Elon Musk reportedly made a surprise guest appearance on a call between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, solidifying the Tesla chief executive’s role as the most influential civilian in the country come January.

Musk was present with Trump during the call for roughly 25 minutes, according to Axios, which first reported the call. Trump handed Musk the phone and Musk and Zelenskyy spoke briefly. On the call, Zelenskyy thanked Musk for the satellites he had been providing Ukraine through his company, Starlink, according to AFP. Musk said he would continue to provide satellite internet connection, the report said.

Musk, who campaigned vigorously for Trump, has a mixed record on matters relating to Russia’s war on Ukraine. The billionaire initially provided Ukraine internet connection through Starlink satellites for free, with the help of funding from several other entities including the US government.

Zelenskyy’s call with Trump was, reportedly, otherwise reassuring for the Ukraine president. Trump told Zelenskyy that he would continue to support Ukraine, though he did not go into details, according to Axios. In a statement, Zelenskyy said he praised Trump and his team for their successful campaign.

“We agreed to maintain close dialogue and advance our cooperation,” he tweeted. “Strong and unwavering US leadership is vital for the world and for a just peace.”

Musk’s words and actions have at times been ambivalent regarding support for Ukraine. According to a biography by Walter Isaacson, Musk later refused to activate the satellites over Crimea in response to an emergency request from Ukraine. Musk said the refusal was to avoid making SpaceX, Starlink’s parent company, “complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation”.

Musk had also tweeted what he presented as plan for peace but what experts had described as pro-Kremlin talking points. Zelenskyy responded by posting a poll on X asking his followers which Musk they liked more, the one who supports Russia or Ukraine.

Most recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk has been in regular contact with Vladimir Putin since 2022. It’s unclear what the two have discussed, but Starlink has been a topic of conversation in at least one case, according to the Journal, and Putin asked Musk not to activate Starlink over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Musk responded to a post on X about the story and said: “Welp, the Swamp’s ‘Trump is Hitler’ didn’t work. Might as well give ‘Elon is a Russian agent’ a whirl.”

Joe Biden’s slowness in exiting the 2024 presidential election cost the Democrats dearly, the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said, days after Kamala Harris was beaten by Donald Trump.

“We live with what happened,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi was speaking to The Interview, a New York Times podcast, in a conversation the newspaper said would be published Saturday in full.

“Had the president gotten out sooner,” Pelosi remarked, “there may have been other candidates in the race. The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary.

“And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.”

As Democrats engaged in bitter blame games over Harris’s defeat and a second presidency for Trump, who senior Democrats from Harris down freely called a “fascist”, Pelosi’s words landed like an explosive shell.

The Times said Pelosi “went to great lengths to defend the Biden administration’s legislative accomplishments, most of which took place during his first two years, when she was the House speaker”.

Republicans took the House in 2022. Pelosi, now 84, was re-elected this week to a 20th two-year term.

Biden was 78 when elected in 2020 and is now just short of 82. He long rejected doubts about his continued capacity for office, but they exploded into the open after a calamitous first debate against Trump, 78, in June.

On 21 July, the president took the historic decision to step aside as the Democratic nominee. Within minutes, he endorsed Harris to replace him.

Pelosi reportedly played a key role in persuading Biden to stand aside. But she has not sought to soothe his feelings. In August, she told the New Yorker she had “never been that impressed with his political operation”.

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She said: “They won the White House. Bravo. But my concern was: this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for this to happen. The president has to make the decision for that to happen.”

Biden is widely reported to be furious with the former speaker. This week, reports have said the president and his senior staffers are furious with Barack Obama, under whom Biden served as vice-president but who also helped push Biden to drop out of the re-election race.

According to the Times, Pelosi also rejected comments from Bernie Sanders in which the independent senator from Vermont said Trump won because Democrats “abandoned working-class people” – remarks the chair of the Democratic National Committee, Jaime Harrison, called “straight-up BS”.

“Bernie Sanders has not won,” Pelosi said. “With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic party has abandoned the working-class families.”

According to Pelosi, cultural issues pushed American votes to Trump.

“Guns, God and gays – that’s the way they say it,” she said. “Guns, that’s an issue. Gays, that’s an issue. And now they’re making the trans issue such an important issue in their priorities, and in certain communities, what they call God, what we call a woman’s right to choose” regarding abortion and other reproductive care.

Officials at the Pentagon are having informal discussions about what to do if Donald Trump were to give an illegal order, such as deploying the military domestically, according to a report from CNN. They are also preparing for the possibility that he may change rules to be able to fire scores of career civil servants.

On the campaign trail, Trump has mulled sending the military after his political enemies, and also to turn back migrants at the southern border. US law generally prohibits active-duty troops from being deployed for law enforcement purposes. There are also fears he could gut the civil service in the Pentagon, and replace fired staff with employees selected for their loyalty to him.

Meanwhile two states – the swing states of Nevada and Arizona – have yet to be called for either Harris or Trump. Should the Republicans win the electoral college votes from both states, it would mean they had a clean sweep of all seven swing states in the election. Republicans have a majority in the Senate, are ahead in the popular vote, and are ahead, though have not yet achieved a majority, in Congress, where they are six seats shy of a majority that would offer Trump even more power to enact key policies.

Here’s what else happened on Friday:

• The justice department has brought charges against a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards paramilitary group for plotting to assassinate Donald Trump prior to Tuesday’s presidential election, the Associated Press reports. On the campaign trail in the lead-up to his election win, Trump survived two assassination attempts, but authorities do not believe either were linked to Iran, a longtime foe of the United States.

• Nancy Pelosi said she believed Joe Biden waited too long to exit the race, and erred in immediately endorsing Kamala Harris. In an interview with the New York Times, Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker who played a major role in pressuring Biden not to seek re-election, said: “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race.”

• Donald Trump’s incoming presidency is set to threaten millions of Americans’ healthcare plans. More than 20 million Americans rely on the individual private health insurance market for healthcare, private insurance which is subsidized by the federal government.

• Robert F Kennedy Jr, the former independent presidential candidate turned Trump surrogate, is reviewing candidate resumes for the top jobs at the US government’s health agencies in Donald Trump’s new administration, a former Kennedy aide and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

• A Chinese national who had been recently released from a mental hospital was ordered to be held on trespassing charges on Friday after police say he tried to enter president-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the Associated Press reports. That entrance was in violation of a court order that he stay away from Mar-a-Lago after previous attempts.

• Democratic US Representative Andrea Salinas has won reelection in Oregon’s 6th congressional District, beating Republican Mike Erickson to earn a second term in Congress after outraising him by millions of dollars. Oregon’s newest congressional district was seen as leaning more toward Democrats, according to the Cook Political Report. That gave a slight advantage to the freshman Democratic incumbent, who also defeated Erickson in the 2022 election.

• Women have won 60 seats in the New Mexico Legislature to secure the largest female legislative majority in US history, stirring expressions of vindication and joy among candidates.

• A federal judge on Friday overturned Illinois’ ban on semiautomatic weapons, leaning on recent US supreme court rulings that strictly interpret the second amendment right to keep and bear firearms. Judge Stephen P McGlynn issued the lengthy finding in a decree that he said applied universally, not just to the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit challenging the ban.

• Just hours after Donald Trump’s election win on Tuesday, Black people across the US reported receiving racist text messages telling them that they had been “selected” to pick cotton and needed to report to “the nearest plantation”. While the texts, some of which were signed “a Trump supporter”, varied in detail, they all conveyed the same essential message about being selected to pick cotton. Some of the messages refer to the recipients by name.

• Donald Trump, during a call with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, handed the phone to Elon Musk, the New York Times reported, confirming an earlier Axios story. It is not clear what the three men discussed or whether they touched on any change in US policy toward Ukraine in the wake of Trump’s election victory, the Times said.

• The Biden administration has decided to allow US defense contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair Pentagon-provided weaponry, Reuters is reporting, citing US officials. The contractors would be small in number and located far from the frontlines and will not be engaged in combat, an official told the news agency.

• The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case has granted a request from the special counsel’s office to pause proceedings in his trial on charges related to trying to overturn the 2020 election. Jack Smith asked judge Tanya Chutkan to pause the case against the president-elect to “assess the unprecedented circumstances” in which the office finds itself.

Just hours after Donald Trump’s election win on Tuesday, Black people across the US reported receiving racist text messages telling them that they had been “selected” to pick cotton and needed to report to “the nearest plantation”. While the texts, some of which were signed “a Trump supporter”, varied in detail, they all conveyed the same essential message about being selected to pick cotton. Some of the messages refer to the recipients by name.

A spokesperson for the president-elect told CNN that his “campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages”. It is not yet clear who is behind the messages, nor is there a comprehensive list of the people to whom the messages were sent, but social media posts indicate that the messages are widespread.

Black people in states including Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, the DC area and elsewhere reported receiving the messages. The messages were sent to Black adults and students, including to high schoolers in Massachusetts and New York, and students at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), such as Alabama State University and other schools, including ones across Ohio, Clemson University, the University of Alabama and Missouri State. At least six middle school students in Pennsylvania received the messages, according to the AP.

Authorities including the FBI and attorneys general are investigating the messages.

“The FBI is aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals around the country and is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter,” the FBI said on Thursday.

On Thursday, the NAACP condemned the messages.

“The unfortunate reality of electing a President who historically has embraced, and at times encouraged hate, is unfolding before our eyes. These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear that many of us are feeling after Tuesday’s election results,” the NAACP president and CEO, Derrick Johnson, said in a statement.

“We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – there is no place for hate in a democracy. The threat – and the mention of slavery in 2024 – is not only deeply disturbing, but perpetuates a legacy of evil that dates back to before the Jim Crow era, and now seeks to prevent Black Americans from enjoying the same freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

Brian Hughes, of the Trump campaign, told NBC that they would take legal action “if we can find the origin of these messages which promote this kind of ugliness in our name.

“President Trump built a diverse and broad coalition of support, with voters of all races and backgrounds,” he said in a statement to NBC. “The result was a landslide victory for his commonsense mandate for change. This will result in a second term that is beneficial to every working man and woman in our nation.”

• Russian forces were moving closer to capturing a major town on the eastern front in the war in Ukraine as part of their drive westward to capture all of the Donbas region, according to military bloggers. Bloggers on both sides reported on Friday that Russian forces had entered the village of Sontsivka and were advancing from the north-west on the city of Kurakhove. Ukrainian authorities made no acknowledgment that the village had fallen into Russian hands, while noting that fighting on the eastern front was heaviest around Kurakhove and Pokrovsk, a major logistics centre to the north-west. “The Kurakhove direction and the Pokrovsk direction are the most challenging right now,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. “The military command and brigade command are working on strengthening positions.”

• Elon Musk reportedly made a surprise guest appearance on a call between Donald Trump and Zelenskyy, solidifying the Tesla chief executive’s role as the most influential civilian in the US come January. Musk was present with Trump during the call for roughly 25 minutes, according to Axios, which first reported the call. Trump handed Musk the phone and Musk and Zelenskyy spoke briefly. On the call, Zelenskyy thanked Musk for the satellites he had been providing Ukraine through his company, Starlink, according to Agence France-Presse. Musk said he would continue to provide satellite internet connection, the report said.

• Russian air defences intercepted and destroyed 15 Ukrainian drones over the southern Bryansk region, the regional governor said early on Saturday. Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram that air defence units had downed a total of 15 drones. He said there was no damage or injuries.

• The US has decided to allow US defence contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair Pentagon-provided weaponry, US officials said, in a Biden administration policy shift that aims to aid Kyiv’s fight against Moscow. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the contractors would be small in number and located far from the frontlines, and would not be engaged in combat. Previously Kyiv had to move US-provided weaponry out of the country for heavy repair or rely on video-conferencing and other creative solutions to fix those systems inside the country.

• Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has predicted Donald Trump’s new US administration will cease providing support for Ukraine. Orbán made the comments before a summit of European leaders in Budapest where the war against Russia’s invasion will be high on the agenda. The comments of Orbán, who is close to the US president-elect and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, were a sign that Trump’s election could drive a wedge among EU leaders over the war, the Associated Press reported.

• Nato members said the deployment of North Korean troops was a “dangerous expansion” of the country’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine. The military alliance’s 32 member countries warned in a joint statement on Friday that “the deepening military cooperation” between Russia and North Korea “deeply impacts Euro-Atlantic security, with implications also for the Indo-Pacific”. Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Ukraine also supported the Nato statement.

• A Russian court sentenced two soldiers to life in prison for the massacre of a family of nine people in their home in occupied Ukraine, state media reported on Friday. Russian prosecutors said that in October 2023, the two Russian soldiers, Anton Sopov and Stanislav Rau, entered the home of the Kapkanets family in the city of Volnovakha and shot all the family members, including two children aged five and nine. The southern district military court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced the two men to life in prison for mass murder “motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred”, the state-run Tass news agency reported, citing a law enforcement source.

• Ukraine said it had received the bodies of 563 soldiers from Russian authorities, mainly troops who had died in combat in the eastern Donetsk region. Friday’s announcement represents one of the largest repatriations of dead Ukrainian servicemen since the war began.

• Ukraine’s relationship with the UK has “got worse” since the Labour government took power in July, officials in Kyiv have told the Guardian, voicing frustration over Britain’s failure to supply additional long-range missiles. The UK prime minister is yet to visit Ukraine four months after taking office and a frustrated Kyiv has said a trip would be worthless unless Keir Starmer committed to replenishing stocks of the sought-after long-range Storm Shadow system, Luke Harding and Dan Sabbagh report. “There’s no point in his coming as a tourist,” a senior figure in Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration said.

• Russia and Ukraine’s most senior rights officials said on Friday they had met in Moscow-allied Belarus, in a rare direct meeting of officials from the warring countries. Russia’s human rights ombudswoman, Tatyana Moskalkova, and Ukraine’s ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said on social media they had discussed prisoners of war and future interactions.

• Russian prosecutors on Friday demanded a six-year prison sentence for a paediatrician accused of criticising the Ukraine campaign during a private appointment, in a case that has revealed the extent of repression gripping Russia. Nadezhda Buyanova was reported to the police by the ex-wife of a soldier missing after fighting in Ukraine, Anastasia Akinshina, who accused her of calling the man a “legal target of Ukraine”. The 68-year-old was arrested in February and has been in pre-trial detention since April.

• Ingka Group, which runs most Ikea stores globally, has sold its last asset in Russia, a warehouse near Moscow, it said on Friday, completing its exit from the country. Ingka sold its 14 Mega-branded shopping malls in Russia to Gazprombank Group in September 2023, joining scores of western companies abandoning the Russian market after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed a hardline supporter of the war in Gaza and longtime backer of settlements in the West Bank as his ambassador to the US as Israel prepares for the incoming administration of Donald Trump.

Yechiel Leiter, an American-born rightwing publicist and former government aide who immigrated to Israel four decades ago, was announced as Israel’s next ambassador to Washington on Friday. His son, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, was killed in fighting in northern Gaza last year.

Leiter is a “highly talented diplomat, an eloquent speaker, who has a deep understanding of American culture and politics”, Netanyahu said in a statement announcing the appointment. “I am convinced that Yechiel will represent the state of Israel in the best possible way, and I wish him success in his position.”

Leiter will replace the current ambassador, Michael Herzog, whose term will end on 20 January.

Leiter, who was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, has been a prominent rightwing thinker in Israel who was chief of staff to Netanyahu when he was finance minister and an aide to the late prime minister Ariel Sharon when he was a member of the Knesset.

According to Israeli media, Leiter has been affiliated with conservative policy centres including the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the Kohelet Forum.

Haaretz also reported that he was previously a member of the Jewish Defense League, which was founded by the far-right Rabbi Meir Kahane and was designated a terrorist organisation by the US for a series of attacks and assassinations. It was removed from that list due to inactivity.

Leiter is reported to live in a West Bank settlement north of Ramallah, and is a founder of the One Israel Fund, which fundraises for settlers. His appointment was lauded by Israel Ganz, a rightwing settler leader who called Leiter a “key partner in English-language advocacy for Judea and Samaria”, the biblical term used by Israeli settler communities to refer to the West Bank.

He has been a vocal supporter of Trump’s Abraham accords, meant to normalize Israel’s relations with several large Arab states, saying that they have split support in the Muslim world for the Palestinian cause. And has also called for ultimate Israeli “sovereignty” over the West Bank territories, a topic that will revive concerns about a potential annexation of the West Bank by the Netanyahu government.

Trump during his first term reversed the US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank were illegal under international law, and a number of settler leaders have said that Israel should formally annex the West Bank following Trump’s re-election to a second term.

Leiter’s son Moshe was killed in fighting in northern Gaza last year. He was Netanyahu’s guest when the prime minister visited Washington this summer during a contentious speech before a joint session of Congress.

At his son’s funeral at the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem last November, Leiter addressed Joe Biden and the “rumors that you are putting pressure on Israel to hold off, to cease the offensive”.

“If those rumors are true – I hope they’re not – but if they are true, Mr President, I respectfully ask of you, here on my son’s grave, to cease and desist,” he continued. “Stand back, Mr President: don’t pressure us. Let us do what we know how to do, indeed what we must do, to defeat evil. This is a war of light against darkness, of truth against lies, of civility against murderous barbarism.

“Take it from one plain-speaking Scrantonian to another – we’re going to win this one, with you or without you,” he said. “We’re going win it hands down, because we are a people of survival, and this battle is one of survival.”

Jamie Oliver says he is “devastated” by the offence he has caused to First Nations people and has issued an apology, after calls by Australia’s peak body for Indigenous education for the British celebrity chef to withdraw his children’s book from sale.

Oliver is in Australia promoting his latest cookbook, Simply Jamie, but it is his decision to join a growing flock of celebrity children’s book authors with a 400-page fantasy novel for primary school-age children that has come under fire.

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Corporation (Natsiec) has described Oliver’s book Billy and the Epic Escape, which has an Australian subplot, as damaging and disrespectful, and has accused the celebrity of contributing to the “erasure, trivialisation, and stereotyping of First Nations peoples and experiences”.

The book features a young First Nations girl living in foster care in an Indigenous community near Alice Springs who gets stolen by the novel’s villain.

Oliver and his publisher, Penguin Random House UK (PRH UK), have conceded to Guardian Australia that no consultation with any Indigenous organisation, community or individual took place before the book was published.

“I am devastated to hear I have caused offence and wholly apologise for doing so,” Oliver said in a statement to the Guardian.

“I am listening and reflecting and working closely with my publisher on next steps.”

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PRH UK also issued a statement saying it apologised unreservedly.

“Penguin Random House UK publishes this work and takes responsibility for the consultation, or what we would call an authenticity read of the work,” the statement said.

“It was our editorial oversight that this did not happen. It should have and the author asked for one and we apologise unreservedly.”

Neither author nor publisher has committed to withdrawing the book from sale, however, a move Natsiec said must happen immediately to rectify the harm caused.

The body’s chief executive, Sharon Davis, said the book perpetuated harmful stereotypes, trivialised complex and painful histories and “ignores the violent oppression of First Nations people, raising serious concerns about the cultural safety of First Nations readers – especially young people”.

In a detailed statement sent to the Guardian, Davis said the book’s depiction of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander characters and cultural practices was “irresponsible and damaging, reflecting a profound lack of understanding and respect”.

“We urge Penguin Books and Jamie Oliver to recognise the impact of their content and take swift action to prevent further harm,” Davis said.

“Penguin Books should pull Billy and the Epic Escape from circulation, specifically removing all content involving First Nations characters and cultural references.”

Billy and the Epic Escape, a humorous fantasy adventure novel, is set in England but involves a subplot where a wicked woman with supernatural powers teleports herself to Alice Springs to steal a child from a fictitiously named community called Borolama. She wants an Australian Indigenous child to join her press gang of stolen children who work her land because “First Nations children seem to be more connected with nature”. The adults responsible for Ruby, a young girl who lives in foster care and likes to eat desert bush food, are distracted by the woman’s promise of funding for their community projects. Once abducted, Ruby tells the English children who rescue and repatriate her that she can read people’s minds and communicate with animals and plants because “that’s the indigenous way”. She also tells them she is from Mparntwe (Alice Springs), yet uses words from the Gamilaraay people of New South Wales and Queensland when explaining her life in Australia.

Davis said such errors exposed the author’s “complete disregard for the vast differences among First Nations languages, cultures, and practices”, while the book’s reduction of First Nations beliefs and spirituality to “magic” was “a longstanding stereotype that diminishes our complex and diverse belief systems”.

Prominent First Nations writers have also criticised the book, accusing Oliver of engaging in cultural appropriation, and his publisher, Penguin Random House UK, of making serious errors in judgment.

The award-winning Kooma and Nguri author Cheryl Leavy, who specialises in nonfiction, poetry and children’s literature, told Guardian Australia she was troubled by the book’s themes of child slavery and child stealing, and the appropriation of culture for personal gain.

“It’s fair to expect that authors who wish to delve into any sensitive subject matter adhere to some basic industry standards, such as working with advisers with expertise in that area,” she said.

Dr Anita Heiss, a Wiradyuri author and publisher-at-large at Simon & Schuster’s First Nations imprint, Bundyi Publishing, said Oliver’s book confirmed what she had been advocating for over many years.

“First Nations peoples need to be involved at every stage of the process from acquisitions to editorial, to sales and marketing. Only then will our stories be told with the complete respect they deserve,” she said in a statement.

“There is no space in Australian publishing (or elsewhere) for our stories to be told through a colonial lens, by authors who have little if any connection to the people and place they are writing about.”

Both Heiss and Leavy believe the book should be withdrawn from sale.

The Nukunu children’s book writer Dr Jared Thomas, a research fellow for Indigenous culture and art at the South Australian Museum and the University of South Australia, said the principles of respect, consultation and permission, such as those outlined in Creative Australia’s First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts, were a bulwark against “lazy stereotyping”, and applied equally to fiction and nonfiction, in both adult and children’s literature.

“It is so important to get these representations right, because part of what we’re trying to do is educate kids, and you don’t educate them by selling them stereotypes or misinformation about First Nations people,” he said.

“Sometimes people go into a situation with a good intent, but that good intent goes wrong.

“I don’t want to say [Penguin] should pull it … but they need to consider if they’ve made a serious error of judgment, and if they have, what will be the impact on Aboriginal children, people, communities, and how they can address that.”

Penguin Random House UK said its Australian arm PRH Australia was in no way involved in the content or publication of the book, which was distributed into Australia as part of its global PRH network.

PRH also said Oliver would not be promoting Billy and the Epic Escape during his Australian tour.

Three Nasa astronauts who were taken to a Florida hospital after returning to Earth from the International Space Station two weeks ago told reporters on Friday that they were all in good health following the medical ordeal – and that the agency was “still piecing things together” about what happened.

Michael Barrett, pilot of the crew that splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico on 25 October after seven months in orbit, gave few further details at a press conference in Houston, citing medical privacy laws that he said prevented him from discussing the episode in detail.

“Space flight is still something we don’t fully understand. We’re finding things that we don’t expect sometimes – this was one of those times,” he said.

“We’re still piecing things together. I’m a medical doctor, space medicine is my passion, and how we adapt, how we experience human space flight, is something that we all take very seriously. In the fullness of time, we will allow this to come out.”

Barrett was joined at Nasa headquarters by crewmates Matthew Dominick and Jeanette Epps. A fourth member, the Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, was not present.

All four were diverted to the Ascension Sacred Heart hospital in Pensacola, in what Nasa said was “an abundance of caution”, soon after their landing in a SpaceX capsule following 235 days in space.

One of the crew, who has not been identified, was “briefly detained” at the hospital but was released “in good health” to continue what it called post-flight reconditioning, the US space agency said at the time.

On Friday, during their first public appearance since the end of the mission, the three Americans spoke about their first days back on Earth.

“The big things you expect, being disoriented, being dizzy. But the little things, like just sitting in a hard chair, my backside has not really sat in a hard thing for 235 days … It’s rather uncomfortable, right? I did not expect that, right?” Dominick, the mission’s commander, said.

“I remember like the third or fourth day after we got back, we were sitting outside on our patio, with my family eating dinner, and I just wanted to be a part of the family and be there with the activities, but I couldn’t sit on that hard chair any more. I just laid a towel down on the ground.”

The mission had been expected to end in August, but the astronauts were directed to stay on the International Space Station (ISS) for two extra months in part because of technical issues surrounding the ill-fated maiden crewed voyage of Boeing’s troubled Starliner capsule.

Starliner’s astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, are still onboard the ISS, five months after what was planned to be a week-long mission. They will not come home until at least February.

The return of Barrett and his crewmates, meanwhile, was postponed by about a further two weeks because of weather, including Hurricane Milton’s rampage across the Gulf of Mexico in early October.

“You’re like, are we going home tomorrow? You call your wife, like, hey, we’re coming home tomorrow, and then we’re not, and then we’re coming home, no, next week. Maybe,” Dominick said.

“That part was entertaining to deal with, but it was definitely great to spend bonus time in space.”

Three Nasa astronauts who were taken to a Florida hospital after returning to Earth from the International Space Station two weeks ago told reporters on Friday that they were all in good health following the medical ordeal – and that the agency was “still piecing things together” about what happened.

Michael Barrett, pilot of the crew that splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico on 25 October after seven months in orbit, gave few further details at a press conference in Houston, citing medical privacy laws that he said prevented him from discussing the episode in detail.

“Space flight is still something we don’t fully understand. We’re finding things that we don’t expect sometimes – this was one of those times,” he said.

“We’re still piecing things together. I’m a medical doctor, space medicine is my passion, and how we adapt, how we experience human space flight, is something that we all take very seriously. In the fullness of time, we will allow this to come out.”

Barrett was joined at Nasa headquarters by crewmates Matthew Dominick and Jeanette Epps. A fourth member, the Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, was not present.

All four were diverted to the Ascension Sacred Heart hospital in Pensacola, in what Nasa said was “an abundance of caution”, soon after their landing in a SpaceX capsule following 235 days in space.

One of the crew, who has not been identified, was “briefly detained” at the hospital but was released “in good health” to continue what it called post-flight reconditioning, the US space agency said at the time.

On Friday, during their first public appearance since the end of the mission, the three Americans spoke about their first days back on Earth.

“The big things you expect, being disoriented, being dizzy. But the little things, like just sitting in a hard chair, my backside has not really sat in a hard thing for 235 days … It’s rather uncomfortable, right? I did not expect that, right?” Dominick, the mission’s commander, said.

“I remember like the third or fourth day after we got back, we were sitting outside on our patio, with my family eating dinner, and I just wanted to be a part of the family and be there with the activities, but I couldn’t sit on that hard chair any more. I just laid a towel down on the ground.”

The mission had been expected to end in August, but the astronauts were directed to stay on the International Space Station (ISS) for two extra months in part because of technical issues surrounding the ill-fated maiden crewed voyage of Boeing’s troubled Starliner capsule.

Starliner’s astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, are still onboard the ISS, five months after what was planned to be a week-long mission. They will not come home until at least February.

The return of Barrett and his crewmates, meanwhile, was postponed by about a further two weeks because of weather, including Hurricane Milton’s rampage across the Gulf of Mexico in early October.

“You’re like, are we going home tomorrow? You call your wife, like, hey, we’re coming home tomorrow, and then we’re not, and then we’re coming home, no, next week. Maybe,” Dominick said.

“That part was entertaining to deal with, but it was definitely great to spend bonus time in space.”

A Brazilian businessman has been killed and three people injured in an apparent gangland assassination at São Paulo’s international airport in Guarulhos.

The victims were caught in a hail of bullets when a gunman with a rifle opened fire from inside a black car parked outside the airport’s terminal 2, which is mainly used for domestic flights.

Police identified the dead man as Antônio Vinícius Lopes Gritzbach, who had previously received death threats from the First Capital Command (PCC), Brazil’s most powerful crime syndicate.

Prosecutors reportedly describe Lopes Gritzbach as a businessman who worked with bitcoin and cryptocurrency. He had reportedly been accused of money laundering, and had recently entered into a plea bargain with local prosecutors to speak about his ties to the criminal organization, police said.

Police have not yet determined the number of gunmen involved in the attack.

Footage posted on social media showed the aftermath of the attack with two victims lying sprawled on the ground.

Created in August 1993, the PCC has become Brazil’s most feared criminal faction, conquering drug markets, smuggling routes, shantytowns and prisons across Brazil, including in far-flung corners of the Amazon.

It also became a major player in other South American countries such as neighbouring Paraguay, where the group has been blamed for multimillion-dollar armed robberies and bombings and targeted assassinations.

In recent years years, the group has increased its international ties, forging lucrative alliances with partners including Bolivian cocaine producers and Italian mafiosi.

The PCC boasts tens of thousands of members and has a growing portfolio of interests, including illegal goldmines in the Amazon. It controls one of South America’s most important trafficking routes – linking Bolivia and Brazil to Europe and Africa – and is partly responsible for a tsunami of cocaine that has brought car bombings, assassinations and gunfights to parts of Europe.

Tony Todd, the actor who played the titular killer in classic horror film Candyman, as well as appearing in Final Destination, The Rock and Platoon, has died aged 69.

Todd died on Wednesday at home in Los Angeles after a long illness, his wife, Fatima, confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter on Friday.

Born in Washington DC in 1954, Todd had hundreds of television and movie credits to his name in a 40-year career. One of his first roles was the heroin-addicted Sergeant Warren in Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winning war drama Platoon; he also appeared in 1996’s The Rock opposite Nicolas Cage, played funeral home owner William Bludworth in the Final Destination franchise, and Grange in 1994’s The Crow, with Brandon Lee.

On television Todd appeared in many popular series, including 24, Homicide: Life on the Street, The X-Files, 21 Jump Street, Night Court, MacGyver, Matlock, Law & Order, Beverly Hills 90210, Xena: Warrior Princess and Murder, She Wrote. He also played multiple roles in Star Trek, most prominently as the Klingon Kurn, brother of Worf, in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.

He was also a prolific voice actor, playing characters in the Call of Duty and Half Life games, as well as Venom in the film Spider-Man 2 and the villain in Transformers: Rise of the Fallen.

In the 1992 film Candyman, Todd played the titular hook-handed killer, who is summoned when someone repeats his name five times before a mirror. The horror classic explored racism and social class; Todd’s character Daniel Robitaille was lynched by a white mob on the spot where a public housing project is later built, which he haunts.

In 2019 Todd told the Guardian that he was paid $1,000 extra each time he was stung by a bee in one of the film’s most famous scene. “And I got stung 23 times. Everything that’s worth making has to involve some sort of pain.”

Todd reprised his role in Jordan Peele’s 2021 Candyman reboot.

The actor used his fame for social work, in gang outreach and putting on acting seminars for underprivileged kids. Of Candyman, he said: “I’ve done 200 movies, this is the one that stays in people’s minds. It affects people of all races. I’ve used it as an introductory tool in gang-intervention work: what frightens you? What horrible things have you experienced?”

“The industry has lost a legend. We have lost a cherished friend. Rest in peace, Tony, -Your Final Destination Family,” New Line Cinema, which produced the horror franchise, wrote on Instagram.

Two men who co-founded a militia group have been convicted of attempting to murder federal agents ahead of a trip to Texas where they intended to shoot people attempting to cross the US-Mexico border.

Jonathan S O’Dell, 34, of Warsaw, Missouri, and Bryan C Perry, 39, of Clarksville, Tennessee, also planned to shoot any federal agents who tried to stop them as they targeted migrants, according to the prosecution.

A jury at the US district court in Missouri deliberated for more than two hours before finding them guilty of more than 30 felony counts each, the chief federal prosecutor for western Missouri, Teresa Moore, announced Friday.

They both face at least 10 years in prison, and possibly life.

The two men formed the 2nd Amendment Militia and then in the summer and fall of 2022 tried to recruit others to join them, prosecutors said. In September 2022, O’Dell’s home became a staging site as the two men collected firearms, ammunition, paramilitary gear and other supplies, according to the government’s evidence.

Prosecutors said Perry posted a TikTok video in September saying that their militia group was going to “go protect this country”, and another in early October saying the group would be “out huntin’”. Prosecutors said the two men viewed US Border Patrol agents as traitors for allowing immigrants to cross into Texas.

The day before they planned to leave for Texas, an FBI team using an armored vehicle served a search warrant on O’Dell’s home, and prosecutors said Perry fired 11 rifle shots at them. O’Dell and his girlfriend surrendered, but after exiting the house, Perry fought with agents.

The charges against the two men also included using a firearm in a violent crime, illegal gun possession and damaging federal property. Perry couldn’t legally have a gun because in 2004, he pled guilty in Tennessee to a felony aggravated robbery charge and served about four years in prison, according to online records.

Perry had also pled guilty to three charges, including escaping from federal custody. He escaped in September 2023 as he was being held for trial in a county jail in Rolla, Missouri, but was captured two days later and about 160 miles (258 km) to the north-west, outside Kansas City, following a high-speed chase.

O’Dell’s attorney, Jonathan Truesdale, declined comment. Perry’s attorney, Thomas Kirsch, said his client plans to appeal the verdict. Kirsch said Perry is disappointed in the verdict but said he is grateful for jurors’ dedication and the opportunity to exercise “his fundamental right” of trial by jury.

Tesla’s market value breached the $1tn mark in a sharp rally on Friday, on growing bets of a favorable treatment for CEO Elon Musk’s companies in return for his support for President-elect Donald Trump in his poll campaign.

The electric automaker’s shares rose more than 6% to a more than two-year high of $315.56, after having gained 19.3% up to Thursday’s close. The company crossed the $1tn valuation for the first time in more than two years.

The billionaire could push for favorable regulation of autonomous vehicles that Tesla plans and also get the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to hold off on potential enforcement actions involving the safety of Tesla’s current driver-assistance systems, a source had told Reuters.

Musk has focused on self-driving vehicle technology, ditching plans to build an economy car priced at under $30,000. However, development and regulatory hurdles have delayed the commercialization of such technologies.

“Tesla and CEO Elon Musk are perhaps the biggest winners from the election result, and we believe Trump’s victory will help expedite regulatory approval of the company’s autonomous driving technology,” said Garrett Nelson, senior equity analyst at CFRA Research.

Tesla shares jumped in late October after the company reported a rise in quarterly profit margin, buoyed by sales of the highly profitable Full Self Driving driver assistance software. It has been the world’s most valuable automaker for years, with Japan’s Toyota Motor, China BYD and others trailing by several hundred billion dollars.

Amsterdam police have made more than 60 arrests after what authorities called “hateful antisemitic violence” against Israeli football fans.

A plane carrying football supporters brought home from the Dutch capital by the Israeli government landed on Friday at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport after the clashes on Thursday, which took place after a Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

The mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, described an “outburst” of antisemitism with “hit and run” attacks on the visiting supporters.

“Men on scooters crisscrossed the city looking for Israeli football fans. It was a hit and run. I can easily understand that this brings back memories of pogroms,” Halsema said. “Our city has been deeply damaged. Jewish culture has been deeply threatened. This is an outburst of antisemitism that I hope to never see again.”

Amsterdam’s police chief, Peter Holla, said there had been “incidents on both sides”, starting on Wednesday night when Maccabi fans tore down a Palestinian flag from the facade of a building in the city centre and shouted “fuck you Palestine”.

Holla said Maccabi had vandalised a taxi, which was followed by “an online call” to mobilise taxi drivers to a casino, where 400 Israeli supporters were present. Police had safely escorted supporters out of the casino, he said.

A social media video verified by Reuters showed Maccabi fans setting off flares and chanting “Olé, olé, let the IDF win, we will fuck the Arabs”, referring to the Israel Defense Forces. The police chief said a large crowd of Maccabi supporters had then gathered on Dam Square on Thursday lunchtime and there had been “fights on both sides”.

Amsterdam’s authorities banned demonstrations for three days and gave police emergency stop-and-search powers in response to the unrest.

Police said on Friday they had launched “a major investigation into multiple violent incidents” and that five people had been taken to hospital and 62 arrested. There was no evidence of “kidnappings or hostage takings” but police were “probing reports”, they said. The leaders of Israel, the US and the Netherlands condemned the attacks, while a leading Jewish group said the Dutch capital should be “deeply ashamed”.

Officials in Amsterdam said that in several places in the city, supporters were attacked, abused and pelted with fireworks and that riot police had to intervene several times to protect Israeli supporters and escort them to hotels.

Residents and businesses in Amsterdam were shocked by what appeared to be organised small groups of people chasing Israeli fans in Amsterdam’s city centre after the match.

Theodoor van Boven, who owns the Condomerie, near Dam Square on the Warmoesstraat, said he saw gangs apparently hunting and chasing opposing fans. “What we saw here in the street in the evening and at night were groups of often Dutch groups who were out hunting, who were looking for Maccabi fans. They were on foot in groups, on scooters, riding round looking, and telephoning each other – it [seemed to be] organised.”

“They saw everyone in yellow [Maccabi Tel Aviv’s home-strip colour], they jumped on us,” a young woman, identified only as Pnina, told the Dutch public broadcaster from Schipol airport. She said her group had hidden in their hotel “until it was safe to go outside”.

Ron, another departing fan, said it had been a “terrible night” and “very scary”.

Before the match, police escorted pro-Palestine demonstrators to an agreed protest location, but said they then split into small groups “looking for confrontation”.

There were no reports of trouble during the match at the Johan Cruyff arena, in which Ajax Amsterdam defeated Maccabi 5-0, and fans left the stadium without incident, police said.

Serious violence erupted later in the city centre with hit and run actions targeting Israeli fans, resulting in a number of “serious assaults”, according to the police, who said the precise number was still being investigated.

Holla defended his force from accusations, led by the far-right leader Geert Wilders, that police had been absent when Jewish fans were being attacked. Holla said he was shocked by what had happened despite police being “maximally prepared”, with 800 officers on duty on Thursday night, large by usual standards.

One Amsterdam resident, Barbara Weenink, said she had found the behaviour of Israeli fans threatening. Weenink, who has demonstrated at pro-Palestine events, said she was warned not to go out with a keffiyeh on that evening. She did not see the events after the match but had seen Israeli football fans before it. “I saw the Israeli fans walking here before the match – I found it very threatening,” she said.

The conflict in Gaza has heightened tensions across Europe, with soaring antisemitic abuse and attacks. Islamophobic incidents have also risen to record levels.

In a statement, the office of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, described a “planned antisemitic attack against Israeli citizens” and requested that security be increased for the Dutch Jewish community. Netanyahu later compared the incident to Kristallnacht, the pogram in Nazi Germany in 1938 in which an estimated 91 Jews were murdered. “Tomorrow, 86 years ago, was Kristallnacht – an attack on Jews, whatever Jews they are, on European soil. It’s back now – yesterday we celebrated it on the streets of Amsterdam.”

Netanyahu cancelled plans announced early on Friday to send two military rescue planes to Amsterdam and officials in Jerusalem said efforts would instead focus on using commercial airlines, primarily El Al, Israel’s national carrier.

El Al said on Friday morning that, after special permission from Jewish religious authorities to operate on the sabbath, a first flight would leave Amsterdam for Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon and further free flights would continue on Saturday as necessary.

Netanyahu also said he had ordered the Mossad spy agency to draw up a plan to prevent unrest at events abroad after the violence in Amsterdam.

The Dutch prime minister, Dick Schoof, said he was “horrified by the antisemitic attacks on Israeli civilians”, calling it “completely unacceptable”. He said he had spoken to Netanyahu by phone “to stress that the perpetrators will be identified and prosecuted”.

In a social media post on Friday, Wilders, who leads the far-right Freedom party, the largest in the Dutch governing coalition, criticised his own government for a “lack of urgency”. He wrote: “Why is there no extra cabinet meeting? Where is the sense of urgency?”

Wilders, who is well known for his anti-Muslim positions and does not have a formal role in the government, said the Dutch authorities “will be held accountable for their failure to protect” Israeli citizens.

Leaders of Dutch Jewish organisations noted the violence had taken place on the evening the Dutch Jewish community had commemorated Kristallnacht, the 1938 state-sanctioned pogrom and murderous rampage in Nazi Germany and controlled territories that paved the way for the Holocaust.

Chanan Hertzberger, the chair of the Central Jewish Consultation, described “antisemitic gangs who, under the guise of anti-Zionism, have been trying to make life impossible for Jews in the Netherlands for some time”.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said she was “outraged” by “vile attacks targeting Israeli citizens in Amsterdam”, while Uefa, the governing body of football in Europe, said it strongly condemned “the incidents and acts of violence”. The UN called the violence “very troubling” while Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said it was terrible and “deeply shameful”.

In a tweet, Deborah Lipstadt, the US antisemitism envoy, said she was deeply disturbed by the attacks and called for an investigation.

Ajax released a brief statement condemning the violence, saying: “After a sporting football match with a good atmosphere in our stadium – for which we thank all parties involved for the good cooperation – we were horrified to learn what happened in the centre of Amsterdam last night.”

Additional reporting by Jon Henley in Budapest