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An Israeli drone attack on a car killed at least one person and injured three others near the Lebanese capital Beirut on Thursday during rush hour, according to local authorities. Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr was at the scene as officials inspected the wreckage.
Published On 3 Jul 20253 Jul 2025
British number one Jack Draper’s wait for a breakout Wimbledon run continues after a shock second-round defeat by 36-year-old Marin Cilic.
Fourth seed Draper lost 6-4 6-3 1-6 6-4 to Croatia’s Cilic, who reached the SW19 final in 2017 but is now ranked 83rd in the world.
It means the 23-year-old Englishman has still not reached the third round in any of his four appearances at the All England Club.
Draper was widely considered as the fourth favourite for the men’s title – behind Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic.
But, in the first Championships of the post-Andy Murray era, Draper has suffered another frustrating early exit.
“Obviously, [I feel] really upset. Probably one of the toughest losses I feel,” an emotional Draper told a news conference.
“I thought Cilic played an incredible match from start to finish. [He] didn’t let up. He deserved the win.”
The US Open semi-finalist was pushed back behind the baseline from the start against Cilic, who dominated the opening two sets with his huge serve and deep returns.
Draper was now in a position which he had never been in before – needing to win a professional match from two sets down.
A drop in Cilic’s pace enabled the home favourite to take control of the third set, but Draper still did not look completely comfortable in the fourth as his wily opponent recovered to edge a tense contest.
Heavily puffing his cheeks out as he left Court One was a sign of the difficulties he had endured on a testing evening from which he will hope to learn.
With 269 runs, captain Shubman Gill breaks Sachin Tendulkar’s record for most scored outside the Indian subcontinent on day two of second Test.
England have stumbled to 77-3 to trail India by 510 runs on day two of their second Test after skipper Shubman Gill scored a record-breaking 269 and their seamers struck early to put the tourists in a commanding position at Edgbaston.
India were charged up on Thursday when Akash Deep picked up two wickets in two balls before Mohammed Siraj also got in on the act to clean up England’s top order and leave them tottering at 25-3 on what had been a good batting wicket.
Ben Duckett nicked a ball to third slip, where Gill took a smart diving catch before Ollie Pope fell the very next delivery for a duck when Deep drew an edge and the ball flew to KL Rahul in the slips.
Dropped catches had cost India the first Test at Headingley, but this time, they stuck as Siraj drew an edge from Zak Crawley to find Karun Nair at first slip.
“Fielding was definitely one of those things we spoke about as a team, and it’s great to see that come off so far,” Gill told the broadcaster Sky Sports.
“This game was all about confidence. We spoke about if we scored 400 again, batting first or batting second, we would be right in the game.”
Harry Brook (30) survived a review for LBW thanks to the umpire’s call, but he and Joe Root (18) absorbed the pressure to see out the day with an unbeaten 52-run partnership.
Earlier, Gill became the first Indian to score more than 250 outside the Indian subcontinent, breaking Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 241, while he also recorded the highest score by an India captain when he went past Virat Kohli’s 254.
Gill had hardly put a foot wrong over the first two days of the Test, but he briefly lost his concentration after tea when he tried to dispatch a short ball from Josh Tongue, only to find Pope at square leg.
But the Edgbaston crowd rose to their feet to salute the captain’s knock as he walked back to the pavilion, his job done after India found themselves reeling at 211-5 on day one.
“I worked on a few things before the series that I thought might be important for me going into Test cricket,” said Gill, who has scored 424 runs in the series.
“Looking at the results, they are working for me.”
Having resumed on an overnight score of 310-5, Jadeja and Gill built a 203-run stand before the all-rounder fell to a Tongue bouncer, but Gill looked completely at ease on a flat track that offered precious little assistance.
As England’s bowlers toiled under the summer sun, Gill hardly broke a sweat and put a price on his wicket as he showcased his array of elegant drives and well-timed flicks to pile on the runs.
Gill made his trademark bow once again after becoming the first India skipper to score a double-hundred in England and soon broke Sunil Gavaskar’s 46-year-old record for the highest score by an Indian in England (221 in 1979).
He was soon toying with the attack and the placement of fielders, coolly switching between sublime and unorthodox shots as he dispatched the ball to all corners of the ground.
With Washington Sundar playing patiently at the other end, Gill was in Twenty20 mode as they cruised past the 500-mark and a rare outside edge went for a boundary to take the captain to 250.
Root finally broke the seventh-wicket partnership of 144 when a delivery broke through the defence of Sundar as he departed for a well-made 42.
India’s tail added only 13 runs after Gill’s dismissal, but that gave their bowlers 20 overs to take a crack at England’s batters on a fruitful day as they look to level the series.
The US president says he’ll be ‘very firm’ with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Although it’s not clear that Israeli leaders want to end the “Forever War” they launched in the aftermath of the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, the US has enough leverage to force a truce, argues Georgetown University visiting scholar, Khaled Elgindy.
Annelle Sheline, a former State Department official who quit in protest of President Biden’s Gaza policies, argues that Israel’s war was “not really about Hamas” but more about the Israeli desire to control Gaza, the West Bank and the wider region.
Sheline and Elgindy delve into the details of the proposed ceasefire deal with host Steve Clemons.
The United States economy has added 147,000 jobs in June, beating analyst expectations, as the labour market remains stable despite economic uncertainty driven by President Donald Trump’s policies.
The Department of Labor released the numbers on Thursday. The data, which was released a day early because the Independence Day holiday falls on Friday, showed the unemployment rate ticked down from May by 0.1 percentage points to 4.1 percent. The average workweek was shorter last month, suggesting businesses were probably reducing hours amid rising economic headwinds.
Government jobs at the state and local levels led the gains, adding 73,000 positions in June. State governments added 47,000 jobs, led by 40,000 in education. Local government jobs grew by 23,000. A downward turn continues at the federal level with a loss of 7,000 jobs, which accounts for 69,000 jobs lost since January.
Gains in government jobs were followed by the healthcare sector, which added 39,000 jobs. Social assistance employment increased by 19,000 jobs.
“On net, it was a good report,’’ Sarah House, senior economist with Wells Fargo, told The Associated Press news agency.
“But when you dig underneath the surface, it was another jobs report that didn’t look quite as good as first meets the eye.’’
Looming uncertainty driven by Trump’s tariffs and immigration policies led to little change across much of the private sector in terms of hiring, including in construction, mining, oil and gas extraction, wholesale and retail trade, transportation, financial services, professional and business services, and leisure and hospitality.
Trump’s constant changes in tariffs policy, announcing and suspending import taxes and then coming up with new ones, has left businesses bewildered and hesitant to make decisions about hiring and investment.
Layoffs have started, but they are still relatively low. The Labor Department’s weekly jobless claims report, which also came out on Thursday said claims fell by 4,000 to 233,000. The ADP private payroll report out on Wednesday showed a net loss of 33,000 jobs.
“Though layoffs continue to be rare, a hesitancy to hire and a reluctance to replace departing workers led to job losses last month,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.
Thursday’s jobs report also showed average hourly wages came in cooler than forecasters expected, rising 0.2 percent from May and 3.7 percent from a year earlier.
The year-over-year number is inching closer to the 3.5 percent year-over-year number considered consistent with the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent inflation target.
“For the FOURTH month in a row, jobs numbers have beat market expectations with nearly 150,000 good jobs created in June,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
“The economy is booming again and it will only get better when the One, Big, Beautiful Bill is passed and implemented,” she said, referring to Republican legislation to cut taxes, food assistance and the Medicaid health insurance programme for low-income Americans.
Despite the White House’s characterisation, the US job market has cooled significantly in the past year. This year, employers have added an average of 130,000 jobs per month, down from an average of 186,000 in 2024. From 2021 to 2023, the US economy added an average of 400,000 jobs per month as it made up for jobs shed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other data show the US economy contracting. Last week, a report from the Department of Commerce found the US economy shrank by 0.5 percent in the first quarter.
The US labour force – the count of those working and looking for work – fell by 130,000 last month after a drop of 625,000 in May. Economists expected Trump’s immigration deportations – and the fear of them – to push foreign workers out of the labour force.
The Labor Department said the number of workers who believe no jobs are available for them rose by 256,000 last month to 637,000.
Wells Fargo expected monthly job growth to fall below 100,000 in the second half of the year. “We’re bracing for a much lower pace of job growth,” House said. ”There’s still a lot of policy uncertainty.”
Musical icon Angélique Kidjo has become the first black African performer to be selected for a star on the prestigious Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Kidjo, who comes from the West African country of Benin and has won five Grammy awards, was among the 35 names announced as part of the Walk of Fame’s class of 2026 list.
The 64-year-old was hailed as Africa’s “premier diva” during a press conference announcing the list on Wednesday.
Singer Miley Cyrus, actor Timothée Chalamet, actress Demi Moore and former basketball player Shaquille O’Neal are also among those set to be honoured with a star on Los Angeles’ famous walk.
Kidjo receives the honour after making music for more than four decades and releasing 16 albums.
The songstress has won fans across the world with her commanding voice and ability to fuse West African styles with the likes of funk, jazz and R&B.
Her long list of collaborators includes forces such as Burna Boy, Philip Glass, Sting and Alicia Keys.
Kidjo joins Charlize Theron, a white South African actress, in representing Africa on the Walk of Fame. Theron received her star in 2005.
The date on which Kidjo will see her star unveiled on the Walk of Fame has not yet been announced.
After recipients have been selected for a star, they have two years to schedule induction ceremonies.
Kidjo grew up in Benin, but left for Paris in 1983, citing oppression from the country’s then communist government.
“From the moment the communist regime arrived in Benin, I became aware that the freedom we enjoy can be snatched away in a second,” she told the BBC in 2023.
She said she has been driven by curiosity since childhood, adding: “my nickname was ‘when, why, how?’. I want to understand things, to understand my place in this world.”
Kidjo worked as a backing singer in France before striking out as a solo artist in 1990, with the album Parakou.
She is a Unicef and Oxfam goodwill ambassador, and has her own charity, Batonga, which is dedicated to supporting the education of young girls in Africa.
EXPLAINER
The football world remains in shock after tragic road accident involving Liverpool forward Diogo Jota and his brother.
In the early hours of Thursday, Diogo Jota, forward for Liverpool FC and the Portuguese national team, and his younger brother, died in a car accident in northwestern Spain.
At just 28 years old, Jota was enjoying some of the best moments of his career and personal life; he won the UEFA Nations League with Portugal, the Premier League with Liverpool, and he recently married his childhood sweetheart.
The tragedy has left a deep void in the football world, which is still trying to come to terms with the loss.
The two were travelling in a Lamborghini Urus SUV, which, according to reports, suffered a tyre blowout just after midnight while overtaking another vehicle on the A-52 highway, at kilometre 65.300, near the town of Cernadilla, Zamora, just 15 kilometres from the Portugal border.
The car veered off the road, crashed, and instantly caught fire.
By the time firefighters arrived at the crash scene, the vehicle was completely burned out.
The charred remains of the two footballers could only be identified through their identification papers.
Jota was travelling by car to catch a ferry from the Spanish port of Santander back to northern England after being advised not to fly as a result of a previous lung surgery, according to multiple media reports in Portugal and Spain.
His club side, Liverpool, are due to begin preseason training on Monday.
Ronaldo, Portugal’s national team captain, was deeply shaken by the news of teammate Diogo Jota’s death.
“It doesn’t make sense. We were only just in the national team together, you had only just got married,” Ronaldo posted on the social media platform X.
“To your family, your wife and your children, I send my condolences and wish them all the strength in the world. I know you’ll always be with them. Rest in peace, Diogo and Andre. We’ll all miss you.”
His brother Andre Silva, his only sibling.
Though less known internationally, Silva, 25, was also a professional footballer.
He played for Futebol Clube Penafiel in Portugal’s second division and was previously part of FC Porto’s youth academy.
O Futebol Clube do Porto está de luto.
É com choque e profundo pesar que enviamos as sentidas condolências à família e amigos do Diogo Jota e irmão André Silva, que também foi nosso atleta nos escalões de formação.
Descansem em paz.#FCPorto pic.twitter.com/BXlR8v7y7Z
— FC Porto (@FCPorto) July 3, 2025
A wife and three children.
Rute Cardoso has suddenly and painfully become the widow of Diogo Jota, less than two weeks after they were married at a ceremony in his home city of Porto on June 22.
Iranian media has released a video showing the moment an Israeli attack targeted Tehran during its conflict in June.
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The blaze comes as southern Europe contends with an acute summer heatwave which has killed people in several countries.
A wildfire on the Greek island of Crete has led to the evacuation of more than 1,500 people, local media outlets have reported, as an early summer heatwave continues to grip southern Europe.
At least 230 firefighters, some dispatched from Athens, were attempting on Thursday to contain the blaze, which broke out on Wednesday evening near Ierapetra, a town on the island’s southeastern coast.
Elsewhere, a wildfire killed at least two people in the northeast Spanish region of Catalonia, and heat-related deaths have also been recorded in France and Italy this week.
Spread by gale-force winds, the blaze on Crete reached houses and hotels, according to local authorities, who said dozens of residents and tourists had been evacuated to an indoor stadium in Ierapetra.
“Three settlements were evacuated and more than 1,000 left their homes. Some were taken to health centres with respiratory problems,” George Tsapakos, Crete’s deputy civil protection governor, told public broadcaster ERT.
Meanwhile, Vice-Prefect Yannis Androulakis confirmed that the blaze, which currently has “three active fronts”, had spread quickly because of strong winds.
“There are still a number of different fronts. The fire is burning scrubland and crops,” he said. “The winds are very strong – up to nine on the Beaufort scale.”
In an interview with the TV channel Mega, Androulakis added that water bomber planes were unable to reach the affected areas overnight.
Drones and 10 helicopters were also being used to fight the fire, according to a spokesperson for the Greek fire service.
In its daily bulletin on Thursday, the fire service warned that the risk of wildfires in Crete and southern Greece remained very high.
Last year, Greece experienced its warmest summer ever, with 45,000 hectares (111,200 acres) torched by wildfires, according to WWF Greece and the Athens National Observatory.
Even more land was damaged in 2023, when almost 175,000 hectares (432,400 acres) were affected by wildfires as temperatures hit 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit).
The BBC had deemed Bob Vylan “high risk” before their controversial Glastonbury set, the corporation has said.
The punk duo led a chant of “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]” during their set, which was available to watch via a live stream on iPlayer on Saturday.
In a statement, the BBC said the corporation is taking action to “ensure proper accountability” for those found to be responsible for the broadcast.
BBC News understands that a number of staff have been moved off their day-to-day duties from the music and live events team.
BBC chair Samir Shah said the decision not to pull the live feed was “unquestionably an error of judgement”.
The BBC said it would be making “immediate changes to livestreaming music events”.
In future, it said: “Any music performances deemed high risk by the BBC will now not be broadcast live or streamed live.”
After the broadcast, the BBC was criticised by the UK’s chief rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis, while media regulator Ofcom said the BBC had “questions to answer”.
In a statement to staff on Thursday, director general Tim Davie said he “deeply regrets that such offensive and deplorable behaviour appeared on the BBC and want to apologise to our viewers and listeners and in particular the Jewish community”.
The BBC said Bob Vylan had been “deemed high risk following a risk assessment process applied to all acts appearing at Glastonbury”.
“Seven acts including Bob Vylan were included in this category and they were all deemed suitable for live streaming with appropriate mitigations.”
The statement continued: “Prior to Glastonbury, a decision was taken that compliance risks could be mitigated in real time on the live stream – through the use of language or content warnings – without the need for a delay. This was clearly not the case.”
The BBC noted the live stream was monitored “in line with the agreed compliance protocols and a number of issues were escalated”.
Warnings appeared on the stream on two occasions, but, he added: “The editorial team took the decision not to cut the feed. This was an error.”
Davie, who was attending Glastonbury himself on the day, was “subsequently made aware of what had happened and instructed the team that none of the performance should feature in further coverage”.
The BBC said the team on duty prioritised stopping the performance from becoming available on demand, meaning that the set would not appear on iPlayer or BBC Sounds.
However, the live feed remained available for several hours, meaning viewers were able to rewind and view the content.
“Given the failings that have been acknowledged, we are taking actions to ensure proper accountability for those found to be responsible for those failings in the live broadcast,” the BBC said. “We will not comment further on those processes at this time.”
In a statement, BBC chair Samir Shah apologised “to all our viewers and listeners and particularly the Jewish community for allowing the ‘artist’ Bob Vylan to express unconscionable anti-semitic views live on the BBC”.
“This was unquestionably an error of judgement. I was very pleased to note that as soon as this came to the notice of Tim Davie – who was on the Glastonbury site at the time visiting BBC staff – he took immediate action and instructed the team to withdraw the performance from on demand coverage.”
Since Glastonbury, Bob Vylan have had several bookings cancelled, including festival appearances in Manchester and France and a slot in Germany.
Avon and Somerset Police have launched a criminal investigation into their Glastonbury comments.
On Wednesday, London’s Metropolitan Police said the band are also under investigation for comments they allegedly made during a concert at Alexandra Palace in May.
During their Glastonbury set, Bob Vylan’s singer Pascal Robinson-Foster, who performs under the name Bobby Vylan, also spoke about a record label boss he used to work for.
That boss would “speak very strongly about his support for Israel”, and had put his name to a letter urging Glastonbury to cancel Irish-language rap trio Kneecap’s performance, the musician said.
“Who do I see on that list of names but that bald-headed [expletive] I used to work for. We’ve done it all, all right? From working in bars to working for [expletive] Zionists.”
In a statement, posted on Instagram on Tuesday, Bob Vylan said: “We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine”.
They added that “we, like those in the spotlight before us, are not the story. We are a distraction from the story, and whatever sanctions we receive will be a distraction”.
Tributes are coming in following the passing of the popular footballer, who died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.
Liverpool forward Diogo Jota has died following a car crash in Spain, according to a police report.
Jota, 28, had been travelling in the car with his brother Andre, 26, also a footballer, when the vehicle went off the road, according to the reporting by Portugal’s public broadcaster, TVE.
The tragedy comes just two weeks after Jota married his long-term girlfriend Rute Cardoso in Porto, in his native Portugal.
The following are quotes and reactions to his death:
“Liverpool Football Club are devastated by the tragic passing of Diogo Jota.
“The club have been informed the 28-year-old has passed away following a road traffic accident in Spain along with his brother, Andre.
“Liverpool FC will be making no further comment at this time and request the privacy of Diogo and Andre’s family, friends, teammates and club staff is respected as they try to come to terms with an unimaginable loss.
“We will continue to provide them with our full support.”
Liverpool Football Club are devastated by the tragic passing of Diogo Jota.
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) July 3, 2025
“The news of the death of Diogo Jota, an athlete who greatly honoured Portugal’s name, and his brother is unexpected and tragic. I extend my deepest condolences to their family. It is a sad day for football and for national and international sports.”
“The Portuguese Football Federation and the entire Portuguese football community are devastated by the deaths of Diogo Jota and Andre Silva in Spain this morning.
“Diogo Jota was not only a fantastic player with almost 50 caps for the national team, but also an extraordinary person who was respected by all his teammates and opponents. He had a contagious joy and was a reference point in his own community … We have lost two champions. Their deaths represent irreparable losses for Portuguese football, and we will do everything we can to honour their legacy every day.”
“Devastating news about Diogo Jota & his brother Andre this morning. Thoughts are with everyone of their family & friends, especially his wife Rute & their three lovely kids.”
“They say that we only lose people when we forget them. I will never forget you … FC Porto is in mourning.
“It is with shock and deep regret that we send our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva, who was also our athlete in the youth ranks. Rest in peace.”
“The world of football is poorer. Sporting CP expresses its sorrow at the death of Portuguese international Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva. Our deepest condolences go out to the whole family at this difficult time.”
The country has had three leaders in as many days, following a court’s decision to suspend Paetongtarn Shinawatra.
Thailand has ushered in the appointment of its second interim prime minister this week, following the Constitutional Court’s suspension of the country’s leader, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, fuelled by a phone call scandal with a key Cambodian political figure.
Interior Minister Phumtham Wechayachai assumed caretaker responsibilities on Thursday, two days after Paetongtarn was banned from duties, a government statement on Thursday confirmed.
In a post on social media, the Thai government said that Phumtham’s role as acting prime minister had been agreed at the first meeting of a new cabinet, which took place shortly after ministers were sworn in by King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
The 71-year-old replaces Suriya Jungrungreangkit, who only carried out the role for one day ahead of the reshuffle.
The interim appointments occurred after Paetongtarn was temporarily barred from office earlier this week over allegations that she breached ministerial ethics in a leaked phone conversation with Cambodia’s influential former leader, Hun Sen.
The call took place in mid-June with the aim of defusing recent border tensions between the two countries following an eruption of violence that killed a Cambodian soldier.
Critics in Thailand expressed anger at Paetongtarn’s decision to call Hun Sen “Uncle” and to criticise a Thai army commander.
The Constitutional Court accepted a petition from 36 senators, which claimed that the 38-year-old had violated the constitution in her conversation with Hun Sen.
It said there was “sufficient cause to suspect” Paetongtarn had breached ministerial ethics, with an investigation now under way into the incident.
Before her suspension began, Paetongtarn appointed herself as culture minister in the new cabinet. She was sworn in to the position at the Grand Palace on Thursday.
Paetongtarn’s government had struggled to revive a flagging economy, with an opinion poll in late June suggesting that her popularity had dropped to 9.2 percent from 30.9 percent in March.
Thailand’s political dynasty has been facing legal peril on two fronts, as a separate court hears a royal defamation suit against her father, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin has denied the charges against him and repeatedly pledged allegiance to the crown.
Thaksin dodged jail and spent six months in hospital detention on medical grounds before being released on parole in February last year. The Supreme Court will this month scrutinise that hospital stay and could potentially send him back to jail.
There were so many mines on Larisa Sysenko’s small farm in Kamyanka in eastern Ukraine after the Russians withdrew that she and her husband Viktor began demining it themselves — with rakes.
Along the front line at Korobchyne near Kharkiv, Mykola Pereverzev started clearing fields with his farm machinery.
“My tractor was blown up three times. We had to get a new one. It was completely unrepairable. But we ended up clearing 200 hectares of minefields in two months,” he said.
“Absolutely everyone demines by themselves,” declared Igor Kniazev, who farms half an hour from Larisa’s.
Ukraine is one of the world’s renowned breadbaskets, its black earth so rich and fertile you want to scoop it up and inhale its aroma.
But that dark soil is now almost certainly the most heavily mined on the planet, experts told the AFP news agency.
More than three years of relentless artillery barrages — the most intense since World War II — have scattered it with millions of tonnes of ordnance, much still unexploded.
Experts estimate one in 10 shells fail to detonate, with up to a third of North Korean munitions fired by Russia remaining intact, their high explosives deteriorating where they fall.
Yet the drones revolutionising warfare in Ukraine may also transform the demining process.
Ukraine and many of the 80-plus nongovernmental organisations and commercial groups operating there already employ drones to accelerate the enormous task of land clearance, supported by substantial international funding.
Despite the dangers and official warnings, farmers themselves often take the initiative, like the Sysenkos.
They were among the first to return to devastated Kamyanka, which Russian forces occupied from March to September 2022.
Two weeks after Ukrainian soldiers recaptured the village, Larisa and Viktor returned to find their house uninhabitable, without utilities.
After waiting out the winter, they returned in March 2023 to take stock and begin cleanup, first removing the gallows Russian soldiers had erected in their yard.
Then they started demining, with rakes. “There were many mines, and our guys in the Ukrainian army couldn’t prioritise us. So we slowly demined ourselves with rakes,” Larisa said cheerfully.
Boxes of Russian artillery shells — 152mm howitzer shells specifically, Viktor noted with a mischievous smile — still sit stacked before their house.
“I served in Soviet artillery, so I know something about them,” the 56-year-old added.
That summer, Swiss FSD Foundation deminers discovered 54 mines in the Sysenkos’ field.
The deminers instructed the Sysenkos “to evacuate the house”.
“Their protocols prohibited us from staying. So we complied. The demining machine traversed the area repeatedly, triggering numerous explosions.”
While Kamyanka remains largely a ghost village with gutted homes, about 40 people have returned — far below its pre-war population of 1,200.
Many fear the mines, and several residents have stepped on them.
Yet farmers cannot afford to wait and have resumed working the vast fields of Ukraine’s renowned “chernozem” soil, famous for its intense blackness and fertility.
“Looking at surrounding villages, farmers have modified tractors themselves for clearance and are already planting wheat and sunflowers,” Viktor added.
BBCAn aesthetic beautician left one woman fighting for her life and several others seriously ill in hospital after injecting them with Toxpia, an illegal Botox-type anti-wrinkle treatment. As the BBC names the woman behind the jabs, two of her victims share their stories.
The patch over Kaylie Bailey’s left eye is a daily reminder of when her beauty treatment nearly killed her.
The 36-year-old mum-of-three from Peterlee, County Durham, had paid Gemma Gray £75 for three “Botox” injections, half of what it had cost on a previous visit – the bargain turned out to be too good to be true.
Within days, Ms Bailey was struggling to see.
Doctors at Sunderland Royal Hospital were initially baffled and diagnosed her with ptosis, an eye condition characterised by the drooping of the upper eyelid, and told her to go home to rest.
The hospital trust said that when Ms Bailey was discharged she had been advised to visit her GP if her condition worsened, and it had been explained to her that her symptoms were probably related to the treatment she had had.
It added that botulinum toxicity was a very rare condition “not seen by the majority of doctors during their careers”.
Family handoutBut when her condition deteriorated over the following days, Ms Bailey rushed back to hospital where this time she was told she had botulism, a rare but life-threatening condition caused by a bacterium.
By that point, she was one of 28 people to have been diagnosed with the toxic poisoning in north-east England after having anti-wrinkle jabs.
Ms Bailey stopped breathing and required resuscitation.
She spent three days on the Intensive Care Unit and was treated with an anti-toxin.
“I remember lying on the bed thinking ‘I’m dying here and I don’t want to’,” Ms Bailey says, crying as she recalls her experience.
Upon her release, and being required now to wear an eye patch until her eye heals, she contacted Mrs Gray and was told by her it was a “nationwide problem with the product”.
“When I went in [to her appointment for the anti-wrinkle jabs], I felt like she was rushing that much it stung, my eyes were watering that much off it,” Ms Bailey says.
“I cannot believe she’s even dared to do that to people.
“She didn’t even know what was in it and we’re having to live with what she’s done to us.
“I’ve nearly died because of it.”
Paula Harrison suffered a similar fate when she visited Mrs Gray at a salon in Blackhall, Co Durham, in late May.
The 54-year-old mother-of-three had previously been to the practitioner for a lip-filler procedure but this time decided to have what she thought was Botox and under-eye filler.
After a few days, she too became unwell and also went to Sunderland Royal Hospital where she was admitted and spent four days, receiving an anti-toxin as part of her treatment.
The BBC has previously reported how hospitals in the region ran out of their own stocks of the anti-toxin and needed to source it from hospitals across the country because of the unusually high number of patients who were presenting with symptoms of botulism.
Mrs Harrison said her throat was closing up and she was unable to eat.
“[Mrs Gray is] playing with people’s lives,” Mrs Harrison says. “Luckily, I’m all right, but I could have been dead.”
Gemma GrayMrs Gray, formerly known as Gemma Brown, operates her business Belissimo Aesthetics, which is not linked to any other business of the same name, from her home near Bishop Auckland and at a salon in Blackhall.
She administered an illegal type of botulinum toxin, the ingredient used in legal Botox-type products, to a number of patients.
There are seven such products licensed for use in the UK, including the brand Botox which is the most commonly known.
Mrs Gray used Toxpia, a product from South Korea which the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency says is not licensed for use in the UK and which is an offence to sell or supply.
She told clients it was a “new type of Botox” and charged between £75 and £100 for three areas of treatment.
The BBC tried to contact her to ask her about her involvement but she said she was not interested in speaking.
The BBC is naming Mrs Gray after speaking to a number of her clients.
It is understood another aesthetic practitioner, who is a business associate of Mrs Gray’s, bought the Toxpia from her and administered it to her own clients, many of whom also became ill.
Mrs Gray has told clients how sorry she is for what happened and described how bad she feels that they became ill. She told Mrs Harrison that it was a “new treatment on trial” and that she was devastated.
She also indicated it was a “nationwide” problem with the product and said people everywhere had become ill after using it.
The BBC has seen no evidence to support this claim.
Mrs Gray advertised her business as being “fully trained and insured”.
An investigation, led by the UK Health Security Agency, is ongoing.
The agency has issued guidance to anyone who wishes to have this type of treatment, advising them to research their practitioner and make sure the product they are given is a legal medicine and licensed for use in the UK.
The Department of Health and Social Care said people’s lives were being put at risk by “inadequately trained operators in the cosmetic sector” and the government was looking into new regulations.
“We urge anyone considering cosmetic procedures to consider the possible health impacts and find a reputable, insured and qualified practitioner,” a spokesperson said.
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Weather warnings come as Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing urges officials in Hebei province to up their evacuation efforts.
Northern and western China remain on high alert as torrential rain threatens to bring more flash flooding and landslides, following weather-related deaths in other parts of the country.
Red alerts were in force on Thursday as rains made their way to Gansu province in the northwest and then up to Liaoning province in the northeast.
The weather warnings came as more than 1,000 rescue workers were sent on Wednesday to Taiping, a town in the central Henan province, where five people died and three were declared missing after a river burst its banks, according to state media.
Another state media report confirmed that two people were killed by a landslide at a construction site in Gansu after heavy rain on Wednesday and Thursday.
Meanwhile, a record summer downpour hit the city of Xianfeng in China’s central province of Hubei, bringing more than a month’s rain in just 12 hours, with local videos showing torrents washing away cars.
On Tuesday, the authorities there evacuated 18,000 people, closed schools and suspended bus services.
During a two-day trip to the northern province of Hebei, China’s Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing urged local officials to ramp up the scale of evacuations.
Although China has a nationwide system to forecast and monitor severe weather, scientists say it is hard to make localised predictions, especially in rural communities that lack forecasting capabilities.
“Accurately forecasting the intensity and exact location of heavy rain remains challenging, especially with climate change and the complex terrain of rural areas,” Meng Gao, a climate modelling specialist at Hong Kong Baptist University, told the Reuters news agency earlier this week.
Last July, the “plum rains”, which coincide with the plum-ripening season, caused more than $10bn in economic losses in China.
The doctoral student has admitted to breaking into the rental home and killing four University of Idaho students.
A former criminology doctoral student has pleaded guilty to murdering four roommates in an Idaho college town in 2022.
Bryan Kohberger, 30, admitted to the killings under a plea agreement that takes the death penalty off the table. The case drew national attention in the United States for its brutality and the shock it caused in a community where murders are relatively rare.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Kohberger answered a series of questions from Judge Steven Hippler.
“Did you, on November 13, 2022, enter the residence at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho, with the intent to commit the felony crime of murder?” the judge asked.
“Yes,” Kohberger replied.
“Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty?” the judge then inquired.
“Yes,” Kohberger said.
Kohberger had previously pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and burglary charges. On Wednesday, however, he confirmed to the court that he had broken into a rental home where four University of Idaho students were staying.
Passing through a sliding door in the kitchen, Kohberger then killed the four friends, who appear to have no prior connection to him. Prosecutors did not disclose a motive for the slayings.
The plea agreement, as outlined by Hippler, called for Kohberger to be sentenced to four consecutive life terms in prison and to waive his rights to appeal or seek reconsideration of the sentence.
Formal sentencing is tentatively set for July 23.
The killings initially baffled law enforcement and unnerved the rural college town of Moscow, which hadn’t seen a murder in five years.
The victims were identified as Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen.
Mogen and Goncalves hailed from Idaho, while Kernodle was from the southern state of Arizona. Her boyfriend, Chapin, was from Washington state. All four of the victims were either 20 or 21 at the time of their deaths.
Autopsies showed each was stabbed multiple times, including some defensive injuries.
The murders occurred during the early morning hours in an off-campus house the three women shared.
Kernodle and Chapin had attended a party the night before, while best friends Mogen and Goncalves had visited a local bar and food truck. All four are believed to have returned to the house before 2am local time (9:00 GMT). Their bodies were found hours later that morning.
Two other women in the house at the time survived unharmed.
According to prosecutors, a surviving roommate told investigators she heard someone crying in one of the victims’ bedrooms on the night of the murders and opened her door to see a man, clad in black, walk past her and out of the house.
Authorities said they linked Kohberger to the murders using DNA evidence, cellphone data and video footage. He was arrested weeks after the killings in Pennsylvania, where he was visiting family, and was returned to Idaho to face charges.
In a statement through a lawyer, Goncalves’s family criticised the plea agreement as mishandled: a “secretive deal and a hurried effort to close the case without any input from the victims’ families”.
On Wednesday, prior to the hearing, Steve Goncalves, father of victim Kaylee, was asked whether he believed the four life sentences provided justice in the case.
He replied, “No, of course not. It’s daycare. Prison is daycare.”
But a statement read by a lawyer representing Mogen’s family members said they “support the plea agreement 100 percent”, adding that the outcome brought them closure.
Here is how things stand on Thursday, July 3:
A woman in her 70s was killed and two people were injured when debris from a destroyed Ukrainian drone fell on a residential building in Russia’s southwestern region of Lipetsk, Regional Governor Igor Artamonov said on Thursday.
Russia has made incursions near two towns, Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, that are crucial to army supply routes in eastern Ukraine, Viktor Trehubov, a spokesperson for the Khortytsia group of forces, told the Reuters news agency. Trehubov said Russian forces are carrying out “constant attacks with the intent of breaking through” to the border of the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to Reuters.
Russia is using an online media outlet to sow discord in Germany as part of disinformation efforts being carried out alongside its war in Ukraine, the German Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
The outlet, Red, portrays itself as a “revolutionary platform for independent journalists” but has “close links” with the Russian state media outlet RT, a ministry spokesperson told reporters in Berlin.
At least four people have died and dozens are missing after a ferry sank off Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali, rescuers said.
The boat was carrying 53 passengers and 12 crew members when it sank at 23:20 local time (15:35 GMT) on Wednesday while on its way to Bali from Banyuwangi on the eastern coast of Java island, the Surabaya office of the National Search and Rescue Agency said.
Twenty-nine survivors have been rescued, authorities say, as the search continues.
Photos published by Antara news agency showed ambulances on standby and residents waiting for updates by the roadside.
Authorities are investigating the cause of the sinking.
The ferry operator told local media that the vessel had reported engine trouble shortly before it sank.
The vessel’s route is often used by locals going between the islands of Java and Bali.
Four survivors who were found on a lifeboat were all residents of Banyuwangi, the Surabaya search and rescue team said.
Marine accidents are frequent in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of around 17,000 islands, where uneven enforcement of safety regulations is a longstanding concern.
An Australian woman died in March after a boat capsized off Bali with 16 people on board.
The US president has repeatedly called on the top central banker to step down amid disagreement over interest rates.
United States President Donald Trump has repeated his call for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to step down, the latest in a series of attacks that have raised concern about the independence of the US central bank.
Trump made the call for Powell to “resign immediately” on Wednesday after his administration’s top housing regulator urged the US Congress to launch an investigation into the central banker.
Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said in a post on X that Powell should be investigated for his “political bias” and “deceptive testimony” about renovations at the Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington, DC.
In a Truth Social post responding to Pulte’s comments, Trump said “Too Late” – a nickname used to lambast Powell for not lowering rates faster – should resign.
Trump’s latest broadside comes days after he sent Powell a letter demanding that the central banker lower the benchmark interest rate, which is currently set at a range of 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent, by “a lot”.
The US president has repeatedly criticised Powell for not backing faster rate cuts, arguing that the central banker’s cautious stance is holding back economic growth and that concerns about inflation are overblown.
Lower interest rates reduce the cost of borrowing for businesses and consumers, helping boost economic growth.
But rate cuts also have the effect of increasing inflation, which central banks typically wish to keep low, and Trump’s sweeping tariffs are generally expected to put upward pressure on prices.
On Tuesday, Powell told a panel discussion at the European Central Bank Forum in Portugal that the central bank had taken a wait-and-see approach to rate cuts in order to gauge the impact of Trump’s tariffs, many of which are in limbo ahead of a July 9 deadline.
“In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs, and essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs,” Powell said.
“We didn’t overreact. In fact, we didn’t react at all; we’re simply taking some time.”
Trump has repeatedly demanded that Powell, whose term does not expire until May 2026, step down or be removed since coming into office in January.
Last week, Trump told reporters that he would “love” for Powell to step down “if he wanted to”.
In April, Trump said that Powell’s “termination cannot come fast enough,” before backing off his threat after stocks and the US dollar dipped sharply.
Under US federal law, the US president is only permitted to fire the Fed chair “for cause”, a provision widely interpreted to mean specific misconduct, not policy decisions.
In May, the US Supreme Court reaffirmed precedent limiting the president’s ability to remove the top central banker in a ruling that singled out the Federal Reserve as having a distinct status compared with other independent agencies.
Trump earlier on Tuesday told reporters that he had “two or three” choices in mind to succeed Powell without elaborating on who is under consideration.
BREAKINGBREAKING,
National Search and Rescue Agency says rescuers searching for 43 people after vessel sank off resort island.
Rescuers are searching for 43 people missing in rough seas overnight after a ferry carrying 65 people sank near Indonesia’s resort island of Bali.
The KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya sank almost half an hour after leaving East Java’s Ketapang port late Wednesday, the National Search and Rescue Agency said in a statement.
It was bound for Bali’s Gilimanuk port, a 50-kilometre (30-mile) trip.
The ferry carried 53 passengers, 12 crew members and 22 vehicles, including 14 trucks, it said.
Two bodies have been recovered and 20 were rescued, many of them unconscious after drifting in choppy waters for hours, said Banyuwangi police chief, Rama Samtama Putra.
Nine boats, including two tug boats and two inflatable boats, have been searching for the missing people since Wednesday night, battling waves up to two metres (6.5ft) high in the overnight darkness.
Ferry tragedies are common in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, where ferries are often used as transport and safety regulations can lapse.
More to follow…