Israel will hold memorials for the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks on Monday as the war it launched in response escalates on two fronts, with heavy bombing raids and mass evacuation orders issued in Lebanon and Gaza amid the growing possibility of a retaliatory airstrike against Iran.

As Israelis across the country prepared to mark one year since Hamas launched its devastating attack, a region that has spiralled into unprecedented crisis was on high alert. In Israel, authorities said they were on the lookout for attacks timed to coincide with the anniversary after a gunman opened fire on pedestrians in a central bus station in a city in the Negev desert, killing one and wounding 10 in the second attack in the last week.

In Iran, airports announced on Sunday afternoon that they would cancel all flights in a potential indication that Tehran expected Israeli jets could strike in a raid that could be targeted against Iranian military, oil, or even nuclear production. However, flight restrictions were lifted after “ensuring safe conditions”, Iranian media said.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed to retaliate against Iran for a recent ballistic missile strike on Israel but said he would choose the time and place. Washington has pleaded with him not to cross red lines that could send the region further into an all-out war.

Senior White House and Pentagon officials have been in consultations with Israel over its expected retaliatory strike. Joe Biden has urged Netanyahu not to target Iranian nuclear or oil production, potentially prompting retaliatory attacks from Iran against vulnerable Israeli infrastructure.

At the same time, the Biden administration looks increasingly unable to limit either Israel’s brinkmanship with Iran or its ground operations against the militias in Gaza and Lebanon that Tehran supports.

For the first time in months, Israel sent a column of tanks into northern Gaza and launched major operations there, surrounding Jabalia, the largest of strip’s eight historic refugee camps, as strikes hit a mosque and a school in attacks that killed 24 and wounded nearly 100, according to the local Hamas-controlled government.

The escalation in Gaza came after Israel’s attention largely had refocused toward its incursion into southern Lebanon, the largest military operation there since 2006. It appeared to defy analysts who said Israel would not attempt to fight a two-front war in both Lebanon and Gaza, as well as a tit-for-tat battle of airstrikes with Iran.

But on Sunday, Israel issued a new blanket evacuation order for all of the northern Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of civilians remain, as a military spokesperson declared a “new phase of the war” against Hamas.

Local aid workers said the mosque, which was near al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, had housed people who had been displaced in earlier bombing raids. The Israeli military claimed that the mosque had been a “Hamas command post”.

Netanyahu visited troops near the Lebanese border on Sunday for the first time and declared that Israel would “emerge victorious” in the conflict, as European leaders including Keir Starmer issued renewed calls for a ceasefire to halt the simultaneous wars in Lebanon and Gaza that have killed more than 42,000 people in the last year.

Late on Sunday night, Beirut’s southern suburbs came under renewed Israeli bombing with large fireballs and loud booms over the darkened skyline. Israeli attacks in the area, which is a stronghold for the Shia militia Hezbollah, have continued at such a high pace that rescue workers have been unable to access the area for days.

Earlier on Sunday, an IDF spokesperson issued an “urgent warning to the residents of the southern suburbs to leave these areas.

In the early hours of Monday, Hezbollah said it had targeted an Israeli military base near the northern city of Haifa. Israeli media reported 10 people were injured, while police said that some buildings and properties were damaged.

Elsewhere in Israel, one woman was killed and 10 people were wounded in the suspected terror attack at the central bus station in Be’er Sheva, a city in the Negev desert in southern Israel. The assailant, identified as Ahmad al-Uqbi, 29, was killed by police.

Photos and video posted on social media showed images of at least one person lying on the ground in a pool of blood next to a McDonald’s close to the bus station. In another video, gunshots could be heard as law enforcement officers ran through the station toward the shooting.

After the attack, Miri Regev, Israel’s transportation minister, wrote that the family of the suspected attacker should be deported from the country. “The time has come for a deterrent punishment that prevents attacks on Israeli territory,” she wrote on X.

As part of Monday’s commemorations for the Hamas attack, in which more than 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage, the president, Isaac Herzog, said he would conduct a three-day tour of the border communities along Gaza, beginning at the site of the Nova music festival near the Re’im kibbutz, where 364 people were killed. Israel’s ensuing invasion of Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including at least 16,000 children.

As the anniversary of 7 October neared, Hamas on Sunday praised the attack as “glorious”.

“The crossing of the glorious 7 October shattered the illusions the enemy had created for itself, convincing the world and the region of its supposed superiority and capabilities,” Qatar-based Hamas member Khalil al-Hayya said in a video statement.

The anticipated retaliation against Iran follows a strike by Tehran that included more than 180 missiles, according to Israel, and managed to hit a crucial airbase more than 30 times.

Speaking on Sunday, Yoav Gallant, the Israeli minister of defence, said the bombing had not affected the air force’s ability to operate, and vowed that Israel would strike back against Iran at a time of its choosing.

“The Iranians did not touch the air force’s capabilities – no aircraft was damaged, no squadron was taken out of order,” Gallant said during a visit to the Nevatim airbase. He added: “Whoever thinks that a mere attempt to harm us will deter us from taking action should take a look at [Israel’s campaigns] in Gaza and Beirut.”

Meanwhile, Netanyahu visited troops from the 36th division, one of two divisions sent there for combat operations, along the Lebanese border. In remarks, the prime minister said he wished to “extend my deepest condolences to the families of our heroes who fell today in Lebanon”.

Israel has said dozens of its soldiers have been injured in Lebanon in the last week of combat, while Hezbollah claimed to have killed 20 soldiers over this weekend. “We’re in the heat of a gruelling war against Iran’s axis of evil, aimed at destroying us,” Netanyahu said. “That will not happen, because we shall stand together, and with God’s help, we shall emerge victorious together.”

Iran’s foreign minister on Saturday warned that Tehran would retaliate if attacked by Israel. “Our reaction to any attack by the Zionist regime is completely clear,” Abbas Araghchi told reporters during a trip to Syria. “For every action, there will be a proportional and similar reaction from Iran, and even stronger.”

As a powerful barrage of Israeli airstrikes pummelled Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight, cousins Nader Ismail and Lyne Nassar sat on a balcony in a nearby Baabda overwhelmed with shock. Ismail said the terror made him freeze where he sat, while Nassar said she stood up suddenly before sitting down and attempting to calm herself about what is now a near nightly occurrence.

“It felt like we could feel the pressure waves from the bombings washing over us,” said Nassar. “The windows shook, the whole building shook. It was traumatising.”

The 21-year-old medical student and her family first fled Beirut’s southern suburbs for the town of Aley in the mountains around the capital in late August, initially as a precaution. Ismail, 20, and his family joined them for the second time 10 days ago, fleeing the bombardments striking the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh and driving out residents to other parts of the city and surrounding areas.

The cousins said the family home in the mountains is now so full with people that they had decided to take a break at the apartment in Baabda, even though it is closer to the airstrikes, but the intense wave of attacks that sent columns of smoke and fire into the night sky overnight has forced them to relocate back to Aley.

The two students and their families are struggling to adapt quickly to the new reality of wartime, where the strikes have upended the lives of people across Beirut. In some parts of the city north of Dahiyeh, shops, bars and restaurants remain open but sometimes with limited hours, as people attempt to maintain a sense of normalcy and hope for a swift end to the conflict.

Elsewhere, roads that are normally clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic are conspicuously empty, with many that once filled the streets departing for the mountains around Beirut. One gym manager in the Achrafiyeh neighbourhood complained he had lost more than 100 members of his client base, as most have departed for other areas as a precaution, while those who are able have fled the country entirely.

“The neighbourhood now is emptying out; a lot of middle- and upper-class people have gone to the north of Lebanon or the mountains,” said Mansour Aziz, the owner of Mezyan restaurant and bar in the heart of west Beirut’s Hamra district, a place long known for its bustling nightlife.

Business had dipped by almost 80% over the last year as people stayed home to fearfully watch news of Israel’s war in Gaza, fearing what could happen in Lebanon, he said.

“But now with this recent onslaught, the situation is very tense,” he said. “Things have changed – and obviously people are not in the mood to go out. The irony is that if you go north to Batroun or to the mountains, people are out and about.”

He added: “I’m bracing for the worst to come – there’s talk of food supplies being affected. A lot of the big meat and vegetable suppliers are farmers in the south and the Bekaa, so if these lines are cut and farmers are fleeing, how is food going to reach us?”

The sense of a new reality was compounded on Sunday when Lebanon’s education minister, Abbas Halabi, further delayed the new start date for the public school year to 4 November, citing the “security risks” from the Israeli airstrikes. Public school buildings across the country have now been converted into makeshift shelters housing more than 1 million displaced from across southern Lebanon and Beirut, and UN officials said late last week that almost 900 of these shelters are now full.

Private schools and universities are trying to figure out whether they can move to online classes or shutter on a rolling basis. Nassar, who is in her third year as a medical student at the Lebanese University, pointed to the nightly bombardments that have struck close to its Laylaki campus in southern Beirut, and the uncertainty about when classes might resume.

The semester was due to start on the day in late September that a wave of Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed 492 people and injured 1,645, she said, but it was delayed by a week. With the decision from the education minister to delay until early November, Nassar is uncertain when classes might resume given the damage to their campus.

“If the strikes continue like this, there’s no way we can attend university as it’s so close by,” she said. Her parents are using their experience of the last time they fled southern Beirut, during Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah, to keep them calm, she added.

The mall near the university campus where until recently Nassar used to meet her four closest friends to shop and spend hours chatting in the food court cafes has shuttered apart from a large supermarket inside, she said. Their group chat is now focused on ensuring the one friend who stayed behind survives the nightly airstrikes, doling out advice to make sure she opens the windows to avoid broken glass during the bombings.

Ismail said the Antonine University where he studies computer science said late last week it would switch to online classes, which he dislikes.

“It’s hard to study, the house is crowded and there’s stress from hearing the bombings,” he said.

Nassar said that Aley is noticeably busier due to the influx of people. “The shops are open, the supermarkets are open but there’s a lot more traffic than usual, due to all the people coming. We’re starting to see a shortage of goods in the supermarket,” she added. “Basic things, like you might not always find toilet paper.”

A call by Emmanuel Macron for a halt in arms supplies to Israel for use in Gaza has been met with an angry rebuttal from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The French president’s comments were directed mainly at the US and were part of continuing French efforts to revive its call for a ceasefire in Lebanon.

France provides few arms to Israel but is keen to strengthen its longstanding influence in Lebanon by showing it wants the US to put some genuine pressure on Israel to accept a ceasefire. Washington appeared to mount little diplomatic resistance when Israel – after sending mixed signals – rejected a US-French plan for a 21 day ceasefire in Lebanon announced at the UN in New York nearly a fortnight ago.

In an interview recorded on Monday, but broadcast on Saturday, Macron told France Inter radio: “I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop supplying weapons to lead the fighting in Gaza.”

“France is not supplying them,” he immediately clarified, indirectly turning the spotlight on the US, Israel’s main arms supplier. He also warned about “a resentment that is being born, a hatred that is being fuelled by this” . Lebanon could not be turned into another Gaza, he added.

Repeating his call on Sunday, Macron’s office said he favoured a halt to arms exports for use in Gaza because a ceasefire is needed to stop the mounting violence and “clear the way to the political solutions needed for the security of Israel and the whole Middle East”.

His comments brought a swift response from Netanyahu. “As Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran, all civilised countries should be standing firmly by Israel’s side,” he said in a statement. “Yet, President Macron and other western leaders are now calling for arms embargoes against Israel. Shame on them.”

Macron also announced he was convening an international conference on aid to Lebanon and the establishment of Lebanese government armed troops on the border with Israel.

The Israeli attacks on Lebanon are designed to destroy the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group that has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, which mounted the attack on Israel from Gaza on 7 October 2023.

Macron’s remarks, welcomed by the Lebanese, Qatari and Egyptian governments as well as the Palestinian Authority, may reflect French concern that some officials in the White House appeared to be willing to be relaxed to the point of welcoming the Israeli rejection of the French-US plan for a 21-day ceasefire. Few US officials have condemned Israel for escalating the conflict.

The headline row about arms sales comes amid diplomatic efforts to end a two-year deadlock in Lebanon about the election of a president. With Hezbollah having sustained heavy losses to its leadership from Israeli strikes, there is pressure on the group’s political wing to let the election go ahead and for the military wing to accept a peace deal decoupled from a ceasefire in Gaza. Hezbollah’s stated position until recently has been no elections preceding a ceasefire in Lebanon, and no ceasefire in Lebanon without a ceasefire in Gaza.

Since the end of the term of the former president Michel Aoun in 2022, Lebanon has been in political deadlock with its 128 strong factionalised parliament unable to secure the required constitutional majority for any candidate.

The US is said to be in favour of exploiting Hezbollah’s weakness to install as president the army commander-in-chief, Gen Joseph Aoun. It is unlikely Tehran would be willing to back such a move..

An explosion near the international airport of the southern Pakistani city of Karachi has killed two Chinese nationals and injured several others, officials from both countries said.

Police and the provincial government said a tanker exploded outside the airport, which is Pakistan’s biggest, on Sunday night. The nature of the blast was not immediately clear, the local broadcaster Geo News cited a provincial official as saying.

In a statement emailed to journalists, the separatist militant group Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed the explosion was an attack carried out by them using a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device targeting “a high-level convoy of Chinese engineers and investors” coming from Karachi’s airport.

The Chinese embassy in Pakistan said a convoy carrying Chinese staff of the Port Qasim Electric Power Company had been attacked at around 11pm. It condemned what it said was a “terrorist attack”, and urged a thorough investigation to punish the perpetrators.

“The Chinese Embassy and Consulates General in Pakistan strongly condemn this terrorist attack, express deep condolences to the innocent victims of both countries and sincere sympathies to the injured and (their) families,” it said in a statement.

Videos showed flames engulfing cars and a thick column of smoke rising from the scene. There was a heavy military deployment at the site, which was cordoned off.

Local official Azfar Mahesar told reporters that it seemed like an oil tanker explosion. “We are determining the nature and reasons for the blast. It takes time.” Police officers were among the injured, he added.

Rahat Hussain, who works in the civil aviation department, said the blast was so big that it shook the airport’s buildings.

Thousands of Chinese workers are in Pakistan, many of them involved in an “economic corridor” between the two countries that is a flagship section of Beijing’s multibillion-dollar belt and road initiative, which seeks to connect the Chinese capital with south and central Asia and beyond.

The BLA seeks independence for the province of Balochistan, located in Pakistan’s south-west and bordering on Afghanistan and Iran. In August, it launched coordinated attacks in the province, in which more than 70 people were killed.

The BLA specifically targets Chinese interests, in particular the strategic port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, accusing Beijing of helping Islamabad exploit the province. It has killed Chinese citizens working in the region and attacked Beijing’s consulate in Karachi.

Pakistan’s civil aviation authority said flights from Karachi were continuing “as usual” and “agencies are investigating the cause at the scene of the accident/explosion”.

With Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse

Florida has expanded its state of emergency as it braces for a major storm expect to pummel the state’s western peninsula by midweek, after Tropical Storm Milton gathered strength and was declared a category 1 hurricane on Sunday.

The impending landfall of Milton comes days after Hurricane Helene caused devastation and destruction through large swaths of Florida and other parts of the south-east of the US including North Carolina. The death toll stands at 230 people, and is expected to rise.

Forecasters expect Milton to continue to build, and could approach a category 3 hurricane or higher as it hits the Florida peninsula on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. The National Weather Service said there could be life-threatening storm surge and damaging winds, and urged local residents to follow evacuation orders as counties began to prepare for Milton’s arrival.

Kevin Guthrie, director of Florida’s emergency management division, urged people to prepare for the “largest evacuation that we have seen most likely since 2017 Hurricane Irma”. More than 6.8 million people were evacuated for Irma.

“I highly encourage you to evacuate,” Guthrie told Floridians in a press conference.

The Tampa Bay Times reported that 51 counties are under a state of emergency which had been expanded Sunday morning as Milton strengthened.

Counties on Florida’s west coast were readying for the storm surge and flooding. Pinellas county issued mandatory evacuation orders for six hospitals, 25 nursing homes and 44 assisted living facilities, totaling about 6,600 patients, according to the county’s emergency management department. Pasco county issued mandatory evacuations to go into effect Monday at 10am for all those living in low-lying or flood-prone areas.

Residents in parts of Florida whose lives have been upended by Helene now worry that a second wave of catastrophe could be imminent as debris left by the first disaster is shifted in further overpowering rains.

Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, said on Sunday that while it remains to be seen just where Milton will strike, it’s clear that Florida is going to be hit hard – “I don’t think there’s any scenario where we don’t have major impacts at this point.”

As many as 4,000 National Guard troops are helping state crews to remove debris, DeSantis said, and he directed that Florida crews dispatched to North Carolina in Helene’s aftermath return to the state to prepare for Milton.

“All available state assets … are being marshaled to help remove debris,” DeSantis said. “We’re going 24-7 … it’s all hands on deck.”

Florida is the state mostly directly in the current expected path of Milton but the National Weather Service in Wilmington North Carolina warned that local impacts in north-east South Carolina and south-east North Carolina “are currently expected to be high surf & strong rip currents along with gusty winds along the coast”.

Joe Biden on Sunday ordered an additional 500 US troops to be sent into the hurricane-stricken area of North Carolina, bringing the total of active-duty troops assisting with response and recovery to 1,500. That is on top of 6,000 national guards personnel and 7,000 federal workers.

“My administration is sparing no resource to support families,” the president said.

The new storm barreling towards the western coast of Florida presents the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Fema, with a whole new level of crises. The agency has already had to respond to swirling misinformation concerning Helene, amplified on the presidential campaign trail by Donald Trump and his surrogates.

Helene made landfall on the Florida Gulf coast on 26 September. It then ripped through Georgia and North Carolina, both of which are battleground states that are being aggressively fought over by the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns.

The Fema administrator, Deanne Criswell, told ABC News’s This Week on Sunday that claims put out by the Trump campaign that millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money had been diverted from disaster relief to house undocumented immigrants were “frankly ridiculous and just plain false”. Criswell condemned what she called a “truly dangerous narrative”.

She added that “this kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people. It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people”.

On Thursday, Trump told a rally in Saginaw, Michigan, that his Democratic opponent, the Vice-President Kamala Harris, had “spent all her Fema money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal immigrants”. Then on Sunday Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law and the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, told CNN’s State of the Union that “you have migrants being housed in luxury hotels in New York City”.

She added: “We have paid so much money from our tax dollars into the crisis that didn’t need to happen.”

The Trump line that federal funds are being redirected away from hurricane relief to housing immigrants is false. Fema does have an immigration housing fund known as the Shelter and Services Program which has been granted $650m by Congress this year, but it is separate from disaster response.

Fema has indicated that it has enough resources to deal with Helene, but may need additional funds in the event of further calamities during the hurricane season.

Trump’s falsehoods have received some pushback from Republican leaders. Thom Tillis, the US senator from North Carolina, disputed the claim that funds had been diverted to immigrants.

“We could have a discussion about the failure of this administration’s border policies and the billions of dollars it’s costing. But right now, not yet is it affecting the flow of resources to western North Carolina,” he told CBS News’s Face the Nation.

A Royal New Zealand Navy vessel has run aground and sunk off Samoa – the first time the navy has lost a ship since the second world war – , the New Zealand Defence Force said in a statement on Sunday.

Manawanui, the navy’s specialist dive and hydrographic vessel, ran aground near the southern coast of Upolu on Saturday night as it was conducting a reef survey, Commodore Shane Arndell, the maritime component commander of the New Zealand Defence Force, said in a statement. All 75 crew and passengers were safe.

Late on Sunday Samoa’s acting prime minister said an oil spill was “highly probable” as a result of the sinking.

Officials in Samoa were conducting an environmental impact assessment in the area where the ship sank, Tuala Tevaga Iosefo Ponifasio said in a statement.

Several vessels responded and assisted in rescuing the crew and passengers who had left the ship in lifeboats, Arndell said.

A Royal New Zealand air force P-8A Poseidon was also deployed to assist in the rescue. The cause of the grounding was unknown and would need further investigation, New Zealand Defence Force said.

Video and photos published on local media showed the Manawanui, which cost the New Zealand government NZ$103m in 2018, listing heavily and with plumes of thick grey smoke rising after it ran aground.

The vessel later capsized and was below the surface by 9am local time, New Zealand Defence Force said.

The agency said it was “working with authorities to understand the implications and minimise the environmental impacts”.

Chief of Navy Rear Adm Garin Golding told a press conference in Auckland that a plane would leave for Samoa on Sunday to bring the rescued crew and passengers back to New Zealand.

He said some of those rescued had suffered minor injuries, including from walking across a reef.

Defence minister Judith Collins described the grounding as a “really challenging for everybody on board.“

“I know that what has happened is going to take quite a bit of time to process,” Collins told the press conference.

“I look forward to pinpointing the cause so that we can learn from it and avoid a repeat,” she said, adding that an immediate focus was to salvage “what is left” of the vessel.

Rescue operations were coordinated by Samoan emergency services and Australian Defence personnel with the assistance of the New Zealand rescue centre, according to a statement from Samoa Police, Prison and Corrections Service posted on Facebook.

Manawanui is used to conduct a range of specialist diving, salvage and survey tasks around New Zealand and across the south-west Pacific.

New Zealand’s navy is already working at reduced capacity with three of its nine ships idle due to personnel shortages.

With Reuters and Associated Press

A Royal New Zealand Navy vessel has run aground and sunk off Samoa – the first time the navy has lost a ship since the second world war – , the New Zealand Defence Force said in a statement on Sunday.

Manawanui, the navy’s specialist dive and hydrographic vessel, ran aground near the southern coast of Upolu on Saturday night as it was conducting a reef survey, Commodore Shane Arndell, the maritime component commander of the New Zealand Defence Force, said in a statement. All 75 crew and passengers were safe.

Late on Sunday Samoa’s acting prime minister said an oil spill was “highly probable” as a result of the sinking.

Officials in Samoa were conducting an environmental impact assessment in the area where the ship sank, Tuala Tevaga Iosefo Ponifasio said in a statement.

Several vessels responded and assisted in rescuing the crew and passengers who had left the ship in lifeboats, Arndell said.

A Royal New Zealand air force P-8A Poseidon was also deployed to assist in the rescue. The cause of the grounding was unknown and would need further investigation, New Zealand Defence Force said.

Video and photos published on local media showed the Manawanui, which cost the New Zealand government NZ$103m in 2018, listing heavily and with plumes of thick grey smoke rising after it ran aground.

The vessel later capsized and was below the surface by 9am local time, New Zealand Defence Force said.

The agency said it was “working with authorities to understand the implications and minimise the environmental impacts”.

Chief of Navy Rear Adm Garin Golding told a press conference in Auckland that a plane would leave for Samoa on Sunday to bring the rescued crew and passengers back to New Zealand.

He said some of those rescued had suffered minor injuries, including from walking across a reef.

Defence minister Judith Collins described the grounding as a “really challenging for everybody on board.“

“I know that what has happened is going to take quite a bit of time to process,” Collins told the press conference.

“I look forward to pinpointing the cause so that we can learn from it and avoid a repeat,” she said, adding that an immediate focus was to salvage “what is left” of the vessel.

Rescue operations were coordinated by Samoan emergency services and Australian Defence personnel with the assistance of the New Zealand rescue centre, according to a statement from Samoa Police, Prison and Corrections Service posted on Facebook.

Manawanui is used to conduct a range of specialist diving, salvage and survey tasks around New Zealand and across the south-west Pacific.

New Zealand’s navy is already working at reduced capacity with three of its nine ships idle due to personnel shortages.

With Reuters and Associated Press

Kamala Harris has embarked on a week-long media blitz, hurtling from TV studios and late-night shows to podcast interviews as she seeks to gain an edge over Donald Trump in the US election’s key battleground states that remain nail-bitingly close.

The vice-president’s decision to face a raft of largely friendly media outlets came as the campaigns entered the final 30 days. More than 1.4 million Americans have already cast their ballots in early voting across 30 states.

The Democratic nominee’s whirlwind media tour has been carefully crafted for maximum reach and minimum risk. Harris has talked to the CBS News show 60 Minutes, along with the popular podcast Call Her Daddy.

On Tuesday she hits the media capital, New York, for appearances on ABC News’s daytime behemoth The View and the Howard Stern Show, followed by a recording with late-night host Stephen Colbert.

The first of a flurry of comments from Harris was put out by 60 Minutes on Sunday before a full broadcast on Monday. Harris will appear alone, after Trump declined to be interviewed by the election special which has been a staple of US election coverage for more than half a century.

In a short clip released by 60 Minutes, Harris was asked whether the Biden-Harris administration had any sway over the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu, the hardline prime minister of Israel who appears not to listen to Washington. Asked whether the US had a “real close ally” in Netanyahu, she replied: “With all due respect, the better question is: do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people? And the answer to that question is yes.”

Since Harris’s meteoric propulsion as Democratic presidential nominee after Joe Biden stepped aside, her relative avoidance of press or TV interviews has become a point of contention on the campaign trail. Republican leaders and pundits on Fox News routinely accuse her of being media-shy.

This week’s blitz is designed to counter that impression, while reaching large audiences focused on demographic groups which will be central to Harris’s chances of winning in November. Call Her Daddy is Spotify’s most-listened to podcast among women, while The View is the number one ranked daytime talk show with 2.5 million average viewers, again heavily weighted towards women.

Meanwhile Colbert’s show on CBS is the highest rated late-night talk show attracting large numbers of younger viewers aged 18 to 49 – another critical demographic on Harris’s target list.

Harris’s running mate, the Democratic governor of Minnesota Tim Walz, is also making his own media scramble which began on Sunday, with him entering less comfortable territory on Fox News Sunday. He was questioned about the pro-abortion law that he signed in his state, and also asked to clarify the occasions on which he has misrepresented his record.

That included a comment that he had carried weapons in war when he had not, and his classifying the treatment that he and his wife received to have a child as IVF when it was in fact a different type of fertility treatment.

At last week’s vice-presidential debate Walz recognised his missteps, calling himself a “knucklehead”.

Walz told Fox News Sunday: “To be honest with you, I don’t think American people care whether I used IUI or IVF, what they understand is that Donald Trump would resist these things. I speak passionately … I will own up when I misspeak and when I make a mistake.”

As the contest enters its final month, the Guardian’s latest tracker of opinion polls shows Harris up on Trump by three percentage points nationally. In the more telling test of the seven battleground states that will decide the outcome, though Harris is ahead in five of them, the margin remains essentially too close to call.

Both candidates and their running mates are speeding up their frantic dash around the seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris and Walz will be in Arizona this weeks, where early voting begins on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the Democratic ticket will gain extra ballast when former president and campaigning superstar Barack Obama kicks off a round of stump appearances in the all-important swing state, Pennsylvania. He will begin in Pittsburgh, and will then travel across the country on Harris’s behalf, campaign aides have said.

Trump was scheduled to hold a rally in Juneau, Wisconsin, on Sunday afternoon, a day after he made a pointed return to the fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he came close to being assassinated on 13 July. Trump and his younger son Eric used the occasion to spread the baseless claim that the Democrats had been behind the attempt on his life.

“They tried to kill him, it’s because the Democratic party can’t do anything right,” Eric Trump said. Billionaire Elon Musk also appeared on stage.

On Sunday, Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House, was asked by ABC News’s This Week whether such comments were responsible amid mounting fears of political violence in the build up to the 5 November election. Johnson sidestepped the question, saying he had not heard the full speeches.

The speaker also notably refused to answer whether Trump had lost the 2020 election, in the wake of Trump’s ongoing lies that he was the actual victor. “This is the game that is always played by the media with leading Republicans, it’s a gotcha game, and I’m not going to engage in it,” Johnson said.

The former president’s wife, Melania Trump, sat down for an interview with the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo. She was asked given how close her husband had come to being shot in Butler whether she trusted the top officials of the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies who “appeared to be against President Trump and yourself from day one”.

Melania Trump replied: “It’s hard to say who you really trust. You want to, but it’s always a question mark.”

Melania Trump, who is promoting her book, Melania, also spoke about her pro-abortion stance which she revealed in the volume. She said her husband had always known her convictions.

“He knew my position and my beliefs since the day we met, and I believe in individual freedom. I want to decide what I want to do with my body. I don’t want government in my personal business,” she said.

• Anti-Kremlin activist Ildar Dadin, who was once imprisoned in Russia for protesting against Vladimir Putin, was killed on the frontline while fighting on the Ukrainian side, his relatives and Russian media said Sunday. “It is with deep regret that I must inform you that Ildar Dadin – call sign Gandhi – died yesterday in combat in the Kharkiv region” in north-east Ukraine, said his friend and former Russian MP Ilya Ponomarev, who is living in exile. Dadin was the first Russian citizen to be convicted under a 2014 law clamping down on protests in the country.

• The Dutch defence minister, Ruben Brekelmans, said on a surprise visit to Kyiv on Sunday that his country will invest €400m in advanced drone development with Ukraine and deliver more F-16s in the coming months. “Both surveillance drones, more defensive drones, but also the attack drones, because we see that Ukraine needs those more offensive drones also to target military facilities,” Brekelmans said. The Netherlands has pledged €10bn in military support for Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion and spent around €4bn so far.

• After visiting Kharkiv, pummelled by Russian glide bombs, Brekelmans said attacking military targets in Russia was the only way to defend the city. The Netherlands has driven international partners to supply Ukraine with F-16 jets and pledged 24 of them. The first batch is already operating in Ukrainian airspace, according to the minister, while the others will be delivered “in the upcoming months and maybe beginning of next year”. The Netherlands has announced a plan to assemble a Patriot air-defence system for Ukraine. While Brekelmans said it had struggled to source some parts, Ukraine was already using one Dutch-supplied Patriot radar and “three launchers are going to be delivered very soon”.

• Russian forces attacked Ukraine overnight with 87 Shahed drones and four different types of missiles, officials said on Sunday. A 49-year-old man was killed in the Kharkiv region after his car was hit by a drone, said the regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov. A gas pipeline was damaged and a warehouse set alight in the city of Odesa, Ukrainian officials reported. Ukraine’s air force said air defences destroyed 56 of the 87 drones and two missiles over 14 Ukrainian regions, including the capital, Kyiv. Another 25 drones disappeared from radar “presumably as a result of anti-aircraft missile defence”.

• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Sunday that it had shot down four Ukrainian drones over its Kursk, Voronezh and Belgorod regions.

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he will present his “victory plan” at the 12 October meeting of the Ramstein group of Ukraine’s allies against Russia. Ukraine’s president presented it to Joe Biden in Washington last week but the contents have not been made public. It is known that the plan includes Ukrainian membership in Nato and the provision of long-range missiles to strike inside Russia. Biden, the US president, is due to attend the 12 October summit.

A man was arrested after boarding an easyJet flight without the correct documents at Manchester airport.

The man, in his 20s, was discovered on an aircraft due to depart for Milan, at 7pm on Friday and was detained by Greater Manchester police officers.

He was arrested on suspicion of hiding himself “for the purpose of being carried in an aircraft without consent and intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance” after he returned to the terminal, the force said.

There has been no suggestion that the incident was terror-related and nothing suspicious was found onboard the aircraft, the police added. The man remains in custody for questioning while inquiries continue.

In a statement, easyJet said its EZY2127 flight was subject to additional security checks per standard procedure “due to a passenger incorrectly boarding the flight”. All passengers had to disembark from the plane as extra security checks were carried out in line with procedure.

The airline said: “Safety and security is our highest priority and so we will now work with our ground partner at Manchester airport to understand how he was able to board the flight.”

Manchester airport told the PA Media news agency that the passenger was “properly screened” by its security “so passenger safety was never an issue”, and that it was working with the police and airline to look into what happened.

In December last year, a six-year-old boy boarded the wrong plane, making a holiday trip look more like a Home Alone sequel in Philadelphia. His grandmother was expecting him to arrive in Fort Myers, Florida, but instead he landed in Orlando.

A man was arrested after boarding an easyJet flight without the correct documents at Manchester airport.

The man, in his 20s, was discovered on an aircraft due to depart for Milan, at 7pm on Friday and was detained by Greater Manchester police officers.

He was arrested on suspicion of hiding himself “for the purpose of being carried in an aircraft without consent and intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance” after he returned to the terminal, the force said.

There has been no suggestion that the incident was terror-related and nothing suspicious was found onboard the aircraft, the police added. The man remains in custody for questioning while inquiries continue.

In a statement, easyJet said its EZY2127 flight was subject to additional security checks per standard procedure “due to a passenger incorrectly boarding the flight”. All passengers had to disembark from the plane as extra security checks were carried out in line with procedure.

The airline said: “Safety and security is our highest priority and so we will now work with our ground partner at Manchester airport to understand how he was able to board the flight.”

Manchester airport told the PA Media news agency that the passenger was “properly screened” by its security “so passenger safety was never an issue”, and that it was working with the police and airline to look into what happened.

In December last year, a six-year-old boy boarded the wrong plane, making a holiday trip look more like a Home Alone sequel in Philadelphia. His grandmother was expecting him to arrive in Fort Myers, Florida, but instead he landed in Orlando.

A 74-year-old Colorado man was injured after a black bear with three cubs crashed in through his sliding glass door and he was unable to get them to leave, the Colorado parks and wildlife department said.

Residents of the home were startled by a loud crash at about 8.30pm Thursday night and saw the bears coming in through the sliding door which had been left ajar.

The 74-year-old man tried to shoo the adult female bear out with a kitchen chair, but it knocked him into a wall and clawed at him, the wildlife agency said.

The bear charged and swiped at the man, injured the man’s head, neck, arms, shoulder, abdomen and calf before he and the other residents escaped to a bedroom and locked themselves in.

A sheriff’s deputy for Lake City, a south-western Colorado town of 400 people, chased the bears out, and medical responders treated the man at his house. His identity wasn’t released.

“It’s certainly lucky we didn’t have a fatality because it was close,” Colorado wildlife officer Lucas Martin said in the statement.

The man’s injuries were significant, but he didn’t need to go to a hospital, Colorado parks and wildlife said in a statement Saturday.

State wildlife managers found the four bears in trees near the man’s house and killed them, a standard practice to stop problem bears that associate people with food.

“It creates a very complex situation to mitigate,” Martin said. “Unfortunately cub bears that are taught these behaviors by their mother may result in generations of conflict between bears and people.”

Bears are common in and around Lake City and the wildlife agency had been made aware of other reports of bears breaking into unoccupied homes and garages in the area throughout the summer and early fall.

It was Colorado’s first reported bear attack this year. There were six in 2023.

As humans move in closer to the forest, more animals will appear in residents’ homes, said Tim Daly, with the California department of fish and wildlife.

Daly recommends not attacking a bear once a person is face-to-face with it.

“Turning and running is a bad idea. With a lot of wildlife things, that might trigger their response to chase,” he said.

Instead, he said people should slowly turn and back away from any wildlife they might confront. He also stressed that black bears are not dangerous, and it’s rare for a bear to attack someone.

“It might take a swat at you, but bears don’t seek us to attack us or to harm us,” Daly said.

Coral Murphy Marcos contributed to this report

Christopher Ciccone, a multihyphenate artist, dancer, designer and younger brother of Madonna, has died aged 63.

Ciccone died Friday in Michigan, his representative Brad Taylor told the Associated Press Sunday. He had cancer.

Madonna paid tribute to her brother in an Instagram post, describing him as “the closest human to me for so long”.

“Its hard to explain our bond,” she wrote. “But it grew out of an understanding that we were different and society was going to give us a hard time for not following the status quo. We took each other‘s hands and we danced through the madness of our childhood. In fact dance was a kind of superglue that held us together.”

“I admired him. He had impeccable taste. And a sharp tongue, which he sometimes used against me but I always forgave him,” she added.

She said they had not spoken for a while until Ciccone fell ill, when “we found our way back to each other. I did my best to keep him alive as long as possible. He was in so much pain towards the end … I’m glad he’s not suffering anymore. There will never be anyone like him.”

A dancer since his youth, Ciccone was deeply intertwined with his sister’s rise in pop stardom in the 1980s, appearing in music videos like Lucky Star, art directing her Blond Ambition World Tour and serving as tour director for The Girlie Show tour. He also directed music videos for Dolly Parton and Tony Bennett.

In 2008, Ciccone released a bestselling autobiography called Life with My Sister Madonna in which he wrote about their strained relationship, her romantic entanglements as well as recollections from his time on tour with her. For two decades, he was by her side, choreographing, directing, dressing and helping his sister. He also interior designed her homes in New York, Miami and Los Angeles. He said that it was a bit like a marriage at times.

“It was a double-edged sword,” he told Good Morning America in 2008. “Nobody was chaining me down to make – to stay.”

The book, and his no-filter descriptions of the exploits of his sister’s famous circle, took its toll on some of his Hollywood friendships too. Several years later, in 2012, around the launch of a shoe collection he designed, he told the Standard that he and his sister were “on a perfectly personable level” and in contact.

“I don’t work for her, and it’s better this way,” he said.

In recent years Ciccone relocated to Michigan’s lower Peninsula to be closer to family. In 2016, Ciccone married Ray Thacker, a British actor, who was by his side when he died.

Madonna also lost her stepmother, Joan Clare Ciccone, to cancer just a few weeks ago, and her older brother Anthony Ciccone in early 2023.

Heinz has apologised after an advertisement displayed in London tube stations featuring a black family sparked anger online.

The US manufacturer, which recently launched an ad campaign for family-sized pasta sauces, was criticised for promoting stereotypes in a billboard advertisement spotted at Vauxhall and Manor House stations.

The advertisement depicts a bride, a black woman, enjoying a forkful of pasta seated next to a man who is presumably the groom. The billboard appears to show the groom’s parents and an older black woman, seemingly the bride’s mother.

Some social media users criticised the advert for “erasing” black fathers.

The author and Guardian columnist Nels Abbey wrote on X: “‘For my brothers with daughters.’ Because believe it or not, Black girls have Dads too.” The post has since gone viral.

One X user responded: “Total erasure of Black fathers by such a mainstream brand is shocking. How did this get approved?”

Another wrote: “Yes, it’s beautiful the interracial relationship and they wanted to keep five people on the table but the erasure of Black dads is not fair.”

In response, Heinz told the Independent: “We always appreciate members of the public’s perspective on our campaigns. We understand how this ad could have unintentionally perpetuated negative stereotypes.

“We extend our deepest apologies and will continue to listen, learn and improve to avoid this happening again in the future.”

Other X users interpreted the advertisement differently, highlighting a phrase in the bottom right-hand corner of the poster which reads: “Based on a true story.”

One wrote: “Wouldn’t traditional wedding seating mean the bride’s father sits next to the groom’s mother. Meaning the man on the left is the bride’s father and the groom’s father is missing?”

Another agreed: “Seating arrangement for a top table at a wedding is the bride’s father and the groom’s mother next to the bride. The groom’s father and bride’s mother are next to the groom. It’s the groom’s father that is missing.”

The advertisements are reportedly part of a media campaign celebrating rule breakers who defy conventional behaviour to enjoy Heinz’ new range of pasta sauces. In the advertisement in question, the bride spills pasta sauce on her white wedding dress.

The Guardian has contacted Kraft Heinz for comment.

Al Pacino has revealed he almost died from Covid-19 in 2020, saying he “didn’t have a pulse” for several minutes.

In interviews with the New York Times and People magazine published on the weekend, the 84-year-old Godfather and Scarface actor detailed his experience with the virus, which he contracted in 2020 before a vaccine was available.

“They said my pulse was gone. It was so – you’re here, you’re not. I thought: Wow, you don’t even have your memories. You have nothing. Strange porridge,” Pacino told the New York Times.

The actor said he “felt not good – unusually not good”, and recalled having a fever and dehydration before losing consciousness. “I was sitting there in my house, and I was gone. Like that. I didn’t have a pulse,” he said.

An ambulance arrived and he woke up to a medical team in his living room including six paramedics and two doctors. “They had these outfits on that looked like they were from outer space or something,” he said. “It was kind of shocking to open your eyes and see that. Everybody was around me, and they said: ‘He’s back. He’s here.’”

Speaking to People, Pacino questioned whether he had actually died, despite a nurse confirming his lack of pulse. “I thought I experienced death. I might not have … I don’t think I died. Everybody thought I was dead. How could I be dead? If I was dead, I fainted.”

The Oscar winner told the New York Times he “didn’t see the white light or anything” and that “there’s nothing there” after death – though the experience did prompt some existential reflection.

“As Hamlet says, ‘To be or not to be’; ‘The undiscovered country from whose bourn, no traveler returns.’ And he says two words: ‘No more’. It was no more. You’re gone. I’d never thought about it in my life,” Pacino said. “But you know actors: it sounds good to say I died once. What is it when there’s no more?”

When asked by People whether his brush with death had changed how he lives, he replied: “Not at all.”

Pacino details the experience in his upcoming memoir, Sonny Boy. His latest movie – titled Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness – premiered last week at the 72nd San Sebastián film festival.