Malnutrition is spreading in Gaza, medics and aid workers in the devastated Palestinian territory are warning, as a total Israeli blockade of all supplies enters its fourth week.

There has been no sign that Israel will open entry points to allow essential aid to flow or ease its new offensive in Gaza, which started on Tuesday with a wave of airstrikes that killed 400 people, mostly civilians, ending two months of relative calm. On Sunday, Palestinian officials said the total death toll from nearly 18 months of conflict had passed 50,000.

On Sunday, an airstrike in the city of Khan Younis killed Salah Bardawil, a member of Hamas’s political leadership bureau, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued new evacuation orders to Palestinians in areas west of the city of Rafah on the border with Egypt.

The orders specified that movement in vehicles would not be permitted. There have been many reported incidents of civilians being killed or badly injured in attacks by Israeli forces on cars in Gaza in recent days. “The IDF has launched an operation to dismantle terrorist organisations. You are currently in a dangerous combat zone. Distance yourself from the combat zone immediately,” the orders said.

At least 19 Palestinians were killed overnight, according to medical officials on Sunday. Two hospitals in southern Gaza said they had received 17 bodies from strikes, including those of several women and children. The toll did not include the Hamas official and his wife.

To date in the war – triggered by an attack by Hamas militants into Israel in October 2023 in which they killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages – more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, also mostly civilians, and about 113,000 wounded, say officials.

Israel, which has accused Hamas of systematically looting aid, cut off supplies to Gaza hours after the first phase of a supposed three-stage ceasefire expired. Hamas denies the charge.

Aid officials said distributions would be reduced gradually if possible, while the provision of community kitchens that feed about a million people would get progressively more difficult.

“At some point we will just run out and things will get desperate … but even if we had supplies it would be very difficult to distribute them because the security environment means we can’t operate,” said one UN official based in Gaza.

Six out of 23 bakeries operated by the UN World Food Programme have already been shut due to a lack of cooking gas, while Unrwa, the main UN agency with responsibility for Palestinians’ welfare, had stocks of about 60,000 bags of flour on Friday, enough for just six days of distribution.

Prices for the limited amount of food still available in shops and markets have soared and are now unaffordable for almost everyone. Potatoes cost the equivalent of $6 (£4.60) a kg, five times more than a month ago, while cooking gas cylinders are selling for $60 a kg, four times higher than before the end of the fragile pause in hostilities three weeks ago.

“It is very clear that people are underweight. The population is very young, and children need nutritious food,” said Khamis Elessi, a senior consultant doctor in Gaza City.

Feroze Sidhwa, a US-based volunteer emergency doctor in Gaza, said the consequences of 18 months of poor diet were very evident among his patients. “We see very clearly that everyone has lost weight … I can see my surgical incisions are not healing well,” he said.

Aid distribution has been hindered by displacement. “There is a lot of anxiety about what will happen, especially parents for their children. It is non-stop: evacuation orders, explosions, the hospitals are filled with casualties, we are now seeing food scarcity. It is very unpredictable,” said Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson in Gaza for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

“We can hear massive explosions most of the day. Reports of casualties are received every hour but the first responders cannot reach all the sites of attacks because it is too dangerous or they have no enough fuel for ambulances.”

In the southern city Rafah on Sunday, Palestinian men, women and children could be seen walking along a dirt road and carrying their belongings in their arms. Most of Gaza’s population have had to flee within the territory, often multiple times. “It’s displacement under fire,” said Mustafa Gaber, a local journalist on the move with his family. “There are wounded people among us. The situation is very difficult.”

Israeli media questioned on Sunday whether the aims of the new offensive were limited to destroying Hamas and returning the hostages held in Gaza – the two goals often cited by the Israeli government.

On Friday, Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, said in a statement that he had “instructed the IDF to seize additional territories in Gaza, evacuate the population, and expand the security zones around Gaza in order to defend the Israeli towns and IDF troops”.

“The longer Hamas continues to refuse to release the hostages, the more territory it will lose that will be added to Israel,” Katz said.

On Saturday, Israel’s cabinet approved a proposal to set up a new directorate tasked with advancing what it framed as the “voluntary departure” of Palestinians, in line with Donald Trump’s proposal to depopulate Gaza and rebuild it as the “riviera of the Middle East”. Legal experts said any such policy would almost certainly be a violation of international law.

Katz said the new body would be “subject to Israeli and international law” and coordinate “passage by land, sea and air to the destination countries”.

Israel has been roiled by massive protests, with more than 100,000 demonstrating against efforts by Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, to fire both the head of the internal security service and the attorney general. There are also widespread calls for the return of the hostages to be prioritised over the offensive against Hamas.

In the agreed ceasefire’s first phase, 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight others were released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Israeli forces pulled back to a buffer zone – allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remained of their homes – and there was a surge in humanitarian aid.

The sides were supposed to begin negotiations in early February on the scheduled second phase of the truce, in which Hamas was to release the remaining 59 hostages – 35 of whom are believed to be dead – in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a permanent end to hostilities and a full Israeli withdrawal.

Israel backed out of the ceasefire agreement, offering instead to extend the first phase by between 30 and 60 days if Hamas released more hostages.

Israeli strikes across southern Gaza killed at least 19 people overnight into Sunday, including a senior Hamas political leader, officials said.

Iran-backed rebels in Yemen who are allied with Hamas meanwhile launched another missile at Israel, setting off air raid sirens. The Israeli military said it was intercepted with no casualties or damage.

The attacks came after Israel carried out a strike in Tyre, south Lebanon, on Saturday, killing one and wounding seven people and 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”.

The strike on a building came after Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes in Lebanon on Saturday, its most intense aerial assault on the country in four months. In total, six people were killed, including a child, and 28 injured, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

In Gaza, Hamas and Palestinian media said on Sunday that an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis killed Salah al-Bardaweel, a Hamas political leader. Pro-Hamas media said the airstrike killed Bardaweel, a member of its political office, and his wife. Israeli officials had no immediate comment. The European and Kuwaiti hospitals in southern Gaza said they had received 17 bodies from strikes over Saturday night into Sunday, including several women and children.

Israel’s Lebanon strikes were its deadliest there since the 27 November ceasefire which had put an end to 13 months of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel. The strike on Tyre, in particular, one of the largest cities in south Lebanon and far from the Lebanese border, was a major escalation and threatened to upend the fragile ceasefire agreement.

An Israeli military spokesperson said it had targeted “attack command headquarters, terrorist operatives, missile launchers, and a weapons depot of the terrorist Hezbollah”.

The wave of Israeli airstrikes was triggered by the launching of three rockets from Lebanon by unknown groups, which were intercepted by the Israeli air force.

In a statement on Saturday afternoon, Hezbollah denied any involvement in 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. Both the Israeli military and the Lebanese Ministry of Defence said it was investigating who could have fired the rockets.

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.

Lebanon’s minister of defence, Michel Menassa, said the country was “continuing its diplomatic, political and military efforts to ensure Lebanon’s sovereignty”.

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.

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 that monitors the Israel-Lebanon border, warned against further military escalation that could lead to the ceasefire being broken.

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

In Israel, several thousand protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Saturday, blocking key highways across the country in a demonstration against 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.

On Saturday, the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, called on Hamas to relinquish power in order to safeguard the “existence” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“Hamas must show compassion for Gaza, its children, women and men,” Fatah spokesperson Monther al-Hayek said in a message sent to AFP, urging the militant group to “step aside from governing and fully recognise that the battle ahead will lead to the end of Palestinians’ existence” if it remains in power in Gaza.

Hamas said on Friday it was still debating Witkoff’s proposal and other proposals made by intermediaries, including Egypt.

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.

Press freedom in Serbia is facing a “dangerous turning point” after mounting pressure on independent outlets from ministers and state-backed media, a group of senior editors has warned.

The editors, who are all from publications within the independent United Media group, said their reporters faced “constant harassment, physical attacks and smear campaigns” after their reporting in the country, which has been gripped by protests against its autocratic president, Aleksandar Vučić.

Their intervention follows what appears to have been the largest anticorruption demonstration in Serbia’s history this month. The mass gathering in Belgrade marked the culmination of four months of protests against the government after the deadly collapse of a concrete train station canopy in the northern city of Novi Sad last November.

Civil society groups have been warning for months about an increasingly hostile environment for independent media since the station collapse, which killed 16 people and set in motion a political backlash against Vučić’s pro-Russia administration.

“The media in Serbia is at a dangerous turning point,” wrote the editors in an open letter signed by five outlets and included Igor Božić, the news director of the CNN-affiliated N1 Serbia. “The government is stepping up its attack on independent journalism, especially targeting outlets within United Media, as the political crisis worsens and public frustration grows.

“Instead of addressing real public issues, the government creates false stories that paint independent media as foreign agents and enemies of the state. As a result, our reporters are assaulted, blocked from official events, and targeted with disinformation meant to break public trust.”

The NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has said the pressure exerted on the media in Serbia has reached levels not seen since the 1990s. It has also urged the EU to condemn a raid on the offices of the Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), an NGO that runs a prominent fact-checking website.

Pavol Szalai, the head of the RSF’s EU-Balkans desk, said Serbia was 98th out of 180 countries and territories on the world press freedom index last year, its lowest ranking in 22 years of the index.

There have been several reports of hostility towards independent journalists since the train station disaster. At the end of last year, the N1 journalist Žaklina Tatalović and her cameraperson Nikola Popović were harassed while covering protests. Local press freedom groups said at the time that Tatalović and Popović had endured sexist insults and physical violence. Police officers were accused of failing to intervene.

Another N1 reporter Jelena Mirković was attacked while covering protests against the demolition of a bridge. She suffered a neck injury and was subsequently unable to work. Last month, fellow N1 journalist Ksenija Pavkov was verbally threatened while reporting.

In their letter, the group of editors said Vučić was falsely accusing journalists of “stirring unrest”. They also said financial and regulatory pressures were being applied, forcing away advertisers and business partners.

“With ongoing student protests and a dissolved government awaiting new elections, we are deeply concerned for the safety of our reporters on the ground,” they wrote. “The growing hostility toward independent media, fuelled by orchestrated government rhetoric, has created an environment where violence is not only allowed but even encouraged.

“In the past four months alone, our journalists, including Zaklina Tatalović, Ksenija Pavkov, and Jelena Mirković, have suffered both physical and verbal attacks. Despite clear video evidence of the perpetrators, the police have done nothing to hold them accountable.”

Half a million people have also signed an online petition calling for an independent investigation into whether security forces in Serbia used a sonic weapon – what the petition described as a “sound cannon” – during the rally on 15 March.

Vučić remains under pressure and faces the most dangerous moment of his 12-year grip on power. Protests have been a regular feature in Serbia since November. The president has so far sought to deflect the blame, with a series of resignations arising from the station collapse.

The Serbian government, led by the prime minister, Miloš Vučević, formally resigned last week, with Vučić saying elections could follow in June.

Protesters are demanding accountability for the disaster at Novi Sad, as well as more transparent institutions based on the rule of law. More than a dozen people have been charged in relation to the canopy collapse. On Friday, it was announced that a teenager had become the latest to die from injuries sustained in the disaster.

As many as 325,000 people took to the streets of Belgrade on 15 March, though the government has disputed those estimates.

Footage shows crowds suddenly splitting, with some complaining of feeling the ill effects associated with the use of a sonic weapon. However, senior government politicians and police have denied that such a weapon was deployed. Vučić described the claim as a “wicked lie” that was aimed at “destroying Serbia”.

An Istanbul court has formally arrested the city’s mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, on corruption charges, sending him to pre-trial detention on the day he is expected to receive his party’s nomination to run for president.

The mayor of Turkey’s largest city and a rival of the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was jailed on charges of leading a criminal organisation, bribery, misconduct and corruption, along with dozens of his staff and municipal officials.

The Istanbul mayor and at least four others also faced a separate set of charges accusing him of “aiding an armed terrorist group,” for cooperating with a leftwing political coalition prior to local elections last year.

Prosecutors ruled that İmamoğlu’s detention on corruption charges alone was sufficient, despite “a strong suspicion of a crime”, opting to detain three others on terrorism charges but not the mayor. This decision is expected to allow the Republican People’s party (CHP), Turkey’s largest opposition party, to select a candidate to control the Istanbul municipality, rather than the state selecting a caretaker.

İmamoğlu has denied the accusations against him, telling investigators during questioning that his detention had “not only harmed Turkey’s international reputation but has also shattered the public’s sense of justice and trust in the economy”.

He added: “As a defender of democracy and believer in the power of the people, I trust that the truth will prevail.”

His chief spokesperson, Murat Ongun, who was also remanded in custody, posted on X: “I was arrested on slander that was not based on a single piece of evidence!”

The Istanbul mayor’s detention in a dawn raid earlier this week has sparked mass protests across Turkey, with tens of thousands taking to the streets each night and often clashing with police. The interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, announced that 323 more people had been detained overnight as part of an investigation into the Istanbul municipality, the day after he announced that 343 people had been arrested for protesting.

Turkish officials rejected any suggestion that the sweeping crackdown against İmamoğlu, along with municipal officials, businesspeople and dozens of other members of the CHP, was politically motivated. This has done little to quell anti-government sentiment, with demonstrators filling university campuses, public squares and surrounding Istanbul’s city hall each night to defy a protest ban.

The growing demonstrations have sparked fierce criticism from Erdoğan, who has labelled them “street terrorism”.

Posting on X, he wrote: “The days of taking to the streets along with leftwing organisations and vandals to point the finger at the national will are over … we will definitely not allow the CHP and its supporters to disrupt public order and disturb the peace of our nation through provocations.”

İmamoğlu was jailed on pre-trial detention on the same day that 1.5 million members of the CHP held a primary vote, expected to officially endorse his candidacy for president. The Istanbul mayor is the party’s sole presidential candidate, turning the vote into a symbolic show of support.

İmamoğlu has long been seen as the only challenger capable of defeating Erdoğan at the ballot box. A presidential election in Turkey is due in 2028, but an early vote is expected.

The Istanbul mayor won his seat twice in 2019, after an initial vote was annulled by officials following complaints from Erdoğan’s Justice and Development party. The embattled mayor was later served a ban from politics by an Istanbul court, which he appealed against.

The CHP leader, Özgur Özel, has accused Erdoğan and his government of detaining İmamoğlu over fears of an election loss. Istanbul University stripped İmamoğlu of his university diploma prior to his arrest, preventing him from running for president, as a degree is a pre-requisite.

“Ekrem İmamoğlu’s only crime is leading in the polls,” Özel told crowds massing outside Istanbul city hall earlier this week. Days later, he called the mayor’s arrest “a politically motivated attempt to discredit and potentially eliminate İmamoğlu as a presidential contender”.

Many of those who took to the streets after İmamoğlu’s arrest said his detention had galvanised their decision to show up at the ballot boxes, even if the vote remained symbolic.

“This is a way for us to show our power, to show we’re coming in strong,” said a protester who gave her name as Devrim, who said she had been volunteering with CHP efforts to drive up participation in the ballot to demonstrate a groundswell of support for İmamoğlu.

The CHP has also permitted those who are not party members to participate in the primary vote. “We were expecting a high turnout before, but now we think it will be even bigger,” said Devrim.

The Ankara mayor, Mansur Yavaş, a leading member of the CHP, told reporters: “Honestly, we are embarrassed in the name of our legal system,” in reference to İmamoğlu’s arrest, after casting his ballot in the primary.

“We learned from television pundits about the allegations that even lawyers did not have access to, showing how politically motivated this whole ordeal has been,” he said.

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reportedly nearing a deal to allow immigration officials to use tax data to support Donald Trump’s deportation agenda, according to reports by the Washington Post.

Under the proposed data-sharing agreement, said to have been in negotiations for weeks, Immigration And Customs Enforcement (Ice) could hand over the names and addresses of undocumented immigrants to the IRS, raising concerns about abuse of power from the Trump administration and the erosion of privacy rights.

If access to this confidential database is agreed upon, it would mark a significant shift, likely becoming the first time immigration officials have relied on the tax system for enforcement assistance in such a sweeping way.

Under the agreement, the IRS would cross-reference names of undocumented immigrants with their confidential taxpayer databases, a move that would breach the long-standing trust in the confidentiality of tax information. Such data has historically been considered sensitive and thereby closely guarded, so the reported deal has raised alarm bells at the IRS, according to the Washington Post.

The IRS website says that undocumented immigrants “are subject to US taxes despite their illegal status”, and because most are unable to get social security numbers, the agency allows them to file with individual taxpayer numbers, known as ITINs. The agency also subjects them to the same reporting and withholding obligations as it does to US citizens who receive the same kind of income. More than half of the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US file income tax returns to document their payments to the government.

While the IRS mandates that taxpayer information is protected, section 6103 on the agency’s website outlines that “under court order, return information may be shared with law enforcement agencies for investigation and prosecution of non-tax criminal laws.” However, sources familiar with the matter told the Washington Post that it would be rare for these privacy law exceptions to be weaponized for cooperation with immigration enforcement and that this is outside of standard procedure.

The potential shift in taxpayer data use, from once being used to rarely build criminal cases to now reportedly becoming instrumental in enforcing criminal penalties, aligns with many of the more aggressive immigration policies Trump is pursuing.

During his campaign, Trump promised to deport millions of undocumented people in the US, and the reports of this new deal shine a light on how he is planning on doing so. Since becoming president, he has ended legal pathways for immigrants to come and stay in the US.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Friday they would revoke the temporary legal status of more than 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicararguans and Venezuelans, and Ice raids and enforcement operations have been commonplace in major cities across the US – like Chicago and New York – with high immigrant populations.

Last weekend, the Trump administration decided to deport 137 Venezuelan immigrants despite a judge’s order blocking the move. On Sunday, the border czar Tom Homan said in an interview with ABC News that the administration would not defy court orders stemming from legal challenges over its invocation of the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport the alleged Venezuelan gang members.

“I don’t care what the judges think as far as this case,” Homan told ABC, referring to a federal judge’s efforts to determine whether the administration already ignored an earlier order to temporarily halt deportations.

The attorney general, Pam Bondi, also addressed the deportations in an interview with Fox News on Sunday, calling the fight against the alleged gang members was akin to “modern day warfare”.

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reportedly nearing a deal to allow immigration officials to use tax data to support Donald Trump’s deportation agenda, according to reports by the Washington Post.

Under the proposed data-sharing agreement, said to have been in negotiations for weeks, Immigration And Customs Enforcement (Ice) could hand over the names and addresses of undocumented immigrants to the IRS, raising concerns about abuse of power from the Trump administration and the erosion of privacy rights.

If access to this confidential database is agreed upon, it would mark a significant shift, likely becoming the first time immigration officials have relied on the tax system for enforcement assistance in such a sweeping way.

Under the agreement, the IRS would cross-reference names of undocumented immigrants with their confidential taxpayer databases, a move that would breach the long-standing trust in the confidentiality of tax information. Such data has historically been considered sensitive and thereby closely guarded, so the reported deal has raised alarm bells at the IRS, according to the Washington Post.

The IRS website says that undocumented immigrants “are subject to US taxes despite their illegal status”, and because most are unable to get social security numbers, the agency allows them to file with individual taxpayer numbers, known as ITINs. The agency also subjects them to the same reporting and withholding obligations as it does to US citizens who receive the same kind of income. More than half of the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US file income tax returns to document their payments to the government.

While the IRS mandates that taxpayer information is protected, section 6103 on the agency’s website outlines that “under court order, return information may be shared with law enforcement agencies for investigation and prosecution of non-tax criminal laws.” However, sources familiar with the matter told the Washington Post that it would be rare for these privacy law exceptions to be weaponized for cooperation with immigration enforcement and that this is outside of standard procedure.

The potential shift in taxpayer data use, from once being used to rarely build criminal cases to now reportedly becoming instrumental in enforcing criminal penalties, aligns with many of the more aggressive immigration policies Trump is pursuing.

During his campaign, Trump promised to deport millions of undocumented people in the US, and the reports of this new deal shine a light on how he is planning on doing so. Since becoming president, he has ended legal pathways for immigrants to come and stay in the US.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Friday they would revoke the temporary legal status of more than 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicararguans and Venezuelans, and Ice raids and enforcement operations have been commonplace in major cities across the US – like Chicago and New York – with high immigrant populations.

Last weekend, the Trump administration decided to deport 137 Venezuelan immigrants despite a judge’s order blocking the move. On Sunday, the border czar Tom Homan said in an interview with ABC News that the administration would not defy court orders stemming from legal challenges over its invocation of the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport the alleged Venezuelan gang members.

“I don’t care what the judges think as far as this case,” Homan told ABC, referring to a federal judge’s efforts to determine whether the administration already ignored an earlier order to temporarily halt deportations.

The attorney general, Pam Bondi, also addressed the deportations in an interview with Fox News on Sunday, calling the fight against the alleged gang members was akin to “modern day warfare”.

Mark Carney will run for election in the Ottawa riding of Nepean as the new Canadian prime minister seeks to join parliament for the first time, his Liberal party has announced.

Carney on Sunday is predicted to trigger an early general election on 28 April. The Liberals said on Saturday that Carney would run to represent the suburban riding, or district, of Nepean, noting in a social media post that Ottawa is where he raised his family and devoted his career to public service. He previously served as the head of Canada’s central bank and before that as deputy.

The election campaign for 343 seats in the House of Commons will last 37 days. The party that commands a majority in the House of Commons, either alone or with the support of another party, will form the next government and its leader will be prime minister.

Carney replaced Justin Trudeau, who announced his resignation in January but remained in power until the governing Liberal party elected Carney on 9 March following a leadership race.

Carney, sworn in as Canada’s 24th prime minister on 14 March, has said the government in a time of crisis needs a strong and clear mandate. The governing Liberals had appeared poised for a historic election defeat this year until Donald Trump declared a trade war.

The opposition Conservatives had hoped to make the election about Trudeau, whose popularity declined as food and housing prices rose and immigration surged. But after decades of stability in US-Canada relations, the vote is expected instead to focus on who is best equipped to deal with Trump.

Carney, 60, was the head of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis. In 2013 he became the first non-citizen of the United Kingdom to run the Bank of England – helping to manage the impact of Brexit.

Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservatives, is Carney’s main challenger. The party and Poilievre had been heading for a huge victory in Canada’s federal election this year until derailed by Trump’s behaviour.

Trump has repeatedly said that Canada should become the 51st US state, put 25% tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminium and is threatening sweeping tariffs on all Canadian products – as well as all of America’s trading partners – on 2 April.

Trump’s frequent attacks on Canada’s sovereignty have infuriated Canadians. That has led to a surge in nationalism that has bolstered Liberal poll numbers.

Trump mocked Trudeau by calling him governor, but has not yet mentioned Carney by name.

With Associated Press

Pope Francis greeted a large crowd of pilgrims gathered outside Gemelli hospital in Rome in his first public appearance in more than five weeks, before being discharged from the hospital on Sunday.

The pontiff, who is recovering from pneumonia in both lungs, made the brief greeting and blessing from the balcony of his hospital room shortly after the release of the text for his Sunday Angelus.

“Thank you to everyone”, Francis, 88, told the crowd. He then made his way home to Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican City, where he will convalesce for at least two months.

“Our pope is coming back,” one of the pilgrims told Rai news.

The health of Francis, who was admitted to hospital on 14 February and subsequently diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection and double pneumonia, was steadily improving, Sergio Alfieri, a general surgeon at Gemelli hospital, told reporters on Saturday. However, it would still take “a lot of time” for his body to fully heal.

Francis suffered two critical breathing crises in hospital before his doctors declared on 10 March that he was no longer in imminent ­danger.

In the Angelus, the pope reflected on his “long period” of hospitalisation. “I have had the opportunity to experience the Lord’s patience, which I also see reflected in the tireless care of the doctors and healthcare workers, as well as in the care and hopes of the relatives of the sick,” he said. “This trusting patience, anchored in God’s unfailing love, is indeed necessary in our lives, especially when facing the most difficult and painful situations.”

He expressed his sadness at Israel’s renewed bombing of the Gaza strip and called for an “immediate halt to the weapons and for the courage to resume dialogue, so that all hostages may be released and a final ceasefire reached”, while urging people to pray “for an end to wars and for peace, especially in tormented Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Myanmar, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

La Repubblica reported that Francis had insisted he return home, where he will need to continue his recovery and rest. “The hope is that he will soon be able to resume a work schedule,” Alfieri said. However, he cautioned that the pope would not immediately be able to meet groups of people. It remains unclear if an audience with King Charles and Queen Camilla, scheduled for 8 April, will take place.

Despite his health challenges, on some days Francis continued to lead the Vatican from his hospital room, including approving individuals for sainthood and writing a letter to the editor of Corriere della Sera newspaper reiterating his appeal for peace and disarmament.

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.

Oscar Piastri won the Chinese Grand Prix with a dominant run from pole position for McLaren but Lewis Hamilton had an enormously frustrating close to only his second race for Ferrari when his car was disqualified for a technical infringement after the race.

Piastri’s win – after his teammate Lando Norris’s victory in the season opener in Australia – once again demonstrated McLaren have a fearsomely quick car. The team secured a comfortable one-two with Norris second. George Russell was third for Mercedes but 11 seconds down the road from the McLarens, with Max Verstappen fourth for Red Bull. Charles Leclerc and Hamilton finished fifth and sixth for Ferrari, but both were then disqualified.

After the usual checks on the cars in parc fermé, the skid blocks on the underside of Hamilton’s Ferrari were found to be below the legal thickness. Leclerc and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly were also disqualified, with their cars judged to be underweight.

The skid blocks are located as part of the plank beneath the car and required to be a specific depth after the race to ensure the car does not run below the minimum ride height. Ferrari said in a statement that Leclerc’s one-stop strategy and tyre wear caused the car to be underweight and admitted that they misjudged Hamilton’s tyre wear but there “was no intention to gain any advantage” for either driver.

It is far from the operational precision Hamilton would have been hoping for from the Scuderia, although all teams attempt to push the margin of error as close as possible for performance purposes. The decision promoted Esteban Ocon and Kimi Antonelli into fifth and sixth place.

Piastri controlled what was very much a processional race, with a flawless drive from pole, with Norris moving up to second at the start to put McLaren in a commanding position from which they were not threatened. Tyre-wear management dominated a somewhat prosaic affair but Norris did well to survive a late-race brake problem, while Ferrari switched Hamilton and Leclerc mid-race but they could make no impression on the leaders.

Norris has maintained his lead in the world championship with 44 points, ahead of Verstappen on 36, Russell on 35 and Piastri on 34.

It was Piastri’s first win in China and the third of his career after taking two victories last season in what has been a highly impressive start in F1 over just two years. His team, too, enjoyed the winning feeling in Shanghai with their 50th one-two and after a long absence from the top step in China. The last time they took the flag here was in 2011 with Hamilton.

The confidence in the balance, handling and grip of the car McLaren had enjoyed in Australia was once more in abundance when it really mattered. They have a genuine march on their rivals, the first time they have started a season on the front foot for some time, and it is the very opening the team had stressed was required if they were to make a tilt at the title.

Piastri held his lead into turn one but Norris made a quick start and swept round the outside of Russell to claim second place; the decisive moment. Leclerc lightly clipped Hamilton, bumped into his teammate off the kerbs and took front wing damage to his endplate, while Verstappen had to go wide and dropped back to sixth from fourth.

McLaren held a solid one-two but could not drop Russell in the early phase, Piastri and Norris ran line astern, very much settled with a gap of just over a second, as they looked to manage their tyres with a heavy fuel load, given the front graining that had been such a feature of Saturday’s sprint race.

Despite the damage Leclerc was frustrated, feeling he was quicker than Hamilton, who was managing his rubber.

Hamilton and Verstappen made their opening pit stops on lap 14 to take the hard tyres. Piastri and Russell followed a lap later. Norris had to stay out for an extra lap and after his stop he emerged wheel to wheel with Russell, but he was also balked by Lance Stroll and Russell took the place with the undercut. He could not hold it long, however, as the pace of the McLaren told, with Norris piling through the inside at turn one with ease two laps later.

Leclerc was showing so much pace that Hamilton moved over for his teammate on lap 21, and after the stops played out Piastri led from Norris, Russell, Leclerc, Hamilton and Verstappen, who was unable to make any impact from sixth. Piastri was comfortable out in front at the halfway point, with Norris having deliberately dropped out of his teammate’s dirty air, three seconds back but easily able to close when ordered to do so by his team.

Hamilton took his second stop on lap 38 as the leaders considered whether they could eke their rubber out to a one-stop strategy, with Piastri confident he could make it, and indeed the hard tyres were good to the flag.

In a race light on drama there was late concern for Norris, who had issues with his brake pedal, and the team advised him to go easy on it to ensure a finish. Verstappen, having carefully watched his tyres, finally had some pace and caught Leclerc at the close and passed him on lap 53 for fourth.

Piastri eased over the line with complete control, with the McLarens having managed their pace with ease and a clear sense they had much more in the locker. The pecking order for the season is becoming clearer and Piastri and Norris are at its head.

After the race the FIA began its checks and two hours later confirmed penalties had been imposed on Hamilton, Leclerc and Gasly.

Britain’s rookie Ollie Bearman delivered a superb drive with some decisive overtaking and clever race craft to take eighth place for Haas. Alex Albon was seventh for Williams and his teammate Carlos Sainz in 10th, with Stroll in ninth for Aston Martin.

In graves at Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok, in Russia, lie the bodies of 663 British military personnel. Most of the dead lost their lives in the period just after the first world war, when allied troops were sent to support rightwing White forces in the Russian civil war against the Bolsheviks, while 41 are casualties from the second world war Arctic convoys.

Their resting places have been tended over decades by the Russian military and by private contractors, paid by the UK’s Commonwealth War Graves Commission. But after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, economic sanctions meant Britain could no longer pay for the graves to be maintained.

The two countries appear to have come to a private understanding, however. The commission has continued to maintain 674 Soviet graves in its cemeteries in the UK and around the world and, although it cannot be certain, it believes that the Russians are doing the same for the 663 British military personnel.

“We haven’t seen the graves but we think they are still being maintained,” said Gareth Hardware, the commission’s area director for the UK and northern countries. “We are maintaining their graves in our cemeteries.”

Officials at the commission, which is funded by Britain and other Commonwealth nations, think the majority of the graves are tended by the Russian navy, while a private contractor has continued to oversee plots in Arkhangelsk. “Although we are currently unable to pay him, we have written confirming we will when able to do so,” a spokesperson said.

Last summer, an amateur Russian historian took photographs of the graves in Arkhangelsk and they appeared to be in good condition. “The cemetery looks very well maintained. Someone is taking care of it, even in these difficult times,” he wrote in a blog post.

A British diplomat from the embassy in Moscow also went to Murmansk on Remembrance Day last year with a Russian counterpart and reported back that the cemetery there was in good condition.

At a commission conference at the Royal United Services Institute in London last week, the Russians’ apparent respect for the British dead was welcomed. V Adm Peter Hudson, vice-chair of the commission, said: “It transcends even those very fraught national relationships which exist between our two countries today.”

Relations between London and Moscow have become so strained that earlier this month Britain was labelled Russia’s public enemy number one after the country’s foreign intelligence service accused the UK of trying to derail Donald Trump’s attempts at a peace deal.

John Foreman, who served as Britain’s defence attaché in Moscow from 2019 to 2022 and visited all but one of the eight Commonwealth war cemeteries or memorials in the country, said it was a sign of how bad relations were between the two nations that there was no treaty governing the upkeep of graves. “This is all a very difficult issue with Russia, as we don’t have the treaties in place for all casualties of the 20th century,” he said. “I argued for a formal agreement while I was there.”

It is even more difficult in the Russian-occupied Crimea region of Ukraine, where mass burial grounds housing the remains of British soldiers from the Crimean war had already been built on or desecrated. “We’ve had no sight of those,” Foreman said, adding that British diplomats from Moscow and Kyiv had been prevented from getting there during the war.

Dirk Backen, general secretary of the German war graves commission, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge eV, still works with the Russians despite his country’s strained relationship with Moscow. “It’s the only thing still working,” he said. His commission oversees 600,000 German graves in Russia and other former areas of the eastern front. About 760,000 Soviet citizens were buried in Germany as a result of the second world war.

“We still recover Red Army soldiers in Germany each year and will provide them a proper grave in Germany,” he said. “And the Russian ambassador is invited, but is not allowed to give a speech in front of the TV camera because he will misuse this [to repeat] a narrative which explains why everything in Ukraine is justified.”

The commission’s cemeteries around the world have immaculate green lawns designed to be a reminder of English gardens. As well as international relations, climate change is a challenge and the commission said cemeteries will be redesigned over time to be more sustainable, with local plants and, in many locations, a less manicured look.

An Orthodox Jewish passenger says a United Airlines pilot forcibly removed him from an airplane bathroom while he was experiencing constipation, exposing his genitalia to other flyers during a flight from Tulum, Mexico, to Houston.

Yisroel Liebb, of New Jersey, described his trip through allegedly unfriendly skies in a federal lawsuit this week against the airline and the US Department of Homeland Security, whose officers he said boarded the plane upon landing and took him away in handcuffs.

Liebb and a fellow Orthodox Jewish traveler said they were forced to miss a connecting flight to New York City while US Customs and Border Protection officers paraded them through an airport terminal, placed them in holding cells and searched their luggage.

“CBP Officers responded to reports of a disturbance on a flight at the request of the airline,” said Hilton Beckham, the CBP assistant commissioner for public affairs. “Due to the ongoing litigation, we are unable to provide any further comment.”

United Airlines declined to comment. A message seeking comment was left for a lawyer representing Liebb and the other traveler, Jacob Sebbag.

In the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, Liebb said he had been in the bathroom in the back of the plane for about 20 minutes on 28 January when a flight attendant woke Sebbag from a nap and asked Sebbag to check on him.

Liebb said he explained his gastrointestinal predicament and assured Sebbag that he would be out soon. Sebbag then relayed that to the flight attendant, the lawsuit says.

About 10 minutes later, with Liebb still indisposed, the pilot approached Sebbag and asked him to check on Liebb, the lawsuit says. The pilot then yelled at Liebb to leave the bathroom immediately, the lawsuit says.

Liebb said he told the pilot that he was finishing up and would be out momentarily.

The pilot responded by breaking the lock, forcing the bathroom door open and pulling Liebb out with his pants still around his ankles, exposing his genitalia to Sebbag, flight attendants and nearby passengers, according to the lawsuit.

“The pilot became visibly enraged, broke the lock on the door and forced the door to the bathroom open, pulling Liebb out of the bathroom with his pants still around his ankles, exposing his genitalia to Sebbag, several flight attendants, and the nearby passengers on the plane,” the lawsuit said.

It added that Lieb said he felt “sexually violated and embarrassed after having been publicly exposed in the nude”.

“With Sebbag leading Liebb, the pilot proceeded to repeatedly push the [two] back to their seats while making threats of getting [them] arrested and making scathing remarks about their Judaism, and how ‘Jews act’,” the lawsuit continued.

After the two-hour flight landed in Houston, the men said about a half-dozen Customs and Border Protection officers boarded and escorted them off the plane.

Liebb said when he asked why they were being detained, an officer tightened his handcuffs and responded: “This isn’t county or state. We are homeland. You have no rights here.”

The men said United booked them on a flight to New York City the next day for free, but any savings from the complimentary tickets were lost because they had to pay for an overnight hotel stay and food during their delay.

The two men said that the handcuffs caused “severe wrist pain” that “persisted for days afterwards”.

Maya Yang contributed to this report.