Germany urged to stop admiring Beijing and wake up to ‘China Shock 2.0’

Ukrainians lament appalling toll of fighting on their country’s bird populationRussia sent kamikaze drones to attack the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia in February. They hit buildings and killed several people. One unreported victim of the bombardment was a male long-eared owl, blinded in one eye and found with a badly broken wing. A passerby scooped up the stunned bird, put him in a box and took him to the city of Dnipro.The owl – nicknamed Sunny – is now recovering in a cosy room belonging to Veronica Konkova. No longer able to fly or hunt, Sunny instead hops around. Continue reading...

UK report argues people have greater control over longevity than widely understood, but others say claim is simplisticIndividuals bear at least 80% of the responsibility for their ill health in old age, according to a report aimed at challenging the belief that physical decline is either inevitable or primarily the responsibility of the state.The report, launched at the Smart Ageing Summit in Oxford last week, argues that individuals have far greater control over their longevity than is commonly understood. The authors call on the government to take legislative action on alcohol comparable to restrictions on smoking. Continue reading...

Republican Congressman defeated by Trump-backed challenger in most expensive House primary in historySign up for the Breaking News US emailGood morning, and welcome to our live coverage of US politics. Donald Trump has tightened his grip on the Republican party after the independent-minded Congressman Thomas Massie was defeated in the Kentucky Republican House primary by the president’s hand-picked challenger.Massie lost by a vote of 55% to 45%, in what became the most expensive House primary in US history, drawing over $32m in spending. Continue reading...

Stuart Machin argues government should reduce tax and regulatory burden on supermarkets insteadThe boss of Marks & Spencer has called a government proposal for voluntary price caps on essential food items “completely preposterous”, saying it should reduce tax and regulatory burdens instead.Stuart Machin, the chief executive of the clothing, homewares, food and beauty retailer, said M&S already lost money on some basic items such as milk, bread and baked beans and made very slim profits on other products such as eggs and sugar. Continue reading...

Wife of former PM, who encountered Worboys in 2007, says parole refusal last week was ‘huge relief’Carrie Johnson, the wife of the former prime minister Boris Johnson, has said there could be “up to 1,000, if not more”, victims of the black-cab rapist, John Worboys.Johnson, who helped bring the serial sex attacker to justice, said she had been contacted by more women who believed they had been assaulted by him. Continue reading...

Ron Shinnick did not mention the firing of the Cohutta police force, which was later rehired, in resignation letterThe mayor of a small town in the US state of Georgia has resigned shortly after firing his community’s entire police department, a step that the local governing council ultimately reversed – but that he nonetheless took amid a political spat pitting him and his wife against members of the force.In a 15 May resignation letter that the Guardian reviewed, Ron Shinnick avoided mentioning his attempted termination of the Cohutta police department, word of which gained international media attention. The letter instead said Shinnick had opted to vacate the mayoral post he had held since 2014 due to “health concerns” faced by family members outside Cohutta. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Australia faces a ‘pronounced political fault line’, Giridharan Sivaraman tells Brisbane seminar on human rights Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastOne Nation and the federal opposition are “dehumanising” and “scapegoating” immigrants while drawing on a “deep vein of racism”, Australia’s federal race discrimination commissioner says.Giridharan Sivaraman made the comments as part of a panel discussion at a Brisbane seminar on human rights, hosted by the state’s human rights commission. Continue reading...

Chancellor’s planning shake-up would ‘reduce exposure from judicial review on all but human rights grounds’Rachel Reeves is ​preparing to announce a planning shake-up ‌that would fast-track clean energy ​and infrastructure projects by curbing judicial reviews, the ​Treasury said.The chancellor will propose that parliament should be able to designate and approve the most important clean energy projects as of “critical national importance”, as part of a wider package seeking to blunt the impact of the Iran crisis. Continue reading...

Incident comes just a day after Nato had to shoot down a suspected stray Ukrainian drone over EstoniaThe drone alert in Lithuania has just been lifted, with the country’s defence minister quoted by Reuters as saying that the drone flew by Lentvaris near the capital, Vilnius, before diverting in a different direction.We will no doubt get more details on this soon. Continue reading...

MEPs had twice frozen ratification process in protest at Trump’s threat of higher tariffs and Greenland threatsThe EU has finally agreed to implement its trade deal with the US after five hours of talks between members of the European parliament and member states in the hope of averting more tariffs threatened by Donald Trump.It means the agreement struck last July at the US president’s Scottish golf course can now enter into force, removing import duties on most US goods entering the EU. Continue reading...

The former health secretary will give resignation speech after prime minister’s questions Good morning. PMQs is back, and there are at least two obvious issues for Kemi Badenoch to raise when she faces Keir Starmer.What Tories calls Starmer’s “Soviet-style” plan to curb supermarket pricesThis is more nuts than a squirrel convention!I warned Rachel Reeves prices would go up if she raised taxes and drowned employers in red tape. She didn’t listen and now she’s proposing Soviet style measures!After 18 months of “standing up to Putin” the Labour govt quietly issued a licence allowing imports of Russian oil refined in third countries.Yesterday Labour MPs voted AGAINST UK oil and gas licences.We are talking about our allies in Ukraine who have been fighting a war bravely against Russia for years and years with our support.They have looked to Britain as one of their most important allies, and they don’t understand, given that we promised that we would stop this loophole in October, and we still haven’t done it. In fact, it seems to have got worse. People feel very let down.There was a G7 announcement on the 19 May which said that they, the G7, had an unwavering commitment to put pressure on Russia including sanctions on the energy sector and actions against entities in third countries that materially support Russia’s war effort but we’re still saying that we’re going to take sanctioned oil but so long as it goes to Turkey first and then it’s refined, we will use it. Continue reading...