Israeli artillery and airstrikes hit southern Lebanon on Saturday, in a fresh clash endangering the shaky truce that ended a year-long conflict against Hezbollah, as 40 survivors of Hamas captivity called on the Israeli government to halt the “endless war”.’

Three rockets fired from Lebanon towards Israel were intercepted by the Israeli air force, according to a spokesperson for the Israeli army, the first time in more than three months that groups in Lebanon have fired at Israel.

In a statement on Saturday afternoon, Hezbollah denied any involvement for the rocket attacks and stressed its commitment to the ceasefire agreement. It added that Israeli claims that it was behind the strikes were “merely a pretext for continued attacks on Lebanon”.

A variety of Palestinian factions, as well as other armed groups operate in southern Lebanon and not all are under Hezbollah’s command.

The Israeli air force carried out dozens of airstrikes in south Lebanon, causing injuries in the border village of Kafr Kila, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

The exchange of fire was the most intense since the adoption of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah on 27 November, which ended more than 13 months of fighting between the two that had left more than 3,900 people dead and 1 million displaced in Lebanon.

The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, warned of a severe response to the rocket fire, which was shot at the Israeli border village of Metula.

“Metula and Beirut will be treated the same. The Lebanese government is fully responsible for any fire originating from its territory,” Katz said.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the rocket fire from Lebanon, and a spokesperson from Hezbollah declined a request for comment.

The Lebanese army said it found and dismantled what it called three “primitive rocket launchers” in south Lebanon after the rocket fire towards Israel. Pictures released by the army showed fragments of bombs and three wooden posts dug into the earth, seemingly used in the launching of the rockets.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has stopped full-scale military hostilities between the two warring parties, though Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes on Lebanon despite the truce. Israel has maintained that it reserves the right to unilaterally enforce any violations of the ceasefire in Lebanon and has continued to strike what it says are Hezbollah targets across the country.

Hezbollah launched rockets near an Israeli military post in the week after the establishment of the ceasefire, but otherwise has not attacked Israel since. The group has been severely weakened after its war with Israel, with most of its senior leadership dead, thousands of its fighters killed and its weapons stock depleted.

The Lebanese prime minister, Nawaf Salam, warned on Saturday that renewed military operations in south Lebanon could risk dragging the country back into war and urged the ministry of defence to ensure that the Lebanese state, rather than Hezbollah, decides whether Lebanon goes to war.

Unifil, the UN peacekeeping force which monitors the Israel-Lebanon border, warned against further military escalation that could lead to the ceasefire to be broken.

“The situation remains extremely fragile and we encourage both sides to uphold their commitments,” it said in a statement on Saturday.

In Israel, thousands of protesters continue to take to the streets, blocking key highways across the country in opposition to Netanyahu’s government.

The immediate trigger for the anger was the government’s attempt to dismiss Ronen Bar, the head of the internal security agency, a move described as an attempt to undermine Israel’s democratic system, but the prime minister’s decision to shatter a two-month-old truce in Gaza with waves of lethal airstrikes has also fuelled the demonstrations.

Forty freed hostages of Hamas captivity and 250 family members of Israeli soldiers and civilians still held in Gaza signed a letter on Friday calling on Netanyahu to halt Israel’s renewed military activities and return to the negotiating table in order to secure the release of the remaining 59 hostages who are still in the territory. In a letter sent to the prime minister, they warned that failure to do so would condemn the living hostages to death.

“This letter was written in blood and tears,” the text reads. ‘‘It was drafted by our friends and families whose loved ones were killed and murdered in captivity and who are crying out: ‘Stop the fighting. Return to the negotiating table and fully complete an agreement that will return all of the hostages, even at the cost of ending the war’.”

The signatories attacked the government for “choosing an endless war over saving and returning the hostages, and by doing that sacrificing them. This is a criminal policy – you do not have a mandate to sacrifice 59 people.’’

The letter comes as Israel’s defence minister on Friday said he had instructed the military to “seize more ground” in Gaza and threatened to annex part of the territory unless Hamas released Israeli hostages still held in the devastated territory.

Israeli officials have escalated their threats in recent days, calling on Palestinians in Gaza to overthrow Hamas or face the consequences.

“I ordered [the army] to seize more territory in Gaza,” Katz said in a statement. “The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel.”

Gaza’s civil defence agency said more than 500 people had been killed since the bombardment resumed, one of the highest tolls since the war began more than 17 months ago with Hamas’s attack on Israel.

A three-phase ceasefire was agreed in January but Israel refused to begin talks on the implementation of a second phase, which was supposed to lead to a return of all hostages, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a permanent end to hostilities.

Instead, Israel proposed a new plan, reportedly put forward by the US envoy, Steve Witkoff, involving a 30- to 60-day truce and the release of all remaining hostages. Israel made no mention of releasing more Palestinian prisoners – a key component of the first phase.

The intense fighting comes as Netanyahu is locked in a fierce battle with Israel’s judicial system after the supreme court blocked his attempt to fire the head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, who has been investigating Netanyahu’s close aides for alleged breaches of national security, including leaking classified documents to foreign media, and allegedly taking money from Qatar, which is known to have given significant financial aid to Hamas.

Amid protests against ministers’ vote to sack Bar, the top court on Friday froze the decision, with the order remaining in place until the court can hear petitions filed by the opposition and an NGO against the dismissal.

Netanyahu said in a post on X that “the government of Israel will decide” who headed the domestic security agency, writing: “The State of Israel is a state of law, and according to the law, the government of Israel decides who will be the head of the Shin Bet.”

About 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, died in the surprise attack by Hamas in October 2023. The ensuing Israeli offensive into Gaza has killed more than 49,000 people, mostly civilians.

Donald Trump moved to revoke security clearances for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and a string of other top Democrats and political enemies in a presidential memo issued late on Friday.

The security clearance revocations include former secretary of state Antony Blinken, former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, former Illinois representative Adam Kinzinger and the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who prosecuted Trump for fraud, as well as Biden’s entire family. They will no longer have access to classified information – a courtesy typically offered to former presidents and some officials after they have left public service.

“I have determined that it is no longer in the national interest for the following individuals to access classified information,” Trump wrote. Trump said he would also “direct all executive department and agency heads to revoke unescorted access to secure United States government facilities from these individuals”.

Earlier this month, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, announced that she had revoked the clearances and blocked several of the people named in Trump’s memo, along with “the 51 signers of the Hunter Biden disinformation letter” – referring to former intelligence agency officials who asserted that the notorious Hunter Biden laptop, which was discovered before the 2020 election, was likely a Russian disinformation campaign.

Trump’s decision to remove Biden from intelligence briefings is a counterstrike on his Democrat political opponent, who had banned Trump from accessing classified documents in 2021, saying the then ex-president could not be trusted because of his “erratic behavior”.

Earlier this week, Trump announced he was pulling Secret Service protections for Biden’s children, Hunter and Ashley, “effective immediately”, after it was claimed that 18 agents had been assigned to the former president’s son for a trip to South Africa and 13 to daughter Ashley.

More broadly, the security clearance revocations issued on Friday appear to correlate with a cherrypicked list of the president’s political enemies, including the New York attorney general, Letitia James, and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, both of whom prosecuted Trump during the Biden era.

Others on the list include Fiona Hill, a foreign policy expert who testified against Trump during his first impeachment about her boss’s alleged scheme to withhold military aid to Ukraine as a way of pressuring its president to investigate the Bidens; Alexander Vindman, a lieutenant colonel who also testified at the hearings; and Norman Eisen, a lawyer who oversaw that impeachment.

Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, Republicans who served on the committee investigating the January 6 US Capitol riots, were also added to the list. Trump said the information ban “includes, but is not limited to, receipt of classified briefings, such as the President’s daily brief, and access to classified information held by any member of the intelligence community”.

The moves comes as NBC News reported that former president Biden and and his wife, Jill Biden, have volunteered to help fundraise for and help to rebuild the Democratic party after the stinging defeat of Biden’s nominated successor, Kamala Harris, in November.

According to the network, Biden made the proffer last month when he met the new Democratic National Committee chair, Ken Martin, but the offer had not been embraced.

An NBC News poll published last weekend found the Democratic party’s popularity has dropped to a record low – only 27% of registered voters said they held positive views of the party. On Friday, Trump was asked about the prospect of Biden re-entering the political area. “I hope so,” he responded.

Donald Trump expanded his retribution campaign against law firms on Friday night as he ordered his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to refer what she determined to be partisan lawsuits to the White House and recommend punitive actions that could cripple the firms involved.

The directives were outlined in a sweeping memo in which Trump alleged that too many law firms were filing frivolous claims designed to cause delays. It came after a week of setbacks, in which a slew of judges issued temporary injunctions blocking the implementation of Trump’s agenda.

Trump’s memo directed Bondi to seek sanctions against the firms or disciplinary actions against the lawyers. But imposing sanctions are up to federal judges, and perhaps in recognition of the uncertainty that his attorney general would prevail, Trump also ordered referrals to the White House.

“When the attorney general determines that conduct by an attorney or law firm in litigation against the federal government warrants seeking sanctions or other disciplinary action, the attorney general shall … recommend to the president … additional steps that may be taken,” the memo said.

The memo, as a result, created a formal mechanism for Trump to unilaterally decide whether to impose politically charged sanctions through executive orders that strip lawyers of the security clearances they need to perform their jobs or prevent them from working on federal contracts.

Multiple legal experts suggested the memo would theoretically allow Bondi to decide a particular lawsuit that triggered a temporary injunction was causing an unnecessary delay, and refer the firm that filed the suit to face the hobbling effects of a punitive executive order.

That could cause a chilling effect and lead to the volume of litigation against the Trump administration to decline, the experts said. Even if the lawsuits are in fact for a legitimate purpose, there’s fear that their representation could put them in the president’s cross hairs and endanger their legal practice.

Trump also directed Bondi to open a review into the “conduct” of lawyers and their respective law firms in litigation against the federal government reaching back to the start of his first term in 2017 – and recommend whether it warranted additional punitive actions.

The memo comes as Trump in recent weeks has used executive orders targeting law firms to great effect.

Most recently, Trump stripped lawyers at the firm Paul Weiss of holding a security clearance and barred its employees from entering federal government buildings over his long-held complaint about a former partner, Mark Pomerantz, who tried to build a criminal case against him in New York.

The executive order targeting Paul Weiss was nearly identical to an order that punished the firm Perkins Coie over its ties to a lawyer who once worked with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, and another aimed at Covington and Burling, which represented former special counsel Jack Smith.

Paul Weiss had its order withdrawn on Thursday after its chair, Brad Karp, offered a series of concessions including offering up criticism of Pomerantz apparently to appease Trump. He committed to providing $40m worth of legal services to causes that Trump has championed.

But Trump has stewed for days, according to people familiar with the matter, over a series of temporary restraining orders that have slowed the implementation of his political agenda and, in one instance, branded Elon Musk’s cost cutting drive as likely unconstitutional.

The case that has aggravated Trump the most has been the challenge in a federal district court in Washington against his use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove hundreds of suspected Venezuelan gang members without due process as he seeks to ramp up deportations.

In that lawsuit, the US district judge James Boasberg ordered the administration to turn around any deportation flights that were in the air and temporarily barred any further deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

The case has turned into a headache for the administration, after it failed to recall two flights on the basis that the judge did not replicate his verbal instruction in a written order, leading the judge to effectively open an inquiry into whether the White House flouted a court order.

“You felt that you could disregard it because it wasn’t in the written order. That’s your first argument? The idea that because my written order was pithier so it could be disregarded, that’s one heck of a stretch,” Boasberg said at a recent hearing.

The administration has insisted it did not violate the order, but at the heart of the dispute is the administration’s belief that the judge lacked jurisdiction to hear the case in the first instance, ignoring the reality that federal courts can review whether statutes are properly invoked.

Against that backdrop, as Trump has continued to rail against the injunction itself, the administration has adopted an increasingly combative stance towards Boasberg and said it was considering whether to invoke the rarely used state secrets privilege to stonewall the judge’s inquiry.

Pope Francis is poised to make his first public appearance in more than five weeks, greeting people from the window of his hospital room where he is recovering from pneumonia in both lungs.

The pontiff, 88, wants to come to the window of his room at Rome’s Gemelli hospital after midday prayers on Sunday to give the greeting and blessing, the Vatican said in a ­statement today.

Francis has been seen once since being admitted to hospital on 14 February, in a photo shared by the Vatican last week in which he was praying in the hospital’s chapel. He was diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection and double ­pneumonia, suffering several breathing crises before his medics said he was no longer in imminent danger, on 10 March.

The Vatican said yesterday that his overall health situation remained ­stable, with slight improvements as he continues respiratory and ­physical physiotherapy.

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, who leads the Vatican’s doctrinal office, said yesterday that the pope is “doing very well” but that the ­high-flow oxygen treatment “dries everything out” and that the pontiff “needs to relearn to speak”.

In early March, the Vatican released a brief audio of Francis thanking well-wishers, with his voice sounding breathless and difficult to understand.

“But his overall physical condition is as it was before,” Fernández said during the presentation of a new book by Francis on poetry.

Fernández added that “a new stage” was opening in the 12-year papacy of Francis and that he expects some ­surprises from the pontiff when he’s discharged from hospital.

It is unclear when that will be. Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the archpriest of St Peter’s Basilica, said last week that it was possible the pope could recover in time to meet King Charles and Queen Camilla at an audience scheduled for 8 April.

Despite his health challenges, on some days Francis has continued to lead the Vatican from his hospital room, including approving individuals for sainthood.

Last week, he wrote a letter to the editor of the daily national ­newspaper Corriere della Sera ­reiterating his appeal for peace and disarmament, while stressing the importance of communication in resolving ­conflict. “We must disarm words, to disarm minds and disarm the Earth,” he wrote.

Francis is prone to lung ­infections because he developed pleurisy as a young adult and had part of one lung removed while training to be a priest in his native Argentina.

He has suffered ill health in recent years and has often alluded to resigning if bad health prevents him from doing his job.

Speculation over an ­imminent resignation was vehemently dismissed last week by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state.

Jim Ratcliffe, the co-owner of Manchester United, has been challenged over the proposed use of hundreds of millions of pounds of public funds to deliver his vision of building the “world’s greatest stadium”.

Ratcliffe, who has an estimated fortune of about £12bn, quit the UK for tax-free Monaco in 2020. He is now urging ministers to help support the club’s vision of the stadium with public funds to regenerate the surrounding area.

The club has claimed the project – eagerly backed by ministers as part of a growth agenda – could help deliver a £7.3bn annual boost to the UK economy by 2039. However, the stadium only provides a fraction of this sum, with a large tranche of public funds required to secure the venture.

Graham Stringer, a Labour MP and former leader of Manchester city council, hit out at the project last week, describing it on the website Confidentials Manchester as a “tax exile’s half-baked, misbegotten scheme”.

Speaking to the Observer, Stringer, a United season ticket holder, said: “The stadium doesn’t happen without public funds. Any representations to local or central government for public money to go into this scheme should be refused.”

He said the money could be used more effectively in other parts of Greater Manchester and it was “outrageous” that Ratcliffe was pushing the government for public funds to help increase the value of his business.

Ratcliffe, chair of the petrochemicals company Ineos, agreed a deal in December 2023 to buy a minority stake in United worth about £1.25bn. He extended his shareholdings last year, now owning almost 29% of the club.

The businessman, who was born seven miles up the A62 in Failsworth, Oldham, has used his fortune to back a string of sports teams, including the Ineos Britannia sailing team trying to win the America’s Cup and Ineos Grenadiers, one of the world’s most successful cycling teams.

It was reported in 2019 that less than a year after he was knighted for services to business and investment, Ratcliffe was planning to avoid up to £4bn in tax by switching his residence and fortune to Monaco. Ratcliffe has responded that he employs thousands of people in the UK and contributes hundreds of millions of pounds to the economy.

The Glazer family, who made their fortune from shopping centres in the US, still control the majority of voting rights at United. Ineos, meanwhile, is in charge of sporting operations at the club.

Since becoming co-owner, Ratcliffe has presided over approximately 450 job cuts at the club and other cost savings, including closing down the staff canteen at Old Trafford. He warned this month that United would have been “bust at Christmas” without these measures.

Despite the financial struggles and the team languishing in 13th place in the Premier League table, Ratcliffe revealed this month that the club was backing plans for the 100,000-capacity stadium close to the Old Trafford ground. He said that the proposed £2bn stadium – the centrepiece of a new regeneration project – would become a destination like the Eiffel Tower in Paris.The project envisages a vast canopy spanning the stadium and a public plaza twice the size of Trafalgar Square. The architect Foster + Partners, appointed by the club to develop the master plan for the scheme, said the stadium will overlook a “mixed-use miniature city of the future”.

A report commissioned by United claimed the project could deliver an additional £7.3bn to the UK’s economy each year. The stadium itself would, however, only contribute an extra £243m a year to the local economy by these calculations, compared with the current Old Trafford ground.

Tony Syme, head of finance and economics at Salford University, said: “The overwhelming majority of economic impact comes from the regeneration, not the stadium itself.” He added that the biggest investment was likely to be from public funds required to prepare the site, create public amenities and build the infrastructure.

The scheme has won the support of key backers, including Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, and Sebastian Coe, who chaired the Old Trafford regeneration taskforce, which investigated the options for the club’s home ground and infrastructure.

Burnham has insisted no public funds will be used for the construction of the stadium, but has been lobbying for government funding for the wider regeneration scheme and site preparation. The construction of a new stadium would require the relocation of an adjacent rail freight hub at a cost of between £200m and £300m.The area surrounding the stadium, which is part of a growth area in Manchester known as the Western Gateway, would also be eligible for public funding. It is intended the use of public funds would help “pump-prime” private sector investment.Waseem Hassan, a Labour party councillor for Old Trafford, said he fully supported the project, but residents also wanted the club to contribute to the community. He said: “It needs to happen because we need regeneration in the north. We are asking the club to contribute to schools, infrastructure and the environment. ”

A Greater Manchester Combined Authority spokesperson said: “The Old Trafford regeneration scheme represents the biggest sports-led regeneration scheme since the London 2012 Olympics. As was the case in London, public sector funding can help to unlock sites and deliver infrastructure, enabling massive private sector investment. Public money would not be used to build a new stadium.”

A spokesperson for Trafford council said: “This is a once-in-a-generation chance to totally transform Old Trafford and the surrounding area.

“It will breathe new life into the region with the creation of tens of thousands of new jobs and much- needed new homes being built.

“The next step will see us shortly appointing a team of consultants to devise a strategic master plan to map out how the regeneration project will look.”

United declined to comment.

Boxing Hall of Famer and entrepreneur George Foreman has died at age 76, his family has announced in an Instagram post on his account.

“With profound sorrow, we announce the passing of our beloved George Edward Foreman Sr who peacefully departed on March 21, 2025 surrounded by loved ones,” the post read.

Foreman, a heavyweight champion boxer, was “a devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father, and a proud grand and great grandfather”, the family’s statement said.

“A humanitarian, an Olympian, and two time heavyweight champion of the world. He was deeply respected – a force for good, a man of discipline, conviction, and a protector of his legacy, fighting tirelessly to preserve his good name – for his family.

“We are grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers, and kindly ask for privacy as we honor the extraordinary life of a man we were blessed to call our own.”

An intimidating, thunderous puncher who lost his first title to Muhammad Ali in their famous Rumble in the Jungle in 1974, “Big George” was a more rotund, jovial figure when he knocked out Michael Moorer for his second crown two decades later.

Foreman’s comeback and the fortune he made selling fat-wicking electric cooking grills made him an icon of self-improvement and success.

Soon after his birth in Marshall, Texas, on 10 January 1949, his family moved to Houston, where he and his six siblings were raised by a single mother. Growing up poor in the segregated American south, Foreman dropped out of junior high school and used his size and fists in street robberies.

The job corps, part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society reforms, “rescued me from the gutter”, Foreman later wrote. Through the program, 16-year-old Foreman moved out of Texas and was encouraged to channel his rage and growing bulk into boxing.

At age 19 and in his 25th amateur fight, Foreman captured the heavyweight boxing gold medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Turning pro, he won 37 straight matches on his way to face reigning champion Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica, winning by technical knockout in round two.

Foreman defended the belt twice more before meeting Ali in Kinshasa, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in one of the most celebrated boxing matches in history.

Ali had been stripped of his crown seven years prior for refusing to be drafted into the Vietnam war and came into the match a heavy underdog against the bigger, younger champion. But for seven rounds, Ali lay against the ropes and fended off Foreman’s clubbing blows, tiring and knocking him out in the eighth round.

“I was one strong heavyweight punching fighter,” Foreman told Reuters in 2007. “I was one punching machine, and that was the first time I delivered everything I had and nothing worked.”

The loss devastated Foreman. He took a year off before returning to the ring and then, after a second professional loss, retired in 1977 to become an ordained minister in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

A decade later and considerably heavier at 143kg (315lb), Foreman staged an unlikely return to the ring to raise money for a youth centre he founded in Texas.

He went on to win 24 straight matches, gradually slimming along the way, before losing to Evander Holyfield in a 12-round decision in 1991. Three years later, he knocked out undefeated southpaw Moorer to become the oldest ever heavyweight champion at age 45.

Foreman’s last fight was in 1997, ending his career with a professional record of 76 wins and five losses.

Foreman was married four times in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1985, he married for the fifth time to Mary Joan Martelly, with whom he remained for the rest of his life. He had five sons – all called George – five biological daughters and two adopted daughters.

Throughout the 1990s and after retirement, he was an enthusiastic pitchman for various products, most notably an electric grill from home appliance maker Salton Inc. In 1999, the company paid Foreman and his partners $137.5m to put his name on the grill and other goods.

“What I do is fall in love with every product I sell,” Foreman wrote in his autobiography, By George. “That’s what sells. Just like with preaching.”

Boxing Hall of Famer and entrepreneur George Foreman has died at age 76, his family has announced in an Instagram post on his account.

“With profound sorrow, we announce the passing of our beloved George Edward Foreman Sr who peacefully departed on March 21, 2025 surrounded by loved ones,” the post read.

Foreman, a heavyweight champion boxer, was “a devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father, and a proud grand and great grandfather”, the family’s statement said.

“A humanitarian, an Olympian, and two time heavyweight champion of the world. He was deeply respected – a force for good, a man of discipline, conviction, and a protector of his legacy, fighting tirelessly to preserve his good name – for his family.

“We are grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers, and kindly ask for privacy as we honor the extraordinary life of a man we were blessed to call our own.”

An intimidating, thunderous puncher who lost his first title to Muhammad Ali in their famous Rumble in the Jungle in 1974, “Big George” was a more rotund, jovial figure when he knocked out Michael Moorer for his second crown two decades later.

Foreman’s comeback and the fortune he made selling fat-wicking electric cooking grills made him an icon of self-improvement and success.

Soon after his birth in Marshall, Texas, on 10 January 1949, his family moved to Houston, where he and his six siblings were raised by a single mother. Growing up poor in the segregated American south, Foreman dropped out of junior high school and used his size and fists in street robberies.

The job corps, part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society reforms, “rescued me from the gutter”, Foreman later wrote. Through the program, 16-year-old Foreman moved out of Texas and was encouraged to channel his rage and growing bulk into boxing.

At age 19 and in his 25th amateur fight, Foreman captured the heavyweight boxing gold medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Turning pro, he won 37 straight matches on his way to face reigning champion Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica, winning by technical knockout in round two.

Foreman defended the belt twice more before meeting Ali in Kinshasa, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in one of the most celebrated boxing matches in history.

Ali had been stripped of his crown seven years prior for refusing to be drafted into the Vietnam war and came into the match a heavy underdog against the bigger, younger champion. But for seven rounds, Ali lay against the ropes and fended off Foreman’s clubbing blows, tiring and knocking him out in the eighth round.

“I was one strong heavyweight punching fighter,” Foreman told Reuters in 2007. “I was one punching machine, and that was the first time I delivered everything I had and nothing worked.”

The loss devastated Foreman. He took a year off before returning to the ring and then, after a second professional loss, retired in 1977 to become an ordained minister in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

A decade later and considerably heavier at 143kg (315lb), Foreman staged an unlikely return to the ring to raise money for a youth centre he founded in Texas.

He went on to win 24 straight matches, gradually slimming along the way, before losing to Evander Holyfield in a 12-round decision in 1991. Three years later, he knocked out undefeated southpaw Moorer to become the oldest ever heavyweight champion at age 45.

Foreman’s last fight was in 1997, ending his career with a professional record of 76 wins and five losses.

Foreman was married four times in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1985, he married for the fifth time to Mary Joan Martelly, with whom he remained for the rest of his life. He had five sons – all called George – five biological daughters and two adopted daughters.

Throughout the 1990s and after retirement, he was an enthusiastic pitchman for various products, most notably an electric grill from home appliance maker Salton Inc. In 1999, the company paid Foreman and his partners $137.5m to put his name on the grill and other goods.

“What I do is fall in love with every product I sell,” Foreman wrote in his autobiography, By George. “That’s what sells. Just like with preaching.”

In the days after a federal judge ruled Elon Musk’s dismantling of USAID likely violated the constitution, the world’s richest person issued a series of online attacks against the American judiciary, offered money to voters to sign a petition opposing “activist judges”, and called on Congress to remove his newfound legal opponents from office.

“This is a judicial coup,” Musk wrote on Wednesday, asking lawmakers to “impeach the judges”.

Musk, who serves as a senior adviser to Donald Trump, posted about judges who ruled in opposition to the administration more than 20 times within 48 hours this week on X, the social network he owns, repeatedly framing them as radical leftist activists and seeking to undermine their authority. His denunciations came as his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) faces sweeping and numerous legal challenges to its gutting overhaul of the government, which has involved firing thousands of workers and gaining access to sensitive government data.

Doge is the subject of nearly two dozen lawsuits, which in some cases have already resulted in judges imposing more transparency on Musk’s initiative or reversing parts of its rapid-fire cuts at federal agencies. The legal pushback poses one of the most significant challenges to Musk’s plans, which for weeks after inauguration day involved operating with expansive powers and little evident oversight.

While Musk posts online, he is also directing some of his immense wealth towards those who support his cause. Musk donated funds to seven Republican members of Congress who called for impeaching judges, the New York Times reported, giving the maximum allowable donation of $6,600 to their campaigns.

Musk also launched a petition on Thursday against “activist judges” via his political action group America Pac, which offered registered voters in Wisconsin $100 if they signed. Musk’s Pac has funneled millions of dollars into the state’s 1 April supreme court race, in which he is backing a former Republican attorney general in another attempt to reshape the country’s courts.

Musk’s campaign against judges has intensified amid a wider clash between the Trump administration and the judiciary over the rule of law following court decisions that pushed back against the administration’s mass deportations of immigrants. It follows longstanding behavior from Trump to rail against judges that have ruled against him in cases concerning his businesses or personal matters.

The White House’s fight with judges escalated to the point where John Roberts, the supreme court chief justice, issued a rare public statement on Tuesday defending the justice system.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts wrote. “The normal appellate process exists for that purpose.”

Musk responded in a post on X one day later.

“For more than two centuries, there has never such [sic] extreme abuse of the legal system by activists pretending to be judges,” he wrote. “Impeach them.”

Legal pushback against Doge angers Musk

Labor groups, watchdog organizations and former government workers have filed lawsuits in response to Doge’s blitz through federal agencies in late January and February, alleging that Musk’s initiative acted without legal authority and violated laws on privacy and transparency. Although the justice system’s response is not as rapid as the breakneck pace of Doge’s cuts, several of the cases against Musk’s efforts are now beginning to throw up roadblocks for him and his team.

A federal judge in Maryland ruled on Tuesday that Musk and Doge’s shutdown of USAID, the agency that provided the world’s largest single source of humanitarian aid and one of the first in Musk’s crosshairs, was likely unconstitutional. The justice ordered the Trump administration to halt terminations of employees and reinstate their access to certain computer systems. Doge had dramatically taken over the agency in early February and moved to close its operations, which Musk boasted involved “feeding USAID into the wood chipper”.

Judge Theodore Chuang found that Musk’s actions at the agency likely violated the constitution given his role as an unelected adviser who did not undergo Senate confirmation.

Doge faced another setback on Thursday, as a different Maryland district court judge temporarily blocked Musk’s team from accessing Social Security Administration systems. A lawsuit against Doge argued that granting access to millions of people’s personal data at the agency violates privacy laws and represents a security threat. Another district court ruling last week ordered the Trump administration to reinstate probationary workers that were fired en masse at 18 different government agencies, while a separate case compelled Musk’s team to produce internal records about its staff and operations.

As Musk and Trump officials have ramped up their attacks on judges, multiple justices told Reuters earlier this month that US marshals warned them they are facing unusually high threat levels against their personal safety.

Musk calls for impeachment and remaking the judiciary

Musk has reacted to the court decisions with outrage and unsubstantiated accusations that the judges are “rogue activists” who must be stopped, a message also shared by Republican lawmakers and Trump. On X, the Tesla CEO has amplified far-right influencers that have called for impeaching justices or targeted specific judges in posts.

“An activist judge is no judge at all, just someone wearing a costume,” Musk responded to a post from rightwing commentator Matt Walsh that suggested Trump should “go to war against activist judges”.

Musk has also received support from foreign leaders that have attacked their countries’ judiciaries and challenged the rule of law. He responded with a “100” emoji to a post from Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that claimed “when a strong right wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system”. Netanyahu attempted in 2023 to weaken the power of Israel’s judiciary, prompting nationwide protests and fears of a constitutional crisis.

El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele’s party ousted all supreme court judges in 2021 as human rights groups warned about a slide into authoritarianism, has become a repeated point of comparison for Musk. He retweeted a post from Bukele on Tuesday that claimed the “U.S. is facing a judicial coup” and repeated that language himself in later posts.

In another post, Musk responded “it is the only way” to a failed far-right US congressional candidate who suggested that the country should emulate El Salvador by investigating politicians and impeaching “all corrupt judges”. The former candidate, Valentina Gomez, received media attention last year for a campaign video in which she burned LGBTQ+-themed books with a flamethrower.

Musk, who has met with Bukele and praised his strongman presidency, has also previously suggested he wants to carry out a similar hollowing out of the judiciary.

“The only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges,” Musk tweeted on 25 February, reposting Bukele. “That is what it took to fix El Salvador. Same applies to America.”

There was anticipation on Oxford Street in London as the Sex Pistols rocked the 100 Club for the first time in more than half a century, playing classic tunes for a crowd of creaking punks.

In a hot and sweaty venue, which harkened back to the band’s glory days, they darted on stage like squaddies on a march, to roars from the audience. They were celebrated by stars and superfans such as Noel Gallagher, Bobby Gillespie and the Jam frontman, Paul Weller.

Band members in attendance included the guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock, minus John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, who unsuccessfully tried to block the band using songs in a Disney+ series about their story, called Pistol.

The former Gallows and Rattlesnakes lead singer Frank Carter filled in for Rotten as he has done since Jones, Cook and Matlock reunited in 2024 for a series of shows at Bush Hall.

The 100 Club is also the venue where the late bass player Sid Vicious was alleged to have whipped the NME journalist Nick Kent with a bicycle chain and where Vicious was arrested for leaving a girl blind in one eye after hurling a glass that shattered.

The quartet opened with Holidays In The Sun, which was met with clouds of beer mist unleashed from flying plastic cups as a sea of hands reached up towards the musicians. After the Pistols performed a version of New York, Carter asked the crowd: “How many of you lot were here the first time?” After a roar from the crowd, he shouted: “It’s a pleasure and a privilege to be here with these legends tonight.” He then joked: “Right, who wants to call it there?”

Jones then launched into the strings of Pretty Vacant. The crowd was reaching fever pitch. Then, Bodies sent them over the top, singing “I’m not an animal” from the chorus in unison. Matlock and Jones shared a microphone to belt out the lyrics while Carter scaled the top of the 100 Club.

God Save The Queen, a song which prompted major controversy on its release during Queen Elizabeth II’s silver jubilee in 1977, transported the older audience members back to their younger days as they bopped like they were in their 20s again.

As they finished their main set, Carter told the crowd: “Five fucking decades later, and they’re back,” before teasing: “Five decades, and that’s all you’ve got?”

The Pistols closed with a rendition of EMI and Anarchy In The UK, prompting the crowd to surge to the front. Carter saw off a possible stage invasion by hurling himself from the stage into the crowd. Afterwards, he remarked: “Oh fuck, I forgot you’re all fucking 60.”

The group will perform on Monday for a gig at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust.

A conservative Catholic billionaire and media owner is facing an independent bookshop rebellion in France over his influence in the publishing world.

Dozens of independent booksellers are trying to counter the growing influence of Vincent Bolloré, whose vast cultural empire includes television, radio, the Sunday paper Le Journal du Dimanche, and also, since 2023, the biggest book publishing and distribution conglomerate in France, Hachette Livre.

“Books matter,” said Thibaut Willems, owner of Le Pied à Terre independent bookshop in Paris’s 18th arrondissement and one of the booksellers taking a stand by limiting their orders of Hachette Livre books and placing them on lower shelves.

Bolloré is best known in France for his group’s ownership of CNews, the most-watched news channel on TV, which figures on the left have attacked for giving a platform to reactionary voices they say have aided the rise of the far right. He was once described by the former education minister Pap Ndiaye as “very close to the most radical far right”. Bolloré, in a senate hearing in 2022, denied political or ideological interventionism, saying his interest in acquiring media was purely financial and his cultural empire was about promoting French soft power. He said his group was so vast, it contained all views.

But some independent booksellers say it is dangerous for democracy for one conglomerate to have such a huge influence on cultural output. Hachette Livre, which was part of the Lagardère group bought by Bolloré’s Vivendi in 2023, is the No 1 publisher and book distributor in France. It owns scores of publishing houses, producing the bestselling Asterix comic books, literary fiction, thrillers, political titles, Manga comics and school textbooks. The group also owns the Relay bookstores at French train stations. Hachette has more than 200 publishing imprints worldwide. It is the second biggest publishing conglomerate in the UK, where it owns Hodder & Stoughton, and is the third biggest in the US.

As well as the moves by some booksellers, protest groups on the left have started a “bookmark rebellion”, where individuals hide bookmarks inside paperbacks in large commercial stores with messages such as “boycott Hachette”, detailing the scale of the Bolloré empire.

These bookmarks have regularly been placed inside the memoirs of the former UK prime minister Boris Johnson, published in France by a Hachette imprint, and of Jordan Bardella, the young president of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally, whose Ce que je cherche (What I’m Looking For) has sold more than 150,000 copies, with the might of Bolloré’s publicity machine behind it.

Willems acknowledged it was hard to rebel against a group that controlled such a large part of distribution. “We’d like to be able to stage a boycott,” he said. But this was impossible because of Hachette imprints’ vast back- catalogue, which includes key authors such as the punk feminist Virginie Despentes and writers including Lola Lafon. “A boycott would be damaging for customers who want to read those writers. So we do what we can,” he said.

This meant not ordering certain new books, or taking fewer copies and placing them away from prime positions on tables. Willems will also limit events for Hachette books, with one recent exception for a local novelist friend of the bookshop.

Willems said customers had been interested to learn about Bolloré’s presence in publishing. “But it’s hard for people these days. They’re wary of what food to buy, what clothes to buy and now it’s what books they buy. It becomes exhausting.”

In Lyon, Martin Beddeleem, from the independent bookshop La Virevolte, said: “In the book world, we’ve been worried for some time about the concentration of ownership that runs from book editing to publishing and distribution.” In the current polarised political landscape in France, he felt that books could become “a weapon”.

Beddeleem said that stopping buying books from a giant such as Hachette was impossible and would “kill our bookshop”, so instead small steps included not ordering Hachette’s children’s comic strip albums or social science books and choosing other publishers. “A tiny bookshop like ours doing this won’t cause much pain [to Hachette], but at least it feels significant for us,” he said. The bookshop will host a public debate on the issue in June.

Benoît Grange, from the climate protest collective Les Soulèvements de la Terre, part of the bookmark protest, said: “This is about informing readers. Around 700,000 bookmarks have been printed. People keep asking us for more so they can slide them into books in shops. It’s ongoing.”

The French Nobel-winning novelist Annie Ernaux said at the time of the Hachette takeover that she would refuse to be published by the group.

This week, the representative body for staff at Hachette Livre, expressed concerns over what it called an editorial line close to the far right in Bolloré’s other print and TV media.

Jean-Yves Mollier, a historian of French publishing and professor at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, said Bolloré’s expansion had added “an enormous publishing conglomerate” to a media empire. Mollier likened this to the expansion of the media mogul Rupert Murdoch into book publishing in the US. “I think for freedom of expression, pluralism and democracy it can represent a risk,” he said.

Hachette Livre was approached for comment.

Children and adults have anonymously reported testimonies of sexual abuse and harassment at 1,664 primary schools in the UK through a website for survivors, which has called for age-appropriate sex education to be taught to children under the age of nine.

Experiences of sexual harassment, groping, inappropriate touching and even forced penetration have been anonymously reported on the site everyonesinvited.uk, with at least one testimonial relating to an incident that took place when the victim was as young as five.

One 12-year-old wrote on the site: “I was 10 years old and walking to school when a car pulled up and three teenage boys asked me to come inside. I wasn’t stupid. I said no, but one of them came out and grabbed my wrist. I would love to say I was brave and started screaming or fighting back but I was too scared.

“At this point, I was crying and trying do something. I was raped in that car by two of them, the third one watched and recorded. At school I was quiet the whole day my friends assumed it was nothing and it was over just like normal. I’m 12 years old now … and I am [a] survivor.”

The website said the schools included on the Everyone’s Invited primary school list, which it has decided to name, were there because of both past and recent reports of abuse.

“A large majority of our testimonies come from individuals looking back on their experiences,” said Sophie Lennox, a spokesperson for the website. “However, we have anecdotal evidence of children as young as five submitting their stories to our website with adult assistance, be that child therapists or parents.”

The website would like relationships and sex education to be taught before the age of nine.

“At Everyone’s Invited, we are not suggesting a specific age at which teachers should deliver specific content,” Lennox said. “Instead, we work with schools to decide on a developmentally appropriate time to teach different aspects of relationships and sex education.”

She added that evidence from the website’s education programme and testimonies suggested that “across the board, this must be delivered at an earlier age than it currently is, which is nine years old. We need to take a building block approach that educates children to have the agency, tools and language to address these topics”.

Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), told the Guardian: “Primary school teachers are reporting that sexist behaviour is happening in their schools. It affects the way that children play together and how girls feel about themselves and the place they have in the world.

“Children with siblings in secondary school are also passing on negative attitudes towards women teachers. Sexist and misogynistic behaviour diminishes both boys and girls.

“Age-appropriate health and sex education is key to supporting young people as they navigate how to foster healthy and appropriate relationships.

“All too often, the over-focus on English and maths in primary education is squeezing out time and space for activities and projects which help with social skills, empathy or personal development.

“There also needs to be a debate about the toxic unfiltered access to social media by young children allowed by social media companies.”

A government spokesperson said: “All pupils should feel safe and protected at school and these testimonies highlight a wide range of deeply concerning issues.

“Misogynistic views are not innate, they are learned, so through our review of the relationships, sex and health curriculum we will ensure young people learn about healthy relationships, boundaries and consent from the start of primary school.

“The government is also introducing a new mandatory reporting duty to ensure all professionals and those who work with children are clear on their duty to report.”

Jodie is a canine with special ­powers, scientists have discovered. The golden labrador can smell and ­identify ­particular bacteria and could soon play a key role in helping researchers develop a programme in which dogs could sniff out individuals infected with dangerous microbes.

The project, recently launched by scientists at Imperial College London, could be vital in the battle against antibiotic resistance as well as the treatment of patients with lung ­disease and other conditions, they say.

“We believe Jodie and her fellow medical detective dogs point to a new way to spot infected individuals, just by having a sniff of their socks or shirts,” said Professor Jane Davies at Imperial College.

“They could become a major help in tackling antimicrobial resistance and conditions like cystic fibrosis.”

Cystic fibrosis is one of the world’s most common inherited illnesses. A defective protein allows mucus to build up in lungs and other organs, triggering chronic infections that worsen through life.

Eighty years ago, most patients died in their teens. However drugs, called modulators, now offer patients a chance to live into old age. But this success has brought ­problems.

Modulator drugs have greatly improved patients’ overall conditions but they do not entirely kill off all the chronic lung infections that affect them. Most are still infected with bacteria whose growth could jeopardise their health.

“The problem is that ­bacteria in these patients are now much harder to detect,” said Davies. “Modulators greatly reduce the mucus in their lungs and ­without that it is difficult for them to cough up the sputum in which their bacterial status can be evaluated.” “This is where the dogs come in.”

Several years go, Davies and her team, supported by the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, carried out research in which dogs demonstrated they could detect samples grown in the laboratory which contained a bacterium called pseudomonas, which can ­trigger pneumonia, ­urinary tract infections and ­septicaemia – often a serious health problem for cystic fibrosis patients.

As part of the trials, dogs, which were provided by the charity Medical Detection Dogs and which included Jodie, were brought into a testing room where samples were set on stands at dog-head height. These stands either included pseudomonas, other bacteria or no bacteria at all.

The dogs walked around the room sniffing each sample and when they had detected the pseudomonas, they sat down.

“We showed that in laboratory settings dogs can detect pseudomonas in samples,” said Davies. “Now we want to expand that work and have just been given funding from the medical charities LifeArc and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust to ramp up our collaboration with Medical Detection Dogs so that, for the first time, we may be able to train dogs to detect pseudomonas on patients’ skin, in their urine or in their clothing.”

Crucially, this system could be expanded to detect bacteria in other patients, not just those with cystic fibrosis. And such an ability would have important implications.

Microbes such as pseudomonas are difficult to detect in clinics and techniques to test for it are often invasive, uncomfortable, expensive and cannot be repeated on a regular basis. Dogs could get around that problem.

“Bacteria like pseudomonas are often resistant to certain anti­biotics,” added Davies. “We need to pinpoint them with precision to ensure they are treated with the right antibiotic and so keep down the growing ­problem of antimicrobial resistance, which will be worsened if we give patients the wrong type of antibiotics.”

About a million people now die every year across the world because of the spread of microbial resistance and that figure is expected to rise over the next 25 years.

Recent data suggests problems arising from resistance are easing for the under-fives, but for the over-70s mortality rates have gone up 80% since 1990.

“In the fight against ­anti­microbial resistance, we are ​going to need all the help we can get – and dogs like Jodie could be the perfect allies that we could recruit in this battle,” said Davies.