Few of Hollywood’s leading actors made such an unlikely journey to stardom as Gene Hackman, who has died aged 95. He had no early contact with show business, came from a fraught family background and had looks that might generously be described as “homely”.

He did not decide on acting as a career until his late 20s and was in his late 30s when he had his breakthrough, as the elder brother in Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Yet within four years he had won the first of his two Oscars, playing the cop Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in The French Connection (1971).

While this was his biggest commercial success, his critical status grew with his performance as the paranoid surveillance expert in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974). Although it was a box office flop, it gave him the greatest opportunity of his career. As Harry Caul, a private surveillance expert who becomes involved in corrupt business and murder, resulting in his isolation and near insanity, Hackman brought a tense interior despair and complexity to the movie. He went on to become one of the most prolific and respected character stars of the late 1980s and the 90s.

Hackman acted in about 80 movies. Many were dire, and Empire magazine once described him as “the master of the art of rotten career moves”. But he survived those films, as well as problems with drink, a heart ailment and periods of depression. He admitted that he took many jobs for the money – certainly nothing else could account for his return to the Superman series in 1987 – to support an expensive lifestyle. He enjoyed flying his own planes and maintained homes throughout the US and Europe.

His readiness to accept so much work may have stemmed from a disrupted childhood during the Depression years. Born in San Bernardino, California, he was the son of Lyda (nee Gray), a waiter, and Eugene Hackman. His father, a journalist, in a restless search for employment moved the family from town to town before leaving for good when Gene was 13, upsetting his schooling and life so that he later remarked he never felt he belonged anywhere. He lied about his age and joined the Marines when he was 16, serving an instructive though unhappy few years, mainly in the far east. After a serious motorcycle accident, he was invalided out of the forces and had to find a livelihood.

His attempts included radio (he had gained experience while in the Marines) and painting (he was a talented artist but it remained a hobby, never a career). In 1956 he married a New Yorker, Faye Maltese, and with her support decided to try acting.

They moved to the west coast and Hackman enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theatre Arts, where he found himself years older than his fellow students. They included Dustin Hoffman, who later became the Hackmans’ lodger and a lifelong friend. Allegedly the duo were nominated by their fellows as those “least likely to succeed”.

On their return to New York, Faye became a secretary and Hackman took casual jobs between a few off-Broadway plays and occasional television work in episodes of The Defenders and The United States Steel Hour. In his film debut, Mad Dog Coll (1961), he played a cop, and he then appeared in a TV western, Ride With Terror (1963).

He anticipated better from a role in Robert Rossen’s Lilith (1964), which starred Warren Beatty. Despite the film’s subsequent cult status, the initial response to it hardly helped the struggling actor, who by then had a family – a son, Christopher, and daughter, Elizabeth. A Broadway role in Any Wednesday (1964), starring Jason Robards and an unfriendly Sandy Dennis received good notices, leading to him being given eighth billing as a missionary in the turgid movie Hawaii (1966).

Happily, Beatty turned producer for Bonnie and Clyde and, remembering Hackman from Lilith, cast him as Buck Barrow. The violent film set in Texas during the late 20s became a hit and Hackman’s assertive performance gained him an Oscar nomination, as best supporting actor.

Meanwhile, he readily accepted all the offers that came in, from television series to war films, from a part as a detective in The Split (1968) to that of an astronaut in the unmemorable Marooned and a convict in Riot (both 1969). In the same year he was cast opposite Burt Lancaster, who introduced him to the notion of star power, in The Gypsy Moths, and in Downhill Racer, as a ski coach to Robert Redford, a friend from his New York days. He also had a third child, Leslie, and a marriage made increasingly difficult by his relentless schedule.

Critical kudos and a second Oscar nomination came from his role as the son in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). The lack of audience for that sturdy film led to him accepting the execrable Doctors’ Wives (1971) and, the same year, the violent western The Hunting Party – potboilers that provided income and experience. But it was his subsequent success as the truculent detective in William Friedkin’s The French Connection that changed his life.

When Steve McQueen and others rejected the film, Hackman seized the moment and made the unyielding cop on the trail of drug dealers his own. He received an Oscar as best actor and reprised the role in the darker French Connection II (1975). By then he had director approval and chose John Frankenheimer, with whom he had worked successfully on The Gypsy Moths.

Between these thrillers, he was notable in two films released in 1972: Prime Cut, as a vicious gangland boss, and as the lead in the popular film The Poseidon Adventure. Bafta named him best actor for the latter, as they had done the previous year for The French Connection.

A year later, he displayed his versatility as one of two drifters (opposite Al Pacino) in the oddly platonic love story Scarecrow, but the rigour of his role in The Conversation was decidedly absent from the lugubrious Zandy’s Bride (1974). However, compensation came with a cameo as the blind hermit in Young Frankenstein (1974) and then the vast fee for recreating Doyle.

Despite the admiration of his peers and the public, Hackman had a reputation for impatience with the slow process on set and for his refusal to grind the publicity mill. His mood darkened during the rest of the decade, and was not helped by poor choices in 1975, including the thriller Night Moves and the western Bite the Bullet.

Following the highly paid chore of playing the villain Lex Luthor in Superman (1978), Hackman went into semi-retirement. Luckily, his scenes for Superman II (1980) had been completed during the initial shoot and he took time out to paint and sculpt, fly and travel. Only Beatty’s insistence that he play a cameo in Reds (1981) coaxed him back to work.

In 1983 he launched the second phase of his career, playing a jaded reporter in Roger Spottiswoode’s political thriller Under Fire and a colonel in Uncommon Valor, and taking the challenging role of the reclusive billionaire in Nicolas Roeg’s Eureka, the director’s wilful take on both his own The Man Who Fell to Earth and Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane. Eureka was badly distributed and was only rescued from oblivion by BBC television. It took Hackman a while to find his stride, mixing disasters such as Misunderstood (1984) and Superman IV (1987) with successes in Best Shot (released as Hoosiers in the US, 1986) and a villainous secretary of defence in the stylish No Way Out (1987).

It was the fourth of his six films in 1988 that gave him his best role for years, playing the co-investigator of racial murders in the US deep south. Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning received some stick for its alleged inaccuracies, but Hackman enjoyed a tailor-made part, exhibiting a combination of world-weary humanity and wry humour, cloaked by an exterior toughness. If ever there was a time in his career when he almost inherited the mantle of the great Spencer Tracy, this was it. He received the Berlin film festival Silver Bear and another Oscar nomination for the role.

Embarking on the busiest period of his career, when he also returned to the stage, opposite Glenn Close and Richard Dreyfuss in Death and the Maiden on Broadway (1992), Hackman made much of a small role as a film director in Postcards from the Edge, and played the detective in the remake of the noir classic Narrow Margin (both 1990). Including roles as narrator and General Mandible’s voice in Antz (1998), he made 25 appearances in 10 years. One documentary was a tribute to Clint Eastwood, to whom Hackman had reason to be grateful.

In 1992 Eastwood had nagged him into playing the sadistic sheriff Daggett in the sombre Unforgiven. Hackman brought weight and credibility to the pivotal role and received his second Oscar, plus a Bafta and Golden Globe. It started him on a run of westerns – as a brigadier general in Geronimo (1993), Nicholas Earp alongside Kevin Costner in Lawrence Kasdan’s monumental Wyatt Earp (1994), then another evil sheriff in the quirky The Quick and the Dead (1995). In Tony Scott’s cold war thriller Crimson Tide (1995) he was memorable as the hawkish submarine captain who nearly brings about a nuclear war.

He clearly enjoyed playing the sleazy producer in Get Shorty (1995). Relishing his increasing status and workload, he knocked spots off Hugh Grant in Extreme Measures (1996) and responded to the competition offered by Paul Newman in the nostalgic private-eye movie Twilight (1998). Hackman worked increasingly in big-budget movies: as the murderous president in Eastwood’s Absolute Power (1997), and the reclusive surveillance expert in Scott’s Enemy of the State (1998) – where the role and many of the scenes were a homage to The Conversation.

In his own production, the disturbing thriller Under Suspicion (2000), he played a wealthy lawyer being tracked by a dogged detective for a child murder. It was one more in the gallery of latter-day monsters that dominated his output during the period. He cornered the market in introspective, disturbed characters. It was not difficult to see why he had obtained the rights to The Silence of the Lambs, with a view to directing. In the event, Hackman found the material too disturbing and declined to play the lead role under another director.

There were lighter moments, such as his rightwing senator in The Birdcage (1996), a feeble revamp of La Cage aux Folles, and a return to coaching – this time football – in The Replacements (2000). During this busy period he somehow found time to co-write – with Dan Lenihan – his first novel, Wake of the Perdido Star (2000), an adventure story set in the early 19th century, which prompted him to give interviews, something he seldom did on behalf of his movies.

In 2001 he again embarked on a series of big-budget films, beginning with a cameo role in The Mexican, an uneasy blend of romance and black comedy starring Brad Pitt, quickly followed by Heartbreakers, in which Hackman played a cigarette tycoon bamboozled by Sigourney Weaver. In welcome contrast, he was very much the star as a gang leader, Joe, in David Mamet’s smart and complicated Heist – a thriller in which, characteristically for the writer-director, nothing was exactly what it seemed. Hackman was elevated to the rank of admiral in Behind Enemy Lines, a jingoistic and gung-ho war film that was more rewarding financially than artistically.

In one of the best films of his career, Wes Anderson’s witty and poignant The Royal Tenenbaums, Hackman took the lead as Royal, a long-absent father who returns to salvage his erratic family from a complicated domestic dilemma. Boasting a fine cast, it was made with panache and style.

Runaway Jury (2003), adapted from a John Grisham novel, proved efficient entertainment, largely thanks to an original premise and fine performances from Hackman and his friend Hoffman. After a minor comedy, Welcome to Mooseport (2004), Hackman gave a television interview stating that he had no plan to act in future and was going to enjoy a more simple life.

He returned to books, co-authoring three further historical novels with Lenihan. He subsequently worked alone, first writing an energetic western, Payback at Morning Peak (2011) and then a thriller, Pursuit (2013).

His first marriage ended in divorce in 1986. He married Betsy Arakawa, a pianist, in 1991; she was found dead with Hackman at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His three children survive him.

The ageing leader of a Kurdish militant group imprisoned on a remote Turkish island has called on the group to disarm and dissolve itself, signalling the start of a fragile peace with Turkey after four decades of guerrilla warfare, attacks and reprisals.

Abdullah Öcalan, a founding member of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), a group long regarded as a terrorist organisation in Turkey as well as in Britain and the US, issued the message in a letter read out by allies in Istanbul.

“I am making a call for the laying down of arms, and I take on the historical responsibility for this call,” Öcalan was quoted as saying. “All groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.”

Öcalan’s message will have far-reaching implications across the Middle East, not least in Syria where Kurdish forces control significant territory, but also in Iran and Iraq.

The 75-year-old is serving a life sentence at an island prison south of Istanbul, after being captured by Turkish special forces in Kenya in 1999.

His message was greeted with joy in the Istanbul conference room where Öcalan’s allies gathered to broadcast his call, after displaying a photo of supporters visiting the white-haired septuagenarian. A group of older Kurdish peace activists ululated as the call to lay down arms was read out.

“This is the breaking point of history and it is a positive one,” said Sırrı Süreyya Önder of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) party. “We are here with a compass to find a possible route out of these dark chaotic days.”

Önder hinted at some of the potential problems to come, adding that while Öcalan called for the PKK’s dissolution and to lay down arms, this “requires the recognition of democratic politics”, and legal support for a sustained peace.

DEM party politicians said they were hoping for a reprieve in government pressure after the announcement, after authorities in Ankara have sought to replace multiple politicians and mayors affiliated to the group, particularly in the majority-Kurdish south-east.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government has sought unilateral disarmament from the PKK, publicly quashing suggestions that Öcalan’s announcement would herald the start of peace talks.

Some in government responded to Öcalan’s announcement with caution. “We will look at the result,” said the deputy head of Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development party.

The PKK has been responsible for a string of attacks since its founding in 1978, notably car bombings and shootings primarily aimed at Turkish military and security targets. The group claimed responsibility for an attack on a state-owned arms company near Ankara last October, killing at least five people and wounding 22 more.

A ceasefire between the PKK and Turkey collapsed in 2015, prompting Ankara to renew attacks on the group using drones and airstrikes, targeting fighters across the mountains of northern Iraq. The International Crisis Group thinktank estimates that more than 7,152 people have been killed in clashes or attacks in Turkey and northern Iraq in the years since, including 646 civilians, over 4,000 militants, and almost 1,500 members of Turkish security forces.

Öcalan’s message is set to ripple across factions of Kurdish armed groups spread across northeastern Syria and northern Iraq with links to the PKK, particularly the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who battled IS militants and remain in control of a swath of territory including two major cities in eastern Syria.

The group is in talks with the new authority in Damascus after the overthrow of former president Bashar al-Assad, negotiating control over northeastern Syria as well as their future role in a nationwide military force. Öcalan’s announcement appears set to further pressure and isolate the SDF, who have clashed with Turkish-backed militias in Syria and long been targeted by Turkish strikes.

Gönül Töl, an analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said Öcalan likely decided the time was right to call for an end to hostilities as “he thinks things are not going well for the PKK right now”.

“It’s about his legacy,” she said. “He wants to be the one who ended this fight, and the PKK doesn’t have many options. There is a new authority in Syria, and the Syrian Kurds don’t have a strong hand. In Iraq there’s a new central government that is more willing to work with Turkey to squeeze the PKK.”

Berkay Mandıracı, of the International Crisis Group, said the PKK appeared to be “weakened” after a decade of intensive fighting.

“Turkish officials now appear to assess it is a good time to end the 40-year conflict with the PKK through a mix of military force and political manoeuvring,” he said, spurred by regional shifts across the Middle East. With Ankara poised to play a major role in Syria and the wider region, he said, Turkish officials wanted to remove any potential impediments.

Rumours of a declaration have rumbled for months while Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM party shuttled between different Kurdish factions and Öcalan’s island prison for negotiations.

How the different factions within the PKK might respond to Öcalan’s call also remained opaque. Earlier this month, one PKK commander told a television channel close to the faction that much of the group would only regard the command as serious if Öcalan demands they disarm after walking free from prison.

“This work cannot be done only through a call,” he said. “We are a movement with tens of thousands of armed people. These fighters are not on a payroll to be sacked. These are ideological fighters.” Öcalan, he said, “has to speak while free. If not, how can [PKK militants] be convinced to lay down their arms?”

The jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) has called on the group to disarm and dissolve, a major development that paves the way towards ending the 40-year conflict between militant Kurdish groups and the Turkish state and has far-reaching implications for the rest of the Middle East.

“I am making a call for the laying down of arms and I take on the historical responsibility for this call,” Abdullah Öcalan was quoted as saying in a letter read out by political allies in Istanbul. “All groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.”

The declaration follows a surprise peace gesture to Öcalan from Devlet Bahçeli, a hardline nationalist ally of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, last October.

Donald Trump has threatened China with an additional 10% tariff on its exports to the US, setting the stage for another significant escalation in his trade war with Beijing.

The US president also claimed that he plans to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting next Tuesday, having delayed their imposition last month following talks with his counterparts.

Posting on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump said that illicit drugs such as fentanyl were being smuggled into the United States at “unacceptable levels” and that import taxes would force other countries to crackdown on the trafficking.

“We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled,” the Republican president wrote. “China will likewise be charged an additional 10% Tariff on that date.”

If Trump makes good on this latest threat, the move would further strain relations between the US and its largest trading partners.

Both Canada and Mexico have pledged to retaliate if the US imposes tariffs on their exports. China hit back swiftly when Trump imposed a 10% tariff on its exports earlier this month.

The Trump administration has repeatedly raised the threat of tariffs, pledging to rebalance the global economic order in America’s favor. A string of announced measures have yet to be introduced, however, as economists and businesses urge officials to reconsider.

The duties on imports from Canada and Mexico have been repeatedly delayed; modified levies on steel and aluminum will not be enforced until next month; and a wave of so-called “reciprocal” tariffs, trailed earlier this month, will not kick in before April.

Earlier this week, the US president vowed to slap 25% tariffs on the European Union, claiming the bloc was “formed to screw the United States”, although details remain sparse. Duties will be applied “generally”, Trump said, “on cars and all other things”.

The prospect of escalating tariffs has already thrown the global economy into turmoil – with consumers expressing fears about inflation worsening and the auto sector possibly suffering if the US’s two largest trading partners in Canada and Mexico are slapped with taxes.

The prospect of higher prices and slower growth could create political blowback for Trump.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

The self-styled “misogynist influencer” Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan, have left Romania on a private jet and are flying to the US after their travel ban was lifted, officials and local media have said.

The pair, who were arrested in Romania in 2022 and face trial on charges of rape, sex with a minor, people trafficking and money laundering, took off from Băneasa airport in Bucharest for Fort Lauderdale at 6am (4am GMT), airport officials confirmed.

Local authorities said prosecutors had approved the brothers’ request to travel. The anti-organised crime unit, Diicot, said the pair remained “under judicial supervision” and would have to “appear before the judicial authorities at every summons”.

It added that violation of the obligations imposed on them “may lead to a higher custodial measure”. Local media said the pair, who are dual British and US nationals, were expected to return to Romania in March for a judicial control court hearing.

The brothers are outspoken supporters of Donald Trump, and several members of the US president’s inner circle have spoken out publicly against their treatment, including Donald Trump Jr who described their detention as “absolute insanity”.

Elon Musk responded to a suggestion from Tate that he would “run for prime minister of the UK” by saying “he’s not wrong”, while one of Tate’s lawyers, Paul Ingrassia, is the White House liaison official for the US Department of Justice.

According to Ingrassia, the Tate brothers were “sacrificed on the altar of the Matrix under the banner of egregious crimes they never committed”. The US vice-president, JD Vance, has appeared on a pro-Tate podcast.

Andrew Tate, 38, a former professional kickboxer, and his brother, 36, had been under a travel ban since their arrest along with two Romanian women on charges of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.

Diicot launched a second inquiry in August into alleged crimes including forming an organised criminal group, human trafficking, trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor and money laundering.

The brothers were among six people taken into custody then, when authorities ordered them to be placed under house arrest. The Tates and their suspected accomplices have denied all of the charges against them in both cases.

The brothers are also wanted by UK authorities who have filed an extradition request over allegations of sexual aggression in a case dating back to 2012. A Romanian court has ruled that proceedings in Romania must be concluded first.

In a joint statement, four British women who allege they were sexually abused by Andrew Tate said they felt “retraumatised” when they found out he had left Romania.

“It is clear that he will now not face criminal prosecution for his alleged crimes in Romania,” the women said. “He will use it as an opportunity to harass further and intimidate witnesses and his accusers, and he will continue to spread his violent, misogynistic doctrine around the world.”

The women had warned last week that the US government might push Romania to ease their travel restrictions, and the Financial Times has said Washington raised the Tates’ case with Romanian authorities.

The women’s lawyer, Matthew Jury, told the BBC that they had been “the victims of the most horrible and horrific alleged crimes … And to see the most powerful man in the world support their alleged abuser is incredibly traumatising.”

The Romanian foreign minister, Emil Hurezeanu, confirmed that Trump’s special envoy, Richard Grenell, had spoken to him about the brothers’ travel ban at this month’s Munich Security Conference.

Hurezeanu said Grenell told him he was “interested in the fate of the Tate brothers”, but he said there was “no form of pressure, no threat” from the US side and that “things are perfectly clear as far as we are concerned”.

Romania’s prime minister, Marcel Ciolacu, has also denied that the US made any request to Bucharest regarding “the legal situation of well-known foreign influencers investigated by Romanian authorities”, either during the conversation or after it.

Tate has been banned from several social media platforms for misogynistic views and hate speech but has more than 10 million followers on X, where he promotes an ultra-masculine lifestyle that critics say denigrates women.

In its second case against the brothers, Diicot alleges they used the so-called “loverboy” method – convincing people they are in a romantic relationship – to force 34 women into making pornography that was sold online for almost $3m (£2.1m).

Diicot alleges one of the defendants forced a 17-year-old to produce pornography in Britain and Romania, creating profits of $1.5m, and also alleges that the defendant repeatedly had sexual relations with a 15-year-old.

Several people have been killed and dozens more injured after blasts at a mass rally held by the M23 group in Bukavu, the city in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo captured by the rebels earlier this month.

Footage posted on social media showed people fleeing the scene. In another video, bloodied bodies lay on the ground and injured people were being carried away.

Thousands of people were present for the rally, which took place at Independence Square in the centre of Bukavu, which is the capital of South Kivu province and the second largest city in eastern DRC.

Among the rebel leaders present was Corneille Nangaa, the head of the Congo River Alliance (AFC), a coalition of militias that includes M23. They were leaving the podium when two blasts occurred, a journalist told the Associated Press.

Nangaa said 11 people had been killed and 65 injured. A similar toll was given by a hospital source to Agence France-Presse.

In a statement, the rebels accused the Congolese authorities of orchestrating the attack, adding: “This cowardly and barbaric act will not be without consequences.”

The DRC president, Felix Tshisekedi, called the attack “a heinous terrorist act that was perpetrated by a foreign army illegally present on Congolese soil”.

Jean Samy, the deputy president of the civil society Forces Vives of South Kivu, told the Associated Press that the attack was “a sabotage” carried out by unknown perpetrators.

Nangaa had earlier told the rally that M23 was bringing “change and development” to Bukavu, one of two key cities in the mineral-rich eastern DRC that it has captured this year. Last month it seized Goma, the largest city in the region.

The M23 advance is the gravest escalation in more than a decade of the long-running conflict in eastern DRC, rooted in the spillover of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and the struggle for control of DRC’s vast minerals resources.

The region is rich in gold and coltan, a key mineral for the production of capacitors used in most consumer electronics such as laptops and smartphones.

The Rwandan-backed M23 is among more than 100 armed groups fighting Congolese forces in the region, which borders Rwanda and Uganda. It is made up of Tutsis who left the Congolese army more than 10 years ago.

DRC says Rwanda is directing the group in order to profit from the region’s mineral wealth. UN experts say Kigali is supporting the rebel effort with thousands of its troops. Earlier this month the Guardian reported that hundreds of Rwandan troops had died in DRC in recent offensives.

Until recently, Rwanda had denied backing the M23 group, though in recent months it has been more vague, saying fighting near the border threatens its security. It still denies it has a troop presence in its neighbour.

M23 has said it is trying to protect Tutsis and Congolese people of Rwandan origin from discrimination, but analysts says these claims are pretexts for Rwanda’s involvement.

In January, M23 started making renewed advances in eastern DRC, capturing swathes of territory as it fought against the Congolese army and allied forces.

The conflict has exacerbated the humanitarian situation in the region, killing thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands. DRC’s prime minister, Judith Suminwa, said on Monday that about 7,000 people had died in fighting.

The conflict has also pushed people out of the country. More than 40,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled to Burundi this month, including more than 9,000 in a single day.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

Five months after the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ) finished first in parliamentary elections, Austria’s three leading centrist parties have reached agreement to form a new government without it.

The centre-right People’s party (ÖVP), the Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the liberal Neos, whose first attempt at forming a coalition failed in January, unveiled a 200-page programme aimed mainly at reviving the country’s ailing economy and cutting its budget deficit.

Christian Stocker, the ÖVP leader and likely next chancellor, said on Thursday a “common programme” had been agreed with the SPÖ and liberals, adding that the three parties had been working “around the clock” to finalise an accord.

The agreement ends months of uncertainty after the FPÖ’s historic election victory, when it gained almost 29% of the vote. After the mainstream parties’ unsuccessful effort, the ÖVP entered talks with the FPÖ, which also broke down this month.

They would have produced Austria’s first far-right-led government since the second world war, perhaps led by the Moscow-friendly, anti-EU FPÖ president, Herbert Kickl, who campaigned for mass “remigration” and an end to aid to Ukraine.

The negotiations foundered, however, over various disagreements including on EU and asylum policy, as well as the FPÖ’s insistence that it wanted control of both the interior and finance ministries, a demand the ÖVP rejected out of hand.

With the country without a government for the longest stretch in its modern history, President Alexander Van der Bellen had called on all three party leaders to reach a deal as quickly as possible. Ministerial roles are expected to be announced on Friday.

Stocker said the negotiations since September had been “perhaps the most difficult in the history of our country”. Austria’s challenges were “historic and far-reaching”, he said, including war in Ukraine, a flagging economy and pressure from migration.

Stocker took over the ÖVP leadership earlier this year after the former chancellor Karl Nehammer resigned when the first round of three-way coalition talks failed. Stocker is a 64-year-old lawyer who spent three decades in local politics and became an MP in 2019.

The coalition deal calls for strict new asylum rules, “return centres” to house rejected asylum seekers and the suspension of family reunification. Stocker said: “If the number of asylum applications increases, we reserve the right to impose a freeze.”

The parties’ programme also promises they will work out a “constitutional legal ban on headscarves”. It emphasises, however, that Austria’s new government remains “committed to a strong and better European Union”.

The ÖVP and SPÖ have often governed Austria together in the past in a “grand coalition”, but have the slimmest possible majority in the new parliament, with a combined 92 of the 183 seats. The addition of Neos brings 18 more.

The deal still needs formal approval by the leadership of the two larger parties and two-thirds of Neos members at a convention scheduled for Sunday.

The political analyst Thomas Hofer said the three-way coalition was expected “not to cause any major waves”. But he said the parties faced huge problems, not least their popularity ratings, with the ÖVP down to 19% from the 26% it scored in September.

The FPÖ, which has gained popularity since the election and is now polling at nearly 35%, would be likely to win a new vote even more comfortably. Kickl has dismissed the new government as a “coalition of losers” and called for a snap ballot.

The majority of banned books in US public schools last year dealt with people of color, LGBTQ+ people and other demographics, according to a new study from PEN America.

The report also counteracts claims by conservative lawmakers that books being removed from classrooms are sexually explicit and that book bans are altogether a “hoax”, an assertion made by Donald Trump.

There were more than 10,000 instances of books being banned in the 2023-24 school year, PEN America reported, a sharp increase from the previous year, as Republican-led states implemented new censorship laws.

Out of 4,218 book titles that were banned, 1,534 – or 36% – featured people of color, the most censored identity group in book bans. Some removed titles included August Wilson’s Pulitzer-prize winning play Fences and Innosanto Nagara’s A is for Activist, a picture book for children about social issues.

Books featuring people of color were disproportionately targeted in all banned-book categories, the report found, especially in removed historical and biographical titles. Of such banned books, 44% included people of color; more than one-fourth, or 26%, of those books featured Black people.

Advocates with PEN America noted that at the same time as the onslaught of book bannings, more than 50% of young people in the US are children of color, according to 2021 data from the Children’s Defense Fund.

“This targeted censorship amounts to a harmful assault on historically marginalized and underrepresented populations – a dangerous effort to erase their stories, achievements, and history from schools,” said Sabrina Baêta, senior manager for PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, in a press release about the report. “When we strip library shelves of books about particular groups, we defeat the purpose of a library collection that is supposed to reflect the lives of all people. The damaging consequences to young people are real.”

Titles featuring LGBTQ+ characters also made up a sizable number of book bans: 1,066 books, or 25% of all banned titles, included LGBTQ+ people. Transgender or genderqueer characters were specifically targeted in such book bans, as 28% of removed books featuring LGBTQ+ characters included that demographic.

Beyond people of color and LGBTQ+ people, books including disabled people were also affected by nationwide bans. About 10% of all removed titles included characters with physical, learning or developmental disabilities or who were neurodivergent. Several affected books with disabled characters focused on “confidence, self esteem, or experiences with ableism”, PEN America reported.

Meanwhile, only 13% of removed titles included “on the page” instances of sexual experiences. Inferred or “off the page” instances of sexual encounters were included in 31% of banned books.

The vast majority of banned books (85%) were fiction, with 14% being non-fiction and 1% poetry. About 67% of removed books were for younger audiences, PEN America reported.

The ongoing banning of books comes as the Trump administration has cracked down on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in US public schools and universities. In a memo last week, Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from any schools that refused to eliminate diversity initiatives, such as scholarships for students of certain identity groups and school programming.

Hamas has handed over the bodies of four hostages, and Israel has released more than 600 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, when immediate identity checks were carried out using dental records. By dawn on Thursday morning, three out of the four had been positively identified, according to a group representing the hostages.

Meanwhile, buses carrying Palestinian prisoners arrived in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Khan Younis in Gaza and in Egypt, where 97 of the prisoners were deported. They will stay there until accepted by another country, Israeli officials said.

Ambulances brought freed Palestinians to the European hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, where they were set to undergo medical examination. Prisoners freed in previous exchanges have had limbs amputated while in Israeli custody and many were extremely emaciated.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Information Office said on Thursday morning that 642 prisoners had been released overnight in the seventh phase of the Gaza ceasefire, of whom 46 were women or minors. If confirmed, it means Israel freed more Palestinians than scheduled, after a four-day breach in the ceasefire agreement.

On Saturday, Israel had been due to free 602 prisoners and detainees in exchange for six surviving hostages, but the government suspended the transfer of the prisoners at the last moment, 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, but implemented a new system of identity checks, first at the point of transfer in Kerem Shalom using dental records, followed by a more thorough check at a national forensics laboratory. The new measures followed an incident on Saturday when Hamas delivered the wrong body, apparently in error.

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 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 added: “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, who Hamas said were killed by airstrikes, were handed over last week. 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 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.

The world’s biggest YouTube star, MrBeast, is planning to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in a move that would reportedly value his company at roughly $5bn (£3.9bn).

The YouTuber, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, is said to have spoken with several wealthy individuals and financial firms about taking part in the investment round.

He is reportedly planning to use the money to create a holding company for his growing empire, which includes a video production company, his chocolates brand Feastables and snack business Lunchly. The funds could also expand his media and packaged goods businesses, according to Bloomberg, which already generated more than $400m in sales last year.

Talks over the potential fundraising are still in early stages and it is not yet clear who would invest and at what price. It would not be his first fundraising round – he previously clinched investment from firms including the New York-based Alpha Wave Global.

If he is successful, fresh funding would help to further expand Donaldson’s business. He is already the biggest YouTuber in the world with more than 368 million subscribers to his channel.

The 26-year-old from Wichita, Kansas, is mostly known for videos consisting of stunts or challenges, or giveaways of cash or prizes. One of his most popular viral videos recreated the sets from the Netflix series Squid Game at a cost of $3.5m; he invited 456 people to compete in challenges to win $456,000 in prize money.

He has since launched a reality competition show – Beast Games – through Amazon, which became the streaming platform’s most watched unscripted show last month.

Like many YouTubers, Donaldson started off posting videos in his bedroom, joining the video platform in 2012. He has since launched food brands including Feastables and MrBeast burgers, which have been distributed through “ghost kitchens” used by food delivery companies in locations across the US, UK and Australia.

He reportedly makes tens of millions of dollars a year, has a philanthropic organisation, and is generally seen as a positive influence on YouTube – investing much of what he makes back into his videos, as well as charitable efforts.

However, his work has not come without criticism. He has a history of homophobic comments as a teenager, and he faced complaints about being a hard taskmaster to employees.

Some have also criticised his videos as “poverty porn”, arguing people only benefited – through cash, other prizes or gifts – because they featured in his content. This was most pointed when he was aiming to fund 1,000 people to get cataract surgery to restore their sight. However, those efforts were also praised by charities.