In 1990, Gary Williamson was 18, backpacking in Europe, when his vision began to fail. It was the start of a perilous journey

The first sign that something was wrong was the blurred text in the book Gary Williamson was reading. The problem with his vision had come on suddenly – the day before, it had been normal. Williamson thought perhaps he was tired, or run down. He was 18 and had arrived in Gibraltar after travelling through Europe for two weeks, sleeping rough and not eating or drinking properly. “I’ll go and get some water and something to eat. I thought: maybe it’s nothing. I’ll see how I am tomorrow. The next day, I woke up and it was bad again.” He remembers cautiously getting out his book to test his eyesight: “It’s actually getting worse. I can’t read it now. The lines were starting to blur.” He had relied on a map to get him that far. “I remember thinking: that’s going to become useless very soon. I need to work out what I’m doing.” He needed to get home.

It was 1990, and Williamson didn’t think to call home to ask for help. With no money left – he had made it to Gibraltar four days earlier with the intention to find work – he decided to hitch a lift, thinking a UK-bound lorry would be his best bet. He made it to the gates where the haulage lorries left the port, threw down his backpack by the side of the road and waited. None of the lorries stopped to pick him up. He was, he says, “panicking a little bit, thinking: what do I do? It was harder than I thought it was going to be.” Around 6pm, he gave up. He went back to where he had been sleeping, on a patch of sandy ground behind a sandwich stall over the Spanish border. Before he went to sleep, he wished that he would get a lift the next day, and that his eyesight wouldn’t be any worse. When he woke up, it was.

A quick landgrab has distorted into a complex geopolitical conflict – and even Trump’s fulminations can’t seem to make Ukrainians give in

Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine entered its fifth year on 24 February, with no end in sight despite Russia’s vast material superiority.

Most experts expected Ukraine’s defeat within days. Russia’s population is more than three times Ukraine’s, its GDP around 10 times bigger, its army far larger, its arsenal of tanks, artillery, missiles and warplanes greater. Russia’s leadership, Putin included, expected Ukrainians to capitulate, perhaps even to welcome Russian troops. US and British intelligence predicted the war early, but also projected a rapid Russian victory.

Rajan Menon is a professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York and a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies

Ukrainian Lessons: Art in a time of war. On Wednesday 30 September, join Charlotte Higgins and acclaimed Ukrainian writers Olia Hercules, Sasha Dovzhyk and Olesya Khromeychuk as they reflect on the profound connections between war, art and life. Book tickets here or at guardian.live

Researchers say solitary bottlenose has adapted well to city waters, but tighter controls on boat traffic and human behaviour are needed

Italian scientists monitoring the movements of a dolphin in the Venice lagoon have said humans are the ones who need managing, rather than wildlife.

Known as Mimmo, the bottlenose dolphin has been spotted on several occasions since it made its first appearance in June last year, prompting a research team from the University of Padova to spring into action.

UK Climate Change Committee voices concern over Scotland’s progress on decarbonising buildings and reliance on unproved technologies

Scotland has finally produced realistic short-term plans on cutting its climate emissions, but there is “real concern” about the credibility of its overall strategy, the UK’s climate policy watchdog has found.

Nigel Topping, the chair of the UK Climate Change Committee, said there were “flashing amber lights” about the quality and seriousness of some of the Scottish government’s medium- and long-term proposals to reach net zero by 2045.

Rebound in the country – which has been having demographic crisis – said to be partly because of 3.6 million born between 1991 and 1995 having children

South Korea recorded 254,500 births in 2025, the largest annual increase in 15 years, driven largely by a temporarily enlarged generation – known as “echo boomers” – now in their early thirties, alongside marriage rates recovering from Covid-era delays.

The country’s fertility rate – the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime – rose to 0.80 from 0.75 last year, returning to the 0.8 range for the first time since 2021, according to provisional figures released by South Korea’s ministry of data and statistics on Wednesday.

Four-day Caricom summit dominated by debate about US interventions in the region as military strikes against suspected drug boats continue

US interventions dominated speeches at a summit of 15 nations from the Caribbean and the Americas on Tuesday, as the region’s leaders met amid deadly military strikes against suspected drug boats and an oil blockade on Cuba.

During the opening ceremony of the four-day Caricom summit in St Kitts and Nevis, leaders of the regional bloc called for a strategic collaborations to deal with the impact of recent US policies.

Abigail Spanberger, Virginia’s Democratic governor, delivers her party’s response to Trump and Republican lawmakers, telling voters ‘they’re making your life harder’

• Democrats refuse to stand for Trump as Al Green ejected over ‘apes’ protest sign

• Democrats hold counter-events during Trump’s State of the Union address: ‘These are not normal times’

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Erika Kirk, the widow of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, will attend tonight’s State of the Union address as a special guest of the president.

After her husband was assassinated at a college event for his non-profit Turning Point USA, Erika Kirk took over the organization.

If he’s coming to our house, you got to be there. Otherwise, you let him own the house.

A spokesperson for Falun Dafa – a group associated with Shen Yun - said it had received threats against Albanese if upcoming performances went ahead

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Anthony Albanese was evacuated from his official Canberra residence on Tuesday night as police responded to a bomb threat made against him in relation to upcoming performances of the Chinese group Shen Yun.

A spokesperson for Falun Dafa – a group associated with Shen Yun - told Guardian Australia that one of their colleagues had received two threats in recent weeks, written in Chinese, threatening harm against Albanese if the performances went ahead. The threats, the second of which was received this week, were reported to the Australian Federal Police and are thought to have been the reason for the prime minister to be evacuated from the Lodge and the house to be searched by officers.

Giant glass box on the side of a lake the setting for Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov’s secret getaway

For Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov it became the safe house at the edge of the world.

Now Heated Rivalry fans can relive some of the hit television show’s steamiest momentsin Barlochan Cottage, tucked away on the granite-edged shores of Ontario’s Lake Muskoka, which has just been listed on Airbnb.

Australian journalist Ryan Heath, who will lead expansion, says focus will be on journalism that ‘connects the dots globally’

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The US political news site Politico will establish an Australian outlet later this year, bringing its brand of insider politics and policy news to the Canberra press gallery.

Ryan Heath, an Australian journalist who launched Politico’s Brussels Playbook a decade ago, is the edition’s launch editor. A newsletter covering federal parliamentary politics and policy, Canberra Playbook, will launch when parliament returns from a winter break.

Court itself to search devices for documents related to national security inquiry as newspaper calls ruling ‘victory’

A federal judge has prohibited the justice department from searching electronic devices it seized from a Washington Post reporter, ruling that the court will search the devices for documents related to a national security investigation itself.

In his ruling, magistrate judge William Porter criticized the Trump administration for omitting relevant case law in its application for a search warrant to seize the devices in the first place, but acknowledged “the possibility that classified national security information may be among the seized material” complicated the matter.

Critics say proposal to fold department into a new ‘mega ministry’ will dilute accountability and put nature protections at risk

New Zealand’s government is seeking to abolish its dedicated environment ministry to cut down on bureaucracy, a move critics say could dilute environmental protections.

Under the plan, the department would be folded into a new “mega-ministry” that will cover housing, urban development, transport, local government and the environment.

Lawsuit is latest action by Trump administration against a university and escalation of president’s feud with California

The justice department sued the University of California, Los Angeles on Tuesday, alleging the university created a hostile work environment for Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff after protests against the war on Gaza broke out across campus.

The lawsuit claims UCLA violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by “failing to prevent and correct discriminatory and harassing conduct” after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and ensuing war on Gaza. The lawsuit is the latest action against a US university by the Trump administration since the president took office last year, and an escalation of Donald Trump’s feud with the state of California.

Most believe they will struggle to get an appointment, with over a quarter choosing to manage ailment themselves

Almost half the public delay or avoid contacting their GP surgery when they are ill, mainly because they think they will struggle to get an appointment.

Overall 48% of people across the UK did not bother to ask their family doctor for help – either initially or at all – when they got sick over the past year, a survey found.

Faster access to GPs and A&E are the public’s top priorities for the NHS.

Only 32% believe the NHS provides a good service nationally.

42% think the standard of NHS care has worsened over the past year and only 12% think that it has improved.

47% fear NHS care will decline further over the next year and just 15% expect it to get better

Secretary of state makes rare briefing to so-called ‘gang of eight’ as US deploys largest force of aircraft and warships to Middle East since 2003

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Marco Rubio delivered a rare briefing to top US lawmakers on Iran, just a few hours before Donald Trump used his State of the Union address to say that Tehran would never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

Amid the largest deployment of aircraft and warships to the Middle East since the 2003 buildup to the Iraq war, Trump said he wanted to solve the confrontation with Iran through diplomatic means while claiming that Tehran was seeking to develop ballistic missiles that could reach the US, without providing further details.

Disease, which causes people to stop breathing while asleep, linked to increased risk of heart attack and stroke

Obstructive sleep apnoea costs the US and UK economies more than £137bn ($185bn) a year, according to research.

People with the serious health condition repeatedly stop breathing temporarily while asleep; they tend to snore very loudly and can wake up gasping for breath.

Firefighters search for 39 people missing in debris after river burst and houses were swept away

Three firefighters pulled a man’s body from the mud amid the rubble of houses swept away in a landslide in south-eastern Brazil, where 30 people died and 39 were still missing on Tuesday after torrential rains.

A river in the state of Minas Gerais burst its banks and streets became raging currents of brown water after an overnight downpour in a region that has seen record rain this month.

Zohran Mamdani calls for ‘respect’ of New York police as hundreds of thousands in US still face power outages

New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, called for “respect” of local police officers in the wake of Monday’s blizzard after a viral video showed some getting pelted by snowballs in Washington Square Park while responding to a large snowball fight.

In the video, a crowd of people boo and jeer at two officers, and some throw snowballs in their faces. At one point, the officers push at least two people to the ground in response to the snowballs.

• Donald Trump invited team after Olympic gold

• Women’s team chose to skip event

The victorious US Olympic men’s ice hockey team visited the White House on Tuesday, although there were several notable absences.

Donald Trump invited the team to celebrate in Washington DC after they beat Canada in a dramatic Olympic final on Sunday. He also invited the US women’s team, who declined citing “timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments”.

• Norwegian side win 2-1 in Milan to seal giant-killing upset

• Atlético defeat Club Brugge; Bayer Leverkusen progress

Bodø/Glimt dumped last season’s finalists Inter out of the Champions League with a remarkable 2-1 win at San Siro in their playoff second leg that sent the Norwegian minnows through to the last 16, 5-2 on aggregate.

Under sustained pressure, the visitors struck in the 58th minute when Ole Didrik Blomberg seized on a loose pass on the edge of the Inter area and drove at goal. Yann Sommer pushed his shot away but Jens Petter Hauge reacted quickest to convert the rebound from close range.

Volunteer group Citizens of the Reef made the find as part of the Great Reef Census

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Citizen scientists have discovered what they believe is one of the largest coral colonies ever documented on the Great Barrier Reef.

The coral spans approximately 111 metres in maximum length and covers an estimated area of 3,973 sq m – about half the size of a soccer field.

Eddie Howe adores motivational slogans and the Newcastle manager’s current favourite is: “One Brain.” The idea is to inspire his team to play with the sort of synchronicity that stems from a collective mindset and unity of purpose.

For a while here it seemed to be working a treat with Newcastle’s intelligence – joint and individual – threatening to further humiliate Qarabag. But then, with a last-16 tie against either Barcelona or Chelsea assured, home concentration began, understandably, wandering a little. Commendably, the Azerbaijani title holders capitalised by fighting back; Gurban Gurbanov’s side, and, in particular, their Colombian forward Camilo Durán, showing they can play a bit too.

Anthropic presents itself as most safety-forward AI firm and Pentagon has threatened penalties if it does not yield

US military leaders including Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, met with executives from the artificial intelligence firm Anthropic on Tuesday to hash out a dispute over what the government will be able to do with the company’s powerful AI model. Hegseth gave Dario Amodei, the Anthropic CEO, until the end of the day Friday to agree to the department’s terms or face penalties, Axios reported.

Anthropic, which presents itself as the most safety-forward of the leading AI companies, has been mired in weeks of disagreement with the Pentagon over how the military is allowed to use its large language model, Claude. US defense officials have pushed for unfettered access to Claude’s capabilities, while Anthropic has reportedly resisted allowing its product to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons systems that can use AI to kill people without human input. The Department of Defense (DoD) has integrated Claude into its operations, but has threatened to sever the relationship over what its top brass perceives as roadblocks erected by Anthropic.

Victims, as well as 32-year-old suspect, confirmed dead after incident on street in Gig Harbor, says county sheriff’s office

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A man stabbed four people to death in the street in Gig Harbor, Washington, on Tuesday morning after violating a no-contact order, the Pierce county sheriff’s office confirmed to local news outlets.

The four stabbing victims, as well as the 32-year-old suspect, are confirmed dead, the sheriff’s office said. Three of the victims died at the scene, while a fourth was taken to a hospital and later died from their injuries, authorities said.