Increasingly isolated president is determined to press on with Ukraine war, say well-placed sources, despite ailing economy

Vladimir Putin pulled up to a hotel in central Moscow earlier in May in a Russian-made SUV, dressed casually in jeans and a light jacket. Carrying a bouquet of flowers, he walked unhurriedly into the lobby and embraced his former schoolteacher Vera Gurevich, who kissed him on both cheeks.

He then helped Gurevich into his car and drove her to dinner at the Kremlin.

I’ve worked hard to leave the intimidation I experienced in the past. But when I met the man I wanted to marry, those childhood memories took me by surprise

The bullying began shortly after my fifth birthday. My family had moved from Dorset to a small village in Buckinghamshire. I started a new school in September, just before my third sister was born. It should have been idyllic. I remember everyone being excited about the new baby on the way. My school was small and set in the heart of the countryside, with playing fields bordered by woodland. It was about a mile from our new home. If the weather was good, my mother tried to encourage me to walk with her. Sometimes she would repurpose my lunchbox as a punnet and fill it with blackberries picked from the hedgerow on the way home. But she was heavily pregnant, and at the time the mother of three (soon to be four) children aged five and under. It made practical sense for me to catch the school bus.

Weird things were already happening at school. Initially I put it down to the shock of the new. The games were boisterous – my sisters and I could be rough with each other, but everything seemed to go a little further and cut a little deeper. I’d been startled by a group of girls who had reached under my skirt and tugged my knickers down to my ankles. Maybe they thought they were being funny? I just wasn’t sure whether I was in on the joke, or whether I was the joke. At first, it felt a little like being in a dream or visiting a foreign country. Almost nothing made sense to me, but I knew I was the only one who couldn’t understand, and it was down to me to work it out.

His recent concerts are a thunderous call to fight for democracy. The nation could use more like him

The Bruce Springsteen concert I went to in Brooklyn last week was unlike any concert I’ve attended in decades. It was far more than a fabulous, joyous concert; it was also an inspiring resistance event.

From the get-go, the Boss made clear that this concert would be part of the anti-Trump resistance. It was a three-hour-long ode to the resistance and a thunderous call to Springsteen fans to step up and do more to fight for democracy and against authoritarianism. In this way, Springsteen is serving as a model for how celebrities can stand up against Trump and fight for what’s right.

Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice

Singing through the bloody mist

Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author, focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues

English wine grown in Crouch Valley is fast becoming globally renowned – even the French are taking notice

It was a Thursday afternoon spent basking in the sunshine, strolling through rolling hills and expansive plains laced with fruit-bearing vines. Surely I must have been dispatched to Tuscany or Bordeaux but no, this was the scene a mere 20-minute drive from Chelmsford, Essex.

While the unassuming city might be better know as the stomping ground for the cast of The Only Way is Essex, with ITV cameras a frequent sight, the surrounding area could soon have another claim to fame as an emerging capital of English wine, which is on the up.

Global prices are approaching a tipping point that could trigger inflation, shortages and, over time, recession

If a US-Iran deal is about to be reached, three months on from the launch of Donald Trump’s Operation Epic Fury, it will not be a day too soon for oil markets, which are approaching a dangerous tipping point.

The cost of a barrel of crude on the spot market – for immediate purchase, effectively – has bounced about $100 since Iran predictably responded to the onslaught from the US and Israel by closing the strait of Hormuz.

Having enjoyed breakout fame on Taskmaster and Last One Laughing, the subversive Australian comic has been handed the reins of his own, very strange sitcom. Get ready for feet animations and a character called Super-Breast …

The premise of Make That Movie, Australian comedian Sam Campbell’s deeply strange new Channel 4 series, is not easy to describe. A show-within-a-show, it stars its creator as an alternative Sam Campbell: rather than his real-life idiosyncratic standup self, he’s a pompous director whose well of inspiration has run dry. So he invites the public to share their (invariably bonkers) ideas for movies, which he and his dysfunctional crew then develop into real feature films. This all occurs within the framework of a shonky reality programme; each episode concludes with the film’s premiere. Think Changing Rooms, but instead of Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and Handy Andy renovating somebody’s living room, it’s Campbell and co bringing to life a man called Mick’s fantasy about a couple who can’t be snakes at the same time, yet one of them is always a snake.

In other words, the actual Campbell is the one who has been given carte blanche to turn his own invariably bonkers ideas into reality. He claims the production company behind the show were very hands-off – partly because they were so busy working on an animated Ricky Gervais series about cats “so we sort of got left to our own devices”. It helped that Channel 4’s head of comedy, Charlie Perkins – a longtime champion and collaborator of Campbell’s – was also “very trusting. I don’t know if she really got [the concept] when we were first talking about it. When we’d made it, I think she understood it a tiny bit more.”

The US secretary of state suggested a deal could be announced ‘in the next few hours’ but cautioned it wouldn’t be a ‘final’ agreement

• Full report: Trump says peace deal with Iran ‘largely negotiated’ with strait of Hormuz to open

In Lebanon, the civil defence agency said early on Sunday its regional facility in the southern city of Nabatieh had been destroyed by an Israeli strike.

The Directorate General of Civil Defence said the building had collapsed and a large number of vehicles and equipment had been damaged by a “direct hit in a hostile Israeli strike”.

Boys, aged 15, given youth rehabilitation orders for two separate attacks against two girls in Hampshire

A judge’s decision not to jail the teenage boys who raped two girls has been described as a “rock straight in my face” by one of their victims.

Southampton crown court heard the two boys, both aged 15 at the time, raped the teenage girls in two separate attacks that occurred on 26 November 2024 and 17 January 2025 in Fordingbridge, Hampshire.

Suspect dies after firing upon agents at White House checkpoint, Secret Service says, with a bystander also injured

A gunman has been shot dead after approaching a White House security checkpoint and firing at officers, federal officials have said.

The White House, where Donald Trump was present, was briefly locked down on Saturday as the sound of a sustained volley of gunshots rang out, sending journalists in the area running for cover.

Temperature reaches 30.5C in Kent as amber health alerts issued before bank holiday temperatures rise

The UK has recorded its hottest day of the year so far, with temperatures reaching 30.5C in Kent as forecasters warned more extreme heat could follow over the bank holiday weekend.

The temperature in Frittenden also marked the first time since 2012 the UK has reached 30C in May, according to the Met Office.