In a critical press conference meant to make or break his presidential campaign, Joe Biden spiritedly defended his foreign policy record even as he faced a barrage of questions on his mental fitness and, in another gaffe, mistakenly referred to Kamala Harris as “vice-president Trump”.

Biden offered extensive remarks on thorny foreign policy issues including competition with China and the Israel-Hamas war, in which he said he had warned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu away from an occupation of the Gaza Strip.

He said he was directly in contact with Xi Jinping to warn him not to offer further support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, but not with Vladimir Putin, whom he said: “I have no reason to speak to him right now.”

But Biden, who is running to be president until January 2029, fielded an equal number of questions during the press conference on his mental fitness, an issue that has loomed over his campaign since a faltering debate performance against Donald Trump that he called “that dumb mistake”.

Ultimately, it was a performance that supporters will probably say shows he is capable of handling his responsibilities as commander-in-chief, but unlikely to convince those already in doubt about his mental fitness that he can serve another four years in office.

Biden, 81, insisted he would stay in the race despite calls from some in his party to drop out and to allow another figure, including Harris, run in the November election. Shortly after he finished speaking, Connecticut congressman Jim Himes, the top ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, called on Biden to step down from the campaign.

Wrapping up a summit of the 32-member bloc in Washington DC, Biden said. “I’ve not had any of my European allies come up and say, ‘Joe, don’t run’. What I’ve heard them say is, ‘You’ve got to win’.

“If I slow down and can’t get the job done that’s a sign I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said. “But there’s no indication of that. None.”

Biden said he wouldn’t leave the race unless polls showed him that he had no chance of winning against Trump, even if they showed that Harris’s chances in the election were better than his own.

Nonetheless, he said Harris was qualified to be president as well, although he misnamed her in the endorsement. “I wouldn’t have picked vice-president Trump to be vice-president, if she’s not qualified to be president,” he said.

That gaffe was compounded by the fact that he had introduced the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as “President Putin” just hours earlier, before correcting himself and saying “we’re going to beat Putin.”

Biden initially used the final Nato summit press conference as something of a stump speech, brandishing his national security record in supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression and saying that the November vote was “much more than a political question … It’s a national security issue.”

He then turned to his record on the economy, border security and his efforts to broker a peace in the Israel-Hamas war to bolster his case for his campaign in November.

Biden spoke for 58 minutes, including 50 minutes of unscripted question-and-answer. He appeared most comfortable and cogent as he discussed thorny foreign policy questions.

“Don’t make the same mistake America made after [Osama] Bin Laden,” he said he told Netanyahu, as he sought to ward off a potential occupation of the Gaza Strip. “There’s no need to occupy anywhere. Go after the people who did the job.”

He also indicated that European countries were prepared to cut their investments in China if Xi continued to “[supply] Russia, with information and capacity, along with working with North Korea and others, to help Russia in armament”.

But at times he got lost in the weeds. Asked about reports that he had asked his schedule to be moved up, he said: “I’m not talking about, and if you’ve looked at my schedule since I, since I made that stupid mistake in the campaign, in the debate. I mean, my schedule has been full bore.”

“Where’s Trump been?” he continued. “Riding around on his golf cart? Filling out his scorecard before he hits the ball?”

During Joe Biden’s press conference at the Nato summit, which many described as a test for the future of his re-election bid, he demonstrated clarity and conviction on foreign policy. But much was overshadowed by a couple of awkward gaffes and a shaky voice, at a time when the US is hyper-focused on his fitness to lead.

After roughly eight minutes of prepared remarks, Biden answered reporters’ questions on Nato, Ukraine, China and Israel, and just as many on his cognitive health and his vow to stay in the race.

“I’m determined on running, but I think it’s important that I allay fears,” Biden said at one point.

The press conference is not likely to be the decisive moment that some hoped would push a critical mass of elected Democrats to call for him to end his campaign – or decide that he can’t be replaced.

Here are the key takeaways:

The British politician Roy Jenkins once famously observed that Tony Blair’s challenge in getting Labour elected in 1997 was “like a man carrying a priceless Ming vase across a highly polished floor”.

Joe Biden dropped the vase, shattering it into a thousand crazy pieces, before his rare press conference even got started on Thursday.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Biden declared at the Nato summit in Washington while introducing Ukraine’s Volodymr Zelenskiy. “President Putin!”

It was a cringeworthy moment for European leaders who did not know whether to clap. The 81-year-old US president caught the error and corrected himself, but it was yet another blow to his anguished campaign to convince Democrats that he’s still got the vim and vigour to beat Donald Trump in November.

Come the press conference, Biden started by grinding fragments of that broken vase further into the carpet. The opening question was about him losing support among many fellow Democrats and key unions, and about Vice-President Kamala Harris possibly replacing him on the ticket.

Against the backdrop of Nato blue and eight US national flags, Biden proceeded to mix up Harris and his opponent Donald Trump. “Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be vice president if I didn’t think she was qualified to be president,” he said.

Harris is a 59-year-old Black woman and former criminal prosecutor. Trump is a 78-year-old white (orange) man and convicted felon beloved by white supremacists. The two are easily confused.

You could have heard a pin drop in this somewhat sterile, strip-lit room at a convention centre in downtown Washington. Dozens of reporters sat in silence like a concerned family sitting around of an elderly patient speaking nonsense. They said nothing, thinking it best not to stage an intervention.

Tragically, the only person unaware of what had happened was the patient himself. Indeed, Biden’s critics say he is the only one who cannot see what everyone else can: time has caught up with him and he should quit the US presidential race.

After a start like that, it had all the makings of total disaster, a bitter sequel to the president’s calamitous debate performance. His old foe, the frog in the throat, must have stowed away on Air Force One and followed him all the way from Atlanta.

There were more stumbles. “I’m following the advice of my commander-in-chief,” said the commander-in-chief. Sometimes his voice trailed off with an “anyway”. Sometimes he defaulted to his strange whispering habit.

No doubt a hundred members of Congress were sitting with their fingers poised on the “send” button to call for the president’s exit. If only George Clooney, the Hollywood star and Democratic donor who has wielded the dagger like Brutus in a New York Times column this week, was up on that stage, looking presidential.

And yet, as the night wore on, it wasn’t quite so simple. The second question reminded Biden of his Putin-Zelenskiy confusion and asked if he is damaging American’s standing in the world. He laughed and retorted: “Did you see any damage to our standing in my leading this conference?

“Have you seen a more successful conference? What do you think? I thought it was the most successful conference I’ve attended in a long time and find me a world leader who didn’t think it was.”

Biden has recently been accused of turning Trumpy, stubbornly digging in and putting his own interests ahead of the nation. The saviour of democracy in 2020 could destroy it all. What if you ruin your legacy, one reporter wondered. “Look, I’m not in this for my legacy,” he insisted. “I’m in this to complete the job I started.”

And reports of his early bedtime were “not true”, he said, though he acknowledged: “Instead of my every day starting at 7am and going to bed at midnight, it would be smarter for me to pace myself a little more.”

His schedule since the debate has been “full bore”, he added, before taking a swipe at the opponent who recently challenged him to a round of golf. “Where’s Trump? Riding around on his golf cart filling out his scorecard before he hits the ball?”

Less helpfully, he quipped: “I love my staff but they [add] things. They add things all the time at the very end. I’m catching hell from my wife.”

The questions about neurological exams and his fitness for office kept coming, and he continued to bat them away. “If I slow down, I can’t get the job done, that’s a sign that I shouldn’t be doing it. But there’s no indication of that yet! None!”

Nato is like a home fixture for Biden. He proved expansive on foreign policy regarding China, Israel, Russia and other parts of the world. He reminded everyone of his role in rebuilding alliances and partnerships. Among the “elites” that Biden now professes to scorn, he fought this near hour-long exchange with 11 reporters to a score draw.

For the Bidenites, there was a reminder of his canyons of expertise and experience: this man knew Golda Meir! Do you really want to throw all that away for some neophyte? The president himself observed: “The only thing age does is creates a little bit of wisdom, if you pay attention.”

But for the anti-Biden rebellion, there was sufficient hubris and missteps to confirm their view that he is going to lead the party to defeat in November. Remember King Lear: “Men must endure/ Their going hence, even as their coming hither;/ Ripeness is all.”

Sadly for the president quotable gaffes will get more attention – on cable news, social media and late night TV – than a snoozy masterclass on foreign policy. When the official questions were done, a chorus of reporters shouted more, including one about Biden’s Harris-Trump mix-up.

Peter Alexander of NBC News noted that Trump was already using the gaffe to mock Biden’s age and memory. Asked how he would combat that criticism, Biden smiled and said simply, “Listen to him,” then departed stage left. Piece by piece, he was putting the vase back together – but the cracks were showing.

The US has stepped up efforts to target violent Israeli settlers, adding new individuals and organisations to a growing sanctions list and warning banks to check transactions linked to all Israeli “outposts” in the occupied West Bank.

The new sanctions cover the far-right group Lehava, already listed by the UK, and two founding members of Tsav9, a campaign group that blocked aid from reaching Gaza. The new measures also target outposts, suggesting the Biden administration is prepared to take at least some steps to confront Israel’s creeping land grab on the West Bank.

One of the outposts targeted was set up by a regional council, implying that branches of the Israeli state are potentially no longer off limits, when it comes to sanctions.

“It appears that they’ve not just targeted extremist settlers but have introduced a linkage to territoriality by citing illegal outposts,” Aaron David Miller, a former state department Middle East negotiator now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“It doesn’t take much imagination to conclude that the next target would be [Israeli] government financing for illegal outposts. And that would be a new departure to be sure.”

The G7 foreign ministers joined the UN and EU on Thursday in condemning the Israeli government’s decision last month to legalize five outposts in the West Bank, labelling the plan “inconsistent with international law”. The G7 statement comes at a time of rising concern that Israel’s rightist government is steadily moving towards annexation of the West Bank.

Matthew Miller, the state department spokesperson, said that the four West Bank outposts specifically targeted by Thursday’s sanctions, “are owned or controlled by US-designated individuals who have weaponized them as bases for violent actions to displace Palestinians”.

“Outposts like these have been used to disrupt grazing lands, limit access to wells, and launch violent attacks against neighboring Palestinians,” Miller said.

In a written statement, Miller reflected growing frustration in the Biden administration at the failure of the Israeli government to take its own measures against violent West Bank settlers, and warned that further US punitive measures could be in the pipeline.

“We strongly encourage the Government of Israel to take immediate steps to hold these individuals and entities accountable,” he said. “In the absence of such steps, we will continue to impose our own accountability measures.”

Potentially the most consequential element in the new US measures is the updated red flag alert from America’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen). It raises the risks of punitive fines for banks dealing with West Bank settlements.

The alert warns financial institutions about potential “suspicious activity”, that could indicate a sanctioned individual or organisation is trying to bypass controls. This now includes “payments involving entities, individuals, addresses on accounts, receiving addresses, or IP addresses linked to any West Bank ‘outpost’,” the warning says.

Human Rights Watch, who have long campaigned to highlight settler violence on the West Bank, welcomed the US measures as being the most far-reaching on the issue to date, but called for direct action against the Israeli government for its support for the extremists.

“In this case we’re pleased that the Biden administration is going farther than before with the alert,” Sarah Yager, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, said. “Now it’s time for sanctions against the Israeli authorities that are approving and inciting. We want to see the US, UK, Canada and others focus on power behind all this in the West Bank.”

All settlements in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law. Outposts are settlements considered illegal even under Israeli law. There are nearly 200 all across the West Bank, according to the activist group Peace Now.

Many of the small outposts have close links to over 140 larger settlements recognised by the Israeli state though deemed illegal under international law. The broad language used in the FinCEN alert could mean financial transactions with all West Bank settlements could be affected.

Richard Nephew, a former state department coordinator on global anti-corruption in the Biden administration, said the financial crimes alert combined with the newly announced sanctions and the G7 declaration “create a pretty toxic environment”.

“That is the goal,” Nephew, author of The Art of Sanctions and now a senior research scholar at Columbia University, said. “The goal is to make it so that financial institutions, companies and others say: ‘This just isn’t worth it’, because the risks of actually falling into a sanctions problem or to a compliance problem, if you’re a US entity, is just simply too great.”

Additional reporting by Quique Kierszenbaum in Jerusalem

People in Gaza City are trapped in houses and bodies lie uncollected in the streets, Palestinian officials and emergency responders have said, a day after the Israeli army told residents to use two “safe routes” to leave the city and head south.

According to a Reuters report, the Gaza health ministry said it had heard about people trapped and others killed inside their houses in the Tel Al Hawa and Sabra districts of Gaza City. Rescuers could not reach them, the ministry said.

The civil emergency service said it estimated that at least 30 people had been killed in the Tel Al-Hawa and Rimal areas and it could not recover bodies from the streets there.

On Wednesday, the Israeli army dropped leaflets warning “everyone in Gaza City” – the focus of a heavy Israeli assault this week – that it would “remain a dangerous combat zone”. The leaflets urged residents to flee, and set out designated escape routes from the area where the UN humanitarian office said up to 350,000 people had been sheltering.

The UN said the latest evacuations “will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced many times”, and who face “critical levels of need”.

Many civilians told the Guardian they have concluded that there was no refuge in war-stricken Gaza and that they lacked confidence in the safe corridors set by Israel. Residents said they also feared that if they left they would not be able to take belongings or return.

“We will die but not leave to the south. We have tolerated starvation and bombs for nine months and we are ready to die as martyrs here,” Mohammad Ali, 30, told Reuters in a text message.

Hamas said the heavy Israeli assault on Gaza City this week could wreck efforts to finally end the war just as negotiations have entered the home stretch. In a statement, the Palestinian Islamist militant group said mediators had yet to provide it with updates on the state of the talks since it made concessions last week in response to a US-backed Israeli peace offer.

“The occupation continues its policy of stalling to buy time to foil this round of negotiations, as it has done in previous rounds,” the statement said.

The White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said the US was “cautiously optimistic” about talks taking place in Egypt and Qatar.

“There are still gaps remaining between the two sides,” Kirby told the CNN. “We believe those gaps can be narrowed, and that’s what US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk and CIA director Bill Burns are trying to do right now.’’

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who faces opposition from within his coalition government to any deal that would halt the war without Hamas being vanquished, has said a deal must allow Israel to resume fighting until it meets all its objectives.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.

A US announcement of a plan to station long-range missiles in Germany for the first time since the cold war has set off a diplomatic furore between Washington and Moscow and elicited comparisons to the European missile crises of the 1980s.

Russian and US officials both accused each other of provoking the escalation on Thursday, as arms control experts warned that the deployments of missiles on the European continent, after the collapse of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, could fuel a new arms race.

The decision to station non-nuclear Tomahawk cruise, SM-6 and hypersonic missiles in Germany from 2026 was welcomed by Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who said it “fitted exactly” into his government’s security strategy, even as the move attracted fierce criticism amid fears it would make Germany more vulnerable to attack.

Scholz said the decision had been long in the making and would come as “no surprise” to anyone who was knowledgable about security and peace policies.

But Moscow did not see it that way. Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, issued a stark warning to Berlin, insisting Moscow would respond militarily to the decision, which he said aimed to impair Russian security and could not go unanswered.

He said that Nato was now “fully involved in the conflict” and called the move “just another link in the chain of a course of escalation”.

Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for the Russian government, called the planned move “a very serious threat” to Russia, which would be closely analysed by Moscow, which would “take thoughtful, coordinated and effective measures to contain Nato”.

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, shot back: “What we are deploying to Germany is a defensive capability. Like many other defensive capabilities we’ve deployed across the alliance across the decades.

“More Russian sabre-rattling is not going to deter us from doing what we think is necessary to keep the alliance as strong as possible.”

Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, wrote: “First Russia develops/fields an INF missile in violation of treaty. Then US withdraws from treaty and deploys INF missiles as well. Then Russia will respond by deploying more INF missiles. Then … Does anyone have a plan here or is everyone on autopilot?”

Support for the move in Germany – which will see Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are fireable from ships or submarines, SM-6 and hypersonic weapons stationed on German soil from 2026, as agreed at the Nato conference in Washington this week – was measured, with some welcoming it and others warning it would endanger German security.

Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said that to be taken seriously Germany needed to flesh out a longer-term vision that was not dependent on the US, arguing that the agreement was too temporary, even if in line with Nato’s attempts to protect Ukraine and deter Russia. Germany he said, needed a longer-term plan for investment in “appropriate long-range defence systems”, to protect itself and Europe.

Pistorius is pushing for an increase of several billion euros to his defence budget. This week he called the amount of €58bn promised to him inadequate. “Everything we fail to invest in deterrence and defence capabilities now will come back to haunt us in future years,” he told the German radio station DLF on Thursday.

The cruise missile agreement has met stiff opposition from many politicians in Germany, while some members of Scholz’s three-way government have called for more clarity over it.

Critics have argued it is a hugely backward step in attempts to reduce the world’s nuclear arsenals. Ground-based missiles with a range beyond 500km were forbidden until 2019 under the INF treaty between Moscow and Washington in 1987.

The German opposition politician Sahra Wagenknecht, of the newly founded far-left party BSW, said that the stationing of attack missiles on German soil would not increase the country’s security but rather “increase the risk that Germany itself will become a theatre of war, with terrible consequences for everyone living here”.

Dietmar Bartsch, defence spokesperson for the leftwing Die Linke party, warned of a new armaments war. “I find this decision highly problematic, because the spiral in military buildup is being turned further under the headline ‘deterrence’,” he said.

The far-right populist AfD leader, Tino Chrupalla, said the shift in policy could turn Germany into a target for Russia, criticising Scholz for “letting Germany’s relationship with Russia be permanently damaged”.

He praised Hungary’s president, Viktor Orbán – who recently visited Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, in an attempt, according to Orbán, to forge a peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv – saying Scholz could learn from him.

“Orbán … showed at the Nato summit how sovereign peace policy works in Europe. He wants to prevent his country from being drawn into the US conflict with Russia,” Chrupalla said.

Meanwhile, the Green party, part of Scholz’s government, demanded answers from him about details of the plan, including how it would be financed.

Sara Nanni, a spokesperson for the party’s parliamentary group, told the Rheinische Post she found it irritating that Scholz had yet to provide such details, “even though a clear classification” was “urgently needed”.

Support for Scholz came in particular from the main opposition Christian Democrats, whose foreign policy spokesperson, Jürgen Hardt, said the stationing of Tomahawks in Germany was a service to German security.

Joachim Krause, a political scientist and international policy expert, told DLF the presence of the cruise missiles would act as an effective deterrent, which could “considerably increase the military balance in favour of Nato”.

In case of an attack by Russia, Krausesaid, the weapons would also have the capability of penetrating deep into Russian territory. The planned stationing of hypersonic missiles in Germany would have a similar effect in sending the right message to Moscow, he suggested.

• Ukraine has seized a foreign cargo ship near Odesa and arrested its captain, alleging the vessel illegally exported Ukrainian grain via the annexed Crimean peninsula. Ukrainian prosecutors and the security service (SBU) said the Azerbaijani captain was accused of violating rules on entering occupied territory and had allegedly repeatedly docked at the Crimean sea port of Sevastopol to pick up agricultural products in 2023-24. Prosecutors said that on one of its voyages in November 2023, the Cameroonian-flagged Usko Mfu loaded over 3,000 metric tons of agricultural products in Sevastopol intended for a Turkish company. Igor Delanoe, deputy director of the Franco-Russian Observatory, said this was the first time Ukraine had seized an internationally-flagged vessel over such alleged shipments. An official with the vessel’s Turkey-based ship manager Iyem Asya told Reuters the vessel’s current cargo was loaded in Moldova. “The ship, while under our ownership, did not take any cargoes from Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine and never used Ukrainian ports,” the official said. “Ukrainian soldiers boarded the ship while it was sailing along the Danube with a Romanian pilot present. They forcibly anchored it on their side of the river. Our lawyers are now pursuing the case.”

• The head of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region said on Thursday that Russian forces caused fires on dozen of hectares of Ukrainian land growing grain. The Russians struck a grain storage facility in the region and then attacked firefighters who arrived to extinguish the fire.

• US intelligence services have foiled a Russian plot to assassinate the chief executive of Germany’s leading arms manufacturer, Rheinmetall, in a revenge attack over its arming of Ukraine, according to reports. Rheinmetall has been described as one of the biggest suppliers of weapons that Ukraine uses in its defence against the Russian invasion, Kate Connolly writes from Berlin. The plot against Armin Papperger, the CEO of Rheinmetall, was one of several Russian government plans to kill defence industry executives in Europe, unidentified US and western officials told CNN. German authorities were yet to respond to requests for comment.

• The plot was said to have been in its advanced stages and is the most serious revealed in Moscow’s post-invasion “shadow war” across Europe. Russia has reportedly recruited amateurs to carry out everything from arson attacks on warehouses and shopping centres to smaller actions, including acts of vandalism and graffiti, as well as espionage operations. On Thursday a senior Nato official told reporters the sabotage campaign had been increasing in intensity and had to be taken extremely seriously. “We’re seeing sabotage, we’re seeing assassination plots, we’re seeing arson. We’re seeing things that have cost in human lives,” he said.

• Ukraine’s former armed forces chief, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, on Thursday began his job as the Ukrainian ambassador to Britain. Zaluzhnyi, who is very popular at home for leading the armed forces through the first hours of Russia’s invasion in February 2022, was replaced as Ukraine’s top commander in a shake-up in the military in February 2024.

• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has urged Nato allies to lift restrictions on its use of long-range weapons against targets in Russia. Zelenskiy said doing so would be a “game-changer” in its war with Moscow, adding: “If we want to win, if we want to prevail, to save our country and to defend it, we need to lift all the limitations.”

• The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, has said Ukraine’s right to self-defence includes the right to strike legitimate military targets on Russian territory. Stoltenberg notes that allies have reduced such restrictions on Ukraine, with individual countries varying in their limits.

• Zelenskiy said Ukraine was “very close to our goal” of Nato membership despite the summit in Washington not resulting in a political invitation to join. The next step would be an invitation followed by eventual membership, he said.

• In their final communique, the 32 Nato members meeting in Washington have urged China “to cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort”, adding that Beijing has become a large-scale supporter of Russia’s “defence industrial base”. Beijing’s mission to the EU said the summit was “filled with cold war mentality and belligerent rhetoric … The China-related paragraphs are provocative with obvious lies and smears.”

• France, Germany, Italy and Poland signed a letter of intent to develop ground-launched cruise missiles with a range beyond 500km (310 miles), aiming to fill what they say is a gap in European arsenals exposed by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Speaking on the sidelines of the Nato summit in Washington DC after the signing ceremony, French defence minister Sébastien Lecornu said the new missile was meant to serve as a deterrent.

• Norway will donate 1bn Norwegian kroner ($93m) in support to Ukraine for its air defence, prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre said at the Nato summit. The donation comes a day after Norway announced it would give six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine to help it in defence efforts against Russian air attacks.

• Russia must “urgently withdraw its military and other unauthorized personnel” from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and return it to the full control of Ukrainian authorities, the UN general assembly demanded in a resolution passed on Thursday.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called for a second peace summit this year, which Russia immediately said it would not attend.

US intelligence services have foiled a Russian plot to assassinate the chief executive of Germany’s leading arms manufacturer, which was an apparent attempt at retaliation over the company’s role in providing a large amount of armaments for Ukraine, according to reports on Thursday.

The plot to murder Armin Papperger, the CEO of Rheinmetall, was one of several Russian government plans to kill defence industry executives in several countries in Europe who have been supporting Ukraine’s war effort, unidentified US and western officials told CNN.

The plans to kill Papperger were in the most advanced stages of any of the plots, the investigators reportedly said.

US authorities had immediately informed their German counterparts, according to the report, and security around Papperger and Rheinmetall had been stepped up accordingly.

Papperger told the Financial Times that the German government had set up a “great level of security around my person”.

While he did not directly confirm the threats, he told the Financial Times that the CNN report was credible, saying, “I think CNN is not just looking up at the sky”.

Rheinmetall has declined to comment but said in a statement to media that “necessary measures are always taken” in regular consultation with security authorities.

German authorities have yet to respond to requests for comment but a government official confirmed that the US had warned Berlin about the plot.

Rheinmetall is one of the world’s biggest armaments’ producers, making artillery and tank shells as well as armoured vehicles. It considerably ramped up its production after Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and is one of the largest suppliers of military equipment and ammunition to Ukraine, Germany’s Der Spiegel reports.

In February, Rheinmetall announced plans to open an ammunition factory in Ukraine to produce and repair armoured vehicles. The factory was the main reason for the plot against Papperger, German security authorities told Der Spiegel.

Observers noted that a patrol car and several police officers carrying submachine guns had been parked in front of the Rheinmetall headquarters in the western German city of Düsseldorf every day for months, while Papperger has had visible personal protection for a similar time period.

In public settings such as football matches, cultural events and association meetings, he has been accompanied by security provided by the police from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia – one of only a handful of people to be afforded such protection.

The white-haired, stockily built CEO has even appeared, during a visit to Ukraine, donning a bulletproof vest, declaring: “It is very important for us to support Ukraine efficiently and reliably,” Der Spiegel reports.

In the Spring, he took Olaf Scholz on a tour of a Rheinmetall production hall full of Leopard battle tanks.

Papperger’s profile has been boosted by Rheinmetall’s role in the conflict, with the company becoming one of the 40 largest companies listed in the DAX index as a result, according to Der Spiegel. Last year, its operating result shot up to almost €1bn, and the order books expanded by about 44 % to more than €38bn.

Rheinmetall has been described since the Russian full-blown invasion and Germany’s subsequent involvement as one of the biggest suppliers of weapons to Kyiv and a thorn in Moscow’s side.

In their piece they state that the Rheinmetall boss “had long been considered a threat by the German security authorities”. They suspected that because of his prominent position he was in danger of becoming the target of a Russian attack. The main reason given was that the company was building a factory for the Lynx infantry fighting vehicle in Ukraine and wanted to develop the arms industry in the country.

Rheinmetall is one of the largest single suppliers of military equipment and ammunition to Ukraine and wants to expand its production so that it is able to produce 700,000 rounds of artillery ammunition annually. Though 1 million is considered an approximate requirement for Ukraine to be able to adequately defend itself against Russia.

The Ukrainian army is equipped with a range of weapons from the German manufacturer, including Leopard 1 main battle tanks and Marder infantry fighting vehicles. In addition the company has supplied Ukraine with 155mm artillery shells, which have been central to Ukraine’s unrelenting war of attrition, and provided a comprehensive service involving repair, delivery and replacement parts.

The company says it has long been the target of so-called hybrid warfare from Russia, including cyber-attacks. The latest threats are being taken very seriously, and are considered plausible, a company insider told Der Spiegel, adding, “We will not let this divert ourselves from the decisive action to support Ukraine”.

The assassination plot revelations come amid a flurry of incidents believed to be part of a systematic Russian sabotage campaign in revenge for support for Ukraine. It has reportedly recruited amateurs locally to carry out everything from arson attacks on warehouses and shopping centres to smaller actions, including acts of vandalism and graffiti, as well as espionage operations, all intended to undermine Ukraine’s war effort and to help dent public support for Ukraine. The actions have been described as a “shadow war” that Moscow is waging in western Europe.

On Thursday a senior Nato official told reporters attending the alliance’s conference in Washington that the sabotage campaign had been increasing in intensity and had to be taken extremely seriously.

“We’re seeing sabotage, we’re seeing assassination plots, we’re seeing arson. We’re seeing things that have cost in human lives,” he said. “I believe very much that we’re seeing a campaign of covert sabotage activities from Russia that have strategic consequences.”

The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said at the Nato summit that Russia was waging a hybrid war of aggression, including cyber-attacks and sabotage of infrastructure. “This underlines once again that we as Europeans must protect ourselves as best we can and not be naive,” she told Reuters.

The family of two Australians found dead at a luxury hotel in the Philippines alongside a Filipina relative say they are praying “for answers and the truth in this horrific matter”.

The bodies were discovered with their hands and feet tied in a room at the Lake Hotel in Tagaytay, a resort city south of the nation’s capital.

The victims were Sydney man David James Fisk, 57, his partner, Lucita Barquin Cortez, 55, a Philippine-born Australian citizen, and a younger relative of Cortez.

Tagaytay’s police chief, Charles Daven Capagcuan, said the motive for the killings was not known and some valuables, including the victims’ phones, had not been taken.

Investigators were interviewing witnesses and examining security cameras.

Footage showed a man wearing a mask and a hoodie and carrying a sling bag walking out of the victims’ room a few hours before their bodies were discovered, Capagcuan said.

Fisk had twin daughters – performer Lacinda and teacher Brittany, both aged 27. In a statement written on behalf of the family, Lacinda said they were “heartbroken”.

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“The love we have for our father and Lucita is so dear and this situation is like living a nightmare,” she wrote on a fundraising page.

“We pray for answers and the truth in this horrific matter and pray for their safe return to Australian shores.”

Last December, Fisk and Cortez celebrated Lacinda’s engagement in Sydney alongside David’s former partner Sandra.

The family were well known in Sydney’s Sutherland shire. In 2014, Lacinda won the shire’s Young Citizen of the Year award.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs did not reveal the Australians’ identities but confirmed it was providing consular assistance to their families.

“We send our condolences to the families at this difficult time,” a spokesperson said.

Tagaytay’s mayor, Abraham Tolentino, said he was shocked by the discovery and apologised to the victims’ families.

“We’re very sorry to our Australian friends,” he said. “We will resolve this as soon as possible.”

The Lake Hotel said it was “deeply saddened” by the tragic events and said its thoughts were with affected family members and loved ones.

“The safety and well-being of our guests and staff are our top priorities,” the hotel said in a statement. The hotel said it was “fully cooperating” with local authorities.

“Out of respect for privacy and the ongoing investigation, we cannot provide specific details at this time. We are committed to supporting authorities and providing assistance to affected guests and staff.”

The three-star hotel has 60 guest rooms across three storeys.

The couple had flown from Sydney to Bali for a holiday then went to the Philippines on Monday to visit Cortez’s two children, and decided to take a short break in Tagaytay before returning to Australia, a relative of the woman said.

The remains of Fisk would be flown back to Sydney and the two women would be buried in the Philippines, Tolentino said.

Fisk was a business developer executive at Australian-owned software company Jiwa Financials, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was previously a sales representative at debt collection software company Debtrak and had a long career in business technology.

– with Associated Press and Australian Associated Press

The family of two Australians found dead at a luxury hotel in the Philippines alongside a Filipina relative say they are praying “for answers and the truth in this horrific matter”.

The bodies were discovered with their hands and feet tied in a room at the Lake Hotel in Tagaytay, a resort city south of the nation’s capital.

The victims were Sydney man David James Fisk, 57, his partner, Lucita Barquin Cortez, 55, a Philippine-born Australian citizen, and a younger relative of Cortez.

Tagaytay’s police chief, Charles Daven Capagcuan, said the motive for the killings was not known and some valuables, including the victims’ phones, had not been taken.

Investigators were interviewing witnesses and examining security cameras.

Footage showed a man wearing a mask and a hoodie and carrying a sling bag walking out of the victims’ room a few hours before their bodies were discovered, Capagcuan said.

Fisk had twin daughters – performer Lacinda and teacher Brittany, both aged 27. In a statement written on behalf of the family, Lacinda said they were “heartbroken”.

• Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

“The love we have for our father and Lucita is so dear and this situation is like living a nightmare,” she wrote on a fundraising page.

“We pray for answers and the truth in this horrific matter and pray for their safe return to Australian shores.”

Last December, Fisk and Cortez celebrated Lacinda’s engagement in Sydney alongside David’s former partner Sandra.

The family were well known in Sydney’s Sutherland shire. In 2014, Lacinda won the shire’s Young Citizen of the Year award.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs did not reveal the Australians’ identities but confirmed it was providing consular assistance to their families.

“We send our condolences to the families at this difficult time,” a spokesperson said.

Tagaytay’s mayor, Abraham Tolentino, said he was shocked by the discovery and apologised to the victims’ families.

“We’re very sorry to our Australian friends,” he said. “We will resolve this as soon as possible.”

The Lake Hotel said it was “deeply saddened” by the tragic events and said its thoughts were with affected family members and loved ones.

“The safety and well-being of our guests and staff are our top priorities,” the hotel said in a statement. The hotel said it was “fully cooperating” with local authorities.

“Out of respect for privacy and the ongoing investigation, we cannot provide specific details at this time. We are committed to supporting authorities and providing assistance to affected guests and staff.”

The three-star hotel has 60 guest rooms across three storeys.

The couple had flown from Sydney to Bali for a holiday then went to the Philippines on Monday to visit Cortez’s two children, and decided to take a short break in Tagaytay before returning to Australia, a relative of the woman said.

The remains of Fisk would be flown back to Sydney and the two women would be buried in the Philippines, Tolentino said.

Fisk was a business developer executive at Australian-owned software company Jiwa Financials, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was previously a sales representative at debt collection software company Debtrak and had a long career in business technology.

– with Associated Press and Australian Associated Press

Brazil’s intelligence agency was illegally weaponised during Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right administration to monitor and harass some of the country’s most important politicians, journalists, judges and environmental officials, federal police have alleged.

Five people were arrested on Thursday as part of a long-running investigation into suspicions that during Bolsonaro’s 2019-22 government the Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (Abin) was used to spy on the president’s political foes.

According to a 187-page police document, the targets included some of Brazil’s best-known public figures and politicians from across the political spectrum.

Those targeted allegedly include: the head of Brazil’s lower house, Arthur Lira, and his predecessor, Rodrigo Maia; prominent allies of the current leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, including the senator, Randolfe Rodrigues; conservative figures including the former governor of São Paulo state, João Doria; four supreme court judges; two prominent political journalists, Vera Magalhães and Mônica Bergamo; and two senior officials from the environmental protection agency, Ibama, Hugo Loss and Roberto Cabral.

Federal police claimed that under the watch of Bolsonaro’s spy chief, Alexandre Ramagem, a “criminal organisation of high offensive capability” was set up within Abin.

That “parallel” intelligence agency allegedly used a series of clandestine techniques to gather information about people or groups considered adversaries or irritants. The fruits of that illegal work were allegedly transformed into online disinformation designed to hurt the reputations of the organisation’s targets and Brazil’s democratic institutions. Members of the covert unit are also accused of targeting Internal Revenue Service officials who were investigating suspicions of corruption involving president Bolsonaro’s senator son, Flávio Bolsonaro.

A screenshot of a 2020 WhatsApp message sent by one arrested suspect shows the alleged head of the secret group telling a colleague: “We need to find dirt” [on a target].

Another message, from 2022, shows a police officer sending an alleged member of the group information about three environmental protection officials deemed to be “causing trouble for the administration”.

In a third, even more shocking exchange, the suspect and a military official rage against supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes, who was credited with helping stave off a rightwing campaign to overthrow Brazil’s democratic system that culminated in the January 2023 attacks in Brasília.

“This is getting fucked up. This baldy is asking for a little extra,” one of them writes. “Just 7.62,” the other replies – an apparent reference to the 7.62mm rifle used by Brazil’s armed forces. The first person replies in English: “Head shot.”

Those named by police as targets reacted with anger and shock.

Rodrigo Maia condemned what he called “the behaviour of a totalitarian and criminal government, typical of the worst of dictatorships”.

Randolfe Rodrigues, who was the vice-president of a congressional inquiry into the Bolsonaro administration’s highly controversial handling of a Covid outbreak which claimed more than 700,000 lives, called the revelations “tragic”.

“While Brazilians were dying, the previous government – instead of using its time to buy vaccines – used its time to persecute and monitor the regime’s political adversaries,” he told reporters.

Another target, senator Renan Calheiros, lamented the intelligence agency’s “criminal capture” and the use of “Gestapo methods”.

Flávio Bolsonaro denied any knowledge of the alleged scheme. “Quite simply I had no relationship with Abin,” he tweeted, claiming the accusations were an attempt to scupper former spy chief Ramagem’s Bolsonaro-backed campaign to become Rio’s next mayor. Ramagem has yet to comment on Thursday’s police claims but has previously denied being responsible for an illegal spying scheme during his time at Abin.

A Brisbane couple with Russian passports have become the first people to be charged under new espionage laws after a joint investigation between Australia’s spy and security agencies.

AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw said a 40-year-old woman on long-term leave from the Australian defence force and her 62-year-old husband were charged with one count each of preparing for an espionage offence, which could lead to up to 15 years in prison.

Defence raised concerns leading to Operation Bergazada, which culminated with a knock on the door of the couple’s Everton Park residential home in Brisbane.

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Kershaw alleged the pair “worked together to access Australian Defence Force material that related to Australia’s national security interests”.

“We allege the woman was undertaking non-declared travel to Russia, whilst she was on long term leave from the Australian Defence Force,” Kershaw said.

“We allege that whilst she was in Russia, she instructed her husband, who remained in Australia, on how to log into her official work account from their Brisbane home. We allege her husband would access requested material and would send to his wife in Russia.

“We allege they sought that information with the intention of providing it to Russian authorities. Whether that information was handed over remains a key focus of our investigation.”

Kershaw said “no significant compromise has been identified” and Australia’s Five Eyes security partners had been made aware of the investigation. Australia’s spy bosses had not ruled out further charges or that others may be involved.

Asio head Mike Burgess said he would not be commenting on the details of the investigation but issued an invitation for Russian spies to “reach out” to his agency.

“I want to speak directly to the operatives of Russian intelligence services,” he said at a Canberra press conference on Friday.

“This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Petrov defections. Two Russian spies gave ASIO and our closest allies the name of Russian assets in western countries. If you want to share your secrets, please reach out. ASIO is always listening.”

Burgess said the threat to Australia’s security “was real” and allegations were always treated seriously.

“Multiple countries are seeking to steal Australia’s secrets,” he said.

“We cannot be naive and we cannot be complacent. Espionage is not some quaint notion, espionage damages our economy and degrades our strategic advantage. It has catastrophic real world consequences.

“Foreign intelligence services are capable, determined and patient. They play the long game. The problem for them is ASIO does too.”

California’s wildfire season is off to a ferocious start, with the state’s top wildfire official saying that fires have already burned through five times the average amount of land for this time of year.

Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Joe Tyler, the director of the California department of forestry and fire protection (Cal Fire), said the state has responded to more than 3,500 wildfires so far this year. Together, those fires have scorched nearly 220,000 acres – more than five times above what is typical for mid-July, which is considered fairly early in the state’s wildfire season.

“We are not just in a fire season, we are in a fire year,” Tyler said at the news conference. “Our winds and the recent heatwave have exacerbated the issue, consuming thousands of acres. So we need to be extra cautious.”

Authorities across the US west have warned of the rising risk of wildfires amid a protracted heatwave that has dried out the landscape and smashed temperatures records from California to Oregon to Nevada.

“Climate change is real,” said California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, on Wednesday. “Those extremes are here present every day in the great state of California.”

An abundantly wet winter has left landscapes across California coated in grasses that quickly dried as the weather warmed, creating abundant fuel for fast-burning brush fires.

California crews were working in scorching temperatures to battle numerous wildfires on Thursday, including a stubborn 34,000-acre blaze known as the Lake fire, which prompted evacuation orders for about 200 homes in the mountains of Santa Barbara county, north-west of Los Angeles.

In Oregon on Thursday, crews were battling the Larch Creek fire, which has grown to more than 11,000 acres since Tuesday. Lower temperatures and calming winds were helping the crews’ efforts, but the local fire danger level remained extreme. One firefighter was treated for heat-related injuries.

In Hawaii, Haleakala national park on Maui was closed as firefighters battled a blaze on the slopes of a mountain. Visitors in more than 150 vehicles that had gone up on Wednesday for the famous sunset views were not able to descend until about 4am on Thursday because the narrow roads were blocked by fire crews.

More than 63 million people in the US remained under heat alerts on Thursday, as forecasters predicted some relief from the heat was due by the weekend.

Las Vegas set a new record on Wednesday when it saw its record fifth consecutive day of temperatures sizzling at 115F (46.1C) or greater. Already, Nevada’s largest city has broken 16 heat records since 1 June “and we’re not even halfway through July yet”, a National Weather Service meteorologist, Morgan Stessman, said on Wednesday.

That includes an all-time high of 120F set on Sunday, which beat the previous 117F record.

The heat has been suspected in deaths across multiple states. In California, officials in the Silicon Valley county of Santa Clara are investigating 19 potential heat-related deaths, including three homeless individuals, the county’s medical examiner-coroner’s office said in a statement on Thursday. And in Oregon, the number of potentially heat-related deaths has risen to 10, according to the state medical examiner’s office.

Heat was blamed for a motorcyclist’s death last weekend in Death Valley national park and the National Park Service is investigating the third death of a Grand Canyon hiker in recent weeks. Arizona authorities are investigating deaths of a two-year-old and a baby in separate incidents, and in Nebraska, Omaha police say a boy died after being left in an SUV.

Read more on wildfires and heat in the US

• Las Vegas sets record for number of days over 115F amid its ‘most extreme heatwave in history’
  ‘Like an oven’: death at US women’s prison amid heatwave sparks cries for help

• US wildfire season has arrived. Here’s why it could be an explosive summer

California’s wildfire season is off to a ferocious start, with the state’s top wildfire official saying that fires have already burned through five times the average amount of land for this time of year.

Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Joe Tyler, the director of the California department of forestry and fire protection (Cal Fire), said the state has responded to more than 3,500 wildfires so far this year. Together, those fires have scorched nearly 220,000 acres – more than five times above what is typical for mid-July, which is considered fairly early in the state’s wildfire season.

“We are not just in a fire season, we are in a fire year,” Tyler said at the news conference. “Our winds and the recent heatwave have exacerbated the issue, consuming thousands of acres. So we need to be extra cautious.”

Authorities across the US west have warned of the rising risk of wildfires amid a protracted heatwave that has dried out the landscape and smashed temperatures records from California to Oregon to Nevada.

“Climate change is real,” said California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, on Wednesday. “Those extremes are here present every day in the great state of California.”

An abundantly wet winter has left landscapes across California coated in grasses that quickly dried as the weather warmed, creating abundant fuel for fast-burning brush fires.

California crews were working in scorching temperatures to battle numerous wildfires on Thursday, including a stubborn 34,000-acre blaze known as the Lake fire, which prompted evacuation orders for about 200 homes in the mountains of Santa Barbara county, north-west of Los Angeles.

In Oregon on Thursday, crews were battling the Larch Creek fire, which has grown to more than 11,000 acres since Tuesday. Lower temperatures and calming winds were helping the crews’ efforts, but the local fire danger level remained extreme. One firefighter was treated for heat-related injuries.

In Hawaii, Haleakala national park on Maui was closed as firefighters battled a blaze on the slopes of a mountain. Visitors in more than 150 vehicles that had gone up on Wednesday for the famous sunset views were not able to descend until about 4am on Thursday because the narrow roads were blocked by fire crews.

More than 63 million people in the US remained under heat alerts on Thursday, as forecasters predicted some relief from the heat was due by the weekend.

Las Vegas set a new record on Wednesday when it saw its record fifth consecutive day of temperatures sizzling at 115F (46.1C) or greater. Already, Nevada’s largest city has broken 16 heat records since 1 June “and we’re not even halfway through July yet”, a National Weather Service meteorologist, Morgan Stessman, said on Wednesday.

That includes an all-time high of 120F set on Sunday, which beat the previous 117F record.

The heat has been suspected in deaths across multiple states. In California, officials in the Silicon Valley county of Santa Clara are investigating 19 potential heat-related deaths, including three homeless individuals, the county’s medical examiner-coroner’s office said in a statement on Thursday. And in Oregon, the number of potentially heat-related deaths has risen to 10, according to the state medical examiner’s office.

Heat was blamed for a motorcyclist’s death last weekend in Death Valley national park and the National Park Service is investigating the third death of a Grand Canyon hiker in recent weeks. Arizona authorities are investigating deaths of a two-year-old and a baby in separate incidents, and in Nebraska, Omaha police say a boy died after being left in an SUV.

Read more on wildfires and heat in the US

• Las Vegas sets record for number of days over 115F amid its ‘most extreme heatwave in history’
  ‘Like an oven’: death at US women’s prison amid heatwave sparks cries for help

• US wildfire season has arrived. Here’s why it could be an explosive summer

Donald Trump’s running mate will be introduced at the Republican national convention next Wednesday by his eldest son, according to people familiar with the matter, raising speculation that Senator JD Vance will be named the vice-presidential pick after being endorsed by Don Jr.

The fact that Don Jr will speak immediately before the running mate delivers remarks, earlier reported by Axios, is seen as notable inside the Trump campaign because of Don Jr’s close ties to Vance.

Still, a person directly familiar with the matter cautioned that the speaking schedule was decided three to four weeks ago and they were uncertain how instructive Don Jr’s involvement was.

Trump has said he wants his running mate to be revealed at the convention next week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but due to convention rules that require the ticket to be nominated by the first day, the former president has been forced to make a decision before Wednesday.

For months, Trump has presided over a characteristically theatrical selection process in which he made dramatic pronouncements at rallies in an effort to drive media speculation before narrowing the list to a final three: the North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum, Senator Marco Rubio and Vance.

The leading contenders have run through an emotionally draining fight to be Trump’s running mate, defending the former president in cable news interviews, mingling with members at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, coalescing support from Trump allies and trying to appeal to Trump’s core Maga voters at rallies.

The Guardian has previously reported that Trump has told allies he wants a running mate who would be a “fighter” – someone who is media-savvy and will defend him on adversarial TV networks – and loyal to the extent that they would be “everything Mike Pence wasn’t”.

Trump’s former vice-president was a valuable asset during the 2016 and 2020 campaigns because of his Christian conservative credentials that shored up support among Republicans who were suspicious of the thrice-married reality TV star.

But Pence’s refusal to do one final favor and comply with Trump’s demand to block the certification of the 2020 election results in Congress led to a falling-out, and made Pence the target of the January 6 Capitol attack rioters.

For his 2024 campaign, Trump is seeking a “Goldilocks” running mate: strong but loyal, in tune with Maga but not over-rehearsed, telegenic but not likely to outshine him. His choice will go up against Kamala Harris, the first Black woman to serve as vice-president.

Vance, the junior senator from Ohio, has increasingly fit that profile.

On Sunday, Vance said on NBC’s Meet the Press that he supported Trump’s vow to appoint a special counsel to prosecute Joe Biden, making apparent references to the House oversight committee’s search for evidence of impeachable conduct by Biden, which it has not found.

Vance also suggested it was reasonable for Trump to prosecute Biden on the grounds that Biden had supposedly weaponized the legal system against him, although there is no evidence Biden has been involved in prosecutorial decisions at the justice department or elsewhere.

The NBC anchor Kristen Welker pressed Vance on his support for a special counsel: “If it’s not OK for Joe Biden to weaponize the justice department – as you say, which there’s no evidence of that – why is it OK for Donald Trump to do that?” she asked.

Vance repeated the common complaint among Republicans that one former justice department official took a job as a prosecutor in the New York criminal case in which Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to influence the 2016 election with a hush-money scheme.

“If Donald Trump’s attorney general had his No 2 or his No 3 jump ship to a local prosecutor’s office in Ohio or Wisconsin, and that person then went after Donald Trump’s political opposition, that’s a different conversation,” he said, though the prosecutor at issue was not as senior as the hypothetical.

Trump has repeatedly vowed to prosecute his political enemies, sharing posts on his Truth Social website that advocated jailing top Democrats and Republicans who criticized him, including one that said the former House Republican Liz Cheney should face “televised military tribunals”.

A serial killer who preyed on Indigenous women in Canada will serve decades in prison after a judge determined he was criminally responsible for four “jarring and numbing” murders, in a verdict celebrated by family as “justice being served”.

Justice Glenn Joyal ruled on Thursday that Jeremy Skibicki was guilty of first-degree murder in the killings of Rebecca Contois, Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran and an unidentified woman, who was named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe (Buffalo Woman) by Indigenous leaders. Joyal rejected an argument from the defence that Skibicki’s mental health had prevented him from understanding his actions.

Joyal said the “mercilessly graphic” nature of the case and Skibicki’s “purely expressed racist views” meant the killings had an “undeniable and profound impact” on the province of Manitoba, and laid bare the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada.

The packed gallery in the Winnipeg courtroom erupted into cheers when the oral verdict was delivered.

“I just felt super happy. I wanted to cry,” Jorden Myran, Marcedes’s sister, told reporters after the verdict was read. “We fought for this for so long. He got what he deserved.”

On the eve of his trial, Skibicki admitted in May to killing the women. But his lawyers argued he should be found not criminally responsible for murders because he had schizophrenia at the time.

Prosecutors argued that Skibicki’s murders were racially motivated and that he deliberately targeted vulnerable women in the city’s shelter system.

The first-degree murder verdict means Skibicki will serve a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

The murders were first uncovered in 2022, when the remains of Rebecca Contois, a member of Crane River First Nation, were found in a dumpster near Skibicki’s home. Police later found more remains in a city landfill.

During police interrogations, Skibicki admitted to killing Contois and the three other women, who were living in Winnipeg at the time. He cited white supremacist beliefs.

Dr Sohom Das, a forensic psychiatrist from the United Kingdom, testified for the defence, suggesting Skibicki suffered schizophrenia and was motivated by delusions, including a belief he was on a mission from God. But justice Joyal rejected Das’s conclusion and questioned the psychiatrist’s credibility.

Instead, he sided with Dr Gary Chaimowitz, the forensic psychiatrist who testified for the prosecution.

In graphic testimony, Chaimowitz told the court he believed Skibicki made up the alleged delusions, and was probably motivated by homicidal necrophilia.

Joyal told the court a full written decision, more than 150 pages long, would be released next week. The sentencing hearing for Skibicki will be held at a later date.

For families of the victims, the case has also been a grim reminder of government inaction: the remains of Harris and Myran are believed to be buried in the Prairie Green landfill, and police initially said they lacked the resources to search the privately owned facility, much of which is buried under tonnes of clay.

In March, Canada pledged tens of millions of dollars to search landfill for the remains of two Indigenous women, with work set to begin in the fall.

Donna Bartlett, Marcedes Myran’s grandmother, told reporters outside the court she was “happy” that Skibicki would serve a prison sentence.

“He got convicted of murder and I’m glad of that, I really am. Now the next step is to bring my girl home.”

Multiple Chinese military warships were spotted off the coast of Alaska over the weekend, the US Coast Guard announced.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the US Coast Guard said that it detected three vessels approximately 124 miles (200km) north of the Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands, as well as another vessel approximately 84 miles (135km) north of the Amukta Pass, a strait between the Bering Sea and the north Pacific Ocean.

All four Chinese vessels were “transiting in international waters but still inside the US exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles from the US shoreline”, according to the US Coast Guard.

“The Chinese naval presence operated in accordance with international rules and norms,” R Adm Megan Dean of the US Coast Guard said, adding: “We met presence with presence to ensure there were no disruptions to US interests in the maritime environment around Alaska.”

Responding to US Coast Guard radio communication, the Chinese vessels said their purpose was “freedom of navigation operations”.

“Coast guard cutter Kimball continued to monitor all ships until they transited south of the Aleutian Islands into the north Pacific Ocean. The Kimball continues to monitor activities in the US exclusive economic zone to ensure the safety of US vessels and international commerce in the area,” the US Coast Guard said.

Last August, the US dispatched four navy warships in addition to a reconnaissance airplane after multiple Chinese and Russian military vessels carried out a joint naval patrol near Alaska.

At the time, the flotilla, which experts said appeared to be the largest to approach US territory, was described as a “highly provocative” maneuver amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine as well as political tensions between the US and China over Taiwan.

In a tense cross-examination in Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial, the actor’s defense attorney suggested that New Mexico authorities were focused on pinning blame on the star rather than properly investigating what had led to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Alex Spiro, one of Baldwin’s defense attorneys, grilled the crime scene technician Marissa Poppell about a search police conducted on the prop house that provided the Colt .45 used in the shooting. He highlighted the fact that police had not collected surveillance footage from the site, pressed Poppell on precisely how thoroughly the facility was searched and alleged that law enforcement had withheld evidence from the defense.

“Isn’t the truth that you were just trying to get this over with so the prosecutors could focus on Alec Baldwin?” Spiro said in the Santa Fe courtroom on Thursday morning, which Poppell denied.

Spiro suggested that police have evidence that the live ammunition that made its way on to the set came from the prop supplier, rather than the film’s armorer, who prosecutors said brought the bullets on site during filming.

He questioned Poppell about a “good samaritan” who had come forward to police this year with a box of munitions that he claimed came from the prop supplier, Seth Kenney, and matched the ammunition that killed Hutchins. A report of the interview was not included with the other Rust evidence nor shared with the lawyer of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armorer, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in March.

The special prosecutor Kari Morrissey cast doubt on the “good samaritan”, stating that the person who came forward was a friend of Gutierrez-Reed’s father. Gutierrez-Reed was expected to testify for the state on Friday, her lawyer told NBC News.

As the prosecution has sought to portray Baldwin as reckless in his handling of firearms, his team has focused on alleged missteps by the state, including FBI testing that permanently damaged the firearm before it could be examined by the defense and safety failings on set.

“There is zero evidence in this case that Alec Baldwin brought the live round on this set, correct?” Spiro asked Poppell. “There is zero evidence that Alec Baldwin loaded that round into the gun, correct?”

Testimony from Poppell revealed that live ammunition was found on bandoliers worn by Baldwin as well as the actor Jensen Ackles.

The closely watched trial got off to a slow start on Thursday and was delayed multiple times as Morrissey objected to Spiro’s questioning and the prosecution and defense disagreed about the admission of certain evidence.

The judge favored the prosecution in allowing the admission of part of a transcript showing Baldwin’s knowledge of the dangers of blank rounds, and a phone call with his wife made after the shooting in which the actor tells his family they should still come visit him in New Mexico.

On Wednesday, the jury viewed harrowing footage depicting the aftermath of the shooting and medics’ desperate efforts to treat cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

The scene at the Bonanza Creek Ranch where the actor and crew were filming the western Rust was captured via body-camera footage from a New Mexico sheriff’s deputy who responded to the incident and testified in court this week.

Videos from the set and a 911 call played in the courtroom provided a dramatic start to the long-anticipated trial, which comes almost three years after the October 2021 shooting. Hutchins was killed and the director, Joel Souza, was injured after a weapon that Baldwin was holding – that, unbeknown to anyone on set, contained live ammunition – fired a single bullet.

The incident, the first shooting death on a Hollywood set since 1993, sent shock waves through the industry and the trial is being closely followed by media outlets from around the world.

Baldwin has adamantly denied pulling the trigger. The gun’s manufacturer testified in court on Thursday that the firearm’s design meant it could not have fired without a pull of the trigger, but also said that he had not seen the weapon for several years before it was used on the Rust set and did not know what condition it was in.

Prosecutors said that evidence shows Baldwin not only pulled the trigger but that he violated “cardinal rules of firearm safety” while on set, repeatedly placing his finger on the hammer and trigger and pointing the gun at people while filming.

In opening statements and in testimony from witnesses, prosecutors sought to portray an unsafe workplace on a tight budget with a lead actor who acted recklessly and placed others in danger.

“That gun the defendant had asked to be assigned worked perfectly fine, as it was designed,” prosecutor Erlinda Johnson said. “He pointed the gun at another human being, cocked the gun and pulled that trigger in reckless disregard for Ms Hutchins’ safety.”

Baldwin’s defense team, however, cast the blame on the film’s armorer and first assistant director, who were responsible for checking the gun. Baldwin was focused on his job on set – acting – and the people who were supposed to ensure the safety of the weapon failed to do so, defense attorney Alex Spiro told the jury on Wednesday.

“The evidence will show that on a movie set, safety has to occur before the gun is placed in an actor’s hands,” he said.

Baldwin has long denied pulling the trigger, but even if he did so, Spiro said, he would not be guilty of a crime. “On a movie set you’re allowed to pull the trigger, so even if he intentionally pulled the trigger, as prosecutors said, that doesn’t mean he committed a homicide.”

The jury this week has heard from law enforcement officers who first responded to the incident as well as the crime scene technician Poppell.

Baldwin faces up to 18 months in prison if convicted.