Israel is ‘seizing territory’ and will ‘divide up’ Gaza, Netanyahu says

Prime minister says Israel will build a new security corridor to isolate parts of the strip in major escalation

Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel is “seizing territory” and intends to “divide up” the Gaza Strip by building a new security corridor, amid a major expansion of aerial and ground operations in the besieged Palestinian territory.

“Tonight, we have shifted gears in the Gaza Strip. The [Israeli army] is seizing territory, hitting the terrorists and destroying the infrastructure,” the prime minister said in a video statement on Wednesday evening.

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US banks predict climate goals will fail – but air conditioning firms will thrive

Reports predict global heating will bring catastrophes and that air conditioning market could grow by 41%

The world is on track for disastrous global heating – but this will create profits for some air conditioning companies, according to forecasts by leading Wall Street financial institutions.

Recent reports by Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and the Institute of International Finance all make clear the finance sector considers the Paris climate agreement limiting global temperatures, signed a decade ago by nearly 200 nations, is effectively dead and investors should plan accordingly.

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British activist in solitary confinement in India despite acquittal, family say

Brother of Jagtar Singh Johal claims he is being ‘mentally tortured’ through unwarranted detention

The British Sikh activist Jagtar Singh Johal, detained for seven years in an Indian jail, has been placed into solitary confinement and under 24-hour surveillance despite being acquitted of all terrorism charges against him by a Punjab court on 4 March, his family have claimed.

Johal is still facing the exact same charges in a parallel case in a clear example of double jeopardy, his brother Gurpreet said when giving testimony at Westminster to an all party committee on arbitrary detention. He said the Indian courts have not granted his brother bail, despite the prosecutor’s failure to produce any credible evidence or witnesses in the Punjab court.

Gurpreet said UK consular staff met his brother in jail on Tuesday and were told he had been put into solitary confinement with a 24-hour guard, adding no explanation had been given.

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Trump’s tariffs: how might Europe respond to unleashing of trade war?

Bloc’s options include retaliating with tariffs on US goods and services and forming closer ties with other countries

Donald Trump is getting ready to impose sweeping and immediate tariffs on all foreign goods, thereby unleashing a trade war and upending the multilateral trading system that the US helped to build after the second world war.

Here is how Europe might respond:

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Italian police increase security at Tesla dealerships after 17 cars destroyed in Rome fire

State police anti-terrorism unit investigating whether blaze in Torre Angela was started by anarchists

Italy’s interior ministry has written to police forces across the country to increase security at Tesla dealerships after 17 of the electric cars made by Elon Musk’s company were destroyed in a fire in Rome.

Italy’s state police anti-terrorism unit, Digos, is investigating whether the fire at the Tesla dealership in Torre Angela, a suburb in the east of the capital, was started by anarchists.

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Airlines warned Heathrow about power supply risks days before outage, MPs told

Concerns about cable theft raised with airport before substation fire but Heathrow chief defends handling of incident

Airlines warned Heathrow about risks to its power supply days before the airport was shut down by a substation fire, a Commons committee has been told.

Heathrow’s chief executive, Thomas Woldbye, apologised for the disruption, which affected more than 200,000 passengers on Friday 21 March, but defended the decision to close as he said staying open was potentially “disastrous”.

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Wednesday briefing: What the latest wave of tariffs mean for the US, UK, Europe – and you

In today’s newsletter: The administration’s sweeping tariffs have left markets bracing for volatility – but what impact will they have on an unsteady global economy?

Good morning. According to Donald Trump, it’s “liberation day”: the advent of a new trade order in which Americans reap the benefit of massive tariffs on imports, and the rest of the world picks up the tab.

Unsurprisingly, the United States’ trading partners tend to take a very different view. And they are doing everything they can to avoid being passive targets for the White House’s carnivorous vision of American exceptionalism.

Israel-Gaza war | Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced a major expansion of the military operation in Gaza on Wednesday, saying large areas of the enclave would be seized and added to the security zones of Israel. Follow the latest here.

Israel-Gaza war | Some of the bodies of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, killed by Israeli forces and buried in a mass grave in Gaza, were found with their hands or legs tied and had gunshot wounds to the head and chest, according to two eyewitnesses. The accounts add to evidence pointing to a potentially serious war crime on 23 March.

UK news | More than 20 women have contacted police to say they fear they may have been attacked by the serial rapist Zhenhao Zou, with detectives fearing there may be even more victims to come. Zou, 28, was convicted last month of raping three women in London and seven in China between 2019 and 2024.

US politics | Cory Booker, the Democratic US senator from New Jersey, has broken the record for longest speech ever by a lone senator by spending 25 hours and five minutes inveighing against Donald Trump in the chamber. Booker’s speech was intended to highlight the “grave and urgent” danger that Trump poses to democracy.

Cinema | Val Kilmer, the actor best known for his roles in Top Gun, Batman Forever and The Doors, has died at the age of 65. His daughter Mercedes told the New York Times that the cause of death was pneumonia.

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China military drills targeting Taiwan put region’s security at risk, says US

Beijing continues drills in Taiwan strait, practising hitting key ports and energy infrastructure

The US has accused China of putting the region’s security at risk after it launched a second day of military drills targeting Taiwan with a rehearsal blockade and attack.

The China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began the joint drills without notice on Tuesday morning, sending 76 aircraft and more than 20 navy and coastguard ships, including the Shandong carrier group, to positions around Taiwan’s main island.

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Trump set to announce new round of tariffs on his so-called ‘liberation day’

President’s plans have rattled global stock markets and triggered heated rows with US’s largest trading partners

Donald Trump will announce his latest round of tariffs at the White House on Wednesday, threatening to unleash a global trade war on what he has dubbed “liberation day”.

Trump has rattled global stock markets, alarmed corporate executives and economists, and triggered heated rows with the US’s largest trading partners by announcing and delaying plans to impose tariffs on foreign imports several times since taking office.

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Val Kilmer, star of Top Gun and The Doors, dies aged 65

Known for his roles in Batman Forever, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Tombstone, the prolific actor’s cause of death was pneumonia

Val Kilmer, the actor best known for his roles in Top Gun, Batman Forever and The Doors, has died at the age of 65.

His daughter Mercedes told the New York Times that the cause of death was pneumonia. Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 and later recovered, after treatment with chemotherapy and trachea surgery that had reduced hisability to speak and breathe.

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US bombing of Yemen compounding dire humanitarian situation – rights groups

Anti-Houthi air campaign, details of which were revealed in Signal scandal, has brought further destruction to country

A ramped-up US bombing campaign on Yemen has killed civilians and brought further destruction and uncertainty to the poorest country in the Middle East, compounding an already dire situation after Donald Trump cut aid, according to local people, humanitarian workers and rights groups.

“Now the rampant bombing has started, you never know which way things will go,” said Siddiq Khan, who works as a country director in Yemen for the aid charity Islamic Relief.

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Ex-Costa Rica president says US visa revoked after criticism of Trump

Óscar Arias, 84, who won Nobel peace prize in 1987, said US president was behaving like ‘a Roman emperor’

Former Costa Rican president and Nobel winner Óscar Arias said on Tuesday that the US had revoked his visa to enter the country, weeks after he criticized Donald Trump on social media saying he was behaving like “a Roman emperor”.

Arias, 84, was president between 1986 and 1990 and again between 2006 and 2010. A self-declared pacifist, he won the 1987 Nobel peace prize for his role in brokering peace during the Central American conflicts of the 1980s.

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Hegseth indicates US backing for Taiwan – but it is transactional Trump who has the final word

Defence secretary’s trip to Asia shows the Trump administration is engaged with the region, but analysts warn Taipei to tread carefully

On Tuesday China’s military launched joint drills around Taiwan, sending ships, planes and some bizarre propaganda videos across the strait to both warn and punish Taiwan’s government over what Beijing calls “separatist activity”.

The purported provocation was recent assertiveness by Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, who in March designated China a “foreign hostile force” and announced 17 measures to counter its espionage and influence operations.

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UK regulator fines 10 carmakers and two trade bodies over green ad collusion

CMA found car firms chose not to compete when advertising what percentage of their vehicles could be recycled

Ten leading car manufacturers – plus two automotive trade bodies – have been fined more than £77m by a UK regulator after admitting breaking competition law in relation to advertising their green credentials.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an investigation after a tipoff from Mercedes-Benz, which allowed the German marque to avoid financial penalties despite also being involved in the cartel.

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Donald Trump signs off UK’s handover of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

No 10 says deal to cede UK’s last African colony now being finalised after months of doubt

Donald Trump has signed off the UK’s handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, Downing Street has indicated, paving the way for the UK to cede sovereignty over its last African colony after a six-month standoff.

Under the terms of the deal, the UK will give up control of the Chagos archipelago while paying to maintain control of a joint US-UK military base on the largest island, Diego Garcia, under a 99-year lease.

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Russia says it cannot accept US peace plan for Ukraine ‘in its current form’

Moscow’s refusal highlights the limited progress Donald Trump has made on his promise to end the war

Moscow has described the latest US peace proposals as unacceptable to the Kremlin, highlighting the limited progress Donald Trump has made on his promise to end the war in Ukraine since taking office in January.

Sergei Ryabkov, a foreign policy adviser to Vladimir Putin, said some of Russia’s key demands were not being addressed by the US proposals to end the war, in comments that marked a rare acknowledgment from the Russian side that talks with the US over Ukraine had stalled in recent weeks.

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Two near lifesize sculptures found during excavations of Pompeii tomb

The detailed relics were found in a necropolis and experts believe the woman depicted could have been an important priestess

Two almost lifesize sculptures of a man and woman, who was believed to have been a priestess, have been found during the excavations of a huge tomb in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.

The detailed funerary relics adorned the tomb containing several burial niches built into a wide wall in the necropolis of Porta Sarno, one of the main entrance gates into the ancient city. Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79.

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Icelandic town and Blue Lagoon spa evacuated after volcanic eruption

Those who have not already left Grindavík warned nearby eruption could be much bigger than previous 10 since 2021

The Icelandic town of Grindavík and the nearby Blue Lagoon tourist attraction have been evacuated after the area was hit by another volcanic eruption.

The eruption is the 11th since 2021, when the Reykjanes peninsula, a region south-west of Reykjavík, started its latest eruption period.

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Middle East crisis: Israel issues evacuation order for parts of northern Gaza – as it happened

IDF says residents should evacuate Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and the neighbourhoods of Sheikh Zayed, al-Manshiya and Tal al-Zaatar

At least 50,399 Palestinian people have been killed and 114,583 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

At least 42 bodies and 183 injured people have been received by hospitals in Gaza over the last day, according to the territory’s health ministry, which said that at least 1,042 Palestinian people have been killed by Israeli forces since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas on 18 March.

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French ministers condemn threats to judges in Marine Le Pen case

Senior figures also reject claim verdict against Le Pen on embezzlement charges was ‘political and partisan’

French ministers have condemned threats against the judges who convicted the far-right leader Marine Le Pen and banned her from public office for five years as the chief judge was placed under police protection after receiving death threats.

France’s prime minister, François Bayrou, told the Assemblée nationale the trial judges had his “unconditional support” after they found Le Pen guilty of embezzlement charges, threatening her 2027 presidential run and throwing France into political chaos.

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