The Trump administration has suspended delivery of all US military aid to Ukraine, according to US media reports, blocking billions in crucial shipments as the White House piles pressure on Ukraine to sue for peace with Vladimir Putin.

The decision affects deliveries of ammunition, vehicles, and other equipment including shipments agreed to when Joe Biden was president.

It comes after a dramatic blow-up in the White House on Friday during which Donald Trump told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he was “gambling with” a third world war. The Ukrainian president was told to come back “when he is ready for peace”.

A senior administration official told Fox News that “this is not permanent termination of aid, it’s a pause”. Bloomberg reported that all US military equipment not in Ukraine would be held back, including weapons in transit on aircraft and ships or waiting in transit areas in Poland.

It added that Trump had ordered the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to execute the pause.

The decision followed a White House meeting that included the vice-president, JD Vance; Hegseth; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard; and Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.

“The president has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well,” a White House official told the Washington Post. “We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution.”

The US Congress has approved $175bn in total assistance for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion nearly three years ago, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. In December, right before leaving office, Joe Biden announced an additional $5.9bn in security and budget assistance.

US assistance to Ukraine includes military aid, budgetary assistance largely delivered through a World Bank trust fund, and other funds that had been delivered through the US Agency for International Development (USAid), which has been throttled by the Trump White House.

Some of the money sent by the US to Ukraine helps the country pay salaries of teachers and doctors, and keeps the government running, allowing it to focus on fighting Russia’s invasion.

Ukraine weapons assistance from the US has been facilitated through two programs: presidential drawdown authority (PDA), which allows the president to quickly transfer weapons and equipment from US stocks to foreign countries without the need for congressional approval; and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), where military equipment is procured from the defense industry.

In total the US has pledged $31.7bn worth of weapons aid to Ukraine through PDA. The vast majority – well over $20bn according to a Reuters analysis – has been shipped.

The announcement pertains mainly to aid that had been previously approved but not yet disbursed. Trump has not approved any new aid under his own presidential authority since taking office and a new congressional aid package appears unlikely, at least in the near term.

Earlier on Monday Trump had expressed new outrage at Zelenskyy for saying that the end of the war could be “very, very far away”.

In a post to social media on Monday, Trump posted a link to an Associated Press story outlining Zelenskyy’s comments and said: “This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!

“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the US. Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?”

Later on Monday, Trump said that Zelenskyy “won’t be around very
long” unless he succumbs to pressure and makes deal on US terms.

“It should not be that hard a deal to make. It could be made very fast,” Trump told reporters, referring to a ceasefire. “Now, maybe somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, and if somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long.”

The Trump administration was also reported to be drawing up a plan on Monday to restore ties with Russia and lift sanctions on the Kremlin.

The White House has asked the state and treasury departments to draft a list of sanctions that could be eased for US officials to discuss with Russian representatives in the coming days as part of the administration’s broad talks with Moscow on improving diplomatic and economic relations, Reuters reported citing a US official and another person familiar with the matter.

In an interview recorded on Monday before the announcement of the suspension, Vance told Fox News that giving the US an economic interest in the future of Ukraine would serve as a security guarantee – a reference to the minerals deal about which Zelenskyy had been summoned to Washington, only to be berated and turned out of the White House.

“If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine,” Vance said. “That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”

Reuters contributed to this report

Donald Trump has paused military aid to Ukraine following his clash with the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, last week, according to US media reports.

Vance told Fox News in an interview recorded before the announcement on Monday that giving Washington an economic interest in the future of Ukraine will serve as a security guarantee for the country that Russia invaded in February 2022.

“If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine,” Vance said in the interview.

“That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years,” he added.

A senior US Democrat has hit out at Donald Trump’s attempt to reset relations with Russia following revelations that the president’s administration is retreating from the fight against Russian cyber threats, calling the reported move “a critical strategic mistake”.

In a statement on Sunday making reference to the Russian leader, New York’s Chuck Schumer – the US Senate’s Democratic minority leader – said Trump was “so desperate to earn the affection of a thug like Vladimir Putin he appears to be giving him a free pass as Russia continues to launch cyber operations and ransomware attacks against critical American infrastructure, threatening our economic and national security”.

Schumer called the administration’s move “a critical strategic mistake” in his statement, which he posted on X.

The criticism comes after the Guardian reported on Friday that Trump’s administration had publicly and privately signaled that it does not believe Russia represents a cyber threat against US national security or vital infrastructure in a radical departure from longstanding intelligence assessments.

Furthermore, on Sunday, the New York Times reported that the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, had ordered a pause on all of the country’s cyber operations against Russia, including offensive actions. Hegseth’s reported maneuver came as the Trump administration looks to reset Washington’s relations with Moscow ahead of US-led peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, which Russian forces invaded in February 2022.

Meanwhile, Britain and France have announced a rival plan for a “coalition of the willing” to secure a peace deal to end the three-year war.

The order to US Cyber Command to halt offensive operations against Russia was issued before the dramatic public breakdown of relations between the Trump administration and Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelenskyy, at the White House on Friday.

According to the Record, a cyber-focused US publication that first reported the instruction, Hegseth’s order to the cyber command chief, Gen Timothy Haugh, does not appear to apply to the National Security Agency or its signals intelligence work targeting Russia. The outlet cited sources.

The duration of Hegseth’s order has not been revealed – nor is it known what offensive digital operations are being suspended.

While it is not uncommon for there to be a pause in military operations between countries engaging in diplomatic negotiations, the suspension of US “shadow war” operations invites reciprocation.

It is unclear if a similar suspension has or will be enacted by Russia. On Sunday, a Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, welcomed a Washington-Moscow reset, saying the second Trump presidential administration was rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. “This largely aligns with our vision,” Peskov said.

But speaking to CNN on Sunday about reopening links to Russia, the US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, denied reports of the cyber policy change. “That has not been part of our discussions,” Waltz said. “There will be all kinds of carrots and sticks to get this war to an end.”

A US defense official cited by NBC News declined to comment on the decision but said: “There is no greater priority to Secretary Hegseth than the safety of the warfighter in all operations, to include the cyber domain.”

The order does not apply to the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security and is responsible for protecting domestic US cyber infrastructure.

The agency reportedly said in a statement that its “mission is to defend against all cyber threats to US Critical Infrastructure, including from Russia”.

“There has been no change in our posture,” the Cisa statement said.

In February, the Pentagon ordered a review of US Cyber Command operations to be fast-tracked, the Record reported, in line with the Trump administration’s belief that the US must become more confrontational in cyberspace in the wake of hacks and espionage campaigns by China.

In its reporting on Friday that the US no longer characterized Russia as a cybersecurity threat, the Guardian pointed to a speech delivered by Liesyl Franz, deputy assistant secretary for international cybersecurity at the state department, to a UN working group. Franz said the US was concerned by threats posed by some states but only named China and Iran – without mentioning Russia.

Meanwhile, Trump officials have been advocating for stepped-up military actions against Mexican cartel operations to stem the flow of fentanyl into the US – which could draw intelligence resources from Cyber Command.

On Saturday, officials said they were sending roughly an additional 3,000 active-duty troops to the US-Mexico border.

In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump expounded his belief that the US faces other more pressing topics than Russia.

“We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country – So that we don’t end up like Europe!” Trump wrote.

The US will press ahead with steep tariffs on Canada and Mexico from Tuesday, Donald Trump has said, setting the stage for a trade war with his country’s two largest economic partners.

Hours before his administration was due to hit America’s closest neighbors with sweeping import duties, the US president claimed there was “no room left” for a deal to avoid their imposition. The announcement led to a sharp sell-off on Wall Street.

All Mexican exports to the US are set to face a levy of 25% under the plans. Most Canadian exports will face a 25% tariff, with energy products facing a 10% duty.

A 10% levy on China – introduced last month – will be doubled to 20%, according to an executive order released by the White House.

China’s commerce ministry on Tuesday vowed countermeasures that it said were aimed at safeguarding its rights and interests. The US had “shifted the blame” and is using its problems with the deadly drug fentanyl as an excuse to impose tariffs, the ministry said in a statement.

The US has argued that China supplies chemicals used in fentanyl production. China has denied wrongdoing. China urges the US to “immediately withdraw” its unilateral tariff measures that are “unreasonable and groundless, harmful to others,” the ministry said.

But at a news conference, Trump told reporters tariffs were a “very powerful weapon”.

The actions are set to prompt swift retaliation. “We’re ready,” said the Canadian foreign minister, Mélanie Joly.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement on Monday, calling the US tariffs “unjustified” and vowing to immediately respond with a 25% tariff of their own.

“Our tariff will remain in place until the US trade action is withdrawn,” Trudeau said, while urging the US to reconsider the tariffs. “Tariffs will disrupt a very successful trading relationship. They will violate the very trade agreement that was negotiated by President Trump in his last term.”

Wall Street fell sharply after Trump’s remarks, with the S&P 500 down 1.7%, the Dow Jones industrial average down 1.5%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropping over 2.6%.

The tariffs will affect $900bn in annual imports from Canada and Mexico. The Ford CEO, Jim Farley, has warned they threaten to “blow a hole” in US industry.

Trump has reluctantly conceded in recent weeks that higher tariffs could lead to higher prices in the US, but suggested the impact would be worth the cost. He has brushed off calls to tread carefully, escalating threats to go further.

“Tariffs are easy, they’re fast, they’re efficient, and they bring fairness,” Trump said. He described the levies as a “a powerful weapon” that other presidents had not used because “they were dishonest, stupid or paid off in some other form”.

Trump even took a swipe at Republican hero and staunch free-trader president, Ronald Reagan. “I’m a huge fan of Ronald Reagan but he was very bad on trade,” said Trump.

Tariffs are “an act of war, to some degree”, the billionaire investor Warren Buffett warned recently. “Over time, they are a tax on goods,” he told CBS News. “I mean, the Tooth Fairy doesn’t pay ’em!”

On Monday, Trump also pledged to impose tariffs on overseas agricultural goods within weeks. He claimed his administration would introduce tariffs on farm products from 2 April.

A string of such deadlines – including vows to hit Canada and Mexico with tariffs in January, and then February – have been delayed, however, as economists and business leaders urge caution.

“To the Great Farmers of the United States: Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social network, on Monday. “Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!”

Chips giant, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), will boost its US investment by $100bn, building new five new “cutting edge” fabrication plants on American soil, Donald Trump has announced alongside the company’s chief executive.

Trump said the investment means TSMC, which supplies the vast majority of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, will avoid the tariffs he has publicly mulled imposing on the global industry, as he seeks to bring more manufacturing to the US and assert US trade dominance over both rivals and allies.

CC Wei, the chief executive of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) announced the investment at the White House alongside the president, the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, and David Sacks, a Trump adviser on AI and crypto. He said the new investment brings TSMC’s total investment in chip manufacturing in the US to $165bn.

“We are producing the most advanced chip on US soil,” Wei said. “Now the vision becomes reality.”

Trump called Wei a “legend” and said the investment will create many thousands of jobs. The president claimed that bringing semiconductor manufacturing to the US is a matter of national security and would give the country a big share of the world market.

Taiwan supplies the vast majority of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, and keeps most of its production onshore under tight protection, which analysts believe boost global incentives to defend Taiwan against Chinese invasion.

“Taking away Taiwan’s technology sector will reduce the power of Taiwan’s’ ‘silicon shield’,” said James Yifan Chen, assistant professor in the department of diplomacy and international relations at Tamkang University in Taiwan.

On Monday Trump said a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be “catastrophic event”.

He said the TSMC investment “will at least give us a position where we have, in this very, very important business, we would have a very big part of it in the United States.”

Taiwan’s premier, Cho Jung-tai, on Tuesday said the involvement of various industries in the global supply chain required close cooperation with the government. “Keeping roots in Taiwan and continuing to strengthen Taiwan is the shared stance of the country, government, and industry, and it will remain unwavering,” he said, according to local media.

Taiwan’s government has said it will review the investment, taking into account “the company’s development while ensuring the overall competitiveness of the semiconductor industry and the country”.

“The close cooperation in high-tech industries between Taiwan and the United States has made Taiwan the most important partner for the United States in maintaining its leading position in high-tech and technology industries,” cabinet spokeswoman Michelle Lee said.

Taiwan’s department of investment review spokesman Su Chi-yen told AFP the government could potentially veto the investment, but that “most past rejections were due to incomplete documentation.”

Last April, Wei had agreed to expand TSMC’s planned spending in the US by $25bn to $65bn and to add two more factories to its site in Arizona by 2030.

TSMC is the largest contract chipmaker in the world, and it first set up shop in Arizona in 2020, with production there beginning late last year. The company’s further expansion in the US would bring additional investment to semiconductor manufacturing at a time when much of the industry is consolidated in Asia.

The chips that TSMC produces are used in most all parts of the tech sector – from smartphones and car consoles to the servers used to power artificial intelligence.

Lutnick told lawmakers last month that the program was “an excellent down payment” to rebuild the sector, but he has declined to commit grants that have already been approved by the department, and said he wanted to “read them and analyze them and understand them”.

On Monday, Lutnick repeatedly thanked Trump for bringing more chip production to the US. “Now you’re seeing the power of Donald Trump’s presidency,” he said.

The US commerce department under then president Joe Biden finalized a $6.6bn government subsidy in November for TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Arizona.

Biden signed the Chips and Science Act legislation in 2022 to provide $52.7bn in subsidies for American semiconductor production and research to boost domestic production and make the United States less reliant on semiconductors made in Asia.

A TSMC spokesperson said last month the company had received $1.5bn in Chips Act money before the new administration came in as per the milestone terms of its agreement.

TSMC last year agreed to produce the world’s most advanced 2-nanometer technology at its second Arizona plant expected to begin production in 2028. TSMC also agreed to use its most advanced chip manufacturing technology called “A16” in Arizona. The TSMC award included up to $5bn in low-cost government loans.

While campaigning for president, Trump criticized the Chips Act and said that tariffs would be a better avenue to bring foreign manufacturing to the US.

On Monday, Trump said that because TSMC is building in the US, it will not be obligated to pay the tariffs the president has promised. He added that reciprocal tariffs on Canada and Mexico will begin on 2 April and if businesses based in those countries don’t want to pay tariffs, they should build in the US.

“That’s what Mr Wei is doing,” Trump said. “He’s way ahead of the game.”

Additional research by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu

As thousands of delegates from across China arrive in Beijing this week to participate in the annual parliamentary session, there is a barely perceptible shift in the mood in the capital. Though few ordinary Chinese pay much attention to goings-on inside the Great Hall of the People, the imposing 1950s modernist building that flanks the western edge of Tiananmen Square, the ripple effects of this week’s conclave can be felt across the city.

Security is heightened. Extra uniformed personnel have been deployed to stand guard on Beijing’s bridges – lest anyone attempt a stunt inspired by Peng Lifa’s protest at Sitong Bridge ahead of the 20th party congress in 2022. Guards at busy subway stations subject commuters to random scans of their identification cards.

Virtual private networks – apps used to tunnel through the firewall of internet censorship – slow down, as the authorities try to tighten their grip on the exchange of information with the outside world. It is imperative to the Communist party that the parallel sessions of the “Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference”, an advisory body, and the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s rubber-stamp parliament, run smoothly. Put together, the meetings are known as the Two Sessions, and represent the most important annual event in China’s political calendar.

From Beijing, the outside world appears to be in flux. China’s claim to be the beacon of stability in a chaotic world is being bolstered by events. The presidents of the US and Ukraine are trading verbal blows live on television; the US-backed ceasefire deal in Gaza is on the brink of collapse.

China, save for a few headlines about tariffs, is staying out of the news. The tariffs themselves are generally far from the public consciousness, despite the fact that China is expected to impose another round of countermeasures on the US on Tuesday, after Donald Trump threatened Beijing with an extra 10% duty.

The trade war “won’t influence me”, said Wang Zichen, an 18-year-old salesperson working in Beijing’s upmarket Chaoyang district. The US and China “are just having some problems and need a solution … [the US] is a friendly country”. Wang is more interested in hustling for his next customer. Business is slow. Total sales of consumer goods in Chaoyang dropped by 4% in 2024, while sales of commercial and residential property fell by 10% and 13% respectively, when measured in square metres.

China was supposed to roar back from the pandemic as consumer spending was unleashed, but most people on the street agree that hasn’t happened. Real estate prices are falling. Millennials and Gen-Z workers are struggling to find work and even the middle-aged, including people with their own young children, are sitting at home without jobs. They, like the younger generations, are tangping, or “lying flat”: choosing passivity in a society that doesn’t feel like it is rewarding hard work. Young parents even talk of kenlao, or “eating the old” – living off their elders who have healthy state pensions.

This kind of economic nihilism is exactly what Beijing wants to combat. High on the agenda for this week’s NPC will be fiscal stimulus. In December, the Central Economic Work Conference, an economic planning session convened by the CCP politburo, stressed the need to stimulate consumption and stabilise economic growth.

When the Chinese premier, Li Qiang, delivers the government work report at the NPC’s opening session on Wednesday, analysts will be watching closely for the GDP target for 2025, expected to be 5%, and for details on the directions set by the CCP at the end of last year.

With the first shots of the US-China trade war fired since that December meeting, Beijing is under pressure to find ways to shield its economy from the impact of tariffs. In 2024, China’s economy reached its GDP target with the help of an end-of-year export boom. Exports to the US in December increased by 15.6%. With tariffs back on the menu, economic growth built on exports will be harder to pull off in 2025.

China’s economic boom was built on infrastructure and policies that prioritised GDP growth above all else. Then it turned to manufacturing, becoming the “factory of the world”. Now China’s leaders want to pivot the economy towards “new quality productive forces”, a phrase coined by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in 2023. That means focusing on investment in innovation and hi-tech sectors.

And in 2025, that means DeepSeek. The upstart Chinese AI company took the world by storm in January when it released an AI model that emulated the sophistication of leading American competitors, seemingly at a fraction of the cost. DeepSeek’s debut wiped a record $1tn off US tech stocks as investors reeled from the revelation that the US may not keep its leading position in AI for much longer.

DeepSeek, a private research firm bankrolled by a hedge-fund entrepreneur named Liang Wenfeng, achieved its success without state backing. But the state has since embraced Liang and his company. Last month, Xi held a rare in-person meeting with tech leaders in Beijing, with Liang reportedly present.

While Liang is burnishing his connections in the capital, his company is everywhere. The technology giant Baidu is integrating DeepSeek with its own large language model, Ernie, with DeepSeek already being embedded into Baidu’s apps. Beijing commuters consult DeepSeek’s chatbot while huddling on crowded subway carriages.

Western diplomats report that Chinese officials are mentioning DeepSeek’s potential at every possible opportunity. The local public transport authority in Shenzhen, China’s southern tech hub, has started using DeepSeek in its AI-powered customer service agent, and claims to have increased efficiency by 50% as a result.

There is no doubting a spring in the step of Chinese policymakers tasked with promoting Xi’s beloved “new quality productive forces”. The delegates to this week’s Two Sessions will have to hope that such optimism in the corridors of power can spread on to the streets of Beijing, and beyond.

Additional research by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu

More than half of adults and a third of children and young people worldwide will be overweight or obese by 2050, posing an “unparalleled threat” of early death, disease and enormous strain on healthcare systems, a report warns.

Global failures in the response to the growing obesity crisis over the past three decades have led to a staggering increase in the numbers affected, according to the analysis published in the Lancet.

There are now 2.11 billion adults aged 25 or above and 493 million children and young people aged five to 24 who are overweight or obese, the study shows. That is up from 731 million and 198 million respectively in 1990.

Without urgent policy reform and action, the report says, more than half of those aged 25 or above worldwide (3.8 billion) and about a third of all children and young people (746 million) are forecast to be affected by 2050.

The research predicts a particularly alarming rise (121%) in obesity among children and younger people, with the number predicted to be living with obesity predicted to hit 360 million by 2050.

“The unprecedented global epidemic of overweight and obesity is a profound tragedy and a monumental societal failure,” said lead author Prof Emmanuela Gakidou, from the University of Washington.

The numbers affected vary across the globe, the study shows. More than half of the adults classified as overweight or obese live in just eight countries: China (402 million), India (180 million), the US (172 million), Brazil (88 million), Russia (71 million), Mexico (58 million), Indonesia (52 million) and Egypt (41 million).

By 2050, about one in three children and young people living with obesity (130 million) are forecast to be in just two regions – north Africa and the Middle East and Latin America and the Caribbean – with seismic health, economic and societal consequences, the report says.

The researchers warned that children everywhere are gaining weight faster than previous generations and obesity is occurring earlier, increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer occurring at a younger age.

For example, in high-income countries, about 7% of men born in the 1960s were obese by the time they were 25. But this increased to 16% for men born in the 1990s, and is predicted to reach 25% for men born in 2015.

In the UK, the Lancet report predicted that among children aged five to 14, obesity will rise from 12% of girls in 2021 to 18.4% in 2050, and from 9.9% to 15.5% in boys over the same period.

Nearly a quarter of the world’s obese adult population in 2050 are forecast to be aged 65 or above, intensifying the strain on already overburdened healthcare systems and wreaking havoc on services in low-resource countries.

A second study also published on Monday, by the World Obesity Federation, warned in particular of the impact of obesity in poorer countries.

“By far the greatest number of premature deaths attributable to high BMI are in lower- and upper-middle-income countries – indicating poor levels of treatment available,” its authors wrote.

Johanna Ralston, the chief executive of the World Obesity Forum, said: “Obesity has significant health, economic and societal impacts that are likely to be more challenging for lower-resourced countries to address.”

The researchers behind the Lancet study noted some limitations, including that while they used the best available data, predictions were constrained by the quantity and quality of past data. The potential impact of emerging interventions, such as weight-loss drugs, were also not considered.

Writing in a linked comment, Thorkild Sørensen of the University of Copenhagen, who was not involved with the research, said the scale of the obesity crisis was now so significant that there would have to be public health interventions worldwide.

More than half of adults and a third of children and young people worldwide will be overweight or obese by 2050, posing an “unparalleled threat” of early death, disease and enormous strain on healthcare systems, a report warns.

Global failures in the response to the growing obesity crisis over the past three decades have led to a staggering increase in the numbers affected, according to the analysis published in the Lancet.

There are now 2.11 billion adults aged 25 or above and 493 million children and young people aged five to 24 who are overweight or obese, the study shows. That is up from 731 million and 198 million respectively in 1990.

Without urgent policy reform and action, the report says, more than half of those aged 25 or above worldwide (3.8 billion) and about a third of all children and young people (746 million) are forecast to be affected by 2050.

The research predicts a particularly alarming rise (121%) in obesity among children and younger people, with the number predicted to be living with obesity predicted to hit 360 million by 2050.

“The unprecedented global epidemic of overweight and obesity is a profound tragedy and a monumental societal failure,” said lead author Prof Emmanuela Gakidou, from the University of Washington.

The numbers affected vary across the globe, the study shows. More than half of the adults classified as overweight or obese live in just eight countries: China (402 million), India (180 million), the US (172 million), Brazil (88 million), Russia (71 million), Mexico (58 million), Indonesia (52 million) and Egypt (41 million).

By 2050, about one in three children and young people living with obesity (130 million) are forecast to be in just two regions – north Africa and the Middle East and Latin America and the Caribbean – with seismic health, economic and societal consequences, the report says.

The researchers warned that children everywhere are gaining weight faster than previous generations and obesity is occurring earlier, increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer occurring at a younger age.

For example, in high-income countries, about 7% of men born in the 1960s were obese by the time they were 25. But this increased to 16% for men born in the 1990s, and is predicted to reach 25% for men born in 2015.

In the UK, the Lancet report predicted that among children aged five to 14, obesity will rise from 12% of girls in 2021 to 18.4% in 2050, and from 9.9% to 15.5% in boys over the same period.

Nearly a quarter of the world’s obese adult population in 2050 are forecast to be aged 65 or above, intensifying the strain on already overburdened healthcare systems and wreaking havoc on services in low-resource countries.

A second study also published on Monday, by the World Obesity Federation, warned in particular of the impact of obesity in poorer countries.

“By far the greatest number of premature deaths attributable to high BMI are in lower- and upper-middle-income countries – indicating poor levels of treatment available,” its authors wrote.

Johanna Ralston, the chief executive of the World Obesity Forum, said: “Obesity has significant health, economic and societal impacts that are likely to be more challenging for lower-resourced countries to address.”

The researchers behind the Lancet study noted some limitations, including that while they used the best available data, predictions were constrained by the quantity and quality of past data. The potential impact of emerging interventions, such as weight-loss drugs, were also not considered.

Writing in a linked comment, Thorkild Sørensen of the University of Copenhagen, who was not involved with the research, said the scale of the obesity crisis was now so significant that there would have to be public health interventions worldwide.

Pope Francis, who has been in hospital with pneumonia for more than two weeks, suffered two episodes of “acute respiratory failure” on Monday, the Vatican said.

The pontiff, 88, had returned to a stable condition during the weekend after a breathing crisis that caused him to vomit on Friday. The Vatican said the episodes on Monday were caused by “significant accumulation of endobronchial mucus and a consequent bronchospasm”.

“Two bronchoscopies were therefore performed, requiring aspiration of abundant secretions,” the Vatican said. “In the afternoon, non-invasive mechanical ventilation was resumed.”

The Vatican added that the pope “has always remained vigilant, oriented and collaborative”. Medics’ prognosis remains “guarded”, meaning the pope is not yet out of danger.

Francis was admitted to hospital on 14 February with bronchitis, but his condition deteriorated into pneumonia in both lungs. On 22 February, he suffered a prolonged asthma-style attack and required blood transfusions for a low platelet count. After a few days last week of showing a “slight” improvement, the pope had an episode akin to an asthma attack on Friday that also caused him to inhale vomit.

He is prone to lung infections because he developed pleurisy as a young adult and had part of one lung removed while he was training to be a priest in his native Argentina. Medical experts have said that Francis’s age and the chronic respiratory disease from which he suffers mean a sustained recovery will take time.

In a message shared on X on Sunday, the pope thanked well-wishers for their support after missing his Angelus blessing for a third week in a row. Nightly prayer vigils for the pope’s health are continuing to take place at St Peter’s Basilica as well as in towns and cities across Italy and abroad.

Before his hospital admission, the pope maintained an intense schedule, especially with events related to the Catholic jubilee year.

The US Senate has confirmed Linda McMahon as the nation’s next education secretary, entrusting the former wrestling executive with a department marked for dismantling by Donald Trump.

The 76-year-old billionaire businesswoman and longtime Trump ally was approved 51-45, reflecting deep divisions over her qualifications and the administration’s education agenda. McMahon, who previously led the small business administration during Trump’s first term, now faces the paradoxical task of running an agency while simultaneously working toward its potential elimination.

McMahon’s ascension comes amid reports that Trump is preparing an executive order instructing her to slash the department’s operations to the legal minimum while pushing Congress for its complete closure. During the confirmation process, she explicitly endorsed this vision, saying in her opening statement that she “wholeheartedly” supports Trump’s mission to “return education to the states, where it belongs”.

Critics have questioned McMahon’s qualifications, pointing to her limited educational background – a one-year stint on Connecticut’s state board of education and service as a trustee at Sacred Heart University – and lack of traditional experience in education policy or administration.

But the incoming education secretary currently chairs the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned thinktank home to many of the education department’s nominees for senior-level positions – an indication that McMahon will have idealogical allies that will position her to implement sweeping changes with minimal internal resistance.

At her confirmation hearing, McMahon attempted to soften the administration’s hard-line stances, promising to maintain critical programs like Title I funding and Pell grants while acknowledging that only Congress holds the authority to eliminate the department entirely.

The new education secretary takes office as schools and colleges nationwide scrambled to meet a 28 February deadline to eliminate diversity programs or risk losing federal funding. A guidance document from the education department released over the weekend indicates they are not backing down from their strongly held anti-DEI positioning. It also comes days after the department launched a DEI reporting portal to catch diversity initiatives in public schools nationwide.

The education department, created by Congress under former president Jimmy Carter in 1979, distributes billions of dollars annually to K-12 schools and oversees a roughly $1.6tn federal student loan portfolio. Federal funds constitute approximately 14% of public school budgets nationwide.

Trump’s administration has already begun overhauling the department’s operations, cutting dozens of contracts through Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and gutting the Institute of Education Sciences, which collects data on academic progress.

Authorities in Japan have warned that the country’s biggest wildfire in decades is likely to spread, after it damaged dozens of homes and forced more than 1,000 people to flee.

Fires continued to rage a week after they broke out in the city of Ofunato, on the north-east coast, with weather officials speculating that this year’s unusually dry winter and strong winds were to blame.

As of Monday, the fire had spread through about 2,100 hectares of land, damaged 84 homes and forced 1,200 residents to take refuge in school gymnasiums and other shelters. A further 2,000 are staying with friends or relatives.

Local authorities believe that the blaze may have been responsible for the death of a man whose body was discovered on a road in the city late last week.

More than 2,000 self-defence force [SDF] troops and firefighters have struggled to control the flames as they spread through heavily forested mountainous areas bordering Ofunato, which was among communities destroyed in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

“The fire has significant force,” the city’s mayor, Kiyoshi Fuchigami, told reporters this week, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. “We are concerned that it will spread further.”

The prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, has vowed to deploy as many firefighters and SDF personnel as necessary in an attempt to limit the damage. “Although it is inevitable that the fire will spread to some extent, we will take all possible measures to ensure there will be no impact on people’s homes,” he told MPs.

Relief could be on the way, however. The meteorological agency said snow should start falling from early on Wednesday and turn into rain from around noon.

Four days after the fire started, aerial footage from the public broadcaster NHK showed the burned-out frames of buildings, and flames and thick white smoke rising from other structures in the worst-hit neighbourhoods of Ofunato, a city of about 40,000 people located 500 km north of Tokyo.

The wildfire is the biggest in Japan since the late 1980s, according to the fire and disaster management agency. Fires have broken out in other regions this winter, including mountainous Nagano prefecture, but have been brought under control, local media reported.

Regions in north-east Japan have experienced their driest winter since the meteorological agency began keeping records in 1946.

Ofunato saw just 2.5mm of rainfall throughout February, according to the meteorological agency – compared with an average of 41 mm for the same month in previous years.

“The weather conditions are dry, winds are strong, and the terrain is steep,” Yoshiya Touge, a professor of water resource research at Kyoto University, told the Japan Times. “And the trees, many of which are conifers, are highly flammable. These factors contribute to the fire spreading at a faster rate.”

The number of wildfires in Japan has declined since the peak in the 1970s, according to government data. But there were about 1,300 across the country in 2023, concentrated in the February to April period when the air dries and winds pick up.

Authorities in Japan have warned that the country’s biggest wildfire in decades is likely to spread, after it damaged dozens of homes and forced more than 1,000 people to flee.

Fires continued to rage a week after they broke out in the city of Ofunato, on the north-east coast, with weather officials speculating that this year’s unusually dry winter and strong winds were to blame.

As of Monday, the fire had spread through about 2,100 hectares of land, damaged 84 homes and forced 1,200 residents to take refuge in school gymnasiums and other shelters. A further 2,000 are staying with friends or relatives.

Local authorities believe that the blaze may have been responsible for the death of a man whose body was discovered on a road in the city late last week.

More than 2,000 self-defence force [SDF] troops and firefighters have struggled to control the flames as they spread through heavily forested mountainous areas bordering Ofunato, which was among communities destroyed in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

“The fire has significant force,” the city’s mayor, Kiyoshi Fuchigami, told reporters this week, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. “We are concerned that it will spread further.”

The prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, has vowed to deploy as many firefighters and SDF personnel as necessary in an attempt to limit the damage. “Although it is inevitable that the fire will spread to some extent, we will take all possible measures to ensure there will be no impact on people’s homes,” he told MPs.

Relief could be on the way, however. The meteorological agency said snow should start falling from early on Wednesday and turn into rain from around noon.

Four days after the fire started, aerial footage from the public broadcaster NHK showed the burned-out frames of buildings, and flames and thick white smoke rising from other structures in the worst-hit neighbourhoods of Ofunato, a city of about 40,000 people located 500 km north of Tokyo.

The wildfire is the biggest in Japan since the late 1980s, according to the fire and disaster management agency. Fires have broken out in other regions this winter, including mountainous Nagano prefecture, but have been brought under control, local media reported.

Regions in north-east Japan have experienced their driest winter since the meteorological agency began keeping records in 1946.

Ofunato saw just 2.5mm of rainfall throughout February, according to the meteorological agency – compared with an average of 41 mm for the same month in previous years.

“The weather conditions are dry, winds are strong, and the terrain is steep,” Yoshiya Touge, a professor of water resource research at Kyoto University, told the Japan Times. “And the trees, many of which are conifers, are highly flammable. These factors contribute to the fire spreading at a faster rate.”

The number of wildfires in Japan has declined since the peak in the 1970s, according to government data. But there were about 1,300 across the country in 2023, concentrated in the February to April period when the air dries and winds pick up.

A German tourist is fighting to be released from an immigration detention center after she was denied entry at the San Diego border and taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) last month.

Jessica Brösche, a 26-year-old German tattoo artist, is being indefinitely detained by US Customs and Border Protection after she tried to enter San Diego on 25 January from Tijuana, Mexico, with her American best friend, Amelia Lofving. The two were traveling with tattoo equipment.

“I just want to get home, you know? I’m really desperate,” Brösche told ABC News 10News in a phone interview from a detention facility.

Lofving, a designer, had just moved to Los Angeles when she met up with Brösche in Tijuana with plans to cross the border together and travel to Los Angeles, but Brösche never made it to the city.

Brösche had her German passport, confirmation of her visa waiver to enter the country, and a copy of her return ticket back to Berlin, Lofving said. But she was still pulled aside for a secondary inspection by a US Customs and Border Protection agent.

Brösche said she then spent days detained in a cell at the San Diego border before being taken into custody by Ice. The agency brought her to the Otay Mesa detention center, where she’s now been for more than a month.

According to KPBS, US Customs and Border Protection accused Brösche of planning to violate the terms of the visa waiver program by intending to work as a tattoo artist during her time in Los Angeles.

According to ABC’s 10News, she was forced to spend eight days in solitary confinement in the facility.

“She says it was like a horror movie. They were screaming in all different rooms. After nine days, she said she went so insane that she started punching the walls and then she’s got blood on her knuckles,” Lofving said of her friend’s experience.

Lofving said she asked Ice agents if Brösche could be sent back to Mexico, but they responded that her lack of legal residency would mean she would be deported back to Germany. Lofving also said she tried to get help from the German consulate in Los Angeles.

Lofving initially had no idea where Brösche was being held or if she had already been deported to Germany. It was only after pleading for help online and using the federal Detainee Locator website that she was able to track down her friend.

It would be 25 days before Lofving would find and be allowed to visit her friend at the detention center, where she remains.

King Charles is “very conscious” of his global responsibility and unique diplomatic role, and is determined to put that to use, a royal source said, after his meeting with the Canadian prime minister on Monday.

Charles met Justin Trudeau at his Sandringham estate in Norfolk, a day after he received the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The king was praised for offering a show of solidarity to Zelenskyy by welcoming him after his turbulent meeting with Donald Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance, at the White House on Friday.

Diplomatic efforts on behalf of Ukraine have intensified as Keir Starmer warned Europe’s leaders they stand at a “crossroads in history” and urged them to join his “coalition of the willing”.

Trump has hit out at calls from European leaders for the US to provide security guarantees for any Ukraine peace deal.

A royal source said: “It has been six days of royal diplomacy at its most delicate, deliberate and nuanced.

“His majesty is very conscious of his responsibility globally, regionally and nationally – and passionately engaged in all the detail.”

The source added: “As a global statesman and a head of state for both the UK and Canada, the king’s role is highly significant, and his majesty is determined to play his part, within appropriate parameters.

“His role by necessity and constitutional obligation is to offer symbolic gestures, rather than express comment.”

Although the king must remain politically neutral, he is able to advise and warn his ministers – including prime ministers – when necessary.

The source described the king’s audiences with Zelenskyy and Trudeau as “routine but highly significant, given the global context”.

Details of what is discussed at private audiences are not shared by Buckingham Palace, but it is understood that the challenges Canada faces with the US as a result of Trump’s incendiary rhetoric were high on the agenda, as was support for Ukraine.

The king, who has invited Trump for an unprecedented second state visit to the UK, is increasingly being seen as a unifying figure despite the turmoil on the world’s political stage, through the royal family’s so-called soft-power diplomacy.

The audiences required “high-level engagement and high-level sensitivity”, the source said.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to make Canada the 51st state of America, claiming that without a massive subsidy from the US it “ceases to exist as a viable country”.

Trudeau, who flew to London to join the emergency defence summit of European leaders at the weekend, had said he would raise his concerns on the matter with Charles, who is the king of Canada.

Trump has vowed to impose tariffs on imported goods from Canada and Mexico from Tuesday, citing concerns over border crossings.

Carl Dean, devoted husband of Dolly Parton and also the inspiration behind Parton’s iconic hit Jolene, died on Monday. He was 82.

According to a statement provided to the Associated Press by Parton’s publicist, Dean died in Nashville, Tennessee, and will be laid to rest in a private ceremony with immediate family attending.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy,” Parton wrote in a statement.

The family has asked for respect and privacy at this time. No cause of death was announced.

Parton met Dean outside the Wishy Washy laundromat the day she moved to Nashville at 18.

“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton described the meeting. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”

They married two years later, on Memorial Day – 30 May 1966 – in a small ceremony in Ringgold, Georgia.

Dean, a businessman who had owned an asphalt-paving business in Nashville, avoided the spotlight despite his wife’s fame.

Parton and Dean kept their relationship private for decades, Parton telling the Associated Press in 1984: “A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me.”

She joked that she’d like to pose with him on the cover of a magazine, “so that people could at least know that I’m not married to a wart or something”.

Parton’s 1973 classic Jolene was inspired by Dean. Parton told NPR in 2008 that she wrote the song about a flirty bank teller who seemed to take an interest in Dean.

“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” she said. “And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kinda like a running joke between us – when I was saying: ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money.’ So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”

Parton also said Dean was the force behind her 2023 Rockstar album.

“He’s a big rock and roller,” she told the AP. The song My Blue Tears, which was written when Parton was with The Porter Wagoner Show in the late 1960s and early ’70s, is “one of my husband’s favorite songs that I ever wrote,” she said. “I thought: ‘Well, I better put one of Carl’s favorites of mine in here.’” She also covered a few of his favorites on the temporary detour from country music: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird and Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven.

Dean’s parents, Virginia “Ginny” Bates Dean and Edgar “Ed” Henry Dean, had three children. Parton referred to his mother as “Mama Dean”.

Dean is survived by Parton and his two siblings, Sandra and Donnie.

Parts of a carved and decorated traditional ocean-going canoe (waka) found in the Chatham Islands, around 800km east of New Zealand, could be the most significant discovery of its kind in Polynesia, archaeologists say.

The Chatham Islands is an archipelago administered as part of New Zealand. Over the past month, archaeologists and local volunteers have unearthed more than 450 artefacts from the waka found smashed to pieces in a creek on the northern coast of the main island, known as Rēkohu to the Indigenous Moriori .

As dating and other analysis of the material gets under way, lead archaeologist Justin Maxwell expects the waka will reveal new insights about Polynesian boat building, voyaging and trade. He said the age of the waka is not yet clear.

“No matter how old it is, we can’t overstate how incredible it is. It is by far the most important discovery in New Zealand, possibly Polynesia, and it will go down as one of the most important finds of all time in Polynesia,” Maxwell said.

Maxwell said he knew it was an extraordinary discovery when he saw the first images, long before he set foot on the island in January to begin excavations.

“Normally, when waka have been found, whether it’s elsewhere in Polynesia or in Aotearoa, you find very small parts of them. With this one, we have hundreds of components … and a wide range of materials,” Maxwell said.

“These things are holy grail stuff. To find all of these components preserved is incredible and it’s going to help us learn so much more about Polynesian waka technology.”

Local farmer and fisher Vincent Dix and his son Nikau first spotted unusual bits of timber last winter after heavy rains had washed out the creek. They took the planks home, initially thinking they might make a nice coffee table, but then quickly realised this was something precious when they found a carved piece.

The recovered parts range from a five-metre long wooden plank with holes for lashings to small pieces of iridescent pāua (abalone) shell and obsidian used in decorations. Several smaller carved planks still hold exquisitely crafted discs of obsidian embedded in the timber. The team also found strings of plaited rope and other woven material, likely part of a sail.

For Maui Solomon, the chair of the Moriori Imi Settlement Trust, there’s no doubt this is a “Moriori ancestral waka” that brought some of his ancestors to the islands hundreds of years ago.

Solomon, a lifelong advocate of the correct telling of Moriori history, also recognises the waka’s notching and long bird-like handles as prominent features used in smaller traditional coastal Moriori boats.

He says the discovery aligns with oral traditions recorded in 19th-century Moriori history.

The work to determine the age of the waka is just beginning. Maxwell has permission from both Moriori and Māori tribal authorities to take small samples for radiocarbon dating and analysis to identify the materials and their sources.

“The waka has to tell its own story,” said Ward Kamo, speaking on behalf of the Ngāti Mutunga o Wharekauri iwi trust.

“Everything we’re hearing is that this is a very old waka and as a consequence it’s very significant. In terms of its possible link back to the original people who settled the land, it has massive significance for New Zealand as a whole.”

Meanwhile, conservator Sara Gainsford and her team have set up an impromptu laboratory on the Dix family’s Wharekauri Station. There, all parts of the waka are preserved in tanks and containers, covered in water from the creek they came from.

“We’re documenting everything and keeping it in a stable state so that we can give the community a chance to discuss what they want to do. It’s a lot to take in and a huge undertaking to care for a waka of this size.”

A local team of conservators will look after the material over the coming weeks while the community decides the next steps, but the plan is for the material to stay on the island. This first excavation season uplifted only a small portion of the waka, Maxwell said. Most of it remains in the creek, now reburied and covered to protect it from the elements.

For Solomon, the discovery is incredibly exciting.

“It’s huge for Moriori, it’s huge for the Chathams, New Zealand and the Pacific.”