Rare Renaissance paintings by Antonello da Messina stolen from Sicilian museum

• Five years after the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan faces a severe human rights crisis, highlighted by the barring of 2.4 million girls from attending school. • Humanitarian funding has plummeted by nearly 70% since 2022, driven by donor fatigue and competing global political crises.

• President Vladimir Putin conducted his first visit to the disputed Kuril islands, signaling a strategic shift in Moscow's approach to territorial disputes and international relations. • The move reflects Russia's widening confrontation with Western powers and serves as a geopolitical signal that extends beyond the immediate territorial disagreement with Japan.

• India is evolving its foreign policy from a historical stance of Non-Alignment toward a strategy of "Strategic Autonomy" to better navigate 21st-century geopolitics. • The Indian government is actively lobbying for a permanent seat on an expanded UN Security Council, arguing that the current structure fails to reflect modern global realities.

James Green’s oyster company owns a chunk of Whitstable’s shoreline but success has not brought affection from residentsThe clink of glasses and the lapping of the tide was punctuated by giggling toddlers and the slurp of oysters at tables populated by people gently sizzling on a baking day on the Kent seaside.But James Green, of the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Company, had the demeanour of a man who had found grit in his mollusc. “I don’t like to use the term but it is nimbyism,” he said. “Why did it become personal? I don’t know really. Because we’re a family business, it’s a relatively small town?” Continue reading...

Loggerhead turtles abound this season but rollback of Endangered Species Act protections could threaten futureWildlife groups in Florida are celebrating record numbers of sea turtle nests this season, but experts warn Donald Trump’s recent gutting of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) could reverse decades of their recovery from the edge of extinction.With more than two months of the summer nesting season still to run, loggerhead turtles have already laid 13,770 nests, hundreds more than recorded in any previous year, along an 8.5-mile stretch of shoreline monitored by the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, on Florida’s Atlantic coast. Continue reading...

Mark Nelson released from immigration detention on bail after lawyers challenge decision to remove himA Jamaican man who has lived more than half his life in the UK and was facing imminent deportation has been allowed to reunite with his British family after a legal challenge.Mark Nelson, 47, came to the UK in 2000 and later set up his own car-mechanic business. He has five British children and a British partner. He faced deportation in 2022 after serving a four-year prison sentence for possession with intent to supply a class B drug, abstracting electricity and two offences of racially aggravated intentional harassment. He had not committed any further offences. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Campaigners say millions are missing out on key rights including sick pay and protection against unfair dismissalAndy Burnham is being urged to protect 4 million gig economy workers by prosecuting companies that use widespread “bogus” self-employment practices to deny people their rights.As the prime minister fleshes out his agenda, the Fabian Society and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have warned that millions of workers are missing out on key statutory rights including parental leave, redundancy pay and protection against unfair dismissal. Continue reading...

Another 10 people in serious condition after bus veers off motorway and overturnsTwelve people have died after a bus carrying a group of Polish tourists overturned on the M3 motorway in Hungary on the way back from Bosnia and Herzegovina.Local police said the bus crashed near the town of Mezőkeresztes after it “went off the straight road into a ditch and overturned” at 1am local time. Early reports suggested the driver had probably fallen asleep. He survived the crash and was taken into custody. Continue reading...

Law was set to go into effect in January, months before cyclosporiasis outbreak, but now is set for 2028Congress passed a law to help federal agencies investigate outbreaks of foodborne illness – a regulation experts said could have stopped the US’s largest cyclosporiasis outbreak much sooner.The only problem? The rule has been delayed – for 15 years, including most recently amid lobbying in 2025. Continue reading...

Kyiv launches what may be its largest attack wave of war, with fire breaking out at warehouse near Russian capitalUkraine has launched one of its largest drone attacks since the start of the war, causing a fire at a distribution warehouse near Moscow and killing at least six people overnight, according to Russian authorities.Russia’s defence ministry said it had shot down 822 drones, while the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, reported that 600 drones were flying towards the capital’s region, of which 201 were destroyed. Continue reading...

Housing secretary says developers will have to prove there’s no way to save pub, as she prepares planning shakeupAll pubs will get protection from being turned into housing or offices under a shakeup of planning laws in England to be presented by Angela Rayner this week.The housing secretary will publish a new national planning policy framework aimed at loosening planning laws even further to help build 3m homes by the end of the parliament. Continue reading...