A ship carrying humanitarian aid and activists to Gaza has been bombed by drones and disabled while in international waters off Malta as it headed towards the Palestinian territory, its organisers have said.

“At 00:23 Maltese time, the Conscience, a Freedom Flotilla Coalition ship came under direct attack in international waters,” the group said in a statement.

“Armed drones attacked the front of an unarmed civilian vessel twice, causing a fire and a substantial breach in the hull,” it added, blaming Israel.

The strike appeared to target the boat’s generator early on Friday, leaving the boat without power and at risk of sinking, the activists said. Images posted to social media by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition showed a fierce blaze onboard the ship and two explosions.

There was no confirmation or further evidence of the claim that drones caused the blasts, but images of the Conscience provided by Cypriot authorities showed significant damage.

Twelve crew members and four civilians were “confirmed safe”, the Maltese government said in a statement on Friday. “The vessel had 12 crew members onboard and four civilian passengers; no casualties were reported,” the statement said, adding that a nearby tug had been directed to aid the vessel.

The group said activists from 21 countries were onboard on a “mission to challenge Israel’s illegal and deadly siege of Gaza and to deliver desperately needed, life-saving aid”.

The statement read: “Israeli ambassadors must be summoned and answer to violations of international law, including the ongoing blockade and the bombing of our civilian vessel in international waters.”

Israel has not commented on the allegation.

According to the monitoring website MarineTraffic, the Conscience left the Tunisian port of Bizerte on Tuesday and arrived in the area where it reported being attacked on Thursday morning. The ship appeared to be heading to Malta to pick up activists, including the climate-change campaigner Greta Thunberg.

Thunberg confirmed to Reuters she was in Malta and had been supposed to board the ship.

“I was part of the group who was supposed to board that boat today to continue the voyage towards Gaza, which is one of many attempts to open up a humanitarian corridor and to do our part to keep trying to break Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza,” she said. “This attack caused an explosion and major damage to the vessel, which made it impossible to continue the mission.”

Thunberg and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said there were 30 people onboard, not 16 as the Maltese government said.

The group said it had been organising a non-violent action under a media blackout in order to avoid any potential sabotage.

A previous sailing launched by the coalition from southern Turkey in 2010 ended in bloodshed when Israeli forces stormed the Mavi Marmara vessel, killing 10 people and wounding 28.

Israel imposed a tight blockade on Gaza two months ago, allowing no food, fuel, medicine or other item into the territory, and resumed intense military operations in Gaza in mid-March after a fragile ceasefire collapsed.

Humanitarian organisations in Gaza have distributed the last of their stocks of flour and other foodstuffs. Officials in the devastated Palestinian territory said on Friday that the kitchens that serve basic meals to those with no other option would be forced to close within a week to 10 days.

On Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it would not have access to food, medicine and life-saving supplies needed for many of its Gaza programmes unless aid deliveries resumed immediately.

“Aid must be allowed to enter Gaza. Hostages must be released. Civilians must be protected,” it said. “Without immediate action, Gaza will descend further into chaos that humanitarian efforts will not be able to mitigate.”

Medical workers in Gaza’s remaining health facilities said they were now prioritising cases to make sure available medical stocks were reserved for the most serious. Medicine for chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure is virtually unobtainable, officials said.

“I don’t know how people are managing. They have lost everything. The displacement continues every day and more people are searching for shelter and whatever they need to survive,” said Amjad Shawa, the director of the Palestinian NGOs Network in Gaza.

A UN team has been sent to the devastated Palestinian territory to assess levels of malnutrition and the risk of famine.

Israeli officials justify the blockade with claims that Hamas routinely steals aid, distributing it to its fighters or selling it. Aid officials in Gaza deny any widespread theft of aid in recent months.

Media in Israel have reported a plan to use private contractors to distribute food from centralised hubs protected by the Israeli military to Palestinians who have been vetted. Humanitarian officials in Gaza say the plan is unworkable and potentially illegal.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s attack on southern Israel in October 2023, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that at least 2,326 people had been killed since Israel resumed strikes, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,418, also mostly civilians.

Israel’s air force has launched airstrikes against unidentified targets near Syria’s presidential palace, in what Israeli officials said was a warning to the Syrian government after days of bloody clashes near Damascus between pro-government militia and fighters from the Druze minority sect.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and the defence minister, Israel Katz, said in a joint statement that the attack early on Friday, the second this week in Syria, was intended to deter the country’s new leadership from any hostile move against the Druze.

“This is a clear message to the Syrian regime. We will not allow the deployment of forces south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community,” a statement released by the Israeli government said.

The Israeli army confirmed in a statement that fighter jets struck adjacent to the area of the palace of the president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Damascus but gave no further details.

The clashes broke out on Tuesday after an audio clip circulated on social media of a man making derogatory comments about the prophet Muhammad. The clip, which was attributed to a Druze cleric, angered many Sunni Muslims, but may have been fabricated.

A UK-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said 56 people in Sahnaya and the Druze-majority Damascus suburb of Jaramana were killed in clashes, including both local armed fighters and security forces.

On Thursday, Syria’s Druze spiritual leader, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, accused Syria’s government, which is mostly made up of radical Islamist groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, of what he called an “unjustified genocidal attack” on the minority community.

The Druze religious sect began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shia Islam. More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria, largely in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus.

Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 war and annexed in 1981.

The Syrian government has denied that any of its security forces were involved in the clashes with the Druze, which follow a wave of massacres in March in which security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly from Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite community, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Asaad al-Shaibani, the Syrian foreign minister, called for “national unity” on Thursday, as “the solid foundation for any process of stability or revival”.

“Any call for external intervention, under any pretext or slogan, only leads to further deterioration and division,” he wrote on X.

At a meeting of Druze leaders, elders and armed groups in the southern Syrian city of Sweida, the community agreed it was “an inseparable part of the unified Syrian homeland” and rejected “partition, separation or disengagement”, a spokesperson said.

Since the fall of Assad’s regime in December, Israel has launched repeated airstrikes on Syria, destroying military hardware and stockpiles, in what it says is defence of the Druze. Israel has also sent troops to what was a demilitarised zone in the Golan Heights, on Syria’s south-west border with Israel, seizing key strategic terrain where Syrian troops were once deployed.

Analysts in Israel say the strategy aims to undermine the new Syrian government while also protecting and so co-opting a potential proxy ally within the country. The strategy is controversial, however, with some officials arguing that a stable Syria would better serve Israel’s interests.

The Syrian president, Sharaa, told a visiting US congressman last week that Damascus wanted to normalise ties with Israel.

Protesters from the Druze community in Israel temporarily blocked roads on Thursday night and called for the Israeli government to protect the Druze community in Syria.

Underlining the regional dimension of the conflicts involving Israel, warning alarms sounded across much of northern Israel on Friday before air defence systems intercepted a missile that military officials said had been launched from Yemen.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have repeatedly targeted Israel since the outbreak of the war in Gaza 18 months ago.

Israel’s air force has launched airstrikes against unidentified targets near Syria’s presidential palace, in what Israeli officials said was a warning to the Syrian government after days of bloody clashes near Damascus between pro-government militia and fighters from the Druze minority sect.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and the defence minister, Israel Katz, said in a joint statement that the attack early on Friday, the second this week in Syria, was intended to deter the country’s new leadership from any hostile move against the Druze.

“This is a clear message to the Syrian regime. We will not allow the deployment of forces south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community,” a statement released by the Israeli government said.

The Israeli army confirmed in a statement that fighter jets struck adjacent to the area of the palace of the president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Damascus but gave no further details.

The clashes broke out on Tuesday after an audio clip circulated on social media of a man making derogatory comments about the prophet Muhammad. The clip, which was attributed to a Druze cleric, angered many Sunni Muslims, but may have been fabricated.

A UK-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said 56 people in Sahnaya and the Druze-majority Damascus suburb of Jaramana were killed in clashes, including both local armed fighters and security forces.

On Thursday, Syria’s Druze spiritual leader, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, accused Syria’s government, which is mostly made up of radical Islamist groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, of what he called an “unjustified genocidal attack” on the minority community.

The Druze religious sect began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shia Islam. More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria, largely in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus.

Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 war and annexed in 1981.

The Syrian government has denied that any of its security forces were involved in the clashes with the Druze, which follow a wave of massacres in March in which security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly from Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite community, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Asaad al-Shaibani, the Syrian foreign minister, called for “national unity” on Thursday, as “the solid foundation for any process of stability or revival”.

“Any call for external intervention, under any pretext or slogan, only leads to further deterioration and division,” he wrote on X.

At a meeting of Druze leaders, elders and armed groups in the southern Syrian city of Sweida, the community agreed it was “an inseparable part of the unified Syrian homeland” and rejected “partition, separation or disengagement”, a spokesperson said.

Since the fall of Assad’s regime in December, Israel has launched repeated airstrikes on Syria, destroying military hardware and stockpiles, in what it says is defence of the Druze. Israel has also sent troops to what was a demilitarised zone in the Golan Heights, on Syria’s south-west border with Israel, seizing key strategic terrain where Syrian troops were once deployed.

Analysts in Israel say the strategy aims to undermine the new Syrian government while also protecting and so co-opting a potential proxy ally within the country. The strategy is controversial, however, with some officials arguing that a stable Syria would better serve Israel’s interests.

The Syrian president, Sharaa, told a visiting US congressman last week that Damascus wanted to normalise ties with Israel.

Protesters from the Druze community in Israel temporarily blocked roads on Thursday night and called for the Israeli government to protect the Druze community in Syria.

Underlining the regional dimension of the conflicts involving Israel, warning alarms sounded across much of northern Israel on Friday before air defence systems intercepted a missile that military officials said had been launched from Yemen.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have repeatedly targeted Israel since the outbreak of the war in Gaza 18 months ago.

King Charles has accepted an invitation to open Canada’s parliament on 27 May, in “an historic honour that matches the weight of our times”, the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney, said on Friday.

In his first news conference since an election dominated by Donald Trump’s threats to Canada’s sovereignty, the prime minister also confirmed he would meet the US president at the White House on Tuesday.

Trump has repeatedly suggested annexing Canada to the US and imposed tariffs on some Canadian goods, moves which Carney has described as a “betrayal”.

“As I’ve stressed repeatedly, our old relationship, based on steadily increasing integration, is over,” he said, adding he will “fight” to get the best deal for the country. “The questions now are how our nations will cooperate in the future.”

Carney’s Liberals are set to form a minority government after Monday’s election, and are projected to hold at least 168 seats, with recounts pending in at least two electoral districts. The Conservatives will form the official opposition with a projected 144 seats, while the Bloc Québecois won 23, the progressive New Democrat party seven and the Greens one. Carney praised the strength of the country’s democracy amid high turnout, telling reporters all party leaders “quickly and graciously” accepted the results.

“Canadians elected a new government to stand up to President Trump and build a strong economy,” Carney said.

Carney told reporters he would announce his cabinet on 12 May and parliament would return on 27 May in a move that “clearly underscores the sovereignty of our country”.

The visit of a monarch to give the speech from the throne marks the first in more than half a century. The last time a sovereign opened parliament was in 1957, when Queen Elizabeth II came to Ottawa.

The prime minister also used the meeting to acknowledge a large portion of the voter base had concerns they felt the Liberals had so far failed to fully address.

“I’ve been clear since day one of my leadership campaign in January, I’m in politics to do big things, not to be something,” he said. “Now that Canadians have honoured me with a mandate to bring about big changes quickly, I will work relentlessly to fulfil that trust.”

More details soon …

Photographs taken at Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting this week have revealed that top White House officials are now communicating using an even less secure version of the Signal messaging app than was at the center of a huge national security scandal last month.

The images, taken by Reuters on Wednesday, show the phone screen of Mike Waltz, the since-ousted national security adviser who last month accidentally included a journalist in a group chat in which top US officials discussed operational plans to bomb Yemen, attacks that were then carried out as described.

In the new photographs, Waltz’s screen shows messages between him and contacts who appear to be JD Vance, the vice-president; Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, who has now replaced Waltz as acting national security adviser; Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence; and Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy to the Middle East who has played a key role in negotiations with Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine war.

The chat app Waltz was using appears to be a modified version of Signal called TM SGNL, made by a company that copies messaging apps but adds an ability to retain messages and archive them. The White House officials may be using the modified Signal in order to comply with the legal requirement that presidential records be preserved.

The outlet 404 Media reported that the app appears to be “a piece of software from a company called TeleMessage which makes clones of popular messaging apps but adds an archiving capability to each of them”.

That function suggests the end-to-end encryption that makes Signal trusted for sharing private communications is possibly “not maintained, because the messages can be later retrieved after being stored somewhere else”, according to 404 Media.

The photograph does not show much of the content of the messages Waltz was sending, though one to “Rubio” – probably the secretary of state – could be seen to read “there is time” while a message from “Vance” – probably the vice-president – read, “I have confirmation from my counterpart it’s turned off. He is going to be here in …”

There was also an indication that Waltz had used Signal to call Gabbard, and that the phone’s scheduling function included an 8am meeting for “PDB”, probably the president’s daily brief.

On Thursday, before the photograph was widely shared, Trump removed Waltz from his job as national security adviser, naming him UN ambassador and putting Rubio in his place on an interim basis.

Asked about the latest photographs, a White House spokesperson told the Washington Post: “As we have said many times, Signal is an approved app for government use and is loaded on government phones.”

Prince Harry has said he wants “reconciliation” with the rest of the royal family, after a legal challenge over his security that has left him “devastated”.

The Duke of Sussex told the BBC his father, King Charles, “won’t speak to me because of this security stuff”. He added that he did not know how long his father had left to live.

Speaking from California, he added that “there have been so many disagreements” between him and his family, but now he had “forgiven” them.

More details soon …

The Duke of Sussex has lost a legal challenge over the level of taxpayer-funded security he is entitled to while in the UK, allowing the government to proceed with a “bespoke”, and cheaper, level of protection for his family.

Three senior judges at the court of appeal rejected Prince Harry’s claim that he had been “singled out” for “inferior treatment” and that his safety and life were “at stake” after a change in security arrangements that occurred when he stepped down as a working royal and moved abroad.

He had challenged the dismissal of his high court claim against the Home Office over the decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, known as Ravec, that he should receive a different degree of protection when in the country.

Sir Geoffrey Vos, the Master of the Rolls, said: “I concluded, having studied the detailed documents, I could not say the duke’s sense of grievance translated into a legal argument for a challenge to Ravec’s decision.”

The ruling will be a personal blow to Harry who said he was “overwhelmed” by the case when he flew back for the two-day hearing last month. Speaking to a Daily Telegraph reporter outside the hearing, he suggested he considered the appeal more important than his other legal battle against tabloids, saying “this one always mattered the most”.

Barristers for Harry, 40, told the appeal court that Ravec did not follow its own “terms of reference” when deciding his security.

Shaheed Fatima KC said his safety, security and life were “at stake”, and that the “human dimension” of the case should not be forgotten.

“We do say that his presence here, and throughout this appeal, is a potent illustration, were one needed, of how much this appeal means to him and his family,” said Fatima.

The Home Office, which is legally responsible for Ravec’s decisions, opposed the appeal. Sir James Eadie KC, for the Home Office, said Ravec was faced with a “unique set of circumstances”.

In a ruling on Friday, Vos, Lord Justice Bean and Lord Justice Edis dismissed Harry’s appeal.

Reading a summary of the decision, Vos said:”The Duke was in effect stepping in and out of the cohort of protection provided by Ravec.

“Outside the UK, he was outside the cohort, but when in the UK, his security would be considered as appropriate.”

He continued: “It was impossible to say that this reasoning was illogical or inappropriate, indeed it seemed sensible.”

A high court judge ruled last year that Ravec’s decision, taken in early 2020 after Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, stepped down as senior working royals, was lawful. Harry’s legal team argued the judge had erred in his judgment.

Ravec’s final decision, shared on 28 February 2020, stated that Metropolitan police protection would no longer be appropriate after the Sussexes’ departure, and that they should receive a different degree of protection when in the UK.

The Sussexes would instead receive a “bespoke” security service, whereby they would be required to give 30 days’ notice of any plans to travel to the UK, with each visit being assessed for threat levels and whether protection is needed.

Critics of Harry have said he raised his own profile as a possible terrorist target in 2023 after disclosing in his memoir Spare that he had killed 25 Taliban fighters.

Harry could appeal, but would need permission to do so, according to the legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg.

“There wasn’t an application for permission just now from the court of appeal. There might be one in writing. If permission is refused, then Prince Harry’s lawyers could go and ask the supreme court for permission,” Rozenberg told Sky News.

“But what the supreme court will look at is whether this is a case of general public interest, general public importance. It seems to me it’s one of very, very specific importance to Prince Harry.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The UK government’s protective security system is rigorous and proportionate.”

Germany’s domestic intelligence service has designated the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the biggest opposition party, as a “confirmed rightwing extremist” force, meaning authorities can step up their surveillance as critics call for it to be legally banned.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) previously considered the anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin party a “suspected” threat to Germany’s democratic order, with three of its regional chapters in eastern statesand its youth wing classed as confirmed extremist.

The AfD, which came second in the February general election with just over 20% of the vote, said it would challenge the BfV’s decision in court.

The BfV said it had concluded that racist and anti-Muslim stances advanced by the AfD, based on an “ethnic-ancestry-based understanding” of German identity, were “incompatible with the free democratic basic order” set out in the country’s constitution.

It added that the party “aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, to subject them to unconstitutional unequal treatment and thus to assign them a legally devalued status”.

The decision will clear the way for tougher measures to monitor the party for suspected illegal activity, including tapping telephone communications, observing its meetings and recruiting secret informants.

The AfD is led by Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, who have called for the “remigration” of people they deemed to be “poorly integrated”, including German citizens with roots abroad.

In a joint statement, Weidel and Chrupalla called the BfV’s decision “politcally motivated” and a “severe blow against Germany’s federal democracy”.

They said: “The AfD will continue to defend itself legally against these defamatory statements that endanger democracy.”

The party has faced growing calls from opponents for it to be outlawed on the grounds that it seeks to undermine democratic values, including protection of minority rights. Such a ban can be sought by either house of parliament – the Bundestag or the Bundesrat – or by the government itself.

The German parliament may use the BfV decision to justify an attempt to cut or block public funding for the party.

But Olaf Scholz, the outgoing Social Democrat chancellor, warned against rushing to outlaw the AfD. Some opponents of a ban say it could backfire and help promote a victim narrative within the party.

Next week, Friedrich Merz, the Christian Democratic Union leader, will be sworn in as Germany’s new chancellor, after his conservative bloc won February’s snap election. However, his party has lost ground since the vote, with several recent polls showing the AfD in first place.

Merz will lead a centre-right government with the Social Democrats. Their coalition agreement bars any explicit or tacit cooperation with the AfD, a policy that all the mainstream parties have called a critical “firewall” to protect German democracy.

However, Merz has faced calls from within his party to treat the AfD as a normal opposition force in order to prevent it casting itself as a political martyr.

Merz himself faced fierce criticism in January for accepting AfD support for motions in parliament to restrict migration, which Scholz before the election branded an “unforgivable mistake”.

The AfD won a record number of seats in the election, theoretically entitling it to chair several key parliamentary committees. However, the BfV’s decision could make other parties less willing to lend their support for such an outcome.

Analysts say the new government will have a limited window to win back voters’ trust or risk the AfD winning outright at the next general election, planned for 2029.

The party, which has about 51,000 members, has made strong gains over the last year on the back of voter frustration with immigration policy and an ailing economy.

It came first in Thuringia’s regional election in September, marking the first time since the Nazi period that a far-right party had won a state poll. In the same month, it also performed well in two other former communist regions.

After active endorsement by Elon Musk during the campaign, the AfD achieved the best national result for a hard-right party in Germany since the second world war.

The Cologne-based BfV based its decision on a 1,100-page report that was presented to the interior ministry this week.

The report outlined the party’s efforts to erode democracy, including inciting hostility toward asylum seekers and migrants and viewing German citizens “with a background of migration from predominantly Muslim countries” as inferior.

Political analysts and security authorities say the AfD, which was founded 12 years ago by a group of Eurosceptic professors, has become more radicalised with each change in leadership, and particularly when the country faced an influx of refugees in 2015-16.

Benjamin Winkler, of the anti-extremist Amadeu Antonio Foundation, welcomed the BfV’s decision, blaming the AfD for increasing the influence of radical groups while stoking racist and anti-migrant sentiment in the wider population.

“We see it in the large number of reports about attacks, and in police data about the record number of rightwing extremist crimes in Germany,” he told the news channel n-tv.

The AfD also calls repeatedly for a break with Germany’s culture of historical remembrance of the Holocaust, using thinly veiled Nazi slogans, which are outlawed in Germany.

In an online chat with Musk in January, Weidel referred to Adolf Hitler as a communist.

Germany’s domestic intelligence service has designated the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the biggest opposition party, as a “confirmed rightwing extremist” force, meaning authorities can step up their surveillance as critics call for it to be legally banned.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) previously considered the anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin party a “suspected” threat to Germany’s democratic order, with three of its regional chapters in eastern statesand its youth wing classed as confirmed extremist.

The AfD, which came second in the February general election with just over 20% of the vote, said it would challenge the BfV’s decision in court.

The BfV said it had concluded that racist and anti-Muslim stances advanced by the AfD, based on an “ethnic-ancestry-based understanding” of German identity, were “incompatible with the free democratic basic order” set out in the country’s constitution.

It added that the party “aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, to subject them to unconstitutional unequal treatment and thus to assign them a legally devalued status”.

The decision will clear the way for tougher measures to monitor the party for suspected illegal activity, including tapping telephone communications, observing its meetings and recruiting secret informants.

The AfD is led by Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, who have called for the “remigration” of people they deemed to be “poorly integrated”, including German citizens with roots abroad.

In a joint statement, Weidel and Chrupalla called the BfV’s decision “politcally motivated” and a “severe blow against Germany’s federal democracy”.

They said: “The AfD will continue to defend itself legally against these defamatory statements that endanger democracy.”

The party has faced growing calls from opponents for it to be outlawed on the grounds that it seeks to undermine democratic values, including protection of minority rights. Such a ban can be sought by either house of parliament – the Bundestag or the Bundesrat – or by the government itself.

The German parliament may use the BfV decision to justify an attempt to cut or block public funding for the party.

But Olaf Scholz, the outgoing Social Democrat chancellor, warned against rushing to outlaw the AfD. Some opponents of a ban say it could backfire and help promote a victim narrative within the party.

Next week, Friedrich Merz, the Christian Democratic Union leader, will be sworn in as Germany’s new chancellor, after his conservative bloc won February’s snap election. However, his party has lost ground since the vote, with several recent polls showing the AfD in first place.

Merz will lead a centre-right government with the Social Democrats. Their coalition agreement bars any explicit or tacit cooperation with the AfD, a policy that all the mainstream parties have called a critical “firewall” to protect German democracy.

However, Merz has faced calls from within his party to treat the AfD as a normal opposition force in order to prevent it casting itself as a political martyr.

Merz himself faced fierce criticism in January for accepting AfD support for motions in parliament to restrict migration, which Scholz before the election branded an “unforgivable mistake”.

The AfD won a record number of seats in the election, theoretically entitling it to chair several key parliamentary committees. However, the BfV’s decision could make other parties less willing to lend their support for such an outcome.

Analysts say the new government will have a limited window to win back voters’ trust or risk the AfD winning outright at the next general election, planned for 2029.

The party, which has about 51,000 members, has made strong gains over the last year on the back of voter frustration with immigration policy and an ailing economy.

It came first in Thuringia’s regional election in September, marking the first time since the Nazi period that a far-right party had won a state poll. In the same month, it also performed well in two other former communist regions.

After active endorsement by Elon Musk during the campaign, the AfD achieved the best national result for a hard-right party in Germany since the second world war.

The Cologne-based BfV based its decision on a 1,100-page report that was presented to the interior ministry this week.

The report outlined the party’s efforts to erode democracy, including inciting hostility toward asylum seekers and migrants and viewing German citizens “with a background of migration from predominantly Muslim countries” as inferior.

Political analysts and security authorities say the AfD, which was founded 12 years ago by a group of Eurosceptic professors, has become more radicalised with each change in leadership, and particularly when the country faced an influx of refugees in 2015-16.

Benjamin Winkler, of the anti-extremist Amadeu Antonio Foundation, welcomed the BfV’s decision, blaming the AfD for increasing the influence of radical groups while stoking racist and anti-migrant sentiment in the wider population.

“We see it in the large number of reports about attacks, and in police data about the record number of rightwing extremist crimes in Germany,” he told the news channel n-tv.

The AfD also calls repeatedly for a break with Germany’s culture of historical remembrance of the Holocaust, using thinly veiled Nazi slogans, which are outlawed in Germany.

In an online chat with Musk in January, Weidel referred to Adolf Hitler as a communist.

Russell Brand has appeared in court on charges of rape and sexual assault.

During a brief hearing at Westminster magistrates court on Friday, he was told he faced a trial at the Old Bailey in London on the five sexual offence charges.

An investigation was launched after Brand was accused of sexual offences by several women, in a joint investigation by the Sunday Times, the Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches, in September 2023.

Brand was charged by post last month. In a video previously posted on his X account, Brand said he welcomed the opportunity to prove his innocence.

On Friday he appeared in court wearing a dark blue shirt, dark grey trousers and carrying a pair of sunglasses. He spoke to confirm his name, date of birth and address in Buckinghamshire, and that he understood the proceedings.

The chief magistrate, Paul Goldspring, told Brand he was being released on bail and would be expected to attend a hearing at the Old Bailey on 30 May. Brand thanked the magistrate, before being excused. He said nothing when leaving court flanked by three minders, jumping into a waiting car and being driven away.

Brand presented a BBC Radio 2 show between 2006 and 2008 as well as the Big Brother spin-off shows Big Brother’s Big Mouth and Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack in the 00s.

The presenter and actor was married to the US pop singer Katy Perry from 2010 to 2012, and is now married to Laura Gallacher – the sister of the TV presenter Kirsty. The couple have two children, Mabel and Peggy.

Jeff Bezos is preparing to sell up to $4.75bn (£3.6bn) worth of Amazon stock over the next year, according to a regulatory filing made on Friday.

The technology company’s executive chair and former chief executive plans to offload up to 25m shares through a trading plan that ends on 29 May 2026.

This tranche is worth about $4.75bn, based on the closing price on Thursday. The divestment comes after Bezos sold $13.4bn of Amazon stock last year.

Bezos is the world’s second richest person, according to Bloomberg’s billionaire index, with an estimated total net worth of $212bn. Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla, ranks first, with an estimated total net worth of $332bn.

The announcement came just hours after Amazon reported its first-quarter earnings for 2025. Revenue rose by 9% in the period to $155.7bn, and profit came in at $17.1bn. Nevertheless, Amazon shares fell in after-hours trading amid concerns around how Donald Trump’s trade tariffs could affect the business.

Andy Jassy, the chief executive of Amazon, said it was “hard to tell with tariffs how they’re going to settle and when they’re going to settle” in a call with analysts, adding that there had “maybe never been a more important time” to have the broadest selection of items at the lowest possible prices.

Prices on Amazon’s online marketplace have started to rise since Trump announced new tariffs at the start of April, particularly on Chinese imports.

Last week the White House accused Amazon of committing a “hostile and political act” after a report suggested the company was planning to inform customers about how much Trump’s tariffs would cost them as they shopped.

Amazon has distanced itself from the report, saying the idea had been considered by Amazon Haul, a low-cost shopping hub within its group, but it had been rejected.

Bezos and Trump have had a mixed relationship. During Trump’s 2016 campaign, the Amazon founder argued some of Trump’s rhetoric damaged democracy, while Trump said Amazon did not pay enough tax.

Bezos appears to have warmed to the president in his second administration, however. He attended Trump’s inauguration earlier this year, alongside other big tech founders, and donated $1m to his inauguration fund.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos, announced days before the most recent presidential election that it would not endorse a candidate, for the first time in more than three decades. The newspaper then overhauled its opinion section in February to focus its output “in support and defence of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets”, Bezos said.

Shares in Amazon slipped nearly 1% in early trading on Wall Street on Friday.

Beijing is “evaluating” an offer from the US to engage in trade negotiations, the Chinese government has said, a week after Donald Trump claimed talks were already under way.

China’s commerce ministry said on Friday: “The US has recently taken the initiative on many occasions to convey information to China through relevant parties, saying it hopes to talk with China.”

On Thursday, influential commentators in China said the country was ready to engage in talks.

Ren Yi, a nationalist blogger who writes under the nickname Chairman Rabbit, wrote that he had learned from sources that the US had “frequently and proactively contacted the Chinese side through various channels, hoping to negotiate with the Chinese government on economic and trade issues”.

China has denied claims made by US officials that talks were already under way, or that China had initiated them. Trump said last week that Xi Jinping, China’s leader, had called him. China’s foreign ministry accused the US of “misleading the public” on the status of negotiations. Ren wrote: “If China had given in and taken the initiative to give in to the United States, then naturally there would not have been the United States taking the initiative to contact China.”

The commerce ministry said on Friday that Washington needed to show “sincerity” in negotiations and that it should not engage in “coercion and extortion”.

China has repeatedly accused the US of bullying in its approach to trade policies. The two countries have been at loggerheads since Trump launched a new US-China trade war in early April, with US tariffs on Chinese goods now at 145% while China’s retaliatory tariffs have reached 125%.

But although neither side wants to be seen to blink first, the US and China have already introduced a number of exceptions to their respective tariffs to soften the blow of a trade war that risks upending the global economy.

Chinese factory activity slowed in April. The statistics bureau blamed “sharp changes in [China’s] external environment” for the decline.

This week Xi called on officials to adjust to changes in the international environment, although he did not mention the US by name.

Elsewhere, Chinese propaganda has been more explicit. This week the foreign ministry released a video that accused the US of bullying and said that bowing to such behaviour would be like “drinking poison”.

A US executive order to close a multibillion-dollar tariff loophole, known as “de minimis”, came into effect on Friday. The ending of the de minimis regime, which allowed low-value goods to be shipped to the US without paying customs fees, primarily affects Chinese exporters.

Scott Bessent said this week he was confident that China would want to reach a deal. The US treasury secretary said: “First, we need to de-escalate, and then over time, we will start focusing on a larger trade deal.”

He has self-administered more than 850 doses of venom from cobras, mambas, rattlesnakes and other deadly species in pursuit of a singular quest: to develop immunity to snake bites in the hope of helping scientists create a universal antivenom.

Now the extreme 18-year experiment by Tim Friede, a former truck mechanic from Wisconsin, appears to have paid off. Scientists have used antibodies from his blood to create the most broadly protective antivenom to date, which could revolutionise the treatment of snake bites.

“For a period of nearly 18 years, [Tim] had undertaken hundreds of bites and self-immunisations with escalating doses from 16 species of very lethal snakes that would normally a kill a horse,” said Jacob Glanville, the chief executive of the US biotech Centivax and first author of the research. “It blew my mind. I contacted him because I thought if anyone in the world has these properly neutralising antibodies, it’s him.”

The cocktail, which combines two protective antibodies from Friede’s blood and a small molecule venom inhibitor, opens a path towards a universal antivenom, according to research published in the journal Cell. This could transform the ability to treat snake bites, which cause about 140,000 deaths and 300,000 permanent injuries each year.

Most antivenoms rely on a 100-year-old method that involves immunising horses or sheep with venom from single snake species and collecting the antibodies produced. While effective, there is a risk of severe adverse reactions, including anaphylaxis, to the non-human antibodies. And treatments tend to be species- and sometimes region-specific.

“I grew up in Guatemala and they recommend you try to catch the snake and bring it in in a plastic bag so they can determine if they have an appropriate antivenom,” Glanville said. “It’s not a great option to go chasing after the snake that’s just bitten you.”

Friede, aware of the shortcomings of antivenoms and hoping to fortify himself against accidental bites from his collection of pet snakes, embarked on his self-immunisation quest in 2000.

Despite spending four days in a coma in 2001 after being bitten while milking an Egyptian cobra, he continued with his meticulous dose escalation programme, injecting low doses of venom from 16 lethal species before offering up his arms to the snakes to bite.

When Glanville came across an article about Friede, who had documented his project on his YouTube channel, he got in touch. “He was like: ‘Finally. I’ve been waiting for this call for a long time,’” Glanville said.

To design the antivenom, the team selected 19 of the World Health Organization’s category 1 and 2 deadliest species, including coral snakes, mambas, cobras, taipans and kraits. After isolating candidate antibodies from Friede’s blood, they tested these out in mice envenomated from each species. This allowed them to identify just two antibodies that, when combined with a synthetic antivenom, provided complete protection against 13 of the species and partial protection against the others.

“By the time we reached three components, we had a dramatically unparalleled breadth of full protection for 13 of the 19 species and then partial protection for the remaining that we looked at,” Glanville said.

He said Friede’s meticulous dosing schedule, which involved cyclical exposure to different venoms, meant that any antibodies that offered broader protection were boosted more frequently and were amplified by his immune system.

“Had I, as an immunologist, spent a bunch of time thinking about it, I don’t think I would have come up with a better solution,” he said.

Snakes fall into four major families, two of which – elapids and vipers – account for the dangerous venomous species. The current research focused on elapids, but Friede also immunised himself against viper bites and the team are developing an equivalent antivenom cocktail for the viper family.

The team are now looking to test the efficacy of the antivenom in the field, initially in dogs brought to veterinary clinics for snake bites in Australia, before moving to human trials.

Prof Nicholas Casewell, the director of the Centre for Snakebite Research at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, who was not involved in the research, said: “This breadth of protective benefit is certainly novel, and provides a strong piece of evidence that combining relatively few antibodies and or drugs together is feasible as a therapeutic strategy and could lead to a future therapy that could be beneficial to snakebite patients in many different parts of the world. There is no doubt that this work moves the field forwards in an exciting direction.”