US stock markets fell again on Monday as Donald Trump continued attacks against the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, who the US president called “a major loser” for not lowering interest rates.

“There can be a slowing of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW,” Trump wrote on social media.

In recent days, Trump has amped up attacks against the Fed chair, pushing Powell to lower interest rates to offset the inflationary impacts of the new tariffs.

Trump is pressuring the Fed to cut rates, likely to appease the stock market, which plummeted after he announced his newest slate of tariffs. But Wall Street isn’t taking the bait and appears to be reacting in opposition to Trump’s attacks against Powell and the independence of the US central bank.

The Dow ended the day down 2.5%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell over 2.5% down and the S&P 500 fell 2.4%. Former tech stocks favorites including Tesla and Nvidia lost ground, while the value of the dollar fell to multiyear lows against most major currencies.

Stock markets had recovered the losses they endured after Trump rolled out his “liberation day” tariffs proposals, which would have imposed huge levies on all of the US’s trading partners. But almost all the gains made in the stock market following Trump’s announcement of a 90-day pause of his so-called reciprocal tariffs have been erased amid these new jabs against Powell.

Powell, known to be extremely measured in his public remarks, has in recent weeks spoken out about Trump’s tariffs and warned that they may lead to a “challenging scenario” for the Fed, implying that the Fed has no plans to cut interest rates anytime soon.

“Tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation. The inflation effects could also be more persistent,” Powell told reporters on 16 April.

US inflation peaked at 9% in June 2022 but has slowly come down over the last few years, largely due to the Fed’s careful adjustment of interest rates. The Fed has set its inflation rate target at 2%.

Powell often refers to the central bank’s “dual mandate” – to keep inflation in check while maximising employment. Higher interest rates can bring down prices, though it can come at the risk of higher unemployment. Over the last few years, the Fed has been able to bring down inflation while keeping the unemployment rate relatively low, around 4%. Last month, inflation cooled to 2.4%, though the most recent government figures do not account for the Trump tariffs.

The Fed has long been treated as a nonpartisan, nonpolitical federal agency, though Trump has recently floated the idea of terminating Powell, whose term is up in May 2026. “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!” Trump wrote on social media last week.

Such a move would be unprecedented and would likely put Wall Street into a further tailspin. In an interview with CNBC, Krishna Guha, the vice-chair of Evercore ISI, an equity research firm, said that there would be a “severe reaction” from markets if Trump fires Powell.

“I can’t believe that’s what the administration is trying to achieve,” Guha said.

It’s also unclear whether Trump has the authority to remove Powell from his post. The supreme court is currently hearing a case that could give Trump more power to fire federal officials before their terms are up, though it’s unclear whether that could reach the Fed.

Last week, Powell emphasized the importance of the Fed’s independence from political forces.

“Our independence is a matter of law,” Powell said. “We serve very long terms, seemingly endless terms, so we’re protected by the law.”

But that doesn’t mean the Trump administration isn’t trying. On Friday, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told reporters that the administration “will continue to study” if they can legally fire Powell.

Fed officials meet monthly to discuss potential changes to the interest rate. The next meeting between officials will take place 6 and 7 May.

US stock markets fell again on Monday as Donald Trump continued attacks against the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, who the US president called “a major loser” for not lowering interest rates.

“There can be a slowing of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW,” Trump wrote on social media.

In recent days, Trump has amped up attacks against the Fed chair, pushing Powell to lower interest rates to offset the inflationary impacts of the new tariffs.

Trump is pressuring the Fed to cut rates, likely to appease the stock market, which plummeted after he announced his newest slate of tariffs. But Wall Street isn’t taking the bait and appears to be reacting in opposition to Trump’s attacks against Powell and the independence of the US central bank.

The Dow ended the day down 2.5%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell over 2.5% down and the S&P 500 fell 2.4%. Former tech stocks favorites including Tesla and Nvidia lost ground, while the value of the dollar fell to multiyear lows against most major currencies.

Stock markets had recovered the losses they endured after Trump rolled out his “liberation day” tariffs proposals, which would have imposed huge levies on all of the US’s trading partners. But almost all the gains made in the stock market following Trump’s announcement of a 90-day pause of his so-called reciprocal tariffs have been erased amid these new jabs against Powell.

Powell, known to be extremely measured in his public remarks, has in recent weeks spoken out about Trump’s tariffs and warned that they may lead to a “challenging scenario” for the Fed, implying that the Fed has no plans to cut interest rates anytime soon.

“Tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation. The inflation effects could also be more persistent,” Powell told reporters on 16 April.

US inflation peaked at 9% in June 2022 but has slowly come down over the last few years, largely due to the Fed’s careful adjustment of interest rates. The Fed has set its inflation rate target at 2%.

Powell often refers to the central bank’s “dual mandate” – to keep inflation in check while maximising employment. Higher interest rates can bring down prices, though it can come at the risk of higher unemployment. Over the last few years, the Fed has been able to bring down inflation while keeping the unemployment rate relatively low, around 4%. Last month, inflation cooled to 2.4%, though the most recent government figures do not account for the Trump tariffs.

The Fed has long been treated as a nonpartisan, nonpolitical federal agency, though Trump has recently floated the idea of terminating Powell, whose term is up in May 2026. “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!” Trump wrote on social media last week.

Such a move would be unprecedented and would likely put Wall Street into a further tailspin. In an interview with CNBC, Krishna Guha, the vice-chair of Evercore ISI, an equity research firm, said that there would be a “severe reaction” from markets if Trump fires Powell.

“I can’t believe that’s what the administration is trying to achieve,” Guha said.

It’s also unclear whether Trump has the authority to remove Powell from his post. The supreme court is currently hearing a case that could give Trump more power to fire federal officials before their terms are up, though it’s unclear whether that could reach the Fed.

Last week, Powell emphasized the importance of the Fed’s independence from political forces.

“Our independence is a matter of law,” Powell said. “We serve very long terms, seemingly endless terms, so we’re protected by the law.”

But that doesn’t mean the Trump administration isn’t trying. On Friday, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told reporters that the administration “will continue to study” if they can legally fire Powell.

Fed officials meet monthly to discuss potential changes to the interest rate. The next meeting between officials will take place 6 and 7 May.

A huge 89% majority of the world’s people want stronger action to fight the climate crisis but feel they are trapped in a self-fulfilling “spiral of silence” because they mistakenly believe they are in a minority, research suggests.

Making people aware that their pro-climate view is, in fact, by far the majority could unlock a social tipping point and push leaders into the climate action so urgently needed, experts say.

The data comes from a global survey that interviewed 130,000 people across 125 countries and found 89% thought their national government “should do more to fight global warming”.

It also asked people if they would “contribute 1% of their household income every month to fight global warming” and what proportion of their fellow citizens they thought would do the same. In almost all countries, people believed only a minority of their fellow citizens would be willing to contribute. In reality, the opposite was true: more than 50% of citizens were willing to contribute in all but a few nations.

The global average of those willing to contribute was 69%. But the percentage that people thought would be willing was 43%. The gap between perception and reality was as high as 40 percentage points in some countries, from Greece to Gabon.

Further analysis of the survey data for the Guardian showed that public backing for climate action was as strong among the G20 member countries as in the rest of the world. These states, including the US, China, Saudi Arabia, UK and Australia, are responsible for 77% of global carbon emissions.

“One of the most powerful forms of climate communication is just telling people that a majority of other people think climate change is happening, human-caused, a serious problem and a priority for action,” said Prof Anthony Leiserowitz at Yale University in the US.

Prof Cynthia Frantz, at Oberlin College in the US, said. “Currently, worrying about climate change is something people are largely doing in the privacy of their own minds – we are locked in a self-fulfilling spiral of silence.”

Dr Niall McLoughlin, at the Climate Barometer research group in the UK, said: “If you were to unlock the perception gaps, that could move us closer to a social tipping point amongst the public on climate issues.”

The existence of a silent climate majority across the planet is supported by several separate analyses. Other studies demonstrate a clear global appetite for action, from citizens of rich nations strongly supporting financial support (pdf) for poorer vulnerable countries and even those in petrostates backing a phase-out of coal, oil and gas. A decades-long campaign of misinformation by the fossil fuel industry is a key reason the climate majority has been suppressed, researchers said.

Prof Teodora Boneva, at the University of Bonn, Germany, who was part of the team behind the 125-nation survey, said: “The world is united in its judgment about climate change and the need to act. Our results suggest a concerted effort to correct these misperceptions could be powerful intervention, yielding large, positive effects.”

The 125 countries in the survey account for 96% of the world’s carbon emissions, and the results were published in the journal Nature Climate Change. People in China, the world’s biggest polluter, were among the most concerned, with 97% saying its government should do more to fight climate change and four out of five willing to give 1% of their income. Brazil, Portugal, and Sri Lanka also ranked highly.

The world’s second biggest polluter, the US, was near the bottom, but 74% of its citizens still said its government should do more, while 48% were willing to contribute. New Zealand, Norway and Russia were also relatively low-scoring.

Research has also found that politicians suffer from serious misperceptions. In the UK, MPs vastly underestimated public support for onshore windfarms. In the US, almost 80% of congressional staffers underestimated people’s support for limits on carbon emissions, sometimes by more than 50 percentage points.

“Perception gaps can have real consequences – they could mean that climate policies are not as ambitious as the public sentiment,” said McLoughlin.

Substantial evidence exists that correcting mistaken beliefs about the views of others can change people’s views on many subjects, from opinions on immigrants and violence against women, to environmental topics such as saving energy. This is because people are instinctively drawn to majority views and are also more likely to do something if they think others are doing it too.

“People deeply understand we are in a climate emergency,” said Cassie Flynn, at the UN Development Programme, whose People’s Climate Vote in 2024 found 80% of people wanted stronger climate action from their countries. “They want world leaders to be bold, because they are living it day to day. World leaders should look at this data as a resounding call for them to rise to the challenge.”

This story is part of The 89 Percent Project, an initiative of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now

Pressure was mounting on the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, on Monday following reports of a second Signal chatroom used to discuss sensitive military operations, while a former top Pentagon spokesperson slammed the US’s top military official’s leadership of the Department of Defense.

John Ullyot, who resigned last week after initially serving as Pentagon spokesperson, said in a opinion essay published by Politico on Sunday that the Pentagon has been overwhelmed by staff drama and turnover in the initial months of the second Trump administration.

Ullyot called the situation a “full-blown meltdown” that could cost Hegseth, a 44-year-old former Fox News host and national guard officer, his job as defense secretary.

“It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president – who deserves better from his senior leadership,” Ullyot wrote.

Donald Trump Jr pushed back on the opinion piece, saying the author is “officially exiled” from Trump’s political movement. “This guy is not America First,” Trump Jr wrote on X. “I’ve been hearing for years that he works his ass off to subvert my father’s agenda. That ends today.”

The warning came as the New York Times reported that Hegseth shared details of a US attack on Yemeni Houthi rebels last month in a second Signal chat that he created himself and included his wife, his brother and about a dozen other people.

The Guardian has independently confirmed the existence of Hegseth’s own private group chat.

According to unnamed sources familiar with the chat who spoke to the Times, Hegseth sent the private group of his personal associates some of the same information, including the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets that would strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, that he also shared with another Signal group of top officials that was created by Mike Waltz, the national security adviser.

The existence of the Signal group chat created by Waltz, in which detailed attack plans were divulged by Hegseth to other Trump administration officials on the private messaging app, were made public by the Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who had been accidentally added to the group.

The existence of a second Signal chat, coupled with Ullyot’s devastating portrait of the Pentagon under Hegseth, is likely to increase pressure on the White House to take action.

Trump defended Hegseth at the annual Easter egg roll event at the White House.

“Pete’s doing a great job,” the president said. “Just ask the Houthis how he’s doing. It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories. It sounds like disgruntled employees. He was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people and that’s what he’s doing. You don’t always have friends when you do that.”

Hegseth himself blamed “disgruntled former employees” in remarks to reporters at the same event.

“What a big surprise that a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax,” Hegseth said. “This is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations.”

He continued: “Not going to work with me, because we’re changing the defense department, putting the Pentagon back in the hands of war-fighters. And anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news doesn’t matter.”

The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, issued a statement in a post on X on Sunday night following the New York Times report.

“Another day, another old story – back from the dead,” Parnell said. “The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda. This time, the New York Times – and all other Fake News that repeat their garbage – are enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article.

“There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story. What is true is that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is continuing to become stronger and more efficient in executing President Trump’s agenda. We’ve already achieved so much for the American warfighter, and will never back down.”

Tammy Duckworth, a Democratic senator from Illinois and combat veteran, said in a statement that the second Signal chat put the lives of US men and women in uniform at greater risk:

“How many times does Pete Hegseth need to leak classified intelligence before Donald Trump and Republicans understand that he isn’t only a f*cking liar, he is a threat to our national security?

“Every day he stays in his job is another day our troops’ lives are endangered by his singular stupidity,” Duckworth said. “He must resign in disgrace.”

Jack Reed, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island and a senior member of the Senate armed services committee, said the report, if true, “is another troubling example of Secretary Hegseth’s reckless disregard for the laws and protocols that every other military service member is required to follow”.

Reed called on Hegseth to “immediately explain why he reportedly texted classified information that could endanger American service members’ lives on a commercial app that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer”.

Reed said he had “warned that Mr Hegseth lacks the experience, competence, and character to run the Department of Defense. In light of the ongoing chaos, dysfunction, and mass firings under Mr Hegseth’s leadership, it seems that those objections were well-founded.”

Ullyot warned that under Hegseth “the Pentagon focus is no longer on warfighting, but on endless drama” and said “the president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon.”

Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in a bid to halt a freeze of $2.2m in funding, as a battle between Trump and the Ivy League institution escalates.

In a damning legal complaint filed with the Massachusetts district court, Harvard’s president, Alan M Garber, accused the Trump administration of trying to “gain control of academic decision making at Harvard”, adding that no government “should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue”.

The Trump administration has sought to force changes at multiple Ivy League institutions after months of student activism centered around the war in Gaza. The administration has painted the campus protests as anti-American, and the institutions as liberal and antisemitic, a claim that Garber refutes.

Here are the key stories at a glance:

Catching up? Here’s what happened on 20 April 2025.

Oxford academics drank from a chalice made from a human skull for decades, a book that explores the violent colonial history of looted human remains has revealed.

The skull-cup, fashioned from a sawn-off and polished braincase adorned with a silver rim and stand, was used regularly at formal dinners at Worcester College, Oxford, until 2015, according to Prof Dan Hicks, the curator of world archaeology at the university’s Pitt Rivers Museum.

Hicks, whose forthcoming book, Every Monument Will Fall, traces the “shameful history of the skull”, said the cup was also used to serve chocolates after it began to leak wine.

The archaeologist said mounting disquiet among fellows and guests put an end to the senior common room ritual and, in 2019, the college invited Hicks to investigate the skull’s origins, and how it became what he calls “some sick variety of tableware”.

Hicks said debates about the legacy of colonialism usually focused on how the prominent Britons who profited from it, such as Cecil Rhodes or Edward Colston, had been memorialised by statues, objects or institutions bearing their names.

But he wanted to show how the identities of the victims of colonial rule had often been erased from history because, due to racist ideas of British cultural and white supremacy, they were not considered noteworthy. “The dehumanisation and destruction of identities was part of the violence,” the archaeologist added.

Hicks found no record of the person whose remains the skull-cup was made from, although carbon dating showed the skull is about 225 years old. Its size and circumstantial evidence suggest it came from the Caribbean and possibly belonged to an enslaved woman, he added.

In contrast, the chalice’s British owners were well-documented. The cup was donated to Worcester College in 1946 by a former student, George Pitt-Rivers, whose name is inscribed on its silver rim. A eugenicist, he was interned by the British government during the second world war due to his support for the fascist leader Oswald Mosley.

The cup was part of the lesser-known private second collection of his grandfather, the Victorian British soldier and archaeologist Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers, who founded the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1884.

The elder Pitt Rivers bought the skull-cup at a Sotheby’s auction that same year. The listing shows it then had a wooden stand with a Queen Victoria shilling inlaid underneath. Silver hallmarks indicate it was made in 1838, the year of her coronation.

The seller was Bernhard Smith, a lawyer and graduate of Oriel College, Oxford, who mainly collected weaponry and armour. Hicks speculated that he received it as a gift from his father, who served with the Royal Navy in the Caribbean.

The Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Afrikan reparations, said: “It is sickening to think of Oxford dons, sitting in this bastion of privilege, itself enriched by the proceeds of centuries of colonial violence and extraction, swilling drink out of a human skull that may have belonged to an enslaved person and has been so little valued that it has been turned into an object.”

A Worcester College spokesperson said: “In the 20th century, the vessel was sometimes on display with the college’s silver collection and used as tableware. The college does not hold records of how often this was the case, but it was severely limited after 2011 and the vessel was completely removed 10 years ago.

After taking scientific and legal advice, the college’s governing body decided the skull-cup should be stored in its archive “in a respectful manner, where access to it is permanently denied”, the spokesperson added. “As Dr Hicks acknowledges in his book, the college has dealt with the issue ethically and thoughtfully.”

The book also details other skulls looted from colonial battlefields by prominent Victorians, which were displayed in their homes or donated to museums. These include Field Marshal Lord Grenfell, after whom the tower in Kensington is named, who dug up the skull of a Zulu commander two years after he was killed by the British army in the battle of Ulundi in 1879.

Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging it is trying to “gain control of academic decision-making at Harvard”.

The university is fighting back against the administration’s threat to review about $9bn in federal funding after Harvard officials refused to comply with a list of demands that included appointing an outside overseer to ensure that the viewpoints being taught at the university were “diverse”. Harvard is specifically looking to halt a freeze on $2.2bn in grants.

The lawsuit comes as the Trump administration has sought to force changes at multiple Ivy League institutions after months of student activism centered around the war in Gaza. The administration has painted the campus protests are anti-American, and the institutions as liberal and antisemitic, which Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, refuted.

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement that the “gravy train of federal assistance” to institutions like Harvard was coming to an end.

“Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege,” Fields said.

In a letter announcing the university’s decision to reject Trump’s demands, Garber wrote: “No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

Garber, in a statement published on Monday, reiterated that the Trump administration had doubled down on its response to the university’s refusal to comply with the administration’s demands, despite claims that the letter indicating Harvard’s federal research funding was at risk was sent by mistake.

“The government has, in addition to the initial freeze of $2.2bn in funding, considered taking steps to freeze an additional $1bn in grants, initiated numerous investigations of Harvard’s operations, threatened the education of international students, and announced that it is considering a revocation of Harvard’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status,” Garber wrote.

“These actions have stark real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and the standing of American higher education in the world.”

Harvard is the first university to file a lawsuit in response to Trump’s crackdown on top US universities that is says mishandled last year’s pro-Palestinian protests and allowed antisemitism to fester on campuses. But protesters, including some Jewish groups, say their criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza is wrongly conflated with antisemitism.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration had sent a letter to Harvard with the list of demands, which included changes to its admissions policies, removing recognition of some student clubs, and hiring some new faculty.

Last Tuesday, Trump had called for Harvard, the US’s oldest and wealthiest university and one of the most prestigious in the world, to lose its tax-exempt status, CNN first reported.

“Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’ Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!” the US president said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging it is trying to “gain control of academic decision-making at Harvard”.

The university is fighting back against the administration’s threat to review about $9bn in federal funding after Harvard officials refused to comply with a list of demands that included appointing an outside overseer to ensure that the viewpoints being taught at the university were “diverse”. Harvard is specifically looking to halt a freeze on $2.2bn in grants.

The lawsuit comes as the Trump administration has sought to force changes at multiple Ivy League institutions after months of student activism centered around the war in Gaza. The administration has painted the campus protests are anti-American, and the institutions as liberal and antisemitic, which Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, refuted.

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement that the “gravy train of federal assistance” to institutions like Harvard was coming to an end.

“Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege,” Fields said.

In a letter announcing the university’s decision to reject Trump’s demands, Garber wrote: “No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

Garber, in a statement published on Monday, reiterated that the Trump administration had doubled down on its response to the university’s refusal to comply with the administration’s demands, despite claims that the letter indicating Harvard’s federal research funding was at risk was sent by mistake.

“The government has, in addition to the initial freeze of $2.2bn in funding, considered taking steps to freeze an additional $1bn in grants, initiated numerous investigations of Harvard’s operations, threatened the education of international students, and announced that it is considering a revocation of Harvard’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status,” Garber wrote.

“These actions have stark real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and the standing of American higher education in the world.”

Harvard is the first university to file a lawsuit in response to Trump’s crackdown on top US universities that is says mishandled last year’s pro-Palestinian protests and allowed antisemitism to fester on campuses. But protesters, including some Jewish groups, say their criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza is wrongly conflated with antisemitism.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration had sent a letter to Harvard with the list of demands, which included changes to its admissions policies, removing recognition of some student clubs, and hiring some new faculty.

Last Tuesday, Trump had called for Harvard, the US’s oldest and wealthiest university and one of the most prestigious in the world, to lose its tax-exempt status, CNN first reported.

“Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’ Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!” the US president said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Haiti, where rampant gang violence has surged in recent weeks, is approaching a “point of no return” leading to “total chaos”, the UN special representative to the troubled Caribbean nation has warned.

“As gang violence continues to spread to new areas of the country, Haitians experience growing levels of vulnerability and increasing skepticism about the ability of the state to respond to their needs,” María Isabel Salvador told the UN securitycouncil.

“Haiti could face total chaos,” she said, adding that international aid was desperately needed to avoid that fate. “I urge you to remain engaged and answer the urgent needs of the country and its people.”

Salvador cited cholera outbreaks and gender-based violence alongside a deteriorating security situation, particularly in the capital, Port-au-Prince, with authorities struggling to cope.

The poorest country in the western hemisphere, Haiti faces severe political instability, while swaths of the country are under the control of rival armed gangs who carry out widespread murders, rapes and kidnappings.

The armed groups have been battling for control of Port-au-Prince and clashes have intensified as the rival gangs attempt to establish new territories.

A Kenyan-led force authorized by the United Nations has failed to push back the gangs. The mission has around 1,000 police officers from six countries but was intended to have 2,500.

In a report seen by AFP, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned that further international support was “required immediately to allow the national police to prevent the capital slipping closer to the brink”.

Haiti’s ambassador to the UN, Ericq Pierre, said his country was “slowly dying”.

“The Republic of Haiti is slowly dying under the combined action of armed gangs, drug traffickers and arms dealers,” he said, calling on his partners to “help rid the country of the gangs that are terrorizing the population”.

The report detailed the upsurge in violence, with the UN recording 2,660 homicides in the three months from December 2024 – a 41.3% increase over the previous quarter.

Anti-gang operations resulted in 702 people killed in that time, of which 21% were estimated to be innocent civilians, the report said.

Gender-based violence also recorded an alarming increase, with 347 incidents reported in the five months to February 2025, according to UN data.

Collective rape was the most common violation, accounting for 61% of cases.

Japan has imported rice from South Korea for the first time in a quarter of a century in an attempt to address soaring prices and growing consumer anger.

South Korean rice arrived in Japan last month for the first time since 1999, according to media reports, as the price of domestically produced grain continued to rise, despite government attempts to relieve the pressure on shoppers.

The price of Japan-grown rice has more than doubled since this time last year, fuelling demand for cheaper foreign grain, despite the heavy tariffs imposed on imports.

The quantity of South Korean rice, which was sold online and at supermarkets, is still relatively low at just two tonnes, but there are plans to ship a further 20 tonnes in the coming days, the public broadcaster NHK said.

While Japanese consumers have traditionally been sceptical about the quality and taste of foreign rice – Thai rice imported after an unusually cool summer in 1993 largely went unsold – the current crisis has forced Japanese consumers to develop a taste for foreign rice.

South Korea’s rice exports to Japan are expected to reach their highest since 1990, according to the Yonhap news agency, while the crisis has also opened up potential export opportunities for producers in the US.

Arata Hirano, who runs a restaurant in Tokyo, switched from Japanese to American rice last year when a shortage of the domestic grain triggered a steep rise in prices.

Hirano told Reuters that the price of the Californian product he now served had doubled since his first purchase last summer, but was still cheaper than homegrown rice.

And he has had no complaints from diners, including Miki Nihei, who was surprised to find out the rice she had eaten wasn’t grown in Japan. “I had no idea,” she said. “I have no qualms about eating imported rice. Prices have gone up, so I’m always looking for cheaper options.”

In the week to 6 April, Japanese supermarket rice prices reached an average of ¥4,214 ($30/£22) for 5kg – more than double the same period a year earlier.

The trend has forced the Japanese government to take the unusual step of dipping into its vast rice reserves. In March it began releasing 210,000 tonnes of stockpiled rice in an attempt to arrest price rises caused by a combination of record summer heat, panic buying and distribution problems.

Japan had previously dipped into its rice reserves in the aftermath of natural disasters or crop failures, but this was the first time it had intervened over distribution issues.

The measure has had little impact, however.

Last week the agriculture ministry said “logistical problems” meant only a tiny quantity of the released rice had reached shops.

About 142,000 tonnes of stockpiled rice were released in the first auction held in mid-March, but as of the end of the month just 426 tonnes, or 0.3% of the total, had reached supermarkets and other outlets, the ministry said, blaming the bottleneck on a shortage of delivery vehicles and the time needed to prepare the grain for sale.

Japan’s rice stockpiles had already depleted after record-breaking temperatures affected the 2023 crop. Stockpiles shrank again last year, partly due to a rise in consumption caused by record numbers of tourists. Supplies were also hit by panic buying in the wake of typhoon and earthquake warnings, forcing some retailers to restrict sales.

The UN’s humanitarian agency, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and Gaza’s civil defence service have rejected the findings of an Israeli military investigation that concluded the killings of 15 Palestinian medics and rescue workers in Rafah last month were caused by “professional failures”.

Eight PRCS paramedics, six members of the civil defence rescue agency and one employee of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, were carrying out two rescue missions when they were shot and killed by Israeli troops in southern Gaza in the early hours of 23 March.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at first claimed the medics’ vehicles were not using emergency signals when troops opened fire, but backtracked after mobile phone footage emerged contradicting the account. On Sunday, it said an internal investigation had “identified several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident”.

Gaza’s civil defence agency, which rescues victims of airstrikes, dismissed the Israeli army report, accusing the military of lying in an attempt to justify targeting the rescue convoys.

“The video filmed by one of the paramedics proves that the Israeli occupation’s narrative is false and demonstrates that it carried out summary executions,” Mohammed al-Mughair, a civil defence official, told Agence-France Presse on Monday, accusing Israel of seeking to “circumvent” its obligations under international law.

Jonathan Whittall, the UN’s humanitarian chief for Gaza, said the investigation did not go far enough. “A lack of real accountability undermines international law and makes the world a more dangerous place,” he said.

“Without accountability, we risk continuing to watch atrocities unfolding, and the norms designed to protect us all eroding.”

Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the PRCS, said: “The report is full of lies. It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different.”

The PRCS has previously called for an international investigation into the incident.

Sunday’s IDF report said the deputy commander of the Golani Brigade would be dismissed owing to his responsibilities in the field and for “providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief”. Another commander, whose unit was also operating in the area, would be disciplined for “his overall responsibility for the incident”, the military said.

According to the IDF, soldiers fired on the humanitarian workers travelling in ambulances and a fire truck because of “poor night visibility” and soldiers then violated orders by shooting at a UN vehicle which drove past 15 minutes later, resulting in the death of the driver.

The bodies and vehicles were put in a sandy mass grave that could not be accessed by a UN retrieval team until several days later, after which the UN said the medics had been killed “one by one” and two witnesses claimed at least one victim had his hands and feet bound.

Postmortem results released last week showed that the men were mostly killed by “gunshots to the head and torso” as well as injuries caused by explosives, and none of the victims had visible signs of restraint.

The army denied in its report that there had been “indiscriminate fire” and maintained that six of the killed men were Hamas militants, allegations the humanitarian agencies involved deny. None of those killed were armed.

During 18 months of war, Israeli forces have killed hundreds of medical workers and the staff of aid agencies and UN organisations in Gaza. In April last year, seven members of the charity World Central Kitchen died in a sustained Israeli attack on their clearly marked vehicles.

Human rights organisations have long accused the Israeli military of a culture of impunity, with few soldiers ever facing justice. In 2023, fewer than 1% of complaints made against Israeli troops in the occupied Palestinian territories ended in a conviction, according to the latest US state department annual human rights report.

Dan Owen, a researcher who analyses army data for the Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din, said the vast majority of incidents go unreported.

The IDF is yet to respond to a Yesh Din request made in June 2024 under freedom of information laws regarding the number of investigations and indictments in cases in which soldiers are suspected of harming civilians in the war in Gaza.

In August last year, the military said it had received approximately 1,000 complaints filed by lawyers and human rights groups related to the Gaza war, and had opened 74 investigations. Four concerned the deaths of Palestinians held in Israeli detention, eight concerned allegations of torture in prisons, and the rest were related to property damage and theft.

The mother of a man shot dead by police in a London Underground station after being mistaken for a terrorist has said “everyone should watch” a new dramatisation of her son’s killing.

Jean Charles de Menezes was shot seven times by two police marksmen in Stockwell tube station on 22 July 2005. De Menezes was wrongly identified as one of the fugitives involved in a failed bombing two weeks after the 7/7 attack in London, which killed 52 people.

Would-be suicide bombers had targeted the London Underground on 21 July but their devices failed to explode. De Menezes, a 27-year-old Brazilian electrician, was mistaken for one of the suspects because they were linked to the same block of flats.

No officers were ever prosecuted for the killing but the Metropolitan police was fined for breaching health and safety laws. The officer in charge of the botched operation was Cressida Dick, who became Metropolitan police commissioner in 2017.

The fatal shooting is the subject of a new four-part Disney+ drama starring Line of Duty’s Daniel Mays and Being Human’s Russell Tovey, airing on 30 April.

Speaking in London at a preview screening, De Menezes’s mother, Maria de Menezes, recalled the moment she learned of her son’s death nearly 20 years ago.

“I was not expecting that moment,” she said. “It was terrible and then I started to shake. I sort of died then too.”

Of the new series, Suspect: the Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, she said: “In my opinion, I think everyone should watch it.”

Jeff Pope, the writer and executive director of the drama, said De Menezes’s mother had felt ill for three days after watching the show.

He said: “I genuinely believe from being in the room that day with her, they’ve been waiting 20 years for this. I honestly think that. It’s just eaten away at them.”

Pope added: “Lessons have already been learned but we needed that 20 years ago. His family needed that 20 years ago. There’s such an appetite for audiences in the UK for this type of piece. I just think we like to get angry. We don’t like being told something that we know or sense doesn’t seem right.”

Kwadjo Dajan, a Bafta-winning producer who worked on the show, highlighted the power of television drama to inform and enrage audiences, citing the success of ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office and Netflix’s Adolescence.

“I think drama makes it more relatable, you can feel the emotions, you can feel what happened. I think it gets under your skin in a way that you can put yourself in that position. It’s one thing to read and learn about facts, but it’s another to actually see it and feel it and experience it and I think that’s the power of drama.”

Russell Tovey, who plays a deputy assistant Met commissioner, added: “Drama has the ability to penetrate into everybody’s living room and that is what we have to keep doing.”

A Metropolitan police spokesperson said: “The shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes is a matter of very deep regret to the Metropolitan police service. Our thoughts remain with his family and we reiterate our apology to them.”

An ancient English oak believed to be Berlin’s oldest tree is suffering the effects of a prolonged dry spell in the German capital, local authorities have said, compounding already significant damage to its once lush canopy and branches.

“Dicke Marie” (Fat Marie), as Berliners affectionately call the tree located in the northern Tegel Forest, has been deprived of essential moisture in recent years as a result of extended periods of sparse rainfall blamed on the climate crisis, according to natural resource officials.

“But we hope that she’ll still be with us for another couple decades or even centuries,” Marc Franusch, the head of the Tegel Forestry Office, told the newswire DPA.

Franusch said the remainder of spring could bring relief in the form of more precipitation but that pruning the gnarled Marie, whose age is estimated at 500-600 years, was not an option.

“We want to be very gentle and prudent in stabilising the tree and its situation to do our best to support its vitality,” he said. The ancient oak stands about 18.5 metres tall, with a trunk about 2 metres in diameter.

Dicke Marie has long been a popular attraction for nature lovers, particularly in the years of Berlin’s cold war division by the Wall, when protected forests offered West Berliners a cherished refuge while the surrounding countryside lay beyond the border in communist East Germany.

But the tree’s remote location at the northern end of Lake Tegel and its diminished, increasingly knotty profile as neighbouring trees overshadowed it have meant ever fewer visitors seek it out, forestry officials say.

Dicke Marie nevertheless was granted National Heritage Tree status by the German Dendrological Society in 2021, the first awarded to a tree in a forest.

Its remarkable longevity had been attributed to its lakeside home, with its roots soaking up the available moisture even during drought periods. But increasingly arid conditions in the region now appear to be taking their toll.

This March was the driest ever recorded in Germany, according to the German Weather Service, and April has seen little improvement.

The vast rural Brandenburg state surrounding Berlin reported only 10-20% of the expected precipitation in February and March, Raimund Engel, a regional forest fire protection officer, told the broadcaster RBB.

Many traditional Easter weekend bonfires in Berlin and Brandenburg were called off this year owing to parched conditions in the region, to prevent uncontrolled blazes. The festivities trace their roots to pagan rituals to banish evil winter spirits.

The Berlin oak’s nickname Dicke Marie is believed to have come from the aristocratic brothers Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, who grew up in nearby Tegel Palace, after their beloved cook.

The Humboldts gave their own name to Berlin’s “fattest” tree, a 350-year-old oak in the same forest with a circumference of nearly 8 metres.

Germany is believed to have about 100 trees that are at least 400 years old.