In rare signs of unrest, top Republican senators are calling for an investigation into the Signal leak scandal and demanding answers from the Trump administration, as they raise concerns it will become a “significant political problem” if not addressed properly.

“This is what happens when you don’t really have your act together,” the Alaska Republican senator Lisa Murkowski told the Hill.

The Trump administration has been facing criticism from Democrats – and now Republicans – after Monday’s embarrassing revelation that a team of senior national security officials accidentally added a journalist to a private group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging app. The group, which included JD Vance, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and others, discussed sensitive plans to engage in military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.

On Wednesday, morning the Atlantic posted another tranche of messages that contained details of the attack on Yemen, including descriptions of targets, launch times and even the details of weather during the assault.

Senior national security officials testified before the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday, where the national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA director, John Ratcliffe, were grilled by lawmakers over the scandal. The national security officials said “no classified material” had been shared in the chat. Republicans are now calling for investigations, as well.

According to reporting from the Hill, top Republican senators are calling for various committees to investigate the leak, including the Senate armed services committee and the Senate intelligence committee. The Mississippi senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the armed services committee, told the Hill he would be asking the defense department’s inspector general to investigate the scandal.

The national security adviser, Mike Waltz, who reportedly added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of the Atlantic, to the group chat, took “full responsibility” for the leak on a Tuesday night Fox News appearance. However, he did not describe how the leak happened and trashed Goldberg, calling him “the bottom-scum of journalists”. During his television appearance, Waltz said he started the Signal group chat but unknowingly added a contact that happened to have Goldberg’s number.

“Of course I didn’t see this loser in the group, it looked like someone else,” he said.

Tensions are rising among Republicans, with the two wings of the party divided on what should happen with Waltz, according to reporting from Politico.

On the one hand, traditional, hawkish Republicans see Waltz as a strong vehicle to push Trump officials towards a more aggressive foreign policy, and advocate for him to stay in the administration. On the other hand, Trumpian Republicans like Vance oppose the hawkish approach to foreign policy. Waltz’s position, for now, seems to be safe, with Donald Trump calling Waltz a “very good man”.

Despite the prospect of congressional investigations, there are still significant questions left unanswered about the leak, with Waltz and Trump contradicting each other in separate interviews. Waltz on Tuesday said that a staffer had been not responsible for the leak.

“Look, I take full responsibility, I built the group,” Waltz said. But Trump suggested the opposite during an interview.

“What it was, we believe, is somebody that was on the line with permission, somebody that worked with Mike Waltz at a lower level, had Goldberg’s number or call through the app, and somehow this guy ended up on the call,” Trump said. His statements were unclear, since the Atlantic journalist had been added to a text chat, not a phone call.

The use of Signal for internal government discussions has also been called into question. A non-profit organization, American Oversight, sued members of the Trump administration on Tuesday afternoon, saying the app’s use violated the Federal Records Act. The organization is requesting that a federal court order the officials to preserve the messages “to prevent the unlawful destruction of federal records”.

Trump said on Wednesday afternoon during wide-ranging remarks at the White House as he announced new tariffs, about the Signal group chat scandal: “I think it’s all a witch-hunt.” He added that Signal could be a “defective” platform and said it was “not very good”.

The secretary of state Marco Rubio also weighed in while on a visit to Jamaica.

Talking to reporters in Kingston, he said of the chat group: “Someone made a big mistake and added a journalist.”

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting

The private data of top security advisers to US President Donald Trump can be accessed online, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Wednesday, adding to the fallout from the officials’ use of a Signal group chat to plan airstrikes on Yemen.

Mobile phone numbers, email addresses and in some cases passwords used by national security adviser Mike Waltz, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard can be found via commercial data-search services and hacked data dumped online, it reported. It is not clear in all cases how recent the details are.

The Trump administration has been facing calls for the resignation of senior officials amid bipartisan criticism after Monday’s embarrassing revelations. The chat group, which included vice-president JD Vance, Hegseth, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and others, discussed sensitive plans to carry out strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen via the Signal app, potentially threatening the safety of US servicemen and women taking part in the operation.

On Wednesday evening, Trump backed Hegseth, saying “He had nothing to do with this” and calling the scandal a “witch-hunt”.

The phone numbers and email addresses – mostly current – were in some cases used for Instagram and LinkedIn profiles, cloud-storage service Dropbox, and apps that track a user’s location.

Der Spiegel reported it was “particularly easy” to discover Hegseth’s mobile number and email address, using a commercial provider of contact information. It found that the email address, and in some cases even the password associated with it, could be found in more than 20 data leaks. It reported that it was possible to verify that the email address was used just a few days ago.

It said the mobile number led to a WhatsApp account that Hegseth appeared to have only recently deleted.

The Gabbard and Waltz numbers were reportedly linked to accounts on messaging services WhatsApp and Signal. Der Spiegel said that left them exposed to having spyware installed on their devices.

It said it was even possible foreign agents were spying during the recent Signal group chat on top-secret US plans for airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels on 15 March.

Waltz inadvertently included a journalist in the chat, the Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg. The magazine published further details of the conversation on Wednesday.

Der Spiegel said the three officials had not responded to its requests for comment.

The national security council said the Waltz accounts and passwords referenced by the German magazine had all been changed in 2019.

With Agence France-Presse

The US judge set to hear a new lawsuit over the Signal fiasco is the same judge whom Donald Trump has argued should be impeached for blocking him from using wartime powers to deport Venezuelan migrants.

James Boasberg, a district judge in Washington, was assigned on Wednesday to a lawsuit alleging Trump officials violated federal record-keeping laws by using a Signal group chat to discuss looming military action against Yemen’s Houthis.

The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, who was inadvertently included in the chat, has reported that the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, texted the start time for the planned killing of a Houthi militant in Yemen on 15 March along with details of further US airstrikes.

The revelation that highly sensitive attack plans were shared on a commercial messaging app, possibly on personal mobile phones, has triggered outrage in Washington and calls from Democrats that members of Trump’s national security team be fired.

The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday by a liberal-leaning government watchdog group, American Oversight, which argued that officials failed to implement measures to prevent the automatic deletion of messages in the Signal chat, in violation of their duties under the Federal Records Act.

The lawsuit seeks a court order declaring their actions unlawful and an injunction requiring Hegseth and other Trump administration officials to preserve records and recover any deleted materials to the extent possible.

The administration has not responded to the lawsuit. But officials have said no classified information was shared on Signal, which White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called an approved app loaded on to government phones at the Pentagon, Department of State and Central Intelligence Agency.

The case was assigned to Boasberg, the chief judge of the US district court for the District of Columbia, through the court’s usual random assignment process, a court spokesperson said.

The White House and US Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment.

Boasberg has been at the centre of an escalating dispute with the Trump administration which has raised concerns among the president’s critics about a potentially looming constitutional crisis if the administration defies judicial decisions.

The judge last week instructed justice department lawyers to give him a justification for the administration’s failure to return the flights carrying alleged Venezuelan gang members deported to El Salvador on 15 March despite his order blocking such deportations for two weeks.

The administration has said the deportations were carried out under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. Justice department lawyers on Tuesday reiterated their position that the flights did not violate Boasberg’s order.

Trump last week called for Boasberg’s impeachment. That prompted a rare rebuke from the US supreme court’s chief justice, John Roberts, who said in a statement that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision”, which can be appealed.

Republican lawmakers have filed resolutions seeking the impeachment of Boasberg and five other judges who have stymied Trump’s agenda, as the White House has continued to ramp up attacks on the judiciary.

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.

The spectre of interference by India has already rocked the early days of Canada’s federal election, with officials warning that sophisticated efforts from other hostile nations are expected in the coming weeks.

As Canadians prepare to cast ballots on 28 April, senior officials say that India, China, Pakistan and Iran are all expected to make efforts to subvert the national vote through increasingly sophisticated disinformation campaigns.

The use of artificial-intelligence tools is likely to figure prominently in efforts to deceive voters and sway diaspora communities. Earlier this year, a landmark inquiry into foreign interference found that information manipulation is the biggest risk to democratic institutions.

“Most threat actors remain likely to conduct threat activities and have likely adapted their tradecraft to further conceal their foreign-interference activity, making it even more challenging to detect,” Vanessa Lloyd, deputy director of operations for Canada’s spy agency and chair of the security and intelligence threats to elections taskforce, told reporters earlier this week as the agency laid out its plan to blunt the effects of interference campaigns.

Between late January and early February, China is believed to have targeted the Liberal leadership bid of the former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, in a “malicious” campaign on WeChat that was viewed as many as 3m times, the security and intelligence threats to elections taskforce said in a news release.

On Wednesday, the Globe and Mail reported that former Liberal leadership hopeful Chandra Arya had been disqualified amid concerns over his relationship with India and concerns he could be susceptible to outside influence.

Arya, elected to the House of Commons in 2015, was told he was barred from formally entering the Liberal leadership race in later January. Earlier this month, he was also told he was ineligible to run again in his electoral district. In both cases, the Liberal party did not provide further details.

According to a security source who spoke to the Globe, while Canada was grappling with the fallout of India’s assassination of a Sikh activist on Canadian soil, Arya travelled to India in August and met the prime minister, Narendra Modi. Arya is not believed to have not informed the government of his meetings.

“As a member of parliament, I have engaged with numerous diplomats and heads of government, both in Canada and internationally. Not once have I sought – nor been required to seek – permission from the government to do so,” he said in a statement. “The sole point of contention with the Liberal party has been my outspoken advocacy on issues important to Hindu Canadians and my firm stance against Khalistani extremism.”

The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, who doesn’t have a seat in the House of Commons, announced late last week he would contest the electoral district of Nepean, previously held by Arya.

Carney was asked on Wednesday whether foreign-interference concerns had prevented the party from nominating a full slate of candidates for the current federal election. He told reporters hostile actors were not to blame for the party’s delay in nominating candidates.

But accusations of outside influence have also shaken the opposition Conservative campaign, following allegations that India interfered in the 2022 leadership race, with the aim of helping the winner, Pierre Poilievre.

The allegations, first reported by the Globe and Mail, suggest the Tory leader’s win was not attributable to outside influence and Poilievre is not believed to have been aware of India’s efforts.

“Let’s be honest, I won the leadership fair and square,” he told reporters.

But Canada’s spy agency could not share the information with Poilievre because he does not have the necessary security clearance. Poilievre is the only federal party leader who has declined an offer to obtain a security clearance – a position that has received widespread criticism and incredulity.

“It’s very weird, because I can’t imagine, from a political perspective, why it’s worth it. I have top-secret clearance, it’s not that hard,” said Lori Turnbull, the director of Dalhousie University’s school of public administration. “It’s very hard for me to get my mind around why a leader who wants to be prime minister would not go ahead and do this. To give your rival something like that, for free, is stupid when you’re fighting a close election.”

While intelligence officials have long anticipated and experienced efforts from hostile nations like India and China to sway a federal election, less predictable is the role Donald Trump might play. The US president has launched a trade war with Canada, and threatened to annex the country.

Trump has a reputation for sharing false information and his close ally and senior adviser Elon Musk, the owner of the social media network X, has been implicated in the amplification of misinformation.

Canada’s chief electoral officer, Stéphane Perrault, has said his office was not aware of any specific threats coming from the US.

Canada’s former spy chief has said the Trump administration’s attempts to downplay the leak of top-secret attack plans is a “very worrying” development, with implications for broader intelligence sharing among US allies.

On Wednesday, the Atlantic magazine published new and detailed messages from a group chat, including plans for US bombings, drone launches and targeting information of the assault, including descriptions of weather conditions. Among the recipients of the messages was a prominent journalist, who was inadvertently added to the group.

“This is very worrying. Canada needs to think about what this means in practical terms: is the United States prepared to protect our secrets, as we are bound to protect theirs?” said Richard Fadden, the former head of Canada’s intelligence agency. “Every country has experienced leaks, of varying severity. The problem with this one is that it’s being generated at the highest levels of the US government – and they haven’t admitted that it’s a problem.”

Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand have for decades shared intelligence in a pact informally known as the Five Eyes. But the leak of classified information is likely to put further strain on the group as it weighs how seriously the current American administration takes the handling of top secret information.

“When we have intelligence leaks, we admit it, we try to sort out what’s happened and we try to fix it. One doesn’t get the impression today that the US cabinet members will admit there’s a problem,” said Fadden, who also served as national security adviser to Canada’s Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper. “They’re just trying to clean it up from a political perspective. That worries me.”

Despite a far more detailed picture of the information leaked to the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, the White House and key figures in the message thread have redoubled efforts to claim none of the information was classified.

The Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, said on Tuesday that “nobody was texting war plans” in the thread. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, wrote on social media “these were NOT ‘war plans’. This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin.”

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

Fadden disputed the “cleanup exercise” by the current administration.

“This is intelligence, and it should be kept confidential. It would be useful if somebody in the US administration admitted they made a mistake, acknowledged there were problems, but that on the sharing of critical intelligence, wanted the current relationships to continue,” he said. “I don’t think that is the kind of thing the administration is inclined to do. There are ways to lower the temperature. Their lack of willingness to do that makes it worse.”

The use of Signal by senior members of the Trump administration has also become a focus of the leak. The commercial messaging app is popular among journalists for its sophisticated encryption but cannot be download on devices issued by the federal government, meaning those involved in the discussions were probably using private phones.

“It may well be that Signal is easier, but that’s not the issue. When you join government, you have to accept some sort of restrictions,” said Fadden. “Even though Signal is quite good in terms of encrypting, that doesn’t mean that people who are wandering around with their iPhones can’t be hacked. That is worrying.”

The revelations came as Canada grapples with a rapidly deteriorating relationship with the United States, its largest trading partner and closest military ally.

On Tuesday, the prime minister, Mark Carney, said that, increasingly, Canadians “have to look out for ourselves” as decades-long relationships face fresh scrutiny.

“My responsibility is to plan for the worst, is to think about the most difficult evolution of the new threat environment, what it means for Canada and how do we best protect Canada,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

Despite bilateral tensions precipitated by Trump’s trade war and threats to annex Canada, “transactional” relationships were still possible, said Fadden.

“Our political and strategic difficulties with the United States aren’t going to go away tomorrow. But I would like to think that on things like the sharing of critical intelligence, we would be able to survive.”

But Fadden suggests the nature of the leaks – and the denials – will provoke intense conversations among US allies.

“Should we think more carefully about what we call ‘Canadian eyes only’ intelligence, or should we continue to share very, very broadly? I imagine that United Kingdom and Australia, New Zealand will go through the same sort of exercise. The Five Eyes will survive this. But over the short to medium term, it probably will mean a few adjustments.”

Canada’s department of national defence declined to comment on the leaks.

Donald Trump announced plans to impose sweeping 25% tariffs on cars from overseas on Wednesday, days before the US president is expected to announce wide-ranging levies on other goods from around the world.

“What we’re going to be doing is a 25% tariff for all cars that are not made in the United States,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “We start off with a 2.5% base, which is what we’re at, and go to 25%.”

The announcement drew swift condemnation from the European Union and from the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, who called it a “direct attack” on Canadian workers. “We will defend our workers, we will defend our companies, we will defend our country, and we will defend it together,” Carney said.

The Japanese prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, said his government was considering “appropriate measures” in response to the announcement. “Naturally, we will consider all options.”

The tariffs will go into effect next week, on 2 April, the president claimed, and the US will start collecting them the following day. “This is very exciting,” he said, suggesting the move would spur economic growth.

In February, Trump floated the idea of a 25% tariff on imported vehicles but offered no other details. On Monday, the president hinted that the auto industry levies could come in “the very near future”.

On 2 April – a day Trump has dubbed “liberation day” – the president is expected to unveil a wide range of so-called reciprocal tariffs: levies on imported goods that the Trump administration argues are unfairly taxed by the US’s trading partners.

Trump has long argued that the US is being cheated by its trading partners and that tariffs are the best remedy. However, he has delayed or watered down his tariff plans on several occasions. His stance has worried investors, leading to sharp sell-offs in US stock markets, and has proved unpopular with both the corporate US and consumers.

Many economists have expressed alarm, too, warning that the president’s tariff plan would risk increasing prices across the US. A study by Anderson Economic Group, an automotive consultant, for example, found that blanket tariffs on Canada and Mexico risks increasing US car prices by as much as $12,000.

Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Canada and Germany are among the top car exporters to the US. Will Scharf, a White House official, claimed the new car tariffs would result in more than $100bn in annual revenue to the US.

Shares of automakers fell in after-hours trading and US equity index futures slid, indicating stocks were headed for a lower open on Thursday.

Shares in Toyota, the world’s top-selling automaker, dropped 3.7% in early trading in Tokyo, while Nissan lost 3.2% and Honda 3.1%. In South Korea, Hyundai shares fell 3.4%.

The tariffs will rattle Japan’s auto industry, a key component of the world’s fourth-largest economy. The sector accounts for about a tenth of Japan’s workforce, while vehicles made up about a third of its ¥21.3tn ($142bn) in exports to the US last year.

Speaking before Trump’s announcement, Masanori Katayama, chair of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, said a 25% tariff on cars from overseas “would have a negative impact overall on the economies of the United States and Japan”.

Despite hopes that Japan would not be targeted, ministers in Tokyo have so far been unsuccessful in persuading their US counterparts to grant exemptions on exports such as steel and vehicles.

Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this month: “Have no fear, we will WIN everything!!!”, claiming that tariffs were already “pouring money” into the country.

But a Harris poll conducted for the Guardian found that the majority of Americans were already worried about the impact tariffs would have on their finances. Ninety per cent of Democrats, 69% of independents and 57% of Republicans reported they were concerned about tariffs.

Industry groups sounded the alarm on Wednesday. “Throwing away tens of thousands of jobs on both sides of the border will mean giving up North America’s auto leadership role, instead encouraging companies to build and hire anywhere else but here,” said Candace Laing, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. “This tax hike puts plants and workers at risk for generations, if not forever.”

The Atlantic magazine has published fresh messages from a group chat among top US officials in which they discuss specific operational details of plans to bomb Yemen, after Donald Trump and other administration officials insisted the information was not classified.

It 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.

Democrats have accused the government of lying and used an intelligence committee hearing on Wednesday to demand an explanation of how operational military plans are not classified information.

Catching up? Here’s what happened Tuesday, 25 March.

A Yale professor who studies fascism is leaving the US to work at a Canadian university because of the current US political climate, which he worries is putting the US at risk of becoming a “fascist dictatorship”.

Jason Stanley, who wrote the 2018 book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, has accepted a position at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

Stanley told the Daily Nous, a philosophy profession website, that he made the decision “to raise my kids in a country that is not tilting towards a fascist dictatorship”.

He said in an interview that Columbia University’s recent actions moved him to accept the offer. Last Friday, Columbia gave in to the Trump administration by agreeing to a series of demands in order to restore $400m in federal funding. These changes include crackdowns on protests, increased security power and “internal reviews” of some academic programs, like the Middle Eastern studies department.

“When I saw Columbia completely capitulate, and I saw this vocabulary of, well, we’re going to work behind the scenes because we’re not going to get targeted – that whole way of thinking pre-supposes that some universities will get targeted, and you don’t want to be one of those universities, and that’s just a losing strategy,” he said.

Stanley added: “You’ve got to just band together and say an attack on one university is an attack on all universities. And maybe you lose that fight, but you’re certainly going to lose this one if you give up before you fight.”

“Columbia was just such a warning,” he said. “I just became very worried because I didn’t see a strong enough reaction in other universities to side with Columbia. I see Yale trying not to be a target. And as I said, that’s a losing strategy.”

Stanley said he wasn’t concerned about his ability to continue his scholarship at Yale, but the broader climate against universities played a role. He praised other faculty at Yale for standing up against the attacks on their profession and said he wished he could stay and fight with them.

“But how could you speak out loudly if you’re not an American citizen?” he questioned. “And if you can’t speak out loudly if you’re not an American citizen, when will they come for the American citizens? It’s inevitable.”

Social media posts spread on Wednesday, noting the alarm sounded by a scholar of fascism leaving the country over its political climate. Nikole Hannah-Jones, the journalist and creator of the 1619 project, wrote on the social media platform Bluesky: “When scholars of authoritarianism and fascism leave US universities because of the deteriorating political situation here, we should really worry.”

In a statement, Yale said it remains a “home to world-class faculty members who are dedicated to excellence in scholarship and teaching”.

“Yale is proud of its global faculty community which includes faculty who may no longer work at the institution, or whose contributions to academia may continue at a different home institution,” the university said. “Faculty members make decisions about their careers for a variety of reasons and the university respects all such decisions.”

Stanley recently wrote for the Guardian about a new Department of Education directive that said teaching about systemic racism and other topics could be grounds for a civil rights violation, according to the Trump administration’s legal interpretations. Stanley said this order sets the country “on a path to educational authoritarianism”.

He said he considered leaving the US in 2017, but that the second Trump administration has “definitely” proven worse than the first. Stanley’s profile has also risen since then after the publication of several books on propaganda and fascism. The Munk school is building a program with the view that there’s an “international struggle against democracy” and provides a “very exciting intellectual opportunity”, he said.

“I don’t see it as fleeing at all,” he said. “I see it as joining Canada, which is a target of Trump, just like Yale is a target of Trump.”

What does it say that a scholar of fascism is leaving the US right now? Said Stanley: “Part of it is you’re leaving because ultimately, it is like leaving Germany in 1932, 33, 34. There’s resonance: my grandmother left Berlin with my father in 1939. So it’s a family tradition.”

In the aftermath of an incestuous threesome, many viewers of the latest season of The White Lotus may think the show has stepped over a line. But audiences have an unlikely ally in Duke University, which is unhappy that two characters happen to be Duke alumni.

The third season of the popular TV show, which follows wealthy guests and workers at a luxury resort in Thailand, includes the Ratliff family, with the father, Timothy (played by Jason Isaacs) and one of his sons, Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) both having attended Duke, a prestigious institution located in Durham, North Carolina.

In recent episodes, Saxon has kissed his younger brother and the pair have taken part in a threesome. Timothy, who is being investigated by the FBI over a money laundering scheme, has considered suicide; in one scene, he holds a gun to his head while wearing a T-shirt adorned with Duke’s logo.

Frank Tramble, Duke’s vice-president for communications, marketing and public affairs, said in a statement to Bloomberg that the university did not approve of the use of its logo – particularly the scene where Timothy contemplates killing himself.

“The White Lotus not only uses our brand without permission, but in our view uses it on imagery that is troubling, does not reflect our values or who we are, and simply goes too far,” Tramble said. “Suicide is the second-leading cause of death on college campuses. As imagery from the show is being shared widely across social media, we are using our brand to promote mental health awareness and remind people that help is available.”

Tramble also told the New York Times: “Duke appreciates artistic expression and creative storytelling but characters’ prominently wearing apparel bearing Duke’s federally registered trademarks creates confusion and mistakenly suggests an endorsement or affiliation where none exists.”

The image of Timothy holding the gun to his head has become a meme in the lead-up to March Madness, the NCAA national college basketball championship – of which Duke, though much-reviled, is the favourite to win. On X, one user wrote that it would be “an all-time meme” if Duke loses, in a widely liked post – to which the university replied that “some imagery goes too far”.

But it is unlikely Duke can do much about being featured in the show. Jeanne Fromer, a professor who specialises in intellectual property law at the New York University School of Law, told the New York Times that artists are protected to use trademarks for artistic and expressive purposes under the first amendment.

“On the one hand, I understand that Duke is trying to disassociate themselves from this,” Fromer said. “On the other hand, they’re drawing attention to it.”

A representative for HBO declined to comment to Bloomberg and the New York Times.

This isn’t the first time a brand has taken issue with a TV show. In 2021, exercise bike company Peloton was miffed after a character in Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That… was shown dying of a heart attack after exercising on one of their machines. Peloton said that though it had approved of the use of its bike in the show, it didn’t know the context. One company representative even subsequently claimed that the bike may have kept the character alive for longer.

Earlier this year, California’s Pepperdine University sued Netflix and Warner Bros over trademark infringement after a fictional basketball team in the show Running Point was shown using their colours and their sports team name. A district court judge ruled in favour of Netflix and Warner Bros.

• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org

In the aftermath of an incestuous threesome, many viewers of the latest season of The White Lotus may think the show has stepped over a line. But audiences have an unlikely ally in Duke University, which is unhappy that two characters happen to be Duke alumni.

The third season of the popular TV show, which follows wealthy guests and workers at a luxury resort in Thailand, includes the Ratliff family, with the father, Timothy (played by Jason Isaacs) and one of his sons, Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) both having attended Duke, a prestigious institution located in Durham, North Carolina.

In recent episodes, Saxon has kissed his younger brother and the pair have taken part in a threesome. Timothy, who is being investigated by the FBI over a money laundering scheme, has considered suicide; in one scene, he holds a gun to his head while wearing a T-shirt adorned with Duke’s logo.

Frank Tramble, Duke’s vice-president for communications, marketing and public affairs, said in a statement to Bloomberg that the university did not approve of the use of its logo – particularly the scene where Timothy contemplates killing himself.

“The White Lotus not only uses our brand without permission, but in our view uses it on imagery that is troubling, does not reflect our values or who we are, and simply goes too far,” Tramble said. “Suicide is the second-leading cause of death on college campuses. As imagery from the show is being shared widely across social media, we are using our brand to promote mental health awareness and remind people that help is available.”

Tramble also told the New York Times: “Duke appreciates artistic expression and creative storytelling but characters’ prominently wearing apparel bearing Duke’s federally registered trademarks creates confusion and mistakenly suggests an endorsement or affiliation where none exists.”

The image of Timothy holding the gun to his head has become a meme in the lead-up to March Madness, the NCAA national college basketball championship – of which Duke, though much-reviled, is the favourite to win. On X, one user wrote that it would be “an all-time meme” if Duke loses, in a widely liked post – to which the university replied that “some imagery goes too far”.

But it is unlikely Duke can do much about being featured in the show. Jeanne Fromer, a professor who specialises in intellectual property law at the New York University School of Law, told the New York Times that artists are protected to use trademarks for artistic and expressive purposes under the first amendment.

“On the one hand, I understand that Duke is trying to disassociate themselves from this,” Fromer said. “On the other hand, they’re drawing attention to it.”

A representative for HBO declined to comment to Bloomberg and the New York Times.

This isn’t the first time a brand has taken issue with a TV show. In 2021, exercise bike company Peloton was miffed after a character in Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That… was shown dying of a heart attack after exercising on one of their machines. Peloton said that though it had approved of the use of its bike in the show, it didn’t know the context. One company representative even subsequently claimed that the bike may have kept the character alive for longer.

Earlier this year, California’s Pepperdine University sued Netflix and Warner Bros over trademark infringement after a fictional basketball team in the show Running Point was shown using their colours and their sports team name. A district court judge ruled in favour of Netflix and Warner Bros.

• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org

• Emmanuel Macron has warned that Russia still shows a “desire for war” despite efforts towards a ceasefire as European leaders including Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in Paris on Thursday to discuss how Europe might offer Kyiv security guarantees in the event of a lasting truce. Macron said Russia had tried to impose “new conditions” and not responded to a 30-day general ceasefire offered by Ukraine “without preconditions”. He praised Kyiv for having “taken the risk of peace”.

• Thursday’s gathering brings together leaders from the so-called “coalition of the willing” – a British-French-led group of countries considering deploying peacekeeping troops to Ukraine should a ceasefire be reached. Macron on Wednesday announced a new French €2bn ($2.15bn) military aid package for Ukraine, with Paris ready to rapidly ship existing hardware from its stocks.

• There remained no clearly defined or mutually agreed ceasefire covering any aspect of the Russia-Ukraine war. Russia said that only in return for the lifting of a raft of sanctions and access to the Swift international banking system would it implement a ceasefire covering Black Sea shipping. The US said it would consider the sanctions request, while the EU suggested it would only lift sanctions in response to “the unconditional withdrawal of all Russian military forces” from Ukraine. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said examining Russia’s asks and reaching a deal “won’t be simple, it’ll take some time, but at least we’re on that road and we’re talking about these things”.

• Russia claimed to be observing a month-long moratorium declared by Vladimir Putin on strikes against Ukrainian energy targets; however, Russian drone and missile strikes have continued to cause blackouts and, according to Ukraine, energy sites have been hit. Despite there being no actual ceasefire, Russia has accused Ukraine of committing breaches, including by targeting gas storage in Crimea – actually Ukrainian territory – which Ukraine denied; while Zelenskyy says Russia has proven by its continued attacks on Ukraine that it does not truly want peace.

• Four people were reported killed and six injured across Ukraine overnight into Wednesday, writes Pjotr Sauer, while the Ukrainian air force said it shot down 56 of 117 incoming drones and another 48 were decoys that caused no damage.

• Late on Wednesday, Russian forces launched a mass drone attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, injuring nine people, causing considerable damage and starting four fires in the city centre, officials said. The Kharkiv mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said there had been at least 12 drone strikes. A drone attack also triggered fires in the central city of Dnipro, said the regional governor, Serhiy Lysak.

• North Korea has sent 3,000 more troops to Russia so far this year and continues to supply missiles, artillery and ammunition, according to South Korea’s military joint chiefs of staff. Of the initial 11,000 soldiers sent in 2024, 4,000 were believed to have been killed or wounded.

• The US-Ukraine critical minerals deal was mentioned again as the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, told Fox News that “a completed document for the economic partnership is currently being reviewed by Ukrainians, and we hope to go to full discussions and perhaps even get signatures next week”. A week ago, the White House said it had “moved beyond” that deal to focus on peace efforts – only for Trump, the US president, to reverse that a day later by saying it would be signed “very shortly”.

• Relations between Kyiv and Washington were “back on track”, said Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukraine’s president. He told Reuters that after the fraught Oval Office encounter last month, two rounds of talks in Saudi Arabia on a potential ceasefire had given Kyiv an opportunity to show it could work with US officials on ending the war.

• Russia convicted 23 captured Ukrainians on terrorism charges in a military trial that Kyiv denounced as a sham and a violation of international law. The defendants included 14 current or former fighters of the Azov brigade, and nine women and one man who worked as cooks or support personnel, according to Russian media reports and human rights defenders. They were given sentences ranging from 13 to 23 years in prison. Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, called the verdicts “illegal”, adding: “Ukrainian prisoners of war are combatants, not criminals! They were fulfilling their duty to the state, protecting its territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

• Last year brought Ukraine’s worst wildfires in more than three decades as shelling along front lines triggered an unprecedented number of blazes, scientists said. Forest fires in Ukraine in 2024 burnt more than twice the area destroyed by fire in the entire 27-country European Union in 2024, said an EU report.

People in the EU are being advised to stockpile enough food, water and essentials for 72 hours as part of a European strategy that aims to increase readiness for catastrophic floods and fires, pandemics and military attacks.

Outlining its first preparedness strategy, the European Commission said it wanted to encourage citizens to take “proactive measures to prepare for crises, such as developing household emergency plans and stockpiling essential supplies”.

The strategy was partly inspired by plans in Germany and the Nordic countries, which have distributed public information pamphlets and devised apps advising people what to do in the event of a military attack or other national crisis.

“We are saying to member states: 72 hours of self-sufficiency is what we recommend,” Hadja Lahbib, the European commissioner for preparedness and crisis management, told reporters. Asked about what citizens should stockpile, she referred to a video on her social media, in which she presents an emergency bag.

To a soundtrack of off-key jazz piano, Lahbib is shown on the video discussing her emergency stockpile in a tongue-in-cheek way, including ID documents in waterproof casing, canned food, bottled water, matches, a Swiss army knife, cash, playing cards, medicines and a small radio.

The strategy was devised to ensure better EU coordination and public awareness in response to a range of potential risks, such as extreme weather exacerbated by the climate crisis, pandemics, cyber-attacks and military invasions. “We must prepare for large-scale, cross-sectoral incidents and crises, including the possibility of armed aggression, affecting one or more member states,” the document states.

The commission is also calling for a Europe-wide preparedness day to raise awareness; for the topic to be put on school curriculums; and for an EU “stockpiling strategy” to ensure adequate supplies of raw materials, shelters, generators, and “potentially” food and water.

While the EU has no powers over civilian or military uniformed services, it has carved out a bigger role in crisis response since the Covid pandemic led to the unprecedented common purchases of vaccines and medical equipment. Now it wants to go further after a report from the former Finnish president Sauli Niinistö last year found there was no “clear plan” on what the EU would do “in the event of armed aggression against a member state”. Nïïnistö, a special adviser to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU was better prepared to deal with crises and disasters than five years ago, but needed a change of mindset and more planning to anticipate crises.

The plans are likely to provoke a mixed response from EU member states, who perceive threats in different ways. Last week, the European Commission rebranded its military spending plans “Readiness 2030”, instead of Rearm Europe, after complaints from the leaders of Italy and Spain, who argued the language risked alienating people.

In contrast, northern European countries have led the way in emergency planning. Swedish authorities recommend keeping at home a good supply of water, energy-rich food, blankets and alternative heating, as well as investing in a battery-powered radio. Norway advises people to stock up on non-essential medicines, including iodine tablets in the case of a nuclear incident. German households have been urged to adapt their own cellars, garages or store rooms for use as bunkers, while housebuilders will be legally obliged to include safe shelters in new homes – as Poland has already done.

Roxana Mînzatu, a commission vice-president, responded to accusations of scaremongering, likening preparedness to taking out accident insurance: “It doesn’t mean much more than the fact that you want to be prepared and you want to minimise the damage, the costs, the suffering that you might go through.”

Mînzatu, who admitted she did not have a three-day stockpile, citing her mobile lifestyle as the reason, said the dividend of peace had given people a sense “it’s not going to happen to us” despite seeing disastrous wildfires in Greece or floods in Spain. “I’m a good example of what we need to do,” she said.

Lahbib, who said she did have her 72-hour supplies, including ingredients for pasta alla puttanesca, said it was up to member states to define what was needed “on the basis of the geopolitical and geostrategic position they’re in”.

The Belgian commissioner noted that in Finland young people were taught how to handle a weapon, “but I don’t think that’s the kind of thing you’d have here in Belgium or France, not immediately, at any rate. It differs from one country to another, but we can learn from each other.”

The strategy was published the day after Denmark’s defence ministry announced it was bringing forward plans to introduce military service for women by two years.

Women who turn 18 after 1 July 2025 could be required to take part in an annual ballot from next year to determine if they must perform mandatory military service, something which is already required of men.

Benjamin Netanyahu has repeated Israeli threats to seize territory in Gaza if Hamas refuses to release the remaining Israeli hostages, as, for the second consecutive day, hundreds of Palestinians joined protests against the militant group and demanding the end of the war.

The Israeli prime minister’s warning came a week after Israel resumed its military operation in the territory, shattering the relative calm of a January ceasefire with Hamas.

“The more Hamas continues in its refusal to release our hostages, the more powerful the repression we exert will be,” Netanyahu told a hearing in parliament, which was occasionally interrupted by shouting from opposition members.

He added: “I say this to my colleagues in the Knesset, and I say it to Hamas as well: this includes the seizure of territories, along with other measures I will not elaborate here.”

Hamas warned on Wednesday that hostages may be killed if Israel attempts to use its military to retrieve them. “Every time the occupation attempts to retrieve its captives by force, it ends up bringing them back in coffins,” the group said in a statement.

Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 that the Israeli military says are dead.

For the second consecutive day, hundreds of Palestinians have joined protests in northern Gaza, shouting anti-Hamas slogans and calling for an end to the war with Israel, in a rare display of public anger against the militant group.

On Tuesday, videos and photographs shared on social media, which appeared to be authentic, showed hundreds of people, mostly men, chanting: “Hamas out” and: “Hamas terrorists” in Beit Lahiya.

Some protesters were seen carrying banners emblazoned with slogans including: “Stop the war” and: “We want to live in peace”. At least one appeal to join the protest was circulating on the social media network Telegram.

“I don’t know who organised the protest,” one man told Agence France-Press. “I took part to send a message on behalf of the people: enough with the war.” He said he had seen “members of the Hamas security forces in civilian clothing breaking up the protest”.

A statement released by family elders from Beit Lahiya expressed support for the protests against Israel’s offensive and its tightened blockade. They also said the community fully supported armed resistance against Israel and rejected “any attempt to exploit legitimate popular demands by a fifth column”, apparently referring to opponents of Hamas.

In a separate development on Wednesday, at least nine Palestinians were killed by two separate Israeli airstrikes in central Gaza, medics said.

One strike hit a group of Palestinians gathered outside a charity providing hot meals in the Nuseirat refugee camp. At least five people, including a woman and her adult daughter, were killed by the strike, according to the al-Awda hospital, which received the casualties.

The resumption of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip had displaced 142,000 people in seven days, the UN said on Wednesday, warning of dwindling stocks of humanitarian aid.

“In just one week, 142,000 people have been displaced,” the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, said, adding that about 90% of Gaza’s population had been displaced at least once between the start of the war on 7 October 2023 and January of this year.

There has been no sign that Israel will open entry points to allow essential aid to flow or ease its new offensive.

The Gaza health ministry said more than 50,000 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza and another 113,408 wounded since the beginning of the war.

AFP, Reuters and AP contributed to this report

Benjamin Netanyahu has repeated Israeli threats to seize territory in Gaza if Hamas refuses to release the remaining Israeli hostages, as, for the second consecutive day, hundreds of Palestinians joined protests against the militant group and demanding the end of the war.

The Israeli prime minister’s warning came a week after Israel resumed its military operation in the territory, shattering the relative calm of a January ceasefire with Hamas.

“The more Hamas continues in its refusal to release our hostages, the more powerful the repression we exert will be,” Netanyahu told a hearing in parliament, which was occasionally interrupted by shouting from opposition members.

He added: “I say this to my colleagues in the Knesset, and I say it to Hamas as well: this includes the seizure of territories, along with other measures I will not elaborate here.”

Hamas warned on Wednesday that hostages may be killed if Israel attempts to use its military to retrieve them. “Every time the occupation attempts to retrieve its captives by force, it ends up bringing them back in coffins,” the group said in a statement.

Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 that the Israeli military says are dead.

For the second consecutive day, hundreds of Palestinians have joined protests in northern Gaza, shouting anti-Hamas slogans and calling for an end to the war with Israel, in a rare display of public anger against the militant group.

On Tuesday, videos and photographs shared on social media, which appeared to be authentic, showed hundreds of people, mostly men, chanting: “Hamas out” and: “Hamas terrorists” in Beit Lahiya.

Some protesters were seen carrying banners emblazoned with slogans including: “Stop the war” and: “We want to live in peace”. At least one appeal to join the protest was circulating on the social media network Telegram.

“I don’t know who organised the protest,” one man told Agence France-Press. “I took part to send a message on behalf of the people: enough with the war.” He said he had seen “members of the Hamas security forces in civilian clothing breaking up the protest”.

A statement released by family elders from Beit Lahiya expressed support for the protests against Israel’s offensive and its tightened blockade. They also said the community fully supported armed resistance against Israel and rejected “any attempt to exploit legitimate popular demands by a fifth column”, apparently referring to opponents of Hamas.

In a separate development on Wednesday, at least nine Palestinians were killed by two separate Israeli airstrikes in central Gaza, medics said.

One strike hit a group of Palestinians gathered outside a charity providing hot meals in the Nuseirat refugee camp. At least five people, including a woman and her adult daughter, were killed by the strike, according to the al-Awda hospital, which received the casualties.

The resumption of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip had displaced 142,000 people in seven days, the UN said on Wednesday, warning of dwindling stocks of humanitarian aid.

“In just one week, 142,000 people have been displaced,” the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, said, adding that about 90% of Gaza’s population had been displaced at least once between the start of the war on 7 October 2023 and January of this year.

There has been no sign that Israel will open entry points to allow essential aid to flow or ease its new offensive.

The Gaza health ministry said more than 50,000 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza and another 113,408 wounded since the beginning of the war.

AFP, Reuters and AP contributed to this report

A crowd watched on in horror as good Samaritans rushed to help a man who died on the opening night of a major comedy festival.

An audience member suffered a medical episode at the Palais Theatre in St Kilda on Wednesday night, organisers of the Melbourne International comedy festival said in a statement.

The man was sitting towards the back of the theatre and other members of the crowd attempted to give him emergency care for about 10 minutes before paramedics arrived and the show was stopped.

One audience member, who did not wish to be identified, said it felt “wrong” to hear laughter from other patrons sitting closer to the stage who were unaware of the tragedy unfolding at the back of the venue that seats almost 2,900 people.

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“People started leaving on their own accord in groups by the second act, particularly as CPR was going on which you could see,” the audience member said.

“Ambulance was there and you could hear the defibrillator sounds from across the room.

“Lighting was dark though still light enough to see that a lady and man were interchanging doing chest compressions.”

She said it was a tough situation as emergency services needed to be able to easily access the patient, yet she felt it could have been handled better.

“It felt wrong for laughter to be occurring at such a time,” she added.

Ambulance Victoria confirmed paramedics responded to an emergency call about 8pm.

Victoria Police are not treating the death of the unidentified man as suspicious and investigators will prepare a report for the coroner.

Theatre operator Live Nation said the organisation is deeply saddened by the death.

“Our thoughts are with their family during this difficult time,” it said.

“We are grateful to our staff and the patrons who acted quickly to provide first aid, and the first responders on site for their swift and professional assistance.”

Melbourne International comedy festival said the medical emergency occurred during Opening Night Allstars Supershow.

“The show was stopped and cancelled. The Festival will be in touch with all ticket holders,” organisers said.

Comedians and audience members took to social media to express sorrow.

“All performers thoughts are with the family affected,” Dave Hughes wrote.

The rest of the festival will continue as planned.

By 2030, Coca-Cola products will account for an estimated 602m kilograms of plastic waste entering the world’s oceans and waterways each year, according to a stark new analysis published Wednesday by the non-profit Oceana.

That is enough plastic to fill the stomachs of 18m whales.

The report arrives amid mounting concerns over the human health risks posed by the spread of microplastics, which scientists increasingly link to cancer, infertility and heart disease.

“Coca-Cola is by far the largest manufacturer and seller of beverages in the world,” said Matt Littlejohn, who leads Oceana’s campaigns targeting corporate polluters.

“Because of that, they really matter when it comes to the impact of all this on the ocean.”

Coca-Cola ranks as the world’s top branded plastic polluter, followed by PepsiCo, Nestlé, Danone and Altria, according to a 2024 study published in Science Advances.

Oceana’s estimate is based on Coca-Cola’s publicly reported packaging data from 2018 to 2023, combined with sales growth forecasts to create a “business-as-usual” scenario.

The result: the company’s plastic use is projected to exceed 4.13m tons annually by 2030.

To estimate how much of that plastic will reach aquatic ecosystems, researchers applied a peer-reviewed method developed by an international team of scientists and published in the academic journal Science in 2020 to arrive at the 602m kg estimate, which is equivalent to nearly 220bn half-litre bottles.

For Oceana, the clearest solution to reduce this staggering figure lies in bringing back reusable packaging – whether in the form of returnable glass bottles, which can be reused 50 times, or thicker PET plastic containers, which are designed for 25 uses.

Coca-Cola itself acknowledged in 2022 that reusable packaging was “among the most effective ways to reduce waste” and committed to a goal of reaching 25% packaging by 2030.

But that pledge was quietly dropped in its latest sustainability roadmap, released in December 2024.

The company’s updated goals instead focus on increasing recycled content in packaging and boosting collection rates – while stressing the significant challenges in recycling soda bottles and shifting consumer habits.

Environmental advocates have long warned against over-reliance on recycling, arguing that it often serves to shift blame on to consumers rather than addressing the root of the crisis.

“Recycling is great, don’t get me wrong,” Littlejohn said. “But if you’re going to use recycled plastic to produce more single-use plastic, that’s a problem.”

Plastic production relies on oil, making corporate plastic use a direct driver of climate change.

Still, there is reason for hope: Coca-Cola already operates large-scale refillable systems in several countries, including Brazil, Germany, Nigeria and even parts of the United States, such as southern Texas.

“They have the largest reusable infrastructure of any beverage company and they have the ability to grow that and show the way for the rest of the industry,” Littlejohn said.

In a statement to AFP, a Coca-Cola spokesperson said that while the company’s efforts currently focus on using more recycled materials and improving collection systems, “we have been investing and remain committed to expand our refillable packaging options, and this work will continue as part of our consumer-centric strategy”.

The vehicle of four United States soldiers missing in Lithuania has been discovered submerged in water, the US army said, adding that search efforts for the soldiers were ongoing.

The soldiers went missing during a military drill during an exercise at the General Silvestras Žukauskas training ground in Pabradė, a town located less than 10km (6 miles) from the border with Belarus.

Lithuanian and foreign troops, along with helicopters from the air force and the state border guard service, were deployed to search for the soldiers.

“The M88 Hercules armored recovery vehicle the four missing US soldiers were operating during a training exercise has been located in Lithuania,” US Army Europe and Africa’s public affairs office said in a statement.

“The vehicle was discovered submerged in a body of water in a training area … Recovery efforts are under way,” it said.

“Search efforts for the soldiers continue,” it added.

Earlier on Wednesday the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, had told reporters that the four soldiers had been “killed”, adding that he did not know any details.

“The secretary general was referring to news reports that had just emerged. He did not confirm the death of the four US soldiers, but noted that the details remain unconfirmed,” the Nato acting spokesperson, Allison Hart, later told AFP.

The Lithuanian army said earlier there was “no evidence or information confirming the death of the troops”.

“People [are] working round the clock. Everybody remains on standby, ready to provide emergency medical support,” the Lithuanian defence minister, Dovilė Šakalienė, said on X.

Lithuanian authorities received a report about the soldiers’ disappearance on Tuesday afternoon.

US Army Europe and Africa’s public affairs office confirmed in its statement that the soldiers “were conducting scheduled tactical training at the time of the incident”.

“I would like to personally thank the Lithuanian armed forces and first responders who quickly came to our aid in our search operations,” said Lt Gen Charles Costanza, the V Corps commanding general.

More than 1,000 American troops are stationed in Lithuania on a rotational basis.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are all Nato members and have often had chilly ties with Russia, a key ally of Belarus, since declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1990.

Relations soured further over Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nausėda, has been one of the most outspoken supporters of Ukraine in its fight against the forces of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

A man who said “your scumbag client won’t get one cent” has been ordered to pay $300,000 in aggravated damages and costs after accusing a family dispute resolution practitioner of supporting paedophiles.

Adam Whittington, a “child recovery agent” who was involved in the 60 Minutes abduction scandal in Lebanon, has been ordered by the New South Wales supreme court to pay Jasmin Newman $160,000 in damages and $147,796 in costs after it found he defamed her in a series of online posts dating back to 2019.

Whittington posted on WordPress, Facebook and Twitter about Newman, who is accredited to practise as a family dispute practitioner with the federal attorney general’s department.

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Newman argued that the posts contained 59 defamatory imputations, including that she sympathised and supported paedophiles, attacked women who wanted to protect their sexually abused children, and committed fraud.

Judge Nicholas Chen found on Wednesday that the imputations were conveyed, and that Whittington continued to defame Newman while the court case was ongoing.

Whittington did not attend court during the proceeding, Chen said.

He said Whittington was an Australian citizen who, “at least at some point in the past, resided overseas, either in Sweden or in Russia, although precisely where he now resides is unknown”.

Chen said Whittington was the founder and chief executive officer of a Swedish company which operates a Facebook page called “Child Abduction Recovery International”; and the founder “of what is said to be a ‘charity’” known as Project Rescue Children.

Whittington responded to emails about the case, Chen said, including by replying to a lawyer for Newman on 12 December 2024.

“Stop wasting my time opening rubbish and tagging me into your nonsense emails,” Whittington said.

“In fact, to make sure you don’t waste another minute of my time, I’ll block you from this day on.

“Your scumbag client won’t get one cent. That I promise.”

Chen said there was some uncertainty about Whittington’s ability to pay the penalties.

He said that while the audience for the posts was limited, they had a serious impact on Newman.

“The impact of the defamatory matters upon the plaintiff has, I accept, been exacerbated not only by the defendant’s failure to apologise, but by his continuing publication of defamatory matters … after the plaintiff commenced these proceedings,” Chen said.

“Notwithstanding the hearing has proceeded without any participation by the defendant, no attempt was made to overstate the impact of these defamatory imputations; rather, my impression was that she tended to understate them.

“I have no doubt that they have caused her anguish, anxiety, hurt and distress.”

Chen granted a permanent and mandatory injunction restraining Whittington from repeating the defamation.