Joe Biden addressed the nation Wednesday to explain his historic decision to withdraw from the presidential race, delivering a reflective and hopeful message about the need to begin a new chapter in America’s story.

“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future all merited a second term, but nothing – nothing – can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition,” Biden said in the Oval Office.

“So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. It’s the best way to unite our nation. You know, there is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices – yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.”

The speech came three days after Biden stunned the country with the announcement he would abandon his presidential campaign less than four months before election day. As he contemplated the legacy of his five decades in public life, Biden pledged to keep working to better Americans’ lives as he concludes his first – and now only – term as president. Some Republican lawmakers have suggested Biden should resign rather than finish out his term, but the president firmly rejected those calls on Wednesday.

“Over the next six months, I’ll be focused on doing my job as president,” he said. “That means I’ll continue to lower costs for hard-working families [and] grow our economy. I’ll keep defending our personal freedoms and our civil rights – from the right to vote to the right to choose.”

Biden specifically vowed to “keep working to end the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages and bring peace and security to the Middle East”. Hours before Biden’s speech, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, delivered a divisive address to a rare joint session of Congress in which he called for “total victory” in the war.

Biden cited his own leadership on foreign policy, including his staunch support for Ukraine amid its war against Russia, as one of his proudest accomplishments. He reminded voters about the legislation he has signed to tackle the climate crisis, reduce gun violence and expand healthcare access. Harkening back to the day of his inauguration in 2021, weeks after the January 6 attack on the Capitol and less than a year into the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Biden marveled at how far the country had come in such a short time.

“We were in the grip of the worst pandemic in the century, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the worst attack on our democracy since the civil war,” Biden said. “We came together as Americans. We got through it. We emerged stronger, more prosperous and more secure.”

After withdrawing from the race on Sunday, Biden endorsed his vice-president Kamala Harris, who has already consolidated the support of enough delegates to capture the Democratic nomination next month. In his speech, Biden reiterated his praise of Harris and underscored the immense choice facing voters this November.

“I’d like to thank our great vice-president, Kamala Harris,” Biden said. “She’s experienced, she’s tough, she’s capable. She’s been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country. Now the choice is up to you, the American people.”

Before Biden’s announcement on Sunday, more than 30 Democratic members of Congress had called on the president to drop out of the race following his disastrous debate performance last month. In the days leading up to the announcement, polls showed an increasing number of Democrats believed Biden should step aside as Donald Trump’s narrow lead in the race began to grow.

Early surveys taken since Sunday suggest a neck-and-neck race between Trump and Harris, but the vice-president already appears to be in a slightly stronger position than Biden was. Even as polls indicate a tight race, Biden expressed confidence that Americans would choose to preserve democracy this November. Quoting the Declaration of Independence and founding father Benjamin Franklin, Biden made the time-honored argument for American exceptionalism.

“America is an idea, an idea stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It’s the most powerful idea in the history of the world,” Biden said. “That idea is that we hold these truths to be self-evident. We’re all created equal, endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. We’ve never fully lived up to it, to this sacred idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either, and I do not believe the American people will walk away from it now.”

It was a message that echoed Biden’s campaign slogan in 2020, which framed the election against Trump as a “battle for the soul of the nation”. That battle remains ongoing, Biden said, and it will now be up to the American people to decide how it will end.

“The great thing about America is here, kings and dictators do not rule. The people do,” Biden said. “History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. You just have to keep faith – keep the faith – and remember who we are.”

Shortly after Biden spoke, Barack Obama, under whom Biden served as vice-president for two terms, thanked him. On X, Obama quoted part of a line from the speech – “The truth, the sacred cause of this country, is larger than any one of us,”– and said, “Joe Biden has stayed true to these words again and again over a lifetime of service to the American people.” Obama has so far notably refrained from endorsing Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate.

House speaker emerita, Nancy Pelosi, said in a statement that Biden has shown he is on the right side of both history and the future. In a statement released after Biden’s Oval Office address, she called him “one of America’s most consequential presidents”.

And Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer called Biden’s decision to withdraw “a great act of patriotism for this country you love so much”.

There was 6 January 2021, and a violent coup attempt by a president desperate trying to cling to power. Then there was 24 July 2024, and a president explaining why he was giving up the most powerful job in the world.

Joe Biden’s address on Wednesday night was a moving piece of political theatre, the start of a farewell tour by “a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings” who entered politics in 1972 and made it all the way to the Oval Office. For diehard Democrats it was a case of: if you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

The speech was also a rebuke of his predecessor Donald Trump’s authoritarian impulses in both word and deed. Although he never mentioned his predecessor by name, Biden laid out two radically different visions of the US presidency set to clash again in November.

Last Sunday the 46th president bowed to a chorus of fellow Democrats questioning his age and mental acuity and announced that he would drop out of the presidential election. On Wednesday, recovered from the coronavirus, the 81-year-old made his first public remarks to explain why.

Speaking against the backdrop of window, two flags, gold curtains and family photos including his late son Beau, Biden began by citing the Oval Office portraits of former presidents Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.

“I revere this office but I love my country more,” he said. “It’s been the honour of my life to serve as your president. But in the defence of democracy, which is at stake, I think it’s more important than any title.”

It was a definitive rebuke of Trump, a man who has slapped his name on countless buildings and for whom the title is everything. Backed by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank, the Republican nominee is intent on an expansion of presidential power. But by giving power away – in what Hillary Clinton described “as pure an act of patriotism as I have seen in my lifetime” – Biden demonstrated he will always be the bigger man.

Indeed, despite having months to prepare for this contingency, the Trump campaign has been struggling to find a strategy to take on the new Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris. Perhaps they were not quite able to believe that Biden would step aside because they know Trump never would.

Biden wore a dark blue suit, white shirt, blue tie and US flag pin. There were no major gaffes but there were slight stumbles over certain words. Sitting off-camera to his left were his son Hunter and other family members. According to a pool reporter in the Oval Office, at one point Biden’s daughter Ashley reached for the hand of her mother, Jill Biden, who was sitting next to her.

(Trump, who claims he recently “took a bullet for democracy”, watched the address on his plane after a characteristically mendacious and narcissistic campaign rally in North Carolina.)

Biden is the first incumbent to announce he would not seek re-election since Lyndon Johnson in 1968, although some historians argue that Johnson secretly hoped for a breakthrough in the Vietnam war and for his party to come begging for him to make a comeback.

Still, some of the parallels are irresistible. For Johnson, coming after the younger, more glamorous John F Kennedy, remarkable legislative achievements at home were clouded by the war in Vietnam. For Biden, coming after the younger, more glamorous Barack Obama, remarkable legislative achievements at home have been clouded by the war on Gaza. Just as in 1968, expect protests at next month’s Democratic national convention in Chicago.

But whereas Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election at the end of a long and winding 40-minute speech, Biden, recovering from Covid-19, first did so via Twitter/X. And he quickly anointed a successor in Harris.

Biden reportedly has mixed feelings about being pushed aside by some of those same Democrats now singing his praises. The presidency had been his lifelong ambition – he first ran in 1988 – and his victory in 2020 was a vindication of everyman strivers everywhere. On top of that, he did the job rather well. Yet now they were telling him enough. In his Oval Office address, he buried those resentments deep in his soul, though he could not resist a pointed comment about his qualifications.

“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term,” he said. “But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.”

He made a call for generational change in a country facing its first presidential election without a Bush, Clinton or Biden on the ticket since 1976. “I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation.

“It’s the best way to unite our nation. I know there was a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.”

That may seem to leave Biden a lame duck for his final six months. But he vowed to continue to pursue his agenda and slipped in an important line about calling for reform of the supreme court – a court that became embroiled in ethics scandals, overturned the constitutional right to abortion and declared presidents immune from prosecution for official acts.

“The great thing about America is, here kings and dictators do not rule – the people do,” Biden concluded. “History is in your hands. The power’s in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. You just have to keep faith – keep the faith – and remember who we are.”

In 2020, the year of a global pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests and Trump trauma, Biden’s signature empathy born of personal tragedies made him the right man at the right time to heal hearts and defend democracy. In 2024, his time has passed. That he came to recognise it reluctantly, and decided to pass the baton, taught a lesson about the presidency that Trump will never learn.

Joe Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday night in an emotional speech that encompassed some of the reasons that led him to withdraw from the presidential race. This was the first speech Biden has made since he announced his withdrawal from the race on Sunday.

Most notably, the 81-year-old president, who was recovering from Covid-19 this week, highlighted the importance of passing the torch to a new generation, referring to his endorsement for Kamala Harris as the new contender for November’s elections.

In a roughly 10-minute speech, Biden pointed to the threat that he says Donald Trump poses to democracy in the US.

“When Ben Franklin was asked,” Biden said, “as he emerged from the convention going on, whether the founders have given America a monarchy or a Republic, Franklin’s response was: a republic, if you can keep it.”

“Whether we keep our republic is now in your hands,” Biden said.

Here are the key takeaways:

Joe Biden has explained his decision to drop out of the presidential race, saying it was the “best way to unite our nation”.

The US president’s remarks were broadcast from the Oval Office, his first televised appearance since announcing he would end his bid for re-election, and conveyed a reflective and hopeful message.

The following is a transcript of his speech.

My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you tonight from behind the resolute desk in the Oval Office. In this sacred space, I’m surrounded by portraits of extraordinary American presidents.

Thomas Jefferson wrote the immortal words that guide this nation. George Washington showed us presidents are not kings. Abraham Lincoln, who implored us to reject malice. Franklin Roosevelt, who inspired us to reject fear.

I revere this office, but I love my country more.

It’s been the honor of my life to serve as your president, but the defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think is more important than any title.

I draw strength and I find joy in working for the American people, but this sacred task of perfecting our union is not about me. It’s about you, your families, your futures. It’s about We the People. We can never forget that, and I never have.

I’ve made it clear that I believe America is at an inflection point, one of those rare moments in history when the decisions we make now determine our fate of our nation and the world for decades to come. America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division.

We have to decide, do we still believe in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy? In this moment, we can see those we disagree with not as enemies but as fellow Americans. Can we do that? Does character and public life still matter? I believe I know the answer to these questions, because I know you, the American people, and I know this: we are a great nation because we are good people.

When you elected me to this office, I promised to always level with you, to tell you the truth. And the truth, the sacred cause of this country is larger than any one of us. Those of us who cherish that cause, cherish it so much. The cause of American democracy itself. We must unite to protect it.

You know, in recent weeks, it’s become clear to me that I need to unite my party in this critical endeavor. I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term, but nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.

So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That’s the best way to unite our nation. You know, there is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices, and that time and place is now.

Over the next six months, I’ll be focused on doing my job as president. That means I’ll continue to lower costs for hardworking families, grow our economy. I’ll keep defending our personal freedoms and our civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose. I’ll keep calling out hate and extremism. Make it clear there is no place, no place in America, for political violence or any violence, ever, period. I’m going to keep speaking out to protect our kids from gun violence, our planet from climate crisis as an existential threat, and I will keep fighting for my Cancer Moonshot, so we can end cancer as we know it, because we can do it. I’m going to call for supreme court reform, because this is critical to our democracy, supreme court reform.

You know, I will keep working to ensure America remains strong, secure and the leader of the free world. I’m the first president of this century to report to the American people that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world. We’ll keep rallying a coalition of proud nations to stop Putin from taking over Ukraine, doing more damage. We’ll keep Nato stronger, and I’ll make it more powerful and more united than any time in all of our history. I’ll keep doing the same for allies in the Pacific.

You know, when I came to office, the conventional wisdom was that China would inevitably, would inevitably pass, surpass the United States. That’s not the case anymore, and I’m going to keep working to end the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages and bring peace and security to the Middle East and end this war. We’re also working around the clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.

You know, we’ve come so far since my inauguration. On that day I told you, as I stood in that winter, we stood in a winter of peril and a winter of possibilities, parallel possibilities. We were in the grip of the worst pandemic in the century, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War. We came together as Americans. We got through it, we emerged stronger, more prosperous and more secure.

Today, we have the strongest economy in the world, creating nearly 16m new jobs – a record. Wages are up. Inflation continues to come down. The racial wealth gap is the lowest it’s been in 20 years. We’re literally rebuilding our entire nation, urban, suburban, rural, tribal communities. Manufacturing has come back to America. We’re leading the world again in chips and science and innovation. We finally beat Big Pharma, after all these years, to lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors. And I’m going to keep fighting to make sure we lower the cost for everyone, not just seniors. More people have healthcare today in America than ever before. I signed one of those significant laws, helping millions of veterans and their families, who are exposed to toxic materials.

You know, the most significant climate law ever, ever in the history of the world, the first major gun safety law in 30 years. Today, violent crime rate is at a 50-year low. We’re also securing our border. Border crossings are lower today than when the previous administration left office.

I’ve kept my commitment to appoint the first Black woman to the supreme court of the United States of America. I also kept my commitment to have an administration that looks like America and be a president for all Americans. That’s what I’ve done.

I ran for president four years ago because I believed, and still do, that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was a stake, and that’s still the case.

America is an idea. An idea is stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant.

It’s the most powerful idea in the history of the world. That idea is that we hold these truths to be self-evident. We’re all created equal, endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.

We’ve never fully lived up to it, to this sacred idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either, and I do not believe the American people will walk away from it now.

In just a few months, the American people choose the course of America’s future.

I made my choice. I made my views known. I would like to thank our great vice-president, Kamala Harris. She’s experienced. She’s tough, she’s capable. She’s been an incredible partner to me and the leader for our country.

Now the choice is up to you, the American people. When you make that choice, remember the words of Benjamin Franklin, hanging on my wall here in the Oval Office, alongside the bust of Dr King and Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez.

When Ben Franklin was asked, as he emerged from the convention going on, whether the founders have given America a monarchy or republic, Franklin’s response was: ‘A republic, if you can keep it.’ A republic, if you can keep it.

Whether we keep our republic, is now in your hands.

My fellow Americans, it has been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years. Nowhere else on earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the resolute desk in the Oval Office as president of the United States. Here I am.

That’s what’s so special about America. We are a nation of promise and possibilities, of dreamers and doers, of ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things. I gave my heart and my soul to our nation, like so many others.

I’ve been blessed a million times in return with the love and support of the American people. I hope you have some idea how grateful I am to all of you.

The great thing about America is here, kings and dictators do not rule. The people do.

History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. You just have to keep faith. Keep the faith and remember who we are. We’re the United States of America. And there is simply nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together.

So let’s act together, preserve our democracy. God bless you all. And may God protect our troops. Thank you.

At least 26 people were killed, including 16 children, during attacks by a gang of young men on three Papua New Guinea villages last week, police have said, adding that their houses were torched and other villagers were still missing.

Angoram police station commander Inspector Peter Mandi told reporters on Thursday an unconfirmed number of women and girls were also raped before being killed in the Sepik River villages of Tamara, Tambari, and Angrumara in East Sepik’s Angoram district.

The rapes and massacre were carried out by a group of more than 30 young men from a gang who call themselves “I don’t care”, he said.

“Last Wednesday, on the 17th, the group armed with guns, machetes and wire catapults attacked Angrumara village, burned houses and killed an elderly man and a 5-year-old boy,” he said.

“The next day, they attacked Tambari village, raped women and young girls and then slashed them with machetes, young children were also slashed with the machetes.” He said three people had been confirmed dead on Angrumara and 23 in Tambari, with 16 children among them.

“So far, 26 are confirmed dead from both villages, whilst the villagers who fled are still unaccounted for,” he said. It was unclear when the third village, Tamara, was attacked.

Police have yet to reach the villages, which are located in a remote area that is difficult to access by road. Many of the survivors fled into the surrounding bush.

One survivor of the Tambari massacre who reached the police station in Angoram said that all the homes in their village had been burned to the ground and that villagers had fled with only the clothes on their backs, according to a police statement. Locals feared further attacks by the gang, it said.

Mandi said that police had yet to establish why the gang attacked the villages and called for additional police manpower to arrest its members, all of whom were still at large.

Earlier the UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, had said he was “horrified by the shocking eruption of deadly violence in Papua New Guinea, seemingly as the result of a dispute over land and lake ownership and user rights.”

He said the number of dead could rise to more than 50 and called on Papua New Guinea authorities “to conduct prompt, impartial and transparent investigations and to ensure those responsible are held to account. It is also vital that victims and their families receive reparations, including adequate housing, effective protection against further attacks and necessary psychosocial support.”

He urged authorities “to work in and with the affected communities to address the root causes of land and lake disputes, and so prevent recurrence of further violence”.

His comments echoed those made by his office in February calling on Papua New Guinea to address the root causes of escalating tribal violence in the country after dozens were killed in a particularly violent clash between rival tribes.

Conflicts among 17 tribal groups had progressively escalated since elections in 2022 over issues including land disputes and clan rivalries, a spokesperson said at the time.

Clans have fought each other in Papua New Guinea for centuries, but an influx of mercenaries and automatic weapons has inflamed the cycle of violence.

The country’s population has more than doubled since 1980, placing increasing strain on land and resources, and deepening tribal rivalries.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Benjamin Netanyahu lauded US support for Israel’s war in Gaza but offered few details on ceasefire negotiations as he addressed a raucous joint session of US Congress that was boycotted by dozens of Democratic lawmakers and protested by thousands outside the US Capitol.

In a fiery speech in the House chamber, Netanyahu called for “total victory” in the nine-month-old war, dashing hopes among some that he would announce progress toward a ceasefire and the return of Israeli hostages before his meetings with Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday.

“We’re not only protecting ourselves. We’re protecting you … Our enemies are your enemy, our fight is your fight, and our victory will be your victory,” Netanyahu shouted, as House and Senate Republicans rose to their feet to applaud the Israeli prime minister.

Outside the fenced-off Capitol, police used pepper spray against protesters who chanted: “Netanyahu, you can’t hide. You’re committing genocide.” Streets in Washington’s downtown area were closed to traffic, while officers experienced in dealing with mass protests were drafted in from the New York police department.

Dozens of Democratic members of Congress – including the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi – said they would boycott the speech over humanitarian concerns about how Israel has prosecuted the war in Gaza, which has left an estimated 39,000 Palestinian civilians dead. Axios reported that nearly half of all Democratic lawmakers were absent from the joint session.

“Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation in the House Chamber today was by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States,” Pelosi wrote on X after the speech, saying she had spent time today with family members of hostages calling for a ceasefire deal. “Families are asking for a ceasefire deal that will bring the hostages home – and we hope the Prime Minister would spend his time achieving that goal.”

Bernie Sanders, who also boycotted the speech, said that “it will be the first time in American history that a war criminal has been given that honor.” The international criminal court, which the United States does not recognise, is considering its prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant for Netanyahu (as well as other Israeli officials and senior Hamas leaders) for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Netanyahu brushed aside humanitarian concerns for the civilian population of Gaza, denying that Israel was blocking shipments of food aid to Palestinians and issuing an appeal for the US to fast-track military aid to Israel: “Give us the tools and we’ll get the job done faster.” He thanked Biden for his “heartfelt support for Israel”, while also praising Donald Trump for his “leadership” during his first term.

Netanyahu did not offer new insight on negotiations about a ceasefire with Hamas, saying only that “we’re actively engaged in intensive efforts” to secure the hostages’ release, adding that “some of those efforts are ongoing right now.”

Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with Biden at the White House on Thursday. A senior Biden administration official said the two would discuss the ceasefire deal, adding that there was a framework between Israel and Hamas but remained “some very serious implementation issues that still have to be resolved”.

“I don’t expect the meeting to be a yes or no,” the official said. “It’s kind of like, how do we close these final gaps? And there are some things we need from the Israeli side, no question. But there are also some key things that are only in the hands of Hamas.”

Netanyahu also denied that Israel would seek to “resettle” Gaza when the conflict ended, but demanded the “demilitarization and deradicalization” of the territory, calling it his “vision for Gaza”.

Netanyahu also delivered a provocative message against critics of the war, pandering to Republicans as he called anti-war college protesters “Iran’s useful idiots”.

“Many anti-Israel protesters choose to stand with evil,” said Netanyahu. “Many stand with Hamas.”

Police officers inside the Capitol arrested several members of the audience wearing shirts that read “Seal the deal NOW!” During the speech, Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, held up a black-and-white sign that read “war criminal” and “guilty of genocide”.

The address was Netanyahu’s first to the Congress since the 7 October attack by Hamas that left more than 1,200 Israelis dead and took more than 250 hostages, of which 120 are thought to remain in captivity.

In meetings with families of hostages this week, Netanyahu indicated that a ceasefire deal could be taking shape, but also said that he would maintain pressure on Hamas and hold out for the best terms possible.

A number of the families of hostages have demanded that he conclude a deal as quickly as possible. “I have to say that the urgency of the matter did not seem to resonate with him,” Daniel Neutra, whose brother Omer is one of eight American citizens in captivity, told a House panel. Inside the House chamber on Wednesday, some members in the audience wore bright yellow T-shirts that read: “Seal the deal NOW!”

The US political turmoil has largely overshadowed Netanyahu’s visit to Washington this week. Biden on Sunday announced that he would not seek re-election, endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris as the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump at the polls in November.

Harris was absent from the House rostrum on Wednesday, saying that she had a prior engagement. She later released a statement denying that she had boycotted the speech.

Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right Israeli national security minister, openly endorsed Donald Trump in the elections on Wednesday, saying that “a cabinet minister is supposed to maintain neutrality, but that’s impossible to do after Biden”.

In an interview with Bloomberg published hours before Netanyahu was due to speak, Ben Gvir said that Biden had been restraining Israel in fighting against regional enemies, including Iran.

“I believe that with Trump, Israel will receive the backing to act against Iran,” Ben Gvir said. “With Trump it will be clearer that enemies must be defeated.

“The US has always stood behind Israel in terms of armaments and weapons, yet this time the sense was that we were being reckoned with – that we were trying to be prevented from winning,” Ben Gvir added. “That happened on Biden’s watch and fed Hamas with lots of energy.”

Netanyahu is also expected to meet with Harris, the presumptive Democratic candidate, on Thursday, and then with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday. Harris would normally have sat directly behind Netanyahu, but said that she had a prior speaking engagement at a sorority in Indianapolis.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress was filled with combative remarks, as well as claims about the war in Gaza, now almost in its tenth month.

Israel’s assault on the territory was triggered by the 7 October Hamas attacks on southern Israel, and has so far killed more than 39,000 people, with thousands more believed to be buried underneath the rubble.

Netanyahu made repeated references to the international criminal court, whose prosecutors in May issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and several senior Hamas leaders, accusing them ofwar crimes and crimes against humanity.

Here are some of the claims made by the Israeli prime minister during his speech, tested against information currently available.

Thousands of protesters demonstrated around Capitol Hill voicing opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who addressed a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday.

With tensions over Israel’s nine-and-half-month war on Gaza running high, police mounted a huge security operation to seal off the US Capitol from protesters.

Streets in Washington’s downtown area were closed to traffic, while officers experienced in dealing with mass protests were drafted in from the New York police department. The Capitol building itself was ring-fenced off.

“Shut it down,” a large group of protesters chanted as they marched toward the Capitol after blocking a nearby intersection, adding “Bibi, Bibi, we’re not done!” Capitol police deployed pepper spray at protesters they claimed had crossed the police line.

Netanyahu’s speech – arranged weeks ago and instigated by the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson – comes at a singularly dramatic moment in US politics, days after the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the presidential race and less than two weeks after a failed assassination attempt on the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

But the fevered domestic backdrop has done little to reduce the furore surrounding Netanyahu, seen as a renegade figure even among some pro-Israel Democrats for prosecuting a war that has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.

The military offensive was launched in response to an assault by the Palestinian group Hamas last October that left about 1,200 Israelis dead and saw another 250 taken hostage.

Netanyahu’s presence was protested by demonstrators coming from a broad range of mostly leftwing groups, some of them Jewish, and many of them having travelled from as far as Indiana, Georgia and Illinois, according to protest organisers.

In a sign of the many fractures created by the war, anti-Netanyahu protesters from different factions clashed angrily with one another, after pro-Palestinian demonstrators apparently mistook another group displaying Israeli flags as supporters of Israel’s prime minister.

Police intervened after scuffles broke out, as a march passed a group of protesters denouncing Netanyahu for his failure to end the war in Gaza and strike a deal that would free the remaining hostages being held by Hamas.

Marchers chanted “free, free Palestine” as they passed the Israeli groups gathered in a park near the US Capitol. Things turned heated when two men close to the Israeli gathering shouted “from Hamas” in response.

As tempers frayed, a young pro-Palestinian marcher appeared to grab several Israeli flags, leading to scuffles and shouts of “do not attack” and “leave her alone” from a man holding a Palestinian flag.

As a shouting match ensued, the same man was clearly heard shouting “go back to Poland” at members of the Israeli group, some of whom wore T-shirts bearing slogans like “Saving Israeli Democracy”.

Officers nearby appeared to be slow to react but arrived on the scene after being summoned by the members of the Israeli gathering.

“Both sides have a trigger when they see the other flag,” said Offer Gutelson, an organiser with UnXeptable, an Israeli group protesting against Netanyahu. “They get the feeling when they see the [Israeli] flag that we are not on their side, but we are,” he said. “We are on the side of the people who want peace, but not the ones who want to free Palestine from the river to the sea.”

Among those organising the main rally were Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, Jewish Voice for Peace, Code Pink, the US Palestinian Community Network, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), the People’s Forum and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Speakers lined up to address the crowd included Jill Stein, the Green party presidential candidate, and the actor Susan Sarandon.

Protesters demanded Netanyahu’s arrest, as requested by the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor in May. The request was later denounced by Biden.

“If Biden were fit to lead, he would stop funding genocide and turn Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over to the ICC,” Ahmad Abuznaid, an executive director at the USCPR, said in a statement.

The demonstrations started on Tuesday, a day after Netanyahu’s arrival in the US on Monday night, when members of the Jewish Voice for Peace group occupied the rotunda at the Cannon building, where many members of Congress have office space. Police carried out arrests and the group said about 400 of its members were detained.

At the main demonstration – a safe distance from the fenced-off Capitol on a square off Pennsylvania Avenue – protesters chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan some supporters of Israel have alleged is antisemitic and potentially genocidal.

A giant effigy of Netanyahu with horns on his head and blood dripping from his mouth was on display, while one woman holding a Palestinian flag had a baby doll held in a makeshift child’s sling fashioned out of a keffiyeh, apparently as a symbol of the large number of children killed in Israel’s Gaza offensive.

One of several speakers to address the crowd, Abuznaid of USCPR said Palestinians were fighting “for our stolen past [and] our liberated future”.

He added: “We reject Netanyahu not because he is more brutal or racist than those before him … [but] because he’s exactly the manifestation of the colonial project known as Zionism. We reject genocide Joe [Biden] and the US government’s support of this monstrosity historically and today.”

Emily De Ferrari, 72, a retired midwife and volunteer for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), which campaigns for economic and cultural embargoes to pressure Israel to change its policy, called Netanyahu’s visit to Washington “criminal”.

“I don’t know what to say about the people who invited him,” said De Ferrari, who had driven five hours from Pittsburgh with a group of fellow activists to be present. “It’s a cynical, manipulative, criminal move to invite him here today.”

Asked if she believed Israel should continue to exist as a Jewish state, she replied: “A place where Jews are free and safe, I think that’s a justifiable aim. But it doesn’t make any sense for the Jews to say: ‘We’ve got to be free and safe and you don’t.’

“Shouldn’t the Palestinians be allowed to live where they have lived for thousands of years? That’s not to deny the Holocaust or thousands of years of antisemitism.”

Several Democratic members of Congress, including the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, have said they will boycott Netanyahu’s speech.

Some made statements of condemnation on the eve of its delivery. “It will be the first time in American history that a war criminal has been given that honor” of addressing a joint session of Congress, Sanders said on Tuesday in remarks on the Senate floor.

Jerry Nadler, a senior Democratic House member from New York, also issued a withering denunciation, calling the Israeli prime minister “the worst leader in Jewish history since the Maccabean king who invited the Romans into Jerusalem over 2100 years ago”. However, he said he would be present during the speech out of respect to the state of Israel.

He called the speech “the next step in a long line of manipulative bad-faith efforts by Republicans to further politicise the US-Israel relationship for partisan gain and is a cynical stunt by Netanyahu aimed at aiding his own desperate political standing at home. There is no question in my mind it should not be happening.”

Elon Musk attended Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress on Wednesday as a guest of the embattled Israeli prime minister.

A day earlier, the tech billionaire announced that his Starlink internet service was now active in a Gaza hospital, with the support of Israel’s government.

Netanyahu’s congressional visit was met with thousands of protesters gathering near Capitol Hill to demonstrate against Israeli abuses during its war in Gaza. Lawmakers were divided over whether he should have been invited to speak.

Musk has a history of courting rightwing leaders in countries that have overlapping business interests with his various enterprises. He previously hosted Javier Millei, Argentina’s president, at his Tesla factory and has been a cheerleader for his policies, while also cozying up to Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, and Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president.

Musk previously met with Netanyahu during a visit to Israel last year, as the tech leader sought to quell accusations of antisemitism after personally endorsing a post on his social network X, formerly Twitter, that claimed Jews hate white people. Far-right content on the platform has also increased.

Musk’s visit also appears to have helped pave the way for SpaceX to provide its Starlink satellite internet to Gaza, which he announced on Tuesday was now in service at a hospital. The single location, which was supported by Israel and the United Arab Emirates, also reflects the tight controls that Israel has put on communications technology in the area.

In recent weeks, Musk has also thrown his support behind Donald Trump’s election campaign and played a direct role in advising the former president to select JD Vance, Ohio senator, as his running mate.

Although Musk has continued to post conservative content and attacks against the presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, he appears to have tempered some of his support for Trump following Joe Biden dropping out of the race. Musk pushed back against a report he was set to donate $45m per month to a pro-Trump political action committee.

Musk’s appearance as a guest of Netanyahu further aligns him with the Republican party line, which has thrown its support behind the Israeli leader as many Democrats condemn his actions. A number of progressive Democratic lawmakers declined to attend Netanyahu’s speech, with New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denouncing him as a “war criminal”.

Rupert Murdoch is in a secret legal battle pitching the ageing mogul and his heir apparent, Lachlan Murdoch, against three of his other children, according to documents seen by the New York Times.

Murdoch, 93, is attempting to secure Lachlan Murdoch’s control of the family’s media empire by changing the terms of a family trust that would have also given younger brother James, sister Elisabeth and half-sister Prudence a say in how the company is run.

Currently, the trust would hand control of the billionaire media tycoon’s sprawling empire to his four eldest children when he dies. But according to sealed court documents obtained by the New York Times, Murdoch is arguing that Lachlan should have sole control of the family’s investments in Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Australian and other assets, including the Sun and the Times in the UK.

Lachlan Murdoch is seen as the most conservative of Murdoch’s children and his father is arguing that his political beliefs are essential to maintaining the value of the right-leaning media company.

According to the Times, a Nevada probate commissioner found last month that the family’s irrevocable trust can be rewritten if Murdoch can prove he is acting in good faith to protect the value of the trust’s holdings.

His effort to rewrite the trust is being led by William Barr, former US attorney general under George HW Bush and Donald Trump, the Times reported.

Unless a resolution is reached, the fight for the future of Fox could go to court in September, just two months before the US election.

Murdoch is said to have dubbed the bid “Project Harmony”, based on the belief that it would see off the prospect of a power struggle within the family after his death. But his children were reportedly blindsided by the move. Fox was not immediately available for comment.

Lachlan Murdoch became chair of News Corporation and Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, last November after his father made the announcement he was ending his seven-decade run as one of the most transformative – and controversial – media barons in history.

James Murdoch had once been seen as a possible successor but has become a vocal critic of the Fox media assets’ denial of climate change. After the January 6 insurrection, James Murdoch criticized the US media for “propagating lies” that unleashed “insidious and uncontrollable forces”.

In April 2023, Fox reached a $787.5m settlement with voting equipment company Dominion. It had been accused of knowingly broadcasting false and outlandish allegations that Dominion had been involved in a plot to steal the 2020 election.

Rupert Murdoch is in a secret legal battle pitching the ageing mogul and his heir apparent, Lachlan Murdoch, against three of his other children, according to documents seen by the New York Times.

Murdoch, 93, is attempting to secure Lachlan Murdoch’s control of the family’s media empire by changing the terms of a family trust that would have also given younger brother James, sister Elisabeth and half-sister Prudence a say in how the company is run.

Currently, the trust would hand control of the billionaire media tycoon’s sprawling empire to his four eldest children when he dies. But according to sealed court documents obtained by the New York Times, Murdoch is arguing that Lachlan should have sole control of the family’s investments in Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Australian and other assets, including the Sun and the Times in the UK.

Lachlan Murdoch is seen as the most conservative of Murdoch’s children and his father is arguing that his political beliefs are essential to maintaining the value of the right-leaning media company.

According to the Times, a Nevada probate commissioner found last month that the family’s irrevocable trust can be rewritten if Murdoch can prove he is acting in good faith to protect the value of the trust’s holdings.

His effort to rewrite the trust is being led by William Barr, former US attorney general under George HW Bush and Donald Trump, the Times reported.

Unless a resolution is reached, the fight for the future of Fox could go to court in September, just two months before the US election.

Murdoch is said to have dubbed the bid “Project Harmony”, based on the belief that it would see off the prospect of a power struggle within the family after his death. But his children were reportedly blindsided by the move. Fox was not immediately available for comment.

Lachlan Murdoch became chair of News Corporation and Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, last November after his father made the announcement he was ending his seven-decade run as one of the most transformative – and controversial – media barons in history.

James Murdoch had once been seen as a possible successor but has become a vocal critic of the Fox media assets’ denial of climate change. After the January 6 insurrection, James Murdoch criticized the US media for “propagating lies” that unleashed “insidious and uncontrollable forces”.

In April 2023, Fox reached a $787.5m settlement with voting equipment company Dominion. It had been accused of knowingly broadcasting false and outlandish allegations that Dominion had been involved in a plot to steal the 2020 election.

Typhoon Gaemi has made landfall on Taiwan’s eastern coast, unleashing torrential rainfall and whipping winds across the island that left three people dead.

On its path to Taiwan, Gaemi also exacerbated seasonal rains in the nearby Philippines, triggering flooding and landslides that killed six.

The superstorm hit Taiwan’s eastern Yilan county at around midnight local time Thursday (1600 GMT Wednesday), said the Central Weather Administration.

It had caused downpours and strong gusts across Taiwan before its arrival, killing one scooter rider in southern Kaohsiung city who was crushed by a falling tree, a woman in eastern Hualien who died after a wall fell on the car she was in, and a neighbourhood leader in New Taipei who was driving an excavator which overturned, authorities said.

More than 220 people were injured by Wednesday evening, while more than 290,000 homes were plunged into darkness due to power outages, disaster officials said.

“Wind and rain continue to intensify, posing a threat to various parts of Taiwan, [and its outlying islands of] Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu,” it said, calling on the public to “be on high alert”.

The first typhoon to make landfall in Taiwan this year, Gaemi was “expected to be the strongest” one in eight years, a government forecaster said.

By 8pm (1200 GMT) on Wednesday, authorities had evacuated more than 8,500 people living in precarious conditions across Taiwan, particularly in Hualien – a mountainous area with a high risk of landslides.

Trains and ferry services were suspended and hundreds of international and domestic flights were cancelled on Wednesday. Work and schools were closed across most of the island on Wednesday, prompting large crowds at supermarkets. In what is something of a social tradition when the government declares typhoon days, people also booked out karaoke rooms across the cities.

The weather also forced the self-ruled island to cancel some of its annual Han Kuang war games – which test preparedness for a Chinese invasion – though an anti-landing drill went ahead as scheduled on Wednesday morning on Penghu, west of Taiwan’s main island.

“We expect that the impact of the typhoon will be extended to four days [until Friday],” said Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration chief Cheng Jia-ping.

Schools and offices will remain closed for the second day in a row in several cities – including Taipei – with authorities expecting adverse weather to continue across the island.

Massive waves crashed ashore in Taiwan’s northeastern Yilan county, while strong gusts whipped the rain sideways and sent signs flying.

A fisher surnamed Hsu tied down his boat at a typhoon shelter in a harbour crowded with docked vessels.

“I am worried about the typhoon – the boats are my tool for making money,” he said.

Government offices were closed and streets emptied in the capital Taipei, while some stores had their entrances sandbagged to prevent potential flood water.

Taiwanese chip giant TSMC, the world’s largest chipmaker, said it would maintain normal production and that it had “activated routine typhoon alert preparation procedures” at all fabrication plants.

Landslides killed six in provinces surrounding Manila, police and disaster officials said.

Gaemi is expected to make its way across the strait later and hit China’s eastern Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, where authorities have issued a red storm alert, and the highest level emergency response setting. All passenger trains have been suspended for Thursday and part of Friday in Fujian, state media reported. Offshore construction projects have been evacuated, and ships returned to shore.

In Japan, weather authorities in the southern island region of Okinawa urged residents to “exercise strong vigilance” against storms, high waves and floods.

Taiwan is accustomed to frequent tropical storms from July to October but experts say climate change has increased their intensity, leading to heavy rains, flash floods and strong gusts, and increasing the chance of landslides.

Human-caused climate breakdown has increased the occurrence of the most intense and destructive tropical cyclones (though the overall number per year has not changed globally). This is because warming oceans provide more energy, producing stronger storms.

Extreme rainfall from tropical cyclones has increased substantially, as warmer air holds more water vapour. For example, the amount of rainfall produced by Hurricane Harvey in Texas in 2017 would have been all but impossible without the record-warm ocean water in the Gulf of Mexico.

Coastal storm surges are also higher and more damaging due to the sea level rise driven by climate breakdown. For example, the devastating storm surge from Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in 2013, was about 20% higher due to human-caused climate breakdown.

With Agence France-Presse

• Russia has pulled all its vessels out of the Sea of Azov, a body of water connected to the Black Sea, according to Ukraine’s navy. “There are no longer any Russian naval vessels in the Sea of Azov,” said Dmytro Pletenchuk, a Ukrainian navy spokesman. Ukrainian naval officials have said in recent months that successful attacks on targets in Russian-annexed Crimea and elsewhere in the Black Sea have forced the Russian navy to rebase its ships elsewhere. Russia did not immediately respond to the claim.

• Russia fired ballistic missiles at Kharkiv on Wednesday, damaging the office of a Swiss mine-clearing NGO, local officials said. Six people were injured when an industrial area was hit, said the Kharkiv mayor, Ihor Terekhov. Volodymyr Tymoshko, the Kharkiv police head, told the national broadcaster Suspilne that Russian forces used a “double-tap” attack to target rescuers who arrived after an initial strike. “It is a miracle that both the rescuers and the policemen left this object 10 minutes before the second strike,” he said, but other people nearby were injured.

• Heavy Russian attacks are creating “tense” and difficult conditions around the town of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, Ukraine’s army has said. “The servicemen of the brigade continue to courageously hold the defence in the direction of Progress, Lozuvatskyi, Ivanovka and Vozdvizhenka.” Russian forces recently advanced near Vovchansk, Siversk, Toretsk, and Donetsk city, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Pokrovsk has been described as the hottest point along the frontline.

• Russian forces recently made a marginal advance north of Kharkiv city amid continued positional fighting in northern Kharkiv oblast, according to the Institute for the Study of War. “Geolocated footage published on July 23 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced westward to Polova Street in western Hlyboke,” said the US-based thinktank. In Donetsk oblast, Russian forces made a confirmed advance north-west of Avdiivka amid continued ground attacks in the Avdiivka direction, said the ISW. Elements of the Russian 114th motorised rifle brigade advanced into central and western Novoselivka Persha, north-west of Avdiivka, from the south-east.

• The ISW thinktank said Russia would face “significant” problems keeping up troop numbers and replacing heavy losses of tanks and equipment in the medium to long term. “Ukrainian authorities have noted that Russia is currently not producing enough to cover its current equipment losses in Ukraine”. ISW cited a British assessment that Russia can continue until about 2026–2027 by refurbishing Soviet-era stocks. “It is unclear if the Russian defence industry will be able to produce enough vehicles to sustain a high level of equipment losses even with further economic mobilisation … [which] will likely be deeply unpopular among Russians who are largely apathetic towards the war so long as it does not impact their daily life.”

• Russia must be ready to negotiate in “good faith” before Ukraine will agree to talks, the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has told his counterpart, Wang Yi, in China. “Currently there is no such readiness on the Russian side,” said Ukraine’s foreign ministry in a statement. Kuleba said in video address that Ukraine could only “engage in any discussions and seek any solutions” if they upheld Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, which China had “unshakeably” affirmed.

• A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told a regular press conference in Beijing that “conditions are not yet ripe” for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. After the talks, Russian media attempted to portray Kuleba as having said Ukraine was ready to negotiate – a characterisation that Ukraine’s foreign ministry immediately rejected.

• Britain’s new Labour prime minister, Keir Starmer, has assured his Conservative predecessor, Rishi Sunak, of continued support for Ukraine. In the House of Commons, Sunak said: “Can I ask that he [Starmer] continues to be responsive to Ukraine’s new requests so that they don’t just stand still but can decisively win out against Russian aggression?” Starmer replied: “I can assure him that we are of course talking to Ukraine about how they deal with the Russian aggression that they are facing, have been facing for many, many months, and I will continue to try to do that in the way that he did, which is to reach out across the House to share such information as we can to maintain the unity that is so important.”

• Sunak said he “very much welcomes” words committing the UK government to Ukraine’s “irreversible path” to Nato membership and urged Starmer to confirm “fatuous Russian claims on Ukrainian territory must not act as a block to Ukraine joining the Nato defensive alliance”. Starmer replied: “It is for Nato allies to decide who is a member of Nato … it was really important at the summit that we were able to say there is now this irreversible path to membership [for Ukraine].”

• A shooting among Ukrainian soldiers left three dead and four others seriously wounded after a personal dispute, Ukraine’s army said on Wednesday. “In one of the units, soldiers used firearms on the basis of personal relationships. As a result of the shooting, three soldiers were killed and four others were injured,” the Khortytsia regional grouping of the Ukrainian army said. Law enforcement officials were at the scene, it said. Violence among fellow soldiers is a sensitive issue in both Russia and Ukraine. In May 2024, a 57-year-old Russian soldier recruited from a penal colony was reported to have shot dead six of his fellow troops in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has written to his “friend” Donald Trump warning that any attempt to close the US-Mexico border if he is re-elected would spark a “rebellion” on both sides.

Trump made the pledge during his speech at the Republican national convention, where he spoke about the “massive invasion at our southern border that spread misery, crime, poverty, disease and destruction to communities all across our land”.

López Obrador’s letter emphasised the economic integration between the two countries and the damage to “people, industry and commerce” that closing the border would bring.

California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, together with the six border states in Mexico, “represent the fourth biggest economy in the world”, while 1 million people and 300,000 vehicles cross the border every day, wrote the Mexican leader popularly known as Amlo.

Many of those vehicles carry cargo as part of the USMCA free trade agreement among the US, Mexico and Canada, which López Obrador defended as making goods cheaper for US consumers and being “the only way to successfully confront the competition brought by the economic and commercial advance of China”.

López Obrador also asked Trump to bear in mind that almost 40 million Mexicans live in the US, that seven of every 10 agricultural workers in the US are Mexican, and that Mexicans contributed $325bn to the US economy last year.

But, he added: “I understand that you are campaigning and that you are not – as some believe – obstinate”.

The letter is not the first the veteran leftist has sent to Trump, with whom he struck an unlikely friendship on coming to power.

While on the campaign trail in 2017, López Obrador wrote a book called Listen Up, Trump, in which he compared Trump’s comments about Mexicans to the ways Nazis talked about Jews.

Yet the two confounded expectations when they overlapped as presidents from 2018 to 2020, developing an outwardly friendly relationship as two plain-speaking nationalists at the head of anti-establishment movements, despite their apparent ideological differences.

Behind the belligerent rhetoric, both were happy to have a transactional relationship on issues such as migration, largely staying out of each other’s domestic issues.

As Mexican presidents can only serve one six-year term, López Obrador will leave power on 1 October.

Mexico’s incoming president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is a close political ally of López Obrador and has promised to continue his policies, but is a very different figure.

Where López Obrador is a folksy populist from the southern state of Tabasco, Sheinbaum is a climate scientist from the intellectual circle of Mexico City.

If Trump is re-elected as president, Sheinbaum will be his counterpart in Mexico for the duration of his term – but it seems unlikely she will have the same personal rapport with Trump that López Obrador did.

Aside from promising to close the border, Trump has repeatedly threatened the possibility of military strikes on organised crime groups in Mexican territory if he is re-elected.

Speaking on Fox News on Tuesday, Trump said cartels were killing 300,000 people a year with fentanyl – the true figure of fentanyl deaths in the US is closer to 70,000 – and that they could “take out a [Mexican] president in two minutes” if they wanted to.

JD Vance, the Republican candidate for vice-president, added that Mexico was at risk of becoming a “narco-state” if action was not taken.

Asked whether the option of military action within the territory of the US’s biggest trading partner was still on the table, Trump responded: “Absolutely.”

Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has written to his “friend” Donald Trump warning that any attempt to close the US-Mexico border if he is re-elected would spark a “rebellion” on both sides.

Trump made the pledge during his speech at the Republican national convention, where he spoke about the “massive invasion at our southern border that spread misery, crime, poverty, disease and destruction to communities all across our land”.

López Obrador’s letter emphasised the economic integration between the two countries and the damage to “people, industry and commerce” that closing the border would bring.

California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, together with the six border states in Mexico, “represent the fourth biggest economy in the world”, while 1 million people and 300,000 vehicles cross the border every day, wrote the Mexican leader popularly known as Amlo.

Many of those vehicles carry cargo as part of the USMCA free trade agreement among the US, Mexico and Canada, which López Obrador defended as making goods cheaper for US consumers and being “the only way to successfully confront the competition brought by the economic and commercial advance of China”.

López Obrador also asked Trump to bear in mind that almost 40 million Mexicans live in the US, that seven of every 10 agricultural workers in the US are Mexican, and that Mexicans contributed $325bn to the US economy last year.

But, he added: “I understand that you are campaigning and that you are not – as some believe – obstinate”.

The letter is not the first the veteran leftist has sent to Trump, with whom he struck an unlikely friendship on coming to power.

While on the campaign trail in 2017, López Obrador wrote a book called Listen Up, Trump, in which he compared Trump’s comments about Mexicans to the ways Nazis talked about Jews.

Yet the two confounded expectations when they overlapped as presidents from 2018 to 2020, developing an outwardly friendly relationship as two plain-speaking nationalists at the head of anti-establishment movements, despite their apparent ideological differences.

Behind the belligerent rhetoric, both were happy to have a transactional relationship on issues such as migration, largely staying out of each other’s domestic issues.

As Mexican presidents can only serve one six-year term, López Obrador will leave power on 1 October.

Mexico’s incoming president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is a close political ally of López Obrador and has promised to continue his policies, but is a very different figure.

Where López Obrador is a folksy populist from the southern state of Tabasco, Sheinbaum is a climate scientist from the intellectual circle of Mexico City.

If Trump is re-elected as president, Sheinbaum will be his counterpart in Mexico for the duration of his term – but it seems unlikely she will have the same personal rapport with Trump that López Obrador did.

Aside from promising to close the border, Trump has repeatedly threatened the possibility of military strikes on organised crime groups in Mexican territory if he is re-elected.

Speaking on Fox News on Tuesday, Trump said cartels were killing 300,000 people a year with fentanyl – the true figure of fentanyl deaths in the US is closer to 70,000 – and that they could “take out a [Mexican] president in two minutes” if they wanted to.

JD Vance, the Republican candidate for vice-president, added that Mexico was at risk of becoming a “narco-state” if action was not taken.

Asked whether the option of military action within the territory of the US’s biggest trading partner was still on the table, Trump responded: “Absolutely.”

Wall Street suffered its worst day of trading in 19 months as disappointment around earnings from Tesla and Google challenged the recent big-tech rally.

The benchmark S&P 500 index dropped 2.3% as a sell-off triggered its biggest single-day fall since December 2022.

The technology-focused Nasdaq retreated 3.6%, its largest single-day decline since October 2022.

Shares in Tesla sank 12% after it reported a 45% slump in quarterly profits amid discounting by electric carmakers. Alphabet, the owner of Google and YouTube, also fell 5% as investors scrutinized a slowdown in advertising growth.

The two companies were the first out of the gate as America’s tech giants update shareholders on their recent performance. Over the coming weeks, the rest of the so-called “Magnificent Seven” tech heavyweights – Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp; Apple; Nvidia; Microsoft; and Amazon – are set to follow.

“I can’t help thinking [that] if the tech sector does sneeze, the whole market could catch it,” said David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation.

Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, said: “Whilst Alphabet’s news wasn’t awful, the fact they’re still ploughing billions into [artificial intelligence] has caused some to begin questioning when enough will be enough, or at least when the expenditure will deliver the kind of results investors have been salivating over elsewhere in the AI space.

“Elon Musk’s attempts to get investors to look anywhere but at the bottom line has also backfired. Even if Tesla’s CEO insists the company isn’t just a carmaker, until robots or robo-taxis start to make money, EVs are the only game in Tesla town, and margins have been wrung out.”

Reuters contributed reporting

A father-daughter hike that began with an Arizona college student checking off a bucket list item ended tragically when she was killed after falling down Yosemite’s Half Dome earlier this month.

Grace Rohloff, a 20-year-old hiker, and her father, Jonathan Rohloff, were descending the cables at Yosemite’s summit when she slipped and fell on 13 July, as reported by SFGate. The 14- to 16-mile round-trip hike to Half Dome is known for its difficulty and requires hikers to obtain permits in advance.

Jonathan Rohloff recounted their final moments at the summit, where they admired the panoramic view and shared words of gratitude before beginning their descent.

“A black cloud was rolling in like gangbusters,” Rohloff recalled. “I said: ‘We have to get down now, because we can’t be up here with any rain. It rolled in literally out of nowhere.’”

During their descent, Grace slipped on a slick section of a rock.

“She was between the wooden blocks and slipped to the ground, and it just happened very fast. She slid down the side of the mountain,” her father recounted.

The National Park Service did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.

The ascent up the cables is the most famous – or infamous – part of the hike, allowing climbers to ascend the final 400ft to the summit without rock climbing equipment using two metal cables.

“Since 1919, relatively few people have fallen and died on the cables,” the agency’s website reads.

Rohloff said the sky was clear as the pair from Buckeye began their ascent, but they heard a thunderclap shortly after reaching the Half Dome’s base.

The National Park Service recommends hikers avoid climbing Yosemite’s Half Dome if there are storm clouds in the area and the ground is wet.

Rohloff recalled that about three-quarters of the way down the cables, Grace lost her footing before sliding down the mountain.

“It happened so fast,” he said. “I tried to reach my hand up, but she was already gone.”

Rohloff said it took three hours for rescuers to arrive with a helicopter as he and a park ranger waited under harsh winds, rain and hail.

He said rescue workers told him Grace had died and the park ranger accompanied the grieving father down the mountain.

“I know that’s her job, but [the park ranger] went way above and beyond to make a human connection with me,” he said.

Grace sustained a severe head fracture and probably died during the fall, a coroner told her father.

A fundraiser was set up in Grace’s memory to raise money for the grandson of her former math teacher, who was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Her math teacher at Valley Lutheran high school inspired her to become a teacher as well.

The remainder of the funds will go to her high school’s girls athletics, which the fundraiser describes as “close to her heart”.

“She had a humor that would make everyone laugh. She was a treasure. And oh, my heart, she is missed,” the fundraiser description reads. “She died as she lived. Full of pure excitement and adventure.”

Rohloff is a principal at Paseo Pointe elementary school and said he was still trying to understand what happened.

“I believe that God was calling her home,” he said. “And I believe that there will be reasons for her death that will be revealed to us.”

• This story was amended on 24 July 2024. A previous version erroneously used an image of Liberty Cap.

Australia has imposed financial sanctions and travel bans on seven Israelis and a youth group who Canberra says have been involved in violent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.

The foreign minister, Penny Wong, says Israel has received a lot of support globally, urging its government to “recognise the importance of its standing and legitimacy in the international community”. She says settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal under international law and a “significant obstacle to peace in the Middle East”.

Wong’s office on Thursday morning announced the imposition of Magnitsky-style sanctions against the individuals and youth group over their “involvement in settler violence against Palestinians”.

“The individuals sanctioned today have been involved in violent attacks on Palestinians. This includes beatings, sexual assault and torture of Palestinians resulting in serious injury and in some cases, death,” Wong said in the statement.

“The entity sanctioned is a youth group that is responsible for inciting and perpetrating violence against Palestinian communities.

“We call on Israel to hold perpetrators of settler violence to account and to cease its ongoing settlement activity, which only inflames tensions and further undermines stability and prospects for a two-state solution.”

When asked for a response to the sanctions, a spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Canberra said: “Israel condemns acts of violence against Palestinian communities. Israel is a state of law and will work to bring the extreme minority involved to justice.”

The UN’s international court of justice last week ordered Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories “as rapidly as possible” and make full reparations for its “internationally wrongful acts” in a sweeping and damning advisory opinion that says the occupation violates international law.

Guardian Australia reported the Australian government was increasingly alarmed at Israel’s “troubling pattern” of behaviour and last week did not rule out levelling sanctions against settlers.

The sanctions, levelled under Australia’s Autonomous Sanctions Regulations 2011, allow the foreign affairs minister to designate a person or entity for financial sanctions and travel bans if the minister is satisfied that the person or group has been engaged or complicit in serious violations of a person’s right to life, right not to be subjected to torture or degrading treatment, and right to be free from slavery.

Some of the individuals sanctioned on Thursday have previously been hit with similar sanctions by the EU, US and Canada.

The group sanctioned is known as Hilltop Youth, described as a religious youth group dedicated to establishing settler outposts throughout the West Bank. The EU described the group in its sanctions as “a radical group consisting of members known for violent acts against Palestinians and their villages in the West Bank”.

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In her statement, Wong said Australia would “continue to work for a just and enduring peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”

In an interview with ABC Radio National on Thursday, Wong said Australian diplomats had spoken to Israeli counterparts about the sanctions.

“These sanctions have been taken after careful consideration and are in line with actions taken by others in recent months,” she said.

Asked if Australia expected “pushback” from Israel over the move, Wong said that would be a matter for Israel.

“Settlements are unlawful under international law,” she said. “We’re continuing to look to how we protect a pathway to a two-state solution. Part of that is to ensure we also impose penalties on those who perpetrate violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

“This is a state that has had a lot of support in the international community. Israel should recognise the importance of its standing and legitimacy in the international community.”

Wong said Australia was not considering recalling its ambassador, but would continue to engage with Israel, including advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza. She called the situation in Gaza “catastrophic” and said Australia was “deeply worried” about the humanitarian situation – including the discovery of poliovirus in wastewater.

“The fact that, in this century, we have traces of polio found in wastewater is extremely disturbing,” Wong said.

Donald Trump told his nephew he should let his disabled son die, then “move down to Florida”, the nephew writes in a new book, calling the comment “appalling”.

“Wait!” Fred C Trump III writes. “What did he just say? That my son doesn’t recognise me? That I should just let him die?

“Did he really just say that?”

The shocking exchange is described in All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way, which will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.

The book also includes a description of the former US president and current Republican nominee using the N-word, news that dropped into a presidential election in which Trump faces Kamala Harris, the first woman of colour to be vice-president.

On Wednesday morning, Time published an extract detailing Trump’s callous remark about his disabled great-nephew.

It came days after family members at the Republican national convention portrayed Trump as a “very caring and loving” grandfather and family man.

But Trump family history is complicated.

Fred C Trump III is the son of Fred Trump Jr, Donald Trump’s older brother who died aged 43 in 1981. A successful New York real estate executive in his own right, Fred Trump III is with his wife Lisa a campaigner for rights for disabled people like their son, William.

In 2020, Fred Trump III’s sister, Mary Trump, published her own tell-all memoir, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. Fred Trump III distanced himself from that book but it included the story of how Donald Trump and his siblings effectively disinherited Fred Trump III and Mary Trump, then cut off funding for William’s care.

The case was settled in 2001. In his own book, Fred Trump III describes a call to his uncle after the White House funeral of Robert Trump, the then president’s younger brother, in 2020.

Fred Trump III says Donald Trump was then “the only one” of the older Trumps still “contributing consistently” to William’s care.

He contacted his uncle even though he “really didn’t look forward to these calls” and “in many ways … felt I was asking for money I should have originally received from my grandfather” – Fred Trump Sr, the New York construction magnate whose will prompted the family feud.

Fred Trump III says he called Donald Trump after seeing him at Briarcliff, a family golf club in Westchester county, New York. He says he described his son’s needs, increasing costs for his care, and “some blowback” from Trump’s siblings.

“Donald took a second as if he was thinking about the whole situation,” Fred Trump III writes.

“‘I don’t know,’” he finally said, letting out a sigh. ‘He doesn’t recognise you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.’”

Fred Trump III writes: “Wait! What did he just say? That my son doesn’t recognise me? That I should just let him die? Did he really just say that? That I should let my son die … so I could move down to Florida? Really?”

Fred Trump III says he shouldn’t have been surprised, since he had recently heard his uncle say similar in an Oval Office meeting with doctors and advocates for disabled rights.

At that meeting, also in 2020, Trump “sounded interested and even concerned”, Fred Trump III writes.

“I thought he had been touched by what the doctor and advocates in the meeting had just shared about their journey with their patients and their own family members. But I was wrong.”

“‘Those people …’ Donald said, trailing off. ‘The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.’”

On that occasion, Fred Trump III writes, he “truly did not know what to say. He was talking about expenses. We were talking about human lives … I turned and walked away.”

On the later call about William, Fred Trump III writes, his uncle said the same thing: “Only that time, it was other people’s children who should die. This time, it was my son.”

Fred Trump III says he pushed back but avoided an argument. Nonetheless, he says “Donald’s comment was appalling”, adding: “It hurt to hear him say that.”

“Acceptance and tolerance would only come with public education and awareness,” Fred Trump III writes. “Donald might never understand this.”