Donald Trump has celebrated his 100th day in office with a campaign-style rally in Michigan and an attack on “communist radical left judges” for trying to seize his power, warning: “Nothing will stop me.”

The president also served up the chilling spectacle of a video of Venezuelan immigrants sent from the US to a notorious prison in El Salvador, accompanied by Hollywood-style music and roars of approval from the crowd.

Trump’s choice of Michigan was a recognition not only of how the battleground state helped propel him to victory over Vice-President Kamala Harris in last November’s election, but its status as a potential beneficiary of a tariffs policy which, he claims, will revive US manufacturing.

But the cavernous sports and expo centre in the city of Warren, near Detroit, was only half full for the rally, and a steady stream of people left before the end of his disjointed and meandering 89-minute address.

“We’re here tonight in the heartland of our nation to celebrate the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country!” Trump declared. “In 100 days, we have delivered the most profound change in Washington in nearly 100 years.”

The 45th and 47th president falsely accused the previous administration of engineering massive border invasion and allowing gangs, cartels and terrorists to infiltrate communities. “Democrats have vowed mass invasion and mass migration,” he said. “We are delivering mass deportation.”

Trump defended his use of the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 wartime authority that allows the president to detain or deport the citizens of an enemy nation, to expel foreign terrorist from the US as quickly as possible. Then he took aim at that courts that have blocked many of his moves during the first 100 days.

“We cannot allow a handful of communist, radical-left judges to obstruct the enforcement of our laws and assume the duties that belong solely to the president of the United States,” Trump said, with evident frustration. “Judges are trying to take away the power given to the president to keep our country safe.

“It’s not a good thing, but I hope for the sake of our country that the supreme court is going to save this, because we have to do something. These people are just looking to destroy our country. Nothing will stop me in the mission to keep America safe again.”

In a darkly theatrical touch, Trump encouraged the crowd to watch big screens that showed mainly Venezuelan alleged gang members deported from the US arriving last month in El Salvador and having their heads shaved or being manhandled by guards.

The video, originally shared by El Salvador’s authoritarian president Nayib Bukele, was accompanied by moody music reminiscent of a thriller. Once it was over the big screens offered the simple message, “100 days of greatness”, while the crowd cheered raucously and broke into chants of: “USA! USA! USA!”

The arena was surrounded by banners that read, “Investing in America”, “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!”, “The Golden Age”, “Buy American, Hire American” and “The American Dream is Back”. Trump’s supporters held signs with slogans such as: “Make America Great Again” and “Golden Age of America”. Michigan’s unemployment rate has risen for three straight months.

One person behind the president waved a “Trump 2028”, banner even though he is constitutionally barred from serving a third term. At one point Margo Martin, a White House aide, joined the president on stage and asked: “Trump 2028, anybody?” The crowd roared.

Before the rally, warm-up tracks included It’s A Man’s World by James Brown and Luciano Pavarotti, Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinéad O’Connor and YMCA by Village People. There were video clips of Elton John and the Who singing Pinball Wizard in the movie Tommy, and factory worker turned country singer Oliver Anthony performing Rich Men North of Richmond.

Yet despite the ostensible celebration of his election win and hugely consequential first 100 days, Trump spent much of the rally in campaign mode, fixated on past grudges and grievances.

He mocked Biden’s mental acuity and even how he appears in a bathing suit, repeated the lie that he won the 2020 election and sought to discredit polling and news coverage unflattering to him. “When you watch the fake news you see fake polls,” he said, without evidence. “In legitimate polls I think we’re in the 60s, the 70s.”

Trump defended his administration’s steep tariffs on cars and auto parts, hours after the White House announced it was softening them. He boasted of ending diversity, equity and inclusion “bullshit” across the federal government and private sector, and of making it official government policy that there are only two genders.

He reiterated support for the beleaguered defence secretary Pete Hegseth, telling the crowd: “I have so much confidence in him. The fake news is after him, but he’s a tough cookie. They don’t know how tough he is.”

Trump also heaped praise on his billionaire ally Elon Musk and his “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, and condemned the backlash against the Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur: “It’s not fair what they’ve done to him. That is a disgrace.”

The rally featured guest speeches by Brian Pannebecker, a retired car worker who pitched a book he is writing about his support of Trump, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who said earnestly: “Thank you, President Trump, for being the greatest president in American history.”

Democrats take a different view. Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said: “Trump’s pathetic display tonight will do nothing to help the families he started screwing over 100 days ago.

“Michiganders and the rest of the country see right through Trump, and as a result, he has the lowest 100-day approval rating in generations. If he’s not already terrified of what the ballot box will bring between now and the midterm elections, he should be.”

Donald Trump has celebrated his 100th day in office with a campaign-style rally in Michigan and an attack on “communist radical left judges” for trying to seize his power, warning: “Nothing will stop me.”

The president also served up the chilling spectacle of a video of Venezuelan immigrants sent from the US to a notorious prison in El Salvador, accompanied by Hollywood-style music and roars of approval from the crowd.

In his speech, Trump praised himself for what he calls “the most successful 100 days of any administration in the history of our country”, despite a raft of opinion polls released this week showing that a majority of Americans disagree, expressing deep disapproval of his performance as president and particularly his handling of the economy.

Catching up? Here’s what happened on 28 April 2025.

Rodney Scott, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead Customs and Border Protection (CBP), has been accused by a former top official of orchestrating a “cover-up” over the death of a man detained while trying to enter the country from Mexico, according to a letter obtained by the Guardian.

Scott is a former US border patrol chief who has supported the president’s vow to build a wall along the border with Mexico and criticized Joe Biden’s handling of immigration policy. As commissioner of CBP, Scott would lead one of the largest federal law enforcement agencies, which encompasses the border patrol and staffs ports of entry across the United States.

The Senate finance committee will consider Scott’s nomination on Wednesday. Before the hearing, James Wong, a former deputy assistant commissioner of CBP’s office of internal affairs, wrote to the committee’s top Democrat this week with “concern” about Scott’s handling of the investigation into the 2010 death of Anastasio Hernández Rojas in San Diego, after he was beaten and tased by CBP agents who were preparing to deport him.

His death was investigated by San Diego’s police department at a time when Scott was a top border patrol official in the city, which Wong said put him in a position to oversee a so-called critical incident team (CIT). The teams, which CBP disbanded in 2022, were created to investigate “use-of-force incidents” and “designed to mitigate liability for Border Patrol senior management and to present Border Patrol in the best possible light”, Wong wrote.

The CIT used a subpoena to obtain Hernández Rojas’s medical records “likely in an effort to spin information for their own PR”, Wong said. “The use of a CBP administrative subpoena for this purpose was blatantly unlawful, and anyone signing it should have known that.”

“By virtue of his position, Mr Scott would have overseen all CIT operations on the case, and all CIT information would have filtered through him to CBP headquarters,” Wong wrote in the letter, addressed to ranking member Ron Wyden.

“This was not an investigation, it was a cover-up – one Mr Scott supervised. This abuse of power disqualifies him from leading one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the country.”

Scott did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Wyden called Scott’s handling of the Hernández Rojas case “deeply troubling”, and asked the Department of Homeland Security for records related to the death and investigation.

“In the hands of someone who has allegedly repeatedly abused his position of power, the vast security apparatus for which CBP is responsible could be wielded for harm,” Wyden wrote in a letter to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary.

A spokesperson for Wyden said he had not received a response from the department.

CBP employees are often the first to encounter immigrants, and as commissioner, Scott would be in a position to play a role in executing the president’s hardline approach to immigration policy.

Since taking office, Trump has blocked asylum seekers from entering the United States and authorized the US military to deploy along the border with Mexico. Earlier this month, border patrol agents in Arizona detained a US citizen for nearly 10 days in Arizona because they suspected he was undocumented.

Scott’s border patrol career ended in 2021, when the Biden administration forced him out of the job after rightwing news site Breitbart obtained a memo in which he objected to its orders not to use terms like “illegal alien”.

Later that year, a House oversight committee report found that Scott was a member of “I’m 10-15”, a private Facebook group for border patrol agents with more than 9,500 members whose name was a reference to the code for “aliens in custody”.

Participants in the group insulted members of Congress and posted “racist and sexually violent content” directed at them, particularly after lawmakers visited an immigrant detention facility in 2019, the report found.

In other instances, a border patrol agent shared in the group a picture of a drowned immigrant father and child and referred to them as “floaters”, while a supervisor posted an internal video of an immigrant fatally falling from a cliff.

According to the committee, Scott said that being in the group allowed him to “know what the workforce is talking about”.

Scott also sought to downplay the first Trump administration’s practice of forcibly separating immigrant children from their parents at the US-Mexico border. “The family separation being a policy is a lie,” he told Fox News in 2018, arguing that children were simply taken from parents who were facing prosecution for crossing the border unlawfully.

Republican senators whom Scott has met with have signaled support for his nomination, with John Cornyn of border state Texas calling him “a fantastic pick”.

China’s factory activity slowed in April, with Beijing blaming “sharp changes” in the global economy as it fights a mounting trade war with the United States.

Punishing US tariffs that reached 145% on many Chinese products came into force in April, and Beijing responded with 125% duties on imports from the US. Chinese exports soared more than 12% last month as businesses rushed to get ahead of the punishing tariffs.

The impact of the measures began to show in official data on Wednesday, with the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) – a key measure of industrial output – falling to 49.0 in April, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the lowest reading since December 2023.

Anything below the 50-point mark signifies a contraction.

The reading for April represented a steeper decline than the 49.7 forecast in a Bloomberg survey. It was down from March’s 50.5, which was the highest figure in 12 months.

Zhao Qinghe, an NBS statistician, said the drop was largely down to “sharp changes in [China’s] external environment”, in a note accompanying the release.

Economists have warned that the disruption in trade between the tightly integrated US and Chinese economies could threaten businesses, increase prices for consumers and cause a global recession.

“The weak manufacturing PMI in April is driven by the trade war,” Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, wrote in a note. “The macro data in China and the US will weaken further … as the trade policy uncertainty delays business decisions,” he added.

China’s economy, the world’s second-largest, has struggled to fully recover since the Covid-19 pandemic and is also grappling with sluggish domestic demand and a protracted property sector crisis.

“China’s economy is coming under pressure as external demand cools,” said Zichun Huang, China Economist at Capital Economics, in a note. “Although the government is stepping up fiscal support, this is unlikely to fully offset the drag, and we expect the economy to expand just 3.5% this year,” Huang added.

Authorities last year announced a slew of aggressive stimulus measures aimed at boosting growth including rate cuts and the easing of some home purchasing restrictions.

And in March, leaders at a key political meeting vowed to create 12 million new urban jobs in 2025.

They also said they would aim for growth this year of 5% – the same as 2024 and a goal considered ambitious by many economists.

The International Monetary Fund, Goldman Sachs and UBS all recently revised down their economic growth forecasts for China over 2025 and into 2026, citing the impact of US tariffs. None of them expect the economy to hit Beijing’s official growth target.

With Agence France-Presse and Reuters

The British military launched airstrikes with the US, targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels, officials said on Wednesday, in its first involvement with America’s new intense campaign targeting the Iranian-backed group.

The UK offered a detailed explanation of its reason to launch the strike, in a departure from the US, which has offered few details about the more than 800 strikes it has conducted since beginning its campaign on 15 March.

“This action was taken in response to a persistent threat from the Houthis to freedom of navigation,” said John Healey, the UK’s defence secretary. “A 55% drop in shipping through the Red Sea has already cost billions, fuelling regional instability and risking economic security for families in the UK.”

The Houthis reported several strikes around Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, which the group has held since 2014. Other strikes hit around Saada.

The campaign, called Operation Rough Rider, has been targeting the rebels as the Trump administration negotiates with their main benefactor, Iran, over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.

The UK’s defence ministry described the site attacked as “a cluster of buildings, used by the Houthis to manufacture drones of the type used to attack ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, located some 15 miles (25km) south of Sanaa.”

Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s took part in the raid, dropping Paveway IV guided bombs, the ministry added. “The strike was conducted after dark, when the likelihood of any civilians being in the area was reduced yet further,” the ministry said.

The British offered no information on the damage done in the strike, nor whether it believed anyone had been killed. The US military’s Central Command did not acknowledge the strike.

The British have taken part in airstrikes alongside the US since the Biden administration began its campaign of strikes targeting the Houthis back in January 2024. However, this new strike is the first to see the British involved in the campaign under Trump.

The joint UK-US strike follows an alleged a US airstrike on Monday that hit a prison holding African migrants, killing at least 68 people and wounding 47 others. The US military said it was investigating.

On 18 April, an American strike on the Ras Isa fuel port killed at least 74 people and wounded 171 others in the deadliest known attack of the American campaign.

The US is conducting strikes on Yemen from its two aircraft carriers in the region – the USS Harry S Truman in the Red Sea and the USS Carl Vinson in the Arabian Sea.

The US is targeting the Houthis because of the group’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route, and on Israel. The Houthis are the last militant group in Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” that is capable of regularly attacking Israel.

The strikes separately have drawn controversy in America over defence secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the unclassified Signal messaging app to post sensitive details about the attacks.

Mark Carney has used his victory speech to claim Donald Trump wanted to “break us” as he led Canada’s Liberal party to a fourth term in office, in a race that was upended by threats and aggression from the US president.

The Liberal triumph capped a miraculous political resurrection and marked a landmark victory for Carney, the former central banker and political novice who only recently succeeded Justin Trudeau as prime minister. Results on Tuesday confirmed that the Liberals fell just short of a majority government and would therefore need the support of political rivals to govern.

Mirroring a theme of the campaign, Carney told election-night supporters that Trump wanted to “break us, so that America can own us”, adding: “That will never, ever happen,” to shouts from the crowd.

He also gave a stark assessment of a world order once defined by an integrated global trading system with the US at the centre, saying such a system was over, and he pledged to reshape Canada’s relationships with other nations.

“We are over the shock over American betrayal. But we will never forget the lessons,” he said.

Later on Tuesday, the two leaders struck a more conciliatory tone and agreed to meet “in the near future”, according to Carney’s office, which said Trump had congratulated the prime minister for his victory. “The leaders agreed on the importance of Canada and the United States working together – as independent, sovereign nations – for their mutual betterment,” it said.

In a shock result, the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, lost the seat he has held since 2004, even as his party performed better than had previously been expected. The Tory leader pledged to keep his job during his election night speech, but the loss is expected to inflame tensions within the party.

“While we will do our constitutional duty of holding the government to account and proposing better alternatives, we will always put Canada first as we stare down tariffs and other irresponsible threats from President Trump,” Poilievre told supporters.

“Conservatives have been leading the debate and we will continue to put forward the best arguments to improve the lives of our people right across this country.”

Jagmeet Singh, leader of the progressive New Democratic party leader, also lost his seat in a national vote that saw the NDP have their worst-ever result, losing party status and most of their seats. In an emotional speech Singh announced he would resign as leader.

Carney praised other party leaders for campaigns that he said had strengthened the country’s democracy. “Let’s put an end to the division and anger of the past. We are all Canadian and my government will work for and with everyone.”

After a narrow victory in the previous federal election, the Liberals relied on the leftwing New Democratic party to help it pass legislation. Monday’s vote appeared likely to produce a similar result, with the Liberals and the NDP together holding enough seats to pass legislation.

For the Liberals, the win marks a remarkable recovery for a party that was, until recently, on track for electoral devastation. Carney’s predecessor as leader, Justin Trudeau, served as prime minister for nearly 10 years but the twilight of his leadership was marked by repeated threats of mutiny, bitter feuding and a fed-up electorate.

Until the end of 2024, internal discussions within the Liberal party were grim: under their most optimistic scenarios, they could only hope of holding the Conservatives to a minority government. Outright victory was nowhere on the party’s radar.

“We were dead and buried in December. Now we are going to form a government,” David Lametti, a former Liberal justice minister, told CTV late on Monday. “We have turned this around thanks to Mark.”

Trump’s threats to annex the country to make it the 51st state, his belittling of Trudeau as “governor” and threats of economic coercion have all contributed to a sharp feeling of anger and betrayal towards Canada’s southern neighbour.

“The shift in polls was absolutely without precedent,” said David Coletto, the head of the polling firm Abacus. “But to see the honeymoon that followed – and the way that support held, is also unprecedented. I can’t think of other jurisdictions around the world where we’ve seen this complete reset. And this turns on two factors: how unpopular Justin Trudeau was, and how much of a threat and gamechanger Donald Trump has meant to Canada.”

For the Conservatives, defeat marks a disappointing end to an election campaign the party had been demanding for months. Under the leadership of Poilievre, the Tories had for the past two years seemed all but certain to form a government.

But within weeks of Trump’s threats and the emergence of Carney as the new Liberal leader, their 25-point poll lead evaporated.

To have come inches from victory and then to lose is likely to kick off a sombre postmortem for the party – and internal feuding over the future of the Conservative movement.

For Carney, who served as prime minister for only nine days before calling a snap election, the gambit was one in which he hoped to make history for the party. But also on the line for Carney was the prospect of making history for an entirely different reason: had he lost, he would have inherited the mantle of Canada’s shortest-serving prime minister.

Ian Laroque, a campaign volunteer who lives in Carney’s Ottawa electoral district, said: “I saw how Carney conducted himself and I felt like he was really a man who met the moment. He wasn’t a polished politician. But he’s the kind of person we need to lead the country right now. It’s not every day you get an economist during an economic crisis.”

Monday’s vote was unusual in other ways, too: for the first time in nearly 70 years, the two main parties were set to take more than 80% of the vote between them, reflecting the collapse of other smaller opposition parties including the NDP and the separatist Bloc Québécois.

In an emotive speech to supporters, Jagmeet Singh announced he would step down as leader of the NDP after failing to win his seat. In its worst-ever performance, the progressive party failed to meet the 12-seat threshold needed to retain official party status – the second time in its history it has been unable to do so.

The loss of party status means the NDP loses certain parliamentary privileges, including the ability to ask questions during question period as often as recognized parties. These rules can be amended at the discretion of the speaker, however. The NDP will also lose out on money allocated to parties for research purposes, which is distributed proportionally to the number of seats held by a recognized party.

Canada’s Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, has lost his own seat in the country’s general election, in a stunning blow for the 45-year-old career politician who until recently had been widely expected to become the country’s next prime minister.

Although Conservatives increased both their seat count and vote share, Mark Carney’s Liberal party secured control of parliament, and Poilievre’s defeat in the Carleton electoral district is certain to fuel mounting questions over his future as party leader.

Once considered a long shot, the Liberal party candidate Bruce Fanjoy flipped the Carleton riding which Poilievre had held for seven consecutive elections. The two men were among 91 candidates on the ballot – most of whom were part of a protest calling for electoral reform.

In a speech late on Monday, Poilievre conceded the election, but pledged to stay on as Conservative leader, saying it was an “honour” to hold the role.

“To my fellow Conservatives, we have much to celebrate tonight. We’ve gained well over 20 seats,” Poilievre said. “We are cognizant of the fact that we didn’t quite get over the finish line. Yet we know that change is needed, but change is hard to come by. It takes time.”

But without a seat in the House of Commons, Poilievre cannot serve as leader of the official opposition, and it is also unclear if he can retain his residence at Stornoway, the official residence of the opposition leader.

If he does stay on as leader, Poilievre will need a Conservative MP to sacrifice their seat, allowing him to run in the by-election to fill the vacancy. That process takes time – Canada’s governor general must call the election between 11 and 180 days after being notified of the seat vacancy – and in all likelihood, Poilievre would not be able to return to parliament until the fall sitting.

In recent weeks, Conservative officials confirmed to the Guardian that there was growing tension within the party over Poilievre’s leadership – and speculation that he would soon be forced out.

“There will be a need for bloodletting,” said one senior member. “That could be the leader, or it could be the campaign manager. But there are some who feel the party fell far short of its goal – to win. And there is a price.”

Poilievre became the youngest MP in Canadian history at the age of 25, and became Conservative leader in 2022. A sharp-tongued political brawler who cultivated a populist image, he became a lightning rod for discontent with the former prime minister Justin Trudeau over whom he at one point enjoyed a 25-point lead.

When Donald Trump began to threaten Canada’s economy and autonomy – and then Trudeau stood down to be replaced by Mark Carney – Poilievre found himself on the wrong side of a surge of patriotic anger.

Despite Poilievre’s personal defeat, the Conservatives did, however, win enough seats to form the largest official opposition in Canadian history at the expense of other opposition parties.

And Poilievre was not the only party leader to lose his place in parliament: Jagmeet Singh, leader of the progressive New Democrats also failed to retain his Burnaby seat as the party saw its vote share collapse.

“It’s been the honour of my life to represent the people of Burnaby Central,” he said in an emotional speech, in which he announced his resignation as party leader. “Tonight they chose a new member of parliament and I wish them well.”

The New Democrats – who held the balance of power after the 2021 federal election – were on track to lose 17 of the 24 seats they had in the last parliament and are likely to lose official party status.

The loss of party status means the NDP will lose certain parliamentary privileges, including the ability to ask questions during question period as often as recognized parties. The NDP will also lose out on accessing money allocated to parties for research purposes, which is distributed proportionally to the number of seats held by a recognized party.

The Green party’s co-leader Jonathan Pedneault also lost his bid to represent a district in Montreal.

Police have never recovered a phone used by Erin Patterson at the time of the deadly mushroom lunch, and another phone seized during their investigation was subject to a “remote factory reset” while they were searching her house, a Victorian court has heard.

Patterson also told police she had never owned a food dehydrator nor dehydrated food, despite CCTV showing her dumping a dehydrator at a local tip, and forensic analysis later revealing it had her fingerprints, and contained traces of death cap mushrooms.

Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in South Gippsland in 2023.

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Patterson has pleaded not guilty to murdering or attempting to murder the relatives of her estranged husband, Simon Patterson.

She is accused of murdering Simon’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, his aunt Heather Wilkinson, and attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson, Simon’s uncle and Heather’s husband.

Patterson is expected to say the poisoning was accidental.

Nanette Rogers SC, the prosecutor, said in her opening submissions in the case that Patterson had invited Simon and his relatives to her house to discuss “medical issues” she had, and how to break the news to her and Simon’s two children.

Rogers said Patterson told them she had cancer, but the prosecution allege she did not have cancer, and concocted the story regarding medical issues to ensure the children were not present for the lunch.

Simon was also invited to the lunch at Leongatha on 29 July 2023.

Patterson served individual beef wellingtons to her lunch guests, three of whom died from death cap mushroom poisoning, the court has heard. Patterson has denied deliberately poisoning them.

Rogers said that when Patterson was interviewed by police she denied owning a food dehydrator, or ever using one, but then said she may have owned one years ago.

But she had, in fact, been sharing photos of the dehydrator, and her habit of using it to dehydrate mushrooms, with Facebook friends she met on a group dedicated to discussing the case of accused baby killer Keli Lane.

The disposal of the dehydrator had been done to conceal her actions, Rogers said.

Rogers said the prosecution also alleged that Patterson had not eaten the same lunch as her guests, but pretended she had the same type of illness to cover this up, had not fed the leftovers to her children, and lied about where she had sourced the mushrooms.

Rogers made no further comment about the possible motivations for what had occurred with Patterson’s phone during her opening submission.

The prosecution “will not be suggesting there was not a particular motive” for the alleged murders and attempted murder, Rogers said.

“You might be wondering, now, ‘why would the accused do this, what is the motive?’

“You might still be wondering this at the end of the trial.

“But motive is not something that has to be proven by the prosecution … you do not have to be satisfied what the motive was, or even if there was one.”

Justice Christopher Beale told the jury on Wednesday morning that his understanding of Patterson’s defence was that she had not meant to poison her guests.

Patterson was crying as Beale spoke to the jury.

Rogers said in her opening submissions in the case that Patterson had invited Simon and his relatives to her house to discuss “medical issues” she had, and how to break the news to her and Simon’s two children.

She invited the group to her lunch during a service at the Korumburra baptist church, where Ian was the pastor, on 16 July, 2023.

The night before the lunch, Simon texted Patterson that he “felt uncomfortable” attending, but that he would be happy to discuss her health with her another time.

Rogers said Patterson responded five minutes later saying she was disappointed, and emphasising the effort she had put into the lunch, which was a “special meal” of the kind she may not be able to have for “some time”.

The Wilkinsons had been puzzled about the lunch invite, Rogers said, as they had never visited Patterson’s home before.

When they arrived, they were shown around the property, before being taken into the dining area.

Rogers showed a photo of the dining table, which had six seats and ran parallel to a kitchen island bench, to the jury during her opening.

Patterson served individual beef wellingtons consisting of a piece of steak, covered in mushrooms, and encased in pastry, with mashed potato and green beans, on four large grey plates to her guests.

Her meal was served on a smaller, lighter coloured plate, Rogers said.

They said grace, and started the meal. The Wilkinsons ate their meal, with Gail finishing half of hers and Don eating all his, and the rest of Gail’s, Rogers said.

After the meal, Patterson announced she had cancer, and asked whether she should tell the children. Patterson had earlier discussed with Gail that she had a biopsy and other tests taken regarding a lump she had found on her elbow.

The group agreed she should be honest with them, and they prayed together about Patterson telling the children, Rogers said.

All the lunch guests started to fall unwell about 11 or 12 hours later, Rogers said, before being transferred to local hospitals and then to intensive care at hospitals in Melbourne.

Rogers said Patterson had an amicable relationship with her husband, despite their 2015 separation, until November 2022. Simon had maintained hope that the couple would reconcile, Rogers said.

She said at that time Patterson asked why Simon had referred to himself as “separated” on his tax return, and although he said he was willing to amend it she said she would instead be seeking child support payments.

About four weeks before the beef wellington lunch, Patterson invited Simon and his parents, Don and Gail, to lunch.

Simon texted to say he could not come, and the meal passed without incident.

After the subsequent beef wellington lunch, when all the guests became increasingly unwell, medical experts eventually came to the conclusion the symptoms with death cap mushroom poisoning, Rogers said.

Patterson also went to Leongatha hospital, saying she was suffering diarrhoea.

Rogers said that when Patterson was asked on multiple occasions by medical professionals and others, including Don and Gail’s son, Matthew, where the mushrooms for the meal had been sourced. She said half were fresh from Woolworths, and the other half were dried mushrooms bought from an Asian grocer in the Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh or Glen Waverley.

She further specified in these conversations that she had bought a 500g pack of pre-sliced fresh mushrooms from Woolworths, and that the dried mushrooms had been removed from their packaging and placed in a plastic container after they were bought in April, 2023.

Patterson said she made a paste with these mushrooms for the meal, and that she had used all the dried mushrooms, and not cooked with them previously, Rogers said.

Rogers said Patterson initially resisted treatment at Leongatha hospital, and signed a “discharge against medical advice form” before leaving. The jury was shown a still from CCTV footage of Patterson leaving the hospital.

Rogers said a doctor at the hospital, Dr Christopher Webster, was so concerned she had left that he called the police, asking if they could attend her house to force her to return.

Patterson returned about 45 minutes later.

Patterson told Webster her children, aged 9 and 14, had eaten the leftovers, but that she had scraped the mushroom off. When he insisted they be taken from school and assessed, she became upset, Rogers said.

Patterson asked Webster “is this really necessary, they don’t have symptoms, they didn’t eat the mushrooms, I don’t want them to be scared or panicked”, to which Webster replied: “They can be scared and alive, or dead”.

Soon after, Rogers said, the police who had been called by Webster to check on Patterson arrived at her house.

One officer spoke to Patterson via mobile phone, and she directed him to where he could find the leftovers of the meal, in a brown Woolworths bag in an outside bin.

Patterson’s lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, has started his opening submission to the jury.

He said it was not in issue that death cap mushrooms caused the deaths, but that the main issue in the case was that Patterson did not deliberately serve poisoned food to her guests.

“She did not intend to cause any harm to anyone on that day. The defence case is is was a tragedy and terrible accident,” Mandy said.

Beale said in his instructions to the jury on Tuesday that Patterson was no longer accused of attempting to murder her estranged husband.

He told the jury those charges had been discontinued, and that they should remove any consideration of these previous charges.

Beale said during the empanelment that he expected most of the jury pool would have known about the Patterson case, but he wanted them to ignore that previous exposure.

The trial in Morwell continues.

The summer conditions south Asian countries dread each year have arrived alarmingly early, and it’s only April. Much of India and Pakistan is already sweltering in heatwave conditions, in what scientists say is fast becoming the “new normal”.

Temperatures in the region typically climb through May, peaking in June before the monsoon brings relief. But this year, the heat has come early. “As far as Asia and the Indian subcontinent are concerned, there was a quick transition from a short window of spring conditions to summer-like heat,” said GP Sharma, the meteorology president of Skymet, India’s leading private forecaster.

South Asia, home to 1.9 billion people, is particularly vulnerable. Many live in areas highly exposed to extreme heat and lack access to basic cooling, healthcare or water.

In Delhi, where spring usually offers a short spell of mild temperatures, thermometers have risen past 40C in April – “up to 5C above the seasonal average” – according to a report by ClimaMeter, a platform that tracks extreme weather events.

“Human-driven climate change” is to blame for the “dangerous” kind of heat seen in recent weeks, it said.

“These spring heatwaves are not anomalies. They’re signals. We need to move beyond awareness into action,” said Gianmarco Mengaldo, a climate expert at the National University of Singapore and co-author of the report.

Delhi authorities urged schools to cancel afternoon assemblies on Tuesday and issued emergency guidelines to ensure water breaks and stocks of oral rehydration salts in first aid kits, and to treat any signs of heat stress immediately.

Temperatures in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, hit 44C, triggering heatstroke reports among construction workers and farmers. Other states are also grappling with intense heat.

The Indian Meteorological Department has reported an “above-normal number of heatwave days”. Temperatures are expected to climb steadily across the subcontinent, with the highest readings forecast for Wednesday and Thursday.

Pakistan is also reeling. In the city of Shaheed Benazirabad in Sindh province, the mercury has soared to 50C – nearly 8.5C above the April average. In other parts of the country, temperatures have hovered in the high 40s.

“What was once considered rare has become alarmingly common, as climate change accelerates the frequency and severity of such events,” said an editorial in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. The country “remains woefully unprepared for the escalating climate crisis”, it said.

Urban heat is making things worse. Data comparing 1950–1986 with 1987–2023 shows that cities such as Delhi and Islamabad are now up to 3C hotter on average than nearby rural areas.

“When it comes to heatwaves, the question is no longer if they are linked to climate change, but what kind of thresholds we are reaching,” said Mengaldo. “Preparedness is essential. But right now, our infrastructure is not well adapted.”

Natural climate variability such as the El Niño cycle can affect regional weather, but it is now in a neutral phase.

ClimaMeter said: “Compared to pre-1986 levels, similar meteorological conditions now produce temperatures up to 4C higher – almost entirely due to human-driven climate change.”

South Asia is not alone. “In the northern hemisphere spring months, we are already seeing conditions in parts of the Middle East that are incompatible with human life,” said Mengaldo.

“This is very serious for the populations … we also expect summer temperatures in Spain and France to reach unprecedented levels in the next few years,” he said. “Many of the events predicted for 2050 or 2070 are already happening. We underestimated the speed of change. What we’re seeing now is an acceleration – a failure of our predictive models.”

David Faranda, a senior climate scientist with the French National Centre for Scientific Research and co-author of the report, said: “The only sustainable solution is to stop burning fossil fuels and reduce emissions. Without drastically reducing emissions and building climate resilience through better insulation, use of green energy, and other moves, the implications are alarming.”

“Even if we act now, the climate system will take decades – sometimes over a century – to cool down,” Mengaldo added. “The sea level rise is already locked in for hundreds of years.”

Both researchers stressed economic inequality and infrastructure played a critical role in determining who survives extreme heat. “There are different temperature thresholds – actual temperature, [humidity index] and others,” said Mengaldo. “Economic levels play a huge role in how people can cope and sustain themselves.”

Delhi has updated its heat action plan, focusing on vulnerable groups such as elderly people, construction workers, and street vendors. But implementation is inconsistent.

Faranda said adaptation was increasingly unaffordable for many heat-prone countries, with electricity grids buckling and causing widespread power cuts. “When multiple events occur, there’s often no escape,” he said.

Mengaldo highlighted the need for innovation: “We need better-insulated housing, materials that prevent energy loss, and architectural designs that promote natural cooling. These can significantly reduce energy demand during extreme heat.”

Faranda also said people must change their lifestyles. “Energy demand keeps increasing. If we want to survive the coming decades, we must not only build more renewables but also reduce energy consumption overall: through lifestyle changes, efficient architecture, and better materials.”

The summer conditions south Asian countries dread each year have arrived alarmingly early, and it’s only April. Much of India and Pakistan is already sweltering in heatwave conditions, in what scientists say is fast becoming the “new normal”.

Temperatures in the region typically climb through May, peaking in June before the monsoon brings relief. But this year, the heat has come early. “As far as Asia and the Indian subcontinent are concerned, there was a quick transition from a short window of spring conditions to summer-like heat,” said GP Sharma, the meteorology president of Skymet, India’s leading private forecaster.

South Asia, home to 1.9 billion people, is particularly vulnerable. Many live in areas highly exposed to extreme heat and lack access to basic cooling, healthcare or water.

In Delhi, where spring usually offers a short spell of mild temperatures, thermometers have risen past 40C in April – “up to 5C above the seasonal average” – according to a report by ClimaMeter, a platform that tracks extreme weather events.

“Human-driven climate change” is to blame for the “dangerous” kind of heat seen in recent weeks, it said.

“These spring heatwaves are not anomalies. They’re signals. We need to move beyond awareness into action,” said Gianmarco Mengaldo, a climate expert at the National University of Singapore and co-author of the report.

Delhi authorities urged schools to cancel afternoon assemblies on Tuesday and issued emergency guidelines to ensure water breaks and stocks of oral rehydration salts in first aid kits, and to treat any signs of heat stress immediately.

Temperatures in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, hit 44C, triggering heatstroke reports among construction workers and farmers. Other states are also grappling with intense heat.

The Indian Meteorological Department has reported an “above-normal number of heatwave days”. Temperatures are expected to climb steadily across the subcontinent, with the highest readings forecast for Wednesday and Thursday.

Pakistan is also reeling. In the city of Shaheed Benazirabad in Sindh province, the mercury has soared to 50C – nearly 8.5C above the April average. In other parts of the country, temperatures have hovered in the high 40s.

“What was once considered rare has become alarmingly common, as climate change accelerates the frequency and severity of such events,” said an editorial in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. The country “remains woefully unprepared for the escalating climate crisis”, it said.

Urban heat is making things worse. Data comparing 1950–1986 with 1987–2023 shows that cities such as Delhi and Islamabad are now up to 3C hotter on average than nearby rural areas.

“When it comes to heatwaves, the question is no longer if they are linked to climate change, but what kind of thresholds we are reaching,” said Mengaldo. “Preparedness is essential. But right now, our infrastructure is not well adapted.”

Natural climate variability such as the El Niño cycle can affect regional weather, but it is now in a neutral phase.

ClimaMeter said: “Compared to pre-1986 levels, similar meteorological conditions now produce temperatures up to 4C higher – almost entirely due to human-driven climate change.”

South Asia is not alone. “In the northern hemisphere spring months, we are already seeing conditions in parts of the Middle East that are incompatible with human life,” said Mengaldo.

“This is very serious for the populations … we also expect summer temperatures in Spain and France to reach unprecedented levels in the next few years,” he said. “Many of the events predicted for 2050 or 2070 are already happening. We underestimated the speed of change. What we’re seeing now is an acceleration – a failure of our predictive models.”

David Faranda, a senior climate scientist with the French National Centre for Scientific Research and co-author of the report, said: “The only sustainable solution is to stop burning fossil fuels and reduce emissions. Without drastically reducing emissions and building climate resilience through better insulation, use of green energy, and other moves, the implications are alarming.”

“Even if we act now, the climate system will take decades – sometimes over a century – to cool down,” Mengaldo added. “The sea level rise is already locked in for hundreds of years.”

Both researchers stressed economic inequality and infrastructure played a critical role in determining who survives extreme heat. “There are different temperature thresholds – actual temperature, [humidity index] and others,” said Mengaldo. “Economic levels play a huge role in how people can cope and sustain themselves.”

Delhi has updated its heat action plan, focusing on vulnerable groups such as elderly people, construction workers, and street vendors. But implementation is inconsistent.

Faranda said adaptation was increasingly unaffordable for many heat-prone countries, with electricity grids buckling and causing widespread power cuts. “When multiple events occur, there’s often no escape,” he said.

Mengaldo highlighted the need for innovation: “We need better-insulated housing, materials that prevent energy loss, and architectural designs that promote natural cooling. These can significantly reduce energy demand during extreme heat.”

Faranda also said people must change their lifestyles. “Energy demand keeps increasing. If we want to survive the coming decades, we must not only build more renewables but also reduce energy consumption overall: through lifestyle changes, efficient architecture, and better materials.”

The media world is undergoing a “sea change” in which some traditional titles disappear, Piers Morgan has predicted, as he said some YouTube channels would soon have as much power as traditional network television.

The presenter and former newspaper editor, who is holding funding talks to expand his YouTube business, predicted more established media figures would soon follow him to the increasingly influential streaming service as audience habits continue to shift.

“It’ll be like when vinyl music moves to digital,” he said. “People thought it would take a long time. Actually, it was like that.

“Certain newspapers just won’t exist in the UK. Which newspapers will still have a print edition in 10 years’ time? Look at what young people do. I don’t see anyone under 45 buying a print newspaper. So there’s a ticking clock. If people don’t listen to that ticking clock beating loudly in their ears, they’re going to get a very nasty surprise. This is the wake-up moment.”

Morgan now owns the rights to his YouTube channel, Piers Morgan Uncensored, which he secured from Rupert Murdoch’s empire after the expiry of a News UK deal that paid him a reported £50m over three years. After just turning 60, he admits the transition has been a “learning curve”, but he is now an evangelist for YouTube and its combination of flexibility and low costs.

He said his decision to go “full fledged” into the streaming service was driven by his four children. “All of them watch YouTube,” he said. “None of them watch actual television, other than for live sport. Until a year ago, I was trudging into an old-fashioned, structured, 8pm live news show, when in fact there was no need to do that. It was a very expensive way of disseminating something I can do to a global audience, a lot cheaper – but also much faster and much longer.”

While Morgan is a figure who divides opinion, his move into YouTube is part of a wider trend that has seen media figures – particularly on the US political right – forge channels with millions of subscribers. Morgan is aiming to replicate the success of The Daily Wire, a US conservative media company co-founded by the rightwing political commentator Ben Shapiro. Its roster includes the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson.

YouTube is becoming hugely influential right across the media, with broadcasters such as ITV and Channel 4 now placing some content on it. Podcasters also increasingly stream their shows there. It has led to significant financial muscle. In the first three months of 2025 alone, YouTube’s advertising revenue was $8.9bn (£6.64bn), an increase on the previous year of more than 10%. Meanwhile, revenue at Channel 4 for the whole of 2023 was about £1bn, the latest year available.

Morgan pointed to the US election last year. YouTube said more than 45 million people in the US watched election-related content on polling day. Meanwhile, an average of 42.3 million viewers watched across 18 cable and broadcast networks that evening. While the figures are not directly comparable, Morgan said: “If that doesn’t tell you where the eyeballs are going, I don’t know what will.”

He said some “big, big names” in journalism have been in touch to ask if they could make the switch. “I also think that legacy media companies have to look at people like me and others and think, why are they going off on their own and into this world,” he said. “A lot more people will do what I’m doing. I’m getting a lot of very interesting calls from journalists.”

Morgan is now drawing up plans to attempt something similar to Gary Lineker’s Goalhanger Productions, which has created a series of successful podcasts in the UK. Morgan wants to create channels under the Uncensored brand covering genres like true crime, history and sport. However, he is aiming squarely and apologetically at the US and a global audience, not Britain – whose audience he describes as “pretty well irrelevant” to his plans.

“You’ve seen what Gary Lineker has done, he’s a good friend of mine, with Goalhanger in the UK, but he would be the first to tell you that the most successful [podcast for Goalhanger] in terms of revenue is The Rest is History, because it’s big in America,” he said. “It’s not the football one with him on it. It’s the history one. Those guys go over to America and do big live shows, and it’s huge over there.

“I hardly ever cover UK news. We didn’t even touch the last election, because my whole prism is through the lens of: ‘Will an American want to watch this? Will somebody in the Middle East want to watch this? Will someone in Australia want to watch this?.’”

Morgan said his expansion plans were in part to lower the reliance on him personally and build something that could stand on its own – a much harder task than building a following around an established figure. He said it was “early days”, but was being bullish with potential investors as the business was already profitable.

“I don’t need the money,” he said. “We’ve got nearly 4 million subscribers … My question to investors is not so much, ‘Give me your money.’ It’s ‘Why should I take your money and what are you going to bring to the party?’”

One of Indonesia’s largest nickel-mining companies, which supplies a mineral critical to the global electric car industry, did not tell the public that local drinking water was polluted, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

Indonesia has become the world’s biggest producer of nickel, used in the production of wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicle batteries. But observers have voiced concerns that regulatory oversight in the country has failed to keep up with the rush to develop mines to satisfy booming global demand.

Leaked documents seen by the Guardian suggest a source of drinking water close to a $1bn (£800m) mining project owned by the Indonesia-based Harita Group on remote Obi Island, was contaminated with unsafe levels of hexavalent chromium (Cr6), the cancer-causing chemical more widely known for its role in the Erin Brockovich story and film.

Cr6 can cause liver damage, reproductive problems and developmental harm when ingested or inhaled. Long-term exposure through drinking water has also been linked to stomach cancer. Evidence has shown that Cr6 in drinking water can be a result of industrial processes.

The leak comes after a Guardian investigation into pollution at the site in 2022 was disputed by the mining company, which extracts and processes nickel for use in EV batteries.

For the 2022 investigation, water samples collected from a spring in the village of Kawasi, less than 200 metres from the mining site, were tested at government-certified laboratories and suggested high levels of contamination from carcinogenic Cr6 of 60 parts per billion (ppb). The maximum contaminant level allowed by law in Indonesia is 50ppb.

In response to the Guardian’s original investigation, a Harita company said its own results had shown that the spring water was suitable for consumption and met the quality standards set by the Indonesian government.

However, the leaked documents and emails suggest a Harita company found the Cr6 values in Kawasi spring, used as drinking water by villagers, in excess of Indonesian quality standards just one day after its statement to the contrary. It then found even higher values in subsequent days. It does not appear to have made this data public.

The Guardian was given a chance to review the material by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in a joint investigation with the Gecko Project, an environmental organisation.

The material suggests tests of Kawasi’s spring water undertaken by a Harita company found Cr6 concentrations of 70ppb on 1 February 2022, one day after the Harita company provided its statement to the Guardian. On 7 February 2022 a value of 128ppb was recorded.

A weekly environment report from December 2022 reported that values of 140ppb had been recorded at the spring.

Harita has not responded to requests for comment on the leaked material and test results but in a press release published on its website this month, the company said it conducts periodic monitoring of the water at Kawasi spring to ensure it is safe and uncontaminated.

Environmental health experts have said the test results suggest a significant issue with pollution.

Matthew Baird, an environmental lawyer based in south-east Asia, said: “These are figures that need to be taken into account not just by the company, but also the Indonesian government.”

“Nickel is meant to be one of the transition metals [to move to a green, low-carbon economy] and we require a just transition to ensure the protection of the environment, human rights and the community,” he said.

The embattled UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, has accused Israel of abusing dozens of its staff in military detention and using some as human shields.

The head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, said that more than 50 staff members, including teachers, doctors and social workers, had been detained and abused since the start of the 18-month-long war in Gaza.

“They have been treated in the most shocking & inhumane way. They reported being beaten + used as human shields,” Lazzarini wrote on X.

Those detained had been subjected to “sleep deprivation, humiliation, threats of harm to them & their families + attacks by dogs … [and] forced confessions”.

UN officials said the reported abuse had taken place both in Gaza and in military detention sites in Israel.

The Israeli military has not responded directly to Lazzarini’s accusation, but has previously denied allegations of widespread abuse in its detention facilities and by its troops.

It has, however, launched investigations into abuse by individual soldiers during the war, and into the use of detainees as human shields, bringing charges against service personnel in some cases.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it acted in accordance with Israeli law and international law, and protects the rights of individuals held in detention facilities under its responsibility.

“Any abuse of detainees, whether during their detention or during interrogation, violates the law and the directives of the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] and as such is strictly prohibited,” the statement said.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), said on Tuesday that Israel had released a medic held since a deadly and hugely controversial attack by Israeli troops on ambulances in southern Gaza on 23 March.

Eight PRCS staff members, six from the Gaza civil defence agency and one Unrwa employee were killed in the attack, according to the UN humanitarian office OCHA.

The killings sparked international condemnation, including concern from the UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, about possible war crimes.

Relations between Israel and Unrwa have deteriorated since the beginning of the war, which was triggered by a surprise attack by Hamas militants in southern Israel in October 2023 during which they killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 hostage.

Israel banned all cooperation with Unrwa’s activities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank earlier this year, and claims the agency has been infiltrated by Hamas, an allegation that has been fiercely contested.

The international court of justice, the UN’s highest court, is hearing statements from dozens of countries and organisations before delivering a legal opinion on Israel’s humanitarian obligations to Palestinians. A key issue is whether Israel’s ban on Unrwa’s operations in Palestine is legal.

Israel is not participating at the ICJ but has dismissed the hearings as “part of the systematic persecution and delegitimization” of the country. The foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said on Sunday that the hearings were “another attempt to politicise and abuse the legal process to persecute Israel”.

“The goal is to deprive Israel of its most basic right to defend itself,” he said. “It is not Israel that should be on trial. It is the UN and Unrwa. The UN has become a rotten, anti-Israel and antisemitic body.”

The hearings come amid an intensifying bombardment of Gaza, which had killed at least 27 Palestinians in the past 36 hours, according to local health officials on Monday. The Israeli military said airstrikes had killed three militant commanders and that all targets were “subject to relevant provisions of international humanitarian law, including the taking of feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.

Palestinian health officials in the territory say 2,151 people, including 732 children, have been killed since Israel broke a fragile ceasefire on 18 March that had been in place since mid-January.

Israel imposed a tight blockade on Gaza almost two months ago, stopping all food, fuel, medicines and other items from entering. It says the measure is intended to force Hamas into releasing hostages and accuses it of systematically stealing humanitarian assistance.

Rights groups accuse Israel of using a “starvation tactic” that endangers the whole population, potentially making it a war crime.

Humanitarian workers say supplies are running desperately low, with most people eating one meal or less a day. Major agencies such as the World Food Programme and Unrwa have distributed their last stocks of flour and other basic foodstuffs, and medics say malnutrition levels are rising.

Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements and other deals.

Families of deceased hostages called on Tuesday for the return of their loved ones’ remains. There are fears that poor conditions and continuing fighting could lead to many being destroyed or soon becoming unidentifiable.

“After everything we went through on that day and since, it cannot be that my father’s body will also disappear from the face of the Earth,” said Bar Godard, whose parents were killed during the 2023 Hamas raid and whose father’s body was taken to Gaza.

Negotiations for a fresh ceasefire appear to have stalled, with conflicting reports about progress in ongoing talks. Few observers expect a breakthrough in the near future, though analysts say Donald Trump’s scheduled visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in May could lead to renewed US pressure on Israel that might secure a deal.

Israeli forces have killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since it launched its offensive on Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Bombardments and ground operations have also destroyed vast areas and displaced about 80% of the population, many of them 10 or more times.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed to continue the offensive until all the hostages are returned and Hamas is either destroyed or agrees to disarm and leave the territory.

Three people were killed in a shooting in the Swedish city of Uppsala on Tuesday, police said.

A large area was cordoned off in the centre of Uppsala, a university city 45 miles north of Stockholm, after witnesses described hearing multiple shots at about 5pm local time and seeing people running in different directions and hiding.

A masked person was seen fleeing the crime scene on an electric scooter and a police hunt was under way, said police, who appealed to the public for information.

“Quite soon we encountered three people who appeared to have been shot. They did not need to be taken to hospital,” Magnus Jansson Klarin, a spokesperson for Uppsala police, told Svenska Dagbladet.

“We cannot answer whether there is one or more perpetrators at this time,” he added.

The minister of justice, Gunnar Strömmer, condemned the “brutal act of violence” and said his department was in close contact with police and was closely monitoring developments.

The deadly incident came as the city prepared to celebrate Valborg – a Swedish bonfire festival marking the arrival of spring – on Wednesday, with an event to be attended by thousands of people.

Strömmer said: “A brutal act of violence has occurred in central Uppsala. The police have confirmed that three people have lost their lives.

“This at the same time as the whole of Uppsala has begun the Valborg weekend. What has happened is extraordinarily serious.”

Trains coming in and out of the city were temporarily stopped between about 5.30pm and 6pm local time.

A large police operation was under way near Vaksala Square. TV4 News reported that the incident had taken place inside a hair salon.

Police said they were first alerted to the incident shortly after 5pm when they received several calls from members of the public about loud bangs.

Several people were found with suspected gunshot wounds and police cordoned off a large area while they investigated.

At 7.25pm, police confirmed that three people were dead after the shooting and that relatives were yet to be notified.

“Police are investigating the incident as murder,” the force said in an update. Later a spokesperson said the crime had been declared a special incident.

Exercise can counter the detrimental effects of cancer treatment, according to the most comprehensive review of its kind.

Several studies have evaluated how physical activity affects the health outcomes of patients with the disease, but significant gaps in the evidence have remained until now.

The review of pooled data analyses of randomised controlled trial results published between 2012 and 2024 suggests that exercise can significantly reduce side-effects associated with treatment for cancer, such as heart and nerve damage and brain fog. Before this study, no such comprehensive evaluation had been published.

Exercise also seems to boost psychological wellbeing and overall quality of life, lending weight to its routine inclusion in treatment protocols for the disease, the study’s authors said.

The findings of the review, led by Shengjing hospital of China Medical University, were published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. It included 485 associations from 80 articles, all evaluated as being of moderate to high quality. Types of exercise studied included aerobic and resistance exercise, high-intensity interval training, tai chi and yoga, among others.

Exercise significantly reduced various side-effects associated with cancer and its treatment compared with usual care or no exercise, the study found.

It lessened heart and peripheral nerve damage associated with chemotherapy, brain fog (cognitive impairment) and shortness of breath (dyspnoea).

It also changed body composition and key physiological indicators of health, such as insulin, insulin-like growth factor, and C-reactive protein in people with cancer.

Exercise also improved sleep quality, psychological wellbeing, the normal workings of the body and social interaction, while boosting overall quality of life.

There was evidence of high to moderate certainty that preoperative exercise reduced the risk of postoperative complications, pain, length of hospital stay, and risk of death.

“In conclusion, this study reinforces the efficacy of incorporating exercise into cancer treatment protocols,” the researchers wrote.

“Moderate- to high-certainty evidence showed that exercise, compared with usual care or no exercise, significantly reduced cancer-related adverse events, improved body composition and biomarkers, enhanced sleep quality, psychological wellbeing, physical function, social interaction and overall QoL [quality of life].”

Celene Doherty, a specialist cancer information nurse at Cancer Research UK, who was not involved with the study, said it provided further evidence that exercise could help reduce side effects from cancer treatment and improve long-term health.

“However, cancer patients go through a lot when they are diagnosed, and focusing on lifestyle changes like being more active might sound overwhelming,” she added.

“It’s important to take things at your own pace and do activities that are right for you.” She said patients who would like advice or support on their situation should speak to their cancer team.