Europe and UK pour 17,000 tons of cooking oil into vehicles a day

Analysis finds 58% of rapeseed oil in Europe is burned for fuel despite soaring prices and climate impact

Europe and the UK are pouring 17,000 tons – or about 19 million bottles – of cooking oil into vehicle fuel tanks every day, even though it is up to two-and-a-half times more expensive than before 2021, according to new analysis.

The equivalent of another 14 million bottles a day of palm and soy oil – mostly from Indonesia and South America – is also burned for fuel, the research says.

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Wrist-worn trackers can detect Covid before symptoms, study finds

Sensor tech can alert wearer to Covid early, helping to prevent onward transmission

Health trackers worn on the wrist could be used to spot Covid-19 days before any symptoms appear, according to researchers.

Growing numbers of people worldwide use the devices to monitor changes in skin temperature, heart and breathing rates. Now a new study shows that this data could be combined with artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose Covid-19 even before the first tell-tale signs of the disease appear.

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Italy: foreign minister leaves 5-Star to form new group backing PM

Luigi Di Maio’s move comes after he accused 5-Star leader Giuseppe Conte of undermining government support for Ukraine

Italy’s foreign minister Luigi Di Maio has announced that he is leaving the 5-Star Movement to form a new parliamentary group backing the government of prime minister Mario Draghi.

Di Maio’s move comes after he accused 5-Star leader and former prime minister Giuseppe Conte of undermining government efforts to support Ukraine and weakening Rome’s standing within the EU.

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Tokyo mayoral win a ‘huge surprise’ for candidate living in Belgium

Japanese national Satoko Kishimoto won ward of 500,000 people 5,800 miles away with online campaigning

A Japanese woman living in Belgium has been elected as mayor of a district in Tokyo after coming to prominence through her online campaigning during the Covid pandemic.

Satoko Kishimoto, 47, who has lived in the Belgian city of Leuven with her husband and children for a decade, is now mayor of Suginami city, a ward of 500,000 people, more than 5,800 miles away from her home.

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Covid surges across Europe as experts warn not let guard down

Calls grow for greater measures against wave of BA.4 and BA.5 cases in countries from Spain to Denmark

Multiple European countries are experiencing a significant surge in new Covid-19 infections, as experts warn that with almost all restrictions lifted and booster take-up often low, cases could soar throughout the summer leading to more deaths.

According to the Our World in Data scientific aggregator, the rolling seven-day average of confirmed new cases per million inhabitants is on the rise in countries including Portugal, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands and Denmark.

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Russian forces capture settlements near Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk – as it happened

This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

Reuters reports the Georgian prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, has said at an economic conference in Qatar that his country is committed to joining Nato, but must solve its territorial problems with Russia first.

Georgia is sandwiched between Russia in the north, with Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan to its south. The breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are internationally recognised as part of Georgia’s territory, although a handful of states, including Russia, officially recognise them.

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US volunteer fighters captured in Ukraine could face death penalty, says Russia

Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, from Alabama have been taken into detention in Donetsk

The Kremlin has said that two captured US volunteers are not covered by the Geneva conventions and could face the death penalty.

The remarks were made by Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, following claims in the Russian media that two of three US volunteers missing in Ukraine had been captured and were being held by pro-Russian separatist forces.

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MP whose murder sparked Irish civil war to get Commons plaque

Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson was assassinated by IRA gunmen 100 years ago and then all but forgotten

On 22 June 1922 Sir Henry Wilson, an army field marshal turned MP, unveiled a plaque to railway employees who had died in the first world war before returning to his stately home in Belgravia, central London.

He was a distinctive figure – tall, in uniform, with a facial scar that had earned him a nickname as the “ugliest man in the British army”.

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‘He’s been betrayed’: sister of Moroccan man captured in Ukraine pleads for help

Brahim Saadoun’s sister Iman says marine sentenced to death by Russian proxies has been abandoned by his own government

The sister of Brahim Saadoun, the Moroccan man who was captured while serving in the Ukrainian military, has said she feared he has been abandoned by his own government and has called on the international community to “claim my brother”.

“I just want any authority, anybody who is willing to help, to come and help,” Iman Saadoun said in an interview with the Guardian, describing being left in limbo while seeking government support for him.

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Nobel peace prize auctioned by Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov fetches record $103.5m

Muratov, who was awarded the gold medal in October 2021, said proceeds would go to Unicef to help children displaced by Ukraine war

The Nobel Peace Prize that Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov was auctioning off to raise money for Ukrainian child refugees has sold for $103.5m (£84.5m), shattering the record for a Nobel.

“I was hoping that there was going to be an enormous amount of solidarity,” Muratov said after the sale. “But I was not expecting this to be such a huge amount.”

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Ocado aims to raise £575m from investors to fund tech arm expansion

Firm wants to ‘invest in innovation at faster pace’ and help clients as online grocery market grows

Ocado is aiming to raise £575m from investors to fund the expansion of its technology arm, which enables overseas retailers to sell groceries online. It has also agreed a new £300m credit facility with a syndicate of international banks.

Ocado said it wanted the cash to “invest in innovation at a faster pace” and help its clients, which include the US supermarket chain Kroger and the French grocer Casino, to accelerate the shift to online shopping.

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Ukrainian missiles hit Black Sea gas platforms, say Russian officials

Reports of strikes come as Russian forces said to be gathering for final assault on Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

Russian officials have said Ukraine launched missile strikes against three gas rigs in the Black Sea south of Odesa, in an apparent escalation of Kyiv’s attempts to weaken Russia’s maritime dominance.

Seven people were missing and three injured after the strikes, according to the head of occupied Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, who said a “rescue operation with the participation of patrol ships and aviation” was under way.

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Russia threatens retaliation as Lithuania bans goods transit to Kaliningrad

EU concerned over Moscow’s comments as people panic-buy in Baltic Sea exclave

Russia has provoked concern in Brussels after threatening to retaliate over Lithuania’s ban on the transit of some goods across its territory to Russian Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad.

The move by the government in Vilnius was described as “unprecedented” in Moscow, where the Russian foreign office said they reserved the right to respond to protect their national interest.

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Mallorca restaurants bring in dress code to curb antisocial tourism

Move by 11 establishments prompted by problem of groups ‘only looking to get drunk in the streets’

Eleven seaside restaurants on the Spanish island of Mallorca have introduced a dress code for patrons in an attempt to crack down on what they described as a recent wave of antisocial behaviour among drunk tourists.

In these restaurants, most of which are in the Playa de Palma, shirtless, costumed or football-jersey-clad punters will no longer be allowed, said Juan Miguel Ferrer of Palma Beach, a seal of quality created by local businesses to which the restaurants belong.

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Russian editor auctions Nobel medal to raise money for Ukraine refugees

Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov will sell 23-carat gold medal in US on Monday, donating proceeds to charity

The editor of the Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta is auctioning his Nobel peace prize medal, with the proceeds to go to helping children displaced by the war in Ukraine.

Dmitry Muratov led one of the last major independent media outlets critical of Vladimir Putin’s government after others either closed or had their websites blocked after the invasion of Ukraine. In March, Novaya Gazeta announced it was suspending operations for the duration of the war after it became a crime to report anything on the conflict that veered from the government line.

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Russia gathering its forces to storm settlements near Sievierodonetsk, says Ukraine – as it happened

This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

In the weeks after the Russian invasion, the Guardian spoke to five Ukrainian families who had fled the country. Nearly four months on from the invasion, the families talk about the realities of their new lives.

Back in March, Liudmyla Abdo was fresh out of a war zone. Fatigued, dazed and suffering from acute stress, she sat in Paris’s Buttes-Chaumont park and recounted her experience of fleeing Kyiv in the dead of night.

Russian ground and tactical air operations have remained focussed on the central Donbas sector over the weekend.

In the conflict to date, Russia’s air force has underperformed. Its failure to consistently deliver air power is likely one of the most important factors behind Russia’s very limited campaign success.

It cannot gain full air superiority and has operated in a risk-adverse style, rarely penetrating deep behind Ukrainian lines. Some of the underlying causes of its difficulties echo those of Russian ground forces.

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Belgium returns Patrice Lumumba’s tooth to his family 61 years after his murder

Congolese independence hero’s gold-capped tooth returned as ex-colonial power faces its bloody past

Belgian authorities have returned a tooth belonging to the murdered Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba, as the former colonial power continues to confront its bloody past and look toward reconciliation.

The restitution of the relic took place after Belgium’s King Philippe expressed his “deepest regrets” this month for his country’s abuses in its African former colony, Congo, 75 times the size of Belgium.

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Weather tracker: easing of Europe heatwave may be only temporary reprieve

Forecast models are already hinting at area of significant heat taking hold across Iberia next week

Thankfully, the heatwave is coming to an end this week across western Europe, with temperatures returning nearer to normal. But this may only be a temporary reprieve, as forecast models are already hinting at an area of significant heat taking hold across Iberia by the start of next week.

The extent of the recent heatwave across parts of central and western Europe has been widely reported. Temperature records have been broken and, in France and parts of Spain, it is the earliest point in summer during which a heatwave of this magnitude has been recorded. A temperature of 39.2C (102.6F) observed in Cottbus, Germany, also came within 0.4°C of the June record. Large fires, resulting from parched vegetation, are ravaging parts of Spain. The observed heat is very much in line with the predictions of scientists in that heatwaves in Europe will occur earlier and with greater ferocity due to climate change.

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Ex-Northern Ireland secretary accuses Boris Johnson of ‘Putinesque tactics’

Labour peer Peter Hain says PM is using Northern Ireland protocol bill to provoke populist row with EU

Boris Johnson is engaging in “Putinesque” tactics by using the Northern Ireland protocol bill to cause a populist row with Brussels when the EU is willing to compromise, Peter Hain, a former Northern Ireland secretary, said on Sunday.

Hain, who sits on a Lords subcommittee on the protocol, said Brussels appeared willing to compromise, but Johnson was more keen on engaging in a “parallel universe blame game”.

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‘We’re tired of being scared’: Kyiv residents take steps towards normality

Restaurants are filling up again as clubs welcome daytime revellers, but the city remains under a cloud of war

Walking around a small outdoor street market in a pretty Kyiv courtyard, one could be forgiven for forgetting for a brief moment that Ukraine is in the midst of a brutal war that not long ago saw some of its bloodiest fighting just a few miles from the capital.

A DJ is playing techno tunes, so beloved in a city that has been proudly calling itself the new Berlin, as locals sell vintage clothes.

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