In an inaugural prayer service sermon, the Episcopal bishop of Washington appealed directly to Donald Trump to “have mercy upon” communities across the country targeted by the new administration’s immigration and LGBTQ+ policies.

Speaking from the pulpit at the Washington national cathedral, the Right Rev Mariann Budde delivered her sermon – and an impassioned plea – as Trump sat stone-faced in the front row, alongside Melania Trump and JD Vance. Asked later about the service, Trump told reporters it was “not too exciting”.

“I didn’t think it was a good service, no,” he said as he walked into the White House on Tuesday. “They could do much better.”

The sermon was part of a larger interfaith prayer service, a post-inauguration day tradition hosted by the Washington national cathedral and attended by presidents of both parties at the start of their term. Tuesday morning’s service was filled with blessing and prayers for the success of the new administration, but took a sharper, more political turn when Budde rose to deliver the homily.

“You have felt the providential hand of a loving God,” she said, an apparent reference to Trump’s inaugural address, in which he declared that God had saved him from an assassin’s bullet to “make America great again”. She continued: “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now.”

Budde’s sermon amounted to a bold public criticism of the new president, who spent his first hours in office signing executive orders rolling back Biden-era protections for transgender Americans and laying the groundwork to carry out his promise of mass deportations. One executive order directed the federal government to recognize only “two sexes – male and female” while his immigration directives moved to dismantle birthright citizenship, send troops to the southern border and suspend the US refugee admissions program.

“There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in both Democratic, Republican and independent families who fear for their lives,” Budde said, asking his administration to show compassion.

She also spoke of immigrants – those who “pick our crops” and “work the night shift in hospitals” – but “may not be citizens or have the proper documentation.

“The vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwara and temples,” she said, adding: “Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land.”

When Budde finished her sermon, Trump turned and said something to Vance, who responded with a shake of his head.

Budde has clashed with Trump before, during his first term in office. In 2020, she expressed outrage over Trump’s appearance in front of St John’s Epsicopal church in Washington, where he held up a Bible after federal officers had used force to clear peaceful protesters demonstrating over the death of George Floyd in 2020.

Trump allies have already begun to attack Budde over her comments. Georgia congressman Mike Collins said Budde, a US citizen, “should be added to the deportation list” for her words criticizing the president. Trump has vowed as president to protect Americans’ free speech.

A swath of Democratic-led states and civil rights groups have filed the first lawsuits challenging executive orders Donald Trump signed after taking office, including one that seeks to roll back birthright citizenship in the US.

A coalition of 22 Democratic-led states along with the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston on Tuesday arguing the Republican president’s effort to end birthright citizenship is a flagrant violation of the US constitution.

That lawsuit followed a pair of similar cases filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, immigrant organizations and an expectant mother in the hours after Trump signed the executive order, marking the first major litigation challenging parts of his agenda since he took office.

“State attorneys general have been preparing for illegal actions like this one, and today’s immediate lawsuit sends a clear message to the Trump administration that we will stand up for our residents and their basic constitutional rights,” the New Jersey attorney general, Matthew Platkin, said in a statement.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuits, which were all filed in federal courts in Boston or Concord, New Hampshire, take aim at a central piece of Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown, an order directing federal agencies not to recognize US citizenship for children born in the United States to mothers who are in the country illegally or are present temporarily, such as visa holders, and whose fathers are not citizens or lawful permanent residents.

More lawsuits by Democratic-led states and advocacy groups challenging other aspects of Trump’s agenda are expected, with cases already on file challenging the Elon Musk-led, ill-defined “department of government efficiency” and an order the Republican signed weakening job protections for civil servants.

Any rulings from judges in Massachusetts and New Hampshire would be reviewed by the Boston-based 1st US circuit court of appeals, whose five active federal judges are all appointees of Democratic presidents, a rarity nationally.

The lawsuits argue that the executive order violated the right enshrined in the citizenship clause of the US constitution’s 14th amendment that provides that anyone born in the United States is considered a citizen.

The complaints cite the US supreme court’s 1898 ruling in United States v Wong Kim Ark, a decision holding that children born in the United States to non-citizen parents are entitled to US citizenship.

If allowed to stand, Trump’s order would mean more than 150,000 children born annually in the United States would be denied for the first time the right to citizenship, according to the office of the Massachusetts attorney general, Andrea Joy Campbell.

“President Trump does not have the authority to take away constitutional rights,” she said in a statement.

The plaintiffs challenging the order include a woman living in Massachusetts identified only as “O Doe” who is in the country through temporary protected status and is due to give birth in March.

Temporary protected status is available to people whose home countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary events and currently covers more than 1 million people from 17 nations.

Several other lawsuits challenging aspects of Trump’s other early executive actions are also pending.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents federal government employees in 37 agencies and departments, late on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging an order Trump signed that makes it easier to fire thousands of federal agency employees and replace them with political loyalists.

Donald Trump has unveiled what he called “the largest AI infrastructure project in history” – a $500bn joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank that aims to build a network of data centres across the US.

The new partnership, dubbed Stargate, aims to construct essential data centers and computing infrastructure needed to power artificial intelligence development and, according to Trump, create over 100,000 American jobs “almost immediately”.

The launch marks one of Trump’s first major business initiatives since returning to office and comes as the US looks for new ways to maintain an edge against China in AI capabilities.

“China is a competitor and others are competitors. We want it to be in this country,” Trump said during the White House announcement, flanked by Oracle’s Larry Ellison, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.

The president indicated he would use emergency declarations to expedite the project’s development, particularly regarding energy infrastructure.

“We have to get this stuff built,” Trump said. “They have to produce a lot of electricity and we’ll make it possible for them to get that production done very easily at their own plants.”

The initiative comes just one day after Trump reversed predecessor Joe Biden’s more than 100-page executive order on AI safety standards and content watermarking, signalling a decisive shift in US artificial intelligence policy.

And while the investment is substantial, it aligns with broader market projections – financial firm Blackstone had already estimated $1tn in US data centre investments over five years.

Trump framed the announcement as a vote of confidence in his administration, noting that the timing coincided with his return to office. “This monumental undertaking is a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential under a new president,” he said.

The formation of Stargate follows Trump’s earlier announcement of a $20bn AI data centre investment from UAE-based DAMAC Properties. Sites for the new data centres are currently being evaluated across the country, though the venture will begin with initial projects in Texas.

Senators have reportedly received an affidavit from the former sister-in-law of Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s controversial pick for secretary of defense, alleging that the nominee’s aggressive behavior prompted his second wife to fear for her safety.

NBC News reports that the former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth, submitted the affidavit after the top Democrat on the Senate armed forces committee, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, sent her a letter requesting a statement on her “personal knowledge about Mr Hegseth’s fitness to occupy this important position”.

A photo of the affidavit, shared by Punchbowl News, shows Danielle Hegseth’s account that Hegseth’s second wife, Samantha Hegseth, instituted a system of sending two friends a safe word to signal when she feared for her safety because of her husband’s erratic behavior.

According to Danielle Hegseth, she shared details of Hegseth’s allegedly aggressive behavior with the FBI when the bureau conducted a background check on the nominee last month.

Samantha Hegseth, who divorced Hegseth in 2017, disputed the characterization of her marriage, telling NBC News: “There was no physical abuse in my marriage. This is the only further statement I will make to you, I have let you know that I am not speaking and will not speak on my marriage to Pete. Please respect this decision.”

A lawyer for Hegseth similarly denied the accusation against him, saying: “Sam has never alleged that there was any abuse, she signed court documents acknowledging that there was no abuse and recently reaffirmed the same during her FBI interview.”

As of now, Hegseth is expected to be narrowly confirmed by the Senate despite concerns over allegations of sexual assault, financial mismanagement and excessive alcohol use. His nomination was approved by the Senate armed services committee on Monday along a party-line vote.

Hegseth’s nomination has already been marked by allegations of sexual assault and public intoxication. He paid a settlement to a woman who accused him of rape in 2017, but he denies the allegations and refused to answer multiple questions during his confirmation hearing about sexual assault and his drinking, calling them “anonymous smears”.

• Ukraine fired a wave of drones into Russia sparking a blaze at an oil depot and explosions at a plant producing military aircraft, the Ukrainian army said on Tuesday. In the western Voronezh region bordering Ukraine, Kyiv said it struck an oil depot near the town of Liski for the second time in less than a week. “Tanks with fuel and lubricants used by the occupiers to supply Russian troops caught fire,” the Ukrainian army said. Ukraine also said it struck an aviation plant producing “combat aircraft” in the western Russian city of Smolensk, sparking “explosions”. The governor of the Smolensk region said only that falling debris from downed drones had sparked “roof fires”. Footage and pictures online backed up the Ukrainian versions of events. Russia said it downed 55 Ukrainian drones over Monday night, more than half of which were intercepted over regions bordering Ukraine, while Ukraine said Moscow fired 131 drones and decoys as well as four missiles at its territory.

• Donald Trump has said it “sounds like” the US might impose fresh sanctions on Russia if its president, Vladimir Putin, refuses to negotiate about ending the war in Ukraine. Trump said on Monday that the Russian president “should make a deal … I think he’s destroying Russia by not making a deal”. The US has already sanctioned Russia heavily and Trump gave no details on possible additional sanctions. “We’re talking to [Ukrainian president Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, we’re going to be talking with President Putin very soon,” Trump said. “We’re going to look at it.”

• Trump said he had pressed the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in a call to intervene to stop the Ukraine war. “He’s not done very much on that. He’s got a lot of … power, like we have a lot of power. I said, ‘You ought to get it settled.’ We did discuss it.” In Moscow, the Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said Putin and Xi on Tuesday discussed talks with Donald Trump and the outlook for a possible peace deal to end the war in Ukraine. Xi told Putin about a call with Trump, Ushakov said.

• Trump claimed “Russia never would have gone into Ukraine” had he been president instead of Joe Biden. “I had a very strong understanding with Putin. That would have never, ever happened. He disrespected Biden. Very simple. He disrespects people. He’s smart. He understands. He disrespected Biden.” Trump said his administration was also looking at the issue of sending weapons to Ukraine, adding his view that the EU should be doing more to support Ukraine.

• Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said that “at least 200,000” allied troops would be needed to enforce any peace deal in Ukraine as he urged Europe to “take care of itself” as Donald Trump returns to power in the US. Luke Harding writes that Zelenskyy said European leaders should not ask themselves what Trump would do next, and said that they instead needed to take collective steps to defend their continent at a time when it was under aggressive attack by Russia. “Will President Trump even notice Europe? Does he see Nato as necessary? And will he respect EU institutions?” Zelenskyy told reporters he was working on meeting Trump but there was no date yet. “We want to finish the war and President Trump says that he also really would like to finish the war, and I believe he will help us with this.”

• People in Kyiv expressed a mixture of hope and scepticism on Tuesday that Donald Trump can end the war in Ukraine, Luke Harding writes. “I think a deal is unrealistic. Trump is blah blah blah,” said Valeriia, a 23-year-old shop worker. “He promised to end the conflict in 24 hours. That won’t happen. My friends are split 50-50 between those who think he can do something, and those who don’t.” Mykola, a retired physicist who used to live in the US, said: “I watched the inauguration on TV. Trump impressed me. We need to stop the war. I think he can really do something. He’s made a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza.”

• More than 200 Ukrainian civilians including elderly people, people with disabilities and their carers remain in the frontline stronghold of Chasiv Yar under heavy Russian assault, a military spokesman said on Tuesday. Dmytro Zaporozhets, spokesman for the “Lugansk” group of forces, said Russian attacks meant it was no longer possible for the Ukrainian military administration to organise shelters or distribute food to the remaining residents. Ukraine still controls a former brick factory in Chasiv Yar, after a recent attempted Russian assault failed, the spokesman said, but Moscow’s troops were “moving in the direction of the factory” using “small assault groups of three to eight people”, Zaporozhets said.

• The Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday that its forces had captured the settlement of Volkove in the eastern Donetsk region, a village that had an estimated pre-war population of around two dozen people. Further north, in the town of Kupiansk, a Russian drone attack wounded three Ukrainian policemen and two elderly residents, police said. The Russian army is around 2km outside the town, according to officials and loggers. The head of the national rail service meanwhile said Russian forces attacked railway infrastructure in the south of eastern Donetsk region, wounding three staff members.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that “at least 200,000” allied troops would be needed to enforce any peace deal in Ukraine as he urged Europe to “take care of itself” as Donald Trump returns to power in the US.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Zelenskyy said European leaders should not ask themselves what Trump would do next, and said that they instead needed to take collective steps to defend their continent at a time when it was under aggressive attack by Russia.

“Europe must establish itself as a strong, global player, as an indispensable player,” the Ukrainian president said. He cited the involvement of North Korean troops in Moscow’s war against Kyiv, with fighting taking place in the Kursk region of western Russia, close to Ukraine’s eastern border.

“Let’s not forget there is no ocean separating European countries from Russia. European leaders should remember these battles involving North Korean soldiers are now happening in places geographically closer to Davos than Pyongyang,” he said.

He also gave details of how an international peacekeeping operation could function, if an agreement could be reached between Ukraine and Russia, telling an interview panel that a large group would be needed. “From all the Europeans? 200,000, it’s a minimum. It’s a minimum, otherwise it’s nothing,” he said. He ruled out reducing Ukraine’s army to a fifth of its 800,000-strong size – one of the Kremlin’s demands.

“This is what he [Putin] wants. We will not allow this to happen,” Zelenskyy said, adding that his team were working on setting up a meeting with Trump.

Trump has promised to end the conflict quickly. Speaking after his inauguration on Monday, the new US president said Vladimir Putin was “destroying” Russia and should make a deal.

Zelenskyy stressed that any ceasefire agreement was contingent on western security assurances. The “best guarantee” was membership of Nato – something most European member countries support, but that the US, Germany, as well as the pro-Russian governments of Hungary and Slovakia, oppose.

In recent weeks Zelenskyy has held discussions with several European partners about a possible peacekeeping mission, including France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, and Keir Starmer, who visited Kyiv last week. There have been talks too with Poland and the Baltic states.

Speaking during his trip to Ukraine, Starmer said the UK was ready “to play our full part”, though he did not commit to boots on the ground. He told Sky News: “We have always been one of the leading countries in relation to the defence of Ukraine. And so you can read into that … But I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves because this has to be enduring.”

In his Davos address, Zelenskyy urged EU countries to spend more on technology and defence, especially in the production of drones and modern air defence systems. He said Russia had mobilised 600,000 troops in Ukraine and could muster 1.5 million men – a force several times bigger than any individual European national army.

“We all need to unite,” he said, adding: “Europe needs to learn how to fully take care of itself, so the world cannot afford to ignore it.”

Kyiv has long claimed that if Putin wins the war in Ukraine, he will move on to attack other nations. Russia had been transformed into a war economy, Zelenskyy said, and was outproducing Europe in military terms. Left unchecked, Putin would return “with an army 10 times larger than now”, he said, and swallow up independent states that used to belong to the Soviet Union.

Qatari, US and Egyptian negotiators are running a communications hub in Cairo to protect the ceasefire in Gaza, as Donald Trump said he was not confident the break in fighting would hold.

Violations have already been reported. Medics in Gaza said on Monday that eight people had been hit by Israeli fire. The start of the ceasefire was also delayed when Hamas did not provide the names of hostages to be released.

Trump claimed credit for the deal when his envoy helped to break months of deadlock to secure it before his inauguration. But asked after the event on Monday if he thought it would last, he appeared to distance himself from the conflict. “That’s not our war. It’s their war,” he told reporters.

A top Qatari diplomat said on Tuesday that negotiators were confident the US president would support the deal because his team had played a critical role in securing it.

“If it wasn’t for [Trump] this deal wouldn’t be in place right now. So we are banking on the support of this administration,” said Majed al-Ansari, an adviser to the Qatari prime minister and foreign ministry spokesperson. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, was in touch on a daily basis, he said.

The first stage of the ceasefire is scheduled to last for six weeksNegotiations on the more challenging second phase are expected to start in early February.

Trust on both sides is negligible, so the communications hub is intended to prevent the ceasefire breaking down under accusations of violations.

Hostage and prisoner releases have also been spaced out to allow time for coordination. A previous ceasefire in November 2023 was “always fragile”, Ansari said, in part because of the tight timeline for releases on both sides.

“Lists were delayed, they came in after the proposed deadlines … there was a lot of discrepancies between what was agreed upon and the lists we had,” he said.

The current deal “gives us enough time to exchange lists, agree on them, deal with any issues with the lists which might arrive and deal with any breaches”.

When breaches are reported to the Cairo hub, which operates around the clock, mediators speak to both sides, aiming to prevent the situation from escalating.

“This is what has been happening in the last 48 hours. We got calls about possible breaches, we dealt with them immediately and the ceasefire held in place,” Ansari said.

He declined to comment on specific reported violations, citing the sensitivity of the ceasefire arrangements.

Increased aid shipments into Gaza have already begun as part of the deal. More than 900 trucks of aid and 12,500 litres of fuel supplied by Qatar have crossed the border since Sunday, and Ansari said he hoped the figures would rise.

The shipments will focus on meeting basic needs in an area devastated by 15 months of war, where most people are hungry and the medical system has been decimated. Rebuilding is not expected to start until future stages, if they are reached.

A Trump transition official told US reporters that the administration was discussing relocating 2 million Palestinians during reconstruction, with Indonesia one possible destination.

That would be a red line for Qatar, which could not support “any plan that would end with relocation or re-occupation”, Ansari said, but for now the focus was on keeping talks on track. “For now we are concerned with implementation of the deal, of driving it through phase two and getting a sustainable peace in Gaza.”

Israeli security forces have launched an operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, a day after bands of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians, smashing cars and burning property and the new US president, Donald Trump, announced he was lifting sanctions on violent settlers.

At least eight Palestinians were killed and 35 people were injured, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its first responders treated seven people injured by live ammunition and that Israeli forces were hindering their access to the area.

The director of Khalil Suleiman hospital in Jenin, Wissam Bakr, said that three nurses and two doctors had been injured by Israeli fire during the military operation.

The operation, codenamed “Iron Wall”, took place as the Gaza ceasefire entered a third day and was described by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as “another step towards achieving the goal we set – strengthening security in Judea and Samaria”. He said it included police, military and the Shin Bet internal intelligence agency.

“We act methodically and resolutely against the Iranian axis wherever it sends its arms – in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu added.

Jenin has been a focus of Israeli raids into the occupied West Bank throughout the 15-month war in Gaza. The Palestinian health ministry says more than 800 people have been killed in Israeli raids since Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks that triggered the war.

The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, also launched its own raid into the area late last year while hoping to position itself as a serious player in governing postwar Gaza.

Sources quoted in the Israeli media said the operation was expected to last several days.

The Israeli government has accused Iran, which backs militant groups across the Middle East including Hamas in Gaza, of attempting to send weapons and money to militants in the West Bank.

The UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territories said that “public statements by Israeli military officials raise concern about Israel’s plans to expand and increase operations in the occupied West Bank”.

The operation, called Iron Wall, has been accompanied by increased restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement across the West Bank, with hundreds of checkpoints introduced in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Residents said that queues in front of the checkpoints stretch for kilometres, with waits of up to eight hours, effectively confining entire communities.

Reached by the Guardian, the IDF did not respond to a request for a comment about the establishments of new checkpoints in the West Bank.

Israeli settlers have set vehicles and properties on fire in the Palestinian villages where dozens of prisoners, who were released on Sunday in exchange for three Israeli hostages handed over by Hamas to Israel, were returning. More than 21 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank have been injured as a result of the Israeli settlers’ attacks, including three children.

Jalal Bashir, the head of Jinasfut village council, was quoted by Wafa news agency on Monday evening as saying that the attacks took place in the villages of Jinasfut and Funduq, east of Qalqilya.

The Palestinian Authority has accused Trump of inciting Israeli settler violence after he on Monday rescinded sanctions imposed by the former Biden administration on far-right Israeli settler groups and individuals for allegedly committing violence against Palestinians.

The White House said Trump had rescinded an executive order issued on 1 February 2024, which authorised the imposition of certain sanctions “on persons undermining peace, security, and stability in the West Bank”.

Late on Tuesday four people were wounded in a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv while the attacker was killed.

In a separate development on Tuesday, Israel’s army chief, Herzi Halevi, said he would resign, citing the “terrible failure” of security and intelligence related to Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 that triggered the war in Gaza.

After Halevi’s decision to quit, the Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, called on Netanyahu and his government to resign.

“Now it is time for them to take responsibility and resign – the prime minister and his entire catastrophic government,” Lapid said.

Donald Trump’s nominee for US ambassador to the United Nations has endorsed Israeli claims of biblical rights to the entire West Bank during a Senate confirmation hearing, aligning herself with positions that could complicate diplomatic efforts in the Middle East.

The New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a Republican, was confronted on Tuesday over her backing of a position that aligns her with the Israeli far right, including Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and former national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“You told me that, yes, you shared that view,” the Democratic Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen said during questioning. “Is that your view today?”

“Yes,” Stefanik said.

Stefanik’s confirmation hearing highlighted the rifts between the US and UN over Israel policy – of which the US is the UN’s single largest funder. The US – which houses the secretariat in midtown New York City – pays about $3.6bn, or 22%, of the UN’s regular budget, with China second at 15.25% and Japan roughly at 8%.

And while the position puts Stefanik at odds with longstanding international consensus and multiple UN security council resolutions regarding Israeli settlements in occupied territories, it remains sharply in line with widespread Trump administration posturing.

Mike Huckabee, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, has echoed similar sentiments over Israel’s sovereignty, declaring “there’s no such thing as a West Bank” during a 2017 visit to Israel. Huckabee has also dismissed Palestinian identity entirely, once claiming “there’s no such thing as a Palestinian”.

Stefanik’s statement came hours after Donald Trump rescinded US sanctions on far-right settler groups and individuals accused of involvement in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, which also coincided with Israel’s military launching a “large scale and significant” operation in the territory.

Health authorities in the region said at least nine people were killed and dozens injured.

Critics of Stefanik’s position such as Van Hollen also argue that endorsing biblical claims to disputed territories could undermine US credibility as a mediator in the region, and could complicate efforts to advance a two-state solution, which has been the cornerstone of American Middle East policy for decades.

“It’s going to be very difficult to achieve peace if you continue to hold the view that you just expressed,” Van Hollen said.

The US has historically been Israel’s strongest and most consistent diplomatic backer across Democratic and Republican administrations at the UN, alongside a string of smaller island nations.

The United States has vetoed 49 security council resolutions directed at Israel since 1970, according to the Jewish Virtual Library, including five since 7 October 2023.

The exchange comes at a particularly sensitive moment for US-UN relations, following months of escalating disputes over the international body’s role in the Middle East conflict.

Earlier last year, the US suspended funding to Unrwa, the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, after allegations that some staff members participated in the 7 October Hamas attacks.

Stefanik again criticized what she has called anti-Israel bias at the UN, dismissing the institution as a “cesspool of antisemitism” and echoing Trump administration positions that led to US withdrawal from the UN human rights council and Unesco during his first term.

“Our tax dollars should not be complicit in propping up entities that are counter to American interests, antisemitic, or engaging in fraud, corruption or terrorism,” Stefanik said.

Stefanik’s stance reflects her broader political evolution from a moderate Republican who initially criticized Trump’s rhetoric and behavior to one of his staunchest defenders.

After condemning the January 6 Capitol attack as “absolutely unacceptable” and that they “must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law” in a now-deleted press release, she later voted to remove representative Liz Cheney from House leadership for criticizing Trump’s election fraud claims, and has become one of the former president’s most vocal supporters on Capitol Hill.

Hamas has said four more female Israeli hostages will be freed this weekend in return for Palestinian prisoners, as the new US president, Donald Trump, said he was not confident that the ceasefire deal that he personally insisted on would hold.

The next group of hostages due to be released is expected to include captured female Israeli soldiers, who will be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners serving more lengthy sentences who are being held in Israeli jails, some of whom will be deported to third countries.

With the release of three women on Sunday, seven Israeli women remain on the list of the initial group of 33 hostages designated for release in the first phase of the three-part ceasefire agreement, which includes women, children, elderly and sick people.

Five of those remaining women are soldiers who were captured on 7 October 2023 during Hamas’s surprise attack on southern Israeli communities close to the Gaza border.

Although Hamas has not notified mediators in Qatar of the names of hostages to be released, the speculation in the Israeli media is that it will include one civilian and three IDF spotters captured in Nahal Oz.

The arrangements for the release are expected to be largely similar to last week with Hamas delivering hostages to the Red Cross to be conveyed to Israeli forces still in Gaza and then Palestinian prisoners being released from jail hours later.

The Hamas statement came as David Barnea, head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence organisation; and Ronen Bar, the head of the domestic security agency, the Shin Bet; visited Cairo on Monday, to meet Egyptian intelligence officials to discuss how Palestinian prisoners would be deported as part of the deal.

Israel holds more than 10,300 Palestinian prisoners, while an estimated 96 Israelis are still being held in Gaza after Sunday’s release of three women, including the joint Israeli-British citizen Emily Damari, in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom were women and children.

In a statement released by Nader Fakhouri, of Hamas’s martyrs, injured, and prisoners office, he confirmed “the second part of the first phase of the Palestinian resistance factions’ agreement with the Israeli occupation will begin on Saturday 25 January” although the handover itself is not expected until Sunday.

Under the ceasefire deal, any female Israeli soldier released would mean the release of 30 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and 20 with high-term sentences.

Trump’s comment that he was not confident the deal would hold came during the signing of a tranche of executive orders after his inauguration on Monday, and added further fuel to concerns over the fragility of the complex deal that requires further negotiations on ever-more difficult issues as the ceasefire progresses.

Trump’s remarks are doubly worrying as he is in effect one of the guarantors of the ceasefire, having intervened personally in the closing days of Joe Biden’s presidency to insist to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that a ceasefire must happen.

“It’s not our war, it’s their war,” Trump said. “But I’m not confident. But I think they’re very weakened on the other side.”

Trump comments came as he revoked a key Biden-era decision that had been seen as a source of pressure on Israel, the sanctioning of Israelis seen as being involved in violent settler activity.

Trump made his comments as an Israeli military spokesperson said Palestinians in Gaza would be formally permitted to return to the north of the coastal territory in about a week if Hamas upheld all the terms of the deal, although many have already visited.

Emergency services in the Gaza Strip report that the remains of 50 bodies were found near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis and transferred to Nasser hospital in the city.

The statement added that dozens of bodies were also located on Monday in Rafah in the southern part of the territory.

According to the Hamas-run Gaza information office, at least 11,000 people are still missing.

The latest developments came as the first details of conditions in which the three women released on Sunday were kept.

According to a report on Israel N12 television channel, Doron Steinbrecher, Romi Gonen, and Emily Damari were held together at first but later separated, both in tunnels underground and at locations above ground, moving dozens of times, with at least one of the women saying in her testimony she believed she would die in Gaza.

They also appear to have had access to television at times, saying they were aware of their families campaign for their release.

“We saw your fight; we heard our families battling for us,” they said.

There were angry reactions across Europe to Elon Musk’s apparent use of a salute banned for its Nazi links in Germany, where some condemned it as malicious provocation or an outreach of solidarity to far-right groups.

Michel Friedman, a prominent German-French publicist and former deputy chair of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, described Musk’s actions – at an event after Donald Trump’s swearing in as US president – as a disgrace and said Musk had shown that a “dangerous point for the entire free world” had been reached.

Friedman, who descends from a family of Polish Jews, hardly any of whom survived the Holocaust, told the daily Tagesspiegel he had been shocked when watching the inauguration live on television, adding that as far as he was concerned Musk had unambiguously performed the Nazi “Heil Hitler” salute, despite attempts to downplay it.

“I thought to myself, the breaking of taboos is reaching a point that is dangerous for the entire free world. The brutalisation, the dehumanisation, Auschwitz, all of that is Hitler. A mass murderer, a warmonger, a person for whom people were nothing more than numbers – fair game, not worth mentioning,” Friedman said.

Charlotte Knobloch, the president of the Jewish community in Munich and Upper Bavaria, described the gesture as “highly irritating”. But she said it was not as significant as Musk’s recent attempts to meddle in German politics, where he has endorsed the far-right Alternative für Deutschland ahead of next month’s federal election.

“Far more worrying are Elon Musk’s political positions, his offensive interference in the German parliamentary election campaign and his support for a party whose anti-democratic aims should be under no illusions,” she said in a statement.

Musk made the gesture as a speaker on stage before Trump’s arrival in Washington’s Capital One arena on Monday. He heartily thanked Trump supporters before holding his right hand on his heart and stretching it in a sharp and quick upwards movement. Then he turned around and repeated the gesture in the other direction, saying: “My heart goes out to you.”

The billionaire tech entrepreneur, who is leading Trump’s department of government efficiency, later responded to criticisms of his behaviour on X, tweeting: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is soo tired.”

Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, said he considered Musk’s support for the extreme right unacceptable as he was asked how he thought Europe should respond to the tech billionaire, particularly in the light of his AfD endorsement. The co-leader of the AfD, Tino Chrupalla, was among the members of Europe’s far-right political class to be in Washington for Trump’s inauguration.

“We have freedom of speech in Europe, and everyone can say what he wants, even if he is a billionaire,” Scholz said. “What we do not accept is if this is supporting extreme right positions and this is what I would like to repeat again.”

Scholz also called for “cool heads” in response to the Trump administration.

Musk responded on X, writing above a post about the chancellor’s remarks: “Shame on Oaf Schitz!”

A Berlin judge, Kai-Uwe Herbst, told the Berliner Zeitung that a deliberate diagonal right arm thrust in the air is sufficient evidence on which to bring a charge against someone under German law.

But he added it would also be necessary to prove malicious intent, and that the individual concerned knew that this was a Hitler salute.

Herbst, who has dealt with myriad cases of people using the Nazi salute, said: “Sometimes these are drunken football hooligans, sometimes pro-Palestinian demonstrators who wish to provoke.” Mostly, he said, the cases he saw were with the intention to provoke rather than to spread Nazi ideology.

Benedict Mick, an expert in criminal law, said to determine whether the salute was meant as a neo-Nazi gesture “would depend on the overall context”.

The US Anti-Defamation League said Musk’s gesture had not been a Nazi salute. Instead, it said Musk had “made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm”, in a post that added: “All sides should give one another a bit of grace.”

Others in Germany urged caution as commentators argued about whether the gesture and its similarity to a Nazi salute was deliberate or not.

Lenz Jacobsen, a journalist, wrote in Die Zeit in a piece headlined A Hitler salute is a Hitler salute is a Hitler salute: “Whoever on a political stage, making a political speech in front of a partly far-right audience, elongates his arm diagonally in the air both forcefully and repeatedly, is making a Hitler salute. There’s no such ‘probably’ or ‘similar to’ or ‘controversial’ about it. The gesture speaks for itself.”

Miriam Hollstein, the chief reporter for Stern magazine, wrote on X that the salute was a distraction from other controversial issues to do with Musk and had received unnecessary attention. “Sorry, no way was that a Hitler greeting and it was also never intended as one,” she wrote. “Stop the nonsense. There are enough real things about which one can criticise Musk.”

Friedman appealed to Musk to show political responsibility. “Was the hand movement an expression of his political identity?” he asked.

Almost all of Friedman’s family died in the Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, the 80th anniversary liberation of which is on Sunday. Only Friedman’s parents and his grandmother were saved, thanks to the Sudeten German entrepreneur Oskar Schindler.

There were angry reactions across Europe to Elon Musk’s apparent use of a salute banned for its Nazi links in Germany, where some condemned it as malicious provocation or an outreach of solidarity to far-right groups.

Michel Friedman, a prominent German-French publicist and former deputy chair of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, described Musk’s actions – at an event after Donald Trump’s swearing in as US president – as a disgrace and said Musk had shown that a “dangerous point for the entire free world” had been reached.

Friedman, who descends from a family of Polish Jews, hardly any of whom survived the Holocaust, told the daily Tagesspiegel he had been shocked when watching the inauguration live on television, adding that as far as he was concerned Musk had unambiguously performed the Nazi “Heil Hitler” salute, despite attempts to downplay it.

“I thought to myself, the breaking of taboos is reaching a point that is dangerous for the entire free world. The brutalisation, the dehumanisation, Auschwitz, all of that is Hitler. A mass murderer, a warmonger, a person for whom people were nothing more than numbers – fair game, not worth mentioning,” Friedman said.

Charlotte Knobloch, the president of the Jewish community in Munich and Upper Bavaria, described the gesture as “highly irritating”. But she said it was not as significant as Musk’s recent attempts to meddle in German politics, where he has endorsed the far-right Alternative für Deutschland ahead of next month’s federal election.

“Far more worrying are Elon Musk’s political positions, his offensive interference in the German parliamentary election campaign and his support for a party whose anti-democratic aims should be under no illusions,” she said in a statement.

Musk made the gesture as a speaker on stage before Trump’s arrival in Washington’s Capital One arena on Monday. He heartily thanked Trump supporters before holding his right hand on his heart and stretching it in a sharp and quick upwards movement. Then he turned around and repeated the gesture in the other direction, saying: “My heart goes out to you.”

The billionaire tech entrepreneur, who is leading Trump’s department of government efficiency, later responded to criticisms of his behaviour on X, tweeting: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is soo tired.”

Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, said he considered Musk’s support for the extreme right unacceptable as he was asked how he thought Europe should respond to the tech billionaire, particularly in the light of his AfD endorsement. The co-leader of the AfD, Tino Chrupalla, was among the members of Europe’s far-right political class to be in Washington for Trump’s inauguration.

“We have freedom of speech in Europe, and everyone can say what he wants, even if he is a billionaire,” Scholz said. “What we do not accept is if this is supporting extreme right positions and this is what I would like to repeat again.”

Scholz also called for “cool heads” in response to the Trump administration.

Musk responded on X, writing above a post about the chancellor’s remarks: “Shame on Oaf Schitz!”

A Berlin judge, Kai-Uwe Herbst, told the Berliner Zeitung that a deliberate diagonal right arm thrust in the air is sufficient evidence on which to bring a charge against someone under German law.

But he added it would also be necessary to prove malicious intent, and that the individual concerned knew that this was a Hitler salute.

Herbst, who has dealt with myriad cases of people using the Nazi salute, said: “Sometimes these are drunken football hooligans, sometimes pro-Palestinian demonstrators who wish to provoke.” Mostly, he said, the cases he saw were with the intention to provoke rather than to spread Nazi ideology.

Benedict Mick, an expert in criminal law, said to determine whether the salute was meant as a neo-Nazi gesture “would depend on the overall context”.

The US Anti-Defamation League said Musk’s gesture had not been a Nazi salute. Instead, it said Musk had “made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm”, in a post that added: “All sides should give one another a bit of grace.”

Others in Germany urged caution as commentators argued about whether the gesture and its similarity to a Nazi salute was deliberate or not.

Lenz Jacobsen, a journalist, wrote in Die Zeit in a piece headlined A Hitler salute is a Hitler salute is a Hitler salute: “Whoever on a political stage, making a political speech in front of a partly far-right audience, elongates his arm diagonally in the air both forcefully and repeatedly, is making a Hitler salute. There’s no such ‘probably’ or ‘similar to’ or ‘controversial’ about it. The gesture speaks for itself.”

Miriam Hollstein, the chief reporter for Stern magazine, wrote on X that the salute was a distraction from other controversial issues to do with Musk and had received unnecessary attention. “Sorry, no way was that a Hitler greeting and it was also never intended as one,” she wrote. “Stop the nonsense. There are enough real things about which one can criticise Musk.”

Friedman appealed to Musk to show political responsibility. “Was the hand movement an expression of his political identity?” he asked.

Almost all of Friedman’s family died in the Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, the 80th anniversary liberation of which is on Sunday. Only Friedman’s parents and his grandmother were saved, thanks to the Sudeten German entrepreneur Oskar Schindler.

The back-to-back gestures were swift and enthusiastic, and they elicited huge cheers from the crowd. After Elon Musk ignited controversy with two fascist-style salutes during Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, critics accused him of giving the Nazi salute.

Some of Musk’s supporters rushed to defend him, claiming that he had instead been giving the Roman salute. “The Roman empire is back, starting with the Roman salute,” Andrea Stroppa, a Rome-based adviser to Musk, wrote on in a post that he later deleted.

We delve into what is meant by the Roman salute, whether it’s different from the Nazi salute, and how this distinction has been seemingly promoted by the far right in recent years.

After enduring its worst drought on record in 2024, Brazil closed the year with another alarming milestone: between January and December, 30.86m hectares of wilderness burned – an area larger than Italy.

The figure published in a new report is 79% higher than in 2023 and the largest recorded by Fire Monitor since its launch in 2019 by MapBiomas, an initiative by NGOs, universities and technology companies that monitors Brazil’s biomes.

The data could pose an embarrassment as Brazil prepares to host COP30 in Belém, the capital of the Amazonian state of Pará, in November.

Not only was the state the hardest hit by the fires, accounting for 24% of the total burned area, but the Amazon was also the most affected of Brazil’s six biomes, at 58%. The area scorched in the Amazon in 2024 exceeds the total burned across the country in 2023.

“It was an absurd increase,” said Ane Alencar, coordinator of MapBiomas, adding that, for the first time, forest areas were the most affected, surpassing grasslands and pastures. “Once a forest is hit by fire, it takes years and years to recover … If there’s another drought and that forest isn’t protected, it will burn again,” she said.

The researchers believe severe drought between 2023 and 2024 – the worst since the government began keeping records in 1950 – exacerbated by El Niño was a decisive factor in the wildfire surge.

“But that’s just one part of the equation. The other involves human activity,” said Alencar, pointing primarily to the agricultural sector, which often uses fire to clear pastures, as well as deforestation, which has been drastically reduced under the president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s third term, but still hasn’t been eradicated.

“There were also cases where fires simply started in the middle of a forest, which suggests possible criminal activity,” the researcher said.

At the fires’ peak in September, there were suspicions that the blazes might have been part of a criminal backlash against federal efforts to crack down on deforestation and illegal mining. The Federal Police opened 119 investigations into suspected arson in 2024 alone, an increase from the average of 70 in previous years.

Alencar fears that 2025 could see a similar scenario. “We would need a very strong rainy season to truly replenish the soil, and that hasn’t happened yet,” she said.

Despite the grim statistics, she says that the blame cannot fall on Lula’s administration. “If we had seen last year the level of deforestation we had in 2022 [when the climate change denier Jair Bolsonaro was in charge], combined with the climatic conditions of 2024, then it would have been the worst-case scenario,” she said.

“One clear takeaway is that forest conservation goes far beyond fighting deforestation. We also need to focus on combating climate change,” said Alencar.

Seventy-six people have died and 51 others were injured after a fire engulfed a popular ski resort hotel in Turkey’s Bolu mountains, forcing guests to jump out of windows or attempt to use bed sheets to flee the building.

The fire broke out at about 3.30am on Tuesday in the restaurant of the 12-storey Grand Kartal hotel in the resort of Kartalkaya in Bolu province, north-west Turkey.

“We are in deep pain,” Turkey’s interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, told reporters after inspecting the site.

Yerlikaya said at least 51 other people had been injured.

The health minister, Kemal Memişoğlu, said at least one of the people injured was in a serious condition and that 17 others had been discharged from hospital.

Authorities have detained four people, including the hotel’s owner, as part of an investigation into the cause of the fire, the Turkish justice minister, Yilmaz Tunç, wrote on X.

Several fire engines and ambulances surrounded the charred, wood-fronted building, with white bed sheets tied together and dangling from at least three upper-floor windows where people tried to flee. The firefighting operation lasted about 10 hours.

Yerlikaya said there were 238 guests at the hotel, which is on the side of a cliff and has 161 rooms. Two of the victims died after jumping from the building in a panic, Bolu’s governor, Abdulaziz Aydin, told the state-run Anadolu Agency.

Television images showed the roof and top floors of the hotel on fire.

“It was like the apocalypse. The flames engulfed the hotel immediately, like in half an hour,” Mevlut Ozer, who witnessed the incident, told Reuters.

Omer Sakrak, another witness and employee of a neighbouring hotel, said: “People all started to jump with panic. One friend jumped from the 11th floor – may God have mercy on him.”

Sakrak described how others tried to climb down using bed sheets: “The bed sheets ripped as one friend tried … and he unfortunately fell on his head,” he said. “One father was yelling about his one-year-old child: ‘I will throw my child or he will burn.’”

Other hotel guests told Turkish TV broadcasters that they fled through smoke-filled corridors and heard no alarms.

“My wife smelled the burning. The alarm did not go off,” Atakan Yelkovan, a guest staying on the third floor of the hotel, told the IHA news agency.

“We tried to go upstairs but couldn’t, there were flames. We went downstairs and came here [outside],” he said.

Necmi Kepcetutan, a ski instructor at the hotel, said he was asleep when the fire started and he rushed out of the building. He told NTV that he then helped about 20 guests out of the hotel.

Other hotels at the resort were evacuated as a precaution and guests were placed in hotels around Bolu.

Kartalkaya is located in the Köroğlu mountains, about 185 miles (300km) east of Istanbul. The fire occurred during the school holidays when hotels in the region are busy. The tourism minister, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, told reporters that the Grand Kartal hotel had passed a fire safety inspection last year.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said “every step” was being taken to find out the cause of the fire, identify those responsible and hold them “fully accountable”.

Meanwhile, a gas explosion at a hotel at another ski resort in central Turkey injured four people.

The explosion took place at the Yildiz Mountain Winter Sports Center in Sivas province. Two skiers and their instructor were slightly injured while another instructor suffered second-degree burns on the hands and face, the Sivas governor’s office said.

Amid the profound changes humanity has witnessed, one might be forgiven for failing to notice a rise in sexy and formidable men: those tall, broad-shouldered types that are strangers to self-doubt.

But according to a new study, men around the world have gained height and weight twice as fast as women over the past century, driving greater differences between the sexes.

“We’re seeing insights into how sexual selection has shaped the male and female body and how improved environments, in terms of food and a lower burden of disease, have freed us from our shackles,” said Prof Lewis Halsey at the University of Roehampton.

Halsey and his colleagues used data from the World Health Organization, overseas authorities and UK records to see how height and weight have changed with living conditions. The latter was measured by the human development index (HDI), a score based on life expectancy, time in education and per capita income, which ranges from zero to one.

Analysis of records from dozens of countries found that for every 0.2 point increase in HDI, women were on average 1.7cm taller and 2.7kg heavier, while men were 4cm taller and 6.5kg heavier. This suggests that as living conditions improve, both height and weight increase, but more than twice as fast in men than women.

To see whether similar trends played out within countries, the researchers delved into historical height records in the UK where HDI rose from 0.8 in 1900 to 0.94 in 2022. During the first half of the century, average female height increased 1.9% from 159cm to 162cm, while average male height rose 4% from 170cm to 177cm.

“To put this in perspective, about one in four women born in 1905 was taller than the average man born in 1905, but this dropped to about one in eight women for those born in 1958,” Halsey said.

Writing in Biology Letters in a study titled “The sexy and formidable male body: men’s height and weight are condition-dependent, sexually selected traits”, the scientists speculate that women’s sexual preferences may have fuelled a trend for taller, more muscular men – although in an age of obesity, heavy does not necessarily mean muscular.

Stature and physique are prime indicators of health and vitality, Halsey said, while sexual selection also favours men who are better able to protect and defend their partners and offspring against others.

“Women can find men’s height attractive because, potentially, it makes them more formidable, but also because being taller suggests they are well-made,” said Halsey. “As they’ve grown up, they haven’t been affected by the slings and arrows of a bad environment, so they’ve reached more of their height potential. It’s an indicator that they’re well-made.”

The findings build on previous work that found women want taller men more than men want shorter women. But there are downsides to being tall. While taller people tend to earn more, they are also more prone to various cancers, possibly because they have more cells that can accumulate mutations which culminate in the disease.

Michael Wilson, professor of ecology, evolution and behaviour at the University of Minnesota, said the faster increase in male height and weight was “striking”. He said it was consistent with a long-standing idea that females are “the more ecologically constrained” sex because of the demands of reproduction, particularly in mammals where pregnancy and nursing are “energetically expensive”.

“Investment in greater body size by males appears to be sensitive to nutritional conditions,” he said. “When men grow up with more energy-dense food, they grow bigger bodies, to a greater extent than women.

Amid the profound changes humanity has witnessed, one might be forgiven for failing to notice a rise in sexy and formidable men: those tall, broad-shouldered types that are strangers to self-doubt.

But according to a new study, men around the world have gained height and weight twice as fast as women over the past century, driving greater differences between the sexes.

“We’re seeing insights into how sexual selection has shaped the male and female body and how improved environments, in terms of food and a lower burden of disease, have freed us from our shackles,” said Prof Lewis Halsey at the University of Roehampton.

Halsey and his colleagues used data from the World Health Organization, overseas authorities and UK records to see how height and weight have changed with living conditions. The latter was measured by the human development index (HDI), a score based on life expectancy, time in education and per capita income, which ranges from zero to one.

Analysis of records from dozens of countries found that for every 0.2 point increase in HDI, women were on average 1.7cm taller and 2.7kg heavier, while men were 4cm taller and 6.5kg heavier. This suggests that as living conditions improve, both height and weight increase, but more than twice as fast in men than women.

To see whether similar trends played out within countries, the researchers delved into historical height records in the UK where HDI rose from 0.8 in 1900 to 0.94 in 2022. During the first half of the century, average female height increased 1.9% from 159cm to 162cm, while average male height rose 4% from 170cm to 177cm.

“To put this in perspective, about one in four women born in 1905 was taller than the average man born in 1905, but this dropped to about one in eight women for those born in 1958,” Halsey said.

Writing in Biology Letters in a study titled “The sexy and formidable male body: men’s height and weight are condition-dependent, sexually selected traits”, the scientists speculate that women’s sexual preferences may have fuelled a trend for taller, more muscular men – although in an age of obesity, heavy does not necessarily mean muscular.

Stature and physique are prime indicators of health and vitality, Halsey said, while sexual selection also favours men who are better able to protect and defend their partners and offspring against others.

“Women can find men’s height attractive because, potentially, it makes them more formidable, but also because being taller suggests they are well-made,” said Halsey. “As they’ve grown up, they haven’t been affected by the slings and arrows of a bad environment, so they’ve reached more of their height potential. It’s an indicator that they’re well-made.”

The findings build on previous work that found women want taller men more than men want shorter women. But there are downsides to being tall. While taller people tend to earn more, they are also more prone to various cancers, possibly because they have more cells that can accumulate mutations which culminate in the disease.

Michael Wilson, professor of ecology, evolution and behaviour at the University of Minnesota, said the faster increase in male height and weight was “striking”. He said it was consistent with a long-standing idea that females are “the more ecologically constrained” sex because of the demands of reproduction, particularly in mammals where pregnancy and nursing are “energetically expensive”.

“Investment in greater body size by males appears to be sensitive to nutritional conditions,” he said. “When men grow up with more energy-dense food, they grow bigger bodies, to a greater extent than women.

Anthony Albanese says it appears some of the perpetrators behind a spate of antisemitic attacks in New South Wales and Victoria were paid actors rather than ideologically motivated offenders, seemingly confirming the target of police investigations.

Hours later, the Australian federal police commissioner, Reece Kershaw, said that authorities were probing whether potential “criminals for hire” were behind at least some of the recent incidents, warning it could be a long investigation.

Albanese faced a string of questions on Wednesday morning after Kershaw on Tuesday revealed federal police were investigating if overseas actors were paying local agents to carry out antisemitic attacks in Australia, including in cryptocurrency.

The lines of inquiry also included the possibility that young people were being radicalised online to commit antisemitic attacks. The Coalition had separately raised concerns about whether organised terror groups were involved, but Kershaw did not specifically raise this as a possibility. It was not believed at this stage that terrorist cells were linked to the spate of attacks.

“These investigative lines of inquiry are looking at whether some individuals have been paid to carry out some antisemitic acts in Australia. We believe criminals for hire may be behind some incidents,” Kershaw said in an additional statement on Wednesday.

“Part of our inquiries include who is paying those criminals. Where those people are, whether they are in Australia or offshore, and what their motivation is.”

Albanese would not disclose further details about the AFP investigation, or speculate on which country the foreign actors potentially behind the attacks might be from.

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But he did confirm that paid actors, rather than people motivated by anti-Jewish ideology, were believed to be behind the attacks.

“I’m reluctant to say anything that compromises those investigations,” he said. “But it is important that people understand where some of these attacks are coming from, and it would appear, as the AFP commissioner said yesterday, that some of these are being perpetrated by people who don’t have a particular issue, aren’t motivated by an ideology, but are paid actors.”

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, asked why Albanese had not previously discussed the AFP’s investigation publicly.

“When did the prime minister find out that there were foreign players? Are these state actors or organised crime groups? Or are they antisemitic groups? What did the prime minister know?” he said.

“With respect, I understand the desire for more information.”

On ABC’s RN Breakfast earlier in the morning, the shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, also said the suggestion of potential overseas involvement was a “gravely serious claim” that warranted urgent clarification from the prime minister.

“This either means, if it is true, if it is confirmed, that a transnational terrorist organisation is sponsoring attacks in Australia or potentially that a foreign government is engaging in state-sponsored terror targeting the Jewish community,” he said.

“Now to put claims like this out there would make it the most serious domestic security crisis in peacetime in Australia’s history and will cause incredible alarm within the Jewish community.

“So a lot more information is required about this claim.”

The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, defended the decision not to release more specific information about the AFP’s investigations and lines of inquiry, calling Paterson’s demands for more information “potentially naive”.

“The Australian federal police will have very deliberate reasons for what they put out in the public and when they do it,” he told Radio National.

“They make decisions that are designed to advance investigations. I’m not able to add to anything that’s been put out there … they should put out the information they think helps with the investigation.”

In his statement released ahead of Tuesday’s snap national cabinet meeting, Kershaw said the federal-led Operation Avalite into antisemitism had received 166 reports, with 15 under investigation.

Albanese said after the meeting that 36 people had been charged with “antisemitic related offences” in NSW and 70 arrests had been made in Victoria.

NSW police on Wednesday morning charged a man for allegedly trying to set fire to a synagogue in Newtown, in Sydney’s inner west, earlier in the month and Burke said “there will be more” arrests and charges levelled against those allegedly behind such incidents.

Iraq’s parliament has passed amendments to the country’s personal status law that opponents say would in effect legalise child marriage.

The amendments give Islamic courts increased authority over family matters, including marriage, divorce and inheritance. Activists argue that this undermines Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law, which unified family law and established safeguards for women.

Iraqi law currently sets 18 as the minimum age of marriage in most cases. The changes passed on Tuesday would let clerics rule according to their interpretation of Islamic law, which some interpret to allow marriage of girls in their early teens – or as young as nine under the Jaafari school of Islamic law followed by many Shia religious authorities in Iraq.

Proponents of the changes, which were advocated by primarily conservative Shia lawmakers, defend them as a means to align the law with Islamic principles and reduce western influence on Iraqi culture.

The parliament also passed a general amnesty law seen as benefiting Sunni detainees and that is also seen as giving a pass to people involved in corruption and embezzlement. The chamber also passed a land restitution law aimed at addressing Kurdish territorial claims.

Intisar al-Mayali, a human rights activist and a member of the Iraqi Women’s League, said passage of the civil status law amendments “will leave disastrous effects on the rights of women and girls, through the marriage of girls at an early age, which violates their right to life as children, and will disrupt the protection mechanisms for divorce, custody and inheritance for women”.

The session ended in chaos and accusations of procedural violations.

“Half of the lawmakers present in the session did not vote, which broke the legal quorum,” a parliamentary official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to comment publicly. He said that some members protested loudly and others climbed on to the parliamentary podium.

After the session, a number of legislators complained about the voting process, under which all three controversial laws – each of which was supported by different blocs – were voted on together.

“Regarding the civil status law, we are strongly supporting it and there were no issues with that,” said Raed al-Maliki, an independent MP. “But it was combined with other laws to be voted on together … and this might lead to a legal appeal at the federal court.”

Parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani in a statement praised the laws’ passage as “an important step in the process of enhancing justice and organising the daily lives of citizens”.

Southern California was bracing for more dangerous winds on Tuesday as new wildfires broke out across the region, which is continuing to grapple with the major fires that have ravaged Los Angeles communities.

Forecasters warned that strong winds would hit southern California for at least two more days. The winds had eased somewhat on Tuesday afternoon after peaking at 60mph (96kph) in many areas, but gusty conditions will return on Wednesday, said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s office for Los Angeles.

The fresh high winds – that are coming amid still bone-dry conditions – mark the end of a break in dangerous high fire-risk conditions that have allowed the beleaguered city’s firefighters to largely contain the disastrous blazes that have burnt thousands of homes. The fires have killed at least 27 people and destroyed more than 14,000 structures since they broke out during fierce winds on 7 January.

“If a fire were to get started it could grow pretty fast,” Kittell said. Red flag warnings for critical fire risk were extended through Thursday at 8pm across LA and Ventura counties.

The weather service had issued a warning of a “particularly dangerous situation” for parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Diego counties from Monday afternoon through Tuesday morning due to low humidity and damaging Santa Ana winds.

“The conditions are ripe for explosive fire growth should a fire start,” said Andrew Rorke, a meteorologist with the weather service in Oxnard.

Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, said on Monday that the city was prepared for any possible new fires and warned the strong winds could disperse ash from existing fire zones across southern California. She urged Angelenos to visit lacity.gov to learn about ways to protect themselves from toxic air during Santa Ana winds.

Cal Fire and local fire departments have positioned fire engines, water-dropping aircraft and hand crews across the region to enable a quick response should a new fire break out.

Several small fires started in San Diego county. Evacuation orders were issued for the Lilac fire, which had burned about 50 acres (20 hectares). It was growing “with a moderate rate of spread and structures are threatened”, the California department of forestry and fire protection posted. Firefighters made progress on the Pala fire and it was reported as stopped, the agency said. Another blaze, the Friars fire, ignited near a highway on Monday afternoon, prompting a quick response from crews, the San Diego fire department said. Authorities ordered nearby residents to evacuate while others were told to shelter in place as firefighters work to contain the fire.

On Monday, Los Angeles fire crews quickly put out a small brush fire that broke out south of the iconic triple-domed Griffith Observatory.

A man suspected of starting the fire was taken into custody, said David Cuellar, a Los Angeles police department spokesperson. Firefighters also quickly extinguished a brush fire along Interstate 405 in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Granada Hills that temporarily closed the northbound lanes.

Fire crews aggressively fought a blaze that also sparked Monday afternoon in the city of Poway, in San Diego county, and stopped its forward progress.

A small amount of rain is forecast for the weekend in the Los Angeles area, though more gusty winds are expected to return on Thursday, Rorke said. More rain could fall during localized thunderstorms, which would be a “worst-case scenario” if it’s enough to trigger debris flows on scorched hillsides, Kittell said.

Authorities urged people not to mow their lawns to prevent sparking a fire, nor start any fires that could get out of control. They also urged residents to review their evacuation plans and ready emergency kits and be on the lookout for any new blazes and report them quickly.

David Acuna, a spokesperson with the California department of forestry and fire protection, said the biggest concerns are the Palisades and Eaton fires breaking their containment lines and a new blaze starting.

“Don’t do things to start another fire so we can focus on the mitigation of the current fires,” Acuna said.

More evacuation orders were lifted on Monday for Pacific Palisades and authorities said only residents would be allowed to get back in after showing proof of residency at a checkpoint.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has announced her memoir – billed as a “deeply personal” book chronicling her leadership – will be released in June.

Ardern hoped her memoir would strike a chord with those who aspire to lead. “For anyone who has ever doubted themselves, I really hope there is something in it for them,” she said.

“I have written about things that I haven’t shared before, but I’ve also tried to share how it feels to lead, especially if you’re surprised to find yourself in leadership,” said Ardern, likely referring to when she abruptly became leader of the Labour party in 2017, just six weeks out from an election her party was widely expected to lose. On a wave of popularity dubbed “Jacindamania”, Ardern led the party to victory.

Towards the end of her time in office, Ardern’s legacy at home became more complicated, and she faced criticism over her government’s failure to make headway on its promises to fix the housing crisis and meaningfully reduce emissions. As the pandemic wore on, a small but vocal fringe of anti-vaccine and anti-mandate groups emerged, leading to a violent protest on parliament’s lawns and threatening rhetoric directed at Ardern.

Publisher Crown said A Different Kind of Power tells the story of how “a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt made political history and changed our assumptions of what a global leader can be”.

In 2017, Ardern became the world’s youngest serving female leader, aged 37, and went on to make history as the second woman to give birth while holding elected office.

Over the next six years, her leadership was defined by a series of national and international crises including the Christchurch attack and Covid pandemic and her responses in those pressured moments, which repeatedly emphasised the values of empathy, humanity and kindness. At a time when major western powers were lurching to the right, Ardern’s brand of politics catapulted her into a global icon of the left.

In Tuesday’s announcement, she said: “I also wanted to share why I believe in empathetic leadership, and that kindness isn’t just something we should teach our kids, there’s a place for it in politics too. Especially in these times.”

Ardern shocked New Zealanders in January 2023 when she said she was stepping down because she no longer had “enough in the tank”. The book will, for the first time, reveal the full details of her decision.

Since leaving office, Ardern has taken up dual fellowship roles at Harvard University, continued her work on the Christchurch Call – a project she established to combat online extremism, following the Christchurch mosque shootings – and joined the board of trustees of Prince William’s Earthshot prize.

In 2023, Ardern received one of New Zealand’s highest honours, becoming a Dame Grand Companion.