Donald Trump has warned that if all the Israeli hostages held in Gaza are not returned by Saturday at noon he would propose canceling the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and letting “all hell break loose”.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office late on Monday, the US president also said he might withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt if those countries do not take Palestinian refugees being relocated from Gaza.

Trump’s comments came after Hamas said it was delaying the release of hostages indefinitely over “violations” of the ceasefire deal, prompting Israel’s defence minister to put the country’s military on alert with orders to prepare for “any scenario in Gaza”.

Trump called the statement by Hamas “terrible” and said he would “let that be Israel’s decision” on what should ultimately happen to the ceasefire.

“But as far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday 12 o’clock – I think it’s an appropriate time – I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out,” Trump said.

The ultimatum could end a three-week-old ceasefire which dictates a strict schedule for the release of the Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.

Trump said the hostages should be released “not in dribs and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two”.

“We want them all back. I’m speaking for myself. Israel can override it, but for myself, Saturday at 12 o’clock – and if they’re not here, all hell is going to break out,” he said.

Trump indicated he had not spoken to Benjamin Netanyahu about the timeline he suggested. Asked about any concrete measures he was threatening to take to enforce his demand, Trump said: “You’ll find out. And they’ll find out too. Hamas will find out what I mean. These are sick people.”

He did not directly respond to a question on whether or not that would entail US military action.

Hamas, Israeli and Arab officials have already warned that the ceasefire is at a breaking point, and Trump’s radical intervention could stoke fears that Washington does not have any intent to continue with the phased deal.

A Hamas spokesperson cited past Israeli violations for halting the exchanges, but the militant group’s threat to suspend hostage releases comes against a backdrop of increasingly hardline US and Israeli positions about the long-term future of the strip.

Trump also said that he could “conceivably” withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt – some of the US’s closest allies in the region – unless they agreed to his plan for the US to “take over” Gaza and to relocate millions of Palestinians to the neighbouring states in what would amount to an effective ethnic cleansing.

“If they don’t agree, I would conceivably withhold it,” Trump said.

That threat came after Egypt rejected earlier Monday “any compromise” that would infringe on Palestinians’ rights, in a statement issued after foreign minister Badr Abdelatty met with his US counterpart in Washington.

Egyptian security sources separately told Reuters that mediators fear the ceasefire could collapse and have postponed talks until they receive a clear indication of Washington’s intent to continue with the phased deal.

Israel’s security cabinet has moved forward a meeting to discuss negotiations on the second phase, which had been scheduled for Tuesday evening.

The army has cancelled all leave for soldiers in the Gaza division, the Kan news outlet reported, in another sign that Israeli authorities are preparing for the resumption of war.

Before Trump’s comments, Hamas said the “door remains open” for the next hostage-prisoner exchange on Saturday.

In a statement, the group said it had “intentionally made this announcement five days before the scheduled prisoner handover, allowing mediators ample time to pressure [Israel] towards fulfilling its obligations”.

It added: “The door remains open for the prisoner exchange batch to proceed as planned, once the occupation complies.”

Trump’s comments on the ceasefire were his second apparently unscripted intervention in the crisis on Monday.

Earlier, he said that his plan to “take over Gaza” would not include a right of return for the more than 2 million Palestinians that he has said have “no alternative” but to leave because of the destruction left by Israel’s military campaign.

Asked about Palestinians who refused to leave, Trump said: “They’re all gonna leave.”

Arab states have denounced the plan and the UN’s top investigator told Politico that Trump’s plan for the “forcible displacement of an occupied group is an international crime, and amounts to ethnic cleansing”.

In the interview with Fox’s Bret Baier, Trump said that he would “own” the Gaza Strip and declared it would be a “real estate development for the future”.

Asked if Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza, Trump told Baier: “No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing.

“Could be five, six, could be two,” he said. “But we’ll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is.

“In other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it’ll be years before you could ever – it’s not habitable,” he said.

Qatar had warned Israeli officials at the weekend that even the first stage of the ceasefire deal was being put in jeopardy by provocative statements from Netanyahu and by his government’s approach to talks on a second stage, Haaretz reported. Qatari diplomats sent angry messages to Israeli counterparts, reminding them that as hosts, key mediators and guarantors of the deal’s implementation, they too have a stake in its survival, an Israeli source said.

The next exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners and detainees had been scheduled for this Saturday and would have been the sixth under the six-week-long first stage of the ceasefire deal.

The skeletal appearance of three hostages released on Saturday shocked many Israelis, and increased pressure on the government to reach a deal to bring home those still trapped. Several recently returned hostages have said they fear those still inside Gaza will struggle to survive much longer.

In Tel Aviv, protesters blocked streets on Monday night, demanding the return of all hostages, as some relatives accused their government of sabotaging the deal and endangering their loved ones.

“Abu Obeida’s statement is a direct result of Netanyahu’s irresponsible behaviour,” said Einav Zangauker, the mother of Matan Zangauker, who is a hostage in Gaza and not listed for release under the first stage of the deal. “[Netanyahu’s] deliberate procrastination and unnecessary provocative statements disrupted the implementation of the agreement.”

Hamas is due to release 33 hostages during the first stage of the deal, although eight of them are dead. The list of those who will be released includes women – civilians and soldiers – children, the sick and older men. Israel has agreed to release about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Sixteen Israelis have been released so far, all alive, and Hamas also released five Thai citizens last week. They had not been included in the negotiations.

The second stage of the ceasefire deal is intended to bring the return of all living hostages and the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, under a framework agreed days before Trump’s inauguration in January. Negotiations on the details of that stage were always expected to be even more challenging than agreeing the initial ceasefire.

Hamas has said it is delaying the release of Israeli hostages indefinitely over “violations” of the ceasefire deal, prompting Israel’s defence minister to put the country’s military on alert with orders to prepare for “any scenario in Gaza”.

Mediators fear a breakdown of the three-week-old ceasefire, Egyptian security sources told Reuters, and have postponed talks until they receive a clear indication of Washington’s intent to continue with the phased deal.

Israel’s security cabinet has moved forward a meeting to discuss negotiations on the second phase, which had been set for Tuesday evening. The army has cancelled all leave for soldiers in the Gaza division, the Kan news outlet reported, in another sign that Israeli authorities are preparing for the resumption of war.

Late on Monday, Hamas said the “door remains open” for the next hostage-prisoner exchange, due to take place on Saturday.

In a statement, the militant group said it had “intentionally made this announcement five days before the scheduled prisoner handover, allowing mediators ample time to pressure [Israel] towards fulfilling its obligations”. It added: “The door remains open for the prisoner exchange batch to proceed as planned, once the occupation complies.”

Relatives and supporters of Israelis held hostage in Gaza said they have contacted the negotiators – who are from Qatar, Egypt and the US – asking for urgent help to “restore and implement” an agreement that took more than a year to seal.

Although a Hamas spokesperson cited past Israeli violations for halting the exchanges, the decision comes against a backdrop of US and Israeli leaders taking increasingly hardline positions about the long-term future of the strip.

Donald Trump has repeatedly called for a Gaza without Palestinians. Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly praised Trump’s “fresh idea” for the territory and privately insists the war will only end if Hamas agrees to “cease to exist”, Israeli media reported.

The militant group treats its Israeli hostages as leverage and was releasing them partly to secure prisoner releases but mostly in order to have a role in determining the future of a postwar Gaza, even though it is widely accepted it will no longer govern there.

But the group no longer believes US guarantees for the ceasefire will hold and it does not think Israel is serious about implementing the plan, Reuters reported.

Qatar had warned Israeli officials at the weekend that even the first stage of the ceasefire deal was being put in jeopardy by provocative statements from Netanyahu and by his government’s approach to talks on a second stage, Haaretz reported. Qatari diplomats sent angry messages to Israeli counterparts, reminding them that as hosts, key mediators and guarantors of the deal’s implementation, they too have a stake in its survival, an Israeli source said.

The Qatari foreign ministry, which usually tries to stay scrupulously neutral, had also issued a rare public condemnation of Israel after Netanyahu suggested Saudi Arabia should provide land for a Palestinian state. It described the Israeli leader’s comments as “a flagrant violation of international law” in a statement that urged the international community to “decisively address Israel’s provocations”.

In public remarks, Abu Obeida, a spokesperson for Hamas’s military wing, accused Israel of delaying the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza, blocking the arrival of aid and attacking civilians. There would be no more hostage releases until Israel “complies and compensates for the past weeks”, he said.

The next exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners and detainees had been set for this Saturday and would have been the sixth under the six-week-long first stage of the ceasefire deal.

The skeletal appearance of three hostages released on Saturday shocked many Israelis, and increased pressure on the government to reach a deal to bring home those still trapped. Several recently returned hostages have said they fear those still inside Gaza will struggle to survive much longer.

In Tel Aviv, protesters blocked streets on Monday night, demanding the return of all hostages, as some relatives accused their government of sabotaging the deal and endangering their loved ones.

“Abu Obeida’s statement is a direct result of Netanyahu’s irresponsible behaviour,” said Einav Zangauker, the mother of Matan Zangauker, who is a hostage in Gaza and not listed for release under the first stage of the deal. “[Netanyahu’s] deliberate procrastination and unnecessary provocative statements disrupted the implementation of the agreement.”

Hamas is due to release 33 hostages during the first stage of the deal, although eight of them are dead. The list of those who will be released includes women – civilians and soldiers – children, the sick and older men. Israel has agreed to release about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Sixteen Israelis have been released so far, all alive, and Hamas also released five Thai citizens last week. They had not been included in the negotiations.

The second stage of the ceasefire deal is intended to bring the return of all living hostages and the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, under a framework agreed days before Trump’s inauguration in January. Negotiations on the details of that stage were always expected to be even more challenging than agreeing the initial ceasefire.

Netanyahu’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said he would quit the coalition if the war did not restart after the return of 33 hostages, which could force the Israeli leader to choose between his government and the deal.

Talks officially began at a meeting Netanyahu held in Washington with Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, but there have been no substantial negotiations yet. The Israeli prime minister has only authorised his team to discuss technical issues related to implementing and extending the first stage. His office had said earlier on Monday that an Israeli delegation of negotiators had returned from Doha, Israeli media reported, without giving further details.

Donald Trump has said that his plan to “take over Gaza” would not include a right of return for the more than 2 million Palestinians that he has said have “no alternative” but to leave because of the destruction left by Israel’s military campaign.

The remarks are the latest effective endorsement of ethnic cleansing by the US president, who announced his plan last week during a summit with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to the outrage of the Arab world and the surprise of even his closest aides.

In the interview with Fox’s Bret Baier, Trump said that he would “own” the Gaza Strip and declared it would be a “real estate development for the future”.

At the same time, he continued to endorse a plan for the Palestinians to be resettled in Egypt and Jordan, a plan that both countries have rejected and the region’s largest Arab states have declared is a non-starter.

Trump said he would build up to six new sites for Palestinians to live outside Gaza, in effect permanent refugee camps underwritten by the US president.

Asked if Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza, Trump told Baier: “No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing.

“Could be five, six, could be two,” he said. “But we’ll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is.

“In other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it’ll be years before you could ever – it’s not habitable,” he said.

No serious discussions have so far taken place in the Pentagon or the state department regarding how the US could legally or logistically handle the task proposed by Trump.

But the announcement was welcomed by Israel’s far-right settler movement, as well as their evangelical allies in the US who have endorsed the annexation of the Gaza Strip and other occupied Palestinian territories, including the West Bank.

“In the meantime, I would own this,” Trump said of Gaza. “Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.”

On Sunday, the head of the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Navi Pillay, told Politico, a news website, that Trump’s plan for the “forcible displacement of an occupied group is an international crime, and amounts to ethnic cleansing”.

“There is no way under the law that Trump could carry out the threat to dislocate Palestinians from their land,” Pillay said.

More than 1.5 million Palestinians and their descendants who lost their homes during the 1948 Arab–Israeli war currently live in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

A former UK supreme court judge has described Israel’s assault on Gaza as “grossly disproportionate” and said there was “at least an arguable case” that it was genocidal.

Lord Sumption, who served on the UK’s highest court from 2012 to 2018, was one of the highest profile signatories of a letter last year warning that the UK government was breaching international law by arming Israel.

In September, the Labour government suspended some arms export licences to Israel but made an exception for parts for F35 jets – a contentious decision that is being challenged in the courts.

Sumption was speaking to the Guardian before the release of his new book, The Challenges of Democracy: And The Rule of Law, which does not address the situation in Gaza but warns of threats to free speech, which the former judge said included expressions of pro-Palestinian sentiments.

Explaining his decision to sign the letter, Sumption said: “ I thought – and I still think – that the conduct of Israel in Gaza is grossly disproportionate and there’s at least an arguable case that it’s genocidal. One can’t put it higher than that because genocide depends on intent. That’s quite a difficult thing to establish but I read the provisional decision of the international court (of justice) (ICJ) and it seemed to me that they were saying that that was an arguable proposition.

“Given that the obligation of parties to the genocide convention is proactively to prevent it happening and not just to react after the event I thought that the authors of the letter – and I wasn’t the draftsman –had got a point.”

Israel has denied committing genocide, claiming it has acted in self-defence and criticising the ICJ.

Sumption’s latest book, which is published on Thursday, identifies a number of perceived threats to democracy including suppression of free speech.

Speaking from his home in London, Sumption said the two current big issues in that area were the trans rights debate, on which he is “relatively neutral” but thinks people who believe sex is fixed at birth and cannot be changed should not be silenced, and Palestine-Israel.

“I think that supporters of the Palestinian cause have had a rough time in a number of European jurisdictions, notably Germany, where there’s been direct – and government – moves to suppress that strand of thought altogether. We haven’t got anywhere near as close to things as that … but there’s certainly been a lot of calls, for … toughness on pro-Palestine demonstrations, which assume, without actually saying, that it’s perfectly obvious that support for Palestine is wrong. I don’t think it’s wrong.”

Sumption has a reputation as a conservative with a small c, although he described himself as a “qualified libertarian”. His public profile rose significantly during the Covid pandemic when he was a vociferous critic of lockdowns.

He said that since first voting in 1970 he has always cast his ballot for the party that won the general election, except in 2019 when he “couldn’t face the prospect of voting for Boris Johnson’s brand of conservatism” (supporting the Lib Dems rather than Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour).

“To my mind, the fall of Boris Johnson and subsequently of Liz Truss was a tremendous vindication of the inner strengths of the British constitution as well as the weaknesses that made it necessary,” he said.

“The parliamentary system reacted to the misdeeds of Boris Johnson and the basic idea that the democratic mandate belongs to MPs, and that governments depend on a consensus among MPs.

“That’s the orthodox view of the way the constitution is supposed to work and of the way that it’s supposed to disperse power and it worked – it did disperse power. Boris Johnson was an inefficient autocrat. His inefficiency was something we should all be truly grateful for because an efficient autocrat is a very terrifying thing.”

Nevertheless, in his book, Sumption expresses his belief that Britain’s democratic future is in peril because of increasing societal polarisation and “moral absolutism” that could erode support for consensual decision making and invite authoritarianism.

He said the downfall of Johnson and Truss showed that the UK was, for now, better off than the US and other countries “which concentrate too much power in presidential hands”.

Elon Musk escalated his feud with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman on Monday. The billionaire is leading a consortium of investors that announced it had submitted a bid of $97.4bn for “all assets” of the artificial intelligence company to OpenAI’s board of directors.

The startup, which operates ChatGPT, has been working to restructure itself away from its original non-profit status. OpenAI also operates a for-profit subsidiary, and Musk’s unsolicited offer could complicate the company’s plans. The Wall Street Journal first reported the proposed bid.

“If Sam Altman and the present OpenAI, Inc. Board of Directors are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation, it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it: control over the most transformative technology of our time,” said Marc Toberoff, the attorney representing the investors.

Altman posted his reaction on X shortly after the news broke, saying, “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” Musk famously bought Twitter in 2022 for $44bn and renamed it X. Musk responded to that post, saying, “Swindler.”

Musk was a co-founder of OpenAI but left the company in 2019 and started his own AI company called xAI. Over the past several years, he’s tussled with Altman over the direction of the company. He sued OpenAI over the company’s re-structuring plans last year, dropped the suit, then re-filed it.

The bid is backed by xAI and several investment firms, including one run by Joe Lonsdale, who co-founded the stealth government contractor Palantir. Ari Emanuel, who’s the CEO of the entertainment company Endeavor, has also joined the group through his investment fund.

“At x.AI, we live by the values I was promised OpenAI would follow. We’ve made Grok open source, and we respect the rights of content creators,” Musk said in a statement. “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was. We will make sure that happens.”

Toberoff told the Wall Street Journal that Musk’s consortium of investors is ready to match or go higher than any other bids on OpenAI that may arise.

OpenAI has maintained that its restructuring is essential to the longevity of the company and being able to access capital. It has said that if it keeps its non-profit structure as is, it won’t be able to keep up in the highly competitive world of AI innovation. OpenAI said it plans for the restructuring to be done by 2026.

Although Musk is a close Donald Trump ally, Altman has also met with the president and attended his inauguration. Trump tapped OpenAI to be part of a group of AI companies to work on a $500bn deal called Stargate to invest in the burgeoning technology. Musk’s xAI is not part of this deal.

Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum on Monday, ramping up his controversial bid to boost the US economy by hiking taxes on imports from overseas.

The modified US duties will be enforced “without exceptions or exemptions”, the president declared, dashing the hopes of countries that hoped to avoid them.

Trump first imposed steep tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum during his first presidency. The action announced on Monday night ends exemptions granted to certain countries, and increases the duty rate on aluminum.

The changes are not due to come into effect until 4 March, however, according to a White House official – raising the prospect of the Trump administration brokering deals with governments seeking reprieve. Countries including Australia have already been making their case.

Trump first trailed his latest tariff actions on Sunday, adding that he would also announce a further set of reciprocal tariffs later in the week, drawing warnings of retaliation from trade partners.

“The steel and aluminum tariffs 2.0 will put an end to foreign dumping, boost domestic production and secure our steel and aluminum industries as the backbone and pillar industries of America’s economic and national security,” Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, told reporters.

“This isn’t just about trade. It’s about ensuring that America never has to rely on foreign nations for critical industries like steel and aluminum.”

Trump and his allies, who repeatedly claimed that tariffs could “Make America great again” when fighting to regain the White House, believe that higher taxes on imported steel and aluminum will help shore up US industrial heartlands.

The US president said he would announce plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on other countries over the next two days. He signed two proclamations as he spoke to reporters in the Oval Office: one ending waivers granted by Joe Biden to steel and aluminum tariffs instituted during his first term, and the other raising duties on both metals to 25%.

He also raised the prospect of future US tariffs on cars, semiconductor chips and pharmaceuticals from markets across the world.

Asked about the possibility of other countries retaliating against US tariffs, Trump said: “I don’t mind.”

This latest wave of tariffs is different than the one imposed by the White House on China last week, which hit all goods traveling from the country to the US with an additional 10% duty. He also threatened Canada and Mexico with the same blanket tariffs, at higher a rate of 25%, only to agree to a one-month delay before pulling the trigger.

Trump signed proclamations that raised the tariff rate on aluminum imports to 25% from the previous 10% that he imposed in 2018 to aid the struggling sector. His action reinstates a 25% tariff on millions of tonnes of steel imports and aluminum imports that had been entering the US duty-free under quota deals, exemptions and thousands of product exclusions.

The proclamations were extensions of Trump’s 2018 section 232 national security tariffs to protect steel and aluminum makers. A White House official said the exemptions had eroded the effectiveness of these measures.

About a quarter of steel used in the US is from overseas, with Canada, Brazil and Mexico as the top providers. South Korea, Japan and Germany are also key markets.

China, hit by a 25% steel tariff during Trump’s first administration that was maintained under Joe Biden, is not a significant exporter of steel to the US. But it is the largest exporter of steel to the world, dominating the global market with typically cheaper products. Some countries then export their own steel products, at higher rates, to markets including the US.

Trump’s fixation with tariffs has alarmed economists, who have warned their imposition may derail his repeated promises to rapidly bring down prices for millions of Americans.

But Trump has defended his strategy, claiming they could raise “trillions” of dollars for the US economy – and that even the mere threat of import duties can prompt countries to bend to his will. “Tariffs are very powerful, both economically and in getting everything else you want,” he said last week.

Reuters contributed to this story

Asian markets were mixed on Tuesday as traders kept a nervous eye on Donald Trump’s next moves after he signed off on 25% tariffs for steel and aluminium imports, having warned of more measures to come.

The president has lived up to his campaign pledges to resume his hardball trade diplomacy to extract concessions on a range of issues, including commerce, immigration and drug trafficking.

Global stocks rallied on Monday but Asian markets struggled to maintain momentum a day later, with Hong Kong flitting between gains and losses, while Shanghai and Singapore fell. Markets in Seoul, Sydney and Taipei rose.

The uncertainty fuelled by Trump’s moves has pushed safe-haven gold to record highs. On Monday, it broke above $2,900 for the first time. It extended gains on Tuesday to hit a new peak above $2,938.

“This is still very early days,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex in New York. “The market’s just sort of chopping around rather than really directional right now.”

Equities have held up since Trump took office – London and Frankfurt even hit record highs on Monday – with analysts saying measures had so far been less severe than feared.

Still, caution looms over trading floors as dealers brace for the next announcement out of the White House, with Maurice Obstfeld, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, saying: “The degree of uncertainty about trade policy has basically exploded.”

And Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo Markets, said: “These expanding trade actions beyond previous threats to Canada, Mexico and China are leading to potential new import restrictions and retaliation, signalling more bouts of volatility for investors.

“Tariffs are being used not just to tax imports but also as tools for national security, economic leverage and revenue generation, indicating a shift towards long-term economic policy rather than short-term trade disputes.”

Fears that Trump’s tariffs, along with tax cuts and deregulation, will reignite inflation and force the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates elevated have sent the dollar up against most of its peers.

Readings on consumer and producer price indexes this week will provide a fresh snapshot of inflation, while Fed boss Jerome Powell is also due to give depositions to US lawmakers.

Both will be pored over for an idea about the bank’s plans for rates, with forecasts for two cuts at most this year.

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report

In an Oval Office signing ceremony Monday, Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, to be enforced “without exceptions or exemptions”. The executive actions were the latest in a series of aggressive trade policies Trump has undertaken since re-taking office last month.

Here’s what we know about the steel and aluminum tariffs so far:

What is a tariff?

A tariff is a tax levied on foreign goods imported into a country. The US is currently the largest goods importer in the world – in 2022, the value of imported goods in the US totalled $3.2tn.

Trump views tariffs as a way to apply pressure on US manufacturers and importers to produce goods domestically. But importers will probably push the cost of tariffs on to consumers, causing prices to rise.

What are the tariffs Trump issued?

Trump’s announced 25% tariffs will apply to all imported steel and aluminum. The action – which will go into effect on 4 March – ends exemptions granted to certain countries and increases the duty rate on both metals to 25% (the duty on aluminum was previously 10%).

Which countries will these tariffs affect?

The tariffs will affect every country that exports steel and aluminum to the US – although some, including Australia, have already been making the case for why they should be exempt. But those countries that sell the most steel and aluminum to the US are likely to be the hardest hit.

Trump later said he would give “great consideration” to Australia’s request for an exemption to the steel tariffs due to that country’s trade deficit with the US.

About a quarter of steel used in the US is from overseas, with Canada, Brazil and Mexico as the top providers, followed by South Korea and Vietnam. Mexico and Canada accounted for about 40% of US steel imports last year.

And nearly half of the aluminum used in the US is imported. Canada is the largest supplier of primary aluminum metal to the US by a large margin, accounting for 79% of total imports up to November 2024. Mexico is another major supplier, largely of aluminum scrap and aluminum alloy.

How have the tariffs been received?

Trump’s decision to impose the tariff has alarmed the steel industry in South Korea, the fourth-biggest exporter of steel to the US after Canada, Brazil and Mexico. The country’s acting president, Choi Sang-mok, this week called in top government officials to discuss the potential impact the move will have on Asia’s fourth-biggest economy, and well as possible responses, the Yonhap news agency reported.

An official from Posco, South Korea’s leading steelmaker, said the firm was keeping a close watch on the tariff’s impact. “South Korea already operates under a strict quota system, so there is a chance that the full 25% tariff Trump announced would only apply to non-quota countries,” the official told the Korea Herald. “Since no final decision has been made, we have no choice but to wait and carefully evaluate the situation.”

South Korea’s aluminum industry is also holding its breath. Exports of aluminum foil to the US account for almost a third of the country’s aluminum shipments.

Meanwhile, Canada’s industry minister said the US tariffs were “totally unjustified”, with Canadian steel and aluminum supporting key US industries including defense, shipbuilding, energy and autos.

“This is making North America more competitive and secure,” Francois-Philippe Champagne said in a statement. “We are consulting with our international partners as we examine the details. Our response will be clear and calibrated.”

Asked about threats of retaliation by other countries against his new tariffs Monday, Trump said: “I don’t mind.”

What other tariffs has Trump proposed?

Before entering office, Trump threatened tariffs on the US’s three biggest trading partners: China, Mexico and Canada. After invoking those tariffs last week, Trump agreed to a one-month delay on 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, while going ahead with a 10% tariff on China.

On Monday, Trump said he would announce plans to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on countries that have duties on US goods over the next two days. He also raised the prospect of future US tariffs on cars, semiconductor chips and pharmaceuticals from markets across the world.

Justin McCurry in Tokyo contributed to this report

On Monday, Donald Trump took aim at a “ridiculous situation” that directly affects his daily life: paper straws.

He signed an executive order that rolls back a Biden administration policy to phase out federal purchases of single-use plastics, including straws, from food service operations, events and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035.

“It’s a ridiculous situation. We’re going back to plastic straws,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he signed the order. “These things don’t work,” he said, referring to paper straws. “I’ve had them many times, and on occasion, they break, they explode.”

But Trump, such a fan of drinking Diet Coke that he has installed a button in the Oval Office in order to summon staff to deliver the drink, has long railed against any restrictions upon plastic straws. When attempting to gain re-election in 2020, his campaign sold reusable straws on its website claiming that “liberal paper straws don’t work”.

While plastic straws have been blamed for polluting oceans and harming marine life, Trump said on Monday that he thinks “it’s OK” to continue using them. “I don’t think that plastic is going to affect the shark very much as they’re … munching their way through the ocean,” he said at a White House announcement.

White House staff secretary Will Scharf, who presented the executive order to Trump, told him the push for paper straws has cost the government and private industry “an absolute ton of money and left consumers all over the country wildly dissatisfied with their straws’.’

The order directs federal agencies to review procurement processes to allow use of plastic straws. “It really is something that affects ordinary Americans in their everyday lives,” Scharf said.

The plastic manufacturing industry applauded Trump’s move.

“Straws are just the beginning,” Matt Seaholm, president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association, said in a statement. “‘Back to Plastic’ is a movement we should all get behind.”

The world is undergoing a glut of new plastic production, and a summit among countries last year failed to come to a deal to address this despite growing recognition of the harm caused by waste that takes hundreds of years to break down. Global annual plastic production doubled in the two decades since 2000 to about 460m tonnes and is expected to quadruple again by 2050.

Less than 10% of this plastic waste is now being recycled. The rest invariably ends up in the environment, with the equivalent of one truck filled with plastic dumping its contents into the ocean every minute, according to experts’ estimates. Much of this trash is composed of single-use plastics, such as straws, which make up about 40% of plastic production.

The result of this boom has been a world riddled with plastics, with large or microscopic fragments of the material found in every corner of the planet, even in the air. Plastics choke and throttle marine creatures and birds and microplastics have been found deep within the bodies of animals, including humans. Research has found plastics present in people’s brains, testicles, blood and even placentas.

More than 390m straws are used every day in the United States, mostly for 30 minutes or less, according to advocacy group Straws Turtle Island Restoration Network. Straws take at least 200 years to decompose and pose a threat to turtles and other wildlife as they degrade into microplastics, says the group.

“To prevent another sea turtle from becoming a victim to plastic, we must make personal lifestyle alterations to fight for these species,’’ the group said in a statement.

Oliver Milman contributed to this report

The daughter of a Georgian billionaire and her husband have been granted a refund after buying a £32m London mansion that was infested with moths.

Iya Patarkatsishvili and Dr Yevhen Hunyak bought the early Victorian seven-bedroom Notting Hill home in May 2019. It boasted a pool, spa, gym, wine room, library, cinema, and a “snoring room” designed for peaceful sleep.

Days after moving into Horbury Villa, the couple spotted signs of an infestation that would go on to destroy clothing and ruin their wine. They sued the house seller, William Woodward-Fisher, in an attempt to reverse the sale.

John McGhee KC, representing the couple in court, said at the peak of the infestation, Hunyak was swatting about 100 of the insects daily.

Before buying the property, the couple and their staff visited the house at least 11 times, the court heard.

Hunyak, a paediatric dentist who works in Chelsea, told the court that moths were landing on their children’s toothbrushes, cutlery and meals.

He said he was forced to tip out glasses of wine after discovering floating moths due to the infestation.

On Monday, high court judge Mr Justice Fancourt ruled that Woodward-Fisher, an elite property developer, had given “false” answers about the state of the property in west London and failed “honestly to disclose” the “serious infestation”.

Fancourt acknowledged that Woodward-Fisher, who formerly competed for Great Britain as a rower, had not deliberately tried to deceive the purchasers, but added he had “simply wanted to sell the house and move on” and knew disclosure would cause the sale to “go off”.

The judge ordered the sale be rescinded, with Woodward-Fisher required to reimburse the purchase price, minus about £6m to recognise the couple’s use of the property.

The developer was also ordered to pay the couple an additional £4m in damages for the infestation, including £15,000 for ruined clothes and £3.7m paid in stamp duty.

Appearing for the developer, Jonathan Seitler KC said Woodward-Fisher had been honest when dealing with the inquiry about possible previous “vermin infestation”, having told his solicitor that the property had experienced problems with moths only to be assured that “moths were not vermin and therefore not relevant to this inquiry”.

Chris Webber, of Squire Patton Boggs, the firm that represented the couple, said: “[The couple] hope the case will serve as a warning to unscrupulous property developers who might seek to take advantage of buyer beware to sell properties by concealing known defects.”

The court previously heard that Woodward-Fisher bought the site in 2011 and lived there with his wife, Kerry, an interior designer. The house was extended and radically remodelled before being sold to the Georgian heiress.

Patarkatsishvili is the daughter of Badri Patarkatsishvili, a businessman who fell out with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, before coming to the UK in 2000. He died of heart failure eight years later.

The daughter of a Georgian billionaire and her husband have been granted a refund after buying a £32m London mansion that was infested with moths.

Iya Patarkatsishvili and Dr Yevhen Hunyak bought the early Victorian seven-bedroom Notting Hill home in May 2019. It boasted a pool, spa, gym, wine room, library, cinema, and a “snoring room” designed for peaceful sleep.

Days after moving into Horbury Villa, the couple spotted signs of an infestation that would go on to destroy clothing and ruin their wine. They sued the house seller, William Woodward-Fisher, in an attempt to reverse the sale.

John McGhee KC, representing the couple in court, said at the peak of the infestation, Hunyak was swatting about 100 of the insects daily.

Before buying the property, the couple and their staff visited the house at least 11 times, the court heard.

Hunyak, a paediatric dentist who works in Chelsea, told the court that moths were landing on their children’s toothbrushes, cutlery and meals.

He said he was forced to tip out glasses of wine after discovering floating moths due to the infestation.

On Monday, high court judge Mr Justice Fancourt ruled that Woodward-Fisher, an elite property developer, had given “false” answers about the state of the property in west London and failed “honestly to disclose” the “serious infestation”.

Fancourt acknowledged that Woodward-Fisher, who formerly competed for Great Britain as a rower, had not deliberately tried to deceive the purchasers, but added he had “simply wanted to sell the house and move on” and knew disclosure would cause the sale to “go off”.

The judge ordered the sale be rescinded, with Woodward-Fisher required to reimburse the purchase price, minus about £6m to recognise the couple’s use of the property.

The developer was also ordered to pay the couple an additional £4m in damages for the infestation, including £15,000 for ruined clothes and £3.7m paid in stamp duty.

Appearing for the developer, Jonathan Seitler KC said Woodward-Fisher had been honest when dealing with the inquiry about possible previous “vermin infestation”, having told his solicitor that the property had experienced problems with moths only to be assured that “moths were not vermin and therefore not relevant to this inquiry”.

Chris Webber, of Squire Patton Boggs, the firm that represented the couple, said: “[The couple] hope the case will serve as a warning to unscrupulous property developers who might seek to take advantage of buyer beware to sell properties by concealing known defects.”

The court previously heard that Woodward-Fisher bought the site in 2011 and lived there with his wife, Kerry, an interior designer. The house was extended and radically remodelled before being sold to the Georgian heiress.

Patarkatsishvili is the daughter of Badri Patarkatsishvili, a businessman who fell out with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, before coming to the UK in 2000. He died of heart failure eight years later.

• Weapons approved under Joe Biden’s presidency are still flowing to Ukraine, the new US special envoy to Kyiv, Keith Kellogg, said on Monday. “There’s not necessarily any need in the next 24 hours to [do] it any different,” Kellogg said in an interview with the Reuters news agency.

• The Trump administration plans to push European allies to buy more American weapons for Ukraine – as they did under the Biden administration – ahead of potential peace talks with Moscow, Reuters has reported, citing two people with knowledge of the matter. Kellogg will discuss this with European allies this week during the Munich security conference, which begins on Friday, Reuters said, citing its sources. The development, if confirmed, may be reassuring to Ukrainian leaders that the flow of arms will continue.

• Kellogg declined to confirm the plan to Reuters but said: “The US always likes selling weapons made in America because it strengthens our economy. There are a lot of options out there. Everything is in play right now.” It is believed that administration officials view an arms purchase deal with Europe as a potential workaround, allowing Washington to support Kyiv without spending US taxpayer dollars. The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, has said Europe would pay for US arms for Ukraine.

• On the potential for peace talks, Kellogg told Reuters: “I wouldn’t say we’re at the beginning of the [peace planning process] because we’ve been thinking through it,” adding that US officials in Munich would “deliver our expectations to the allies … More importantly, we want to hear from them”.

• Donald Trump on Monday confirmed that Kellogg would soon visit Ukraine. A source in the Ukrainian president’s office told Agence France-Presse that Kellogg would arrive in Ukraine on 20 February. Zelenskyy spokesperson Sergiy Nikiforov told AFP that Ukraine’s president would meet with the US vice-president, JD Vance, on Friday on the sidelines of the Munich conference.

• The pro-Russian separatist region of Moldova, Transnistria, rejected on Monday a new European gas offer despite experiencing a severe energy crisis since Gazprom deliveries via Ukraine stopped. Separatist leadership said the region would instead take Russia-financed gas transported from Hungary, which receives gas from Russia via the Turkstream pipeline through Turkey. Moldova has criticised the whole affair as a destabilisation tactic by Russia. “The European Union’s offer was a solution to free the territory from blackmail and energy instability” but “Russia won’t allow it to accept European aid because it is scared of losing control” of the territory, said the Moldovan prime minister, Dorin Recean.

Emmanuel Macron touted Europe and France as artificial intelligence powerhouses, amid speculation that the US and UK are playing hardball over a diplomatic declaration at the Paris AI summit.

The French president told investors and tech companies attending the summit to “choose Europe and France for AI” as he teased his US counterpart Donald Trump over his swing towards fossil fuels.

Referring to the vast energy consumption needed by AI, Macron said France stood out due to its reliance on nuclear energy. Trump said in his inauguration address that the US will “drill, baby, drill” for oil and gas under his leadership.

“I have a good friend on the other side of the ocean saying ‘drill, baby, drill.’ Here, there is no need to drill. It’s plug, baby, plug. Electricity is available,” he said on Monday.

Macron added that a European AI strategy, to be unveiled by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on Tuesday, would be a “unique opportunity for Europe to accelerate” in the technology.

“We have to provide a bigger domestic market to all the startups when they start as Europeans,” he said.

Criticism of a draft communique has threatened to overshadow the summit’s final day on Tuesday, when Macron will be joined by von der Leyen as well as the US vice-president, JD Vance, and the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi. Keir Starmer is not attending.

With the US reportedly unhappy about the wording, which includes phrases such as “sustainable and inclusive AI”, Politico reported on Monday that the UK was also minded not to sign the communique.

Speaking in Paris, the UK tech secretary, Peter Kyle, said the government was “in negotiations” over the statement but “that’s something we don’t comment on while the negotiations unfold”.

A government source said they hoped the negotiations would get to a place over the course of the summit where the UK could sign the declaration and said there was still a considerable amount of time left to have those discussions.

But the source suggested that the UK was prepared to walk away, saying the joint declaration had to be “squarely in British interests” or it would not get its backing. “We always want to get to a place of agreement but it needs to work for the UK,” they said.

The draft statement, seen by the Guardian, also refers to AI technology that is “human rights based, human-centric, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy”. It places much less emphasis on safety than the declaration at the inaugural AI summit, held in the UK in 2023, which pointed to the technology’s potential to cause “catastrophic” harm.

Max Tegmark, a leading voice in AI safety, urged countries to shun the statement if it was not amended, saying that its lack of focus on risks from powerful AI systems was a “recipe for disaster”.

The Ada Lovelace Institute, an independent research body focused on data and AI, also said the draft’s failure to emphasise safety “fails to build on the mission of making AI safe and trustworthy, and the safety commitments of previous summits”.

The opening day of the summit heard warnings about AI’s impact on the environment and inequality, as political leaders, tech executives, experts and civil society figures gathered at the Grand Palais in the heart of the French capital.

Macron’s AI envoy, Anne Bouverot, opened the two-day gathering with a speech referring to the environmental impact of AI, which requires vast amounts of energy and resources to develop and operate.

“We know that AI can help mitigate climate change, but we also know that its current trajectory is unsustainable,” Bouverot said, adding that sustainable development of the technology would be on the agenda.

The general secretary of the UNI Global Union, Christy Hoffman, said that without worker involvement in the use of AI, the technology risked increasing inequality. The UNI represents about 20 million workers worldwide in industries including retail, finance and entertainment.

“Without worker representation, AI-driven productivity gains risk turning the technology into yet another engine of inequality, further straining our democracies,” she told attenders.

On Sunday, Macron promoted the event by posting a montage of deepfake images of himself on Instagram, including a video of “him” dancing in a disco with various 1980s hairstyles, in a tongue-in-cheek reference to the technology’s capabilities.

New Zealand’s National-led coalition government is losing support among voters, new polling shows, amid frustrations over the economy and deepening concern the country is heading in the wrong direction.

Meanwhile, the parliamentary left bloc has taken a narrow lead for the third poll in a row, enough that the opposition would be able to form a government were an election held today.

Prime minister Christopher Luxon’s favourability has also dipped to a record low.

A 1News-Verian poll shows Luxon dropped two points to 22% in the preferred prime minister stakes – his lowest result since he became leader. Labour’s Chris Hipkins rose two points to 17%.

Speaking to media on Tuesday, Luxon said he was not concerned by the results.

“The only poll that matters is 2026 when the New Zealand public will make their decision: has this government made them better off or not over that three-year period?”

The poll, conducted during the country’s politically charged Waitangi Day events, showed support for Luxon’s National party dropped three points to 34%, while his coalition partners Act had a one-point increase to 9% and New Zealand First dropped one point to 5%.

A second Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll, taken between 2–4 February, also had Labour narrowly ahead of National and Luxon’s favourability drop just over two points to 24.5%.

The coalition government campaigned on promises to fix New Zealand’s economy and has introduced a wave of new policies to try to achieve this, including relaxing immigration settings to attract foreign investment and reducing public spending.

But with country in the midst of a recession and high unemployment rates, the public’s confidence in the economy is yet to bounce back.

Of those surveyed in the Verian poll, 36% felt optimistic about the economy – a 5 point drop from the December poll – while there was a three point increase in economic pessimism to 25%. Meanwhile, half of those polled felt the government was going in the wrong direction, with 39% believing it was heading in the right direction.

Luxon said he was under “no illusion” the public wanted the government to fix the economy.

“New Zealanders are expecting us to get through this economic pain and get to the other side of it, and that requires all of us to embrace growth above everything else.”

Political commentator Ben Thomas said that like many countries around the world, the government inherited a tough economic situation but its promises to lower living costs were yet to quell public malaise.

“If you run on the basis that you’re going to fix the economy, and people are still having a tough economic time a year later, it becomes harder to deliver that [promise] credibly.”

Meanwhile, Luxon’s inexperience could be affecting his popularity, Thomas said.

“He’s come on the back of two generational talents, which are John Key and Jacinda Ardern – they were uniquely skilled communicators and leaders and Luxon does suffer by comparison.”

Further, the ongoing tensions over the minor Act party’s controversial treaty principles bill, which many fear will undermine Māori rights, could be fuelling perceptions the country is headed in the wrong direction.

“New Zealanders don’t tend to like divisiveness … and I think that does contribute something to the national mood,” Thomas said.

New Zealand’s National-led coalition government is losing support among voters, new polling shows, amid frustrations over the economy and deepening concern the country is heading in the wrong direction.

Meanwhile, the parliamentary left bloc has taken a narrow lead for the third poll in a row, enough that the opposition would be able to form a government were an election held today.

Prime minister Christopher Luxon’s favourability has also dipped to a record low.

A 1News-Verian poll shows Luxon dropped two points to 22% in the preferred prime minister stakes – his lowest result since he became leader. Labour’s Chris Hipkins rose two points to 17%.

Speaking to media on Tuesday, Luxon said he was not concerned by the results.

“The only poll that matters is 2026 when the New Zealand public will make their decision: has this government made them better off or not over that three-year period?”

The poll, conducted during the country’s politically charged Waitangi Day events, showed support for Luxon’s National party dropped three points to 34%, while his coalition partners Act had a one-point increase to 9% and New Zealand First dropped one point to 5%.

A second Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll, taken between 2–4 February, also had Labour narrowly ahead of National and Luxon’s favourability drop just over two points to 24.5%.

The coalition government campaigned on promises to fix New Zealand’s economy and has introduced a wave of new policies to try to achieve this, including relaxing immigration settings to attract foreign investment and reducing public spending.

But with country in the midst of a recession and high unemployment rates, the public’s confidence in the economy is yet to bounce back.

Of those surveyed in the Verian poll, 36% felt optimistic about the economy – a 5 point drop from the December poll – while there was a three point increase in economic pessimism to 25%. Meanwhile, half of those polled felt the government was going in the wrong direction, with 39% believing it was heading in the right direction.

Luxon said he was under “no illusion” the public wanted the government to fix the economy.

“New Zealanders are expecting us to get through this economic pain and get to the other side of it, and that requires all of us to embrace growth above everything else.”

Political commentator Ben Thomas said that like many countries around the world, the government inherited a tough economic situation but its promises to lower living costs were yet to quell public malaise.

“If you run on the basis that you’re going to fix the economy, and people are still having a tough economic time a year later, it becomes harder to deliver that [promise] credibly.”

Meanwhile, Luxon’s inexperience could be affecting his popularity, Thomas said.

“He’s come on the back of two generational talents, which are John Key and Jacinda Ardern – they were uniquely skilled communicators and leaders and Luxon does suffer by comparison.”

Further, the ongoing tensions over the minor Act party’s controversial treaty principles bill, which many fear will undermine Māori rights, could be fuelling perceptions the country is headed in the wrong direction.

“New Zealanders don’t tend to like divisiveness … and I think that does contribute something to the national mood,” Thomas said.

Armie Hammer has repeated his denial of claims that he is a cannibal and that he sexually abused a number of women.

The actor was speaking on the Louis Theroux Podcast on Spotify, and responded to Theroux’s direct question: “Are you a cannibal?” Hammer replied: “You know what you have to do to actually be a cannibal? You have to actually eat human flesh. So no.”

Hammer was accused of rape and physically abusive behaviour in 2021 by a woman, known as Effie, who claimed he raped her in 2017, and shared screenshots of graphic texts allegedly sent by Hammer, which included one where the actor appeared to declare himself a cannibal. At least two other women subsequently came forward with accusations of sexual coercion and emotional abuse from Hammer between 2017 and 2020, including ex-girlfriend Paige Lorenze.

Authorities in LA county declined to pursue sexual assault charges against Hammer, and he previously denied the claims in an interview with Tyler Ramsey in 2024.

Hammer told Theroux that he is “not going to argue the messages” but that they formed “one side of a conversation”, and that “it [was] fun to joke about if I was stoned or drunk or like laughing as I was typing these messages”.

Hammer also denied that he ate an animal’s entire heart, saying: “You take a bite out of the heart, and you’ve got all your buddies around you, they’re goading you on … it’s sort of like an almost overly charged male rite of passage when you go hunting for your first time. Everyone that I know who went hunting for their first time had to do something similar.”

The actor denied that his behaviour was criminal: “I left a lot of people in that wake very angry at me for my behaviour … Asshole behaviour. There’s no way around that … Does it make me a dick? Absolutely. Like, I, I have no problem admitting that. I was a dick. That’s not illegal.”

Hammer said that after the scandal erupted and much of his acting work was cancelled, he entered a “trauma treatment facility” which he described as “one of the most helpful things that I’ve ever done for myself”. He said that more acting work was coming his way, having just completed a film in the US and with “offers coming in every week”.

He also said that he “loved” his short-term job selling timeshares in the Cayman Islands and that he also held down jobs as a school greenskeeper and an apartment block manager. “I was at the point in my life where, like, things were so bleak that having anything to do felt amazing.” However, he says he was denied a work visa by the Caymans and is unable to live there permanently.

Hammer was also asked by Theroux whether, if he was offered a role, would he work with Woody Allen. The actor replied: “If I say, ‘no, I would never work with Woody Allen’, then all I’m doing is saying, ‘I believe in this system that cancels people.’ I think what I would honestly do is I’d say, I’d like to sit down with him first, and I’d like to talk to him.”

Leading artificial intelligence assistants create distortions, factual inaccuracies and misleading content in response to questions about news and current affairs, research has found.

More than half of the AI-generated answers provided by ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Perplexity were judged to have “significant issues”, according to the study by the BBC.

The errors included stating that Rishi Sunak was still the prime minister and that Nicola Sturgeon was still Scotland’s first minister; misrepresenting NHS advice about vaping; and mistaking opinions and archive material for up-to-date facts.

The researchers asked the four generative AI tools to answer 100 questions using BBC articles as a source. The answers were then rated by BBC journalists who specialise in the relevant subject areas.

About a fifth of the answers introduced factual errors on numbers, dates or statements; 13% of quotes sourced to the BBC were either altered or did not exist in the articles cited.

In response to a question about whether the convicted neonatal nurse Lucy Letby was innocent, Gemini responded: “It is up to each individual to decide whether they believe Lucy Letby is innocent or guilty.” The context of her court convictions for murder and attempted murder was omitted in the response, the research found.

Other distortions highlighted in the report, based on accurate BBC sources, included:

• Microsoft’s Copilot falsely stating that the French rape victim Gisèle Pelicot uncovered crimes against her when she began having blackouts and memory loss, when in fact she found out about the crimes when police showed her videos they had confiscated from her husband’s devices.

• ChatGPT said Ismail Haniyeh was part of Hamas’s leadership months after he was assassinated in Iran. It also falsely said Sunak and Sturgeon were still in office.

• Gemini incorrectly stated: “The NHS advises people not to start vaping, and recommends that smokers who want to quit use other methods.”

• Perplexity falsely stated the date of the TV presenter Michael Mosley’s death and misquoted a statement from the family of the One Direction singer Liam Payne after his death.

The findings prompted the BBC’s chief executive for news, Deborah Turness, to warn that “Gen AI tools are playing with fire” and threaten to undermine the public’s “fragile faith in facts”.

In a blogpost about the research, Turness questioned whether AI was ready “to scrape and serve news without distorting and contorting the facts”. She also urged AI companies to work with the BBC to produce more accurate responses “rather than add to chaos and confusion”.

The research comes after Apple was forced to suspend sending BBC-branded news alerts after several inaccurate summaries of article were sent to iPhone users.

Apple’s errors included falsely telling users that Luigi Mangione – who is accused of killing Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare’s insurance arm – had shot himself.

The research suggests inaccuracies about current affairs are widespread among popular AI tools.

In a foreword to the research, Peter Archer, the BBC’s programme director for generative AI, said: “Our research can only scratch the surface of the issue. The scale and scope of errors and the distortion of trusted content is unknown.”

He added: “Publishers, like the BBC, should have control over whether and how their content is used and AI companies should show how [their] assistants process news along with the scale and scope of errors and inaccuracies they produce.

“This will require strong partnerships between AI and media companies and new ways of working that put the audience first and maximise value for all. The BBC is open and willing to work closely with partners to do this.”

The companies behind the AI assistants tested in the research have been approached for comment.

A top official at the US Department of Justice has ordered federal prosecutors to drop charges against New York mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who has cultivated a warm relationship with Donald Trump.

In a two-page memo obtained by the Associated Press, acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove, an alumnus of the Manhattan office that brought the case, said that the decision to dismiss the charges was reached without an assessment of the strength of the prosecution and was not meant to call into question the attorneys who filed the case.

But, Bove said, the timing of the charges and “more recent actions” by the former US attorney who led the office, Damian Williams, “have threatened the integrity of the proceedings, including by increasing prejudicial pretrial publicity that risks impacting potential witnesses and the jury pool”.

Bove also wrote that the pending prosecution has “unduly restricted” Adams’ ability to “devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that has escalated under the policies of the prior Administration”.

The justice department’s order directs that the case be dismissed without prejudice, which conceivably means that it could be refiled later.

The development comes after months of speculation that Trump’s justice department would take steps to end the criminal case against Adams, who was accused of accepting bribes of free or discounted travel and illegal campaign contributions.

The president had hinted at the possibility of a pardon in December, telling reporters that the mayor had been “treated pretty unfairly”. He had also claimed, without offering evidence, that Adams was being persecuted for criticizing Joe Biden’s policies on immigration.

After Trump’s inauguration, Adams’ lawyers had approached senior justice department officials, asking them to intervene and drop the case.

Adams’ attorney, Alex Spiro, did not immediately return a request for comment. A mayoral spokesperson and a representative of his campaign all did not return inquiries.

After Adams was indicted in September, he shifted his tone on Trump, rankling some in his own party for his public praise of the Republican and his hardline immigration agenda.

The Democratic mayor chastised people who called Trump a fascist. While he still said he was voting for Kamala Harris, Adams stopped saying the then vice president’s name at public events, except when goaded by reporters.

Adams flew to Florida to meet with Trump on 17 January. Afterward, he said the two men hadn’t discussed his criminal case or the possibility of a pardon, but implied that Trump’s agenda would be better for New York than former president Biden’s.

“I’m looking forward to the next four years of having a president that loves the city like I love this city,” Adams said the day after the meeting. He has denied doing anything illegal, and said the criticism of his overseas trips and deeply discounted first-class travel was unfair.

Trump, who was convicted last year of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment, has previously expressed solidarity with Adams.

“I know what it’s like to be persecuted by the DoJ, for speaking out against open borders,” Trump said in October at a Manhattan event attended by Adams. “We were persecuted, Eric. I was persecuted, and so are you, Eric.”

The criminal case against Adams involves allegations that he accepted illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks worth more than $100,000 – including expensive flight upgrades, luxury hotel stays and even a trip to a bathhouse – while serving in his previous job as Brooklyn borough president.

The indictment said a Turkish official who helped facilitate the trips then leaned on Adams for favors, at one point asking him to lobby the fire department to allow a newly constructed, 36-story diplomatic building to open in time for a planned visit by Turkey’s president.

Prosecutors also said they had evidence of Adams personally directing campaign staffers to solicit foreign donations, then disguising those contributions in order to qualify for a city program that provides a generous, publicly-funded match for small dollar donations. Foreign nationals are banned from contributing to US election campaigns under federal law.

The federal prosecutor who brought the charges, former US attorney Damian Williams, stepped down after Trump’s election victory. But as recently as 6 January, prosecutors had indicated their investigation remained active, writing in court papers that they continued to “uncover additional criminal conduct by Adams”.

Federal agents had also been investigating other senior Adams aides. Prior to the mayor’s indictment, federal authorities seized phones from a police commissioner, schools chancellor, multiple deputy mayors and the mayor’s director of Asian affairs. Each of those officials denied wrongdoing but have since resigned.

In December, Adams’ chief adviser and closest confidant, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, was indicted by a state prosecutor – the Manhattan district attorney – on charges that she and her son accepted $100,000 in bribes related to real estate construction projects.

A Dolly Parton-themed musical had to be suspended mid-show in Manchester because of homophobic abuse, an actor in the production has said.

Stevie Webb, who plays a superfan of the country music icon in Here You Come Again, said an incident at the Opera House last Wednesday resulted in the whole cast having to “leave the stage, because a woman was so disgusted there was a gay character”.

He wrote on TikTok that the incident last Wednesday was followed by similar trouble at the weekend when a man had to be removed from the audience.

Webb said there had also been problems during the London run of the production. He described an incident involving a man shouting an offensive slur and adding: “I just want to see Dolly Parton.”

Webb said the incidents had “really opened [his] eyes”.

“We’re in such a bubble in this industry. But travelling the country and seeing how many people literally cannot bear to see a gay person depicted on stage – it’s wild.”

ATG Entertainment, which runs the Manchester venue, told the BBC it took a “zero tolerance” approach to such incidents.

The Opera House said such incidents were rare and that anyone engaging in abusive behaviour would be removed immediately.

Directed by Gabriel Barre, the musical comedy features the country music singer appear like a fairy godmother to give life lessons in song to a stricken fan.

Parton, 79, has been a longtime supporter of LGBTQ+ rights and has hosted Gay Days at her theme park, Dollywood, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

In 2014, she spoke out in favour of gay marriage. “I think everyone should be with who they love,” the singer said. “I don’t want to be controversial or stir up a bunch of trouble but people are going to love who they are going to love. I think gay couples should be allowed to marry.”