Hamas has handed over the bodies of four hostages, and Israel has released some Palestinian prisoners, as the five-week-old ceasefire appeared to get back on track after a breach that had brought fears of a return to war in Gaza.

The bodies of the hostages were transferred to the Red Cross in southern Gaza and driven to the border point at Kerem Shalom at about midnight. Meanwhile, a convoy of buses carrying Palestinian prisoners arrived in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that 43 Palestinians being held in Ofer had been transferred to the Red Cross.

The group got off the bus to cheers from hundreds congregated outside, with some of the released men – clad in green jackets and keffiyehs – hoisted aloft by the crowd.

Nearly 100 more Palestinian prisoners were handed over to Egypt, where they will stay until another country accepts them, Reuters reports citing a Hamas source and Egyptian media.

Ambulances later arrived at the European hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, early on Thursday transporting freed Palestinians, who are set to undergo medical examination. Prisoners freed in previous exchanges have had limbs amputated while in Israeli custody and many have been extremely emaciated.

It was unclear on Wednesday how many Palestinians were being released overnight, and whether the exchange would include all 602 prisoners who had been due to be released by Israel on Saturday in exchange for six surviving Israeli hostages.

The six hostages had been transferred by Hamas according to the agreed schedule but, as the Palestinian prisoners sat in buses on Saturday night waiting to be transferred, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu at the last moment decided not to release them and returned them to their cells.

The government said it had stopped the exchange in protest at what it complained were the propaganda ceremonies Hamas staged to hand over hostages and the remains of the Israelis who had been killed while in captivity.

Since then, Hamas agreed to hand over the four hostages’ bodies away from the cameras, and in return Netanyahu’s government said it would proceed with the prisoner releases. However, the Israeli prison authorities did not specify whether the Palestinians would be freed in one go. One Israeli official was quoted in reports as saying that they would be released in batches.

The Palestinian detainees due to be released included 445 men and 24 women and minors arrested in Gaza, as well as 151 prisoners serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis, a Hamas source told Reuters.

Hamas said in a statement early on Thursday that the only way the remaining hostages would be freed was through commitment to the Gaza ceasefire deal. It said it had abided by the agreement and was ready to start talks on a second phase.

The bodies handed over to the Red Cross just after midnight on Thursday morning were named by Hamas as Shlomo Mantzur, Tsachi Idan, Ohad Yahalomi and Itzhak Elgarat. The IDF said the identities of the bodies had not yet been verified.

Relatives of Idan said that he was alive when he was taken hostage by Hamas on 7 October 2023, according to a statement released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the group representing families of the hostages.

“Since Tsachi was kidnapped, we received several signs of life, and in the previous deal last November, Tsachi was alive and expected to be released,” wrote the family. “We are still waiting for the much-needed certainty, which we can only receive after his arrival in Israel and after all necessary examinations are conducted by the authorised state authorities.”

The latest exchange came as the UN human rights chief accused Israel on Wednesday of showing an unprecedented disregard for human rights in its military actions in Gaza and said Hamas had violated international law.

“Nothing justifies the appalling manner in which Israel has conducted its military operations in Gaza which consistently breached international law”, said Volker Türk, while presenting a new report on the human rights situation in Gaza, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to the human rights council in Geneva.

“The level of devastation in Gaza is massive – from homes, to hospitals to schools”, Türk said, adding that “restrictions imposed by Israel … have created a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Türk said: “Hamas has indiscriminately fired projectiles into Israeli territory – amounting to war crimes.”

The exchange and the resumption of the ceasefire deal follow a national day of grief in Israel with thousands of Israelis waving flags, holding candles and singing the national anthem, lining the route of a funeral procession for two small children and their mother who were held hostage and died in captivity in Gaza.

The bodies of the Bibases were handed over last week by Hamas, which said they had been killed by airstrikes. An Israeli autopsy report ruled the children had been murdered by their captors and then mutilated to simulate wounds from bombing.

The funeral was held in the town of Tzohar, near the border with Gaza and Nir Oz kibbutz, where the family lived. The ceremony was private but mourners lined the road from the central city of Rishon LeZion holding Israeli flags and yellow banners, symbol of the hostage families and supporters, to watch the cortege go by.

With the transfer of the four hostages’ bodies and the release of the 600 Palestinians, the two side will have completed the obligations for the first six-week phase of the ceasefire. The second phase, due to start at the weekend, includes the release of all remaining hostages, and the complete withdrawal of the Israeli military from Gaza, but negotiations on the details are yet to begin just a few days before the weekend deadline.

One possibility being studied to keep the ceasefire alive while the second phase is being negotiated is to extend the first phase, but it is yet to be agreed whether more hostages and prisoners would be released during the extension.

Donald Trump has announced that Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit the White House on Friday to sign a rare earth minerals deal, but the US will not provide significant security guarantees to Ukraine as part of the agreement.

The conclusion of a deal, which Trump has claimed would allow the US to recoup hundreds of billions of dollars it spent on military aid to Kyiv, followed days of intense negotiations in which Zelenskyy said he wanted the US to guarantee Ukraine’s security against the ongoing Russian invasion.

Uncertainty remains over the specifics of the agreement, which would establish a joint fund between the US and Ukraine that would receive revenues from the mining of rare earth metals and other precious minerals in Ukraine, as well as some oil and gas revenues.

Trump announced during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that he could confirm that Zelenskyy would arrive in Washington on Friday to sign the deal, calling it a “very big agreement that will be on rare earth and other things”.

Zelenskyy had resisted pressure from the US to sign a draft of the deal at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month that would have established a joint fund 100% owned by the US, according to media reports. “I will not sign what 10 generations of Ukrainians will have to pay back,” he said at a news conference on Sunday.

Since then, negotiators had gone back and forth over the specifics of the joint venture, while Ukraine pushed for more specific language about long-term US support for Ukrainian sovereignty.

Trump, when asked about the specific guarantees he would provide to Ukraine as part of the deal, said: “Well I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much. We’re going to have Europe do that.”

He brushed aside Ukraine’s aspiration to join Nato, repeating a Russian talking point that the issue triggered the war. “Nato you can forget about,” Trump said. “I think that’s probably the reason the whole thing started.”

Media reports suggested the draft contained only vague language on security guarantees.

Zelenskyy described the deal as “preliminary”, adding that it was “just a start, a framework, it can be a big success”.

The Ukrainian leader said that if he visited the White House on Friday, he would be “very direct” in asking whether the US would continue supporting Ukraine or not. “If we don’t get security guarantees, we won’t have a ceasefire, nothing will work, nothing,” he said.

Zelenskyy’s comments came after Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, reinforced Moscow’s rejection of the idea of European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine, contradicting Trump’s claims earlier this week that Vladimir Putin supported the presence of western forces on the ground.

“Trump said that a decision on the deployment of peacekeeping forces would only be possible with the consent of both sides, apparently referring to us and Ukraine. Nobody has asked us about this,” Lavrov said.

European leaders are due to meet in London on Sunday to discuss defence and security issues, including a proposal to deploy European troops to Ukraine after a ceasefire is reached, aiming to deter further Russian aggression.

Under one of the proposals, supported by the UK and France, there would be fewer than 30,000 European troops on the ground in Ukraine, away from the frontline at key infrastructure sites such as nuclear power plants, backed by western air and sea power.

Lavrov said the peacekeeping proposals coming from London and Paris were a “deceit” aimed at pumping Ukraine full of more weapons, and would draw Ukraine further into Nato’s sphere and infringe on the rights of Russian speakers there.

On Thursday, Russian and US diplomats will meet in Istanbul to discuss improving diplomatic relations. It will mark the second consecutive week of meetings between Washington and Moscow, after last week’s discussions in Saudi Arabia, signalling a thaw in relations under the Trump administration.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said in Riyadh last week that the two countries would work to restore their diplomatic missions in Washington and Moscow as part of negotiations towards ending the conflict in Ukraine. Moscow has had no ambassador in Washington since the previous envoy, Anatoly Antonov, left his post last October.

On Tuesday, when confronted by journalists about Moscow’s rejection of peacekeeping troops, Trump said he believed that “ultimately, we’ll be able to agree on something, I’m sure”.

He said: “Something will be done that’s going to be satisfactory to everybody … It’s actually something I did discuss. A form of peacekeeping that’s acceptable to everybody.”

Moscow’s continued resistance to European peacekeeping forces – seen by Ukraine as the only viable alternative to Nato membership for guaranteeing its security – is the latest sign of its reluctance to align with Trump’s efforts to swiftly end the war, raising questions about Washington’s ability to persuade Putin to compromise on some of his sweeping demands regarding Ukraine.

Two sources familiar with the Kremlin’s thinking told the Guardian that Putin remained committed to his sweeping conditions for signing any peace deal, which include limiting the size of Kyiv’s military, prohibiting foreign weapons on Ukrainian soil, ensuring Ukraine’s permanent neutrality, and maintaining influence over its political future.

Lavrov reiterated that Moscow still sought full control over the four Ukrainian regions it illegally annexed, despite not fully occupying all of their territory.

He also signalled that Moscow would insist on having a say over Ukraine’s political direction, suggesting that Russia sought a settlement that would make the remaining Ukrainian-controlled territory less hostile to Russia and Russian speakers. “What remains of Ukraine must also be freed from racist laws,” Lavrov said.

The Kremlin has long alleged that Ukraine’s government persecutes ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking citizens. This claim, bolstered by false narratives, served as a pretext for its unprovoked full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukraine has repeatedly denied Russian assertions it has repressed ethnic Russians and Russian speakers on its territory.

Donald Trump used his first full cabinet meeting of his second term to emphasize his administration’s focus on drastically reducing the size of the federal government, with tech billionaire Elon Musk warning without evidence that “America will go bankrupt” without significant spending cuts.

The meeting, which featured very minimal input from cabinet secretaries, instead highlighted the government-shrinking effort being led by Musk, who is not a member of the cabinet and described himself as “humble tech support” for the administration.

The meeting came just as federal agencies have been ordered to submit plans by mid-March for what an official memo described as “large-scale reductions in force” – signaling an escalation in the president’s efforts to reshape the federal workforce.

Trump praised Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin’s plans to cut up to 65% of employees at the agency, though Musk declined to specify how many federal jobs they were seeking to eliminate overall, saying only that he wanted to “keep people who are doing good work in essential roles”.

Musk, who runs the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) team, said their goal was to achieve “$1tn in deficit reduction by financial year 2026” – already halving the $2tn in cuts he had promised during the campaign. He claimed this would require “saving $4bn per day, every day” until the end of September.

“We simply cannot sustain a country with $2tn deficits,” Musk said. “The interest on the national debt now exceeds the defense department spending… If this continues, the country will become de facto bankrupt.”

Trump and Musk also addressed the controversy surrounding an email sent to federal workers demanding they list five achievements from the previous week – a directive that some agency leaders had told their employees to ignore due to national security concerns.

Musk claimed the email was “not meant as a performance review” but rather “a pulse check review” to search for “phantom employees”. He added that Trump had approved sending the email, which had caught cabinet secretaries off guard.

Musks says the directive has since been modified, and would let employees simply say they are working on classified matters in their response.

While Trump has renewed his pledge to balance the budget and pay down the national debt, his previous administration added $8.4tn in new borrowing over 10 years, despite his 2016 campaign promise to eliminate the entire national debt during eight years in office.

During the gathering, Trump – who dominated the speaking time – repeated several false claims, including that European nations would recover money sent to Ukraine in aid, a statement that the French president, Emmanuel Macron, had directly corrected during a meeting in the Oval Office this week.

Trump also made public his intention to impose 25% tariffs on European Union imports, declaring the bloc “was formed to screw the United States”. He said the decision had already been made and would be announced officially “very soon”, specifically mentioning that the levies would target car imports among other goods.

He also pushed back tariffs on Canada and Mexico for another month, delaying implementation until 2 April – just two days after saying they would proceed on 4 March – and continued to suggest that Canada should become a US state.

In his first full cabinet meeting of his second term, which was attended by Elon Musk, President Donald Trump praised dramatic planned cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and his planned 25% tariffs on European Union imports.

Musk, who runs the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) team, said at the meeting that their goal was to achieve “$1tn in deficit reduction by financial year 2026” – already halving the $2tn in cuts he had promised during the campaign. He claimed this would require “saving $4bn per day, every day” until the end of September.

Trump later signed an executive order designed to expand the Doge agency’s power.

Here are the biggest stories in US politics on Wednesday, 26 February.

Donald Trump has threatened to slap 25% tariffs on the European Union, claiming the 27-country bloc was “formed to screw the United States”.

Speaking at his first cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the US president said he would soon release details of the latest tariff threat. “We have made a decision and we’ll be announcing it very soon. It’ll be 25%,” he said.

The EU vowed to respond “firmly and immediately” to “unjustified” trade barriers, signaling that it stands ready to retaliate swiftly against new tariffs.

The bloc is the US’s third largest trading partner alongside China. Trump has said he will impose 25% tariffs on the US’s two largest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, next week.

Trump did not give further details but mentioned carmakers and said the levies would be applied “generally”. “And that’ll be on cars and all other things,” he said.

A European Commission spokesperson said: “The EU will react firmly and immediately against unjustified barriers to free and fair trade, including when tariffs are used to challenge legal and non-discriminatory policies. The EU will always protect European businesses, workers and consumers from unjustified tariffs.”

Trump has made a series of announcements about imposing tariffs on the US’s largest trading partners but has repeatedly delayed imposing the levies on Canada and Mexico.

Earlier this week, Trump defended his tariff threats and said foreign cars, drugs and semiconductor chips would be hit within weeks.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, met with Trump in Washington this week and had appeared confident that he had talked Trump out of a trade dispute with the EU and to concentrate instead on his dealings with China.

“Come on, you cannot have a trade war with China and Europe at the same time. I hope I convinced him,” Macron told Fox News after the meeting.

According to Bloomberg, Trump’s tariffs could hit as much as $29.3bn (€28bn) of the bloc’s exports. The EU has pledged to retaliate immediately if the US imposes tariffs on its member countries’ exports. “The EU sees no justification for the imposition of tariffs on its exports. We will react to protect the interests of European businesses, workers and consumers from unjustified measures,” the bloc’s executive body said earlier this month.

The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, has said the EU should do all it can to avoid “totally unnecessary and stupid tariff wars”.

Many economists and even conservative publications, including the Wall Street Journal, have warned that Trump’s plans risk hurting the US economy. On Wednesday, Trump took to Truth Social, his social media platform, to attack a Journal editorial that argued his tariffs on Canada and Mexico would backfire, hurting the US economy.

Calling the argument “soooo wrong”, Trump wrote: “The tariffs will drive massive amounts of auto manufacturing to MICHIGAN, a State which I just easily one [sic] in the Presidential Election,” he wrote.

The Trump administration said it is eliminating more than 90% of the US Agency for International Development’s foreign aid contracts and $60bn in overall US assistance around the world.

The cuts detailed by the administration would leave few surviving USAid projects for advocates to try to save in what are current court battles with the administration.

The Trump administration outlined its plans in an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press and in filings in one of those federal lawsuits.

The filing also maintained that the administration could not meet a court-ordered deadline to pay for past work. The administration requested the supreme court put a hold on a federal judge’s order requiring the government to pay foreign aid funds to contractors and grant recipients for past work. A Washington DC federal appeals court on Wednesday evening denied that request.

Lawyers for the US Department of Justice have maintained that the administration has a right to suspend its agreements while it reviews them to determine whether they comply with administration policy.

Wednesday’s disclosures also give an idea of the scale of the administration’s retreat from US aid and development assistance overseas, and from decades of US policy that foreign aid helps US interests by stabilizing other countries and economies and building alliances.

Donald Trump and ally Elon Musk have hit foreign aid harder and faster than almost any other target in their push to cut the size of the federal government. Both men say USAid projects advance a liberal agenda and are a waste of money.

Trump on 20 January ordered what he said would be a 90-day program-by-program review of which foreign assistance programs deserved to continue, and cut off all foreign assistance funds almost overnight. The funding freeze has stopped thousands of US-funded programs abroad, as the administration and Musk’s “department of government efficiency” teams have pulled the majority of USAid staff off the job through forced leave and firings.

In the federal court filings on Wednesday, nonprofits owed money on contracts with USAid describe Trump political appointees and members of Musk’s teams terminating USAid’s contracts around the world at breakneck speed, without time for any meaningful review, they say.

“’There are MANY more terminations coming, so please gear up!”’ lawyers for the nonprofits wrote, quoting an email sent by a USAid official to staff on Monday.

The state department said Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, had reviewed the terminations.

In all, the Trump administration said it will eliminate 5,800 of 6,200 multi-year USAid contract awards, for a cut of $54bn. Another 4,100 of 9,100 state department grants were being eliminated, for a cut of $4.4bn.

The Washington Free Beacon was the first to report on the memo.

The memo described the administration as spurred by a federal court order that gave officials until the end of the day Wednesday to lift the Trump administration’s monthlong block on foreign aid funding.

“In response, State and USAid moved rapidly,” targeting USAid and state department foreign aid programs in vast numbers for contract terminations, the memo said.

The nonprofits, among thousands of contractors, owed billions of dollars in payment since the freeze began, call the en masse contract terminations a maneuver to get around complying with the order to lift the funding freeze temporarily.

Trump administration officials – after repeated warnings from the federal judge in the case – also said on Wednesday they had finally begun paying USAid bills again after the month-long halt on payments, freeing for delivery a few million of billions of dollars owed.

The actor Michelle Trachtenberg, known for her performances in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harriet the Spy, has died at the age of 39.

Police sources confirmed her death to both ABC News and the New York Post. There is no cause of death yet known, with police saying on Wednesday that the New York Medical Examiner was investigating the cause, but that no foul play was suspected. Trachtenberg had recently undergone a liver transplant, according to sources.

ABC reported that the actor’s mother found her at a New York apartment.

Trachtenberg was a child actor who started her career at the age of three in commercials before featuring in the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete & Pete and the soap opera All My Children.

She later scored her first lead film role in the comedy adventure Harriet the Spy alongside Rosie O’Donnell and J Smith-Cameron. Trachtenberg later said the shoot began on her 10th birthday. “There was a lot required of me,” she said in 2021. “I’m extremely grateful for the experience.”

J. Smith-Cameron said remembered her as “a very charming little girl”. “She was always very warm toward me. I feel very shocked and unsettled to hear of her passing,” she added.

Trachtenberg followed the film with a role in Inspector Gadget next to Matthew Broderick.

A role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer came in 2000 with Trachtenberg cast as Dawn Summers until the show ended three years later. Her co-star James Masters, who played Spike, told People: “My heart is heavy today. We have lost a beautiful soul. Michelle was fiercely intelligent, howlingly funny, and a very talented person. She died much too young, and leaves behind scores of people who knew and loved her.”

David Boreanaz, who played Angel, shared on Instagram: “So very sad … horrible news. RIP and prayers to her and her family.” Alyson Hannigan, who played Willow, also posted: “I am deeply saddened by the news of Michelle’s passing. She brought a loving energy to the set of Buffy.”

Later film roles included the teen comedy EuroTrip and Gregg Araki’s acclaimed drama Mysterious Skin. “I’m very proud of that film,” she said. “I was this girl who had done glitzy, PG-themed stuff and here’s Gregg Araki, director of Doom Generation, and we sat down and had a cup of coffee and I said, ‘You’re probably not gonna hire me but this is what I got, this is what I feel. If you’re willing to take the chance, I’m willing to go there with you.’ It was the most exhilarating experience I’ve had as an actress.”

In 2005, she played the lead in Disney drama Ice Princess. Her co-star Kim Cattrall today posted “Rest in peace sweet Michelle” on Instagram.

She also had a recurring role in HBO’s hit series Six Feet Under.

The next few years saw roles in shows such as House and films such as 2006’s Black Christmas remake before she nabbed the role of Georgina Sparks in the teen drama series Gossip Girl. She later played the character again in 2022’s reboot.

“Georgina is actually my favorite character that I’ve played because she’s such an evil B-I-T-C-H,” she said. “That was fun.”

Trachtenberg’s Gossip Girl costar Blake Lively paid tribute to her on Wednesday.

“She was electricity,” Lively wrote on Instagram. “You knew when she entered a room because the vibration changed. Everything she did, she did 200%. She laughed the fullest at someone’s joke, she faced authority head on when she felt something was wrong, she cared deeply about her work, she was proud to be a part of this community and industry as painful as it could be sometimes, she was fiercely loyal to her friends and brave for those she loved, she was big and bold and distinctly herself … The world lost a deeply sensitive and good person in Michelle. May her work and her huge heart be remembered by those who were lucky enough to experience her fire.”

Gossip Girl actor Ed Westwick also paid tribute on Instagram, writing: “So sad to hear of the passing of Michelle Trachtenberg. Sending prayers.”

Trachtenberg’s last big screen role was 2014’s sci-fi thriller The Scribbler, but she does have a project that is yet to be released, a drama called Spyral about mental illness.

Her ex-boyfriend, X-Men star Shawn Ashmore, also paid tribute to her on social media. “Incredibly sad to hear about Michelle’s passing,” he wrote. “She was an incredible person and I will always remember the years we spent together fondly … This is an incredible loss!”

The actor Michelle Trachtenberg, known for her performances in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harriet the Spy, has died at the age of 39.

Police sources confirmed her death to both ABC News and the New York Post. There is no cause of death yet known, with police saying on Wednesday that the New York Medical Examiner was investigating the cause, but that no foul play was suspected. Trachtenberg had recently undergone a liver transplant, according to sources.

ABC reported that the actor’s mother found her at a New York apartment.

Trachtenberg was a child actor who started her career at the age of three in commercials before featuring in the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete & Pete and the soap opera All My Children.

She later scored her first lead film role in the comedy adventure Harriet the Spy alongside Rosie O’Donnell and J Smith-Cameron. Trachtenberg later said the shoot began on her 10th birthday. “There was a lot required of me,” she said in 2021. “I’m extremely grateful for the experience.”

J. Smith-Cameron said remembered her as “a very charming little girl”. “She was always very warm toward me. I feel very shocked and unsettled to hear of her passing,” she added.

Trachtenberg followed the film with a role in Inspector Gadget next to Matthew Broderick.

A role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer came in 2000 with Trachtenberg cast as Dawn Summers until the show ended three years later. Her co-star James Masters, who played Spike, told People: “My heart is heavy today. We have lost a beautiful soul. Michelle was fiercely intelligent, howlingly funny, and a very talented person. She died much too young, and leaves behind scores of people who knew and loved her.”

David Boreanaz, who played Angel, shared on Instagram: “So very sad … horrible news. RIP and prayers to her and her family.” Alyson Hannigan, who played Willow, also posted: “I am deeply saddened by the news of Michelle’s passing. She brought a loving energy to the set of Buffy.”

Later film roles included the teen comedy EuroTrip and Gregg Araki’s acclaimed drama Mysterious Skin. “I’m very proud of that film,” she said. “I was this girl who had done glitzy, PG-themed stuff and here’s Gregg Araki, director of Doom Generation, and we sat down and had a cup of coffee and I said, ‘You’re probably not gonna hire me but this is what I got, this is what I feel. If you’re willing to take the chance, I’m willing to go there with you.’ It was the most exhilarating experience I’ve had as an actress.”

In 2005, she played the lead in Disney drama Ice Princess. Her co-star Kim Cattrall today posted “Rest in peace sweet Michelle” on Instagram.

She also had a recurring role in HBO’s hit series Six Feet Under.

The next few years saw roles in shows such as House and films such as 2006’s Black Christmas remake before she nabbed the role of Georgina Sparks in the teen drama series Gossip Girl. She later played the character again in 2022’s reboot.

“Georgina is actually my favorite character that I’ve played because she’s such an evil B-I-T-C-H,” she said. “That was fun.”

Trachtenberg’s Gossip Girl costar Blake Lively paid tribute to her on Wednesday.

“She was electricity,” Lively wrote on Instagram. “You knew when she entered a room because the vibration changed. Everything she did, she did 200%. She laughed the fullest at someone’s joke, she faced authority head on when she felt something was wrong, she cared deeply about her work, she was proud to be a part of this community and industry as painful as it could be sometimes, she was fiercely loyal to her friends and brave for those she loved, she was big and bold and distinctly herself … The world lost a deeply sensitive and good person in Michelle. May her work and her huge heart be remembered by those who were lucky enough to experience her fire.”

Gossip Girl actor Ed Westwick also paid tribute on Instagram, writing: “So sad to hear of the passing of Michelle Trachtenberg. Sending prayers.”

Trachtenberg’s last big screen role was 2014’s sci-fi thriller The Scribbler, but she does have a project that is yet to be released, a drama called Spyral about mental illness.

Her ex-boyfriend, X-Men star Shawn Ashmore, also paid tribute to her on social media. “Incredibly sad to hear about Michelle’s passing,” he wrote. “She was an incredible person and I will always remember the years we spent together fondly … This is an incredible loss!”

Three tropical cyclones are churning in the South Pacific, an occurrence that scientists say is unusual.

Tropical cyclones Rae, Seru and Alfred are all spinning as the region’s cyclone season, which starts in November and ends in April, reaches its peak.

“Certainly it is a very busy period for the South Pacific and three tropical cyclones is a lot to happen at once, but not unprecedented,” said Brian Tang, an atmospheric science professor at University at Albany.

The last time three such storms occurred in the South Pacific was January 2021 when Lucas, Ana and Bina were churning simultaneously, Tang said.

Rae formed on Friday north of Fiji and brought whipping winds and heavy rain that damaged fruit trees, according to local reports.

Alfred developed in the Coral Sea on Monday and is expected to bring flooding rains to Queensland, Australia, this weekend.

Seru became a cyclone on Tuesday and is expected to track near the island nation of Vanuatu but remain offshore.

Gabriel Vecchi, a climate scientist at Princeton University, noted evidence of what’s called a Madden–Julian Oscillation — a fluctuation in the atmosphere that results in a blob of rising air and rainfall that circles the globe and lasts for 30 days or longer. He said it seems to be tracking over the south-west Pacific in a way that could enhance cyclone activity.

“The atmosphere is chaotic. There’s a lot of natural fluctuation in it … we need to be open to the possibility that factors that are beyond our ability to predict might have led to these three cyclones at the same time,” said Vecchi.

Tropical storms are called cyclones when they happen in the south-west Pacific and hurricanes when they form in the north Atlantic, but they are essentially the same weather event.

Jeff Bezos, the self-proclaimed “hands-off” owner of the Washington Post, emailed staffers on Wednesday morning about a change he is applying to the paper’s opinion section that appears to align the newspaper more closely with the political right.

“I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” Bezos said.

“We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.”

Bezos’s decision to inject more regular and weighty conservative theming will also see the departure of opinions editor David Shipley, although it was not immediately clear if he was fired for resisting Bezos’s direction, or chose to resign.

Shipley had been in discussions over the content of the opinion section of the paper for several weeks, according to the New York Times. The dialogue began in January when Will Lewis, the chief executive of the Post, sent a memo to Shipley outlining Bezos’s new vision.

Shipley pushed back against the idea, arguing that restricting content in the way Bezos proposed would lose the breadth of viewpoints aired in Post opinion, the Times reported.

Shipley joined the Washington Post in 2022 as editorial page editor and was in that job when Bezos blocked the Post’s editorial board from publishing an endorsement for Kamala Harris, Donald Trump’s Democratic opponent, before last November’s presidential election, sparking outrage.

But he defended the Post’s decision in January not to publish a satirical cartoon by Pulitzer prize winner Ann Telnaes that depicted Bezos and other billionaire media company owners kneeling at the feet of a giant figure of Trump, offering bags of money.

Telnaes resigned, one of a growing number of departures of senior Post employees during a tumultuous time for the newspaper. It lost 250,000 subscribers after Bezos blocked the Harris endorsement, and a slew of star writers joined rival publications.

In his message on Wednesday, Bezos emphasized that he’s “for America, and proud to be so” and that he offered “David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter.

“I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t ‘hell yes,’ then it had to be ‘no.’ After careful consideration, David decided to step away… I respect his decision,” he wrote.

Bezos also shared the letter to staff directly on his X page.

Bezos’s extraordinary rightward shift prompted a scathing response from the paper’s legendary former editor Marty Baron. Baron called the billionaire’s intervention “craven” in an interview by the online outlet Zeteo.

“He’s basically fearful of Trump. He has decided that, as timid and tepid as the editorials have been, they’ve been too tough on Trump,” Baron said.

He later told the Guardian via email on Wednesday: “What Bezos is doing today runs counter to what he said, and actually practiced, during my tenure at The Post. I have always been grateful for how he stood up for The Post and an independent press against Trump’s constant threats to his business interest. Now I couldn’t be more sad and disgusted.

“Bezos argues for personal liberties. But his news organization now will forbid views other than his own in its opinion section,” Baron continued, noting that only a few weeks ago, the Post described itself in an internal mission statement as intended for “all of America”.

“Now, its opinion pages will be open to only some of America, those who think exactly as he does.”

Baron, who was the top editor of the Post from 2012 until he retired in 2021, added: “At a time when we’re talking about freedom and democracy, he is saying there will not be freedom and liberty on our own pages.”

At the time Baron made those comments the Post was still being published with the slogan: “Freedom dies in darkness.”

In the aftermath of Bezos’s email, Jeff Stein, an economics reporter for the Washington Post, spoke out about the billionaire’s edict.

“Massive encroachment by Bezos into The Washington Post’s opinion section – makes clear dissenting views will not be published,” he wrote on X and Bluesky.

“I still have not felt encroachment on my journalism on the news side, but if Bezos tries interfering with the news side I will be quitting immediately and letting you know.”

Post senior video producer Dave Jorgenson said he supported Stein’s position in two posts to Bluesky. In the first, he said he was using his “personal liberties” to repost an earlier video he made about “why some billionaires are going soft on Trump”.

In the second, he wrote: “Echoing Jeff (Stein), if Bezos interferes with my work on the news side – I’m out.”

The executive editor of the Post, Matt Murray, tried to assuage jitters via a newsroom memo saying changes affected opinion alone and “the independent and unbiased work of The Post’s newsroom remains unchanged.”

But Cameron Barr, a former staff senior managing editor at the Post and currently working on contract there, wrote on Linkedin that he was ending his professional career with the outlet forthwith because the Post’s new marching order from Bezos “represents an unacceptable erosion of its commitment to publishing a healthy diversity of opinion and argument”.

The decision by Bezos, the founder of Amazon and owner of the Post since 2013, came amid other large media organizations apparently leaning into the second Trump presidency.

Cuts at MSNBC this week included the cancelation of ReidOut, longtime host Joy Reid’s popular political show that has been constantly critical of Trump and his policies; and laying off most of the employees who produced Rachel Maddow’s show after she criticized the network for canceling the programs of non-white anchors.

Facebook owner Meta and ABC News have paid Trump millions in separate settlements for defamation cases, and the president is currently pursuing a $10bn lawsuit against CBS for the alleged deceptive editing of an interview with Kamala Harris on its 60 Minutes show.

The White House, meanwhile, has been accused of interfering with the freedom of the press by announcing that it will decide which reporters and media outlets will be allowed close access to Trump. The press pool has previously been chosen by the independent White House Correspondents’ Association.

Margaret Sullivan and Ed Pilkington contributed reporting

New Zealand’s foreign minister said he had raised concerns over China’s recent live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea during meetings with Chinese leaders on Wednesday.

The issue was a lack of notice given to New Zealand over the military exercises off its coast, Winston Peters told reporters in Beijing after meetings with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and vice premier Han Zheng.

“This is a failure in [our special relationship] at this time, and we’d like to have it corrected into the future,” he said.

In their meeting, Wang told Peters both countries should become partners of mutual trust and resolve “some specific differences” through dialogue, according to a readout from China’s foreign ministry.

Peters is in Beijing for a three-day visit after relations between the two countries became strained over the drills.

New Zealand and Australian officials said that China had conducted live-fire exercises in international waters between the two nations, giving little notice and forcing commercial airlines to divert flights.

China only gave “a couple of hours’ notice,” New Zealand’s defence minister Judith Collins told Radio New Zealand, rather than the expected 12 to 24 hours. A longer lead time would give airlines time to plan alternate routes.

Australia has complained more vociferously about the lack of notification. Foreign minister Penny Wong said she sought an explanation from Wang when the two met in Johannesburg last Saturday following a gathering of foreign ministers from the Group of 20 nations.

China’s official Xinhua news agency made no mention of the issue in an initial report on Peters’ meeting earlier in the day with Han.

The three Chinese ships were south of Tasmania in Australia’s exclusive economic zone and were now moving west, the New Zealand defence force said on Wednesday.

Peters said he also raised China’s missile launch test last September that landed near French Polynesia’s exclusive economic zone, of which “most Pacific Island nations got no warning at all” and New Zealand got “little warning.“

China was considering the issue of providing earlier notice for future naval drills, he said.

In his talks in Beijing, Peters said the return of President Donald Trump to the White House came up more than he had expected.

He didn’t provide any details, but said that both sides agreed that “perhaps we should just wait and see what happens when the dust settles.”

Peters has also voiced concerns that the Cook Islands, an independent country in free association with New Zealand, had signed a comprehensive strategic partnership and other agreements with China, without satisfactorily consulting with New Zealand.

China “needs to understand the constitutional arrangement” between New Zealand and the Cook Islands, Peters told reporters, adding that New Zealand got more information out of China on the deals than it got out of the Cook Islands.

Peters said last week his country must “reset” its relationship with its Pacific neighbour after its opaque dealings with Beijing.

The agreement spans education, the economy, infrastructure, fisheries, disaster management and seabed mining. It set off alarm bells in New Zealand due to concerns over China’s growing presence in the Pacific region and potential threats to the country’s national security.

Wang said that China respects the traditional relations between New Zealand and the Pacific island countries.

The Cook Islands is a self-governing nation and maintains free association with Wellington, sharing a head of state and citizenship rights. It is permitted an independent foreign policy, but the two countries are required to consult on security, defence and foreign policy issues.

The two diplomats also discussed trade and economic issues during Wednesday’s meeting, with Wang calling for cooperation on new growth engines such as artificial intelligence and green economy.

About a quarter of all New Zealand exports went to China in 2024.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

New Zealand’s foreign minister said he had raised concerns over China’s recent live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea during meetings with Chinese leaders on Wednesday.

The issue was a lack of notice given to New Zealand over the military exercises off its coast, Winston Peters told reporters in Beijing after meetings with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and vice premier Han Zheng.

“This is a failure in [our special relationship] at this time, and we’d like to have it corrected into the future,” he said.

In their meeting, Wang told Peters both countries should become partners of mutual trust and resolve “some specific differences” through dialogue, according to a readout from China’s foreign ministry.

Peters is in Beijing for a three-day visit after relations between the two countries became strained over the drills.

New Zealand and Australian officials said that China had conducted live-fire exercises in international waters between the two nations, giving little notice and forcing commercial airlines to divert flights.

China only gave “a couple of hours’ notice,” New Zealand’s defence minister Judith Collins told Radio New Zealand, rather than the expected 12 to 24 hours. A longer lead time would give airlines time to plan alternate routes.

Australia has complained more vociferously about the lack of notification. Foreign minister Penny Wong said she sought an explanation from Wang when the two met in Johannesburg last Saturday following a gathering of foreign ministers from the Group of 20 nations.

China’s official Xinhua news agency made no mention of the issue in an initial report on Peters’ meeting earlier in the day with Han.

The three Chinese ships were south of Tasmania in Australia’s exclusive economic zone and were now moving west, the New Zealand defence force said on Wednesday.

Peters said he also raised China’s missile launch test last September that landed near French Polynesia’s exclusive economic zone, of which “most Pacific Island nations got no warning at all” and New Zealand got “little warning.“

China was considering the issue of providing earlier notice for future naval drills, he said.

In his talks in Beijing, Peters said the return of President Donald Trump to the White House came up more than he had expected.

He didn’t provide any details, but said that both sides agreed that “perhaps we should just wait and see what happens when the dust settles.”

Peters has also voiced concerns that the Cook Islands, an independent country in free association with New Zealand, had signed a comprehensive strategic partnership and other agreements with China, without satisfactorily consulting with New Zealand.

China “needs to understand the constitutional arrangement” between New Zealand and the Cook Islands, Peters told reporters, adding that New Zealand got more information out of China on the deals than it got out of the Cook Islands.

Peters said last week his country must “reset” its relationship with its Pacific neighbour after its opaque dealings with Beijing.

The agreement spans education, the economy, infrastructure, fisheries, disaster management and seabed mining. It set off alarm bells in New Zealand due to concerns over China’s growing presence in the Pacific region and potential threats to the country’s national security.

Wang said that China respects the traditional relations between New Zealand and the Pacific island countries.

The Cook Islands is a self-governing nation and maintains free association with Wellington, sharing a head of state and citizenship rights. It is permitted an independent foreign policy, but the two countries are required to consult on security, defence and foreign policy issues.

The two diplomats also discussed trade and economic issues during Wednesday’s meeting, with Wang calling for cooperation on new growth engines such as artificial intelligence and green economy.

About a quarter of all New Zealand exports went to China in 2024.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

A Tunisian man who fatally stabbed three people in a terrorist attack at a church in Nice, almost decapitating one victim, has been sentenced to life imprisonment in France.

Brahim Aouissaoui, 25, had told the special court in Paris he had no recollection of the attack in October 2020. He later admitted he was taking revenge on “you [westerners] who kill Muslims every day”.

Armed with a kitchen knife, Aouissaoui almost decapitated 60-year-old Nadine Devillers, stabbed Barereto Silva, a 44-year-old Franco-Brazilian care worker, and slit the throat of Vincent Loqués, a 55-year-old church worker, at the Notre-Dame basilica.

He was convicted of the three murders and six attempted murders.

On Wednesday the court made the rare decision to give him the maximum sentence of life imprisonment with almost no chance of parole for the attack described in the trial as one of “unusual savagery”.

The presiding judge, Christophe Petiteau, described the murders as “very violent” and said the sentence reflected the judges’ verdict that Aouissaoui presented a “too high risk” of reoffending.

Petiteau described Brahim Aouissaoui as “an extremely dangerous man” whose “intention to kill could not be disputed”. His actions could not be described as being the result of a spontaneous “mad act”, the judges added.

The investigating magistrate said Aouissaoui had described France as “a country of miscreants and dogs” and said he was determined to “sow terror”.

The court was told that Aouissaoui had dropped out of school in Turkey at the age of 13 and was drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis at the time. He was radicalised at the end of 2018.

In a closing address to the special court, the counsel for the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office said Aouissaoui was “locked into his totalitarian and barbaric fanaticism”. He added: “The attack was in reality the culmination of a jihadist commitment born in Tunisia.”

It took seven police officers to arrest Aouissaoui, who was shot several times. Afterwards, officers said he was carrying a copy of the Qur’an, three knives and two mobile phones.

According to the anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office there were “many indications that at the time he left Tunisia … the accused intended to carry out an attack in France”.

A national day of mourning was held for the three victims. The killings came two weeks after the history-geography teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded near his secondary school north-west of Paris by an 18-year-old Chechen refugee angered at reports he had shown pupils caricatures of the prophet Muhammad in a lesson on freedom of speech.

Aouissaoui had crossed the Mediterranean from Tunisia to Italy a month before the attack and then entered France overland.

North Korea was behind the theft of approximately $1.5bn in virtual assets from a cryptocurrency exchange, the FBI has said, in what is being described as the biggest heist in history.

The haul, which reportedly has since lost some of its value, exceeded the previous record sum of $1bn stolen by the dictator Saddam Hussein from Iraq’s central bank before the 2003 war, and underlines the North’s growing expertise in cybercrime.

Describing this particular form of North Korean malicious cyber activity as “TraderTraitor”, the FBI on Wednesday warned that the virtual assets, stolen from ByBit, a Dubai-based crypto trading platform, would eventually be turned into currency.

“TraderTraitor actors are proceeding rapidly and have converted some of the stolen assets to bitcoin and other virtual assets dispersed across thousands of addresses on multiple blockchains,” said an FBI statement.

The bureau added that it expected the assets would be further laundered and eventually converted to fiat currency – a normal, government-backed currency that is not tied to commodities such as gold.

North Korea is known to operate a sophisticated cybercrime unit – known as the Lazarus Group – that has been responsible for audacious thefts whose proceeds are thought to have funded the regime’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

Hackers linked to North Korea stole more than US$1.3bn in cryptocurrency in 2024 – then a record amount – according to a report published in late December. The thefts were spread out over 47 incidents, the blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis said, adding that the total was a dramatic jump from the $660m seized in 2023.

“Hackers linked to North Korea have become notorious for their sophisticated and relentless tradecraft, often employing advanced malware, social engineering, and cryptocurrency theft to fund state-sponsored operations and circumvent international sanctions,” Chainalysis said in its report.

UN officials monitoring sanctions imposed on North Korea believe that the proceeds from dozens of suspected cyber-attacks the regime carried out between 2017 and 2023 were used to improve its nuclear weapons programme.

While his country’s economy has been battered by sanctions, the Covid-19 pandemic and natural disasters, Kim Jong-un has in recent years overseen significant improvements to North Korea’s potential to strike distant targets, including the US mainland.

Cybercrime is not the only means by which the regime earns foreign currency. Kim’s regime has supplied weapons, ammunition and troops to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine in exchange for cash and technological knowhow.

South Korea’s spy agency claimed on Thursday that Pyongyang had sent more soldiers to Russia, with some deployed to the frontline in Kursk, in addition to about 11,000 North Korean troops already thought to be in the Russian border region.

“The North Korean military, after a lull of about a month, was redeployed to the Kursk frontlines … with some additional troop deployments appearing to have taken place,” an official from the South’s National Intelligence Agency told Agence France-Presse, adding: “The exact scale is still being assessed.”

Another source of foreign currency has returned to North Korea in the past week, as it welcomed a small number of international tourists, including from the UK, France and Australia, for the first time since the pandemic.

Officials are reportedly hoping to attract large numbers of tourists from Russia, some of whom visited last year, and from China. The US, however, has banned its citizens from entering the country since 2017.

The victim of the latest heist, ByBit, said an attacker had gained control of an ether wallet and transferred the holdings to an unidentified address.

The exchange caters to more than 60 million users worldwide and offers access to various cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ether. Bybit had in recent days called on the “brightest minds” in cybersecurity to help it recover the $1.5bn.

Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls.

An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed the left-leaning Liberals have 38% public support and the official opposition right-of-center Conservatives have 36%. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, to Donald Trump.

The Conservative strategy had long been to attack the unpopular prime minister, Justin Trudeau, but he said last month he was resigning after more than nine years in power.

The Liberals, who will choose a new leader on 9 March, steadily picked up support after the US president threatened to impose tariffs on almost all imports from Canada and said he wanted to annex Canada as the 51st US state.

“The Conservatives are facing headwinds from rising anti-Trump sentiment and anticipation surrounding the Liberal party’s new leadership,” Ipsos said in a release.

The next election must be held by 20 October but could come much sooner than that. The new Liberal leader has the option of calling an election immediately.

A Leger poll released on Tuesday put the Conservatives on 38% public support with the Liberals on 35%, compared with 43% and 21% respectively in December. And an Ekos poll, also released on Tuesday, put the Liberals on 38% and the Conservatives on 37%.

The results of the three polls indicate that if an election were held now, the Liberals and Conservatives would both fall well short of a majority in the 343-seat House of Commons and could only take office with the support of smaller parties.

Such minority governments are less stable and rarely last more than two years. During the second of two Liberal leadership debates on Tuesday night, the major contenders called for tough countermeasures against the US and said the Conservatives’ Poilievre would not save Canada.

“Who’s the worst person to stand up to Donald Trump? It’s Pierre Poilievre. He worships the man. He uses his language. He’s not the right person for our country at this crucial time,” said the former central bank governor Mark Carney.

Poilievre’s office was not immediately available for comment.

The former finance minister Chrystia Freeland told the debate that “Trump is posing the gravest challenge our country has faced since the second world war”.

A cliff on the edge of the Yangtze River has become an overnight sensation in China after a Shanghai-based designer posted a photo of it earlier this month likening it to a dog.

Guo Qingshan took the photo, which he captioned “Puppy Mountain”, while on a hike near his home town of Yichang, in Hubei province, in late January.

When reviewing his images, he saw something he had not noticed before: a mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground, the tip of its snout at the water’s edge.

“It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said. “The puppy’s posture is like it’s drinking water, or it’s looking at some fish. It also looks like it’s quietly protecting the Yangtze River.”

Guo’s post on the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, received 120,000 likes in 10 days. The hashtag #xiaogoushan, Chinese for “puppy mountain”, also drew millions of views on the media platform Weibo.

Dog owners started to post pictures of their pets to see which one had the closest resemblance. Many people traveled directly to the location to see the mountain for themselves and some brought their dogs to take photos.

“Puppy Mountain here I am!” one social media user wrote on RedNote along with photos of the mountain. “Just stroke the puppy’s head and then everything will be OK.” Another commented: “We all need the eyes to see the beauty in this world.”

Yang Yang, who lives about an hour and a half from the location, drove there with her friends and her two-year-old grey poodle, Yang Keyi. “I was really happy to see the mountain,” she said. “I always travel with my dog if possible, so Puppy Mountain and my own little dog really match.”

The mountain is in Yichang’s Zigui county, where it can be seen from an observation deck.

After Guo’s photo went viral, many people shared photos of the view they had previously taken from the deck, many saying they had not realised it looked like a dog. Some discussed how the dog’s appearance had changed over the years.

Shi Tong, a Yichang resident, said he knew he had seen the mountain before, and posted a photo he took of the location in 2021.

“After I saw the Puppy Mountain photo online, I tried to look up where it is. And then I realised that I have been to this place before. I thought it looked like a dog at that time, too.”