The determination came five days after a hearing in Oakland, California, in which Judge White allowed the head of a humanitarian group, a medical intern and three Palestinian Americans with relatives in Gaza to tell the court that their loved ones were being slaughtered. They alleged that the US government endorsed a genocide by supporting Israel's military response to the October 7 Hamas attacks.

“President Biden could end this with one phone call,” Laila el-Haddad said, a Palestinian activist and author living in Maryland, told the judge. She said Israeli strikes had killed at least 88 members of her extended family in Gaza. “My family is being murdered on my dime.”

Judge White, who had called the testimony “heartbreaking” last week, wrote that the evidence and testimony “indicate that the ongoing military siege in Gaza is intended to exterminate an entire people.”

But, he added, “there are rare cases where the desired outcome is not accessible in court.”

This, he wrote, was such a case: “It is the duty of every individual to confront the current siege in Gaza, but it is also the duty of this Court to remain within the limits of its jurisdiction .”

Legal precedent limits judicial power over U.S. presidents over foreign policy decisions, and administration lawyers had argued that regardless of testimony on Gaza, the White House and Congress have the constitutional prerogative to determine policy on determine Israel.

However, in a notable aside, Judge White, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, urged President Biden to reconsider U.S. policy on the military siege, writing that “it is plausible that the conduct of Israel amounts to genocide.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs said they would challenge the decision but were encouraged by the judge's comments.

“Although we are disappointed with the outcome, we are very pleased that the court has recognized that it is likely that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza,” said Marc Van Der Hout, attorney for the plaintiffs, “and that the United States is responsible for that genocide.” .”

Katherine Gallagher of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, noted that the court “used extremely strong language.”

“We hope that the executive branch heeds the court's call,” she said, “as the situation on the ground in Gaza remains dire.”

According to Israeli authorities, Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking 240 others hostage. In the months since, Israel has bombed the Palestinian enclave of Gaza in an attempt to crush Hamas, which controls the area. Local health officials in Gaza say more than 25,000 people have been killed there, including thousands of children, and most of the 2.2 million people living there have been displaced and facing famine.

The unusual legal action in California was filed on November 13 by Palestinian humanitarian groups and eight individual supporters. It accused President Biden, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III of violating common federal law by defying customary international laws that bind the U.S. to the 1948 Genocide Convention.

The lawsuit asked Judge White to order the president and his administration to “take all measures within their power” to stop “the commission of genocidal acts by Israel against the Palestinian people of Gaza.” It also sought court orders to halt aid to Israel and to prevent the White House from “obstructing efforts by the international community, including the United Nations, to implement a ceasefire.”

The hearing earlier this month came hours after the United Nations' highest judicial body Israel ordered to prevent genocidal acts by its forces, but did not call for an end to the war in Gaza.

The International Court of Justice responded to South Africa's allegations that Israel's military response was intended to deny Palestinians their right to exist.

It was an unusually candid moment on the This Morning sofa last month when BBC golden boy Paddy McGuinness announced his own demise.

To promote his tour – the first in eight years – he was asked by host Emma Willis why he was returning to his roots as a stand-up comedian.

“Um… well, the money's gone now, it took about eight years to spend it all and I thought, 'Oh, I've got to build it back up,'” he told her. The jaws dropped in the studio, insiders of the program tell me. It seemed unthinkable that one of the most watched faces on television was admitting money problems.

Then, just before Christmas, the star posted a photo to Instagram of two mugs along with the captions “his” and “hers,” sparking rumors that he was in a relationship after a difficult divorce from ex-wife Christine McGuinness.

It was quite a contrast to this time two years ago, when 50-year-old McGuinness seemed to have it all. A beautiful wife, three children and four major shows on the BBC.

Now, just weeks after his candid television appearance, he is about to enter a potentially bitter and expensive divorce battle with Christine, his loyal partner of nearly two decades.

Yesterday, proceedings to end their marriage began, with Christine hiring no-nonsense family lawyer Catherine Bedford from top London firm Harbottle and Lewis.

Nicknamed the 'pit bull', she represented Ant McPartlin's wife Lisa in her bitter battle with the I'm A Celeb star, while she also acts for Games of Thrones star Sophie Turner, who split from American singer Joe Jonas last year .

A friend of Christine's tells me: 'The gloves are off, she was good to Paddy, she stayed at home and raised his children while he earned money.

'It will be an expensive divorce for Paddy. Christine has had enough.'

Things have been just as bad on screen, despite McGuinness being announced as the new presenter of A Question of Sport in September 2021, as well as hosting Top Gear, I Can See Your Voice and Catchpoint.

As he made his confession, you had to wonder if McGuinness, the funny man from the north who rose to fame on the comedy circuit with the help of fellow comedian Peter Kay in series such as That Peter Kay Thing, Phoenix Nights and Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere, was already aware that A Question of Sport was about to be scrapped. Last month the BBC announced that the quiz show had come to an end after 53 years. Those who worked on the program said ratings had “gone down the drain” since McGuinness arrived.

I Can See Your Voice and Catchpoint had already been canceled by the BBC and Top Gear had recently been paused following Freddie Flintoff's crash. McGuinness' biggest gig, as presenter of ITV's Take Me Out, ended in 2019.

Meanwhile, Channel 4 also seems to have run out of luck. Insiders say it is 'unlikely' that his big budget show Tempting Fortune will return.

His deal with Marks & Spencer as an ambassador for their food range also appears to be over.

So what has caused the cheeky funnyman, once synonymous with the catchy phrase 'no lighty, no like' – coined a few years ago in Take Me Out – to fall from grace so quickly?

Television executives tell me that his high-profile divorce in 2022 had had “an absolutely cataclysmic effect” on his work.

He has long portrayed himself as the loving husband and father. The McGuinnesses even made BBC documentaries about their struggles, which made them all the more appealing. Their show, Paddy and Christine McGuinness: Our Family and Autism – their three children have the condition – was praised for highlighting the issues faced by so many families.

So when, after countless denials that their marriage was in trouble, they announced that they had decided to go their separate ways, it came as a shock. In a joint statement on Instagram, the couple said: 'A while ago we made the difficult decision to part ways, but our main focus as always is continuing to love and support our children.

“This was not an easy decision, but we are moving forward as the best parents we can be to our three beautiful children. We will always be a loving family, we still have a great relationship and still live happily together in our family home.'

It was, say television insiders, the beginning of the end for Paddy.

A TV chef said: 'Paddy and Christine were absolutely loved by the public as a couple, they seemed normal and down to earth.

“Although Christine dabbled a bit in TV, she was too busy with the kids when they were younger, but then she decided to come and show the world who she was.”

Sources close to the couple say McGuinness wasn't sure, but 35-year-old Christine – a former beauty queen who was also on the Real Housewives of Cheshire – went ahead anyway.

In 2021, she took part in ITV's Strictly The Real Full Monty, a show in which celebrities bare all to highlight the importance of checking your body for cancer. I'm told Paddy initially had his doubts, but having recently been diagnosed with autism herself, Christine saw this as another opportunity to raise awareness of the condition and face her fears.

She also wanted to pay tribute to her mother Joanne, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020 and received treatment while filming the show.

Despite his initial reservations about her participation, McGuness later showed his support for his wife by posting enthusiastic messages on Instagram and watching the final episode in public.

Three months later in 2022, Christine took part in reality show The Games, a Channel 4 show that pitted celebrities against each other in Olympic-style events, and where she became close friends with celebrities including Love Island star Olivia Attwood and former football player Chelcee Grimes. Again, it's implied that this was something McGuinness wasn't too keen on.

McGuinness' apparent lack of enthusiasm for his wife's latest venture was picked up on by fans who even took to social media to ask him why he hadn't posted words of encouragement for her.

It wasn't lost on his Top Gear co-star Flintoff, 46, who co-presented The Games with Holly Willoughby. During a segment of Christine dancing around her spear, Freddie said: 'I'm not sure Paddy will like it – no like.'

In July 2022, it was reported in The Sun on Sunday that the end came when Christine was told McGuinness had kissed a star after they appeared on a TV show together. The woman was never named, although Christine knows her identity and was said to be “devastated” after learning about it during the Games.

Just a week later, it was reported how McGuinness had also sent direct messages on social media to a BBC presenter, which Christine discovered in March 2022. Clearly this was a contributing factor to the relationship ending. McGuinness never responded to the allegations.

BBC insiders say rumors about his behavior were unpopular with viewers. He had been hired by the company to appeal to a family audience, but his private life increasingly became what he was best known for – something broadcast chiefs had a 'vague view' of.

Behind the scenes, McGuinness allegedly tried to convince Christine that they shouldn't divorce because they could do a lot more together as a couple, but she refused to budge.

“She was only 19 when she met him and is enjoying this new life,” said a friend of the star.

In April last year, the BBC commissioned Christine to create a solo show, Christine McGuinness: Unmasking My Autism, which was described as 'a heartfelt journey of self-discovery' in which she discovers 'a hidden world of thousands of autistic women who, just like them, have been ignored by science and society.'

BBC bosses are said to be so impressed with her that they are already discussing more projects.

The BBC's decision to give McGuinness the coveted role of host of Question of Sport after Sue Barker was fired was a definite feather in his cap. Yet BBC bosses are said to privately 'regret' their decision to get rid of 67-year-old Sue.

McGuinness was chosen to pursue the younger audience and was always considered a funny star who was popular across all age groups.

But with the TV shows – and the paycheques – drying up, it looks like it's time for Paddy to go back to basics and start all over again.

Humanity continues to find itself in a 'time of unprecedented danger'.

That is the conclusion of scientists behind the Doomsday Clock, a symbolic timepiece that indicates how close the end of the world is.

The clock was updated today and remained at 90 seconds to midnight – the theoretical point of destruction.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which determines where the hands are placed, said this is the closest thing to a global catastrophe since it began in 1947 at the end of World War II.

The researchers cited the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and advances in artificial technology – which many commentators are calling the new nuclear arms race.

Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the bulletin, said: “Conflict hotspots around the world carry the threat of nuclear escalation, climate change is already causing death and destruction, and disruptive technologies such as AI and biological research are advancing faster than their safeguards.'

She added that leaving the symbolic timepiece unchanged from the previous year “is not an indication that the world is stable.”

'Quite the opposite. There is an urgent need for governments and communities around the world to take action,” Bronson explains.

“And the Bulletin remains hopeful – and inspired – to see younger generations taking the lead.”

Established by American scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, which led to the first nuclear weapons during World War II, the Doomsday Clock is a symbolic countdown to represent how close humanity is to completing a global catastrophe.

Artist Martyl Langsdorf was commissioned to create the timepiece and tasked with creating an image that would “scare people into rationality,” according to Eugene Rabinowitch, the first editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

The scientists wonder whether humanity is safer or at greater risk this year than compared to the previous and the same question, but compared to the more than 75 years that the Doomsday Clock has existed.

And so they determined where time will stand.

The war in Ukraine was largely behind the scientists' 2023 decision, but continued bombings, deaths and nuclear war threats have played a role in this year's Doomsday Clock.

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, in an escalation of the war that began in 2014.

“A lasting end to Russia's war in Ukraine seems remote, and Russia's use of nuclear weapons in that conflict remains a serious possibility. Over the past year, Russia has sent numerous nuclear signals of concern,” Bronson said.

She further explained that Putin's announcement to use nuclear weapons also contributed to the Bulletin's decision.

In addition, in October 2023, the Russian parliament passed a law that revokes ratification of the global treaty banning nuclear weapons tests.

Putin also threatened the West with total nuclear annihilation in 2013; the country has more than 5,800 nuclear warheads in its arsenal.

The war in Gaza was also cited as a factor in leaving the Doomsday Clock unchanged.

The conflict began on October 7, when Hamas gunmen launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing more than 1,400 people and taking 220 hostages.

The unprecedented strike reignited the ongoing war between the two nations.

More than 25,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health.

“As a nuclear state, Israel's actions are clearly relevant to the Doomsday Clock discussion,” Bronson said.

'Of particular concern is that the conflict could escalate more broadly in the region, triggering a larger conventional war and attracting more nuclear or near-nuclear powers.'

When the clock was first created, the greatest danger came from nuclear weapons. Climate change was taken into account as a factor for the first time in 2007.

Climate change was also part of the scientists' decision, noting that “the world entered 'unloaded territory' for climate impacts last year, with conditions exceeding past extremes by huge margins.”

Data showed that 2023 was the warmest year on record, with a global average temperature of 58.96°F, about 0.3°F higher than the previous record holder – 2016.

“A lack of action on climate change threatens billions of lives,” Bronson said during the live-streamed event.

Bronson also expressed concern about biological threats amid the revolution in life sciences and related technologies.

Biological research aimed at preventing future pandemics has proven useful, but also carries the risk of creating one, she said.

“And recent advances in artificial intelligence raise all kinds of questions about control over a technology that could enhance or threaten civilization in countless ways.”

They were two of the most famous couples in the world – with enough glamour between them to rival the Hollywood stars of the day, from Cary Grant and Paul Newman to Natalie Wood and Deborah Kerr. 

So when US President John F Kennedy and his First Lady, Jackie were entertained by Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace  in June 1961, the visit drew unparalleled interest.   

The visit was part of a trip to Europe by the couple in the wake of JFK’s election and his inauguration as a youthful president in November 1960. The optimism was overwhelming.

For the Queen and Philip, too, it was the start of something remarkable: their arrival on the world stage as celebrities, an aspect of royal life now so ingrained it is hard to remember things were ever different.

The optimism was cut short, of course, and all too soon. Sixty years ago, on November 22, 1963, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas. 

Nothing would be the same again – not for America and its presidents, and not for the British Royal Family, who would from then on find their lives protected and stifled in a thick blanket of security.

In the space of just three years, the Monarchy had been transformed. 

There had already been enormous interest in the glamorous – and chic – Mrs Kennedy when the couple were hosted by President Charles de Gaulle in Paris and honoured with a grand dinner at the Palace of Versailles.

President Kennedy had quipped at a press conference: ‘I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris’.

There was interest on this side of the Channel, too. The Prime Minister of the day, Harold Macmillan, was reported to have admiringly told Queen Elizabeth that the First Lady had charmed President de Gaulle by speaking French fluently.

Perhaps a hint at rivalry between the two women was evident when the Queen, herself a good French speaker, was said to have retorted: ‘Well, we can all do that’.

This was a time of huge change across the world. Just two months earlier, with the Cold War at its height, Kennedy had faced the greatest challenge of his presidency when he took on Fidel Castro.

His Republic predecessor, General Eisenhower, had plotted to overthrow Castro with an invasion by US-trained Cuban exiles, alongside paramilitary officers trained by the CIA. 

Kennedy endorsed this plan and the invasion  via the Bay of Pigs began on April 17, 1961. But within two days the Cubans had overcome the American forces with hundreds killed and almost 1200 captured. 

By the time Kennedy visited Europe, negotiations were continuing for the troops’ release.

American and British foreign policy of the time focused not only on Russia and Cuba but also on the turbulence of Africa, as its nations sought independence from European empires. 

When Kennedy gave a landmark speech on his foreign policy at St Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, in May 1960, he talked not only about the Soviet Union, but  Africa too, hinting at support for independence, saying: ‘For we too, founded a new nation on revolt from colonial rule’. 

Three months earlier, Harold Macmillan had addressed the parliament of South Africa in Cape Town, saying: ‘The wind of change is blowing through this continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact.’

At the centre of this gathering storm was the Queen, for as her biographer, historian Ben Pimlott put it: ‘The Commonwealth, in Asia, as well as Africa, was changing by the month.’

As nations chose independence, the Queen was often no longer head of state, but she helped to keep many former colonies linked to Britain through her heading of the Commonwealth.

By the time Kennedy arrived in London, plans were well underway for The Queen to visit Ghana, which had become a republic but was remaining in the Commonwealth. 

It was going to be a very tricky tour, in a country where citizens were denied civil liberties, British officers had been sacked from its army and politicians made anti-British speeches. 

By the time the Queen was due to visit in November 1961, the atmosphere in Ghana was volatile and anti-British. 

Macmillan was not sure the Queen should still go, but she insisted. Another tension was over American funding of the Volta Dam project in Ghana.

 Kennedy, after meeting the Queen, and then being impressed by her courage over insisting she went to Africa, decided to support the Dam.

Africa, Russia – no doubt these were topics of conversation at that June 1961 banquet, as well as lighter conversation about the two couples’ children and the love of horses shared by the two women. 

Although Kennedy presented Elizabeth with a signed portrait of himself in a silver Tiffany’ frame, with a message he had handwritten: ‘To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, with appreciation and the highest esteem, John F Kennedy,’ the mood remained somewhat cool.

Tensions over the guest list didn’t help. 

In 1961, divorce was still a no-go area for the Royal Family, having caused Edward VIII to abdicate in 1936, and the Queen’s sister to renounce her relationship with the divorcee Group Captain Peter Townsend, whom she had hoped to marry, in 1955.

So when the Queen saw the names of Jackie Kennedy’s London-based sister, the divorced Princess Lee Radziwill, and her husband, Prince Stanislaw Radziwill, who was on his third marriage, on the list, she at first vetoed them. 

Eventually, she relented, keen to avoid a diplomatic row, but retaliated by leaving off Princess Margaret and Princess Marina, whom Jackie had specifically asked to be included. 

Jackie confided to the writer Gore Vidal: ‘The Queen had her revenge. No Margaret, no Marina, no one except every Commonwealth minister of agriculture they could find.’

No doubt the Queen had been briefed about the First Lady’s interest in art, and gave Jackie a personal tour of Buckingham Palace, with its remarkable collection of art.

It was a moment depicted in the second episode of The Crown, where the Queen, played by Claire Foy, talks to Jackie about the pressures of their public roles. 

The Crown then suggested that Jackie later told guests at another dinner that Elizabeth is ‘a middle-aged woman so incurious, unintelligent and unremarkable that Britain’s new reduced place in the world was not a surprise but an inevitability,’ and that Buckingham Palace was ‘second-rate, dilapidated and sad, like a neglected provincial hotel.’ 

Word was said to have got back to the Queen.

Either it is an entirely fictional account or the Queen had a particular talent for not holding grudges. The following year, when Jackie was again in London, visiting her sister, the Queen invited her to lunch.

It was not the final time that the Queen met Jacqueline Kennedy.

Deeply affected by both the widowing of young Jackie, mother of two small children, as well by the slaying of a democratically elected leader, Queen Elizabeth helped create a lasting memorial to the young president near Windsor Castle.

She made a gift to the United States of an acre of land beside the River Thames at Runnymede, close to the place where Magna Carta was signed by King John in 1215. 

The memorial garden, designed by the landscape artist Gordon Jellicoe, includes 47 steps, one for each year of Kennedy’s life. Each step is different, symbolising human individuality and freedom – ideas that inspired Magna Carta and the American constitution.

The opening ceremony was held in May 1965, petty squabbles about dinner guests, fashions and interior design forgotten.

 Photographs of the ceremony show the Queen with Mrs Kennedy and her two children, with John junior, just four years old, holding the hand of a fatherly Prince Philip. 

Behind them was Robert Kennedy, who was to die by another assassin’s bullet three years later.

On that day, Mrs Kennedy planted an American oak, whose leaves turn the colour of blood, and form a red pool around the monument each November at the time of the anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination.

It was not the only lasting impact of the killing of JFK for the Royal Family. After that, anxiety about public figures’ vulnerability increased.

 Though the Royal Family in the following years would engage in walkabouts and continue to meet the people, their advisers subtly enhanced their security, whether in Britain or on trips abroad. 

When the Queen visited Canada in 1964, there was grave concern about her safety at a time when French separatists were becoming not only increasingly vocal about Quebec’s independence but threatening violence too. 

Asked whether Quebec could be another Dallas, Dr Marcel Chaput, a separatist leader, retorted: ‘It could’. 

There was alarm in the British press about the tour. While the early days of the visit in eastern Canada saw her welcomed by Canadian, no chances were taken with Quebec.

Destroyers escorted Britannia up the St Lawrence river, while Quebec City, when she arrived, was like a city under siege, with barriers and Mounties everywhere, and the local police, armed with riot sticks, arresting suspicious characters.

 There were no bombs, or assassination attempts, but instead boos and cries of ‘Chez vous’ – the Quebecois words for go home.

 What the Queen might have said in reply was that she was ‘chez moi’ already, as Canada’s head of state.

What she had not done was ever suggest she should not go to Quebec. 

‘I must be seen to be believed’, she once famously said. But the tragic death of JFK meant the freedom that the Kennedy monument celebrated could not be hers. 

The world had changed.

• Catherine Pepinster is the author of Defenders of the Faith – the British monarchy, religion and the coronation.