The Atlantic magazine has published fresh messages from a group chat including top US officials in which they discuss operational details of plans to bomb Yemen.

The initial revelations by the magazine and its editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, who was accidentally added to the chat on the messaging app Signal, have sparked a huge outcry in the US, with the Trump administration facing withering attacks over the disastrous leak of sensitive information.

However, the magazine did not include specific details of the attack in its initial article, saying it did not want to jeopardise national security. But numerous Trump administration officials, responding to the scandal, have said that none of the information on the Signal chat chain was “classified information” – despite the Atlantic describing it as operational details of the US strike on Yemen’s Houthi militia, which has been attacking shipping in the Red Sea.

In a new article published on Wednesday – hours before a House intelligence committee hearing was set to begin featuring two participants in the chat, the US director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the CIA director, John Ratcliffe – the Atlantic said it was now releasing that information.

“There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared,” the magazine said.

The magazine then reproduced numerous messages from the text chat between the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth – who said on Tuesday that “nobody was texting war plans” – and top intelligence officials, including Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, who was in Russia at the time.

They included details of US bombings, drone launches and targeting information of the assault, including descriptions of weather conditions.

They also mention specific weapons to be used, timings for attacks and references to a “target terrorist”, presumably a Houthi militant. There is further discussion of confirmation that a target had been killed, and the use of several emojis.

“If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests – or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media – the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds. The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic,” the Atlantic wrote.

Trump administration officials yesterday claimed that the messages contained no classified information. Gabbard and Ratcliffe, who were participants in the chat, said the leak contained no classified information.

The Atlantic also quoted an email response from the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, after the magazine contacted the Trump administration to say it was considering publishing the entirety of the email chain, in which she said the chat did not include classified information but also that the White House did not want the messages released.

“As we have repeatedly stated, there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat,” Leavitt wrote. “However, as the CIA Director and National Security Advisor have both expressed today, that does not mean we encourage the release of the conversation.”

Donald Trump, when asked on Tuesday about the leak, also said: “It wasn’t classified information,” while adding that the leak was “the only glitch in two months”.

After the story was published, Leavitt once claimed on X that “these were NOT ‘war plans’. This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin.”

Waltz, too, wrote on social media: “No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS,” adding: “Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent. BOTTOM LINE: President Trump is protecting America and our interests.”

Democrats will probably use the intelligence committee hearing to demand an explanation of how operational military plans are not classified information, and how a detailed description of an upcoming strike noting the airplanes and drones used is not a war plan.

Last week, NPR reported that the Pentagon warned its staff specifically against the use of Signal because of its security vulnerabilities. In a Pentagon “OPSEC special bulletin” sent on 18 March, it warned that Russian hacking groups could aim to exploit the vulnerability.

The messages in the Signal chat were set to be automatically deleted in under four weeks. The Federal Records Act typically mandates that government communication records are kept for two years.

The Atlantic said it withheld the name of Ratcliffe’s chief of staff on request, but otherwise published the messages unredacted. It said it did not generally publish information about military operations if it could possibly harm US personnel but that accusations from the Trump administration that it was “lying” caused it to believe that “people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions”.

“There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared,” the magazine wrote.

The disclosure by the Atlantic of further devastating messages from the Signal chat group used by the Trump administration’s most senior security officials has nailed the lie that nothing that threatened the safety of US servicemen and women was shared on the group.

After the vague and evasive assertions by Trump officials at Monday’s Senate intelligence committee hearing, from the White House, and from the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, that no war plans or classified material was shared, readers can make up their own minds.

Despite Hegseth’s angry denial, the exchanges in the leaked group chat did contain details of war planning, shared recklessly by him in advance of the attack on 15 March, on a messaging system and perhaps devices which he and others in the chat could not have been certain were secure.

Most damning is the fact that Hegseth sent details in advance of the F-18s and other aircraft that would take part in the attack, including the timing of their arrival at targets, and other assets that would be deployed.

As Ryan Goodman, a law professor who formerly worked at the Pentagon, put it after the latest release: “The Atlantic has now published the Signal texts with attack plans in response to administration denials. I worked at the Pentagon. If information like this is not classified, nothing is. If Hegseth is claiming he declassified this information, he should be shown the door for having done so.”

In attempting to cover up and diminish their culpability for a shocking breach of operational security – including the fact that two participants in the chat were overseas (including one in Moscow at the time) – the Trump administration has made the scandal immeasurably more serious than it was already.

At the most simple level, the pilots who flew on those strikes should rightly be furious that the most senior civilian defence official placed them in harm’s way.

“If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests – or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media – the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds. The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic,” wrote Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic editor who was accidentally added to the chat.

A question that now needs to be answered is precisely why a group of senior officials, including a number who have served in the US armed forces – including the director of National intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, the vice-president, JD Vance, and Hegseth – agreed to join a conversation on such a platform.

All of them will be aware of not just the stringent rules around operational security (Opsec in military jargon) but the absolute necessity to protect the lives of those you serve with.

The strong suspicion voiced by a number of commentators is that this group, like other senior officials in the Trump administration, have been using services like Signal to avoid oversight despite potentially being in breach of federal laws on record retention.

In other words, lives were casually put at risk to shirk another significant responsibility of the highest offices: accountability.

What happens next is key.

In any normal circumstances and in any previous era, Hegseth and Waltz would be expected to resign immediately: Hegseth for sharing what any reasonable observer would regard as details of war plans – and then lying about having done so – and Waltz for his shocking sloppiness around security.

But whether or not they will resign or be dismissed by a dysfunctional president, equally hostile to the notion he should be held accountable, is an open question.

What should be clear to already shocked allies of the US is that not only is intelligence and other sensitive material not safe in the hands of Trump’s senior security officials, but that they cannot be counted on to be truthful individually or as a group.

House Democrats will on Wednesday demand answers from two US intelligence chiefs who were revealed as members of a group chat used by Trump administration officials to discuss plans to bomb Yemen in the presence of a journalist, just hours after the full transcript of the conversation was released.

News of the group chat’s existence and the inclusion of Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, has prompted outrage on Capitol Hill at a convenient time for Democrats, who are in the minority in both the Senate and House of Representatives and reeling from Donald Trump’s return to the White House two months ago.

Responding to attacks on Goldberg’s reputation from Trump and other top officials as well as their claims that no classified information was revealed, the Atlantic published the texts in their entirety on Wednesday morning. The messages show that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, shared in the group precise timings of the air strikes, which the outlet notes could have put US pilots at risk if they had been intercepted.

The messages are expected to come up when the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, both participants in the group chat on the Signal app, give annual testimony to the House intelligence committee with their assessments of the threats facing the United States.

“I am horrified by reports that our most senior national security officials, including the heads of multiple agencies, shared sensitive and almost certainly classified information via a commercial messaging application, including imminent war plans,” the Democratic ranking member Jim Himes said.

“These individuals know the calamitous risks of transmitting classified information across unclassified systems, and they also know that if a lower-ranking official under their command did what is described here, they would likely lose their clearance and be subject to criminal investigation. The American people deserve answers, and I plan to get some on Wednesday at the intelligence committee’s worldwide threats hearing.”

When Ratcliffe and Gabbard appeared a Senate intelligence committee hearing on Tuesday, Democrats questioned them extensively about the Signal group, while Republicans either avoided the topic or said they would ask about it in a private session.

Gabbard declined to answer many questions, saying the matter was under investigation by the national security council, while Ratcliffe argued that using Signal was permitted by government rules. However, both declined to give many specifics, including how Goldberg came to be added to the group.

“You’re the CIA director. Why didn’t you call out that [Goldberg] was present on the Signal thread?” the Democratic senator Michael Bennet asked Ratcliffe at one point.

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro will stand trial for allegedly orchestrating a violent plot to seize power through a military coup, after the country’s supreme court decided he should face criminal prosecution.

The ruling leaves the far-right populist, who governed Brazil from 2019 until the end of 2022, facing political oblivion and a possible jail sentence of more than 40 years.

The supreme court decided that seven other close allies of the ex-president should also stand trial for crimes including involvement in an armed criminal organization, coup d’état and violently attempting to abolish Brazilian democracy.

They are: Bolsonaro’s former defense ministers Gen Walter Braga Netto and Gen Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira; his former navy commander, Adm Almir Garnier Santos; his former security minister, Anderson Torres; his former spy chief Alexandre Ramagem; his former minister for institutional security, Gen Augusto Heleno; and his former assistant, Lt Col Mauro Cid, who, if convicted, will receive a lighter sentence after he struck a plea deal with prosecutors.

The men are accused of forming the kernel of a sprawling conspiracy to keep Bolsonaro in power after he narrowly lost the 2022 presidential election to his leftwing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

On Wednesday five supreme court judges – Cristiano Zanin, Alexandre de Moraes, Luiz Fux, Flávio Dino and Cármen Lúcia – unanimously ruled that there was sufficient evidence for all of those men to face prosecution and officially declared them defendants.

The accusations relate to an alleged plan to stage a pro-Bolsonaro coup in the months between the October 2022 election and the far-right riots that broke out in Brasília on 8 January 2023 – one week after Lula’s inauguration.

Those attacks – which many believe were inspired by the 6 January 2021 storming of the US Capitol – were allegedly incited as part of a last-ditch attempt to return Bolsonaro to the presidency, against the public will, by creating turmoil that would justify a military intervention.

“It was a veritable pitched battle … It was an extraordinarily violent attempted coup d’état,” the supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes told the court as he showed video footage of Bolsonarista hooligans vandalizing the supreme court and attacking police in the capital.

“Untamed violence – utter insolence … These images leave no doubt as to the materiality and the gravity of the crimes committed,” Moraes added.

In the weeks and months before the rightwing rampage in Brasília, a series of other machinations were allegedly afoot in the hope of stopping Lula taking power – some of them deadly. Police claim one sub-plot – code-named “Green and Yellow Dagger” – included plans to cause social and political chaos by assassinating Lula with poison and shooting the supreme court judge Moraes dead.

Brazil’s attorney general, Paulo Gonet, told the court police investigators had “uncovered a terrifying operation to carry out the coup, which even included killing the president and vice-president elect, as well as that of a supreme court minister”.

One assassination plot “envisaged using explosives, military ordnance and poison … [and] the operators only didn’t follow through on what had been agreed because they didn’t manage to … co-opt the commander of the army,” Gonet added, urging judges to put Bolsonaro and his alleged accomplices on trial.

Bolsonaro rejected the charges in a lengthy WhatsApp statement sent to allies as the hearing began on Tuesday, calling the case against him “an aberration, the like of which has never been seen before”. “They are accusing me of a crime I never committed – a supposed attempted coup,” Bolsonaro claimed, insisting he had never desired or suggested “a democratic rupture”.

However, the former president admitted having discussed what he called “political alternatives for the nation” with his aides.

In court, lawyers for the accused also denied their clients had broken the law, although many stopped short of denying a coup attempt had taken place.

Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Celso Vilardi, denied the ex-president had been involved in the 8 January uprising or led a criminal organization that plotted to murder Lula and other top authorities.

José Luis Mendes de Oliveira Lima, a lawyer representing Braga Netto, called his client “a man of unblemished reputation” who was not guilty of “any kind of criminal act”.

Oliveira’s lawyer, Andrew Fernandes Faris, called the former defense minister “a most honourable man”, and called for the charges against him to be thrown out.

The lawyer for Torres, Eumar Novacki, denied his client was part of the “macabre coup drama” and claimed the investigation was filled with “false conclusions”.

Demóstenes Torres, representing Santos, also denied his client was part of the plot and attacked the “federal police novelists” he claimed had concocted a fictional narrative about the supposed conspiracy.

Ramagem’s lawyer, Paulo Renato Garcia Cintra Pinto, said it would have made no sense for his client to have tried to destroy Brazil’s democracy since he had himself just been elected to congress in the 2022 election.

Bernardo Mello Franco, a political commentator for the newspaper O Globo, said he saw little chance of the ex-president avoiding jail. “Bolsonaro will probably be convicted, Bolsonaro will probably be arrested – or he’ll go into exile, he’ll flee the country … From a judicial standpoint Bolsonaro’s cornered,” he said.

Bolsonaro’s best chance of a “political resurrection” lay in helping elect a rightwing ally in next year’s presidential election who would agree to pardoning him after taking power. His congressman son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, and wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, were possible candidates.

The far-right populist was also banking on support from his most important foreign ally, the US president, Donald Trump, in his quest to avoid jail and ensure his political survival.

“Bolsonaro is hoping Trump will be a kind of saviour for him, both politically and judicially. He believes Trump will somehow interfere in Brazilian politics to help him,” said Mello Franco, although he suspected Trump had bigger fish to fry.

“Right now, I think Trump seems to have greater priorities than Brazil … [and that] the Bolsonaros are paying more attention to Trump than Trump is paying to Bolsonaro.”

The Oscar-winning Palestinian film director Hamdan Ballal has said that Israeli settlers who attacked him were aided by two Israeli soldiers who beat him with the butt of their rifles outside his home and threatened to kill him.

In an interview with the Guardian, Ballal, one of the four directors of the film No Other Land, which documented the destruction of villages in the West Bank and won best documentary at this year’s Academy Awards, recounted how on Monday two Israeli soldiers first encircled him while a settler was assaulting him, before violently striking him on the head and threatening to shoot him.

“It all started around 6pm on Monday,” said Ballal, who was released on Tuesday after Israeli forces detained him in a police station in the West Bank. “We had finished our daily Ramadan fast in Susya in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, when someone called me to say that settlers had entered our village.”

Some of the settlers were armed with batons, others had knives and one of them was holding an M16 rifle, witnesses told the Guardian. Among them were a group of Israeli soldiers who escorted the settlers inside the village where Ballal lives.

“Because I work for a human rights organisation called Haqel: in Defense of Human Rights, and because I’m also a photographer, I went there to document what was happening,” he said. “I took three or four photos, and then I realised that the situation was deteriorating. There were dozens of settlers, and they were becoming increasingly aggressive.”

Masked settlers with sticks started attacking Palestinian residents, including a group of Jewish activists, smashing their car windows and slashing tyres, according to Josh Kimelman, an activist with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence (CJNV). Video provided by the group showed a masked settler shoving and swinging his fists at two activists in a dusty field at night.

“In that precise moment, I thought about my family, who were at home,” Balla said. ‘‘I ran to them and told my wife, ‘Lock the house and keep the children inside.’ They could have attacked me, but by doing so they wouldn’t have harmed my family.’’

One settler, escorted by two Israeli soldiers, walked straight over to Ballal’s house. Soldiers started shooting in the air to prevent anyone from supporting Ballal, who was shouting for help.

“The soldiers pointed their rifles at me while the settler from behind began beating me,” Ballal said. “They threw me to the ground, and the settler started hitting me on the head. Then a soldier also began beating me; with the butt of his rifle, he struck me on the head. After that, he fired his weapon in the air. I don’t understand Hebrew, but I gathered that he said the next rifle shot would hit me. In that moment, I thought I was going to die.”

Injured, handcuffed and blindfolded, Ballal and two other Palestinians were moved by the soldiers to a military vehicle and then to a police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, where they spent the night on the floor and were forced to sleep under a freezing air conditioner.

Ballal’s lawyer, Lea Tsemel, said they received only minimal care for their injuries from the attack and that she had no access to them for several hours after their arrest.

The Guardian has contacted the Israel Defense Forces for comment.

“It was a revenge for our movie,” Ballal said. “I heard the voices of the soldiers, they were laughing about me … I heard [the word] ‘Oscar’.”

Earlier this month, Ballal and the other directors of No Other Land, which looks at the struggles of living under Israeli occupation, appeared on stage at the 97th Academy Awards in Los Angeles to accept the Oscar for best documentary film.

The joint Israeli-Palestinian production has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin international film festival in 2024. It has also drawn ire in Israel and abroad. Miami Beach in Florida proposed ending the lease of a theatre that screened it. Israel’s culture minister has called the Oscar win “a sad moment for the world of cinema”.

“We won the Oscar just three weeks ago, and the violence has escalated,” Ballal said. “Not only against me, not only against the activists and other crew members of the film, but against all the residents.”

The No Other Land co-director Yuval Abraham claimed on X that the “US Academy [of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organises the Oscars], sadly, declined to publicly support Hamdan Ballal while he was beaten and tortured by Israeli soldiers and settlers. Several US Academy members – especially in the documentary branch – pushed for a statement, but it was ultimately refused. We were told that because other Palestinians were beaten up in the settler attack, it could be considered unrelated to the film, so they felt no need to respond.”

“In other words,” Abraham added, “while Hamdan was clearly targeted for making No Other Land, he was also targeted for being Palestinian – like countless others every day who are disregarded. This, it seems, gave the Academy an excuse to remain silent when a filmmaker they honored, living under Israeli occupation, needed them the most.”

The Academy has been contacted for comment.

The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. About 1,000 people have largely remained in place, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards, and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.

During the war in Gaza, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank during wide-scale military operations, and there has also been a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians.

CJNV shared details of at least 43 attacks in the village of Susya since the beginning of the year, perpetrated by violent settlers.

“They won’t stop here,” Ballal said. “The settlers will continue to attack us. I’m more scared now than before.”

“After what they did to me,” he added, “I fear it could now happen to others.”

Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s international editor, has accused the Israeli government of blocking journalists from Gaza because of scenes “they don’t want us to see”.

Bowen said that in the last 18 months, he had been granted only half a day with the Israeli army within Gaza. He said that the lack of access was part of an attempt to “obfuscate what’s going on, and to inject this notion of doubt into information that comes out”.

Speaking after he accepted a special fellowship award for the Society of Editors conference, he said that while Palestinian journalists were doing “fantastic work”, he and other international media colleagues wanted to contribute to reporting on the ground in Gaza.

“Why don’t they let us in,” he said. “Because there’s stuff there they don’t want us to see. Beginning after those Hamas attacks on 7 October, they took us into the border communities. I was in Kfar Aza when there was still fighting going on inside it. They had only just started taking out the bodies of the dead Israelis. Why did they let us in there? Because they wanted us to see it.

“Why don’t they let us in to Gaza? Because they don’t want us to see it. I think it’s really as simple as that. Israel took a bit of flak for that to start with, but none now, certainly not with [President] Trump. So I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

The Israeli government has been approached for comment. However, Israel’s military has previously said that it has escorted journalists to Gaza to allow them to report safely. According to the Foreign Press Association, Israel’s defence authorities have said that journalists in Gaza could be at risk in wartime and could endanger soldiers by reporting on troop positions. Scores of journalists have been killed since the war started.

Asked about whether international media should trust Gaza casualty figures released by the territory’s health ministry, which is led by Hamas, Bowen said the numbers were currently “the best measure that we have” because of the inability of reporters and other bodies to verify them. The ministry says more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war.

“I think without question, it’s the bloodiest war that they’ve had since the foundation of the Israeli state of 1948,” Bowen said. “If the place could open up, people could go through, look at the records, count the graves, exhume the skeletons from under the rubble and then they’d get a better idea. But when the doors shut, these things become very, very difficult.”

Last year, Bowen was among 50 journalists, including the BBC’s Lyse Doucet and its former presenter Mishal Husain, calling on Israel and Egypt to provide “free and unfettered access to Gaza for all foreign media”.

Bowen’s intervention comes with the BBC still investigating the making of the documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, which was pulled from iPlayer after it emerged that the 13-year-old who narrated the film, Abdullah al-Yazouri, was the son of the deputy minister of agriculture in the Hamas government.

Denmark has welcomed the Trump administration’s decision to scale back an unsolicited visit to Greenland as a sign the US is “de-escalating” after the planned trip sparked a diplomatic row with the Arctic island and Denmark.

The trip was originally to have involved a delegation led by the US second lady, Usha Vance, and including the White House national security adviser, Mike Waltz, visiting the Greenlandic capital, Nuuk, and a dog sled race.

But after strong public statements opposing the visit from Greenland’s prime minister, Múte B Egede, and his Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen, it was announced that the trip would be more contained in scale and feature only a visit to the island’s US military base, Pituffik.

The vice-president, JD Vance, said on Tuesday he would be joining his wife, a step that the Danish foreign minister appeared to allude to when he said the US was giving the impression of escalating the row “when they’re actually de-escalating”.

The White House has not yet confirmed whether or not Waltz, who has since become embroiled in an embarrassing security leak, will still be travelling. His name was omitted from a list of those attending.

“I actually think it is very positive that the Americans are cancelling their visit to the Greenlandic community. Then they will instead make a visit to their own base, Pituffik, and we have nothing against that,” Rasmussen told the Danish broadcaster DR.

Rasmussen was speaking on Wednesday, as US planes were preparing to take off from Nuuk airport after reportedly being loaded with bulletproof cars that had been delivered in preparation for the visit.

“The short of it is that the cars that were delivered a few days ago are now being brought back home, and there will be no visit from the US vice-president’s wife and their security adviser to the Greenlandic community. It is being packed up, and that is positive,” Rasmussen said.

He added: “It’s kind of a masterful spin in many ways, to make it look like they’re escalating when they’re actually de-escalating.”

The change of plans was claimed as a diplomatic victory by Copenhagen and Nuuk, which is now being led by a caretaker government while coalition talks continue after a general election earlier this month.

Greenland, a former Danish colony, is now a semi-autonomous territory within the kingdom of Denmark, but its foreign and security policies are run by Copenhagen.

On Tuesday, Frederiksen accused the US of putting “unacceptable pressure” on Greenland and Denmark – vowing: “It is pressure that we will resist.”

Donald Trump, who has repeatedly said he wants to acquire the vast Arctic island for the US, had said that the American delegation was invited by Greenlandic “officials”. The Nuuk government responded by saying it had not issued any invitations for visits – “either official or private”. Egede had already accused Washington of “foreign interference.”

Pele Broberg, the leader of Naleraq, the most Trump and US-friendly Greenlandic party, which on Monday became the first party to leave coalition talks, accused the Danish media of prompting fears of “annexation”.

“We have more or less missed the chance to have a normal relationship with the US in the future, but I of course hope I am wrong,” he told Sermitsiaq.

Announcing that he would be joining his wife on the trip to Greenland, vice-president Vance said in a video on X: “Speaking for president Trump, we want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it’s important to protecting the security of the entire world.”

Drew Horn, who worked in various roles in the first Trump administration and is now an investor in Greenlandic minerals, said the US government’s intentions for the trip had been “manipulated and misrepresented”.

“The intent is to demonstrate friendliness and commitment to supporting security for Greenland. The intentions have been manipulated and misrepresented with a bunch of noise coming out of Denmark,” he said. “So the vice-president now is looking basically to do a troop visit and keep it very traditional.”

Horn, who is chief executive of Washington DC-based mineral investment company GreenMet, added: “It is not a threat, it is not a show of force, it is not meant to influence or interfere with the new government.”

Usha Vance, he said, had been invited to Greenland by the organisers of the dog sled race “as a show of friendship to learn more about the Greenlandic culture”.

Ukraine’s president has accused Russia of being insincere about moving towards peace as he reported an attack by 117 drones, just a day after both countries had agreed to a maritime ceasefire subject to Moscow obtaining agricultural sanctions relief.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that launching nationwide strikes after the peace negotiations was proof of Russia’s true intentions, though the Kremlin insisted the US-brokered talks were proceeding constructively.

Four people were reported killed and six injured across Ukraine by regional governors overnight, while the country’s air force said it shot down 56 of the 117 incoming drones and another 48 were decoys that caused no damage.

“Last night, there were another 117 proofs in our skies of how Russia continues to drag out this war,” Zelenskyy posted on X. “Launching such large-scale attacks after ceasefire negotiations is a clear signal to the whole world that Moscow is not going to pursue real peace.”

Russia’s defence ministry countered by saying that Ukraine had sought to strike Russian energy facilities overnight, targeting a gas storage site in occupied Crimea and electricity transmission in the border region of Bryansk.

“Thus, the Kyiv regime, while continuing to damage the Russian civilian energy infrastructure, is actually doing everything it can to thwart the agreements reached” by negotiators from Russia and the US, the Russian ministry said, though it was not immediately possible to verify the claims.

Parallel talks between Russia and the US and the US and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia this week had reached agreement on implementing a ceasefire in the Black Sea and a 30-day halt to strikes on energy targets already agreed to in principle by the Ukrainian and Russian leaders.

But the Kremlin emphasised that its agreement to a ceasefire was conditional on the US helping ease access to its exports of food and fertiliser, and the reconnection of state agricultural bank Rosselkhozbank to the Swift payments system. The US said it was studying the Russian request.

At a briefing on Wednesday, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, praised the talks. “We are satisfied with how pragmatically and constructively our dialogue is developing and by how it is yielding results,” he said.

A list of Russian and Ukrainian targets to be covered by the energy moratorium had been agreed with the help of US negotiators, Peskov added, a point that had been announced by Zelenskyy the day before. Ukraine’s leader said the energy ceasefire should be ready to come into force from today.

Donald Trump has been pressing for a full end to the fighting in Ukraine, declaring on the campaign trail before his election that he could end the war in 24 hours, though earlier this month he described his own statement as “a little bit sarcastic”.

So far the parallel negotiations that took place in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, have brought relatively modest results – and raised questions over whether a full ceasefire is possible given the lack of trust between Moscow and Kyiv and ongoing fighting.

Overnight, the US president even questioned whether Putin was committed to a peace deal at this stage. “I think that Russia wants to see an end to it, but it could be they’re dragging their feet,” Trump said in a TV interview.

“I’ve done it over the years, you know; I don’t want to sign a contract, I want to sort of stay in the game, but maybe I don’t want to do it, quite … I’m not sure. But no, I think Russia would like to see it end, and I think Zelenskyy would like to see it end at this point,” he told Newsmax.

Ukraine’s strategy is to engage constructively in the talks, showing it is ready to agree to intermediate ceasefire proposals, and switch the onus on peace to Russia in the belief the Kremlin will raise more pre-conditions.

Moscow, however, appears focused on what it can obtain from the US, with Trump acknowledging the US had had discussions about a division of Ukrainian territory with the Kremlin. No such negotiations had been had with Ukraine, Zelenskyy said on Tuesday.

Ukraine’s president has accused Russia of being insincere about moving towards peace as he reported an attack by 117 drones, just a day after both countries had agreed to a maritime ceasefire subject to Moscow obtaining agricultural sanctions relief.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that launching nationwide strikes after the peace negotiations was proof of Russia’s true intentions, though the Kremlin insisted the US-brokered talks were proceeding constructively.

Four people were reported killed and six injured across Ukraine by regional governors overnight, while the country’s air force said it shot down 56 of the 117 incoming drones and another 48 were decoys that caused no damage.

“Last night, there were another 117 proofs in our skies of how Russia continues to drag out this war,” Zelenskyy posted on X. “Launching such large-scale attacks after ceasefire negotiations is a clear signal to the whole world that Moscow is not going to pursue real peace.”

Russia’s defence ministry countered by saying that Ukraine had sought to strike Russian energy facilities overnight, targeting a gas storage site in occupied Crimea and electricity transmission in the border region of Bryansk.

“Thus, the Kyiv regime, while continuing to damage the Russian civilian energy infrastructure, is actually doing everything it can to thwart the agreements reached” by negotiators from Russia and the US, the Russian ministry said, though it was not immediately possible to verify the claims.

Parallel talks between Russia and the US and the US and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia this week had reached agreement on implementing a ceasefire in the Black Sea and a 30-day halt to strikes on energy targets already agreed to in principle by the Ukrainian and Russian leaders.

But the Kremlin emphasised that its agreement to a ceasefire was conditional on the US helping ease access to its exports of food and fertiliser, and the reconnection of state agricultural bank Rosselkhozbank to the Swift payments system. The US said it was studying the Russian request.

At a briefing on Wednesday, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, praised the talks. “We are satisfied with how pragmatically and constructively our dialogue is developing and by how it is yielding results,” he said.

A list of Russian and Ukrainian targets to be covered by the energy moratorium had been agreed with the help of US negotiators, Peskov added, a point that had been announced by Zelenskyy the day before. Ukraine’s leader said the energy ceasefire should be ready to come into force from today.

Donald Trump has been pressing for a full end to the fighting in Ukraine, declaring on the campaign trail before his election that he could end the war in 24 hours, though earlier this month he described his own statement as “a little bit sarcastic”.

So far the parallel negotiations that took place in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, have brought relatively modest results – and raised questions over whether a full ceasefire is possible given the lack of trust between Moscow and Kyiv and ongoing fighting.

Overnight, the US president even questioned whether Putin was committed to a peace deal at this stage. “I think that Russia wants to see an end to it, but it could be they’re dragging their feet,” Trump said in a TV interview.

“I’ve done it over the years, you know; I don’t want to sign a contract, I want to sort of stay in the game, but maybe I don’t want to do it, quite … I’m not sure. But no, I think Russia would like to see it end, and I think Zelenskyy would like to see it end at this point,” he told Newsmax.

Ukraine’s strategy is to engage constructively in the talks, showing it is ready to agree to intermediate ceasefire proposals, and switch the onus on peace to Russia in the belief the Kremlin will raise more pre-conditions.

Moscow, however, appears focused on what it can obtain from the US, with Trump acknowledging the US had had discussions about a division of Ukrainian territory with the Kremlin. No such negotiations had been had with Ukraine, Zelenskyy said on Tuesday.

Indian film censors have blocked the release of critically acclaimed film Santosh over concerns about its portrayal of misogyny, Islamophobia and violence in the Indian police force.

Santosh, written and directed by British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri, is set in north India and has won international plaudits for its portrayal of a young widow who joins the police force and investigates the murder of a young Dalit girl.

The film is an unflinching fictional portrayal of the murkier elements of the Indian police force, depicting deep-rooted misogyny, discrimination against Dalits – the lowest caste in India previously known as untouchables – and the normalisation of mistreatment and torture by police officers. The film also grapples with the issue of sexual violence in India, particularly against lower caste women, and the rising tide of anti-Muslim prejudice in the country.

Santosh made its debut at Cannes film festival to widespread acclaim. It was the UK’s official entry for the Oscars’ international feature category and went on to be nominated for a Bafta for best debut feature this year, as well as receiving glowing reviews, including five stars in the Observer, which called it a “phenomenal achievement”. Its lead actor, Shahana Goswami, recently won best actress at the Asian film awards.

The film was made in India, has an entirely Indian cast and is all in Hindi, the dominant language of north India. The filmmakers had previously submitted the script in order to film in India and had faced no issues. India’s largest cinema chain was also on board to distribute the film in January.

However, Indian audiences are unlikely to ever be able to see it in cinemas after censors on the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), a government body which approves all cinematic releases, refused to do so for Santosh over concerns about its negative portrayal of the police.

Suri, the film’s writer and director, described the decision by the censors as “disappointing and heartbreaking”.

“It was surprising for all of us because I didn’t feel that these issues were particularly new to Indian cinema or hadn’t been raised before by other films,” she said.

Suri said the censors had demanded a list radical cuts so lengthy and wide-ranging that they would be “impossible” to implement. Legal restrictions prevented her sharing exact details of the censor’s demands, but she said that the list of cuts was so long it had gone on for several pages, and included concerns about themes relating to police conduct and wider societal problems which are deeply baked into the film.

“It was very important to me that the film is released in India so I did try to figure out if there was a way to make it work,” said Suri. “But in the end it was just too difficult to make those cuts and have a film that still made sense, let alone stayed true to its vision.”

Suri emphasised that while the film offered an uncompromising depiction of the police, “I don’t feel my film glorifies violence in a way that many other films focusing on the police have done. There’s nothing sensationalist about it.”

The decision by the censorship board comes at a time when India’s cultural sphere is seen to be more heavily policed than ever, with films and TV series dealing with politically sensitive themes often targeted with hate campaigns and police cases, or dropped by streaming platforms before they are released.

Suri admitted she had been “nervous” about releasing the film in India in the current climate but insisted it was “vitally important” for her that the very people affected by the issues in the film were able to see it. It was the incident in 2012 of a women raped on a bus in Delhi, commonly known as the Nirbhaya case, that had initially inspired her to make the film and she had collaborated with Indian non-government organisations when building up the story.

Police violence and torture is a well-documented issue in India. According to a 2020 Human Rights Watch report, police in India routinely use torture and flout arrest procedures with little or no accountability.

Depictions of police violence have also previously appeared in Indian cinema but Suri questioned whether the highly realistic depictions in Santosh – as opposed to the often stylised format of Bollywood and other Indian film industries – had caused discomfort among the censors.

“Maybe there’s something about this film which is troubling in that everybody is morally compromised and there is no single hero,” she said. “I think that’s what might set it apart from other stories in Indian cinema which often show a maverick cop in a rotten system.”

No Indian police figures have responded to coverage of the film, which is set in a fictional north Indian town. The CBFC have been contacted for comment.

There is no appeals process or negotiation allowed with the CBFC once their report is submitted and the matter can be contested only in court. However, Suri said she would still keep fighting to have the film available to Indian audiences.

“All my work has been about India; one film was deeply nostalgic, another was super beautiful and sensual,” she said, “Yes this one shows another face of the country. But there’s humanity in everybody in this film.”

• Santosh is currently on release in UK cinemas

Humans are driving biodiversity loss among all species across the planet, according to a synthesis of more than 2,000 studies.

The exhaustive global analysis leaves no doubt about the devastating impact humans are having on Earth, according to researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) and the University of Zurich. The study – which accounted for nearly 100,000 sites across all continents – found that human activities had resulted in “unprecedented effects on biodiversity”, according to the paper, published in Nature.

Florian Altermatt, professor of aquatic ecology at the University of Zurich and head of Eawag, said: “It is one of the largest syntheses of the human impacts on biodiversity ever conducted worldwide.”

The team looked at terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats, as well as including all groups of organisms, including microbes, fungi, plants, invertebrates, fish, birds and mammals.

Human pressures distinctly shifted community composition (essentially, which species live where) and decreased local diversity, researchers found. On average, the number of species at human-impacted sites was almost 20% lower than at sites unaffected by humans.

Particularly severe losses were recorded among reptiles, amphibians and mammals, according to the paper. Their populations are often smaller than invertebrates, which increases the chances of extinction.

The analysis covered five drivers of decline: habitat change, direct exploitation of resources (such as hunting or fishing), climate change, invasive species and pollution.

François Keck, lead author and a postdoctoral researcher in Altermatt’s research group, said: “Our findings show that all five factors have a strong impact on biodiversity worldwide, in all groups of organisms and in all ecosystems.”

Pollution and habitat changes, often driven by agriculture, have a particularly negative impact on biodiversity. Intensive agriculture – especially arable farming – involves large amounts of pesticides and fertilisers, which result in a decline of biodiversity, but also shifts the composition of species. The full extent of climate change and how it affects species is not entirely understood.

While the overall effect of human intervention was negative, some ambiguities remained: human impact on wildlife varied by location, as did the degree to which biodiversity was homogenised by human activity, researchers said.

Before this paper there had never been an attempt to combine findings from such a large number of biodiversity research studies examining humans’ impact everywhere on the planet and in all groups of organisms; most studies were limited to looking at either a single location or a specific human impact. This meant it was difficult to make general statements about the impacts of human activity on biodiversity, researchers say.

Keck said: “It’s not just the number of species that is declining. Human pressure is also changing the composition of species communities.”

In mountainous areas, for example, specialised plants are being replaced by those that typically grow at lower altitudes. This process is known as the “elevator to extinction” as high-altitude plants have nowhere else to go. This could mean that while the number of species might remain the same, the diversity is reduced.

“Bending the curve of contemporary biodiversity loss and change is one of the greatest challenges facing our society,” the researchers stated. They said the paper should provide an “important benchmark” for the development and assessment of future conservation strategies.

Lynn Dicks, professor of ecology at Cambridge University, described it as a “useful and important analysis”, but said the findings revealed “no great surprises”.

She said: “We know that humans are hugely changing biodiversity across the planet, causing new and different communities of plants, animals and microbes to form, which can cope with the sometimes very harsh conditions we create.

“A big concern for me is how to ensure that those species that can live alongside us, many of which provide key ecological functions like pollination, decomposition and seed dispersal, have large enough populations and enough genetic diversity to continue evolving.”

Prof Alexandre Antonelli, director of science at Kew Gardens, said the paper showed with “unprecedented clarity the ubiquitous negative influence of human activities on nature”.

He added: “This is an excellent piece of research that demonstrates the importance of biological inclusion – from plants and fungi to mammals and fish – in assessing the impact of humans on biodiversity at local, regional and global scales.”

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on the Guardian app for all the latest news and features

The Duke of Sussex has resigned from an African charity he set up 20 years ago after infighting in the organisation, saying he is “in shock” and “truly heartbroken”.

Prince Harry and the co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho both stepped down as patrons on Tuesday until further notice after trustees quit over a dispute with the chair, Dr Sophie Chandauka, a lawyer who was appointed in 2023.

The Duke established Sentebale in Lesotho in 2006 in honour of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, after visiting the southern African country during his gap year. The dispute arose around a decision to focus fundraising in Africa, according to the Times.

Harry and Seeiso said in a statement: “These trustees acted in the best interest of the charity in asking the chair to step down, while keeping the wellbeing of staff in mind. In turn, she sued the charity to remain in this voluntary position, further underscoring the broken relationship.

“We thank all the trustees for their service over the years and are truly heartbroken they’ve had to follow through with this act.

“What’s transpired is unthinkable. We are in shock that we have to do this, but we have a continued responsibility to Sentebale’s beneficiaries, so we will be sharing all of our concerns with the Charity Commission as to how this came about.”

Harry’s role at Sentebale was one of a small number of private patronages he retained after he was stripped of his royal patronages and honorary military positions by the late Queen in 2021 after his departure from the working monarchy.

Sentebale, which means “Forget me not”, was created to help people in Lesotho and Botswana living in poverty and those suffering from HIV and Aids. Former trustees Timothy Boucher, Mark Dyer, Audrey Kgosidintsi, Kelello Lerotholi and Damian West released a statement announcing their decision to unanimously resign as board members.

“Today’s decision is nothing short of devastating for all of us, but we see no other path forward as the result of our loss in trust and confidence in the chair of the board.”

A spokesperson for the charity said it has not received resignations from either royal patron, adding: “We are pleased to confirm the restructuring of our board on 25 March 2025 to introduce experts with the capabilities and networks to accelerate Sentebale’s transformation agenda as announced last year.”

In response, Chandauka said: “Everything I do at Sentebale is in pursuit of the integrity of the organisation, its mission, and the young people we serve. My actions are guided by the principles of fairness and equitable treatment for all, regardless of social status or financial means.

“There are people in this world who behave as though they are above the law and mistreat people, and then play the victim card and use the very press they disdain to harm people who have the courage to challenge their conduct.

“Discerning readers will ask themselves: why would the chair of the board report her own trustees to the Charity Commission? Why would the high court of England and Wales hear her case and issue an emergency injunction to prevent the same trustees from removing her as the chair of the board?

“Well, because beneath all the victim narrative and fiction that has been syndicated to press is the story of a woman who dared to blow the whistle about issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir – and the cover-up that ensued.”

The Charity Commission told the BBC it was “aware of concerns about the governance” of Sentebale. “We are assessing the issues to determine the appropriate regulatory steps,” the commission said in a statement.

The French actor Gérard Depardieu sexually assaulted an assistant director on three occasions while she was working with him on a film shoot, placing his hands on her buttocks and breasts, leaving her feeling “petrified”, the woman told Paris’s criminal court on Tuesday.

Depardieu – the biggest French cinema star to face trial for sexual assault since the #MeToo movement – is charged with sexually assaulting the assistant director three times during the shooting of the feature film Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters) in Paris in 2021.

He is also on trial for the sexual assault of a set decorator on the same film, who alleged he gripped her hard between his legs while grabbing her body. He faces up to five years in prison and a fine of €75,000 (£63,000) if convicted of the offences.

Depardieu denies any wrongdoing, telling the court this week: “I deny all of it.”

The woman employed as third assistant film director has not been named in the media. She was tasked with accompanying Depardieu from his dressing room on to the set during the filming.

She told the court a first sexual assault happened during a night-shoot in Paris, when she found herself alone with Depardieu at the end of a short road where his dressing room was located as they walked towards an outdoor set.

She said she felt his hand on her buttock. “It happened by surprise, I was shocked. I didn’t know how to react … I carried on as if nothing had happened, kept walking to the set. I had a knot in my stomach.”

She said the second assault happened at a later date on a set inside a Paris apartment, where Depardieu blocked her against a door and put his two hands on her breasts. She told the court: “I said no. I was scared.” She said that on a third occasion Depardieu put his hand on her buttocks and she again said: “No.”

The assistant director told the court that before this, Depardieu “talked about sex all day on set, constantly talking of ‘pussy’ to everyone”. She said: “He listens a lot, observes everyone, listens to everything and uses it later to humiliate everyone. At the time, I was having a difficult separation. I’d spoken to someone about it, so he mocked me for it. There were lewd comments, humiliations; it was an unhealthy environment.”

She said she felt ashamed of what Depardieu had done and did not want to speak out because she wanted to continue working on the film and handle the situation herself. But when her direct superior asked how she was getting on with Depardieu, she told her all that had happened.

The assistant director said that, after this, Depardieu shouted at her that she was a “snitch” and he was “odious” to her on set, calling her “crazy”.

She said Depardieu later said “sorry” to her in an angry way in front of other crew members. She said Depardieu said he did not want her coming to collect him from his dressing room any longer.

She said: “On the set I felt huge anxiety, stress, shame, guilt; it was very difficult.”

Asked by the head judge what she wanted from the trial, the assistant director said: “I want us to hear the truth and stop minimising what happened.”

Depardieu denied sexual assault. “I did not touch her buttocks, I did not touch her breasts, I did none of that,” he said.

He told the court: “I’m not like that. I can’t be like that….. I’ve never of my own will touched a buttock like that, even furtively. It wouldn’t cross my mind.”

Asked by the complainant’s lawyer about the allegations of touching the woman’s buttocks he said: “I didn’t sexually assault. A sexual assault is more serious than that I think.”

Asked to clarify, he said he didn’t know what sexual assault was.

”He said that at the time, he couldn’t walk 150 metres in the street on his own, because of his health, weight and joint troubles. He said he was almost always accompanied by a bodyguard or aides on the film set, and was never alone with an assistant director.

Depardieu said of the assistant director: “I think that maybe, I don’t know, she was wary because of my reputation of being vulgar, crude, rude,” Depardieu said. “But I’m not only that. I still respect people.”

He said he was not someone “who touches people”.

He said that he had later asked the production to make sure it was a man who collected him from his dressing room instead of a woman because he always made lewd comments in his dressing room and didn’t want women to be shocked if they overheard them.

He said: “I’m crude and vulgar. I say things that can shock young people. He told the court that on a previous film he’d said: ‘Bring me a man who’s not shocked by my language,’ and ‘Stop putting in girls who are shocked by what I say.’”

He denied shouting at the assistant director.

The trial continues.

If your sessions at the gym seem to drag on for hours, you are in good company. People who push themselves when working out report a form of time warp, making it feel as if they have been exercising for longer than they have, researchers say.

Adults who took part in 4km cycling trials on exercise bikes perceived time to have slowed down, scientists said, with the cyclists underestimating how long they had been pedalling for by about 10%.

The finding suggests people who are trying to improve their fitness might feel their workouts are shorter and more enjoyable if they are distracted from the intensity of the activity by listening to music or training in a more competitive setting.

“People perceive time as moving more slowly during exercise,” said Andrew Edwards, a professor of psychology at Canterbury Christ Church University in Kent, and the first author on the study. “This distortion may affect pacing and the enjoyment of physical activity.”

In the study, 33 physically active adults took part in three cycling trials on an exercise bike. Before, during and after the trial, they were asked to estimate a time period of 30 seconds. The first trial was performed solo. The second was accompanied by a virtual avatar on the bike’s screen. And on the third trial, they were told to beat the virtual opponent.

Writing in Brain and Behaviour, the researchers described how time appeared to run slow when people were exercising but not before or after. The effect was the same across the trials, suggesting the virtual opponent had no noticeable impact.

The time warp does not seem to be specific to cycling, but linked to the intensity of the exercise or how uncomfortable it feels, Edwards said. What drives the shift in time perception is not clear, but he believes that at high intensities, exercise makes the body more aware of the pain it is enduring, making the duration feel longer.

“Exercise, particularly hard exercise, increases focus on the body, creating a heightened awareness of each moment,” he said. “That makes time feel like it’s dragging.”

The researchers compared the effect to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which said time was not absolute and depended on the observer’s frame of reference. In 1929, Einstein was claimed to have said: “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.”

“This study is the first to experimentally demonstrate that time and relativity can be demonstrated through the medium of exercise … showing that time is distorted,” the authors wrote.

The intensity of the exercise may not be the only factor. In follow-up research on professional footballers, Edwards found that training sessions involving a football seemed to pass more quickly than cardio training and video analysis sessions.

“If time feels slower, workouts may feel longer and less enjoyable. Making exercise more engaging could help people stick with it,” Edwards said. “Repetitive or unenjoyable exercise might enhance this time-slowing effect, while distractions or enjoyment might reduce it.”