As the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter shifts to cleaner energy, some families fear being left behind
Gazing over the remains of his home, Wang Bingbing surveys a decades-old jujube tree flowering through the rubble, and the yard where he and his wife once raised pigs, now a pile of crumbled brick.
In the valley below, a sprawling coalmine is the source of their dislocation: years of digging heightened the risk of landslides, forcing Wang and his family out. To prevent the family from returning, local authorities later demolished their home.
Kremlin says ‘our goals are clear’ over conditions Kyiv and its allies have rejected as Russian drone attacks injure several around Ukraine. What we know on day 1,244
Russia has said it is open to peace with Ukraine but insists achieving its goals remains a priority, days after Donald Trump gave Moscow a 50-day deadline to agree to a ceasefire or face tougher sanctions. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reiterated Russia’s demands on Sunday, including Ukraine withdrawing from Russia-annexed regions and abandoning its Nato aspirations – terms that Kyiv and its allies have rejected. “The main thing for us is to achieve our goals,” Peskov told state TV. “Our goals are clear.”
Ukrainian officials proposed a new round of peace talks this week, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday, while Russian state media said on Sunday that no date had yet been set for the negotiations but Istanbul would probably remain the host city. A week ago Trump, the US president, threatened Russia with “severe tariffs” unless a peace deal was reached within 50 days and announced a rejuvenated pipeline for US weapons to reach Ukraine amid his frustration at unsuccessful talks to end the war.
Russia’s biggest oil producer Rosneft has condemned European Union sanctions on India’s Nayara Energy refinery as unjustified and illegal, saying the restrictions directly threatened India’s energy security. The EU’s 18th package of sanctions against Russia over Ukraine was approved on Friday and is aimed at further hitting Russia’s oil and energy industry. Rosneft said on Sunday it held less than 50% in Nayara – one of the targeted companies – and called the EU’s justification for the sanctions “far-fetched and false in context”. The EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, has said the sanctions package is one of the strongest yet against Russia and “we will keep raising the costs, so stopping the aggression becomes the only path forward for Moscow”.
Two women were injured in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region when a drone struck their house on Sunday, according to the regional military administration. Two more civilians were injured in the north-eastern Kharkiv province after a drone slammed into a residential building, local Ukrainian officials said.
Drones struck a leafy square in the centre of Sumy later on Sunday, wounding a woman and her seven-year-old son, officials said. The strike also damaged a power line, leaving about 100 households without electricity, according to Serhii Krivosheienko of the municipal military administration.
Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 18 of 57 Shahed-type and decoy drones launched by Russia overnight into Sunday, with seven more disappearing from radar. Russia’s defence ministry said its forces shot down 93 Ukrainian drones targeting Russian territory overnight, including at least 15 that appeared to head for Moscow.
Ten more Ukrainian drones were downed on the approach to the Russian capital on Sunday, according to mayor Sergei Sobyanin. He said one drone struck a residential building in Zelenograd, on Moscow’s outskirts, damaging an apartment but causing no casualties.
Merseyside police says material in support of Palestine Action was reportedly seen in possession of protesters
Four people were arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences during a pro-Palestine protest in Liverpool city centre on Sunday afternoon, police said.
Merseyside police said material in support of campaign group Palestine Action was reportedly seen in the possession of a small number of protesters at the regular march for Liverpool Friends of Palestine.
Barbie Reynolds, 76, and husband Peter, 80, have been held for five-and-a-half months without charge
The children of an elderly couple imprisoned by the Taliban in Afghanistan have urged the group to release the pair before they “die in custody”.
They said the UN would be making a statement on Monday calling for the immediate release of Barbie Reynolds, 76, and her husband Peter, 80, who were arrested as they travelled to their home in Bamyan province, central Afghanistan, in February.
As her million-selling 70s novel, Engagement, is translated into English for the first time, the Swedish author talks about life at 80, finding the ideal love, and why her generation were freer than today’s young people
At a glance, Engagement, Gun-Britt Sundström’s classic novel of the 1970s, looks like a conventional story of young student love floundering in the face of ambivalence. The 79-year-old author, who is speaking via video call while cat-sitting for her son at his house outside Stockholm, has been taken aback by the novel’s return to favour. For a long time, Sundström tried to distance herself from Engagement, as writers will of their most famous book. But readers wouldn’t let her forget, and now, with publication of the first English translation, the million-plus-selling novelist and translator is enjoying a resurgence. Recently, says Sundström, “a young woman – in her 50s, which is young to me nowadays! – told me she had been given the book as a present from her father at 16 and it had changed her life. It had made her feel seen.” Sundström shrugs as if to say: this is nuts, but what can you do?
Engagement is not, after all, a traditional love story, but a study of a young woman’s fierce resistance to what she feels is the oppressive effect of being loved by a man. Martina and Gustav meet at college. Gustav wants their relationship to progress along traditional lines, an ambition that, Martina feels, risks leading her like a sleepwalker into a tedious, conventional life. At the casual level the pair’s relationship is loving and stable, but, observes Martina caustically, “Gustav is building so many structures on top of it that it’s shaking underneath them”. She wants to be loved but she also wants to be alone. She wants Gustav to stop repeating himself. When he asks her what’s wrong, she muses, “you can’t answer something like that. You can’t tell someone who wants to be with you always that he should be reasonable and ration himself out a little – if I saw you half as often, I would like you four times as much – no, you can’t say that.”
More than four decades after the violent policing at Orgreave during the miners’ strike and a failed prosecution criticised as a police “frame up”, the government has established a statutory inquiry into the scandal.
The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced the inquiry having informed campaigners last Thursday at the site in South Yorkshire where the Orgreave coking plant was located.
American world No 1 ends on 17 under at Royal Portrush
Rory McIlroy finishes at 10 under after final round of 69
Never in doubt. Never remotely in doubt. It was Scottie Scheffler: why on earth would it be?
Anybody hoping for a keenly contested Open Sunday was to be sorely disappointed. Make that 10 times Scheffler has held a 54-hole lead and 10 times he has converted.
With three matches to go, the tournament in Switzerland is clear of the 2022 edition in goals per game, but what’s behind all the extra scoring?
And frankly, have you not been entertained? If, of course, we are willing to stretch our definition of “entertainment” to include some of the other popular sensations. Suspense. Terror. Existential despair. Cold sweating. Temporary breakdown of the nervous system. Loud screaming at inanimate items of electrical equipment.
But as we approach the final week of this operatic Women’s European Championship, this tournament has a fair claim to be one of the most thrilling in recent memory. And not just on the more intangible metrics: noise, penalty drama, side-eye, flying saves, players singing unprompted into pitch-side microphones, quality of fan walks. With three matches remaining, Euro 2025 has surpassed Euro 2022 in terms of goals, averaging a staggering half a goal more (3.57 against 3.06).
Legal advocates and attorneys general argue practice poses accountability issues and contributes to a climate of fear
The head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said on Sunday that he will continue allowing the controversial practice of his officers wearing masks over their faces during their arrest raids.
As Donald Trump has ramped up his unprecedented effort to deport immigrants around the country, Ice officers have become notorious for wearing masks to approach and detain people, often with force. Legal advocates and attorneys general have argued that it poses accountability issues and contributes to a climate of fear.
Radio damage meant Alaphilippe unaware of Belgian’s win
Wellens had crossed line over a minute before Frenchman
French stage wins in the Tour de France are increasingly rare, so when they do happen, there are wild celebrations. Julian Alaphilippe, the former world road race champion, raised his arms in triumph in Carcassonne, thinking he had won, only to be told seconds later that he had in fact finished third behind two Belgians.
Ahead of the crestfallen Alaphilippe, Tadej Pogacar’s Emirates-XRG teammate Tim Wellens took a solo win on stage 15 of the Tour, well ahead of compatriot Victor Campanaerts, a teammate to Jonas Vingegaard.
Donald Trump demanded in a Truth Social post on Sunday that the NFL’s Washington Commanders and MLB’s Cleveland Guardians revert to their old names, both of which were abandoned in recent years due to being racially insensitive to Native Americans.
“The Washington ‘Whatever’s’ [sic] should IMMEDIATELY change their name back,” the post read in part. “There is a big clamoring for this … Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago.”
Exclusive: Research on burden of antibiotic resistance for 122 countries predicts dire economic and health outcomes
Superbugs could cause millions more people to die worldwide and cost the global economy just under $2tn a year by 2050, modelling shows.
A UK government-funded study shows that without concerted action, increased rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) could lead to global annual GDP losses of $1.7tn over the next quarter of a century.
Vehicle veered off road in Bohmte, hit a boy on a trampoline then catapulted into the air, police say
Police in northwestern Germany said on Sunday that several people were injured when a car veered off a road, hit a seven-year-old boy on a trampoline and crashed into a barn roof on its side.
Police said that the car first collided with a parked vehicle in the town of Bohmte, broke through a hedge and drove into a garden where it hit the boy.
The French prime minister, François Bayrou, has become the latest leader to target the less well-off in order to balance the books
As European politicians begin to pack their suitcases and head to the beach, they do so against a domestic backdrop that begins to look distinctly ominous. In Britain and France, nationalist populist parties consistently lead in the polls. In Germany, the particularly extreme Alternative für Deutschland is neck and neck with the conservative CDU. Specific dynamics might vary but the unsettling pattern is the same – large swaths of voters increasingly identify with authoritarian and often xenophobic political forces.
Prolonged post-industrial malaise, wage stagnation and austerity have precipitated this wave of disaffection with the mainstream, especially among the less well-off. Yet in London, Paris and Berlin, governments of the centre-left and centre-right seem intent on alienating disillusioned electorates still further. During his visit to London last week, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, heralded a new strategic partnership for changed times between Germany, Britain and France. But a much-needed economic reset, which dismantles failed fiscal orthodoxies, seems as far away as ever.
UK research has brought real hope to families suffering from one of the most common inherited disorders, with a breakthrough that’s been years in the making
Eight babies have been born free of a disease that can lead to terrible suffering and early death, thanks to pioneering scientists in the UK employing a form of genetic engineering that is banned in some countries, including the US and France. Ten years ago, when the government and regulators were considering whether to allow mitochondrial transfer technology, critics warned of “Frankenstein meddling” that would lead to three-parent children. It’s hard now to justify such hostility in the face of the painstaking work carried out by the scientific and medical teams at Newcastle, resulting in these healthy babies and ecstatic families.
Mitochondria, like tiny battery packs, supply energy to every cell of the body. Their DNA is handed down in the egg from mother to child. In rare instances, there are genetic mutations, which means the baby may develop mitochondrial disease. About one in 5,000 people is affected by it, making it one of the most common inherited disorders. As the cell batteries fail in various organs, the child can experience a range of symptoms, from muscle weakness to epilepsy, encephalopathy, blindness, hearing loss and diabetes. In severe cases, they die young.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Rightwing commentators are furious over the superhero’s positioning as an immigrant. But his story was crafted to cushion unease
We’ve entered the era of the superhero movie as sermon. No longer content with saving the world, spandex saviors are now being used to explain, moralize and therapize it. And a being from Krypton has shown up once again in a debate about real life; about borders, race and who gets to belong.
Superman. Of all symbols.
I’ve read reactionary thinkpieces, rage-filled quote tweets and screeds about the legal status of a fictional alien – enough to lose count. This particular episode of American Fragility kicked off because James Gunn had the audacity to call Superman “the story of America”. An immigrant, by definition, as he was always meant to be.
Ballot heaps pressure on Ishiba’s minority government just as it attempts to negotiate deal to avert Trump tariffs
Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba’s future was unclear on Monday after his coalition lost its upper house majority in elections that saw strong gains by a rightwing populist party.
While the ballot does not directly determine whether Ishiba’s minority government falls, it heaps pressure on the embattled leader, who also lost control of the more powerful lower house in October and who has never been popular within his own party.
The champion explains how he learned from his previous win against the Briton and introduces ‘Ivan’, the left hook that closed the show
Just before midnight on Saturday, in the depths of Wembley Stadium, Oleksandr Usyk stroked his moustache as he listened to a question arising from his magisterial destruction of Daniel Dubois. The 38-year-old Ukrainian had once again become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world after a performance filled with light, panache and a kind of battering precision that had normally sober ringside observers reaching for words such as “genius” and “magician”.
In the wake of such savage alchemy, someone asked Usyk a question that made his face light up again. After all he had done, and with almost desperate speculation as to who might be able to challenge him now, how did Usyk find the motivation to keep fighting? “Oh, listen, bro,” he said, as he made a distinction crucial to any clear understanding of his extraordinary achievements in and out of the ring, “I don’t have motivation. I have discipline. Motivation? It’s temporary. Today, for example, you have motivation. But tomorrow you wake up early and you don’t have motivation.”
New structure would feature two tiers each of six teams
England confirmed as the host for next three WTC finals
The International Cricket Council has set up a working group to explore moving to a system of two-division Test cricket for the first time in what would be one of the most radical changes in the 133-year history of the global game.
In the first annual general meeting under the new all-Indian leadership of the chair, Jay Shah, and the chief executive, Sanjog Gupta, held in Singapore at the weekend, the ICC appointed an eight-strong working party with a remit to report recommendations to the board by the end of the year.
They claim to reflect public sentiment. But they’re better thought of as just another species of misinformation
Ahead of the 2016 US presidential election, opinion polls predicted a win for Hillary Clinton. She lost, and the polling industry went through one of its regular spasms of self-criticism and supposed reform. Alas, it did not vote itself entirely out of existence. France and Spain ban the publication of opinion polls in the days leading up to an election, but we should go one better and ban their publication at any time.
No doubt it adds much to the gaiety of the British nation to see the Conservative party slip to third or fourth in the polls, but any poll asking who you would vote for if there were a Westminster election tomorrow, held at a time when there almost certainly will not be an election for another four years, is meaningless as a guide to the makeup of the next Parliament.
Writing about child sexual abuse is hard. Writing about the unfathomable, yet surprisingly common jealousy as the sibling of an abused child is even harder
A winter’s day. My father in the dark room of my memory developing photographs. The door is shut. My sister stands with him. He aims to teach her the essentials of photography. How to turn a black and white negative rolled from the interior of his camera, unspooled in the dark, then bathed in trays of chemicals, to bring the past back to life in black and white.
My sister’s special treatment as the only one of nine siblings to learn this skill does not go unnoticed, by me at least. I am 10 years old and long to learn, even as I want only to be an insect in the corner watching unseen.
When I was very young, my family and I emigrated from Albania to Melbourne. As a child of refugees settling in Australia after the second world war, I experienced the searing poverty that myriads of displaced people dealt with as they tried to rebuild lives in far away, unfamiliar places. As a result, my brothers and sisters and I very rarely enjoyed the magic and thrill that come when a child gets a new toy.
One day – I must have been no more than five – I was wandering through the local town hall with my mother. Some sort of fair was in full swing and I happened upon a table where, for a mere penny, I could try my luck to win a doll. I didn’t have a penny, but I did have a fervent wish to have a doll – particularly the beautiful one with the gloriously extravagant light blue dress!
The ‘messy middle’ that follows the end of a structured work life can be unsettling and isolating – but meaning doesn’t retire when we do
The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work
A few months into an eagerly planned retirement, Martin described the transition as “a seismic shift”.
“I thought I had it all figured out,” he said, the frustration evident in his voice. “I’ve been so looking forward to more time in the garden, picking up the guitar again, getting into a fitness routine and planning trips with friends.”
Connexion
