Arrival of Israeli troops in the southern border town has choked aid supplies, as hunger deepens in southern Gaza
Fayiz Abu Ataya was born into war and knew nothing else. Over his first and only spring, in a town stalked by hunger, he wasted away to a shadow of a child, skin stretched painfully over jutting bones.
In seven months of life, he had little time to make a mark beyond the family who loved him. But when his death from malnutrition was reported last week, it sounded a warning around the world about a rapidly deepening crisis in central and southern Gaza, triggered by the Israeli military operation in the southern town of Rafah.
Keir Starmer launched his campaign bus on Saturday with his senior shadow cabinet members, but Tory ‘big beasts’ appeared to have deserted the PM in Redcar
We may be in an era when elections are fought with TikTok memes and Instagram reels, but one thing has stubbornly refused to give way in the digital age: the good old battle of the campaign buses. On Saturday, Rishi Sunak unveiled the Conservatives’ bus that will tour the country during the 2024 election, emblazoned with the slogan: “Clear plan. Bold action. Secure future.”
It is – arguably – a slightly snappier version of John Major’s bus in 1997, which bore the words: “You can only be sure with the Conservatives.”
Outdoor campaign events, so often fraught with peril, proved the undoing of Rishi Sunak and Ed Davey this week
It has been tough for Rishi Sunak, so it’s nice that he still has some cheerleaders. A visibly tricky encounter with some cones during a football training session may have resulted in him being mocked mercilessly on TikTok, but one loyal newspaper described his troubling manoeuvre as a Cruyff turn, a move named after the beguiling Dutch great. Not since Kim Jong-il scored 11 holes in one in his first ever round of golf has a leader’s sporting prowess had such an unlikely upgrade.
Even her toughest opponents admit she’s played it cleverly. Yet the long-term aims of Italy’s prime minister remain unclear
When she became Italy’s prime minister in October 2022, Giorgia Meloni looked like Brussels’ worst nightmare. Until then, the fiery leader of the Brothers of Italy – a party with neofascist roots – had seemed anything but EU-friendly.
For years, railing against the bloc had been Meloni’s stock in trade: the euro amounted to enslavement, the European Commission was effectively a loan shark. “Bring down this EU!” she urged the 2019 conservative CPAC conference in the US.
Dong Jun rails at length about democratic island’s ‘separatists’ during Shangri-la Dialogue defence conference in Singapore
Peaceful “reunification” with Taiwan remains China’s goal but the prospect is being eroded by Taiwanese “separatists” and external forces, the Chinese defence minister, Dong Jun, has said.
Last week’s conviction of dissidents came in the biggest case since introduction of a new national security law
The verdict wasn’t surprising but outside room no 2 of the West Kowloon courthouse, people still wept. The panel of Hong Kong national security judges had set down two days for the hearing but dispensed with the core business in about 15 minutes. In the city’s largest ever national security trial – involving the prosecution of pro-democracy campaigners and activists from a group known as the “Hong Kong 47” – almost all the defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to commit subversion.
Their crime was trying to win an election, holding unofficial primaries in 2020 attended by an estimated 600,000 residents.
Ukrainians hold 70% of Vovchansk, says army; Zelenskiy in Singapore for security forum. What we know on day 830
A Russian missile strike on residences injured 13 people including eight children in Balakliia town, Kharkiv region, on Saturday, Ukrainian prosecutors said. Prosecutors also announced that recovery operations had concluded at the site of three missile strikes on Friday in the city of Kharkiv, with a death toll of nine, most in a badly damaged apartment building.
A military spokesperson, Nazar Voloshin, told national television on Saturday that Ukrainian forces controlled 70% of Vovchansk, 5km (three miles) inside the border, which Russian troops have been trying to capture.
The Ukrainian president, Volodomyr Zelenskiy, arrived in Singapore on Sunday to address the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum.
Russian forces fired a combined 100 missiles and drones at Ukraine overnight into Saturday morning, hitting energy sites, Ukrainian officials said. The air force said it shot down 35 of the missiles and all but one of the drones. Two thermal power plants were damaged, said their operator, DTEK operator.
Mourners and soldiers have laid flowers at a statue over the St Petersburg grave of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary leader who sent his forces into Ukraine for Vladimir Putin but then staged a mutiny against the Russian government before being killed when his plane was blown up. Putin, who said grenade fragments were found in the plane’s wreckage, called him a “talented” man who had made “serious mistakes”.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has estimated that the number of Russian troops killed or wounded since the war’s outbreak “has now likely reached 500,000”.
Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, has told the BBC that “we have no Plan B for a Russian victory, because then we would stop focusing on Plan A” – helping Ukraine push back the Russian invasion. “We should not give in to pessimism. Victory in Ukraine is not just about territory. If Ukraine joins Nato, even without some territory, then that’s a victory because it will be placed under the Nato umbrella.” Estonia’s government has given more than 1% of its GDP for Ukraine’s defence – concerned that Vladimir Putin might also turn his attention to the Baltics to bring countries like Estonia back under Moscow’s control.
New ‘liquid biopsy’ will act as an early warning sign to anticipate risk of tumours returning
A new blood test can predict the risk of breast cancer returning three years before any tumours show up on scans in an “incredibly exciting” breakthrough that could help more women beat the disease for good.
More than 2 million women are diagnosed every year with breast cancer, the most prevalent type of the disease. Although treatment has improved in recent decades, the cancer often returns, and if it does, it is usually at a more advanced stage.
Australian actor tells BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs performers should be able to play any role they want
Australian actor Rebel Wilson has said the idea that “only straight actors can play straight roles and gay actors can play gay roles” is “total nonsense”.
The Pitch Perfect star, 44, spoke to radio presenter Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs and was asked if women can get away with different jokes compared with men. “I’ve definitely said a lot of edgy jokes, and said them sometimes in very public places like the Baftas,” she said.
The adult film star, who was paid $130,000 as “legal expenses” for her silence about her affair with the former US president, warned the presidential candidate is “completely and utterly out of touch with reality”.
Yunus Paksoy appeared to be filming a live broadcast outside home of Fethullah Gülen when man in SUV approached
A CNN Turkey journalist says a supporter of political movement founder Fethullah Gülen attacked him near the self-exiled figure’s home in Pennsylvania in an encounter that apparently unfolded live on air.
In a video posted Saturday, Yunus Paksoy appeared to be filming a live broadcast outside Gülen’s home, reportedly near the area of Saylorsburg, when a man driving a dark SUV approached him.
Former England captain will become ambassador for foundation that was embroiled in controversy when Charles was Prince of Wales
King Charles has turned to brand Beckham to help him rebuild the reputation of his main charitable foundation after a cash-for-honours scandal.
Former England footballer David Beckham is to become an ambassador for the King’s Foundation, formerly the Prince’s Foundation, to help promote its work. Beckham met the monarch at his Highgrove home in Gloucestershire last month, where he was given a personal tour. The 49-year-old said he was looking forward to exploring a newly discovered shared interest with the monarch in rural skills, nature and the British countryside. They had also swapped beekeeping tips, said Beckham.
Group behind New Labour’s 1997 anthem say they don’t want song used again – and they are not alone
The pop group behind Labour’s 1997 victory anthem Things Can Only Get Better has joined many other artists in requesting political parties refrain from using their songs.
Culturally and linguistically diverse communities account for just 15% of organ donations made in 2023, but advocates say the more diversity among donors the better
When doctors told Mili Udani there was nothing more they could do to treat her seven-year-old son Deyaan’s brain haemorrhage, her “world came crashing down”. Only a week earlier they had been enjoying a holiday to see family in Mumbai when he began complaining about headaches.
After three doctors declared Deyaan brain dead, Udani’s cousin asked her if she had thought about organ donation. The question suddenly brought back a memory from a few weeks earlier.
An Australian discovery has added weight to a long-held theory about the painful condition – but relief for most patients is still elusive
After enduring years of experimental and unhelpful treatments in Australia to treat her chronic urinary tract infections, Grace* took the drastic measure of flying to the UK to seek help for symptoms so painful she “could barely walk down the street”.
While common and uncomplicated cases of the infections, known as UTIs, are usually easily treated with a short course of antibiotics, this often does not work for chronic, recurring cases like Grace’s. Left untreated, UTIs can cause permanent kidney damage and life-threatening infections.
Priya* hoped a short getaway to south-east Asia would repair her marriage.
It was planned after months of abuse and coercion at the hands of her husband – which began almost immediately after arriving in Australia – that became so bad she feared leaving their Melbourne home, she says.
Actor, who played campaigner Alan Bates in TV drama, calls Horizon scandal a ‘Hitchcockian nightmare’ at Hay festival
The post office operators prosecuted in the Post Office Horizon scandal have “extraordinary dignity” after living 20 years in a “Hitchcockian nightmare”, according to actor Toby Jones.
Jones played Alan Bates, a former post office operator and leading campaigner for justice for staff wrongly blamed for accounting shortfalls caused by faulty software, in the ITV drama that put the scandal back in the spotlight.
Twelve-year-old among eight now bailed after attack on teenage girl reported in Newark on 25 May
Four more boys including a 12-year-old have been arrested on suspicion of the rape of a teenage girl in Newark.
Nottinghamshire police received a report that a teenage girl had been attacked on Yorke Drive playing fields, Nottinghamshire, between 5.30pm and 7pm on 25 May.
Former Australian prime minister issues warning that young men’s thinking on the issue is going backward
Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard has said global progress on gender equality is “really glacial and slow” as she warned that it is going backwards among young people.
Gillard cited recent polling by King’s College London’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, which showed that 51% of respondents believe that men are doing too much to support gender equality, while 46% think that men are now discriminated against.
Myra Coutinho-Lopez, 82, who had dementia became confused at bank counter, leading to altercation with Courtney Richman, 26
A 26-year-old woman who killed an elderly pensioner with dementia during a row over a long queue at a bank has been given a suspended sentence.
Courtney Richman had been waiting behind 82-year-old Myra Coutinho-Lopez when the argument began on 6 December 2021 at a branch in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, a court heard.
New poll gives Labour its biggest lead since Liz Truss meltdown as ‘Tory towns’ gain most from new funds
The Tory general election campaign hit more trouble on Saturday as Rishi Sunak faced accusations of using levelling up funds to win votes and Labour opened its biggest poll lead since the disastrous premiership of Liz Truss.
As Sunak tried to fire up his party’s campaign before the first crucial TV debate with Keir Starmer on Tuesday, it emerged that more than half of the 30 towns each promised £20m of regeneration funding on Saturday were in constituencies won by Tory MPs at the last election.
Idaho case marked by Daybell and girlfriend Lori Vallow Daybell’s extremist religious beliefs about doomsday
Chad Daybell was sentenced to death Saturday for the murders of his wife and his girlfriend’s two youngest children in Idaho in a case marked by his and his girlfriend’s extremist religious beliefs about doomsday.
The sentence was handed down after an Idaho jury unanimously agreed that imposing the death penalty would be a just resolution to the triple-murder case. The sentence marks the end of a grim investigation that began with a search for two missing children in 2019. The next year, their bodies were found buried in Daybell’s eastern Idaho yard.
The Tories and Labour are forking out more than ever on social media ads, but going viral isn’t easy. We speak to influencers and strategists about the messages and memes
Why would you hold an election in November? The question came from digital marketing guru Mike Harris and was asked in a message to his friend, Labour’s campaign manager, Morgan McSweeney, earlier this year. Digital advertising is more expensive in October and November because the internet is swamped with ads for Christmas and Black Friday, said Harris, the founder of communications agency 89up. Why not pick a cheaper time of year?
Flags were stolen overnight from prominent local traffic circle in Carlisle amid wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in US
Police are investigating the theft of more than 200 Pride flags in Carlisle, Massachusetts, that occurred just before Pride month – and amid a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ measures from US legislatures.
In a statement released on Friday, the Carlisle police department announced that it is investigating the theft of the flags, which were taken out of a prominent local traffic circle earlier in the week.
Prime minister claims victory but opposition dismisses poll results as fixed and unscientific
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP)-led alliance is projected to win a big majority in the general election that concluded on Saturday, TV exit polls said, suggesting it would do better than expected by most analysts.
Most exit polls projected the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) could win a two-thirds majority in the 543-member lower house of parliament, where 272 is needed for a simple majority. A two-thirds majority will allow the government to usher in far-reaching amendments to the constitution.
US representative and failed contender for president says Kathy Hochul should grant pardon ‘for the good of the country’
The outgoing Democratic US representative who failed in his presidential primary challenge against Joe Biden called on the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, to pardon Donald Trump over his criminal conviction for hush-money payments to influence the 2016 election “for the good of the country”.
Minnesota representative Dean Phillips, who was the first Democrat to call on fellow party member Henry Cuellar to resign following bribery charges against the Texas representative, urged for the pardon on Friday in a post on X.
Hay and Edinburgh forgo pragmatism in turning their backs on the Baillie Gifford fund
How gratifying to chuck dirty money back in the face of a would-be benefactor. Such moments mark literature. Pip refusing funds from Magwitch, a convict. Will Ladislaw disdaining the charity of George Eliot’s corrupted Bulstrode. The statement is this: scruples do not belong only to the rich. There is a price at which I, too, cannot be bought.
And yet. In these great works of fiction, tensions are drawn out, questions raised. Ladislaw accepts support from another flawed man, Casaubon, of whom he disapproves. Hypocrisy? Or the observation that in a hard world pragmatism has its place – that beggars can be choosers only on occasion? And is Pip right to cast away the reformed and grateful Magwitch? Are all paths to atonement thus to be closed?
As the number of abuse victims in England and Wales taking their own lives rises, pressure is mounting on coroners to acknowledge the role violence, control and coercion can play
Roisin, the only child of Dr Tony Bennett and Margaret Hunter, went to her bedroom in Darlington on 7 March 2022 and attempted to take her own life. She died in hospital nine days later, at the age of 19.
Roisin, known as “Roi”, excelled at sports; she was popular and had received high marks as one of the youngest students to study for dispensing optician exams. She had no record of self-harming, mental illness or attempted suicide. Her ambition was to go to university and qualify as an optician. Roisin had a warm, supportive family. So what prompted her to take her own life?
Former Tory minister admits at festival that he felt a fraud due to need to give the impression he was in three places at once
Former Conservative MP Rory Stewart found being a politician “very yucky” and felt like a fraud, he told an audience at Hay festival on Saturday.
Asked whether he would consider going back into politics, he said that he found being a politician “personally very, very unpleasant” and “didn’t like it”, adding: “I feel like a fraud all the time, in a whole series of ways.”
Lack of care and support leaves patients stranded on units when they are clinically ready to be discharged
The number of patients stuck in NHS mental health units in England despite being clinically ready to leave has reached its highest level in at least eight years.
“Delayed discharges” of patients from hospitals in NHS mental health trusts reached 49,677 days in March, according to an analysis – a higher figure than in any month since at least January 2016, when NHS Digital started publishing the data.
Unearthed notes owned by the renowned philosopher Jeremy Bentham reveal the roots of his influential ethics
One of the dangerous “fools” caricatured in a medieval printed satire called Ship of Fools is the Foolish Reader. He is shown in an illustration surrounded by his many learned volumes, but he doesn’t read any of them. This idiot, depicted with many others, including a Feasting Fool, a Preaching Fool and a Procrastinating Fool, was a warning to the wise by the German author Sebastian Brandt 530 years ago.
Now research at a London university has unearthed a rare English 1509 copy of this book once owned by the renowned English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. And the 1494 satirical allegory, which pokes fun at various kinds of public folly, sheds new light on Bentham’s influential ethics.
Forces outside the capital drawn on for Borussia Dortmund v Real Madrid match and a Tommy Robinson march and counter-protest
More than 2,000 officers have been deployed across London, including more than 400 from outside the capital, to police the Champions League final, a protest by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson and a counter-demonstration.
The final between Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid takes place at Wembley on Saturday evening. And, earlier, a protest organised by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, more commonly known as Tommy Robinson, set off from the Victoria area on Saturday, ending up in Parliament Square where speeches took place.
Family and friends pay tribute to British record-holder Bren Orton, 29, who disappeared in the Melezza River
A British man who went missing while kayaking in Switzerland has been found dead, Swiss police have confirmed.
Bren Orton, 29, went missing on 16 May. Authorities searched for the professional kayaker for two weeks before a body was discovered in Lake Maggiore, which straddles Switzerland and Italy. His body was discovered by a sailor who contacted emergency services.
After 30 years in power, the African National Congress, which took 40.2% of the vote, must engage in tricky coalition talks with rivals
The African National Congress’s (ANC) three decades of political dominance in South Africa has come to an end after it was announced that it had won just 40.2% of the vote in last week’s general election.
The ANC’s dramatic decline – the first time it has failed to win a majority of the votes since Nelson Mandela led it to victory in the first democratic election in 1994 – will lead to a chaotic round of coalition negotiations, with all of its potential partners posing difficulties.
Senior adviser who worked for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown says there is an ‘urgent imperative’ for a new government to address wealth inequality in Britain
A key New Labour adviser who worked for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in Downing Street says there is an “overwhelming economic and ethical case” for Keir Starmer’s party to impose higher taxes on wealth if it wins the general election.
Writing in the Observer Patrick Diamond, professor of public policy at Queen Mary University of London, and his colleague Colm Murphy, a lecturer in British politics, say a Labour government will need to look at radical ways to raise money, not least because the plans for higher economic growth that the party is relying on may never materialise.
The Brown-era adage ‘Prudence with a purpose’ could be the way to obtain the economic stability that has eluded every UK government since the 2008 financial crisis
Keir Starmer appears destined for Downing Street. Even so, as the election campaign rumbles on, his party will be challenged to articulate a compelling platform that secures not only the keys to Number 10 but also the economic stability that has eluded every UK government since the 2008 financial crisis. That will demand fiscal discipline delivered not only through a prudent approach to public spending but also fundamental reform of our tax system.
In headline policy, Labour is committed to fiscal rules on spending and debt. Rachel Reeves promises to move towards balanced current spending and to secure a falling debt-to-GDP ratio by the fifth year of the forecast. As her speech on Tuesday argues, Labour believes such rules will underpin “stability” and “growth”.
It’s a shame the cost of theatre tickets is out of the reach for so many people. Cinema is the cheaper option
A friend started working at the fancy cinema chain Everyman. One of his perks is that he gets free tickets, which can cost over £20 each.
I’ve never been, but apparently it’s a luxury experience: comfy chairs, food and drinks delivered to your seat. Still, £20 feels steep. There are London cinemas where a ticket costs less than a tenner. And surely the point of going to the cinema is to enjoy the film itself rather than the experience of watching it? But when I think about theatre tickets, my complaints dissolve. Some plays charge over £200 for a seat: £20 seems like peanuts.
ITV News on Friday night reported on a “severe mental health crisis” at Wethersfield in Essex, with many incidents of suicide and self-harm including five to 10 suicide attempts and 10 of self-harm in January this year alone – the highest level since the site opened.
The painting is on loan for an exhibition that opens this weekend in the Provençal city where the painter became obsessed with the night sky and eventually descended into madness
In September 1888, shortly before he descended into the madness that led him to cut off part of his left ear, Vincent van Gogh completed one of his early starry night paintings. Fascinated by astronomy and the solar system, the insomniac painter had obsessed over the work in his mind, asking a fellow painter: “When shall I ever paint the starry sky, this painting that keeps haunting me?”
Now the scene he finally captured, Starry Night over the Rhône, has been returned to Arles, where he painted it, for the first time in 136 years.
The PM is talking up her underdog credentials ahead of this week’s European elections. But many in an impoverished Rome neighbourhood are sceptical
Sitting in the dark, cramped dining room of her home in Tor Bella Monaca, a densely populated council estate on the outskirts of Rome, Giovanna has just returned from one of several cleaning jobs the 70-year-old does to keep her family afloat. Her husband works on construction sites intermittently. The couple, whose youngest son, Cristian, 26, lives at home, might be depicted as borgatara, a slur in Roman dialect that, loosely translated, means a poor person living on the socially deprived fringes of the Italian capital.
Referring to her own upbringing in Garbatella, a traditionally working-class district within easy reach of Rome’s famed monuments, the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni said earlier this month she was “a proud borgatara”.
Whether he ends up in prison or the White House – or both – the former president and felon will remain a malign hero to populists everywhere
As Americans stared at their TV screens early on Thursday evening, listening to the 34 Donald Trump “guilty” court verdicts rolling out one by one amid the former president’s histrionic cries that the trial was “rigged”, the immediate thought was: what on earth happens now?
To which the only honest reply is: no one knows. Anyone pretending they do is just as big a liar as Trump, dramatically convicted by a jury of his New York peers for fiddling the books to help him win the 2016 election.
Cybercrime group ShinyHunters reportedly demanding £400,000 ransom to prevent data being sold
Ticketmaster has been targeted in a cyber-attack, with hackers allegedly offering to sell customer data on the dark web, its parent company, Live Nation, has confirmed.
The ShinyHunters hacking group is reportedly demanding about £400,000 in a ransom payment to prevent the data being sold.
Auction house hit by cyber-extortionist group RansomHub which claims to have sensitive information of at least 500,000 clients
A ransomware hack was the last thing the precarious fine art market needed – but that’s what it got when Christie’s website went down days before it began its all-important 20th and 21st century May auctions in New York.
Guillaume Cerutti, CEO of the French-owned auctioneer, gently called the attack a “technology security incident”. Christie’s posted its auction catalogs on a separate site, the sale went ahead with sales of $640m, and 10 days later the website came back to life.
Sharing digitally altered “deepfake” pornographic images will attract a penalty of six years’ jail, or seven years for those who also created them, under proposed new national laws to go before federal parliament next week.
The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, is expected to introduce legislation on Wednesday to create a new criminal offence of sharing, without consent, sexually explicit images that have been digitally created using artificial intelligence or other forms of technology.
Meteorologists found 52.9C reading to be false, though new record does appear to have been set
A record temperature registered this week for the Indian capital of 52.9C (127.22F) was too high by 3C, the Indian government has said.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) had investigated Wednesday’s reading by the weather station at Mungeshpur, a densely packed corner of New Delhi, “and found a 3C sensor error”, the earth sciences minister, Kiren Rijiju, said.
A family of four can pay £176 to see the latest immersive experience – one of many that is putting a strain on families hit by the cost of living crisis
As half-term drew to a close in England, families short on inspiration might have been grateful to learn of a new day out: on Friday, the Paddington Bear Experience opened its doors in London, promising a “unique and fun-filled interactive experience” spanning more than 2,400 sq metres (26,000 sq ft) and including themed rooms, character interactions – and marmalade sandwiches.
But the experience comes at a cost: with weekend ticket prices of £49 for adults and £39 for children, a family of four can expect to pay £176 for the 70-minute event – and a lot more should they wish to peruse the books, games and toys available to buy in Mr Gruber’s antiques shop afterwards.
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