Refuse collectors help Italian woman recover binned €1m lottery ticket

• Air strikes, shelling, and shooting continued in Gaza over the weekend, resulting in dozens of casualties, including civilians, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. • Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported over 150 fatalities during July, marking the highest monthly death toll recorded so far this year.

• Ukraine has appointed Umerov to lead a combined portfolio overseeing foreign intelligence, peace negotiations, and defense-technology priorities. • His key responsibilities include managing critical military initiatives, specifically drone procurement deals and the Freyja anti-ballistic program.

BBC actor Sera Cracroft says if disgraced former newsreader had won it would be hurtful to abuse survivorsThe disgraced former BBC presenter Huw Edwards has been criticised after entering a Welsh poetry competition under a pseudonym.Actor Sera Cracroft, best known for her role in the long-running BBC Welsh language soap opera Pobol y Cwm, told the BBC it would have been “catastrophic” if Edwards had won the prize, and that the “image of him being crowned in front of the nation” would be “hurtful to survivors”. Continue reading...

Migration commissioner says scheme regularising undocumented people ‘not a good signal’ for EuropeExplainer: Why is Ceuta a migration flashpoint?The EU’s top official on migration has criticised Spain’s plan to regularise undocumented migrants as “not a good signal” for Europe, after an emergency meeting intended to draw a line under divisions on the Ceuta crisis.Magnus Brunner, the European commissioner for migration, said that while the EU could not currently see a direct link between events in Ceuta and Spain’s regularisation plan, the policy was “definitely not a good signal for the rest of Europe”. Continue reading...

Optimism echoes Trump’s claims on Monday that deal is close as mediators say they are exchanging proposals Middle East crisis live – latest updatesUS and Qatari officials have said progress is being made in restoring a ceasefire in the US-Iran war and reopening the strait of Hormuz.The optimistic speculation on Tuesday brought oil prices down 2%, but the strait remained closed to shipping and a cargo vessel was reportedly struck by an unidentified projectile off Oman’s coast close to the strait. Continue reading...

Bernie Moreno, Miller’s ex-father-in-law, says congressman is unfit for office as Miller denies allegationsMax Miller, the Republican representative from Ohio, is facing a rising groundswell of resignation calls from his own party over domestic abuse allegations after his ex-father-in-law, Bernie Moreno, a GOP senator, said he was unfit to serve in Congress.With a deadline looming for party leaders to choose a potential replacement, Miller, a former White House aide, also came under pressure from Donald Trump on Monday after the president reportedly called and told him “things aren’t looking good” for his re-election campaign against Democrat opponent, Brian Poindexter. Continue reading...

Exclusive: More than 60 accounts on X have been made unavailable in Saudi Arabia, after similar action on Snapchat and FacebookElon Musk’s X has become the latest major US social media company to block the accounts of Saudi Arabian dissidents so they are no longer visible inside the kingdom, following orders from Saudi authorities.Earlier this year, the Guardian reported that platforms including Snapchat and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram had blocked dissidents’ accounts over allegations by Saudi authorities that they were violating local law. Continue reading...

Comparisons of live and archived pages show more than 20 mentions have been removed, including in reference to the gender pay gapGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastReferences to “gender equality” have been removed from the Queensland Office for Women’s website amid claims by former staffers that the Liberal National party government wants to “dewokify” the public service.Guardian Australia has seen an email from a manager, sent in January, tasking staff with scanning the website for the word “gender” so that it could be “reframed”. Continue reading...

Poetry sales surpassed £8m in the first 30 weeks of 2026 and are expected to reach a record high this year thanks to blockbuster adaptation of Homer’s 2,700-year-old poemUK poetry sales are on course to reach a record high this year, buoyed by the success of Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey.Poetry sales surpassed £8m during the first 30 weeks of 2026, an increase of 13.3% on the same period last year, according to data from market researchers NielsenIQ. Continue reading...

Rhys Ifans, Matthew Rhys, Aimee-Ffion Edwards and Mark Lewis Jones among actors voicing characters from 1977 blockbusterThere are a few links between the Star Wars franchise and Wales, including the secretive building of the Millennium Falcon in an old hangar in the far south-west of the Celtic nation.But until now speakers of Welsh – Cymraeg – have not been able to hear the words of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia spoken in their own language. Continue reading...

The former Liberal finance minister was questioned by Icac counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer, on TuesdayGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe bombshell came in the last five minutes of former finance minister and rightwing powerbroker Damien Tudehope’s examination before the Independent Commission Against Corruption.At 3.30pm on Tuesday, Tudehope was shown an email which he sent in February 2023, attaching a leaked draft parliamentary report into branch stacking in the Hills area by the Reformers, the shadowy group at the centre of Icac’s Operation Rosny. Continue reading...