Republican senator Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola advance in Alaska Senate primary

• The UN Security Council received updates on Libya's deteriorating situation, characterized by a political impasse that continues to delay long-planned national elections. • Recent escalations include armed clashes and drone strikes that resulted in a major oil refinery being set ablaze, threatening critical infrastructure.

• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres marked World Humanitarian Day 2026 by warning that attacks on aid workers are illegal and demanding immediate global action. • The campaign emphasizes the need for accountability for those targeting humanitarian staff and urges the world to respect existing protections.

• The UAE has imposed an indefinite trade embargo on Iran following allegations that Iran launched missile attacks against the emirate. • Iran has officially denied the accusations, claiming the incident was a "false flag operation" designed to frame them.

US president cancelled planned tariff imposition just hours before it was to come into force. Plus, why are people so obsessed with television vampires?Good morning. Donald Trump has paused his threatened punitive tariff on Canada just hours before it was due to come into effect. After Trump’s announcement, the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, said “substantial progress” had been made towards a trade deal, but more work was needed.Tuesday’s 11th-hour backdown comes after a contentious year for the two countries, with the longstanding alliance strained by tit-for-tat tariffs and online broadsides in which Trump has mused about wanting to turn Canada into a US state.How much trade do the two countries do? Historically, Canada and the US have been strong trading partners. In 2024, trade between the countries was estimated to be roughly $909bn, according to the office of the US trade representative.What else happened in Florida’s elections? Byron Donalds, a congressman backed by Trump, won the Republican nomination for governor in the race to succeed Ron DeSantis. Donalds trounced three reasonably prominent Republican rivals, including Jay Collins, DeSantis’s handpicked lieutenant governor. If he wins the November election, as he is expected to do in the conservative stronghold, Donalds would become the first Black governor in any southern US state. Continue reading...

David Morens confessed to concealing government documents linked to grant research fundingA former adviser to infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiring to evade public records laws and conceal government documents related to ​grant research funding and the Covid-19 pandemic.David Morens, who had worked under Fauci ‌as a senior official at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during the pandemic, entered his plea, to a conspiracy charge during a hearing in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland. Continue reading...

A mother, father and their teenage daughter died after getting into difficulty in water off Shoreham-by-Sea, and a younger girl remains in hospitalAndy Burnham has warned of the dangers of open-water swimming as he called the deaths of a mother, father and their teenage daughter who got into difficulty in water off Sussex “a terrible family tragedy”.The prime minister expressed his sympathies to their loved ones as a young girl from the same family remained in a critical condition in hospital. Continue reading...

Manufacturer, which makes Jaecoo and Omoda brands, will open facility in Bedfordshire in autumnThe Chinese carmaker behind the irreverently nicknamed “Temu Range Rover” is plotting further UK expansion with a major research and development centre in England.Chery, which makes the Jaecoo and Omoda car brands, said the launch of a new R&D site was “the next step in our long-term plan” for Britain as it also moves towards manufacturing its cars in the UK. Continue reading...

Expected quarterly rise highest in three years and likely to wipe out Burnham’s VAT cut on electricity billsHousehold energy bills across Great Britain are expected to climb to a three-year high this winter as the impact of the Middle East war wipes out Andy Burnham’s tax cut on electricity bills.The government’s cap on energy prices is on track to rise by 4% from this October to the equivalent of £1,729 a year through the last three months of 2026, which could hit struggling households especially hard this winter, according to analysis by the energy consultancy Cornwall Insight. Continue reading...

Trump administration put sanctions on the international criminal court’s president and a senior trial lawyerThe international criminal court on Wednesday condemned the latest US sanctions targeting senior ICC staff, including its president, as a “flagrant attack” on the global tribunal’s independence and vowed to continue seeking justice for atrocities around the world.The state department announced Tuesday that it had hit ICC president Tomoko Akane, a Japanese national, and ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, who is from Senegal, with sanctions that freeze any assets they have in US jurisdictions or come into contact with the US financial system. Continue reading...

Rightwing populist’s inconsistent positions on Europe and Russia suggest he is testing how far he can push partners and electorateOne evening nine years ago in the Bulgarian town of Balgari, a Brazilian tourist approached the casually dressed, middle-aged man surrounded by bodyguards, bystanders and photographers. “Why are you important?” she asked. “I’m not so important,” he replied. She repeated the question and he admitted: “I’m the president.”Now, in 2026, the rightwing populist Rumen Radev is no longer the president, but the prime minister – the more powerful of the two positions – after his Progressive Bulgaria party secured an overwhelming majority in April’s election. While many in Europe breathed a sigh of relief that month at the demise of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, others wondered if Radev would become the EU’s next disruptor-in-chief. Continue reading...

Law establishes right to assisted dying for patients with conditions causing unbearable pain that are assessed to be incurable Legislation granting incurably ill adults the right to assisted dying has been formally adopted in France after the text was approved by the country’s highest constitutional authority and published in the official journal.The law, known as a law on “end of life” or “aid in dying” rather than “assisted dying” or “euthanasia”, means France joins the small group of countries including the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada to have legalised the practice. Continue reading...