The Trump administration will approve its first sale of military equipment to Ukraine since Donald Trump took office, in an indication that the minerals deal signed by the two countries this week may open a path to renewed weapons shipments.

The state department has certified a proposed licence to export “$50m or more” (£37.6m) of defence hardware and services to Ukraine, according to a communication sent to the US committee on foreign relations. It would mark the first permission of its kind since Trump paused all Ukraine-related military aid shortly after taking office.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Thursday evening that the signing of the long-discussed minerals deal – on much better terms for Ukraine than had previously been expected – was a result of the meeting he held with Trump on the sidelines of the pope’s funeral on Saturday.

“Now we have the first result of the Vatican meeting, which makes it really historic. We are waiting for other results of the meeting,” he said, in his nightly video address.

Zelenskyy hailed the deal as “truly equal”, saying it created “an opportunity for quite significant investment in Ukraine”.

A senior aide said Kyiv hoped that weapons deliveries would resume swiftly. “There is no direct link where it’s written that ‘you will receive these particular weapons’, but it opens the possibility for parallel talks on the purchase of weapons,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to Zelenskyy, during an interview in Kyiv. “The American side is now open to these discussions,” he added.

Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, signed the agreement in Washington on Wednesday, along with the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent. Senior US officials told reporters that they expected Ukraine’s parliament to ratify the deal within a week. The agreement will see a joint fund set up by the two countries, to be financed from new licenses to exploit deposits of critical minerals, oil and gas.

After several weeks when Trump appeared to be soft on Russia and harsh towards Ukraine, authorities in Kyiv hope the dynamic may be changing. Zelenskyy said on Thursday the minerals agreement had “changed significantly during the process” and that it was “now a really equal agreement which allows for investment in Ukraine”.

Most notably, it excludes from its remit money previously sent to Ukraine as military and humanitarian aid, which Trump had repeatedly said he hoped to recoup. It also explicitly states that it should be implemented in a way that does not hamper Ukraine’s integration with the EU and that US companies will not have a monopoly on deals in Ukraine, but merely obtain the right to take part in competitive bids on fair terms.

The final document followed almost three months of back-and-forth negotiation, after the first outline was brought to Kyiv by Bessent and rejected by Zelenskyy as far too punitive to sign. A later signing ceremony was planned at the White House in February, but broke down after Trump and JD Vance turned on Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, prompting an abrupt conclusion of talks and the Ukrainian president being asked to leave.

Asked how Kyiv had been able to improve the terms of the minerals deal, Podolyak claimed that the actual discussions had proceeded in a very different tone to some of Trump’s public statements.

“That’s just the style of this [US] administration, it’s very aggressive with communications. They will allow leaks of the most horrible conditions and so on, but then in reality they negotiate normally and you can achieve a result,” he said. “They just use this aggression to try to improve their starting position,” he added.

Podolyak said that because US weapons supplied would now need to be bought, Kyiv would need to be more selective about what it requested from the US. “I think fairly quickly we will understand which types of weapons, to carefully select the unique weapons the US has. Because if we can produce our own drones, for example, then we will do that here. But there are some critical weapon types which only the US produces and nobody else,” he said.

Zelenskyy has previously expressed interest in spending tens of billions of dollars on buying Patriot air defence systems from the US, suggesting this could be done either through financing from European allies or through the planned minerals fund.

It was not immediately clear what weapons or services the more modest $50m now on the table referred to. The state department is required to notify Congress of significant sales of armaments and military services under the Arms Export Control Act.

Authorisation was sought for a direct commercial sale, which authorises the transfer of “defense articles or defense services made under a Department of State issued license by US industry directly to a foreign buyer”. The intended sale was first reported by the Kyiv Post.

The last aid package to Ukraine came under the Biden administration, when Congress authorised $1bn in spending as the outgoing administration sought to fast-track military aid before Trump took office.

Russia’s reaction to the minerals deal has been muted, with the exception of the hawkish former president Dmitry Medvedev who claimed it was a disaster for Zelenskyy. “Trump has broken the Kyiv regime to the point where they will have to pay for US aid with mineral resources,” he wrote on Telegram. “Now they [Ukrainians] will have to pay for military supplies with the national wealth of a disappearing country.”

• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has hailed the long-discussed minerals deal with the US as “historic”, and suggested it had been much improved during those talks to now become “an equal partnership”. In his nightly address, he said: “The agreement has changed significantly during the preparation process. It is now truly an equal partnership – one that creates opportunities for substantial investment in Ukraine, as well as significant modernisation of Ukraine’s industries and, equally importantly, its legal practices.” He said the deal was the result of a “meaningful meeting” with Donald Trump at the Vatican on the fringes of Pope Francis’s funeral service and that he looks forward to the further results arising from that meeting.

• Ukrainian analysts have noted that Kyiv has apparently been able to extract some major concessions, despite Donald Trump’s repeated claim that Ukraine “has no cards” to play. “Ukraine held the line. Despite enormous pressure, every overreaching demand from the other side was dropped. The final deal looks fair,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics, wrote on X. Notably absent from the final text was the insistence that Ukraine should repay previous military US assistance via the deal, something Trump has previously repeatedly demanded.

• The Kremlin was silent on Wednesday’s agreement, but former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev claimed it meant Trump had “broken the Kyiv regime” because Ukraine would have to pay for US military aid with mineral resources.

• The deal will show the “Russian leadership that there is no daylight between the Ukrainian people and the American people, between our goals,” US treasury secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business Network in an interview. “And again, I think this is a strong signal to the Russian leadership, and it gives President Trump the ability to now negotiate with Russia on even a stronger basis,” he said. His remarks appeared to send a signal to Russia that Washington remains aligned with Kyiv despite question marks over its commitment to its ally since Trump’s return to power upended US diplomacy.

• The Trump administration will approve its first sale of military equipment to Ukraine since Trump took office, in an indication that the minerals deal signed by the two countries this week may open a path to renewed weapons shipments. The state department has certified a proposed licence to export “$50m or more” of defence hardware and services to Ukraine, according to a communication sent to the US committee on foreign relations. Trump paused all Ukraine-related military aid shortly after taking office.

• The state department announced a 30-year veteran of the foreign service to run the US embassy in Kyiv “during this critical moment as we move toward a peace agreement to stop the bloodshed”. The appointment of Julie Davis, now the US ambassador to Cyprus, was announced the day after the minerals deal was signed. She has previously served as ambassador to Belarus and deputy ambassador to Nato. She replaces Bridget Brink, who announced she was leaving the post last month as the Trump administration pushed ahead with plans for peace talks that many believed favoured Moscow.

• French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Thursday that the European Union was preparing a 17th round of sanctions against Russia, describing Vladimir Putin as the “sole obstacle” to peace in Ukraine. The 27-nation bloc has hit Russia with multiple rounds of sanctions in response to its invasion of Ukraine and said earlier this year that it would not lift them before the “unconditional” withdrawal of Moscow’s forces from its neighbour. “We Europeans will accompany this American [sanctions] initiative with a 17th package of sanctions and I committed yesterday to [US senator] Lindsey Graham that we would try to coordinate both the substance and the timing of these two packages of sanctions,” Barrot told AFP in an interview.

• A Russian drone attack late on Thursday set buildings ablaze in Ukraine’s south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia, injuring 14 people, but causing no deaths, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said. Fedorov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, clarified earlier casualty figures, saying a report that one person was killed had proved to be untrue. One man buried under rubble had been pulled out alive, he said. Nine people were being treated in hospital.
  Fedorov said Russian forces had made at least 10 strikes on the city, targeting private homes, high-rise apartment buildings, educational institutions and infrastructure sites.

There is cautious optimism in Kyiv over the terms of the long-discussed US-Ukraine minerals deal, signed on Wednesday, which appear to be more advantageous for Ukraine than most had expected.

Many details are still to be finalised and will be written into a yet-to-be-signed further technical agreement, suggesting that the long saga over the deal may not be quite over. But Ukrainian analysts have noted that Kyiv has apparently been able to extract some major concessions, despite Donald Trump’s repeated claim that Ukraine “has no cards” to play.

“Ukraine held the line. Despite enormous pressure, every overreaching demand from the other side was dropped. The final deal looks fair,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics, wrote on X.

Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said on Thursday that his country would retain “full control over its subsoil, infrastructure and natural resources”. Notably absent from the final text was the insistence that Ukraine should repay previous military US assistance via the deal, something Trump has previously repeatedly demanded. Volodymyr Zelenskyy had rejected signing something that would obligate “10 generations” of Ukrainians to repay. Future potential military assistance to Ukraine, however, will count as investments.

The signed agreement also makes it clear that its terms will not jeopardise Ukraine’s potential future integration with the EU, and also does not subject Ukraine to US legal jurisdiction. It does not lock Ukraine in to partnering only with the US on projects in future, and guarantees only access to bidding processes for US companies on fair terms.

“There’s no requirement to sell everything to the US, or to channel all investment through the fund. The obligation is to give the fund fair market access to future projects,” wrote Mylovanov.

The original idea of some kind of “rare earths” deal was thought up by Zelenskyy’s team. It was part of a “victory plan” unveiled before the US election last year, with the specific goal of interesting Trump in an economic partnership, amid fears that a potential Trump administration would not be as amenable to a values-based argument to support Ukraine as the Biden administration had been.

However it seemed that the gambit had backfired when, soon after taking office, Trump dispatched the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, to Kyiv with the draft of an agreement that “looked like it had been written on the train”, according to one source. The plan appeared to lock Ukraine into all kinds of obligations, while offering Kyiv nothing in return by way of security guarantees, save the rather thin claim that Washington taking a stake in Ukraine’s economy was itself a kind of security guarantee.

Since then, there have been various attempts to revise and revisit the terms of the deal. In late February, Zelenskyy was meant to sign it during a meeting in Washington, but after the vice-president, JD Vance, goaded him into an argument in front of the cameras in the Oval Office, Ukraine’s president was kicked out of the White House without signing.

Earlier this month, it transpired that the Ukrainian justice ministry had hired the US law firm Hogan Lovells to advise on the deal, according to filings with the US Foreign Agents Registration Act registry.

The deal will need to be ratified by Ukraine’s parliament, while discussions will continue over the “technical agreement” that also needs to be finalised and signed. The overall agreement is unlikely to have a huge impact in terms of contracts signed as long as fighting between Ukraine and Russia continues, but the Zelenskyy team hope that getting it signed will increased goodwill towards Kyiv in the Trump administration. The US president in recent days has continued to paint Zelenskyy as a bigger obstacle to a peace deal than Vladimir Putin – although he has gradually inched towards criticism of the Russian leader.

The first rhetorical noises from Washington on the deal were positive. After signing the agreement, Bessent called it the start of a “historic economic partnership” and claimed it showed that the US remained committed to Ukraine as an ally.

“This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centred on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” said Bessent.

Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their posts after they lost the confidence of other administration officials and found themselves without allies at the White House, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The exit of Waltz and Wong marked the conclusion of a fraught tenure. In March, Waltz inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, to a Signal group chat that shared sensitive information about US missile strikes in Yemen before they took place.

Trump announced in a Truth Social post later on Thursday that he would name his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to also take on the job of the national security adviser on an interim basis, and that he would nominate Waltz to be the US ambassador to the United Nations.

The president briefly considered firing Waltz over the Signal episode, but decided he did not want the media to claim the ouster of a cabinet official weeks into his second term. Trump was also mollified by an internal review that found Waltz mistakenly saved the Atlantic editor’s number.

The furore over the Signal group chat, if anything, was widely seen to have bought Waltz and Wong additional time after they had both been on shaky ground for weeks. That was in large part because of a strained working relationship with Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and other top officials.

The interpersonal difficulties extended to Wong, according to a person directly familiar with the ousters. Wong frustrated some officials at other agencies who were involved in national security matters and complained to people in the West Wing that Waltz refused to rein him in, the person said.

In the days after the Signal group chat episode, Waltz sought advice from JD Vance and others in the vice-president’s circle about how to reset relations. Vance counseled Waltz to be more deferential to Wiles, who had pushed for him to get the job, and throw around his weight less.

But Waltz also came under fire from other quarters. Even though he was cleared in the internal review into Signalgate, as it came to be known, Waltz faced pressure for being seen as a war hawk and at odds with Trump’s “America first” agenda.

That included scrutiny at a dinner that Waltz attended with Trump and some of Trump’s allies including Tucker Carlson, who has been skeptical of the adviser. The outside pressure campaign to remove Waltz additionally included an effort led by Steve Bannon, the people said.

And the far-right activist Laura Loomer, who pushed a conspiracy theory that Wong had loyalties to China, weakened Waltz’s power after she went to the White House last month at Trump’s invitation and successfully pushed for Trump to fire a number of Waltz’s staffers.

The gutting of Waltz’s staff was widely seen to have weakened his position inside Trump’s orbit. As Carlson, Bannon and Loomer separately pushed a whisper campaign that Waltz would be out before June, officials in the White House concurred that Waltz’s influence was waning.

This week, it was quietly made clear to Waltz and Wong that their time at the national security council would be coming to an end. Waltz tried to extend his tenure by attending a cabinet meeting on Wednesday but was informed of his removal on Thursday, one of the people said.

The removal of Waltz was so abrupt that it only became clear to many in the White House on Thursday morning. Waltz appeared to sense something was going on before he appeared on Fox News in the morning, but he did not know that he was being pushed out, a person familiar with the matter said.

With Waltz departing just months into the job – having left behind a safe seat in Congress – the national security council has been left without an overarching strategy. Ordinarily, the national security adviser develops a strategy by hashing out plans with other agencies over months.

The US strategy for some major foreign national security issues, including how to engage with China on thorny issues such as its posture towards Taiwan, its priorities in the Indo-Pacific region and adversarial military plans against allies, remains a work in progress.

And with the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Waltz had pressed Trump to hit Russian Vladimir Putin with deep, punitive sanctions if he failed to agree to a peace deal being brokered by Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff. That sort of moderate recommendation in policy discussions may also be gone with Waltz’s removal.

The top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, welcomed the firing but said that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, was most deserving of losing his job.

“They should fire him, but they’re firing the wrong guy. They should be firing Hegseth,” the minority leader told reporters at the Capitol.

He accused Republicans of confirming a defense secretary who was unfit for the job, and predicted scandals similar to Signalgate – where Hegseth, Waltz and other national security officials shared details of airstrikes in Yemen in a group chat – would happen in the future.

“They fired the [national security council] guy, but there are going to be many more problems, just like Signalgate that come out of the defense department, as long as Hegseth is in charge. This is not a one-off. This is going to happen over and over and over again.”

Trump’s move to name Rubio the interim national security adviser took officials at the state department by surprise. Tammy Bruce, the spokesperson for the state department, appeared to learn about the decision from a reporter during a news conference in real time.

The appointment means Rubio has taken on a total of four positions in the administration. In addition to being secretary of state and interim national security adviser, he is also currently serving as the acting USAID administrator and the acting national archivist.

Chris Stein contributed reporting

Secretary of state Marco Rubio – ridiculed as “Little Marco” by Donald Trump during the 2016 Republican primaries – has become one of the most powerful players in the president’s cabinet.

Trump appointed Rubio interim national security adviser on Thursday after Mike Waltz was forced to leave the post, alongside his deputy, Alex Wong, as sources said officials had lost confidence in their leadership.

Waltz has been under intense pressure since the Signal scandal, in which he inadvertently added a journalist to a chat that included real-time operational details on US strikes in Yemen.

It’s an enormous rise for Rubio, the son of undocumented Cuban migrants, who now holds four titles in the Trump administration. Rubio is also the acting administrator for USAID and acting archivist for the National Archives and Records Administration.

Catching up? Here’s what happened on 30 April 2025.

Israel attacked a target near the presidential palace in the Syrian capital, Damascus, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early on Friday, reiterating his vow to protect members of the Druze community.

It marks the second time Israel has struck Syria in as many days, following through on a promise to defend the minority group, which was involved in sectarian violence against Sunni gunmen earlier this week.

The Druze adhere to a faith that is an offshoot of Islam and have followers in Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

The strikes reflect Israel’s deep mistrust of the Sunni Islamists who toppled Bashar al-Assad in December, posing a further challenge to interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s efforts to establish control over the fractured nation.

“Israel struck last night near the presidential palace in Damascus,” Netanyahu said in a joint statement with defence minister Israel Katz. “This is a clear message to the Syrian regime: We will not allow [Syrian] forces to deploy south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community.”

The Israeli military said in a statement it struck “adjacent to the area of the Palace of Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa in Damascus”, without specifying the target. There was no immediate comment from Syria’s authorities.

Since Assad was ousted in December, Israel has seized ground in the south-west, vowed to protect the Druze, lobbied Washington to keep the neighbouring state weak, and has blown up much of the Syrian army’s heavy weapons in the days after he was toppled.

Sharaa, who was an al-Qaida commander before renouncing ties to the group in 2016, has repeatedly vowed to govern Syria in an inclusive way. But incidents of sectarian violence, including the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, have hardened fears among minority groups about the now dominant Islamists.

This week’s sectarian violence began on Tuesday with clashes between Druze and Sunni gunmen in the predominantly Druze area of Jaramana, sparked by a voice recording cursing the Prophet Mohammad and which the Sunni militants suspected was made by a Druze.

More than a dozen people were reported killed on Tuesday, before the violence spread to the mainly Druze town of Sahnaya on Damascus’ outskirts on Wednesday.

British government lawyers have said Israel is bound by the Geneva conventions to give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to Palestinian prisoners and cannot justify its refusal to do so by pointing to Hamas’s treatment of Israeli hostages.

On the fourth day of proceedings at the international court of justice in The Hague, Sally Langrish said there had been “repeated credible reports of ill treatment of Palestinian detainees held in Israeli custody” since the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas on Israel.

She said Hamas’s refusal to give ICRC access to Israeli hostages seized during the attacks could not serve as justification for Israel’s actions. She added that the ICRC played a vital role in protecting and promoting the lives and dignity of the victims of arms conflict.

The UK lawyers also clashed with Israel by insisting that Unrwa, the UN’s Palestinian relief agency, should be regarded as a neutral and impartial body with which the Israeli government had a duty to cooperate to provide aid to the Palestinian people.

Langrish said: “Israel must facilitate full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian provision to the population of Gaza, including food, water and electricity, and must ensure access to medical care in accordance with international humanitarian law.”

Her submission reflected a UK government determination to stand by international law even if it caused severe political difficulties with its close ally Israel. It also exposed clear legal differences with arguments put to the court by the US the day before.

Israel has mounted a total blockade of aid into Gaza since 2 March, leading to mounting reports of desperation among its 2 million people. The ICJ has been asked by the UN general assembly to give an advisory opinion on Israel’s obligations to allow aid into Gaza, and on its duty to cooperate with UN bodies, notably Unrwa.

Israel, along with its chief legal backer, the US, claims ending all cooperation with Unrwa is justified since under the Geneva conventions it is required to facilitate only the provision of aid with neutral bodies, a description it said Unrwa had forfeited because of alleged infiltration by Hamas.

More than 40 countries and bodies, including the UN itself, are giving oral submissions to the UN’s top court.

Dismissing Israeli claims that Unrwa was a Hamas front, Langrish said: “The United Kingdom considers that Unrwa is an impartial humanitarian organisation for the purposes of article 59 of the fourth Geneva convention. Insofar as impartiality is understood as meaning neutrality, Unrwa also satisfies that requirement.”

She said Israel was bound under article 59 as the occupying power “to facilitate the provision of food, stuff, medical supplies and clothing into the occupied Palestinian territories”.

“That obligation continues to apply for so long as part of the population is inadequately supplied. A refusal to negotiate or agree to relief schemes will constitute a violation of article 59,” she said. “This obligation is unconditional. Facilitation requires wholehearted cooperation in the rapid and scrupulous execution of these schemes. This includes the provision of transport, storage and distribution facilities.”

She also pointed out that under article 55, for Israel to meet its obligations to provide relief through a third party such as Unrwa, “the occupying power must ensure the safety and security of that third party as far as possible”.

Israel, she argued, had only a limited right to choose the agency to distribute aid.

Erin Patterson was “extremely aggressive” during a financial dispute with her estranged husband about their children, a Victorian court has heard, as more message exchanges between the former couple were revealed.

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 Leongatha in South Gippsland in 2023.

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.

On Friday, Simon gave evidence for a second day in the trial, under cross-examination from Patterson’s lawyer, Colin Mandy SC. The supreme court is sitting in Morwell.

His evidence largely centred on a series of exchanges with Patterson over text, either using SMS or the messaging app Signal.

Simon was also asked about phone conversations he had with Patterson in the days immediately after the deadly lunch.

One of the conversations, which Simon said he had a “pretty fuzzy” memory of, involved a discussion about how Patterson was feeling.

She was hospitalised after the lunch, but the prosecution allege she was not poisoned with death cap mushrooms, like the rest of her lunch guests.

Simon said “it intrigued me that she didn’t actually ask” about the condition of the other guests during the conversation.

Under questioning from Mandy, however, Simon said that it was “quite possible” that Patterson was aware the other guests were unwell, but did not know how badly.

Another message exchange involved two issues: the financial future of their children and how one of their children was going.

Simon said he believed this exchange in December 2022 occurred before child support authorities calculated that he only had to pay Patterson $38 a month, an amount he agreed was inadequate.

Patterson contacted Simon’s parents about the financial issue and made comments in another group chat, Simon said.

He agreed with Mandy that it had clearly become “emotive” and both of them were frustrated and wanted to resolve it.

“Yeah I can remember a couple of very inflammatory messages to Mum and Dad, and to the group that I was in about that,” Simon told the court.

He agreed with Mandy it had descended into pettiness and that he had sought the assistance of a mediator.

“It wasn’t working … From my point of view, Erin was being extremely aggressive.”

Mandy sought instead to characterise her feelings as being upset.

The arrangement of a pub lunch for Gail’s 70th birthday marked another flashpoint in the relationship.

Messages shown to the court from October 2022 show Patterson becoming upset at what she felt was her being invited as an “afterthought”.

Simon responded that it was “ridiculous” for Patterson to suggest his father had been lying when he said he thought he had invited her days earlier to the lunch.

“I feel very very hurt about that, and your response is to say you’re being ridiculous,” Patterson responded.

She eventually attended the lunch with the two children.

Many of the messages were routine conversations about parenting arrangements or the operation of the live feed for the Sunday service at Korumburra Baptist church, where Ian Wilkinson was the pastor.

The court heard Simon frequently handled the logistics of the live feed from inside the church, while Patterson assisted on a fortnightly basis with ensuring the feed was properly operating online.

Justice Christopher Beale told the jury to rest up over the weekend and ignore anyone who tried to speak with them about the case, which had received “extensive media coverage”.

“You have to shut that conversation down,” he said. “You have to tell them: ‘I can’t talk about it’.”

Simon’s evidence is set to continue on Monday.

A fatal family lunch in regional Victoria is at the centre of a high-profile murder trial that is under way in the state’s supreme court.

Erin Patterson is accused of murdering her estranged husband Simon Patterson’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister and Simon’s aunt, Heather Wilkinson, by feeding them a meal of beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms in July 2023.

She is accused of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, who also attended the lunch at Erin’s home in Leongatha. Wilkinson recovered after spending weeks in hospital.

Patterson has pleaded not guilty to the murder and attempted murder charges. The trial began on 29 April in Morwell and is expected to run for up to six weeks.

Erin Patterson

The jury has heard Erin Patterson, 50, served the four guests individual beef wellingtons when they attended her home for a family lunch on 29 July 2023. Three later died from death cap mushroom poisoning. Patterson has denied deliberately poisoning them.

Patterson invited her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, 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, the court heard.

Erin invited the group to 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.

The court has heard Patterson told her lunch guests she had ovarian cancer. Both the defence and prosecution agree that she had not been diagnosed with the disease.

When Erin and her estranged husband, Simon, met in the early 2000s she was working as an RSPCA representative at the Monash city council, the court heard.

Prior to their marriage, Erin had worked as an accountant and qualified as an air traffic controller at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport.

Simon told the court Erin enjoyed studying and undertook a veterinary science and legal course during their relationship.

Simon Patterson

Simon Patterson, 50, is Erin’s estranged husband and the father of their two children. His parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and aunt, Heather Wilkinson, died after the lunch. His uncle, Ian Wilkinson, became ill but recovered after weeks in hospital.

Simon met Erin while part of an “eclectic” group of friends who worked together at the Monash city council in the early to mid 2000s, the court has heard. Simon worked as a civil engineer at the council.

They married in 2007, and had two children, born in 2009 and 2014. Simon said during the couple’s relationship they shared a love of travel.

There were numerous separations during the course of their relationship, culminating in a final separation in 2015. They had an amicable relationship until November 2022, the prosecution told the court.

Simon had maintained hope that the couple would reconcile, the court heard.

Gail Patterson

Gail Patterson, 70, was Simon’s mother. Gail died the day before her husband, Don, six days after the lunch.

Gail lived with Don in Korumburra, which is a 14-minute drive from where the lunch was held in Leongatha. They had both worked as school teachers.

Don Patterson

Don Patterson, 70, was Simon’s father and Gail’s husband. He died seven days after the lunch was served.

In a memorial for his parents, Simon remembered Gail and Don as “very much a team”, adding: “The fact they died on consecutive days reflected the togetherness they had.”

Simon spoke about overseas trips with his father, including to the Mt Everest base camp. Younger climbers were struck by his father’s fitness when he was then in his 60s, he said.

Don’s son, Simon, told the court his father had a love of knowledge and learning and an “interest in the world” – which he shared with Erin.

He said his father also loved rockets.

Heather Wilkinson

Heather Wilkinson, 66, was Gail’s sister and Simon’s aunt. She died on 4 August 2023.

Heather was a former school teacher and was remembered by her son at her memorial service as a wonderful mother.

Ian Wilkinson

Rev Ian Wilkinson, 70, survived the fatal mushroom lunch. Wilkinson was the pastor at the Korumburra Baptist church.

He was married to Heather for almost 45 years.

He spent weeks in hospital before being discharged in September 2023.

Fourteen national LGBTQ+ charities have written to Keir Starmer seeking an urgent meeting to discuss what they describe as “a genuine crisis for the rights, dignity and inclusion of trans people in the UK” after the supreme court’s ruling on biological sex.

The UK supreme court ruled last month that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 referred only to “a biological woman” and to “biological sex”, with subsequent advice from the equality watchdog amounting to a blanket ban on trans people using toilets and other services of the gender they identify as.

The letter to the prime minister, signed by the leaders of Stonewall, Scottish Trans, the LGBT Consortium, TransActual and others, said the judgment had created “confusion and a significant lack of clarity about what this means for businesses, services and civil society and most importantly the impact on trans people”.

The text, seen by the Guardian, suggests the judgment turns previous understanding of the Equality Act “completely on its head”, creating “a legal framework that simply cannot uphold the dignity, protection and respect of trans people”.

It is particularly critical of the interim update issued by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) last Friday, which said transgender people “should not be permitted” to use facilities of the gender they identify with. The letter suggests this amounts to “significant overreach” that is inconsistent with the UK’s obligations under the Human Rights Act and the European convention on human rights.

But the chair of the EHRC, Kishwer Falkner, hit back at critics in an opinion piece in the House magazine, saying “it is unacceptable to question the integrity of the judiciary, or indeed the regulator, as some have done”.

Acknowledging that “the public discourse on this topic continues to be polarised”, Lady Falkner called on “every legislator to read the judgment in full”, saying she regretted “any uncertainty among duty bearers and the public that has been fuelled by misunderstanding and distortion, particularly across social media”.

Praising the judgment as “a model of clarity”, she underlined that “the law it sets out is effective immediately. Those with duties under the Equality Act should be following it and taking specialist legal advice where necessary”.

Falkner also dismissed claims that trans people were not being listened to as “simply incorrect”, pointing to the commission’s plans to open a two-week public consultation in May to understand how the practical implications of the judgment can be reflected in an updated code of practice.

The nonprofit legal organisation Good Law Project (GLP), which has raised more than £284,000 to challenge the supreme court’s judgment, said it was working on about 20 related legal initiatives, including one case already before the courts. In an update to donors, GLP added it had instructed an expert team to produce legal advice on what the court’s decision meant and would produce guidance for the trans community on what to do if they are challenged for using the spaces that align with their gender.

Fourteen national LGBTQ+ charities have written to Keir Starmer seeking an urgent meeting to discuss what they describe as “a genuine crisis for the rights, dignity and inclusion of trans people in the UK” after the supreme court’s ruling on biological sex.

The UK supreme court ruled last month that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 referred only to “a biological woman” and to “biological sex”, with subsequent advice from the equality watchdog amounting to a blanket ban on trans people using toilets and other services of the gender they identify as.

The letter to the prime minister, signed by the leaders of Stonewall, Scottish Trans, the LGBT Consortium, TransActual and others, said the judgment had created “confusion and a significant lack of clarity about what this means for businesses, services and civil society and most importantly the impact on trans people”.

The text, seen by the Guardian, suggests the judgment turns previous understanding of the Equality Act “completely on its head”, creating “a legal framework that simply cannot uphold the dignity, protection and respect of trans people”.

It is particularly critical of the interim update issued by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) last Friday, which said transgender people “should not be permitted” to use facilities of the gender they identify with. The letter suggests this amounts to “significant overreach” that is inconsistent with the UK’s obligations under the Human Rights Act and the European convention on human rights.

But the chair of the EHRC, Kishwer Falkner, hit back at critics in an opinion piece in the House magazine, saying “it is unacceptable to question the integrity of the judiciary, or indeed the regulator, as some have done”.

Acknowledging that “the public discourse on this topic continues to be polarised”, Lady Falkner called on “every legislator to read the judgment in full”, saying she regretted “any uncertainty among duty bearers and the public that has been fuelled by misunderstanding and distortion, particularly across social media”.

Praising the judgment as “a model of clarity”, she underlined that “the law it sets out is effective immediately. Those with duties under the Equality Act should be following it and taking specialist legal advice where necessary”.

Falkner also dismissed claims that trans people were not being listened to as “simply incorrect”, pointing to the commission’s plans to open a two-week public consultation in May to understand how the practical implications of the judgment can be reflected in an updated code of practice.

The nonprofit legal organisation Good Law Project (GLP), which has raised more than £284,000 to challenge the supreme court’s judgment, said it was working on about 20 related legal initiatives, including one case already before the courts. In an update to donors, GLP added it had instructed an expert team to produce legal advice on what the court’s decision meant and would produce guidance for the trans community on what to do if they are challenged for using the spaces that align with their gender.

A Soviet-era spacecraft meant to land on Venus in the 1970s is expected to soon plunge uncontrolled back to Earth.

It’s too early to know where the half-ton mass of metal might come down or how much of it will survive re-entry, according to space debris-tracking experts.

Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek predicts the failed spacecraft will re-enter about 10 May. He estimates it will come crashing in at 150mph (242km/h), if it remains intact.

“While not without risk, we should not be too worried,” Langbroek said in an email.

The object is relatively small and, even if it doesn’t break apart, “the risk is similar to that of a random meteorite fall, several of which happen each year. You run a bigger risk of getting hit by lightning in your lifetime,” he said.

The chance of the spacecraft actually hitting someone or something is small, he added. “But it cannot be completely excluded.”

The Soviet Union launched the spacecraft known as Kosmos 482 in 1972, one of a series of Venus missions. But it never made it out of Earth orbit because of a rocket malfunction.

Most of it came tumbling down within a decade. But Langbroek and others believe the landing capsule itself — a spherical object about 3ft (1 metre) in diameter — has been circling the world in a highly elliptical orbit for the past 53 years, gradually dropping in altitude.

It’s quite possible that the 1,000lb-plus (nearly 500kg) spacecraft will survive re-entry. It was built to withstand a descent through the carbon dioxide-thick atmosphere of Venus, said Langbroek of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Experts doubt the parachute system would work after so many years. The heat shield may also be compromised after so long in orbit.

It would be better if the heat shield fails, which would cause the spacecraft to burn up during its dive through the atmosphere, Jonathan McDowell at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said in an email. But if the heat shield holds, “it’ll re-enter intact and you have a half-ton metal object falling from the sky”.

The spacecraft could re-enter anywhere between 51.7 degrees north and south latitude, or as far north as London and Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, almost all the way down to South America’s Cape Horn. But since most of the planet is water, “chances are good it will indeed end up in some ocean”, Langbroek said.

In 2022, a Chinese booster rocket made an uncontrolled return to Earth and in 2018 the Tiangong-1 space station re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the south Pacific after an uncontrolled re-entry.

The mystery of a mummy from an Austrian village has been solved, according to researchers who say it was embalmed in an unexpected way – via the rectum.

Intrigue had long swirled around the mummified body stored in the church crypt of St Thomas am Blasenstein. The remains were rumoured to be the naturally preserved corpse of an aristocratic vicar, Franz Xaver Sidler von Rosenegg, who died in 1746 at the aged of 37, gaining the mummy the moniker of the “air-dried chaplain”.

Now experts say they have discovered the body was embalmed with the abdominal and pelvic cavities packed with wood chips, fragmented twigs, fabrics such as hemp and silk, and zinc chloride – materials that would have absorbed fluids inside the body.

Dr Andreas Nerlich, a pathologist at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany and first author of the study, said the discovery was a surprise as there was no external evidence for such a process.

“The body wall was not opened – therefore the only entrance possible was the rectum,” he said, noting this was very different from previously known methods of embalming, including those from ancient Egypt.

Writing in the journal Frontiers in Medicine, Nerlich and colleagues reported how the mummy had previously been externally examined by experts and studied via X-rays among other investigations. While the X-rays did not detect the internal stuffing, they did reveal a round structure inside the mummy’s left lower bowel – leading to rumours that the individual had died after swallowing a poisonous capsule.

During a recent renovation of the crypt, Nerlich and colleagues gained approval to carry out a partial autopsy, CT scans and other analyses. The researchers discovered the mummy – which has a well-preserved upper body, but decay to the face, lower legs and feet – is that of a man, most likely between 35 and 45 years of age, with radiocarbon dating of a skin sample suggesting he died between 1734 and 1780.

The team note these insights fit with what is know about Sidler, adding that an analysis of bone, tooth and skin samples revealed the man’s diet was consistent with that of a local parish vicar in the region, being rich in animal products and central European grain varieties.

As expected for a man of the cloth who had an easy life, the skeleton showed no signs of stress – while the corpse showed evidence of long-term pipe-smoking and bunions. “Both wearing pointy shoes and smoking [a] pipe are very typical for a priest at that time,” said Nerlich.

As for the “poisonous capsule”, the researchers discovered the object was a single glass bead – similar to those used for rosaries – that may have entered the body as a decoration on the fabric used for stuffing.

Sidler’s cause of death, the team added, was most likely severe bleeding into the lungs as a result of tuberculosis, with the body showing signs of the disease.

Yet why Sidler was embalmed remains unclear. While the team said the evidence suggests it was carried out to avoid the spread of infection by miasma – or “bad air” – Nerlich said another potential explanation was that Sidler was preserved for transport to his home monastery of Waldhausen.

And he may not have been the only one to receive such treatment. “This is the first case with this type of documented embalming,” Nerlich said. “So we have no idea how often or where this has been performed, although we assume that this type of ‘short-term preservation’ was used much more often than we might expect from this single case.”

Jill Sobule, the singer-songwriter whose hits included the satirical anthem Supermodel from the Clueless movie soundtrack and the groundbreaking single I Kissed a Girl, has died in a house fire at the age of 66.

Sobule’s body was found in a home in Woodbury, Minnesota, on Thursday. Authorities are investigating the cause of the fire.

Her manager, John Porter, confirmed her death in a statement to the Minnesota Star Tribute.

“Jill Sobule was a force of nature and human rights advocate whose music is woven into our culture. I was having so much fun working with her,” Porter said in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter.

“I lost a client and a friend today. I hope her music, memory and legacy continue to live on and inspire others.”

According to her website, Sobule had been due to perform on Friday in her native Denver, to showcase songs from her autobiographical stage musical, F*ck 7th Grade, which was nominated in 2023 for a Drama Desk award.

Sobule was remembered for a diverse body of music that ranged from deeply intimate to socially conscious themes in a recording career that spanned a dozen albums starting in 1990 with her Todd Rungren-produced debut collection, Things Here Are Different.

Her eponymous 1995 album included two of her biggest hits, Supermodel from the Hollywood coming-of-age comedy Clueless, and I Kissed a Girl, widely regarded as the first openly LGBTQ-themed song to crack the Billboard top 20 singles chart. It peaked at No. 20 that year.

The song drew renewed attention in 2008 when Katy Perry released a different single of her own with the same title.

Tourist Nash Core admits he felt some fear when he and his 11-year-old son waded into the ocean off the Australian coast to help rescue a three-metre great white shark stranded in shallow water.

Three local men managed to return the distressed animal from a sand bank into deeper water after an almost hour-long rescue effort on Tuesday near the coastal town of Ardrossan in South Australia.

“It was either sick or … just tired,” said Core, who was visiting with his family from the Gold Coast in Queensland. “We definitely got it into some deeper water, so hopefully it’s swimming still.”

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Core came across the unusual human-shark interaction while travelling around Australia with his wife, Ash Core, and their sons, Parker, 11, and Lennox, 7.

Nash Core used his drone to shoot video of the writhing shark before he and Parker decided to help the trio who were struggling to move the shark into deeper water.

“To be honest, I did have some thoughts about, ‘oh, why am I going out here?’” Core said on Thursday.

“As we were going out, my young son, Parker, turned to me and said … ‘My heart’s pounding’. I said, ‘Yeah, mine’s beating pretty fast too’.”

The three men had used crab rakes – a garden rake-like tool for digging small crabs from sand – to move the shark into deeper water by the time the father and son arrived.

Core said he decided against pushing the shark himself.

“They … got it into deeper water where I thought it’s probably not a good idea to go any further. That’s its territory and I’ll stay back,” he said.

Core said the rescuers later told him they had never seen a beached shark before.

Macquarie University wildlife scientist Vanessa Pirotta said while shark strandings were not common, they were becoming more visible through social media.

There could be a number of reasons why marine animals like sharks might strand, including illness and injury. The shark could also have chased prey into the shallows, Pirotta said.

“If you see something like this, human safety comes first and foremost,” Pirotta said. “You can contact environmental authorities … who will get someone appropriate to come and assist.”