Gaza has been hit by a wave of looting and theft as increasingly desperate Palestinians struggle to get food while criminal gangs exploit a breakdown in law and order.

Aid officials and witnesses in the devastated territory describe armed men attacking humanitarian warehouses, firefights over remaining food stores and a spate of stealing of supplies vital for survival, such as solar chargers, batteries, phones and cooking pots.

Gaza is on the brink of catastrophe after two months of a total blockade by Israel, aid workers say, with many families down to one meal a day. Spoiled flour is being sold for 30 or 40 times its usual price and no fuel is available other than wood or discarded plastic.

Medical officials report rising cases of acute malnutrition, and community kitchens that served 1m meals a day are shutting down for lack of basic essentials. Aid agencies say they have distributed all remaining stocks of food. Dozens of bakeries that supplied vital free bread closed last month.

“By the time a famine is declared, it will be too late. The crime wave is because you have 2 million or more desperate, traumatised people packed together with virtually no policing,” said one humanitarian official in Gaza.

Gaza City has been worst hit by the crime wave, though some incidents have been reported elsewhere in the territory.

One group of armed men broke into two or three bakeries in Gaza City last week, hoping to find flour, then targeted a soup kitchen when they found nothing. In another incident, thieves took a community kitchen’s last stocks as well as all its pots and pans.

In a third theft, staff at a distribution site run by an NGO were held at knifepoint as it was looted, while the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) said it had to evacuate staff on Wednesday after thousands of Palestinians breached its Gaza City field office and took medications. Louise Wateridge, a senior emergency officer at Unrwa, called the looting “the direct result of unbearable and prolonged deprivation”.

Witnesses described clashes between armed thieves and security guards in recent days.

Anas Raafat, a 25-year-old lawyer in Gaza City, said he and his family had been woken when armed gangs attacked a warehouse of a humanitarian aid organisation nearby. “By a miracle, none of my family members were injured. We lay flat on the ground for over two hours during the gunfire,” he said.

Ghadir Rajab, 27, said she saw another NGO’s warehouse under attack by thieves. “When we heard the sound of gunfire, I looked out the window and saw people rushing from all directions to storm the place, searching for food and water. Others were fleeing in fear of being hurt.

“There was a woman looking for her son, only to find out that he had been shot in the shoulder. She was running in the street … screaming “my son, my son!” She was begging for help, but no one paid attention, people were focused on stealing. Hunger had blinded them.”

There have been widespread reports of violent arguments between neighbours and an increase in domestic violence. Petty theft has soared.

“There is no safety. We do not sleep at night at all. We take turns sleeping, leaving one person awake to guard against the rampant theft and looting,” said Mari Al Radea, 46, who recently fled the northern town of Beit Lahiya for Gaza City, where she and her nine children live in a tent.

“Most of the tents in our area have been robbed. We didn’t even attempt to find out who the thief was because there is no police or security presence.”

Al Radea described frequent clashes between hungry people or between shop security and looters. “Many confrontations also break out when there are attacks on food storage centres. Bullets often fall near us while we live in a nylon tent that offers no protection from gunfire,” she said.

During the ceasefire from mid-January to mid-March, the militant group Hamas deployed police to the streets of Gaza, but these have been withdrawn after being targeted by Israeli airstrikes. Gaza’s interior ministry, which is run by Hamas, said on Saturday its security forces had executed six suspects and punished 13 others with gunshots to the legs in the past two days over looting activities. The ministry also enforced a curfew starting on Friday in some of Gaza City’s main streets.

Looting in Gaza hit a peak late last year when convoys of aid were systematically stripped as they moved into the territory after crossing entry points from Israel. In one incident, more than 100 trucks were taken and looted.

Israel accuses Hamas of stealing and reselling aid to finance its military operations. The militant Islamist organisation denies the charge, and aid officials say little humanitarian assistance went astray during the short-lived ceasefire that came into effect in January.

On Monday, Israeli officials said they would lift the blockade in order to implement a scheme to deliver aid as part of an “intensified” offensive in coming weeks. The plan involves a series of distribution hubs in the south of Gaza, which would be run by private contractors and guarded by the Israeli military. UN and other humanitarian officials have dismissed the scheme as unworkable, dangerous and potentially illegal under international law.

An Israeli government minister has vowed that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” as a result of an Israeli military victory, and that its Palestinian population will “leave in great numbers to third countries”, raising fears of ethnic cleansing in the occupied territory.

The declaration on Tuesday by the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, came a day after Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which an Israeli official said would entail “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories”.

The Israeli threats to seize control of the territory permanently has stirred global outrage.

“We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel’s operations,” the UK’s Middle East minister, Hamish Falconer, said. “Any attempt to annex land in Gaza would be unacceptable.”

After the intensified offensive was announced, Hamas said it was no longer interested in truce talks with Israel and urged the international community to halt Israel’s “hunger war” against Gaza, a reference to the total blockade on aid deliveries to Gaza, which has been in place for more than two months.

“There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip,” Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told AFP.

Effie Defrin, Israel’s chief military spokesperson, said the planned offensive would include “moving most of the population of the Gaza Strip … to protect them”.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said the “population will be moved, for its own protection” in a video posted on social media, but gave no further details.

Smotrich, speaking to a conference on Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, went further, making clear that many Palestinians would be driven out of the territory altogether, as part of a scorched earth offensive.

“Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to … the south to a humanitarian zone without Hamas or terrorism, and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries,” the minister said.

Israel’s neighbours Egypt and Jordan have said they will refuse to allow an exodus of refugees on their territory, arguing that would make them party to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

The international court of justice is assessing allegations of genocide against Israel for its military campaign in Gaza, and last year issued a series of provisional measures that included orders for Israel to “take all measures” to prevent genocide being committed or incited, and to allow the “unhindered provision” of humanitarian assistance across the territory’s southern border with Egypt.

The international criminal court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and the ICC prosecutor is reported to be preparing more warrant requests.

“Smotrich has been saying similar things for some time now, but obviously this is very serious in the context of the call for more troops by the government,” Victor Kattan, assistant professor in public international law at the University of Nottingham, said.

“Deportation and forcible transfer of civilians is a crime against humanity under the Rome statute [the ICC’s founding treaty], and that’s a clear call for that. If that’s occurring in the context of his ministerial position or as a result of deliberations in the cabinet, that could be very serious.”

Late on Tuesday, at least 29 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people, medics said.

Dozens more were wounded in the attack on Bureij camp in the centre of the territory, civil defence media officer Ahmad Radwan told AFP.

The call for an intensification of Israel’s war in Gaza came as it carried out a second day of airstrikes aimed at Houthi forces in Yemen, severely damaging the country’s international airport in the capital, Sana’a.

The strikes came after Israel launched similar attacks on Monday in retaliation for a Houthi missile strike the previous day on Israel’s international airport.

Nearly all of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced, often repeatedly, since the start of the war triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted another 250.

More than 52,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza that followed. A two-month ceasefire collapsed in mid-March when Israel reneged on a promise to implement a second phase.

Faltering indirect talks have continued since, brokered by Qatar and Egypt, but with little sign of any significant progress. Any breakthrough appears unlikely as long as Israel remains committed to forcing Hamas to disarm, and Hamas refuses to release hostages without a ceasefire leading to a permanent end to hostilities as well as a total withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Some analysts suggest Israel’s threats of the new offensive, occupation of territory and massive displacement are designed to force concessions from Hamas, as well as shore up rightwing support for Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.

Hamas on Monday described the new Israeli framework for aid delivery in Gaza as “political blackmail” and blamed Israel for the war-ravaged territory’s “humanitarian catastrophe”.

A UN spokesperson said on Monday that António Guterres, the UN secretary general, was “alarmed” by the Israeli plan that “will inevitably lead to countless more civilians killed and the further destruction of Gaza”.

Humanitarian officials say the territory is on the brink of catastrophe as food and fuel runs out due to a total Israeli blockade imposed on 2 March.

Military officials in Israel have given different versions of a plan reportedly agreed by ministers to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza, which would be distributed from a small number of newly constructed hubs in the south of the territory staffed by private contractors but protected by Israeli troops.

Humanitarian officials have dismissed the scheme as unworkable, dangerous and potentially unlawful.

“The design of the plan presented to us will mean large parts of Gaza, including the less mobile and most vulnerable people, will continue to go without supplies,” a joint statement by UN and other aid agencies said this week.

“It contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy.

“It is dangerous, driving civilians into militarised zones to collect rations, threatening lives, including those of humanitarian workers, while further entrenching forced displacement.”

Stephen Cutts, the interim head of Medical Aid for Palestinians, said: “Israel’s proposed military-controlled aid mechanism is a dangerous attempt to weaponise humanitarian aid, entrench further control over Gaza, and continue its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”

US officials have not reacted directly to Israel’s threat of a new offensive, but Donald Trump said on Monday that his administration would help get food to “starving” Palestinians. He blamed Hamas for making it “impossible” by diverting humanitarian assistance for its fighters.

“We’re going to help the people of Gaza get some food. People are starving, and we’re going to help them get some food,” Trump told reporters during an event at the White House.

Israeli officials have said the new operation will not be launched before Trump concludes his visit next week to Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar.

Donald Trump said Tuesday that three more hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have died, bringing the number still alive to 21.

At a White House swearing-in ceremony for his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump revealed that three more Israeli hostages have died in Gaza, meaning that just 21 of the hostages taken from Israel during the 7 October attacks remain alive.

“Well, we’ve gone very slowly,” Trump said of efforts to end the conflict, “because we want to try and get as many hostages saved as possible, and we’ve done a good job in that regard.”

“Two weeks ago, I had 10 hostages come in, and they thanked me profusely,” Trump continued. The Oval Office meeting was in fact two months ago, with eight former hostages.

The president then appeared to recount a conversation with the freed hostages about how many captives remained in Gaza.

“I said, ‘How many people are left?’” Trump said. “They said 59. I said, ‘Oh, wow, that’s more than I thought’. They said, ‘Well, only 24 are living.’”

“But now it’s 21,” Trump added, without revealing the source of his information. “That was a week ago. Now it’s 21 are living.”

“I say 21, because, as of today, it’s 21. Three have died,” the president said.

He did not provide any further details.

“This is a terrible situation,” Trump said.

The Israeli military, in its most recent update, said of the 251 people abducted 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 believed to be dead.

Israel’s military resumed its offensive in Gaza on 18 March, ending a two-month truce that saw a surge in aid into the war-ravaged territory and the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Hamas’s attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The health ministry in Gaza said at least 2,507 people had been killed since Israel resumed its campaign in mid-March, bringing the overall death toll from the war to 52,615.

The Israeli plan to occupy and depopulate Gaza may not be identical to Donald Trump’s vision of a new riviera, but his inspiration and the US’s walkaway diplomacy have ushered Benjamin Netanyahu to the precipice of a dire new chapter in the Israel-Gaza war.

The common perception in both Washington and Israel is that Trump has largely moved on, leaving an emboldened Netanyahu to his own devices, while his offhand proposals for turning Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” have provided cover for rightwing Israeli politicians to enthusiastically support the forced resettlement of the Palestinian population.

“Part of the tragedy is that the only one who can actually save us, Trump, is not even seriously interested in that,” said Amos Harel, a prominent military and defense correspondent for the Haaretz newspaper. “Our only hope to get out of this crazy situation is that Trump would force Netanyahu to reach a hostage deal. But [Trump] seems disinterested. He was enthusiastic when the Riviera [idea] was proposed, but now he has moved on to Greenland, Canada and Mexico instead.”

Trump’s interventions – specifically envoy Steve Witkoff’s threats to Netanyahu during a tense Shabbat meeting – were instrumental in achieving a temporary ceasefire to the conflict in January. His influence on Netanyahu appeared to be greater than that of previous US presidents, including his rival Joe Biden.

But since then the ceasefire has broken down, a two-month Israeli blockade on aid has sparked an even worse humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and, with few opportunities for a quick peace, the White House now appears uninterested and overstretched as Israel signals an offensive and occupation that critics have said will amount to a state policy of ethnic cleansing.

It is a trend that has repeated with this White House: broad designs for a grand deal followed by frustration when diplomacy fails to yield instant results. Recently, the White House announced that it was also ready to walk away from negotiations over the Russia-Ukraine conflict if a quick deal was not achieved. That has incentivized Russia to wait out the Trump administration, observers have said, and bank on a policy of US non-engagement in the longer term. Netanyahu similarly appears to have been unleashed by the White House’s growing disinterest.

The Israeli ultimatum comes as Trump is scheduled to tour the Middle East next week, with Israeli officials briefing that they will begin the operation only after he returns from a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Trump’s talks there are expected to focus on investment and a likely quixotic quest to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, but not on achieving a resolution to the war. On Tuesday, Maariv, an Israeli newspaper, reported that a Trump visit to Israel was not out of the question, but White House officials have not yet signaled that Trump is ready to go meet Netanyahu.

Witkoff, the Trump envoy, still appears personally invested in a resolution to the conflict, but he is overstretched by attempting to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, and also negotiate an Iran nuclear deal simultaneously. The US has continued negotiations with Israel over an aid delivery scheme that would create a new mechanism for aid distribution to avoid Hamas, they have said. But the UN and all aid organizations working in Gaza have condemned the plan as an Israeli takeover. “It contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy,” the heads of all UN agencies and NGOs that operate in Gaza said in a joint statement on Sunday.

The Trump administration’s budget and personnel cuts have also signaled a retreat from diplomacy. The state department was reportedly ready to cut the role of the security coordinator role for the West Bank and Gaza, a three-star general who was tasked with managing security crises between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, particularly with regards to growing tensions between settlers and local Palestinian communities.

More importantly, Trump has given cover to Israeli officials who had sought more aggressive action in Gaza, including forced depopulations. Rightwingers in government have been particularly aggressive, with finance minister Bezalel Smotrich saying that within months Gaza would be “totally destroyed” and the Gazan population would be “concentrated” in a small strip of land. “The rest of the strip will be empty,” he said.

But other ministers have also become more radical using Trump’s rhetoric for cover, said Harel.

“Once Trump said that, you could see how not only the radicals, but also Likud ministers and so on, have an excuse,” said Harel. “‘It’s not us. It’s the world, the free world’s leader is saying that, so we have to play along.’”

Catholic cardinals from all over the world will begin casting their votes for a new pope under Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment ceiling fresco in the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday afternoon in what is the largest and possibly the most unpredictable conclave to ever take place.

One of the legacies of Pope Francis, who died last month aged 88, was to leave behind a widely diverse but divided college of cardinals, with some in harmony with the progressive church he promoted and others wanting to overthrow his changes and turn back the clock.

The 133 cardinals with the power to vote have been getting to know each other and sharing visions for the future of the church during daily pre-conclave meetings since 28 April. However, the challenge of the task in hand appeared to be summed up by Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo, the archbishop of Jakarta, who was the last cardinal to arrive in Rome and was playing catch-up on Monday. “There’s a lot of confusion,” he told journalists after hearing addresses from 50 cardinals. “We have heard many voices, it’s not easy to draw conclusions.”

The men met for a final time on Tuesday morning before moving into their lodgings in Casa Santa Maria, where they will be required to hand over their mobile phones and remain sequestered from the outside world until a new pope is chosen, only venturing outside for the bus ride between the guesthouse and the Sistine Chapel. The cardinals swear an oath to secrecy, as do all Vatican staff assisting them, from cooks and cleaners to drivers and medics.

There are two rounds of votes each day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Smoke is emitted from the chimney installed atop the Sistine Chapel at the end of each voting session – if it is black, it means the vote has yielded no decision, if it is white then a new pope has been chosen. If the election drags on, the cardinals will take a day off for reflection after three full days of voting.

Speculation over who will succeed Francis was rife even before his death, and with each passing day a new papabile, or papacy candidate, is added to the speculative list of more than 20 potential popes. The rising star in recent days is Robert Prevost, a moderate cardinal from the US known for his “solid judgment and a keen capacity to listen”, according to the Catholic newspaper Crux.

Prevost appears to have taken the shine off another moderate frontrunner, Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state who is considered to be a stellar diplomat but perhaps too boring to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. Another favourite is Luis Antonio Tagle, a reformer from the Philippines nicknamed “the Asian Francis”. But, along with Parolin, he has been criticised for mishandling cases of clerical sexual abuse against children.

Alongside Tagle, others in the progressive camp include the Italian cardinals Matteo Zuppi and Pierbattista Pizzaballa, a peace-seeker who has lived in Jerusalem for years, as well as Jean-Claude Hollerich from Luxembourg, Timothy Radcliffe from the UK and Michael Czerny of Canada.

On the traditionalist side are Hungary’s Péter Erdő and Robert Sarah, a cardinal from Guinea who criticised Francis’s papacy. Although not on the frontrunner list, among those lobbying for a conservative successor to Francis are Raymond Burke, a Donald Trump-supporting US bishop, and Gerhard Müller, a German who warned that the church could split if an orthodox pope is not elected.

But as the old papal election saying goes, “he who enters the conclave as pope, leaves it as a cardinal”, few frontrunners at the start of the process make it through the successive rounds of voting. A key example of that was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who in 2013 was not considered a contender but by the end of the conclave became Pope Francis.

One thing the cardinals seemed to agree on in the run-up to the conclave was the need for a new pope to be capable of “being a bridge and a guide for a disorientated humanity marked by the crisis of the world order” while reaffirming their commitment to “support the new pope”, a Vatican official said during a press briefing on Monday.

“These men of faith are entering [the conclave] believing that God has already chosen the next pope,” said Andrea Vreede, the Vatican correspondent for NOS, the Dutch public radio and TV network. “Now they have to figure out what that choice is. It is unpredictable because there are many new electors who do not know each other very well, because Francis never organised cardinal meetings, so they were never invited to assist or advise the pope. So the one thing they can agree on, whether they are far left or far right, is that they all want more involvement in the government of the next pope.”

Another thing they all seem to agree on is that the conclave must be kept short, perhaps lasting no more than three to four days.

“I think they already have someone in mind,” said Severina Bartonitschek, the Vatican correspondent for KNA, a Catholic news agency in Germany. “And the main job for the new pope will be unifying the church. This is always a job for any pontiff but it will be especially critical for the next pope. Yes, he will have to handle evangelisation but also issues like the abuse cases. We need to have a pope who is not afraid to fight against this issue.”

Joe Biden has accused Donald Trump of “modern-day appeasement” in his approach to Russia and expressed fears that Europe would “lose confidence in the certainty of America” in his first interview since leaving the White House in January.

“He [Vladimir Putin] believes it [Russia] has historical rights to Ukraine,” Biden told the BBC. Anybody who thought the Russian president would stop if Kyiv conceded territory, as recently proposed by Trump, “is just foolish”, he said.

Speaking in Delaware as the Allied nations mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war, Biden said Trump’s stance was “modern-day appeasement” in reference to the attempts of British prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s to appease Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.

He also said he feared Europe was going to lose confidence in the “certainty of America and the leadership of America” and that a breakdown of US-Europe relations under Trump “would change the modern history of the world”.

Biden said the leaders of European nations would be left “wondering, well, what do I do now? … Can I rely on the United States? Are they going to be there?

“I fear our allies around the world are going to begin to doubt whether we’re going to stay where we’ve always been in the last 80 years,” he said.

Biden told Nick Robinson that he found the extraordinary meeting in the Oval Office between Trump and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy “beneath America”.

He went on to condemn Trump’s calls for the US to take back the Panama canal, make Canada the 51st American state and seize Greenland.

“What the hell’s going on here? What president ever talks like that? That’s not who we are,” he said. “We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity, not about confiscation.”

Challenged about his own actions on Ukraine – critics have said he was too slow to supply the weapons Kyiv needed for its defence and lift restrictions on their use – he said: “We gave them everything they needed to provide for their independence, and we were prepared to respond, more aggressively, if Putin moved again.”

Asked about his decision to leave the US presidential race only months before the election, leaving his successor, Kamala Harris little time to prepare, Biden said: “I don’t think it would have mattered. We left at a time when we had a good candidate.

“Things moved so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away. And it was a hard decision,” he said. “I think it was the right decision. I think that … it was just a difficult decision.”

A Russian Shahed drone costing up to £75,000 is estimated to have inflicted tens of millions worth of damage to the site of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, according to initial assessments and engineering experts.

The cost of a full fix is likely to be borne by western governments including the UK, because initial estimates are that a complete repair will cost more than the €25m available in a special international contingency fund.

The strike in mid February did not cause an immediate radiological risk, but it significantly damaged the €1.5bn containment structure built in 2017 to encase the destroyed reactor and is likely to take months if not years to completely repair.

The 110-metre high steel structure at Chornobyl was hit before 2am on 14 February, with sensors registering “something like a 6 to 7 magnitude earthquake,” according to Serhiy Bokov, the chief engineer on duty. “But we clearly understood it wasn’t that,” he said.

The attack – quickly concluded to be caused by a drone flying below at a level where it could not be detected by radar – punctured a 15-sq-metre hole in the outer roof. It also caused a particularly damaging, complex smouldering fire to the inner cladding of the structure that took over a fortnight to put out.

Consisting of two double arches and longer than two jumbo jets, the New Safe Confinement (NSC) was completed in 2017 to secure the hastily built, unstable Soviet-era sarcophagus, which covers over Chornobyl’s ill-fated reactor number four, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in April 1986.

But the attack in February has rendered the sarcophagus open to the elements again, meaning that radioactive dust could get out and rainwater in, though the country’s environmental protection ministry says “the radiation background is currently within normal level and is under constant control”.

More significantly, the confinement structure is now more vulnerable in the longer term to rusting due to greater exposure to the elements and damage to the cladding. Two hundred small boreholes were also drilled into the structure in the effort to douse the cladding fire with water.

“Not fixing it is not an option,” said Eric Schmieman, an American engineer who worked on the design and build of the Chornobyl shelter for 15 years. A complete repair, he said would “cost a minimum of tens of millions of dollars and it could easily go to hundreds of millions” with the repairs taking “months to years,” he added.

Previously the shelter was intended to have a 100-year design life, allowing time to decommission the sarcophagus and nuclear waste below, but this is now in doubt without it being repaired, Schmieman added. Unlike other large metal structures, such as the Eiffel Tower, it was never possible to repaint it to prevent corrosion.

Below the sarcophagus lies a highly radioactive lava like mass, a mix of 200 tonnes of uranium from Chornobyl reactor number four and 5,000 tonnes of sand, lead and boric acid dropped on to the site by Soviet helicopters in the immediate aftermath of the disaster caused by the reactor going out of control.

A more detailed impact assessment is expected to be released in May, but the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which funded the building of the shelter and is involved in the post bombing analysis, said “it is clear that the attack has caused significant damage”.

Other sources, familiar with the assessment exercise, told the Guardian that Schmieman’s estimates appeared correct. Though the EBRD holds €25m in funds to allow for emergency work, it said “significantly more funding is required” to tackle long-term decommissioning challenges thrown up by the incident.

A similar calculation was made by Ukraine’s environmental protection ministry. “It is likely that eliminating the consequences of Russian aggression will require more funds than are currently available in the International Cooperation Account for Chornobyl [the €25m EBRD fund],” said the ministry in a statement.

When the attack took place in February, Moscow blamed Ukraine. Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the incident was a provocation “premeditated by the Kyiv regime”. However, Ukrainian prosecutors believe, having reviewed the drone’s trajectory from the north, that the attack was a “possibly intentional strike” by Russian forces and a potential war crime.

Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist with Greenpeace Ukraine, said he believed the attack would have “consequences lasting decades” and said that it had taken place because “Putin and the Russian state has conducted a deliberate form of nuclear terror against Ukraine and Europe” that has “gone unpunished”.

Further cash for repairs is most likely to come from western governments. Twenty-six countries contributed to the cost of the original shelter, including the US, UK, France, Germany and even Russia – of which the vast steel arch structure cost €1.5bn out of a total €2.1bn fund. Others also made donations, including Turkey.

Home to the remains of a nuclear reactor that went out of control and exploded in April 1986, the Chornobyl site is seven miles from the border with Russia’s ally Belarus. It was occupied by Russian soldiers trying to capture Kyiv in February 2022, and has remained on the frontline after Ukraine regained it that April.

Two people were killed in the 1986 disaster and 28 more died from radiation poisoning in its immediate aftermath, while 350,000 were evacuated from nearby towns. Two exclusion zones remain in place, one 18 miles (30km) from the plant, where small numbers of people live and work, and a second at 6 miles, including the ghostly, abandoned town of Pripyat, a relic from an unlamented Soviet era.

Tourists were allowed to visit until the Russian full-scale invasion, but now the site lies in a military border zone, complicating decontamination efforts. Russian soldiers dug up contaminated earth as they built trenches in sight of the reactor shelter, but Ukrainian soldiers shipped in sand to build their own fortifications.

Debris recovered from the site led Ukrainian prosecutors to conclude that the damage was done by a Shahed 136, an Iranian-designed delta wing drone that has become Russia’s most frequently used long-range attack weapon. Now made at sites in Russia, their $50,000 to $100,000 cost is far below the amount of damage caused.

Ukrainian officials say the first step will be to “develop and implement” a temporary seal to the hole in the shelter, though Schmieman cautions that “one thing that is not obvious from distance is that as you go up the shelter object, the radiation dose gets higher. So you have to train and cycle workers based on safe annual dose limits”.

A radical option for full repair, probably only viable in peacetime, would be to slip the shelter back along a set of rails on which it was originally built 180 metres away, to reduce the radiation exposure for the workers. But that would be a “multi-year project” Schmieman estimated.

Remotely operated cranes hanging from the confinement shelter were intended to dismantle the sarcophagus and nuclear material below, and the strike hit a point near the maintenance garage Bokov said. That too may impair the plans to gradually dismantle and decommission the disaster site below.

“We designed this building for lots of contingencies, but we didn’t design it for war,” Schmieman said. “Though most nuclear plants are designed to survive an aircraft falling on them, we didn’t do that because after the accident in 1986 there has been a no-fly zone at Chornobyl. We had thought nothing would be flying overhead.”

• The Pentagon under Pete Hegseth stopped arms shipments to Ukraine in February without being ordered to do so by Donald Trump, the then newly inaugurated president, Reuters reports. The order – which the news agency said blindsided top US national security officials, and the Ukrainians – was reversed within a week, but it cost up to $2.2m to cancel the 11 flights involved, according to records. Reuters said records showed Hegseth gave a verbal order for the stoppage after a 30 January Oval Office meeting where only the idea of stopping military assistance was discussed.

• Russian drones attacked Kyiv on Tuesday night sparking fires in apartments and other buildings. Ukrainian authorities reported falling debris caused damage and injuries as air defences shot down drones. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said six people were injured. For a third consecutive night, Moscow came under attack from Ukrainian UAVs, putting its key airports as well as some regional airports out of commission for most of the night. On Monday night and Tuesday morning, a Ukrainian drone barrage forced Russia to close a dozen airports deep behind the frontline as foreign leaders began gathering in Moscow for a second world war “Victory Day” parade.

• A Russian ballistic missile attack killed three people including a child at Sumy in Ukraine and wounded 10 other people – most of them children, one of whom was in a severe condition, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked his government to seek help from Ukraine’s western allies to finance and develop interceptor drones to knock down attack drones such as Russia’s Iranian-designed Shaheds. “We will develop this direction as much as possible and each region will have its own responsibility specifically for this task,” said the Ukrainian president. Ukraine already has some capability, with videos regularly posted online showing Ukrainian UAVs pursuing and ramming Russian attack drones out of the air, while other interceptors can fire shotgun cartridges to shoot down enemy UAVs.

• Catholic cardinals gathered in Rome ahead of the conclave to elect a new pope called on Tuesday for a ceasefire and negotiations without preconditions. Their statement “noted with regret that there has not been progress in promoting peace in Ukraine, the Middle East and many other parts of the world”, while offering their “heartfelt appeal to all parties involved to reach as soon as possible a permanent ceasefire and to negotiate, without pre-conditions” a longer-term peace.

• Ukraine and Russia handed over 205 prisoners of war each in an exchange on Tuesday, both sides announced.

Donald Trump has said he “just want[s] to be friends with Canada” after his first post-election meeting with the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney – who used the gathering to shoot down any prospect of his country becoming the 51st state.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump praised Carney – whose Liberal party won the federal election last week – for one of the “greatest political comebacks of all time”, and described the prime minister’s visit as “an honour” for the White House.

The amicable tone of Tuesday’s meeting marked a stark contrast with Trump’s hostile rhetoric over recent months, as he launched a trade war against his northern neighbour, belittled Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, and made repeated threats to crush Canada’s economy with the aim of annexing it.

Carney returned the praise, telling Trump he was a “transformational president” with a strong focus on the economy. But he shot down any idea that Canada might accede to joining the US as the 51st state – a proposal again floated by Trump in the meeting.

“As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale,” Carney told Trump.

“That’s true,” said Trump.

“Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign … it’s not for sale,” said Carney. “Won’t be for sale, ever.”

“Never say never,” said Trump. Carney smiled and mouthed “never, never, never, never.”

The meeting between the prime minister and president is probably the most closely watched summit in Canada’s history, amid fears of further diplomatic and trading friction between two countries which have traditionally shared political and cultural values.

Minutes before the meeting, Trump posted on social media that he “very much” wants to work with Carney, but revived a debunked figure that the US is “subsidizing Canada by $200 Billion Dollars a year, in addition to giving them FREE Military Protection”.

“We don’t need their Cars, we don’t need their Energy, we don’t need their Lumber, we don’t need ANYTHING they have, other than their friendship, which hopefully we will always maintain,” he wrote. “They, on the other hand, need EVERYTHING from us! The Prime Minister will be arriving shortly and that will be, most likely, my only question of consequence.”

Carney crafted much of his successful federal election campaign around a patriotic defiance to the US president’s threats to the nation’s sovereignty. The prime minister has repeatedly accused Trump of trying to “break” Canada so that he can “own” the country. Carney also used his first post-election press conference to once again quash any idea Canada was interested in becoming the 51st US state, a proposal repeatedly floated by Trump.

“It’s always important to distinguish want from reality,” Carney said last week. But Carney has throughout steered clear of criticizing the president personally, acutely aware the two countries also share a tightly integrated economy, with more than C$1tn (US$725bn) in trade – and that US diplomacy depends more than ever on the whims of its president.

The country’s trade relationship came up during the meeting, with Trump signalling he was interested in renegotiating key aspects of USMCA free trade agreement, calling the prior deal, Nafta, the “worst in the history of the world”.

“We’re dealing more with concepts right now,” Trump said later in the meeting, telling reporters he didn’t want Canadian cars or steel. “We want to do it ourselves.”

Asked if there was anything Carney could say to him that would make him lift the tariffs on Canada, Trump replied: “No.”

Carney pushed back on Trump’s characterization of the current deal, including the use of tariffs by US officials, but agreed the existing deal was a “framework” for future talks and a “bigger discussion”.

The prime minister later described his discussions with Trump as “very constructive,” and said they would at the G7 summit in Canada next month.

He also told reporters that he had asked Trump to stop referring to Canada as a part of the United States.

“I told him that it wasn’t useful to repeat this idea, but the president will say what he wants,” Carney said.

Trump was equally positive in his framing of the meeting, telling reporters after it went “very well” and set the stage for further talks.

“We want to do what’s right for our respective peoples, and that’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “As far as calling him governor Carney, no, I haven’t done that yet, and maybe I won’t. I did have a lot of fun with Trudeau. But I think this is, this is a big step up, it’s a good step up for Canada.”

Travelling with Carney were some of the country’s top trade and diplomatic officials, including the international trade minister, Dominic LeBlanc, foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, public safety minister, David McGuinty and Canada’s ambassador to the US, Kirsten Hillman.

Seated alongside Trump were his vice-president, JD Vance; the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the US secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick; and the US trade representative Jamieson Greer.

Trump, who at times used the meeting to attack the former US president Joe Biden, also used the forum to criticize Trudeau and the former finance minister Chrystia Freeland.

“She was terrible. Actually, she was a terrible person, and she really hurt that deal very badly because she tried to take advantage of the deal and she didn’t get away with it,” said Trump.

Before Carney and Trump met at the White House, Canadian provincial leaders weighed in.

“This guy drives me nuts,” Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, said of Trump. “You see this guy on TV, ‘We don’t need Canada.’ Really?” he said, telling attenders that Canada’s largest trading partner desperately needed potash, nickel and uranium.

Ford, a populist conservative who has embraced his role as a patriotic anti-Trump figure, said a growing number of US governors “totally disagree” with the president’s trade war with its northern neighbour.

Ford pointed to fresh polling that shows a drop in Trump’s approval rating as the cost of tariffs hit American consumers.

“I can’t wait for the midterms. Then we’ll fix his little red wagon,” he said.

Donald Trump has said he “just want[s] to be friends with Canada” after his first post-election meeting with the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney – who used the gathering to shoot down any prospect of his country becoming the 51st state.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump praised Carney – whose Liberal party won the federal election last week – for one of the “greatest political comebacks of all time”, and described the prime minister’s visit as “an honour” for the White House.

The amicable tone of Tuesday’s meeting marked a stark contrast with Trump’s hostile rhetoric over recent months, as he launched a trade war against his northern neighbour, belittled Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, and made repeated threats to crush Canada’s economy with the aim of annexing it.

Carney returned the praise, telling Trump he was a “transformational president” with a strong focus on the economy. But he shot down any idea that Canada might accede to joining the US as the 51st state – a proposal again floated by Trump in the meeting.

“As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale,” Carney told Trump.

“That’s true,” said Trump.

“Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign … it’s not for sale,” said Carney. “Won’t be for sale, ever.”

“Never say never,” said Trump. Carney smiled and mouthed “never, never, never, never.”

The meeting between the prime minister and president is probably the most closely watched summit in Canada’s history, amid fears of further diplomatic and trading friction between two countries which have traditionally shared political and cultural values.

Minutes before the meeting, Trump posted on social media that he “very much” wants to work with Carney, but revived a debunked figure that the US is “subsidizing Canada by $200 Billion Dollars a year, in addition to giving them FREE Military Protection”.

“We don’t need their Cars, we don’t need their Energy, we don’t need their Lumber, we don’t need ANYTHING they have, other than their friendship, which hopefully we will always maintain,” he wrote. “They, on the other hand, need EVERYTHING from us! The Prime Minister will be arriving shortly and that will be, most likely, my only question of consequence.”

Carney crafted much of his successful federal election campaign around a patriotic defiance to the US president’s threats to the nation’s sovereignty. The prime minister has repeatedly accused Trump of trying to “break” Canada so that he can “own” the country. Carney also used his first post-election press conference to once again quash any idea Canada was interested in becoming the 51st US state, a proposal repeatedly floated by Trump.

“It’s always important to distinguish want from reality,” Carney said last week. But Carney has throughout steered clear of criticizing the president personally, acutely aware the two countries also share a tightly integrated economy, with more than C$1tn (US$725bn) in trade – and that US diplomacy depends more than ever on the whims of its president.

The country’s trade relationship came up during the meeting, with Trump signalling he was interested in renegotiating key aspects of USMCA free trade agreement, calling the prior deal, Nafta, the “worst in the history of the world”.

“We’re dealing more with concepts right now,” Trump said later in the meeting, telling reporters he didn’t want Canadian cars or steel. “We want to do it ourselves.”

Asked if there was anything Carney could say to him that would make him lift the tariffs on Canada, Trump replied: “No.”

Carney pushed back on Trump’s characterization of the current deal, including the use of tariffs by US officials, but agreed the existing deal was a “framework” for future talks and a “bigger discussion”.

The prime minister later described his discussions with Trump as “very constructive,” and said they would at the G7 summit in Canada next month.

He also told reporters that he had asked Trump to stop referring to Canada as a part of the United States.

“I told him that it wasn’t useful to repeat this idea, but the president will say what he wants,” Carney said.

Trump was equally positive in his framing of the meeting, telling reporters after it went “very well” and set the stage for further talks.

“We want to do what’s right for our respective peoples, and that’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “As far as calling him governor Carney, no, I haven’t done that yet, and maybe I won’t. I did have a lot of fun with Trudeau. But I think this is, this is a big step up, it’s a good step up for Canada.”

Travelling with Carney were some of the country’s top trade and diplomatic officials, including the international trade minister, Dominic LeBlanc, foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, public safety minister, David McGuinty and Canada’s ambassador to the US, Kirsten Hillman.

Seated alongside Trump were his vice-president, JD Vance; the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the US secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick; and the US trade representative Jamieson Greer.

Trump, who at times used the meeting to attack the former US president Joe Biden, also used the forum to criticize Trudeau and the former finance minister Chrystia Freeland.

“She was terrible. Actually, she was a terrible person, and she really hurt that deal very badly because she tried to take advantage of the deal and she didn’t get away with it,” said Trump.

Before Carney and Trump met at the White House, Canadian provincial leaders weighed in.

“This guy drives me nuts,” Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, said of Trump. “You see this guy on TV, ‘We don’t need Canada.’ Really?” he said, telling attenders that Canada’s largest trading partner desperately needed potash, nickel and uranium.

Ford, a populist conservative who has embraced his role as a patriotic anti-Trump figure, said a growing number of US governors “totally disagree” with the president’s trade war with its northern neighbour.

Ford pointed to fresh polling that shows a drop in Trump’s approval rating as the cost of tariffs hit American consumers.

“I can’t wait for the midterms. Then we’ll fix his little red wagon,” he said.

Amazon said it has made a “fundamental leap forward in robotics” after developing a robot with a sense of touch that will be capable of grabbing about three-quarters of the items in its vast warehouses.

Vulcan – which launches at the US firm’s “Delivering the Future” event in Dortmund, Germany, on Wednesday and is to be deployed around the world in the next few years – is designed to help humans sort items for storage and then prepare them for delivery as the latest in a suite of robots which have an ever-growing role in the online retailer’s extensive operation.

Aaron Parness, Amazon’s director of robotics, described Vulcan as a “fundamental leap forward in robotics. It’s not just seeing the world, it’s feeling it, enabling capabilities that were impossible for Amazon robots until now.”

The robots will be able to identify objects by touch using AI to work out what they can and can’t handle and figuring out how best to pick them up. They will work alongside humans who now stash and retrieve items from shelving units which are manoeuvred to them at picking stations by wheeled robots – of which Amazon now has more than 750,000 in operation.

Vulcan will be able to stow items on the upper and lower levels of the shelving units – known as pods – so that humans no longer need to use ladders or bend so often during their work. Robots now operating in Amazon’s warehouse are able to shift items around or pick items using suction cups and computer vision.

The development is likely to raise fears of job losses as retailers reduce human involvement in distribution centres, which employ thousands of people.

Many retailers have said that they are increasing investment in automation as labour costs rise around the world. Amazon has faced industrial action in the UK and elsewhere over low pay in its warehouses.

Economists at Goldman Sachs speculated in 2023 that 300m jobs worldwide could be automated out of existence by 2030 as a result of the development of generative AI, with many more roles radically transformed.

In the UK, between 60,000 and 275,000 jobs could be displaced every year over a couple of decades at the peak of the disruption, estimates from the Tony Blair Institute suggested last year.

However, Tye Brady, the chief technologist of robotics at Amazon, said robots could not completely replace humans in the group’s warehouses and were there to “amplify the human potential” and to improve safety in the workplace. The self-confessed “Star Wars geek” said the robots he helps design could be likened to R2D2 as “an amazing collaborative robot”.

“People will always be part of the equation,” he said, while machines will take on “the menial, the mundane and the repetitive” tasks.

“There’s no such thing as completely automated. It just doesn’t exist, because you always need people to understand the value of the operation, just using common sense, like, is that really doing the job?”

He said having people involved could help protect against potential hacks of the system – as retailers increase efforts to protect themselves after the shutdown of Marks & Spencer’s online orders following a cyber-attack.

“All hacking could possibly be detected by a machine, but they’re usually detected by people, so having people be part of the equation is a good thing,” Brady said.

He added that humans are also best for spotting more prosaic problems, such as broken or spilt items in a delivery that could cause problems for the system.

Brady says that AI is helping to develop robots that can navigate complex spaces autonomously and learn to move safely alongside people and other objects. He said the latest generation of robots were able to “ask for help” so that they could learn new ways of doing things.

“It’s really exciting to bring both the mind and the body together,” he said. “It’s finally here, and it’s just beginning.”

For example, Amazon plans to install technology, which uses machine-learning and automation to create bespoke packaging that will cut waste. More than 70 of the machines will be installed in Germany, UK, France, Italy and Spain by the end of this year, with dozens more to follow by 2027.

The announcement comes as Amazon this week launched its low-cost Amazon Haul site in the UK, which promises thousands of products for £20 or less, as the group takes on cut-price operators Shein and Temu.

South Korea has recorded the highest number of measles cases in six years, adding to concerns that low vaccination rates combined with international travel are contributing to further outbreaks elsewhere in the region.

The country has confirmed 52 cases so far this year, exceeding the 49 recorded for the whole of 2024, the Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said this week. It is the highest figure since 2019, when 194 cases were recorded.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recognised South Korea as “measles free” in 2014, but overseas travel and an ageing population are thought to have contributed to the rise in cases.

South Korea is not alone in having outbreaks of measles, which experts consider the most infectious communicable disease. Alarm is growing over outbreaks in the US – centred on Texas – and in Thailand and Vietnam. The US is enduring the largest measles outbreak in a quarter of a century, with one leading immunologist warning: “We’re living in a post-herd immunity world.”

The Vietnamese health ministry said officials had identified about 40,000 suspected measles cases and five deaths already this year, prompting calls to speed up vaccination of children. Vietnam confirmed 6,725 cases and 13 deaths in 2024 – with most deaths occurring among children and older people with underlying health conditions, according to media reports.

According to figures reported to the WHO by member states, Thailand had 7,507 cases in 2024, compared with just 38 in 2023.

The outbreak in South Korea has been attributed to unvaccinated travellers from overseas. Of the 52 cases reported by the KDCA this week, 34 involved people from overseas – mostly from Vietnam – the Yonhap news agency said.

“The global increase in measles is likely to result in more imported cases,” a KDCA official told Yonhap. “The risk of rapid outbreaks remains low because of our stable vaccination rates and monitoring system.”

A two-dose measles vaccination in childhood is about 99% effective in stopping someone from getting measles, according to infectious diseases experts.

The WHO said in a press release in March: “The latest data indicates that the measles outbreak in Vietnam is still very much ongoing, and we are seeing continued surges in cases in central and northern Vietnam – including new outbreaks in parts of the country that have not reported cases or clusters of cases before.

It added: “Due to the highly contagious nature of measles and the significant immunity gaps, many un- or under-vaccinated children are exposed to infection.”

The outbreaks in the US and south-east Asia have sparked concern that Australia too could become “fertile ground” for the disease.

Measles can cause severe complications in vulnerable children and adults including pneumonia, encephalitis and death, according to a factsheet on the website of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A doctor who treated Erin Patterson has told her triple murder trial that he was surprised she discharged herself from hospital five minutes after being told she may have been exposed to potentially fatal mushroom poisoning.

Dr Christopher Webster, who was working at the Leongatha hospital two days after Patterson served beef wellington to her in-laws for lunch, gave evidence on Wednesday at the Latrobe Valley law courts in Morwell.

Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to the lunch she served at her house in Leongatha on 29 July 2023.

She 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.

Webster told the court that Don and Gail Patterson had already been transferred to intensive care, and the Wilkinsons were about to be transferred to a larger hospital, when Patterson arrived at the hospital about 8.05am on 31 July 2023.

He said he told Patterson he was concerned the group were victims of death cap mushroom poisoning.

Webster said he also asked Patterson where the mushrooms she used in the dish had come from, and she provided a one-word response: “Woolworths.”

Soon after, she discharged herself against medical advice, once Webster told her that she would need to start undergoing treatment, saying she had not been prepared to be admitted.

“I had suggested to her that she had been exposed to potentially deadly death cap mushroom poisoning, and being in hospital would be a better place for her to be,” Webster said.

Webster told the court he contacted two superiors in order to get clearance to call police in a bid to make Patterson return to the hospital. He also called Patterson three times, he said.

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A recording of his triple zero call was played to the court, outlining Webster contacting them at 9.25am and expressing “concern regarding a patient that presented here earlier but has left the building”.

The court previously heard from Simon that Patterson was known to not like hospitals, and had discharged herself from them twice before.

Patterson returned to Leongatha hospital soon after Webster’s calls.

After she returned, Webster received a call from Mirboo North police at 10.04am, who told them they were at Patterson’s house.

He asked them to secure leftovers of the meal, though said he had “no idea” at the time whether any existed.

“I had no idea, but I figured there was a chance. Strike while the iron’s hot. The police were there,” Webster said.

He asked Patterson where the leftovers could be found and she said police would be able to find some in the bin.

Patterson also seemed reluctant for her children to attend hospital, Webster said, after she told him they had eaten meat from the beef wellington, but not the mushrooms or pastry.

He said that when Patterson told him the children could be scared about having to attend hospital, he responded: “They can be scared and alive, or dead.”

The court was shown CCTV of Patterson leaving the hospital, and signing the “discharge against medical advice form”.

Webster said during his evidence that during his conversations with Heather Wilkinson about the meal that she had described the beef wellington as “delicious”.

The children of Patterson’s lunch guests were also called as witnesses on Wednesday.

Anna Terrington and Matthew Patterson, the children of Don and Gail Patterson, and Ruth Dubois, the daughter of Heather and Ian Wilkinson, gave evidence.

Terrington, Don and Gail’s youngest child, told the court she had known Patterson since the accused and Simon started a relationship in about 2005.

She agreed that her parents had maintained a good relationship with Patterson despite her separating from Simon in 2015.

Terrington also agreed, under cross-examination from Sophie Stafford, for Patterson, that they had been supportive of her and there was no animosity between them.

About 5pm on the day of the lunch, about two hours after her parents returned home, Terrington spoke to her mother.

“Mum said it went well,” Terrington, who became emotional during her evidence, told the court.

“She said that they had beef wellington and that it was too much for mum, so dad finished hers.”

Terrington agreed that Patterson and Simon had loaned her and her husband about $400,000, and that she had been close with Patterson during one of their pregnancies.

These pregnancies resulted in them having children three days apart who became known in the family as “the twins”, the court heard.

Matthew Patterson, a church pastor, also agreed that his parents had a positive relationship with Patterson, which remained the “status quo” even after her separation from Simon.

He told the court about a lunch in 2021 when Patterson told him she was sad the relationship was “unable to move forward”, and she asked him for advice about how to get Simon to take part in counselling relating to the marriage.

Matthew said it appeared that the communication between Simon and Patterson had become more “mechanical” in later years, and that she had attended fewer family events, but acknowledged that may have been because Covid-19 made such events less frequent.

He said he had also been loaned about $400,000 by Simon and Patterson.

Matthew also said he called Patterson after his parents became unwell and asked her where she bought the mushrooms used in the beef wellington.

She told him Woolworths and an Asian grocer or supermarket in the Oakleigh area, he said.

“It was a general, broad, vague answer, rather than a specific one,” Matthew told the court.

Dubois, who said in court that she only considered herself an acquaintance of Patterson, expressed surprise when her mother, Heather Wilkinson, told her she had been invited to lunch.

Patterson had come across Heather and Gail after a sermon at the Korumburra Baptist church, where Ian was a pastor, 13 days before the lunch.

Dubois said her mother had told her Patterson said to them after the sermon “just the two I was looking for” and invited them for lunch.

Her mother had said, after Dubois expressed surprise at the invitation, “Yes, we were surprised also, that had never happened before.”

The court also heard from medical witnesses about the treatment provided to the lunch guests, and a search of the Victorian cancer registry, which confirmed that Patterson had never been diagnosed with cancer.

The court has previously heard Patterson told her lunch guests that she had cancer but her lawyers told the court it was acknowledged she had never been diagnosed.

The trial continues.

Chris Pelkey was killed in a road rage shooting in Chandler, Arizona, in 2021.

Three-and-a-half years later, Pelkey appeared in an Arizona court to address his killer. Sort of.

“To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” says a video recording of Pelkey. “In another life, we probably could have been friends.”

“I believe in forgiveness, and a God who forgives. I always have, and I still do,” Pelkey continues, wearing a grey baseball cap and sporting the same thick red and brown beard he wore in life.

Pelkey was 37 years old, devoutly religious and an army combat veteran. Horcasitas shot Pelkey at a red light in 2021 after Pelkey exited his vehicle and walked back towards Horcasitas’s car.

Pelkey’s appearance from beyond the grave was made possible by artificial intelligence in what could be the first use of AI to deliver a victim impact statement. Stacey Wales, Pelkey’s sister, told local outlet ABC-15 that she had a recurring thought when gathering more than 40 impact statements from Chris’s family and friends.

“All I kept coming back to was, what would Chris say?” Wales said.

As AI spreads across society and enters the courtroom, the US judicial conference advisory committee has announced that it will begin seeking public comment as part of determining how to regulate the use of AI-generated evidence at trial.

Wales and her husband fed an AI model videos and audio of Pelkey to try and come up with a rendering that would match the sentiments and thoughts of a still-alive Pelkey, something that Wales compared with a “Frankenstein of love” to local outlet Fox 10.

Judge Todd Lang responded positively to the AI usage. Lang ultimately sentenced Horcasitas to 10-and-a-half years in prison on manslaughter charges.

“I loved that AI, thank you for that. As angry as you are, as justifiably angry as the family is, I heard the forgiveness,” Lang said. “I feel that that was genuine.”

Also in favor was Pelkey’s brother John, who said that he felt “waves of healing” from seeing his brother’s face, and believes that Chris would have forgiven his killer.

“That was the man I knew,” John said.