Donald Trump has indicated that Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is operating without guardrails after it gained access to Americans’ private information “very easily” and as it prepares to assail the Pentagon.

The US president was speaking at a White House press conference alongside Shigeru Ishiba, the prime minister of Japan, but most of the questions focused on Musk’s sweeping mission to root out waste in the federal government, which has caused disarray in Washington.

Trump suggested that he has given the tech billionaire free rein and appeared blase about the details. Asked why Doge needs access to treasury payment systems including Americans’ social security numbers, home addresses and bank accounts, he replied: “Well, it doesn’t, but they get it very easily. We don’t have very good security in our country.”

The president claimed that he was “very proud” of Musk’s team of young and “very smart” software engineers. He said: “They’re doing it at my insistence. It would be a lot easier not to do it, but we have to take some of these things apart to find the corruption and we’ve found tremendous corruption.”

Doge has so far produced no evidence of corruption at USAid, which it shuttered without seeking the required authority from Congress, or other agencies. Its fast and furious assault on the government has resulted in a flurry of lawsuits and street protests.

Pressed on whether there was anything he has told Musk he cannot touch, Trump offered only a vague reply. “Well, we haven’t discussed that much,” he confessed. “I’ll tell them to go here, go there. He does it. He’s got a very capable group of people. Very, very, very, very capable.

“They know what they’re doing. They’ll ask questions, and they’ll see immediately as somebody gets tongue-tied that they’re either crooked or don’t know what they’re doing. We have very smart people going.”

Trump confirmed that he had asked Musk – the world’s richest man – to review spending in the sprawling defence department, which has a proposed budget for 2025 of $850bn. “I’ve instructed him to go check out education, to check out the Pentagon, which is the military. And you know, sadly, you’ll find some things that are pretty bad.”

But he added pointedly: “Social security will not be touched. It will only be strengthened … we have illegal immigrants on social security and we’re going to find out who they are and take them off.”

Democrats in Congress are seeking a treasury department investigation of the access that Musk’s team was given to the government’s payment system, citing “threats to the economy and national security, and the potential violation of laws protecting Americans’ privacy and tax data”.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden wrote in a letter to inspectors general: “Given the threats to the economy and national security, and the potential violation of laws protecting Americans’ privacy and tax data posed by Mr Musk and his team’s reported access to critical federal payment systems … we request that you use your authorities to investigate this matter further.”

On Friday, Trump also said Doge should rehire a staff member who resigned after being linked by a newspaper report to an openly racist social media account.

First JD Vance, the vice-president, said Marko Elez, 25, should be brought back and blamed “journalists who try to destroy people”. Asked whether he endorsed Vance’s view, Trump told reporters he was not aware of the specific case but “I’m with the vice-president”.

Soon after Musk, who had polled his X followers on the question, posted: “He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine.”

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A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from placing 2,200 employees of the US Agency for International Development on paid leave.

Carl Nichols, a US district judge and Donald Trump appointee, sided with two federal employee associations in agreeing to a pause in plans to put the employees on paid leave as of midnight Friday.

Forced leave had already begun for some on Friday when the court ruling came through as workers tried to halt the administration’s swift dismantling of the six-decade-old aid agency and its programs worldwide.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs told the judge on Friday afternoon that the administration lacked the authority to shut down an agency enshrined in congressional legislation.

The administration had been sued by the largest US government workers’ union and an association of foreign service workers attempting to stop efforts to close the agency.

Nichols said the written ruling would be issued later on Friday. He did not seem inclined to grant other requests from the unions to reopen USAid buildings and restore funding.

“The major reduction in force, as well as the closure of offices, the forced relocation of these individuals were all done in excess of the executive’s authority in violation of the separation of powers,” Karla Gilbride, a lawyer for the unions, said at the hearing.

The White House claims there is fraud at USAid.

“CLOSE IT DOWN,” Trump had said earlier on social media of USAid.

Crews in the morning used duct tape to block out the agency’s name on a sign outside its Washington DC headquarters and a flag was taken down. Someone placed a bouquet of flowers outside the door.

A group of a half-dozen USAid officials speaking to reporters on Friday strongly disputed assertions from Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, that the most essential life-saving programs abroad were getting waivers to continue. With all but several hundred staffers forced out and funding stopped, the agency had “ceased to exist”, one official on the call said.

The Trump administration and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who is running a budget-cutting “department of government efficiency”, have targeted USAid hardest so far in an unprecedented challenge of the federal government and many of its programs.

The administration told remaining USAid officials on Thursday afternoon that it planned to exempt 297 employees from global leave and furloughs ordered for at least 8,000 staffers and contractors, according to USAid staffers and officials.

Late that night, a new list was finalized of 611 employees allowed to remain on the job, many of them to manage the return home of thousands of staffers, contractors and their families abroad, the officials said. Justice department lawyer Brett Shumate confirmed the 611 figure in court.

The USAid officials and staffers spoke on condition of anonymity due to a Trump administration order barring them from talking publicly.

Some of the remaining staffers and contractors, along with an unknown number of 5,000 locally hired employees abroad, would run the few life-saving programs that the administration says it intends to keep going for now.

It was not immediately clear whether the reductions would be permanent or temporary.

Trump and Musk have spoken of moving surviving programs under the state department. Within the state department itself, employees fear substantial staff reductions following the deadline for the Trump administration’s offer of financial incentives for federal workers to resign, according to unnamed officials. A judge temporarily blocked that offer and set a hearing for Monday.

At USAid, among the programs officials said had not received waivers: $450m in food grown by US farmers sufficient to feed 36 million people, which was not being paid for or delivered; and water supplies for 1.6 million people displaced by war in Sudan’s Darfur region, which were being cut off without money for fuel to run water pumps in the desert.

The Associated Press and Reuters provided reporting

Donald Trump is reigniting his alliance with the Christian right, unveiling a flurry of actions that include an aggressive executive order establishing a dedicated taskforce to combat what he claims is “anti-Christian bias” across federal agencies.

Addressing supporters at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Trump announced a far-reaching directive that empowers Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, to lead an effort to “fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism” in government institutions.

“You’ve never had that before,” Trump said. “If we don’t have religious liberty, then we don’t have a free country.”

The move represents a direct appeal to energize his Christian conservative base, and follows efforts including pardoning anti-abortion activists such as Paulette Harlow, who was convicted of blocking access to an abortion clinic – which his administration framed as persecution of Christian believers. Trump also signed orders to ban the legal recognition of transgender people by the US government.

The president’s push for a religious conservative alliance also bridged domestic and international spheres this week, with his new taskforce announcement paralleling the visit of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Washington.

At Blair House on Monday, Netanyahu met with key evangelical leaders, including the Christians United for Israel founder and pastor John Hagee and former governor Mike Huckabee – Trump’s ambassador-designate to Israel – drawing together Christian Zionists who form a critical geopolitical support network.

These evangelical powerbrokers, who champion hardline annexation policies such as Trump’s surprise announcement to empty out and take ownership of Gaza, and reject traditional diplomatic language around the occupied Palestinian territories, represent a formidable political bloc through groups such as Christians United for Israel, which claims more than 10 million members.

The recent executive order announcement takes direct aim at federal agencies including the FBI and IRS, which Trump accused of systematically targeting Christian believers. It includes the creation of a new White House faith office led by Trump’s longtime spiritual adviser, the televangelist Paula White.

Some critics were quick to condemn the initiative as a thinly veiled attempt to privilege evangelical Christianity over other religious minorities.

“If Trump really cared about religious freedom and ending religious persecution, he’d be addressing antisemitism in his inner circle, anti-Muslim bigotry, hate crimes against people of color and other religious minorities,” the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Rachel Laser, said in a statement. “This taskforce is not a response to Christian persecution; it’s an attempt to make America into an ultra-conservative Christian Nationalist nation.”

Donald Trump announced on Friday that he is appointing himself as chairman of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, adding that he is immediately terminating multiple people from the board of trustees and the current chairman.

“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

The Kennedy Center is the country’s national cultural center and is run through a public-private partnership. The idea for such a center began with Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s and was authorized by Congress in 1958 . It’s doors officially opened in 1971. The center is known for hosting music, theater, dance, artwork and performance art, and has hosted acts ranging from Tina Turner to Led Zeppelin.

A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center said in a statement it was aware of Trump’s Truth Social post, but that it had “received no official communications from the White House regarding changes to our board of trustees”.

Some members of the board have received termination notices from the administration, the spokesperson said.

The Kennedy Center’s current chairman is David Rubenstein, a billionaire philanthropist and the co-founder of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group. Rubenstein has held the position since 2010 and was set to retire this year. After Trump was elected, the Kennedy Center said it had failed to find a new chair to replace Rubenstein and that he would stay on until September 2026.

Rubenstein served as a policy adviser to Jimmy Carter and is reportedly close to Joe Biden. He was first appointed by George W Bush.

Members of the board of trustees are typically appointed by the president. Currently, the attorney general Pam Bondi, lobbyist Brian Ballard and singer Lee Greenwood – all Trump supporters – are on the board, according to the Hill. Several Biden appointees are still on the board too, including press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. First ladies are honorary members and Congress can also designate ex-officio members.

“We have had a collaborative relationship with every presidential administration,” the Kennedy Center spokesperson said, adding that it has long had “a bipartisan board of trustees that has supported the arts in a non-partisan fashion”.

Rubenstein’s position, which Trump says he is now seizing, has always been appointed by the center’s board members, according to the act authorized by Congress in 1958.

“There is nothing in the center’s statute that would prevent a new administration from replacing board members,” the center’s spokesperson said. “However, this would be the first time such action has been taken with the Kennedy Center’s board.”

Trump said the reason for terminating Rubenstein and some members of the board of trustees is that they don’t “share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture”. In his Truth Social post, he also brought up the topic of queer people, something he has raised repeatedly since being sworn into office, saying that the Kennedy Center “featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth – THIS WILL STOP”.

The Atlantic first reported Trump’s decision to appoint himself as chairman of the Kennedy Center. During his first term, he didn’t attend a single annual gala event at center – a tradition US presidents have long partaken in. Trump had a prickly relationship with the center after artists protested against his administration and threatened to boycott events at the White House.

Now, it seems, Trump wants back in. Capping off his Truth Social post, he wrote: “THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”

Donald Trump’s recent fixation on absorbing Canada is “a real thing”, Justin Trudeau has told business leaders, warning that the US president wants access to his northern neighbour’s vast supply of critical minerals.

The outgoing prime minister was in Toronto for a hastily called summit of business and labour leaders, seeking to coordinate a response Trump’s looming threat of a 25% tariff on all Canadian imports.

Earlier this week, Trump backed away from tariffs that would have devastated Canada’s economy, granting one of his country’s largest trading partners a 30-day reprieve for further negotiations.

But he has continued to mock Canadian sovereignty, repeating his description of the country as the “51st state” on social media and repeatedly calling Trudeau “governor” instead of prime minister.

Friday’s summit included discussions on stemming the movement of fentanyl, security at the border and the challenge of interprovincial trade, but Trudeau later told an audience that the president’s threats of annexation – often viewed as a negotiating tactic – were serious, and should be taken as such.

“I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state,” Trudeau reportedly told attendees.

“They’re very aware of our resources, of what we have and they very much want to be able to benefit from those,” he said. “But Mr Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country.”

Canada is rich in minerals considered critical to the green energy transition, including lithium, graphite, nickel, copper and cobalt, and has sought to position itself as a trusted and stable supplier of the commodities to allied nations.

Trump’s threats, which have upended the longstanding relationship between the two countries, have dramatically reshaped federal politics and ushered in a new era of patriotism. With an election looming, all parties are scrambling to portray themselves as patriotic and ready to defend the country’s sovereignty.

In Quebec, where provincial sovereigntists have experienced a surge in popularity, the number of people calling for a referendum on the province’s secession has dropped. Between December and February, people in Quebec who said they were “very proud” or “proud” to be Canadian increased 13 points from 45% to 58%, according to an Angus Reid poll.

On Friday, federal cabinet ministers sought to reassure attenders.

“Our American friends understand that they need Canada for their economic security, they need Canada for their energy security and they need Canada for their national security,” the industry minister, François-Philippe Champagne, told AFP.

The trade minister, Anita Anand, said there would be “no messing” with the border.

“Canada is free. Canada is sovereign,” the employment minister, Steven MacKinnon, told reporters. “Canada will choose its own destiny, thank you very much.”

The Japanese prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, and the US president, Donald Trump, struck a warm tone at their first meeting on Friday, with Tokyo avoiding tariffs that Trump has slapped on other allies – for now.

Heaping praise on each other at the White House, the two leaders pledged to stand together against Chinese “aggression” and said they found a solution for a blocked deal for troubled US Steel.

Trump, however, pressed Ishiba to cut the US trade deficit with Japan to zero, and warned that Tokyo could still face tariffs on exported goods if it failed to do so.

Ishiba, an avowed “geek” and model warship fan, has been under pressure to replicate Trump’s close relationship with former premier and golf buddy Shinzo Abe.

Both leaders insisted they had struck up a rapport during what was only the second visit by a foreign leader of Trump’s new term.

“I was so excited to see such a celebrity on television in person,” Ishiba told their joint press conference, while saying he was not trying to “suck up”.

“On television he is frightening and has a very strong personality. But when I met with him actually he was very sincere and very powerful.”

As they exchanged photographs, Trump praised the 68-year-old Japanese premier as “good looking” – typically one of the former reality TV star’s highest orders of praise.

And the US president laughed and said “that’s a very good answer” when Ishiba said he could not respond to a “theoretical question” about whether he would retaliate to any US tariffs.

Trump, meanwhile, said that Japan’s Nippon Steel would make a major investment in US Steel but not take over the troubled company as previously negotiated.

“They’ll be looking at an investment rather than a purchase,” Trump said. His predecessor, Joe Biden, had blocked the deal.

The two leaders also doubled down on decades-old US ties in security and trade – despite fears that Trump could turn on Tokyo as he has with other US allies.

– Trump said they had agreed to fight “Chinese economic aggression” and in a joint statement they condemned Beijing for “provocative activities” in the contested South China Sea.

They also called for a denuclearised North Korea, although Trump – who met its leader, Kim Jong-un, during his first term – said he wanted to have “relations” with Pyongyang.

Behind Trump’s expressions of support were Japan’s promises of a $1tn investment in the US and to boost Japanese purchases of US defence equipment.

Ishiba said his country was the biggest investor in the US and would step up its spending.

The soft-spoken, cigarette-smoking Ishiba had rushed to Washington hoping to blunt the edge of Trump’s “America first” policies.

Under Abe, Japan was shielded from some of Trump’s more punishing tendencies, such as sudden trade wars and pressure to increase financial contributions towards hosting US soldiers.

Days after Trump’s first election victory, Abe hurried to deliver him a gold-plated golf club. Trump also hosted Abe’s widow, Akie, for dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in December.

So far the US president has slapped tariffs on China and ordered them on Mexico and Canada before halting them for a month.

He has also pledged tariffs on the European Union and said on Friday that he would announce unspecified “reciprocal tariffs” next week.

The crew of a 13-metre boat that ran aground during the night off the coast of Tasmania have been saved by a police officer who swam to rescue them.

The boat, crewed by a man in his 70s and a woman in her 60s, hit rocks near Wynyard, in the state’s north-west, just after midnight on Friday.

At about 5:45am, the boat began taking on water. In the conditions, a police vessel could not get safe access to the stricken boat. Instead, a police rescue swimmer was winched into the water from a helicopter.

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The officer swam to the yacht and helped one of the crew to shore, before returning to rescue the second person.

The man and woman were uninjured and did not need medical assistance.

Tasmania police inspector Adam Spencer said the pair had a lot of boating experience.

“Even well-prepared and experienced people can run into difficulties at sea,” he said.

“Tasmania police urges everyone to ensure they are well prepared before heading to sea, and to ensure their vessel is equipped with the required safety gear and is capable of the journey.”

The pair are understood to be making arrangements to retrieve the boat this morning.

An Israeli soldier has been found guilty of severe assaults of Palestinian detainees from Gaza, the first conviction for abuse in a system where dozens of people have died in custody and whistleblowers say torture and violence is rife.

Israel Hajabi, 25, repeatedly attacked bound and blindfolded detainees with his fists, a baton and his assault rifle, a military court found, describing his actions as “serious and severe”. On one day alone, 5 June last year, at the Sde Teiman detention centre he beat two men 15 times.

The assaults were committed between January and June 2024 when he was guarding detainees from Gaza. They were captured on video, and continued as victims cried out in pain. Hajabi also forced detainees to make animal noises and repeat humiliating phrases.

Hajabi was sentenced to seven months after a plea deal, which rights groups said was too short to serve as a deterrent. They questioned why authorities had not identified masked soldiers seen in videos of the attacks or prosecuted other cases of documented violent abuse against prisoners and detainees.

“It is difficult to ignore the fact that the sentence does not constitute a significant deterrent,” the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, an NGO, said in a statement. “[The attacks] constitute serious abuse that requires a much more severe punishment. It is important to remember that there were other people involved in the incident who were not brought to justice, and many other cases of abuse have not been investigated at all to this day.”

Hajabi was detained in the summer at the same time as nine other Israeli soldiers, who face allegations of sexual abuse so violent it left a detainee in critical condition.

Their arrests prompted an invasion of two military bases by politicians and demonstrators, mostly representing far-right parties, who were furious about the arrests and described the men as heroes.

Pre-indictment hearings were held in this case in November, the Jerusalem Post reported, citing sources who denied political considerations had caused delays.

Hassan Jabareen, the director of the Palestinian rights group Adalah, said: “[Hajabi’s] case, including the punishment, indicates that Israel has a policy of impunity when it comes to their soldiers. Whatever they do, at most they will have a light sentence.”

He said Palestinian citizens of Israel had been handed longer jail terms for posts on social media.

Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation and other abuse of Palestinian prisoners has been normalised across Israel’s jail system, according to interviews with released prisoners. Mistreatment now so systemic that the rights group B’Tselem says it must be considered a policy of “institutionalised abuse”.

Detainees from Gaza are particularly vulnerable. The Israeli NGO HaMoked described the conditions in which these detainees were held as “a mass enforced disappearance”, because they are held incommunicado in unknown locations, without legal proceedings or contact with a lawyer.

By early December, at least 38 Gaza residents detained in Israel had died in custody, Haaretz reported.

Sde Teiman camp in the Negev desert was set up as a temporary detention centre for holding Palestinians from Gaza after the cross-border Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023.

An Israeli soldier has been found guilty of severe assaults of Palestinian detainees from Gaza, the first conviction for abuse in a system where dozens of people have died in custody and whistleblowers say torture and violence is rife.

Israel Hajabi, 25, repeatedly attacked bound and blindfolded detainees with his fists, a baton and his assault rifle, a military court found, describing his actions as “serious and severe”. On one day alone, 5 June last year, at the Sde Teiman detention centre he beat two men 15 times.

The assaults were committed between January and June 2024 when he was guarding detainees from Gaza. They were captured on video, and continued as victims cried out in pain. Hajabi also forced detainees to make animal noises and repeat humiliating phrases.

Hajabi was sentenced to seven months after a plea deal, which rights groups said was too short to serve as a deterrent. They questioned why authorities had not identified masked soldiers seen in videos of the attacks or prosecuted other cases of documented violent abuse against prisoners and detainees.

“It is difficult to ignore the fact that the sentence does not constitute a significant deterrent,” the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, an NGO, said in a statement. “[The attacks] constitute serious abuse that requires a much more severe punishment. It is important to remember that there were other people involved in the incident who were not brought to justice, and many other cases of abuse have not been investigated at all to this day.”

Hajabi was detained in the summer at the same time as nine other Israeli soldiers, who face allegations of sexual abuse so violent it left a detainee in critical condition.

Their arrests prompted an invasion of two military bases by politicians and demonstrators, mostly representing far-right parties, who were furious about the arrests and described the men as heroes.

Pre-indictment hearings were held in this case in November, the Jerusalem Post reported, citing sources who denied political considerations had caused delays.

Hassan Jabareen, the director of the Palestinian rights group Adalah, said: “[Hajabi’s] case, including the punishment, indicates that Israel has a policy of impunity when it comes to their soldiers. Whatever they do, at most they will have a light sentence.”

He said Palestinian citizens of Israel had been handed longer jail terms for posts on social media.

Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation and other abuse of Palestinian prisoners has been normalised across Israel’s jail system, according to interviews with released prisoners. Mistreatment now so systemic that the rights group B’Tselem says it must be considered a policy of “institutionalised abuse”.

Detainees from Gaza are particularly vulnerable. The Israeli NGO HaMoked described the conditions in which these detainees were held as “a mass enforced disappearance”, because they are held incommunicado in unknown locations, without legal proceedings or contact with a lawyer.

By early December, at least 38 Gaza residents detained in Israel had died in custody, Haaretz reported.

Sde Teiman camp in the Negev desert was set up as a temporary detention centre for holding Palestinians from Gaza after the cross-border Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023.

• The Ukrainian president has said North Korean troops have returned to the frontline in Russia’s Kursk region, after reports Moscow had withdrawn them due to heavy losses. “There have been new assaults in the Kursk operation areas … the Russian army and North Korean soldiers have been brought in again,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his evening address on Friday. A “significant number” of opposing troops had been “destroyed”, he said. “We are talking about hundreds of Russian and North Korean soldiers.” A Ukrainian military spokesperson had said a week earlier that Kyiv had not encountered activity or clashes with North Korean troops for three weeks. Pyongyang sent more than 10,000 soldiers to Russia last year to help it fight back Ukraine’s offensive into the border region, according to South Korean and western intelligence.

• Donald Trump said on Friday he would “probably” meet Zelenskyy next week, while the Ukrainian president responded by saying he appreciated working with Trump. The US president, asked by reporters in the White House whether such a meeting would be in Washington, replied that it “could be Washington – well, I’m not going there”, referring to Kyiv. Zelenskyy said “talks” were being planned but did not confirm a meeting. He wrote on X: “We’re also planning meetings and talks at the teams’ level. Right now Ukrainian and American teams are working out the details.” Meanwhile, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff said Ukraine was looking forward to a visit this month by Trump’s special envoy for the region. Andriy Yermak said he had spoken to envoy Keith Kellogg about topics including the battlefield situation, the safety of Ukrainian civilians, and meetings at the annual Munich security conference this month.

• Russia has claimed its forces have seized the key eastern Ukrainian mining town of Toretsk. If confirmed, it would be the biggest settlement Moscow has captured since Avdiivka in February last year. Kyiv denied Russia had full control of the industrial hub. The capture of Toretsk, which lies on elevated ground, would allow Moscow to further obstruct Ukrainian supply routes, paving the way for it to punch deeper into the northern part of the Donetsk region, according to military analysts. Former resident Galyna Poroshyna told Agence France-Presse there was “nothing” there to go back to and that everyone had left. “Everything is destroyed there. Everything.” A press officer for Ukraine’s 28th brigade, which has been fighting for control of Toretsk, said Ukrainian forces were holding their positions on the town’s outskirts. The battlefield reports could not be verified.

• European foreign ministers will discuss the Ukraine conflict at a meeting in Paris next week, the French foreign ministry said on Friday, amid reports US envoys could also attend. Ministers from France, Germany, Poland, Britain, Spain and Italy would take part in the talks on Wednesday, just ahead of the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion, the ministry said. The meeting aimed to “show continued support to Ukraine”, whether diplomatic, financial, material or related to weapons.

• The Kremlin said on Friday there had been a lot of inaccurate reports on US plans for ending the Ukraine war and called for patience as speculation swirled around the timing of a possible meeting between presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked by media about a report that Keith Kellogg, Trump’s envoy for Russia and Ukraine, was seeking to arrange a truce even before talks on a peace settlement. “We have nothing to add yet … we just need to be patient,” Peskov said.

• Ukraine said it hoped the international criminal court (ICC) would continue its work prosecuting Russian war criminals, despite Trump’s decision to impose sanctions on the court. The ICC is investigating allegations of Russian war crimes committed during its invasion of Ukraine and in 2023 issued an arrest warrant for Putin. Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Georgiy Tykhy said on Friday: “We hope that they [sanctions] will not affect the court’s ability to achieve justice for the victims of Russian aggression.” Ukraine continued to work with the ICC to move the cases forward, he added.

• The International Atomic Energy Agency chief said on Friday that the number of attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant had increased, Russian state news agency Tass reported. Rafael Grossi was speaking after holding talks in Moscow with Alexei Likhachev, head of Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom. Tass quoted Grossi as saying it was not possible to determine which side was carrying out the attacks. Russian forces took control of the plant soon after the 2022 start of the war.

• The Baltic states are set to sever ties with Russia’s power grid that date back to the 1950s and instead integrate further with the European Union, as the suspected sabotage of subsea cables has spurred efforts to strengthen regional security. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will disconnect from the IPS/UPS joint network early on Saturday and, subject to last-minute tests, will synchronise with the EU’s grid on Sunday, Reuters reports. Plans to decouple from Russia’s grid, debated for decades, gained momentum following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

A small commuter plane carrying 10 people across Alaska’s Norton Sound that crashed in western Alaska has been found, the US Coast Guard posted on social media on Friday afternoon. All 10 people who were on the plane died.

The plane was found about 34 miles (54km) south-east of Nome, the Coast Guard said. Mike Salerno, a spokesperson for the Coast Guard, said rescuers were searching the aircraft’s last known location by helicopter when they spotted the wreckage. They lowered two rescue swimmers to investigate.

The Bering Air Caravan, a single-engine turboprop, was heading from Unalakleet to Nome on Thursday afternoon with nine passengers and a pilot, according to Alaska’s department of public safety.

The Cessna Caravan left Unalakleet at 2.37pm local time, and officials lost contact with it less than an hour later, according to David Olson, director of operations for Bering Air. The aircraft was 12 miles offshore, the Coast Guard said. It was operating at its maximum passenger capacity, according to the airline’s description of the plane.

The plane was last seen over Norton Sound around 3.16pm local time, according to data from flight tracker FlightRadar 24.

Data provided by the US civil air patrol indicated that about 3.18pm local time, the plane had “some kind of event which caused them to experience a rapid loss in elevation and a rapid loss in speed”, Coast Guard Lt Cmdr Benjamin McIntyre-Coble said. “What that event is, I can’t speculate to.”

The disappearance marks the third major incident in US aviation in eight days. A commercial jetliner and an army helicopter collided near the nation’s capital on 29 January, killing 67 people. A medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on 31 January, killing the six people onboard and another person on the ground.

Unalakleet is a community of about 690 people in western Alaska, about 150 miles (240km) south-east of Nome and 395 miles north-west of Anchorage.

Bering Air serves 32 villages in western Alaska from hubs in Nome, Kotzebue and Unalakleet. Most destinations receive twice-daily scheduled flights Monday through Saturday.

Airplanes are often the only option for travel of any distance in rural Alaska, particularly in the winter.

The Alaska air national guard searched with an HC-130 plane on Thursday night, but a helicopter had to return because of bad weather before even reaching the search area.

The Nome volunteer fire department said in a statement on social media that ground crews were searching across the coast, from Nome to Topkok.

“Due to weather and visibility, we are limited on air search at the current time,” it said. The region is prone to sudden snow squalls and high winds in the winter, and people were told not to form their own search parties because the weather was too dangerous.

However, the guard was approved to fly the helicopter on Friday morning, and the Coast Guard brought an additional C-130 to help, the Nome volunteer fire department said in a statement posted on social media.

It was 17F (-8.3C) in Unalakleet around takeoff, according to the National Weather Service. Weather conditions included fog, light snow and freezing drizzle on Thursday evening. Visibility was down to half a mile at one point, with forecasts of wind gusts up to 35mph overnight.

The names of the people onboard were not yet being released.

Nome, a Gold Rush town, is just south of the Arctic Circle and is known as the ending point of the 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Associated Press contributed to reporting

President Donald Trump has said he’s revoking Joe Biden’s security clearance and ending the daily intelligence briefings he’s receiving, in payback for Biden doing the same to him in the wake of the January 6 attacks.

Trump announced his decision in a post saying: “There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information. Therefore, we are immediately revoking Joe Biden’s security clearances, and stopping his daily intelligence briefings.

“He set this precedent in 2021, when he instructed the intelligence community (IC) to stop the 45th president of the United States (me!) from accessing details on national security, a courtesy provided to former presidents.”

Former presidents traditionally receive some intelligence briefings even after they have left office.

Biden ended Trump’s intelligence briefings after Trump helped spur efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and incited the January 6 attack on the Capitol. At the time, Biden said Trump’s “erratic” behaviour should prevent him from getting the intel briefings.

Asked in an interview with CBS News what he feared if Trump continued to receive the briefings, Biden said at the time he did not want to “speculate out loud” but made clear he did not want Trump to continue having access to such information.

“I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings,” Biden said. “What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?”

Biden didn’t immediately comment on Friday’s move.

Trump’s move is the latest in a vengeance tour of Washington that he promised during his campaign.

He has previously revoked security clearances from more than four dozen former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the hallmarks of a “Russian information operation”.

He’s also revoked security details assigned to protect former government officials who have criticised him, including his own former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo and former infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci.

In a related matter, Trump dismissed Colleen Shogan as the archivist of the United States, White House aide Sergio Gor posted on X Friday night.

Trump had said in early January that he would replace the head of the National Archives and Records Administration. The government agency drew his anger after it informed the justice department about issues with Trump’s handling of classified documents. Shogan, the first woman in the post, wasn’t the archivist of the United States at the time the issue emerged.

In 2022, federal agents searched Trump’s Florida home and seized boxes of classified records. He was indicted on dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding classified records and obstructing FBI efforts to get them back. He pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. A judge dismissed the charges, ruling the special counsel who brought them was illegally appointed. The justice department gave up appeals after Trump was elected in November.

In his Friday post on Biden, Trump cited the special counsel report last year into his handling of classified documents, saying, “The Hur Report revealed that Biden suffers from ‘poor memory’ and, even in his ‘prime’, could not be trusted with sensitive information.”

Special counsel Robert Hur investigated Biden’s handling of classified information and found that criminal charges were not warranted but delivered a bitingly critical assessment of his handling of sensitive government records. The report described Biden’s memory as “hazy,” “fuzzy,” “faulty,” “poor” and having “significant limitations.” It said Biden could not recall defining milestones in his own life such as when his son Beau died or when he served as vice-president.

With Associated Press and Reuters

A woman who has previously been accused of drugging men and stealing has been arrested amid an investigation into the death of a journalist who was covering Sunday’s Super Bowl in New Orleans – and whose body was discovered in his hotel room.

The reporter, Adan Manzano of Kansas City’s Telemundo affiliate, was staying at a hotel in Kenner, Louisiana – which is home to New Orleans’ international airport – to cover the game when he was found dead Wednesday afternoon after missing a work-related meeting.

Hotel surveillance video showed Manzano, 27, with a woman later identified as Danette Colbert on Wednesday morning before she left his room alone, Keith Conley, the Kenner police chief, said on Friday.

Investigators later established that Colbert, 48, was using the credit card Manzano used to check into his hotel at multiple stores in the area. Police then determined his cellphone was pinging about one-tenth of a mile from Colbert’s known address in Slidell, Louisiana, which is about 40 miles (65km) north-east of New Orleans, Conley said.

Conley said officers detained Colbert on Thursday night on suspicion of fraud and theft. Authorities also obtained a warrant to search her home, finding Manzano’s credit card and cellphone. According to Conley, police also found drugs – the pharmaceutical Xanax – as well as a stolen gun, though the chief said investigators “do not believe the firearm is related to this case”.

Investigators had not immediately determined Manzano’s cause and manner of death, leaving it unclear whether Colbert could face additional counts.

The coroner’s office told Guardian reporting partner WWL Louisiana that there were no obvious signs of trauma on Manzano.

Conley on Friday made it a point to say that Colbert has a history of financial crimes, including allegations of drugging men whose confidence she gained, stealing money and fraudulently using credit cards.

At least one of those cases was in Nevada, Conley said.

Louisiana criminal court records show she was given five years of probation after pleading guilty in December 2019 to fraudulently using a credit card that a man reported losing at a New Orleans strip club.

Asked whether his agency believes Colbert fatally drugged Manzano, Conley said police were investigating to determine whether “criminal activity such as that” having occurred.

News of Manzano’s death – at Kenner’s Comfort Inn & Suites New Orleans Airport North – circulated widely after it was announced. The general manager of the Spanish-language Telemundo affiliate that employed Manzano said the late journalist had recently started anchoring while continuing his duties as a reporter.

Steve Downing, the Telemundo Kansas City general manager, told WWL Louisiana that Manzano had a “passion” for sports that “led him to do great work, and always with a smile”.

Downing remembered Manzano as “enthusiastic and very well-loved and appreciated by the sports teams that he covered here”, including the Kansas City Chiefs, who are pursuing an unprecedented third consecutive Super Bowl championship in New Orleans on Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles.

Manzano, who also worked for Kansas City-based Tico Sports, was a native of Mexico City. His wife died in a car crash in Topeka, Kansas, in April.

The couple’s survivors include a two-year-old daughter.

Downing said his station plans to honor Manzano in its upcoming newscasts.

“We’re a small operation,” Downing remarked to WWL Louisiana. “So we will be missing a family member.”

The supermodel Naomi Campbell has claimed she knew nothing of the extensive financial misconduct and mismanagement at the anti-poverty fashion charity she created and sat on the board of for more than five years.

Campbell was disqualified from running a charity in May 2024, before the publication of a devastating watchdog report that revealed a trail of administrative chaos, misuse of charity funds, and chaotic record-keeping.

Her charity, Fashion for Relief, spent tens of thousands of pounds on luxury hotel rooms, flights, spa treatments, personal security and cigarettes for Campbell, and only a fraction of the donations it attracted went to good causes.

Campbell, 54, who is seeking to overturn the five-year ban imposed on her by the Charity Commission, claimed she was the victim of a “concerted deception” against her by a fellow trustee who in effect kept her in the dark about the running of the charity, and the commission’s intention to ban her.

In a charity tribunal hearing on Friday, Campbell’s lawyers said she was a “victim of fraud and forgery”, including a fake email account that she alleges the former Fashion for Relief trustee Bianka Hellmich used to impersonate her in communications with lawyers.

Hellmich told the Guardian earlier this week there was “absolutely no truth” in the allegations. Neither Hellmich, who was disqualified for nine years, or a third ex-trustee, Veronica Chou, have appealed against their disqualifications.

Charity law experts say it is rare for a charity tribunal to overturn a disqualification order, and that even if Campbell can prove a fake email account was used, it may not be sufficient to reverse the commission’s decision.

Liz Brownsell, the head of charities at the law firm Birketts, said: “Naomi Campbell has publicly admitted that she was not involved in running the charity and that she failed in her duties as a trustee. Charity trustees cannot be passive in their role and a failure to act can amount to mismanagement in the administration of the charity.

“Ultimately, the tribunal’s decision regarding her disqualification will be taken based on evidence regarding how she performed her duties as a trustee and whether the tribunal concurs with the commission’s assessment that she is unfit to act as a charity trustee.”

At the tribunal on Friday, lawyers for her and for the commission variously applied for the disclosure of documents. Campbell’s lawyers failed in an attempt to force the commission to disclose its case files.

In written arguments for Campbell, the barrister Andrew Westwood said the disqualification order was wrongly made because she was “not able adequately, or at all, to deal with issues that arose with the running of Fashion for Relief” or to present her “proper and accurate position” during the inquiry.

He told the court: “It is Ms Campbell’s case that because of the deception that was practised on her … she has been disqualified without having the opportunity to respond to the reasons for disqualification and without having had sight of the documents relied on by the commission in taking that action.”

Faisel Sadiq, for the Charity Commission, told the tribunal on Friday that Campbell’s position “is not to criticise the commission”, but to say she was a victim of fraud and that her case in a nutshell was that she “knew nothing about it” and was a “figurehead”.

Campbell said earlier this week that she had “fought to uncover the facts” ever since the commission’s report, published in September, and that she had “never undertaken philanthropic work for personal gain, nor will I ever do so”.