At least 16 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes across central Gaza on Sunday night and Monday morning, including five women and four children, Palestinian health officials have said.

Rescuers said an airstrike early on Monday destroyed a residential building in the densely populated Nuseirat refugee camp in the heart of central Gaza, killing at least 10 people, including four women and two children.

The al-Awda hospital, which received the bodies, confirmed the deaths and said another 13 people were wounded. Hospital records quoted by local media show that the dead included a mother, her child and her five siblings.

In a separate strike targeting a building in Gaza City, six individuals lost their lives. A woman and two children were among the dead, according to the civil defence, a team of emergency responders working under the governance of Hamas.

Israel says its military operations exclusively target combatants and claims Hamas and other armed factions place civilians at risk by operating within residential areas.

Eleven months into the Gaza war, the death toll among Palestinians has passed 41,000, according to health authorities in the territory. Most of the dead are civilians and the total is nearly 2% of Gaza’s prewar population, or equal to one in every 50 people. The conflict was triggered by Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people died and about 250 were taken hostage.

On Sunday evening, a senior Hamas official told Agence France-Presse that new generations of fighters had been recruited since the 7 October attacks, less than a week after the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, told journalists that Hamas, “no longer exists” as a military formation in Gaza.

During an interview in Istanbul, Osama Hamdan claimed that the militant group “has a high ability to continue”.

He added: “There were martyrs and there were sacrifices … but in return there was an accumulation of experiences and the recruitment of new generations into the resistance.”

Hamdan spoke of a surface-to-surface missile that reached central Israel for the first time on Sunday, causing a fire near Kfar Daniel.

The Hamas official said the attack, claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, showed the limits of Israel’s ability to defend itself, including its aerial defence system. “It is a message to the entire region that Israel is not an immune entity,” Hamdan said. “Even Israeli capabilities have limits.”

The Israeli military is investigating whether the fire was the result of falling fragments caused by interceptor missiles launched at the projectile, or if it successfully penetrated its air defences, as the Houthis have claimed.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the Houthis would pay a “heavy price”, while the Houthi leader warned of bigger attacks to come.

On Monday, the Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said the group downed a US MQ-9 drone in Yemen’s Dhamar province.

In a separate development on Monday, Gallant told the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, that time was running out for an agreement with Hezbollah to halt the fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border, where on Sunday the Israeli military reported that approximately 40 projectiles had been launched, with the majority being intercepted or landing in uninhabited regions.

“The possibility for an agreed framework in the northern arena is running out as Hezbollah continues to ‘tie itself’ to Hamas,” Gallant said, “The trajectory is clear.’’

Hezbollah said it would halt its attacks if there was a ceasefire in Gaza, but months of talks brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt have repeatedly stalled.

Gallant told Austin that “in any possible scenario, Israel’s defence establishment will continue to operate with the aim of dismantling Hamas and ensuring the return of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza – by any means”.

Meanwhile, media reports in Israel suggested Gallant’s position could be under threat, with sources in the prime minister’s office saying Netanyahu was considering appointing the New Hope chair, Gideon Sa’ar, as Gallant’s replacement.

After the report, the far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said on X “the time has come to [fire Gallant] immediately”.

Rumours that Netanyahu would replace Gallant have been circulating for months. The already strained relationship between the two has been tumultuous since Netanyahu’s sudden decision to dismiss Gallant in March 2023 because of his vocal disapproval of the government’s judicial changes. However, the prime minister’s move was later rescinded after public outcry.

Some in Netanyahu’s administration have called for Gallant’s removal, citing a range of grievances including his stance against a government-supported ultra-Orthodox enlistment bill and his public disagreement with the prime minister on matters such as a hostage negotiation and Israel’s presence in the Philadelphi corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border.

The death toll from torrential rain and flooding in central and eastern Europe has risen to at least 16, with several more people missing, as authorities reported deaths in the Czech Republic, Poland and Austria and warned the worst may yet be to come.

The number of victims in Poland rose to five after a surgeon returning from work drowned in the south-western town of Nysa, where the hospital was evacuated and patients rescued by raft. Four more people had died in the southern towns of Bielsko-Biała and Lądek-Zdrój, firefighters said.

In Austria, local media reported that two men aged 70 and 80 drowned after being trapped by rising flood water in their homes in the towns of Böheimkirchen and Sierndorf, both in the hard-hit north-eastern state of Lower Austria.

The Czech police chief, Martin Vondrášek, told local radio a woman had drowned in a stream that overflowed its banks near Bruntál, a town of about 15,000 people in the north-east of the country, while seven more people were still unaccounted for.

Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes across a swathe of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia as Storm Boris unleashed the worst flooding recorded in the region for more than two decades. It was described by one Romanian mayor as a “catastrophe of epic proportions”.

The flood water burst dams, inundated streets, knocked out electricity and in some places submerged whole neighbourhoods. “I have lived here for 16 years and I have never seen such flooding,” one Austrian woman, Judith Dickson, told public radio.

Seven people died in Romania over the weekend, as well as one in Poland and a firefighter in Austria. The rain was expected to ease in many areas on Monday but, with some rivers unlikely to reach peak water levels for days, several major cities were preparing for potentially disastrous flooding.

Extreme rainfall is becoming more common and more intense because of human-caused climate breakdown across most of the world, particularly in Europe, most of Asia, central and eastern North America, and parts of South America, Africa and Australia.

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, declared a state of emergency in the flooded areas and announced an emergency aid fund of 1bn zlotys, while his counterpart in Hungary, Viktor Orbán, cancelled all his international engagements.

Tusk said he was in touch with the leaders of other affected countries and that they would ask the EU for financial help. “From today, anyone affected by the flood – flooding, collapsed buildings, flooded garages, lost cars, losses linked to the flood – will be able to easily” claim funds, he added.

More than 2,600 people were evacuated across Poland in the last 24 hours, according to the defence minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. Michał Piszko, mayor of the Polish town of Kłodzko on the Czech border, said waters were receding but aid was badly needed. “We need bottled water and dry provisions … half of the city has no electricity,” he told Polish radio.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, described images from the flooded areas in Austria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Poland as “dramatic” and said Germany was “deeply saddened by the news of dead and missing people” and ready to help.

Hungary’s capital, Budapest, was bracing for severe flooding as the Danube rose. The interior minister, Sándor Pintér, said efforts were focused on keeping the river and its tributaries within their banks and said up to 12,000 soldiers were on standby to help.

Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava, was also on a high state of alert, while the 600,000 residents of Wrocław in Poland were told water levels might not peak before Wednesday. Austria’s chancellor Karl Nehammer said the situation in his country “continues to worsen”, particularly in Lower Austria, which has been declared a disaster area.

More than 10,000 relief workers had evacuated 1,100 houses in the state, he said. Lower Austria’s governor, Johanna Mikl-Leitner, said people there were facing “difficult and dramatic hours … probably the most difficult hours of their lives”.

The municipality of Lilienfeld, with about 25,000 residents, was completely cut off from the outside world, local media reported. So far 12 dams have broken and thousands of households were without electricity and water, authorities said.

“It is not over,” Mikl-Leitner added. “It stays critical. It stays dramatic.” She said there there was a high risk of more dams breaking and it was as yet too early to assess the scale of the damage.

The Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala, urged people to “follow the instructions of mayors and firefighters”. As of Sunday evening, he said, emergency services had dealt with 7,884 incidents and 119,000 households were without power.

At least 12,000 people had been evacuated from their homes across the country, Fiala said, adding that although the rain had stopped in the most affected areas, the situation would become critical for others as the storm moves westwards and rivers continue to rise.

“Very difficult days for many people, unfortunately, continue,” Fiala said on Monday, with 207 areas across the country facing flood conditions. The most critical situation was in southern Bohemia, he said, adding: “Please be careful and responsible.”

The rising Morava River put about 70% of the Czech city of Litovel, 140 miles (230km) east of the capital, Prague, underwater overnight, its mayor told local media, shutting down schools and health facilities.

In the country’s third biggest city, Ostrava, a power plant supplying heat and hot water to the city was forced to shut down. Thousands were evacuated from their homes in Krnov and Český Těšín.

In Opava, up to 10,000 people out of a population of about 56,000 were asked to move to higher ground. “There’s no reason to wait,” the mayor, Tomáš Navrátil, told Czech public radio, saying the situation was worse than during the last devastating floods in 1997, known as the “flood of the century”.

Romania’s prime minister, Marcel Ciolacu, said the country would “clean up and see what can be salvaged”, adding that compared with the worst recent flooding in 2013, “the amount of water was almost three times bigger”.

One resident of the Romanian village of Pechea, in the stricken Galati region, told Agence France-Presse: “The water came into the house, it destroyed the walls, everything. It took the chickens, the rabbits, everything. It took the oven, the washing machine, the refrigerator. I have nothing left.”

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, expressed solidarity with those affected by flooding and she said the EU would provide support.

The climate emergency is causing more incidents of extreme rainfall because warmer air can hold more water vapour. Flooding has most likely become more frequent and severe as a result, but human factors, such as the existence of flood defences and land use, are also important.

The trial of Dominique Pélicot and 50 other men accused of rape has been adjourned again after it was reported he was suffering from kidney problems and had refused to leave his prison cell.

Lawyers now fear the hearing, scheduled to last four months, may have to be postponed and have criticised the prison authorities for not acting sooner to treat him.

In a case that has horrified the world, the 71-year-old retired electrician has admitted drugging his wife, Gisèle, and inviting up to 90 men to rape her as she was unconscious and while he filmed the attacks.

On Monday, after Pélicot failed to appear, the court appointed two medical experts to examine him. The president of the bench, Roger Arata, said it was hoped the trial could resume on Tuesday but warned he may have to postpone it if the principal accused was too unwell to attend.

Defence lawyers have accused the prison authorities of failing to act as soon as Pélicot complained of being unwell 10 days ago. He was reportedly taken to hospital on Sunday evening, where he was diagnosed with a kidney infection, a kidney stone and a “prostate problem”. He was returned to his cell after tests.

“This could all have been avoided if he’d been treated from Monday [last week]. Why did they wait eight days?” Pélicot’s defence lawyer Béatrice Zavarro asked outside the court in Avignon.

Gisèle Pélicot’s lawyer Stéphane Babonneau said that if the hearing had to be postponed because of the prison authorities’ failure to treat her former husband, it would be “a legal catastrophe, a scandal”.

“We are all waiting to hear if Dominique Pélicot can appear. If the hearing has to be postponed because he has a health problem that wasn’t treated, yes, we can talk of it being a scandal,” Babonneau said.

“Of course she [Gisèle Pélicot] is worried. She finds herself in a very difficult situation, as we all are. The trial is really at a very early stage; it has hardly even started. There is the presentation of the videos and the interrogation of the principal accused to come.”

Gisèle Pélicot, 72, has become the face of victims of rape and sexual abuse across France, where hundreds of protesters turned out at the weekend to show their support for her, many carrying posters showing her image and the words “Shame changes sides” – implying that instead of female victims being made to feel ashamed, the male accused should be.

She has been hailed for her courage in insisting the trial be held in public and not behind closed doors as defence lawyers had requested.

In a statement outside the court on Monday morning, Pélicot said she wanted to thank all those “who have shown me their support from the beginning of this ordeal and particularly those who took the time to gather on Saturday across France.

“I was deeply touched by this movement … thanks to you all I have the strength to fight this to the end. I dedicate this fight to all people, women and men, who are victims of sexual violence across the world. To all those victims I say today look around you, you are not alone.”

Babonneau said: “She does feel very comforted by the support she has received this weekend. She is a simple and genuine woman and was surprised that so many people wanted to show their support. Her message to every victim of sexual abuse is that they should know that they are not alone and should not be alone.”

Pélicot had no idea that for more than a decade her husband had recruited men on an online chatroom to rape her while she was in a coma-like state until after he was arrested in 2020 for filming up the skirts of customers in a local supermarket.

The accused were aged between 26 and 73 when they were arrested and include a local councillor, a journalist, a former police officer, a prison guard, a soldier, a firefighter and a civil servant. Many were the couple’s neighbours in the small town of Mazan, near Avignon in southern France.

Several of the men insist they were unaware Pélicot had been drugged and assumed the sex was consensual. If convicted of rape they face up to 20 years in jail.

On Monday, Babonneau said he was shocked to find his client having to queue up to clear security at the courthouse with those accused of raping her.

“I arrived to see her in the queue literally sandwiched in between them. It was unbelievable that she should be there. I pulled her out and said we would skip the line,” he said.

“She has had to find the strength in herself to cope … I can tell you that she is even more of an incredible woman than she appears.”

Shōgun has made Emmys history as the first ever non-English language series to win for best drama.

The historical epic, based on the 1975 novel, picked up four awards during the evening, including Emmys for lead stars Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai, the first Japanese actors to win their respective awards.

Sanada said the show taught him that “when people work together, we can make miracles, we can create a better future together”.

This month, Shōgun, which can be streamed on Hulu and Disney+, made history at the Creative Arts Emmys, where many technical and guest acting trophies are given, winning 14 awards in one night, the most a series has ever won in a single year.

It is the second Emmys in the same year after last year’s ceremony was postponed as a result of the dual Hollywood strikes. In January, the final season of Succession dominated the awards.

Hacks was the surprise winner of best comedy series, beating previous winner The Bear and Abbott Elementary. Star Jean Smart took home the award for lead actress, her third win for the role. The HBO show, about two female comedians working together, also won for best writing for a comedy series.

The Bear took the majority of the comedy awards winning four Emmys including acting trophies for Jeremy Allen White, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Liza Colón-Zayas who beat out Meryl Streep and Carol Burnett to win her first Emmy. “To all the Latinas that are looking at me, keep believing and vote,” she said during an emotive speech. “Vote for your rights.”

The combined wins from last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys and tonight have made the second season of The Bear the most awarded comedy season in Emmys history. Hosts Eugene and Dan Levy joked about the categorisation of the show, which has come under fire in recent months. “Now, I love the show, and I know some of you will be expecting us to make a joke about whether The Bear is really a comedy but in the true spirit of The Bear, we will not be making any jokes,” Eugene said.

Netflix breakout Baby Reindeer also won four awards including for limited or anthology series and acting awards for Richard Gadd and Jessica Gunning. It also won two Emmys at last weekend’s ceremony.

“I never thought I would be able to rectify what had happened to me and get myself back on my feet again,” Gadd said during his speech for winning a writing award. “Nothing lasts forever and no matter how bad it gets, it always gets better so if you keep struggling keep going and I promise things will be okay.”

During the speech for winning limited or anthology series, he spoke about the importance of making big swings in television. “Take risks, push boundaries, explore the uncomfortable, dare to fail in order to achieve,” he said.

Last week, the $170m defamation trial brought against Netflix for the show was dated for next May. The alleged inspiration for the show’s stalker has claimed the drama series has negatively impacted her life.

In the remaining limited or anthology series categories, Lamorne Morris was also named best supporting actor for Fargo and Steven Zaillian won best directing for Ripley.

Jodie Foster was named best actress in a limited or anthology series for True Detective: Night Country, her first Emmy win. She called the making of the show a “magical experience”. She beat out Naomi Watts and Brie Larson.

The final season of The Crown took home just one award for Elizabeth Debicki, who was named best supporting actress in a drama series. It was the actor’s second nomination for playing Princess Diana and first win. “Playing this part based on this unparalleled, incredible human being has been my great privilege,” she said in her speech.

Billy Crudup was named best supporting actor in a drama series for The Morning Show while Slow Horses’ Will Smith won for writing in a drama series.

The US version of The Traitors was named best reality competition program, beating out RuPaul’s Drag Race which has won the award four times before. At last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, Alan Cumming was also named best host.

Much-nominated shows that came away empty-handed during the ceremony included Mr and Mrs Smith, Only Murders in the Building, Fallout and Abbott Elementary.

The night also included a number of cast reunions, including for Happy Days, Saturday Night Live, celebrating its 50th year, and The West Wing. Richard Schiff joked that many of today’s actual political headlines would be deemed “a bit far-fetched if not utterly ridiculous 25 years ago”.

Co-host Dan Levy, who previously won an Emmy for his hit sitcom Schitt’s Creek, called the Emmys “broadcast TV’s biggest night for honouring movie stars on streaming services” in the opening speech.

There were also a number of mentions of Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance and his controversial comments. Only Murders in the Building nominee Selena Gomez referred to herself as a childless cat lady while presenting an award while Candice Bergen also turned an anecdote about her series Murphy Brown into a jab.

“In one classic moment, my character was attacked by vice-president Dan Quayle when Murphy became pregnant and decided to raise the baby as a single mother,” she said. “Oh, how far we’ve come. Today a Republican candidate for vice-president would never attack a woman for having kids. So as they say, my work here is done. Meow.”

John Leguizamo also spoke on stage about the lack of diversity within the television industry, calling reference to a full-page advert that he took out in the New York Times to criticise the television academy. He spoke about the changes that have taken place, praising this year’s diverse set of nominees but stressing the need for more to be done.

Best comedy series

Abbott Elementary
The Bear
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Hacks – WINNER
Only Murders in the Building
Palm Royale
Reservation Dogs
What We Do in the Shadows

Best drama series

The Crown
Fallout
The Gilded Age
The Morning Show
Mr & Mrs Smith
Shōgun – WINNER
Slow Horses
3 Body Problem

Lead actress in a drama series

Jennifer Aniston – The Morning Show
Carrie Coon – The Gilded Age
Maya Erskine – Mr & Mrs Smith
Anna Sawai – Shōgun – WINNER
Imelda Staunton – The Crown
Reese Witherspoon – The Morning Show

Lead actor in a drama series

Idris Elba – Hijack
Donald Glover – Mr & Mrs Smith
Walton Goggins – Fallout
Gary Oldman – Slow Horses
Hiroyuki Sanada – Shōgun – WINNER
Dominic West – The Crown

Best limited or anthology series

Baby Reindeer – WINNER
Fargo
Lessons in Chemistry
Ripley
True Detective: Night Country

Lead actress in a limited or anthology series

Jodie Foster – True Detective: Night Country – WINNER
Brie Larson – Lessons in Chemistry
Juno Temple – Fargo
Sofia Vergara – Griselda
Naomi Watts – Feud: Capote vs The Swans

Lead actor in a limited or anthology series

Matt Bomer – Fellow Travelers
Jon Hamm – Fargo
Tom Hollander – Feud: Capote vs The SwansRichard Gadd – Baby Reindeer – WINNER
Andrew Scott – Ripley

Directing for a drama series

Stephen Daldry – The Crown
Mimi Leder – The Morning Show
Hiro Murai – Mr & Mrs Smith
Frederick EO Toye – Shōgun – WINNER
Saul Metzstein – Slow Horses
Salli Richardson-Whitfield – Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty

Directing for a comedy series

Randall Einhorn – Abbott Elementary
Christopher Storer – The Bear – WINNER
Ramy Youssef – The Bear
Guy Ritchie – The Gentlemen
Lucia Aniello – Hacks
Mary Lou Belli – The Ms Pat Show

Writing for a limited or anthology series

Richard Gadd – Baby Reindeer – WINNER
Charlie Brooker – Black Mirror
Noah Hawley – Fargo
Ron Nyswaner – Fellow Travelers
Steven Zaillian – Ripley
Issa López – True Detective: Night Country

Writing for a drama series

Peter Morgan and Meriel Sheibani-Clare – The Crown
Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner – Fallout
Francesca Sloane and Donald Glover – Mr & Mrs Smith
Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks – Shōgun
Rachel Kondo and Caillin Puente – Shōgun
Will Smith – Slow Horses – WINNER

Supporting actor in a limited or anthology series

Jonathan Bailey – Fellow Travelers
Robert Downey Jr – The Sympathizer
Tom Goodman-Hill – Baby Reindeer
John Hawkes – True Detective: Night Country
Lamorne Morris – Fargo – WINNER
Lewis Pullman – Lessons In Chemistry
Treat Williams – Feud: Capote vs The Swans

Talk series

The Daily Show – WINNER
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Late Night With Seth Meyers
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

Writing for a comedy series

Quinta Brunson – Abbott Elementary
Christopher Storer – The Bear
Meredith Scardino and Sam Means – Girls5eva
Lucia Aniello, Paul W Downs and Jen Statsky – Hacks – WINNER
Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider – The Other Two
Jake Bender and Zach Dunn – What We Do in the Shadows

Directing for a limited or anthology series

Weronika Tofilska – Baby Reindeer
Noah Hawley – Fargo
Gus Van Sant – Feud: Capote vs The Swans
Millicent Shelton – Lessons in Chemistry
Steven Zaillian – Ripley – WINNER
Issa López – True Detective: Night Country

Scripted variety series

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver – WINNER
Saturday Night Live

Supporting actress in a limited or anthology series

Dakota Fanning – Ripley
Lily Gladstone – Under The Bridge
Jessica Gunning – Baby Reindeer – WINNER
Aja Naomi King – Lessons In Chemistry
Diane Lane – Feud: Capote vs The Swans
Nava Mau – Baby Reindeer
Kali Reis – True Detective: Night Country

Outstanding reality competition program

The Amazing Race
RuPaul’s Drag Race
Top Chef
The Traitors – WINNER
The Voice

Lead actress in a comedy series

Quinta Brunson – Abbott Elementary
Ayo Edebiri – The Bear
Selena Gomez – Only Murders in the Building
Maya Rudolph – Loot
Jean Smart – Hacks – WINNER
Kristen Wiig – Palm Royale

Supporting actress in a drama series

Christine Baranski – The Gilded Age
Nicole Beharie – The Morning Show
Elizabeth Debicki – The Crown – WINNER
Greta Lee – The Morning Show
Lesley Manville – The Crown
Karen Pittman – The Morning Show
Holland Taylor – The Morning Show

Supporting actress in a comedy series

Carol Burnett – Palm Royale
Liza Colón-Zayas – The Bear – WINNER
Hannah Einbinder – Hacks
Janelle James – Abbott Elementary
Sheryl Lee Ralph – Abbott Elementary
Meryl Streep – Only Murders in the Building

Lead actor in a comedy series

Matt Berry – What We Do in the Shadows
Larry David – Curb Your Enthusiasm
Steve Martin – Only Murders in the Building
Martin Short – Only Murders in the Building
Jeremy Allen White – The Bear – WINNER
D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai – Reservation Dogs

Supporting actor in a drama series

Tadanobu Asano – Shōgun
Jon Hamm – The Morning Show
Mark Duplass – The Morning Show
Billy Crudup – The Morning Show – WINNER
Takehiro Hira – Shōgun
Jack Lowden – Slow Horses
Jonathan Pryce – The Crown

Supporting actor in a comedy series

Lionel Boyce – The Bear
Paul W Downs – Hacks
Ebon Moss-Bachrach – The Bear – WINNER
Paul Rudd – Only Murders in the Building
Tyler James Williams – Abbott Elementary
Bowen Yang – Saturday Night Live

The new French prime minister, Michel Barnier, has continued negotiations with potential ministers as he struggles to form a government to end the country’s political deadlock.

The veteran politician and former EU Brexit negotiator, appointed by the president, Emmanuel Macron, earlier this month, had promised to form a new administration this week after “listening to everybody”.

However, with threats from the far right and hard left to call a vote of no confidence in any ministerial team that fails to meet their approval, sources close to Barnier say he is unlikely to put names to posts until the end of next weekend.

Vincent Jeanbrun, a spokesperson for the centre-right Republicans party (LR), which Barnier represents, said the PM had “a complex equation to solve” and he did not expect an announcement before then.

Barnier has promised to seek ministers from across the political spectrum, but leftwing candidates have been reluctant, while the far-right National Rally (RN) is seen as a behind-the-scenes arbiter.

Macron’s decision in June to call a snap general election left the national assembly with three roughly equal political blocs – left, centre and far right – none of which has an absolute majority.

A leftwing coalition, the New Popular Front (NFP), won the most seats, followed by the centrist alliance that includes Macron’s Renaissance party and the centre-right LR – but the RN emerged the most powerful single political party. It is now in a position to make or break any government unless the NFP and centrists ally to oppose it.

Christian Le Bart, a political scientist at the Institute of Political Studies at Rennes, said Barnier was “stuck”, particularly as the LR’s group had won only 47 of the 577 seats in the national assembly.

“If he reappoints a significant number of [centrist] ministers, people will rightly complain that the executive has not heard the message. And if he swings too far towards the Republicans, everyone will take offence at the fact that a political family with 47 MPs is over-represented in the government,” Le Bart told the newspaper La Dépêche.

Marine Le Pen’s far right is banking on a new general election being called next year. Macron cannot dissolve parliament and call another general election until 12 months after the last dissolution.

At the weekend, Le Pen told RN leaders she hoped Barnier’s tenure as head of the government would be “as short as possible”. “We find ourselves in a situation where the party that got the least votes is in charge of forming a government. It cannot hold,” she said.

On Monday, the RN president, Jordan Bardella, who has said “nothing can be done without the RN”, warned the new premier not to continue with a Macronist programme. He threatened a censure motion against any new government that “recycled” Macron’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, or justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti – both on the centre-right of the previous government.

“If Michel Barnier continues with the programme driven by Emmanuel Macron since seven years, which was severely defeated in the European and legislative election ballot boxes … then the government will fall,” he told RTL radio. “If Mr Barnier echoes the hopes expressed by millions of French people, then we’ll vote for the bills on a case-by-case basis.”

Fabien Roussel, the national secretary of the French Communist party, one of four leftwing parties that make up the NFP, also warned Barnier it was ready to use a censure motion and called on the new PM to repeal the contested pension law that raised the official retirement age from 62 to 64.

“He [Barnier] is a veteran of 50 years of rightwing politics … The censure motion is on the table. It’s ready, we’re working on it,” Roussel said.

Le Bart believes the only possibility of Barnier escaping censure is a reluctance among opposition parties to leave the country without a government. “They would not want to add disorder to disorder,” he said.

A poll by Ipsos published at the weekend suggested 64% of French people believed Macron had ignored the result of the election. Among those who voted for the NFP, that figure rose to 91%. Only one-third of those polled approved of his choice of Barnier as PM.

The next parliamentary session will begin on 1 October. One of the government’s first acts will be to draw up and present the 2025 budget.

The new French prime minister, Michel Barnier, has continued negotiations with potential ministers as he struggles to form a government to end the country’s political deadlock.

The veteran politician and former EU Brexit negotiator, appointed by the president, Emmanuel Macron, earlier this month, had promised to form a new administration this week after “listening to everybody”.

However, with threats from the far right and hard left to call a vote of no confidence in any ministerial team that fails to meet their approval, sources close to Barnier say he is unlikely to put names to posts until the end of next weekend.

Vincent Jeanbrun, a spokesperson for the centre-right Republicans party (LR), which Barnier represents, said the PM had “a complex equation to solve” and he did not expect an announcement before then.

Barnier has promised to seek ministers from across the political spectrum, but leftwing candidates have been reluctant, while the far-right National Rally (RN) is seen as a behind-the-scenes arbiter.

Macron’s decision in June to call a snap general election left the national assembly with three roughly equal political blocs – left, centre and far right – none of which has an absolute majority.

A leftwing coalition, the New Popular Front (NFP), won the most seats, followed by the centrist alliance that includes Macron’s Renaissance party and the centre-right LR – but the RN emerged the most powerful single political party. It is now in a position to make or break any government unless the NFP and centrists ally to oppose it.

Christian Le Bart, a political scientist at the Institute of Political Studies at Rennes, said Barnier was “stuck”, particularly as the LR’s group had won only 47 of the 577 seats in the national assembly.

“If he reappoints a significant number of [centrist] ministers, people will rightly complain that the executive has not heard the message. And if he swings too far towards the Republicans, everyone will take offence at the fact that a political family with 47 MPs is over-represented in the government,” Le Bart told the newspaper La Dépêche.

Marine Le Pen’s far right is banking on a new general election being called next year. Macron cannot dissolve parliament and call another general election until 12 months after the last dissolution.

At the weekend, Le Pen told RN leaders she hoped Barnier’s tenure as head of the government would be “as short as possible”. “We find ourselves in a situation where the party that got the least votes is in charge of forming a government. It cannot hold,” she said.

On Monday, the RN president, Jordan Bardella, who has said “nothing can be done without the RN”, warned the new premier not to continue with a Macronist programme. He threatened a censure motion against any new government that “recycled” Macron’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, or justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti – both on the centre-right of the previous government.

“If Michel Barnier continues with the programme driven by Emmanuel Macron since seven years, which was severely defeated in the European and legislative election ballot boxes … then the government will fall,” he told RTL radio. “If Mr Barnier echoes the hopes expressed by millions of French people, then we’ll vote for the bills on a case-by-case basis.”

Fabien Roussel, the national secretary of the French Communist party, one of four leftwing parties that make up the NFP, also warned Barnier it was ready to use a censure motion and called on the new PM to repeal the contested pension law that raised the official retirement age from 62 to 64.

“He [Barnier] is a veteran of 50 years of rightwing politics … The censure motion is on the table. It’s ready, we’re working on it,” Roussel said.

Le Bart believes the only possibility of Barnier escaping censure is a reluctance among opposition parties to leave the country without a government. “They would not want to add disorder to disorder,” he said.

A poll by Ipsos published at the weekend suggested 64% of French people believed Macron had ignored the result of the election. Among those who voted for the NFP, that figure rose to 91%. Only one-third of those polled approved of his choice of Barnier as PM.

The next parliamentary session will begin on 1 October. One of the government’s first acts will be to draw up and present the 2025 budget.

TikTok took its case against a threatened US ban to a federal court on Monday where it contended that a law targeting the video platform was “unconstitutional”.

TikTok argued its case to a three-judge panel at an appeals court in Washington DC on Monday. An attorney for TikTok and ByteDance, Andrew Pincus, said TikTok was entitled to a right to freedom of speech: “The speech here that is being banned, we would say, or at a minimum burned, is the speech of the US speaker,” Pincus said.

In April, Joe Biden formally introduced a law that gives TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, until 19 January to sell its stake in the platform to an approved buyer, due to concerns that the app poses a national security threat.

In the lawsuit contesting the threatened ban, TikTok and ByteDance argue that the law is unconstitutional and impossible to implement. They assert that the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act is a breach of the first amendment, which protects freedom of speech, and that the government cannot dictate ownership of an online platform.

However, the judge, Sri Srinivasan, pushed back and said the concern was that there was a foreign entity moderating and potentially manipulating the content on TikTok. “This case is different because it involves something that is happening abroad. When it’s a foreign organization, they don’t have a first-amendment right to object to a regulation of their curation.” TikTok would also be able to continue to exist so long as it divested from being subject to Chinese control, Srinivasan later agued.

“I think in the divestiture context, we still have a burden on the US speaker’s rights,” Pincus countered.

The lawsuit adds there is “no question” the law will lead to the shutdown of TikTok and will silence the “170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere”.

“The ‘qualified divestiture’ demanded by the act to allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States is simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally,” the suit states.

The former Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and the billionaire Frank McCourt have expressed interest in buying TikTok, although the Chinese government has signalled it will oppose a sale due to restrictions on selling sensitive technologies.

Free speech campaigners including PEN America have filed amicus briefs – a means of expressing support for one side in a case – in support of TikTok and ByteDance’s lawsuit.

Opponents of the law stress that a ban would also cause disruptions in the world of marketing, retail and in the lives of many different content creators, some of whom are also suing the US government. TikTok is covering the legal costs for that lawsuit.

An attorney representing TikTok creators, Jeffrey Fisher, argued that users have an interest in working with the publisher and editor of their choice – even if it is a foreign entity. He compared TikTok to Politico, Al Jazeera and Oxford University Press. When asked how the ownership of TikTok is related to first amendment interests of creators, Fisher said, “our interest is working with the publisher and editor of our choice, which is the current ownership”.

In court documents submitted over the summer, the US Department of Justice outlined its main concerns, which centre on data and the potential manipulation of users. It said TikTok collected vast amounts of user data, including sensitive information on viewing habits, that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government. It also claimed the TikTok algorithm that curates what users see on the app could be manipulated by Chinese authorities.

“By directing ByteDance or TikTok to covertly manipulate that algorithm, China could for example further its existing malign influence operations and amplify its efforts to undermine trust in our democracy and exacerbate social divisions,” the justice department said.

TikTok has said it does not share user data with the Chinese government and that concerns the US government has raised have never been substantiated.

Legal experts expect the case to go to the supreme court, with the losing side in the federal court process expected to appeal against the ruling.

Associated Press contributed reporting

When Luke Harris takes his daughter to the doctor, he strolls down well-kept streets with “smooth sidewalks and curb cuts [ramps] for strollers at every intersection”. If the weather looks rough or he feels a little lazy, he hops on a tram for a couple of stops.

Harris’s trips to the paediatrician are pretty unremarkable for fellow residents of Zurich, Switzerland; most Europeans are used to being able to walk from one place to another in their cities. But it will probably sound like fantasy to those living in San Antonio, Texas. That’s because, according to new research, 99.2% of Zurich residents live within a 15-minute walk of essential services such as healthcare and education, while just 2.5% of San Antonio residents do.

“Zurich feels extraordinarily walkable to me, coming from the US,” said Harris, a landscape architect from Portland, Oregon. “Most of the things you need are within walking distance – and if they’re not, it’s easy to take public transport.”

Just a tiny fraction of 10,000 cities around the world can be considered “15-minute cities”, according to a study published in the journal Nature Cities on Monday. The researchers used open data to work out the average distance people must walk or bike to reach essential services – such as supermarkets, schools, hospitals and parks – and calculated the proportion of residents who have the necessities at their fingertips.

“When we looked at the results, we were amazed by how unequal they are,” said Matteo Bruno, a physicist at Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Rome and lead author of the study.

The researchers selected 54 cities to explore in detail and found that the most accessible cities were midsize European ones such as Zurich, Milan, Copenhagen and Dublin – all of which had essential services that could be accessed within 15 minutes by more than 95% of residents. At the bottom of the rankings were sprawling North American cities with a high dependency on cars, such as San Antonio, Dallas, Atlanta and Detroit.

Small cities tended to score better but the researchers found that in some big metropolises, such as Berlin and Paris, more than 90% of residents live within a 15-minute walk of essential services.

The authors developed an algorithm to explore how much these cities would have to change to become more accessible. They found Atlanta would have to relocate 80% of its amenities to achieve an equal distribution per resident, while Paris would need to relocate just 10%.

Hygor Piaget, a co-author of the study who grew up in São Paulo, where 32% of people live within a 15-minute walk of essential services, said the study was not a proposal to destroy cities and reallocate their services but a mathematical exercise to get people thinking. “We’re searching for ways to make the lives of most people better,” he said.

The concept of a 15-minute city has been attacked in recent years by conspiracy theorists who see it as a government plot to control movement and restrict freedom. The vitriol has frustrated scientists, urban planners and doctors, who point out that reducing car dependency is a powerful way to help people lead healthier and safer lives.

“The idea of 15-minute cities is not new,” said Piaget. “People who do research on this have been doing it for decades.”

The authors say the study is limited by the quality of the open data, which is patchier in cities outside of Europe and North America, and how practical it is to walk in some cities. Heavy traffic, high crime, bad weather and steep hills may discourage people from walking even geographically short distances.

Natalie Mueller, an environmental epidemiologist at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), who was not involved in the study, said there was no “one-size-fits-all” approach that would work for all cities, but that the research could help foster more inclusive and sustainable urban environments.

“By minimising car dependency, encouraging active and public transport and integrating nature-based solutions such as planting trees and expanding green spaces, we can improve urban environmental quality, which directly benefits the health of the population,” Mueller said.

Researchers caution that making a city more accessible is not enough in itself to wean residents away from private cars. The Netherlands boasts some of the best bicycle infrastructure in Europe but has more cars per person than rural countries such as Ireland and Hungary.

In Zurich, where 71% of residents voted in favour of a proposal in 2020 to build 50km of bicycle infrastructure, locals have long grumbled about the lack of bicycle lanes and the threats to cyclists.

“You still see a lot of cars on the street,” said Harris. “In terms of the pedestrian experience, it’s lovely, I truly cannot think of other cities I’ve been to where it feels easier to walk … but in terms of cycling, and the special relation between cycling and cars, it seems like there’s still friction.”

Profound changes that sweep across the human brain during pregnancy have been captured for the first time, after researchers performed precision scans on a woman carrying her child.

MRI scans taken every few weeks from before conception until two years after childbirth revealed widespread reorganisation in the mother’s brain, with some changes short-lived and others lasting years.

The work, described as “truly heroic” by one independent expert, paves the way for a far deeper understanding of the mother’s brain in pregnancy. Further scans are now being gathered from other pregnant women to learn about the risks of postnatal depression, the link between pre-eclampsia and dementia, and why pregnancy can reduce migraines and symptoms of multiple sclerosis.

Scientists took 26 brain scans of a healthy 38-year-old woman who conceived via IVF, and concurrent blood samples to monitor the dramatic surges in hormones during pregnancy. The data revealed how the brain changed, week by week.

Most apparent was a steady decrease in grey matter, the wrinkly outer surface of the brain, throughout pregnancy and a temporary peak in neural connectivity at the end of the second trimester.

“The maternal brain undergoes this choreographed change across gestation and we’re finally able to observe the process in real time,” said Prof Emily Jacobs, a researcher on the study at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Scientists have previously taken snapshots of women’s brains at various points in pregnancy, but the latest work shows how these can miss temporary changes that revert to normal by the time the woman gives birth.

Writing in Nature Neuroscience, the lead author, Laura Pritschet, and her colleagues describe how soaring hormones, such as oestrogen and progesterone, drive significant physiological changes in pregnancy, affecting blood plasma, metabolism, oxygen consumption and immunity. The same hormones resculpt the brain.

To understand more, the researchers used precision MRI to scan the brain of Dr Elizabeth Chrastil, a colleague at the University of California, Irvine. She was scanned before conceiving, during pregnancy and for two years after her son was born in May 2020.

“It was quite an intense undertaking,” Chrastil said, but added that she did not feel particularly different in pregnancy. “Some people talk about ‘mummy brain’ and things like that, and I didn’t really experience any of that.”

The scans revealed widespread reductions in grey matter volume and thickness, particularly in regions involved with social cognition. White matter microstructure, a measure of the brain’s wiring, increased to a peak at the end of the second trimester before dropping back down. Cerebrospinal fluid and brain cavities known as ventricles both expanded. The changes were linked to rising hormone levels.

“Sometimes people bristle when they hear that grey matter volume decreases in pregnancy,” Jacobs said. “This change probably reflects the fine tuning of neural circuits, not unlike the cortical thinning that happens during puberty.” The researchers compared the process to the sculpting of Michelangelo’s David from a block of marble.

The study does not explain behaviours or emotions that arise in pregnancy, and many factors beyond hormones, such as stress and sleep loss, are at play. But some brain changes were still present two years after childbirth, hinting at cellular changes in the organ. “This paper really opens up more questions than it answers,” Chrastil said. “We’re really just starting to scratch the surface.”

The work marks the launch of the Maternal Brain Project, an international effort to gather similar scans from more pregnant women. Jacobs said: “There is so much about the neurobiology of pregnancy that we don’t understand yet and it’s not because women are too complicated, it’s not because pregnancy is some Gordian knot, it’s a byproduct of the fact that the biomedical sciences have historically ignored women’s health.”

Gina Rippon, a professor emeritus of cognitive neuro-imaging at Aston University in Birmingham, England, said it was “a truly heroic” project, adding: “The data from this study illustrate just how much we have been missing.”

Dr Ann-Marie de Lange, the leader of the FemiLab group at Lausanne university hospital, called the work “fascinating”. “This approach will not only help us map maternal neuroplasticity, but also identify markers that indicate risk for postpartum depression, a serious condition that often goes untreated,” she said.

Governments are failing to invest in women and girls and, as a result, are missing out on billions in economic gains, according to a new UN report.

This year’s Gender Snapshot report from the UN Women agency found that the global cost of failing to educate young women adequately is an annual $10tn (£7.6tn); low- and middle-income countries will lose $500bn over the next five years if they do not close the gender gap on internet use; and improving support for female farmers could add $1tn to global GDP. It also found that at current rates child marriage could continue until 2092.

Papa Seck, head of UN Women’s research and data section, said: “The cost of not achieving gender equality is just way too high but at the same time, the potential returns of doing so are also too high to ignore for societies.”

The annual report, which assesses progress of gender equality across the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), also found that 47.8 million more women than men face moderate or severe food insecurity; that it could take a further 137 years to end extreme poverty for women; and that climate change could force 158 million more women and girls into poverty than men and boys.

Governments must “start investing hard cash into women and girls”, said Seck, and make “non-negotiable” changes to their laws to better protect them.

No country has all the laws needed to prohibit discrimination, prevent gender-based violence, uphold equal rights in marriage and divorce, guarantee equal pay and provide full access to sexual and reproductive health, the report found.

Of the 120 countries where data is available, more than half have at least one restriction preventing women from doing the same jobs as men and half do not classify rape as based on a lack of consent.

In the UK, Rachel Saunders, an expert in women’s legal issues at Nottingham University, said the government should create new laws that mandate employers to share staff salaries and allow women to know if there is a sex offender in their area.

She said that even when such laws did exist, many were not fully implemented. For example, the Equality Act 2010 is meant to protect UK citizens from workplace discrimination yet Saunders said the gender pay gap persisted and that there was still an expectation for women to take parental leave rather than offering both parents an amount to split.

Jemima Olchawski, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for gender equality, said there was a general complacency that viewed gender disparities as “ghosts” from a time when women did not have the rights they had today and an attitude that things would naturally improve over time.

“That is absolutely not the case,” she said. “We are consistently and constantly perpetuating and even creating new inequalities for women and girls.”

Elsewhere, she said women continued to experience “absolutely horrendous situations”, citing the Taliban’s ban on Afghan women working, studying and even speaking in public.

“I’m not at all surprised to see that, sadly,” Olchawski said. “We’re just not seeing progress.”

Ezel Buse Sönmezocak, advocacy officer for Women for Women’s Human Rights, a Turkish equality campaign group, suggested that governments should fund feminist moments “because we know that when you [do], you build a defence against backsliding.” The snapshot, she said, should be a signal “to hold on to the SDGs and be more ambitious”.

Donald Trump has lost a legal battle with the singer Eddy Grant over using his 1983 song Electric Avenue in a 2020 ad without permission.

The 40-second clip – an animation of Joe Biden travelling in a railroad cart while a Trump-Pence campaign train passes at high speed – was viewed more than 13.7m times on Twitter before it was removed, according to Grant’s lawsuit.

The video was originally posted to Trump’s personal Twitter account on 12 August 2020 as the Republican president campaigned in his second, unsuccessful presidential election. Grant’s lawyers immediately sent a cease and desist letter, but the video was not removed until Grant sued on 1 September.

In a Manhattan court, a federal judge ruled that Trump breached Grant’s copyright and is liable for damages and Grant’s legal fees.

Judge John G Koeltl rejected the argument made by Trump’s lawyers that the video was protected under the copyright fair use doctrine. “It’s everything we asked for,” one of Grant’s lawyers, Brett Van Benthysen, told Business Insider. “100%.”

Another of Grant’s lawyers, Brian Caplan, told Business Insider: “As a staunch believer of artist’s rights and the ability to control their creative output, Mr Grant believes that the decision will help others in their fight against the unauthorised use of sound recordings and musical compositions. Politicians are not above the law and the court reaffirmed that.”

Grant’s original lawsuit asked for $300,000 (£227,294), but damages for the case are yet to be determined, as is whether the parties will agree on a figure or a jury will determine the number.

The success of Grant’s case may hearten the White Stripes, who last week sued Trump for copyright infringement – and “flagrant misappropriation” – over the alleged non-permitted use of Seven Nation Army in a campaign video, which was subsequently deleted; and the estate of Isaac Hayes, which is suing the former president and reelection hopeful for $3m over an alleged 130 instances of Hayes’ song Hold On, I’m Coming being used at campaign rallies without permission. In early September, a judge ruled that Trump’s campaign must stop using the song at his events.

Beyoncé also reportedly sent a cease-and-desist after Trump used her song Freedom in a video; in July, she gave Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris permission to use the song in her campaign. In August, the Trump campaign deleted the video.