At least 34 people have been killed and more than 100 injured in a Russian ballistic missile strike in the Ukrainian city of Sumy as people were going to church for Palm Sunday, in the worst attack on civilians this year.

Two missiles landed in the crowded city centre on Sunday morning. One hit a trolley bus full of passengers. Footage from the scene showed bodies lying in the street, burning cars, and rescuers carrying bloodied survivors. Two of the dead were children.

“My seven-year-old son was running for shelter when the second missile struck. The blast ripped off a door which hit him in the leg. He has a bruise but is ok,” the film director Volodymyr Niankin said. “My son said this is the most terrible day of his life.”

Niankin said he had seen bodies on the ground. “Many of the people who died were sitting on the bus or walking in the road. A lot of people were out and about because it was a religious festival. I think this is genocide.”

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said there were “dozens of dead and wounded civilians”. He accused Russia of carrying out an act of deliberate terror and said tough reaction was needed from the US, Europe and the rest of the world.

“Enemy missiles hit an ordinary city street, ordinary life: houses, educational institutions, cars on the street … And this on a day when people go to church: Palm Sunday, the feast of the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem,” he posted on social media.

Zelenskyy said the Kremlin was ignoring a US proposal for a full and unconditional ceasefire. “Unfortunately, there in Moscow they are convinced they can keep killing with impunity. Action is needed to change this situation,” he said.

Officials said 117 people had been injured, including 15 children.

There was widespread international outrage.

Donald Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said the attack “crosses any line of decency”. “As a former military leader, I understand targeting and this is wrong. It is why President Trump is working hard to end this war,” he wrote on X.

The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, said he was “appalled at Russia’s horrific attacks on civilians”. Vladimir Putin “must now agree to a full and immediate ceasefire without conditions”, he said.

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, agreed on the “urgent need to impose a ceasefire on Russia”. “Everyone knows it is Russia alone that wants this war,” he said. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, described the scenes from Sumy as heartbreaking and horrific.

The EU’s ambassador to Ukraine, Katarína Mathernová, called the strikes a war crime. “Nothing seems to be sacred to the Russians — neither churches, nor Ukrainian children,” she said.

Ukrainians contrasted the images of bodies in Sumy with photos of Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, warmly shaking hands with Putin on Friday. The two held four hours of talks in St Petersburg.

Putin’s press spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Sunday that the talks were going very well, but that it was “impossible to expect any instant results”.

Trump has said he is “pissed off” at Russia’s failure to stop bombing, but has so far not taken any concrete measures against Moscow. Ukraine has signed up to a 30-day ceasefire that Washington proposed a month ago.

Since then Russia has escalated its bombardment of Ukrainian cities, firing 70 missiles and 2,200 drones. Nine children and nine adults were killed earlier this month when a Russian missile hit a playground in the city of Kryvyi Rih.

Zelenskyy has been pressing allies to send another 10 Patriot air defence systems to protect Ukraine’s skies. “Talks have never stopped ballistic missiles and air bombs. We need the kind of attitude towards Russia that a terrorist deserves,” he said on Sunday.

Sumy is 15 miles (25km) from the border with Russia and is a major Ukrainian military hub. The missiles landed in a central civilian area where many people carrying willow branches for Palm Sunday were on their way to church.

Video from a car dashcam shows an orange flash as one of the missiles struck at 10.20am. Plumes of grey smoke can be seen as other vehicles reverse away from the danger and passersby run in panic.

The first missile hit a conference centre belonging to Sumy’s state university. Several children were waiting outside for an 11am theatre performance in a basement venue. The second landed 200 metres away, in Pokrovska Street, as the trolley bus rolled past.

Niankin said the centre was a unique arts hub and home to a theatre he ran. “I feel like half of my heart has been taken away. It was a place where we could play and create. Everything is destroyed: the stage, costumes, all our stuff. We have no chance to continue our work,” he said.

The director, who made a film about Sumy’s resistance to Russia’s 2022 invasion, said there were not a lot of people inside the building when it was flattened. “It happened half an hour before the show was due to start. My son was nearby attending a class in a studio.”

Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said Russia had launched two Iskander-M missiles from its western territory in the Voronezh and Kursk regions. He identified the army forces responsible as the 112th and 448th missile brigades. “Another proof of the Godlessness of the disgusting cursed Moscow,” he said.

The UK and its G7 allies are considering tightening the “meaningless” cap on Russian oil export prices after Donald Trump’s trade war caused global oil markets to crash.

UK Treasury officials are understood to be looking at plans to lower the $60 (£46) a barrel cap Russianexports after the oil market plunged this week to $59.77 a barrel for the first time in more than four years.

The G7 capped the price of Russian oil exports in late 2022 – when oil traded at well over $100 a barrel – to limit the oil revenues that Moscow could put towards its war efforts in Ukraine.

But experts have said the plan was “currently meaningless” after a steep fall in the global oil markets. It had already become increasingly irrelevant as Russia found loopholes to sell its crude at normal market rates, they added.

The Guardian understands that the UK is now working alongside its international partners to find a way to use the price cap to safeguard Ukraine against the Russian war machine while pushing the Kremlin to engage in a peace process in good faith.

The UK government was approached for comment.

The cap effectively barred all G7 and EU nations from buying Russian barrels above $60 – or providing shipping, insurance, brokering, trade finance and other support services for any deals done above this price.

But Russia was able to use a series of loopholes including the use of a shadow fleet of ageing oil tankers to carry cargoes at the usual market rates.

The cap applied to about half of Russia’s seaborne oil cargoes when it was first introduced, according to analysis by the commodity data provider S&P Global Platts, but about 80% was sold beyond the reaches of the gap by the end of last year.

“The cap is currently meaningless,” said Clayton Seigle, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. He told the Guardian that the G7 should consider “tightening the screws” on the Kremlin by lowering the price below $60.

“There might be a willingness within the G7 to do this to punish Moscow, especially because there are no real fears about leaving the oil market under-supplied,” he added.

Tom Keatinge, a director at the Royal United Services Institute, a defence and security thinktank, said: “It’s time to revisit the whole way in which we try to restrict Russia’s income from hydrocarbons. Whatever anyone might say, it doesn’t really seem to be working.”

Global oil market prices tumbled by almost a fifth in the days since the US president set out sweeping global trade tariffs amid fears that a trade war could trigger a global economic recession which would sap demand for energy.

The international oil benchmark fell from almost $75 a barrel last week to under $60 on Wednesday. The price climbed to above $65 on Thursday after Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs, aside from those levelled against China.

The UK and its G7 allies are considering tightening the “meaningless” cap on Russian oil export prices after Donald Trump’s trade war caused global oil markets to crash.

UK Treasury officials are understood to be looking at plans to lower the $60 (£46) a barrel cap Russianexports after the oil market plunged this week to $59.77 a barrel for the first time in more than four years.

The G7 capped the price of Russian oil exports in late 2022 – when oil traded at well over $100 a barrel – to limit the oil revenues that Moscow could put towards its war efforts in Ukraine.

But experts have said the plan was “currently meaningless” after a steep fall in the global oil markets. It had already become increasingly irrelevant as Russia found loopholes to sell its crude at normal market rates, they added.

The Guardian understands that the UK is now working alongside its international partners to find a way to use the price cap to safeguard Ukraine against the Russian war machine while pushing the Kremlin to engage in a peace process in good faith.

The UK government was approached for comment.

The cap effectively barred all G7 and EU nations from buying Russian barrels above $60 – or providing shipping, insurance, brokering, trade finance and other support services for any deals done above this price.

But Russia was able to use a series of loopholes including the use of a shadow fleet of ageing oil tankers to carry cargoes at the usual market rates.

The cap applied to about half of Russia’s seaborne oil cargoes when it was first introduced, according to analysis by the commodity data provider S&P Global Platts, but about 80% was sold beyond the reaches of the gap by the end of last year.

“The cap is currently meaningless,” said Clayton Seigle, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. He told the Guardian that the G7 should consider “tightening the screws” on the Kremlin by lowering the price below $60.

“There might be a willingness within the G7 to do this to punish Moscow, especially because there are no real fears about leaving the oil market under-supplied,” he added.

Tom Keatinge, a director at the Royal United Services Institute, a defence and security thinktank, said: “It’s time to revisit the whole way in which we try to restrict Russia’s income from hydrocarbons. Whatever anyone might say, it doesn’t really seem to be working.”

Global oil market prices tumbled by almost a fifth in the days since the US president set out sweeping global trade tariffs amid fears that a trade war could trigger a global economic recession which would sap demand for energy.

The international oil benchmark fell from almost $75 a barrel last week to under $60 on Wednesday. The price climbed to above $65 on Thursday after Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs, aside from those levelled against China.

An Israeli airstrike destroyed parts of a hospital in Gaza City early on Sunday, as Israel continued its military offensive in the war-battered Palestinian territory and cut off access to the southern city of Rafah.

The Palestinian civil defence agency said Israel’s air force fired missiles at al-Ahli hospital, also known as the Baptist or Ahli Arab hospital, at around 2am. It was the only hospital still fully functioning in Gaza City after the destruction of medical facilities in the northern area of the strip.

The agency said the bombing “led to the destruction of the surgery building and the oxygen generation station for the intensive care units”.

There were no reports of casualties but the Gaza health ministry said one child died during the rushed evacuation as doctors were unable to provide urgent care.

The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, was among those who condemned the strike, calling it “deplorable”. “Israel’s attacks on medical facilities have comprehensively degraded access to healthcare in Gaza,” Lammy said.

Hospitals, which are protected under international humanitarian law, have repeatedly been hit by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on 7 October 2023. The Israeli military has accused Hamas of embedding military operations in hospitals and civilian buildings, which the group has denied.

Al-Ahli hospital is run by the Anglican church in Jerusalem. In a statement, the episcopal diocese of Jerusalem said it was appalled at the airstrike, and said it was the fifth time the hospital had been targeted.

In a statement confirming the strike, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) alleged the hospital was a command and control centre used by Hamas.

“The compound was used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops,” the military said. In a statement in response, Hamas denied the allegations, calling them lies by the IDF “to “justify its savage crimes”.

According to witnesses, doctors and patients were given less than 20 minutes’ warning to evacuate the building before the strike. Video footage circulating online appeared to show people fleeing the building as it was engulfed in smoke and flames. The IDF said it had taken steps to “mitigate harm to civilians” and issued “advance warnings”.

Dr Moataz Harara, the head of the hospital’s emergency department, said of the evacuation: “The scene was heartbreaking and painful. You could see patients walking out on foot or being carried on beds, all of them filled with terror and fear etched on their faces. Women and children were screaming and crying.”

Harara said the hospital had previously been treating between 300 and 500 patients a day, on top of 120 inpatients. But he confirmed Sunday’s attack had left the hospital with a “complete inability to operate” and meant it could no longer accept any new patients. The radiology room and laboratories had also been devastated, he added.

Harara said growing numbers in Gaza were facing a “humanitarian disaster and famine” at the same time as medical facilities were coming under attack.

Since the breakdown of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in March, Gaza’s health sector has been further crippled by a blockade on humanitarian aid, including medical supplies, by the Israeli government.

It has left people facing acute shortages of food, water and medicines, a tactic that rights groups say amounts to a war crime. Israel maintains that enough essential medical supplies have entered Gaza.

Across the strip, Israel continued to escalate its military offensive and vowed to seize large parts of Gaza to put pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages and accept new ceasefire terms.

On Saturday, Israel said it had completed its takeover of a new “security zone” that cut off the southern city of Rafah from the rest of Gaza, part of a wider Israeli operation to establish and expand a security buffer zone across southernmost Gaza where Palestinians are banned from entering.

The defence minister, Israel Katz, announced that Israel’s military had seized the corridor between Rafah and Khan Younis, which he referred to as the “Morag axis”, giving Israel effective control of the area stretching from the Egyptian border to Rafah. Evacuation orders were also given for several neighbourhoods in Khan Younis on Saturday night.

The prewar population of Rafah was about 275,000, which earlier this year expanded to an estimated 1.4 million as Palestinians were displaced from north and central Gaza by Israeli security operations.

But last week Israel once again issued sweeping evacuation orders for all those staying in Rafah, displacing swathes of Gaza’s population of 2 million people. In the last three weeks alone, dozens of evacuation orders have been issued and 400,000 Palestinians told to move, according to the UN.

On Friday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said more than two-thirds of Gaza was either under active displacement orders or designated as “no-go” zones, where humanitarian groups cannot operate freely. The areas of Gaza that remain habitable continue to shrink and most people are living packed together in squalid tents or the rubble of their homes.

The establishment of Israeli control over crucial corridors in the south and northern areas of Gaza, as well as the expanding security buffer zone, means Israel now controls more than 50% of the strip.

Katz vowed to continue to expand operations “vigorously” across the rest of Gaza. “IDF activity will soon expand strongly to additional locations throughout most of Gaza and you will have to evacuate the fighting zones,” he said.

The statement by Katz urged Palestinians to stand up and remove Hamas and release the remaining hostages, saying: “This is the only way to stop the war.” There was no immediate Hamas response.

Since the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023 on southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people, Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 50,000 people, most of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, will visit Vietnam on Monday as he begins a tour of south-east Asia where he will seek to strengthen ties with neighbouring countries amid an escalating trade war.

Xi will visit Vietnam from Monday, before travelling to Malaysia and Cambodia, a high profile tour that Chinese officials have described as being of “major importance”.

China will probably use the visit to emphasise that it is a stable partner – contrasting itself with Washington which imposed, then suspended, punishing tariffs across south-east Asia, an export-reliant region, in an announcement that sent shockwaves through global markets.

Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse, and Cambodia, where the garments and footwear sector is crucial to the economy, were among the worst hit by US tariffs, set at 46% and 49% respectively.

It is expected that China will sign dozens of deals with Vietnam on Monday including possible investment and cooperation arrangements to develop its railway network.

On Sunday, China called on the US to “completely cancel” its 145% tariffs, which remain in place for Chinese imports to the US, except in relation to consumer electronics and key chipmaking equipment.

“We urge the US to … take a big step to correct its mistakes, completely cancel the wrong practice of ‘reciprocal tariffs’ and return to the right path of mutual respect,” a commerce ministry spokesperson said in a statement. Retaliatory Chinese-imposed tariffs of 125% on US goods took effect Saturday.

During Xi’s tour of neighbouring countries, China will probably “try to position itself as the responsible leader of the rules based trade system while painting the US as a rogue nation intent on taking a sledgehammer to trade relationships,” said Stephen Olson, a former US trade negotiator, who is now a visiting senior fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.

It is unclear if meaningful, concrete agreements would emerge from the meetings, but they would be symbolically important, Olson added.

For officials in Hanoi, the visit will form part of a delicate balancing act between China and the US, both of which are important economic partners.

The US is a crucial export market for south-east Asia and a security partner that serves as a counterbalance to China’s assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea. However trade in the region is closely intertwined with China, with countries from the regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, counting as the biggest recipient of Chinese exports last year, according to China’s customs data.

There are concerns in the region that the 145% tariff imposed on China by the US could lead to a flood of cheap Chinese goods to nearby countries, undermining local industry.

Vietnam, and many others in the region, have traditionally sought to avoid taking sides between the US and China, and will want to avoid antagonising either party, especially as it tries to persuade Washington to lower its 46% tariff.

Vietnam, where US exports account for 30% of GDP, had already made several concessions in the run-up to the tariff announcement, and was shocked by the severity of the tariff announced earlier this month.

It has since sent the deputy prime minister, Ho Duc Phoc, to Washington, offered to remove all tariffs on US imports and promised to buy more US goods, including defence and security products. Vietnam is also preparing to crack down on Chinese goods being shipped from its territory to the US and tighten controls on sensitive exports to China, according to a Reuters report. This includes stricter rules relating to the export of dual-use goods such as semiconductors, which can be used for both civilian and military purposes, it reported.

Vietnam was considered by many to be a winner in the trade war that occurred under the last Trump administration, as many companies moved there from China to skirt tariffs imposed by the US. However, this caused Vietnam’s trade surplus with the US to surpass $123bn (£94bn), leaving it especially vulnerable in the latest tariff announcement.

Vietnam, a communist one party state, has set an ambitious target of becoming a high-income nation by 2045 – a goal driven by its exports which would be derailed by the 46% tariff.

Cambodia and Malaysia are also seeking to negotiate with Trump. The US tariffs could devastate Cambodia’s garment industry, which employs 750,000 workers. Cambodia is especially exposed as exports to the US account for 25% of the country’s GDP.

While Xi last visited Vietnam in December, he has not travelled to Cambodia and Malaysia in nine and 12 years respectively. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, said the visit to Malaysia would mark “an important milestone” for the two countries, while describing Cambodia as an “iron-clad friend”.

The Malaysian communications minister, Fahmi Fadzil, said Xi’s visit was “part of the government’s efforts … to see better trade relations with various countries including China”.

Cambodia is one of China’s strongest allies in the region and it recently announced the completion of a China-backed project to upgrade a major naval base.

The country’s prime minister, Hun Manet, who took the reins from his dictator father Hun Sen in 2023, said at the recent inauguration of a Chinese-funded road that “Cambodian-Chinese ties have not changed”.

Xi’s visits form part of a wider charm offensive pursued by China in the wake of the trade war. The Chinese leader also vowed to deepen his country’s strategic partnership with Indonesia in a call with the country’s president, Prabowo Subianto, on Sunday, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.

On Friday, Xi told the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, during a meeting in Beijing that China and the EU should “jointly oppose unilateral acts of bullying”, Xinhua reported.

China’s premier, Li Qiang, also spoke by phone with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, last week, in talks that emphasised the responsibility of both parties to support a “strong reformed trading system, free, fair and founded on a level playing field”.

The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders drew a record-breaking crowd at his rally in Los Angeles on Saturday, which included musical acts from Joan Baez and Neil Young, who encouraged the crowd to “take America back”.

Sanders’s Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go from Here tour has been drawing massive crowds. Aided by the progressive New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the team set the record in Tempe, Arizona, for biggest-ever political rally in that state three weeks ago. In Denver, Colorado, more than 34,000 people showed up – a career-high crowd for the 83-year-old Sanders. Saturday in Los Angeles saw another record: at least 36,000 people packed a downtown park.

A host of musical acts kicked off the high-energy event, including the indie rock band The Red Pears, Maggie Rogers, Indigo de Souza, and legends Baez and Young.

On a perfect LA day with a gentle breeze and blue sky, Young, wearing all black, performed for the crowd before introducing Ocasio-Cortez, who was met with the wild applause usually reserved for a rock star.

Ocasio-Cortez, 35, told the crowd at Gloria Molina Grand Park – a space named after the trailblazing Angeleno often credited for paving the way for women and Latinos in LA politics – that “power, greed and corruption are taking over our country like never before”. She named some California lawmakers who have supported recent Trump policies, including Bakersfield representative David Valadao and representative Young Kim of Orange county.

The Raise gospel choir sang out “power to the people”, and Sanders took the stage. “We are living in a moment where the Republican party to a large degree has become a cult of the individual, obeying Trump’s every wish,” Sanders told the crowd, adding that the Trump administration is now “plotting how they can give $1.1tn in tax breaks to the rich”.

The politician’s critique of the administration – and the corrupting influence of big money and billionaires in US politics – lasted more than 40 minutes. The message has taken on a new resonance in the second Trump administration, as Americans have watched Elon Musk take a chainsaw to the federal government and threatening popular safety-net programs like social security and Medicare.

These are the issues that brought out Cindy and Victor Villanuevo. Cindy has battled multiple sclerosis for the past decade. “I’m here because I’m disgusted about what Trump is doing to science. It’s a disgrace. When you cut funding, there’s no hope for any of us,” said the Buena Park mother.

Her sister, Rose Matthews, a retired teacher, is concerned about social security, for people who work at veterans’ affairs and for veterans’ benefits. “I know the folks at the Long Beach VA very well because my husband battled ALS for four years,” she said. “The work they do with the vets is incredible and much needed. Now I’m worried that’s going away. We can’t just let this happen.”

Ali Wolff and Myylo Lewis took the 94 bus from Silver Lake to attend. They said the bus had been packed with Bernie supporters – and it felt good.

“It’s terrifying what’s been happening,” said Wolff. “It’s a relief just being here with so many like-minded people.”

Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie are the “closest thing to a version of America you actually want to live in”, said Lewis.

Sanders, an independent who votes with Democrats, launched the tour in late February, offering Democratic voters an outlet for their fury and grief at a moment when most of their leaders in Washington appeared disoriented by the speed of Trump’s second-term power grabs. The Vermont senator has held events in big cities like Denver and Phoenix, while also targeting Republican-held districts that voted for Joe Biden in 2020, as Democrats contemplate a path back to power in 2026.

Ocasio-Cortez joined Sanders for part of his tour last month, raising questions about her political aspirations and the future of the progressive movement he has been building since before she was born. On the stage in Los Angeles, progressive congressmembers Pramila Jayapal of Washington state and Ro Khanna of California, as well as many union leaders representing teachers, nurses, longshoremen and healthcare workers all addressed the crowd. Eunissess Hernandez, who represents LA’s first city council district, gave a particularly powerful address, saying the Trump administration was trying to divide people and get them to blame each other for their problems instead of blaming the people who are “actually profiting from our pain”.

Sanders later made a surprise, onstage cameo at the Coachella music festival in Indio, California, on Saturday evening, urging young people to “stand up to fight for justice”.

“The future of what happens to America is dependent upon your generation,” said Sanders, as he introduced a performance from singer-songwriter Clairo.

Sanders’s western tour will continue with stops in Utah, Idaho and Montana. The tour will return to California on Tuesday for events in Folsom and Bakersfield, a Republican stronghold, which has one of the highest levels of Medi-Cal enrollments in the state. The agricultural community, which is in Kern county, was also the locale of a January immigration raid that resulted in 78 arrests many contend were a result of shocking and unlawful racial profiling. Sanders railed against the raid, describing it as the US government “disappearing people”.

The UK government is “greatly concerned” and wants an account of why the Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse was denied entry to Hong Kong on a family visit to meet her three-month-old grandson for the first time.

Hobhouse, 65, the MP for Bath, said she was held at Hong Kong airport on arrival on Thursday, told she was being refused entry and put on a flight back to the UK five hours later.

The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, has called on the foreign secretary, David Lammy, to “meet urgently with Hobhouse to discuss her case, and summon the Chinese ambassador to provide a full account of why a British MP and her family have been treated in such an appalling way”.

The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme: “On this particular situation, yes, we are greatly concerned and we need an account of exactly what has happened.

“There hasn’t been an account provided at this stage. Obviously if Wera has been denied access because she’s a British MP, that would be something we take very seriously.”

Hobhouse told the Sunday Times her passport was confiscated, she was asked about her job and the purpose of her trip, her luggage was searched and swabbed, then she was escorted to the boarding gate by four immigration officers.

Her son, a university academic living in Hong Kong since 2019, was waiting in the arrivals hall. Her husband, William, a businessman, was allowed entry but chose also to return to the UK. She is believed to be the first MP refused entry since the 1997 handover of Hong Kong.

Hobhouse, who has never visited Hong Kong, said she was given no explanation but believes it was because she is an MP. She is a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), an international group of politicians that scrutinises Beijing’s approach to human rights and has criticised the crackdown on free speech in Hong Kong.

In a joint statement, other British MPs who are members of Ipac urged the government and the Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, to “take a very strong stand in addressing this affront to democratic principles and personal freedoms”.

They said: “Detained and deported without explanation, Hobhouse’s exclusion appears linked to her criticism of Beijing’s human rights record, and possibly her membership of this network.”

The incident coincided with UK ministers visiting China and Hong Kong to develop trade and investment links. “That the Hong Kong authorities felt able to deny entry to a sitting parliamentarian while simultaneously hosting UK ministers is an insult to parliament,” the MPs said.

“That they appear to have done so because of an objection to something a UK MP has said in the legitimate exercise of her duties is a challenge to our core values as a nation.”

Lammy has said he would raise the issue with the authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing, saying it was “deeply concerning to hear that an MP on a personal trip has been refused entry to Hong Kong”.

Hobhouse told the Sunday Times: “When I was given the decision my voice was shaking and I was just saying: ‘Why, please explain to me.’ They never gave me an explanation. That was so cruel. I just said: ‘I want to see my grandson. I want to cuddle him.’”

She added: “I am obviously devastated. Having to fly back, it was so hard. I didn’t cry but I was very close to tears.”

Hobhouse said there were far more outspoken critics of the Chinese Communist party than her, and she had been careful “to ensure that none of my political things would interfere with my private visit”.

China has previously banned several British MPs from entering the country, including the Ipac members Iain Duncan Smith and Nusrat Ghani, and the former security minister Tom Tugendhat.

Lammy and the Foreign Office minister Catherine West are said to be in contact with Hobhouse.

The Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Daisy Cooper, posted on X questioning if Kemi Badenoch would “say anything about a British MP arbitrarily blocked from entering Hong Kong?”, adding: “Or will she fail to, like she failed to back MPs blocked from entering Israel. Why won’t she stand up for our parliamentarians?”

Cooper’s post is thought to be in response to comments last week when the Conservative leader faced criticism after saying she respected Israel’s decision to deny Labour MPs Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang entry. Badenoch had said in a post on X that “unlike China, Israel is our ally”.

The UK government is “greatly concerned” and wants an account of why the Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse was denied entry to Hong Kong on a family visit to meet her three-month-old grandson for the first time.

Hobhouse, 65, the MP for Bath, said she was held at Hong Kong airport on arrival on Thursday, told she was being refused entry and put on a flight back to the UK five hours later.

The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, has called on the foreign secretary, David Lammy, to “meet urgently with Hobhouse to discuss her case, and summon the Chinese ambassador to provide a full account of why a British MP and her family have been treated in such an appalling way”.

The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme: “On this particular situation, yes, we are greatly concerned and we need an account of exactly what has happened.

“There hasn’t been an account provided at this stage. Obviously if Wera has been denied access because she’s a British MP, that would be something we take very seriously.”

Hobhouse told the Sunday Times her passport was confiscated, she was asked about her job and the purpose of her trip, her luggage was searched and swabbed, then she was escorted to the boarding gate by four immigration officers.

Her son, a university academic living in Hong Kong since 2019, was waiting in the arrivals hall. Her husband, William, a businessman, was allowed entry but chose also to return to the UK. She is believed to be the first MP refused entry since the 1997 handover of Hong Kong.

Hobhouse, who has never visited Hong Kong, said she was given no explanation but believes it was because she is an MP. She is a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), an international group of politicians that scrutinises Beijing’s approach to human rights and has criticised the crackdown on free speech in Hong Kong.

In a joint statement, other British MPs who are members of Ipac urged the government and the Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, to “take a very strong stand in addressing this affront to democratic principles and personal freedoms”.

They said: “Detained and deported without explanation, Hobhouse’s exclusion appears linked to her criticism of Beijing’s human rights record, and possibly her membership of this network.”

The incident coincided with UK ministers visiting China and Hong Kong to develop trade and investment links. “That the Hong Kong authorities felt able to deny entry to a sitting parliamentarian while simultaneously hosting UK ministers is an insult to parliament,” the MPs said.

“That they appear to have done so because of an objection to something a UK MP has said in the legitimate exercise of her duties is a challenge to our core values as a nation.”

Lammy has said he would raise the issue with the authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing, saying it was “deeply concerning to hear that an MP on a personal trip has been refused entry to Hong Kong”.

Hobhouse told the Sunday Times: “When I was given the decision my voice was shaking and I was just saying: ‘Why, please explain to me.’ They never gave me an explanation. That was so cruel. I just said: ‘I want to see my grandson. I want to cuddle him.’”

She added: “I am obviously devastated. Having to fly back, it was so hard. I didn’t cry but I was very close to tears.”

Hobhouse said there were far more outspoken critics of the Chinese Communist party than her, and she had been careful “to ensure that none of my political things would interfere with my private visit”.

China has previously banned several British MPs from entering the country, including the Ipac members Iain Duncan Smith and Nusrat Ghani, and the former security minister Tom Tugendhat.

Lammy and the Foreign Office minister Catherine West are said to be in contact with Hobhouse.

The Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Daisy Cooper, posted on X questioning if Kemi Badenoch would “say anything about a British MP arbitrarily blocked from entering Hong Kong?”, adding: “Or will she fail to, like she failed to back MPs blocked from entering Israel. Why won’t she stand up for our parliamentarians?”

Cooper’s post is thought to be in response to comments last week when the Conservative leader faced criticism after saying she respected Israel’s decision to deny Labour MPs Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang entry. Badenoch had said in a post on X that “unlike China, Israel is our ally”.

Peter Navarro, a top trade adviser to Donald Trump, said he and Elon Musk are “great” after the president’s multi-billionaire business adviser publicly called him “a moron” who was “dumber than a sack of bricks”.

“I’ve been called worse,” Navarro said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press in some of his most extensive remarks about the insults Musk directed at him days earlier. Praising Musk’s role in the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), Navarro added: “Everything’s fine with Elon.”

Navarro’s evident attempt to be magnanimous came after Musk criticized Trump’s proposals for global tariffs, which the president has since set at 10% on all countries, with some nations receiving higher trade levies.

Navarro has had a central role in devising the tariffs. And social media posts from Musk on Monday targeted Navarro, saying he “truly is a moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks”. Musk had also previously said Navarro “ain’t built shit”.

Navarro, for his part, had called the chief of the electrical vehicle manufacturer Tesla a “car assembler” rather than a maker.

Asked by Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker on Sunday about that back-and-forth, Navarro remarked: “Elon and I are great. It’s not an issue.”

Welker asked Navarro if Musk’s criticism of the tariffs that Navarro helped develop won with Trump given that the president paused higher trade levies for most countries for 90 days on Wednesday.

Navarro would not directly answer. Instead, he alluded to his having served four months in prison beginning in March 2024 because he refused to comply with a subpoena from members of Congress who were investigating the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol that was carried out by Trump supporters after his first presidency ended in defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

“Nobody should have to come into this government and have that happen or have to go to jail like I did,” said Navarro, who was released from prison in July and then appointed as senior counselor for trade and manufacturing at the White House after Trump won his second presidency in November’s election.

Navarro had also dismissed Musk’s insults in an interview on CNN’s The Arena with Kasie Hunt.

“It’s no problem,” Navarro told CNN. “It’s like – it’s no problem.”

Musk has not commented.

Asked for her input on the feud between Musk and Navarro, the White House spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, said: “Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue.”

Ecuadorians go to the polls on Sunday in a vote seen as a referendum on a “war on drugs” offensive that has led to numerous human rights violations, as the incumbent Daniel Noboa faces the leftist Luisa González in a tightly contested runoff.

Noboa, 37, edged out González, 47, in the first round in February by just 16,746 votes (0.17%) from a 13.7 million electorate.

Polls now indicate a statistical tie in the rematch of Ecuador’s 2023 runoff, when the then little-known heir to a banana fortune unexpectedly won a snap election to complete the term of former president Guillermo Lasso, who had dissolved Congress and stepped down to avoid impeachment.

In his first months in office, Noboa declared an “internal armed conflict” and placed the armed forces at the centre of his mano dura (iron fist) policy against drug-trafficking gangs.

After an initial drop in crime, reports of human rights violations mounted, and violence levels soon returned to previous highs: Ecuador still has the highest homicide rate in Latin America, and the figures for January and February are the highest on record.

Last month, one of the most violent massacres in the country’s history took place in Socio Vivienda II, an impoverished neighbourhood in north-west Guayaquil, when 22 people were killed in a confrontation between rival gang factions.

“Everything is worse now,” said María, a Socio Vivienda II resident who asked not to be identified by her full name. “We’ve been abandoned by the state and left without the rule of law,” she said, adding that dozens of residents still had not been able to return home because of ongoing fighting.

But violence is far from the only issue affecting Noboa’s popularity. An energy crisis led to scheduled blackouts of up to 14 hours, GDP fell by 1.5% and the poverty rate rose from 26% to 28% between 2023 and 2024.

“Life has become unbearable,” said María. “You only eat once a day, and then you have to save a little for the afternoon so the children have something to eat. We just want to live with dignity,” she added.

In a YouGov survey commissioned by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), 61% of respondents said their economic situation and personal security had not improved since Noboa took office.

“The economy is not doing better, security is not doing better, people are facing blackouts, and they’re also witnessing a deterioration of the rule of law, with growing disregard for the constitution,” said Pedro Labayen Herrera, a researcher at CEPR specialising in Ecuador.

The political analyst Matías Abad Merchán said: “Despite Noboa having been in power for a short time, a small anti-Noboa segment of the electorate has indeed emerged – one that genuinely feels the president displays certain authoritarian tendencies.”

The president refused to step down during the electoral campaign period, as required by the constitution.

He also sparked an unprecedented diplomatic crisis by ordering police and military forces to storm the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest Jorge Glas, once a vice-president under the former leftist president Rafael Correa.

Correa – who has lived in Belgium since leaving office and was convicted in 2020 by an Ecuadorian court for corruption during his presidency – is González’s political patron.

Noboa, on the other hand, has made efforts to showcase support from the US president: the Ecuadorian leader left his country in the middle of the campaign to travel to Florida, where he posed for a photo with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

The incumbent has become embroiled in several controversies in the race’s final stretch.

He announced a “strategic alliance” with Erik Prince – the Trump-aligned founder of the controversial private military firm Blackwater – to supposedly reinforce his “war” on crime.

In early April, the Brazilian investigative outlet Pública revealed that at least three times cocaine has been found hidden in banana containers being sent to Europe by a company in which Noboa and his brother are the majority shareholders.

During a presidential debate, Noboa denied any wrongdoing and said that the family’s banana company was cooperating with investigators.

After the first round, Noboa alleged – without providing evidence – that there had been “irregularities”, a claim promptly rejected by observers from the European Union and the Organization of American States. For the runoff, he stated that he would only accept defeat “if there was no indication of fraud”.

“So if things don’t go his way, I think there’s a real risk that he won’t accept the results,” said Herrera.

On Wednesday, 14 Democratic members of the US Congress sent a letter to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, expressing concern that Noboa might not accept the results if he loses: “It’s therefore imperative that you send a clear message to the government of Ecuador and other Ecuadorian leaders emphasising the need for a free, fair and transparent electoral process, and noting that, if electoral observers determine these conditions to be met, the outcome of the election must be respected,” they wrote.

The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, should not offer “false hope” to families by boasting he can figure out what causes autism as soon as September, says the physician who resigned as the nation’s top vaccine official amid what he called anti-vaccination misinformation from the Trump administration cabinet member.

In an interview during which he alluded to his help helming Operation Warp Speed – the initiative that took only about nine months to develop, manufacture and distribute the vaccines protecting the public from Covid-19 – Dr Peter Marks warned that autism “is an incredibly complicated issue”.

“If you just ask me, as a scientist, is it possible to get the answer that quickly? I don’t see any possible way,” Marks said on CBS’s Face the Nation in a pre-recorded discussion airing Sunday.

Marks also told host Margaret Brennan: “There are people, probably, who are hearing me now who know that I cared for leukemia patients for a significant number of years. Giving people false hope is something you should never do.

“You can be incredibly supportive of people, but giving them false hope is wrong.”

Marks’s comments on the topic stemmed from Kennedy’s recent announcement that the Trump administration had launched “a massive testing and research effort” about autism through the National Institutes of Health.

“By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic, and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures,” Kennedy subsequently said.

Marks, in his conversation with Brennan, cited past research that established that the broad spectrum of neurodevelopmental conditions referred to as autism involve genetic and environmental factors. He said the higher number of autism cases that have been reported over the years almost certainly results from improved diagnosis rather than an increase in prevalence.

Nonetheless, appearing on the Trump administration-friendly Fox News network, Kennedy asserted that increasing autism rates were the product of “an environmental toxin”. He said vaccines were one of the factors the administration would explore, though more than two dozen studies have refuted claims that they may be a possible cause for autism.

Marks countered: “I will not accept as a cause of autism … any of the … vaccines we use because we’ve studied them in so many millions of children.”

He had served as the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official since 2016 before his resignation took effect on 5 April. His resignation letter took verbal aim at Kennedy, who by then had spent years sowing doubt about the efficacy and safety of vaccines that protect communities from preventable diseases.

“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” said Marks’s resignation letter, which he reportedly turned in when given the choice to either do so or be fired by the Trump administration.

“Undermining confidence in well-established vaccines that have met the high standards for quality, safety and effectiveness that have been in place for decades at FDA is irresponsible, detrimental to public health and a clear danger to our nation’s health, safety and security.”

Two days before Marks’s departure, an eight-year-old girl from the rural west Texas community of Seminole died with measles. It was the second measles-related death involving a child from Seminole in about five weeks after a six-year-old girl died in February.

An adult in Lea county, New Mexico, died with measles between the times the two girls from Seminole died. None of the three was vaccinated against measles, and they were the first people in the US to die from the highly contagious respiratory disease since 2015.

Measles had been declared eliminated from the US in 2000. But the disease has recently been spreading in communities that are skeptical of vaccines and therefore under-vaccinated.

Kennedy has failed to give a full-throated endorsement of the extremely effective, safe measles vaccine – even after traveling to Seminole to visit the families of the girls who died from the illness. He recently told CBS that “people should get the measles vaccine” – but that, in his opinion, “the government should not be mandating those”.

Meanwhile, Kennedy has sought to spotlight unconventional practitioners who have eschewed the measles vaccine in favor of vitamins and cod-liver oil.

Marks for his part has blamed the measles deaths in the US on Kennedy and his staff.

“This is the epitome of an absolute needless death,” Marks told the Associated Press after the second pediatric measles fatality in Seminole. “These kids should get vaccinated – that’s how you prevent people from dying of measles.”

Kennedy on Friday went to the FDA’s headquarters in Maryland and, without mentioning the Trump administration’s elimination of 3,500 jobs there, reportedly urged workers to resist being a part of the “deep state” – meaning the shadow government that Donald Trump’s administration conspiratorially claims has worked to thwart the president.

Multiple media accounts say Kennedy’s remarks were quickly leaked to the press, and some FDA employees walked out before he was finished speaking.

The government could target parts of China’s security apparatus under new foreign influence rules, the Guardian has learnt.

Ministers are considering including parts of the Chinese state accused of interference activities on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme (Firs).

China as a whole is not expected to be included on the enhanced tier, according to several people briefed on the discussions, but government sources stressed that no final decision about its status had been taken.

Firs, which will launch on 1 July, will require anyone in the UK acting for a foreign power or entity to declare their activities to the government. The scheme will operate on two tiers. The enhanced tier will cover countries and entities deemed a particular risk, which will require extra disclosures.

Ministers have announced that Iran and Russia will be on the enhanced tier, meaning anyone directed by those two countries to carry out activities in the UK will have to declare it or face five years in prison.

The government has yet to say anything about China’s place in Firs, a matter which is subject to internal debate by ministers and officials weighing up security concerns against the economic benefits of closer ties with Beijing.

Financial services companies have privately argued against including China on the enhanced tier on the basis that they would have to fill out burdensome paperwork to justify business meetings.

In a effort to strengthen security without compromising economic ties, ministers are considering including specific parts of the Chinese political system that have been accused of interference in the west on the enhanced tier.

Entities under consideration include Beijing’s Ministry of State Security, which is its intelligence service, the United Front Work Department, often referred to as the international arm of the Chinese Communist party (CCP), and the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military. The government could also target the CCP as a whole.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We do not comment on security matters.”

MI5’s director general, Ken McCallum, said in a 2022 speech that “the Chinese intelligence services, or bodies within the CCP itself – such as its United Front Work Department (UFWD) – are mounting patient, well-funded, deceptive campaigns to buy and exert influence” in the UK.

McCallum said the UFWD aimed “to amplify pro-CCP voices, and silence those that question the CCP’s legitimacy or authority”. He said its activities had “very real consequences in communities here in the UK” and that “it needs to be challenged”.

Conservative MPs have called for China to be included in the enhanced tier. The shadow security minister, Tom Tugendhat, told the Commons last year that “the advice from MI5 was very, very clear. If China isn’t in the enhanced tier it’s not worth having”.

There are long-running tensions over the issue between the Home Office and the Treasury, which is relaying concerns about the potential burden on businesses.

Labour has pursued a rapprochement with Beijing since taking office. The foreign secretary, David Lammy, and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have made trips to China in an effort to maintain positive economic relations despite security concerns.

Douglas Alexander, a trade minister, became the latest government figure to visit China last week for talks amid the intensifying trade dispute between Beijing and Washington. China is the UK’s fifth-largest trading partner.

The government is also carrying out a cross-Whitehall audit of the UK-China relationship, which was a Labour manifesto pledge.

A 63-year-old British man has died after falling from a viewing platform overlooking the historic aqueduct of Segovia in central Spain, according to local authorities.

In a brief statement on Saturday, officials described the man as a British passport holder who had arrived in the city on Thursday with two other people.

Initial reports suggested he had been sitting on the ledge of the stairs leading to the lookout point and fell backwards after losing his balance, the local newspaper El Norte de Castilla reported.

City officials said the man, who has yet to be named, fell from the metres-high viewpoint shortly after 1pm local time (1200 BST) on Saturday. Emergency officials said they rushed to the scene and attempted to revive him.

The incident took place at a lookout point known as Postigo del Consuelo, which is tucked into remains of the medieval walls that surround the city. The small viewing platform has long attracted throngs of tourists and local people for the sweeping views it offers of the city and aqueduct.

With two tiers of arches and stretching more than 800 metres in length, the Roman aqueduct is believed to have been built around AD50. It was used until the 1970s to channel water to the city from nearby mountains. Declared a Unesco world heritage site in 1985, it stands at more than 28 metres above ground at its highest point.

As is customary in Spain with deaths believed to be accidental, judicial officials have launched an investigation and are gathering testimonies and evidence to confirm the circumstances of the death.

When contacted on Sunday, a spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office said: “We are supporting the family of a British national who has died in Spain, and are in touch with the local authorities.”