The US and France have called for a 21-day temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah to make way for broader negotiations, as the UN secretary general, António Guterres, told a UN security council meeting that “hell is breaking loose” in Lebanon.

Israel’s top general has said the country is preparing for a possible ground operation into Lebanon after an intense three-day bombing campaign that has killed more than 600 people, further fuelling fears of a regional conflict.

The joint statement issued by US president Joe Biden and French counterpart Emmanuel Macron said: “It is time for a settlement on the Israel-Lebanon border that ensures safety and security to enable civilians to return to their homes. The exchange of fire since October 7th, and in particular over the past two weeks, threatens a much broader conflict, and harm to civilians.”

The two leaders, who met on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York, said they had worked on a temporary ceasefire “to give diplomacy a chance to succeed and avoid further escalations across the border”.

They urged Israel and Lebanon to back the move, which was also endorsed by Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

A senior US administration official said on Wednesday night that both Israel and Lebanon, which was understood to be representing Hezbollah in the negotiations, were expected to respond to the call “in the coming hours.”

Officials in a background briefing also emphasised that the ceasefire proposal does not apply to the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The US said that the 21-day period was chosen in order to provide space in order to negotiate a more comprehensive agreement between the two sides to allow residents to return to their homes along the Israel-Lebanon border without fear of further violence or an “October 7th-like attack in the future.”

The announcement came at the conclusion of a heated UN security council meeting, which saw Lebanon’s prime minister accuse Israel of violating his country’s sovereignty. Najib Mikati said Lebanese hospitals were overwhelmed and unable to accept any more victims.

Israel’s UN envoy told the security council said that his country did not seek a full-scale war and that Iran was the “driving force” behind the instability sweeping the Middle East.

For his part, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said the US and UK’s “unwavering support for Israel has given them carte blanche for all sorts of sinister behaviour”.

There have been tensions between the US and its European allies about whether to call for an immediate ceasefire at the security council. The UK foreign secretary David Lammy backed an immediate ceasefire, saying it was time to pull back from the brink, adding “a full blown war is not in the interests of Israeli or Lebanese people”.

He said nothing justified Hezbollah’s attacks and urged Iran to use its influence to persuade Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire.

But US diplomats indicated an unconditional ceasefire call in the form of a joint security council statement could be seen as accepting a moral equivalence between the behaviour of Israel and Hezbollah, a group that is labelled a terrorist group by the US.

The proposal for a temporary three-week cessation of hostilities might provide a platform to reopen stalled talks on the discussions over a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza. Hezbollah has said it will stop its strikes if Hamas agrees to a Gaza ceasefire, but there is no sign currently of either the Hamas leadership or the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu coming to an agreement.

Netanyahu was due to arrive in New York on Thursday, and is expected to set out whether he supports a 21-day break in hostilities.

The US deputy envoy Robert Wood said “diplomacy will only become more difficult” if the conflict escalates further, adding he was gravely concerned by reports that hundreds of Lebanese civilians had died in recent days.

But he insisted the origin of the conflict was the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians, and 65,000 Israeli civilians, who have been displaced due to Hezbollah’s decision on 8 October to break the peace that has largely endured.

He said that no one wanted to see a repeat of the war in 2006, adding “the war must end with a comprehensive undertaking that has real implementation mechanisms”.

No details of the implementation mechanisms were set out by the US envoy, but it is not likely to be backed by Hezbollah if it infringes on its sovereignty.

An effort led by France and Britain to secure a joint statement by the UN security council calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon has stalled in the face of US objections.

Washington is eager to avoid any suggestion there is any equivalence of blame for the eruption of the crisis that has led to the loss of life of hundreds of people in Lebanon.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has been firm in asserting Israel has a legitimate problem to solve, blaming Hezbollah’s continued rocket fire into Israel ever since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October.

At one point there had been suggestions the UN security council, due to start late Wednesday, would be deferred overnight to secure agreement on a joint statement, but diplomats said such hopes were fast fading.

The differences emerged at a G7 dinner on Tuesday night. Both Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary, went public in calls for a ceasefire to end the fighting. France and UK had also called for a ceasefire in meetings with allies in Paris a week ago.

European sources said the US had been working on a different, more complex, formula, and was sensitive to Israeli pressure or wording that would be seen to block its military offensive to degrade Hezbollah.

In a round of morning TV interviews Blinken was careful not to call for a ceasefire in Lebanon, referring instead to a diplomatic agreement.

He told ABC News that Hezbollah had started firing rockets into Israel after the deadly attacks of 7 October, saying: “People who lived in northern Israel had to flee their homes – homes were destroyed; villages were destroyed – about 70,000 Israelis. Israel started responding. You have Lebanese in southern Lebanon who’ve also had to flee their homes. We want to see people get back to their homes. The best way to do that is through a diplomatic agreement – [one that] pulls the forces back, creates space and security so that people can get back to their homes, kids can get back to school.”

Joe Biden also told ABC television that all-out war was possible, but added: “We’re still in play to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region.”

In his address to the general assembly, Macron was more forthright, saying:
“There cannot be, must not be war in Lebanon.”

At a meeting with the Qatari prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Blinken only referred to seeking a ceasefire in Gaza – the precondition Hezbolllah set for ending its relatively low-level but hugely disruptive assault on Israel.

Blinken also repeated his claim that it was Hamas and not Israel that was holding up a ceasefire agreement in Gaza.

Saying that 15 of the 18 paragraphs in the ceasefire agreement were signed off, he said: “The problem we have right now is that Hamas hasn’t been engaging on it for the last couple of weeks, and its leader has been talking about an endless war of attrition. Now, if he really cares about the Palestinian people, he’d bring this agreement over the finish line.

“Hard decisions remain to be made by Israel. But the problem right now in terms of bringing this across the finish line is Hamas, its refusal to engage in a meaningful way,” he added.

In contrast, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and Iraq said in a joint statement: “Israel is pushing the region towards total war.”

The Lebanese foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, said the US approach was “not promising”, adding: “It will not solve the Lebanese problem. The US is the only country that can really make a difference in the Middle East with regard to Lebanon.”

Israel’s top general has said the country is preparing for a possible ground operation into Lebanon amid growing international pressure for a negotiated ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel.

As an intense bombing campaign inside Lebanon stretched into a third day, Israel’s chief of staff, Maj Gen Herzi Halevi, said the airstrikes aimed to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure and prepare for the possibility of Israeli troops crossing the border.

Halevi told troops during a visit to Israel’s north: “We are preparing the process of a manoeuvre, which means your military boots, your manoeuvring boots, will enter enemy territory, enter villages that Hezbollah has prepared as large military outposts, with underground infrastructure, staging points and launchpads into our territory [from which to] carry out attacks on Israeli civilians.”

Despite Halevi’s comments, the Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said a ground offensive did not appear “imminent”.

Earlier on Wednesday, Hezbollah aimed a long-range missile at Tel Aviv and Israel targeted the mountains north of Beirut for the first time in the war, drawing an Israeli warning that it was preparing a major response.

Halevi’s comments came amid growing pressure from the US for a pause in the fighting and a warning from Joe Biden over the need to avoid “all-out war” in the region.

“An all-out war is possible,” the US president told ABC, adding that he believed an opportunity also existed “to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region”.

Biden, who has been widely criticised for mishandling the escalating Middle East crisis, suggested that getting Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire could help achieve a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.

But while the US-led initiative to secure a ceasefire with Hezbollah has the support of France and Arab countries, it relies on Hezbollah agreeing to stop firing on Israel before any ceasefire in Gaza is secured. France has called a UN security council meeting on Lebanon for Wednesday to discuss ideas around de-escalation.

Hezbollah has long insisted that any cessation of firing on its part is contingent on an end to Israeli operations in Gaza, where negotiations over a ceasefire-for-hostages deal have been bogged down for months.

It was unclear whether Halevi’s public comments and the diplomatic efforts were connected, with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, due to be out of the country for four days from Thursday for the UN general assembly.

Later on Wednesday evening, Israeli officials were pessimistic about any chance of a ceasefire.

In Lebanon, authorities said on Wednesday that the death toll after three days of Israeli bombardment had passed 600, with thousands more injured. The UN said 90,000 people had been displaced since Monday, on top of more than 200,000 people who had left their homes in southern Lebanon over the past year as Hezbollah and Israel exchanged fire over the border.

With Israel and Hezbollah now in effect at war, world leaders gathered for the UN general assembly in New York repeatedly warned of the dangers of a full-blown regional conflict.

But as they called for de-escalation, they prepared for the opposite: from Moscow to London to Washington, governments told citizens in Lebanon to return home while they could, as airlines cancelled flights from Beirut.

Israel says its campaign against Hezbollah is needed so 60,000 people evacuated from border regions can return home. It has so far been confined to aerial attacks, but on Wednesday, Israel’s military called up two reserve brigades for operations in the north and signalled that troops would soon be ready to cross the border.

Maj Gen Uri Gordin, the head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) northern command, told soldiers from an armoured corps that the war was in a “different phase” and they should “strongly prepare” for action. “We need to change the security situation,” he told troops in a clip shared on army radio.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled southern Lebanon to escape Israeli bombs, but Wednesday’s strike on Maysaara, about 60 miles (100km) north of the border, fuelled fears that Israel could also unleash heavy attacks on other parts of the country.

In the scramble to save their lives, thousands of people had reversed the refugee flow seen for more than a decade and crossed from Lebanon into Syria, aid agencies said.

Hezbollah attempted to strike Tel Aviv for the first time on Wednesday but Israel intercepted the surface-to-surface missile with air defences, and no damage was reported.

The Shia militant group said it was targeting intelligence headquarters, in an apparent signal that it can still pose a serious threat even after days of intensive Israeli attacks which have killed many top commanders and destroyed much of its arsenal.

An Israeli military spokesperson said the unguided missile had been heading towards civilian areas along the coast. “The Mossad headquarters is not in that area; it is a bit east and north of that area,” the IDF’s international spokesperson, Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, told a briefing.

In the southern Israeli city of Eilat, a building near the port was struck by a drone, injuring two people in an attack claimed by an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq.

Israel estimated that Hezbollah had 150,000 rockets and missiles at the start of the war and has not said how many have been destroyed. Senior commanders killed include the head of the elite Radwan force last week, and on Tuesday the head of the missile and rocket force, Ibrahim Qubaisi.

Israel’s successful strikes have decimated the top of Hezbollah’s chain of command, but Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, one of Hezbollah’s key backers, said on Wednesday that the group would survive the death of senior leaders, Reuters reported.

“The organisational strength and human resources of Hezbollah is very strong and will not be critically hit by the killing of a senior commander, even if that is clearly a loss,” he said.

Over decades of conflict, Hezbollah has previously managed to rebound from heavy blows and fight Israeli forces to a standstill, despite a vast disparity in military technology.

As it braces for further retaliation, Israel has brought in tighter restrictions, which include school closures, for more than 1 million people in northern parts of the country, including the city of Haifa. One rocket hit an assisted living home in Safed City, starting a fire, but no casualties were reported.

In Tel Aviv, after the morning missile scare, life returned to something like normal on Wednesday, with kite surfers enjoying the sea off its beaches.

Bar Zinderman, 34, said racing to a bomb shelter with his two-year-old son Ar on Wednesday morning had been frightening, but that he backed the decision to attack Hezbollah.

“I think we are doing the right thing,” he said. “We had no choice but to fight against two enemies at our borders, who forced thousands of my fellow countrymen to evacuate. I hope that our pressure on them will soon lead to an agreement to end this war.”

Nabih Berri, the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, said he was making “great efforts” to reach a diplomatic solution between Israel and Hezbollah, in coordination with the US and his own government. The next 24 hours would be decisive, he added.

Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, said the US was the only country that could end the conflict, but expressed disappointment after Biden addressed the UN on Tuesday. His remarks were “not strong” and “would not solve the Lebanese problem”, Bou Habib said.

Israel has a legitimate interest in seeking to remove Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, from the borders of northern Israel, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said as he rebuffed calls to take a tougher line over the Israeli bombardment.

Speaking before an emergency meeting of the security council in New York, Blinken emphasised that he would prefer a diplomatic solution to the crisis, but his tone is unlikely to be seen as a warning to Israel to stop, or to reconsider its plan for a ground offensive.

“Israel’s got a legitimate problem here. Starting on 8 October, Hezbollah in the north, from southern Lebanon, started lobbing rockets and missiles into Israel,” he said. “People living in northern Israel had to flee their homes – about 70,000 – and Israel understandably, legitimately, wants a secure environment so people can return home.”

He added: “The best way to get that is through diplomacy, an agreement to pull back forces, allow people to return home in northern Israel – also many Lebanese in southern Lebanon forced from their homes. We want to get people back home. The best way to do that is not war; it’s diplomacy.”

Blinken also reverted to his claim that it was Hamas, and not Israel, that was holding up a ceasefire agreement in Gaza – the precondition set by Hezbollah to stop the fighting with Israel.

Insisting 15 of the 18 paragraphs in the ceasefire agreement had been signed off, he said: “The problem we have right now is that Hamas hasn’t been engaging on it for the last couple of weeks, and its leader has been talking about an endless war of attrition. Now, if he really cares about the Palestinian people, he’d bring this agreement over the finish line.”

Blinken added: “Hard decisions remain to be made by Israel. But the problem right now in terms of bringing this across the finish line is Hamas, its refusal to engage in a meaningful way.”

The Lebanese foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, has described the US approach as “not promising”, adding: “It will not solve the Lebanese problem. The US is the only country that can really make a difference in the Middle East with regard to Lebanon.”

The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Daniel Meron, said: “We have been restrained now for 12 months, but … life in the north of Israel has to go back to what it was.”

He reiterated Israel’s claim that it was “doing everything it can” to avoid hitting civilian targets, saying: “Hezbollah is using civilians in Lebanon as human shields.”

“They would like us to shoot back and hit civilians so that we can be blamed for killing civilians,” he said.

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, meanwhile, said in a joint statement that “Israel is pushing the region towards total war”, condemning what it called Israeli aggression against Lebanon. Qatar said at a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council that the crisis was becoming more and more worrying.

Iran so far shows no signs of sending direct help to Hezbollah, which it supports, and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, admitted that the group his country had helped to create had suffered damage. But he added: “Until today, the victory has been on the side of the Palestinian resistance and Hezbollah. The final victory in this battle will belong to the resistance front and Hezbollah.”

A White House official said that the US would come to Israel’s aid if Iran came to the aid of Hezbollah.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, met the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, in New York urging him to use his influence to persuade Hezbollah to accept a ceasefire. Pezeshkian is under conflicting pressures: unwilling to abandon the group his country helped create, or the Palestinian cause, but reluctant to go into a direct war with Israel that will undermine his goal of improving relations with the west.

In his speech to the UN, in the face of criticism at home, he declared: “I intend to establish solid foundations for my country to enter the new era and play a constructive and effective role. To establish a foundation in the emerging global system, to remove the obstacles and challenges and to organise the relations of my country based on the requirements and realities of today’s world.”

In Iran, Hassan Khomenei, one of the grandsons of the leader of the 1979 revolution, Ruhollah Khomenei, sent a letter to the Hezbollah leadership offering to volunteer in support of the resistance.

Rwandan forces and M23 rebels have shelled refugee camps and other highly populated areas in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on many occasions this year, Human Rights Watch has claimed.

The NGO also accused the DRC’s armed forces and its allied militias of putting the camps’ residents in danger by stationing their artillery nearby in its report alleging violation of international humanitarian and human rights law in the longstanding war in the central African country.

Decades-long fighting among regional armies and rebels in eastern DRC has killed and displaced millions.

Most of the displaced live in the eastern provinces of the country, including North Kivu, where M23, with assistance from the Rwandan army, has managed to take control in many areas. More than half a million people have been forced into camps near Goma, the capital of North Kivu, as the rebel group advances.

The researchers for the report interviewed 65 witnesses, camp authorities and victims of abuses in six displacement camps around Goma. They also spoke with 31 humanitarian, diplomatic, UN, and military sources and analysed photos and videos of attack sites, images of weapon remains, and satellite imagery.

The researchers said they had found five instances since January in which Rwandan and M23 forces fired artillery and rockets at displacement camps or inhabited places near Goma. In one incident in May, the report says, Rwandan or M23 forces killed at least 17 civilians, most of them children, when they fired at least three rockets into the 8ème Cepac camp.

The report says the DRC army stationed its artillery near the camps, putting the residents at risk.

The researchers further alleged that alongside a group of its allied militia known as the Wazalendo, members of the DRC army raped women in camps and others who were looking for food and firewood close by. They also shot people inside, killing some and wounding others, the report alleges.

M23 fighters raped women “who crossed the frontline” in search of food, the report says.

Government spokespeople for Rwanda and the DRC did not respond to requests for comment.

The suffering of displaced people around Goma “is difficult to overstate”, said Clémentine de Montjoye, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“Many said they feel stuck between a rock and hard place, facing abuses by all sides despite having fled to Goma in the hopes of finding safety,” de Montjoye said. “They don’t feel safe where they are, but can’t move to a safe place.”

She said the abuse patterns and increase in the use of explosive weapons in or near refugee camps around the city are a relatively new development.

There are more than a hundred armed groups in eastern DRC. The UN, US and EU have in the past issued sanctions for human rights violations against some of their leaders, as well as DRC and Rwandan officials who support the entities.

Jason Stearns, founder of the non-profit Congo Research Group, said the DRC’s policy of conducting counterinsurgency by bringing in other combatants, such as the Wazalendo militia and other countries’ troops, has “complicated the battlefield and aggravated the violence for the civilian population”.

Delphin Ntanyoma, visiting researcher in peace and conflict studies at the University of Leeds, says the findings show that it is “extremely urgent” for all parties to see the importance of complying with international humanitarian law, invest their efforts in protecting civilians, and allow passage of humanitarian aid.

“I truly believe that local populations in North Kivu and across the eastern DRC want peace,” he said. “All parties should work and consider that military options won’t bring lasting peace. Dialogues and talks should tackle the root causes of conflict to avoid cycles of violence.”

The report called on the UN, the African Union and governments to push the conflicting sides to protect civilians.

Vladimir Putin has escalated his nuclear rhetoric, telling a group of senior officials that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if it was attacked by any state with conventional weapons.

His remarks on Wednesday came during a meeting with Russia’s powerful security council where he also announced changes to the country’s nuclear doctrine.

The comments marked Russia’s strongest warning yet to the west against allowing Ukraine to launch deep strikes into Russian territory using long-range western missiles.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has been asking for months for permission to use British Storm Shadow missiles and US-made Atacms missiles to hit targets deeper inside Russia.

Putin said that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if Moscow received “reliable information” about the start of a massive launch of missiles, aircraft or drones against it.

Putin also warned that a nuclear power supporting another country’s attack on Russia would be considered a participant in aggression, issuing a thinly veiled threat to the west as foreign leaders continue to mull whether to allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons.

Putin said the clarifications were carefully calibrated and commensurate with the modern military threats facing Russia. “We see the modern military and political situation is dynamically changing and we must take this into consideration. Including the emergence of new sources of military threats and risks for Russia and our allies,” he said.

Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, dismissed the new nuclear doctrine, saying: “Russia no longer has any instruments to intimidate the world apart from nuclear blackmail. These instruments will not work.”

Several influential foreign policy hawks have previously pressed Putin to adopt a more assertive nuclear posture towards the west, lowering its threshold for using nuclear weapons in order to deter the west against providing more direct military support to Ukraine.

The current doctrine was set out by Putin in June 2020 in a six-page decree.

In the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin frequently invoked Moscow’s nuclear arsenal, the world’s biggest, repeatedly pledging to use all means necessary to defend Russia.

He later seemed to moderate his rhetoric, but officials close to the Russian president have recently warned Nato countries they risked provoking nuclear war if they gave the green light for Ukraine to use long-range weapons.

Earlier this month, Putin said that the west would be directly fighting with Russia if it gave such permission to Ukraine – and that Russia would be forced to make “appropriate decisions”, without spelling out what those measures could be.

• A Nato spokesperson said a Reuters report that Russia has established a weapons programme in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in its war against Ukraine was “deeply concerning” and that Nato “allies are consulting on this matter”. The White House national security council said it appeared to be an instance of a Chinese company providing lethal assistance to a US-sanctioned Russian firm. The White House had not seen anything to suggest the Chinese government was aware of the transactions involved, but China had a responsibility to ensure companies weren’t providing lethal aid to Russia for use by its military, a spokesperson added. IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned arms company Almaz-Antey, has developed and flight-tested a new drone model called Garpiya-3 (G3) in China with the help of local specialists, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing two sources from a European intelligence agency and documents it had reviewed.

• Former president Donald Trump said Ukraine should have made concessions to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, instead of going to war with its invading neighbour, describing the Ukrainian people as “dead” and the country “demolished”. Speaking at an event in North Carolina on Wednesday, the Republican presidential nominee – who is not expected to meet the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on his trip to the US – said: “The worst deal would’ve been better than what we have now.” Trump added: “What deal can we make? It’s demolished … The people are dead. The country is in rubble.”

• The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, meanwhile, demanded that Ukraine fire its ambassador to Washington as the feud between Trump and Zelenskyy escalated and Republicans accused the Ukrainian leader of election interference. In a public letter, Johnson demanded that Zelenskyy fire the Ukrainian ambassador, Oksana Markarova, over a visit to a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, calling it a “partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats”.

• The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, announced $375m in military aid for Ukraine on Wednesday, in a package that includes Himars precision rocket launchers, cluster munitions and light tactical vehicles. “The United States is committed to Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s brutal aggression,” Blinken said in a statement, adding Washington would “deploy this new assistance as quickly as possible”.

• Zelenskyy told the United Nations that Russia was planning to attack Ukrainian nuclear power plants as he repeated his calls for unity from world leaders in order to force Russia to the negotiating table to conclude a “just peace”. In a speech to the UN general assembly on Wednesday, the Ukrainian leader said he had received information that Russia was gathering intelligence on Ukrainian nuclear power plants in preparation for a potential strike.

• In further comments, Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s peace plan must be supported by world leaders, and that alternative initiatives to hold talks with Putin would simply aid the Russian president. Zelenskyy in particular targeted a joint proposal by China and Brazil, which have proposed a six-point peace plan for the Ukraine war without Kyiv’s backing. “If someone in the world seeks alternatives … it likely means they themselves want to do a part of what Putin is doing … the question arises: what is the true interest?” Zelenskyy said. “Everyone must understand: you will not boost your power at Ukraine’s expense.”

• Zelenskyy also criticised the UN security council, saying it was “impossible to truly and fairly resolve matters of war and peace because too much depends in the security council on the veto power”. Russia is one of five permanent members of the security council and it exercises a veto power over any decisions taken by the body.

• Zelenskyy’s comments came as Vladimir Putin escalated his nuclear rhetoric, telling a group of senior officials that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if it was attacked by any state with conventional weapons. The Russian president told the country’s powerful security council that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if Moscow received “reliable information” about the start of a massive launch of missiles, aircraft or drones against it.

• The UN chief also criticised the powerful but deeply divided security council at a high-level meeting on Wednesday for a failure of leadership to end the war in Ukraine as well as wars in Gaza, Sudan and elsewhere. “Peace demands action. And peace demands leadership,” the secretary general, António Guterres, told the 15-member council charged with ensuring international peace and security. “Instead, we’re seeing deepening geopolitical divisions and mistrust.”

• Russia said on Wednesday it had captured two more villages in Ukraine and was attacking in the town of Vuhledar, a longtime Ukrainian stronghold. Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had taken the villages of Hostre and Hryhorivka, though the claim could not be independently confirmed. State news agency Ria cited the Russian-installed head of the Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, as saying that fighting was taking place inside Vuhledar, which had a prewar population of 14,000. The Ukrainian governor of the region, Vadym Filashkin, said Russia’s troops had not reached the outskirts of Vuhledar but its reconnaissance groups were operating there.

• Disinformation attributable to Russian and Belarusian services spiked on the internet by about 300% during the first days of severe flooding in Poland, the country’s deputy premier and digitalisation minister was quoted on Wednesday as saying. The worst floods in at least two decades left many towns in central Europe, including south-western Poland, submerged earlier this month, and the government warned of a spread of disinformation at the same time.

• Russia on Wednesday struck the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk with guided bombs, killing at least two people and wounding 19, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said. The Donetsk region governor said in a video post from the scene there were fears that the toll could grow.

The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, has demanded that Ukraine fire its ambassador to Washington as the feud between Donald Trump and Volodymr Zelenskyy escalated and Republicans accused the Ukrainian leader of election interference.

In a public letter, Johnson demanded that Zelenskyy fire the Ukrainian ambassador, Oksana Markarova, over a visit to a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, last week where the Ukrainian president thanked workers for providing desperately needed shells to his outgunned forces.

Johnson complained that Markarova had organised the visit to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant as a “partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats”. The event was attended by the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who has campaigned in support of Kamala Harris.

“The facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because – on purpose – no Republicans were invited,” Johnson wrote in a letter on congressional letterhead addressed to the Ukrainian embassy.

“The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference,” the letter continued. “This shortsighted and intentionally political move has caused Republicans to lose trust in Ambassador Markarova’s ability to fairly and effectively serve as a diplomat in this country. She should be removed from her post immediately.”

On the same day, Trump in a campaign event in North Carolina attacked Zelenskyy directly and accused him of “refusing” to negotiate a peace deal with Vladimir Putin.

“The president of Ukraine is in our country. He is making little nasty aspersions toward your favourite president, me,” Trump said. “We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal: Zelenskyy.”

The accusations against Zelenskyy came after a controversial interview with the New Yorker in which he questioned Trump’s plan to end Ukraine’s war with Russia and sharply criticized Republicans’ vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, as “too radical”.

Vance had earlier said a peace in Ukraine could entail Russia retaining the Ukrainian land it had occupied and the establishment a demilitarised zone with a heavily fortified frontline to prevent another Russian invasion.

“His message seems to be that Ukraine must make a sacrifice,” Zelenskyy said in the interview with the New Yorker. “This brings us back to the question of the cost and who shoulders it. The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraine’s expense is unacceptable. But I do not consider this concept of his a plan, in any formal sense.”

After addressing the United Nations general assembly on Wednesday, Zelenskyy is expected to travel to Washington to present his “victory plan” to Joe Biden at the White House.

In his letter, Johnson also referred to Ukrainian officials criticizing Trump and Vance in remarks to the media.

“Additionally, as I have clearly stated in the past, all foreign nations should avoid opining on or interfering in American domestic politics,” he said. “Support for ending Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to be bipartisan, but our relationship is unnecessarily tested and needlessly tarnished when the candidates at the top of the Republican presidential ticket are targeted in the media by officials in your government.”

Other top Republicans had criticized Zelenskyy this week after his remarks about Trump and Vance were published.

“I don’t mind him going to a munitions plant thanking people for helping Ukraine. But I think his comments about JD Vance and President Trump were out of bounds,” said the Republican senator Lindsey Graham, according to US-based Punchbowl News.

“With conservatives, it’s going to hurt Ukraine,” Graham said.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the United Nations that Russia is planning to attack Ukrainian nuclear power plants as he repeated his calls for unity from world leaders in order to force Russia to the negotiating table to conclude a “just peace”.

His comments came as Vladimir Putin on Wednesday escalated his nuclear rhetoric, telling a group of senior officials that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if it was attacked by any state with conventional weapons.

In a speech to the UN general assembly on Wednesday, the Ukrainian leader said he had received information that Russia was gathering intelligence on Ukrainian nuclear power plants in preparation for a potential strike.

“Any missile or drone strike, any critical incident in the energy system could lead to a nuclear disaster … a day like that must never come,” Zelenskyy said in an address in the general assembly hall. “And Moscow needs to understand this, and this depends in part on your determination to put pressure on the aggressor.”

He added: “These are nuclear power plants, they must be safe.”

Zelenskyy also said that the war in Ukraine could threaten the region with instability and the potential for a nuclear catastrophe if Russia went forward with the attacks.

“If, God forbid, Russia causes a nuclear disaster at one of our nuclear power plants, the radiation will not respect state borders,” he said, comparing the consequences to the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986. “And unfortunately, various nations could feel that devastating effects.”

Zelenskyy last month accused Russian forces of starting a fire on the site of the giant Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, with its six Soviet-built reactors, making it Europe’s largest.

Russia captured the nuclear plant soon after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the plant has come under repeated attacks that both sides have accused each other of carrying out.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly voiced concerns over the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, calling for “maximum restraint from all sides”.

As Zelenskyy was speaking in New York, Putin addressed Russia’s powerful security council on Wednesday, making his strongest warning yet to the west against allowing Ukraine to launch deep strikes into Russian territory using long-range western missiles.

Putin said Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if Moscow gets “reliable information about start of mass cross-border attack by air from strategic and tactical aviation, cruise missiles, drones and hypersonic weapons”.

The Russian leader added that proposals had been made to change Russia’s nuclear doctrine, and said he would like to underscore one of the proposed key changes.

“It is proposed that aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state, be considered as their joint attack on the Russian Federation,” Putin said, in a thinly veiled threat to the west as foreign leaders continue to mull whether to allow Ukraine to use their long-range weapons.

Putin frequently invoked Moscow’s nuclear arsenal, the world’s biggest, in the early days of its invasion of Ukraine, repeatedly pledging to use all means necessary to defend Russia. He later seemed to moderate his rhetoric, but officials close to the Russian president have recently warned Nato countries they risk provoking nuclear war if they were to give the green light for Ukraine to use long-range weapons.

Earlier this month, Putin said the west would be directly fighting with Russia if it gave such permission to Ukraine – and that Russia would be forced to make “appropriate decisions”, without spelling out what those measures could be.

Zelenskyy is expected to travel to Washington to present his “victory plan” to Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday. The plan is a roadmap for Ukraine to end the war on its own terms, and is understood to include significant requests from the US and its allies for additional arms and economic and political support for Ukraine in the long term.

The Ukrainian president is expected to meet with Kamala Harris, who is running neck and neck with Donald Trump in the US presidential election. The Republican nominee is not expected to meet with Zelenskyy during the trip, and has threatened to severely cut aid to Ukraine if elected. In campaign rallies this week, Trump reiterated that he would “get out of Ukraine” if elected president.

In his speech, Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s peace plan must be supported by world leaders, and that alternative initiatives to hold talks with Putin would simply aid the Russian president. Zelenskyy in particular targeted a joint proposal by China and Brazil, who have proposed a six-point peace plan for the Ukraine war without Kyiv’s backing.

“If someone in the world seeks alternatives … it likely means they themselves want to do a part of what Putin is doing … the question arises: what is the true interest?” Zelenskyy said. “Everyone must understand. You will not boost your power at Ukraine’s expense.”

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, had spoken of the plan earlier on Wednesday and Zelenskyy’s remarks appeared targeted at him.

“Maybe somebody wants a Nobel prize for their political biography for a frozen truce instead of real peace, but the only prizes Putin will give you in return are more suffering and disasters,” Zelenskyy said.

In his speech, Zelensky also criticised the UN security council, saying it was “impossible to truly and fairly resolve matters of war and peace, because too much depends in the security council on the veto power”.

Russia is one of five permanent members of the security council and it exercises a veto power over any decisions taken by the body.

Without revealing additional details about the plan, which has been kept largely secret, Zelenskyy indicated it would not be adopted directly through the UN.

“When the aggressor exercises veto power, the UN is powerless to stop the war,” said Zelenskyy. “But the peace formula … there is no veto power in it. That’s why it’s the best opportunity for peace.”

Russian troops are threatening the Ukrainian road-and-rail hub of Pokrovsk in an onslaught that western officials say are leading to the killing of 1,000 Russian soldiers each day.

A Russian-guided bomb strike on Ukraine’s eastern city of Kramatorsk on Wednesday killed at least two people and injured 12 more, including three children, according to the Donetsk region governor, Vadym Filashkin.

Eric Adams, the New York City mayor, has been indicted following a federal corruption investigation, according to the New York Times.

It is still unclear what charges Adams, 64, will face. Once the indictment is released, he will be the first sitting New York City mayor to be criminally charged. Federal prosecutors are expected to layout the details of the charges Thursday, the newspaper reported.

The news comes as some of his closest aides and advisers have come under federal investigation as prosecutors in the city began examining his inner circle.

The development regarding Adams comes less than a month after federal agents raided the homes of high-ranking officials within Adams’ administration. Agents seized devices from the home of the New York police department commissioner.

The Adams administration could not be immediately reached for a comment.

Police set up barriers outside Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s home, according to the New York Post. The outlet reported that City Hall officials were aware Wednesday morning that Adams would soon be indicted, sending staff into a panic throughout the day.

The US attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment.

“I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target – and a target I became,” Adams said in a statement that implied he hadn’t been informed of the indictment. “If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit.”

In a speech recorded at his official residence, Adams acknowledged that some New Yorkers would question his ability to manage the city while he fights the charges, but he vowed to stay in office.

“I have been facing these lies for months … yet the city has continued to improve,” Adams said. “Make no mistake. You elected me to lead this city and lead it I will.”

Federal investigations into his administration first emerged publicly on 2 November 2023 when FBI agents conducted an early morning raid on the Brooklyn home of Adams’ chief fundraiser, Brianna Suggs.

At the time, Adams insisted he followed the law and said he would be “shocked” if anyone on his campaign had acted illegally. “I cannot tell you how much I start the day with telling my team we’ve got to follow the law,” he told reporters at the time.

Days later, FBI agents seized the mayor’s phones and iPad as he was leaving an event in Manhattan. The interaction was disclosed several days later by the mayor’s attorney.

Then, on 4 September, federal investigators seized electronic devices from the city’s police commissioner, schools chancellor, deputy mayor of public safety, first deputy mayor and other trusted confidantes of Adams both in and out of City Hall.

Federal prosecutors declined to discuss the investigations but people familiar with elements of the cases described multiple, separate inquiries involving senior Adams aides, relatives of those aides, campaign fundraising and possible influence peddling of the police and fire departments.

Kamala Harris sat for her first solo interview as the Democratic presidential nominee on Wednesday, laying out her plan to boost the middle class and condemning her rival Donald Trump on his comments over abortion.

During the interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, which was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the vice-president painted Trump as a candidate focused on the rich at the expense of the middle class, and herself as better equipped to handle the economy.

“The top economists in our country have compared our plans and say mine would grow the economy, [and] his would shrink it,” she said during the interview.

On his economic record, Harris said: “Donald Trump made a whole lot of promises that he did not meet.”

Harris also showed disdain over Trump’s comments over abortion, expressing he needs to trust women to make their own reproductive decisions. Her comments came after Trump, at a Pennsylvania rally, called himself a “protector” of women, claiming American women will not be “thinking about abortion” if he is elected.

“Donald Trump is also the person who said women should be punished for exercising a decision that they, rightly, should be able to make about their own body and future,” Harris said.

On a lighter note, Harris confirmed that she worked at McDonald’s, pushing back against Trump’s allegations that she did not.

“Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald’s is because there are people who work at McDonald’s who are trying to raise a family,” she said, alluding to her economic policy plan to help working-class families.

“I think part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people and what our responsibility, then, is to meet those needs,” Harris added.

The interview comes at a time when Harris faces harsh criticism over the lack of media interviews she has done. Earlier this month, Axios reported that the Harris-Walz campaign has so far given fewer interviews than any other candidates in modern history.

Trump and JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential pick, have used it as ammunition during their campaign speeches. On X, Vance responded to news of Harris’s interview by saying: “This is legitimately pathetic for a person who wants to be president. Ruhle has explicitly endorsed Harris. She won’t ask hard Qs. Kamala runs from tough questions because she can’t defend her record. If you want open borders and high groceries, vote for status quo Kamala.”

In August, Harris was interviewed on CNN alongside Walz. The interview was hosted by Dana Bash and was aired as a one-hour primetime special. After the interview, Republicans criticized the joint interview with Walz for being pre-recorded and not live.

Since then, Harris has given a handful of interviews, mostly with local outlets or more niche forums, including an appearance with Stephanie “Chiquibaby” Himonidis, a Spanish-language radio host and podcaster.

Harris also appeared in a live-streamed “Unite For America” event with supporters hosted by Oprah Winfrey last week.

California governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have helped Black families reclaim or be compensated for property that was unjustly taken by the government.

The bill would have created a process for families to file a claim with the state if they believe the government seized their property through eminent domain due to discriminatory motives and without providing fair compensation.

The proposal by itself would not have been able to take full effect because lawmakers blocked another bill to create a reparations agency that would have reviewed claims.

The veto dealt a blow to a key part of a package of reparations bills the California Legislative Black caucus backed this year in an effort to help the state atone for decades of policies that drove racial disparities for Black Americans. The caucus sent other proposals to Newsom’s desk that would require the state to formally apologize for slavery and its lingering impacts, improve protections against hair discrimination for athletes and combat the banning of books in state prisons.

Democratic state senator Steven Bradford introduced the eminent domain bill after Los Angeles-area officials in 2022 returned a beachfront property to a Black couple a century after it was taken from their ancestors through eminent domain. Bradford said in a statement earlier this year that his proposal was part of a crucial “framework for reparations and correcting a historic wrong”.

Bradford also introduced a bill this year to create an agency to help Black families research their family lineage and implement reparations programs that become law, and a measure to create a fund for reparations legislation.

But Black caucus members blocked the reparations agency and fund bills from receiving a final vote in the assembly during the last week of the legislative session last month. The caucus cited concerns that the legislature would not have oversight over the agency’s operations and declined to comment further on the reparations fund bill because it wasn’t part of the caucus’s reparations priority package.

The move came after the Newsom administration pushed for the agency bill to be turned into legislation allocating $6m for California State University to study how to implement the reparations task force’s recommendations, according to a document with proposed amendments shared by Bradford’s office.

Newsom’s office declined to comment to the Associated Press last month on the reparations agency and fund proposals, saying it doesn’t typically weigh in publicly on pending legislation.

The administration’s department of finance said earlier this year it opposed the eminent domain bill because it was not specifically included in the budget. The agency said the cost to implement it was unknown but could have ranged “from hundreds of thousands of dollars to low millions of dollars annually, depending on the workload required to accept, review and investigate applications”.

California governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have helped Black families reclaim or be compensated for property that was unjustly taken by the government.

The bill would have created a process for families to file a claim with the state if they believe the government seized their property through eminent domain due to discriminatory motives and without providing fair compensation.

The proposal by itself would not have been able to take full effect because lawmakers blocked another bill to create a reparations agency that would have reviewed claims.

The veto dealt a blow to a key part of a package of reparations bills the California Legislative Black caucus backed this year in an effort to help the state atone for decades of policies that drove racial disparities for Black Americans. The caucus sent other proposals to Newsom’s desk that would require the state to formally apologize for slavery and its lingering impacts, improve protections against hair discrimination for athletes and combat the banning of books in state prisons.

Democratic state senator Steven Bradford introduced the eminent domain bill after Los Angeles-area officials in 2022 returned a beachfront property to a Black couple a century after it was taken from their ancestors through eminent domain. Bradford said in a statement earlier this year that his proposal was part of a crucial “framework for reparations and correcting a historic wrong”.

Bradford also introduced a bill this year to create an agency to help Black families research their family lineage and implement reparations programs that become law, and a measure to create a fund for reparations legislation.

But Black caucus members blocked the reparations agency and fund bills from receiving a final vote in the assembly during the last week of the legislative session last month. The caucus cited concerns that the legislature would not have oversight over the agency’s operations and declined to comment further on the reparations fund bill because it wasn’t part of the caucus’s reparations priority package.

The move came after the Newsom administration pushed for the agency bill to be turned into legislation allocating $6m for California State University to study how to implement the reparations task force’s recommendations, according to a document with proposed amendments shared by Bradford’s office.

Newsom’s office declined to comment to the Associated Press last month on the reparations agency and fund proposals, saying it doesn’t typically weigh in publicly on pending legislation.

The administration’s department of finance said earlier this year it opposed the eminent domain bill because it was not specifically included in the budget. The agency said the cost to implement it was unknown but could have ranged “from hundreds of thousands of dollars to low millions of dollars annually, depending on the workload required to accept, review and investigate applications”.

German prosecutors are bringing charges against three men arrested this year over an alleged blackmail plot targeting the family of Formula One legend Michael Schumacher.

They said the chief suspect, a 53-year-old man from the western city of Wuppertal, had threatened to release private photos and videos and demanded €15m (£12.5m) from Schumacher’s family.

These allegedly included images of the seven-time Formula One champion before and after the 2013 skiing accident in the French Alps that left him with a serious brain injury.

Schumacher, 55, has not been seen in public since.

The images allegedly came from another 53-year-old, from the western town of Wülfrath, who worked as a security guard for the Schumacher family until 2021.

He is suspected of having sold the material for a “five-figure” sum and could face a “considerable” jail term on charges of being an accomplice to attempted blackmail and breach of privacy.

Prosecutors say the chief suspect rang an employee of the Schumacher family several times in June this year to demand the money.

He allegedly threatened to leak the images on to the so-called dark net if money was not paid.

The chief suspect faces charges of attempted blackmail with a maximum jail sentence of up to 15 years, although prosecutors say the punishment could be reduced as the threat was not followed through.

The Wuppertal man’s 30-year-old son has been charged with being an accomplice to blackmail, as his father had asked him to create an untraceable email address.

This was used to send the Schumacher family samples of the blackmail material, prosecutors said.

The family alerted authorities in Switzerland, where Schumacher has been cared for at his family home since the accident.

Swiss investigators traced the plot to Germany through the phone number used to call the family.

The comedian Janey Godley has revealed she is receiving end-of-life care after her terminal cancer spread.

The 63-year-old announced she would be getting palliative care and going into a hospice in a video shared on social media on Wednesday.

Godley thanked the NHS and those who have cared for her as well as her family, friends and fans for their support. The Scottish comedian said in the video: “So I’m now in palliative care and I’m at end-of-life care now in the hospital. The chemo ran out of options and I just couldn’t take any more of it and the cancer has spread.

“So it looks like this will be getting to near the end of it and it’s really difficult to speak about this and say to people.”

Godley, who found viral fame with her dubbed pastiches of Nicola Sturgeon’s coronavirus news briefings during the pandemic, revealed she had ovarian cancer in November 2021.

She was given the all-clear in 2022. However, she later announced that another scan had shown signs of the disease in her abdomen.

Earlier this month, she cancelled her forthcoming tour this autumn due to her stage four ovarian cancer, which had been kept at bay through NHS treatment over the last few years and had returned with a few added complications.

In the new video, she added: “It is devastating news to know that I’m facing end-of-life but we all come to an end sometime. I want to thank everybody for supporting the family, especially [her daughter] Ashley and my husband.

“The overwhelming support has been amazing, and I don’t know how long I’ve got left before anybody asks. I’m not a TikTok. So I just want you to know that I appreciate all the love you’ve gave me and all the support. Cancer affects two in one people, and it’s affected me.”

Many friends and celebrities replied to Godley’s post supporting her, including the TV chef Nigella Lawson, the comedian Dom Joly andSturgeon. The former Scottish first minister wrote: “Sending you so much love, my friend. You are an inspiration.”

Lawson wrote: “Oh Janey, this is heart-breaking. Thank you for all you’ve given the world – and for being you.”

Born in poverty in Glasgow in 1961, Godley went on to become a regular co-presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Loose Ends, as well as fronting BBC Radio 4 series The C Bomb. The comedian was photographed at Turnberry golf resort in Ayr, on the West Coast of Scotland, with her infamous “unwelcome” sign for Donald Trump in 2016.

Additional reporting by PA Media

A notorious murderer who battered a teenage boy to death after raping him has been killed while serving a long jail stint for the “brutal and horrific” attack.

Aymen Terkmani has died in the maximum-security Lithgow correctional centre after an assault on Wednesday that left the 31-year-old critically injured.

The inmate was given medical help but paramedics declared him dead, Corrective Services New South Wales said on Thursday.

Prison authorities and NSW police are investigating.

Terkmani was serving a minimum 33-year sentence for the 2015 murder and sexual assault of 16-year-old Mahmoud Hrouk.

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The teenager’s brother spotted his bloodied, half-naked body through the window of an abandoned home in Sydney’s Fairfield East the day after Mahmoud told his mother in a cut-off call that he was with his “friend Aymen”.

Terkmani’s sentencing judge, the NSW supreme court justice Lucy McCallum, said in 2017 that the then-21-year-old had subjected the youth to “unspeakable violence”.

“The offender subjected the victim to the most brutal and horrific attack, inflicting injuries too numerous to list and too gruesome to describe,” McCallum said as she sentenced him to a maximum term of 45 years.

Prosecutors had called for Terkmani to receive a life sentence.

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ children have hit out at rumors about their mother, Kim Porter, who is the subject of a book that is claimed to have been penned by the model before she died in 2018.

Christian, 26, and Jessie and D’Lila, 17-year-old twins, as well as Quincy Brown, Porter’s son with Al B Sure, whom Combs helped raise, posted a statement on Instagram saying: “We have seen so many hurtful and false rumors circulating about our parents, Kim Porter and Sean Combs’ relationship. As well as about our mom’s tragic passing.”

The comments refer to a purported memoir, Kim’s Lost Words: A Journey for Justice from the Other Side, that was published days before Combs was arrested on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force and transportation for purposes of prostitution. His children have not commented on the charges, which Combs denies.

The book, supposedly taken from Porter’s diaries saved on a flash drive and given to friends before her death, is published under Porter’s name and that of a pseudonym, “Jamal T Millwood”. It is currently No 3 on Amazon’s Literature & Fiction sales charts.

Combs’s and Porter’s children are now said to be seeking legal advice about the 58-page purported memoir that details alleged disturbing and graphic sexual encounters between Combs and other celebrities.

Combs’s attorneys have said the book is “fake” and “offensive”, and “a shameless attempt to profit from tragedy”. A source close to the family told People magazine that the author, named as Chris Todd, “has no connection to Kim Porter or her family”.

Todd told Rolling Stone: “If somebody put my feet to the fire and they said, ‘Life or death, is that book real?’ I have to say I don’t know. But it’s real enough to me.”

Combs’s and Porter’s children said in the statement: “Our lives were shattered when we lost our mother. She was our world, and nothing has been the same since she passed. While it has been incredibly difficult to reconcile how she could be taken from us too soon, the cause of her death has long been established. There was no foul play. Grief is a lifelong process, and we ask that everyone respect our request for peace.”

The Guardian has reached out to a source offering interviews with the purported co-author.

Combs, 54, has pleaded not guilty in New York and is being held without bail awaiting trial. He is reportedly sharing the same dormitory-style room in the Brooklyn metropolitan detention center jail as crypto-currency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, and others, the New York Times reported.

The statement from Combs’s and Porter’s children comes as an 11th civil claim of sexual abuse was filed against the hip-hop mogul on Tuesday. Thalia Graves claims that Combs and his bodyguard sexually assaulted her in 2001 and distributed video of their attack, “including by selling it as pornography”.

Graves said that she met Combs around late 1999 when her then boyfriend worked as an executive at Bad Boy Records, Combs’s music label.

Separately, Netflix has announced a docuseries about the rapper 50 Cent, who has long feuded with Combs, about charges of sex trafficking and racketeering as well as sexual assault and violent abuse allegations made by 50 Cent about Combs.

“While the allegations are disturbing, we urge all to remember that Sean Combs’ story is not the full story of hip-hop and its culture. We aim to ensure that individual actions do not overshadow the culture’s broader contributions,” 50 Cent and the series director, Alexandria Stapleton, told Variety.