Two Just Stop Oil activists have been jailed for throwing tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers after one of them told a judge she would “accept whatever sentences I receive with a smile”.

Phoebe Plummer, 23, was sentenced to two years in prison for causing an estimated £10,000 worth of damage to the artwork’s frame at the National Gallery in London in 2022. Her codefendant, Anna Holland, 22, received 20 months for the same offence, but will serve only half in custody.

Passing sentence at Southwark crown court on Friday, the judge, Christopher Hehir, told them: “You two simply had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers and your arrogance in assuming otherwise deserves the strongest condemnation.”

In October 2022, Plummer and Holland had gone to room 43 of the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square and hurled two tins of Heinz soup over the 1888 painting, one of Van Gogh’s most famous works, before gluing themselves to the wall beneath it.

In July, they were found guilty of criminal damage by a jury after three hours of deliberations. Judge Hehir told them at the time to be “prepared, in practical and emotional terms, to go to prison”.

Plummer was further sentenced to three months in jail for interfering with national infrastructure by taking part in a slow march along Earls Court Road in west London in November 2023. Her codefendants in that case, Chiara Sarti and Daniel Hall, received suspended sentences and community work orders.

Plummer gave a 20-minute address to the judge in mitigation, in which she cited Emmeline Pankhurst, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela as examples of people who had been criminalised while fighting for justice.

“On 14 October 2022 and in November 2023 I made the choices to take actions that I knew would likely lead to my arrest and prosecution,” she said. “I made those choices because I believe that non-violent civil resistance is the best, if not the only, tool that people have in order to bring about the rapid change required to protect life from the accelerating climate emergency and the political decisions being made that pour fuel on the flames and which sentence us all to a catastrophic future.

“Whilst of course there are reasons why my life and the lives of people I love and care for would be easier if I don’t receive prison sentences today I don’t intend to go into detail about these, my choice today is to accept whatever sentences I receive with a smile, knowing that I have found peace in doing what I can to defend countless millions of innocent people suffering and dying.”

She added: “I chose to peacefully disrupt a business-as-usual system that is unjust, dishonest and murderous.”

In passing his sentence, Hehir said he took into account not only the damage actually caused to the frame, but the potential for even greater damage to be caused to the painting had the soup seeped behind the glass that covered it.

Discussing the potential sentence earlier in the hearing, Hehir said: “This seems to me a case where section 63 of the sentencing code is relevant because it requires in assessing the seriousness of the offending to consider not only the harm that was caused but the harm that could have been caused. That harm could have been irreversible damage or even destruction of the painting itself if soup could seep through.”

Hehir noted that gallery staff had immediately taken the painting away to examine it and ensure it had come to no serious harm.

The boss of a Tesla factory has defended the decision to send managers to the homes of workers on long-term sick leave.

In recent weeks, a director of Tesla’s electric car plant in Germany sent managers to check up on about two dozen employees who have continued to be paid while being on sick leave over the past nine months.

André Thierig, the plant’s manufacturing director, said the home visits were common practice in the industry and that the company simply wanted to “appeal to the employees’ work ethic”.

The move by Elon Musk’s US-headquartered carmaker has sparked outrage at the trade union IG Metall, which represents a proportion of the 12,000 workers at the Berlin-Brandenburg gigafactory.

The union has campaigned against what it has alleged are harsh working conditions with “unreasonably” long hours and a poor health and safety record.

“Employees from almost all areas of the factory have reported an extremely high workload,” said Dirk Schulze, a regional director at the union. “When there are staff shortages, the ill workers are put under pressure and those who remain healthy are overburdened with additional work.

“If the factory’s overseers really want to reduce the level of sickness, they should break this vicious circle.”

Sick leave rates at the factory on the outskirts of Berlin, which the union says operates with a “culture of fear”, have commonly hit 15% or higher.

The union has said that there is a “culture of fear” that has caused stress and sick leave among workers.

However, Thierig said some workers were taking advantage of Germany’s labour protection laws.

He said that among the factory’s 1,500 temporary workers, who operate under similar conditions to full-time employees, the average rate of absence through illness is just 2%.

“In our analyses of attendance at work, some phenomena have become obvious: on Fridays and late shifts, about 5% more employees take sick leave than on other weekdays,” Thierig said. “That is not an indicator of bad working conditions because the working conditions are the same on all working days and across all shifts. It suggests that the German social system is being exploited to some extent.”

The company had identified about 200 members of staff who were still being paid but had not turned up for work at all this year. “They submit a new sicknote from the doctor at least every six weeks,” he said.

Last October, Tesla rejected claims made by IG Metall that health and safety provisions at the factory were not adequate.

The factory, which is in Grünheide, south-east of Berlin, was opened in 2022 and is the electric car manufacturer’s first in Europe.

Musk, the Tesla chief executive, cited Brexit uncertainty as a factor in deciding against building a factory in the UK.

Tesla has been contacted for comment.

The Environment Agency has warned drivers their cars can be swept away in just 30cm (12in) of water as more than 60 flood warnings were issued in England after heavy rain overnight, with further downpours to come.

Flooding disrupted rail services in England and Wales on Thursday morning and caused the M5 motorway to be closed in both directions in Gloucestershire.

The Met Office has a yellow warning in force for heavy rain covering the southern half of England and Wales, with the Midlands worst affected. At 8am on Friday, the Environment Agency (EA) issued 66 flood warnings in England and a further 121 flood alerts.

Caroline Douglass, the EA’s executive director for flood and coastal erosion, advised motorists not to drive through submerged patches of road.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said: “Don’t take a risk and drive through flood water, because it only takes 30cm to float your car … It’s probably about half the height of your tyres.”

Douglass said drivers tended to underestimate the risk: “They think a car is very heavy object and hard to move. But 30cm is not much water. And many of these waterways are much more fast-flowing than people will realise.

“It really doesn’t take much to make a vehicle float, and so in that case, it will be swept away. We really don’t want to see the sorts of tragic circumstances, we’ve seen this year and in previous years.”

She urged people to avoid walking near rivers or watercourses over the weekend, and to keep their pets and children safe.

Douglass said the agency was particularly concerned about flooding in the Midlands. “Over the last week or so, we’ve seen heavy thunderstorms and downpours, which have saturated particular areas. And then, as we move over the weekend and into next week, we’ll see more traditional winter rainfall that is more widespread and, unfortunately, that’s then going to be landing on already saturated ground. The Midlands are [likely] to be the most affected.”

According to the Met Office warning, wet conditions could lead to difficult driving conditions and road closures, homes and businesses are likely to be flooded and there some communities could be cut off by flooding.

Avon fire and rescue service said it was working with National Highways: South-West to rescue people stranded on the M5 in Gloucestershire after heavy rainfall flooded the motorway.

National Highways said the M5 was closed northbound between J16 and J14 and the southbound carriageway was shut between J14 and J15 as emergency services worked to clear the flooding.

Councils and emergency services in Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire confirmed a number of road closures and reassured residents they were working to keep people safe overnight.

Tewkesbury borough council, in Gloucestershire, has been handing out sandbags to residents to help protect their homes against flooding.

National Rail warned passengers that the wet weather could affect train journeys in England and Wales on Friday. There would be no trains to and from Aberystwyth until 1pm, and and the line between Ledbury and Hereford was also blocked on Friday morning.

On Monday, Hurricane John hit the southern Pacific coast of Mexico, having intensified from a tropical storm to a category 3 hurricane in less than 24 hours.

John made landfall with sustained winds of 120mph, causing destructive storm surges. However, it quickly weakened back to a tropical storm, with sustained winds falling to 50mph by Tuesday morning. John moved relatively slowly, leading to more than 400mm of rainfall in a few days. This rain brought widespread flooding, leading to mudslides in which two people are reported to have died.

Having moved slightly east out to sea again, John is expected to restrengthen and return to hurricane status as it continues slowly north-east along the Mexican coast, bringing similarly heavy rainfall. It is expected to dissipate into Saturday, but further rain and heavy showers are expected to feed across southern parts of Mexico over the weekend. This means that some parts of the south-west of the country could receive more than 700mm within a week.

In India, the city of Pune in western Maharashtra state also saw devastating flooding this week. The city recorded its third wettest September day since 1901, as more than 130mm of rain fell in 24 hours. Such totals are not uncommon during the monsoon months of June, July and August, but is unusual in late September.

Monsoon season has appeared to be slower to retreat in recent years, making late September downpours less of a rarity. This week’s high rainfall totals were due to an excess of moisture over the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea, combined with a low-pressure system across the region. Further heavy rain is forecast in the coming days.

In Europe, another wave of cold is expected to hit northern and western parts this week, less than two weeks after the last cold snap. As low pressure clears to the east in the coming days, a more northerly airflow will bring Arctic air southwards, reaching as far as Portugal by Friday. Temperatures are widely expected to be 5-10C below average for the time of year across much of northern, western, and parts of central Europe into this weekend. Heading into next week, temperatures will briefly return closer to average, before falling below the seasonal norm again by the middle of the week.

Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel “will not stop” its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon despite calls from the US, France and other allies for an immediate three-week ceasefire aimed at containing the spread of a conflict that is beginning to engulf Lebanon.

The calls for an immediate ceasefire were backed on Thursday night by Lebanon’s minister for foreign affairs, Abdallah Bouhabib, who told the UN general assembly his country was enduring a crisis that “threatens its very existence”.

Bouhabib welcomed the US/French initiative, saying “Diplomacy is not always easy, but diplomacy is the only way to save innocent lives … Lebanon views the US-French initiative as an opportunity to generate momentum, to take steps towards ending this crisis.”

Bouhabib said peace was incumbent on Israel’s government, and that there can be no lasting peace without a “two-state solution”.

Israeli airstrikes continued in Lebanon on Thursday, killing 92 people including the head of Hezbollah’s drone force, Mohammad Surur, and at least 150 rockets were fired from Lebanon at northern Israel, according to the Israeli military.

The Israeli prime minister told reporters that his government’s policy was clear as he landed in New York, where he is due to address the UN general assembly on Friday.

“We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with full force, and we will not stop until we reach all our goals – chief among them the return of the residents of the north securely to their homes,” Netanyahu said.

His office had earlier distanced the Israeli government from the ceasefire plan, which it described as “an American-French proposal that the prime minister has not even responded to”.

The prime minister’s office said Netanyahu had “directed the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] to continue fighting with full force, according to the plan that was presented to him. The fighting in Gaza will also continue until all the objectives of the war have been achieved.”

Those war goals include the safe return home of more than 60,000 Israelis forced to abandon their homes in northern Israel by Hezbollah bombing, which began on 8 October last year, the day after the start of the Gaza war.

US officials hope to persuade Netanyahu to accept the ceasefire proposal by the time he addresses the UN general assembly on Friday. They argue that a pause in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah could also provide a breathing space in which to revive long-stalled negotiations with Israel and Hamas over the release of Israeli hostages in return for a truce in Gaza.

On Thursday, the White House said the Biden administration had believed that Israel was “on board” with the proposal.

John Kirby, the White House’s national security spokesperson, said “we had every reason to believe that in the drafting of it and in the delivery of it, that the Israelis were fully informed and fully aware of every word in it. We wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t believe that it would be received with the seriousness with which it was composed.”

Kirby said it was unclear why Netanyahu appeared to dismiss the idea.

The US, France and some of their allies had on Wednesday called for an urgent cessation of hostilities, which they said presented “an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation”.

“We call for an immediate 21-day ceasefire across the Lebanon-Israel border to provide space for diplomacy,” a joint statement said. “We call on all parties, including the governments of Israel and Lebanon, to endorse the temporary ceasefire immediately.”

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Thursday that it would be “a mistake” for Netanyahu to refuse a ceasefire in Lebanon, which he warned could not become “another Gaza”.

Hezbollah has yet to respond to the call for a truce, although it and its backer, Iran, have previously insisted it would halt its strikes only if there is a ceasefire in Gaza, while the Israeli response has been overwhelmingly negative. After Netanyahu’s remarks, the defence minister said he had met the country’s top generals to discuss further military operations on the Israel’s northern front.

“We are continuing our sequence of operations – eliminating Hezbollah terrorists, dismantling Hezbollah’s offensive infrastructure and destroying rockets and missiles,” Yoav Gallant said.

“We have additional missions to complete in order to ensure the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes. We will continue throwing Hezbollah off balance and deepening their loss.”

US officials have urged Israel to accept a ceasefire on the grounds that it could lead to a negotiated withdrawal of Hezbollah forces from the border area, from where they have been firing rockets and missiles at Israel. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has argued that diplomacy is the best way to create conditions to allow residents to return to their homes.

“Getting into a full-scale war is not the way to achieve that objective,” he told the US TV channel MSNBC. “There’s no way in that situation that people are going to be able to go back.”

But western diplomats gathered in New York for the UN general assembly expressed doubt that Netanyahu would agree to such a deal, despite his long history of juggling contrary demands from the US and the extreme right in his cabinet.

Meanwhile, efforts by the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and foreign secretary, David Lammy, to secure a New York meeting with either Netanyahu or his strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer, did not bear fruit, possibly reflecting Israel’s unhappiness over the UK’s limited ban on arms exports.

The families of the Gaza hostages have also said they are pushing for any Lebanon ceasefire deal to include clauses on Gaza, focused on securing the release of the roughly 70 hostages thought to still be alive and the bodies of about 30 others.

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Thursday hit a school sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians, killing at least 11 people and wounding 22, including women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The Israeli military confirmed it had struck the school, in the Jabalia refugee camp, but claimed the attack had been aimed at Hamas militants hiding there.

Hezbollah has said that it will continue fighting Israel as long as the IDF keeps up its military operations in Gaza, but the ranks of the Iran-backed Shia militia have been shattered over the past nine days by a coordinated attack using booby-trapped communications devices, followed by a withering aerial bombing campaign.

Lebanon’s health ministry said 19 Syrian refugees and a Lebanese citizen had been killed in one strike in north-east Lebanon on Thursday, bringing the death toll from several days of Israeli bombardment to about 700 people, about a quarter of whom the ministry said were women or children.

The UK was one of the allies that backed the US-French call for a 21-day ceasefire. “I urge President Netanyahu and the Lebanese Hezbollah leaders to pay heed to the combined voices at the United Nations to do just that,” the British defence secretary said after a meeting with his US and Australian counterparts in London. John Healey said 700 British troops had been sent to Cyprus to help a potential emergency evacuation of civilians from Lebanon should a full-scale war break out.

The domestic political repercussions of a ceasefire for Netanyahu were made clear when his national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, told the prime minister that his party, Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), would not vote with the coalition if the government agreed a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

“We will not abandon the residents of the north. Every day that this ceasefire is in effect and Israel does not fight in the north, Otzma Yehudit is not committed to the coalition,” Ben-Gvir said at a party meeting.

The leader of the opposition Democrats party, Yair Golan, also argued against committing to a three-week ceasefire, saying Israel should initially agree to a truce of a few days, and see how well it was enforced.

Israel has said it is prepared to launch a ground incursion into Lebanon alongside its aerial bombing, and on Thursday the IDF announced its troops had completed training drills near the northern border, simulating combat in Lebanon.

The IDF called up two reserve brigades at short notice on Wednesday to deploy to the northern border, where they will join Israel’s 98th Paratrooper Division, which was put under the control of the northern command last week. However, Haaretz described this as “a relatively limited reserve call-up”. The Israeli newspaper said that after the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel, in the run-up to the ground invasion of Gaza, “hundreds of thousands of reservists were called up, as were several divisions”.

Haaretz’s military correspondent, Amos Harel, argued that an Israeli invasion of Lebanon “is still not a done deal”.

Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, has indirectly denounced the Trump campaign’s policy on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine as “proposals of surrender” as the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington to present his own “victory plan”.

Addressing Zelenskyy at the White House, Harris said that “some in my country” would pressure Ukraine to accept a peace deal in which it surrendered its sovereign territory and neutrality in order to make peace with Vladimir Putin.

“These proposals are the same as those of Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace,” she said. “Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable.”

While she did not mention Donald Trump or JD Vance by name, those terms for peace closely resemble ones laid out by the Republican vice-presidential nominee in an interview earlier this month.

Zelenskyy had publicly denounced Vance as “too radical” after those remarks, sparking a conflict with Trump allies that has culminated with accusations of election interference and Republican calls for Ukraine to fire its ambassador to Washington.

In an apparent U-turn late on Thursday, Trump told reporters he would meet Zelenskyy at Trump Tower in New York on Friday morning.

At a press conference he rejected Harris’ criticisms and insisted that he only wants to stop the “horror show that’s gone on”.

When asked if Ukraine should give up territory, Trump was non-committal, saying: “Let’s get some peace … We need peace. We need to stop the death and destruction.”

Before announcing the meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump posted on social media a purported message from the Ukrainian president asking to see him. The message, which was not confirmed by Ukrainian officials, said “we have to strive to understand each other.” The decision to publicly disclose what appeared to be private communications was a reminder of the tension that has been brewing between Trump and Zelenskyy.

Harris’s remarks came after Zelenskyy met Joe Biden at the White House for the formal presentation of Zelenskyy’s high-stakes proposal, which he has said can end the war with Russia with additional American aid.

The White House issued a short statement after the meeting, saying that the “two leaders discussed the diplomatic, economic, and military aspects of President Zelenskyy’s plan and tasked their teams to engage in intensive consultations regarding next steps”.

“President Biden is determined to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win,” the statement said.

Zelenskyy has kept the details of the plan secret, but US officials have said it includes additional American aid to prevent a Ukrainian rout on the battlefield and “provide the [Ukrainian] people with the assurance that their future is part of the west”.

Zelenskyy faces an uphill battle in securing support for the plan, because of caution among senior officials in the Biden administration about providing Russia with a pretext to escalate the conflict further, and the looming November presidential elections that could lead to a re-election of Donald Trump.

Before the meeting, Biden announced more than $8bn in military assistance to Kyiv, calling it a “surge in security assistance for Ukraine and a series of additional actions to help Ukraine win this war”.

The aid includes the provision of a medium-range “glide bomb” munition fired from fighter jets that would allow Ukrainian forces to strike Russian troops and supply lines at safer distances.

The allocation included $5.5bn from the Ukraine security assistance initiative fund by the end of the year, as well as an additional $2.4bn in security assistance via the Department of Defense.

The package includes additional Patriot air defense batteries and missiles, unmanned aerial systems, and measures to strengthen Ukraine’s defense industrial base, Biden said. The US will also expand training for additional F-16 fighter pilots, with an extra 18 pilots to be trained next year.

But Biden was not expected to grant a key Ukrainian request that has been supported by the UK – permission to use arms such as long-range Atacms ballistic missiles to strike targets deeper inside Russia – due to fears of escalating the conflict with Russia.

“There is no announcement that I would expect [on that],” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters before the meeting.

Zelenskyy said in a social media post: “We will use this assistance in the most effective and transparent way possible to achieve our main common goal: a victorious Ukraine, a just and lasting peace, and transatlantic security.”

Biden also announced that he would convene a high-level meeting of the Ukraine defense contact group to coordinate aid to Ukraine among more than 50 allies as he enters the lame-duck period of his final three months in office.

US media have reported that the Biden administration and European allies have been skeptical of Zelenskyy’s plan to achieve victory, which is understood to need to secure maximal support from the west before potential negotiations with Russia.

“I’m unimpressed. There’s not much new there,” a senior official told the Wall Street Journal.

Zelenskyy had said the plan included decisions that can be taken “solely” by the United States and “is based on decisions that should take place from October through December” – meaning the end of Biden’s term in office.

The meeting came amid rising tensions between Zelenskyy and Trump, who has attacked the Ukrainian leader for “making little nasty aspersions toward your favourite president: me”.

Zelenskyy, in an interview with the New Yorker published this week, said he believed Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop the war” and criticised Vance for describing a vision for peace that included Ukraine ceding territories currently occupied by Russia.

Before the meetings, Zelenskyy met members of Congress on Capitol Hill.

On Wednesday, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, a Republican, accused Zelenskyy of election interference and demanded he fire his ambassador to Washington over a visit to an ammunitions factory in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Johnson claimed the Ukrainian ambassador had failed to invite any Republicans to the event and called it a “partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats”.

Zelenskyy sought to reduce tensions on Thursday as he thanked the US for the new arms package and praised political leaders’ “strong bipartisan support” in “Ukraine’s just cause of defeating Russian aggression”.

Nonetheless, US and European officials have noted with varying levels of alarm the potential for a Trump administration to sharply reduce US aid to Ukraine in order to force Zelenskyy to accept terms for a ceasefire.

Asked whether the Democrats wanted to “Trump-proof” aid to Ukraine before a potential Trump presidency, a senior state department official said: “I don’t ever talk in those terms” but that the primary goal was to make sure Ukraine “has all the equipment it needs to keep fighting and manpower and other things”.

“At the end of the year, regardless of who wins our election in December, as at the end of this fighting season, Zelenskyy and Putin need to look at the battlefield and say, here’s what we think next year will look like,” the official said.

“And the primary factor there is, do I think the other side has all the equipment it needs to keep fighting and manpower and other things?”

China’s efforts to achieve maritime military parity with the US have suffered a serious blow after its newest state-of-the-art nuclear submarine sank in a dock, American officials have confirmed.

The incident happened last May or June at the Wuchang shipyard near Wuhan – the same city where the Covid-19 pandemic is believed to have originated – and came to light, thanks to satellite imagery, despite efforts by the country’s communist authorities to stage a cover-up.

A US defence official told Reuters that the Zhou-class vessel – first of a new kind of Chinese submarines and distinctive for its X-shaped stern that aids manoeuvrability – is believed to have been next to a pier when it sank.

It is not known if there were any casualties – or if the submarine had any nuclear fuel onboard at the time, although experts have deemed that likely, according to the Wall Street Journal, which initially broke the story. The submarine was eventually salvaged but it is believed that it will take many months before it can be put to sea.

American officials say they have no indication that Chinese authorities have checked the water or nearby environment for radiation.

There has been no acknowledgment of the incident from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the official name for the Chinese armed forces.

The Journal reported that the first indication that something unusual had occurred came in the summer when Thomas Shugart, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a former US submarine officer, noted irregular activity of floating cranes – which he had seen on satellite images – on social media.

Shugart suggested that there may have been an accident involving a submarine but did not know that it was nuclear-powered.

“Can you imagine a US nuclear submarine sinking in San Diego and the government hushes it up and doesn’t tell anybody about it? I mean, holy cow!” Shugart said.

The unnamed US defence official told Reuters that the incident and the wall of silence shrouding it raised serious questions about the Chinese military’s competence and accountability.

“In addition to the obvious questions about training standards and equipment quality, the incident raises deeper questions about the PLA’s internal accountability and oversight of China’s defence industry – which has long been plagued by corruption,” he said. “It’s not surprising that the PLA navy would try to conceal.”

A Chinese embassy spokesperson in Washington said they had no information to provide. “We are not familiar with the situation you mentioned and currently have no information to provide,” the official told Reuters.

As of 2022, China had six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear-powered attack submarines and 48 diesel-powered attack submarines, according to a Pentagon report on China’s military. That submarine force is expected to grow to 65 by 2025 and 80 by 2035, the US defence department has said.

The Pentagon report said the goal of developing the new submarines, along with surface ships and naval aircraft, is to counteract US moves to come to Taiwan’s aid in a conflict and establish “maritime superiority” in a string of islands stretching from the Japanese archipelago to the South China Sea.

“The sinking of a new nuclear sub that was produced at a new yard will slow China’s plans to grow its nuclear submarine fleet,” Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation thinktank, told the Journal. “This is significant.”

The voting machine company Smartmatic and the conservative outlet Newsmax have settled a closely watched defamation lawsuit days before it was set to go to trial in Delaware.

A spokesman for the Delaware courts said the case had been settled on Thursday. He did not offer additional details. The trial was set to begin in Wilmington on Monday.

The terms of the settlement are not public.

“Newsmax is pleased to announce it has resolved the litigation brought by Smartmatic through a confidential settlement,” Bill Daddi, a spokesman for the network, said in a statement.

After the 2020 election, Newsmax aired several false claims about the company, whose voting machines were only used in Los Angeles county in 2020. The network repeatedly aired false claims from Trump allies that the software was widely used across the country and that it had been hacked to change votes.

Smartmatic sued Newsmax, Fox, One America News Network (OANN) and others for broadcasting their false claims. It settled the case with OANN earlier this year and the Fox case is still pending in New York.

Smartmatic said in a statement: “We are very pleased to have secured the completion of the case against Newsmax. We are now looking forward to our court day against Fox Corp and Fox News for their disinformation campaign. Lying to the American people has consequences. Smartmatic will not stop until the perpetrators are held accountable.”

First amendment scholars were closely watching the case and several others like it to see whether libel law can be used as an effective tool to police misinformation.

The case was set to be a kind of sequel to the defamation litigation between Dominion, another voting machine company, and Fox over 2020 election lies. That case was settled just before the trial was set to begin, with Fox agreeing to pay Dominion $787.5m. Eric Davis, the judge who oversaw the Fox case, was also overseeing the Newsmax case.

A settlement was not surprising in the case as trial neared. Davis ruled that Smartmatic could not seek punitive damages, a decision that significantly limited any possible financial payout for Smartmatic.

Davis had also ruled that Newsmax could use the “neutral report privilege” as a defense in the case – a legal shield that allows media outlets to broadcast allegations if they are reporting on a newsworthy event and do so in a disinterested and neutral way. Davis had not let Fox used that defense in its litigation.

Smartmatic executives were indicted by the justice department earlier this year on bribery charges in the Philippines. Even though the charges were completely unrelated to the 2020 election, it offered an opportunity for Newsmax lawyers to argue that the company’s poor reputation could not be attributed to what was said on its air.

But Newsmax also had reasons to settle. In a pre-trial conference, a lawyer for the company had called it a “bet-your-company” case for the outlet. Newsmax, which is projecting $180.5m in revenue this year, saw a surge in audience under the Trump administration and a bump that caught Fox’s attention after the 2020 election as it broadcast false claims about voting.

“The Newsmax surge is a bit troubling – truly is an alternative universe when you watch, but it can’t be ignored,” Jay Wallace, a Fox executive, wrote in an email to a colleague after the 2020 election.

Unlike in the Fox and Dominion litigation, only a few details emerged in the case revealing internal discussions at Newsmax as they broadcast false claims about the election. One of the messages was an internal letter from Christopher Ruddy, the network’s CEO from November 2020, conceding the network did not have evidence of voter fraud.

“Newsmax does not have evidence of widespread voter fraud. We have no evidence of a voter fraud conspiracy nor do we make such claims on Newsmax,” he wrote on 12 November 2020. “We have reported on significant evidence of widespread election irregularities and vote fraud. We will continue to report on that. We believe we should not censor allegations made by the President or his lawyers or surrogates. Our job is not to filter the news but report information and allow Americans to decide.”

Another exchange included Bob Sellers, a Newsmax host, and a producer, wondering how long they would have to air false claims about the election. “How long are we going to have to play along with election fraud?” Sellers wrote on 9 November 2020. “Trump’s MO is always to play victim [] And answer this question. Is there anything at all that could result in another election? The answer is no. and are there enough votes that could be switched or thrown out from fraud or irregularities? No.”

The lack of a trial may rob the public of the chance to hear about the state of mind of people who were behind broadcasting election lies, said RonNell Andersen Jones, a first amendment scholar at the University of Utah who has closely followed the defamation cases filed by those harmed by 2020 election lies.

Still, she noted that Davis had already ruled that the statements at issue in the case were false, and cautioned against expecting defamation cases to be a cure for misinformation.

“Defamation law can declare something a lie, but the question of whether a lie was told is only one of many questions that have to be asked and answered,” she said in an interview earlier this week. “It is a notoriously complex area of law, which means cases can be won or lost on a lot of grounds that have nothing to do with the truth or falsity of the statement. And I am not sure that translates well to public discussion.”

Lyrissa Lidsky, a media law professor at the University of Florida, also cautioned against expecting libel law to be a cure-all for disinformation.

“Defamation law is not a panacea for election misinformation. There’s just no two ways about it,” she said. “It’s just a small piece.”

A woman believed to have killed herself and her eight-year-old disabled child in Salford was a desperately struggling mother who was failed by the authorities and was “not a monster”, a close friend has said.

The bodies of Martina Karos, 40, and Eleni Edwards were discovered on Monday morning after emergency services were called over a concern for their welfare. Police have said they are investigating the deaths but are not looking for anyone else and there was “no wider threat in the community”.

Karos was described by her friends as a “really kind, bubbly, nice person” and a “loving and devoted mother”, who was the sole carer for her daughter Eleni, affectionately known as “Laney”, who had cerebral palsy.

Speaking to the Guardian, her close friend said Karos had struggled with her mental health and a lack of adequate support with her daughter, who he felt was failed by social services.

After meeting Karos on the dating website Plenty of Fish in April, he said he had introduced her to his parents and that his children had spent time with her, and he had also helped her look after Eleni, who needed round-the-clock care.

“Martina was only about five foot tall,” he said. “Laney was eight years old with full-limb cerebral palsy, non-verbal and literally as tall as her. I carried her from her car seat to her wheelchair and she wasn’t dead heavy but it was enough where I said to Martina: ‘Wow, you’re as strong as an ant.’”

However, she was struggling with Eleni’s care, her friend said, with neighbours describing her as being very tired. After her death, friends and neighbours questioned why authorities had failed to notice how much she was struggling.

Her friend said: “It wasn’t just the taking care of her, it was the fact that when she was alone in the house – it was just her and Laney and she was non-verbal – she was just lonely every night and she had nobody.”

Having grown up in Italy, Karos spoke five languages and had a master’s degree in vocal linguistics, he said. She was a qualified translator in Italian, French, Spanish and English. “She was really bright.”

Laney’s father was not in the picture, having wanted “nothing to do with her when he found out she was disabled, that’s what Martina told me”. Karos had a “fractious” relationship with her mother, who was in Italy when Karos died.

The friend said Karos had talked to him about suicide “dozens of times”, but he would try to talk her out of it, having made a serious attempt himself not too long before, spending five days recovering in hospital.

He had urged her to seek mental health treatment but she told him she had been to her GP and tried antidepressants and they had not worked. She was feeling “hopeless”, she told him.

“I just keep thinking about certain situations where I could have said or done something different,” he said. “She never mentioned once she was going to take Laney with her because then I would have been notifying social services.”

But he realised now that she had spoken in coded language, telling him: “If I go, I won’t leave anything I love behind.”

He said: “That’s the reason she took Laney with her. She loved Laney more than anything. And even though it’s not right what she did, people need to understand that it happens when people are under that much pressure and don’t get the help that they need.

“I just want people to understand that Martina was a great person and just got stuck in a terrible place.”

Salford council did not respond to a request for comment but told the Manchester Evening News: “There were a range of support services being provided to both Eleni and Martina. At this time our staff are now continuing to support the wider community.”

• In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email [email protected] or [email protected]. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org