Flash of light visible for hundreds of miles was an exceptionally bright meteor, say experts
A huge fireball dashed across the skies of western Japan, shocking residents and dazzling stargazers, though experts said it was a natural phenomenon and not an alien invasion.
Videos and photos emerged online of the extremely bright ball of light visible for hundreds of miles shortly after 11.00pm local time (1400 BST) on Tuesday.
Continue reading...MSF says low vaccination coverage and poor living conditions driving spread of deadly bacterial disease
Diphtheria cases are rapidly increasing across Somalia, officials and humanitarians warn, with children accounting for more than 97% of the cases.
Diphtheria, a highly contagious and deadly bacterial disease that mainly affects children, is preventable by a vaccine. While Somalia has improved vaccination rates in recent years, the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) blames the uptick in cases on persisting immunisation gaps.
Continue reading...US president handed Ukrainian leader symbolic keys to the White House in return during meeting in Washington
Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave Donald Trump a golf club during his visit to Washington this week that had belonged to a serviceman fighting Russia’s invasion, Kyiv said on Tuesday.
Trump, an avid golfer who owns several courses, accepted the gift and presented Zelenskyy with symbolic keys to the White House in return, the Ukrainian leader’s office said.
Continue reading...Pierre Poilievre returns to House of Commons after shock April loss and narrower margin in Tory stronghold
Canada’s Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, has won a closely watched byelection in the province of Alberta, giving him a chance to return to parliament after suffering a shock defeat in April’s federal election.
Poilievre finished with 80.4% of the vote after Monday’s election in the riding of Battle River-Crowfoot, in the deeply Conservative western province.
Continue reading...Israel under pressure to accept ceasefire proposal that is said to be almost identical to earlier US-backed plan
Israel has said it will deliver its response to international mediators by Friday over a new Gaza ceasefire plan accepted by Hamas amid mounting pressure for a truce in a war that has claimed more than 62,000 Palestinian lives.
After mass protests in Israel demanding a deal to secure the release of the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages held in Gaza, it appeared that Hamas had reduced its demands over a prisoners-for-hostages exchange as well as over the scope of an Israeli-demanded “security buffer zone”.
Continue reading...Qatar says no breakthrough has yet been made but Hamas has given ‘positive response’
The UN’s human rights office on Tuesday condemned a far-right Israeli minister for taunting a Palestinian prisoner in his cell and sharing the footage online, Reuters reports.
National security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir published a video on Friday last week showing him confronting Marwan Barghouti, the most high-profile Palestinian detainee in Israeli custody.
Continue reading...Leaders continue flurry of diplomacy amid uncertainty over whether Putin-Zelenskyy meeting will be agreed
European leaders are holding fresh talks after their White House meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy amid uncertainty over Vladimir Putin’s readiness to meet the Ukrainian president.
The so-called “coalition of the willing” will first meet virtually, co-chaired by Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, before joining a video conference hosted by the European Council president, António Costa.
Continue reading...Borrowers say higher repayments under changed Save plan means placing life on hold and creating further anxiety
When Faith, a 33-year-old in Burlington, North Carolina, went back to get her master’s degree in higher education administration in 2020-21, she hoped it would accelerate her career growth and maybe even help her get on the housing ladder.
Now, Faith has federal student loan debts of $38,113, and a repayment schedule that is much more demanding than she realized so she feels like the program stalled her progress.
Continue reading...Kiruna Kyrka’s slow journey is part of effort to stop town being swallowed by Europe’s biggest underground mine
After eight years of planning, a cost of more than 500m kronor (£39m) and an early morning blessing, a church in northern Sweden began a slow-motion 5km journey on Tuesday to make way for the expansion of Europe’s biggest underground mine.
The 672-tonne Kiruna Kyrka, a Swedish Lutheran church inaugurated in 1912, is to be slowly rolled to its new home over two days, at a pace of half-a-kilometre an hour.
Continue reading...Ukrainian designer Viktor Anisimov said outcome of crucial meeting with Trump was more important than fashion
On Monday evening, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, garnered compliments from Donald Trump and the White House press pool for his formal jacket and trousers.
But for the ensemble’s designer, Viktor Anisimov, the outcome of the meeting, not the verdict on the outfit, was of more concern.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: The Ukrainian president and fellow continental leaders descended on the White House to squeeze support from the US – did they get it?
Good morning. Last night, Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the White House flanked by a dream team of hastily assembled European heavyweights. Their aim: to coax Donald Trump out of pro-Russian positions he adopted after his Alaska meeting with Vladimir Putin last Friday.
The meeting was a sign of both panic and resolve from Europe. The fact Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and more cleared their diaries at such short notice to fly to Washington is an indication of how alarmed they are by Trump’s desire to move straight to a peace deal without a ceasefire – and his insistence that Zelenskyy give up Ukrainian territory.
Tax | Rachel Reeves is considering replacing stamp duty with a new property tax that would apply to the sale of homes worth more than £500,000, the Guardian has been told.
UK news | Exposure to pornography has increased since the introduction of UK rules to protect the public online, with children as young as six seeing it by accident, research by the children’s commissioner for England has found.
Conservatives | Leaked WhatsApp messages show Conservative MPs are worried that their party’s “piss-poor” messaging over asylum-seeker hotels is making the party look silly. It follows the release of an advert by Conservative campaign headquarters last week, making claims that have since been challenged as exaggerations, such as that asylum seekers receive free driving lessons and free PlayStation consoles.
Bolivia | Bolivia’s presidential election will go to a runoff, with two rightwing candidates seemingly the top runners. It’s an unprecedented scenario after nearly two decades of leftist rule by the Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas).
Environment | Relentless heat and disastrous wildfires continue to ravage southern Europe, with one-quarter of weather stations in Spain recording 40C temperatures and above, the latest in a series of disasters exacerbated by climate breakdown amid a continental rollback of green policies.
Continue reading...Court martial heard soldier was caught offering to share military base maps and photographs to an undercover officer of an unnamed foreign nation
A military court has convicted a New Zealand soldier of attempted espionage for a foreign power – the first spying conviction in the country’s history.
The soldier was caught offering to pass military base maps and photographs to an undercover officer posing as an agent for the foreign nation, the court martial heard.
Continue reading...Homeland security department claims agent shot in ‘self-defense’ after driver refused to roll window down
A federal agent fired at a moving vehicle in southern California after the driver refused to roll down his window during an immigration stop and sped off, the Department of Homeland Security said.
A DHS statement said the driver struck two US Customs and Border Protection agents as he drove away on Saturday, prompting one agent to fire his weapon “in self-defense”. No one was hit by the bullets.
Continue reading...New trial for Mylene Vialard after Minnesota judges find ‘pervasive’ prosecutorial misconduct in Line 3 protest case
The controversial felony conviction of a peaceful climate activist has been overturned by an appeals court due to “pervasive” prosecutorial misconduct.
Mylene Vialard, 56, was found guilty of felony obstruction in 2023 for her role in trying to halt construction of a fossil-fuel pipeline through Indigenous territory in Minnesota, in a trial beset by irregularities.
Continue reading...President reverses ceasefire position but says US will give Ukraine security help and expresses hope for trilateral talks
Donald Trump has ruled out a ceasefire in Ukraine as Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his European allies visited the White House to push for US-backed security guarantees as part of any long-term peace deal.
The US president, who only last week warned Russia of “very severe consequences” if Vladimir Putin failed to agree to a halt the fighting, made clear on Monday he had reversed his position.
Continue reading...Presidents, PMs and heads of Nato and European Commission accompany Ukraine’s leader at White House
European leaders gathered in Washington on Monday for Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, in a show of support for the Ukrainian president. Their presence came amid expectations that Trump would try to bully Zelenskyy into accepting a pro-Russia “peace plan” that would include Kyiv handing territory to Moscow. The Europeans have been described as Zelenskyy’s “bodyguards”, with memories fresh of the mauling he received in February during his last Oval Office visit. So, who are they?
Continue reading...Arbitrator orders 10,000 striking staff back to work after government intervenes – unconstitutionally, union says
Union leaders representing 10,000 striking flight attendants have said they would be willing to go to jail rather than comply with an order to return to work, as Canada’s federal government seeks to end a bitter contract dispute that has halted hundreds of summer flights and stranded travellers around the world.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, the national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees said members would remain on the picket lines as part of a work stoppage that has halted Air Canada’s national and international operations during its busiest season.
Continue reading...Family of Edgar Lungu trying to prevent repatriation of his body for state funeral presided over by his successor
A furious row is raging over whether the Zambian president, Hakainde Hichilema, will preside over the funeral of his predecessor, Edgar Lungu, as the former president’s family wage a legal battle in South Africa to try to prevent his body from being repatriated.
The legal fight marks the latest twist in a feud between the two men that goes back at least a decade and has now outlasted the former president, who died in South Africa in June aged 68 while being treated for an undisclosed illness.
Continue reading...Deal would include 60-day halt to violence and exchange of half of living Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners
Hamas officials say they have accepted a proposal for a Gaza ceasefire deal that would include the release of half of the approximately 20 remaining living Israeli hostages as part of a phased resolution to the war, as Gaza health officials said 62,000 Palestinians had died in the 22 months of war.
The proposed deal follows negotiations between Hamas and Egyptian and Qatari officials that have been taking place in Cairo in recent days, and comes after the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was confronted on Sunday by Israel’s biggest protests of the war, which called for a deal to secure the release of the hostages.
Continue reading...Marius Borg Høiby charged with 32 offences and could face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty
Marius Borg Høiby, the son of the Norwegian crown princess, has been charged with 32 offences including four counts of rape, a prosecutor has said.
Høiby, whose mother is the crown princess, Mette-Marit, and whose stepfather is the crown prince, Haakon, Norway’s future king, is expected to stand trial early next year and could face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of the most serious charges.
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