Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a “very good telephone call” on Wednesday, according to Trump, in the first conversation between the US president and his Ukrainian counterpart since their disastrous showdown in the White House three weeks ago.

Zelenskyy described the call as “positive, very substantive and frank”, and said he had signed up to a partial ceasefire that Trump agreed with Vladimir Putin a day earlier. The White House said Trump had promised to help with a Ukrainian request to source more air defence batteries for Kyiv.

The last encounter between Trump and Zelenskyy ended in an angry exchange of words between the two presidents and the US vice-president, JD Vance. It marked a low point in US-Ukrainian relations and spooked other allies that Washington may be about to abandon Kyiv.

Since then, Zelenskyy has been eager to get relations with Trump back on track. His readout of Wednesday’s call thanked Trump multiple times, and he said he had signed on to the ceasefire plan.

“We instructed our teams to resolve technical issues related to implementing and expanding the partial ceasefire,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram after the call.

Previously, Ukrainian and US negotiating teams had agreed on a full ceasefire, but Putin turned that down suggesting instead pausing mutual strikes on energy infrastructure and a ceasefire in the Black Sea.

Trump, posting on Truth Social, described his talk with Zelenskyy as a “very good telephone call” that lasted around an hour. “Much of the discussion was based on the call made yesterday with President Putin in order to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs. We are very much on track,” he wrote, in language that was noticeably less hyperbolic than some of his pronouncements on the conflict.

In a Zoom call with journalists late on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said he had “felt no pressure” from Trump, adding: “It was a fruitful conversation, perhaps the most fruitful we have had, the mood was positive.

“We have received signals from the United States that we are talking about the ceasefire on energy facilities, so not to attack energy infrastructure, and we are also talking about the civilian infrastructure facilities.”

Zelenskyy said his team would draw up a list of the kind of facilities they felt could be included and would present them to the Americans at upcoming negotiations.

The Ukrainian leader also said that he and Trump had discussed the US proposal to take ownership of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in south Ukraine.

“We talked only about one power plant, which is under Russian occupation,” he said.

In a sign that European leaders are closely watching the discussions between Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy, the Ukraine president answered a phone call while speaking with reporters on Wednesday evening and promised to call back. Returning to the briefing, he said: “That was President Macron, we have a conversation on average once a day, he’s helping a lot. I will call him back.”

Ukrainian officials say that they believe their relations with the Trump administration are now on sounder footing.

“It was a fairly emotional conversation in the Oval Office, and it showed that contradictions had built up,” said Zelenskyy’s aide Mykhailo Podolyak, in an interview in Kyiv earlier on Wednesday. He claimed, however, that the two administrations quickly “found a synchronised position”, as demonstrated by the agreement in Saudi Arabia.

Nonetheless, much of the rhetoric from many in the White House continues to alarm Kyiv’s European allies. On Wednesday, Trump’s negotiating envoy Steve Witkoff described the call between Trump and Putin as “two great leaders coming together for the betterment of mankind”.

Podolyak said he was “relaxed” about the Trump administration’s strategy of “soft communication” with Russia. “They believe that this softer rhetoric, many personal connections, will enable them to find a level of trust. Although when I put the words ‘trust’ and ‘Russia’ together, it looks fantastical to me,” he said.

A deal on US access to Ukraine’s mineral wealth is still awaiting signatures. Trump’s suggestion that the US could take over Ukrainian power plants “would be the best protection for that infrastructure and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure”, according to a White House statement.

There was some confusion over what exactly had been said on the call between Trump and Putin, as Moscow and Washington gave very different readouts in the aftermath.

Trump, in an initial post on Truth Social, said the partial ceasefire would apply to “energy and infrastructure”, giving the impression that it would extend to all civilian infrastructure. Zelenskyy, after his call with Trump, spoke about “ending strikes on energy and other civilian infrastructure”.

However, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Wednesday that the ceasefire would only apply to the energy sector, and a White House statement on Wednesday also referred only to energy, leaving the details of the ceasefire unclear.

Additionally, the Kremlin said in a statement that a requirement for serious peace talks would be “the complete cessation of foreign military aid and the provision of intelligence to Kyiv”.

Trump, speaking on Fox News, denied this had ever come up: “No, we didn’t talk about aid, actually, we didn’t talk about aid at all. We talked about a lot of things but aid was never discussed,” he said.

However, Peskov directly contradicted Trump, when speaking to reporters in Moscow: “The need to halt arms supplies to Kyiv was discussed during Putin and Trump’s conversation,” he said. Ceasing military aid would be “high on the agenda in negotiations between Russia and the US, but the topic will not be discussed publicly”, Peskov added.

Ukrainian officials dismissed the demand as unrealistic.

“It’s a very strange demand, of course,” said Podolyak. “He wants Ukraine to give up its army, to give up security guarantees, to give up its right to be in alliances, and to give up on various territories. This is what he’s been fighting for for three years, and he couldn’t do it militarily … And now that’s what he wants from the negotiations process,” he added.

There remains no indication that Putin has abandoned any of his most hardline objectives in the war in Ukraine. Kommersant, a well-connected Russian newspaper, reported on Wednesday that Putin told a meeting of senior business leaders on Tuesday that he intends to continue the fighting until he gets full control of, as well as international recognition over, the four regions Moscow annexed in 2022.

Europe needs to be able to deter potential invaders by 2030, the EU executive has said as it launched a push to buy more weapons in the bloc and from allied countries, rather than from the US.

The UK, US and Turkey will be excluded from defence contracts funded by a €150bn (£125bn) EU loans programme, unless they sign a security and defence partnership agreement with the EU.

The €150bn loans scheme will be open to EU member states as part of a massive surge in defence spending, but 65% of the costs of equipment funded must come from suppliers in the EU, Norway or Ukraine. The rest could be spent in non-EU countries with a security agreement.

The details came as the European Commission said Russia would remain “a fundamental threat to Europe’s security for the foreseeable future”.

The EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters that the EU was preparing for the worst: “We don’t have a cold war, but we have a hot war on European soil, and the threat is existential. It’s as real as it can get.”

Last month Danish intelligence services warned that if Moscow perceived Nato as weak, Russia could be ready to wage a large-scale war in Europe within five years. Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen urged fellow EU leaders to set a 2030 target on rearmament at a recent emergency summit in Brussels.

Addressing the Royal Danish Military Academy in Copenhagen on Tuesday, the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said “readiness 2030” meant “to have rearmed and developed the capabilities to have credible deterrence” and “an industrial base that is a strategic advantage”.

The UK is described as an “essential European ally” in the paper, which also proposes deepening cooperation with Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The EU has defence pacts with six countries, including Japan, Korea and Norway.

Kallas, who met the UK foreign secretary David Lammy on Tuesday, said the commission was working on having a defence and security partnership with the UK and she hoped for results at an EU-UK summit in May.

The “Buy European” approach is a victory for France, but is likely to face pushback from member states, such as the Netherlands and Poland, in discussions on finalising the €150bn loan proposals. Many countries say they want a bigger European defence industry, but oppose restrictions on military spending.

“The British defence industry is so much intertwined with ours [in the EU],” a senior EU diplomat said. “We have an integrated value chain in the west for our military stuff. And it wouldn’t make sense to cut it.”

They added that China, Iran and Russia were deepening defence industry cooperation. “So those who say that we should cut out the non-Europeans are shooting themselves geopolitically and economically in the foot.”

EU leaders, who will discuss the plans at a summit on Thursday, also differ in the tone they take on the US.

Italy’s former prime minister, Mario Draghi, who is advising the commission on competitiveness, told Italian lawmakers this week that European security had been put in doubt by Donald Trump’s change in foreign policy towards Russia.

A senior German government official in Berlin told reporters: “We don’t want to give the impression we are seeking to decouple ourselves from the US.”

EU countries, such as France and Spain, are likely to be disappointed that the commission has not come up with new money to fund defence ambitions.

Officials think the EU can raise €800bn in new defence spending – €150bn from EU-backed loans raised on capital markets and €650bn fiscal flexibilities that allow EU member states to go into debt for defence without breaking the EU’s fiscal rules.

EU diplomats say the headline €800bn will never be realised. Some of the largest and wealthiest member states, with top credit ratings, such as Germany and the Netherlands, have no intention of taking out EU-backed loans. Other member states, especially in southern Europe, are seen as reluctant to deepen their national debts for defence.

The commission could act as a central purchasing body, it suggests in the paper, opening the door to the EU executive buying drones, missiles and other equipment, if member states wished. The proposal recalls the role EU bodies have already played in buying ammunition for Ukraine and vaccines during the Covid pandemic.

Defence spending in Europe has jumped since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, hitting 1.9% of GDP in 2024 for 27 member states, which includes 23 Nato allies. But Donald Trump’s rapprochement towards Russia and hostility to the EU has forced a change of thinking.

The EU’s 450 million citizens “should not have to depend on 340 million Americans to defend ourselves against 140 million Russians, who cannot defeat 38 million Ukrainians”, EU defence commissioner Andrius Kubilius said.

“We really can do better. It’s time for us to take responsibility for the defence of Europe.”

• Donald Trump told Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday that the US could own and run Ukrainian nuclear power plants as part of a ceasefire. The Ukrainian president said following their call that “we talked only about one power plant, which is under Russian occupation”, referring to Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power station. The White House said it had “moved beyond” the idea of taking possession of Ukraine’s mineral wealth as part of negotiations. “We are now focused on a long-term peace agreement,” said White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.

• Kyiv was “ready” to pause attacks on Russia’s energy network and infrastructure, Zelenskyy said, write Shaun Walker and Pjotr Sauer. Zelenskyy indicated he did not yet consider a ceasefire to be in place, instead saying it could be established quickly, and his team would present the Americans with a list of the kind of facilities it should include. Zelenskyy also indicated he expects the ceasefire to apply to civilian infrastructure as well as energy facilities.

• Zelenskyy’s call with Trump came a day after Vladimir Putin agreed to halt similar strikes on Ukraine but Russia immediately went back on the attack with drones and missiles. The Ukrainian president remained sceptical of Vladimir Putin’s goodwill and intentions after Ukraine’s defence ministry said on Wednesday that an overnight barrage of Russian missiles and drones killed one person and damaged two hospitals. The national railway service said railway energy infrastructure in the central Dnipropetrovsk region was hit. Such actions put Putin’s words about ceasing attacks “at odds with reality”, Zelenskyy said.

• A major Russian oil pipeline station continued to burn at Kavkazskaya in Russia’s Krasnodar region after a successful Ukrainian drone strike. Authorities in the region said a total of 406 firefighters and 157 pieces of equipment had been sent.

• European leaders reacted sceptically to the Trump-Putin limited ceasefire idea, saying it showed the Russian president was not serious about seeking a peaceful end to the three-year-old conflict, Sam Jones writes. Putin’s sweeping demands include leaving the Ukraine military weakened and vulnerable, with no western arms or intelligence, and a depleted army. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said: “It is clear that Russia does not really want to make any kind of concessions,” adding along with other leaders that Kremlin demands to stop arming Kyiv could not be accepted.

• Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that Ukraine had received more F-16 fighter jets. “Several F-16s have flown to Ukraine. I’m not going to tell you how many,” Zelenskyy told reporters. Ukraine received its first F-16s in 2024.

• Kallas said she would present a proposal to European leaders gathering in Brussels on Thursday to provide Ukraine with two million rounds of large-calibre artillery ammunition, according to a letter seen by Reuters. The EU executive has meanwhile launched a push to buy more weapons in the bloc and from allied countries, rather than from the US, Jennifer Rankin writes. The UK, US and Turkey will be excluded from defence contracts funded by a €150bn (£125bn) EU loans programme unless they sign a security and defence partnership agreement with the EU. The €150bn loans scheme will be open to EU member states as part of a massive surge in defence spending, but 65% of the costs of equipment funded must come from suppliers in the EU, Norway or Ukraine. The rest could be spent in non-EU countries with a security agreement.

• The EU should fund Ukraine’s access to satellite services from EU-based commercial providers, the European Commission said in its white paper on the future of European defence published on Wednesday. Ukraine’s military has been heavily dependent on Elon Musk’s Starlink but there have been veiled threats it could be cut off unless Ukraine accepts Trump-dictated peace terms. European satellite operators are in talks with the EU as they have been asked if they can step in and replace Starlink. “This will help Ukraine to enhance its resilience by diversifying its sources of space-based services,” the paper said.

European leaders have reacted sceptically to the limited ceasefire in Ukraine agreed by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, saying it has made it abundantly clear that the Russian president is not serious about seeking a peaceful end to the three-year-old conflict.

During a call with the US president, Putin agreed to a partial ceasefire that would stop his forces targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, but declined to commit to the 30-day full ceasefire plan pitched by Trump last week and agreed to by Ukraine.

Further doubts about the deal arose after Russia launched a wave of attacks on targets across Ukraine hours after Trump and Putin spoke. Russia also reported a series of attacks by Ukrainian drones.

“Attacks on civilian infrastructure in the first night after this supposedly pivotal and great phone call have not abated,” Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said in an interview with the German broadcaster ZDF. “Putin is playing a game here and I’m sure that the American president won’t be able to sit and watch for much longer.”

Pistorius said Putin’s commitment to stop attacks on energy targets was “basically nothing” because such infrastructure in Ukraine was already the “best protected”.

The minister also described as “unacceptable” the Kremlin’s insistence that a key condition for peace would be a total halt of western military and intelligence support to Ukraine’s embattled military.

“This is very transparent,” Pistorius said, adding that Putin aimed to prevent Kyiv’s backers from “further supporting Ukraine and enabling it to really defend itself if there is another attack, during or after a ceasefire”.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said their countries would continue sending military aid to Ukraine. “Ukraine can count on us,” Scholz said.

The Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, also dismissed Russian demands that help for Kyiv be halted. “Ukraine has an undeniable right to defend itself on its own and supported by its partners,” he said on Wednesday. “This right cannot be restricted in any way, not now, and not in the future.”

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, downplayed the US-Russian deal. She said: “It is clear that Russia does not really want to make any kind of concessions.” She added that Kremlin demands to stop arming Kyiv could not be accepted.

Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, was equally cautious about the prospects for peace. In an interview with Radio Nacional de España on Wednesday morning, he described the conflict as “one man’s war”, adding that there was “no real will from Putin to stop this war”.

He asaid: “It’s positive that there’s talk of a ceasefire and talk of peace with Russia, but we’re still very far from the peace that Spain and the European people want.”

Others, however, were more optimistic. On Wednesday, China applauded the deal between Putin and Trump.

“The Chinese side has advocated resolving the crisis through dialogue and negotiation from the very beginning,” its foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said. “We welcome all efforts toward a ceasefire and consider it a necessary step toward achieving peace.”

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report

A jury in North Dakota has decided that the environmental group Greenpeace must pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the pipeline company Energy Transfer and is liable for defamation and other claims over protests in the state nearly a decade ago.

Energy Transfer Partners, a Dallas-based oil and gas company worth almost $70bn, had sued Greenpeace, alleging defamation and orchestrating criminal behavior by protesters at the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 and 2017, claiming the organization “incited” people to protest by using a “misinformation campaign”.

Greenpeace, which had denied the claims, said in a statement after the verdict that lawsuits like this were aimed at “destroying the right to peaceful protest”; constitutional rights experts had expressed fears that the case could have a wider chilling effect on free speech.

The nine-person jury in Mandan, North Dakota, found in favor of Energy Transfer on most counts after more than two days of deliberations. It awarded Energy Transfer at least $660m, according to calculations from Greenpeace.

The environmental group, which had expressed concerns before the trial about getting a fair hearing in oil and gas country, said that a loss and an enormous financial award could bankrupt their US operation. Energy Transfer sued three Greenpeace entities, claiming that they are a single organization rather than independent members of the Greenpeace network.

Greenpeace will appeal the decision, the organization said.

The case has been closely watched by the wider non-profit community and first amendment experts amid concerns over how it could affect activism.

“What we saw over these three weeks was Energy Transfer’s blatant disregard for the voices of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. And while they also tried to distort the truth about Greenpeace’s role in the protests, we instead reaffirmed our unwavering commitment to non-violence in every action we take,” said Deepa Padmanabha, Greenpeace’s senior legal adviser.

“We should all be concerned about the future of the first amendment, and lawsuits like these aimed at destroying our rights to peaceful protest and free speech. Greenpeace will continue to do its part to fight for the protection of these fundamental rights for everyone,” Padmanabha said.

Greenpeace International was one of the three entities sued by Energy Transfer. Its general counsel, Kristin Casper, said the organization’s fight would continue: “Energy Transfer hasn’t heard the last of us in this fight. We’re just getting started with our anti-Slapp [strategic lawsuits against public participation] lawsuit against Energy Transfer’s attacks on free speech and peaceful protest. We will see Energy Transfer in court this July in the Netherlands. We will not back down, we will not be silenced.”

Energy Transfer thanked the judge and jury in a statement, saying: “While we are pleased that Greenpeace has been held accountable for their actions against us, this win is really for the people of Mandan and throughout North Dakota who had to live through the daily harassment and disruptions caused by the protesters who were funded and trained by Greenpeace. It is also a win for all law-abiding Americans who understand the difference between the right to free speech and breaking the law. That the disrupters have been held responsible is a win for all of us.”

Trey Cox, Energy Transfer’s counsel for the case, said the jury’s verdict was “resounding” and showed Greenpeace’s actions had been unlawful. “It is also a day of celebration for the constitution, the state of North Dakota and Energy Transfer,” he said.

During jury selection, potential jurors appeared to largely dislike the protests, and many had ties to the fossil fuel industry. In the end, more than half the jurors selected to hear the case had ties to the fossil fuel industry, and most had negative views of anti-pipeline protests or groups that oppose the use of fossil fuels.

“Today’s verdict is not a reflection of wrongdoing on Greenpeace’s part, but rather the result of a long list of courtroom tactics and propaganda tricks that Energy Transfer used to deny Greenpeace its right to a fair trial,” said Kirk Herbertson, a New York attorney and the US director for advocacy and campaigns for EarthRights International. “We hope that the North Dakota supreme court will question why this case ever made it to trial in the first place.”

Concerns over finding an unbiased jury plagued the case even before it began, given the rightward political leanings of Mandan, North Dakota, and the distaste for the protests among local residents. Mysterious rightwing mailers, made to look like a newspaper called “Central ND News”, that contained articles slanted against the pipeline protest or in favor of Energy Transfer were also sent to residents in recent months, which Greenpeace alleged could taint the jury pool.

Greenpeace sought to move the trial to another venue in North Dakota multiple times, but was shot down by the county court and the North Dakota supreme court. The judge, James Gion, who was brought in to preside over the case after all Morton county judges recused themselves, denied requests for livestreaming, which the state supreme court also denied.

Legal sources have said the case is a classic example of a Slapp – a form of civil litigation increasingly deployed by corporations, politicians and wealthy individuals to deliberately wear down and silence critics including journalists, activists and watchdog groups. These cases, even when the entities suing lose, cause significant legal costs for defendants and can have a chilling effect.

The five-week trial saw Energy Transfer attempt to tie a host of misdeeds or disruptions caused by the protests to Greenpeace, which has maintained that its involvement was small and at the request of the Standing Rock Tribe.

Standing Rock released a statement after the trial began affirming it had led the protests and claiming the tribe had had ongoing issues with getting safety information from Energy Transfer. The pipeline company was “frivolously alleging defamation and seeking money damages, designed to shut down all voice supporting Standing Rock. The case is an attempt to silence our Tribe about the truth of what happened at Standing Rock, and the threat posed by DAPL to our land, our water and our people. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will not be silenced,” the tribal chairperson, Janet Alkire, wrote.

In the final days of the case, Kelcy Warren, Energy Transfer’s billionaire founder and a major donor to Donald Trump, said in a video deposition that his company had offered financial incentives – including money, a luxury ranch and a new school – to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to stop the protests, which the tribe declined, according to a group of monitors attending the trial because of concerns over its fairness. Warren said he believed the tribe refused the offer because it was offered more by Earthjustice, which has served as a legal representative of the tribe.

The trial-monitoring committee released a statement after the verdict saying that the trial had been “deeply flawed” and denied Greenpeace the ability to present a full defense. The committee monitored every part of the trial and concluded the jury had been biased in favor of Energy Transfer and the judge lacked full legal knowledge of the complex issues at hand.

Marty Garbus, a longtime first amendment lawyer who is part of the monitoring group, said: “In my six decades of legal practice, I have never witnessed a trial as unfair as the one against Greenpeace that just ended in the courts of North Dakota … Greenpeace has a very strong case on appeal. I believe there is a good chance it ultimately will win both in court and in the court of public opinion.”

The trial came after Energy Transfer first filed a Rico lawsuit in federal court in 2017. The federal racketeering case was dismissed on 14 February 2019, but seven days later Energy Transfer refiled a virtually identical suit in North Dakota state court.

Israeli forces have launched a “limited ground operation” to retake the Netzarim corridor, a newly widened road protected by fortified bunkers that divides Gaza and is seen as essential to controlling the devastated Palestinian territory.

The move is a significant escalation of Israel’s new offensive in Gaza and came less than 36 hours after a massive wave of airstrikes that killed more than 400, including 183 children and 94 women, the health ministry there said.

Zaher al-Waheidi, the head of the ministry’s records department, described those attacks as the deadliest day in Gaza since the start of the war.

More Israeli strikes on Wednesday killed about 20, bringing the death toll to 436 in 48 hours, a spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence service said.

Among the new casualties was a UN staff member, who was killed when two UN guesthouses in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza were hit in an attack.

The UN has called for an investigation. “The locations of all UN premises are known to the parties to the conflict, who are bound by international law to protect them and maintain their absolute inviolability,” a spokesperson for António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said.

A 51-year-old British man was also injured in the strike at the UN Office for Project Services. Darren Cormack, the chief executive of the demining charity Mines Advisory Group, said the Briton was among five people injured in the explosion.

The Israel Defense Forces denied hitting a UN building, saying “there was no IDF operational activity” in the area of the UN compound and “the IDF didn’t strike” it.

A series of Israeli evacuation orders telling about 150,000 people in the north and east of Gaza to leave their homes to avoid being trapped in a combat zone suggested ground assaults in coming days, but seizure of the Netzarim corridor is the first major move to retake territory in Gaza since Tuesday’s airstrikes, which shattered a two-month-long pause in the hostilities with Hamas.

A private security company that had been securing checkpoints in the Netzarim corridor withdrew overnight and Israeli troops in armoured vehicles and tanks and on foot moved in at dawn on Wednesday, according to western aid officials.

The Israeli forces are believed to have reoccupied four fortified bases there and closed off all access. Travelling from north to south Gaza is now impossible, the officials said.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has said the new offensive will continue until “total victory” is achieved over Hamas and the 59 remaining hostages held by the militant group are freed.

As part of the ceasefire deal agreed in January, Israel had withdrawn from the Netzarim corridor.

Separately, Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, threatened ordinary people in Gaza.

Katz issued a “last warning” to Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday, saying in a video statement that they should follow the recent advice of the US president, Donald Trump, to return Israeli hostages and remove Hamas from power.

“Return the hostages and remove Hamas, and other options will open up for you – including the possibility of leaving for other places in the world, for those who want to,” Katz said.

Hundreds of thousands returned to what remained of their homes and Israeli forces pulled back to a buffer zone around the edges of Gaza during the ceasefire, which began in mid-January.

When the agreed first phase of the ceasefire ended 17 days ago, Israel reimposed a blockade on Gaza, cutting off all supplies.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned on Wednesday that medics were struggling to manage a sharp increase in casualties over the last 36 hours after the resumption of ground operations by Israel in the Gaza Strip.

“Due to the recent suspension of humanitarian aid into Gaza, stocks of medical supplies have dropped significantly and on top of this, hospital staff are struggling to manage the sharp increase of casualties,” said the ICRC in a statement.

Israel and Hamas accuse each other of breaching the truce, which had broadly held since January and offered respite for the 2.3 million inhabitants of Gaza.

About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, died in the shock Hamas incursion into Israel in October 2023 that triggered the conflict. About 250 hostages were also taken. The Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed more than 49,000, also mostly civilians.

Netanyahu and other Israel officials said the decision to renew attacks in Gaza came after Hamas rejected proposals for a 30- to 60-day extension of the first phase of the three-phase ceasefire.

Hamas says it wants to conclude the phases of the ceasefire deal as signed.

Israel has refused to enter into discussions about the second phase, which is intended to lead to a permanent end to hostilities, the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza, and the return of all the hostages in Gaza, of whom more than half are thought to be dead.

“Hamas has not closed the door on negotiations, but we insist there is no need for new agreements,” Taher al-Nunu, a Hamas official, said on Wednesday.

Nunu called on the international community to “take urgent action” to end the war, while accusing Israel of “violating the ceasefire agreement it signed”.

Analysts said Israel had launched new strikes to “break an impasse”.

Prof Danny Orbach, an expert in military history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said: “There was a very good reason Israel did not want to go to phase two [of the ceasefire agreement]. It would have meant Hamas staying in Gaza, staying in power and Israel having to lift its siege too … There was a complete disconnect between the interests of the two sides.”

Critics in Israel have accused Netanyahu of resuming the offensive to reinforce his coalition government before a crucial budget vote in parliament, to rally support for the war in the face of popular backing for a ceasefire, and to head off widespread public anger over his attempt to fire the head of the internal security service, the Shin Bet.

Underlining the deep divisions in Israel, tens of thousands in Israel protested on Tuesday night and Wednesday against the renewed offensive and Netanyahu’s government. More demonstrations are planned in coming days.

Across Gaza, ordinary Palestinians – men and women, old and young, ill and healthy – have described their fear, despair and confusion after Israel’s return to violence in the past two days.

“Our hopes rose but now we are back to square one,” Osama, a 40-year-old aid worker living in al-Mawasi, a coastal area designated as a “humanitarian zone” early in the conflict, which has since become known for severe overcrowding and poor sanitation.

Massive Israeli airstrikes shattered the two-month ceasefire on Tuesday, killing more than 400. A further 20 Palestinians died in further attacks on Wednesday, local health officials said.

In a statement on Wednesday, Israel’s defence minister warned the military was preparing to intensify its new offensive.

Israel Katz said: “Residents of Gaza, this is the last warning. Take the advice of the president of the United States. Return the hostages and remove Hamas, and other options will open up for you – including the possibility of leaving for other places in the world for those who want to.”

It was not immediately clear which statement Katz was referring to.

In al-Mawasi, tented encampments that had stretched along the entire shoreline emptied when the ceasefire was agreed. Almost half a million people headed back to the north of Gaza to try to rebuild their ruined homes. Many are now returning, pitching their tents once again on the dunes.

“The worst thing is not the deprivation or the uncertainty. It is that the hopes we had with the ceasefire are gone. We thought our pains were over but it has just started again,” said Osama.

Evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military on Tuesday, along with renewed airstrikes and tank shelling, are forcing thousands of Palestinians to return to makeshift camps where they sheltered for months last year.

Leaflets dropped on Beit Hanoun, a once thriving town in northern Gaza, told residents that “staying in the shelters or the current tent puts your lives and that of your family members in danger” and advised them to “evacuate immediately”.

There were similar scenes in towns close to Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, as well as Shuja’iya in the centre. The new orders mean more than 160,000 people have been now told to leave their homes.

Earlier in the war, Israel used a complicated system of numbered zones to tell Palestinians where they would be safer. This system appears to have been abandoned.

Many in Gaza say they are facing a daily challenge of surviving in the shattered concrete and twisted metal ruins that were once their homes, without running water, electricity or reliable communications.

Staff at the Red Cross field hospital in Rafah said they had received a high number of patients.

“Now, we can feel the panic in the air, the sound of ambulance sirens is a constant, and we can see the pain and devastation in the faces of those we are helping. People are scared and are again forced to think only of surviving the next hours,” said Fred Oola, a senior medical officer at the hospital.

Israel re-imposed a tight blockade on Gaza 17 days ago, hours after the first official phase of the ceasefire ended. Prices of basic essentials immediately soared amid panic-buying, then calmed. Now they are spiking again, with a kilo of potatoes now costing the equivalent of $5 (£3.80), four times more than a week ago.

“A lot of people simply can’t afford that, and there’s absolutely no fresh fruit or dairy however much money you have,” said one senior aid official.

Aid distributions have already been cut to preserve stocks, and though 25,000 trucks entered the territory during the two-month pause in hostilities, supplies could start running out soon.

“We have flour for a week or so, but not enough food to cover everyone with rations this month,” one senior aid official in Gaza said. The International Committee of the Red Cross said medical stocks are running low

Almost everyone in Gaza has been displaced several times, often after evacuation orders from the Israeli military.

“We were shocked by the orders. We began gathering our important belongings, some food, and evacuated immediately,” said Khatam al-Kafarna, a 28-year-old nurse who has moved from Beit Hanoun with her family to the coastal al-Shati camp area 6 miles (10km) to the west.

“But the reality is harsh, and the conditions are difficult. There is no aid, no food, no bread, no water, no rest and no privacy,” she said.

Like al-Mawasi, al-Shati camp is now filling again with newly displaced people. Aid agencies have been unable to prepare for the influx, and so lack almost all essentials.

“It is miserable here. We used to live in a large, beautiful, safe and secure house with a big, beautiful garden. I had my own room. Now, we all share the same tent, and we share everything. We wait for death every moment. We barely survived the war by miracle, and we might not survive this if it continues,” al-Kafarna said.

Netanyahu told Israelis in a televised address on Tuesday that he had ordered the new strikes because Hamas had rejected proposals for an extension of the ceasefire, which came into effect in mid-January.

Hamas, which still holds 59 hostages of the approximately 250 seized in its 7 October 2023 cross-border attack, accused Israel of reneging on its earlier agreement to a three-phase truce leading to a permanent end to the war.

About 1,200, mostly civilians, were killed in the 2023 attack. More than 49,000 in Gaza, also mostly civilians, have died during the Israeli offensive in the territory that followed.

Umm Mujahid Abu Jrad, 31 and heavily pregnant with her fourth child, also left Beit Hanoun on Wednesday.

“When I heard on the news that the ceasefire had been violated, I knew that we would be living the nightmare of war again. We have already been displaced eight times but we woke up to evacuation orders and so began to prepare our things to move to another area,” she said.

“When I learned that the war had resumed, I felt a great anger. Why did they do this when everything was going as it should? What do they want from us after they destroyed our homes and made us homeless, turning Gaza into a ghost town? What more do they want?”

Israeli military officials said the strikes on Wednesday were against “terrorist” targets including a “Hamas military site in northern Gaza where preparations were being made to fire projectiles” and “several vessels in the coastal area of the Gaza Strip … intended for use in terrorist operations by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad [armed group]”.

Dark energy, the mysterious force powering the expansion of the universe, appears to be weakening, according to a survey that could “overthrow” scientists’ current understanding of the fate of the cosmos.

If confirmed, the results from the dark energy spectroscopic instrument (Desi) team at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona would have profound implications for theories about the evolution of the universe, opening up the possibility that its current expansion could eventually go into reverse in a “big crunch”.

A suggestion that dark energy reached a peak billions of years ago would also herald the first substantial change in decades to the widely accepted theoretical model of the universe.

Prof Alexie Leauthaud-Harnett, a co-spokesperson for Desi and a cosmologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said: “What we are seeing is deeply intriguing. It is exciting to think that we may be on the cusp of a major discovery about dark energy and the fundamental nature of our universe.”

Dark energy was discovered in the late 1990s when astronomers used distant supernova explosions to investigate how the rate of cosmic expansion has changed over time. The expectation was that gravity should counteract the expansion that has been underway since the big bang, but instead, the supernovae indicated that the rate of expansion was accelerating, propelled by some unknown force that scientists called dark energy.

Dark energy has been assumed to be a constant, which would imply the universe will meet its end in a desolate scenario called the “big freeze”, when everything is eventually so far apart that even light cannot bridge the gap between galaxies. The latest findings, announced on Thursday at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, California, challenge that prevailing view.

Desi uses its 5,000 fibreoptic “eyes” to map the cosmos with unprecedented precision. Its latest data release captures 15m galaxies, spanning 11bn years of history, which astronomers have used to create the most detailed three-dimensional map of the universe to date.

The results suggest that dark energy reached a peak in strength when the universe was about 70% of its current age and it is now about 10% weaker. This would mean the rate of expansion is still accelerating, but that dark energy is gently lifting its foot off the pedal.

Prof Carlos Frenk, a cosmologist at the University of Durham and member of the Desi collaboration, said: “What we’re finding is that, yes, there is something pushing galaxies away from each other, but it is not constant. It is declining.”

The results do not meet the so-called five-sigma threshold of statistical certainty that is the gold standard in physics for claiming a discovery. But many in the collaboration have shifted in recent months from a position of scepticism to confidently backing the finding.

“I’m not on the fence,” said Frenk. “I’ve looked at the data carefully. To me, this is a robust result. We’re witnessing the overthrow of the old paradigm and the emergence of a new paradigm.”

Prof John Peacock, a cosmologist at the University of Edinburgh and a Desi collaborator who voiced scepticism about evolving dark energy at a Royal Society meeting last year, has been similarly persuaded. “Extreme claims require extreme evidence,” he said. “There’s almost nothing in science that I would bet my house on. But I would put £1,000 on this result.”

Others continue to reserve judgment. Prof George Efstathiou of the University of Cambridge, who was not involved in the findings, said: “My take-home from this analysis is that the … measurements do not yet provide decisive evidence for evolving dark energy. They may do as Desi accumulates more data.”

If dark energy keeps decreasing to the point where it becomes negative, the universe is predicted to end in a reverse big bang scenario known as the big crunch.

Scientists do not know why dark energy, which is generally estimated to account for about 70% of the universe – with the rest made up of dark and ordinary matter – might be waning or whether this would indicate the laws of physics are changing or that a crucial component is missing from them.

Prof Ofer Lahav, an astronomer at University College London and Desi collaborator, said: “It’s fair to say we have no idea what dark matter or dark energy is. The constant dark energy [theory] is already sufficiently challenging. I feel like: ‘As if things were not complicated enough.’

“But you can also look at it more positively. For 20 years we’ve been stuck with dark energy. Now physicists have new questions.”

Dark energy, the mysterious force powering the expansion of the universe, appears to be weakening, according to a survey that could “overthrow” scientists’ current understanding of the fate of the cosmos.

If confirmed, the results from the dark energy spectroscopic instrument (Desi) team at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona would have profound implications for theories about the evolution of the universe, opening up the possibility that its current expansion could eventually go into reverse in a “big crunch”.

A suggestion that dark energy reached a peak billions of years ago would also herald the first substantial change in decades to the widely accepted theoretical model of the universe.

Prof Alexie Leauthaud-Harnett, a co-spokesperson for Desi and a cosmologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said: “What we are seeing is deeply intriguing. It is exciting to think that we may be on the cusp of a major discovery about dark energy and the fundamental nature of our universe.”

Dark energy was discovered in the late 1990s when astronomers used distant supernova explosions to investigate how the rate of cosmic expansion has changed over time. The expectation was that gravity should counteract the expansion that has been underway since the big bang, but instead, the supernovae indicated that the rate of expansion was accelerating, propelled by some unknown force that scientists called dark energy.

Dark energy has been assumed to be a constant, which would imply the universe will meet its end in a desolate scenario called the “big freeze”, when everything is eventually so far apart that even light cannot bridge the gap between galaxies. The latest findings, announced on Thursday at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, California, challenge that prevailing view.

Desi uses its 5,000 fibreoptic “eyes” to map the cosmos with unprecedented precision. Its latest data release captures 15m galaxies, spanning 11bn years of history, which astronomers have used to create the most detailed three-dimensional map of the universe to date.

The results suggest that dark energy reached a peak in strength when the universe was about 70% of its current age and it is now about 10% weaker. This would mean the rate of expansion is still accelerating, but that dark energy is gently lifting its foot off the pedal.

Prof Carlos Frenk, a cosmologist at the University of Durham and member of the Desi collaboration, said: “What we’re finding is that, yes, there is something pushing galaxies away from each other, but it is not constant. It is declining.”

The results do not meet the so-called five-sigma threshold of statistical certainty that is the gold standard in physics for claiming a discovery. But many in the collaboration have shifted in recent months from a position of scepticism to confidently backing the finding.

“I’m not on the fence,” said Frenk. “I’ve looked at the data carefully. To me, this is a robust result. We’re witnessing the overthrow of the old paradigm and the emergence of a new paradigm.”

Prof John Peacock, a cosmologist at the University of Edinburgh and a Desi collaborator who voiced scepticism about evolving dark energy at a Royal Society meeting last year, has been similarly persuaded. “Extreme claims require extreme evidence,” he said. “There’s almost nothing in science that I would bet my house on. But I would put £1,000 on this result.”

Others continue to reserve judgment. Prof George Efstathiou of the University of Cambridge, who was not involved in the findings, said: “My take-home from this analysis is that the … measurements do not yet provide decisive evidence for evolving dark energy. They may do as Desi accumulates more data.”

If dark energy keeps decreasing to the point where it becomes negative, the universe is predicted to end in a reverse big bang scenario known as the big crunch.

Scientists do not know why dark energy, which is generally estimated to account for about 70% of the universe – with the rest made up of dark and ordinary matter – might be waning or whether this would indicate the laws of physics are changing or that a crucial component is missing from them.

Prof Ofer Lahav, an astronomer at University College London and Desi collaborator, said: “It’s fair to say we have no idea what dark matter or dark energy is. The constant dark energy [theory] is already sufficiently challenging. I feel like: ‘As if things were not complicated enough.’

“But you can also look at it more positively. For 20 years we’ve been stuck with dark energy. Now physicists have new questions.”

Since the big bang, a cosmic battle has been under way between matter (both dark matter and ordinary) and dark energy.

The gravitational force that draws massive objects such as galaxies towards each other works against the expansion of the universe. But astronomical observations show that the universe’s expansion has, oddly, been speeding up. This led scientists to conclude that dark energy, a mysterious force acting as a sort of anti-gravity, permeates the entirety of space. And dark energy appeared to be at a significant advantage in the cosmic tug of war.

As space expands, matter becomes more spread out, so its influence weakens. By contrast, dark energy is thought to be a property of space itself. So as space expands, it is constantly filled up with more dark energy, so its strength remains constant and it becomes the runaway winner. That, at least, has been the prediction of the most widely accepted theoretical model of recent decades.

“Eventually you have this picture where more distant regions are receding from us faster than light and they become, in principle, untouchable. That loss of contact grows and grows until even the most nearby current galaxies are too far away,” said Prof John Peacock, a cosmologist at the University of Edinburgh and a collaborator with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (Desi), based in Arizona. “It ends in an awful loneliness where we are left isolated because everything is being whisked away too fast.”

This “big freeze” scenario is predicted by the current leading theoretical model of the universe, which has assumed dark energy to be constant and which suggests that dark energy accounts for 70% of the content of the universe, with dark matter comprising 25% and ordinary matter just 5%.

The most recent Desi results present the latest in a series of challenges to this picture. Measurements of 15m galaxies spanning 11bn years of cosmic history reveal patterns that scientists say are most readily interpreted as the result of dark energy that has evolved over time.

The data is best explained, according to the Desi analysis, if dark energy peaked when the universe was about 70% of its current age and is now on the decline. If confirmed, this reopens the question of whether dark energy is destined to dominate the fate of the universe.

If dark energy were, in future, to decline beyond zero and become negative (effectively switching teams and joining forces with gravity) the expansion could be sent into reverse, resulting in an ultimate “big crunch”.

“We could be back to one of those comforting old solutions where the universe might recollapse – and perhaps start again,” said Prof Carlos Frenk, a cosmologist at Durham University and a Desi team member. “I was always disturbed by a universe that keeps expanding forever … to become a dark, frozen expanse. I’m much more at ease with the possibility of new universes emerging in due course.”

But this is just one of a series of possibilities. If dark energy declined to zero and settled there, expansion would continue and the universe would have a quieter ending, in which galaxies remain in view until stars run out of fuel and flicker out of existence.

“The fate of the universe depends on what the dark energy does in the future,” said Peacock. “For things to recollapse it would have to change its actual sign. In principle, it could. Whether it’s going to, we have no idea.”

A judge on Wednesday ordered the federal Bureau of Prisons (BoP) to transfer two incarcerated transgender women back to federal women’s prisons after they had been sent to men’s facilities after Donald Trump’s executive order that truncated transgender protections.

US district judge Royce Lamberth in Washington DC issued a preliminary injunction after the women were added as plaintiffs in ongoing litigation over the impact of the president’s executive order on trans women in federal prisons.

Lamberth ordered the BoP to “immediately transfer” the two women – identified in court papers by the pseudonyms Rachel and Ellen Doe – back to women’s facilities and said the agency must continue to provide them with hormone therapy treatment for gender dysphoria.

The women said in court papers that they were living in constant fear of sexual assault and other violence after being moved to male prisons. Male prisoners repeatedly propositioned them for sex and male officers subjected them to strip searches without female officers present, they said.

“The fact that they have already been transferred and, allegedly, have been abused at their new facilities can only strengthen their claims of irreparable harm,” Lamberth wrote. A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson declined to comment.

The preliminary injunction is the latest in a series of rulings thwarting the agency’s efforts to comply with the executive order, which calls for housing transgender women in men’s prisons, and for halting gender-affirming medical care.

Lamberth, who was appointed by the Republican president Ronald Reagan, previously blocked the bureau from transferring a dozen other transgender women prisoners to men’s prisons.

In a ruling last month, he ordered that their “housing status and medical care” remain as they had been prior to inauguration day, when Trump signed the executive order. Separately, in January, a federal judge in Boston halted the transfer of another transgender woman to a men’s prison.

At the time, Rachel and Ellen Doe were not plaintiffs in any lawsuit challenging Trump’s executive order and were not covered by Lamberth’s initial rulings.

In a court filing last month, a Trump administration official said that as of 20 February, there were 22 trans women housed in federal women’s facilities. That’s about 1% of the nearly 2,200 transgender prisoners the agency said it had in its custody.

With Lamberth’s order on Wednesday, at least 15 people are now covered by orders blocking or reversing the moves.

Lamberth has yet to rule in a lawsuit filed last week by three other prisoners – a trans woman housed in a men’s prison and two trans men housed in women’s prisons. They are challenging the executive order’s ban on gender-affirming hormone therapy and other care.

Meanwhile, Maine’s education office is being ordered to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports or face federal prosecution, an escalation in Trump’s threats to pull federal money from states and schools over transgender athletes.

The US education department on Wednesday said an investigation had concluded that Maine’s education office violated the Title IX anti-discrimination law by allowing trans girls to compete on girls’ sports teams and use girls’ facilities. It’s giving Maine 10 days to comply with a list of demands or face justice department prosecution.

The federal investigation into Maine’s department of education was opened on 21 February, just hours after Trump and the state’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, clashed over the issue at a meeting of governors at the White House. During the heated exchange, Mills told Trump: “We’ll see you in court.”

Canada has strongly condemned the execution of four of its citizens who were put to death in China on drug-smuggling charges, amid lingering diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

The minister of foreign affairs, Mélanie Joly, said on Wednesday that all four were dual citizens and were executed earlier this year. She added that Ottawa would ask for leniency for other Canadians facing the same fate.

“There are four Canadians that have been executed and therefore we are strongly condemning what happened,” she said.

“Canada strongly condemns China’s use of the death penalty, which is irreversible and inconsistent with basic human dignity,” a GAC spokesperson, Charlotte MacLeod, said in a statement to the Guardian. “Canada repeatedly called for clemency for these individuals at the senior-most levels and remains steadfast in its opposition to the use of the death penalty in all cases, everywhere.”

MacLeod said Canada was providing consular assistance to the victims’ families and asked media “respect the family’s privacy during this difficult time”.

China’s embassy in Canada said in a statement it is a “rule of law” nation and that anyone convicted of breaking laws “must be held accountable”.

“Drug-related crime is a severe crime recognized worldwide as extremely harmful to the society, and will be faced with severe penalties in all countries. China always imposes severe penalties on drug-related crimes and maintains a ‘zero tolerance’ attitude towards the drug problem,” the embassy said, adding it had “solid and sufficient” evidence in all the cases in which prisoners were executed.

“The Chinese judicial authorities have handled the cases in strict accordance with the law, and have fully guaranteed the rights and interests of the Canadian nationals concerned.”

China has a conviction rate of more than 99%, a result that has elicited skepticism and criticism from human rights groups over the years.

The embassy called on Canada to “respect the rule of law and China’s judicial sovereignty” and to “stop making irresponsible remarks” in order to improve relationship between to the two countries.

Relations between the two countries hit a low point between 2018 and 2022, after the prominent Huawei telecoms executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver at the request of US authorities.

Her detention in Canada prompted China to quickly detain and charge two Canadians living in the country, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, eventually charging the pair with espionage.

But the upgrading of charges against a Canadian in prison further cemented views in Canada that China was engaged in “hostage diplomacy”.

In 2014, the Canadian citizen Robert Schellenberg was accused of attempting to smuggle 225kg of methamphetamine to Australia. He has maintained his innocence, but in December 2018 he was sentenced to 15 years. That charge was upgraded to execution in 2019, during the fervour of China’s diplomatic spat with Canada. At the time, Canada issued a travel warning to its citizens going to China.

MacLeod confirmed on Wednesday that Schellenberg was still detained and said the federal government “continues to advocate for clemency”.

France’s research minister said a French scientist was denied entry to the US this month after immigration officers at an airport searched his phone and found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration.

“I learned with concern that a French researcher” on assignment for the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) “who was traveling to a conference near Houston was denied entry to the United States before being expelled”, Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister of higher education and research, said in a statement on Monday to Agence France-Presse published by Le Monde. “This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy,” the minister added.

“Freedom of opinion, free research, and academic freedom are values ​​that we will continue to proudly uphold. I will defend the right of all French researchers to be faithful to them, while respecting the law,” Baptiste said.

A diplomatic source told the French news agency that the incident occurred on 9 March.

Another AFP source said that US authorities accused the French researcher of “hateful and conspiratorial messages”. He was reportedly also informed of an FBI investigation, but told that “charges were dropped” before being expelled.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The research minister, Baptiste, has been outspoken in his own criticism of the Trump administration, and Elon Musk, for making huge cuts to scientific research budgets.

On the same day that the researcher was denied entry to the US, Baptiste published a letter calling on American researchers to relocate to France. “Many well-known researchers are already questioning their future in the United States,” he wrote. “We would naturally wish to welcome a certain number of them.”

The next day, Baptiste posted a photograph of himself in a virtual meeting with a researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who had decided to take up an invitation from Aix-Marseille University to welcome researchers who wish to leave the United States.

On 12 March, Baptiste shared video on X, of a television appearance in which he deplored the way that research on health, climate, energy and AI “is being chainsawed in the United States”.

In the same interview, Baptiste said that he had “heard Elon Musk say that the International Space Station should be shut down in 2027. Who are we talking about? The boss of SpaceX? The head of the American public administration? None of this makes any sense.”

It was not immediately clear what conference the researcher who was denied entry to the US was planning to attend, but the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference was held outside Houston from 10 to 14 March.

France’s research minister said a French scientist was denied entry to the US this month after immigration officers at an airport searched his phone and found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration.

“I learned with concern that a French researcher” on assignment for the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) “who was traveling to a conference near Houston was denied entry to the United States before being expelled”, Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister of higher education and research, said in a statement on Monday to Agence France-Presse published by Le Monde. “This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy,” the minister added.

“Freedom of opinion, free research, and academic freedom are values ​​that we will continue to proudly uphold. I will defend the right of all French researchers to be faithful to them, while respecting the law,” Baptiste said.

A diplomatic source told the French news agency that the incident occurred on 9 March.

Another AFP source said that US authorities accused the French researcher of “hateful and conspiratorial messages”. He was reportedly also informed of an FBI investigation, but told that “charges were dropped” before being expelled.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The research minister, Baptiste, has been outspoken in his own criticism of the Trump administration, and Elon Musk, for making huge cuts to scientific research budgets.

On the same day that the researcher was denied entry to the US, Baptiste published a letter calling on American researchers to relocate to France. “Many well-known researchers are already questioning their future in the United States,” he wrote. “We would naturally wish to welcome a certain number of them.”

The next day, Baptiste posted a photograph of himself in a virtual meeting with a researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who had decided to take up an invitation from Aix-Marseille University to welcome researchers who wish to leave the United States.

On 12 March, Baptiste shared video on X, of a television appearance in which he deplored the way that research on health, climate, energy and AI “is being chainsawed in the United States”.

In the same interview, Baptiste said that he had “heard Elon Musk say that the International Space Station should be shut down in 2027. Who are we talking about? The boss of SpaceX? The head of the American public administration? None of this makes any sense.”

It was not immediately clear what conference the researcher who was denied entry to the US was planning to attend, but the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference was held outside Houston from 10 to 14 March.

Psychologists are in “constant” contact with a South African science team isolated for months at a base in Antarctica after physical assault and sexual harassment allegations were made, a government minister has said.

The environment minister, Dion George, whose department manages the country’s Antarctic programme, confirmed to the Guardian that psychologists and other experts were in “direct and constant” communication with the nine-member research team.

The remote Sanae IV research station, located near a cliff edge, is staffed year-round by researchers. The current overwintering team is not due to be relieved until December, after the southern hemisphere winter ice storms pass.

Dangers of life in close quarters on the three-module base, more than 2,600 miles south of Cape Town, were revealed last weekend with the publication of an email sent by a researcher accusing a male colleague of physical assault and making a death threat.

The person who made the allegations said they feared for their own and their colleagues’ safety, demanding “immediate action”, according to the South African Sunday Times newspaper, which published the email but removed the names.

“Regrettably, [his] behaviour has escalated to a point that is deeply disturbing. Specifically, he physically assaulted [name withheld], which is a grave violation of personal safety and workplace norms,” it said.

“Furthermore, he threatened to kill [name withheld], creating an environment of fear and intimidation. I remain deeply concerned about my own safety, constantly wondering if I might become the next victim.”

The letter said “numerous concerns” had been raised about the alleged attacker.

George said the allegation related to “a dispute over a task the team leader wanted the team to do – a weather-dependent task that required a schedule change”. The overwintering team normally includes scientists, engineers and a medical doctor.

In a further statement, South Africa’s department of forestry, fisheries and the environment said it was also investigating a sexual harassment claim.

It added that none of the alleged incidents “required any of the nine overwintering team members to be brought back to Cape Town” but it had “immediately activated the response plan to engage the individuals involved through trained professionals in order to mediate and restore relationships at the base”.

The alleged perpetrator had “willingly participated in further psychological evaluation” and shown remorse, the department said, including by writing a formal apology to the victim.

South Africa first established a scientific station in Antarctica in 1960. Researchers at the base – which is accessed during summer months by an icebreaking polar supply and research ship – conduct experiments including studying the Earth’s electromagnetic waves.

Researchers have uncovered “possible links” between Ontario’s provincial police force and an Israel-based military-grade spyware maker called Paragon Solutions, raising questions about the extent and scope of Canadian authorities’ use of cyberweapons.

The new findings were published by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, which tracks and identifies digital threats against civil society, and come three years after a parliamentary committee in Canada called for Ottawa to update the country’s privacy laws in the wake of press reports that the national police force had been using spyware to hack mobile phone devices. No laws were ever passed to address the controversy.

The Citizen Lab, in a report published on Wednesday, found a possible technical link between Paragon, which sells spyware known as Graphite to government clients, and entities based in Ontario, Canada, including one that used the address of the Ontario provincial police (OPP).

In a statement sent to the Guardian after this article was published, the OPP did not deny using spyware, but said: “In Canada, the interception of private communications requires judicial authorization in accordance with the Criminal Code, and is only used to advance serious criminal investigations. Such authorizations are subject to stringent criteria relating to designated offences defined in the Criminal Code.

“The OPP uses investigative tools and techniques in full compliance with the laws of Canada, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Releasing information about specific investigative techniques and technology could jeopardize active investigations and threaten public and officer safety.”

Paragon, which is now a US-owned company, does not disclose the names of its clients and did not comment on this story.

Like other spyware makers, the company has emphasized that it is meant to be used to fight serious crime and terrorism. But the company’s spyware, which can hack into any phone, was recently found to have been used against an Italian journalist and several activists who support immigrants. The Italian government has acknowledged it was a Paragon client and that the company suspended its contract with Italy following revelations that the hacking software had been used against members of civil society.

In a previous statement, a spokesperson said Paragon requires all of its users to “adhere to terms and conditions that preclude the illicit targeting of journalists and other civil society leaders”. A spokesperson added: “While we are not able to discuss individual customers, we have a zero-tolerance policy for violations of our terms of service.”

Canada’s use of spyware was a source of controversy in 2022, when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police admitted – in what was called a “remarkable” disclosure – that the national police force had used spyware to infiltrate mobile devices and collect data. It said at the time that it had only used the technology in serious cases, when other surveillance technology had failed.

The Citizen Lab’s new report provides more detail about the use of spyware by Canadian authorities. Researchers said they found evidence of a “growing ecosystem” of spyware capability among Ontario-based police services. Researchers said public court records obtained by the Citizen Lab show that the OPP used a surveillance tool that was being used by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the course of a 2019 investigation to infect a mobile phone for remote interception of private communications.

Additionally, a 2023 judgment from the superior court of justice in Toronto described a joint investigation by Toronto police and York regional police services where investigators “considered” the use of a spyware surveillance tool, which in Canada is referred to as an “on-device investigative tool” (ODIT).

A 2023 search warrant application obtained by the Citizen Lab, which was prepared by the Toronto police service, also revealed that TPS had obtained an ODIT from an unknown source, and that the police had been seeking authorization to use the software to intercept cellular communications through encrypted instant-messaging applications.

“What these findings show is that there is a widening gap in public awareness regarding the extent to which spyware technology is being used in Canada,” said Kate Robertson, a senior researcher at the lab. “These findings raise important questions for the government and privacy regulators about what technologies are being used, and underscores again the need for law reform to address the security and human rights risks concerned.”

Gwyneth Paltrow has said she felt uncomfortable about the presence of an intimacy coordinator on the set of her new film, in which she shares a number of sex scenes with co-star Timothée Chalamet.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, Paltrow, 52, said that working on Marty Supreme, which is her first leading role in a film since 2010, was her first experience of the relatively new profession, introduced after the #MeToo movement to try to help protect actors on set after multiple instances of abuse were exposed.

“There’s now something called an intimacy coordinator, which I did not know existed,” Paltrow said, adding that when asked if she would be comfortable with a particular move during the filming of a sex scene, “I was like: ‘Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on.’”

She said her co-star, who was 28 at the time of filming, agreed. “We said: ‘I think we’re good. You can step a little bit back.’ I don’t know how it is for kids who are starting out, but … if someone is like, ‘OK, and then he’s going to put his hand here,’  I would feel, as an artist, very stifled by that.”

Chalamet plays a ping pong protege in the movie, loosely inspired by real-life sportsman Marty Reisman, the US men’s singles champion in 1958 and 1960. Paltrow plays the wife of a rival table tennis contender with whom Chalamet’s character starts an affair.

“I mean, we have a lot of sex in this movie,” said Paltrow. “There’s a lot – a lot.” Of the considerable age gap between the leads, Paltrow said she sought to make light of it early on during production. “I was like: ‘OK, great. I’m 109 years old. You’re 14.’ ” She also praised Chalamet’s seriousness and commitment to his craft, after his defeat at the Oscars to Adrien Brody earlier this month.

Paltrow won an Oscar 26 years ago for Shakespeare in Love; in 2017 she was one of the first high-profile stars to accuse its producer, Harvey Weinstein, of sexual harassment.

The use of intimacy coordinators is now standard practice across the industry, with many stars, including Emma Thompson, Rachel Zegler and Sydney Sweeney vocal in their support of their introduction.

However, others have criticised their presence, with Sean Bean saying they “spoil the spontaneity” of scenes, while Jennifer Aniston said she dismissed the intimacy coordinator hired for The Morning Show to oversee a scene between her and Jon Hamm.

“I’m like: ‘Please, this is awkward enough!’ We’re seasoned – we can figure this one out.”

While Paltrow and Aniston are veteran stars likely to be the most powerful people on their respective sets, some younger actors have also expressed scepticism about whether intimacy coordinators need to be mandatory.

Anora star Mikey Madison, whose best actress win was among one of the five Oscars the film earned earlier this month said she declined director Sean Baker’s offer of an intimacy coordinator for her sex scenes.

“Mark Eydelshteyn, who plays Ivan, and I decided it would be best to just keep it small. My character is a sex worker, and I had seen Sean’s films and know his dedication to authenticity. I was ready for it. As an actress, I approached it as a job.”