The Israeli military is expanding its operations on multiple fronts around the anniversary of the 7 October attacks on Monday, including planning for a “significant and serious” retaliation against Iran for last week’s large-scale ballistic missile attack on Israel.

Signs of imminent Israeli retaliation against Iran came as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, called for an international embargo on arms delivered to Israel for use against Gaza, where authorities say more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s year long assault.

“I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza,” Macron told broadcaster France Inter, adding that France was not sending any arms to Israel.

Macron made his comments as the Israel Defense Forces said a major strike on Iran was imminent, as Israel hit targets in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza on Saturday.

“The IDF [Israeli military] is preparing a response to the unprecedented and unlawful Iranian attack on Israeli civilians and Israel,” the military official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak publicly on the issue.

As Israel said it was planning its response to Tuesday’s Iranian missile strikes, which hit on or near a number of key Israeli bases, the US president, Joe Biden, cautioned against striking Iranian oil facilities, a day after he said Washington was “discussing” such action.

“If I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oilfields,” Biden said during a rare appearance at the White House daily press briefing. The Biden administration has already suggested it opposes an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear programme.

Amid the worsening violence, speculation was hardening that a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs had killed Hashem Safieddine, who had been widely expected to succeed Hezbollah’s slain leader Hassan Nasrallah. According to Lebanese security sources, Safieddine has been unreachable since Friday.

Assessments suggest that Safieddine was killed with aides and Iranian advisers in a powerful strike that has made reaching any bodies difficult. In the aftermath of the strike the IDF said it had hit Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters without disclosing who was present.

The fighting comes as Israel prepares to mark the first anniversary on Monday of the devastating 7 October Hamas attack that prompted the current war in Gaza, which has now engulfed neighbouring Lebanon, creating a dangerous regional crisis.

Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, will lead a memorial service in Sderot, one of the cities hardest hit during the onslaught by Hamas militants, amid fears that the anniversary may attract fresh attacks on Israeli citizens.

The Israeli military said on Saturday it was also ordering Palestinian civilians in some areas of the Gaza Strip – including Nuseirat and Bureij, which host large encampments of internally displaced people – to evacuate, saying that the IDF planned to act “with great force” against Hamas operating there.

Israel also appeared to be ramping up operations over the weekend in southern Lebanon, which its ground forces entered earlier this week.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it was opposing Israeli attempts to enter the southern town of Odaisseh, adding that clashes were ongoing.

As Hezbollah continued to fire rockets at northern Israel, there were direct hits in two buildings in Karmiel and near Acre, with reports of casualties from an impact on an apartment block in the Israeli-Arab village of Deir al-Asad.

Israel, which began ground operations targeting southern Lebanon on Monday last week, says they are focused on villages near the border and has said Beirut is “not on the table”, but has not specified how long the ground incursion will last.

It says the operation’s aim is to allow tens of thousands of its citizens to return home after Hezbollah bombardments, which began on 8 October 2023, forced them to evacuate from its north.

Rapidly escalating violence in recent days has brought intense Israeli strikes on Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon as ground troops conducted raids near the border, transforming nearly a year of cross-border exchanges into full-blown war.

In the first reported Israeli airstrike on the northern Tripoli region in the current flare-up, Hamas said “Zionist bombardment” of the Beddawi refugee camp killed a commander, Saeed Atallah Ali, as well as his wife and two daughters on Saturday.

Amid mounting fears over the deepening region-wide crisis, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, renewed his call for ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon on Saturday.

“The most important issue today is the ceasefire, especially in Lebanon and in Gaza,” he told reporters. “There are initiatives in this regard, there have been consultations that we hope will be successful.”

In the aftermath of Iran’s attack on Israel on Tuesday night, Israeli officials claimed their defences had stood firm. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Iran had launched more than 180 missiles, but few details about the damage were released and the US’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the attack “appears to have been defeated and ineffective”.

But as Israel prepares its retaliation, analysts believe those initial reports could have been misleading – and could change the calculus of Israel’s response if it fears getting into a bout of protracted “missile ping-pong” with Iran, especially should Tehran choose softer targets in the future.

Satellite and social media footage has shown missile after missile striking the Nevatim airbase in the Negev desert, and setting off at least some secondary explosions, indicating that despite the highly touted effectiveness of Israel’s Iron Dome and Arrow air defences, Iran’s strikes were more effective than had been previously admitted.

Experts who analysed the footage noted at least 32 direct hits on the airbase. None appeared to have caused major damage, but some landed close to hangars that house Israel’s F-35 jets, among the country’s most prized military assets.

While those missiles did not appear to hit planes on the ground, they would nonetheless have a deadly effect if fired at a city such as Tel Aviv, or if directed at other high-value targets such as the Bazan Group’s oil refineries near Haifa – potentially creating an ecological disaster next to a big Israeli city.

“The core fact remains that Iran has proven it can hit Israel hard if it so chose,” writes Decker Eveleth, an analyst with the research and analysis group CNA, who analysed the satellite images for a blogpost. “Airbases are hard targets, and the sort of target that likely won’t produce many casualties. Iran could choose a different target – say, a densely packed IDF ground forces base, or a target within a civilian area – and a missile strike there would produce a large number of [casualties].”

Another problem for Israel is the economics of a protracted series of tit for tat strikes with the Iranians. Israeli air defence stocks are both expensive and limited, meaning that the country may become more vulnerable to Iranian strikes as the conflict goes on.

“Given that Israel seems to have already publicly committed to striking Iran, this is likely not the last time we will see exchanges of missiles,” writes Eveleth. “My concern is that this will be, in the long term, an exchange that Israel won’t be able to afford to make if this becomes a protracted conflict.”

In the longer term, Israel may target Iranian ballistic missile production lines and infrastructure in order to prevent attacks. Benjamin Netanyahu has long argued that the Iranian ballistic missile programme is as dangerous to Israel as its nuclear programme is.

Israel’s counterattack appears to be imminent. Ynet, an Israeli news outlet, has reported that Gen Michael Kurilla, the commander of US Central Command (Centcom), is expected to arrive in Israel within the next day. Joe Biden and his security adviser Sullivan have said they will be in direct consultations with Israel over its military response. And local journalists have been briefed that the response to the Iranian strike is imminent, perhaps to be timed just before or after the 7 October anniversary of the Hamas attacks.

The target options include Iranian military facilities – including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military sites or command and control centres – and energy infrastructure, such as oil refineries, which could lead to a similar strike on Israel. There is also the option of a direct strike on Iran’s nuclear programme, which Tehran has warned is one of its red lines and which Biden has warned Netanyahu not to do.

‘It’s hard to imagine that Israel would do an attack that would be symbolic and limited, because that’s what it did in April, and Israel would now have to do something one or several degrees higher than what it did in April,” said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the NGO Crisis Group, during a recent episode of the organisation’s podcast Hold Your Fire.

He warned of a “ballistic missile ping-pong between Israel and Iran that at any moment can spiral out of control, can result in casualties in Israel that would then result in further escalation, and that could then pull the United States in” – resulting in Iranian allies targeting US forces and bases in the region.

In the attack, Vaez said, Iran had “used their most advanced weapons, and they have sufficient stockpile of being able to do that for months. That would be the world we’ll be ­living in unless somebody pulls the plug on this cycle of escalation.

“The only person with that power is the president of the United States, whose track record doesn’t give us a lot of hope.”

Three hospitals in south Lebanon were forced to close on Friday after Israeli bombings struck two and the other ran out of supplies, displacing a number of doctors from the area and creating concerns around the state of the Lebanese health sector.

Marjayoun governmental hospital and the Salah Ghandour hospital in Bint Jbeil, large healthcare centres along the eastern and western sections of the Lebanese borders, announced their closure after their premises were struck, killing seven and wounding 14 healthcare workers.

“The main hospital of the entrance was targeted as paramedics were approaching. Seven were killed, five were wounded. We considered this a message, so we decided to close,” said Dr Mones Kalakish, the director of Marjayoun governmental hospital. He added that because of the frequent targeting of paramedics in south Lebanon, wounded people had not been able to reach the hospital for the past three days.

“There was no warning to the hospital before they struck. The warning didn’t come over the telephone, it came via bombing,” Kalakish said.

Mays al-Jabal governmental hospital, 700 metres from the Israel-Lebanon border, said on Friday hospital staff could no longer perform their role due to a cutoff of supplies.

“Medical supplies, diesel, electricity, none of it was available. Unifil was bringing us water, and now they are unable to move. How can a hospital operate without water?” said Dr Halim Saad, the director of Mays al-Jabal hospital’s medical services.

More than 50 healthcare workers have been killed since 23 September, when Israel started an intense aerial campaign in south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley. Paramedics all over the country have been killed and injured by Israeli airstrikes, including in a medical centre in central Beirut, where nine were killed in a strike on Thursday.

Lebanon’s health minister, Firas Abiad, said on Thursday that 97 paramedics had been killed since fighting between Hezbollah and Israel started last year – a number which has grown over the past two days.

The displacement of medical workers due to Israeli bombing has created problems across the country at a time when the number of people wounded by Israeli strikes regularly exceeds 100 a day. The health system in Lebanon, and particularly in the south, is fragile after five years of economic crisis and almost a year of war.

At Rafik Hariri university hospital in Beirut, the largest public hospital in Lebanon, officials said Israeli bombing of nearby Dahiyeh, a southern suburb, had displaced some of its staff, leaving some unable to come to work. The hospital has opened a dorm on its campus to accommodate some of its more vital staff and tried to find housing in safe areas for others.

There is a concern among hospital staff that work conditions in the Beirut hospital could become dangerous, as news of hospitals and paramedics being bombed spreads.

“A person who does not have big responsibilities, they might think to leave. I can’t blame them, they have their own security, own family, own life,” Dr Jihad Saade, the chief executive of Rafik Hariri university hospital, said. Until now, the hospital has been operating normally.

Displacement of medical staff has primarily affected south Lebanon, where Israeli bombing is more frequent. It is unclear how many people still remain in the south, after Israel ordered people in about 70 villages to evacuate.

More than 2,000 people have been killed and more than 9,535 wounded since fighting started in Lebanon, most of them since 23 September.

• Ukrainian forces said they shot down a Russian warplane in Ukraine’s east on Saturday. The bomber was downed near the city of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, the head of its military administration, Serhiy Horbunov, was quoted as saying by Ukraine’s public broadcaster, Suspilne. Photos showed charred remains of an aircraft after it landed on a house that caught fire.

• Ukraine said five civilians were killed by Russian shelling in the country’s south and east while Russian forces claimed to have made gains in Ukraine’s east. A 65-year-old woman and an 86-year-old man were killed in the city of Toretsk and the village of Velyka Novosilka, prosecutors in the Donetsk region said. In the Zaporizhzhia region, two men aged 44 and 46 were killed by Russian shelling in the village of Mala Tokmachka, said the regional governor, Ivan Fyodorov. Prosecutors in the Kharkiv region said a 49-year-old man died when the car he was driving was hit by a Russian drone.

• Russian forces captured the village of Zhelanne Druge in the Donetsk region, Moscow’s defence ministry claimed on Saturday. The village is located close to Pokrovsk, a logistics hub for the Ukrainian army that is threatened by the advance of Russian troops. If confirmed, the village’s capture would come three days after Ukrainian forces said they were withdrawing from the frontline town of Vuhledar, about 33km from Zhelanne Druge, after a hard-fought two-year defence.

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would present his “victory plan” at the 12 October meeting of the Ramstein group of nations that supplies arms to Ukraine. The plan had “clear, concrete steps towards a just end to the war”, the Ukrainian president said on X on Saturday, adding that the 25th Ramstein meeting would be the first to take place at the leaders’ level. “The determination of our partners and the strengthening of Ukraine are what can stop Russian aggression.” Zelenskyy presented his plan to the US president, Joe Biden, in Washington in September.

• Nine people were wounded when a Ukrainian drone struck a passenger bus in the Donetsk city of Horlivka, according to the city’s Russian-installed mayor, Ivan Prikhodko.

• Russia launched three guided missiles and 13 attack drones at Ukraine overnight into Saturday, Ukraine’s air force said. The missiles were intercepted, three drones were shot down over the Odesa region and 10 others were lost, it said. Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that air defences shot down 10 Ukrainian drones overnight in three border regions, including seven over the Belgorod region, two over the Kursk region and one over the Voronezh region.

• Ukrainian prosecutors said they were investigating allegations Russian forces executed four Ukrainian prisoners of war and said a possible suspect for the killings was in custody. “The investigation was initiated by interrogations of Russian prisoners of war, during which testimonies were obtained regarding the commission of the crime,” the prosecutor’s office in the north-eastern Kharkiv region posted on Telegram on Saturday. The servicemen are alleged to have been killed on the orders of Russian military command over the summer at an aggregate plant in Vovchansk, which has been the focus of fierce fighting.

• Russian prosecutors called for a seven-year sentence at the trial of a US citizen accused of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine against Russia, Russian news agencies reported. Prosecutors asked the court to take into account 72-year-old Stephen Hubbard’s age and said he had admitted guilt, according to Interfax on Saturday. They asked that he serve the sentence in a maximum-security penal colony. The US embassy in Moscow said it was aware of the reports of an American citizen’s arrest but could not comment further “due to privacy restrictions”.

Donald Trump has returned to the site where he narrowly escaped assassination in July, pushing the emotional buttons of his supporters and suggesting that his political opponents “maybe even tried to kill me” to stop him regaining the White House.

The Republican presidential nominee – and perennial showman – mounted an unabashedly sentimental spectacle in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. He was joined by billionaire Elon Musk, who made the baseless claim that if Trump’s supporters fail to turn out, “this will be the last election”.

Their joint appearance before an enthusiastic crowd of thousands capped hours of programming seemingly intended to mythologise the 13 July shooting for the Trump base exactly one month before the presidential election.

The rally was held, with heightened security, at the same grounds where Trump was grazed in the right ear and one rallygoer – firefighter Corey Comperatore – was killed when a gunman opened fire. The would-be assassin, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.

A photo of Trump standing with blood streaked across his face as he raised his fist and shouted “Fight!” became the indelible image of his campaign. Yet Joe Biden’s decision just a week later to step aside and endorse his vice-president, Kamala Harris, stole Trump’s thunder and altered the trajectory of the race.

On Saturday Trump became the first former president to return to the scene of his attempted assassination and weaponise it for political gain. His campaign sought to recapture the aura of their candidate as hero and martyr.

As he walked out on stage, a video juxtaposed an image of George Washington crossing the Delaware River with the photo of Trump with fist raised. A voice boomed: “This man cannot be stopped. This man cannot be defeated.”

“As I was saying …” Trump said as he appeared on stage, gesturing towards an immigration chart that he was looking at when the gunfire began 12 weeks earlier. The crowd, which was overwhelmingly white, roared enthusiastically, holding aloft signs that read “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Standing behind protective glass that now encases the stage at his outdoor rallies, Trump recalled: “On this very ground a cold-blooded assassin aimed to silence me and silence the greatest movement – Maga – in the history of our country … But by the hand of providence and the grace of God that villain did not succeed in his goal. He did not stop our movement.”

Trump even seemed to be trying to emulate Abraham Lincoln’s Gettsyburg address as he described the field as a “monument to the valour” of our first responders and prophesied: “Forever afterward, all who have visited this hallowed place will remember what happened here and they will know of the character and courage that so many incredible American patriots have showed.”

But Trump also hinted darkly, without evidence, about facing “an enemy from within” more dangerous than any foreign adversary. “Over the past eight years, those who want to stop us from achieving this future have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot, and who knows, maybe even tried to kill me,” he said. “But I’ve never stopped fighting for you and I never will.”

Trump saluted volunteer firefighter Comperatore, who was shot and killed by the gunman, and two other supporters who were wounded. A memorial was set up in the bleachers, his firefighter’s jacket surrounded by flowers. Giant screens said “In loving memory of Corey Comperatore”, accompanied by his picture. Comperatore’s family were present.

At 6.11pm, the exact time when gunfire erupted on 13 July, Trump called for a moment of silence. A bell then tolled four times, once for each of the four victims, including Trump. Then opera singer Christopher Macchio belted out Ave Maria.

Trump then veered into more familiar territory of falsehoods about immigration and other topics. Later he called up on stage Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and owner of social media platform X, who has swerved politically right. Wearing a black cap and black “Occupy Mars” shirt and coat, Musk jumped around with his arms held high and was greeted with cheers.

He said: “The true test of someone’s character is how they behave under fire. We had one president who couldn’t climb a flight of stairs and another who was fist-pumping after getting shot! Fight, fight, fight!”

Despite Trump’s attempt to stage a coup and cling on to power on 6 January 2021, Musk argued: “President Trump must win to preserve the constitution. He must win to preserve democracy in America. This is a must-win situation. Get everyone you know, drag them to register to vote. If they don’t, this will be the last election. That is my prediction.”

The Butler shooting led to widespread criticism of the Secret Service and the resignation of its director. Critics raised concerns about how Crooks was able to access a nearby rooftop with a direct line of sight to where Trump was speaking. In September the former president survived another attempt on his life when a gunman hid undetected for nearly 12 hours at a golf course in one of his Florida clubs.

On Saturday there was an intensified security presence with Secret Service and other law enforcement officers in camouflage uniforms stationed on roofs. The building from which Crooks fired was completely obscured by tractor trailers and a fence.

The rally had an upbeat atmosphere like a giant picnic. People sat on the grass or foldout chairs and walkers in blazing sunshine. They gazed up into a brilliant blue sky to see four special forces skydivers – one holding a giant Stars and Stripes – jumping from a Cessna 206 plane from more than 5,000 feet, then a flypast of “Trump Force One” accompanied by the theme music from the film Top Gun.

One tent displayed paintings of the now famous image of a bloodied Trump with fist raised – reproductions were on sale for up to $200. That photograph was also visible on numerous T-shirts worn by Trump supporters with slogans such as “Fight … fight … fight!”, “American badass”, “Never surrender” and “Fight. Trump 2024. Legends never die”. The commercialisation of the former president’s near death experience was on vivid display.

Attendees spoke of their ardent support for Trump, their suspicion that Democrats were behind an assassination plot and that his life had been spared by divine intervention.

Patricia King, 82, using a walker, was at the rally in Butler in July with her 63-year-old daughter, Diana, and both felt it was important to return. “I remember the long wait and how hot it was and people being loyal enough to stand there and some of them fainted,” said King, a retired nurse. “I remember the shots going off – pop, pop, pop, pop – and I turned and looked where he was and everybody started running.”

King praised Trump’s instinctively combative response that day. “That’s great with me. That’s like: I’m not quitting and that’s what America is about. We don’t quit. Kamala Harris is too weak. I think she’d be asking Putin to have a cup of tea with her, which is not strength to me.”

Debbie Hasan, 61, a landlord wearing a Trump 2024 cap, described Saturday’s rally as “history in the making” and recalled the events of 13 July. “I was watching TV and my husband was in the other room. I start screaming: ‘They shot Trump! They shot Trump!’ Then I called my brother and I’m screaming. And then seeing him get up and the fist pump was an awesome sight. He’s a great man.”

Hasan outlined a baseless conspiracy theory that Democrats orchestrated the shooting. “I hate to say it, I think they were behind all this. They can’t beat him any other way. They tried putting him in court on all kinds of trumped up charges. They’re at their limit. They don’t know what else to do. They promote hate and prejudice. How they talk about him, some wacko’s going to say, he needs to be keyholed.”

Many rallygoers echoed Trump’s claim that God saved him in order to save the country. Rodney Moreland, 66, retired from various jobs including welding, truck driving and security, said: “I don’t know if you believe in God but there was an angel around him that day, absolutely. After that happened his demeanour, everything changed about him. Now he’s calm, cool and collected and he’s known what words to say.”

But Moreland warned of a possible backlash to the election result. “If it goes the opposite direction, there’s going to be a war. The last election was rigged. They said, we cannot have him stay in office again.”

Kristi Masemer, 52, a Walmart worker, wearing a T-shirt that said “I’m still a Trump girl. I make no apologies”, criticised people who said they wished the would-be assassin had killed the former president.

“The amount of people who were like, ‘I’m sorry that he missed’. People actually said that about another human being. That’s the Democrat party. Are you kidding me? That’s not humanity. Who would think that?”

Masemer praised the restraint of Trump supporters after the assassination attempt. “The best part of all that was the people in the Maga movement after that didn’t riot. We didn’t lash back at these people because we’re not haters. We just want our country back and that’s it.”

Butler county, on the western edge of a coveted presidential swing state, is a rural-suburban community and a Trump stronghold. He won the county with about 66% of the vote in both 2016 and 2020. About 57% of Butler county’s 139,000 registered voters are Republicans, compared with about 29% who are Democrats and 14% other parties.

Jana Anderson, 62, who works at an animal shelter, said: “I don’t think a woman should be president, only because it’s always been men. I’m a woman but I think men should lead the country, not a woman. Women, in my opinion, are wishy washy. I mean, she says a lot of things, she promises a lot of things, but I don’t know if she’s capable of doing those things.”

More than 1.4 million people have now voted in the presidential election, as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump continue to crisscross the country in the final stretch of a neck-and-neck campaign.

Their vice-presidential picks, JD Vance and Tim Walz, also faced off this week in the only vice-presidential debate of this cycle. But initial polls suggested voters saw the debate as a draw, without clear impact on the race.

Harris earned her highest national polling average since July, though the presidential race remains extremely close in battleground states, according to the Guardian’s poll tracker. Harris is leading in five of seven swing states, according to the Guardian’s average of high-quality state polls aggregated by the polling analysis platform 538 over the last 10 days. But overall, both candidates continue to have about even odds of winning.

The Guardian’s tracker shows Harris with 49.3% of the vote nationally, compared with 46% for Trump. Early voting is already under way and more than 1.4 million Americans had voted as of midday Friday, according to data collected by the Election Lab at the University of Florida.

Harris retains a slight lead, similar to the Guardian’s analysis last week. But the numbers have yet to reflect the vice-presidential debate.

The simplest path to winning the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency continues to be winning the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. While Harris leads Trump in the 10-day average of polls in all three, according to the Guardian’s analysis (Pennsylvania by 1.2 points, Michigan by 0.1 point, and Wisconsin by 2.2 points), those advantages aren’t significant enough to say who will win, analysts say.

The race is similarly close in the four other battleground states, Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona.

“No candidate enjoys a significant lead in states worth the 270 electoral votes needed to win,” Nate Cohn, the polling analyst for the New York Times, wrote in his weekly newsletter. “This might be the clearest read we’ve had of the race so far. It was arguably the first ‘quiet’ week since Vice-President Harris’s entry into the race.”

One slight exception may be in Pennsylvania, Cohn wrote. Polls showed Harris leading in the state by about 2 points after the 10 September debate, but now the race there was essentially tied, he wrote.

The Guardian’s tracker is based on an average of high quality polls over the last 10 days compiled by 538. As of Friday, the forecasting site said the race was essentially a toss-up, with Harris having a 55% chance of winning and Trump having a 45% chance.

Some of Trump’s best polling has been in Arizona – he leads Harris there 48.8% to 48%, according to the Guardian’s state poll tracker. Some of that advantage may have to do with his support among Hispanic voters, Cohn wrote.

When Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020, he carried Latino voters by nearly 25 points. Four high-quality polls released this week showed Harris leading among Hispanic voters by no more than 12 points, Cohn noted. A national poll from NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC found Harris leading among Hispanic voters 54%-40%. Biden won 59% of the Hispanic vote in 2020.

“Mr Trump’s strength among Hispanic voters this cycle might seem surprising, but four years ago he made big gains among them across the country,” Cohn wrote. “And in 2016, he fared no worse than Mitt Romney’s 2012 showing among them, even though his anti-immigration rhetoric created the expectation of a significant backlash. In retrospect, his resilience among Hispanic voters in 2016 looks like a harbinger of what was to come.”

Hispanic voters are not a monolith and Trump and Biden may be targeting different parts of the demographic. A Pew analysis found Biden won college-educated Hispanic voters 69% to 30% in 2020. But among non-college educated Hispanics, he won a much narrower 55% to 41%.

Recent polling from the non-partisan Cook Political Report also found that the race was essentially tied. But its analysis did show some good signs for Harris.

A plurality of voters now think Harris will win the election, with 46% saying so compared to 39% for Trump.

“That represents an 11-point swing in Harris’s favor since August, and suggests that Harris has been successful in presenting herself as a serious candidate, while Trump’s attempts to portray her as unable to do the job have not been effective,” Amy Walter and Jessica Taylor, two of the site’s editors, wrote in an analysis.

There were also some encouraging signs for Harris on the economy, the Cook Political Report found. While Trump continues to lead among voters who believe he is better equipped to handle the economy, voters are evenly split on who would be better to get inflation under control. In August, Trump had a 48%-42% advantage on the issue.

The shift might reflect that Harris’s messaging on the economy is breaking through to voters, Walter and Taylor wrote. It could also suggest that Trump hasn’t been successful in linking Harris to the rising cost of living, they said.

The White House moved Saturday to quash claims that government officials control the weather, including a far-fetched rumor circulating on social media that Hurricane Helene was an engineered storm to allow corporations to mine regional lithium deposits.

“We have seen a large increase in false information circulating online related to the federal response to Hurricane Helene,” a statement said, pointing to a “number of scam artists, bad-faith actors, and others who want to sow chaos because they think it helps their political interests are promoting disinformation about the recovery effort.”

The White House said the rumors, which include claims that emergency disaster money had been spent housing immigrants and that relief funds would be limited to $750 per claim, were “wrong, dangerous” and said “it must stop immediately”.

The warning, which speaks to the intense political environment Helene figuratively crashed into, came hours after Biden told lawmakers to refill the coffers of disaster relief programs as the projected recovery and rebuilding costs related to Hurricane Helene are estimated to be as much as $200bn over 10 years.

In a letter sent to congressional leaders, the president said while the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and the Department of Defense are able to meet “critical life-saving and life-sustaining missions and will continue to do so within present funding levels”, they will need additional funding.

“My administration has provided robust and well-coordinated federal support for the ongoing response and recovery efforts,” Biden wrote.

“As with other catastrophic disasters, it will take some time to assess the full requirements for response and recovery efforts, and I fully expect that the Congress will do its part to provide the funding needed.”

Biden said that a comprehensive disaster relief package would be necessary when Congress returns on 12 November – but said action on individual programs could be needed before then. But there are currently no plans for Congress to reconvene before the election.

The request comes as Kamala Harris cut short a campaign swing through the western states to visit western North Carolina in the southern Appalachian mountains where entire towns were washed away.

Biden viewed the damage and cleanup efforts in the Carolinas by air on Wednesday, and again in Florida and Georgia on Thursday. He said the work to rebuild will cost “billions of dollars” and additional disaster relief funding “can’t wait … people need help now”.

At least 225 people have been confirmed dead from Helene, and officials say they expect the death toll to continue to rise as recovery efforts continue. A police department spokesperson in Asheville, North Carolina, told CBS News in an email late on Friday that it is “actively working 75 cases of missing persons”. Nearly 1 million people remain without power.

In his letter to lawmakers, Biden said that funding through the Small Business Administration (SBA) “will run out of funding in a matter of weeks and well before the Congress is planning to reconvene”.

The SBA is designed to help small business owners and homeowners recoup property and equipment through the disaster relief loan program. Administration officials told CNN that the program needs $1.6bn in additional funding to meet about 3,000 Hurricane Helene-related applications it is receiving daily.

Last month, before Helene hit, the White House warned that the low funding levels could lead to the SBA “effectively ceasing operations” after paying out for weather-related costs and accidents, including the Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore, the continued recovery after Maui’s wildfires and tornado damage in the midwest.

The damage caused by Helene could cost upwards of $34bn, according to early estimates from Moody’s Analytics. The private forecaster AccuWeather put the cost of damages at $225bn to $250bn, with very little covered by private insurance.

The issue of Helene costs is already deeply political. The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, has said lawmakers would assess the post-Helene needs in full after the election.

Former president Trump has accused Democrats of spending over $640m in Fema funds on housing migrants, a claim the White House calls “bold-faced lies”.

On Friday, in Georgia, Trump said: “A lot of the money that was supposed to go to Georgia and supposed to go to North Carolina and all of the others is going and has gone already.

“It’s been gone for people that came into the country illegally, and nobody has ever seen anything like that. That’s a shame.”

Officials say those funds, authorized by Congress, was part of an entirely different program run by Fema unconnected to disaster relief but to provide housing to immigrants applying for US citizenship.

The disaster agency responded to Trump’s claim with a fact-check page. “This is false,” Fema said in a statement. “No money is being diverted from disaster response needs.” A week after the hurricane hit, more than $45m has been dispersed to communities affected by the storm.

It is “impossible” for the People’s Republic of China to become Taiwan’s motherland because Taiwan has older political roots, the island’s president has said.

Lai Ching-te, who took office in May, is condemned by Beijing as a separatist. He rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying the island is a country called the Republic of China that traces its origins back to the 1911 revolution overthrowing the last imperial dynasty.

The Chinese nationalist government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists. Mao set up the People’s Republic of China, which continues to claim self-governed Taiwan as its territory.

Speaking at a concert ahead of Taiwan’s national day celebrations on 10 October, Lai noted that the People’s Republic had celebrated its 75th anniversary on 1 October and in a few days it would be the Republic of China’s 113th birthday.

“Therefore, in terms of age, it is absolutely impossible for the People’s Republic of China to become the motherland of the Republic of China’s people. On the contrary, the Republic of China may be the motherland of the people of the People’s Republic of China who are over 75 years old,” Lai added, to applause.

“One of the most important meanings of these celebrations is that we must remember that we are a sovereign and independent country.”

China’s Taiwan affairs office did not answer calls seeking comment outside office hours, the Reuters news agency said.

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in a speech on the eve of his country’s national day, reiterated his government’s view that Taiwan is its territory.

Lai, who will give his own keynote national day address on 10 October, has needled Beijing before with historical references. In September, he said that if China’s claims on Taiwan were about territorial integrity then it should also take back land from Russia signed over by the last Chinese dynasty in the 19th century.

With Reuters

It is “impossible” for the People’s Republic of China to become Taiwan’s motherland because Taiwan has older political roots, the island’s president has said.

Lai Ching-te, who took office in May, is condemned by Beijing as a separatist. He rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying the island is a country called the Republic of China that traces its origins back to the 1911 revolution overthrowing the last imperial dynasty.

The Chinese nationalist government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists. Mao set up the People’s Republic of China, which continues to claim self-governed Taiwan as its territory.

Speaking at a concert ahead of Taiwan’s national day celebrations on 10 October, Lai noted that the People’s Republic had celebrated its 75th anniversary on 1 October and in a few days it would be the Republic of China’s 113th birthday.

“Therefore, in terms of age, it is absolutely impossible for the People’s Republic of China to become the motherland of the Republic of China’s people. On the contrary, the Republic of China may be the motherland of the people of the People’s Republic of China who are over 75 years old,” Lai added, to applause.

“One of the most important meanings of these celebrations is that we must remember that we are a sovereign and independent country.”

China’s Taiwan affairs office did not answer calls seeking comment outside office hours, the Reuters news agency said.

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in a speech on the eve of his country’s national day, reiterated his government’s view that Taiwan is its territory.

Lai, who will give his own keynote national day address on 10 October, has needled Beijing before with historical references. In September, he said that if China’s claims on Taiwan were about territorial integrity then it should also take back land from Russia signed over by the last Chinese dynasty in the 19th century.

With Reuters

A silent march took place in support of Gisèle Pelicot and other female victims of sexual violence on Saturday in Mazan, the village where Pelicot’s husband is accused of drugging her and inviting more than 80 men to assault her at their home.

Hundreds of women and men turned out in solidarity with the woman at the centre of a case that has shocked the world. Members of the Pelicot family did not attend but said they appreciated the public support.

One woman on the march told French reporters: “I am there as a woman, mother and grandmother … I am here firstly to support Gisèle, who is really very brave, and other women and girls.”

She said she hoped the case would persuade people to “listen to women … and not close their eyes” to sexual abuse.

On Friday, judges at the mass rape trial in Avignon agreed to allow videos made by Dominique Pelicot of the alleged abuse of his wife to be shown to the press and public in the courtroom.

The president of the bench, Roger Arata, had argued the court should be cleared of those not directly involved in the case because the videos represented an affront to public decency and were too “shocking”.

The bench agreed to allow them to be screened in open court after Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyers insisted their client wanted them shown. As Pelicot, 72, was drugged to the point of being comatose, she has no memory of the rapes and says the videos are proof of what she suffered.

A majority of the 50 men accused of raping her have denied the charges, saying they thought she was pretending to be asleep and they had acted with the consent of her husband.

Antoine Camus, one of Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyers, told the court: “The great majority of those accused say they did not have the impression they were committing a rape. A perception is subjective, everyone can have a different one of the same event. Here we must at least debate the credibility of the perception claimed by the accused that they did not commit a rape.

“For Gisèle Pelicot, these videos explode the theory that the rape was accidental, due to inattention or carelessness. What they show is a rape of opportunity.”

Stéphane Babonneau, another of Pelicot’s lawyers, said: “For Gisèle Pelicot it is too late … the damage has been done. She will have to live with the 200 rapes she suffered while unconscious, and the brutality of the proceedings taking place in this courtroom for the rest of her life.

“But if the public nature of the debates means that other women don’t have to go through this, then the suffering she inflicts on herself every day will make sense,” he said.

Dominique Pelicot, a retired electrician, recruited men from an online chatroom called “Without their Knowledge” and invited them to the couple’s house in Mazan near Carpentras in Provence after drugging his wife with sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication mixed with her evening meal or wine.

The father of three, 71, who was caught only after a security guard found him filming up the skirt of a female customer in a local supermarket and called the police in 2020, has pleaded guilty to aggravated rape over a period of 10 years.

Gisèle Pelicot, who has become a symbol for feminists angered at France’s failure to respond to the #MeToo movement and confront widespread sexual abuse, has said police saved her life.

Another 30 men shown on almost 20,000 videos and photographs police discovered on a USB drive attached to Dominique Pelicot’s home computer have yet to be identified.

The court case will continue until the end of December. The accused face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The UK is “resolutely committed” to all of its overseas territories, the responsible foreign minister said, after Argentina vowed to gain “full sovereignty” of the Falkland Islands.

Stephen Doughty said on Saturday that the sovereignty of the territories is “not up for negotiation”.

Keir Starmer defended the UK relinquishing control of the Chagos Islands on Friday and said the agreement with Mauritius over the remote archipelago would achieve the “single most important thing” of securing the long-term future of a joint US-UK military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands.

Doughty, minister of state for Europe, North America and overseas territories, wrote on X: “British sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar or any other of our Overseas Territories is not up for negotiation.

“The Chagos Islands are a very different issue with a very different history. The UK remains resolutely committed to all our Overseas Territories.”

Luke Pollard, the armed forces minister, added on X: “UK Armed Forces support our Overseas Territories, protect sovereignty and operational capabilities and our commitment to them remains unwavering and resolute.”

Argentina’s foreign minister, Diana Mondino, promised “concrete action” to ensure that the Falklands, the British-controlled archipelago that Argentina calls the Malvinas and claims as its own, are handed to Buenos Aires.

She said: “Following the path we have already taken, with concrete actions and not empty rhetoric, we will recover full sovereignty over our Malvinas Islands.”

The Falklands’ governor, Alison Blake, has already sought to reassure residents that the UK’s commitment to the territory is “unwavering”.

On Friday, Starmer was asked to guarantee that no other British overseas territories would be signed away, and he responded: “The single most important thing was ensuring that we had a secure base, the joint US-UK base; hugely important to the US, hugely important to us.

“We’ve now secured that and that is why you saw such warm words from the US yesterday,” the prime minister added.

The agreement over the continued UK-US military presence on Diego Garcia is expected to run for 99 years, for which Britain will pay an annual fee.

Supporters of Palestine have taken to the streets in Sydney and Melbourne, a day before the first anniversary of the 7 October attacks by Hamas in Israel.

Rallies were scheduled to take place in cities across Australia, with demonstrators warned not to display symbols linked to designated terrorist groups such as Hezbollah.

While police in New South Wales had sought to block the Sunday rally from taking place, an agreement reached with organisers allowed the event to go ahead with an altered route.

Protesters gathered with signs and Palestinian flags in Sydney’s Hyde Park, where police had placed two large LED screens telling people not to fly Hezbollah flags or imagery with slain leader Hassan Nasrallah.

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In Melbourne’s CBD, people rallied outside the state library, where a speaker led a chant of “there’s no shopping while bombs are dropping” as he directed attenders to march towards Flinders Street.

The crowd was also led in a chant of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

The phrase has been the subject of controversy, with some saying that it advocates the eradication of Israel. Others, including Western Australian senator Fatima Payman, have argued that it is not antisemitic.

Earlier on Sunday, the NSW police minister, Yasmin Catley, told reporters that there would be a “significant police presence” on the streets in Sydney.

“Everybody has a right to express their views, but we need to respect each other in doing that,” Catley said.

There will be “no problem whatsoever” if people do the right thing, but if not, “you can expect to be arrested”, she said.

Asked what would happen if any Hezbollah flags were present at the rally, NSW police force assistant commissioner, Peter McKenna, said organisers had agreed no flags or portraits would be displayed.

McKenna said if anyone was found doing so “and are committing an offence, action will be taken”.

Asked if it was against legislation to display a portrait of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, McKenna said “no it’s not”, but “there is a view in certain circumstances it could be seen as offensive, and we will consider that throughout the operation”.

The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, said the timing of the protests should have been different.

“The protests that are happening over the course of today and tomorrow are deeply regrettable,” he told ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.

“The anniversary of October 7 needs to be about October 7, and what happened on that day was the loss of more than 1,000 innocent lives.

“It’s the anniversary of that that we will be remembering today and tomorrow.”

The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said while he supported the right for people to protest in public, the demonstration should not have been organised near the anniversary.

“My view is that it lacks compassion to hold a rally or a demonstration or a protest on that day,” he told Sky News.

“We’ve got an obligation to keep the public safe in a difficult time, and when tensions are high, there’s a high prospect of clashes or violence on Sydney streets.

“Most people would agree that we’re not going to do much about Middle Eastern violence from Sydney, and we have to do everything we possibly can to prevent that kind of violence in Sydney.”

The opposition home affairs spokesperson, James Paterson, said the federal government should have made a bigger effort to persuade community leaders not to have the protest.

Though a decision on whether rallies would be able to go ahead lay with state police forces, Paterson repeated calls for the rally to be held at a different time.

“[Anthony Albanese] should have gone direct to community leaders and used the relationships and the status of the office of prime minister that he holds to say ‘this is unacceptable and it must not proceed’,” he told Sky News.

“We’re not saying that you can’t protest the Palestinian cause, we’re just saying pick any other day of the year than October 7.”

Labor MP Josh Burns said there was no way for the federal government to intervene with the pro-Palestine rallies.

He said Jewish Australians needed to be allowed to grieve on the anniversary.

“I don’t think that the message of protesting on October 7 does anything else other than really make people who are grieving feel even more upset and more uncomfortable,” he told Sky News.

More than 1,200 people were killed on the 7 October attack and 250 were taken hostage, according to the Israeli government.

In response, Israel unleashed a bombing campaign and ground invasion of Gaza, killing almost 42,000 people, displacing 1.9 million and leaving another 500,000 with catastrophic levels of food insecurity, local health ministry sources report.

Israel’s military campaign has now spread to Lebanon as it hunts down senior figures in Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group backed by Iran and designated a terrorist organisation by Australia.

Supporters of Palestine have taken to the streets in Sydney and Melbourne, a day before the first anniversary of the 7 October attacks by Hamas in Israel.

Rallies were scheduled to take place in cities across Australia, with demonstrators warned not to display symbols linked to designated terrorist groups such as Hezbollah.

While police in New South Wales had sought to block the Sunday rally from taking place, an agreement reached with organisers allowed the event to go ahead with an altered route.

Protesters gathered with signs and Palestinian flags in Sydney’s Hyde Park, where police had placed two large LED screens telling people not to fly Hezbollah flags or imagery with slain leader Hassan Nasrallah.

• Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

In Melbourne’s CBD, people rallied outside the state library, where a speaker led a chant of “there’s no shopping while bombs are dropping” as he directed attenders to march towards Flinders Street.

The crowd was also led in a chant of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

The phrase has been the subject of controversy, with some saying that it advocates the eradication of Israel. Others, including Western Australian senator Fatima Payman, have argued that it is not antisemitic.

Earlier on Sunday, the NSW police minister, Yasmin Catley, told reporters that there would be a “significant police presence” on the streets in Sydney.

“Everybody has a right to express their views, but we need to respect each other in doing that,” Catley said.

There will be “no problem whatsoever” if people do the right thing, but if not, “you can expect to be arrested”, she said.

Asked what would happen if any Hezbollah flags were present at the rally, NSW police force assistant commissioner, Peter McKenna, said organisers had agreed no flags or portraits would be displayed.

McKenna said if anyone was found doing so “and are committing an offence, action will be taken”.

Asked if it was against legislation to display a portrait of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, McKenna said “no it’s not”, but “there is a view in certain circumstances it could be seen as offensive, and we will consider that throughout the operation”.

The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, said the timing of the protests should have been different.

“The protests that are happening over the course of today and tomorrow are deeply regrettable,” he told ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.

“The anniversary of October 7 needs to be about October 7, and what happened on that day was the loss of more than 1,000 innocent lives.

“It’s the anniversary of that that we will be remembering today and tomorrow.”

The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said while he supported the right for people to protest in public, the demonstration should not have been organised near the anniversary.

“My view is that it lacks compassion to hold a rally or a demonstration or a protest on that day,” he told Sky News.

“We’ve got an obligation to keep the public safe in a difficult time, and when tensions are high, there’s a high prospect of clashes or violence on Sydney streets.

“Most people would agree that we’re not going to do much about Middle Eastern violence from Sydney, and we have to do everything we possibly can to prevent that kind of violence in Sydney.”

The opposition home affairs spokesperson, James Paterson, said the federal government should have made a bigger effort to persuade community leaders not to have the protest.

Though a decision on whether rallies would be able to go ahead lay with state police forces, Paterson repeated calls for the rally to be held at a different time.

“[Anthony Albanese] should have gone direct to community leaders and used the relationships and the status of the office of prime minister that he holds to say ‘this is unacceptable and it must not proceed’,” he told Sky News.

“We’re not saying that you can’t protest the Palestinian cause, we’re just saying pick any other day of the year than October 7.”

Labor MP Josh Burns said there was no way for the federal government to intervene with the pro-Palestine rallies.

He said Jewish Australians needed to be allowed to grieve on the anniversary.

“I don’t think that the message of protesting on October 7 does anything else other than really make people who are grieving feel even more upset and more uncomfortable,” he told Sky News.

More than 1,200 people were killed on the 7 October attack and 250 were taken hostage, according to the Israeli government.

In response, Israel unleashed a bombing campaign and ground invasion of Gaza, killing almost 42,000 people, displacing 1.9 million and leaving another 500,000 with catastrophic levels of food insecurity, local health ministry sources report.

Israel’s military campaign has now spread to Lebanon as it hunts down senior figures in Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group backed by Iran and designated a terrorist organisation by Australia.

Hollywood star Keanu Reeves made his professional auto racing debut on Saturday in an event in which The Matrix star spun out at famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Reeves spun into the grass without a collision on the exit of turn nine a little more than halfway through the 45-minute race. He re-entered and continued driving, signaling he was uninjured.

Reeves, who qualified 31st out of the 35 cars, ran as high as 21st and successfully avoided a first lap crash in turn 14. Reeves finished 25th.

Reeves, who is 60 years old, is competing at Indianapolis in Toyota GR Cup, a Toyota spec-racing series and a support series for this weekend’s Indy 8 Hour sports car event. He has a second race Sunday.

Reeves is driving the No 92 BRZRKR car, which is promoting his graphic novel The Book of Elsewhere. He is teammates with Cody Jones from Dude Perfect.

Reeves has previous racing experience as a former participant in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach in the celebrity race. Reeves won the event in 2009.

He is scheduled to attend a 30th anniversary screening of Speed on Tuesday in Los Angeles alongside his co-star Sandra Bullock.

Florida is expected to get walloped by another hurricane next week, just 10 days after it was hit by Hurricane Helene, which caused widespread storm surge and wind damage before it moved inland to cause devastating flooding.

The latest system, Tropical Storm Milton, formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday. Forecasters expect the storm to quickly strengthen into a hurricane and rush toward Florida in the next few days.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Florida said Milton, which could become a hurricane on Monday, is expected to bring surge and high winds to the recovering west coast and serious flood risks to south and central Florida.

Jamie Rhome, the deputy director of the NHC in Miami, said Milton could develop into a “potentially very impactful hurricane” and hit Florida’s Gulf coast on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Milton is expected to pack maximum sustained winds of 110mph when it makes landfall near St Petersburg and Tampa as a category 2 to category 3 hurricane, Rhome said. Category 3 and above are considered “major” hurricanes.

On Saturday afternoon, Milton was about 220 miles (354km) north/north-east of Veracruz, Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 40mph and expected to quickly move east/north-east across the Gulf of Mexico.

“Regardless of where the storm tracks, it’s going to produce a large area of heavy rain and potential flooding,” Rhome said.

“Even if this doesn’t realize a high-end wind core, it will have the potential for significant surge inundation,” Andrew Moore, a meteorologist for Arch Reinsurance, wrote on X.

A major factor in predicting Milton’s increasing strength is that surface sea temperatures, or SST’s, did not cool off after Helene passed over and remain significantly above normal.

“Most of the Gulf is above-average SST still, and the loop current is prominent. Shelf south of Tampa is extremely warm as well. Lots of potential fuel,” wrote Andy Hazelton, an associate scientist at the hurricane research department at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Separately, the NHC said another storm, already listed as Hurricane Kirk, is generating swells in the Atlantic ocean affecting the east coast of the US but not expected make US landfall, with another storm, Hurricane Leslie, not far behind.

Scientists are embarking on a large-scale clinical study of new personalised cancer therapies which could give clinicians are real-time view of how well treatments are working.

The £9m partnership between the Francis Crick Institute, five NHS trusts, charities and bioscience companies will spend four years examining the effectiveness of new immunotherapy treatments and exploring new ways to detect cancer.

The scheme is one of several new research projects given the green light by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology as part of a £118m package that will create five new hubs across the UK to develop new health technologies, including cheaper scanners, AI cancer diagnoses and testing new drugs more quickly through micro-dosing.

The Manifest project, led by the Crick Institute, will examine tumours and blood samples from 3,000 patients who have suffered from cancer in an attempt to identify which biomarkers – such as genes, proteins or molecules – might indicate whether someone has an undetected cancer or whether the disease might return.

This could make the new wave of immunotherapy cancer treatments more effective. Immunotherapy is seen as a promising form of cancer treatment because it stimulates a patient’s immune system to kill tumours, rather than the “cut, burn, poison” approaches of surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Prof Samra Turajlic, clinical group leader at the Crick Institute and a consultant medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden hospital, has been treating melanoma, a skin cancer, for nearly 20 years.

“When I started, people were dying from advanced melanoma, usually within six months,” she said. Now more than half of people with advanced melanoma who receive immunotherapy survive for at least 10 years.

The problem is, Turajlic said: “We don’t know who will benefit and who will just have side-effects.” And immunotherapies have only been discovered so far to work against certain types of cancer. The Manifest project will focus on four: melanoma, kidney cancer, bladder cancer and triple negative breast cancer.

There has been an explosion of immunotherapy treatments around the world, but studies are often done on such a small scale it can be hard for doctors to know which will be effective for particular patients. Biomarkers offer a potential solution.

“What we want to use the biomarkers for is to say whether the treatment is going to work or not,” Turajlic said. “We believe that no single biomarker is really going to give us the answer, because there is a huge complexity in the interaction between the cancer and immune system.

“So we’re going to take a very large number of measurements from patients: tumour samples, patients’ blood, from the microbiome, and combine that into a test to understand which has the most predictive power. That’s not something that’s been done at scale before.”

They will also be recruiting 3,000 more patients through partnerships with the Royal Marsden and Barts Cancer Institute in London, the Christie in Manchester, NHS Lothian in Edinburgh, and Cambridge University Hospitals. Other partners include the Cancer Research UK Biomarker Centre in Manchester and IMU Biosciences.

Other schemes at five hubs being created by UK Research and Innovation include portable imaging tools to help surgeons identify cancers and remove tumours, and a new cross-NHS digital pathology data network that will pool data for research teams to access.

“Cancer is a devastating disease that has touched every family in the UK, including my own,” said Peter Kyle, the science and technology secretary.

Those “amazing innovations … could transform the way we treat this awful disease and give hope to those facing it”, he added.

“They could open up capacity in our NHS, alleviating the pressures that we can all quite clearly see. They could put UK companies at the forefront of lucrative emerging industries.

“They have the potential to grow the economy – leveraging our health system and research sector as an engine-room for growth – and in turn unlocking the funding we need to do even more to back our innovators, and invest in our public services.”

Wes Streeting, the health and social care secretary, said: “As a cancer survivor, I know how vital an early cancer diagnosis and the latest treatments are. This investment will not only save lives, but also secure Britain’s status as a powerhouse for life sciences and medical technology.”

As the curtain falls on every performance of The Mousetrap, the world’s longest-running play, applauding audience members are famously urged not to go on to reveal the secret solution to the murder mystery.

This autumn, however, a fresh element of intrigue has been added to the plot of Agatha Christie’s enduring hit, which first opened in 1952 at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal.

The new twist was seeded back in 1997, when an eager 11-year-old schoolboy decided to stage his own production in his school hall in Windsor. And only now is the final act being played out.

“I’d suddenly got into reading Agatha Christie and I was already obsessed with the theatre, so I bought a collection of her plays and copied pages of the script,” said Alasdair Buchan, now 37. “I really wanted to do it, but I don’t think my teachers at the small choir school that’s attached to the castle’s St George’s Chapel were hugely keen.”

The show went on regardless, for one night only, with a cast of 11-year-old boys, including Buchan, who also directed.

Buchan and the cast also travelled up to the capital to watch the real professional production a few days before their own performance. After the London show, they met the stars at the stage door. Each boy got an autograph and they promised to send them the programme they had made.

History does not record how the school play went down in Windsor, but a few weeks later the headteacher received an unexpected and stern “cease and desist” letter from the lawyers of the London producers. It threatened future action over the pupils’ recent staging.

“I was called in to see the headmaster and was terribly worried,” said Buchan.

“Back then my school managed to smooth things over and, thankfully, I was not blacklisted by the producers.”

In fact, Buchan will now join the West End cast of The Mousetrap at St Martin’s Theatre in the role of Mr Paravicini, the mysterious foreign stranger.

Buchan will take to the stage for nine shows a week over six months. “Funnily enough, when I read the script through before the audition, I remembered the lines I’d once had. Also, because I’d directed it, whole passages of dialogue came back and I was amazed how much of the structure I still knew.”

In Buchan’s school production, the eight boys played all the characters. “It was a co-ed school, but we boarders were boys. So my brother played the character of Miss Casewell.”

The schoolboys had been accompanied up to see the West End show by Buchan’s mother. “My own experience of stage doors now is that there’s usually no one there, unless you have a particular celebrity in the cast. It was manic, for example, when I was in Richard II with Martin Freeman, but most of the time it’s fairly dead.

“So I imagine the actors in 1997 were rather surprised to find eight pre-teen boys holding out our messy, A4 scripts to be signed.”

Buchan later sent in the colourful programme he had made for his show. “Some jobsworth then clearly saw it and a serious legal letter went out, demanding royalties and asking what money we had made.”

By Christie’s death in 1976, The Mousetrap had made more than £3m. But she had earlier given the copyright to her nine-year-old grandson, Mathew Prichard, as a birthday present. He later set up the Colwinston Charitable Trust in 1995 to use the royalties to support arts charities, chiefly in Wales. The show is now run by Mousetrap Productions.

Buchan, who co-founded the online theatre initiative “ReadThrough” during the pandemic lockdown of 2021, recalls often being bored at school, believing he wasn’t as musical as other pupils. For him, mounting The Mousetrap was an escape. “When I think back to it, I am amazed at the enormous amount of work we all did on it,” he said.

“And it was a success, in as far as we got from the beginning to the end. There [were] certainly boys who did not know their lines and we lost the plot a little bit at the end.

“I remember standing in the wings and trying to improve the acting by shouting at my brother, ‘Cry! Cry!’ I was quite a nice brother otherwise.”