It’s time! The nine finalists have taken the stage. Esha Marupudi is first and she nails isopag, an equiglacial line on a map or chart that connects the points where ice is present for approximately the same number of days in winter. Next up is Oliver Halkett and he confidently spells corbicula. Sarvadnya Kadam has no problems with dolabrate. Now it’s Sarv Dharavane, the 11-year-old who is the youngest of the nine finalists. His word is ethology, defined as the scientific and objective study of animal behavior especially under natural conditions. After a few questions for head pronouncer Dr Jacques Bailly, he coolly drills it. Four up, four down: a roaring start heading into the first commercial break.
The majority of entrants in the National Spelling Bee are from the US, hailing from all 50 states. But some have traveled farther for the competition. Alleena Villaluz traveled some 7,800 miles from Saipan, a US commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands roughly 133 miles (by air) from Guam. This was her second consecutive Bee. Other spellers came from Canada, the Bahamas, Germany, Ghana, Kuwait, Nigeria, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
The $100,000 award is Australia’s richest art prize for artists under 40, with finalists exhibited at the Art Gallery of South Australia until 31 August. Here’s a selection
A recent winner of four Masters Games gold medals, Sawang Janpram began competing at 97 – motivated by his daughter, now 73
For the 105-year-old Thai athlete Sawang Janpram, the day normally starts at 5.30am. He has a breakfast of two boiled eggs, some protein, vegetables and fruit, and by 6am or 7am he’s out at the beach or local stadium near his home in Rayong province, training with his 73-year-old daughter Siripan.
He will walk between 1km and 2km before doing a quick 100m run, once or twice. Then, he practises one of his other sports: javelin, discus or shot put.
Natalie Phelps, who has stage 4 colorectal cancer, has raised the alarm over how patients in the agency’s clinical trials are facing setbacks in treatment
A 43-year-old woman and mother of two with advanced cancer says she is experiencing life-or-death delays in treatment because of the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Natalie Phelps, who has stage 4 colorectal cancer, has spoken publicly, raising the alarm about a setback in care for herself and others who are part of clinical trials run by the agency. Her story has made it into congressional hearings and spurred a spat between a Democratic senator and the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. Behind the scenes, she and others are advocating to get her treatment started sooner.
Jimmy Wayne Carwyle, who has pleaded not guilty, declared not mentally fit to face charges of vandalism and felony stalking of the Friends actor
A judge declared on Thursday that a man is mentally incompetent to stand trial on charges of stalking Jennifer Aniston and crashing his car through her front gate.
The move in a Los Angeles County mental health court came after a second psychiatrist examined the defendant, Jimmy Wayne Carwyle, and reached the same conclusion as the first: that his mental health would not allow him to answer to felony charges of vandalism and stalking of the Friends star.
20,000 cargo containers of ammo, shells, missiles and gear sent, says watchdog replacing UN panel scuppered by Moscow. What we know on 1,192
North Korea has supplied to Russia as many as nine million rounds of artillery and rocket launcher ammunition, as well as at least 100 ballistic missiles along with self-propelled artillery guns and long-range multiple rocket launchers, according to the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, a group comprising 11 UN members. The shipments have enabled Russia to increase attacks against civilian targets, and there have been 20,000 containers of the gear transferred by Russian cargo ships, in violation of UN sanctions. The monitoring group comprises the US, South Korea, Japan, and eight other UN member states. It was set up after Russia and China cooperated to scrap an official security council panel that did the job.
The multilateral group has said in its first ever report that Russia is helping North Korea improve its missiles’ guidance systems by sending back data from the battlefield. Moscow also provided air defence equipment, anti-aircraft missiles and electronic warfare systems to North Korea. “At least for the foreseeable future, North Korea and Russia intend to continue and further deepen their military cooperation in contravention of relevant UN security council resolutions.” After months of silence, North Korea and Russia confirmed in April that North Korean troops have been fighting on the Russian side in the Ukraine war.
Russia’s SVR intelligence service has complained about Serbian ammunition ending up in Ukrainian hands via other countries when Moscow expects Belgrade’s “fraternal Slavic” obedience. The SVR alleges the trail leads to Ukraine through the Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria. Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, told RTS television that he had discussed the exports with Vladimir Putin and the two countries would form a “working group” about it. But Vucic added that Serbia was criticised by both the east and west “because it leads autonomous and independent policies … Our factories must live and work. About 24,000 people work directly in the defence industry, and they depend on this industry.” Vucic has previously said that once the ammunition is sold to another country, he does not care where it goes next.
At the United Nations, the US told the security council on Thursday that its proposal for a 30-day comprehensive ceasefire was “Russia’s best possible outcome” and Vladimir Putin should take it. “We want to work with Russia, including on this peace initiative and an economic package. There is no military solution to this conflict,” acting US ambassador John Kelley told the council.
Russia is supposed to put forward a memorandum of its terms for peace but is refusing to do hand it over – demanding a further meeting with Ukraine, which says it has already sent its conditions. Kelley condemned Russia’s recent attacks on Ukraine as not demonstrating “a desire for peace”. “We will judge Russia’s seriousness towards ending the war, not only by the contents of that term sheet, but more importantly, by Russia’s actions … Additional sanctions on Russia are still on the table.”
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Russia was engaging in “yet another deception” by failing to hand over its peace settlement proposal ahead of their potential next meeting in Turkey on 2 June. “Even the so-called memorandum they promised and seemingly prepared for more than a week has still not been seen by anyone … despite promises to the contrary, first and foremost to the United States of America, to President Trump. Yet another Russian deception.” Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said that without being able to review Russia’s memorandum, Kyiv would conclude “it is likely filled with unrealistic ultimatums, and they are afraid of revealing that they are stalling the peace process”.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – president of Turkey which would again host the talks – called on Russia and Ukraine not to “shut the door” on dialogue. “The road to a resolution goes through more dialogue, more diplomacy. We are using all our diplomatic power and potential for peace,” he said, according to his office.
Artificial intelligence tool determines best candidates to take abiraterone, which can halve risk of death from disease
Doctors have developed an artificial intelligence tool that can predict which men with prostate cancer will benefit from a drug that halves the risk of dying.
Abiraterone has been described as a “gamechanger” treatment for the disease, which is the most common form of cancer in men in more than 100 countries. It has already helped hundreds of thousands with advanced prostate cancer to live longer.
Party leader says he wants UK to be a ‘crypto powerhouse’ during speech at Las Vegas conference
Reform UK will accept donations through bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Nigel Farage has announced.
During an appearance at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, where he was introduced as a “UK presidential candidate”, Farage said: “As of now, provided you are an eligible UK donor … we are the first political party in Britain that can accept donations in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.”
Draper into third round with 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory
British No 1 wins five games in a row to claim fourth set
As 15,000 people cheered on his potential demise late into Thursday night, for a sustained period Jack Draper looked completely frazzled. He found himself playing a few too many drop shots, bailing out of points instead of slamming the door shut. His first serve had vacated the premises.
These things often happen in Gaël Monfils’ lair, Court Philippe-Chatrier, where his magnetic personality draws his home crowd into a frenzy and his singular style plays tricks with an opponent’s mind. Despite being pushed to his limits and standing on the verge of an uncertain fifth set, Draper gave another demonstration of his mental durability by finding his way through to the third round of the French Open with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 win.
Though the billionaire vowed modernization and efficiency, what’s left is a trail of uncertainty and reduced functionality
Elon Musk formally exited his role in the Trump administration on Wednesday night, ending a contentious and generally unpopular run as a senior adviser to the president and de facto head of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge). Though he promised efficiency and modernization, Musk leaves behind a trail of uncertainty and reduced functionality.
The timing of Musk’s departure lines up with the end of his 130-day term limit as a “special government employee” but also plays a part in an effort by the billionaire to signal a wider shift away from Washington as he faces backlash from the public and shareholders. Musk has recently made a show of refocusing his efforts on his tech companies in interviews, saying that he has spent too much time focused on politics and plans to reduce his political spending in the future.
Pyramids and monuments suggest Los Abuelos was a significant ceremonial site, archaeologists say
Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a Mayan city nearly 3,000 years old in northern Guatemala, with pyramids and monuments that point to its significance as an important ceremonial site.
The Mayan civilization arose around 2000BC, reaching its height between 400 and 900AD in what is present-day southern Mexico and Guatemala, as well as parts of Belize, El Salvador and Honduras.
There have been seminal moments in time on darts’ journey: the highs and the lows. But there have always been breakthrough moments that have opened the door for a bigger future and as Luke Humphries lifted the Premier League Darts trophy aloft inside a sold-out O2, it was not unreasonable to assume where this game heads next.
In the 1980s, it was Eric Bristow’s pomp and circumstance while dominating in the slightly more low-key venues of Stoke’s Jollees Cabaret Club and the Lakeside. Then it was Phil Taylor who dominated the PDC’s formative years and, yes, while he had the odd rival along the way, it is a fair argument that the 16-time world champion single-handedly broke down barriers for the sport.
Exclusive: Trade unions and human rights organisations fear environment and human rights being pushed aside
The UK is on the brink of signing a £1.6bn trade agreement with Gulf states, amid warnings from rights groups that the deal makes no concrete provisions on human rights, modern slavery or the environment.
The deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council – which includes the countries Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – is within touching distance, making it a fourth trading agreement by Keir Starmer after pacts were struck with the US, India and the EU.
The Altruists, from Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions, to star Anthony Boyle as disgraced founder and Julia Garner as Caroline Ellison
Netflix is getting into the cryptocurrency business, with a limited series produced by the Obamas on the rise and fall of crypto exchange FTX and its disgraced founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.
The Altruists, from Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions, will focus on the eccentric entrepreneur and his business – and sometimes personal – partner Caroline Ellison.
Caroline Darian tells Hay festival that pornography websites are ‘part of the system’ of misogyny and violence
There is “no way” that Gisèle Pelicot would have been raped more than 200 times without the existence of pornography websites, her daughter has said.
Speaking at the Hay festival in Powys on Thursday, Caroline Darian said there were “so many social problems like online porn” that can lead to instances of abuse.
The target was delivered by Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem, and triples figures from earlier this year
The Trump administration has set aggressive new goals in its anti-immigration agenda, demanding that federal agents arrest 3,000 people a day – or more than a million in a year.
The new target, tripling arrest figures from earlier this year, was delivered to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) leaders by Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, and Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, in a strained meeting last week.
The previous time England stuck 400 on the board in a one-day international at Edgbaston it was something of an epiphany and four years later they were world champions. Whether Harry Brook’s captaincy can deliver silverware like Eoin Morgan’s transformative reign remains to be seen but this 238-run mauling of West Indies made for a handy start.
Not only did Brook’s men amass 400 for eight after being put in by Shai Hope but, for the first time in the format’s history, they did so without a centurion on the day. Instead it was a collective assault of the bowlers and the poor boundary riders, with four half-centuries and – in another first – every member of the top seven making at least 30.
Whatever the result of Champions League final, PSG’s owners have positioned club as game’s next superpower
Put a bisht on it. That’s a wrap. At first glance it might be tempting to see the 2025 Champions League final as one of the more obviously high-European occasions in recent football history.
Twenty thousand Parisians and Milanese will trace out a thousand mile right-angle this weekend, north from Lombardy, east across Alsace and the Rhineland, there to spend a long weekend wandering the white stone streets of Munich, with its reassuringly terrifying gothic cathedral, its pounded-meat cuisine de terroir, its altstadt boutiques selling wristwatches priced at roughly the same the cost as the average human arm, and finally on to the lighted dome of the Allianz Arena, dumped down in the green fringes to the north like a giant alien doughnut.
The Liverpool forward Luis Díaz is attracting interest from Saudi Arabia, with Al-Nassr considering a move for the Colombia international.
Díaz has two years remaining on his contract and is yet to enter talks on an extension. There has been no approach to Liverpool by Al-Nassr so far but Saudi interest in the 28-year-old is longstanding and, with Cristiano Ronaldo a possible departure before the Club World Cup, the club are likely to be in the market for another big name.
The Federal Reserve issued a rare, strongly worded statement on Thursday after chair Jerome Powell spoke with Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday morning, holding firm on the central bank’s independence amid pressure from Trump to lower interest rates.
The three-paragraph statement emphasized the Fed’s independent, non-partisan role in setting monetary policy based on economic data.
Minuscule fossils from 73m years ago are oldest evidence yet for birds nesting in polar regions
The Arctic might evoke images of polar bears and seals, but 73m years ago it was a dinosaur stomping ground. Now fossil hunters say these beasts shared their turf with a host of different birds.
Researchers believe their discovery of more than 50 bird fossils from the Prince Creek formation in Alaska is the oldest evidence of birds nesting in polar regions, pushing back the date by more than 25m years.
Lewis Hamilton has dismissed speculation about what has been interpreted as a fractious relationship with Riccardo Adami, his race engineer at Ferrari, describing it as “BS” and insisting the pair enjoy a healthy working relationship.
The issue has previously been raised several times this season as Hamilton develops his dynamic with Adami and came to the fore once more because of some testy exchanges at the last round in Monaco, including when Hamilton asked his engineer at the end of the race: “Are you upset with me or something?” To which he appeared to receive no reply.
The worst of all outcomes would be for US legislators to agree to strengthen the president’s executive powers
If one thing is more challenging to the rule of law than a genuine emergency, it is the invention of a phoney one. Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has upended global trade and international relations, wiping billions off the stock market in the process, by imposing tariffs that he claims are a necessary response to an emergency. Yet that emergency does not really exist, except in the manner that Mr Trump himself has created it.
The president claimed, on 2 April, that a lack of reciprocity in US overseas trade arrangements was “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States”. He claimed that this justified him in declaring an emergency and governing by executive decree under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Congress, which normally has the responsibility to decide US trade policy, was thus wholly ignored. Statutory consultative arrangements, traditionally an essential preliminary, went out of the window too. Mr Trump was effectively exercising an executive power grab.
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LGBTQ+ communities face more discrimination under Trump 2.0 but cultural institutions continue to support
While many sectors of society are pulling back on LGBTQ+ celebration, support and representation – including retailers like Target, tech giants like Meta and Google, and non-profits such as the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (Rainn) – art venues large and small are showing up for Pride month this June. Here’s a roundup of many of the things happening all over the country to celebrate and encourage the LGBTQ+ community this year.
In the documentary White with Fear, an insidious long-running campaign to villainize people of color in the US is laid bare
In the year 1968, a group of housewives in Dearborn, Michigan, then a nearly all-white suburb of Detroit, gathered for a workshop on how to shoot a gun. The women at the pistol range, mostly late-middle age and grandmotherly, were reacting to rhetoric from Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign, which fixated on a so-called crime wave. They were scared, defensive, willing to pick up a gun as a guard against what Nixon called “cities enveloped in smoke and flame”.
The neighboring city of Detroit was 40% Black, and the “crime” supposedly overtaking US cities meant, in this context, Black people, and white suburbia’s racist fear of them. Nixon knew this, though he didn’t say it outright – “You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the Blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to,” he once said, as quoted in the opening minutes of White with Fear, a new documentary on decades of Republican political strategy to stoke and manipulate white racial resentment.
Paul Doyle, 53, from Liverpool was arrested after incident in which at least 79 people were injured
A man has been charged with multiple offences after a car ploughed into a crowd at the end of Liverpool football club’s Premier League victory parade.
Paul Doyle, 53, from the West Derby area of Liverpool, was charged with dangerous driving, causing grievous bodily harm with intent, wounding with intent to cause GBH, and attempting to cause GBH with intent after the incident on Water Street in the city centre.
Exclusive: One in six female survivors surveyed felt forced to engage in ‘survival sex’ for necessities after 2023 catastrophic Hawaii fire
Sexual exploitation and domestic violence soared after the catastrophic Lahaina wildfire in 2023, with pre-existing gender inequalities exposed and exacerbated by the post-disaster response, new research has found.
In the weeks and months after the deadliest American fire in a century, one in six female fire survivors surveyed felt forced to engage in sexual acts in exchange for basic necessities such as food, clothing and housing.
Sean McGovern, wanted on charges of murder and directing organised crime, flown to Ireland in military aircraft
A leader of the notorious Kinahan organised crime group has been flown from the United Arab Emirates to Ireland in the first extradition of its kind.
An Irish military aircraft carrying Sean McGovern – who is wanted on charges of murder and directing organised crime – was due to land in Dublin amid heavy security on Thursday afternoon.
The report exposes glaring scientific failures from a health secretary who earlier this week threatened to ban government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals.
As an aid worker, I despaired at news of Israeli troops opening fire on people seeking food. This is no answer to our suffering
Two days ago, Israeli soldiers fired on a massive crowd of starving Palestinians who just wanted to eat. Some of them had walked more than 10km to reach what was then the only aid distribution point in Gaza. They were looking for help from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a newly formed Israeli-backed logistics group that had set up a distribution centre in Rafah. Israel and GHF lost control of the crowd; Palestinians were shot and killed for seeking food, and dozens were injured.
What the GHF is doing is nothing more than a public relations campaign: it is promoting the illusion that aid has begun entering the Strip in a meaningful way. What we have learned is that GHF only distributed eight trucks’ worth of food on Wednesday. Moreover, a US charity, Rahma Worldwide, which had food parcels that it couldn’t get into Gaza and so allowed them to be “taken custody” by GHF, has accused the organisation of using its logo without permission in the aid distribution. (Rahma said it’s opposed to working alongside GHF because of its use of armed security contractors.)Ultimately, there are tens of thousands of people across the Gaza Strip who will not be able to reach the newly created centres. Even if they function, they will not meet the ever-growing daily needs of the population here.
Campaigners say failings have ‘ruined lives’ after figures show up to 2.5m people in country could have condition
ADHD campaigners have accused the NHS of presiding over a “widely failing system” as it emerged that as many as 2.5 million people in England could have the condition, with more than half a million people waiting for an assessment.
According to the first figures of their kind published by the health service, 3-4% of adults, and 5% of children and young people, in the country have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Whiplash decision for negligence case comes after one of three judges overseeing trial steps down on Thursday
A court in Argentina has declared a mistrial in the case of seven health professionals accused of negligence in the death of soccer legend Diego Maradona, the latest dramatic twist in a trial that has captivated the nation and the soccer world for more than two months.
The whiplash decision on Thursday comes after one of the three judges overseeing the trial stepped down over criticism surrounding her participation in a forthcoming documentary about the case.
Testifying under pseudonym Mia, woman tells jury she worked for music mogul from 2009-2018 as trial continues
A second woman testified on Thursday that Sean “Diddy” Combs sexually assaulted her as part of what federal prosecutors allege was a sex-trafficking and racketeering scheme masterminded by the disgraced hip-hop mogul.
The woman, testifying under the pseudonym Mia, told a jury in Manhattan federal court that she worked for Combs as a personal assistant and director of development and acquisition from 2009 to 2017, starting when she was about 25 years old.
German produces powerful finish for struggling Red Bull
GC riders ten minutes adrift with Yates still in third spot
Nico Denz surged to victory on stage 18 of the Giro D’Italia, offering some respite for his struggling Red Bull team.
The German produced a powerful finish to take the win at Cesano Maderno, a much-needed injection of good news following the injury withdrawals of the general classification (GC) hopefuls Jai Hindley and Primoz Roglic.
Around the world, the right is trumpeting its pronatalist policies. But bribing women to have babies will never lead to a healthy society
Turning children into capitalists – that’s the purpose behind the new “Trump account”, which will give every new baby born in the US during the president’s second term $1,000 to be invested in the stock market. Now, little shareholders can identify with the US companies they invest in. “Hey … I own 50 bucks of McDonald’s” was an example given by senator Ted Cruz. This is a surprise element in Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill”, which gives $1.1tn in tax cuts to the very rich funded by cutting Medicaid, food assistance and the education department.
This joins a range of policies from rightwing parties around the world which look, on the face of it, to be pro-child or pro-family. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán announced an income tax exemption for mothers of two or three children – previously, only mothers of four or more children were exempt. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage in the UK has proclaimed that Reform would end the two-child benefit cap.
Several people reported feeling dizzy and unwell after eating from a 1kg pack of Haribo Happy Cola F!ZZ
Space cake, weed cookies and hash brownies may be familiar fare in the Netherlands, but cannabis in bags of children’s candy is not and Haribo has recalled its Happy Cola F!ZZ sweets after traces of the drug were found inside.
Several people, including children, suffered “health complaints, such as dizziness” after eating sweets from three 1kg packs, the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) in the Netherlands said, adding that a full recall had been undertaken as a precaution.
While Manchester United ended the season trophyless and 15th in the Premier League, they did at least get to join their comparatively triumphant Liverpool, Crystal Palace, Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle counterparts in having an open-top bus parade. Currently serving club-enforced penance for their shambles of a season on a money-spinning post-season tour of Asia, the players – well, four of them at least – were forced to endure the indignity of being paraded through the streets of Kuala Lumpur on a heavily branded giant red doubledecker with ‘Glory, Glory, Man United’ blaring through its speakers, presumably to try to drum up interest in upwards of 12,000 unsold tickets for their Maybank Challenge Cup match against a scratch Asean All Stars side, scheduled to take place the following day.
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