Soft toys, memes and a movie villain: Labor tries to simplify the message but selling a budget isn’t child’s play

There will be ‘no cherrypicking’ of policies, EU says, after Starmer says he hopes to negotiate single market for goodsEurope live – latest updatesThe UK will get no special treatment in its future economic relationship with the EU, European ministers have said, in a further blow to Keir Starmer’s hopes of negotiating a single market for goods.The EU’s ministers for Europe, who met on Tuesday, said they wanted deeper cooperation with the UK, but this had to be in line with fundamental principles, including no cherrypicking of EU policies, according to three diplomatic sources, who spoke about the private discussions. Continue reading...

After winning the Grand Prix at Cannes film festival, the exiled auteur sent a direct message to the Russian president urging him to stop the warAccoladed director Andrey Zvyagintsev has sent a direct message to Vladimir Putin urging him to start listening to the Russian people and end the “senseless” war in Ukraine, continuing a war of words between Russia’s most revered living film-maker and the Kremlin that started at the Cannes film festival awards ceremony over the weekend.“Except for the limbs torn off from your fellow citizens in the name of an illusory goal, except for the massacre of young people that the country needs to build life and the future – nothing good is on the horizon if we don’t stop,” the exiled auteur said in a message sent to the Russian president’s press secretary through official channels on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Authorities say no hope for survivors after tank containing a chemical solution ruptured and killed one personCrews were set to resume searching Wednesday for nine workers at a Washington state paper mill where a tank imploded, but authorities said there was no hope in finding any more survivors.One person was confirmed dead and nine people were reported injured on Tuesday after a tank at Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co in Longview imploded, releasing a highly destructive chemical mixture called “white liquor”. But nine other workers remained missing. Continue reading...

Treasury select committee hears that interest rate and repayment terms are ‘extortionate’ and ‘not reasonable’Thousands of graduates have told an official inquiry their horror stories and bad experiences relating to student loans, underlining what the chair of an MPs’ committee called massive levels of “frustration and upset”.Amid an ongoing row over the ballooning cost of degree course debts, more than 52,000 people responded to a call for evidence by the Commons Treasury select committee as part of its inquiry into student loans and the taxation of graduates. Continue reading...

The US president’s backing of Maga extremists turns off the very voters Republicans need to win over in the midtermsDonald Trump gave it a minute.At 9.01pm it was confirmed that Texas attorney general Ken Paxton – a hardliner backed by the US president – had triumphed over incumbent John Cornyn in the state’s Republican primary runoff for the US Senate. By 9.02pm, Trump had started celebrating on social media. Continue reading...

Mark Carney announces purchase of Saab’s GlobalEye early warning aircraft to patrol Arctic territoryCanada has announced plans to buy a fleet of early warning planes from Sweden’s Saab rather than a competing option from Boeing, as the country seeks to reduce reliance on US defence firms.Mark Carney, the prime minister, said on Wednesday that Canada would opt for Saab’s GlobalEye, which is based on Bombardier’s Global 6500 jet. Boeing’s E-7 Wedgetail plane – which has suffered from delays and cost overruns – had also been in contention. Continue reading...

Nature groups say cygnets and their parents need to be left alone by people trying to stay cool in heatwaveNature groups have pleaded with swimmers to give wildlife a wide berth after dozens of people swam in a nature pond on Hampstead Heath among nests of baby birds.Swans and their 12-day-old cygnets were disturbed by hordes of splashing revellers in the north London park on Monday as London reached record 35C temperatures. In one video, a swan was seen poking an unhatched egg with its beak after it fell into the water during the chaos. Continue reading...

Local conservationist says a fishing boat hoping for a more commercial catch may have thrown them overboardHundreds of dead sharks and fish believed to be part of a discarded catch have washed up on two Welsh beaches.Dogwalkers found a full net of dogfish, also known as catshark, on Carmarthenshire’s Cefn Sidan on Saturday. The discovery came after hundreds more dead sharks and fish had been found on Saundersfoot beach in neighbouring Pembrokeshire a few days earlier. Continue reading...

On-pitch performance and cost-cutting help to halve pre-tax losses to £18m in the first nine months of the yearManchester United have taken a £22m hit from the sacking of their former manager Ruben Amorim but cut their losses in half thanks to improved performance on the pitch and the cost-cutting zeal of the co-owner Jim Ratcliffe.United’s successful pursuit of Champions League football under Michael Carrick drove a 57% rise in broadcast income during the third quarter of the financial year to nearly £65m, as more of the club’s games were picked for TV. Continue reading...

Simon Stiell said burning fossil fuels was driving intense heatwaves as UK and France broke temperature records on consecutive daysThe UN climate chief has said an extreme early heat event sweeping parts of western Europe was “a brutal reminder of the spiralling impacts of the climate crisis”, after France and the UK set new temperature records for May on two consecutive days.Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said on Wednesday the “main culprit” was humanity’s burning of coal, oil and gas – known to be the primary driver of climate change. Continue reading...

Modelling predicts 241,000 people on the scheme before January 2028 won’t be receiving supports by mid-2031Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastMore than 240,000 participants are expected to be shifted off the national disability insurance scheme in the four years after new eligibility rules are introduced, internal documents reveal.Newly released departmental modelling also shows proposed cuts to funding for social, civic and community participation will help achieve the single biggest saving of the measures the Albanese government is pursuing to contain the scheme’s ballooning growth. Continue reading...

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warns of ‘catastrophic collision of disease and conflict’ as suspected cases reach 900The head of the World Health Organisation has called for an immediate ceasefire in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo to help tackle the Ebola outbreak there.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on social media that the region was in the midst of a “catastrophic collision of disease and conflict with the Ebola outbreak in Ituri province outpacing the response.” Continue reading...