Donald Trump will avoid jail time for his felony conviction in the New York hush-money case, a judge determined on Friday, marking both a dramatic and anti-climactic development in the historic criminal proceedings weeks before he returns to the White House.

The judge who presided over Trump’s criminal trial, Juan Merchan, issued a sentence of “unconditional discharge”, meaning the president-elect will be released without fine, imprisonment or probation supervision for his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. While the sentence makes Trump a convicted felon, he will face no penalty other than this legal designation.

Trump, whose presidential inauguration is scheduled for 20 January, is the first US president – former or sitting – to face a criminal trial, let alone a guilty verdict and subsequent sentencing.

Addressing the court via video shortly before receiving his sentence, Trump called the case “a very terrible experience”, an “injustice” and a “political witch-hunt”.

“This has been a very terrible experience. I think it’s been a tremendous setback for New York, the New York court system,” he said, appearing next to his lawyer, Todd Blanche. “I get indicted for business records? Everybody should be so accurate. It’s been a political witch hunt … to damage my reputation so that I’d lose the election. Obviously that didn’t work.”

Explaining the sentence, Merchan said that Trump’s victory in the presidential race did not “reduce the seriousness of the crime or justify its commission in any way”, but it had to be taken into account.

“It was the citizenry of this nation that recently decided that once again you should have the benefits of those protections which include, among other things, the supremacy clause and presidential immunity,” Merchan said. “It is through that lens and that reality that this court must determine a lawful sentence.”

Merchan, who was subject to intense criticism and threats as he oversaw Trump’s case, then told the president-elect: “Sir, I wish you godspeed as you assume your second term in office.”

Trump was found guilty on 30 May 2024 of falsifying business records with the intent to commit a second crime.

The office of Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, argued that Trump falsely recorded reimbursements he made to his former lawyer Michael Cohen for paying $130,000 to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, so she would keep quiet about an alleged sexual liaison with the then candidate. Trump marked these repayments to Cohen as “legal expenses” on financial documents.

State prosecutors contended at trial that these falsifications were intended to hide Trump’s violation of New York election law, which forbids promoting any person to office through unlawful means. They said that the unlawful means were the payoff to Daniels, as they cast it as an illegal campaign contribution.

They argued that sincethe payment was a hedge for Trump’s chances amid other allegations of boorishness, as a spate of damaging reporting about his treatment of women had already emerged weeks before election day. This payout exceeded the legal $2,700 individual campaign contribution limit.

Outside the courthouse at 100 Centre Street in Manhattan, Trump supporters and anti-Trump protesters gathered to offer their thoughts on the proceedings. Some protesters held signs reading “Trump is guilty”, “fraud” and “34 felony convictions” while supporters displayed a banner reading “stop partisan conspiracy; stop political witch hunt”.

One of the anti-Trump protesters, Paul Rabin, told the Guardian before the sentencing hearing: “It’s been proven in a court of law that he’s broken the law, and yet he’s been able to evade justice, and unfortunately, in our society, he has money, wealth, status and power, and that’s what gets you justice – or the opposite of justice.”

As Trump’s trial progressed, he repeatedly railed against the proceedings, casting himself as the victim of a politicized witch-hunt. Trump’s invectives repeatedly violated Merchan’s gag order that barred him from speaking about witnesses and jurors.

While Trump was fined and held in contempt for these violations, Merchan’s failure to impose meaningful punishment, such as jail, foreshadowed the many post-trial developments that fell in his favor.

Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced on 11 July. Then came the 1 July US supreme court ruling that imbued presidents with broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.

Merchan agreed to postpone sentencing until 18 September so he could weigh whether this decision affected the guilty verdict. The jurist subsequently pushed back sentencing until 26 November “to avoid any appearance – however unwarranted – that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate”. He also postponed issuing his immunity decision.

Trump’s appeal-and-delay legal strategy worked. Following Trump’s win, his team intensified their attempt to thwart the case on presidential immunity grounds, saying this protection applied to the president-elect and that sentencing would impede the smooth transition of power.

Merchan on 3 January ultimately decided not to toss Trump’s case, saying there was “no legal impediment” to sentencing. Merchan scheduled Trump’s sentencing for 10 January.

“It is this Court’s firm belief that only by bringing finality to this matter will all three interests be served,” Merchan wrote in this ruling. “A jury heard evidence for nearly seven weeks and pronounced its verdict; Defendant and the People were given every opportunity to address intervening decisions, to exhaust every possible motion in support of and in opposition to, their respective positions in what is an unprecedented, and likely never to be repeated legal scenario.

“This Court must sentence Defendant within a reasonable time following verdict; and Defendant must be permitted to avail himself of every available appeal, a path he has made clear he intends to pursue but which only becomes fully available upon sentencing,” Merchan said.

In his decision, however, Merchan all but said that jail was off the table. Merchan said that in weighing all the factors and concerns about presidential immunity, a sentence of “unconditional discharge appears to be the most viable solution”.

Additional reporting by Anna Betts

Donald Trump will avoid jail time for his felony conviction in the New York hush-money case, a judge determined on Friday, marking both a dramatic and anti-climactic development in the historic criminal proceedings weeks before he returns to the White House.

The judge who presided over Trump’s criminal trial, Juan Merchan, issued a sentence of “unconditional discharge”, meaning the president-elect will be released without fine, imprisonment or probation supervision for his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. While the sentence makes Trump a convicted felon, he will face no penalty other than this legal designation.

Trump, whose presidential inauguration is scheduled for 20 January, is the first US president – former or sitting – to face a criminal trial, let alone a guilty verdict and subsequent sentencing.

Addressing the court via video shortly before receiving his sentence, Trump called the case “a very terrible experience”, an “injustice” and a “political witch-hunt”.

“This has been a very terrible experience. I think it’s been a tremendous setback for New York, the New York court system,” he said, appearing next to his lawyer, Todd Blanche. “I get indicted for business records? Everybody should be so accurate. It’s been a political witch hunt … to damage my reputation so that I’d lose the election. Obviously that didn’t work.”

Explaining the sentence, Merchan said that Trump’s victory in the presidential race did not “reduce the seriousness of the crime or justify its commission in any way”, but it had to be taken into account.

“It was the citizenry of this nation that recently decided that once again you should have the benefits of those protections which include, among other things, the supremacy clause and presidential immunity,” Merchan said. “It is through that lens and that reality that this court must determine a lawful sentence.”

Merchan, who was subject to intense criticism and threats as he oversaw Trump’s case, then told the president-elect: “Sir, I wish you godspeed as you assume your second term in office.”

Trump was found guilty on 30 May 2024 of falsifying business records with the intent to commit a second crime.

The office of Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, argued that Trump falsely recorded reimbursements he made to his former lawyer Michael Cohen for paying $130,000 to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, so she would keep quiet about an alleged sexual liaison with the then candidate. Trump marked these repayments to Cohen as “legal expenses” on financial documents.

State prosecutors contended at trial that these falsifications were intended to hide Trump’s violation of New York election law, which forbids promoting any person to office through unlawful means. They said that the unlawful means were the payoff to Daniels, as they cast it as an illegal campaign contribution.

They argued that sincethe payment was a hedge for Trump’s chances amid other allegations of boorishness, as a spate of damaging reporting about his treatment of women had already emerged weeks before election day. This payout exceeded the legal $2,700 individual campaign contribution limit.

Outside the courthouse at 100 Centre Street in Manhattan, Trump supporters and anti-Trump protesters gathered to offer their thoughts on the proceedings. Some protesters held signs reading “Trump is guilty”, “fraud” and “34 felony convictions” while supporters displayed a banner reading “stop partisan conspiracy; stop political witch hunt”.

One of the anti-Trump protesters, Paul Rabin, told the Guardian before the sentencing hearing: “It’s been proven in a court of law that he’s broken the law, and yet he’s been able to evade justice, and unfortunately, in our society, he has money, wealth, status and power, and that’s what gets you justice – or the opposite of justice.”

As Trump’s trial progressed, he repeatedly railed against the proceedings, casting himself as the victim of a politicized witch-hunt. Trump’s invectives repeatedly violated Merchan’s gag order that barred him from speaking about witnesses and jurors.

While Trump was fined and held in contempt for these violations, Merchan’s failure to impose meaningful punishment, such as jail, foreshadowed the many post-trial developments that fell in his favor.

Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced on 11 July. Then came the 1 July US supreme court ruling that imbued presidents with broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.

Merchan agreed to postpone sentencing until 18 September so he could weigh whether this decision affected the guilty verdict. The jurist subsequently pushed back sentencing until 26 November “to avoid any appearance – however unwarranted – that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate”. He also postponed issuing his immunity decision.

Trump’s appeal-and-delay legal strategy worked. Following Trump’s win, his team intensified their attempt to thwart the case on presidential immunity grounds, saying this protection applied to the president-elect and that sentencing would impede the smooth transition of power.

Merchan on 3 January ultimately decided not to toss Trump’s case, saying there was “no legal impediment” to sentencing. Merchan scheduled Trump’s sentencing for 10 January.

“It is this Court’s firm belief that only by bringing finality to this matter will all three interests be served,” Merchan wrote in this ruling. “A jury heard evidence for nearly seven weeks and pronounced its verdict; Defendant and the People were given every opportunity to address intervening decisions, to exhaust every possible motion in support of and in opposition to, their respective positions in what is an unprecedented, and likely never to be repeated legal scenario.

“This Court must sentence Defendant within a reasonable time following verdict; and Defendant must be permitted to avail himself of every available appeal, a path he has made clear he intends to pursue but which only becomes fully available upon sentencing,” Merchan said.

In his decision, however, Merchan all but said that jail was off the table. Merchan said that in weighing all the factors and concerns about presidential immunity, a sentence of “unconditional discharge appears to be the most viable solution”.

Additional reporting by Anna Betts

Weather forecasters in Los Angeles expect fast, dry winds to return towards the end of the weekend, threatening to fuel wildfires that have already destroyed 10,000 structures and killed 10 people.

Urgent “red flag” alerts – meaning critical fire weather conditions – announced by the US National Weather Service (NWS) said moderate to strong wind and low humidity would continue on Friday morning, as five fires raged across the metropolis.

Barbara Bruderlin, head of the Malibu Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce, described the impact of the infernos as “total devastation and loss”.

“There are areas where everything is gone, there isn’t even a stick of wood left, it’s just dirt,” Bruderlin said.

Cadaver dogs and crews were searching through rubble to see if there are more victims.

The dead include four men who were unable to leave or had stayed behind to defend their homes in Altadena, a community near Pasadena that is home to working- and middle-class families, including many Black residents living there for generations. Two of them were Anthony Mitchell, a 67-year-old amputee, and his son, Justin, who had cerebral palsy. They were waiting for an ambulance to come when the flames roared through, Mitchell’s daughter, Hajime White, told the Washington Post.

In another incident, Shari Shaw told the local media outlet KTLA that she tried to get her 66-year-old brother, Victor Shaw, to evacuate Tuesday night but he wanted to stay and fight the fire. Crews found his body with a garden hose in his hand.

“He was not going to leave his son behind. No matter what,” White said. White – who lives in Warren, Arkansas, and is Justin’s step-sister – said her father called her on Wednesday morning and said they had to evacuate from approaching flames. “Then he said: ‘I’ve got to go – the fire’s in the yard,’” she recalled on Thursday.

Winds were likely to diminish on Friday afternoon, the NWS said, but warned an “extended period of elevated to potentially critical fire weather conditions are in the forecast for Sunday through Wednesday”.

Officials urged more people to heed evacuation orders after a new blaze, called the Kenneth fire, ignited on Thursday afternoon. About 400 firefighters remained at the location overnight to guard against the fire spreading.

Firefighting efforts in such tough conditions, with effectively no rain for months and none forecast in the days ahead, have stretched crews and left the country’s second-largest city reeling.

The largest of the fires burning in the LA area, the Pacific Palisades, obliterated neighbourhoods in the scenic hilltops. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection website, that blaze has been only 6% “contained”.

To the east, the Eaton fire near Pasadena that started Tuesday night has burned more than 5,000 structures, a term that includes homes, apartment buildings, businesses, outbuildings and vehicles.

Human-caused climate breakdown is supercharging extreme weather across the world, including wildfires. In California, the fire season now begins earlier and ends later.

Data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service released on Friday showed the annual global temperature reached above the internationally agreed 1.5C target for the first time last year. That jump represented levels of heat never experienced by modern humans.

At least 180,000 people were under evacuation orders, and the fires have consumed about 45 sq miles (117 sq km), which is roughly the size of San Francisco.

At least 20 arrests have been made for looting. The city of Santa Monica, which is next to Pacific Palisades, declared a curfew because of the lawlessness, officials said.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

South African police have rescued 26 Ethiopians from a suspected human trafficking ring in Johannesburg after the group broke a window and burglar bar to escape from a house where they were being held naked.

Three people were arrested on suspicion of people trafficking and possessing an illegal firearm on Thursday night after neighbours in the Sandringham suburb heard the commotion and tipped off the police, the Hawks serious crime unit said in a statement. Police urged the public to report any other escaped naked people in the area.

About 60 Ethiopian men were held captive in the bungalow, the local TV station eNCA reported, showing what appeared to be blood spattered below an open window at the front of the house. Police said 11 people were taken to hospital for medical treatment. A number of the Ethiopians have still not been picked up by police.

“The signs that we have is this is a human trafficking matter, because they were actually escaping from that house and they were kept naked, almost as if it’s a modus operandi to keep them humiliated and not trying to escape,” said Philani Nkwalase, a police spokesperson.

South Africa has attracted immigrants from across Africa since the end of apartheid more than three decades ago. However, fears that they are smuggling drugs and driving up unemployment and violent crime have fuelled persistent xenophobia.

There are about 2.4 million foreign-born people in South Africa out of the 62 million population, according to the 2022 census, which aimed to count people regardless of immigration status. While more than three-quarters come from other southern African states, there are about 58,000 Ethiopians in the country.

In August 2024, 82 Ethiopians were discovered crammed into a house in the same area of Johannesburg, without enough food or proper toilet and bathroom facilities. Seven of them were initially deemed to be minors and 19 others said they were underage when they were taken to court on suspicion of entering South Africa illegally.

“They were all undocumented migrants who were not victims of trafficking but were smuggled into the country,” the department of home affairs said in a statement later that month.

Nkwalase said it was not yet clear if the two cases were connected, adding that police were seeking an interpreter as language barriers were preventing officers from getting answers from the men about how, why and when they came to South Africa.

A neighbour of the house from which the Ethiopians had escaped told eNCA she was shocked by the incident, adding that the only time she had seen anyone at the property was a few weeks ago when her son went to retrieve a ball he had kicked over the fence.

Climate breakdown drove the annual global temperature above the internationally agreed 1.5C target for the first time last year, supercharging extreme weather and causing “misery to millions of people”.

The average temperature in 2024 was 1.6C above preindustrial levels, data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) shows. That is a jump of 0.1C from 2023, which was also a record hot year and represents levels of heat never experienced by modern humans.

The heating is primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels, and the damage to lives and livelihoods will continue to escalate around the world until coal, oil and gas are replaced. The Paris agreement target of 1.5C is measured over a decade or two, so a single year above that level does not mean the target has been missed, but does show the climate emergency continues to intensify. Every year in the past decade has been one of the 10 hottest, in records that go back to 1850.

The C3S data also shows that a record 44% of the planet was affected by strong to extreme heat stress on 10 July 2024, and that the hottest day in recorded history struck on 22 July.

“There’s now an extremely high likelihood that we will overshoot the long-term average of 1.5C in the Paris agreement limit,” Dr Samantha Burgess, deputy director at C3S, said. “These high global temperatures, coupled with record global atmospheric water vapour levels in 2024, meant unprecedented heatwaves and heavy rainfall events, causing misery for millions of people.”

Dr Friederike Otto, at Imperial College London, said: “This record needs to be a reality check. A year of extreme weather showed just how dangerous life is at 1.5C. The Valencia floods, US hurricanes, the Philippines typhoons and Amazon drought are just four disasters last year that were worsened by climate change. There are many, many more.”

“The world doesn’t need to come up with a magical solution to stop things from getting worse in 2025,” Otto said. “We know exactly what we need to do to transition away from fossil fuels, halt deforestation and make societies more resilient.”

Carbon emissions in 2024 are expected to have set a new record high, meaning there is no sign yet of the transition away from fossil fuels pledged by the world’s nations at the UN climate conference in Dubai in December 2023. The world is on track for a catastrophic 2.7C of global heating by the end of the century.

The next big opportunity for action comes in February when countries have to submit new emissions-cutting pledges to the UN. The likelihood of keeping below the 1.5C limit even over the longer term appears increasingly remote. Fossil-fuel emissions must fall by 45% by 2030 to have a chance of limiting heating to 1.5C. Several other major temperature analyses are expected to be published on Friday and to find similar levels of heat, including the UK Met Office which also found 2024 had passed 1.5C in 2024.

Temperatures were boosted in the first half of 2024 by the natural El Niño climate phenomenon, but remained very high in the second half of the year even when El Niño dissipated. Some scientists fear an unexpected factor has kicked in, causing a worrying acceleration of global heating, although an unusual year-to-year natural variation could also be the reason.

A fall in pollution from shipping and in low-level clouds, both of which reflect sunlight, have contributed some extra heating, but scientists are still searching for a full explanation of the extreme temperatures in 2024.

Warmer air holds more water vapour and the record level recorded by C3S in 2024 is significant as it increases extreme rainfall events and floods. It also combines with high sea surface temperatures, which power big storms, to fuel devastating hurricanes and typhoons. The average person was exposed last year to an additional six weeks of dangerously hot days, intensifying the fatal impact of heatwaves around the world.

The supercharging of extreme weather by the climate crisis was already clear, with heatwaves of previously impossible intensity and frequency now striking around the world, along with fiercer droughts and wildfires.

Prof Joeri Rogelj, at Imperial College London, said: “Every fraction of a degree – whether 1.4C, 1.5C, or 1.6C – brings more harm to people and ecosystems, underscoring the continued need for ambitious emissions cuts. The cost of solar and wind energy is falling rapidly and is now cheaper than fossil fuels in many countries.”

Prof Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University in the US, has responded to new temperature records being set year after year by providing the same statement to the media: “Every year for the rest of your life will be one of the hottest [on] record. This, in turn, means that 2024 will end up being among the coldest years of this century. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

The world’s richest 1% have already used up their fair share of the global carbon budget for 2025, just 10 days into the year.

In less than a week and a half, the consumption habits of an individual from this monied elite had already caused, on average, 2.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, according to analysis by Oxfam GB. It would take someone from the poorest 50% of humanity three years to create the same amount of pollution.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is created whenever carbon-based fuels such as coal, gas and oil – used for most electricity generation, industrial processes, heating and transport – are burned.

When it accumulates in the atmosphere it has an insulating effect, preventing heat reaching the Earth from the sun from being radiated back into space. The result of the increasing concentration of atmospheric CO₂ has been a breakdown of climatic conditions that have been stable for 10,000 years.

Governments have pledged to limit global heating to 1.5C (2.7F) above preindustrial levels, but the world is far from hitting the targets needed to keep to this level.

On Friday, figures from the EU’s Copernicus climate change service showed that 2024 was the first year to exceed the 1.5C figure.

Rising temperatures have led to an emerging crisis of extreme weather events, from droughts to hurricanes to heatwaves, leading to increased food insecurity, wildlife habitat loss, disappearing glaciers, rising sea levels, and a host of other effects.

According to the analysis, the richest 1% – about 77 million people, including all those earning more than $140,000 (£114,000) a year – are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution each year as the poorest half of humanity.

But it is the poorest people who are suffering the most serious effects of climate breakdown, which are worse in tropical regions. They also have the fewest resources to mitigate the disastrous results of sudden climatic change, while the wealthiest 1% live climate-insulated, air-conditioned lives, mostly in the global north.

A joint investigation by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute in 2023 found that emissions from the 1% alone would be enough to cause the heat-related deaths of 1.3 million people over the coming decades.

Chiara Liguori, Oxfam GB’s senior climate justice policy adviser, said: “The future of our planet is hanging by a thread, yet the super-rich are being allowed to continue to squander humanity’s chances with their lavish lifestyles and polluting investments.

“Governments need to stop pandering to the richest polluters and instead make them pay their fair share for the havoc they’re wreaking on our planet. Leaders who fail to act are culpable in a crisis that threatens the lives of billions.”

The very richest live lives that are truly profligate in their use of the world’s remaining carbon budget. Previous research on climate inequality by Oxfam found that the two private jets owned by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, spent nearly 25 days in the air over a 12-month period, releasing as much carbon as an Amazon employee in the US would in 207 years.

The three yachts of the Walton family, heirs of the Walmart retail chain, had a combined carbon footprint in one year of 18,000 tonnes – an amount similar to that of 1,714 Walmart shelf-stackers.

To calculate an individual’s fair share of the planet’s remaining carbon budget, Oxfam took an estimate from the UN’s emissions gap report on the level of emissions in 2030 consistent with a 50% chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C, and divided it by 8.5bn, which is the forecast population of the planet by that year.

In order to align with the pathway to 1.5C, the richest 1% would have to reduce their 2015 level of emissions by 97% by 2030. But according to Oxfam’s analysis, they are likely to reduce emissions by only 5%.

In the UK, Oxfam is calling on Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, to increase taxes on climate-polluting examples of extreme wealth, such as private jets and superyachts.

Liguori said: “As global temperatures continue to climb, the UK must show how it will generate its own share of new, fair funding to meet the escalating climate finance needs and fight inequality. Significantly higher taxes on polluting luxuries like private jets and superyachts is an obvious place for the government to start.”

Mark Zuckerberg approved Meta’s use of “pirated” versions of copyright-protected books to train the company’s artificial intelligence models, a group of authors has alleged in a US court filing.

Citing internal Meta communications, the filing claims that the social network company’s chief executive backed the use of the LibGen dataset, a vast online archive of books, despite warnings within the company’s AI executive team that it is a dataset “we know to be pirated”.

The internal message says that using a database containing pirated material could weaken the Facebook and Instagram owner’s negotiations with regulators, according to the filing. “Media coverage suggesting we have used a dataset we know to be pirated, such as LibGen, may undermine our negotiating position with regulators.”

The US author Ta-Nehisi Coates, the comedian Sarah Silverman and the other authors suing Meta for copyright infringement made the accusations in a filing made public on Wednesday, in a California federal court.

The authors sued Meta in 2023, arguing that the social media company misused their books to train Llama, the large language model that powers its chatbots.

The Library Genesis, or LibGen, dataset is a “shadow library” that originated in Russia and claims to contain millions of novels, nonfiction books and science magazine articles. Last year a New York federal court ordered LibGen’s anonymous operators to pay a group of publishers $30m (£24m) in damages for copyright infringement.

Use of copyrighted content in training AI models has become a legal battleground in the development of generative AI tools such as the ChatGPT chatbot, with creative professionals and publishers warning that using their work without permission is endangering their livelihoods and business models.

The filing cites a memo, referring to Mark Zuckerberg’s initials, noting that “after escalation to MZ”, Meta’s AI team “has been approved to use LibGen”.

Quoting internal communications, the filing also says Meta engineers discussed accessing and reviewing LibGen data but hesitated on starting that process because “torrenting”, a term for peer-to-peer sharing of files, from “a [Meta-owned] corporate laptop doesn’t feel right”.

A US district judge, Vince Chhabria, last year dismissed claims that text generated by Meta’s AI models infringed the authors’ copyrights and that Meta unlawfully stripped their books’ copyright management information (CMI), which refers to information about the work including the title, name of the author and copyright owner. However, the plaintiffs were given permission to amend their claims.

The writers argued this week that the evidence bolstered their infringement claims and justified reviving their CMI case and adding a new computer fraud allegation.

Chhabria said during a hearing on Thursday that he would allow the writers to file an amended complaint but expressed scepticism about the merits of the fraud and CMI claims.

Meta has been contacted for comment.

Reuters contributed to this article

Mark Zuckerberg approved Meta’s use of “pirated” versions of copyright-protected books to train the company’s artificial intelligence models, a group of authors has alleged in a US court filing.

Citing internal Meta communications, the filing claims that the social network company’s chief executive backed the use of the LibGen dataset, a vast online archive of books, despite warnings within the company’s AI executive team that it is a dataset “we know to be pirated”.

The internal message says that using a database containing pirated material could weaken the Facebook and Instagram owner’s negotiations with regulators, according to the filing. “Media coverage suggesting we have used a dataset we know to be pirated, such as LibGen, may undermine our negotiating position with regulators.”

The US author Ta-Nehisi Coates, the comedian Sarah Silverman and the other authors suing Meta for copyright infringement made the accusations in a filing made public on Wednesday, in a California federal court.

The authors sued Meta in 2023, arguing that the social media company misused their books to train Llama, the large language model that powers its chatbots.

The Library Genesis, or LibGen, dataset is a “shadow library” that originated in Russia and claims to contain millions of novels, nonfiction books and science magazine articles. Last year a New York federal court ordered LibGen’s anonymous operators to pay a group of publishers $30m (£24m) in damages for copyright infringement.

Use of copyrighted content in training AI models has become a legal battleground in the development of generative AI tools such as the ChatGPT chatbot, with creative professionals and publishers warning that using their work without permission is endangering their livelihoods and business models.

The filing cites a memo, referring to Mark Zuckerberg’s initials, noting that “after escalation to MZ”, Meta’s AI team “has been approved to use LibGen”.

Quoting internal communications, the filing also says Meta engineers discussed accessing and reviewing LibGen data but hesitated on starting that process because “torrenting”, a term for peer-to-peer sharing of files, from “a [Meta-owned] corporate laptop doesn’t feel right”.

A US district judge, Vince Chhabria, last year dismissed claims that text generated by Meta’s AI models infringed the authors’ copyrights and that Meta unlawfully stripped their books’ copyright management information (CMI), which refers to information about the work including the title, name of the author and copyright owner. However, the plaintiffs were given permission to amend their claims.

The writers argued this week that the evidence bolstered their infringement claims and justified reviving their CMI case and adding a new computer fraud allegation.

Chhabria said during a hearing on Thursday that he would allow the writers to file an amended complaint but expressed scepticism about the merits of the fraud and CMI claims.

Meta has been contacted for comment.

Reuters contributed to this article

An airstrike by Myanmar’s army on a village under the control of an armed ethnic minority group killed about 40 people and injured at least 20 others, officials of the group and a local charity said on Thursday.

The attack occurred Wednesday in Kyauk Ni Maw village on Ramree island, an area controlled by the ethnic Arakan Army in western Rakhine state, with hundreds of houses burned in a fire triggered by the bombing, they said. The military has not announced any attack in the area.

The situation in the village could not be independently confirmed, with access to the internet and mobile phone service in the area mostly cut off.

Myanmar has been racked by violence since the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. After the army used lethal force to suppress peaceful demonstrations, many opponents of military rule took up arms and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.

Khaing Thukha, a spokesperson for the Arakan Army, told The Associated Press that a jet fighter bombed the village on Wednesday afternoon, killing 40 civilians and injuring more than 20 others.

“All the dead were civilians. Among the dead and injured are women and children,” Khaing Thukha said. A fire started by the airstrike spread through the village, destroying more than 500 houses, Khaing Thukha added.

It was unclear why the village was targeted. The leader of a local charity group and independent media also reported the airstrike and casualties.

The military government has stepped up airstrikes over the past three years on armed pro-democracy groups collectively known as the People’s Defense Force and on armed ethnic minority groups that have been fighting for decades for greater autonomy. The two groups sometimes carry out joint operations against the army.

Ramree, 340 km (210 miles) northwest of Yangon, the country’s largest city, was captured by the Arakan Army in March last year.

The Arakan Army is the well-trained and well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement which seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. It is also a member of an alliance of armed ethnic groups that recently gained strategic territory in the country’s northeast on the border with China.

It began its offensive in Rakhine in November 2023 and has now gained control of a strategically important regional army headquarters and 14 of Rakhine’s 17 townships, leaving only the state’s capital, Sittwe, and two important townships near Ramree still in military government hands.

A leader of the charity group, which has been assisting residents of the village, told AP on Thursday that at least 41 people had been killed and 50 others injured in the airstrike, which targeted the village’s market.

The leader, who was away from the town at the time of the airstrike, spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. He said he received the information from members of his group who were in the village and were facing a shortage of medicine to treat the injured people.

Rakhine-based news outlets including Arakan Princess Media also reported the attack and posted photos online showing people putting out fires at their homes.

Rakhine, formerly known as Arakan, was the site of a brutal army counterinsurgency operation in 2017 that drove about 740,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to seek safety across the border in Bangladesh.

The United States will “feel pain” if Donald Trump doesn’t back down from his threat to impose steep tariffs on its northern neighbour, the leader of Canada’s most populous province has warned.

After a tumultuous week that left Canadian leaders flailing for a coherent national response to Trump’s provocations – including the suggestion that the US would annex its closest ally – Ontario premier Doug Ford told the Guardian: “We will never be for sale.”

Ford described the escalating rhetoric from the incoming US administration as “very concerning”, saying that it has already clouded a trade relationship worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

“I know the American people do not agree with this. I know the top CEOs of the largest companies in the world disagree with what he’s doing,” he said. “And our goal is to just to keep that message up as much as we can: this harms everyone.”

At a rambling press conference on Tuesday – in which the US president-elect also weighed in on washing machines and water pressure – Trump mulled using “economic force” to establish a union between Canada and the US, describing the shared border, established more than 230 years ago, as an “artificially drawn line”.

“Canada and the United States: that would be really something,” Trump said, adding that he was getting frustrated over providing “subsidies” for Canada.

“We’ve been good neighbours, but we can’t do it forever, and it’s a tremendous amount of money,” Trump said.

Canada’s outgoing prime minister Justin Trudeau retorted: “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,” while Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said the country “will never be the 51st state. Period”.

But the threat has nonetheless stirred up domestic handwringing and finger-pointing amid accusations that federal political parties have weakened Canadian identity.

Ford, who oversees Ontario’s $C1.1tn economy, called Trump’s threat of annexation “very concerning” and said the confusing and shapeless nature of the demands from Trump makes it difficult to negotiate.

During his first term, Trump briefly used tariffs against China – and allies including Mexico and Canada – as a negotiating tactic to achieve new trade deals.

In November, Trump revived the policy in a social media post threatening to apply punishing levies of 25% on all goods and services from Mexico and Canada, and to keep them in place until “such time as drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country”.

Canada’s federal and provincial governments have pledged vast sums of money and resources to address US concerns. In December, Ottawa suggested it will spend C$1.3bn on border security upgrades, including helicopters and drones. Provinces have also taken matters into their own hands: Alberta announced it would send a police force to the border to increase patrols.

But Trump has shown little interest in walking back his demands.

“Every time he comes out, [Trump] moves the goalposts. So that’s that’s concerning, but we’re going to throw everything and the kitchen sink at this. We don’t want to retaliate. We really don’t. But if it comes down to it, [the Americans] are going to feel pain.”

Earlier this week, Ford appeared on Fox News as part of a media push in the United States, appealing to viewers – and the president – to rethink the idea of annexing Canada. Ontario is also spending millions of dollars on an advertising blitz to remind Americans of the deeply enmeshed supply chains of the two countries.

Ford, previously described Trump’s tariff threat as being “like a family member stabbing you right in the heart” and has suggested Ontario could retaliate by cutting off electricity exports to the US, or freezing alcohol purchases by the province’s liquor control board – the largest buyer in the world.

In 2018, Canada applied retaliatory tariffs to specific US products, similar to a European Union scheme that targeted US brands including Harley Davidson motorcycles and Levis jeans.

“It sounds a little crazy, but targeting bourbon really changed the ball game: targeting something like this can be very effective,” said Ford.

But he recently shifted gears away from threats and has called for more cooperation, including plans to export Ontario’s nuclear power as part of a broader plan he pitched as “Fortress Am-Can”.

The disastrous wildfires near Los Angeles reflect the importance of having allies, he said, pointing to the water bomber airplanes and 155 urban firefighters Ontario will send to California .

“We’re just going to continue working with our closest friends and when they’re in need, we’re going down there,” he said.

When Trump announced the tariffs on social media, Ford insisted the threats should be taken seriously, rejecting they were merely bargaining chip veiled as a threat.

“When it comes to president elect Trump, when he says something, you know he means it. And I knew this was coming, I warned everyone to be prepare,” he said. “We just aren’t too sure if he going to hold these tariffs for five to six weeks like he did before, or is it going to go on for a prolonged period of time. And that would be disastrous – for both economies.”

More than 600 people have been forcibly deported from Libya on a “dangerous and traumatising” journey across the Sahara, in what is thought to be one of the largest expulsions from the north African country to date.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) confirmed 613 people, all Nigerien nationals, arrived in the desert town of Dirkou in Niger last weekend in a convoy of trucks. They were among a large number of migrant workers rounded up by the authorities in Libya over the past month.

“This is something new. There was one expulsion of 400 people last July, but this convoy is the largest number to date,” said Azizou Chehou, of the migrant distress response charity Alarm Phone Sahara.

The expulsions come as EU countries have been accused of ignoring the widespread and systematic human rights violations and abuses against migrants in Libya as they seek to reduce the number of people arriving in Europe, with Italy signing deals with Tunisia and Libya to reduce Mediterranean crossings. According to the Italian interior ministry, 66,317 people reached Italy in 2024, less than half the number in 2023.

David Yambio, spokesperson for the nonprofit organisation Refugees in Libya, said: “This is Europe’s border policy laid bare, outsourcing mass expulsion and death to Libya, where the desert becomes a graveyard.

“Leaders like [Viktor] Orbán, [Giorgia] Meloni, or Trump applaud such efficient cruelty. It’s no accident; it’s the design. The EU pays to erase migrants, to make suffering invisible, and to wash its hands while others do its dirty work.”

Chehou said the journey across the Sahara region between Libya and Niger was “dangerous and traumatising”. “Winter in the desert is very cold and with migrants packed like sardines, fights to find the most comfortable spots can break out and people can fall out of the truck breaking limbs. People will arrive [in Agadez] in a very sorry state.”

Jalel Harchaoui, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and a specialist on Libya, said the periodic roundup and expulsion of foreign workers was, “something of a tradition in southern Libya since even during the time of Gadafi”, but that this incident was notable and different because of the large number of people expelled in one go.

“There has been no official announcement nor clear policy – this is simply local authorities rounding people up. However, in the rhetoric of the Haftar coalition [the Libyan National Army led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar], which largely controls Sabha [a city in southern Libya where they were deported from], there is often a tendency to demonise foreigners, particularly those from sub-Saharan Africa.”

Libya has long been a destination for those seeking work, with people from Niger, Mali and Chad migrating into southern Libya to work in sectors such as agriculture, construction and retail. Others migrate to the country to earn money to travel to the coast and join a smuggler’s boat to Europe.

A spokesperson for the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said it believed more groups of migrants were coming from Libya and that it was “ready to support IOM, particularly in identifying and supporting individuals who may be in need of international protection”.

A Kenyan judge has declared as unconstitutional sections of the country’s laws that criminalise attempted suicide. In a landmark ruling on Thursday, Judge Lawrence Mugambi of the country’s high court stated that section 226 of the penal code contradicts the constitution by punishing those with mental health issues over which they may have little or no control.

While the constitution says in article 43 that a person has the right to the “highest attainable standard of health”, criminal law states that “any person who attempts to kill himself is guilty of a misdemeanour and is subject to imprisonment of up to two years, a fine, or both”, with the minimum age of prosecution for the offence set at eight years old.

“It is my finding that applying the purpose and effect principle of constitutional interpretation, section 226 of the penal code offends article 27 of the constitution by criminalising a mental health issue thereby endorsing discrimination on the basis of health, which is unconstitutional. It also indignifies and disgraces victims of suicide ideation in the eyes of the community for actions that are beyond their mental control,” Mugambi ruled.

The ruling came after a court petition by, among others, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) and the Kenya Psychiatric Association, in which they contended that the main factors driving up suicide cases include “undiagnosed and untreated mental health conditions as well as mental disabilities which result in suicidal thoughts that may lead to attempted suicide by persons affected”.

“Today’s judgment is a rallying call for an open and candid conversation among individuals, communities, organisations and the government, and it goes a long way in raising awareness, fighting stigma and discrimination,” KNCHR said in a statement, urging communities and families to provide “safe spaces where individuals affected by mental health challenges can share their experiences and seek support without fear of stigma or discrimination”.

Human rights groups and medical practitioners in Kenya have failed in the past to have attempted suicide decriminalised, stating that such persons require specialised medical attention.

In March 2024, officials from Kenya’s leading mental health hospital urged parliament to consider repealing the offending law to shift perceptions and stigma.

Dr Julius Ogato, chief executive officer at Mathari national teaching and referral hospital, said: “Just as diabetes results from a lack of insulin in the body, mental illness involves an imbalance of chemical transmitters in the brain. There is a biological basis for such thoughts. When someone exhibits these thoughts, they require empathy and much-needed support to access treatment.”

While admitting that data on suicide is hard to come by due to the “fragmented nature of reporting systems”, Kenya’s health ministry’s Suicide Prevention Strategy 2021-2026 says the country has an “age standardised suicide rate of 11.0 per 100,000 population, which translates to about four suicide deaths per day”.

The World Health Organization says more than 700,000 people die by suicide every year with over 70% of cases taking place in low- and middle-income countries.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

A Melbourne couple’s marriage has been annulled after the bride told a court she had thought their wedding was nothing more than a social media stunt to boost his Instagram following.

In an October family court judgment published on Thursday, a judge annulled the December 2023 marriage after finding the bride “believed she was acting in a social media event”, rather than in a legally binding wedding ceremony.

The bride, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had told the court that she met the groom on a dating app in September 2023 and met the following day at a church.

At the time, she was in her mid 20s and he was in his late 30s.

For the next three months, they remained in contact, before she said the groom invited her to a “white party” in Sydney in December, the court heard. She said after arriving at the venue she was “shocked” to learn the man had “organised a wedding”.

The bride said she became uncomfortable and wanted to leave, but the groom told her “it was a simple prank”.

“When I got there, and I didn’t see anybody in white, I asked him, ‘What’s happening?’” she told the court.

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“He told me that he’s organising a prank wedding for his social media. To be precise, Instagram, because he wants to boost his content and wants to start monetising his Instagram page.”

In court, footage of the ceremony was played, showing the couple exchanging vows and rings.

While the bride appeared to “enthusiastically” participate in the ceremony, she told the court it was “all an act”.

“We had to act to make it look real,” she said.

She said she only discovered the “sham” wedding was legal after he asked her to add his name to her application for permanent residency. She said the groom told her he was not a permanent resident and he had “organised the marriage to help him”.

She said she was “furious” she had been “lied [to] from the beginning”.

The bride said she would not get married without her parent’s permission and presence, nor without a bridal gown or a reception party.

But the groom – who has 17,000 followers on Instagram but denied he was a social media influencer – disputed her version of events.

He testified that immediately after they met, he had told her he was bisexual, and that she was “cool with it” and moved into his home.

The groom told the court he had proposed to her a day before the wedding.

The bride did not include the proposal in her affidavit, but did not deny it in court.

However, he could not explain why the wedding had to occur so soon after the proposal or why they were married in Sydney instead of Melbourne.

The court also heard he had signed a notice intention to marriage on 20 November, weeks before the proposal.

He said the wedding was intended to be “intimate” before an “official” wedding ceremony in their home country at a later date and they “both agreed to these circumstances”.

However, the judge said the assertion was “so bereft of detail as to be near meaningless”.

He also rejected the groom’s claim they had moved in together, finding instead the couple had maintained separate residences.

The judge said it “beggars belief” the bride would marry the groom “less than two days” after accepting his proposal.

“The applicant did not have a single family member or friend present at the alleged wedding ceremony. She was religious,” he wrote.

“Precisely why she would participate in a civil marriage and not in a church marriage ceremony went unexplored. It made no sense to me that she would.”