A member of Israel’s Bedouin minority who was kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October last year has been reunited with his family amid conflicting accounts about his rescue from Gaza.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it had rescued Qaid Farhan Alkadi, 52, who was abducted in the Hamas attack while he had been working as a security guard at a packing factory on a kibbutz.

The Israel Defense Forces said that Alkadi was rescued from a tunnel “in a complex operation in the southern Gaza Strip”, without providing further details.

Later reports in some Israeli media, however, suggested that Alkadi may have initially escaped from the tunnel where he was being held and made his own way to where Israeli forces were operating in Gaza. Hamas claimed it had “released” him.

The operation was hailed by Israeli leaders, desperate for good news almost a year into a grinding campaign that has seen pressure mounting on the government to do more to bring over 100 hostages back home.

Alkadi is only the eighth hostage the Israeli military claims to have rescued during months of operations in Gaza, including during two operations that killed scores of Palestinians. Hamas has said several hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and failed rescue attempts, while Israeli troops mistakenly killed three Israelis who escaped captivity in December.

Israel’s Channel 12 showed Alkadi’s family sprinting through the hospital where he was brought after they received the news. Alkadi’s brother Hatem said they had seen him disembark from a helicopter and walk to the ambulance that took him to a nearby hospital for medical checks. Israeli media ran a photo of Alkadi appearing gaunt, but smiling with his family.

“I can’t explain the feeling. It’s like being born again,” said Hatem. “We say thank you to everyone.”

“We didn’t believe it at first. But when the army told us it was true, we were very excited and very happy,” Hatem added. “We’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. We hope that all hostages will get this moment, that they will all experience the same excitement and joy.”

The Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said the rescue operation was part of the army’s “daring and courageous activities conducted deep inside the Gaza Strip”, adding that Israel was “committed to taking advantage of every opportunity to return the hostages”.

However, according to Israeli media accounts Alkadi had managed to escape the tunnel in which he was being held before being rescued by IDF forces. An Israeli military spokesperson did not confirm or deny the possibility that Alkadi had initially escaped. According to one report Alkadi was found alone inside a tunnel by IDF troops and it was unclear whether he had escaped or whether his captors had fled.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, later spoke by phone with Alkadi, telling him that “the whole nation of Israel is excited by his rescue”.

Hamas-led militants abducted about 250 people in the 7 October attack, in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed.

Israel believes there are still 108 hostages inside Gaza and that more than 40 of them are dead. Most of the rest were freed during a week-long ceasefire in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Agencies contributed to this report

The UN has said its ability to function in Gaza is being crippled by a flurry of Israeli evacuation orders, herding Palestinians into ever smaller and more remote areas, days before a critical effort to contain a polio outbreak.

Aid workers warn that without a humanitarian pause, a vaccination drive due to begin this weekend could fail to reach enough children to stop the spread of the virus, which was detected there this month for the first time in 25 years. A baby has already been partly paralysed by the disease, and health experts have warned it could spread rapidly given the terrible sanitation and overcrowding in camps for Gaza’s exhausted, displaced population.

“One thing for sure is that it’s almost impossible to lead a polio vaccination campaign at scale in an active combat zone,” said Jonathan Crickx, a spokesperson in the region for the UN child welfare agency, Unicef.

Talks are under way between aid agencies and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) about the planned vaccination campaign. The IDF cooperated in the delivery of more than 25,000 vials of vaccine and refrigeration equipment through the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza on Sunday, but their commanders have yet to agree to a pause in the bombing to allow the immunisation effort to go ahead safely and effectively.

Israeli forces have significantly stepped up their clearance of neighbourhoods, including camps for the displaced, in what they said ​​was the pursuit of “terror operatives”.

According to the UN, the Israeli military issued a record 16 evacuation orders in August, forcing 12% of the territory’s population to move within a few days. The overwhelming majority of those affected have already had to flee multiple times since the start of the war nearly 11 months ago.

The impact of the orders on aid workers such as drivers meant that the UN had to halt movements around the strip on Monday, though staff already in position with supplies were able to continue their work.

“These evacuation orders … make our work nearly impossible,” said UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric. He added that the residual work still under way was “half a drop in a barrel” compared with the needs of the 2.2 million Palestinians besieged in Gaza.

Juliette Touma, the head spokesperson for Unrwa, the biggest humanitarian agency operating in Gaza, said: “Our ability to undertake and implement humanitarian work is shrinking by the hour. Every time there are evacuation orders, we are affected, because our local staff are constantly on the move and they are the backbone of the humanitarian operation.”

The latest evacuation orders have targeted Deir al-Balah, a town in central Gaza that became a humanitarian hub after cities to the south such as Rafah and Khan Younis were targeted by IDF offensives. The latest edict on Sunday affected four UN warehouses in the town and 15 premises used by aid agencies.

The orders are increasingly concentrating huge numbers of displaced Palestinians within a 41 sq km area of the Gazan coast at al-Mawasi, near Khan Younis.

According to a report on Monday by the UN humanitarian agency, OCHA: “The severe overcrowding, with a density of 30,000 to 34,000 individuals per square kilometre, has exacerbated the dire shortage of essential resources such as water, sanitation and hygiene supplies, health services, protection and shelter.”

The refrigerated warehouse where the vials of polio vaccine are being stored is in Deir al-Balah, in a district not directly affected by the evacuation orders. However, the orders impede the ability of aid workers to move around and find the Gaza’s scattered children, including more than 50,000 babies estimated to have been born since the start of the war who are very unlikely to have received any vaccinations at all.

For the immunisation drive to be effective in containing the polio outbreak, the first of two rounds of vaccine must reach 90% of those babies and the rest of the 640,000 children in Gaza under the age of 10. This will need to be achieved quickly to break the transmission of the virus before it spreads or mutates.

“It’s absolutely critical that this vaccination campaign is executed in a few days – between five to seven days is what we are asking for,” Crickx said.

Ukraine has captured 594 Russian soldiers during its three-week military operation in the Kursk region and has seized 100 settlements inside Russia, Kyiv’s commander-in-chief said on Tuesday.

Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said Moscow had redeployed “30,000 troops” to the border region and they were trying to counterattack and to encircle Ukrainian forces – but these attempts were being repelled, he said.

Speaking at a conference in Kyiv, Syrskyi acknowledged that one of the objectives of the Kursk incursion was to divert Russian combat units away from the east of Ukraine.

In recent months Russian forces have been advancing. They are now 11kms away from Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian army and transport hub, and are pressing on the town of Kurakhove.

Some troops had been shifted from the occupied south of the country. Syrskyi said: “The enemy is trying to withdraw units from other directions. But it is increasing its efforts in the Pokrovsk sectors.”

Sryksi added that Russia was trying to disrupt supply lines. “The situation on the Pokrovsk front is fairly difficult … the enemy is using its advantage in personnel, weapons and military equipment. It is actively using artillery and aviation,” he admitted.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said “decisions” were being made to strengthen Ukraine’s forward positions in the Donetsk region. He described the Kursk incursion as “defensive”. It was done to prevent Russia from seizing more Ukrainian land but there were no plans to annex Russian territory, he said.

The president’s comments came as Russia launched further deadly strikes on Ukraine with missiles and drones, a day after Moscow carried out a “massive” attack on Ukraine’s power grid.

A strike on a hotel in the central city of Kryvyi Rih on Tuesday morning killed two people, the latest in a series of attacks on hotels across the central and eastern parts of Ukraine, while a further three people were killed in drone attacks on the city of Zaporizhzhia.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 10 ballistic missiles and 81 drones during the assault, and Ukrainian air defence had shot down five of the missiles and 60 of the drones.

Authorities in Kyiv said everything that had targeted the city had been shot down. Explosions were audible in the capital as the city’s air defences repelled the attack.

Serhiy Lisak, a regional official, said one of those injured in the Kryvyi Rih hotel strike, a 43-year-old woman, was in a critical condition in hospital. Another two people were missing, and might still be under the rubble, he said in a post on Telegram.

The strikes came a day after one of the biggest Russian raids on Ukraine for months, with hundreds of drones and missiles launched at sites across the country, largely targeting the country’s energy grid and killing at least seven people.

The attack triggered blackouts and water shortages, including in the capital, Kyiv, where shops and businesses had to switch to generators on Monday afternoon and evening to maintain power. The state-owned energy body, Ukrenergo, said it was introducing emergency power cuts to help stabilise its systems. Russia’s renewed attack on the energy grid, after a number of strikes in spring damaged critical infrastructure, will be worrying for Ukraine as winter approaches.

Monday’s attack drew widespread condemnation from Kyiv’s foreign partners. The US president, Joe Biden, called it “outrageous”, while Germany’s foreign ministry said: “Once again, Putin’s Russia is saturating Ukraine’s lifelines with missiles.”

The Russian defence ministry confirmed it was targeting energy facilities on Monday, claiming in a statement that the energy grid was being used to aid Ukraine’s “military-production complex”.

Poland, a Nato member, claimed its airspace was violated during the barrage, probably by a drone. “We are probably dealing with the entry of an object on Polish territory. The object was confirmed by at least three radiolocation stations,” said Gen Maciej Klisz, the operational commander of the armed forces.

After Monday’s attacks, Zelenskiy issued a familiar call for allies to do more to protect Ukraine, suggesting that European air forces could help Kyiv down drones and missiles in the future. “In our various regions of Ukraine, we could do much more to protect lives if the aviation of our European neighbours worked together with our F-16s and together with our air defence,” he said in a video address.

A Reuters journalist remained in critical condition in hospital after being injured in a strike on Saturday, the news agency said on Monday evening. Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey was part of a six-person Reuters team staying at a hotel in Kramatorsk close to the frontline in eastern Ukraine when it was hit by a missile. Ryan Evans, a British security adviser working for the agency, was killed in the attack.

The spate of Russian attacks comes amid a Ukrainian incursion into Russian territory in the Kursk region, which has boosted Ukrainian morale after months of grinding stalemate or incremental losses. There were unconfirmed reports on Tuesday, from Russian Telegram channels, that there were further attempts at Ukrainian incursions into Russia at other points along the border, in Belgorod region, on Tuesday morning. It was not possible to verify the reports immediately.

The governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, wrote on Telegram that the situation at the border was “difficult, but under control”, noting “information that the enemy is trying to break through the border of the Belgorod region”. He said the Russian military was carrying out “planned work” and that people should trust only official sources, without elaborating on the reports.

Donald Trump’s supporters have seized on misstatements and embellishments by Tim Walz about his past in an effort to depict the Democratic vice-presidential nominee as a serial liar, even amid concerns about the former president’s own track record of lies and untruthful statements.

The Republican focus on Walz has already dredged up potentially misleading descriptions of his military service, which ended nearly 20 years ago, and appears aimed at undermining Kamala Harris’s running mate’s self-proclaimed image as a plain-spoken paragon of normality.

Now the campaign appears to have expanded into more personal – even trivial – areas, including in at least one case, unsubstantiated innuendo about Walz’s character that may be in part driven by a desire to cancel out aspersions aimed at JD Vance, Trump’s running mate.

Walz has characterised Vance and Maga Republicans as “weird” and has also made reference to lewd and baseless online rumours that the GOP vice-presidential once had sex with a couch.

In the latest example of a Republican counteroffensive, Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and radio host with more than 3.3 million followers on X, posted in a now-deleted tweet that “Tim Walz is an all-time legendary liar” in response to another user’s post showing the Democratic candidate’s tweets about his dog, Scout.

The post showed separate tweets by Walz showing him pictured beside two different dogs, but both referred to as “Scout” . Another user responded to Kirk’s claims, writing: “He took photos with other dogs at the dog park.”

It followed a post by Trump on his Truth Social network last Thursday in response to Harris’s presidential acceptance to the Democratic national convention, referring to Walz’s football coaching activities, which have earned him the moniker “Coach Walz.”

“Walz was an assistant coach, not a coach,” Trump wrote.

Two conservative news outlets, Alpha News and the Washington Free Beacon, unearthed an 18-year-old rebuttal from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce & Industry to a claim by Walz that it had given him an award for contributions to the business community.

The claim to have been voted Outstanding Young Nebraskan by the chamber came from Walz’s campaign during his successful 2006 run for Congress. The campaign subsequently amended the record to say that the award had been given by the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce and said the mistake was due to a typing error.

The items were brought to light after Republicans – led by Vance, who has accused his Democratic counterpart of “stolen valour” – highlighted anomalies in Walz’s portrayal of his military service record.

In what was seen as the most serious, the GOP pointed out that Harris’s campaign described Walz as a “retired command sergeant major” in the Minnesota national guard. In fact, although Walz was promoted to the rank before his discharge, he did not complete the coursework to retain it, meaning he actually retired with a lower rank.

The drive to undermine Walz’s 24-year military service has been credited to Chris LaCivita, one of Trump’s top aides and a veteran Republican operative who spearheaded the “the Swift Boat campaign” that questioned the Vietnam war record of John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in the 2004 presidential election.

The Republicans have also alighted on Walz’s self-description as a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, the codename for the US military offensive in Afghanistan, beginning in 2001. Walz did not serve in Afghanistan itself but was stationed in Italy, like thousands of other military personnel, starting in 2003. He has never claimed to have served in Afghanistan.

Some of Trump’s most vociferous supporters have moved beyond Walz’s military record to impute his character, without evidence.

Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host whose 2021 interview with Vance elicited the Republican vice-presidential nominee’s notorious “childless cat ladies” comment, called Walz “a weirdo” and “a creeper” in an appearance last week on The Megyn Kelly Show on Sirius XM.

“I lived in a boy’s dorm in a New England boarding school in the 1980s with a lot of guys like Tim Walz,” Carlson told Kelly. “So I saw that guy. I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, I know exactly [who you are], you’re a creeper,’ as we used to call him … There’s something wrong with that guy. He’s a weirdo.”

Carlson then qualified his remarks, saying: “I definitely shouldn’t suggest what I’m suggesting without evidence. I don’t have evidence beyond what I’ve seen.”

Francis Ford Coppola says that he did kiss film extras on the set of his forthcoming film Megalopolis but that “they were young women I knew”.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Coppola responded to a question about a report in the Guardian that said the director tried to kiss female extras during preparation for a “bacchanalian nightclub scene”, and that significant numbers of crew left the project during production.

Describing the Guardian report as “totally untrue” Coppola said: “The young women I kissed on the cheek, in regards to the New Year’s scene, they were young women I knew.” Referring to the Guardian’s report on high crew turnover (and a previous article in the Hollywood Reporter) Coppola said: “The truth of the matter is, they were looking for some sort of dirt.”

In the Guardian’s original report, Megalopolis’ executive co-producer Darren Demetre said that, during the club scene, “Francis walked around the set to establish the spirit of the scene by giving kind hugs and kisses on the cheek to the cast and background players … I was never aware of any complaints of harassment or ill behaviour during the course of the project.”

In July, Variety published footage of Coppola kissing extras, with a source criticising the lack of complaints procedures, saying: “Because Coppola funded it there was no HR department to keep things in check. Who were they supposed to talk to? Complain to Coppola and report Coppola to himself?”

Rayna Menz, an actor who said she was one of the extras involved in the nightclub scene was supportive of Coppola, telling Deadline: “He did nothing to make me or for that matter anyone on set feel uncomfortable.” In contrast, Lauren Pagone, another performer in the scene, told Variety: “I was in shock. I didn’t expect him to kiss and hug me like that. I was caught off guard. And I can tell you he came around a couple times.”

Megalopolis premiered at the Cannes film festival in May, and is due for release on 26 September in Australia and 27 September in the US and UK.

So it is definitely not a maybe. Oasis are reuniting for a UK and Ireland tour that could be one of the most lucrative ever, with tickets being hyped as the “hottest of the decade”.

But one question people are asking is why? The most obvious motivation is money.

Despite both Gallagher brothers establishing successful solo careers since their split in 2009, nothing they have done comes close to the kinds of figures potentially on offer from the 14-date reunion shows that include a four-show run at Wembley stadium.

Birmingham City University estimate that the initial 14 dates could bring in £400m in ticket sales and other add ons, with Liam and Noel both in line to each earn £50m.

Dr Matt Grimes, course director of the music business BA at Birmingham City University, said the brothers could double their net worth in a few weeks. “They’re considering going into Europe as well, so they stand to make even more,” he said.

While ticket prices haven’t been revealed yet ahead of them going on sale this Friday, it’s likely they will have increased ten-fold from 1995, when tickets cost £14 on their UK tour.

Despite breaking up 15 years ago, Oasis as an entity hasn’t ever really gone away. The Gallagher brothers’ private lives have kept them in the tabloid press, while anniversary releases ensured their music continued to have a second life on streaming services.

The 2016 documentary Supersonic, reignited interest in the group from older fans who lived through the original Oasis era and younger audiences who were introduced to the Gallagher’s Mancunian insouciance, humour and self mythologising.

Eamonn Forde, the business writer and author, says Oasis have occupied a unique place within British culture, occupied by only a few acts such as the Beatles.

“They were ever present in the culture,” says Forde. “You can almost compare them to Abba or the Beatles, there’s always something happening to remind and draw in new listeners.”

“They’ve never monetised that nostalgia on this scale,” he added. “They’ll probably make more money from these gigs than they did in the entire 90s.”

Oasis are following in the footsteps of several of their Brit Pop peers by reuniting, but it doesn’t always work out. Pulp have had several get togethers over the years, while Blur reformed in 2009 and 2015 before their summer shows in 2023.

Blur’s comeback shows at Wembley last year were a success, selling out in minutes and impressing critics. But the reunion was fraught as a behind the scenes documentary To the End showed, as tensions within the band rose.

A cautionary tale comes in the form of the Stone Roses, another Mancunian band that paved the way for Oasis’s brand of lad-friendly indie. When they came back together in 2013, life-long fan and filmmaker Shane Meadows was on hand to capture the reunion which soured shortly after it began and resulted with members walking out mid tour.

Despite the fallout, Meadows’ documentary captures – perhaps better than any other film about music fandom – why bands like the Stone Roses appeal to so many people. “You can’t write it down, can you?” says one fan Meadows speaks with. “There’s a reason I’ve never worn a tie, there’s a reason I still listen to that [debut] album once a week. It still makes me tingle.”

Oasis have an even bigger emotional pull and cultural significance: their single Wonderwall has been streamed more than a billion times, while in the wake of the Manchester Arena bombing, mourning crowds broke out into a rendition of Don’t Look Back in Anger.

But like the Stone Roses the personal dynamics in the group are unpredictable. The Gallagher brothers didn’t speak to each other for years after their split in 2009, and have traded barbs in the press ever since: book makers are currently offering 4/1 on Oasis splitting up before the end of tour.

Forde believes that well-known friction may have led to water-tight contracts with clauses that would make it financially ruinous for either of the brothers to walk away or incredibly high insurance premiums for all parties involved in case of a split. But ways can be found to mitigate tensions when so much money is at stake.

“You hear about all these acts that hated each other whether it was The Eagles or Simon and Garfunkel, and they just didn’t see each other until they got on stage,” Forde said.

Another question lingering over the announcement is what will the line up be? Original guitarist, Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs, has been touring with Liam Gallagher this summer, while Noel’s group – the High Flying Birds – includes former Oasis member Gem Archer who also played with Liam’s Beady Eye.

Whoever takes the stage will be part of one of the most anticipated – and potentially combustible – comebacks ever.

So it is definitely not a maybe. Oasis are reuniting for a UK and Ireland tour that could be one of the most lucrative ever, with tickets being hyped as the “hottest of the decade”.

But one question people are asking is why? The most obvious motivation is money.

Despite both Gallagher brothers establishing successful solo careers since their split in 2009, nothing they have done comes close to the kinds of figures potentially on offer from the 14-date reunion shows that include a four-show run at Wembley stadium.

Birmingham City University estimate that the initial 14 dates could bring in £400m in ticket sales and other add ons, with Liam and Noel both in line to each earn £50m.

Dr Matt Grimes, course director of the music business BA at Birmingham City University, said the brothers could double their net worth in a few weeks. “They’re considering going into Europe as well, so they stand to make even more,” he said.

While ticket prices haven’t been revealed yet ahead of them going on sale this Friday, it’s likely they will have increased ten-fold from 1995, when tickets cost £14 on their UK tour.

Despite breaking up 15 years ago, Oasis as an entity hasn’t ever really gone away. The Gallagher brothers’ private lives have kept them in the tabloid press, while anniversary releases ensured their music continued to have a second life on streaming services.

The 2016 documentary Supersonic, reignited interest in the group from older fans who lived through the original Oasis era and younger audiences who were introduced to the Gallagher’s Mancunian insouciance, humour and self mythologising.

Eamonn Forde, the business writer and author, says Oasis have occupied a unique place within British culture, occupied by only a few acts such as the Beatles.

“They were ever present in the culture,” says Forde. “You can almost compare them to Abba or the Beatles, there’s always something happening to remind and draw in new listeners.”

“They’ve never monetised that nostalgia on this scale,” he added. “They’ll probably make more money from these gigs than they did in the entire 90s.”

Oasis are following in the footsteps of several of their Brit Pop peers by reuniting, but it doesn’t always work out. Pulp have had several get togethers over the years, while Blur reformed in 2009 and 2015 before their summer shows in 2023.

Blur’s comeback shows at Wembley last year were a success, selling out in minutes and impressing critics. But the reunion was fraught as a behind the scenes documentary To the End showed, as tensions within the band rose.

A cautionary tale comes in the form of the Stone Roses, another Mancunian band that paved the way for Oasis’s brand of lad-friendly indie. When they came back together in 2013, life-long fan and filmmaker Shane Meadows was on hand to capture the reunion which soured shortly after it began and resulted with members walking out mid tour.

Despite the fallout, Meadows’ documentary captures – perhaps better than any other film about music fandom – why bands like the Stone Roses appeal to so many people. “You can’t write it down, can you?” says one fan Meadows speaks with. “There’s a reason I’ve never worn a tie, there’s a reason I still listen to that [debut] album once a week. It still makes me tingle.”

Oasis have an even bigger emotional pull and cultural significance: their single Wonderwall has been streamed more than a billion times, while in the wake of the Manchester Arena bombing, mourning crowds broke out into a rendition of Don’t Look Back in Anger.

But like the Stone Roses the personal dynamics in the group are unpredictable. The Gallagher brothers didn’t speak to each other for years after their split in 2009, and have traded barbs in the press ever since: book makers are currently offering 4/1 on Oasis splitting up before the end of tour.

Forde believes that well-known friction may have led to water-tight contracts with clauses that would make it financially ruinous for either of the brothers to walk away or incredibly high insurance premiums for all parties involved in case of a split. But ways can be found to mitigate tensions when so much money is at stake.

“You hear about all these acts that hated each other whether it was The Eagles or Simon and Garfunkel, and they just didn’t see each other until they got on stage,” Forde said.

Another question lingering over the announcement is what will the line up be? Original guitarist, Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs, has been touring with Liam Gallagher this summer, while Noel’s group – the High Flying Birds – includes former Oasis member Gem Archer who also played with Liam’s Beady Eye.

Whoever takes the stage will be part of one of the most anticipated – and potentially combustible – comebacks ever.

The Meta boss, Mark Zuckerberg, has said he regrets bowing to what he claims was pressure from the US government to censor posts about Covid on Facebook and Instagram during the pandemic.

Zuckerberg said senior White House officials in Joe Biden’s administration “repeatedly pressured” Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to “censor certain Covid-19 content” during the pandemic.

“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain Covid-19 content, including humour and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree,” he said in a letter to Jim Jordan, the head of the US House of Representatives judiciary committee. “I believe the government pressure was wrong.”

During the pandemic, Facebook added misinformation alerts to users when they commented on or liked posts that were judged to contain false information about Covid.

The company also deleted posts criticising Covid vaccines, and suggestions the virus was developed in a Chinese laboratory.

In the 2020 US presidential election campaign, Biden accused social media platforms such as Facebook of “killing people” by allowing disinformation about coronavirus vaccines to be posted on its platform.

“I think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today,” Zuckerberg said. “I regret we were not more outspoken about it.

“Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction. And we are ready to push back if something like this happens again.”

Zuckerberg also said that Facebook “temporarily demoted” a story about the contents of a laptop owned by Hunter Biden, the president’s son, after a warning from the FBI that Russia was preparing a disinformation campaign against the Bidens.

Zuckerberg wrote that it has since become clear that the story was not disinformation, and “in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story”.

The House judiciary committee, which is controlled by Republicans, called Zuckerberg’s admissions a “big win for free speech” in a post on the committee’s Facebook page.

The White House defended its actions during the pandemic, saying it encouraged “responsible actions to protect public health and safety”.

“Our position has been clear and consistent,” it said. “We believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present.”

A US army private who fled to North Korea just over a year ago will plead guilty to desertion and four other charges and take responsibility for his conduct, his lawyer said on Monday.

Travis King’s attorney, Franklin D Rosenblatt, told the Associated Press that King intends to admit guilt to a total of five military offenses, including desertion and assaulting an officer. Nine other offenses, including possession of sexual images of a child, will be withdrawn and dismissed under the terms of the deal.

King will be given an opportunity at a 20 September hearing at Fort Bliss, Texas, to discuss his actions and explain what he did.

“He wants to take responsibility for the things that he did,” Rosenblatt said.

In a separate statement, he added, “Travis is grateful to his friends and family who have supported him, and to all outside his circle who did not prejudge his case based on the initial allegations.”

He declined to comment on a possible sentence that his client might face. Desertion is a serious charge and can result in imprisonment.

The AP reported in July that the two sides were in plea talks.

King bolted across the heavily fortified border from South Korea in July 2023 and became the first American detained in North Korea in nearly five years.

His run into North Korea came soon after he was released from a South Korean prison where he had served nearly two months on assault charges.

About a week after his release from the prison, military officers took him to the airport so he could return to Fort Bliss to face disciplinary action. He was escorted as far as customs, but instead of getting on the plane, he joined a civilian tour of the Korean border village of Panmunjom. He then ran across the border, which is lined with guards and often crowded with tourists.

He was detained by North Korea. But after about two months, Pyongyang abruptly announced that it would expel him. On 28 September, he was flown to back to Texas and has been in custody there.

The US military in October filed a series of charges against King under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including desertion, as well as kicking and punching other officers, unlawfully possessing alcohol, making a false statement and possessing child sexual abuse imagery. Those allegations date back to 10 July, the same day he was released from the prison.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has held a meeting with the country’s opposition leader to discuss how to change immigration policy and increase deportations, after a deadly knife attack on Friday linked to Islamic State.

Described as the “Solingen Summit” by the media, after the attack in the western city of Solingen, in which a Syrian who had applied for asylum in Germany is alleged to have killed three and injured eight people, details of the meeting between Scholz and the leader of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), Friedrich Merz, held in Berlin were not made public. Merz is due to hold a press conference later on Tuesday.

Merz, seen as Scholz’s main challenger in the September 2025 general election, has called for a “turning point” in Germany’s “naive” migration policy.

At an election rally in Dresden on Monday he presented the government with a list of demands, including a halt to asylum seekers from Syria and Afghanistan being allowed to enter Germany, and said his CDU/CSU alliance were “at the ready” to jointly agree what he called “sensible laws” in the event that Scholz’s Social Democrats were unable to find a sufficient majority for reform in the three-way governing coalition.

The attacks, carried out on Friday night during the 650th anniversary celebrations in Solingen, have been seized upon by the far-right and stoked political strain over asylum and deportation policy ahead of three key state elections in September.

The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), riding high on an anti-immigration ticket, is top of the polls in the states of Saxony, and Thuringia, where electionstake place on Sunday and in Brandenburg, three weeks later.

Demonstrations sparked by the attacks have taken place in towns and cities in Germany, held by both anti-racist campaigners and far-right protesters. Police said on Tuesday they were investigating after racist slogans and at least one Hitler salute were observed at a far-right rally in Solingen.

On a visit to Solingen on Monday, Scholz promised quicker enforcement of existing deportation rules as well as tougher weapons laws in response to the attack. He said that his centre-left government was prepared to “do everything in our power to ensure such things never happen again”.

This includes working out how asylum seekers whose applications have been turned down can be returned more quickly either to their country of origin – if deemed safe – or to the EU country where they first applied for asylum.

On Tuesday, the general secretary of the CDU, Carsten Linnemann, called on Scholz to recognise that a “paradigm shift” was needed in his government’s migration policy. “The chancellor must see that it can’t continue as it has done,” he said. The attacks in Solingen amounted to a last straw, and “societal cohesion” was at stake, he told broadcaster DLF.

The justice minister, Marco Buschmann, of the pro-business FDP, said he opposed a halt to asylum seekers from Syria and Afghanistan, saying that a blanket ban on receiving people from certain countries was not in line with German or EU law. Stating the importance of “talking about the numbers and the distribution of refugees who come to Europe”, he told TV station ARD it was not right to say “no one is able to come to us any more”.

Government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said any agreements would have to be “expedient” and could not contravene Germany’s constitution or the UN’s charter of human rights.

Dietmar Woidke, leader of the northern state of Brandenburg, where a state election will be held on 22 September, said in an interview that “feelings of security have dissipated in parts of the population”. He added: “We need fast solutions that can also be legally implemented.”

The interior minister, Nancy Faeser, insisted that sufficient legal structures were already in place following the introduction of new principles according to which deportations could take place, in an interview with the news group Funke Mediengruppe: “But crucial for their success is above all that the new rules are applied properly at a state level,” she said.

A Scottish politician has called for the closure of an “utterly vile” Spanish website that ranks countries by the number of their tourists who have died or been injured after falls from balconies.

The intervention by Christina McKelvie, the MSP for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, comes days after the death of a Scottish law student who was born in a constituency represented by McKelvie.

Emma Ramsay, 19, was on holiday in Ibiza when she reportedly fell from a sixth-floor hotel balcony. Police in Spain said the fall was being treated as an accident.

Responding to the news of Ramsay’s death on social media, a group calling itself the Balearics Federation of Balconing appeared to celebrate what it termed the “comeback” of British tourists on its ongoing rankings of deaths and injuries resulting from balcony falls on the Balearic islands.

It accompanied the post with a detailed chart that awarded nations points for balcony-linked deaths and injuries of their citizens. Britain appeared at the top with seven points, followed by Germany and Spain.

“The British NEVER disappoint,” it told its more than 55,000 followers. “Everyone trusted that the kings of this sport would once again be leaders.”

McKelvie, who earlier this year was appointed as Scotland’s minister for drugs and alcohol policy, hit out at the website. “This is utterly vile and my heart goes out to the loved ones of anyone who has been targeted by this organisation,” she said. “It is reprehensible that anyone would seek to exploit and use tragic deaths in such a cruel manner.”

She continued: “The sooner the organisation is shut down, the better, and social media organisations should take any action they can to remove such deplorable content from their sites.”

McKelvie’s office stressed that the comments were made in her capacity as an MSP, rather than as a Scottish government minister.

The “federation”, which describes itself online as “Darwinistically tourist-phobic”, appears to have been keeping records of falls among international and domestic tourists to the Balearic islands since 2000.

Part of its name refers to the term balconing, coined in Spain after a spate of serious incidents arising from holidaymakers’ attempts to jump into swimming pools from balconies. On its website, the group noted that it had expanded on this definition to include all vertical falls.

The group did not reply to a request for comment from the Guardian.

However, it did post a response to a Spanish media report on McKelvie’s call for it to be shut down. The problem was not its rankings, it insisted, but rather the region’s model of “mass tourism” and the “consequences” that stemmed from this model, it said.

Contamination of waterways with the antidepressant Prozac is disrupting fish bodies and behaviours in ways that could threaten their long-term survival, new research has found.

As global consumption of pharmaceuticals has increased, residues have entered rivers and streams via wastewater raising concerns about the effects on ecosystems and wildlife.

Research published in the journal of Animal Ecology found low concentrations of fluoxetine – an antidepressant commonly known as Prozac – reduced the body condition and sperm vitality of male guppies over multiple generations.

The study’s co-lead author, Dr Upama Aich from Monash University, said thousands of chemicals were “being dumped into our waterways every day”. The researchers chose to look at fluoxetine as it was “quite ubiquitous”.

Aich said the changes observed in guppies at low concentrations of the drug should be taken as a warning about their ability “to live and survive and thrive in a polluted environment”.

Researchers caught 3,600 wild guppies – an invasive species in Australia – and randomly assigned them to tanks fitted with gravel and aquatic plants.

Over five years they dosed the tanks with different concentrations of fluoxetine – zero, low (31.5 nanograms a litre) and high (316 ng/L), consistent with levels found in the natural environment. Researchers then studied the effects on male fish behaviour, bodies and reproductive traits over multiple generations.

Aich said low exposure reduced the body condition of males in the population as a whole, “which is really important, not only for mating, but also for fighting with other males, and their overall survival”. Exposure to low doses also reduced sperm velocity but increased the length of the gonopodium, a fin-like organ used to fertilise the female, she said.

She said exposure to the drug also reduced variation in activity and risk taking behaviour, which could affect guppies’ ability to respond to changes in the wild.

Dr Minna Saaristo, a principal scientist in ecological risk and emerging contaminants at the Environment Protection Authority Victoria, said medicines were designed to work at low doses, which could explain why there were more profound effects at low concentrations.

Saaristo led EPA research that found 18 common pharmaceuticals in four Victorian rivers and creeks, including upstream and downstream of wastewater treatment plants. Sampling detected common antidepressants, blood pressure, heart and epilepsy medicines, caffeine and antibiotics. “It’s a whole cocktail that we’re dealing with,” Saaristo said.

The EPA also tested for pharmaceuticals in commonly caught fish. The highest concentrations were for antidepressants, including venlafaxine (150 micrograms a kilogram) in redfin perch and sertraline (100 μg/kg) in eel. Saaristo said there was no significant risk to human health but the regulator was monitoring the situation.

She said people should not flush pharmaceuticals down the toilet. Instead they should return unwanted and expired medicines to a pharmacy.

“That will be very helpful for the fish that are swimming in our waterways.”