down an area and impose controls on communications.

• Russia’s nuclear agency on Saturday warned of a direct threat to the Kursk nuclear power station, less than 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the fighting. “The actions of the Ukrainian army pose a direct threat” to the Kursk plant in western Russia, state news agencies cited its atomic energy agency Rosatom as saying. There was no evidence of Ukrainian forces threatening the plant. On Friday, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency called for “maximum restraint”.

• There were reports of regional power outages after an electricity substation was hit in the Kursk region. Acting governor Alexey Smirnov said on Friday that a fire had broken out in a transformer substation hit by debris from a Ukrainian drone. Power was out in some frontline areas, he added, including Kurchatov, where the nuclear power station is based.

• Belarus sent more troops to reinforce its border with Ukraine on Saturday, saying Ukrainian drones had violated its airspace in the course of Kyiv’s incursion into the Kursk region. Belarus’s foreign ministry summoned Ukraine’s charge d’affaires, demanded measures to ensure such incidents would not recur and suggested a repeat would prompt Belarus to consider whether Kyiv’s diplomatic presence in Minsk was “appropriate”. The Ukrainian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• Ukraine’s navy and military intelligence attacked and damaged a former offshore gas platform used by Russian forces in the Black Sea, the navy spokesperson said on Saturday. He posted a video taken at night showing an explosion on an offshore platform and the ensuing fire. He said that a half a day before the attack, Russian forces had stationed equipment and military personnel on the platform. There was no immediate comment from Moscow.

• Three people were killed in two Russian attacks on Ukraine’s eastern frontline Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, local officials said on Saturday. One civilian was killed and several others were injured in a Russian missile strike on the town of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region, the local governor said.

• One civilian was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Russian city of Lipetsk, about 300 km (190 miles) from the Ukrainian border, the regional government said on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday. Igor Artamonov, governor of the Lipetsk region, said Russian air defence systems had intercepted 19 Ukrainian drones overnight

• Elsewhere on the frontline, Ukraine on Saturday reported the lowest number of “combat engagements” on its territory since 10 June. That could be a sign its incursion is helping to relieve pressure on other parts of the sprawling frontline where Moscow’s troops had been advancing.

• Russia launched an air attack on Kyiv, with air defence systems repelling the strikes, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital and military administration officials said early on Sunday. “Air defence units operating, air raid alert continues,” said the Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko. It was not immediately clear if the attack caused any damage or injuries.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy pledged on Saturday to “strengthen our Ukrainian spiritual independence”, suggesting that the country’s leadership was moving towards effectively banning the branch of the Orthodox church that has links to Moscow. Membership of the independent church loyal to the Kyiv patriarchate has swelled since Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022. But the minority Moscow-linked church retains influence and Ukrainian leaders accuse it of abetting the invasion and trying to poison public opinion.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed it prevented Ukraine from advancing further on the fifth day of the unprecedented attack into the province of Kursk, though there were reports of regional power outages after an electricity substation was hit.

Fighting was said to be taking place in three villages between seven and 11 miles from the international border – Ivashkovskoye, Malaya Loknya and Olgovka – similar locations to where Ukraine is estimated to have advanced previously.

In a morning statement, the defence ministry said it had “thwarted the attempts of the enemy’s mobile groups to get to the depth of the Russian territory” and there were no other significant reports to the contrary.

Russia’s FSB domestic security agency also imposed a “counter-terrorism” regime on Kursk and two neighbouring oblasts, Bryansk and Belgorod, giving the authorities sweeping powers to lock down an area and impose controls on communications.

Ukrainian leaders and its military have refrained from commenting on its attempt to take the war directly on to Russian soil, though on Friday afternoon Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, implied the operation had been discussed at a meeting of the defence staff.

A report from Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi had, Zelenskiy said, “also covered our defensive actions in the directions from which Russia launched attacks on Ukrainian territory” – an apparent reference to the unprecedented attack launched this week.

Ukrainian regular forces burst over the border north-east of Sumy on Tuesday in a surprise attack on a lightly defended sector of the frontline and advanced about 13 miles, capturing towns and villages and destroying a Russian convoy 25 miles from the border, causing dozens of casualties.

It was the first time that Ukraine had attacked with regular forces inside Russia’s territory – a tactic that at one point might have provoked considerable anxiety among Kyiv’s western backers for fear of escalation from the Kremlin.

Overnight, however, Ukraine received a vote of confidence from the US, which announced a further $125m (£98m) package of military aid, including artillery shells, rockets and anti-aircraft Stinger missiles.

Ukraine appeared to have inflicted another surprise on the Russians when a short video emerged on Saturday of five soldiers bearing a Ukrainian and Georgian flag outside a club building in Poroz, two miles inside the border in Belgorod province – and about 45 miles south of this week’s incursion.

Though there was no immediate sign that this was any more than a stunt, it served to demonstrate the vulnerability of Russia’s border away from the combat zones inside Ukraine, where the war has been raging since Moscow’s full-scale invasion began more than two years ago.

Alexey Smirnov, the acting governor of the Kursk region, said on Friday that a fire had broken out in a transformer substation after debris from a Ukrainian drone had crashed into the facility. Power was out in some frontline areas, he added, including Kurchatov, where the Kursk nuclear power station is based.

Russian officials said there was no impact on the nuclear plant on Saturday, which was said to be operating normally, though there were reports it was being reinforced. Few believe Ukraine’s military has the capacity to get close to the nuclear plant, which is roughly 30 miles from the nearest fighting as the crow flies.

Nevertheless, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Friday he had been monitoring the battlefield situation. “At this juncture, I would like to appeal to all sides to exercise maximum restraint in order to avoid a nuclear accident,” Grossi said.

The United States men’s basketball team are Olympic champions for a fifth consecutive time after weathering a brilliant effort by 20-year-old phenom Victor Wembanyama to grind out a 98-87 win over a dogged France side on Saturday night.

Less than 48 hours after surviving a touch-and-go semi-final against Serbia that saw their quest for a fifth straight gold dangling by a thread, the Americans overcame a superb 26-point outing by Wembanyama and a hostile crowd inside the cauldron-like Bercy Arena, where the hosts were hoping to become the first side to win men’s basketball gold on home soil since the US did so in 1996.

Stephen Curry finished with a team-high 24 points, including four three-pointers in the final 2:47, to help the Americans finally break free of a persistent French side that never quite allowed their opponents to pull away. After the game, Curry, who finished 8-of-13 from behind the arc, said he had initially struggled with his shooting in the final but then “the rhythm, the avalanche came”.

The United States improved their all-time Olympic record to 143-5, including 36-1 since their notorious flop at the Athens Olympics two decades ago.

Durant, who finished with 15 points in his first start of the Olympic tournament, became the first male athlete to win four gold medals in any team sport. Devin Booker also scored 15 with LeBron James adding 14.

But it was Curry whose long-distance heroics made the difference in the end, dazzling a celebrity-flecked audience that included Thierry Henry, Scottie Pippen, Megan Rapinoe, Gianni Infantino as well as Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron. The four-time NBA champion and Olympic debutant, back in the national team for the first time in a decade, was also the hero of Thursday’s semi-final fightback, pouring in a tournament-high 36 points as the US won from 13 points down in the fourth quarter.

The Americans have now won eight of the last nine Olympic titles in men’s basketball and 17 of 21 overall.

“We have only been together for a short period of time, and we had one common goal and that goal was gold, hold each other accountable every single day to get better, and we did that every single day until the last game,” said James, who added a third Olympic gold to his bronze from 2004. “It means everything. At this latter stage of my career, I don’t know many games I’m going to play, how many more big moments, so to have my family here means everything to me.”

The US extended a 14-point lead early in the third quarter after a back-and-forth opening half and appeared poised to pull away, but the hosts went on a 12-4 run that cut it to 72-66 entering the final period. When the 7ft 4in Wembayama threw down a tip jam that closed the US lead to 82-79 with 3:02 left, the roars inside the 10,100-seat arena rose to deafening levels. But that’s when Curry stepped up to close the show, leaving Wembanyama in tears as he left the court.

Curry helped the United States to Fiba world championships in 2010 and 2014, but the 36-year-old never represented his country in the Olympics until this year. After Saturday’s win, the national team improved to 26-0 with him on the roster.

“Big shots after big shots, the level of difficulty of those shots, and the moment, it was tremendous,” said Joel Embiid, who was jeered by the crowd with every touch over his decision to play for the United States instead of France. “Being his teammate, especially after playing against him and seeing him make all those crazy shots in the last couple of years, it’s fun to be on that side.”

Les Bleus were seeking their first Olympic gold after settling for silver at the 1948, 2000 and 2020 Olympics, losing the final to the United States each time. They have been knocking on the door at major tournaments for several years now including in Tokyo, where they handed the US their first Olympic loss in 17 years only to suffer a five-point defeat when they ran it back for the gold.

They expect to be even better at the 2027 Fiba World Cup in Qatar and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics when Wembanyama will be joined by the top two picks in this year’s NBA draft, Zaccharie Risacher and Alex Sarr, as well as Nolan Traore, who has been projected to go in the top five in 2025. But on Saturday night, with a rollicking arena full of their supporters and a nation of 68m souls in their corner, they played second fiddle to the US juggernaut once again.

France will get another crack at the United States on Sunday afternoon when the countries meet again in the women’s basketball gold medal game, where the Americans will be heavily favored to extend their 60-game Olympic win streak and win an eighth straight gold medal.

The United States women’s national team have won a record-extending fifth Olympic gold medal, and their first since 2012. A Mallory Swanson goal broke open a tightly wound final with Brazil in the 58th minute on a sun-splashed afternoon in south-west Paris.

Barely one year after they were held to four goals in as many games in a dismal World Cup that gave rise to questions over whether they had permanently ceded their status as women’s football’s gold standard, the Americans are back on top under new coach Emma Hayes, who is the toast of the US soccer establishment after just nine games on the job in which her team have yet to trail.

“I’m very emotional. It’s been a dream of mine to be in this position,” Hayes said after the match. “I have to thank my dad because he’s the one who pushed me to this point to be able to come and coach an unbelievable group of players that have received me so well and taken on board everything I have asked. They are tremendous people and players and role models. Yeah, I love them.”

It wasn’t always comfortable for the Americans, who went off as favorites on Saturday but were the worse team for nearly an hour after requiring extra-time to progress through the quarter-final and semi-final stages. But they depart the French capital as deserving Olympic champions behind the stunningly rejuvenated attack of Swanson, Trinity Rodman and Sophia Smith – the front line known as Triple Espresso – and a back four marshaled by center-back Naomi Girma, the lone bright spot of last summer’s World Cup washout who affirmed her status as one of the world’s best center-backs at 24 years old.

Underdogs on merit after barely scraping through the group stage as one of two third-placed teams, the Seleção flew out at the start of the game and immediately dispelled concerns they might sit in a low block. They should have gone ahead in the second minute when Ludmila had an attempt from 10 yards, only to send her shot into the arms of Alyssa Naeher. A brief spell of US possession resulted in a series of corner kicks but it wasn’t long before Ludmila was at it again. The Chicago Red Stars forward appeared to have finished beautifully from an acute angle at the quarter-hour mark only to have the goal ruled offside. Then she just missed connecting with a long cross from Gabi Portilho for a third near-miss in the first 18 minutes.

Playing in front of a rowdy, well-lubricated crowd that broke into warring chants of “U-S-A!” and “Bra-zil!” every few minutes, the US were careless in possession while their full-backs were overrun by a dogged Seleção attack. Brazil’s attacking persistence appeared to be draining a US team already taxed by the condensed Olympic schedule and Hayes’ reluctance to go to her bench. The breakthrough came from nothing in the 58th minute when Korbin Albert, Hayes’ one change from Tuesday’s semi-final win over Germany, threaded a perfectly weighted through ball to Swanson, who coolly slotted a right-footed shot past Lorena, marking her 100th international appearance in style. Swanson’s fourth goal of the Olympics was the latest coup of a partnership with Rodman and Smith, who finished with 10 of the team’s 12 goals during their run to gold.

That was the sign for Brazil manager Arthur Elias to bring on Marta but her introduction did nothing to slow down the emboldened Americans, whose chances were coming in quicker succession. Ten days after her international career appeared doomed to end with the ignominy of a red card, the six-time Fifa women’s player of the year did everything in her power to will Brazil to a first major championship in a half-hour of action.

What might have been Brazil’s final opportunity came in the 88th minute after Marta’s free kick from a dangerous area curled just over the woodwork. But Naeher was called into action on one last occasion during an agonizing 10-minute stretch of injury time, capping a sensational tournament with an acrobatic save of an Adriana header. The save preserved Naeher’s fourth clean sheet of the competition including the entirety of the knockout stage. By then celebrations among the US fans were kicking off in the stands.

Three hundred and seventy-one days after crashing out of the World Cup on penalties after Megan Rapinoe skyed her attempt over the crossbar, the US have capped a dramatic overhaul in sensational fashion. They celebrated in a jumping mass while Rapinoe pumped her fist from the stands.

This time around, no one wanted to share the gold. Three years after Mutaz Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi decided to go 50-50 on first place in the men’s high jump at the Tokyo Games rather than jump-off for it, two of their competitors found themselves in the same situation but decided to work it out the old-fashioned way.

The USA’s Shelby McEwen and New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr were tied in first place after they had both failed three attempts to clear 2.38m. “You may recognise this situation,” the man working the stadium PA told the crowd, “what are they going to do this time?” Kerr and McEwen didn’t even stop to discuss it. The kumbaya spirit of the competition during the Covid years is long gone, and both men wanted to press on into the sudden death round.

It turned out to be a slow kind of sudden. Kerr and McEwen both have personal bests of 2.36m, but with the gold medal at stake they seemed to go to pieces. Neither got near to clearing 2.38m. So the officials dropped the bar down to 2.36m. Neither managed that either, so it came down again to 2.34m. The event had now run on so long that they were trying to squeeze their jumps in between the laps of the men’s 4x400m relay, which was the penultimate event on the track. McEwen decided to set off on his attempt at 2.34m even as the eight 400m runners were coming fast around the bend towards him.

McEwen missed it, which is not surprising in the circumstances. Kerr sensibly waited until the relay was over, cleared the height easily and immediately set off on a mad sprint across the turf to the middle of the stadium where he stood, arms wide, soaking up the applause of the 70,000 people in the crowd. Kerr, who is nicknamed the Flying Kiwi had proven himself the best jumper in the field, but you have to say by that point it was a pretty low bar. McEwen, who until tonight was best known for winning a trophy for a spectacular dunk from the free-throw line when he was playing high school basketball, won a silver medal to go next to it on his shelf.

Barshim, who already had a complete set of Olympic medals, won the bronze. Usually he can clear a height like 2.34m just by stepping out of bed in the morning, but he has been struggling with injuries this season and was well short of his best form. He ended up staking his chances of winning a second gold on a single attempt at 2.38m after he had failed twice at 2.36m, but the bet backfired on him.

His great mate Tamberi was out there too, and having an even harder time of it. He has had a hell of a fortnight here in Paris. It started to go wrong when he dropped his wedding ring into the Seine during the opening ceremony, a mistake which he managed to turn around with an irresistibly charming public apology to his wife. “If I really had to lose it, I couldn’t imagine a better place. It will remain forever in the riverbed of the City of Love,” he said. Tamberi speculated that it was an omen. If it was, it wasn’t a good one. A week later, he was struck down with kidney pain.

He spent the middle weekend of the Games in the emergency room at his local hospital, having CT scans, ultrasounds, and blood tests done. Three days later he was in bed with a 38.8 degree fever. He managed to make it through qualifying on Wednesday, but was in excruciating pain all Friday night, and hospitalised again on Saturday morning after he started throwing up blood. Even after all that, he made it to the Stade de France for 7pm and the start of the final.

He didn’t win the medal he wanted. But you have rarely seen anyone do a more stylish job of failing. Tamberi came out onto the track cloaked in a hood, which he cast off before he spread his arms wide, slapped his chest, screamed and swung a couple of haymakers in the air. He failed his first two attempts at his opening height of 2.22m, so turned on his heels to face the crowd and led the entire stadium in a slow hand clap before his third. He made that one and was rewarded with a roar that was about as loud as any all night. He failed twice at his next height too, and this time geared himself up for his third attempt by dropping to his knees in prayer.

It didn’t do him any good, and moments later he broke down in tears, and was wrapped up in a consoling hug from his wife.

A Ferguson, Missouri, police officer was critically injured outside the city’s police station during protests on the 10th anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, police said on Saturday.

The Ferguson police chief, Troy Doyle, said Officer Travis Brown suffered a severe brain injury on Friday after being knocked to the ground. “He is in an area hospital right now fighting for his life,” Doyle said.

Two other officers also were hurt, one sustaining an ankle injury and another an abrasion. Both were treated at the scene.

The team of officers went out to make arrests on Friday for destruction of property at the police station, where protesters gathered to remember Michael Brown, the unarmed Black 18-year-old who was killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer in 2014 – a pivotal moment in the national Black Lives Matter movement.

On Saturday, one of the suspects was charged with assault of a special victim, resisting arrest and property damage. He was ordered to be held on $500,000 cash only bond.

Doyle said that for the majority of the night, the protesters were peaceful. He said police allowed them to block the street outside the station, posting a squad car on each end, so they would not be hit by vehicles.

Police also did not intervene when the protesters began shaking the fence outside the station. But he said that when they broke a section of fencing, he sent out the arrest team. The suspect who charged at Travis Brown knocked him backward with his shoulder, and the officer hit his head as he tumbled to the ground, Doyle said.

Court records said the suspect then kept running and kicked two officers who tried to arrest him, leaving them with scratches and bruises.

Doyle said Travis Brown, who is Black, started with the department in January and previously worked for the St Louis county police.

He is part of a wave of Black officers hired into the department since 2014. Back then, there were just three Black officers in the department, but Black officers now make up more than half of the police force, Doyle said.

“He wanted to be part of the change,” Doyle said. “He wanted to make an impact in our community. He’s the type of officer that we want in our community. And what happens? He gets assaulted. I had to look his mother in the eye and tell her what happened to her son. I’m never going to do that again, I promise you that.”

St Louis county prosecutor Wesley Bell, who visited the hospital to meet with the officer’s family, said others also would be charged.

“I always talk about you know the toughest part of this job is when we have a family that’s lost a loved one that we can’t bring justice to. And I’ve got to tweak that. The toughest thing I’ve had to do is talk and console with a mother who doesn’t know if her child is doing to make it. And for what?”

It was not clear who organized Friday’s protests. One activist who attended an event earlier in the day at a memorial to Michael Brown, and another who organized previous protests, did not immediately respond to calls and text messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Michael Brown’s death turned Ferguson into the focal point of a national reckoning with the historically tense relationship between US law enforcement and Black people.

In 2015, an investigation by the US justice department also found no grounds to prosecute Wilson. But the report gave a scathing indictment of the police department – raising significant concerns about how officers treated Black residents, and about a court system that created a cycle of debt for many residents.

At least 80 people have been killed in Israeli missile strikes on a school compound in Gaza City, according to the territory’s civil defence service, the latest in a string of attacks on schools that the Israeli army says are targeting militants using them as bases.

The bombing of Tabeen school, where about 6,000 displaced people were sheltering, was hit when many people were preparing for dawn prayers on Saturday, and reportedly caused a fire. Video from the scene showed horrific loss of life, with body parts, rubble and destroyed furniture scattered across blood-soaked mattresses.

Abu Anas, who helped to rescue the wounded, told the news agency Associated Press (AP): “There were people praying, there were people washing and there were people upstairs sleeping, including children, women and old people.

“The missile fell on them without warning. The first missile, and the second. We recovered them as body parts.”

Dr Fadel Naeem, the director of al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City, told the AP that the facility had received 70 bodies of those killed in the strikes and the body parts of at least 10 others.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Naeem said Saturday was “one of the hardest days”.

“The situation at the hospital is catastrophic, with a severe shortage of medical supplies and resources due to the horrific Israeli massacre, which has resulted in numerous amputations and severe burns,” he said.

As it stands, the Tabeen school death toll is one of the largest from a single strike during 10 months of war between Israel and Hamas.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that the Palestinian claim was inflated, and at least 20 fighters, including senior commanders, were among the dead.

Israeli forces have targeted at least 10 schools since the beginning of July – including at one point four in four days – adding to the Gaza war’s staggering death toll, which is now approaching 40,000.

Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties, saying that its fighters use civilian infrastructure as a cover, which makes buildings such as schools and hospitals valid targets. Hamas denies those claims.

Almost all of the strip’s 2.3 million population has been forced to flee their homes, often multiple times,during almost a year of fighting. Schools in particular have been used as shelters.

According to the civil defence service, three missiles targeted a two-storey building where women were using the top floor and men and boys the ground floor, which was also a space for prayer.

A Hamas political officer, Izzat el Reshiq, called the strikes a horrific crime and a serious escalation, adding in a statement that the dead did not include a “single combatant”.

The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority also made a rare statement on the attack. A spokesperson for the president, Mahmoud Abbas, urged the US – Israel’s most important diplomatic ally and weapons supplier – to “put an end to the blind support that leads to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children, women, and the elderly”.

The EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said in a statement posted on X: “There’s no justification for these massacres.” The UK’s foreign minister, David Lammy, said he was “appalled”.

Jordan and Egypt also immediately condemned the attack, with Egypt’s foreign ministry saying that Israel’s “deliberate killing” of Palestinians proves a lack of political will to end the war in Gaza.

Egypt, along with the US and Qatar, called this week for Israel and Hamas to resume negotiations to finalise a ceasefire and hostage-release deal, saying there were no excuses “from any party for further delay”.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel would send a delegation to the talks beginning on 15 August. His administration has been accused of repeatedly sabotaging ceasefire talks.

There has been no response yet from Hamas, and is unclear if the latest deadly strike will affect the militant group’s position.

Iran joined the chorus of condemnation later on Saturday, calling the Tabeen attack “barbarous” and “a war crime”.

Both Iran and the powerful Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have vowed revenge against Israel for the back-to-back assassinations of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shakur and Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, on 31 July. Israel has not commented on Haniyeh’s death, but its spy agency has a history of targeted killing operations abroad.

Israel is still bracing for retaliatory attacks, amid fears the Gaza war is on the brink of morphing into a region-wide conflict.

Hamas triggered the fifth war with Israel since it seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 with its 7 October attack on communities across southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and another 250 taken hostage.

A ceasefire brokered at the end of November saw about 100 Israelis released in exchange for about 200 women and children held in Israeli jails, but broke down after a week.

Tory grandees have accused senior figures in their own party of using divisive language that inflamed anger over immigration before the recent rioting, amid warnings that too many Conservatives have “turned a blind eye” to a shift to the right.

The criticisms come as fears grow on the party’s liberal wing that the leadership election risks pulling the party further into populist polices designed to take on Reform UK.

Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak, who remains Tory leader, was in the US last week and has not commented on the violence since last weekend, or on claims by X owner Elon Musk of “two-tier” policing and “inevitable” civil war in the UK.

Some rioters held up signs emblazoned with “Stop the boats”, the slogan used by Sunak in the election campaign designed to show he was tackling illegal Channel crossings.

Robert Jenrick, one of the Tory leadership frontrunners, drew criticism for saying police should “immediately arrest” any protesters shouting “Allahu Akbar”, the Arabic phrase that means God is great.

Jenrick, who stands by the comments, was immediately criticised by fellow leadership contender Mel Stride, who said the “suggestion of wholesale criminalisation of the words Allahu Akbar is unwise and insensitive”.

Grave concerns over the party’s direction are now being made publicly by veteran figures on its liberal wing.

Timothy Kirkhope, a former immigration minister and a Tory peer, said he believed his party was now “unrecognisable compared to when it entered into government following the 2010 general election. And many in my party have turned a blind eye to this rightward shift.”

Lord Kirkhope said that a desire to become “Reform-lite” in the wake of the election campaign risked a further lurch. “As a former immigration minister, I know all too well the sensitivities surrounding issues of migration and refugees and the importance of language,” he writes for the Observer. “Some have found it politically expedient to conflate the issues of legal migration and asylum seekers.

“The current situation with levels of social unrest not experienced in this country for a very long time is deeply worrying. The role of divisive rhetoric, including by some from the previous administration, has certainly not helped the situation. ‘Stop the boats’ has been one of the riot chants and that is a most unfortunate result.”

Kirkhope also issued a rallying cry for like-minded Conservatives to speak out. “Any attempts to ‘unite the right’ by morphing or merging the Conservative party with Reform UK could not only undermine social cohesion, but also set my party on a path to an electoral defeat from which it might never recover,” he warns.

His intervention was echoed by Alistair Burt, a former Tory foreign minister. “Tempting though it is, seeking to reduce complex policy to a snappy slogan which appeals to a section of your supporters is not always successful and can backfire,” he said.

“And sometimes such tactics are positively dangerous, such as branding those who seek to use the law for a perfectly proper purpose with which you may disagree as ‘lefty lawyers’ and set in train a chain of events which makes attacking them or the law a target rather than dealing more effectively with serious issues while in government.”

Former home secretary and Tory leadership contender Priti Patel denounced “lefty lawyers” and “do-gooders” in a 2020 speech.

This weekend, she also suggested that there was a “perception” of two-tier policing, which could undermine public confidence.

The idea of two-tier policing – the claim that white working-class people are treated differently from those from ethnic minorities – has been dismissed as a myth by police.The offices of some immigration lawyers were among the plans shared online over the last week by the far right as possible locations for their rallies. The legal profession has been repeatedly targeted by the previous government for its supposed role in standing in the way of Tory attempts to tackle illegal crossings.

Addressing the Tory leadership contenders, Burt called on them not to “pander to divisive options”, but instead to prove their competency, decent leadership and unity to an electorate who would demand those qualities.

Stephen Hammond, another former minister and One Nation figure, who stepped down from parliament at the last election, said there was a duty on politicians to take greater care in the language they chose.

“Politicians are under a particular obligation to consider what they say and how they say it,” he said. “Language is very important and we also have to recognise the historical context of language as well, in terms of how it’s been used previously to incite and inflame particular issues.

“To those members of the Conservative party who think that aping Reform is going to be the way to win a general election, I’d say it’s actually the way to a prolonged period of opposition.”

A Tory source said: “We certainly won’t be making any apologies for trying to deter people from entering the country illegally.”

Tory grandees have accused senior figures in their own party of using divisive language that inflamed anger over immigration before the recent rioting, amid warnings that too many Conservatives have “turned a blind eye” to a shift to the right.

The criticisms come as fears grow on the party’s liberal wing that the leadership election risks pulling the party further into populist polices designed to take on Reform UK.

Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak, who remains Tory leader, was in the US last week and has not commented on the violence since last weekend, or on claims by X owner Elon Musk of “two-tier” policing and “inevitable” civil war in the UK.

Some rioters held up signs emblazoned with “Stop the boats”, the slogan used by Sunak in the election campaign designed to show he was tackling illegal Channel crossings.

Robert Jenrick, one of the Tory leadership frontrunners, drew criticism for saying police should “immediately arrest” any protesters shouting “Allahu Akbar”, the Arabic phrase that means God is great.

Jenrick, who stands by the comments, was immediately criticised by fellow leadership contender Mel Stride, who said the “suggestion of wholesale criminalisation of the words Allahu Akbar is unwise and insensitive”.

Grave concerns over the party’s direction are now being made publicly by veteran figures on its liberal wing.

Timothy Kirkhope, a former immigration minister and a Tory peer, said he believed his party was now “unrecognisable compared to when it entered into government following the 2010 general election. And many in my party have turned a blind eye to this rightward shift.”

Lord Kirkhope said that a desire to become “Reform-lite” in the wake of the election campaign risked a further lurch. “As a former immigration minister, I know all too well the sensitivities surrounding issues of migration and refugees and the importance of language,” he writes for the Observer. “Some have found it politically expedient to conflate the issues of legal migration and asylum seekers.

“The current situation with levels of social unrest not experienced in this country for a very long time is deeply worrying. The role of divisive rhetoric, including by some from the previous administration, has certainly not helped the situation. ‘Stop the boats’ has been one of the riot chants and that is a most unfortunate result.”

Kirkhope also issued a rallying cry for like-minded Conservatives to speak out. “Any attempts to ‘unite the right’ by morphing or merging the Conservative party with Reform UK could not only undermine social cohesion, but also set my party on a path to an electoral defeat from which it might never recover,” he warns.

His intervention was echoed by Alistair Burt, a former Tory foreign minister. “Tempting though it is, seeking to reduce complex policy to a snappy slogan which appeals to a section of your supporters is not always successful and can backfire,” he said.

“And sometimes such tactics are positively dangerous, such as branding those who seek to use the law for a perfectly proper purpose with which you may disagree as ‘lefty lawyers’ and set in train a chain of events which makes attacking them or the law a target rather than dealing more effectively with serious issues while in government.”

Former home secretary and Tory leadership contender Priti Patel denounced “lefty lawyers” and “do-gooders” in a 2020 speech.

This weekend, she also suggested that there was a “perception” of two-tier policing, which could undermine public confidence.

The idea of two-tier policing – the claim that white working-class people are treated differently from those from ethnic minorities – has been dismissed as a myth by police.The offices of some immigration lawyers were among the plans shared online over the last week by the far right as possible locations for their rallies. The legal profession has been repeatedly targeted by the previous government for its supposed role in standing in the way of Tory attempts to tackle illegal crossings.

Addressing the Tory leadership contenders, Burt called on them not to “pander to divisive options”, but instead to prove their competency, decent leadership and unity to an electorate who would demand those qualities.

Stephen Hammond, another former minister and One Nation figure, who stepped down from parliament at the last election, said there was a duty on politicians to take greater care in the language they chose.

“Politicians are under a particular obligation to consider what they say and how they say it,” he said. “Language is very important and we also have to recognise the historical context of language as well, in terms of how it’s been used previously to incite and inflame particular issues.

“To those members of the Conservative party who think that aping Reform is going to be the way to win a general election, I’d say it’s actually the way to a prolonged period of opposition.”

A Tory source said: “We certainly won’t be making any apologies for trying to deter people from entering the country illegally.”

Nate Holden, the former Los Angeles city council member and California state senator, said that he was on the helicopter ride with Donald Trump that was forced to make an emergency landing.

In an interview with Politico on Friday, Holden, who is now 95, referred to the former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, who Trump insisted was on the helicopter ride, saying: “Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco … I’m a tall Black guy living in Los Angeles.”

He added: “I guess we all look alike.”

Holden’s interview followed Trump’s press conference on Thursday, in which the former president claimed to “know Willie Brown very well” and recalled an alleged story in which he “went down in a helicopter with him”.

Trump said: “We thought, maybe this is the end. We were in a helicopter going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie was … a little concerned. So I know him pretty well.”

Shortly after the press conference, Brown spoke to San Francisco-based radio station KRON4 and denied the story, saying: “I’ve never done business with Donald Trump, let’s start with that. And secondly, I don’t think I’d want to ride on the same helicopter with him. There’s too many people that have an agenda with reference to him, including the people who service helicopters!”

Reports ultimately emerged that the helicopter ride in question was a 2018 one during which Trump and then California governor Jerry Brown inspected wildfire damage.

Then governor-elect Gavin Newsom was also on that ride. Speaking to the New York Times, Newsom said: “I call complete BS. I was on a helicopter with Jerry Brown and Trump, and it didn’t go down.”

Holden, in the Politico interview, recalled a helicopter ride with Trump that he believes happened in 1990; he told the outlet that he had been in touch with Trump because Trump was trying to build on the site of the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles – an area Holden represented at the time.

Holden added that he met Trump at Trump Tower and they were then on their way to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where they were going to tour Trump’s Taj Mahal casino.

Trump’s late brother Robert, the attorney Harvey Freedman and Barbara Res, Trump’s former executive vice-president of construction and development, were alongside Holden and Trump, Politico said.

Res confirmed to the outlet that the man in question was definitely Holden.

In her book All Alone on the 68th Floor, which Politico reviewed, Res recalled the helicopter ride, writing: “From the corner of my eye, I can see in the cockpit, and what I see is the co-pilot pumping a device with all his might.”

“Very shortly thereafter the pilot let us know he had lost some instruments and we would need to make an emergency landing,” she continued, writing, “By now, the helicopter was shaking like crazy.”

Donald and Robert Trump were both reassuring Holden, who told Politico that it was Donald Trump who “was white as snow … [and] scared shitless”.

The Guardian has contacted Holden for comment.

When Slovakia’s minister for culture fired the director of the country’s oldest and most important theatre last Tuesday, the numerous reasons she cited for her surprise move included “political activism”, an alleged preference for foreign over Slovak opera singers, and, bizarrely, an incident with a crystal chandelier.

Matej Drlička, whose dismissal from the Slovak National Theatre was followed a day later by that of the director of the Slovak National Gallery, says the real reason is something else: a concerted crackdown on freedom of artistic expression and a systematic assault on the central European republic’s state institutions under the watch of the populist prime minister Robert Fico.

“The explanations that [culture minister] Martina Šimkovičová listed are a compilation of complete lies,” Drlička told the Observer. “The only reason is that her government doesn’t want culture to be free.”

Fico returned to power for a fourth spell as prime minister last October, governing in a coalition with the nationalist SNS and the centre-left Hlas parties after his scandal-hit Smer party won parliamentary elections on the back of pledges to halt military aid to Ukraine.

The 59-year-old politician made his first public appearance last month since surviving an assassination attempt on 15 May, giving a speech in which he criticised the supposed expansion of progressive ideologies and the west’s stance towards Russia.

One of his most divisive appointees has been the SNS culture minister Šimkovičová, 52, a former TV presenter whose media career was ended over anti-refugee posts on social media and who was nominated for “homophobe of the year” by the Slovak human rights institute Inštitút ľudských práv in 2018.

One of Šimkovičová’s first actions in her post was to resume cultural links with Moscow, suspended after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

She has since dismissed the board of the Slovak Fund for the Promotion of the Arts, a body designed to allow cultural organisations to apply for funding without having to go directly to the ministry, as well as withdrawing funding for Bratislava’s brutalist House of Culture and firing the heads of the National Library and children’s museum Bibiana.

Her bill to dissolve the public service broadcaster RTVS and replace it with a new entity under full control of the government sparked mass protests in June.

“Alarm bells went off when Šimkovičová took over the culture portfolio last autumn,” said Albin Sybera, a fellow of the central European policy thinktank Visegrad Insight. “What we saw again last week is that those fears were not unfounded. We are seeing a spreading of radical rightwing positions into Slovakia’s mainstream discourse.”

Both the long-serving National Gallery director Alexandra Kusá and National Theatre director Drlička enjoyed strong international reputations, with the latter’s dismissal coming just days after he was awarded the French Order of Arts and Letters at the rank of knight by France’s culture minister Rachida Dati.

Drlička told the Observer that he saw “showing the blind spots of our history” as part of his theatre’s role, but insisted that he had not presented his political views in his role as director. “I am a manager,” he said.

In her statement to the press, Šimkovičová said Drlička had “seriously damaged the reputation” of the theatre by not punishing those responsible for a crystal chandelier that fell on to the stage during a performance on a children’s day event in June. Drlička said an employee had been disciplined for the incident, in which no one was hurt.

The Fico government’s purge of Slovakia’s cultural institutions has drawn comparisons to Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s systemic crackdown on diversity in media, theatre, film and publishing. “This kind of thing is not only happening in Slovakia,” Kusá told ARTnews.

But Drlička suggested the dismissals could be driven mainly by spite rather than strategy. “It’s possible that we could go down the Hungarian route and end up with a very obedient cultural field,” he told the Observer. “But if Hungary is the goal, these are not the right people in charge. They are not that smart.”

The government has yet to appoint a successor to lead the prestigious Bratislava theatre. “They haven’t proposed an alternative vision. To say that these people have a grand vision for Slovak culture would be to seriously overestimate them.”

As a successor to the ousted National Gallery director Kusá, the culture ministry has presented a business manager with no track record in the arts, Anton Bittner, describing him as a “manager and expert in stabilising organisations and their development”.

On Friday, Slovak media reported that Bittner had worked as a project manager at Penta, an investment group involved in one of the largest corruption scandals in Slovakia’s history, though there are no allegations he was involved in financial misconduct. Outside his managerial activities, the news outlet aktuality.sk wrote, the new gallery manager used to offer services in tao healing, a traditional Chinese medicine.

“The minister claims that she is restoring normalcy to Slovakia,” said Sybera. “But the figures she is introducing to the culture sector seem to tell a different story.”

Thousands hit the streets in Serbia’s capital Belgrade Saturday to protest against the rebooting of a controversial lithium mine set to serve as a vital source to power Europe’s green energy transition.

Before the rally, two leading protest figures said they were briefly detained by security officials who warned that any moves to block roads during the protest would be viewed as illegal.

Thousands chanted “Rio Tinto get out of Serbia” and “You won’t dig” as they rallied in downtown Belgrade before setting off on a march through the city.

Protesters later entered Belgrade’s main railway station where demonstrators blocked tracks, halting traffic.

Serbia has vast lithium deposits near the western city of Loznica, where a mining project being developed by the Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto has been a perennial political fault line in the Balkan country in recent years over its potential environmental impacts.

The deposits were discovered in 2004, but weeks of mass protests forced the government to halt the project in 2022.

The government revived the project after a court decision last month that said the order to revoke the permits awarded to Rio Tinto was “not in line with the constitution and the law”.

The Serbian government signed a memorandum of understanding with the EU that is considered the first step in developing Serbia’s lithium resources.

Lithium is a strategically valuable metal needed for electric vehicle batteries, making it key for helping the automotive industry shift to greener production.

The project, however, has continued to be unpopular with many in Serbia due to concerns the mine would pollute water sources and endanger public health.

“I am in Belgrade because the survival of life in Serbia is being defended here,” said Slobodan Stanimirovic, 58, from western Serbia’s Radjevina near the site of the future mine.

The protest in Belgrade was the latest in a series of demonstrations held across the Balkan country after the mine’s licences were reinstated.

Activists and demonstrators have called on legislators to pass a law permanently banning the mining of lithium and boron in Serbia.

Environmental groups said they were prepared to block major traffic arteries across Serbia and engage in civil disobedience if the government refused to act before a 10 August deadline set by activists.

Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić has repeatedly vowed that no mining operations will begin until guarantees over environmental safety protocols are established.

The uncle of the Uvalde school shooter who killed 19 students and two teachers begged police to let him try to talk his nephew down, according to a 911 call included in a massive trove of recordings and transcripts released by city officials on Saturday.

“Maybe he could listen to me, because he does listen to me. Everything I tell him he does listen to me,” said the man, who identified himself as Armando Ramos. “Maybe he could stand down or do something to turn himself in,” Ramos said, his voice cracking.

Ramos told the dispatcher that the shooter, identified as Salvador Ramos, was with him at his house the night before. He said his nephew stayed with him in his bedroom all night, and told him that he was upset because his grandmother was “bugging” him.

“Oh my God, please, please don’t do nothing stupid,” the man says on the call. “I think he’s shooting kids.”

The call came in at about 1pm on 24 May 2022, about 10 minutes after the shooting had stopped. Salvador Ramos was fatally shot by officials at 12.50pm.

The 911 call was among numerous records released by officials in Uvalde after a prolonged legal fight. The Associated Press and other news organizations brought a lawsuit after Uvalde officials refused to publicly release documents related to the shooting at Robb elementary school.

The delayed law enforcement response – nearly 400 officers waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the gunman in a classroom filled with dead and wounded children and teachers – has been widely condemned as a massive failure. The gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in one of the worst school shootings in US history.

Multiple federal and state investigations into the slow response laid bare cascading problems in training, communication, leadership and technology, and questioned whether officers prioritized their own lives over those of children and teachers in the south Texas city of about 15,000 people 80 miles (130km) west of San Antonio. Families of the victims have long sought accountability for the slow police response.

Two of the responding officers now face criminal charges: former Uvalde school police chief Pete Arredondo and former school officer Adrian Gonzales have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of child abandonment and endangerment. A Texas state trooper in Uvalde who had been suspended was reinstated to his job earlier this month.

Some of the families have called for more officers to be charged and filed federal and state lawsuits against law enforcement, social media, online gaming companies, and the gun manufacturer that made the rifle the gunman used.

The police response included nearly 150 US Border Patrol agents and 91 state police officials, as well as school and city police. While dozens of officers stood in the hallway trying to figure out what to do, students inside the classroom called 911 on cellphones, begging for help, and desperate parents who had gathered outside the building pleaded with officers to go in. A tactical team eventually entered the classroom and killed the shooter.

Previously released video from school cameras showed police officers, some armed with rifles and bulletproof shields, waiting in the hallway.

A report commissioned by the city, however, defended the actions of local police, saying officers showed “immeasurable strength” and “level-headed thinking” as they faced fire from the shooter and refrained from firing into a darkened classroom.