It was the summer I graduated from secondary school, when Germans openly displayed their patriotism for the first time in decades. I had survived Germany’s inherently racist education system, passed the final exams with acceptable grades, become the first in my working-class immigrant family to qualify for university. In short: I was ready to celebrate.

That summer of 2006 was surprisingly summery for Germany, so my classmates and I spent June organising outdoor parties, the last before we moved away to pursue our studies in other cities. But it was also the summer when Germany hosted the football World Cup and it quickly seemed to infect almost everyone around me with an enthusiasm for the alleged greatness of the reunified country. Like zombies, my white classmates transformed into aggressively drunk nationalists and our graduation parties turned into occasions for them to celebrate their Germanness together.

Overt patriotism had been taboo in German society for decades – for good reason. But in 2006 it felt as if an invisible chain had broken. Never before had I seen so many black-red-gold flags waving from windows, hanging in cars, painted on cheeks. All the symbolism and pride in being German that had been reserved primarily for neo-Nazis who had been busy beating up and killing immigrants throughout the 1990s had suddenly become mainstream.

The World Cup gave Germany permission for a positive expression of nationalism, a moment that many Germans may have yearned for since 1945, according to the millennial German Jewish writer Max Czollek, who describes this collective feeling of relief as “perpetrator solidarity”.

Being German was finally cool again, without needing to be weighed down by guilt over Nazi crimes. But this so-called “summer fairytale” – the kitschy marketing concept of the World Cup 2006 – was unfortunately not restricted to four weeks of football matches; it had a deep impact on the German self-image. In his book De-Integrate, Czollek even draws a direct connection between the 2006 World Cup and the far-right Alternative für Deutschland’s election into the Bundestag in 2017: “The former signified the normalisation of nationalism and national symbols, the latter demanded that corresponding concepts return to the front row of the political arena.”

When Germany won the World Cup in 2014, the national team were welcomed with a public victory celebration in the heart of Berlin, sponsored by major German brands and broadcast live by state channels. A journalist colleague rightly criticised this “warrior-like self-aggrandisement” of the national team and its ludicrous mocking of the defeated Argentinian players as “loser gauchos”. This caused a a social media furore. Proud German football fans didn’t want their fun spoiled, especially not by some lefty female journalist.

The presence of players from dual-heritage families on the German football team doesn’t really change the racist dynamic attached to this national fan culture. When the German team unexpectedly went out in the early group stage of the 2018 World Cup, Mesut Özil, a player of Turkish descent, quit the national team with the words: “I am German when we win but I am an immigrant when we lose.” Özil said he never wanted to wear the German national shirt again after an outcry over his meeting with the Turkish president and autocrat, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Of course, it was appropriate to criticise Özil’s endorsement of a political figure known for human rights violations and curbs on media freedom, but did it make his barb about not feeling accepted as a German any less valid? Moreover, given the corruption scandals around the 2006 World Cup, it’s hard to see the German football federation as a moral authority

Almost two decades after my graduation, a new “summer fairytale” of unbridled xenophobia and racism is the big fear among minorities and anti-fascists as Germany prepares to host the 2024 Uefa European Football Championship. We are not paranoid. Nobody should be surprised if the Euros unleash a wave of the most aggressive nationalism in Germany since the one we saw in 2006.

The current mood is a perfect breeding ground. Rightwing extremists have had secret meetings to discuss how to “remigrate” immigrants, their descendants and allies, once they are in power. The AfD overtook all the governing parties in last weekend’s European elections, and it is especially east Germans and young people who seem more and more attracted to the party’s extremist positions.

This was evident in a video that went viral recently. Filmed on Sylt, an elite German party island, the footage shows revellers chanting the unlawful Nazi slogan “Foreigners out – Germany for the Germans” to Gigi D’Agostino’s hit L’amour toujours while drinking champagne, dancing and making the illegal Nazi salute. Their terribly conventional dress and rosy faces confirmed what many already suspected: there is a new generation of wealthy, young and powerful Germans who don’t care about the guilt of the country’s Nazi past, let alone feel it. It is not a topic of shame for them. Instead, it appears to be a history to celebrate when they are among their peers. I call them the rich toddlers of 2006.

Luckily, some faces from the video were identified, and some are reported to have lost their jobs as a result of the ensuing outrage. But new videos of different people at other parties chanting the same song have also appeared, with faces blurred. You can already guess what the unofficial anthem of the European Cup will be, when the German flags are out once again.

Multiculturalism is a positive trait only when the football tournament is won. In the run-up to the Euros, a new survey found that 21% of Germans agreed that there should be more white players in the national football team. I can’t decide what is scarier: this answer, or the question being asked in this survey?

I, for one, will be doing what I have done since 2006: hoping that the German football team – again one of the favourites – lose their opening matches and get kicked out of the tournament as quickly as possible. It might be the only way to limit the ugly party mood.

• Fatma Aydemir is a Berlin-based author, novelist, playwright and a Guardian Europe columnist

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We have only been waiting in the grey Atlantic swell a few moments when the first flash of metallic blue appears in the water. A blue shark, a few miles from the coast of Penzance in Cornwall, emerges from the depths. It is time to get in the water – but part of my brain rebels.

“It’s not what you think it will be like … not that ingrained fear that everyone has about sharks. But until you get in the water with them, that fear will remain,” the guide says to the group.

Slipping off the boat, covered head to toe in dark wetsuits, we are instructed not to shout if we see one but to raise a hand, wave and point. We wait, peering through the gloom at the mackerel lure below us. But the shark does not return, and we heave ourselves back on board.

Three hours go by, and finally a flash of silver reappears, sending us scrambling into the sea. I peer into the water and wait. Metres away, others raise their hands, but I see nothing.

Then, a blue shark glides below, black eyes holding ours until it disappears into the gloom. Those lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the predator return to the boat beaming.

The shark-diving industry in Britain is still tiny, with a few providers on the south-west coast in England and Wales, but the idea has attracted increasing interest since the pandemic, spurred by footage of encounters on social media.

“People are travelling from all over the country to come and do it. They’ve got a love of sharks or certainly a curiosity around it,” says Richard Rees, the director of Celtic Deep, which operates off the coast of Pembrokeshire. “We’re very keen to always say that sharks are not sort of like harmless puppy dogs. They should be respected for what they are: apex predators in the ocean,” he says.

Blue sharks, which can grow nearly 4 metres long, are at risk of extinction, according to the IUCN red list. They are threatened by finning and harmful fishing practices that claim the lives of about 20 million a year. They feed on squid and small fish, and are not a danger to humans, with only a handful of recorded bites since 1580 – 10 according to International Shark Attack File.

It is a sign of how rare shark attacks are in the UK that some statistics include a bite that took place in a pub in the West Midlands, more than 50 miles from the sea. The chef was reportedly attacked by a black-tipped reef shark in a restaurant aquarium while feeding the animals prawns in 2000.

But the growing UK sector was rattled in 2022, shortly after my own dive, when a woman on a blue shark tour was bitten on the leg, in an incredibly rare example of an “unprovoked” attack in British waters.

The bitten woman, who walked off the boat, issued a statement through the company saying she was scared but fine: “Despite how the trip ended, it was amazing to see such majestic creatures in the wild and I don’t for a second want this freak event to tarnish the reputation of an already persecuted species.”

The bite was a blow to the tour operators. Two years on, however, the sector has not seen a drop-off in bookings for experiences with blue sharks.

“The incident in Penzance in 2022 was an unfortunate occasion. Blue sharks feed on fish and squid mostly, so going after something big like a human is super rare – in fact, this was the first incident with a blue shark in-water ever reported,” says Gonzalo Araujo, the director of Marine Research and Conservation Foundation, who works with tour operators to study blue sharks in the UK. “It is unlikely to happen again.”

As the number of UK shark swimming operations grows, many are teaming up to develop a common set of standards to keep people and sharks safe. Alongside wearing dark wetsuits and not displaying jewellery, there’s a ban on handfeeding the inquisitive fish.

Operators say they have been busy with bookings for the summer ahead. From June to October, the creature is one of more than 30 shark species thought to be in British waters. The animals visit the UK’s south-west coast in the summer, travelling thousands of miles from the Azores to the Caribbean and back to Britain and Ireland in their north Atlantic territory.

Some tours are working with university researchers to aid the survival of the species, testing magnets to repel the sharks in the hope that they can one day be used on long-line trawlers to stop them being caught as bycatch. But for many operators, it is about showing people a different side of the UK.

“When we can get people in the water out in the Celtic deep, where the water is clear, warm, really blue and they can have these encounters with amazing animals – not just the sharks, but other animals, too – it might just paint a different picture of the marine wildlife here,” Rees says.

In 2016 a friend phoned Linda Sparrow about a 400-metre stretch of koala trees on the western edge of Bangalow, a small regional town in northern New South Wales.

The landscape in the region had long since been cut back by loggers and farmers, and there were precious few eucalyptus trees left to provide refuge for koalas looking for food or shelter.

“My friend just rang up one day saying, ‘Linda, I need your help saving some koalas’. And I just went, ‘Of course you do’,” Sparrow says.

Until that time, there were only two recorded koala sightings in Bangalow. By the end of the enthusiastic community campaign, people were actively looking, the number of sightings had jumped and the patch of trees was saved.

It was then Sparrow had the idea: why not keep going?

The next year she founded Bangalow Koalas and the “little fuzz balls” have since taken over her life. The group, supported by the World Wildlife Fund and recognised by the World Economic Forum, held its first planting in 2019. With the help of private landholders who have volunteered to take part, it has gone on to plant more than 377,000 trees across the region. Its goal is to reach 500,000 by 2025.

Koalas on Australia’s east coast are increasingly at risk of disappearing altogether. In 2022 the species was officially listed as endangered with the Australian government at the time fronting up $50m to help reverse the decline.

The decision came as a shock to few. It was a long anticipated decision that was entirely preventable – koalas were first listed as vulnerable in 2012 and, in the 10 years since, have faced multiple ongoing threats, including the spread of chlamydia, catastrophic bushfires and habitat loss. Some of this habitat loss is due to logging, which continues in koala habitat in northern New South Wales despite the state government promising it would protect areas important to the species.

The koala corridors planted by groups such as Bangalow Koalas – whose funding runs out the end of the year – are intended to help solve part of this challenge by connecting fragmented habitat with stretches of eucalyptus trees.

Due to the nature of private ownership, the group has to rely on individual land holders to agree to participate and volunteer their properties. Though they have never had a shortage of willing volunteers, the situation means the group has to work piece by piece while also taking into account the specific area where they are planting. In some areas, where an ancient rainforest once rose, they plant a mix of koala trees and rainforest plants. Out west where the land opens up, the focus is on eucalypts.

Sparrow says the benefits are not just limited to koalas. Walking through the dappled light in one of the earliest sites her group worked on, she says revegetating a barren landscape has flow-on effects for wallabies, birds, lizards, insect life and even humans.

“We’re not just connecting and creating a koala wildlife corridor, and a fragmented habitat, we’re connecting communities,” Sparrow says. “Land care groups, Indigenous communities, schools – they come all the time to do planting.”

People have travelled from as far north as Toowoomba and Brisbane to pitch in, she says, and as far south as Sydney and even Melbourne. One time, after the catastrophic Black Summer bushfires, two aircraft cabin crew from San Francisco flew in to help with a planting.

Other groups have also looked to Bangalow Koalas as a model. When Dirk Jansen, an IT manager, moved to the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria in 2016 he kept hearing his neighbours ask “where all the koalas had gone”.

“The habitat on Mornington Peninsula is very fragmented,” Jansen says. “They may have farmland in between, or housing, or major roads, or freeways.”

With more than two-thirds of the peninsula’s koala habitat on private property, Jansen says it has been “death by a thousand cuts” as small patches of area have been progressively cleared over time. To address this, he asked Sparrow for advice about forming his own landcare group, which held its first planting of 4,000 trees in 2020.

“We’ve been able to scale up to 25,000 plants we plant each season,” Jansen says. “From a volunteering point of view, that’s what we aim for each year.”

Dr Edward Narayan is a senior lecturer in animal science from the University of Queensland whose research focuses on stress responses in animals, particularly wild koala populations. He says this re-forestation work is important for helping take pressure off the species.

His research, and that of his PhD students, has found koalas living on the urban fringes are most at risk of stress, with many moving into residential areas seeking safe havens – with all the risks this entails.

“Koalas are a very interesting wild critter,” he says. “You have baseline stress from their ecology like disease but there are new stressors like dog attacks and motor vehicle collisions.

“Those are immediate-term stressors. When you talk about stress, you’ve also got the state of the landscape – things like habitat loss, land clearance and long-term things like heat stress or bushfires.”

Narayan says the groundwork by community groups is “the necessary first step to heal the landscape” but it is also essential for governments to address climate change “otherwise you’re only dealing with one part of the puzzle”.

If governments do not take the risk seriously, and fail to take meaningful action to reduce CO2 emissions, he says the vital work of communities on the ground will eventually be overwhelmed. The New South Wales government has set aside $190m for a plan to double koala numbers through restoring 25,000 hectares of koala habitat in its first stage and the federal government maintains a $76.9m fund to support similar work.

Programs such as these are a good start but, during the Black Summer bushfires, more than 7.5m2 hectares of eucalypt forest burned and the Australian economy remains heavily reliant on the production of fossil fuels. The country ranks among the biggest LNG and coal exporters in the world, and is still permitting the development of new coalmines and gas fields.

“You know, I’ve got two kids,” Narayan says. “This is about the future we are leaving them. Can you imagine Australia without koalas? I don’t think so. It would be like having no Opera House or Harbour Bridge. It’s built into who we are as Australians.”

According to the World Wildlife Fund, more than 60,000 koalas were killed during the Black Summer bushfires, an example Sparrow says illustrates how it is already affecting their work – and how she hopes the tree plantings might inspire others to take further action.

“You know, people come to me and say they feel so hopeless. They say, ‘with everything going on, how can I possibly have an impact?’ Then they come here and plant a tree, see they are actually doing something,” she says.

“My hope is that maybe then they start thinking, ‘What else can I do?’”

Hunter Biden’s conviction on gun-ownership charges may have handed his father, Joe, a boost in the forthcoming presidential election, analysts say, because it undermines the image of a president weaponising the US justice system to pursue Donald Trump.

Trump, the former president and presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has pushed that line relentlessly to explain his conviction last month on charges related to the concealment of hush-money payments to a porn star to help him win the 2016 election.

He has made the claim even though his prosecution was brought in a New York state court that is independent of the Department of Justice, which is overseeing 54 other criminal charges against him that have so far not come to trial.

Hunter Biden, by contrast, was prosecuted and convicted under the authority of the justice department, which is part of his father’s administration – an inconvenient fact that weakens Republican claims that it has been turned into a political weapon in the president’s hands.

The result, some observers say, is that Hunter’s conviction may help the president in a close race, even though the personal cost of his son’s troubles is heavy.

That suspicion was further fuelled by a low-key reaction from Republicans that attempted to switch the focus to other supposed crimes they say, but have never proved, that father and son have committed.

“It’s a marginal political gain, that’s what I’m feeling,” said John Zogby, a veteran pollster. “I don’t see it hurting him in any way, and especially when he neutralised the issue when he said he was not going to extend the pardon, which is very painful for him.

“It pulls the rug out from under that Republican argument that the justice system is rigged against Republicans to get Trump … a Biden did not get a pass.”

Zogby said the verdict – and Biden’s acceptance of it – could revive an image that was electorally helpful in 2020 of “Uncle Joe”, a man of empathy who had known suffering and personal tragedy, through the deaths of his eldest son, Beau, from cancer in 2015, and his first wife and baby daughter in a car accident in 1972.

“It could put some folks who have been wavering … on the track towards seeing that more sympathetic fellow, a father who is experiencing pain again,” he said. “You know, enough to give them another point or two. I don’t think it moves mountains, but it may not have to [in a close race].”

Larry Jacobs, a professor of politics at the University of Minnesota, said the verdict, while a “personal disaster” for Biden, could boomerang on the Republicans and translate into Democratic gain.

“The tragic case of Hunter Biden is painful for Joe and Jill Biden [the first lady], but it is a win for the Democratic party and the Biden campaign,” he said. “It puts a lie to the Republican claims that the justice system is being manipulated by [and for] the benefit of Democrats.

“It’s harder for the Republicans to say with a straight face and to audiences not already in their capture that the legal system is captured by the Democratic party.”

Biden is known to be deeply concerned by the troubles of Hunter, who was found guilty by a jury in Delaware on Tuesday of lying about his drug use and addiction when buying a gun in 2018. Close aides have voiced worries about the emotional strain the matter is putting on the 81-year-old president in the midst of a close election race.

“I don’t think voters are going to hold Biden accountable for his son’s addiction or his son’s misbehaviour. But I think the real question is the toll it takes on him and his family,” David Axelrod, a senior Democratic operative and former adviser to President Barack Obama told the Washington Post.

“To a guy who’s already experienced great loss and tragedy, this is another heavy brick on the load. And it’s going to take enormous strength to carry that load, given all the other bricks that are on there of the presidency and being a candidate.”

Despite the fact that his son now faces a possible jail sentence – and will stand trial again on unrelated tax-evasion charges in September – Biden has said he will not use his presidential powers to pardon him. That message was somewhat clouded on Wednesday when the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, on board Air Force One en route to the G7 summit in Italy, was reported as refusing to rule out a commutation of whatever sentence Hunter receives.

Hunter’s conviction followed legal manoeuvring in which some observers said he had received harsher treatment because he is the president’s son. A plea bargain worked out last year that would have seen him plead guilty to the tax charges while avoiding prosecution on the gun charge was dropped following criticism from the judge in the latter case, Maryellen Noreika, who was appointed to the bench by Trump.

Republicans, who have pursued Hunter Biden for years in an unsuccessful effort to prove his father profited financially from his business dealings in Ukraine, had denounced it as a sweetheart deal.

The president, who travelled on Wednesday to Italy for the G7 summit, said that he would respect whatever outcome the legal process reached – a jarring contrast to Trump’s repeated assaults on the judicial system as “rigged”.

“So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery,” Biden said.

“I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal. Jill and I will always be there for Hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. Nothing will ever change that.”

The largest Protestant group in the US has condemned the use of in vitro fertilization, a move that is sure to inflame the already white-hot battle over IVF and reproductive rights in the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v Wade.

On Wednesday, during the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, delegates voted in favor of a resolution that urges Southern Baptists “to reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage, and to only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation”.

The resolution in effect calls on the Southern Baptist Convention – a group that includes nearly 50,000 churches and almost 13 million members – to avoid IVF.

The success of the resolution is a major victory for the anti-abortion movement, swathes of which have long opposed IVF on the grounds that providers create embryos that are not implanted in a woman’s uterus or are set aside after being screened for genetic anomalies. It also advances the tenets of “fetal personhood”, a movement to enshrine embryos and fetuses with full legal rights and protections that, if fully enacted, would rewrite vast swaths of US law.

The Catholic church already officially opposes IVF, but the issue has not historically loomed as large among Protestants. Majorities of both white non-evangelical Protestants, white evangelical Protestants, and Black Protestants all support access to IVF.

The Wednesday resolution suggests that this support may be in flux, since the Southern Baptist Convention has long been seen as a barometer of US evangelicalism and its future.

IVF has been in the national spotlight since the Alabama state supreme court ruled earlier this year frozen embryos qualify as “extrauterine children”, a decision that led many IVF providers in the state to temporarily cease work. Although the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade cleared the way for attacks on IVF, many in the state and across the country were shocked by the ruling and its implications.

This week, the US Senate is expected to vote on a bill that would codify a federal right to IVF. Although the bill is not expected to pass, Democrats in the Senate are hoping to get Republicans on the record opposing an infertility treatment that is widely popular.

As part of the anti-IVF resolution, the Southern Baptist Convention called on its members to “promote” adoption.

“Couples who experience the searing pain of infertility can turn to God, look to Scripture for numerous examples of infertility, and know that their lament is heard by the Lord, who offers compassion and grace to those deeply afflicted by such realities,” the resolution added.

Russia engaged in a “deliberate pattern” of starvation tactics during the 85-day siege of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in early 2022, which amounted to a war crime, according to a fresh analysis submitted to the international criminal court.

The conclusion is at the heart of a dossier in the process of being submitted to the ICC in The Hague by the lawyers Global Rights Compliance, working in conjunction with the Ukrainian government. It argues that Russia and its leaders intended to kill and harm large numbers of civilians.

It has been estimated that 22,000 people were killed during the encirclement and capture of the city of Mariupol at the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Civilians were left without water, gas or electricity within days of the siege as temperatures fell below minus 10C.

Catriona Murdoch, a partner at Global Rights Compliance, said the aim of the research was “to see if there was a broader narrative” that amounted to a deliberate denial of food and other amenities necessary for life by the Russian military and its leadership, a strategy of starvation that could be said to amount to a war crime.

“What we could see is that there were four phases to the Russian assault, starting with attacks on civilian infrastructure, cutting out the supply of electricity, heating and water. Then humanitarian evacuations were denied and even attacked, while aid was prevented from getting through,” Murdoch said.

“In the third phase, the remaining critical infrastructure was targeted, civilians terrorised with aid and water points bombed. Finally, in phase four, Russia engaged in strategic attacks to destroy or capture any remaining infrastructure items,” she said.

The phased targeting of Mariupol, she said, demonstrated that Russia had planned to capture the frontline city without mercy for its civilian population, which was estimated at 450,000 before the full invasion began in 24 February 2022.

The dossier concludes that an estimated 90% of healthcare facilities and homes in the city were destroyed or damaged during the siege, and food distribution points were bombed as well as humanitarian evacuation routes.

Given the importance of Mariupol and the centralisation of Russian decision-making, culpability for the deaths of thousands of civilians went to the top, it says. “Vladimir Putin is culpable,” Murdoch said, “and echelons of the Russian military leadership”, although she did not name commanders.

The ICC accepts third-party submissions although it does not necessarily act on them. Starvation and the denial of amenities necessary for civilian life are considered war crimes, but this remains a relatively new area of international law, and so far no alleged perpetrator has been prosecuted.

Last month, Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor at the ICC, applied for an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and minister of defence, Yoav Gallant, arguing that the two had deliberately inflicted starvation on Palestinians in Gaza – a claim rejected by Israel.

“Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival,” Khan said. Three Hamas leaders were also subject to similar applications, relating to the war that began with the attack by the group on Israel on 7 October.

Murdoch said Khan’s applications for the arrest warrants linked to the conflict in Gaza “were the first of their kind” relating to starvation as a war crime, and had highlighted the issue in the minds of lawyers and prosecutors. “What it showed is where the ICC’s thinking is,” she said.

The lawyers said initially they were unsure as to how easy it would be to create a war crimes dossier for Mariupol because the Russian occupation made evidence-gathering difficult, despite the fierce fighting and high numbers of casualties.

But they developed a technique that used a specially created algorithm to map the destruction of specific locations, as monitored by satellite imagery, with what explosives experts assessed as Russian attacks.

The House voted on Wednesday to hold the attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview in his classified-documents case, Republicans’ latest and strongest rebuke of the justice department as partisan conflict over the rule of law animates the 2024 presidential campaign.

The 216-207 vote fell along party lines, with Republicans coalescing behind the contempt effort despite reservations among some of the party’s more centrist members.

“We have to defend the constitution. We have to defend the authority of Congress,” the House speaker, Mike Johnson, said at a press conference before the vote. “We can’t allow the Department of Justice and executive branch to hide information from Congress.”

Garland is now the third attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress. Yet it is unlikely that the justice department – which Garland oversees – will prosecute him. The White House’s decision to exert executive privilege over the audio recording, shielding it from Congress, would make it exceedingly difficult to make a criminal case against Garland.

The White House and congressional Democrats have slammed Republicans’ motives for pursuing contempt and dismissed their efforts to obtain the audio as purely political. They also pointed out that Jim Jordan, the GOP chair of the House judiciary committee, defied his own congressional subpoena last session.

“This contempt resolution will do very little, other than smear the reputation of Merrick Garland, who will remain a good and decent public servant no matter what Republicans say about him today,” Jerry Nadler, a New York representative and the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, said during floor debate.

Garland has defended the justice department, saying officials have gone to extraordinary lengths to provide information to the committees about the special counsel Robert Hur’s classified-documents investigation, including a transcript of Biden’s interview with him.

“There have been a series of unprecedented and frankly unfounded attacks on the justice department,” Garland said in a press conference last month. “This request, this effort to use contempt as a method of obtaining our sensitive law-enforcement files, is just the most recent.”

Republicans were incensed when Hur declined to prosecute Biden over his handling of classified documents and quickly opened an investigation. GOP lawmakers – led by Jordan and Representative James Comer – sent a subpoena for audio of Hur’s interviews with Biden during the spring. But the justice department only turned over some of the records, leaving out audio of the interview with the president.

On the last day to comply with the Republicans’ subpoena for the audio, the White House blocked the release by invoking executive privilege. It said that Republicans in Congress only wanted the recordings “to chop them up” and use them for political purposes.

Executive privilege gives presidents the right to keep information from the courts, Congress and the public to protect the confidentiality of decision-making, though it can be challenged in court.

Administrations of both political parties have long held the position that officials who assert a president’s claim of executive privilege cannot be prosecuted for contempt of Congress, a justice department official told Republicans last month.

An assistant attorney general, Carlos Felipe Uriarte, cited a committee’s decision in 2008 to back down from a contempt effort after then President George W Bush asserted executive privilege to keep Congress from getting records involving Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Before Garland, the last attorney general held in contempt was Bill Barr in 2019. That was when the Democratic-controlled House voted to issue a referral against Barr after he refused to turn over documents related to a special counsel investigation into Trump.

Years before that, the then attorney general, Eric Holder, was held in contempt related to the gun-running operation known as Operation Fast and Furious. In each of those instances, the justice department took no action against the attorney general.

The special counsel in Biden’s case, Hur, spent a year investigating the president’s improper retention of classified documents, from his time as a senator and as vice-president. The result was a 345-page report that questioned Biden’s mental competence but recommended no criminal charges for the 81-year-old. Hur said he found insufficient evidence to successfully prosecute a case in court.

In March, Hur stood by his no-prosecution assessment in testimony before the judiciary committee, where he was grilled for more than four hours by Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

His defense did not satisfy Republicans, who insist that there was a politically motivated double standard at the justice department, which is prosecuting former President Donald Trump over his retention of classified documents at his Florida club after he left the White House.

But there are major differences between the two investigations. Biden’s team returned the documents after they were discovered, and the president cooperated with the investigation by voluntarily sitting for an interview and consenting to searches of his homes.

Trump, by contrast, is accused of enlisting the help of aides and lawyers to conceal the documents from the government and of seeking to have potentially incriminating evidence destroyed.

SpaceX and its chief executive, Elon Musk, have been sued on Wednesday by eight engineers who say they were illegally fired for raising concerns about alleged sexual harassment and discrimination against women, their lawyers have said.

The eight engineers include four women and four men and claim that Musk, who owns the rocket-maker, electric carmaker Tesla and the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, ordered their firing in 2022.

The dismissals came, they say, after they sent around a letter calling the billionaire a “distraction and embarrassment” and urging executives to disavow sexually charged comments he had made on social media.

The lawsuit was filed in state court in Los Angeles, according to the lawyers, Anne Shaver and Laurie Burgess.

The lawsuit says Musk’s conduct fostered a “pervasively sexist culture” at SpaceX, where female engineers were routinely subjected to harassment and sexist comments and their concerns about workplace culture were ignored.

“These actions … had the foreseeable and actual result of offending, causing distress, and intruding upon plaintiffs’ wellbeing so as to disrupt their emotional tranquility in the workplace,” the plaintiffs said in the lawsuit.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. SpaceX has denied wrongdoing, saying the 2022 letter was disruptive and the workers were properly fired for violating company policies.

Paige Holland-Thielen, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement provided by her lawyers that Wednesday’s lawsuit was an attempt to hold SpaceX leadership accountable and spur changes in workplace policies.

“We hope that this lawsuit encourages our colleagues to stay strong and to keep fighting for a better workplace,” she said.

The eight engineers are already the focus of a US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) case claiming that their firings violated their rights under US labor law to advocate for better working conditions.

SpaceX filed a lawsuit claiming that the labor board’s in-house enforcement proceedings violate the US constitution. A US appeals court last month paused the NLRB case while it considers SpaceX’s bid to block it from moving forward pending the outcome of the company’s lawsuit.

Wednesday’s lawsuit accuses SpaceX and Musk of retaliation and wrongful termination in violation of California law, and further accuses the company of sexual harassment and sex discrimination.

The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and an order barring SpaceX from continuing to engage in its allegedly unlawful conduct.

Reuters contributed reporting

Rishi Sunak’s closest parliamentary aide placed a £100 bet on a July election just three days before the prime minister named the date, the Guardian can reveal.

The Gambling Commission is understood to have launched an inquiry after Craig Williams, the prime minister’s parliamentary private secretary, who became an MP in 2019, placed a bet with the bookmaker Ladbrokes on Sunday 19 May in his local constituency of Montgomeryshire.

On 22 May, Sunak made the surprise announcement that a general election would be held on 4 July.

In a statement, Williams said: “I’ve been contacted by a journalist about Gambling Commission inquiries into one of my accounts and thought it best to be totally transparent.

“I put a flutter on the general election some weeks ago. This has resulted in some routine inquiries and I confirm I will fully cooperate with these.

“I don’t want it to be a distraction from the campaign, I should have thought how it looks.”

A Conservative party spokesperson added: “We are aware of contact between a Conservative candidate and the Gambling Commission.

“It is a personal matter for the individual in question. As the Gambling Commission is an independent body, it wouldn’t be proper to comment further, until any process is concluded.”

It is understood that a red flag was automatically raised by Ladbrokes as the bet in Williams’ name was potentially placed by a “politically exposed person”, and the bookmaker is particularly cautious over “novelty” markets.

The £100 bet, which could have led to a £500 payout on odds of 5/1, is believed to have been placed via an online account that would have required the user to provide personal details including their date of birth and debit card. The bookmaker also knows the location of the bet.

Ladbrokes referred the case to the Gambling Commission, which is understood to have launched an inquiry. The Guardian understands the regulator informed Downing Street officials last week. Using confidential information to gain an unfair advantage when betting may constitute a criminal offence.

Separately, the MPs’ code of conduct prohibits members from “causing significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the house”. The bet was placed while parliament was still in session.

While Sunak’s general election announcement last month came as a surprise to the public and many Conservative MPs, the prime minister is thought to have been considering and debating the timing for months. He is believed to have settled on the July date weeks before confirming it in heavy rain outside Downing Street.

The alleged bet, which would not have received a payout until after the election took place, is likely to be highly embarrassing for Sunak, who has been accused of presiding over a calamitous general election campaign. Sunak and Williams will now face questions about who knew about the election date and when.

Williams, 39, is the Tory candidate for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr in mid-Wales. He had a majority of 12,000 before the boundary change.

His role as parliamentary private secretary is to be the prime minister’s eyes and ears in parliament. He is understood to have been in Downing Street on an almost daily basis, and to be a trusted member of Sunak’s team.

Ladbrokes declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Gambling Commission said: “If someone uses confidential information in order to gain an unfair advantage when betting, this may constitute an offence of cheating under section 42 of the Gambling Act, which is a criminal offence.

“The Gambling Commission does not typically confirm or deny whether any investigations are under way unless or until they are concluded, or if arrests are made or charges are brought during a criminal investigation.”

Many Tory MPs were blindsided by Sunak’s decision to call a summer election. After he ruled one out in May, most had assumed that his plan to hold the vote in the “second half of the year” meant that it would be in the autumn.

The prime minister is said to have opted for a pre-summer election in April, when it became clear that growth figures were going to show inflation falling and an economy returning to better health. He was said to be concerned that the public would grow increasingly frustrated if he did not name a date.

Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister; Liam Booth-Smith, Sunak’s chief of staff; and James Forsyth, his political secretary, were at the heart of the deliberations. Isaac Levido, who is running the summer campaign, was one of those arguing against an early election, according to sources.

They said David Cameron, the foreign secretary, and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, were told only the night before Sunak’s announcement, while the rest of the cabinet were informed just before it.

A Downing Street spokesperson declined to comment.

America’s top professional eater, Joey Chestnut, has been excluded from entering New York City’s annual hotdog eating competition after he signed a deal with a plant-based meat company.

Chestnut, 40, the defending champion, said on X that he “was gutted to learn from the media that after 19 years” he had been “banned” from the competition, held every summer on Independence Day at Nathan’s Famous original hotdog outlet in Coney Island. “I love celebrating America with my fans all over this great country on the 4th and I have been training to defend my title,” he added.

In a statement posted to its social media account, Major League Eating (MLE), which oversees the seafront contest, said it was “devastated” that Chestnut had “chosen to represent a rival brand that sells plant-based hot dogs”.

However, it added that the door was still open for Chestnut – known as “Jaws” for slugging dozens of wieners down his throat – to ditch the new endorsement deal and enter the competition.

MLE, which describes itself as a governing body for “all stomach centric sport worldwide”, said organisers had gone to great lengths to accommodate Chestnut during recent negotiations. “However, it seems that Joey and his managers have prioritized a new partnership with a different hot dog brand over our long-time relationship,” the statement said.

“Joey Chestnut is an American hero,” it added. “We hope that he returns when he is not represented by a rival brand.”

The New York Post, which first reported the story, said Chestnut had reached a deal to represent Impossible Foods, which recently introduced beef-substitute hotdogs that it says generate 84% less greenhouse gas emissions than the animal-based alternative.

The California-based company said that Chestnut was free to compete in “any contest he chooses”.

“It’s OK to experiment with a new dog. Meat eaters shouldn’t have to be exclusive to just one wiener,” it added.

The 10-minute Nathan’s contest, broadcast on ESPN, began in 1980. Last year, Chestnut took his 16th win in the annual eat-off, which he has dominated every year since 2015. He hit a world record in 2021, devouring 76 franks and buns.

With Chestnut out, the number two, Geoffrey Esper, could take the title this July. Esper finished second last year, wolfing down 49 dogs, 13 fewer than Chestnut.

George Shea, the host and promoter of the ​contest, ​said he was devastated by the separation. “It would be like back in the day Michael Jordan coming to Nike, who made his Air Jordans, and saying, ‘I am just going to rep Adidas too,’” Shea ​t​old the New York Times. “It just can’t happen.”