An exultant Donald Trump has promised to act with “historic speed and strength” when he returns to the White House on Monday, teeing up a barrage of executive orders targeting illegal immigration, transgender rights and other rightwing priorities.

“We won, we won,” Trump declared on Sunday during a triumphant return to Washington, where he held a raucous “victory rally” with thousands of supporters in a downtown sports arena. “What a good feeling. We like winning, don’t we, eh? We’re going to make our country greater than ever before.”

The soon-to-be 47th president delivered a characteristically rollicking speech, a mix of boasts, false claims and sweeping promises, that set the stage for his inauguration at noon on Monday and the populist blitz that will follow.

“Starting tomorrow, I will act with historic speed of strength and fix every single crisis facing our country,” he said.

“Every radical, foolish executive order of the Biden administration will be repealed within hours of when I take the oath of office. You’re gonna have a lot of fun watching television. Somebody said yesterday, don’t sign so many in one day, let’s do it over a period of weeks. I said, like hell … no, we’re doing them tomorrow.”

Just as on the campaign trail, Trump put illegal immigration front and centre, painting a lurid picture of the US as land of open borders under siege by violent thugs released from foreign jails as far away as Congo. He played a video showing crimes allegedly committed by undocumented people.

“By the time the sun sets tomorrow, the invasion of our country will have come to a halt,” he said. “The border security measures I will outline in my inaugural address tomorrow will be the most aggressive, sweeping effort to restore our borders that the world has ever seen.”

Trump repeated his campaign pledge to launch the biggest deportation effort in US history, which would remove millions of immigrants – an operation of that scale would probably take years and be hugely costly.

The event marked his first major address in Washington since his speech on 6 January 2021 that preceded the storming of the US Capitol by an angry mob of his supporters. Trump has said he will pardon many of the more than 1,500 people convicted or charged in connection with the attack, calling them “hostages”.

He said: “Tomorrow everybody in this very large arena will be very happy with my decision on the J6 hostages. Very happy. I think you will be very, very happy.”

The pre-inauguration rally was unlike anything that an incoming president has staged before. Thousands of people lined up outside the Capital One Arena on a cold, grey and snowy day. Sweater slogans included “Make America great again,” “Pro God, Pro Gun” and “Proud J6er” – a reference to January 6.

Trump walked down a stairway as Lee Greenwood sang the signature campaign song God Bless the USA and the crowd roared in adulation, chanting “USA! USA!” He stood on red carpet under basketball and ice hockey pennants, but the top tier was mostly empty, and promised to “take back our country”.

The president-elect said: “Tomorrow at noon the curtain closes on four long years of American decline and we begin a brand new day of American strength and prosperity, dignity and pride.”

He went on to claim credit for Sunday’s release of hostages from Gaza and the return of TikTok for US consumers. “As of today, TikTok is back,” he said, before falsely claiming he had “won the youth vote” thanks to his support on the app. Trump increased his share of the youth vote in 2024, but still lost that demographic to Kamala Harris.

Trump said he would instruct the military to construct an “iron dome” missile defence system. He also pledged to “get radical woke ideologies the hell out of our military” and played a video intercutting scenes of a bullying drill sergeant in the film Full Metal Jacket with clips of transgender individuals supposedly associated with the Biden-Harris administration.

Roared on by the crowd, Trump said: “We will get critical race theory and transgender insanity the hell out of schools … This will be done tomorrow. We will keep men out of women’s sports.”

He shared plans to travel to Los Angeles on Friday to survey the damage of wildfires that killed at least 27 people and scorched the largest urban area of California in at least 40 years.

Trump further promised to reverse the “over-classification” of government documents, a seeming reference to his federal indictment for retaining classified papers after leaving office. He pledged to release classified documents relating to the assassinations of John F Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

The rally featured an appearance by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who spent $200m to help Trump win election and is heading a task force to cut government spending.

Cheered by the crowd, Musk said: “We’re looking forward to making a lot of changes. This victory is the start, really. What matters going forward is to actually make significant changes … and set the foundation for America to be strong for centuries, forever. And make America great again.”

Trump appeared to reference “racehorse theory”, the idea that certain bloodlines produce superior offspring, while complimenting Musk and his young son who joined him on stage. “If you believe in the racehorse theory, he’s got a nice, smart son,” Trump said of Musk.

The term, which Trump has previously explained as meaning that “fast horses produce fast horses”, is a reference to racehorse breeding. It has at times been used by white supremacists, Nazis and eugenicists to promote racial purity.

The rally also featured a performance by musician Kid Rock and speeches by Hollywood actor Jon Voight as well as Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr and granddaughter Kai.

Trump wrapped up his hourlong speech with a performance by the Village People, who sang YMCA, the anthem that closed out nearly all of Trump’s campaign rallies. Trump swayed on stage, bopped his head and sang along as they performed.

The Maga faithful welcomed Trump’s plans for January 6 rioters. Felecia Hicks, 30, from McAlester, Oklahoma, said: “He needs to pardon them. My mom was there that day and could very well have been one of those people falsely accused.

“I believe that it was the Capitol police that incited a lot of that and there were a lot of infiltrators that looked like Trump supporters that added to the chaos. There’s a lot of people that’s been falsely accused and they haven’t been given the right justice.”

Hicks, a special education teaching assistant who has supported Trump since 2016, said of his other plans: “He needs to go through with checking our vaccines and getting the red dyes and different things out of our food. I believe that there’s a lot of different things he needs to do and I would not want to be the one prioritising what goes first.”

Reina Decapua, 52, from Carmel, Indiana, was attending her first Trump rally “because he’s going to be such an awesome president. I like his policies. I like that he tells you what he thinks. He’s got a set of balls.”

Trump’s priorities, she added, should be removing illegal immigrants, completing his wall on the southern border and keeping his 2017 tax cuts in place.

Irving King, 49, from Washington DC, said he had come to see wrestler Hulk Hogan, whom he had been a fan of since he was a boy. “It makes sense he’s a Trump supporter because he’s a conservative,” he said. “Trump is on the right track because we need change. I hope he will make it a little easier for us to pay for our groceries and our bills.”

TikTok said on Sunday that it was restoring services in the US after Donald Trump pledged earlier in the day to give the video app a reprieve on its US ban.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that after taking office on Monday he would sign an executive order allowing the Chinese-owned video app additional time to find a buyer before facing a total shutdown, and proposing that the US or an American firm take a 50% ownership stake.

“By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say (sic) up,” Trump said. “Without US approval, there is no TikTok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”

TikTok stopped working in the US for 170 million users late on Saturday.

Congress passed a law in April ordering TikTok, which is currently owned by ByteDance, to either sell to a non-Chinese owner or face being removed from the US, with the app choosing to shut itself down after the US supreme court ruled to uphold the ban on Friday. Under the law, companies would be blocked from distributing, maintaining or updating the app – for instance, in effect banning it from app stores – if TikTok failed to secure a sale.

From Saturday night until Sunday afternoon, a pop-up message to the app’s US users read: “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now.” Trump had pushed for a ban under his previous presidency but, after finding a large audience on the app during his 2024 presidential campaign, he attempted to intervene on TikTok’s behalf at the 11th hour.

The company’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, released a video thanking Trump for his efforts to keep the app active in the US. He is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration ceremony in person.

After Trump’s message on Sunday, the company said in a statement that it was “in the process of restoring service”, adding: “We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive. It’s a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States.”

Some Tiktok users reported the app was fully functional once again shortly after the announcement.

The incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, also told CNN on Sunday that Trump hasn’t ruled out continued Chinese ownership, with “firewalls to make sure that the data is protected here on US soil”.

He also said on CBS News on Sunday that Trump said he is working to “save” TikTok and needs time to sort out issues related to the firm and to evaluate potential buyers.

Concerns around TikTok centre on the possibility of the Chinese state accessing the personal data generated by the app’s US users or manipulating the app’s powerful algorithm to dictate what users see. Chew has denied Chinese state involvement in the app, saying in 2023 ByteDance is not “an agent of China or any other country”.

Last week it was reported that Trump was weighing delaying the ban via an executive order. The legislation threatening TikTok with a ban contains a provision allowing the president to extend the sale deadline, which passed on Sunday, for a sale by 90 days if there is the possibility of deal, although the law cites the need for “evidence of significant progress” towards a transaction.

The Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that he intends to uphold the TikTok ban.

“When President Trump issued the Truth post and said save TikTok, the way we read that is that he’s going to try to force along a true divestiture, changing of hands, the ownership,” Johnson said.

He added members of Congress are not worried about the app itself but about the Chinese Communist Party, and said TikTok’s owners, ByteDance, had 270 days to sell the app in the US.

Some Republicans have rejected the idea of extending the time before the ban goes into effect.

“Now that the law has taken effect, there’s no legal basis for any kind of ‘extension’ of its effective date,” said the Senate intelligence committee chairman Tom Cotton (Republican of Arkansas) and Senator Pete Ricketts (Republican of Nebraska) in a joint statement on Sunday.

“For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China. Only then will Americans be protected from the grave threat posed to their privacy and security by a communist-controlled TikTok.”

Several Democrats last week urged President Biden to issue a reprieve to give TikTok more time before shutting down.

“It’s clear that more time is needed to find an American buyer for TikTok,” the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on 16 January. “We will continue working to keep TikTok alive, protect content creators’ livelihoods, protect against CCP surveillance, and protect national security. I will work with the Trump Admin to find a solution.”

The Shark Tank celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary said on Friday he offered TikTok’s owners $20bn to buy it, while the company Perplexity AI has also reportedly submitted a bid to merge with TikTok US, rather than purchase the app outright. It has also been reported that Chinese officials have considered brokering a TikTok sale to Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and a Trump ally. TikTok dismissed the Musk reports as “pure fiction”.

Nelly has defended his decision to perform at US president Donald Trump’s inauguration ball after a backlash, saying it is “an honour for me to perform for the president of the United States, regardless of who is in office”.

The Hot in Herre singer is booked to perform alongside country singer Jason Aldean and the Village People on Monday at the Liberty Inaugural Ball, one of three official balls marking Trump’s return to office. Other acts who are performing at Trump’s various inauguration events include Carrie Underwood, Gavin DeGraw and Billy Ray Cyrus, who have also faced a backlash from fans.

Nelly’s social media has been flooded with criticism, with some noting that his performance for Trump falls on Martin Luther King Day, and fresh after a presidential campaign during which Trump and his supporters made a series of racist remarks aimed at Black and Latino people and immigrants.

During a livestreamed conversation with fellow rapper Willie D on Sunday, Nelly said he was “not political” or “trying to tell anybody who they should vote for” by agreeing to perform at a Trump event.

“This is not me telling you, ‘Yo, you should vote for this candidate.’ I think you should do your homework and figure out what best helps you and the people who you love and you provide for because I’m clueless on a lot of things when it gets down to it,” he said.

“But what I will say is that, I respect the office. This isn’t politics. The politics, for me, is over. [Trump] won! He’s the president. He’s the commander in chief of what I would like to say is the best country in the world … It is an honour for me to perform for the president of the United States, regardless of who is in office.”

Nelly said those criticising him did not understand that he was performing out of respect for the presidency, adding: “If President Biden would’ve asked me to perform, I would’ve performed. If Vice-President Kamala Harris would’ve won and asked me to perform, I would’ve performed … I didn’t know that you was riding with me because you thought I would ride for who you voted for. I didn’t know that I had to agree with your political choices. If you follow what I do, this shouldn’t even be an argument.”

Asked if he was a Trump supporter, Nelly replied: “I support the president of the United States regardless of who is in office. Regardless, I respect the office.”

In 2017, Nelly told Page Six that he didn’t approve of Trump during his first term: “You know the thing about Donald Trump is that I liked Donald Trump, I did, I just don’t like Donald Trump as my president,” he said at the time. “Dude is a trip. Pre-presidency, I was cool with the Donald. Loved his hotels. I’m more or less mad at him because I can’t stay at his hotel now. You done fucked that up.”

Last week the Village People released a statement in anticipation of criticism over their upcoming performances at several inauguration events. Their song YMCA was a staple at Trump’s campaign rallies.

“We know this won’t make some of you happy to hear however we believe that music is to be performed without regard to politics,” the band wrote on Facebook. “Our song YMCA is a global anthem that hopefully helps bring the country together after a tumultuous and divided campaign where our preferred candidate lost. Therefore, we believe it’s now time to bring the country together with music which is why Village People will be performing at various events as part of the 2025 Inauguration of Donald J Trump.”

Over the weekend, Rick Ross, Soulja Boy and Snoop Dogg were also criticised after they performed at the Crypto Ball in Washington DC, an event described by organisers as a “celebratory setting intended to honour … America’s first ‘crypto president’.” The 1,500 attendees, who paid upwards of $2,500 for a seat, were reportedly given “Make Bitcoin Great Again” red baseball caps. Snoop Dogg had previously called Trump supporters “stupid motherfuckers”.

Donald Trump, the 45th and soon to be 47th president of the United States, will be inaugurated in Washington on Monday, in an event moved indoors by freezing weather from the Capitol steps where he was first sworn into power eight years ago.

Trump will again take the oath of office, and complete an astonishing political comeback.

Here’s everything you need to know about the schedule, attendees and celebrations:

The wealth of the world’s billionaires grew by $2tn (£1.64tn) last year, three times faster than in 2023, amounting to $5.7bn (£4.7bn) a day, according to a report by Oxfam.

The latest inequality report from the charity reveals that the world is now on track to have five trillionaires within a decade, a change from last year’s forecast of one trillionaire within 10 years.

The report, entitled Takers Not Makers, comes as many of the world’s political leaders, corporate executives and the super-rich travel to the Swiss ski resort of Davos for the annual World Economic Forum meeting from Monday.

Oxfam’s examination of billionaire assets also coincides with Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president. Trump is expected to include several billionaires in his team of close advisers, including the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive, Elon Musk, and to offer large-scale tax breaks to the wealthiest US citizens.

At the same time, the number of people living under the World Bank poverty line of $6.85 a day has barely changed since 1990, and is close to 3.6 billion – equivalent to 44% of the world’s population today, the charity said. One in 10 women lives in extreme poverty (below $2.15 a day), which means 24.3 million more women than men endure extreme poverty.

Oxfam warned that progress on reducing poverty has ground to a halt and that extreme poverty could be ended three times faster if inequality were to be reduced.

The UK has the highest proportion of billionaire wealth among G7 countries, where wealth climbed by £35m a day to £182bn in 2024. Four new billionaires emerged last year, taking the UK total to 57. They are Mark Dixon, who runs the flexible office provider IWG; Sunder Genomal, the founder of Page Industries, a Bengaluru-based garment business; Donald Mackenzie, a Scottish tycoon who co-founded private equity firm CVC; and Jim Thompson, the founder of moving company Crown Worldwide.

Rising share values on global stock exchanges account for most of the increase in billionaire wealth, though higher property values also played a role. Residential property accounts for about 80% of worldwide investments.

Globally, the number of billionaires rose by 204 last year to 2,769. Their combined wealth jumped from $13tn to $15tn in just 12 months – the second-largest annual increase since records began. The wealth of the world’s 10 richest men grew on average by almost $100m a day and even if they lost 99% of their wealth overnight, they would remain billionaires.

They include the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, with a net worth of $219.4bn, whose Amazon “empire” accounts for 70% or more of online purchases in Germany, France, the UK and Spain. Aliko Dangote, with a net worth of $11bn, is Africa’s richest person, holding a “near-monopoly” on cement in Nigeria and dominating the market across Africa, the report said.

The report argues that most of the wealth is taken, not earned, as 60% comes from either inheritance, “cronyism and corruption” or monopoly power. It calculates that 18% of the wealth arises from monopoly power.

According to the Forbes’ real time billionaires list, the richest people in the world are Musk; Bezos; Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook and Meta co-founder; Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle; and the LVMH founder Bernard Arnault. At Trump’s inauguration on Monday, Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg are expected to sit close together, in a sign of the tech companies’ rapidly growing influence on politics.

Oxfam calls for bold solutions to “radically reduce inequality and hardwire fairness into our economies”.

Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s inequality policy lead, said: “Last year we predicted the first trillionaire could emerge within a decade, but this shocking acceleration of wealth means that the world is now on course for at least five. The global economic system is broken, wholly unfit for purpose as it enables and perpetuates this explosion of riches, while nearly half of humanity continues to live in poverty.”

She called on the UK government to prioritise economic policies that bring down inequality, including higher taxation of the super-rich.

“Huge sums of money could be raised, to tackle inequality here in the UK and overseas and provide crucial investment for our public services. For the first time, with the groundbreaking G20 agreement to cooperate on taxing the world’s super-rich [last July], there is genuine momentum to implement fairer taxation globally.”

Tony Jones has issued an apology to Novak Djokovic after comments the veteran broadcaster made at the Australian Open led to the Serbian tennis star boycotting Channel Nine’s coverage of the tournament.

Djokovic opted not to give a customary on-court interview after beating Jiri Lehecka on Sunday to move into this year’s quarter-finals, before revealing he would not speak to the host broadcaster until he received an apology.

Jones, according to the 10-time Australian Open champion, “made a mockery of Serbian fans and also made insulting and offensive comments towards me” during a segment on Friday evening’s news show.

The 63-year-old said on Monday he had reached out to Djokovic and his camp on Saturday to apologise for making the comments, which he considered to be “banter”.

“I considered it to be humour, which is consistent with most things I do,” Jones said before play started at Melbourne Park on day nine of the year’s first grand slam. “Having said that, I was made aware on the Saturday morning from Tennis Australia via the Djokovic camp that the Djokovic camp was not happy at all with those comments.

“As such, I immediately contacted the Djokovic camp and issued an apology to them. And as I stand here now, I stand by that apology to Novak … I do apologise if he felt that I disrespected him.”

Jones caused an outcry when he sledged a group of animated Serbian supporters in a live broadcast, singing back at them, “Novak, he’s overrated. Novak’s a has-been. Novak, kick him out.”

He acknowledged the impact his comments had on Serbian fans and said he “overstepped the mark” with that last remark.

“Now I can stand here and put whatever spin I want on that, but it can only be interpreted as a throwback to the Covid years when he was kicked out [of Australia],” he said. “Now that that has angered Novak, which I completely understand now.

“They [the Serbian fans] come here with the flags and they provide so much colour and so much passion and there was banter, so I thought what I was doing was an extension of that banter. Quite clearly that hasn’t been interpreted that way. So I do feel as though I’ve let down the Serbian fans.”

Jones said he had offered to meet with the Djokovic camp to discuss the incident and expects to do so in the next 24 hours.

Channel Nine also issued an apology on Monday.

“Nine would like to apologise to Novak Djokovic for any offence caused from comments made during a recent live cross. No harm was intended towards Novak or his fans. We look forward to further showcasing his Australian Open campaign at Melbourne Park.”

The issue threatens to overshadow Djokovic’s pursuit of an 11th Australian Open title, with video of the broadcast quickly going viral.

A formal complaint has been lodged with the Human Rights Commission by the Serbian Council of Australia, which also called for Jones to be stood down in a statement released on Monday.

Tennis great Boris Becker called Jones’s behaviour “very disturbing”, while two-time Australian Open champion Viktoria Azarenka said: “The audacity to call Novak Djokovic overrated by a reporter is just insane. The guy literally completed tennis by winning everything you can in our sport!”

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, was asked to weigh into the controversy on Monday and he called for more respect.

“I’ll let that go through to the keeper, that’s a matter between them,” Albanese said. “But I think Novak Djokovic is certainly a fine tennis player, there’s no question about that, and I do think that there is a place for more respect.

“I’ve seen the comments that were made by the broadcaster … We need more kindness and generosity and respect just across the board. I think that’s what people are looking for.”

Jones said he hoped the focus could now shift back to the tennis, with the Serb to next meet third seed Carlos Alcaraz in the match of the tournament so far on Tuesday night.

An Iranian court has sentenced the popular singer Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tataloo, to death on appeal after he was convicted of blasphemy, according to local media reports.

“The supreme court accepted the prosecutor’s objection” to a previous five-year jail term on offences including blasphemy, the reformist newspaper Etemad reported on Sunday.

It said “the case was reopened, and this time the defendant was sentenced to death for insulting the prophet”, referring to Islam’s prophet Muhammad.

The report added that the verdict was not final and could still be appealed against.

The 37-year-old underground musician had been living in Istanbul since 2018 before Turkish police handed him over to Iran in December 2023.

He has been in detention in Iran since then.

Tataloo had also been sentenced to 10 years for promoting “prostitution” and in other cases was charged with disseminating “propaganda” against the Islamic Republic and publishing “obscene content”.

The heavily tattooed singer, known for combining rap, pop and R&B, was previously courted by conservative politicians as a way of reaching out to young, liberal-minded Iranians.

Tataloo even held an awkward televised meeting in 2017 with the ultra-conservative Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who later died in a helicopter crash.

In 2015, Tataloo published a song in support of Iran’s nuclear programme that later unravelled in 2018 during the first US presidency of Donald Trump.

Chrystia Freeland has warned of the “existential risk” to Canada posed by Donald Trump, casting herself as a “battle tested leader with the scars to prove it” during the formal launch of her bid to be the country’s next prime minister.

Freeland, who has presented herself as the figure most capable of negotiating with a protectionist and unpredictable White House, held her formal campaign launch the day before the incoming president’s inauguration and pledged “dollar to dollar” retaliation for any tariffs that would amount to the “largest trade blow the US has ever endured”.

Speaking at her campaign launch in Toronto on Sunday, she warned prospective voters that “the stakes are just too damn high”, boasting that Trump disliked her because she had been “fierce, resolute and have been effective in defending Canada”.

As part of a raft of protectionist trade measures, Trump has threatened to hit Canada with 25% tariffs on all goods.

“I have a message for Trump: We are your neighbour and most important trading partner,” said Freeland. “But if the fight comes to our door, just remember we love our country as much as you love yours…. Canada will not escalate. But if I’m prime minister, Canada will never back down.”

Freeland, who took to the stage to the beat of Nelly Furtado’s Maneater, triggered the current leadership race by resigning as the country’s finance minister last month after clashing with the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, over how to handle the looming threat of US tariffs. Her stern rebuke of the prime minister was seen as a trigger for his resignation which came weeks later.

Before that however, she served alongside Trudeau for nearly a decade and occupied the most senior roles in his cabinet. Her close relationship with the former prime minister may become a millstone for her nascent campaign. Trudeau remains deeply unpopular and Freeland’s task is to convince a skeptical public how she would chart a different course than her predecessor.

Her split with the prime minister, even though it has been a foundational aspect of her campaign, was not universally appreciated across the party.

“I don’t like how she treated Trudeau,” said Sandy Hughes, who attended the event but intends to vote for Mark Carney, the former central banker seen as Freeland’s biggest rival. “She didn’t treat Trudeau well. Although to be honest, he didn’t treat her that well either.”

Hughes worried that Canada isn’t yet ready for a woman to serve as the country’s top job and felt Carney’s self-described “outsider” identity would be helpful for a party facing the prospect of electoral disaster.

Sunday’s launch was held at a Toronto youth community centre in a nod to the government policy that cut daycare fees across the country. At one point, pro-Palestine protesters disrupted the event, rushing the stage with a Palestinian flag, and unfurling a banner that described Freeland as a “grave digger”.

Meanwhile, her rival Carney received a key endorsement from foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly, who argued the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England was best suited to deal with the threat of a trade dispute with the United States.

Carney managed the 2008 financial crisis in Canada and the economic challenges that arose after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. The endorsement also gives Carney a prominent supporter in Quebec.

Still, Freeland had Quebec Liberal caucus chair Stéphane Lauzon at her launch. She later told reporters she had held her first campaign event and given her first interview to a French language outlet because she values the importance of French and Quebec identity.

The frontrunners’ contrasting strategies reflected a deep rift within the party over whether the threat of Trump is best handled with a strong negotiator at the helm – or a veteran economist familiar with crises.

The winning candidate must also convince a Liberal government-fatigued public that they would perform better than Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who is on currently track to win the next election and form government.

“The real problem with Pierre Poilievre is that he’s weak. He will never stand up to Donald Trump,” said Freeland. “If he’s elected he’ll be on the first flight to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring. He will bend down and sell us out.”

Angus Tucker, who attended the event, said any Liberal candidate running for the country’s top job would need to address the mounting crises in the country, including cost of living and government spending.

“I’m coming in with an open mind. Now that she’s potentially the person in charge, I want to hear what she has to say about her own record,” he said of the “spending, spending and spending” by the federal government.

“She’s got her work cut out for her.”

Chrystia Freeland has warned of the “existential risk” to Canada posed by Donald Trump, casting herself as a “battle tested leader with the scars to prove it” during the formal launch of her bid to be the country’s next prime minister.

Freeland, who has presented herself as the figure most capable of negotiating with a protectionist and unpredictable White House, held her formal campaign launch the day before the incoming president’s inauguration and pledged “dollar to dollar” retaliation for any tariffs that would amount to the “largest trade blow the US has ever endured”.

Speaking at her campaign launch in Toronto on Sunday, she warned prospective voters that “the stakes are just too damn high”, boasting that Trump disliked her because she had been “fierce, resolute and have been effective in defending Canada”.

As part of a raft of protectionist trade measures, Trump has threatened to hit Canada with 25% tariffs on all goods.

“I have a message for Trump: We are your neighbour and most important trading partner,” said Freeland. “But if the fight comes to our door, just remember we love our country as much as you love yours…. Canada will not escalate. But if I’m prime minister, Canada will never back down.”

Freeland, who took to the stage to the beat of Nelly Furtado’s Maneater, triggered the current leadership race by resigning as the country’s finance minister last month after clashing with the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, over how to handle the looming threat of US tariffs. Her stern rebuke of the prime minister was seen as a trigger for his resignation which came weeks later.

Before that however, she served alongside Trudeau for nearly a decade and occupied the most senior roles in his cabinet. Her close relationship with the former prime minister may become a millstone for her nascent campaign. Trudeau remains deeply unpopular and Freeland’s task is to convince a skeptical public how she would chart a different course than her predecessor.

Her split with the prime minister, even though it has been a foundational aspect of her campaign, was not universally appreciated across the party.

“I don’t like how she treated Trudeau,” said Sandy Hughes, who attended the event but intends to vote for Mark Carney, the former central banker seen as Freeland’s biggest rival. “She didn’t treat Trudeau well. Although to be honest, he didn’t treat her that well either.”

Hughes worried that Canada isn’t yet ready for a woman to serve as the country’s top job and felt Carney’s self-described “outsider” identity would be helpful for a party facing the prospect of electoral disaster.

Sunday’s launch was held at a Toronto youth community centre in a nod to the government policy that cut daycare fees across the country. At one point, pro-Palestine protesters disrupted the event, rushing the stage with a Palestinian flag, and unfurling a banner that described Freeland as a “grave digger”.

Meanwhile, her rival Carney received a key endorsement from foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly, who argued the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England was best suited to deal with the threat of a trade dispute with the United States.

Carney managed the 2008 financial crisis in Canada and the economic challenges that arose after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. The endorsement also gives Carney a prominent supporter in Quebec.

Still, Freeland had Quebec Liberal caucus chair Stéphane Lauzon at her launch. She later told reporters she had held her first campaign event and given her first interview to a French language outlet because she values the importance of French and Quebec identity.

The frontrunners’ contrasting strategies reflected a deep rift within the party over whether the threat of Trump is best handled with a strong negotiator at the helm – or a veteran economist familiar with crises.

The winning candidate must also convince a Liberal government-fatigued public that they would perform better than Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who is on currently track to win the next election and form government.

“The real problem with Pierre Poilievre is that he’s weak. He will never stand up to Donald Trump,” said Freeland. “If he’s elected he’ll be on the first flight to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring. He will bend down and sell us out.”

Angus Tucker, who attended the event, said any Liberal candidate running for the country’s top job would need to address the mounting crises in the country, including cost of living and government spending.

“I’m coming in with an open mind. Now that she’s potentially the person in charge, I want to hear what she has to say about her own record,” he said of the “spending, spending and spending” by the federal government.

“She’s got her work cut out for her.”

• Russia suffered 434,000 casualties in 2024, the commander in chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has claimed, saying it was more than the previous two years combined. Oleksandr Syrskyi said in an interview broadcast on Sunday evening that the figure included 150,000 deaths. Syrskyi did not give a figure for Ukrainian casualties. Ukraine’s General Staff also reported over the weekend that almost 819,000 Russian soldiers had been killed, captured or wounded since the start of the war. In December 2024, Kyiv said 2,200 Russian soldiers died in the space of 24 hours, its worst toll since the start of the war. Western tallies for Russian casualties are lower, with an assessment in October last year stating up to 115,000 had been killed and 500,000 wounded since the start of the full-scale invasion.

• Moscow has opened a criminal investigation into claims Ukraine killed civilians in the western Russian Kursk region. Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, alleged Ukrainian troops “committed the murder of at least seven civilians, who were sheltering in the basement of a residential house” in the village of Russkoe Porechnoye, 20km (12 miles) from the border. Ukraine did not officially respond to the allegations. Both Ukraine and Russia regularly accuse the other of attacking non-combatants, and both deny the claims. Russia’s foreign spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, accused Ukraine of the “cannibalistic massacre of civilians”. After launching a surprise offensive attack in the Kursk region, Ukraine has controlled dozens of border settlements, and says around 2,000 civilians live in occupied areas. Several Russian state media outlets published video, supplied by the army, that they said showed Russian troops discovering several dead bodies in a dark basement. AFP could not immediately verify the claims or the video. Russian forces are accused of having murdered hundreds of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, during a month-long occupation at the start of the conflict.

• Ukraine shot down 43 out of the 61 drones launched by Russia on Sunday night, its airforce said. It also said that 15 other drones were “lost”, after being redirected by Kyiv’s use of electronic warfare. No major damage or casualties were immediately reported by officials.

• Russian troops have captured the village of Vozdvyzhenka in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, the Russian Interfax news agency reported on Sunday, citing the Russian defence ministry. Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield reports.

• Ukrainians celebrated Orthodox holiday Epiphany on Sunday, despite the war sparking a religious divide. “There’s explosions here, bangs there, we always expect something bad. But now we just stood still, forgot about everything, and prayed to God,” military medic Natalya told AFP. Ukrainians have largely moved away from the Ukrainian Orthodox church – which sits under the Moscow Patriarchate – since the invasion, with the majority now following a Kyiv-led church. The Ukrainian Orthodox church remains controversial for not formally breaking away from Moscow’s leadership, though it has denounced the war and denied it depends on Russia.

A groundbreaking NHS trial will attempt to boost patients’ mood using a brain-computer-interface that directly alters brain activity using ultrasound.

The device, which is designed to be implanted beneath the skull but outside the brain, maps activity and delivers targeted pulses of ultrasound to “switch on” clusters of neurons. Its safety and tolerability will be tested on about 30 patient in the £6.5m trial, funded by the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria).

In future, doctors hope the technology could revolutionise the treatment of conditions such as depression, addiction, OCD and epilepsy by rebalancing disrupted patterns of brain activity.

Jacques Carolan, Aria’s programme director, said: “Neurotechnologies can help a much broader range of people than we thought. Helping with treatment resistant depression, epilepsy, addiction, eating disorders, that is the huge opportunity here. We are at a turning point in both the conditions we hope we can treat and the new types of technologies emerging to do that.”

The trial follows rapid advances in brain-computer-interface (BCI) technology, with Elon Musk’s company Neuralink launching a clinical trial in paralysis patients last year and another study restoring communication to stroke patients by translating their thoughts directly into speech.

However, the technologies raise significant ethical issues around the ownership and privacy of data, the possibility of enhancement and the risk of neuro-discrimination, whereby brain data might be used to judge a person’s suitability for employment or medical insurance.

Clare Elwell, professor of medical physics at UCL, said: “These innovations could be really fast-moving from a technical perspective, but we’re lagging behind on addressing neuroethical issues. We’re now accessing neural pathways in a way that we haven’t been able to do before, so we need to carefully consider the clinical impact of any intervention and ensure we always act in the best interests of the patient.”

The latest trial will test a device developed by the US-based non-profit Forest Neurotech. In contrast to invasive implants, in which electrodes are inserted into a specific location in the brain, Forest 1 uses ultrasound to read-out and modify activity. Aria describes the device as “the most advanced BCI in the world” due to its ability to modify activity across multiple regions simultaneously.

This widens potential future applications to a huge patient population affected by conditions such as depression, anxiety and epilepsy, which are all “circuit level” conditions rather than being localised in a specific brain region.

Aimun Jamjoom, a consultant neurosurgeon at the Barking, Havering and Redbridge university hospitals NHS trust, who is leading the project, said: “This is a less invasive technique and the ability to offer a safer form of surgery is very exciting. If you look at conditions like depression or epilepsy, [up to] a third of these patients just don’t get better. It’s those groups where a technology like this could be a life-changing solution.”

The NHS trial will recruit patients who, due to brain injury, have had part of their skull temporarily removed to relieve a critical buildup of pressure in the brain. This means the device can be tested without having to perform surgery.

When placed beneath the skull, or in individuals with a skull defect, ultrasound can detect tiny changes in blood flow to produce 3D maps of brain activity with a spatial resolution of about 100 times that of a typical fMRI scan. The same implant can deliver focused ultrasound to mechanically nudge neurons towards firing, providing a way to remotely dial activity up at precise locations.

Participants will wear the device on their scalp at the site of the skull defect for two hours. Their brain activity will be measured and researchers will test whether patients’ mood and feelings of motivation can be reliably altered.

There are safety considerations, as ultrasound can cause tissue to heat up. Prof Elsa Fouragnan, a neuroscientist at the University of Plymouth, which is collaborating on the project, said: “What we’re trying to minimise is heat. There’s a safety and efficacy trade-off.”

She added that it would also be important to ensure that personality or decision-making were not altered in unintended ways – for instance, making someone more impulsive.

The study will run for three and a half years starting from March, with the first eight months focused on securing regulatory approval. If successful, Forest hopes to move into a full clinical trial for a condition such as depression.

The Forest 1 trial is one of 19 projects announced on Monday as part of Aria’s £69m precision neurotechnologies programme, with others including research on neural robots for epilepsy treatment, genetic engineering of brain cells and lab-grown brain organoids. Aria, the UK’s equivalent of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and brainchild of Dominic Cummings, was established in 2023 with the mission of funding high-risk, high-reward scientific endeavours.

An imposing bronze statue of Francisco Pizarro, Peru’s Spanish conqueror, has been returned to a spot near its former location in Lima’s main square, 22 years after it was removed, in an apparent attempt to rehabilitate the conquistador’s controversial legacy.

Weighing 7 tonnes and standing 5 metres tall, the Italian Renaissance-inspired sculpture of Pizarro astride a horse with his sword drawn was re-inaugurated on Saturday as part of celebrations marking the 490th anniversary of the Peruvian capital city’s foundation.

The main square was closed off to the public and guarded by police as the statue covered in a white cloth was unveiled by Lima’s far-right mayor Rafael López Aliaga and the regional president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The Spanish politician from the conservative People’s party (PP) had been invited to the Peruvian capital to mark the city’s anniversary.

The symbolic vindication of Pizarro, the conquistador who led 167 Spaniards to defeat the Inca Empire, has provoked mixed reactions in a country still deeply divided along racial and class lines. Pizarro notoriously captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa in 1532 and held him to ransom until the room in which he was held was filled with gold and silver. He then had him executed the following year.

After sacking Cusco, the capital of the Inca empire, Pizarro founded Lima in 1535. Originally known as the City of Kings, the city was the capital of the Spanish Viceroyalty in South America until Peru’s independence in 1821.

Speaking at the ceremony which was also attended by Pizarro’s descendants, Díaz Ayuso said the statue commemorated “not only the birth of a city, but the beginning of a historic encounter that forever transformed the world”.

She added that the statue’s relocation meant “the reunion of the statue of Pizarro with the historical heart of Lima” and showed respect for the city’s history.

But a small group of protesters blew traditional Andean wind instruments made from conch shells and shouted: “Out with Pizarro” and “genocide” as the speeches were being made.

“Peruvians do not want it,” said former presidential candidate Yonhy Lescano on Twitter/X. “We admire Tupac Amaru, Micaela Bastidas [who led a rebellion against the Spanish in the 1700s] and other heroes. We stopped being a colony long ago.”

At least 80 people have been killed and thousands displaced in north-east Colombia after the collapse of a fragile truce between rebel groups vying for control of the one of the country’s largest cocaine hubs.

Violence between the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) has rapidly escalated in the lawless region bordering Venezuela since Thursday, forcing at least 5,000 people to flee their homes.

School has been suspended indefinitely as classrooms have been converted into emergency shelters for families fleeing their homes and the region has requested emergency humanitarian assistance, said William Villamizar, governor of the Norte de Santander region.

Dozens of civilians have been injured and 20 people, including 10 women, have been kidnapped, according to Colombia’s ombudsman office.

At least 3,000 people have been displaced in the municipality of Tibú, said the local mayor, Richar Claro.

“We are seeing innumerable families who have lost children and even sadder still, children who have lost their parents,” Claro said. “Kids and the elderly are crying as they are leaving their farms and crops behind. It’s absolutely heart-wrenching.”

“We can’t even give the victims a dignified burial as we cannot get into the areas to reclaim the bodies due to ongoing violence.”

The current clashes are the among the worst Colombia has seen since its first leftist president Gustavo Petro took office in 2022 with a promise to bring “total peace” to the war-wracked nation.

On Thursday, Petro cut off on-off talks with the ELN, Colombia’s oldest active armed group, after the rebels were accused of killing five members of a rival drug-trafficking faction.

The unrest has quickly escalated.

Among those killed were a local community leader and seven former rebel fighters who laid down their weapons in a 2016 peace deal with the Farc. That agreement formally ended six decades of conflict which killed 450,000 people and displaced millions more.

But since then the state has not retaken control of former Farc strongholds, allowing other armed groups including the ELN and dissident Farc units to muscle in on the cocaine trade, said Gerson Arias, a researcher at the Bogotá-based thinktank Ideas for Peace Foundation.

Catatumbo’s extensive coca crops and strategic location on the Venezuelan border have made it a hotbed of persistent violence, and according to Arias, tensions between the rebel groups had long been building. “This war is a long time coming,” he said.

The dissident Farc’s 33rd front, which has expanded rapidly in recent years, has occasionally clashed with the ELN in the region and has tried to buy off the support of communities in ELN strongholds by building football pitches and bridges.

An audio recording published on Sunday appeared to show one of the 33rd front’s commanders’, Andrey Avedaño, declaring all out war on the ELN. “A war was imposed on us and we have to fight it with those who imposed it on us,” Avedaño appeared to say in the recording.

The Colombian military said on Saturday that 300 troops are being sent into the border region to try and quell the violence.

Petro had pledged to bring all major armed groups to the negotiating table instead of pursuing them militarily, but the plan has so far seen little progress and the conflict in Catatumbo is likely to be the nail in the coffin for discussions with the ELN – and the entire strategy, Arias said.

“There is no way now the government can meet the ELN at the negotiation table…. All the other negotiations were already in crisis too, and this development is only going to make them more complicated. The Total Peace strategy is dead.”

Changing habits and the gloomy state of the world are taking the fizz out of French champagne sales, the producers’ association has said, with shipments down nearly 10% last year.

Consumers in crucial markets such as the US and home country France cut down on the luxury beverage, as economic and political anxiety dampened the party mood.

“Champagne is a real barometer of the state of mind of consumers,” said Maxime Toubart, the president of the Syndicat Général des Vignerons, the growers’ trade union, and co-president of the Comité Champagne (Champagne Committee), the joint trade association.

“It is not time to celebrate given inflation, conflicts across the world, economic uncertainties and political wait-and-see in some of the largest champagne markets, such as France and the United States.”

More affordable alternatives including prosecco, English sparkling wine and crémant are increasingly replacing champagne among consumers, with demand for the premium French bubbly down to the lowest levels in more than two decades. Cut-price tipples have become more competitive in terms of quality in recent years.

Growing evidence suggests gen Z and millennials in key markets such as the US are turning their backs on alcohol, often in favour of indulgences such as mocktails and marijuana, just as baby boomers retire and spend less on wine.

Last July, French champagne producers ordered a cut in the number of grapes harvested after sales fell more than 15% in the first half of 2024. Full-year shipments were down 9.2% from 2023 at 271.4m bottles, according to the Comité Champagne.

There was a post-pandemic boom in demand for champagne in 2022 when shipments reached 326m bottles but it has since been on a downward slide. About 299m bottles shipped in 2023, a decline of more than 8%.

The 2024 harvest in France’s Champagne region had already been hit by frosts and wet weather accelerated by climate breakdown that increased mildew attacks on the precious vines.

The French sales market comprised 118.2m bottles last year, down 7.2% compared with 2023, which the association put down to prevailing “gloom” in a country rocked by political upheaval.

François Bayrou, a veteran centrist and ally of President Emmanuel Macron, was sworn in as the fourth prime minister in a year in December as France has struggled with a growing crisis in a divided parliament.

Champagne exports also fell last year, with 153.2m bottles shipped, down nearly 11% on 2023.

“It is in less favourable periods that we must prepare for the future, maintain our environmental [standards] trajectory, conquer new markets and new consumers,” said David Chatillon, a co-president of the Comité Champagne.

Reuters contributed to this report.