Israel and Hezbollah have agreed a highly anticipated ceasefire to the 14-month-old war in Lebanon in what Joe Biden called a “historic” moment as he announced the deal from the White House.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had endorsed an imminent ceasefire in the country’s war with the Lebanese group after his full cabinet approved the deal on Tuesday evening despite opposition from his far-right allies.

In televised remarks after the Israeli security cabinet met to vote on the proposal for a 60-day ceasefire, Netanyahu said he was ready to implement the deal, but added that Israel would retain “complete military freedom of action” in the event of an infringement by Hezbollah.

“We will enforce the agreement and respond forcefully to any violation. Together, we will continue until victory,” Netanyahu said.

In remarks from the White House Rose Garden, Biden said: “Under the deal reached today, effective at 4am tomorrow, local time, the fighting across the Lebanese Israeli border will end.”.

“This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities. What is left of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations will not be allowed, I emphasize, will not be allowed to threaten the security of Israel again,” he said.

“Today’s announcement is a critical step… and so I applaud the courageous decision made by the leaders of Lebanon and Israel to end the violence,” he continued. “It reminds us that peace is possible. Say that again, peace is possible.”

Biden said that US troops would not be committed to the border between Israel and Lebanon, but that “we, along with France and others, will provide the necessary assistance to make sure this deal is implemented fully and effectively.”

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, welcomed the deal, which he said was “the culmination of efforts undertaken for many months with the Israeli and Lebanese authorities, in close collaboration with the United States”.

In a statement posted online, Macron said the deal should “turn the page for Lebanon” but cautioned: “We must not forget that war continues to plague Gaza, where France will continue its efforts for an end of hostilities, the liberation of hostages and massive delivery of humanitarian aid.”

He added: “This accord should also open the way for a ceasefire which has taken too long to arrive in the face of the immeasurable suffering of the people of Gaza.”

The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, saying: “We must seize this moment. It must be a turning point that builds momentum towards a lasting peace across the Middle East.”

Even as the deal was set to be announced, Israel stepped up its campaign of airstrikes against the Lebanese capital of Beirut and other areas of the country, killing 18 people according to the country’s health authorities.

The deal follows months of international lobbying from the Biden administration, which had launched desperate efforts to halt the fighting but regularly came up short after promising that a deal was imminent.

The US is expected to be a key security guarantor of the deal. The signing of a ceasefire comes with less than two months left in the lame duck Biden administration, meaning that the president-elect, Donald Trump, could continue to support or upend the deal when he enters office on 20 January.

A senior White House administration official confirmed that Trump’s national security team had been briefed on the plans for the ceasefire and said that the president-elect’s administration was expected to maintain support for it.

“They seem to be support it,” the administration official said. “And for the obvious reason that I think they agreed this is good for Israel, as prime minister Netanyahu just said, it is good for Lebanon, as their government has said, and it is good for the national security of the United States. And most important, doing it now versus later, we’ll save countless lives on both sides.”

Netanyahu said that there were three reasons to pursue a ceasefire: to focus on the threat from Iran; replenish depleted arms supplies and rest tired reservists; and to isolate Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that triggered war in the region when it attacked Israel on 7 October last year.

Importantly for Israel, Hezbollah dropped its demand that a ceasefire in Lebanon was contingent on ending the fighting in Gaza.

Netanyahu noted what he said was the group’s weakness after 13 months of fighting, saying: “We have set [Hezbollah] back decades, eliminated … its top leaders, destroyed most of its rockets and missiles, neutralised thousands of fighters, and obliterated years of terror infrastructure near our border.”

The deal is expected to go into force at 0200GMT Wednesday. Biden administration officials said that negotiations had continued as late as Monday evening and that while the discussions were “very constructive”, that “nothing is done until everything is done. Nothing’s all negotiated till everything is negotiated.”

Israeli television reported that the security cabinet had approved the proposal and that it would be put to the wider cabinet later on Tuesday evening. Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, is also expected to give a statement later on Tuesday.

The far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on social media that he opposed the agreement, calling it a “historical mistake”. He said Israel “must not trust anyone but ourselves” and predicted that it would soon lead to renewed fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

But he did not threaten to withdraw from Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, indicating that the Israeli prime minister may be able to contain any discontent on the right wing of his ruling coalition.

Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in support of its ally, Hamas, the day after the Palestinian group attacked Israel, triggering the regional conflagration.

The conflict on the blue line – a demarcation line dividing Lebanon from Israel – escalated in late September, when hundreds of Hezbollah pagers exploded in an attack attributed to Israel. Israel then killed much of Hezbollah’s leadership in airstrikes and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

Under the deal’s terms, Israel will withdraw entirely from southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah will move its heavy weaponry north of the Litani River, about 16 miles (25km) north of the border.

“We don’t mean that at the end of the 60 days, the Israeli troops will withdraw, but rather, by the time we reach somewhere in the 50 to 60 days, all Israeli troops will be gone,” said the administration official. “So it will be a phased withdrawal in different sectors where the Israelis are.”

During the 60-day transition phase, the Lebanese army will deploy to the buffer border zone alongside the existing UN peacekeeping force. Longstanding border disputes will be discussed after the 60-day withdrawal period.

The process will be monitored by a US-led supervisory mechanism that will act as a referee on infringements. A letter of assurance that was not formally part of the deal reportedly guarantees US support for Israeli freedom of action if Hezbollah attacks Israel again or moves its forces or weaponry south of the Litani.

The agreement follows the contours of UN security council resolution 1701, which ended the 36-day Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006 but was never fully implemented.

The deal will not have any direct effect on the fighting in Gaza, where US efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have not led to a deal. The negotiations over Tuesday’s ceasefire were reportedly facilitated by a decision to decouple them from the Gaza talks, where the conflict remains intractable.

But asked about whether a Gaza ceasefire deal may follow, Biden said: “I think so. I hope so. I’m praying.”

Israel and Hezbollah have agreed a highly anticipated ceasefire to the 14-month-old war in Lebanon in what Joe Biden called a “historic” moment as he announced the deal from the White House.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had endorsed an imminent ceasefire in the country’s war with the Lebanese group after his full cabinet approved the deal on Tuesday evening despite opposition from his far-right allies.

In televised remarks after the Israeli security cabinet met to vote on the proposal for a 60-day ceasefire, Netanyahu said he was ready to implement the deal, but added that Israel would retain “complete military freedom of action” in the event of an infringement by Hezbollah.

“We will enforce the agreement and respond forcefully to any violation. Together, we will continue until victory,” Netanyahu said.

In remarks from the White House Rose Garden, Biden said: “Under the deal reached today, effective at 4am tomorrow, local time, the fighting across the Lebanese Israeli border will end.”.

“This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities. What is left of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations will not be allowed, I emphasize, will not be allowed to threaten the security of Israel again,” he said.

“Today’s announcement is a critical step… and so I applaud the courageous decision made by the leaders of Lebanon and Israel to end the violence,” he continued. “It reminds us that peace is possible. Say that again, peace is possible.”

Biden said that US troops would not be committed to the border between Israel and Lebanon, but that “we, along with France and others, will provide the necessary assistance to make sure this deal is implemented fully and effectively.”

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, welcomed the deal, which he said was “the culmination of efforts undertaken for many months with the Israeli and Lebanese authorities, in close collaboration with the United States”.

In a statement posted online, Macron said the deal should “turn the page for Lebanon” but cautioned: “We must not forget that war continues to plague Gaza, where France will continue its efforts for an end of hostilities, the liberation of hostages and massive delivery of humanitarian aid.”

He added: “This accord should also open the way for a ceasefire which has taken too long to arrive in the face of the immeasurable suffering of the people of Gaza.”

The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, saying: “We must seize this moment. It must be a turning point that builds momentum towards a lasting peace across the Middle East.”

Even as the deal was set to be announced, Israel stepped up its campaign of airstrikes against the Lebanese capital of Beirut and other areas of the country, killing 18 people according to the country’s health authorities.

The deal follows months of international lobbying from the Biden administration, which had launched desperate efforts to halt the fighting but regularly came up short after promising that a deal was imminent.

The US is expected to be a key security guarantor of the deal. The signing of a ceasefire comes with less than two months left in the lame duck Biden administration, meaning that the president-elect, Donald Trump, could continue to support or upend the deal when he enters office on 20 January.

A senior White House administration official confirmed that Trump’s national security team had been briefed on the plans for the ceasefire and said that the president-elect’s administration was expected to maintain support for it.

“They seem to be support it,” the administration official said. “And for the obvious reason that I think they agreed this is good for Israel, as prime minister Netanyahu just said, it is good for Lebanon, as their government has said, and it is good for the national security of the United States. And most important, doing it now versus later, we’ll save countless lives on both sides.”

Netanyahu said that there were three reasons to pursue a ceasefire: to focus on the threat from Iran; replenish depleted arms supplies and rest tired reservists; and to isolate Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that triggered war in the region when it attacked Israel on 7 October last year.

Importantly for Israel, Hezbollah dropped its demand that a ceasefire in Lebanon was contingent on ending the fighting in Gaza.

Netanyahu noted what he said was the group’s weakness after 13 months of fighting, saying: “We have set [Hezbollah] back decades, eliminated … its top leaders, destroyed most of its rockets and missiles, neutralised thousands of fighters, and obliterated years of terror infrastructure near our border.”

The deal is expected to go into force at 0200GMT Wednesday. Biden administration officials said that negotiations had continued as late as Monday evening and that while the discussions were “very constructive”, that “nothing is done until everything is done. Nothing’s all negotiated till everything is negotiated.”

Israeli television reported that the security cabinet had approved the proposal and that it would be put to the wider cabinet later on Tuesday evening. Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, is also expected to give a statement later on Tuesday.

The far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on social media that he opposed the agreement, calling it a “historical mistake”. He said Israel “must not trust anyone but ourselves” and predicted that it would soon lead to renewed fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

But he did not threaten to withdraw from Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, indicating that the Israeli prime minister may be able to contain any discontent on the right wing of his ruling coalition.

Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in support of its ally, Hamas, the day after the Palestinian group attacked Israel, triggering the regional conflagration.

The conflict on the blue line – a demarcation line dividing Lebanon from Israel – escalated in late September, when hundreds of Hezbollah pagers exploded in an attack attributed to Israel. Israel then killed much of Hezbollah’s leadership in airstrikes and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

Under the deal’s terms, Israel will withdraw entirely from southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah will move its heavy weaponry north of the Litani River, about 16 miles (25km) north of the border.

“We don’t mean that at the end of the 60 days, the Israeli troops will withdraw, but rather, by the time we reach somewhere in the 50 to 60 days, all Israeli troops will be gone,” said the administration official. “So it will be a phased withdrawal in different sectors where the Israelis are.”

During the 60-day transition phase, the Lebanese army will deploy to the buffer border zone alongside the existing UN peacekeeping force. Longstanding border disputes will be discussed after the 60-day withdrawal period.

The process will be monitored by a US-led supervisory mechanism that will act as a referee on infringements. A letter of assurance that was not formally part of the deal reportedly guarantees US support for Israeli freedom of action if Hezbollah attacks Israel again or moves its forces or weaponry south of the Litani.

The agreement follows the contours of UN security council resolution 1701, which ended the 36-day Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006 but was never fully implemented.

The deal will not have any direct effect on the fighting in Gaza, where US efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have not led to a deal. The negotiations over Tuesday’s ceasefire were reportedly facilitated by a decision to decouple them from the Gaza talks, where the conflict remains intractable.

But asked about whether a Gaza ceasefire deal may follow, Biden said: “I think so. I hope so. I’m praying.”

Brazil came within a whisker of a far-right military coup and the assassination of a supreme court judge just days before President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took power in January 2023, a federal police report has claimed.

The report about the alleged plot to help the rightwing populist Jair Bolsonaro cling to power was made public on Tuesday, and paints a chilling portrait of how close one of the world’s largest democracies came to being plunged back into authoritarian rule.

The 884-page document describes a complex, three-year conspiracy that investigators believe was designed to pave the way for a military power grab by using social media to disseminate false claims of electoral fraud that plotters hoped would justify such an intervention in the public eye.

Police claim that plot was supposed to reach “its zenith” on 15 December 2022 – a fortnight before Lula was due to be sworn in after narrowly beating Bolsonaro in October’s presidential election.

Conspirators, including several senior military figures, allegedly hoped that on that day Bolsonaro would sign a “coup decree” which would in effect allow a military takeover.

On 16 December 2022, “after the consummation of the coup d’état”, the report claims two close Bolsonaro allies – the former defence minister Gen Walter Braga Netto and the former minister of institutional security Gen Augusto Heleno – were to be placed in charge of a “crisis management” cabinet.

The federal police report – which the Guardian has reviewed – claims the only reason Bolsonaro did not sign that decree blocking the transfer of power was because the plotters had failed to secure sufficient support from Brazil’s military top brass.

“The evidence [gathered] … shows that the commander of the navy, Adm Almir Garnier [Santos], and the defence minister, [Gen] Paulo Sérgio [Nogueira de Oliveira], adhered to the coup attempt. However, the [army] commander [Marco Antônio] Freire Gomes and [Carlos de Almeida] Baptista Júnior of the air force positioned themselves against any kind of measure that would cause an institutional rupture in the country,” the report alleges.

Federal police said the only thing that prevented the coup attempt taking place was “the unequivocal stance” of Freire Gomes, Baptista Junior and the majority of the army high command. It claimed those people “remained faithful to the values ​​that govern the democratic rule of law state and did not cave in to coup-mongering pressure”.

Bolsonaro was last week formally accused of being one of 37 people involved in criminal conspiracy designed to obliterate Brazil’s democratic system through a rightwing coup d’état. He denied those accusations on Tuesday, calling them madness.

“I never discussed a coup with anyone,” he told reporters in the capital, Brasília. “If someone had come and talked to me about a coup, I would have asked them: ‘What about the day after? What would the world do?’”

However, the federal police report claimed: “The evidence obtained over the course of the investigation shows unequivocally that the then president Jair Messias Bolsonaro planned, took action and had direct and effective control of the executory acts carried out by the criminal organization that sought to execute a military coup and dismantle the rule of law, something that did not occur as a result of circumstances beyond his control.”

Gen Braga Netto last week denied a coup plot had been afoot, calling such claims “fanciful and absurd”. Gen Heleno has yet to comment on the police claims but last year publicly denied being involved in preparations for a coup.

Gen Nogueira de Oliveira and Adm Almir Garnier Santos have yet to publicly comment on the claims.

The police report indicates that schemers close to Bolsonaro had put in place contingency plans in case the alleged coup attempt failed. A laptop seized from Lt Col Mauro Cid, who was Bolsonaro’s aide-de-camp during his 2019-23 presidency, allegedly contained a PowerPoint presentation with details of a military-style escape plan for Bolsonaro “in case the attempted coup was thwarted”.

“The plan involves the use of weapons to ensure the ex-president’s escape,” the report adds of the alleged “exfiltration” plan.

The police inquiry also contains shocking details of how close plotters may have come to abducting or assassinating the supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes.

On 15 December, as plotters unsuccessfully pushed for Bolsonaro to sign the decree authorizing a military intervention, the report claims that at least six members of a pro-Bolsonaro cell “positioned themselves in strategic points near the minister’s official residence and the supreme court to carry out the action”. However, at the last minute the “clandestine” mission to “neutralize” Moraes was aborted, police said, partly because of the army chief’s refusal to support the conspiracy.

Police said they had also discovered plans to murder Lula and his vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin, in Lula’s case with poison or toxic chemicals. The report claimed Bolsonaro had “full knowledge” of the “operational planning” for such criminal acts.

​This week’s revelations have horrified and shocked many citizens in a country which only emerged from 21 years of military dictatorship in 1985. Several of those accused of being part of the 2022 pro-Bolsonaro coup plot were part of that 1964-85 regime. During the 1970s, Gen Heleno was an aide to Gen Sylvio Frota, a notoriously hardline member of the military regime who was involved in the 1964 coup that overthrew Brazil’s leftwing president João Goulart.

“How safe is our democracy​?” asked the headline of an opinion article in one of Brazil’s largest newspapers, the Folha de São Paulo​, on Tuesday evening.

Donald Trump’s team announced on Tuesday it had signed an agreement to start the complex process of transferring control of the federal government to themselves, although the details of the plan suggested some breaks with standard practice.

The incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said the team would now be sending in “landing teams” into the various departments and agencies as it prepares to take over the bureaucracy of the executive branch.

“After completing the selection process of his incoming cabinet, president-elect Trump is entering the next phase of his administration’s transition,” Wiles said. “This engagement allows our intended cabinet nominees to begin critical preparations.”

But the agreement with the Biden administration, known as a memorandum of understanding, appeared to be a pared-down version of what is normally signed by presidential transitions with caveats that indicated a departure from usual restrictions.

The signing of the memo normally unlocks up to $7.2m in government funding to help staffing costs and other expenses, as well as the use of government office space through the nonpartisan General Services Administration.

The financial assistance comes with strings attached – the transition team has to agree to disclose its donors and impose a $5,000 limit on contributions – and the agreement was supposed to be signed months before the election.

The transition team is normally supposed to sign an ethics agreement, which paves the way for transition aides to start receiving government information such as classified briefings and the granting of security clearances.

The announcement by Wiles in a press release suggested that the Trump team had negotiated its own language around some of those restrictions.

While the Trump team was committed to making the identities of its donors public, and would not accept any foreign contributions, Wiles said that it would not be using any government money and its entire operation would be privately funded.

Government ethics experts have previously noted that such an arrangement would allow people seeking to curry favor with the Trump White House to donate directly to him, raising concerns about possible conflicts of interest.

Wiles also said that the Trump team had its own ethics plan, rather than the formal government one, leaving unclear whether all relevant transition aides would be eligible to receive full government briefings that included classified information.

That caveat on the ethics plan dovetailed with reporting by the Guardian that the Trump team is planning for political appointees to receive temporary security clearances on the first day and only face FBI background checks after it had taken over the bureau.

Trump’s lack of interest in engaging with the formal transition stems from the first Trump administration, when officials turned over transition team records to the Russia investigation, according to people familiar with the matter.

Trump has previously broken convention with the transfer of power. In 2016, his campaign organized what appeared to be a standard process, until Trump fired his transition team’s leadership after he won the election and cut off communications with the Obama administration.

In 2020, Trump again seemed to follow standard procedure until immediately after the election, pressuring the General Services Administration to not recognize Joe Biden’s election win so his team could not access the federal financial assistance.

Donald Trump announced his selections for a series of positions in his administration Tuesday evening. The posts include the president-elect’s picks for deputy secretary of health and human services, US trade representative and head of the national economic council, among others.

Jamieson Greer, an attorney who served under Trump’s previous trade representative Robert Lighthizer, will serve as US trade representative. In his announcement, Trump said: “Jamieson played a key role during my First Term in imposing Tariffs on China and others to combat unfair Trade practices, and replacing the failed NAFTA deal with USMCA, therefore making it much better for American Workers.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Greer will be tasked with reining in the trade deficit and opening up “export markets everywhere”, among other things, Trump said.

Jim O’Neill will serve as deputy secretary of health and human services under Robert F Kennedy Jr. O’Neill served in the department under George W Bush, before going on to work in Silicon Valley, where he invested heavily in tech ventures alongside PayPal chief executive Peter Thiel. Thiel, who advised Trump’s first administration, encouraged the president-elect to nominate O’Neill to a high-level health role in the administration.

O’Neill has been vocally critical of the food and drug administration, saying in a 2014 speech that the FDA should approve drugs “after their sponsors have demonstrated safety, and let people start using them at their own risk” and “prove efficacy after they’ve been legalized”.

Trump named another high level health official, nominating Stanford academic and physician Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health. Bhattacharya was an outspoken critic of the US government’s Covid policies during the pandemic, and published the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020, which called for a return to life as normal for those who were not vulnerable to the virus.

The declaration – which came before the availability of Covid-19 vaccines – promoted “herd immunity”, the idea that people at low risk should live normally while building up immunity through infection. The proposal was embraced by some in the first Trump administration, including Trump himself who mistakenly referred to “herd mentality” as a way of stopping the spread of the virus.

Bhattacharya sued the government afterward, alleging that it pressured social media platforms to censor his opinions. The supreme court sided with the Biden administration in that case.

“Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest Health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease,” Trump wrote.

Kevin Hassett, a Stanford economist who served as chair of the council of economic advisers during Trump’s first administration, will lead the national economic council.

Hassett “played a crucial role in helping me to design and pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017”, Trump said in a statement. “Together, we will renew and improve our record Tax Cuts, and ensure that we have Fair Trade with Countries that have taken advantage of the United States in the past.”

Trump has named Vince Haley, who helped lead the speech-writing department during his first term, to be director of the domestic policy council, which drives implementation of the administration’s agenda. Trump adviser and immigration hardliner Stephen Miller applauded the announcement in a post on social media, saying Haley’s “talent, devotion, determination and deep philosophical commitment to the America First agenda is unmatched”.

John Phelan, who co-founded MSD Capital to manage the capital of Michael Dell, will be navy secretary. Phelan and his wife hosted a private fundraising dinner for Trump at their $38m home in Aspen, Colorado, in August.

Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s hardline incoming border czar, has threatened to put the mayor of Denver in jail after the latter said he was willing to risk incarceration to resist the president-elect’s migrant mass deportation plan.

The threat was issued against Mike Johnston, a Democrat, who said he was not afraid of being jailed and encouraged people to protest against mass round-ups of immigrants in their cities and communities.

Johnston’s remarks came after Trump focused during the presidential election campaign on the Denver suburb of Aurora, which he said had become “a war zone” where apartment buildings had been taken over by Venezuelan gang members.

Asked to respond by Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Homan said: “Me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing; he’s willing to go to jail. I’m willing to put him in jail.”

Johnston had originally been asked by a local Denver television station to respond to Homan’s previous vows to arrest local leaders and politicians who stood in the way of deportation efforts.

He said he was not willing to go to jail, though he is “not afraid of that” in a Friday interview with 9 News.

“I think the goal is we want to be able to negotiate with reasonable people how to solve hard problems,” he told the outlet.

He said previously, in a separate interview, that he would send Denver police to the city line to confront federal agents – an action he likened to Tiananmen Square. He later withdrew the comments.

Speaking to Hannity, Homan insisted that he was willing to put Johnston “in jail because there’s a statute”.

“What it says is that it’s a felony if you knowingly harbour and conceal an illegal alien from immigration authorities. It’s also a felony to impede a federal law enforcement officer. So if he don’t help, that’s fine. He can get the hell out of the way, but we’re going to go do the job,” he said, before adding: “I find it hard to believe that any mayor or governor would say they don’t want public safety threats removed from their neighbourhoods.

“I don’t know what the hell is going on in Denver, but we’re going to go in and we’re going to go and we’re going to fix it. If you don’t want to fix it, if you don’t want to protect his communities, President Trump and Ice [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] will.”

Homan, who was deputy director of Ice in Trump’s first administration, said the president-elect had a “mandate from the American people … to save American lives”.

He has taken a similarly unbending stance against other local and state Democratic politicians who have declared their local fiefdoms “sanctuary cities” safe from Trump’s deportation plans.

Gavin Newsom, the California governor, and the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, have both vowed opposition. Pritzker recently told journalists: “If you come for my people, you come through me.”

In a separate Fox News interview at the weekend, Homan said the incoming administration would respond to blocking tactics by withholding federal funding from non-compliant cities and states.

“That’s going to happen, I guarantee you,” he told the network’s Mark Levin.

The shock rocker Marilyn Manson has dropped his long-running defamation lawsuit against the actor Evan Rachel Wood and has agreed to pay her about $327,000 in attorneys’ fees, Deadline reported.

Wood had previously identified Manson as her abuser in February 2021, accusing her former fiance of sexual assault, psychological abuse, violence, coercion and intimidation.

The Westworld actor accused her former partner on social media in 2021 of “horrific” abuse, along with allegations of grooming her starting from when she was a teenager. Other women came forward with similar allegations following Wood’s public denouncement.

Manson denied the accusations, calling them “horrible distortions of reality”, and responded by filing a lawsuit against Wood in March 2022, citing defamation and emotional distress.

“Marilyn Manson – whose real name is Brian Warner – filed a lawsuit against Ms Wood as a publicity stunt to try to undermine the credibility of his many accusers and revive his faltering career. But his attempt to silence and intimidate Ms Wood failed,” a representative for Wood said in a statement obtained by Rolling Stone.

“As the trial court correctly found, Warner’s claims were meritless. Warner’s decision to finally abandon his lawsuit and pay Ms Wood her full fee award of almost $327,000 only confirms as much.”

A judge ruled against portions of Manson’s lawsuit in 2023 and ordered Manson to pay about $500,000 in attorney fees. Manson filed an appeal against the decision, which now appears unsuccessful following the dropping of his case.

According to Deadline, court documents indicating the end of the lawsuit and the agreement to pay Wood’s legal fees were signed yesterday by Manson.

The shock rocker Marilyn Manson has dropped his long-running defamation lawsuit against the actor Evan Rachel Wood and has agreed to pay her about $327,000 in attorneys’ fees, Deadline reported.

Wood had previously identified Manson as her abuser in February 2021, accusing her former fiance of sexual assault, psychological abuse, violence, coercion and intimidation.

The Westworld actor accused her former partner on social media in 2021 of “horrific” abuse, along with allegations of grooming her starting from when she was a teenager. Other women came forward with similar allegations following Wood’s public denouncement.

Manson denied the accusations, calling them “horrible distortions of reality”, and responded by filing a lawsuit against Wood in March 2022, citing defamation and emotional distress.

“Marilyn Manson – whose real name is Brian Warner – filed a lawsuit against Ms Wood as a publicity stunt to try to undermine the credibility of his many accusers and revive his faltering career. But his attempt to silence and intimidate Ms Wood failed,” a representative for Wood said in a statement obtained by Rolling Stone.

“As the trial court correctly found, Warner’s claims were meritless. Warner’s decision to finally abandon his lawsuit and pay Ms Wood her full fee award of almost $327,000 only confirms as much.”

A judge ruled against portions of Manson’s lawsuit in 2023 and ordered Manson to pay about $500,000 in attorney fees. Manson filed an appeal against the decision, which now appears unsuccessful following the dropping of his case.

According to Deadline, court documents indicating the end of the lawsuit and the agreement to pay Wood’s legal fees were signed yesterday by Manson.

President Joe Biden has been urged to pardon Julian Assange by two US congressmen who warn they are “deeply concerned” the WikiLeaks founder’s guilty plea deal sets a precedent for prosecuting journalists and whistleblowers with espionage offences.

James McGovern, a progressive Democrat from Massachusetts, and Thomas Massie, a libertarian Republican from Kentucky, wrote to the president with the bipartisan request to pardon the Australian publisher earlier in November.

The pair urged Biden to “send a clear message that the US government under your leadership will not target or investigate journalists and media outlets simply for doing their jobs”.

Assange was freed in June 2024 after pleading guilty to violating US espionage law, in a deal that allowed him to return home to Australia and brought an end to an extraordinary 14-year legal saga.

Assange was charged in connection with the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables, in 2010 and 2011.

In a letter dated 1 November, McGovern and Massie expressed “appreciation” that the criminal case had been resolved and an extradition request to the United Kingdom dropped, bringing “an end to Mr Assange’s protracted detention and [allowing] him to reunite with his family and return to his home country of Australia”.

But the pair said they were “deeply concerned” the deal required Assange, a publisher, to “plead guilty to felony charges”.

“Put simply, there is a long-standing and well-grounded concern that section 793 [of the Espionage Act], which criminalizes the obtaining, retaining, or disclosing of sensitive information, could be used against journalists and news organizations engaged in their normal activities, particularly those who cover national security topics.”

The pair noted that this risk had “informed the Obama administration’s decision not to prosecute Mr Assange” and that Assange’s case was “the first time the Act has been deployed against a publisher”.

They said they share the view of Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists, who reacted to the plea agreement by saying “while we welcome the end of his detention, the US’s pursuit of Assange has set a harmful legal precedent by opening the way for journalists to be tried under the Espionage Act if they receive classified material from whistleblowers”.

McGovern and Massie, who previously worked with other members of Congress to call for the charges to be dropped, urged Biden to pardon Assange, arguing “a pardon would remove the precedent set by the plea”.

Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, and his wife, Stella Assange, are in the Australian capital, Canberra, this week and Shipton is returning to Washington in January as part of a Pardon Assange campaign urging Biden to take action before he leaves office.

The pair have asked the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who said before the plea deal that he had raised Assange’s case with Biden, to call for a pardon in his farewell phone call with Biden.

“By granting a pardon to Julian Assange, President Biden can not only correct a grave injustice but also send a powerful message that defending democracy and press freedom remains at the core of his presidency,” a petition for the campaign argues.

• Ukraine’s defence ministry is investigating defective mortar shells after at least 100,000 Ukrainian-made 120mm rounds had to be removed from the frontline. Soldiers began saying in early November that the rounds failed to explode, remained stuck in the launcher or fell off target, according to private Ukrainian TV 1+1. The defence ministry confirmed it had stopped using them on the frontline “until the causes of the malfunction are determined” and seized part of the supply. Early findings pointed to poor-quality powder charges or violations of storage requirements, the ministry said. The Ukrainian news site Dzerkalo Tyjnia and the war journalist Yuriy Butusov shared the figure of 100,000 with the latter denouncing “criminal negligence”.

• The Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile fired by Russia at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro last week carried multiple warheads but no explosives and caused limited damage, two senior Ukrainian government sources said. The Kremlin described it as a warning to the west after the US and Britain allowed Ukraine to fire their missiles inside Russia. Western experts say the Oreshnik, which flew about 700km, seems to be based on the RS-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile, which can go more than 5,000 km. “I would say this is an incredibly expensive way to deliver what is probably not that much destruction,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a US nonproliferation expert.

• Russia said it was expelling a British diplomat that it accused of espionage and had summoned London’s ambassador to the foreign ministry in Moscow, Pjotr Sauer writes. A No 10 spokesperson said: “To be clear, we refute these allegations. They’re baseless. We’re now considering our response. This is not the first time that Putin’s government has made malicious, baseless accusations against our staff.”

• On Tuesday the Kremlin also banned cabinet ministers including Angela Rayner, Yvette Cooper and Rachel Reeves from entering Russia under new sanctions, Pippa Crerar and Pjotr Sauer write. It comes after the UK imposed fresh sanctions on 30 oil tankers from Russia’s “shadow fleet” as Ukraine’s allies try to squeeze Vladimir Putin’s funding of the war.

• Russian shelling killed two civilians in the city of Sumy in north-eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, said Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president. Earlier, Russian forces staged their largest ever drone attack on Ukraine over Monday night into Tuesday – cutting power to much of the western city of Ternopil and damaging residential buildings in Kyiv region, Ukraine’s officials said.

• Shaun Walker, Helena Smith and Dan Sabbagh report that speaking in Athens, the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, has said he wants the alliance “to go further to change the trajectory of the conflict” in the Ukrainians’ favour. Nato needed to more than just “keep Ukraine in the fight”, he suggested. Rutte highlighted the importance of strengthening the bloc’s “deterrence and defence” and the critical need to boost investment and production in the arms industry.

• The US is continuing to surge security assistance to bolster Ukraine’s defences in the east, Antony Blinken, Joe Biden’s secretary of state, said on Tuesday after meetings with the Group of Seven democracies.

• The Kremlin said it was preparing retaliatory measures, claiming that Ukraine twice fired US-made Atacms missiles into Russia in the last three days. Moscow said both strikes targeted air defence positions in the Kursk region.

• Ukrainian prosecutors said on Tuesday that Russian forces had murdered five soldiers immediately after taking them prisoner in the eastern Donetsk region, building on previous war crimes allegations against Moscow. There was no immediate response to the claims from Moscow. The Ukrainian rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said he had contacted the UN and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) over the allegations.

• A journalist who once freelanced for the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was sentenced on Tuesday to four years in prison in Russia after being convicted of cooperating with a foreign organisation. Nika Novak, 24, was found guilty after a closed hearing in the Zabaikalsky regional court in the far-eastern city of Chita. The human rights group Memorial has described Novak as a political prisoner and the RFE/RL president and CEO, Stephen Capus, said: “We condemn today’s unjust conviction and sentencing of RFE/RL journalist Nika Novak in Russia. These politically motivated charges are intended to silence individual reporters and cause a chilling effect.”

Pakistani security forces have launched a sweeping midnight raid on supporters of the jailed former prime minister Imran Khan who had earlier forced their way through security barriers and entered Islamabad.

Thousands of protesters had gathered in the centre of the capital after a convoy, led by Khan’s wife, broke through several lines of security all the way to the edge of the city’s highly fortified red zone.

But late on Tuesday, hundreds were arrested and most of the protesters dispersed amid chaotic scenes as security forces launched a massive raid, firing teargas, according to local broadcasters.

At least seven people had earlier been killed and dozens injured in the unrest.

Authorities had enforced a security lockdown in the capital for the last three days after Khan called for supporters of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to march on parliament for a sit-in demonstration to demand his release.

By Tuesday morning, upwards of 50,000 of Khan’s supporters had broken through the heavily fortified barriers and entered Islamabad, where they marched toward the “red zone”, an area in the centre of the capital where the parliament, supreme court and prime minister’s office are located. The area resembled a fortress of barriers, shipping containers and police personnel in riot gear.

The protesters were led by Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi, who was recently released from prison, and Khan’s key aide, Ali Amin Gandapur, who is the chief minister of the PTI stronghold of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Tens of thousands more were expected to join from neighbouring Punjab and Rawalpindi.

As the protesters approached Islamabad’s D-Chowk, a roundabout in the heart of the red zone, the area resembled a battleground as police and paramilitary officers rained down rubber bullets and teargas on the crowds. By the afternoon, security personnel had succeeded in pushing back the crowds from D-Chowk but protesters refused to vacate the city and continued to violently push back against the riot police.

PTI’s main demand for the protest is for Khan to be released, alleging that the former prime minister is being held as a political prisoner and that the hundreds of charges against him are trumped up by his political opponents.

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.

Among those who reached D-Chowk was Ibrar Khan, who had travelled from Khan’s province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in a convoy of protesters to reach the capital. “Imran Khan is like a father figure for us and father of the nation. We are here for him. We won’t go without releasing Khan,” he said.

He said that they had gone up against teargas and live bullets to reach the capital. “The government tried their best to stop us but despite all obstacles, we made it here,” he said. “We are ready to sacrifice our lives for Khan but won’t leave without Khan.”

The interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi, had said earlier that Khan’s supporters would not be allowed to reach D-Chowk or get close to the red zone or parliament buildings. He said the government would not hesitate to use “extreme” steps to stop them, which could include imposing a curfew or deploying army troops. “We will not let them cross our red lines,” he said.

Naqvi said the government had offered PTI a field outside Islamabad to hold their protest and that the offer had been taken to Khan in his jail cell, but they were still waiting for a response.

The government, led by the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, was heavy-handed in its attempt to prevent Khan’s supporters reaching the capital. Highways into Islamabad were blocked with shipping containers and thousands of police and paramilitary lined the streets, firing rubber bullets and teargas at the protesters. Public transport into the city was also shut down to keep Khan’s supporters away.

One police officer was shot and killed in the clashes while more than 100 were injured, and 22 police vehicles were torched in clashes just outside Islamabad and elsewhere in the Punjab province, the provincial police chief, Usman Anwar, said. Two officers were in critical condition, he said.

Another four Rangers paramilitary officers were killed on the outskirts of Islamabad, reportedly when they were run over by a car driven by PTI protesters.

According to PTI, two supporters were killed by excessive police violence and scored more had been injured. “They are even firing live bullets,” said one of Khan’s aides, Shaukat Yousafzai.

The provincial information minister, Uzma Bukhari, said about 80 of Khan’s supporters had been arrested but PTI said that about 5,000 had been picked up by police as they marched to Islamabad from across the country.

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 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. He now faces upwards of 100 charges, all of which he denies.

Pakistani security forces have launched a sweeping midnight raid on supporters of the jailed former prime minister Imran Khan who had earlier forced their way through security barriers and entered Islamabad.

Thousands of protesters had gathered in the centre of the capital after a convoy, led by Khan’s wife, broke through several lines of security all the way to the edge of the city’s highly fortified red zone.

But late on Tuesday, hundreds were arrested and most of the protesters dispersed amid chaotic scenes as security forces launched a massive raid, firing teargas, according to local broadcasters.

At least seven people had earlier been killed and dozens injured in the unrest.

Authorities had enforced a security lockdown in the capital for the last three days after Khan called for supporters of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to march on parliament for a sit-in demonstration to demand his release.

By Tuesday morning, upwards of 50,000 of Khan’s supporters had broken through the heavily fortified barriers and entered Islamabad, where they marched toward the “red zone”, an area in the centre of the capital where the parliament, supreme court and prime minister’s office are located. The area resembled a fortress of barriers, shipping containers and police personnel in riot gear.

The protesters were led by Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi, who was recently released from prison, and Khan’s key aide, Ali Amin Gandapur, who is the chief minister of the PTI stronghold of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Tens of thousands more were expected to join from neighbouring Punjab and Rawalpindi.

As the protesters approached Islamabad’s D-Chowk, a roundabout in the heart of the red zone, the area resembled a battleground as police and paramilitary officers rained down rubber bullets and teargas on the crowds. By the afternoon, security personnel had succeeded in pushing back the crowds from D-Chowk but protesters refused to vacate the city and continued to violently push back against the riot police.

PTI’s main demand for the protest is for Khan to be released, alleging that the former prime minister is being held as a political prisoner and that the hundreds of charges against him are trumped up by his political opponents.

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.

Among those who reached D-Chowk was Ibrar Khan, who had travelled from Khan’s province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in a convoy of protesters to reach the capital. “Imran Khan is like a father figure for us and father of the nation. We are here for him. We won’t go without releasing Khan,” he said.

He said that they had gone up against teargas and live bullets to reach the capital. “The government tried their best to stop us but despite all obstacles, we made it here,” he said. “We are ready to sacrifice our lives for Khan but won’t leave without Khan.”

The interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi, had said earlier that Khan’s supporters would not be allowed to reach D-Chowk or get close to the red zone or parliament buildings. He said the government would not hesitate to use “extreme” steps to stop them, which could include imposing a curfew or deploying army troops. “We will not let them cross our red lines,” he said.

Naqvi said the government had offered PTI a field outside Islamabad to hold their protest and that the offer had been taken to Khan in his jail cell, but they were still waiting for a response.

The government, led by the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, was heavy-handed in its attempt to prevent Khan’s supporters reaching the capital. Highways into Islamabad were blocked with shipping containers and thousands of police and paramilitary lined the streets, firing rubber bullets and teargas at the protesters. Public transport into the city was also shut down to keep Khan’s supporters away.

One police officer was shot and killed in the clashes while more than 100 were injured, and 22 police vehicles were torched in clashes just outside Islamabad and elsewhere in the Punjab province, the provincial police chief, Usman Anwar, said. Two officers were in critical condition, he said.

Another four Rangers paramilitary officers were killed on the outskirts of Islamabad, reportedly when they were run over by a car driven by PTI protesters.

According to PTI, two supporters were killed by excessive police violence and scored more had been injured. “They are even firing live bullets,” said one of Khan’s aides, Shaukat Yousafzai.

The provincial information minister, Uzma Bukhari, said about 80 of Khan’s supporters had been arrested but PTI said that about 5,000 had been picked up by police as they marched to Islamabad from across the country.

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 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. He now faces upwards of 100 charges, all of which he denies.

Namibians are going to the polls with the longtime ruling party’s parliamentary majority under threat if dissatisfied young people turn out in big numbers amid a wave of anti-incumbent sentiment globally.

The Swapo party could also be forced to contest a second round in the presidential election for the first time since the sparsely populated southern African country became independent from South Africa in 1990.

High unemployment and younger generations with no memory of Swapo’s fight against South Africa’s apartheid regime have eroded the party’s support, drawing parallels to elections earlier this year in neighbours South Africa, where the African National Congress lost its majority, and Botswana, where the party that had ruled since 1966 was trounced.

However, Namibia’s opposition is fragmented, with analysts noting that young people would very likely have to turn out in large numbers to counter Swapo’s support base in the country’s rural but densely-populated north.

“Despite the fact that Swapo has been a party in decline, if the 2019 elections are anything to go by, I think they will still remain a dominant party,” said Rui Tyitende, a lecturer at the University of Namibia.

“But if young people [under 35], who comprise 42% of the electorate, show up at the polls, I think there will be a [presidential election] runoff, because they will not vote for Swapo. They are disillusioned.”

In 2019, Hage Geingob, who died in February, won the presidency for a second term with 56% of the vote – a steep drop from the 87% he had secured in 2014. Swapo secured 65% of the parliamentary vote.

Panduleni Itula came second in 2019 as an independent presidential candidate, with 29% of the vote. He is running again, against the country’s vice-president, the former foreign minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah.

Nandi-Ndaitwah, who would be Namibia’s first female president if she wins Wednesday’s vote, needs more than 50% to avoid a second round vote.

“She comes across as a stateswoman, a seasoned diplomat, very knowledgeable in terms of public policy, and also … not tainted by corruption,” the political analyst Rakkel Andreas said of the 72-year-old Swapo candidate.

Itula, a former Swapo member who returned to Namibia in 2013 after studying and working as a dentist in the UK for more than three decades, is running for a new party, the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC).

“What Itula represents is change, hope for change,” said Andreas, pointing to high unemployment levels – in 2023, 19.4% of Namibians were out of work, according to the World Bank, rising to 40% of 18- to 35-year-olds.

Without opinion polls, the outcome of the election in the country of 3 million people is hard to predict, said Graham Hopwood, the executive director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, a Namibian thinktank.

“It’s very clear that this is going to be the closest election since independence,” he said. “My personal view is Swapo has been the dominant party since 1990 and will still be a dominant party after this election, but we’re just not sure how dominant it will be.”

One of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives has been arrested in the Welsh countryside.

Daniel Andreas San Diego, 46, has been on the FBI’s “most wanted terrorists” list for almost two decades for his alleged involvement in two office building bombings in San Francisco in 2003.

The FBI had offered a reward of up to $250,000 (£200,000) for information leading directly to his arrest and considered him “armed and dangerous”.

He was arrested on Monday “at a property in a rural area next to woodland” in the Conwy area of north Wales by specialist officers from the national extradition unit of the National Crime Agency (NCA). The officers were supported by colleagues from counter-terrorism policing and North Wales police, an NCA spokesperson said.

The arrest took place at the request of the US authorities, which are seeking to extradite San Diego, who is an American citizen, back to the US to face charges there.

He appeared at Westminster magistrates court on Tuesday as the extradition proceedings began, and was then remanded in custody.

According to the FBI wanted poster, San Diego “has ties to animal rights extremist groups”, followed a vegan diet, possessed a handgun and had a number of tattoos, including of burning hillsides and buildings.

The poster states that on 28 August 2003, two bombs exploded approximately one hour apart on the campus of a biotechnology corporation in Emeryville.

Then, on 26 September 2003, one bomb strapped with nails exploded at a nutritional products corporation in Pleasanton.

San Diego was indicted in the United States district court, northern district of California in July 2004 over his alleged involvement with these crimes, according to the FBI.

The FBI director, Christopher Wray, said: “Daniel San Diego’s arrest after more than 20 years as a fugitive for two bombings in the San Francisco area shows that no matter how long it takes, the FBI will find you and hold you accountable.

“There’s a right way and a wrong way to express your views in our country, and turning to violence and destruction of property is not the right way.”

The former New York mayor and lawyer to Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, erupted in court on Tuesday, telling a judge: “I can’t pay my bills!”

Sketches by courtroom artists, who create pictures for the media to use when cameras are not allowed in court, such as federal courts, showed a furious Giuliani, 80, pointing at the judge in his case, Lewis Liman.

The hearing in federal court in Manhattan concerned a near-$150m judgment won by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Georgia elections workers whom Giuliani defamed while advancing Trump’s lie that electoral fraud in 2020 cost him victory over Joe Biden.

Liman said Giuliani had not been complying with orders to surrender assets.

Giuliani said on Tuesday: “The implications you are making against me are wrong. I have no car, no credit card, no cash, everything I have is tied up, they have put stop orders on my business accounts, and I can’t pay my bills!”

Giuliani’s fall has been spectacular. After making his name as a hard-charging prosecutor who took on organized crime, he was mayor for two terms, in office on 11 September 2001 and widely praised for his leadership after the terrorist attacks on the US. His 2008 presidential run flopped but Giuliani enjoyed a successful consulting and speaking career before allying himself with Trump when the property magnate entered Republican politics in 2015.

Giuliani missed out on a cabinet appointment but became Trump’s personal attorney – work that fueled Trump’s first impeachment, in 2019 for blackmailing Ukraine for political dirt. Giuliani then became a prime driver of Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election – work which produced criminal charges, to which he pleaded not guilty, the huge defamation judgment, and disbarments in Washington and New York.

In New York on Tuesday, Giuliani’s lawyer told the judge his client had turned over assets including a Mercedes Benz sports car once owned by the film star Lauren Bacall. An attorney for Freeman and Moss said Giuliani had turned over the car but not the title to it. Attorneys for the two women have also said they have gained access to Giuliani’s $5m Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan, but have not secured “the keys, stock, or proprietary lease”.

In court, the judge told Giuliani’s lawyer: “A car without a title is meaningless … your client is a competent person. He was the US attorney in the district. The notion that he can’t apply for a title certificate – ”

Giuliani cut him off, saying: “I did apply for it! What am I supposed to do, make it up myself? Your implication that I have not been diligent about it is totally incorrect.”

He then launched his outburst about financial problems.

Giuliani’s lawyer asked Liman to extend deadlines, given he had only just started on the case after previous attorneys withdrew. Liman denied the request, saying: “You can’t restart the clock by firing one counsel and hiring another. He has already received multiple extensions, and missed multiple deadlines.”

Trial is set for 16 January regarding whether Giuliani must also give Moss and Freeman his Florida home and four New York Yankees World Series commemoration rings. On Tuesday, Giuliani’s lawyer asked if the trial could be pushed back, so his client could attend inaugural events for Trump, who will be sworn in as president in Washington DC on 20 January. Liman said no.

Outside court, Giuliani told reporters Liman was “going to rule against me. If you were sitting in the courtroom and couldn’t figure it out, you’re stupid.” He also said the judge’s “background is serious leftwing Democrat … about as leftwing as you get” – even while acknowledging Liman was nominated by Trump.

Giuliani said he did not regret defaming Freeman and Moss.

“I regret the persecution I have been put through,” he said.