Troops from a third Israeli division have joined the ground invasion of southern Lebanon, raising questions over the scope of the operation.

Although Israel has insisted its week-long ground operation was to be “limited” and “targeted”, elements of three divisions are now involved in the fighting after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that its 91st Division had joined the ground incursion overnight.

Night vision images released on Monday showed a column of infantry moving into Lebanon with heavy rucksacks and sleeping pads, suggesting it was more than a short raid.

According to the statement, the division’s forces were redeployed to northern Israel over the last two weeks, joining units from the 36th and 83rd divisions already involved in the fighting in Lebanon.

On the anniversary of Hamas’s 7 October attack, Israel’s year-long conflict is expanding rapidly on multiple fronts, including the expectation of a major and imminent retaliation against Iran for last week’s heavy ballistic missile strikes on Israel.

The widening conflict risks further drawing in the United States, which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support to Israel. Iran-allied militant groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have joined in with long-distance strikes on Israel.

A fresh round of airstrikes hit Beirut’s suburbs late on Sunday as Israel also intensified its bombardment of northern Gaza, calling for evacuations of the north of the territory amid renewed military operations.

Israel’s military confirmed a Hezbollah attack on the northern city of Haifa, though it was not immediately clear whether shrapnel from “fallen projectiles” was from rockets or interceptors. Hezbollah said it tried to hit a nearby naval base. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said it treated 10 people, most of them hurt by shrapnel.

A separate Israeli strike earlier on Sunday in the town of Qamatiyeh, south-east of Beirut, killed six people, including three children, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported more than 30 strikes overnight into Sunday, while Israel’s military said about 130 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory.

Last week, Israel launched what it called a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon after it killed the longtime Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his top commanders in a series of attacks. The fighting is the worst since Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006.

At least 1,400 Lebanese people, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, have been killed and 1.2 million driven from their homes. Israel says it aims to drive the militant group from the blue line boundary between the two countries so tens of thousands of Israeli citizens can return home.

The Israeli military is setting up a forward operating base near a UN peacekeeping mission on the blue line in southern Lebanon. The base put peacekeepers at risk, said an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion, refused the Israeli military’s request to vacate some of its positions in advance of the ground incursion.

In Gaza, where there has also been a sharp rise in Israeli military operations, an Israeli strike hit a mosque where displaced people were sheltering near the main hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah.

Another four were killed in a strike on a school-turned-shelter near the town. The IDF claimed both strikes targeted militants.

Israel’s military announced a new air and ground offensive in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, home to a refugee camp dating to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Israel has carried out several operations there only to see militants regroup. The military said three soldiers were severely wounded in Sunday’s fighting in northern Gaza.

Israel reiterated its call for the complete evacuation of heavily destroyed northern Gaza, where up to 300,000 people are estimated to remain.

“We are in a new phase of the war,” the Israeli military said in leaflets dropped over the area. “These areas are considered dangerous combat zones.” A later statement said three projectiles were identified crossing from northern Gaza into Israeli territory, with no injuries reported.

Frantic residents fled again. One, Samia Khader, said: “Since October 7 to the present day, this is the 12th time that I and my children, eight individuals, have been homeless and thrown into the streets and do not know where to go.”

World leaders, governments and individuals around the globe are marking the first anniversary of the 7 October terror attack launched by Hamas on Israel, with commemorations ranging from official statements to formal ceremonies and small private vigils.

The attack killed nearly 1,200 people, according to Israeli government figures, including hundreds at a music festival taking place in Re’im near the Israel-Gaza border. Militants also took about 250 hostages back to Gaza.

The Israeli offensive into Gaza it triggered has since killed nearly 42,000 people, most of them civilians, and injured almost 97,000, according to health authorities. The conflict has over the last year widened into a regional crisis involving Lebanon, where Israel is conducting heavy airstrikes nearly a year after Hezbollah militants began an exchange of fire, Iran and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

“The 7 October attack scarred souls,” said UN secretary general, António Guterres. “On this day, we remember all those who were brutally killed and suffered unspeakable violence – including sexual violence – as they were simply living their lives.”

Guterres said Monday was “a day for the global community to repeat in the loudest voice our utter condemnation of the abhorrent acts of Hamas, including the taking of hostages”, who must be released “immediately and unconditionally”.

He added that the “wave of shocking violence and bloodshed” that has since erupted “continues to shatter lives and inflict profound human suffering for Palestinians in Gaza, and now the people of Lebanon” and it was “time to stop the suffering”.

Pope Francis said “the fuse of hatred” had been lit a year ago and “exploded in a spiral of violence – in the shameful inability of the international community and the most powerful countries to silence the weapons and put an end to the tragedy of war”.

In the US, President Joe Biden condemned the “unspeakable brutality” of the attack, paid tribute to the people – including American citizens – killed and kidnapped and said he remained committed to Israel’s right to defend itself a year on.

“I believe that history will also remember 7 October as a dark day for the Palestinian people because of the conflict that Hamas unleashed that day,” Biden said, adding: “Far too many civilians have suffered far too much during this year of conflict.”

Vice-president Kamala Harris said she was “heartbroken over the scale of death and destruction in Gaza over the past year” and it was “far past time for a hostage and ceasefire deal to end the suffering of innocent people.”

The White House was scheduled to hold a vigil for the Israeli hostages, while the Republican presidential hopeful, Donald Trump, was due to mark the anniversary at a remembrance event in Miami organised by Jewish community leaders.

In Germany, the chancellery in Berlin was draped with a yellow ribbon commemorating the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas and the names of the people killed and kidnapped in the attack were read out in front of the Brandenburg Gate.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his country stood by Israel’s side. “We feel with you the horror, the pain, the uncertainty and the sadness … The Hamas terrorists must be fought,” the German chancellor said.

Scholz, who was to attend a memorial event at a Hamburg synagogue, also drew attention to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, saying people “need hope and perspectives if they are to renounce terror”. Berlin “is calling for a ceasefire, for the hostages to be freed, and for a political process”, he said.

Emmanuel Macron said on social media that “the pain remains, as vivid as it was a year ago. The pain of the Israeli people. Ours. The pain of wounded humanity. We do not forget the victims, the hostages, or the families.”

More than 40 French citizens were killed in the 7 October attack. The French president met the families of French hostages in Gaza on Monday before an official evening ceremony to be attended by about 4,000 people, including the prime minister, Michel Barnier.

Keir Starmer said: “One year on from these horrific attacks, we must unequivocally stand with the Jewish community and unite as a country.”

Britain’s prime minister added: “On this day of pain and sorrow, we honour those we lost, and continue in our determination to return those still held hostage, help those who are suffering, and secure a better future for the Middle East.”

Giorgia Meloni, paid tribute in a speech during a ceremony at the Great Synagogue in central Rome to the victims of the “inhumane aggression perpetrated a year ago by Hamas”.

Remembering and condemning the attack was “not a mere ritual, but the prerequisite for any political action to restore peace in the Middle East”, the Italian prime minister said, adding that the “reticence increasingly encountered in doing so betrays a latent and rampant antisemitism that must concern everyone”.

The Spanish government said in a statement that it “reiterates its most vehement condemnation of the atrocious Hamas terrorist attacks” and expresses its solidarity with the relatives of the hostages who remain in captivity”.

Madrid called for “a ceasefire, the release of hostages, access for humanitarian aid … and an end to violence”, pledging to continue working for “peace in the Middle East and advancing the solution of two states living sideby side in peace and security”.

Commemorations were also planned in Belgium, Austria and Hungary, while in Brussels, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen was attending a ceremony at a central synagogue.

In Australia, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, attended a vigil in Melbourne, with members of the Jewish community and lawmakers from across party lines. The day carried “terrible pain”, Albanese said, condemning “all prejudice and hatred”.

Pro-Palestinian events also took place in many countries, with hundreds gathering amid a heavy police presence at Sydney town hall to attend a vigil for Palestinian lives lost, and a rally in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, to protest against Israeli airstrikes.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

As Israelis approached the beginning of the high holy days last week on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the news began to circulate. Several IDF units fighting on the border with Lebanon had taken casualties in at least two different locations. Soldiers had died in combat, and many were wounded.

The confirmation of the wounded and dead, if not the circumstances served as a stark reminder for Israelis of the blows that come in war, even as Israel’s punishing air offensive has killed hundreds of Lebanese and wounded more. The soldiers’ deaths came after two weeks in which Israel struck a series of blows against Hezbollah, including the assassination of the group’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and most of the top leadership.

Underlining that sense of hazard was another story that revealed itself slowly last week: how the wave of Iranian missiles launched against Israel had not been as inconsequential as initially claimed by Israel’s leadership, and instead shown that a large-scale strike could not only overwhelm Israel’s anti-missile defences but that Tehran could accurately explode warheads on the targets it was aiming for, in this case several military bases.

All of which raises serious questions as Israel prepares for a “significant” military response to Iran for the its missile attack.

A year into Israel’s fast metastasising multi-front war that now includes Iran, Lebanon and Gaza, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, Israel’s undoubted military and intelligence superiority is faltering on several fronts.

In Israel’s expanding war, as Israeli security analyst Michael Milshtein told the Guardian last week, there have been “tactical victories” but “no strategic vision” and certainly not one that unites the different fronts.

What is clear is that the conflict of the last year has seriously exposed Israel’s newly minted operational doctrine, which had planned for fighting short decisive wars largely against non-state actors armed with missiles, with the aim of avoiding being drawn into extended conflicts of attrition.

Instead, the opposite has happened. While Israeli officials have tried to depict Hamas as defeated as a military force – a questionable characterisation in the first place – they concede that it survives as a guerilla organisation in Gaza, although degraded.

Even as Israel has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, levelled large areas of the coastal strip and displaced a population assailed by hunger, death and sickness on multiple occasions, Israeli armour was assaulting areas of the strip once more this weekend in a new operation into northern Gaza to prevent Hamas regrouping.

Hezbollah too, despite sustaining heavy losses in its leadership, retains a potency fighting on its own terrain in the villages of southern Lebanon where it has had almost two decades to prepare for this conflict.

All of which raises serious questions as to whether Israel has any clearer vision for its escalating conflict with Iran.

A long-distance war with Iran, many experts are beginning to suggest, could also devolve into a more attritional conflict despite the relative imbalances in capabilities, even as Israel continues to plan for the scale of its own response to last week’s missile attack.

Speaking to Bloomberg TV, Carmiel Arbit, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programme, described that dynamic. “I think we are going to be looking at this as the new reality for a long time,” Arbit predicted.

“I think the question is simply going to be how often is the tit for tat going to happen, and is it just going to be tit for tat, or is this going to escalate only further. And I think the hope of the international community at this point is to avert a world war three rather than this smaller-scale war of attrition.”

Nicole Grajewski, a fellow at of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, echoes that view in part, while cautioning that an extended series of exchanges could push Tehran to a less predictable reaction.

“The continued asymmetrical tit-for-tat between Iran and Israel risks devolving into a futile cycle of Iranian missile strikes and Israeli retaliations, each exposing Tehran’s military limitations while failing to alter the balance – and potentially driving Iran toward more desperate and unpredictable measures in its quest for credible deterrence.”

“In the long term – and it cannot be assumed that the Israeli-Iranian conflict will end soon,” wrote Haaretz’s main military analyst, Amos Harel, “there will be competition between the production rate and sophistication of Iran’s offensive systems on one side and of Israel’s interception systems on the other.”

With Israel now so deeply immersed in a widening conflict, it is unclear whether it can escape what Anthony Pfaff, the director of the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College, in August called the “escalatory trap”.

“If Israel escalates,” wrote Pfaff, “it fuels the escalatory spiral that could, at some point, exceed its military capability to manage.

“If it chooses the status quo, where Hamas remains capable of terrorist operations, then it has done little to improve its security situation. Neither outcome achieves Israel’s security objectives … Forcing the choice between escalation and the status quo gives Iran, and, by extension, Hezbollah, an advantage and is a key feature of its proxy strategy.”

Kamala Harris hit back at the Republican Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s comments that the vice-president and Democratic White House nominee “doesn’t have anything keeping her humble” because she does not have children of her own.

“I don’t think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble,” Harris told the Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper in a taped interview released on Sunday.

Sanders, a deputy White House press secretary during Donald Trump’s presidency, told a rally crowd in September that her “kids keep me humble.

“Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble,” Sanders said.

In a taped interview with Cooper, Harris said there are “a whole lot of women out here who have a lot of love in their life, family in their life and children in their life, and I think it’s really important for women to lift each other up”.

Harris, who is a stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children, Cole and Ella Emhoff, added: “We have our family by blood and then we have our family by love. And I have both.

“And I consider it to be a real blessing.”

Harris discussed her relationship with her stepchildren, who are her husband’s biological children from his first marriage, saying: “They are my children. And I love those kids to death, and family comes in many forms.”

But Sanders came back at Harris in a statement emailed to the Hill on Sunday, saying she “would never criticize a woman for not having children.

“The point I was making and that Kamala Harris confirmed by her own admission is that she doesn’t believe our leaders should be humble, which explains her arrogant claim that she alone can fix our nation’s problems after spending the last four years making them worse,” she continued.

The clash stems from 2021 comments made by Trump’s running mate in November’s presidential election, JD Vance. The US senator from Ohio said women without biological children are “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too”.

Harris called Vance’s comments “mean and mean-spirited”.

Vance has said he regretted that “a lot of people took it the wrong way”, but he did not particularly regret the comments themselves.

Sunday’s podcast comes as Harris begins a media blitz amid political media criticism that she has not subjected herself to one-on-one interviews since she secured the Democratic nomination, with the exception of Oprah Winfrey.

Cooper, the podcast host, also asked Harris about Trump’s comments last month that “women will be happy, healthy, confident and free” if he is given a second presidency.

Harris alluded to how Trump appointed three US supreme court justices who in 2022 formed part of the conservative bloc that overturned the federal right to an abortion once established by the landmark Roe v Wade case.

“This is the same guy that is now saying that?” Harris asked. “So yeah, there you go.”

Pakistani authorities have unleashed a draconian crackdown on dissent, breaking up opposition protests with violence and mass arrests and banning a movement to promote the rights of the ethnic Pashtun community under terrorism laws.

Hundreds of riot police fired teargas and charged with batons as supporters of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party of the incarcerated former prime minister Imran Khan, gathered to protest over the weekend in the cities of Islamabad and Lahore.

Dozens of PTI figures, including prominent leaders and lawyers, were arrested and hundreds more were charged under terrorism laws, with Khan among those named.

Khan’s supporters took to the streets to demand the release of their leader and to call for an independent judiciary. Khan, 71, has been held in jail since August 2023 on upwards of 100 charges of corruption and terrorism that he alleges are politically motivated. Khan was earlier sentenced to 10 years for leaking state secrets but the courts overturned the verdict.

The weekend’s events marked a notable escalation of a crackdown on PTI that started several months ago. The crackdown began before February’s election, which was marred by allegations against the military establishment that it had rigged results to prevent the PTI from taking power.

Among the senior PTI figures picked up by authorities on the weekend was Ali Amin Gandapur, the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. His party alleged he was “disappeared” from Islamabad for more than 24 hours before reappearing on Sunday night in parliament, where he claimed he had been held by police and paramilitary forces.

On Sunday night, the interior ministry suddenly announced that the government would be banning the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), a peaceful organisation that has long championed the rights of Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtuns.

PTM has been highly critical of Pakistan’s powerful military establishment and its role in abuses and enforced disappearances in the Pashtun-dominated areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

In a brief statement, the ministry said that PTM had been declared a terrorist organisation due to “certain activities that are prejudicial to the peace and security of the country”. Pakistan’s human rights commission condemned the ban, emphasising that PTM was a peaceful organisation and describing the government’s decision as “neither transparent nor warranted”.

PTM has recently begun to mobilise in large numbers and had planned a historic three-day national gathering this week in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The national gathering was planned as a response to the worsening security situation and increase in militant attacks in the region, as well as to challenge abuses committed by the military against Pashtuns. In an unusual move, PTI and other opposition parties had agreed to join the event in a show of unity.

Hundreds of PTM members have been arrested in recent days, and the organisation’s founder and leader, Manzoor Pashteen, is now in hiding. Fida Wazir, a PTM leader, said the group still intended to go ahead with the event, despite police and paramilitary forces attempting to break it up with violence and by setting fire to their camps.

“We will challenge the illegal ban in the court tomorrow,” said Wazir. “We are hopeful that the court will overturn the unjust and unconstitutional ban.”

The government is taking an increasingly iron-fisted approach to all forms of opposition even as it is weakened by growing economic and security problems.

It is ruled by an unwieldy coalition of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and its former rival the Pakistan People’s party (PPP), and is seen as weak and beholden to the powerful military, which has long been accused of interfering in political affairs. The prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, is increasingly unpopular with the public as the country grapples with sky-high inflation and an economic crisis.

Militant attacks have continued to rise in Pakistan’s border areas in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover of neighbouring Afghanistan, with little sign of the security situation improving. Almost 1,000 people have been killed in militant attacks and counter-terrorism operations in the past three months alone, the majority in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and neighbouring Balochistan.

Senior figures in PML-N have repeatedly sought to blame Khan and PTI for the country’s woes. In July, the government said they would be banning Khan’s party but have yet to act on the threat.

This week, Maryam Nawaz, the PML-N chief minister of Punjab and the niece of the prime minister, said PTI was a “terrorist group that repeatedly is attacking its own country”, adding: “The state should treat the PTI like terrorists – otherwise, it will be too late.”

Shah Meer Baloch contributed to this report

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

If blowing out the candles on your 100th birthday cake is a pillar of your retirement plan, you might want to skip to the next article.

An analysis of death data from the world’s longest-lived populations reveals that the rapid improvements in life expectancy achieved in the 20th century have slowed dramatically in the past three decades.

The finding suggests that if 100 is to become the new 80, radical new medicines that slow the ageing process itself are needed, rather than better treatments for common killers such as cancer, dementia and heart disease.

According to the study, children born recently in regions with the oldest people are far from likely to become centenarians. At best, the researchers predict 15% of females and 5% of males in the oldest-living areas will reach 100 this century.

“If you’re planning for retirement, it’s probably not a good idea to assume you’re going to make it to 100,” said Jay Olshansky, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “You’d probably have to work for at least 10 years longer than you’d think. And you want to enjoy the last phase of your life, you don’t necessarily want to spend it working to save for time you’re not going to experience.”

Advances in public health and medicine sparked a longevity revolution in the 20th century. In the previous 2,000 years, life expectancy crept up, on average, one year every century or two. In the 20th century, average life expectancy rocketed, with people gaining an extra three years every decade.

The period of radical life extension prompted some researchers to extrapolate the trend and suggest most people born after 2000 would survive to 100 years old. But the prospect was challenged in 1990 by Olshansky and his colleagues, who argued that humans were reaching a biological ceiling of about 85 years old.

For the latest study, Olshansky delved into national statistics from the US and nine regions with the highest life expectancies, focusing on 1990 to 2019, before the Covid pandemic struck. The data from Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Australia, France, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain showed that rises in life expectancy had slowed dramatically. In the US, life expectancy fell.

Writing in Nature Aging, the researchers describe how on average, life expectancy in the longest-living regions rose only 6.5 years between 1990 and 2019. They predict that girls born recently in the regions have only a 5.3% chance of reaching 100 years old, while boys have a 1.8% chance.

“In the modern era we have, through public health and medicine, manufactured decades of life that otherwise would not exist,” Olshansky said. “These gains must slow down. The longevity game we’re playing today is different to the longevity game we played a century ago when we were saving infants and children and women of child-bearing age and the gains in life expectancy were large. Now the gains are small because we’re saving people in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.”

Olshansky said it would take radical new treatments that slow ageing, the greatest risk factor for many diseases, to achieve another longevity revolution. Research in the field is afoot with a dozen or so drugs shown to increase the lifespan of mice.

In 2000, Steven Austad, a professor of healthy ageing at the University of Birmingham at Alabama bet Olshansky that the first person to live to 150 had already been born. Thanks to compound interest, by the time the bet is settled, the winner, or his descendants, stands to win millions of dollars.

“For life expectancy to again accelerate, we need a new approach focused on disease prevention,” Austad said. “Geroscience focuses on improving health by treating the underlying biological processes of ageing, which underlie virtually all of the maladies that degrade our quality of life or kill us.”

“These advances are beginning to make their way to the clinic,” he added. “So as much as I buy this analysis of slowed life expectancy increase, the authors’ projection for a continued gradual slowing for the rest of this century strikes me as premature.”

The most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show that life expectancy at birth in the UK from 2020 to 2022 stood at 82.6 years for females and 78.6 for males, which are back to 2010-2012 levels for females and below that level for males.

Hurricane Milton has rapidly intensified into a category 5 hurricane Monday, just two days before it is due to make landfall in Florida.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami issued the updated forecast Monday after saying the storm had become a category 4 hurricane, more quickly than initially expected.

Meanwhile, the state is gearing up for what could be its biggest evacuation in seven years as the storm heads toward population centers including Tampa and Orlando just two weeks after Hurricane Helene caused more than 200 deaths and catastrophic damage from Florida into the Appalachian Mountains.

The storm cemented its major hurricane status on Monday as it moved over the Gulf of Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (249km/h), the National Hurricane Center said.

Even if the storm somewhat weakens before landfall (projected Wednesday or early Thursday), forecasters warned that levels of storm surge – Gulf waters pushed inland by the approaching hurricane – would be equivalent to the maximum category it reaches.

Milton could make landfall on Wednesday in the Tampa Bay area and remain a hurricane as it moves across central Florida into the Atlantic Ocean. On that track, it would be the 10th major hurricane – category 3 or higher – to make landfall along the US’s Gulf coast since 2017.

According to a CNN Meteorologist, Milton is now the third-fastest rapidly intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic. In less than 24 hours, Milton’s wind speeds increased by 90 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center and per forecasters, only two hurricanes have strengthened more than that in 24 hour period –  Wilma in 2005 and Felix in 2007.

Experts attribute such a high rate of powerful, destructive storms to the climate crisis, which is spurred in part by the burning of fossil fuels.

Weather officials said on Monday morning that Milton is expected to bring heavy rainfall, flooding, life-threatening storm surge and strong winds. They also said it will probably maintain its intensity for several days after reaching its peak.

The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, said on Sunday that while it remained to be seen exactly where Milton would strike, it was clear the state was going to be hit hard.

“I don’t think there’s any scenario where we don’t have major impacts at this point,” he said.

“You have time to prepare – all day today, all day Monday, probably all day Tuesday to be sure your hurricane preparedness plan is in place,” DeSantis said. “If you’re on that west coast of Florida, barrier islands, just assume you’ll be asked to leave.”

With Milton achieving hurricane status, this is the first time the Atlantic has had three simultaneous hurricanes after September, according to the Colorado State University hurricane scientist Phil Klotzbach. There have been four simultaneous hurricanes in August and September.

The St Petersburg-Tampa Bay area is still cleaning up extensive damage from Helene and its powerful storm surge. In Pinellas county, which encompasses St Petersburg, at least 12 people died as a result from Helene.

At the end of September, Helene swamped parts of Florida’s westcoast, with the worst damage along the narrow, 20-mile (32km) string of barrier islands that stretch from St Petersburg to Clearwater.

This week, Pinellas county, as well as other counties nearby such as Hillsborough, Manatee and Sarasota, could see storm surge between 8 and 12ft above ground level, the National Weather Service said on Monday.

DeSantis on Sunday expanded his state of emergency declaration to 51 counties and said Floridians should prepare for more power outages and disruption, making sure they have a week’s worth of food and water and are ready to hit the road.

On Monday, Joe Biden approved Florida’s emergency declaration and ordered federal assistance to supplement state, tribal, and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from Hurricane Milton.

Florida officials said they were preparing for the largest evacuation the state had seen since Hurricane Irma hit in 2017.

They asked people who live in homes built after Florida strengthened codes in 2004, who do not depend on constant electricity and who are not in evacuation zones to avoid the roads.

Some areas in Florida, including Charlotte county, Pinellas county, and Hillsborough county have already issued mandatory evacuation orders for parts of the county with more areas expected to issue evacuation orders on Monday.

Tampa International Airport announced that they will be suspending flight operations from 9am Tuesday. St Pete-Clearwater International Airport in Pinellas county, also said on Monday that they will be closing after the last flight on Tuesday and will remain closed Wednesday and Thursday.

“The airport is in a mandatory evacuation zone and is not a public shelter” reads a statement from St Pete-Clearwater International Airport. “Prepare and stay safe.”

On Florida’s east coast, officials have warned of heavy flooding, power outages, hurricane-strength gusts and rainfall totals of 6-8in.

In parts of Florida that are in Milton’s expected path, some schools and colleges have announced closures this week through Wednesday and Thursday in anticipation of Milton’s arrival.

As of Monday morning, Hurricane watches, flood watches and storm surge watches were in effect for parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Florida’s west coast. The National Weather Service has also issued a flood watch for all central Florida counties and warned of a high risk of rip currents for all central Florida Atlantic beaches.

“Milton will be a historic storm for the west coast of Florida,” the National Weather Service said on Monday.

Officials in Tampa have opened all city garages free of charge to residents hoping to protect their cars from floodwaters, including electric vehicles.

As many as 4,000 national guard troops are helping state crews to remove debris, DeSantis said, adding that he has directed Florida crews dispatched to North Carolina in Helene’s aftermath to return in preparation for Milton.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Hurricane Milton has rapidly intensified into a category 5 hurricane Monday, just two days before it is due to make landfall in Florida.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami issued the updated forecast Monday after saying the storm had become a category 4 hurricane, more quickly than initially expected.

Meanwhile, the state is gearing up for what could be its biggest evacuation in seven years as the storm heads toward population centers including Tampa and Orlando just two weeks after Hurricane Helene caused more than 200 deaths and catastrophic damage from Florida into the Appalachian Mountains.

The storm cemented its major hurricane status on Monday as it moved over the Gulf of Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (249km/h), the National Hurricane Center said.

Even if the storm somewhat weakens before landfall (projected Wednesday or early Thursday), forecasters warned that levels of storm surge – Gulf waters pushed inland by the approaching hurricane – would be equivalent to the maximum category it reaches.

Milton could make landfall on Wednesday in the Tampa Bay area and remain a hurricane as it moves across central Florida into the Atlantic Ocean. On that track, it would be the 10th major hurricane – category 3 or higher – to make landfall along the US’s Gulf coast since 2017.

According to a CNN Meteorologist, Milton is now the third-fastest rapidly intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic. In less than 24 hours, Milton’s wind speeds increased by 90 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center and per forecasters, only two hurricanes have strengthened more than that in 24 hour period –  Wilma in 2005 and Felix in 2007.

Experts attribute such a high rate of powerful, destructive storms to the climate crisis, which is spurred in part by the burning of fossil fuels.

Weather officials said on Monday morning that Milton is expected to bring heavy rainfall, flooding, life-threatening storm surge and strong winds. They also said it will probably maintain its intensity for several days after reaching its peak.

The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, said on Sunday that while it remained to be seen exactly where Milton would strike, it was clear the state was going to be hit hard.

“I don’t think there’s any scenario where we don’t have major impacts at this point,” he said.

“You have time to prepare – all day today, all day Monday, probably all day Tuesday to be sure your hurricane preparedness plan is in place,” DeSantis said. “If you’re on that west coast of Florida, barrier islands, just assume you’ll be asked to leave.”

With Milton achieving hurricane status, this is the first time the Atlantic has had three simultaneous hurricanes after September, according to the Colorado State University hurricane scientist Phil Klotzbach. There have been four simultaneous hurricanes in August and September.

The St Petersburg-Tampa Bay area is still cleaning up extensive damage from Helene and its powerful storm surge. In Pinellas county, which encompasses St Petersburg, at least 12 people died as a result from Helene.

At the end of September, Helene swamped parts of Florida’s westcoast, with the worst damage along the narrow, 20-mile (32km) string of barrier islands that stretch from St Petersburg to Clearwater.

This week, Pinellas county, as well as other counties nearby such as Hillsborough, Manatee and Sarasota, could see storm surge between 8 and 12ft above ground level, the National Weather Service said on Monday.

DeSantis on Sunday expanded his state of emergency declaration to 51 counties and said Floridians should prepare for more power outages and disruption, making sure they have a week’s worth of food and water and are ready to hit the road.

On Monday, Joe Biden approved Florida’s emergency declaration and ordered federal assistance to supplement state, tribal, and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from Hurricane Milton.

Florida officials said they were preparing for the largest evacuation the state had seen since Hurricane Irma hit in 2017.

They asked people who live in homes built after Florida strengthened codes in 2004, who do not depend on constant electricity and who are not in evacuation zones to avoid the roads.

Some areas in Florida, including Charlotte county, Pinellas county, and Hillsborough county have already issued mandatory evacuation orders for parts of the county with more areas expected to issue evacuation orders on Monday.

Tampa International Airport announced that they will be suspending flight operations from 9am Tuesday. St Pete-Clearwater International Airport in Pinellas county, also said on Monday that they will be closing after the last flight on Tuesday and will remain closed Wednesday and Thursday.

“The airport is in a mandatory evacuation zone and is not a public shelter” reads a statement from St Pete-Clearwater International Airport. “Prepare and stay safe.”

On Florida’s east coast, officials have warned of heavy flooding, power outages, hurricane-strength gusts and rainfall totals of 6-8in.

In parts of Florida that are in Milton’s expected path, some schools and colleges have announced closures this week through Wednesday and Thursday in anticipation of Milton’s arrival.

As of Monday morning, Hurricane watches, flood watches and storm surge watches were in effect for parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Florida’s west coast. The National Weather Service has also issued a flood watch for all central Florida counties and warned of a high risk of rip currents for all central Florida Atlantic beaches.

“Milton will be a historic storm for the west coast of Florida,” the National Weather Service said on Monday.

Officials in Tampa have opened all city garages free of charge to residents hoping to protect their cars from floodwaters, including electric vehicles.

As many as 4,000 national guard troops are helping state crews to remove debris, DeSantis said, adding that he has directed Florida crews dispatched to North Carolina in Helene’s aftermath to return in preparation for Milton.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Two elephants have drowned, while power was cut and hotels were forced to evacuate guests after the Thai tourist hotspot Chiang Mai was hit by its worst flooding in decades over the weekend.

Across Thailand, 20 provinces are flooded, including nine in the northern region, where 8,625 households are affected according to the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation.

In Chiang Mai, flash floods inundated the night market and hotels and a famous elephant sanctuary, which was forced to evacuate more than 100 elephants, as well as hundreds of other animals including buffalo, pigs, horses, dogs, cats and rabbits.

Rescuers in boats tried to guide the elephants from Elephant Nature Park to safety by following a path marked by a rope. Some roads were inaccessible, and the operation was complicated by the strong currents and lack of phone signal. Rescuers considered giving sedatives to the animals, but this risked causing their trunks to drop into the waters, which were already at very high levels, it was reported.

Two female elephants – Faa Sai and Ploy Thong – drowned.

Saengduean Chailert, director of the sanctuary, said the floods were the worst the centre had seen. “The water rose to three meters and it was so strong that it took out all the big trees. Our cars were swept away. The medical room was destroyed,” she said.

Ploy Thong, who was blind, was rescued from an elephant riding camp in Pattaya in 2018, and had previously worked in the logging industry, Elephant Nature Park said. The sanctuary said she had lost her herd during the flood and was swept away by the current. A video appeared to show other elephants waiting for her as she lagged behind.

Faa Sai was rescued in November 2007, and showed aggressive behaviour as a result of being traumatised by the “elephant crushing” method, where elephants are tamed, ENP said. “Faa Sai ventured close to the river despite the concerted efforts of our team to keep her safe, and tragically, she too was taken by the current,” the sanctuary said.

Northern Thailand, and neighbouring countries, have been hit by severe floods over recent weeks, with Typhoon Yagi last month worsening the seasonal monsoon rains. Water in the Ping River rose to a record 5.3 metres on Saturday night, the highest in 50 years, according to the Bangkok Post.

In Chiang Mai, the floods inundated the popular night market, while large trucks evacuated tourists from affected areas. Images of monks from the Pa Paeng Temple in Muang district wading through shoulder-level muddy waters, carrying white coffins above their heads were shared on social media. The temple had decided to proceed with cremations because power cuts would affect the mortuary refrigeration, according to Thai news. Power cuts have affected downtown areas of Chiang Mai, while the train station has been closed and some hospitals shut.

Waters have begun to recede, it was reported on Monday, however several key roads remain closed and many homes are still cut off by the waters.

Three people in Chiang Mai have died in the floods, including a 44-year-old man who was electrocuted and a 33-year-old woman who died in a mudslide.

Bangkok and provinces in the central region of Thailand have also been warned of possible floods due to rising water levels in the Chao Phraya River.

Residents in parts of Nonthaburi, which borders Bangkok, have been advised to move their belongings to higher grounds and use sandbags to protect their homes.

Donald Trump knew Melania Trump supported abortion rights “since the day [they] met”, the former US first lady said on Sunday.

“And I believe in individual freedom. I want to decide what I want to do with my body. I think I don’t want government in my personal business,” Melania Trump added in an interview with Fox News, during which she elaborated on a political position that left her at odds with the Republican party led by her husband.

The Guardian was first to report on Wednesday how Melania Trump’s eagerly anticipated memoir contained a passionate defense of women’s right to control their own bodies – including with respect to abortion access.

The book, Melania, is scheduled for release on Tuesday, less than a month before Donald Trump seeks a second presidency in the 5 November election. She reacted to Wednesday’s reporting in the Guardian with a social media statement on Thursday that declared: “Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard.”

Melania Trump defended the decision to reveal her abortion-related views so close to her husband’s electoral showdown with Kamala Harris, the vice-president and Democratic nominee.

Public polling has long held that most Americans favor access to abortion, and Democrats have translated that support into political victories during Joe Biden’s presidency. But many Republican-led state legislatures have sought to restrict access to abortion, mainly citing conservative religious beliefs, since the US supreme court eliminated federal-level abortion rights in June 2022.

“Well, that was not written in the last week or the last month,” Melania Trump said. “That book was written months before, and it was in print months before.

“So that was my belief, and it is my belief, and I wanted to put it in the book because I want to be authentic.”

Harris on Sunday appeared on the popular Call Her Daddy podcast and reminded listeners that three US supreme court justice appointed by Trump formed part of the conservative bloc that eliminated the federal abortion rights previously established by the landmark Roe v Wade decision.

Trump has previously spoken proudly of those judicial appointees and their decision as it pertained to Roe. Furthermore, the conservative thinktank the Heritage Foundation, which supports Trump, has openly called for the Food and Drug Administration to completely revoke its approval of the abortion medication mifepristone – and the group’s Project 2025 plan has also pushed for the criminal prosecution of people who send abortion pills or tools through the mail.

Melania Trump nonetheless insisted that the former US president “lets me be who I am”.

“He lets me believe what I believe,” the former first lady remarked. “He lets me be my own person. And he does respect that, and I respect that as I let him be his own person.

“He has different beliefs, and he will do what he believes.”

A Russian court has sentenced a 72-year-old American citizen, Stephen James Hubbard, to six years and 10 months in prison after convicting him in a closed-door trial of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine.

Investigators said Hubbard, a native of Michigan, was paid $1,000 (£760) a month to serve in a Ukrainian territorial defence unit in the eastern city of Izyum, where he had been living since 2014.

They said Hubbard was provided with training, weapons and ammunition when he allegedly signed up in February 2022, the same month Moscow sent thousands of troops into Ukraine. He was detained by Russian soldiers on 2 April of that year, the RIA state news agency quoted the prosecutor as saying last month.

Russian state media said Hubbard had pleaded guilty to the charge.

But in interviews last month, Hubbard’s sister Patricia Hubbard Fox and another relative cast doubt on his reported confession, telling Reuters he held pro-Russian views and was unlikely to have taken up arms at his age.

On Monday, Hubbard, wearing a beige sweater, sat in a glass courtroom cage in handcuffs. He stood up, seemingly with difficulty, to hear the judge in the Moscow city court pronounce him guilty, removing his hat to reveal a shaved head.

Hubbard listened without visible emotion to the judge before conferring with his lawyer, who later declined to comment to reporters. Though RIA reported that Hubbard’s lawyer would appeal against the verdict.

Reuters was unable to confirm how Hubbard was detained. The Ukrainian foreign affairs ministry has not replied to multiple messages seeking comment.

A spokesperson for the US embassy in Moscow said it was aware of the detention of an American citizen, but declined further comment on Monday.

In interviews, Fox and the other relative portrayed Hubbard as an isolated figure who had grown estranged from some of his family during his decades abroad teaching English, including in Japan and Cyprus.

Fox said Hubbard moved to Ukraine in 2014 and lived there for a time with a Ukrainian woman, surviving off a small pension of about $300 a month. He never learned Russian or Ukrainian, and had few connections to local people, she said.

Hubbard is one of at least 10 Americans behind bars in Russia, nearly two months after a prisoner swap on 1 August between Moscow and the west freed three Americans and dozens of others.

Separately, on Monday a court in Voronezh, south of Moscow, sentenced US citizen and ex-marine Robert Gilman to seven years and one month in prison for assaulting a prison official and a state investigator while serving time for an earlier assault conviction.

The Nobel prize in physiology or medicine 2024 has been awarded to two scientists for their work on tiny RNA molecules that help cells control which proteins they produce.

Victor Ambros of the University of Massachusetts medical school, and Gary Ruvkun of Harvard medical school and Massachusetts general hospital, have been awarded the prize for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.

Announced by the Nobel assembly at Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm, Sweden, the winners will share equally a prize of 11m Swedish kronor (about £810,000).

Their work helped explain how, despite all our cells carrying the same DNA, they can produce different proteins and have different characteristics. For example, nerve cells and muscle cells are highly specialised for different functions.

“The seminal discovery of microRNA has introduced a new and unexpected mechanism of gene regulation,” said Olle Kämpe, vice-chair of the Nobel committee for physiology or medicine. “MicroRNAs are important for our understanding of embryological development, normal cell physiology, and diseases such as cancer.”

Inside the nucleus of our cells, genetic information is stored as the double-stranded molecule, DNA. To create proteins – molecules that carry out a host of functions in our cells – a section of DNA, or gene, is copied to produce a single-stranded molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA). This mRNA acts as a “go-between”, carrying the instructions for a protein to the protein-making machinery in the cells.

“The question is: what determines that only the right genes are transcribed into mRNA and then translated into the correct tissue-specific proteins at the right time?,” said Kämpe.

For many years scientists thought they had the answer in proteins called transcription factors. These bind to DNA and either activate or prevent the production of mRNA.

But as Ambros and Ruvkun revealed, that was not the full story.

Working with a type of tiny roundworm known as C.elegans the pair independently shed light on another mechanism, publishing seminal papers in the early 1990s.

Their research showed that tiny stretches of RNA, known as microRNA, could directly bind to mRNA, preventing the instructions for the corresponding protein from being “read” by protein-making machinery.

“For a long time, however, microRNA was believed to be an oddity, peculiar to C.elegans,” said Kämpe. But in the years that followed further microRNAs were discovered, with more than a thousand genes for different microRNAs known in humans today.

Later work by various teams revealed that not only can microRNA bind to mRNA to block the production of proteins, but it can cause mRNA to break down.

And there were further discoveries. “Every microRNA regulates several mRNAs and each mRNA is often regulated by many distinct microRNAs, creating a robust system for gene regulation,” said Kämpe.

Ambros and Ruvkun are no strangers to each other: the pair carried out postdoctoral research at the same time in the laboratory of Robert Horvitz, who himself shared the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine in 2002.

Prof Venki Ramakrishnan, who shared the Nobel prize in chemistry in 2009 for his work elucidating the structure of the cell’s protein-making apparatus, welcomed the news.

“This is a very well deserved and long awaited prize which shows that small RNAs can regulate which genes are expressed in different types of cells. It has opened up an entirely new field of biology and has broad implications,” he said.

But, he added, “It is a pity that David Baulcombe, whose lab discovered a similar phenomenon in plants and shared the 2008 Lasker award with Ambros and Ruvkun, was not included in the prize.”

Thomas Perlmann, secretary general of the Nobel assembly, said he was able to reach Ruvkun in the US on Monday morning, waking the scientist.

“His wife answered, and it took a long time before he came to the phone and sounded very tired, but he quite rapidly was quite excited and happy when he understood what it was all about,” Perlmann said, adding he had not yet been able to reach Ambros.

“I left a message on his mobile phone and hope he gives me a call soon,” he said.

The 2024 Nobel prize in physics will be announced on Tuesday, followed by the chemistry prize on Wednesday.

Ireland is a “playground” for Russian intelligence, a former deputy chief of an Irish army unit has said following claims that a member of parliament was recruited by the Kremlin to undermine Anglo-Irish relations during Brexit talks.

Cathal Berry, now a Teachta Dála (TD, member of the Irish parliament), said he had not been surprised by a report at the weekend that the unnamed politician had been recruited “as an agent of influence” in a honeytrap operation.

“If you are looking to affect a western country with extensive assets and a poor security culture then Ireland is ground zero,” Berry told the Irish Times. “Here the Russians get maximum impact for minimum effort. It is a playground for them.”

According to the report in the Irish Sunday Times, the aim of the operation was to build contact with loyalist paramilitaries at a time of sensitive discussions with the UK about whether there would be checks on the Irish border or not.

The reported mission ties in with wider hybrid warfare efforts identified by the EU which it says can involve anything from disinformation to suspected arson and antisemitic attacks.

“Russia has written the manual on hybrid operations, misinformation, disinformation, cyber-attacks, anything that’s deniable or that’s very difficult to attribute to them,” said Berry, a former second-in-command of the Irish Ranger Wing and now an independent TD for Kildare.

According to the newspaper, the Irish military and security services identified the potential agent, code-named Cobalt, but he remains in office. There is no apparent evidence of him having being paid or having passed information to the Russians. He has not been arrested or charged.

The opposition TD Richard Boyd Barrett has called for action by the authorities. “I think anybody who has been corrupted by any external power rather than serving the interests of ordinary people has a serious case to answer,” he said.

The politician was said to have been recruited by Sergey Prokopiev, who worked in the embassy in Dublin from 2019-22, and was expelled two years ago after allegations he was an undeclared intelligence officer.

On Sunday the taoiseach, Simon Harris, said he would not comment on matters of security but noted that Ireland was “not immune” to Russian attempts to influence public discourse.

“It shouldn’t come as any surprise to any of us that Russia seeks to influence public opinion, seeks to distort public opinion and is active in relation to that across the world and that Ireland is not immune from that,” he said.

“We’ve also seen a very significant increase in that level of activity since the brutal invasion by Russia of Ukraine.”

Asked whether he knew who the alleged agent was, Harris said he could not comment on security matters but that he was “satisfied that our gardai and our intelligence services working internationally with counterparts take this issue very, very seriously”.

The Russian embassy said on Monday it had “always believed that there is no sense or value in commenting” on what it described as “the primitive anti-Russian concoctions” in the Sunday Times.

Russia’s presence in Ireland has previously been the subject of concern, with planning permission to quadruple the size of the Russian embassy overturned by the government in 2020 due to concern over the new complex’s purpose.

At the time, Berry said the proposed complex, which would have included a subterranean network of 20 storage rooms, 10 power plant rooms and 13 toilets, looked more like a “nerve centre” for Russian intelligence.