Delhi plans to ban petrol rickshaws and scooters in effort to cut toxic fumes

Government hopes for 30% of city’s fleet to be electric by 2030, in move hailed as ‘gamechanger’ on air pollution

The unruly chaos of Delhi’s roads would be unrecognisable without the rickshaws and scooters that zip through India’s capital in their millions, emitting toxic fumes in their wake. But now, ambitious policies aim to give the city’s most recognisable vehicles an environmental makeover.

On Monday, Delhi’s government announced plans to eventually ban petrol scooters, motorbikes and autorickshaws in favour of those running on electricity, in an attempt to bring down dangerously high pollution levels in the city by the end of the decade.

Continue reading...

‘Humanity is a privilege’: Umar Khalid on his six years in an Indian jail without trial

Exclusive: Activist tells of his life as one of India’s most prominent political prisoners and his opposition to the government of Narendra Modi

Prison is hardest at sunset. As the thousands of prisoners incarcerated in Delhi’s most infamous jail are cast out of their cells and forced into the dank yard until darkness falls, prisoner number 626714 feels the punishing dread begin to rise.

Yet the inmate – better known as Umar Khalid – was recently moved to discover that another political prisoner, exiled at a camp thousands of miles from India, wrote of the very same feeling more than 150 years ago.

Continue reading...

Venezuelans newly deported from US missing after hotel collapse

More than 100 people removed on ICE flight were being held in hotel in La Guaira when earthquakes struck

More than 100 people just deported from the United States were being held in a hotel when earthquakes struck Venezuela, setting off a scramble to find survivors and bodies buried in the rubble, according to survivors.

A deportation flight from Miami arrived in Venezuela hours before Wednesday’s earthquakes. Onboard were 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, according to ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First, which tracks deportation flights. They were transported to a hotel in La Guaira.

Continue reading...

Officials release names of three firefighters killed in Colorado wildfire

Emily Barker, Nick Hutcherson and Sydney Watson killed working to contain raging fires on Utah-Colorado border

The US Department of Interior on Monday released the names of three firefighters who were killed while working to contain wildfires along the Utah-Colorado border.

Two other firefighters who were part of the specialized helicopter-deployed crew were also injured in the blaze, although authorities did not identify them.

Continue reading...

Trump claims Iran has agreed to hold peace talks in Doha after recent clashes

US president posts that meeting will take place on Tuesday in Qatari capital after exchange of fire in strait of Hormuz

Donald Trump has claimed that Iran has agreed to hold talks in Doha after the US and Tehran traded fire in the strait of Hormuz this weekend, threatening the collapse of a ceasefire meant to keep the strait open and pave the way for peace talks.

In a terse post on Truth Social, the US president claimed the meetings would take place in the Qatari capital, as US media reported that the two sides had agreed to halt strikes after tit-for-tat attacks that once again cut off shipping through the crucial waterway.

Continue reading...

Six adults killed in shooting at youth welfare facility in Stade, Germany

Four women among the dead and two people arrested after incident in city west of Hamburg

Four women and two men have been killed in a shooting at a youth welfare facility ⁠in northern Germany, police said. Two people including the suspected ⁠shooter were arrested.

The incident took place in Stade, a city close to the port city of Hamburg, on Monday afternoon. Police said the victims, employees of the shelter, were all shot inside the building. Five died at the scene and the sixth died in hospital. Police said the death toll could rise.

Continue reading...

Iran is jealously competing with Oman as decision-maker over strait of Hormuz

Tehran believes it should control the shipping route but its neighbour has its own plans for reopening it

The strait of Hormuz is Iran’s chief bargaining tool in the negotiations with the US and so it was always likely to be the greatest point of contention. Every inch of the 24-mile-wide waterway is being contested in a test of wills and patience.

For Iran, the continuation of the dispute is not a problem so long as it does not lose control.

Continue reading...

Europe heatwave shows need to reject climate denial ‘lies’, says EU green chief

Teresa Ribera blames ‘ideologically driven’ falsehoods, driven by those with vested interests in fossil fuels, for attacks on green policy

The heatwave wreaking chaos across Europe is a “dramatic warning” to reject climate naysayers, a European Commission vice-president says.

Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for a clean, just and competitive transition, lambasted those who listened to the “vested interests” of the fossil fuel industry rather than scientists and their own citizens.

Continue reading...

Pakistani airstrikes kill dozens in eastern Afghanistan

Pakistan says strikes were aimed at a terrorist group while Taliban condemn ‘cowardly act of aggression’

Pakistani airstrikes in three eastern provinces of Afghanistan killed 36 civilians and wounded 163 others, Afghan officials have said, as attacks between the two countries showed no sign of abating.

Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said the operations on Sunday night were aimed at a terrorist group his country blamed for a deadly militant attack in Karachi that killed three security personnel over the weekend.

Continue reading...

Extreme heat continues in central and eastern Europe with temperatures of 38C expected – Europe live

Germany, Czechia, Poland and Hungary reached record temperatures of more than 40C on Sunday

Good morning, or dzień dobry, from Warsaw, Poland as the heatwave that affected much of the continent last week continues to impact central and eastern Europe.

It’s 9am local time and already 32C. I have seen two people cycling home with large fans, trying to get back before the heat hits the fan again. None of this is normal.

Continue reading...

‘We were broke, but fascinated by freedom’: exhibition showcases East German artist Gabriele Stötzer

Show at Martin Gropius Bau gallery in Berlin is biggest ever celebration of an East German female artist in a state museum

Gabriele Stötzer remembers the days when she had to decide: “Am I buying a sausage, or film for my Super 8 camera?”

Stötzer was one of the most radical artists in communist East Germany, and her desire to create was born in defiance of and in spite of the material conditions and oppressive restrictions of the GDR regime.

Continue reading...

Shares in chipmakers underpinning AI boom rocket in first half of 2026

Value of some chip manufacturers have tripled, or more, driving Asia Pacific stock markets sharply higher

Shares in chipmakers have surged in the first half of this year as investors piled into companies that make the hardware underpinning the AI boom, according to analysis.

Investors have driven up the value of semiconductor and memory chip manufacturers, whose profits have soared during 2026, at the expense of some large software companies, which have fallen out of favour this year.

Continue reading...

Putin admits Ukrainian strikes driving Russian fuel shortages

Russia’s president says Ukraine’s attacks on infrastructure are causing ‘obvious’ but not critical problems

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, acknowledged that the country was suffering from “a certain shortage” of fuel in an interview published by the Kremlin on Sunday, after repeated Ukrainian strikes in their four-year war.

Kyiv calls the attacks fair retribution for Russia’s near-daily barrages on Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure since its February 2022 offensive.

Continue reading...

Heatwave and high humidity to blast much of US: ‘impactful to anyone’

Forecasters expect days of high temperatures in central and eastern US before Fourth of July and World Cup festivities

A long and dangerous heatwave will blast a large swath of the central and eastern United States for the upcoming week, the National Weather Service (NWS) said on Sunday – with temperatures rising ahead of the Fourth of July holiday and feeling even hotter because of high humidity also arriving.

Already parts of the US, especially Phoenix and central Texas, and much of the south-west were experiencing temperatures of about 100F (38C) on Sunday, while the NWS warned of severe wildfire conditions developing across much of the west as new fires popped up across the region.

Continue reading...

US homeland security secretary tells migrants to seek permanent status or leave

Markwayne Mullin’s remarks come after controversial supreme court ruling to strip TPS from over 350,000 people

Migrants in the US on temporary protected status should seek permanent residence or leave, Markwayne Mullin, Homeland Security secretary, said in the wake of last week’s supreme court decision that stripped humanitarian protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

The remarks to CNN’s State of the Union program comes after a decision ⁠that could allow Donald Trump’s administration to deport Haitian and Syrian immigrants to home countries plagued by conflict and ​destitution.

Continue reading...

Fresh hostilities in Gulf suggest US-Iran memorandum was too broadly worded

Document appears to have been subject to conflicting interpretations on key issues of Lebanon ceasefire and strait of Hormuz

The sudden eruption of fresh hostilities in the Gulf – just 10 days after Iran and the US signed a memorandum of understanding to end the conflict – threatens to put the two countries back on the path to war.

It appears the deliberately opaque wording in the memorandum has been unable to withstand the pressure of conflicting interpretations, and as a result supporters of the deal inside Tehran are on the back foot. Statements to the effect that Iran’s government should never have agreed to reopen the strait of Hormuz are proliferating – and not just among the country’s hardliners.

Continue reading...

Donald Trump threatens to annihilate Iran after crossfire over Hormuz – as it happened

Iran attacked Bahrain and Kuwait after US strikes, and threatened a ‘complete halt’ to talks

We will soon be closing this liveblog, but you’ll be able to stay up-to-date with our ongoing coverage of the Middle East here.

Here is a summary of today’s events:

Iran launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to US airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” in negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks.

US president Donald Trump accused Iran of violating the ceasefire agreement in a post of social media and said the US may be “forced to militarily complete the job”. Iran also accused the US of violating the ceasefire agreement.

JD Vance continued to reiterate the administration’s triumphant line on the war with Iran hours before the latest round of strikes were exchanged. “America wins either way,” he said.

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi was in Baghdad for a meeting with his Iraqi counterpart. He called for a security framework to be established with the Gulf nations after it struck US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain in retaliation to US strikes.

The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps IRCG has said on state-run SNN TV that it will respond with more force if there are any more blow-for-blow attacks from the US.

Countries including Jordan, the UAE and Italy all condemned Iran’s attacks.

Continue reading...

Escalating US-Iran strikes threaten interim peace agreement

Tehran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait amid efforts to open strait of Hormuz without Iran’s direct oversight

A new round of escalating strikes between Iran and the US has continued, further undermining the fragile interim peace agreement between the two countries, and prompting Donald Trump to threaten violence that would ensure Iran “will no longer exist”.

On Sunday, Tehran launched drone and missile attacks against Bahrain and Kuwait after new US strikes on sites in southern Iran, and threatened a “complete halt” to negotiations to end the war. Trump said that a moment might come soon when he abandoned talks and the US would “militarily finish the job”.

Continue reading...

French skydiving plane crashes near Nancy, killing all 11 onboard

Five students and five instructors dead along with pilot after plane fell suddenly near aerodrome, says prefect

A skydiving plane has crashed in north-eastern France, killing all 11 people onboard, according to the region’s prefect.

The parachuting-school plane crashed near Nancy at 11am, said Yves Séguy, the prefect of the Meurthe-et-Moselle region.

Continue reading...

Good-faith lawsuit? LDS church in fight with podcaster over Mormon name

Church sues excommunicated member over Mormon Stories podcast but John Dehlin says name free for all to use

Trademark changes and copyright infringement disputes take many forms. Dunkin’ Donuts changed its name to Dunkin’ because Donuts did not suggest the vigorous, on-the-go attitude the coffee company wants to project.

But what happens when a church changes its name, but former adherents continue to use the original term in ways it may not like?

Continue reading...