Donald Trump said on Monday he would sign an executive order imposing a 25% tariff on all products coming in to the United States from Mexico and Canada and additional tariffs on China.

“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Trump said the tariffs would remain in place until the two countries clamp down on drugs, particularly fentanyl, and migrants crossing the border illegally.

In a follow-up post, Trump announced that the US “will be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America”.

He said that the reason for the additional tariff was China’s failure to curb the number of drugs entering the US.

“I have had many talks with China about the massive amounts of drugs, in particular Fentanyl, being sent into the United States – But to no avail … Until such time as they stop, we will be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America.”

In a statement in response, China warned that “no one will win a trade war”.

Liu Pengyu, a Chinese embassy spokesperson, said China had taken steps to combat drug trafficking after an agreement was reached last year between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.

“The Chinese side has notified the US side of the progress made in US-related law enforcement operations against narcotics,” Liu said.

“All these prove that the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality,” Liu said.

“China believes that China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature.”

Canada’s deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, released a statement on Monday evening saying that the country places the highest priority on border security and the integrity of its shared border with the US.

The statement did not mention the tariffs directly. It also said that the Canada Border Services Agency, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and US Customs and Border protection “work together every single day to to disrupt the scourge of fentanyl coming from China and other countries.”

More than 83% of exports from Mexico went to the US in 2023 and 75% of Canadian exports go to the country.

Trump and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau spoke on Monday night about trade and border security, Reuters reported, citing a Canadian source directly familiar with situation.

Trump has previously pledged to end China’s most-favored-nation trading status and slap tariffs on Chinese imports in excess of 60% – much higher than those imposed during his first term.

The announcement sparked a dollar rally. It rose 1% against the Canadian dollar and 2% against the Mexican peso, while US stock futures and share markets in Asia fell.

The Chinese economy is in a much more vulnerable position given the country’s prolonged property downturn, debt risks and weak domestic demand.

The proposal may signal Trump’s plans for the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which he renegotiated during his first term, and forebode a future trade war.

“While the USMCA agreement is technically only up for renegotiation in 2026, Trump is likely trying to kickstart the renewal process early with Canada and Mexico through today’s tariff announcements,” said Alex Loo, a foreign exchange and macro strategist at TD Securities.

“Mexico and Canada remain heavily dependent on the US market so their ability to walk away from President-elect Trump’s threats remains limited,” Wendy Cutler, vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, and former US trade official, told AFP.

Countries generally levy retaliatory tariffs of their own in response to tariffs such as those Trump is proposing, which can spark a trade war – as happened during Trump’s first presidency.

Neither the US nor China would win a trade war, the Chinese embassy in Washington said on Monday.

“About the issue of US tariffs on China, China believes that China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature,” Liu said in a statement.

“No one will win a trade war or a tariff war,” Liu said.

William Reinsch, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that that move was classic Trump: “threaten, and then negotiate.”

“In terms of what might actually happen, I’d bet on some China tariffs going into effect. That’s legally easier and politically more palatable,” he said.

“On Canada and Mexico there was going to be a renegotiation of their trade deal (the USMCA) anyway in 2026.”

Tahra Jirari, the director of economic analysis at an organization called the Chamber of Progress, which describes itself as “a new tech industry coalition devoted to a progressive society, economy, workforce, and consumer climate”, has reacted to Trump’s tariffs, pointing out that they will lead to higher prices for consumers.

“Trump vows 25% tariff on ALL Mexico/Canada imports if elected. This means higher prices for Americans. Tariffs = taxes that YOU pay at the store. Cars, food, electronics – all cost more. Even your grocery bill would jump. Companies can’t absorb 25% – it hits your wallet,” she wrote in a social media post.

While on the campaign trail in October, Trump described “tariff” as “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”, and made clear his intentions to reduce US companies’ use of foreign goods and parts by raising their cost. The policy, he said, would strengthen the US’s international trade position and boost US job growth.

Robert Reich, former US secretary of labor, warned that the tariff doesn’t work that way. “A tariff is basically a sales tax, raising the price of almost everything you buy. It’s also regressive – taking a higher percentage out of the paychecks of working people than out of the wealthy,” he posted on social media.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics, a nonpartisan Washington DC-based research organization, estimates that Trump’s proposed tariffs would cost the typical US household more than $2,600 a year.

Trump’s proposal comes just days after he picked hedge fund manager Scott Bessent to be his treasury secretary – a move many Wall Street executives believe signalled a willingness to moderate his approach to tariffs.

“It’s almost as if Trump wants to remind markets who is in control, after nominating Scott Bessent as treasury secretary – a man markets expected to cool Trump’s potency,” Matt Simpson, a senior market analyst for City Index told Reuters.

Internal rivalries spilled into public view on Monday as Boris Epshteyn, a top adviser to Donald Trump, found himself at the center of an ouster effort over accusations he asked potential administration nominees to pay monthly consulting fees in exchange for lobbying for them to the president-elect.

The maelstrom engulfing Epshteyn suggested that barely 20 days since Trump won the election, the knife-fight culture of the first Trump presidency, where bitter aides took any opportunity to remove rivals, had returned.

Over the weekend, David Warrington, the Trump 2024 campaign’s general counsel, finalized the main conclusions of a review into Epshteyn that found he had unsuccessfully solicited tens of thousands of dollars from potential nominees including Scott Bessent, who has been tapped to be Treasury secretary.

According to the review, one day after Trump met with Bessent for the first time in February, Epshteyn invited him to lunch at a hotel in Palm Beach, where he asked for a monthly retainer of at least $30,000 to promote his name at Mar-a-Lago in case Trump won the election.

Bessent declined and complained to an aide that Epshteyn tried to shake him down. Later, when Epshteyn asked Bessent to invest $10m in a three-by-three basketball league, he declined but told associates Epshteyn would probably give him better access if he had taken up the offer.

The review into Epshteyn, a longtime Trump adviser who has wielded outsized influence with Trump over cabinet picks and positions in key departments, also concluded Epshteyn’s employment and access to Trump should be terminated, according to two people briefed on the findings.

But Epshteyn remained part of Trump’s inner circle as of Monday evening, with Trump riding high on the news that special counsel prosecutors had moved to dismiss the two federal criminal cases against him – a victory he credited to Ephsteyn.

The first person that Trump called when prosecutors withdrew the cases against him was Epshteyn, according to two people with Trump at the time, which occurred just as CNN first reported the existence of the review into Epshteyn’s consultancy scheme.

For the remainder of the day, Epshteyn was on the offensive as his allies dismissed the review as an attempt by Warrington to decapitate Epshteyn after he successfully pushed for Bill McGinley to be the White House counsel, rather than Warrington, who had also been in contention for the role.

Epshteyn’s allies later portrayed the review as a political hit job capitalizing on Epshteyn’s role in pushing for the former congressman Matt Gaetz to get the nomination for attorney general before it sank under the weight of sexual misconduct allegations.

Epshteyn denied the allegations. “I am honored to work for President Trump and with his team,” he said in a statement. “These fake claims are false and defamatory and will not distract us from making America great again.”

If the failure of the Gaetz nomination was seen as an opportunity to oust Epshteyn, even in part, it may have been a miscalculation since the original idea to have Gaetz lead the justice department came from Trump himself, according to a person with direct knowledge of that conversation.

One Trump adviser who does not care for Epshteyn speculated on Monday night that his influence was weakened by the allegations. But another Trump adviser suggested Epshteyn may have emerged stronger. “Trump isn’t impressed by a pile-on because that’s what all those prosecutors did to him,” the adviser said.

Epshteyn’s staying power with Trump has remained constant over the years and surprised newcomers to Trump’s orbit. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson have both remarked to associates that they did not understand why Trump placed so much trust in Epshteyn.

The principal reason for that trust in the last two years, according to multiple aides and associates, has been because Trump has regarded him as a major reason for how he sidestepped legal peril during the 2024 campaign.

Epshteyn assembled and oversaw the Trump legal team during the criminal investigations and in the multiple criminal cases, including when Trump found it nearly impossible to find capable lawyers to represent him. “Boris was always right,” Trump is said to have remarked about Epshteyn’s legal strategy.

That endeared him to Trump, who has taken Epshteyn seriously on policy and personnel suggestions, even if they were derided by others on the Trump team. When Trump named his top picks for the leadership of the justice department, they were Trump’s personal lawyers who had all been recruited by Epshteyn.

Special counsel prosecutors dismissed the two federal criminal cases against Donald Trump in separate court filings on Monday, as they bowed to the reality that they would not be completed or proceed to trial before Trump returns to the presidency next year.

The withdrawals marked the end of the years-long legal battle between Trump and the special counsel Jack Smith, and reflected the extraordinary ability of Trump to sidestep an indictment that would have sunk the presidential bid of anyone else.

Trump’s election victory was always going to spell the end of the criminal cases against him – over Trump’s retention of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election – due to justice department policy that prohibits taking criminal action against a sitting president.

But the withdrawals also showed just how successfully Trump, with help from sympathetic judges, managed to beat the justice system with an audacious play of using a presidential campaign and the political calendar to sidestep deeply perilous charges.

In a six-page motion to dismiss the 2020 election interference case, prosecutors said even though Trump was not yet president, they had been told by the department’s office of legal counsel, which provides internal legal advice, to withdraw the case before his inauguration in January.

“It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting President,” wrote Smith’s top deputy, Molly Gaston.

“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” she added.

Moments later, prosecutors told the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit that they were withdrawing their challenge against the earlier dismissal of the classified documents case with respect to Trump.

But they said they would continue trying to bring cases against Trump’s co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira – although it was unclear whether those charges would also be dropped once Trump’s loyalist attorney general pick, Pam Bondi, takes over the justice department.

From the Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, the site of the presidential transition where Trump allegedly stashed 101 classified documents after he left office and was indicted after ignoring a subpoena for their return, Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, issued a gleeful statement on the news.

“Today’s decision by the DOJ ends the unconstitutional federal cases against President Trump, and is a major victory for the rule of law. The American People and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system,” Cheung wrote.

Within days of Trump’s victory, prosecutors started examining how to shut down the 2020 election case in federal district court in Washington, and the more complicated matter of the classified documents case that was before the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit.

Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2022 under the cloud of an impending special counsel investigation into his retention of national security materials at his Mar-a-Lago club after he lost the 2020 presidential election and left the White House.

He repeatedly told supporters at rallies and in public statements that he was running for his literal freedom, urging voters to return him to the presidency in part because the charges would only disappear if he were re-elected.

Trump also vowed to pursue the prosecutors and federal investigators involved in the cases. In anticipation of an expected legal retribution effort, Smith and his top deputies are expected to resign from the justice department before Trump is inaugurated, the Guardian has reported.

For months, Trump’s overarching legal strategy was to delay the criminal cases until after Tuesday’s election – banking on the fact that if he won he could appoint a loyalist attorney general who would simply drop the prosecutions.

He was unsuccessful in delaying his New York criminal case, tied to his efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election through an unlawful hush-money scheme, and for which he was convicted on 34 felony counts. Sentencing has been postponed indefinitely.

Responding to news that the special counsel Jack Smith had dropped all charges against Donald Trump for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and retention of classified information, Dan Goldman, a prosecutor turned New York Democrat and member of the House oversight committee, lamented “a shame for justice in this country”.

“It establishes that Donald Trump is above the law,” Goldman told CNN. “The supreme court put him above the law [by ruling that he had ‘absolute immunity’ for official acts] but now he appears to escape full accountability for what were crimes charged by a grand jury.”

Goldman rejected the argument that by re-electing Trump, the American people had acquitted him of all charges.

“I think what was very clear is that people voted for Donald Trump because they thought that he was going to improve the lives of the middle class, and perhaps in addition that he would secure the border,” Goldman said. “They did not vote for him to dismantle our democracy, to attack the constitution, to politicize all of our agencies, and certainly not as a referendum on his criminal cases.

“Those cases should have been played out in a court of law … and Donald Trump should not have been able to run out the clock.”

Elsewhere, Aquilino Gonell, a former Capitol police sergeant who testified memorably about his experiences and injuries on 6 January 2021, when Trump sent a mob to attack Congress, lamented a simple “miscarriage of justice”.

“‘No one is above the law’ is a great slogan,” added Gonell, who suffered injuries to his hands, shoulder, calf and foot, as well as psychological trauma, in the Capitol attack.

To many Americans on Monday, “no one is above the law”, however, no longer seemed like a legal reality. Three weeks after Trump defeated Kamala Harris, Smith dropped 44 charges against him: four for election subversion and 40 for retention of classified records.

Smith said he was following Department of Justice policy, which says a sitting president cannot be charged. He also said he was acting “without prejudice”, which meant the cases could be refiled after Trump leaves power.

That was an echo of the situation in New York, where sentencing on Trump’s 34 felony convictions related to hush money payments to a porn star has been postponed. In Georgia, eight election subversion charges remain on the docket.

Nonetheless, among Trump’s opponents, the mood was one of despond. The writer Tom Nichols, a conservative Trump critic, summed up: “Mission accomplished. He ran for [president] to stay out of jail, and here we are.”

Steven Cheung, Trump’s spokesperson, celebrated “a major victory for the rule of law”, adding: “The American people and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and we look forward to uniting our country.”

Democrats, however, expect Trump to seek revenge, not unity – and immediate comments from both the president-elect and JD Vance, the Ohio senator and incoming vice-president, did little to calm such fears.

Vance said: “If Donald J Trump had lost an election, he may very well have spent the rest of his life in prison. These prosecutions were always political. Now it’s time to ensure what happened to President Trump never happens in this country again.”

In a post to his own social media platform, Trump said all cases against him, including civil suits in New York resulting in multimillion-dollar penalties, were “empty and lawless”, orchestrated by his Democratic foes.

“It was a political hijacking,” Trump said, “and a low point in the history of our country that such a thing could have happened, and yet, I persevered, against all odds, and WON.”

At least one police officer has been killed and dozens of people injured in Pakistan as supporters of jailed former rime minister Imran Khan clashed with security forces outside the capital Islamabad on Monday, officials and Khan’s party said.

Authorities have enforced a security lockdown for the last two days after Khan called for a march on parliament for a sit-in demonstration to demand his release, while highways into the city have been barricaded.

One police officer was shot and killed, at least 119 others were injured, and 22 police vehicles were torched in clashes just outside Islamabad and elsewhere in the Punjab province, provincial police chief Usman Anwar said. Two officers were in critical condition, he said.

Khan’s party said scores of its workers were also hurt.

It said the jailed leader’s third wife, Bushra Bibi, and a key aide, Ali Amin Gandapur, who is the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, were leading a march that arrived almost inside Islamabad on Monday night.

The government has used shipping containers to block major roads and streets in Islamabad, with patrols of police and paramilitary personnel in riot gear.

Officials and witnesses said all public transport between cities and terminals had also been shut down in the eastern province to keep away the protesters,

Provincial information minister Uzma Bukhari said about 80 of Khan’s supporters had been arrested.

Defence minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told local Geo News TV that the government sought talks with leaders of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to calm the situation. “It was a sincere attempt I must say but it didn’t yield any results,” he said.

Interior minister Mohsin Naqvi said security forces showed “extreme restraint” in confronting the protesters, some of whom he said had fired live rounds, while police only used rubber bullets and fired teargas canisters.

“It is easy to respond a bullet with a bullet,” he said.

He said the government had offered Khan’s party permission to hold a sit-in protest at an open field on Islamabad’s outskirts, adding the party’s leaders took this offer to Khan at his prison cell, but, “we haven’t yet heard back on it.“

Naqvi added the protesters would not be allowed to reach outside parliament, warning the government will be forced to use “extreme” steps if they did not budge, which could include imposing curfew or calling in army troops.

“We will not let them cross our red lines,” he said

But Khan’s party accused the government of using excessive violence to block the protesters and said hundreds of workers and leaders had been arrested.

“They are even firing live bullets,” one of Khan’s aides, Shaukat Yousafzai, told Geo News.

Reuters TV and local TV footage showed police firing teargas canisters at Khan’s supporters, who were pelting them with stones and bricks.

The videos showed vehicles and trees ablaze along the main march just outside Islamabad as the protesters at some places pushed shipment containers to make their way.

Gatherings in Islamabad have been banned, while all schools in the capital and the adjacent city of Rawalpindi were to remain closed on Monday and Tuesday, the authorities said,

The protest march, which Khan has described as the “final call”, is one of many his party had held to seek his release since he was jailed in August last year. The party’s most recent protest in Islamabad, early in October, turned violent.

Voted out of power by parliament in 2022 after he fell out with Pakistan’s powerful military, Khan faces charges ranging from corruption to instigation of violence, all of which he and his party deny.

Israel’s security cabinet is due to meet on Tuesday to decide on a ceasefire agreement with Lebanon after more than a year of fighting between Israeli forces and the Shia militia Hezbollah.

Under the deal being considered, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would reportedly withdraw entirely from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah would pull its heavy weapons north of the Litani River, about 16 miles (25km) north of the Israeli border, and the Lebanese army would move in to provide security in the border zone alongside an existing UN peacekeeping force, during an initial 60-day transition phase.

The White House national security spokesperson cautioned on Monday that the deal the Biden administration had been trying to broker for months had not yet been finalised.

“There’s still some process, things that I think that they’re working through,” John Kirby said. Calling the discussions so far constructive, he added: “We believe that the trajectory of this is going in a very positive direction. But nothing is done until everything is done. Nothing’s negotiated till everything is negotiated.”

Reuters quoted four senior Lebanese sources as saying they expected Joe Biden and French president Emmanuel Macron to announce the ceasefire imminently.

Hezbollah has not been a direct party to the talks, in which the Lebanese government has given assurances that the militia would abide by the terms of the deal.

Under the proposed ceasefire blueprint, the US would lead a five-country international monitoring committee that would act as a referee on infringements, and the US is reported to have offered guaranteed support for Israeli military operations over the border in the event that Hezbollah mounts an attack or reconstitutes its forces south of the Litani.

The conflict started on 8 October last year, when Hezbollah fired shells and missiles into Israeli border towns in solidarity with Hamas, and the fighting has intensified significantly since the end of September, when Israel launched a ground invasion amid intensified bombing across Lebanon, which has killed about 3,500 Lebanese people as well as much of Hezbollah’s leadership.

Israel carried out intensive airstrikes on Monday. The IDF said it had struck 25 command centres in Lebanon associated with Hezbollah’s executive council, the militia’s ruling body, including four targets in Dahiyeh, the largely Shia district of southern Beirut. Before the strikes the IDF sent out warnings on social media telling people to evacuate designated buildings in Dahiyeh, and the southern cities of Nabatieh and Tyre.

The UN peacekeeping force Unifil said it was “seriously concerned” by lethal strikes on the Lebanese army, which reported 19 soldiers killed. On Sunday, the IDF expressed regret for a strike on a Lebanese army position, which it said was a mistake, adding that Israeli operations were being “directed solely against Hezbollah”.

Sirens sounded across northern Israel in response to reports of Hezbollah rockets launched from Lebanon heading toward the Israeli border. Hezbollah fired more than 200 rockets into northern Israel on Sunday, one of the heaviest attacks since the start of the current conflict.

The government of Benjamin Netanyahu is under domestic political pressure to agree a deal that would allow about 60,000 Israelis from the border region to return home, after spending a year in displacement camps, and their safe return is Israel’s primary war aim in Lebanon.

Reacting to news of a possible ceasefire, the mayors of some northern Israeli towns decried it as a “surrender deal” as it would not involve the complete elimination of Hezbollah from the border zone and therefore failed to guarantee the safety of returning residents.

Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Mike Herzog, told Israeli army radio that a ceasefire could be reached within days.

Herzog said there remained points to finalise but added: “We are close to a deal.”

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said on Monday that ceasefire talks were moving forward, but insisted that Israel would retain its capacity to strike southern Lebanon in any agreement. He confirmed that the issue would be discussed by Israel’s security cabinet in the next two days.

Lebanon’s deputy parliamentary speaker, Elias Bou Saab, told Reuters there were “no serious obstacles” to starting the implementation of the truce. Reuters also cited an unnamed Lebanese official and western diplomat as telling Lebanese officials that a ceasefire could be announced within hours.

The US news site Axios reported that a deal had been nearing completion last week but was delayed by the international criminal court decision to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and in particular France’s apparent indication on Thursday that it would fulfil its obligations as a state signatory to the court’s founding statute.

The immediate Israeli response was to oppose French membership of the five-nation monitoring committee envisaged by the ceasefire agreement, despite France’s historic ties and longstanding involvement in Lebanon. Israel reportedly dropped its opposition to French participation in the committee on Monday after Paris clarified its reaction to the court’s warrant, calling the question over whether France would arrest Netanyahu or Gallant if they visited its territory “legally complex”.

On Monday the Élysée said ceasefire negotiations had made significant progress and urged both sides to seize the opportunity.

The Biden administration has been working on a deal for several months, anxious to contain the spread of the Gaza war and eager to secure a diplomatic win in its last two months in office, before Donald Trump takes over. A US special envoy, Amos Hochstein, was in the region last week, seeking to finalise the agreement.

US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk will be in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss using a potential Lebanon ceasefire as a catalyst for a deal ending hostilities in Gaza, the White House said on Monday.

The proposed agreement is closely modelled on a ceasefire deal that ended the last major Israeli war with Hezbollah in 2006, which also involved an Israeli and Hezbollah withdrawal from the zone between the Litani River and the border. It was never fully implemented.

A Guardian investigation has found that Israel used a US munition to target and kill three journalists and wound three more in a 25 October attack in south Lebanon which legal experts have called a potential war crime.

On 25 October at 3.19am, an Israeli jet shot two bombs at a chalet hosting three journalists – cameraman Ghassan Najjar and technician Mohammad Reda from pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, as well as cameraman Wissam Qassem from the Hezbollah-affiliated outlet al-Manar.

All three were killed in their sleep in the attack which also wounded three other journalists from different outlets staying nearby. There was no fighting in the area before or at the time of the strike.

The Guardian visited the site, interviewed the owner of the property and journalists present at the time of the attack, analysed shrapnel found at the strike site, and geo-located Israeli surveillance equipment in range of the journalists’ positions. Based on the Guardian’s findings, three experts in international humanitarian law said the attack could constitute a war crime and called for further investigation.

“All the indications show that this would have been a deliberate targeting of journalists: a war crime. This was clearly delineated as a place where journalists were staying,” said Nadim Houry, a human rights lawyer and executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative.

After the strike, the Israeli military said that it had struck a “Hezbollah military structure” while “terrorists were located inside the structure”. A few hours after the attack, the Israeli army said that the incident was “under review” following reports that journalists were hit in the strike.

The Guardian found no evidence of the presence of Hezbollah military infrastructure at the site of Israel’s attack, nor that any of the journalists were anything but civilians. The Israeli military did not respond to a request for clarification of which of the journalists were Hezbollah militants nor on the status of the strike’s review.

“Ghassan was not a member of Hezbollah, he was a member of the press. He never had a gun, not even for hunting. His weapon was his camera,” Sana Najjar, Ghassan Najjar’s wife, said in an interview with the Guardian. Ghassan left behind a three-and-a-half-year-old son.

The coffin of one of the journalists, Qassem from al-Manar, was buried wrapped in a Hezbollah flag. The practice is an honorific for people or families who profess political support for the group, but does not indicate that the journalist occupied a political or military role in Hezbollah.

Regardless of their political affiliation, killing journalists is illegal under international humanitarian law unless they are actively participating in military activities.

Janina Dill, co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, said: “It is a dangerous trend already witnessed in Gaza that journalists are linked to military operations in virtue of their assumed affiliation or political leanings, then seemingly become targets of attack. This is not compatible with international law.”

A day after Israel began its ground offensives inside Lebanon, a group of about 18 journalists arrived at a luxury guest house resort in Hasbaya, south Lebanon in October. The Israeli advance had forced them to relocate from Ebl al-Saqi, a town in south Lebanon where they had stayed for the past 11 months to cover the hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.

They chose to stay in the Druze-majority town due to its lack of affiliation with Hezbollah and because it had not previously been targeted by Israeli strikes, according to Yumna Fawaz, a journalist for Lebanese outlet MTV who was present on the day of the attack.

The guest houses were owned by a Lebanese-American, Anoir Ghaida, who said that he searched the chalet and car of the targeted journalists after the strike “like you would search for a needle in a haystack,” but found “nothing suspicious” about the journalists.

The reporters used the guest houses as a base for 23 days, travelling to a hilltop a 10-minute drive away to film hostilities and produce live coverage each day. The hilltop gave a view of the border villages of Chebaa and Khiam, where fighting between Hezbollah and Israel continued. They drove cars marked with “Press”, and wore flak jackets and helmets emblazoned with press symbols.

The hilltop was in direct line of sight of three Israeli watchtowers – all within approximately 10km from the live location. Israeli watchtowers are commonly equipped with “Speed-er” cameras, which can automatically track targets up to 10km away, as well as video, thermal and infrared imaging capabilities.

Other journalists in the group said that the presence of Israeli reconnaissance drones was “constant” over both the live location and the Hasbaya guest house during their 23-day stay there.

“On the night of the attack, we were sitting in front of the chalets and the drone was flying super low on top of us,” said Fatima Ftouni, a journalist at al-Mayadeen who was staying a few chalets down from her colleagues when they were struck.

Ftouni went to bed but was awakened a few hours later by the sound of an explosion. She dug herself out from beneath the rubble of her chalet’s collapsed roof and reached for her helmet. Her flak jacket had been shredded by the force of the blast. She escaped her smoke-filled room to find her colleagues dead on the ground.

The chalet where Najjar, Reda and Qassem had been sleeping had been directly struck by a bomb delivered by an Israeli jet, with another bomb landing beside the structure.

Remnants of munitions found at the site revealed that at least one of the weapons was a 500lb MK-80 series bomb guided by a US-made JDAM – a kit that converts large dumb bombs into precision-guided weapons. The fragments were verified by Trevor Ball, a former bomb disposal specialist for the US army, a second arms expert at Omega Research Foundation and a third weapons expert who was not authorised to speak to the media.

A piece of the tail fin of the Jdam, produced by Boeing, as well as part of the internal control section that moves the fin, was found. A cage code on the remnant of the control section revealed that it was produced by Woodward, a Colorado-based aerospace company. Neither Boeing nor Woodward responded to requests for comment.

The use of at least one precision-guided bomb would imply that the Israeli military selected the chalet housing the three journalists as a target before the strike. The presence of drones and watchtowers overlooking the group of clearly marked journalists for the prior 23 days makes it likely that Israeli forces were aware of their location – and their status as members of the press.

A state department spokesperson declined to comment on the attack in Hasbaya but said that the US has “consistently urged Israel to ensure protection of civilians, including journalists”.

Under US law, if a country uses arms supplied by the US in a war crime, military assistance to that country should be suspended. Despite evidence of several instances where US munitions have been used by Israel to commit potential war crimes, US military assistance to Israel has continued unaffected.

Israel has killed six journalists in Lebanon and at least 129 in Gaza since 7 October 2023 – the deadliest period for journalists in the last four decades, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

According to Irene Khan, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Israeli authorities are “blatantly ignoring” its international legal obligations towards the protection of journalists.

Khan said: “The Guardian’s story of what happened in southern Lebanon matches with the pattern of killings and attacks by Israeli forces on journalists in Gaza. Targeted killings, the excuse that the attacks were aimed against armed groups without providing any evidence to support the claim, the failure to conduct thorough investigations, all seem to be part of a deliberate strategy by the Israeli military to silence critical reporting on the war and obstruct the documentation of possible international war crimes.”

Despite statements indicating that it would review certain attacks against journalists, the Israeli military has yet to release any information regarding investigations into its killing of journalists.

“It is the silence of the international community that let this happen,” Ftouni said.

Attacks on journalists in Hasbaya and other parts of south Lebanon have had a chilling effect on media workers in Lebanon, who no longer know where they can work safely.

Meanwhile, the families of the journalists are unable to move past the loss of their loved ones.

“He really was a great man. I know he looked so big, but he was really a gentle man. And he was so, so funny,” Najjar said of her husband, Ghassan.

“I still don’t believe that Ghassan died. I’m still waiting for the door to open and for him to enter. He promised me that someday we would grow old and we would go live in the south together – but now he stayed there and I will stay here, in Beirut, forever,” she said.

There isn’t a galaxy far, far away enough where women can escape sexist online trolls.

Emily Calandrelli became the 100th woman to go to space when she joined a group of six space tourists in a launch led by Blue Origin, the aerospace company owned by the billionaire Jeff Bezos.

“We got to weightlessness, I immediately turned upside down and looked at the planet and then there was so much blackness. There was so much space,” Calandrelli said in a video posted to social media that showed her reacting with awe to seeing Earth from space.

She added: “I didn’t expect to see so much space, and I kept saying that’s our planet! That’s our planet! It was the same feeling I got when my kids were born, and I was like, ‘That’s my baby!’”

But it was not long before the comments beneath the video were flooded with hateful, objectifying remarks.

The astronaut and MIT engineer said some sexualized her reaction to viewing the planet from space. The incident led to Blue Origin taking down the original video from its social media accounts.

Calandrelli, who also hosts a television show on Netflix called Emily’s Wonder Lab, where she’s known as “Space Gal”, said the reactions made her sad and angry, but she doubled down on her joy. In an Instagram post, she wrote she refuses “to give much time to the small men on the internet.

“I feel experiences in my soul. It’s a trait I got from my father,” she said. “We feel every emotion deeply and what a beautiful way that is to experience life. This joy is tattooed on my heart.

“I will not apologize or feel weird about my reaction. It’s wholly mine and I love it.”

Calandrelli said in an interview with CNN that the beauty of sending more women into space is that they “get to describe it in a way that moms can understand, that women can understand”.

Blue Origin did not respond to a request for comment.

Germany is drawing up a list of bunkers that could provide emergency shelter for civilians, the interior ministry has said, at a time of rising tensions with Russia.

The list would include underground train stations and car parks as well as state buildings and private properties, a ministry spokesperson said.

A digital directory of bunkers and emergency shelters will be drawn up so people can find them quickly using a planned phone app. People would also be encouraged to create protective shelters in their homes by converting basements and garages, the spokesperson told a press briefing.

He declined to give a timetable, saying it was a big project that would take some time, involving the Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance and other authorities.

The country of 84 million people has 579 bunkers, mostly from the second world war and the cold war era, which can provide shelter for 480,000 people, down from about 2,000 bunkers previously.

The spokesperson said the key points of the plan were agreed at a conference of senior officials in June and a special group was looking into it.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, concerns have been growing about Moscow’s potential to target other Nato members. In October, German intelligence chiefs warned that Russia would probably be capable of launching an attack on the military alliance by 2030.

German officials say the country is already experiencing a sharp rise in Russian spying and sabotage activities. Last week the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said the conflict in Ukraine had characteristics of a “global” war and he did not rule out strikes on western countries.

Germany is drawing up a list of bunkers that could provide emergency shelter for civilians, the interior ministry has said, at a time of rising tensions with Russia.

The list would include underground train stations and car parks as well as state buildings and private properties, a ministry spokesperson said.

A digital directory of bunkers and emergency shelters will be drawn up so people can find them quickly using a planned phone app. People would also be encouraged to create protective shelters in their homes by converting basements and garages, the spokesperson told a press briefing.

He declined to give a timetable, saying it was a big project that would take some time, involving the Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance and other authorities.

The country of 84 million people has 579 bunkers, mostly from the second world war and the cold war era, which can provide shelter for 480,000 people, down from about 2,000 bunkers previously.

The spokesperson said the key points of the plan were agreed at a conference of senior officials in June and a special group was looking into it.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, concerns have been growing about Moscow’s potential to target other Nato members. In October, German intelligence chiefs warned that Russia would probably be capable of launching an attack on the military alliance by 2030.

German officials say the country is already experiencing a sharp rise in Russian spying and sabotage activities. Last week the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said the conflict in Ukraine had characteristics of a “global” war and he did not rule out strikes on western countries.

Suriname’s president has announced a program of “royalties for everyone” as the South American nation plans for a boon from recently discovered oil and gas reserves.

Suriname and its neighbor Guyana, both former Dutch colonies, expect to make billions in the years to come from rich offshore crude deposits. Earlier this month, Guyana announced all adult citizens living at home and abroad would received a payout of around £370 as part of an effort to redistribute its oil wealth.

Experts have said Suriname – a country of 600,000 people – stands to make about $10bn in the next 10 to 20 years.

Almost one in five Surinamese people today live in poverty, according to World Bank figures. Annual GDP is about $3.4bn.

Last month, French oil group Total announced a $10.5bn project to exploit an oil field off the coast of Suriname with a capacity of producing 220,000 barrels per day.

Production should start in 2028.

On Monday, President Chan Santokhi said royalties will be paid “so that every Surinamese can benefit and profit from oil and gas”.

Each citizen would receive an amount of $750 in a savings account, with an annual interest rate of seven percent, he said in an Independence Day address.

“Everyone shall benefit from this opportunity and no one will be left behind,” the president vowed. “You are co-owners of the oil incomes.”

Santokhi had previously told AFP his country was “quite aware of the oil curse”, also known as “Dutch disease”, which had befallen other resource-rich countries such as Venezuela, Angola and Algeria that were unable to turn oil wealth into economic success.

Norway became an exception to the “curse” by building up a sovereign wealth fund.

Suriname has set up a similar fund in expectation of the oil cash influx.

With reporting by Agence France-Presse

Drake has launched legal action against Universal Music Group and Spotify, alleging they conspired to artificially inflate interest in Kendrick Lamar’s diss track about him, Not Like Us, while suppressing his own music.

In a petition filed to the New York supreme court on Monday, attorneys for Drake’s company Frozen Moments LLC accused UMG and the streaming service of having “launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves”, using various tactics to make Lamar’s song more popular.

“UMG … conspired with and paid currently unknown parties to use ‘bots’ to artificially inflate the spread of Not Like Us and deceive consumers into believing the song was more popular than it was in reality,” Drake’s lawyers write.

The petition also alleges that UMG paid influencers to promote Not Like Us on social media and set up pay-to-play agreements with radio stations.

A spokesperson for UMG told the Guardian: “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue. We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.” Spotify declined to comment.

Both Drake and Lamar have been associated with UMG for their entire careers: Drake via Republic Records and Lamar via Interscope. The company owns both labels.

The petition is not a full lawsuit but a procedure under New York law that allows Drake’s attorneys to ask the court to order UMG and Spotify to preserve all relevant documents and information, pending a lawsuit.

But it is an extraordinary step in an escalating battle between the two rappers, which began as an exchange of diss tracks. In songs including Euphoria, Meet the Grahams and Not Like Us, Lamar accused Drake of having sexual relationships with underage girls, as well as fathering secret children. In response, Drake released tracks including Family Matters and The Heart Part 6, which accused Lamar of domestic abuse and infidelity, criticised his collaboration with Taylor Swift and mocked his height. Both Drake and Lamar have always denied any wrongdoing.

Drake’s petition alleges that UMG reduced the licensing rates it charges Spotify in exchange for the streamer recommending Lamar’s track to its users even when they searched for unrelated songs or artists. The petition also claims that UMG paid Apple to make its digital assistant Siri “purposely misdirect” users who asked to listen to Drake’s songs to instead stream Not Like Us.

The petition also alleges that UMG’s “scheme” lead to Not Like Us being streamed 900m times, making it the most-streamed diss track in Spotify history. The track holds Spotify records for biggest single-day streams for a hip-hop song (12.8m) and the most song streams in a week by a rapper (81.2m).

Drake’s attorneys allege that “UMG’s schemes … were motivated, at least in part, by the desire of executives at Interscope to maximize their own profits”, and that the success of Not Like Us had led to a boost in streaming of Lamar’s back catalogue, which financially benefited UMG.

The petition claims Drake “repeatedly sought to engage UMG in discussions to resolve the ongoing harm he has suffered as a result of UMG’s actions” but claims that the music giant has “no interest in taking responsibility for its misconduct” and instead “pointed the finger” at Lamar, directing Drake to sue the rapper and not UMG.

Drake’s attorneys claim they had “received information that UMG has been taking steps in an apparent effort to conceal its schemes, including, but not limited to, by terminating employees associated with or perceived as having loyalty to Drake”.

They allege UMG violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act – a federal statute widely known as “Rico”, which is often used in criminal cases against organised crime – as well as deceptive business practices and false advertising.

A Texas woman has died after receiving inadequate medical treatment for a miscarriage, according to a new report from ProPublica – the fifth pregnant woman the publication has found to have died since the fall of Roe v Wade after receiving inadequate care or being denied a legal abortion.

Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old mother of two, died in June 2023 after experiencing a miscarriage in Texas, where nearly all abortions are banned, ProPublica reported on Monday. Ten weeks into her pregnancy, Ngumezi started to bleed and went to Houston Methodist Sugar Land, which is part of the Houston Methodist hospital chain and located in the Houston metropolitan area. While at the hospital, Ngumezi continued to bleed for several hours. She underwent multiple blood transfusions.

Doctors who reviewed Ngumezi’s case told ProPublica that she should have been offered a dilation and curettage, or D&C, a common procedure that can be used for miscarriages and abortions to clear tissue from the uterus. However, some doctors in states with abortion bans have become hesitant to offer D&Cs, doctors said, because they are afraid of being punished for violating abortion bans – even in situations where women’s pregnancies have ended, as in Ngumezi’s case.

Rather than being offered a D&C, a doctor gave Ngumezi misoprostol, ProPublica reported. Although misoprostol is frequently used in miscarriages and abortions, it can be dangerous to give to women who are – like Ngumezi – bleeding heavily.

However, in states with abortion bans, doctors may feel more comfortable giving patients misoprostol than giving them D&Cs, because D&Cs can attract too much attention.

“You have to convince everyone that it is legal and won’t put them at risk,” Dr Alison Goulding, a Houston OB-GYN, told ProPublica of D&Cs. “Many people may be afraid and misinformed and refuse to participate – even if it’s for a miscarriage.”

Ngumezi started complaining of chest pain, but the doctor treating Ngumezi did not order any additional tests, according to ProPublica. Several hours after her arrival at the hospital, Ngumezi started fighting to breathe.

Her husband was at the hospital when Ngumezi died.

Doctors and nurses involved in Ngumezi’s care did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment. Houston Methodist also did not answer questions from the outlet.

“All Houston Methodist hospitals follow all state laws, including the abortion law in place in Texas,” a hospital spokesperson told ProPublica.

ProPublica has previously reported on four other deaths of women who had their medical care delayed after miscarriages or who were unable to undergo legal abortions. Two of the women, Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain, also lived in Texas. Two others, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, lived in Georgia, which bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

In reporting on Thurman and Miller’s deaths, ProPublica obtained reports from a state committee in Georgia that reviews the deaths of pregnant women and issues recommendations about how to improve the state’s maternal mortality rates. Georgia subsequently dismissed all 32 members of that committee, ProPublica reported last week.

Weight-loss drugs can reduce the risk of worsening kidney function, kidney failure and dying from kidney disease by a fifth, according to a study.

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists are a family of medications that help people shed the pounds, manage blood sugar in patients with type 2 diabetes and prevent heart attacks and strokes in people with heart disease.

But while the benefits of the drugs for treating obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease are well known, their potential impact on kidney health has been less certain.

Now the largest and most comprehensive analysis of GLP-1 receptor agonists on kidney outcomes suggests they could have significant benefits. The findings were published in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal.

Researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 11 large-scale clinical trials of weight loss drugs involving more than 85,000 people. The group included people with type 2 diabetes, and people with cardiovascular disease who were overweight or obese but did not have type 2 diabetes.

Seven different GLP-1 receptor agonists were investigated among the trials, including semaglutide, also known as Ozempic or Wegovy, dulaglutide and liraglutide.

Compared with placebo, GLP-1 receptor agonists reduced the risk of kidney failure by 16% and the worsening of kidney function by 22%, researchers said. The combined reduction in the risk of kidney failure, worsening kidney function and death due to kidney disease was 19%.

The analysis also confirmed previous findings that weight-loss drugs protect cardiovascular health, with a 14% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular death, non-fatal heart attack and non-fatal stroke, compared with placebo. Death by any cause was 13% lower among patients treated with GLP-1 receptor agonists.

Lead author Prof Sunil Badve, professorial fellow at the George Institute for Global Health and UNSW Sydney, said the study expanded current knowledge about the potential benefits of the drugs.

“This is the first study to show a clear benefit of GLP-1 receptor agonists on kidney failure or end-stage kidney disease, suggesting they have a key role in kidney-protective and heart-protective treatment for patients with common medical conditions like type 2 diabetes, overweight or obesity with cardiovascular disease, or CKD [chronic kidney disease],” he said.

“These results are particularly important for patients with chronic kidney disease. It is a progressive condition eventually leading to kidney failure requiring dialysis or kidney transplantation and is associated with premature death, mostly from heart disease. It has a significant impact on patients’ quality of life and incurs substantial healthcare costs.”

CKD is estimated to affect one in 10 people worldwide, equivalent to about 850 million people. It is the 10th leading cause of death and is projected to become the fifth most common cause of death by 2050.

Prof Vlado Perkovic, professorial fellow at the George Institute, provost at UNSW Sydney and senior author on the study, said: “This research shows that GLP-1 receptor agonists could play an important role in addressing the global burden of non-communicable diseases.

“Our study will have a major impact on clinical guidelines for the management of chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease in people with and without diabetes.

“More work is now needed to implement the results of this study into clinical practice and improve access to GLP-1 receptor agonists to people who will benefit from them.”

Two Britons are reported to be among 16 people missing after a tourist boat on a diving trip capsized in the Red Sea.

The Sea Story was carrying 30 tourists from several countries and 14 crew when it sent a distress signal at 5.30am local time (0330 GMT), according to Egypt’s Red Sea governorate.

It was not immediately clear what caused the four-deck, wooden-hulled motor yacht to sink. There are unconfirmed reports that the boat was hit by a wave in high winds.

So far, 28 people have been rescued, leaving 16 people missing including two from the UK, according to the BBC. The UK Foreign Office confirmed it was providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families after the incident.

The boat left Port Ghalib, near Marsa Alam in Egypt, for a diving trip that was due to finish on Friday in the town of Hurghada, 124 miles (200km) north. The governor, Amr Hanafi, said some survivors had been rescued by an aircraft, while others were transported to safety onboard a warship.

“Intensive search operations are under way in coordination with the navy and the armed forces,” Hanafi said.

Authorities have not indicated the possible cause of the incident or issued a breakdown of the nationalities of the missing people. Hanafi said the yacht was carrying 44 people, which included 31 foreign nationals from the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, Belgium, Switzerland, Finland, China, Slovakia, Spain and Ireland.

Twenty-eight people were saved by rescuers, with 16 people, including four Egyptians still missing, Hanafi said on Monday evening.

Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs told the Associated Press that it is “aware of this incident and is providing consular assistance” without revealing further details. The Finnish foreign ministry confirmed to Agence France-Presse that one of its nationals was missing, while a Polish foreign ministry spokesperson told the news agency that the Egyptian authorities had told it that two of those involved “may have had Polish citizenship”.

According to a manager of a diving resort close to the rescue operation, one surviving crew member said they were “hit by a wave in the middle of the night, throwing the vessel on its side”.

The manager, who asked not to be named, told AFP it was “unlikely that the missing would be rescued after 12 hours in the water”.

Marine activities had been suspended on Sunday because of bad weather in the Red Sea capital of Hurghada. Winds around Marsa Alam were said to be favourable until Sunday evening. The area of Marsa Alam has had at least two similar incidents this year. Both ended without any deaths.

The Red Sea coast is a popular tourist destination in Egypt, a country of 105 million people that is in the grip of an economic crisis. Nationally, the tourism sector employs 2 million people and generates more than 10% of GDP.

This month, 30 people were rescued from a sinking dive boat near the Red Sea’s Deadalus reef. In June, 24 French tourists were safely evacuated before their boat sank in a similar accident.

Last year, three British tourists died after a fire broke out on their yacht, engulfing the vessel in flames. Dozens of diving boats make trips between coral reefs and islands off Egypt’s eastern coast every day. Safety regulations are known to be robust but unevenly enforced.