Boris Johnson was embroiled in an extraordinary public spat with EU leaders over Northern Ireland on Saturday as tensions over Brexit boiled over at the G7 summit in Cornwall.
After a series of tense bilateral meetings at which the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel and the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, told their summit host the UK must implement the Brexit deal in full, an unrepentant Johnson said he had urged his EU colleagues to ?€?get it into their heads?€? that the UK is ?€?a single country?€?.
Men were charged with arson over blaze that destroyed what was Europe?€?s largest migrant camp
Four Afghan asylum seekers have been sentenced to 10 years in prison in Greece for their part in a fire that destroyed the Moria migrant camp in 2020.
The men, charged with arson with risk to human life over the fire on the island of Lesbos last September, were found guilty after a court rejected a request by lawyers for three of them to be tried by a juvenile court because they were under 18 at the time.
Midfielder, 29, required urgent CPR on the pitch during match against Finland but is now stable
Danish international footballer Christian Eriksen was given chest compressions by medics during the Euro 2020 clash against Finland in Copenhagen on Saturday.
Eriksen, 29, collapsed face first into the pitch while running to collect a throw-in with no other player near him. His teammates and Finnish players nearby quickly signalled to English referee Anthony Taylor that Eriksen, a former Tottenham Hotspur favourite, needed urgent medical attention.
A film about the disputed Salvator Mundi blames the National Gallery for its role in giving credibility to the claim that it was the artist?€?s lost work
The National Gallery is facing controversy over its role in the tangled story of how the world?€?s most expensive painting emerged from obscurity before being sold for a staggering £320m, only to vanish again from the public eye.
The gallery exhibited the Salvator Mundi in its Leonardo da Vinci exhibition a decade ago when it was an unknown work with doubts about its attribution, restoration and ownership.
Children and hospital staff killed in attack on northern city Afrin, which is held by Turkish-backed rebels
Shelling of the rebel-held city of Afrin in northern Syria killed at least 18 people, many of them when a hospital was hit, a war monitor said.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a doctor, three hospital staff, two women and two children died at al-Shifaa hospital, which is held by Turkish-backed rebels, on Saturday.
The opposition-led administration will be sworn in on Sunday if it can prevail in a confidence vote in the Knesset
Benjamin Netanyahu is due to be ousted from office on Sunday by a new Israeli government formed with the primary aim of dethroning the country?€?s longest-serving leader.
A motley grouping of politicians, including former Netanyahu allies turned foes, have set aside bitter differences to put an end to the prime minister?€?s historic run in power. If successful, it will also break a political stalemate that has seen four snap elections in the country since 2019.
2020 war over Nagorno-Karabakh region left minefields that have continued to inflict casualties, including three recent deaths
Azerbaijan says it has handed over 15 Armenian prisoners in exchange for a map detailing the location of landmines in Agdam, a region relinquished by ethnic Armenian forces as a part of a deal to end their short war of 2020.
Prisoners of war are a key issue for Armenia, while landmines continue to inflict casualties in Azerbaijan. Two journalists and a local official were killed on 4 June when a landmine exploded in Azerbaijan?€?s Kalbajar district on territory that was vacated by ethnic Armenian forces in November.
Student Owen Hurcum is ?€?humbled?€? to serve the oldest city in Wales, and aims to put Bangor?€?s peacocks on the map
When Owen Hurcum, a part-time archaeology master?€?s student at Bangor University, climbed to the stage to accept their position as the newly appointed mayor of Bangor, they felt ?€?hugely humbled?€? to represent their community.
What is even more unique about Hurcum, 23, is who they are: non-binary, queer and agender. They made history in this year?€?s local and mayoral election by becoming the first openly non-binary mayor of any city in the world.
Bids in 10-minute auction started at $4.8m for 20 July trip on Blue Origin spacecraft with Bezos and his brother.
Jeff Bezos?€?s Blue Origin has sold the spare seat of the company?€?s 20 July New Shepard space rocket blast-off for $28m, the company announced on Saturday.
It was around mid-May when workers at the Cal-Comp factory in Phetchaburi, central Thailand, heard a small group of their colleagues had tested positive for Covid-19. It soon became clear the virus had ripped through the production lines. A cluster associated with the electronics factory has since been linked to thousands of infections.
Hwan Htet Paing*, a worker from the factory, said he was not told the results of his Covid test, carried out on 19 May. Despite this, he was instructed to quarantine inside a vast hall at his workplace. The floor was covered with tarpaulin sheets and lined with rows of mosquito nets for each worker. Everyone was given a bucket and a cup, and bedsheets to lay across the floor. Fans were handed out to help ease the heat - until the vast numbers of people testing positive meant there were none left.
In June 2020, as the first reports of long Covid began to filter through the medical community, doctors attempting to grapple with this mysterious malaise began to notice an unusual trend. While acute cases of Covid-19 - particularly those hospitalised with the disease - tended to be mostly male and over 50, long Covid sufferers were, by contrast, both relatively young and overwhelmingly female.
Early reports of long Covid at a Paris hospital between May and July 2020 suggested that the average age was around 40, and women afflicted by the longer-term effects of Covid-19 outnumbered men by four to one.
Follow all the latest updates on the pandemic as a UK poll shows public support for a delay in the easing of restrictions
A prominent academic has joined calls for the UK government to postpone its planned lifting of coronavirus restrictions on 21 June, PA reports.
Epidemiologist Sian Griffiths also said an envisaged ?€?all-or-nothing Freedom Day?€? could be a bad idea in itself, promoting instead a more gradual lifting of measures aimed at containing the spread of the virus.
The public health advice would be to take it slowly and in a sustained way so we can keep up the progress we?€?ve been making.
It does depend on the balance. It?€?s a political decision at the end of the day, what happens on the 21st of June, but, from a public health point of view, we?€?re seeing the cases increase, we?€?re seeing a slight increase in hospitalisation in areas where there are a lot of cases, and the vaccination does work, but we need to get second doses into everybody over 50, and expand the vaccination programme to keep everybody safe.
Welcome to a Sunday edition of our coronavirus live blog covering the latest on the pandemic in the UK and across the world.
Boris Johnson appears poised to announced a delay of up to four weeks for the final phase of lifting restrictions in the UK. An official announcement is due on Monday, but on Saturday Johnson said the government had to be ?€?cautious?€? because of the rise in cases of the more infectious Delta variant.
At least 130,000 households in England were made homeless during the first year of the pandemic, despite the government?€?s ban on evictions, according to data sourced by the Observer. With the ban now over, fears are rising that a surge of evictions may be imminent. But the Observer?€?s figures show that even while the ban was in place, households were being forced from their homes.
?€?The ban didn?€?t stop tens of thousands from facing homelessness,?€? said Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter. ?€?During the pandemic, the most common triggers for homelessness were no longer being able to stay with friends or family, losing a private tenancy, and domestic abuse.?€?
After almost 20 years, our much-loved agony aunt is signing off. Here, our readers reveal how she?€?s helped them
Dear Mariella, I just wanted to let you know that not long after your column started I wrote to you. I was in utter despair as my husband had left and I think I was having a breakdown. I thought at the time your reply was quite harsh. However, you were right, I did need to get a grip and concentrate on my children.
It?€?s half a century since Sir Ian McKellen first played Hamlet. Now he?€?s starring as the Dane again - at 82. He talks about his extraordinary life, why he?€?ll never write his memoir - and his one lasting regret
Oh, birthdays,?€? Sir Ian McKellen growls, on the occasion of his 82nd. ?€?At my age I don?€?t do birthdays.?€? The wider world has not yet been informed, however, and cheerful cards have come in stacks to McKellen?€?s London townhouse. Messages chime in on his computer and two landline phones ring on his desk, one after the other. ?€?But, darling,?€? McKellen says, answering a call and interrupting a well-wisher mid flow, ?€?I?€?m trying to avoid it all this year.?€? Guilt, he explains to me, later. He leads us through to a sitting room. ?€?Actors don?€?t need this special attention, I?€?ve realised. We get cards and presents on first nights. Everyone makes a fuss of us. Birthdays are wonderful things for people who don?€?t get treated as special all year round.?€?
McKellen throws himself down in a winged armchair and croaks out an epic smoker?€?s laugh, one of those laughs that begins in silence (mimed really) and soon becomes an extended hum in the back of the throat, then a wheezy bark. Devoted to his cigs, he will step out on to his riverside balcony whenever he needs one, staring out over the Thames while he puffs, pulling on a tweedy overcoat if it?€?s cold. Between times he sucks on Polo mints. One goes into McKellen?€?s cheek, now. The rest of the packet he leaves perched on his tummy in reach. ?€?Where were we??€? he asks. ?€?Birthdays??€?
With famous users leading a rebrand, pleasure accessories lose their stigma in a £90bn health and wellness boom
Lily Allen has one. Cara Delevingne has one. Dakota Johnson has developed her own range. Is the celebrity sex toy 2021?€?s answer to the celebrity perfume?
For some, getting busy has been the last thing on the menu during the pandemic. Study after study, from India to Italy, has revealed that lockdown libido loss is real and that stress has killed the buzz in the bedroom. Sexual wellness, on the other hand, has reached a dizzying peak. Not only has the conversation around sexual pleasure changed for generation Z, but the industry attached to it - from apps to toys, herbal supplements to specialist oils - is also booming.
As a government civil servant, I was burnt out from working on Brexit and Covid and needed a change of scene. Trekking the length of Britain is just the tonic
It?€?s 7.30pm on 29 April and I?€?m standing alone on the highest hill in this part of Cornwall. The sun is bright and eager, dancing with dainty flashes on the waves west towards Newquay. But I?€?m wrapped in everything I have - two pairs of thick socks, leggings, trousers, T-shirt, two long-sleeved T-shirts, jumper, fleece, jacket, snood, hat - and still the wind reaches its long fingers down my neck to grip my spine. It is one degree above freezing; in less than a week it will snow on Dartmoor.
In fact, this is more than a hill. This is Castle an Dinas, one of those iron age forts to which schoolchildren are taken to be underwhelmed by ditches and mounds. The dog walkers who came up earlier weren?€?t cowed by antiquity: each allowed their charges to mess, tongues wagging. Watching the deposits stirs in me something I was repressing. For the four days I?€?ve been on the road, public toilets have been there when needed. A threshold is about to be crossed. I?€?m going wild.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not the only great supreme court justice to have made her name with dissent in the name of progress
The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg?€?s dissent collar is a small part of a larger history. Unlike some other high courts, the US supreme court accepts strong dissent. Ginsburg stood in the tradition of John Marshall Harlan - the only justice with the courage, foresight, humanity and constitutional vision to object to the odious 1896 Plessy v Ferguson decision that approved racial segregation.
The former strategic analyst says the culture of official secrecy is worse today but urges whistleblowers: ?€?Don?€?t wait years till the bombs are falling and people have been dying?€?
When the police arrived, a 13-year-old boy was photocopying classified documents. His 10-year-old sister was cutting the words ?€?top secret?€? off each page. It seemed their dad, Daniel Ellsberg, had been caught red-handed.
But the officers were responding to a false alarm and did not check what Ellsberg and his young accomplices were up to. ?€?It was a very nice family scene,?€? the 90-year-old recalls via Zoom from his home in Kensington, California. ?€?It didn?€?t worry them.?€?
The majority of the public back delaying the end of legal restrictions on social contact in the wake of rising cases of a more transmissible Covid variant, according to a new poll.
With Boris Johnson poised to announce a delay to his plan to remove the remaining restrictions on 21 June, an Opinium poll for the Observer found that 54% think the move should be postponed, up from 43% from a fortnight ago.
A fifth of EU-wide income disparity is down to the difference between countries, with those in the euro area faring worst
Economists generally study inequality - how big income gaps between households are - at the national level. That?€?s understandable given it?€?s where major policy choices tend to happen, but this can sideline other issues such as global inequality (income inequality between individuals around the world is traumatically high but encouragingly falling). Fascinating new research looks to fill another such gap: inequality trends across the EU.
Unsurprisingly, EU-wide inequality is high - similar to that of Latvia, the third-most unequal EU member - but it?€?s lower than in the United States. Importantly, 20% of EU inequality is down to income gaps between rich and poor member states, while just 1% in the US relates to differences between the states. The importance of these gaps in determining overall inequality between individuals across the EU helps explain the most interesting finding of the research: EU inequality has declined post-financial crisis, but in the euro area inequality has been slightly increasing.
It is not only Iranians who will suffer if a hardliner wins, it could have profound consequences for world peace
Iran?€?s beleaguered voters do not have much of a choice in this Friday?€?s presidential election. The regime, dominated by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a fiercely anti-western conservative, has cynically manipulated the contest to ensure that a like-minded hardliner, most probably Ebrahim Raisi, head of the judiciary, wins.
While the result is hardly a cliff-hanger, its impact may nonetheless be far-reaching - in Iran and internationally. The possibly negative consequences for talks on curbing Iran?€?s nuclear programme, for peaceful relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the west, for the wars in Syria and Yemen, for the geopolitical balance and for Iran?€?s own citizens are alarming.
Britain and Germany were under intense pressure on Saturday to drop their resistance to proposals that would slash the cost of Covid-19 vaccines, following accusations that an agreement at the G7 summit to fund a billon doses will give the world?€?s poorest countries ?€?crumbs from the table?€?.
Aid agencies said rules that protect drug patents from being illegally copied must be waived during the pandemic to accelerate the rollout of vaccines and save lives across the developing world.
Incident occurred in early hours in entertainment district
Two victims in critical condition as one more suspect sought
Police in Austin, Texas, say they have arrested one man and are searching for another in connection with a shooting early on Saturday that injured 14 people in the city?€?s downtown entertainment district.
The Austin police department said in a news release that the US Marshals Lone Star fugitive task force assisted in making the arrest, but it provided no other details other than to say it is continuing to follow up on leads for the suspect still at large.
Thousands of people have marched in Canada in support of a Muslim family run over and killed by a man driving a pickup truck. Police have described the incident last Sunday as a premeditated attack motivated by Islamophobia. Crowds in London, Ontario, marched five miles on Friday from the spot where the family was killed to a nearby mosque, the site close to where police arrested the attacker. Candlelight vigils were also held to honour the victims and protest against hatred
Labor?€?s Penny Wong says it?€?s disappointing the Australian prime minister did not secure a private meeting with the US president
Scott Morrison has met with Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G7 summit and agreed to work closely on challenges in the increasingly contested Indo-Pacific region including China.
Regional issues dominated the Australian prime minister?€?s first face-to-face meeting with the US president late on Saturday - but the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, also attended in what became a trilateral engagement.
Commitment from justice ministry seen as victory by rights campaigners, who say current law is exploited to coerce children
The government has committed to raising the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 in England and Wales in a victory for campaigners.
Currently, 16 and 17-year-olds can marry with parental consent, but a coalition of charities has warned that this legal loophole is being exploited to coerce young people into child marriage.
Gil Arias Fernández says EU border agency, which is under investigation for illegal migrant pushbacks, cannot stop far-right infiltrating its ranks
The former deputy head of Europe?€?s border and coastguard agency has said the state of the beleaguered force ?€?pains?€? him and that it is vulnerable to the ?€?alarming?€? rise of populism across the continent.
In his first interview since leaving office, Gil Arias Fernández, former deputy director at Frontex and once tipped for the top post, said he was deeply worried about the agency?€?s damaged reputation, its decision to arm officers, and its inability to stop the far-right infiltrating its ranks, amid anti-migrant movements across Europe.
The son of the footballing legend is carrying on his father?€?s quest to trace the children taken from parents murdered by the junta
Diego Armando Maradona Jr, son of the late Argentine football legend, is urging Italians to submit DNA to help the Argentinian government trace hundreds of children who were stolen and their parents murdered by the military junta that controlled the country four decades ago.
Maradona Jr is doing radio interviews in Italy and using his 400,000-strong social media following to broaden the search, which has already seen DNA testing programmes rolled out in Madrid and Rome.
Despite new laws to combat the problem, a rape is reported every 15 minutes, leaving victims and families crying out for justice
It was a historic day for women in India. Mamata Banerjee and her party won a spectacular election victory in West Bengal, defeating the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, defying many predictions. Securing a third term as chief minister, she was the only woman in such an important position in India.
The following day, 3 May, while TV anchors debated how Banerjee?€?s win represented not only a strong force against Modi but also made her a powerful woman in a patriarchal country, a 20-year-old student, known only as Jana (her identity cannot be revealed under Indian law), was cornered by two men in a village, about 70 miles west of Kolkata, West Bengal?€?s main city.
Widespread internment, torture and rights abuses have been claimed by former detainees as Beijing continues a policy of denial
Amnesty International has collected new evidence of human rights abusesin the Xinjiang region of China, which it says has become a ?€?dystopian hellscape?€? for hundreds of thousands of Muslims subjected to mass internment and torture.
The human rights organisation has collected more than 50 new accounts from Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities who claim to have been subjected to mass internment and torture in police stations and camps in the region.
An increased appetite for political donations strengthens the political influence of the wealthiest New Zealanders
The spokesperson for Aotearoa New Zealand?€?s Green party was genuinely surprised. She had called after I informed them that a major donor to their 2020 election campaign had subsequently pleaded guilty to animal neglect. The spokesperson said the Greens had not known about the neglect when they took her money.
They nevertheless refused to donate it onwards. They argued the Incorporated Societies Act required them to hold on to it. As I later found out, that?€?s not quite true: returning the donation, or donating it to an organisation like the SPCA, seems to be possible according to their party?€?s charter.
The key issue is the extent to which infections of the Delta variant first detected in India will lead to hospitalisations and deaths. The problem is that it?€?s too early to say. Because of the lag between cases and admissions to hospital, many experts say a short delay could be a major benefit to understanding that relationship. ?€?With the current knowledge about Delta, we can?€?t really predict the size of that wave,?€? said Anne Cori of Imperial College London?€?s modelling group. ?€?Delaying the easing allows time to accumulate more evidence about the characteristics of Delta. And I hope in a few weeks, we would be in a better position to predict what the epidemic may look like in the next few weeks or months.?€?
Downing Street is due to announce its decision on the next stage of Covid reopening in England by Monday, a week ahead of 21 June, which was set as the earliest date to bring in what is officially stage four of the Covid unlocking process. The original aim was to remove ?€?all legal limits on social contact?€?, allowing the reopening of remaining businesses such as nightclubs. Public health is a devolved matter, meaning Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not have the same deadline. Here are some possible options for England. They are not exclusive, meaning several could be used at the same time.
Ahmed Muhammad, in his valedictory speech, reflected on the unprecedented circumstances that shaped the class of 2021
Ahmed Muhammad recently became the first Black male valedictorian in the 106-year history of Oakland Technical high school in Oakland, California, graduating at the top of his class with a 4.73 grade point average (GPA) and offers from 11 top universities. A video of his moving graduation speech subsequently went viral, drawing widespread attention on social media and even earning praise from the state?€?s governor.
?€?I recently became the first Black male valedictorian in our school?€?s history. And I want to say something about that...?€?
Thank you, Ahmed for your powerful words. Look out world -- Oakland Tech is coming with some serious change makers! pic.twitter.com/vqANk21T5k
French President Emmanuel Macron has said that Joe Biden has convinced allies that the US is back, as the two leaders met at the G7 summit on Saturday. Biden, asked by a reporter if America was back, turned to Macron and gestured with his sunglasses towards the French president that he should answer that question. 'Yes, definitely,' Macron said. 'It's great to have a US president who's part of the club and very willing to cooperate'
Emmanuel Macron made a beeline for Joe Biden after the G7 summit photo call in Cornwall. Biden, on whom Boris Johnson expended considerable energy attempting to politically woo ahead of the summit, warmly embraced the French president. Johnson was left lingering with Angela Merkel as he waited for the pair to catch up.
G7 leaders have opened their first in-person talks in nearly two years. Welcomed by Boris Johnson to the beachside summit venue in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, the leaders posed for a photograph before opening their first session of talks
As world leaders flocked to the G7 summit at Carbis Bay in Cornwall to discuss the Covid pandemic recovery and the climate emergency, activists have also taken the chance to demonstrate to the leaders of seven of the wealthiest global democracies.
From a swarm of 300 drones creating 3D images of endangered species to protesters running around in Pikachu costumes, demonstrators have got creative to get the attention of politicians and the press. Here are some of the most impressive stunts
Policing protests taking place around the G7 summit will be challenging, officers have said. Devon and Cornwall police said around 40 groups had contacted the force stating their intention to protest at the event
Ahead of the G7 summit starting on Friday, 5,000 mutual aid officers have arrived in the area from police forces across the UK. They will join 1,500 officers and staff from Devon and Cornwall police being deployed at the event. More than 100 police dogs will be working at the summit, though no police horses are due to be there
Large number of US citizens demonstrated against the war in Iraq (and the possible war in Iran) during this October weekend. Massive turnout in Boston and San Fransisco, and also in Chicago, LA and DC people took to the streets. The message was: NO more war in Iraq! NO to a war with Iran!
