The White House said on Sunday it had not been warned in advance of the airstrike that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a Beirut suburb and assumed it had caused civilian casualties, while reaffirming its “ironclad” support to Israel.

John Kirby, the national security spokesperson, said the US had not been informed of the airstrike, and that the president, Joe Biden, only found out about it once Israeli planes were already in the air.

Speaking to CNN, Kirby also said there was “no question” that civilians had been killed in the attack. “We certainly assume there have been civilian casualties. I don’t think we can quantify it right now but we are in touch with our Israeli counterparts,” Kirby said.

Iran has said the US is “complicit” in Israel’s action and promised retaliation for Friday’s massive airstrike in Beirut, which killed Nasrallah and raised fears that the conflict in the Middle East could spin out of control.

“We’ve been concerned from the beginning that this could widen to become a regional war,” Kirby said. “We’ll watched the rhetoric coming out of Iran and we’ll watch what they do. We have capability to defend our troops and our facilities as well as Israel itself if it comes to that.”

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is reported to have learned about the strike only when he landed in Washington from speaking in New York. He said he believed diplomacy was the best path forward as Israel’s bombing of Lebanon continues.

Speaking to reporters in New York on Friday afternoon, Blinken said the Middle East and the world faced “a precarious moment”.

On Saturday the US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, spoke with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, to discuss the situation in Lebanon. According to the defense department, Austin reiterated that Israel had a right to defend itself and that the US “is committed to deterring Iran and Iranian-backed partners and proxies from taking advantage of the situation or expanding the conflict”.

Kirby said on Sunday that “our support for Israel’s security remains ironclad and that’s not going to change.”

But, he added, that did not mean Biden and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu “aren’t capable of having tough conversations with one another, and President Biden will continue to stand for the right to protect civilian people”.

Kirby said: “I don’t think anyone is mourning the loss of Mr Nasrallah, a known terrorist with American and Israeli blood on his hands. While we don’t mourn his death, we certainly mourn the loss of any civilian life.”

But he refused to be drawn into criticism of Israel’s tactic of dropping bombs, which appeared to be US-made, according to reports, into a densely packed Beirut neighborhood. “Having decimated the command structure of Hezbollah certainly works to Israeli’s advantage and is good for the region and good for the world.

“We are continuing to talk to Israeli’s about what the right next steps are … and the president believes there needs to be time and space for diplomacy. That means we’d like to see a ceasefire in place for diplomacy to breathe.”

Senior political figures also spoke out Sunday on Israel’s strike in Beirut.

“The IDF sent a powerful message to Hezbollah,” the Arizona senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, told NBC.

“It’s good Nasrallah is dead. He’s a terrorist. He’s killed so many innocent people, and that needs to be addressed. It has been addressed.”

Kelly said Israel had made progress on concerns over civilian casualties.

“I’ve seen some positive responses,” he said. “We see more use of guided munitions, JDAMs, and we continue to provide those weapons. That 2000-pound bomb that was used … to take out Nasrallah … I’m pretty confident that was a guided weapon that was used in that case.”

The Republican senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, was asked if he thought Iran would retaliate. “That will be Iran’s decision to make,” Rubio said. “Anytime the Iranian regime is on defense, it’s good for the world, good for America and good for Israel.”

Even before Sunday’s new attacks, Israel’s military had boasted that it had killed most senior leaders of Hezbollah. With the news that Nabil Qaouk, another major figure within the Shia Muslim militant Islamist organisation, has died in an airstrike in Beirut, the job of eliminating the top echelons of Hezbollah’s military command structure appears almost complete. The assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the veteran secretary general of Hezbollah on Friday, was only the most spectacular and high-profile killing in an unprecedented effort over many months.

Qaouk, like many of the 19 senior Hezbollah officials who have been killed, joined as a teenager in the very earliest years of the organisation’s 41-year history and went on to fill a series of military command positions. Recently, Qaouk had begun to operate in more political roles and was a frequent traveller to Iran, where he had a good relationship with some of the top officials in the regime.

Other Hezbollah veterans killed in recent days include Ibrahim Aqil, a second founder member of the organisation’s military wing. Aqil, who was in his early 60s, is believed to have been the acting commander of the Radwan [special forces] brigades.

Fuad Shukr, who died in July, had been involved in the massive suicide bombings launched against US, French and Israeli targets in 1983 by a coalition of Islamist Shia groups that was a precursor to Hezbollah. He went on to play a key role in developing Hezbollah’s military capabilities, took on a role as chief of staff within Hezbollah and was a senior military adviser to Nasrallah.

Another casualty of Israel’s campaign was Ali Karaki, who had responsibility for military operations along the contested border with Israel. Analysts say Karaki, who has fulfilled a number of clandestine international roles in his long militant career, was being groomed for a senior leadership role within Hezbollah. He died alongside Nasrallah in the massive Israel Defense Forces strike on Beirut on Friday.

So too did Ibrahim Jazini, who was responsible for internal security within Hezbollah. Though without any personal following and something of a loner within the organisation, Jazini was trusted and liked by Nasrallah.

The loss of such men leaves Hezbollah in total disarray, stripped of capable operators who possessed deep military and international experience.

“Hezbollah is facing a reality much worse than any worst-case scenario they might have war-gamed. The chain of command is obliterated,” said Naveed Ahmed, an independent Gulf-based security analyst and expert on Hezbollah.

The most obvious candidate to succeed Nasrallah is Hashem Safieddine, who chairs Hezbollah’s executive council. A cousin of Nasrallah, Safieddine was born in 1964 in southern Lebanon and is another founder member. He is thought to have spent many years in Qom, the Iranian religious city, and has been entrusted by Hezbollah with a variety of tasks over the decades, including managing the organisation’s extensive portfolio of legal and illegal businesses.

A powerful public speaker, Safieddine is popular within the organisation and among its sponsors in Tehran. Last year he said: “It may take one war, two wars, three wars, multiple confrontations, military confrontation, the sacrifice of martyrs, bearing the burden, dealing with the consequences, but ultimately, [Israel] must come to an end.”

Israel’s assassination campaign has so far targeted Hezbollah’s military commanders, leaving the top political echelons largely unscathed. Safieddine sits on the Jihad Council of the organisation however, so may soon be targeted too.

“It is impossible to predict who would be a successor right now as the Israeli targeted strikes continue to take out commanders. It’s in Hezbollah’s interest to not publicly declare a successor. Nasrallah’s funeral, if at all held, would be a rich source of intelligence and targets,” Ahmed said.

In 1992, Israeli media celebrated an assassination. The man killed then was Abbas al-Musawi, the secretary general of Hezbollah, whose convoy was struck by Israeli helicopters.

Then, as now, Israeli analysts speculated that Musawi’s death might possibly portend the end of Hezbollah, which had been founded 10 years before after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.

The opposite would turn out to be true. Musawi was succeeded by his 31-year-old protege, Hassan Nasrallah, who went on to lead and build Hezbollah for three decades, right until his own assassination by Israel on Friday.

Nasrallah’s killing, in a subterranean Hezbollah headquarters in a southern suburb of Beirut, has inevitably focused attention on two questions: whether Israel’s long-term policy of assassinations is effective, and what the killing of Nasrallah and other senior Hezbollah commanders means for the group.

The issue of the efficacy of assassinations is a moot point, even within the Israeli security and political establishment which have long debated the issue, including some current ministers who reportedly opposed Nasrallah’s killing.

Israel has also killed senior members of Hamas in the past, including key founders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, both in 2004, neither of which delivered it any long-term strategic advantage when it came to Gaza.

The reality is that it may take months to see what, if any, significant impact the campaign of assassinations of Hezbollah leaders will have dealt the group, not least because of Nasrallah’s decades-long efforts to embed it in Lebanese-Shia society as a social provider as well as an armed force.

While experts consider Hezbollah to have been significantly harmed by recent events, many are uncertain whether it is a fatal blow or indeed whether the advantage to Israel may turn out to have been overstated, on the ground and in terms of diplomatic fallout.

Sanam Vakil, the head of the Chatham House thinktank’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, unpacked some of these contradictions.

“Hezbollah is militarily and operationally degraded,” Vakil wrote on X, “and knows that any escalation will lead to a conflict they cannot win. But should it not respond, its morale and legitimacy will be further weakened.

She added: “What should be heeded though is that both Hezbollah and Hamas while down, are certainly not out. The continuation of fighting will undoubtedly mobilize if not radicalize another generation of fighters.”

Writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the veteran journalist Jack Khoury questioned whether the latest assassinations would benefit Israel. “This is not the first targeted killing of a Hezbollah leader that Israel has carried out … it quickly turned out that their replacements didn’t display a more moderate or less militant attitude.”

In the immediate term, it is also clear that Nasrallah’s assassination and the heavy strikes of recent days have not stopped rocket fire towards Israel, even if for now it is somewhat diminished.

The reality is that Hezbollah’s impact on Israel, from the beginning of the war on 8 October – with tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from the north – was largely achieved with a relatively small-scale intervention, not with the use of Hezbollah’s heavy rocket arsenal.

Indeed most of the initial displacement followed small, lighter sporadic attacks with anti-tank weapons across the border before the emerging use of more sophisticated weapons such as kamikaze drones, a pattern that Israel has struggled to counter.

And while an ageing generation of Hezbollah’s top leadership – many of them personally connected to Nasrallah – has been removed, it is unclear whether those who replace them will share the same approach in trying to manage the conflict beneath the threshold of all-out war.

While Nasrallah ultimately failed in this ambition, not least by fatally underestimating the calculus in Israel, it is not yet clear whether Israel’s decision to kill him, in the longer term, is necessarily more sound.

Already it is clear that one aspect of the Iranian response is to rapidly reify the idea of Nasrallah as an indispensable “martyr” and “master of resistance” who can remain as a figurehead for the movement.

Other experts see Hezbollah as more resilient than its recent losses might suggest.

“Hezbollah is a robust institution with a strong chain of command that should ensure continuity at the leadership level,” wrote Nicholas Blanford, a longtime observer of the group, in an opinion for the Atlantic Council thinktank.

“An unknown factor, however, is who within the upper echelons of Hezbollah died alongside Nasrallah. If other significant leaders were killed, it could complicate – and perhaps delay for a while – the process of re-establishing command and control over the entire organisation, potentially leaving the party vulnerable to Israel’s next moves.

“Another pressing question is whether the death of Nasrallah will force Iran and Hezbollah to begin employing more advanced precision-guided missile systems that could potentially inflict far greater damage and casualties in Israel compared to the older, unguided rockets the group has been using until now.

“Or will cold rational logic continue to prevail, with Tehran ensuring a vengeful and angry Hezbollah does not fall into the trap of a full-force response against Israel? A response of that kind could lead to a major war, one that could erode Hezbollah’s capabilities and therefore reduce its deterrence effect for Iran. The coming days will tell.”

Writing in the Lebanese newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, Anthony Samrani also warned against underestimating the group.

“We know nothing about what is happening inside the party, nor anything about the intentions of the Iranians,” he wrote. “Israel carried out thousands of strikes in a week, which likely destroyed part of Hezbollah’s arsenal. But neither the 150,000 missiles and rockets it holds, nor the tens of thousands of armed men who form the militia, have disappeared in the snap of a finger.

“Even if it seems more complicated every day, we cannot exclude the fact that Hezbollah still has the means to respond to its adversary and wage a total and longer-lasting war. The party is in shock. Can it rally?”

He added: “All scenarios are on the table. That of a total war, of a defeat that the [Shia] party will make Lebanon pay for, and of the most fragile opportunity, to finally learn the lessons of everything that led Lebanon, beyond Hezbollah, to find itself in this situation.”

Rescuers renewed their search on Sunday for about 48 people missing after their migrant boat sank close to the Spanish island of El Hierro in what could become the deadliest such incident in 30 years of crossings from Africa to the Canary Islands.

Nine people, one of them a child aged between 12 and 15, have been confirmed dead in the incident in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Rescuers were able to save 27 of the 84 passengers who were trying to reach the Spanish coast. Spanish authorities said the people onboard were from Mali, Mauritania and Senegal.

Three patrol boats and three helicopters were taking part in the renewed search, a Spanish coastguard spokesperson said.

Three survivors were suffering from hypothermia and dehydration, rescue services said. The nine people who died will be buried on Monday and Tuesday.

The emergency services received a call shortly after midnight on Saturday from the boat, which was about four miles east of El Hierro. It sank during the rescue, they said.

Wind and poor visibility made the rescue extremely difficult. As hopes of finding more survivors diminished, police installed a morgue on El Hierro, authorities said.

“After what happened yesterday and if the forecast for the arrival of the migrant boats happens, then it will be the biggest humanitarian crisis to happen to the Canary Islands in 30 years,” Candelaria Delgado, the islands’ minister of social welfare, said on Sunday.

The deadliest shipwreck recorded to date in about 30 years of crossings from west Africa to the Canaries occurred in 2009 off the island of Lanzarote, when 25 people died.

Located off the coast of north-west Africa, the Canary Islands have become an increasingly popular destination for people braving the perilous Atlantic crossing in search of refuge in Europe. The vast majority land on the westernmost island of El Hierro.

Three other boats reached the islands during the night, carrying 208 people.

The number of people landing at the Canary Islands in 2023 more than doubled in one year to a record 39,910, according to the Spanish government. More than 19,000 have arrived so far this year. There were protests in June among residents against the inflows.

Thousands have died in recent years while trying to cross the Atlantic, known for its fierce currents, on overcrowded, unsafe vessels.

According to Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish charity, more than 5,000 people died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first five months of this year, or the equivalent of 33 deaths per day.

In July, nearly 90 people bound for Europe died and dozens more went missing after their boat capsized off the coast of Mauritania.

Fernando Clavijo, the president of the Canary Islands, said the latest tragedy “again underlines the dangerousness of the Atlantic route”.

More than 1,400 people have also died or gone missing crossing the central Mediterranean from north Africa since January. At least 11 were confirmed to have died in two separate shipwrecks off the southern Italian region of Calabria in June.

Ron DeSantis is making a concerted effort to maintain draconian limits on abortion access in Florida that have led to accusations the rightwing Republican governor is conducting a “state-sponsored intimidation campaign” against abortion rights and trampling on civil liberties in the state.

A near total ban on abortions after the first six weeks of pregnancy took effect in Florida in May after the state supreme court ruled that the right to an abortion was no longer covered by the privacy clause in the Florida constitution.

Passage of legislation called Amendment 4 would change the state constitution to prohibit government interference with the right to an abortion before the viability of a fetus, which typically begins around the 24th week of a pregnancy.

But registered voters in Florida have recently reported unannounced visits from law enforcement personnel that appear to be part of an all-out drive by DeSantis to use state government agencies and public funds to block passage of Amendment 4, which would enshrine in the state constitution a woman’s right to an abortion.

The experience of Isaac Menasche is a cautionary tale. In early September, Menasche received an unexpected visitor at his home in the Florida Gulf coast city of Fort Myers – a plainclothes detective with a badge and a folder stuffed with documents containing Menasche’s personal information.

They included copies of his driver’s license and a petition form he had signed months ago at a local farmer’s market on behalf of a campaign to qualify a pro-choice referendum for the statewide ballot in this year’s general election.

The detective who turned up on Menasche’s doorstep wanted to know why his signature on the petition form did not match the one on his driver’s license. The retired 71-year-old attorney conceded the point but explained that his signature can sometimes vary. The officer left shortly thereafter.

“The experience left me shaken,” wrote the New Jersey native on his Facebook page that same day. “It was obvious to me that a significant effort was exerted to determine if indeed I had signed the petition. Troubling that so much resources were devoted to this.”

DeSantis initially asked the Florida supreme court to declare the ballot measure unconstitutional on the grounds that its language was vague and misleading. When that ploy failed last April, DeSantis shifted gears: in July a senior official in the state government department in charge of elections announced a review for possible fraud of tens of thousands of petition signatures collected in four counties in support of Amendment 4.

In more recent weeks, the state-run Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) has launched a website opposing the initiative on the grounds that it “threatens women’s safety”. It has also spent millions of dollars on television ads urging Florida voters to reject the proposed amendment.

“We’re seeing a state-sponsored intimidation campaign to make Floridians scared of voicing support for abortion access,” says Keisha Mulfort, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida which filed a lawsuit earlier this month seeking to halt the AHCA’s anti-Amendment 4 media campaign.

“Florida’s leadership has made it clear they don’t trust women to make decisions about their own healthcare,” she added. “They’ll go to great lengths to demonstrate they don’t support the democratic process, including sending law enforcement personnel to the homes of private citizens.”

DeSantis recently defended the state-funded anti-amendment website and television ads as “public service announcements” similar to those produced by the Florida department of transportation to encourage safe driving.

“It’s being used by the AHCA agency to basically provide people with accurate information,” said the governor during a roundtable discussion held in a Miami suburb on 9 September. “Everything that is put out is factual. That’s been done for decades, it’s not electioneering, and it is not inappropriate at all.”

The AHCA communications office failed to respond to a list of written questions submitted by the Guardian about the agency’s website and electronic media campaign. The governor’s communications director, Bryan Griffin, turned down The Guardian’s request for an interview with DeSantis, asserting that the newspaper was “completely consumed with left wing activism and does nothing to actually inform the public.”

Under a law passed by the Republican-dominated Florida legislature, ballot measures must be approved by 60% of the electorate, and Amendment 4 proponents say they are confident of meeting that threshold in the general election scheduled for 5 November.

To bolster his case against the pro-choice amendment proposal, DeSantis has even questioned the legitimacy of passing laws through popular referendums, even though that mechanism is authorized by the state constitution.

“It takes power away from the people to be able to decide this through elections and who they elect to office and who legislates,” he told a press conference recently. “It effectively puts it in the courts, and there will be 25 years’ worth of lawsuits on what any of these terms mean.”

In a letter dated 25 January of this year, the Florida department of state’s division of elections confirmed that the six organizations in support of the pro-choice referendum had collected enough valid signatures to qualify the proposed constitutional amendment for the November ballot.

Six months later, however, a deputy secretary of that same state government department revealed in a letter that his office had received “alarming information” from the Palm Beach county supervisor of elections office about “fraudulent constitutional initiative petitions” that were submitted by 35 individuals who had been hired to collect signatures on behalf of Amendment 4.

This apparent attempt to reopen the signature validity issue was replicated in three other counties in Florida, and as of two weeks ago an estimated 36,000 signatures are currently under review by an election fraud unit that was established by legislation that DeSantis signed into law two years ago.

The Palm Beach county supervisor of elections, Wendy Sartory Link, received an email four weeks ago from that deputy secretary of state, Brad McVay, asking her office to review 17,637 petition forms that were certified as valid by her office last winter.

The elections supervisor said the request from McVay was “not a common practice” that she had encountered in the five years since she was appointed to the position by DeSantis. Link is running for re-election this year as a Democrat, and she suggested that the entire exercise might be an academic one at this juncture.

“It doesn’t really apply to us,” she said. “The initiative was certified, and it’s on our ballots.”

Prince fans will have a chance to party like it’s 1999 in the very Minnesota house made famous by Purple Rain as the movie celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

The white, two-story Minneapolis home looks unassuming from the outside, but it is a sign o’ the times as the newest limited-time Airbnb Icons rental – properties created and run by Airbnb and designed to give guests a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

It marks the first time the residence, which Prince purchased in 2015, has been open to the public.

“Not to brag, but we really outdid ourselves,” Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, members of the Revolution who co-starred with Prince in the film and serve as the house’s hosts, said in the listing for the property. “The place is jammed with epic memorabilia that will give you a rare perspective into Prince’s creative process during his Purple Rain era.”

The pair have curated a unique experience so that devotees of the musical icon will have a chance to go crazy immersing themselves in his cultural legacy incorporating real-life elements, unreleased tracks, memories and authentic pieces from The Purple One’s own collection.

Though Prince never resided in the home, his character in the 1984 movie – The Kid – was a musician and band leader with a rocky life in the home featured on screen. Some rooms have been restored to capture its big-screen likeness, while others have been converted into museum-like exhibits of Prince memorabilia.

In the home’s basement, guests can sleep in a replica of The Kid’s bedroom from the film, down to the lavender pillows on the bed and even a 1980s-style cassette player with which to play Prince’s personal tape collection – including one of his demo recordings.

There’s a lounge where guests can play guitar, drums or an upright piano or simply have the opportunity to solemnly perform the opening lines to When Doves Cry. QR codes throughout the house link visitors to commentary from the hosts.

“It really is meant to immerse you in The Kid’s world,” said Ali Killam, an Airbnb spokesperson.

And, of course, as a tribute to Prince, his career and influence, there’s plenty of his signature color, purple. There’s a large piece of wall art depicting purple bananas, which Killam said was a reference to Let’s Go Crazy.

Upstairs, a big closet with paisley wallpaper and leopard-spotted floor displays signature outfits worn by Prince behind glass and has other outfits (and accessories and makeup) available to give guests the chance to be the beautiful ones.

“And then what guests will be able to do themselves is actually play around with a selection of really iconic 80s outfits and looks and styles that they can kind of engage their inner rock star themselves,” said Killam. No word on whether a raspberry beret is included in the wardrobe.

The bathroom, decorated to replicate the one in the music video When Doves Cry, complete with clawfoot tub, was a tribute from Coleman and Melvoin.

“We were lucky enough to be a part of the music scene in Minneapolis during such a pivotal era for rock music, playing with Prince in one of the most successful bands of our generation and starring alongside him in the Purple Rain film,” Coleman and Melvoin added in a statement. The pair, who had played with Prince in the backing band the Revolution in 1984, later went on to launch their own album as Wendy & Lisa in 1987.

The stays are within reach for fans who don’t own diamonds and pearls – just $7 a night per person for up to four guests. The price is based on Prince’s favorite number and there will be a total of 25 nightly stays available over seven weeks from 26 October to 14 December.

If U would die 4 Prince, you can request a booking online, starting at 6am Pacific time on 2 October and through 11.59pm Pacific on 6 October. Airbnb, who collaborated with Prince’s estate and Paisley Park for this experience, says a pool of potential guests will be chosen at random, and the final invitations to rent will be based on fans’ answers for why they want to stay there.

Guests are responsible for their own travel to Minneapolis, but rolling up in a little red Corvette would be encouraged.

The movie Purple Rain, along with the hit album of the same name, made Prince a multifaceted superstar. The album was the artist’s first to top the Billboard 200 list where it stayed for 24 consecutive weeks. Songs from the album such as Let’s Go Crazy, When Doves Cry and I Would Die 4 U became worldwide hits.

Those followed other hits, such as 1999 and Little Red Corvette, and the gender-defying icon sold more than 100m records that similarly defined one label, producing a blend of rock, funk and soul. Prince Rogers Nelson died on 21 April 2016, of an accidental fentanyl overdose at age 57 at his Paisley Park estate in Chanhassen, Minnesota.

Switzerland and Italy have redrawn a border that traverses an Alpine peak as melting glaciers shift the historically defined frontier.

The two countries agreed to the modifications beneath the Matterhorn, one of the highest mountains in Europe, which straddles Switzerland’s Zermatt region and Italy’s Aosta valley.

Glaciers in Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent, are retreating at an accelerated pace because of human-caused climate breakdown.

“Significant sections of the border are defined by the watershed or ridge lines of glaciers, firn or perpetual snow,” the Swiss government said in a statement cited by Bloomberg. “These formations are changing due to the melting of glaciers.”

The famed Zermatt ski resort is affected by the change, with the two countries agreeing to modify the border around the landmarks of Testa Grigia, Plateau Rosa, Rifugio Carrel and Gobba di Rollin based on their economic interests, Bloomberg reported.

A joint Italian-Swiss commission agreed to the changes in May 2023. Switzerland officially approved the treaty on Friday, but Italy still needs to sign.

The changes come after a disagreement between the two countries over the peak’s territory that lasted for years.

Swiss glaciers lost 4% of their volume in 2023, the second-biggest annual decline on record, according to the Swiss Academy of Sciences. The largest decline was 6% in 2022.

Experts have stopped measuring the ice on some Swiss glaciers because there is none left.

The remains of a German mountain climber who disappeared while crossing a glacier near the Matterhorn nearly 40 years ago were discovered in melting ice in July last year.

Experts in Italy said this month that the Marmolada glacier, which is the largest and most symbolic of the Dolomites, could melt completely by 2040 as a result of rising average temperatures.

The collapse of part of the Marmolada killed 11 people in 2022.

The glacier has been measured every year since 1902 and is considered a “natural thermometer” of climate change.

Milan council has appealed against a “grotesque” move to rename the city’s main airport after the scandal-tainted late former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The council approved a resolution to take the case to the Lombardy region’s administrative court after the initiative to rename Malpensa was accelerated by Matteo Salvini, the transport minister in Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government.

Salvini has been pushing for the airport to be named after Berlusconi since the billionaire media magnate’s death in June last year and approved the plan this summer after it was given the green light by Enac, Italy’s civil aviation authority.

There is normally a mandatory 10-year wait after a person’s death before a public place can be named after them.

Milan’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, claimed Salvini had made the move without involving SEA, the company that manages the airport, or the local councils in its vicinity. He also accused Enac of succumbing to pressure from rightwing politicians.

The leader of the centre-left Democratic party in Lombardy, Pierfrancesco Majorino, said Milan’s council had made “an important and unforeseen choice”.

“The council, together with other municipal administrations in the area, will not stand by and watch in the face of a grotesque and needlessly divisive act desired by Salvini and the Meloni government,” he said.

Thousands of people signed a petition calling on the government to stop the plan and there have also been protests against it.

In response to the appeal, Salvini wrote on X: “Even after his death, the hate and rancour towards Berlusconi doesn’t stop.”

Berlusconi was born in Milan and died in the city last year at the age of 86. Forza Italia, the party he founded, is a partner in Meloni’s ruling coalition.

The decision to give Berlusconi a state funeral also caused an outcry in Italy, as did the government’s approval of a postage stamp marking the first anniversary of his death.

New Zealand has reclaimed the world record for the largest mass haka after more than 6,000 people performed the Māori dance, dethroning France.

The record was broken in deafening fashion at Eden Park rugby stadium in Auckland, where thousands of men, women and children combined on the pitch to complete the traditional dance involving vigorous movements, stamping feet and rhythmic shouting.

An adjudicator confirmed 6,531 participants had performed the Ka Mate haka, a dance made famous by the All Blacks rugby team, who perform it immediately before Test matches.

The world record had been held by France since September 2014 when 4,028 people slapped their thighs and bellowed the chant after a rugby match in Brive-la-Gaillarde, south-western France.

Auckland organisers had hoped for up to 10,000 participants but were nevertheless pleased the record had been reclaimed by New Zealand, where the haka is regarded as a national treasure.

“We want to bring the mana [pride] of the haka back home,” Michael Mizrahi, the director of the Auckland attempt, said.

“It’s not just that we want to take it off the French, it’s like a national treasure that somebody has taken from us. It’s got enormous meaning for us as New Zealanders.

“Some things should be culturally sacred.”

Previous attempts involving crowds of more than 5,000 on New Zealand soil failed because Guinness World Records officials did not ratify them, Mizrahi said.

This time around, an adjudicator was flown to Auckland.

The Ka Mate haka was composed around 1820 by the warrior chief Te Rauparaha to celebrate his escape from a rival tribe’s pursuing war party.

Under New Zealand law, a Māori tribe, the Ngati Toa, based in Porirua just outside Wellington, are recognised as the cultural guardians of the Ka Mate haka.

A British fashion designer said rediscovering one of her long-lost designs, which was found in an Oxfam charity shop after nearly 40 years, had been like seeing a childagain.

Jean Pallant was told the orange coat with large buttons she created at her kitchen table in 1988 had turned up in a donation bag at the Oxfam shop in Mill Hill, London.

“It’s like seeing a child. It’s lovely. I know every single square inch of it, and I’m absolutely amazed that it looks so new, and it feels new,” she told PA Media. “Everything about it looks exactly as it did when it went missing.”

Oxfam’s Mill Hill shop manager, Marina Ikey-Botchway ,said she could tell the coat was a priceless item as soon as she saw it among a pile of fast-fashion clothes.

“The very first second I saw the coat I knew this was something special, so I checked the label and after a quick Google found Jean’s email,” she said.

The sixties fashion model Penelope Tree chose the coat to wear in Oxfam’s Style for Change fashion show, in partnership with Vinted, as part of its Second Hand September campaign.

Pallant was part of the 1960s cultural revolution alongside her husband, Martin, and is restoring and curating a Pallant collection to give to the V&A Museum in London. She explained that she felt sick when, almost four decades ago, she discovered the coat had gone missing along with five other pieces, which have still not been found.

“When we retrieved them all, there were these pieces which I remember, of course, because they’re all my babies. These pieces were missing, and there’s nothing I can do about it,” she said.

“I’d love those to turn up … One of them was a piece which is so important to us, which was made in 1972, I think. It was worn by me in a TV fashion show to celebrate Britain joining the common market and it was a beautiful white jumpsuit and jacket with little mink spots on it. I’d pay anything to get it back.”