A House ethics committee report on Matt Gaetz, the former Florida Republican congressman, found “substantial evidence” that he paid for sex with a minor, among other serious violations of state law and congressional rules.

The investigation concludes that Gaetz, Trump’s first pick for attorney general, made payments totalling tens of thousands of dollars to women for sex and drugs across at least 20 separate occasions. The report also states that in 2017 Gaetz paid a 17-year-old girl for sex when he was 35 years old, which would constitute statutory rape under Florida law.

“The committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” the Republican-led panel wrote in the investigation.

According to the report, Gaetz used payment apps including Venmo and PayPal to transfer money directly to more than a dozen women during his time in Congress.

The committee determined that Gaetz regularly used illegal drugs including cocaine and ecstasy between 2017-2020, and appears to have set up a pseudonymous email account from his House office to purchase marijuana, violating both state laws and House ethics rules.

The committee believes that Gaetz “knowingly and willfully” attempted to obstruct the investigation, including failing to comply with subpoenas, withholding evidence, providing misleading responses, and making false public statements about “voluminous documentary evidence” that he never actually produced.

Investigators also highlighted a 2018 trip to the Bahamas where Gaetz allegedly “engaged in sexual activity” with multiple women. One woman told the committee that the trip itself served as “payment” for sexual services. The same witness reported that Gaetz took ecstasy during the Bahamas visit, which investigators determined violated House gift rules.

The Gaetz legal team, meanwhile, is fighting hard to keep the report from seeing the light of day, arguing in a new lawsuit on Monday morning: “If publicly released, would significantly damage plaintiff’s standing and reputation in the community.” It “would be immediate, severe and irreversible”. Gaetz has long maintained his innocence.

The report comes after a more than three-year investigation and represents a volte-face following an earlier committee vote not to issue the results of an inquiry it began in the spring of 2021, when Gaetz was the subject of an FBI investigation.

Its leak came nearly a month after Gaetz withdrew his nomination to be Trump’s attorney general amid a fierce backlash, partly fuelled by speculation over what the report might contain.

The House inquiry – triggered after the justice department launched a separate criminal investigation into Gaetz that was later dropped without charge – was instigated to look into a broad range of accusations.

These included allegations that he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds for personal use and accepted gifts in breach of House rules.

Gaetz, who has denied all the allegations, in effect forestalled the report’s release by abruptly resigning from Congress last month after Trump nominated him as his attorney general in a decision that drew fierce bipartisan condemnation.

However, its contents became a subject of intense speculation as both Republican and Democratic senators voiced serious misgivings about Gaetz’s suitability to preside over America’s vast federal judicial and law enforcement structure.

Some critics accused Gaetz, a far-right representative from Florida, of resigning prematurely – long before the Senate had the chance to confirm or reject his nomination – with the purpose of preventing publication of the report, knowing its contents were likely to be damaging.

The ethics committee originally voted along party lines against releasing the document even as some senators demanded to see it in advance of Senate confirmation hearings that had been due to be held early next year. The Republican speaker, Mike Johnson – a close ally of Trump – vocally opposed releasing the report.

The change of heart is notable given that Gaetz later said he would not attempt to return to Congress after withdrawing his nomination.

Gaetz angrily condemned the committee’s revised decision – first reported by CNN – in a vitriolic social media post on Wednesday, pointing out that he was never criminally charged.

“The Biden/Garland DOJ spent years reviewing allegations that I committed various crimes,” he wrote.

“I was charged with nothing: FULLY EXONERATED. Not even a campaign finance violation. And the people investigating me hated me.

“Then, the very ‘witnesses’ DOJ deemed not-credible were assembled by House Ethics to repeat their claims absent any cross-examination or challenge from me or my attorneys. I’ve had no chance to ever confront any accusers. I’ve never been charged. I’ve never been sued.

“Instead, House Ethics will reportedly post a report online that I have no opportunity to debate or rebut as a former member of the body.”

He described his 30s – his age range when the alleged misconduct occurred – as a time of “working very hard – and playing hard too”.

“It’s embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life.”

But in a pointed jab at the House’s current ructions over a continuing resolution (CR) bill on public spending aimed at keeping the government open, he concluded: “At least I didn’t vote for CR’s that fuck over the country!”

Donald Trump has moved to quash speculation about Elon Musk’s outsized influence in Republican politics, insisting at a conservative gathering that the tech billionaire would not usurp his authority as incoming president.

“No, he’s not going to be president, that I can tell you,” Trump told cheering supporters at the Turning Point USA conference in Phoenix on Sunday. “And I’m safe. You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country.”

The remarks came after a week in which Musk’s intervention helped derail a crucial government funding bill, prompting Democratic critics to mockingly refer to him as “President Musk”. It also led one Republican congressman on Sunday to compare Musk to a “prime minister” after praising his role in the funding fight.

“We have a president, we have a vice-president, we have a speaker. It feels like as if Elon Musk is our prime minister,” said Tony Gonzales, a Texas representative, on CBS News’s Face the Nation.

When pressed about Musk’s unelected status, Gonzales defended the billionaire as reflecting “the voice of the people”.

The Tesla chief executive and X owner allegedly posted more than 100 times against the original funding package, calling it “one of the worst bills ever written” and urging Republicans to shut down the government rather than support it. His social media barrage preceded similar opposition from Trump and helped tank support among congressional Republicans, forcing Mike Johnson, the House speaker, to craft a smaller alternative measure.

The episode highlighted Musk’s influence over Republican politics following his quarter-billion-dollar support for Trump’s campaign. While the president-elect has tapped Musk to co-lead a new non-governmental office focused on reducing government inefficiencies, the arrangement has raised fresh concerns from Democrats about potential conflicts of interest given Musk’s vast business empire.

During the funding bill debates last week, Rosa DeLauro, the Connecticut representative and top Democrat on the House appropriations committee, alleged in a letter to congressional leaders that Musk had worked to cut provisions that would have increased scrutiny of Chinese investments – suggesting his opposition was driven by concerns over protecting Tesla’s Shanghai manufacturing plant.

Chris Coons, a Democratic Delaware senator, warned the dynamic telegraphs further chaos, telling CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday: “We’re not just going to have President-elect Trump as a billionaire rage-tweeting at 4am. We’re going to have Elon Musk also injecting instability into how we tackle very complicated and important issues.”

Some political observers question how long the alliance can last, given Trump’s history of falling out with high-profile supporters who draw too much attention.

“When you initially begin in that role, you have enormous influence,” said Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, on ABC’s This Week on Sunday. “It will always decline. And that’s what happens. And you’ll see it. It will happen with Elon Musk, too.”

One other point of tension could be the war in Ukraine, one that Trump has promised to end swiftly which would come at the expense of Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service, which has become crucial to Ukraine’s effort.

Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr sought to downplay any friction, telling the conference in Phoenix last Thursday: “You see what the media is trying to do to break up the relationship that my father has with Elon. They’re trying to cause that schism to prevent these guys doing what they’re going to do best, and we cannot allow that.”

Greenland’s elected leader said the gigantic Arctic island is not for sale after Donald Trump once again raised the issue of “ownership and control” of the vast territory that has been part of Denmark for more than 600 years.

“Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom,” Greenland’s prime minister, Múte Egede, said in a written comment.

The US president-elect on Sunday announced that he had picked Ken Howery, a former envoy to Sweden, as his ambassador to Copenhagen, and commented on the status of Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of Denmark.

“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump, who takes office on 20 January, did not elaborate on the statement.

For many observers Trump’s comment triggered a sense of deja vu. During his first term Trump suggested in 2019 that the US should buy Greenland – which is home to the strategically important Pituffik US space base.

That idea was roundly rejected by Denmark as well as by the island’s own authorities before any formal discussions could take place. It also prompted widespread ridicule and became emblematic of the chaos that Trump brought to traditional global diplomacy – something now expected to happen again once Trump returns to the White House next month.

The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, in 2019 labelled Trump’s first offer as “absurd”, leading the then US president to describe her as “nasty” and to cancel a visit to the Danish capital of Copenhagen.

Separately on Sunday, Trump also threatened to reassert US control over the Panama Canal, accusing Panama of charging excessive rates to use the Central American passage and drawing a sharp rebuke from Panamanian president, José Raúl Mulino.

Reuters contributed reporting

Joe Biden has commuted the sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates, changing their punishment to life imprisonment without parole.

The decision follows mounting pressure from campaigners who warned that the president-elect, Donald Trump, backs the death penalty and restarted federal executions during his first term after a 17-year hiatus.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in a statement released on Monday.

“But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vice-president, and now President, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”

It is the highest number of death sentences commuted by any president in the modern era. Among those spared is Len Davis, a former New Orleans police officer who masterminded a drug protection ring involving several other officers and arranged the murder of a woman, Kim Groves, who filed a brutality complaint against him.

Davis also helped send three men to prison for more than 28 years before they were found to have been wrongfully convicted of murder and freed in 2022.

Trump’s presidential transition team condemned the decision. Steven Cheung, Trump communications director, said: “These are among the worst killers in the world and this abhorrent decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones. President Trump stands for the rule of law, which will return when he is back in the White House after he was elected with a massive mandate from the American people.”

During a brief interview Monday, Groves’s son Corey hailed Biden’s commutation of Davis’s death sentence, saying he always wanted the former officer to live as long as possible in prison. “I would like Len to wake up on his his 95th birthday and still be looking at concrete and barbed wire,” said Groves, who received a $1.5m settlement from the New Orleans city government in 2018 along with other family members over his mother’s murder. “I think that’s worse than any death sentence, so I don’t have any problem with what the president did.”

There is also a commutation for Norris Holder, who was sentenced to death for a two-man bank robbery during which a security guard died. Prosecutors said Holder may not have fired the fatal shot.

Another beneficiary is Daryl Lawrence, sentenced to death in the killing of Columbus, Ohio, police officer Bryan Hurst. Hurst’s former police partner Donnie Oliverio said in a statement: “Putting to death the person who killed my police partner and best friend would have brought me no peace. The president has done what is right here, and what is consistent with the faith he and I share.”

The clemency action applies to all federal death row inmates except three convicted of terrorism or hate-motivated mass murder: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of carrying out the 2013 Boston marathon bombing attack; Dylann Roof, who shot dead nine Black church members in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; and Robert Bowers, who stormed a synagogue in the heart of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and killed 11 worshippers in 2018.

The majority of the 40 men held on federal death row are people of color, and 38% are Black, Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, previously told the Guardian. Nearly one in four men were 21 or younger at the time of the crime.

Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the non-profit Equal Justice Initiative, said: “Today marks an important turning point in ending America’s tragic and error-prone use of the death penalty. By commuting almost all federal death sentences, President Biden has sent a strong message to Americans that the death penalty is not the answer to our country’s concerns about public safety.”

Martin Luther King III, the son of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, added: “This is a historic day. By commuting these sentences, President Biden has done what no president before him was willing to do: take meaningful and lasting action not just to acknowledge the death penalty’s racist roots but also to remedy its persistent unfairness.”

Biden’s journey on the issue has been complicated. As a senator, he championed a 1994 crime bill that expanded the federal death penalty to cover 60 new offences. He boasted: “I am the guy who put these death penalties in this bill.” The legislation is now widely seen as having contributed to mass incarceration, particularly affecting Black men, and many of those currently on death row were sentenced under its provisions.

But during his 2020 presidential election campaign, Biden reversed his long-held support for capital punishment, pledging to eliminate it at the federal level. He cited concerns about wrongful convictions and racial disparities in the justice system.

The Biden administration duly imposed a moratorium on federal executions. Calls for the president to commute the federal death sentences mounted in recent weeks. He received letters from corrections officials, business leaders, Black pastors, Catholics, civil and human rights advocates, prosecutors, former judges, victim family members and others. Pope Francis publicly offered a prayer for those on federal death row, urging Biden to extend mercy to them.

The White House said Biden’s latest action would prevent the next administration from carrying out the execution sentences that would not be handed down under current policy and practice.

Under Trump, more people incarcerated in the federal system were put to death than under the previous 10 presidents combined. The Republican’s administration ended a pause of 17 years when it executed Daniel Lewis Lee, and followed that with six more executions between 16 July and 24 September 2020.

Two Democrats who sponsored bicameral legislation to ban the use of the death penalty at the federal level welcomed Monday’s announcement.

The Senate majority whip, Dick Durbin, chair of the Senate judiciary committee, said: “I have long advocated for the abolition of the federal death penalty and commend President Biden for this act of justice and mercy and for his leadership.”

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts praised Biden’s move as a “historic and groundbreaking act of compassion that will save lives, address the deep racial disparities in our criminal legal system, and send a powerful message about redemption, decency, and humanity”.

According to the White House, Biden has issued more commutations at this point in his presidency than any of his recent predecessors at the same point in their first terms. Earlier this month he announced clemency for about 1,500 Americans – the most ever in a single day – who have shown successful rehabilitation and a commitment to making communities safer.

Biden is also the first president to issue categorical pardons to individuals convicted of simple use and possession of marijuana and to former LGBTQ+ service members convicted of private conduct because of their sexual orientation.

Earlier this month the president sparked a political outcry by pardoning his son, Hunter, for federal felony gun and tax convictions that could have led to a prison sentence. Biden, who leaves office on 20 January, had repeatedly promised not to issue such a pardon.

Additional reporting by Oliver Laughland, Sam Levin and Ramon Antonio Vargas

The Kremlin has denied Turkish media reports suggesting that Asma al-Assad, the British-born wife of the ousted Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, is seeking a divorce and hoping to return to London.

Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow earlier this month, the transponder of his aircraft switched off as he left to avoid detection, after a lightning rebel advance brought an end to his family’s 50-year rule.

In a statement attributed to Bashar al-Assad on Telegram, he later insisted his departure from Syria had not been planned but that he had been forced to leave after his position at a Russian-controlled airbase came “under intensified attack by drone strikes”.

His family has long had ties to Moscow, with relatives buying up tens of millions of dollars’ worth of properties in Russia over the years.

On Monday, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, also rejected Turkish media reports suggesting Assad had been confined to Moscow with his property assets frozen. “No, they do not correspond to reality,” Peskov told a conference call.

Russian state media have yet to release any photos of Assad inside the country, hinting that Moscow is eager to keep him out of the headlines as it seeks to forge ties with Syria’s new leadership.

While the Assads’ status as global pariahs had left them with limited travel options, Russia was touted as a strong option as it would probably allow for better medical care for Assad’s wife, who was diagnosed with leukaemia in May.

Born in the UK in 1975 to parents originally from Syria, Asma al-Assad, 49, grew up in Acton, west London. She left her job as an investment banker in 2000 to marry Assad.

She swiftly became a divisive figure around the world, accused of using her British education and upbringing to try to mask the brutality of her husband’s crackdown on dissent.

In 2011, weeks before pro-democracy campaigners began taking to the streets of Syria, Vogue ran a now-removed profile of her titled “A Rose in the Desert”. It described her as “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies”, avoiding any mention of the more than 5,000 civilians already killed by her husband.

In 2020 the US imposed sanctions on the Assads and several of their relatives, with the then secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, describing the measure as an effort to end the regime’s “needless, brutal war” against the Syrian people.

In a statement, Pompeo added: “I will make special note of the designation for the first time of Asma al-Assad, the wife of Bashar al-Assad, who with the support of her husband and members of her Akhras family has become one of Syria’s most notorious war profiteers.”

While her UK assets were frozen in March 2012, she retains British citizenship. Earlier this month the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, made clear she was not welcome. “I’ve seen mentioned in the last few days, Asma Assad [is] potentially someone with UK citizenship that might attempt to come into our country, and I want it confirmed that she’s a sanctioned individual and is not welcome here in the UK,” he told parliament.

The prime minister, Keir Starmer, was also asked about whether she would be stripped of her British citizenship, as was done with those known to have joined the Islamic State group. It was “far too early” to discuss such a measure, he said.

With contributions from Reuters

On the Chinese internet, the country’s current predicament – slowing economic growth, a falling birthrate, a meagre social safety net, increasing isolation on the world stage – is often expressed through buzzwords. There is tangping, or “lying flat”, a term used to describe the young generation of Chinese who are choosing to chill out rather than hustle in China’s high-pressure economy. There is runxue, or “run philosophy”, which refers to the determination of large numbers of people to emigrate. Recently, “revenge against society” attacks – random incidents of violence that have claimed dozens of lives – have sparked particular concern. And there is also neijuan, or “involution”, a term used to describe the feeling of diminishing returns in China’s social contract.

What is neijuan?

Neijuan is the Chinese term for “involution”, a concept from sociology that refers to a society that can no longer evolve, no matter how hard it tries. Applied to the individual, it means that no matter how hard someone works, progress is impossible.

In China, the term has been used to describe the feeling of diminishing returns in China’s economy. The characters “nei” and “juan” literally mean rolling inwards. After decades of rapid growth, many Chinese millennials and Gen Z people feel that the opportunities that were available to their parents no longer exist, and that working hard no longer offers guaranteed rewards.

Is China worried about neijuan?

Yes. China’s leaders have made it clear that they don’t want the idea of neijuan to catch on more than it already has. In December, top economic policymakers gathered for the annual Central Economic Work Conference, which sets the national economic agenda. According to the readout of the closed-door meeting, the cadres pledged to “rectify ‘involutionary’ competition”. And speaking at Davos in June, China’s premier, Li Qiang, warned against “spiralling ‘involution’” in the world economy.

Who is affected by it?

It’s primarily a concept among millennials and generation Z. The latter group has been hit hard by China’s economic difficulties. Youth unemployment hit a record 21.3% in June 2023, after which the government stopped publishing the data. It has since resumed publishing the statistics with a revised methodology. The latest data shows that the jobless rate for urban 16-24-year-olds is 17.1%.

Neijuan is also increasingly used to describe certain industries. China is investing massively in what it calls “new quality productive forces”, which means focusing more on research and manufacturing in certain hi-tech sectors, such as solar, electric vehicles and batteries. But overproduction, coupled with sanctions from the US and other western markets, has led to a price war in some sectors, hurting their profitability.

What are its origins?

Although the term has been around for decades in academic circles, it went viral on China’s internet in 2020. A student from Tsinghua University, one of China’s most elite schools, was filmed riding his bicycle with his laptop open, propped up on the handlebars. Soon he was crowned as “Tsinghua’s involuted king”, and a meme was born.

The meme of the involuted king came to represent the perhaps pointlessly intense pressure of China’s rat race, and the impossibility of catching a break. During the Covid-19 pandemic, many people felt physically as well as economically trapped.

The term was particularly popular in China’s hyper-competitive tech industry. Despite a workforce that is more educated than any previous generation, many graduates have found it difficult to find jobs in profitable sectors. This became even more of a problem when the Chinese government announced its “double reduction” policy in 2021. Designed to ease the pressure on school students, the policy banned for-profit online and offline tutoring, torpedoing a sector that had previously been a major employer of young graduates. One study suggested that 10 million people lost their jobs as a result of the policy.

Red torrents of lava and billows of volcanic gas began erupting from Kilauea on Hawaii’s Big Island – one of the world’s most active volcanoes.

The eruption was confined to the volcano’s summit caldera, in a remote, closed area of Hawaii Volcanoes national park, the Hawaii Volcano Observatory reported. Increased earthquake activity began at about 2am local time and within about half an hour webcam images began to show lava emerging through fissures in the caldera or spurting in fountains.

A live stream of the eruption, broadcast by the US Geological Survey on Monday, showed spurts of red-hot lava bursting upward, followed by cloud-line plumes of volcanic gas and ash. The fountains reached up to 80m (260ft) high early on Monday morning,

“The lava is coming out at a very rapid rate as it usually does at the onset of these eruptions,” said Ken Hon, the scientist-in-charge at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, during a USGS live stream.

The most immediate threat was from volcanic smog that could reach homes downwind, the observatory said. Such “vog” contains sulfur dioxide and can worsen symptoms for people who have conditions such as asthma, other respiratory issues or cardiovascular disease.

The area where the eruption is occurring has been closed to the public since 2007 due to hazards that include crater wall instability, ground cracking and rockfalls.

Hawaii’s Volcanoes national park encompasses the summits of two of the world’s most active volcanoes: Kilauea and Mauna Loa.

Kilauea also erupted in June and September this year, and with the exception of a quiet period between 1924 and 1952, it has been in eruption regularly since there have been written records. Its eruptions can last days, or go on for a year. In 2018, Kilauea erupted from May through August, destroying more than 700 homes.

It is a shield volcano – a broad, massive formation shaped somewhat like a warrior’s shield lying flat, unlike composite volcanoes that form a conical peak.

In 2019, the USGS scientists confirmed a growing lake of water inside Halema’uma’u crater, an active pit within the summit caldera – marking the first time in modern history that water had been visible from the volcano’s summit. In 2020, the 10-story-deep lake boiled away when lava re-entered the crater.

Red torrents of lava and billows of volcanic gas began erupting from Kilauea on Hawaii’s Big Island – one of the world’s most active volcanoes.

The eruption was confined to the volcano’s summit caldera, in a remote, closed area of Hawaii Volcanoes national park, the Hawaii Volcano Observatory reported. Increased earthquake activity began at about 2am local time and within about half an hour webcam images began to show lava emerging through fissures in the caldera or spurting in fountains.

A live stream of the eruption, broadcast by the US Geological Survey on Monday, showed spurts of red-hot lava bursting upward, followed by cloud-line plumes of volcanic gas and ash. The fountains reached up to 80m (260ft) high early on Monday morning,

“The lava is coming out at a very rapid rate as it usually does at the onset of these eruptions,” said Ken Hon, the scientist-in-charge at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, during a USGS live stream.

The most immediate threat was from volcanic smog that could reach homes downwind, the observatory said. Such “vog” contains sulfur dioxide and can worsen symptoms for people who have conditions such as asthma, other respiratory issues or cardiovascular disease.

The area where the eruption is occurring has been closed to the public since 2007 due to hazards that include crater wall instability, ground cracking and rockfalls.

Hawaii’s Volcanoes national park encompasses the summits of two of the world’s most active volcanoes: Kilauea and Mauna Loa.

Kilauea also erupted in June and September this year, and with the exception of a quiet period between 1924 and 1952, it has been in eruption regularly since there have been written records. Its eruptions can last days, or go on for a year. In 2018, Kilauea erupted from May through August, destroying more than 700 homes.

It is a shield volcano – a broad, massive formation shaped somewhat like a warrior’s shield lying flat, unlike composite volcanoes that form a conical peak.

In 2019, the USGS scientists confirmed a growing lake of water inside Halema’uma’u crater, an active pit within the summit caldera – marking the first time in modern history that water had been visible from the volcano’s summit. In 2020, the 10-story-deep lake boiled away when lava re-entered the crater.

Israel’s defence minister has confirmed that the IDF assassinated former Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran earlier this year, and warned that the military would also “decapitate” the leadership of Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

“We will strike hard at the Houthis … and decapitate their leadership – just as we did with Haniyeh, [Yahya] Sinwar, and [Hassan] Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon, we will do so in Hodeida and Sanaa,” Israel Katz said on Monday.

His remarks, at an event at the defence ministry, mark the first public acknowledgement that Israel was behind the killing in late July of Haniyeh in the Iranian capital. Israel was widely believed to be behind the blast and leaders have previously hinted at its involvement. Iran and Hamas had blamed it for the Hamas political leader’s death.

“Anyone who raises a hand against Israel will have his hand cut off, and the long arm of the IDF [Israeli military] will strike him and hold him accountable,” Katz said, according to a statement issued by the ministry.

Early on Tuesday, the IDF said in a statement that sirens sounded in several areas of central Israel following the launch of a projectile from Yemen. The missile was intercepted before crossing into Israeli territory, it added. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen have launched scores of missiles and drones at Israel throughout the war in Gaza, describing the attacks as acts of solidarity with Palestinians there. On Saturday, a missile landed in Tel Aviv and wounded at least 16 people.

Israel has carried out three sets of airstrikes in Yemen during the war and vowed to step up the pressure on the rebel group until the missile attacks stop.

Haniyeh, who was seen as leading Hamas’s negotiation efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza, was killed in a guesthouse in Tehran on 31 July, reportedly by an explosive device that had been placed by Israeli operatives weeks before.

A senior Hamas official described Haniyeh’s killing at the time as a “cowardly act that will not go unpunished”. Mediators Qatar and Egypt warned it would set back talks on a ceasefire and a deal to release hostages held in Gaza.

A day earlier, Haniyeh had attended the inauguration of Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian.

On 27 September, Israel killed Nasrallah in a Beirut bombing, which was followed by the killing of Haniyeh’s successor Sinwar on 16 October in Gaza. Israeli officials say Sinwar masterminded the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel, which sparked the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press

The French prime minister has announced his new government – the country’s fourth since the beginning of the year – in the hope his administration can see off another vote of no confidence from a bitterly divided parliament.

There is a mix of old and new in François Bayrou’s government, which includes several familiar faces: the former interior minister Gérald Darmanin has been appointed justice minister; the former prime minister Elisabeth Borne, a technocrat, returns to government as education secretary, while another former prime minister, Manuel Valls – who served under the socialist president François Hollande, has been appointed overseas minister.

Jean-Noël Barrot will remain as foreign secretary, while the right-winger Bruno Retailleau has been reappointed interior minister. Éric Lombard, a former banker, will head up the economy ministry while Sébatien Lecornu stays on in the defence ministry and Rachida Dati as the culture minister.

With many leading political figures looking forward to the 2027 presidential elections and reluctant to gamble their chances on a government that is likely to fall within weeks or be paralysed until a new general election can be held next summer, Bayrou – appointed by Emmanuel Macron 10 days ago – has struggled to find those willing to join his government.

The previous prime minister, Michel Barnier, lasted just 90 days before his administration was toppled by a vote of no confidence.

Bayrou, a centrist, had promised to form a “national interest government” across the middle political ground, excluding Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI). In the end, Bayrou’s administration, like Barnier’s before it, leant to the conservative right. Macron’s government lost its parliamentary majority after he called a snap election in June after the far right made historic gains in the European elections.

The move, however, backfired leaving the French Assemblée Nationale divided into three roughly equal groups – the left, centre and right – none of which has an absolute majority.

One of the government’s first tasks will be to draw up a 2025 budget bill and reduce France’s budget deficit, which is expected to reach 6% of gross domestic product by the end of the year, well above the 3% of GDP the European Union requires of member states.

Barnier pushed through a budget bill at the beginning of December using the controversial constitutional clause called the 49.3, but the legislation was dropped after his government lost the no confidence vote.

In a television interview on Thursday evening, Bayrou, leader of the centrist party Democratic Movement (MoDem), said he hoped to present his government’s new budget by mid-February, adding that he would conduct the “widest possible dialogue” beforehand. He promised not to use the controversial constitutional article 49.3 to push through legislation without a debate unless he was “completely blocked”. He said he was not in favour of new taxes on businesses but understood the country’s ballooning public deficit had to be addressed with spending cuts.

In an interview with BFMTV, Bayrou denied that Le Pen had any influence on his ministerial appointments as claimed by the former minister Xavier Bertrand.

The Socialist party (PS) has described the new government as one “maintained for and by the far right”. Olivier Faure, the secretary general of the PS, said he “couldn’t find a reason not to censure” the government with a no confidence vote.

“We are dismayed by the poverty of what is being proposed,” Faure said. “The prime minister needs to wake up and understand what is at play.”

Valls’ appointment in particular is seen as a “provocation” for the left, but Bayrou said: “He has a little bit of a kamikaze personality. I like a daring personality, those who accept taking risks. He is someone for whom I have esteem.”

The French parliament is in recess until 13 January. Bayrou has said the first council of ministers will be held on 3 January and he will announce his government’s programme on 14 January.

LFI has said it will lodge a motion of no confidence following Bayrou’s declaration, which the Assemblée Nationale will vote on within 48 hours. If it succeeds, the government will fall again.

Macron spent Thursday and Friday on Mayotte, located near Madagascar off the coast of south-eastern Africa, France’s poorest region, which was recently hit by the worst cyclone in 90 years, killing at least 35 people and injuring another 2,500, 78 seriously. He then travelled to Djibouti and Ethiopia returning to Paris on Sunday, leaving his new PM struggling to find a consensus administration.

Macron declared Monday a day of national mourning after the deaths and devastation caused to Mayotte by Cyclone Chido. The president and the first lady, Brigitte Macron, held a minute silence at the Élysée.

On Monday Bertrand, a veteran conservative, had been tipped for the justice ministry but said he was told RN had vetoed his appointment. As a result, he said he had turned down other ministerial positions as he “refused to participate in a French government formed with the backing of Marine Le Pen”.

“Accepting under these conditions would have been a denial of my values, my commitment and my combat,” he said, adding: “Dealing with extremism … is a mistake.”

In an interview with Le Parisien on Friday, the LFI leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said: “François Bayrou won’t last the winter”.

A source close to the Saudi government has told Agence France-Presse that Saudi authorities previously requested the extradition of the main suspect in Friday’s Christmas market attack in Germany, as multiple agencies admitted they had received warnings about him.

Echoing reporting from over the weekend, the source said Saudi Arabia warned Germany “many times” about Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a Saudi citizen with a history of spreading anti-Islamic propaganda on social media. The source did not explain in what way he was considered potentially dangerous.

“There was [an extradition] request,” the source told AFP, without giving the reason for the request, adding that Riyadh had warned he “could be dangerous”.

Questions are mounting in Germany about whether Friday’s attack in Magdeburg, which killed five people, might have been preventable. Reports have emerged about lapses in security, questionable immigration decisions and attempts by police to confront Abdulmohsen over threatening behaviour that were allegedly not followed through.

Abdulmohsen, 50, a consultant psychiatrist, is being held in police custody on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and grievous bodily harm.

Four women and a nine-year-old boy were killed in the attack, when a black Mercedes SUV ploughed for 400 metres into crowds of people at the Christmas market in the centre of Magdeburg, in eastern Germany. More than 230 people are now known to have been injured in the three-minute attack, 41 of whom remain in a critical condition. The number of injured was revised upwards on Monday from a previous count of about 200.

Holger Münch, the head of Germany’s federal criminal police office, BKA, told German television that Germany received a warning from Saudi Arabia last year but an investigation found it too vague to act upon.

Police attempted to approach Abdulmohsen for a so-called “threat analysis” discussion but apparently let the opportunity go after failing to find him at home.

Abdulmohsen’s reputation for posting threatening messages online and in person is at the centre of the murder investigation. On Sunday, Christian Pegel, a state interior minister, said the suspect had referred to the 2013 Islamist terror attack on the Boston Marathon during a professional dispute at around that time.

In Magdeburg, where a sea of flowers and candles have been left at the site of the attack, the city of 240,000 residents is trying to come to terms with what happened. City authorities criticised as “deeply disrespectful” the numerous attempts to politicise the attack.

The far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland, which is polling second in the run-up to a snap election in February, invited its supporters to join a rally in the nearby cathedral square on Monday evening, despite Abdulmohsen having repeatedly expressed his support for the party and its affiliates on social media.

The AfD’s leader in Saxony-Anhalt state, Jan Wenzel Schmidt, called for Germany to close its borders, and people in the crowd chanted: “Deport, deport, deport!”

A counter-demonstration under the banner of Don’t Give Hate a Chance took place at the same time.

On Saturday, far-right protesters from across Germany, dressed in black and disguising their faces, had gathered in Magdeburg shouting – in reference to immigrants – “throw them out”.

Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, has urged parties across the political divide to pull together and quickly pass laws on police reform and biometric surveillance that are at risk of being sidelined, delayed or scrapped altogether following the collapse of the government last month.

In an interview with Der Spiegel, Faeser said: “It’s clear we must do everything in order to protect the people of Germany from such horrific acts of violence. To do this, our security authorities need all the necessary powers as well as more personnel.”

The opposition conservatives said Germany urgently needed a review of domestic security forces’ ability to access intelligence, in particular digital data, and they were scathing about the fact that often authorities are dependent on information from abroad to foil attacks on German soil.

“It cannot be the case any longer that we are satisfied with the fact that information about violent criminals and terrorists often only comes from foreign services,” Günter Krings, the CDU’s justice spokesperson, told German media.

He said it must be made easier for security services to apprehend dangerous people who were brought to their attention before they had the chance to carry out attacks.

Security at many Christmas markets around the country has been heightened after Friday’s attack, in which the attacker used a corridor meant for emergency vehicles to penetrate the market.

Police in the north-western city of Bremerhaven said they had arrested a 67-year-old man who had posted a TikTok video in which he threatened to carry out knife attacks on people with dark skin in his local market on Christmas Day.

Earlier this year a group of women who had left the Muslim faith participated in an international conference in Oslo called Celebrating Dissent. More than a dozen complained that Abdulmohsen harassed them online at the time of the conference. One forwarded a complaint about the messages to the German authorities but said she received no response.

One of the women said: “I received 18 messages from him in quick succession. He seemed to have a problem with women. Some of the messages were about women’s clothing. About 18 or 19 other women attending this conference also received messages from him. The experience left me with a knot in my stomach.”

She said she was not certain he held the anti-Muslim beliefs he claimed to have, and that he had tweeted support for Hamas.

Ex-MuslimsInternational said in a statement: “Abdulmohsen was known to our coalition as a stalker and cyberbully.”

Dozens of MPs in Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party have now agreed that Canada’s embattled prime minister must abandon his post after last week’s catastrophic resignation of his deputy – a sign he has completely lost support from what were crucial loyalists.

Several Canadian media outlets, including the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Toronto Star, reported over the weekend that 51 of Ontario’s Liberal MPs met virtually and agreed collectively that Trudeau’s time in office has expired.

There are a total of 75 Liberal MPs in the province that is the country’s most populous and represents where most of the party’s support lies, indicating the core of the Liberals have abandoned Trudeau.

Canada’s public broadcaster also reported that 21 Liberal MPs have publicly called on Trudeau to resign since the exit of Chrystia Freeland, who was his deputy prime minister and finance minister until her abrupt resignation on 16 December.

Freeland announced her departure in a letter to Trudeau that was posted on social media, where she chastised the prime minister for not taking a harder stance against Donald Trump’s proposed 25% tariffs on the country that have the potential to wreck the economy.

She warned of the dangers of Trump’s “America-first” economic nationalism. She said that Canada needs to keep its “fiscal powder dry today” so they have the reserves for a “coming tariff war”.

Her repudiation of the prime minister, after being a core member of his team for over a decade, sent Ottawa into chaos and the fallout has resulted in the New Democratic party pulling its support for the prime minister, which had kept the Liberals afloat with their minority government rule.

The NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, announced on Friday that his party will oust Trudeau when the House of Commons resumes in January after the holidays, which will likely trigger a spring election if the NDP follow through.

Trump spent last week mocking Trudeau in response to the turmoil, calling him “governor”, referring to Canada as the 51st US state and crediting himself for Canada’s newly announced border security plan that seemed to be announced to nullify Trump’s tariff threat.

None of the Ontario MPs made a case for Trudeau to stay on for the next election as Liberal leader, the Star reported. Even MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, the newly announced housing minister in Trudeau’s cabinet shuffle on Friday, told the Star that whether Trudeau should remain in his position “depends” on who is available to lead.

However, many in the virtual meeting said Trudeau should be given time and space to reflect and resign on his own terms, the Star reported.

Quebec Liberal MP Anthony Housefather told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that the “vast majority” of fellow MPs he is speaking to believe Trudeau should resign, “whether they’ve gone public or not.”

Housefather said there were fears that Trudeau would become “the ballot issue” and all but guarantee the Liberal’s being leveled in the next election.

If an election is triggered, sources told the Guardian last week that Freeland is seen as a possible contender for the Liberal leadership and her indication she is remaining in politics, as outlined in her resignation letter, is a sign she could be setting herself up to run.

The debate has raged for more than a century: does birth order help to shape personality, or are conscientious firstborns and creative youngest children flawed stereotypes based on flimsy evidence?

After decades of contested claims, a handful of recent studies found there was little evidence for meaningful differences. But in a study published on Monday, psychologists have pushed back and claim there is an effect after all.

In one of the largest studies ever conducted on birth order, family size and personality, Canadian researchers gathered data from more than 700,000 volunteers and found that on average, middle children scored higher than their siblings on traits seen as important for cooperation.

Scores for the same traits were also higher in families with more children, suggesting that people may be more likely to develop a cooperative personality when they are raised as part of a bigger group.

The effects are not large, but Michael Ashton and Kibeom Lee, psychology professors at Brock University in Ontario and the University of Calgary in Alberta respectively, believe they challenge the idea that birth order and the number of children raised together have no meaningful impact on personality.

“The weight of that evidence now indicates that personality trait levels do differ as a function of birth order and sibship size,” they write in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers have speculated on the impact of birth order for more than a century. In 1874, the polymath Francis Galton, the youngest of nine siblings, gathered histories on a group of English scientists and found a large proportion were firstborns. He suspected the eldest received more attention from their parents, propelling them to greater intellectual heights.

Decades later, the Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler claimed firstborns were often conscientious and responsible, while the youngest might become independent and creative as they looked for ways to stand out. Middle children he saw as peacemakers, though others regarded them as “forgotten children”: the Lisa Simpsons who are often overlooked.

Ashton and Lee analysed personality traits reported by more than 700,000 English speakers who also gave details on whether they were a firstborn sibling, a middle child, the youngest or an only child. A separate group of 75,000 volunteers completed the same questions, along with the number of children they were raised with.

Previous studies have found evidence for firstborns being slightly smarter than late-born children, and the Canadian study saw this, too. But the researchers spotted other differences. People with more siblings tended to score higher on two traits linked to cooperation, namely agreeableness and what the scientists call honesty-humility, or the tendency to be fair and genuine with others. Middle children seemed to receive a further boost, scoring a little higher than the firstborns and youngest siblings.

The findings suggest that if an only child and a person from a family of six were chosen at random, there is a 60% chance that the more agreeable would be from the family of six. “You can’t tell much about the personality of a given individual from their birth order or family size, even though there are clear differences when averaging across many people,” Lee said.

While the number of siblings was the main factor shaping the personality traits, birth order mattered, too. “These differences were largely accounted for by sibship size effects,” Ashton said. “However, the birth order differences could not be entirely explained by sibship size, which indicates that there is also a small birth order effect on cooperative personality traits, with middles and youngests averaging slightly higher than oldests.”

If the effects are real, some drivers could be intuitive, the authors write: that having more siblings fosters a more cooperative personality, while being a middle child calls for good bonds with younger and older siblings.