Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein who also alleged she was sexually trafficked to Prince Andrew, has died aged 41.

Her family issued a statement on Saturday confirming she took her own life at her farm in Western Australia, where she had lived for several years.

“It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia. She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking,” the statement read.

“In the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight.”

Giuffre was one of the most vocal victims of Epstein, alleging she had been groomed and sexually abused by him and his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, beginning in her teens.

The family described her as a “fierce warrior” against sexual abuse and sex trafficking and a “light that lifted so many survivors”.

“Despite all the adversity she faced in her life, she shone so bright. She will be missed beyond measure,” they said.

Giuffre is survived by her three children, Christian, Noah and Emily, who her family said were the “light of her life”.

“It was when she held her newborn daughter in her arms that Virginia realised she had to fight back against those who had abused her and so many others,” they said.

“There are no words that can express the grave loss we feel today with the passing of our sweet Virginia. She was heroic and will always be remembered for her incredible courage and loving spirit.”

Giuffre’s lawyer, Sigrid McCawley, said she was “much more than a client”.

“She was a dear friend and an incredible champion for other victims. Her courage pushed me to fight harder, and her strength was awe-inspiring,” McCawley said. “The world has lost an amazing human being today. Rest in peace, my sweet angel.”

Giuffre’s representative Dini von Mueffling said she was “one of the most extraordinary human beings I have ever had the honour to know”.

“Deeply loving, wise, and funny, she was a beacon to other survivors and victims. She adored her children and many animals,” she said. “She was always more concerned with me than with herself. I will miss her beyond words. It was the privilege of a lifetime to represent her.”

Josh Schiffer, a lawyer who represents one of Epstein’s victims, said Giuffre was integral to exposing the financier. “The case wouldn’t have existed without the input, her cooperation, her bravery at the beginning, inspiring so many other people to come forward,” he told the US cable network NewsNation.

Schiffer said: “Her loss will hopefully be a marker and almost an inspiration for people to calling attention to the epidemic that is sex trafficking, that is the international sex industry. This is an issue that still persists. It changes its form all the time and it exists all around the world. This just happened to be a really prominent example.”

Western Australia police did not publicly confirm Giuffre had died, but said emergency services responded to reports a 41-year-old woman was unresponsive at a home in Neergabby, about 75km north of Perth, about 9.50pm on Friday.

The woman was given emergency first aid but was pronounced dead, they said.

The death will be investigated but is not considered suspicious.

Earlier this month, Giuffre posted on social media that she had just days to live after a school bus crashed into her car.

WA police later confirmed a 41-year-old woman was in a car that collided with a bus on 24 March but there were no reported injuries. It is understood Giuffre presented to a Perth hospital emergency department on 1 April.

Giuffre, who is American, said she met Maxwell, a British socialite, in 2000 when working as a locker-room assistant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Maxwell offered her a job as massage therapist to Epstein, during which she alleged she was trafficked to the financier’s friends and clients – “passed around like a platter of fruit”.

In a 2009 civil lawsuit against Epstein, under the pseudonym “Jane Doe 102”, she alleged that her duties included being “sexually exploited by Epstein’s adult male peers including royalty”. Giuffre reached a settlement with Epstein in that case before it went to trial.

In 2021, Giuffre filed a civil lawsuit against Prince Andrew in the federal court in New York, alleging he sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was 17. Andrew has repeatedly and strongly denied the accusations.

In the lawsuit, Giuffre alleged Epstein and Maxwell had introduced her to Andrew in 2001, and alleged that Maxwell forced her to have sex with Andrew.

In 2022, Andrew and Giuffre agreed to an out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed sum.

Maxwell, who has maintained her innocence, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 for sex trafficking.

Epstein was arrested by federal authorities in July 2019 and charged with sex-trafficking counts. Shortly after, he died by suicide while awaiting trial.

About 1am on Friday, Yuliia Verbytska woke to the sound of an air raid siren. She grabbed her teenage children – Dmitry, 17, and Olexiy, 12 – and sat in the corridor, checking her phone. In the sky above came an ominous whine. Minutes later, a Russian drone crashed into the disused soap factory down the road in Polyova Street. There was an enormous explosion.

“We don’t have a shelter in our building, so we hide behind two concrete walls. All the neighbours sit together. You wonder if this is your last moment,” she said. Friday’s raid followed a massive attack on Thursday on Verbytska’s home, Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, and on the capital, Kyiv, where 12 people were killed. “I haven’t slept for two days,” she said wearily.

Exhausted residents sweeping up glass and fixing broken panels pointed out that the latest attack came hours after a post from Donald Trump on social media. It said: “Vladimir, STOP.” Russia’s president, it seemed, had decided to ignore Trump’s rare rebuke. Despite peace negotiations and an appeal by Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a month-long ceasefire, the Russians were bombing as usual.

One of the damaged buildings belongs to a charity, Heart of Kharkiv, where Verbytska works as a volunteer. Bits of concrete fell amid clothes and donated shoes. Children’s drawings were blown from a noticeboard. The charity’s wheelchairs and pushchairs survived unscathed. “I don’t believe in promises or words. Not from Trump or anybody else. I don’t really have much faith in anything any more,” Verbytska said gloomily.

By late morning, emergency service workers were still extinguishing small blazes in the now-ruined factory. Built in 1918, it once made soap for the Soviet Union. It went bankrupt last year. The Kremlin’s drones narrowly missed an old acacia tree by its entrance gate. They flattened a brick administration building. Firefighters doused charred beams and splashed among puddles and piles of twisted metal.

“They are fascists. Inhuman people. Barbarians. Cruel,” the complex’s security guard, Anton, said, when asked what he thought about Russians. “They want to destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians. That’s their plan.” He was sceptical that the peace process – Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff held talks on Friday with Putin in Moscow – would lead to a settlement that might end the fighting.

The security guard said Zelenskyy would be unwise to accept the US’s latest leaked proposal. It envisages handing Crimea and four other Ukrainian regions to Russia. Ukraine gets back a sliver of territory in the Kharkiv region. “Today it’s five oblasts. Tomorrow, the Russians will demand another five. Zelenskyy should not sign,” he said. He dismissed Trump as a “Russian agent recruited long ago”, and said: “I’m disappointed that the Americans elected him.”

Russia says its devastating attacks are against Ukrainian military objects. Its latest murderous barrage follows a double strike this month on the north-eastern city of Sumy, in which 35 people were killed. Most were travelling on a bus when an Iskander missile exploded next to them. Overwhelmingly, the victims of Russia’s air raids are civilians. They include two children killed on Thursday and dug from the rubble of their Kyiv apartment block.

Liudmyla Hanzii, a pensioner, was at her home in Kharkiv’s Slobidsky district when the soap factory was hit. Her son, Andriy, showed off the bed where she had been sleeping. It was decorated with icons and a black-and-white photograph of Liudmyla as a young woman. “Mum heard a bang. All the glass came flying in. A teenage boy living next door dragged her out,” he said, adding she was being treated in hospital for minor injuries.

According to Anatoliy Yaskovets, the deputy head of Kharkiv fire station No 6, Russia has stepped up its air attacks. The frequency increased in January, he said, when Trump came back as US president. Apart from a brief pause last weekend, when Putin announced an Easter ceasefire, bombing was continuous. “It’s terror against the civilian population. There’s no time to react. It takes 50 seconds for a missile fired from Belgorod in Russia to arrive,” he said.

The Russians had recently changed tactics, he added. They now send a swarm of drones, one after another, at the same target. Three of his colleagues were killed last year when they went to the scene of a drone strike. Twenty minutes later, a second drone incinerated their vehicle. Moscow was using drones to drop CS gas and delayed-action grenades, which detonate up to an hour after impact. They go off if touched, he explained.

Asked if he thought the war might end soon, Yaskovets answered: “Probably not.” He continued: “People are tired. There are air raid sirens all the time. It’s a psychological burden. Russia has been destroying our power stations and industrial infrastructure. The aim is to make people unhappy so they turn on Ukraine’s government.” His mobile phone rang with a popular song, Moscow Burns. “It’s my mother. She worries about me,” he said.

In February 2022, Russian armoured columns tried to seize Kharkiv. There was fierce fighting. Ukrainian units pushed the enemy back to the city’s edge. For the next six months, Kharkiv was repeatedly shelled. That autumn, a Ukrainian counteroffensive liberated most of the surrounding province. In recent months, though, the Russians have been advancing again, reoccupying the border town of Vovchansk last year, and swallowing villages.

How far could they go? Yaskovets said it was clear the Russians would try again to encircle and occupy Kharkiv. “Putin doesn’t intend to stop. He wants to take the south of Ukraine and go as far as the Dnipro River. He doesn’t have a big enough army to do that,” he suggested. In the meantime, there would be more drone attacks, and more casualties. “We’ve had four years of full-scale war. Somehow, people have got used to it,” he noted.

A group of soldiers from the Kraken regiment – breaking off for coffee at a Kharkiv petrol station – said Putin’s behaviour this week was not surprising. “By bombing us, he shows his true nature,” one of them, Saifula, said. He added: “My feeling is that Trump is not really a president at all. He’s a parody or a clone of a president. The whole world is laughing at him. Our only option now is to have a strong army and to carrying on fighting.”

• Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met for a “very productive” meeting in Rome before the funeral of Pope Francis, the White House has said, a day after the US president said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal” on ending the war. Ukraine confirmed the meeting and said the pair would talk again later on Saturday.

• Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow on Friday to discuss Washington’s peace plan. The US president said after the three-hour meeting that it was a good day of talks and called for a high-level meeting between Kyiv and Moscow to close the deal. “Most of the major points are agreed to,” Trump said in the post on his Truth Social platform, without giving any details.

• Trump made his comments despite the Ukrainian president’s repeated rejections of a proposal that Kyiv cede Crimea to Russia. Trump said in an interview with Time published on Friday that Crimea – which Russia annexed in 2014 – “will stay with Russia”. Washington has not revealed details of its peace plan but has suggested freezing the frontline and accepting Russian control of Crimea in exchange for peace.

• An American man identified as the son of a deputy director of the CIA was killed in eastern Ukraine in 2024 while fighting under contract for the Russian military, according to an investigation by independent Russian media.

• The Kremlin has blamed Ukraine for a car bomb that killed a senior Russian general near Moscow on Friday, hours before the Witkoff-Putin meeting. Kyiv has not commented on the blast that killed Yaroslav Moskalik, the latest in a series of Russian military officers and pro-war figures to be killed during the war. “There are reasons to believe that Ukraine’s special services were involved in the murder,” Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said, without providing any evidence.

• Zelenskyy said he might miss Pope Francis’s funeral on Saturday, which Trump is attending, due to important “military meetings”. The Ukrainian leader had earlier said he would attend the Vatican funeral, where he wanted to meet Trump. “If I am not [there] in time, Ukraine will be represented at a proper level,” Zelenskyy said as he visited the site of a Russian strike on Kyiv on Thursday that killed 12 people and wounded at least 90.

• Ukraine has detained a foreign vessel in its territorial waters that it alleges was involved in the illegal trade of stolen Ukrainian grain, the SBU state security service said on Friday. “The investigation found that the arrested vessel was part of Russia’s ‘shadow’ fleet, which the Kremlin uses to sell looted Ukrainian grain to third countries,” it said on Telegram. Kyiv has accused Russia of trading stolen Ukrainian grain since the 2022 war began – allegations Russia denies – but ship seizures have been rare.

• Two civilians were killed and one critically injured after a Ukrainian drone attack on a car in Russia’s Belgorod region on Friday, local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

• Russia’s security services said on Friday they had arrested a Romanian citizen on suspicion of spying on military sites for Ukraine. The FSB security agency alleged the suspect had “collected and transmitted information about the locations of air defence systems in the city of Sochi”. Romania’s foreign ministry said the Romanian citizen was initially detained in the Abkhazia region four months ago and subsequently transferred to Sochi.

After 529 days on the run, Australia’s favourite fugitive has been caught at last.

Valerie the miniature dachshund, who went missing on Kangaroo Island way back in 2023, has been rescued by conservationists.

“Kangala Wildlife Rescue is overjoyed to announce the successful rescue of Valerie,” the group said on TikTok on Friday night.

“After weeks of tireless efforts … by volunteers and partner organisations Valerie has been safely rescued and is fit and well.

“We are absolutely thrilled and deeply relieved that Valerie is finally safe and able to begin her transition back to her loving parents.”

People have been trying to find Valerie since she went missing in November 2023, when her owners, New South Wales couple Georgia Gardner and Josh Fishlock, were holidaying at Stokes Bay – home to one of Australia’s best beaches but also farmland and dense scrub.

Valerie escaped from her pen at their campsite at Stokes Bay before running into the scrub. The pair searched for her with the help of locals but to no avail.

Then, in March, reports began coming in that Valerie had been spotted. One picture appeared to show the dog’s oversized ears poking above some paddock stubble.

Kangala Wildlife Rescue volunteers used surveillance, traps and lures to try to find Valerie. They captured a video of her, but she remained at large.

Stokes Bay locals like to point out their island is six times bigger than Singapore. It’s also much wilder – a place where a couple can walk alone on a pristine beach, whales visit, trees grow bent over from the wind, and bushfires occasionally raze the land. Much of it remains untamed, remote.

So the residents are somewhat bemused at the way Valerie’s story has spread around the world. The New York Times reported on the elusive dog, still apparently wearing her pink collar. In the UK, the Times wrote of her dodging snakes and eagles, and the Independent commented on her “remarkable resilience”.

“Kangaroo Island is known for many things … dogs that survive for 500 days is not what you expect,” resident and animal lover Louise Custance said in April.

“I think people just want to have a good news story; otherwise, everything’s so sad. The last global headline that Kangaroo Island made was the [2020] fires.”

Now, after an estimated 1,000 hours of volunteer effort and more than 5,000km travelled around the island searching for her, she was snared in a search operation using cameras and prepared traps.

“There were many challenging moments over the past month,” the group said, “and we are incredibly grateful to everyone who played a part in bringing Valerie home.”

Exhausted and relieved, the Kangala Wildlife Rescue team have revealed precisely how they finally caught Valerie the dachshund, after 529 days on the run in Kangaroo Island, South Australia.

The Kangala directors, Jared and Lisa Karran, were excited to share the news that Valerie had been secured, but they were also extremely careful not to let the small dog escape from a specially designed cage.

“There was no way we were letting that sausage dog run away on us again,” Jared said in an update posted to social media. Valerie’s owners, Georgia Gardner and Josh Fishlock, are said to be “over the moon”.

An American man identified as the son of a deputy director of the CIA was killed in eastern Ukraine in 2024 while fighting under contract for the Russian military, according to an investigation by independent Russian media.

Michael Alexander Gloss, 21, died on 4 April 2024 in “Eastern Europe”, according to an obituary published by his family. He was the son of Juliane Gallina, who was appointed the deputy director for digital innovation at the Central Intelligence Agency in February 2024.

The story of how the son of a top-ranking US spy died fighting for Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is an unlikely tale of how homegrown anger at the United States and online radicalisation led from a middle-class Virginia childhood to the killing fields of eastern Ukraine.

On a VKontakte page attributed to Gloss, a high school football player born to parents who both served in the military, he described himself as “a supporter of the multipolar world. I ran away from home. traveled the world. I hate fascism. I love my homeland.” He also posted the flags of Russia and Palestine.

According to the investigative website iStories, Gloss is one of more than 1,500 foreigners who have signed contracts with the Russian military since February 2022. The database for the enrollment office was later leaked, exposing him as having signed the contract in September 2023. Sources told iStories that Gloss had been deployed with “assault units”, those engaged in harsh frontline fighting, in December 2023. An acquaintance said that he had been deployed to a Russian airborne regiment sent to storm Ukrainian positions near the city of Soledar.

“With his noble heart and warrior spirit Michael was forging his own hero’s journey when he was tragically killed in Eastern Europe on April 4, 2024,” his family wrote in the obituary, which did not mention Russia and Ukraine or discuss the circumstances of his death.

In university, Gloss was active in gender equality and environmental protest circles. He joined Rainbow Family, a leftwing environmental protest group, and in 2023 traveled to Hatay, Turkey, to assist in the recovery following the earthquake that killed more than 56,000 people. He had also become increasingly angry at the US for its support of Israel and the war in Gaza.

While in Turkey, Gloss began expressing a desire to go on to Russia. “He was usually watching videos about Palestine and was so angry at America,” one acquaintance told iStories. “He started thinking about going to Russia. He wanted to war with the USA. But I think he was very influenced by the conspiracy theory videos.”

After receiving a visa to Russia, he traveled around the country before arriving in Moscow, where he joined the military shortly before his documents expired. Photographs and videos obtained by iStories showed he was sent to a Russian training camp, where he mostly trained alongside Nepali contract soldiers. Three months after enlisting, an acquaintance said, he was deployed to Ukraine as a member of an assault battalion.

A number of acquaintances told the outlet that he had not been interested in fighting, but hoped the army would allow him to receive a Russian passport and stay in the country.

The circumstance’s of Gloss’s death are not known. A friend said that his family had been informed by the Russian government of his death but were given little other information. “It was announced that he died within the borders of Ukraine,” the friend wrote. “We do not know whether he participated in the war. They did not provide any other detailed information.”

It was not clear whether the Russians performed a background check on Gloss or knew the identity of his mother. The Guardian has approached the CIA for comment on the reports.

• Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met for a “very productive” meeting in Rome before the funeral of Pope Francis, the White House has said, a day after the US president said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal” on ending the war. Ukraine confirmed the meeting and said the pair would talk again later on Saturday.

• Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow on Friday to discuss Washington’s peace plan. The US president said after the three-hour meeting that it was a good day of talks and called for a high-level meeting between Kyiv and Moscow to close the deal. “Most of the major points are agreed to,” Trump said in the post on his Truth Social platform, without giving any details.

• Trump made his comments despite the Ukrainian president’s repeated rejections of a proposal that Kyiv cede Crimea to Russia. Trump said in an interview with Time published on Friday that Crimea – which Russia annexed in 2014 – “will stay with Russia”. Washington has not revealed details of its peace plan but has suggested freezing the frontline and accepting Russian control of Crimea in exchange for peace.

• An American man identified as the son of a deputy director of the CIA was killed in eastern Ukraine in 2024 while fighting under contract for the Russian military, according to an investigation by independent Russian media.

• The Kremlin has blamed Ukraine for a car bomb that killed a senior Russian general near Moscow on Friday, hours before the Witkoff-Putin meeting. Kyiv has not commented on the blast that killed Yaroslav Moskalik, the latest in a series of Russian military officers and pro-war figures to be killed during the war. “There are reasons to believe that Ukraine’s special services were involved in the murder,” Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said, without providing any evidence.

• Zelenskyy said he might miss Pope Francis’s funeral on Saturday, which Trump is attending, due to important “military meetings”. The Ukrainian leader had earlier said he would attend the Vatican funeral, where he wanted to meet Trump. “If I am not [there] in time, Ukraine will be represented at a proper level,” Zelenskyy said as he visited the site of a Russian strike on Kyiv on Thursday that killed 12 people and wounded at least 90.

• Ukraine has detained a foreign vessel in its territorial waters that it alleges was involved in the illegal trade of stolen Ukrainian grain, the SBU state security service said on Friday. “The investigation found that the arrested vessel was part of Russia’s ‘shadow’ fleet, which the Kremlin uses to sell looted Ukrainian grain to third countries,” it said on Telegram. Kyiv has accused Russia of trading stolen Ukrainian grain since the 2022 war began – allegations Russia denies – but ship seizures have been rare.

• Two civilians were killed and one critically injured after a Ukrainian drone attack on a car in Russia’s Belgorod region on Friday, local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

• Russia’s security services said on Friday they had arrested a Romanian citizen on suspicion of spying on military sites for Ukraine. The FSB security agency alleged the suspect had “collected and transmitted information about the locations of air defence systems in the city of Sochi”. Romania’s foreign ministry said the Romanian citizen was initially detained in the Abkhazia region four months ago and subsequently transferred to Sochi.

A secretive Russian satellite in space that US officials believe is connected to a nuclear anti-satellite weapons program has appeared to be spinning uncontrollably, suggesting it may no longer be functioning in what could be a setback for Moscow’s space weapons efforts, according to US analysts.

The Cosmos 2553 satellite, launched by Russia weeks before invading Ukraine in 2022, has had various bouts of what appears to be errant spinning over the past year, according to Doppler radar data from space-tracking firm LeoLabs and optical data from Slingshot Aerospace, shared with Reuters.

Believed to be a radar satellite for Russian intelligence as well as a radiation testing platform, the satellite last year became the centre of US allegations that Russia for years has been developing a nuclear weapon capable of destroying entire satellite networks, such as SpaceX’s vast Starlink internet system that Ukrainian troops have been using.

US officials assess Cosmos 2553’s purpose, though not itself a weapon, is to aid Russia’s development of a nuclear anti-satellite weapon. Russia has denied it is developing such a weapon and says Cosmos 2553 is for research purposes.

Russia has for decades been locked in a security race in space with the US that, in recent years, has intensified and seeped into public view as Earth’s orbit becomes a hotspot for private sector competition and military technologies aiding ground forces.

The Cosmos 2553 satellite has been in a relatively isolated orbit about 2,000km above Earth, parked in a hotspot of cosmic radiation that communications or Earth-observing satellites typically avoid.

LeoLabs in November detected what appeared to be errant movements with the satellite using Doppler radar measurements from its global network of ground stations. The company in December upgraded its assessment to “high confidence” that it was tumbling based on additional radar data and imagery of the satellite taken by another space company, Darren McKnight, a senior technical fellow at LeoLabs, told Reuters.

Russia’s defence ministry did not return a request for comment.

“This observation strongly suggests the satellite is no longer operational,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based thinktank, said of LeoLabs’ analysis in its annual space threat assessment, published on Friday.

US Space Command, which tracks objects in space and has condemned Russian military satellites in the past, said it was aware of a change in Cosmos 2553’s altitude but declined to provide further assessment on its current state.

The satellite earlier showed signs of odd behaviour. Slingshot, whose global telescope network has been tracking the spacecraft since its launch on 5 February 2022, detected movements in May 2024.

“Slingshot noted that the object’s brightness became variable, indicating a potential tumble,” a company spokesperson said.

But according to Slingshot’s latest observations, Cosmos 2553 appears to have stabilised, according to Belinda Marchand, the company’s Chief Science Officer.

Commercial space-tracking services are relatively young but fast-evolving and in high demand as the number of civil and military satellites in space soars.

The US defence department and other countries’ militaries, keen on avoiding military miscalculation, have made better eyesight in orbit a high priority to better distinguish between various types of spacecraft manoeuvres and whether objects are civil or military assets.

Russia, a US Space Command spokesperson said, has claimed Cosmos 2553’s mission is to test onboard instruments in a high-radiation environment, “but this does not align with its characteristics”.

“This inconsistency, paired with a demonstrated willingness to target US and allied on-orbit objects, increases the risk of misperception and escalation,” the spokesperson said.

Cosmos 2553 is one of dozens of Russian satellites in space with suspected ties to its military and intelligence programs. The country has viewed SpaceX’s Starlink, a formidable constellation of thousands of satellites, as a legitimate military target as Ukrainian troops use the service in conjunction with weapons on the battlefield.

A secretive Russian satellite in space that US officials believe is connected to a nuclear anti-satellite weapons program has appeared to be spinning uncontrollably, suggesting it may no longer be functioning in what could be a setback for Moscow’s space weapons efforts, according to US analysts.

The Cosmos 2553 satellite, launched by Russia weeks before invading Ukraine in 2022, has had various bouts of what appears to be errant spinning over the past year, according to Doppler radar data from space-tracking firm LeoLabs and optical data from Slingshot Aerospace, shared with Reuters.

Believed to be a radar satellite for Russian intelligence as well as a radiation testing platform, the satellite last year became the centre of US allegations that Russia for years has been developing a nuclear weapon capable of destroying entire satellite networks, such as SpaceX’s vast Starlink internet system that Ukrainian troops have been using.

US officials assess Cosmos 2553’s purpose, though not itself a weapon, is to aid Russia’s development of a nuclear anti-satellite weapon. Russia has denied it is developing such a weapon and says Cosmos 2553 is for research purposes.

Russia has for decades been locked in a security race in space with the US that, in recent years, has intensified and seeped into public view as Earth’s orbit becomes a hotspot for private sector competition and military technologies aiding ground forces.

The Cosmos 2553 satellite has been in a relatively isolated orbit about 2,000km above Earth, parked in a hotspot of cosmic radiation that communications or Earth-observing satellites typically avoid.

LeoLabs in November detected what appeared to be errant movements with the satellite using Doppler radar measurements from its global network of ground stations. The company in December upgraded its assessment to “high confidence” that it was tumbling based on additional radar data and imagery of the satellite taken by another space company, Darren McKnight, a senior technical fellow at LeoLabs, told Reuters.

Russia’s defence ministry did not return a request for comment.

“This observation strongly suggests the satellite is no longer operational,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based thinktank, said of LeoLabs’ analysis in its annual space threat assessment, published on Friday.

US Space Command, which tracks objects in space and has condemned Russian military satellites in the past, said it was aware of a change in Cosmos 2553’s altitude but declined to provide further assessment on its current state.

The satellite earlier showed signs of odd behaviour. Slingshot, whose global telescope network has been tracking the spacecraft since its launch on 5 February 2022, detected movements in May 2024.

“Slingshot noted that the object’s brightness became variable, indicating a potential tumble,” a company spokesperson said.

But according to Slingshot’s latest observations, Cosmos 2553 appears to have stabilised, according to Belinda Marchand, the company’s Chief Science Officer.

Commercial space-tracking services are relatively young but fast-evolving and in high demand as the number of civil and military satellites in space soars.

The US defence department and other countries’ militaries, keen on avoiding military miscalculation, have made better eyesight in orbit a high priority to better distinguish between various types of spacecraft manoeuvres and whether objects are civil or military assets.

Russia, a US Space Command spokesperson said, has claimed Cosmos 2553’s mission is to test onboard instruments in a high-radiation environment, “but this does not align with its characteristics”.

“This inconsistency, paired with a demonstrated willingness to target US and allied on-orbit objects, increases the risk of misperception and escalation,” the spokesperson said.

Cosmos 2553 is one of dozens of Russian satellites in space with suspected ties to its military and intelligence programs. The country has viewed SpaceX’s Starlink, a formidable constellation of thousands of satellites, as a legitimate military target as Ukrainian troops use the service in conjunction with weapons on the battlefield.

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s orbit has become consumed by a contentious leak investigation that those inside the Pentagon believe is behind the firing of three senior aides last week, according to five people involved in the situation.

The secretary’s office has been marked for weeks by ugly internal politics between chief of staff Joe Kasper, who left the department on Thursday, and the three ousted aides, including senior adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief Darin Selnick and chief to the deputy defense secretary Colin Carroll.

The fraught nature of the investigation into the mishandling of classified information also threatens to reopen scrutiny of Hegseth’s ability to manage the Pentagon at a time when he himself shared plans for US strikes against the Houthis in Yemen in a second Signal group chat that included his wife.

The fallout from the leak investigation has been far-reaching, the people said. Hegseth has dramatically narrowed his inner circle, which now consists of three people: his acting chief of staff, Ricky Buria, until recently his junior military assistant; his lawyer Tim Parlatore; and spokesperson Sean Parnell.

At the center of the leak investigation is an inquiry into the disclosure of an allegedly top-secret document to a reporter. The document outlined flexible options for the US military to reclaim the Panama canal including by sending US troops to the area.

The leak was attributed to Caldwell, according to two people familiar with what was briefed to Hegseth and the White House, and it was suggested he did so because he disagreed with the options for military involvement in Donald Trump’s efforts to reclaim the Panama canal.

But Caldwell has strenuously denied leaking to a reporter and told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in an interview that he believed the leak investigation had been “weaponized”, not least because he had been teased internally for expressing support for military options for the Panama canal.

The two other aides, Selnick and Carroll, were also fired last week although they were not characterized to the White House as the principal targets of the leak investigation, the people said.

Carroll was interviewed by the air force office of special investigations, which has jurisdiction over civilian employees at the defense department, but only on the Monday after all three aides had been fired and only because he had repeatedly sought an interview to clear his name.

The two aides have privately suggested that they were pushed out over the perception they were undercutting Kasper, whom they considered to be ineffective at his job, and were vocal about their complaints.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the reporting about the investigation.

The forcefulness of the denial by Caldwell, coupled with his close relationship with Hegseth, who had brought him on after they worked together at Concerned Veterans for America, has caught numerous senior officials at the White House and the Pentagon off-guard.

And the fraught background to the leak investigation of vicious interpersonal conflicts among Hegseth’s senior aides has left them unable to decipher who and what to believe.

When Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon, it was with the least experience of any of his predecessors. He got the job after impressing Trump in an interview they did during the campaign, and Trump later suggested he lead the Pentagon or the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Hegseth is seen to have been fairly successful through the first six weeks of his tenure, according to four Pentagon officials who interacted with him on a daily basis. He was affable with world leaders and won over skeptical House Freedom caucus members when he briefed them on the Pentagon budget.

But the pressures of running an $800bn-plus agency that oversees more than 2 million troops started to catch up, the officials said, and a series of leaks intensified his distrust of career employees, whom defense officials once hoped could guide him to efficiently run the Pentagon.

The pressures appear to have filtered down to his team, which became increasingly split between a faction that supported Kasper and dismissed his detractors as ambitious colleagues, and a faction behind the three aides who considered Kasper an ineffective manager.

Kasper complained to associates that Caldwell, Selnick and Carroll were trying to force his ouster and about what he saw as attempts to manufacture controversy. In one instance, Carroll sent him an email about possible leaks from the inspector general’s office, which he found to be baseless.

Kasper also told associates that he had allegedly heard Selnick say something to the effect of “the way to get people fired in this place is to get bad headlines on them”, two officials said.

But senior aides at the White House and the Pentagon increasingly started routing requests through Caldwell and Selnick, the officials said, in large part because they were seen to be quicker at getting things done – in a dynamic that appeared to grate on Kasper.

The internal rivalries escalated in the wake of the Panama canal material leak. Hegseth ordered an investigation into some nine leaks, and Kasper suggested that he wanted to bring in the FBI and to conduct polygraph tests on aides, the officials said.

Caldwell advocated for the leak investigations to be narrowed in scope in part because he was against having the FBI rummage through their affairs, according to multiple people he spoke to about the matter – which appears to have been part of the reason he came under suspicion.

The tensions among the former aides have continued since their collective ouster. Carroll has considered filing a defamation suit against Kasper and started making calls on the Monday after he was fired, asking people whether Kasper had ever been seen doing cocaine in a previous job.

Kasper has complained that some of the calls went to his wife and previous clients, asking rhetorically to associates how he would have been able to hold a security clearance and pass regular drug tests. “It’s so egregiously stupid,” Kasper said when reached for comment.

Rich countries are dragging their feet on producing new plans to combat the climate crisis, thereby putting the poor into greater danger, some of the world’s most vulnerable nations have warned.

All governments are supposed to publish new plans this year on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but so far only a small majority have done so, and some of the plans submitted have been inadequate to the scale of action needed.

Pacific island states have written to the governments of developed countries urging them to hurry, and to make the steep cuts in carbon needed. The rich are also yet to set out details of how they will fulfil their obligations to ensure $1.3tn a year in climate finance flows to poor countries by 2035.

“We have voiced again and again the reality that we face: our islands’ safety depends on your collective commitments to take decisive action. The only question now is: what will you do with that knowledge?” the countries asked, in a letter seen by the Guardian.

At last year’s UN climate summit, Cop29, the small island states and least developed country groupings walked out of the talks in frustration.

They are calling for concrete action from the rich world well before this year’s Cop30 summit, to be held in Brazil this November.

Several Pacific islands are also involved in a court case, trying to hold rich countries to account for their climate failings under international law.

All countries carry obligations under the Paris agreement to cut carbon in line with the goal of limiting global temperatures to 1.5C (2.7F) above preindustrial levels.

The US has withdrawn from the Paris agreement, but so far no others have followed. However, current commitments by countries to cut emissions would result in temperature rises of an estimated 2.8C, so far more stringent reductions are needed.

The UN has asked countries to come up with their national plans, called nationally determined contributions (NDCs), by September, as most missed the original February deadline. The UN told countries earlier this year that it would be better to work longer on their commitments and provide them in greater detail, along with potential policies to achieve them, than to rush out NDCs to meet the February deadline.

The EU is not expected to provide its NDC until this summer, and China promised this week to publish its plan before Cop30 without specifying the expected date.

The islands wrote that time was running short: “Now is the time to meet those obligations. We call on all leaders, especially the leaders of the G20, to submit ambitious, 1.5C-aligned economy-wide NDCs covering all greenhouse gases before the UN general assembly in September. These NDCs must focus on domestic reductions and not carbon offsets.”

The islands also said that countries should be prepared to revise their NDCs at Cop30, if they were found to be inadequate.

All countries have also agreed to phase out fossil fuels, and NDCs should contain clear details on how governments plan to achieve this, the islands added in their letter.

Rich countries may balk at the cost of helping the poor, they noted. “But the cost of delay and the cost of inaction are far higher. The planet is already under severe strain with the risk of entering a doom loop of natural disasters, ecosystem collapse, food system collapse, economic collapse and mass migrations staring us all in the face. Humanity, vision, and collaboration are the solution for a safe future.”

Ministers and senior officials from more than 60 countries met in London on Thursday and Friday to discuss energy security. Ed Miliband, the UK energy secretary, told the conference there could be no national security without strong policies on the climate. The UK is one of only a handful of developed countries that have so far submitted their NDCs to the UN. Civil society groups called for NDCs to be detailed and focused on policy, rather than vague and long-term targets.

Xi Jinping has announced a plan to counter China’s continuing economic problems and the impact of the US trade war, as reports swirl that it could drop tariffs on some US products, including semiconductors.

Friday’s meeting of the politburo was convened to discuss China’s economy, which since the pandemic has faced difficulties fuelled by a housing sector crisis, youth unemployment and Donald Trump’s tariffs on all Chinese imports to the US.

A readout of the meeting published by the official state media outlet Xinhua said China’s economy had showed a “positive trend” with increasing social confidence in 2025, but “the impact of external shocks has increased”.

“We must strengthen bottom-line thinking, fully prepare emergency plans and do a solid job in economic work,” it said.

In a reference to Trump’s global tariffs, the readout said Beijing would “work with the international community to actively uphold multilateralism and oppose unilateral bullying practices”.

he US president has again insisted that Xi has called him to discuss the border taxes, despite Beijing denying any contact between the two countries over their bitter trade dispute.

In an interview conducted on Tuesday with Time magazine and published on Friday, Trump repeated the claim but did not say when the call took place or specify what was discussed. “He’s called,” Trump said of Xi. “And I don’t think that’s a sign of weakness on his behalf.”

On Thursday, a spokesperson for China’s foreign affairs ministry, Guo Jiakun, said of the reports of talks: “None of that is true.”

Friday’s politburo readout proposed a series of interventions to bolster the domestic economy and protect people and businesses from the impact of Trump’s tariffs, including increasing unemployment insurance payouts. It promised to increase low and middle incomes, develop the service industry and boost consumption.

“We should take multiple measures to help enterprises in difficulties,” it said. “We should strengthen financing support. We should accelerate the integration of domestic and foreign trade.”

It stressed the need for more proactive macroeconomic policies, faster development of a new real estate model and increased housing stock, and “stepping up” city renewal programmes and urban renovation.

Wen-ti Sung, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, said the politburo’s decisions showed Beijing “clearly views the international macroeconomic environment as hostile” and was willing to take on high domestic inflation to weather the tariffs.

“[This] hints that China will be digging into the trenches and is preparing for a long trade fight with Trump,” he said.

Sung said Beijing was “doubling down on boosting domestic demand” and bolstering fiscal stimulus as the international market showed no signs of significant improvement.

The meeting was held amid reports that Chinese authorities were considering a list of US products to exempt from the 125% tariffs imposed on all US imports. Earlier reports from Bloomberg and Reuters said medical equipment, semiconductors and some industrial chemicals such as ethane were being considered.

On Thursday, a Shenzhen-based supplier posted online that it had been notified by the customs agency that eight semiconductor products would no longer attract the 125% duty.

On Friday, the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, Michael Hart, said the Chinese authorities had been asking members what products they imported from the US that they could not find anywhere else.

He welcomed the early signs that both sides were reviewing tariffs and starting to produce lists of excluded items. Stock markets across the Asia Pacific region rose after the reports.

The trade war has hit the US and Chinese economies, and the tariff exemptions are likely to be a sign of the parties trying to ease their way out. The US had already exempted some categories of Chinese-made products from tariffs, including smartphones and laptops. This week, Trump said his tariffs on China would “come down substantially but it won’t be zero”.

But in public the two governments have given different accounts on the status of negotiations on ending the trade war.

On Friday afternoon, China’s foreign ministry reiterated its claim that the US and China were not engaged in any negotiations on tariffs, contradicting Trump’s claims on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said the two sides were talking. “We may reveal it later, but they had meetings this morning, and we’ve been meeting with China,” he said, declining to say who “they” were.

The remarks appeared to be in response to the Chinese commerce ministry’s spokesperson, He Yadong, earlier saying there were “currently no economic and trade negotiations between China and the United States”.

Joe Kasper, the controversial chief of staff to the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who was central to a dramatic power struggle at the Pentagon, has left his post, in an unexpected departure.

Despite Hegseth’s assurances just days ago in a TV appearance on the Fox & Friends show that Kasper would merely transition to “a slightly different role” within the department, Kasper confirmed to Politico in a Thursday interview he will instead return to government relations and consulting, maintaining only limited Pentagon ties as a special government employee.

A senior defense official at the Pentagon confirmed the dramatic title change to the Guardian on Friday, saying Kasper would be “handling special projects at the Department of Defense”

“Secretary Hegseth is thankful for [Kasper’s] continued leadership and work to advance the America First agenda,” the official said in a statement, referring to Donald Trump’s protectionist policy push.

The quick exit comes after Kasper was implicated as the orchestrator of a power grab that led to the dismissal of three senior Pentagon officials – Dan Caldwell, Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll – allegedly as part of a leak investigation.

The administration’s first hundred days created a troubled tenure for Kasper, with anonymous sources claiming he was frequently late to meetings, failed to follow through on critical tasks, and displayed inappropriate behavior, including berating officials and making crude comments allegedly about his bowel movements during high-level meetings.

“He lacked the focus and organizational skills needed to get things done,” one anonymous insider told Politico.

The leadership shake-up coincides with separate allegations that Hegseth had an unsecured internet connection installed in his Pentagon office, which would bypass government security protocols, to use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer. This “dirty line” arrangement potentially exposes sensitive defense information to surveillance or hacking risks, according to reports from the Associated Press and ABC News.

Kasper previously worked at the Department of Homeland Security, the US navy and the air force during the first Trump administration before becoming a lobbyist.

Civil rights activists in Germany have demanded an independent inquiry into alleged police racism after an officer shot a 21-year-old black man from behind, killing him after an altercation outside a nightclub.

The 27-year-old officer was suspended from duty over the shooting early on Sunday morning in the city of Oldenburg in north-west Germany pending a murder investigation, said state prosecutors. Fatal police shootings are relatively rare in Germany and prosecutors were quoted in local media as saying the suspension and investigation were “routine”.

Police have not identified the victim due to data protection laws but media and pressure groups have identified him as Lorenz A.

Police said in a statement that the man, a German citizen, aimed pepper spray at security staff outside the club after they refused him entry, hurting four people, and that he threatened others with a knife while running away.

When a patrol car tracked him down, police said he again used the pepper spray and approached the 27-year-old officer in a threatening manner. The police officer then opened fire.

A coroner’s report found that at least three bullets hit the man from behind: in the back of his head, torso and hip, local prosecutors said. A fourth shot is believed to have grazed his upper thigh. He later died in hospital.

The state interior minister, Daniela Behrens, said the autopsy results raised “serious questions and grave suspicions” that must be “unsparingly addressed and resolved”.

Police representatives warned against any rush to judgment. “There are racism accusations because the deceased was a person of colour,” Kevin Komolka, the state chair of the GdP police union, told the public broadcaster NDR. “There’s a mood developing painting police as trigger-happy hooligans.”

Prosecutors have begun evaluating security camera footage and audio recordings from the scene and said there was no indication that Lorenz A had threatened police with the knife he had with him. The officers’ body cameras were reportedly turned off.

Rights groups, which have organised a rally in Oldenburg on Friday, said the shooting raised serious concerns.

The German chapter of Amnesty International said the killing “impacts an entire community and all those people in Germany affected by racism”. It said any investigation into the incident led by police would be biased. “We finally need independent investigation mechanisms that are not controlled by police or interior affairs authorities,” it said, citing “structural racism”.

The Black People in Germany Initiative (ISD) quoted friends and the family of Lorenz, calling him a keen basketball player and a “fun-loving person who was full of energy”.

“Now he’s dead, killed by an institution that is supposed to protect us,” it said in a statement, joining the call for an independent investigation as well as a national complaints office for allegations of police racism.

The ‪Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which campaigns against extremism and racism in German society, also denounced what it said was not an isolated incident and questioned the police account that the officer had grounds to fear for his life.

The gathering and march in Oldenburg, called by a Justice for Lorenz group with more than 15,000 followers on social media, is expected to draw at least 1,000 people, according to police. Similar vigils have been called in Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Vienna.

The Black Lives Matter movement, which was initiated after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, also led activists to turn a spotlight on German police. In September of that year, 29 officers in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia were temporarily suspended after their unit was found to have shared extreme rightwing content on a WhatsApp group including a collage of a refugee inside a gas chamber and the shooting of a young black person.

A 2024 study found that 30% of German police had heard colleagues make racist comments in the previous year, with a marked rise in reported anti-Muslim sentiment.

An average of 10.5 people a year are shot dead by police in Germany, the news agency dpa said, citing figures collected by the trade journal Civil Rights and Police, with no clear upward or downward trend across the decades. However, last year there were 22 victims, and this year there have already been 11 such cases reported.

In 2023, the last year statistics were available, Germany’s federal criminal police office reported a record number of incidents of violence against firefighters, police and emergency services workers.