Pontiff presides over culmination of ‘Catholic Woodstock’ that drew young people from 146 countries
Pope Leo XIV presided over a mass in Rome for more than a million young people on Sunday, the culmination of a pilgrimage that has drawn Catholics from across the world.
“Aspire to great things, to holiness, wherever you are. Do not settle for less,” the pope told the crowd.
Continue reading...Singer of hits such as Houdini, One Kiss and Training Season was born in London to Kosovan-Albanian parents
Singer Dua Lipa has said she is “feeling grateful” after being awarded citizenship of Kosovo by the country’s president.
The 29-year-old was born in London to Kosovan-Albanian parents, Anesa and Dukagjin Lipa, and moved to the country’s capital of Pristina aged 11, when her family returned after Kosovo gained its independence in 2008, before moving back to London aged 15.
Continue reading...SchwuZ, a 50-year-old dance hotspot, falls victim to inflation and rising rents threatening Berlin’s club scene
Germany’s “oldest and biggest” gay dance club has declared itself bankrupt after nearly half a century in business, falling victim to inflation and an evolving party culture threatening Berlin’s nightlife.
Management troubles and dating apps were among the factors putting SchwuZ on the ropes last year and in May the club shortened its opening hours, laid off staff and asked regulars for help to plug a growing shortfall, to little avail.
Continue reading...Scientists record longest streak of temperatures higher than 30C in region in records going back to 1961
Cold Nordic countries are being seared by “truly unprecedented” heat, as hot weather strengthened and lengthened by carbon pollution continues to roast northern Europe.
A weather station in the Norwegian part of the Arctic Circle recorded temperatures above 30C (86F) on 13 days in July, while Finland has had three straight weeks with 30C heat.
Continue reading...Scientists record longest streak of temperatures higher than 30C in region in records going back to 1961
Cold Nordic countries are being seared by “truly unprecedented” heat, as hot weather strengthened and lengthened by carbon pollution continues to roast northern Europe.
A weather station in the Norwegian part of the Arctic Circle recorded temperatures above 30C (86F) on 13 days in July, while Finland has had three straight weeks with 30C heat.
Continue reading...Scientists record longest streak of temperatures higher than 30C in region in records going back to 1961
Cold Nordic countries are being seared by “truly unprecedented” heat, as hot weather strengthened and lengthened by carbon pollution continues to roast northern Europe.
A weather station in the Norwegian part of the Arctic Circle recorded temperatures above 30C (86F) on 13 days in July, while Finland has had three straight weeks with 30C heat.
Continue reading...Order comes after president’s anger at tweet from Dmitry Medvedev which called Trump’s threat to sanction Russia over Ukraine a ‘step towards war’
Donald Trump has said that he has deployed nuclear-capable submarines to the “appropriate regions” in response to a threatening tweet by Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev, suggesting that he would be ready to launch a nuclear strike as tensions rise over the war in Ukraine.
In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump wrote that he had decided to reposition the nuclear submarines because of “highly provocative statements” by Medvedev, noting he was now the deputy chairman of Russia’s security council.
Continue reading...Family say Ameiya Del Brocco and younger brother Ricardo Junior were ‘beautiful, bright, and deeply loved children’
A British brother and sister who drowned off a beach on the north-eastern coast of Spain have been named as Ameiya Del Brocco, 13, and 11-year-old Ricardo Junior.
Their father, Ricardo Senior, who had also entered the water, was rescued by local emergency services after the incident during a family holiday in the Catalan town of Salou on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Russian president’s remarks come as Kyiv rescuers find more than a dozen dead in apartment block after strikes
Vladimir Putin has said he wants a “lasting and stable peace” in Ukraine but given no indication that he is willing to make any concessions to achieve it, after a week in which Russian missiles and drones again caused death and destruction across Ukraine.
“We need a lasting and stable peace on solid foundations that would satisfy both Russia and Ukraine, and would ensure the security of both countries,” said Putin, speaking to journalists on Friday, a week before a new deadline imposed by Donald Trump for hostilities to cease.
Continue reading...Martial arts fighter loses attempt to overturn jury’s order that he compensates Nikita Hand
Conor McGregor has lost an appeal in Ireland over a civil court ruling last year awarding damages to a woman who accused him of rape.
Three judges at the court of appeal in Dublin dismissed all the grounds for appeal raised by McGregor, 36.
Continue reading...Reversal of curbs adopted the previous week comes as Russia attacks capital with drones and missiles
Ukraine’s parliament has passed a law restoring independence to two anti-corruption bodies, essentially annulling another law adopted last week that prompted the biggest street protests since Russia’s full-scale invasion three years ago.
Several hundred protesters outside the parliament building in Kyiv erupted into chants of “the people are the power” as the bill passed on Thursday lunchtime.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Years of preparation and global coordination ensured communities from Japan to Hawaii were not caught off guard
Good morning. Yesterday one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded hit a sparsely populated region in far east Russia.
It triggered a tsunami that started crossing the ocean at hundreds of miles an hour. What followed was a race against time – early warning systems went into alert mode as waves fanned out towards the coastlines of Japan, Hawaii and the US west coast.
Travel | The head of the UK’s air traffic control company is facing calls to resign after hundreds of flights were delayed when the system went down for about 20 minutes on Wednesday.
Israel-Gaza war | A British-Israeli woman who was held hostage by Hamas for more than 15 months has accused Keir Starmer of “moral failure” after he set the UK on course to recognise a Palestinian state. Emily Damari, 29, who was released in January, said the prime minister was “not standing on the right side of history” and should be ashamed.
UK news | The co-founder of Palestine Action can bring a legal challenge to the home secretary’s decision to ban the direct action group under anti-terrorism laws, a high court judge has ruled.
Environment | Ethnic minorities and people living in the most deprived areas of England are at increased risk of dying due to excess heat, according to new research.
Technology | Five million extra online age checks a day are being carried out in the UK since the Online Safety Act introduced age-gating for pornography sites, according to new data from the Age Verification Providers Association.
Continue reading...Move follows protests in Ukrainian cities over bill passed last week that curtailed independence of two bodies
Ukraine’s parliament will vote on a new law on Thursday that would restore independence to two anti-corruption bodies, backtracking on a law passed last week that curtailed their powers and led to a political crisis.
Last week’s legal changes prompted rare wartime street protests against the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and accusations that the presidential office was trying to protect powerful associates from anti-corruption investigations.
Continue reading...Alleged driver in car rampage that killed six and injured 300 people sends at least five survivors appeals for ‘forgiveness’
The suspect in a deadly car ramming at a packed German Christmas market has written to victims of the rampage in letters sent to their homes with agitated appeals for “forgiveness”, triggering outrage from recipients.
A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office in the state of Saxony-Anhalt confirmed that at least five people injured in the attack in Magdeburg in December last year that killed six people, including a six-year-old child, had received correspondence this month from the Saudi doctor Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, who is in pretrial detention in Berlin.
Continue reading...Incidents across northern Europe on 26 and 27 July have left scientists trying to understand why so many of the deep-diving whales have appeared
A series of strandings of one of the world’s deepest dwelling and most rarely seen types of whale in the last few days has left experts baffled over why they might have appeared in such numbers.
Beaked whales are used to deep ocean waters and are so rarely seen that some species have only ever been identified through dead specimens. But on 26 and 27 July there were reports from western Ireland, Orkney in Scotland and the Netherlands of these whales being stranded, raising concerns that human actions could be implicated in the animals’ deaths.
Continue reading...Trump will need to approve pause, say US representatives after negotiations end with sides failing to break deadlock on trade terms
US and Chinese negotiators have agreed in principle to push back the deadline for escalating tariffs, although America’s representatives said any extension would need Donald Trump’s approval.
Officials from both sides said after two days of talks in Stockholm that while had failed to find a resolution across the many areas of dispute they had agreed to extend a pause due to run out on 12 August.
Continue reading...Man said chants began when a cashier shouted ‘Free Palestine’ after noticing he and his son were wearing kippahs
A Jewish father and his six-year-old son were targeted by a mob on Sunday chanting “Free Palestine” and “murderers” at a service station near Milan, with the man eventually pushed to the floor and repeatedly kicked, in the latest of a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across Europe.
According to the victim – a 52-year-old French Jew who lives in France and gave his name only as Elie– the incident began when a cashier shouted “Free Palestine”, upon noticing that he and his son were wearing kippahs.
Continue reading...Missile attack on prison in frontline region of Zaporizhzhia kills 16 as Kyiv hopes for US action against Moscow
Russia launched one of its deadliest night assaults on Ukraine for months in the early hours of Tuesday, the day after Donald Trump said he was setting a new deadline of “10 or 12 days” for Russia to make progress towards ending the war or face new sanctions.
A series of Russian strikes across the country killed at least 25 people, Ukrainian officials said, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman and more than a dozen prison inmates. About 100 people were injured across the country.
Continue reading...US president expresses frustration with Putin after meeting with UK PM amid pressure on Russia for ceasefire
Donald Trump’s timeline for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine has sped up, the president said while visiting Nato ally Great Britain on Monday.
“I’m going to make a new deadline of about 10, 10 or 12 days from today,” Trump said in response to a question while sitting with the British prime minister, Keir Starmer. “There’s no reason in waiting. There’s no reason in waiting. It’s 50 days. I want to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made.”
Continue reading...Two countries open three-day conference at United Nations with goal as part of peaceful settlement to end war in Gaza
Saudi Arabia and France have opened a three-day conference at the United Nations with the goal of recognising Palestinian statehood as part of a peaceful settlement to end the war in Gaza.
The conference began on Monday, just days after the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Paris would officially recognise the Palestinian government in September in an effort to reinvigorate peace talks around a two-state solution that have all but been written off since the deadly Hamas raid and ensuing Israeli military operation that began in 2023.
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