Israel is to expand its military operations in Gaza in the coming weeks, with the aim of “conquering” the territory and establishing a “sustained presence” there, Israeli officials have said.

The plan, which was unanimously approved at a security cabinet meeting late on Sunday, goes beyond any aims so far outlined by Israel for its offensive in the devastated Palestinian territory and is likely to prompt deep international concern and fierce opposition.

Officials told reporters in Israel that the plan would involve a new and intense offensive leading to “the conquest of Gaza and the holding of the territories, moving the Gaza population south for their protection [and] … powerful blows against Hamas”.

After a fragile ceasefire collapsed in mid-March, Israel renewed its bombardment of Gaza, with troops reinforcing kilometre-deep “buffer zones” along the perimeter of Gaza and expanding their hold over much of the north and south of the territory.

In all, more than 70% of Gaza is under Israeli control or covered by orders issued by Israel telling Palestinian civilians to evacuate specific neighbourhoods.

On Sunday, the army chief, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, said the military was calling up “tens of thousands” of reservists to allow conscripted regular troops to be deployed to Gaza for the new offensive.

Zamir has resisted calls by some Israeli ministers for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to take on the job of distributing aid in Gaza, which has been under a tight blockade by Israel for more than two months. Much of the 2.3 million population can no longer find enough to eat and the humanitarian system is close to collapse, aid officials in the territory have said.

Israeli officials told local media that ministers believed there was “currently enough food” in the territory, but that they approved “the possibility of a humanitarian distribution, if necessary, to prevent Hamas from taking control of the supplies and to destroy its governance capabilities”.

Israel says the blockade and intensified bombardments since mid-March are to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages held in Gaza. Militants in the territory still hold 58 hostages seized in Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 52,535 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry there.

The officials also said Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, “continues to promote” a proposal made in January by the US president, Donald Trump, to displace the millions of Palestinians living in Gaza to neighbouring countries such as Jordan or Egypt, to allow its reconstruction.

Trump’s scheduled visit later this month to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE may provide an additional incentive to the Israeli government to conclude a new ceasefire deal and allow aid into Gaza. Trump, who recently said he wanted Netanyahu to be “good to Gaza”, is likely to come under pressure from his hosts to push Israel to make concessions to end the conflict.

Israeli military officials say that seizing territory provides Israel with additional leverage in its negotiations with Hamas and some observers suggest that the public announcement of the new offensive and plans for longer-term presence in Gaza are designed to win concessions in negotiations over a new ceasefire deal.

Humanitarian organisations have unanimously rejected Israel’s plan to establish a limited number of aid distribution hubs run by private contractors and guarded by the IDF in southern Gaza.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Sunday: “Israeli officials have sought to shut down the existing aid distribution system run by the United Nations and its humanitarian partners and have us agree to deliver supplies through Israeli hubs under conditions set by the Israeli military, once the government agrees to reopen crossings.

“[This] contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy. It is dangerous, driving civilians into militarised zones to collect rations, threatening lives, including those of humanitarian workers, while further entrenching forced displacement.”

Hamas said on Monday the new Israeli framework for aid delivery in Gaza amounted to “political blackmail” and blamed Israel for the war-ravaged territory’s “humanitarian catastrophe”.

A coalition representing the majority of families of hostages held by Hamas, about half of whom are thought to be dead, accused Netanyahu of endangering their loved ones. It said: “The expansion of military operations puts every hostage at grave risk. It also threatens the lives of our soldiers and deepens the toll on countless Israeli families already carrying the burden of this war.”

Netanyahu’s governing coalition – and so his hold on power – depends heavily on the support of hardline rightwing parties that have long demanded the reoccupation and resettlement of Gaza, which Israel formally left in 2005. A new parliamentary session opened on Monday.

Israeli strikes across Gaza continued overnight, killing at least 17 people in the north of the territory, according to hospital staff. Strikes hit Gaza City, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and among the dead were eight women and children, according to staff at al-Shifa hospital, where the bodies were brought.

Benjamin Netanyahu has promised Israel will strike back against Yemen’s Houthis and “their Iranian terror masters” after a missile launched by the militia movement hit the perimeter of Israel’s main airport.

On X, the Israeli prime minister said on Sunday that Israel would respond to the Houthi attack “at a time and place of our choosing”. On Telegram, Netanyahu said Israel had acted against the Houthis in the past and would act again in the future.

“It will not happen in one bang, but there will be many bangs,” he said.

The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack on Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport, and Israeli military confirmed that the missile was launched from Yemen.

Local media reported that Israeli and US defence systems had failed to down the missile, which left a deep crater in an open field on the perimeter of the airport, and that an investigation was under way.

Most attacks from Yemen during the conflict in Gaza have been intercepted by Israel’s missile defence systems, apart from a drone strike that hit Tel Aviv last July. Sunday’s missile strike sent a plume of smoke into the air, caused panic among passengers in the terminal building and led to air traffic being suspended for an hour.

European and US carriers have cancelled flights for the next few days. Many had only recently begun to resume services to Israel after the Gaza ceasefire, which temporarily paused hostilities between mid-January and mid-March. This followed their suspension of flights for much of the last year and a half.

The missile attack came hours before Israel’s security cabinet was due to vote on plans to expand the fighting in Gaza with a new offensive.

Military officials confirmed on Sunday that tens of thousands of reservists had been called up, though it was unclear when any new operations would be launched.

The aim of the offensive would be to put pressure on Hamas to release hostages it continues to hold in Gaza; to further degrade the militant Islamist group’s military capabilities; and to “seize ground” that would be used as leverage in future negotiations, officials said.

Hardliners in the Israeli cabinet have been pushing for a broad offensive in Gaza for many months.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, told Israeli Army Radio he wanted to see a “powerful” expansion of the war, but did not disclose details as to what the new plans would entail.

“We need to increase the intensity and continue until we achieve total victory. We must win a total victory,” he said. Ben-Gvir demanded that Israel bomb “the food and electricity supplies” in Gaza.

Two months ago, Israel imposed a tight blockade of Gaza, stopping all food, medicine, fuel and other items entering the devastated territory. Israel’s military is making preparations for new orders to allow aid in, but only under strict conditions. Israeli officials accuse Hamas of diverting humanitarian assistance to fund its military operations. Hamas denies the charge.

Israeli airstrikes have continued daily across Gaza. At least seven Palestinians including two parents and their two children, two and four, were killed in southern and central Gaza on Sunday, Palestinian medics said.

Israel’s military said on Sunday that two soldiers were killed in combat in the territory, bringing the number of Israeli troops killed since fighting resumed in March to six.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 250 hostages. Israel says 59 hostages remain in Gaza, although roughly 35 of them are said to be dead.

The Israeli offensive has killed more than 52,000 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians. The fighting has displaced more than 90% of its population, often multiple times. Hunger has been widespread and the shortage of food has set off looting.

The attacks by the Houthis, who control swathes of Yemen, underline the regional dimension of the conflict in Gaza. The Iran-backed militia began targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping in late 2023, claiming it was acting out of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel deployed warplanes on three big air raids last year after Houthi missile attacks. The strikes targeted power stations, port facilities, the airport in Sana’a and “military infrastructure”.

The US president, Donald Trump, in March ordered large-scale strikes against the Houthis to reduce their capabilities and deter them from targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

The Houthis’ military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said on Sunday that the missile strike meant Israel’s main airport was “no longer safe for air travel”.

The Israel Airports Authority (IAA) said the attack marked the first time a missile had fallen so close to Ben Gurion airport’s terminal and the runways. Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said it had treated at least six people with light to moderate injuries.

Lufthansa Group, which includes the airlines Lufthansa, Swiss, Brussels and Austrian, said it had halted flights to and from Tel Aviv through to Tuesday because of the situation. ITA Airways said it had cancelled flights from Italy to Israel through to Wednesday, while Air France cancelled flights on Sunday, saying customers were being transferred to flights on Monday.

Ryanair suspended flights on Sunday but flights were still scheduled for Monday, according to the IAA.

Donald Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on movies made outside the US could wipe out the UK film industry, ministers have been warned, as they came under immediate pressure to prioritise the issue in trade talks with the White House.

UK government officials and senior figures from Britain’s multibillion-pound production industry are to meet imminently to discuss Trump’s threat, which he made after months of promising to restore Hollywood to its “golden age”.

In an extraordinary intervention, Trump announced his intention to impose the levy on all movies “produced in foreign lands”, stating that the US film industry was facing a “very fast death” as a result of incentives being offered overseas. The UK is among the countries offering film-makers generous tax incentives.

The US president said he had already ordered the commerce department and the US trade representative to begin instituting such a tariff. He said on his Truth Social platform the issue was a “national security threat” because of the “concerted effort by other nations” to attract productions.

“Hollywood is being destroyed,” he later told reporters. “Other nations have stolen our movie industry.”

His outburst caused immediate concern in the UK, a regular location for some of Hollywood’s biggest movie productions, including Barbie, parts of the Mission: Impossible franchise and Disney’s Star Wars productions. More big movies are scheduled to be shot in the UK soon, including Star Wars: Starfighter.

Philippa Childs, the head of the creative industries union Bectu, said: “These tariffs, coming after Covid and the recent slowdown, could deal a knockout blow to an industry that is only just recovering, and will be really worrying news for tens of thousands of skilled freelancers who make films in the UK.

“The government must move swiftly to defend this vital sector and support the freelancers who power it, as a matter of essential national economic interest.”

One senior figure in the British creative sector said: “If it becomes real, it will be huge. It could possibly wipe out the British film industry and its crews.”

The international feature film production spend in the UK was £1.9bn last year, with high-end TV production bringing in £2.8bn. Investment from the US on films increased 83% from the previous year.

Adrian Wootton, the chief executive of the British Film Commission, said the announcement was “clearly concerning” but said it was crucial to know more about the details of the plans.

“We will be meeting with government and our industry policy group in the coming days to discuss further,” he said. “The UK and US have long enjoyed a strong, shared history of film-making.”

Senior politicians are calling for Keir Starmer’s government to prioritise the UK film industry in US trade talks, though sources have already told the Guardian that a deal is a second-order priority for Trump.

Caroline Dinenage, the chair of the culture, media and sport committee, said: “Last month the committee warned against complacency on our status as the Hollywood of Europe. President Trump’s announcement has made that warning all too real.

“Making it more difficult to make films in the UK is not in the interest of American businesses. Their investment in facilities and talent in the UK, based on US-owned IP, is showing fantastic returns on both sides of the Atlantic. Ministers must urgently prioritise this as part of the trade negotiations currently under way.”

James Frith, a Labour member of the committee, said any tariffs on UK film production would be self-defeating.

“Any US tariffs on foreign-made films would harm not just British jobs and creativity but also the US studios and audiences who rely on our skilled workforce and production expertise,” he said. “It is in everyone’s interest to protect this deep, highly successful partnership.”

Industry insiders said it was unclear how the tariffs would work in practice, warning they would end up penalising US studios and cutting production and jobs.

Trump is facing resistance in the US from the likes of Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, whose office said the president had no authority to impose such tariffs.

Trump’s declaration was not a complete surprise to industry and government insiders, given his previous declaration that he wanted to help “troubled” Hollywood.

Before his inauguration, he appointed Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight as “special ambassadors” charged with bringing back production lost to “foreign countries”.

Film and television production in Los Angeles has fallen by nearly 40% over the past decade, according to FilmLA, a non-profit that tracks the region’s production.

Trump’s move could also be a reaction to a decision by the China Film Administration in April to “moderately reduce the number of American films imported”, in response to US tariffs on China.

Stephen Galloway, a former editor of the Hollywood Reporter, said: “There is a gigantic problem, which Trump’s social media post addresses, which is that Hollywood has been decimated – there has been a complete flight of production from Los Angeles.

“It’s a locomotive that’s going faster and faster and – based on the expense of living and shooting in Los Angeles, and tax breaks and subsidies from different states and other countries, and the strength of the dollar – that all makes foreign production a bargain. There’s an arms race among states and countries to up the tax breaks and subsidies they offer.”

Galloway suggested Trump may be acting out of a romantic fantasy, much like imagining that under steel tariffs Pittsburgh could once again become a place of US steel production, when in reality there are now about 5,000 steel mill jobs in the area.

“Hollywood is the source of all modern romantic fantasy, but can you restore it to its golden age? No, you can’t,” he said. “Everyone would love to do it, but the invention of the computer chip destroyed Hollywood as we knew it as a film manufacturing hub.

“There’s a contradiction between ‘let’s preserve Hollywood as the centre of manufacturing’ and ‘let’s protect ourselves from foreign propaganda’. But if foreign propaganda is a Disney movie that happened to be shot in Pinewood, what kind of propaganda is that?”

A UK government spokesperson said: “Talks on an economic deal between the US and the UK are ongoing – but we are not going to provide a running commentary on the details of live discussions or set any timelines because it is not in the national interest.

“We will continue to take a calm and steady approach to talks and aim to find a resolution to help ease the pressure on UK businesses and consumers.”

A proponent of using the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 despite scant evidence of its efficacy has been named to a top pandemic prevention role at the Department of Health and Human Services, the Washington Post reports.

Steven J Hatfill is a virologist who served in Donald Trump’s first administration, during which he promoted hydroxychloroquine to treat the virus in the early months of the pandemic, when vaccines and treatments were not yet available. He recently started as a special adviser in the office of the director of the administration for strategic preparedness and response, which prepares the country to respond to pandemics, as well as chemical and biological attacks.

The Trump administration embraced using the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, along with other drugs such as ivermectin and chloroquine, as treatments against Covid-19, despite concerns over both their efficacy and potentially serious side-effects. In June 2020, just months after the pandemic started, the Food and Drug Administration warned against using hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat Covid-19 over “reports of serious heart rhythm problems and other safety issues”, even after Trump approved ordering millions of doses of the drug for US patients from Brazil.

Last year, a study released at the onset of the pandemic that promoted hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 was withdrawn by the publisher of the medical journal.

In an interview with the Post, Hatfill defended his support of hydroxychloroquine, which remains in use to treat diseases including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. “There is no ambiguity there. It is a safe drug,” Hatfill said, noting that “they gave the drug to the president” in 2020, when Trump contracted Covid-19.

In his new job, Hatfill said he would “help get us ready for the next pandemic” and work with his agency’s scientists on achieving “complete awareness of the scientific literature, not just for influenza, bird flu or Covid but other global diseases that could represent a threat to the US”.

Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a former appointee under Joe Biden, told the Washington Post: “My hope is that Dr Hatfill will pursue the things that are of greatest value in preparing for another pandemic, such as new medicines and vaccines.”

He noted that hydroxychloroquine “doesn’t cure Covid and has risks”.

Before Hatfill began working for the Trump administration, he was a biodefense researcher for the army in 2001 and was named a “person of interest” in the investigation into anthrax-filled envelopes sent by mail across the country, which killed five people and made 17 others sick.

The allegations, which Hatfill denied, cost him his job, and in 2008, the justice department formally cleared him, the same year that he received $4.6m from the government to settle a lawsuit alleging the government violated his privacy rights.

Autism researchers and advocates are pushing back against the creation of an autism database – meant to track the health of autistic people in a major research study – and pointing to the ways such databases could be misused.

While the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) denies it’s a registry, the agency did confirm a sweeping database of autistic people will power a $50m study on autism. The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said last week that he plans to announce results from the study within months.

A petition against the registry gained thousands of signatures in a single day, jumping from 2,500 to nearly 35,000 signatures within 24 hours.

“I’m a quiet person who likes to just be in the background,” said first-time petition creator Ryan Smith, a parent of two neurodiverse children living in Idaho. He also didn’t want to make himself a target.

“But I feel really, really, really strongly about this, and I have to speak up for my kids who can’t speak for themselves.”

The petition gathered nearly 50,000 names before declaring victory when HHS seemed to walk back on the plan.

“We are not creating an autism registry,” an HHS spokesperson said.

But the difference seems to be in the name. The agency is creating a “real-world data platform” to “link existing datasets” for the research into causes of and treatments for autism, the spokesperson confirmed.

“They’re saying it’s not an autism registry, but it sounds like they kind of just changed the name of it,” said Amy Marschall, an autistic psychologist who has long objected to mandatory autism registries.

The health agency did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about whether individuals would be able to opt out of the database, or how it would be structured, what kind of security and privacy measures would be taken, and whether similar databases would collect information on other conditions.

The causes of autism spectrum disorder, a range of neurological and developmental conditions that usually center on how people interact, communicate, learn and behave, have already been identified as genetic in the vast majority of cases.

Even so, Kennedy announced at a cabinet meeting last week that the new study had been launched.

“By September, we will have some of the first answers. Within six months of that, we will have definitive answers,” Kennedy said.

Smith worries that the database and research could worsen stigma around autism, and it could keep individuals and families from seeking diagnoses and care.

“And at worst, I worry that we’re on a slippery slope to eugenics,” Smith said. “My mind immediately goes to history and things that happened in Nazi Germany. That’s extreme, but it feels like a possibility.” Disabled people were the first to be targeted then, he pointed out.

Opponents also wonder about privacy and security measures, which have not been detailed by health agencies, and how individuals’ information could be used against them.

“Are you going to use this as an excuse to take away my rights, to hold me against my will, to prevent me from having children, to take away my right to manage my own finances?” Marschall asked.

All of these concerns are why, typically, “human research protections are in place, to protect against that kind of damage and to protect the people’s interests,” said Diana Schendel, professor at the AJ Drexel Autism Institute at Drexel University.

Other research projects create registries of participants, but they undertake key steps to ensure people are protected before the projects begin, Schendel said.

Usually, research registries invite participants and offer informed consent on how research will be conducted and how their information will be used.

“You can also create databases using existing data, which is what they seem to be describing,” Schendel said of the HHS project. But “you can’t just collect the information and then ask permission later”.

The national project could jeopardize important research on autism, Schendel said: “It’s going to make people even more wary of participating in research. They could withdraw from projects that are already going on.”

Kennedy’s aggressive timeline for results is also “a red flag”, Schendel said.

“The idea that you can take a lot of different datasets and pool them together into a single dataset and perform an analysis with any kind of meaningful answer in a very short period of time is naive,” Schendel said. “It would be a mess.”

To gather the data, the National Institutes of Health is exploring partnerships with other federal agencies, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs and others.

Jay Bhattacharya, the NIH director, also proposed collecting data from pharmacy chains, health organizations, insurance claims and medical bills, and wearable devices like smart watches, to conduct “real-time health monitoring”.

Bhattacharya’s proposal to use private datasets is also likely to run into privacy concerns, since companies collected that information for other purposes and may not have permission to share it or use it for research.

“The companies, I would imagine, would be very concerned, because they’re responsible for the privacy of that information,” Schendel said.

Seven states – Delaware, Indiana, North Dakota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Utah and West Virginia – have mandatory autism registries. Cities and local police departments sometimes also maintain registries of disabled people.

There are differences in how states collect the information. In North Dakota, for instance, clinicians are required to submit autism diagnoses. Utah has a similar requirement, but it also audits hospital records, Marschall said.

She hopes the increased attention on the federal database will stop that project in its tracks – and she hopes the state registries will also be scrutinized.

“Why do you need my confidential information that I didn’t consent to give to you?” Marschall asked.

“Nobody is saying: ‘Don’t research us.’ Nobody is saying: ‘Don’t find ways to make our lives better.’ It’s: ‘Don’t research us without any of us on your research team – and find ways to support us, not ways to eradicate us.’”

New Hampshire also had a mandatory autism registry until 2024, when state representative Eric Gallager introduced a law, with cross-partisan support, to repeal the registry and destroy the records.

“I was concerned about potential personally identifiable information in it,” Gallagher said of New Hampshire’s registry. “All states with registries should check them for potential privacy issues.”

For those wishing to change these laws, crossing partisan lines by getting Democratic, Republican and independent lawmakers to sign on may help, he said.

Smith’s petition spoke to people on all sides of politics, he said.

“It’s not necessarily a political thing,” he noted. “It’s a human thing. And there’s a lot of people affected by this.”

As Elon Musk steps back from his role heading the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), many experts on government operations complain that Doge has done nothing to improve the quality of services the government provides to the American people.

“Doge is not offering any solid claims that it has improved services in any way,” said Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “Rather, it has made the quality of some government services worse.”

Musk, the world’s richest man, was appointed to run the government efficiency drive by Donald Trump in January and as a “special government employee” was barred from working for more than 180 days for the administration. He also has his own business woes to attend to.

But on his way out of the White House, Musk has boasted that Doge has achieved $150bn in savings, although many budget experts question the accuracy of that figure. Musk has repeatedly made exaggerated and erroneous claims about savings, which are a fraction of Musk’s goal of $1tn in cuts.

Moynihan and other public policy experts said it was unfortunate that Musk and Doge took the hard-charging focus of profit-maximizing business executives – of aggressively seeking to cut jobs and payroll – instead of adopting a broader focus aimed at making government more efficient while improving services.

Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Yale Budget Lab, said Musk evidently has little interest in making services better. “They were the ‘department of government slash and burn’,” Gimbel said. “There doesn’t seem to be an approach to dig in on places where government services could really be improved. Any improvement in government services takes time. You have to invest. You have to build it out. You have to figure out how to fix it.”

Asked whether Musk and Doge had improved any government services, Gimbel burst out in laughter. “No,” she said. “There has clearly been a degeneration of government services.”

Public policy experts and members of the public have pointed to numerous ways that government services have deteriorated due to Doge’s cuts. There have been longer waiting times to get appointments at veterans’ hospitals, longer waits when people call the Internal Revenue Service, longer lines at social security offices. The departure of many highly experienced social security employees has led to workers with far less training giving advice on benefits.

At a White House news conference on 1 May, Musk defended Doge’s accomplishments. “In the grand scheme of things, I think we’ve been effective. Not as effective as I’d like. I think we could be more effective,” Musk said. “But we’ve made progress.”

Musk acknowledged that his $1tn goal had been far harder to reach than he had anticipated. “It’s sort of, how much pain is the cabinet and the Congress willing to take?” he said. “It can be done, but it requires dealing with a lot of complaints.”

The White House did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about the deterioration of some government services or to the Guardian’s request for any examples of how Doge has improved services.

Gimbel said that Americans don’t realize that many government services will get worse in coming months as the tens of thousands of Doge-ordered job cuts play out. “Things will definitely get worse,” she said. For instance, the administration has far to go in carrying out its plan to cut 80,000 employees in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

While many public policy experts say Trump and Musk wildly exaggerate in their claims that there is huge waste, fraud and abuse in government, Gimbel said there is of course waste in government. “There is waste, and you can go after it,” she said. “People who have been in government know where those places are. There is a ton of tech that needs modernizing. Doge doesn’t seem interested in that. There’s a lot of Medicare and Medicaid overbilling. Doge doesn’t seem interested in that either. What you have is a relatively expensive exercise in slash-and-burn that sometime in the future will cost a lot to fix.”

Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a non-profit research group, said that many business executives – including Jack Welch, the former General Electric CEO famed for cost-cutting and increasing profits – would be unhappy with Musk’s quick and brutal cuts. Stier complained that Musk and his team of twentysomething tech whizzes made steep cuts while knowing little about an agency’s operations or about the qualifications and responsibilities of the people they fired or pushed out.

“Jack Welch would be appalled by the approach that Doge has taken,” Stier said. “It’s not actually about cost-cutting. It’s about capability destroyed. Jack Welch would never, ever have fired people without having a real understanding about the way the organization worked and about the qualities of people who were being fired. This is an arbitrary exercise that has moved out employees who are often by far the most qualified rather than the least qualified.”

Stier noted that Trump has described Doge as an exercise in cost-cutting and organizational improvement. “That’s just not the case,” Stier said. “It’s hard to offer any rational basis for the decisions that are being made. There certainly aren’t any improvements that the American public will see.”

“It’s burning down government capability,” he continued. “It’s unquestionably clear that they are firing people willy-nilly and are disrupting government services without any understanding of the consequences or concern about the consequences. It’s a break-it-is-to-fix-it mentality. It isn’t a mentality that predominates in Silicon Valley. It’s sheer reckless behavior in the public sector because real people get hurt.”

Musk’s claim of $150bn in savings is a vast overestimate because it fails to include the considerable costs of Doge’s moves, said Stier. Stier’s group estimates that as a result of firings, rehirings, severance pay, paid leave and lost productivity involving more than 100,000 workers, Doge’s maneuvers will cost taxpayers $135bn this fiscal year. And several public policy experts said the increased wait times and hassles the public will face due to Doge’s cuts should also be subtracted from the $150bn.

Moynihan said Musk has precisely the wrong vision for someone tasked with making government more efficient. “His vision is that there is no way that government employees can produce anything of value,” Moynihan said. “So the idea of tools that makes government services better is completely alien to the Musk mindset.

“I think he believes that nothing public employees do has any real value, that they are not capable employees and therefore cutting them will do no harm,” Moynihan added. “It’s a vision that doesn’t understand what public services are, why they exist and how they benefit people.”

Moynihan faulted Musk for gutting one of the government’s main efforts to use technology to improve services and efficiency. He also criticized Musk for helping kill Direct File, a free and user-friendly way for people to report and file their taxes.

Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the main US union federation, said Doge’s cuts will hurt workers. She pointed to the sharp cuts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, saying that that agency, for instance, does important research to ensure that firefighters’ personal protective equipment is safe as possible.

“There’s this notion that Doge is just cutting line items on a spreadsheet. It’s hurting real lives and real people,” Shuler said. “They’ve treated federal workers with blatant disregard and have been nothing short of dehumanizing and insulting toward them.”

Gimbel of the Yale Budget Lab warned of another downside to Doge’s cuts. “Part of what government does is mitigate risk,” she said. “Take food safety. Government inspectors decrease the risk that you will get listeria or salmonella. But when they reduce the number of food inspectors, will you get listeria or salmonella tomorrow? No. Will it probably increase the chances of people getting listeria and salmonella over the next five years? Yes.”

Donald Trump has said he is directing the administration to reopen and expand Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on an island off San Francisco that has been closed for more than 60 years.

California lawmakers called the idea “absurd on its face” and part of the US president’s strategy of political distraction. Other officials pointed to the closure of the prison complex in 1963, known for its brutal conditions, due to operational expense and the high number of (unsuccessful) escape attempts.

“Alcatraz closed as a federal penitentiary more than 60 years ago. It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction. The president’s proposal is not a serious one,” California Democratic congresswomen Nancy Pelosi said.

In a post on his Truth Social site on Sunday evening, Trump wrote: “For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

He added: “That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”

But the directive received a scathing reception from critics, especially California Democrats. Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator representing San Francisco, posted that Trump “wants to turn Alcatraz into a domestic gulag right in the middle of San Francisco Bay”.

“In addition to being deeply unhinged, this is an attack on the rule of law. Putting aside that Alcatraz is a museum & tourist attraction, this is both nuts & terrifying,” he added, calling the proposal “absurd on its face”.

A response also came from the office of the state’s governor, Democrat Gavin Newsom.

“Looks like it’s Distraction Day again in Washington, DC,” said Izzy Gardon, spokesperson for Newsom.

Civil rights attorney Scott Hechinger concurred, posting on X and referencing the White House budget proposal issued last Friday: “Alcatraz. No more than a sensational distraction from this: Trump just cut nearly $1 billion from bipartisan, proven, successful anti-crime, violence prevention programs around the country.”

Instead of preventing crime before people are harmed, Hechinger added, Trump had “made America substantially less safe. And now he’s stomping & parading around with big words and sensational capital letters about a wasteful reopening of a domestic torture complex that will never actually happen & do nothing to keep America safer … what a dangerous joke.”

The Bureau of Prisons said the prison, which was open for only 29 years, had “no source of fresh water, so nearly one million gallons of water had to be barged to the island each week. The federal government found that it was more effective to build a new institution than to keep Alcatraz open.”

Social media commentator Brian Krassenstein, who did a tour of the facility recently, called it “the dumbest proposal” he had heard.

“At least $175-250m just to shore up crumbling concrete, retrofit for earthquakes, and install 21st-century security tech. Operating costs that never stop bleeding. Everything, water, food, fuel, must be barged in, and raw sewage barged out. That pushes the annual budget to 3× a comparable mainland prison, roughly $70 – 75 M every single year,” he wrote on X.

Trump’s directive to rebuild and reopen the long-shuttered penitentiary is the latest salvo in his effort to overhaul how and where federal prisoners and immigration detainees are locked up.

But such a move would probably be expensive and challenging. The prison was closed in 1963 due to crumbling infrastructure and the high cost of repairing and supplying the island facility, because everything from fuel to food had to be brought by boat.

Bringing the facility up to modern-day standards would require massive investment at a time when the Federal Bureau of Prisons has been shuttering prisons for similar infrastructure issues.

The island is now a major tourist site that is operated by the National Park Service and is a designated national historic landmark.

The prison – which was considered escape-proof due to the strong currents and cold Pacific waters that surround it – was known as “the Rock” and housed some of the nation’s most notorious criminals, including Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly.

In the 29 years it was open, 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes, according to the FBI. Nearly all were caught or did not survive.

The fates of three inmates – the brothers John and Clarence Anglin, and Frank Morris – are the subject of some debate, with their story dramatised in the 1979 film Escape from Alcatraz starring Clint Eastwood.

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement that the agency “will comply with all presidential orders”. They did not immediately answer questions from the Associated Press regarding the practicality and feasibility of reopening Alcatraz or the agency’s possible role in the future of the former prison given the National Park Service’s control of the island.

The order comes as Trump has been clashing with the courts as he tries to send accused gang members to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, without due process. Trump has also floated the legally dubious idea of sending some federal US prisoners to the Terrorism Confinement Center, known as Cecot.

Trump also directed the opening of a detention centre at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, to hold up to 30,000 of what he has called the “worst criminal aliens”.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

A 55-metre (180ft) barge carrying a heavy-lift crane has begun work to raise the British-flagged superyacht Bayesian from the seabed off Sicily, where it sank last summer killing seven people including the UK tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch.

The barge, named Hebo Lift 2, with its 700-sq-metre deck, specialist diving apparatus and a remotely operated underwater vehicle, arrived last week in Porticello, a fishing port near Palermo, where marine salvage experts have started operations to raise the Bayesian.

On 19 August 2024, the 56-metre yacht was anchored just off Porticello when the vessel was struck by a violent storm shortly before dawn and sank. Lynch, once described as Britain’s Bill Gates, and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, were among the victims.

Morgan Stanley’s international chair, Jonathan Bloomer, and his wife, Judy, also died along with the US lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda, and boat’s chef Recaldo Thomas.

Fifteen people survived, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, whose company owned the Bayesian.

Experts expect the salvage operation to be fiendishly complex.

“The mobilisation of this specialist salvage consortium and key lifting assets follows a detailed assessment of the best technical methodology to safely recover Bayesian,” said Marcus Cave, a director of the British-based consultancy TMC Marine, which will oversee a consortium of expert salvage specialists undertaking the project.

“Every marine salvage operation requires unique planning considerations, given the specific marine conditions, and this is no different. The safety of personnel on site, environmental protection and recovery of Bayesian intact, have been pivotal to the planning and decision-making process.”

The wreckage sits at a depth of 50 metres in the bay of Porticello, which is under surveillance by Italian authorities.

During the recovery, salvage workers will use undersea drones with laser scanners with Hebo Lift 2 remotely operating underwater with specialist diving equipment.

Offshore, the Hebo Lift 10 – one of Europe’s largest floating cranes – which is not yet involved in the operations, will use its 83-metre boom to hoist the yacht from the seabed.

“Once mobilised on site, these dedicated lifting assets will be supported by specialist anti-pollution experts and assets that have been monitoring Bayesian since her sinking,” TMC Marine said in a statement. “They will help to continue to ensure that protection of the marine life and environment is maintained throughout the recovery of the Bayesian.”

To facilitate the lift, the 72-metre, 24-tonne mainmast will be cut away. Once raised, the vessel will be towed to Termini Imerese, where prosecutors have opened an inquiry into suspected manslaughter. The Bayesian’s captain, James Cutfield, a New Zealander, and two British crew members, Tim Parker Eaton and Matthew Griffiths, have been placed under investigation.

In Italy this does not imply guilt or mean formal charges will necessarily follow.

Investigators hope the yacht will yield vital clues: whether a series of human errors led to the sinking, as initially suspected, or whether other factors were at play. Once ashore, forensic examination will determine whether one of the hatches remained open and if the keel was improperly raised.

Sicilian port officials have declared a 650-metre exclusion zone around the sunken vessel, forbidding “any navigation, anchoring, diving, swimming or fishing until the work is complete”.

Insurers estimate the salvage will cost about $30m (£22.4m), a bill the Bayesian’s underwriters will pick up.

The Italian coastguard, which is supervising operations and patrolling the security perimeter, said the overall operation to recover the Bayesian could take from 20 to 25 days, weather permitting.

A 55-metre (180ft) barge carrying a heavy-lift crane has begun work to raise the British-flagged superyacht Bayesian from the seabed off Sicily, where it sank last summer killing seven people including the UK tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch.

The barge, named Hebo Lift 2, with its 700-sq-metre deck, specialist diving apparatus and a remotely operated underwater vehicle, arrived last week in Porticello, a fishing port near Palermo, where marine salvage experts have started operations to raise the Bayesian.

On 19 August 2024, the 56-metre yacht was anchored just off Porticello when the vessel was struck by a violent storm shortly before dawn and sank. Lynch, once described as Britain’s Bill Gates, and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, were among the victims.

Morgan Stanley’s international chair, Jonathan Bloomer, and his wife, Judy, also died along with the US lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda, and boat’s chef Recaldo Thomas.

Fifteen people survived, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, whose company owned the Bayesian.

Experts expect the salvage operation to be fiendishly complex.

“The mobilisation of this specialist salvage consortium and key lifting assets follows a detailed assessment of the best technical methodology to safely recover Bayesian,” said Marcus Cave, a director of the British-based consultancy TMC Marine, which will oversee a consortium of expert salvage specialists undertaking the project.

“Every marine salvage operation requires unique planning considerations, given the specific marine conditions, and this is no different. The safety of personnel on site, environmental protection and recovery of Bayesian intact, have been pivotal to the planning and decision-making process.”

The wreckage sits at a depth of 50 metres in the bay of Porticello, which is under surveillance by Italian authorities.

During the recovery, salvage workers will use undersea drones with laser scanners with Hebo Lift 2 remotely operating underwater with specialist diving equipment.

Offshore, the Hebo Lift 10 – one of Europe’s largest floating cranes – which is not yet involved in the operations, will use its 83-metre boom to hoist the yacht from the seabed.

“Once mobilised on site, these dedicated lifting assets will be supported by specialist anti-pollution experts and assets that have been monitoring Bayesian since her sinking,” TMC Marine said in a statement. “They will help to continue to ensure that protection of the marine life and environment is maintained throughout the recovery of the Bayesian.”

To facilitate the lift, the 72-metre, 24-tonne mainmast will be cut away. Once raised, the vessel will be towed to Termini Imerese, where prosecutors have opened an inquiry into suspected manslaughter. The Bayesian’s captain, James Cutfield, a New Zealander, and two British crew members, Tim Parker Eaton and Matthew Griffiths, have been placed under investigation.

In Italy this does not imply guilt or mean formal charges will necessarily follow.

Investigators hope the yacht will yield vital clues: whether a series of human errors led to the sinking, as initially suspected, or whether other factors were at play. Once ashore, forensic examination will determine whether one of the hatches remained open and if the keel was improperly raised.

Sicilian port officials have declared a 650-metre exclusion zone around the sunken vessel, forbidding “any navigation, anchoring, diving, swimming or fishing until the work is complete”.

Insurers estimate the salvage will cost about $30m (£22.4m), a bill the Bayesian’s underwriters will pick up.

The Italian coastguard, which is supervising operations and patrolling the security perimeter, said the overall operation to recover the Bayesian could take from 20 to 25 days, weather permitting.

An attempt by Sudan’s government to make the United Arab Emirates legally accountable for acts of genocide in West Darfur has been rejected by the international court of justice after the judges voted by 14 to 2 to declare they had no jurisdiction. By a narrower majority the judges voted 9 to 7 to strike the case entirely from the ICJ list.

There have been repeated allegations during the two-year civil war in Sudan that the UAE has been flying arms to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in an attempt to oust the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

However, when the UAE signed up to article IX of the genocide convention in 2005, it inserted a reservation stating it would not allow disputes about the interpretation, application and fulfilment of the convention to be resolved at the ICJ.

The ICJ ,president, Yuji Iwasawa, acknowledged that Sudanese government lawyers in presenting their case claimed that the RSF had engaged in “extrajudicial killing, ethnic cleansing, rape, enforced disappearances and burning of villages as well as killing on an ethnic basis”.

The court was “deeply concerned about [how] the unfolding conflict led to untold loss of life and suffering in west Darfur”. But, the president said, the UAE reservation had been formulated in clear terms, and was not incompatible with the purpose of the genocide convention.

The judges’ ruling was largely expected but marks a second diplomatic victory in the UAE efforts to ward off allegations that it has been prolonging the bloody two-year civil war by arming the RSF. A UN panel of experts report on 29 April published no evidence that the UAE was arming the RSF.

Speaking after the ICJ ruling in The Hague, , deputy assistant minister for political affairs at the UAE ministry of foreign affairs said: “Quite simply, today’s decision represents a resounding rejection of the Sudanese Armed Forces’ attempt to instrumentalise the court for its campaign of misinformation and to distract from its own responsibility.

“The facts speak for themselves: the UAE bears no responsibility for the conflict in Sudan. On the contrary, the atrocities committed by the warring parties are well documented.

“The international community must focus urgently on ending this devastating war and supporting the Sudanese people, and it must demand humanitarian aid reaches all those in need. The Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces must stop fighting, must stop weaponising aid, and must endorse civilian leadership independent from military control as the only foundation for sustainable peace.”

The ICJ ruling that it had no jurisdiction is controversial for some. A group of prestigious international jurists last week backed a legal opinion from the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights that argued: “While some narrowly tailored reservations to article IX of the genocide convention might be permissible, blanket reservations to the entirety of article IX should be rejected as invalid.”

They argued “the utility of the genocide convention is not for states to adopt these principles in the abstract, which exist with or without the convention, but to bind states to comply with its terms.

“To allow states to exempt themselves from the genocide convention’s only judicial mechanism not only undermines the integrity of the convention, but also the efficacy, foreseeability, and reliability of the international system as a whole.”

Currently 153 states are party to the genocide convention, with 16 states inserting blanket reservations including the UAE. The UK has been one of a group of influential states that have argued such broad reservations may be incompatible with the convention.

In its opinion, the Wallenberg Centre concluded: “The current expectation that the court bend to the will of outlier reserving states seeking to evade participation in cases as significant as genocide should be reversed. In 2025, these states should not have the final word before the judicial process even begins. They should be compelled to account for their actions in a court of law.”

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is to be played out of office by a military band who will perform tunes chosen by him that are intended to sum up his mood and political life.

Scholz will bow out to the Beatles, Johann Sebastian Bach and an Otis Redding hit made famous by Aretha Franklin.

The 66-year-old will hand over office on Tuesday to Friedrich Merz, whose centre-right conservatives won Germany’s federal election in February, and who will lead a coalition with Scholz’s Social Democrats.

In a tradition going back to the 16th century, chancellors, presidents, defence ministers and military generals are given a farewell ceremony, and their chosen playlist always receives much scrutiny.

According to tradition, Scholz was allowed to request three pieces of music that will be performed by the band of the armed forces. On the programme is the Beatles’ In My Life, seen as a nod to his earlier political life when he was mayor of the northern port city of Hamburg between 2011 and 2018, where the Liverpool musicians cut their teeth in its clubs and bars in the 1960s.

Some commentators have suggested the song, the lyrics of which include the line “of all these friends and lovers, there is no one compares with you”, is also a tribute to his wife, the fellow politician Britta Ernst, to whom he has often expressed his affection and gratitude.

An excerpt from Bach’s second Brandenburg Concertos, his only classical choice, is a likely reference to the state of Brandenburg, where he lives and which he will continue to serve as a backbencher. He was the only Social Democrat to win a direct mandate in the former communist east, where the far-right Alternative für Deutschland more or less swept the board.

The song choice that has caused the most mirth is the feminist anthem Respect, made famous by Franklin, which alludes to a keyword of the election campaign that brought him to power in 2021, and which he has repeated often. Critics say he has not always lived up to the motto himself, having sometimes been gruff or appearing dismissive to journalists in particular.

Commentators have said Scholz’s musical choices offer a rare glimpse into the emotional side of the chancellor, who was often referred to as a “Scholzomat” due to his robotic-like responses, and whose old black leather briefcase became something of a TikTok star while he stayed in the background.

Referring to him as a “file carrier” in a farewell column, Franz Josef Wagner, a veteran columnist for the tabloid Bild, said Scholz’s inability to communicate had probably contributed to the brevity of his tenure as chancellor, which lasted just over three years. “Dear departing chancellor, if you had told us everything that went on in your heart, you would maybe still be chancellor today. But your mouth was sealed. You had a silent heart,” he wrote.

Scholz’s immediate predecessor Angela Merkel chose Nina Hagen’s 1974 hit You Forgot the Colour Film, a mix of nostalgia for holidays on the Baltic coast and a critique of grey life in communist Germany; the chanson Red Roses Should Rain for Me, a 1968 hit by the German actor Hildegard Knef; and Great God, We Praise You, a 17th-century ecumenical hymn.

Among the choices of her predecessor, the Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder, was Frank Sinatra’s My Way.

Three people are dead and five others were injured after a shooting at a restaurant in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, on Sunday night, police said, adding that there may have been more than one person firing a gun.

Police received calls reporting shots around 7.45pm at El Camaron Gigante Mariscos & Steakhouse, Officer Moroni Mendez of Glendale police department said during a briefing.

Mendez said three people died from their injuries and five other people were injured by gunshots or shrapnel, KPHO-TV reported.

“Obviously there was a lot of people here,” Mendez said. “A lot of people that were attending some sort of event. Anyone who has information, please come forward and provide that to us because as we just recently stated, there are three deceased. So we want to make sure we do a complete and thorough investigation, and do right by the victims.”

Police believe there was more than one shooter involved. Investigators did not have a suspect in custody but multiple people were being questioned, Mendez said.

Bystander Lupe Rodriguez said he ran to safety. He was shaken, but said he was grateful that he and his friends survived.

“There was a man on the ground, and it didn’t look like he made it,” Rodriguez said. “His father was yelling out his name. It was pretty bad.”

Three people are dead and five others were injured after a shooting at a restaurant in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, on Sunday night, police said, adding that there may have been more than one person firing a gun.

Police received calls reporting shots around 7.45pm at El Camaron Gigante Mariscos & Steakhouse, Officer Moroni Mendez of Glendale police department said during a briefing.

Mendez said three people died from their injuries and five other people were injured by gunshots or shrapnel, KPHO-TV reported.

“Obviously there was a lot of people here,” Mendez said. “A lot of people that were attending some sort of event. Anyone who has information, please come forward and provide that to us because as we just recently stated, there are three deceased. So we want to make sure we do a complete and thorough investigation, and do right by the victims.”

Police believe there was more than one shooter involved. Investigators did not have a suspect in custody but multiple people were being questioned, Mendez said.

Bystander Lupe Rodriguez said he ran to safety. He was shaken, but said he was grateful that he and his friends survived.

“There was a man on the ground, and it didn’t look like he made it,” Rodriguez said. “His father was yelling out his name. It was pretty bad.”

A far-right Trump admirer who opposes military aid to Ukraine has decisively won the first round of Romania’s presidential election rerun, final results show, raising the prospect of another disruptive nationalist joining the EU leaders’ club.

With all votes counted on Monday, George Simion, 38, who sports Maga caps, pushes a sovereignist, socially conservative agenda and has called for the “Melonisation” – referring to Italy’s far-right prime minister – of Europe, scored 40.96%.

That was almost double the total of the second-placed candidate, Nicușor Dan, the centrist mayor of Bucharest, and higher than pre-election polls had predicted. The two will face each other in a second-round runoff due on 18 May.

Dan squeaked into the second round with 20.99%, less than a percentage point more than Crin Antonescu, a pro-European former senator backed by the ruling Social Democratic party (PSD) and the centre-right National Liberal party (PNL).

“This is not just an electoral victory, it is a victory of Romanian dignity. It is the victory of those who have not lost hope, of those who still believe in Romania, a free, respected, sovereign country,” Simion said after the result became clear.

“I am here to serve Romanians, not the other way around,” he said in a statement early on Monday, insisting he believed in an EU “that thrives as a nest for its diverse and sovereign nations – not as a rigid system enforcing one-size-fits-all policies”.

The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen said Romania’s voters had sent “a very nice boomerang” to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, echoing claims that Brussels was behind the cancellation of the original vote last year.

Romania’s Social Democratic prime minister, Marcel Ciolacu, faced calls to resign after the failure of Antonescu – the ruling coalition’s candidate – to reach the second round. Analysts and several MPs said the government was no longer viable and could fall.

Simion, whose Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) has grown from an anti-vax movement into the country’s second-largest party, finished first in 36 of Romania’s 47 electoral districts and secured 61% of the large overseas vote.

Dan, a 55-year-old mathematician who founded the Save Romania Union party (USR) and campaigned as a pro-EU, anti-corruption independent, called the runoff a battle “to convince Romanians that Romania needs its pro-western direction”.

He said the two weeks leading up to the runoff would be “difficult against this isolationist candidate … It will not be a debate between individuals, it will be a debate between a pro-western direction for Romania and an anti-western direction”.

Experts have said Dan may struggle to beat Simion in the runoff because of tensions between the independent candidate and the country’s two big centre-left and centre-right mainstream parties that might deter their voters from switching allegiance.

“Simion has a bigger pool of votes than Dan at the moment,” said Cristian Pîrvulescu, a political scientist. The votes of the fourth-placed finisher, Victor Ponta, a former prime minister, could be critical, potentially making him a kingmaker.

Romania’s president has a semi-executive role with considerable powers over foreign policy, national security, defence spending and judicial appointments. They also represent the country on the international stage and can veto important EU votes.

A Simion victory could lead to Romania – which shares a border with Ukraine and is a member of both the EU and Nato – veering away from the mainstream path and becoming another disruptive force within the EU alongside Hungary and Slovakia.

It would also be welcomed by conservative nationalists in Europe and beyond – including senior Trump administration figures such as the US vice-president JD Vance – who accused Bucharest of denying democracy after the original ballot was cancelled.

That vote last November was won by Călin Georgescu, a far-right, Moscow-friendly independent, but was annulled by Romania’s top court after declassified intelligence documents revealed an alleged Russian influence operation.

Georgescu, who denies any wrongdoing, was later placed under investigation on counts including misreporting campaign finances, misuse of digital technology and promoting fascist groups. In March, he was barred from standing in the rerun.

Simion promised on Sunday to make Georgescu prime minister, either through a referendum, early elections or forming a new government coalition, if he won. Far-right groups have 35% of parliamentary seats after elections held in December.

Georgescu, 63, called the vote rerun “a fraud orchestrated by those who have made deceit the only state policy”, but said he voted on Sunday to “acknowledge the power of democracy, the power of the vote that frightens and terrifies the system”.

Simion denies his policies are far-right but has described his party as “natural allies” of Trump and promised an alliance of EU countries “in the spirit of Maga”. He has frequently criticised Russia, but consistently opposed military aid to Ukraine.

To date, Romania has donated a Patriot air defence battery to Kyiv, is training Ukrainian fighter pilots and has enabled the export of 30m tonnes of Ukrainian grain through its Black Sea port of Constanta since Russia’s invasion.

Spain’s transport minister has said the country’s rail network suffered “an act of serious sabotage” after vital signalling cable was stolen over the busy bank holiday weekend, bringing severe delays to high-speed services between Madrid and Seville that affected more than 10,000 travellers.

Government sources said the problems on the line between the capital and the southern region of Andalucía had been caused by the theft of copper cable from five different locations in the Toledo area, south of Madrid, late on Sunday.

They said that while the cables that had been targeted had little monetary value – being worth a total of around €300 (£256) – they were essential to the safety of the lines as they allow the system to know where trains are.

“If those safety cables are taken, then the line is blind,” they added. “They’re optimal if you want to put the whole line out of service.”

As the country’s state-owned rail operator, Renfe, and the railway infrastructure company, Adif, rushed to restore services, Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente, said: “We have suffered an act of serious sabotage on the high-speed line between Madrid and Seville”. He urged anyone with information to contact the police.

In a radio interview on Monday morning, Puente said the network appeared to have been deliberately targeted. “This is a low-value theft,” he told Cadena Ser. “Whoever did it knew what they were doing because there were no cameras and the financial gain is absolutely negligible compared with the enormous damage.”

The minister said he viewed the incident as “damage” rather than theft, adding that it involved 150 metres of cable.

Álvaro Fernández Heredia, the president of Renfe, said he also felt the theft was suspicious.

“It’s strange and I’m sure the transport ministry and the police will be looking into this because it isn’t something we’ve seen up until now,” he toldRadio Nacional de España.

Asked if he shared Puente’s contention that it was a case of sabotage: “I do … The theft of signalling cable on which the safety infrastructure depends is sabotage, even if it’s just simple theft because it’s an attack on the infrastructure itself.”

The interior ministry said the Guardia Civil had opened an investigation, adding that both that force and the Policía Nacional had long been in contact with Adif as part of a special plan for prevent the theft of copper from the rail network. According to interior ministry statistics, there were 4,433 thefts involving copper and conductive materials last year.

By 9.30am on Monday, Renfe and Adif said the Madrid to Seville line was running again and hoped services would return to normal over the course of the day.

By early Monday morning, Alberto Valero and his family, visiting Spain from Mexico, had spent hours at Madrid’s Atocha station, waiting for a train to Seville.

“We’re here with tourists from everywhere; France, Portugal,” Valero told the Associated Press. “Everyone is at a loss for what to do because of the total disarray.”

The severe delays came a week after Spain and neighbouring Portugal suffered an unprecedented and as yet unexplained power blackout, prompting the opposition conservative People’s party (PP) to accuse the socialist-led government of incompetence.

“We’ve had two events in the past week that are more commonly seen in countries we wouldn’t want to resemble; countries where the government has forgotten about its citizens,” said PP sources.

The PP’s leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said thousands of people had been stranded on trains overnight without water.

“This is the second Monday when we’ve had scenes that do not befit the fourth-largest eurozone economy,” he said. “People don’t deserve to be paying more taxes for worse services. Spain needs to function again and that’s my aim.”

In an interview with El País on Sunday, Spain’s environment minister, Sara Aagesen, warned it could take days to discover the reasons for last week’s power outage. She also echoed her view that it was far too soon for opposition parties and others to be pointing the finger at the country’s renewable energy sources as a possible cause.

“Blaming renewable as a [reason for the blackout] seems irresponsible and simplistic to me,” said Aagesen. “Irresponsible because we’re talking about a resource that has been part of our energetic mix for a long time. And, besides, we’ve had very similar power generation on many previous days, with lots of renewables and even with lower demand – and the system has worked perfectly.”

Just over a decade ago, the converted Mitsubishi whisked Pope Francis through the streets of Bethlehem before it was left to gather dust. Now, in keeping with one of the late pontiff’s last wishes, the popemobile is being given a second life – as a mobile health clinic for children in the Gaza Strip.

In a region ravaged by more than 18 months of war, the initiative is both symbolic and practical, said Peter Brune, the secretary general of the Catholic charity Caritas Sweden.

“We call it a vehicle of hope because it conveys a message to the children of Gaza that peace is possible, there will be peace, you will have a future and the world has not forgotten about you. And then there’s the very practical dimension in that it will actually deliver medical aid to affected children.”

Brune and his counterpart at Caritas Jerusalem, Anton Asfar, came up with the idea late last year. They soon arranged to have the question put to Pope Francis. “We got a letter from the pope saying, ‘Yes I’m glad to say that I fully endorse this idea’,” said Brune.

Work swiftly began on fitting out the vehicle, which had been left sitting in Bethlehem since the 2014 visit, with supplies such as rapid tests for infections, suture kits and oxygen as well as a refrigerator for medication.

It will be used to diagnose and treat children who have no access to healthcare, bolstering the aid provided by Caritas Jerusalem, which has about 100 staff on the ground in Gaza. “This is a concrete, life-saving intervention at a time when the health system in Gaza has almost completely collapsed,” said Brune.

The announcement, made days before the start of the conclave to elect a new pope, echoes Francis’s deep commitment to those caught in the crossfire of the conflict. He had long called for an end to the hostilities and voiced his disapproval at how the war was being carried out. “Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war,” he said in December after an Israeli airstrike killed seven children from one family. He added: “I want to say it because it touches my heart.”

For much of the past year and a half, Francis had made nightly calls to Gaza’s only Catholic church, offering his unwavering support to the congregation as they grappled with the pain and devastation of war. “It was close to his heart,” said Brune. “Since the war broke out, 3% of the Christians in Gaza have been killed.”

The transformed popemobile is expected to be ready in a week or so, said Brune, and talks have been launched in the hope of obtaining permission from Israeli officials to bring it into Gaza.

Brune described the situation on the ground as urgent. “Since 2 March, no aid has been let into Gaza at all. It’s horrible. A few months ago, when it was cold, children were freezing to death. Now they’re starving to death.”

While aid groups have warned that Israel’s blockade of food and medicine into Gaza has left civilians in the territory facing starvation, Israel has said that the blockade, along with its renewed military campaign, is aimed at pressuring Hamas to release the remaining hostages.

Unicef said last month that the conflict had killed more than 15,000 children, injured tens of thousands of others and left nearly 1 million children repeatedly displaced in the Gaza Strip, adding to warnings that the humanitarian situation had reached its worst point since the hostilities broke out in 2023.

The war in Gaza was triggered by a surprise attack launched by Hamas into Israel on 7 October, in which militants killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 hostages. Israeli officials say 59 hostages remain in Gaza, more than half of whom are believed to be dead.

Brune called for aid to be let in. “It’s forbidden to use civilians and, even worse, children as some kind of instrument in an ongoing war between adults,” he said. “It’s against all humanitarian principles and laws.”

He hoped the popemobile’s transformation would set a precedent of sorts, paving the way for other papal vehicles to be repurposed. “Maybe Gaza now, but then Ukraine in the future or Congo or other places,” he said. “Everywhere where humanitarian access is denied, we want to apply the principle of saying that the popemobile will stand for the importance of letting humanitarian aid come through.”