When I was 17, a girl in my year died suddenly, in her sleep. Natalie was beautiful and very popular. We weren’t friends and we hadn’t really spoken to each other much. (I was a self-conscious, self-obsessed teenager and I assumed I was invisible to most of my classmates.) At the time, her death seemed like a matter for the other popular girls. Because I was self-obsessed, I was worried about being accused of using a tragedy to gain traction and social status. I didn’t try to comfort her friends. I didn’t understand that we were going through a collective, communal grief. My shock and sadness seemed fraudulent and I believed the best gift I could give anyone was space. Natalie’s very best friends were allowed to cry in the corridor and take time off school. If I tried it, I’d be attention-seeking, claiming emotions I had no right to feel.

Now that I’m 39, I regret everything I did and didn’t do. I wish I’d put my self-consciousness aside and let empathy lead the way. I could have gone to her friends and asked what they needed. I could have taken the time to get to know their version of Natalie, who probably wasn’t a remote goddess to them, but a sweet, funny teenage girl.

It’s taken me more than 20 years to understand that grief isn’t an emotion we need to earn. During that time I learned about “disenfranchised grief” – a term coined by bereavement expert Kenneth Doka in 1989. He explained that it “refers to a loss that’s not openly acknowledged, socially mourned or publicly supported”. Even when we feel that we can openly claim our grief, it’s heavy and hard to navigate. When we don’t think we have a right to our sadness, it’s impossible to heal.

It brought two friends to the forefront of my mind – John and Andrea. Their deaths were just over a year apart. They hadn’t been my closest friends. There were other people in their lives who had a much greater claim to grief than me. But I thought about them both constantly. I missed them. I felt angry and guilty and ashamed that I hadn’t been a better friend. I resented the other friends, whose grief seemed more legitimate than mine – and I hated myself for that. I had to remind myself that my feelings were shaped by love. When I tried to push my grief away, I pushed my happy memories away, too. I wanted the chance to remember the best of my friends, and the times when I’d felt close to them.

The night I met John was especially memorable, because we both thought I’d die first.

We went to a screening of a film. At the time, he was the editor-in-chief of a film website, which sounded very grand – later I learned that he was also the staff writer, the entire picture desk staff and occasionally the office cleaner. John was charming on Twitter – warm, generous, wicked and fun. Over pizza and drinks, I discovered that he was just the same in real life. Imagine a third Mitchell brother, played by Noël Coward. That was John.

As we wobbled in the general direction of Charing Cross, towards home, I asked “What are all those people doing on Nelson’s Column?”

John turned towards me. “You’ve never been up Nelson’s Column? How long have you lived in London? We must remedy this at once!”

I climbed up on to the plinth as gracefully as I could (not very) and marvelled at seeing London from a slightly higher vantage point than usual. I think John offered me his hand on the way down. I think I said, “Don’t worry, I’m fine.” I know exactly what happened next. I missed my step.

My memories are blurry, here, because I lost consciousness, but he came to the hospital with me. I can recall giggling as I used a bedpan behind a translucent curtain, while John turned his back and hummed a little tune to help me to preserve my dignity. I can picture the two of us, alone in a little room, watching the sky turn from navy to pink. Dawn was breaking, and I was out of danger. “I really thought you were going to die,” he whispered. His face was very pale. I smiled. “But I didn’t! And now we have a story! We’ll remember this for ever!”

I believed the incident marked the start of an important friendship. We’d be in each other’s lives for years to come, dining out on this ridiculous anecdote. But when John died, in hospital, six years later, I found out about his death on Twitter.

If I could go back to the moment when we met and give my past self a single piece of advice, it wouldn’t be, “Don’t go up Nelson’s Column,” or even, “Really watch your step on the way down.” It would be: “This friendship is precious. Fight for it. Don’t take it for granted, and don’t let it ebb away.” We’d fallen into an easy, instant intimacy. Soon, we became part of a gang, made up of other Twitter friends who had made the leap into “real life”.

John had been diagnosed with blood cancer in the summer of 2015. The shock was searing, but galvanising. Shortly after his diagnosis, John had a birthday dinner. “Good to know that cancer will get everyone out in the middle of the week,” he joked. “I hope no one is going to leave after two drinks, pleading a morning meeting, under the circumstances.” We made plans to rally round, and talked about rotas, routines, freezer filling. We made jokes about Peter’s Friends and said that in 20 years, we’d return to the restaurant and say, “Remember when John nearly died?” Champagne all round.

A year later, John was still in and out of hospital, but he seemed to be responding to treatment. I left London and moved to the Kent coast, and my connection with our wider friendship group started to unravel. They seemed much closer to John than I was. I had always found the group difficult to navigate. It was easy for me to convince myself that the other members didn’t like me at all. Anxiety and depression descended, periodically. I nursed a secret suspicion that I had always been a non-player character, and the main characters were glad to get rid of me. Now, I’m ashamed that I let those feelings get in the way of a friendship I should have protected.

When I found out that John died, I was barely in touch with any of our mutual friends. How had I let myself lose him? What was the appropriate amount of grief to feel, when you’ve loved someone very much – but you’ve barely spoken to them during the last year of their life? My grief felt wrong. It had the wide, shallow bloom of a bruise. I’d loved John, but had I meant anything to him? The emotions that rose in my throat seemed monstrous, so I swallowed them down again. I felt lonely, angry and selfish. This wasn’t about me. It couldn’t be about me. I’d forfeited the right to my big feelings, by failing to protect the friendship. I was more mad than sad and it scared me. I focused on trying to feel less and making myself as numb as possible. Better to have no feelings, than the wrong feelings.

A year later, in the spring of 2019, my friend Andrea was diagnosed with a rare liver disorder. I knew Andrea through the Jilly Cooper book club, a gang of women who had bonded over a shared love of bonkbusters. Within minutes of Andrea’s awful announcement, the rallying round began. I had a spooky sense of déjà vu as we shared visiting schedules, made reading lists, and Monzo’d each other fivers for care packages. Andrea had known some of the other Jillies for ages, but the two of us had never spent any time alone together. After her diagnosis, we started to message each other frequently.

Andrea wanted to make plans. We talked about what would happen when she was out of hospital, when she was better, when summer came, when, when, when. It was peony season and we discussed where to acquire peonies, where to put them, their scent, their colour and how to prolong their lives. When I first met Andrea, I’d have guessed she’d like lilies or orchids. She seemed elegant, delicate and controlled. When we spoke about peonies, it was as though we were speaking about her second self, her moon sign – a craving for the pungent, riotous and intense.

I hadn’t learned my lesson. As Andrea’s condition improved, I assumed she’d make a stunning recovery, build a brand-new wing of the hospital and be given an OBE for services to grace under pressure. When my friend Kat called me early one sunny morning, I knew, before I slid my finger across the phone screen, that we’d lost her.

As I started to make sense of the situation, the awful old feelings rose up. I had less right to be there than anyone. I hadn’t played enough of a role in Andrea’s life to grieve her. If I was going to earn my place among my friends, I had to offer comfort and support. But I didn’t know what to say, or where to reach. I wondered whether this loss would help me make some sense of losing John and bring me some wisdom and perspective. Instead, it made that grief seem even heavier.

Grief wasn’t supposed to feel this way. I waited for a slow, profound heaviness to take root. Instead, I felt wild. Angry, lonely, abandoned. And selfish. I had no right to these feelings. I couldn’t tell anyone about them. Emotionally, I was at the very end of the queue.

I couldn’t numb myself this time. The dam had burst. I shut myself off and marinated in shame and pity, feeling exactly like a child having a temper tantrum. When I cried, I didn’t sob sweetly into a handkerchief, thinking beautiful thoughts about my lost friends. I screamed. Sometimes I’d lie face down on my bed, grunting into a pillow, kicking the mattress as hard as I could. Please, I thought, someone, give me grace and strength, make me useful. Please let me burn through these mad feelings, so I can get to the proper ones.

The screaming helped, a little. Reading helped even more. I read Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking and Cariad Lloyd’s You Are Not Alone, which were deeply comforting. Books saw my “wrong” feelings and held them and absorbed them, without judging me. And then, in the spring of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic began and death and grief were everywhere.

The observations made by creative people struck me. People talked about feeling heartbroken, because their first novel was being published when bookshops were closed, or being unable to perform in the plays they’d been rehearsing for months – and then feeling guilty and ashamed of those feelings, because people were dying. Others talked about struggling to process the death of loved ones when they hadn’t been able to spend any time with them at the end. Or about how wrong it felt to go to a funeral on Zoom. A friend’s cat died and she struggled to contextualise her grief. “I don’t really know who to talk to, or turn to,” she said. “Everyone is suffering and struggling. I’m not sure where my feelings fit in; there doesn’t seem to be space for them on the scale.”

It was liberating to learn that for most of us, grief isn’t just about death – we can grieve relationships, lost opportunities and endings. Everyone seemed to be experiencing disenfranchised grief, struggling to attach heavy, oversized feelings to losses that didn’t seem strong enough to bear their weight. We felt isolated – scared to open up about the scale of our emotions. But we were isolated together. A wall fell away. I started to talk about missing John and Andrea. I started to realise that I was allowed to miss them. Grief wasn’t proof of the impact I’d had in John’s life, or Andrea’s – it was proof of the love they’d brought to mine.

In a tribute to her partner and collaborator Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson wrote: “I believe that the purpose of death is the release of love.” Love is a lot like grief. It’s rarely pure, sweet and easy. It can be heavy and painful. It can rush in like a tide, buoying us up, and knocking us down. It doesn’t have a sense of proportion. We don’t love in direct correlation to the amount we are loved. If I was more guarded with my love, maybe I’d have a more straightforward relationship with my grief. But I’m lucky in love – it fills my life. I have a lot of feelings for a lot of people and I’ve learned that there is as much wonder in loving as there is in being loved. Inevitably, this will lead to grief, concentric circles of it lapping my heart. And it will never be dignified or appropriate. It will be vast and wild, the same size as the cast of people who make my life brighter.

Pity Party by Daisy Buchanan is published by Sphere at £14.99. Buy it for £13.19 from guardianbookshop.com

Disinformation researcher Amanda Rogers has described the polarized, unhinged, conspiracy-driven noise in social media responses to the shooting of Donald Trump as “a self-sustaining spiral of shit”.

Rogers, a fellow at the progressive thinktank Century Foundation, has seen this before. But the scale is new and troubling, she said. Conversation on social media – and the mainstream media – is focused on the motivations of the shooter and the impact on the election, she said. Bad actors want to turn a moment like this into a broader call for violence. And they will spread lies to get there, she said.

“The fact that this is the perfect storm environment for dis-info from every single point on the political spectrum, is something that worries me immensely,” Rogers said. “Because it’s an accelerationist’s wet dream … But we need to have voices in the media that are speaking to the fact that this is a breaking situation. People need to calm down about speculation.”

Accelerationists are those on the political fringes – right and left – who want a civil war to burn the country to ash so they can start anew from the rubble. Notably, the term “Civil War” began trending in the wake of the Trump shooting.

Social media was instantly flooded with hyperbole, lies, conspiracy theories and uninformed nonsense about the shooting. The commentary ranged from suggestions on the right like those of Georgia Rep Michael Collins that the president, Joe Biden, solicited the violence and should be charged with a crime, to those on the left suggesting that the shooting is a hoax meant to bolster Trump’s flagging poll figures.

Reasonable questions about whether the Secret Service missed something become conspiracies about whether Biden deliberately withheld competent protection for Trump, said Jonathan Corpus Ong, a disinformation researcher and professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

“I think it’s normal for people to be speculating, and kind of like trying to make sense of what happened,” he said. “I think it’s important for any journalist or any reader to be very critical of what they see in the media and what they’re reading, to take it slow as well … I think we would not want to be swept up with fear, because that would get us into a state of distrust in other people as well. It’s important to be vigilant with what we consume, and also learn when to step back from fear-mongering narratives.”

Factchecking the deep fakes

AI further complicates the reaction to breaking news events.

Some images from the event are bound to become iconic, like the photograph taken by Evan Vucci of the Associated Press of Trump, fist raised and ear bloodied, an American flag waving behind him as Secret Service officers sweep him from the area.

But others from questionable sources could be swiftly fabricated. There’s value in comparing pictures from multiple sources at the event, or noting which agencies are distributing them, Ong said.

“You would like to see videos and a news account and analysis, to have multiple sources and to be corroborated and verified by multiple experts, in order to make sure that it is authentic in the age of deep fakes,” he said.

The emotional, historic nature of the moment lends itself to manipulation confirming existing biases, “that trigger very strong emotions of fear or anxiety,” Ong said. “I think that’s what we need to be looking at. And be wary of.”

Before the FBI had identified 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks as the “subject involved” in the shooting, speculation about the gun and the identity of the alleged shooter had begun. Posts began moving through social media almost immediately, suggesting that the shooter used a BB gun, or alternatively that the weapon was a “ghost gun” built from 3D-printed parts.

Police later said they recovered an AR-style rifle at the scene.

Neither claim could be immediately substantiated. Each claim serves a partisan narrative, either that the shooting was a hoax or evidence of lax gun regulations.

Similarly unsubstantiated noise emerged from rightwing spaces about the identity of the alleged shooter.

“These are the usual responses that we get from the accelerationists in the far right channels … you’ve got people identifying the shooter as Antifa, or as a trans person, as a Jewish person,” Rogers said. “You’ve got the usual suspects being trotted out. And then on the more QAnon channels you’ve got ‘this is the left trying to bait us into a civil war’.”

The one thing Rogers found most disturbing was a pattern of mass deletion of posts in the far-right Telegram channels she follows in the minutes after the shooting. She said they do that in case it was one of their own.

“Telegram aficionados know that people are watching and potentially, if there was a connection, if there’s anybody on there that did actually have facts, it’s not like they’re going to let that stuff stand.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has identified 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania as the “subject involved” in the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, it said in a statement on Sunday.

The shooting took place during a campaign rally at the Butler Park Showgrounds in Pennsylvania on Saturday evening.

In a social media post, Trump said he was “fine” after he was “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.” The former president was quickly whisked from the stage by Secret Service agents, his ear covered in blood. One attendee was killed and two others critically injured.

The political leanings of Crooks, who was shot dead by the Secret Service after the attempted assassination, were not immediately clear. Records show Crooks was registered as a Republican voter in Pennsylvania, but federal campaign finance reports also show he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on 20 January 2021, the day President Joe Biden was sworn in to office. Officials have not publicly disclosed a possible motive.

The Federal Aviation Administration said on Sunday that the airspace over the Bethel Park was closed “effective immediately” for special security reasons.

The US Secret Service has said its agents shot the suspected attacker after he fired toward Trump – who was speaking on stage at the time – “from an elevated position outside of the rally venue” in Butler county.

He thanked law enforcement officials for their “rapid response”.

Writing on Truth Social he said: “Mostly importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the rally who was killed and also to the family of [those] badly injured,” said Trump, who was taken to a hospital for evaluation and then reportedly discharged about 10.20pm local time.

“It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country.”

Video from NBC News captured more than a dozen shots ringing out at the rally, with later ones apparently coming from agents protecting the president, who had been speaking on stage at the time.

A voice could be heard saying: “Get down, get down, get down!” Agents arrived to throw themselves on top of Trump as the gunfire continued and screams were heard from the crowd.

Audio from the network captured agent’s voices saying: “Shooter’s down. Shooter’s down. Are we good to move? We’re clear, we’re clear.”

As agents tried to move Trump off the stage at the rally, he said: “Let me get my shoes. Let me get my shoes.” Agents can be heard telling the former president: “I got you. Hold on. Your head is bloody. We’ve got to move.”

Trump replied: “Wait, wait.” He then pumped his fist, mouthed the words: “Fight, fight, fight.”

And the crowd at the rally responded with cries of: “USA! USA! USA!”

Agents then whisked Trump away from sight. Video showed blood on Trump’s ear.

Local district attorney Richard Goldringer appeared on CNN and said one aspect of the attack that investigators were “going to have to figure out” was how the shooter managed to get close enough to aim a gun at Trump and fire repeatedly.

The most vivid early account of the shooting came from a Trump supporter who said he was outside the rally site but within hearing distance of the former president’s campaign speech when he saw a man carrying a rifle climb on to the roof of a nearby building.

The man, whom the BBC did not identify, said he and the people he was with started pointing at the man, trying to alert security and police to the “guy on the roof with a rifle”. But no police responded, and within a couple of minutes, the man fired several shots toward Trump.

At that point, the man told the BBC, Secret Service agents shot the attacker and “blew his head off”.

The shots appeared to come from outside the area secured by the Secret Service, the agency said. The FBI said it had taken the lead in investigating the attack.

At a briefing late on Saturday, FBI officials told reporters it was surprising that the suspect was able to fire multiple shots. The Secret Service did not have a representative at that briefing, which included FBI and state law enforcement officials.

Hours after the attack, the Oversight Committee in the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives summoned U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to testify at a hearing scheduled for July 22.

“Americans demand answers about the assassination attempt of President Trump,” the panel said in a statement on social media.

Trump supporters blasted the Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting Trump as a former U.S. president.

“How was a sniper with a full rifle kit allowed to bear crawl onto the closest roof to a presidential nominee,” asked the conservative activist Jack Posobiec on social media site X.

Joe Biden, who spoke to Trump after the shooting, said he was grateful to hear Trump was “safe and doing well”. The president also urged the widespread condemnation of political violence.

“The Trump rally … should have been able to be conducted peacefully,” Biden said. “It’s just not appropriate.”

Biden arrived at the White House early Sunday after cutting short a weekend trip to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

The White House said he would receive a briefing from Homeland Security and law enforcement officials on the attempted assassination of Trump later in the morning.
Vice-president Kamala Harris was also to attend.

The chicken industry is facing calls to halt the expansion of intensive production in the River Severn catchment, with campaigners warning that the river is at risk from the same pollution that has blighted the River Wye.

An outcry over the ecological plight of the Wye has effectively halted the proliferation of intensive poultry units across the catchment. Campaigners say that the pollution threat is being transported “from one catchment to the other”.

The ecological health status of the Wye was downgraded in May last year by Natural England. Campaigners warn of phosphates from poultry litter that are being washed into the Wye and fuelling the growth of algae blooms, which can suffocate a river.

River Action, a charity promoting the restoration of rivers, is now supporting an application for judicial review of a decision by Shropshire council to approve four units to house 230,000 birds at Felton Butler, Shropshire, in the Severn catchment.

Charles Watson, chairman of River Action, said that planners in the Wye catchment had failed to consider the combined effect of intensive poultry units. He warned that the River Severn now faced a similar threat.

Watson said: “Like an appalling car crash in slow motion, exactly the same set of tragic events is now unfolding in the neighbouring catchment of the River Severn. Shropshire council is waving through the planning system more and more huge intensive poultry-unit applications.

“River Action is determined to prevent a re-run of the environmental scandal of the Wye taking place across yet another one of the UK’s iconic rivers.”

The application for judicial review says that the council failed to assess the likely effects of manure and biomass emissions. The farm has proposed various mitigation measures to reduce manure pollution, emissions and odour.

The planning documents state: “no manure arising from the poultry sheds will be spread on the land; it is taken to a licensed waste treatment.” River Action says that the planning conditions do not prevent the phosphate-rich digestate from the processed manure being spread on other land in the catchment.

The application has been made on behalf of Alison Caffyn, a rural researcher who has helped collate data on intensive poultry production in the catchments of the Wye and Severn. She estimates that there are about 250 intensive poultry units and 30m birds in the western catchment of the Severn, including Shropshire and Herefordshire. She said: “They just look at each individual planning application one by one. They are not doing a good job of assessing the cumulative impacts.”

The Angling Trust last year reported a “worrying level of pollution” after taking water samples on the Severn. It published data last year showing that 11 sites had a mean average that exceeded the upper limit of the UK water framework directive for phosphates.

Stuart Singleton-White, head of campaigns at the Angling Trust, said that the Severn faced pollution from sewage discharges, agriculture and run-off from roads. “The Angling Trust hopes the new government grasps the urgent need for restorative action on the Severn, and across all the UK’s badly polluted rivers,” he said.

A Shropshire council spokesperson said: “The decision to grant planning permission was made having taken full account of the likely environmental impacts of the proposal.

“The permission includes a number of conditions to control how the development is carried out, and the operation would also be regulated under an environmental permit. Shropshire council has received a claim form for judicial review of the decision to grant planning permission and is considering its position.”

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We remain committed to protecting watercourses across the country and working with farmers to meet their regulatory requirements and reduce diffuse pollution.” Officials said that planning permissions were decisions for local authorities.

The immediate reaction to the shooting at a Donald Trump rally today was the condemnation of violence from political figures, and an early swell of conspiracy theories on social media.

Trump appeared to have been struck in the incident, while one audience member and the shooter were killed. The incident was being investigated as an assassination attempt.

Joe Biden said on X: “I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well. I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information. Jill and I are grateful to the Secret Service for getting him to safety.

“There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”

In remarks on Saturday, Biden said: “I have tried to get hold of Donald. He is with his doctors. Apparently he’s been doing well. I plan on talking to him shortly, I hope when I get back to the telephone.”

When asked by reporters, Biden said he did not know if it was an assassination attempt.

Biden said: “It’s not appropriate. Everybody must condemn it.”

Vice-President Kamala Harris said she had been briefed on the shooting. “Doug and I are relieved that he is not seriously injured,” she said. “We are praying for him, his family, and all those who have been injured and impacted by this senseless shooting … We must all condemn this abhorrent act and do our part to ensure that it does not lead to more violence.”

Marla Maples, Trump’s ex-wife and the mother of Trump’s fourth child Tiffany, said on X: “We ask for prayers for my daughter’s father… prayers for her heart and all the family and all who know how he is leading on behalf of all of us. We stay together in our faith knowing that the path of God is the path.

“Those who want to stop him are in fear of the power of God. May Christ create an opening in the hearts of those who want to stop the Light and the souls of humanity.”

Lawmakers on the left and right were united in condemning political violence.

“Violence targeted at any political party or political leader is absolutely unacceptable,” said the Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro on X. “It has no place in Pennsylvania or the United States.I have been briefed on the situation. Police are on the scene in Butler County and working with our federal and local partners.”

Former congresswoman Liz Cheney described reports of the shooting as “horrifying”.

“Violence of any kind has no place in American politics,” she said. “We are grateful for the reaction of Secret Service and other law enforcement and pray for the former president and all those injured.”

“Laura and I are grateful that President Trump is safe following the cowardly attack on his life,” George W Bush said in a statement. “And we commend the men and women of the Secret Service for their speedy response.”

Advocacy groups, including those focused on gun control. also shared statements condemning the shooting.

“This is an unacceptable and tragic reminder of our nation’s gun violence crisis. Violence of any kind has no place in our political process,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “This horrific act is another reminder that no one is immune from experiencing gun violence. When guns are everywhere, for anyone, with no questions asked – no one is safe.”

“Political violence does not represent the values of America. We are devastated by the tragedy that unfolded today in Pennsylvania,” said Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action.

“Time and time again our communities are shaken by acts of gun violence that have invaded what should be our safe places, and that includes the violence that we saw today. But they are a consequence of our country’s weak gun laws and guns everywhere culture – laws that allow hate to be armed with a gun to easily take someone else’s life.”

The condemnations of violence and the thoughts and prayers of politicians and activists followed the reflexive rituals of American politics following a shooting that rises to public notice.

The other reaction on social media has been sharply different. The word “staged” and the phrases “they missed” and “how do you miss” began trending on X in the hour following the shooting, as did the photograph of a bloodied Trump raising his fist in defiance as he was being hustled off the dais by Secret Service agents.

“Impeached. Arrested. Convicted. Shot. Still standing,” the conservative commentator Matt Walsh wrote.

“The Republican district attorney in Butler county, Pennsylvania, should immediately file charges against Joseph R Biden for inciting an assassination,” Mike Collins, a Republican congressman in George, wrote about an hour after the shooting. “Joe Biden sent the orders.”

Former congressman Joe Walsh denounced the violent rhetoric.

“We are beyond dangerously divided. We are at each other’s throats,” he said on X. “We consider the people we disagree with to be our mortal enemies. We can’t continue down this road. Our democracy can’t stand if we continue down this road.”

“What EVERY American should say: political violence is ALWAYS wrong. No matter where it comes from. This isn’t how we solve our differences in America. But not every American will say this. Most Americans on the right and the left will try to score political points with this.”

A shooting at a Donald Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday comes at a time of heightened support for political violence in the US, including against Trump.

It is still unclear who fired the gunshots at Trump’s rally or what political beliefs they hold. Trump is safe, according to the Secret Service, but at least one rally attendee and the suspected shooter were killed, according to reports.

But the moment is sure to intensify an already fraught election year, in which elected officials have faced an increasing number of threats and fear of violence.

A survey conducted in late June from the University of Chicago found that there is now more support for violence against Trump (10% of American adults, or 26 million people) compared with violence in favor of Trump (6.9%, or 18 million people). Until January, the survey showed there was more support for violence in favor of Trump.

And of the 26 million American adults who support violence to prevent Trump from regaining the presidency, more than 30% own guns and almost 80% have access to internet organizational tools.

“There are more violent anti-Trump sentiments than pro-Trump sentiments,” Bob Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago who directs the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, had said in an interview before the incident on Saturday night.

“So we have to be prepared for violence coming from the left in opposition to Trump’s rule.”

The rise in support for political violence in the US comes at a time of extreme partisanship, rampant misinformation on social media, and violent rhetoric from Trump and his allies. Those factors came together on 6 January 2021 when thousands of people stormed the US Capitol.

According to the survey, which was first shared with the Guardian as part of a series on political violence and attitudes towards democracy, the underlying causes of support for violence on both sides of the aisle both stem from distrust of the establishment and beliefs in conspiracy theories.

On both sides, those that support violence are predominantly urban Americans.

The survey also found that 58.6% of American adults agree that in today’s America, elections will not solve the country’s most fundamental political and social problems.

“The shooting of Trump is a consequence of such significant support for political violence in our country,” Pape said. “We also need to worry about [the] threat in retribution to President Biden.”

“It is crucial that political leaders from both parties and at all levels of government … the president, Senate, House, governors and mayors immediately condemn political violence from whichever side of politics it arises,” he added.

The immediate reaction from politicians has been largely consistent. In a statement shortly after the shooting, Joe Biden said: “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”

Barack Obama also issued a statement, saying: “There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy.”

“Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, we should all be relieved that former President Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics,” Obama said.

But political violence in the US in recent years has taken many forms, including the 6 January insurrection, violent threats and harassment of election officials, and swatting attempts targeted at elected officials.

In October 2020, a month before the last presidential election, the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, was the target of a kidnapping plot. And a week after the election, an executive at Dominion Voting Systems was forced into hiding because those that believed the election was stolen shared his home address and a million-dollar bounty.

It’s also easier than ever for those that hold extreme political beliefs to organize on the internet. Most political violence in the US is committed by people who do not belong to any formal organization, according to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.

The shooting at Trump’s rally occurred two days before the start of the Republican national convention, when Trump is scheduled to become the party’s formal nominee. The convention has law enforcement on heightened awareness after an assessment by the FBI, Secret Service, the Milwaukee police department and the Southeastern Wisconsin Threat Analysis Center.

According to CBS News, the assessment found that there is concern the convention could be a target for foreign terrorist organizations, homegrown violent extremists, domestic violent extremist groups, so-called lone-wolf bad actors and active shooters, a law enforcement source said.

“We shouldn’t be at a level of political discourse in this country where this is going on,” Joseph, a rally attendee who was an eyewitness to the incident said on CNN Saturday.

“We have a lot of political violence in this country,” he said. “It just needs to stop.”

Law enforcement agents were investigating what they suspected was a genuine attempt on Donald Trump’s life at a campaign rally on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Gugliemi said on X that “the former president [was] safe” after more than a dozen gunshots erupted, prompting agents protecting Trump to leap on him amid the ensuing panic.

In a pair of statements, Trump himself said he was “fine” after a bullet struck “the upper part of [his] right ear”.

Secret Service agents shot the suspected attacker dead after he fired toward Trump “from an elevated position outside of the rally venue”, Gugliemi said.

One spectator was killed and two others were critically wounded. The shooter was not immediately identified.

Trump issued thanks to the Secret Service agents as well as other law enforcement officers for “their rapid response” in a post on X in the shooting’s aftermath.

“Mostly importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the rally who was killed and also to the family of [those] badly injured,” Trump said.

“It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country.”

Video from NBC News captured more than a dozen shots, with later ones apparently coming from agents protecting the president, who had been speaking on stage at the time.

A voice could be heard saying: “Get down, get down, get down!” Agents arrived to throw themselves on top of Trump as the gunfire continued and screams were heard from the crowd.

Audio from the network captured agent’s voices saying: “Shooter’s down. Shooter’s down. Are we good to move? We’re clear, we’re clear.”

As agents tried to move Trump off the stage at the rally, he said: “Let me get my shoes. Let me get my shoes.” Agents can be heard telling the former president: “I got you. Hold on. Your head is bloody. We’ve got to move.”

Trump replied: “Wait, wait.” He then pumped his fist, mouthed the words: “Fight, fight, fight.”

And the crowd at the rally responded with cries of: “USA! USA! USA!”

Armed troops in uniform soon arrived as some spectators shouted abuse at the media.

Agents then whisked Trump away from sight.

Video showed blood on Trump’s ear. There were also snipers on a roof near the stage where Trump was standing, the Reuters news agency reported.

NBC News, citing two senior law enforcement officials, reported there was growing concern among investigators that the shooting at the Trump rally “may have been a serious attempt on his life”.

Local district attorney Richard Goldinger appeared on CNN and said he wasn’t sure how the suspected shooter “would’ve gotten to the location where he was”.

“That’s something we’re going to have to figure out – how he got there.”

The BBC, meanwhile, interviewed a Trump supporter who said he was outside the rally site and had been trying to get close enough to hear the former president speak when he saw a man carrying a rifle climb on to the roof of a building.

The man said he pointed out the building in question to police and remarked: “There’s a guy on the roof with a rifle.” But none of the police reacted, and about two minutes later, the man fired several shots.

At that point, the man told the BBC, Secret Service agents shot the makeshift sniper to death. “They blew his head off,” the man said.

One rallygoer who described himself to CBS News as an emergency room physician recounted walking toward a voice saying: “He’s been shot.” The rallygoer, whose shirt was bloodstained, said he saw a man with a bullet wound to the head who had been spun around and ended up “jammed between the benches”.

He said he had tried to perform CPR on the wounded man, who at the time was about to be loaded into a medical helicopter.

Joe Biden said Saturday on X that he had been briefed on the reported shooting.

“I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well,” the president said of Trump. “I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information.”

In a televised address, Biden urged widespread condemnation of political violence.

“The bottom line is, the Trump rally … should have been able to be conducted peacefully without any problem,” Biden said. “But the idea … that there’s political violence … in America like this is just unheard of. It’s just not appropriate. Everybody must condemn it.”

The scenes from the rally prompted a flood of reactions, including support for Trump from Republicans such as former president George W Bush as well as the US senators Marco Rubio of Florida and JD Vance of Ohio.

Former first lady Laura Bush “and I are grateful that president Trump is safe following the cowardly attack on his life”, Bush said. “And we commend the men and women of the Secret Service for their speedy response.”

Rubio said on X on Saturday: “Praying for President Trump and all those attending the rally in Pennsylvania today.”

And Vance posted on X: “Everyone join me in praying for our President Trump and everyone at that rally. I hope everyone is OK.”

The top Democrat in the US House, Hakeem Jeffries, also offered prayers to Trump.

“I am thankful for the decisive law enforcement response,” Jeffries wrote on X. “America is a democracy. Political violence of any kind is never acceptable.”

The former Democratic president Barack Obama said in a separate statement: “There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy. Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, we should all be relieved that former president Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics. Michelle and I are wishing him a quick recovery.”

In a Guardian interview in June, Steve Bannon – a Trump adviser and former White House chief strategist – spoke of his concerns that the Republican nominee would be assassinated before the election in November.

“It’s my number one fear,” Bannon said, speaking before he began a four-month prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena. “Assassination has to be at the top of the list and I believe that the woman that’s running the Secret Service part is not doing her job.”

Referring to the Republican national convention, due to start on Monday, he added: “I’m not comfortable with what’s happening in Milwaukee.” But he added: “His detachment is fantastic.”

Bannon argued that Trump had been portrayed as a new Julius Caesar everywhere from a New York theatre production to an essay by leading scholar Robert Kagan, paving the way for a would-be assassin to feel justified in emulating Brutus. He said Abraham Lincoln received similar treatment after the civil war.

“Remember John Wilkes Booth. In the southern press, and in particular the Richmond papers, Caesar-ism, Lincoln is Caesar, Lincoln is taking your liberties. You fought this war but, even in losing the war, he’s going to take all your liberties and enslave you.”

There were reports of shots fired at a Donald Trump rally on Saturday, followed by the former president being rushed off the stage with apparent blood around his ear. Here’s what we know about the situation so far.

• Trump was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when loud noises were heard in the crowd around 6.13pm.

• Trump appeared to have been struck in the area of his right ear as he was speaking, and videos show him quickly clutching his ear and then ducking down to the ground, as security agents and others leap to his aid.

• Trump stood up with blood on the side of his face and appeared to be saying “fight, fight” while pumping his fist.

• Trump was then quickly escorted from the stage and into his vehicle.

• The rally location is now an active crime scene.

• Trump’s team and the Secret Service confirmed that he was “fine” and being checked at a local medical facility.

Ed Miliband’s decision to give the go-ahead for the construction of three big solar sites in eastern England is a major boost for renewable energy generation in the UK and has been welcomed by green campaigners. But many other changes are needed in the way electricity is generated and transmitted if Britain is to achieve its net-zero ambitions. Here we sum up some of the issues and headaches that lie ahead.

The need for subsidies

Britain’s commitment to solar power has fluctuated. Initially, government subsidies encouraged homeowners to install solar panels and the UK became a leader in the technology among western nations. “The UK was then one of the most attractive European markets to develop large-scale solar farms and install rooftop solar panels – until 2016 when subsidies were wound down,” said Hamish Beath of the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. “UK solar power plateaued so we are now underperforming compared with other countries.”

China still leads the way

China tops the league of countries using solar energy, followed by the US, Japan and Germany. Britain trails in 10th place with a total solar power capacity of about 16 gigawatts. The new solar farms approved by Miliband, the secretary for energy and net zero, will significantly add to this total: 500 megawatts each for the sites in Sunnica in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and Gate Burton in Lincolnshire, and 350MW for the one at Mallard Pass in Rutland and Lincolnshire. “That is a total of 1.35 gigawatts which adds, at a stroke, almost 10% to the nation’s capacity to generate electricity from the sun. It’s very encouraging,” said Beath.

Wind trumps solar

Last year, renewables contributed 41.1% of the UK’s total electricity generation, with wind accounting for 29.4% and solar 4.9%. “However, a lot of that electricity came from offshore wind farms in the north and had to be transmitted south where demand is concentrated,” said Sugandha Srivastav, of Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and Environment. “And that is a problem, for our electricity transmission lines are highly congested. Solar provides a key opportunity to avoid this congestion by generating more electricity in the south – and so meet demands locally.”

New pylons

The new government’s push to solar gives Britain a chance to make a rapid improvement in its power output from renewable energy sources. The decision to scrap the moratorium on onshore wind energy plants will provide a further boost to this goal. However, that spur for renewables will bring its own problems as it will have to be followed – quickly – by improvements to the national grid whose capacity is now heavily strained, experts have warned. “If we are going to turn our backs on fossil fuels and electrify society, we need to be able to move power across the country without serious restriction,” said Srivastav. “Improving the UK grid should be seen as a key priority,” she said, or else the country would not be able to go ahead with electrification of vehicles and transport. This view is backed by Beath. “Alongside the building of renewables capacity, you need to make big changes to our network,” said Beath. “It will require new pylons, transmission lines and new cables under the sea.”

Farmers revolt

The need to make vast improvements to the national grid will come at a political price that will set landowners and farmers in battles against city planners and power utilities. The Mallard Pass solar farm is opposed by 3,000 people who say prime farmland should not be repurposed to generate electricity and the local Tory MP Alicia Kearns has said she is “utterly appalled” by the scheme. The government defends the development on the grounds that it will provide clean energy that will power about 92,000 homes over the next 60 years.

Reliance on China

There is one other headache for ministers as they strive to reach net zero in a decade or so. China makes about 80% of the world’s solar panels while Britain has no manufacturing capacity. This gives China a “chokehold” on Britain’s solar industry.

Keir Starmer’s new Labour government today unveils plans for a “rooftop revolution” that will see millions more homes fitted with solar panels in order to bring down domestic energy bills and tackle the climate crisis.

The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, also took the hugely controversial decision this weekend to approve three massive solar farms in the east of England that had been blocked by Tory ministers.

The three sites alone – Gate Burton in Lincolnshire, Sunnica’s energy farm on the Suffolk-Cambridgeshire border and Mallard Pass on the border between Lincolnshire and Rutland – will deliver about two-thirds of the solar energy installed on rooftops and on the ground in the whole of last year.

Now, before Wednesday’s king’s speech, which will include legislation for setting up the new publicly owned energy company GB Energy, ministers are working with the building industry to make it easier to buy new homes with panels installed, or instal them on existing ones.

The Observer understands that ministers are looking at bringing in solar-related standards for new-build properties from next year.

At present, while formal planning permission is not required, there are restrictions on where and how high up on buildings they can be placed. There are also restrictions in conservation areas and on listed buildings. These may potentially also be re-examined.

Miliband, who has promised to triple the amount of solar power in the UK by 2030, as well as double onshore wind and quadruple offshore wind, said on Saturday night: “I want to unleash a UK solar rooftop revolution. We will encourage builders and homeowners in whatever way we can to deliver this win-win technology to millions of addresses in the UK so people can provide their own electricity, cut their bills and at the same time help fight climate change.”

His officials insisted the new government was showing its willingness to “take on the Nimbys” as part of the fight against the climate crisis.

As one of his first acts last week, Miliband lifted the Tories’ de facto ban on the building of new onshore windsfarms.

Miliband’s rapid moves on solar power were hailed by UK energy experts, who said they would speedily rectify a huge imbalance in the use of renewable energy in Britain.

At present, most power from renewable sources is concentrated in the north but has to be transmitted to the south, where demand is most intense. “Unfortunately, these transmission lines are congested and power supplies from the north to the south are often curtailed,” said Sugandha Srivastav, of Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and Environment.

“Instead, gas generators have to be turned on to provide electricity for households in the south, and as we all know, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, gas can be extremely expensive. So solar in the south is going to fix a key problem. It will keep power costs low, which is what we desperately need.”

In addition, the opening of the Gate Burton, Sunnica and Mallard Pass solar farms will increase the nation’s capacity for using solar radiation to generate electricity. “The three farms will have a capacity of around 1.35 gigawatts, which is almost 10% of current capacity – so this is very welcome,” said Hamish Beath, an energy consultant at Imperial College London.

However, the decisions have caused local outcries. The Tory MP for Rutland and Stamford, Alicia Kearns, said she was “utterly appalled” by Miliband’s decision to give the go-ahead to the Mallard Pass farm.

The government hit back, saying the move was justified on the grounds it will provide clean energy to power about 92,000 homes over the next 60 years.

Opening the door to more large solar power farms will have to be quickly followed by improvements to the National Grid, experts also say. “We need to think urgently about how we transmit and distribute electricity,” added Srivastav. “The demand for power is only going to go up as we electrify society and if we cannot get electricity to where it needs to be, we will be in an untenable situation.”