The race for domination in artificial intelligence was blown wide open on Monday after the launch of a Chinese chatbot wiped $1tn from the leading US tech index, with one investor calling it a “Sputnik moment” for the world’s AI superpowers.

Investors punished global tech stocks on Monday after the emergence of DeepSeek, a competitor to OpenAI and its ChatGPT tool, shook faith in the US artificial intelligence boom by appearing to deliver the same performance with fewer resources.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed down 3.1%, with the drop at one point wiping more than $1tn off the index from its closing value of $32.5tn last week, as investors digested the implications of the latest AI model developed by DeepSeek.

Nvidia, a leading maker of the computer chips that power AI models, was overtaken by Apple as the most valuable listed company in the US after its shares fell 17%, wiping nearly $600bn off its market value. Google’s parent company lost $100bn and Microsoft $7bn.

Nvidia’s fall was the biggest in US stock market history.

The DeepSeek AI assistant also topped the Apple app store in the US and UK over the weekend, above OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

US President Donald Trump said DeepSeek should be a “wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win”.

He said he had been “reading about China” and its companies, in particular one that had come up with a “faster method of AI and [a] much less expensive method”. “That’s good because you don’t have to spend as much money. I view that as a positive, as an asset,” Trump said.

DeepSeek claims to have used fewer chips than its rivals to develop its models, making them cheaper to produce and raising questions over a multibillion-dollar AI spending spree by US companies that has boosted markets in recent years.

The company developed bespoke algorithms to build its models using reduced-capability H800 chips produced by Nvidia, according to a research paper published in December.

Nvidia’s most advanced chips, H100s, have been banned from export to China since September 2022 by US sanctions. Nvidia then developed the less powerful H800 chips for the Chinese market, although they were also banned from export to China last October.

DeepSeek’s success at building an advanced AI model without access to the most cutting-edge US technology has raised concerns about the efficacy of Washington’s attempts to stymie China’s hi-tech sector.

Marc Andreessen, a leading US venture capitalist, compared the launch of DeepSeek’s R1 model last Monday to a pivotal moment in the US-USSR space race, posting on X that it was AI’s “Sputnik moment” – referring to when the Soviet Union astounded its cold war rival by launching a satellite into orbit.

According to DeepSeek, its R1 model outperforms OpenAI’s o1-mini model across “various benchmarks”, while research by Artificial Analysis puts it above models developed by Google, Meta and Anthropic in terms of overall quality.

The company was founded by the entrepreneur Liang Wenfeng, who runs a hedge fund, High-Flyer Capital, that uses AI to identify patterns in stock prices. Liang reportedly started buying Nvidia chips in 2021 to develop AI models as a hobby, bankrolled by his hedge fund. In 2023, he founded DeepSeek, which is based in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou.

The company is purely focused on research rather than commercial products – the DeepSeek assistant and underlying code can be downloaded for free, while DeepSeek’s models are also cheaper to operate than OpenAI’s o1.

In an interview with Chinese media, Liang said “AI should be affordable and accessible to everyone”. Liang also said that the gap between US and Chinese AI was only one to two years.

The DeepSeek development raises doubts over the necessity for hefty investment in AI infrastructure such as chips and the market-leading role of US tech companies in AI, which in turn threatens to put American tech sector valuations under pressure.

DeepSeek claims R1 cost $5.6m to develop, compared with much higher estimates for western-developed models, although experts have cautioned that may be an underestimate. Last year Dario Amodei, the co-founder of leading AI firm Anthropic, put the current cost of training advanced models at between $100m and $1bn.

Analysts at US investment bank Goldman Sachs raised the alarm over AI spending last year by publishing a note in June with the title “Gen AI: too much spend, too little benefit?”

It asked if a $1tn investment in AI over the next few years will “ever pay off”, voicing concerns about a return on spending that may have been crystalised by DeepSeek.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 fell on Monday, and major European technology stocks were down. The Dutch chipmaker ASML slid by 7%, while Germany’s Siemens Energy, which provides hardware for AI infrastructure, was down nearly 20%, and France’s digital automation company Schneider Electric fell by 9.5%.

It followed losses in Asia, where the Japanese chip companies Disco and Advantest – a supplier to Nvidia – suffered declines of 1.8% and 8.6% respectively.

Richard Hunter, the head of markets at the platform Interactive Investor, said: “It will almost certainly put the cat among the pigeons as investors scramble to assess the potential damage it could have on a burgeoning industry, which has powered much of the gain seen in the main indices over the last couple of years.

“The larger question has suddenly become whether the hundreds of billions of dollar investment in AI needs re-evaluation.”

Dr Andrew Duncan, the director of science & innovation at the UK’s Alan Turing Institute, said the DeepSeek development was “really exciting” because it “democratised access” to advanced AI models by being an open source developer, meaning it makes its models freely available – a path also followed by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta with its Llama model.

“Academia and the private sector will be able to play around and explore with it and use it as a launching,” he said.

Duncan added: “It demonstrates that you can do amazing things with relatively small models and resources. It shows that you can innovate without having the massive resources, say, of OpenAI.”

DeepSeek said its newly popular app was hit with a cyber-attack on Monday, which forced the Chinese company to temporarily limit registrations. The attack came after the DeepSeek AI assistant app skyrocketed to the top of Apple’s App Store, becoming the highest rated free app in the US, and climbed high in Google’s Play Store.

On its status page, DeepSeek said it started to investigate the issue late Monday night Beijing time. After about two hours of monitoring, the company said it was the victim of a “large-scale malicious attack”. While DeekSeek limited registrations, existing users were still able to log on as usual. The app is now allowing registrations again.

DeepSeek’s app is an AI assistant similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. The news of the app’s ascendency in the US – and ability to edge out American rivals for a fraction of the cost – sent technology stocks tumbling on Monday. Nvidia, the AI chip maker and most valuable US company, saw its stocks plummet by 13.6% in early trading, wiping out some $500bn in market capitalization.

Some tech investors were impressed at how quickly DeepSeek was able to create an AI assistant that nearly equals Google’s and OpenAI’s for roughly $5m while other AI companies spend billions for the same results, particularly with China under strict chip export controls that limit DeepSeek’s access to computational power. The model’s low-budget success could threaten the US’s lead in the AI market.

“Deepseek R1 is AI’s Sputnik moment,” the investor Marc Andreessen wrote on X. Carrying the “Sputnik” theme, Vivek Ramaswamy posted: “Sputnik-like moments are a good thing. We don’t need to freak out, we just need to wake up.” Ramaswamy is an entrepreneur and politician who is close to Donald Trump.

Trump himself announced a new $500bn AI venture called Stargate last week. It is a collaboration with OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle, and the president guaranteed it would be “the future of technology” in the US. The announcement was derided by Trump ally and AI pioneer Elon Musk, who got into a tiff on X with OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman over how much money Stargate actually has to invest.

Trump, who was attending a House Republicans conference in Florida, said the emergence of a DeepSeek should be a “wake-up call” for US companies. He said American companies “need to be laser-focused on competing to win”.

Trump said his decision to revoke the Biden AI rules through executive order will allow AI companies to “focus on being the best” instead of on being the most “woke”.

DeepSeek did not return a request for comment.

Investors have been fleeing US artificial intelligence stocks amid surprise at a new, cheaper but still effective alternative Chinese technology.

US public health officials have been told to stop working with the World Health Organization (WHO), effective immediately.

A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official, John Nkengasong, sent a memo to senior leaders at the agency on Sunday night telling them that all agency staff who work with the WHO must immediately stop their collaborations and “await further guidance”.

Experts said the sudden stoppage was a surprise and would set back work on investigating and trying to stop outbreaks of Marburg virus and mpox in Africa, as well as brewing threats from around the world. It also comes as health authorities around the world are monitoring bird flu outbreaks among US livestock.

The Associated Press viewed a copy of Nkengasong’s memo, which said the stop-work policy applied to “all CDC staff engaging with WHO through technical working groups, coordinating centers, advisory boards, cooperative agreements or other means – in person or virtual”. It also says CDC staff are not allowed to visit WHO offices.

Donald Trump last week issued an executive order to begin the process of withdrawing the US from WHO, but that did not take immediate effect. Leaving WHO requires the approval of Congress and that the US meets its financial obligations for the current fiscal year. The US also must provide a one-year notice.

His administration also told federal health agencies to stop most communications with the public through at least the end of the month.

“Stopping communications and meetings with WHO is a big problem,” said Dr Jeffrey Klausner, a University of Southern California public health expert who collaborates with WHO on work against sexually transmitted infections.

“People thought there would be a slow withdrawal. This has really caught everyone with their pants down,” said Klausner, who said he learned of it from someone at the CDC.

“Talking to WHO is a two-way street,” he added, noting that WHO and US health officials benefit from each other’s expertise. The collaboration allows the US to learn about new tests and treatments as well as about emerging outbreaks – information “which can help us protect Americans abroad and at home”.

A US health official, who was not authorized to talk about the memo and spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the stoppage.

A WHO spokesperson referred questions about the withdrawal to US officials.

Officials at the US Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders on Monday that remove diversity, equity and inclusion from the US military, reinstate thousands of troops who were kicked out for refusing Covid-19 vaccines during the pandemic, and one that appeared to be aimed at transgender troops.

Earlier on Monday, Pete Hegseth, who narrowly secured enough votes to become defense secretary, referred to the names of Confederate generals that were once used for two key bases during his remarks to reporters as he entered the Pentagon on his first full day on the job.

Trump signed the executive orders while flying back from Miami to Washington.

One of the executive orders signed by Trump was titled eliminating “gender radicalism in the military”.

It appeared to be a reference to transgender troops in the military but a text of the order was not immediately available.

During his first term, Trump announced that he would ban transgender troops from serving in the military. He did not fully follow through with that ban – his administration froze their recruitment while allowing serving personnel to remain.

Biden overturned the decision when he took office in 2021.

About 1.3 million active personnel serve in the military, Department of Defense data shows. While transgender rights advocates say there are as many as 15,000 transgender service members, officials say the number is in the low thousands.

When Trump announced his first ban in 2017, he said the military needed to focus on “decisive and overwhelming victory” without being burdened by the “tremendous medical costs and disruption” of having transgender personnel.

Hegseth, who has promised to bring major changes to the Pentagon, has made eliminating DEI from the military a top priority.

The air force said on Sunday that it will resume instruction of trainees using a video about the first Black airmen in the US military, known as the Tuskegee airmen, which has passed review to ensure compliance with Trump’s ban on DEI initiatives.

Much of Hegseth’s focus at the Pentagon could be internal to the military, including making good on a Trump’s executive order on bringing back troops discharged for refusing Covid vaccines.

Thousands of service members were removed from the military after the Pentagon made the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory in 2021.

Trump also signed an executive order that “mandated a process to develop an ‘American Iron Dome’”.

The short-range Iron Dome air defense system was built by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems with US backing, and was built to intercept rockets fired by Hamas in Gaza towards Israel.

Each truck-towed unit fires radar-guided missiles to blow up short-range threats such as rockets, mortars and drones in midair.

The system determines whether a rocket is on course to hit a populated area. If not, the rocket is ignored and allowed to land harmlessly.

Any such effort would take years to implement in the United States.

Acting attorney general James McHenry on Monday fired more than a dozen federal prosecutors who worked on the two criminal cases against Donald Trump, saying they could not be trusted to implement the president’s agenda for the justice department, two people familiar with the matter said.

The precise extent of the firings were unclear because the department did not disclose names. At the time the cases were dismissed last year, after Trump won the election, special counsel Jack Smith had 17 prosecutors attached to his team.

The purge was not unexpected given Trump had vowed, on the campaign trail, to fire Smith, but the abrupt firings were jarring as the acting attorney general took aim at career prosecutors who had served at the department for years through changes in administrations and had gone back to their old jobs.

Smith charged Trump in two criminal cases: in Florida, for mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and defying a subpoena commanding their return; and in Washington, for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In the termination notices transmitted to the prosecutors who worked on Smith’s team, McHenry wrote that they were being let go as a result of their “significant role in prosecuting President Trump” which meant they could not be trusted to “assist in faithfully implementing the president’s agenda”.

The termination of Smith’s team comes as major personnel changes shook the deputy attorney general’s office, where the top career official Brad Weinsheimer was informed he could either be reassigned to a less powerful post or resign, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Weinsheimer, a highly respected veteran of the justice department, was appointed to his current role on an interim basis by Trump’s first attorney general Jeff Sessions, which was made permanent by Trump’s final attorney general Bill Barr.

But Trump has since soured on Sessions and Barr, and their endorsements appear to have been of no help to Weinsheimer as the new Trump administration moves to clear the senior leadership of the justice department as they prepare to use it to enforce Trump’s personal and political agenda.

The White House and a justice department spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment on the personnel moves, which were earlier reported by Fox News.

Shortly after Trump announced his presidential bid in November 2022, attorney general Merrick Garland appointed Smith to serve as a special counsel overseeing the investigation of Trump. Smith resigned before Trump took office.

In a report released this month, Smith concluded that the president engaged in an “unprecedented criminal effort” to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election, but was thwarted in bringing the case to trial by Trump’s November election victory. Smith also investigated Trump’s retention of classified documents after he left the White House, filing a second federal lawsuit in Florida.

Trump’s lawyers have called Smith’s report politically motivated. The president denies any wrongdoing in the cases, both of which Smith dropped shortly after Trump’s election win, citing

The two special counsel investigations resulted in indictments, but Smith dropped the cases against Trump after the election, citing a longstanding justice department policy that prohibits the prosecution of a sitting president.

In a separate development, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that a Trump-appointed prosecutor had opened an internal review of the justice department’s decision to charge hundreds of January 6 defendants with felony obstruction offenses in connection with the 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

The Trump administration has put on leave about 60 senior career officials at the US Agency for International Development (USAid) workers, sources familiar with the matter said, after Washington put a sweeping freeze on US aid worldwide.

The administration on Saturday urged the USAid staff to join the effort to transform how Washington allocates aid around the world in line with Trump’s “America First” policy. It also threatened “disciplinary action” for any staff ignoring the administration’s orders.

An internal memo sent to USAid employees on Monday evening said the new leadership identified several actions in the agency that “appeared to be designed to circumvent the President’s Executive Orders and the mandate from the American people”.

“As a result, we have placed a number of USAID employees on administrative leave with full pay and benefits until further notice while we complete our analysis of these actions,” said acting administrator Jason Gray, in the memo reviewed by Reuters.

The memo did not spell out how many people were affected by the decision, but five sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that it was about 57 to 60 people.

Those being put on leave comprised career staff in the leadership positions of almost all USAid bureaus based in Washington, with roles ranging from energy security to water security, children’s education overseas and digital technology, two of the sources said. Staff in the agency’s general counsel’s office were among those targeted.

“People are calling it the Monday afternoon massacre,” said Francisco Bencosme, who was USAid’s China policy lead until earlier this month.

“This decision undermines our national security and emboldens our adversaries … Instead of focusing on China, North Korea, or Russia, the Trump administration is going after public servants who have served multiple administrations – including the first Trump administration.”

USAid did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since returning to office last week, Trump has taken steps toward fulfilling his vow to remake a federal bureaucracy he believes was hostile to him during his 2017-2021 presidency. He has reassigned or fired hundreds of workers in moves against a swath of agencies.

Hours after taking office, Trump ordered a 90-day pause in foreign aid to review if it was aligned with his foreign policy priorities. On Friday, the state department issued a stop-work order worldwide even for existing assistance, calling into question billions of dollars of life-saving aid.

A second memo on Saturday made it clear to USAid staff that the pause on foreign aid spending meant “a complete halt”. The only exceptions are for emergency humanitarian food assistance and for officials returning to their duty stations.

Further waivers could be issued but will require substantial justification and are subject to a double-layered approval process that includes a final say from the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio.

USAid-funded programs help millions of people around the world fight against HIV/Aids and provide support for everything from access to clean water, healthcare infrastructure and children’s health.

Antonio Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, on Monday called for the US to consider additional exemptions.

“If this is not reversed, it will wreck US foreign aid … It would permanently weaken USAid,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former USAid official who is now president of Refugees International.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flooded back into northern Gaza on Monday after Israel opened military checkpoints that had divided the strip for more than a year, ending a forced exile from homes and loved ones that many feared could become permanent.

In the dawn light, crowds that had waited by the road overnight began the long walk back to their homes and business – or what remained of them – as soon as the crossing opened.

A column heavy with emotion and trepidation spread up along the coast, parallel to the Mediterranean, into the ruined wasteland of Gaza City, and the north of the strip beyond it. More than 80,000 buildings here have been damaged or destroyed, according to UN data.

The United Nations said more than 200,000 people were observed moving north on Monday morning. Hamas authorities in Gaza said more than 300,000 displaced Palestinians had returned to the territory’s north.

Children playing tambourines moved joyfully beside people carrying cats, parrots and other pets, amputees on crutches and elderly people hunched over walking sticks.

Some returnees rolled a vast water drum in a sign they planned a one-way journey into northern Gaza, however difficult the conditions ahead.

At another crossing farther east, a queue of thousands of cars stretched back several kilometres, their drivers waiting for inspection and permission to drive north. After Israeli forces had withdrawn, Egyptian contractors carried out checks for weapons with the help of a US private security firm, witnesses said.

Many of those heading north knew or suspected they would be returning to little more than ruins, but wanted to pitch tents on their own land after long months shifting between crowded displacement camps in the south of the strip. In Gaza City, cheering crowds waited to greet them.

“My heart is beating. I thought I would never come back,” said Osama, a 50-year-old public servant and father of five, as he arrived in the city.

“Whether the ceasefire succeeds or not, we will never leave Gaza City and the north again, even if Israel sends [a] tank for each one of us. No more displacement.”

Some were looking for loved ones who had been unable or unwilling to go when Israel’s military ordered all civilians to leave for the south soon after the start of the war in response to the cross-border attacks by Hamas on 7 October 2023.

Social media was filled with videos of joyful reunions – parents, children, friends and siblings back together after 15 months of war. Others hoped only to find bodies they knew were buried under the rubble to give them a dignified burial and a grave to visit and mourn their dead.

The return had been scheduled to start on Sunday, but was delayed for 24 hours by the first major crisis in a fragile ceasefire deal.

When the Israeli hostage Arbel Yehoud was not released on Saturday as expected, Israel accused Hamas of violating the agreement, which called for the release of female civilians before soldiers. Checkpoints to the north would stay closed in response, Israeli officials said.

As the two sides traded accusations, the US president, Donald Trump, speculated about “clearing out” Gaza by moving up to 1.5 million Palestinians to neighbouring Arab countries.

His comments were welcomed by far-right politicians in Israel who opposed the ceasefire deal, including the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who this month called for Israel to occupy Gaza and set up a military government.

With the ceasefire hanging in the balance, Trump’s remarks and the response from parts of the Israeli government fed Palestinian fears that they might never be allowed back to the north.

When the checkpoints finally opened, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, described the column of people walking back to their homes as a “crystal clear response to those who still plot to uproot us from our homeland”.

“There is only one direction of travel ahead of the Palestinian people after 100 years of forced displacement and oppression: liberation and return!” he said in a post on social media.

The ceasefire deal was shored up by last-minute talks late into Sunday evening that secured an agreement to release three hostages on Thursday – ahead of the original schedule – and open the routes north on Monday morning.

Israel said Hamas had also provided details on the status of all 26 hostages scheduled for release during this stage of the agreement, announcing on Monday that eight were dead.

Israel warned those crossing to stay away from its forces, which still control a buffer zone along the border and in the Netzarim corridor, set up within weeks of the war.

The corridor divided Gaza in two halves for over a year. Civilians were officially allowed to cross it heading south in what was a difficult and dangerous journey following blanket Israeli evacuation orders that rights groups say amounted to forced displacement.

No Palestinians were allowed to move back into the north. The 400,000 or so people who stayed on endured even harsher conditions than in the south.

Israel maintained a tighter blockade on the north within the broader controls on Gaza that meant only a trickle of food aid entered for months at a time. It was the first place where serious malnutrition took hold, and where international experts warned famine was imminent during the war.

Swathes of buildings were bombed intensively or destroyed by Israeli military demolitions. The scale of damage and deprivation during the war, and the surge of people returning, means aid agencies are now racing to get supplies into the area.

“Clearly needs are going to be immense with that influx of people going north,” said Jonathan Crickx, the head of communications for Unicef Palestine, who is currently in Gaza. “Basic services are missing, for example water is a scarce commodity.

“Families are moving with everything they can carry, but it is not much, because most of them are walking.”

Israel has also agreed an extension of a deadline for its troops to withdraw from southern Lebanon, now set for 18 February. Israel said the Lebanese army had not met its commitment to secure areas south of the Litani River, which Hezbollah forces have to hand over as part of the deal.

On Sunday, Israeli forces killed at least 22 people and injured 124 when they opened fire on civilian protesters trying to return to their home villages, and soldiers who accompanied them.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flooded back into northern Gaza on Monday after Israel opened military checkpoints that had divided the strip for more than a year, ending a forced exile from homes and loved ones that many feared could become permanent.

In the dawn light, crowds that had waited by the road overnight began the long walk back to their homes and business – or what remained of them – as soon as the crossing opened.

A column heavy with emotion and trepidation spread up along the coast, parallel to the Mediterranean, into the ruined wasteland of Gaza City, and the north of the strip beyond it. More than 80,000 buildings here have been damaged or destroyed, according to UN data.

The United Nations said more than 200,000 people were observed moving north on Monday morning. Hamas authorities in Gaza said more than 300,000 displaced Palestinians had returned to the territory’s north.

Children playing tambourines moved joyfully beside people carrying cats, parrots and other pets, amputees on crutches and elderly people hunched over walking sticks.

Some returnees rolled a vast water drum in a sign they planned a one-way journey into northern Gaza, however difficult the conditions ahead.

At another crossing farther east, a queue of thousands of cars stretched back several kilometres, their drivers waiting for inspection and permission to drive north. After Israeli forces had withdrawn, Egyptian contractors carried out checks for weapons with the help of a US private security firm, witnesses said.

Many of those heading north knew or suspected they would be returning to little more than ruins, but wanted to pitch tents on their own land after long months shifting between crowded displacement camps in the south of the strip. In Gaza City, cheering crowds waited to greet them.

“My heart is beating. I thought I would never come back,” said Osama, a 50-year-old public servant and father of five, as he arrived in the city.

“Whether the ceasefire succeeds or not, we will never leave Gaza City and the north again, even if Israel sends [a] tank for each one of us. No more displacement.”

Some were looking for loved ones who had been unable or unwilling to go when Israel’s military ordered all civilians to leave for the south soon after the start of the war in response to the cross-border attacks by Hamas on 7 October 2023.

Social media was filled with videos of joyful reunions – parents, children, friends and siblings back together after 15 months of war. Others hoped only to find bodies they knew were buried under the rubble to give them a dignified burial and a grave to visit and mourn their dead.

The return had been scheduled to start on Sunday, but was delayed for 24 hours by the first major crisis in a fragile ceasefire deal.

When the Israeli hostage Arbel Yehoud was not released on Saturday as expected, Israel accused Hamas of violating the agreement, which called for the release of female civilians before soldiers. Checkpoints to the north would stay closed in response, Israeli officials said.

As the two sides traded accusations, the US president, Donald Trump, speculated about “clearing out” Gaza by moving up to 1.5 million Palestinians to neighbouring Arab countries.

His comments were welcomed by far-right politicians in Israel who opposed the ceasefire deal, including the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who this month called for Israel to occupy Gaza and set up a military government.

With the ceasefire hanging in the balance, Trump’s remarks and the response from parts of the Israeli government fed Palestinian fears that they might never be allowed back to the north.

When the checkpoints finally opened, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, described the column of people walking back to their homes as a “crystal clear response to those who still plot to uproot us from our homeland”.

“There is only one direction of travel ahead of the Palestinian people after 100 years of forced displacement and oppression: liberation and return!” he said in a post on social media.

The ceasefire deal was shored up by last-minute talks late into Sunday evening that secured an agreement to release three hostages on Thursday – ahead of the original schedule – and open the routes north on Monday morning.

Israel said Hamas had also provided details on the status of all 26 hostages scheduled for release during this stage of the agreement, announcing on Monday that eight were dead.

Israel warned those crossing to stay away from its forces, which still control a buffer zone along the border and in the Netzarim corridor, set up within weeks of the war.

The corridor divided Gaza in two halves for over a year. Civilians were officially allowed to cross it heading south in what was a difficult and dangerous journey following blanket Israeli evacuation orders that rights groups say amounted to forced displacement.

No Palestinians were allowed to move back into the north. The 400,000 or so people who stayed on endured even harsher conditions than in the south.

Israel maintained a tighter blockade on the north within the broader controls on Gaza that meant only a trickle of food aid entered for months at a time. It was the first place where serious malnutrition took hold, and where international experts warned famine was imminent during the war.

Swathes of buildings were bombed intensively or destroyed by Israeli military demolitions. The scale of damage and deprivation during the war, and the surge of people returning, means aid agencies are now racing to get supplies into the area.

“Clearly needs are going to be immense with that influx of people going north,” said Jonathan Crickx, the head of communications for Unicef Palestine, who is currently in Gaza. “Basic services are missing, for example water is a scarce commodity.

“Families are moving with everything they can carry, but it is not much, because most of them are walking.”

Israel has also agreed an extension of a deadline for its troops to withdraw from southern Lebanon, now set for 18 February. Israel said the Lebanese army had not met its commitment to secure areas south of the Litani River, which Hezbollah forces have to hand over as part of the deal.

On Sunday, Israeli forces killed at least 22 people and injured 124 when they opened fire on civilian protesters trying to return to their home villages, and soldiers who accompanied them.

The suggestion by the US president, Donald Trump, that Gaza’s Palestinian population could be “cleaned out” and moved to Egypt and Jordan is an idea that has long been circulated by the Israeli right.

Over the decades since the Six Day war in 1967, when Israeli forces first captured the Gaza Strip, which had been under Egyptian military rule, Israeli officials and commentators have periodically pushed the notion that Palestinians in Gaza could be resettled in Egypt.

Most recently that notion was floated in a leaked paper by Israel’s intelligence ministry – which prepares studies and policy papers rather than representing the intelligence agencies – a few weeks into the war in Gaza.

That “concept” paper recommended that Israel “evacuate the civilian population to Sinai” then create “a sterile zone of several kilometres … within Egypt” that would prevent return.

If the idea is a non-starter, it is because Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza and Israel and has a peace treaty with Israel, has long let it be known that it absolutely rejects any efforts by Israel to subcontract the problem of Gaza to Cairo, whether through forced transfer of the population or otherwise.

Egypt’s position has long been straightforward: by virtue of its long occupation of Gaza, Israel is legally responsible for Gaza. Forced displacement of Palestinians into Egypt would be politically toxic in a country where the population has been historically more sympathetic to Palestinians than the political elites, save for the short period of Muslim brotherhood rule.

Egypt has also long been concerned that any long-term camps in the Sinai could become a new base for Palestinian fighters, risking Egypt’s relationship with Israel.

Jordan is already home to several million Palestinians, while tens of thousands live in Egypt. Both countries and other Arab nations reject the idea of Palestinians in Gaza being moved to their countries.

Egypt and Jordan are also acutely aware that when Palestinians have been displaced by Israel in the past, whether into Jordan, Lebanon, Syria or into Gaza, not least during the war that led to the establishment of Israel in 1948, there has been no return.

And while Israel did succeed in displacing some Palestinians into Sinai after the Six Day war in 1967, when this idea has been raised again, including in the period before the withdrawal of Israeli settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, Egyptian governments have rejected it, not least because the most recent vocal advocates of the idea have been Israel’s far right who support forced displacement to allow Jewish settlement in Gaza.

Indeed, as Amir Tibon wrote in Haaretz on Monday, during the first Trump administration the far right pushed rumours that his administration was drawing up a plan to give Palestinians land in the Sinai peninsula – at the expense of Egypt – as some sort of compensation for allowing Israel to annex the West Bank and put an end to the dream of Palestinian statehood.

If Trump’s remarks are baffling – as well as being contrary to international humanitarian law against forcible displacement – it is because they seem to indicate he has no coherent policy for the Middle East.

In the first place, Jordan and Egypt are countries with friendly relations with the US.

Trump’s ambition for a grand deal at whose heart is the normalisation of Saudi-Israeli relations is already facing the headwind of the fact that Riyadh is insisting on significant movement towards Palestinian statehood. Anything perceived as the large scale ethnic cleansing of Gaza would be a deal-breaker.

All of which has been reflected in the immediate rejection of Trump’s comments, including by Germany on Monday where a foreign ministry spokesperson said Berlin shared the view of “the European Union, our Arab partners, the United Nations … that the Palestinian population must not be expelled from Gaza and Gaza must not be permanently occupied or recolonised by Israel”.

Domestically, too, Trump’s comments are also proving to be toxic. “Arab-Americans for Trump firmly rejects President Donald J Trump’s suggestion to remove – voluntarily or forcibly – Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt and Jordan,” said Dr Bishara Bahbah, the national chair of Arab Americans for Trump.

One thing is certain, whether the idea was planted in Trump’s head, or bubbled up unbidden, it is in direct conflict with anything that may pass as a credible Middle East peace plan.

Bill Gates has labelled Elon Musk’s embrace of far-right politicians and attempt to interfere in the politics of other countries – including the UK – as “insane shit”.

Musk has in recent weeks launched a series of unfounded smears at British politicians for supposedly covering up a rape scandal over a decade ago. The UK is currently preparing a new online safety law that would restrict some of Musk’s businesses, including the social media site X.

Musk – the boss of the electric carmaker Tesla and aerospace firm SpaceX – also gave a Nazi-style salute at a recent rally, and responded to the immediate global condemnation he received by posting a series of puns on the word “Nazi” and related terms. Monday was the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz.

Gates also lambasted Musk for embracing not just rightwing politicians but even more extreme ones to the far right, including celebrating the British anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson over the rightwing Reform party leader and Brexit champion Nigel Farage.

Musk has also come out in full-throated support of the far-right, anti-immigrant, nativist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

“You want to promote the right wing but say Nigel Farage is not rightwing enough,” Gates told the Sunday Times. “I mean, this is insane shit. You are for the AfD …

“If someone is super-smart, and he is, they should think how they can help out. But this is populist stirring.”

Gates, the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist, said that his fellow multibillionaire tech titan was guilty of “overreach”.

“It’s really insane that he can destabilise the political situations in countries,” Gates said. “I think in the US foreigners aren’t allowed to give money; other countries maybe should adopt safeguards to make sure super-rich foreigners aren’t distorting their elections.

“It’s difficult to understand why someone who has a car factory in both China and in Germany, whose rocket business is ultra-dependent on relationships with sovereign nations and who is busy cutting $2 trillion in US government expenses and running five companies, is obsessing about this grooming story in the UK. I’m like, what?”

Gates donated $50m to the campaign of Kamala Harris before she lost to Donald Trump in November’s US presidential election and has given away nearly $60bn through the Gates Foundation (including support for the Guardian’s Global Development site). Most of the donated Gates Foundation money was meant to help eradicate diseases such as polio, malaria and HIV – yet he was the subject of a backlash from US Republicans after helping fund vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Robert Kennedy Jr called me a child killer trying to make billions of dollars,” he said, of the vaccine skeptic who Trump has picked for his health secretary. “You have to have a sense of humour. The world is not logical now and you have to accept that you might be treated as the Antichrist for trying to help.”

Nevertheless, Gates visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on 27 December for a three-hour dinner. “It was quite an engaging conversation where he listened to me talk about HIV and the need to stay generous and to innovate to get a cure,” Gates said. “I talked a lot about polio and energy and nuclear, and he wasn’t dismissive.

“In some ways he is feeling more comfortable and vindicated than at any time in his life, so he is confident,” Gates said, explaining that he did not feel any reluctance to visit the populist rightwing president. “Well, he is the most powerful person in the world and his decision over whether to consider changing HIV funding alone would make the trip worth it, or to encourage Pakistan and Afghanistan to take polio eradication seriously.”

Gates added that he met Trump more frequently during his first term as president than he did Joe Biden during his Oval Office tenure. He said: “I had a lot of times when I would go to the White House and they would say, ‘We think you are going to see President Biden today,’ but six times in a row it didn’t happen,” adding that he was instead invited to meet the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, or other staff.

Trump, Gates said, “has a lot of ability to help me … Is he going to fund infectious disease innovation or end it? I need to stay close. Whoever gets to enthuse President Trump about the right things, that is God’s work.”

A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard.

The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations.

On Tuesday, a decision on her bail application was postponed in a Brisbane court, after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people”.

The Sunshine Coast woman – who can’t be named for legal reasons – appeared before the court on Tuesday morning after she was arrested and charged with a string of offences earlier this month, including: five counts of administering poison with intent to harm, three counts of preparation to commit crimes with dangerous things and one count each of torture, making child exploitation material and fraud.

Crown prosecutor Jack Scott outlined the evidence against the woman who he alleged had admitted to her then partner to administering medication not prescribed for the toddler. He also alleged that hospital CCTV footage would show her with a syringe and “fiddling” with the infant’s nasogastric tube while the little girl was hidden under a blanket. He alleged that the toddler was “rendered totally unconscious” shortly after in a way that could not be explained by “any known condition” she was suffering from.

Scott opposed bail and told magistrate Stephen Courtney that the woman had moved a video camera that was monitoring the toddler during a brain activity test “to avoid detection”.

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“The prosecution case is, in essence, that she was torturing her own child with the administering of non-prescribed medicines,” Scott said.

He also alleged that the woman told police a “bald-faced lie” that she didn’t knowingly fill out scripts for medication that the child had been advised against taking.

Police allege the poisoning occurred between 6 August and 15 October last year, when the woman is accused of administering several unauthorised prescription and pharmacy medicines to the one-year-old girl.

Police allege the woman posted videos of the child in “immense distress and pain” and used the online content to “entice monetary donations and online followers”.

Scott said the child exploitation material charge was related to videos allegedly found on the woman’s phone and she had caused life-threatening complications.

“This child would not have faced [two rounds of brain] surgeries at this point in time but for this manufacturing of symptoms,” the prosecutor said.

Scott opposed the bail application, based largely on the alleged risk of the woman reoffending against the child. He argued that such was the accused’s determination “to see out” her perception that the child suffers from a fatal illness that there was a risk she would continue to “manufacture” medical symptoms that had ceased since the child had been taken into care, including unconsciousness, lethargy, floppiness and vomiting.

“My concern, or the concern of the Queensland police service, is that the only way she can justify her behaviour thus far is to reengage with the child and to continue to create a situation where the child presents [as] someone suffering from a disease that it otherwise isn’t,” he said.

Defence lawyer Mathew Cuskelly sought bail on a number of “strict conditions” that he said would ameliorate any risk to the child, including residency and reporting conditions, that her contact with the child be limited to supervised, audio visual contact and that she not contact any relatives who may be witnesses.

Cuskelly argued that the case against his client was largely circumstantial and that the complexity of the case meant his client may not face trial for a considerable amount of time, with the magistrate agreeing it was “not inconceivable” that that may not occur for “two or three years”.

Courtney said that it was his tentative view that the prosecution’s case against the woman appeared very strong, but that he needed time to absorb it and that the level of offence in and of itself wasn’t a factor when considering bail.

“Ordinarily, bail applications are fairly straightforward matters,” he said. “This isn’t.”

The accused will appear by video link on Wednesday morning to hear the magistrate’s decision.

New Zealand has relaxed its visitor visa rules to attract so-called “digital nomads” in a bid to boost tourism and the economy.

Visitor visas will now allow people to work remotely for a foreign employer while they are visiting New Zealand for up to 90 days. The visa can be extended up to nine months but visitors may need to pay tax during this time.

Economic growth minister Nicola Willis said making it easier for digital nomads – people who work remotely while travelling – to work in New Zealand, will boost the country’s appeal as a destination. The visa would extend to influencers, as long as they are being paid by an overseas company.

“We simply won’t get rich selling to ourselves,” she told a media conference, adding that she wanted to give people around the world good reasons to spend and invest in New Zealand. Highly skilled IT workers from the US and east Asia will be targeted in a promotional campaign.

“We want more wealth and super-talented people coming in the arrival gates,” Willis said.

Digital nomads work for overseas companies, so they would not be competing with New Zealanders for local jobs, Willis said, adding that while some may bend the rules, the benefits outweighed the risks.

“We’re not going to be checking out how many emails they’re sending and how many days they’re spending working. We just want them to be here and spending their hard-earned money.”

New Zealand’s economy suffered in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Last week, HSBC told local media the country experienced the biggest contraction in GDP of any developed country in the world in 2024, due to high interest rates and unemployment.

Tourism also took a hit. Prior to the pandemic, the sector was New Zealand’s largest export industry and delivered $40.9bn to the country. The most recent figures show those numbers are creeping back up, with tourism bringing in $37.7bn in 2023.

More than 50 countries offer digital nomad visas, however their presence is not always welcome. Locals living in Spain, Portugal and South Africa have criticised the influx of tourists and digital nomads for contributing to crowding and putting strain on housing markets.

Responding to the announcement, opposition finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds criticised the lack of information on how much it would grow the economy, adding that Willis’ policy was a double standard.

Last year, the government warned public service employees that working remotely was not an entitlement. It also cut nearly 10,000 jobs from the public service, in order to save money.

“With one hand she’s begging foreigners to come here to work from home, while implementing strict policies on … public servants to stop them from doing the same,” Edmonds said. “We need real long-term solutions for economic growth … not a short-term sugar hit.”

New Zealand has relaxed its visitor visa rules to attract so-called “digital nomads” in a bid to boost tourism and the economy.

Visitor visas will now allow people to work remotely for a foreign employer while they are visiting New Zealand for up to 90 days. The visa can be extended up to nine months but visitors may need to pay tax during this time.

Economic growth minister Nicola Willis said making it easier for digital nomads – people who work remotely while travelling – to work in New Zealand, will boost the country’s appeal as a destination. The visa would extend to influencers, as long as they are being paid by an overseas company.

“We simply won’t get rich selling to ourselves,” she told a media conference, adding that she wanted to give people around the world good reasons to spend and invest in New Zealand. Highly skilled IT workers from the US and east Asia will be targeted in a promotional campaign.

“We want more wealth and super-talented people coming in the arrival gates,” Willis said.

Digital nomads work for overseas companies, so they would not be competing with New Zealanders for local jobs, Willis said, adding that while some may bend the rules, the benefits outweighed the risks.

“We’re not going to be checking out how many emails they’re sending and how many days they’re spending working. We just want them to be here and spending their hard-earned money.”

New Zealand’s economy suffered in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Last week, HSBC told local media the country experienced the biggest contraction in GDP of any developed country in the world in 2024, due to high interest rates and unemployment.

Tourism also took a hit. Prior to the pandemic, the sector was New Zealand’s largest export industry and delivered $40.9bn to the country. The most recent figures show those numbers are creeping back up, with tourism bringing in $37.7bn in 2023.

More than 50 countries offer digital nomad visas, however their presence is not always welcome. Locals living in Spain, Portugal and South Africa have criticised the influx of tourists and digital nomads for contributing to crowding and putting strain on housing markets.

Responding to the announcement, opposition finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds criticised the lack of information on how much it would grow the economy, adding that Willis’ policy was a double standard.

Last year, the government warned public service employees that working remotely was not an entitlement. It also cut nearly 10,000 jobs from the public service, in order to save money.

“With one hand she’s begging foreigners to come here to work from home, while implementing strict policies on … public servants to stop them from doing the same,” Edmonds said. “We need real long-term solutions for economic growth … not a short-term sugar hit.”

A piece of fossilised vomit, dating back to when dinosaurs roamed the earth, has been discovered in Denmark, the Museum of East Zealand has said.

The find was made by a local amateur fossil hunter on the Cliffs of Stevns, a Unesco-listed site south of Copenhagen.

While out on a walk, Peter Bennicke found some unusual fragments, which turned out to be pieces of sea lily, in a piece of chalk.

He then took the fragments to a museum for examination, which dated the vomit to the end of the Cretaceous era some 66m years ago.

According to experts, the vomit is made up of at least two different species of sea lily, which were likely eaten by a fish that threw up the parts it could not digest.

“This type of find … is considered very important when reconstructing past ecosystems because it provides important information about which animals were eaten by which,” the museum said in a press release on Monday.

Paleontologist Jesper Milan hailed the discovery as “truly an unusual find”, adding it helped explain the relationships in the prehistoric food chain.

“Sea lilies are not a particularly nutritious diet, as they consist mainly of calcareous plates held together by a few soft parts,” he said.

“But here is an animal, probably some kind of fish, that 66m years ago ate sea lilies that lived at the bottom of the Cretaceous sea and regurgitated the skeletal parts.”

A California woman was sentenced on Monday to more than three years in prison in a long-running case over a business that helped pregnant Chinese women travel to the United States to deliver babies who automatically became American citizens.

R Gary Klausner, a US district judge, gave Phoebe Dong a 41-month sentence. Dong and her husband were convicted in September of conspiracy and money laundering through their company, USA Happy Baby.

During the sentencing hearing in federal court in Los Angeles, Dong wiped away tears as she recalled growing up without siblings due to China’s strict “one-child” policy. She told the federal court in Los Angeles that the Chinese government forced her mother to have an abortion.

Federal prosecutors argued that Dong and her now separated husband Michael Liu helped more than 100 pregnant Chinese women travel to the United States. Authorities said the pair coached women on how to trick customs officials by flying into airports believed to be more lax while wearing loose-fitting clothing to hide their pregnancies.

“For tens of thousands of dollars each, defendant helped her numerous customers deceive US authorities and buy US citizenship for their children,” prosecutors said in court filings.

Federal prosecutors declined to comment after the sentencing.

Dong told the court that moving to the United States had been challenging but that she grew hopeful after having three children of her own. She became an American citizen and said she saw she could help Chinese women seeking to have additional children near her home in California.

“I don’t want to lose my kids,” she told the court. “I hope you can give me fair judgment. I will take all my responsibility.”

In December, Liu was also sentenced to 41 months in prison. Dong’s lawyer, John McNicholas, asked that she be allowed to serve her term after Liu has completed his sentence because of their children. The youngest is 13.

Judge Klausner refused and had her taken into custody immediately. She removed a necklace and gave it to a family member before she was led away.

McNicholas said that Dong would appeal.

Birthright citizenship has been thrust into the spotlight in the United States with the return of Donald Trump to the White House. Trump last week issued an executive order to narrow the definition of birthright citizenship. It was quickly blocked by a federal judge who called it “blatantly unconstitutional”. The order had been opposed by the attorneys general for 22 states.

Dong and Liu were among more than a dozen people charged in an Obama-era crackdown on so-called “birth tourism” schemes that helped Chinese women hide their pregnancies as they traveled to the United States to deliver babies. Such businesses have long operated in California and other states catering to people from China, Russia, Nigeria and elsewhere.

The key draw for those travelers is that under the 14th amendment, any child born in the United States is an American citizen. Many parents who engaged in so-called “birth tourism” believe it could help their children secure a US college education and provide hope for their futures – especially since the tourists themselves can apply for permanent residency once their American child turns 21. Pregnant women can travel to the United States, but lying to US consular and immigration officials about the reasons for doing so is not permitted.

The USA Happy Baby case was part of a broader investigation into businesses helping Chinese women travel to give birth in California. The operator of another business is believed to have fled to China, McNicholas said in court filings. A third was sentenced in 2019 to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy and visa fraud for running the company known as “You Win USA”.

India and China have agreed in principle to resume direct flights between the two nations, nearly five years after the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent political tensions halted them.

The announcement on Monday came at the conclusion of a visit to Beijing by New Delhi’s top career diplomat and heralds the latest signs of a thaw in the frosty ties between the world’s two most populous nations.

Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri’s trip to the Chinese capital marked one of the most senior official visits since a deadly Himalayan troop clash on their shared border in 2020 sent relations into a tailspin.

A statement from India’s foreign ministry said a visit by a top envoy to Beijing had yielded agreement “in principle to resume direct air services between the two countries”.

“The relevant technical authorities on the two sides will meet and negotiate an updated framework for this purpose at an early date,” it said.

India’s statement also said China had permitted the resumption of a pilgrimage to a popular shrine to the Hindu deity Krishna that had also been halted at the start of the decade.

Both sides had committed to work harder on diplomacy to “restore mutual trust and confidence” and to resolve outstanding trade and economic issues, the statement said.

About 500 monthly direct flights operated between China and India before the pandemic, according to Indian media outlet Moneycontrol.

A statement from China’s foreign ministry did not mention the agreement on flight resumptions but said both countries had been working to improve ties since last year.

“The improvement and development of China-India relations is fully in line with the fundamental interests of the two countries,” the Chinese statement said.

India and China are intense rivals competing for strategic influence across South Asia.

Flights between both countries were halted in early 2020 at the start of the pandemic.

Services to Hong Kong eventually resumed as the public health crisis receded but not to the Chinese mainland, owing to the bitter fallout of the deadly troop clash later that year.

At least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed in the skirmish in a remote stretch of the high-altitude borderlands along their 3,500-kilometre (2,200-mile) frontier.

The fallout from the incident saw India clamp down on Chinese companies, preventing them from investing in critical economic sectors, along with a ban on hundreds of Chinese gaming and e-commerce apps, including TikTok.

Beijing and New Delhi agreed last October on a significant military disengagement at a key flashpoint of their disputed border.

The accord came shortly before a rare formal meeting – the first in five years – between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.

Misri’s visit to Beijing came weeks after a diplomatic tour by India’s national security adviser Ajit Doval, a key bureaucratic ally of Modi.

Six riders in Germany’s track cycling team were treated in a hospital on Monday after being struck by a car driven by an 89-year-old man. Their injuries were not life-threatening, though they included multiple fractures, the team said in a statement.

The six injured men included the 2024 track world championship medallists Benjamin Boos and Bruno Kessler. The individual riders’ injuries were not specified.

They were among a larger group on a morning training ride on the Spanish island of Mallorca, preparing for the European Track Championships next month in Belgium.

The riders were struck head-on by the car in an incident seen by team coaches. Boos and the 19-year-old Kessler were part of the Germany squad that took bronze in the team pursuit at the track worlds last October in Denmark.

Another injured rider, the 24-year-old Tobias Buck-Gramcko, is a former world junior champion and European bronze medallist. The other riders injured were Moritz Augenstein, Max-David Briese and Louis Gentzik, the team said.

Professional cyclists are often injured by cars on roads in Europe, including Remco Evenepoel, the Paris Olympic champion in the road race and time trial. Eight weeks ago, Evenepoel suffered fractures, a dislocated collarbone and bruised lungs after a crash in Belgium.