The mistake Cat Follower made was to allow me to be the one to pick up our little ‘fully grown’ kitten from the lost cat hotel
I’m in love with my cat. He sleeps by my writing desk all day on the cotton lining of my inside-out parka. At the end of the day, I crash into the beanbag and he climbs up on my chest and we nap.
To be clear, this is our family cat, but yes, in an eye-rollingly predictable move, the cat gravitated to the person in the household who was least interested.
The EastEnders and Cathy Come Home actor had been diagnosed with dementia, his family revealed
Ray Brooks, the British actor who starred in EastEnders, Ken Loach’s drama Cathy Come Home and narrated the 1970s children’s TV show Mr Benn, has died at the age of 86.
Brooks died peacefully on Saturday with his loved ones at his bedside after a short illness, according to a statement shared by his family with the BBC.
Matthew Whitaker spoke as Europeans put pressure on US to include Ukrainian president in meeting with Putin
The US ambassador to Nato said on Sunday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could attend this week’s US-Russia summit in Alaska, as European leaders push for Kyiv to be part of the negotiations. Ambassador Matthew Whitaker was asked on CNN whether Zelenskyy might join US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday. “Yes, I certainly think it’s possible,” he said. “Certainly, there can’t be a deal that everybody that’s involved in it doesn’t agree to. And, I mean, obviously, it’s a high priority to get this war to end.” Whitaker said the decision would ultimately be Trump’s to make. “If he thinks that that is the best scenario to invite Zelenskyy, then he will do that,” he said, adding that “no decision has been made to this point.”
Germany warned the White House on Sunday against any deal hatched “over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians”. Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he hoped and assumed that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, would also be involved. “We cannot accept in any case that territorial questions are discussed or even decided between Russia and America over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians,” he told the broadcaster ARD. “I assume that the American government sees it the same way.”
US vice-president, JD Vance, speaking a day after meeting the UK foreign minister, David Lammy, said he did not think it would be productive for the Russian president to meet his Ukrainian counterpart before speaking with Trump. “We’re at a point now where we’re trying to figure out, frankly, scheduling and things like that, around when these three leaders could sit down and discuss an end to this conflict,” he told Fox News.
Zelenskyy thanked European allies for rallying around ahead of the Alaska summit after European leaders issued a coordinated statement on Saturday night that said the “path to peace” in Ukraine could not be decided without Kyiv. In a post on X he said: “The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people.”
EU foreign ministers will discuss the Alaska talks in a meeting by video link on Monday, joined by their Ukrainian counterpart. “The US has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously. Any deal between the US and Russia must have Ukraine and the EU included, for it is a matter of Ukraine’s and the whole of Europe’s security,” top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas said on Sunday.
Russian shelling and drone attacks killed six people in Ukraine on Sunday, authorities said, while a Russian strike on a bus station in the city of Zaporizhzhia wounded at least 19. The six people were killed across the eastern regions of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, their respective authorities said.
Two people died in the Tula region as a result of a Ukrainian drone attack that also targeted Moscow and other Russian regions, Russia’s regional official and the defence ministry said late on Sunday. Two people have also been hospitalised following the attack on the Tula region that borders the Moscow region to its north, Tula governor Dmitry Milyaev said on the Telegram messaging app.
Kyiv said it had hit two oil refineries deep inside Russia, one in the western Saratov region and one in the remote northern town of Ukhta in the Komi Republic, AFP reported. The governor of Saratov, Roman Busargin, only gave a vague comment about it, saying that “one of the industrial enterprises was damaged” and adding that one person had died as a result of the drone attack. The Komi governor confirmed in his Telegram channel there had been a drone attack on the region, but didn’t mention the Ukhta refinery and said there were no casualties.
Ukraine’s military said on Sunday it had taken back a village in the Sumy region from the Russian army, which has made significant recent gains. The village is on the frontline in the north of the country and about 20 kilometres (13 miles) west of the main fighting between the two armies in the northern region.
Rookie Connor Zilisch cleared of serious head injury in New York
‘Grateful it wasn’t any worse,’ says 19-year-old after freak accident
Nascar rookie Connor Zilisch has been ruled out of the Cup Series race at Watkins Glen International in New York after breaking his collarbone when he fell off the roof of his car on Saturday.
The 19-year-old won the Mission 200 at the Glen Xfinity Series race and climbed out of his No 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet to celebrate. He had one foot on the roof and one on the ledge of the window and was posing for photographs when he lost his balance and tumbled to the ground head-first.
Chipmakers agree to quid pro quo deal as condition for obtaining export licenses for Chinese market, FT reports
Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the US government 15% of their revenues from chip sales in China, under an unprecedented arrangement to obtain export licenses for the semiconductors, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
The revenue share applies to Nvidia’s H20 chips and AMD’s MI308 chips, the report said, citing a US official, noting that the Trump administration had yet to determine how to use the money.
Run of late birdies sets up Rose’s victory in Memphis
At 45 is oldest European to win on PGA Tour in modern era
Justin Rose produced a sensational finish at the FedEx St Jude Championship with six birdies in his last final eight holes to win a playoff against the US Open champion JJ Spaun.
The English golfer, who at 45 became the oldest European to win on the PGA Tour in the modern era, looked out of it after a bogey at the 12th dropped him to 12 under. That left Rose two off the pace with Tommy Fleetwood, the world No 1 Scottie Scheffler and Spaun ahead of him.
The man grabbed on to the outside of the train at St Poelten, west of Vienna, and was later taken aboard after it performed an emergency stop
A man has survived clinging to the outside of a high-speed train in Austria, the state railway said, after it reportedly left while he was having a cigarette break.
The man grabbed on to the outside of the train at St Poelten, west of Vienna, late on Saturday, said Austrian railways spokesperson Herbert Hofer, and was later taken onboard after the train performed an emergency stop.
Israel admits deliberate attack on the journalist, known for frontline coverage, in a strike on a tent outside al-Shifa hospital
A prominent Al Jazeera journalist who had previously been threatened by Israel has been killed along with four colleagues in an Israeli airstrike.
Anas al-Sharif, who was one of Al Jazeera’s most recognisable faces in Gaza, was killed while inside a tent for journalists outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Sunday night.
Hassan Cevik, 31, charged with murders of Terry McMillan, 58, and Brendan McMillan, 27, in Southwark
A man has been charged with the murder of a father and son after a stabbing at a business premises in central London.
Terry McMillan, 58, and Brendan McMillan, 27, from Chislehurst, Bromley, died after reports of stabbings inside a commercial property in Long Lane, Southwark, at about 1pm on 28 July.
Vice-president tries to deflect criticism and blames Biden for doing ‘absolutely nothing’ about convicted sex offender
Four days after JD Vance reportedly asked top Trump administration officials to come up with a new communications strategy for dealing with the scandal around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, he appears to have put his foot in it, sparking a new round of online outrage even as he tried to defuse the furor.
In an interview with Fox News broadcast on Sunday, the vice-president tried to deflect criticism of the administration’s refusal to release the Epstein files by blaming Democrats. He accused Joe Biden of doing “absolutely nothing” about the scandal when he was in the White House.
Donald Trump rewarding the Kremlin’s hardline attitude shows Russia can still sideline Ukraine from deal to end war
In the five months since Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met at the Oval Office in late February, Ukrainian officials have worked hard to repair the damage of that day, which ended with the Ukrainian president being kicked out of the White House.
With advice from European allies, Zelenskyy recalibrated his strategy for dealing with the Trump administration, and there was a feeling it was broadly going well. “We managed to reset communications, to find a new language to work with Trump,” said one senior official in Kyiv a week ago.
Once a secretive subculture, survivalism has edged into the mainstream. But what happens if you dedicate your life to preparing for civilisation to collapse and doomsday never comes?
Shortly after Israel announced its attack on Iran in June, Trevor Andrei sent a message to some of his fellow Australian preppers telling them to stock up on petrol and buy a few hundred dollars’ worth of groceries.
“I was like, OK, this is super significant, there’s going to be a response … shit’s going to go down,” Andrei says. “Most years, [Australia is] lucky if we’ve got 28 days [of petrol reserve] so … if anything hits the world’s oil supply, we can be out of petrol in a month.”
Former justice secretaries criticise expansion of policy that they say allows perpetrators to go unpunished
Foreign criminals from 15 more countries face deportation before they have a chance to appeal in an expansion of the UK government’s “deport first, appeal later” scheme.
Ministers are extending the scheme, which applies in England and Wales and was restarted in 2023, to cover 23 countries including India, Bulgaria, Australia and Canada.
Smoke is billowing into the sky above Scottish capital from the fire at the beauty spot
Fire crews have been battling a wildfire on Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh.
Smoke was seen billowing into the sky from the fire at the landmark hill, which is an extinct volcano and beauty spot to the south-east of the city centre.
President demands unhoused residents leave US capital or face eviction and vowed to use officers to make arrests
In a social media post on Sunday, Donald Trump has demanded homeless residents of Washington DC leave the country’s capital or face eviction, and again promised to use federal officers to jail criminals, even though violent crime in the city was at a 30-year low when he took office in January.
“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Sunday morning, shortly after being driven from the White House to his golf club in Virginia. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.”
Premier League champions lose on penalties at Wembley
Crystal Palace await Europa League verdict after victory
After his Liverpool team lost the Community Shield in a penalty shootout to Crystal Palace, their manager, Arne Slot admitted the difficulty of bedding in the summer’s new signings.
“Sometimes you need some time to adapt offensively or defensively,” said Slot. Two new arrivals in striker Hugo Ekitiké and right-back Jeremie Frimpong got on the scoresheet but Palace, who might have won the game in normal time during their impressive second-half showing, exposed the Premier League champions’ weaknesses.
Israeli PM says taking over city is ‘best way’ to end war, despite condemnation from within Israel and around world
Benjamin Netanyahu has defended his plan to take control of Gaza City in the face of widespread international outrage, even as senior UN officials warned that the move risked unleashing “another calamity” on a territory already experiencing “starvation, pure and simple”.
In a rare press conference with foreign journalists in Jerusalem, the Israeli prime minister said the plan, signed off last week by the security cabinet to criticism both at home and abroad, was “the best way to end the war and the best way to end it speedily.”
Deadly violence not random as staff have endured ‘months of mistreatment, neglect and vilification’, says union
A union representing US Centers for Disease Control employees has demanded that the federal government condemn vaccine misinformation after a man who evidently blamed the Covid-19 vaccination for making him depressed and suicidal aimed gunfire Friday at the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta.
The 30-year-old shooting suspect, who killed a police officer and died during the attack, had also tried to get into the CDC’s headquarters – but he was stopped by guards before driving to a pharmacy across the street and opening fire, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press on Saturday.
Jen Pawol, 48, was given an ovation when she took to the pitch for a game between the Miami Marlins and Atlanta Braves
It was, she said, the day “the dream came true”. Jen Pawol, a 48-year-old former art teacher, made US sporting history at the weekend when she became the first female umpire of a Major League Baseball game during the regular season.
Pawol, whose debut came on Saturday in a game between the Miami Marlins and Atlanta Braves, was given a standing ovation as she arrived on the pitch. Supporters held up signs reading “Pawol making HERstory” and “the time has come for one and all to play ball” – a nostalgic reference to A League of Their Own, the classic sports film about a women’s baseball league during the second world war.
British No 1 excited to take on world No 1 in third round
Cameron Norrie goes out to Roberto Bautista Agut
Emma Raducanu has underlined her excitement before what she describes as a “fact-finding match” against the world No 1, Aryna Sabalenka, as they prepare to battle in the third round of the Cincinnati Open on Monday.
“It’s always exciting for a player like me to play the very top, because it’s like a fact-finding match,” Raducanu said. “You see where you are in comparison to the top. I also think form fluctuates so much on the day. You can lose two and one [6-2, 6-1] one day, you can win or you can make it close the next day, and it can be down to a few points. So I’m excited.”
Martí Cifuentes has cleared his first hurdle as Leicester manager. A late header from his substitute Wout Faes completed a comeback victory but for much of a testing opening game against Henrik Pedersen’s Sheffield Wednesday, who took a first-half lead amid fan protests against the club’s ownership, that looked an unlikely outcome. There will be no illusions over how difficult an immediate return to the Premier League will be for Leicester.
“The Championship is a ruthless league,” said Cifuentes, who succeeded Ruud van Nistelrooy this summer. “It was a good lesson for everyone to understand that we cannot take anything for granted.”
The populist right sees the European convention as a soft target in a longer campaign to degrade democratic checks and balances
Most British citizens have little contact with human rights law, which is as it should be in a mature democracy. Widespread anxiety about basic freedoms is a feature of more repressive regimes.
Many people will only have heard of the European convention on human rights (ECHR) in the context of the last Conservative government’s failed attempts to dispatch asylum seekers to Rwanda, or in a handful of incidents where convicted criminals or terrorist suspects have avoided deportation to jurisdictions where they might face inhumane treatment. Such cases are amplified by politicians who are hostile to the whole apparatus of human rights law. The Strasbourg court that adjudicates on breaches of the ECHR is denounced as an enemy of British sovereignty.
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