Local school closes in Daejeon city as hundreds of emergency service and military personnel scour area around O-World theme park where the wolf escaped from Authorities are hunting for a wolf after it escaped from a zoo in Daejeon, a South Korean city with a population of 1.5million. More than 300 people – including firefighters, police and military personnel – are taking part in the search operation, an official from the Daejeon fire headquarters said. Continue reading...

White House says only person committing war crimes is actor ‘for his awful movies and terrible acting ability’ The long-running war of words between the George Clooney and the White House has ignited again after the Oscar-winning actor criticised Donald Trump’s threat to Iran that “a whole civilization will die tonight”. On Wednesday, in a speech to 3,000 high school students in Cuneo, Italy, Clooney said the US president had committed a war crime with his threat. Continue reading...

Marine Conservation Society warns that fish numbers have reached dangerous point of decline Consumers should “completely avoid” buying UK-caught cod, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has said, as it warned that populations have reached a dangerous point of decline despite zero-catch recommendations. The MCS, an environmental charity, publishes a Good Fish Guide to help consumers and businesses make sustainable seafood choices. Continue reading...

When Putin invaded Ukraine, he raised murder to the level of national policy. I felt guilt by association. And I had to act One morning in May 2025, I walked briskly down Bayswater Road along the northern edge of London’s Kensington Gardens until I reached the gates of the Russian embassy. Its formidable outer wall, already topped with razor wire, now had the additional protection of a crowd control barrier. But there was no crowd, just a lone man feebly protesting from the other side of the road. In the early days of the war, the embassy was besieged by angry protesters. Back then, you couldn’t walk down a British street without spotting the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag. That time was long gone. Feeling uneasy, I was ushered inside by a guard who patted me down and checked the contents of my backpack before pointing the way inside. I knew this routine from my previous visits. Even the guard – a friendly Nepali man who knew about three words of Russian – hadn’t changed in years. I used to come here to renew my Russian passport and, on one noteworthy occasion, in March 2000, to vote in the Russian presidential elections. This time, I had an altogether different purpose: I was here to renounce my Russian citizenship. Continue reading...

Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page flirt their way through expected genre tropes in a watchable, if a little unspecific, slice of formulaic fantasy You, Me & Tuscany is a perfectly wholesome and harmless meet-cute that starts by asking: “What if the Little Mermaid had a Lady and the Tramp-style hookup with the season one heart-throb from Bridgerton, spaghetti and all?” Halle Bailey is Anna, hopelessly navigating life after the death of her mother, torn between the worlds of adult responsibility and inner child whimsy. A freelance hustle as a house sitter helps make ends meet, but her impulse to fully inhabit her clients’ lives constantly threatens her livelihood. A gig watching over a spectacular Central Park West apartment seems out of a dream. But it quickly goes awry when the lady of the house (Nia Vardalos in a sly cameo) returns early and catches Anna cosplaying as a Park Avenue princess in her premium lingerie. Embarrassed, Anna retreats into the arms of her bestie Claire (Aziza Scott of One of Them Days), the luxury hotel clerk whose barbed sisterly advice is well worth enduring for the one-liners and the potential discount on a short-term residency. Continue reading...

At the peak of the Israel-Gaza conflict, 10 children a day were losing one or both legs. For those who cross the border for medical help, physical recovery is only the start of their struggle Ola Jamal, 36, was breastfeeding her two-month-old son, Zain, when the missile struck al-Nasr hospital in Gaza in November 2023. When the explosion hit the building, the shrapnel went through Jamal’s arm while she held her infant. “I ran with my family to the hospital and stayed there to hide,” she says at a prosthetic centre in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. “We thought it would be safe because it’s a children’s hospital.” A row of customised prosthetic limbs, labelled with the names of patients, lined up in a clinic wall Continue reading...

Proposal to help people heat two rooms, provide hot water and run key appliances without incurring more debt In order to cut rising bills all UK households should receive a minimum amount of energy at rates subsidised by the government through North Sea taxes, a thinktank has suggested. Providing all homes with enough energy to heat two rooms, provide hot water and run key appliances such as a fridge and washing machine, at rates frozen at current levels, would require a subsidy of about £4.5bn, according to the New Economics Foundation. Continue reading...

‘After every tour, I hate the sound of my voice,’ the actor and comedian says. Yet here he is, working on a new standup act and about to host Saturday Night Live. What does he have to talk about this time, apart from his stag do, fatherhood, the remake of The ’Burbs … ? The day I meet Jack Whitehall in central London, it has just been announced that he will be hosting Saturday Night Live (SNL) this Saturday. He is also about to get married and his stag do, which was two days before our interview, has been meticulously documented by the tabloids. It feels like a lot, so his immaculate appearance – even his beard looks polished; you wouldn’t believe this man had ever been fall-over drunk – is baffling. He is 37, but doesn’t look markedly different from the baby-faced man of 23 who appeared on our screens in Jesse Armstrong’s and Sam Bain’s stinging student satire Fresh Meat. That series sealed his place as the country’s posh mascot on panel shows including Would I Lie to You?, Mock the Week, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and 8 Out of 10 Cats. His last comedy tour ended in 2024 and the wait for his next, at the start of 2027, is his longest hiatus yet. “After every tour, I hate the sound of my own voice,” he says. From 2017 to 2024, “I did tours back to back. I’d run out of life experience. I’d talked about every fucking thing that had ever happened to me, I’d done every possible iteration of joke about my dad. In the interim three or four years, I’ve got engaged, I’m planning a wedding, I’ll have had some time in married life, I’ve had a daughter, I’m now the father of a toddler. It felt as if I had stuff to talk about again.” Continue reading...

The US president’s cry-wolf threats are losing their effect while European leaders are, at last, shifting from sycophancy to opposition Europeans are on what might be called “a journey” when it comes to the US-Israel war against Iran, now apparently in a ceasefire after Donald Trump’s 11th-hour U-turn, calling off, for the time being, his threat to annihilate Iranian civilisation. The crisis in the Middle East marks the latest painful step, after the shock of the US’s betrayal of Ukraine and Trump’s threat to seize Greenland, in Europe’s emancipation from Washington. The journey is not linear, and it is dreaded by most European leaders. But the direction of travel is undeniable. Initially, most European politicians in power all but endorsed the illegal US and Israeli attack against Iran. If the sycophantic Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, stood at one end of the spectrum of European opinion and Pedro Sánchez at the other, most European governments were tacitly closer to Rutte’s embrace of Trump than to the Spanish prime minister’s principled opposition. Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...

In the final week of Rhik Samadder’s diary, he basked in the rosy glow – literally – after AI’s wall paint suggestion Sometimes, when the hose of my vacuum cleaner knocks over a potted plant, adding a layer of drudgery to an already miserable chore, I feel ground down by domesticity. Futurity once promised us robot butlers. What happened? The despair led me to this week’s quest. Can AI actually transform my day-to-day existence? Continue reading...

As Israel attacks on Lebanon continue, Abbas Araghchi points to announcement that says ceasefire includes Lebanon while JD Vance says US never promised that Middle East ceasefire in serious doubt as Israel assaults Lebanon and Iran blocks oil tankers Will shipping in the strait of Hormuz – and oil prices – return to normal? Independent analysts say they have observed no change in traffic through the strait of Hormuz. That’s despite claims from the White House on Wednesday there had been an uptick in the number of ships transiting the strategic waterway since a US-announced ceasefire with Iran. Windward, a maritime intelligence firm that tracks international shipping, said only 11 vessels transited the strait on Wednesday – about the same number from prior days. Iran announced alternative routes for ships travelling through the strait of Hormuz, citing the risk of sea mines in the main zone of the vital waterway. The statement shared instructions for an alternative entry and exit route through the strait. The Trump administration on Wednesday stated Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire deal, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claiming “that has been relayed to all parties”. The US vice-president, JD Vance, also told reporters in Budapest that the US never promised to include Lebanon in the ceasefire, and that Iran may have been under that impression due to a “misunderstanding”. Israel announced on Wednesday it did not consider Lebanon covered by the Iran-US truce. Karoline Leavitt also dismissed “misreporting” that Trump is working from the original 10-point plan put forward by Tehran. She said the 10-point plan presented in public by Iran was “literally thrown in the garbage” by Trump – despite the fact Trump said on Truth Social that the US received a 10-point proposal from Iran that is believed to be a “workable basis on which to negotiate”. Leavitt claimed Iran actually put forward a “more reasonable and entirely different and condensed plan to the president”. French president Emmanuel Macron said he has urged his US and Iranian counterparts, Donald Trump and Masoud Pezeshkian, to include Lebanon in the ceasefire reached with Iran. Australia’s foreign minister has urged the same. Donald Trump vented his frustration with Nato during a private meeting with its secretary-general, Mark Rutte, as relations in the alliance reached a crisis point. “He is clearly disappointed with many Nato allies, and I can see his point,” Rutte said on CNN, after spending more than two hours at the White House. “This was a very frank, very open discussion, but also a discussion between two good friends.” Sir Keir Starmer will continue his tour of the Middle East on Thursday after he met with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman, as part of ongoing talks with allies to give shipping the “confidence” to pass through the strait of Hormuz. Continue reading...

Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement announce four shows at Wellington venue Meow Nui from next week – their first gigs since 2018 New Zealand’s self-described “fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo-a cappella-rap-funk-comedy-folk duo” Flight of the Conchords sold out their first shows in eight years in minutes this week, sparking a frenzy among fans. Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement formed the musical comedy act in 1998, soaring to worldwide fame off the back of their HBO comedy series of the same name with tunes including Business Time and Hiphopopotamus vs Rhymenoceros. Continue reading...

The dish, adapted from one brought by US soldiers after the Korean war, has sparked thousands of variations and sits at the forefront of the K-food wave Inside a teaching kitchen south-east of Seoul, I coat a whole chicken – cut into eight parts – in batter and dip the pieces carefully into a bowl of powdered mix until covered in a light, fluffy layer. A chef watches intently. “Don’t rub it,” he says. “Keep it delicate.” Continue reading...

Threat of losing benefits will be lifted but campaigners say more help needed to tackle hostile workplaces The government has unveiled its plan to allow disabled people to try work without fear of losing their benefits, but campaigners warn the policy does not go far enough to tackle hostile workplaces. Legislation laid before parliament on Thursday will mean that people who start work or volunteering no longer automatically face a benefit reassessment, a prospect disabled people said was holding them back from trying to gain employment. Continue reading...

High levels of borrowing and rapid expansion among dangers identified by Higher Education Policy Institute Many English universities are taking excessive financial risks that threaten not only their own survival but that of others in the sector, a thinktank has warned. High levels of borrowing at some institutions and rapid expansion of student numbers are among the dangers identified in a report by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi). Continue reading...

Ukraine’s president tells podcast he has tried to draw White House’s attention to collaboration between Moscow and Tehran over strikes on US bases How the Ukraine and Iran wars are starting to overlap The US has ignored compelling evidence that Russia has been helping Iran to target US bases in the Middle East because it “trusts” Vladimir Putin, according to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Speaking in an interview with Alastair Campbell on The Rest is Politics podcast, Zelenskyy said he had tried to draw the White House’s attention to the close collaboration between Moscow and Tehran. Continue reading...

A group of neurodivergent and disabled young adults ask Stephen Fry the tough questions most others don’t dare to – and it makes for a truly liberating experience As opening questions in celebrity interviews go, it’s a bold one. You can’t imagine Norton, Ross or Winkleman beginning with it. But the latest guest on The Assembly, Stephen Fry, is just settling into his chair when he’s given this as his starter: “You tried to kill yourself a couple of times. Are you happy to be alive now?” The Assembly, of course, is not a standard chatshow. This is the one where a famous person is interrogated by a group of young adults with neurodivergence or learning disabilities, who are less inhibited by the ordinary protocols of TV interviews. Every question is simultaneously something no conventional interviewer would ever contemplate saying, and something we are immediately interested in seeing the guest react to. Celebs enter that bright, high-windowed room overlooking the Thames with a mix of joy and trepidation, knowing that the artifices and pretensions that usually protect them don’t apply here. “I’ve seen you guys,” says Fry on his way in. “Smiling assassins!” The Assembly aired on ITV1 and is available on ITVX Continue reading...

When the final whistle went, the man in black quietly disappeared out of sight and set off running up the tunnel. For the first time since he took over at Atlético Madrid 15 long years ago, Diego Simeone had led his team to a victory at the Camp Nou, keeping alive his dream of taking them back to a European Cup final a decade later. In 2014 and 2016 Atlético knocked out Barcelona en route to Lisbon and Milan and while there is much to be done in at the Metropolitano in six days’ time, they have put themselves in a superb position to do so again. Sometimes, everything fells like it turns on a single moment and this was one of those times. A run from Simeone’s son, Giuliano, just before half-time was that moment. Barcelona had been on top at that point but now he was away, heading towards the area, only to be tripped by Pau Cubarsí, earning the defender a red card and Atletico a free-kick from which Julián Alvarez curled in a wonderful strike. A goal down and a man down, there was no way back for Barcelona, although they gave everything, Lamine Yamal especially; instead, there was a second for Alexander Sørloth, the advantage theirs. Continue reading...

The star returns as Ian Fletcher in this mockumentary from the makers of Twenty Twelve. But for every funny moment, there is a slightly off gag – and some truly woeful ones It’s a Monday morning in Miami and Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) is in a meeting. The meeting has been set up to action another meeting, the outcome of which will be actioned – or at least consciously tabled – at a third, or possibly seventh, meeting. The meeting is also a meeting in a deeper sense, in that it is an opportunity for Ian, the “incoming director of integrity” at the organising body for world football (which, states the narrator, David Tennant, “we’re unable to name for legal reasons”), to establish his place in a corporate culture that is “irretrievably American”. “Shall we begin?”, Ian asks his new colleagues. “Oh my God,” gasps the sustainability tsar, Sarah Campbell (Chelsey Crisp), pressing the palm of her hand swooningly to her breastbone. “Soooo British!” Continue reading...

David Lammy says those affected by a heinous crime cannot be expected to engage with the justice system within the existing 28-day limit Victims and bereaved families will be given six months to challenge “unduly lenient” sentences handed to criminals, under changes announced by David Lammy. Relatives of murder victims campaigned for the government to scrap the 28-day time limit to submit a formal request after an offender is sentenced. Continue reading...

Parc des Princes did not witness the rout that even Liverpool might have privately feared but the gulf in quality between Paris Saint-Germain and Arne Slot’s side was laid bare throughout the Champions League quarter-final. Liverpool leave Paris with hope, having arrived with none, but will require a dramatic recovery just to lay a glove on the European champions at Anfield next Tuesday. A fortunate, deflected strike from Désiré Doué and a superb second from Khvicha Kvaratskhelia gave the holders a deserved first leg advantage and it could so easily have been more. Ousmane Dembélé missed a hat-trick of openings, his final effort striking the outside of a post, while Nuno Mendes and Doué were also guilty of failing to punish vulnerable opponents. Continue reading...

The star’s fame, reckoning and resurrection are examined in this nuanced three-parter. It speaks to those who were closest to Jackson but can a story of such wild extremes really be told from the middle ground? In what way, exactly, is Michael Jackson an “American tragedy”? Does the tragedy to which the title of this three-part BBC documentary refers concern the downfall of the most famous man on the planet into financial ruin, addiction and disgrace? Or does it belong to the children who alleged – and continue to allege – that Jackson sexually abused them? Is it about the bottomless need of a child star who craved the love of an abusive father so desperately he tried to fill the void with the adulation of millions of fans? Is it the sacrifice of a genius at the altar of the brutal music industry? Or is it an American tragedy about race? As far as Michael Jackson: An American Tragedy is concerned, it’s all of the above, and then some. “The tragedy was that this man who got more attention than any human being was still so utterly lonely,” says Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Jackson’s former spiritual adviser. For childhood friend Michelle Breger, seeing Jackson whiten his skin in the late 1980s was “heartbreaking – Michael was trying to erase something off his face”. For prosecutor Ron Zonen, the tragedy is that the might of the Jackson machine won out over justice: “I felt it was remarkably obvious that he was molesting children.” Continue reading...

Loyalists rush to defend president for ‘outsmarting the critics’ but others decry deal as ‘a negative for our country’ Donald Trump’s acceptance of a two-week ceasefire in Iran has exposed fresh divisions in his Make America Great Again (Maga) movement, with some supporters expressing vindication and others accusing the US president of betrayal. The US and Iran both claimed victory after the two countries agreed to pause hostilities following more than a month of war. But the strait of Hormuz remained closed on Wednesday and fighting was still taking place as Israel launched its biggest attacks yet on Lebanon. Continue reading...

Paul Solway ignited explosion that damaged total of six terrace houses in Derby after his partner had kicked him out A man who blew up a terrace house by causing gas to leak from a pipe and setting fire to a chair after his partner kicked him out has been jailed for 11 years. Paul Solway was having a “meltdown” when he caused the explosion at his partner Joanne Waterfall’s home in Alvaston in Derby on the evening of 10 June last year. Continue reading...

Italian side defeated Roma in Europa League last 16 Emery has won competition four times as a manager Unai Emery has warned his Aston Villa side to respect Bologna, and the Europa League itself, if they are to continue their progress in the competition with victory over their Italian opponents. Describing the Serie A side as “a winner team”, Emery said Villa could not be considered favourites for this quarter-final as he sought to ensure his players’ heads are in the game following the extended international break that means Villa haven’t played a competitive match since 22 March. Continue reading...