Donald Trump is unlikely to fire his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, or anyone else involved in the now infamous Signal group chat because doing so would be a tacit admission of fault and seen as handing victory to the Atlantic, according to two officials close to the president.

Trump repeated his public support for Waltz at the Oval Office on Wednesday, saying his national security adviser had taken responsibility for creating the group chat and for unintentionally adding the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg.

The officials said Trump rarely if ever admits mistakes, and has reportedly enjoyed the ferocious response of Waltz and other White House officials, including the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to critical reporting of the leak.

The president also defended Hegseth’s involvement. “He had nothing to do with this. Hegseth? How do you bring Hegseth into this?”

Hegseth sent the messages that sparked the classification concerns. The contradiction appears to underscore Trump’s personal determination to not hand the Atlantic a “scalp”, a person familiar with the matter said, and indicates he will continue to characterize the leak of attack plans as minor and immaterial.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration’s attempts to defend the leak of sensitive military plans on grounds that they were not classified became harder to reconcile on Wednesday, after the Atlantic published the full text chain showing the level of detail of the attack plans.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, repeated that none of the messages were classified, while Hegseth and other officials made the semantic argument that the messages did not amount to a “war plan”, as they were originally characterized by the Atlantic, which later began using the term “attack plans”.

Former US officials said that technically speaking, a “war plan” would be more specific about the types and routings of weaponry, the coordinates of targets, contingency and backup options, and including a more thorough strategy discussion.

However, the information shared by Hegseth included a summary of operational details about the operation to strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, such as the launch times of F-18 fighter jets, the time that the first bombs were expected to drop, and the time that naval Tomahawk missiles would be launched.

The former US officials universally agreed that these military details were sensitive from a national security perspective because the information was shared before the attack began. Had it leaked, the targets could have escaped or otherwise compromised the mission.

The US Department of Defense’s own classification guidelines suggest the kind of detailed military plans in the Signal chat would typically be classified at least at the “secret” level, while some of the real-time updates could have risen to a higher level of classification.

The group chat also included a message from Waltz who shared a real-time update (“first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed”), which would have also ordinarily been classified at least at the “secret” level if it came from an asset operated by the intelligence community.

Mike Waltz, Donald Trump’s national security adviser who is at the center of the storm over a group chat which leaked highly sensitive military plans to a journalist, left his Venmo account open to the public, according to a new report.

The oversight represents a further security breach, days after the news that Waltz added the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic to a Signal chat in which operational planning for a US attack on Houthis in Yemen was shared.

A Venmo account with the name “Michael Waltz”, which bore a picture of Waltz, was visible to the public until Wednesday afternoon, Wired reported. Waltz’s 328-person list of friends included accounts that appeared to belong to Walker Barrett, a National Security Council staffer, and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff – whose account was also public.

Both Wiles and Barrett were part of the Signal chat, news of which rocked Washington this week and led to Democrats to call for Waltz and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who shared timings of forthcoming airstrikes and their results, to resign.

Waltz said this week that he takes “full responsibility” for the debacle, contradicting a claim by Trump that a “lower level” staffer was to blame.

Wired reported that many of the accounts linked to Waltz’s page belonged to “local and national politicians and political operatives”. Dan Crenshaw, a Republican congressman from Texas, was among Waltz’s friend list, as were journalists including Bret Baier and Brian Kilmeade from Fox News.

After Wired approached the White House for comment, Waltz and Wiles’s accounts went private, the outlet said.

Last year Wired reported that JD Vance, then the nominee for vice-president, had left his Venmo public. His friend list revealed a host of connections including the people behind Project 2025, the rightwing plan for government that Trump was forced to distance himself from during the campaign but which appears to have greatly influenced the direction of his second term in office.

The problem with the now infamous Signal chat read around the world is not just that sensitive military-operations details were broadcast, but that this reveals a pattern of what appears to be institutional dishonesty inside the Trump administration and the legal ramifications that presents.

While the national security sphere operating in secret is nothing new, the leak exposes a system of broken accountability, where high-ranking officials can spill military secrets with apparent near-total immunity. Despite potential violations of classification protocols, federal record-keeping laws and promises of operational security, the leaders look to face no meaningful legal consequences.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have doubled down on the administration’s position that none of the messages in the Signal chat were classified, claiming they amounted to a “team update” that did not name intelligence-collection sources or methods.

But Brian Finucane, a former state department attorney with extensive experience in counter-terrorism and military operations, including deliberating and advising on past US military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, said the specificity of the information about the aircraft types suggests it was classified.

“If I had seen that sort of information beforehand, that was shared with the special operation, in my experience, it would have been classified,” Finucane said. “I can’t guarantee what the state of the information was that Hegseth shared, but in my experience, this kind of pre-operational detail would have been classified.”

The US Department of Defense’s own classification guidelines suggest the kind of detailed military plans in the Signal chat would typically be classified at least at the “secret” level, while some of the real-time updates could have risen to a higher level of classification.

The information shared by Hegseth included a summary of operational details about the operation to strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, such as the launch times of F-18 fighter jets, the time that the first bombs were expected to drop, and the time that naval Tomahawk missiles would be launched. Hegseth’s update was sent before the operation had been carried out, and his reference to “clean on OPSEC” – operational security – indicated he recognized the sensitivity.

According to the classification guide, information about the “date and time mission/operation begins”, “time lines/schedules” and “concept of operations including order of battle, execution circumstances, operating locations, resources required, tactical maneuvers, deployments” would all usually be classified.

The chat also included a message from Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, who shared a real-time update (“first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed”), which had the potential to reveal the capabilities and assets the US had in the region.

The detail of targeting an individual at his girlfriend’s building exposes another legal problem: a military strike that blurs the lines between legitimate warfare and extrajudicial targeting, potentially violating both the War Powers Act’s strategic intent and international humanitarian law’s core principle of distinguishing combatants from civilians.

An Associated Press review from Thursday found that there had also been a shift in US airstrikes in Yemen, operating on a widening scope of striking Houthi leadership and urban areas that are still continuing.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project documented 56 distinct strike events in Yemen between 15 March and 21 March, while the UK-based monitoring group Airwars suggests that at least five US strikes may have resulted in civilian casualties, based on video evidence, Houthi statements, and other documented details. There have been 57 killed in Yemen so far, according to Houthi figures.

Finucane explained that the primary areas of legal concern would be the Espionage Act, typically used to target whistleblowers; the Federal Records Act, for federal agencies to preserve documentation; and the Presidential Records Act, which requires the president to save all their records to be transferred to the National Archives post-term.

“The bigger-picture question is, who actually authorized what in respect to Yemen?” Finucane said. “It’s not clear what decision Trump actually made. We don’t know what Trump authorized.”

A former White House official said that while many in the government use Signal for convenience, this incident can only be summed up as “complete amateur hour”, and that Hegseth’s oversharing would have resulted in immediate security-clearance revocation in previous administrations.

“I would have lost my clearance,” the official said. “I mean, these guys won’t lose their clearances, because no one fucking cares about anything any more, but if I would have done this, I would have been investigated, and I would have lost my clearance.”

The web of potential misrepresentations extends beyond the White House’s official denial of the chat containing any classified information. Waltz, who according to the screenshots created and invited members into the group, attempted to distance himself from the incident, claiming he had “never met, don’t know, never communicated with” Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic editor-in-chief – a statement complicated by the Atlantic’s reporting suggesting prior communication between the two.

More than a dozen top-level Trump administration leaders use a Signal group chat, rather than secure government communication channels that they are all well aware of, which raises additional questions about information handling.

The officials face a potential Department of Defense inspector general investigation that could become embarrassing for the Trump administration, after the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate armed services committee asked for a review in a rare bipartisan letter on Wednesday.

But the officials appear to face no criminal exposure under the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to improperly disclose “national defense information” regardless of its classification, in part because the Trump justice department is unlikely to prosecute its own cabinet officials.

Trump said at an event with his nominees for US ambassadorships at the White House on Tuesday that it was “not really” a matter for the FBI to investigate. Former FBI agents suggested that could be true since it did not involve an act of espionage for a foreign adversary.

The immediate legal consequence is likely to come in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday that accuses Hegseth; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and others of flouting federal records retention laws.

In the 18-page suit, the watchdog group American Oversight asks a federal judge to compel the Trump administration to preserve the messages in the Signal chat, arguing that the use of a function that automatically deleted the messages after a certain time was unlawful.

The suit was assigned on Wednesday to James Boasberg, the chief US district judge in Washington DC, who is also presiding in the other major national security case involving the administration, over the deportations of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act.

At issue for the administration in that case is that it flouted Boasberg’s verbal order to turn back flights that had already departed, and then stonewalled his inquiry into the possible violation of the order by invoking national security protections.

The aggressive approach that the administration took in the deportations case could become awkward in the new lawsuit over the Signal chat, with Boasberg likely to be skeptical from the outset of officials’ shifting interpretations of which materials are classified.

What that would mean in practical terms remains unclear. The Atlantic magazine releasing the full Signal text chain renders some of the suit redundant, since the messages are now in the public domain. But Boasberg could, for instance, order some fact-finding into the matter.

Six Russian tourists have died and 39 others have been rescued after a submarine sank near the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Hurghada, the local governor’s office has said, adding that no passengers or crew were still missing.

The incident, involving a 44-seater recreational vessel operated by Sindbad Submarines, occurred in waters about a kilometre offshore from Hurghada’s Marriott hotel resort. One report suggested the submersible had “crashed” during the sightseeing trip near local reefs.

The Russian consulate in Hurghada said the submarine was carrying 45 Russian tourists in addition to crew on an underwater excursion to observe coral reefs when it “crashed 1km from the shore” at about 10am local time. “According to initial data, most of those on board were rescued and taken to their hotels and hospitals in Hurghada,” the consulate said, adding that diplomats had been sent to the pier.

A Russian official in Hurghada told the state-owned Russian news agency Tass that two children were among the dead.

Emergency crews were able to rescue 39 people, according to a statement from Egypt’s Red Sea governorate.

The Sindbad website says it offers short tourist trips in two submarines that have a maximum depth of 25 metres (80ft).

According to the website its submarines allow tourists to “experience the beauty of the Red Sea’s underwater world without getting wet”.

Hurghada, a resort about 280 miles (460km) south-east of Cairo, is a major destination for foreign visitors, with its airport receiving more than 9 million passengers last year, according to state media.

Thursday’s forecast in the city was clear, with above-average winds reported but optimum visibility underwater.

Dozens of tourist boats sail through the coastal area daily for snorkelling and diving activities, but Sindbad Submarines says it deploys the region’s “only real” recreational submarine.

The vessel has been operating in the area for many years, according to a source familiar with the company.

Many tourist companies have stopped or limited travelling on the Red Sea owing to the dangers from conflicts in the region over the past decade. A number of airlines suspended package flights to Egypt after the bombing of an aircraft operated by Metrojet.

The area has been the site of several deadly accidents in recent years.

In November, a dive boat capsized off the coast of Marsa Alam, south of Hurghada, leaving four dead and seven missing.

Last June, two dozen French tourists were safely evacuated before their boat sank in a similar incident.

In 2023, three British tourists died after a fire broke out on their yacht, engulfing it in flames.

The BBC correspondent Mark Lowen has been arrested and deported from Turkey after reporting on the country’s largest anti-government protests in years.

The broadcaster said Lowen was arrested in Istanbul on Wednesday, having been there for several days to cover the protests, which were prompted by the arrest last week of the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu.

In a statement, the BBC said: “This morning, the Turkish authorities deported BBC News correspondent Mark Lowen from Istanbul, having taken him from his hotel the previous day and detained him for 17 hours. Mark Lowen was in Turkey to report on the recent protests. He has been told he was deported for ‘being a threat to public order’.”

His deportation comes after other journalists were arrested amid the protests, in which thousands of people have taken to the streets across Turkey. So far, more than 1,850 people have been detained, including 11 journalists.

İmamoğlu, seen as the main rival of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is being held on corruption charges, which he denies. His supporters claim his arrest is politically motivated.

Mark Lowen said in a statement: “To be detained and deported from the country where I previously lived for five years and for which I have such affection has been extremely distressing. Press freedom and impartial reporting are fundamental to any democracy.”

Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News, said Lowen’s deportation was “an extremely troubling incident and we will be making representations to the Turkish authorities”. She added: “Mark is a very experienced correspondent with a deep knowledge of Turkey and no journalist should face this kind of treatment simply for doing their job. We will continue to report impartially and fairly on events in Turkey.”

Turkish courts ordered the release of seven journalists on Wednesday. Separately, Turkey’s broadcasting watchdog, RTÜK, has said it will impose a 10-day broadcast ban on the opposition TV channel Sözcü, after claims of incitement regarding its coverage of the protests.

Airline travel between Canada and the US is “collapsing” amid Donald Trump’s tariff war, with flight bookings between the two countries down by over 70%, newly released data suggests.

According to data from the aviation analytics company OAG, airline capacity between Canada and the US has been reduced through October 2025, with the biggest cuts occurring between the months of July and August, which is considered peak travel season. Passenger bookings on Canada to US routes are currently down by over 70% compared to the same period last year.

Comparing the available bookings from March 2024 to March 2025, OAG looked at how many people have booked trans-border flights in the six-month period between April through September. It found that the number of tickets booked was down anywhere from 71% to 76%.

Total capacity available for passengers on flights between the two countries has also seen a reduction, likely a response to decreasing demands. The data shows that more than 320,000 seats have been removed by airlines operating between the two countries through to the end of October, with the highest cuts, 3.5%, also occurring during the peak summer months.

But the steep decline suggests that the current capacity cuts do not even begin to cover the current disinterest in traveling to the US.

The dramatic drop in bookings suggests that Canadian travelers are holding off on making reservations, probably due to ongoing uncertainty surrounding the tariff war. Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, called the latest round of Trump’s tariffs a “direct attack” on Canadian workers.

Though a decline in travel between Canada and the US was expected, the substantial 70% drop in bookings could require drastic changes for airlines, such as Air Canada, which is the airline that has the largest network of border crossings between the neighboring countries.

Beyond the trade dispute, some Canadians say they feel increasingly uneasy crossing into the US following several high-profile incidents of foreign visitors being detained by Ice.

Airline travel between Canada and the US is “collapsing” amid Donald Trump’s tariff war, with flight bookings between the two countries down by over 70%, newly released data suggests.

According to data from the aviation analytics company OAG, airline capacity between Canada and the US has been reduced through October 2025, with the biggest cuts occurring between the months of July and August, which is considered peak travel season. Passenger bookings on Canada to US routes are currently down by over 70% compared to the same period last year.

Comparing the available bookings from March 2024 to March 2025, OAG looked at how many people have booked trans-border flights in the six-month period between April through September. It found that the number of tickets booked was down anywhere from 71% to 76%.

Total capacity available for passengers on flights between the two countries has also seen a reduction, likely a response to decreasing demands. The data shows that more than 320,000 seats have been removed by airlines operating between the two countries through to the end of October, with the highest cuts, 3.5%, also occurring during the peak summer months.

But the steep decline suggests that the current capacity cuts do not even begin to cover the current disinterest in traveling to the US.

The dramatic drop in bookings suggests that Canadian travelers are holding off on making reservations, probably due to ongoing uncertainty surrounding the tariff war. Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, called the latest round of Trump’s tariffs a “direct attack” on Canadian workers.

Though a decline in travel between Canada and the US was expected, the substantial 70% drop in bookings could require drastic changes for airlines, such as Air Canada, which is the airline that has the largest network of border crossings between the neighboring countries.

Beyond the trade dispute, some Canadians say they feel increasingly uneasy crossing into the US following several high-profile incidents of foreign visitors being detained by Ice.

Israel’s parliament has passed a law expanding elected officials’ power to appoint judges, in defiance of a years-long protest against Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to drive through judicial changes.

The approval of the bill, which opposition parties say will make judges subject to the will of politicians, comes as Netanyahu’s government is locked in a standoff with the supreme court over its attempts to dismiss the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara and Ronen Bar, the head of the internal security agency.

Opposition parties, which have filed a petition with the supreme court challenging the vote, said in a joint statement: “This government is undermining the foundations of democracy, and the entire opposition will stand as a strong barrier against it until every attempt to turn Israel into a dictatorship is stopped.”

The justice minister, Yariv Levin, who sponsored the bill, said the measure was intended to “restore balance” between the legislative and judicial branches.

Currently judges in Israel, including supreme court justices, are selected by a nine-member committee composed of judges and lawmakers, under the justice minister’s supervision.

The new law, which would come into effect at the start of the next legislative term would increase political control over appointments. The committee would still have nine members: three supreme court judges, the justice minister and another minister, one coalition lawmaker, one opposition lawmaker, and two public representatives – one appointed by the majority and the other by the opposition.

In his closing remarks before the vote, Levin criticised the supreme court, saying it had “effectively nullified the Knesset.

“It has taken for itself the authority to cancel laws and even basic laws. This is something unheard of in any democracy in the world,” he said.

In 2023, changes to the judiciary prompted one of the largest protest movements in Israel’s history. With the announcement of the new bill, rallies were once again held in main cities. On Wednesday, thousands of people protested against the bill before it was approved in parliament.

The supreme court has so far blocked Netanyahu’s attempt to fire Bar. The Shin Bet intelligence chief has been investigating the prime minister’s close aides for alleged breaches of national security, including leaking classified documents to foreign media and allegedly taking money from Qatar, which is known to have given significant financial aid to Hamas.

Netanyahu is also attempting to fire the attorney general after Baharav-Miara told him he could not fire Bar until her office had reviewed his motives for doing so.

In an unprecedented step on Sunday, Netanyahu’s cabinet approved a no confidence motion against Baharav-Miara, its latest move against officials deemed hostile to the government.

On Thursday, Hamas said an Israeli strike hit the tent in the Jabaliya area of Gaza where its spokesperson Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua was living, killing him. Another strike near Gaza City killed four children and their parents, according to the emergency service of the region’s health ministry.

Last week Israel resumed its military operation in Gaza, shattering the calm of the ceasefire with Hamas. According to the Palestinian health ministry, 855 people have been killed in the renewed assault.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Authorities in South Korea are battling wildfires that have doubled in size in a day in the country’s worst ever natural fire disaster.

At least 27 people have died and hundreds of buildings destroyed in the south-eastern province of North Gyeongsang, with the country’s disaster chief saying the fires had exposed the “harsh reality” of global heating.

Pointing to ultra-dry conditions and strong winds that have worsened the damage, Lee Han-kyung, disaster and safety division chief, said: “This wildfire has once again exposed the harsh reality of a climate crisis unlike anything we’ve experienced before.”

The affected areas have seen only half the average rainfall this season, while the country has experienced more than double the number of fires this year than last.

More than 36,000 hectares (88,960 acres) have been charred or were still burning in the largest of the fires, which began in the central Uiseong county, making it the biggest single forest fire in South Korea’s history. About 37,000 people have been displaced, the Yonhap news agency said.

“We are nationally in a critical situation with numerous casualties because of the unprecedented rapid spread of forest fires,” the acting president, Han Duck-soo, told a government response meeting, adding that the high number of older victims, including those in nursing hospitals, was a particular concern.

The military has released stocks of aviation fuel to help keep firefighting helicopters flying to douse flames across mountainous regions in the province, where fires have been burning now for nearly a week. More than 300 structures had been destroyed, officials said.

As of Thursday morning, authorities were mobilising more than 9,000 people and about 120 helicopters to battle the fires, the government’s disaster response centre said.

The country’s disaster chief said the wildfires were now “the largest on record”, having burned more forest than any previous blazes. The last major wildfire, in April 2020, scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast.

“The wildfire is spreading rapidly,” Lee said. “The forest damage has reached 35,810 hectares, already exceeding the area affected by the 2000 east coast wildfire, previously the largest on record, by more than 10,000 hectares.”

The fatalities include a pilot whose helicopter crashed during efforts to contain a fire and four firefighters and other workers who died after being trapped by fast-moving flames driven by strong winds.

Authorities have not disclosed details of the civilian dead, except that they are mainly in their 60s and 70s. They suspect human error caused several of the wildfires that began last Friday, including cases where people started fires while clearing overgrown grass from family tombs or with sparks during welding work.

Last year was South Korea’s hottest year on record, with the Korea Meteorological Administration saying that the average annual temperature was 14.5C – two degrees higher than the preceding 30-year average of 12.5C.

Yeh Sang-Wook, professor of climatology at Hanyang University in Seoul, said the lack of rainfall had dried out the land “creating favourable conditions for wildfires”.

“This can be seen as one of the fundamental causes,” he said. “We can’t say that it’s only due to climate change, but climate change is directly [and] indirectly affecting the changes we are experiencing now. This is a simple fact.”

The blazes were threatening two Unesco world heritage sites – Hahoe Village and the Byeongsan Confucian academy – in Andong city on Wednesday, a city official said, as authorities sprayed fire retardants to try to protect them.

Andong and the neighbouring counties of Uiseong and Sancheong, as well as the city of Ulsan, have been hardest hit. On Wednesday night, strong winds and smoke-filled skies forced authorities in Andong, in the south-east, to order evacuations in two villages, including Puncheon, home to the Hahoe folk village, founded around the 14th-15th century. Hikers were advised to leave the scenic Jiri mountain as another fire spread closer.

The wildfires originated in Uiseong and have been moving rapidly eastward, spreading almost to the coast, carried by gusty winds and with dry conditions aggravating the situation.

The meteorological agency has forecast some rain for the south-west but precipitation is expected to be under 5mm for most of the affected areas.

“The amount of rain is going to be small so it doesn’t look like it’ll be big help in trying to extinguish the fire,” said the Korea Forest Service minister, Lim Sang-seop.

Officials said earlier this week that firefighters had extinguished most of the flames from the largest wildfires in key areas, but wind and dry conditions allowed them to spread again.

Houses, factories, vehicles and some historic structures have been destroyed in the fires. In Uiseong, about 20 of the 30 structures at the Gounsa temple complex – which was said to be originally built in the 7th century – have been burned. Among them were two state-designated “treasures” – a pavilion-shaped building erected overlooking a stream in 1668, and a Joseon dynasty structure built in 1904 to mark the longevity of a king.

Experts have said the Uiseong fire showed extremely unusual spread in terms of its scale and speed, and that climate change was expected to make wildfires more frequent and deadly globally.

Higher temperatures amplified by human-caused climate change contributed to the existing seasonally dry conditions, “turning dry landscapes into dangerous fire fuel” in the region, said the Climate Central group, an independent body made up of scientists and researchers.

With Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse

South Sudan’s first vice-president and main opposition leader, Riek Machar, has been placed under house arrest, prompting a warning from the UN that the country is at risk of relapsing into widespread conflict.

Machar’s party said his arrest had in effect collapsed the peace deal that ended the 2013-2018 civil war.

In a statement on Facebook, the acting chair of the foreign relations committee of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), Reath Muoch Tang, said the defence minister and chief of national security accompanied a convoy of more than 20 heavily armed vehicles, which had “forcefully entered” Machar’s residence. There his bodyguards were disarmed and an arrest warrant issued “under unclear charges”, he said.

The UN human rights commission in South Sudan said in a statement that the arrest, alongside escalating armed clashes and reported attacks on civilians, “signals a severe unravelling of the peace process – and a direct threat to millions of lives..

“Failure to uphold the protections enshrined in the peace agreement – including freedom of movement, political participation and the cessation of hostilities – will lead to a catastrophic return to war,” it added.

Adhering to the agreement and protecting civilians was “critical to preventing all-out war”, the commission said.

Tang said Machar was being held with his wife, Angelina Teny, who is the country’s interior minister, at their home. Machar has been accused of supporting the White Army militia, which clashed with the military recently. His party denies current links with the White Army, which it fought alongside during the war.

In a video address, the SPLM-IO spokesperson Pal Mai Deng said Machar was “in confinement by the government” and that his life was at risk.

Machar’s arrest poses a grave threat to the power-sharing agreement between him and the country’s president, Salva Kiir, his longtime rival. The agreement was part of a 2018 peace deal to end the civil war, in which 400,000 people were killed.

Tensions have been rising in recent months. The White Army, a community militia loyal to Machar, launched attacks against the country’s military, the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF), in Nasir county earlier this month and overran an army base. The militia, which protects the Nuer community, said it had acted in self-defence.

The government responded by bombarding areas where the group is based and arresting opposition figures.

An SSPDF commander and a UN crew member were among at least 27 soldiers killed in gunfire as a UN helicopter was trying to evacuate troops from Nasir county on 7 March.

The deputy chair of SPLM-IO, Oyet Nathaniel Pierino, said Machar’s detention meant the power-sharing agreement was at an end.

It “effectively brings the agreement to a collapse, thus the prospect for peace and stability in South Sudan has now been put into serious jeopardy”, he said.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011. A civil war between government and opposition forces swiftly followed, fought largely along ethnic lines.

International bodies called for restraint after Machar’s arrest. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an eastern African trade bloc, said his detention seriously undermined the peace agreement and risked “plunging the country back into violent conflict”.

The head of the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, Nicholas Haysom, said the country stood on the brink of relapsing into widespread conflict that “will not only devastate South Sudan but also affect the entire region”.

He called for the parties involved to immediately cease hostilities and engage in constructive talks.

The US Bureau of African Affairs urged Kiir to release Machar and called on South Sudan’s leaders to “demonstrate sincerity of stated commitments to peace”.

Top aides to Joe Biden “aggressively” warned Democratic donors last summer that if the then president was forced out of the 2024 election over concerns about his age and fitness, the party would inevitably make the “mistake” of running the vice-president, Kamala Harris, against Donald Trump, a new book says.

“One donor on the receiving end of an electronic message summed up the sentiments of Biden’s top aides: ‘They were aggressively saying that we would wind up with the vice-president and that would be a mistake.’”

Biden was forced out and Harris did become the nominee. Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes’ account of the campaign that followed, will be published next week – as Trump’s second term enters its third tempestuous month. The Guardian obtained a copy.

Published extracts from the book have described controversial episodes from Harris’s short campaign and conclusive defeat, including her inability to land an interview with the influential podcaster Joe Rogan, in contrast to Trump, and her frustration with close control maintained by former aides to Biden.

Long an issue for Democrats, the question of Biden’s age and fitness came to a head on 27 June, when the president performed disastrously onstage with Trump in Atlanta. Parnes and Allen provide detailed and dramatic insights into the crisis.

Amid calls for Biden to withdraw, the authors write, aides to Biden “frantically push[ed] back in phone calls and in text messages, accusing donors of promoting their own agendas at the expense of Biden, the party, and the country”.

Parnes and Allen then switch to using italics, which they say indicates sources describing personal thoughts or descriptions of the private thoughts and conversations of others.

“It all sounded like a serial killer’s conspiracy theory. Donors want to scrap Biden so they can get his wannabe replacements – the governors, with power over state decisions – to beg them for cash, Biden aides argued.

“This isn’t fucking Wall Street financiers versus Ivy League presidents. Our guy isn’t scared of your money. We have grassroots donors. We have the support of the voters. We have the nomination in hand. All you’re doing is fucking yourself and the president. We will remember this. Capisce?

“The last threat, the ace in the hole, was Kamala Harris. Even if Biden did drop out and you got your dreamed-up open convention, you would only succeed in nominating the vice-president. Is that what you want? You want her? Look at her polling. No one wants her. Forget it. It’s never gonna happen.”

Entreaties fell on deaf ears. Donors “cut off hundreds of millions of dollars”. On 21 July, Biden dropped out.

It was a historic moment but the party moved swiftly to avoid further upheaval. There would be no open convention. Instead, Allen and Parnes describe how opposition to Harris, even from grandees including the former president Barack Obama and the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, was beaten aside by figures including Jim Clyburn, the veteran South Carolina congressman who did much to make Biden the nominee and Harris his running mate just four years before.

“There are some powerful folks saying, ‘Off with both their heads,’ Clyburn thought. They’re all planning to pass over Kamala.”

Parnes and Allen also describe how before becoming the nominee, and for a time after, Harris “pined” for Obama’s support. A painful process, it was made worse by Harris never having forged close ties with the former president and his wife, Michelle, ever since being denied access to a VIP area at the Obamas’ election celebration in Chicago in 2009.

“Doesn’t he see what’s happening? she thought. Harris felt hurt that he thought so little of her. That pain turned to anger. What’s holding him back?”

According to Parnes and Allen, Obama never thought Harris could beat Trump but backed her when he saw he was under threat himself, “suddenly in a position where his actions against Biden and Harris could diminish him in the eyes of Democratic elites”.

Obama endorsed Harris and campaigned for her. So did Pelosi, who spoke of her “immense pride” in doing so.

Parnes and Allen report a less positive verdict from the former speaker. According to an unnamed “person who spoke to” Pelosi on the night of the Atlanta debate, Pelosi “actually was worried … saying, ‘Oh my God, it’s going to be her.’”

A babysitter in Kansas who was asked by a child to check for monsters under their bed was stunned to discover a man hiding there, police have said.

The shocking incident occurred on 24 March at a property just outside the city of Great Bend, when the sitter was seeking to put the children she was looking after to bed. However, one of them was afraid.

“One child complained there was a ‘monster’ under their bed. When the victim attempted to show the child there was nothing under the bed, she came face-to-face with a male suspect who was hiding there,” police said in a statement.

“An altercation ensued with the babysitter and one child was knocked over in the struggle. The suspect then fled the scene before deputies arrived.”

After police got to the property the victim identified the suspect as Martin Villalobos Jr, 27, who once lived there.

The next morning, deputies spotted Villalobos and after a short chase on foot caught and arrested him.

Villalobos was charged with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated burglary, aggravated battery, child endangerment, felony obstruction of a law enforcement officer and violation of a protection from abuse order. He is being held in lieu of a $500,000 bond.