House Republicans will continue investigating the January 6 insurrection, attempting to undermine the prior investigation that found Donald Trump responsible and rewrite the narrative about the deadly Capitol siege.

House speaker Mike Johnson announced on Wednesday that a new select subcommittee will be formed to investigate “all events leading up to and after January 6”. The move comes after the president pardoned or commuted sentences for every defendant convicted for their roles in January 6, including those convicted of violence against Capitol police and the leaders of extremist groups.

The pardons, and the repeated attempts to recast January 6 not as a day of violent rioting but as citizens airing grievances who were egged on by federal agents, could lead to further political violence, experts say.

The subcommittee will be chaired by Republican representative Barry Loudermilk of Georgia. In December, a previous version of the committee led by Loudermilk concluded that Liz Cheney should face charges for investigating Trump’s role in January 6. Trump has frequently taken aim at Cheney and his other political enemies. Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Cheney before leaving office on Monday.

Among those involved in the January 6 attack and its supporters, the belief that they were set up and not responsible for their actions is persistent. In recent weeks, they have pointed to a Department of Justice inspector general report that showed 26 informants were at the Capitol that day as evidence they were coerced.

Loudermilk claimed in a statement that January 6 resulted from a “series of intelligence, security, and leadership failures at multiple levels within numerous entities” that he will continue to try to uncover.

Johnson said the subcommittee will “uncover the full truth that is owed to the American people”.

“House Republicans are proud of our work so far in exposing the false narratives peddled by the politically motivated January 6 Select Committee during the 117th Congress, but there is still more work to be done,” Johnson said in a statement.

The US House on Wednesday gave final approval to a bill requiring the detention of undocumented immigrants charged with theft-related crimes, sending the proposal to Donald Trump’s desk and giving the new president his first legislative victory as he presses his hardline immigration agenda on multiple fronts.

The House vote was 263 to 158, with 46 Democrats joining every present Republican in supporting the Laken Riley Act, named after a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by a Venezuelan national who was in the US unlawfully. The House vote came two days after the US Senate passed the legislation in a vote of 64 to 35, with a dozen Democratic members backing the bill.

Under the bill, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) would be required to detain undocumented immigrants charged with crimes such as “burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting”. It would also allow state attorneys general to sue the federal government if they believed their states had been harmed by its failure to enforce immigration laws.

The House vote followed a heated hour-long floor debate, in which Democrats argued that the measure would “do nothing to fix the immigration crisis in America” and would instead result in racial profiling and fear-mongering. Republicans countered that the measure would save lives.

Senator Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican and leading sponsor of the legislation, hailed it as the “most significant immigration enforcement and border security related bill” to be passed by Congress in decades. She said it would be the first bill Trump would sign as the 47th president.

The measure does not include any new funding, even though US Immigration and Customs Enforcement warned lawmakers earlier this month that the agency did not have the existing resources to implement it.

The notable bipartisan support for the bill underscores the pressure some Democrats are under to move to the right on immigration after Republicans narrowly won the White House and both chambers of Congress in November. But progressives laced into Democrats, accusing the party of “caving” to Trump’s anti-immigration agenda.

“Reinforcing Republicans’ anti-immigrant messaging and handing them political wins without a fight is not a plan,” said Mari Urbina, managing director of the progressive group, Indivisible. She added: “Immigration policy is a messaging playground for Republicans who use immigrants as scapegoats to expand their power but never offer real solutions, and Democrats should not play.”

Juliana Macedo do Nascimento of United We Dream Action, a youth-led immigrant rights groups, called the Democratic votes “shameful beyond words”.

“It is because of their political cowardice and their inability to even read the legislation in full and understand its consequences, that people in states like Arizona, Nevada and Michigan will be deported after being arrested for something like petty theft, without conviction and without their due process rights,” she said.

Immigrant rights and civil rights groups have expressed additional concerns about how the bill could undermine federal authority and empower Trump to carry out his plan for a mass-deportation program, with opponents arguing that it ignores the principle that someone charged with a crime has not been convicted and is entitled to due process.

“This is an extreme and reactive bill that will authorize the largest expansion of mandatory detention we have seen in decades, sweeping in children, Dreamers, parents of US-citizen children and other longtime members of their communities who even Ice thinks should not be detained,” Sarah Mehta, senior border policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said last week as the bill made its way through Congress.

“This legislation offers no solutions to improve our immigration system, and we thank the senators who stood up for immigrant communities and due process and voted against this harmful, expensive bill – a bill that will not make us safer.”

Despite those concerns, Trump is expected to swiftly sign the bill once it reaches his desk, making it the first law of his second term. Trump has already used his executive authority to declare a national emergency at the US-Mexico border and call for an end to birthright citizenship, a right enshrined in the 14th amendment of the constitution.

That latter proposal has sparked a wave of lawsuits from Democratic-led states and civil rights groups, which may foreshadow many protracted legal battles over Trump’s immigration policies for the next four years.

Within his first 48 hours back in office, Trump has signed several executive orders that threaten the healthcare of millions of Americans.

Amid a flurry of executive orders, some of which were signed live on TV on inauguration night, the US president issued several orders that repeal Biden-era directives that had expanded healthcare access and options for lower-income and middle-class Americans.

Those orders are expected to affect the medical insurance coverage for upwards of 20m people in the US.

“The previous administration has embedded deeply unpopular, inflationary, illegal, and radical practices within every agency and office of the Federal Government,” Trump said in the official statement, which referenced several health-related orders.The statement goes on to accuse diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies of having “corrupted” institutions for Americans.

Those people whose coverage is now deemed at risk are the roughly 24 million Americans who have purchased their health insurance via the Affordable Care Act this year. The ACA, also known as Obamacare, helped to expand Medicaid benefits and provides affordable health insurance to millions of people.

Trump’s actions this week will affect all aspects of the ACA, including eligibility requirements, federal subsidies and enrollment deadlines, which determine when Americans can apply for insurance, without repealing the act, which would take action from the US Congress. But the actions are expected to create more barriers and result in healthcare coverage becoming even less accessible.

In a one-page document published by Politico, Trump outlines options for spending cuts. These plans include measures that would reduce the amount of money states have to fund Medicaid and limiting health program eligibility depending on citizenship status. Every option listed involves cutting funding for and access to healthcare coverage.

Some of the Biden-era orders Trump has already repealed include executive order 14009, or the Strengthening Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which broadened access for Americans and their families, allowing more parents with young children to be eligible for more extensive coverage. Some estimates suggest that this appeal alone could result in a nearly 25% loss of ACA coverage.

Additionally, Trump repealed executive orders aimed at reducing the cost of prescription drugs for people on the government health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid that chiefly serve older and lower-income Americans.

The Biden administration also previously introduced the American Rescue Plan Act, a subsidy program that lowered the cost of health insurance premiums. This broadened the eligibility requirements, extending them to many more people in the US middle class.

But this program is set to expire at the end of this year. The White House website has been purged of any mention of the plan, and Trump has already repealed EO 14070, which highlighted the positive impacts of the ARP Act on access to coverage, including the enhanced marketplace subsidies that lowered premium costs.

Executive order 14070 also provided options for states to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage.

A weakened ACA has consequences that reach further than just those Americans who lose their coverage. A lack of federally funded healthcare options means privatized insurers are given more power to control the healthcare industry, leading to the remaining healthcare insurance options likely to increase in cost.

“The consequences of more people going uninsured are really significant, not just at an individual level with more medical debt and less healthy outcomes, but also has ripple effects for providers,” Sabrina Corlette, a research professor and co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University, said.

Commercial insurance has already proved difficult to navigate for millions, as people with insurance have been almost as likely to experience medical debt as those who are uninsured. In fact, people with health insurance may now represent the majority of debtors American hospitals struggle to collect from, according to medical billing analysts.

“Premiums go up for the people who do have health insurance. For the people without health insurance, it’s financially devastating,” Corlette said. “The result is medical debt, garnished wages and liens on people’s homes because they can’t pay off their bills.”

The Pentagon is set to deploy up to 1,500 active-duty troops to the US-Mexico border as part of Donald Trump’s aggressive new immigration enforcement strategy, marking a significant militarisation of the southern border.

The controversial move, defence officials told the New York Times, comes amid a flurry of executive actions targeting immigration in the early days of Trump’s presidency. The Washington Post on Wednesday reported that the number could be much higher, with military officials preparing to send as many as 10,000 troops to the border.

The acting defense secretary, Robert Salesses, is expected to authorise the deployment, though specific units have not yet been identified. These troops will join the 2,500 army reserve and national guard soldiers who were previously called to active duty in recent months to support federal law enforcement officials at the border.

As the Times notes, it remains unclear what role the 4,000 troops will play under the Trump administration.

The administration’s hardline approach has already created ripple effects across the immigration system.

The state department has suspended the refugee resettlement programme, leaving thousands of previously approved refugees stranded worldwide. Trump has also reinstated the “Remain in Mexico” policy and announced plans to pursue expanded use of capital punishment for certain immigration-related offences.

While military presence at the border is not unprecedented – with national guard and active-duty deployments dating back to 2006 under various administrations – the potential scope of the military’s involvement in enforcement operations would represent a dramatic shift from traditional support roles.

When questioned about specific operational details in a call with reporters first announcing the executive actions on inauguration day, which included potential military actions targeting drug cartels, White House officials said such decisions would be left to the secretary of defense.

The sweeping changes have sparked concern among immigration advocates and local officials, who worry about the unprecedented scope of enforcement measures and the potential implications of using military personnel in border operations – a move not seen in recent US history.

Administration officials have justified these measures by claiming that previous border policies under Joe Biden created “an unconscionable risk to public safety, public health and national security”, in a Monday call with reporters, though critics argue the actions represent an excessive militarisation of immigration enforcement.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have released the crew of the Galaxy Leader more than a year after they seized the Bahamas-flagged vessel off the Yemeni Red Sea coast, Houthi-owned Al Masirah TV has reported.

It said on Wednesday the crew were handed to Oman “in coordination” with the three-day-old ceasefire in Gaza’s war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.

“The release of the Galaxy Leader crew comes within the framework of our solidarity with Gaza and in support of the ceasefire agreement,” it quoted the Houthi supreme political council as saying.

The crew is comprised of 25 nationals from Bulgaria, Ukraine, the Philippines, Mexico and Romania, according to the car carrier’s owner Galaxy Maritime. The vessel was chartered by Japan’s Nippon Yusen.

The Galaxy Leader was escorted to the Red Sea port of Hodeidah in Houthi-controlled north Yemen after being boarded by Houthi forces at sea on 19 November 2023, soon after the outbreak of war in Gaza.

Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on Monday the group, known formally as Ansar Allah, was ready to act if Israel violated the Gaza ceasefire agreement.

“We are in constant readiness to intervene immediately at any time the Israeli enemy returns to escalation, genocidal crimes and siege of the Gaza Strip,” he said.

The UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said in a statement that the “release of the Galaxy Leader crew is heartwarming news that puts an end to the arbitrary detention and separation that they and their families endured for more than a year“.

“This is a step in the right direction, and I urge Ansar Allah to continue these positive steps on all fronts, including ending all maritime attacks,” Grundberg said.

The news came as US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to once again designate the Houthis a “foreign terrorist organization”.

When former president Joe Biden took over from Trump in 2021, he had removed the designation in response to concern from aid groups that they would need to pull out of Yemen as they are obliged to deal with the rebels, who are effectively the government in vast areas including the capital Sana’a.

But weeks after the war in the Gaza Strip broke out on 7 October 2023, the Houthis began launching attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in support of the Palestinians. They also declared US and British interests to be “legitimate targets.”

They have sunk two vessels, seized another and killed at least four seafarers.

In response, the Biden administration last year put the Houthis back on the list of “specially designated global terrorist” groups. That slightly less severe classification still allowed for humanitarian aid to reach the war-torn country, one of the poorest in the world.

The Houthi attacks have disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa for more than a year.

“Innocent seafarers must not become collateral victims in wider geopolitical tensions,” Arsenio Dominguez, secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization, said in a statement.

“We call on all nations to support our seafarers and shipping so that this does not happen again,” the International Chamber of Shipping said in a statement.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Donald Trump has threatened Russia with taxes, tariffs and sanctions if a deal to end the war in Ukraine is not struck soon, as the new US president tries to increase pressure on Moscow to start negotiations with Kyiv.

Writing in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump said Russia’s economy was failing and urged Vladimir Putin to “settle now and stop this ridiculous war”.

Without a deal, Trump said, “I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”

The statement marks Trump’s most detailed efforts yet to end the war in Ukraine. During the election campaign, he said he would end the war “in 24 hours” if elected.

“Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way – and the easy way is always better,” he said.

Trump pledged during his presidential campaign to end the war before he even took office. Asked on Monday how long it would take to do so, he said: “I have to speak to President Putin. We’re going to have to find out.”

US media reported this week that Trump had instructed his special envoy, Keith Kellogg, to end the war in 100 days.

Top Russian officials have expressed unusual willingness to engage with Trump in recent statements. Putin praised his readiness to “restore direct contacts with Russia” on Monday.

In what appeared to be an appeal to Trump’s well-documented fondness for flattery, Putin has described him as courageous on two occasions, referring to the assassination attempt against him at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July.

In contrast, Trump’s rhetoric towards Russia has been harsher, marking some of his strongest-ever public criticism of Putin and his leadership.

Asked about the war in Ukraine shortly after his inauguration on Monday, Trump said that his Russian counterpart was destroying Russia by refusing to negotiate a ceasefire.

“He can’t be thrilled, he’s not doing so well,” he told reporters, referring to Putin’s war. “Russia is bigger, they have more soldiers to lose, but that’s no way to run a country.”

Trump nevertheless wrote on Wednesday that he “always had a very good relationship” with Putin and that he “was not looking to hurt Russia”.

Trump’s latest statements highlight the unease many in Moscow’s elite feel about his unpredictability, which has led to a cautious response since his re-election.

Alexander Kots, a high-profile pro-war correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda, wrote on Telegram that Trump had issued Putin an ultimatum.

“As I’ve said before, it’s better to prepare for the worst. Soon, we’ll look back on Biden’s term with nostalgia, like a thaw,” he said.

Speaking to state media on earlier on Wednesday, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said Moscow saw a “small window of opportunity” to forge agreements with the new Trump administration.

The Kremlin, however, has signalled that it is in no rush to sign a peace deal.

Russia’s deputy ambassador the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, gave a guarded response to Trump’s comments. “It’s not merely the question of ending the war. It’s first and foremost the question of addressing the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis,” he said.

“So we have to see what does the ‘deal’ mean in President Trump’s understanding.”

Putin has repeatedly staked out a maximalist position for ending the war in recent months, demanding that Ukraine not join Nato, and that it adopt a neutral status and undergo some level of demilitarisation. He has insisted the west lift its sanctions against Russia and said he wanted to retain control of Crimea and the four Ukrainian regions Moscow claimed in 2022.

In a show of strength, Putin held talks in the last few days with two of his key allies in his struggle against the west. He hosted the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, in Moscow on Friday and spoke via video link to the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, on Tuesday.

Trump’s latest statement on the war in Ukraine notably omits any mention of providing additional weapons to Kyiv, instead signalling a shift towards deploying economic measures against Moscow.

Given the shrinking trade ties between the US and Russia and the raft of sanctions on Russia already, the effectiveness of Trump’s direct threat of tariffs is uncertain. The trade between the two countries in the first 11 months of 2024 was only $3.4bn. The annual trade between the US and Europe by comparison is about $1.5tn.

Trump administration officials have previously indicated that they believe the US could further target Russia’s economy by sanctioning its energy sector.

Tatiana Stanovaya, the founder of the political analysis firm R.Politik, said that despite Trump’s efforts to force Putin to negotiate, the Russian leader appeared convinced that he had the resources to outlast Ukraine.

“A peace deal on Russian terms would save significant resources, but absent such an agreement, Putin is prepared to fight for as long as it takes,” she wrote on X.

She also wrote that Russia’s current economic situation was unlikely to compel Putin to negotiate with Ukraine. “If the Kremlin concludes that no favourable deal with Trump is forthcoming, they will likely focus on prolonging the conflict,” she added.

• A Russian UN envoy on Wednesday gave a guarded response to Donald Trump’s demand for Vladimir Putin to make a deal and end the war in Ukraine. “It’s not merely the question of ending the war. It’s first and foremost the question of addressing the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis,” said Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy ambassador at the United Nations. “So we have to see what does the ‘deal’ mean in President Trump’s understanding.” As Pjotr Sauer reports, Trump has threatened Russia with taxes, tariffs and sanctions if a deal to end the war in Ukraine is not struck soon. Trump said Russia’s economy was failing and his Russian counterpart must “settle now and stop this ridiculous war”.

• Tatiana Stanovaya, the founder of the political analysis firm R.Politik, said that despite Trump’s efforts to force Putin to negotiate, the Russian leader appeared convinced that he had the resources to outlast Ukraine. “A peace deal on Russian terms would save significant resources, but absent such an agreement, Putin is prepared to fight for as long as it takes.” Russia’s current economic situation was unlikely to compel Putin to negotiate with Ukraine. “If the Kremlin concludes that no favourable deal with Trump is forthcoming, they will likely focus on prolonging the conflict.”

• Russia claimed on Wednesday it had taken control of the village of Zapadne in Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region. Russia has managed to establish a bridgehead on the western bank this year and Zapadne is located about 4km (2.5 miles) west of the Oskil River, marking a significant gain. The Kharkiv region is under constant shelling and two men were killed one day earlier in the village of Goptivka, according to the Ukrainian governor, Oleg Synegubov. The Ukrainian air force said on Wednesday that air defences had shot down 65 Russian drones in 10 regions, including Kharkiv.

• The claimed Russian advance came as its troops close in on Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, acknowledged on Tuesday that “in the east, we have a difficult situation”. The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said the Russians continued to concentrate their main efforts on Pokrovsk.

• The financier-turned-activist Bill Browder is making a push for all $300bn (£243bn) of frozen Russian assets to be spent on funding Kyiv’s military. Graeme Wearden and John Collingridge write that Browder, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, warned that if US military support for Ukraine dried up and alternative funding was not found, Russian territorial gains would force millions of Ukrainians to flee, creating “a refugee problem like we’ve never seen before”. Browder has been a leading campaigner against Vladimir Putin’s regime since his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was arrested and died in custody 15 years ago.

• The Yantar, a Russian “spy ship”, was tracked closely by the Royal Navy this week after it entered UK waters on Monday and passed through the Channel at a time of heightened concern about the safety of undersea cables, Dan Sabbagh writes. The defence secretary, John Healey, said: “We see you. We know what you’re doing,” as he accused the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, of trying to threaten European security by targeting undersea infrastructure. The Yantar had been “mapping the UK’s critical underwater infrastructure” as it passed through British waters for the second time in less than three months, Healey said in front of MPs.

• Residents of Russia’s Kursk region have made co-ordinated social media posts appealing for help to find relatives after the Ukrainian border offensive launched last August, Russian media reported on Wednesday. People in the Russian region have for months accused authorities of not doing enough to secure their loved ones, and of keeping them in the dark about the scale of fighting. Ukraine says thousands of its own civilians are being held in areas seized and occupied by Moscow since its assault began in February 2022, and that it is providing safe passage to Russians in the Kursk region. A French official told Agence France-Presse that French military resources had also been mobilised to monitor Yantar but the ship “had no proven hostile intent”.

• A Russian military court on Wednesday upheld a life sentence for Alexander Permyakov, convicted of seriously injuring the pro-Kremlin writer Zakhar Prilepin by blowing up his car in 2023. Permyakov, who has both Russian and Ukrainian citizenship, told the court that Ukraine’s SBU security service had promised him $20,000 for killing Prilepin. Permyakov’s defence team at the appeal hearing said he had given investigators information on hidden weapons and told them the location of an unexploded device. Ukraine has not formally claimed the attack on Prilepin but the head of the Ukrainian SBU, Vasyl Maliuk, called the Russian writer a “real war criminal” and said that in the attack, the victim’s “pelvis and legs were badly injured and sorry, he was left without genitals”. Prilepin denied the latter claim.

Major tech moguls had their claws out for each other on Wednesday, hissing at their rivals over enormous pledges to invest in AI that had been announced by Donald Trump the day before.

Trump announced Stargate, a $500bn project to be funded jointly by OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank, on Tuesday. During the announcement, the president was flanked by the leaders of those companies: Sam Altman, Larry Ellison and Masayoshi Son, respectively. Son is slated to be the chair of the project. All three are multibillionaires. Absent from the photo op was a representative from MGX, Abu Dhabi’s state AI fund, another principal investor.

The partnership is geared towards building essential data centers and computing infrastructure for the development of artificial intelligence. While the headline investment is substantial, some estimates had already indicated that developing AI would cost that much.

Another notable absence was Elon Musk – the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and xAI; the richest person in the world; and a Trump ally – who reportedly has an office in the White House. The evening after the announcement, he declared Stargate a financial farce.

When OpenAI wrote on X – Musk’s social network – that it would “begin deploying $100bn immediately”, Musk responded: “They don’t actually have the money” and followed up with another jab: “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”

Musk, who has a net worth of some $430bn, tweets extremely often every day about an eye-watering swath of topics – usually hyping up his own companies, and Trump. Even with his propensity to post, his tweets pronouncing Stargate nothing more than hot air represent an extraordinary break with the White House, where he is one of Trump’s closest and most senior advisers.

Trump has yet to respond to Musk’s broadside. On Truth Social, the president’s own social network, he was focused on wishing a happy anniversary to his wife, Melania.

Musk went further. He retweeted an image of a crack pipe with the accompanying tweet: “Leaked image of the research tool OpenAI used to come up with their $500 billion number for Stargate.” He spent much of Wednesday afternoon sniping at Stargate.

Altman tried to strike a conciliatory tone with his first response: “I genuinely respect your accomplishments and think you are the most inspiring entrepreneur of our time.”

Then at least one glove came off when Altman wrote snidely about Musk’s Softbank remark: “Wrong, as you surely know. want to come visit the first site already under way? this is great for the country. I realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies, but in your new role I hope you’ll mostly put 🇺🇸 first.”

The Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, a less pugnacious public figure than Altman, and certainly than Musk, was asked about the spat during an interview on CNBC. He quipped: “All I know is, I’m good for my $80bn. I’m going to spend $80bn building out Azure,” referring to Microsoft’s cloud-computing product.

Unlike Musk and Altman, Nadella did not sit on a dais beside Trump during the president’s inauguration on Monday, though his company did give $1m to the inaugural committee. Nadella’s net worth is estimated to be more than $1bn due to stock awards from his employer and its recent stellar performance.

The animosity in part stems from a longstanding feud between Musk and Altman. Musk co-founded OpenAI with Altman in 2015 but later split from the younger man. In March 2024, Musk sued the company over its plan to transition to a for-profit business model, then withdrew the suit in July, then sued again in August, alleging “deceit of Shakespearean proportions”.

The other two company heads involved in Stargate, Ellison and Son, have yet to comment.

Additional evacuations were ordered for residents near a large fast-moving wildfire north of Los Angeles, as parched southern California endured another round of dangerous winds ahead of possible rain over the weekend.

The Hughes fire broke out late on Wednesday morning and quickly ripped through more than 9,400 acres (3,760ha), sending up an enormous plume of dark smoke near Castaic Lake, a popular recreation area about 40 miles (64 km) from the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires that are burning for a third week.

About 31,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders with more facing evacuation warnings, Los Angeles county sheriff Robert Luna told a press conference.

Off-ramps along Interstate 5, a major north-south artery, were temporarily closed as flames raced along hilltops and down into rugged canyons. Crews on the ground and in water-dropping aircraft tried to prevent the wind-driven fire from moving south toward more populated foothill communities in Castaic, home to about 19,000 people.

At least three schools were evacuated as a precaution, the California highway patrol said.

The Angeles National Forest said its entire 700,000-acre park in the San Gabriel Mountains was closed to visitors. More than 4,000 firefighters were working on the Hughes fire, Los Angeles county fire chief Anthony Marrone said.

The fire was raging north of a large county jail complex, and as of Wednesday afternoon, the LA sheriff’s department said the agency was moving 476 incarcerated people from the Pitchess detention center to the North County correctional facility next door.

The ACLU of southern California urged the county to clear people out of the jail complex, which is located within a mandatory evacuation zone and is home to four facilities. The jails house more than 4,700 people, including 1,200 people with diagnosed mental health issues, according to the latest available data from last year.

“I am really scared. I would assume a mandatory evacuation zone means the fire department believes everybody needs to leave to preserve their lives,” said Melissa Camacho, ACLU southern California senior staff attorney. The jail taking in transferred residents was already overcrowded, she said, adding that she feared the complex did not have enough buses for thousands of rapid evacuations: “They need to be moving people out now.”

A sheriff’s spokesperson did not immediately comment on whether mass evacuations were under consideration.

Meanwhile, to the south, Los Angeles officials were preparing for potential rain even as some residents were allowed to return to the charred Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas. Gusty weather was expected to last through Thursday.

“We’re going to see another round of critical fire conditions across southern California,” Todd Hall, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said on Wednesday morning. “At this point, it sounds like a broken record.”

Karen Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, issued an executive order to expedite cleanup efforts in burn areas and mitigate the environmental impacts of fire-related pollutants. She ordered crews to remove vegetation, shore up hillsides and reinforce roads ahead of the possible rain.

Los Angeles county supervisors also approved an emergency motion to install flood control infrastructure and expedite the removal of sediment in fire-impacted areas.

Experts have warned that toxic threats may lurk within the disaster areas. The ashes of homes and cars may contain remnants of a multitude of potentially hazardous materials, including lead, battery acid, arsenic and carcinogens found in plastic, used in their construction. Meanwhile, wildfires increase the risk of mudslides by making a landscape vulnerable to swift erosion in the event of a rainstorm, Joshua West, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Southern California, told the Guardian last week. In January 2018, for example, heavy storms hitting an area in Montecito that had burned in the weeks before triggered a mudslide that killed 23.

In an effort to prevent such disasters, Los Angeles county supervisors approved an emergency motion to install flood control infrastructure and expedite and remove sediment in fire-impacted areas.

A 60-80% chance of a small amount of rain was forecast for southern California starting on Saturday, with most areas unlikely to get more than a third of an inch (0.8cm), according to Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist for the weather service’s office for Los Angeles. However up to an inch could fall in localized thunderstorms, which would be a worst-case scenario if enough flows on scorched hillsides to trigger debris.

“But even if the rain doesn’t materialize this time, it could be a good practice run for those communities because this will be a threat that they’ll have to deal with for months or years,” Kittell said.

Fire crews were filling sandbags for communities.

Winds eased somewhat on Tuesday afternoon after peaking at 60mph (97km/h) in many areas, but gusty conditions were expected to continue. Red flag warnings for critical fire risk were extended through 8pm on Thursday in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

“Our concern is the next fire, the next spark that causes the next wildfire,” said David Acuna, a spokesperson with the California department of forestry and fire protection, or Cal Fire. Another worry was that the two major blazes still burning, the Palisades and Eaton fires, could break their containment lines as firefighters continue to watch for hot spots.

Fire engines and water-dropping aircraft positioned strategically allowed crews to swiftly douse several small blazes that popped up in Los Angeles and San Diego counties, officials said.

Evacuation orders were lifted on Tuesday for the Friars fire, which broke out near a San Diego mall, and partially for the Lilac fire, which burned through dry brush after threatening some structures, Cal Fire said. Nearby crews fully contained the Pala fire, another small blaze. The Clay fire in Riverside was 40% contained on Tuesday night and evacuation orders were lifted.

Southern California Edison on Tuesday preemptively shut off power to more than 60,000 customers in five counties to prevent new fires from being sparked by winds toppling electrical equipment; electricity was later restored to most. The utility was considering precautionary shutoffs for an additional 187,000 customers on Wednesday.

Authorities urged residents to review evacuation plans, prepare emergency kits and be on the lookout for fires and report them quickly.

Bass also warned that winds could carry ash and advised Angelenos to visit the city’s website to learn how to protect themselves from toxic air during the latest Santa Ana wind event.

The low humidity, bone-dry vegetation and strong winds came as firefighters continued to battle the Palisades and Eaton fires, which have killed at least 28 people and destroyed more than 14,000 structures since they broke out on 7 January. Containment of the Palisades fire reached 68%, and the Eaton fire was at 91%.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is investigating the causes of the fires but has not released any findings.

Several lawsuits have been filed by people who lost their homes in the Eaton fire, alleging Southern California Edison equipment sparked the blaze. On Tuesday a judge overseeing one of the lawsuits ordered the utility to produce data from circuits in the area where the fire started.

Questions are also emerging over why some residents of Altadena, where the majority of deaths were found, were late to receive evacuation warning.

Donald Trump, who criticized the response to the wildfires during his inaugural address on Monday, has said he will travel to Los Angeles on Friday.

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 had been killed in Jenin, and 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 had been 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.”

Wafa reported that the Israeli army had also stormed several towns around Ramallah and El-Bireh, but no arrests or clashes were mentioned.

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 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.

Late on Wednesday, the Israeli military said that it had killed an Islamic Jihad militant in Gaza, the first such reported death since the start of a ceasefire in the territory.

The Gaza health ministry confirmed that one person was killed and said four other people were wounded.

As Palestinians in Gaza returned to their homes, medical staff in the territory said about 200 bodies had been recovered from under debris since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel came into effect on Sunday.

Gaza’s head of civil defence, Mahmoud Basal, estimates that the bodies of about 10,000 Palestinians killed during the conflict are yet to be found and buried.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 46,700 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The war began after a cross-border attack by Hamas on Israel, when militants killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostage.

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 had been killed in Jenin, and 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 had been 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.”

Wafa reported that the Israeli army had also stormed several towns around Ramallah and El-Bireh, but no arrests or clashes were mentioned.

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 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.

Late on Wednesday, the Israeli military said that it had killed an Islamic Jihad militant in Gaza, the first such reported death since the start of a ceasefire in the territory.

The Gaza health ministry confirmed that one person was killed and said four other people were wounded.

As Palestinians in Gaza returned to their homes, medical staff in the territory said about 200 bodies had been recovered from under debris since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel came into effect on Sunday.

Gaza’s head of civil defence, Mahmoud Basal, estimates that the bodies of about 10,000 Palestinians killed during the conflict are yet to be found and buried.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 46,700 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The war began after a cross-border attack by Hamas on Israel, when militants killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostage.

Turkish authorities are facing mounting questions over safety measures at a hotel in a popular ski resort that was ravaged by a fire, leaving 79 people dead and injuring more than 50 others.

Survivors reported that they did not hear alarms when the fire began in the early hours of Tuesday morning in the Bolu mountains resort of Kartalkaya. Harrowing accounts have emerged of people navigating smoke-filled corridors in complete darkness and jumping out of windows.

“No fire alarm went off … and there was no fire escape,” Atakan Yelkovan, one of the guests, told the IHA news agency. Speaking to Turkish media outlets, many survivors told the same story.

Forensic medicine units continued to identify victims on Wednesday as flags flew at half-mast across the country on a national day of mourning.

“We are in deep pain,” Turkey’s interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, told reporters after inspecting the site at the Grand Kartal hotel in Kartalkaya, about 190 miles (300km) east of Istanbul. “But you should know that whoever is responsible for causing this pain will not escape justice.”

Authorities said 11 people had been detained as part of the investigation, including a deputy mayor of Bolu province and the owner and manager of the hotel. The hotel pledged full cooperation with the investigation in a statement on Wednesday. “We are cooperating with authorities to shed light on all aspects of this incident,” it said. “We are deeply saddened by the losses and want you to know that we share this pain with all our hearts.”

Yerlikaya said the fire was reported at about 3.27am (0027 GMT) and firefighters were at the scene about 45 minutes later. Several survivors and witnesses reported smelling smoke and seeing flames as early as 2.30am.

Cetin, an employee at an adjacent hotel, told the Associated Press: “There was no one around. They were calling for firefighters. They were breaking the windows. Some could no longer stand the smoke and flames, and they jumped.”

Necmi Kepçetutan, a ski instructor employed at the hotel, told the NTV network that “people were screaming to be rescued”. An employee at a nearby hotel described seeing a child dangling from a window screaming for help. “I was profoundly disturbed. I still cannot forget the image,” he said.

Turkey’s tourism minister, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, who was among those who travelled to the scene on Tuesday, said the hotel had in place the necessary fire precautions, with authorities inspecting it in 2021 and 2024 and “no issues related to fire safety … flagged by the fire department”.

It was not clear what sparked the fire but unconfirmed press reports said it began in a restaurant. Officials and witnesses have said rescue efforts were hampered by the fact part of the 161-room hotel is on the side of a cliff.

An estimated 238 guests were staying at the hotel on Monday night, the start of a two-week winter break for schools when accommodation in the region is filled to capacity. A quarter of the guests were children.

Local media reported that entire families had died in the fire. Among those being buried on Wednesday were a husband and wife and their three children, including twin boys.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, travelled to Bolu from the capital, Ankara, to attend the funeral of eight members of the Gültekin family, who were related to an official in his ruling party. “Our hearts are broken,” Erdoğan said during the funeral of Zehra Sena Gültekin, her husband, their four children and another relative. “May God grant us patience.”

Police said they were searching for a suspect after a serious assault in Plymouth left the victim in hospital.

Devon and Cornwall police said officers were called to the West Hoe area at 8.55pm on Wednesday after a person was found seriously injured in the street.

The person was treated at the scene in West Hoe Road by paramedics and taken to the city’s Derriford hospital.

The force said West Hoe Road was closed and a large police presence remained at the scene as officers searched for a male suspect.

The two people were believed to be known to each other.

Det Ch Insp Dave Pebworth said: “We have a large police presence in the area and enquiries are ongoing to locate and arrest the suspect.

“We believe this is an isolated incident and there is no immediate threat to the wider public. We would ask members of the public to please stay away from the West Hoe area of the city while we continue our investigation.”

Europe made more electricity from sunshine than coal last year, a report has found, in what analysts called a “milestone” for the clean energy transition.

Solar panels generated 11% of the EU’s electricity in 2024, while coal-burning power plants generated 10%, according to data from climate thinktank Ember. The role of fossil gas fell for the fifth year in a row to cover 16% of the electricity mix.

“This is a milestone,” said Beatrice Petrovich, co-author of the report. “Coal is the oldest way of producing electricity, but also the dirtiest. Solar is the rising star.”

Europe’s industrialisation was powered by coal but the fuel has pumped out more planet-heating pollution than any other energy source. Coal-burning in the EU power sector peaked in 2007 and has halved in the years since.

At the same time, clean sources of electricity have boomed. Wind and solar energy rose to 29% of EU electricity generation in 2024, while hydropower and nuclear energy continued to rebound from the 2022 lows.

The report attributed the rise of solar – the fastest-growing power source last year – to a record amount of new panels, despite Europe getting less sunshine than the year before.

“It’s good news that the increase in solar build is actually translating to a reduction in fossil fuel burn,” said Jenny Chase, a solar analyst at BloombergNEF, who was not involved in the report.

The report found the share of coal fell in 16 of the 17 countries that still used it in 2024. It said the fuel has become “marginal or absent” in most systems.

Germany and Poland, the two countries that burn most of Europe’s coal, were among those where there was a shift to cleaner sources of energy. The share of coal in Germany’s electricity grid fell 17% year-on-year, while in Poland it dropped8%, the report found.

Fossil gas also continued to experience a “structural decline”, falling in 14 of the 26 countries that use gas power, the report found.

The findings come despite a small increase in electricity demand after two years of steep decline brought on by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In response, the EU introduced a plan to save energy, find new fossil fuel suppliers, and speed up the shift to clean energy.

“Policy and markets in Europe have enabled renewables to drive down the shares of both coal and natural gas,” said Gregory Nemet, an energy researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-author of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

“Wind and solar are growing in all large economies, but coal has continued to grow in China and natural gas has grown in the US,” he added. “Europe is taking advantage of the full swath of affordability, security, and clean air benefits that renewables provide.”

The report found the EU was on track to meet its target of 400GW of installed solar capacity by 2025. It hit 338GW in 2024, the report found, and would be “within reach” of its 2030 target of 750GW if it maintained the current pace of growth.

The report’s authors called for investments in batteries, smart meters and other forms of “clean flexibility” that can help align the supply of renewable energy, which varies throughout the day, with demand.

A 28-year-old Afghan man has been arrested after a knife attack in a park in the German city of Aschaffenburg that killed two people, including a toddler, in what the country’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, condemned as an “act of terror”.

With a month left in a campaign for snap elections dominated by debate on immigration and asylum policy, Scholz demanded authorities “explain immediately why the assailant was even still in Germany”.

Police said a two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man who reportedly attempted to help the child were killed. Two other victims were severely injured in the stabbing whose motive was not immediately clear, police said, noting the investigation was still at an early stage.

Local media reports said the attacker targeted a group of children from a daycare centre who were in the park. The suspect lived in an asylum centre in the area, news outlet Der Spiegel reported. Other media reported the man had been treated for psychological problems.

Election frontrunner Friedrich Merz, head of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said he was deeply shocked by the violence. “This can’t go on,” he said in a statement. “We must and we will re-establish law and order.”

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, running second in the polls, posted on X: “Remigration now!” referring to her party’s highly controversial call for mass deportation of migrants and asylum seekers.

Train service in Aschaffenburg was briefly suspended as the suspect attempted to flee along the tracks, but police quickly detained him.

Scholz described the violent assault as an “inexplicable act of terror” that required “immediate consequences – it’s not enough just to talk”.

“I am sick of such acts of violence occurring every few weeks,” he said in a statement. “Of attackers who came to us seeking protection. Misplaced tolerance is completely inappropriate.”

Markus Söder, the conservative premier of Bavaria, where the attack occurred, called it a terrible day for his state and denounced a “cowardly and despicable act” in a post on X.

A second person who was detained was being treated as a witness, and there were no immediate indications that the assailant had accomplices.

It was the latest in a series of violent attacks in Germany, fuelling calls ahead of the 23 February election for tougher security measures.

One month ago, a Saudi doctor with reported far-right, anti-Muslim sympathies was arrested after a car-ramming rampage at a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg in which six people were killed and about 200 injured.

In June, a policeman died after he intervened in a knife attack allegedly by an Afghan man at an anti-Islam rally in Mannheim in the south-west.

And in August, three people were killed and eight injured in a mass stabbing at a street festival in the western city of Solingen. The attack was claimed by Islamic State, and the police arrested a Syrian suspect.

After that attack just weeks before three key state elections, Scholz’s government responded by tightening rules on knives in public places, limiting benefits for asylum seekers and moving to allow swifter deportation of those whose claims for asylum have been rejected.

Merz’s CDU has vowed to implement a harder line on immigration, including a de facto ban on new asylum requests at the border.