Experts investigating the largest power cut in recent European history, which plunged cities in Spain and Portugal into darkness on Monday and left tens of thousands of people trapped on trains, have ruled out the possibility of a cyber-attack.

According to Spain’s electricity operator, Red Eléctrica, the blackout was not the result of a targeted attack.

Speaking on Tuesday morning, the operator’s head of services, Eduardo Prieto, said preliminary investigations meant “we can rule out a cybersecurity incident”.

Prieto added that there was nothing to suggest “there was any kind of intrusion into the Red Eléctrica control system”.

He said two consecutive events, which took place at 12.32pm on Monday and then a second and a half later, pointed to a “generation disconnection” that had cut off the supply across the peninsula. While the system weathered the first event, it could not cope with the second. Prieto said the problem had originated in south-west Spain, which is where much of the country’s solar energy is generated.

The Portuguese government also ruled out a cyber-attack.

“In Portugal, we have no information related to a cyber-attack or a hostile act at this stage,” a government spokesman told CNN Portugal, adding: “There would seem to have been an issue in the power transmission network [in Spain].”

By Tuesday morning, all of Spain’s electricity substations were up and running, and 99.95% of the country’s power supply had been restored. Across the border in Portugal, the electricity operator REN said all substations were fully operational and the national network had been “perfectly stabilised” by 11.30pm on Monday.

Late on Monday night, after a day of rumour and wild conjecture, Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said experts were working to restore full power and to find out what had caused the blackout.

“That’s something that has never happened before,” he said. “What prompted this sudden disappearance of the supply is something that the experts still haven’t been able to determine. But they will … All potential causes are being analysed and no hypothesis or possibility is being ruled out.”

Sánchez said the power cut originated at 12.33pm on Monday, when, for five seconds, 15 gigawatts of the energy that was being produced – equivalent to 60% of all the energy that was being used – suddenly disappeared.

The prime minister, who chaired another meeting of the national security council on Tuesday morning, thanked people for “once again showing exemplary responsibility and public spirit”.

In a statement early on Tuesday, Spain’s national meteorological office, Aemet, appeared to rule out the weather as a possible culprit.

“During the day of 28 April, no unusual meteorological or atmospheric phenomena were detected, and nor were there sudden variations in the temperature in our network of meteorological stations,” said Aemet.

REN also said it had not sent a message circulating on social media on Monday attributing the blackout to a rare atmospheric event.

The message, in Portuguese, claimed the shutdown was due to “a fault in the Spanish electricity grid linked to a rare atmospheric phenomenon”.

“REN confirms we did not put out this statement,” a spokesperson told Agence France-Presse.

All of Spain’s airports were operating on Tuesday morning, but the transport ministry advised people to check with their airlines for possible changes and to find out whether they would be able to get to the airport on public transport.

The state rail operator, Renfe, said the country’s train network, which was badly hit by the blackout, was gradually returning to normal but that local train services were suspended in regions including Murcia, Extremadura and Andalucía.

About 35,000 people were rescued from more than 100 trains after the cut hit on Monday.

In Madrid, 150,000 people were escorted to safety from the capital’s metro system after trains stopped dead in stations and tunnels. By Tuesday morning, the city’s metro service had been restored on all but one line, and 80% of trains were in operation for rush hour.

At 11am local time (1000 BST), the president of the Madrid region, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, said the metro system was 100% operational, adding: “All schools are open, as are hospitals, health centres, day centres and care centres. Thanks to everyone who’s made this possible.”

The Catalan regional government said local train services were still being affected by the outage but the underground and bus networks were operating normally.

Widespread outages are unusual in Europe. In 2003, a problem with a hydroelectric power line between Italy and Switzerland caused blackouts for about 12 hours, and in 2006 an overloaded power network in Germany caused electricity cuts across parts of the country and in France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands.

By 10am, shops in Madrid had reopened and many people were heading to ATMs to withdraw the cash they had been unable to access the previous day.

Spain’s busiest railway station, Madrid Atocha, had turned into an impromptu campsite overnight, with frustrated travellers bedding down on cardboard and items of clothing as they waited for news.

One distraught couple left the station in tears, while others remained glued to their mobiles trying to contact loved ones and find information amid piles of suitcases.

Ruben Coiran, 24, was returning home to Barcelona and had spent 11 hours stuck in Atocha waiting for news.

“It’s tough – putting up with the cold, bearing the hunger, hanging on … We’re having a pretty rough time,” he told Agence France-Presse.

“There were elderly people, children who haven’t been able to eat for six-seven hours. They don’t have toilets,” added Coran, who works in IT.

“It was more difficult for the elderly and for people with babies.”

Four long hours after the power went out across Spain, bringing trains to a halt in Madrid’s metro stations and sending people scurrying for light and taxis, the denizens of the Spanish capital were swinging between pragmatism and polite, almost jocular, panic.

Behind the counter of his neighbourhood bazaar in a quiet corner of the city, a shop owner reeled off a list of the afternoon’s most popular purchases: radios, batteries, torches and candles. As he finished, yet another optimistic customer entered the shop.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got any radios left?” The shop owner shook his head. No radios.

Outside, on the boulevard that runs between two local schools, families were trotting home and trying to plan the next few hours. “We’re worried,” said Reyes Paterna, who was running a quick mental inventory as she took her young daughter home, where her one-year-old baby was waiting.

“Nothing’s working. We’ve got stuff for the baby but nothing else,” she said. “We’ve got a camping stove at home but we’re not sure if there’s any gas left in the cylinder.”

Paterna was also anxious about her mother, who lives on her own in Murcia, 200 miles away. “She could be stuck in the lift for all we know!”

For Paterna and everyone else in Madrid, the priorities were basic provisions and hoping that the patchy mobile phone coverage was restored as soon as possible, so that loved ones could be checked on and minds put at ease after hours of uncertainty.

As metro workers lounged outside a silent station – no trains meant no work – people chatted and joked about how things would be better if they were in their pueblos in the countryside, where power cuts are more common and most people cook with gas.

“We’re all in shock to be honest,” said one woman, as she guided her children home from school. Where were they headed? “To my mum’s. She’s got gas, so at least there’ll be some hot food for the kids.”

Such measured calm was not universal, however. As offices across the capital emptied and taxi drivers bellowed “cash only!” through their windows, at least one noble individual jumped the queue to get to a cab before a waiting pregnant woman.

With the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, holding an emergency meeting of the national security council, and the Madrid regional government calling for the declaration of a national emergency, people decided on their own courses of action.

Food and other goods were high on everyone’s list of priorities. Though one local supermarket was shuttered – either for want of working systems, or a lack of Euro-carrying customers in an increasingly cashless society – others were doing a good trade. Just as in the Covid pandemic, some people hadn’t been able to resist the urge to stock up on toilet roll.

Manuel Pastor, 72, had not bought toilet roll, but was pulling a shopping trolley homewards, nonetheless.

“I’ve bought some tins and stuff that will last a while, just in case,” he said. “All we can do now is wait. Hopefully it’ll only last a day or two, otherwise people will start to panic.”

He sighed, pondering the possibility of some kind of cyber-attack and hoping that people would resist the urge to panic. If that happened, he said, “everyone will be fighting over things, even before there are shortages. Remember when the pandemic started? What bloody idiots.”

For most people, however, panic would have to wait. There was dinner to be made, relatives to be checked on, and children to be collected and hugged.

The Chinese regime enlisted Jack Ma, the billionaire co-founder of Alibaba, in an intimidation campaign to press a businessman to help in the purge of a top official, documents seen by the Guardian suggest.

The businessman, who can be named only as “H” for fear of reprisals against his family still in China, faced a series of threats from the Chinese state, in an attempt to get him to return home from France, where he was living. They included a barrage of phone calls, the arrest of his sister, and the issuing of a red notice, an international alert, through Interpol.

The climax, in April 2021, was the call from Ma. “They said I’m the only one who can persuade you to return,” Ma said.

H, who had known Ma for many years, recorded the call. He had done the same for calls he had received from other friends, as well as Chinese security officials, who had called in the weeks before, all with the same message.

Transcripts of those calls presented in a French court, along with other legal records, provide a rare insight into some of the methods used by the Chinese regime to exert its influence around the world. The documents lay out in detail how a combination of threats, co-opted legal mechanisms and extrajudicial pressures are used to control even those beyond the country’s borders.

The findings are part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) China Targets project, in which journalists documented the methods the Chinese regime uses to track and crush dissent abroad. The team includes the Guardian as well as Radio France and Le Monde, who obtained the transcripts and other legal paperwork.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the UK said: “The so-called ‘transnational repression’ by China is pure fabrication.”

Extradition threat

H, 48, a China-born citizen of Singapore, was in Bordeaux, France, when he received the call from Ma. A year earlier, a warrant had been issued by Chinese police for H’s arrest on charges of financial crime. Then, China had put out a notice for him through Interpol’s international criminal alert system. The French authorities confiscated his passport while they considered whether to extradite him.

The transcripts show that on the call, Ma suggested all of H’s problems would go away if he would help in the prosecution of Sun Lijun, a Chinese politician who had fallen out of favour with the ruling Chinese Communist party (CCP). Sun was being prosecuted for taking bribes and manipulating the stock market. “They are doing this all for Sun, not for you,” Ma said.

Sun, a former deputy security minister, was entrusted in 2017 with overseeing security in Hong Kong during mass protests against Beijing’s crackdown on democratic freedoms. He had been arrested the year before H started receiving the phone calls. Later, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) denounced Sun for “harbouring hugely inflated political ambitions” and “arbitrarily disagreeing with central policy guidelines”.

He became one of many top officials caught up in President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign, which human rights groups have said serves as a tool for Xi to purge his political rivals.

‘You have no other solution’

The transcript of the call suggests Ma was not happy to have been drawn into the affair. “Why did you involve me in this?” he asked H.

Like Sun, Ma had fallen out of favour with Xi’s regime. After giving a speech in October 2020 in which he criticised Chinese financial regulators, he was hit with repeated sanctions including a $2.8bn fine, and he disappeared from public view.

The phone call to H was made six months later. Ma explained in the call that he had been contacted by Chinese security officials. “They spoke to me very seriously,” Ma told H. “They say they guarantee that if you come back now, they will give you a chance to be exempted … You have no other solution … the noose will tighten more and more.”

Later, Ma called H’s lawyer to reiterate the message.

H did not return to China and his lawyers fought his extradition in the French courts.

Clara Gérard-Rodriguez, one of H’s lawyers, said: “We knew that if H went back to China, he would himself be arrested, detained, probably tortured until he agreed to testify … and that most of his assets, the shares of his company, would most likely be also transferred to other persons.”

The conviction rate for criminal cases in China is 99.98%, according to Safeguard Defenders, an organisation that investigates abuses by the Chinese regime. It has documented how forcible disappearances and torture are endemic within the justice system.

The money laundering charges brought against H in China, a year before the call from Ma, related to his connection to a credit platform, Tuandai.com. The founder of that company was jailed for 20 years for illegal fundraising. The Chinese police believed that he had attempted to hide some of the misappropriated funds when the investigation started. H, who had invested in the company, was accused of helping to move some of the money abroad through companies he controlled.

H’s lawyers told the French courts there was no evidence that he had known that the source of the funds was questionable. On a call to a friend, recorded in the French court documents, H protested his innocence. “None of this is true,” he said.

The Chinese government issued a red notice for H through Interpol, the international police watchdog. This flagged him as a potential criminal to police forces around the world and meant he was unable to travel. “It is like a pin through a butterfly,” said Ted R Bromund, an expert witness in legal cases involving Interpol procedures. “It holds someone down, locks them in place so they can’t get away.”

While red notices are used against serious criminals, campaigners have long warned that they can be abused. The British lawyer Rhys Davies recently told a government inquiry into transnational repression that red notices were “routinely used and abused by autocratic regimes to target dissidents and opponents overseas”. He called the system “the sniper rifle of autocrats because it is long-distance, targeted and very effective”.

While other countries, including Russia, Turkey and Rwanda, have also been known to abuse the system, China’s tactics are different, according to experts. Instead of relying on extraditions, the Chinese authorities use Interpol to locate people and then they ramp up the pressure, threatening them and family members back home until the individual agrees to return “voluntarily”.

A spokesperson for Interpol said the system meant thousands of the world’s “most serious criminals” were arrested every year. They added: “Interpol knows red notices are powerful tools for law enforcement cooperation and is fully aware of their potential impact on the individuals concerned, which is why we have robust – and continuously assessed and updated – processes for ensuring our systems are used appropriately.”

‘Psychological warfare’

As H waited in France, trapped by the legal process the red notice had begun, he received calls from friends and security officials, in what his lawyers called “all-out psychological warfare”. Sometimes the tone was friendly, with promises that all charges would be dropped; other times it was more threatening.

Transcripts of the call with the deputy investigator of the unit prosecuting Sun, Wei Fujie, suggest he promised H that if he returned there would be “no prosecution now, plus the cancellation of the red notice”.

A friend called and told H: “Within three days your whole family will be arrested!” Days later, H’s sister was arrested in China.

His case is far from unusual. The ICIJ’s China Targets project logged the details of 105 targets of transnational repression by China, in 23 countries. Half of them said their family members back home had been harassed through intimidation and interrogation by police or state security officials.

Rehabilitation

When H’s case came before the Bordeaux court of appeal, in July 2021, the court denied the extradition request. Later, the red notice was removed from Interpol’s systems. H’s lawyers successfully argued that the extradition request had been issued for political purposes, to compel testimony against Sun.

Sun was convicted of manipulating the stock market, taking bribes and other offences, without H’s intervention in the prosecution. He was given a suspended death sentence.

H, unable to trade or work in China, could not pay back loans or rent on a luxury property and became engulfed in debts totalling $135m, according to Chinese media. He declined to comment when approached by the Guardian.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the UK said: “China always respects the sovereignty of other countries and conducts law enforcement and judicial cooperation with other countries in accordance with the law.”

Representatives for Ma raised questions about his identity in the calls. The Guardian spoke to H’s lawyers, who said he had known the billionaire for many years prior to the call and that he had no doubt the caller was Ma. Throughout the legal process in which his lawyers challenged the red notice there were no questions raised about the identities of the callers.

Ma did not respond further to the Guardian.

Earlier this year, he was seen energetically applauding Xi at a meeting of business leaders in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People – a sign, according to local media, of the billionaire’s public rehabilitation.

Gérard-Rodriguez, H’s lawyer, said: “We saw and learned publicly of Jack Ma’s disappearance … this man, thought to be untouchable, extremely powerful, extremely well-connected in every country in the world, disappeared completely for several months and then reappeared, pledging his allegiance to the Chinese Communist party.

“And in the end, it was the same thing expected of H … that he would return to show his loyalty, to show which side he was on.”

Two women who were deported to Honduras alongside their US citizen children were held in “complete isolation” and denied any opportunity to coordinate the care and custody of their children before being put on a flight, according to one of the lawyers representing them.

The mothers were unable to contact attorneys or loved ones, and were not allowed the option to transfer the custody of their citizen children to another parent or caregiver, said Gracie Willis, an attorney with the National Immigration Project who is representing one of the families and coordinating with the team representing the other family.

“Here we had moms held completely in isolation, being told what was happening to their children. They didn’t have an opportunity to talk this through, to weigh the pros and cons of taking or leaving their children in the US,” Willis said.

One of the mothers, who was deported with her seven-year-old and her four-year-old, both of whom are citizens, was unable to access medications and care for her youngest, who has a rare form of late-stage cancer.

Another woman, who is pregnant, was put on a plane to Honduras along with her 11-year-old and two-year-old daughters, even as the children’s father and a caretaker designated by the family were desperately trying to contact them.

“She’s in the early stages of a pregnancy and has undergone unimaginable stress,” said Willis. “So she’s trying to ensure her and that unborn child’s safety and health, while also processing and working through what they’ve all been through.”

Both families were detained at regular check-in appointments with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in New Orleans, according to lawyers, and then taken hours away from the city and prohibited from communicating with family members.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of immigrant parents in similar situations, who have both a deportation order and US citizen children, have to choose whether to leave their kids in the US under the care of another family member or guardian, or surrender them to Child Protective Services.

“No parent would want to be in that situation,” Willis said. “And we don’t bring any judgment against any decision that a parent makes.”

But the mothers who were rushed on to deportation flights with their children last week, in high-profile cases that have drawn widespread condemnation from civil rights groups and lawmakers, were not empowered to make any real choices for their families, Willis said.

“There were no real decisions being made here, especially when those parents were not able to communicate with other available caregivers,” she added.

After lawyers for VML, the two-year-old who is identified in court documents by only her initials, filed an emergency motion to prevent the US citizen toddler’s deportation, a federal district judge raised concerns that he had a “strong suspicion that the government just deported a US citizen with no meaningful process”.

A hearing in VML’s case has been scheduled for 18 May. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been claiming that the family’s cases were handled legally and with due process.

Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said: “The children aren’t deported. The mother chose to take the children with her.”

In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, echoed Homan, saying: “I imagine those three US citizen children have fathers here in the United States. They can stay with their father. That’s up to their family to decide where the children go.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.

But VML’s father had been desperately trying to reach his partner and retrieve his toddler in the days leading up to the deportation, Willis said.

On 22 April, VML’s mother had been told to bring her children to her check-in with Ice, according to Willis. The father, who had brought them to the check-in appointment, began to worry that the appointment was taking longer than usual – and was later told that his partner and daughters had been detained.

When he was eventually able to speak to them, he could hear his partner and daughter crying on the phone and his call was cut off before he was able to give them a number for the family’s attorneys.

The government told him that it had removal orders for VML’s mother and her 11-year-old sister, who was not born in the US, and that their mother was choosing to also take VML to Honduras with them. They pointed to a handwritten letter, which they say was written by the mother, that reads in Spanish: “I will take my daughter … with me to Honduras.”

But the family’s lawyers dispute that the letter proves their consent, especially given that the parents weren’t allowed to coordinate VML’s release. They had wanted the toddler to be handed over to a US citizen that the family had chosen to serve as VML’s legal custodian. “The mom was never asked what she wanted. She was told, your child will be deported with you,” Willis said.

Before their deportation, both families had been dutifully complying with Ice orders to regularly check-in.

VML’s mother had arrived at the US southern border during the “remain in Mexico” program instituted during the first Trump administration, which forced non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait south of the border while their cases were processed.

The mother, and her now 11-year-old, had reported to an initial appointment with immigration officials but had been kidnapped in Mexico – and were unable to attend their second immigration hearing. When the mother and daughter managed to return and seek safety in the United States, immigration officials released them into the country on the condition that they regularly check-in – which they had been doing for about four years, according to Willis.

The other woman deported with her children had entered the US as an unaccompanied minor child, and had been issued deportation orders after she failed to report at a hearing that she was not aware was happening, as she never received a summons, Willis said.

Neiyerver Rengel’s captors came one sunny spring morning, lurking outside the apartment he shared with his girlfriend and pouncing as soon as he emerged.

The three government agents announced the young Venezuelan man had “charges to answer” and was being detained.

“Everything’s going to be OK,” the man’s girlfriend, Richely Alejandra Uzcátegui Gutiérrez, remembers the handcuffed 27-year-old reassuring her as she gave him one last hug.

Then Rengel was put in a vehicle and vanished into thin air: spirited into custody and, his family would later learn, dispatched to a detention centre notorious for torture and inhuman conditions hundreds of miles from home.

“We have to take him,” Uzcátegui recalls one officer saying before they left. “But if this is a misunderstanding, he’ll be released and given a phone call to contact you.”

That call never came.

The scenes above might have played out in any number of Latin American dictatorships during the 20th century, from Gen Augusto Pinochet’s Chile to Gen Jorge Rafael Videla’s Argentina. Thousands of regime opponents were seized at home or on the street – and slipped off the map, becoming “desaparecidos” (the disappeared ones).

But Rengel’s disappearance took place on 13 March this year in Donald Trump’s US, where what campaigners call the “forced disappearance” of scores of Venezuelan migrants has fuelled fears of an authoritarian tack under a leader who vowed to be a dictator “on day one” of his presidency. Those fears intensified on Friday amid reports that a judge had been arrested by the FBI for supposedly helping “an illegal alien” evade arrest.

Juanita Goebertus, Human Rights Watch’s Americas director, said she had no hesitation in calling the detentions of those Venezuelans enforced disappearances. “Under international law, when someone is detained and there’s no account of where the person is, it amounts to enforced disappearances – and this is exactly what has happened,” she said.

For five weeks after Rengel’s detention in Irving, Texas, relatives remained in the dark over his whereabouts. His brother, Nedizon León Rengel, said he spent hours calling immigration detention centres but failed to get clear answers. “They told us he’d been deported but wouldn’t say where,” recalled Nedizon, who migrated to the US with his brother in 2023.

Finally, on 23 April, came the bombshell: a report on NBC News said Rengel was one of at least 252 Venezuelans who had been flown to authoritarian El Salvador and jailed for supposedly belonging to the Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Venezuelan gang that Trump’s administration has designated a foreign terrorist organisation.

“Finding out through the news was devastating. But the worst part was having to tell my mum,” said Nedizon. “Before I came here, the US represented a land of opportunity – a place to fulfil dreams and improve our quality of life … Now it feels like a nightmare. Human rights aren’t even being respected any more – not even the right to make a phone call, which is guaranteed to anyone who is detained.”

Rengel was not the only Venezuelan to disappear after being ensnared in Trump’s crackdown on immigrants he has repeatedly smeared as rapists, murderers and terrorists who have supposedly launched an “invasion” of the US.

Ricardo Prada Vásquez, 33, was apprehended in Detroit in mid-January, days after sending his brother a video showing the Chicago snow – a magical moment for a man raised on Margarita, a sun-kissed Caribbean island, who had never seen a northern winter.

On 15 March, Prada told a friend he was being deported to Venezuela – but he never arrived. Nor was Prada’s name on a list published five days later by CBS News identifying 238 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador’s “terrorism confinement” prison. (Rengel was also not on the list. US and Salvadoran authorities have refused to publish a register of the prisoners’ names.)

For the next five weeks, Prada’s relatives – who deny he is a criminal – also had no idea where he was.

“It’s mentally exhausting to be constantly thinking about how he is and what he’s going through,” his brother, Hugo Prada, said from Venezuela. Only last Tuesday, after Prada’s story was featured in the New York Times, authorities did confirm where he had been sent.

“This TDA gang member didn’t ‘disappear’. He is in El Salvador,” Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assistant secretary, wrote on X, claiming Prada had been “designated a public safety threat”.

Prada defended his brother, a former shoe salesman he described as a laid-back, hard-working quipster who migrated to the US last year hoping to provide a better future for his four-year-old son, Alexandro, who still lives on Margarita. “Dammit, he went [to the US] in search of a better life and what he got was this disaster,” said Prada, insisting his sibling was innocent.

Before Prada’s detention, he held near-daily video calls with his child. In recent days, Alexandro has repeatedly asked relatives why he can no longer speak with his father. “They say he’s working,” said Hugo, voicing shock that people could vanish into custody in the US.

“It’s unbelievable that they just grabbed them and sent them to a concentration camp for them to die, just like Hitler did with the Jews,” Prada added. “[The US is] a democratic country – and it’s as if we’ve gone 50 or 100 years back in time.”

Nelson Suárez, the brother of a third Venezuelan jailed in El Salvador, said the treatment of the detainees – some of whom have been paraded on television with shaved heads and in shackles – reminded him of how the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro dealt with his foes. “[They are doing] the same thing they do in Venezuela when they capture a political prisoner. They lock them up and disappear them – and nobody hears anything more from them until the government feels like it,” said Suárez, whose brother, Arturo Suárez, is a musician with no criminal background.

The wave of detentions and disappearances has devastated the US’s Venezuelan community, which has swelled in recent years as a result of the South American country’s economic collapse.

“The community lives in uncertainty and in terror,” said Adelys Ferro, who runs the Venezuelan American Caucus advocacy group. “People are petrified. They are thinking: ‘What if I am next? What if they stop me? What is going to happen?’

“Even people with documents are terrified. Even people with green cards are terrified,” added Ferro, a Venezuelan-American who has lived in the US for 20 years. “This is something that shouldn’t be happening anywhere in the world, much less – for Christ’s sake – in America.”

Six weeks after federal agents seized her hairdresser boyfriend outside their home in Irving, Texas, Uzcátegui said she was still not convinced she knew the full truth about his plight, despite the DHS admitting last Tuesday that he had also been sent to El Salvador.

Without offering evidence, McLaughlin told NBC News Rengel was “an associate of Tren de Aragua … a vicious gang that rapes, maims, and murders for sport” – a claim relatives reject. Rengel’s only run-in with the law appears to have been being last year fined $492 after he was stopped in a co-worker’s car in which police found a marijuana trimmer.

“To me, he’s still missing. This doesn’t give me peace of mind,” Uzcátegui said of the government’s admission. “Because there’s no record, no photo, no phone call. I insist – he’s still missing.”

Even families who now know their loved ones were sent to El Salvador do not know how they are, in which prison they are being held, what charges, if any, they face, or how long they may be held there.

“On one hand I feel a little bit calmer knowing that he’s somewhere and he’s not dead. But what situation awaits us? What comes next?” wondered Hugo Prada, who had no idea what charges his brother was facing or how long a sentence he could face.

Ferro vowed to continue denouncing the “nightmare” such families were facing. “It is exhausting, and so painful and disheartening. But that pain is not going to make us cease fighting for justice, that’s for sure,” she said.

Speaking from her home in Venezuela, Rengel’s 50-year-old mother, Sandra Luz Rengel, recalled begging him “from the bottom of my heart” not to travel to the US. But he was unmoved – and now he was lost.

“Not knowing anything about him is outrageous,” she said. “And there’s nothing I can do.”

An Irish woman who has lived legally in the US for four decades has been detained by immigration officials for the last week because of a criminal record dating back almost 20 years.

Cliona Ward, 54, was detained at San Francisco airport on 21 April after returning from Ireland to visit her sick father and is being held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facility in Tacoma, Washington.

Ward holds a green card but has convictions for drug possession from 2007 and 2008, which she believed had been expunged, her family said.

The latest evidence of a crackdown on documented migrants under President Donald Trump prompted an expression of concern from the Irish taoiseach, Micheál Martin. “Where people have green cards and citizenship rights there shouldn’t be an issue so we will be pursuing this on a bilateral basis to make sure that those who are legitimately entitled to be in the US are free from any challenges or difficulties of this kind,” he told RTÉ on Monday. Ireland’s department of foreign affairs said it was providing consular assistance.

Originally from Dublin, Ward moved to the US when she was a child, attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, works for a non-profit, pays taxes and cares for a chronically ill son who is a US citizen, according to her sister Orla Holladay.

Ward’s criminal record includes two felonies for drug possession and four misdemeanours, according to court documents reviewed by Newsweek. The cases stem from a period when she was an addict but she has been sober for two decades, Holladay told the magazine. “She has a criminal past, but she’s not a criminal. She’s a person with a painful past.”

In a crowdfunding appeal to raise funds for a lawyer – by Monday afternoon pledges exceeded $23,000 (£17,200) – Holladay said her sister had paid for her offences and become a valued member of the community. “She did everything she was supposed to do in order to make reparations,” she wrote. “Cliona is a very private and gentle person, who wants nothing more than to return to her quiet life.”

In the belief that her convictions were expunged – the Guardian could not verify this was the case – Ward had frequently visited Ireland and returned to the US each time without problems, said Holladay.

Earlier this year she accompanied her stepmother to Ireland to visit her father, who has dementia, and after returning to the US was stopped at Seattle airport on 19 March and held for three days.

She was released to obtain documentation about the allegedly expunged convictions and presented them to Ice officials at San Francisco airport on 21 April, after which she was again detained and sent to the facility at Tacoma, said Holladay.

Ward was shackled en route, leaving her feeling shamed and demoralised, and found conditions at the facility to be harsh, her sister said. “Although she can’t speak with the majority of the women in there because most don’t speak English, they have been giving each other support and there are lots of tears and hugs between the women.”

Erin Hall, a Seattle-based lawyer, is due to have an initial consultation with Ward on Monday. Ward’s immigration hearing is scheduled for 7 May.

The US Representative Jimmy Panetta, a Democrat from California, said it was “unfathomable” that a reportedly expunged, decades-old crime could be used to deport a legal permanent resident who was a productive member of the community.

Trump won the 2024 election on the promise of “the largest deportation operation in American history” but few anticipated a crackdown on documented immigrants, including green card holders and citizens who have the status by birth or naturalisation. On 27 April a federal judge accused the administration of removing a two-year-old US citizen “with no meaningful process”.

Recent high-profile cases include a Canadian, Jasmine Mooney, who was detained for two weeks, sometimes in freezing cells, because of an issue with her work visa.

Jessica Brösche, a German tourist, spent more than six weeks in detention, including eight days in solitary confinement, reportedly because US authorities suspected she planned to work as a tattoo artist without a work visa.

A visa mix-up led to Rebecca Burke, a British graphic artist, being interrogated and detained for three weeks, an ordeal that prompted her to caution other tourists to avoid travelling to the US.

Drinking champagne, eating more fruit, staying slim and maintaining a positive outlook on life could help reduce the risk of a sudden cardiac arrest, the world’s first study of its kind suggests.

Millions of people worldwide die every year after experiencing a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), when the heart stops pumping blood around the body without warning. They are caused by a dangerous abnormal heart rhythm, when the electrical system in the heart is not working properly. Without immediate treatment such as CPR, those affected will die.

The study identified 56 non-clinical risk factors associated with SCA, spanning lifestyle, physical measures, psychosocial factors, socioeconomic status and the local environment. It found compelling evidence that addressing these things could prevent a large number of cases.

Researchers found that factors such as higher consumption of champagne and white wine, increased fruit intake, along with maintaining a positive mood, weight management, blood pressure control and improved education, may serve as important protective factors. They concluded that between 40% and 63% of sudden cardiac arrest cases could be avoidable when looking at all 56 risk factors. Their findings were published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.

The study’s co-investigator Renjie Chen of Fudan University in Shanghai said: “To our knowledge, this is the first study that comprehensively investigated the associations between non-clinical modifiable risk factors and SCA incidence. We were surprised by the large proportion (40%-63%) of SCA cases that could be prevented by improving unfavourable profiles.”

Researchers studied more than 500,000 people using data from the UK Biobank. Of those tracked, 3,147 people suffered SCAs during a typical follow-up period of 14 years.

The study’s lead investigator, Huihuan Luo, also from Fudan University, said: “All previous studies investigating the risk factors of SCA were hypothesis-driven and focused on a limited number of candidate exposure factors grounded in prior knowledge or theoretical frameworks.

“We conducted an exposome-wide association study, which examines the relationship between a wide range of environmental exposures and health outcomes using UK Biobank data, followed by Mendelian randomisation to assess causal relationships.

“The study found significant associations between various modifiable factors and SCA, with lifestyle changes being the most impactful in preventing cases.”

Eliminating the worst third of the 56 risk factors suggested 40% of SCA cases could be prevented, according to the study. This increased to 63% SCA prevention if the worst two-thirds of the risk factors were eliminated.

In a linked editorial, Nicholas Grubic from the University of Toronto in Canada, and Dakota Gustafson from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, said: “One of the study’s most intriguing findings is the cardioprotective effect associated with champagne and white wine consumption, questioning long-held assumptions about the specificity of red wine’s cardioprotective properties.

“Research on the underlying mechanisms remains unclear, but these findings reinforce the idea that the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption may be more complex than previously assumed.”

The suggestion that champagne and white wine may be helpful also conflict with existing advice.

The British Heart Foundation says lifestyle changes can reduce the risk of SCAs. These include cutting down on alcohol, quitting smoking, eating a healthy diet, taking medications and following treatments from your doctor, as well as being physically active.

To reduce the “immense burden” SCAs put on health systems, population-wide strategies that prioritise prevention are required, Grubic and Gustafson wrote. But while shifting from responding to SCAs to preventing them may seem straightforward, doing so would be far more complex in practice, they said.

They said: “The multifactorial nature of these events – often influenced by a combination of genetic predispositions, underlying cardiovascular conditions, environmental triggers, and lifestyle factors – poses significant challenges for healthcare professionals and policymakers.”

The European court of justice has ruled that Malta’s “golden passport” scheme is illegal, meaning its cash-for-citizenship programme must be scrapped.

In a long-awaited ruling on Tuesday, the EU’s top court concluded that Malta’s investor citizenship scheme was contrary to EU law. Judges said the scheme represented a “commercialisation of the grant of the nationality of a member state” and by extension EU citizenship, which was at odds with European law. Malta had jeopardised the mutual trust between EU member states necessary to create an area without internal borders, the court argued.

The judges examined a 2020 scheme that allowed people who had given up to €750,000 to Malta and – in theory – spent 12 months in the country to gain citizenship. With a Maltese passport, the person gained EU citizenship and the freedom to live and work anywhere in the union.

The scheme, which had its origins in a 2013 law, has long been criticised by transparency campaigners, who said it opened the door to money laundering, corruption and security risks. In 2021 a Guardian investigation found that multimillionaires with minimal genuine links to Malta were being granted citizenship, sometimes spending only three weeks in the country. A cache of emails from the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation shared with international media revealed that many people claiming to be residents left their Maltese rental properties empty.

The European Commission launched legal proceedings against Malta and Cyprus in October 2020 for selling “EU citizenship”. Cyprus announced it was closing its scheme shortly before the case was launched, but Malta’s government was defiant. In submissions to the court it argued it had exclusive competence to grant nationality, so was entitled to run the scheme.

Responding to the ruling, Malta’s government said it was studying the legal implications, “so that the regulatory framework on citizenship can then be brought in line with the principles outlined in the judgment”.

But it also touted the benefits of the scheme, saying it had generated more than €1.4bn in revenues for the government since 2015.

In a Facebook post, the former prime minister Joseph Muscat claimed the verdict was a political judgment. Muscat was the prime minister when the golden passport scheme was introduced. He resigned in 2020 in response to widespread anger over his perceived attempts – which he denies – to protect allies from an investigation into the 2017 murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Golden passport schemes sprang up across Europe as cash-strapped governments looked to raise money after the financial crisis. The British government announced in February 2022 that it was scrapping the UK’s “tier 1 investor visa” amid corruption and national security concerns and worsening relations with Russia.

In contrast, Donald Trump announced in February he planned to launch a “gold card” visa, a $5m residency permit for wealthy foreigners.

Matthew Caruana Galizia, the director of the foundation that works to secure his mother’s public interest legacy, described the court judgment as “a win for the people of Malta and for all EU residents who have been unfairly exposed to the whims of money launderers and corrupt criminals buying their way into the EU”. He urged the government “to abolish its citizenship-by-investment programme without delay”.

A European Commission spokesperson welcomed the court decision and called on Malta to implement the judgment: “European citizenship is not for sale,” the spokesperson said. “Investor citizenship schemes breach EU law and as such should be abolished by all member states.”

The European court of justice has ruled that Malta’s “golden passport” scheme is illegal, meaning its cash-for-citizenship programme must be scrapped.

In a long-awaited ruling on Tuesday, the EU’s top court concluded that Malta’s investor citizenship scheme was contrary to EU law. Judges said the scheme represented a “commercialisation of the grant of the nationality of a member state” and by extension EU citizenship, which was at odds with European law. Malta had jeopardised the mutual trust between EU member states necessary to create an area without internal borders, the court argued.

The judges examined a 2020 scheme that allowed people who had given up to €750,000 to Malta and – in theory – spent 12 months in the country to gain citizenship. With a Maltese passport, the person gained EU citizenship and the freedom to live and work anywhere in the union.

The scheme, which had its origins in a 2013 law, has long been criticised by transparency campaigners, who said it opened the door to money laundering, corruption and security risks. In 2021 a Guardian investigation found that multimillionaires with minimal genuine links to Malta were being granted citizenship, sometimes spending only three weeks in the country. A cache of emails from the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation shared with international media revealed that many people claiming to be residents left their Maltese rental properties empty.

The European Commission launched legal proceedings against Malta and Cyprus in October 2020 for selling “EU citizenship”. Cyprus announced it was closing its scheme shortly before the case was launched, but Malta’s government was defiant. In submissions to the court it argued it had exclusive competence to grant nationality, so was entitled to run the scheme.

Responding to the ruling, Malta’s government said it was studying the legal implications, “so that the regulatory framework on citizenship can then be brought in line with the principles outlined in the judgment”.

But it also touted the benefits of the scheme, saying it had generated more than €1.4bn in revenues for the government since 2015.

In a Facebook post, the former prime minister Joseph Muscat claimed the verdict was a political judgment. Muscat was the prime minister when the golden passport scheme was introduced. He resigned in 2020 in response to widespread anger over his perceived attempts – which he denies – to protect allies from an investigation into the 2017 murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Golden passport schemes sprang up across Europe as cash-strapped governments looked to raise money after the financial crisis. The British government announced in February 2022 that it was scrapping the UK’s “tier 1 investor visa” amid corruption and national security concerns and worsening relations with Russia.

In contrast, Donald Trump announced in February he planned to launch a “gold card” visa, a $5m residency permit for wealthy foreigners.

Matthew Caruana Galizia, the director of the foundation that works to secure his mother’s public interest legacy, described the court judgment as “a win for the people of Malta and for all EU residents who have been unfairly exposed to the whims of money launderers and corrupt criminals buying their way into the EU”. He urged the government “to abolish its citizenship-by-investment programme without delay”.

A European Commission spokesperson welcomed the court decision and called on Malta to implement the judgment: “European citizenship is not for sale,” the spokesperson said. “Investor citizenship schemes breach EU law and as such should be abolished by all member states.”

Newly developed weight loss pills could have a big impact on tackling obesity and diabetes in low- and middle-income countries, experts have said.

Weight loss jabs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro, that contain the drugs semaglutide and tirzepatide respectively, have become popular in countries including the UK after trials showed they can help people lose more than 10% of their body weight. Medications containing semaglutide and tirzepatide can also be used to help control diabetes.

However, such jabs are not cheap, require an injection pen and needles, and must be kept refrigerated, limiting their use in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Experts say new oral medications that are expected to be cheaper as well as simpler to transport and store could help tackle a growing health concern in such regions.

“Medicines that could lower diabetes risks and simultaneously reduce risks for heart disease and other obesity-related complications could have sizeable benefits in many LMICs where such disease are starting to escalate fast in part due to rising waist girths,” said Naveed Sattar, a professor of cardiometabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow.

Dr Louis Aronne, an expert in obesity medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, agreed. “What we’re going to see is that as we move forward, patients and healthcare providers aren’t going to wait for people to develop [complications of obesity] when they can prevent them,” he said.

Aronne’s work has shown that when people with obesity and pre-diabetes were given tirzepatide for three years, their risk of developing diabetes fell by more than 90%.

“An oral medicine is easier to distribute since it wouldn’t need a cold chain to ensure sterility and activity like the current injectables. It would come in a box or bottle and wouldn’t need refrigeration, so could be used anywhere,” Aronne said.

Among the drugs causing excitement is orforglipron, which comes as a daily pill for glucose control and weight loss. Like semaglutide, orforglipron mimics a hormone in the body called GLP-1, helping people to feel fuller for longer as well as increasing insulin production, among other actions.

According to the pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly, a 40-week phase 3 clinical trial of orforglipron in people with diabetes found the medication reduced blood sugar levels and helped patients shed pounds. Aronne noted that it had a weight loss efficacy in the range of semaglutide.

While semaglutide is already available in pill form, orforglipron has further advantages. Sattar said a much higher dose of semaglutide was required in pill form than is used in jabs to achieve a near similar degree of weight loss, and semaglutide must be taken on an empty stomach and food should not be eaten for half an hour afterwards.

Orforglipron is a small molecule, meaning it is more resistant than semaglutide, a peptide, to being digested in the stomach, and so can be taken alongside food and drink. What’s more, orforglipron is unlikely to require as high a dose as oral semaglutide, potentially making it cheaper.

Experts say research is ongoing to test orforglipron for weight loss in people without diabetes and to confirm its safety profile – an important step, not least as Pfizer recently ditched its small molecule GLP-1 drug over a potential drug-induced liver injury.

It is also unclear if orforglipron is associated with a reduced risk of heart attack, stroke or death due to cardiovascular disease, as has been found for semaglutide.

But scientists say that if orforglipron and similar drugs in development reach the market, they could aid efforts to tackle obesity and diabetes, including in LMICs where the prevalence of such conditions is rising rapidly.

Aronne said: “Better food supply and better diet is definitely something that can prevent obesity, but once it’s established, a better diet is not going to treat the majority of people. Something physical changes in the brain that makes it hard for people to lose weight and to comply with the diet, and that’s why medication appears to be necessary in this situation.”

Such efforts are also important given the relationship between ethnicity and obesity-related diseases. “As shown by us and others, south Asians and blacks – and likely other ethnic groups – are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes at lower weight gains than whites across all ages, so that even small population-wide gains in obesity in many countries will lead to large rises in diabetes,” Sattar said, adding there was even some trial evidence that drugs that mimic GLP-1 may lower risks of heart disease by almost twice as much in Asian people than in white people.

Sattar added: “The more safe and effective weight loss medicines on the market, both injectable and especially oral, to help tackle rising girths, the better the health of many nations.”

Donald Trump plans to cushion the impact of his tariffs on US carmakers by easing some duties on foreign vehicle parts, his administration has said.

“President Trump is building an important partnership with both the domestic automakers and our great American workers,” the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said in a statement provided by the White House.

“This deal is a major victory for the president’s trade policy by rewarding companies who manufacture domestically, while providing runway to manufacturers who have expressed their commitment to invest in America and expand their domestic manufacturing.”

The move means car companies paying tariffs would not be charged other levies, such as those on steel and aluminium,, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the development.

Carmakers would be able to secure a partial reimbursement for tariffs on imported auto parts, based on the value of their US car production, under the plans.

Cars made outside the US will still be subject to Trump’s tariffs but will be exempt from other levies. The plan is expected to be officially confirmed later on Tuesday.

Trump is traveling to Michigan on Tuesday to commemorate his first 100 days in office, a period that the Republican president has used to upend the global economic order.

The move to soften the effects of auto levies is the latest by his administration to show some flexibility on tariffs, which have sown turmoil in financial markets, created uncertainty for businesses and sparked fears of a sharp economic slowdown.

Carmakers said on Monday that they were expecting Trump to issue relief from the auto tariffs ahead of his trip to Michigan, which is home to the “Detroit Three” companies and more than 1,000 big auto suppliers.

The General Motors (GM) chief executive, Mary Barra, and Ford’s boss, Jim Farley, praised the planned changes. “We believe the president’s leadership is helping level the playing field for companies like GM and allowing us to invest even more in the US economy,” Barra said.

Farley said the changes “will help mitigate the impact of tariffs on automakers, suppliers and consumers”.

Last week, a coalition of US car industry groups urged Trump not to impose 25% tariffs on imported parts, warning they would cut vehicle sales and raise prices. Trump had said earlier he planned to impose tariffs of 25% on car parts no later than 3 May.

“Tariffs on auto parts will scramble the global automotive supply chain and set off a domino effect that will lead to higher auto prices for consumers, lower sales at dealerships and will make servicing and repairing vehicles both more expensive and less predictable,” the industry groups said in the letter.

The letter from the groups representing GM, Toyota Motor, Volkswagen, Hyundai and others, was sent to the US trade representative Jamieson Greer, the treasury secretary Scott Bessent and Lutnick.

Kneecap have apologised to the families of murdered MPs David Amess and Jo Cox after footage emerged in which the Irish-language rappers purportedly call for politicians to be killed.

Criticism of the group has been mounting – including from Downing Street and the Conservative leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch – since a video emerged from a November 2023 gig appearing to show one person from the group saying: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.”

Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson said on Monday the prime minister believed the comments were “completely unacceptable” and “condemns them in the strongest possible terms”.

Katie Amess, whose father, David Amess, was murdered by an Islamic State fanatic in his Southend West constituency in 2021, said she was “gobsmacked at the stupidity of somebody or a group of people being in the public eye and saying such dangerous, violent rhetoric” and demanded an apology.

Overnight on Monday, the Belfast group – Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin and JJ Ó Dochartaigh – posted an apology on X and suggested the condemnation had been an “effort to derail the real conversation” about Gaza.

The band has previously claimed they are facing a “coordinated smear campaign” after speaking out about “the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people”.

“To the Amess and Cox families, we send our heartfelt apologies, we never intended to cause you hurt,” they said in the 500-word statement.

“Establishment figures, desperate to silence us, have combed through hundreds of hours of footage and interviews, extracting a handful of words from months or years ago to manufacture moral hysteria,” they said.

“Let us be unequivocal: we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah. We condemn all attacks on civilians, always. It is never okay. We know this more than anyone, given our nation’s history.

“We also reject any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP or individual. Ever. An extract of footage, deliberately taken out of all context, is now being exploited and weaponised, as if it were a call to action. This distortion is not only absurd – it is a transparent effort to derail the real conversation.”

Scotland Yard is reportedly looking into the alleged call to kill MPs, along with another concert from November 2024 in which a member of the band appeared to shout “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah” – groups that are banned as terrorist organisations in the UK.

When Leonardo the tortoise went missing from his home in Cumbria nine months ago, his owners feared the worst.

But the intrepid testudine has been found about a mile from his home in Ulverston – covering the distance at an average pace of 6 metres a day.

Little Beasties Ulverston pet shop revealed on Facebook that the beloved tortoise had been handed in and returned to his owners.

The store posted: “We have some fantastic news. We have found the owner of the tortoise that was handed in at the start of the week. His name is Leonardo.

“He went missing from his home in July last year so has been missing for nine months. His owners searched all over for him but sadly feared the worst when he wasn’t found. They couldn’t believe it when they heard the news and were really pleased he was found safe and healthy.”

The BBC reported that, after a social media campaign, a dog walker had spotted Leonardo walking down a street and taken him to the pet shop, where staff helped track down his owner, Rachel Etches.

Etches told the broadcaster: “It was totally my fault; we were out in the garden, we’d just had our second child, I got a bit distracted and he just wandered off out of our sight.

“He’s led a very comfortable life for 13 years under a heat lamp in my house, so we didn’t think he was going to survive the winter being out for the first time.”

Leonardo reportedly previously escaped a few years ago but was found again a couple of days later.

“They’re very adventurous beings, they always test the boundaries of wherever they’re put,” Etches told the BBC.

Etches believes Leonardo must have gone into hibernation for winter and went on the move again once the weather started to improve.