An extraordinary array of invitees, spanning heads of state and royals from around the world, as well as refugees, prisoners, transgender people and those who are homeless will descend on St Peter’s Square on Saturday for the funeral of Pope Francis, the groundbreaking liberal pontiff who led the Catholic church for 12 years.

Francis died at the age of 88 on Monday at his home in Casa Santa Marta after a stroke and subsequent heart failure. He had been recovering from double pneumonia that had kept him in hospital for five weeks.

Tens of thousands of mourners filed into St Peter’s Basilica to pay their respects to the late pontiff during the three days in which he lay in state. His coffin was sealed during a private ceremony on Friday night.

The funeral mass begins at 10am local time and will be led by the Italian cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the college of cardinals.

With at least 130 foreign delegations attending, alongside an estimated 200,000 pilgrims, the funeral has required a huge and complex security operation in the Vatican and Rome, involving thousands of Italian police and military, as well as the Vatican’s Swiss Guards, the smallest army in the world. Soldiers in St Peter’s Square have been equipped with guns that shoot down drones, while rooftop snipers and fighter jets are on standby.

A delegation from Francis’s home country of Argentina, led by its president, Javier Milei, will be seated in the front row during the mass, with Italian leaders, including president Sergio Mattarella and prime minister Giorgia Meloni, in the second row, and other heads of state and royals in the third.

The US president, Donald Trump, who for years clashed with Francis over immigration, and his wife, Melania, are attending, along with Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden.

Other guests include the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, British prime minister, Keir Starmer, French president, Emmanuel Macron, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Prince William. Zelenskyy said late on Friday if he was not able to travel it would be because he was in “military meetings”.

The 87-page order of service, written in English, Italian and Latin, was published on the Vatican’s website in advance of the funeral.

Pope Francis, a name chosen in honour of Francis of Assisi, the Italian saint who renounced a life of luxury to help the poor, simplified rites for papal funerals last year and was very specific about the requirements for his own , including his guests.

Invited to his funeral mass are delegations from Mediterranea Saving Humans, an Italian NGO that works to protect refugees who cross the Mediterranean, and Refugees in Libya, an NGO that campaigns on behalf of migrants and refugees held in detention camps in the north African country. Francis formed close friendships with both groups.

“He was a true disciple of Jesus – he spoke to everyone,” said Luca Casarini, founder of Mediterranea Saving Humans. “There are those who listened to him, like us. He always encouraged us to save people at sea, to help them escape from Libya or Tunisia, and to welcome them. Then there are those, for example the powerful people, who did the opposite of what he told them.”

Mahamat Daoud, who was held in a detention camp in Libya, where he experienced torture and other abuses, before surviving a treacherous journey across the Mediterranean to Italy in 2023, is among the delegation from Refugees in Libya. Daoud met Francis at his home in the Vatican in late 2023.

“We are feeling really sorry about this death because he was the only pope who really stood with refugees and vulnerable people,” said Daoud. “He helped us, not only when we arrived in Italy, but also when we were struggling in Libya.”

Daoud hopes the funeral will be a unifying event. “We will be alongside people who fight against us, who push us back or force us to live in harmful situations,” he said. “But in the end we are all coming together for this funeral, and we really hope that it might have a unifying effect.”

At the end of the funeral mass, Francis’s simple wooden coffin will be driven slowly to Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica, about 2.5 miles away in Rome’s Esquilino neighbourhood.

The procession will make its way through central Rome, passing key monuments including the Colosseum. As requested by Francis, on arrival at the fourth-century basilica he will be given a final sendoff by a group of 40 people, including prisoners and homeless people.

“Since the beginning of his papacy, Francis set out to focus on people who might be considered the dregs of society by others,” said Robert Mickens, a Rome-based columnist for Union of Catholic Asian News.

Francis is the first pontiff in more than a century not to be buried with great fanfare in the grottoes beneath St Peter’s Basilica.

Instead, his coffin will be entombed in a small niche that until now has been used to store candlestick holders.

As requested in his final testament, the tomb will not be decorated and will be inscribed only with his papal name in Latin: Franciscus.

The burial will be an “intimate” event attended by Francis’s relatives, a Vatican official said.

Amid the funeral, speculation is rife about who will succeed Francis. Cardinals approved nine days of mourning from Saturday, with a conclave – the secret election process to choose a new pope – therefore not expected to begin before 5 May.

The pope is said to be infallible but bookmakers also have a reputation for getting it right, most of the time.

Now, as the Vatican City prepares for the papal conclave – the solemn ritual by which the next pope will be chosen – some bookies are already licking their lips in anticipation of a rush of bets.

Gambling industry sources said they had been swapping tips on the runners and riders, as if the 252 cardinals were thoroughbreds being paraded through the paddock at the Grand National.

Polymarket, a fast-growing cryptocurrency betting platform that operates in a similar way to a stock exchange, claimed to be hosting peer-to-peer bets worth more than $6m (£4.5m), as of Friday morning.

The top five backers of the current favourite, the Italian Pietro Parolin, including one calling himself HolyMoses7, held positions worth more than $25,000.

However, the market was much smaller on the UK’s powerhouse betting exchange Betfair, which is subject to much stricter regulation.

Less than £8,000 was riding on the outcome, indicating less interest than for this weekend’s Premier League tie between already-relegated Southampton, and Fulham.

With every punter seeking an edge, some have speculated that the result of the process, depicted in the Oscar-winning film Conclave, might leak out even before the white smoke that signals that a successor has been chosen.

The professional gambler Neil Channing said some fellow pros had taken a break from betting on the World Snooker Championships to exchange wisdom on the conclave, speculating on which cardinals might be damaged by links to various scandals.

“I don’t think I’ve ever bet on it but it’s not much different to the Doncaster mayoral race is it?” he said.

“I’m waiting for my secret cardinal source.”

The late Pope Francis is unlikely to have appreciated the spectacle, having urged the faithful to reject “financial speculation”.

Mourners might also balk at the sight of betting firms leveraging the death of the pontiff as an opportunity to sign up new players.

The multibillion-pound betting industry, however, has no such qualms.

As of Friday, major bookies were offering odds on around 50 of 252 cardinals, although in theory deacons, priests and even lay people – although not women – could be chosen.

The likes of Paddy Power, Sky Bet and Ladbrokes were also promoting “free bets” for anyone making a wager via a page about the papal race on the odds aggregation website Oddschecker.

The clear favourite to succeed Pope Francis, at the time of writing, was Parolin, an Italian who is expected to preside over the conclave, much as the character played by Ralph Fiennes did in the film.

Coming in as short as 2-1, according to Oddschecker, Parolin was far out in front, ahead of the second-placed runner, Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, who was at 5-2 with some bookmakers.

The other 45 men for whom the site gave odds were all a long way back, including the highest-placed Briton, Timothy Radcliffe, at 33-1.

But both cinemagoers and ardent Catholics will know that a dark horse is always in with a shout because, just as in the film Conclave, a long shot can come from nowhere to pip rivals to the post.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was 15th favourite with some bookies before becoming being elected and taking the papal name Francis in 2013, while is predecessor Pope Benedict was also unfancied at first.

Gambling on papal conclaves is nothing new. Indeed various historians have cited it as relatively common practice in the 16th century and even before, with the great banking dynasties of Rome running the books.

In 2005, the Paddy Power co-founder David Power was thrown out of St Peter’s Square for displaying his prices for the conclave that elected Pope Benedict.

As light-hearted as papal odds may seem, potential punters might be wise to proceed with caution.

Betting on the outcome of non-sporting events is associated with some of the highest rates of addiction of any type of gambling, according to the latest figures from the Gambling Commission, higher than casino games and comparable with online slot machines.

But users of Polymarket were arguing among themselves about betting strategies.

One advised: “Look at history.”

The response was withering: “If you had looked at history and gambled on the election of the previous three popes, you would have lost your underwear.

“Had anyone ever seen a Jesuit? No. Had anyone ever seen a Pole? No. And a German? Do you know who the last German pope was before Ratzinger? Centuries before.”

Another simply said: “The next pope will be African and you will enjoy it.”

With their feathered helmets, ruffled collars and coloured, puffed-sleeve uniforms, the Vatican Swiss Guards are often likened by curious visitors to medieval court jesters.

But appearances can be deceiving. The world’s smallest army, whose primary role is to protect the pope, has been rigorously trained and with no living pontiff to protect right now will join the huge security operation involving specialist Italian police units and the military given the task of keeping watch over Vatican City and Rome during the funeral of Pope Francis and the subsequent conclave.

A Swiss Guards spokesperson declined to be interviewed “because we are all very busy concentrating on this mission”. Behind the scenes, the 135-man army will have been fine-tuning the long-planned operation with well-choreographed trial runs in their barracks in the eastern part of Vatican City.

Dressed in their Renaissance-style traditional red, yellow and blue uniforms, their first task this week was to guard Pope Francis’s body when it was moved into a coffin in the chapel of his Casa Santa Marta home.

Holding traditional halberds, they stood guard as the open coffin was transferred through St Peter’s Square and into the 16th-century basilica, where Francis is lying in state until Friday evening. Two barely blinking guards are holding vigil by the body.

After the funeral mass, the army will be involved in the procession to transfer the coffin from the Vatican to Santa Maria Maggiore basilica in Rome’s Esquilino neighbourhood, where it will be buried in a tomb picked by Pope Francis.

With as many as 170 foreign delegations, including those of Donald Trump and Prince William, along with an estimated 200,000 pilgrims arriving in Rome, the Swiss Guards have an intense few days ahead of them.

They will be given the task of guarding the conclave, the secret ballot to elect a new pope that takes place in the Sistine Chapel, all the while maintaining their role of patrolling the borders of Vatican City.

The army has been enlisted at the Vatican since the early 16th century, when Swiss mercenaries, revered for their bravery and loyalty, marched to Rome to serve Pope Julius II.

In 2018, Pope Francis boosted its number from 110 to 135 after a series of terrorist attacks in France and elsewhere in Europe, and in preparation for this year’s Catholic jubilee.

The halberd is the guards’ traditional weapon, but the troops are trained to use small modern-day arms, including the recently introduced stun guns.

As for the job requirements: army recruits must be male, Swiss, aged between 19 and 30, taller than 5ft 8in (1.74 metres), unmarried and devoutly Catholic with “an unblemished character”.

A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of Donald Trump flying to the Vatican this weekend and publicly feuding with international leaders in front of St Peter’s Basilica in the midst of the sombre rituals and rites that will mark the funeral of Pope Francis.

The US leader’s first international trip of his second term comes at one of the most politically fractious and fraught moments in recent memory, as his “America first” project sets fire to US alliances and trade relationships around the world. Between international tariffs, the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza, the Trump team’s open antipathy toward Europe and its hard line on immigration from Central and South America, the papal funeral could prove to be a minefield of international diplomacy.

Trump’s international engagements in the past have set the stage for some of his most explosive confrontations, and he has bristled at world leaders who have criticised him publicly and castigated those he views as insufficiently deferential. Gatherings of world leaders have set the stage for some of his most divisive debates, such as the 2018 G7 meeting that saw him clash with Angela Merkel and other western leaders, or the 2017 Nato summit at which he famously shoved past the Montenegrin prime minister to get to the front of a group photograph.

Compounding tensions are the Trump administration’s difficult relationship with the Vatican itself, including Pope Francis’s criticism of Trump’s deportation policies as a “major crisis” and declaration that “builders of walls sow fear”.

Adding to the diplomatic minefield, it was announced on Friday that the former president Joe Biden, whom Trump has repeatedly and continually criticised, would also attend the funeral. Trump’s predecessor is a lifelong Catholic who had met Pope Francis several times and awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in January before leaving the White House.

There is little doubt that Trump’s trip to the Vatican – which Italy has encased in a “ring of steel” with Nato jets, snipers and thousands of police at the ready – will provide plenty of white-knuckle moments as the volatile US president navigates controversy amid the pomp and circumstance of a papal funeral.

Assuming Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends – on Friday he said “military meetings” might preclude him from making the trip – the funeral will be the first time the Ukrainian leader has been in the same place as Trump since the US president and the vice-president, JD Vance, berated him in the White House in February. Trump cut short that meeting, saying Zelenskyy was “gambling with world war three” and being “very disrespectful”. He has now floated the prospect of the US recognising Russian control of Crimea and accused Zelenskyy of delaying a peace deal, testing the Ukrainian president’s patience and raising the danger of a new meltdown in bilateral relations.

Then there are the EU leaders, members of a bloc that Trump has said was “formed to screw the United States”. At their head is the EU commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. Despite imposing (and then pausing) a 20% tariff on all goods from the EU, Trump and von der Leyen have not spoken directly or arranged an EU-US summit over the brewing trade war, meaning a meeting on the sidelines of the funeral could be well-timed. Von der Leyen had tacitly criticised the US in print, saying that Europe has “no bros and no oligarchs” and that “the west as we knew it no longer exists.”

But there are some bright spots in the crowd for Trump. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni will attend following a friendly White House visit earlier this month that marked her ascent as one of the key envoys between Europe and the United States. And EU officials have been said to believe a summit with the US is within reach, with Trump saying that “there’ll be a trade deal, 100%”. France’s Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer have also hammered out friendly relationships with Trump, and the outgoing Polish president, Andrzej Duda, who was viewed as that country’s best conduit to Trump, will also attend.

Other attenders have also criticised Trump in public, including for his recent imposition of global tariffs that shook world markets, leading him to issue a 90-day pause for nearly all countries except for China. Among them is Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the leftwing leader who said of Trump’s tariffs: “It’s not going to work.” No high-level officials from China will take part in the funeral, curbing the potential for sideline discussions or a standoff over the trade war between Washington and Beijing.

Vladimir Putin has also decided to deploy a fairly low-level official, the culture minister, Olga Lyubimova, as Russia’s envoy to the funeral, meaning that important contacts over a potential peace deal on the Russian war in Ukraine are unlikely to take place.

Israel meanwhile will be represented by its ambassador to the Vatican, in contrast to Pope John Paul II’s funeral in 2005, when the country sent a presidential delegation. The apparent snub follows the late Pope Francis’s criticism of the war in Gaza; the Times of Israel quoted an Israeli diplomat calling the delegation a “low point in a spiral”. Pope Francis had repeatedly slammed Israel’s “cruelty” in Gaza and had called the humanitarian situation there “shameful” in January. The absence of a high-level delegation from Israel will reduce the likelihood of substantive discussions over the war following the collapse of the ceasefire negotiated earlier in Trump’s term.

Trump has said that he is planning to meet foreign leaders during the trip, although he has not specified whom. “I have a lot of meetings set up,” Trump said.

Yet he will not be seated front and centre at the funeral. In the areas allocated to foreign leaders, the front rows are designated for Catholic royalty, which will include King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain. Then would come the non-Catholic royalty, including Prince William in the place of his father, King Charles III. And finally come other foreign leaders, including Trump.

The greatest wildcard remains Trump’s own behaviour at the funeral. While he has clashed with European leaders at past summits, he has also toned down his criticism of opponents during public appearances as well. At Jimmy Carter’s funeral in January, Trump sat next to Barack Obama, a rival whom he has publicly attacked for more than a decade, and yet the two traded jokes and smiled while speaking during the service. Then he complained about flags in the US flying at half-mast during the mourning period that coincided with his inauguration.

The US president has never been known for his tact. And as world leaders gather in the Vatican this weekend and millions tune in to follow the funeral, it is Washington that will be sending the elephant in the room.

The FBI on Friday arrested a judge whom the agency accused of obstruction after it said she helped a man evade US immigration authorities as they were seeking to arrest him at her courthouse.

The county circuit judge, Hannah Dugan, was apprehended in the courthouse where she works in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at 8.30am local time on Friday on charges of obstruction, a spokesperson for the US Marshals Service confirmed to the Guardian.

Kash Patel, the Trump-appointed FBI director, wrote on X: “We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject – an illegal alien – to evade arrest.”

He said that agents were still able to arrest the target after he was “chased down” and that he was in custody. Patel added that “the judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public”.

Dugan appeared briefly in federal court in Milwaukee later on Friday morning before being released from custody. Her next court appearance is 15 May.

“Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety,” her attorney, Craig Mastantuono, said during the hearing.

A crowd formed outside the courthouse, chanting: “Free the judge now.”

In a statement shared with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, an attorney for Dugan said: “Hannah C Dugan has committed herself to the rule of law and the principles of due process for her entire career as a lawyer and a judge.”

It continued: “Judge Dugan will defend herself vigorously, and looks forward to being exonerated.”

Trump weighed in on his Truth Social platform by sharing an image of the judge found on the judge’s Facebook page by the rightwing blogger Libs of TikTok, which showed Dugan on the bench wearing a KN95 face mask and displaying the Ukrainian national symbol of a trident.

The Milwaukee city council released a statement following the arrest: “This morning’s news that Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested by federal authorities is shocking and upsetting. Judge Dugan should be afforded the same respect and due process that she has diligently provided others throughout her career.

“Perhaps the most chilling part of Judge Dugan’s arrest is the continued aggression by which the current administration in Washington, DC has weaponized federal law enforcement, such as ICE, against immigrant communities,” the statement reads. “As local elected officials, we are working daily to support our constituents who grow increasingly concerned and worried with each passing incident.”

Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat representing Wisconsin, called the arrest of a sitting judge a “gravely serious and drastic move” that “threatens to breach” the separation of power between the executive and judicial branches.

“Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country and we are a democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by,” Baldwin said in an emailed statement after Dugan’s arrest.

The leftwing senator Bernie Sanders said the move was about “unchecked power”.

“Let’s be clear. Trump’s arrest of Judge Dugan in Milwaukee has nothing to do with immigration. It has everything to do with [Trump] moving this country towards authoritarianism,” he said in a statement.

The Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren said in a social media post: “This administration is threatening our country’s judicial system. This rings serious alarm bells.”

Later in the day, the FBI director posted a photograph of the judge in handcuffs on X with the caption: “No one is above the law”.

The judge’s arrest dramatically escalates tensions between federal authorities and state and local officials amid Donald Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown. It also comes amid a growing battle between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary over the president’s executive actions over deportations and other matters.

In a statement Wisconsin’s governor, Democrat Tony Evers, accused the Trump administration of repeatedly using “dangerous rhetoric to attack and attempt to undermine our judiciary at every level”.

“I have deep respect for the rule of law, our nation’s judiciary, the importance of judges making decisions impartially without fear or favor, and the efforts of law enforcement to hold people accountable if they commit a crime,” Evers said. “I will continue to put my faith in our justice system as this situation plays out in the court of law.”

It was reported on Tuesday that the FBI was investigating whether Dugan “tried to help an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest when that person was scheduled to appear in her courtroom last week”, per an email obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Dugan told the Journal Sentinel: “Nearly every fact regarding the ‘tips’ in your email is inaccurate.”

The arrest of Dugan is the first publicly known instance of the Trump administration charging a local official for allegedly interfering with immigration enforcement.

Emil Bove, the justice department’s principal associate deputy attorney general, issued a memo in January calling on prosecutors to pursue criminal cases against local government officials who obstructed the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts.

Bove stated in the three-page memo: “Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands or requests.”

Dugan has been charged with the federal offenses of obstructing a proceeding and concealing an individual to prevent arrest, according to documents filed with the court.

The administration alleged that in the original encounter, the judge ordered immigration officials to leave the courthouse, saying they did not have a warrant signed by a judge to apprehend the suspect they were seeking, who was in court for other reasons.

Prosecutors said that Dugan became “visibly angry” when she learned that immigration agents were planning an arrest in her courtroom, according to court filings.

Dugan ordered the immigration officials to speak with the chief judge and then escorted Flores Ruiz and his attorney through a door that led to a non-public area of the courthouse, the prosecution complaint said.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, citing sources it did not identify, said Dugan steered Flores Ruiz and his attorney to a private hallway and into a public area but did not hide the pair in a jury deliberation room as some have accused her of doing.

Dugan was first elected as a county judge in 2016 and before that was head of the local branch of Catholic Charities, which provides refugee resettlement programs. She was previously a lawyer at the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, which serves low-income people.

The case is similar to one brought during the first Trump administration against a Massachusetts judge, who was accused of helping a man sneak out a backdoor of a courthouse to evade a waiting immigration enforcement agent.

That prosecution sparked outrage from many in the legal community, who slammed the case as politically motivated. Prosecutors under the Biden administration dropped the case against Newton district judge Shelley Joseph in 2022 after she agreed to refer herself to a state agency that investigates allegations of misconduct by members of the bench.

However, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, gave a media interview in which she said the administration would target any judges it believed were breaking the law.

Bondi said on a Fox News segment that she believed “some of these judges think that they are beyond and above the law. They are not, and we are sending a very strong message today … if you are harboring a fugitive, we will come after you and we will prosecute you.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting

The Trump administration’s war on the judiciary deepened on Friday as the FBI arrested a county circuit judge on charges of obstruction, accusing her of helping a man evade immigration authorities as they sought his arrest at her courthouse.

The judge, Hannah Dugan, was apprehended in the courthouse where she works in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a spokesperson for the US Marshals Service confirmed to the Guardian. Kash Patel, the Trump-appointed FBI director, wrote on X that he believed Dugan “intentionally misdirected federal agents away from” Eduardo Flores Ruiz, who he called an “illegal alien”. Agents “chased down” the man and arrested him later, he added.

The case is the latest in a string of attacks by the Trump administration and federal agencies on judges who make decisions that challenge the government’s attempts to overhaul the country’s immigration system or slow its deportations program.

Here are the key stories at a glance:

Catching up? Here’s what happened on 24 April 2025.

Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein who also alleged she was sexually trafficked to Prince Andrew, has died. She was 41.

Her family on Saturday issued a statement confirming she took her own life at her farm in Western Australia, where she had lived for several years.

“It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia. She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking,” the statement read.

“In the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight.”

Giuffre was one of the most vocal victims of Epstein, alleging she had been groomed and sexually abused by him and his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, beginning in her teens.

The family described her as a “fierce warrior” against sexual abuse and sex trafficking and a “light that lifted so many survivors”.

“Despite all the adversity she faced in her life, she shone so bright. She will be missed beyond measure,” they said.

Giuffre is survived by her three children Christian, Noah and Emily, who her family said were the “light of her life”.

“It was when she held her newborn daughter in her arms that Virginia realized she had to fight back against those who had abused her and so many others,” they said.

“There are no words that can express the grave loss we feel today with the passing of our sweet Virginia. She was heroic and will always be remembered for her incredible courage and loving spirit.”

Giuffre’s lawyer, Sigrid McCawley, said she was “much more than a client”.

“She was a dear friend and an incredible champion for other victims. Her courage pushed me to fight harder, and her strength was awe-inspiring,” McCawley said.

“The world has lost an amazing human being today. Rest in peace, my sweet angel.”

Giuffre’s representative Dini von Mueffling said she was “one of the most extraordinary human beings I have ever had the honour to know”.

“Deeply loving, wise, and funny, she was a beacon to other survivors and victims. She adored her children and many animals,” she said.

“She was always more concerned with me than with herself. I will miss her beyond words. It was the privilege of a lifetime to represent her.”

Earlier this month, Giuffre posted on social media that she had just days to live after a school bus crashed into her car.

Western Australia police later confirmed a 41-year-old woman was in a car that collided with a bus on 24 March but there were no reported injuries. It is understood Giuffre presented to a Perth hospital emergency department on 1 April.

Giuffre, who is American, said she met Maxwell, a British socialite in 2000 when working as a working as a locker-room assistant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

She was offered her a job as massage therapist to Epstein, during which she alleged she was trafficked to the financier’s friends and clients – “passed around like a platter of fruit”.

In a 2009 civil lawsuit against Epstein, under the pseudonym “Jane Doe 102”, she alleged that her duties included being “sexually exploited by Epstein’s adult male peers including royalty”. Giuffre reached a settlement with Epstein in that case before it went to trial.

In 2021, Giuffre filed a civil lawsuit against Prince Andrew in the federal court in New York, alleging he sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was 17.

Andrew has repeatedly and strongly denied the accusations.

In the lawsuit, Giuffre alleged Epstein and Maxwell had introduced her to Andrew in 2001, and alleged that Maxwell forced her to have sex with Andrew.

In 2022, Andrew and Giuffre agreed to an out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed sum.

Maxwell, who has maintained her innocence, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 for sex trafficking.

Epstein was arrested by federal authorities in July 2019 and charged with sex-trafficking counts. Shortly after, he died by suicide while awaiting trial.

An American man identified as the son of a deputy director of the CIA was killed in eastern Ukraine in 2024 while fighting under contract for the Russian military, according to an investigation by independent Russian media.

Michael Alexander Gloss, 21, died on 4 April 2024 in “Eastern Europe”, according to an obituary published by his family. He was the son of Juliane Gallina, who was appointed the deputy director for digital innovation at the Central Intelligence Agency in February 2024.

The story of how the son of a top-ranking US spy died fighting for Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is an unlikely tale of how homegrown anger at the United States and online radicalisation led from a middle-class Virginia childhood to the killing fields of eastern Ukraine.

On a VKontakte page attributed to Gloss, a high school football player born to parents who both served in the military, he described himself as “a supporter of the multipolar world. I ran away from home. traveled the world. I hate fascism. I love my homeland.” He also posted the flags of Russia and Palestine.

According to the investigative website iStories, Gloss is one of more than 1,500 foreigners who have signed contracts with the Russian military since February 2022. The database for the enrollment office was later leaked, exposing him as having signed the contract in September 2023. Sources told iStories that Gloss had been deployed with “assault units”, those engaged in harsh frontline fighting, in December 2023. An acquaintance said that he had been deployed to a Russian airborne regiment sent to storm Ukrainian positions near the city of Soledar.

“With his noble heart and warrior spirit Michael was forging his own hero’s journey when he was tragically killed in Eastern Europe on April 4, 2024,” his family wrote in the obituary, which did not mention Russia and Ukraine or discuss the circumstances of his death.

In university, Gloss was active in gender equality and environmental protest circles. He joined Rainbow Family, a leftwing environmental protest group, and in 2023 traveled to Hatay, Turkey, to assist in the recovery following the earthquake that killed more than 56,000 people. He had also become increasingly angry at the US for its support of Israel and the war in Gaza.

While in Turkey, Gloss began expressing a desire to go on to Russia. “He was usually watching videos about Palestine and was so angry at America,” one acquaintance told iStories. “He started thinking about going to Russia. He wanted to war with the USA. But I think he was very influenced by the conspiracy theory videos.”

After receiving a visa to Russia, he traveled around the country before arriving in Moscow, where he joined the military shortly before his documents expired. Photographs and videos obtained by iStories showed he was sent to a Russian training camp, where he mostly trained alongside Nepali contract soldiers. Three months after enlisting, an acquaintance said, he was deployed to Ukraine as a member of an assault battalion.

A number of acquaintances told the outlet that he had not been interested in fighting, but hoped the army would allow him to receive a Russian passport and stay in the country.

The circumstance’s of Gloss’s death are not known. A friend said that his family had been informed by the Russian government of his death but were given little other information. “It was announced that he died within the borders of Ukraine,” the friend wrote. “We do not know whether he participated in the war. They did not provide any other detailed information.”

It was not clear whether the Russians performed a background check on Gloss or knew the identity of his mother. The Guardian has approached the CIA for comment on the reports.

Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has met Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin for high-stakes peace talks, hours after a senior Russian military official was killed in a car explosion near Moscow.

Trump has played up Witkoff’s visit – his fourth to Russia in recent months – claiming a deal on ending the war in Ukraine was within reach. “The next few days are going to be very important. Meetings are taking place right now,” Trump told reporters on Thursday. “I think we’re going to make a deal … I think we’re getting very close.”

But no apparent breakthrough was reached on Friday. Putin’s senior aide Yuri Ushakov, who was present at the talks, said the discussions were “constructive and quite useful” and noted that the two sides had “narrowed differences”.

In comments to journalists, Ushakov said the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine had also been discussed.

Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Witkoff had left Moscow carrying a message for Trump. There was no immediate comment from Witkoff on the outcome of the meeting.

At the start of the talks, the Kremlin published a short clip showing Putin and Witkoff – who holds no formal diplomatic credentials – shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries in the Kremlin before sitting down on opposite sides of a white oval table to start their meeting behind closed doors.

Putin was flanked in the meeting by Ushakov and his investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev. Three hours later, Witkoff’s car was seen leaving the Kremlin.

Although Trump has repeatedly claimed he was close to ending the war, now in its fourth year, his efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine have so far yielded little results, stalled by Moscow’s hardline demands.

Reuters on Friday published two sets of documents outlining the US and Ukrainian proposals for ending the war, revealing significant differences on issues ranging from territorial concessions to sanctions.

It remains unclear whether Moscow, which has consistently rejected an immediate ceasefire, would agree to the US proposal, despite the major concessions it offers the Kremlin, including allowing it to retain territory it has captured.

Trump admitted on Friday that the talks were “very fragile” and said he had no deadline for achieving peace, having previously claimed he could end the war “in 24 hours”.

In an interview with Time magazine published on Friday, Trump also said that “Crimea will stay with Russia”, the latest example of the US leader putting pressure on Ukraine to make concessions to end the war while it remains under siege.

Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, later insisted the territory is “the property of the Ukrainian people”.

“Our position is unchanged,” he told reporters in Kyiv. “The constitution of Ukraine says that all the temporarily occupied territories … belong to Ukraine.”

Witkoff’s visit came hours after a senior Russian general was blown up outside his apartment in what appears to have been the latest Ukrainian operation deep inside Russian territory.

The Russian authorities named the officer as Lt Gen Yaroslav Moskalik, the deputy head of the main operations directorate of the general staff of the Russian armed forces. The blast was similar in nature to previous attacks on Russians that were later claimed by Ukraine.

The apparent Ukrainian assassination is unlikely to sit well with the Trump administration, which has been desperate to show tangible progress on peace before Trump’s 100th day in office next week.

Despite Putin’s refusal to agree to a ceasefire and continued missile strikes on Ukraine, the US president has criticised Zelenskyy repeatedly over the stalled peace talks while adopting a more cautious tone toward the Russian leader.

The Russian investigative committee said the explosions were caused by the detonation of an improvised explosive device packed with shrapnel. The committee, which investigates major crimes, said it had opened a criminal case.

Baza, a Telegram channel with sources in Russia’s law enforcement agencies, said a bomb in a parked car in the town of Balashikha, in the Moscow region, was detonated remotely when the officer, who lived locally, walked past.

A video circulating on Russian social media captured the moment the car exploded, while additional images showed the burnt-out vehicle.

The Kremlin blamed Ukraine for the killing, with Peskov saying Kyiv was engaging in “terrorist activities on Russian territory”. Ukraine has not yet commented on the incident.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has targeted dozens of Russian military officers and Russian-installed officials whom Kyiv has accused of committing war crimes in the country. Little is known, however, about the clandestine Ukrainian resistance cells involved in assassinations and attacks on military infrastructure in Russia and Russian-controlled areas.

Last December, Ukraine’s security services targeted another senior Russian general, Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, who was killed after an explosive device hidden in an electric scooter detonated outside an apartment building in Moscow.

At the time, Keith Kellogg, Trump’s appointed special representative for Ukraine and Russia, criticised the killing, saying it could have violated the rules of warfare.

Apart from military figures, Ukraine has targeted prominent Russian pro-war propagandists including Darya Dugina, the daughter of an ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue, who was killed in 2022 when a bomb blew up the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving.

Moskalik, 59, was part of several high-profile Russian foreign delegations in recent years, including in at least two rounds of talks with Ukrainian and western officials, in 2015 and 2019, as well as a 2018 visit to the Assad regime in Syria. Insiders close to the defence ministry say his influence within the Russian military was on the rise.

Mikhail Zvinchuk, a popular Russian military blogger with ties to the defence establishment, said: “According to chatter behind the scenes, one scenario for personnel reshuffling at the general staff had Moskalik being considered as a potential head of the national defence management centre, primarily due to his methodical approach and thoughtfulness.”

Xi Jinping has announced a plan to counter China’s continuing economic problems and the impact of the US trade war, as reports swirl that it could drop tariffs on some US products, including semiconductors.

Friday’s meeting of the politburo was convened to discuss China’s economy, which since the pandemic has faced difficulties fuelled by a housing sector crisis, youth unemployment and Donald Trump’s tariffs on all Chinese imports to the US.

A readout of the meeting published by the official state media outlet Xinhua said China’s economy had showed a “positive trend” with increasing social confidence in 2025, but “the impact of external shocks has increased”.

“We must strengthen bottom-line thinking, fully prepare emergency plans and do a solid job in economic work,” it said.

In a reference to Trump’s global tariffs, the readout said Beijing would “work with the international community to actively uphold multilateralism and oppose unilateral bullying practices”.

he US president has again insisted that Xi has called him to discuss the border taxes, despite Beijing denying any contact between the two countries over their bitter trade dispute.

In an interview conducted on Tuesday with Time magazine and published on Friday, Trump repeated the claim but did not say when the call took place or specify what was discussed. “He’s called,” Trump said of Xi. “And I don’t think that’s a sign of weakness on his behalf.”

On Thursday, a spokesperson for China’s foreign affairs ministry, Guo Jiakun, said of the reports of talks: “None of that is true.”

Friday’s politburo readout proposed a series of interventions to bolster the domestic economy and protect people and businesses from the impact of Trump’s tariffs, including increasing unemployment insurance payouts. It promised to increase low and middle incomes, develop the service industry and boost consumption.

“We should take multiple measures to help enterprises in difficulties,” it said. “We should strengthen financing support. We should accelerate the integration of domestic and foreign trade.”

It stressed the need for more proactive macroeconomic policies, faster development of a new real estate model and increased housing stock, and “stepping up” city renewal programmes and urban renovation.

Wen-ti Sung, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, said the politburo’s decisions showed Beijing “clearly views the international macroeconomic environment as hostile” and was willing to take on high domestic inflation to weather the tariffs.

“[This] hints that China will be digging into the trenches and is preparing for a long trade fight with Trump,” he said.

Sung said Beijing was “doubling down on boosting domestic demand” and bolstering fiscal stimulus as the international market showed no signs of significant improvement.

The meeting was held amid reports that Chinese authorities were considering a list of US products to exempt from the 125% tariffs imposed on all US imports. Earlier reports from Bloomberg and Reuters said medical equipment, semiconductors and some industrial chemicals such as ethane were being considered.

On Thursday, a Shenzhen-based supplier posted online that it had been notified by the customs agency that eight semiconductor products would no longer attract the 125% duty.

On Friday, the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, Michael Hart, said the Chinese authorities had been asking members what products they imported from the US that they could not find anywhere else.

He welcomed the early signs that both sides were reviewing tariffs and starting to produce lists of excluded items. Stock markets across the Asia Pacific region rose after the reports.

The trade war has hit the US and Chinese economies, and the tariff exemptions are likely to be a sign of the parties trying to ease their way out. The US had already exempted some categories of Chinese-made products from tariffs, including smartphones and laptops. This week, Trump said his tariffs on China would “come down substantially but it won’t be zero”.

But in public the two governments have given different accounts on the status of negotiations on ending the trade war.

On Friday afternoon, China’s foreign ministry reiterated its claim that the US and China were not engaged in any negotiations on tariffs, contradicting Trump’s claims on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said the two sides were talking. “We may reveal it later, but they had meetings this morning, and we’ve been meeting with China,” he said, declining to say who “they” were.

The remarks appeared to be in response to the Chinese commerce ministry’s spokesperson, He Yadong, earlier saying there were “currently no economic and trade negotiations between China and the United States”.

Xi Jinping has announced a plan to counter China’s continuing economic problems and the impact of the US trade war, as reports swirl that it could drop tariffs on some US products, including semiconductors.

Friday’s meeting of the politburo was convened to discuss China’s economy, which since the pandemic has faced difficulties fuelled by a housing sector crisis, youth unemployment and Donald Trump’s tariffs on all Chinese imports to the US.

A readout of the meeting published by the official state media outlet Xinhua said China’s economy had showed a “positive trend” with increasing social confidence in 2025, but “the impact of external shocks has increased”.

“We must strengthen bottom-line thinking, fully prepare emergency plans and do a solid job in economic work,” it said.

In a reference to Trump’s global tariffs, the readout said Beijing would “work with the international community to actively uphold multilateralism and oppose unilateral bullying practices”.

he US president has again insisted that Xi has called him to discuss the border taxes, despite Beijing denying any contact between the two countries over their bitter trade dispute.

In an interview conducted on Tuesday with Time magazine and published on Friday, Trump repeated the claim but did not say when the call took place or specify what was discussed. “He’s called,” Trump said of Xi. “And I don’t think that’s a sign of weakness on his behalf.”

On Thursday, a spokesperson for China’s foreign affairs ministry, Guo Jiakun, said of the reports of talks: “None of that is true.”

Friday’s politburo readout proposed a series of interventions to bolster the domestic economy and protect people and businesses from the impact of Trump’s tariffs, including increasing unemployment insurance payouts. It promised to increase low and middle incomes, develop the service industry and boost consumption.

“We should take multiple measures to help enterprises in difficulties,” it said. “We should strengthen financing support. We should accelerate the integration of domestic and foreign trade.”

It stressed the need for more proactive macroeconomic policies, faster development of a new real estate model and increased housing stock, and “stepping up” city renewal programmes and urban renovation.

Wen-ti Sung, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, said the politburo’s decisions showed Beijing “clearly views the international macroeconomic environment as hostile” and was willing to take on high domestic inflation to weather the tariffs.

“[This] hints that China will be digging into the trenches and is preparing for a long trade fight with Trump,” he said.

Sung said Beijing was “doubling down on boosting domestic demand” and bolstering fiscal stimulus as the international market showed no signs of significant improvement.

The meeting was held amid reports that Chinese authorities were considering a list of US products to exempt from the 125% tariffs imposed on all US imports. Earlier reports from Bloomberg and Reuters said medical equipment, semiconductors and some industrial chemicals such as ethane were being considered.

On Thursday, a Shenzhen-based supplier posted online that it had been notified by the customs agency that eight semiconductor products would no longer attract the 125% duty.

On Friday, the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, Michael Hart, said the Chinese authorities had been asking members what products they imported from the US that they could not find anywhere else.

He welcomed the early signs that both sides were reviewing tariffs and starting to produce lists of excluded items. Stock markets across the Asia Pacific region rose after the reports.

The trade war has hit the US and Chinese economies, and the tariff exemptions are likely to be a sign of the parties trying to ease their way out. The US had already exempted some categories of Chinese-made products from tariffs, including smartphones and laptops. This week, Trump said his tariffs on China would “come down substantially but it won’t be zero”.

But in public the two governments have given different accounts on the status of negotiations on ending the trade war.

On Friday afternoon, China’s foreign ministry reiterated its claim that the US and China were not engaged in any negotiations on tariffs, contradicting Trump’s claims on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said the two sides were talking. “We may reveal it later, but they had meetings this morning, and we’ve been meeting with China,” he said, declining to say who “they” were.

The remarks appeared to be in response to the Chinese commerce ministry’s spokesperson, He Yadong, earlier saying there were “currently no economic and trade negotiations between China and the United States”.

George Santos, the disgraced former representative, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on Friday, bringing an end to an extraordinary controversy that began with a fraudulent congressional campaign.

He lied extensively about his life story both before and after entering the US Congress, where he was the first openly LGBTQ+ Republican elected to the body. He was ultimately convicted of defrauding donors.

Santos, 36, was sentenced on Friday morning in Long Island, the large suburban area to the east of New York City.

He sobbed in court saying he was “humbled” and “chastised” and realized he had betrayed his constituents’ trust. He pleaded guilty last summer to federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft and had appealed for mercy.

“I offer my deepest apologies,” he said on Friday, adding: “I cannot rewrite the past, but I can control the road ahead.”

US district court judge Joanna Seybert appeared unconvinced by his display of contrition.

“Where is your remorse? Where do I see it?” she asked as she sentenced him to 87 months behind bars. She said the former politician appeared to feel that “it’s always someone else’s fault”.

He served in Congress barely a year before his House of Representatives colleagues ousted him in 2023. Having flipped his seat to the GOP it then reverted to the Democrats with Tom Suozzi winning the vacant spot in a special election in February last year.

He admitted to deceiving donors and stealing the identities of nearly a dozen people, including his family members, to fund his winning campaign. He also made up strings of fantastical stories about his life, identity and experiences.

During his court case he frequently held press gatherings and mocked the media and his detractors, saying he was being smeared.

Santos was shown to have spent donor money on vacations, luxury goods, Botox treatment and the website OnlyFans.

Shortly before being elected to the US House of Representatives in New York’s third congressional district, Santos was first accused of deceiving voters by the North Shore Leader, a local newspaper in Long Island, which accused Santos of fabricating much of his résumé.

Santos’s sentencing was not without controversy. Before his Friday court appearance, he referred to himself as a “scapegoat” on social media, in reference to prosecutors accusing him of organizing the fraudulent conspiracy.

Santos also alleged that the justice department was a “cabal of pedophiles”, in posts made to X. Prosecutors highlighted Santos’s comments in a filing after Santos’s defense team requested a two-year prison sentence.

The former representative later defended his remarks, saying he was “profoundly sorry” for his crimes but that a seven-year prison sentence was too harsh.

“Every sunrise since that plea has carried the same realization: I did this, me. I am responsible,” Santos wrote. “But saying I’m sorry doesn’t require me to sit quietly while these prosecutors try to drop an anvil on my head.”

Santos pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in August.

Prosecutors, at the time, highlighted Santos’s plea as the first time that he had “told the truth about his criminal schemes”.

“For what may seem like the first time since he started his campaign for Congress, Mr Santos told the truth about his criminal schemes. He admitted to lying, stealing and conning people,” said Breon Peace, the US attorney for the eastern district of New York, in a statement.

“By pleading guilty, Mr Santos has acknowledged that he repeatedly defrauded federal and state government institutions as well as his own family, supporters and constituents. His flagrant and disgraceful conduct has been exposed and will be punished. Mr Santos’s conviction demonstrates this office’s enduring commitment to rooting out corruption and grift by public officials.”

At the time, Santos faced 22 years in prison.

As part of the plea agreement, Santos was forced to pay a restitution of $373,749.97 and forfeiture of $205,002.97.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Luigi Mangione on Friday pleaded not guilty to Manhattan federal court charges that he stalked and murdered the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, Brian Thompson, late last year.

Mangione, 26, walked into court just before 1pm. He was wearing tan jail garb with a white long-sleeved undershirt. He spoke with his lawyers, who sat alongside him, and at one point appeared to smile; he could be seen flipping through papers on the table.

Judge Margaret M Garnett asked Mangione to stand, and Mangione confirmed to the justice that he had seen a copy of this indictment and had had enough time to discuss it with his lawyers.

Garnett asked Mangione his plea. Mangione said: “Not guilty.”

Mangione could face the death penalty in a case that shocked America for the killing of a top business executive on New York’s streets but also triggered an outpouring of anger against the country’s for-profit healthcare industry.

As with previous proceedings, throngs of supporters of Mangione queued up outside to secure a much-coveted seat in court. Many sported medical masks or sunglasses, or both, and were reticent about speaking to media but did attack the healthcare system.

“I am a chronically ill person. I live in chronic pain,” one woman said in explaining why she was at court. She said that she had never been in “that much medical debt” compared to others, but “when I say not that much I mean like $30,000.”

Even if it were proved that Mangione killed Thompson, she said, she believed his guilt embodies an ethical grey area. The healthcare industry kills thousands and Thompson was one man, she said. “One life [versus] like a thousand lives, that moral dilemma,” she said.

When asked about the announcement prosecutors would seek the death penalty, she said: “It’s state-sanctioned murder.

“He’s a political prisoner – school shooters don’t get that.”

As those waiting in line chatted among themselves, an LCD-screen truck, displaying support of Mangione, repeatedly drove by the courthouse. One image featured a photo of Mangione smiling that read: “END THE DEATH PENALTY NOW.” The intelligence whistleblower Chelsea Manning was also among those in line.

Mangione’s arraignment comes months after his arrest for allegedly gunning down Thompson outside a New York hotel on 4 December. He was apprehended on 9 December at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a restaurant worker purportedly recognized him from law enforcement advisories and tipped off police.

In federal court, Mangione faces stalking, murder through use of a firearm, and firearms offense charges. Mangione is also charged with a host of murder and firearms counts in New York state court.

Pennsylvania state prosecutors are also pursuing a case against him related to alleged weapons possession and false identification. He has also maintained his innocence in the state cases.

While Mangione was already staring down the prospect of life imprisonment following his arrest, Donald Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, raised the stakes several weeks ago by announcing that she was directing prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

Bondi called Thompson’s killing “a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America”. She stated that her decision was in keeping with “President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again”.

In court, Garnett cautioned prosecutors against making inflammatory statements. She urged them to abide by local court rules that bar attorneys from making “public commentary that could impede Mr Mangione’s right to a fair trial” and to pick a fair jury.

“I’m specifically directing the government to convey my directive to Mr Clayton,” Garnett said, referring to acting Manhattan federal prosecutor Jay Clayton. The judge also directed that prosecutors “request that he convey the same to Attorney General Bondi” and her associates.

The last time federal prosecutors in Manhattan pursued the death penalty was in the case of Sayfullo Saipov, an Islamist extremist who murdered eight people in a truck attack.

During the penalty phase of Saipov’s trial, jurors could not unanimously decide on whether to impose a death sentence, resulting in him being automatically sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.

Gregory Germain, a professor of law at Syracuse University’s College of Law, previously told the Guardian that nearly all recent federal death penalty cases took place during Trump’s first term.

Germain said he believed that Trump’s justice department would not agree to an deal in which Mangione pleaded guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

“He has political reasons, wanting to seem ‘tough on crime’ by supporting the death penalty,” Germain said.

Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Mangione’s lead defense attorney, raised several constitutional points during the proceeding. She said there was a “handshake deal” forged between Manhattan prosecutors and Biden’s justice department, under which his state case would be tried first.

But now that federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, Friedman Agnifilo said they would fight this plan.

“It’s partly scheduling, your honor, but it’s also constitutional issues [that] are going to be impacted if we are forced to try that case first,” she said.

Friedman Agnifilo also alleged in court that authorities had been listening in on Mangione’s privileged communications.

“We were just informed by the state court prosecutors that they were eavesdropping on all of Mr Mangione’s calls,” she said. “They were listening to his attorney calls and all of his other calls going on. They said it was inadvertent that they were listening to a call between Mr Mangione and me.”

Friedman Agnifilo asked the judge to put a directive in place to prevent this from happening again. Garnett asked the prosecutor Dominic Gentile about the alleged recording.

Gentile said this was “the very first we’ve heard of this situation” and that such would not be “normal practice”.

Garnett told Gentile that she wanted prosecutors to file a letter within seven days outlining what they knew about the recording.

Rupert Murdoch’s company, News Group Newspapers, has been accused by former detectives of having “actively frustrated” their UK investigation into phone hacking, with one concluding a senior executive could have been arrested for perverting the course of justice, according to a newly disclosed court document.

The senior executive, Will Lewis, is now chief executive and publisher of the Washington Post.

The court document refers to statements by two former detectives involved in the investigation started by London’s Metropolitan police in 2011 into phone hacking by NGN. The statements relate to the background to the deletion of millions of internal NGN emails.

One officer, Sue Akers, a former deputy assistant commissioner in the force, said it appeared that NGN sought to “actively frustrate the police inquiry and undermine our ability to carry out a thorough investigation”, it is claimed.

According to the high court document, she further claimed that if she had been aware of certain internal discussions at NGN, she would have “launched an investigation into the matter terminating all contact with [NGN’s general manager] Will Lewis, who would have been a suspect in respect of the deletions”.

A second officer in the inquiry, which was called Operation Weeting, also referred to Lewis.

Barney Ratcliffe, a retired detective inspector, “also confirms he would have terminated contact with Will Lewis as a suspect and considered arresting him for perverting the course of justice”, it is claimed.

Lewis has previously strongly denied wrongdoing. He did not comment when approached by the Guardian.

NGN strenuously denied the allegations, saying that its executives acted with integrity. The Crown Prosecution Service concluded in 2015 that there was no evidence that company email deletions were carried out to pervert the course of justice.

The claims from the former detectives are contained in a document filed with the high court in London in support of what was a long-running and hotly disputed phone-hacking litigation pursued against NGN by Prince Harry and the former deputy leader of the Labour party, Tom Watson.

The “skeleton arguments” were not made public at the time and the claims not tested at trial because the case was settled out of court in January, with a reported payout in excess of £10m in damages and legal fees in favour of the prince and Lord Watson.

NGN also offered a full and unequivocal apology to Harry for phone hacking by journalists at its Sunday tabloid, the News of the World, and the “serious intrusion by the Sun between 1996 and 2011 into his private life, including incidents of unlawful activities carried out by private investigators working for the Sun”.

No admissions were made about a further allegation of the illegal destruction of evidence, which NGN strongly denied and which a spokesperson said that they would have fought at trial.

The Guardian is able to report for the first time from the skeleton arguments after the parties agreed to provide them following an application to high court judge, Mr Justice Fancourt.

The detectives’ statements relate to the background to the deletion of millions of internal NGN emails, including in late January and early February 2011.

Lewis, who was involved in the deletion policy, was also tasked with liaising with police officers at the launch of their investigation into alleged phone hacking at the News of the World. The paper was subsequently closed because of the scandal.

In its skeleton defence, NGN strenuously rejected allegations of a cover-up. A spokesperson stated that there was a lack of contemporaneous evidence in support of the claimants’ case and that NGN had a strong a lineup of witnesses who could confirm their own position.

According to the NGN skeleton argument, the deletion of emails had been “long been in the planning, for sound commercial, IT and practical reasons”, and Harry and Watson’s claims in this area had drawn on “wholly unreasonable inferences from an incomplete account of the facts, many of which are taken entirely out of context”.

A previously unseen note from a third police officer in the summer of 2011 in which he recognised that a contractor working for NGN had failed to carry out back-up operations ordered by the company is cited in its defence skeleton.

An NGN spokesperson said Akers and Ratcliffe’s statements were a “selective and partial consideration of the contemporaneous documents”.

The spokesperson said: “NGN once again strenuously denies that there was any plan to delete emails in order to conceal evidence from a police investigation.

“Operation Weeting … was initiated in January 2011 after NGN handed incriminating material it had discovered to the Met police (MPS). From the first meeting held between NGN and the MPS, the MPS were made aware of the steps NGN had taken in relation to its historic email archive as well as the actions it had taken to preserve relevant evidence.

“NGN then worked alongside specialist IT officers at the MPS for months to reconstruct its electronic archives and those specialist officers rightly concluded that there was no deliberate attempt to destroy evidence.”

The spokesperson added: “Both during and following the criminal proceedings, the MPS and the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] considered the actions of News International, including whether certain conduct amounted to perverting the course of justice.

“The allegations of email deletion had formed part of the prosecution case in the criminal trial in 2013-14. The investigation into News International concluded in 2015, almost 10 years ago, with a lengthy statement by the CPS deciding that no further action was to be taken in the light of there being no evidence to support an allegation of wrongdoing.”

Campaigners continue to demand that the Met and prosecutors look again at the allegations of destruction of evidence, with Watson pledging on the steps of the high court to provide Scotland Yard with a dossier of evidence that supported a further investigation.

It is accepted by both parties that NGN discovered three incriminating emails providing evidence of phone hacking at the News of the World on 6 January 2011.

NGN handed these to the Met on 26 January. NGN claimed that its executives then acted responsibly in liaising with the police while carrying out long-planned email deletions that were necessary due to the frailty of their old systems.

Harry and Watson argued that instead a “concealment and destruction plan was devised” following a meeting between executives, including Lewis, [NGN chief executive] Rebekah Brooks and [NGN lawyer] Tom Crone.

This is denied. The company spokesperson said that “the evidence demonstrates unequivocally the repeated concern of those involved to back up data and preserve potentially relevant evidence in the face of an old and failing system”.

The claim from Harry and Watson goes on to allege that data from the email archive had also been deleted because of a “so-called security threat” that was said to involve Watson, then a Labour MP, seeking to purchase stolen NGN emails on the orders of Gordon Brown.

“It was obviously baseless and a bad excuse for deleting evidence”, Harry and Watson claimed.

NGN has apologised to Watson as part of the settlement of this case, on the grounds that the company now “understand that this information was false”.

The company has said that it believed that the threat was genuine at the time and that it would have proved this at trial.

In its defence skeleton, NGN cites an email from Brooks, not previously made public.

Writing after she had read a Daily Telegraph article in January 2011 that suggested that Watson had some knowledge of the structures of the company’s IT systems, Brooks wrote: “I am worried about this. I know its bollo but clearly something wrong in internal security. How do I investigate it … ”

NGN’s skeleton defence also noted that a range of security measures were subsequently taken. The company also refers to a letter sent in January 2011 by Watson to then Met assistant commissioner John Yates, disclosed ahead of trial. In it Watson claimed to have been approached by former company employees with “knowledge of the information technology arrangements of News International”, NGN claimed.

A Met spokesperson said: “While we acknowledge that information emerging from civil proceedings is of interest to the public and the press who may be seeing it for the first time, in the vast majority of cases it is material that has already been considered as part of the numerous investigations and reviews that have previously been carried out.

“We are aware that parties in this recent case indicated an intention to pass material to us but we are yet to receive any such correspondence. In the event that we do, we will consider it carefully and proportionally, recognising the need to explore genuine lines of enquiry but acknowledging the significant resources already committed to past investigations.”

Civil rights activists in Germany have demanded an independent inquiry into alleged police racism after an officer shot a 21-year-old black man from behind, killing him after an altercation outside a nightclub.

The 27-year-old officer was suspended from duty over the shooting early on Sunday morning in the city of Oldenburg in north-west Germany pending a murder investigation, said state prosecutors. Fatal police shootings are relatively rare in Germany and prosecutors were quoted in local media as saying the suspension and investigation were “routine”.

Police have not identified the victim due to data protection laws but media and pressure groups have identified him as Lorenz A.

Police said in a statement that the man, a German citizen, aimed pepper spray at security staff outside the club after they refused him entry, hurting four people, and that he threatened others with a knife while running away.

When a patrol car tracked him down, police said he again used the pepper spray and approached the 27-year-old officer in a threatening manner. The police officer then opened fire.

A coroner’s report found that at least three bullets hit the man from behind: in the back of his head, torso and hip, local prosecutors said. A fourth shot is believed to have grazed his upper thigh. He later died in hospital.

The state interior minister, Daniela Behrens, said the autopsy results raised “serious questions and grave suspicions” that must be “unsparingly addressed and resolved”.

Police representatives warned against any rush to judgment. “There are racism accusations because the deceased was a person of colour,” Kevin Komolka, the state chair of the GdP police union, told the public broadcaster NDR. “There’s a mood developing painting police as trigger-happy hooligans.”

Prosecutors have begun evaluating security camera footage and audio recordings from the scene and said there was no indication that Lorenz A had threatened police with the knife he had with him. The officers’ body cameras were reportedly turned off.

Rights groups, which have organised a rally in Oldenburg on Friday, said the shooting raised serious concerns.

The German chapter of Amnesty International said the killing “impacts an entire community and all those people in Germany affected by racism”. It said any investigation into the incident led by police would be biased. “We finally need independent investigation mechanisms that are not controlled by police or interior affairs authorities,” it said, citing “structural racism”.

The Black People in Germany Initiative (ISD) quoted friends and the family of Lorenz, calling him a keen basketball player and a “fun-loving person who was full of energy”.

“Now he’s dead, killed by an institution that is supposed to protect us,” it said in a statement, joining the call for an independent investigation as well as a national complaints office for allegations of police racism.

The ‪Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which campaigns against extremism and racism in German society, also denounced what it said was not an isolated incident and questioned the police account that the officer had grounds to fear for his life.

The gathering and march in Oldenburg, called by a Justice for Lorenz group with more than 15,000 followers on social media, is expected to draw at least 1,000 people, according to police. Similar vigils have been called in Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Vienna.

The Black Lives Matter movement, which was initiated after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, also led activists to turn a spotlight on German police. In September of that year, 29 officers in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia were temporarily suspended after their unit was found to have shared extreme rightwing content on a WhatsApp group including a collage of a refugee inside a gas chamber and the shooting of a young black person.

A 2024 study found that 30% of German police had heard colleagues make racist comments in the previous year, with a marked rise in reported anti-Muslim sentiment.

An average of 10.5 people a year are shot dead by police in Germany, the news agency dpa said, citing figures collected by the trade journal Civil Rights and Police, with no clear upward or downward trend across the decades. However, last year there were 22 victims, and this year there have already been 11 such cases reported.

In 2023, the last year statistics were available, Germany’s federal criminal police office reported a record number of incidents of violence against firefighters, police and emergency services workers.

Brazil’s former president, Fernando Collor, has been arrested early and ordered to begin serving a prison sentence stemming from his 2023 conviction for corruption.

Collor was convicted of receiving 20m reais ($3.5m) to facilitate contracts between BR Distribuidora, a fuel distributor formerly controlled by the state-owned oil company Petrobras, and construction firm UTC Engenharia for the construction of fuel distribution bases. In return, he offered political support for the appointment of executives at BR Distribuidora when it was still state-owned.

Collor, who led the country from 1990 to 1992, was sentenced to eight years and 10 months, to be served initially in prison, rather than under house arrest. He was arrested on Friday in the northeastern state of Alagoas.

Under the Brazilian legal system, cases concerning members of Congress, presidents and ministers go directly to the supreme court. He was not yet in prison because his lawyers were still lodging appeals.

The case stemmed from the Operation Car Wash, a sweeping corruption investigation that has implicated top politicians and businesspeople across Latin America – including the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was arrested in 2018 and imprisoned for nearly two years.

Collor, 75, was the first Brazilian president elected by popular vote, in 1989, after a 21-year military dictatorship. He was impeached and removed from office by Congress in 1992 following corruption allegations. In 2007, he was elected as a senator representing his home state of Alagoas in northeastern Brazil.

Supreme court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the former president’s arrest Thursday, with the full board set to vote on Friday whether to confirm the decision. De Moraes said in his decision that Collor should begin serving his sentence, noting that the former president’s lawyers have attempted to drag out proceedings through appeals.

The justice also said that the court had previously ruled in similar cases that, once appeals have no merit, the sentence can be served right away.

Collor’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.