Anger and vitriol took center stage at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday night, as Donald Trump and a cabal of campaign surrogates held a rally marked by racist comments, coarse insults, and dangerous threats about immigrants.

Nine days out from the election, Trump used the rally in New York to repeat his claim that he is fighting “the enemy within” and again promised to launch “the largest deportation program in American history”, amid incoherent ramblings about ending a phone call with a “very, very important person” so he could watch one of Elon Musk’s rockets land.

The event at Madison Square Garden, in the center of Manhattan, had drawn comparisons to an infamous Nazi rally held at the arena in 1939. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ running mate, said there was a “direct parallel” between the two events, and the Democratic National Committee projected images on the outside of the building on Sunday repeating claims from Trump’s former chief-of-staff that Trump had “praised Hitler”.

There was certainly a dark tone throughout the hours-long rally, with one speaker describing Puerto Rico, home to 3.2m US citizens, as an “island of garbage”; Tucker Carlson mocking Harris’ racial identity; a radio host describing Hillary Clinton as a “sick bastard”; and a crucifix-wielding childhood friend of Trump’s declaring that Harris is “the antichrist”.

The Puerto Rico comments, made by Tony Hinchliffe, a podcaster with a history of racist remarks, were immediately criticized by the Harris-Walz campaign. Ricky Martin, the Puerto Rican popstar who has more than 18m followers on Instagram, wrote in a post: “This is what they think of us. Vote for @kamalaharris.”

Trump campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez in a statement said “this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

But that could prove problematic in Pennsylvania, where the majority of the swing state’s 580,000 eligible Latino voters are of Puerto Rican descent. Both campaigns have been trying to appeal to Latino voters in the final weeks of the campaign, and Harris had visited a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia earlier on Sunday, where she outlined plans to introduce an “economic opportunity taskforce” for Puerto Rico.

The pugnacious mood didn’t change once Trump began speaking, as the former president quickly repeated his pledge to “launch the largest deportation program in American history”.

Trump continued his frequent rants about immigration and claimed that a “savage Venezuelan prison gang” had “taken over Times Square”, which will come as a surprise to anyone who has recently visited the New York landmark. The former president also stated, wrongly, that the Biden administration did not have money to respond to a recent hurricane in North Carolina because “they spent all of their money bringing in illegal immigrants, flying them in by beautiful jet planes”.

Trump’s usual dystopian threats were on offer, as the 78-year-old expanded on his claims about “the enemy within” – a group of political opponents that he has said he will set the military on if elected.

“We’re just not running against Kamala. I think a lot of our politicians here tonight know this. She means nothing, she’s purely a vessel that’s all she is,” Trump said.

“We’re running against something far bigger than Joe or Kamala and far more powerful than them, which is a massive, vicious radical-left machine that runs today’s Democrat party. They’re just vessels.”

Trump’s appearance at Madison Square Garden – home to the New York Knicks and Rangers, and venue for countless legendary acts including Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and John Lennon’s last concert appearance before his murder – marks the culmination of his peculiar love-hate flirtation with his native city. Despite the fact that he has no chance of winning New York state – Harris is 15 points ahead in the Five Thirty Eight tracker poll – this was his third rally here this year.

In May he made an audacious attempt to woo Black and Latino voters in the south Bronx, just a few miles from his childhood home in Queens. Then in September, he pitched up in the New York City suburbs in Long Island.

What Trump intends by staging this trilogy of seemingly pointless electoral appearances is unclear. He has used his rambling speeches to take a nostalgic walk down memory lane to what he sees as the golden days of his life as a New York real estate magnate.

But he has also portrayed New York City in the most dark and dystopian terms, as a rat-infested haven for drug addicts, gangs and “illegal aliens” housed in luxury apartments while military veterans shiver on the sidewalks. His toxic language is perhaps a reflection of his bitterness towards the city of his birth, which in separate court cases has convicted him of 34 felonies, found his company the Trump Organization guilty of criminal tax fraud, and found him personally liable for sexual abuse.

On Sunday Trump again criticized his home town, claiming that the Biden administration had forced “hundreds of thousands of really rough people” into the city and telling New Yorkers, despite police saying crime has declined: “Your crime is through the roof. Everything is through the roof.”

The pugnacious tone had been set earlier in the afternoon, when several of the opening speakers made obscenity-laced and hate-filled remarks.

Hinchcliffe’s comments about Puerto Rico – he also made lewd sexual innuendos about Latina women – were met with big laughs from the crowd. A comment from radio personality Sid Rosenberg that Hillary Clinton is a “sick bastard” was similarly well received, as was Rosenberg’s claim that “the fucking illegals get everything they want”.

David Rem, a Republican politician who the Trump campaign described as a childhood friend of the former president, called Harris “the devil” and “the antichrist”, to loud cheers. Rem later took a crucifix out of his pocket and announced that he was running for New York City mayor.

As soon as Trump announced his intention to stage a rally at Madison Square Garden just days before the election, critics leapt to point out historical parallels with one of the most notorious events in New York history. On 20 February 1939, just seven months before Germany invaded Poland, the pro-Hitler German American Bund held a mass Nazi rally in the exact same arena.

The organizers chose George Washington’s birthday as the date to parade their vision of an Aryan Christian country dedicated to white supremacy and American patriotism. They erected a giant portrait of Washington, which they flanked with swastika flags alongside the stars and stripes.

More than 20,000 American Nazi sympathisers attended, many dressed in storm trooper uniforms and giving the Sieg Heil salute. The “Führer” of the American Bund, Fritz Kuhn, told the crowd that America would be “returned to the people who founded it”, and decried the “Jewish controlled press”.

Hillary Clinton had noted the similarities between the two events in an interview with CNN last week, and at a rally in Nevada earlier on Sunday, Walz was happy to continue the comparison.

“Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden,” Walz said.

“There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden. And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there.”

The Trump campaign reacted furiously to the accusations, describing Clinton’s comments as “disgusting”. One of the few people to reference the 1939 rally on Sunday was Hulk Hogan, who emerged to wrestling music, spent several seconds struggling to rip off his shirt, then claimed: “I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here”.

After a night of fire and fury, it will be up to the American voters to decide.

The high carbon emissions of the world’s richest 1% are worsening hunger, poverty and excess deaths, a report has found.

Owing to luxury yachts, private jets and investments in polluting industries, the consumption of the world’s wealthiest people is also making it increasingly difficult to limit global heating to 1.5C.

If everyone on Earth emitted planet-warming gases at the same rate as the average billionaire, the remaining carbon budget to stay within 1.5C would be gone in less than two days, the Oxfam analysis said, rather than current estimates of four years if carbon emissions remain as they are today.

Preceding a budget in the UK, a presidential election in the US and the Cop29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, the anti-poverty group’s examination of carbon inequality calls on governments to tax the super-rich in order to curtail excessive consumption and generate revenue for the transition to clean energy, and to compensate those worst affected by global heating.

Oxfam’s research found that the world’s fifty richest billionaires produce on average more carbon emissions in under three hours than the average British person does in their entire lifetime. On average, they take 184 private jet flights in a single year, spending 425 hours in the air. This produced as much carbon as the average person in the world would in 300 years. Their luxury yachts emitted as much carbon as the average person would in 860 years.

The Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s two private jets spent nearly 25 days in the air over a 12-month period and released as much carbon as a US Amazon employee would emit in 207 years.

Two jets of Elon Musk, the second richest person in the world and Tesla chief, jointly discharged as much CO₂ in the same period as 834 years’ worth of emissions generated by an average person.

Meanwhile, the three yachts of the Walton family, heirs of the Walmart retail chain, had a combined carbon footprint in one year of 18,000 tonnes – an amount similar to that of 1,714 Walmart shopworkers.

Ahead of the Labour government’s first budget statement on Wednesday, Oxfam is calling on the UK chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to increase taxes on “climate-polluting extreme wealth”, starting with private jets and superyachts, to raise funds which could be used to tackle the climate crisis.

In response, a UK Treasury spokesperson said “We do not comment on speculation around tax changes outside of fiscal events”.

The Oxfam researchers developed a methodology for calculating the emissions from yachts that included data on the size of the vessel, engine specifications, fuel type, hours at sea and even generators for hot tubs and air conditioning for helicopter hangars.

“One of the key findings for us is that superyachts are by far the most polluting toy that a billionaire can own, except perhaps for a rocket ship,” said Alex Maitland, one of the authors of the report.

Far more destructive still are the greenhouse gas emissions from the investments of the ultra-rich, which are 340 times higher than the CO₂ from their yachts and jets.

On average, the portfolios of the 50 billionaires in the study were almost twice as polluting as an investment in the main US stock index. Almost 40% of their shareholdings were in emissions-intensive industries such as oil, mining, shipping and cement. Many of these companies also hire lobbyists and marketing professionals to delay or disrupt action on the climate.

Oxfam says investment is also the area that has the greatest potential for positive change because, unlike most poor and middle-income people, billionaires have a choice about how to use their money. If they were to switch their holdings into low-carbon-intensity funds, their investment emissions would be 13 times lower.

The report also projects the deadly consequences of carbon inequality: in the coming century, 1.5 million excess deaths will be caused by the consumption emissions of the richest 1% – those with incomes of at least $140,000 (£108,000) – between 2015–19.

It says the past three decades of consumption emissions of this wealthy group have caused global economic output to fall by $2.9tn and crop losses equivalent to the calorific needs of 14.5 million people a year.

Chiara Liguori, Oxfam’s senior climate justice policy adviser, said: “The evidence is clear: the extreme emissions of the richest, from their luxury lifestyles and even more from their polluting investments, are fuelling inequality, hunger and threatening lives.

“It’s not just unfair that their reckless pollution is fuelling the very crisis threatening our collective future – it’s lethal.”

The findings are the latest in a series of annual carbon inequality reports by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute.

As the Guardian reported last year, the wealthiest 1% – who tend to live climate-insulated, air-conditioned lives, mostly in the global north – produce as much carbon pollution as the 5 billion people who make up the poorest and most vulnerable two-thirds of the human population, who predominantly live in poorer countries in the global south.

The latest report stresses the need to address the climate and inequality crises alongside carbon taxes on high-emitting industries, higher income taxes on the super-rich and restrictions on the use of private jets and luxury yachts.

Liguori said: “This report shows that fairer taxes on extreme wealth are crucial to accelerate climate action and fight inequality – starting with private jets and super-yachts.

“It’s clear these luxury toys aren’t just symbols of excess; they’re a direct threat to people and the planet.”

Timothée Chalamet made a surprise appearance at his own lookalike contest in lower Manhattan on Sunday, a crowded event that drew an order to disperse from police and at least one arrest.

Flanked by bodyguards, the actor posed for photos with his high-cheeked, curly haired doppelgängers, some of whom had dressed as Willy Wonka and Paul Atreides – characters that Chalamet has played in Wonka and the Dune movies. At times, adoring fans heaped their attention on the lookalikes, apparently thinking they were face-to-face with the real Chalamet.

The event, advertised on flyers around New York, was one of several lookalike competitions hosted by YouTube personality Anthony Po. As word spread on social media, thousands of people RSVP’d to the event, which promised $50 to the winner.

But minutes after the competition began – and before the actor made his entrance – police ordered the large group to disperse from Washington Square Park, and organizers were slapped with a $500 fine for an “unpermitted costume contest”. At least one contestant was taken away in handcuffs, though police did not immediately say why.

“It started off as a silly joke and now it’s turned pandemonium,” said Paige Nguyen, a producer for the YouTube creator.

Most of the wannabe-Chalamets and spectators relocated to a new park.

On a makeshift stage, the look-alikes were asked about their romantic plans with Kylie Jenner. Jenner and Chalamet are said to be a couple. They were also asked to demonstrate French proficiency and what they’d do to make the world a better place.

Eventually, the audience picked a winner: Miles Mitchell, a Staten Island resident and college senior. Dressed in a purple Willy Wonka outfit, he tossed candy from a briefcase to throngs of young admirers.

“I’m excited and I’m also overwhelmed,” Mitchell said. “There were so many good lookalikes. It was really a toss-up.”

The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court allegedly responded to a formal complaint of sexual misconduct by trying to persuade the alleged victim to deny the claims, the Guardian has been told.

Multiple ICC staff with knowledge of the allegations against Karim Khan said the prosecutor and another official close to him repeatedly urged the woman to disavow claims about his behaviour towards her.

The alleged attempts to deter the woman from formally pursuing the claims took place in phone calls and in person, and came after Khan learned court authorities had been made aware of allegations of misconduct, four sources said.

At the time, the chief prosecutor had been advised to avoid one-on-one contact with the alleged victim after an aborted internal inquiry into the matter.

Contacted by the Guardian for comment, Khan denied asking the woman to withdraw any allegations. His lawyers said: “Our client denies the whole of the allegations and we are most concerned the exposure of a confidential and closed internal matter is designed to undermine his high-profile ongoing work at a delicate time.”

After reports of alleged sexual misconduct began to circulate in the media in recent days, Khan denied the claims in a public statement that said he and the court had been “subject to a wide range of attacks and threats”. In anonymous briefings, court officials close to the prosecutor have suggested he may have been the target of a smear campaign.

“There is no truth to suggestions of such misconduct,” Khan’s statement said. “I have worked in diverse contexts for 30 years and there has never been such a complaint lodged against me by anyone.”

The woman at the heart of the allegations – who ICC colleagues describe as a well-regarded lawyer in her 30s who worked directly for Khan – has declined requests for comment.

But multiple sources familiar with the situation said she told colleagues she declined the alleged requests to disavow the claims. She believed the alleged approaches by Khan and another ICC official were part of an attempt to make her say that the claims against the prosecutor had been fabricated, the sources added.

According to a document seen by the Guardian, the accusations against Khan, 54, include unwanted sexual touching and “abuse” over an extended period. They include an alleged incident in which he is said to have “pressed his tongue” into the woman’s ear. Khan denies such allegations of misconduct.

Four ICC sources familiar with the allegations said they also include coercive sexual behaviour and abuse of authority.

The Guardian has interviewed 11 current and former ICC officials familiar with the case, as well as diplomatic sources and friends of the alleged victim. All declined to be identified because they were not authorised to discuss the allegations, or because they wanted to protect the woman.

Multiple sources said misreporting about the allegations and efforts to politicise the situation have been deeply distressing for the woman, who is said to have initially held back on pursuing a complaint against Khan over concerns about reprisals, and fears it could be exploited by Israel or opponents of the court.

Sources who know the alleged victim said she has been left traumatised by the situation and is “experiencing severe emotional distress”.

“She never wanted any of this,” one person close to her said. “But the complaint filed against her wishes, followed by Khan’s denials and attempts to suppress the allegations, have forced her into a very difficult position.”

The public emergence of the allegations comes at an intensely sensitive moment for the ICC, a court of last resort that prosecutes individuals accused of atrocities.

A panel of three ICC judges is weighing politically explosive requests by Khan to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza.

The ICC, which is headquartered in The Hague, now faces an unprecedented crisis amid growing internal strife over the handling of the allegations and apparent attempts by the court’s opponents to weaponise them.

Critics of the court have seized upon the allegations, which Khan first learned about weeks before his decision in May to request arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence minister and three Hamas leaders.

Khan has stopped short of explicitly accusing Israel of being behind the allegations, but in his statement denying misconduct he noted that he and the court have been the target of “a wide range of recent attacks and threats” in recent months.

The Guardian revealed earlier this year how Israel’s intelligence agencies ran a decade-long campaign against the ICC that included threats and attempts to smear senior staff. Against this backdrop, ICC officials close to Khan are strongly hinting the allegations may be part of a smear campaign by Israel.

However, in a months-long investigation into the allegations against Khan, the Guardian has found no evidence that Israel, or any other country, had any involvement in the underlying allegations – although there does appear to have been a subsequent effort by anonymous actors to brief journalists and post leaks online.

Online leaks

Last week, as leaks about Khan’s alleged conduct began to appear, press reports and social media posts minimised and misconstrued the allegations, according to sources familiar with the alleged victim’s accounts.

References to allegations contained within a report by a so-called “whistleblower”, they said, included inaccuracies. Several media organisations received, and then published, the same incomplete information.

The Guardian can reveal a more detailed picture of the allegations and of the complex sequence of events that ultimately led to aspects of the claims leaking online and into the pages of rightwing media outlets.

According to three sources familiar with the situation, the allegations of sexual misconduct relate to Khan’s behaviour towards the woman between a period of approximately April 2023 and April 2024.

“The allegations do not relate to a single or a couple of incidents, but misconduct taking place over a period of several months,” one ICC source said.

The alleged victim told colleagues that, after initial concerns about how Khan had sought to hold her hand while on a work trip in London, the prosecutor is alleged to have made repeated attempts to initiate unwanted sexual contact.

The alleged incidents are said to have escalated over time and occurred in his office at the ICC’s headquarters, in hotel rooms on overseas work trips, as well as at his home in The Hague.

Three sources said the woman reported to colleagues detailed descriptions of alleged unwanted sexual touching, including occasions when Khan would allegedly grope her and put his tongue in her ear.

According to an ICC document describing the allegations, she reported that she tried to make excuses to avoid being alone with Khan, but attempts to distance herself from him would lead to negative consequences in the workplace.

After returning from an overseas work trip with the prosecutor in April, the woman spoke in confidence to two close colleagues after they noticed she was upset and gave a detailed account of Khan’s alleged conduct.

The alleged victim told colleagues at the time that she was reluctant to pursue a formal complaint as she feared that doing so could have negative consequences for her, her family and the work of the international court.

Within days of confiding in the two colleagues, however, Khan and the ICC’s independent oversight mechanism (IOM), a watchdog that investigates alleged misconduct, had been made aware of the claims.

Khan was told one evening in early May that serious allegations would soon be shared with the IOM when a small group of staff from his office approached him, according to multiple people familiar with the events.

The meeting, which took place at Khan’s home in The Hague, occurred without the woman’s knowledge or consent. “The alleged victim was kept in the dark,” one source said.

Investigation

Three days after Khan was given advance warning of the allegations, IOM investigators hastily summoned the alleged victim to a hotel in The Hague, informing her they had received a report of alleged misconduct.

According to a record of the meeting, the woman told investigators she had been blind-sided by their approach and had serious concerns about their handling of the situation.

ICC sources said the alleged victim had previously expressed concerns about the competence of the IOM, a body that was not wholly trusted by female staff at the court.

Two days after meeting with the alleged victim, the IOM decided against opening a full investigation into the claims. The body recently said in its annual report the woman “declined to pursue a formal complaint” even after it was suggested an investigation could be “referred to an external entity”.

However, records relating to the investigation seen by the Guardian suggest the woman agreed to meet the IOM for a second time, shortly before investigators closed the matter. An external investigation was not offered at that stage, the records suggest.

In a recent statement about the IOM investigation, the court’s governing body said that, following a conversation with the alleged victim, “the IOM was not in a position to proceed with an investigation at that stage. Measures to safeguard everyone’s rights were recommended”.

Two sources said those recommendations, which were sent to Khan in writing, included that he minimise contact with the woman and avoid spending time with her alone, at night or while travelling on work trips.

However, after the alleged victim returned to work, the prosecutor discussed the situation with her in several in-person meetings and calls, sources said. Another official within his office also encouraged her to distance herself from the claims, telling her that Khan was “very scared” and “nervous” the allegations would eventually leak.

Between May and September, according to three sources, Khan and the other official close to him encouraged the alleged victim to write a letter disavowing the allegations against the prosecutor.

At one stage, the official is said to have told her that if she wrote such a letter it would normalise her working relationship with the prosecutor. He allegedly advised her to state in writing: “I have never said this. He never assaulted me”.

The official is understood to dispute the suggestion he discussed the matter with the alleged victim. Lawyers for Khan also denied the episode. “We confirm that neither our client, nor any person acting on his behalf, or who reports to him, asked for any such letter to be written, nor did they ask the person to withdraw any allegations,” they said.

“Our client has fully complied with internal processes and allowed these matters to be handled in an impartial manner by authorities independent of him.”

‘New theory’

Last week, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which adopts a conservative and pro-Israel line, published a leak of information about the allegations based on the questionable “whistleblower” report that has been circulated to the media.

The newspaper speculated on what it called “a new theory”: that Khan sought arrest warrants against Netanyahu to divert attention from sexual misconduct allegations that threatened to precipitate his resignation.

One official with knowledge of the ICC’s Palestine investigation described that suggestion as “inaccurate”. Another well-placed source pointed out that the key decisions to seek arrest warrants for senior Israeli and Hamas figures had already been made by the time Khan was informed of the misconduct complaint.

By that stage, the source said, applications for the warrants were already in the process of being drafted.

Multiple current and former ICC officials expressed concerns that Israel and its allies would seek to exploit the controversy surrounding the embattled chief prosecutor, with little regard for due process for the woman at the centre of the situation.

Many staff within the court are understood to be supportive of Khan’s decision to request the arrest warrants and applauded him for asserting the independence of the court in the face of significant political pressure.

But many in the same workforce also have deep concerns about the accusations he is facing and the court’s handling of the situation. Last week, the ICC’s staff union called for a “prompt, independent investigation led by an external panel free from any potential conflict of interest”.

Khan has said he would be willing, if asked, to cooperate with a new inquiry.

In a statement, a spokesperson for his office added: “It is essential, in particular in the context in which the [prosecutor] is presently operating, that any reports of this nature are addressed in a formal independent process, protecting the rights of all persons.”

On Friday, the Associated Press reported the woman at the centre of the allegations is now in touch with the assembly of states parties (ASP), the court’s governing body which has the ultimate say about Khan’s future. A diplomatic source said the ASP had yet to initiate a new investigation.

That investigation may be the next step in the process, resulting in Khan facing a second formal inquiry that would be expected to question the prosecutor and alleged victim about the allegations, and conduct other investigative work, prior to reaching any conclusion about Khan’s innocence or guilt.

In a statement issued last week, the ASP’s president, Päivi Kaukoranta, said “any reports of misconduct are taken very seriously”. She asked people to respect the integrity and confidentiality of internal processes, “including any further possible steps as necessary”.

The multi-billionaire owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, continued facing criticism throughout the weekend because executives from his aerospace company met with Donald Trump on the same day the newspaper prevented its editorial team from publishing an endorsement of his opponent in the US presidential election.

Senior news and opinion leaders at the Washington Post flew to Miami in late September 2024 to meet with Bezos, who had reservations about the paper issuing an endorsement in the 5 November election, the New York Times reported.

Amazon and the space exploration company Blue Origin are among Bezos-owned business that still compete for lucrative federal government contracts.

And the Post on Friday announced it would not endorse a candidate in the 5 November election after its editorial board had already drafted its endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Friday’s announcement did not mention Amazon or Blue Origin. But within hours, high-ranking officials of the latter company briefly met with Trump after a campaign speech in Austin, Texas, as the Republican nominee seeks a second presidency.

Trump met with Blue Origin chief executive officer David Limp and vice-president of government relations Megan Mitchell, the Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, CNN reported that the Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, had also recently reached out to speak with the former president by phone.

Those reported overtures were eviscerated by Washington Post editor-at-large and longtime columnist Robert Kagan, who resigned on Friday. On Saturday, he argued that the meeting Blue Origin executives had with Trump would not have taken place if the Post had endorsed the Democratic vice-president as it planned.

“Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do – and then met with the Blue Origin people,” Kagan told the Daily Beast on Saturday. “Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.”

The Post’s publisher Will Lewis, hired by Bezos in January, defended the paper’s owner by claiming the decision to spike the Harris endorsement was his. But that has done little to defuse criticism from within the newspaper’s ranks as well as the wave of subscription cancelations that has met the institution.

Eighteen opinion columnists at the Washington Post signed a dissenting column against the decision, calling it “a terrible mistake”. The paper has already made endorsements this election cycle, including in a US senate seat race in Maryland. The Washington Post endorsed Hillary Clinton when Trump won the presidency in 2016. It endorsed Joe Biden when Trump lost in 2020, despite Trump’s pledges to retaliate against anyone who opposed him.

In their criticism of the Post’s decision on Friday, former and current employees cite the dangers to democracy posed by Trump, who has openly expressed his admiration for authoritarian rule amid his appeals for voters to return him to office.

The former Washington Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who broke the Watergate story, called the decision “disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process”.

The former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron said in a post on X, “This is cowardice with democracy as its casualty”.

The cartoon team at the paper published a dark formless image protesting against the non-endorsement decision, playing on the “democracy dies in darkness” slogan that the Post adopted in 2017, five years after its purchase by Bezos.

High-profile readers, including author bestselling author Stephen King as well as former congresswoman and vocal Trump critic Liz Cheney, announced the cancellation of their Washington Post subscriptions with many others in protest.

The Post’s non-endorsement came shortly after the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, refused to allow the editorial board publish an endorsement of Harris.

Many pointed out how the stances from the Post and the LA Times seems to fit the definition of “anticipatory obedience” as spelled out in On Tyranny, Tim Snyder’s bestselling guide to authoritarianism. Snyder defines the term as “giving over your power to the aspiring authoritarian” before the authoritarian is in position to compel that handover.

Bezos is the second wealthiest person in the world behind Elon Musk, who has become a prominent supporter of Trump’s campaign for a second presidency. He bought the Washington Post in 2013 for $250m.

In 2021, Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon, claiming during a podcast interview that he intended to devote more time to Blue Origin.

The New York Times reported Bezos had begun to get more involved in the paper in 2023 as it faced significant financial losses, a stream of employee departures and low morale.

His pick of Lewis as publisher in January seemingly did little to help morale at the paper. Employees and devotees of the paper were worried that Lewis was brought on to the Post despite allegations that he “fraudulently obtained phone and company records in newspaper articles” as a journalist in London, as the New York Times reported.

Nonetheless, in a memo to newsroom leaders in June 2024, Bezos wrote, “The journalistic standards and ethics at the Post will not change.”

In a shallow valley populated by reddening ancient oak trees, the River Avon snakes along quietly – the grind of Bristol unknowingly just metres away.

Despite the falling leaves and temperature, a group of women tentatively step into the 12.5C waters of the Conham River Park in the east of the city for a midday swim – a ritual they all insist is not just a hobby but a way of life.

Conham Bathing, an advocacy group made up of women in their 20s and 30s, has launched the Thriving Avon Charter in a move to raise the profile of rights for rivers.

The move is inspired by campaigners worldwide who have secured legal personhood or “rights of nature” for rivers such as the Whanganui in New Zealand, and in the UK with the Ouse in Lewes and the Dart in Dartmoor.

The group’s love for the river and fight for bathing water quality status has been captured in a feature-length documentary Rave On for the Avon, which after a preview run in the south-west may have a national cinema release mid-January.

As the film’s maker, Charlotte Sawyer, steps from the river after a swim in a brief rain shower, her teeth are chattering.

“I feel very alive,” she says. “You can go from screens to indoor heating, into cars and to traffic, here in Bristol its quite densely residential but in the river, you just feel like it’s real existence for your living.”

Sawyer says she used to be more of a fairweather swimmer but was converted after making the film and seeing the “manic look of elation” on the campaigners’ faces.

“When I started filming people trying to protect the river I thought I was filming people’s activities and their campaign work,” she says. “But in the end, what my film is about is people’s love of the river, how they feel loved back when they swim in it, walk next to it, engage with it, and how swimming in rivers is a way of life for all walks of life.”

Aggie Nyagari, 38, is a film-maker who worked with Sawyer on the film. She moved with her family across Bristol to be nearer to the park.

Coming originally from the warmer climes of Kenya, Nyagari says she was unsure at first about swimming in such cold water. But she overcame her concerns and started in the summer, allowing her to slowly acclimatise to the gradual temperature drop into the winter.

“It took us a year and a half to find the perfect location, we had to be within a 10-minute radius of the park so we could walk here,” she says. “In the end I got my dream and I swim here every morning.”

Since 2021 the group has been working to achieve designated bathing water status for the section of the Avon in the park. Part of the group’s advocacy includes them regularly testing the water and sending samples to Wessex Water.

In August 2024, the group recorded the worst water quality testing results for two consecutive weeks since the group began sampling. The bacterial levels were found to be between six and 20 times higher than the benchmark for what would be considered “poor” water quality under the Environment Agency’s inland bathing water guidelines.

The water quality does not deter the Conham Bathing swimmers from entering the river but the majority say they keep their head above the water.

The founder of the group, Becca Blease, 35, a research impact specialist who lives in Horfield, said a significant focus of the campaign was about keeping people informed, emphasising that the ban on swimming in the river is ineffective and largely not enforced.

“There’s a huge community who adore this river,” says Blease. “They love to swim here. So a lot of it has just been about making sure that they are informed, because we don’t think that the current prohibitive approach works, because people will still swim.

“It’s a really natural thing on a hot day to just want to jump in and cool off. And outdoor swimming is only going to get more popular, I think. And so simply to ban it doesn’t work. People will still go in.”

A Wessex Water spokesperson said: “We support the greater use of rivers for recreation and have worked with the Conham Bathing group and others to provide data on water quality, helping people make an informed choice.

“Lowland rivers will always have bacteria in them from numerous sources. Specifically on the Bristol Avon, Environment Agency data indicates that storm overflows contribute to just 3% of the reasons that the catchment doesn’t achieve good ecological status – well below urban runoff (31%) and agriculture (25%).

“That said, we agree that storm overflows are outdated and we’re spending £3m every month to progressively improve them. This includes a recent project just upstream of Conham River Park in Hanham, where we’ve installed a below-ground storage tank to hold rainwater during heavy downpours.

“More widely, we believe rain should be valued as a resource and used and returned to the environment close to where it falls. Alongside our ongoing work, this requires the political understanding and will to bring forward policies that that promote best practice in rainwater management at source.”

The Thriving Avon Charter can be signed here.

They are some of the most evocative historic artefacts that fate ever consigned to the bottom of the sea. Now, coal from the Titanic, a piece of rope from the Mary Rose and musket flints from the shipwreck that inspired William Wordsworth to write one of his greatest works are to be sold at a very rare auction.

The artefacts are among the 8,000 objects salvaged from 150 wrecks that will go under the hammer for the first time next month.

The entire collection of the Shipwreck Treasure Museum in Charlestown, near St Austell, Cornwall, is up for sale after the tourist attraction, which is owned by the family of Tim Smit, co-founder of the Eden Project, was put on the market for £1.95m earlier this year but failed to attract a buyer.

“I can’t imagine there’s a more important collection of maritime archeology worldwide,” said David Lay of Lay’s Auctioneers, which is selling the lots. “There are many wonderful, rare discoveries.”

Founded in 1976 by Richard Larn, a former navy diver and historic shipwreck expert, the museum’s extraordinary collection is being broken up into 1,254 lots and includes rare items from wrecks that are now legally protected historic sites or designated war graves.

This includes 46g of coal, recovered in 1994, which was onboard the Titanic to fuel the steamship’s doomed voyage to New York in 1912.

While a gold pocket watch recovered from the body of the Titanic’s wealthiest passenger, John Jacob Astor, sold for a record-breaking £1.2m earlier this year, the lumps of coal have been valued at £400 to £600. Lay is hoping the auction will attract fans of the Titanic from around the world.

Another collector’s item in the sale is a piece of rope recovered from Henry VIII’s Tudor flagship, the Mary Rose. Estimated to fetch £5,000 to £10,000, it was given to Larn after he reportedly helped the Mary Rose Trust to dislodge the ship from the depths of the Solent using underwater explosives.

“Virtually nothing that comes from the Mary Rose ever comes on to the market,” said Lay. “It’s just so unusual.”

Musket flints recovered from the Earl of Abergavenny will also go under the hammer, centuries after news of the shipwreck devastated Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy.

The death of their brother, John, who was captain of the ship when it sank in Weymouth Bay in 1805, moved Wordsworth to write several laments, including Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont.

“A deep distress hath humanised my soul,” Wordsworth writes in the 1806 poem, an autobiographical masterpiece about the transformative power of empathy, suffering and grief. “Not for a moment could I now behold a smiling sea.”

Jeff Cowton, the principal curator at Wordsworth Grasmere, thinks the Romantic poet crossed an emotional threshold when he heard his brother had drowned, and is trying to convey that in the poem. “He realises in the poem that he can never go back now he’s experienced what it is to be human in all its grief as well as its joys,” said Cowton.

John had planned to support his brother and sister financially after making his fortune onboard the trade ship, which was bound for China. “Because that money didn’t come in, it meant Wordsworth was very reliant on selling poetry,” said Cowton. This soon became a financial struggle, and in 1813, at the age of 43, he was compelled to curtail his poetry and take a civil service job as a distributor of stamps.

The musket flints would have been used to create a spark to light gunpowder and were found on the wreck in “incredible” condition. “They look new,” said Lay, who has valued the flint at £100 to £200.

Other artefacts on sale include a large piece of ornately carved wood, valued at £20,000 to £30,000, from the stern of HMS Eagle, part of the British fleet which took Gibraltar in 1704. HMS Eagle was shipwrecked off the Isles of Scilly in 1707 after returning from battle, and its entire crew of 800 was lost. The government introduced the Longtitude Act as a result of the disaster, offering a £20,000 reward to inventors of a reliable method for measuring longitude at sea.

It was revealed in the Observer last year that, well into his 70s, Wordsworth was still deeply affected by the tragedy of his brother’s death on the Earl of Abergavenny.

In a letter from 1848, he appears to be seeking solace by collecting wooden boxes and walking sticks made from timbers salvaged from other shipwrecks.

Chef Tom Kerridge is teaming up with charities to demand delivery of a promised £15m fund to divert fresh but unused food from farms to food banks and soup kitchens across the country.

Repeated promises have been made by former ministers to fund the food waste reduction scheme, which effectively compensates farmers for harvesting, storing and packaging the food that would otherwise head into landfill or animal feed.

The pledge was first made by Michael Gove as environment secretary in 2018 and later reannounced by Rishi Sunak earlier this year, but the funds have never arrived. Kerridge is now speaking out, along with thousands of local charities who have signed an open letter to chancellor Rachel Reeves, asking for the scheme to be backed in this week’s budget.

The Michelin-starred chef, who grew up on a Gloucester council estate, cooking for his brother while his mother, Jackie, did two jobs, said the programme would reduce waste and provide much-needed food for those who are struggling.

“These charities are the beating heart of their communities, and they need more food to help support people in need,” he said. “The government needs to intervene and ensure that the staggering levels of good-to-eat surplus food is turned into meals for struggling families, rather than letting this food go to waste.”

Farmers are known to be keen to redistribute food where they can, but charities say the fund is needed to help cover their costs, as providing goods for redistribution is more expensive than dumping it or using it as feed or fuel. In the letter to Reeves, the charities say that food redirected by the scheme could provide up to 67m meals and be redistributed to thousands of community groups.

FareShare, one of the largest food redistribution organisations, is heavily involved. It provides surplus food to after-school and breakfast clubs, homelessness shelters and older people’s lunch clubs.

“The food redistribution sector helps transform surplus food into stronger communities,” said Kris Gibbon-Walsh, chief executive of FareShare. “These local charities turn food that would otherwise go to waste into meals, providing a gateway to other essential services that support people in need. This fund is an incredible opportunity to rescue millions of tonnes of fresh produce from our farms, and help tackle the environmental problem of food waste for social good.”

“Despite the announcement in February, the fund is in limbo while we wait for the Treasury to commit to this funding. But the frontline charities we support cannot afford to wait. The prime minister has said he wants to build a ‘society of service’, and Defra wants to prioritise a zero-waste economy – this fund is a great first step. We are ready to work with the government alongside the food redistribution sector to make these ambitions a reality.”

Charlotte Hill, who runs The Felix Project multibank in London, said it was “a scandal” that fresh British food was going to waste, despite the large number of families suffering from food insecurity. “The Felix Project recently found that 56% of working London families are having to turn to a food bank to help feed their children.” she said. “

These places are struggling with the huge demand for support and urgently need more food. This funding has the potential to unlock huge supplies of healthy and nutritious produce. It could result in millions of meals going to those who need it.”

Government sources said that ministers were committed to reducing waste and were working to drive down surplus food. The government wants to halve food waste by 2030. However, it has warned that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had to play its part in closing a £22bn black hole in the public finances this year and that “difficult decisions” lay ahead.

The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs said: “The amount of food we waste is a stain on our country. We are working with business to drive down food waste and make sure food is put on the plates of those in greatest need. This includes supporting surplus food to be redistributed to charities and others that can use it and on programmes to help citizens reduce their food waste. We are grateful to food producers, charities and retailers in the sector for their work in tackling this problem.”

Hundreds of health workers have called on the General Medical Council to stop suspending doctors imprisoned for peaceful climate activism ahead of a trial which could see the first jailing of a working GP for a non-violent climate protest in the UK.

Two retired GPs have been suspended by GMC-convened tribunals this year after receiving short sentences for non-violent offences during Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain protests in 2021 and 2022. The medical regulator did not express concerns about the doctors’ clinical capabilities but said their actions undermined public confidence in the profession.

Their treatment angered many medics, with the British Medical Association describing one suspension as “malicious” and claiming the GMC had created a “dangerous precedent”.

Last week, an open ­letter objecting to the GMC’s hardline approach and signed by 464 GPs, hospital doctors, consultants and nurses, as well as public figures including Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, and the human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, was delivered to the regulator’s London offices. The letter claims healthcare professionals have “turned to civil disobedience as a way to effect change” because “billions of lives are being put at risk by rising global temperatures”. It calls on the GMC to reverse the suspensions and “show its support for those who have sacrificed their freedom in calling for the deep, rapid and ­sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which … are humanity’s last hope”.

Next week, Patrick Hart, a Bristol GP, is due to go on trial for ­criminal damage. He is accused of ­damaging fuel pump displays at an M25 service station during a protest in August 2022. If convicted and jailed, he would be the first working doctor in the UK imprisoned for a non-violent offence during a peaceful climate protest.

Hart will also face a GMC-convened tribunal next year, where he could be suspended or stuck off. The UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst, has raised his plight with the UK government.

In an exchange published last week, Forst demands the UK government investigate the alleged penalising, persecution or harassment of Hart for peaceful civil ­disobedience, which has been used by women’s rights, anti-apartheid, anti-poll tax, LGBTQ+ and black civil rights activists. He says the GMC appears to be “subjecting Dr Hart to double punishment for his peaceful climate activism”.

In her response, Mary Creagh, the minister for nature, refused to investigate the UN’s concerns. She stated there was “no right to civil disobedience”, adding that UK laws allow for “legitimate environmental protest and public engagement”. So far only retired GPs have had their medical licence taken away by tribunals. Diana Warner, a GP for 35 years around Bristol, had her licence removed for three months in August.

She had been jailed for six weeks for twice breaching private anti-­protest injunctions banning people from blocking traffic on the M25 in 2021 and 2022.

The GMC’s barrister argued her actions could “properly be described as deplorable … and she had brought the medical profession into disrepute”.

Sarah Benn, a retired Birmingham GP, had her licence suspended for five months in April. She was jailed for 32 days for breaching another private injunction by protesting on a grass verge and sitting on a private road at Kingsbury oil terminal in 2022. Benn is appealing against her suspension with BMA support.

The GMC said if a doctor receives a custodial sentence after a criminal conviction, it must refer the case to a medical practitioners ­tribunal. “This is required in law and we can’t exercise any discretion over this,” said a spokesperson.

Doctors had the right to express their personal opinions on issues including ­climate change, the GMC said.

“However when doctors’ ­protesting results in law-breaking, they must understand that it is their actions in breaking the law, rather than their motivations, that will be under ­scrutiny,” the spokesperson said.

“Patients and the public have a high degree of trust in doctors, that trust can be put at risk when doctors fail to comply with the law.”