At least 40 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on a tent encampment designated as a humanitarian zone in Khan Younis, Gaza officials said early on Tuesday, in what the Israeli military said was an attack on a Hamas command centre.

Gaza civil defence officials told Agence France-Presse and the BBC that as well as the 40 people killed in the attack inside the Al-Mawasi camp, a further 60 were injured and transferred to local hospitals.

Residents and medics said the tent encampment in the al-Mawasi area was struck by at least four missiles. The camp is crowded with displaced Palestinians who have fled from elsewhere in the enclave.

The Gaza civil emergency service said at least 20 tents caught on fire, and missiles caused craters as deep as nine metres (30ft). There was no immediate comment from the Gaza health ministry, which compiles casualty figures.

“Our teams are still moving out martyrs and wounded from the targeted area. It looks like a new Israeli massacre,” a Gaza civil emergency official said.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it “struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control centre embedded inside the humanitarian area in Khan Younis.

“The terrorists advanced and carried out terror attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel,” the statement said.

Hamas denied its fighters were present at the scene of the strike, saying in a statement on Telegram: “The occupation’s allegations of the presence of resistance fighters are a blatant lie.”

At the scene of the attack, ambulances raced back and forth to a nearby hospital, while Israeli jets could still be heard overhead, residents said.

Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes at least once, and some have had to flee as many as 10 times.

Several hundred thousand people have packed into al-Mawasi since the beginning of the conflict despite minimal provision there of basic services. Last month, humanitarian officials confirmed that overcrowding there was dissuading those given evacuation orders by the IDF from leaving, despite the dangers of remaining.

There have been a number of deadly attacks on the camp since the conflict broke out last year.

The war was triggered on 7 October when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.

Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry. Thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble while thousands more have died of the indirect consequences of the war and tens of thousands have been injured.

The two warring sides each blame the other for a failure so far to reach a ceasefire that would end the fighting and see the release of hostages.

Reuters contributed to this report

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will arrive in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday for their first (and potentially only) presidential debate. The event will mark the first time that Harris and Trump have ever met face to face, and it comes less than two months after Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race following his own fateful debate performance in June.

The change at the top of the Democratic ticket appears to have unnerved Trump and his campaign advisers, who have struggled to land attacks against Harris. The debate will present Trump with his most significant opportunity yet to negatively define Harris in voters’ minds, as polls show a neck-and-neck race in key battleground states.

For Harris, the debate could allow her to deliver on her oft-repeated promise to voters: that she will prosecute the case against Trump. Her political history – both on the debate stage and in Senate hearings – suggest she is well-positioned to make that case. But Harris is not without her vulnerabilities either.

Here are five key moments from Harris’s career that could offer a preview of her debate strategy:

Sense of humor

Before Harris became vice-president, she served as the attorney general of California and then the state’s junior senator. When Harris ran for her Senate seat in 2016, her top opponent was Democratic congresswoman Loretta Sanchez. The two candidates faced off in an hour-long debate in October 2016, and despite the robust conversation around policy, the event is best remembered for Sanchez’s bizarre closing statement.

Sanchez chose to punctuate her final comments with a dance move: the dab. For those who were not extremely online in 2016, a dab involves stretching out an arm and lowering one’s head into the crook of the other arm.

Harris reacted to the move with baffled amusement, tightly pressing her lips together, in an apparent attempt to hold back laughter, before she said with a chuckle: “So there’s a clear difference between the candidates in this race.”

The simple retort effectively undercut Sanchez and bolstered Harris’s pitch. And it worked; Harris defeated Sanchez by 23 points a month later. Harris has already deployed her sense of humor to undercut Trump, who has shown no tolerance for mockery, and she may be looking to do so again on Tuesday.

Prosecutorial skills

After taking her seat in the Senate, Harris quickly made a name for herself as a tough questioner who could put witnesses on the spot as she dissected their political records. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first attorney general, experienced this first-hand in June 2017.

When he appeared before the Senate intelligence committee, Harris pressed Sessions on his contact with Russian nationals during the 2016 campaign, as he was serving as a surrogate for Trump. Harris rattled off a series of questions to Sessions, who grew frustrated as he struggled to give clear, concise answers.

As Sessions tried to further elaborate on one of his answers, Harris told him: “Sir, I have just a few minutes …”

Sessions then interrupted, saying, “Will you let me qualify it? If I don’t qualify it, you’ll accuse me of lying, so I need to be correct as best I can … I’m not able to be rushed this fast. It makes me nervous.”

The exchange cast even more scrutiny on the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russian officials and showcased Harris’s prosecutorial skills.

A clash with Kavanaugh

Harris’s questioning of Brett Kavanaugh went viral in 2018, when she pressed the supreme court nominee on his conversations about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and his views on abortion access.

Harris asked Kavanaugh whether he had discussed Mueller’s investigation with anyone at a law firm founded by Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz. “Be sure about your answer, sir,” Harris told Kavanaugh.

The nominee fumbled for a moment before saying, “I would like to know the person you’re thinking of.”

Harris replied: “I think you’re thinking of someone, and you don’t want to tell us.”

A Republican senator interjected to relieve the pressure on Kavanaugh, but Harris’s questioning raised questions about the nominee’s credibility.

An even more telling exchange came when Harris asked Kavanuagh, “Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?”

Kavanaugh replied: “I’m happy to answer a more specific question.” When pressed, he conceded: “I’m not thinking of any right now, senator.”

That comment gained renewed attention in 2022, when Kavanaugh became one of the supreme court justices who ruled to overturn Roe v Wade, ending federal protections for abortion access. Harris has blamed Trump for that decision, as he nominated three of the justices who issued the ruling, and she is sure to uplift the fight over abortion access on Tuesday.

A challenge on busing

Harris launched her first presidential campaign in January 2019, but she and other Democratic candidates found it difficult to overtake Biden’s early polling advantage.

At a primary debate in June 2019, Harris decided to confront Biden head-on. Biden had recently attracted controversy for praising the past “civility” of politics, citing his cordial relationships with two late segregationist senators as examples. Harris attacked Biden over the comments and connected them to his past opposition to busing, the practice of transporting children to schools outside their local neighborhood to help achieve racial equity in classrooms.

“You know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day. And that little girl was me,” Harris told Biden. “So I will tell you that, on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously.”

The attack line increased Harris’s national profile, boosting her standing in the polls. But that surge became the high-water mark for Harris’s campaign, and she was forced to withdraw from the race in December.

‘Mr Vice-President, I’m speaking’

Despite their earlier clash, Biden selected Harris as his running mate after winning the nomination, and the new vice-presidential candidate immediately got to work promoting their campaign.

In her debate against Mike Pence in October 2020, Harris had to push back against the then vice-president as he attempted to talk over her.

In what became a viral moment, Harris told Pence, “Mr Vice-President, I’m speaking.”

The catchphrase inspired campaign merchandise and painted Pence as out of touch. The success of that moment might explain why Harris’s campaign fought to have the candidates’ mics unmuted at all times during the debate on Tuesday, as that could create an opportunity to establish a similar dynamic against Trump. But Trump’s team successfully fought that rule change, so mics will only be unmuted when moderators cue a candidate to speak.

Regardless, the pushback against Pence might still teach Trump a lesson going into the debate: Harris refuses to be steamrolled.

An imprecise answer

Trump has reason for concern as he plans for Tuesday. But Harris has also displayed vulnerabilities that could help Trump in the debate.

In Harris’s first major interview since becoming the Democratic nominee, CNN host Dana Bash started off with a rather obvious question: what were her plans for day one of her administration?

“Well, there are a number of things,” Harris said. “I will tell you first and foremost one of my highest priorities is to do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class. When I look at the aspirations, the goals, the ambitions of the American people, I think that people are ready for a new way forward.”

The vague answer prompted Bash to follow up by reiterating, “So what would you do day one?”

Harris then described her plans to implement an “opportunity economy”, including expanding the child tax credit, but the exchange underscored the nominee’s penchant for avoiding specifics when discussing policy. Trump is not exactly known for his detailed policy positions either, but voters will be looking for Harris to outline a more precise vision for her presidency when she takes the debate stage on Tuesday.

The White Stripes’ Jack White and Meg White have filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump for what they allege is the “flagrant misappropriation” of a recording of their hit song Seven Nation Army in a campaign video.

In an Instagram post on Monday, Jack White shared the first page of the lawsuit, filed in court in New York, with the caption: “This machine sues fascists.”

The video that spurred the legal action was posted by Trump staffer Margo McAtee Martin on X on 29 August, but has since been deleted. It shows the Republican presidential nominee boarding a plane with the opening riff of Seven Nation Army playing in the background.

Responding via Instagram at the time, Jack White wrote: “Don’t even think about using my music you fascists. Law suit coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your 5 thousand others).”

The singer has made good on the threat, filing a copyright infringement suit, alongside Meg White, as the White Stripes, seeking “significant monetary damages”, and listing Trump, his campaign and Martin as defendants. The suit alleges that the campaign did not seek or obtain permission from the band to use the song, and did not respond to pre-litigation efforts to resolve the issue.

The lawyer Ronald Coleman, with Dhillon Law Group, who is acting for Trump on the matter, gave no comment to the Guardian on Monday, but said over email the defendants had not yet been served with papers. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to Guardian Australia’s request for comment.

The White Stripes join a growing list of artists who have disavowed Trump’s use of their music as part of his campaigns for presidency in 2016 and 2024, including Neil Young, Beyoncé, Foo Fighters and Celine Dion. In late August, Universal Music served a legal notice to Trump’s campaign over their unauthorised use of Abba songs as part of his 2024 campaign.

Trump is also currently fighting two suits for unauthorised use of music as part of his campaign, from the estate of Isaac Hayes and from the Guyanese British musician Eddy Grant. Last week, a federal judge in Atlanta issued an injunction to prevent the Trump campaign from playing the soul classic Hold On, I’m Coming, co-written by Hayes.

In their lawsuit, the White Stripes say Seven Nation Army is “among the most well-known and influential musical works of all time” and said Trump and his campaign have sought to “generate financial and other support for his campaign and candidacy on the backs of plaintiffs, whose permission and endorsement he neither sought nor obtained in violation of their rights under federal copyright law”.

The duo also point out that they previously “publicly denounced” Trump’s use of the same song during his 2016 campaign, stating that they “vehemently oppose the policies adopted and actions taken by defendant Trump when he was president and those he has proposed for the second term he seeks”.

James Earl Jones, the actor whose beautifully sonorous tones gave voice to Star Wars’ principal villain Darth Vader, has died aged 93.

Jones died at his home in Dutchess county, New York, according to an announcement from his representatives. No cause of death was provided.

Among those to pay tribute to James was Star Wars creator George Lucas, who called him “an incredible actor, a most unique voice both in art and spirit”. Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader’s son, wrote on social media: “RIP dad.”

Kevin Costner, Jones’ co-star in Field of Dreams, wrote: “That booming voice. That quiet strength. The kindness that he radiated. So much can be said about his legacy, so I’ll just say how thankful I am that part of it includes Field of Dreams.”

“Legendary doesn’t even begin to describe his iconic roles and impact on cinema forever,” actor Octavia Spencer wrote, while actor Colman Domingo described him as “a master of our craft. We stand on your shoulders. Rest now. You gave us your best.”

Jones was not the original choice for the role of Vader: the British bodybuilder David Prowse was cast in the first film, released in 1977, for his imposing physique, but the film’s director George Lucas was unhappy with Prowse’s pronounced West Country accent. Jones was given the job of revoicing Vader’s menacing dialogue, creating an instantly immortal evildoer in the process. Hardly a major name at the time, Jones considered himself “special effects” and was not credited until the third Star Wars movie, The Return of the Jedi, in 1983. In all, Jones’s voice would be heard in six Star Wars films – the original trilogy, plus The Revenge of the Sith in 2005, Rogue One in 2016 and The Rise of Skywalker in 2019 – as well as the infamous 1978 Holiday Special and the Star Wars: Rebels TV series which ran between 2014 and 2018.

Jones also had great success with another voice-only role: Mufasa in the 1994 Disney animation The Lion King, whose death at the hands of his villainous brother Scar arguably traumatised a generation of children to the same extent as the death of Bambi’s mother in the 1960s. Jones reprised his role in the 2019 remake directed by Jon Favreau, which tried to give a more authentic cultural flavour to the story.

By this time, Jones had already won considerable renown, and a substantial career, as a stage actor. Born in Mississippi in 1931, Jones grew up in Michigan after his family moved there during the Great Migration. Jones’s father was actor Robert Earl Jones, although he abandoned his family before Jones was born, and they had little contact until the 1950s. (Jones senior acted in Langston Hughes’s play Don’t You Want to be Free?, a string of films by African American film pioneer Oscar Micheaux, and a number of high-profile Hollywood films including The Sting, as grifter Luther Coleman.)

Jones was affected by a stammer as a child, which he overcame with the help of a teacher. After studying drama at the University of Michigan and a spell in the military after the Korean war, Jones quickly established himself a stage performer, making his Broadway debut in 1958 with a small role in Sunrise at Campobello, Dore Schary’s play about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s polio diagnosis.

Jones would perform in a series of major productions in the 1960s, including Jean Genet’s The Blacks, Bertolt Brecht’s Baal and Georg Büchner’s Danton’s Death. Jones also appeared in a string of Shakespeare plays on Broadway, among them The Merchant of Venice, Coriolanus, The Winter’s Tale and – most famously – Othello in 1964, a role he would play again in 1982. At the same time, Jones began to find work on screen: his film debut was as airman Lothar Zogg in Stanley Kubrick’s nuclear war satire Dr Strangelove.

In 1967, Jones earned arguably his defining role on the stage: boxer Jack Jefferson, modelled on real-life great Jack Johnson, in Howard Sackler’s play The Great White Hope. Jones won a Tony award for best actor in 1969, and then went on to star in the 1970 film adaptation, directed by Martin Ritt; he received an Oscar nomination for best actor, the second black actor to be nominated for the award. The film gave Jones a platform as a leading man in Hollywood, and he was able to take advantage of the new opportunities afforded to African American actors at the time. He appeared in The Man, as a senator who becomes the first black president, and in Claudine, a romantic comedy opposite Diahann Carroll (who was nominated for the best actress Oscar for her role).

Star Wars and its sequels solidified Jones’s presence in mainstream cinema, and he benefited from a regular stream of supporting roles in big films, becoming one of the most high-profile black American actors of the 1980s and 90s. He played the villainous Thulsa Doom opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian, Eddie Murphy’s father in Coming to America, author Terence Mann in Field of Dreams, and the CIA deputy director in The Hunt for Red October.

Jones continued to appear on stage whenever possible: he starred in the premiere production of August Wilson’s Fences, winning a second Tony award in 1987 for his role as refuse collector Troy Maxson, and as chauffeur Hoke Colburn in the 2010 touring revival of Driving Miss Daisy. In 2013 he played Benedick opposite Vanessa Redgrave’s Beatrice in a Mark Rylance directed production of Much Ado About Nothing.

Jones was married twice: to the actor and singer Julienne Marie between 1968 and 1972, and to Cecilia Hart, who died in 2016. He is survived by his son Flynn, also an actor.

An inquiry set up to examine how the former nurse Lucy Letby was able to murder babies at a neonatal unit over a two-year period is due to begin.

Letby, 34, was sentenced to 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others across two separate trials.

The inquiry, starting on Tuesday and held at Liverpool town hall, will examine events at the Countess of Chester hospital’s neonatal unit where Letby was a nurse between 2015 and 2016.

Consultants repeatedly raised concerns that Letby may have been behind a series of unexplained deaths before she was arrested.

Tamlin Bolton, a senior associate solicitor at Switalskis, which is representing families of the victims, said: “The families that Switalskis represent have been through unimaginable heartbreak and distress. The facts and issues to be investigated in this inquiry are of deep concern to each individual family whose baby or babies were killed or attacked by Letby.

“Their babies were born, harmed and died in 2015 and 2016 and they have already endured many years of anguish, yet this inquiry will be the first time that they will hear evidence as to how Letby was allowed to harm as many as 18 babies before she was removed from the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester hospital.

“The facts and issues in this inquiry should also be of profound concern to every family who has used or will use NHS maternity, neonatal or paediatric services and to the wider public who need to have confidence in patient safety. For the families we represent, that confidence has been shattered.”

The inquiry is being led by Lady Justice Thirlwall, a senior court of appeal judge.

It will consider the experiences of the parents of Letby’s victims, look into the conduct of staff at the hospital and assess whether suspicions should have been raised earlier, whether Letby should have been suspended earlier and whether the police should have been brought in sooner.

The inquiry will examine wider NHS culture and consider the effectiveness of its management and governance structures. It is expected to last about four months, with a report to be released next year.

A group including some of the UK’s leading neonatal experts and professors of statistics is calling on the government to postpone or change the terms of a public inquiry over concerns about the safety of the convictions of the neonatal nurse.

In a private letter to ministers, seen by the Guardian, the 24 experts said they were concerned that the inquiry’s narrow terms could prevent lessons being learned about “possible negligent deaths that were presumed to be murders” in the neonatal ward of the Countess of Chester hospital.

At the weekend, legal representatives said reports calling into question Letby’s convictions had been upsetting for the families of the victims. Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Bolton said: “I can’t stress enough how upsetting that has been for all of the families that I represent.”

One of the medical witnesses in the case also reported being attacked by a member of the public who holds “pro-Letby beliefs”, it was reported in the Sunday Times.

Cheshire police said: “We can confirm that we are aware of an assault involving one of the witnesses from the Lucy Letby case and an investigation into the incident is under way.”

An inquiry set up to examine how the former nurse Lucy Letby was able to murder babies at a neonatal unit over a two-year period is due to begin.

Letby, 34, was sentenced to 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others across two separate trials.

The inquiry, starting on Tuesday and held at Liverpool town hall, will examine events at the Countess of Chester hospital’s neonatal unit where Letby was a nurse between 2015 and 2016.

Consultants repeatedly raised concerns that Letby may have been behind a series of unexplained deaths before she was arrested.

Tamlin Bolton, a senior associate solicitor at Switalskis, which is representing families of the victims, said: “The families that Switalskis represent have been through unimaginable heartbreak and distress. The facts and issues to be investigated in this inquiry are of deep concern to each individual family whose baby or babies were killed or attacked by Letby.

“Their babies were born, harmed and died in 2015 and 2016 and they have already endured many years of anguish, yet this inquiry will be the first time that they will hear evidence as to how Letby was allowed to harm as many as 18 babies before she was removed from the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester hospital.

“The facts and issues in this inquiry should also be of profound concern to every family who has used or will use NHS maternity, neonatal or paediatric services and to the wider public who need to have confidence in patient safety. For the families we represent, that confidence has been shattered.”

The inquiry is being led by Lady Justice Thirlwall, a senior court of appeal judge.

It will consider the experiences of the parents of Letby’s victims, look into the conduct of staff at the hospital and assess whether suspicions should have been raised earlier, whether Letby should have been suspended earlier and whether the police should have been brought in sooner.

The inquiry will examine wider NHS culture and consider the effectiveness of its management and governance structures. It is expected to last about four months, with a report to be released next year.

A group including some of the UK’s leading neonatal experts and professors of statistics is calling on the government to postpone or change the terms of a public inquiry over concerns about the safety of the convictions of the neonatal nurse.

In a private letter to ministers, seen by the Guardian, the 24 experts said they were concerned that the inquiry’s narrow terms could prevent lessons being learned about “possible negligent deaths that were presumed to be murders” in the neonatal ward of the Countess of Chester hospital.

At the weekend, legal representatives said reports calling into question Letby’s convictions had been upsetting for the families of the victims. Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Bolton said: “I can’t stress enough how upsetting that has been for all of the families that I represent.”

One of the medical witnesses in the case also reported being attacked by a member of the public who holds “pro-Letby beliefs”, it was reported in the Sunday Times.

Cheshire police said: “We can confirm that we are aware of an assault involving one of the witnesses from the Lucy Letby case and an investigation into the incident is under way.”

An inquiry set up to examine what happened at the Countess of Chester hospital during the time Lucy Letby worked there will begin this week. Hearings for the Thirlwall inquiry, led by Lady Justice Kathryn Thirlwall, will be held at Liverpool town hall and will examine how Letby was able to carry out the murders of a number of babies at the Chester hospital’s neonatal unit in 2015 and 2016.

Three developing countries have taken the first steps towards transforming the world’s response to climate breakdown and environmental destruction by making ecocide a punishable criminal offence.

In a submission to the international criminal court on Monday, they propose a change in the rules to recognise “ecocide” as a crime alongside genocide and war crimes.

If successful, the change could allow for the prosecution of individuals who have brought about environmental destruction, such as the heads of large polluting companies, or heads of state.

Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa have proposed a formal recognition by the court of the crime of ecocide, defined as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”.

The proposal was tabled before the ICC in New York on Monday afternoon, and will have to be discussed in full at a later date. Holding full discussions on the proposal is a process likely to take some years, and will face fierce opposition, though much of it will be behind the scenes as most countries will not wish to openly speak out against it.

Philippe Sands KC, a prominent international lawyer and professor of law at University College London, acted as a co-chair of the independent expert panel for the legal definition of ecocide, convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation. He told the Guardian he was “100% certain” that ecocide would eventually be recognised by the court.

“The only question is when,” he said. “I was sceptical at first, but now I am a true believer. There has already been real change, as some countries have put it in domestic law. I think this is the right idea at the right time.”

Belgium recently adopted ecocide as a crime, and the EU has changed some of its guidance on international crime to include it as a “qualified” offence. Mexico is also considering such a law.

Jojo Mehta, a co-founder of the Stop Ecocide International campaigning group, which is an observer to the ICC, told the Guardian the move by the three Pacific islands marked a “key moment” in the fight to have ecocide recognised. “Once it’s on the timetable of the ICC, it has to be discussed,” she said. “Up to now, member states have not been obliged to address the issue.”

No countries have been willing to publicly say they oppose the adoption of ecocide as a crime, she said, but she expected resistance and heavy lobbying from high-polluting businesses, including oil companies whose executives could eventually be held liable if the offence were to be adopted.

Getting to the point where the ICC will consider the proposal has taken years. Stop Ecocide International has been campaigning on the issue since 2017, and Vanuatu made the first call for the crime to be recognised by the ICC in 2019.

Although it could take as long as a decade from now before anyone is charged with ecocide even if the changes were implemented by the ICC, the proposal tabled on Monday was vital to gaining broader acceptance of the concept, according to Mehta. “There has been growing progress, as people are increasingly aware of the threat of climate [breakdown],” she said. “People are saying that this much harm to the planet is just not acceptable.”

Sands said it was necessary to change the treaty that forms the foundation of the ICC, known as the Rome statute, to recognise ecocide. “You need a change to the statute, that’s fundamental,” he said. “The ICC can’t deal with this in a meaningful sense without that.”

Since its formation in 2002, the ICC, which sits in The Hague, has dealt with crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 2010, an amendment to the Rome statute expanded the list to allow crimes of aggression – the use of armed force by one state against another – to be included.

More than 120 countries, including the UK and the EU, are parties to the ICC. Its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, recently called for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to be arrested, and Vladimir Putin is also wanted to stand before the court.

However, the scope of the ICC is limited, as the US, China, India, Russia and other major emitters of greenhouse gases are not parties to it.

A difficult operation to remove a small amount of radioactive debris from Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant has begun, after technical issues suspended an earlier attempt.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said in a statement on Tuesday that its “pilot extraction operation” had started. It will take about two weeks, according to the company.

The tiny sample will be studied for clues about conditions inside the reactors – a crucial step towards decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

About 880 tons of extremely hazardous material remain 13 years after a tsunami caused by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents.

Removing the debris from the reactors is regarded as the most daunting challenge in the decades-long decommissioning project.

Tepco originally planned to start its first trial removal on 22 August, aiming to collect just three grams (0.1 ounces) for analysis. But the company had to stop the work at a preliminary stage after detecting a problem involving the installation of the necessary equipment.

Three of the Fukushima plant’s six reactors were operating when the tsunami hit on 11 March 2011, sending them into meltdown. The debris within has radiation levels so high that Tepco had to develop specialised robots able to function inside.

Tepco deployed two mini-drones and a “snake-shaped robot” into one of the three nuclear reactors in February, as part of the preparations for the removal task.

Separately, last year Japan began releasing treated wastewater from the Fukushima plant into the Pacific Ocean, sparking a diplomatic row with China and Russia.

Both countries have banned Japanese seafood imports, although Tokyo insists the discharge is safe, a view backed by the UN atomic agency.

And in a Tepco initiative to promote food from the Fukushima area, London department store Harrods on Saturday began selling peaches that were grown in the region.

Fukushima peaches are renowned for their juicy, sweet taste – but they aren’t cheap, with one box of three reportedly going for £80 ($105).

The disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was rushed from prison to a New York City hospital for emergency heart surgery after he experienced chest pains, his representatives told US media.

“Mr Weinstein was rushed to Bellevue Hospital last night due to several medical conditions,” Weinstein representatives Craig Rothfeld and Juda Engelmayer said in a statement first reported by ABC News.

“We can confirm that Mr Weinstein had a procedure and surgery on his heart today, however [we] cannot comment any further than that. As we have extensively stated before, Mr Weinstein suffers a plethora of significant health issues that need ongoing treatment.”

Weinstein was out of surgery as of Monday afternoon and is in recovery, they said.

Weinstein, 72, was transferred to Bellevue from New York’s Rikers Island jail complex, where he is awaiting retrial on rape and sexual assault charges. It is the second time in two months he had been taken to hospital.

Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said they requested jail officials immediately move Weinstein to Bellevue “based on his complaints to us regarding chest pains.” In one email, Aidala said, he told them: “This guy is going to die on your watch if you don’t do something.”

He was admitted in July for treatment for a variety of health problems including Covid-19 and pneumonia in both lungs. Representatives at the time said the former director and producer also suffered from diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis and fluid on his heart and lungs.

In April, New York’s top court overturned Weinstein’s rape and sexual assault convictions and ordered a new trial. The state’s court of appeals found that the judge in the 2020 trial unfairly allowed testimony from women whose claims against Weinstein were not part of the case.

But Weinstein now faces the prospect of a new indictment in New York, where the Manhattan district attorney’s office has begun presenting evidence to a grand jury of up to three previously uncharged allegations against Weinstein – two sexual assaults in the mid-2000s and another sexual assault in 2016.

After the conclusion of a retrial and any subsequent prison sentence, Weinstein is due to start serving a 16-year sentence in California for a separate rape conviction in Los Angeles in December 2022, authorities said.

The California jury took more than nine days of deliberation to convict Weinstein of three counts of rape and sexual assault against a European model and actor who testified anonymously as “Jane Doe 1”.

The panel remained divided on three other charges of rape and sexual assault by two other accusers, including Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California governor Gavin Newsom. Weinstein was also acquitted of a sexual battery allegation made by a fourth woman.

More than 90 women spoke out about being sexually assaulted or sexually harassed by Weinstein over the course of his decades-long career as one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures following his founding of the Miramax film studio with his brother, Bob Weinstein, in 1979.

The pair went on to found the Weinstein Company, and during their time at the two companies produced some of the most notable and successful movies in Hollywood history, including Shakespeare in Love, Django Unchained, The King’s Speech and Pulp Fiction.

But his arrest and Manhattan conviction exposed Weinstein’s darker side, and was a milestone for the #MeToo movement, in which women accused hundreds of men in entertainment, media, politics and other fields of sexual misconduct.

Prosecutors in the UK last week announced they were discontinuing two indecent assault charges against Weinstein after finding “there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction”.

The charges related to an incident involving a woman, in her 50s at the time of the announcement of the charges, in London between 31 July and 31 August 1996.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

The disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was rushed from prison to a New York City hospital for emergency heart surgery after he experienced chest pains, his representatives told US media.

“Mr Weinstein was rushed to Bellevue Hospital last night due to several medical conditions,” Weinstein representatives Craig Rothfeld and Juda Engelmayer said in a statement first reported by ABC News.

“We can confirm that Mr Weinstein had a procedure and surgery on his heart today, however [we] cannot comment any further than that. As we have extensively stated before, Mr Weinstein suffers a plethora of significant health issues that need ongoing treatment.”

Weinstein was out of surgery as of Monday afternoon and is in recovery, they said.

Weinstein, 72, was transferred to Bellevue from New York’s Rikers Island jail complex, where he is awaiting retrial on rape and sexual assault charges. It is the second time in two months he had been taken to hospital.

Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said they requested jail officials immediately move Weinstein to Bellevue “based on his complaints to us regarding chest pains.” In one email, Aidala said, he told them: “This guy is going to die on your watch if you don’t do something.”

He was admitted in July for treatment for a variety of health problems including Covid-19 and pneumonia in both lungs. Representatives at the time said the former director and producer also suffered from diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis and fluid on his heart and lungs.

In April, New York’s top court overturned Weinstein’s rape and sexual assault convictions and ordered a new trial. The state’s court of appeals found that the judge in the 2020 trial unfairly allowed testimony from women whose claims against Weinstein were not part of the case.

But Weinstein now faces the prospect of a new indictment in New York, where the Manhattan district attorney’s office has begun presenting evidence to a grand jury of up to three previously uncharged allegations against Weinstein – two sexual assaults in the mid-2000s and another sexual assault in 2016.

After the conclusion of a retrial and any subsequent prison sentence, Weinstein is due to start serving a 16-year sentence in California for a separate rape conviction in Los Angeles in December 2022, authorities said.

The California jury took more than nine days of deliberation to convict Weinstein of three counts of rape and sexual assault against a European model and actor who testified anonymously as “Jane Doe 1”.

The panel remained divided on three other charges of rape and sexual assault by two other accusers, including Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California governor Gavin Newsom. Weinstein was also acquitted of a sexual battery allegation made by a fourth woman.

More than 90 women spoke out about being sexually assaulted or sexually harassed by Weinstein over the course of his decades-long career as one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures following his founding of the Miramax film studio with his brother, Bob Weinstein, in 1979.

The pair went on to found the Weinstein Company, and during their time at the two companies produced some of the most notable and successful movies in Hollywood history, including Shakespeare in Love, Django Unchained, The King’s Speech and Pulp Fiction.

But his arrest and Manhattan conviction exposed Weinstein’s darker side, and was a milestone for the #MeToo movement, in which women accused hundreds of men in entertainment, media, politics and other fields of sexual misconduct.

Prosecutors in the UK last week announced they were discontinuing two indecent assault charges against Weinstein after finding “there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction”.

The charges related to an incident involving a woman, in her 50s at the time of the announcement of the charges, in London between 31 July and 31 August 1996.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

• A woman has been killed and another person wounded as air defences around Moscow intercepted at least 14 Ukrainian drones, the regional governor said on Tuesday morning. Fire broke out a residential building in the Ramenskoye district, Moscow officials said, while a fuel complex in neighbouring Tula oblast was hit. Flights at Moscow’s Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports were suspended during the attacks.

• There were further Ukrainian drone attacks reported in the Russian region of Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, and in Lipetsk several hundred kilometres south of Moscow. Russian officials claimed, as is routine, that dozens of drones were brought down by air defences. There was no independent confirmation. Ukraine denies targeting civilians, and when Ukrainian drones get through they have a record of hitting confirmed Russian strategic targets.

• In Ukraine, air defence units meanwhile were engaged early on Tuesday in repelling a Russian drone attack on Kyiv, the military administration of the capital said.

• Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it had summoned a senior Iranian diplomat to warn of “devastating and irreparable consequences” for their relations if Tehran has supplied Russia with ballistic missiles. The EU said its allies had shared “credible” intelligence that Iran had supplied Russia with ballistic missiles, which the US warned would be met with “significant consequences”. The claim was rejected by Iran but not explicitly denied by the Kremlin. The US has said any such deliveries would damage Tehran’s efforts to improve relations with the west under its new, reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

• Andrii Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said: “In response to the supply of ballistic missiles to Russia, Ukraine must be allowed to destroy warehouses storing these missiles with western weapons in order to avoid terror.” Western countries supporting Ukraine in the war have hesitated to let its military strike targets on Russian soil with long-range weapons they supply.

• Sweden will send its 17th aid package to Ukraine with military support measures totalling 4.6 billion Swedish crowns (US$443m), said the Swedish defence minister, Pal Jonson. The package will include ammunition for infantry fighting vehicles already donated by Sweden, as well as purchases that would facilitate a transfer of Gripen fighter jets in the future, though no such transfer has been decided on yet. “We want to have the ability to donate Gripens to Ukraine at a possible later stage,” Jonson said.

• Latvia said the Russian drone that crashed on its territory was a fully armed Iranian-designed exploding Shahed. Gen Leonids Kalnins, the Latvian armed forces commander, said: “The explosive warhead stuck half a metre deep into the ground and was neutralised on the spot, avoiding detonation. [This] allowed our military intelligence officers to gather all the debris and remnants from the drone for further investigation, details of which will be shared with all of our Nato partners.” The Latvian government summoned the Russian chargé d’affaires to explain.

• The Latvian air force commander, Col Viesturs Masulis, said: “The drone was seen by our air defences while still deep into Belarusian airspace, which gave us time to react.” Romania on Sunday said a Russian attack drone went through its airspace on the way to targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. Poland has also recorded at least two cases of its airspace being violated by Russian missiles or drones attacking Ukraine, most recently in December.

• Russia said its forces had pressed forward on the eastern front in Ukraine, capturing the village of Memryk, east of the city of Pokrovsk. Ukraine’s general staff made no mention of such a development but the Reuters news agency said Ukrainian war blogs reported Memryk had passed into Russian hands last week. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Kyiv’s forces were holding their own. Reuters said it could not independently verify accounts from either side.

• Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, reported on action in the Kharkiv region and on Kyiv’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region launched in August. Ukrainian forces, Zelenskiy said, were “getting Russia used to a clear understanding of where its land is and where its neighbour’s land is”.

• Ukraine’s population is “trapped in cycles of terror” through Russian attacks on civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, supermarkets and energy infrastructure, according to Volker Türk, the UN human rights commissioner. “I fear for Ukrainians this coming winter,” he told the UN human rights council. Türk said he was troubled by the impact on civilians of the recent escalation in fighting, including in the Russian regions of Kursk, Belgorod and Briansk where the UN had asked Russia for access but been refused.

• The Kremlin said on Monday that it would not grant an interview with Vladimir Putin to the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was released by Russia in a prisoner swap. “For there to be an interview with foreign media and some specific one, we need to have an occasion,” said the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. “So far we don’t see such an occasion.” Tucker Carlson, the fired Fox News host, was given an interview with the Russian president – no special occasion was stipulated.

• Vladimir Kara-Murza, also freed by Russia in the prisoner swap in August, has urged the west against allowing Putin any “face-saving” way out of the war against Ukraine. In an interview with Agence France-Presse in Paris, Kara-Murza, 43, said the “Putin regime must be defeated … If, God forbid, the Putin regime is allowed to present the outcome of this war as a victory and survive in power, all this means is that a year or 18 months from now we will be talking about another war, conflict or another catastrophe.”

• The Ukrainian central bank announced currency liberalisation measures it says will support Ukraine’s defence capability and businesses. The measures centre on use of foreign currency by state-owned companies and e-commerce businesses, also allowing certain businesses to reimburse coupon payments on eurobonds. “This will contribute to the uninterrupted operation of defence purchases under state contracts … and also will support Ukrainian-European military-technical cooperation,” the bank said.

• China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, is due to visit St Petersburg in Russia on Wednesday and Thursday for a security meeting of the Brics group of countries. China’s president, Xi Jinping, is due to attend a Brics summit in October in the Russian city of Kazan. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, visited Riyadh on Monday where he met with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and other officials from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.

Beyoncé has been snubbed at the Country Music Awards, with her country album, Cowboy Carter, failing to land a single nomination at the genre’s most prestigious awards.

The CMA nominees and winners are voted on each year by the 7,300 individuals in the Country Music Association trade group, after three rounds of balloting.

Singer Morgan Wallen leads this year with seven nominations, competing for the top prize, entertainer of the year, against Luke Combs, Jelly Roll, Chris Stapleton and Lainey Wilson. Four of Wallen’s nominations came for the track I Had Some Help, his collaboration with Post Malone.

Cowboy Carter became the first album by a Black woman to reach No 1 on the Billboard top country albums chart. The single Texas Hold ’Em also became the first by a Black woman to claim the top spot on Billboard’s country song chart, as well as the all-genre Hot 100 chart.

But despite this success, Cowboy Carter was given limited promotion on country radio stations, which is more important in shaping the industry’s preferences than mainstream avenues. In February, a country music radio station in the US made headlines after it initially refused to play a listener’s Beyoncé request, but added her tracks to rotation after a huge online backlash.

Though Beyoncé herself has denied Cowboy Carter is a country album – “This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album,” she wrote on social media – the album was widely framed by experts and fans as a reclamation and homage to an overlooked legacy of Black Americans within country music and culture.

Beyoncé had a cool reception at the 2016 CMAs when she performed her song Daddy Lessons with the Chicks, then still known as the Dixie Chicks. The singer has said that Cowboy Carter was born out of an experience in which she “did not feel welcomed … and it was very clear that I wasn’t. But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of country music and studied our rich musical archive.”

However, one of Beyoncé’s collaborators on Cowboy Carter, the singer Shaboozey, is nominated for best new artist and single of the year with A Bar Song (Tipsy), which has been the No 1 country song for the past 12 weeks, and also topped the Hot 100 chart for eight. Shaboozey is the first Black male artist to top the country chart and the Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously.

Winners of the CMAs will be announced at a ceremony broadcast live on US network ABC on 20 November.

Reuters contributed to this report

At least 196 people were killed last year for defending the environment, with more than a third of killings taking place in Colombia, new figures show.

From campaigners who spoke out against mining projects to Indigenous communities targeted by organised crime groups, an environmental defender was killed every other day in 2023, according to a new report by the NGO Global Witness.

Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and Honduras were the most deadly countries for people trying to protect their lands and ecosystems, making up more than 70% of all recorded killings globally.

Global Witness said that it was often difficult to establish a direct driver of the killings, with many going unpunished, but it found that mining was the biggest factor last year with 25 killings related to the industry.

“As the climate crisis accelerates, those who use their voice to courageously defend our planet are met with violence, intimidation and murder. Our data shows that the number of killings remains alarmingly high, a situation that is simply unacceptable,” said Laura Furones, lead author of the report for Global Witness.

Of those killed in 2023, 43% were from Indigenous communities. Nearly 90% of those killed were men. Numbers from last year bring the total recorded killings to 2,106 since 2012, when Global Witness first started reporting on the data.

While the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, has pledged to crack down on violence again environmental defenders, the figures suggest that he has so far been ineffective at stopping the violence. Dozens of killings took places in the south-west of the country, where communities are often caught in the crossfire of violence related to drug trafficking and coca cultivation, according to the report. The Colombian government did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.

Global Witness urged Colombia to have a special focus on protecting environmental defenders at the Cop16 Biodiversity summit, which will be held in Cali in western Colombia in October.

Killings fell to 25 in Brazil last year from 34 the previous year. More than half of those murdered were from Indigenous communities, with killings having peaked under the far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro.

In Asia, the most deadly countries were the Philippines, India and Indonesia, with 17, five and three killings respectively last year.

Along with murders, the report said that disappearances and abductions of environmental defenders were common, as well as the wider criminalisation of activists around the world.

Nonhle Mbuthuma, a Goldman Environmental prize winner from South Africa who wrote the report’s foreword, said: “Across every corner of the globe, those who dare to expose the devastating impact of extractive industries – deforestation, pollution and land grabbing – are met with violence and intimidation. This is especially true for Indigenous peoples, who are essential in the fight against climate change, yet are disproportionately targeted year after year.”

• Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features.

Selena Gomez has revealed she will be unable to carry a child to term due to her ongoing medical issues, which would mean pregnancy would pose a risk to both herself and a foetus.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, the Only Murders in the Building actor and former Disney star said she had planned to start a family by the time she turned 35.

“I haven’t ever said this, but I unfortunately can’t carry my own children,” she said. “I have a lot of medical issues that would put my life and the baby’s in jeopardy. That was something I had to grieve for a while.”

The 32-year-old didn’t specify which medical issue in the interview, but she has previously spoken publicly about being diagnosed with lupus in 2015, a disease where the immune system attacks its own tissues and organs. A year later she was also diagnosed with anxiety and depression, which can be linked to both lupus and some medications taken to manage the condition.

Gomez underwent a kidney transplant in 2017 due to lupus. In 2020, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, after experiencing a psychotic episode during which she heard voices and felt suicidal.

In 2022, she told Rolling Stone that her need to remain on two particular medications she takes for bipolar disorder could possibly leave her unable to have a safe pregnancy. “That’s a very big, big, present thing in my life,” she said at the time.

Gomez has also said she would be open to adoption, partly because her own mother was adopted.

“I probably wouldn’t be here,” Gomez told Vanity Fair, if her mother hadn’t been adopted. “I don’t know what her life would’ve been like. She and I are very thankful for how life played out.”

Gomez told Vanity Fair she may still become a parent via a route such as adoption or surrogacy. “It’s not necessarily the way I envisioned it. I thought it would happen the way it happens for everyone,” she said. “[But] I’m in a much better place with that. I find it a blessing that there are wonderful people willing to do surrogacy or adoption, which are both huge possibilities for me.”

“It made me really thankful for the other outlets for people who are dying to be moms. I’m one of those people. I’m excited for what that journey will look like, but it’ll look a little different. At the end of the day, I don’t care. It’ll be mine. It’ll be my baby.”

• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org