Donald Trump said foreign governments would have to pay “a lot of money” to lift sweeping tariffs that he characterised as “medicine,” as markets in Asia plunged in early trading on Monday.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One late on Sunday, the US president indicated he was not concerned about market losses that have already wiped out nearly $6tn in value from US stocks. “I don’t want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” he said.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index tumbled nearly 9% in early trading on Monday, as concerns over a tariff-induced global recession continued to rip through markets.

The Nikkei dropped as much as 8.8% to hit 30,792.74 for the first time since October 2023.

In South Korea, trading on the Kospi index was halted for five minutes at 9.12am as stocks plummeted.

The Taiwan stock exchange said early on Monday it would roll out more policies to stabilise markets if there were “irrational falls”. Australian shares were also sharply lower.

Trump said he had spoken to leaders from Europe and Asia over the weekend, who hope to convince him to lower tariffs that are as high as 50% and due to take effect this week. “They are coming to the table. They want to talk but there’s no talk unless they pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis,” Trump said.

Trump’s tariff announcement last week jolted economies around the world, triggering retaliatory levies from China and sparking fears of a global trade war and recession. On Sunday morning talkshows, Trump’s top economic advisers sought to portray the tariffs as a savvy repositioning of the US in the global trade order. They also tried to minimise the economic shocks from last week’s tumultuous rollout. Wall Street stock futures opened sharply lower on Sunday, in a sign of further turbulence.

Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said more than 50 nations had started negotiations with the US since last Wednesday’s announcement. “He’s created maximum leverage for himself,” Bessent said on NBC News’ Meet the Press. Neither Bessent nor the other officials named the countries or offered details about the talks. But simultaneously negotiating with multiple governments could pose a logistical challenge for the Trump administration and prolong economic uncertainty.

Bessent said there was “no reason” to anticipate a recession, citing stronger-than-anticipated US jobs growth last month, before the tariffs were announced.

Tony Sycamore, a market analyst at IG in Sydney, said: “Things have gone from bad to worse this morning. The lack of reaction from Trump and from Bessent, in terms of their concern levels appearing to be very, very low in terms of the market dislocation. If there isn’t some sort of walking back of the announcements, then we’re heading for a liquidity event and liquidity will get sucked out of these markets big time across all asset classes.”

JP Morgan economists now estimate the tariffs will result in full-year US gross domestic product declining by 0.3%, down from an earlier estimate of 1.3% growth, and that the unemployment rate will climb to 5.3% from 4.2% now.

The Republican president spent the weekend in Florida, playing golf and posting a video of his swing to social media on Sunday.

US customs agents began collecting Trump’s unilateral 10% tariff on all imports from many countries on Saturday. Higher “reciprocal” tariff rates of 11% to 50% on individual countries are due to take effect on Wednesday at 12.01am EDT (4.01am GMT).

Some governments have already signalled a willingness to engage with the US to avoid the duties.

In his first significant intervention since the US ushered in a new economic era last week, British prime minister Keir Starmer said the government would step in to support key British industries. He is to announce plans to give carmakers more flexibility over how they meet a target to stop sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. Other sectors to be hit by Trump’s tariffs are expected to receive support later in the week, with life sciences likely to be among them.

Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, on Sunday offered zero tariffs as the basis for talks with the US, pledging to remove trade barriers and saying Taiwanese companies would increase their US investments. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would seek a reprieve from a 17% tariff on the country’s goods during a planned meeting with Trump on Monday.

An Indian government official told Reuters the country does not plan to retaliate against a 26% tariff and said talks were under way with the US over a possible deal. In Italy, prime minister Giorgia Meloni – a Trump ally – pledged on Sunday to shield businesses that suffered damage from a planned 20% tariff on goods from the European Union. Italian wine producers and US importers at a wine fair in Verona on Sunday said business had already slowed and feared more lasting damage.

Tariff-stunned markets face another week of potential turmoil after the worst week for US stocks since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis five years ago.

The S&P 1500 Composite Index, among the widest measures of the US market, has had almost $10tn wiped out since mid-February, a significant blow to millions of Americans’ retirement nest eggs.

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett denied that the tariffs were part of a Trump strategy to crash financial markets to pressure the US Federal Reserve to cut interest rates. He said there would be no “political coercion” of the central bank.

In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump shared a video that suggested his tariffs aimed to hammer the stock market on purpose in a bid to force lower interest rates.

The social media post fuelled global debate over whether Trump’s tariffs were part of a permanent new tariff regime or simply a negotiating tactic that could lead to the tariffs being eased through concessions by other countries.

With Reuters

Senior officials within Donald Trump’s administration gave conflicting messages on Sunday about the US president’s global tariffs that have caused a meltdown in stock markets, prompted warnings of a world recession and provoked rare expressions of dissent from within his Republican party.

Cabinet members fanned out across Sunday’s political talk shows armed with talking points on Trump’s 10% across-the-board tariff on almost all US imports, with higher rates targeted at about 60 countries. If the intention was to calm nerves with a clear statement of intent, then it backfired as top officials gave starkly contrasting signals.

Howard Lutnick, the billionaire commerce secretary, struck an aggressive note on CBS News’s Face the Nation in which he portrayed the tariffs as here to stay. Asked whether there was a chance that tariffs would be postponed to allow countries to negotiate a deal with Washington, he replied: “There is no postponing – they are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks, that is sort of obvious.”

Lutnick added that Trump intended to “reset global trade”.

“The president has made it crystal, crystal clear,” he said.

However, two other cabinet members gave the opposite take, suggesting that negotiations with individual countries were very much on the cards. Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, told Meet the Press on NBC News that Trump had “created maximum leverage for himself, and more than 50 countries have approached the administration about lowering their non-tariff trade barriers, lowering their tariffs, stopping currency manipulation”.

The agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, echoed Bessent by flagging up possible talks. “We’ve got 50 countries that are burning the phone lines into the White House,” she told CNN’s State of the Union.

The scale of Trump’s tariffs have sent shockwaves around the world, catching US investors as well as top Republican politicians by surprise. In just two days last week, more than $6tn was wiped off Wall Street’s market value.

Trump told US consumers in a post on his Truth Social network to “hang tough, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic”. Yet as he spent the weekend golfing at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, his unprecedented tax increase goaded senior Republicans to speak out, in a vanishingly rare display of criticism of their leader.

Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, denounced the tariffs as the “largest peacetime tax hike in US history”. Thom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina, said: “Anyone who says there may be a little bit of pain before we get things right needs to talk to farmers who are one crop away from bankruptcy.”

Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas, warned of a “bloodbath” for Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections should the tariffs force the US into recession.

Democrats are detecting opportunity in such unusual challenges to Trump from within his own party. Adam Schiff, the Democratic senator from California, floated on Meet the Press what sounded like a draft campaign strategy for the midterms.

“If we head into a recession, it will be the Trump recession,” he said. Of Trump, Schiff also said: “He’s wrecking our economy.”

Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota who ran as the Democrats’ vice-presidential candidate in last November’s defeat to Trump, called the tariffs “really, really terrifying” on State of the Union. He warned that if you punish dependable trading partners like Mexico and Canada, “they don’t come back overnight.”

As the tariffs kick in, analysts are increasingly pointing to the chances of a recession, which is normally assessed as being two consecutive quarters of falling GDP. The head of economic research at JP Morgan, Bruce Kasman, has raised the probability of global recession to 60%, a figure that he included in a memo titled There Will Be Blood.

Larry Summers, the US treasury secretary during Bill Clinton’s presidency, called the tariffs the “biggest self-inflicted wound we’ve put on our economy in history”. Speaking on ABC News’s This Week, he gave his own estimate of the total loss to US consumers at $30tn – equivalent to doubling petrol prices at the pump.

Trump’s cabinet members attempted to use rhetorical devices as a way of assuaging rattled investors and consumers. Rollins said the markets weren’t crashing – they were “adjusting”.

Asked what he would say to Americans close to retirement who had just watched their lifetime savings drop significantly in recent days, Bessent called that a “false narrative”.

“Americans who want to retire right now, they don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations of what’s happening,” Bessent said.

Bessent’s answer was coloured, perhaps, by his own net worth, which has been put at more than $521m.

There were moments of the surreal in the exchanges between Trump’s top officials and the political show hosts. Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper why 10% tariffs had been placed on Heard Island and McDonald Islands, which are populated by penguins near Antarctica but no humans, Rollins said: “I mean, come on, whatever. Listen, the people that are leading this are serious, intentional, patriotic – the smartest people I’ve ever worked with.”

Tapper then pushed back on the agriculture secretary’s justification for the 20% “reciprocal” tariffs that have been imposed on EU goods sold to the US. Rollins said that Honduras bought more pork from the US than the entire European Union.

Tapper pointed out that the EU had tight restrictions on hormone use in livestock production. The EU banned use of synthetic hormones in 1981, and blocked imports of animals that had been treated in that way.

Rollins then accused the EU of using “fake science” to prohibit US products. “That’s just absolute bull,” she said. “We produce the safest, the most secure, the best food in the world.”

Markets are braced for another rollercoaster week as the most punitive of Donald Trump’s tariffs kick in and world leaders weigh up retaliatory action, adding to fears of a global recession.

Stock indices plunged by nearly $5tn (£3.9tn) last week, with markets in the UK and US experiencing losses not seen since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, as investors took cover from the opening salvoes of Trump’s trade war.

With no sign of the Trump administration rowing back on its so-called “liberation day” tariffs, analysts warned of persistent market turbulence and an increased risk of all-out recession in the US, UK and EU.

Roman Ziruk, a senior market analyst at the global financial services firm Ebury, said: “Volatility will likely stay elevated as we move into [the] week.”

He said some investors were still holding out hope that tariffs against China and the EU, due to kick in from Wednesday, would be delayed or remodelled.

“The danger of escalation of trade tensions cannot, however, be overlooked, particularly as China’s response to the latest round of US tariffs has been more aggressive than before,” Ziruk said.

However, leading figures in the Trump administration warned on Sunday against expectations for a U-turn. Speaking in television interviews, Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said the US president intended to “reset global trade”.

EU leaders are still considering their response, while Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, has vowed to “shelter” British businesses from the impact of tariffs, indicating he will announce what steps he plans to take this coming week.

Starmer is expected to pursue an economic reset, which could ultimately include a rethink of Labour’s promise not to raises taxes, in anticipation of a global trade slowdown.

On Sunday, the Treasury minister Darren Jones told the BBC that the era of globalisation has “come to an end”, although he said the UK was still hopeful of striking a trade deal with the White House.

The 10% rate imposed on the UK is at the lowest end of the range of Trump’s tariffs, with the exceptions of Russia, North Korea, Belarus and Cuba, which were left out of the worldwide trade dispute altogether.

But Trump had already imposed a 25% tariff on UK steel and cars, a measure that prompted Jaguar Land Rover to say over the weekend that it was pausing shipments to the US, which buys about a quarter of the 400,000 vehicles the company sells annually.

Economic forecasters said the unexpectedly widespread and punitive nature of the tariffs could still tip the UK economy into decline.

Analysts at Barclays said the UK and EU were at risk of falling into recession in the second half of this year and they revised down their growth forecasts for both economies, as well as for the US.

Erik F Nielsen, the chief economics adviser at UniCredit Bank, said: “It’s too early to estimate the impact of these economic weapons of mass destruction.

“But it’ll be bad – very bad – for US growth, and for growth across the rest of the world. A recession in the US, maybe even a global recession, have become distinct possibilities.”

On Saturday, the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, who has emerged as Trump’s most powerful ally in global business world, told a meeting of Italy’s rightwing League party that he hoped a “free-trade zone” between the EU and US could be created, with no tariffs at all.

But duties of 20% on European imports to the US technically take effect at one minute past midnight on Wednesday, as does the 34% rate for China, the world’s biggest export nation, and others deemed by the White House to be among the “worst offenders”, which includes Japan and Vietnam.

Leaders of European countries have condemned the tariffs, while the French president, Emmanuel Macron, appeared to call on the country’s businesses to halt investment in the US.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has called for negotiation with the US. However, the EU is expected to announce retaliatory tariffs on US consumer and industrial goods – which are likely to include emblematic products such as orange juice, denim and Harley-Davidson motorbikes – in mid-April as a response to steel and aluminium tariffs previously announced by Trump.

While Beijing has already responded with retaliatory tariffs, George Magnus, an expert on China’s economy, said a deal in the longer term was still possible.

“Neither Trump nor [the Chinese president] Xi Jinping want a full-blown trade war right now,” said Magnus, who is the former chief economist at the Swiss bank UBS and a research associate at Oxford University’s China Centre and Soas University of London.

“Trump needs to show voters that the use of tariffs for revenues and leverage is working without putting the American economy through a damaging slowdown or recession,” he said.

“Xi has his own deep-seated economic problems […] without having to manage a harmful external trade war. A big hit to exports would have profound consequences for growth and employment.”

However, he warned of the long-term implications of Trump trying to loosen China’s hold on global supply chains, while Beijing continues trying to boost exports.

“The world must either pay Trump now via tariffs, or pay Xi Jinping later through lost manufacturing and jobs,” he said.

Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz included a journalist in the Signal group chat about plans for US strikes in Yemen after he mistakenly saved his number months before under the contact of someone else he intended to add, according to three people briefed on the matter.

The mistake was one of several missteps that came to light in the White House’s internal investigation, which showed a series of compounding slips that started during the 2024 campaign and went unnoticed until Waltz created the group chat last month.

Trump briefly considered firing Waltz over the episode, more angered by the fact that Waltz had the number of Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic – a magazine he despises – than the fact that the military operation discussion took place on an unclassified system such as Signal.

But Trump decided against firing him in large part because he did not want the Atlantic and the news media more broadly to have the satisfaction of forcing the ouster of a top cabinet official weeks into his second term. Trump was also mollified by the findings of the internal investigation.

The disclosures nonetheless triggered a “forensic review” by the White House information technology office, which found that Waltz’s phone had saved Goldberg’s number as part of an unlikely series of events that started when Goldberg emailed the Trump campaign last October.

According to three people briefed on the internal investigation, Goldberg had emailed the campaign about a story that criticized Trump for his attitude towards wounded service members. To push back against the story, the campaign enlisted the help of Waltz, their national security surrogate.

Goldberg’s email was forwarded to then Trump spokesperson Brian Hughes, who then copied and pasted the content of the email – including the signature block with Goldberg’s phone number – into a text message that he sent to Waltz, so that he could be briefed on the forthcoming story.

Waltz did not ultimately call Goldberg, the people said, but in an extraordinary twist, inadvertently ended up saving Goldberg’s number in his iPhone – under the contact card for Hughes, now the spokesperson for the national security council.

A day after that Goldberg story was published, on 22 October, Waltz appeared on CNN to defend Trump. “Don’t take it from me, take it from the 13 Abbey Gate Gold Star families, some of whom stood on a stage in front of a 30,000 person crowd and said how he helped them heal,” Waltz said.

According to the White House, the number was erroneously saved during a “contact suggestion update” by Waltz’s iPhone, which one person described as the function where an iPhone algorithm adds a previously unknown number to an existing contact that it detects may be related.

The mistake went unnoticed until last month when Waltz sought to add Hughes to the Signal group chat – but ended up adding Goldberg’s number to the 13 March message chain named “Houthi PC small group”, where several top US officials discussed plans for strikes against the Houthis.

Waltz said in the immediate aftermath of the incident that he had never met or communicated with Goldberg. He also suggested on Fox News that Goldberg’s number had been “sucked” into his phone, seemingly in reference to how his iPhone had saved Goldberg’s number.

The White House did not comment on this story, and the investigation did not resolve the extent of Waltz’s relationship with Goldberg, if any. Reached by phone on Saturday, Goldberg said: “I’m not going to comment on my relationship with Mike Waltz beyond saying I do know him and have spoken to him.”

Trump was briefed on the findings of the forensic review last week around the time he decided to keep Waltz, a person familiar with the matter said. Trump accepted Waltz’s mea culpa and has publicly defended him in recent weeks since the group chat situation became public.

When Trump left the White House on Thursday, he was joined aboard Marine One by his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, his personnel chief, Sergio Gor, and Waltz, which aides took as a show of support for the embattled national security adviser.

Waltz also appears to have also engendered some sympathy from inside Trump’s orbit over the group chat because the White House had authorized the use of Signal, largely because there is no alternative platform to text in real time across different agencies, two people familiar with the matter said.

Previous administrations, including the Biden White House, did not develop an alternative platform to Signal, one of the people said. As a temporary solution, the Trump White House told officials to use Signal as they had done during the transition instead of regular text-message chains.

Israel’s military has backtracked on its account of the killing of 15 Palestinian medics in Gaza last month after footage contradicted its claims that their vehicles did not have emergency signals on when Israeli troops opened fire.

The military said initially it opened fire because the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” on nearby troops without headlights or emergency signals. An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations late on Saturday, said that account was “mistaken”.

The almost seven-minute video, which the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Saturday was recovered from the phone of Rifat Radwan, one of the men killed, appears to have been filmed from inside a moving vehicle. It shows a red fire engine and clearly marked ambulances driving at night, using headlights and flashing emergency lights.

The vehicle stops beside another that has driven off the road. Two men get out to examine the stopped vehicle, then gunfire erupts before the screen goes black.

Fifteen Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, including at least one UN employee, were killed in the incident in Rafah on 23 March, in which the UN said Israeli forces shot the men “one by one” and then buried them in a mass grave.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the incident was still under investigation. It added: “All claims, including the documentation circulated about the incident, will be thoroughly and deeply examined to understand the sequence of events and the handling of the situation.”

The official said the initial report received from the field did not describe lights but that investigators were looking at “operational information” and were trying to understand whether this was due to an error by the person making the initial report.

“What we understand currently is the person who gives the initial account is mistaken. We’re trying to understand why,” the official added.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), the PRCS and civil defence workers were on a mission to rescue colleagues who had been shot at earlier in the day, when their clearly marked vehicles came under heavy Israeli fire in the Tel al-Sultan area of Rafah. A Red Crescent official in Gaza said there was evidence of at least one person being detained and killed, as the body of one of the dead had been found with his hands tied.

The shootings happened one day into the renewed Israeli offensive in the area close to the Egyptian border after the breakdown of a two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli strikes on Gaza on Sunday killed at least 44 people, rescuers said. “The death toll as a result of Israeli air strikes since dawn today is at least 44, including 21 in Khan Younis,” civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

One such strike killed six people on Al-Nakheel Street in the Al-Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City, where a group had gathered near a bakery, Bassal said. Among the dead were three children, he confirmed.

On Sunday evening, Hamas said it had fired a barrage of rockets at cities in Israel’s south on Sunday in response to Israeli “massacres” of civilians in Gaza.

The IDF said about 10 projectiles were fired, but most were successfully intercepted. Israel’s Channel 12 reported a direct hit in the southern city of Ashkelon.

Israeli emergency services said they were treating one person for shrapnel injuries and teams were en route to locations of fallen rockets. Smashed car windows and debris lay strewn on a city street, videos disseminated by Israeli emergency services showed.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had ordered a strong response to the rocket attack, his office said.

Another Red Crescent worker on the mission last month, Assad al-Nassasra, is still reported missing and the organisation has asked the Israeli military for information on his whereabouts.

A survivor of the incident, the Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic Munther Abed, has said he saw Nassasra being led away blindfolded by Israeli troops.

The 27-year-old volunteer was in the back of the first ambulance to arrive on the scene of an airstrike in the Hashashin area of Rafah before dawn on 23 March when the vehicle came under intense Israeli fire.

His two Red Crescent colleagues sitting in the front were killed but he survived by throwing himself to the floor of the vehicle. “The door opened, and there they were – Israeli special forces in military uniforms, armed with rifles, green lasers and night-vision goggles,” Abed told the Guardian. “They dragged me out of the ambulance, keeping me face down to avoid seeing what had happened to my colleagues.”

Adeb was detained for several hours before being released.

The UN and Palestinian Red Crescent have demanded an independent inquiry into the killing of the paramedics.

Israeli media briefed by the military have reported that troops had identified at least six of the 15 dead as members of militant groups and killed a Hamas figure named Mohammed Amin Shobaki.

None of the 15 killed has that name and no other bodies are known to have been found at the site. The official declined to provide any evidence or detail of how the identifications were made, saying he did not want to share classified information.

“According to our information, there were terrorists there but this investigation is not over,” he told reporters.

Abed – a volunteer for 10 years – was adamant there were no militants travelling with the ambulances.

Jonathan Whittall, the interim head of Ocha in the occupied Palestinian territory, dismissed allegations that the people who died were Hamas militants, saying staff had worked with the same medics previously in evacuating patients from hospitals and other tasks.

“These are paramedic crews that I personally have met before,” he said. “They were buried in their uniforms with their gloves on. They were ready to save lives.”

The Israeli military official said the troops had informed the UN of the incident on the same day and initially covered the bodies with camouflage netting until they could be recovered, later burying them when the UN did not immediately collect the bodies.

The UN confirmed last week it had been informed of the location of the bodies but that access to the area was denied by Israel for several days. It said the bodies had been buried alongside their crushed vehicles – clearly marked ambulances, a fire truck and a UN car.

A Palestinian teenager with US citizenship was killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank town of Turmus Ayya, Palestinian officials said on Sunday, with the Israeli military saying it shot a “terrorist” who was allegedly endangering civilians by hurling rocks.

The incident is the latest in a surge of violence and near-daily confrontations in the volatile West Bank, where settler violence and clashes between Israeli forces and armed Palestinians have kept it on edge.

The mayor of Turmus Ayya, Adeeb Lafi, told Reuters earlier in the day that Omar Mohammad Rabea, 14, was shot along with two other teenagers by an Israeli settler at the entrance to Turmus Ayya and that the Israeli army pronounced him dead after detaining him.

However, the Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the incident as an “extra-judicial killing” by Israeli forces during a raid in the town, saying it was the result of Israel’s “continued impunity”.

“During a counterterrorism activity in the area of Turmus Aya, IDF soldiers identified three terrorists who hurled rocks toward the highway, thus endangering civilians driving,” the Israeli army said in a statement.

“The soldiers opened fire toward the terrorists who were endangering civilians, eliminating one terrorist and hitting two additional terrorists.”

Settler violence in the West Bank, including incursions into occupied territory and raids on Bedouin villages and encampments, has intensified since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.

European countries and the previous US administration under Joe Biden imposed sanctions on violent Israeli settlers, though the White House under Donald Trump removed these sanctions.

The Israeli military has also in recent months carried what it called a “large-scale military operation” in the West Bank to root out militants.

Militant group Hamas, based in Gaza, has over recent years expanded its reach in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority, dominated by the rival Fatah faction, exercises limited governance.

Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a last-minute visit to Washington to meet with Donald Trump, where the Israeli leader is expected to discuss Iran, the war in Gaza, and tariffs with the US president.

The Washington visit, Netanyahu’s second since Trump was inaugurated in January, comes after the resumption of hostilities in the Gaza Strip, and underlines the strong relationship between the two men.

Trump has pressed Tehran for a new deal on its nuclear programme, although little progress has been made. There is widespread speculation that Israel, possibly with US help, might launch a military strike on Iranian facilities if no agreement is reached.

Al Hadath, a Saudi television channel, reported on Saturday that the US transferred a second THAAD battery and two Patriot batteries to Israel amid rising tensions. Flight tracking websites showed that a C-5M Super Galaxy, a large US air force transport plane, landed at an airbase in southern Israel on Saturday for about eight hours, the Times of Israel reported.

The Biden administration sent one THAAD battery, an advanced anti-missile system, to Israel in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack in October 2023. It has been used since to intercept missile attacks from Iran and the Tehran-allied Houthi group in Yemen.

The US president said on Thursday that he expected a visit soon from Netanyahu – “maybe even next week” – though the Axios website said the timing caught Israeli officials and even some in the Trump administration by surprise.

Monday’s meeting will make Netanyahu the first foreign leader to travel to Washington in an attempt to negotiate a better deal with Trump after his administration’s decision last week to impose sweeping global tariffs that have shaken stock markets, wiping out $5tn (£3.87tn) in value from S&P 500 index companies by Friday’s close in a record two-day decline.

Israel had attempted to duck the shock 17% tariff on Israeli imports by moving preemptively on Tuesday – a day before the tariffs were announced – to drop all remaining duties on the 1% of American goods still affected by them. But Trump moved ahead with the tariffs, saying the US had a significant trade deficit with its Middle East ally and leading beneficiary of military aid.

The US is Israel’s closest ally and largest single trading partner. The two countries signed a free trade agreement 40 years ago and about 98% of goods from the US are tax-free.

An Israeli finance ministry official said on Thursday that Trump’s latest tariff announcement could affect Israel’s exports of machinery and medical equipment.

Netanyahu will travel to the US on Sunday from Hungary, after a four-day official visit in which the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, had made clear he would defy the ICC arrest warrant for the Israeli leader. During the trip, Orbán announced that Hungary would withdraw from the court, which he said had become too “political”.

Other thorny issues in the meeting on Monday include Israel-Turkey relations and “the fight against the international criminal court”, which has accused the Israeli leader of war crimes, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Saturday night.

Trump and Netanyahu had spoken by phone on Thursday about Hungary’s decision to withdraw from the ICC, of which the US is not a member. The possibility of the Washington visit apparently arose at that time.

Agencies contributed to this report

• French president Emmanuel Macron on Sunday called for “strong action” if Russia continued “to refuse peace”, days after a Russian ballistic missile killed 20 people, including nine children, in Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home town. Despite US and European efforts to secure peace in Ukraine, Russia continued “to murder children and civilians”, Macron said. “My thoughts are with the children and all civilian victims of the bloody attacks carried out by Russia, including on 4 April in Kryvyi Rih,” Macron said on X. “A ceasefire is needed as soon as possible. And strong action if Russia continues to try to buy time and refuse peace.” Macron said that even though Ukraine accepted US president Donald Trump’s proposal for a complete ceasefire and European countries were also working to secure peace, “Russia is continuing the war with renewed intensity, with no regard for civilians.”

• Ukraine’s president said Russian attacks were launched on Sunday from the Black Sea, showing why Moscow is refusing to agree to an unconditional ceasefire: “they want to preserve their ability to strike our cities and ports from the sea.” Zelenskyy said a ceasefire at sea was key for overall security and bringing peace closer and suggested Vladimir Putin does not want to end the war, adding: “He is looking for ways to preserve the option of reigniting it at any moment, with even greater force.”

• Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Russia was increasing its aerial bombardment after its forces mounted a “massive” missile and drone attack on Ukraine overnight, killing two people. “The pressure on Russia is still insufficient,” the Ukrainian president added.

• It would be unsafe for Russia to restart the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and would take Ukraine up to two years in peacetime if it regained control, the chief executive of the company that runs the site has said. Petro Kotin, chief executive of Energoatom, said “major problems” to overcome included insufficient cooling water, personnel and incoming electricity supply. The future of the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest nuclear reactor, is a significant aspect of any negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

• French president Emmanuel Macron on Sunday called for “strong action” if Russia continued “to refuse peace”, days after a Russian ballistic missile killed 20 people, including nine children, in Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home town. Despite US and European efforts to secure peace in Ukraine, Russia continued “to murder children and civilians”, Macron said. “My thoughts are with the children and all civilian victims of the bloody attacks carried out by Russia, including on 4 April in Kryvyi Rih,” Macron said on X. “A ceasefire is needed as soon as possible. And strong action if Russia continues to try to buy time and refuse peace.” Macron said that even though Ukraine accepted US president Donald Trump’s proposal for a complete ceasefire and European countries were also working to secure peace, “Russia is continuing the war with renewed intensity, with no regard for civilians.”

• Ukraine’s president said Russian attacks were launched on Sunday from the Black Sea, showing why Moscow is refusing to agree to an unconditional ceasefire: “they want to preserve their ability to strike our cities and ports from the sea.” Zelenskyy said a ceasefire at sea was key for overall security and bringing peace closer and suggested Vladimir Putin does not want to end the war, adding: “He is looking for ways to preserve the option of reigniting it at any moment, with even greater force.”

• Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Russia was increasing its aerial bombardment after its forces mounted a “massive” missile and drone attack on Ukraine overnight, killing two people. “The pressure on Russia is still insufficient,” the Ukrainian president added.

• It would be unsafe for Russia to restart the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and would take Ukraine up to two years in peacetime if it regained control, the chief executive of the company that runs the site has said. Petro Kotin, chief executive of Energoatom, said “major problems” to overcome included insufficient cooling water, personnel and incoming electricity supply. The future of the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest nuclear reactor, is a significant aspect of any negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

It would be unsafe for Russia to restart the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and would take Ukraine up to two years in peacetime if it regained control, the chief executive of the company that runs the vast six-reactor site has said.

Petro Kotin, chief executive of Energoatom, said in an interview there were “major problems” to overcome – including insufficient cooling water, personnel and incoming electricity supply – before it could start generating power again safely.

The future of the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest nuclear reactor, is a significant aspect of any negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Seized by Russia in spring 2022 and shut down for safety reasons a few months later, it remains on the frontline of the conflict, close to the Dnipro River.

Russia has said it intends to retain the site and switch it back on, without being specific as to when. Alexey Likhachev, head of Russian nuclear operator Rosatom, said in February it would be restarted when “military and political conditions allow”.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has expressed an interest in taking control of it, though this possibility is considered very remote.

Kotin said Energoatom was prepared to restart the plant but it would require Russian forces to be removed and the site to be de-mined and demilitarised.

He said such a restart by Ukraine would take anywhere “from two months to two years” in an environment “without any threats from militaries”, while a Russian restart during wartime “would be impossible, even for one unit [reactor]”.

Kotin said the six reactors could only be brought online after the completion of 27 safety programmes agreed with Ukraine’s nuclear regulator, including testing the nuclear fuel in the reactor cores because it had exceeded a six-year “design term”.

That raises questions about whether Russia could restart the plant after a ceasefire without incurring significant risk. The plant was already unsafe, Kotin said, given that it was being used as “a military base with military vehicles present” and there were “probably some weapons and blasting materials” present as well.

Russia has acknowledged that it has placed mines between the inner and outer perimeters of the plant “to deter potential Ukrainian saboteurs” while inspectors from the IAEA nuclear watchdog have reported that armed troops and military personnel are present at the site.

Last month, the US Department of Energy said the Zaporizhzhia plant was being operated by an “inadequate and insufficently trained cadre of workers”, with staffing levels at less than a third of prewar levels.

The US briefing said Ukrainian reactors, though originally of the Soviet VVER design, had “evolved differently” from their Russian counterparts and “particularly the safety systems”. Russian-trained specialists acting as replacements for Ukrainian staff were “inexperienced” in operating the Ukrainian variants, it said.

Kotin said an attempt to restart the plant by Russia would almost certainly not be accepted or supported by Ukraine. It would require the reconnection of three additional 750kV high-voltage lines to come into the plant, he said.

A nuclear reactor requires a significant amount of power for day-to-day operation, and three of the four high-voltage lines came from territories now under Russian occupation. “They themselves destroyed the lines,” Kotin said, only for Russia to discover engineers could not rebuild them as the war continued, he added.

Only two lines remain to maintain the site in cold shutdown, a 750kV line coming from Ukraine, and a further 330kV line – though on eight separate occasions shelling disrupted their supply of energy, forcing the plant to rely on backup generators.

Experts say a pumping station has to be constructed at the site, because there is insufficient cooling water available. The June 2023 destruction by Russian soldiers of the Nova Kakhova dam downstream eliminated the easy supply of necessary water from the Dnipro river.

Two civilians were reportedly killed by Russian missile attacks on Sunday, including one in a ballistic missile strike in an eastern district of Kyiv; while Russia said it captured a border village near Sumy in north-east Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had launched more than 1,460 guided aerial bombs, nearly 670 attack drones, and more than 30 missiles over the past week. The Ukrainian president said: “The number of air attacks is increasing.”

US-brokered ceasefire talks have only achieved limited results thus far. Both sides agreed to stop attacking energy targets, though each accuses the other of violations; while a maritime ceasefire agreed to by Ukraine has not been accepted by Russia.

A Russian official involved in the negotiations said on Sunday that diplomatic contacts between Russia and the US could come again as early as next week.

The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has told supporters in Paris she would fight “a political, not a judicial ruling” that could bar her from the next presidential election, as a rival rally denounced an “existential threat” to the rule of law after her conviction for embezzling public funds.

“This decision has trampled on everything I hold most dear: my people, my country and my honour,” the figurehead of National Rally (RN) told a crowd of flag-waving supporters as the country’s three main political movements staged events in the Paris.

Speaking from a temporary stage in front of the Hôtel des Invalides with the party’s 120 members of parliament behind her, Le Pen said she would “not give up” and was the victim of a “witch-hunt”, adding: “It is we who are the most ardent defenders of the rule of law.”

But speaking at a leftwing rally a few kilometres away on the Place de la République, the Green party leader, Marine Tondelier, said Le Pen’s defence amounted to “a total conspiracy theory” and a full-blown attack on judicial independence.

“This is about more than Marine Le Pen,” Tondelier said. “It’s about defending the rule of law from people who think justice is optional. For everyone else, she wants tough justice, tolerance zero, jail for the first offence. For her, it’s too tough.”

Manuel Bompard of the radical left France Unbowed (LFI) told the rally the RN’s mask had slipped after years of trying to clean up its image and pose as a future party of government. “It’s dangerous for democracy, dangerous for the rule of law,” he said.

Police said 7,000 people were at the RN rally and 5,000 at the leftwing rival.

The three-time presidential candidate and frontrunner to succeed Emmanuel Macron was found guilty on Monday of embezzling more than €4m (£3.4m) of European parliament funds to pay RN party workers in France through a vast fake jobs scam.

Le Pen was sentenced to four years in prison, of which two were suspended and two may be served with an electronic bracelet, fined €100,000 and – under a law she had backed – barred from running for public office for five years with immediate effect.

The Paris appeals court has said it will deliver a verdict on her case by next summer, potentially allowing her to contest the 2027 presidential race if her conviction is overturned, which is seen as unlikely, or the ban on running for public office lifted.

The ruling, which followed a 10-year investigation and a nine-week trial, has dramatically shaken up the political landscape and been fiercely attacked by far-right politicians in France and beyond as politically motivated and anti-democratic.

Jordan Bardella, the RN’s 29-year-old president and Le Pen’s likely replacement if she remains ineligible, told cheering RN voters that it was “not just Marine Le Pen who has been unjustly condemned, but French democracy that has been put to death”.

The court decision would go down as “a dark day in our nation’s history”, he said, a “direct attack on our democracy, a wound for millions of patriots” and an attempt to “deprive us of free choice, to wipe from the scene an entire part of France”.

Speaking before her rally, Le Pen – whose vote share in the presidential first round was put at 36% by one poll on Sunday, far ahead of all rivals – said the RN would “follow the example of Martin Luther King’s struggle, who defended civil rights”.

Wearing a “Marine présidente” T-shirt and a “Save democracy” sticker, Patrick, 57, who had come from Normandy, said Le Pen’s sentence was “an outrage. Do they really think they can just get rid of an election favourite like that? It’s a banana republic.”

Valérie, 36, a legal assistant, said the court’s decision was flawed because “the texts it was based on, defining how European parliament money should be used”, were “unclear and imprecise. No one’s been defrauded. It’s all a complete fiction to stop Marine.”

On the Place de la République, several thousand protesters waved placards reading “No Trumpism in France” and “Nobody is above the law”. Vincent Lemaitre, 44, a primary school teacher, said the court’s ruling showed French democracy worked.

The judges, he said, “simply applied the law, which was passed by parliament, including many deputies who represent the RN. Le Pen and her colleagues broke that law. Popularity should not give politicians immunity. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

Anaïs Desmets, 31, said the argument that politicians should only be judged at the ballot box was “absurd. If someone harms children, they are kept away from kids. If someone steals public money, they shouldn’t be allowed to manage it.”

In the working-class northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, Macron’s Renaissance party and its allies warned of “an existential threat” to the rule of law. “If you steal, you pay,” the former prime minister Gabriel Attal said. “Especially if you are a politician.”

Attal, addressing an audience that included the present prime minister, François Bayrou, also denounced “unprecedented interference” in France’s affairs including from Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Hungary’s Viktor Orbàn and Italy’s Matteo Salvini.

He said every effort should be made not to politicise the court’s decision. “It’s not up to us, or to anyone else, to say whether the court’s judgement was good or bad,” Attal said. “It is our responsibility to always stick to the facts.”

More women risk dying in pregnancy and childbirth because of aid cuts by wealthy countries, which could have “pandemic-like effects”, UN agencies have warned.

Pregnant women in conflict zones are the most vulnerable, and face an “alarmingly high” risk that is already five times greater than elsewhere, according to a new UN report on trends in maternal mortality.

Deaths due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth declined 40% globally between 2000 and 2023, but progress is “fragile” and has slowed since 2016, the authors said. An estimated 260,000 women died in 2023 from pregnancy-related causes.

There is a “threat of major backsliding” amid “increasing headwinds”, the authors said. US funding cuts this year have meant clinics closing and health workers losing their jobs, and disrupted the supply chains that deliver life-saving medicines to treat leading causes of maternal death such as haemorrhage, pre-eclampsia and malaria, World Health Organization experts warned.

The report – itself part-funded by the US – revealed that maternal deaths rose by 40,000 in 2021 due to the Covid pandemic, probably driven by complications from the virus itself and by the disruptions to healthcare.

Dr Bruce Aylward, an assistant director general at the WHO, said that rise could offer insights into the possible impact of current aid cuts.

“With Covid, we saw an acute shock to the system, and what’s happening with financing is an acute shock,” he said.

“Countries have not had time to put in place and plan for what other financing they’re going to use, what other workers they’re going to use, [and] what are the trade-offs they’re going to make in their systems to try to make sure the most essential services can continue.”

The shock to services, he said, would lead to “pandemic-like effects”, adding that funding cuts risked not only progress, “but you could have a shift backwards”.

Deaths around the world would need to fall 10 times faster than at present – by 15% rather than 1.5% a year – to achieve the sustainable development goal target of less than 70 per 100,000 live births before 2030.

The report highlighted significant inequalities. In poor countries in 2023, there were 346 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births – nearly 35 times the 10 per 100,000 in rich countries. While in high- and upper middle-income countries, 99% of births are attended by a health professional, this falls to 73% in poor countries.

Countries where there are conflicts, or which are characterised as “fragile”, accounted for 61% of global maternal deaths, but only 25% of global live births.

A 15-year-old girl in a poor country has a one in 66 chance of dying from a pregnancy or childbirth-related cause. In a rich country, the figure is one in 7,933 – and in a country at war the figure is one in 51.

Catherine Russell, Unicef’s director, said: “Global funding cuts to health services are putting more pregnant women at risk, especially in the most fragile settings, by limiting their access to essential care during pregnancy and the support they need when giving birth.

“The world must urgently invest in midwives, nurses and community health workers to ensure every mother and baby has a chance to survive and thrive.”

Maternal mortality rates have “stagnated” in many parts of the world since 2015, the report found, including northern Africa and much of Asia, Europe, North and Latin America, and the Caribbean.

The authors called for further efforts to ensure critical services were maintained and to improve access to family-planning services and education.

Pascale Allotey, director of the WHO’s reproductive health department, said: “It is an indictment on our humanity and a real travesty of justice that women die in childbirth today.

“It really is something that we all have a collective responsibility for,” she said. “We have to step up.”

After days of intense rain and wind killed at least 18 people in the US south and midwest, rivers rose and flooding worsened on Sunday in those regions, threatening waterlogged and badly damaged communities.

Utility companies scrambled to shut off power and gas from Texas to Ohio while cities closed roads and deployed sandbags to protect homes and businesses.

In Kentucky, downtown Frankfort, the state’s capital, was inundated.

“As long as I’ve been alive – and I’m 52 – this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Wendy Quire, the general manager at the Brown Barrel restaurant.

As the swollen Kentucky river kept rising on Sunday, officials closed roads and turned off power and gas to businesses in the city built around it, Quire said. “The rain just won’t stop,” she said. “It’s been nonstop for days and days.”

The ongoing, global climate crisis is bringing heavier rainfall and related flood risks to most parts of the US, with the upper midwest and Ohio River valley among the regions most affected, according to Climate Central, an independent non-profit that researches weather patterns.

Forecasters warned that flooding could persist for days, as torrential rains lingered over many states, including Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama. Tornadoes are possible in Alabama, Georgia and Florida, forecasters said.

The 18 reported deaths since the start of the storms on Wednesday included 10 in Tennessee. A nine-year-old boy in Kentucky was caught up in floodwaters while walking to catch his school bus. A five-year-old boy in Arkansas died after a tree fell on his family’s home and trapped him, police said. A 16-year-old volunteer firefighter in Missouri died in a crash while seeking to rescue people caught in the storm.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said on Sunday dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach a “major flood stage”, with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible.

There were 521 domestic and international flights cancelled within the US, and more than 6,400 were delayed on Saturday, according to FlightAware.com. The website reported 74 cancellations and 478 delays of US flights early on Sunday.

The storms come after Donald Trump’s administration has cut jobs at NWS forecast offices, leaving half of them with vacancy rates of about 20%, or double the level of a decade ago.

Officials warned of flash flooding and tornadoes on Saturday across Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky. All of eastern Kentucky was under a flood watch through Sunday morning.

In north-central Kentucky, emergency officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for Falmouth and Butler, towns near the bend of the rising Licking river. Thirty years ago, the river reached a record 50ft (15 meters), resulting in five deaths and 1,000 homes destroyed.

The NWS said 5.06in (nearly 13 cm) of rain fell on Saturday in Jonesboro, Arkansas – making it the wettest day ever recorded in April in the city, dating back to 1893.

As of early Sunday, Memphis had received 14in (35cm) of rain since Wednesday, the NWS said. West Memphis, Arkansas, received 10in (25cm).

Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong winds and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf.

In Dyersburg, Tennessee, dozens of people arrived on Saturday at a storm shelter near a public school in the rain, clutching blankets, pillows and other necessities.

Among them was George Manns, 77, who said he was in his apartment when he heard a tornado warning and decided to head to the shelter. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.

“I grabbed all my stuff and came here,” said Mann, who brought a folding chair, two bags of toiletries, laptops, iPads and medications. “I don’t leave them in my apartment in case my apartment is destroyed. I have to make sure I have them with me.”

Guardian staff contributed reporting

After days of intense rain and wind killed at least 18 people in the US south and midwest, rivers rose and flooding worsened on Sunday in those regions, threatening waterlogged and badly damaged communities.

Utility companies scrambled to shut off power and gas from Texas to Ohio while cities closed roads and deployed sandbags to protect homes and businesses.

In Kentucky, downtown Frankfort, the state’s capital, was inundated.

“As long as I’ve been alive – and I’m 52 – this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Wendy Quire, the general manager at the Brown Barrel restaurant.

As the swollen Kentucky river kept rising on Sunday, officials closed roads and turned off power and gas to businesses in the city built around it, Quire said. “The rain just won’t stop,” she said. “It’s been nonstop for days and days.”

The ongoing, global climate crisis is bringing heavier rainfall and related flood risks to most parts of the US, with the upper midwest and Ohio River valley among the regions most affected, according to Climate Central, an independent non-profit that researches weather patterns.

Forecasters warned that flooding could persist for days, as torrential rains lingered over many states, including Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama. Tornadoes are possible in Alabama, Georgia and Florida, forecasters said.

The 18 reported deaths since the start of the storms on Wednesday included 10 in Tennessee. A nine-year-old boy in Kentucky was caught up in floodwaters while walking to catch his school bus. A five-year-old boy in Arkansas died after a tree fell on his family’s home and trapped him, police said. A 16-year-old volunteer firefighter in Missouri died in a crash while seeking to rescue people caught in the storm.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said on Sunday dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach a “major flood stage”, with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible.

There were 521 domestic and international flights cancelled within the US, and more than 6,400 were delayed on Saturday, according to FlightAware.com. The website reported 74 cancellations and 478 delays of US flights early on Sunday.

The storms come after Donald Trump’s administration has cut jobs at NWS forecast offices, leaving half of them with vacancy rates of about 20%, or double the level of a decade ago.

Officials warned of flash flooding and tornadoes on Saturday across Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky. All of eastern Kentucky was under a flood watch through Sunday morning.

In north-central Kentucky, emergency officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for Falmouth and Butler, towns near the bend of the rising Licking river. Thirty years ago, the river reached a record 50ft (15 meters), resulting in five deaths and 1,000 homes destroyed.

The NWS said 5.06in (nearly 13 cm) of rain fell on Saturday in Jonesboro, Arkansas – making it the wettest day ever recorded in April in the city, dating back to 1893.

As of early Sunday, Memphis had received 14in (35cm) of rain since Wednesday, the NWS said. West Memphis, Arkansas, received 10in (25cm).

Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong winds and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf.

In Dyersburg, Tennessee, dozens of people arrived on Saturday at a storm shelter near a public school in the rain, clutching blankets, pillows and other necessities.

Among them was George Manns, 77, who said he was in his apartment when he heard a tornado warning and decided to head to the shelter. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.

“I grabbed all my stuff and came here,” said Mann, who brought a folding chair, two bags of toiletries, laptops, iPads and medications. “I don’t leave them in my apartment in case my apartment is destroyed. I have to make sure I have them with me.”

Guardian staff contributed reporting

The benefits of taking drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder outweigh the impact of increases in blood pressure and heart rate, according to a new study.

An international team of researchers led by scientists from the University of Southampton found the majority of children taking ADHD medication experienced small increases in blood pressure and pulse rates, but that the drugs had “overall small effects”. They said the study’s findings highlighted the need for “careful monitoring”.

Prof Samuele Cortese, the senior lead author of the study, from the University of Southampton, said the risks and benefits of taking any medication had to be assessed together, but for ADHD drugs the risk-benefit ratio was “reassuring”.

“We found an overall small increase in blood pressure and pulse for the majority of children taking ADHD medications,” he said. “Other studies show clear benefits in terms of reductions in mortality risk and improvement in academic functions, as well as a small increased risk of hypertension, but not other cardiovascular diseases. Overall, the risk-benefit ratio is reassuring for people taking ADHD medications.”

About 3 to 4% of adults and 5% of children in the UK are believed to have ADHD, a neurodevelopmental disorder with symptoms including impulsiveness, disorganisation and difficulty focusing, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice).

Doctors can prescribe stimulants, such as methylphenidate, of which the best-known brand is Ritalin. Other stimulant medications used to treat ADHD include lisdexamfetamine and dexamfetamine. Non-stimulant drugs include atomoxetine, an sNRI (selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor), and guanfacine.

The study of children, adolescents and adults states: “There is uncertainty regarding whether medications that are used for the treatment of ADHD may lead to cardiovascular diseases, and concerns remain around their cardiovascular safety.” It found all ADHD medications were associated with small increases of blood pressure and heart rate, except guanfacine, which led to decreased blood pressure and heart rate.

There were no significant differences regarding the impact on blood pressure and heart rate between stimulants (including methylphenidate and amphetamine) and non-stimulants (atomoxetine and viloxazine). The researchers advised people with existing heart conditions to discuss the side effects of ADHD medications with a specialist cardiologist before starting treatment.

Dr Ulrich Müller-Sedgwick, a consultant psychiatrist and expert on ADHD, said most clinicians prescribing ADHD medication understood the cardiovascular risks and followed Nice guidelines for monitoring blood pressure, pulse and weight. “We need more detailed guidelines for scenarios when ADHD medication needs to be adjusted or stopped,” he said.

Last year, a thinktank warned that the NHS was experiencing an “avalanche of need” over autism and ADHD, and said the system in place to cope with surging demand for assessments and treatments was “obsolete”. The number of prescriptions issued in England for ADHD medication has risen by 18% year on year since the pandemic, with the biggest rise in London.

Dr Tony Lord, a former chief executive of the ADHD Foundation, said the long-term benefits of ADHD medication were well established, and included a reduced risk of anxiety and depression, eating disorders, harm from smoking, improved educational outcomes and economic independence.

“Sadly ignorance about ADHD medications persists – a throwback to the 80s and 90s when ADHD medications were mistakenly viewed as a morality pill that made naughty, fidgety disruptive children behave – which of course it is not,” he said.

“It is simply a cognitive enhancer that improves information processing, inhibits distractions, improves focus, planning and prioritising, self monitoring and reduces impulsivity of thought and action.”

Pope Francis has made a surprise appearance in St Peter’s Square during a special jubilee mass for the sick and health workers, marking his first public appearance at the Vatican since his discharge from hospital two weeks ago.

The pontiff waved at the crowd that stood and applauded as he was appeared unannounced, assisted in a wheelchair to the front of the altar in the square.

“Good Sunday to everyone,’’ Francis said, speaking into a microphone, which he tapped to make sure it was working on a second attempt. “Thank you very much.”

The pontiff’s voice sounded stronger than when he addressed wellwishers outside Gemelli hospital on the day of his release on 23 March, after being diagnosed with life-threatening pneumonia during a five-week hospital stay. He has just completed two weeks of at least two months of doctor-ordered rest as he continues physical, respiratory and speech therapy, as well as treatment for a lingering lung infection.

The pope referred to his experience with illness in both the traditional Sunday blessing and the homily read by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the organiser of the Holy Year, which is expected to attract 30 million pilgrims to Rome.

Addressing the sick among the crowd, the pope said in the homily read by Fisichella: “In this moment of my life I share a lot: the experience of infirmity, feeling weak, depending on the others for many things, needing support.

“It is not easy, but it is a school in which we learn every day to love and to let ourselves be loved, without demanding and without rejecting, without regretting, without despairing, grateful to God and to our brothers for the good that we receive, trusting for what is still to come.”

He also urged the faithful not to push the fragile from their lives “as unfortunately a certain mentality” did today. “Let’s not ostracise pain from our surroundings. Let’s instead make it an opportunity to grow together, to cultivate hope,” he added.

In the traditional Sunday blessing, pope offered prayers for doctors, nurses and health care workers who were “not always helped to work in inadequate conditions, at times the victims of aggression. Their mission is not easy and must be supported and respected.”

Emergency services were on Sunday continuing to battle a wildfire that started in Galloway in the south of Scotland, and has spread north into East Ayrshire, forcing the evacuation of walkers and wild campers.

The blaze started in the Newton Stewart area on Thursday, then spread northwards over the weekend after a change in wind direction to reach Loch Doon.

Residents living nearby were advised to keep windows and doors closed and police told people to avoid the area.

On Sunday evening the Scottish government held an emergency meeting to coordinate its response.

In a statement posted to X, it said: “The Scottish government’s Resilience Room (SGORR) has been activated in response to a wildfire in the area of Galloway Forest Park. Justice Secretary Angela Constance will chair a meeting this evening.”

By 10.20pm on Sunday, the Scottish fire and rescue service (SFRS) confirmed that fire crews had withdrawn from the area due to low light, but planned to resume operations at first light on Monday.

Stewart Gibson, the team leader at Galloway mountain rescue, told BBC Scotland fire crews had employed four helicopters to drop water on the flames from above, with the fire front several miles wide at one stage.

Rising temperatures across the UK earlier this week led to wildfire warnings being put in place, with the Scottish fire and rescue service saying there was a “very high to extreme risk” of fires spreading because of warm, dry conditions.

The service has warned the public to avoid outdoor fires and barbecues, and to dispose of cigarettes and glass safely.

Further north in the Highlands, crews were tackling another wildfire north of Ullapool on Sunday with roads closed and heavy smoke hampering visibility.

Six crews were in attendance, with personnel travelling almost 70 miles to offer assistance and firefighters at the scene reporting a firewall stretching more than 3 miles and large plumes of smoke descending over the area.

Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, fire brigades were called to the scene of a blaze in County Antrim on Sunday afternoon. Six fire engines attended the incident near Conogher Road, Dervock, while 40 firefighters were involved in tackling the flames.

Danny Ard, the group commander for the Northern Ireland fire and rescue service, said the firefighters had utilised “jets” and “specialist wildfire equipment to contain the fire”. It was extinguished at 8pm on Sunday.

A significant wildfire that broke out on Saturday and triggered a major incident in Northern Ireland’s Mourne mountains district was extinguished on Sunday morning. One man was arrested by police.

More than 100 firefighters and 15 fire appliances were deployed on Saturday to Sandbank Road, Hilltown, to tackle the blaze, which was believed to have been caused deliberately, fire chiefs said.

Northern Ireland fire and rescue service said the fire had a front of approximately 2 miles “including a large area of forestry close to property”.

The British artist called “truly the worst” by the US president, Donald Trump, after he derided a portrait she created of him, has said the criticism called her “integrity into question” and is threatening her career.

Sarah A Boardman painted Trump’s official portrait for the Colorado state capitol building in Denver, where it hung for six years from 2019.

In March, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform that the portrait had been “purposefully distorted”. Trump said Boardman’s portrait of the former US president Barack Obama was “wonderful”, but “the one on me is truly the worst”.

In her first comment since the incident, Boardman said Trump’s comments meant that her “intentions, integrity and abilities were, in my opinion, called into question”.

Boardman rebuked the president’s claims in a statement, saying she had “completed the portrait accurately, without ‘purposeful distortion’, political bias, or any attempt to caricature the subject, actual or implied”.

The artist said that while she acknowledged Trump’s right to comment, the “additional allegations that I ‘purposefully distorted’ the portrait, and that I ‘must have lost my talent as I got older’ are now directly and negatively impacting my business of over 41 years, which now is in danger of not recovering”.

Discussing her work with the Colorado Times Recorder in 2019, she acknowledged that there would “always be anger at a president from one side or the other. It is human nature.”

In response to Trump’s criticism, officials said the portrait would be removed, and it has been since. Boardman says that for the first six years after she painted the portrait, she “received overwhelmingly positive reviews and feedback”, but that since Trump’s comments “that has changed for the worse”.

Boardman was born in Britain, and her website says she spent years travelling around Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Malaysia, the Middle East, Europe and the US while “conducting a successful career in airline travel and business”.

In 1985, she began studying techniques of the old masters in Germany and built a successful career as an artist, eventually winning a nationwide “call for artists” by Colorado’s state capital of Denver, to paint the official portraits of presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Trump guards his image closely. In January 2025, before his inauguration, he released a portrait that was variously described by critics as serious or ominous, and seemed to reference his 2023 mugshot.

That image was taken after he was charged with attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden in the state of Georgia – a charge Trump denied.

After Trump’s criticism of Boardman, his envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed the White House had been sent a new work from Moscow, which was a gift from Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described it as a “personal gift”.

Witkoff described the picture as a “beautiful portrait” by a “leading Russian artist”.