The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has conceded that one of its ships inadvertently blocked wireless internet and radio services across swathes of New Zealand’s North and South islands this week.
The incident occurred on Wednesday morning as HMAS Canberra, one of the largest ships in the Royal Australian Navy, was on its way to Wellington, where it ultimately arrived on Thursday.
Veer left or double down on the right? Either way, the prime minister needs to commit and sell it to an impatient electorate
After less than a year in power, Labour has reached a familiar place. Keir Starmer’s troubled government is at a fork in the road, wondering which direction to follow. With the delivery of its spending review next week after several acrimonious delays, and a Commons vote on its divisive welfare cuts expected later this month, the government’s unity and morale are fragile. The public finances are severely strained, with ever more competing demands, such as for extra defence spending. Though much more energetic than its Tory predecessor, this government often seems opaque, unable to explain its purpose in a compelling way.
Many voters and journalists – even more impatient than usual after years of manic politics – are already considering what might replace Starmer’s administration. At barely 20% in the polls, Labour is as unpopular as in its most disliked days under Jeremy Corbyn – and unlike then, has been overtaken by Nigel Farage’s latest vehicle. Most ominously of all, perhaps, even the government’s successes, such as its trade deals, seem to make little or no difference to its public standing or sense of momentum.
Historian mapping medieval murders has evidence John Ford’s stabbing was revenge hit by impenitent ex-lover
Almost 700 years ago, in a busy London street in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, a priest called John Ford was brazenly stabbed to death in a crime notable both for its public nature and its ferocity.
It was early evening, just after vespers on 4 May 1337, and the street in Westcheap would have been bustling with passersby. In full view of them all, one man sliced Ford’s throat with an anelace, a foot-long dagger, while two others used long knives to stab him in the belly. Was someone trying to make a very public example of the victim?
Arcola theatre, London The horrific reality of Russia’s invasion is recounted during the preparation of a Ukrainian salad in Anastasiia Kosidii and Josephine Burton’s play
During the violent chaos following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a woman whose husband is missing receives a phone call from his number. Brief relief implodes when the speaker is not him but a stranger revealing that this device has been found beside a corpse covered by a tarpaulin.
This is one of numerous shattering anecdotes in a play by Dash Arts, based on work by The Reckoning Project, which collects verbatim testimony from conflict victims with the aim of bringing prosecutions for war crimes.
Fruit and floral flavours with marshmallowy meringue make for a sensational melt-in-the-mouth dessert
Inspired by Pierre Hermé’s iconic ispahan macarons, where rose, lychee and raspberry create an exquisite flavour combination, this dessert reinterprets the trio in a crisp and marshmallowy pavlova. Instead of rose, I’ve used elderflower to infuse the cream, gently bringing together the delicate sweetness of lychee and the tart brightness of raspberries. Garnish with fresh elderflowers (if you can find any) and some coulis for a beautiful centrepiece.
Bertin Huynh and Luca Ittimani explain the viral term – which involves neither chakras nor tractors – to Alyx Gorman
Bertin and Luca. You’re young people. Why are all the kids on my feeds suddenly talking about aura farming, and what does it have to do with Timothée Chalamet?
Who has more aura than theDune saga’s prophesied leaderPaul Atreides? Since that role, Chalamet has become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Aura farming is all about cultivating the coolest version of yourself. Think well-tailored suits, lots of grayscale, serious stares and sharp angles.
Four killed and 20 wounded as missiles and drones target the Ukrainian capital
Russia mounted an intense and sustained barrage of Kyiv overnight, with missiles and drones targeting the Ukrainian capital where there was a succession of large explosions, Reuters reporters in the city said.
By daybreak on Friday, authorities in Kyiv reported that four people were killed and 20 people had been wounded, of whom 16 had been hospitalised.
The families of the six children killed in a primary school jumping castle incident are angry after the operator who set up the castle was found not guilty of a workplace safety charge.
Chace Harrison, Jalailah Jayne-Maree Jones, Zane Mellor, Addison Stewart, Jye Sheehan and Peter Dodt died after the incident at Hillcrest primary school in Devonport in December 2021.
Playing stadiums and causing dance crazes, the Irish singer-songwriter is going supernova – and whether opining on trans rights, body shaming or capitalism, she’s more forthright than ever
Ciara Mary-Anne Thompson, or CMAT as she’s professionally known, says she can clearly remember writing the song that changed her life. She was 22 and having moved from Ireland to Manchester, was working in TK Maxx and, at the weekends, as what she’s fond of calling a “sexy shots girl”: “Cash in hand, £8 an hour, 11pm to 3am, teetering up and down the stairs of a nightclub in the building where Joy Division shot the video for Love Will Tear Us Apart with a tray of Jägermeister shots they’d put a bit of dry ice in – burned your skin if you got it on your hands – selling them for three pound each. Terrible job. And just getting absolutely stoned out of my bin all the time, doing whatever drugs anyone would give me for free. I had absolutely no friends.”
An attempt to get her musical career off the ground, “trying to make hyperpop because I loved Charli xcx so much”, had come to nothing. She had just broken up with her “old, weird” boyfriend and was “completely alone in a flat in Chorlton, thinking: ‘What have I done?’ I got really, really, really upset. I kind of looked at myself in the mirror …” She lets out a snort of laughter. “I feel like there’s so many film scenes where people write songs and I’m like, ‘that didn’t fucking happen like that’, but this one did. So I’m crying, grabbed my guitar and wrote I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby! in like 20 minutes. And that was that. I thought: ‘I know what I need to do now.’”
In Galápagos, travellers leave post in an old barrel in the hope it will be picked up – I decided to help out
I have always loved travelling, and have spent most of my adult life either on the move or planning my next adventure. In 2014, I was living in London when my dad, Eric, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND). I immediately moved back to my home town of New Plymouth in New Zealand, to help and spend time with him.
When he passed away in October 2022, I wanted to find a way to process my grief, and I was desperate to get back out into the world.
Exclusive: Levels of ‘multi-stress’ at highest since 2008 crash, study says, with people feeling profoundly powerless
More than 5 million UK adults are experiencing a triple whammy of financial, health and housing insecurity as British households hit levels of “multi-stress” not seen since the global economic crash well over a decade ago, research shows.
One in 10 working-age adults are juggling low income and debt, insecure tenancies and high rents, and problems accessing NHS care. They are at least twice as likely as the rest of the population to report mental stress, sleeplessness and isolation.
Call me a middle-class ‘bobo’, but inspired street art has nothing in common with sprayed-on assertions of ‘me, me, me’
Among the layers of life in Paris that energise me, I might list: peeling back the city’s music scene all the way to figuring out where, and when, the musicians go to jam together; the unassuming flair of even a basic brasserie; the way one can pivot, in the span of a week, from an art gallery opening to a friend’s concert to another friend’s restaurant to discover his Corsican-influenced menu, and end it by lingering on a terrace, “remaking the world” with others who challenge you – calmly – to see something a different way.
Among the things about this city that exhaust me are the people who cram their way into the Métro without letting you step out first (seriously, what neurons are misfiring in the heads of these people?), and the sheer prevalence of tags. It’s when you leave Paris for a bit and come back that you realise how many tags there are. How swaths of a city that is otherwise arrestingly beautiful look as if a giant toddler high on methamphetamines stumbled through them, scribbling on everything in sight with a giant Sharpie.
Lana Estemirova promised to tell story of her mother, a renowned human rights activist. This month it is published
Lana Estemirova was 15 in 2009, when her mother, the renowned Chechen human rights activist Natalia Estemirova, was kidnapped and murdered. Bundled into a car as she walked to the bus stop on her way to work, she was driven out of town and then shot five times in the chest and head.
The killing was widely seen as retribution for Estemirova’s fearless investigations of extrajudicial murders, kidnappings and human rights abuses in Chechnya, first by Russian soldiers and then by forces loyal to the Kremlin-appointed warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov. Nobody was ever prosecuted for the crime.
Andalucían police used shot of women sitting on chairs on pavement in request to keep public right of way clear
Somewhere towards the very top of the long list of unspoken Spanish rules – gin and tonic should not be drunk before a meal, chorizo has no place in the vicinity of a paella and children’s bedtimes cease to apply in the summer – is the silent injunction that forbids any attempts to alter the habits of the country’s cherished older people.
It was unfortunate, then, that police in the small Andalucían town of Santa Fe chose the photo they did to accompany a request for people not to disturb their neighbours by sitting around the streets late at night.
Emergency legislation is being used in increasingly repressive ways to grab back land granted during the civil war, say campaigners
In early May, the farming cooperative of El Bosque in Santa Tecla, one of El Salvador’s largest cities, received an eviction notice; a new battle in a decades-old fight for land. In response, community members organised a peaceful sit-in near hardline President Nayib Bukele’s private residence, hoping to appeal directly for help.
Scotland captain says teammate on ‘a whole new level’
Andy Robertson believes his Scotland teammate Scott McTominay has revelled in demonstrating the error of Manchester United’s ways by flourishing at Napoli.
McTominay’s dream debut season in Naples included a Serie A title and being named the league’s most valuable player. United have been widely castigated for letting the 28-year-old leave his boyhood club for £25m last summer.
Glitzy Euro squad launch helps the feelgood factor but there are still questions over squad harmony, strength in depth and player welfare
Music thumping, quick transitions, a host of celebrities and inspirational words. There’s nothing like an England squad announcement video to get you in the mood for a major tournament. “I hope you can feel it from the streets to the stands, the summer is in the safest hands,” the poet Sophia Thakur tells us, exactly one month out from England’s first game of Euro 2025 against France.
The slogan is “It’s time to go again” and the squad is announced by a host of big names, from Maisie Adam, Daisy May Cooper and Keely Hodgkinson, to David Beckham, Alex Scott, Bukayo Saka and Harry Kane.
OVO Hydro, Glasgow The perfectly ’tached singer rolls out some raw and funky versions of his hits, from Hello to Brick House to All Night Long, with a roaring-along crowd
‘Come to hear me sing?” Lionel Richie teases. “Not gonna happen!” His Say Hello to the Hits tour couldn’t be a clearer invitation to croon along with a true great, and from natural opener Hello, a loud and proud audience seizes that chance.
A video montage of Richie’s 50-year career and perfect ’tache drives the point home. Tonight is about legacy – not just the Grammys and multi-platinum hits which made Richie’s name, but the way that songs such as Truly and the Commodores’ Three Times a Lady have become intertwined with people’s lives. “I’ll just fit myself in best I can,” he booms, laughing.
Samad Abdul is among the last of more than 2,000 people who passed through the illegal system. Prevented from leaving PNG, he says his life is wasting away
“Manus is closed. Detention is over, but we are detained still. We are here still, people are suffering a lot still. Every day we get worse, we are dying a little bit more. But nobody cares about us.”
Here on a dusty hill on the edge of Port Moresby is the ragged, desperate end to Australia’s illegal offshore detention regime in Papua New Guinea.
The 38-year-old can prove he still remains at the top but his opponent seems to have his, and everyone else’s, number
‘These kind of matchups and challenges in a way extract the best out of me,” said Novak Djokovic, smiling, as the clock ticked into the early hours of Thursday morning. Djokovic had demonstrated that sentiment in real time as he spectacularly rose to the occasion against the third-best player in the world, utilising the full breadth of his complete, unprecedented game to defeat Alexander Zverev and return to the semi-finals of the French Open, where he will face Jannik Sinner.
“Playing best-of-five, late stages of a grand slam against No 1 in the world, you can’t get more motivated than that for me at this age,” said Djokovic.
Victorian woman, 50, has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder after a fatal beef wellington lunch in Leongatha in 2023. Follow live
Patterson denies telling ex-partner she had important medical news she wanted advice on
Rogers says Simon gave evidence that on 16 July 2023 – two weeks prior to the lunch – Patterson approached him after a church service and said she had some important medical news she wanted advice on and how to break it to the children.
Tyrese Haliburton scores with 0.3 seconds left to seal win
Nearly every analyst coming into this year’s NBA finals had the Oklahoma City Thunder beating the Indiana Pacers comfortably. The first three quarters of Game 1 did very little to contradict those predictions until the final minutes, when all hell broke loose.
The reigning NBA MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, looked like, well, the NBA MVP for much of the game as he led the scoring with 38 points. His Thunder team went out to an early 7-0 lead and were 57-45 up by half-time. The second half seemed to be going the same way with the Thunder 15 points up at one point in the fourth quarter.
Endangered sharks are being killed at alarming levels in the Pacific and industrial fishing is putting marine biodiversity at increasing risk, Greenpeace has claimed, after its activists disrupted a Spanish vessel operating north of New Zealand.
The campaign group said activists on the Rainbow Warrior this week observed a longline fishing operation by the Playa Zahara in the South Fiji Basin.
I love my sister dearly. However, we could not be more different. I approach things head on: if something is a problem, I start working on it. She, on the other hand, is very passive. For the last 10 years three issues have been bothering her – her weight, her marriage and her dissatisfaction with her job. But she does nothing about any of them.
I tried to help her in many different ways: direct advice – she gets offended and feels judged. Then I tried “tiptoeing” around her. For each suggestion, she always has an excuse why it won’t work. Additionally, she often has a victim complex, as if things are just happening to her and that she has no personal agency.
I’ve heard from a very wise friend that something she hadn’t previously considered, which she read in my “tiny house” article, was that the housing market requires most people to be in debt. It’s been a strangely positive experience to come to the concept of “economics” through living my life as a poet, novelist and medical journalist, because it allows me to critique things that might otherwise go unnoticed. Another very wise friend told me that her husband went to university to study economics, was told on day one that the entire model is built on a concept of infinite growth, and he quit to become a gardener. No wonder we’re friends.
The first book of economics I read was The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The point of this beautifully written, small book (a long essay, really) is that different concepts of “economies” exist – we needn’t be beholden to the neoliberal, western, cut-throat, strangle-your-dreams economy that many of us feel mired, indeed trapped, within – and she describes something from her Potawatomi heritage called the gift economy. She speaks of reciprocity and abundance, rather than grasping and scarcity. The revolutionary thing about Kimmerer’s writing is that it’s gentle, assured, and as a reader I’m left with no doubt that she’s correct.
Ladder-leading team to be rebranded Bonds Flying Roos
Deadpool and Wolverine stars join driver and CEO Tom Slingsby
Sailing has been given a sprinkling of Hollywood stardust with the announcement that A-list duo Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman have taken over the Australian SailGP team.
Reynolds is no stranger to sports ownership, having invested in Welsh football club Wrexham along with fellow actor Rob McElhenney in 2022, helping the team to three successive promotions.
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London The big hits might be truncated to make way for her latest, country-inflected album – but seen live, these songs sound like a powerful act of protest
It clearly hasn’t escaped Beyoncé’s notice that the meteorological omens auger ill for the first UK show of her Cowboy Carter tour. The weathermen are predicting a thunderstorm, the Tottenham Hotspur ground is noticeably lacking a roof, and she’s no sooner arrived onstage than she’s suggesting that the prospect of rain “ain’t gonna stop the party”.
The thunderstorm never comes, but a cynic might suggest the glowering skies, and a sudden downpour – through which the singer will be required to fly on a giant neon-lit horseshoe – act as a kind of metaphor for the fortunes of the Cowboy Carter tour. It’s thus far attracted the usual laudatory reviews – such is the blanket critical acclaim for everything Beyoncé does, you rather get the feeling that were she spotted using a public convenience, there would be a spate of articles claiming she’d singlehandedly redefined going to the lavatory – but it has also been attended by news reports suggesting all is not well. There is talk of sluggish ticket sales and demands for refunds from fans who shelled out full whack for seats on release, only to see them going for vastly reduced prices as the gigs drew nearer. One headline-grabbing complaint noted that tickets for her LA show were now “cheaper than a McDonald’s Minecraft meal”.
Labour celebrated the ‘incredible’ win in the central seat of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, as voters rallied around popular local candidate Davy Russell
Scottish Labour is celebrating an “incredible” win in a pivotal Holyrood byelection, beating the incumbent SNP and fighting off Reform UK’s “racist” campaigning, in a result that confounded predictions and will boost the party ahead of next year’s Scottish parliamentary elections.
Voters in the central Scotland seat of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse rallied round the popular local candidate Davy Russell after a toxic campaign that saw Nigel Farage launch an unprecedented series of personal attacks on Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, labelled racist by SNP leader John Swinney.
Dairy is the country’s largest export industry, but recent figures from Stats NZ show domestic butter prices have surged 65% and people are getting desperate
New Zealanders are driving cross-country for hours in pursuit of cheap butter while some are ordering it from Australia or even churning their own cream, as the country battles sky-high dairy prices.
Despite dairy being the country’s largest export industry, recent figures from Stats NZ show domestic butter prices surged 65% in the year to March, pushing the average price for 500g to $7.42 (£3.30) – that’s up about $3 from this time last year.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, on Thursday said his company SpaceX would begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft after he engaged in an extraordinary public fallout with Donald Trump who had threatened to cancel government contracts with Musk’s businesses.
“In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,” Musk posted on the social media platform X, which he owns.
Elon Musk called for Donald Trump’s impeachment and mocked his connections to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as the US president threatened to cancel federal contracts and tax subsidies for Musk’s companies, in an extraordinary social media feud that erupted between the former allies on Thursday.
The deterioration of their once close relationship into bitter acrimony came over the course of several remarkable hours during which the president and the world’s richest person hurled deeply personal insults over matters significant and insignificant.
All it took was a split second – and a swing of Aziz Behich’s right boot – for the sins of the previous 90 minutes in Perth to be washed away
At half-time of Australia’s 1-0 win over Japan, a smash-and-grab to end all smash-and-grabs that all but punches their tickets to the 2026 World Cup, the Socceroos staff had a clear message for their players. They’d been handily outplayed to that point, lucky to get out of their own half let alone fashion something resembling a threat on their opponent’s goal, as a second-string Samurai Blue outfit dominated almost every meaningful statistic except the only one that mattered.
There was a feeling of disappointment over a perceived lack of toughness from the home side, a view that they were second best in every challenge, losing their duels and missing out on every second ball. But there was no sense of panic. “The coaches were just like, ‘stay calm’, keep moving it, keep moving it,” said Connor Metcalfe. “And if we have to score in the 90th minute, then we have to score in the 90th minute.”
Across the US, hundreds of thousands of Chinese students are now uncertain about their academic future and some are considering moving away
Chinese students in the United States are questioning their future in the country after the state department announced last week that it would “aggressively” revoke visas for Chinese students and enhance scrutiny of future applications from China and Hong Kong.
Chinese students hoping to study at Harvard, the US’s oldest and wealthiest university, are under particular pressure after the Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it was banning the school from enrolling new foreign students. The presidential proclamation cited Harvard’s links with China as a particular cause for concern.
Biological disadvantages may be shaped in first decade of a child’s life depending on family affluence
Children from poorer backgrounds are more likely to experience biological disadvantages such as ageing faster than their more affluent counterparts, according to a study.
Academics at Imperial College London looked at data from 1,160 children aged between six and 11 from across Europe, for the study published in the Lancet. The children were scored using an international scale of family affluence, which is based on a number of factors including whether a child had their own room and the number of vehicles per household.
The bromance might be over but Trump has kissed and made up with his enemies before. Enjoy it while it lasts
If you paid attention during physics class you will remember the third law of ego-dynamics. Namely: when two egos of equal mass occupy the same orbit, the system will eventually become unstable, resulting in an explosive separation and some very nasty tweets.
To see this theory in action please have a gander at the dramatic collapse of the Donald Trump and Elon Musk bromance. The news has been a nonstop horror show for what feels like forever. Watching two of the very worst people in the world direct their nastiness at each other is extremely cathartic.
Palestinian graduate describes weeping as he crouched on detention center floor listening to wife give birth
Mahmoud Khalil, the detained Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist, has said in a new court filing that the “most immediate and visceral harms” he has experienced during his nearly three-month detention have been missing the birth of his son and being separated from his wife.
“Instead of holding my wife’s hand in the delivery room, I was crouched on a detention center floor, whispering through a crackling phone line as she labored alone,” Khalil said. “I listened to her pain, trying to comfort her while 70 other men slept around me. When I heard my son’s first cries, I buried my face in my arms so no one would see me weep.
Desert Flower’s trainer and jockey are each on the brink of a career landmark but Minnie Hauk could scupper those hopes
For both Charlie Appleby and William Buick, membership of one of Flat racing’s most exclusive clubs will be an added incentive when Desert Flower, the 1,000 Guineas winner and favourite, canters to post before the Oaks at Epsom on Friday afternoon.
Since the end of the second world war, only eight jockeys and 11 trainers have managed to get their names on the roll of honour for all five English Classics, and both lists are a roll call of racing legends. Vincent O’Brien, Sir Henry Cecil and Aidan O’Brien are among the trainers to have completed the full set, while an even shorter list of riders includes Lester Piggott, Steve Cauthen and Pat Eddery, and, since the turn of the century, only Frankie Dettori and Ryan Moore.
Another day, another final. Another night to enjoy, and the promise that there may be many more to come. The European champions made their way to Munich where they will defend their Nations League title thanks to a 5-4 victory over France which left something more than just the result in Stuttgart.
It may not be so absurd to imagine that this Spain could match that one, although there are lessons to be learnt at the back. Just as it may not be so absurd to suggest that the 17-year-old in their team is not going to be the best, he already is. If this was an audition for the Ballon d’Or against Ousmane Dembélé and Kylian Mbappé, as many said, the award is Lamine Yamal’s.
Connexion
