Donald Trump has vowed to impose sweeping tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China starting this weekend, potentially setting the stage for a damaging trade war between the US and three of its biggest trading partners. Trump also threatened to follow up with a further wave of tariffs against the European Union.

Goods exported from Canada and Mexico to the US will be hit with a 25% tariff, while products from China face a 10% levy, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters on Friday.

The administration did not give exact details of the tariffs, which Trump has repeatedly said would start 1 February. Trump later suggested in the Oval Office that oil from Canada, which exports millions of barrels of crude per day to the US, would “probably” face a lower tariff of 10% and that he expected his administration would impose duties related to oil and gas around 18 February.

While the president insisted that nothing could be done by Canada, Mexico and China right now to forestall tariffs, officials were said to be scrambling to find a way out. Several situations under consideration in a bid to strike an 11th-hour deal, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Leavitt dismissed reports that the US would delay implementation of the tariffs by a month as “false”, claiming that “starting tomorrow, those tariffs will be in place”.

Canada has pledged to retaliate with a “forceful but reasonable” response. Mexico has also drawn up plans, but declined to provide details. China has said it will “firmly defend” its interests.

The US is also looking at tariffs on drugs, steel, aluminum, copper, computer chips and “things associated with chips”, Trump said. He also threatened the EU, which he claimed had treated the US “horribly”, with substantial action.

The president has claimed imposing duties on goods from overseas will raise hundreds of billions of dollars for the federal government, while forcing countries – even two of America’s closest allies – to bend to his demands.

But economists have repeatedly warned that higher tariffs, a key pillar of Trump’s economic strategy, risk raising prices for millions of Americans, challenging the president’s pledge to bring down prices “rapidly” amid a wave of frustration over the cost of living.

Trump acknowledged on Friday that his tariffs could cause “temporary short-term disruption”, but expressed hope that Americans would understand why they had been imposed. “Tariffs don’t cause inflation,” he claimed. “They cause success.”

Investors appear apprehensive, too. Stocks on Wall Street fell after the White House press briefing, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing down 0.75% in New York.

After his election victory in November, the president homed in on Canada and Mexico, the US’s neighbors, and China, demanding they do more to stop “illegal aliens” and drugs such as fentanyl from crossing into the US. Trump said he would impose tariffs immediately upon entering office, but hours after his inauguration said he would do so on 1 February instead.

Mexico and Canada have insisted in recent days that they stand prepared for Trump to make good on his threat.

“We have plan A, plan B and plan C for whatever the US government decides,” Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mexican president, said on Friday. The country has previously signaled that it would “have to” respond with duties of its own if hit with US tariffs.

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, warned of potentially “difficult times” if Trump proceeds with tariffs.

On Trudeau’s warning that Canada would put forward a “forceful but reasonable” response to US duties, Leavitt shot back at the White House press briefing: “I think Justin Trudeau would be wise to talk to President Trump directly before pushing outlandish comments like that to the media.”

Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s former trade negotiator and finance minister, who is vying to succeed Trudeau, proposed a 100% tariff on all Tesla vehicles and on US wine, beer and spirits. “We need to be very targeted, very surgical, very precise,” she told the Canadian Press – in this case, targeting the Tesla chief, Elon Musk, at the heart of Trump’s inner circle.

Trump, who mooted a 20% universal tariff on all foreign imports from across the world while running for re-election, has made clear that other key markets, including the European Union, are also in his sights.

In his inaugural address, the president laid out his plan to overhaul the US’s economic ties with the world. “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” he declared, claiming this would lead to “massive amounts of money pouring into our treasury, coming from foreign sources”.

Tariffs are not charged on the exporter, but the importer – in this case, firms based in the US – and are often passed on to consumers. This is why economists caution that increasing duties on imports could exacerbate inflation.

Undeterred, Trump has launched a consultation into the creation of an “external revenue service” for the collection of tariffs.

The conservative Tax Foundation has estimated that Trump imposed about $80bn worth of tariffs on about $380bn worth of products in 2018 and 2019, describing it as “one of the largest tax increases in decades”. The Biden administration kept most of the tariffs in place, and increased tariffs on an additional $18bn of Chinese goods, including semiconductors and electric vehicles.

In a speech earlier this week, Trump claimed his officials would introduce tariffs on overseas semiconductors, drugs and steel “in the very near future”, singling out Taiwan and suggesting that such duties would incentivize manufacturers to make such goods in the US.

Imposing tariffs, at least using the conventional playbook, takes time. A necessary investigation requires 270 days by statute. But Trump’s officials have reportedly been exploring other options, such as the declaration of an economic emergency, in an attempt to move more quickly.

US importers, or their customs brokers, are required by Customs and Border Protection to file an entry summary for goods arriving into the US, with details about their shipment, such as what it is, how much it is worth and where it is from. Goods are assigned a specific code according to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which has the applicable tariff rates.

Importers are responsible for paying the duties calculated on the value of the goods they have imported.

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Donald Trump’s political appointees at the justice department will consider in the coming weeks whether to purge a large number of FBI agents who worked on the criminal cases against the president and cases against rioters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

The move comes as the justice department on Friday also told FBI leadership that eight senior executives at the bureau – including those overseeing national security, cybersecurity and counter-terrorism – needed to be fired, unless they retired beforehand.

Just how how many rank-and-file agents could be affected remains unclear. But the criteria laid out in an email announcing the changes, sent by the FBI’s acting director Brian Driscoll, suggested it could potentially lead to the removal of hundreds or thousands of agents.

The threat of summary terminations sent shockwaves through the FBI as agents confronted the reality that they could be fired for having been assigned to an investigation that angered the president.

Before he departed for Mar-a-Lago for the weekend, Trump denied he had ordered the firings of FBI agents but suggested he saw it as poetic justice. “No, but we have some very bad people there … I wasn’t involved in that. But if they want to fire some people, it is fine with me,” he said in the Oval Office.

In the email, Driscoll wrote he had been directed by the acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, to provide a list of names by noon on 4 February of all current and former agents who had ever been assigned to investigate or prosecute January 6 attack cases.

“These lists should include relevant supervisory personnel in FBI regional offices and field divisions, as well as at FBI headquarters,” the email said. “Upon timely receipt of the requested information, the office of the deputy attorney general will commence a review.”

If the justice department follows through, it would mark a seismic moment for the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, which has no political appointees other than the FBI director, and eviscerate civil service protections for career officials.

It would also contradict public statements from Trump’s FBI director nominee Kash Patel, who said under oath at his confirmation hearing he would follow established bureau policy for terminations and transfers.

Patel’s nomination is pending in the Senate. Until he is confirmed to the role, Driscoll is serving as the acting director and Robert Kissane, a top counter-terrorism agent in New York, is serving as the acting deputy director.

The turmoil at the FBI comes as the justice department itself has faced a turbulent two weeks, after scores of senior nonpolitical officials and career prosecutors who worked on the Trump criminal cases were dismissed at the direction of the White House.

The termination notices sent to the prosecutors who worked on Smith’s team explained they were being let go as a result of their “significant role in prosecuting President Trump” which meant they could not be trusted to “assist in faithfully implementing the president’s agenda”.

Justin Trudeau says Canada will bring a “forceful but reasonable” retaliation to any tariffs imposed by the US as his country braces for the economic fallout of a trade war.

“I won’t sugarcoat it – our nation could be facing difficult times in the coming days and weeks,” Trudeau said on Friday while speaking to an advisory council on Canada-US relations. “I know Canadians might be anxious and worried, but I want them to know the federal government – and indeed, all orders of government – have their backs.”

The White House claimed later on Friday that goods shipped from Canada and Mexico to the US would face a 25% levy starting this weekend.

Donald Trump has said he plans to impose tariffs for three reasons. “Number one is the people that have poured into our country so horribly and so much,” he said on Thursday. “Number two are the drugs, fentanyl and everything else that have come into the country. Number three are the massive subsidies that we’re giving to Canada and to Mexico in the form of deficits.”

Officials in Ottawa and Mexico City have drawn up plans to retaliate against Washington with tariffs of their own, raising the prospect of a damaging trade war. Businesses inside the US and across the world have warned of widespread disruption if the Trump administration pushes ahead.

After his election victory last November, Trump announced on his social network that upon his return to office he would “sign all necessary documents” to impose a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada. Mexico must stop “illegal aliens” from crossing its border with the US, he said, and Canada must halt the flow of drugs like fentanyl. “Until such time that they do, it is time for them to pay a very big price!”

Trump did not, in fact, sign these documents following his inauguration. Instead, he introduced a deadline – 1 February – by which both countries are supposed to resolve his concerns.

Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mexican president, has already taken Trump through the various migration initiatives her government has undertaken. Experts have raised questions over Trump’s demand from Canada, with so little fentanyl entering the US through its northern border that the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) omitted to even mention Canada in a 2020 report. The Mexican government has sent signals it is prepared to do more on migration and fentanyl trafficking – even notching up a record seizure soon after Trump’s threats began – but it has also sought to play down the prospects of a trade war.

Canada sends 75% of all its goods and services exports to the United States, its largest trading partner and closest ally. Trudeau said the trade spat and diplomatic tangle “is not what we want”, but that if Trump followed through on his threats, “we will also act”.

A first round of retaliatory tariffs would cause minimal damage to the US, covering C$37bn of its exports to Canada, but if needed, Canada’s federal government plans to escalate by imposing tariffs on C$110bn worth of goods.

Canada’s dollar has plunged against its US counterpart and experts warned Canada’s economy could fall into a recession.

“We don’t have a lot of good historical examples where we’ve had tariff shocks of this magnitude,” Tiff Macklem, the Bank of Canada governor, told reporters earlier this week. “Exactly how quickly, how big, how people react, what the implications are for inflation – there is a certain zone of uncertainty.”

Trump’s vague demands to “secure the border” have unsettled and confused Canadian negotiators shuttling between Ottawa and Washington with increased frequency and desperation.

“The reality is that a large, uncontrolled bully is using his position as the most powerful political leader in the world, to put pressure on a whole range of allies,” said Lawrence Herman, an international trade lawyer and senior fellow at the CD Howe Institute. “We have to, in Canada and the rest of the world, recognize that we’ve entered a new era.

“With the Trump administration, there are no rules. There is no respect for international treaties or agreements. There is no longer value to the US signature on international documents.”

Mark Carney, the frontrunner to replace Trudeau, said on Friday he was “foursquare” behind all lobbying efforts by Canadian ministers in Washington.

The former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England said Canada would “never back down to a bully” and that the “fever” gripping the US would eventually break.

But others remain skeptical that a full resolution is possible.

Herman, who advises governments and companies on trade issues, worries that tension between the two nations has “shattered” a shared history.

“Repairing the longstanding relationship will be very, very difficult. It will depend on goodwill on the US side and Trump has dissipated most of that goodwill,” he said. “I don’t see it returning to where it was under the previous era. It’ll be a strained and difficult and contentious relationship going forward, and Canadians have to be prepared for that.”

In Mexico, President Sheinbaum said on Wednesday: “We don’t think [the tariffs] will happen. And if they do, we have our plan.

“People are worried here, and there is a sense of uncertainty – which is what Donald Trump seeks to create,” said Kenneth Smith Ramos, Mexico’s former chief negotiator during talks over the USMCA free trade deal, struck between the US, Mexico and Canada during the first Trump administration.

“It’s a bit like a game of chicken: the two cars are hurtling towards each other at top speed,” he said. “Mexico has to send the signal that its car is not a little one but a big one that could also hurt the United States.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Graham in Mexico City

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As Donald Trump threatens to slap steep tariffs on many countries, he is boasting that his taxes on imports will be a boon to the US economy, but most economists strongly disagree – many say Trump’s tariffs will increase inflation, slow economic growth, hurt US workers and result in American consumers footing the bill for his tariffs.

“Virtually all economists think that the impact of the tariffs will be very bad for America and for the world,” said Joseph Stiglitz, an economics professor at Columbia University and a winner of the Nobel prize in economic sciences. “They will almost surely be inflationary.”

On inauguration day, Trump threatened to impose a 25% across-the-board tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico on 1 February “because”, he said, “they’re allowing vast numbers of people” to “come in, and fentanyl to come in”. Trump also threatened China with a 10% tariff unless its stops fentanyl shipments, while he maintained his longer-term threat of a 60% tariff on Chinese goods.

“It’s inconceivable that other countries won’t retaliate,” said Stiglitz, who was chairman of Bill Clinton’s council of economic advisers. “Even if some of the governments might not want to retaliate, their citizens will demand that you can’t allow yourself to be beaten up. When you make like a gorilla thumping on his chest, are countries just going to say, ‘Are we chopped liver?’ Their politics will demand that they do something.”

The tariffs, tensions and fears of retaliation and a trade war will probably cause many businesses to reduce their planned investments, and that, economists say, will hurt economies worldwide.

Marcus Noland, executive vice-president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said: “The impact of imposing these tariffs,” will “have the effect of depressing US economic growth, contributing to a higher rate of inflation, and those effects will be worse if the other countries retaliate in kind”.

Trump insists that his aggressive trade policies will be a win-win for Americans. On inauguration day, the White House issued his “America First Trade Policy” memo, saying: “I am establishing a robust and reinvigorated trade policy that promotes investment and productivity, enhances our nation’s industrial and technological advantages, defends our economic and national security, and–above all–benefits American workers, manufacturers, farmers, ranchers, entrepreneurs and businesses.”

But many economists say this is wishful thinking, predicting that, if implemented, Trump’s tariffs will injure many US manufacturers, farmers and workers. Jim Stanford, a prominent Canadian economist who was long the top economist for Canada’s auto workers’ union, warned that if Trump imposes 25% tariffs on Canada, it would badly damage the US and Canadian auto industries.

“The Canadian and US auto industries have been intertwined for 60 years,” Stanford said. “What happens if they put a 25% tariff on all the auto parts and products coming from Canada and Mexico? Some auto parts cross the border eight times before they’re put in the final vehicle.” For instance, some basic steel might be shipped from Mexico to the US, where it is molded into a carburetor part and then that piece is shipped to Canada where the carburetor is produced before being shipped to Mexico to be installed during final assembly after which the car is ultimately sold in the US.

“The tariffs would apply each time parts cross the border,” Stanford said. “That 25% would be compounded on each step. The impact on costs would be astounding.”

Stanford said it was wrong for Trump to suggest that Canada and its automakers would pay for those 25% tariffs. “By and large, that’s false. It’s clearly going to raise auto prices in America. It is Americans who will directly pay for it. There’s no doubt about that.”

Economists note that one result of sizable tariffs is that consumers ultimately fork over more money to the government when they buy imports and that overall leaves consumers with less money to buy goods, and that hurts manufacturers and retailers.

Noland, of the Peterson Institute, noted that Trump and other supporters of across-the-board tariffs “claim it will aid industrial revitalization. What we found is it actually tends to have the opposite effect. It tends to damage the industrial sector by decreasing efficiency in production relative to other countries.”

When Trump hit China with tariffs during his first term in office, China retaliated in particular against US agricultural exports, hurting American farmers. Noland predicted that if Trump again slaps tariffs on China, farmers would again get hit by retaliation.

Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University expert on trade policy, warned that Trump’s tariffs will have additional undesirable effects. “US exporters will face a particularly tough time, as they are likely to face rising tariff barriers in their foreign markets,” Prasad said. “In addition, tariffs are likely to drive up the dollar and reduce the competitiveness of their exports in global markets.”

He added that the looming threat of tariffs and the unpredictability of what they will be is “fomenting enormous uncertainty in the global business environment, which is harmful for business investment and job creation”.

Stiglitz sees another worrisome downside to Trump’s tariff plans and the likely retaliation against the US. When central bankers see inflation climbing due to tariffs, “central banks will raise interest rates,” Stiglitz said. “That has a chance of leading to the worst of possible outcomes – interest rates going up with stagflation, interest rates going up in the face of a weak economy.”

In some ways, Stiglitz explained, this would prove counterproductive to one of Trump’s goals for tariffs: to have them help pay for “Trump’s tax cuts for billionaires”. “If growth slows down, tax revenues will slow down,” he said.

David Seif, Nomura’s chief economist for developed markets, said several Trump policies, including tax cuts and reduced regulations, could help offset tariffs’ harmful effects on economic growth. But because of Trump’s tariffs, he said, “there is likely to be higher inflation this year than there otherwise would be, and that might limit the Federal Reserve to a single rate cut this year.” That would undercut Trump’s hopes of getting the Fed to rapidly cut rates.

Seif said the Trump administration seems to be considering two waves of tariffs – a near-term wave, for instance, to get countries to slow the flow of immigrants and fentanyl to the US. Then he sees a longer-term wave of perhaps large, across-the-board tariffs aimed at generating revenue and strengthening US manufacturing.

But economists warn that with the US near full employment – the jobless rate is just 4.1% – it could be hard to find enough workers to significantly expand the manufacturing sector, especially when many immigrant workers face deportation.

Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive policy thinktank, said it was hard to predict what will happen on tariffs because “there is a kind of war going on in the Republican party between where the Maga folks are on trade and where the chamber of commerce is.”

Owens said many people are asking, how do Trump’s tariff policies, which will probably result in higher costs for consumers, square with his promise to lower prices? She warned that tariffs will hit less affluent Americans hardest because they “spend a disproportionate amount of their income on consumption”.

Owens noted that Trump advisers have talked up how tariffs will help US workers while also helping finance trillions in tax cuts for the rich. “If these tariffs are to pay for tax cuts for billionaires,” Owens asked, “doesn’t the supposed benefits that tariffs have for the working class get canceled out somewhat?”

• The Guardian is co-publishing this piece with the Century Foundation

Hamas has announced it will release Yarden Bibas on Saturday, the Israeli father of a young family kidnapped to Gaza who have been one of the most enduring symbols of Israel’s hostages in the coastal strip.

The Hamas spokesperson Abu Obeida said on its Telegram channel that Bibas would be released with Keith Siegel, a joint US citizen, and Ofer Calderon, who also has French nationality.

The release of Bibas, whose wife, Shiri, and children, Ariel and Kfir, remain unaccounted for amid “grave concerns” over their wellbeing, represents a painful moment for the large numbers of Israelis and other supporters around the world who have long campaigned for the Bibas family’s release.

Video of Shiri Bibas holding on to her children as she was kidnapped by Hamas gunmen from the Nir Oz kibbutz became an enduring image of the 7 October 2023 attacks, with her son Kfir just 9 months old when he was abducted.

Earlier this week Israel demanded that Hamas clarify the condition of Shiri Bibas and her children after the Palestinian group released a breakdown, without providing names, of the numbers of hostages who were alive or dead in the group of 33 so-called humanitarian cases slated for release in the first phase of the ceasefire deal.

As the releases under the ceasefire deal have continued, it has become clear to Israelis that Shiri Bibas and her children should have been released in the first exchanges if they were still alive.

Under the agreement, living women and children were supposed to be freed first, stoking fears for the fate of the mother and her children who were abducted and held separately from Yarden.

Ariel and Kfir were the only children being held who were not released in a previous ceasefire deal in November 2023.

Hamas has claimed they were killed in an Israeli strike early in the war and released a video of Yarden in November 2023 after it said he had been informed of his family’s deaths. Israel has previously said it does not have intelligence confirming that claim, but last week the Israeli military’s spokesperson, R Adm Daniel Hagari, said there were “grave concerns” for the fate of Shiri and her two children.

Relatives of the Bibas family said in a statement: “We said then, and we say now: we hold on to hope and continue waiting for their return. We await clarity regarding their condition.”

Those concerns were underlined by reports earlier this week that relatives of eight of the 33 Israelis had been informed by Gal Hirsch, the lead Israeli official dealing with hostages and the missing, that Hamas’s claims that they were dead were in line with Israel’s intelligence assessment.

Yizhar Lifshitz, whose father, Oded Lifshitz, 84, is on the list of the initial 33 to be returned, told Ynet: “It’s not exactly data. It’s Hamas saying [the number of] ‘alive’, ‘released’ and ‘dead’.

“There’s a grave concern for his life after this last indication. The last sign of life for him was on day 25.”

The Bibas family have been a particular focus in Israel and abroad. Earlier this week, supporters asked people to wear orange, signifying the colour of the boys’ hair.

“The information we received is not good,” Jimmy Miller, a cousin of Shiri Bibas, told the Jewish News Service last week. “The army is afraid about the state in which they will be returned, but nothing is proven yet. They fear the information we had received a year ago is real, but we won’t know the truth until we see it with our own eyes.”

Israel is set to release 183 prisoners on Saturday in the fourth hostage-prisoner exchange under the Gaza ceasefire deal, a Palestinian advocacy group said on Friday night, more than doubling the previous reported figure.

“The updated number of prisoners to be released tomorrow is 183,” said Palestinian Prisoners’ Club spokesperson Amani Sarahneh, after previously announcing that 90 prisoners would be released from Israeli jails.

Even as Israelis have braced themselves for bad news about the Bibas family, supporters have clung to hope.

At a rally in Tel Aviv on Thursday, Leah Corry, 65, a special needs teacher who knows the children’s grandparents, told the Guardian: “My heart says they might be alive, but from a rational point of view, thinking logically, they aren’t with us any more. Because of their ages, because there has been no proof of life.

“If they were alive, everyone would want them to come out. I think the families know they are dead. There are no children coming out in the releases.”

Tal Sabbah, 37, an operations manager, said he had first heard reports more than a year ago that the Bibas children and their mother had been killed. Like Corry, he thought the release of adult male hostages was confirmation they would not be returned alive.

“It breaks my heart,” Sabbah said, particularly after becoming a father for the first time, but he said it was something he had accepted. “I think I’ve processed it already quite a long time ago.

“Now it is like the final confirmation. I think, as sad as it is, it is also an important piece of the puzzle, just to know.”

The freed British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari spoke to Keir Starmer on Friday and told the prime minister Hamas held her in facilities belonging to the UN refugee agency Unrwa, her mother, Mandy, has said.

Damari, 28, who was released 12 days ago, after more than 15 months in captivity in Gaza, with two fingers missing, also told Starmer that Hamas had denied her access to medical treatment after shooting her twice.

Unrwa said claims that hostages had been held in its premises were “very serious”.

Its spokesperson Juliette Touma told the BBC the UN agency, which was set up to support the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees, and has brought in about 60% of the food aid that has reached Gaza since the war began, did not have access to several of its facilities for many months.

“The vast majority of our buildings were turned into shelter when the war started. There was also very, very little supplies and assistance that the agency could give them.”

She added: “We’ve been calling for the release of hostages for months on end … These claims that hostages have been held in Unrwa premises, even if they were vacated, are absolutely serious.

“We’ve repeatedly called for independent investigations into these claims, including the misuse and disregard of Unrwa premises by Palestinian armed groups. That also includes Hamas.”

An Israeli law banning the activities of Unrwa in Israel came into force on Thursday and international staff were forced to leave, a decision the agency predicted would “sabotage Gaza’s recovery and political transition” and critics say will jeopardise urgent humanitarian aid efforts in the region.

The Israeli government has accused Unrwa, which enjoys widespread international support and has more than 30,000 staff, of employing 190 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, and 12 people who took part in the 7 October 2023 attacks. The agency fired nine employees after an investigation but denied knowingly aiding armed groups.

Damari and her mother gave the prime minister an update on Damari’s condition on Friday, and the conditions she lived under while she was held hostage, and then urged Starmer to ensure the Red Cross has access to people still being held captive in Gaza.

“It’s a miracle that she survived, and we need to get aid to remaining hostages now,” her mother posted on X, along with a photograph of her holding the phone for her daughter to speak into.

Damari was taken from her home in the Kfar Aza kibbutz on 7 October and shot in the hand, then “blindfolded and forced into her own car with two other friends”, her family said previously.

Both Damari and her mother thanked Starmer for the government’s help bringing about her release on 19 January, and her mother said the prime minister invited Damari to visit Downing Street when she had recovered.

• Russian forces launched missiles on the centre of southern Ukraine’s port city of Odesa, a Unesco world heritage site, seriously damaging historic buildings and injuring seven people on Friday night, local officials said. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, condemned the “deliberate strike” that again underscored the need to strengthen Ukraine’s air defences. He said Norwegian diplomats had been among those “who were in the epicentre of the strike” in the historic district. Seven people were injured and emergency crews remained at the scene, said Odesa’s regional governor, Oleh Kiper. All the injured were in “moderate” condition and receiving medical assistance, he said. Pictures posted online by Kiper and Odesa’s mayor, Hennady Trukhanov, showed the lobby and other parts of the Hotel Bristol, a luxury landmark built at the end of the 19th century, reduced to rubble. The Odesa Philharmonic concert hall, opposite the hotel, was damaged with many of its windows smashed. Museums in the district also were damaged. Kiper told national television that three explosions had resounded at intervals, which he described as a “well-established practice” by the Russian military of repeated attacks on the same target.

• Ukraine believes North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russia’s army on the Kursk frontline have been withdrawn after suffering heavy losses, according to the military. “Over the past three weeks, we have not seen or detected any activity or military clashes with the North Koreans,” Oleksandr Kindratenko, a spokesperson for the Special Operations Forces, said on Friday. “We believe that they have been withdrawn because of the heavy losses that were inflicted.” Ukraine previously said it had captured or killed several North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region. The Kremlin declined to comment when asked on Friday about reports the North Korean soldiers had been withdrawn. The Ukrainian military said, meanwhile, that its missile and artillery forces had hit and destroyed a Russian army command post in the Kursk region.

• Donald Trump said on Friday that he would be speaking to Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart, and that they “will perhaps do something that’ll be significant”. The US president also said that Washington was having serious discussions with Moscow about its war in Ukraine. In an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump did not say who from his administration had been in contact with Russia but insisted the two sides were “already talking”. Since returning to office, Trump has criticised Zelenskyy, saying he should have made a deal with Putin to end the fighting.

• Russia’s army said it had captured another village in eastern Ukraine, where its forces are advancing on the Ukrainian logistics hub of Pokrovsk. Russian troops now held the village of Novovasylivka, south-west of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the Russian defence ministry on Friday. Moscow’s troops are also close to cutting off a major east-west supply route – the M04/E50 highway – that runs towards the frontline in eastern Ukraine, Agence France-Press reports.

• Firefighters extinguished a blaze that burned for two days at a petrochemicals plant in Russia’s Nizhny Novogorod region struck by Ukrainian drones, state news agency Tass cited emergency services as saying. It quoted the local emergencies ministry as saying on Friday that the “open fire” had been “liquidated”. Petrochemicals giant Sibur’s Kstovo plant, about 800km (500 miles) from the Ukrainian border, was struck on Wednesday alongside a nearby oil refinery. Separately, Ukraine’s military said it struck an oil refinery in Russia’s Volgograd region, causing explosions and a fire. Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, said the refinery was one of Russia’s largest. Russian authorities said on Friday the fire was put out.

• Moscow has accused Ukrainian troops of killing 22 people when they occupied a Russian village, including eight women who were allegedly raped before being executed – claims Ukraine denies. Russia’s Investigative Committee said on 19 January it was investigating the killing of “at least seven civilians” in Russkoye Porechnoye, which is about 20km from the Ukrainian border and has been retaken by Moscow. The committee said on Friday it was now investigating the killing of “22 residents” between September and November. A spokesperson for Ukraine’s military command in the Kursk region, Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky, denied the allegations, saying: “I emphasise that the Ukrainian armed forces are not fighting civilians.”

• Vladimir Putin has given the green light to investment bank Goldman Sachs to off-load its Russian subsidiary, a highly symbolic departure amid the western corporate exodus. The US bank, which was hired by the Kremlin in the 1990s to help attract foreign investors, announced plans to leave Russia in March 2022, just days after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Hundreds of western companies have exited the country since. The Russian president signed a decree on Friday authorising the sale of 100% of the shares of Goldman Sachs’s Russian unit to Balchug Capital, an Armenia-based investment firm. There were no details on the terms of the deal.

• The Russian government has launched an inspection programme to check the state of the country’s tanker fleet after a major tanker-related oil spill, the Tass news agency cited a government official as saying on Friday. Authorities in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region declared a region-wide emergency after two ageing tankers, the Volgoneft 212 and the Volgoneft 239, ran into trouble during a storm in December resulting in a major oil spill.

• Germany’s foreign ministry on Friday said it “strongly discouraged” citizens from travelling to Russia because of an increase in drone attacks in recent weeks and months, including in the Moscow metropolitan area.

A former Fox Sports reporter and anchor filed a lawsuit Friday against the network and top executive Charlie Dixon, saying he sexually assaulted her after coaxing her up to his hotel room to discuss Super Bowl plans in 2016 and was later pushed out of her job for fighting back.

Julie Stewart-Binks said in her complaint, filed in Los Angeles county superior court, that she was inspired to speak up after a former hairstylist for Fox Sports filed a lawsuit on 5 January saying a former host had made repeated unwanted sexual advances toward her and that Dixon had groped her.

Andrew Fegyveresi, a spokesperson for Fox, said in an email that the claims had been addressed.

“These allegations are from over eight years ago,” his email said. “At the time, we promptly hired a third-party firm to investigate and addressed the matter based on their findings.”

Fegyveresi did not respond to a request to elaborate on what the investigation found or how their findings were addressed.

The Associated Press does not generally identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted or subjected to abuse unless they have given permission to identify them. Stewart-Binks’ lawyers said she gave the AP permission to use her name.

Stewart-Binks covered soccer and hockey in Canada and moved to Los Angeles in 2013 to join the team at Fox Sports 1, the lawsuit said. She was invited to cover the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics as a host and returned to report on the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings, the Stanley Cup playoffs and the US men’s and women’s national soccer teams. In the fall of 2014, she was the main sideline reporter for the Anaheim Ducks.

Jamie Horowitz became president of Fox Sports in May 2015 and hired Dixon two months later to be the executive vice president of content, the lawsuit said. “The two had the power to pick and choose who would be on camera for the networks,” the lawsuit said.

In the buildup to the 2016 Super Bowl, plans were underway for the show Jason Whitlock’s House Party By the Bay and Stewart-Binks was told she was going to appear on the program, the lawsuit said. The night before her meeting with the show’s team, she received a text from Dixon asking her to meet him at his hotel, the lawsuit said.

According to the lawsuit, Dixon told her they needed to talk about the show, and then began berating her, saying he didn’t want her going to the Super Bowl because she wasn’t “funny, interesting or talented”. He said she wasn’t “capable of handling big moments on TV” and people would only watch if she got on the bar and took off her top,” the lawsuit said.

As Stewart-Binks scrambled to come up with a response that would show her talent, Dixon invited her to his hotel room to see the view from his balcony, the suit said. She agreed, reluctantly. But once on the balcony, Dixon pushed her against the wall, pinned down her arms, pressed his body against hers and tried to force his tongue into her mouth, the lawsuit said.

Stewart-Binks pushed him away and ran from the room, the suit said. She didn’t say anything about it at the team’s Super Bowl meeting the following day and she was confirmed to appear on the Whitlock show. However, she was told that she had to confront New England Patriots tight end Ron Gronkowski about his stint at a stripper in college.

She resisted the idea of asking for his ‘“Magic Mike” moves but after Dixon’s comments the night before, she wanted to prove that she could be fun, so she asked for a lap dance, the lawsuit said.

Stewart-Binks said she faced an immediate backlash on social media from people who said she was setting women back through her actions.

“Following Fox’s direction, Stewart-Binks remained silent outwardly, though Dixon’s assault and the media’s portrayal of her took a profound emotional toll and left her in tears much of the time,” the lawsuit said.

She only went public after seeing the lawsuit filed by the former Fox hairstylist who made similar claims. Stewart-Binks’ lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for emotional distress and asks that Fox be required to take action to prevent any current or future sexual abuse.

“Ms Stewart-Binks hopes that by seeking justice, and by doing so publicly, sports networks will recognize the necessity of ridding those who abuse power and those who protect them,” the lawsuit said.

Since leaving Fox Sports, Stewart-Binks has done work for many media outlets including ESPN, CBS Sports, NBC Sports, and TNT. She also was a correspondent for the CBC in Canada during its coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The National Transportation Safety Board has recovered the flight “black box” from the US military Black Hawk helicopter involved in Wednesday’s deadly crash with a commercial airliner, and it appears to be undamaged, NTSB member Todd Inman said Friday.

The black box – containing a flight data and cockpit voice recorder – was “in good condition” despite its accident with an American Airlines jet in Washington DC, Inman said. But, he said, the NTSB would not be releasing information from the device immediately as investigations into the crash that killed 67 people aboard both aircraft continued.

Recorders for the passenger plane were recovered Thursday night. The plane’s data recorder was “in good condition”, but the cockpit voice recorder “had water intrusion”, a problem investigators are now dealing with, Inman said.

Investigators have “a very high level of confidence” that they will get information from that device, he added.

Meanwhile, air traffic control conducted interviews with witnesses Friday, Inman said, adding those interviews would continue through Friday night and into the coming days.

Inman’s comments Friday came after Donald Trump said that the Black Hawk helicopter had been “flying too high, by a lot” at the time of the crash. The president delivered that assertion even as investigators continued to piece together the reasons for the disaster and had not arrived at a conclusion.

The president’s claim seemed to stem from questions about the angle at which the helicopter had been flying, as well as whether the air traffic control tower had been understaffed.

All 64 people on the passenger plane, along with the three people in the army helicopter, died on Wednesday night after the two aircraft collided in midair close to the Reagan National airport. The bodies of more than 40 people had been recovered from the icy Potomac River, where the wreckage now lies. Most of those recovered victims had been identified, though work was still continuing to identify others.

The US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, confirmed that the Federal Aviation Administration would immediately restrict helicopter traffic around the Reagan airport, saying the decision would ensure “the safety of airplane and helicopter traffic”.

“The American people deserve full confidence in our aviation system, and today’s action is a significant step towards restoring that,” he said.

Emergency medical helicopters as well as those actively working in law enforcement and air defense are exempt from the restrictions. The presidential helicopter Marine One is exempt, too.

There have been claims that the staffing levels in the air traffic control tower, and the congested skies around the capital, played a role in the crash.

In a highly unusual and subjective move, especially at these early stages of a painstaking official accident investigation, the US president weighed in on social media, not just to repeat his statement about the helicopter’s altitude that he made on Thursday, but with his own comments. Trump alleged that the helicopter had been flying above the required height limit in the clear night sky on Wednesday, as the commercial jet was on final approach to land at Reagan.

ABC News aired claims that the Black Hawk had been flying at 400ft, when it should have been at 200ft.

“The Blackhawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “It was far above the 200 ft limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???”

At the White House press briefing, the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, backed up the president, saying he simply stated that “the helicopter was flying higher than it should have been, which is one of the reasons that led to this collision. And the other reasons for that are still being investigated.”

In the wake of the disaster, Trump has also implied, without any evidence, that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in aviation administration and air traffic control under previous Democratic administrations contributed to the crash.

“It doesn’t matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are,” Trump said on Thursday about air traffic controllers. “They have to be talented, naturally talented. Geniuses. Can’t have regular people doing their job.”

The president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, Nick Daniels, said he stood behind “every highly skilled, highly trained air traffic controller that is out there”.

In an interview with CBS News, Daniels outlined the many tests and trainings required for the job, and said: “It doesn’t matter their race, color, religion, you can know you are in the best hands that take that responsibility very seriously every day.”

Investigators have pointed out that the causes of the crash and any potential lessons from it are still to be determined. Previously, reports abounded from anonymous sources in government that double the number of air traffic controllers should have been dealing with guiding aircraft that night.

Todd Inman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, told ABC’s Good Morning America that “we don’t have determination” yet as to whether staffing levels contributed to the crash.

“The only conclusion I know is we met with several hundred family members who lost their loved ones in the Potomac. We don’t need that to happen any more,” he said, choking up as he spoke on air.

The Illinois representative Jesús García, a Democrat who sits on the House subcommittee on aviation, accused Trump in an interview with CNN of “exploiting disaster to continue to spread racist lies and divisiveness across the country, simply to score political points with his base”.

He added: “We don’t know what occurred and whether it was human error that caused this flight or other factors.”

Maryland’s governor, Wes Moore, also a Democrat, criticized Trump’s remarks, too, including the comment Trump made when asked by the media whether he would visit the site of the crash. The president said: “You want me to go swimming?”

Moore said: “When this country needed comfort, we got chaos. When this country needed healing, we got hatred.”

An initial FAA report obtained by US media organisations said staffing levels were “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic” before a military helicopter collided with a passenger jet in the heart of Washington DC.

According to the report, the separate roles of coordinating helicopter traffic and arriving and departing planes had been combined when the collision happened, the Associated Press reported. But it further reported a source saying staffing had been normal. The Washington Post said two people had been handling the jobs of four inside the control tower.

The helicopter and the passenger plane had been flying in a “standard flight pattern” on a clear night before the crash, Duffy said.

The US army had an increase in very serious aviation incidents during the last fiscal year, with 15 flight and two ground incidents that resulted in deaths of service members, destruction of aircraft or more than $2.5m in damage to the airframe, the Associated Press reported.

The National Transportation Safety Board has recovered the flight “black box” from the US military Black Hawk helicopter involved in Wednesday’s deadly crash with a commercial airliner, and it appears to be undamaged, NTSB member Todd Inman said Friday.

The black box – containing a flight data and cockpit voice recorder – was “in good condition” despite its accident with an American Airlines jet in Washington DC, Inman said. But, he said, the NTSB would not be releasing information from the device immediately as investigations into the crash that killed 67 people aboard both aircraft continued.

Recorders for the passenger plane were recovered Thursday night. The plane’s data recorder was “in good condition”, but the cockpit voice recorder “had water intrusion”, a problem investigators are now dealing with, Inman said.

Investigators have “a very high level of confidence” that they will get information from that device, he added.

Meanwhile, air traffic control conducted interviews with witnesses Friday, Inman said, adding those interviews would continue through Friday night and into the coming days.

Inman’s comments Friday came after Donald Trump said that the Black Hawk helicopter had been “flying too high, by a lot” at the time of the crash. The president delivered that assertion even as investigators continued to piece together the reasons for the disaster and had not arrived at a conclusion.

The president’s claim seemed to stem from questions about the angle at which the helicopter had been flying, as well as whether the air traffic control tower had been understaffed.

All 64 people on the passenger plane, along with the three people in the army helicopter, died on Wednesday night after the two aircraft collided in midair close to the Reagan National airport. The bodies of more than 40 people had been recovered from the icy Potomac River, where the wreckage now lies. Most of those recovered victims had been identified, though work was still continuing to identify others.

The US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, confirmed that the Federal Aviation Administration would immediately restrict helicopter traffic around the Reagan airport, saying the decision would ensure “the safety of airplane and helicopter traffic”.

“The American people deserve full confidence in our aviation system, and today’s action is a significant step towards restoring that,” he said.

Emergency medical helicopters as well as those actively working in law enforcement and air defense are exempt from the restrictions. The presidential helicopter Marine One is exempt, too.

There have been claims that the staffing levels in the air traffic control tower, and the congested skies around the capital, played a role in the crash.

In a highly unusual and subjective move, especially at these early stages of a painstaking official accident investigation, the US president weighed in on social media, not just to repeat his statement about the helicopter’s altitude that he made on Thursday, but with his own comments. Trump alleged that the helicopter had been flying above the required height limit in the clear night sky on Wednesday, as the commercial jet was on final approach to land at Reagan.

ABC News aired claims that the Black Hawk had been flying at 400ft, when it should have been at 200ft.

“The Blackhawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “It was far above the 200 ft limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???”

At the White House press briefing, the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, backed up the president, saying he simply stated that “the helicopter was flying higher than it should have been, which is one of the reasons that led to this collision. And the other reasons for that are still being investigated.”

In the wake of the disaster, Trump has also implied, without any evidence, that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in aviation administration and air traffic control under previous Democratic administrations contributed to the crash.

“It doesn’t matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are,” Trump said on Thursday about air traffic controllers. “They have to be talented, naturally talented. Geniuses. Can’t have regular people doing their job.”

The president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, Nick Daniels, said he stood behind “every highly skilled, highly trained air traffic controller that is out there”.

In an interview with CBS News, Daniels outlined the many tests and trainings required for the job, and said: “It doesn’t matter their race, color, religion, you can know you are in the best hands that take that responsibility very seriously every day.”

Investigators have pointed out that the causes of the crash and any potential lessons from it are still to be determined. Previously, reports abounded from anonymous sources in government that double the number of air traffic controllers should have been dealing with guiding aircraft that night.

Todd Inman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, told ABC’s Good Morning America that “we don’t have determination” yet as to whether staffing levels contributed to the crash.

“The only conclusion I know is we met with several hundred family members who lost their loved ones in the Potomac. We don’t need that to happen any more,” he said, choking up as he spoke on air.

The Illinois representative Jesús García, a Democrat who sits on the House subcommittee on aviation, accused Trump in an interview with CNN of “exploiting disaster to continue to spread racist lies and divisiveness across the country, simply to score political points with his base”.

He added: “We don’t know what occurred and whether it was human error that caused this flight or other factors.”

Maryland’s governor, Wes Moore, also a Democrat, criticized Trump’s remarks, too, including the comment Trump made when asked by the media whether he would visit the site of the crash. The president said: “You want me to go swimming?”

Moore said: “When this country needed comfort, we got chaos. When this country needed healing, we got hatred.”

An initial FAA report obtained by US media organisations said staffing levels were “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic” before a military helicopter collided with a passenger jet in the heart of Washington DC.

According to the report, the separate roles of coordinating helicopter traffic and arriving and departing planes had been combined when the collision happened, the Associated Press reported. But it further reported a source saying staffing had been normal. The Washington Post said two people had been handling the jobs of four inside the control tower.

The helicopter and the passenger plane had been flying in a “standard flight pattern” on a clear night before the crash, Duffy said.

The US army had an increase in very serious aviation incidents during the last fiscal year, with 15 flight and two ground incidents that resulted in deaths of service members, destruction of aircraft or more than $2.5m in damage to the airframe, the Associated Press reported.

An Italian investigative journalist who is known for exposing young fascists within prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right party was targeted with spyware made by Israel-based Paragon Solutions, according to a WhatsApp notification received by the journalist.

Francesco Cancellato, the editor-in-chief of the Italian investigative news outlet Fanpage, was the first person to come forward publicly after WhatsApp announced on Friday that 90 journalists and other members of civil society had been targeted by the spyware.

The journalist, like dozens of others whose identities are not yet known, said he received a notification from the messaging app on Friday afternoon.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, has not identified the targets or their precise locations, but said they were based in more than two dozen countries, including in Europe.

WhatsApp said it had discovered that Paragon was targeting its users in December and shut down the vector used to “possibly compromise” the individuals. Like other spyware makers, Paragon sells use of its spyware, known as Graphite, to government agencies, who are supposed to use it to fight and prevent crime.

Paragon’s spyware was allegedly delivered to targets who were placed on group chats without their permission, and sent malware through PDFs in the group chat. Paragon makes no-click spyware, which means users do not have to click on any link or attachment to be infected; it is simply delivered to the phone.

It is not clear how long Cancellato may have been compromised. But the editor published a high-profile investigative story last year that exposed how members of Meloni’s far-right party’s youth wing had engaged in fascist chants, Nazi salutes and antisemitic rants.

Fanpage’s undercover reporters – although not Cancellato personally – had infiltrated groups and chat forums used by members of the National Youth, a wing of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party. The outlet published clips of National Youth members chanting “Duce” – a reference to Benito Mussolini – and “sieg Heil”, and boasting about their familial connections to historical figures linked to neo-fascist terrorism. The stories were published in May.

Cancellato, 45, said he did not have reason to suspect in December that his mobile device had been compromised and has never been told by any authorities that he is under investigation. The news felt like a “violation”, he said.

“We just began the technical analysis on the device in order to evaluate the actual extent of this attack, what was actually taken or spied on, and for how long. Obviously, it is also in our interest to know, if it’s possible to do so, who ordered this espionage activity,” Cancellato told the Guardian.

Meloni’s party faced criticism in Italy and in Brussels following the publication of Fanpage’s reporting. A European Commission spokesperson at the time said: “The point of view of the European Commission and of President Ursula von der Leyen on the symbolism of fascism is very clear: we do not believe it is appropriate, we condemn it, we think it is morally wrong.”

The president of the Jewish Community of Rome, Victor Fadlun, called for “appropriate actions [to] be taken” after the Fanpage reports. “It is imperative that society and institutions react strongly against all forms of hatred and discrimination,” he wrote on X.

Giovanni Donzelli, a Brothers of Italy MP and party organizer, said at the time there was “no place” for “racists, extremists, and antisemites” in his party.

Paragon Solutions declined to comment.

Have you received a notification from WhatsApp? Please get in touch: Stephanie.Kirchgaessner@theguardian.com

Five Belgian parties struck a coalition deal on Friday to form a new government headed by the Flemish conservative Bart De Wever, after more than seven months of tortuous negotiations.

The agreement paves the way for De Wever to become the first nationalist from the Dutch-speaking Flanders region to be Belgian premier – although in recent years he has backed off on calls for it to become an independent country.

De Wever channelled Julius Caesar by posting the Latin message “Alea iacta est! [the die is cast]” on social media alongside a picture of him shaking hands with Belgium’s King Philippe.

The royal palace confirmed an accord for a right-leaning coalition, which still has to be formally signed off by members of the participating parties.

Split between French- and Dutch-speaking communities, and with a highly complex political system, Belgium has an unenviable record of painfully protracted coalition discussions – reaching 541 days back in 2010-2011.

This time around, five groups have been seeking to forge a coalition since June elections that failed to produce a clear majority – with talks led by 54-year-old De Wever after his party claimed the most seats.

The right and centre-right came out on top in June’s elections, leading analysts to predict coalition talks could take less time than usual.

But negotiations hit a wall during the summer over the issue of plugging the country’s budget deficit – 4.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023.

De Wever, mayor of Antwerp since 2013, has pushed for cuts in social benefits and reforms to the country’s pension system that have already sparked opposition from labour unions.

The flamboyant politician had threatened to throw in the towel on the hunt for a coalition if no deal was reached Friday – and the agreement was struck with just hours to go.

Negotiators needed one final marathon 60-hour session to iron out differences over their 800-page programme.

The new government brings together three parties from Dutch-speaking Flanders: De Wever’s conservative N-VA, the centrist Christian-Democrats and the leftist Vooruit (Onward).

It also includes two from French-speaking Wallonia: the centrist Les Engagés and the centre-right Reformist Movement.

Together, they hold an 81-seat majority in Belgium’s 150-seat parliament.

Belgium is one of seven European Union countries facing disciplinary action for running a deficit above three percent of GDP, in violation of the bloc’s fiscal rules.

While De Wever finally looks set to achieve his goal of becoming prime minister, the N-VA was already part of a ruling coalition between 2014 and 2018.

He should take over from the current prime minister, Alexander De Croo, whose seven-party coalition took an arduous 493 days to emerge back in 2019-2020, and who had stayed on as caretaker leader since June’s elections.

The German parliament has rejected a bill to tighten immigration controls brought by the frontrunner to be the next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, with the backing of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland.

It came after a similar but non-binding motion was passed by parliament on Wednesday with the votes of the AfD, prompting a wave of protest from those who said it was a breach in Germany’s longstanding “firewall” between the far right and the mainstream.

The bill was rejected by 350 to 338, out of 693 MPs who voted, including five abstentions.

Wednesday’s motion was the first time in Germany’s postwar history that a parliamentary majority was reached with the help of the far right, greatly heightening tensions before Friday’s debate. Opponents included members of Merz’s own CDU/CSU alliance who rebelled, as well as members of the pro-business Free Democratic party (FDP) who had voted for the original motion but wanted the law to return to internal committees for further debate.

The “influx limitation law”, the name and detail of which has been criticised, was considered of such historic importance that the plenary hall was unusually full and some MPs were reportedly persuaded to leave their sickbeds to be present.

Merz, who will lead the Christian Democratic Union into the 23 February elections, said his bill was necessary for German domestic security and denied he was working with the AfD, or had any intention of doing so.

“There are many who are concerned about democracy, but there are also many who are concerned about security and order in this country and expect decisions to be made,” he said.

The debate adjourned before it had even begun in order for behind-the-scenes negotiations that aimed to enable the law’s passage with the backing of mainstream parties and not the far right.

Attempts by the Social Democrats (SPD), their coalition partner the Greens, as well as their former coalition partner the FDP, to stop the law’s passage by referring it back to committees earlier in the day were unsuccessful.

When MPs returned to the plenary hall it was for an often rowdy, tension-filled and emotional debate.

Much was made of the opposition to the proceedings, including the decision by a 99-year-old Holocaust survivor, Albrecht Weinberg, to return to the German state his order of merit over the Wednesday vote, as well as the resignation from the CDU of Michel Friedman, a prominent German-French publicist and former deputy chair of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

Merz said the law was necessary in response to a string of high-profile murders carried out by men with an immigrant background. The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, had said existing laws were sufficient to stop such attacks, if properly implemented.

Between 66% and 67% of Germans are in favour of permanent controls on Germany’s borders, according to recent polls, including 56% of supporters of the Social Democrats.

After this week’s dramatic scenes in parliament – during which Merz, the conservative opposition leader, was accused of courting the far right – parallels have been drawn with the events that led to the Nazi party taking power through the political process, amid a lack of unity among mainstream parties.

Rolf Mützenich, the chair of the SPD parliamentary group, said: “Weimar failed because of the lack of unity in democracy. But Weimar also failed because the authoritarian mindset never completely disappeared.”

He had urged Merz to reverse his decision and “re-establish the firewall” against cooperating with the AfD. He suggested that if Merz failed to do so he would have to live with a damaged political reputation.

“Your fall from grace will always accompany you,” Mützenich said, to jeers from the CDU benches. “But we can still close the gateway to hell together.”

In an extraordinary broadside against his erstwhile CDU rival Angela Merkel, who on Thursday criticised Merz for his apparent U-turn over earlier refusals to work with the AfD, Merz said his own party had a “significant share of responsibility” for the fact that the AfD had sat in the Bundestag since 2017.

The remarks were a reference to Merkel’s open door policy, during which almost 1 million people entered Germany in 2015, but Merz went on to say it was the fault of the three-way coalition under Scholz that the party had since been able to become “twice as strong”.

The foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock of the Greens, had urged Merz to change his mind and drop the bill. “It’s not about yourself, it’s about Germany,” she said. “There are times when you have to correct your policy by 180 degrees. That is precisely the question now. Do the right thing.”

The first opinion poll on Friday since the Wednesday vote showed the AfD’s position unchanged in advance of the election. It is now second in the polls with 22%. Merz’s CDU/CSU was down one percentage point to 29%, while the SPD of Olaf Scholz gained 1.5 percentage points, bringing it to 17%, its best showing since the end of December. The Greens gained half a percentage point.

Protests have taken place across Germany over the perceived shift to the right of the German parliament. At the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on Thursday evening, a line of young people held up a long string of illuminated letters spelling out the slogan “Hope and Resistance”. On a poster bearing the CDU’s name, the word brandmauer (firewall) had been crossed out and replaced with the word brandstifter (arsonist).

One of the US Capitol attackers pardoned by Donald Trump at the start of his second presidency has been handed a 10-year prison sentence for killing a woman in a drunk-driving crash, according to authorities.

Emily Hernandez served 30 days in federal prison after she joined the mob of Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 and was photographed holding the broken nameplate of Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker at the time.

She was among 1,500 people with roles in the Capitol uprising who received unconditional pardons from – or had their sentences commuted by – Trump on 20 January, but that clemency did not solve all of her legal problems.

Hernandez, 24, on Wednesday was sentenced to a decade in prison for getting into a car wreck while driving drunk on an interstate in Franklin county, Missouri, in 2022 and killing Victoria Wilson, court records first reviewed by NBC News show. Hernandez also injured Wilson’s husband, Ryan Wilson, with whom she had two sons.

The Wilsons were out celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary when Hernandez struck their car while driving westbound in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 44, as the St Louis television station KDSK reported.

Victoria Wilson, 32, died of her ensuing injuries. Court documents note that Ryan Wilson endured a disabling injury to his right foot. And investigators later determined Hernandez had a blood-alcohol content of .125, over Missouri’s legal limit of .08 for most motorists.

On 5 November, the day Trump defeated Kamala Harris to clinch a second presidency, Hernandez pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated leading to a person’s death and a separate charge of DWI resulting in serious injury. Her attorneys then filed documents contending that Hernandez deserved no more than about four months in prison, saying she acknowledged her actions were deadly and shameful.

“Emily’s emotional make-up will forever contain feelings of remorse, grief and shame,” Hernandez’s attorneys wrote in the filings ahead of her sentencing.

The January 6 attack on Congress was a desperate attempt to keep Trump in office after his first presidency ended in defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Hernandez pleaded guilty in federal court in January 2022 to a misdemeanor charge of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds on the day of the Capitol insurrection.

As he successfully campaigned for a return to the White House four years later, Trump promised to pardon those who participated in the attack on Congress, during which the mob of the president’s supporters beat police officers and trashed the Capitol building. Their attack was linked to several deaths, including suicides of traumatized officers.

Trump has been subjected to bipartisan criticism for the sweeping clemency he afforded the Capitol attackers, including those who inflicted violence on police at the building.

“It sends a message to others out there: if you use violence to keep Donald Trump in power, or use violence in the service of Donald Trump, he will have your back,” Adam Schiff, a California Democratic senator, said on NBC’s Meet the Press on 26 January. “Because he did have their back ultimately.”

Hernandez joined a number of pardoned Capitol attackers who have since made headlines over other brushes with the law.

Among those in that group is a man left grappling with unresolved charges in Texas of having solicited a minor. And yet another pardoned January 6 attacker was recently shot to death by police during a traffic stop in Indiana.

Rat numbers are soaring in cities as global temperatures warm, research shows.

Washington DC, San Francisco, Toronto, New York City and Amsterdam had the greatest increase in these rodents, according to the study, which looked at data from 16 cities globally. Eleven of the cities showed “significant increasing trends in rat numbers”, said the paper published in the journal Science Advances, and these trends were likely to continue.

Over the past decade, rats increased by 390% in Washington DC, 300% in San Francisco, 186% in Toronto and 162% in New York according to researchers, who analysed public sightings and infestation reports.

Some big cities, such as London and Paris, were not included because they did not provide the necessary data – but researchers said the findings would apply to many similar cities around the world. “There’d be no reason to expect it to be different in other places,” said lead researcher Jonathan Richardson, from the University of Richmond in Virginia.

In Toronto, one of the worst-affected locations, a “perfect rat storm” has taken hold, with residents of Canada’s biggest city staring down a surging population.

“When you walk the streets of Toronto, under your feet, deep in the sewage system, is a place teeming with rats,” said Alice Sinia, lead entomologist for Orkin, the country’s largest pest control company. “Increasingly we’re flushing them out into open spaces – either through construction or floods – and they have to go somewhere.”

Toronto city’s helpline fielded 1,600 rat-related calls in 2023, up from 940 in 2019 and Orkin has also experienced a surge in calls.

“But the reality is, we don’t know how big the population is because no one has ever really studied it formally,” said Sinia.

Two Toronto city councillors, Alejandra Bravo and Amber Morley, last year called for a formal management plan as a way to blunt the crisis.

“It’s a really critical quality-of-life problem when people have all of a sudden been confronted with rats coming into their home or into their business or their place of work,” Bravo told the Canadian press, adding that it had morphed into a “kind of perfect rat storm”.

Other cities with increasing rat populations included Oakland, Buffalo, Chicago, Boston, Kansas City and Cincinnati. The research focused on US cities, as well as Amsterdam, Toronto and Tokyo, as all of them gathered similar data on rat sightings. The research did not quantify the overall rat population, just relative increases in reports over time.

Rising temperatures correlated with rising rat numbers, researchers wrote in the paper. As small mammals, rats struggle during winter, but in higher temperatures they can breed for more of the year and forage for longer.

In Toronto, cold winters had long acted as “mother nature’s pest control”, said Sinia, killing off swaths of the population. But mild temperatures had helped rodents of all kinds in the city to keep breeding.

The fact that rat numbers increased fastest in cities that were warming fastest was “the gloomiest outcome of the study”, said Richardson. Last year was the hottest on record, with average temperatures 1.6C above preindustrial levels.

Rats cause billions of dollars in damage by infiltrating buildings each year, and can transmit at least 60 diseases to humans, as well as affecting the ecology of other species living in cities. In regions where they are an invasive species, they do huge damage to biodiversity. Research suggests people who encounter rats frequently have poorer mental health. Globally, humanity’s “war on rats” costs an estimated $500m each year, according to the study.

Tokyo, Louisville and New Orleans bucked the trend with declining rat numbers. In Tokyo, Richardson speculated that cultural norms and expectations of cleanliness meant people were quick to report rodent sightings. In New Orleans there has been educational outreach on how to prevent infestations. “There are important lessons probably to be gleaned from those cities,” said Richardson.

Researchers say the best pest management strategies involve making the urban environment less rat-friendly – for example by putting rubbish in containers, and not in bags on the street – rather than removing rodents that are already there.

Despite thousands of studies on lab rats, little was known about wild urban rats, said Richardson. “We need to know the battle that we’re fighting. Pretty much every city announces that they have a war on rats.”

Sometimes there can be up to 100 rats in a single colony, which usually occupies less than one block. “I do not like rats,” he said, “but there is something fascinating about an organism that has been able to spread over the world and live in such proximity to us so successfully.”