Donald Trump’s trade war with China has entered a new phase, as Beijing’s 84% retaliatory tariffs came into effect hours after the US president announced a pause of steep reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries except China.

Markets rebounded after Trump’s announcement of the sudden pause, after the most volatile episode in financial markets since the pandemic.

Taiwan stocks soared 9.2% in early trading on Thursday. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was up 7.2%, while in Seoul the Kospi was up more than 5%. In Australia, the ASX 200 jumped more than 6%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed 2.69%, while the Shanghai composite index jumped 1.29%.

On Wall Street on Wednesday, the Dow index soared to close nearly 8% higher, while the Nasdaq rose 12.2% to its best day in 24 years, after the announcement of the pause.

However, tariffs against Chinese goods are now 125%, and Beijing has vowed to “fight to the end”. A China Daily editorial published on Wednesday night said “caving in to the US pressure is out of the question for Beijing”.

The head of the World Trade Organization said on Wednesday that an escalating US-China tariff war could cut trade in goods between the two countries by 80%. Given the two economic giants account for 3% of world trade, the conflict could “severely damage the global economic outlook”, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said.

Chinese companies that sell products on Amazon were preparing to raise prices for the US or quit that market because of the “unprecedented blow” from the tariffs, the head of China’s largest e-commerce association said.

Trump’s sudden change of heart, amid growing fears the US was headed towards a recession, spurred a dramatic revival in share markets across Asia. The president’s 90-day pause maintained the blanket global 10% tariff but halted the steeper reciprocal tariffs.

“I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line; they were getting yippy, you know,” Trump said on Wednesday when asked why he had announced the pause.

Beijing said on Wednesday it would impose 84% on US products from midday local time on Thursday, put 18 US companies on trade restriction lists and bring in other countermeasures. It came after Trump’s “liberation day” announcement of a global tariff regime, which added a 34% tariff to the 20% already levelled at China, prompting Beijing to announce reciprocal tariffs of 34%.

Trump warned China to withdraw them or he would respond but China refused, and the two sides embarked on a series of tit-for-tat raises. Trump pledged a levy of 104% and then 125% against Chinese imports, and left them in place while announcing a reprieve elsewhere.

“At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realise that the days of ripping off the USA and other countries is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” Trump wrote, as he announced the latest US tariff assault on China.

Questioned by reporters, he claimed China “wants to make a deal, they just don’t know how quite to go about it. They’re proud people. President Xi [Jinping] is a proud man. I know him very well. They don’t know quite how to go about it but they’ll figure it out,” he said.

The China Daily editorial said on Wednesday: “It is not that China does not understand what the unprecedentedly high tariffs mean for its exports and the economy in general.

“Profits of export-oriented industries will take a blow and the resulting decline in manufacturing investment and consumer sentiment will dampen economic growth. But it also knows that kowtowing to the US’s tariff bullying will gain it nothing, given that it is no secret the US is now intent on cutting China out of its consumer market and reshaping the global supply chains to serve its own narrow interests.”

China appears to be approaching other countries in an apparent attempt to shore up trading agreements away from the US.

China’s commerce minister, Wang Wentao, has said in talks with his Malaysian counterpart that they are willing to work with Asean trading partners to strengthen coordination.

He also spoke to the EU trade and security commissioner on Tuesday, saying China was willing to deepen trade, investment and industrial cooperation, and that China and the EU would immediately restart negotiations on electric vehicles.

Meanwhile, Beijing’s attempts to “join hands” with Australia – which relies heavily on China for trade but has a deep alliance with the US – were rebuffed by the country’s defence minister, Richard Marles.

“We’re not about to make common cause with China – that’s not what’s going to happen here,” Marles told local media. “We don’t want to see a trade war between America and China, to be clear, but our focus is on actually diversifying our trade.”

Trump has dismissed the market volatility, saying “sometimes you have to take medicine”, but appeared to waver as predictions of a US recession grew stronger.

World governments that were facing higher export tariffs welcomed Trump’s pause, but many are still affected by sector-based tariffs.

“We received the latest US announcement positively,” Japan’s chief government spokesperson, Yoshimasa Hayashi, told a regular briefing. But he added: “We continue to strongly demand that the United States reviews measures on its reciprocal tariffs, tariffs on steel and aluminium, and tariffs on vehicles and auto parts.”

EU member states, meanwhile, had approved retaliatory 25% tariffs on up to $23bn in US goods – targeting farm produce and products from Republican states – from next week, in response to sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminium imposed by Trump last month.

The US president announced his decision at the same time as a congressional hearing featuring Jamieson Greer, his US trade representative.

“It looks like your boss just pulled the rug out from under you,” the Democratic representative Steven Horsford of Nevada told Greer. “This is amateur hour, and it needs to stop.”

Agencies contributed to this report

Donald Trump’s surprise decision to pause the hefty tariffs he had just imposed on dozens of countries brought relief for battered global stock markets, even as he ratcheted up a trade war with China.

Markets across Asia rose sharply on Thursday on signs that the US president’s trade war may not prove as damaging to the global economy as feared.

European markets, which had closed when Trump announced the 90-day pause on Wednesday, were also expected to rise on opening later this morning.

Trump’s U-turn, which came less than 24 hours after steep new tariffs kicked in on most trading partners, followed the most intense episode of financial market volatility since the early days of the Covid pandemic.

The upheaval erased trillions of dollars from stock markets and led to an unsettling surge in US government bond yields that appeared to catch Trump’s attention.

“I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line, they were getting yippy, you know,” Trump told reporters after the announcement.

US stock indexes shot higher on the news, with the benchmark S&P 500 index closing 9.5% higher, and the relief continued into Asian trading.

Taiwan stocks soared 9.2% in early trading on Thursday. In Japan the Nikkei 225 was up 7.2%, while in Seoul the Kospi was up more than 5%. In Australia the ASX 200 jumped more than 6%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed 2.69%, while the Shanghai composite index jumped 1.29%.

After the market surge, White House officials said “this was his strategy all along” and showed “the art of the deal” at work.

The moves triggered accusations of market manipulation. The Democratic senator Adam Schiff called for an investigation, saying: “These constant gyrations in policy provide dangerous opportunities for insider trading.

“Who in the administration knew about Trump’s latest tariff flip-flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public’s expense? I’m writing to the White House – the public has a right to know.”

European futures also pointed to big gains but there were already signs the rally may be short-lived with US stock futures trading lower. Oil prices also fell about 1%, extending a grim spell fuelled by fears that the trade tensions could push the global economy towards recession.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has repeatedly threatened an array of punitive measures on trading partners, only to revoke some of them at the last minute. The on-again, off-again approach has baffled world leaders and spooked business executives.

The US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, asserted that the pullback had been the plan all along to bring countries to the bargaining table. Trump, though, later indicated that the near panic in markets that had unfolded since his 2 April announcements had factored into his thinking.

Despite insisting for days that his policies would never change, he told reporters on Wednesday: “You have to be flexible.”

But he kept the pressure on China, the world’s second largest economy and the second biggest provider of US imports. Trump immediately increased the tariff on Chinese imports to 125% from the 104% level that kicked in on Wednesday.

Beijing may again respond in kind after slapping 84% tariffs on US imports on Wednesday to match Trump’s earlier tariff salvo. It has repeatedly vowed to “fight to the end” in the escalating trade war between the world’s top two economies.

“We are not afraid of provocations. We don’t back down,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning posted on X on Thursday.

Trump said a resolution with China on trade is also possible. However, officials have said they will prioritise talks with other countries, with Vietnam, Japan and South Korea among those lining up to try to strike a bargain.

“China wants to make a deal,” Trump said. “They just don’t know how quite to go about it.”

Reuters contributed to this report

Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs for most countries except China, whose tariffs he raised to 125% on Wednesday.

After insisting for days that he would hold firm on his aggressive trade strategy, Trump announced that all countries that had not retaliated against US tariffs would receive a reprieve – and only face a blanket US tariff of 10% – until July.

The White House’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Trump had raised tariffs against China because “when you punch at the United States of America, President Trump is going to punch back harder”.

Here is a look at the full list of tariffs Trump originally threatened – and the new updated rate country by country:

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine is aware of at least 155 Chinese nationals fighting for Russia and accused Beijing of turning a blind eye to their recruitment and allowing them to participate in the invasion of his country.

Officials released two dossiers naming, and in some cases picturing, Chinese men who were said to have signed up, though Ukraine did not suggest this meant Beijing was seeking to enter the war alongside Russia.

The president told reporters in a briefing that he was not aware that China “gave some kind of command” to those now fighting for Russia. Still, he did say Beijing must have been aware some people were joining another country’s military in return for payment.

“We record that they [China] knew about it,” Zelenskyy said. “We record that these are Chinese citizens, they are fighting against us, using weapons against Ukrainians on the territory of Ukraine. Their motivation, money or not, politics, etcetera, is not yet known to me. But it will be known.”

Zelenskyy said he believed the US was “very surprised and believes that this is unacceptable” at a time when Washington and Beijing have become embroiled in a tariff trade war.

Compiled by Ukrainian intelligence, one of the documents pictured 13 Chinese soldiers aged between 19 and 45, with their passport details; while the second document listed names, dates of birth, their Russian unit and in some cases information about where they had been recruited.

“The ‘Chinese’ issue is serious. There are 155 people with names and passport details – 155 Chinese citizens who are fighting against Ukrainians on the territory of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said, adding: “We believe that there are more, much more.”

Comments from Chinese officials earlier on Wednesday suggested people were joining up on their own initiative, though officials in Beijing added the idea that significant numbers were involved in the war was “totally unfounded.”

Lin Jian, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said: “The Chinese government always asks Chinese citizens to stay away from conflict zones, avoid getting involved in any form of armed conflict, and especially refrain from participating in any party’s military operations.”

China says it is a neutral party in the conflict, though Russia makes heavy use of Chinese-made components in its arms industry, as does Ukraine. Both sides deploy Mavic drones from the Chinese manufacturer DJI, though Kyiv is trying to reduce its dependence on kit from Beijing.

Russia was seeking to recruit Chinese fighters by openly advertising on TikTok and other Chinese social networks, Zelenskyy said, arguing that “Beijing is aware of this”. They then travelled to Russia, typically Moscow, where they were first given medical examination over a three- to four-day period, he added.

The recruits are then given one or two months of training and asked to fight on occupied Ukrainian territory. They received official migration cards from the Russian authorities and were given access to an official payment system to receive money, Zelenskyy said.

Kyiv also named the two Chinese prisoners that previously had been announced as being captured on the battlefield on Tuesday as Wang Guangjun, born in 1991, and Zhang Renbo, born in 1998, and said it would be willing to exchange them for Ukrainian prisoners held by Russia.

Ukraine’s relationship with the US had become fraught as Donald Trump tries to persuade Kyiv and Moscow to agree to a ceasefire to halt their three-year war, but Zelenskyy may be hoping that the US president’s antipathy to China will improve his negotiating position.

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Beijing of turning a blind eye to the recruitment of Chinese nationals to fight for Russia, adding he believed the US was “very surprised” by the revelation. The Ukrainian leader said Kyiv has obtained passport details of at least 155 fighters from China in the war. While Zelenskyy said Beijing knew its citizens were there, he didn’t believe the country had given “some kind of command” they join the fight.

• Zelenskyy added he believes Russia is using social media, including TikTok, to recruit. He said he was prepared to exchange captured Chinese soldiers with Ukrainian servicemen in detention.

• China called those claims “groundless”, saying they are contrary to an effort to find a political solution to the ongoing war. “The Chinese government always asks Chinese citizens to stay away from conflict zones,” a spokesperson for the country’s foreign ministry said. Russia has not commented on the existence of Chinese nationals joining its side.

• Zelenskyy said Ukraine needs at least 10 Patriot missile systems to intercept Russian ballistic weapons, just days before a summit at the Ramstein airbase in Germany. “We have repeatedly raised this issue with the American side and with everyone in Europe who is in a position to help. We are counting on decisions,” he wrote on X.

• Russian drones attacked Kyiv early Thursday. Local officials said one person was trapped in a destroyed house and a downed drone started a fire in a storage area of the city.

• A bipartisan group of US lawmakers sharply criticised reports the Trump administration is looking to reduce the number of American troops in Europe. The US has maintained a force of about 100,000 in Europe in recent years, an increase of 20,000 since Russia invaded Ukraine.

• A Russian family who fled to the US after protesting against the war are asking to leave on their own terms after working their way through the labyrinthine immigration process, only to get ensnared by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “I left home so that I wouldn’t be afraid to be put into prison again,” a member of the family said. “When I came here, I thought, worst case they can refuse us asylum. But I didn’t expect that something like this could happen. Not again.”

The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said he would like the agency to implement a system of trucks that rounds up immigrants for deportation in a system similar to how Amazon delivers packages around the US.

“We need to get better at treating this like a business,” the acting Ice director, Todd Lyons, said. He said that he wanted to see a deportation process “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings”. His comments were first reported by the Arizona Mirror.

Lyons was one of a series of Trump administration speakers at the 2025 Border Security Expo at the Phoenix convention center. Other speakers were Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, and the secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem.

Speakers at the expo praised Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans, the 1798 law that was last used during the second world war to intern Japanese Americans. Noem promised to expand on its use to more efficiently deport immigrants. Lyons also called the act “amazing”.

Homan said “that is a law enacted by Congress, and we are using that”, referring to the Alien Enemies Act. At around the time of the expo, the US supreme court ruled that the Trump administration may continue using the law to deport alleged gang members.

Homan added that it “bothers him” when judges attempt to prevent him from using the act. He also said that family detention was still “on the table” as a policy.

Lyons also spoke highly of other new technology being potentially implemented in the deportation process. He expressed hopes that the agency could utilize artificial intelligence to “free up bed space” and “fill up airplanes”, allowing Ice to deport immigrants at a quicker pace.

The Ice director also said that he has been working with Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) for access to social security numbers to look for “voter fraud”.

Several speakers, Homan included, echoed the opinion of having a deportation system that is run like a business, with assurance that the Trump administration is depending on the private sector for completion of its mass deportation agenda. Many representatives from the military-industrial complex were in attendance.

“Let the badge and guns do the badge-and-gun stuff. Everything else, let’s contract out,” Homan said.

Trump campaigned heavily on implementing a system of mass deportation, and has spent his presidency so far attempting to deliver on his campaign promises. Data suggests as many as 1,400 people were arrested during or right after Ice check-ins in the first four weeks of his administration.

One of Trump’s first actions after he was sworn in for his second term was to broaden Ice’s mandate. Now all immigrants without legal status are prioritized for arrest, including those who have been checking in and cooperating with authorities.

“Ice’s fantasy of becoming ‘Amazon Prime for deportations’ exposes the infrastructure behind Trump’s deportation agenda: mass removals powered by big tech and data,” Cinthya Rodriguez, national organizer for the Latinx advocacy group Mijente, said. “Over the years, Ice has contracted with tech companies to automate policing, relying on the dehumanization of immigrant communities.

“To seek to automate deportations at Amazon-like speed only furthers that harm,” she added “These policies are cruel, reckless and driven by white supremacy and greed – not safety.”

Avelo Airlines recently said it had signed an agreement to fly federal deportation flights for the administration from Mesa, Arizona, beginning in May. Several thousand people signed a petition urging the airline to halt plans to carry out the deportation flights.

The mass deportations and ongoing cases of people being detained by Ice has caused unease and fear among immigrants and foreign visitors to the US. Recent data suggests that flight bookings between Canada and the US are down by over 70%.

The global rush to AI technology will require almost as much energy by the end of this decade as Japan uses today, but only about half of the demand is likely to be met from renewable sources.

Processing data, mainly for AI, will consume more electricity in the US alone by 2030 than manufacturing steel, cement, chemicals and all other energy-intensive goods combined, according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Global electricity demand from datacentres will more than double by 2030, according to the report. AI will be the main driver of that increase, with demand from dedicated AI datacentres alone forecast to more than quadruple.

One datacentre today consumes as much electricity as 100,000 households, but some of those currently under construction will require 20 times more.

But fears that the rapid adoption of AI will destroy hopes of tackling the climate crisis have been “overstated”, according to the report, which was published on Thursday. That is because harnessing AI to make energy use and other activities more efficient could result in savings that reduce greenhouse gas emissions overall.

Fatih Birol, the executive director of the IEA, said: “With the rise of AI, the energy sector is at the forefront of one of the most important technological revolutions of our time. AI is a tool, potentially an incredibly powerful one, but it is up to us – our societies, governments and companies – how we use it.”

Using AI could make it easier to design electricity grids to take more renewable energy. Most grids were designed for centralised fossil fuel power stations that produce reliable levels of electricity, some of which can be turned off and on relatively quickly. They have to be redesigned to balance demand when more of the supply comes from intermittent and sometimes unpredictable sources, such as wind and solar power.

Finding efficiencies within energy systems, and in industrial processes, could also become easier with AI. At present, huge opportunities to increase efficiency are missed, because it is harder for companies to change their processes than to carry on with wasteful practices.

AI could also assist with new technologies such as driverless vehicles or detecting threats to vital infrastructure. The technology could also be used to plan public transport to optimise for people’s journeys, or to design cities or traffic systems. Mining companies could use AI to discover and exploit reserves of critical minerals, which are crucial to modern renewable energy components such as solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles.

These uses could offset some of the massive demands that AI will place on the world’s energy systems. But that is likely to require greater direction from governments, the IEA report found. Left alone, the rapid growth of AI could prove a severe problem for energy systems and the environment.

AI has the potential to reverse all the gains made in recent years in advanced economies to reduce their energy use, mainly through efficiencies. The rapid increase in AI also means companies will seek the most readily available energy – which could come from gas plants, which were on their way out in many developed countries. In the US, the demand could even be met by coal-fired power stations being given a new lease on life, aided by Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for them.

Done badly, AI could also suck water from some of the world’s driest areas, an investigation by the Guardian revealed, as many AI datacentres use vast quantities of fresh water for cooling their computers.

Claude Turmes, a former Green MEP and energy minister for Luxembourg, said the disadvantages of AI were more likely to materialise than the optimistic projections of the IEA, and governments needed much more help to avoid the pitfalls.

He accused the IEA of painting too rosy a picture and failing to spell out harsh truths to policymakers. He said: “Instead of making practical recommendations to governments on how to regulate and thus minimise the huge negative impact of AI and new mega datacentres on the energy system, the IEA and its [chief] Fatih Birol are making a welcome gift to the new Trump administration and the tech companies which sponsored this new US government.”

The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said on a press tour that his response to a large measles outbreak in west Texas should be a “model for the world”. The statement came after Kennedy attended the funeral of a third measles victim over the weekend.

Kennedy’s response to the outbreak has been widely criticized by epidemiologists and public health experts, who argue he failed to give a full-throated endorsement of an extremely effective vaccine, that cases appear to be severely undercounted and that officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been deployed late.

“The numbers continue to grow by the day, but … the growth rate has diminished substantially,” Kennedy told reporters during a press conference, while promoting his health agenda through the American south-west.

Public health experts have said that, in fact, there is little evidence to support this claim.

“I would compare it to what’s happening in Europe now,” Kennedy continued, according to Politico. “They’ve had 127,000 cases and 37 deaths. And so, what we’re doing right here in the United States is a model for the rest of the world.”

Kennedy appeared to reference figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) released in March. In that instance, global health officials were referring to cases across 53 countries in Europe and central Asia, which make up the WHO’s “European region”. Included in that tally are nations such as Romania and Kazakhstan, which together account for nearly 60,000 cases.

“Measles is the most contagious illness that we know of and it is preventable,” said Susan Polan, associate executive director of the American Public Health Association. “What we’re seeing now… is a far, far undercount in terms of the actual number of cases.”

Before the current outbreak, the US had not had a measles death since 2015. Three people have now died as a result of the Texas outbreak, and nearly 500 people have gotten sick, according to Texas authorities. Because measles has an average death rate of one to three per 1,000, public health officials believe cases are undercounted. The measles vaccine is 97% effective at preventing the disease.

On Sunday, Kennedy said CDC staff would be redeployed to the outbreak in Texas. This week, Kennedy also said the best way to prevent measles is to get the vaccine. However, he also used his attendance at a measles victim’s funeral to promote unproven therapies for measles in a social media post.

“We should have had more people on the ground – this should have been a priority for weeks and weeks,” said Polan.

Measles was eliminated in the US in 2000. However, anti-vaccine sentiment first stoked by a fraudulent scientific paper in the Lancet and then by non-profits, such as the one Kennedy led for nearly a decade, has stoked a dramatic increase in vaccine hesitancy.

The decline in trust in vaccines has been especially precipitous among Republicans and Republican-leaning adults. A Gallup poll from August 2024 found the percentage of Republicans who believe it is extremely important to vaccinate children fell from more than 60% in the early 2000s to 26% in 2024.

As trust in vaccines wanes among Republicans, and Kennedy himself voices lackluster support, Kennedy has enjoyed high trust ratings among Republicans – nearly as high as Donald Trump himself.

Kennedy made the comments as the department he oversees, Health and Human Services, undergoes a dramatic and largely opaque restructuring. A total of 20,000 positions have been eliminated between a cut of 10,000 made by Kennedy and an additional 10,000 employees cut by billionaire Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency”.

The CDC lost 2,400 employees in the restructuring. Overall, HHS will lose nearly a quarter of its workforce. Kennedy has also installed vaccine skeptics in important roles within the agency, including at least one who has paused approval of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Further, basic research into mRNA vaccines has been under threat during Kennedy’s tenure. Before he took office, he tried to force the federal government to rescind authorization for Covid-19 vaccines.

Kennedy’s statements also come as HHS has clawed back more than $11bn in funding to local and state health departments – including grants that had funded immunization clinics near the measles outbreak in Dallas.

In an interview with CBS News, Kennedy denied knowledge of the clawbacks, and said: “I’m not familiar with those cuts … The cuts were mainly [diversity, equity and inclusion] cuts.”

The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said on a press tour that his response to a large measles outbreak in west Texas should be a “model for the world”. The statement came after Kennedy attended the funeral of a third measles victim over the weekend.

Kennedy’s response to the outbreak has been widely criticized by epidemiologists and public health experts, who argue he failed to give a full-throated endorsement of an extremely effective vaccine, that cases appear to be severely undercounted and that officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been deployed late.

“The numbers continue to grow by the day, but … the growth rate has diminished substantially,” Kennedy told reporters during a press conference, while promoting his health agenda through the American south-west.

Public health experts have said that, in fact, there is little evidence to support this claim.

“I would compare it to what’s happening in Europe now,” Kennedy continued, according to Politico. “They’ve had 127,000 cases and 37 deaths. And so, what we’re doing right here in the United States is a model for the rest of the world.”

Kennedy appeared to reference figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) released in March. In that instance, global health officials were referring to cases across 53 countries in Europe and central Asia, which make up the WHO’s “European region”. Included in that tally are nations such as Romania and Kazakhstan, which together account for nearly 60,000 cases.

“Measles is the most contagious illness that we know of and it is preventable,” said Susan Polan, associate executive director of the American Public Health Association. “What we’re seeing now… is a far, far undercount in terms of the actual number of cases.”

Before the current outbreak, the US had not had a measles death since 2015. Three people have now died as a result of the Texas outbreak, and nearly 500 people have gotten sick, according to Texas authorities. Because measles has an average death rate of one to three per 1,000, public health officials believe cases are undercounted. The measles vaccine is 97% effective at preventing the disease.

On Sunday, Kennedy said CDC staff would be redeployed to the outbreak in Texas. This week, Kennedy also said the best way to prevent measles is to get the vaccine. However, he also used his attendance at a measles victim’s funeral to promote unproven therapies for measles in a social media post.

“We should have had more people on the ground – this should have been a priority for weeks and weeks,” said Polan.

Measles was eliminated in the US in 2000. However, anti-vaccine sentiment first stoked by a fraudulent scientific paper in the Lancet and then by non-profits, such as the one Kennedy led for nearly a decade, has stoked a dramatic increase in vaccine hesitancy.

The decline in trust in vaccines has been especially precipitous among Republicans and Republican-leaning adults. A Gallup poll from August 2024 found the percentage of Republicans who believe it is extremely important to vaccinate children fell from more than 60% in the early 2000s to 26% in 2024.

As trust in vaccines wanes among Republicans, and Kennedy himself voices lackluster support, Kennedy has enjoyed high trust ratings among Republicans – nearly as high as Donald Trump himself.

Kennedy made the comments as the department he oversees, Health and Human Services, undergoes a dramatic and largely opaque restructuring. A total of 20,000 positions have been eliminated between a cut of 10,000 made by Kennedy and an additional 10,000 employees cut by billionaire Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency”.

The CDC lost 2,400 employees in the restructuring. Overall, HHS will lose nearly a quarter of its workforce. Kennedy has also installed vaccine skeptics in important roles within the agency, including at least one who has paused approval of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Further, basic research into mRNA vaccines has been under threat during Kennedy’s tenure. Before he took office, he tried to force the federal government to rescind authorization for Covid-19 vaccines.

Kennedy’s statements also come as HHS has clawed back more than $11bn in funding to local and state health departments – including grants that had funded immunization clinics near the measles outbreak in Dallas.

In an interview with CBS News, Kennedy denied knowledge of the clawbacks, and said: “I’m not familiar with those cuts … The cuts were mainly [diversity, equity and inclusion] cuts.”

At least 23 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a residential building in northern Gaza, as reports emerged that the Israeli military is preparing to seize the entire city of Rafah as part of a newly announced security corridor.

Medics at al-Ahli hospital said that the bombing on Wednesday of a four-storey building in the Gaza City suburb of Shijaiyah had killed at least eight women and children, as rescue workers continued to search for survivors into the evening. The Israeli military said the strike targeted a senior Hamas militant.

According to the UN, nearly 400,000 people have been forced to leave their homes or shelters since Israel decided to abandon a two-month-old ceasefire with Hamas, cutting off aid, food and fuel on 2 March and resuming large-scale bombing two weeks later. A total of 1,500 people have been killed and 3,700 injured since then, according to the local health ministry.

Earlier this week, Hamas fired its strongest volley of rockets into Israel since the ceasefire collapsed, aiming 10 projectiles toward the southern city of Ashkelon that injured 12 people.

Israeli officials say the renewed military campaign is aimed at pressuring Hamas into releasing Israeli hostages. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has issued sweeping evacuation orders amid a vow from the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to “divide up” and seize large swathes of the territory.

On Wednesday, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the IDF was preparing to incorporate the entire city of Rafah and its surroundings – one-fifth of the entire Gaza Strip – into the new “Morag corridor” between Rafah and Khan Younis. Such a move would cut off Gaza from Egypt and turn the territory into an enclave completely surrounded by Israel.

The report has renewed fears of permanent displacement for the strip’s 2.3 million residents and inflamed worries that Israel intends to establish permanent control of the Palestinian territory.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which Israel says 1,200 people, the majority of them civilians, were killed and a further 250 taken captive. Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed more than 50,000 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Mediators have since attempted to bring the sides to a bridging agreement that would again pause the war, free hostages and open the door for talks on ending the conflict, but Netanyahu, under pressure from rightwing allies, says Israel will not agree to stop fighting until Hamas is defeated. Hamas wants the war to end before it frees the remaining 59 hostages it holds, 24 of whom are believed to still be alive.

Netanyahu this week travelled to the US – Israel’s most important political and military ally – to meet Donald Trump, who has said he wants the war to end. He has suggested expelling Gaza’s population either voluntarily or by force. While Israel has embraced Trump’s vision, the rest of the Middle East and the international community have refused to entertain the idea.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

The US defence secretary has floated the idea of the country’s troops returning to Panama to “secure” its strategically vital canal, a suggestion quickly shot down by the Central American country’s government.

Pete Hegseth suggested during a visit to Panama that “by invitation” the US could “revive” military bases or naval air stations and rotate deployments of its troops to an isthmus the US invaded 35 years ago.

He also said his country was seeking free passage through the canal for its navy ships – which Donald Trump had said were “severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form”.

Trump, since coming to power in January, has repeatedly claimed that China has too much influence over the canal, which handles about 40% of US container traffic and 5% of world trade.

His administration has vowed to “take back” control of the strategic waterway that the US funded, built and controlled until 1999.

Hegseth suggested on Wednesday the former US military bases that dot Panama could be used again to host American troops.

He said a deal signed with Panama this week was an “opportunity to revive, whether it’s the military base, naval air station, locations where US troops can work with Panamanian troops to enhance capabilities and cooperate in a rotational way”.

While Hegseth cited the possibility of joint exercises, the mention of a rotational force was likely to raise the hackles of Panamanians, for whom sole ownership of the canal is a source of national pride.

The US has long participated in military exercises in Panama. However, a longer-term rotational force – such as the force the USmaintains in Darwin, Australia – is politically toxic for Panama’s centre-right leader, José Raúl Mulino.

His government quickly slapped down the idea. “Panama made clear, through President Mulino, that we cannot accept military bases or defence sites,” said Panama’s security minister, Frank Abrego, in a joint public appearance with Hegseth.

Hegseth also said the US was seeking an agreement under which its warships could pass through the canal “first, and free”.

Jose Ramón Icaza, Panama’s minister for canal affairs, said: “We will seek a mechanism by which warships and auxiliary ships can have a compensation system for services, that is, a way to make them cost-neutral but not free.”

The independent Panama Canal Authority (PCA) that manages the waterway said on Wednesday that it was seeking a “cost-neutral scheme” to compensate services rendered in security matters for warship tolls.

Under current treaties, the canal is open to all countries and vessels must pay the same rates according to their capacity and cargo, regardless of their country of origin or destination.

The PCA said the US recognised Panamanian sovereignty over the waterway, although Hegseth did not mention it in the news conference.

The Pentagon chief’s two-day visit has been peppered with comments about China and its influence in Latin America. He said the US was not looking for war with China but would counter Beijing’s “threats” to the region.

“We do not seek war with China. And war with China is certainly not inevitable. We do not seek it in any form,” Hegseth said. “But together, we must prevent war by robustly and vigorously deterring China’s threats in this hemisphere,” the former Fox News anchor said.

China hit back after Hegseth’s comments, saying Washington officials “maliciously attacked China … exposing the US’s bullying nature”.

Trump has zeroed in on the role of a Hong Kong company that has operated ports at either end of the canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans for decades.

Hegseth asserted that China-based companies were also capturing Latin American land and infrastructure in strategic sectors, such as energy and telecommunications, and that China had too large a military presence in the hemisphere.

“Make no mistake, Beijing is investing and operating in this region for military advantage and unfair economic gain,” he said.

Under pressure from the White House, Panama has accused the Hong Kong-backed Panama Ports Company of failing to meet its contractual obligations and pushed for it to pull out of the country.

The company rejected an audit on Wednesday that suggested it had failed to pay $1.2bn due under its concession.

The ports’ parent company, CK Hutchison, announced last month a deal to offload 43 ports in 23 countries – including its two on the Panama canal – to a consortium led by the US asset manager BlackRock for $19bn in cash. A furious Beijing has since announced an antitrust review of the deal.

The US invaded Panama in 1989 to oust the dictator Manuel Noriega, killing more than 500 Panamanians and razing parts of the capital.

King Charles and Queen Camilla paid a surprise private visit to a convalescing Pope Francis on Wednesday afternoon during their four-day state visit to Italy.

The royal couple visited Francis, 88, at his home in Casa Santa Marta in Vatican City, where he is recovering from a serious bout of pneumonia in both lungs. An official audience had previously been removed from the royals’ schedule due to the pontiff’s ill health.

The Vatican said in a statement that during the meeting the pope expressed his best wishes to Charles and Camilla on their 20th wedding anniversary, which they celebrated on Wednesday, while they wished for his “speedy recovery”.

Buckingham Palace said Charles and Camilla “were delighted the pope was well enough to host them – and to have had the opportunity to share their best wishes in person.”

Francis was discharged from Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where he spent five weeks being treated for the life-threatening pneumonia, on 23 March. His medics said he would need to convalesce at home for at least two months.

The meeting on Wednesday came after Charles became the first British monarch to address a joint session of the Italian parliament, surprising many politicians with his Italian language skills.

The king joked that he hoped he wasn’t “ruining” the language of Dante to the point that “he would not be invited to Italy again”.

“Italy is a country very dear to my heart and to that of the queen, as it is to many British people,” he said.

The couple met the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, earlier on Wednesday and are being hosted by President Sergio Mattarella for a state banquet at the Quirinal Palace on Wednesday night. They will travel to Ravenna, in Emilia-Romagna, on Thursday before returning home.

It was the bill that launched 300,000 public submissions, sparked New Zealand’s largest ever protest on Māori rights and prompted a haka in parliament that quickly went viral.

And now the treaty principles bill, which sought to radically reinterpret New Zealand’s founding treaty between Māori tribes and the British Crown, is dead.

Lawmakers voted down the controversial bill on Thursday, drawing a line under a particularly strained chapter in the country’s fight for Indigenous rights.

The Treaty of Waitangi is considered New Zealand’s founding document and is instrumental in upholding Māori rights. The treaty principles bill – tabled by the minor libertarian Act Party – proposed abandoning a set of principles that courts and parliament have developed over decades to guide the relationship between the crown and Māori, in favour of its own.

Act has argued that Māori have been afforded different political and legal rights and privileges compared with non-Māori, because of the way the treaty has been interpreted.

National, the biggest party in the ruling coalition with Act and New Zealand First, promised it would support the bill through its first reading and the select committee process, but did not commit to supporting it further.

Proceedings in parliament were briefly halted on Thursday afternoon, after a protester in the public gallery interrupted the speech of Act’s leader, David Seymour. After the man’s removal, Seymour said he would continue to “fight for the truth that all Kiwis are equal”.

“I am proud that my party has had the bravery, the clarity and the patriotism to raise uneasy topics, and I challenge other parties to find those qualities in themselves and support this bill,” Seymour said.

But Act cut a lonely figure as National and New Zealand First MPs made good on their promises to vote against the bill, alongside the opposition who stood and applauded after the vote. In the end, the vote was 11 in favour, with 112 against. Afterwards, members of the public gallery and politicians from across the political divide sang a Māori song.

Prime minister Christopher Luxon was absent for the reading, leaving his justice minister Paul Goldsmith to speak on behalf of National, who said the bill was “a crude way to deal with a very sensitive topic”.

But New Zealand was “not so fragile that we can’t withstand a debate about the role of the treaty”, Goldsmith said. “The critical thing is that we try our best to conduct that conversation with good grace … and I have every confidence that we can continue to find a way through.”

Labour leader Chris Hipkins called it a “grubby little bill born from a grubby little deal”. “It has had a colossal impact on the fabric of our nation, and this bill will for ever be a stain on our country.”

Hipkins said the bill was “based on a mythology” that Māori have special privilege. By nearly every metric, Māori fare worse that non-Māori, be it life expectancy, house ownership, health and education outcomes, or income.

Hipkins criticised National and New Zealand First for failing to bin the bill earlier.

“Not one National MP should walk out of this debating chamber today with their heads held high, because when it comes to this debate, they led nothing, they stopped nothing, and they stood for nothing.”

Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, who led the viral haka in parliament against the bill, said the bill had been “annihilated” by the hundreds of thousands of voices who opposed it.

“This ignited an emotion that echoed with all walks of life, all races, all ages and all genders.”

Battle for rights far from over

Over the past year, the bill generated widespread criticism from lawyers, academics, politicians and the public who believed the new principles would weaken Māori rights, remove checks on the Crown and drive anti-Māori rhetoric. A Waitangi Tribunal report said if enacted, the bill would be “the worst, most comprehensive breach of the Treaty … in modern times”.

The first reading of the bill in November, prompted Maipi-Clarke’s haka, during which she ripped up a copy of the bill. Three days later, the largest ever protest over Māori rights descended on parliament in opposition to the bill.

Last week, a parliamentary committee recommended the bill should not proceed, revealing 90% of a record-breaking 300,000 public submissions opposed it.

The bill’s demise may end this particular debate over the treaty, but for many who opposed it such as Eru Kapa-Kingi – the leader of the historic protest – the battle for Indigenous rights is far from over.

Since taking office in November 2023, the coalition government’s broader policy direction for Māori – including sweeping rollbacks to policies designed to improve Māori health and wellbeing, scaling back the use of Māori language in public services and defunding Māori initiatives – has ignited condemnation, protests, mass meetings of Māori leaders, and multiple claims to the Waitangi Tribunal – an institution the investigates the crown’s breaches of the treaty.

Prime minister Christopher Luxon has said services should be provided on the basis of need, not race and the government intends to “deliver outcomes for everybody”.

“There’s a whole catalogue of terrible policy and terrible law being pushed through by this government,” Kapa-Kingi said.

Policies such as Act’s proposed regulatory standards bill have “fundamentally the same intentions” but were “more alarming because they are flying under the radar”, Kapa-Kingi said. The proposed bill is presented as method to improve the productivity and quality of regulation, but scholars and Māori leaders believe it will prioritise private property interests over the crown’s treaty obligations to Māori.

The Guardian has contacted Seymour’s office for comment.

Still, for Kapa-Kingi, the galvanising of Māori and non-Māori against the bill represented hope for the future of Indigenous rights.

“For the last year … the loudest voices have been those that have frankly been disparaging and racist towards [Māori] and diminishing towards our rights,” Kapa-Kingi said.

“Now, we can confidently say that they’re simply a loud minority.”

Rescue workers in the Dominican Republic on Wednesday ended the search for survivors of a nightclub roof collapse as the death toll surpassed 180 in the Caribbean nation’s worst disaster in decades.

Emergency personnel late Wednesday reported 60 more deaths compared to the morning’s count, with the total confirmed tally reaching 184.

An official statement had earlier said that “all reasonable possibilities of finding more survivors” had been exhausted, and the focus of the operation will turn to recovering bodies.

“Today we will complete the rescue effort,” said Jose Luis Frometa Herasme, head of the fire service in the Dominican capital Santo Domingo, where the tragedy occurred at the Jet Set nightclub in the early hours of Tuesday, sending shock waves through the nation.

Relatives of missing people were still waiting desperately for news Wednesday of their loved ones outside the ruined club, at hospitals and at the local morgue.

Over 300 rescue workers, aided by sniffer dogs, had spent two days combing through mounds of fallen bricks, steel bars and tin sheets, supported by firefighters from Puerto Rico and Israel.

Aerial images of the site showed a scene resembling the aftermath of an earthquake, with a gaping hole where the roof of the club – a fixture of Santo Domingo’s nightlife for half a century – had been.

Over 500 people were also injured when the roof caved in while renowned merengue singer Rubby Pérez was performing for a crowd of hundreds.

Pérez and two former Major League Baseball players were among the dead.

Antonio Hernandez, whose son worked at the Jet Set nightclub, told AFP his hopes of finding his son alive had begun fading as he watched more and more bodies, but no survivors, being retrieved.

The remains in one body bag resembled his son’s height and build, said Hernandez, but he did not investigate. “I don’t have the stomach to find out the worst yet.”

Mercedes Lopez said she was in a lot of pain as she waited to learn the fate of her son. “We haven’t found him on the lists or in the hospitals,” she said.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio sent his condolences Wednesday and said at least one US citizen was among the victims. “Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones affected by this devastating event,” he wrote on X.

Pope Francis also sent condolences.

Local media said there were between 500 and 1,000 people in the club when disaster struck about 12.44am local time Tuesday. The club can hold 1,700 people.

A video posted on social media showed the venue suddenly plunged into darkness while Pérez was singing.

The star’s daughter Zulinka managed to escape but her father did not. His body was recovered on Wednesday.

Tributes to the singer, known for hits such as Volvere and Enamorado de Ella poured in from across Latin America. “Maestro, what a great pain you leave us,” Puerto Rican Grammy-winning singer Olga Tanon wrote on social media. Pérez’s former band leader Wilfrido Vargas said he was “devastated” at the death of an “idol of our genre”.

The baseball world meanwhile mourned the death of Octavio Dotel, a 51-year-old baseball pitcher who won the World Series with the St Louis Cardinals in 2011 and Tony Blanco, 45, who also played in the United States.

President Luis Abinader declared three days of national mourning.

Iris Pena, a survivor, told local television that she made for the door after “dirt started falling like dust” into her drink and then a stone fell and cracked the table where she was sitting. “The impact was so strong, as if it had been a tsunami or an earthquake,” she said.

The Jet Set club said on Tuesday it was working with authorities probing the disaster, one of the worst in Dominican history.

In 2005, more than 130 prisoners in the east of the country died in a fire caused by a fight between inmates.