Kentucky police are investigating after a series of racist Ku Klux Klan flyers telling immigrants to “leave now” were distributed across the state on inauguration day.

The KKK is one of the most infamous white supremacist hate groups in the US.

The flyers show a cartoon of Uncle Sam kicking at a family of five, including a baby and two young children. Uncle Sam is holding a document which says “Proclamation” and states: “We need your help. Monitor and track all immigrants. Report them all.”

The documents, which include a Kentucky-area phone number and an invitation to “join us”, were distributed on the day Donald Trump took office. The president has repeatedly demonized immigrants and has vowed to launch “the largest deportation program in American history”.

“We are aware and have already taken one report for this disturbing and disgusting KKK propaganda that is being passed around our community. This hateful garbage has been turning up in other cities as well,” the police department in Ludlow, Kentucky, said in a statement on Facebook.

“We do not support or condone this type of behavior and if you feel that you are being harassed or threatened DO NOT HESITATE in calling and filing a police report.”

Flyers were also found in Fort Wright, Kentucky, which like Ludlow is in the north of the state.

“This type of hateful garbage is loathsome and deplorable, does not represent the Fort Wright community or the values of our businesses and residents, will not be tolerated in the city of Fort Wright and should not be tolerated by our society as a whole,” the Fort Wright mayor, Dave Hatter, said in a statement.

The phone number listed on the flyers did not appear to be in service on Wednesday morning. Similar flyers were distributed in neighborhoods in Indiana in November.

Jon McClain, the chief of police in Bellevue, Kentucky, told the Washington Post that a local resident had found one of the flyers on Monday.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” McClain said. “It was kind of alarming for our community.”

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” McClain said of the flyers being distributed on inauguration day.

Donald Trump has threatened to impose a 10% tariff on Chinese-made goods arriving in the US from as early as 1 February, adding that he was also considering levies on imports from the EU.

Ordering an investigation into US-China trade on his second day in office, Trump said any penalties on Chinese goods would be “based on the fact that they’re sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada”.

“Other countries are big abusers also, you know it’s not just China,” Trump said during an event at the White House on Tuesday, adding that he was also looking at trade with the EU.

“We have a $350bn [£283bn] deficit with the European Union. They treat us very, very badly, so they’re going to be in for tariffs,” he said.

The warning came a day after the new US president told reporters he was thinking about introducing 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, America’s largest trading partners, from February.

Trump made threats to impose punitive tariffs on several countries during the election campaign, initially telling China he would introduce a 60% tariff on its imports. Despite his suggestion of a lower 10% tariff, China’s currency and stock markets fell during trading on Wednesday.

The country’s blue-chip CSI 300 index and the Shanghai Composite index closed nearly 1% lower, representing their biggest slide in nearly two weeks and ending a brief respite for markets. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed 1.8% down.

The offshore yuan, which trades without the controls placed by the Chinese financial authorities, also declined against the dollar.

Meanwhile, Trump has signed a slew of executive orders that have reversed Biden-era policies and brought many infrastructure, transport and energy projects to a stop.

An executive order called “Unleashing American Energy” informed agencies they needed to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds”. The measures have put $300bn of potential green infrastructure spending at risk, according to US investors, in figures first reported by the Financial Times.

The funds affected were provided under two key laws passed under Joe Biden: the Inflation Reduction Act; and the bipartisan infrastructure law. These include nearly $50bn in already-agreed Department of Energy loans and a further $280bn worth of loan requests under review, according to FT analysis of the department’s loan portfolio.

The wave of policy announcements during Trump’s first hours back in the White House also included a threat to double the rate of tax for foreign nationals and overseas companies.

This would be retaliation against countries that are considered to impose “discriminatory” taxes on US companies abroad as part of Trump’s “America First” trade policy, and is seen as a move that could spark a global showdown over tax regimes.

The president effectively pulled out of the global corporation tax deal negotiated by the Biden administration in 2021 with nearly 140 countries. Trump said the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development plan for a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% “has no force or effect” in the US.

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

One of Trump’s first big business initiatives of his second presidency, the partnership called Stargate, aims to construct essential datacentres and computing infrastructure needed to power artificial intelligence development.

Meanwhile, all US federal employees working in diversity offices have been ordered to be put on paid leave by Wednesday evening, after Trump’s administration ordered the programmes to close, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, confirmed.

All US federal employees working in diversity offices must be put on paid leave by Wednesday evening, the Trump administration has ordered, after instructing government agencies to shut down the programs.

“Send a notification to all employees of DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility) offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately as the agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs,” said a US office of personnel management memo.

The memo, confirmed by the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, directed all department and agency heads to send workers notice by 5pm on Wednesday. It was sent after Trump signed two executive orders targeting DEI programs within the federal government.

The first executive order, entitled “ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing”, overturned executive actions from Joe Biden in 2021 that promoted DEI programs within the federal government.

Under this order, the White House said it will scrap all DEI offices, positions, plans, actions, initiatives or programs within 60 days. Since the executive order was signed, various equity plans have been taken down from federal websites, including that of the White House.

“The Biden administration forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ (DEI), into virtually all aspects of the federal government, in areas ranging from airline safety to the military,” claimed the executive order.

On Tuesday night, Trump signed another executive order that overturned longstanding equity policies within the federal government, including one that was first signed by Lyndon B Johnson during the civil rights era that established equal opportunity requirements for contractors.

In the order, the White House accused “critical and influential institutions of American society”, including “major corporations, financial institutions, the medical industry, large commercial airlines, law enforcement agencies and institutions of higher education” of adopting “dangerous, demeaning and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’.”

Over the last few years, DEI has become a flashpoint in the so-called “culture wars”, with conservatives often arguing that policies are actually discriminatory toward groups that historically have dominated the workplace, particularly white Americans.

After the supreme court overturned affirmative action in higher education in 2023, conservative groups have become emboldened to embark on legal attacks against employers for DEI policies. During his presidential campaign, Trump echoed conservative attacks against DEI, claiming there is “a definite anti-white feeling in this country”.

The president has so far not taken any direct action to curtail DEI practices and policies in the private sector. In September 2020, near the end of his first term, Trump issued an executive order that banned DEI training within all private government contractors. But the order was soon stopped by a federal judge on first amendment grounds, and was never argued over in court, as Biden overturned it as soon as he entered office.

Tuesday’s executive order explicitly says that the federal government will no longer promote DEI to its contractors, but stopped short of banning it, likely because of potential legal issues. But it directed the attorney general’s office to submit recommendations for how the White House can “encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI”, suggesting that Trump and his advisers are looking for ways they can legally diminish DEI in the private sector.

Agence France-Presse contributed reporting

Israeli forces have besieged a Palestinian government hospital in Jenin and a nearby refugee camp in the heart of the city, as the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said the assault marked “a shift in … security strategy” in the West Bank.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday they had carried out airstrikes in Jenin as well as detonating roadside explosive devices. The Palestinian health ministry said at least 10 people were killed in Jenin, with more than 40 wounded.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its ambulances had been prevented from reaching many of the dead and wounded who lay in the streets of neighbourhoods around the Jenin refugee camp.

“No one can break the siege on the refugee camp and the surrounding area,” said Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent. Their medics had treated seven fatalities and 17 wounded people, all injured with live ammunition, she added.

The escalating Israeli raid on Jenin continued despite the recent ceasefire in Gaza, pausing an Israeli assault on the territory that had continued for 15 months after the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israeli towns and kibbutzim around Gaza.

With the ceasefire in Gaza coming into effect less than a week ago, Israeli forces indicated the start of a renewed military operation across the West Bank.

Wissam Bakr, the head of Khalil Suleiman governmental hospital in Jenin, said: “The current situation is awful. Israeli forces destroyed the roads in front of the hospital. They put the rubble from the destroyed streets in front of hospital exits to prevent ambulances from entering or leaving.”

He estimated that 600 medical staff and patients were sheltering inside the hospital, fearfully crammed on any beds, chairs or spaces they could find. Supplies of food and water in the hospital would only last a few days. An Israeli drone had been audible, he said, terrifying the people huddled in the hospital.

Two nurses and three doctors were shot on the main road leading to the hospital on Tuesday, he added.

“Until now Israeli forces are outside,” Bakr said, sending an image of an Israeli military bulldozer appearing to clear some of the rubble at the entrance to the hospital complex. The sound of gunfire was intermittently audible over the phone as he spoke.

The escalation in Jenin came as Israeli forces choked off entrances and exits to Palestinian cities across the West Bank using checkpoints. In the early hours of Wednesday, Israeli soldiers also launched a raid on the Aida refugee camp located north of Bethlehem and in Tulkarm. The Palestinian news agency Wafa said at least 29 people were arrested across the West Bank on Wednesday morning, most of them young men.

A committee within the Palestinian Liberation Organisation tracking Israeli activity in the territory reported that the IDF had increased the number of military checkpoints and iron gates, reaching almost 900. The IDF did not comment on the precise number of new checkpoints.

Its international spokesperson, Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, told a press briefing on Wednesday: “Our method of combating terror, ensuring that terrorists cannot escape while still allowing civilians to move freely, relies heavily on checkpoints.

Checkpoints are a tool we use in the fight against terror, enabling civilian movement while providing a layer of screening to prevent terrorists from escaping and undermining the operation.

‘‘This approach is far better than either closing off an area entirely or allowing terrorists unrestricted movement. During operations, specific checkpoints are usually established to prevent terrorist escape. This method is essential for balancing freedom of movement with security.”

Aseel Baidoun from Medical Aid for Palestinians, speaking from Ramallah, said: “For two days we have been experiencing an extensive military lockdown. The Israeli army has placed hundreds of new checkpoints that are making the movement between towns and cities almost impossible. People have reported delays at checkpoints averaging between six and eight hours.

“People are stuck in their towns and cities, unable to go to work,” she said. “It’s an open-air prison; we feel we cannot move around. If you want to go from Ramallah to Jericho it’s impossible, and it’s almost impossible to even reach nearby villages. There’s not only restrictions on movement but insane attacks from settlers.”

Shoshani called the military operations across the West Bank “precise operations to target and fight terrorists while enabling the civilian population to go on with their lives”.

Despite Jenin’s mayor, Mohammad Jarar, telling Wafa that Israeli forces had called on people from some Jenin neighbourhoods to evacuate using a loudspeaker, Shoshani labelled any reports of forced evacuations “fake news”.

Shoshani said: “We have to learn from 7 October, and not let terror groups regroup and rearm, and plan attacks a few hundred metres from us.”

On Tuesday Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said: “After Gaza and Lebanon, today, with God’s help, we have begun to change the security concept in Judea and Samaria and in the campaign to eradicate terrorism in the region,” using the biblical name by which Israelis refer to the West Bank.

But Prof Yagil Levy of the Open University of Israel said: “There is no operational justification for action in the West Bank.”

A recent operation by the Palestinian Authority targeting Hamas in Jenin, while controversial for its perceived support to Israeli aims in the territory, showed that the authority was capable of retaining control both in Jenin and in Gaza, he said.

Israel’s decision to launch a military operation in Jenin, Levy said, was intended to undermine the Palestinian Authority and its potential return in Gaza, to destabilise the West Bank and continue to covertly annexe the territory, and “to appease Smotrich and his party”.

Smotrich, he said, “demanded that the fighting in the West Bank be added to Israel’s war objectives in Gaza. In return, he accepted the first phase of the hostage deal and refrained from toppling the government.”

The UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian Territories (OHCHR) said: “Public statements by Israeli military officials raise concern about Israel’s plans to expand and increase operations in the occupied West Bank.”

The Israeli assault on Jenin has also been accompanied by a rise in settler violence across the West Bank, amid indications that settlers are targeting villages where Palestinian prisoners were released as part of the ceasefire deal and hostage exchange.

Israeli settlers set vehicles and properties on fire in villages around Qalqilya in the northern West Bank as well as Turmus Aya near Ramallah.

More than 21 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank have been injured as a result of the Israeli settlers’ attacks, including three children.

The Duke of Sussex has settled his high court legal action at the eleventh hour against the publisher of the Sun, News Group Newspapers (NGN).

NGN offered “a full and unequivocal apology” to Prince Harry “for the phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators instructed by them” at the News of the World.

It will also pay “substantial damages” as the two sides settled their legal claim, Harry’s barrister, David Sherborne, has told the high court.

On Wednesday morning, Sherborne said: “I am pleased to announce to the court that the parties have reached an agreement. As a result of the parties reaching an agreement I would ask formally that the trial is vacated.”

He continued: “NGN offers a full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the serious intrusion by the Sun between 1996 and 2011 into his private life, including incidents of unlawful activities carried out by private investigators working for the Sun.

“NGN also offers a full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators instructed by them at the News of the World.

“NGN further apologises to the duke for the impact on him of the extensive coverage and serious intrusion into his private life as well as the private life of Diana, Princess of Wales, his late mother, in particular during his younger years.”

He continued: “It is also acknowledged, without any admission of illegality, that NGN’s response to the 2006 arrests and subsequent actions were regrettable.”

Tom Watson, a former deputy leader of the Labour party who was also taking legal action against the publisher, also settled his claim.

After two earlier requests for adjournments on Tuesday, thought to be related to settlement discussions, Mr Justice Fancourt refused a third request for a delay as both sides had had “ample time to seek to resolve their differences”.

Following a short break, lawyers for both sides asked to be allowed to challenge the judge’s decision to not provide a further delay at the court of appeal. While Fancourt denied the request, the lawyers could go to the court of appeal itself, meaning Tuesday’s hearing was adjourned in any event.

Several other high-profile figures have settled their cases against NGN, with 39 people settling claims between July and December last year.

In April, the high court heard that the actor Hugh Grant had settled his case against NGN because of the risk of a £10m legal bill if his case went to trial.

Sherborne said at that hearing that “the Duke of Sussex is subject to the same issues that Sienna Miller and Hugh Grant have been subject to, which is that the offers are made that make it impossible for them to go ahead”.

Prince Harry has settled his high court legal action against the publisher of the Sun, News Group Newspapers (NGN), accepting an apology for intrusion into his private life – alongside currently undisclosed but “substantial” damages.

Here is NGN’s apology to Prince Harry in full:

NGN offers a full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the serious intrusion by the Sun between 1996 and 2011 into his private life, including incidents of unlawful activities carried out by private investigators working for the Sun.

NGN also offers a full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators instructed by them at the News of the World.

NGN further apologises to the Duke for the impact on him of the extensive coverage and serious intrusion into his private life as well as the private life of Diana, Princess of Wales, his late mother, in particular during his younger years. We acknowledge and apologise for the distress caused to the Duke, and the damage inflicted on relationships, friendships and family, and have agreed to pay him substantial damages.

It is also acknowledged, without any admission of illegality, that NGN’s response to the 2006 arrests and subsequent actions were regrettable.

NGN also offers a full and unequivocal apology to Lord Watson for the unwarranted intrusion carried out into his private life during his time in government by the News of the World during the period 2009- 2011.

This includes him being placed under surveillance in 2009 by journalists at the News of the World and those instructed by them. NGN also acknowledges and apologises for the adverse impact this had on Lord Watson’s family and has agreed to pay him substantial damages.

In addition, in 2011 News International received information that information was being passed covertly to Lord Watson from within News International. We now understand that this information was false, and Lord Watson was not in receipt of any such confidential information.

NGN apologises fully and unequivocally for this.

Elliot Malunga Delihlazo’s grandmother would say that her brother Bhesengile went to war and never came back. The family knew he had died in the first world war, but they never had a body to bury, only a memorial stone in the rural family homestead in Nkondlo in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province.

Now the Delihlazos know that Bhesengile died on 21 January 1917 of malaria in Kilwa, Tanzania, more than 2,000 miles from home. He was a driver in the British empire’s military labour corps, but was never given a war grave.

Bhesengile Delihlazo was one of 1,700 mainly black South Africans named on a memorial unveiled in Cape Town on Wednesday, as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) begins to honour hundreds of thousands of black and Asian service personnel who died fighting for Britain, but were not commemorated like their white counterparts.

“It pained us that … we can’t find the remains,” Elliot Malunga Delihlazo, a retired history teacher, said after the ceremony to open the memorial to his great uncle. “But we are happy that at last we know exactly that he died in 1917.”

The CWGC was founded in 1917 as the Imperial War Graves Commission, to commemorate those from the British empire who lost their lives in the first world war. It was meant to treat people equally in death, with names engraved on a gravestone or on a memorial.

More than four million black and Asian men served in European and American armies, according to research by Dr Santanu Das, many conscripted or coerced from Egypt and colonies in west and east Africa.

A 2021 inquiry found that 116,000 to 350,000 first world war casualties were never commemorated because of “pervasive racism”. A 1923 letter from the colonial governor of the Gold Coast (now Ghana), cited in the report, said Africans were “hardly in such a state of civilisation as to appreciate such a memorial”.

Another 45,000 to 54,000 African and Asian service members were commemorated “unequally”, according to the report, commissioned after a 2019 Channel 4 documentary, The Unremembered, highlighted missing war graves.

Another memorial is being prepared in Freetown to honour 1,100 members of Sierra Leone’s labour corps. The CWGC is also looking into how to commemorate 90,000 service members who do not have graves or memorials in east Africa.

South African government attitudes at the time of the war also played a part in Delihlazo and his comrades going unremembered, said David McDonald, CWGC’s operations manager.

“In [other] colonies, black Africans were armed and allowed to fight. In South Africa, there was a strong desire at the time that that was not to be the case, and that’s why these men were filling labour requirements,” he said. “The government didn’t want them to be involved … and I think that’s why the story was gradually forgotten over time, apart from families, who knew that they lost loved ones.”

Sonwabile Mfecane, a local historian, tracked down descendants of six of the men commemorated with wooden posts inscribed with their name and date of death, opened by the CWGC’s president, Princess Anne, in Cape Town’s Company’s Garden.

Many thought their relatives were among the 600 South African Native Labour Corps who died on the SS Mendi when it was rammed by another British ship in the Channel in 1917. On being told what had really happened, two men told Mfecane that recurring dreams about their missing relatives now made sense.

“What we believe in our African spirituality is … we are not cursed, but there is that thing we didn’t break, that chapter we didn’t close,” Mfecane said. “We close the chapter and allow the deceased to proceed.”

The formal nomination of Micheál Martin as Ireland’s new prime minister was hit by chaotic scenes in the Dáil that led to the parliamentary session being suspended several times.

The row, which the speaker failed to control, centred on the speaking rights of independent TDs (members of parliament) who have formally agreed to back a coalition government of the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael parties to be led by Martin.

The Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said it “took the biscuit” that the independents would sit on opposition benches, claiming it was a cynical ruse by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael “to place their independent cronies, supporters of the government, on the opposition benches and to afford them the same speaking rights of the opposition”.

The new speaker, Verona Murphy, initially suspended the Dáil for 15 minutes but upon its return she was forced to suspend it again for more than an hour amid bedlam on opposition benches.

Shortly after 1pm, the time Martin was due to travel across Dublin to Áras an Uachtaráin, the official residence of the Irish president, where Michael D Higgins was to formally appoint him, the Dáil was adjourned for 45 minutes to allow chief whips find a resolution to the row.

One opposition TD, Labour’s Alan Kelly, said he was “embarrassed” by the situation, which he compared to the United Kingdom parliament in recent years. “We looked over at the Houses of Parliament a couple of years ago during Brexit and said, what a laugh, what a shambles. Well, are we now going to be the only parliament in the world where members of the government are actually in opposition?”

The row has marred Ireland’s attempt to get to grips with a threat to Ireland’s economic model, which relies heavily on the presence of US multinationals including Apple, Microsoft and Pfizer, posed by Donald Trump’s vow to repatriate what he says are American jobs and taxes.

Under the deal hammered out between the two main parties, Martin will remain taoiseach for three years, with the outgoing prime minister, the Fine Gael leader, Simon Harris, taking over in November 2027.

Harris will become deputy prime minister, with a beefed-up foreign affairs ministerial role to include international trade, a role already dubbed “minister for Trump”.

The independent TD Michael Healy-Rae said all TDs should get on with delivering government. “We see what is happening in America. We need decisiveness,” he said.

Martin will name his 15-strong cabinet this evening. Just four ministerial roles are expected to go to women after an election that resulted in the lowest proportion of female parliamentarians in western Europe, with a 75:25 ratio of men to women.

The two centre-right parties were only one seat short of the 87 majority needed to form a government on their own.

But with their third partner, the Greens, virtually wiped out, and Labour and the Social Democrats deciding against coalition, the two parties are relying on a confidence and supply deal with a group of 10 independents.

The most senior woman in the government, Helen McEntee, a former justice minister and key minister of state during the Brexit negotiations, is expected to get the education portfolio, with Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, the outgoing Europe minister expected to get the health job.

The formal nomination of Micheál Martin as Ireland’s new prime minister was hit by chaotic scenes in the Dáil that led to the parliamentary session being suspended several times.

The row, which the speaker failed to control, centred on the speaking rights of independent TDs (members of parliament) who have formally agreed to back a coalition government of the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael parties to be led by Martin.

The Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said it “took the biscuit” that the independents would sit on opposition benches, claiming it was a cynical ruse by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael “to place their independent cronies, supporters of the government, on the opposition benches and to afford them the same speaking rights of the opposition”.

The new speaker, Verona Murphy, initially suspended the Dáil for 15 minutes but upon its return she was forced to suspend it again for more than an hour amid bedlam on opposition benches.

Shortly after 1pm, the time Martin was due to travel across Dublin to Áras an Uachtaráin, the official residence of the Irish president, where Michael D Higgins was to formally appoint him, the Dáil was adjourned for 45 minutes to allow chief whips find a resolution to the row.

One opposition TD, Labour’s Alan Kelly, said he was “embarrassed” by the situation, which he compared to the United Kingdom parliament in recent years. “We looked over at the Houses of Parliament a couple of years ago during Brexit and said, what a laugh, what a shambles. Well, are we now going to be the only parliament in the world where members of the government are actually in opposition?”

The row has marred Ireland’s attempt to get to grips with a threat to Ireland’s economic model, which relies heavily on the presence of US multinationals including Apple, Microsoft and Pfizer, posed by Donald Trump’s vow to repatriate what he says are American jobs and taxes.

Under the deal hammered out between the two main parties, Martin will remain taoiseach for three years, with the outgoing prime minister, the Fine Gael leader, Simon Harris, taking over in November 2027.

Harris will become deputy prime minister, with a beefed-up foreign affairs ministerial role to include international trade, a role already dubbed “minister for Trump”.

The independent TD Michael Healy-Rae said all TDs should get on with delivering government. “We see what is happening in America. We need decisiveness,” he said.

Martin will name his 15-strong cabinet this evening. Just four ministerial roles are expected to go to women after an election that resulted in the lowest proportion of female parliamentarians in western Europe, with a 75:25 ratio of men to women.

The two centre-right parties were only one seat short of the 87 majority needed to form a government on their own.

But with their third partner, the Greens, virtually wiped out, and Labour and the Social Democrats deciding against coalition, the two parties are relying on a confidence and supply deal with a group of 10 independents.

The most senior woman in the government, Helen McEntee, a former justice minister and key minister of state during the Brexit negotiations, is expected to get the education portfolio, with Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, the outgoing Europe minister expected to get the health job.

Iraqi MPs and women’s rights groups have reacted with horror to the Iraqi parliament passing a law permitting children as young as nine years old to marry, with activists saying it will “legalise child rape”.

Under the new law, which was agreed yesterday, religious authorities have been given the power to decide on family affairs, including marriage, divorce and the care of children. It abolishes a previous ban on the marriage of children under the age of 18 in place since the 1950s.

“We have reached the end of women’s rights and the end of children’s rights in Iraq,” said the lawyer Mohammed Juma, one of the most prominent opponents of the law.

The Iraqi journalist Saja Hashim said: “The fact that clerics have the upper hand in deciding the fate of women is terrifying. I fear everything that will come in my life as a woman.”

Activists said they feared the law would now also be applied retroactively to cases filed in courts before it was enacted, affecting rights to alimony and custody.

Raya Faiq, spokesperson for the feminist group Coalition 188, said: “We received an audio recording of a woman crying her eyes out because of the passage of this law, with her husband threatening to take her daughter away unless she gives up her rights to financial support.”

Child marriage has been a longstanding issue in Iraq, where 28% of girls were married before they turned 18, a 2023 UN survey found.

While marriage is presented to some underage girls as a chance to escape poverty, many of the marriages end in failure, bringing lifelong consequences for young women, including social shame and a lack of opportunities because of unfinished schooling.

Instead of tightening laws against underage marriage and helping girls from poorer backgrounds to complete their education, the new law allows the marriage of minors according to the religious sect under which the marriage contract is concluded.

For Shia Muslims, which make up the majority in Iraq, the lowest age of marriage for girls will be nine years old, while for Sunnis, the official age will be 15.

Sajjad Salem, an independent MP, said: “The Iraqi state has never witnessed a decline and profanity that harmed Iraq’s wealth and reputation as we are witnessing today.”

Alia Nassif, a member of the parliament’s legal committee, said in a post online that the vote took place without the minimum number of MPs required to pass a law being present and that she and other opponents of the law would be going to the Iraqi federal court to challenge the decision.

Benin Elias, an Iraqi journalist and women’s rights advocate, said: “I am not shocked. But this is not the time for tears nor surrender to barbaric decisions.”

Produced in collaboration with Jummar, an independent Iraqi media platform

Climate science deniers from a US-based thinktank have been working with rightwing politicians in Europe to campaign against environmental policies, the Guardian can reveal.

MEPs have been accused of “rolling out the red carpet for climate deniers” to give them a platform in the European parliament, amid warnings of a “revival of grotesque climate denialism”.

The Heartland Institute, which has links to the Trump administration and has drawn on funding from companies including ExxonMobil and wealthy US Republican donors, has seized on a time when rightwing anti-climate action sentiment has been surging, and has set up a new European base in London.

For the past two years, representatives of the thinktank have been working with MEPs and have spoken in the European parliament to campaign against bills, including the nature restoration law. They have sought to cast doubt on established climate science, and connected climate-sceptic MEPs from Poland, Hungary and Austria to help coordinate campaigns against proposed environmental laws.

Heartland has made some extreme and incorrect comments on climate. In the past, it has compared people who believe in global heating to the Unabomber, the US terrorist jailed for killing three people and injuring many others, as well as branding the concept of human-caused climate change “fake news”.

The Guardian and DeSmog understand that the organisation first established a foothold among rightwing MEPs in February 2023, when the far-right Austrian MEPs Harald Vilimsky and Roman Haider from the anti-migration Freedom party (FPÖ) attended Heartland’s International Conference on Climate Change in Orlando, Florida.

A few months later, the pair visited the thinktank’s offices to request help “to counter climate alarmism”. James Taylor, the president of Heartland, was welcomed to speak in the European parliament the following March, at the invitation of the two MEPs, where he forged links with Hungarian politicians to discuss climate policy and the nature restoration law. Later that month, a vote on the law was delayed when Hungary withdrew its support, but the bill eventually passed in June.

In September 2024, Vilimsky was a guest of honour at Heartland’s 40th anniversary gala in the Hilton Chicago, where the guest list included the rightwing UK politician Nigel Farage – who later helped launch Heartland’s branch in London. Vilimsky spoke at the Chicago event, urging closer ties between the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, and Donald Trump.

In October, Taylor visited Poland at the invitation of its Solidarity union, which has been campaigning against the closure of the country’s coalmines. There, he met the former prime minister Beata Szydło, leaders of heavy industry and agriculture, as well as scientists at one of the country’s top universities, delivering a presentation that sowed doubt on climate science. Heartland and Solidarity then signed a joint declaration claiming that actions to address the climate crisis “aim solely to provoke widespread fear and a sense of threat, especially among young people, without finding – so far – confirmation in scientific research”.

After setting up its base in London this December, the institute boasted in a newsletter to its members about its unprecedented footprint in Europe. It wrote: “In our role as gadfly, we have helped foment dissent and encouraged and publicised protests against higher energy taxes, climate restrictions, and wind and solar subsidies.

“Based on the fact that a number of energy taxes in different EU countries have been delayed, reduced, or scuttled altogether and climate policies have been modified to reduce their economic impact, there is at least some evidence our efforts have borne positive policy fruit.”

Green MEPs have warned about the rise of the Institute in Europe. The Austrian MEP Lena Schilling said: “The FPÖ is rolling out the red carpet for climate change deniers who try to undermine EU legislation and accelerate the destruction of our planet. It’s a disgrace and a betrayal of citizens who expect their political representatives to protect them from disasters and security threats.”

The German MEP Daniel Freund added: “Recently, Alice Weidel advocated for tearing down all wind turbines in Germany – even though they produce cheap electricity. The alliance between climate deniers and the far right is taking on cult-like characteristics.” Weidel is the co-leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party.

Kenneth Haar from the Corporate Europe Observatory added: “It is really bad news to see the Heartland Institute moving to Europe. At this point in time we should be scared that we will see a revival of grotesque climate denialism.

“Their presence in Brussels and European politics is bad news. The coming years were looking difficult enough, with corporate lobby groups pushing successfully to roll back climate policies. The Heartland Institute is likely to become one of the helping hands to create a close political alliance between conservatives and the far right that will be very destructive.”

A spokesperson for Solidarity said that although the trade union rejected “climate hysteria”, they did not classify themselves as climate deniers, which they viewed as a term of “abuse”. They added: “We work foremost by ourselves to defend the workers and their families against skyrocketing energy prices and energy poverty, and yes, this includes defending our national coal mining sector.”

A European parliament spokesperson said: “As part of the freedom of mandate MEPs enjoy, they can organise their own events, and we cannot comment on individual cases of members.” However, they added: “The nature and purpose of these events shall not … undermine the dignity of the EP nor pose a risk to its image or reputation.”

Heartland, Vilimsky, Haider, Szydło and the FPÖ have been contacted for comment.

Authorities in the Colombian border city of Cúcuta are scrambling to cope with an influx of internal refugees, as thousands of civilians flee an outbreak of fighting between rival rebel factions.

Buses, trailers and dump trucks packed with disoriented mothers and children have been streaming into the border city since Friday when the bloody conflict began engulfing north-eastern Colombia.

“We have received [displaced families’] when violence has flared up in the region before but nowhere near this level. We are talking 15,000 people arriving in the city in just four days. This is historic for Cúcuta, but sadly even for the country,” said the city’s mayor, Jorge Acevedo.

At least 80 people have been killed and 32,000 displaced as the ELN, the world’s oldest active guerrilla group, seeks to purge one of Colombia’s largest cocaine hubs of rival factions.

Rights groups say civilians are being targeted by the ELN and the 33rd Front, a band of dissident rebels who have refused to disarm in a 2016 peace process. Fighters have gone door to door seeking sympathisers of rival factions, said Iris Marín Ortiz, Colombia’s ombudsman.

The warring groups are launching “indiscriminate attacks on combatants and civilians who are accused of collaborating with one group or the other simply because they are family members or people close to them”, Ortiz said.

Meanwhile, at least 20 people have been killed in fighting between warring drug trafficking factions in the jungle region of Guaviare.

Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, said on Monday that he would declare a state of “economic emergency” to free up funds for the humanitarian crisis as refugees continue to pour into Colombian towns and across the border into Venezuela.

Petro also pledged to announce “a state of internal unrest”, suspending the rule of law. The drastic measure was used by former Colombian leaders at the turn of the century when armed groups controlled vast swaths of the country and were encroaching on the capital.

The bloodshed is one the worst episodes of violence in Colombia in recent years and has stretched the capacity of local authorities.

“Some people are arriving fully dressed but others are dirty in just a pair of shorts with no shoes. They were left running with whatever they had in their hands so they need help with absolutely everything,” said Cúcuta’s secretary of post-conflict, Leandro Ugarte.

“There is nothing I can compare this to. It’s a tsunami of people,” he said.

The Catatumbo region is accustomed to bloodshed due to its extensive coca crops and strategic location on the Venezuelan border, but even by the lawless region’s standards the unrest has shocked the country.

“We are facing one of the largest and most serious humanitarian crises that Catatumbo has ever faced, if not the largest,” said Ortiz.

About 46,000 children are now out of school, and families are unable to even reclaim the bodies of loved ones for burial.

A 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the Farc, ended 60 years of war with the country’s largest guerrilla army.

But since then, the peace process has withered and new groups with weaker political ideology and fewer moral scruples have ruthlessly filled the Farc’s power vacuum, recruiting children to swell their ranks. Petro broke off peace talks with the ELN on Friday, and on Wednesday prosecutors reactivated arrest warrants for 31 of the group’s top commanders, which had been suspended to enable talks.

“For the last three years, we have warned about a deterioration in Colombia’s conflict that risked sparking a new cycle of war,” said Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst Andes Region at the NGO Crisis Group in response to the violence in Catatumbo. “We are very concerned that moment is now.”

Petro, a former guerrilla himself, had pledged to finally end the conflict by negotiating with armed groups but the rupture of negotiations with the ELN could be the final blow for his dovish approach.

Thousands of soldiers have been dispatched to the Catatumbo to restore order, but they have so far made few inroads as rival groups continue battle one another.

“We hope that, this time, when the army gets in they will stay there and take control of the territory once and for all – as it should be,” said Acevedo. “But so far it seems they have made little progress.”

An additional 1,000 displaced people arrived in Cúcuta on Tuesday, Acevedo said.

The R&B star Chris Brown is suing the media conglomerate Warner Bros Discovery for $500m (£406m) for making defamatory claims against him in the 2024 documentary Chris Brown: A History of Violence, Rolling Stone reports.

Released in October, the documentary addressed the allegations of misconduct and sexual assault against Brown. It features a Jane Doe who sued him for allegedly drugging and assaulting her at a party in 2020 on Sean “Diddy” Combs’s yacht (the case was dismissed without prejudice). In 2009, Brown assaulted his then-girlfriend Rihanna before the Grammy awards.

The film additionally details Brown smashing a window at Good Morning America in 2011, allegedly throwing a brick through his mother’s windscreen in 2013, punching a female fan in 2016 and allegations of verbal and physical abuse and death threats by another ex-girlfriend, Karrueche Tran.

Brown was also sued by his ex-manager in 2016, who said Brown punched him multiple times in the head and neck; they settled out of court in 2019. In July, four concertgoers claimed Brown and his entourage “attacked and brutally beat” them after a concert, and are awaiting trial.

The suit by Brown, filed in Los Angeles superior court, accuses Discovery and production company Ample Entertainment of “promoting and publishing false information in their pursuit of likes, clicks, downloads and dollars and to the detriment” of Brown despite “knowing that it was full of lies and deception and violating basic journalist principles.”

The Guardian has contacted Warner Bros Discovery and Ample Entertainment for comment.

The Jane Doe is also named as a defendant and her prior suit is described as “frivolous”. “To put it simply, this case is about the media putting their own profits over the truth,” the suit claims. “They did so after being provided proof that their information was false, and their storytelling ‘Jane Doe’ had not only been discredited over and over but was in fact a perpetrator of intimate partner violence and aggressor herself.

“Mr Brown has never been found guilty of any sex related crime … but this documentary states in every available fashion that he is a serial rapist and sexual abuser.”

“This case is about protecting the truth,” said Brown’s lawyer, Levi McCathern. “Despite being provided with evidence disproving their claims, the producers of this documentary intentionally promoted false and defamatory information, knowingly disregarding their ethical obligations as journalists.”

Despite the many allegations against him, Brown remains the second-most followed male musical artist on Instagram, with 144 million followers, and continues to sell out arenas. He released his 11th studio album, 11:11, in November 2023.

Elon Musk admitted he cheated at video games to get high scores, a transcript of a private online conversation he had shows, seemingly concluding a fiery scandal over the billionaire’s outlandish claims to be a globally-ranked player.

Musk has regularly bragged about his gaming rankings. He told the podcaster Joe Rogan last year that he was in the top 20 players in the world for the fiendishly difficult action role-playing game Diablo IV.

His claims have raised questions about how the world’s richest man could find time to compete internationally. He would need to have played hundreds of hours in between running businesses including Tesla Inc, X and SpaceX, as well as his growing political activity alongside Donald Trump.

Two games Musk says he has high scores in, Diablo IV and Path of Exile 2, are notoriously hard to compete in. Some players spend most of their waking hours “grinding” through dungeons and battling monsters and other fantastical creatures to make their virtual characters more powerful.

An answer to Musk’s unlikely gaming prowess was provided in a video posted on YouTube on Sunday by the top Diablo player NikoWrex, which showed what he said was a direct message conversation with Musk on X.

In the conversation, Musk admits to “account boosting”, a cheating practice in which people get other players to power up their characters. This is usually done by paying them to play for hours.

“Have you level boosted (had someone else play your accounts) and/or purchased gear/resources for PoE2 [Path of Exile 2] and Diablo 4?” asked NikoWrex. Musk responded with a 100% emoji. He later added: “It’s impossible to beat the players in Asia if you don’t, as they do!”

The Guardian could not independently verify the transcript, but Musk reposted the video to his X account and had previously interacted with NikoWrex on X in early January to discuss Path of Exile 2. In his video, NikoWrex, whose Instagram account says is called Nick Hayes, showed that Musk follows him on X.

He said in the video that Musk had permitted him to publish their conversation. The Guardian has contacted Musk through X for comment.

Uproar about Musk’s alleged video game prowess exploded after his comments on Rogan’s podcast in November, and further scrutiny came at the beginning of the year when he did a livestream of his Path of Exile 2 character on X.

High-level players with deep knowledge of the game said Musk made rookie mistakes that no expert would make, including walking straight past valuable items that would help his character.

After being called out, Musk began to fight the allegations publicly, getting into arguments with prominent gamers. At the end of the conversation with NikoWrex, Musk claimed to be “a living god of video games”.

The Canadian musician Grimes, who has three children with Musk from a previous relationship, tweeted in his defence on Saturday, saying she had seen with her own eyes how he was a top Diablo player in the US. “There are other witnesses who can verify this,” she said.

On Monday, further allegations of cheating were levelled when Musk’s Path of Exile 2 character was seen as active in the game while Musk was in Washington attending Trump’s inauguration.