Abrupt exit for charge d’affaires who stood in after Peter Mandelson’s removal as US ambassador A diplomat in Washington who stood in as interim ambassador after the sacking of Peter Mandelson has abruptly left his post. In a brief statement, a Foreign Office spokesman said: “James Roscoe has left his post.” No further explanation was officially given on Tuesday night for the departure of Roscoe, who had served as deputy head of mission at the British embassy since 2022. Continue reading...

Move brings an end to a 60 day visa-free stay that was agreed with 93 countries, including the UK, US and much of Europe Thailand is drastically cutting the length of visa-free stays for tourists from more than 90 countries in an effort to curb crime involving foreign nationals, officials said on Tuesday. Tourism is vital to the south-east Asian nation’s economy, but foreign arrivals are yet to return to their pre-Covid levels. Continue reading...

Exemption for Russian oil refined elsewhere then sold on; funeral in Kyiv for two of Russian bombing’s young victims. What we know on day 1,547 Continue reading...

There’s nothing wrong with film-makers leaving their comfort zone but the Japanese director’s latest effort just doesn’t work Hirokazu Kore-eda’s new film is a bafflingly unsatisfying and unconvincing muddle of ideas and moods; it is a futurist fable of AI-humanoid robot children, unpersuasively performed in a returning keynote of bland serenity. It is perhaps comparable to Kore-eda’s 2009 film Air Doll, a more adult story of man whose sex doll secretly comes to life. Otone (Haruka Ayasi) – an architect who appears to work from home, with no office scenes or colleagues visible – is an educated woman married to down-to-earth Kensuke (Daigo Yamamoto), a carpenter who likes beer and playing baseball. Two years previously, their seven-year-old son, Kakeru (Rimu Kuwaki), was killed by a hit-and-run driver who has never been caught. They are approached by a company called REbirth, whose offices are huge and white with creepy logos and designs, like all sinister corporations in the movies, although the question of whether REbirth is supposed to be sinister is one of the film’s many unanswered questions. Continue reading...

At annual I/O conference, company debuts a product for everyday consumers to create autonomous AI agents Google announced Tuesday that it would expand its iconic search bar, the centerpiece of the most-visited website in the world, with a heavy dose of artificial intelligence. The tech giant is also trying its hand at hi-tech glasses again, more than a decade after wearers of its first eyewear were dubbed “glassholes” and laughed out of San Francisco. Google executives announced at the company’s annual conference for software developers, Google I/O, that its search box would accommodate longer and more specific queries than before – questions more like those people would ask one another than Search’s idiosyncratic syntax. The changes will direct users to engage directly with Google’s chatbot. The change to search is underpinned by the company’s new artificial intelligence model, Gemini 3.5, announced the same day. Continue reading...

Victory for Ed Gallrein, former Navy Seal hand-picked by Trump, shows strength of president’s grip on party Midterms primaries – live updates Donald Trump displayed his supremacy over the Republican party on Tuesday when voters in northern Kentucky rejected the maverick congressman Thomas Massie in favour of the US president’s hand-picked challenger. Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy Seal and farmer who was recruited into the race by Trump, defeated the seven-term incumbent in a primary election in Kentucky’s fourth congressional district in what the president’s allies framed as a test of whether dissent could still exist inside today’s Republican party. Continue reading...

This affecting anti-hagiography traces the ascent of a bona fide superstar, featuring interviews with Nick Cave, Dannii, Jason Donovan – and the icon herself making a shocking cancer revelation Beyond the sequins, feathers and gold hotpants, the stories of the most enduring pop megastars tend to be ones of jaw-dropping grit and undimmable power. Especially when they’re women. So it is with Kylie: pint-sized seller of over 80m records, singer of two of the greatest pop bangers of all time (Can’t Get You Out of My Head and Padam Padam, obviously), and the reticent subject of this increasingly intimate and, finally, profoundly moving three-part Netflix documentary. What starts as a bog-standard run-through of Kylie’s ascent to superstardom – an excess of Pete Waterman, Neighbours clips and virulent 1990s sexism – ends with a disclosure that moves me to tears. It comes in the final 10 minutes. It’s 2023: a euphoric high point in Kylie’s career. Padam Padam, the first single from Kylie’s 16th album, Tension, has just been released. Then the words “One More Thing” flash across a black screen. Cut to present-day Kylie arriving at the studio, singing songs from Tension with her longstanding team of British songwriters. “There’s a song called Story … ” she says to director Michael Harte (also the editor of Netflix’s Beckham), who shot the documentary over two years. Kylie, who is notoriously private, falters. Her songwriting partner of more than 25 years, Richard “Biff” Stannard, takes her hand. She starts to cry as she divulges what Story is really about: her second cancer diagnosis, in early 2021. Continue reading...

Landmark report calls for widespread air conditioning and says UK temperatures forecast to exceed 40C by 2050 British homes will need air conditioning to survive predicted levels of global heating, the government’s climate advisers have warned in a report, as measures such as drawing curtains, opening windows and growing trees for shade are not likely to be enough. Air conditioning should be installed in all care homes and hospitals within the next 10 years, and in all schools within 25 years, according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which published a major report on adapting to the impacts of global heating on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Whale first photographed off the coast of Brazil in 2003 spotted off north-east Australia in September 2025 Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast A humpback whale has made a 15,000km journey from Brazil to Australia, marking what researchers believe is the longest distance ever documented between sightings of an individual humpback. The whale was first photographed in 2003 at the Abrolhos Bank, Brazil’s main humpback whale nursery, off the coast of the north-eastern state of Bahia. In September 2025, it was spotted again in Hervey Bay off the Queensland coast, representing a travel distance of about 15,100km. Continue reading...

In new Netflix documentary, pop superstar says she ‘got through it, again’, referring back to successful treatment for breast cancer in 2005 Kylie Minogue has revealed that in early 2021 she was diagnosed with cancer for a second time, after diagnosis and successful treatment for breast cancer in 2005. The pop star discussed the previously unannounced diagnosis in a new Netflix documentary entitled Kylie, available from today. “My second cancer diagnosis was in early 2021. I was able to keep that to myself … Not like the first time,” she said, referring to her highly publicised first treatment. Continue reading...

National Audit Office says potential benefits are ‘considerable but uncertain’ while risks are ‘immediate and substantial’ The cost of the government’s £38bn nuclear plant in Suffolk is subject to “significant uncertainty” and may outweigh the benefits for UK households until at least 2064, according to the government’s spending watchdog. The National Audit Office (NAO) has warned that although the potential benefits of the Sizewell C nuclear plant are considerable, they remain uncertain. The risks, however, are “immediate, substantial and borne by the public”. Continue reading...

Wallace Collection, London Intended to relieve the stresses of office, especially during wartime, Churchill’s amateurish works have an overpowering joy – but his donkeys would make Lowry blush Winston Churchill, British prime minister during the second world war and again in the 1950s, was firstly a politician and statesman, but secondly a painter. He was not an artist though. He described his paintings as “daubs”: they are the amateur output of a Sunday painter, more about mild stress relief than technically efficient vehicles intended for iconographic messages. There is an innocent charm in Churchill’s declaration that “the simplest objects have their beauty” – and in his encouraging others to paint too, without seeking fame or recognition. He exhibited modestly, and anonymously, in minor salons in the 1920s. Squinting (very) hard just about reveals the colourist efforts of perhaps a very minor impressionist-leaning painter, to be charitable, though any relation to the existing art historical canon is irrelevant: the works are of interest because of the identity of their creator, and as primary historical sources. They record where he was, when, and what he saw: variously stately mansions while staying with friends; bottles of his favourite tipples; Blenheim Palace and its grounds; holidaying in the French Riviera; and, inevitably, views while travelling as a statesman, such as Jerusalem in 1921, shortly after the Cairo Conference, which he chaired as colonial secretary under prime minister Lloyd George. Curators Xavier Bray and Lucy Davis wisely avoid reading political views into these scenes, though can’t resist insinuating the odd symbolic link, such as between a cannon pointing out to sea in The Beach at Walmer (c 1938), a favourite bathing spot of the Churchill family, and his contemporaneous public warnings against Nazi Germany. Continue reading...

Manager to speak to club hierarchy before announcing decision Guardiola: ‘The first person I have to talk to is my chairman’ Pep Guardiola refused to publicly comment on the expectation that his 10-year reign at Manchester City will come to an end despite reports in the Guardian that he has already informed his players. “I could say I have one year of contract – the conversation we have had for many years,” he said. A 1-1 draw at Bournemouth meant City could not prevent Arsenal becoming Premier League champions. Guardiola repeated the deflection he has used throughout this season. “Always from my experience, when you [media] announce whatever you announce during a competition, it is a bad, bad result.” Continue reading...

Research appears to challenge previous studies but some experts call aspects of it ‘misguided’ People who are the least fit need to do 30-50 minutes more exercise a week than the fittest to get the same reduction in cardiovascular risk, according to research. Researchers examined data from more than 17,000 British adults taking part in the UK Biobank study. They completed a cycle test to measure their baseline cardiorespiratory fitness (estimated VO2 max) and wore a fitness tracker for a week to record typical exercise levels. Continue reading...

Trusting a rookie coach to rebuild the club in late 2019 was a big call but after three runners-up finishes the Spaniard has delivered a long-awaited title They say good things come to those who wait, and for Arsenal supporters it has felt like an eternity. Since their unforgettable 2003-04 season when Arsène Wenger’s Invincibles went the top-flight campaign unbeaten, their team had spent an incredible 984 days at the top of the table without being champions. Until now. After all the disappointments of the late Wenger era and finishing as runners-up in the past three seasons, that unwanted statistic can finally be put to bed after a campaign in which Mikel Arteta’s side have shown they are capable of holding their nerve. There have been many doubters along the way, not least during a disastrous April during which Arsenal lost twice to their chief rivals, Manchester City, in a run of four consecutive domestic defeats in three competitions. But it is a triumph that rewards the faith shown by the hierarchy towards a rookie manager who arrived a week before Christmas in 2019 on a mission to restore them to former glories. Continue reading...

The firearms the shooters, aged 17 and 18, used in the fatal rampage were registered to one of their parents The two teenage assailants responsible for a mass shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, California, rushed toward the mosque “fully armored” with handguns and rifles, authorities said. A security guard shot and struck one of the shooters, according to members of the mosque – but the attacker continued charging. The guard also alerted administrators of the school at the Islamic Center, telling them to go into lockdown, before he was shot and killed. “If it was not for him … The carnage would be much worse,” said imam Taha Hassane. “He sacrificed his life.” Continue reading...

Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, pulled off an ‘incredible double feat’ in succeeding as ‘both a romance and an incisive postcolonial novel’ Taiwan Travelogue, a novel written by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated by Lin King, has become the first book originally written in Mandarin Chinese to win the International Booker prize. Yáng and King were announced as the winners of the £50,000 prize – to be split equally between them – during a ceremony at Tate Modern, London, on Tuesday evening. To browse all shortlisted titles for The International Booker prize 2026, visit guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. Continue reading...

Tottenham’s woes in this corner of London are well-established and well-documented. When they made this latest trip to Stamford Bridge, the statistics showed they had won just once since 1990 – a sequence of 40 matches in all competitions. Never mind. They needed only a draw to effectively ensure their Premier League survival, to send West Ham down and draw a veil over this most wretched of seasons. Continue reading...

This tale of a nun and a priest’s forbidden romance has a stellar cast, but it’s odd from the very start – largely because Paapa Essiedu and Keeley Hawes don’t speak or act like adult human beings Yearning is a lost art. It is hard, in this day and age, to find ways in which to keep people apart enough for passion to grow, fed by hope and hopelessness in turn. What once were near-insurmountable obstacles – distance, marriage to others, unspeakable truths about sexualities – don’t really serve any more. How about religion, then? How about a love between two people doctrinally bound to remain celibate? Catholicism has just the thing, plus it comes with a side order of guilt about sex even for its non-clergy members. In Falling, written by Jack Thorne, we have Keeley Hawes playing Anna, a nun who took her vows 20 years ago and has lived a sheltered life ever since, under the watchful eye of the abbess Francesca (Niamh Cusack). And we have Paapa Essiedu playing father David, a dynamic young priest patrolling the streets and trying to transform the lives of his impoverished parishioners in Easton, a deprived part of Bristol. It’s very odd from the start, largely because neither of them speaks or acts like an adult human being. Given that Anna is a nun who regularly goes to the shops and food banks with the produce she grows in the convent garden, this makes no sense. And given that David is a priest who lives very much in the real world, it comes to make even less sense. “Those look lovely!” says one grocer of Anna’s box of crops as she enters the shop. “YOU are lovely, Graham!” she replies. “THESE are vegetables!” I’m sorry, what? Continue reading...

Here is where the story ends. Congratulations, Arsenal, champions of England after 22 years. Farewell then, Pep Guardiola, 10 years of dominance ending in anticlimax. Two domestic cups counts as a disappointment in Pep terms. There will be no treble celebration at Manchester’s Co-op Arena leaving party on Monday. Eli Junior Kroupi wrote his name in north London legend for ever, as the title race reached its conclusion on the south coast. Erling Haaland’s late equaliser was nowhere near enough. Andoni Iraola has been able to keep his future movements secret and he received a post-match send-off from a club grateful for three seasons of progressive, exiting football, capped off by reaching European football for the first time. A point was enough to claim that. His team’s determination to complete the job was too much for opponents who cracked under the pressure of their situation, perhaps distracted by overnight news of the huge change coming their way. Continue reading...

⚽ Manchester City’s draw hands Gunners the title at last ⚽ Chelsea v Tottenham – live | Table | Follow us on Bluesky Here’s more on how Arsenal sealed Premier League glory tonight. On 26 April 2004, Arsenal secured the English title – their 13th in total –with a 2-2 draw at White Hart Lane, with four games still to play and an unbeaten league season to complete. Few of the delirious fans in attendance that day would have believed another 22 years would pass before their team would win it again, and take their tally to 14. Continue reading...

US vice-president appeared to align with attendees of Tommy Robinson’s ‘unite the kingdom’ rally in London US vice-president, JD Vance, has urged anti-immigration activists in the UK to “keep on going” after tens of thousands gathered for a rally in London. Vance appeared to align himself with those who attended a march on Saturday where the far-right activist Tommy Robinson told supporters to prepare for the “battle of Britain”. Continue reading...

Arsenal win title for the first time since 2004 Success follows three runners-up finishes Live: reaction as Gunners crowned champions Arsenal are Premier League champions for the first time since Arsène Wenger’s Invincibles in 2004 after Manchester City drew 1-1 at Bournemouth. It caps a remarkable achievement for Mikel Arteta in his first job in management, the Spaniard having transformed Arsenal into contenders since taking over from Unai Emery in December 2019. His team finished as runners-up in the past three campaigns and led the way for most of this season before City whittled down Arsenal’s nine-point lead after beating them at the Etihad in April. More details soon … Continue reading...

Receiver tested positive for marijuana Player must serve 30 days in jail Kansas City Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice has been ordered to serve 30 days in jail after violating his probation with a positive test for marijuana. Rice was booked Tuesday afternoon in Dallas County, Texas, and is due to be released on 16 June. The timeline means he will miss organized team activities and a mandatory minicamp. Continue reading...

Family seeks answers after incident at uncovered maintenance hole near Cartier building late at night Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email The family of a New York woman is struggling for answers after the 56-year-old fell to her death upon stepping out of her car and slipping down an open maintenance hole on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. The woman in question died on Monday night and was identified by family members as Donike Gocaj, from Briarcliff Manor, a commuter belt area north of New York City. Continue reading...