Mediator Qatar has announced that an agreement has been reached to release an Israeli civilian hostage and allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, easing the first major crisis of the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Qatar’s statement early on Monday said Hamas would hand over the civilian hostage, Arbel Yehoud, along with two other hostages before Friday. And on Monday, Israeli authorities will allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza.

The office of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement said the hostage release would take place on Thursday and confirmed that Palestinians would be able to move north on Monday.

Responding to news that they can begin moving north early on Monday, displaced families burst into cheers at shelters and tent encampments. “No sleep, I have everything packed and ready to go with the first light of day,” said Ghada, a mother of five.

“At least we are going back home, now I can say war is over and I hope it will stay calm,” she told Reuters via a chat app.

Under the ceasefire deal, Israel on Saturday was to begin allowing Palestinians to return to their homes in northern Gaza. But Israel put that on hold because of Yehoud, who Israel said should have been released on Saturday. Hamas accused Israel of violating the agreement.

The release of Yehoud and two other hostages is in addition to the one already set for next Saturday, when three hostages should be released.

In addition, Hamas in a statement said the militant group had handed over a list of required information about all hostages to be released in the ceasefire’s six-week first phase. The Israeli prime minister’s office confirmed it had received the list.

Thousands of Palestinians have gathered at Israeli roadblocks over the past two days, waiting to move north through the Netzarim corridor bisecting the territory, while local health officials on Sunday said Israeli forces fired on the crowd, killing two people and wounding nine.

US President Donald Trump meanwhile suggested that most of Gaza’s population be at least temporarily resettled elsewhere, including in Egypt and Jordan, to “just clean out” the war-ravaged territory. Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians rejected that, amid fears that Israel might never allow refugees to return.

Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said Palestinians would never accept such a proposal, “even if seemingly well-intentioned under the guise of reconstruction”. He said the Palestinians can rebuild Gaza “even better than before” if Israel lifts its blockade.

Israeli forces fired on the crowds on three occasions overnight and into Sunday, killing two people and wounding nine, including a child, according to Al-Awda hospital, which received the casualties.

Israel’s military in a statement said it fired warning shots at “several gatherings of dozens of suspects who were advancing toward the troops and posed a threat to them”.

Israel has pulled back from several areas of Gaza under the ceasefire, which came into effect last Sunday. The military has warned people to stay away from its forces, which still operate in a buffer zone inside Gaza along the border and in the Netzarim corridor.

Newly sworn-in US defense secretary Pete Hegseth spoke with Netanyahu on Sunday in the Pentagon chief’s first call with a foreign official.

“The secretary stressed that the United States is fully committed, under President Trump’s leadership, to ensure that Israel has the capabilities it needs to defend itself,” the Pentagon said in a statement, which did not specify why Hegseth spoke with Netanyahu instead of his direct counterpart Israel Katz.

In Lebanon, Israeli forces also opened fire on civilian protesters trying to reach their home villages, killing at least 22 people, including at least six women and a Lebanese army soldier, and injuring 124, according to Lebanese health officials. Israel accused the Lebanese army of violating key commitments under the ceasefire deal and the Israeli military warned civilians that returning home would “expose them to danger”.

Hours later on Sunday, the White House said that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to extend the deadline for Israeli troops to depart southern Lebanon until 18 February, after Israel requested more time to withdraw beyond the 60-day deadline stipulated in a ceasefire agreement that halted the Israel-Hezbollah war in late November.

Hamas freed four female Israeli soldiers on Saturday, and Israel released 200 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom were serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks. But Israel said civilian hostage Yehoud should have been released ahead of the soldiers.

Israel also accused Hamas of failing to provide details on the conditions of hostages set to be freed in the remaining five weeks of the ceasefire’s first phase.

Hamas said it had told mediators – the US, Egypt and Qatar – that Yehoud was alive and provided guarantees that she would be released.

The ceasefire is aimed at ending the 15-month war triggered by Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attack and freeing hostages still held in Gaza in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. About 90 hostages are still in Gaza, and Israeli authorities believe at least a third, and up to half, have died.

Itzik Horn, the father of hostages Iair and Eitan Horn, called any resumption of fighting “a death sentence for the hostages” and criticised government ministers who want the war to go on.

The ceasefire’s first phase runs until early March and includes the release of 33 hostages and nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. The second – and far more difficult – phase, has yet to be negotiated. Hamas has said it will not release the remaining hostages without an end to the war, while Israel has threatened to resume its offensive until Hamas is destroyed.

Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in the 7 October attack, mostly civilians, and abducted about 250. More than 100 were freed during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages and recovered the remains of dozens more, at least three of them mistakenly killed by Israeli forces. Seven have been freed in the latest ceasefire.

Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry. It does not say how many of the dead were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.

Israeli bombardment and ground operations have flattened wide swaths of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people. Many who have returned home since the ceasefire began have found only mounds of rubble.

With Reuters and Associated Press

Israeli forces have opened fire on people trying to return to their homes under ceasefire agreements for Lebanon and Gaza, killing more than 20 people in Lebanon and one Palestinian in Gaza.

Israeli authorities also ordered the UN agency for Palestinian refugees to vacate its hub offices in East Jerusalem by Thursday, before a total ban on operations in Israel that could jeopardise aid operations in Gaza at a critical time.

Two separate deals to halt fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza both included provisions for civilians displaced by fighting to start going back from Sunday. But Israel said it would not allow people to return to either area, accusing Hamas and the Lebanese army of violating key commitments under the two ceasefire deals.

The White House said late Sunday that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to extend the deadline for Israeli troops to depart southern Lebanon until 18 February, after Israel requested more time to withdraw beyond the 60-day deadline stipulated in the ceasefire agreement that halted the Israel-Hezbollah war in late November.

Mediator Qatar meanwhile announced in the early hours of Monday that a deal had been reached to release an Israeli civilian hostage and allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza.

A crowd of thousands had gathered late on Saturday near a main Israeli checkpoint in Gaza, the entrance to a broad military corridor that now cuts the strip in two. They were desperate to see if anything they owned had survived the fighting, or to escape refugee camps and temporary shelters, even if only for tents pitched in the ruins of their former homes.

On Sunday morning they were still waiting, after Israel accused Hamas of violating the terms of the ceasefire deal by delaying the release of hostage Arbel Yehoud. She had been expected to be freed on Saturday, when four soldiers were returned to Israel.

“The fate of more than a million people is linked to one person,” said Fadi al-Sinwar who had been displaced from northern Gaza earlier in the war and was waiting to go back. “See how valuable we are? We are worthless,” he told the Associated Press.

Hamas said it had provided proof Yehoud was alive and accused Israel of using her status as a “pretext” to break the terms of the deal.

In its statement Qatar said Hamas would hand over Yehoud, along with two other hostages before Friday while Israeli authorities would allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza from early on Monday.

In Lebanon, residents had joined civilian convoys before heading to border villages, despite warnings by the Israeli military that doing so would “expose them to danger”.

Israeli forces opened fire on protesters trying to reach villages, killing at least 22 people, including a Lebanese soldier and six women, and injuring 124, according to Lebanon’s ministry of health. Several people were also arrested by Israeli forces.

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that the Lebanese state had not yet “fully enforced” a deal to secure the south, meant to ensure that Hezbollah withdrew beyond the Litani River. The Israeli prime minister said Israel’s military presence would be extended beyond the 60 days initially agreed as a result.

Videos showed tense face-offs between Israeli soldiers and tanks and Lebanese crowds waving banners and chanting slogans. One woman stood a few metres from Israeli troops, who fired warning shots at the ground in front of her as she shouted: “Go back to your country! Go back to your family!”

Others, including women and children, hoisted Hezbollah flags in front of Israeli tanks and carried pictures of Hassan Nasrallah, the former Hezbollah leader killed by Israel in September.

Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese president, said on Sunday that “Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable” and that he was following up on the issue to ensure Lebanese citizens’ rights and dignity.

Lebanese soldiers accompanied civilian protesters in border villages, walking alongside them in an attempt to protect them from Israeli fire. In villages on the eastern portion of the border, Lebanese soldiers attempted to block residents from returning for their safety.

Sunday’s protests were the first time that many civilians had entered their villages along the Lebanese-Israeli border since Israel announced its operation in south Lebanon in September.

Satellite analysis showed that many villages along the border had been flattened by Israeli detonations. Israel said the attacks were to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure. Critics accused Israel of trying to create a buffer zone to protect its north, by making adjoining parts of Lebanon uninhabitable.

Returning residents said they were shocked at the level of destruction that greeted them when they checked on their homes. Rita Darwish, a resident of the western border village of Dheira, found her house in ruins on Sunday. The village was among the dozens that were subject to a series of controlled demolitions by Israeli forces.

“I didn’t see one building still standing. I almost wish I didn’t come back to see the village. There is no end to the sadness and pain,” Darwish said. She shared a video of her home, which had collapsed entirely, and her belongings, which were scattered among the rubble.

Residents of Dheira also returned to find the corpse of Ghadieh Sweid, an elderly woman who refused to leave the village despite Israel’s incursion in late September. Her body was found lying in her home. It is not known when she died.

Despite the ceasefire agreement, Israel has carried out more than 350 airstrikes across Lebanon, which it said were aimed at stopping Hezbollah activity. The Hezbollah MP Ali Fayyad said this week that if Israel did not withdraw by 26 January, that “it will mean the collapse of the ceasefire deal”.

Israel’s attempts to shut down Unrwa are likely to add to strains on the ceasefire deal, which includes a provision to increase aid into Gaza.

The agency is the largest provider of aid in the enclave, with a broad network of thousands of employees that cannot be easily replaced. Aid groups have said their work in Gaza will be far more challenging without it.

Unrwa also provide schooling, healthcare and even rubbish collection to Palestinian refugee camps across the West Bank and much of East Jerusalem, with few clear plans about how these vital services might be replaced if abruptly shuttered.

The ban on Unrwa, passed by Israel’s parliament, is due to come into force at the end of the month, the day after the agency had been ordered to vacate its offices in occupied East Jerusalem. Unrwa said it would not leave.

Unrwa said in a statement: “United Nations premises are inviolable and enjoy privileges and immunities under the United Nations charter,” adding that as a member state Israel was bound by these obligations.

“Claims from the Israeli authorities that Unrwa has no right to occupy the premises are without foundation. They promote anti-Unrwa rhetoric, placing the agency’s facilities and personnel at risk.”

There have been repeated attacks on the UN agency, particularly centred on their premises in East Jerusalem. Last May there was an arson attack on the premises, by a crowd that Unrwa said included armed men chanting ‘burn down the United Nations’.

Donald Trump’s proposal that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza to “just clean out” the whole strip has been rejected by US allies in the region and attacked as dangerous, illegal and unworkable by lawyers and activists.

The US president said he would like hundreds of thousands of people to move to neighbouring countries, either “temporarily or could be long-term”. Destinations could include Jordan, which already hosts more than 2.7 million Palestinian refugees, and Egypt, he added.

“I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say: ‘You know, it’s over.’”

Gaza’s population before the war was 2.3 million. Jordan, and Egypt have both made clear they will not take refugees from Gaza. On Sunday, the Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said his country’s rejection of any displacement of Palestinians was “firm and unwavering”.

Inside Gaza there is little sign that people who have endured over 15 months of fighting want to leave permanently in large numbers if a current ceasefire holds. Forced displacement of residents would be a war crime.

On Sunday thousands surged to Israeli military checkpoints, hoping to return to their homes in the north under the terms of a temporary ceasefire deal. Israel refused to let them pass, accusing Hamas of violating terms of the agreement.

“To ‘clean’ Gaza immediately after the war would in fact be a continuation of the war, through the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people,” said Hassan Jabareen, the director of Palestinian rights group Adalah.

There would be little trust in any offer of temporary relocation outside Gaza to allow reconstruction, given a history of repeated displacements starting with the Nakba, or catastrophe, of 1948 in which about 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland after the creation of Israel. At the time, many thought they were just leaving temporarily, and for decades held on to the keys for homes they hoped to reclaim.

Omer Shatz, a lecturer in international law at Sciences Po Paris and international criminal court (ICC) counsel, said Trump’s comments were a “call for ethnic cleansing” that echoed calls from extremist Israeli politicians and public figures dating to the start of the war.

“We are witnessing an extremely dangerous but natural continuation of the dehumanisation and genocidal calls that we have seen from the most extreme voices inside Israel,” he said.

In December Shatz detailed allegations of incitement to genocide by eight Israeli officials and public figures in a landmark case filed with the ICC. “This is evidenced by the fact that no one considers what the Gazans want, when they have barely started clearing out the rubble, finding the remains of their loved ones buried there,” he said.

The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) civil advocacy rights group said Trump’s suggestion was “delusional and dangerous nonsense” in a statement that also described it as a proposal for ethnic cleansing. “The Palestinian people are not willing to abandon Gaza, and neighbouring countries are not willing to help Israel ethnically cleanse Gaza,” it said.

Trump’s comments were welcomed by far-right Israeli politicians. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, described the relocation of Palestinians as a “great idea”, and said he would work with the prime minister and cabinet to create an “operational plan for implementation” as soon as possible.

Despite the stance of Smotrich and his allies, Trump’s suggestion went beyond current Israeli government policy, with the military poised to allow Gaza residents to return to homes in the north, said Prof Barak Medina, the chair in human rights law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It would also likely break international law.

“If the plan is to permanently relocate people, and especially if it is done by force, this is not acceptable,” Medina said. “It will be clearly illegal but also impractical: none of the neighbouring countries will be willing to accept people that are expelled from their homeland. It also contradicts the stated policy of the Israeli government.”

Before Trump took office, an official from his transition team said the administration was discussing relocating 2 million Palestinians during reconstruction if the current tentative ceasefire held.

In apparent tacit recognition of regional resistance to taking in more refugees, the official said one possible destination under consideration was Indonesia. Jakarta said it was not aware of any such plan.

Trump also said he would raise the prospect of Egypt as a destination for Palestinians from Gaza in a call scheduled with the president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. However, since the start of the war in 2023, Cairo has warned repeatedly against forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, and reinforced its border. Sisi has said any move to push Palestinians into Sinai would jeopardise relations with Israel, including the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries.

Hamas officials rejected Trump’s suggestion, saying people who survived the war would not leave during peacetime, as did stranded Palestinians on the roads leading to north Gaza. “If he thinks he will forcibly displace the Palestinian people [then] this is impossible, impossible, impossible,” said Magdy Seidam. “The Palestinian people firmly believe that this land is theirs, this soil is their soil.”

Mustafa Barghouti, a senior Palestinian politician, said he “completely rejected” Trump’s comments, the Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported. Barghouti warned against attempts at “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza, saying: “The Palestinian people are committed to remaining in their homeland.”

Trump has not laid out any vision for postwar governance in Gaza. While signing executive orders after his inauguration, he had discussed the territory as a real-estate prospect, praising its seaside location and weather. “I looked at a picture of Gaza, it’s like a massive demolition site,” he said on Tuesday, adding: “It’s gotta be rebuilt in a different way.”

Qatari officials who mediated the pause in fighting in Gaza described “any plan that would end with relocation or reoccupation” as a red line.

Trump’s new administration has promised “unwavering support” for Israel, and key positions have been taken by hardline supporters of its expansion. His ambassador to the UN said in confirmation hearings that she considered Israel had a “biblical right” to the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967 but most of the world recognises as the heart of a future Palestinian state.

On Saturday Trump said he had ordered the resumption of shipments of some of the largest bombs to Israel, a widely expected move. Biden had paused delivery of the 2,000lb (907kg) bombs owing to concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza caused by the powerful weapons, which can rip through thick concrete and metal over a large area.

When asked why he released the powerful bombs, Trump responded: “Because they bought them.”

Fighters affiliated with Syria’s new leaders have carried out 35 summary executions over 72 hours, mostly of Assad-era officers, a war monitor has said.

The authorities, installed by the rebel forces that toppled longtime president Bashar al-Assad last month, said they had carried out multiple arrests in the western Homs area over unspecified “violations”.

Official news agency Sana said the authorities on Friday accused members of a “criminal group” of using a security sweep to commit abuses against residents while “posing as members of the security services”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said on Sunday that “these arrests follow grave violations and summary executions that had cost the lives of 35 people over the past 72 hours.”

It also said that “members of religious minorities” had suffered “humiliations”.

Most of those executed are former officers in the toppled Assad government who had presented themselves in centres set up by the new authorities, according to the Britain-based monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria.

“Dozens of members of local armed groups under the control of the new Sunni Islamist coalition in power who participated in the security operations” in the Homs area “have been arrested”, the observatory said.

It added that these groups “carried out reprisals and settled old scores with members of the Alawite minority to which Bashar al-Assad belongs, taking advantage of the state of chaos, the proliferations of arms and their ties to the new authorities”.

The observatory listed “mass arbitrary arrests, atrocious abuse, attacks against religious symbols, mutilations of corpses, summary and brutal executions targeting civilians”, which it said showed “an unprecedented level of cruelty and violence”.

Civil Peace Group said there had been civilian victims in multiple villages in the Homs area during the security sweep.

The group “condemned the unjustified violations” including the killing of unarmed men.

Since seizing power, the new authorities have sought to reassure religious and ethnic minorities in Syria that their rights would be upheld.

Members of Assad’s Alawite minority have expressed fear of retaliation over abuses during his clan’s decades in power.

The head of a prominent US Jewish civil rights body said Elon Musk’s repeated fascist-style salute during Donald Trump’s inauguration could act as a spur for violent extremists.

“The salute itself should be enough to warrant condemnation and attention,” said Amy Spitalnick, adding that so should “the ways extremists see an action like this and take it as license for their own violent extremism”.

Spitalnick is chief executive of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a progressive non-profit founded in the 1940s and headquartered in New York City. On Monday, she watched with the rest of the world as Musk, the world’s richest person and a key Trump ally, spoke in Washington at the new president’s inaugural rally – and gave two fascist-style salutes.

Musk and his followers have sought to brush off the affair, but to Spitalnick, “there was nothing ambiguous” about the salutes, no matter how many attempts are made to describe them as “Roman” or anything else.

“There’s a long history here,” she said. “The fact that Nazi salutes are now a regular part of our political discourse is how I got involved with all of this. Before JCPA, I led the non-profit [Integrity First for America] that brought a lawsuit over [the far-right march in 2017 in] Charlottesville and against [the activist] Richard Spencer and a variety of other defendants who are clear neo-Nazi extremists.

“You know: ‘Gave the Roman salute’ is just the euphemistic way of saying ‘Nazi salute’.”

To Spitalnick, “most people today don’t have a full understanding of what the term ‘fascist’ even means, and so naming it for what it is – the Nazi salute – feels important right now.”

It’s also important, she says, not to dismiss the fallout as just another online spat, an attempt to distract opponents with outrageous behavior. Not only has Musk expressed support for Alternative für Deutschland, a German far-right party widely accused of Nazi-esque views, but he chose to throw out his right arm on day one of an administration that has thrown out executive orders advancing draconian policies on immigration, equality and more.

Musk’s salute found a warm welcome on far-right sites – much as when in November 2023 he endorsed a post on his own platform, X, that said Jewish people promote “hatred against whites” and support immigration by “hordes of minorities”. After condemnation from advertisers and the Biden White House, Musk apologized: saying it “might be literally the worst and dumbest post I’ve ever done”, he visited Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in Poland, in a show of contrition.

To Spitalnick, that apology rang hollow: “There was some engagement with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu [of Israel] and others that was used as attempted cover for not just his own embrace of antisemitism and extremism but the ways in which he’s let it run rampant on X, and given the ways in which it’s normalized, not just on social media but in our politics more broadly, we can’t excuse that. We can’t give it cover in any way.”

This time, Musk has not apologized. On Thursday, he continued a run of joking posts about his behavior at Trump’s parade with a series of Nazi-themed puns, including: “Some people will Goebbels anything down!”

Nor have all pressure groups condemned Musk’s salutes. The Anti-Defamation League, which fights antisemitism and which Musk previously threatened to sue, said merely that he “made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute”.

The JCPA “fundamentally disagrees”, Spitalnick said, “and we work closely with the ADL on a variety of fronts. They do critical work. And in this case, to me, there was no question what the intent, and even more importantly the impact, of this action was.

“It was at a presidential event, and [Musk] is someone who has a presidential appointment, an office in the executive building. He is not a random third party. He is a senior member of the Trump administration who gave a Nazi salute from the presidential podium. And there’s no world in which that doesn’t lead to more hate and extremism that will make Jews and so many other communities less safe.”

Musk is working for a president who reportedly praised and admired Hitler; whose own vice-president once called him “America’s Hitler”; and whose opponent in last year’s election, Kamala Harris, called “a fascist” and an admirer of dictators.

Spitalnick acknowledges that after an election featuring a flood of such invective, which Trump won regardless, the public may decide Musk’s apparent fondness for fascist-style salutes is not worthy of serious attention.

But she has fought the far right before – and won. The Charlottesville lawsuit was brought by nine plaintiffs who alleged physical harm and emotional distress arising from the Unite the Right rally, a pro-Trump protest in Virginia in August 2017. In November 2021, a jury awarded the plaintiffs $24m, later substantially reduced.

In the second Trump administration, Spitalnick says, the courts will again provide an arena for progressives to fight back.

She “worked in the New York attorney general’s office during the first Trump administration, and over and over again, our office and a number of other state AGs won cases against his administration, not just on constitutional grounds and administrative procedural grounds but on a variety of other grounds. The law is the law, and we have to fight like hell to protect the law and protect our justice system and our broader democratic norms.”

Amid outcry over Musk’s salutes, Spitalnick says, those who oppose the billionaire and his boss should remember “that when people feel like it’s just been a barrage of bad over the last few days, the response is just beginning”.

Colombian president Gustavo Petro blocked two US military aircraft carrying deported Colombians from landing in his country, prompting a feud with Donald Trump who enacted emergency tariffs and other retaliatory measures.

The US president responded fiercely in a post on his Truth Social network when he was informed that two repatriation flights from the US to Colombia had been denied landing clearance.

Trump wrote that flights had “a large number of Illegal Criminals” and said the landing-denial order was given by “Colombia’s Socialist President Gustavo Petro”, who he said “is already very unpopular amongst his people”.

He accused Petro of jeopardizing US national security and public safety and directed his administration “take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures”.

The measures include doubling tariffs on Colombian exports to the US to 50%; a ban and visa revocations on the Colombian government officials “and all Allies and Supporters”, and enhanced inspections of all Colombian nationals and cargo entering the US and what he called “national security grounds”.

“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump added. “We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!”

In response, Petro ordered an increase of import tariffs on goods from the US in retaliation to Donald Trump’s announcement of tariffs on Colombia and sanctions on Colombian government officials.

Petro, in a post on Twitter/X, said he ordered the “foreign trade minister to raise import tariffs from the U.S. by 25%”.

“American products whose price will rise within the national economy must be replaced by national production, and the government will help in this regard,” the post continued. The US is Colombia’s largest trading partner, with exports including crude petroleum, coffee and cut flowers.

The back-and-forth between the two leaders depicted the rising tensions between central and south US governments and Washington over US deportation flights. Mexico had also reportedly refused to receive a similar flight on Saturday, according to US officials cited by Reuters and NBC News.

In an early Sunday post on Twitter/X, Colombia’s leftist leader wrote: “A migrant is not a criminal and must be treated with the dignity that every human being deserves.

“That is why I ordered the return of US military planes carrying Colombian migrants,” Petro wrote, sharing a video of Brazilian deportees who had been flown out of the US on Friday, shackled at the wrists and ankles.

He added: “I cannot force migrants to remain in a country that does not want them. But if that country returns them, it must be with dignity and respect – for both them and our nation. In civilian planes, and without treating them like criminals, we will welcome our compatriots. Colombia deserves respect,” wrote the president.

Secretary of state Marco Rubio issued a statement accusing the Colombian leader of revoking the flights’ authorizations. “Colombian President Petro had authorized flights and provided all needed authorizations and then canceled his authorization when the planes were in the air,” the statement read.

“President Trump has made it clear that under his administration, America will no longer be lied to nor taken advantage of.”

In an earlier post, Petro had already written: “The US must establish a protocol for the dignified treatment of migrants before we accept their return.”

Petro’s office said in an earlier statement that the presidential plane would be made available to transport the migrants who had been scheduled to arrive on the military planes.

Petro’s comments add to the growing chorus of discontent in Latin America as the US president’s week-old administration starts mobilizing for mass deportations.

A flight carrying 88 deported Brazilians landed in Brazil, but not without triggering the first diplomatic clash between Trump’s new administration and Brazil’s leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The flight, which left Alexandria, Louisiana, on Friday, was destined for Belo Horizonte in south-eastern Brazil. However, due to technical issues, it made unscheduled stops in Panama, and Manaus in northern Brazil.

US officials reportedly sought to continue the journey, but the Brazilian government intervened, dispatching an air force aircraft to complete the final leg without handcuffs and leg irons. The deportees arrived in Belo Horizonte at about 9pm on Saturday.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Brazil’s ministry of foreign affairs announced it would file a formal “request for clarification” with the US government over the “degrading treatment” of the deportees – including six children, who reportedly were not shackled.

Such deportation flights have been ongoing since the first Trump administration signed an agreement with Brazil in 2017. Last year alone, 17 flights transported deportees from Alexandria to Belo Horizonte.

However, the Brazilian government claims that the use of handcuffs and leg irons “violates the terms of the agreement with the US, which requires the dignified, respectful, and humane treatment of deportees”.

Deportees told Brazilian media upon their arrival that they were assaulted and threatened by US agents during the flight.

An internal Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by the New York Times revealed that the Trump administration is rolling out a new series of stringent measures to expedite deportations. The directive grants Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers sweeping authority to fast-track removals.

Officials from the US state department, Pentagon, US Department of Homeland Security and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

The use of US military aircraft to carry out deportation flights is part of the Pentagon’s response to Trump’s national emergency declaration on immigration on Monday.

In the past, US military aircraft have been used to relocate individuals from one country to another, like during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

This has been the first time in recent memory that US military aircraft were used to fly migrants out of the country, one US official said.

Donald Trump has said he believes the US will take control of Greenland, after details emerged of a “horrendous” call in which he made economic threats to Denmark, which has said the territory is not for sale.

Speaking onboard Air Force One on Saturday, Trump said: “I think we’re going to have it,” and claimed that the Arctic island’s 57,000 residents “want to be with us”.

“I do believe Greenland, we’ll get because it really has to do with freedom of the world,” he said. “It has nothing to do with the United States, other than we’re the one that can provide the freedom.”

Since his re-election, Trump has reiterated his interest in acquiring the Arctic island, which is controlled by Denmark but has a large degree of autonomy.

His latest comments follow a “horrendous” phone call with the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, during which Trump was said to be aggressive and confrontational in his attempt to take over the island. Five current and former senior European officials told the Financial Times that the call had gone very badly. “It was horrendous,” said one of the sources. “It was a cold shower,” another told the paper. “Before, it was hard to take seriously, but I do think it is serious and potentially very dangerous.”

Trump was reported to have threatened Denmark, a Nato ally, with targeted tariffs, essentially taxes on Danish exports to the US.

The Danish prime minister’s office said it did “not recognise the interpretation of the conversation given by anonymous sources”.

Greenland’s prime minister, Múte Egede, who wants independence from Denmark, has said the territory is not for sale but is open for closer ties with the US in areas such as mining.

Writing on X on Saturday, the chair of the Danish parliament’s defence committee, Conservative MP Rasmus Jarlov, said Denmark would never hand over 57,000 of its citizens to become Americans against their will. “We understand that the US is a powerful country. We are not. It is up to the US how far they will go. But come what may. We are still going to say no.”

Strategically located between the US and Europe, Greenland is a potential geopolitical battleground, as the climate crisis worsens.

The rapid melting of the island’s huge ice sheets and glaciers has raised interest in oil drilling (although Greenland in 2021 stopped granting exploration licences) and mining for essential minerals including copper, lithium, cobalt and nickel.

Melting Arctic ice is also opening up new shipping routes, making alternatives to the Suez canal, while the Panama canal is seeing less traffic as a result of severe drought.

Since the cold war, Greenland is also home to a US military base and its ballistic missile early warning system.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, a former senior Danish official and expert on Greenland said that in 1917, the US president Woodrow Wilson gave Copenhagen assurances that the territory “will for ever be Danish”.

Tom Høyem, Denmark’s representative to Greenland between 1982 and 1987, also said that if Denmark were to sell Greenland, it would have to give the UK first refusal under the 1917 agreement.

The British government at that time demanded it should have the first right to buy Greenland, because of the island’s proximity to Canada, then a British dominion.

Earlier this month, Trump refused to rule out using economic or military coercion to take Greenland and the Panama Canal, which he also wants under US control.

Onboard Air Force One, Trump also reiterated his view that Canada should become a US state. “I view it as, honestly, a country that should be a state,” he told reporters. “Then, they’ll get much better treatment, much better care and much lower taxes and they’ll be much more secure.”

President Donald Trump and the prime minister, Keir Starmer, have spoken over the phone and agreed to “meet soon”.

The two leaders spoke for 45 minutes on Sunday in their first call since Trump’s inauguration. According to Downing Street’s readout of the call, they discussed trade and the economy and security in the Middle East.

Trump began by sending his condolences to the prime minister after the death of his brother Nick, who had cancer and had died on Boxing Day. Starmer thanked Trump “for his kind words and congratulated him on his inauguration,” Downing Street said.

“The Prime Minister paid tribute to President Trump’s role in securing the landmark ceasefire and hostages deal in Gaza. The president welcomed the release of Emily Damari and sent his best wishes to her family. They discussed the importance of working together for security in the Middle East.

“The two leaders stressed the importance of the close and warm ties between the UK and the US, and the President spoke of his respect and affection for the royal family. They agreed to meet soon and looked forward to further discussions then.”

During the call Starmer set out the steps his government is taking to slash regulation to allow more building and infrastructure development in the UK, such as his planning reforms and overhaul of the judicial review system.

It comes after Trump saying earlier in the day that he and Starmer have a “very good relationship”.

Speaking to reporters onboard Air Force One, Trump said he and Starmer “get along well” despite their divergent political views.

“He’s liberal, which is a bit different from me, but I think he’s a very good person and I think he’s done a very good job thus far,” Trump told the BBC.

“He’s represented his country in terms of philosophy … I may not agree with his philosophy, but I have a very good relationship with him.”

The US president was asked about his relationship with the British prime minister after responding to a question about the location of his first international visit, which he said “could be Saudi Arabia, it could be UK. Traditionally, it could be UK.”

He said the last time he travelled to Saudi Arabia, it was because the kingdom had agreed to buy billions of dollars’ worth of US merchandise. “If that offer were right, I’d do that again,” he said.

Trump and his wife, Melania, made a state visit to the UK in 2019 and were hosted by the late queen. Ministers are open to extending another invitation to Trump, who is a fan of the royal family. He spoke warmly of Prince William after meeting him at the reopening of the Notre Dame last month.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, suggested earlier this month that Starmer would visit Washington within weeks for talks with Trump.

The pair spoke by phone after Trump’s re-election in November. Downing Street said at the time that they agreed the relationship between the UK and US was “incredibly strong” and would “continue to thrive”.

Several diplomatic challenges for the US-UK relationship are looming, however, including Trump’s pledges to introduce trade tariffs and slash support for Ukraine.

It is also unclear whether Trump will approve the UK’s proposed deal to cede sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, where there is a joint US-UK military base, to Mauritius. Efforts to finalise the deal before Trump’s inauguration were halted to give the incoming president time to examine it.

Meanwhile, questions have been raised over whether Trump will accept the nomination of Peter Mandelson, the Labour peer and architect of New Labour, as the British ambassador to Washington.

There have also been concerns within government about the attacks on Starmer by the tech billionaire Elon Musk on his social media platform, X. Musk, who has called for the prime minister to be ousted, is a key ally and donor to Trump who has been chosen to run the newly formed US Department of Government Efficiency.

Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, and Jonathan Powell, his national security adviser, travelled to the US in December for talks with Trump’s White House team.

Trump’s comments came as a major poll suggested that voters favoured the UK moving closer to Europe on trade, rather than Washington. Starmer has argued that the UK does not have to choose between the US and Europe and that it is in the national interest to work with both.

In a speech last month, the prime minister said the UK would “never turn away” from its relationship with the US, despite the difficulties the new administration could pose, as it had been the “cornerstone” of security and prosperity for over a century.

US federal authorities have begun immigration raids in Chicago, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) statement confirmed on Sunday, just days after incoming “border czar” Tom Homan said officials were “reconsidering” after details leaked into the press.

In a statement, Ice said its agents, along with the FBI, ATF, DEA, CBP and the US Marshals Service, had begun conducting “enhanced targeted operations” in Chicago “to enforce US immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities”.

That comes as the Washington Post reported that Ice officials have been directed by Trump administration officials to increase daily arrests from a few hundred to 1,200 to 1,500.

The outlet said Trump was disappointed with the deportation campaign so far, citing four people with knowledge of the briefings, and Ice field offices should make 75 arrests per day and managers would be held accountable for missing quota targets.

Chicago, which Trump administration officials have warned would be ground zero for immigration enforcement actions, has been on edge over the initiation of deportation raids. Many of the regions’ estimated 400,000 undocumented people are believed to have stayed home to avoid possible interactions with federal law enforcement.

On Friday, federal officials approached a school on Chicago’s south-west side but initial reports that immigration and customs enforcement officers were involved proved incorrect.

The Secret Service later said its agents were investigating a threat and their investigation was related to a threat against a “protectee” in connection with TikTok.

Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders last week designed to reverse Biden-era immigration policies and declared a state of emergency at the US-Mexico border, allowing federal agencies to step up law enforcement actions, including deportations to anyone deemed a national security threat.

The justice department has directed federal prosecutors to investigate state or local officials perceived to be interfering with immigration policies. Under an executive directive, law enforcement are permitted to arrest people at locations such as schools and churches where immigration enforcement action was previously blocked.

“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. But deportation flights for some of those already arrested have met with resistance.

Colombia president Gustavo Petro initially said on Sunday that his country will not accept deportation flights from the US until the Trump administration provides a process to treat Colombian migrants with “dignity and respect”.

Trump said he’d been informed that two repatriation flights to Colombia had not been allowed to land in country, touching off a tariffs feud between the two leaders.

The US president said he could double emergency 25% tariffs on Columbia to 50%; ban travel to the US for Colombian government officials; and place enhanced customs and border protection inspections of all Colombian nationals and cargo coming into the US on national security grounds.

“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump added. “We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!”

In response, Petro ordered an increase of import tariffs on goods from the US in retaliation to Donald Trump’s announcement of tariffs on Colombia and sanctions on Colombian government officials.

Petro, in a post on Twitter/X, said he ordered the “foreign trade minister to raise import tariffs from the U.S. by 25%”.

While the administration’s migrant deportation efforts are focused on lawbreakers and people involved in gang activity, including members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and El Salvador’s Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13, officials have not ruled out detaining others who may be swept up in arrest actions.

Before Trump was inaugurated last week, unnamed officials said immigration officers would target more than 300 people, focusing on those with histories of violent crimes, in the Chicago area.

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported news of the operation, said Ice would send between 100 and 200 officers to carry out the operation. But an official with the new administration told Reuters that Chicago would not be a special focus.

Local and state Democratic leaders, including Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois governor JB Pritzker, have vowed to protect immigrant Chicagoans from any planned raids.

“Ripping those families apart, not acceptable to Americans,” Pritzker said after Trump took office. He said that noncitizens convicted of violent crimes should be deported, but that they should separated from law-abiding migrants.

“We’re going to stand up for them in the state of Illinois and do everything that we can to protect them,” Pritzer said. “They’re good for our state. They’re good for our economy. They’re paying taxes. These are law-abiding people who are stabilizing communities often.”

Them again. The “three-peat” is alive for the Kansas City Chiefs after they narrowly overcame the Buffalo Bills in the AFC championship game on Sunday to set up a potentially historic Super Bowl clash with the Philadelphia Eagles.

The finale on 9 February in New Orleans is a reprise of the Super Bowl two years ago that was won 38-35 by the Chiefs after they did just enough against spirited but slightly inferior opponents, thanks in large part to the inspirational play of quarterback Patrick Mahomes. The Bills know all too well what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that agonising experience.

Josh Allen is too good to be a nearly-man on a nearly-team, but the Bills star was once again second-best in the NFL’s most compelling quarterback rivalry. This was the fourth playoff meeting between Allen and Mahomes; the Kansas City man has now won all of them.

Buffalo repeatedly ran the ball, even on fourth downs, with Allen trying to force his way over the top of the roiling scrum in a bold tactic that was as much about asserting psychological domination as it was about securing a precious extra yard or two.

Already without injured starting safety Taylor Rapp, the Bills lost key cornerback Christian Benford in the first quarter after a clash of helmets with teammate Damar Hamlin while making a tackle. Benford was driven away in a cart after suffering his second concussion in a week. But the visitors’ resilience was not in doubt as they came from behind three times to take a one-point lead in the third quarter as a diving James Cook, hauled down, stretched out his right arm like Indiana Jones reaching for his fedora and planted the ball in the end zone to give Buffalo a 22-21 lead.

Kansas City, though, absorbed Buffalo’s best and kept on replying, the teams trading touchdowns. Sean McDermott’s team erased a seven-point deficit in the fourth, levelling the scores at 29-29 with a little over six minutes left to play.

Then a Harrison Butker field goal gave Kansas City a three-point lead with three minutes and 33 seconds to go. This was Allen’s chance to drive his team up the field for the winning touchdown, enhance his superstar status and conjure a victory that would take the Bills back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1994, when they lost the title game for the fourth time in a row. But on fourth down, backpedalling, he launched a desperate long throw that slipped narrowly beyond the grasp of Dalton Kincaid. There was no way back after that.

“We were down three with the ball in Josh’s hands and I felt really good about our chances, I really did, and give credit to their defense, they made the stops there,” McDermott said. “Overall the guys battled and just came up a little bit short tonight. Looks like it could have gone either way.”

He did concede that “one or two guys in the second half didn’t do a good enough job getting pressure on Mahomes,” leading to the Bills, who have never won a Super Bowl, being thwarted by Kansas City once again. “We’ve got to keep working to get over that hump, there’s no doubt about it,” McDermott said. “This is obviously a challenge for us; we’ll figure it out.”

The Bills lead the Chiefs 4-1 in their regular-season meetings since 2020. They beat them two months ago. But all that doesn’t seem to matter in the postseason. The Chiefs’ peculiar excellence is to meet and master the moment under the guidance of Mahomes, who completed 18 of his 26 passes for 245 yards and a touchdown. They are responsive rather than relentless, adjusting as the pressure level requires, answering challenges with a fluency that feels almost automatic but is really a function of Mahomes’ unflappable genius and the tactical astuteness of the head coach, Andy Reid.

Even when, as on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium, a player of Travis Kelce’s calibre was little involved. No problem: the rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy, selected with the 28th pick in the 2024 draft after the Chiefs traded picks with the Bills, stepped up and stood out.

No team has won three consecutive Super Bowls. But it’s a history-making opportunity the Chiefs earned in their seventh successive AFC championship appearance, a grinding victory that puts them on the brink of even more glory.

Them again. The “three-peat” is alive for the Kansas City Chiefs after they narrowly overcame the Buffalo Bills in the AFC championship game on Sunday to set up a potentially historic Super Bowl clash with the Philadelphia Eagles.

The finale on 9 February in New Orleans is a reprise of the Super Bowl two years ago that was won 38-35 by the Chiefs after they did just enough against spirited but slightly inferior opponents, thanks in large part to the inspirational play of quarterback Patrick Mahomes. The Bills know all too well what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that agonising experience.

Josh Allen is too good to be a nearly-man on a nearly-team, but the Bills star was once again second-best in the NFL’s most compelling quarterback rivalry. This was the fourth playoff meeting between Allen and Mahomes; the Kansas City man has now won all of them.

Buffalo repeatedly ran the ball, even on fourth downs, with Allen trying to force his way over the top of the roiling scrum in a bold tactic that was as much about asserting psychological domination as it was about securing a precious extra yard or two.

Already without injured starting safety Taylor Rapp, the Bills lost key cornerback Christian Benford in the first quarter after a clash of helmets with teammate Damar Hamlin while making a tackle. Benford was driven away in a cart after suffering his second concussion in a week. But the visitors’ resilience was not in doubt as they came from behind three times to take a one-point lead in the third quarter as a diving James Cook, hauled down, stretched out his right arm like Indiana Jones reaching for his fedora and planted the ball in the end zone to give Buffalo a 22-21 lead.

Kansas City, though, absorbed Buffalo’s best and kept on replying, the teams trading touchdowns. Sean McDermott’s team erased a seven-point deficit in the fourth, levelling the scores at 29-29 with a little over six minutes left to play.

Then a Harrison Butker field goal gave Kansas City a three-point lead with three minutes and 33 seconds to go. This was Allen’s chance to drive his team up the field for the winning touchdown, enhance his superstar status and conjure a victory that would take the Bills back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1994, when they lost the title game for the fourth time in a row. But on fourth down, backpedalling, he launched a desperate long throw that slipped narrowly beyond the grasp of Dalton Kincaid. There was no way back after that.

“We were down three with the ball in Josh’s hands and I felt really good about our chances, I really did, and give credit to their defense, they made the stops there,” McDermott said. “Overall the guys battled and just came up a little bit short tonight. Looks like it could have gone either way.”

He did concede that “one or two guys in the second half didn’t do a good enough job getting pressure on Mahomes,” leading to the Bills, who have never won a Super Bowl, being thwarted by Kansas City once again. “We’ve got to keep working to get over that hump, there’s no doubt about it,” McDermott said. “This is obviously a challenge for us; we’ll figure it out.”

The Bills lead the Chiefs 4-1 in their regular-season meetings since 2020. They beat them two months ago. But all that doesn’t seem to matter in the postseason. The Chiefs’ peculiar excellence is to meet and master the moment under the guidance of Mahomes, who completed 18 of his 26 passes for 245 yards and a touchdown. They are responsive rather than relentless, adjusting as the pressure level requires, answering challenges with a fluency that feels almost automatic but is really a function of Mahomes’ unflappable genius and the tactical astuteness of the head coach, Andy Reid.

Even when, as on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium, a player of Travis Kelce’s calibre was little involved. No problem: the rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy, selected with the 28th pick in the 2024 draft after the Chiefs traded picks with the Bills, stepped up and stood out.

No team has won three consecutive Super Bowls. But it’s a history-making opportunity the Chiefs earned in their seventh successive AFC championship appearance, a grinding victory that puts them on the brink of even more glory.

South Korea’s prosecutors indicted the impeached president, Yoon Suk Yeol, on Sunday on charges of leading an insurrection with his short-lived imposition of martial law on 3 December, the main opposition party said.

The charges are unprecedented for a South Korean president, and if convicted, Yoon could face years in prison for his shock martial law decree, which sought to ban political and parliamentary activity and control the media.

His move set off a wave of political upheaval in Asia’s fourth-largest economy, a top US ally, with the prime minister also impeached and suspended from power and a number of top military officials indicted for their roles in the alleged insurrection.

The prosecutors’ office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The indictment was also reported by South Korean media.

Anti-corruption investigators last week recommended charging the jailed Yoon, who was impeached by parliament and suspended from his duties on 14 December.

A former top prosecutor himself, Yoon has been in solitary confinement since 15 January, when he become the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested, after days of defiant, armed standoff between his security detail and arresting officials.

Over the weekend a court twice refused prosecutors’ request to extend his detention while they conducted further investigations, but with the charges they had again requested that he be kept in custody, media reports said.

Yoon’s lawyers had urged the prosecutors to release him immediately from what they called illegal custody.

Insurrection is one of the few criminal charges from which a South Korean president does not have immunity. It is punishable by life imprisonment or death, although South Korea has not executed anyone in decades.

“The prosecution has decided to indict Yoon Suk Yeol, who is facing charges of being a ringleader of insurrection,” the Democratic party spokesperson, Han Min-soo, told a press conference. “The punishment of the ringleader of insurrection now begins finally.”

Yoon and his lawyers argued at a constitutional court hearing last week in his impeachment trial that he had never intended to fully impose martial law, and meant the measures only as a warning to break political deadlock.

In parallel with his criminal process, the top court will determine whether to remove Yoon from office or reinstate his presidential powers, with 180 days to decide.

South Korea’s opposition-led parliament impeached Yoon on 14 December, making him the second conservative president to be impeached in the country.

Yoon rescinded his martial law after about six hours after lawmakers – confronting soldiers in parliament – voted down the decree. Soldiers equipped with rifles, body armour and night-vision equipment were seen entering the parliament building through smashed windows during the dramatic confrontation.

If Yoon were removed from office, a presidential election would be held within 60 days.

Two Vincent van Gogh paintings created in the months after the Dutch artist mutilated his ear will be exhibited in London for the first time.

The works, The Courtyard of the Hospital at Arles and The Ward in the Hospital at Arles, would appear at the Courtauld Gallery from next month, the Art Newspaper reported.

The paintings are the only works created by the post-impressionist of the hospital in Arles in southern France in which he stayed.

The pieces were bought in the 1920s by the Swiss collector Oskar Reinhart and upon his death became part of his 200-strong collection in Winterthur, near Zurich, which until recently had been prohibited from lending.

The museum in Reinhart’s villa, Am Römerholz, opened to the public in 1970 but is temporarily closed for building work, so the paintings are to go out on loan to the Courtauld for the exhibition Goya to Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Oskar Reinhart Collection from 14 February to 26 May.

The pair of Van Goghs were started in the second half of April 1889, at a time when the artist was sleeping in the hospital but allowed to paint during the day.

The exhibition will open with a selection of major paintings by artists who preceded the impressionists, including Goya’s highly charged Still Life With Three Salmon Steaks, Géricault’s moving A Man Suffering from Delusions of Military Rank and Courbet’s provocative The Hammock.

Last year, the Courtauld narrowly escaped a fire in the wider Somerset House complex in central London.

The gallery, home to works including Van Gogh’s 1889 self-portrait showing him with a bandaged ear, was not directly impacted by the fire and was able to reopen shortly after the blaze was brought under control.

A 73-year-old British sailor is lost at sea and his yacht has been found “eviscerated” off the French coast in stormy weather.

A French air force helicopter was dispatched to find the man after he set off his distress beacon at 3pm on Saturday, approximately 50 miles (80km) west of Lacanau in south-west France.

The helicopter arrived to find his 12-metre yacht, the Tiger PA, “eviscerated” in the Atlantic, according to Atlantic Maritime Prefecture, a French government organisation.

Two divers were then winched down to the wreckage, where they discovered an empty raft.

A Portuguese cargo ship and a Spanish hospital ship were diverted to the area and mobilised to begin a search to find the sailor, whose identity is not yet known, alongside the French navy.

After several hours, the search was called off at 1.30am on Sunday “due to a lack of new information”, the prefecture said.

French authorities first received an alert from their British counterparts about the yacht on Friday evening, which was flying under an American flag, because it had stopped responding to radio messages.

A nearby Portuguese ship then managed to establish radio contact after several attempts, according to the prefecture.

A 73-year-old man of British nationality reportedly indicated that he was alone on board, safe and continuing on his way.

French news channels have reported gusts of up to 98mph in the Atlantic during Storm Herminia, which hit parts of France this weekend straight after Storm Éowyn.

A 73-year-old British sailor is lost at sea and his yacht has been found “eviscerated” off the French coast in stormy weather.

A French air force helicopter was dispatched to find the man after he set off his distress beacon at 3pm on Saturday, approximately 50 miles (80km) west of Lacanau in south-west France.

The helicopter arrived to find his 12-metre yacht, the Tiger PA, “eviscerated” in the Atlantic, according to Atlantic Maritime Prefecture, a French government organisation.

Two divers were then winched down to the wreckage, where they discovered an empty raft.

A Portuguese cargo ship and a Spanish hospital ship were diverted to the area and mobilised to begin a search to find the sailor, whose identity is not yet known, alongside the French navy.

After several hours, the search was called off at 1.30am on Sunday “due to a lack of new information”, the prefecture said.

French authorities first received an alert from their British counterparts about the yacht on Friday evening, which was flying under an American flag, because it had stopped responding to radio messages.

A nearby Portuguese ship then managed to establish radio contact after several attempts, according to the prefecture.

A 73-year-old man of British nationality reportedly indicated that he was alone on board, safe and continuing on his way.

French news channels have reported gusts of up to 98mph in the Atlantic during Storm Herminia, which hit parts of France this weekend straight after Storm Éowyn.

Alexander Lukashenko was firmly on track to win a seventh five-year term as Belarusian president in an election western governments have rejected as a sham.

An exit poll broadcast on state television projected that Lukashenko would take 87.6% of the vote. The close ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had earlier defended his jailing of dissidents and declared: “I don’t give a damn about the west.”

The US and the EU said in the run-up to the election that it could not be free or fair because independent media are banned in Belarus and all leading opposition figures have been jailed or forced to flee abroad.

The electoral commission said turnout was 85.7% in the election, in which 6.9 million people were eligible to vote.

“The people of Belarus had no choice. It is a bitter day for all those who long for freedom and democracy,” said Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister.

The Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski expressed mock surprise that “only” 87.6% of the electorate appeared to have backed Lukashenko. “Will the rest fit inside the prisons?” he posted.

Lukashenko – a 70-year-old former collective farm boss – suppressed mass protests against his rule in 2020 and allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory to invade Ukraine in 2022. The opposition and the west said Lukashenko had rigged the last presidential vote and authorities cracked down on demonstrations, with more than a thousand people still jailed.

All of Lukashenko’s political opponents are either in prison – some held incommunicado – or in exile along with tens of thousands of Belarusians who have fled since 2020.

Lukashenko said on Sunday that his opponents were behind bars or abroad out of choice. “Some chose prison, some exile,” he said. “If it is prison then it’s those who opened their mouths too widely.”

Most people in Belarus have only distant memories of life in the landlocked country before Lukashenko, who was 39 when he won the first national election in Belarus since it gained independence from the Soviet Union.

Criticism of the strongman is banned in Belarus. Most people Agence France-Presse spoke to in Minsk and other towns voiced support for him, but were still fearful of giving their surnames.

The other candidates running against Lukashenko were picked to give the election an air of democracy and few voters knew who they were.

“I will vote for Lukashenko because things have improved since he became president [in 1994],” said Alexei, a 42-year-old farmer in the tiny village of Gubichi in south-eastern Belarus who earns about €300 (£250) a month selling milk. Like many in Belarus, he is worried about the war in neighbouring Ukraine. In 2022, Russian troops entered Ukraine from several directions, including from Belarus. The following year, Russia sent tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, which borders Nato countries.

Alexei said he wished “for there not to be a war”.

The government’s narrative has been to say that Lukashenko guaranteed peace and order in Belarus, accusing 2020 street protest leaders of sowing chaos.

The UN estimates that 300,000 Belarusians have left the country since 2020 – mostly to Poland and Lithuania – out of a population of nine million. They were not able to cast ballots, with Belarus having scrapped voting from abroad.

The exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya denounced the vote as a “farce” in a January interview with AFP. Her husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, has been held incommunicado for almost a year. She urged dissidents to prepare for an opportunity to change their country but conceded “it was not the moment”.

While Lukashenko once carefully balanced his relations between the EU and Moscow, since 2020 he has become politically and economically reliant on Russia.

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, on Saturday called the election a “sham” and said “Lukashenko doesn’t have any legitimacy”.

Known as “Europe’s last dictator” – a nickname he embraces – Lukashenko has retained much of the Soviet Union’s traditions and infrastructure, with the country’s economy largely state-planned.

Lukashenko scrapped Belarus’s white-red-white flag in the 1990s and it has since become the symbol of the opposition.

• Russia on Sunday claimed its troops had captured Velyka Novosilka, a strategically important town in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine. The statement could not be independently verified, and Ukraine’s 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade said its troops had only strategically withdrawn from certain parts of Velyka Novosilka to avoid encirclement. “This does not mean that we have completely left the city, the fighting in Velyka Novosilka continues. All actions are aimed at minimising our own losses and maximum damage to the enemy.” The brigade said the withdrawal would make it topographically difficult for Russians to advance by making the river an obstacle. “The enemy … will have no peace, any movement is cut off by shells and drones.”

• Russia also claimed it troops had taken control of the settlement of Zelene in Donetsk region. There was no independent confirmation. Zelene lies south of Pokrovsk where Russia has incurred mass casualties in a grinding campaign against Ukrainian defenders. In its latest Russia-Ukraine war assessment, the Institute for the Study of War said: “Russian forces recently advanced near Toretsk, Pokrovsk, Kurakhove, and Velyka Novosilka.”

• Ukraine’s military said it destroyed 200 Shahed drones in an attack on warehouses in the Oryol region of Russia. “Concrete structures were hit, where thermobaric warheads, which are used to equip drones, were stored. There is information about a strong secondary detonation.”

• Ukraine on Sunday claimed a further successful drone strike on the Ryazan oil refinery south-east of Moscow. It was the second attack on the same site in less that two weeks. Kyiv said the refinery is one of the four largest in Russia and is used by Moscow’s air force. “Explosions and a fire were recorded in the targeted area,” it said. The Russian regional governor in Ryazan – Pavel Malkov – said Russian air defence had “destroyed” drones over the region and that authorities were assessing the damage. Russian officials routinely falsely claim that all attacking drones were destroyed and any damage was only caused by falling debris.

• An undersea fibre optic cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged on Sunday, likely as a result of external influence, Latvia said, prompting Nato to deploy patrol ships to the area and triggering a sabotage investigation by Swedish authorities. Nato was coordinating military ships and aircraft under its recently deployed mission, dubbed Baltic Sentry. The effort follows a string of incidents in which power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines have been damaged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

JD Vance on Sunday tried to offer a rationale to a record number of executive orders and controversial policy shifts enacted by Donald Trump during the first five days of the latter man’s second presidency, claiming without evidence that the moves “accomplished more than Joe Biden” and his administration did in the last four years.

But one of those moves – Trump’s blanket pardons for about 1,500 people who attacked the US Capitol in early 2021 – was labeled a “mistake” by a prominent fellow Republican of the president and Vance: US senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who feared the clemency could end up spurring more violence.

In an interview on CBS’ Face the Nation, the vice-president addressed Trump’s unconditional pardons of more those who attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 in a desperate attempt to keep him in office after he lost the presidency to Biden. That included some convicted of violent offenses that Vance – in an interview on Fox News just two weeks earlier – maintained should be omitted from such pardons.

Vance claimed the new administration had looked at each case individually since then and concluded “there was a massive denial of due process of liberty … and constitutional rights”, even though Capitol attack participants did not do “everything perfectly that day”.

“The president believes that,” Vance said, despite undisputed video evidence supporting many of the convictions of Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol. “I believe that, and I think he made the right decision.”

Vance also accused the US justice department that Merrick Garland led during Biden’s presidency of being “politically motivated” in his prosecution of those who assailed the Capitol, though a bipartisan Senate reported linked that attack on Congress to several deaths, including suicides of traumatized law enforcement officers.

In a separate interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Graham said Trump had the legal authority to issue them. But Graham said he feared there would be “more violence” as a result.

“Pardoning the people who went into the Capitol and beat up a police officer violently I think was a mistake, because it seems to suggest that’s an OK thing to do,” Graham said.

Graham made it a point to criticize Biden for pardoning family members in the waning days and hours of his presidency, including son Hunter Biden for convictions of lying on gun ownership application forms as well as tax evasion.

“I think most Americans, if this continues, to see this as an abuse of the pardon power, that we’ll revisit the pardon power of the president if this continues,” Graham added. “But as to pardoning violent people who beat up cops, I think that’s a mistake.”

On CBS, Vance offered a preview of his role in the administration: to stump for Trump’s rapid rollout of orders and provisions stemming from key campaign promises that are already facing legal challenges.

Vance defended Trump’s order to allow immigration and customs enforcement (Ice) officers to enter schools and churches to arrest undocumented immigrants. “If you have a person who is convicted of a violent crime, whether they’re an illegal immigrant or a non-illegal immigrant, you have to go and get that person to protect the public safety,” Vance said. “That’s not unique to immigration.”

Trump’s acting Icedirector, Tom Homan, echoed Vance in a separate appearance on Sunday on ABC News’ This Week. “Ice officers should have discretion to decide if a national security threat or a public safety threat that’s in one of these facilities – then it should be an option … to make the arrest,” Homan said.

“The message needs to be clear. There’s consequences … entering the country illegally.”

Trump came under thinly veiled criticism one day after his inauguration when Washington DC Episcopalian bishop Mariann Budde asked the new administration to “have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now”.

The US conference of Catholic bishops later condemned the administration’s immigration arrest orders. Vance said that, as “a practicing Catholic, I was actually heartbroken by that statement”.

He argued that it is lucrative for the Catholic church to “help resettle illegal immigrants” and said he hoped the conference of bishops would “do better”.

Vance on CBS also addressed criticism that US tech leaders, including some of wealthiest men in the world who had donated to Trump’s inauguration, were placed prominently at the 20 January ceremony. Some have suggested that the new administration may give tech companies a break on anti-trust concerns.

Vance has previously said Google and Facebook are too big and need to be broken up.

Vance on Sunday said the tech leaders, including Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, did not have as good seating as “my mom and a lot of other people who were there to support us” and had not given $1m.

“We believe fundamentally that big tech does have too much power, and there are two ways they can go about this. They can either respect America’s – Americans’ constitutional rights, they can stop engaging in censorship, and if they don’t, you can be absolutely sure that Donald Trump’s leadership is not going to look too kindly on them,” Vance said. “They’re very much on notice.”

Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan asked how any of Trump’s early actions since retaking the Oval Office would lower consumer prices, as his campaign repeatedly promised before he defeated Kamala Harris – Vance’s predecessor as vice-president – in November’s election.

Vance countered that the first five days of Trump’s second presidency had been an “incredible breakneck pace of activity”.

“So, grocery prices aren’t going to come down?” Brennan asked.

“Prices are going to come down, but it’s going to take a little bit of time, right?” Vance replied. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

In a 7,000ft-high marshy spot in the cold, rugged eastern Sierra mountains, two groups of mammals scurried around at night. One was going about their normal nocturnal routine of hunting worms. The other was hoping for a glimpse of an elusive creature: the Mount Lyell shrew, the only known California mammal never photographed alive.

The three young student scientists faced a tight timeline. They baited 150 pitfall traps – small cups dug into the earth to catch wandering creatures – with cat food and mealworms and monitored them across a 600ft area, checking each trap every two hours for any signs of their goal. They slept no more than two hours at a time. Shrews have such a fast metabolism that they die in traps quickly, one of the reasons this species had never been photographed or studied live.

Despite initial skepticism, they caught five shrews within the first 24 hours, working mostly during the night and early morning. They filmed and photographed the tiny creatures, and clipped tiny flaps of skin from the animals’ ears for genetic testing later to confirm they’d caught the right species.

When he held one, Prakrit Jain, a 20-year-old student at University of California, Berkeley, and intern at the California Academy of Sciences, noticed how remarkably small and light the animals were. Less than 4in long, the lightest shrew was just a gram-and-a-half – about the weight of two paper clips. “It was very different from holding a mouse or a hamster,” he says. “These shrews are almost the size of an insect.”

First described a century ago, the tiny burrowing animal hadn’t been seen in 20 years – and virtually nothing was known about it. The Mount Lyell shrew lives in a small range in the high Sierra Nevadas, and is considered a species of special concern, due to threats from the climate crisis to their high-altitude homes. But there have been no field studies of the animals, and the only specimens ever gathered have been dead.

“It was kind of a crazy idea,” says Vishal Subramnyan, a student at UC Berkeley and a content creator at the California Academy of Sciences. “California is one of the most well-studied places in the world, and yet there’s a mammal species in California that’s never been photographed alive. That was shocking to us.”

The 22-year-old teamed up with Jain and his friend Harper Forbes, 22, a student at the University of Arizona. With only a month before the snows arrived in the winter, they had to move fast to put together an expedition. The group received a permit from California’s department of fish and wildlife and headed east from the Berkeley campus in early November. (As high schoolers, Jain and Forbes had previously discovered two new-to-science scorpions in the Bay Area.)

Having photos and video of the shrew helps scientists know more about the species – and can help efforts to conserve it. Mammal specimens are often studied as skin or skeleton, or a whole animal preserved in alcohol. While those are useful to preserve animals for future study, they don’t capture the way the animal appears in real life – because the skin loses its shape, and the preserved specimens in alcohol lose the color. “Because we were able to get good photos of a few of these species, it becomes easier to identify these things in the field,” says Jain.

Shrews are a group of species that are very overlooked, but there’s an extraordinary diversity within the group, Jain says. “Many, many species of shrew are known from only a single specimen, or only known from a single locality, or have not been seen in decades,” he says. “So if we struggle to find a shrew in a place like California – one of the best studied places in the world – you can only imagine how the shrew diversity of places like south-east Asia and central Africa, for instance, can just be so under-appreciated.”

Because they have such a high metabolism, shrews eat nearly constantly. They can consume their body weight or more of insects every single day – meaning in their habitats, they can have a big impact on small insects. “There’s few other animals I can think of in the ecosystems where shrews live that have a similarly high impact on the insect numbers simply just by consuming them,” Jain says.

As the climate warms, the animals are squeezed into a smaller area to maintain their habitat. The shrew probably arrived in California during the last ice age, and as the ice receded it settled into a high mountain area. But studies estimate that 50% to 90% of the Mount Lyell shrew’s habitat will disappear by 2080 – putting the species in serious danger. They are also eaten by larger nocturnal predators such as owls, hawks, snakes and weasels.

Photos can not only catalog biodiversity in a rapidly changing planet, they can also help the public understand and foster a connection with an animal. “If we look at the extinction crisis and the types of animals it’s impacting, a lot of animals are disappearing without any documentation,” says Subramnyan. “An animal like the Mount Lyell shrew, if it was not photographed or researched, could have just quietly disappeared due to climate change, and we’d have no idea about it at all.”