Hamas has acknowledged the death of its leader Yahya Sinwar but vowed to keep fighting, in the face of international calls for an immediate ceasefire.

“We are continuing Hamas’s path,” Khalil al-Hayya, Sinwar’s deputy said from exile in Qatar, adding that the slain leader’s conditions for a ceasefire would not be compromised.

Those conditions included a cessation of Israeli military operations in Gaza, the complete withdrawal of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from the occupied coastal strip, and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Hayya insisted that Hamas would emerge stronger than ever despite the death of its leader, but most experts predict that Sinwar’s killing was a significant blow to the movement, at least in the short term.

Benjamin Netanyahu showed no sign that he would now accept conditions he had rejected while Sinwar was alive. The Israeli prime minister instead emphasised how far the fugitive leader’s killing weakened his organisation, calling it an “important landmark in the decline of the evil rule of Hamas”.

Sinwar was killed after an Israeli patrol came across him and two of his bodyguards by chance on Wednesday in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Netanyahu said Sinwar’s death could spell the “beginning of the end” of the war, now entering its second year, and he also vowed that Israel would keep fighting to achieve its war aims, in particular the freedom of the remaining hostages being held in Gaza.

For his part, Hayya warned the hostages “will not return … unless the aggression against our people in Gaza stops”.

A few hours earlier on Friday, Joe Biden had said Sinwar’s death “represents a moment of justice”, pointing out that the Hamas leader “had the blood of Americans and Israelis, Palestinians and Germans and so many others on his hands”.

The US president also said he had appealed to Netanyahu on Thursday, after Sinwar’s death had been confirmed, to “make this moment an opportunity to seek a path to peace, a better future in Gaza without Hamas”.

Biden was speaking during a visit to Germany for a round of summit meetings with allies and partners. Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, said Sinwar’s death opened up “the concrete prospect of a ceasefire in Gaza, of an agreement to release the hostages held by Hamas”.

The UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, added his voice to the western calls for an end to the Gaza war.

“The answer is diplomacy, and we must make the most of this moment,” he said.

“What is needed now is a ceasefire in Gaza, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, immediate access for humanitarian aid and a return to the path towards the two-state solution as the only way to deliver long-term peace and security.

“The dire humanitarian situation cannot continue. And I say once again to Israel, the world will not tolerate any more excuses on humanitarian assistance. Civilians in northern Gaza need food now.”

Netanyahu has previously come under intense international pressure during the year-long Gaza war, but it has not been backed up by serious threats to his country’s access to weapons from abroad.

The Israeli prime minister has been more responsive to pressure from the far- right wing of his coalition, which holds the key to his political survival, and they have urged him to fight on.

Three of Netanyahu’s ministers, including Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right finance minister, shared a photograph on X on Friday they claimed showed the Palestinian Authority cabinet in the West Bank holding a prayer for Sinwar. The photograph was actually from a 2022 meeting.

“A moment of commemoration for today’s Hitler, Sinwar, after Israel eliminated him,” wrote Smotrich. “This is the same group with a different name … terrorists must be handled as terrorists.”

The region remains braced for a widely signalled Israeli response to a 181-missile salvo fired on 1 October by Iran, which Netanyahu and the country’s military leadership have warned will be significant, and which could prove a further step towards an all-out regional war.

Peace in Lebanon seemed equally remote in the wake of Sinwar’s death. The Iranian-backed Shia movement, Hezbollah, which stepped up attacks on northern Israel in October last year in solidarity with Hamas, said on Friday it was “entering a new phase” in its fight against invading Israeli troops.

The movement said it had begun using new weapons in the past few days including modern types of precision-guided missiles and explosive drones.

The Hezbollah statement appeared to refer to a drone packed with explosives that succeed in eluding Israel’s multiple-layer air-defence system and struck a mess hall at a military training camp deep inside Israel, killing four soldiers and wounding dozens.

Netanyahu’s government ordered IDF ground raids over the Lebanese border with the aim of sweeping away Hezbollah from southern Lebanon so that more than 60,000 Israeli residents displaced from northern border areas by the fighting could return home.

International peacekeepers in the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) have been struggling to maintain their presence along the border amid increasingly intense fighting.

Netanyahu has demanded that they withdraw from their observation posts but the Unifil leadership has refused.

Andrea Tenenti, the main Unifil spokesperson said a “unanimous” decision was taken by its 50 troop-contributing countries and the UN security council to hold its positions and continue efforts to monitor the conflict and ensure aid gets to civilians.

“The IDF has repeatedly targeted our positions, endangering the safety of our troops, in addition to Hezbollah launching rockets toward Israel from near our positions, which also puts our peacekeepers in danger,” Tenenti told a UN news briefing in Geneva by video.

Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, said there was “no priority above the ceasefire” and that Lebanon was committed to the “full implementation” of all its international resolutions, especially resolution 1701. That UN security council resolution, which ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, called for the demilitarisation of the border area up to the Litani river, 20 miles (30km) north of the UN-designated “blue line” that demarcates the boundary between the two countries.

Speaking in Beirut after a meeting with Mikati, his Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, said that targeting of UN peacekeepers was unacceptable and that both sides must “ensure at all times the safety of each of these soldiers”. She said the peacekeepers will be needed in any post-conflict scenario.

Israel has launched new airstrikes and sent more troops into Gaza, dashing brief hopes among many residents of the territory that the killing of the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, could bring an end to the devastating conflict.

Sinwar, 62, was killed on Thursday by tank fire directed at a building in Rafah in the far south of Gaza after exchanging fire with an Israeli patrol.

At least 30 people, including 20 children and women, were killed in an Israeli strike on Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historical refugee camps and the site of fierce fighting in recent weeks between Israeli forces and Hamas militants who have regrouped there. More than 50 others were wounded in the attack, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency WAFA reported early on Saturday.

Several other airstrikes had been reported on Thursday and Friday, killing at least 62 people, according to Palestinian health authorities in Gaza.

Tens of thousands of civilians are thought to be trapped in Jabalia, where conditions are deteriorating.

Israeli military officials said Israel was sending reinforcements to bolster its operation in Jabalia, raising fears of an escalation of violence there.

“We always thought that when [Sinwar was killed] the war would end and our lives would return to normal,” said Jemaa Abou Mendi, a 21-year-old Gaza resident. “But unfortunately, the reality on the ground is quite the opposite. The war has not stopped, and the killings continue unabated.”

Mustafa al-Zaeem, 47, a resident from the Rimal neighbourhood in western Gaza City, said Israel had achieved one of its principal war aims and should stop the fighting. “If Sinwar’s assassination was one of the objectives of this war, well, today they have killed Yahya Sinwar,” Zaeem said. “Enough death, enough hunger, enough siege. Enough thirst and starvation, enough bodies and blood.”

Some in Gaza said they had been inspired by the images released by Israeli military of Sinwar’s last moments, which showed the veteran leader covered in dust, wounded and with his head wrapped in a Palestinian keffiyeh. In the footage, Sinwar appears to throw a stick at a drone that has tracked him into a half-destroyed apartment.

Adel Rajab, 60, said he had not supported the 7 October attacks that triggered the conflict, believing Palestinians were not prepared for all-out war with Israel, but he felt Sinwar’s death was heroic. “He died wearing a military vest, fighting with a rifle and grenades, and when he was wounded and was bleeding he fought with a stick. This is how heroes die.”

A poll in September showed a majority of people in Gaza thought the attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and led to the abductions of 250, was the wrong decision and a growing number of Palestinians have questioned Sinwar’s willingness to start a war that has caused them so much suffering.

Palestinian authorities said on Friday that more than 42,500 people had been killed since the Israeli offensive began. Most are civilians. Almost 100,000 have been injured.

Haniyeh Ashour, 48, said intensive recent bombing had forced her family from its makeshift shelter in a hospital. “These two weeks were one of the worst weeks we lived in this war. We have seen death a lot of times. My children and I do not know what it is like to sleep, and when there is a bombing nearby we get terrified. We are just waiting for that missile that will send our souls to my children and husband,” said Ashour, whose husband and three sons were killed earlier in the conflict.

Much of northern Gaza remains under siege by Israeli forces, with road closures preventing the delivery of supplies to the area, despite warnings from the US that failure to end the blockade could result in it reducing arms deliveries to Israel.

“While we hear that delivery of aid will increase, people in Gaza are not feeling any difference,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, wrote on X. “They continue to be trapped, hungry and sick, often under heavy bombardment.”

Israel said it sent in about 30 truckloads of aid into northern Gaza on Friday including food, water, medical supplies and shelter equipment. “We’re fighting Hamas, we’re not fighting the people of Gaza,” Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesperson, told journalists in an online briefing.

On Friday, health officials in Gaza appealed for fuel, medical supplies and food to be sent immediately to three northern hospitals overwhelmed by the number of patients and injuries. “We face a lack of medical equipment, medicine and power outages. We use our mobile phones or use a battery to light just one lamp and we have to operate almost in the dark. We cannot perform a caesarean delivery because there is no oxygen or electricity,” said Ahmed al-Masry, a 68-year-old obstetrician.

Israel has issued evacuation orders for inhabitants in almost all of northern Gaza, but many cannot or do not want to comply.

“We know that there is no safe place, neither in the north nor in the south, and also I am afraid that if we go to the south they will occupy our lands and homes and we will not be able to return to the north, and that is what they are trying to do, so we are still holding out,” Masry said. “We only hope that the war will stop.”

With winter approaching, there are acute fears for the 345,000 people in the territory predicted to face “catastrophic” levels of hunger, according to a recent UN survey.

“We get only polluted water and canned food from aid agencies because we do not have a source of income or even work. We cannot buy food because everything is expensive,” said Ashour. “But the biggest problem we face is finding safety. There is no safety at all, wherever we go.”

With additional reporting by Agence France-Presse and Reuters

Hamas is seeking to frame the death of its leader, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza as a victory. It is emphasising how the 62-year-old veteran died on Thursday fighting on the frontline, armed and wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh, and how the organisation has survived for 37 years despite the assassination by Israel of a series of its leaders.

In a statement, Bassem Naim, a Hamas spokesperson and member of the leadership council, acknowledged the pain and distress of losing “beloved people, especially extraordinary leaders like ours” but said the group was sure of eventual victory as “this is the outcome for all people who fought for their liberty”.

Naim pointed to the previous assassinations of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the charismatic cleric who founded Hamas, and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, Yassin’s successor, as examples of how the militant Islamist organisation had “each time became stronger and more popular”.

But rhetoric cannot entirely obscure reality. Since the surprise attack launched into Israel by Sinwar just over a year ago, a series of Hamas’s top officials have died in Israeli strikes, most notably Ismail Haniyeh, Sinwar’s predecessor at the head of the militant Islamist organisation, who was killed in a blast in a government guesthouse in Tehran in July. Other key veterans have been killed, along with thousands of lower-level officials, administrators, commanders and foot soldiers. The exact number is hard to calculate, but even if Israeli claims appear exaggerated, the toll has been devastating.

Hamas, too, has lost its hold on Gaza and its more than 2 million inhabitants. For 17 years, this allowed the group to impose its conservative Islamist agenda, recruit a new generation of officials and fighters, construct a vast complex of tunnels and build an arsenal of rockets. Gaza also generated vast and essential funds from taxes, smuggling and rackets.

This has all gone. Hamas currently maintains a presence in much of Gaza, constituting a shadow government amid the chaos and violence of continuing Israeli operations, but nothing to compare with actually being in power. Nor can it translate gains in popularity in the occupied West Bank, where it has also suffered from Israeli raids and strikes, into anything that could compensate.

An immediate priority is to choose a leader, or at least set up some functioning mechanism to provide direction. Hamas has in previous years used a secret ballot in Gaza, the West Bank, Israeli prisons and abroad to select the political chief, but that is impossible under the current circumstances. Sinwar’s younger brother Mohammed, a military commander in Gaza, is unlikely to be able to rally and unify the organisation, or even survive very long.

Many experts point to veterans such as Khaled Mashal, who has done the job before, or Khalil al-Hayya, who headed Hamas’s ceasefire negotiation team, and is reportedly well liked by officials in Tehran. But both are based in Qatar, which brings its own complications and diminishes their appeal to rank and file. One possibility would be to follow Hezbollah’s example after the assassination first of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, last month and then, possibly, his replacement, and so leave the post formally empty.

Analysts say overseas support is crucial to Hamas. Factions have long argued bitterly over whether to align with Iran as part of Tehran’s regional axis of resistance, or tack closer to Sunni Gulf states. Sinwar favoured the former, and the debates will only be sharper following his sudden demise. The many existing splits within the organisation may widen as regional powers intrigue to advance their own interests and Israel keeps up the military pressure in Gaza, hunting Hamas’s senior figures there and elsewhere.

Instead of a Hamas 2.0, this could end with multiple factions of Hamas operating more or less independently. This process is already under way in Gaza, where previously well-organised “battalions” have disintegrated into small, chaotic and largely ineffective squads of often inexperienced militants. Observers close to the organisation say it has “ceased to exist” in anything resembling its previous form and so will need decades to rebuild.

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are facing an increase in Israeli settler attacks and Israeli army violence at the start of the important olive harvest season, the UN has said.

The international body’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) accused Israel on Friday of using “war-like” tactics in the West Bank amid a rise in killings and settler attacks since the olive harvest got under way last week. Nine people were killed by Israeli forces between 8-14 October, OCHA said.

It also recorded 32 settler attacks since the beginning of October on Palestinians and their property related to the olive harvest. In total, about 600 slow-growing olive trees have been burned, vandalised or stolen by settlers, the agency said.

In the most high-profile incident to date, Hanan Abd Rahman Abu Salameh, a 59-year-old woman, was killed on Thursday while harvesting olives in Faqqua near Jenin by a soldier who fired about 10 shots at her.

Munir Barakat, a member of the Faqqua village council, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Israel Defense Forces personnel came to collect details about the shooting but he did not express hope in the army’s willingness or ability to investigate. Last year, fewer than 1% of complaints against Israeli soldiers ended in a conviction, according to the US state department’s annual human rights report.

“The family and everyone know that this doesn’t mean anyone will take responsibility for the killing of an innocent woman, a mother, and a grandmother whose only crime was going out to harvest olives,” he told Haaretz.

An OCHA spokesperson, Jens Laerke, said: “It is, frankly, very concerning that it’s not only attacks on people, but it’s attacks on their olive groves as well. The olive harvest is an economic lifeline for tens of thousands of Palestinian families in the West Bank.” He said UN agencies were assessing how they could support Palestinians.

Olives are the largest single agricultural product in the West Bank, and according to the Palestinian Farmers’ Union, can bring farmers a total of $70m (£55m) a year. Between a quarter and a third of the Palestinian population of the West Bank is estimated to work with the trees or their produce, such as oil and soap.

Before the Hamas attack of 7 October last year, the olive harvest in areas of the West Bank under Israeli control was for the most part coordinated by local Palestinian authorities and the Israeli military to allow farmers to reach their trees on specific dates. For the last two harvests, however, Palestinians say access to their own land has been severely limited.

Violence in the West Bank has surged in tandem with the war in Gaza over the past 12 months. Dozens of Israelis have also been killed in Palestinian street attacks.

Moldovans head to the polls on Sunday for a presidential election and an EU referendum that will mark a pivotal moment in the tug-of-war between Russia and the west over the future of the small, landlocked south-east European country of fewer than 3 million people

The pro-western president, Maia Sandu, hopes to advance her agenda by winning a second term and securing a “yes” in a referendum to affirm EU accession as a “irreversible” goal in the constitution.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Moldova has gravitated between pro-western and pro-Russian courses, but under Sandu the impoverished country has accelerated its push to escape Moscow’s orbit amid its war in neighbouring Ukraine.

Sandu, a former World Bank official, was elected president in November 2020, riding a wave of popularity as an anti-corruption reformer with a pro-European agenda.

Polls tip Sandu to win in the first round and suggest that up to 65% support joining the EU, though the sitting president could face a more difficult path if forced into a second-round runoff.

Sandu and her allies have warned that the election outcomes could be affected by a large-scale influence campaign of vote-buying and misinformation orchestrated Russia and its proxies.

In particular, they accuse the fugitive pro-Russian businessman Ilan Shor, a vocal opponent of EU membership, of running a destabilising campaign from Moscow.

Olga Roşca, a foreign policy adviser to Sandu, said: “Russia is pouring millions in dirty money to hijack our democratic processes. This isn’t just meddling – it’s full-blown interference aimed at destabilising our future. And it is alarming.”

At a press conference earlier this month, the national police chief, Viorel Cernăuțanu, accused Shor and Moscow of establishing a complex “mafia-style” voter-buying scheme and bribing 130,000 Moldovans – almost 10% of normal voter turnout – to vote against the referendum and in favour of Russia-friendly candidates in what he called an “unprecedented, direct attack”.

Officials in Moldova’s capital, Chișinău, also believe Moscow is behind a wave of pre-election vandalism attacks on government buildings and has plans to cause unrest in the country in the days after the elections.

Cernăuțanu said his officers had detained about 300 people who allegedly went to Russia to get training on how to break police cordons and create public chaos. Some got military training – including drone use, DIY explosives – in Bosnia and Serbia.

To combat Russian influence, authorities in Moldova said they had blocked dozens of Telegram channels and chatbots linked to a drive to pay voters to cast “no” ballots in the EU referendum.

In a major boost for Sandu, Moldova officially began EU accession negotiations in June. However, scepticism remains high about the country’s ability to implement the necessary democratic and judicial reforms in the near future.

While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shocked many in Chișinău, just a few hours’ drive from Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa, the Kremlin’s shadow still looms large over the country.

Moscow has 1,500 troops stationed in Transnistria, a region run by pro-Russian separatists who broke away from the control of Moldova’s government in a brief war in the 1990s.

The war in Ukraine has plunged Moldova into a deeper financial crisis, as tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees have fled to the country, placing immense pressure on its healthcare system, public services, and infrastructure. Inflation has risen by as much as 40% as trade with Moscow and Kyiv sharply declined.

Moldova’s financial struggles have galvanised opponents of the country’s shift away from Russia. They are using the crisis as an opportunity to advocate for renewed ties with the Kremlin, framing Moldova’s hardships as a consequence of its western-leaning policies.

The candidate most likely to push Sandu into a possible second round is the Russia friendly Alexandr Stoianoglo, a soft spoken former prosecutor general who was dismissed by Sandu and is polling at 10%.

Speaking to the Guardian, he urged people to boycott the referendum or vote “no”, describing it as a “cynical” move to boost Sandu’s popularity.

Stoianoglo denied that he was working on behalf of Russia. But he declined to criticise the Kremlin for its invasion of Ukraine and called for improved relations with Moscow.

“The level of Russian interference in Moldova is highly exaggerated,” he added.

Meanwhile, Sandu’s allies consider Sunday’s vote to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Moldova to make a decisive break from its Soviet past.

“We have a unique opportunity: Moldova has a pro-European president, parliament, and government. The EU is open to our membership, with all countries backing accession talks last June,” said Roşca, the president’s adviser. “Moldova’s survival as a democracy is on the line, and the geopolitical stakes are higher than ever.”

Kamala Harris used a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Friday to seize on reports that Donald Trump had been canceling media interviews to question whether he has the stamina for a second presidency if voters choose him over her in November’s election.

“If he can’t handle the rigors of the campaign trail, is he fit to do the job?” the Democratic vice-president, 59, told rallygoers about the 78-year-old Trump.

She said: “Trump is unfit for office.”

Harris and her Republican opponent were in Michigan as the weekend began while trying to shore up support in a battleground state that could decide their 5 November race. Polling suggests Michigan as well as its fellow “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin remained in play for both candidates as the campaign’s waning days arrived.

“This is the place that is going to decide the election, right here,” Democratic congresswoman Hillary Scholten told Friday’s audience as she opened the event.

Among the crowd, some Harris supporters struck a hopeful tone. “It’s about time for a woman to lead,” said Jenifer Lake, who took her daughter Adeline Butts to the rally for a chance to “see history in the making”.

Butts, who will be old enough to vote for the first time this election, described herself mostly concerned about the cost of living, tuition and housing affordability. And her fellow attender Bill Bray, who came to the rally from Adrian, Michigan, said he believed Harris would better promote economic opportunity for those situated like him than Trump would.

Bray grew up “in a poor neighborhood” but said he is doing well thanks to benefits from his prior military service as well as his long career at Ford Motor Company. He said he wants other people to have a chance at that same trajectory.

“Trump doesn’t understand equality,” said Bray, a veteran of the Vietnam war who also accused the former president of dodging the military draft that would have sent him to the same conflict.

Bray also said he supports stronger federal gun control after seeing “what guns to do to people” and has no faith in Trump – who is widely supported by the firearms industry – taking that issue seriously.

Other attenders said abortion access was at the top of their mind. Harris has campaigned on preserving abortion access while three of Trump’s appointees to the US supreme court helped eliminate federal abortion rights in 2022.

“It’d be nice to have control of my body back, and then I’ll think about listening to the other side,” Kim Osborn said.

Lauren Rockel said she would like to see Harris fight to reinstate the Roe v Wade protections that Trump’s supreme court appointees helped strip away.

“There are people dying” as a result of abortion restrictions that have since gone into effect in many states, Rockel said. “It’s awful.”

To them, Harris said it was “time to turn the page” on Trump.

The Democratic governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, spoke before Harris took the stage. Four other Democratic state governors joined her.

Her presence and that of the other governors “shows how important you are, Michigan,” Whitmer said. She told the crowd that they would be the ones to “take our country forward” if they helped send Harris to the White House.

Michigan’s Democratic US senator Debbie Stabenow also spoke before Harris, alluding to how it got “scarier and scarier” the more she thought about the proposed policies of Trump’s supporters. The former president has sought to distance himself from the far-right Heritage Foundation, whose Project 2025 plan calls for the mass firings of civil servants and exalts the idea outlawing abortion altogether during a second Trump presidency.

But he has struggled to effectively do that, with Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, having written the foreword for a book by the Heritage Foundation’s president. And, echoing Stabenow, many attenders said they were fearful and terrified of what a return to the Oval Office for Trump may produce.

The Democratic nominee’s message resonated with Richard Bandstra, who described himself as a “former Republican”. Bandstra said he came to the rally to hear a message of hope – and, as he saw it, to fight for what he called the most important issue of the race: preserving American democracy.

The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case made public Friday a heavily redacted trove of documents that provide a small glimpse into the evidence prosecutors will present if the case ever goes to trial.

The nearly 1,900 pages of documents collected by special counsel Jack Smith’s team were initially filed under seal to help US district judge Tanya Chutkan decide what allegations can proceed to trial following the supreme court opinion in July that conferred broad immunity on former presidents for official acts they take in office.

The information that could be seen in the redacted version released Friday appeared to be material that for the most part had already been made public, including screenshots of Trump social media posts about the 2020 election and a transcript of the video statement he made on 6 January 2021, in which he told the rioters attacking the Capitol to go home, but added: “we love you” and “you’re very special”.

The overwhelming majority of the pages released Friday were whited-out. The redacted files are believed to include things like transcripts of grand jury testimony, which remain under wraps because of grand jury secrecy rules.

Other information visible to the public includes passages from former vice-president Mike Pence’s book, excerpts of testimony provided by several witnesses to the House committee that investigated the January 6 riot and a transcript of Trump’s phone call pressuring Georgia election officials to “find” enough votes to reverse his election loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.

Other documents include fundraising emails from Trump’s 2020 campaign and Pence’s letter telling Congress on January 6 that he could not claim “unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not”.

The filing was submitted as a series of appendices to a 165-page brief unsealed this month in which prosecutors disclosed new evidence against Trump to support their argument that the former president is not entitled to immunity from prosecution.

Trump’s lawyers objected to the unsealing of the filing so close to next month’s presidential election, but Chutkan on Thursday rejected their bid to postpone the material from becoming public until after the election. She said it would be inappropriate to take the political calendar into account.

Kamala Harris took aim at Donald Trump’s energy levels as both candidates scrambled across the battleground state of Michigan, with election day looming. Harris referenced a report that the former president was “exhausted,” saying “being president of the United States is probably one of the hardest jobs in the world and we really do need to ask … is he fit to do the job?”

Questions about Trump’s energy levels emerged after he backed out of some interviews with mainstream media outlets, including 60 Minutes and CNBC. But speaking before a rally in Detroit, the Republican candidate shot back, saying: “I’ve gone 48 days now without a rest … I’m not even tired. I’m really exhilarated.”

With both candidates in Michigan, focus turned to the midwestern state that promises the winner 15 electoral college votes. Polling shows razor-thin margins in the state, which Trump won by 11,000 votes in 2016. In 2020, Joe Biden beat Trump by 155,000 votes.

Here’s what else happened on Friday:

Donald Trump election news and updates

• Trump was back in Detroit, Michigan’s largest city, for a rally that got off to a difficult start after the former president’s microphone stopped working. “I won’t pay the bill for this stupid company that rented us this crap,” he said after the audio started working.

• In a Fox & Friends interview earlier in the day, Trump griped about negative television ads on Fox and said he would ask Rupert Murdoch to ensure such ads are not broadcast until Election Day.

• Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on China if China were to “go into Taiwan”, the Wall Street Journal reported. “I would say: if you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you, at 150% to 200%,” the former president was quoted as saying. Asked if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Chinese president Xi Jinping respected him.

• Trump has raised more money from the oil and gas industry than at this stage of his previous campaigns for the US presidency, with a surge of fossil fuel funding coming in the six months since he directly requested $1bn from oil executives and then promised he would scrap environmental rules if elected. While the Republican nominee hasn’t quite managed to get to that $1bn figure, he has received $14.1m from the oil and gas industry in the period up to 31 August, donation filings show.

Kamala Harris election news and updates

• Harris campaign in Grand Rapids, the heart of more conservative western Michigan. She is reportedly shifting the strategy of her whirlwind campaign to win over more Republicans and men of all races.

• In Oakland County, Harris welcomed members of the Arab American community to her rally and touted prospects for peace in the aftermath of the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

• Some prominent Lebanese Americans endorsed Harris, saying in a letter that the US had been “unrelenting” in its support for Lebanon under the Biden administration. A number of Arab Americans and Muslims are abandoning the Democratic party over the administration’s support for Israel in its war with Hamas.

Elsewhere on the campaign trail

• A new poll has revealed that more than a third of Americans agree with Trump’s warning that undocumented immigrants in the US are “poisoning the blood” of America. “This is a truly alarming situation to find this kind of rhetoric, find this kind of support from one of our two major political parties,” said Robert Jones, president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute.

• At a campaign event in Arizona, former president Barack Obama said: “I understand why people are looking to shake things up … What I cannot understand is why anyone would think that Donald Trump will shake things up in a way that is good for you.”

• Barack and Michelle Obama will make their first appearances alongside Harris on the campaign trail next week, aiming to provide a powerful boost in the closing weeks of the election. Harris is scheduled to appear with the former president in Georgia on 24 October and with Michelle Obama in Michigan on 26 October.

Read more about the 2024 US election:

• Presidential poll tracker

• Harris and Trump policies

• What to know about early voting

Donald Trump billed the government for Secret Service accommodations at his hotels many times over what other guests were charged, particularly foreign dignitaries, according to a report released Friday from Democratic members of the House oversight committee.

Describing the former US president’s term in office as “the world’s greatest get-rich-quick scheme”, the report’s authors referred to documents obtained by subpoenas of the Mazars firm, Trump’s accountants, citing guest logs for Trump International hotel in Washington, DC, between September 2017 and August 2018.

The hotel “charged as much as 300% or more above the authorized government per diem”, for Secret Service hotel rooms, according to the report.

It added: “Not only did former President Trump’s D.C. hotel routinely charge the Secret Service more than the government rate, it frequently charged the Secret Service more than it did other patrons, including members of a foreign royal family and a Chinese business interest.”

Eric Trump has said previously that the Trump organization let Secret Service agents “stay at our properties for free”. But the report calls that assertion into question, noting that the agency was charged “far in excess of approved government per diem rates and even many times the rates charged to hundreds of other patrons—including some of the rooms rented by the Qatari royal family and Chinese business interests—for rooms used by agents protecting members of the Trump family.”

The report follows up investigative reports made when Democrats controlled the House oversight committee. When Republicans took the House majority in 2023, new committee chairman James Comer ended the committee’s lawsuits to obtain records and refused to issue new subpoenas. The report by the committee’s Democratic minority relies on documents obtained earlier.

A 156-page report on Trump’s business dealings by House Democrats released in January noted that four businesses owned by Trump’s family conglomerate received at least $7.8m in payments in total from 20 countries during his four years in the White House.

While Trump was in office, Republicans made regular use of Trump International hotel while visiting Washington. Democrats on the committee cited three people Trump appointed to the federal bench, eight ambassadors, five people who later obtained presidential pardons like Dinesh D’Souza and Ken Kurson, and numerous other state and federal officials who stayed there on official travel.

The US constitution’s emoluments clause states that a president may receive no payments from the federal government other than a salary. Previous presidents have divested from business interests that could conflict with the clause. Jimmy Carter famously sold his peanut farm in Georgia before taking office. Trump refused to do so, and took efforts to shield his personal and business finances from public scrutiny.

The US supreme court dismissed two cases accusing Trump of violating the emoluments clause in January 2021, ruling that the issue was moot because he was no longer president.

Trump has disparaged the emoluments issue in prior comments, likening it to the earnings made by Barack Obama on book sales to foreign universities.

The hotel made about $150m in revenue over the course of Trump’s term in office, but incurred net losses of about $70m largely due to the pandemic, according to previous reports from the oversight committee.

Trump sold the lease on the 263-room hotel, known as the Old Post Office building, in 2022 to a Florida-based investment group, CGI Merchant Group. Since the hotel reopened as a hotel in the Waldorf Astoria chain in June 2023, spending by Republican groups there has cratered, according to a report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, an oversight group that sued Trump over emoluments issues.

A man who had gone into cardiac arrest and been declared brain dead woke up as surgeons in his home state of Kentucky were in the middle of harvesting his organs for donation, his family has told media outlets.

As reported Thursday by both National Public Radio and the Kentucky news station WKYT, the case of Anthony Thomas “TJ” Hoover II is under investigation by state and federal government officials. Officials within the US’s organ-procurement system insist there are safeguards in place to prevent such episodes, though his family told the outlets their experience highlights a need for at least some reform.

Hoover’s sister, Donna Rhorer, recounted how Hoover was taken to Baptist health hospital in Richmond, Kentucky, in October 2021 because of a drug overdose. Doctors soon told Rhorer and her relatives that Hoover lacked any reflexes or brain activity, and they ultimately decided to remove him from life support, as WKYT noted.

The staff at Baptist then reportedly told Rhorer and her family that Hoover had given permission for his organs to be donated in the event of his death. To honor his wishes, the hospital tested which of his organs would be viable for donation, and the facility even had a ceremony honoring him.

Rhorer said she noticed Hoover’s eyes open up and seemingly track his loved one’s movements, according to WKYT. “We were told it was just reflexes – just a normal thing,” she said to the outlet.

“Who are we to question the medical system?”

About an hour after Hoover had been brought into surgery for his organs to be retrieved, a doctor came out and explained that Hoover “wasn’t ready”.

“He woke up,” Rhorer said.

Rhorer recalled getting instructions to bring her brother home and make him comfortable, though he likely would not live much longer. As she said to WKYT, she has been caring for Hoover for the past three years.

WKYT reported that Rhorer only learned the full details of her brother’s surgery at the hands of Baptist and the Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (Koda) in January. That’s when a former employee of Koda contacted her before sending a letter to a congressional committee that in September held a hearing scrutinizing organ-procurement organizations, NPR reported.

The letter’s author said she saw Hoover begin “thrashing” around on the operating table as well as start “crying visibly”, according to NPR.

In response to the accounts relayed by Rhorer to WKYT and NPR, Baptist health said in a statement that patient safety was its “highest priority”. “We work closely with our patients and their families to ensure our patients’ wishes for organ donation are followed,” the hospital’s statement said.

Koda issued its own statement to NPR maintaining that Hoover’s case “has not been accurately represented”, that the organization has never collected organs from live patients and that no one there has ever been pressured to do so. A statement to WKYT from the Network for Hope organization, which Koda joined in May, said groups like theirs are “not involved in patient care … do not declare death … [and] only have the authority to proceed with organ donation recovery after a patient’s independent healthcare provider has declared death”.

Nonetheless, WKYT and NPR reported that the state’s attorney general’s office as well as a federal agency that helps oversee organ procurement are investigating Hoover’s case.

NPR made it a point to say that some observers worry that the media attention Hoover’s case has drawn could undermine an organ-transplant system with a waiting list of more than 100,000 people. A professor of medical ethics with whom NPR spoke said all indications are that cases like Hoover’s are generally “one-offs that hopefully we’ll be able to get to the bottom of and prevent from ever happening again”.

But Rhorer defended her decision to go public with Hoover’s story, saying it would be worth sharing if it could “give one other family the courage to speak up or if it could save one other life”.

“He made … attempts to say: ‘Hey, I’m here,’ but it was kind of ignored,” Rhorer said to WKYT. “They finally stopped the procedure because he was showing too many signs of life.

“In my heart of hearts, I knew something went on, but I compared it to David and Goliath. Who am I to go up against the medical system?”

A man who had gone into cardiac arrest and been declared brain dead woke up as surgeons in his home state of Kentucky were in the middle of harvesting his organs for donation, his family has told media outlets.

As reported Thursday by both National Public Radio and the Kentucky news station WKYT, the case of Anthony Thomas “TJ” Hoover II is under investigation by state and federal government officials. Officials within the US’s organ-procurement system insist there are safeguards in place to prevent such episodes, though his family told the outlets their experience highlights a need for at least some reform.

Hoover’s sister, Donna Rhorer, recounted how Hoover was taken to Baptist health hospital in Richmond, Kentucky, in October 2021 because of a drug overdose. Doctors soon told Rhorer and her relatives that Hoover lacked any reflexes or brain activity, and they ultimately decided to remove him from life support, as WKYT noted.

The staff at Baptist then reportedly told Rhorer and her family that Hoover had given permission for his organs to be donated in the event of his death. To honor his wishes, the hospital tested which of his organs would be viable for donation, and the facility even had a ceremony honoring him.

Rhorer said she noticed Hoover’s eyes open up and seemingly track his loved one’s movements, according to WKYT. “We were told it was just reflexes – just a normal thing,” she said to the outlet.

“Who are we to question the medical system?”

About an hour after Hoover had been brought into surgery for his organs to be retrieved, a doctor came out and explained that Hoover “wasn’t ready”.

“He woke up,” Rhorer said.

Rhorer recalled getting instructions to bring her brother home and make him comfortable, though he likely would not live much longer. As she said to WKYT, she has been caring for Hoover for the past three years.

WKYT reported that Rhorer only learned the full details of her brother’s surgery at the hands of Baptist and the Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (Koda) in January. That’s when a former employee of Koda contacted her before sending a letter to a congressional committee that in September held a hearing scrutinizing organ-procurement organizations, NPR reported.

The letter’s author said she saw Hoover begin “thrashing” around on the operating table as well as start “crying visibly”, according to NPR.

In response to the accounts relayed by Rhorer to WKYT and NPR, Baptist health said in a statement that patient safety was its “highest priority”. “We work closely with our patients and their families to ensure our patients’ wishes for organ donation are followed,” the hospital’s statement said.

Koda issued its own statement to NPR maintaining that Hoover’s case “has not been accurately represented”, that the organization has never collected organs from live patients and that no one there has ever been pressured to do so. A statement to WKYT from the Network for Hope organization, which Koda joined in May, said groups like theirs are “not involved in patient care … do not declare death … [and] only have the authority to proceed with organ donation recovery after a patient’s independent healthcare provider has declared death”.

Nonetheless, WKYT and NPR reported that the state’s attorney general’s office as well as a federal agency that helps oversee organ procurement are investigating Hoover’s case.

NPR made it a point to say that some observers worry that the media attention Hoover’s case has drawn could undermine an organ-transplant system with a waiting list of more than 100,000 people. A professor of medical ethics with whom NPR spoke said all indications are that cases like Hoover’s are generally “one-offs that hopefully we’ll be able to get to the bottom of and prevent from ever happening again”.

But Rhorer defended her decision to go public with Hoover’s story, saying it would be worth sharing if it could “give one other family the courage to speak up or if it could save one other life”.

“He made … attempts to say: ‘Hey, I’m here,’ but it was kind of ignored,” Rhorer said to WKYT. “They finally stopped the procedure because he was showing too many signs of life.

“In my heart of hearts, I knew something went on, but I compared it to David and Goliath. Who am I to go up against the medical system?”

• Russia and Ukraine carried out a new exchange of prisoners of war on Friday, each side bringing home 95 people in an agreement in which the United Arab Emirates acted as mediator. Russia’s defence ministry said on Telegram that the returning Russian service members were undergoing medical checks in allied Belarus. Video posted on Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Telegram account showed men – some wrapped in the Ukrainian flag – getting off a bus well after dark and being embraced by loved ones. A Russian military video showed smiling soldiers boarding buses. Ukrainian news reports said the returnees included Ukrainian journalist and rights advocate Maksym Butkevych, convicted by a Russian court of shooting at Russian forces.

• A senior official in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk – a key target in the westward advance of Russian forces – urged residents to evacuate on Friday as there was no way to provide essential services, the RBK Ukraine media outlet reported. “It is already clear that there will be no heating in the city,” it quoted Serhiy Dobrak, head of the military administration in Pokrovsk, as saying. “I appeal to city residents: if you see dragon’s teeth [anti-tank traps] being installed nearby, do not delay, pack up and leave. It will be dangerous.”

• The US president, Joe Biden, and the leaders of the UK, Germany and France have pledged to keep up support for Ukraine and condemned “Russia’s continued war of aggression”. After meeting in Berlin, Biden, Keir Starmer, Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron “reiterated their resolve to continue supporting Ukraine in its efforts to secure a just and lasting peace”. The leaders’ joint statement said they had “discussed their plans to provide Ukraine with additional security, economic and humanitarian assistance”. “We’re headed into a very difficult winter,” Biden said. “We cannot let up.”

• Nato countries will need to discuss conditions for Ukraine to get a membership invitation and to join the alliance in response to Zelenskyy’s “victory plan”, the Dutch defence minister said. Ruben Brekelmans said on Friday there were “very different opinions” in the alliance on the issue. Zelenskyy presented the five-point plan publicly for the first time this week, including a call for an immediate Nato invitation. Brekelmans said that to reach the necessary consensus, allies would need to agree clear criteria that Ukraine would need to meet to get an invitation and others required to later become a member. “If you don’t have that clarity upfront, I don’t see 32 allies agree to granting an invitation,” he said after a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels.

• Vladimir Putin condemned comments by Zelenskyy suggesting Kyiv would seek nuclear weapons if it could not join Nato as a “dangerous provocation”. “Any step in this direction will be met with a corresponding reaction,” the Russian president said on Friday, adding: “It is not difficult to create nuclear weapons in the modern world.” Zelenskyy made his comments at an EU summit on Thursday in which he said “either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, which will protect us, or we must have some kind of alliance”. Zelenskyy sought to clarify his words in a televised interview on Friday, saying Ukraine “did not intend to create any threat to the world nor any nuclear weapons”.

• A Russian missile struck a residential district in Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa late on Friday, triggering a fire, but causing no casualties, officials said. An official city Telegram channel said a three-storey building had sustained damage along with 10 private homes. Emergency services were at the site. There was no independent verification of the report. Odesa and port facilities in the region have come under increased Russian attack in recent weeks.

• North Korea has dispatched troops to assist Russia in its war against Ukraine, according to South Korea’s intelligence agency – a development that could intensify the standoff between North Korea and the west. In a statement on its website on Friday, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Russian navy ships transferred 1,500 North Korean special operation forces to the port city of Vladivostok between 8 and 13 October who were now undergoing training, Pjotr Sauer reports. “The North Korean soldiers … are expected to be deployed to the frontlines as soon as they complete their adaptation training,” the agency said, adding that more North Korean troops were expected to be sent to Russia soon. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiga, demanded an “immediate and strong reaction” from Kyiv’s allies to the North Korean deployment.

• Donald Trump has blamed Volodymyr Zelenskyy for helping start Ukraine’s war with Russia, a comment that further suggests the Republican former president is likely to decrease US support for Kyiv if he wins the 5 November election. Trump’s comments on the PBD podcast on Thursday went a step further than his previous criticism of Zelenskyy and said the Ukrainian leader was to blame not just for failing to end the war but for helping start it, even though the conflict broke out when Russia invaded Ukrainian sovereign territory.

• Russia has returned the bodies of 501 soldiers to Ukraine in what Associated Press said appeared to be the biggest repatriation of war dead since Russia’s 2022 invasion. Ukrainian authorities said law enforcement agencies and forensic experts would identify the victims, who would then be handed to family members for burial.

• Zelenskyy said he had asked the defence ministry to work on proposals for possible weapons exports. The Ukrainian leader said the exports would be possible only to Ukraine’s allies in the Ramstein group, which coordinates military support for Kyiv. “Those who did not help us with the weapons, I think we do not have a right to export there,” he told Ukrainian TV. A possible rethink of an export ban imposed during the war against Russia would be a dramatic change in government policies.

Cuba restored a trickle of power to its grid by mid-evening on Friday, officials said, hours after the island plunged into a countrywide blackout following the collapse of one of its major power plants.

Grid operator UNE said it hoped to restart at least five of its oil-fired generation plants overnight, providing enough electricity, it said, to begin returning power to broader areas of the country.

Earlier in the day, the communist-run government had closed schools and non-essential industry and sent most state workers home in a last-ditch effort to keep the lights on for residents.

But shortly before midday, the Antonio Guiteras power plant, the country’s largest and most efficient, went offline, prompting a total grid failure and leaving approximately 10 million people without power.

“There will be no rest until [power] is restored,” the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said on X.

The crisis had already prompted officials to cancel all non-vital government services. Schools of all levels including universities, have been shuttered through Sunday. Recreational and cultural activities, including night clubs, were also ordered closed.

The government said only essential employees of the state-run food and healthcare industries should report to work on Friday.

Grid officials said they did not know how long it would take to re-establish service.

The crisis marks a new low on an island where life has become increasingly unbearable, with residents already suffering from shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine.

Virtually all commerce in Havana was shut down at midday on Friday. The hum of privately owned generators could be heard in some homes and restaurants, and many residents sat sweating on doorsteps with windows open as the sun broke through the clouds.

Cuba’s prime minister, Manuel Marrero, on Thursday blamed ongoing rolling blackouts during the past several weeks on a perfect storm well known to most Cubans: deteriorating infrastructure, fuel shortages and rising demand.

“The fuel shortage is the biggest factor,” Marrero said in a televised message that was garbled by technical difficulties and delayed by several hours.

Strong wind and heavy seas that began with Hurricane Milton last week have crippled the island’s ability to deliver scarce fuel from boats offshore to its power plants, officials said.

Cuba’s government also has long blamed the US cold war-era embargo, as well as a fresh round of sanctions under then president Donald Trump, for difficulties in acquiring fuel and spare parts to operate its oil-fired plants.

The island’s two largest power plants, Felton and the now-offline Antonio Guiteras, are both under-producing, the government said, and require immediate maintenance, part of a four-year plan to revitalize Cuba’s decrepit infrastructure.

Cuba’s fast-growing private businesses, which have contributed to increased demand on the island, will be charged higher rates for the energy they consume to compensate for shortfalls, Marrero said.

While demand for electricity grows, fuel supply has all but dried up on an island that produces comparatively little of its own.

Cuba’s largest oil supplier, Venezuela, has reduced shipments to the island to an average of 32,600 barrels a day in the first nine months of the year, about half of the 60,000 barrels a day sent in the same period of 2023, according to vessel-monitoring data and internal shipping documents from Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA.

PDVSA, whose refining infrastructure is also ailing, has this year tried to avoid a new wave of fuel scarcity at home, leaving smaller volumes available for export to allied countries like Cuba.

Russia and Mexico, which in the past have sent fuel to Cuba, have also greatly reduced shipments to the island.

The shortfalls have left Cuba to fend for itself on the far costlier spot market, at a time when its government is near bankrupt.

Electricity officials said they nonetheless expect power generation to improve in the coming days as the weather allows fuel from prior deliveries to be distributed around the Caribbean’s largest island.

The Philippine vice-president, Sara Duterte, has threatened to dig up the remains of President Ferdinand Marcos’s dictator father and throw them into the sea, launching a scathing attack on her rival.

Duterte was once allied with Marcos Jr, and ran on a joint ticket with him in the 2022 election, winning a landslide victory. However, she resigned from the cabinet in June and the two powerful dynasties are now engaged in a bitter struggle for power before next year’s midterm elections, with both also preparing for presidential polls in 2028.

The stakes are especially high for the Dutertes, as the vice-president’s father, the former president Rodrigo Duterte, is facing an investigation by the international criminal court (ICC) for crimes against humanity over his bloody “war on drugs”.

In a press conference on Friday, Sara Duterte launched her fiercest attack yet on the president, saying the country was on a “road to hell”, that his administration lacked clear policies to tackle inflation and food security, and that she had once thought about cutting off his head.

Duterte said she had been left feeling “used” after teaming up with Marcos before the 2022 election. She realised their relationship had become toxic, she said, after watching him apparently cause the “humiliation” of a young graduate.

The graduate had asked Marcos if he could have Marcos’s watch as a graduation gift, only for Marcos to ask him to repeat the question, and then to ask why he should do so, prompting the laughter of those around – and the humiliation of the graduate, she said. “I wanted to remove his head. I realised the relationship was already toxic,” she said. “[I] just imagine myself cutting his head,” she repeated, gesturing with her hands.

Tensions between the two rivals have increased after a recent investigation alleging that Duterte has presided over the misuse of public funds, something she has denied, as well as recent parliamentary hearings on the “war on drugs”, which heard claims the office of Rodrigo Duterte paid “rewards” of up to $17,000 to police who killed drugs suspects.

Rodrigo Duterte has denied authorising killings. However, he repeatedly and openly threatened drug dealers with death before and during his presidency.

Marcos Jr has previously said he would not comply with the ICC’s investigation into the “war on drugs” but analysts say it is possible he could change his stance if he senses his rivals are politically weak.

Sara Duterte said if political attacks against her did not stop, she would throw the body of the late dictator Marcos Sr into the sea. “One of these days, I will go there. I will get the body of your father and throw it in the West Philippine Sea,” Duterte said, using the Filipino name for the portion of the South China Sea claimed by Manila.

In 2016, when relations between the two families were warm, Rodrigo Duterte caused controversy by allowing a hero’s burial with military honours for Marcos Sr. The late dictator is accused of having plundered up to $10bn from state coffers during his rule, and of presiding over widespread human rights abuses.

The presidential communications secretary, Cesar Chavez, said Marcos would not be responding to Sara Duterte’s remarks.

The Philippine vice-president, Sara Duterte, has threatened to dig up the remains of President Ferdinand Marcos’s dictator father and throw them into the sea, launching a scathing attack on her rival.

Duterte was once allied with Marcos Jr, and ran on a joint ticket with him in the 2022 election, winning a landslide victory. However, she resigned from the cabinet in June and the two powerful dynasties are now engaged in a bitter struggle for power before next year’s midterm elections, with both also preparing for presidential polls in 2028.

The stakes are especially high for the Dutertes, as the vice-president’s father, the former president Rodrigo Duterte, is facing an investigation by the international criminal court (ICC) for crimes against humanity over his bloody “war on drugs”.

In a press conference on Friday, Sara Duterte launched her fiercest attack yet on the president, saying the country was on a “road to hell”, that his administration lacked clear policies to tackle inflation and food security, and that she had once thought about cutting off his head.

Duterte said she had been left feeling “used” after teaming up with Marcos before the 2022 election. She realised their relationship had become toxic, she said, after watching him apparently cause the “humiliation” of a young graduate.

The graduate had asked Marcos if he could have Marcos’s watch as a graduation gift, only for Marcos to ask him to repeat the question, and then to ask why he should do so, prompting the laughter of those around – and the humiliation of the graduate, she said. “I wanted to remove his head. I realised the relationship was already toxic,” she said. “[I] just imagine myself cutting his head,” she repeated, gesturing with her hands.

Tensions between the two rivals have increased after a recent investigation alleging that Duterte has presided over the misuse of public funds, something she has denied, as well as recent parliamentary hearings on the “war on drugs”, which heard claims the office of Rodrigo Duterte paid “rewards” of up to $17,000 to police who killed drugs suspects.

Rodrigo Duterte has denied authorising killings. However, he repeatedly and openly threatened drug dealers with death before and during his presidency.

Marcos Jr has previously said he would not comply with the ICC’s investigation into the “war on drugs” but analysts say it is possible he could change his stance if he senses his rivals are politically weak.

Sara Duterte said if political attacks against her did not stop, she would throw the body of the late dictator Marcos Sr into the sea. “One of these days, I will go there. I will get the body of your father and throw it in the West Philippine Sea,” Duterte said, using the Filipino name for the portion of the South China Sea claimed by Manila.

In 2016, when relations between the two families were warm, Rodrigo Duterte caused controversy by allowing a hero’s burial with military honours for Marcos Sr. The late dictator is accused of having plundered up to $10bn from state coffers during his rule, and of presiding over widespread human rights abuses.

The presidential communications secretary, Cesar Chavez, said Marcos would not be responding to Sara Duterte’s remarks.

Canada’s foreign minister has warned India’s remaining diplomats in the country that they are “clearly on notice” not to endanger Canadian lives after New Delhi’s top envoy in Canada was named a person of interest in the assassination of a Sikh activist.

India’s high commissioner was expelled on Monday along with five other diplomats, prompting the Canadian foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, to compare India to Russia, saying Canada’s national police force has linked Indian diplomats to homicides, death threats and intimidation in Canada.

Joly said on Friday that Canada will not tolerate foreign diplomats putting the lives of Canadians at risk.

“We’ve never seen that in our history. That level of transnational repression cannot happen on Canadian soil. We’ve seen it elsewhere in Europe. Russia has done that in Germany and the UK and we needed to stand firm on this issue,” she said in Montreal.

Asked if other Indian diplomats will be expelled, Joly said: “They are clearly on notice. Six of them have been expelled including the high commissioner in Ottawa. Others were mainly from Toronto and Vancouver and clearly we won’t tolerate any diplomats that are in contravention of the Vienna convention.”

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police went public this week with allegations that Indian diplomats were targeting Sikh separatists in Canada by sharing information about them with their government back home. They said top Indian officials were then passing that information along to Indian organized crime groups who were targeting the activists, who are Canadian citizens, with drive-by shootings, extortions and even murder.

India, for its part, has rejected the Canadian accusations as absurd, and its foreign ministry said it was expelling Canada’s acting high commissioner and five other diplomats in response.

Canada is not the only country that has accused Indian officials of plotting an assassination on foreign soil. On Thursday the US Department of Justice announced criminal charges against an Indian government employee in connection with an alleged foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in New York City.

In the case announced by the justice department, Vikash Yadav, who authorities say directed the New York plot from India, faces murder-for-hire charges in a planned killing that prosecutors have previously said was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the United States and Canada.

US authorities have said the killing of the American Sikh man was to have taken place just days after Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian Sikh activist who was shot and killed outside a cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia, on 18 June 2023. Prosecutors say the goal was to kill at least four people in Canada and the US by 29 June 2023, and then more after that.

The Nijjar killing in Canada has soured India-Canada ties for more than a year, and despite Canada’s assertion that it has forwarded evidence of its allegations to Indian authorities, the Indian government continues to deny it has seen any.

India has repeatedly criticized the Canadian government for being soft on supporters of the Sikh separatist Khalistan movement, which is banned in India but has support among the Sikh diaspora, particularly in Canada.

Trudeau said Wednesday that the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, underlined to him at a G-20 summit in India last year that he wanted Canada to arrest people who have been outspoken against the Indian government. Trudeau said he told Modi that he felt the actions fall within free speech in Canada.

Trudeau added that he told Modi his government would work with India on concerns about terrorism, incitement of hate or anything that is unacceptable in Canada. But Trudeau also noted that advocating for separatism, though not Canadian government policy, is not illegal in Canada.

Nijjar, 45, was fatally shot last year in his pickup truck. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland.

Four Indian nationals living in Canada were charged with Nijjar’s murder and are awaiting trial.

A motorist accused of deliberately running over a cyclist in a Paris road rage incident has been formally put under investigation for murder and remanded in custody.

The 52-year-old SUV driver, named only as Ariel M, is accused of deliberately targeting the cyclist, who was named by the Paris public prosecutor’s office as Paul Varry, 27.

The driver appeared before an examining magistrate on Friday morning after 48 hours in custody and was accused of “culpable homicide”.

The incident happened at 5.45pm on Tuesday on the Boulevard Malesherbes in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. The driver’s teenage daughter was in the car at the time.

The prosecutor’s office said the victim was returning from work on Wednesday when the motorist, trying to pass traffic, drove 200m along the cycle lane and ran over Varry’s foot.

Varry “banged on the bonnet to alert the driver, who initially backed off freeing his foot,” it said.

“He (Varry) dropped his bike and moved to the front left of the car showing his displeasure. The driver then turned his wheels towards the pedestrian and drove forward in his direction,” it added.

An autopsy on the cyclist confirmed the vehicle had run over him. According to French reports, the SUV driver told police a “clumsy movement” had led to the cyclist’s death.

Jeanne d’Hauteserre, the mayor of the 8th arrondissement, described the incident as “extraordinarily violent”, adding that when she arrived at the scene some time afterwards witnesses were “still on the pavement in shock”.

The Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, who has spearheaded a successful programme to radically reduce car traffic and increase cycling in the capital, said it was “unacceptable in this day and age for someone to die on a bicycle in Paris”.

Ian Brossat, a former Paris councillor and now a senator representing the French Communist party, called for SUVs to be banned in Paris. “This is not the first incident of its kind, and the dangerous nature of SUVs has already been pointed out on several occasions. We owe it to this young man to realise the scale of the problem and draw all the consequences,” Brossat told the Nouvel Obs.

Paris city council has turned Paris into one of the world’s most bike-friendly cities, with hundreds of kilometres of new cycle paths opened in recent years. Many motorists, however, resent the changes, which have radically reduced the space available for cars on many routes. In an attempt to limit personal car use and vehicle pollution, swathes of the city have been pedestrianised and parking charges increased.

A baffling tar ball emergency that closed major beaches in Sydney’s eastern suburbs appears to be over.

The remaining beaches closed to bathers at Coogee, Maroubra and Clovelly have been cleared to reopen on Saturday after Bondi and several others reopened on Friday.

But the cause of the deluge of black balls that began washing up on Coogee Beach earlier this week, prompting a major clean-up operation, remains unknown.

Mark Hutchings, the executive director of New South Wales Maritime, said that based on health advice, the substance was not highly toxic to humans.

“We can now confirm the balls are made up of fatty acids, chemicals consistent with those found in cleaning and cosmetic products, mixed with some fuel oil,” he said in a statement.

“They are not harmful when on the ground, but should not be touched or picked up.”

Beachgoers have been told to let lifeguards know if they see any tar balls, and if they touch them to clean their hands with soap and water or baby oil.

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About 2,000 balls have been picked up since Tuesday, when the emergency began.

“We’ve found no further evidence of the substance, so this appears to be an isolated incident,” Hutching said.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority is still examining the balls and conducting tests.

“Until we finalise all our test results, we are unable to clearly state where they came from,” said Stephen Beaman, the authority’s executive director.

“It is still somewhat of a mystery and may take a few more days to determine origin.”

On Friday, the NSW government vowed to throw the book at anyone found responsible for the balls.

“We’re investigating to try and find the source of the spill and who is responsible,” the environment minister, Penny Sharpe, said.

Tar balls are formed when oil comes into contact with other debris and water, usually as a result of oil spills or seepage.

Simon Cowell has paid tribute to the former One Direction star Liam Payne, saying he is “heartbroken” and feels “empty” after the singer’s death at the age of 31.

The music mogul, who put the group together on TV programme The X Factor in 2010, remembered Payne as “kind, funny, sweet, thoughtful [and] talented”.

The British musician died after falling from the third floor of a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires on Wednesday.

Cowell, 65, wrote on Instagram he was “devastated”, adding: “Every tear I have shed is a memory for you.”

He said: “You never really know how you feel about someone until a moment like this happens. Liam, I am devastated. Heartbroken. And I feel empty. And I want you to know how much love and respect I have for you. Every tear I have shed is a memory for you.

“This is so difficult to put into words right now. I went outside today and I thought about so many times we had together. I wanted to let you know what I would always say to the thousands of people who would always ask me. What is Liam like?

“And I would tell them you were kind, funny, sweet, thoughtful, talented, humble, focused. And how much you loved music. And how much love you genuinely had for the fans.”

Payne achieved global fame alongside Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Harry Styles after finishing third in The X Factor final.

Cowell continued in his Instagram statement: “I had to tell you when you were 14 that this wasn’t your time. And we both made a promise that we would meet again. A lot of people would have given up. You didn’t.

“You came back and within months the whole world know [sic] Liam. And you never forgot the fans. I watched you spending so much time with people who had wanted to meet you. You really cared.

“You came to see me last year. Not for a meeting. Just to sit and talk. And we reminisced about all of the fun times we had together. And how proud you were to be a dad.

“After you left, I was reminded that you were still the sweet, kind boy I had met all of those years ago. I have met your son, Bear. He has your smile and that twinkle in his eye that you have.

“He will be so proud of everything you achieved. And how you achieved it. I always thought of the 5 of you in the band as brothers. And regarding their messages today I believe you were.

“And now Liam, I can see the effect you had on so many people because you left us too soon. Rest in peace my friend. And I am sending my love, thoughts and prayers to your family.”

Payne’s girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, also posted a tribute on Instagram.

“Thank you for all of the kind words and love that has been sent my way,” she wrote. “I have been at a complete loss. Nothing about the past few days have felt real. I ask and pray that you’ll give me the grace and space to navigate this in private.

“Liam, my angel, you are everything. I want you to know I loved you unconditionally and completely. I will continue to love you for the rest of my life. I love you Liam.”

Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Tweedy said on Instagram Payne’s death was “breaking my heart” as their seven-year-old son Bear would have to “face the reality of never seeing his father again”.

Tweedy, who was in a relationship with Payne between 2016 and 2018, said the death had been “indescribably painful”.

“As I try to navigate this earth shattering event, and work through my own grief at this indescribably painful time, I’d like to kindly remind everyone that we have lost a human being.

“Liam was not only a pop star and celebrity, he was a son, a brother, an uncle, a dear friend and a father to our 7 year old son. A son that now has to face the reality of never seeing his father again.

“What is troubling my spirit the most is that one day Bear will have access to the abhorrent reports and media exploitation we have seen in the past two days. It is breaking my heart further that I cannot protect him from that in his future.

“I am begging you to consider what use some of these reports are serving, other than to cause further harm to everyone left behind picking up the pieces. Before you leave comments or make videos, ask yourself if you would like your own child or family to read them.”