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Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro has said Americans must “universally condemn political violence, no matter where it is” after the killing of rightwing youth organizer Charlie Kirk as well as a deadly shootout in Shapiro’s state that left three police officers dead and two others injured.

Hours before Kirk’s funeral, Shapiro said that the nation stands at an “inflection point” and urged Americans to choose shared values over division, pointing to the solidarity shown by Pennsylvanians in the aftermath of the officers’ killings in York county last week.

“I think we’re at an inflection point as a nation, and I think we can go in a number of different ways,” Shapiro told moderator Kristen Welker on NBC News’s Meet the Press. “I hope we go the direction of healing, of bringing people together, of trying to find our commonalities – not just focus on our differences.”

Shapiro told Welker about his own recent experience with political violence: when his gubernatorial mansion was firebombed in April, an act that authorities suspect was carried out by a man unhappy with Shapiro’s support of Israel amid the Israeli war on Gaza.

Shapiro also referenced the murder of Minnesota state house speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in June. Authorities charged a man described by friends as right-leaning – and who had previously registered as a Republican in another state – with the Hortmans’ killings.

While Shapiro said he didn’t want to equate the gubernatorial’s mansion’s firebombing with the killing of Kirk and the Hortmans, he said, “Political violence leaves scars.”

Addressing arguments that criticism of political opponents may fuel violence, Shapiro pointed to longstanding US supreme court rulings that distinguish protected political speech from illicit incitement to violence.

He said most political speech – even if offensive, disliked or hateful – is legal and protected.

“There is a big difference,” Shapiro said.

The attack on the governor’s mansion took place in April, hours after Shapiro, his wife, their four children, two dogs and another family had celebrated Passover in one of the rooms that sustained damage in the blaze.

During Sunday’s interview, the governor criticized Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership and called for an end to the war in Gaza, saying “the suffering needs to stop” while adding that Hamas needed to be out of power as well.

Welker also asked Shapiro to comment on criticism about in a new memoir by Kamala Harris on her unsuccessful run for the White House against Donald Trump in 2024. As Welker put it, the book – 107 Days – portrayed him as losing out on the chance to be Harris’s running mate because he was more “focused” on defining his role than helping her defeat Trump as her “number two”.

“The only thing I was focused on was working my tail off to deny Donald Trump a second [presidency],” said Shapiro, who was mum about whether he would run for the White House in 2028, as many anticipate that he may.

“At the end of the day, this was a choice voters had between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. They made their choice.”

Zarah Sultana has said she will call off legal action announced as part of a bitter feud at the top of her fledgling party with Jeremy Corbyn.

The MP acknowledged on Sunday that people felt “demoralised” after the row over her push for members to sign up to Your Party, the political outfit she established with Corbyn.

Sultana, who had claimed she faced a “sexist boys’ club”, said she was “determined to reconcile” and was in talks with Corbyn.

“For the sake of the party, and as an act of good faith, I will not be pursuing legal proceedings despite the baseless and unsubstantiated allegations against me,” she wrote in a statement posted on X.

“I know many people are feeling demoralised – I share that feeling. We find ourselves in a regrettable situation, but my motivation has always been to ensure the collective strength of our movement, put members first and build the genuinely democratic conference and socialist party we so urgently need.

“I am determined to reconcile and move forward. I am engaged in ongoing discussions with Jeremy, for whom, like all socialists of my generation, I have nothing but respect.”

On Friday Sultana said she had instructed “specialist defamation lawyers” after she was “the subject of a number of false and defamatory statements” about her launch of the membership system.

It came after a message encouraging supporters of the outfit to sign up was disowned as an “unauthorised email” by Corbyn.

Sultana said she took the step because she had been “sidelined” and “effectively frozen out” by Corbyn and fellow independent MPs Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain, Iqbal Mohamed and Shockat Adam.

The Coventry South MP said: “Unfortunately I have been subjected to what can only be described as a sexist boys’ club: I have been treated appallingly and excluded completely.”

Top Democratic leaders on Sunday warned that Donald Trump’s drive to go after his political opponents is putting the US on a path to becoming a dictatorship and a “banana republic” just eight months into his second presidency.

The warnings came a day after Trump’s public call for the justice department to take action against perceived enemies – and after ABC yanked its late-night talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel off the air in the wake of a threat from regulators at the Federal Communications Commission who are loyal to the president. Such behaviors, along with others since his return to the Oval Office in January, has prompted many who are not fiercely aligned with him to describe him as an authoritarian.

Turning the justice department “into an instrument that goes after his enemies, whether they’re guilty or not … is the path to a dictatorship,” Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said on CNN. “That’s what dictatorships do.”

Schumer’s fellow Democratic senator Chris Murphy, meanwhile, suggested the US was already becoming a “banana republic”.

“The president of the United States is now employing the full power of the federal government, the FCC the department of justice, in order to punish, lock up, take down off the air all of his political enemies,” Murphy said on ABC.

ABC indefinitely took Kimmel’s show off the air after he criticized the Trump administration’s response to the 10 September shooting death of far-right political organizer Charlie Kirk – which in turn prompted FCC chairperson Brendan Carr to threaten to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC stations.

“This is one of the most dangerous moments America has ever faced,” Murphy said. “We are quickly turning into a banana republic.”

In a social media post Saturday addressing “Pam” – evidently attorney general Pam Bondi – Trump fumed over the lack of legal action against US senator Adam Schiff of California and New York attorney general Letitia James, both Democrats.

Schiff and James are among a handful of people who have been accused by a close Trump ally, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte, of falsifying documents on mortgage applications.

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump said.

On Friday, the federal prosecutor who was overseeing the probe into James resigned, after the attorney – Erik Siebert – reportedly insisted there was insufficient evidence to charge her with mortgage fraud.

Siebert, US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, reportedly told staff of his resignation via an email on Friday. Trump claimed Saturday on social media that he fired Siebert.

Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated to win his first presidency, echoed Schumer’s criticism. She called Trump’s moves a “very dangerous turn in our politics”.

“What we’re hearing now from the White House and their supporters (is) that this may, you know, lead to even further political action, legal action, prosecutorial action, intimidation of all kinds,” Clinton said on CNN.

Outgoing Republican congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska, in response to a question about the Trump administration and Kimmel, separately told CNN that “there have been some wrong statements made, to say the least”.

“To threaten media and say you’re going to pull their license – that’s not what America’s about,” said Bacon, who has decided against running for re-election in the 2026 midterms. “And we do have a freedom of speech, freedom of the press. And we should defend that.”

Schiff and James have separately clashed with Trump, leading investigations that the Republican president alleges were political witch-hunts.

During Trump’s first presidency, Schiff – then a member of the US House – led the prosecution at Trump’s first of two impeachment trials, which was based on allegations he pressured Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election. Schiff also served on a select House committee which investigated the January 6 attack on Congress carried out a pro-Trump mob which wanted to keep him in office after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

In between Trump’s presidencies, James brought a major civil fraud case against him, alleging he and his company had unlawfully inflated his wealth and manipulated the value of properties to obtain favorable bank loans or insurance terms.

A state judge ordered Trump to pay $464m in that suit, but a higher court later removed the financial penalty while upholding the underlying judgment.

The Liberal Democrats should drop their stunts and offer a more serious policy programme if they want to gain support among voters, according to a study presented at the party’s annual conference.

Polling by the More in Common thinktank, shown to Lib Dem members at the gathering in Bournemouth, suggested that while it has the scope to go beyond its historic total of 72 MPs at the last election, many voters tempted by the party remain uncertain about what it stands for.

A particularly notable finding was that more than 60% of voters thought stunts by party leader Ed Davey during the general election were not appropriate when the nation faced so many challenges, with only 21% saying they were a good way to get attention.

The feeling was strong even among current Lib Dem voters, 47% of whom worried that Davey’s sequence of image-friendly escapades risked making the party appear less serious.

Davey’s photo opportunities during the election campaign, including a bungee jump and going on a water slide and a rollercoaster, were credited with helping the party break through, and were tied to policy announcements.

While they have been scaled back, at this year’s conference Davey arrived at the venue at the head of a marching band while, at its opening rally on Saturday, former leader Tim Farron condemned what he called the aggressively nationalistic use of the union jack and St George’s cross, with the audience all given small union flags to wave.

Lib Dem officials argue that the party does have a suite of properly costed policies, expanded beyond the election focus on key issues such as the NHS and care and waterway pollution.

Ahead of the conference, Davey set out proposals to call a national emergency over asylum as a way to clear the long backlog of unprocessed cases and stop refugees having to spend years in limbo.

In her speech on Sunday, Daisy Cooper, the party’s deputy leader and Treasury spokesperson, set out a plan to target big banks with a windfall tax on profits, with the money used for initiatives to cut people’s energy bills.

Speaking at the fringe event where the More in Common study was presented, Calum Miller, the Lib Dems’ foreign affairs spokesperson, denied the continued use of stunts was hampering the party.

“We all know that one of the reasons the strategy of doing something visually appealing was adopted by Ed and by the party was so that we would get coverage in the media,” he said.

“And those of you who saw the photos of Ed with his marching band yesterday, or even for that matter, the photos of a sea of union jacks at the rally, will have seen that it was covered extensively across the media.”

Privately, other MPs and officials take a similar view. “It’s all about the balance,” one said. “With the stunts, even when a paper does negative coverage it comes with a large picture of Ed looking happy and empathetic.”

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The More in Common research, based on polling in August and September, found while the Lib Dems are stuck on close to 15% support, a total of 30% of the electorate are open to backing the party.

With many of the new seats won by Lib Dems last year considered defendable, even an election now could see the party win more than 100 seats, it found.

In less positive news for Davey, only a third of voters polled said they would have confidence in the Liberal Democrats as part of a coalition government, while many remained uncertain about what the Lib Dems stand for.

However, the party has seen rapidly increasing support among younger voters, likely in part due to its strong position on Gaza. Davey boycotted last week’s state dinner with Donald Trump over the lack of US efforts to push Israel to seek peace.

The Lib Dems were also notably more vehement than Labour in condemning the language seen at last weekend’s far-right march in London.

Speaking to reporters after her speech, Cooper said she opposed the recent spate of hanging flags from lamp-posts and other street furniture: “If you want to display your patriotism, you can put a flag up in your house, in your window. Putting it on public property can send a different kind of message.”

In the spring of 2012, David Cameron was prime minister and British troops were still fighting in Afghanistan under the stewardship of the then defence secretary, Philip Hammond.

Before deploying, soldiers from the UK would be flown 3,000 miles south-west of Helmand province, to Kenya, for hot weather training. They would train at Batuk, the British army base that still operates today, close to Nanyuki, a poor market town in the east of the country.

In a town that struggles with poverty, unemployment and limited economic opportunities, many women in Nanyuki would turn to selling sex for money – British soldiers being a lucrative source of trade.

Agnes Wanjiru, a 21-year-old hairdresser and mother to a five-month-old baby, was among them. On the night she disappeared, in late March 2012, she was last seen in the bar of the Lion’s Court hotel, a popular haunt with British soldiers, where she had been drinking with two friends, Florence Nyaguthii and Susan Nyambura.

The next morning, when Agnes failed to return home, her family and friends began looking for her. They spent weeks searching, until, about two months later, Agnes’s body was found in a septic tank in the grounds of the hotel.

In the years since then, her disappearance has been the subject of a number of criminal investigations and inquests, Agnes’s family campaigning to get answers while caring for Stacey, the daughter she left behind.

Over the course of 13 and a half years, the campaign was spearheaded by her niece Esther Njoki and sister Rose Wanyua Wanjiku, who saw power pass between six prime ministers and seven defence secretaries in the UK, and three presidents in Kenya, before they saw any progress.

Their campaign was cast into the international spotlight, and was given added momentum, when the Sunday Times, almost four years ago to the day, began reporting on Agnes’s case.

Serving and former soldiers who were in Kenya at the time Agnes disappeared spoke out, with several coming forward to name a suspect in the case.

It put renewed pressure on the governments of both countries, amid anger and protests in Kenya over Britain’s continued military presence in the region. Separately, the renewed interest in the case also resulted in a fresh police investigation, led by Kenyan detectives, with the support of the UK’s royal military police.

With jurisdiction in the case resting with Kenya, detectives flew out from Nairobi to the UK to question suspects and witnesses, many of them British soldiers.

After almost a decade and a half with no arrests, no court appearances, and no convictions, it seemed unlikely that there would ever be a breakthrough in the case.

Yet on Tuesday, the high court in Nairobi issued an arrest warrant for Robert James Purkiss, a former British soldier, originally from Greater Manchester.

It is only an arrest warrant, with the charges set before the Kenyan court not proven. Purkiss would need to be extradited in order to face those charges.

It means the Kenyan government will first need to submit an extradition request to the UK Home Office, which will need to be certified by the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, and sent to the courts, with extradition cases normally heard at Westminster magistrates court.

For a suspect to be extradited, the court must be satisfied there are reasonable grounds for believing the conduct described is an extradition offence, and only then will a warrant be issued in the UK and a suspect arrested.

A date would then be set for an extradition hearing in front of British judge, which Purkiss would have the opportunity to contest, before the separate criminal proceedings could take place in Kenya. The case is next due to be mentioned at court in Nairobi on 21 October.

If Purkiss is successfully extradited to face trial in Kenya, the criminal proceedings would look different to those in the UK; the jury system was abolished in Kenya at the end of colonial rule.

Similar to in a UK criminal case, a defendant has the opportunity to plead guilty or not guilty, and if a case goes to trial, the prosecution and defence will set out their respective cases, with the opportunity to cross-examine each other’s witnesses.

However, it is the presiding judge who makes a decision in a case, rather than a citizen jury, with legal expert assessors, who assist the judge in determining facts, used in some cases, particularly more serious trials.

Neither the Home Office nor the Ministry of Defence has disclosed whether a request for extradition has yet been submitted by the Kenyan government.

“Our thoughts remain with the family of Agnes Wanjiru and we remain absolutely committed to helping them secure justice,” a UK government spokesperson said.

“We understand that the Kenyan director of public prosecutions has determined that a British national should face trial in relation to the murder of Ms Wanjiru in 2012.

“This is subject to ongoing legal proceedings and we will not comment further at this stage.”

Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch will probably be part of a group of investors that will buy TikTok, Donald Trump said in an interview on Sunday.

The president was asked about the status of the sale of the app during an interview with Peter Doocy on The Sunday Briefing on Fox News. Trump administration officials have signaled that a deal for the Chinese-owned social media platform was imminent, though there has been some confusion about the status of the agreement.

Trump said moguls Larry Ellison and Michael Dell were involved in the deal before adding: “I hate to tell you this – a man named Lachlan is involved. You know who Lachlan is? That’s a very unusual name, Lachlan Murdoch.

“Rupert is probably gonna be in the group, I think they’re gonna be in the group, a couple of others. Really great people. Very prominent people. And they’re also American patriots, they love this country, so I think they’re gonna do a really good job.”

Representatives for Fox – which is owned by Rupert Murdoch and whose chief executive officer is Lachlan Murdoch – did not immediately return a request for comment.

Trump’s comments came after he subjected Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal to a lawsuit in connection with the outlet’s publication of allegations that the president composed a crude poem and doodle as part of a book compiled for the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003.

Congress passed a law in 2024 banning TikTok, owned for now by the China-based company ByteDance, unless it was sold to a US company, citing national security and privacy concerns. The Trump administration has thwarted that law, extending the deadline for a transfer several times. The app has about 170 million users in the US, and Trump on Sunday credited it with helping him win a second presidency in 2024.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Saturday that six Americans will sit on the company’s seven-seat board – and that data and privacy would be controlled by Oracle, Ellison’s company. The US would also control the app’s data and algorithm in America, according to Leavitt.

“This deal does put America first,” Leavitt said on Saturday, invoking one of Trump’s preferred political slogans. “And let me just be very clear. This deal means that TikTok will be majority-owned by Americans in the United States.”

Hundreds of thousands of passengers at Heathrow and Berlin airports faced flight delays on Sunday after a cyber-attack hit check-in desk software, while cancellations at Brussels airport suggested that disruption for Europe’s air travel would continue into Monday.

Airlines were forced to revert to slower manual check-ins from Friday night after the attack hit Collins Aerospace, which provides check-in desk technology to various airlines.

Brussels airport on Sunday afternoon asked airlines to cancel half of the departing flights scheduled for Monday. The airport said Collins “is not yet able to deliver a new secure version of the check-in system”, and confirmed it was a cyber-attack.

Airports urged passengers to check the status of their flights before travelling and asked them to arrive no earlier than three hours before long-haul flights and two hours before shorter journeys.

Collins said on Saturday it was dealing with a “cyber-related incident”. The hack joins a long line of attacks that have hit major companies in recent months. The UK’s biggest automotive employer, Jaguar Land Rover, has been unable to produce any cars for three weeks because of a hack, while the British retailers Marks & Spencer and the Co-op were also hit by separate attacks earlier this year.

Airlines were still able to check in passengers manually.

At Heathrow 90% of more than 350 flights had been delayed by 15 minutes or more, while six were cancelled by 3pm on Sunday afternoon, according to the data company Flightradar24. The average delay was 34 minutes. Thirteen flights were cancelled on Saturday, although the vast majority of hundreds of flights were delayed.

A Heathrow spokesperson said the “underlying problem was outside our influence” but added that the airport had brought in extra staff to help cope with any disruption. It is understood that Heathrow has not mandated any cancellations for Monday, and the majority of flights are expected to be operating.

“Work continues to resolve and recover from Friday’s outage of a Collins Aerospace airline system that impacted check-in,” Heathrow said in a statement. “We apologise to those who have faced delays, but by working together with airlines, the vast majority of flights have continued to operate.”

In Brussels 86% of flights by 3pm on Sunday had been delayed at the airport at Zaventem, one of two serving the Belgian capital. Delays ranged from 15 minutes to four hours.

The airport said 15% of its scheduled flights would be cancelled overall this weekend. It cancelled 25 departures out of 234 on Saturday, and 50 out of 257 on Sunday “in order to avoid long queues and late cancellations”, a spokesperson said.

In Berlin 73% of about 200 flights were delayed. “Due to a systems outage at a service provider, there are longer waiting times,” Berlin airport said on its website. “Please use online check-in, self-service check-in and the fast bag drop service.”

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Dublin airport also said it was affected by the attack, with the majority of flights from the Irish capital delayed.

On Saturday, Collins Aerospace said “cyber-related disruption” had affected its Muse software used for electronic customer check-in and baggage drop.

Collins is owned by New York-listed RTX, one of the world’s largest aerospace and weapons conglomerates. The company said it was “actively working to resolve the issue and restore full functionality to our customers as quickly as possible”.

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre said it was working with Collins, UK airports and British law enforcement to assess the impact of the incident.

The UK has formally recognised Palestine as an independent state, Keir Starmer has announced.

The deeply symbolic move comes seven decades after the end of the British mandate in Palestine and the formation of the state of Israel.

Canada and Australia on Sunday also made their own formal declarations recognising Palestine before a conference of the UN general assembly in New York.

The UK prime minister said: “The hope of a two-state solution is fading but we cannot let that light go out … Today, to revive the hope of peace and a two-state solution, I state clearly as prime minister of this great country, that the UK formally recognises the state of Palestine.”

He added: “In the face of the growing horrors in the Middle East we are acting to keep alive the possibility of peace and a two-state solution. That means a safe and secure Israel, alongside a viable Palestinian state. At the moment we have neither.”

London sees the step as a lever to push for a lasting settlement to end the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. Under that envisioned deal, a reformed and elected Palestinian government, stripped of Hamas influence, would operate alongside Israel.

The move is not being portrayed as a punishment of Israel, but it is unlikely the step would have been taken if the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had conducted the military campaign in Gaza with less ferocity and greater regard for international law.

Speaking shortly before the announcement, a spokesperson for Netanyahu said he viewed the recognition as “absurd and simply a reward for terrorism”.

In an attempt to address criticisms of the move from the US and Israel, Starmer insisted that recognition was not a reward for Hamas, and the UK would introduce further sanctions against senior figures in the militant group in coming weeks.

He said: “Let’s be frank, Hamas is a brutal terror organisation. Our call for a genuine two-state solution is the exact opposite of their hateful vision. So we are clear, this solution is not a reward for Hamas, because it means Hamas can have no future, no role in government, no role in security.”

Calling on Israel to allow more aid into Gaza, Starmer added: “The man-made humanitarian crisis in Gaza reaches new depths. The Israeli government’s relentless and increasing bombardment of Gaza, the offensive of recent weeks, the starvation and devastation are utterly intolerable. Tens of thousands have been killed, including thousands as they tried to collect food and water. This death and destruction horrifies all of us. It must end.”

Starmer announced in July that the UK would recognise Palestine by the time of the UN general assembly, which begins next week, unless Israel abided by a ceasefire and committed to a two-state solution in the Middle East.

It came after intense pressure from within the Labour party for action, given the increasing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and follows parallel plans by France and Canada.

Starmer said recognition would take place unless Israel agreed to a series of conditions set out in the UK-led eight-point peace plan, and backed by allies.

These were for Israel to take “substantive steps” to end the situation in Gaza, reach a ceasefire, and commit to no annexation in the West Bank as well as a long-term peace process. Starmer spoke to Netanyahu before the announcement.

As part of the move, the UK can now enter into treaties with the Palestinian government and will recognise Husam Zomlot as the full Palestinian ambassador to the UK, requiring the ambassador to present his credentials to King Charles.

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world map showing which countries have recognised Palestine and when

The UK’s recognition of Palestine comes as part of an internationally coordinated effort. More than 150 countries are expected to have recognised Palestine by the end of next week, although some may set conditions.

The US, now in effect opposed to a two-state solution, has rejected the UK move.

Prompting the UK’s decision is anger at Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and a sense that if Britain did not act now Israel would, through annexation, have destroyed the last hope of Palestinian self-determination.

The UK hopes that formal recognition of Palestine could help preserve the idea of a two-state solution, as supported by itself and many other nations, in which the state of Palestine coexists next to Israel.

UK officials worry that Netanyahu’s government aims to make this effectively impossible by annexing the West Bank or making Gaza so uninhabitable that Palestinians are forced over the borders into Jordan or Egypt.

The UK has said it envisages a Palestinian state in which Hamas is disarmed, plays no part in the future government, and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority is subject to elections within a year.

The requirement for Hamas to stand aside, seen as a precondition of recognition by France, was backed in the New York declaration endorsed by the Arab states on 29 July and then passed by the general assembly on 12 September.

Speaking before the formal announcement, David Lammy, the deputy prime minister, who was foreign secretary when the recognition timetable was agreed, said much of the idea was “wrapped up in hope”.

“Will this feed children? No it won’t, that’s down to humanitarian aid. Will this free hostages? That must be down to a ceasefire,” he told BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.

He added: “What do we say to the children of a future Palestinian state? Do we say we have to wait for the perfect conditions before we can recognise a Palestinian state?”