After the first night in Gaza for more than a year without the sound of drones or bombing overhead following the successful implementation of a ceasefire, people in the besieged Palestinian territory have begun returning to destroyed homes and searching for missing loved ones.

The truce that took effect on Sunday with the release of the first three hostages held by Hamas in exchange for 90 Palestinians from Israeli jails was greeted with euphoria as a large influx of desperately needed aid supplies entered the strip.

By Monday, however, the celebrations largely gave way to shock and sorrow, as the strip’s 2.3 million population began to assess the scale of the devastation wreaked by Israel in retaliation for the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack.

In Israel, joy at the three hostages’ safe return was tempered by anger and surprise at Hamas’s show of force at the hostage handover after 15 months of gruelling combat.

“The nation watched with no little dread when dozens of Hamas gunmen, hailed by a large cheering crowd, commandeered Gaza City’s Saraya Square for a wild, self-aggrandising daylight ceremony before a vast global audience,” a Times of Israel op-ed said.

Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank opposed to the deal tried to block entrances to the Palestinian city of Ramallah on Sunday evening before the return of 90 women and children held in Israeli prisons.

Overnight, Israeli extremists set homes and cars on fire in three West Bank villages. In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said it acted “swiftly” to disperse rioters, arresting two people, a claim disputed by the human rights organisation Yesh Din.

Whether the first six-week stage of the ceasefire will hold is yet to be seen after isolated reports of violence on Monday, including what medics said was an incident in which Israeli troops shot eight people in the Rafah area. The Israeli military said it was checking the reports.

Gaza is still cut in two by the Netzarim corridor, which Israel installed below Gaza City, and the Israeli military is not expected to begin withdrawing from the area until day seven of the truce. Within northern and southern Gaza, however, displaced civilians have started making the long journey back to their towns, villages and refugee camps, by foot or using donkey-drawn carts on roads littered with unexploded ordnance.

Youssef, 22, from the northern city of Beit Lahia, who lost his parents and brother during the war, returned from Gaza City to his home on Monday.

“The first feeling I had when I reached Beit Lahia was shock and panic at the horror and rubble. It is as if a Richter nine earthquake hit my city … There are no streets, no shops, no parks, no markets, no hospitals, or municipalities. There is nothing but rubble, and some corpses around and under it,” he said.

He later went back to Gaza City. “I plan to return only when there is an environment for human living … water, food, medical services and infrastructure so we can start our lives again,” he said.

The civil defence service said on Monday that an official search was under way for about 10,000 missing people. Despite the ceasefire, the death toll in Gaza continues to climb: medics reported 62 bodies were found over the past 24 hours, bringing the number of dead to 47,000. Another 110,000 are wounded, with a quarter of those facing life-changing injuries, and 12,000 people need to be evacuated for urgent treatment elsewhere, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

About 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s October 2023 attack, and 250 taken hostage.

Umm Saber, a 48-year-old widow and mother of six, managed to return to Beit Lahia on Sunday, telling the Associated Press that she had seen several bodies on the route, some of which appeared to have been lying in the open for weeks.

Her home was completely gone, she said, adding that neighbours had already started digging through the debris in search of missing relatives believed to be buried in the rubble of Israeli airstrikes. Others were trying to clear enough space to pitch tents.

The local Kamal Adwan hospital was also “completely destroyed,” she said. “It’s no longer a hospital at all … They destroyed everything.”

Temporary relief is arriving in the form of humanitarian supplies, with 630 trucks entering the strip on Sunday almost immediately after the ceasefire came into effect at 11.15am (0915 GMT). About half of the deliveries were taken to northern Gaza, which Israel has almost completely cut off from the outside world.

Israel denies it has deliberately strangled aid supplies to the Palestinian territory, blaming aid agencies for delays and claiming Hamas siphons off deliveries.

The average number of trucks a day entering the territory had fallen to 18, leading aid agencies to warn that nine in 10 people were not accessing enough food. The minimum number of trucks a day needed to contain the strip’s humanitarian crisis is 500, the UN says, which should arrive each day of the first six-week phase of the ceasefire.

But the flow of aid could take time to increase, David Miliband, the head of the International Rescue Committee, said on Monday, citing previous problems with looting and security threats from armed gangs.

Longer-term questions about rebuilding and governance of the strip are supposed to be addressed in negotiations scheduled to begin in early February, before stage one of the ceasefire expires in early March.

According to a UN damage assessment from earlier this month, clearing more than 50m tonnes of rubble left from Israel’s bombardment could take 21 years and cost up to $1.2bn (£980m). The WHO has said that restoring Gaza’s decimated medical infrastructure will cost $10m, as only half of the strip’s 36 hospitals are still partially operating.

Hours after the ceasefire was declared on Sunday, Hamas fighters were back on Gaza’s streets. Not many, it was true, and those who appeared were armed only with Kalashnikov rifles and some rudimentary body armour, but they were there.

In Khan Younis, a handful of pickup trucks with gunmen onboard drove through cheering crowds of young men. Dozens of uniformed fighters with Hamas headbands were visible when the three Israeli hostages were handed over in Gaza City. Elsewhere, there were reports that Hamas policemen, dressed in blue police uniform, deployed in some areas after months in hiding to avoid Israeli strikes.

These were the sights that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, wanted to avoid, but no doubt knew would come. They are the images that Hamas most want to be seen – in Gaza and the West Bank, the region and the world. They do not show a large or particularly capable force, and social media has exerted its usual magnifying effect. But, as they were meant to do, the images show that Hamas has survived the Israeli onslaught of the last 15 months and that, Hamas leaders believe, is a major victory in itself.

The reality is that Hamas has suffered huge losses. On the day of the 7 October 2023 raids, Hamas fired thousands of missiles deep into Israel. Now, it can only fire the occasional projectile at targets a dozen or so kilometres away. Supply lines have been cut, ammunition stores emptied and most new bombings use recycled explosives from ordnance fired by Israel. Much of the tunnel network built under Gaza by Hamas has been destroyed.

Its top leaders in Gaza, including Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas at the time of his death and mastermind of the 7 October attacks, are dead. So too are many experienced middle-ranking militants.

Israeli’s claims that 17,000 Hamas fighters have been killed are difficult to credit. An analysis by ACLED, an independent, non-profit organisation collecting data on violent conflict, said in October that detailed reports by the Israel Defense Forces on the killing of militants containing specifics on timeframes, locations or operations accounted for approximately 8,500 fatalities, though this figure also includes militants from other armed groups and possibly other non-combatant Hamas members.

Such casualties would account for perhaps a quarter of the prewar strength of Hamas’s military wing, which tallies with reports that some big Hamas formations in central Gaza are intact.

Antony Blinken, the outgoing US secretary of state, said in a speech last week that Hamas had recruited almost as many combatants as it has lost and that this was a recipe for prolonged insurgency, and so another reason for a ceasefire deal.

Israeli officials say recruit numbers are lower than Blinken suggests and that inexperienced teenagers cannot replace hardened, well-trained veterans.

This may be true, but even if seriously degraded, Hamas was still able to hurt Israeli forces right until the ceasefire. Recent fighting has been fierce in Beit Hanoun, a town in northern Gaza, with Israeli commanders underestimating the size and morale of Hamas’s forces there, as well as the extent of its tunnel-network reconstruction. Hamas inflicted significant casualties as a consequence.

On the political front, Hamas has also been weakened. It has lost control of the territory it governed for 16 years, with all the prestige, power, facilities and revenue that it brought. Many Hamas officials are dead; its network of clubs, charities and religious associations scattered. Other actors – big criminal families, for example – now compete for influence. Many in Gaza blame Hamas as well as Israel for the bloody war that has caused 47,000 deaths and so much destruction.

But for the moment, without any agreed plan for a government for Gaza, there is no one else. Aid organisations still deal with many of the same administrators they knew back in the summer of 2023. A Hamas media office functions, and is ambitiously describing a “government plan” to return Gaza to its prewar condition.

The reality is that neither side can claim an outright victory, which is one reason that this moment of fragile calm has come. Tragically, it is also why any hopes of a durable peace may be dashed.

The international criminal court is bracing itself for Donald Trump to launch aggressive economic sanctions against it this week, amid fears such a move could paralyse its work and pose an existential threat.

ICC officials are preparing for Trump’s new US administration to act quickly once in office to impose draconian financial and travel restrictions against the court and senior staff, including its chief prosecutor and judges.

The threat of US sanctions has loomed over the ICC since it issued arrest warrants in November against the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

In response to the warrants, the US House of Representatives voted earlier this month to impose sanctions on the ICC, advancing legislation that Republican leaders have said will soon be voted on in the Senate.

However, multiple ICC sources said the court’s leadership fears Trump will not wait for the legislation but launch a swift assault by issuing an executive order creating the legal basis for multiple rounds of sanctions.

According to interviews with officials and diplomats familiar with the ICC’s preparations, the court is planning for a “worst case scenario” in which the US imposes sanctions against the institution in addition to measures targeting individuals.

ICC sources said that sanctions against senior court figures would be difficult but manageable, whereas institution-wide sanctions would pose an existential threat to the court as they would block its access to services it depends on to function.

“The concern is the sanctions will be used to shut the court down, to destroy it rather than just tie its hands,” one ICC officials said.

Core services that would be jeopardised by institutional sanctions include the ICC’s access to banking and payment systems, IT infrastructure and insurance providers. Such measures would prevent US-based companies from conducting business or transactions with the court.

One key concern to have emerged in recent months is the ICC’s reliance on Microsoft which has deepened in recent years after chief prosecutor Karim Khan formed a partnership with the company to overhaul the court’s systems.

Multiple sources in the prosecutor’s office said Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform is critical to its operations and suspending access would paralyse its investigations. “We essentially store all of our evidence in the cloud,” one said.

Court authorities are understood to have been rapidly reviewing the ICC’s suppliers and have ended some commercial relationships in an effort to reduce its exposure. Some staff have been advised to consider closing any US bank accounts they hold.

Working with some of its member states, the court is also understood to have explored using legal mechanisms in the EU and UK that prevent residents and companies from complying with certain foreign sanctions regimes.

“It’s not a silver bullet,” a European diplomat said, but the hope among ICC officials is that the so-called blocking statutes could protect companies that want to continue dealing with the court despite the sanctions.

The ICC previously dealt with US sanctions in 2020 when the first Trump administration imposed travel bans and asset freezes against former prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, and one of her top officials.

Although the measures – launched in response to decisions made by Bensouda in war crimes investigations in Afghanistan and the occupied Palestinian territories – were aggressive and highly unusual, they were relatively narrow.

The latest round of US sanctions is expected to affect a wider group of ICC officials and will come at the beginning of a new Trump administration, raising fears among court staff that the sanctions will evolve and escalate over time.

Päivi Kaukoranta, president of the ICC’s governing body, said sanctions risked severely hampering the court’s investigations and could “affect the safety of victims, witnesses and sanctioned individuals”. She said the court’s work must be allowed to “proceed without interference”.

Disrupting the ICC’s operations, however, appears to be part of an explicit effort to force the court to withdraw the arrest warrants issued against Netanyahu and Gallant.

The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahranoth reported last week the US sanctions would be used to “exert unprecedented pressure” to achieve this goal. It quoted a senior Israeli official as saying: “We will bring the court to its knees and then negotiate the closure of the case.”

With the return of Trump to the White House, ICC officials believe Israel will be in a stronger position to persuade the US to use powerful tools at its disposal to damage the court and, in particular, target chief prosecutor Khan.

Under the previous Trump administration, the Guardian reported last year, Israeli and US officials coordinated efforts to place public and private pressure on Bensouda, his predecessor, which involved what sources described as a diplomatic “smear campaign”.

Multiple sources in the prosecutor’s office said they believed the court was now more vulnerable to US and Israeli attacks and smears after allegations of sexual misconduct against Khan had emerged in October. Khan has denied the allegations and said he will cooperate with an external inquiry into the claims.

A British-Israeli hostage freed from Hamas captivity in Gaza on Sunday has said she has “returned to life” and is the “happiest person in the world” after being reunited with her family.

In her first comments since being freed, Emily Damari, 28, thanked her family and friends who campaigned for her release. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m the happiest in the world,” she said in Hebrew on Instagram.

Damari was freed after 471 days in captivity alongside two other Israeli hostages, Romi Gonen, 24, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

The Tottenham Hotspur fan who was born in Israel to a British mother and Israeli father returned from Gaza with a bandage on one hand. She lost two fingers when she was shot and abducted from her home in the Kfar Aza kibbutz during Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack. She signed off her Instagram message with a “rock on” emoji, a possible reference to the fingers she lost during her ordeal.

Her mother, Mandy Damari, who was born in Surrey and grew up in Beckenham, south-east London, praised her daughter’s resilience. She was pictured embracing her at Tel Aviv’s Sheba Medical Center, Israel’s largest hospital, where Gonen and Steinbrecher were also reunited with their families.

“Yesterday, I was finally able to give Emily the hug that I have been dreaming of,” Mandy Damari, 63, said on Monday. “From the bottom of my heart I would like to thank the many people who have played a role in bringing Emily home and given their support to me and my family.

“I am relieved to report that, after her release, Emily is doing much better than any of us could ever have anticipated. I am also happy that during her release the world was given a glimpse of her feisty and charismatic personality. In Emily’s own words, she is the happiest girl in the world, she has her life back.

“In this incredibly happy moment for our family, we must also remember that 94 other hostages still remain. The ceasefire must continue and every last hostage must be returned to their families. As wonderful as it is to see Emily’s resilience, these are still early days. As you will have seen yesterday, Emily lost two of the fingers on her left hand. She now needs time with her loved ones and her doctors as she begins her road to recovery.”

She told a press conference at Sheba hospital on Monday: “I am delighted to be able to tell you that Emily is in high spirits and on the road to recovery. She is an amazingly strong and resilient young woman.”

Gal Kubani, a friend who visited Damari at hospital, told Agence France-Presse that she “came back to us really strong, smiling, a hero, brave” and was in “good condition”.

“We saw her, we lifted her in the air, all the friends. We hugged her, we cried, we got emotional, we shouted, we screamed,” Kubani, 28, said.

“To really see her standing on her feet, that was the most emotional and fun thing in the world.”

A lawyer representing the Damari family and other British-linked hostages in Gaza said Emily seemed “to be in pretty good nick, pretty good spirits”. Adam Rose said he had not yet spoken to Damari but added: “You’ve seen images where she’s clearly lost a couple of her fingers – she was shot when she was taken hostage, she was shot in her leg and her hand – and she seems to be doing quite well. She seemed – just looking at the images – very smiley and seemed to be moving, and that’s fantastic.

“I understand she’s staying in hospital for a bit longer to be fully checked out and she’ll no doubt need mental health as well as physical health support over the coming period.”

Rose said he had exchanged a couple of WhatsApp messages with Damari’s mother, whom he described as “elated”.

The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said it was “deeply moving” to see pictures of Damari being reunited with her mother. “I grew very close to her family, and I think the whole of the country will be delighted that she is free,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Steinbrecher’s family thanked supporters for giving them strength “during our darkest moments”. In a statement on Sunday, they said: “Our heroic Dodo, who survived 471 days in Hamas captivity, begins her rehabilitation journey today.”

All three women were assessed at Sheba, with doctors reporting they were in a stable condition and would be monitored for a few days.

A total of 33 hostages are due to be released over the next six weeks, in exchange for about 1,700 Palestinians held in Israel prisons.

Keir Starmer has ordered a public inquiry into the failings that allowed an “extremely violent” teenager to murder three young girls in one of the worst attacks on children in recent UK history.

The announcement came after Axel Rudakubana, 18, dramatically pleaded guilty to the Southport atrocity and followed revelations in the Guardian that he had previously been referred to Prevent, the government’s anti-radicalisation scheme.

The prime minister said the country had “failed in its duty” to protect the girls from the troubled teenager, who on Monday admitted murdering Bebe King, six, Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and trying to kill 10 others at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club last summer.

After the astonishing change of plea – which came on the day he was set to stand trial – it was disclosed that Rudakubana had been referred to Prevent three times, the first as long ago as 2019, and was known to authorities as a violent schoolboy with a troubling obsession with mass murder.

One of the referrals followed concerns about his potential interest in the killing of children in a school massacre, it is understood.

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said families of the victims “need answers” about whether Rudakubana’s attack could have been stopped, as she confirmed he was in contact with a range of different agencies throughout his teenage years.

He was referred three times to the Prevent programme between December 2019 and April 2021, aged 13 and 14, she said, adding that he also had contact with the police, the courts, the youth justice system, social services and mental health services.

“Yet between them, those agencies failed to identify the terrible risk and danger to others that he posed,” she added.

The killer, who turned 18 nine days after the atrocity, will not be handed a whole-life term when he is sentenced on Thursday due to his age, raising the possibility that he will one day be released from prison.

Rudakubana’s history of violence and obsession with genocides, ranging from Nazi Germany to the ethnic killings in Rwanda, where his father is believed to have fought, can now be laid bare.

Days before the attack, Rudakubana’s father stopped him from taking a taxi to a school he was expelled from in 2019, raising fears he had been planning to attack pupils.

Neighbours said they saw Alphonse Rudakubana, 49, remonstrating with his son outside their home before the teenager eventually got out of the car.

Sources told the Guardian Rudakubana had been planning to go to Range high school in Formby, Merseyside, where he was expelled over claims he had taken a knife into the building after being bullied.

The incident took place on 22 July, the day pupils were due to leave for the summer holidays, and a week before he attacked children at the Hart Space, a community centre 5 miles from his home in the Lancashire village of Banks.

Shortly after being expelled, Rudakubana returned to the school and threatened to attack teachers and pupils with a hockey stick on which he had written their names, sources said.

One senior professional told the Guardian that social workers deemed him such a threat they insisted on police being present when they met him.

His obsession with mass killings was also known to the authorities, but it is not clear whether they were aware of his father’s link to the Rwanda genocide of 1994.

It can now be revealed that Alphonse Rudakubana, a taxi driver who arrived in the UK in 2002, is thought to have fought with the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), an armed force that battled the Hutu-dominated regime in Rwanda and eventually brought an end to the mass ethnic killings of 1994.

He is reported to have been an RPA officer, possibly relatively senior, based in neighbouring Uganda, where his family are thought to have fled well before the genocide.

Far-right protesters had gathered outside Liverpool crown court amid a heavy police presence for what was expected to be the first day of Rudakubana’s trial.

Wearing a similar Covid-style face mask to the one he wore during his attack, Rudakubana refused to stand for the judge and stayed silent when asked to confirm his name, before he had a short conversation with his barrister.

In a voice that was barely audible in the packed courtroom, the teenager stunned those present when he answered “guilty” to each of the 16 charges put to him.

As well as three counts of murder, he admitted trying to murder 10 other children and two adults, including the dance teacher Leanne Lucas, who was stabbed in the back, arms and neck while trying to protect two little girls.

He also pleaded guilty to possessing terrorist material – an academic handbook on al-Qaida – and producing the deadly toxin ricin. It was the first time in four court hearings that he had spoken.

The attack triggered the worst disorder in Britain in years, as far-right figures leapt on false claims that the suspect was an Islamist extremist who had arrived in the UK by small boat.

Police have found no evidence that the Southport attack was motivated by political, religious, racial or ideological causes, meaning it cannot be classed as an act of terrorism despite him having possession of a document proscribed under terrorism laws.

Despite combing through each of his three computer devices, officers remain unable to say why he chose to attack the sold-out holiday club for primary school children.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, accused the government of “the most astonishing cover-up” after the guilty pleas, and said he would be demanding that Cooper answer questions in the Commons.

Farage said he had been accused of “stoking and encouraging” disorder when he asked ministers to explain last summer whether the killer was known to authorities.

Senior police officers said there was next to no credible intelligence of trouble after the guilty pleas, but they are expected to closely monitor the sentencing on Thursday, when the harrowing detail of the attacks may emerge for the first time.

Announcing the public inquiry, Cooper said: “Although, in line with CPS advice to preserve the integrity of the prosecution, we were constrained in what we were able to say at the time, the Home Office commissioned an urgent prevent learning review during the summer into the three referrals that took place and why they were closed.

“We will publish further details this week, alongside new reforms to the Prevent programme.

“But we also need more independent answers on both Prevent and all the other agencies that came into contact with this extremely violent teenager as well as answers on how he came to be so dangerous, including through a public inquiry that can get to the truth about what happened and what needs to change.”

Axel Rudakubana has pleaded guilty to murdering three young girls and attempting to murder 10 others at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, in the worst targeted attack on children in Britain since the Dunblane massacre.

Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time of the stabbings in Southport last summer, also pleaded guilty to possessing terrorist material and producing the toxin ricin.

He appeared in the dock at Liverpool crown court on the day his trial was due to begin.

Wearing a blue Covid-style face mask, Rudakubana had refused to confirm his identity or to stand when asked by the judge before his barrister, Stanley Reiz KC, asked to approach the dock.

After a short discussion between the defendant and his barrister, Reiz asked for the indictment to be put to Rudakubana again. He then pleaded guilty to all the charges in a barely audible voice.

The judge, Mr Justice Goose, said he intended to sentence the 18-year-old on Thursday when he would be given a life term.

After entering the guilty pleas, Rudakubana sat hunched forward with his head bowed. He was flanked in the dock by four security officers and an intermediary, who confirmed that he could hear proceedings.

The dramatic events stunned the assembled barristers, police officers, detectives and prosecutors in the small courtroom.

Rudakubana killed Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven. He also admitted the attempted murders of a further eight children and two adults.

The teenager took a taxi on 29 July to the Hart Space, a community centre in Southport about 5 miles from his home. He launched a frenzied knife attack at the dance class that was taking place during the first week of the school holidays.

The attack left families and the local community devastated, and led to riots that broke out across the country in the aftermath.

After Rudakubana had entered his pleas, Goose said: “I am conscious of the fact the families are not here today. You have now pleaded guilty to this indictment and to each of the charges upon it.

“You will understand it is inevitable the sentence to be imposed upon you will mean a life sentence equivalent will be imposed upon you. I will have to complete the sentencing process on that occasion.”

Deanna Heer KC, prosecuting, confirmed the families had not attended court on Monday because it had been assumed the trial would open on Tuesday.

The judge said he extended his apologies to the families that they had not been able to hear Rudakubana enter his pleas.

Originally protected by an anonymity order because he was a minor at the time of the attack, a judge ruled that Rudakubana could be identified shortly before his 18th birthday.

Announcing the further charges after a “lengthy and complex” investigation, Merseyside police said ricin had been discovered at Rudakubana’s home in the village of Banks, near Southport, days after the attack.

Rudakubana, born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents, was also found to have a pdf file titled Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The al-Qaida Training Manual. He was charged with possessing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

The chief constable Serena Kennedy said no evidence of the poison was found at Hart Space, and that counter-terrorism police had “not declared the events of 29 July as a terrorist incident”.

Ursula Doyle, the deputy chief crown prosecutor for Merseyside, said Rudakubana had a “sickening and sustained interest in death and violence and shown no sign of remorse … This was an unspeakable attack – one which left an enduring mark on our community and the nation for its savagery and senselessness.

“At the start of the school holidays, a day which should have been one of carefree innocence; of children enjoying a dance workshop and making friendship bracelets, became a scene of the darkest horror as Axel Rudakubana carried out his meticulously planned rampage.”

After the killings, the victims’ families paid tribute to the three girls. Alice’s parents, Sergio and Alexandra, said she was “our perfect dream child”.

They said in a tribute at her funeral service. “A good girl, with strong values and kind nature. A lover of animals and an environmentalist in the making. You moved our world with your confidence and empathy. Playful, energetic, friendly and always so respectful.”

Lauren and Ben King said Bebe had been “taken from us in an unimaginable act of violence that has left our hearts broken beyond repair.

“Our beloved Bebe, only six years old, was full of joy, light and love, and she will always remain in our hearts as the sweet, kind and spirited girl we adore.”

Their older daughter Genie saw the attack but managed to escape. “She has shown such incredible strength and courage, and we are so proud of her,” her parents said.

Elsie’s parents, Jenni and David, said their daughter was a “devoted Swiftie” who “brought light, love and joy to so many lives”.

“Elsie spent every day just simply enjoying life with determination, persistence, love and kindness,” they said. “Elsie was an amazing little girl. She had the ability to light up any room that she entered, she was truly unforgettable.”

The other children injured in the attack cannot be named for legal reasons.

Former president Joe Biden’s last-minute pardons – of family members, members of the January 6 Capitol attack investigative committee, the former chair of the joint chiefs of staff Mark Milley, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, and the former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney – are drawing heat from both sides of the political divide.

The Missouri Republican senator Eric Schmitt said Biden’s actions showed that “the guy who claimed he would ‘protect norms’ continues to bulldoze them and the Constitution until the bitter end.”

“Biden truly is one of the worst Presidents in American history and will only be remembered as the guy between Trump’s two terms,” Schmitt wrote on X.

Biden said he was issuing blanket pardons to his brother James Biden, James’s wife, Sara Jones Biden; his younger sister, Valerie Biden Owens; Valerie’s husband, John T Owens; and his younger brother, Francis W Biden.

“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” Biden said in a statement on the pardons.

The former president, who previously issued “a full and unconditional” pardon to his son Hunter Biden in December, coupled the last-minute effort to shield his family from prosecution with commentary on fears that successor Donald Trump would seek retribution.

“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me – the worst kind of partisan politics. Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end,” Biden said.

Fauci told ABC News that he accepted the pardon and claimed he was subject to “politically motivated threats of investigation and prosecution”.

“Let me be perfectly clear: I have committed no crime and there are no possible grounds for any allegation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution of me,” he added.

Milley also thanked Biden in a statement and said that after 43 years “of faithful service in uniform to our nation, protecting and defending the constitution, I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights”.

Additionally, Biden pardoned “members of Congress and staff who served on the select committee, and the US Capitol and DC Metropolitan police officers who testified before the select committee”.

The former DC police officer Michael Fanone, who testified before the panel, said the pardon was about protecting him and his family from a “vengeful party”.

“I haven’t digested it,” he told the AP. “I just can’t believe that this is my country.”

Rachel Vindman, wife of Alexander Vindman, the national security council US army colonel who testified at Trump’s first impeachment inquiry, said she felt “betrayed” that a pardon had not been extended to her family.

“Whatever happens to my family, know this: No pardons were offered or discussed. I cannot begin to describe the level of betrayal and hurt I feel,” Vindman posted on Bluesky.

Biden’s final suite of pardons came less than a half hour before his presidency ended, and hours before Trump was expected to pardon perhaps hundreds convicted of offenses during the January 6 riots.

“Innocent people are being pardoned in the morning, and guilty people are being pardoned in the afternoon,” the Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin, a member of the January 6 committee, told the New York Times.

“It is strange to receive a pardon simply for doing your job and upholding your constitutional oath of office. But the incoming administration has been consistently leveling threats.”

Several members of the committee said last week they didn’t want or need pardons because they did nothing wrong. In a statement on behalf of the committee, the former chair Bennie Thompson and the former vice-chair Cheney thanked Biden and said they’d been “pardoned today not for breaking the law but for upholding it”.

Still, there are questions over the legality of preemptive pardons that turn the presidential constitutional power of forgiveness into a protective shield; they carry the potential for suggesting offenses that have not yet come to light, not only fear of retribution from the incoming administration.

Some warn that Biden’s use of the presidential pardon paves the way for an even more expansive use of pardons by Trump over the next four years and future presidents.

Even Democrats have said Biden’s broad pardon of Hunter, coupled with an attack on a politicized justice system, served to undermine the White House and Biden’s legacy.

“Everyone looks stupid,” the Pod Save America co-host and ex-Obama aide Tommy Vietor said at the time.

“Everyone looks like they are full of s—. And Republicans are going to use this to argue it was politics as usual when Democrats warned of Trump’s corruption or threat to the rule or the threat to democracy.”

Read more of the Guardian’s Trump coverage

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• Migrant groups at US-Mexico border await mass deportations

• ‘Doge’ violates federal transparency rules, lawsuit claims

Joe Biden used the last day of his presidency to issue pre-emptive pardons to politicians, public servants and even his family members, in an extraordinary use of presidential power to guard against what he said were “threats” by the incoming Trump administration.

Pardons were announced on Monday morning for key figures targeted by Donald Trump and his allies, including former White House chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, retired Gen Mark Milley and members of the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, who Biden said faced acts of “revenge” through criminal prosecution.

The pardons included two leading Republicans who have been critical of Trump, former representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, and who could face reprisals from the incoming president.

Later on Monday – just minutes before Donald Trump was inaugurated – the White House released another statement from Biden announcing his final act of high office: pardons for five members of his family.

“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me – the worst kind of partisan politics. Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end,” Biden said.

Those pardoned were his two brothers, James and Francis. Also on the list were Sara, the wife of James Biden, Biden’s sister Valerie and her husband John. Republicans have sought criminal investigations into alleged “influence peddling” against members of Biden’s family. The outgoing president pardoned his son Hunter in December.

While it is usual for presidents to grant clemency at the end of their terms, Biden’s decision extends the presidential pardons to those who have not been investigated. It also sets up a future political and judicial crisis, if Trump seeks to go after them.

In his first statement, Biden said the US “owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country”.

“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” he added.

“These are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” Biden said in the statement. “Even when individuals have done nothing wrong – and in fact have done the right thing – and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances.”

The decision by Biden comes after Trump warned of an enemies list filled with those who have crossed him politically or sought to hold him accountable for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and his role in the storming of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Trump has selected cabinet nominees who have pledged to punish those involved in efforts to investigate him.

Fauci, who helped coordinate the nation’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, raised the ire of Trump when he refused to back Trump’s unfounded claims. He has become a target of intense hatred and vitriol from people on the right, who blame him for mask mandates and other policies they believe infringed on their rights, even as tens of thousands of Americans were dying.

Mark Milley is the former chair of the joint chiefs of staff and called Trump a fascist and detailed Trump’s conduct around the Capitol insurrection.

In a statement, Milley said he was “deeply grateful” for Biden’s action. “After 43 years of faithful service in uniform to our nation, protecting and defending the constitution, I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights,” he said.

Biden also extended pardons to staff of the January 6 committee that investigated the attack, as well as the US Capitol and DC Metropolitan police officers who testified before the House committee about their experiences that day, when the Capitol was overrun by an angry, violent mob of Trump supporters.

The committee spent 18 months investigating Trump and the insurrection.

The former Capitol police officer Harry Dunn, who became an outspoken critic of Trump, told CBS News: “I wish this pardon weren’t necessary, but unfortunately, the political climate we are in now has made the need for one somewhat of a reality. I, like all other public servants, was just doing my job and upholding my oath. I will always honor that.”

Biden has set the presidential record for most individual pardons and commutations issued. He announced on Friday he would commute the sentences of almost 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses.

In his Monday statement, Biden also commuted the life sentence imposed on the Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who has served nearly five decades in federal prison for the 1975 killings of two FBI agents. Peltier will serve the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

Joe Biden commuted the life sentence of the Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, convicted of the 1975 murder of two FBI agents in South Dakota, moments before handing over power to Donald Trump on Monday.

Peltier, who has spent half a century in federal prison, is said to be in poor health and would have not come up for parole until 2026 after being denied release in July last year.

In a White House statement, Biden said he was commuting Peltier’s life sentence so that he can serve the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.

“He is now 80 years old, suffers from severe health ailments, and has spent the majority of his life (nearly half a century) in prison. This commutation will enable Mr Peltier to spend his remaining days in home confinement but will not pardon him for his underlying crimes,” the statement read.

The commutation order noted that commutation for the Native American activist, who was convicted of killing two federal agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and escaping from federal prison, was widely supported.

“Tribal Nations, Nobel Peace laureates, former law enforcement officials (including the former US attorney whose office oversaw Mr Peltier’s prosecution and appeal), dozens of lawmakers, and human rights organizations strongly support granting Mr Peltier clemency, citing his advanced age, illnesses, his close ties to and leadership in the Native American community, and the substantial length of time he has already spent in prison,” it read.

In a statement after Peltier’s commutation was announced, he said: “It’s finally over – I’m going home. I want to show the world I’m a good person with a good heart. I want to help the people, just like my grandmother taught me.”

Peltier has maintained his innocence since he was arrested in connection with the deaths and had for decades been supported by advocates for his release by Coretta Scott King, Nelson Mandela and Pope Francis.

James H Reynolds, the US attorney who handled the prosecution and appeal of Peltier’s case, publicly apologized, calling the prosecution and incarceration of Peltier “unjust” and has called for his immediate release.

On 26 June 1975, years-long tensions over self-governance of tribal lands erupted in a shoot-out between the FBI and members of the American Indian movement (AIM), a cold war-era liberation group.

Peltier was among the four men who were indicted in connection with two agents’ murders. The all-white jury did not hear about underlying tensions between the two political factions at Pine Ridge reservation, and witnesses claimed that FBI agents had threatened and coerced them into their testimonies.

The prosecution withheld ballistics evidence, including the fact that Peltier’s rifle could not be matched to shell casings in the trunk of the FBI agents’ car.

Peltier was found guilty of the murders and given two consecutive life sentences. One of his current attorneys, Kevin Sharp, told the Guardian recently there has been misconduct in the investigation and misconduct by the prosecution.

Sharp said he has been frustrated with “the system that refuses to acknowledge the government’s role in what happened in June of 1975, refuses to acknowledge the context of what happened, refuses to acknowledge the violation of rights that happened”.

Prior attempts to pardon Peltier had failed, including efforts by the former president Bill Clinton after they were protested by FBI agents. The former FBI agent Coleen Rowley has said that the federal agency has a “vendetta” against Peltier.

After the order was released, Nick Tilsen, founder of the NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led civil rights group, said: “Leonard Peltier’s freedom today is the result of 50 years of intergenerational resistance, organizing, and advocacy.”

Tilsen added: “Leonard Peltier’s liberation is our liberation – we will honor him by bringing him back to his homelands to live out the rest of his days surrounded by loved ones, healing, and reconnecting with his land and culture.”

New Zealanders are not typically ones for splitting hairs, but when it comes to who split the atom, you had better have your facts straight – particularly if you have just been sworn in as the 47th US president.

During his inaugural address on Monday, Donald Trump reeled off a list of US achievements, including a claim that its experts split the atom.

However, that honour belongs to revered physicist Sir Ernest Rutherford, a New Zealander who managed the historic feat in 1917 at Victoria University of Manchester in England. The element rutherfordium was named after him in 1997.

Nick Smith, the mayor of the city of Nelson near where Rutherford grew up, said he would invite the US ambassador to New Zealand – once Trump has appointed one – to “visit the Lord Rutherford memorial in Brightwater so we can keep the historic record on who split the atom first accurate”.

“I was a bit surprised by new president Donald Trump in his inauguration speech about US greatness claiming today Americans split the atom when that honour belongs to Nelson’s most famous and favourite son Sir Ernest Rutherford,” Smith said.

Ben Uffindell, the editor of satirical news site The Civilian, was similarly incredulous. “Okay, I’ve gotta call time. Trump just claimed America split the atom. That’s THE ONE THING WE DID,” Uffindell posted.

Trump, who is no stranger to using inflammatory language, sparked ire in New Zealand after telling an inauguration crowd: “Americans pushed thousands of miles through a rugged land of untamed wilderness, they crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the wild west, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted billions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand.”

It is not the first time Trump has erroneously claimed the US split the atom, nor the first time it has drawn ire from New Zealanders.

In a strikingly similar speech, given at Mount Rushmore in 2020, Trump said: “Americans harnessed electricity, split the atom, and gave the world the telephone and the internet. We settled the wild west, won two world wars, landed American astronauts on the moon – and one day soon, we will plant our flag on Mars!”

Rutherford, who is sometimes referred to as the father of nuclear physics, discovered the idea of radioactive half-life and showed that radioactivity involved the transmutation of one chemical element to another. He was awarded a Nobel prize for chemistry in 1908 “for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements”.

Rutherford later became director of the Cavendish laboratory at Cambridge University where, under his leadership, the neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932 and the first experiment to split the nucleus was carried out by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton.

Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood who helped turn the reproductive healthcare giant into a formidable political organization and make support for abortion rights a virtual requirement for Democratic candidates, died on Monday after a battle with brain cancer. She was 67.

“This morning our beloved Cecile passed away at home, surrounded by her family and her ever-loyal dog, Ollie,” Richards’ family wrote in a statement. “Our hearts are broken today but no words can do justice to the joy she brought to our lives.”

Over the course of her career, Richards became one of the biggest faces of US abortion rights, if not one of the most important American activists of the 21st century.

Under her watch, Planned Parenthood became a mainstay in Democratic politics, battled numerous congressional attempts to defund the organization, and tried to dam a torrent of state-level efforts to restrict abortion access.

Her mother, the former Texas governor Ann Richards, was a political legend, but Richards herself became a household name in 2015, after anti-abortion activists released secret recordings of Planned Parenthood workers purportedly discussing the sale of fetal tissue. The recordings – which Planned Parenthood said were doctored – spurred multiple congressional and state investigations that could not substantiate their contents, and led US House Republicans to grill Richards in an hours-long, highly publicized hearing.

After stepping down from Planned Parenthood in 2018, Richards went on to found Supermajority, an organization dedicated to championing women’s leadership. After the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022 – in a case involving the kind of state-level abortion restrictions that Richards tried to defeat – Richards started Charley, a bot to help abortion seekers get accurate information about the procedure, and Abortion in America, a campaign to publicize stories of post-Roe abortions. In late 2024, Joe Biden awarded Richards the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the US.

“One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as a lifelong organizer is that there are no permanent wins and no permanent losses. We have to fight for every inch of progress, and we can’t take anything for granted,” Richards wrote on Instagram after receiving the honor.

“That’s especially true in challenging moments like the one we find ourselves in now. But what a joy and a privilege it is to be part of the long struggle to make our country a fairer and more hopeful place.”

Richards was born on 15 July 1957, in Waco, Texas, and was primarily raised in Dallas and Austin. Her political involvement began early in life, as her parents were ardent progressives.

“They were into politics like other couples were into bowling,” Richards told NPR in 2014. “Every movement that came through town, whether it was the farm workers, the labor movement, the women’s movement, they were into and so were all their friends.”

After graduating from Brown University, Richards started working as a labor organizer in Louisiana, where she met her husband, Kirk Adams, who went on to hold leadership positions at the powerful Service Employees International Union. The couple had three children together.

Ahead of the 1990 election, the family moved back to Texas to help Ann Richards run for governor. Known for her silvery, sky-high hair and acerbic wit – during her address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, Richards famously declared that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, “just backwards and in high heels” – Richards eked out a narrow victory, thanks to a coalition of female voters and voters of color. She then lost her 1994 re-election campaign (to future US president George W Bush), but remained Cecile Richards’ political north star for the rest of Cecile’s life. A chapter of Cecile Richards’ best-selling 2018 memoir, Make Trouble, is titled: “What Would Ann Richards Do?”

After Ann Richards’ gubernatorial loss, Cecile attended a 1995 Texas state board of education meeting, where she watched rightwing activists crusade against providing students with information about sex education and LGBTQ+ rights. Struck by the religious right’s rising power, Richards founded Texas Freedom Network, one of the most prominent progressive advocacy organizations in the Lone Star State.

Richards later moved to Washington DC, where she served as Nancy Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff before helping to found and lead the voting rights coalition America Votes.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America hired Richards as president in 2006. Two years later, the non-profit endorsed Barack Obama for president. It was only the second time in the group’s 85-year history that it had endorsed a candidate for president, but it heralded Planned Parenthood’s increased commitment to electoral politics – a hallmark of Richards’ time at its helm.

By greatly expanding Planned Parenthood’s fundraising and state-level organizing, especially in the face of repeated Republican efforts to defund it, Richards made it into an organization that could corral votes as well as make or break political candidates. After 2010, when Democrats’ inter-party arguing over abortion coverage nearly defeated the Affordable Care Act, Planned Parenthood worked to turn support for abortion rights into a key plank in the Democratic party platform. Today, there is just one anti-abortion Democrat in Congress.

After being diagnosed with brain cancer in 2023, Richards continued to work on leftwing causes. She co-chaired American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic network that includes a formidable Super Pac, and spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in support of Kamala Harris. Alongside Kate Cox, a Texan woman who sued after being denied a medically necessary abortion, Richards cast Texas’s ceremonial votes in support of Harris.

In their statement, Richards’ family said that those who wished to honor Richards’ memory should keep in mind something she frequently said over the last year of her life: “It’s hard not to imagine future generations one day asking: ‘When there was so much at stake for our country, what did you do?’ The only acceptable answer is: ‘Everything we could.’”

Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood who helped turn the reproductive healthcare giant into a formidable political organization and make support for abortion rights a virtual requirement for Democratic candidates, died on Monday after a battle with brain cancer. She was 67.

“This morning our beloved Cecile passed away at home, surrounded by her family and her ever-loyal dog, Ollie,” Richards’ family wrote in a statement. “Our hearts are broken today but no words can do justice to the joy she brought to our lives.”

Over the course of her career, Richards became one of the biggest faces of US abortion rights, if not one of the most important American activists of the 21st century.

Under her watch, Planned Parenthood became a mainstay in Democratic politics, battled numerous congressional attempts to defund the organization, and tried to dam a torrent of state-level efforts to restrict abortion access.

Her mother, the former Texas governor Ann Richards, was a political legend, but Richards herself became a household name in 2015, after anti-abortion activists released secret recordings of Planned Parenthood workers purportedly discussing the sale of fetal tissue. The recordings – which Planned Parenthood said were doctored – spurred multiple congressional and state investigations that could not substantiate their contents, and led US House Republicans to grill Richards in an hours-long, highly publicized hearing.

After stepping down from Planned Parenthood in 2018, Richards went on to found Supermajority, an organization dedicated to championing women’s leadership. After the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022 – in a case involving the kind of state-level abortion restrictions that Richards tried to defeat – Richards started Charley, a bot to help abortion seekers get accurate information about the procedure, and Abortion in America, a campaign to publicize stories of post-Roe abortions. In late 2024, Joe Biden awarded Richards the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the US.

“One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as a lifelong organizer is that there are no permanent wins and no permanent losses. We have to fight for every inch of progress, and we can’t take anything for granted,” Richards wrote on Instagram after receiving the honor.

“That’s especially true in challenging moments like the one we find ourselves in now. But what a joy and a privilege it is to be part of the long struggle to make our country a fairer and more hopeful place.”

Richards was born on 15 July 1957, in Waco, Texas, and was primarily raised in Dallas and Austin. Her political involvement began early in life, as her parents were ardent progressives.

“They were into politics like other couples were into bowling,” Richards told NPR in 2014. “Every movement that came through town, whether it was the farm workers, the labor movement, the women’s movement, they were into and so were all their friends.”

After graduating from Brown University, Richards started working as a labor organizer in Louisiana, where she met her husband, Kirk Adams, who went on to hold leadership positions at the powerful Service Employees International Union. The couple had three children together.

Ahead of the 1990 election, the family moved back to Texas to help Ann Richards run for governor. Known for her silvery, sky-high hair and acerbic wit – during her address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, Richards famously declared that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, “just backwards and in high heels” – Richards eked out a narrow victory, thanks to a coalition of female voters and voters of color. She then lost her 1994 re-election campaign (to future US president George W Bush), but remained Cecile Richards’ political north star for the rest of Cecile’s life. A chapter of Cecile Richards’ best-selling 2018 memoir, Make Trouble, is titled: “What Would Ann Richards Do?”

After Ann Richards’ gubernatorial loss, Cecile attended a 1995 Texas state board of education meeting, where she watched rightwing activists crusade against providing students with information about sex education and LGBTQ+ rights. Struck by the religious right’s rising power, Richards founded Texas Freedom Network, one of the most prominent progressive advocacy organizations in the Lone Star State.

Richards later moved to Washington DC, where she served as Nancy Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff before helping to found and lead the voting rights coalition America Votes.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America hired Richards as president in 2006. Two years later, the non-profit endorsed Barack Obama for president. It was only the second time in the group’s 85-year history that it had endorsed a candidate for president, but it heralded Planned Parenthood’s increased commitment to electoral politics – a hallmark of Richards’ time at its helm.

By greatly expanding Planned Parenthood’s fundraising and state-level organizing, especially in the face of repeated Republican efforts to defund it, Richards made it into an organization that could corral votes as well as make or break political candidates. After 2010, when Democrats’ inter-party arguing over abortion coverage nearly defeated the Affordable Care Act, Planned Parenthood worked to turn support for abortion rights into a key plank in the Democratic party platform. Today, there is just one anti-abortion Democrat in Congress.

After being diagnosed with brain cancer in 2023, Richards continued to work on leftwing causes. She co-chaired American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic network that includes a formidable Super Pac, and spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in support of Kamala Harris. Alongside Kate Cox, a Texan woman who sued after being denied a medically necessary abortion, Richards cast Texas’s ceremonial votes in support of Harris.

In their statement, Richards’ family said that those who wished to honor Richards’ memory should keep in mind something she frequently said over the last year of her life: “It’s hard not to imagine future generations one day asking: ‘When there was so much at stake for our country, what did you do?’ The only acceptable answer is: ‘Everything we could.’”

Pope Francis has taken the remarkable step of dissolving a Peruvian-based Catholic movement, the Sodalitium of Christian Life (SCV), after years of attempts at reform and a Vatican investigation. The investigation uncovered sexual abuses by its founder, financial mismanagement by its leaders and spiritual abuses by its top members.

The Sodalitium on Monday confirmed the dissolution, which was conveyed to an assembly of its members in Aparecida, Brazil at the weekend by the pope’s top legal adviser, Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda. In revealing the dissolution in a statement, the group lamented that news of Francis’s decision had been leaked by two members attending the assembly, who were “definitively expelled”.

It provided no details, saying only that the “central information” about the dissolution that was reported by the Spanish-language site Infovaticana “was true but it contained several inaccuracies”. It did not say what the inaccuracies were.

The Vatican has not responded to several requests for comment. Dissolution – or suppression – of a pontifically recognised religious movement is a significant undertaking for a pope, all the more so for a Jesuit pope, given the Jesuit religious order was itself suppressed in the 1700s.

The SCV dissolution, which had been rumoured, marks an end to what has amounted to a slow death of the movement, which was founded in 1971. It was one of several Catholic societies born as a conservative reaction to the left-leaning liberation theology movement that swept through Latin America.

At its height, the group counted about 20,000 members across South America and the US. It was enormously influential in Peru.

Former members complained to the Lima archdiocese in 2011 about abuses by its founder, Luis Figari, and other claims date back to 2000. But neither the local church nor the Holy See took concrete action until one of the victims, Pedro Salinas, wrote a book along with journalist Paola Ugaz detailing the practices of the Sodalitium in 2015, entitled Half Monks, Half Soldiers.

In 2017, a report commissioned by the group’s leadership determined that Figari subjected his recruits to humiliating sexual and psychological abuse.

After an attempt at reform, Francis sent his two most trusted investigators, Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, to look into the Sodalitium abuses. Their report uncovered “sadistic” sect-like abuses of power, authority and spirituality; economic abuses in administering church money; and even journalistic abuses of harassing critics.

The report resulted in the expulsions last year of Figari and 10 top members, including an archbishop who had sued Salinas and Ugaz for their reporting and was earlier forced to retire early.

Salinas, who has long called for the SCV to be suppressed, said word of Francis’s decree was “extraordinary”, albeit belated since the first denunciations dated from 25 years ago. He praised Scicluna and Bertomeu, as well as the new prefect of the Vatican’s office for religious orders, Sister Simona Brambilla, since she is ultimately responsible for the SCV.

“And of course without the personal commitment of Pope Francis in this long history of impunity, nothing would have happened,” Salinas said, identifying complicit Peruvian institutions and bishops who “preferred to look the other way instead of accompanying the Argentine pontiff in his struggle for a Catholic church without abuse”.

It remains unknown what will become of the assets of the Sodalitium, which victims want to be used as compensation for their trauma. According to the code of canon law, only the Holy See can suppress an institute such as the SCV and “a decision regarding the temporal goods of the institute is also reserved to the Apostolic See”.

People with diabetes taking medications found in weight-loss jabs have a reduced risk of 42 conditions, research has found, paving the way for such drugs being used to treat a host of health problems.

The most comprehensive study of its kind showed that psychotic disorders, infections and dementia were among conditions found to be less likely to occur when using GLP-1RAs, which are found in the medications Saxenda, Wegovy and Mounjaro.

The researchers compared health outcomes for people with diabetes who received usual care with those also given drugs such as liraglutide, semaglutide and tirzepatide. While the team revealed the risk of many conditions was lower for the latter group, the risk of other conditions, including arthritic disorders, was increased.

And the scientists say that the benefits are not just restricted to people with diabetes, suggesting they could also be found in other people using the jabs, such as those who take them to fight obesity.

“We only studied people with diabetes but there is no biologic or clinical reason to think that the beneficial and risk profiles would be very different in people without diabetes,” said Dr Ziyad Al-Aly, a co-author of the research from Washington University in St Louis.

However, Aly said it was unlikely people without obesity would experience a similar range of potential benefits. He added that some of the positive associations might be linked to weight loss, while it was also important to consider the risks.

Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, the team report how they analysed records from the US Department of Veterans Affairs databases to explore associations between GLP-1RAs and 175 health outcomes.

The data included 215,970 individuals with diabetes who received these drugs in addition to usual care in the form of other blood-sugar lowering medications, as well as 1,203,097 individuals with diabetes who only received usual care. Participants were tracked for a median of about 3.5 years with the average body mass index above the threshold for obesity.

“We wanted, literally, to map the landscape of benefits and risks,” said Aly.

The results reveal that, compared with usual care, GLP-1RAs were associated with a lower risk of 42 health outcomes, from clotting disorders to chronic kidney disease. More specifically, the risk was reduced by 13% for opioid-use disorders; 19% for bulimia; 18% for schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders; 10% for suicidal ideation, attempt or intentional self-harm; 12% for Alzheimer’s disease; and 12% for bacterial infections.

However the team found GLP-1RAs were associated with a greater risk of 19 conditions compared with usual care, including abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, low blood pressure and kidney stones.

While some associations were expected, Aly noted others – such as the lower risk of infection – were more puzzling. And while Aly noted weight loss could lead to less arthritis because there was less stress on weight-bearing joints, the new study found that people taking GLP-1RAs had an increased risk of arthritis.

“This is likely related to decreased muscle mass and some deconditioning that happens in people who rapidly lose weight,” Aly said, although he noted this required further research.

The health associations linked to GLP-1RAs were also compared with those for hundreds of thousands of individuals receiving other types of anti-diabetic medication. Again, the team found the GLP-1RA drugs were associated with a reduced risk of many conditions, but an increased risk of others.

“This type of analysis can teach us about mechanisms of diseases that we have not considered previously – and could open pathways to new treatments for these conditions,” said Aly.

It is not the first time GLP-1RAs have been linked to a host of potential health benefits: researchers are already exploring whether they could prove helpful in areas ranging from dementia to cancer.

Prof Naveed Sattar of the University of Glasgow, who was not involved in the study, said randomised trials were needed to explore new associations suggested by the study, but noted trials had already proved many of the potential benefits, such as a reduced risk of heart attacks.

“As more larger trials report, we will learn more about these classes of medicines, especially those that also give big weight loss, allowing us to better understand their net benefits and safety and potential widening their indications,” he said.

An antimicrobial protein found in the blood of an Australian oyster could help in the fight against superbugs, new research suggests.

Australian scientists have discovered that a protein found in the haemolymph – the equivalent of blood – of the Sydney rock oyster, Saccostrea glomerata, can kill bacteria itself and increase the effectiveness of some conventional antibiotics.

Antimicrobial resistance has been described as a “looming global health crisis” that – without urgent action – could render critical drugs ineffective and result in declines in lifespan and life quality by 2050.

In lab tests, the haemolymph protein alone was effective at killing the bacteria Streptococcus pneumoniae, which mainly causes pneumonia, and Streptococcus pyogenes, the culprit for strep throat and scarlet fever. It has not yet been tested in animals or humans.

When used in combination with antibiotics, including ampicillin and gentamicin, it improved their effectiveness from two- to 32-fold against bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus (golden staph) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which often infects immunocompromised people.

The study’s co-author Prof Kirsten Benkendorff, of Southern Cross University, estimated that about two dozen oysters would contain enough haemolymph to provide an active dose of the protein for an average person, but she emphasised that more research was needed to purify the protein and understand how it works.

“We found that heating [the protein] does actually reduce the antimicrobial activity, so cooking would reduce the effect,” Benkendorff said.

It is uncertain, however, whether eating the protein would be effective, as unlike many conventional antibiotics, antimicrobial proteins can be broken down by the digestive system before they reach their target site.

“I definitely would not suggest that people ate oysters instead of taking antibiotics if they have got a serious infection,” Benkendorff said.

She said “oysters as filter feeding organisms are sucking bacteria in through their bodies all the time”, making them good candidates in which to look for new antimicrobial drugs – but also means that in places such as near stormwater drains, they can accumulate substances that can be harmful to humans if consumed.

Benkendorff said the protein could help treat respiratory infections that are resistant to regular antibiotics because of biofilms.

To protect themselves, infectious bacteria often aggregate into biofilms – sticky communities that enable them to better evade antibiotics and the human immune system.

The oyster haemolymph protein was effective against Streptococcus biofilms, the scientists found.

“We often think about bacteria just floating around in the blood. But in reality, a lot of them actually adhere to surfaces,” Benkendorff said. “The advantage of having something that disrupts the biofilm is … it’s stopping all of those bacteria from attaching to the surfaces. It’s releasing them back out into the blood, where then they can be attacked by antibiotics.”

Prof Jonathan Iredell, an infectious diseases physician and clinical microbiologist at the University of Sydney, who was not involved in the research, said the oyster protein belonged to a class of compounds called antimicrobial peptides. “There is a lot of excitement about their discovery because they often contain interesting kinds of mechanisms that we haven’t seen before.”

The study, he said, added “to an exciting field where we’re looking to naturally occurring antimicrobials of a different type to try and provide new prospects in the face of advancing adaptation by bacteria”.

Prof Branwen Morgan, who leads the CSIRO’s minimising antimicrobial resistance mission, described the protein’s properties as a “really interesting discovery, given biofilms are so problematic”.

Morgan, who was not involved in the research, said any potential treatment that reduced the reliance on traditional antibiotics was worth pursuing, in light of the increase in drug-resistant infections around thee world.

“Given the significant costs in developing new medicines, the idea of using excess and/or imperfect oysters to generate a sustainable supply of antimicrobial proteins … should be investigated further,” she said.

The study was published in the journal Plos One.

Colombia has vowed “war” against leftwing guerrillas, as security forces rushed to contain a wave of violence that has killed more than 100 people and threatened to derail the country’s troubled peace process.

In just five days, violence has been reported in three different Colombian departments, from the remote Amazon jungle to the rugged border with Venezuela, where fighting has displaced 11,000 people.

President Gustavo Petro, who until now has staked his political fortunes on a strategy of negotiations and engagement, signalled a much tougher approach in the face of the mounting crisis.

On Monday he issued a defiant warning to leaders of the National Liberation Army – or ELN – which is said to have been behind border region attacks on rival leftist groups, killing 80 people.

The ELN, Petro said, had “chosen the path of war, and war they will have”.

Some 5,000 troops were sent to the border area, hoping to contain some of the worst violence Colombia had seen in years.

The country was plagued by an abundance of leftwing, rightwing and apolitical armed groups and cartels that vie for control of the lucrative cocaine trade.

The ombudsman’s office reported ELN rebels going from “house to house”, killing people suspected of ties to dissident units of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

Over the weekend, terrified residents carrying backpacks and belongings on overladen motorcycles, boats, or crammed on the backs of open trucks, fled the region.

Hundreds found refuge in the town of Tibú, where several shelters were set up, while others crossed the border to Venezuela – for some a return to a country from where they had fled economic and political upheaval.

“As a Colombian, it is painful for me to leave my country,” said Geovanny Valero, a 45-year-old farmer who fled to Venezuela, saying he hoped the situation would be “sorted out” so he can return.

On Monday, Colombia’s defense ministry reported new clashes in a remote Amazon region.

A ministry official said that 20 people had been killed in fighting between rival leftwing guerrillas in the jungle-clad department of Guaviare.

The Amazon clashes involved rival Farc splinter groups..The violence is a fresh challenge for Colombia’s leftist president Gustavo Petro who has staked his political fortunes on a policy of “total peace”.

In the face of some public opposition, Petro launched negotiations with the various hardline armed groups that still control parts of Colombia after being elected in 2022.

Critics allege that his conciliatory approach has emboldened groups who are often funded by the proceeds of cocaine and other trafficking, and allowed them space to grow in power and influence.

A 2016 peace deal with Farc was hailed as a turning point in the six-decade-long conflict between Colombian security forces, guerrillas, rightwing paramilitaries and drug gangs, which has left nearly half a million people dead.

But dissident factions continue to control territory in several parts of Colombia, the world’s biggest cocaine producer.

South African police are hunting an alleged “kingpin” of illegal mining after he escaped from custody following a rescue operation last week in which 78 bodies were brought out of an illicit goldmine.

James Neo Tshoaeli, a Lesotho national known as Tiger, has been accused by other illegal miners of being a ringleader who was allegedly responsible for assaults, tortures and deaths underground, as well as keeping food from others, the South African Police Service said.

Tshoaeli was neither booked into custody nor admitted at any local hospitals for medical care, police said, describing his escape as an “embarrassment”. “Heads will roll once they find those officials that aided the kingpin to escape from police custody,” they said. “Tiger is a fugitive of justice and is considered dangerous.”

In late 2023, police launched Operation Vala Umgodi (Plug the Hole) to try to stamp out illegal mines across South Africa’s north-eastern mining belt. Officers blocked supplies of food, water and medicine from being sent to workers underground in attempt to force them to the surface so they could be arrested.

After reports of dead bodies at an illegal goldmining site near Stilfontein earlier this month, the government launched a rescue operation. Over four days last week, a crane winch lifted 246 survivors and 78 bodies from the 1.2-mile-deep shaft. Local volunteers said they had previously hauled out nine dead miners using a hand-operated rope pulley system.

Activists and relatives of the miners blamed South African authorities for what they called a “massacre” of starving people unable to resurface. Officials said the men, known as zama zamas (those who try), could have exited via a different mineshaft but stayed underground to avoid arrest.

In recent years, illegal miners have flocked to sites in South Africa that mining companies have abandoned as no longer commercially viable. Analysts estimate there could be 30,000 zama zamas producing 10% of South Africa’s gold output from 6,000 abandoned mines, often controlled by violent criminal syndicates.

Since 18 August, 1,907 illegal miners have come out of the abandoned goldmines around Stilfontein, according to police. Most were from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, with just 26 from South Africa. Police have blamed Lesotho nationals for leading the operations.

“You have got people who voluntarily entered mines and did some illegal activities and in the process died inside those mines,” South Africa’s finance minister, Enoch Godongwana, told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. “To then come back and say the state is going to take the blame for that, in my view, is misplaced.”

Reuters contributed to this report