Colombia is a global leader in climate activism. Could US influence drag country to a future of mining and fracking? Several hours after dark in a quiet Caribbean neighbourhood, a cluster of environmental activists gather on plastic chairs between a mango tree and a courtyard wall emblazoned with the words: “Colombia, respira!” (breathe Colombia). So many people have turned up that some are forced to stand. That is because tonight’s speaker, Susana Muhamad, is one of the most admired socio-environmental campaigners in the world and this is a moment of profound historical significance. Continue reading...

Republican senators have queried the timing and lack of detail in secret service bid to add money to the Department for Homeland security bill Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. Senate Republicans could strip Donald Trump’s lavish White House ballroom complex from the Department of Homeland Security funding bill after members queried the timing and lack of detail in the $1bn Secret Service request. The US issued a federal criminal indictment against Raúl Castro, Cuba’s former president, potentially paving the way for a US military raid to capture him. Two police officers attacked by rioters at the US Capitol during the January 6 riot sued Donald Trump over plans to create a $1.776bn “anti-weaponization” fund. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican congressman from a Philadelphia-area district carried by Kamala Harris in 2024, pledged on Wednesday to “try to kill” the $1.776bn slush fund created by Donald Trump’s Department of Justice this week, which could be used to compensate rioters who tried to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election. Republican senator Bill Cassidy denounced two of Trump’s passion projects: $1bn in taxpayer funding for the White House ballroom the president can’t stop talking about, and the $1.776bn slush fund he plans to use to reward supporters who stormed the Capitol to try to keep him in office despite losing the 2020 election. A former federal prosecutor in Florida pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges that she illegally emailed herself a copy of the unreleased special counsel report on Trump’s mishandling of classified documents. Continue reading...

Authorities in Galicia declare two days of mourning after toddler died during exceptionally high May temperatures Europe live – latest updates A two-year-old girl has died of heatstroke in north-west Spain after being accidentally left in her father’s car during an unseasonably hot spell that could push temperatures in some areas to 38C (100F). The child, who has not been named, went into cardiac arrest on Wednesday afternoon after spending several hours inside the vehicle in the Galician town of Brión after her father forgot to take her to nursery. Continue reading...

Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London Not only does this giant plastic bag make the intangible physical, it gains a bodily sense of weight and an unexpected emotional resonance When he wasn’t busy wrapping buildings and bridges in vast reams of fabric, Christo was wrapping absolutely nothing. The Bulgarian artist made his name – alongside his partner Jeanne-Claude – with a wrapped Reichstag, a swaddled Arc de Triomphe and an enveloped Pont Neuf. They found a way of containing, embracing, protecting and smothering the whole world. But in the 1960s, he was trying to wrap air. Nothing more. Christo (Jeanne-Claude hadn’t been given full joint credit at this point) wanted to contain the air within a room, but the original idea was limited by technical constraints. Now, 50 years after it was first proposed for the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and six years after Christo’s death in 2020, he’s finally pulled it off. The opening room at Gagosian has been bisected horizontally, a huge polyethylene sack splitting the room in two, held to the ceiling by white ropes. It droops low, sinking into the middle of the space, forcing you to crouch to get under it. You’re forced into a physical relationship with the work, bullied into changing how you interact with the environment. Christo: Air is at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London, until 21 August Continue reading...

The Rolling Stone will play a lighthouse keeper in Three Incestuous Sisters, joining a cast including Dakota Johnson, Jessie Buckley and Saoirse Ronan Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger is playing a lighthouse keeper in the new film from Happy as Lazzaro director Alice Rohrwacher, which is currently filming on the Italian island of Stromboli. According to reports in the Italian media, Jagger was photographed on arrival in Stromboli after flying in by helicopter to take a role in Three Incestuous Sisters, Rohrwacher’s adaptation of the 2005 “visual novel” by The Time Traveler’s Wife author Audrey Niffenegger. Continue reading...

They feel they may have grounds to claim compensation FA opens investigation and expected to bring charges Millwall and Wrexham are considering their legal options after confirmation that Southampton have been expelled from Saturday’s Championship playoff final and replaced by the beaten semi-finalists Middlesbrough. The aggrieved clubs will await publication of the written reasons for the decisions taken by the English Football League’s independent disciplinary panel, which were upheld by an appeal panel on Wednesday night, but are understood to believe they could have grounds to make a claim for compensation. Continue reading...

Minchella on life as a treble winner, his club’s rivalry with Wigan and why playing at Wembley brings it all back By No Helmets Required Hull Kingston Rovers are preparing for two big games against Wigan. After a slow start in Super League, the treble winners are climbing up the table and could go second if they beat Wigan at Craven Park on Thursday night. The teams meet again in the Challenge Cup ​final at Wembley next Saturday and Rovers seem to be peaking at the right time. They have been punching out peak performances in recent weeks, the latest a tough win at Leigh. This is a golden era for the club. After reaching the Challenge Cup ​final and Super League semi-finals in 2023, they played in their first Grand Final in 2024, finally won the title last year and were crowned world club champions in February. Willie Peters’ squad are entering their fourth year together. He will leave in October to take over new NRL franchise PNG Chiefs and, even though most of the club’s important players will stay, it feels like their time is now. Continue reading...

The third film in Tarik Saleh’s ‘Cairo trilogy’ is a about a washed-up movie star who is bullied into starring in government propaganda Swedish-Egyptian film-maker Tarik Saleh has long been a brilliant satirist of the corruption and shabby political compromises and conspiracies of post-Mubarak Egypt. Now he brings us the third of his “Cairo trilogy”, after The Nile Hilton Incident in 2017 and Cairo Conspiracy in 2022. This new film is a seductive black-comic political thriller set in Egypt of the present day, showing us that everyone in the glamorous world of the movies, infatuated as they are with made-up stories acted out by narcissists believing in their own publicity, can so easily be pressed into the service of political propaganda. The result is a rackety, despairing, funny film with something of Billy Wilder, or István Szabó’s Mephisto, or Bertolucci’s fascism parable The Conformist. For me, it also had echoes of Daniel Kehlmann’s novel The Director, about 1930s Austrian movie director GW Pabst, fatally tempted by the blandishments of Goebbels. Saleh’s lead is his longtime leading man Fares Fares, playing an ageing Egyptian movie star; this is pampered matinee idol George Fahmy, a man comfortable doing cheesy crowd-pleasing potboilers, now bullied into playing the lead in a sinister government-sponsored biopic of the president (with news footage of the current president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, cheekily cut in). Continue reading...

Hundreds of cases reported in the DRC after USAID has been dismantled and key scientific research canceled A previously undetected outbreak of Ebola is coursing through parts of central Africa, and the US appears to be doing little to help stop it, after massive cuts to global and domestic public health efforts. There is no cure and no vaccine for the rare Bundibugyo variant of Ebola, which has caused two outbreaks in recent decades. Health leaders and scientists are now racing to understand where the virus is spreading and attempting to stop it – but the US is notably absent in these efforts. Continue reading...

While Canada may be clinging to fossil fuels, much of the world is moving on Casual international observers would be forgiven for assuming Canada is in the comforting hands of a climate champ. After all, while climate policy rollbacks reign supreme in Donald Trump’s America, Canada is now led by a man who, while serving as governor of the Bank of England, delivered a celebrated 2015 speech, “Breaking the tragedy of the horizon”, warning the global investment community of the financial risks of climate change; who went on to serve as UN special envoy for climate action and finance; and whose 2022 book Value(s) had much to say about the “existential threat” of climate change. A man who recently dazzled the world with his Davos speech on how middle powers can stand up to global bullies. Look, we get it. Next to the US president, Carney seems so debonair, thoughtful and calm – a lifeline of stability in a volatile new world. Seth Klein is a Canadian climate writer and activist, author of the book A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency, and former team lead of the Climate Emergency Unit. His newsletter can be found here. Continue reading...

Apparently, nines are the hardest to grasp for primary school children. If only they’d learned how to cheat like me Maths was never my thing. I quite enjoyed it at O-level, to the extent that I chose to do it at A-level. As early as the first week of the A-level course, however, it became abundantly clear that the subject was quite beyond me. I simply couldn’t make head or tail of what the teacher was on about. Looking around at the rest of the class quietly getting on with it, I remember wondering if there had been some primer course over the summer that everyone but me had attended. I just didn’t get it. There didn’t seem to be any certainties any more, rarely anything so straightforward as a right or wrong answer. There were enough grey areas in my other subjects – English and history. From my maths I wanted certainty, objective truth, which as far as I could see wasn’t part of it any more. Continue reading...

A Buddhist building on Miyajima island in Japan has been destroyed by fire. Reikado Hall, part of Daishō-in temple complex, was home to an 'eternal flame' said to have been lit by the monk Kukai more than 1,200 years ago. Fire officials said the blaze was extinguished on Thursday by about 30 firefighters Continue reading...

Decline to 171,000 last year will encourage ministers in what is seen as a battleground issue against Reform UK politics live – latest updates Net migration to the UK fell by nearly 50% to 171,000 last year, according to official figures released on Thursday, in what will be seen as a boost for Keir Starmer’s government. Data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed the difference between the number of people moving to the UK and the number of people leaving was at its lowest level since 2021. Continue reading...

Scientists developing vaccines and anti-tick treatments amid growing concern over spread of disease Cases of Lyme disease have risen more than 20% in England in the past year, public health experts have revealed, as pharmaceutical companies work to create new vaccines and drugs to tackle the tick-borne illness. According to data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), published as part of its One Health vector-borne disease surveillance report, there were 1,168 laboratory-confirmed cases of Lyme disease in 2025, up from 959 in 2024 – an increase of 22%. However, the figure is similar to that recorded in 2023, when there were 1,151 confirmed cases. Continue reading...

Campaigners warn the decline in childminders is making it harder for families to find flexible and affordable childcare. Share your experiences The number of childminders in England has roughly halved over the past decade, with many citing rising costs, low pay and increasing paperwork as reasons for leaving the profession. Campaigners warn the decline is making it harder for families to find flexible and affordable childcare. We want to hear from parents and carers whose childminder has recently closed their business, stopped accepting certain age groups such those over three-year-olds or reduced the number of children they look after. Continue reading...

Lund Point in east London was once ‘a beautiful community’, according to Tee Fabikun, who has lived there since 1997. Now just four flats are occupied. Why are Fabikun and her friends hanging on? And what happened to the long-promised redevelopment? Tee Fabikun is sitting in an armchair in her cosy, homely flat, surrounded by her things – papers and letters, family photos, a few Nigerian handicrafts, a forest of houseplants by the window. She is telling me about her neighbours here on the fifth floor of Lund Point, a tower block on the Carpenters estate in Stratford, east London. Next door there’s “a grumpy old man”; well, she thought he was a grumpy old man, but then she saw him in the lift with his granddaughter and he was sweet with her, so maybe he’s not so bad. “There’s always two sides.” In the next flat along is a young couple who met in the building, maybe in that lift. She was living on a higher floor, but moved down and in with him when they got married, and rented out her place. Then there’s a Bangladeshi family who only speak a little English. Fabikun’s first contact with them was when their daughter knocked on the door holding out an exercise book and just said “homework”; after that Fabikun would often help with her studies. And so on. And it’s not just her immediate neighbours on the fifth floor that Tee knows; she knows pretty much everyone in the 21-storey block. Continue reading...

With uncanny timing amid hantavirus and Ebola outbreaks, a group set up by Nelson Mandela known as The Elders, met in Kenya to model a health emergency – and found much still needs to be done A dozen people sat around a boardroom table at the emergency hub of the World Health Organization (WHO) just outside Nairobi last Thursday, their eyes glued to an animated presentation on a screen. Health workers in eastern Chad have reported several deaths among patients with respiratory failure, they are told. Initial samples suggest a novel variant of bird flu, but confirmation requires sending samples to a foreign laboratory. International health regulations require notification within 24 hours of assessment, but Chad’s government is hesitant to notify the WHO, fearing economic repercussions and stigma. Continue reading...

Eight nations have won the World Cup. An expanded field and a grueling schedule means a new champion could emerge from the pack this summer When Fifa expanded the field for the 2026 World Cup to 48 teams, the sales pitch included giving more nations a chance at glory. In reality, the favorites are nearly always former champions. To date, only eight nations have won the men’s World Cup. And yet, few of the former champions arrive at this summer’s tournament in their finest form. Spain are a justifiably popular pick as the reigning European champions have plenty of world-class talent. Argentina will hope to defend their title from 2022 after following it up with the Copa América in 2024. France, who top our power rankings, have reached the last two finals, and Kylian Mbappé claims this squad is the best he has been a part of. Continue reading...

As the much-loved Late Show host says his final goodnight, a look back at his finest and funniest moments ‘He had a unique ability to be human’: late-night TV says goodbye to Stephen Colbert This week marks the end of two distinctive eras of network television, as CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert will air its final episode. The show was created in 1993 by David Letterman after his controversial exit from NBC, and he held the reins for 22 years before retiring and turning the show over to Colbert, who had risen to prominence on Comedy Central as a member of The Daily Show, and then later host of his own political talkshow, The Colbert Report. Colbert’s run on the Late Show would last 11 years. Last July, CBS shocked everyone by announcing the show’s cancellation, with the final episode to air on 21 May. Although executives claimed the decision was purely financial – even with Late Show holding the best ratings for any late-night talkshow for nine years running – many saw it as a political gesture towards Donald Trump ahead of an $8bn merger between CBS’s parent company, Paramount, and Skydance. Continue reading...

Chris Kennedy chosen amid reports Greens do not want to be blamed for splitting progressive vote and allowing Reform to win UK politics live – latest updates The Green party has chosen “a committed local campaigner” as its candidate in the Makerfield byelection which is due to take place on 18 June. Chris Kennedy, a nurse and children’s safeguarding specialist, was chosen after a hustings on Wednesday amid reports that the party was proposing to hold back from investing significant resources in the byelection. Continue reading...

MP says current system is unfair and his idea would result in a ‘wealth tax that works’ UK politics live – latest updates Former health secretary Wes Streeting has set out plans for a “wealth tax that works”, by equalising tax on assets and income. Streeting said the current system – in which capital gains tax is generally much lower than income tax – was not fair and penalised work, arguing the taxes should be equalised. Continue reading...

Office for National Statistics says figure of 171,000 in year to December 2025 was the lowest since 2021 Net migration to the UK stood at an estimated 171,000 in the year to December 2025, down nearly a half (48%) from 331,000 in the previous 12 months, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The Press Association says: It is the lowest figure since early 2021, when the post-Brexit immigration system was introduced and Covid-19 travel restrictions were still in place. Net migration is the difference between the number of people moving long-term to the UK and the number of people leaving the country. Continue reading...

Chancellor wins support from Conservative Mel Stride, while Nigel Farage says he would ‘like to buy man a pint’ UK politics live – latest updates Rachel Reeves surprised onlookers when she gave a stern rebuke to a foul-mouthed heckler who shouted at her from his van as she conducted a broadcast interview. However, the chancellor has won support from unlikely sources, with Conservative politicians backing her response. Continue reading...

Budget airline, which took £25m hit on jet fuel in March, says passengers are waiting later to book trips The budget airline easyJet has said its summer holiday bookings are lagging behind last year as the Iran war weights on consumer confidence and has left passengers waiting later to book trips. The carrier said it had to spend an unexpected extra £25m on jet fuel in March after the start of the US and Israel’s war on Iran. Continue reading...

Flying from roofs or grinding on car spoilers, the skaters at the spectacular birth of a UK subculture are captured in Neil Macdonald’s book Elsewhere Continue reading...