South Korea’s president has sought to reassure the public that the country is able to deter threats from the North
It has been almost a decade since the sleepy South Korean village of Seongju was transformed overnight into a key location in the country’s ability to counter an attack from North Korea.
Early on a spring morning, camouflaged trucks carrying the US-made terminal high-altitude area defense (THAAD) missile-defence system rolled into Seongju, as the country’s government ignored protests from locals who said the deployment would make them a target for Pyongyang’s ballistic missiles.
Failure to appoint Jeremy Carl is a rare setback for Trump, with Republican-controlled Senate mostly approving his appointments
Donald Trump’s nominee for a top diplomatic post has been withdrawn from consideration after a growing backlash over his past remarks on race and Jewish people left him without crucial Republican support.
Jeremy Carl, who had been tapped to serve as the assistant secretary of state for international organisations – a role overseeing US policy towards bodies such as the UN – announced on Tuesday that he was stepping aside after failing to secure unanimous backing from Republicans on the Senate foreign relations committee.
Limiting access to German church to well-off visitors would be ‘socially unjust’, critics say
Plans at Cologne Cathedral to start charging visitor fees have sparked an outcry, with critics warning against limiting access to the majestic gothic building to the well-off.
Officials said this month that the cathedral, the tallest twin-spired church in the world and a tourist magnet in Germany’s fourth largest city, could only be maintained with a new revenue stream.
The showbiz legend has spent her whole life in the spotlight. As she turns 80, her friends and collaborators share their stories from Hollywood singalongs to acid house raves
I first met Liza in 1963 when I was playing Eddie in a movie called The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. I was seven years old and I got this choice role, which was directed by the great Vincent Minnelli. There were no other kids on this movie, so I had a welfare worker who was also the studio teacher, and I was alone in my little second-grade classroom. But one day, Vincent introduced me to his daughter, who he said was just going to hang around.
Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis – who exec produced this adaptation of Patricia Cornwell’s novels – have terrific chemistry. But this trashy drama is just weird
Scarpetta has been a rather long time in the making. Demi Moore was attached to the role of Patricia Cornwell’s crack forensic pathologist in the 90s, as was Angelina Jolie in the 00s. In a recent interview, the author said she had even approached Jodie Foster and Helen Mirren along the way. Now it has finally come to our screens, thanks in part to Jamie Lee Curtis, who is both an executive producer and one of its stars, with Nicole Kidman in the title role, continuing her run as TV’s hardest-working A-lister. What a shame, then, after such a long wait, that it is so dire: a boilerplate mess that insists on stripping the original work for parts and putting a cynical techy spin on proceedings to boot.
There are – for no good reason, really – two timelines in the series. In the present, Kidman plays Virginia’s chief medical officer Kay Scarpetta – a little icy, professional but prone to overstepping, haunted by secrets from the past. She is called to a crime scene where a woman’s naked body – sans hands – has been bound together with rope. We flash back to the 90s, where young Scarpetta (Rosy McEwen) is on the trail of a similar killer, who leaves a strange, glittery residue on his victims. Initially, at least, it seems as though this could be an interesting proposition, despite all the to-ing and fro-ing between past and present, which wasn’t part of Cornwell’s original novel. The idea that Scarpetta and her colleague and brother-in-law Pete Marino (played by Bobby Cannavale) may have got the wrong man in the 90s – when DNA evidence was still in its infancy – could have been the basis for a smart whodunnit. Instead, we get a sluggish procedural that barely bothers to build tension. Moments of gore come out of left field; major revelations in the case come to Scarpetta as sudden, deus ex machina revelations; and the dead women are mere plot fodder in a way that feels positively retro and grubby. The tone is strange – sometimes it’s The Silence of the Lambs, sometimes Diagnosis: Murder.
Author claims archive documents show Christ the Saviour bust was one of the artist’s secret works
Fabio Orazzo should have been on his way home to Naples for the weekend. Instead, curiosity kept him in Rome, where he teaches art and history, long enough to jump on a bus to visit a little-known church in the north-east of the Italian capital.
He came to Sant’Agnese fuori le mura (St Agnes Outside the Walls), built above fourth-century catacombs, to see a marble bust depicting Christ the Saviour. A fixture in the church since 1590, it has been thrust into the spotlight by the bold claim that it could have been sculpted by Michelangelo.
It took almost a year of practice and then I was too embarrassed to show off my talent. But finally, during a stage performance, I elevated a solitary brow and the crowd went wild
When I was about 10, my mother mentioned something to me about the advantage of being able to raise one eyebrow. I can’t remember quite how she put it – I think she described it as an actor’s trick, a useful skill for conveying inner thoughts.
We both spent a couple of minutes trying to lift one eyebrow without the other following it. Neither of us could manage it. It was harder than Mr Spock made it look, and possibly not so much an acting skill as a genetic predisposition, like being able to roll your tongue.
The US president’s doctrine of lawless military adventures harms American interests and boosts Vladimir Putin
Waging war with no fixed purpose means victory can be declared at any point. Donald Trump’s motives for launching Operation Epic Fury against Iran were incoherent at the start. They are no clearer now that he has declared it “very complete, pretty much”.
US and Israeli bombs have caused death and destruction, shaking but not topplingthe government in Tehran. Among the targets was the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. He has been replaced by his son – an “unacceptable” candidate in the US president’s evaluation.
The US military said it attacked and destroyed 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels near the strait of Hormuz amid reports that Iran has begun laying explosive devices in the strategically vital waterway.
Citing intelligence sources, CNN on Tuesday reported that Iran has laid a few dozen mines in the strait in recent days and has the capability to sow hundreds more.
The Sydney fashion designer behind the Katie Perry label has won her epic trademark dispute with US pop star Katy Perry, after a legal battle lasting almost 17 years.
In a majority decision on Wednesday, Australia’s high court found the designer’s label did not breach trademark laws and was not likely to cause confusion, regardless of the singer’s reputation when it was registered.
Filipino carer Mary Ann De Vera was the first victim of the war in Israel, while thousands of others remain in vulnerable positions across the Middle East
Sirens warning of Iranian missiles blare out so frequently that Joycee Pelayo, a Filipino living near to Tel Aviv, doesn’t leave the house any more. Each time an alert sounds, she rushes to help the older man she cares for, supporting him into a wheelchair, then down the steps into a nearby shelter.
“Last night, there were three alerts. We received it at about 2am, in the middle of the night, and then 3am, and then 4am,” says Pelayo.
Over in Senate question time, the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has confirmed embassies in Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv and the consulate in Dubai all physically closed in the last week.
Wong said the government’s number one priority is to “keep Australians safe at home and abroad”.
She continued:
“The dangerous and destabilising attacks by Iran put civilian lives at risk, including Australian lives.”
More than 3,200 Australians over 23 commercial flights have returned to Australia since the US and Israel attacked Iran, setting off a regional conflict and grounding thousands of international flights.
Wong criticised Nationals senators for “winding up people and stoking fear” to panic buy fuel.
The senator said:
“Petrol companies are telling us that fuel stock continues to arrive as expected and on time but there has been a large change in the pattern of demand and that is having an effect on the supply, particularly in regional communities. We have seen jerry cans coming off the shelves at Bunnings and lines at the pump.”
One of the two members of the Iranian women’s football teams provided with a humanitarian visa to stay in Australia has changed her mind and contacted the Iranian embassy, according to the country’s home affairs minister.
In Australia, people are able to change their mind, people are able to travel. So, we respect the context in which she has made that decision.
Unfortunately, in making that decision, she had been advised by her teammates and coach to contact the Iranian embassy and get collected … As a result of that, it meant that the Iranian embassy now knew the location of where everybody was.
More than 100,000 people have tuned in to watch ‘kākāpō cam’, which captures a rare flightless bird sleeping, tidying her nest and fighting off intruders
On an island in New Zealand’s remote southern fjords, one of the world’s strangest and rarest parrots – the kākāpō – is caring for her tiny chick as fans from across the globe watch on.
Through the black and white lens of a hidden camera, a fluffy orb with a kazoo-like squeak jostles for food from its mother’s beak. The mother, Rakiura, is attentive – scooping her chick under her large green wings, fending off an intruding bird, and periodically tidying her nest.
For Iranian women in Australia, watching the courageous decision faced by the team has felt personal. But seeking refuge comes with grief and uncertainty
When we watched the players of the Iranian women’s football team stand silently during the national anthem at the Women’s Asian Cup in Australia, it felt personal.
For many viewers, it was simply noted as a political gesture. But for Iranians watching around the world, that silence carried a message that was instantly understood. It felt like a handshake across distance, a quiet message delivered without slogans, without confrontation, without violence. A quiet signal between women who know what it means to live under a system where even the smallest act of autonomy can carry enormous consequences: disappearance, imprisonment or execution.
Now, the players face another form of pressure. Some will remain in Australia on temporary humanitarian visas. But that choice is not without cost. For many, staying abroad could mean continuous pressure on their families by the regime; it could mean never returning home as long as this regime remains in power, cutting them off from everything familiar – not just the streets of their cities, but the rhythms of family life.
For those who return, the burdens are no less heavy. They may have elderly parents to care for, relatives who depend on them financially, or loved ones whose lives are directly threatened by the Iranian regime. Every choice is fraught, every path dangerous. The players were described as “wartime traitors” by a state-linked commentator, who called for them to be “dealt with more severely”.
Hungary PM Viktor Orbán orders cash and gold shipment be held for up to 60 days. Moscow and Kyiv both claim battlefield gains. What we know on day 1,476
The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has ordered that a shipment of Ukrainian cash and gold seized last week by Hungarian authorities be held in custody for up to 60 days while his country’s tax authority investigates the case. The gold and the money was being transported through Hungary by road when Hungary seized it last Thursday. Authorities said they suspected money laundering. The shipment included $40m and 35m euros in cash, as well as 9kgs (19.8 pounds) of gold worth about $82m, based on current rates. The seizure followed a dispute over gas supplies, in which Hungary and Slovakia accused Kyiv of deliberately stalling on repairs to an oil pipeline after it was hit in an apparent Russian drone attack.
The seizure has outraged Ukrainian authorities who accused Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of acting illegally. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, accused Budapest of “banditry” over its seizure of the bank transport, and the temporary detention of its Ukrainian crew. Zelenskyy urged European leaders not to stay silent about Budapest’s actions.
Russian and Ukrainian officials made rival claims of battlefield success, with Ukraine saying it pushed Moscow’s forces back across places on the frontline and the Kremlin insisting Russia’s invasion is making progress. Ukrainian forces have recently retaken nearly all the territory of the south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk industrial region during a counteroffensive, driving Russian troops out of more than 400 sq kilometres (150 sq miles), Maj Gen Oleksandr Komarenko claimed to media outlet RBC-Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, claimed on Tuesday that Russian forces have extended their gains in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, whose capture Moscow has made one of the goals of its invasion. Ukraine controlled about 25% of the Donbas six months ago, but it now holds just 15% to 17%, Putin claimed.
The US has proposed another round of Russia-Ukraine talks, mediated by Washington, Zelenskyy said on Tuesday. The talks could be held in Switzerland or Turkey, he said, after initial plans for a meeting in the United Arab Emirates was disrupted by the US-Israeli war on Iran. Zelenskyy said Ukraine-Russia PoW swaps could be on the agenda. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said on Tuesday: “The conflict in Iran must not obstruct the peace efforts for Ukraine.”
Moscow’s deportation and forcible transfer of thousands of children from Ukraine to Russia amounts to a crime against humanity, a UN team of investigators said on Tuesday. The UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said it had evidence leading it to conclude that “Russian authorities have committed the crimes against humanity of deportation and forcible transfer, as well as of enforced disappearance of children”. The inquiry said Russia had deported or transferred “thousands” of children from occupied areas of Ukraine, of which it had so far confirmed 1,205 cases. “Four years on, 80% of the children deported or transferred in the cases investigated by the commission have not returned,” it said.
Ukrainian forces struck a key plant producing missile components on Tuesday in Russia’s border region of Bryansk, Zelenskyy said. Ukraine’s military said British Storm Shadow missiles were deployed against the Kremniy El factory. It said the facility produced critical missile components. The governor of Bryansk region, Alexander Bogomaz, said on Telegram six civilians were killed and 37 injured.
A Russian strike on the eastern Ukrainian frontline city of Sloviansk killed four people and injured 16 others, local governor Vadym Filashkin said on Tuesday. Filashkin said Russia had dropped three guided bombs on the city, and that a 14-year-old girl was among those wounded.
A decision by the Venice Biennale to allow Russia to participate in this year’s event came under fire from the EU on Tuesday, which warned it could cut funding. “We strongly condemn the decision” and are looking at taking action, including suspending an EU grant to the organising body, two top members of the European Commission said in a statement. Kyiv last weekend called on the Biennale to reverse its decision and to exclude Russia, as it had done at the last two Venice art exhibitions, in 2022 and 2024.
It’s refreshing to see him dial down the ignorant-ingenue approach and go harder than usual. But there is too little examination of how online misogyny affects those who didn’t choose to be part of it
He’s a bit late to the party, is the first thought that crosses your mind when faced with the prospect of 90 minutes of Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere. I’ve lost count of the number of documentaries there have been on either specific leading lights in the lucrative online misogyny business, such as Andrew Tate, or the general phenomenon (the latter most recently by James Blake with Men of the Manosphere).
Still, can a subject really be said to have been “done” until we have seen what Louis T makes of it? Evidently not, so here he is, repeating his shtick as he covers ground that other less high-profile documentarians have done before him. To be fair, he approaches his interviewees with a slightly harder, less ignorant-ingenue vibe than usual. This is pleasing on many levels. I find the latter quite an effortful pose and increasingly hard to endure, and he rightly intuits that the full version wouldn’t fly here. It’s also simply getting old. We know he is an intelligent man who lives in this world – the silent supposed bafflement and dependence on giving people enough rope to hang themselves, which are such a large part of his arsenal, look like increasingly feeble weapons when the matters are of such increasing importance in all of our lives.
The furore over not singing their anthem at the Asian Cup was only the start of the drama as players weighed up a chance to seek asylum amid uncertainty about their fate back home
Rarely has a first touch carried so much consequence.
As the Philippines’ second goal sailed untouched into the back of the net, sealing their victory, the clock started ticking for their opponents: the Iranian women’s team were now out of the Asian Cup tournament.
Aryna Sabalenka eased past Naomi Osaka 6-2, 6-4 to reach the Indian Wells quarter-finals while the fourth seed, Alexander Zverev, progressed to the last eight in the men’s event.
Sabalenka and Osaka, both four-time grand slam title winners, were meeting for the first time since 2018, when the Japanese won at the US Open en route to her maiden major title, but the world No 1’s power proved too much for one of her predecessors.
Ivanna Lisette Ortiz of Florida, 35, allegedly fired 10 shots with a semiautomatic firearm into Beverly Hills home
A 35-year-old Florida woman has been charged with attempted murder after she allegedly fired shots into the Beverly Hills home of Rihanna on Sunday.
Ivanna Lisette Ortiz was charged on Tuesday with one count of attempted murder, 10 counts of assault on a person with a semiautomatic firearm and three counts of shooting at an inhabited dwelling, all felonies, court records show. Officials have said no one was injured during the shooting.
Insiders worry about how to grow racing as costs rise but JP McManus continues to find winners in his 50th year in the sport
No sooner had Lossiemouth lifted the roof off Cheltenham with a staggeringly dominant Champion Hurdle victory than the skies around Prestbury Park also began to brighten too. The buildup to the festival had been dominated by talk of civil war, of feuding and internecine conflict. But this was a reminder of the sport’s simple pleasures. Horse and jockey. Fence and turf. Drama and thrills for the ages.
This was a day that jump racing needed. The opening day attendance of 57,242 was the highest for three years. It made Cheltenham feel like a place to be while not bursting at the seams, a balancing act it has not always managed. Most important of all, the racing was competitive and the stars came out to play.
One in six patients is deemed to be dissatisfied and demanding. But to prevent difficult medical problems from being redefined as difficult patients, doctors need help
I once cared for a patient for 10 years, which is a pleasingly long time in oncology. Alas, the years didn’t bond us. I found her, in turns, combative and annoying, and I confess she probably found me the same. Before each encounter, I would take a deep breath and talk myself into greeting her with an ease I never felt.
She was my “heart-sink” patient. When she didn’t show up, I worried, but when she did, my stomach tightened. My “surface feeling” was impatience, but inside, I felt terrible that any patient should arouse such antipathy in a member of the “caring profession”. When she was finally discharged in good health, we were both relieved for different reasons.
One of the Iranian football squad members who had sought asylum has changed her mind, home affairs minister Tony Burke has confirmed.
A total of seven members of the Iranian women’s football team had been granted humanitarian visas in Australia, Burke confirmed on Wednesday morning, with another player and member of the team staff being given protection before the squad departed on Tuesday night.
Upper chamber accepts final draft of bill, which offers life peerages to some of those who would otherwise be removed
Hereditary peerages will be abolished before the next king’s speech after a deal was struck granting life peerages to some Conservatives and cross-benchers losing their seats.
On Tuesday evening the upper chamber accepted a final draft of the House of Lords (hereditary peers) bill, marking the end of its passage through parliament and clearing the way for it to be added to the statute book.
Court filing claims project leader took money days before collapse
Grand Slam Track filed for bankruptcy owing up to $50m
Michael Johnson has been accused of paying himself $500,000 (£372,000) eight days before his Grand Slam Track project collapsed before the final event in Los Angeles, leaving athletes and creditors owed millions. The claim is made by vendors in a legal filing in which they have also sought permission to sue individual leaders of GST, including Johnson and the main investor, Winners Alliance.
When GST was launched Johnson promised it would “bring fantasy to life” and transform athletics – with track’s biggest stars facing off regularly against each other for huge prize money. But the writing was on the wall after the first event in Jamaica last April was sparsely attended, and it collapsed shortly after its third event in Philadelphia on 1 June.
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