Maj Gen Mikhail Gudkov personally promoted by Putin and had previously led one of Russia’s most notorious brigades
A deputy commander of the Russian navy who had previously led one of the military’s most notorious brigades has been killed near the frontline with Ukraine, Moscow has confirmed.
Maj Gen Mikhail Gudkov, who was responsible for Russia’s marine units, was said to have been killed on Tuesday in a Ukrainian missile attack on a field headquarters in Kursk region, amid reports the position had been revealed by poor security.
The EU and US are closing in on a high-level “framework” trade deal that will avert 50% tariffs being imposed on all exports from the bloc next Wednesday, Donald Trump’s self-imposed deadline.
Talks in Washington could go down to the wire, but multiple diplomats and officials said the EU was now willing to accept Trump’s 10% blanket tariffs. However, negotiators will accept this only in exchange for an extension in talks and possible concessions on a 25% car tariff, which is hurting the German car industry, sources said.
Broadcaster admits making mistakes before and during punk duo’s show in which they chanted ‘death to the IDF’
The BBC has said it was wrong to believe the punk duo Bob Vylan were “suitable for live streaming with appropriate mitigations” for their performance at Glastonbury festival, despite ranking them as “high risk” before the event.
In a statement signalling there would be repercussions for those blamed for the failure, the corporation said any musical performances deemed to be high risk would now not be broadcast live or streamed live.
Economists anticipated drop, but 8,000 new positions were added in June compared with May, with unemployment rate down to 4.1%
The US economy added 147,000 jobs in June, a sign of continuing strength in the labor market amid Donald Trump’s trade war.
The number of jobs added surpassed expectations, as economists largely anticipated a drop in openings. Instead, 8,000 more jobs were added in June compared with May, according to new job figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The unemployment rate actually decreased to 4.1%, down from 4.2% in May.
Astronomer says object could be further evidence that ‘interstellar wanderers’ are common in galaxy
It isn’t a bird, it isn’t a plane and it certainly isn’t Superman – but it does appear to be a visitor from beyond our solar system, according to astronomers who have discovered a new object hurtling through our cosmic neighbourhood.
The object, originally called A11pl3Z and now known as 3I/Atlas, was first reported by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (Atlas) survey telescope in Río Hurtado, Chile on Tuesday.
DJ and producer, real name Keith McIvor, says health has ‘declined very rapidly over just a few weeks’
JD Twitch, one half of the celebrated Scottish DJ and production duo Optimo, has been diagnosed with a brain tumour which he has been told is untreatable.
The musician, real name Keith McIvor, announced the news in a post on Instagram. He said: “My symptoms weren’t immediately diagnosed, and my health declined very rapidly over just a few weeks. Because of how rapidly everything progressed I haven’t been able to share this news personally with everyone I care about so this feels the clearest and kindest way to let you know what’s happening.”
Modi to be honored on historic two-day visit but country’s Muslims express concern over human rights record
News that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi will receive Trinidad and Tobago’s highest honour during a historic visit to the country has been welcomed by the Indo-Trinidadian Hindu population but has drawn strong objections from the country’s largest Muslim organisation.
Modi’s two-day visit to the country on Thursday marks the first time a sitting Indian prime minister sets foot in Trinidad and Tobago. Modi accepted the invitation from the recently appointed prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who has longstanding diplomatic ties with India.
Opponents say the decision allowing parents to let their kids opt out of lessons featuring LGBTQ+ themes will hurt the US education system
Kiernan, a 24-year-old transgender person from Colorado, feels drained from dealing with legislation that consistently limits the spaces and freedoms of people like him. Since he transitioned in 2016, it’s been the same – first bathroom bills, then censorship in the education system – routine attacks on LGBTQ+ rights that Kiernan feels have now just become part of living in the US.
So the news that Donald Trump “will take a look” at deporting his billionaire former “first buddy” Musk has many smirking and shrugging: “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”
Football’s reigning world champions – and favourites to win Euro 2025 – have become symbols of women’s fight for equality
For years, they battled on multiple fronts: pushing back against the misogyny, misconduct and mistreatment of their football federation while simultaneously seeking to be the best in the world.
The conflicts of Spain’s women’s team exploded into public view after they won the World Cup in 2023 – a historic triumph that was almost immediately overshadowed by an unwanted kiss on the lips from the country’s football chief.
Nearly every Italian region produces its own fizzy white, many of them not nearly as sweet as your average prosecco
When I was at university, whenever I partook in that most sacred of further educational rituals (that is, pre-drinks), my tipple of choice was an entire bottle of prosecco. More times a week than I feel comfortable disclosing here, I’d trundle down to the Tesco Express in Durham to score a bottle of Plaza Centro prosecco for the sublime price of £5.50 (it’s now a princely £7). While many other wine writers’ careers begin with a unicorn bottle from a relative’s cellar, I’m proud to say that mine started here.
Why am I telling you this? Well, not only did I feel cool sipping my fizz from a plastic flute while my friends drank rum and orange juice mixed and swigged direct from the carton, but I also loved prosecco. Today, however, I’m more indifferent, which is not to say that prosecco has got any worse or changed in any way over time. But I have. When I was an 18-year-old concerned with getting as trollied as possible in the least amount of time and at little cost, I was drawn to sweetness, as many of us are when we’re younger, and most supermarket prosecco is rather sweet – even the confusingly named “extra dry” category allows for 12-17g sugar per litre.
As his debut album Brown Sugar turns 30 this week, we look back on the relatively slim but astoundingly rich catalogue of the architect of neosoul
For an artist no one could describe as prolific, D’Angelo has contributed a surprising number of exclusive songs to films. Good songs too, as evidenced by this, from the Space Jam soundtrack: a fine, funky, faintly Stevie Wonder-ish, mid-tempo example of his initial retro-yet-somehow-modern approach to soul.
Report by Francesca Albanese singles out companies such as Palantir and calls for prosecutions
The UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories has called for sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel and for global corporations to be held accountable for “profiting from genocide” in Gaza.
A report by Francesca Albanese to the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday points to the deep involvement of companies from around the world in supporting Israel during its 21-month onslaught in Gaza.
Inspectorate finds force has made ‘significant improvements’ in how it treats victims of sexual exploitation
Greater Manchester police are investigating more than 1,000 grooming gang suspects, as a new report found the force was “trying to provide a better service to those who have experienced sexual exploitation”.
The force has made “significant improvements” in how it investigates grooming gangs and other types of child sexual abuse offences, according to the report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services.
Africa’s major women’s tournament starts in Morocco with Spain’s World Cup-winning coach under pressure to deliver
The historic task of one host staging Africa’s two major competitions this year, the women’s and men’s Africa Cup of Nations – Wafcon and Afcon – within six months of each other could really have been given to only one country: Morocco. It has arguably the best football facilities on the continent and has made itself the tournament-hosting sweet spot for the Confederation of African Football (Caf).
Three years ago a very successful Wafcon was staged there and the North African country then agreed to organise the next two tournaments, as no other nation on the continent offered to shoulder the responsibility. The 2025 edition kicks off on Saturday evening, with the hosts playing Zambia in the opening game.
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Those around the Labour leader operate with the knowledge that everyone is expendable and no one is safe
Ask friends of Keir Starmer what they make of him and one of the first things they will say is that he can be incredibly kind. I’ve heard it time and again.
The former Labour leader Neil Kinnock described how Starmer was among the first to turn up on his doorstep after he lost his beloved wife, Glenys. “You don’t have time for this; you’ve got a party to lead,” Kinnock told him.
(Kesha Records) After a long legal battle, the pop star’s sixth album harks back to her 2010s era, with a buffet of pop styles and only rare hints of her highly-publicised trauma
Kesha Sebert has described her sixth album . (referred to hereafter as Period) as “the first album I’ve made where I felt truly free”. It comes accompanied by a lengthy world tour, advertised by a photo in which the singer expresses her freedom – in what you have to say is a very Kesha-like manner – by riding a jetski while topless. Long-term observers of her turbulent career may note that this doesn’t seem so different from the way she framed her third album, 2017’s Rainbow, which she described at the time as “truly saving my life”, and featured her on the cover naked and was accompanied by a tour called Fuck the World.
But it would be remiss to deny her the ability to make a similar point again. Rainbow was released at the height of her legal battle with her former producer “Dr” Luke Gottwald. Kesha had accused him of sexual assault and other allegations, which he denied, resulting in a series of lawsuits and countersuits. Although alternative producers were found to work on Rainbow, she was still legally obliged to release the album – and its two successors – on Gottwald’s Kemosabe label. The two reached a settlement in 2023, her contract with Kemosabe expired shortly afterwards, and Period is now released on her own label.
I was at a conference about Palestine shortly before he was killed. None of the Israelis I spoke to were willing to publicly name these horrors
It has been less than two months since my niece Juri – a bright, giggling six-year-old – was killed in Gaza. We buried her while her sister recovered from her injuries and her father tried to walk again on shattered legs. Just a week ago, I was struck by another unbearable loss. My 16-year-old nephew Ali was killed: a drone-fired rocket tore through him and six members of our extended family while they were sitting outside the last house we had left – the only one that hadn’t yet been reduced to dust.
Ali was split in two. That’s not a metaphor: it’s literally what the rocket did to his body. A child trying to escape the stifling heat inside a home without electricity, without water, without safety. A child whose only crime was sitting on a plastic chair in a corridor with his uncles – men in their 60s – trying to breathe, trying to live, trying to find a sliver of comfort in a place where even comfort has become a threat.
88th over: India 327-5 (Gill 121, Jadeja 49). This partnership continues to look serene and untroubled. Stokes bangs one into the pitch and Jadeja nudges it off his ribs for another quick single, Gill adds another, then Jadeja repeats the shot for one more single.
87th over: India 322-5 (Gill 119, Jadeja 47). Woakes, yesterday’s stand-out, starts from the City End, and concedes four first up thanks to a gorgeously timed clip through midwicket by Jadeja. The umpire then has a word with Jadeja about running on the pitch (to give himself some juicy rough to bowl into later presumably), and the No 7 responds by veering sharply left and running the next single from the very edge of the strip. More anguish for Woakes ensues when a no-ball is edged through the cordon for four by Gill, who to be fair played it with good, soft hands.
Navarro isn’t messing around. Twelve minutes in, the 10th seed leads 3-0, and has hit only once unforced error.
Pinnington Jones, looking like the 2002 champ Lleyton Hewitt with his backwards cap and diminutive frame, has begun his match too, but it’s been an inauspicious start. The Brit is broken in the opening game, to 30, after three successive errors: on the forehand, the backhand and then a double fault. Cobolli consolidates the break and it’s 2-0.
Wildfires have been reported in Greece, Turkey, Spain and Germany as Europe’s heatwave continues
in Italy
Due to the climate emergency, Italian seas have reached temperatures above 20C even at depths of 40 metres, according to a report released on Wednesday by Greenpeace.
Chancellor says tears due to ‘a personal issue’ but it was her job to be at PMQs supporting Keir Starmer
Streeting says he has to go to the Commons to make a statement to MPs.
But first he introduces Rachel Reeves, saying that she has put an extra £29bn into the NHS.
It is thanks to her leadership that we’ve seen interest rates in our country fall four times. It’s thanks to her leadership that we see wages finally rising faster than the cost of living. And it’s thanks to her leadership we have the fastest growing economy in the G7.
If Australia can effectively serve communities living in the remote outback, we can meet the needs of people living in rural England.
If community health teams can go door to door to prevent ill health in Brazil, we can do the same in Bradford.
Real Madrid head coach likens unfettered midfielder to former Liverpool teammate after Club World Cup heroics
Fede Valverde once said that he could spend all day watching Steven Gerrard play; his coach sometimes feels like he still is, and no one is better placed to see it or make it so. Xabi Alonso had been in charge at Real Madrid for just two games when he said that the Uruguayan reminded him of his former partner in the Liverpool midfield. “ I haven’t seen many players with his physical performance,” he said. “I’m very happy to be coaching him. Every manager would like a Valverde on the team.”
Coming from Alonso, it was quite the compliment. There was always something special between him and the Liverpool captain. Gerrard described the Spaniard as “pure quality, a class act on the pitch and a gentlemen off it,” and was “devastated” at his departure, writing: “I missed you every day from the moment you left.” Alonso said that Gerrard was the better player, the man with whom he won the European Cup, scoring six minutes apart, and shared the Istanbul kiss that inspired endless fan fiction; the man he once called “my hero, my mate”.
UK government bond markets have rallied after Keir Starmer backed Rachel Reeves to remain as chancellor for “a very long time” despite lingering investor concerns over a multibillion-pound hole in Britain’s public finances.
The yield – in effect the interest rate – on British government bonds, also known as gilts, fell by about 0.1 percentage points on Thursday morning to trade close to 4.5%, reversing a sharp rise on Wednesday sparked by feverish speculation over Reeves’s future.
Last week it was Istanbul, this week it is Turin. Jadon Sancho’s next destination for employment is like an Interrail trip around our favourite city break destinations. According to Corriere dello Sport, Manchester Unitedwant £25m for the England winger, 25, and Juventus are interested. Helpfully, Sancho is said to beprepared to lower his wage demands in order to join the Old Lady.
Sancho’s departure will free up some cash to fund the potential signing of Ollie Watkins, because nothing says thought out transfer strategy like paying £60m for a 29-year-old striker due a big payday. Multiple back pages suggest that Jim Ratcliffe’s crew are intensifying their pursuit of Watkins, with Rasmus Højlund potentially returning to Italy.
Donna Kashanian, 64 and a community service volunteer, arrived in 1978 on a student visa and has no criminal record
Kaitlynn Milne says her mother is usually always up first thing in the morning, hours before the rest of the family. She enjoys being productive in the quiet hours around sunrise. It’s an especially optimal time to do yard work, when the rest of her New Orleans neighborhood still sleeps and she can count on peacefully completing chores.
Gardening and rearranging the shed is how an average morning would go for Madonna “Donna” Kashanian, a 64-year-old Iranian mother, wife, home cook, parent-teacher association (PTA) member and lifelong community service volunteer.
Between his so-called ‘big, beautiful bill’ and his bombing of Iran, Trump has confirmed he is a man of a familiar past
The convergence of the US Senate’s passage of Donald Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill” in domestic policy with his strike on Iran in foreign policy has finally resolved the meaning of his presidency. His place in history is now clear. His rise, like that of a reawakened left, indicated that America was ready to move on from its long era of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. In office, Trump has blocked the exits by doubling down on both.
The first of those slurs, neoliberalism, refers to the commitment across the political spectrum to use government to protect markets and their hierarchies, rather than to moderate or undo them. The second, neoconservatism, is epitomized by a belligerent and militaristic foreign policy. The domestic policy bill now making its way through Congress, with its payoff to the rich and punishment of the poor, is a monument to neoliberalism; the Iran strike a revival of neoconservatism.
Without his, my husband resembles an estate agent. It’s time more men took advantage of this hairy little glow-up
It’s a convenient truth of our time that if you Google for long enough, you will eventually find the answer you want. In other words, there’s a lot of anti-beard propaganda out there, and I’m not falling for any of it. I love beards. So I keep scrolling.
Past the recent Washington Post report that some toilets contain fewer germs than the average beard (that’s pretty much true of phone screens, and we happily rub them on our faces). Not even pausing on an investigation into whether it would be hygienic to scan canines and humans in the same MRI machine, which found most beards contained more microbes and bacteria than dog fur. La la la, I’m not listening.
Tadej Pogacar’s UAE team and Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma lead the way but watch out for Soudal-QuickStep
Two men, Mathieuvan der Poel and Jasper Philipsen, with one plan: stage wins and the green jersey; VDP is the big star, but in recent Tours de France it’s been “Jasper Disaster” who has delivered. On the flat stages, VDP uses his explosive power and superlative bike handling to lead out Philipsen, who has won nine stages in the last three Tours and the green jersey in 2023. Anywhere a bit lumpy will be for VDP, although he has taken only one Tour stage in his career. That was at Mûr de Bretagne in 2021, so watch out for him when the Tour returns there on 11 July.
The time travel comedy was a surprise smash in 1985 and remains a Hollywood touchpoint and as it reaches a major anniversary, those who made it share their memories
The actor Lea Thompson has had a distinguished screen career but hesitated to share it with her daughters when they were growing up. “I did not show them most of my stuff because I end up kissing people all the time and it was traumatic to my children,” she recalls. “Even when they were little the headline was, ‘Mom is kissing someone that’s not Dad and it’s making me cry!’”
Thompson’s most celebrated role would be especially hard to explain. As Lorraine Baines in Back to the Future, she falls in lust with her own son, Marty McFly, a teenage time traveller from 1985 who plunges into 1955 at the wheel of a DeLorean car.
Whether brushing their teeth in the shower or wearing slip-on shoes to save time, people are finding all sorts of ways to fine-tune their routines. Are these fun life hacks or symptoms of a snowed-under society?
As you read this, there will probably be a cup of tea going cold on Veronica Pullen’s kitchen counter. Every time she wants a cup, Pullen makes two, one milkier than the other. She drinks the milkier one (she likes her tea lukewarm) immediately. She lets the other one sit for 40 minutes before drinking it once it has reached optimum temperature. It is an efficiency – albeit a tiny one – that she has been perfecting for two years. A copywriter and online trainer, Pullen, who is 54 and lives on the Isle of Wight with her husband and their chihuahua, says it takes her five minutes to boil a kettle, so she saves five minutes with every other cup. Over 24 hours, that adds up to 20 minutes saved. Across two years? She has clawed back slightly more than 10 full days.
Pullen is just one of many people incorporating microefficiencies into their daily lives. There are people who brush their teeth in the shower; lay out their clothes the night before to save time in the morning; boil hot water for the day first thing and keep it to hand in a flask. But are these small, savvy streamlinings that shave minutes (sometimes, just seconds) off a task merely fun life hacks? Are they a symptom of a snowed-under society? Or are they indicative of an obsession with productivity?
Lee Jae-myung shows no sign of grandeur, cutting very different figure to impeached predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol
South Korea’s president, Lee Jae-myung, has given his first big press conference, a month after winning an election in a country shaken by a brief declaration of martial law imposed by his now-impeached predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol.
Everything about the event seemed designed to signal a break from the defensive, isolated style of previous Yoon administration.
As new tech imperils the £3bn dubbing artists industry, professionals including India’s Ryan Reynolds and India’s Jon Snow explain why audiences should listen to their fears
When Julia Roberts gets in Richard Gere’s Lotus Esprit as it stutters along Hollywood Boulevard in the 1990 film Pretty Woman, Germans heard Daniela Hoffmann, not Roberts, exclaim: “Man, this baby must corner like it’s on rails!” In Spain, Mercè Montalà voiced the line, while French audiences heard it from Céline Monsarrat. In the years that followed, Hollywood’s sweetheart would sound different in cinemas around the world but to native audiences she would sound the same.
The voice actors would gain some notoriety in their home countries, but today, their jobs are being threatened by artificial intelligence. The use of AI was a major point of dispute during the Hollywood actors’ strike in 2023, when both writers and actors expressed concern that it could undermine their roles, and fought for federal legislation to protect their work. Not long after, more than 20 voice acting guilds, associations and unions formed the United Voice Artists coalition to campaign under the slogan “Don’t steal our voices”. In Germany, home to “the Oscars of dubbing”, artists warned that their jobs were at risk with the rise of films dubbed with AI trained using their voices, without their consent.
The Liverpool forward Diogo Jota has been killed in a car accident in Spain. He was 28, a father of three young children and had married his long-term partner, Rute Cardoso, less than two weeks ago.
Liverpool said they were devastated and tributes were paid by Portugal’s prime minister and the country’s football federation. It is understood that Jota and his brother, 26-year-old André, who was also killed, were travelling in a car that came off a road in the province of Zamora. André was a professional footballer with the second-tier Portuguese club Penafiel.
Novelist and husband suspected of helping to sell bullion taken decades ago from ship that sank off Brittany in 1746
An 80-year-old US novelist and her husband are among several people facing a possible trial in France over the illegal sale of gold bars plundered from an 18th-century shipwreck after French prosecutors requested that the case go to court.
Eleonor “Gay” Courter and her husband, Philip, 82, have been accused of helping to sell the bullion online for a French diver who stole it decades ago. They have denied knowledge of any wrongdoing.
Keir Starmer has admitted No 10 “didn’t get the process right” in handling the government’s controversial welfare bill and says he shoulders the blame.
Analysis finds key to survival for children found to be unconscious and unresponsive is a quick dose of drugs and fast access to specialist care
For the hundreds of children who arrive every day at hospitals in parts of Africa unconscious and unresponsive, their survival chances have remained unchanged for nearly 50 years. But new research is raising hopes that swift treatment with antibiotics could improve those chances.
Despite huge strides in healthcare and vaccination rates for children in sub Saharan Africa, the odds remain stacked against those who become so ill they fall into a coma. Depending on the cause, between 17% and 45% are expected to die. Many more will be left with disabilities.
The women in the case endured horrors to tell their stories. Still the jury – and Diddy’s jubilant supporters – sided with their alleged abuser
Sean Combs, the musician variously known as “Diddy”, “Puffy”, “P Diddy” and “Love”, made a conspicuous scene in the courtroom when the verdict was read. He put his hands into a prayer gesture and mouthed “thank you” to the jurors, and pumped his fist in the air. A federal jury in New York on Wednesday had acquitted Combs on federal charges of sex trafficking women, finding him guilty only on lesser charges of transporting the male prostitutes he allegedly forced the women to have sex with across state lines. The mixed verdict was seen as a triumph for Combs, who faced the possibility of life in prison if convicted on trafficking and conspiracy charges. Outside, jubilant supporters of Combs – which have in recent weeks included the provocative rapper Kanye West – erupted into celebration. Some reportedly poured baby oil on each other and yelled: “It’s not Rico, it’s FREAKO.”
Those triumphant chants were references tothe organized group sex encounters that women – including two who testified as witnesses for federal prosecutors – have described as rapes. The women – two ex-partners of Combs’s, the singer Cassie Ventura and another alleged victim known as Jane – told the court repeatedly over the course of an eight-week trial that they were coerced into participating in the encounters, which Combs called “freak-offs”, with violence, drugs, coercive financial arrangements, and threats. The encounters were filmed by Combs, and the videos were shown to the jury; in addition to the testimony of the women and the videos of what they say were their assaults, jurors were also shown security footage of a savage beating Combs inflicted on Ventura in a hotel hallway following one such party in 2016, and heard from a hotel security guard who says that Combs paid him $100,000 to destroy video evidence of his conduct.
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