Investigators say blasts caused two bridges to collapse, triggering derailments and at least seven deaths
Russian investigators said on Sunday they believed “explosions” had caused two bridges in the border regions of Kursk and Bryansk to collapse overnight, derailing trains, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens.
In Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, a road bridge collapsed on to a railway line late on Saturday, derailing a passenger train heading to Moscow and killing at least seven people. A rail bridge in neighbouring Kursk also collapsed overnight, derailing a freight train and injuring the driver, officials said. Kursk also borders Ukraine.
The Yesterday and Station Eleven star was raised on Bollywood soundtracks and secretly admires Limp Bizkit. But which maligned indie rockers will he stand up for?
The first single I bought Before I became an indie kid and got into Arctic Monkeys, Maxïmo Park and Bloc Party, there was this explosion of British/south Asian music in the early 00s, so I bought Dance With You (Nachna Tere Naal) by Rishi Rich Project featuring Jay Sean and Juggy D from Tesco Extra. It felt like a moment for south Asians in the UK.
The first song I fell in love with I grew up in a village in Cambridge and we’d always have BBC Asian Network or CDs of the latest Bollywood soundtracks playing. I loved Taal Se Taal Mila from the movie Taal; AR Rahman did the soundtrack, who went on to win an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire. Taal means rhythm – the film is a musical and it encouraged me to learn the dilruba [a type of bowed sitar]. I only saw the movie once, but the visuals of the songs have stayed with me.
Witnesses say Israeli forces opened fire on people near distribution point run by Israel-backed foundation
More than 20 people were killed on Sunday as they went to receive food at an aid distribution point set up by an Israeli-backed foundation in the Gaza Strip, according to a hospital run by the Red Cross that received the bodies.
Witnesses told the Associated Press that Israeli forces had opened fire on people as they headed toward the aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). “There were many martyrs, including women,” the 40-year-old resident said. “We were about 300 metres away from the military.”
Human rights lawyer returned to running at the Snowdonia ultra-trail six months after giving birth
In Chamonix Stephanie Case is swaying the sway of a new mother. Pepper, her baby, is cocooned in a sling, defying sleep and gurgling politely over the video call. They became viral sensations last month when ultrarunner Stephanie won the women’s section of the Snowdonia ultra-trail, a 100km race with 21,000ft of ascent, while stopping to breastfeed Pepper en route.
It was an extraordinary achievement six months after giving birth and slots into an extraordinary life – on the one hand, a human rights lawyer, working in warzones around the world; on the other, an ultrarunner, whose charity, Free to Run, empowers young women and girls in areas of conflict.
As New York’s playoff run ends, the fan discourse over Tom Thibodeau and team identity is devolving into a partisanship that mirrors US politics: loud, binary and allergic to nuance
Almost immediately after the Knicks’ playoff run ended on Saturday night in Indianapolis, the fan discourse in New York began to closely resemble American politics: hyperbolic, binary and allergic to nuance. But the truth about this team – and Tom Thibodeau’s coaching – lies somewhere in the messy middle.
The Knicks are out. They were eliminated by the Indiana Pacers for the second straight campaign, bowing out from the Eastern Conference finals in six games instead of last year’s seven-game loss in the East semis. As the franchise’s best season in a generation comes to a close, New York are trying to figure out how to feel.
Five-time World Cup winners have their first foreign coach but it reconnects them to a tradition that made them great
On Friday, against Ecuador in Guayaquil, Carlo Ancelotti will become the first foreigner to take sole charge of Brazil. For any major country to turn to a foreign coach is always an admission of failure. Apart from England, the only other country to turn to a foreign coach after winning the World Cup is Uruguay, which has a population of 3.5 million, and they didn’t do so for half a century after last lifting the trophy (the Argentinians Daniel Passarella in 1999 until 2001 and Marcelo Bielsa from 2023 to today). But the truth is that Brazilian coaching has been in retreat for some time.
The situation is stark. The Brazilian league is by far the wealthiest in South America. Brazilian sides have won the past six Copas Libertadores, and have beaten other Brazilian sides in four of those six finals. Yet four of the past six Brazilian titles have been won by Portuguese coaches while Otto Glória, who led Benfica to the 1968 European Cup final, remains the only Brazilian to have been successful at elite club level in Europe.
Armando Reséndiz pulled off a massive upset on Saturday night, defeating former world champion Caleb Plant by split decision to capture the interim WBA super middleweight title at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas.
Reséndiz (16-2, 11 KOs) won on two judges’ scorecards by identical 116-112 scores, overruling one card that had Plant ahead 115-113. The 25-year-old Mexican outworked and outlanded Plant over 12 rounds, handing the American his second straight loss and third in his last five fights.
Chris Anderson, who has won Gloucestershire event 23 times, says newcomers need to be brave and devise a plan
It is as much about control as out-and-out speed. Bravery is important – but so is an element of careful preparation and planning.
Over the years, Chris Anderson, the record-breaking cheese-chasing king of Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire, has seen it all. Lots of wins but also losses and injury.
Combine beautiful locations with musical creativity on these perfectly pitched learning breaks from Somerset to Marrakech
The Kora Workshop is a small UK company that makes beautiful, high quality koras (a type of West African harp) and teaches people how to play them. UK festivalgoers may have bumped into its staff at Womad or Tribal Earth, but it also offers week-long immersion workshops in the Aveyron in southern France. They include seven days of tuition (both individual and group sessions), as well as shared accommodation and the loan of a kora. The first week got booked up quickly, so move fast if you’re interested. 14-21 Sept, £510, thekoraworkshop.co.uk
Industry giant paid for Lord Vaizey’s trip to Switzerland before he tabled amendment to tobacco and vapes bill
A Conservative peer proposed delaying the UK’s proposed ban on heated tobacco, weeks after a leading cigarette company paid for him to visit its research facility in Switzerland.
The tobacco and vapes bill would gradually raise the age at which consumers can buy cigarettes and other tobacco products, making the UK the first major economy to chart a course towards phasing out tobacco altogether.
This year’s collection of images from Capture the Atlas features an extraordinary milestone: a historic photograph of our galaxy taken from the International Space Station by Nasa astronaut Don Pettit, who recently returned from his latest mission onboard the ISS
A 115th-minute winner from Denis Bouanga sealed it
LAFC opens the Club World Cup v Chelsea on 16 June
Denis Bouanga scored an extra-time winner to lift Los Angeles FC to a 2-1 victory over Club América in a Club World Cup qualifying playoff match at the BMO Stadium in Los Angeles on Saturday.
The winger, who had orchestrated much of LAFC’s attacking output in the match, scored the winner in the 115th minute after unleashing a shot that took a wicked deflection on its way into the net.
Win for populist-right candidate Nawrocki will further political deadlock that has hampered Tusk’s government
Polls have opened in Poland for the second round of the presidential election, with the two candidates offering radically different visions for the country locked in a dead heat.
The race pits the pro-European Warsaw mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, backed by Donald Tusk’s politically-diverse governing coalition, against the historian and former amateur boxer Karol Nawrocki, endorsed by the populist-right Law and Justice (PiS) party that governed the country between 2015 and 2023.
The US president’s strange mix of weakness and anti-Beijing hostility may be pushing Xi Jinping towards a fateful decision
The belief that bad things come in threes is an old superstition with scant basis in fact. Still, in these disordered times, it’s natural to wonder whether war in Europe and the Middle East will be followed by war in Asia. Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, firing off insults and missiles, recently demonstrated how real that prospect is. Emboldened by its alliance with Russia, North Korea’s unpredictable rogue regime threatens almost everyone.
Yet it is China’s accelerating confrontation with US-backed Taiwan that forms the most alarming panel in this gloomy Asian triptych. China’s president, Xi Jinping, has reportedly told his generals to be ready by 2027 to conquer the self-governing island, which he regards as stolen sovereign territory. US officials warned last week that China already has sufficient capability to invade now, with amphibious landing craft, D-day-style floating docks, paratroopers and expanded air combat and missile forces in a constant state of readiness.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator
Opposition activists and journalists explain why the Orbánisation of the US may fail and how a former ally could end the Hungarian PM’s 15-year reign
On a sunny April afternoon in Budapest, a handful of reporters crowded around the back entrance of the Dorothea, a luxury hotel tucked between a Madame Tussauds waxworks museum and a discount clothing store in the city’s walking district.
Most had spent hours outside the hotel, hoping to confirm reports that Donald Trump Jr was inside. News of his visit had leaked two days earlier, but much of his agenda remained shrouded in secrecy, save for a meeting with the Hungarian foreign minister.
Using money to break up a relationship, particularly one with children, is not loving behaviour. You have to take control of your own life
I have been with my partner for 14 years and we have two small children together. I have always had a complicated relationship with my mother, who was a stern disciplinarian when I was growing up, and is deeply sensitive and lacks social confidence. I too am probably overly sensitive and get anxious.
My partner believes that my mother doesn’t think she is good enough for me. There have been numerous hints that this is the case, and she recently told me she was surprised when I started a relationship with someone whom she considers to be of “a different class”.
Begging doctors for tests, I worried that I was missing something and heading for an early death. Would understanding the roots of my health anxiety lead me to a cure?
Throughout my adolescence and into my mid-20s, I spent a lot of time trying to understand my body. I was unwell, that much was certain. The question of exactly what was wrong with me was one to which I applied myself studiously. I had theories, of course. Looking back, these tended to change quite frequently, and yet the fear was always the same: in short, that I was dying, that I had some dreadful and no doubt painful disease that, for all my worrying, I had carelessly allowed to reach the point at which it had become incurable.
This started at university, when I developed a headache that didn’t go away. The pain wasn’t severe, but it was constant – accompanied by a strange feeling of belatedness that told me it had already been going on for some time. How long, exactly, I couldn’t say – weeks, definitely. Maybe it had been years.
The surviving editions of the world’s oldest, continuously published English-language daily can now be accessed free
There was a packed news agenda on 3 October 1738. The father of the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin had been arrested after being found with a stolen horse. Cannon fire rang out in St Petersburg to mark a Russian victory over the Ottoman Empire. In America, four families had been killed in Virginia in clashes with Native Americans. Meanwhile, a horse fell in the Thames at Westminster, nearly causing a drowning.
Welcome to the pages of the Belfast News Letter, where updates on the French Revolution run alongside adverts for brandy and the American Declaration of Independence was reported as a contemporary event.
US defence secretary ‘vilified China with defamatory allegations’ at Shangri-La Dialogue
China’s government has accused Pete Hegseth of trying to “sow division” in the Asia Pacific region over his speech at a Singapore defence conference where he warned China was a potentially “imminent” threat.
On Saturday Hegseth said China was “credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific”, and was rehearsing for “the real deal” of invading Taiwan.
At the start of Pride month, groups report rise in hate crimes as politicians use laws and speeches to target trans people in particular
Far-right politicians in Europe are weaponising LGBTQ+ rights and sowing divisions that are sending hate crimes soaring, campaigners have said as communities prepare to mark Pride month.
For years, countries in Europe were among those at the forefront of advancing rights, making steady progress on issues such as marriage equality, said Katrin Hugendubel of ILGA-Europe, an umbrella organisation that works with more than 700 groups across Europe and central Asia.
He had become a father for the first time, but it had not gone to plan. At 12 weeks pregnant, his wife was put on bed rest. At 24 weeks, their son, Max, was born.
‘Prior associations’ appear to cost billionaire the chance to be Nasa administrator, as US president says new nominee ‘will be mission aligned’
The White House has withdrawn Jared Isaacman as its nominee for Nasa administrator, abruptly yanking a close ally of Elon Musk from consideration to lead the space agency.
Donald Trump said he would announce a new candidate soon. “After a thorough review of prior associations, I am hereby withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacman to head Nasa,” the US president posted online. “I will soon announce a new Nominee who will be mission aligned, and put America first in space.”
Siakam scores 31 as Pacers reach second NBA finals
Pacers’ 9-0 run after half sparks Game 6 knockout
Knicks commit 17 turnovers, fall short of comeback
Pascal Siakam and Tyrese Haliburton made sure the Indiana Pacers gave their fans a celebration they waited 25 years to see again.
Siakam had 31 points and Haliburton scored 11 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter, carrying the Pacers to a 125-108 victory over the New York Knicks on Saturday night for a 4-2 series win and their first trip to the NBA finals since 2000.
Stark shoots 70 to take solo lead at 7-under overall
López Ramirez surges with 68 after recent surgery
Tricky greens trigger triple bogeys across the field
Maja Stark could tell pretty early Saturday that Erin Hills would provide much more of a challenge than it had in the first two days of the US Women’s Open.
Yet she found a way to avoid the mistakes that befell so many other competitors during a brutal third round. Now the 25-year-old from Sweden is in position to earn the $2.4m prize in the biggest event of the women’s golf season.
A critically endangered possum species thought to be isolated to Victoria has been found in a New South Wales alpine national park.
Previously thought to be extinct in the state, a leadbeater’s possum has been found in Kosciuszko national park, at least 250km away from the nearest sighting in Victoria.
The political swing state has a $900bn economy, with hospitality, industrial manufacturing – and movies
If you want a bellwether to measure the broad impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs on the economy, look south, to Georgia. The political swing state has a $900bn economy – somewhere between the GDPs of Taiwan and Switzerland.
The hospitality industry is facing an existential crisis. Wine merchants wonder aloud if they will survive the year. But others, like those in industrial manufacturing, will carefully argue that well-positioned businesses will profit. Some say they’re insulated from international competition by the nature of their industry. Others, like the movie industry, are simply confused by the proposals that have been raised, and are looking for entirely different answers. So far, it’s a mixed bag.
Explosions heard in Ukrainian capital a week after it endured biggest air raid of the war; evacuations in Sumy as Russians grab villages. What we know on day 1,194
Ukrainian air defences were trying to repel a Russian air attack on Kyiv, the mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said early on Sunday. Air raid and missile alerts were issued just before 2am on Sunday morning. Ukrainian news outlets reported the sound of explosions. It comes a week after the biggest Russian air raid of the war against the Ukrainian capital.
Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine killed at least two people including a nine-year-old girl on Saturday, officials said. Russian troops launched 109 drones and five missiles across Ukraine overnight and into Saturday, the Ukrainian air force saod. Three of the missiles and 42 drones were destroyed and another 30 drones failed to reach their targets, causing no damage, it said. The girl was killed in a strike on the frontline village of Dolynka in the Zaporizhzhia region, and a 16-year-old was injured, said Zaporizhzhia’s governor, Ivan Fedorov. A man was killed by Russian shelling in Ukraine’s Kherson region, said Oleksandr Prokudin, its governor.
William Christou writes that Ukrainian officials issued evacuation orders on Saturday for 11 more villages in the northern Sumy region amid Russian territorial gains. The Russian ministry of defence said it had taken control of the village of Novopil in the eastern Donetsk region, as well as the village of Vodolahy in the northern Sumy region. By Sunday, 213 settlements were under evacuation orders in Sumy, which borders Russia’s Kursk region. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said about 50,000 Russian troops have amassed in the area with the intention of launching an offensive to carve out a buffer zone inside Ukrainian territory.
Ukraine’s top army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Saturday that Russian forces were focusing their main offensive efforts on Pokrovsk, Torets and Lyman in the Donetsk region, as well as the Sumy border area. Syrskyi said Ukrainian forces continued holding territory in Russia’s Kursk region, counter to Russian claims. In Kursk, a local official said 14 people were injured including four children when Ukrainian drones struck apartment buildings.
Zelenskyy said Russia was “undermining diplomacy” by withholding a promised memorandum setting out its position on ending the more than three-year war. Talks have been tentatively scheduled for Istanbul during the coming week but “for some reason, the Russians are concealing this document. This is an absolutely bizarre position. There is no clarity about the format,” Zelenskyy said. Ukraine has provided its peace terms but in a delaying tactic the Kremlin has said it will only reciprocate at the negotiating table, leaving Kyiv unable to properly prepare for the meeting.
The comedian and TV writer on a cringeworthy moment with Charli xcx, his viral September videos and why we should forgive Don Cheadle’s cockney accent
On 21 September each year between 2016 and 2021, you made a series of increasingly elaborate tributes to the Earth, Wind and Fire song September that were viewed millions of times. Do you hate that song now?
I do feel stressed whenever I hear September but I try to ignore it. A few years ago, before the last video came out, I had a panic attack at a Home Depot simply by imagining that it came on. That’s when I was like, I gotta stop doing this – I don’t think I enjoy it any more. I made people think I really love that song. It was just a fun idea. I don’t want people to feel bad for me. I was hoist by my own petard. I’m the one who made it a thing!
Attacking tyro with a martial artist’s precision is Neymar without the madness and the further maths version of Lamine Yamal’s fine art
The third great Moment of Doué was beautiful for its simplicity, 63 minutes into this game and with Paris Saint-Germain 2-0 up. As Désiré Doué glided in on goal, all alone suddenly in a wide open patch of green, he was found by a deliciously weighted through pass from Vitinha.
From there Doué allowed the ball to run across him as the retreating Inter defenders closed at his back, a perfect little screenshot of time, space, angles, ground speed allowing him to open his right instep and shoot with the path of the pass, wrong-footing Yann Sommer and easing the ball into the far corner.
After losing two finals in three seasons to state-owned investment funds, this ageing team reduced their fans to tears
They stay just long enough to see the trophy lifted. Most have discarded their losing medals by the time the pyrotechnics go off and Marquinhos raises the European Cup into the muggy Munich night. There is a watery smattering of applause. Then, with a turn of pace so sadly lacking during the game itself, they turn and head for the tunnel, past a battalion of photographers whose lenses are facing in the opposite direction.
What does it feel like to lose a Champions League final 5-0? Right now, and possibly for many years to come, this Inter team will be the only ones who know. Many of their fans were weeping uncontrollably in the stands, in the concourses, all along the road that leads back to the Métro station. For the 22 players and thousands of supporters who crossed the Alps so full of dreams, this is the sort of sporting trauma that defines generations.
Richard Bednar apologized after Utah appeals court discovered false citations, including one nonexistent case
The Utah court of appeals has sanctioned a lawyer after he was discovered to have used ChatGPT for a filing he made in which he referenced a nonexistent court case.
Earlier this week, the Utah court of appeals made the decision to sanction Richard Bednar over claims that he filed a brief which included false citations.
Plans for £1.5bn investment in munitions manufacturing response to government’s defence review’s call to boost stockpiles
The UK will spend £1.5bn on building six munitions and energetics factories to “better deter our adversaries” as part of its long-awaited strategic defence review.
John Healey, the defence secretary, said the funds formed part of plans for an “always-on” weapons pipeline and would support the procurement of up to 7,000 UK-built long-range weapons.
LSU Shreveport cap perfect 59-0 season with NAIA title
Pilots clinch first national title in any sport for school
Team led NAIA in fielding, scoring and pitching stats
LSU Shreveport became the first college baseball team on record to go unbeaten, finishing 59-0 when they won the NAIA championship in Lewiston, Idaho.
The Pilots’ perfect season ended with a 13-7 victory over Southeastern (Florida) on Friday night and gave the 10,000-student school in northwest Louisiana its first national title in any sport.
The suffering only makes it sweeter and how Paris Saint-Germain had suffered in the Champions League after the Qatar Sports Investments takeover of 2011. Before this season, it had been 12 consecutive qualifications for the knockout rounds and 12 assorted sets of heartbreak, some scarcely believable. A first success in the competition consistently eluded them.
This was the night when the French champions broke through, when they delivered on the obsession of their owners, of everybody connected to the club; 13th time lucky. All of the emotion came pouring out as Luis Enrique’s swashbuckling team tore into Inter, the result not in doubt from the moment that Désiré Doué made it 2-0 before the midway point of the first half. The 19-year-old was nervelessly brilliant.
“Shoes off!” barked my slightly bossy friend Kit as I was about to cross her threshold. I was taken aback: was this a new habit adopted from social media or some lifestyle guru?
Kit is not obsessive, but she is house proud. She lives in the country, her house surrounded by muddy lawn near a beach, so it makes sense not to drag dirt on to her beautifully polished parquetry or scratch it with sand. She goes about barefoot year-round: slippers are not her style. She keeps a pair of rubber slides at the back door for putting the bins out, or going to the veggie patch.
Experts praise groundbreaking results from therapy using genetically modified Car T-cells
Cancer patients treated with a pioneering immunotherapy that genetically modifies their own cells to wipe out tumours live 40% longer, according to “exciting” and “groundbreaking” results from a world-first clinical trial.
Car T-cell therapy is a new form of immunotherapy where a patient’s own T-cells – a type of white blood cell – are tweaked in a lab to target and kill cancer cells. The designer cells are then infused back into their bloodstream to fight the disease.
Daniel and I went to the same high school in Melbourne. He was a year older than me, and we must have passed each other thousands of times, but I have no memory of ever talking to him. We knew of each other, but we didn’t know each other’s names.
We met properly for the first time at a pre-drinks when I was in my first year of university. He was holding a six-pack of beer and looked vaguely familiar. I introduced myself, he offered me one of his drinks and we got talking.
Israel and US envoy reject group’s proposal to free 10 living hostages and 18 bodies in exchange for release of Palestinian prisoners
Hamas said on Saturday that it had submitted its response containing some amendments to a proposal presented by Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to mediators, the most concrete sign of progress towards a ceasefire since March.
The Palestinian group said in a statement that under the deal, it will release 10 living hostages and 18 bodies in return for Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners – a change to the US’s latest proposal that will make it more difficult for Israel to resume fighting if talks on a permanent ceasefire are not completed by the end of the truce.
Emmy award-winning TV, stage and film actor also known for her role in Young Sheldon died of cancer
Valerie Mahaffey, the Emmy-award winning actor known for her roles on Northern Exposure, Desperate Housewives and Young Sheldon, died on Friday. She was 71.
Her husband, actor Joseph Kell, said in a statement to Variety: “I have lost the love of my life, and America has lost one of its most endearing actresses. She will be missed.”
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