Motorist held in Osaka on suspicion of attempted murder after seven children injured, according to local media
Police in the Japanese city of Osaka have arrested a man on suspicion of attempted murder after he drove his car into seven schoolchildren, according to local media.
The children were walking home from school when the suspect appeared to deliberately drive the car at them on a quiet residential street at about 1.30pm local time, the public broadcaster NHK reported.
Continue reading...Witnesses tell of ‘walls of flame’ surging across woodland, while high winds disrupt Independence Day events
Wildfires continued to threaten swaths of forest and fields in Israel on Thursday, though firefighters successfully reopened the main road linking the country’s two principal cities.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, declared a national emergency after the fires broke out on Wednesday along the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, prompting police to shut the route and evacuate thousands of people from nearby communities.
Continue reading...While details remain to be finalised, Zelenskyy may have have secured a better agreement than first seemed likely
There is cautious optimism in Kyiv over the terms of the long-discussed US-Ukraine minerals deal, signed on Wednesday, which appear to be more advantageous for Ukraine than most had expected.
Many details are still to be finalised and will be written into a yet-to-be-signed further technical agreement, suggesting that the long saga over the deal may not be quite over. But Ukrainian analysts have noted that Kyiv has apparently been able to extract some major concessions, despite Donald Trump’s repeated claim that Ukraine “has no cards” to play.
Continue reading...Kyiv-based Centre for Civil Liberties says tortured inmates bypassed amid focus on territory and security guarantees
Ukrainian and Russian civil society leaders have called for the unconditional release of thousands of Ukrainian civilians being held in Russian captivity, pushing for world leaders to make it a central part of any peace deal.
Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Kyiv-based Centre for Civil Liberties, which won the 2022 Nobel peace prize, said most of the discussion on ending the conflict, led by Donald Trump’s administration, focused solely on territories and potential security guarantees.
Continue reading...Administration in touch with Nayib Bukele over detention of wrongly deported man, according to two people
The Trump administration has been in touch directly with the Salvadorian president Nayib Bukele in recent days about the detention of Kilmar Ábrego García, the man wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The nature of the discussion and its purpose was not clear because multiple Trump officials have said the administration was not interested in his coming back to the US despite the US supreme court ordering it to “facilitate” Ábrego García’s release.
Continue reading...Likelihood of potentially devastating quake above 8.0 magnitude in next 50 years is 15%, study states
A massive earthquake in the Pacific north-west could rapidly transform areas of the coast from northern California to Washington, causing swaths of land to quickly sink, “dramatically” raising sea level and increasing the flood risk to communities.
That’s according to a new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examining the potential impact of the “big one”, a powerful quake along the Cascadia fault that stretches from Canada to California.
Continue reading...Spain’s environment minister Sara Aagesen promises ‘complete audit’ into causes of power outage
Spain’s environment minister has warned against attempts to blame Monday’s unprecedented blackout across the Iberian peninsula on the increasing use of renewable energy, defending the reliability of the national grid and promising a “complete audit” to establish the causes of the outage.
Speaking on Wednesday afternoon as a specially designated committee prepared to meet to investigate the blackout, Sara Aagesen pushed back at opposition parties’ claims that the socialist-led government’s drive to embrace renewable energy had compromised the grid’s stability.
Continue reading...Teenager held on suspicion of murder after attack at hair salon in university city, say prosecutors
A 16-year-old has been detained on suspicion of shooting and killing three people in the city of Uppsala, according to Sweden’s prosecution authority.
“An intensive investigation is under way. We are now gathering information and the police are conducting door-to-door inquiries and interviewing witnesses,” the authority said in a statement. In addition, mobile phones and other material that have been seized are being analysed.”
Continue reading...Two permanent members of UN security council could make move at conference in June on two-state solution
The UK is in discussion with France and Saudi Arabia over the recognition of a Palestinian state at a June conference convened by the two countries on keeping alive the political path to a two-state solution in the Middle East, the UK foreign secretary has said.
David Lammy’s comments mark the first time the UK has acknowledged that a discussion with France about a recognition process around the conference is under way.
Continue reading...CBF reportedly considering red jersey ahead of World Cup but rightwingers consider the colour anti-patriotic
“Our flag will never be red!” rightwing Brazilians took to chanting during the heyday of the left-bashing former president Jair Bolsonaro.
But their football shirts soon might be, amid incendiary reports that the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) is considering introducing a crimson jersey for the national team ahead of the 2026 World Cup.
Continue reading...Mohsen Langarneshin is accused of being ‘senior spy’ for Mossad, but human rights groups say he was innocent
Iran has executed a 36-year-old man it accused of helping the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, kill a senior officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Tehran in 2022.
Iranian state media said Mohsen Langarneshin was hanged, the usual method of execution in Iran, at Ghezel Hesar prison early on Wednesday morning.
Langarneshin’s family and human rights groups insisted the former IT consultant was innocent of the charges against him and that any reported confessions were obtained by torture or blackmail.
Continue reading...At least 16 civilians and security officials killed in Druze-majority areas around capital on Wednesday
At least 16 civilians and security officials have been killed in clashes in a town near Damascus, Syria’s interior ministry reported, the second consecutive day of fighting in Druze-majority areas around Syria’s capital.
Reports on Wednesday said fighting had started overnight in the town of Ashrafiah Sahnaya, south-west of Damascus, after unknown gunmen attacked a security checkpoint. An attack on the Druze-majority Damascus suburb of Jaramana a day earlier left at least 10 people dead, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Continue reading...Norway’s state energy company’s $2.5bn project off coast of New York was almost a third finished
Norway’s state energy company may take Donald Trump’s administration to court after it ordered an “unprecedented” halt to a $2.5bn (£1.87bn) windfarm project off the coast of New York.
Equinor is considering its legal options after the US interior secretary, Doug Burgum, ordered the company to “immediately halt all construction activities” on an offshore windfarm last month.
Continue reading...RAF jets target buildings used to make drones, officials say, in Britain’s first involvement since Trump took office
British fighter jets joined their US counterparts in airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels overnight, the first military action authorised by the Labour government and the first UK participation in an aggressive American bombing campaign against the group.
RAF Typhoons, refuelled by Voyager air tankers, targeted a cluster of buildings 15 miles south of the capital, Sana’a, which the UK said were used by the Houthis to manufacture drones that had targeted shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Continue reading...Leaked documents indicate Harita, owner of key nickel mine in Indonesia, did not reveal water contamination
One of Indonesia’s largest nickel-mining companies, which supplies a mineral critical to the global electric car industry, did not tell the public that local drinking water was polluted, according to documents seen by the Guardian.
Indonesia has become the world’s biggest producer of nickel, used in the production of wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicle batteries. But observers have voiced concerns that regulatory oversight in the country has failed to keep up with the rush to develop mines to satisfy booming global demand.
Continue reading...Thousands of South Africans are hoping to move to the US to escape crime –and what they say is discrimination against white people
Kyle believed God was looking out for him when he survived a violent farm robbery in South Africa eight years ago with only a black eye and broken ribs. The robbers failed to get the kettle and iron working, so were unable to burn anyone. Then the gun trigger jammed when they tried to shoot Kyle in the spine.
“They specifically said they were coming back for this farm … [that] it was their land,” said the 43-year-old, who did not want to use his full name. “Only afterwards, we found out that the guy that stays on the plot was actually killed … the farmhand … I don’t know what his name was.”
Continue reading...Thousands gather to see parade featuring marching troops and an air show of Russian-made fighter jets and helicopters
Thousands of Vietnamese people have celebrated the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war, in what the country’s communist leader said was a “victory of justice over tyranny”.
Celebrations culminated in a grand parade in Ho Chi Minh City with thousands of marching troops and an airshow featuring Russian-made fighter jets and helicopters, as Vietnamese waved red flags and sang patriotic songs.
Continue reading...Former top official calls for Rodney Scott to be blocked from CBP role over handling of investigation into Anastasio Hernández Rojas’s death
Rodney Scott, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead Customs and Border Protection (CBP), has been accused by a former top official of orchestrating a “cover-up” over the death of a man detained while trying to enter the country from Mexico, according to a letter obtained by the Guardian.
Scott is a former US border patrol chief who has supported the president’s vow to build a wall along the border with Mexico and criticized Joe Biden’s handling of immigration policy. As commissioner of CBP, Scott would lead one of the largest federal law enforcement agencies, which encompasses the border patrol and staffs ports of entry across the United States.
Continue reading...Texas officials say 87 patients hospitalized as researchers say country at tipping point for return of endemic measles
Measles cases in Texas rose to 663 on Tuesday, according to the state’s health department, an increase of 17 cases since 25 April, as the US battles one of its worst outbreaks of the previously eradicated childhood disease.
Cases in Gaines county, the center of the outbreak, rose to 396, three more from its last update on Friday, the Texas department of state health services said.
Continue reading...Accusation from UN agency comes as Red Crescent medic held since deadly Israeli attack on ambulances is freed
The embattled UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, has accused Israel of abusing dozens of its staff in military detention and using some as human shields.
The head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, said that more than 50 staff members, including teachers, doctors and social workers, had been detained and abused since the start of the 18-month-long war in Gaza.
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