Donald Trump has said Vladimir Putin was “doing what anybody would do” after Russia launched a massive missile and drone strike on Ukraine days after the US cut off vital intelligence and military aid to Kyiv.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday Trump said he finds it “easier” to work with Russia than Ukraine and that Putin “wants to end the war”.

“I’m finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine. And they don’t have the cards,” Trump said. “In terms of getting a final settlement, it may be easier dealing with Russia.”

Asked whether the Russian leader was taking advantage of the pause in US intelligence sharing and military aid to Ukraine, Trump replied: “I actually think he is doing what anybody else would do.”

Senior US and Ukrainian officials plan to meet in Saudi Arabia next week as Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his advisers seek to revive relations with the US after a botched summit in the Oval Office during which Trump told Zelenskyy he was “gambling with world war three”.

Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack on Ukrainian energy facilities on Friday in the wake of the US decision to halt intelligence sharing with Ukraine that had helped it target incoming fire.

Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said: “We’re doing very well with Russia. But right now they’re bombing the hell out of Ukraine.”

He added: “I think he [Putin] wants to get it stopped and settled and I think he’s hitting them harder than he’s been hitting them and I think probably anybody in that position would be doing that right now.”

In his remarks, Trump once again said he had good relations with Putin, despite the fallout from his first term when suspicions of backroom deals between the two leaders led to political scandal.

“Despite the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax I’ve always had a good relationship with Putin,” Trump said. “He wants to end the war. And I think he’s going to be more generous than he has to be.”

Earlier on Friday Trump had threatened new sanctions and tariffs on Russia in response to Russia’s latest attack.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said: “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale banking sanctions, sanctions, and tariffs on Russia until a cease fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED.

“To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!”

Trump’s vague threat was in contrast to the punitive steps he has already taken against Ukraine, including an end to US military supplies announced earlier this week and the intelligence shutdown.

On Friday the US aerospace company Maxar Technologies disabled Ukraine’s access to its satellite images after a request from the Trump administration.

There were reports that Ukraine’s position on the battlefield had worsened as a direct result of hostile US actions. One source said Ukraine’s drones – used extensively across a 620-mile (1,000km) frontline – were “10-15% less accurate” than before.

According to Ukrainian media, North Korean troops have made significant gains in Russia’s Kursk oblast, where Ukrainian combat groups seized territory seven months ago. The North Koreans broke through Ukrainian defences south of the Kyiv-held Russian town of Sudzha, cutting off a key road, reports said.

Ukrainian troops are now at risk of being encircled, they added. One soldier fighting in the area said the road connecting the enclave with the Ukrainian city of Sumy was still open but under constant attack from Russian drones. “The situation is bad,” he messaged.

Zelenskyy said Moscow launched overnight attacks on Ukraine’s energy and gas infrastructure. It targeted facilities in several regions on Friday, including Odesa and Poltava, using nearly 70 cruise and ballistic missiles and almost 200 attack drones.

“All of this was directed against infrastructure that ensures normal life,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. “Currently, repair and restoration work is ongoing.” He said several people were injured when a missile hit a private building in Kharkiv.

Zelenskyy is due to travel to Saudi Arabia on Monday to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “After that, my team will stay in Saudi Arabia to work with our American partners,” he wrote. “Ukraine is most interested in peace. As we told Potus [the president of the US], Ukraine is working and will continue to work constructively for a swift and reliable peace.”

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, are expected to hold talks with Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskyy’s office, and Ukraine’s defence minister, Rustem Umerov.

The Trump administration has piled further pressure on Ukraine amid apparent US attempts to replace Zelenskyy. “I think Ukraine wants to make a deal because they don’t have a choice,” Trump said on Thursday. “I also think that Russia wants to make a deal because in a certain different way – a different way that only I know – they have no choice either.”

In the face of escalating US hostility, Zelenskyy has set out a tentative ceasefire plan. On Friday he suggested a ban on the use of “missiles, long-range drones and aerial bombs” as well as a suspension of military operations in the Black Sea.

“Ukraine is ready to pursue the path to peace and it is Ukraine that strives for peace from the very first second of this war. The task is to force Russia to stop the war,” he posted on X.

Since US and Russian negotiators met in Saudi Arabia last month, the Kremlin has dramatically stepped up its air war against Ukraine. Its advance on land in the eastern Donetsk region has largely stopped, with Ukraine’s armed forces carrying out counteroffensives in some areas.

An overnight strike in Kharkiv injured eight people and damaged nine residential buildings, officials said. An adult and a child were injured in Poltava oblast when a missile hit two housing blocks, the energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, said.

Despite the US weapons cut-off, Ukraine is still able to shoot down some – but not all – enemy missiles. On Friday, Zelenskyy said French-supplied Mirage 2000 aircraft were used for the first time together with F-16 fighter jets to protect Ukrainian skies.

He said: “The Mirages successfully intercepted Russian cruise missiles. Thank you! I also want to recognise the performance of our anti-aircraft missile forces, army aviation, all our electronic warfare units, and mobile fire groups.”

The Kremlin, meanwhile, said Russia may have to respond to what it said were EU plans to boost its military capability and cast Russia as its enemy. The comments were made after Thursday’s meeting in Brussels, in which EU leaders agreed a plan for a huge rise in defence spending.

“We see that the European Union is now actively discussing the militarisation of the EU and the development of the defence segment. This is a process that we are watching closely, because the EU is positioning Russia as its main adversary,” the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

• Thousands of Ukrainian troops who stormed into Russia’s Kursk region last August are almost surrounded by Russian forces there in a major blow to Kyiv, which hoped to use its presence as leverage over Moscow in any peace talks, Reuters has reported, citing open source maps. The news agency said the maps showed Ukraine’s situation in Kursk had deteriorated sharply in the past three days, after Russian forces retook territory as part of a gathering counteroffensive that has nearly cut the Ukrainian force in two and separated the main group from its principal supply lines. The situation for Ukraine comes after Washington suspended its intelligence sharing with Kyiv and raises the possibility that its forces may be forced into a retreat back into Ukraine or risk being captured or killed. “The situation [for Ukraine in Kursk] is very bad,” said Pasi Paroinen, a military analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group. Yan Matveev, another analyst, said Ukraine had a difficult choice to make.

• About three-quarters of the Ukrainian force inside Russia was now almost completely encircled, according to the open source mapping on Friday from Deep State, an authoritative Ukrainian military blogging resource. It showed the troops were joined to the remaining Ukrainian force located closer to the Russian border by a land corridor around 1km long and less than 500m wide at its narrowest point as Russian forces move to cut that off too. Deep State said Russian forces were also pressuring Kyiv’s positions in the border area with the Sumy region and moving to try to block supplies to Ukrainian forces inside Kursk.

• Russia carried out huge ballistic missile and drone strikes across Ukraine a day after the US stopped sharing intelligence with Kyiv which had previously given advance warnings of attacks. The strikes came early on Friday as a Ukrainian delegation prepared to meet with US counterparts in Saudi Arabia next week for talks about a possible end to the war, report Luke Harding and Dan Sabbagh. In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump appeared to criticise Russia’s latest bombardment. The US president posted: “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED.” Separately, Trump said he found it “easier” to deal with Russia than with Ukraine in efforts to end the war and that he trusted Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. “I believe him,” Trump said. “I’m finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine and they don’t have the cards,” he said. “It may be easier dealing with Russia.”

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to Russia’s strikes by calling for a truce covering air and sea. “The first steps to establishing real peace should be forcing the sole source of this war, Russia, to stop such attacks,” the Ukrainian president said on Telegram. Moscow has rejected the idea of a temporary truce, which has also been proposed by Britain and France.

• US aerospace company Maxar Technologies disabled Ukraine’s access to its satellite images after a request from the Trump administration. Maxar said it had contracts with the US government and dozens of allied and partner nations and “each customer makes their own decisions on how they use and share that data”.

• Russian forces attacked the town of Dobropillia in eastern Ukraine late on Friday, killing four people and injuring 18, the regional governor said. Vadym Filashki said on Telegram that Russian forces had launched three night-time strikes on the town north of Pokrovsk, a focal point of their advance through eastern Ukraine. According to initial information, four high-rise apartment buildings were damaged in the assault, he said. Emergency crews were at the site. Donetsk prosecutors said earlier that five residents of the region had been killed in Russian attacks on a string of towns and villages. One was killed in Pokrovsk and two others in villages near the city of Kostyantynivka, farther north-east, they said. One other victim was identified as a resident near the town of Kurakhove, which Russia’s military said it captured in January. In Ukraine’s southern Black Sea port of Odesa, the regional governor, Oleh Kiper, said a Russian drone attack had again damaged energy infrastructure and other targets.

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s approval rating in Ukraine has risen by 10 percentage points since his White House spat with Donald Trump, a survey by a leading Ukrainian pollster showed on Friday. The poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology – conducted from 14 February to 4 March – found 67% of respondents trusted Zelenskyy in March, up from 57% a month earlier.

• Iran’s foreign ministry denied accusations by Emmanuel Macron that Tehran had supplied equipment to Russia for use in the Ukraine war. Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei was quoted by state news agency Irna as saying the French president’s remarks were “baseless and false”.

Russia has carried out massive ballistic missile and drone strikes across Ukraine a day after the US stopped sharing intelligence with Kyiv that had previously given advance warnings of attacks.

The strikes came early on Friday as a Ukrainian delegation prepared to meet with US counterparts in Saudi Arabia for talks about a possible end to the war.

In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump appeared to criticise Russia’s latest bombardment.

He posted: “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED.

“To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!”

Trump’s vague threat was in contrast to the punitive steps he has already taken against Ukraine, including an end to US military supplies announced earlier this week and the intelligence shutdown.

On Friday, the US aerospace company Maxar Technologies disabled Ukraine’s access to its satellite images after a request from the Trump administration.

There were reports that Ukraine’s position on the battlefield had worsened as a direct result of hostile US actions. One source said Ukraine’s drones – used extensively across a 1,000km frontline – were “10-15% less accurate” than before.

According to Ukrainian media, North Korean troops had made significant gains in Russia’s Kursk oblast, where Ukrainian combat groups seized territory seven months ago. The North Koreans had broken through Ukrainian defences south of the Kyiv-held Russian town of Sudzha, cutting off a key road, reports said.

Ukrainian troops were now at risk of being encircled, they added. One soldier fighting in the area said the road connecting the enclave with the Ukrainian city of Sumy was still open, but under constant attack from Russian drones. “The situation is bad,” he messaged.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow launched overnight attacks on Ukraine’s energy and gas infrastructure. It targeted facilities in several regions on Friday, including Odesa and Poltava, using nearly 70 cruise and ballistic missiles and almost 200 attack drones.

“All of this was directed against infrastructure that ensures normal life,” the Ukrainian president wrote on social media. “Currently, repair and restoration work is ongoing.” He said several people were injured when a missile hit a private building in Kharkiv.

Zelenskyy is due to travel to Saudi Arabia on Monday to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “After that, my team will stay in Saudi Arabia to work with our American partners,” he wrote. “Ukraine is most interested in peace. As we told POTUS [the president of the US], Ukraine is working and will continue to work constructively for a swift and reliable peace.”

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and the president’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, are expected to hold talks with Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskyy’s office, and Ukraine’s defence minister Rustem Umerov.

The Trump administration has piled pressure on Ukraine amid apparent US attempts to replace Zelenskyy.

Trump said on Thursday: “I think Ukraine wants to make a deal because they don’t have a choice. I also think that Russia wants to make a deal because in a certain different way – a different way that only I know – they have no choice either.”

In the face of escalating US hostility, Zelenskyy has set out a tentative ceasefire plan. On Friday, he suggested a ban on the use of “missiles, long-range drones and aerial bombs”, as well as a suspension of military operations in the Black Sea.

“Ukraine is ready to pursue the path to peace, and it is Ukraine that strives for peace from the very first second of this war. The task is to force Russia to stop the war,” he posted on X.

Since US and Russian negotiators met in Saudi Arabia, the Kremlin has dramatically stepped up its air war against Ukraine. Its advance on land in the eastern Donetsk region has largely stopped, with Ukraine’s armed forces carrying out local counter-offensives in some areas.

An overnight strike in Kharkiv injured eight people and damaged nine apartment buildings, officials said. An adult and a child were also injured in Poltava oblast when a missile hit two housing blocks, the energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, said.

Despite the US weapons cutoff, Ukraine is still able to shoot down some – but not all – enemy missiles. On Friday, Zelenskyy said French-supplied Mirage 2000 aircraft were used for the first time together with F-16 fighter jets to protect Ukrainian skies.

He said: “The Mirages successfully intercepted Russian cruise missiles. Thank you! I also want to recognise the performance of our anti-aircraft missile forces, army aviation, all our electronic warfare units, and mobile fire groups.”

The Kremlin, meanwhile, said Russia may have to respond to what it said were EU plans to boost its military capability and to cast Russia as its enemy. The comments follow Thursday’s meeting in Brussels, in which EU leaders agreed a plan for a massive rise in defence spending.

“We see that the European Union is now actively discussing the militarisation of the EU and the development of the defence segment. This is a process that we are watching closely, because the EU is positioning Russia as its main adversary,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters.

On the surface, the announcement that Saudi Arabia will host talks between the US and Ukraine in Jeddah next week appears promising news.

After the disastrous meeting between the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Donald Trump in the White House last week, a more neutral location for this meeting of lower-level figures makes sense in terms of trying to dial down the temperature.

In his nightly address on Thursday, Zelenskyy said he would travel to Saudi Arabia on Monday to meet the country’s crown prince, and his team would stay on to hold talks with US officials.

The real question, however, is how neutral Saudi Arabia and its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, actually are and why the talks are being held there and not in a European capital, for instance.

The reality is that Saudi Arabia is primarily a comfortable location for the Trump administration. In his first term in office, Trump’s first foreign visit was to Saudi Arabia, a country with ambitions to be a major diplomatic player despite its horrific human rights record, including the kidnap and murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

For his part, Trump sees a normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel as the key prize in his attempts to forge a region-wide peace deal after the signing of the Abraham accords – bilateral normalisation agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain – which he pursued during his first term but which have done little to improve security in the Middle East.

If the ties between Trump and his circle and Saudi Arabia have long been close in terms of diplomacy and business, more concerning are perceptions of Prince Mohammed’s proximity to Moscow and Vladimir Putin.

In recent years, the prince – who is reportedly fascinated by Putin and his grip on power in Russia – has moved closer to the Russian president’s orbit. According to some analysts, he was given a key role in two prisoner exchanges between Russia and the US, including one involving the journalist Evan Gershkovich last year.

That warm relationship began in 2015 when Prince Mohammed visited the Russian president in St Petersburg, and Putin then visited Saudi Arabia in 2023.

The relationship between Moscow and Riyadh has grown ever more important, as Jens Heibach and Luíza Cerioli pointed out in an essay for the Contemporary Security Policy journal last year that explained Saudi Arabia’s long-term reluctance to criticise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia, they wrote, was Riyadh’s “pivotal partner” within the wider Opec+ and “an important pillar of its foreign-policy diversification strategy”.

They added: “On one hand, Saudi Arabia voted in favour of adopting key resolutions of the United Nations general assembly on [the war in Ukraine], including those condemning Russia’s illegal use of force against, and its illegal referendums and annexations in, Ukraine. On the other hand, the kingdom avoided seriously encroaching on Russia’s interests by refusing to isolate it diplomatically.”

Significantly, as Heibach and Cerioli noted, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022: “Saudi Arabia continued to cooperate with Russia within Opec+ and, on October 5, 2022, led the group’s decision to cut oil production by 2m barrels per day, increasing global oil prices and, implicitly, Russian revenues.

“In doing so, Saudi Arabia rebuffed [the Biden administration’s] pleas to use its central position within Opec + to lower oil prices. This decision strained Saudi relations with the United States, which was also dissatisfied with Riyadh’s eventual official stance on the Ukraine crisis.”

That closeness has continued. Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia hosted Russian and US delegations – though with Kyiv significantly absent – to discuss a Ukraine peace deal, a major reversal of the Biden administration’s efforts to isolate Russia diplomatically.

Set against that, however, is the fact that Saudi Arabia also hosted a two-day peace summit on Ukraine in 2023 with representatives from more than 40 countries, although some sceptics noted that was as much about laundering Saudi Arabia’s international reputation.

And if Ukraine feels comfortable holding talks in Jeddah it is because of the personal connections of the country’s defence minister, Rustem Umerov, who has his own lines to Saudi Arabia through his former business connections as an investment banker.

Orysia Lutsevych, the deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia programme at the Chatham House thinktank in London, said those and other links between Saudi Arabia and Ukraine meant there was a degree of trust.

“I think it’s a bit of a myth about neutral places for negotiations. Practically, you need to find an actor or a mediator that has a stake or a connection to both parties to have trust,” she said.

“Ukrainians have always thought that the Middle East could be [a] counterweight and invested in relations with the global south, arguing that it is a global war because it has had global consequences.”

Lutsevych added that Saudi Arabia owned one of the largest agricultural companies in Ukraine, suggesting it may have a “pragmatic interest”.

“One of the Saudis’ motivations [in hosting the talks] is to lend a hand to Trump,” she said. “But the bigger risk for Zelenskyy and Ukraine remains Trump himself – the risk of America siding with the Russian agenda. The location doesn’t change that.”

The actor Gene Hackman died of natural causes days after his wife, Betsy Arakawa, succumbed to a rare respiratory virus, authorities said on Friday.

Arakawa died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome while Hackman died of heart disease, with advanced Alzheimer’s disease contributing, said Dr Heather Jarrell, the chief medical investigator for the New Mexico office of the medical investigator. The couple’s partially mummified bodies were discovered last month at their home in New Mexico.

The 95-year-old Hackman may have lived for as long as a week after Arakawa’s death, she said. Officials speculated that he may have been unaware she was deceased.

“He was in a very poor state of health. He had significant heart disease, and I think ultimately that’s what resulted in his death,” Jarrell said.

The press conference New Mexico authorities held on Friday provided some answers in the mystery of what happened to the couple. Hackman and Arakawa were discovered last week after a maintenance worker, concerned when no one answered the door, contacted neighborhood security, who spotted their bodies through a window and called the police. One of their three dogs was also found dead.

The Santa Fe county sheriff’s office said it did not suspect foul play. But officials could not immediately determine what happened to the couple as there were no signs of trauma to their bodies and tests for carbon monoxide poisoning were negative.

At the press conference on Friday afternoon, the sheriff, Adan Mendoza, revealed that investigators had been able to piece together Arakawa’s final days and found that she had picked up her dog, who was later found dead nearby, from a veterinary appointment on 9 February and that she had responded to emails and went out shopping on 11 February. The last known activity from Arakawa was that day, the sheriff said.

Arakawa’s death was linked to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare but potentially fatal disease spread by infected rodent droppings. Exposures occur when people are near mouse droppings in homes, sheds or poorly ventilated areas.

Hackman’s pacemaker last showed activity on 17 February, nine days before maintenance and security workers showed up at the home and alerted police. Officials said it was “reasonable to conclude” that Hackman died around 18 February.

Arakawa was found with an open prescription bottle and pills scattered on the bathroom counter, while Hackman was found in the home’s entryway.

One of the couple’s three dogs also was found dead in a crate in a bathroom closet near Arakawa, while two other dogs survived. Authorities initially misidentified the breed of the dead animal.

When they were found, the bodies were decomposing with some mummification, a consequence of body type and climate in Santa Fe’s especially dry air at an elevation of nearly 7,200ft (2,200 meters).

Hackman, a Hollywood icon, won two Oscars during a storied career in films including The French Connection, Hoosiers and Superman from the 1960s until his retirement in the early 2000s.

Arakawa, born in Hawaii, studied as a concert pianist, attended the University of Southern California and met Hackman in the mid-1980s while working at a California gym.

The couple’s stucco, Pueblo-revival style home sits on a hill in a gated community at the southern tip of the Rocky Mountains. Santa Fe is known as a refuge for celebrities, artists and authors.

Hackman dedicated much of his time in retirement to painting and writing novels far from Hollywood’s social circuit. He served for several years on the board of trustees at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, and he and his wife were investors in local businesses.

Authorities said on Friday that actor Gene Hackman died of heart disease days after his wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. But what exactly is this rare illness?

Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is a rare but serious viral disease that can damage the heart, lungs, and other organs. The syndrome progresses quickly and can be fatal, according to the Cleveland Clinic, one of the largest and most respected medical centers in the US.

Hantaviruses cause two syndromes, including HPS and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People can contract HPS by inhaling, eating, drinking, or coming into contact with infected mouse or rat feces, urine, or saliva. Although not all mice and rats carry hantaviruses, some species, including deer mice, white-footed mice, rice rats and cotton rats, are known carriers in North America.

“Between one and eight weeks after that exposure, someone might begin to feel like they have a flu-like illness,” Dr Sonja Bartolome of UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, told the Guardian.

In the United States, most cases of HPS occur in states west of the Mississippi River.

“It’s mostly in rural areas, because that’s where most of the rodents carrying the disease live,” Bartolome said.

HPS remains rare in the US despite its severe symptoms. Between 1993 and 2022, there were 864 reported US cases. New Mexico had the highest number over that time, at 122, followed by Colorado at 119.

Person-to-person transmission is extremely rare and has only been documented in cases of a hantavirus strain found in Argentina and Chile.

Once the hantavirus enters the body, it replicates and spreads, which can cause a severe amount of damage in the lungs. The virus weakens blood vessels and causes leakage and fluid buildup in the air sacs, making breathing difficult.

In the heart, it damages the heart muscle and weakens blood vessels while reducing the heart’s ability to pump oxygen-rich blood to the body’s organs. If untreated, these effects can lead to shock, organ failure, and death.

HPS symptoms work in three phases. The first is the incubation phase, lasting up to eight weeks, during which the virus is present in the body but no noticeable symptoms are present.

The second phase develops quickly and includes fever, chills, fatigue, muscle aches, stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, dry cough, headache, and dizziness. This stage lasts between two and eight days.

About four to 10 days after these initial symptoms, the third and most severe phase begins. This last phase includes internal bleeding, fluid-filled lungs, difficulty breathing, a rapid heartbeat, and chest tightness. These symptoms can be life-threatening and require immediate medical attention.

There is no specific treatment or cure, but early medical attention can increase the chance of survival. Patients usually require oxygen therapy, fluid replacement, medications to stabilize blood pressure, antiviral medications like ribavirin, among other care. If patients survive the late-stage symptoms, recovery typically takes a few weeks.

Although no vaccine exists for HPS, the Cleveland Clinic recommends taking prevention strategies to help reduce risk. These include avoiding wild rodents, sealing entry points in homes, properly cleaning and disinfecting rodent-contaminated areas, using protective gear when handling droppings, and keeping food securely stored.

Sweeping or vacuuming droppings is not recommended because it could release virus particles into the air.

The Donald Trump administration announced on Friday that it had canceled $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University in New York because of what it alleges is the college’s repeated failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment.

The announcement comes after Columbia set up a new disciplinary committee and initiated its own investigations into students critical of Israel and its war on Gaza after Hamas’s own attack on Israel. That move by the university has alarmed advocates of free speech.

It also comes at a time of widespread backlash to American universities by the Trump administration and conservatives more broadly who see the higher education sector in the US as dominated by liberals and ripe for a rightwing attack on its influence.

Linda McMahon, the Trump-appointed secretary of education, had warned on Monday that Columbia would lose federal funding if it did not take additional action to combat antisemitism on its campus.

A statement issued on Friday by the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Education, and the US General Services Administration, states: “These cancellations represent the first round of action and additional cancellations are expected to follow.”

“For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus,” McMahon said in the statement.

The statement also refers to ongoing “illegal protests” on college and university campuses, a phrase Trump has used to refer to some student protests, though what makes these illegal remains unclear.

Columbia was central to campus protests that broke out across the US over Gaza last spring. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up an encampment there in April and inspired a wave of similar protests in many other colleges.

The first amendment to the US constitution protects the rights of people to “peacefully assemble” and to petition the government for a “redress of grievances”.

The extent that pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campuses can be considered antisemitic is still debated across political and academic spheres. Republican lawmakers viewed the protests as antisemitic, despite the fact many protesters denied the accusations or were Jewish themselves.

Trump has threatened college students with imprisonment and deportation on Tuesday on his Truth Social platform, writing: “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested.”

A Columbia University spokesperson wrote in a statement to the Columbia Spectator, that it was “reviewing the announcement from the federal agencies and [pledged] to work with the federal government to restore Columbia’s federal funding”.

“We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff,” the spokesperson wrote.

It is not immediately clear what contracts or grants would be cut under the directive. Columbia University currently holds more than $5bn in federal grant commitments, the GSA statement said.

Katherine Franke, a retired legal scholar and former professor at Columbia Law School told the Guardian how she was “pushed out” of her role in January because of her pro-Palestinian activism. She had been with Columbia for 25 years.

Franke says that the university was told “unless we as faculty and students take a pro-Israeli position, it [the university] will be sanctioned. And at the same time, the university is now committing itself to something it’s calling institutional neutrality.”

She says that though not all the grants were cut, the Trump administration did “cut a significant part of them, and the important research that’s being done with those grants will stop”.

Franke is highly critical of the way Columbia is responding to the threats from Trump, believing the institution could have done more to protect students, faculty and the pivotal role the university plays in a democracy.

“If you grovel before a bully, it just emboldens the bully, and the bully has now become an authoritarian government with the capacity to act on a level that was unthinkable for us a couple of years ago,” she said.

Columbia is one of five colleges currently under the new federal investigation, and it is one of 10 being visited by a taskforce in response to allegations of antisemitism. Others under investigation include the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; Northwestern University; and Portland State University.

Donald Trump has said he finds it it “easier” to work with Russia than Ukraine and that Vladimir Putin was “doing what anybody would do” after Russia launched a massive missile and drone strike on Ukraine days after the US cut off vital intelligence and military aid to Kyiv.

“I’m finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine. And they don’t have the cards,” Trump said in his latest attack on Kyiv. “In terms of getting a final settlement, it may be easier dealing with Russia.

“I think he [Putin] wants to get it stopped and settled and I think he’s hitting them harder than he’s been hitting them, and I think probably anybody in that position would be doing that right now.”

Transgender women incarcerated in the US prison system have been transferred to men’s facilities under Donald Trump’s executive order, despite multiple court rulings blocking the president’s policy, according to civil rights lawyers and accounts from behind bars.

Trump’s day-one “gender ideology” order, one of several sweeping attacks on trans rights, said the attorney general “shall ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers” and that no federal funds go to gender-affirming treatment or procedures for people in custody.

The executive order was quickly challenged in court. In three lawsuits filed on behalf of trans women housed in women’s prisons, federal judges have ruled that the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) cannot withhold their medical treatment and was barred from moving them to men’s facilities. One judge said the plaintiffs had “straightforwardly demonstrated that irreparable harm will follow”.

Lawyers fighting Trump’s directive say the court rulings prevented the transfers of 17 trans women who are plaintiffs in the cases, but others not included in the litigation are now facing placements in men’s facilities.

“I’m just continuing to be punished for existing,” said Whitney, a 31-year-old trans woman who was transferred from a women’s facility to a men’s prison this week. The BOP changed her records from “female” to “male”, records show. In messages before her transfer, she said she felt like a “pawn in others’ political games”. The Guardian is not using her full name due to concerns about retaliation.

Kara Janssen, an attorney representing trans women in litigation, said she learned of another trans woman not included in the lawsuits who was recently transferred to a facility that houses men, and also had the gender marker in her records changed. Janssen also learned of a trans woman newly entering the BOP system who had gender-affirming surgeries before her incarceration, but was placed in a men’s facility.

Prisons are required under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (Prea), a longstanding federal law, to screen incarcerated people for sexual assault risk and consider LGBTQ+ status when making housing decisions. Legal experts say Trump’s blanket policy of housing trans women in men’s facilities clearly violates Prea.

“This is incredibly unnecessary and cruel,” said Janssen. “Our clients are desperate and scared.”

The BOP did not respond to requests for comment.

Trans people have long faced high levels of sexual violence and discrimination behind bars, and the implementation of Trump’s order has unleashed chaos, panic and significant violations of their rights beyond the threats of housing transfers, attorneys said.

Internal BOP memos seen by the Guardian show that officials are now requiring staff to refer to trans residents by their legal names and incorrect pronouns, as well as deny requests for gender-appropriate clothing accommodations. The BOP has also rescinded policies that allowed trans women to have their pat-down searches conducted by female guards.

Susan Beaty, a senior attorney for the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, who represents roughly 20 trans people in federal prisons, said they have received reports that some trans people were forced under threat of discipline to hand over their underwear, including bras and boxers, as if they were contraband. They said they’ve also heard accounts of male guards searching trans women in encounters several of the women described as “groping”. Some staff have been emboldened to harass and taunt trans people, Beaty said.

“It is already so difficult to be a trans person in prison in this country, and now this administration’s measures are intentionally terrorizing and traumatizing incarcerated trans people even further,” Beaty said.

“It is essentially sanctioning sexual assault in some instances,” added Janssen, of the male pat-downs of trans women. Some trans people had told her they were suffering suicidal thoughts and daily nightmares.

Whitney, who was recently transferred, said in interviews prior to her move that staff for weeks gave her conflicting information. In mid-February, she and another trans woman were placed into a form of isolation called a “special housing unit” and told they could be there for months, she said. The other woman attempted suicide out of fear of being transferred, she said.

Days later, the women were moved back to the general population. Whitney’s doctor, however, then told her that her hormone therapy medications would start to be tapered down. Whitney said going off those medications would wreak havoc on her body and mind, describing it “like a slow death”. The doctor also said staff would start using male pronouns for her, though she said that had not happened yet. She said she was also told she would be allowed to keep women’s underwear she already owns, but would not be issued new garments.

Last week, medical staff told Whitney her medications would not be changed after all, she said, but then days later, she was told to pack because she was being transferred to a men’s facility.

“I’m nervous. Worried. Apprehensive. Anxious. Scared. You name it,” Whitney said before her transfer. “One moment I am feeling relief, and the next I am growing gray hairs. That’s probably one of the most stressful things about all this. Are you safe or are you not?”

The litigation is ongoing and is most immediately focused on maintaining trans people’s housing and medical care, attorneys said. But Janssen said lawyers would also be fighting for trans women who have long been housed in male facilities and were in the pipeline to be transferred, and advocating against the rollback of basic accommodations across the system. “It’s cruel and unusual punishment because you’re punishing this group for no reason other than you don’t think they should exist.”

One judge criticized the US government for failing to address plaintiffs’ concerns that their gender dysphoria would be exacerbated in men’s prisons “whether because they will be subject to searches by male correctional officers, made to shower in the company of men, referred to as men, forced to dress as men, or simply because the mere homogenous presence of men will cause uncomfortable dissonance”.

Alix McLearen, who was the acting director of the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) in 2022 before she retired in 2024, said Trump’s order endangers trans people and staff. The NIC is part of the BOP and does training and policy development for corrections officials. McLearen led the drafting and implementation of the “transgender offender manual” when she oversaw women and special populations at BOP. That manual has recently been rescinded.

“If you yank this away, no one knows what to do,” McLearen said. “If you are going to change a policy, you [should] do it slowly and thoughtfully.”

Confusion in a prison setting increases stress levels and the potential for conflict among staff and incarcerated people, McLearen said.

Trump’s order also increases the already high risk of sexual and physical assault of trans people in prison, said Julie Abbate, the national advocacy director of Just Detention International, a human rights group focused on sexual abuse in prisons and jails.

Putting a target on trans people in prison only increases their risk of assault, which in turn also puts staff in the dangerous position of intervening in violent situations, said Abbate, who spent 15 years at the civil rights division of the US justice department and helped draft national Prea standards.

Trump’s policy has no benefit, McLearen said. The order purports to “defend women” in prisons, but McLearen said it addresses a problem that does not exist.

“This is fake – this whole executive order is false on its face,” McLearen said. “It’s scapegoating. Trans people are easy to scapegoat.”

Donald Trump’s administration on Friday fired at least two senior career officials at the US justice department, including the head of the office that handles presidential pardon requests, according to a social media post and sources familiar with the matter.

Liz Oyer served as pardon attorney since 2022, a career justice department position. Oyer was fired “effective immediately,” according to a memo she shared on LinkedIn, which cited Trump’s executive authority under the US constitution.

Oyer, who was appointed by Biden in 2022, posted on LinkedIn: “I’m sad to share that I was fired today from the job I have poured my heart and soul into for the last three years. I am so proud of the team we built in the Office of the Pardon Attorney, who will carry on our important work. I’m very grateful for the many extraordinary people I’ve had the opportunity to connect with on this journey. Thank you for your partnership, your support, and your belief in second chances.”

Oyer’s former office reviews requests for clemency from people convicted of federal offenses and makes recommendations to the White House on whom the president should pardon.

Oyer’s termination comes two weeks after Trump appointed Alice Marie Johnson as “pardon czar”, a role in which she will recommend people for presidential commutations.

Bobak Talebian, the head of the justice department’s Office of Information Policy, which handles public records requests under the US Freedom of Information Act, was also fired, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The moves mark the latest instance of the Trump administration removing or sidelining career justice department officials, who typically keep their positions across presidential administrations.

A justice department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the moves.

Trump-appointed officials previously reassigned several veteran national security and criminal prosecutors to a newly created immigration office. The top career ethics official left the justice department after facing a similar reassignment.

About eight senior career FBI officials also were forced out before the confirmation of Trump-nominated FBI director Kash Patel by the Senate.

Justice department leaders have generally not given reasons for the dismissals, but have broadly emphasized that career officials must be trusted to enforce Trump’s agenda.

A union said on Friday the US Department of Labor reinstated about 120 employees who had been facing termination as part of the Trump administration’s mass firings of recently hired workers.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, told Reuters that the probationary employees had been reinstated immediately and that the department was issuing letters telling them to report back to duty on Monday.

Coral Murphy Marcos contributed to this report

Two hundred pairs of shoes have been found at a clandestine crematorium on a ranch in the Mexican state of Jalisco, in a disturbing demonstration of the country’s crisis of forced disappearance related to organised crime.

Warrior Searchers of Jalisco, a collective of relatives of the disappeared, found the crematorium following an anonymous tip-off, and the authorities have since confirmed the presence of burnt remains and empty bullet casings.

The collective suspects that the bones belong to disappeared people.

“They have to do an exhaustive inspection. We ask that they bring the dogs … that are certified to find human remains and bones,” Índira Navarro, a representative of the collective, told AFP.

The crematorium was found on a ranch that was secured by authorities several months ago, in an operation that led to the arrest of 10 armed people, the release of two that had been kidnapped, and the discovery of a body.

The ranch, which included a rudimentary kind of obstacle course, is thought to have been used as a recruitment and training centre for new members of the Jalisco New Generation cartel.

The Jalisco cartel, recently declared a foreign terrorist organisation by the Trump administration, is one of Mexico’s most powerful organised crime groups and is involved in the trafficking of drugs and people across the country and internationally.

Authorities said they had been unable to explore the extensive ranch fully when they first found it, and that the ovens and bones found this week had been “hidden under a layer of earth and a brick slab, which prevented their detection in the initial inspection”.

When members of the collective arrived at the ranch this week, they found a shed with clothing, handbags, backpacks, suitcases and shoes scattered across the ground. Within a few hours they found the first of three underground ovens.

Authorities are yet to determine how many people the remains found on the ranch may belong to.

According to the National Search Commission, Jalisco has almost 15,000 missing people, making it the state with the most disappeared people in Mexico.

Across Mexico, more than 100,000 people are registered as disappeared. But that figure could be an undercount, given that many fear to report cases to the authorities.

Two hundred pairs of shoes have been found at a clandestine crematorium on a ranch in the Mexican state of Jalisco, in a disturbing demonstration of the country’s crisis of forced disappearance related to organised crime.

Warrior Searchers of Jalisco, a collective of relatives of the disappeared, found the crematorium following an anonymous tip-off, and the authorities have since confirmed the presence of burnt remains and empty bullet casings.

The collective suspects that the bones belong to disappeared people.

“They have to do an exhaustive inspection. We ask that they bring the dogs … that are certified to find human remains and bones,” Índira Navarro, a representative of the collective, told AFP.

The crematorium was found on a ranch that was secured by authorities several months ago, in an operation that led to the arrest of 10 armed people, the release of two that had been kidnapped, and the discovery of a body.

The ranch, which included a rudimentary kind of obstacle course, is thought to have been used as a recruitment and training centre for new members of the Jalisco New Generation cartel.

The Jalisco cartel, recently declared a foreign terrorist organisation by the Trump administration, is one of Mexico’s most powerful organised crime groups and is involved in the trafficking of drugs and people across the country and internationally.

Authorities said they had been unable to explore the extensive ranch fully when they first found it, and that the ovens and bones found this week had been “hidden under a layer of earth and a brick slab, which prevented their detection in the initial inspection”.

When members of the collective arrived at the ranch this week, they found a shed with clothing, handbags, backpacks, suitcases and shoes scattered across the ground. Within a few hours they found the first of three underground ovens.

Authorities are yet to determine how many people the remains found on the ranch may belong to.

According to the National Search Commission, Jalisco has almost 15,000 missing people, making it the state with the most disappeared people in Mexico.

Across Mexico, more than 100,000 people are registered as disappeared. But that figure could be an undercount, given that many fear to report cases to the authorities.

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has said his government is working on a plan to prepare large-scale military training for every adult male in response to the changing security situation in Europe.

He said there was a need for an army of 500,000 soldiers, which would include reservists.

“We will try to have a model ready by the end of this year, so that every adult male in Poland is trained in the event of war, so that this reserve is really comparable and adequate to potential threats,” Tusk said in a major speech on security to the country’s Sejm, the lower house of parliament, on Friday.

Last year, the Polish government said the military encompassed about 200,000 soldiers and was to grow to 220,000 this year with the objective of increasing it to about 300,000.

But security fears have grown far more dramatic in recent weeks, as Russia continues to pound Ukraine with missiles and drones, and as the Trump administration has withdrawn military and intelligence support for Ukraine while putting its commitments to Nato in question.

“Today we are talking about the need for a half-million army in Poland,” Tusk said.

After his speech, he told reporters he was not considering a return of universal military service, but rather a reserve system based on the model in Switzerland. In that country, every man is obliged to serve in the military or an alternative civilian service while woman can volunteer if they choose.

Tusk also suggested on Friday the country should explore nuclear “possibilities”. “We must be aware that Poland must reach for the most modern possibilities, also related to nuclear weapons and modern unconventional weapons,” he said.

And he backed withdrawing from a landmark treaty prohibiting the use of anti-personnel landmines, the Ottawa convention, as well as potentially from the Dublin convention, which bans the use of cluster munitions.

At least two other Nato countries, Finland and Lithuania – both also bordering Russia – have also in the past months mulled exiting the Ottawa convention.

“Let’s face it: it’s not something nice, nothing pleasant. We know that very well,” Tusk said. “The problem is that in our environment, those we may be afraid of, or those who are at war, they all have it.”

Poland, with a population of 38 million people, is located along Nato’s eastern flank and is deeply concerned by the war in Ukraine. There are fears that if Ukraine is defeated, Russia will turn its imperial ambitions next to countries like Poland, which Moscow controlled during the 19th century and during the cold war.

Jaroslaw Kaczyński, the head of Poland’s largest opposition party, the conservative Law and Justice, said a mental shift in society would also be needed in addition to the military training of men. “We will have a return to the chivalric ethos and to the fact that men should also be soldiers – that is, be able to expose themselves even to death,” Kaczyński said.

Concern has grown in Poland and across most of Europe as President Donald Trump has signalled the dramatic shifting of US position to one that includes support for Russia’s position – even though on Friday he issued a stern warning to Russia after it attacked Ukrainian energy facilities with dozens of missiles and drones.

“If Ukraine loses the war or if it accepts the terms of peace, armistice or capitulation in such a way that weakens its sovereignty and makes it easier for [Russian president Vladimir] Putin to gain control over Ukraine, then, without a doubt – and we can all agree on that – Poland will find itself in a much more difficult geopolitical situation,” Tusk said.

Also on Friday, President Andrzej Duda said he was submitting an amendment to the Polish constitution for consideration which would oblige the country to spend at least 4% of its gross domestic product each year on defence.

Poland already spends a higher proportion of GDP on defence than any other Nato member, including the US. Last year Poland’s defence spending reached 4.1% of GDP, according to Nato estimates, and it plans to hit 4.7% this year.

But Duda said he wanted to take advantage of the consensus on the political scene in Poland today on the matter to enshrine it in the highest law.

Trump has suggested the US might abandon its commitments to the alliance if member countries don’t meet defence spending targets.

Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

The US has conducted its first execution by firing squad in 15 years, with South Carolina prison officials shooting to death Brad Sigmon, 67, on Friday evening, despite widespread concerns about the safety and cruelty of this method.

Sigmon was the oldest person to be executed in the state’s history and his death was part of a series of rapid killings the state has pursued in the last six months as it revives capital punishment. There had been growing calls for clemency, but minutes before Sigmon was killed, the state’s Republican governor, Henry McMaster, announced he would not be intervening.

Sigmon called for Christians to support an end to the death penalty in his last words.

After a 13-year-pause in killings in South Carolina, due to limited supplies to carry out executions, the state now directs men on death row to choose their method of death – electric chair, lethal injection or firing squad.

Sigmon chose to be shot dead out of fear that lethal injection would result in a “prolonged death” following reports that the last three South Carolina men executed by pentobarbital, a sedative, took more than 20 minutes to die and one appeared to suffer a condition akin to drowning and suffocation. They were “three men Brad knew and cared for”, his lawyers said, and he feared a slow injection process or being “burned and cooked alive” by electrocution.

The South Carolina department of corrections (SCDC) firing squad protocols dictated that staff strap Sigmon on a chair in the “death chamber”. At the start of the process, Sigmon was restrained at his ankles, wrists, lap and waist, with a strap on the lower half of his face, Gerald “Bo” King, one of his lawyers, said after the execution.

Before the shooting, Sigmon tried to mouth words to King and his spiritual adviser in the front row, but the restraint on his face made it hard for them to decipher the words, the lawyer said. King attempted to maintain eye contact until staff put a large hood over Sigmon’s head. He had a bull’s eye on his chest and was dressed in black, which is not the typical uniform color for men facing execution and was likely meant to conceal the blood, King said.

Three prison employees armed with rifles shot Sigmon at once, and his arm went tense and started trembling and forcefully straining “as if he was trying to break free from the restraints”, King said. The lawyer said he saw blood spilling out: “The wound on his chest opened very abruptly and violently.” When a doctor approached to check his pulse, the attorney said it appeared that Sigmon’s chest was briefly still moving.

There were three media witnesses in the room, including the Associated Press, who reported that the staff were shooting through openings in a wall and were roughly 15ft away from Sigmon.The AP said it appeared the target was blasted off his chest during the shooting. The staff, who volunteer to be shooters, fired around 6.05pm and Sigmon was declared dead roughly three minutes later.

When SCDC released a photo of the death chamber before the execution, some firearms experts raised concerns about whether the set-up was safe for witnesses and the shooters, citing the possibility for bullets to ricochet. A spokesperson did not respond to questions about safety concerns earlier this week.

Sigmon was convicted of the 2001 murders of his ex-girlfriend’s parents, David and Gladys Larke. He had long admitted his guilt, with his lawyers arguing that the killings stemmed from a childhood of severe abuse and neglect and undiagnosed and untreated mental illness.

His lawyers said he suffered organic brain injuries and manic episodes and was experiencing a psychotic break that probably rendered him incompetent to stand trial. His team argued his trial counsel failed him and the jury “had no idea of how severely compromised his mental health was”.

The US supreme court denied his lawyers’ appeal to stop the execution on Friday afternoon.

Sigmon’s last words, shared by his attorneys, read: “I want my closing statement to be one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty. An eye for an eye was used as justification to the jury for seeking the death penalty. At that time, I was too ignorant to know how wrong that was.”

He said: “We … now live under the New Testament,” and quoted a Bible verse that says: “You have heard that it has been said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ but I say unto you that you do not resist an evil person. Whosoever shall smite me on the right cheek, turn to him the other one as well.”

“Nowhere does God in the New Testament give man the authority to kill another man,” he continued, quoting the verse, “Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keep with the law.” His statement concluded: “We are now under God’s grace and mercy.”

Rebecca Armstrong, Sigmon’s ex-girlfriend and the daughter of the victims, told USA Today in an interview before the execution that she did not believe in the death penalty, but he “should answer for what he’s done”.

The state argued in court that some arguments raised by his attorneys about his trial counsel and mental health had already been litigated and that it was too late to raise new issues.

Sigmon knew the shooting would “shatter his bones and destroy his heart”, King said in a statement after the execution, but it was “the only choice he had, after the state’s three executions by lethal injection inflicted prolonged and potentially torturous deaths on men he loved like brothers”.

“It is unfathomable that, in 2025, South Carolina would execute one of its citizens in this bloody spectacle,” King said, adding that the state had killed a man “who has devoted himself to his faith, and to ministry and service to all around him”.

“Brad admitted his guilt at trial and shared his deep grief for his crimes with his jury and, in the years since, with everyone who knew him,” King said, adding: “In 23 years on death row, Brad devoted himself every day to prayer and repentance.”

For his final meal, Sigmon asked for three buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken to be shared with the others on death row, but the request was denied, King said: “Brad’s love for his brothers, his family, his friends, and the men and women who have guarded him is undeniable. It is a shame that South Carolina has not lived up the example that Brad has set for all of us during his final days.”

King, the chief of the capital habeas unit for the fourth circuit, which is part of the federal public defender’s office, has also been raising concerns around the secrecy of South Carolina’s execution methods. Lawmakers in 2023 passed a shield law to keep the identity of lethal injection drug suppliers secret, which allowed officials to restock pentobarbital and resume executions.

Sigmon’s lawyers have said it was “barbaric” to make the men on death row choose among these methods and argued the state was obliged to “disclose some basic facts about the drug’s creation, quality and reliability”. The lawyers have also criticized prison officials for failing to provide information about the “potency, purity and stability” of the drugs, their expiration dates and how they are being tested and stored.

In the execution of Richard Moore in November, autopsy records suggested he required two pentobarbital doses and that his lungs were swollen with fluid, “an excruciating condition known as pulmonary edema”.

A South Carolina judge previously said the firing squad method “constitutes torture” and the person was “likely to be conscious for a minimum of 10 seconds after impact”.

Faith leaders in the state had protested against Sigmon’s execution and supporters had collected thousands of signatures calling for clemency. No South Carolina governor has granted clemency to a defendant facing execution in the modern death penalty era.

A robotic private spacecraft designed to provide crucial data for returning humans to the moon toppled over as it landed on the lunar surface, bringing an immediate and premature end to the mission, its operators said on Friday.

Athena, a probe launched by the Texas-based company Intuitive Machines (IM) last month, touched down about 250 miles from its intended landing site near the moon’s south pole on Thursday. Initially at least, it was generating some power and sending information to Earth as engineers worked to make sense of data showing an “incorrect attitude”.

On Friday, however, IM declared Athena dead.

“With the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge,” it said in a statement confirming that the 15ft (4.6 meter) spacecraft was on its side.

“The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission.”

The failure of Athena, which was packed with scientific probes and experiments that Nasa was relying on as it prepares to send astronauts back to the moon for the first time since 1972, was almost identical to IM’s first moon landing in February 2024.

The Odysseus spacecraft became the first private mission to reach the moon, but skidded across the surface, broke a leg and toppled over. Athena had the same tall, thin design that some experts had feared could lead to a repeat of the accident.

Lost with the Athena lander were hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment, including Nasa’s Trident regolith drill, which was to have excavated soil in a search for water and other life-supporting constituents.

The lander also carried three robotic mobile probes, one of which, the mobile autonomous prospecting platform (Mapp), built by the Colorado company Lunar Outpost, was the first commercially built rover to reach the moon.

Athena’s scheduled 10-to-14-day mission, known as IM-2, was one of 10 contracted by Nasa’s $2.6bn commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) program to encourage private industry to fly experiments and other equipment to the moon in advance of the arrival of the crewed Artemis 3 mission, currently scheduled for mid-2027.

Another was the successful landing on Sunday of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, which touched down near Mons Latreille, in Mare Crisium on the moon’s north-eastern near side.

Painting Athena’s failure in a more positive light, the IM statement said its arrival marked “the most southernmost lunar landing and surface operations ever achieved”.

“This southern pole region is lit by harsh sun angles and limited direct communication with the Earth,” it said.

“This area has been avoided due to its rugged terrain and Intuitive Machines believes the insights and achievements from IM-2 will open this region for further space exploration.”

A robotic private spacecraft designed to provide crucial data for returning humans to the moon toppled over as it landed on the lunar surface, bringing an immediate and premature end to the mission, its operators said on Friday.

Athena, a probe launched by the Texas-based company Intuitive Machines (IM) last month, touched down about 250 miles from its intended landing site near the moon’s south pole on Thursday. Initially at least, it was generating some power and sending information to Earth as engineers worked to make sense of data showing an “incorrect attitude”.

On Friday, however, IM declared Athena dead.

“With the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge,” it said in a statement confirming that the 15ft (4.6 meter) spacecraft was on its side.

“The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission.”

The failure of Athena, which was packed with scientific probes and experiments that Nasa was relying on as it prepares to send astronauts back to the moon for the first time since 1972, was almost identical to IM’s first moon landing in February 2024.

The Odysseus spacecraft became the first private mission to reach the moon, but skidded across the surface, broke a leg and toppled over. Athena had the same tall, thin design that some experts had feared could lead to a repeat of the accident.

Lost with the Athena lander were hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment, including Nasa’s Trident regolith drill, which was to have excavated soil in a search for water and other life-supporting constituents.

The lander also carried three robotic mobile probes, one of which, the mobile autonomous prospecting platform (Mapp), built by the Colorado company Lunar Outpost, was the first commercially built rover to reach the moon.

Athena’s scheduled 10-to-14-day mission, known as IM-2, was one of 10 contracted by Nasa’s $2.6bn commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) program to encourage private industry to fly experiments and other equipment to the moon in advance of the arrival of the crewed Artemis 3 mission, currently scheduled for mid-2027.

Another was the successful landing on Sunday of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, which touched down near Mons Latreille, in Mare Crisium on the moon’s north-eastern near side.

Painting Athena’s failure in a more positive light, the IM statement said its arrival marked “the most southernmost lunar landing and surface operations ever achieved”.

“This southern pole region is lit by harsh sun angles and limited direct communication with the Earth,” it said.

“This area has been avoided due to its rugged terrain and Intuitive Machines believes the insights and achievements from IM-2 will open this region for further space exploration.”

Australians must not become complacent about the dangers posed by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred after it was downgraded to a tropical low weather system on Saturday morning, the prime minister warned.

Tropical Cyclone Alfred was downgraded as it stalled within a few kilometres of the Australian mainland on Saturday morning, but warnings about severe wind and rainfall remain in place across south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales.

A 61-year-old swept off a bridge by fast-moving flood waters near Dorrigo in NSW on Friday remained missing on Saturday. Emergency services were able to briefly talk with the man as he clung to a tree, before he was “unfortunately washed downstream”.

Anthony Albanese has urged people not to drive through flood waters and said it was “important that people do not take this downgrading as a reason for complacency”.

“[This system’s] impact will be serious and will intensify over coming hours and indeed over coming days,” Albanese said. “The impacts are already being felt and there is worse to come in the hours ahead. We must remain vigilant.”

Almost 300,000 homes in Queensland and 43,000 homes in NSW were without power around noon on Saturday. The Queensland premier, David Crisafulli, said the outages were the “single biggest loss we have seen in over a decade”.

Gold Coast university hospital was without mains power on Saturday morning and was running on generators. Albanese said six generators were being transported to Lismore on Saturday morning.

The NSW minister for energy, Penny Sharpe, urged people to be “patient” while authorities worked to restore power.

“We cannot risk the lives of those workers,” Sharpe said. “But know that we are doing everything we can, as quickly as we can.”

Essential Energy, the state-owned electricity infrastructure provider, said debris – including fallen trees and vegetation – would have to be removed before power lines could be assessed and repaired.

In Queensland, the chief operating officer of Energex, Paul Jordan, said the full restoration of power would take longer than a week. He said his teams were prioritising hospitals and critical infrastructure.

About 740 people in northern NSW had taken refuge across 21 evacuation centres by 10am on Saturday, with 1,110 people registered to use them. About 20,000 people were subject to evacuation warnings in the region.

Emergency services workers in the region conducted 30 flood rescues over 24 hours, with most involving people who had driven through flood waters.

Mick Logan, from the NSW Bureau of Meteorology, said flooding was likely in the north of the state from around midday.

Water levels were close to the height of the Lismore CBD levy on Saturday morning, with more than 200mm of rain recorded in the Wilson River catchment area over 24 hours.

River catchments from south-east Queensland to the Nambucca Valley in NSW were already full early on Saturday after days of persistent rain.

All emergency warnings in Queensland were downgraded to a “watch and act” level early Saturday afternoon. At the same time, the Gold Coast’s acting mayor, Donna Gates, urged people to stay home, stressing “it’s not over yet”.

The tropical cyclone reached the Moreton Bay islands in the early hours of Saturday, picking up speed but losing some intensity. It was downgraded from a category 2 tropical cyclone to a category 1 at about 1am.

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At 6am Alfred was downgraded again by the Bureau of Meteorology, effectively cancelling cyclone warnings – but not other weather warnings – from Noosa to Brisbane. The bureau referred to “ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred”, which has stalled in Moreton Bay near Bribie Island, about 55km north of Brisbane, and tracked further to the north.

Miriam Bradbury, senior meteorologist at the bureau of meteorology, said the storm system had not moved position from 6am to shortly before noon.

“We do expect it to make that coastal crossing today,” Bradbury said.

At a press conference on Saturday morning, Crisafulli said wind gusts of more than 100km/h had been recorded on the Gold Coast.

Residents in the region experienced a wild night of strong winds and rain. They have been warned to stay indoors for much of Saturday, and that the “prolonged crossing” could mean that severe wind and rain remain a threat for an extended period.

Matthew Callopy, a senior forecaster at the bureau, said the primary concern was now from heavy rainfall.

“Rainfall totals of over 250mm have already been observed around the Scenic Rim and we’ve seen widespread totals of 100mm to 200mm both on the Gold Coast, but also stretching up into the southern parts of Brisbane,” he said.

“As the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Alfred move inland, we will see more tropical moisture streaming across south-east Queensland and we are expecting widespread totals of 300-500mm, with localised amounts of 800mm-plus possible in some areas of south-east Queensland, particularly again around the southern part of where ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred tracks.”

Read more of Guardian Australia’s Tropical Cyclone Alfred coverage:

• Tropical Cyclone Alfred LIVE: latest news and updates

• No one is sleeping in Murwillumbah. All we can do now is wait for Tropical Cyclone Alfred, the malevolent beast

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• ‘I’m ready’: why John is determined to weather Cyclone Alfred in his tent despite authorities’ warnings

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About 125 civilians have been executed by government security forces in north-west Syria during a rolling two-day battle with loyalists to the ousted Assad regime, a Syrian war monitor reported on Friday.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), a human rights monitor considered independent and credible, documented “large-scale field executions of men and young adults, without any clear distinction between civilians and combatants”, in north-west Syria.

SNHR has documented the killing of at least 240 people since Thursday, including 100 Syrian security forces and 15 civilians at the hands of Assad loyalists.

The fighting resulted in Syria’s deadliest day since the toppling of the Assad regime three months earlier.

Fighting started on Thursday afternoon when militants loyal to the ousted Assad government ambushed Syrian security forces in a coordinated attack in a rural area of Latakia province, a former stronghold of the deposed leader where many of Syria’s minority Alawite Islamic sect live.

Late on Friday, interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa called on armed groups affiliated with the former government to lay down their arms “before it’s too late” and for those loyal to the new government to avoid attacking civilians or abusing prisoners.

“When we compromise our ethics, we reduce ourselves to the same level as our enemy,” he said in a video address. “The remnants of the fallen regime are looking for a provocation that will lead to violations behind which they can seek refuge.”

The wide-scale military operation is the biggest challenge to the new government in Damascus since the former Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled the Assad regime on 8 December.

In response to the attack, the Syrian government mobilised thousands of troops to north-west Syria, and attacked Assad loyalists with helicopter gunships, drones and artillery.

The attack by Assad loyalists seems to have provoked revenge killings in north-west Syria, which is populated heavily by the minority Islamic Alawite sect from which deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad hailed.

SNHR reported that in al-Mukhtariya, Latakia, about 40 civilians were executed together in a single location. Videos of the massacre show people dressed in civilian clothes piled on top of one another as women wailed. Another video in a second town showed gunmen executing seemingly unarmed men who were crawling on their hands and knees away from them.

The Guardian was unable to independently verify either of the videos.

Syria’s interior ministry said some “individual violations” had taken place as a result of people heading towards the villages being attacked by Assad loyalists, but did not claim responsibility for the alleged executions. “We are working to put a stop to these violations that do not represent the Syrian people as a whole,” an interior ministry source told Syria’s state broadcaster.

The Guardian asked for a specific comment from the interior ministry on the SNHR’s claims, but did not receive a response by the time of publishing.

The UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, urged protection for civilians as clashes intensified. “There is clearly an immediate need for restraint from all parties, and full respect for the protection of civilians in accordance with international law,” Pedersen said in a statement.

Government forces continued to battle with Assad regime loyalists late on Friday night, launching a military operation in Qardaha, Latakia, the home town of the former Syrian president, Hafez al-Assad, according to state media.

A source in the military of defence said security forces were targeting the buildings and hills around the town where former regime elements were hiding out.

The two-day, coordinated attack was a marked escalation by loyalists to the former government against Syria’s new rulers.

The new government in Damascus is struggling to consolidate its grip over the country. An Israeli incursion in south-east Syria, as well as an economic malaise perpetuated by western sanctions, threaten to undermine the fledgling authority’s rule.

The attack began in the town of Jableh, Latakia, on Thursday but soon spread to other areas. Gunmen cut off roads in the countryside and seized control of areas in the towns of Qardaha and Baniyas.

A video released by a former Assad regime officer shortly after the operation began called on Syria’s various sects to rise up against the government in Damascus in what it dubbed operation “coastal shield”.

Lengthy military columns of security officers and militias loyal to the government in Damascus quickly started heading towards Latakia from across Syria to quell the rebellion. Government forces began to carry out “combing operations” to catch gunmen

A curfew was established on the coast provinces and in Homs province, with people instructed not to leave their homes until 9am on Saturday.

“Civilians are being killed two blocks down from me. The fights are becoming bigger, I have no clue what’s going to happen,” said a resident of Jableh over the phone while sheltering in their home on Friday.

Saudi Arabia condemned what it described as “crimes” by “outlaw groups” and reaffirmed its backing for the new authorities.

Syria’s coast is populated by Alawites, the sect from which the Assad family hailed, though most of the sect had no relation to the former regime. Mutual suspicion between Alawites in the coastal region and the new rulers of Syria has persisted since the toppling of the Assad regime.

Despite assurances that minorities, including Alawites, would be safe in the new Syria, Alawite communities have been subject to a number of revenge killings since December.

In one case, on 31 January in the town of Arza, in Homs province, eight men were asked if they were Alawite and then executed with a bullet to the head. Ten more men were executed in Arza on Friday, with their bodies left out in the open, SNHR reported.

Syria’s new rulers have said the killings were “individual cases” committed by individuals and groups unaffiliated with the government in Damascus, but that has done little to quell the growing fears of Alawites.

The new Syrian authorities have come under criticism for not being inclusive enough of Syria’s religious diversity and its vast civil society. A transitional government is to be announced in the coming weeks, the makeup of which will be a key test for the new rulers of Syria’s commitment to pluralism.

At least 1 million salmon died at Tasmanian fish farms and were dumped at landfill sites and rendering plants in February in what authorities and the industry described as an “unprecedented” mass death triggered by a bacterium outbreak.

The revelation that waste facilities in Tasmania’s south received more than 5,500 tonnes of dead salmon last month – equivalent to about 1.07 million full-grown Atlantic salmon, or 8% of total annual production in the state – followed weeks of reports of fatty chunks of fish washing up on beaches in the Huon Valley and on Bruny Island.

The figures do not include the number of salmon that died from the outbreak in earlier months.

Fresh questions about the treatment of salmon were raised on Thursday when environment organisation the Bob Brown Foundation released drone footage from above a salmon farm appearing to show workers pumping writhing live salmon into a tub carrying dead salmon and then sealing it. It sparked accusations of cruelty and calls for the RSPCA to stop certifying Huon Aquaculture.

On Saturday the RSPCA said in a statement it had suspended certification for 14 days while it investigated further, saying the “inhumane handling of live, sick or injured fish as shown in the video being circulated is completely unacceptable”.

The acting chief executive of the state Environment Protection Authority (EPA), Cindy Ong, told ABC radio the mass mortality was “the largest event we have ever seen” and “not quite past the peak yet”.

“It’s correct to say it’s unprecedented,” she said. “We expect that it will be ongoing for a little while yet, but how long? I don’t know.”

Authorities said the deaths were primarily caused by an endemic bacterium, Piscirickettsia salmonis, that had been found in Tasmania’s east and south-eastern coastal waters since at least 2021. They said the death rate was exacerbated by warm summer water temperatures.

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Ong said fish deaths were “a known aspect of salmon farming worldwide”. She said the EPA was investigating how what she described as “congealed fish oil” had washed up on shorelines, starting with a beach at Verona Sands in the Huon Valley on 16 February.

Conservationists said the deaths at farms operated by Huon Aquaculture and Tassal showed that the state’s salmon farming industry was “an animal welfare nightmare”. It follows previous criticism from scientists and activists about the industry’s impact on the environment and particularly the endangered Maugean skate in Macquarie Harbour on the state’s west coast.

The Bob Brown Foundation campaigner Alistair Allan said the latest drone footage taken at a Huon Aquaculture farm in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, south of Hobart, that appeared to show live fish being placed and sealed in a dry tub with dead fish meant the RSPCA had “no choice but to drop their certification of this toxic and cruel industry”.

“This is the reality of factory-farmed salmon. Our waterways and beaches are covered with rotting chunks of diseased salmon, the Maugean skate has been pushed to the edge of extinction, reefs and sea floors are covered in sludge and slime, and communities are completely fed up with the corporate takeover of their waters,” he said.

The Neighbours of Fish Farming campaigner Jess Coughlan said: “Live animals suffering from disease that are left to suffocate to death absolutely should not earn the RSPCA badge that is displayed inshore alongside Huon Aquaculture farmed salmon.”

In its statement announcing the 14-day suspension of certification, the RSPCA said: “As the public response to this incident shows, animal welfare in farming is incredibly important to Australians, and this is no different when it comes to aquaculture. Fish are sentient animals capable of pain and suffering, which is why the RSPCA Approved Standard exists in the first place.”

Huon Aquaculture said it had launched a “full investigation” into the video footage, that it was “extremely disappointed” and that the actions shown did not represent “standard operating procedures”.

The chief executive of industry group Salmon Tasmania, Luke Martin, said the mass mortality event was an “unprecedented, first-of-its-size” event, and the EPA had confirmed the bacterium was of no risk to Tasmanians or the environment.

“It’s been a concerning time for our surrounding communities and we apologise for the impact and want to assure everyone that we are doing everything to fix this and make changes for the future,” he said.

The deaths this summer follow more than 1,000 tonnes of salmon dying in fish farms in Macquarie Harbour over seven months in the 2023-24 spring and summer. Aquaculture companies are required to report to the EPA when more than 0.25% of fish in a cage die on three or more days in a row. Dead fish are often rendered for use in pet food, fish oil and agricultural fertiliser. The industry says dumping in landfill is used as a last resort.

The Tasmanian premier, Jeremy Rockliff, this week told parliament that the deaths were “very concerning” and he expected the industry to be transparent with the community.

Interviewed on the ABC, Ong said site inspections of facilities receiving dead salmon had found some were not complying with the law and were likely to face “enforcement action”. She refused to name the facilities that had received fish carcasses or faced potential penalties.

The Greens MP Vica Bayley accused the EPA of “keeping Tasmanians in the dark”. “The EPA continues to withhold information from the public,” he said. “They need to stop with the secrecy and be upfront with Tasmanians.”

The deaths in the south of the state come amid a political fight over the future of the salmon industry in Macquarie Harbour. The harbour is the only known home of the Maugean skate, a ray-like species that has been affected by water deoxygenation caused by fish farm expansion.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, last month wrote to salmon companies promising Labor would legislate to guarantee “sustainable salmon farming” could continue in the harbour despite an ongoing legal review of a 2012 decision allowing the industry to expand. Albanese’s intervention followed the release of a new scientific report suggesting the skate’s plight had slightly improved after crashing last decade.

The independent Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie this week said she supported salmon farming but called for it to stop in the harbour.

It received a “toe-curling” one-star review in the Guardian, was written off as “smug, syrupy and endlessly spoofable” in the Times and denounced as “an exercise in narcissism” in the Telegraph.

But according to Netflix, “there’s more joy to be shared”.

Three days after With Love, Meghan premiered and was lampooned by critics and audiences alike, the Duchess of Sussex she has announced the show will be back for a second season.

In a post on Instagram, Meghan posted a video of herself dancing and wearing a baseball cap with “lettuce romaine calm” written on it, pulled over her eyes.

She captioned the post: “Lettuce romaine calm … or not (!) because I’m thrilled to share that season 2 of ‘With Love, Meghan’ is coming!”

In season one of the eight-part series, which became available to stream last Tuesday, Meghan shared her personal tips on everything from making jam to hosting garden parties.

It has been given a “popcornmeter rating” – denoting the percentage of users who rated the series 3.5 stars or higher – of just 18% by audiences on the review site Rotten Tomatoes.

According to an article on Netflix, which describes the show as an opportunity to find out Meghan’s “personal tips and tricks” for how to add “more fun and thoughtfulness to the everyday”, the second season has already completed filming. It is not yet clear when it will be broadcast.

Meghan’s initial Instagram story was followed up by another post showing her audibly frying, chopping, pouring liquids, cutting plants and breaking eggs, over which Meghan whispers: “Oh, do you hear that?”

The caption reads: “Oh, how I love ASMR! [If you’re loving Season 1, just wait until you see the fun we cooked up on Season 2! Thanks for joining the party, and an endless thanks to the amazing team and crew who helped bring it all to life! @netflix”.

ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response, is a sensory experience some people have to sounds, which usually starts with a tingling sensation in the scalp.