Donald Trump repeated racist claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, on Friday, doubling down on anti-immigrant rhetoric as residents in the town have faced bomb threats and have detailed their fears amid harassment.

“In Springfield, Ohio, 20,000 illegal migrant Haitians have descended upon a town of 58,000 people, destroying their way of life. They’ve destroyed the place,” Trump said during a rambling press conference at his golf course in Los Angeles. “People don’t like to talk about it. Even the town doesn’t like to talk about it, because it sounds so bad for the town. They live there … for years it was a great place. Safe. Nice. Now they have 20,000 and I actually heard today it’s 32,000.”

He later added: “We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio, large deportations. We’re gonna get these people out. We’re bringing them back to Venezuela,” stating the incorrect country where most of the immigrants are from.

Haiti is one of 16 countries the US government has granted temporary protective status (TPS) to because of ongoing conflict, making it easier for immigrants to get authorization to work in the United States. As president, Trump tried to end TPS for Haiti and referred to the country as a “shithole”.

Trump’s comments come after Tuesday’s presidential debate in which he first repeated the false claim that migrants in Springfield are stealing and eating people’s dogs and cats. The claim has been repeatedly debunked.

Springfield has received several bomb threats this week, prompting it to close its government buildings and evacuate its schools. Haitian residents in the town have reported receiving severe threats and harassment, according to the Haitian Times.

JD Vance, who represents the residents of Springfield as Ohio’s US senator, continued to attack the town on Friday, leaning into racist tropes that immigrants were responsible for bringing disease and crime to the community.

Just before Trump spoke in California, Joe Biden condemned his attacks on Haitians in Springfield.

“A community that’s under attack in our country right now. It’s simply wrong. There’s no place in America. This has to stop – what he’s doing. It has to stop,” Biden said at the White House.

Pope Francis on Friday criticized Donald Trump over his plan to deport millions of immigrants and Kamala Harris over her stance supporting abortion rights.

Asked about the US presidential election on his flight back to Rome from Singapore, the pope said not welcoming migrants is a “grave” sin, and likened having an abortion to an “assassination“.

He said US Catholics would have to “choose the lesser evil” when they vote in November, without elaborating.

Francis was speaking in a press conference with journalists after a 12-day tour across south-east Asia and Oceania. Although the pope did not use Trump and Harris’s names, he referred specifically to their policies and their genders. Despite criticizing both candidates, he said Catholics should vote.

“Not voting is ugly,” the 87-year-old pontiff said. “It is not good. You must vote.

“You must choose the lesser evil,” he continued. “Who is the lesser evil? That lady, or that gentleman? I don’t know. Everyone, in conscience, [has to] think and do this.”

American Catholics, numbering roughly 52 million nationwide, are often seen as crucial swing voters. In some battleground states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, more than 20% of adults are Catholic.

Francis, leader of about 1.4 billion Catholics globally, is usually careful about weighing in on national political elections. But he frequently criticizes abortion, which is forbidden by Catholic teaching, in sharp terms. He has also previously criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. During the 2016 election, he said Trump was “not Christian” in his views. On Friday, Francis said both candidates’ policies were “against life”.

“Whether it is the one who is chasing away migrants, or the one that kills children,” said the pope. “Both are against life.”

Trump has promised to crack down on illegal immigration and deport millions of immigrants already in the US if elected to a second term as president. He has also refused to rule out building detention camps for undocumented immigrants.

Harris has promised to sign any legislation passed by Congress to restore national protections for abortion access, which were struck down by the US supreme court in its 2022 Dobbs decision.

The two candidates sparred over both issues on Wednesday in their first debate together. Most polls show a tight race, with Harris leading slightly.

The pope called immigration “a right”, citing Bible passages that call orphans, widows and foreigners three kinds of people that society must care for. “Not giving welcome to migrants is a sin,” said the pope. “It is grave.”

Francis said abortion “is killing a human being”. He said there could be no excuses for an abortion. “It is an assassination,” he said. “On these things we must speak clearly. No ‘but’ or ‘however’.”

Kamala Harris, in an interview with Brian Taff of Philadelphia’s 6abc Action News, re-emphasized many of the points she made in Tuesday’s debate and throughout her brief campaign, including her stance on guns.

In the 11-minute interview aired by the ABC affiliate on Friday, the Democratic nominee for president spoke about gun control, unity among Americans, and her goal of creating an “opportunity economy”.

“Most Americans want a leader who brings us together as Americans and not somehow who professes to be a leader who is trying to have us point fingers at each other,” Harris said in response to a question about how she would reach out to Trump voters. “I think people are exhausted with that approach.”

The interview’s airing came as Donald Trump visited Harris’s home state of California, where he held a news conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, a coastal city about 30 miles south-west of Los Angeles. Later in the day, Trump travelled north for a fundraiser hosted by Tom Siebel, the billionaire cousin of Jennifer Siebel-Newsom, wife of California governor Gavin Newsom.

Harris also reiterated that she and Walz are gun owners and believe that they can respect the second amendment while pushing for and implementing long-asked-for policies like a ban on so-called assault weapons and universal background checks on gun purchases. “We are not taking anybody’s guns away,” she said.

“I feel very strongly that it’s consistent with the second amendment to say we need an assault weapons ban. They’re literally tools of war they were literally designed to kill a lot of people quickly.”

Harris also promoted her economic plan, which she says is heavily based on her middle-class upbringing. “We have ambitions and aspirations, but not everyone necessarily has access to the resources that help them fuel the aspirations and ambitions,” she said. Harris says that if elected, she will expand the child tax credit and offer parents $6,000 for the first year of their child’s life, raise the tax break for small businesses from $5,000 to $50,000 and give first-time homebuyers $25,000 in assistance.

In Pennsylvania, a state that has received a lot of attention from both candidates, Harris held a rally in Wilkes-Barre, 20 miles from Scranton, Joe Biden’s home town. Pennsylvania is a tight race for Harris and Trump, as 538’s presidential polling average shows less than a percentage point between the two as of Friday afternoon.

Harris also paid a visit to the cafe and bookshop Classic Elements, where she told reporters: “I am feeling very good about Pennsylvania, because there are a lot of people in Pennsylvania who deserve to be seen and heard.”

During Friday evening’s rally, Harris was interrupted at least three times by protesters, including people speaking out about the war in Gaza.

Harris also announced a new policy that would do away with college degree requirements for some federal jobs.

“As president, I will get rid of the unnecessary degree requirements for federal jobs and increase jobs for folks without a four-year degree, understanding that requiring a certain degree does not necessarily talk about one’s skills,” she told the crowd.

The campaign of Kamala Harris on Friday stepped up its mockery of “chicken” Donald Trump for ducking out of another presidential debate, with the Democratic nominee telling her Republican rival he owes it to voters to face her again.

The former US president announced on Thursday “there will be no third debate”, two days after a floundering performance during their testy meeting in Philadelphia in which Harris baited him on a range of subjects, including the crowd size at his rallies.

Trump’s post to his Truth Social network insisted instead that he was the victor, citing imaginary polls and using a bizarre boxing analogy about a beaten prizefighter demanding a rematch.

It drew a derisive response from the Harris campaign, with chair David Plouffe stating in a tweet: “At long last we discover his spirit animal: The Chicken.”

On Friday, the Harris team stepped up the pressure. A memo from spokesperson Ian Sams said Trump should be held accountable for his refusal to answer questions during the debate about whether he would veto a national abortion ban or if he wanted Ukraine to win its war against Russia.

“The debate was a mess for Trump, yes. But these answers are simply toxic. In almost any other circumstance, any one of these answers might drive days of a media crisis for the candidate. Taken together, they are an unmitigated disaster,” Sams wrote.

“Trump should have to answer for these positions.”

Harris, meanwhile, continued to press for the pair to meet again in what would be their second meeting, and third debate of the presidential campaign following Joe Biden’s disastrous display in June that led to him to drop his re-election bid.

“The vice-president is clear she believes there should be another debate and we do not consider this to be the last word from him,” Brian Fallon, a spokesperson for Harris, told Politico. “[Trump] is just working through his feelings after losing very badly Tuesday night.”

The call was echoed by some senior Republicans following a debate in which Trump passed over an opportunity to talk about immigration, a perceived strong suit, to make unfounded, rambling claims about Haitian immigrants eating residents’ pet cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio.

Asked by the Associated Press about Trump’s failure to press Harris on policy issues, John Thune of South Dakota, the number two Senate Republican, said: “Frankly, it could have been done better.”

Another meeting, he said, would be “helpful”, adding: “I don’t think they got enough into the substance of their differences. I hope there’s another debate.”

Harris was expected to talk more about this week’s debate later on Friday at appearances in Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, part of what her campaign called “an aggressive phase of campaigning” in swing states crucial to the outcome of November’s election.

At two raucous rallies in North Carolina on Thursday she challenged Trump to face her again. “We owe it to the voters. Because here’s the thing … in this election, what’s at stake could not be more important,” she told a crowd of an estimated 17,000 in Greensboro.

Trump was continuing his campaign on Friday with a press conference in Los Angeles. Three days after the Philadelphia debate, the Republican nominee is still facing backlash for his false claims about immigrants eating pet animals, with some allies blaming the influence of the conspiracy theorist and rightwing extremist Laura Loomer.

“They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” Trump claimed during the debate. “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”

Trump drew criticism for inviting Loomer, who has called the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US “an inside job”, to accompany him to Wednesday’s 9/11 commemoration. She was also reported to have been part of his debate preparation team.

The Semafor website quoted an unnamed source close to Trump’s campaign as saying they were “100%” concerned about Loomer’s sway over him.

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A campaign is under way to drive the UN relief agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, out of existence, its commissioner general has said, days after 18 people were killed when Israeli jets bombed an Unrwa school in Gaza.

Philippe Lazzarini said in an interview that the Israeli government was seeking to close down the agency, having failed to persuade western donors to stop funding it on the grounds of allegations about links between Unrwa staff and Hamas.

“This deliberate attempt to eliminate Unrwa and prevent it from operating would have devastating consequences for the multilateral system, the UN and the cause of a Palestinian transition to self-determination,” Lazzarini said.

On Wednesday Unrwa said six staff members had been killed in two airstrikes that hit al-Jaouni school in Nuseirat, in central Gaza – the highest death toll among its staff in a single incident. The Israel Defense Forces said the strikes killed nine Hamas members, three of whom had doubled as Unrwa workers.

Lazzarini said the IDF had not previously informed his agency that the three staff were Hamas members. “None of these names have ever been on any IDF list notified to us, so I have absolutely no way of being able to authenticate or not,” he said. “These people were working in the shelter … There was no indication they were military operatives.”

Unrwa, one of the UN’s largest agencies, has 13,000 staff working in Gaza and more than 30,000 in the region providing health and educational facilities to Palestinian refugees.

Lazzarini called for an independent investigation, pointing out the total number of Unrwa staff killed in the conflict since 7 October last year had reached 220.

He said: “There is a deliberate attempt to eliminate and dismantle the agency and the reason behind that has nothing to do with neutrality issues, but there is a political purpose behind it. Ultimately there is a desire to strip the Palestinians of refugee status and beyond that to undermine the future Palestinian aspiration for self-determination. That is why Unrwa has become such a target.

“We should make absolutely no mistake that this is more than an attack on Unrwa, but on the broader multilateral system and on the UN. This is a campaign to dismantle Unrwa and push out the broader humanitarian community.”

Lazzarini pointed out three pieces of legislation going through the Israeli parliament: one to label Unrwa as a terrorist organisation, another to remove all immunities from Unrwa staff and a third to deny Unrwa access to buildings under Israel’s control. He said the draft bills were enjoying large support.

In addition, he said the Israeli government was not renewing visas for key Unrwa staff and NGOs.

“It is unconscionable that a UN member state call a UN agency whose mandate comes from the UN security council to be labelled a terrorist organisation. It will set a precedent for other governments to label UN organisations when they act in a way the state does not approve,” he said.

Lazzarini also warned that a generation of unschooled children living in despair was emerging on the border with Israel, some of whom he feared could turn to extremism.

“Education was the last asset these children had, but they live in the rubble and are deeply traumatised,” he said. “The more we wait to bring them back to the educational environment, the more I believe we will be sowing seeds for more hatred, for more resentment and for more extremism.”

Lazzarini said it had become banal to assert that international law had been ignored in Gaza, but after meeting Arab leaders in Cairo this week he said “it is hard to estimate how much they feel western double standards are being applied”.

He said his agency had responded promptly and seriously to the initial Israeli allegations that 12 staff members had taken part in the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October. He said 10 staff had been sacked immediately and two investigations completed, including one by the former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna.

“We have wasted no time in implementing her recommendations, including strengthening the screening of staff and the guidelines governing staff political advocacy. We cannot police what staff think around the family table, but we can set clear limits on what can be said at work, and seek to train staff in the principles of neutrality and work for the UN.”

He said every country that had suspended Unrwa funding, save for the US, had now restored it, leaving a shortfall of $450,000 (£340,000).

The 7 October attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians. Israel’s retaliation has killed at least 41,118 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry.

On Friday the World Health Organization director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, hailed the success of the first phase of a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, after more than 560,000 children received a first dose.

“This is a massive success amidst a tragic daily reality of life across the Gaza Strip,” Tedros said on X. Disease has spread with Gaza lying in ruins and the majority of its 2.4 million residents forced to flee their homes due to Israel’s military assault – often taking refuge in cramped and unsanitary conditions.

The body of the Turkish-American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi has landed in Istanbul to continue to its final resting place in her family’s home town on the Aegean coast, with the coffin carried by a procession of Turkish honour guard soldiers.

An autopsy report conducted in the Israeli-occupied West Bank town of Nablus lists Eygi’s cause of death as a brain haemorrhage after a bullet penetrated her skull, as the 26-year-old attended a pro-Palestine protest in nearby Beita.

Eygi had arrived in the West Bank just five days earlier and attended the protest with the International Solidarity Movement, a group dedicated to bringing observers trained in non-violent methods to protests.

The report describes how Eygi’s clothing and hair tie were soaked in blood, and that her head showed further signs of injury that occurred when she dropped to the ground as the bullet struck.

The Israeli military said this week that Eygi was shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by one of its soldiers, drawing a rebuke from the activist’s family who said they were “deeply offended by the suggestion that her killing by a trained sniper was in any way unintentional”.

“Let us be clear, an American citizen was killed by a foreign military in a targeted attack,” they said. “The appropriate action is for President Biden and Vice-President Harris to speak with the family directly, and order an independent, transparent investigation into the killing of Ayşenur, a volunteer for peace.”

Turkish public prosecutors said they would conduct their own investigation into Eygi’s death, with a second autopsy due to be performed at a forensic medicine centre in the coastal city of İzmir before a funeral in her family’s nearby home town of Didim in the coming days. Her family, who moved with Eygi from Turkey to Seattle when she was less than a year old, described her as a “kind-hearted, silly and passionate soul”, and called on Biden not to accept the Israeli military’s description that Eygi was struck by accident.

While Eygi’s family called on US officials to do more, her killing has spurred a widening rift between Turkey and the Israeli government, further inflaming tensions as the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, condemned Eygi’s killing and pledged to make Israel “account for its crimes against humanity before the law”.

Announcing the repatriation of Eygi’s body, Turkey’s foreign ministry said: “We will make every effort to ensure that this crime does not go unpunished.”

Erdoğan has been fiercely critical of the Israeli assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 41,000 people since October, while officials have expressed alarm about Israeli settlers praying in the grounds of al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, one of the holiest sites in Islam.

The Turkish president also announced a halt to much of the estimated £5.3bn in annual exports to Israel last May after years of improvements in the relationship, much of them signalled through trade.

A month later, Erdoğan told a meeting of his Justice and Development party officials in his family home town of Rize that Turkey could intervene “so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine”, without suggesting what form this might take.

The president’s fiery stance has only drawn Ankara closer to countries that were previously regional foes. This month, the foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, addressed the Arab League in Cairo, the first time a Turkish official has done so in more than a decade.

Fidan called for “joint action to put pressure on the international community to reject Israel’s actions”, warning that any countries supporting Benjamin Netanyahu would be “held accountable”.

In August, Turkey formally applied to support South Africa’s case against Israel at the international court of justice in The Hague, which accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and calls on Israeli forces to immediately cease fighting in the Palestinian territory.

A man was shot and sustained life-threatening injuries on Thursday in Newton, Massachusetts, after he tackled a pro-Israel demonstrator.

During a news conference on Thursday evening, Marian Ryan, the Middlesex district attorney, said that the incident took place at about 6.40pm on Thursday evening.

A small group of pro-Israeli demonstrators were on one side of the street, Ryan said, and a man, who has not been publicly identified, was walking on the other side of the street and started exchanging words with the group.

Words were “exchanged back and forth”, Ryan said, and then the incident escalated when the individual crossed the street and “jumped upon one of the demonstrators”.

“A scuffle ensued,” Ryan said, adding that during the confrontation the individual who had come across the street “was shot by a member of the demonstrating group”.

The individual sustained life-threatening injuries, and is being treated at a local hospital, she said.

The person who used the gun was identified on Thursday by authorities as 47-year-old Scott Hayes from Framingham. The Middlesex district attorney’s office said on Thursday evening that Hayes was arrested and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and violation of a constitutional right causing injury.

He was scheduled to be arraigned on Friday.

According to NBC News, when Ryan was asked at the news conference whether the person shot was anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian, Ryan said that it was “too soon to get into that”.

In a video of the incident posted online, the individual across the street appears to be accusing the Israeli demonstrators of “defending genocide”, with the pro-Israeli demonstrators responding and calling him “so stupid”.

After exchanging words and arguing from across the street, the man is then seen running towards the demonstrators and then tackling and jumping on one of the pro-Israel protesters.

The video shows him and the man he jumped on, who appears to be Hayes, rolling around on the ground, and at one point two other men get involved and begin stepping on and kicking the man who ran across the street.

The pro-Israel demonstrator in the scuffle then appears to pull his gun, which fires and the man is shot in the stomach. Shortly after, the demonstrator is seen trying to help the man he just shot and calls for 911 to be summoned.

A witness of the incident told NBC Boston that it was “daunting” to see what happened and that they hoped everyone was OK.

The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston released a statement about the incident.

“While the details of what happened are still being investigated, there should be no question that violence of any kind in our democratic society is abhorrent,” the statement reads. “People’s right to gather in civil, non-violent public demonstrations must be sacrosanct.”

The statement urged patience as the full investigation unfolds, and encouraged Newton’s mayor, Ruthanne Fuller, and district attorney Ryan to continue to “fully communicate with the public and the community regarding the investigation and the rationale for those charges filed and for any additional charges that may be filed”.

The group added that “regardless of motive or his role in the initiation of the violence, we pray for the full recovery of the individual who was injured last night”.

The Newton acting police chief, George McMains, said that police would provide extra patrols at “houses of worship” over the next several days, according to the Associated Press.

Mayor Fuller also reportedly called the shooting a “frightening incident” and said that the investigation was ongoing.

Congressman Jacob Auchincloss, who represents Massachusetts’s fourth congressional district, said in a post on X on Thursday that “violence in political discourse is never acceptable”, thanked the authorities for the “rapid response’” and said that he is looking forward to “a thorough investigation of this incident”.

US officials and lawmakers shot back after Vladimir Putin said that Nato’s potential lifting of restrictions on Ukraine to launch long-range strikes over the border into Russian territory would mean Nato countries were “at war” with Russia.

The prime minister, Keir Starmer, met with the US president, Joe Biden, on Friday at the White House, where the two were expected to discuss – though not necessarily announce – a loosening of restrictions on Storm Shadow missiles that would allow Ukraine to strike targets as far as 155 miles inside Russia.

“This will mean that Nato countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia,” Putin told Russian reporters on Thursday. “And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”

The missiles are jointly produced in the UK and France, and both countries appear to be seeking Biden’s go-ahead to loosen restrictions on the use of the long-range missiles. Western officials have indicated that the US is not planning to allow its own missiles to be used to strike targets deeper inside Russia.

Washington and London have indicated they do not plan to announce any change in policy. Moscow’s ambassador to the UN told the security council on Friday that loosening the restrictions would mark an escalation to “direct war” between Moscow and Nato.

The remarks provoked an angry response in Washington, where officials accused the Russian ruler of sabre-rattling in order to scare Nato countries away from supporting Ukraine.

Senator Jim Risch, the ranking member of the Senate foreign relations committee, said Ukraine should have authorisation to strike targets deep inside Russia, including active Russian bombers launching missiles against Ukrainian cities.

“Putin’s latest threats about direct confrontation with Nato are simply an effort to coerce the west out of supporting Ukraine,” Risch said. “He knows that long-range strikes from Ukraine would cause significant damage to his war effort. Several Russian missiles have landed in Nato territory and Nato has not escalated.

“Ukraine must be allowed to defend itself, period. If that means striking a Russian bomber launching missiles at Ukrainian civilians from Russian airspace, then Ukraine should be able to take that shot,” he added.

Speaking with reporters on Friday, the US national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said that there would probably be no announcements about the lifting of restrictions on Ukraine’s use of British and French-supplied missiles in Ukraine.

But at the same time, he said that the US and its Nato allies have “our own calculus for what we decide to provide to Ukraine”.

“I never said that we don’t take Mr Putin’s threats seriously. He starts brandishing the nuclear sword, for instance, yeah, we take that seriously. We constantly monitor that. He obviously has proven capable of aggression. He’s obviously proven capable of escalation … But it is not something that we haven’t heard before. So we take note of it. We got it,” Kirby said.

Biden and Starmer were meeting for their second time at the White House after last month’s Nato summit, which was held just days after Labour won the UK general election and retook power after 14 years in opposition.

The two leaders were expected to discuss a host of foreign policy topics, including Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East, the Aukus partnership between the UK, Australia and US, and more.

The Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is expected to present his “victory plan” to Biden on the sidelines of the UN general assembly this month. Pressure is growing on Ukraine in the run-up to the US presidential elections, which could see Donald Trump return to power.

As fevered discussions over the future of the war take place behind closed doors, Washington and its allies have continued to pledge to stand behind Ukraine in the war.

“We are going to do everything that we can so that Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself,” said the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, on Friday. “That is our commitment. I think you have seen this, a very much focused, a tremendous amount of support from this administration and also from our partners and allies in doing just that. And that’s what you could expect to see.”

• Keir Starmer and Joe Biden have discussed letting Ukraine fire long-range, western-supplied missiles into Russia, while stopping short of any formal announcement. Vladimir Putin has threatened it would amount to Nato joining the war. The UK prime minister told reporters at the White House that he had a “wide-ranging discussion about strategy” with the US president but that it was not just a meeting about “a particular capability”.

• Before the meeting, officials had said Starmer would press Biden to back his plan to let British Storm Shadow be used to strike inside Russia. Britain’s PM indicated he and Biden would discuss the plan at the UN general assembly in New York the week after next “with a wider group of individuals”.

• Biden dismissed Vladimir Putin’s sabre-rattling threats, saying he did not accept that Ukraine using Storm Shadows missiles against Russia proper would amount to Nato going to war with Moscow, reports Dan Sabbagh in Washington. “I do not think much about Vladimir Putin,” Biden said.

• Moscow’s ambassador to the UN told the security council on Friday that loosening the missile strike restrictions would mark an escalation to “direct war” between Moscow and Nato. Washington officials accused Putin of trying to scare Nato countries away from supporting Ukraine, reports Andrew Roth. In Europe, leaders played down Putin’s threats. The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said: “I would not attach excessive importance to the latest statements from President Putin. They rather show the difficult situation the Russians have on the front.”

• Zelenskiy said the Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s border region of Kursk had produced the desired result of slowing Moscow’s advance on another front in Ukraine’s east. The Ukrainian president said in Kyiv on Friday that Russia’s counterattack in Kursk produced no major successes – contradicting Vladimir Putin’s accounts of Russian advances on both fronts. Zelenskiy said Russia had about 40,000 troops on the Kursk front. “So far we have seen no serious [Russian] success.” Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday its troops had taken back 10 villages out of 100 that Kyiv had occupied. The battlefield reports of either side were not able to be independently verified.

• The Ukrainian general staff said on Friday that Russian forces had focused their assaults near the town of Kurakhove, about 33km (20 miles) south of the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had captured Dolynivka, positioned between Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, the latest in a series of localities Moscow says it has seized.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy said 49 Ukrainian prisoners of war had been returned from Russia, with Agence France-Presse witnessing the group being greeted at the border with Belarus. The Ukrainian president did not clarify whether it was part of an exchange with Russia, as is usually the case, but AFP journalists had earlier seen Russian prisoners of war being loaded on to a bus near the border.

• Romania started training its first group of Ukrainian F-16 pilots this week, the Nato country’s defence ministry said. The first four pilots had started their “theoretical training”, a ministry spokesperson told AFP, with practical training to follow “towards the end of the year”.

• Drone fragments fell on a municipal building in Kyiv’s Obolon district north of the city centre early on Saturday, said the mayor. Writing on Telegram, Vitali Klitschko said no fire broke out and emergency services were sent. He earlier said air defence units had been in action. A Reuters witness said explosions were heard. The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhiy Popko, urged people to remain in shelters as drones still posed a threat. The air raid alert was later lifted for the city but remained in effect for several regions of central Ukraine.

• Russia announced it had revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow on accusations of espionage. Moscow’s FSB domestic spy agency said on Friday that it acted on documents showing part of the UK Foreign Office was helping coordinate what it called “the escalation of the political and military situation” in Ukraine. The Foreign Office, however, said the move had been made last month as part of a continuing diplomatic tit-for-tat. Sources indicated the British diplomats had left Russia weeks ago and were already being replaced.

• The US has imposed new sanctions on Russia over its role to “undermine democracies”, the US secretary of state said. “The actions we’re exposing today and the actions we exposed last week do not incorporate the full scope of Russia’s efforts to undermine democracies,” Antony Blinken said. “Far from it.”

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he would meet Joe Biden “this month” to present his “victory plan” on how to end the war with Russia. The Ukrainian leader gave no details on how to end more than 30 months of fighting, saying only that his proposal would involve “a system of interconnected solutions that will give Ukraine enough power – enough to put this war on a course to peace”.

• The German chancellor has said he will not send long-range missiles requested by Ukraine. Germany possesses powerful Taurus cruise missiles. Olaf Scholz said on Friday: “Germany has made a clear decision about what we will do and what we will not do. This decision will not change.”

• Boris Johnson met with Zelenskiy in Kyiv and renewed calls for permission for Storm Shadow strikes on Russia aimed at “stopping the appalling Russian attacks with glide bombs and now Iranian missiles”. Zelenskiy also met with The American actor Michael Douglas and his son Dylan in Kyiv. The Ukrainian president said that they, alongside Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, discussed “the situation in our country, cooperation with partners, support for Ukraine, and the fourth Summit of Ladies and Gentlemen”.

• Ukraine’s government has approved a 2025 draft budget with a strong focus on defence spending, the prime minister said. Denys Shmyhal said on Friday that the draft, to be submitted to parliament, provided for 2tn hryvnias (US$48.2bn) in revenues and 3.6tn hryvnias in expenditures. The draft also included a provision of 2.22tn hryvnias (US$53.5bn) for defence. “The priority for this budget is very clear – the country’s defence and security,” he said. “We will again direct all domestic resources to these objectives.”

Joe Biden dismissed sabre-rattling threats made by Vladimir Putin as the US president met with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, at the White House on Friday.

Biden said he did not accept that Ukraine using western-made Storm Shadow missiles to bomb targets in Russia would amount to Nato going to war with Moscow.

At a foreign policy summit on Friday afternoon, Biden said: “I do not think much about Vladimir Putin.”

Biden and Starmer’s top foreign policy teams were meeting at the Blue Room in the White House. At the start of the meeting, James Matthews from Sky News jumped the gun by asking Biden: “What do you say to Vladimir Putin’s threat of war?”

Biden scolded him. “You be quiet, I’m going to speak, OK?” the president said, before beginning his prepared remarks.

Also present at the Blue Room meeting were Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, and David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary. Other British participants included Tim Barrow, the national security adviser, and Starmer’s chief of staff, Sue Gray.

Starmer flew over from London on Thursday for the working meeting amid escalating tensions with the Kremlin after the UK had indicated that the US had agreed to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles to bomb Russia.

After the summit, Starmer said the meeting was not about a particular decision on Storm Shadow. “Well, we’ve had a long and productive discussion on a number of problems, including Ukraine, as you’d expect, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific, talking strategically about tactical decisions,” he said.

However, Biden indicated the topic came under discussion between the leaders and their teams. In response to a shouted question asking how soon he was prepared to let Ukraine fire missiles deeper into Russia, Biden said: “We’re going to discuss that now.”

Neither of the presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, were in the capital and available to meet Starmer because both were campaigning.

Starmer said he had never spoken to Harris. The prime minister did speak to Trump briefly after the former president survived an assassination attempt in the summer.

The British Storm Shadow missiles, made by a European company, can strike targets at least 190 miles away and Ukraine wants to use them to bomb airbases, missile sites and other military targets in the Russian heartlands.

Earlier, Russia announced it had revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow on accusations of espionage. Moscow’s FSB domestic spy agency said on Friday that it had acted on documents showing part of the Foreign Office was helping coordinate what it called “the escalation of the political and military situation” in Ukraine.

The Foreign Office, however, said the move had been made last month as part of a continuing diplomatic tit-for-tat. Sources indicated the British diplomats had left Russia weeks ago and were being replaced.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The accusations made today by the FSB against our staff are completely baseless … We are unapologetic about protecting our national interests.”

The British government expelled the Russian defence attache in May, accusing him of being an undeclared intelligence officer, and removed diplomatic status from several Russian-owned buildings in the UK.

The Biden-Starmer meeting was called at the request of the UK, the White House said. After a short one-to-one between the leaders, no press conference was scheduled.

The UK side has for days been dampening down expectations of a public announcement about Storm Shadow being used in Ukraine – though the discussions prompted Putin to warn on Thursday that allowing Ukraine to use western-made long-range missiles would amount to Nato being at war with Russia.

Starmer, however, told reporters as he flew into Washington: “Russia started this conflict. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Russia can end this conflict straight away. Ukraine has the right to self-defence.” Putin had been expected to counter talk of fresh help for Kyiv with threats.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has been pushing for months for permission to use the missiles, including during talks this week with Lammy and Blinken.

British sources say London and Washington have decided to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles, but are not yet willing to announce it. Deploying the missiles, western officials add, should be part of a wider plan designed to try to bring about an end to the full-scale war.

Zelenskiy pleaded on Friday for the US and UK to speed up the process and allow Kyiv to make the war “more difficult for Russia”.

“Anyone who sees at a map where Russia launches its strikes from, trains its forces, keeps its reserves, locates its military facilities, and what logistics [it] uses clearly understands why Ukraine needs long-range capabilities,” he said in a lengthy statement.

Ukrainian leaders are intensely frustrated that the Kremlin is able to launch deadly missile strikes across Ukraine, while they are unable to target sites in Russia because the weapons available are manufactured in the west and until now western governments have not approved such use.

Storm Shadow is made by a company controlled by British, French and Italian interests, and some of its components are made in the US, giving all four countries a veto on its use. Ukraine has only a limited long-range missile capability of its own making.

The Russian embassy in London said Britain was wasting money in supporting Ukraine, that any arms donated would “likely go up in smoke” and that the policy of helping Kyiv would “provide no relief to ordinary Brits, who are preparing to tighten their belts as winter approaches”.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has announced new sanctions against the Russian state-backed media company RT, formerly known as Russia Today, after new information gleaned from the outfit’s employees showed it was “functioning like a de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence apparatus”.

The Russian government in 2023 established a new unit in RT with “cyber operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence”, Blinken claimed, with the goal of spreading Russian influence in countries around the world through information operations, covert influence and military procurement.

“Today, we’re exposing how Russia deploys similar tactics around the world,” Blinken said. “Russian weaponization of disinformation to subvert and polarize free and open societies extends to every part of the world.”

The US treasury would sanction three entities and two individuals tied to Rossiya Segodnya, the Russian state media company, Blinken said. The decision came after the announcement earlier this month that RT had funneled nearly $10m to conservative US influencers through a local company to produce videos meant to influence the outcome of the American presidential election in November.

Speaking to reporters from the state department on Friday, Blinken accused RT of crowdfunding weapons and equipment for Russian soldiers in Ukraine, including sniper rifles, weapon sights, body armor, night-vision equipment, drones, radio equipment and diesel generators. Some of the equipment, including the recon drones, could be sourced from China, he said.

“While the crowdfunding campaign is out in the open, what’s hidden is that this program is administered by the leaders of RT,” Blinken said. They included the RT head, Margarita Simonyan, who was among nine employees of the company targeted with a visa ban earlier this month.

Blinken also detailed how the organisation had targeted countries in Europe, Africa and North and South America. In particular, he said that RT leadership had coordinated directly with the Kremlin to target the October 2024 elections in Moldova, a former-Soviet state in Europe where Russia has been accused of waging a hybrid war to exert greater influence. In particular, he said, RT’s leadership had “attempted to foment unrest in Moldova, likely with the specific aim of causing protests to turn violent”.

“RT is aware of and prepared to assist Russia’s plans to incite protests should the election not result in a Russia-preferred candidate winning the presidency,” Blinken said.

As a result of RT’s efforts to “weaponise disinformation”, Blinken said, the US, UK and Canada would launch a “joint diplomatic campaign … to rally allies and partners around the world to join us in addressing the threat posed by RT and other machinery of Russian disinformation and covert influence”.

Michaela Mabinty DePrince, a trailblazer and inspiration to many in the ballet world, has died at 29, a spokesperson announced on her Instagram page on Friday. No cause of death has yet been reported.

“Her life was one defined by grace, purpose, and strength,” the caption said. “Her unwavering commitment to her art, her humanitarian efforts, and her courage in overcoming unimaginable challenges will forever inspire us. She stood as a beacon of hope for many, showing that no matter the obstacles, beauty and greatness can rise from the darkest of places.”

DePrince’s family released a statement following the announcement of her death.

“I am truly in a state of shock and deep sadness. My beautiful sister is no longer here,” Mia DePrince wrote. “From the very beginning of our story back in Africa, sleeping on a shared mat in the orphanage, Michaela (Mabinty) and I used to make up our own musical theater plays and act them out. We created our own ballets … When we got adopted, our parents quickly poured into our dreams and arose the beautiful, gracefully strong ballerina that so many of you knew her as today. She was an inspiration.”

Born Mabinty Bangura in Sierra Leone, DePrince was sent to an orphanage aged three, after both of her parents died in the country’s civil war. At the orphanage, she experienced mistreatment and malnourishment, she told the Associated Press in 2012.

“I lost both my parents, so I was there [the orphanage] for about a year and I wasn’t treated very well because I had vitiligo,” she said at the time. “We were ranked as numbers, and number 27 was the least favorite and that was my number, so I got the least amount of food, the least amount of clothes and whatnot.”

After receiving word that the orphanage would be bombed, DePrince described walking shoeless for miles to reach a refugee camp. Her mother, who adopted DePrince and two other girls, including Mia, from the orphanage after meeting them in Ghana in 1999, said Michaela was “sick and traumatized by the war”, with tonsillitis, fever, mononucleosis and swollen joints. DePrince was four when she was adopted and moved to the United States.

Her passion for ballet began as a young girl in Sierra Leone after she saw a photo of a ballerina. But despite beginning to train in ballet at five, DePrince still experienced trials. At eight, she was told the US was not ready for a Black girl ballerina, even though she had been selected to perform the role of Marie in The Nutcracker. When she was nine, a teacher told her mother that Black girls were not worth investing money in.

DePrince eventually attended the Rock School for Dance Education, a prestigious and selective ballet school.

At 17, she was featured in First Position, a documentary that follows six dancers as they prepare for the Youth America Grand Prix. She received a scholarship to study at American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of Ballet. After graduating from high school, DePrince worked at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, becoming the youngest principal dancer in the theatre’s history.

In 2012, she performed in her first professional full ballet in South Africa. The following year, she joined the Dutch National Ballet’s junior company.

Audiences who are unfamiliar with ballet might recognize DePrince from Beyonce’s Lemonade, in which the then 21-year-old dances wearing an old-fashioned tutu and headpiece. In 2021, she joined the Boston Ballet as a second soloist. That year, she performed the leading role in Coppelia, a ballet film.

At the Boston Ballet, DePrince told reporters about how Black dancers who came before her helped motivate her despite experiencing racism and xenophobia.

“I’m very lucky,” DePrince said at the time. “There was Lauren Anderson – I had somebody to look up to. The Houston Ballet. Heidi Cruz, the Pennsylvania Ballet when I was younger. There’s also Misty Copeland. There’s not a lot of us. But what I always try to think about, and what my passion is, is spreading more poppies in a field of daffodils, so to have more Black and brown dancers.”

Even with her successes, DePrince did not forget her early childhood. She became a humanitarian and throughout her career expressed a desire to open a school for dance and the arts in Sierra Leone.

“That would be amazing – I’d like to use the money we earn from this book [a memoir, Hope in a Ballet Shoe] to open the school,” DePrince told the Guardian in 2015. “It’ll have to be when I retire from dancing. The arts can change you as a person. Dancing helped me share my emotions and connect to my family – it helped me feel like I was special and not the ‘devil’s child’. Those kids won’t have the same opportunities I had, and I don’t think they deserve that.”

She spent much of her career advocating for and promoting the inclusion of Black dancers in ballet.

“There are practically no Black people in ballet, so I need to speak out,” she told the Guardian.

In lieu of flowers, DePrince’s family has asked people to donate to War Child, an organization DePrince supported.

“This work meant the world to her, and your donations will directly help other children who grew up in an environment of armed conflict,” they wrote. “Thank you.”

Michaela Mabinty DePrince, a trailblazer and inspiration to many in the ballet world, has died at 29, a spokesperson announced on her Instagram page on Friday. No cause of death has yet been reported.

“Her life was one defined by grace, purpose, and strength,” the caption said. “Her unwavering commitment to her art, her humanitarian efforts, and her courage in overcoming unimaginable challenges will forever inspire us. She stood as a beacon of hope for many, showing that no matter the obstacles, beauty and greatness can rise from the darkest of places.”

DePrince’s family released a statement following the announcement of her death.

“I am truly in a state of shock and deep sadness. My beautiful sister is no longer here,” Mia DePrince wrote. “From the very beginning of our story back in Africa, sleeping on a shared mat in the orphanage, Michaela (Mabinty) and I used to make up our own musical theater plays and act them out. We created our own ballets … When we got adopted, our parents quickly poured into our dreams and arose the beautiful, gracefully strong ballerina that so many of you knew her as today. She was an inspiration.”

Born Mabinty Bangura in Sierra Leone, DePrince was sent to an orphanage aged three, after both of her parents died in the country’s civil war. At the orphanage, she experienced mistreatment and malnourishment, she told the Associated Press in 2012.

“I lost both my parents, so I was there [the orphanage] for about a year and I wasn’t treated very well because I had vitiligo,” she said at the time. “We were ranked as numbers, and number 27 was the least favorite and that was my number, so I got the least amount of food, the least amount of clothes and whatnot.”

After receiving word that the orphanage would be bombed, DePrince described walking shoeless for miles to reach a refugee camp. Her mother, who adopted DePrince and two other girls, including Mia, from the orphanage after meeting them in Ghana in 1999, said Michaela was “sick and traumatized by the war”, with tonsillitis, fever, mononucleosis and swollen joints. DePrince was four when she was adopted and moved to the United States.

Her passion for ballet began as a young girl in Sierra Leone after she saw a photo of a ballerina. But despite beginning to train in ballet at five, DePrince still experienced trials. At eight, she was told the US was not ready for a Black girl ballerina, even though she had been selected to perform the role of Marie in The Nutcracker. When she was nine, a teacher told her mother that Black girls were not worth investing money in.

DePrince eventually attended the Rock School for Dance Education, a prestigious and selective ballet school.

At 17, she was featured in First Position, a documentary that follows six dancers as they prepare for the Youth America Grand Prix. She received a scholarship to study at American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of Ballet. After graduating from high school, DePrince worked at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, becoming the youngest principal dancer in the theatre’s history.

In 2012, she performed in her first professional full ballet in South Africa. The following year, she joined the Dutch National Ballet’s junior company.

Audiences who are unfamiliar with ballet might recognize DePrince from Beyonce’s Lemonade, in which the then 21-year-old dances wearing an old-fashioned tutu and headpiece. In 2021, she joined the Boston Ballet as a second soloist. That year, she performed the leading role in Coppelia, a ballet film.

At the Boston Ballet, DePrince told reporters about how Black dancers who came before her helped motivate her despite experiencing racism and xenophobia.

“I’m very lucky,” DePrince said at the time. “There was Lauren Anderson – I had somebody to look up to. The Houston Ballet. Heidi Cruz, the Pennsylvania Ballet when I was younger. There’s also Misty Copeland. There’s not a lot of us. But what I always try to think about, and what my passion is, is spreading more poppies in a field of daffodils, so to have more Black and brown dancers.”

Even with her successes, DePrince did not forget her early childhood. She became a humanitarian and throughout her career expressed a desire to open a school for dance and the arts in Sierra Leone.

“That would be amazing – I’d like to use the money we earn from this book [a memoir, Hope in a Ballet Shoe] to open the school,” DePrince told the Guardian in 2015. “It’ll have to be when I retire from dancing. The arts can change you as a person. Dancing helped me share my emotions and connect to my family – it helped me feel like I was special and not the ‘devil’s child’. Those kids won’t have the same opportunities I had, and I don’t think they deserve that.”

She spent much of her career advocating for and promoting the inclusion of Black dancers in ballet.

“There are practically no Black people in ballet, so I need to speak out,” she told the Guardian.

In lieu of flowers, DePrince’s family has asked people to donate to War Child, an organization DePrince supported.

“This work meant the world to her, and your donations will directly help other children who grew up in an environment of armed conflict,” they wrote. “Thank you.”

A Briton and three Americans are among 37 people sentenced to death on Friday over an attempt to overthrow the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Six people were killed during the botched coup attempt led by the opposition figure Christian Malanga on 19 May that targeted the presidential palace and a close ally of President Félix Tshisekedi.

Armed men first attacked the parliamentary speaker Vital Kamerhe’s home in Kinshasa, then briefly occupied an office of the presidency, before Malanga, a US-based Congolese politician, was killed by security forces.

Malanga was shot while resisting arrest soon after live-streaming the attack on his social media, the Congolese army said.

The defendants, who also include a Belgian, a Canadian national and several Congolese, can appeal against the verdict on charges that included terrorism, murder and criminal association. Fourteen people were acquitted in the trial, which opened in July.

The three Americans convicted were Malanga’s son Marcel Malanga, 21, as well as Tyler Thompson Jr and Benjamin Zalman-Polun.

Marcel had told the court that his father, from whom he had been estranged, threatened to kill him unless he participated. He said it was his first time visiting the country at the invitation of his father whom he had not seen in years.

Thompson, 21, flew to Africa from Utah with Marcel for what his family believed was a vacation with all expenses paid by the elder Malanga, the court previously heard.

The pair had played high school football together in Salt Lake City. Other teammates had accused Marcel of offering up to $100,000 to join him on a “security job” in DRC.

Thompson’s family have said he had no knowledge of the elder Malanga’s intentions, nor any plans for political activism or intentions to enter DRC. They have said they understood the itinerary to be South Africa and Eswatini.

Zalman-Polun, 36, was a business associate of Christian Malanga.

There was no official information available about the Briton, who was reported to also be a naturalised Congolese citizen.

A spokesperson for the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: “We are providing consular assistance to a British man detained in DRC and are in contact with the local authorities.

“We have made representations about the use of the death penalty to the DRC at the highest levels, and we will continue to do so.”

The verdict was read out on live television in the yard of Ndolo military prison on the outskirts of Kinshasa.

In March, DRC reinstated the death penalty, lifting a 21-year-old moratorium, as authorities struggle to curb violence and militant attacks.

The justice ministry said at the time that the ban from 2003 had allowed offenders accused of treason and espionage to get away without sufficient punishment.

A group seemingly aligned with the Republican party is targeting areas in Michigan that are home to large Arab American and Muslim communities with digital ads purporting to “celebrate” the Jewish faith of Kamala Harris’s husband, Douglas Emhoff.

The New York Times reported that the group, Future Coalition Pac, is running new ads on social media sites including Facebook and YouTube highlighting that Emhoff is Jewish and focusing on Harris’s support for Israel.

In one ad the narrator states: “Kamala Harris is a strong leader for these difficult times – and joining Kamala will be her husband and top adviser, Doug Emhoff, who would be the first Jewish presidential spouse, ever” as the screen shows videos and pictures of Emhoff wearing a yarmulke, visiting Oskar Schindler’s factory and lighting Hanukah candles with Harris.

“Emhoff, making history, standing up for what’s right, supporting Israel,” the narrator says.

The Pac, which seems to have been formed in July, has run six advertisements since early September, according to the Google Ads Transparency Center, three of which focus on Emhoff’s faith and the other three on Harris’s support of Israel.

All of the ads were only shown in Michigan, with the most money spent in the congressional districts with large Arab and Muslim populations. Overall, the Pac has spent just under $60,000, according to Google.

The specific zip codes targeted include Dearborn, Michigan, which has a significant Arab American community and is the focal point of the “uncommitted” movement, as well as Hamtramck and Coldwater, both towns with sizable Arab or Muslim populations.

The Future Coalition Pac did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this month, HuffPost reported that the Pac was founded by Republicans and said that the ads seem to be aimed at persuading Muslim and Arab Americans, as well as other voters who may be sympathetic to Palestinians, not to support Harris. Many are frustrated with the Biden-Harris administration due to its military aid to Israel as the war in Gaza continues. Many Jewish Americans are concerned about antisemitism from both sides of the political spectrum.

The Future Coalition Pac lists Chain Bridge Bank, which Reuters reported has worked with many Republican campaigns, as its bank. The Pac also lists RightSide Compliance in the filing, which, according to the company’s website, has provided record-keeping and services to numerous Republican campaigns.

A Michigan Democratic operative told HuffPost that the ads were nothing more than a dirty trick from Republicans designed to “get low-information and low-engagement Arab-American and left-leaning voters to oppose Harris”, adding that the Pac was helping a former president who “uses Palestinian as a slur”.

In April the New York Times reported that Trump allies were planning an effort in Michigan to amplify Muslim voters’ concerns about President Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza, and that they had discussed running ads in Dearborn and other parts of the state with large Muslim populations that would “thank” Biden and his administration for standing with Israel.

During the Democratic primary in February, 6,432 voters in Dearborn chose “uncommitted” in protest against Biden’s military support for Israel’s war in Gaza, part of the more than 100,000 voters in Michigan who voted uncommitted – roughly 13.3% of the vote there.

A survey published in August by the Council on American-Islamic Relations found that just under a third of American Muslims said they were planning to vote for Harris. About the same number said that they would vote for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, and 11.2% for Trump. Four per cent named the independent candidate Cornel West.

The most pressing concerns for Muslim voters surveyed included international human rights, religious freedom, healthcare access and hate crimes.

Read more about the 2024 US election:

• Fears mount that election deniers could disrupt vote count in US swing states

• Microsoft billionaire fights US election disinformation

• Palestinian advocacy groups pressure Harris as election looms

• Presidential poll tracker

Anthony Albanese has dismissed Elon Musk’s claims the Labor government was “fascist”, saying the US billionaire needed to recognise X “has a social responsibility”.

“If Mr Musk doesn’t understand that, that says more about him than it does about my government,” the Australian prime minister said on Saturday.

Musk, who owns the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, made the comments about new legislation aimed at tackling deliberate lies spread on social media, which could see social media companies fined up to 5% of their annual turnover.

Musk responded to a post on X about Australia’s measures by simply posting: “Fascists”.

Musk has clashed with the Australian government multiple times over the past year, including over requests for X to take down clips of a Sydney bishop allegedly being stabbed.

In April the eSafety commissioner ordered X to remove the graphic content and initiated proceedings in the federal court to have the material taken down. In June the eSafety commissioner discontinued the proceedings, but a separate administrative appeals tribunal review of the topic is expected to be heard in October.

During the months-long saga, Musk accused the government of suppressing free speech.

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Albanese was also asked on Saturday about the huge uptake of renewable power, including in opposition leader Peter Dutton’s home state of Queensland.

The PM said the figures for the uptake of rooftop solar power showed voters were embracing renewables and understood their benefits.

“What these figures show is that Australians know that the cheapest form of energy is renewables. That’s why they’re putting it on their roofs,” he said.

“Nuclear energy is the most expensive, the slowest to roll out, and Peter Dutton is relying upon technology that doesn’t even exist anywhere in the world. What these figures show is that voters themselves are rejecting the idea that nothing should happen until the 2040s and sometime in the future.”

In June, Dutton announced the Coalition planned to build seven nuclear power plants and two small modular reactors. The nuclear pledge drew unanimous blowback from state premiers but Dutton told supporters he was prepared to override state nuclear bans.

Analysis from the Smart Energy Council found the controversial energy plan would cost taxpayers a minimum of $116bn – the same cost as delivering the Albanese government’s plan for 82% renewables by 2030, and an almost 100% renewable energy mix by 2050 – and as much as $600bn while supplying just 3.7% of Australia’s energy mix by 2050.

Anthony Albanese has dismissed Elon Musk’s claims the Labor government was “fascist”, saying the US billionaire needed to recognise X “has a social responsibility”.

“If Mr Musk doesn’t understand that, that says more about him than it does about my government,” the Australian prime minister said on Saturday.

Musk, who owns the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, made the comments about new legislation aimed at tackling deliberate lies spread on social media, which could see social media companies fined up to 5% of their annual turnover.

Musk responded to a post on X about Australia’s measures by simply posting: “Fascists”.

Musk has clashed with the Australian government multiple times over the past year, including over requests for X to take down clips of a Sydney bishop allegedly being stabbed.

In April the eSafety commissioner ordered X to remove the graphic content and initiated proceedings in the federal court to have the material taken down. In June the eSafety commissioner discontinued the proceedings, but a separate administrative appeals tribunal review of the topic is expected to be heard in October.

During the months-long saga, Musk accused the government of suppressing free speech.

• Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Albanese was also asked on Saturday about the huge uptake of renewable power, including in opposition leader Peter Dutton’s home state of Queensland.

The PM said the figures for the uptake of rooftop solar power showed voters were embracing renewables and understood their benefits.

“What these figures show is that Australians know that the cheapest form of energy is renewables. That’s why they’re putting it on their roofs,” he said.

“Nuclear energy is the most expensive, the slowest to roll out, and Peter Dutton is relying upon technology that doesn’t even exist anywhere in the world. What these figures show is that voters themselves are rejecting the idea that nothing should happen until the 2040s and sometime in the future.”

In June, Dutton announced the Coalition planned to build seven nuclear power plants and two small modular reactors. The nuclear pledge drew unanimous blowback from state premiers but Dutton told supporters he was prepared to override state nuclear bans.

Analysis from the Smart Energy Council found the controversial energy plan would cost taxpayers a minimum of $116bn – the same cost as delivering the Albanese government’s plan for 82% renewables by 2030, and an almost 100% renewable energy mix by 2050 – and as much as $600bn while supplying just 3.7% of Australia’s energy mix by 2050.

The Canadian military has admitted that new sleeping bags issued to troops last year were not suited to “typical Canadian winter conditions”.

According to a briefing note obtained by the CBC, the army issued the new sleeping bags in the autumn of last year in Alberta, where several hundred troops were preparing for a joint Canada-US exercise in Alaska.

Soldiers who used the bags reportedly found “several critical issues … related to lack of warmth”, according to the 5 December 2023 note. In temperatures ranging from 5C (41F) to -20C (-4F), troops reported being cold in the sleeping bags overnight, even when they heated their tents with stoves.

The official who authored the note concluded that the bags were “better suited for use in weather conditions that are characteristic of late spring to early fall”. It recommended loaning the troops some of the army’s original Arctic sleeping bags, which were first acquired in 1965.

The defence department spent more than C$34.8m (US$25.6m) on the new sleeping bags to replace those original Arctic bags.

In a statement to the CBC, it declined to answer what cold-weather testing had been done before the purchase, saying only that the bags had been “chosen following a rigorous competitive process” and that the “technical requirements used to make the selection included insulation value, weight of the bags and the packing volume”.

It added that it still considers the new bags suitable for most uses – but now additionally aims to buy new sleeping bags that are adapted for winter in the far north and the Arctic.

“I wonder if they should have just gone to Canadian Tire,” Rob Huebert of the University of Calgary, an expert in Arctic military affairs, told CBC, referencing a popular retail company.

Stuck-in-space astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams said on Friday it was hard to watch their Boeing capsule return to Earth without them.

It was their first public comments since last week’s return of the Boeing Starliner capsule that took them to the International Space Station in June. They remained behind after Nasa determined the problem-plagued capsule posed too much risk for them to ride back in.

“That’s how it goes in this business,” said Williams, adding that “you have to turn the page and look at the next opportunity.”

Wilmore and Williams are now full-fledged station crew members, chipping in on routine maintenance and experiments. They along with seven others on board welcomed a Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American earlier this week, temporarily raising the station population to 12, a near record.

The transition to station life was “not that hard” since both had previous stints there, said Williams, who will soon take over as station commander.

“This is my happy place. I love being up here in space,” she said.

The two Starliner test pilots – retired navy captains and longtime Nasa astronauts – will stay at the orbiting laboratory until late February. They have to wait for a SpaceX capsule to bring them back. That spacecraft is due to launch later this month with a reduced crew of two, with two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams for the return leg.

The duo said they appreciated all the prayers and well wishes from strangers back home. Wilmore said he would miss out on family milestones such as being around for his youngest daughter’s final year of high school.

Their Starliner capsule marked the first Boeing spaceflight with astronauts. It endured a series of thruster failures and helium leaks before arriving at the space station on 6 June. It landed safely in the New Mexico desert earlier this month, but Boeing’s path forward in Nasa’s commercial crew program remains uncertain.

The space agency hired SpaceX and Boeing as an orbital taxi service a decade ago after the shuttles retired. SpaceX has been flying astronauts since 2020.

Keir Starmer has said painful decisions such as cutting winter fuel payment to save £1.4bn a year are necessary as failure to act would be simply “putting a lick of paint over the damp”.

The prime minister described the process of taking decisions “that aren’t going to be popular” as part of a strategy of “strip down the joint, rebuild the house”.

Speaking to reporters on the plane to Washington DC in the US, Starmer said the remedial action he was prepared to do was “painful” and “difficult”.

But he added: “The alternative is to put a lick of paint over the damp and pretend job done, which might get a round of applause now but will not get a round of applause in six months, 12 months and years down the line, when everybody then appreciates you haven’t actually changed anything.”

Starmer gave his defence as he was pressed on how he felt about his popularity falling in opinion polls.

The cut to winter fuel allowance removes the previously universal annual payment of £200 or £300, depending on age, from all but the poorest pensioners – those who receive income-linked benefits such as pension credit.

Ministers have launched a campaign to encourage all eligible pensioners to claim pension credit, and thus also still receive the winter fuel allowance.

But a Commons vote on the policy on Tuesday, forced by the Conservatives, saw one Labour MP rebel and 52 abstain, although Downing Street said most of that group had permission to miss the vote.

The Tories have been pushing for the publication of an impact assessment, but No 10 said earlier this week one had not been carried out.

However, the Conservatives have highlighted previous Labour research from 2017 which claimed Conservative plans to scrap the winter fuel payment for better-off pensioners could lead to almost 4,000 additional deaths over winter.

Research released by Ipsos said 46% of people polled viewed Starmer unfavourably and 32% favourably – his joint worst as Labour leader.

The only other time so many people were saying they were unhappy with his performance was just after Labour lost the Hartlepool byelection in 2021.

Labour is still much more popular with voters than the Conservative party. But, over the summer, the number of people saying they view Labour, and key figures like Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, unfavourably has risen significantly, with 45% of people saying they view Labour unfavourably and 36% saying they viewed it favourably.

Asked about the polls, and whether people were expecting too much, Starmer said: “I’ll be judged when we get to the next election, on whether I delivered against the promises that I made.

“The promises I made were to stabilise and grow the economy so that everybody feels better off across the country; to ensure we’ve got a health service which isn’t just back on its feet, but is actually fit for the future; to ensure that we’ve got renewable energy, which will ensure that we’ve got cheaper energy, independence over our energy supply; and take the next generation of jobs.

“That we’ve got skills and education so every single young person can go as far as their talent will lead them, and that everybody feels safe and secure in their own community.”

Keiran Pedley, director of politics at Ipsos, said: “There are some early warning signs in these numbers for Keir Starmer and Labour. While the next general election is several years away – and perceptions of Labour remain stronger than perceptions of the Conservative party – these figures do represent a sharp drop from those recorded in August.”

Three screen adaptations of Neil Gaiman’s works have been cancelled or had their production paused amid reports accusing the author of Coraline and The Sandman of sexual misconduct.

Netflix’s Dead Boy Detectives, based on characters created for DC Comics by Gaiman and Matt Wagner, has been cancelled after one season. Production of the third and final season of Amazon drama Good Omens, based on the 1990 novel by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, has been paused, according to US website Deadline.

Meanwhile, development of a Disney film adaptation of Gaiman’s 2008 young adult novel The Graveyard Book has been put on hold. None of the streaming services has confirmed that these decisions were taken because of the allegations, but Gaiman apparently offered to step back from his involvement in Good Omens, according to Deadline.

Gaiman’s representatives declined to comment on the decisions taken by the streaming services.

In July, an investigation by Tortoise media reported allegations by two women of sexual misconduct against Gaiman, including sexual abuse and coercive behaviour. Gaiman has strongly denied any unlawful conduct. One woman, whose first name is Scarlett, alleged that Gaiman performed sexual acts on her without her consent when she was working as a nanny for the author’s family in New Zealand. Gaiman said they only engaged in consensual acts. A second woman, identified only by the initial K, alleged that Gaiman penetrated her without consent; Gaiman denied any unlawful behaviour.

Further allegations have been made since Tortoise’s original report, including by Caroline Wallner, who alleged that Gaiman pressured her to have sex with him in return for letting her live at his property in upstate New York, and made her sign a non-disclosure agreement in return for a $275,000 payment. Gaiman has said that the relationship had been entirely consensual.