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He was so keen on clambering around the craggy cliffs of the Avon Gorge as a teenager that he was nicknamed “prince of the rocks”.

An exhibition featuring rarely seen JMW Turner watercolours inspired by his nimble explorations of the gorge is opening at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery. They are so fragile that they are rarely brought out of careful storage and may not be seen again for a while.

The show is partly a thank you to members of the public who donated more than £100,000 in a week, allowing the museum to bid for another recently discovered Turner painting of Bristol, The Rising Squall. Despite the efforts of Bristol art lovers and the museum, an anonymous UK private collector came in with a higher sum, scuppering the “bring Turner home” effort.

On display in the show are four watercolours painted by Turner during his first visit to the city at the end of the 18th century when he was 16. They reveal his growing skill in architectural detail, natural observation and dramatic composition.

Julia Carver, a curator of art at the museum, said Turner came to Bristol on holiday in 1791 and stayed with a family friend, John Narraway, a glue maker and fell monger (a dealer in animal skins). “They called him prince of the rocks because he spent so much time at the gorge,” Carver said.

His jaunts in and around the gorge showed Turner’s commitment to getting into the heart of the landscapes he painted, and throw forward to the story (which may be apocryphal) that in later life he bound himself to a ship’s mast to paint Snow Storm: Steam-Boat Off a Harbour’s Mouth.

One of the paintings in the show is called The Mouth of the Avon, Near Bristol, Seen from Cliffs Below Clifton. The view towards the sea is framed by the rocky walls of a spectacular cave underneath the site of the Clifton Observatory. “It’s a lovely, dramatic view,” Carver said.

A second painting, Avon Gorge and Bristol Hotwell, is another version of the view he painted in The Rising Squall when he returned to the city in 1792.

Carver said the museum did not know who pipped them to The Rising Squall. “We would be, of course, delighted if they were interested in lending the painting to us,” she said.

Philip Walker, the head of culture and creative industries at Bristol city council, said: “Bring Turner home was the most ambitious fundraising campaign we’ve ever attempted and we were overwhelmed by the support it received. This exhibition is our way of thanking supporters and celebrating Turner’s deep connection to Bristol.

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“With Prince of the Rocks, we can share his own Bristol watercolours, fragile works that rarely go on display, and mark his enduring legacy in this city.”

The exhibition features other prints by Turner and watercolours of the gorge by the Bristol artist Samuel Jackson, part of the Bristol School working 30 years after Turner.

Also on display are pieces from the museum’s natural history and science collections, including fossils and quartz crystals known locally as “Bristol diamonds”.

Less than 1% of the Victorian population is responsible for almost half of all offending in the state, police say, as the crime rate continues to climb.

The Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) on Thursday released data showing 638,640 criminal offences were recorded in Victoria in the 2024-25 financial year – an increase of 86,587 offences or 15.7%. When adjusted for population, the crime rate per 100,000 people was 8,998.9, marking a 13.8% rise year-on-year.

The number of criminal incidents also increased by 18.3% to 483,583. The CSA said this represented the highest recorded figures since reporting began in 2004-05.

The increase in the crime rate is marginally smaller than that recorded in the previous quarter but Victoria police’s deputy commissioner for regional operations, Bob Hill, said it was still unacceptably high.

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He said a cohort of repeat offenders continued to be responsible for a large proportion of total crime recorded in Victoria.

“In terms of our repeat offenders, 5,400 have been charged 10 times or more in the reporting period, responsible for 40% of our crime,” Hill said.

Victoria’s estimated 2024 population, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics was 6.9 million, meaning repeat offenders represent 0.078% of the state.

Hill said the group included 1,128 children, who had been arrested a combined 7,118 times. But, in all, there were 147 fewer young offenders over the reporting period.

Hill announced police had set an “ambitious” target to reduce serious and violent crime by 5% each year and were working on a new plan to deter crime to be released by the chief commissioner of police, Mike Bush, in mid-October.

Bush joined the Victoria police in June after serving as New Zealand’s chief commissioner, where he was credited with creating a crime prevention model that reduced offending in the country by 20% between 2010 and 2014.

No ‘quick fix’

Theft continues to be the fastest growing and most common crime in Victoria. This was primarily driven by theft from cars, with 86,351 offences recorded – a rise of 24,409 offences, or 39.4% on the previous year.

Number plates were the most commonly stolen item, making up almost 40% of all thefts from vehicles, with 32,481 offences – an increase of 10,750 or 49.5%.

Motor vehicle theft also surged, reaching 33,018 offences – an increase of 9,786, or 42.1% – marking the highest level since 2002.

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Theft from retail stores continues to rise persistently, with 41,667 offences recorded – an increase of 9,004, or 27.6%.

The fifth-highest crime was family violence, with incidents reaching a record high of 106,427 – an increase of 7,617 or 7.7%.

Hill said a “perfect storm” of circumstances led to the increase, including cost of living pressures, technological developments and organised crime.

He also pointed to Covid-19 exacerbating mental health challenges, a “sensational desire for illicit drugs” and “disconnection” from community, particularly by young people.

The police minister, Anthony Carbines, said there was no “quick fix” to improve the crime rate but but that the state’s controversial “tough” new bail laws were already having a noticeable impact on the data.

The laws came into effect on 28 March and require courts to treat children accused of serious crimes similarly to adults when determining whether to grant bail or keep them in custody. It also makes community safety the “overarching principle” when deciding bail for children and adults.

“Those who’ve lost their bail privileges [is] up 26% for young people, up 46% for adults compared to this time last year,” Carbines said.

He said the second tranche of reforms, which introduces a new “high harm” bail test for repeat offenders and a “two-strike” rule for individuals already on bail who commit further offences, have not yet come into effect.

Opposition leader Brad Battin described the latest statistics as a “complete failure” by the Allan government to tackle crime.

“Every single time we see these crime stats, we see more records, and they’re not the records that anyone wants to break,” he said.

The next leader of Japan’s ruling party will either be the country’s first female prime minister or its youngest leader since the war. But the significance of those milestones will be quickly lost in the party’s attempts to rebuild after two bruising elections that have cast doubt over the future of one of the world’s most successful political machines.

Two of the five candidates vying to replace Shigeru ishiba – who announced his resignation earlier this month – as the next president of the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) have emerged as clear favourites in what analysts are describing as a last-ditch attempt to unify a party battered by a major funding scandal and the cost-of-living crisis.

With just over a week to go before LDP lawmakers and rank-and-file party members cast their votes, Shinjiro Koizumi appears to be on course to become Japan’s youngest postwar prime minister. His elevation to the top job would no longer be a certainty now that the LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito have lost their majority in both houses of parliament. But he would likely be approved since the LDP is the largest party in the powerful lower house.

The 44-year-old son of maverick former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi is popular with party members and has won praise for his attempts to address the soaring rice prices in his current role as agriculture minister.

His main rival, Sanae Takaichi, is a prominent voice on the right of the LDP – a critic of China with strong ideological links to the former prime minister and foreign policy hawk, Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in 2022.

But a victory for 64-year-old Takaichi, who has voiced admiration for Margaret Thatcher in her quest to build a “strong and prosperous” Japan, could bring more uncertainty, particularly on the international stage.

Her brand of ultra-conservative politics could create problems for Japan’s relationship with its neighbours. She has played down Japan’s responsibility for its conduct during the second world war and has made regular pilgrimages to Yasukuni, a shrine in Tokyo that honours Japan’s war-dead, including several class-A war criminals.

This week she opened her speech in a debate among the leadership candidates by railing against badly behaved inbound tourists and said “economic migrants” who claim refugee status should be sent home.

Migration, now a key election battleground amid a boom in tourism and a record number of foreign residents, has become a focus of the LDP campaign as it attempts to fend off a challenge from Sanseito, a minor populist party that performed well in July’s upper house elections on a “Japanese first” anti-immigration platform.

Despite his youth, Koizumi – who as environment minister said the fight against the climate crisis could be “sexy and fun” – is seen as a safer pair of hands. The US-educated hereditary politician, who is married to a former TV presenter and counts surfing among his hobbies, has presented himself as the candidate best placed to revive the LDP’s fortunes, and has won the backing of influential figures in the party.

The LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito lost their lower house majority a year ago and were dealt a similar blow in upper house elections this summer, leaving the outgoing Ishiba in charge of an unstable minority government.

His successor will have to move quickly to address public anger over a “money politics” scandal, in which dozens of LDP lawmakers were found to have siphoned unreported profits from the sale of tickets to party gatherings into slush funds.

While he has previously supported allowing women to become reigning empresses and for married couples to use separate surnames, Koizumi has played down his progressive instincts during the campaign, and echoed Takaichi’s concerns over migration.

“The reality is that illegal employment of foreigners, friction with local residents, and deteriorating public safety are causing anxiety among local residents,” he said this week.

Tobias Harris, the founder of Japan Foresight, said Koizumi had “moderated some of his more progressive positions on social issues in a bid to appeal to more conservative lawmakers and in general is emphasising the importance of unity and humility for leading the LDP out of its political crisis”.

Harris added that there was “a sense that both the parliamentary party and the grassroots party feel alarmed enough about the LDP’s future to gamble on elevating Koizumi … this appears to be Koizumi’s race to lose”.

The new leader will be elected by 295 LDP lawmakers and almost 1 million rank-and-file party members, whose ballots will be converted into an additional 295 votes.

If none of the five candidates – all of whom ran unsuccessfully against Ishiba last year – wins more than half of the votes, the top two will immediately enter a runoff, a process that will give MPs’ votes greater weight.

Wealthy investors from the US, China and Hong Kong are the leaders in applications for New Zealand’s “golden visas” after the government relaxed the scheme’s requirements in a bid to boost the flagging economy.

The new rules for the Active Investor Plus visa came into effect in April and lowered investment thresholds, removed English-language requirements and cut the amount of time applicants must spend in the country to establish residency from three years to three weeks.

Immigration New Zealand says the scheme offering residency to wealthy foreigners has now attracted 308 applications, representing 1,000 people, under the new rules. Before the changes, the visa attracted 116 applications over two-and-a-half years.

Investors from the US make up the vast majority, with 129 applications, followed by China with 45 and Hong Kong with 38.

The remaining top 10 countries in order include Germany, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea and Great Britain.

The Asian markets could be seeking lower tax thresholds and less bureaucracy, while lifestyle changes and the natural environment could be “pull factors” across the board, said Marcus Beveridge, an immigration lawyer and managing director of Queen City Law.

Immigration chart

“Clearly geopolitical issues for those in North America and Europe will be material,” Beveridge said.

“Trump is probably beneficial for New Zealand in some ways, in terms of there being more interest,” he said, while adding the overall numbers were still low.

It is not the first time New Zealand has attracted the interest of Trump-weary Americans and other wealthy foreigners seeking to make New Zealand their “bolthole” at a time of societal division.

Following Trump’s 2016 election, visits to the country’s immigration website rose almost 2,500%. After the country’s supreme court ruled there was no constitutional right to abortion in the US – upending the landmark Roe v Wade – visits to New Zealand’s immigration site quadrupled to 77,000. After Trump’s 2024 election win, there was a surge of interest from the US in New Zealand’s property market.

Meanwhile, billionaires acquiring residency or citizenship in New Zealand have been subject to controversy in the past. After Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, was granted citizenship in 2017 despite spending only 12 days in the country, former Labour prime minister Jacinda Ardern moved to tighten the rules on investment visas.

Ardern also banned foreign home ownership in 2018, due to concern foreign buyers were driving up prices during a housing crisis.

Last month, the government announced that while the ban largely remains, holders of a “golden visa” would now be able to buy homes valued over $5m.

“It’s certainly a much better position to say to potential investors: you can now buy a family home,” Beveridge said.

Under the new rules, 241 applied under the visa’s “growth” category, which requires a minimum $5m investment over three years, and 67 applied under the “balanced” category, which requires a minimum $10m investment over five years.

Immigration has approved 39 applications and another 197 in principle – their combined investment netting New Zealand $248.8m.

“My prediction has always been that we will collect about $5 billion per annum from this business immigration, but those same investors will bring another $5 billion into our economy, because now they can buy $5 million houses,” Beveridge said.

The visa changes are one of a number of Ardern-era policies the rightwing coalition has wound back in its bid the boost the economy. It relaxed other restrictive visa settings to attract so-called “digital nomads” to New Zealand and this week made it easier for migrant workers to come to live in the country.

Meanwhile, New Zealand citizens are leaving the country in record numbers in search of better job prospects and higher wages. Between July 2024-25, 73,400 New Zealanders left, compared with 25,800 returning home to live, according to Stats NZ.

Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian has conceded defeat in the seat of Bradfield, abandoning her court challenge to overturn the result 145 days after the federal election.

Kapterian, who narrowly lost to independent Nicolette Boele, released a statement on Thursday saying she was satisfied the correct outcome had been declared in the once blue-ribbon seat, held by the Liberal party since its creation in 1949.

“After a final review of the ballot papers following the two different results in Bradfield, I am satisfied that, overall, the correct outcome has been declared,” Kapterian said.

“After asking the on-field decision to go to the video umpire, we have had the opportunity to review the play and can now be satisfied the right call was made … thank you to all those involved, including the AEC, in undertaking the review.”

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Boele, in response to Kapterian’s announcement, said she would continue to serve the electorate with integrity.

“Being part of this process has given me an even greater appreciation for the safeguards we have in place, and the value of every single vote. While we watch checks and balances erode in other countries, our electoral and judicial processes are something we can genuinely celebrate here at home.”

The vote count in Bradfield in the 3 May federal election saw several swings of fortune for the candidates.

Initially, Boele was declared the provisional winner of the seat from a two-candidate-preferred count, with a margin of 40 votes.

But Kapterian led the independent by just eight votes by the end of the final distribution of preferences.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) ordered a recount of the seat on 23 May.

Following the recount, Boele was declared the winner by 26 votes, and was sworn in to what is now the most marginal seat in the country.

Kapterian petitioned to the high court in July, claiming 56 votes for her had wrongfully been rejected by the AEC while 95 votes for Boele had been wrongfully accepted.

Kapterian said because the initial results were so close, her team felt it was “the right call” to retest the ballots.

“Both sides challenged the determinations made – I think it was a total of over 320 ballots,” she said. “Based on the submissions that were made, I think many challenges would have been successful,”

“Ultimately though, I don’t think the final outcome would have involved enough ballots changing sides to overturn the result.”

A hearing date in the federal court had been set for 2 October, after their legal teams were provided access to almost 800 ballot papers for analysis.

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Kapterian said in her statement that the nation was at a “crucial juncture”, with declining living standards for the next generation and crises in housing and the cost of government services.

She also appeared to take a swipe at recent commentary from Coalition figures around immigration.

“I am the daughter of migrants who came to this country because of the promise of Australia. I believe the Liberal party’s future success depends on a policy agenda that speaks to aspirational Australians,” she said.

“I’m disappointed to miss out on contributing from inside the party room but I will continue to play my part.”

She told Guardian Australia her campaign had faced “major headwinds from a very weak national policy agenda and campaign”.

“That said, our local campaign did manage to win back former teal voters in places like Willoughby and Northbridge. I am proud of that,” she said.

“The pathway back for the Liberal party in seats like Bradfield is to focus on the big national and global challenges – inflation, housing, productivity, intergenerational equity, energy and national security, and climate,” she said.

The Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, had held a spot in her shadow ministry open for Kapterian, pending the court challenge.

Electoral commissioner Jeff Pope said the process showed the strong integrity of Australia’s electoral system.

“Australians can be confident that the AEC left absolutely no stone unturned when it came to scrutinising this extremely close election result,” Pope said.

A Bali hospital has denied allegations it was involved in organ theft, after the body of a young Australian who died on the Indonesian resort island was repatriated without his heart.

Queensland man Byron Haddow was found dead in the plunge pool of his Bali villa earlier this year while on holiday.

The body of the 23-year-old was returned to Australia four weeks later, and a second autopsy found his heart was missing, prompting Australian officials to demand answers from their Indonesian counterpart.

I Made Darmajaya, director of medical nursing and support at Prof Ngoerah hospital, denied the hospital was involved in organ theft, explaining that the hospital carried out a forensic autopsy on Haddow’s body after a request from local police.

“I emphasise, on behalf of Prof Ngoerah hospital, that the circulating rumours of organ theft are false,” he told reporters.

“There is no interest of the hospital to withhold [the heart]. Actually, our interest was in the context of examination in accordance with the law.”

He said Haddow’s heart was repatriated to Australia after than the rest of his body as it took a long time to process it to meet the requirements for a pathological examination.

A spokesperson for Australia’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday they were providing consular assistance to Haddow’s family but could not provide further comment, citing privacy obligations.

Haddow’s heart was returned to Queensland in August, more than two months after his death, Ni Luh Arie Ratna Sukasari, a legal representative of Haddow’s family, said earlier on Wednesday, saying the incident raised “serious questions” about medical practices in Bali.

Donald Trump alleged “triple sabotage” at the United Nations, after the US president was plagued by a series of unfortunate events surrounding his address to the global body.

“A REAL DISGRACE took place at the United Nations yesterday,” Trump wrote in a 357-word post on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Wednesday. “Not one, not two, but three very sinister events!”

According to Trump, his smooth arrival at the summit in New York on Tuesday was disrupted when the escalator ferrying him and the first lady to the General Assembly Hall “stopped on a dime”. He expressed surprise that the first couple “didn’t fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first”.

Then, his teleprompter went “stone cold dark”.

“I immediately thought to myself, “Wow, first the escalator event, and now a bad teleprompter. What kind of a place is this?’” Trump wrote. Adding insult to injury, he recounted a third alleged offense: after being forced to improvise part of his speech to the general assembly, he asked Melania Trump how he had done, she replied: “I couldn’t hear a word you said.”

“This wasn’t a coincidence, this was triple sabotage at the UN,” Trump declared, demanding an “immediate” investigation into the matter, a scandal so Trumpian it has earned the name “escalatorgate”.

“All security tapes at the escalator should be saved, especially the emergency stop button. The Secret Service is involved,” he concluded. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Earlier on Wednesday, the UN responded to the incident in a statement to correspondents, titled “on UN escalators”.

Stéphane Dujarric, the UN spokesperson, said an investigation indicated that a videographer from the US delegation who had run ahead of the first couple to document their arrival may have “inadvertently triggered the safety function” designed to prevent people or objects from accidentally getting caught in the mechanism.

“As the videographer, who was traveling backwards up the escalator reached the top , the First Lady, followed by President Trump, each mounted the steps at the bottom,” Dujarric said. “At that moment (9:50am), the escalator came to a stop. Our technician, who was at the location, reset the escalator as soon as the delegation had climbed up to the second floor.”

Footage showed the 79-year-old president and the 55-year-old first lady stepping onto the escalator at UN headquarters, before it lurched to a stop. They both tighten their grip on the handrails as they turn around quickly to see what caused them to stall. Then Melania Trump begins to climb the steps, followed by her husband.

Trump’s Wednesday post suggests the president does not accept the UN’s conclusion into the mishap on the moving stairway and believes there was a wider conspiracy afoot.

While technical difficulties might have beset his delivery from behind the green marble lectern on Tuesday, Trump’s address was heard loud and clear around the world. In a combative speech, Trump bashed the UN and warned European allies that unless they curbed migration, their countries were “going to hell”.

During his speech, Trump swerved from his remarks to address his fateful entrance and, in his view, poor treatment at the assembly.

“All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle,” he said. “If the first lady wasn’t in great shape, she would have fallen, but she’s in great shape. We’re both in good shape, we’re both still. And then a teleprompter that didn’t work. These are the two things I got from the United Nations, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter.”

However, it seemed unlikely that the audio problem was as bad as Trump made it out to be since video of the room during his speech shows the audience reacting immediately to what he was saying.

Later that evening, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt alleged on Fox News that the elevator stoppage was part of an intentional plot to humiliate the US president.

“If we find that these were UN and staffers who were purposefully trying to trip up, literally trip up the president and the first lady of the United States, well, there better be accountability for those people. And I will personally see to it,” she said.

In his lengthy post on Wednesday afternoon, Trump pointed to a report in the Times of London newspaper on Sunday saying that UN staff members had joked that they would turn off the escalators and “tell him they ran out of money” – a jab at the sweeping US funding cuts.

“The people that did it should be arrested!” Trump wrote.

Asbestos, mould, rotten seagulls and cells flooding with excrement are among the problems experienced in crumbling courts in England and Wales, the Law Society has found.

The professional body for solicitors said deteriorating buildings and unreliable technology were contributing to the record backlog in crown courts and undermining confidence and trust in the justice system.

Almost two-thirds (63%) of respondents to the Law Society survey reported experiencing delays in cases being heard in the past 12 months because of the state of the courts. Some cases were adjourned, while others were moved online or transferred to different venues.

One respondent in South Shields, South Tyneside, said: “The court had to close early for two days within the last 12 months or so. This was because dead and rotting seagulls were within the roof insulation. The court had to close because maggots were literally raining down on to the lobby.”

More everyday problems included inadequate air conditioning, dilapidated toilets and poor technology, ranging from poor quality remote hearings to software problems and a lack of working plug sockets.

The Law Society president, Richard Atkinson, said: “The poor state of court buildings across England and Wales is both a contributor to the huge backlog of court cases and an illustration of the woeful lack of investment in our justice system. Government underfunding is denying us, our children and our businesses a vital public service.

“The backlog in our crown courts stands at more than 76,957 cases, while two-thirds of care cases in family courts take longer than the 26-week time limit. There are currently 35,475 open family court cases, according to recent statistics.

“Behind each of these statistics are tens of thousands of adults and children who could be freed from limbo and move forward with their lives if they could have their day in court.”

The survey found the same proportion of solicitors considered the physical state of the court fit for purpose only “to some extent” (55%) or “to a large extent” (17%) as in the last poll in 2022.

One in five of almost 300 respondents in the latest survey, which was published on Thursday, said the technology in the courts was “not at all” fit for purpose.

The Law Society said problems in the courts could deny clients access to justice – with many at risk of losing jobs and facing insecure housing situations – as well as wasting time and money.

Solicitors with a disability were significantly more likely to find the physical state of the courts “not at all fit” for purpose (45%) compared with those without (25%). This was owing to limited accessibility in court buildings, such as an absence of ramps and working lifts.

Issues with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac), associated with crumbling schools and other buildings, were highlighted at courts in Doncaster, Preston and Harrow.

A judicial office holder at Doncaster crown court said: “The magistrates court has Raac in the ceiling. Nobody has sought to fix it so the magistrates court has decamped to one half of the crown court (the other half occupied by the coroner’s court). If I am not in the one available court with a dock, I am operating in an office room being used as a courtroom with a kitchen as my retiring room.”

Atkinson said more must be done to address the £1.3bn courts’ maintenance backlog.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “This government inherited a justice system in crisis but is working flat out to ensure our courts and tribunals are safe, secure and equipped with the latest technology.

“We have already boosted capital funding to £148.5m and carried out around one million maintenance visits this year to make our buildings become fit for everyone who uses them.”

Barack Obama has said Donald Trump’s claims linking paracetamol to autism in infants is “violence against the truth” that could harm pregnant women if they were too scared to take pain relief.

Obama, who was being interviewed by David Olusoga at the O2 Arena, told the audience that Trump’s claims about paracetamol – branded as Tylenol in the US – had been “continuously disproved” and posed a danger to public health.

“We have the spectacle of my successor in the Oval Office making broad claims around certain drugs and autism that have been continuously disproved,” he said. “It undermines public health … that can do harm to women.”

On Monday Trump had said: “Taking Tylenol is not good … All pregnant women should talk to their doctors about limiting the use of this medication while pregnant.”

The comments were criticised by the UK health secretary, Wes Streeting, who encouraged women to ignore the president’s comments.

Obama argued there was a “tug of war” between two visions for the future of the US and humanity. On one side the progressive view where change came through democracy, the other driven by populists including Trump wanting a return to an older, more conservative worldview.

He said: “My successor has not been particularly shy about it. That desire is to go back to a very particular way of thinking about America, where ‘we, the people’, is just some people, not all people. And where there are some pretty clear hierarchies in terms of status and who ranks where.”

Obama was also critical of progressives who he said became “complacent” and “smug” in the 90s and 00s, “posturing that we believe in all these values because they were never tested. Now they’re being tested”.

The former president has generally kept a low profile after leaving office. But he has made increasingly frequent interventions as the political landscape in the US becomes more violent, restive and divided along partisan lines.

In London, Obama did not refer to Trump by name, only as “my successor”.

The evening started with Olusoga welcoming the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, who had been criticised by Trump on Tuesday during his speech at the UN in New York. Khan had responded by saying Trump had “shown he is racist, he is sexist, he is misogynistic and he’s Islamophobic”.

Obama is in London as part of a European speaking tour, which includes another date in Dublin on Friday. He is due to receive the Freedom of Dublin on Thursday.

A gunman fired at a Dallas immigration field office on Wednesday, killing one detainee and critically wounding two more, before killing himself in what authorities called an indiscriminate attack on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).

Here’s what we know about the attack so far:

• One detainee has been killed, with two others in critical condition. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said previously that two detainees had been killed and one injured, but issued a corrected statement. The Dallas police chief, Daniel Comeaux, said that the FBI is investigating the incident as an act of targeted violence. The shooter died from a “self-inflicted gun wound”, according to the secretary of the DHS, Kristi Noem.

• The DHS said no members of law enforcement were hurt in the attack. But Comeaux also said that officials would not be releasing the identities of any victims at this time.

• DHS officials say this was “an attack on Ice law enforcement”. At both today’s press conference and in a statement, law enforcement said that shell casings found near the shooter had “anti-Ice” messaging on them.

• The shooter has been identified as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn, according to NBC News – which cited several senior law enforcement officials.

• Dallas police said that shots were fired “from an adjacent building”. The DHS later added that the shooter “fired indiscriminately” at the Ice facility, “including at a van in the sallyport where the victims were shot”. All three victims were inside the van at the time the gunman opened fire.

• The Dallas field office where the shooting occurred is used for short-term processing of people in custody. The victims may have been recently arrested by Ice. The facility is along Interstate 35 East, south-west of a large commercial airport serving the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, and just blocks from hotels catering to airport travelers.

• Despite the fact that no federal agents were wounded in the shooting, the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, called the attack an “assassination”. For her part, Noem said that “these horrendous killings must serve as a wake-up call to the far left that their rhetoric about Ice has consequences”.

• Donald Trump instantly politicized the shooting, claiming in a social media post that it “is the result of the Radical Left Democrats constantly demonizing Law Enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished, and comparing ICE Officers to ‘Nazis.’”

• The vice-president, JD Vance, claimed without evidence that the shooting was carried out by “a violent leftwing extremist” who was “politically motivated to go after law enforcement”. While the FBI has said that authorities recovered shell casings with “anti-Ice messaging” near the shooter, officials have neither confirmed a motive nor corroborated Vance’s claims about the shooter’s ideological background.