Maryland’s Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen says the government of El Salvador has denied his request to visit Kilmar Ábrego García, his constituent who was wrongly deported to the Central American country last month.

Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday with the intention of meeting Ábrego García at the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), where US authorities have said that the Maryland resident is being held along with others deported at Donald Trump’s orders.

The senator’s visit came days after Trump and El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, refused to take steps to return Ábrego García to the United States, even though the US supreme court last week said the administration must “facilitate” his return.

At a press conference in El Salvador, Van Hollen said that he had met with the country’s vice-president, Félix Ulloa, who told him it would not be possible for him to speak with Ábrego García in person or on the phone.

“I asked the vice-president if I could meet with Mr Ábrego García. And he said, well, you need to make earlier provisions to go visit Cecot,” Van Hollen said. “I said, I’m not interested at this moment in taking a tour of Cecot, I just want to meet with Mr Ábrego García. He said he was not able to make that happen.”

Van Hollen said he offered to come back next week to meet with Ábrego García, but Ulloa “said he couldn’t promise that either”. The vice-president also said he could not arrange for Ábrego García’s family to speak to him by phone. When the senator asked if he could do so, Ulloa told him that the US embassy must make that request, Van Hollen said.

“We have an unjust situation here. The Trump administration is lying about Ábrego García,” said Van Hollen, who said his constituent had been wrongly named as a member of the MS-13 criminal gang. The Trump administration has admitted that an “administrative error” led to the deportation of Ábrego García to his native country, despite an immigration judge granting him protected status in 2019.

Van Hollen said that he had asked Ulloa if he would consider releasing Ábrego García, to which the vice-president replied by reiterating Bukele’s comments from earlier this week that he would not “smuggle” the deportee back into the United States.

The senator’s visit came as Democrats have seized on the deportation and the Trump administration’s refusal to take any steps to return him, in apparent defiance of the supreme court, to argue that the president is plunging the United States into a constitutional crisis by defying the courts.

The White House has attacked Van Hollen for his visit to the country, releasing a statement on Wednesday that touted the arrests of suspected undocumented immigrant criminals and saying: “Where was his concern for Maryland constituents put at risk by the many other illegal immigrants allowed to roam free until now?”

In an appearance on Fox News, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said: “Rather than taking care of the constituents in his state, the victims of illegal crime in his state, he’s going to run to El Salvador to protect an MS-13 terrorist. It’s just disgusting.”

Several other Democratic lawmakers have signaled that they would like to visit El Salvador to check on Ábrego García, including Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic caucus, and Robert Garcia and Maxwell Alejandro Frost, both members of the House oversight committee.

“I can assure the president, the vice-president, that I may be the first United States senator to visit El Salvador on this issue, but there will be more and there will be more members of Congress coming,” Van Hollen said.

“This is an unsustainable and unjust moment, and so it cannot continue this way.”

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that there was probable cause to hold Trump officials in criminal contempt for violating his temporary injunction that barred the use of the Alien Enemies Act wartime power to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.

In a scathing 46-page opinion, James Boasberg, the chief US district judge for Washington, wrote that senior Trump officials could either return the people who were supposed to have been protected by his injunction, or face contempt proceedings.

The judge also warned that if the administration tried to stonewall his contempt proceedings or instructed the justice department to decline to file contempt charges against the most responsible officials, he would appoint an independent prosecutor himself.

“The court does not reach such conclusions lightly or hastily,” Boasberg wrote. “Indeed, it has given defendants ample opportunity to explain their actions. None of their responses have been satisfactory.”

The threat of contempt proceedings marked a major escalation in the showdown over Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members, without normal due process, in his expansive interpretation of his executive power.

It came one day after another federal judge, in a separate case involving the wrongful deportation of a man to El Salvador, said she would force the administration to detail what steps it had taken to comply with a US supreme court order compelling his return.

In that case, US district judge Paula Xinis ordered the administration to answer questions in depositions and in writing about whether it had actually sought to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Ábrego García, who was protected from being sent to El Salvador.

Taken together, the decisions represented a developing effort by the federal judiciary to hold the White House accountable for its apparent willingness to flout adverse court orders and test the limits of the legal system.

At issue in the case overseen by Boasberg is the Trump administration’s apparent violation of his temporary restraining order last month blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act – and crucially to recall planes that had already departed.

The administration never recalled the planes and argued, after the fact, that they did not follow Boasberg’s order to recall the planes because he gave that instruction verbally and it was not included in his later written order.

In subsequent hearings, lawyers for the Trump administration also suggested that even if Boasberg had included the directive in his written order, by the time he had granted the temporary restraining order, the deportation flights were outside US airspace and therefore beyond the judge’s jurisdiction.

Boasberg excoriated that excuse and others in his opinion, writing that under the so-called collateral-bar rule, if a party is charged with acting in contempt for disobeying a court order, it cannot raise the possible legal invalidity of the order as a defense.

“If Defendants believed – correctly or not – that the Order encroached upon the President’s Article II powers, they had two options: they could seek judicial review of the injunction but not disobey it, or they could disobey it but forfeit any right to raise their legal argument as a defense,” Boasberg wrote.

Boasberg also rejected the administration’s claim that his authority over the planes disappeared the moment they left US airspace, finding that federal courts regularly restrain executive branch conduct abroad, even when it touches on national security matters.

“That courts can enjoin US officials’ overseas conduct simply reflects the fact that an injunction … binds the enjoined parties wherever they might be; the ‘situs of the [violation], whether within or without the United States, is of no importance,’” Boasberg wrote.

Boasberg added he was unpersuaded by the Trump administration’s efforts to stonewall his attempts to date to establish whether it knew it had deliberately flouted his injunction, including by invoking the state secrets doctrine to withhold basic information about when and what times the planes departed.

“The Court is skeptical that such information rises to the level of a state secret. As noted, the Government has widely publicized details of the flights through social media and official announcements thereby revealing snippets of the information the Court seeks,” Boasberg wrote.

A Democratic senator who says El Salvador’s government refused to allow him to visit his constituent wrongly deported to the country has condemned an “unjust situation”. Chris Van Hollen said its vice-president told him it would not be possible for him to speak with Kilmar Ábrego García in person or on the phone

The senator’s visit came as Democrats have seized on the deportation and the Trump administration’s refusal to take any steps to return him, in apparent defiance of the supreme court, to argue that the president is plunging the US into a constitutional crisis.

A federal judge, meanwhile, threatened contempt proceedings against Trump officials for violating his injunction over the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members. The judge also warned that he could name an independent prosecutor if the White House stonewalled contempt proceedings.

And the Federal Reserve chair warned that Donald Trump’s tariffs were likely to worsen inflation, while US stocks slid further and the value of Nvidia dropped by billions after the president imposed new restrictions on the chip giant.

Here are the key stories at a glance:

Catching up? Here’s what happened on 16 April 2025.

The ongoing legal saga of Kilmar Ábrego García, a man wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, has become a flashpoint as Donald Trump tests the limits of his executive power and continues with his plans for mass deportations.

On Tuesday, a federal judge sharply rebuked the Trump administration for taking no steps to secure Ábrego García’s release despite a supreme court order last week ordering the administration to facilitate his return to the US.

The administration previously conceded Ábrego García’s deportation was an “administrative error”, but it has since refused to bring him back and dug in on its contention that it should not be responsible for his repatriation.

Here’s what to know about the case.

Who is Kilmar Ábrego García?

Ábrego García, 29, is a Salvadorian immigrant who entered the US illegally around 2011 because he and his family were facing threats by local gangs.

In 2019, he was detained by police outside a Home Depot in Maryland, with several other men, and asked about a murder. He denied knowledge of a crime and repeatedly denied that he was part of a gang.

He was subsequently put in immigration proceedings, where officials argued they believed he was part of the MS-13 gang in New York based on his Chicago Bulls gear and on the word of a confidential informant.

A US immigration judge granted him protection from deportation to El Salvador because he was likely to face gang persecution. He was released and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) did not appeal the decision or try to deport him to another country.

Ábrego García was living in Maryland with his wife, a US citizen, and has had a work permit since 2019. The couple are parents to their son and her two children from a previous relationship.

Why was he deported?

Ábrego García was stopped and detained by Ice officers on 12 March and questioned about alleged gang affiliation.

He was deported on 15 March on one of three high-profile deportation flights to El Salvador. That flight also included Venezuelans whom the government accuses of being gang members and assumed special powers to expel without a hearing.

Ábrego García is currently being detained in the Center for Terrorism Confinement (Cecot), a controversial mega-prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, known for its harsh conditions.

The US is currently paying El Salvador $6m to house people who it alleges are members of the Tren de Aragua gang for a year.

His wife, Jennifer Vásquez Sura, said she has not spoken to him since he was flown to El Salvador and imprisoned.

What have the courts said?

The US district judge Paula Xinis directed the Trump administration on 4 April to “facilitate and effectuate” the return of Ábrego García, in response to a lawsuit filed by the man and his family challenging the legality of his deportation.

The supreme court unanimously upheld the directive on 10 April. In an unsigned decision, the court said the judge’s order “properly requires the government to ‘facilitate’ Ábrego García’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador”.

However, the supreme court said the additional requirement to “effectuate” his return was unclear and may exceed the judge’s authority. It directed Xinis to clarify the directive “with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs”.

Xinis admonished the government in a hearing on 11 April, saying it was “extremely troubling” that the administration had failed to comply with a court order to provide details on Ábrego García’s whereabouts and status.

On Saturday, the Trump administration confirmed Ábrego García was alive and confined in El Salvador’s mega-prison, Cecot.

Xinis once again, on Tuesday, criticized justice department officials for not complying with the supreme court’s order, saying “to date, nothing has been done”. She gave the government two weeks to produce details of their efforts to return Ábrego García to US soil.

What has the US government said?

The White House has cast Ábrego García as an MS-13 gang member and asserted that US courts lack jurisdiction over the matter because the Salvadoran national is no longer in the US.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration acknowledged that Ábrego García was deported as a result of an “administrative error”. An immigration judge had previously prohibited the federal government from deporting him to El Salvador in 2019 regardless of whether he was a member of the MS-13 gang.

The justice department has said it interpreted the court’s order to “facilitate” Ábrego García’s return as only requiring them to “remove any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede the alien’s ability to return here”.

The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, has characterized the court’s order as only requiring the administration to provide transportation to Ábrego García if released by El Salvador.

“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s up to them,” Bondi said. “The supreme court ruled that if El Salvador wants to return him, we would ‘facilitate’ it, meaning provide a plane.”

Justice department lawyers have argued that asking El Salvador to return Ábrego García should be considered “foreign relations” and therefore outside the scope of the courts.

But the administration’s argument that it lacks the power to return Ábrego García into US custody is undercut by the US paying El Salvador to detain deportees it sends to Cecot prison.

What have his lawyers said?

Ábrego García’s attorneys have said there is no evidence he was in MS-13. The allegation was based on a confidential informant’s claim in 2019 that Ábrego Garcia was a member of a chapter in New York, where he has never lived.

Ábrego García had never been charged with or convicted of any crime, according to his lawyers. He had a permit from the Department of Homeland Security to legally work in the US, his attorneys said.

The Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday where he hopes to visit Ábrego García. He said the government of El Salvador had not responded to his request to visit Cecot.

Van Hollen told the Guardian: “This is a Maryland man. His family’s in Maryland, and he’s been caught up in this absolutely outrageous situation where the Trump administration admitted in court that he was erroneously abducted from the United States and placed in this notorious prison in El Salvador in violation of all his due process rights.”

What has El Salvador said?

Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, has said that he would not order the return of Ábrego García because that would be tantamount to “smuggling” him into the US.

During a meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Monday, Bukele was asked whether he would help to return Ábrego García. “The question is preposterous,” he replied.

“How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I’m not going to do it.” He added that he would not release Ábrego García into El Salvador either. “I’m not very fond of releasing terrorists into the country.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney said the key question in Canada’s upcoming election is who is best to deal with Donald Trump as he faced his Conservative rival in a French-language leaders’ debate on Wednesday.

Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said during the debate Canada needs change after a decade of Liberal party rule and Carney is just like his predecessor, Justin Trudeau. Carney responded: “Mr Poilievre is not Justin Trudeau. I’m not Justin Trudeau either. In this election the question is who is going to face Mr Trump.”

The exchange was the first between the two men since Carney was elected Liberal leader in March.

Trump’s trade war and threats to make Canada the 51st state have infuriated Canadians and led to a surge in Canadian nationalism that has bolstered Carney’s Liberal party poll numbers ahead of the 28 April vote.

The debate took place in Montreal, the largest city in predominantly French-speaking Quebec. The province has 78 of the 343 seats in the House of Commons and is usually regarded as one of the keys to victory.

Poilievre is imploring Canadians not to give the Liberals a fourth term. He hoped to make the election a referendum on Trudeau, whose popularity declined toward the end of his decade in power as food and housing prices rose and immigration surged.

But Trump attacked, Trudeau resigned and Carney, a two-time central banker, became Liberal party leader and prime minister after a party leadership race.

When asked about Trudeau at a news conference after the debate, Carney said: “One of the differences, there are many, but one of the differences between the two of us is that I put much more emphasis on the economy, on growing the economy.

“In fact in this circumstance that we are in, given the scale of the crisis, I would say relentless focus on growing the economy.”

Yves-François Blanche of the separatist Bloc Québécois, whose party is losing support to Carney’s Liberals in Quebec, agreed with the Conservatives’ call for change, saying the Liberals are the same party, the same ministers and the same lawmakers and a new leader does not change that.

But public opinion too has changed. In a mid-January poll by Nanos, Liberals trailed the Conservative party by 47% to 20%. In the latest Nanos poll released on Wednesday, the Liberals led by eight percentage points. The January poll had a margin of error 3.1 points while the latest poll had a 2.7-point margin.

The French debate was moved up by two hours to minimise a conflict with a Montreal Canadiens hockey game. The NHL team faced off against the Carolina Hurricanes at 7pm ET, in a game that could clinch them a spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

This isn’t the first time NHL hockey has elbowed its way onto the campaign trail. During the 2011 election, former Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe asked for a debate to be postponed due to a Canadiens hockey game, and his request was granted.

The English language debate is being held on Thursday evening.

With Associated Press and Reuters

Donald Trump’s return to the White House has stoked fears over Washington’s commitment to the security of its allies in the Asia Pacific at a time when tensions are running high in the region, home to several potential flashpoints.

Countries across the region are urgently considering their options in a new era where the US president has sided with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, suggested “cleaning out” Gaza in order to redevelop it, and unleashed punishing tariffs on allies and enemies alike.

Strategies range from seeking new security reassurances from the US to bolstering defence spending, and lifting the long taboo on the possible development of their own nuclear deterrents.

Most concern is focused on the Taiwan Strait, with its commercially and strategically vital shipping lanes, where China has been flexing its muscles in an attempt to intimidate the self-governed island.

Beijing is also embroiled in territorial disputes with south-east Asian nations and Japan, while North Korea continues to develop nuclear bombs and more sophisticated weaponry, emboldened by its alliance with Russia.

Australia

The government last month boasted of “the most significant increase in defence spending in peacetime Australia since the end of the second world war”, but there is no plan to approach the figure demanded by Trump of Nato allies – 5% – nor even his assumed compromise figure of 3.5%.

Australian defence spending was A$53.3bn (US$32.1bn) in 2023–24, 2% of the country’s GDP. The Treasury forecasts it will reach 2.4% of GDP by 2027–28.

For Australia, 3.5% of GDP would be more than A$90bn ($54.3), about 75% more than the actual defence budget.

Much of Australia’s focus is on long-range deterrence, particularly submarines and missile defences.

Since 1951, Australia and the US have been enjoined by the Anzus treaty (along with New Zealand), an agreement often discussed in terms akin to the Nato alliance – but which is, in reality, much weaker.

There is no equivalent to Nato’s Article V in the Anzus agreement – it commits parties only to “consult together” whenever the security of one is “threatened in the Pacific”.

Increased co-operation – and “interoperability” – between the US and Australian militaries is a common refrain from ministers on both sides of the alliance. Its most significant manifestation is the Aukus agreement (forecast to cost Australia up to A$368bn ($221.9) by the mid-2050s), under which the US is proposing to sell between three and five nuclear powered submarines to Australia early next decade, before a specifically built Aukus submarine will be in the water by the early 2040s.

Australia has long been regarded as an unswerving US ally, “with us even in our less-advisable wars”, as senior Pentagon nominee Elbridge Colby told the Senate in March. But Australia has flagged one potential point of departure: while not ruling out involvement, deputy prime minister Richard Marles has said Australia has “absolutely not” given the US any guarantees of assistance in a war between America and China over the status of Taiwan.

China

The chaos of Trump is either a dangerous precipice or a golden opportunity for China. It could well be both.

The US’s decision to impose tariffs on China’s neighbours makes it harder for Chinese companies to circumvent the duties by offshoring their supply chains. But it also could have the unintended effect of undermining the US’s attempts to galvanise the region to unite against China’s military buildup.

In March, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth conducted a multi-stop tour across Asia, promising to shift US focus to the Indo-Pacific in “in the face of Communist China’s aggression in the region”. Hegseth made his comments in the Philippines, a key US security ally. He also described Japan as a “warrior country” that is “indispensable” to tackling China. But shortly after his trip, the US announced tariffs of 17% on imports from the Philippines and 24% on Japan.

China reacted angrily to Hegseth’s comments on Japan, accusing the US of “instigating ideological antagonism”.

But rhetoric aside, China is using the retreat of the US as a stable economic partner as an opportunity to bolster its relations with its neighbours. It has eased trade restrictions on Japan and sought agreements with India over the disputed border territory of Ladakh.

This diplomatic push will make it harder for the US to lean on allies in Asia to unite against China. In the meantime, China’s rapid military buildup continues apace. This year it will increase defence spending by 7.2%, continuing its trend of increasing defence spending faster than GDP growth, which last year was 5%. The US defence department estimates that China’s true military spending is 40-90% more than its public budget.

Taiwan

The rising threat posed by China is felt more deeply in Taiwan than anywhere else. Xi’s overhaul and revamp of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is primarily geared towards being able to annex Taiwan by force if Beijing can’t bully it into accepting Chinese rule. Resources and leadership have shifted eastward, favouring the navy, and joint operations now include the increasingly militarised Coast Guard, and China’s paramilitary fleet of maritime militia fishing boats.

Taiwan, which can’t hope to match the PLA militarily, has been preparing. But it has also had to respond to Trump’s second term, which has demonstrated something of a souring on Taiwan: the US is Taiwan’s most significant security partner, bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

But during his campaign and since taking office, Trump has questioned the worth of US support for Taiwan, and suggested it pay for protection. His administration has also called for major increases in Taiwan’s defence spending from the current rate of below 3% to as much as 10% of GDP. Taiwan’s government says that’s impossible, and would involve spending almost as much as the central government’s entire annual operating budget of NT$3tn ($92bn).

Instead, Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, has pledged an increase in overall defence spending to more than 3% of GDP – as long as it can get past a highly obstructionist, opposition-controlled legislature. He has also noted that Taiwan’s GDP has grown in the past eight years, so while the percentage remained low, in real terms Taiwan’s national defence budget increased by 80%.

Taiwan buys billions of dollars in weapons from the US. Among its efforts to appease Trump’s trade imbalance rhetoric, Taiwan has pledged to buy more.

President Lai has ramped up security measures to counter China, and launched a major program to boost Taiwan’s social and defensive resilience, bringing government and public sector groups together to boost protections of Taiwan’s energy, communication and other critical infrastructure, and to better prepare its 24 million people for a crisis.

Philippines

Under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the Philippines has taken a tougher stance against China, and moved closer to the US, with which it has a mutual defence treaty. The US has been granted expanded access to Philippine military bases, and the two countries have also agreed to increase the sharing of intelligence and technology to allow the sale of weaponry by the US to the Philippines.

Washington itself has highlighted the mutual defence treaty with Manila. Last month, Hegseth met Marcos in Manila, and stated the two countries must stand “shoulder to shoulder” in the face of the threat represented by China.

The Philippines is modernising its armed forces – earmarking $35bn this year alone – and strengthening partnerships with allies as it struggles against Chinese assertiveness in the region, particularly in the disputed South China Sea.

Later this month the US and Philippines will conduct annual military drills known as the Balikatan exercise. Troops from Australia – as well as observers from Japan and, for the first time, Poland and the Czech Republic – will also participate.

Vietnam

Vietnam, like many countries in south-east Asia, has always tried to avoid taking sides in the rivalry between the US and China. As tensions have soared under the new Trump administration, which recently announced a punishing 46% tariff on Vietnam, this balancing act has become especially challenging.

When China’s president, Xi Jinping, visited Hanoi shortly after the tariff announcement, Trump suggested the two sides were discussing how to “screw” the US. His comments underline the juggling act that Hanoi is trying to maintain.

Vietnam is seeking to appease Washington to reduce its tariff. It is reportedly preparing to crack down on Chinese goods shipped from its territory and tighten controls on sensitive exports to China. It is also promising to buy more US goods, including in defence and security products.

Vietnam counts both the US and China as important economic partners. Washington is also a helpful counterbalance to Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, where China’s claims overlap with those of Vietnam.

Last year was a record year for island building by Vietnam in the South China Sea. In February, China’s foreign ministry criticised construction work by Vietnam to build an airstrip on the Barque Canada Reef, in the Spratly chain. Beijing claims the islands are “illegally occupied” by Vietnam.

As it completes such landfill activities, the defence capabilities it plans to build on the reclaimed land will become clear – and likely antagonise China.

Vietnam is also seeking to strengthen its military capacity, including by developing its own defence industry.

Japan

Trump’s language on his return to the White House triggered a sense of déjà vu in Japan and South Korea, the US’s two main allies in north-east Asia. Echoing his criticisms during his first term, Trump recently complained that the US-Japan security treaty was “so one-sided” – a reference, in Trump’s view, to the cost borne by Washington of stationing about 50,000 troops in Japan.

Japan contributes $2bn towards the cost of hosting US troops, who under the treaty’s terms are committed to come to Japan’s defence if it is attacked.

Under hawkish prime minister – and Trump ally – Shinzo Abe, Japan began beefing up its defence posture in 2022, including promises to buy more weapons from the US. Subsequent prime ministers have followed suit, vowing to double defence spending by 2027 so that it accounts for 2% of GDP.

Defence spending by Japan is expected to reach ¥9.9tn ($70bn) in the year to March 2026, according to the defence ministry, equivalent to 1.8% of gross domestic product.

The defence minister, Gen Nakatani, recently referenced growing pressure from Washington to shoulder more of the cost of their defence and hosting US troops. The latest spending projection “show that our efforts to strengthen our defence capabilities are steadily progressing”, he said. But Tokyo’s arms build-up may still not be enough. Elbridge Colby, Trump’s Pentagon policy chief, recently demanded that Japan raise military spending to 3% of GDP.

Higher spending has been matched by stronger capabilities, including plans to deploy long-range missiles capable of striking China and North Korea, and the adoption of a position that would allow Japan to strike enemy bases first if it believed an attack was imminent – a posture critics say violates the country’s purely defensive “pacifist” constitution.

South Korea

The domestic political turmoil of the past five months has caused alarm in the US and Japan over South Korea’s commitments to regional security. The impeachment of Yoon Suk Yeol means the country will elect a new leader on 10 June, with polls suggesting that Lee Jae-myung, a liberal, is favourite to replace Yoon, a pro-US conservative.

While it attempts to overcome the trauma of Yoon’s impeachment trial, there is little indication of how far a new president would go in resisting Washington’s demands to spend more on its defence and the deployment of about 28,000 troops.

The US military presence in the South has long been vital to Seoul’s ability to deter a potential attack by nuclear-armed North Korea.

Tensions between the two Koreas grew under Yoon. . As Trump focuses on the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, there is concern that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, could feel empowered to behave more provocatively.

Some lawmakers were disturbed by Trump’s dismissive treatment of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the Oval Office in February. That has sown seeds of doubt in Seoul about the strength of Washington’s commitment to South Korea’s security – a bedrock of bilateral ties since the end of the 1950-53 Korean war.

While the North continues to develop weapons of mass destruction, its neighbour is also broaching the sensitive subject of having its own nuclear deterrent, independent of the US nuclear umbrella. Once the preserve of conservative hawks, now progressive commentators are calling on the South to have the capacity to turn fissile material into nuclear weapons.

Michelle Trachtenberg, a popular TV actor, died of complications from diabetes, according to the New York City medical examiner’s office.

Trachtenberg, 39, was found dead in February and had recently received a liver transplant, according to NBC News, but the cause of her death had been unclear at the time.

Trachtenberg rose to fame at a young age, starting her career at the age of three when she starred in commercials before going on to join Nickelodeon’s show The Adventures of Pete & Pete, as well as the soap opera All My Children.

The actor landed her first lead film role in the 1996 film Harriet the Spy, acting alongside Rosie O’Donnell and J Smith-Cameron. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight in 2021, Trachtenberg said: “There was a lot required of me … I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity.”

Other projects Trachtenberg starred in include the teen comedy EuroTrip, as well as the critically acclaimed drama Mysterious Skin by Gregg Araki.

Reflecting on her experience with Mysterious Skin, Trachtenberg said: “I was this girl who had done glitzy, PG-themed stuff and here’s Gregg Araki, director of Doom Generation, and we sat down and had a cup of coffee and I said: ‘You’re probably not gonna hire me but this is what I got, this is what I feel. If you’re willing to take the chance, I’m willing to go there with you.’ It was the most exhilarating experience I’ve had as an actress.”

Following her death, Trachtenberg’s various cast members paid tributes to her, with her Gossip Girl co-star Blake Lively writing: “She was electricity … You knew when she entered a room because the vibration changed. Everything she did, she did 200%.”

Similarly, Smith-Cameron wrote: “She was always very warm toward me. I feel very shocked and unsettled to hear of her passing.”

Meanwhile, the Buffy the Vampire lead, Sarah Michelle Gellar, said: “Michelle, listen to me … Listen. I love you. I will always love you. The hardest thing in this world, is to live in it. I will be brave. I will live … for you.”

Michelle Trachtenberg, a popular TV actor, died of complications from diabetes, according to the New York City medical examiner’s office.

Trachtenberg, 39, was found dead in February and had recently received a liver transplant, according to NBC News, but the cause of her death had been unclear at the time.

Trachtenberg rose to fame at a young age, starting her career at the age of three when she starred in commercials before going on to join Nickelodeon’s show The Adventures of Pete & Pete, as well as the soap opera All My Children.

The actor landed her first lead film role in the 1996 film Harriet the Spy, acting alongside Rosie O’Donnell and J Smith-Cameron. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight in 2021, Trachtenberg said: “There was a lot required of me … I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity.”

Other projects Trachtenberg starred in include the teen comedy EuroTrip, as well as the critically acclaimed drama Mysterious Skin by Gregg Araki.

Reflecting on her experience with Mysterious Skin, Trachtenberg said: “I was this girl who had done glitzy, PG-themed stuff and here’s Gregg Araki, director of Doom Generation, and we sat down and had a cup of coffee and I said: ‘You’re probably not gonna hire me but this is what I got, this is what I feel. If you’re willing to take the chance, I’m willing to go there with you.’ It was the most exhilarating experience I’ve had as an actress.”

Following her death, Trachtenberg’s various cast members paid tributes to her, with her Gossip Girl co-star Blake Lively writing: “She was electricity … You knew when she entered a room because the vibration changed. Everything she did, she did 200%.”

Similarly, Smith-Cameron wrote: “She was always very warm toward me. I feel very shocked and unsettled to hear of her passing.”

Meanwhile, the Buffy the Vampire lead, Sarah Michelle Gellar, said: “Michelle, listen to me … Listen. I love you. I will always love you. The hardest thing in this world, is to live in it. I will be brave. I will live … for you.”

UK officials are tightening security when handling sensitive trade documents to prevent them from falling into US hands amid Donald Trump’s tariff war, the Guardian can reveal.

In an indication of the strains on the “special relationship”, British civil servants have changed document-handling guidance, adding higher classifications to some trade negotiation documents in order to better shield them from American eyes, sources told the Guardian.

The White House has upended global financial markets and torn up key relationships, with unpredictable and rapidly changing taxes on trading partners including China, the EU and the UK.

Officials were told that the change in protocols was specifically related to tensions over important issues on trade and foreign policy between Washington and London, sources said.

Keir Starmer has prioritised striking a trade deal with Washington, opting not to retaliate over Trump’s decision to impose 10% tariffs on goods exported to the US, and 25% tariffs on UK car and steel exports, instead offering concessions on areas including digital taxes and agriculture.

JD Vance said on Tuesday he believed a mutually beneficial US-UK trade deal was within reach. The US vice-president said officials were “certainly working very hard with Keir Starmer’s government” on a trade deal, adding that it was an “important relationship”.

“There’s a real cultural affinity,” Vance said. “And, of course, fundamentally, America is an anglo country. I think there’s a good chance that, yes, we’ll come to a great agreement that’s in the best interest of both countries.”

However, behind the scenes concern is growing over the vulnerability of UK industries and companies to Trump’s “America first” agenda.

Before Trump’s inauguration, UK trade documents related to US talks were generally marked “Official – sensitive (UK eyes only)”, according to examples seen by the Guardian, and officials were allowed to share these on internal email chains. This classification stood while British officials attempted to negotiate with Joe Biden’s administration, even after a full-blown trade deal was ruled out by the White House.

Now, a far greater proportion of documents and correspondence detailing the negotiating positions being discussed by officials from No 10, the Foreign Office and the Department for Business and Trade come with additional handling instructions to avoid US interception, with some classified as “secret” and “top secret”, sources said. These classifications also carry different guidance on how documents may be shared digitally, in order to avoid interception.

Companies with commercial interests in the UK have also been told to take additional precautions in how they share information with the trade department and No 10, senior business sources said. These include large pharmaceutical companies with operations in the UK and EU.

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson said: “The US is an indispensable ally and negotiations on an economic prosperity deal that strengthens our existing trading relationship continue.”

Wider questions have been asked about whether the special relationship between the UK and US can withstand increasingly divergent policies on Russian hostility, as well as deep criticisms of Nato and defence collaboration. On trade, pressures are mounting in sensitive areas such as car manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.

Other reports suggest the European Commission has also changed its perspective on the risks of sensitive or secret information being intercepted by the US. Commission employees have been issued with burner phones if they are visiting the US, the Financial Times has reported.

So close has the UK and US position been on defence and security in recent years that secure government material is sometimes marked “UK/US only”, or given a “Five Eyes” marking, in reference to the intelligence-sharing collective made up of the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. So far, the Guardian has only established a change in document-handling related to trade discussions.

Trump’s plan to reboot domestic industry, including in automotive and pharmaceutical manufacturing, has caused consternation among foreign governments keen to protect domestic industries and jobs while trying to strike trade deals to protect against heavy tariffs.

Trump has sought to defend his decision to put vast tariffs in place, saying there would be a “transition cost” from his policies.

The US president also said he would “love” to make a deal with China and that, in his view, he and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, would “end up working out something that’s very good for both countries”.

In a move regarded by some observers as an attempt to soothe market reactions, including a rise in US government borrowing costs, Trump said last week that he would delay further tariffs for 90 days. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU would also delay its response to US tariffs.

Until July, the EU will face a 10% duty on exports to the US, rather than the 20% “reciprocal tariff” rate that was in force for a matter of hours, until Trump’s reversal last Wednesday. US duties of 25% tariffs on steel, aluminium and cars are still in place, however.

Despite suggestions that Trump may be chastened by the markets’ volatile response to his trade policies, the president’s incremental steps have increased duties on Chinese imports to 145%. China responded on Friday by announcing it would increase tariffs on US goods to 125%. The announcement from the Chinese commerce ministry also suggested that it would not pursue higher tariffs in any further retaliatory steps against the US, adding that “at the current tariff level, there is no market acceptance for US goods exported to China”.

“If the US continues to impose tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US, China will ignore it,” it said, flagging that there were other countermeasures to come. Xi, meanwhile, urged the EU to resist Trump’s “bullying”.

• Minerals deal negotiators have made “good progress”, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Wednesday. A senior official with knowledge of the negotiations told Agence France-Presse that newer drafts of the US-Ukraine accord appeared not to recognise previous US military aid as a debt owed by Ukraine, adding that talks were moving forward “quite fast”. That assessment echoed a report by Bloomberg News that said Washington had eased a demand that Kyiv pay for aid already delivered since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

• “The basic legal stuff is almost finalised, and then, if everything moves as quickly and constructively, the agreement will bring economic results to both our countries,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address on Wednesday. The Trump administration has demanded some sort of deal giving the US a large share of critical minerals or what Donald Trump calls “rare earths” and other Ukrainian natural resources in return for military aid. Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine will not recognise previous aid approved under the Biden administration as a loan requiring repayment, but he expects to be paying the US upfront going forward.

• A mass attack of Russian “Shahed” drones killed a young woman and an elderly woman and injured at least 16 on Wednesday in Dnipro city, said officials. In the Kharkiv region, the governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said a Russian missile attack injured two people in the town of Izium.

• Russian attacks in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson killed one person and wounded three more on Wednesday in an apparent so-called double-tap strike, officials said. Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the region, said Russian attacks had continued as rescue workers arrived on the scene.

• Ukraine said on Wednesday it had detained nine people including five teenagers aged between 14 and 15 on suspicion of preparing sabotage attacks on behalf of Russian security services. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said some of the suspects were planning to plant explosives near residential buildings or railway lines, including with improvised explosive devices, adding agents had seized more than 30kg of explosives. The SBU in March accused Russia of blowing up two teenage boys it had recruited to make bombs and plant them near a Ukrainian railway station.

• The Kremlin on Wednesday refused to say when a supposed 30-day moratorium on strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure would end – or whether it would be extended. Putin said on 18 March that he had ordered his army to halt such attacks for 30 days but Kyiv has accused Moscow of continuing them.

• The former governor of Russia’s Kursk region and his ex-deputy have been arrested on suspicion of embezzling over $12m of funds earmarked for border defences against Ukraine, authorities said on Wednesday. Alexei Smirnov, 51, and Alexei Dedov, 48, were in charge when Ukrainian troops stormed across the border in August 2024, successfully mounting the biggest ground assault on Russian territory since the second world war. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, in December replaced Smirnov with Alexander Khinshtein.

• France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, will on Thursday meet Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and Donald Trump’s Russia envoy, Steve Witkoff, the Élysée Palace has said. The US state department said they would discuss ending the war in Ukraine.

• Latvian lawmakers voted on Wednesday to quit a treaty banning anti-personnel mines so the Baltic country can reinforce its security against Russia. “Withdrawal from the Ottawa convention will give our armed forces room for manoeuvre in the event of a military threat to use all possible means to defend our citizens,” said Inara Murniece, chair of parliament’s foreign affairs committee. The decision, a direct consequence of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, will come into effect six months after Latvia formally notifies the UN.

• Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Finland have also announced plans to renounce the landmine treaty. The International Committee of the Red Cross has called it “a dangerous setback for the protection of civilians in armed conflict”. Lithuania last month quit another treaty banning cluster bombs, also citing the threat posed by Russia, alarming human rights groups.

The doctor who carried out the postmortems of the 15 paramedics and rescue workers who were killed by Israeli troops in Gaza in March has said they were mostly killed by gunshots to the head and torso, as well as injuries caused by explosives.

There was international outcry last month after it emerged that Israeli troops had launched a deadly attack on a group of paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent, civil defence and United Nations workers, as they carried out a rescue operation in southern Gaza.

Their bodies, along with the crushed vehicles, were buried in a sandy mass grave in Gaza by Israeli troops. After digging up the bodies days later, the UN claimed they had been executed “one by one”.

Ahmed Dhair, the forensic pathologist in Gaza who carried out autopsies on 14 out of the 15 victims, told the Guardian he had found “lacerations, entry wounds from bullets, and wounds resulting from explosive injuries. These were mostly concentrated in the torso area – the chest, abdomen, back, and head.”

Most had died from gunshot wounds, including what Dhair said was evidence of “explosive bullets”, otherwise known as “butterfly bullets”, which explode in the body upon impact, ripping apart flesh and bone.

“We found remains of explosive bullets,” said Dhair. “In one case, the bullet head had exploded in the chest, and the rest of the bullet fragments were found within the body. There were also remnants or shrapnel from bullets scattered on the back of one of the victims.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not immediately respond to allegations that these bullets had been used in the attack.

Details of the incident have remained disputed. Video footage that emerged from the beginning of the attack shows the convoy of ambulances coming under fire, but the subsequent events that led to the bodies of 15 workers being buried in a mass grave are still unclear.

Israel’s military admitted carrying out the killings but was forced to change its version of events after evidence emerged that contradicted its account that the vehicles had been “moving suspiciously” without lights.

Israel has claimed, without publicly presenting evidence, that six of the unarmed workers killed were Hamas operatives, which has been denied by Red Crescent.

Dhair said his findings did not suggest the paramedics had been shot at close range, but emphasised he was not a munitions expert. He said the shrapnel found in the bodies also suggested they had been hit with some form of explosive devices. “In some cases, the injuries seemed to be a mix of explosive and regular gunfire wounds,” he said.

Responding to the allegations that some of the bodies had been dug up with their hands tied, suggesting they were captured or held before they were killed, Dhair said he had not seen visible signs of restraint.

“Only in one case, there were discoloration and bruising on the wrists that could possibly be due to restraints,” he said. All the men were clearly in their work uniforms and their bodies had begun to decompose.

The findings are likely to increase pressure on Israel to give a full account of the incident amid accusations of a war crime. Israel has said it is still under investigation.

This week it emerged that one of the two paramedics who survived the incident, Assad al-Nsasrah – whose whereabouts had been unknown since – was being held in Israeli detention.

The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said on Wednesday that Gaza was becoming a “mass grave for Palestinians”.

Aid supplies including food, fuel, water and medicine have been blocked by Israel from entering Gaza since 2 March, more than two weeks before the collapse of the ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group with a return to air and ground attacks on the territory.

Israel has said it will keep blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, as it vowed to force Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages from the 7 October 2023 attacks.

The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said: “Israel’s policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population.”

“No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid,” said Katz, who threatened to escalate the conflict with “tremendous force” if Hamas did not return the hostages.

Amnesty International is among the aid agencies that have described Israel’s blockade on all supplies going into Gaza as a crime against humanity and a violation of international humanitarian law. Israel has denied any violations.

More than 51,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza since the conflict began, including more than 1,600 since Israel resumed airstrikes and ground operations on 18 March. The Gaza health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians but has said more than half of those dead were women and children.

Another 13 people were killed in airstrikes overnight, with a well-known photographer, Fatema Hassouna, among those reported dead in the northern area of the strip.

Doctors and aid groups on the ground said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was becoming graver by the day.

“The situation is the worst it has been in 18 months in terms of being deprived of your basic necessities and the resumption of hostilities and attacks against Palestinians in all of Gaza,” said Mahmoud Shalabi, a director at Medical Aid for Palestinians, a British charity.

Israel has been accused of worsening the humanitarian situation by targeting hospitals and medical personnel working in Gaza, with two hospitals struck and debilitated by airstrikes this week. Israel has claimed Hamas has used medical facilities as a cover for terrorist operations.

The resumption of aid into Gaza has become a highly inflammatory political issue in Israel. There are 58 hostages still in Gaza, who were taken captive after the Hamas attacks on southern Israel in October 2023, with 24 believed to still be alive.

Far-right figures in prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have said no aid should be restored to the civilians of Gaza until Hamas agrees to the hostages’ release.

“As long as our hostages are languishing in the tunnels, there is no reason for a single gram of food or any aid to enter Gaza,” the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said on Wednesday.

The doctor who carried out the postmortems of the 15 paramedics and rescue workers who were killed by Israeli troops in Gaza in March has said they were mostly killed by gunshots to the head and torso, as well as injuries caused by explosives.

There was international outcry last month after it emerged that Israeli troops had launched a deadly attack on a group of paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent, civil defence and United Nations workers, as they carried out a rescue operation in southern Gaza.

Their bodies, along with the crushed vehicles, were buried in a sandy mass grave in Gaza by Israeli troops. After digging up the bodies days later, the UN claimed they had been executed “one by one”.

Ahmed Dhair, the forensic pathologist in Gaza who carried out autopsies on 14 out of the 15 victims, told the Guardian he had found “lacerations, entry wounds from bullets, and wounds resulting from explosive injuries. These were mostly concentrated in the torso area – the chest, abdomen, back, and head.”

Most had died from gunshot wounds, including what Dhair said was evidence of “explosive bullets”, otherwise known as “butterfly bullets”, which explode in the body upon impact, ripping apart flesh and bone.

“We found remains of explosive bullets,” said Dhair. “In one case, the bullet head had exploded in the chest, and the rest of the bullet fragments were found within the body. There were also remnants or shrapnel from bullets scattered on the back of one of the victims.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not immediately respond to allegations that these bullets had been used in the attack.

Details of the incident have remained disputed. Video footage that emerged from the beginning of the attack shows the convoy of ambulances coming under fire, but the subsequent events that led to the bodies of 15 workers being buried in a mass grave are still unclear.

Israel’s military admitted carrying out the killings but was forced to change its version of events after evidence emerged that contradicted its account that the vehicles had been “moving suspiciously” without lights.

Israel has claimed, without publicly presenting evidence, that six of the unarmed workers killed were Hamas operatives, which has been denied by Red Crescent.

Dhair said his findings did not suggest the paramedics had been shot at close range, but emphasised he was not a munitions expert. He said the shrapnel found in the bodies also suggested they had been hit with some form of explosive devices. “In some cases, the injuries seemed to be a mix of explosive and regular gunfire wounds,” he said.

Responding to the allegations that some of the bodies had been dug up with their hands tied, suggesting they were captured or held before they were killed, Dhair said he had not seen visible signs of restraint.

“Only in one case, there were discoloration and bruising on the wrists that could possibly be due to restraints,” he said. All the men were clearly in their work uniforms and their bodies had begun to decompose.

The findings are likely to increase pressure on Israel to give a full account of the incident amid accusations of a war crime. Israel has said it is still under investigation.

This week it emerged that one of the two paramedics who survived the incident, Assad al-Nsasrah – whose whereabouts had been unknown since – was being held in Israeli detention.

The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said on Wednesday that Gaza was becoming a “mass grave for Palestinians”.

Aid supplies including food, fuel, water and medicine have been blocked by Israel from entering Gaza since 2 March, more than two weeks before the collapse of the ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group with a return to air and ground attacks on the territory.

Israel has said it will keep blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, as it vowed to force Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages from the 7 October 2023 attacks.

The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said: “Israel’s policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population.”

“No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid,” said Katz, who threatened to escalate the conflict with “tremendous force” if Hamas did not return the hostages.

Amnesty International is among the aid agencies that have described Israel’s blockade on all supplies going into Gaza as a crime against humanity and a violation of international humanitarian law. Israel has denied any violations.

More than 51,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza since the conflict began, including more than 1,600 since Israel resumed airstrikes and ground operations on 18 March. The Gaza health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians but has said more than half of those dead were women and children.

Another 13 people were killed in airstrikes overnight, with a well-known photographer, Fatema Hassouna, among those reported dead in the northern area of the strip.

Doctors and aid groups on the ground said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was becoming graver by the day.

“The situation is the worst it has been in 18 months in terms of being deprived of your basic necessities and the resumption of hostilities and attacks against Palestinians in all of Gaza,” said Mahmoud Shalabi, a director at Medical Aid for Palestinians, a British charity.

Israel has been accused of worsening the humanitarian situation by targeting hospitals and medical personnel working in Gaza, with two hospitals struck and debilitated by airstrikes this week. Israel has claimed Hamas has used medical facilities as a cover for terrorist operations.

The resumption of aid into Gaza has become a highly inflammatory political issue in Israel. There are 58 hostages still in Gaza, who were taken captive after the Hamas attacks on southern Israel in October 2023, with 24 believed to still be alive.

Far-right figures in prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have said no aid should be restored to the civilians of Gaza until Hamas agrees to the hostages’ release.

“As long as our hostages are languishing in the tunnels, there is no reason for a single gram of food or any aid to enter Gaza,” the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said on Wednesday.

A delegation of EU lawmakers visiting Hungary has called on Europe’s top court to suspend a new law banning Budapest Pride, as they criticised a “very hostile atmosphere” for LGBTQ+ people in the country and urged a return to “real democracy”.

Tineke Strik, a Dutch Green politician who led a cross-party group of MEPs to investigate democratic standards in Hungary, said developments were going “rapidly in the wrong direction”.

Concluding the three-day visit on Wednesday, Strik said: “We eagerly want this country to turn back into a real democracy, because we think that Hungarian citizens should enjoy the same rights and values as we all do into the EU.”

The five MEPs arrived in Hungary on the day that lawmakers passed a constitutional amendment allowing the government to ban LGBTQ+ events. That change codified a law passed in March banning Pride marches and allowing authorities to use facial recognition technology to track attenders so they could be fined. It has been described by one rights group as a “full-frontal attack” on LGBTQ+ people.

Strik said: “Organisers and participants of the Budapest Pride risk facing criminal charges for marching peacefully in support of diversity, equality and freedom, as they have done for the last 29 years.”

The MEPs said they were calling on the European Commission – the guardian of EU law – to ask the European court of justice to suspend the law pending further legal action.

In response to the constitutional changes, the European Commission said on Tuesday it would not hesitate to act if necessary. The Guardian has requested comment on the MEPs’ request for suspension, known as an interim measure.

Krzysztof Śmiszek, of the Polish New Left, said the new law had created “a very hostile atmosphere” for LGBTQ+ Hungarians that had “already led to rise of physical, violent attacks and other types of hate crimes”.

Michał Wawrykiewicz, a centre-right Polish MEP who campaigned to preserve independent judiciary in his home country, said the group had observed an “indisputable deterioration of the situation” and “an open denial of the rule of law”. He also said some officials had shown a “very aggressive approach toward us” and “rude behaviour”.

Sophie Wilmès, a former Belgian prime minister and a liberal MEP, said some authorities had displayed “very aggressive rhetoric” towards the group. She voiced alarm about pressure on independent media. She said the Hungarian government’s extensive control of the media landscape meant “smear campaigns have become the new norm”.

Several government departments declined to meet the MEPs, without giving any reason, Strik said. Three nationalist and far-right European parliament groups declined to join the parliamentary visit: the European Conservatives and Reformists, Patriots for Europe and the Europe of Sovereign Nations Group.

The visit wrapped up soon after the US government announced it was lifting sanctions on a close aide to Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, describing the punitive measures as “inconsistent with US foreign policy interests”.

Antal Rogán had been added to the US sanctions list in January, in the final days of Joe Biden’s administration, for alleged corruption. The Hungarian government said at the time it intended to challenge this as soon as Donald Trump took office.

Orbán is one of Trump’s biggest supporters, once saying he would open several bottles of champagne if Trump was re-elected. Hungary was the only EU member state to vote against the EU’s retaliatory measures against Trump’s tariffs, which were later suspended after a last-minute policy reversal by the White House.

In an awkward moment for the Orbán government, the Trump administration released a report on foreign trade barriers raising concerns about corruption in Hungary’s public procurement system. Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, claimed in response that parts of the report had been “dictated by” the previous US ambassador to Budapest, David Pressman, who was a vocal critic of the government’s democratic backsliding and foreign policy positions.

A giant planet 124 light years from Earth has yielded the strongest evidence yet that extraterrestrial life may be thriving beyond our solar system, astronomers claim.

Observations by the James Webb space telescope of a planet called K2-18 b appear to reveal the chemical fingerprints of two compounds that, on Earth, are only known to be produced by life.

Detection of the chemicals, dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) would not amount to proof of alien biological activity, but could bring the answer to the question of whether we are alone in the universe much closer.

“This is the strongest evidence to date for a biological activity beyond the solar system,” said Prof Nikku Madhusudhan, an astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge who led the observations. “We are very cautious. We have to question ourselves both on whether the signal is real and what it means.”

He added: “Decades from now, we may look back at this point in time and recognise it was when the living universe came within reach. This could be the tipping point, where suddenly the fundamental question of whether we’re alone in the universe is one we’re capable of answering.”

Others are more sceptical, with questions remaining about whether the overall conditions on K2-18 b, are favourable to life and whether DMS and DMDS, which are largely produced by marine phytoplankton on Earth, can be reliably regarded as biosignatures.

K2-18 b, which sits in the Leo constellation, is nearly nine times as massive as the Earth and 2.6 times as large and orbits in the habitable zone of its star, a cool red dwarf less than half the size of the sun. When the Hubble space telescope appeared to spot water vapour in its atmosphere in 2019, scientists declared it “the most habitable known world” beyond the solar system.

The supposed water signal was shown to be methane in follow-up observations by Madhusudhan’s team in 2023. But, they argued, K2-18 b’s profile was consistent with a habitable world, covered in a vast, deep ocean – a view that remains contentious. More provocatively, the Cambridge team reported a tentative hint of DMS.

Planets beyond our solar system are too distant to photograph or reach with robotic spacecraft. But scientists can estimate their size, density and temperature and probe their chemical makeup by tracking the exoplanet as it passes across the face of its host star and measuring starlight that has been filtered through its atmosphere. In the latest observations, wavelengths that are absorbed by DMS and DMDS, were seen to suddenly drop off as K2-18 b wandered in front of the red dwarf.

“The signal came through strong and clear,” said Madhusudhan. “If we can detect these molecules on habitable planets, this is the first time we’ve been able to do that as a species … it’s mind-boggling that this is possible.”

The findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, suggest concentrations of DMS, DMDS or both (their signatures overlap) thousands of times stronger than the levels on Earth. The results are reported with a “three-sigma” level of statistical significance (a 0.3% probability that they occurred by chance) although this falls short of the gold standard for discoveries in physics.

“There may be processes that we don’t know about that are producing these molecules,” Madhusudhan said. “But I don’t think there is any known process that can explain this without biology.”

A challenge in identifying potential other processes is that the conditions on K2-18 b remain disputed. While the Cambridge team favour an ocean scenario, others say the data is suggestive of a gas planet or one with oceans made of magma, not water.

There is a question of whether DMS could have been brought to the planet by comets – this would require an intensity of bombardment that seems improbable – or produced in hydrothermal vents, volcanoes or lightning storms through exotic chemical processes.

“Life is one of the options, but it’s one among many,” said Dr Nora Hänni, a chemist at the Physics Institute of the University of Berne, whose research revealed that DMS was present on an icy, lifeless comet. “We would have to strictly rule out all the other options before claiming life.”

Others say that measuring planetary atmospheres may never yield a smoking gun for life. “It’s under-appreciated in the field, but technosignatures, such as an intercepted message from an advanced civilisation, could be better smoking guns, despite the unlikelihood of finding such a signal,” said Dr Caroline Morley, an astrophysicist at the University of Texas, Austin, adding that the findings were, nonetheless, an important advance.

Dr Jo Barstow, a planetary scientist at the Open University, also viewed the detection as significant, but said: “My scepticism dial for any claim relating to evidence of life is permanently turned up to 11, not because I don’t think that other life is out there, but because I feel that for such a profound and significant discovery the burden of proof must be very, very high. I don’t think this latest work crosses that threshold.”

At 120 light years away, there is no prospect of resolving the debate through closeup observations, but Madhusudhan notes that this has not been a barrier to the discovery of black holes or other cosmic phenomena.

“In astronomy, the question is never about going there,” he said. “We’re trying to establish if the laws of biology are universal in nature. I don’t see it as: ‘We have to go and swim in the water to catch the fish.’”

The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said in his first press conference that the significant and recent rise in autism diagnoses was evidence of an “epidemic” caused by an “environmental toxin”, which would be rooted out by September.

Autism advocates and health experts have repeatedly stated the rise in diagnoses is related to better recognition of the condition, changing diagnostic criteria and better access to screening. Many also reject the label of an “epidemic”, arguing that neurodivergence should be valued.

“This is a preventable disease, we know it’s environmental exposure, it has to be,” said Kennedy. “Genes do not cause epidemics, they can provide a vulnerability, but you need an environmental toxin,” he said, despite known evidence against this claim.

Kennedy’s remarks come after a new federal report suggests that autism rates in the US are rising. The report states that autism prevalence across the country has increased from one in 36 children to one in 31. Health researchers across various autism advocacy groups attribute the increase to the expansion of diagnostic tools and access to care, along with other factors.

RFK disagreed with the consensus of health researchers, and said that “we need to move away” from the idea that the increase in autism prevalence “is simply due to better diagnostic tools”.

The health secretary is instead using the data to support the idea that the rise in autism diagnoses is evidence of a growing “epidemic”. He added that “epidemic denial” towards autism had become a “feature of mainstream media”.

Kennedy also asserted that he was going to lift the “taboo” on autism research – at the same time that the CDC has gutted numerous programs and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest publicly funded biomedical and behavioral research body in the world, is conducting an ideological review of grants that has led to widespread fear among researchers.

“We’re going to remove the taboo – that people will know they can research and follow the science no matter what it says, without any kind of fear that they’re going to be censored,” said Kennedy.

Autism Speaks, a non-profit advocacy and research group, says there could be a link between environmental toxins and autism in certain cases, such as pre-natal exposure to the chemicals thalidomide and valproic acid.

But the organization asserts that “none of these influences appears to ‘cause’ or ‘prevent’ autism by themselves. Rather they appear to influence risk in those genetically predisposed to the disorder.”

In a statement about the CDC’s research, the Autism Society of America said: “This rise in prevalence does not signal an ‘epidemic’ as narratives are claiming – it reflects diagnostic progress, and an urgent need for policy decisions rooted in science and the immediate needs of the autism community.”

The statement emphasized that the “rise in prevalence likely reflects better awareness, improved screening tools, and stronger advocacy”.

Dr Peter Marks, who previously served as the FDA’s top vaccine official before stepping down due to RFK’s “misinformation and lies”, recently expressed his scepticism about the health secretary’s promise to identify the causes of autism by September.

“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 in an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation.

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

Kennedy has a long history of suggesting a link between childhood vaccines and autism, despite a lack of scientific evidence, and many studies that have found there is no link.

The colossal squid, the heaviest invertebrate in the world, has been filmed alive in the wild for the first time since it was identified a century ago.

Growing up to 23ft (seven metres) long and weighing up to half a tonne, the squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, is the heaviest invertebrate on the planet. The individual captured on film near the South Sandwich Islands, in the south Atlantic Ocean, is a baby, at just 11.8in (30cm) in length.

The video, taken by an international team of scientists and researchers on board the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel, Falkor, shows the almost transparent juvenile, with eight arms, swimming in its natural habitat, the deep sea. It was captured on video by a remotely operated vehicle, SuBastian, while on a 35-day expedition searching for new marine life.

“These unforgettable moments continue to remind us that the ocean is brimming with mysteries yet to be solved,” Virmani said.

For 100 years, the animal, a type of glass squid, had only been seen in the stomachs of whales and seabirds. Dying adults have previously been filmed in the nets of fishermen, but it had have never been seen alive at depth.

Little is known about the life cycle of the colossal squid, which loses its transparent appearance as an adult.

It took days for the team aboard the Falkor to get verification of the footage. The squid has sharp hooks on the end of its tentacles, which distinguish it from other glass squid species.

“It’s exciting to see the first in situ footage of a juvenile colossal and humbling to think that they have no idea that humans exist,” said Dr Kat Bolstad of the Auckland University of Technology, one of the independent scientific experts the team consulted to verify the footage.

The expedition was a collaboration between the Schmidt Ocean Institute, the Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census and GoSouth, a joint project between the University of Plymouth (UK), the Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research (Germany) and the British Antarctic Survey.

This year marks the 100-year anniversary of the identification and formal naming of the colossal squid.