Donald Trump has threatened to impose an additional 50% tariff on imports from China on Wednesday unless the country rescinds its retaliatory tariffs on the United States by Tuesday.

The news comes on the third day of catastrophic market falls around the globe since Trump announced his trade war last Wednesday with tariffs on the US’s trading partners.

As part of that move the White House announced it would impose a 34% tariff on Chinese imports. In response, Beijing announced a 34% tariff on US imports.

In a statement on Truth Social on Monday morning, the US president said that China enacted the retaliatory tariffs despite his “warning that any country that Retaliates against the U.S. by issuing additional Tariffs” would be “immediately met with new and substantially higher Tariffs, over and above those initially set”.

“If China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th,” Trump wrote.

“Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!” he added. “Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately.”

China’s US embassy said on Monday it would not cave to pressure or threats over the additional 50% tariffs. “We have stressed more than once that pressuring or threatening China is not a right way to engage with us. China will firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” Liu Pengyu, an embassy spokesman, told Agence France-Presse.

A senior White House official told ABC News that the increased tariffs on China would be on top of the 34% reciprocal tariff Trump announced last week and the 20% already in place.

Trump’s new ultimatum to China marked the latest escalation from the White House and came as US stocks swung in and out of the red on Monday morning as a report circulated that Trump was going to pause the implementation of his sweeping tariffs for 90 days, but then was quickly dismissed by the White House as “fake news”.

Not long after Trump threatened China with additional tariffs on Monday morning, he participated in a White House visit from the Los Angeles Dodgers to celebrate their World Series title.

A libertarian group that has been funded by Leonard Leo and Charles Koch has mounted a legal challenge against Donald Trump’s tariff regime, in a sign of spreading rightwing opposition to a policy that has sent international markets plummeting.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a suit against Trump’s imposition of import tariffs on exports from China, arguing that doing so under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – which the president has invoked to justify the duties on nearly all countries – is unlawful.

The group’s actions echo support given by four Republican senators last week for a Democratic amendment calling for the reversal of 25% tariffs imposed on Canada.

Last Wednesday’s amendment passed with the support of Mitch McConnell, the former Republican Senate majority leader, and his fellow GOP members Rand Paul, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who argued that tariffs on Canada would be economically harmful.

The action from the alliance has the potential to be even more emblematic, given its past backing from Koch, a billionaire industrialist, and Leo, a wealthy legal activist who advised Trump on the nomination of three conservative supreme court justices during his first presidency, which has given the court a 6-3 rightwing majority. The group received money from organisations affiliated with Leo and Koch in 2022. A spokesperson for Stand Together, a group partially-funded by Koch and that has supported the alliance, said it was not involved in the legal case.

The alliance has tabled its action on behalf of Simplified, a Florida-based home goods company whose business is heavily reliant on imports from China. It argues that the president has exceeded his powers in invoking the IEEPA to justify tariffs.

“This statute authorizes specific emergency actions like imposing sanctions or freezing assets to protect the United States from foreign threats,” the alliance said in a statement. “It does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. In its nearly 50-year history, no other president – including President Trump in his first term – has ever tried to use the IEEPA to impose tariffs.”

The alliance also argues that power to impose tariffs lies not with a sitting president, but with Congress, and warns that those imposed by Trump could run afoul of US supreme court rulings.

“His attempt to use the IEEPA this way not only violates the law as written, but it also invites application of the supreme court’s major questions doctrine, which tells courts not to discern policies of ‘vast economic and political significance’ in a law without explicit congressional authorization,” its statement said.

Mark Chenoweth, the alliance’s president, said the court in Pensacola – where the suit has been filed – would have to observe this legal precedent.

“Reading this law [IEEPA] broadly enough to uphold the China tariff would transfer core legislative power,” he said. “To avoid that non-delegation pitfall, the court must construe the statute consistent with nearly 50 years of unbroken practice and decide it does not permit tariff setting.”

The suit argues that there is no connection between the fentanyl epidemic – which Trump has cited as a reason for invoking the emergency powers – and the tariffs.

“The means of an across-the-board tariff does not fit the end of stopping an influx of opioids, and is in no sense ‘necessary’ to that stated purpose,” the complaint filed on behalf of Simplified argues.

“In fact, President Trump’s own statements reveal the real reason for the China tariff, which is to reduce American trade deficits while raising federal revenue.”

The legal case adds to rumbling disquiet on tariffs among some of Trump’s usually vocal supporters, including the billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.

Paul, a senator from Kentucky who has been one of the most consistent congressional anti-tariff voices, told the Washington Post that other Capitol Hill Republicans shared his concern.

“They all see the stock market, and they’re all worried about it,” Paul said. “But they are putting on a stiff upper lip to try to act as if nothing’s happening and hoping it goes away.”

Speaking in support of last week’s Democratic amendment, sponsored by the Virginia senator Tim Kaine, Paul said: “I don’t care if the president is a Republican or a Democrat. I don’t want to live under emergency rule. I don’t want to live where my representatives cannot speak for me and have a check and balance on power.”

Trump attacked Paul and the three other Republican senators who backed the amendment and suggested they were driven by “Trump derangement syndrome”.

In another sign of Republican concern, the GOP senator from Iowa Chuck Grassley – along with a Washington Democrat, Maria Cantrell – introduced a bill that would limit Trump’s ability to impose or increase tariffs by requiring Congress to approve them within 60 days. The White House budget office said on Monday that Trump would veto the bill.

Extreme volatility plagued global stock markets on Monday, with Wall Street swinging in and out of the red as Donald Trump defied stark warnings that his global trade assault will wreak widespread economic damage, comparing new US tariffs to medicine.

A renewed sell-off began in Asia, before hitting European equities and reaching the US. It was briefly reversed amid hopes of a reprieve, only for Trump to threaten China with more steep tariffs, intensifying pressure on the market.

On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 dropped by as much as 4.1% – entering bear market territory after falling more than 20% from its most recent peak, in February – before launching an extraordinary reversal to turn positive.

While markets were fleetingly boosted after Kevin Hassett, director of the White House national economic council, signaled that Trump was open to considering a 90-day pause on tariffs for all countries but China, the relief did not last long.

After hours of turbulent trading, the S&P closed down 0.2%. The Dow Jones industrial average finished down 0.9%.

“We’re not looking at that,” Trump told reporters, when asked about the prospect of a pause. Pressed on whether the tariffs set the stage for negotiations with countries, or were permanent, he replied: “Well, it can both be true. There can be permanent tariffs, and there can also be negotiations.”

The FTSE 100 closed down 4.38% in London at 7,702.08 – the lowest close in more than a year – after the Nikkei 225 slumped 7.8% in Tokyo. Other major European also ended the day sharply lower, including Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC which both fell more than 4%.

Trump, who has previously used market rallies as a barometer of his success, tried to brush off the sell-off this weekend. “I don’t want anything to go down,” the US president said on Sunday. “But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”

He stood firm on Monday. “The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid!”

As China prepares to retaliate, Trump threatened to further increase US tariffs on the country – an additional rate of 50% – if it hits back. All talks with Beijing over potential meetings have been “terminated”, he said.

Major share indices have fallen dramatically since he unveiled his controversial plan to overhaul the US economy last week. The Trump administration imposed a blanket 10% tariff on imported goods this weekend, and is set to follow with higher tariffs on products from specific nations from Wednesday.

While senior figures in corporate America have been reluctant to criticize Trump since his inauguration in January, a handful have started to sound the alarm in recent days.

Larry Fink, CEO of the investment giant BlackRock, expressed concern on Monday over the threat of a downturn. “The economy is weakening as we speak,” he said at the Economic Club of New York, according to Bloomberg. “Most CEOs I talk to would say we are probably in a recession right now.”

The JPMorgan Chase boss, Jamie Dimon, one of the most influential executives on Wall Street, warned that Trump’s tariff plan was “likely” to exacerbate inflation. “Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth,” he wrote in his annual letter to shareholders.

Dimon added: “The quicker this issue is resolved, the better because some of the negative effects increase cumulatively over time and would be hard to reverse.”

The billionaire fund manager Bill Ackman, who backed Trump’s campaign for the presidency, has also demanded the administration reconsider its plan. “We are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Even Elon Musk, a close ally of Trump, currently leading the so-called “department of government efficiency” inside the government, appeared to break with the administration on the issue. Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, “ain’t built shit”, Musk wrote on X, which he owns, this weekend.

Navarro, for his part, insisted in a television interview on Monday morning that the stock market would find a bottom. Less than hour later, when New York opened for trading, the search continued.

The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite started the day down 4.3%, before switching in and out of the red. It ended the day broadly flat, up by 0.1%. The VIX “fear index” of volatility rose as high as 60 for the first time since August.

Oil prices also came under pressure, with Brent and WTI benchmarks stooping to their lowest levels in four years, as growing economic tensions between Washington and Beijing stoked fears that a global downturn would challenge demand.

Sir Richard Branson, co-founder of Virgin Group, argued the “predictable and preventable” market chaos would have “catastrophic” implications for people in the US and around the world, and claimed companies were already going bankrupt as a result of the weaker dollar and higher costs.

“This is the moment to own up to a colossal mistake and change course,” Branson wrote on X. “Otherwise, America will face ruin for years to come.”

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy said for the first time Monday that Ukrainian forces were operating in Russia’s Belgorod region, where Moscow reported attacks in March. Belgorod is regularly the target of Ukrainian air attacks and is close to Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have been desperately trying to hang on to territory since launching a surprise incursion last year. Zelenskyy said in his daily address that General Oleksandr Syrsky had reported on “our presence in Kursk region and our presence in Belgorod region”. He added: “We continue to conduct active operations in the border areas on the enemy’s territory, and this is absolutely right – the war must return to where it came from.” It is the first time since the full-scale invasion began that Zelenskyy has explicitly mentioned a Ukrainian presence in Belgorod, a border region with a population of about 1.5 million people. The Russian military acknowledged facing Ukrainian land attacks in the region in March. According to the DeepState military blog, which is considered close to Ukraine’s army, Ukrainian troops have occupied a 13 sq km (five square mile) area in the Russian region, near the border village of Demidovka. Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials have said the incursion into Kursk and other Russian territory is to divert Russian forces attacking the Ukrainian regions of Sumy and Kharkiv.

• Anger and outrage gripped Zelenskyy’s home town on Monday as it held funerals for some of the 20 people, including nine children, killed by a Russian missile that struck apartment buildings and a playground. More than 70 were wounded in the attack on Kryvyi Rih last Friday evening. The children were playing on swings and in a sandbox in a tree-lined park at the time. Bodies were strewn across the grass. “We are not asking for pity,” Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city administration, wrote on Telegram as Kryvyi Rih mourned. “We demand the world’s outrage.” The UN Human Rights Office in Ukraine said it was the deadliest single verified strike harming children since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. It was also one of the deadliest attacks so far this year.

• Teacher Iryna Kholod remembered Arina and Radyslav, both 7 years old and killed in Friday’s strike, as being “like little suns in the classroom”. Radyslav, she said, was proud to be part of a school campaign collecting pet food for stray animals. “He held the bag like it was treasure. He wanted to help,” she told the Associated Press. After Friday evening, “two desks in my classroom were empty forever,” Kholod said, adding that she still has unopened birthday gifts for them.
  “How do I tell parents to return their textbooks? How do I teach without them?” she asked.

• Donald Trump has accused Russia of “bombing like crazy right now” even as the US president claimed the parties were “sort of close” on a deal. On Monday he reiterated his opposition to Russia’s bombing of Ukraine as his administration participates in talks seeking an end to the fighting. “I’m not happy about what’s going on”, he told reporters in the White House. “So we’re meeting with Russia, we’re meeting with Ukraine, and we’re getting sort of close, but I’m not happy with all the bombing that’s going in the last week or so,” he said. “It’s a horrible thing.”

• Trump’s Monday remarks came hours after the Kremlin said it supported the idea of a truce in Ukraine but had many “questions” about how such a deal would work, pushing back at US and European suggestions that it was playing for time. Russia has kept up its strikes on Ukraine unabated despite the US president’s promise to bring peace within “24 hours” of returning to the White House in January.

Autopsies conducted on 15 Palestinian paramedics and civil emergency responders who were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza show they were shot in the upper body with “intent to kill”, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which is demanding an international investigation into the attack.

The killings took place in the southern Gaza Strip on 23 March, days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory, and sparked international condemnation.

The results of the postmortems join a growing body of evidence that sharply contradicts Israel’s account of the incident, including video footage that shows the vehicles were travelling with headlights and flashing red lights that identified them, with personnel wearing hi-vis vests, at the time they were fired on.

Germany, one of Israel’s closest backers in the EU, called for an urgent investigation into the incident on Monday. “There are very significant questions about the actions of the Israeli army now,” the foreign ministry spokesperson Christian Wagner said after the video footage emerged.

“An investigation and accountability of the perpetrators are urgently needed,” he said, adding that a full investigation of the incident would be “a question that ultimately affects the credibility of the Israeli constitutional state”.

Those killed included eight Red Crescent staff, six members of the Gaza civil defence agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

The bodies were later found buried near the site of the shooting in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah city, in what the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs described as a mass grave.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initially said its soldiers “did not randomly attack” any ambulances, insisting they fired on “terrorists” that were approaching in “suspicious vehicles”.

Lt Col Nadav Shoshani said troops had opened fire on vehicles that had no prior clearance from Israeli authorities and had their lights off, a statement contradicted by video recovered from the mobile phone of one of those killed.

The IDF later changed its story and conceded its earlier account had been “mistaken”. It claimed on Sunday that at least six of the medics were linked to Hamas, but has provided no evidence. None of those killed were armed.

It said on Monday that its initial investigation into the killings had shown that the incident occurred “due to a sense of threat”, and claimed six Hamas militants had been in the vicinity.

The Israeli army chief, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir ordered a more in-depth investigation into the attack after completion of the initial one.

The president of the Red Crescent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Younis al-Khatib, told journalists in Ramallah: “There has been an autopsy of the martyrs from the Red Crescent and civil defence teams. We cannot disclose everything we know, but I will say that all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill.”

He called for an international investigation into the killings, which the IDF has separately announced it was looking into.

“Why did you hide the bodies?” Khatib asked of the Israeli forces involved in the attack. “We call on the world to form an independent and impartial international commission of inquiry into the circumstances of the deliberate killing of the ambulance crews in the Gaza Strip.

“It is no longer sufficient to speak of respecting the international law and Geneva convention. It is now required from the international community and the UN security council to implement the necessary punishment against all who are responsible.”

In the past 18 months of war Israeli forces have conducted attacks that have killed hundreds of medical workers and the staff of NGOs and UN organisations, including foreign nationals working in Gaza. Six members of World Central Kitchen, including the Briton James Kirby, died in a sustained Israeli attack on their clearly marked vehicles.

Human rights organisations have long accused Israel of a culture of impunity with few soldiers ever facing justice.

A Palestinian journalist was killed and several others wounded on Monday, when Israel struck a media tent near Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.

According to the Palestinian Civil Defence, an organisation affiliated with Hamas’s interior ministry, two people – Helmi al-Faqawi and a civilian, Yousef al-Khazandar – were killed when the Palestine Today agency’s tent was struck.

An Israeli airstrike on a tent camp within a hospital complex in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis has killed 10 people, including a journalist, while seriously injuring dozens more after their encampment caught fire.

Images and video from the courtyard of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis showed people desperately attempting to extinguish the fires as it burned through a row of tents. One video showed people screaming as a bystander attempted to move a burning piece of furniture, while a journalist, later identified as Ahmed Mansour of the news outlet Palestine Today, sat upright engulfed by the blaze.

His colleague Helmi al-Faqawi was killed in the strike, while at least nine other journalists were among the wounded. Mansour received treatment for severe burns while the photographer Hassan Aslih was reportedly in a stable condition after suffering a head injury and cuts to his right hand.

The Palestinian foreign ministry in Ramallah said 10 people had been killed in the airstrike, with many more wounded. The ministry called al-Faqawi’s death an act of “extrajudicial killing,” labelling it part of growing crimes against journalists and an attempt to prevent the media from covering events on the ground.

Dozens of journalists in Gaza joined al-Faqawi’s relatives to bury the slain reporter in the hours after the attack, placing a blue flak jacket on top of the white shroud covering his body on a stretcher. His killing has brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed since October 2023 to 207, according to the Palestinian foreign ministry in the occupied West Bank.

“We will continue to deliver the message and convey the truth to the whole world. This is our humanitarian duty,” the journalist Abd Shaat told Reuters. He said that the noise of the airstrike had woken them, only for them to see that a nearby tent sheltering their colleagues was on fire.

Since the beginning of Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip hundreds of people have sought shelter in encampments in hospital grounds across the besieged territory, hoping that proximity will provide a measure of safety.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet security agency said the airstrike on the hospital grounds was targeting Aslih, whom they accused of being a member of Hamas. In a statement, the IDF accused Aslih of taking part in Hamas’s attack on a string of Israeli towns and kibbutzim on 7 October 2023, when 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.

He took part in the attack by uploading “footage of looting, arson and murder to social media”, the IDF said. Aslih has documented the impact of Israeli attacks on Gaza by uploading photos and video to his Instagram page, followed by 571,000 people.

His most recent post showed the funeral of the journalist Islam Miqdad, her blue flak jacket also draped across the white shroud over her body, in a burial ritual for journalists. Miqdad was killed in an attack on the building where she was sheltering with her young son in western Khan Younis.

“My daughter is innocent. She had no involvement, she loved journalism and adored it,” Miqdad’s mother Amal Kaskeen told the Associated Press.

Last year was the deadliest on record for journalists, with Israel responsible for 70% of the total deaths of media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Israel’s assault on Gaza claimed the lives of 82 Palestinian journalists in 2024, according to CPJ.

Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza after a fragile ceasefire collapsed last month. The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said another 142,000 people were displaced in just six days in March after the resumption of fighting.

Fifty-nine hostages, including 24 understood to be alive, are still held by militants in Gaza. Israel’s assault on the territory has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians in 18 months of war, a third of them children, according to the health ministry in Ramallah.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, met with Donald Trump on Monday for the second time since the US president’s return to office, marking the first effort by a foreign leader to negotiate a deal after Trump announced sweeping tariffs last week.

Speaking alongside Trump in the Oval Office, Netanyahu said Israel would eliminate the trade deficit with the US. “We intend to do it very quickly,” he told reporters, adding that he believed Israel could “serve as a model for many countries who ought to do the same”.

Trump said the pair had a “great discussion” but did not indicate whether he would reduce the tariffs on Israeli goods. “Maybe not,” he said. “Don’t forget we help Israel a lot. We give Israel $4bn a year. That’s a lot.”

Trump denied reports that he was considering a 90-day pause on his tariff rollout. “We’re not looking at that,” he told reporters. “We have many, many countries that are coming to negotiate deals with us, and there are going to be fair deals.”

Trump also announced that the US and Iran were beginning talks on Tehran’s nuclear program. “We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started. It’ll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen,” he told reporters. He warned Tehran would be “in great danger” if the talks collapse.

Netanyahu expressed a cautious support for US-Iran talks but insisted Tehran must not have nuclear weapons. “If it can be done diplomatically … I think that would be a good thing,” he said. “But whatever happens, we must make sure that Iran does not have nuclear weapons.”

The comments came in the Oval Office after Trump and Netanyahu held private talks. The White House canceled a joint press conference that was scheduled to take place afterward, without offering an immediate explanation.

Netanyahu, announcing the last-minute meeting on Sunday, said he was visiting at the invitation of Trump to speak about efforts to release Israeli hostages from Gaza, as well as new US tariffs.

The meeting came after the Trump administration announced his trade war last Wednesday with tariffs on the US’s trading partners, including a 17% tariff on Israeli goods.

The US is Israel’s closest ally and largest single trading partner. Israel had hoped to avoid the new tariffs by moving to cancel its remaining tariffs on US imports a day before Trump’s announcement.

Before his meeting with Trump, Netanyahu met with the US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff. He also met with the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, and the US trade representative Jamieson Greer on Sunday night in Washington. The Israeli government described the latter meeting as “warm, friendly and productive”.

During Netanyahu’s last visit in February, Trump shocked the world by proposing to take over the Gaza Strip, removing more than 2 million Palestinians and redeveloping the occupied territory as a “Riviera of the Middle East”, in effect endorsing the ethnic cleansing of the people of Gaza.

Since then, Israel has resumed its bombardment in Gaza, collapsing nearly two months of ceasefire with Hamas that had been brokered by the US, Egypt and Qatar.

Nearly 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli operations in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, taking the total death toll since the start of the war to more than 50,000. Israel has also halted all supplies of food, fuel and humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Netanyahu’s visit to the US comes as he faces pressure at home to return to ceasefire negotiations and secure the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza.

Netanyahu told reporters on Monday that he and Trump had discussed the US leader’s “bold” vision to move Palestinians from Gaza, and that he is working with the US on another deal to secure the release of additional hostages. “We’re working now on another deal, that we hope will succeed,” he said.

Netanyahu also claimed that Israel is committed to “enabling the people of Gaza to freely make a choice to go wherever they want”. Last week, he said Israel was “seizing territory” and intended to “divide up” the Gaza Strip by building a new security corridor, inflaming fears that Israel intends to take permanent control of the strip when the war ends.

Netanyahu arrived in Washington on Sunday night from Hungary, after a four-day official visit that marked the Israeli leader’s first visit to European soil since the international criminal court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for him over allegations of war crimes in Gaza.

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, made it clear he would defy the court to host Netanyahu, and announced that he would take Hungary out of the ICC because it had become “political”. The US is not a member of the court.

A Danish chef couple who attracted international acclaim with a “forest resort” in Sweden have been tracked down to Guatemala after apparently going on the run from tax authorities, leaving behind 158 barrels of human waste.

Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk founded their purportedly eco-friendly retreat, Stedsans, in Halland, southern Sweden, after claiming to have “felt the call of the wild” in Copenhagen, where they ran a popular rooftop restaurant.

Stedsans, formed of 16 wooden cottages looking out on to nature, attracted praise from influencers and reviewers, who described it as “magical” and “enchanting luxury”.

But a few months ago it was discovered that the couple had vanished, leaving multiple animals behind and 158 barrels of human waste, an investigation by newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Politiken has found. It also found that wastewater was left to run into the forest.

Staff said multiple animals – including ducks – had died as a result of being left outside through the night by the couple, and others were left abandoned after the owners vanished.

Stedsans was declared bankrupt in March and the couple reportedly registered themselves as living abroad before Christmas.

According to the investigation, they left the Danish capital, where they owed millions of kroner in debt to Danish tax authorities, in 2016 to move to Sweden. There they set up Stedsans, but started accumulating debt to Swedish tax authorities, which reportedly amounted to 6m SEK (£470,000). They have since started a new hotel business in Guatemala.

In a message posted on their website, they said: “We came very far with Stedsans, but we also had to realise on the way that being soul-driven entrepreneurs on a mission in a country where taxes are some of the highest in the world and bureaucracy is relentless, it is an impossible task.”

They added: “When you read this we have probably been declared bankrupt by the Swedish tax authorities. All we ever wanted was to be a part of creating a more beautiful planet.”

Local authorities described their actions as “environmental crime”. Daniel Helsing, head of building and environment for the local county, Hylte, told Dagens Nyheter: “Voilà. Over 150 barrels of human shit.”

Hansen denied any problems with handling animals when approached by the newspaper. He described Swedish tax authorities as a “narcissistic entity” and said he believed he owed them “over 7m” SEK. He also claimed he was now “sentenced to a life in poverty”.

The Guardian contacted the Danish and Swedish tax authorities. The Danish tax agency said: “We have no comments here subject to confidentiality.” The Swedish tax agency did not comment on the case.

The Guardian has contacted Hansen and Helbæk for comment.

A Danish chef couple who attracted international acclaim with a “forest resort” in Sweden have been tracked down to Guatemala after apparently going on the run from tax authorities, leaving behind 158 barrels of human waste.

Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk founded their purportedly eco-friendly retreat, Stedsans, in Halland, southern Sweden, after claiming to have “felt the call of the wild” in Copenhagen, where they ran a popular rooftop restaurant.

Stedsans, formed of 16 wooden cottages looking out on to nature, attracted praise from influencers and reviewers, who described it as “magical” and “enchanting luxury”.

But a few months ago it was discovered that the couple had vanished, leaving multiple animals behind and 158 barrels of human waste, an investigation by newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Politiken has found. It also found that wastewater was left to run into the forest.

Staff said multiple animals – including ducks – had died as a result of being left outside through the night by the couple, and others were left abandoned after the owners vanished.

Stedsans was declared bankrupt in March and the couple reportedly registered themselves as living abroad before Christmas.

According to the investigation, they left the Danish capital, where they owed millions of kroner in debt to Danish tax authorities, in 2016 to move to Sweden. There they set up Stedsans, but started accumulating debt to Swedish tax authorities, which reportedly amounted to 6m SEK (£470,000). They have since started a new hotel business in Guatemala.

In a message posted on their website, they said: “We came very far with Stedsans, but we also had to realise on the way that being soul-driven entrepreneurs on a mission in a country where taxes are some of the highest in the world and bureaucracy is relentless, it is an impossible task.”

They added: “When you read this we have probably been declared bankrupt by the Swedish tax authorities. All we ever wanted was to be a part of creating a more beautiful planet.”

Local authorities described their actions as “environmental crime”. Daniel Helsing, head of building and environment for the local county, Hylte, told Dagens Nyheter: “Voilà. Over 150 barrels of human shit.”

Hansen denied any problems with handling animals when approached by the newspaper. He described Swedish tax authorities as a “narcissistic entity” and said he believed he owed them “over 7m” SEK. He also claimed he was now “sentenced to a life in poverty”.

The Guardian contacted the Danish and Swedish tax authorities. The Danish tax agency said: “We have no comments here subject to confidentiality.” The Swedish tax agency did not comment on the case.

The Guardian has contacted Hansen and Helbæk for comment.

Donald Trump has announced that the US is to hold direct talks with Iran in a bid to prevent the country from obtaining an atomic bomb, while also warning Tehran of dire consequences if they fail.

Sitting beside Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the Oval Office, Trump indicated that discussions would start this coming weekend, though he also implied communications had already begun.

He said the talks were happening in an effort to avoid what he called “the obvious” – an apparent reference to US or Israeli military strikes against the regime’s nuclear facilities.

“We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started. It’ll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen,” he told reporters.

“And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious. And the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with, or, frankly, that Israel wants to be involved with, if they can avoid it.

“So we’re going to see if we can avoid it. But it’s getting to be very dangerous territory. And hopefully those talks will be successful. And I think it would be in Iran’s best interests if they are successful.”

He gave no details of where the talks would take place or which officials would be involved. When questioned by journalists, Trump issued a thinly veiled threat if the talks failed, saying Iran would be in “great danger”.

“I think if the talks aren’t successful with Iran … Iran is going to be in great danger, and I hate to say it – because they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

“It’s not a complicated formula. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Right now we have countries that have nuclear power that shouldn’t have it. But I’m sure we’ll be able to negotiate out of that too as part of this later on down the line.

“And if the talks aren’t successful I actually think it will be a very bad day for Iran.”

During his presidency, Trump pulled out of a deal signed by Barack Obama known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. That deal offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for limitations on its uranium enrichment activities – resorting instead to a policy of “maximum pressure” that tightened economic embargoes.

Critics say Iran nevertheless accelerated its nuclear program and is now closer to building a bomb than ever before. Attempts by Joe Biden at reviving the deal negotiated by Obama faltered.

Netanyahu, who views Iran as an existential threat to Israel, actively undermined Obama’s agreement and has long railed against any deal that would allow the country’s theocratic rulers to maintain a program that could converted to nuclear weaponry.

Iran, for its part, has consistently denied any intent to build a bomb and said its program is meant for purely civilian purposes.

Iran and the US have had no direct diplomatic relations since 1980, when ties were severed after revolutionaries stormed the American embassy in Tehran and held 53 diplomats hostage for 444 days.

A major new report on New Zealand’s environment has revealed a worrying outlook for its unique species and highlighted declining water health, while also noting some improvements in air quality.

The ministry of the environment’s three-yearly update, Our Environment 2025, collates statistics, data and research across five domains – air, atmosphere and climate, freshwater, land, and marine – to paint a picture of the state of New Zealand’s environment.

James Palmer, the ministry’s secretary for the environment, said the findings in the report were a “mixed bag”.

“It does highlight the real risks to people, communities and places, which left unaddressed threaten our livelihoods and our quality of life for generations to come,” Palmer said. “But the report also shows that there are reasons for optimism.”

The report painted a sobering picture for New Zealand’s indigenous animals, with 76% of freshwater fish, 68% of freshwater birds, 78% of terrestrial birds, 93% of frogs, and 94% of reptiles threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming threatened.

“New Zealand’s unique biodiversity has a high proportion of threatened or at-risk species – one of the highest amid the global biodiversity crisis”, the report said, noting that land use, pollution, invasive species and climate change can all have an impact on biodiversity.

The report also found the most widespread water quality issue affecting groundwaters was the presence of E coli – a bacteria found in the guts of animals and humans that can cause serious illness and has been linked to farming and cities in New Zealand.

Of more than 1,000 groundwater monitoring sites, nearly half failed to meet the drinking water standard for E coli on at least one occasion between 2019 and 2024, while nearly half of the monitored rivers shows worsening E coli trends.

Meanwhile, a significant proportion of groundwaters have accumulated excess nitrate due to activities such as intensive farming, logging and urbanisation, which also affects water quality and degrades surface water ecosystems.

Dr Mike Joy, a senior research fellow in freshwater ecology and environmental science at Victoria University of Wellington, said the report revealed the ongoing and – in most cases – worsening decline of the environment. “The report reveals starkly the fallacy of the label ‘clean green New Zealand’ and the urgent need for this to be taken seriously by government,” he said.

New Zealand also faced a significant problem with pest plants. “The most spectacular of those, arguably, is the wilding conifer,” Palmer said.

Around 2m hectares are thought to be invaded by wilding conifers, an introduced pest plant that spreads from plantation forests. Their area is expanding by around 90,000 hectares a year and, without proper management, could invade about a quarter of New Zealand’s land within 30 years, the majority of which would be conservation land.

The report traverses how New Zealanders will be affected by the climate crisis and the increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events such as Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023. Around 750,000 people and 500,000 buildings, are near rivers and in coastal areas already exposed to extreme flooding, while low-lying communities are vulnerable to sea-level rise, and rural communities are at risk of wildfires.

“We’ll face some tough choices about our priorities as a country, including about where we put our efforts and our scarce dollars,” Palmer said.

The report identified some environmental improvements, particularly in air quality. While road transport remains the main source of nitrogen oxide pollution, air pollution from motor vehicles was reducing due to stronger emission standards, more people choosing to use lower-emission vehicles, and improvements to engines and fuel.

“We’ve started to turn the corner in meaningful ways on some of our measures – choices about the cars we drive, the heating we use for our homes, for example, are showing up in better air quality, which is likely to flow through into better health,” Palmer said.

“That underscores that we can make a difference, and we can build on the momentum that is already underway by doing more.”

A Belgian prince has lost a legal battle to claim social security benefits on top of his royal allowance, with a court ruling his claim – the first of its kind in the country’s nearly 200-year history – “unfounded”.

Prince Laurent, the youngest of three children of the former king and queen, had argued that his work entitled him to the coverage granted to independent entrepreneurs – and that he was acting out of “principle” rather than for money.

But a Brussels court found on Monday that the 61-year-old’s duties were more akin to those in the civil service, where categories of workers receive specific benefits but there is no overarching social security system.

A lawyer for the prince, Olivier Rijckaert, said his client was considering whether to appeal. “We’re not where we wanted to be, but the judgment is very detailed, very reasoned, I understand the reasoning,” Rijckaert told Agence France-Presse.

In 2018, his annual state allowance was cut by 15% for a year because he met foreign dignitaries without the federal government’s approval.

Laurent received €388,000 (£333,000) last year from state coffers and lives in his home rent-free. “This is not about financial means but principle,” he told Belgian broadcaster RTBF. “When a migrant comes here, he registers, he has a right to it. I may be a migrant too, but one whose family established the state in place,” he added.

The prince did not take legal action on a “whim”, lawyer Rijckaert said in an article in Le Soir newspaper. Social security is “a right granted by Belgian law to every resident, from the poorest to the biggest billionaire”, he said.

He said Laurent received a salary worth only 25% of his allowance, because the rest went on covering professional expenses including travel and wages for a staff member.

Rijckaert said this results in a monthly net wage for the prince of €5,000 which is comparable to the “average salary of a senior executive in Belgium” but without the usual “full social security coverage”.

Laurent and his British wife, Claire, have three children now in their 20s. He pointed to medical costs and his concerns over his family’s financial well-being, since the royal allowance will be cut when he dies.

Without the social security coverage, Laurent cannot claim reimbursement for certain medical expenses, or sick pay if he is unable to work.

The prince has had an animal welfare foundation offering free veterinary care in clinics for the past 10 years. He said the foundation work, alongside dozens of visits representing Belgium and participation on several boards, meant he has a busy schedule.

He is not the only Belgian royal to have been unhappy about money. When King Albert II abdicated in favour of his son Philippe in 2013 after reigning for 20 years, the ex-monarch found his €923,000 a year insufficient.

A Belgian prince has lost a legal battle to claim social security benefits on top of his royal allowance, with a court ruling his claim – the first of its kind in the country’s nearly 200-year history – “unfounded”.

Prince Laurent, the youngest of three children of the former king and queen, had argued that his work entitled him to the coverage granted to independent entrepreneurs – and that he was acting out of “principle” rather than for money.

But a Brussels court found on Monday that the 61-year-old’s duties were more akin to those in the civil service, where categories of workers receive specific benefits but there is no overarching social security system.

A lawyer for the prince, Olivier Rijckaert, said his client was considering whether to appeal. “We’re not where we wanted to be, but the judgment is very detailed, very reasoned, I understand the reasoning,” Rijckaert told Agence France-Presse.

In 2018, his annual state allowance was cut by 15% for a year because he met foreign dignitaries without the federal government’s approval.

Laurent received €388,000 (£333,000) last year from state coffers and lives in his home rent-free. “This is not about financial means but principle,” he told Belgian broadcaster RTBF. “When a migrant comes here, he registers, he has a right to it. I may be a migrant too, but one whose family established the state in place,” he added.

The prince did not take legal action on a “whim”, lawyer Rijckaert said in an article in Le Soir newspaper. Social security is “a right granted by Belgian law to every resident, from the poorest to the biggest billionaire”, he said.

He said Laurent received a salary worth only 25% of his allowance, because the rest went on covering professional expenses including travel and wages for a staff member.

Rijckaert said this results in a monthly net wage for the prince of €5,000 which is comparable to the “average salary of a senior executive in Belgium” but without the usual “full social security coverage”.

Laurent and his British wife, Claire, have three children now in their 20s. He pointed to medical costs and his concerns over his family’s financial well-being, since the royal allowance will be cut when he dies.

Without the social security coverage, Laurent cannot claim reimbursement for certain medical expenses, or sick pay if he is unable to work.

The prince has had an animal welfare foundation offering free veterinary care in clinics for the past 10 years. He said the foundation work, alongside dozens of visits representing Belgium and participation on several boards, meant he has a busy schedule.

He is not the only Belgian royal to have been unhappy about money. When King Albert II abdicated in favour of his son Philippe in 2013 after reigning for 20 years, the ex-monarch found his €923,000 a year insufficient.

Donald Trump may continue using a 1798 law to deport alleged gang members to Venezuela, the supreme court ruled on Monday, however it will apply certain limits. Any challenges to the wartime law, called the Alien Enemies Act, must take place in Texas, where the migrants were held, and not in Washington DC, the court said.

In a 5-4 ruling, the court granted the Trump administration’s request to lift a Washington DC-based judge’s order temporarily blocking the deportations.

However, the court did not immediately address whether the administration improperly utilized the act, writing in its order instead that such a determination must be made in Texas court: “The detainees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the District of Columbia.”

Despite siding with the administration, the court’s majority placed limits on how deportations may occur, emphasizing that judicial review is required.

Detainees “must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act. The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs,” the majority wrote.

Trump celebrated the ruling on social media on Monday, writing on Truth Social: “The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself. A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA.”

The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett and the court’s three liberal justices dissented.

Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act on 15 March to swiftly deport the alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang, attempting to speed up removals with a law best known for its use to intern Japanese, Italian and German immigrants during the second world war.

In a legal challenge handled by the American Civil Liberties Union, a group of Venezuelan men in the custody of US immigration authorities on the same day sued on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated, seeking to block the deportations. They argued, among other things, that Trump’s order exceeded his powers because the Alien Enemies Act authorizes removals only when war has been declared or the United States has been invaded.

The Alien Enemies Act authorizes the president to deport, detain or place restrictions on individuals whose primary allegiance is to a foreign power and who might pose a national security risk in wartime.

In a concurrence, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the “only question” the court had considered is where judicial review of the Act should occur: “As the court stresses, the court’s disagreement with the dissenters is not over whether the detainees receive judicial review of their transfers — all nine members of the court agree that judicial review is available.”

US judge James Boasberg, an appointee of the Democratic president Barack Obama based in Washington DC, had temporarily blocked the deportations. But Trump’s administration allowed two planes already in the air to continue to El Salvador where American officials handed 238 Venezuelan men over to Salvadoran authorities to be placed in the Central American country’s “Terrorism Confinement Center.”

The judge also has scrutinized whether the Trump administration violated his order by failing to return the deportation flights after his order was issued. Justice department lawyers said the flights had left US airspace by the time Boasberg issued a written order and thus were not required to return. They dismissed the weight of Boasberg’s spoken order during a hearing two hours earlier calling for any planes carrying deportees to be turned around.

Trump’s administration has argued that Boasberg’s temporary ban encroached on presidential authority to make national security decisions.

On 18 March, Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment by Congress – a process that could remove him from the bench – drawing a rebuke from the US chief justice John Roberts. Trump on social media called Boasberg, who was confirmed by the US Senate in 2011 in a bipartisan 96-0 vote, a “Radical Left Lunatic” and a “troublemaker and agitator”.

The DC circuit upheld Boasberg’s order after holding a contentious hearing that involved heated language. Judge Patricia Millett told a justice department lawyer, Drew Ensign, that “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here.” Ensign responded: “We certainly dispute the Nazi analogy.”

Family members of many of the deported Venezuelan migrants deny the alleged gang ties. Lawyers for one of the deportees, a Venezuelan professional soccer player and youth coach, said US officials had wrongly labeled him a gang member based on a tattoo of a crown meant to honor his favorite team, Real Madrid.

Police in the Brazilian state of São Paulo have uncovered that a judge spent 23 years working under a false identity – and a distinctly British one.

Born José Eduardo Franco dos Reis – a name fairly typical in a country once colonised by Portugal – he entered law school and served for over two decades as a judge using the false name Edward Albert Lancelot Dodd Canterbury Caterham Wickfield.

In 1995, having just passed the public examination to become a judge, Wickfield claimed in an interview with a Brazilian newspaper that he was the son of English aristocrats, born in Brazil but raised in the UK until the age of 25.

What police and public prosecutors are now calling a fraud was only recently discovered and came to the public’s attention following a piece by the news outlet G1.

Since then, Brazilians have been left stunned, trying to grasp how a judge could sustain such an elaborate deception for so long, especially with such an unusual name.

In October, identifying himself as Wickfield, he visited a government office in São Paulo to renew his ID card.

All his documents listed his “British” names, but the birth certificate registration number matched that of a Brazilian man named Dos Reis. When police cross-checked the data – and fingerprints – they confirmed it was the same individual.

According to what is known so far, Dos Reis began presenting himself as Wickfield in the early 1980s.

Police say he falsified his birth certificate, entered the University of São Paulo’s law school and began working as a judge in 1995, remaining on the bench until his retirement in 2018.

When police uncovered the alleged fraud, he was summoned for questioning. This time identifying himself as Dos Reis, he claimed that Wickfield was his twin brother, given up for adoption as a child to a noble British couple.

He gave no further explanation for the names, though a piece by the Folha de S Paulo newspaper noted that they appear inspired by literature – such as the Round Table’s Lancelot or Mr Wickfield, the lawyer in Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield.

A public prosecutor charged Dos Reis with identity fraud and using false documents. Court officers have been unable to locate him, so he has yet to be formally summoned to respond.

Last Friday, the São Paulo Court decided to suspend his pension payments as a retired judge – in February alone, he received R$166,413.94 (more than $28,000).

More people were executed in 2024 than in any other year over the past decade, mainly reflecting a huge increase in executions in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, according to Amnesty International’s annual report on the use of the death penalty.

The human rights NGO said that although the number of countries carrying out executions was the lowest on record, it had confirmed 1,518 executions globally in 2024, a 32% increase over the previous year and the highest since the 1,634 carried out in 2015.

The real total was far higher, Amnesty added, because its figure did not include thousands believed to have been executed in China, the world’s biggest executioner, or North Korea and Vietnam, also thought to use the death penalty extensively.

Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which accounted for 91% of executions worldwide, were responsible for the increase. Iraq almost quadrupled its executions from at least 16 to at least 63 and Saudi Arabia doubled its yearly total from 172 to at least 345.

Iran executed 119 more people than in 2023, raising its tally to at least 972 – a figure that included 30 women and represented 64% of the global total. All known executions in Iraq were for terrorism offences, while about half of those in Iran were for drug-related offences.

Other countries where executions increased included Egypt (from eight in 2023 to 13 last year); Singapore, where executions nearly doubled (from five to nine); and Yemen, where the total more than doubled from at least 15 to at least 38.

The total of 25 executions in the US was one more than in 2023 and the most since 2018. The period studied covers Joe Biden’s last year in office. His successor, Donald Trump, has said he aims to “vigorously pursue” the death penalty as a tool to protect people “from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters”.

Only 15 countries were known to have executed people in 2024, the lowest on record for the second year running, Amnesty said, adding that 113 countries were now fully abolitionist and 145 had abolished the death penalty in law or in practice.

The campaign organisation also noted that several countries had legally limited their use of the death penalty, and that for the first time, more than two-thirds of all UN member states had voted in favour of a resolution on a moratorium.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said it was clear that countries that retained the death penalty were an “isolated minority”. She added that the tide was turning against “a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment”.

But Callamard said the death penalty was still being weaponised in some countries under the “false pretence” it would improve public safety, and in others such as Iran and Saudi Arabia to silence political dissent from “those brave enough to speak out”.

Amnesty also noted that more than 40% of executions in 2024 were carried out for drug-related offences, which it said was not only unlawful under international human rights law and standards but had no proven effect in reducing drug trafficking.

Madonna has said she has “buried the hatchet” with Sir Elton John and hinted she will collaborate with him, after watching the pianist and singer perform with Brandi Carlile on Saturday Night Live (SNL).

The strained relationship dates back to 2002, when John was quoted by CBS News as describing her theme to Die Another Day as “the worst Bond tune ever”.

He went on to say “Madonna, best live act? Fuck off” on stage at the Q Awards in 2004, and accused her of lip-syncing.

The pair have traded a number of remarks since, but in a post on Instagram on Monday, Madonna, whose full name is Madonna Ciccone, said: “We finally buried the hatchet.”

The singer said John’s recent appearance on SNL reminded her of when she snuck out of her home while at high school to see him perform in Detroit, which she described as an “unforgettable” performance that changed the course of her life.

She said: “I had always felt like an outsider growing up and watching him on stage helped me to understand that it was OK to be different, to stand out, to take the road less travelled. In fact, it was essential.

“Over the decades it hurt me to know that someone I admired so much shared his dislike of me publicly as an artist. I didn’t understand it. I was told Elton John was the musical guest on SNL and I decided to go.”

Madonna said that she confronted John backstage, where he asked her to forgive him. She said the pair then hugged and the pianist told her he had written a song for her and wanted to collaborate.

John and Carlile performed Little Richard’s Bible on SNL from their collaborative album Who Believes In Angels?, which is on course to become the Briton’s 10th UK No 1 album.

In response to Madonna, John thanked her for coming to see him on SNL and for forgiving his “big mouth”.

He wrote on Instagram that he was not proud of what he had said, praising her advocacy for HIV/Aids in the 1980s and her “groundbreaking work” that paved the way for an entire generation of female artists.

He said: “I’m grateful we can move forward. I’m increasingly distressed by all the divisiveness in our world at the moment.”

John said he and Madonna had been wholeheartedly accepted and embraced by communities who are under threat around the world, and that he hoped to make “great things happen” together for those who needed support.