Global Pulse

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  • Zelensky meets allies in UK after strike hits Ukraine nuclear site

    Zelensky meets allies in UK after strike hits Ukraine nuclear site

    On a high-stakes diplomatic trip Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky touched down in London to hold urgent defense-focused talks with top leaders from the United Kingdom, France and Germany, just hours after a new wave of Russian cross-border strikes left five civilians dead and damaged a nuclear storage facility at the Chernobyl disaster site.

    In a social media statement confirming his arrival, Zelensky outlined two core priorities for the talks: securing accelerated shipments of additional ammunition for Ukraine’s frontline air defense systems, which are strained by daily Russian bombardment across Ukrainian territory, and coordinating new, stronger collective pressure measures against Moscow to force an end to the full-scale invasion that launched more than three years ago.

    Hours ahead of Zelensky’s London arrival, Russian forces launched a multi-wave assault combining drones and other long-range munitions across Ukraine. According to Ukrainian nuclear officials, one Russian munition struck a spent nuclear fuel storage facility located within the exclusion zone surrounding the long-decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the 1986 catastrophic nuclear disaster. Ukraine’s state-run nuclear energy operator Energoatom confirmed the strike partially destroyed the facility’s fuel reception building, but added that radiation monitoring readings remained well within safe, normal limits following the attack.

    Zelensky, who early confirmed the strike was carried out by an Iranian-designed Shahed drone supplied to Russia, noted that while radiation levels have not spiked, the attack demonstrates a dangerous escalation in Moscow’s willingness to target critical nuclear infrastructure. “There is certainly an increase in Russia’s brazenness, which long ago went off the charts,” he said in a social media post.

    The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), responded quickly to the incident, saying it was deploying an expert inspection team to Chernobyl to assess the full extent of the damage and verify safety conditions. The agency called the strike on the facility “deeply concerning.” The storage facility, located roughly 12 kilometers from the original 1986 disaster site in a remote, unpopulated forested area, is purpose-built to hold spent nuclear fuel from Ukraine’s three operating commercial nuclear power plants.

    The Sunday strikes extended beyond the Chernobyl exclusion zone, with deadly attacks on civilian areas across multiple Ukrainian regions. In southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, Russian shelling hit a public transport stop, killing at least two civilians, while a separate drone strike in the area killed a 56-year-old minibus driver. In central Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, two more civilian men were killed in additional Russian attacks, regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha confirmed via Telegram.

    Ukrainian forces also launched a reciprocal drone strike on Russian territory, killing a civilian woman and injuring her husband in a car attack in Russia’s border Belgorod region, local Russian authorities confirmed. The tit-for-tat strikes mark an escalation in the mutual cross-border drone campaign that has intensified over recent months, amid a broader stalemate in peace negotiations.

    More than three years into the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to end the conflict remain stalled, with international focus largely diverted by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly rejected direct peace negotiations proposed by Zelensky, and Russian forces currently hold roughly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean Peninsula annexed in 2014, most of the eastern Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and large swathes of southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. The war has left hundreds of thousands dead and forced millions of Ukrainians to flee their homes.

  • DR Congo friendly to be played behind closed doors

    DR Congo friendly to be played behind closed doors

    As the 2026 FIFA World Cup approaches, DR Congo’s final pre-tournament warm-up fixture against Chile has undergone a last-minute reshuffle, shifting to a closed-door setup in the French city of Orleans following widespread public health concerns tied to an ongoing Ebola outbreak in the central African nation. The match, set to kick off at 16:00 BST this Tuesday, was originally slated to be held in La Linea de la Concepcion, a Spanish border town. However, local authorities ultimately blocked the match from proceeding at that venue, with the mayor issuing an official decree framing the cancellation as a necessary precautionary measure to protect public health.

    The 2026 World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, has put in place strict entry requirements for all delegates coming from DR Congo: all squad members and team officials must complete a 21-day stay outside the country and remain completely free of Ebola symptoms before they are granted entry to the U.S. for the tournament. According to reporting from BBC Sport, none of DR Congo’s senior players – every one of whom currently plies their trade for club teams outside of DR Congo – have traveled back to their home country in recent weeks. However, a number of the national team’s non-playing support staff and traveling fan contingent have made the journey from DR Congo to join the squad ahead of the World Cup, which has triggered the ongoing public health precautions.

    Currently, the DR Congo squad is wrapping up their final preparations at a training base in Marbella, Spain. This follows a 10-day pre-camp in Belgium, where the side earned a credible 0-0 draw in a friendly test against Denmark ahead of their first World Cup appearance in half a century. This tournament marks a historic milestone for DR Congo: it is the first time the nation has qualified for the World Cup since 1974, when it competed under the former name Zaire and finished at the bottom of its group after three opening-round losses to Scotland, Brazil and Yugoslavia.

    For the 2026 tournament, DR Congo has based its pre-tournament operations in Houston, Texas, where it will kick off its Group K campaign against Portugal on June 17. After the opening match, the team will travel to Guadalajara, Mexico, for their second group-stage fixture against Colombia, before returning to U.S. soil to play their final group game against Uzbekistan in Atlanta.

    The Ebola outbreak that has sparked these precautions is centered in eastern DR Congo, and is caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus. As of the latest public health updates, no licensed vaccine currently exists for this specific Ebola variant, and the World Health Organization has confirmed that it could take as long as nine months to develop and approve an effective vaccine for public use.

  • Mexicans chase a world record wave – but is the trend even Mexican?

    Mexicans chase a world record wave – but is the trend even Mexican?

    Forty years after the stadium spectator wave cemented its global reputation under the name ‘Mexican wave’ during the 1986 FIFA World Cup hosted in Mexico, Mexico City is stepping forward to claim a new world record for the largest collective wave in history.

    The current Guinness World Record for the biggest wave has stood for nearly 18 years: it was set at a NASCAR racing event in Tennessee, United States, in 2008, when 157,574 spectators joined together to create the sweeping, rippling crowd movement that has become a staple at sporting events worldwide. To beat that mark, Mexico City organizers picked an unconventional non-stadium venue that would allow the wave to spread continuously across thousands of participants: Paseo de la Reforma, the city’s world-famous tree-lined arterial boulevard modeled after European grand thoroughfares.

    On Saturday, thousands of enthusiastic participants lined both sides of the iconic avenue. Dressed in the Mexican national men’s football team’s signature bright green jerseys in many cases, the crowd went through multiple practice rounds before making their official record attempt. Chants of “Mexico! Mexico!” rang out across the avenue as thousands raised their arms in unison to carry the ripple down the length of the road. For now, official adjudicators from Guinness World Records are still reviewing data from the attempt to confirm whether Mexico City has successfully taken the crown from the 2008 NASCAR record.

    Beyond the record attempt, the event reignites a long-running conversation about the origins of the beloved crowd tradition. While the global name ‘Mexican wave’ ties the phenomenon closely to Mexico thanks to its 1986 World Cup breakthrough, many credit American entertainer George Henderson, widely known as Krazy George, with creating and directing the first full stadium wave. Henderson says he first launched the movement during a 1981 Major League Baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and New York Yankees in California.

    Recalling the moment, Henderson explained that the Athletics had dropped two straight away games, and by the third inning he was eager to try something completely new to energize the crowd. He worked with fans across three sections of the stadium to explain the concept. The first two attempts fell flat, but the third successfully rolled all the way around the stadium, and the fourth produced a steady, continuous ripple. ‘The place was going crazy,’ Henderson recalled. The game was broadcast nationally, so the concept quickly spread to fans of other sports across North America. It was not until the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, however, that the wave was broadcast to a massive global audience, turning it into an international staple of spectator culture – and earning it the widespread ‘Mexican wave’ name outside North America.

    The uniquely collective nature of the wave has even drawn the attention of scientific researchers curious about crowd behavior. In 2002, a team of physicists from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ statistical and biological physics group decided to map the mechanics of the stadium wave, publishing their findings in the leading academic journal *Nature*. Lead researcher Illes Farkas told NPR the team was drawn to the project because crowd behavior in a wave offers a clear parallel to particle movement in physical systems.

    The team’s analysis uncovered clear, consistent patterns: most spontaneous human waves travel clockwise around stadiums at a speed of roughly 12 meters, equal to about 20 spectator seats, per second. Shockingly, they also found that a self-sustaining wave only needs between 25 and 35 initiating participants to get rolling in a large stadium. The mathematical model the team used to explain the wave’s spread was not newly developed for the research – it was the same framework already used to describe how forest fires spread and how electrical signals propagate through heart tissue.

    Beyond the physics, sports writer Chris Hunt, author of *World Cup Stories*, told the BBC that the wave also carries varied cultural meanings depending on context. While it is most commonly seen as a symbol of collective joy and excitement among spectators, it can also signal boredom when a match is slow or uneventful. ‘When a match drags and nothing interesting is happening on the pitch, fans feel it’s a way to make the most of the money they paid for their tickets,’ Hunt explained. Context also dictates whether a wave is likely to appear at all: a tense goalless draw in the final minutes of a World Cup final will almost never see a wave, while a lopsided friendly match with the home team leading handily is far more likely to spark the familiar ripple.

  • March in France for girl whose killing sparked outcry over lapses

    March in France for girl whose killing sparked outcry over lapses

    On a scorching Sunday afternoon in the small southwestern French town of Fleurance, a sea of 6,000 people dressed in white filled the streets, gathering for a silent march to honor the life of 11-year-old Lyhanna, whose suspected murder at the hands of a repeat accused child abuser has sparked nationwide outrage over systemic failures in France’s justice system.

    Lyhanna disappeared near Fleurance on May 29, and her body was recovered by investigators just last week. She was last seen climbing into a car driven by the prime suspect in the case, 41-year-old Jerome B. — the father of one of Lyhanna’s classmates, a man who had previously worked at local schools and faced four separate prior allegations of child rape and sexual abuse, none of which resulted in a conviction. Jerome B. was arrested and charged with abduction before Lyhanna’s body was found, and he remains in custody as investigations continue.

    The grieving family of the young victim led the procession through Fleurance, with Lyhanna’s father and local community members carrying a lead banner emblazoned with the words “Lyhanna. Never again! We love you, we miss you.” Lyhanna’s mother followed a few steps behind, accompanied by her son, while the crowd fell completely silent, many holding white flowers to honor the victim. Per the family’s explicit request, no national political figures participated in the march, though local elected representatives joined the gathering. The public anger over the case has already reached the highest levels of the French government: President Emmanuel Macron last week publicly condemned the “unacceptable” lapses that allowed Jerome B. to remain free despite multiple child abuse allegations, while Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin took the unusual step of issuing a formal apology to Lyhanna’s family, saying he was “furious” at the systemic failures in how the justice system handled prior complaints against the suspect.

    For many marchers, the tragedy hit close to home, and many shared that they joined to push for long-overdue changes to how France handles child sexual abuse cases. Karine Camus, a 41-year-old marcher who was a victim of sexual violence for a decade, said “It could have happened to my family, to my son, to my daughter,” adding that young victims must be encouraged to speak out about their abuse. Manola Martin, a pensioner who was raped when she was 17, said she attended the march to stand up for her daughters and granddaughters, echoing a widely shared sentiment when she said “Unfortunately, the justice system does nothing for these people.”

    Anger over the case spilled over outside the march as well: at the entrance to the nearby village of Montestruc-sur-Gers, where Jerome B. lived with his family, the village entry sign was covered Sunday with a white sheet marked with the slogan “death penalty for paedophiles.” The case has sent a deep shockwave through the tight-knit community of 6,000 residents, sparking renewed national calls for reform of how French authorities handle and investigate allegations of child sexual abuse.

  • US says shot down Iran drones as war reaches 100th day

    US says shot down Iran drones as war reaches 100th day

    One hundred days into the ongoing regional conflict that has roiled the Middle East, no path to a lasting ceasefire has emerged, as a fresh escalation at the strategic Strait of Hormuz and continued deadlock in diplomatic talks have deepened uncertainty across the region and global markets.

    On Sunday, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed it had intercepted and destroyed two Iranian drones that posed a direct threat to international commercial shipping moving through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints. This latest confrontation followed a earlier pattern of tit-for-tat exchanges: a prior U.S. drone interception and strikes on Iranian radar sites prompted Tehran to launch a barrage of missiles at U.S. Gulf allies Bahrain and Kuwait just one day prior.

    The 100-day milestone arrived alongside renewed diplomatic efforts led by Pakistan, which has stepped in as a neutral mediator after weeks of indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran that have been repeatedly interrupted by cross-border threats and sporadic armed exchanges. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi traveled to Tehran on Saturday to deliver a special confidential message from Pakistani Army Chief General Syed Asim Munir — who has spearheaded Pakistan’s mediation efforts after an initial round of indirect talks in Islamabad — to Iran’s Supreme Leader, alongside a separate communication from Pakistan’s prime minister.

    Parallel to the Tehran-Washington talks, Lebanon’s top military commander General Rodolphe Haykal also traveled to Pakistan over the weekend to meet with Munir, as Beirut pushes for a resolution to the separate parallel conflict on Lebanese soil between the Israeli military and Iran-backed Hezbollah. Iran has insisted that any regional peace agreement must include provisions to end fighting in Lebanon, and a source familiar with Haykal’s trip confirmed the visit was directly tied to the ongoing Pakistani-mediated negotiations between Tehran and Washington.

    Despite these new diplomatic overtures, core sticking points have left talks firmly deadlocked. Iranian Supreme Leader military advisor Mohsen Rezaei told CNN earlier that negotiations with the U.S. remain at an impasse, calling on former U.S. President Donald Trump to break the deadlock while demanding the release of approximately $24 billion in Iranian assets frozen by U.S. sanctions. Washington, however, is considering redirecting those frozen funds to compensate U.S. Gulf allies for damage caused by recent Iranian strikes, a senior source familiar with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s policy position confirmed.

    Iranian top diplomat Abbas Araghchi described negotiations with the Trump administration as uniquely cumbersome in a CNN interview published Sunday, noting that shifting U.S. negotiating positions and contradictory public statements have made consistent progress impossible. “The main problem of negotiating with this administration is that you have to face so many changing positions, moving the goal posts, different statements, contradictory remarks,” he said.

    Fighting on the Lebanese front flared back up on the 100th day of the war, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israeli forces had struck a Hezbollah militant command center in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a core Hezbollah stronghold. The strike was framed as a response to fresh fire directed at Israeli territory. Lebanon’s state-owned National News Agency reported the strikes damaged two residential apartments in separate buildings, and AFP correspondents on the ground saw widespread panic as residents fled the area, while Lebanese military units deployed to secure the perimeter. Araghchi had previously warned that any Israeli strike on Beirut would trigger a full-scale resumption of regional hostilities.

    Beyond the front lines and negotiating rooms, the prolonged conflict has pushed ordinary Iranians into deepening economic and psychological distress. With soaring inflation and collapsing purchasing power, many residents describe daily life as barely survivable. “I really have gone numb,” 32-year-old Ahvaz-based fitness trainer Elaheh told AFP. “Daily life? It’s a joke. Everything is horrible. We only try to survive.”

    Thirty-five-year-old chef Farhad echoed that despair, noting economic hardship had already taken hold before the current conflict escalated, and conditions have only grown worse. “Things that just a few months ago you might have considered buying have now become dreams and fairy tales,” he said. Farhad added that the constant cycle of drone strikes and missile exchanges has become a grim new normal, leaving the region trapped in a permanent state of uncertainty. “I feel like this situation is going to stay like this for a while; a sort of suspended, up-in-the-air state where those guys fire a few missiles, these guys launch a few drones,” he said.

    The ongoing volatility has already rattled global commodity and energy markets, and has piled additional domestic political pressure on Trump ahead of upcoming U.S. midterm elections, with voters closely scrutinizing the administration’s handling of the crisis.

  • Pioneering Australian doctor Richard Scolyer dies after brain cancer battle

    Pioneering Australian doctor Richard Scolyer dies after brain cancer battle

    Renowned Australian oncologist and melanoma research pioneer Professor Richard Scolyer has passed away at the age of 59, three years after receiving a devastating diagnosis of glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer. Globally celebrated for revolutionizing the treatment of advanced skin cancer, Scolyer leaves behind a legacy of scientific breakthrough that has saved tens of thousands of lives around the world.

    Three years ago, when Scolyer received his terminal diagnosis, the professor refused to surrender to what conventional medicine framed as an inevitable death sentence. For context, standard treatment protocols for glioblastoma — immediate surgical removal followed by chemotherapy and radiation — have remained largely unchanged for more than 20 years, with most patients sharing Scolyer’s diagnosis surviving less than 12 months. Rejecting the idea of accepting his fate without a fight, Scolyer partnered with his long-time collaborator and friend Professor Georgina Long to test a world-first experimental approach to his treatment, drawing on the groundbreaking research the pair had spent decades developing for advanced melanoma.

    As co-directors of Melanoma Institute Australia, Scolyer and Long spent 10 years transforming outcomes for advanced melanoma patients through their work on combination immunotherapy. Prior to their breakthroughs, less than 10% of patients with late-stage melanoma survived; today, half of all patients can expect an effective cure, thanks to their research that proved combining immunotherapy drugs and administering them before surgical removal of tumours dramatically improves results. It was this same framework that Scolyer and Long adapted to treat his inoperable brain tumour, making Scolyer the first brain cancer patient in the world to receive pre-surgery combination immunotherapy paired with a personalized cancer vaccine tailored to the unique genetic markers of his tumour.

    Though Scolyer and Long knew the odds of a full cure were minuscule, they saw the experimental treatment as a chance to advance global understanding of brain cancer care, even if it only prolonged Scolyer’s life. Initial scans after treatment revealed a promising positive immune response in Scolyer’s brain, a result that has already spurred the launch of an early-stage clinical trial in the United States to replicate and expand on these preliminary findings.

    In a moving open letter Scolyer wrote to be released after his death, the professor reflected on a career driven by a core belief: all people have a responsibility to work to leave the world a better place for future generations. “I wanted to keep contributing, even in my darkest hour,” he wrote. “I pen this letter as a final goodbye to all those I have had the immense privilege of loving, sharing life’s adventures with, working alongside and meeting during what can only be described as a life filled with happiness, optimism, opportunity and passion.”

    Scolyer’s contributions to global cancer research earned him widespread recognition across his career. In 2024, he was named Australian of the Year alongside Long, a title that cemented his status as a national treasure and one of the country’s most respected medical minds. Beyond his research, he often cited mentoring the next generation of pathologists as one of his proudest professional achievements.

    Paying tribute to Scolyer, esteemed Australian melanoma surgeon John Thompson AO remembered him as a brilliant, down-to-earth scientist who embodied the spirit of bold medical innovation. “This was science in action!” Thompson said. “He will be remembered as a truly great Australian.”

    In his final letter, Scolyer expressed gratitude for the support of his wife, fellow pathologist Katie Nicholl, and their three children, who stood by him throughout his cancer journey. He also thanked the Australian public for the outpouring of love he received while documenting his treatment publicly, noting that he had chosen to share his experience honestly, without sugarcoating the challenges of his diagnosis. In a final call to action for the global medical community, he urged fellow scientists to continue pushing boundaries and taking brave risks in cancer research, while calling on governments around the world to increase funding for life-saving medical innovation. “We can and should continue to push boundaries to propel the cancer field forward,” he wrote.

    Scolyer is survived by his wife Katie and their three children.

  • Hundreds of captives freed from Boko Haram mountain hideout

    Hundreds of captives freed from Boko Haram mountain hideout

    A large group of captives held by Boko Haram jihadists in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State has been freed from a remote mountain stronghold, ending months of harsh captivity, though conflicting accounts have emerged over who is responsible for the operation.

    The hostages, most residents of the majority-Muslim Ngoshe community near the Cameroon border, were abducted in early March as locals gathered to break their daily Ramadan fast. The Nigerian military confirms at least 360 people were rescued, while a local youth organization, the Borno South Youth Initiative, puts the total number of freed captives at 416.

    In an official statement, military spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Haruna M Sani framed the operation as one of the most ambitious hostage rescues the Nigerian armed forces have carried out in the northeast. The weeks-long mission, built on detailed intelligence, struck the Boko Haram hideout in the Mandara Mountains under cover of darkness, catching the insurgents off guard. Facing the rapid, overwhelming force of advancing troops, Sani said many fighters fled into the surrounding rugged terrain and others surrendered without resistance.

    However, local community groups have pushed back against the military’s account. Samaila Kaigama, president of the Borno South Youth Alliance (Bosaya), said his organization spent weeks negotiating with Boko Haram to secure an unconditional release, and accused government forces of trying to take credit for work led by local mediators. In a public Facebook video, Kaigama criticized “government boys” for claiming glory for the community-led effort.

    According to Nigerian authorities, all freed hostages have received initial medical screenings, and are receiving ongoing care after their ordeal. Tragically, two young infants did not survive the harsh conditions of their prolonged captivity, dying from exhaustion exacerbated by the mountainous terrain, Daniel Bwala, special adviser to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, confirmed in a post on X.

    The release comes at a time when the Tinubu administration faces growing public backlash over soaring insecurity across the country. The presidency has publicly commended the military for the operation, and local officials have stated that work is underway to secure the Ngoshe area so that the freed captives can return to their homes and farms. Officials also noted that a small number of abductees are believed to have escaped into Cameroon during the operation, and cross-border efforts are ongoing to bring them home safely. On Sunday, the Nigerian military released photos and videos showing the freed hostages resting under trees overnight following their rescue, matching images posted to the official Nigerian Army social media channel.

    Mass kidnapping has become an endemic tactic for armed groups across Nigeria in recent years, with criminal and insurgent factions targeting soft, high-vulnerability locations including remote villages, schools, churches and mosques to generate revenue through ransom payments. While Nigerian law bans the payment of ransoms to abductors, analysts confirm that payments from desperate hostage families, intermediaries, and in some cases state officials have continued, directly fueling the cycle of abductions across the country.

    The 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from the northeastern village of Chibok remains one of Boko Haram’s most notorious attacks, with roughly 90 girls still missing after more than a decade. During the group’s insurgency, captives were often forced into sexual slavery, domestic servitude, or coerced into serving as suicide bombers.

    Boko Haram first launched its armed campaign to establish an Islamic state across northern Nigeria in 2009. While the group no longer controls the large swathes of territory it held at the height of its power in the early 2010s, it and its splinter factions (including the Islamic State West Africa Province) retain the capability to carry out regular attacks and kidnappings across the country’s northeast.

    Nigeria has received international support to counter ongoing insurgency and kidnapping threats. Earlier in 2024, a small contingent of U.S. military personnel deployed to the country to train local armed forces and provide intelligence support. Just last month, Nigerian and U.S. forces announced they had carried out a joint operation that killed a senior Islamic State leader in the region. Nigeria’s security challenges remain multifaceted, overlapping threats that include Islamist insurgency, criminal kidnapping gangs, intercommunal land clashes, and separatist unrest in the country’s south.

  • Stokes delivers warning for test cricket after England’s historically quick win over New Zealand

    Stokes delivers warning for test cricket after England’s historically quick win over New Zealand

    England men’s cricket captain Ben Stokes has issued a stark public warning about the future of Test cricket, arguing that the subpar pitch prepared for the opening match of his side’s series against New Zealand at Lord’s has done no favors for a format already fighting to retain relevance amid the global boom of short-form Twenty20 cricket. England secured an 115-run victory over the Black Caps in the opening Test, but the match itself raised far more questions than it answered about the long-term health of the five-day game.

    By the conclusion of the contest, only 166 overs had been completed across four days of play, marking the second shortest Test ever held in the 150-year history of Test matches at the iconic Lord’s ground, widely known as the home of cricket. The two sides combined for a total of just 617 runs, a meager total that reflected how unfriendly the surface was for batting. On this unpredictable, erratic pitch that caused constant chaos for batters, a wicket fell approximately every 25 balls. BBC statistics confirm this is the lowest overs-per-wicket ratio recorded in any Test held in England since 1907.

    To put the lopsided nature of the pitch in perspective: 24 of the 40 batsmen dismissed in the match were either bowled or out leg before wicket, a new record for a Test played in English conditions. Stokes, one of the most vocal high-profile advocates for preserving the popularity and relevance of Test cricket in the modern era, said the spectacle served up at Lord’s did nothing to help the long-term standing of the format, which many critics argue is declining toward irrelevance.

    “I get asked constantly about the future of Test cricket, what we need to do to keep it growing, and how we can protect its standing as a top-tier format for future generations,” Stokes told reporters in his post-match press conference, ending his lengthy remarks with a clear warning for cricket governing bodies.

    “As someone who loves Test cricket with all my heart, I have to ask: did this pitch help Test cricket moving forward? I don’t think it did at all.” While the match dragged into a fourth day, that timeline came only after an entire day’s worth of play on the third day was lost to heavy rain. Without that weather interruption, Stokes argued the match would have finished even earlier, leaving thousands of ticket-holding fans shortchanged on the full experience they paid to see.

    “If you bought tickets for Day 1, you might well have enjoyed the chaos – wickets falling everywhere, balls flying to all parts of the ground, because that forced batters to adopt an aggressive approach to score any runs at all,” Stokes explained. “But the flip side of that is that without rain, the whole match would be over before most fans get a chance to see multiple days of cricket. That isn’t what we want. We need to find that middle ground between bowler-friendly and batter-friendly pitches that produce a compelling, full contest.”

    Despite his criticism of the playing surface, Stokes was quick to praise his own side’s ability to adapt to the challenging conditions, noting that many batsmen could only laugh in bemusement as they walked back to the dressing room after baffling dismissals caused by erratic seam movement. Stokes himself fell victim to the unpredictable surface in the second innings, recording a three-ball duck after a delivery from New Zealand seamer Nathan Smith straightened unexpectedly to clip the top of off-stump, leaving the captain shaking his head in disbelief.

    Stokes added that the result still stands as a credit to his side’s ability to adjust, saying: “This result doesn’t take anything away from what we had to do to win this week. We turned up, played our brand of cricket, and found a way to come out on top even in these really difficult conditions. Next week at The Oval will be completely different, and we’ll adapt again when we get there.”

    That pragmatic assessment was echoed by New Zealand captain Tom Latham, ahead of the second Test of the series kicking off at The Oval on June 17. “I don’t think we need to over-analyze what happened here,” Latham said. “We know we’re going to The Oval next, and everyone expects the conditions there will be far better than what we encountered here at Lord’s.”

  • British deputy prime minister tells JD Vance he was wrong to blame immigration for teen’s murder

    British deputy prime minister tells JD Vance he was wrong to blame immigration for teen’s murder

    In a sharp diplomatic exchange that highlights growing transatlantic friction over migration rhetoric, Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy has publicly confirmed he pushed back firmly against U.S. Vice President JD Vance last Saturday, telling Vance his claims tying the fatal stabbing of 18-year-old university student Henry Nowak to mass immigration were factually wrong.

    The confrontation unfolded during what Lammy described as a “robust” but still cordial phone call between the two senior politicians. Despite sitting on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, Lammy noted that he and Vance have built a personal friendship rooted in shared religious convictions and similar family backgrounds. “We had an agreeable conversation because we have got a relationship, but I wanted to make clear that I disagree with some of the facts that he was asserting and to present the facts to him,” Lammy explained in an interview with Sky News on Sunday.

    Vance’s controversial comments came one day before the call, when the U.S. vice president posted on social platform X claiming there should be “righteous anger” over Nowak’s December 2024 murder in Southampton, and implying the killing was partially a consequence of “the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it.”

    What Vance’s post failed to acknowledge, however, are core verified facts of the case that undermine the immigration connection: the convicted killer, 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, is a British citizen who is already serving a life sentence for the crime, with a minimum 21-year term handed down by courts this week. Digwa, who is Sikh, used an 21-centimeter Sikh dagger to carry out the attack, and falsely told responding officers that Nowak — who was white — had assaulted him in a racist attack. This false claim led police to initially misidentify Nowak as the aggressor, leaving the wounded teen handcuffed and untreated as he lay dying. The Independent Office for Police Conduct, the UK’s independent police watchdog, has launched an ongoing probe into the officers’ actions on scene to determine if any misconduct occurred.

    Notably, even the victim’s own family has rejected efforts to politicize the tragedy. Mark Nowak, Henry’s father, has explicitly stated that the killing is not a matter of racism or religious division. He has said he wants his son’s death to spark action for safer public spaces, rather than being exploited to stoke “further division, hatred or tension.”

    Vance’s remarks are not an isolated incident: just days earlier, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth drew widespread criticism for invoking anti-immigration “invasion” rhetoric during a D-Day commemoration speech on French soil, marking another high-profile example of American conservative figures weighing in on European domestic political issues.

    Digwa’s conviction has already been seized upon by anti-immigration activists and far-right groups in the UK to advance their policy agendas. Tensions boiled over earlier this week in Southampton, when a far-right-led protest over the killing devolved into violent disorder: demonstrators pelted local police with chairs, aluminum cans, rocks and flares, and six additional people have since been charged by police in connection with the violence.

    Downing Street has already formally pushed back against Vance’s intervention. In a statement issued Friday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office criticized outside actors “trying to interfere in our democracy and seeking to stir up division on our streets.”

    During his phone call with Vance, Lammy emphasized that the killing had no connection to mass migration whatsoever, and stressed that the killer was already in custody. Lammy added that he reminded Vance of the Nowak family’s explicit wishes, noting that the inflammatory tweet ran counter to the family’s request to avoid turning the tragedy into a tool for division. “It’s not helpful to tweet in this way, partly because of what the Nowak family have asked for, and reminded him about their desire not to make this an issue of division and hatred, but to make this an issue of common sense,” Lammy told Sky News.

  • Polls open in tight Peru presidential runoff

    Polls open in tight Peru presidential runoff

    On Sunday morning, voting booths opened across Peru for a tightly contested presidential runoff that will shape the future of a country that has already seen eight leaders hold office over the past 10 years. With rising violent crime and persistent political instability top of mind for voters, roughly 27 million eligible Peruvians from the high Andes Mountains to the remote Amazon basin are casting ballots to select a chief executive for a five-year term.

    The race pits two ideologically opposed candidates against each other: conservative Keiko Fujimori, a 51-year-old veteran who has run for the presidency four times previously, and 57-year-old leftist former cabinet minister Roberto Sanchez. Pre-election opinion polling has shown the pair neck-and-neck, with a late campaign surge from Sanchez fueled by overwhelming support from rural communities pushing him into the runoff after an unexpectedly strong first-round performance.

    The lead-up to Sunday’s vote has been overshadowed by lingering institutional distrust and last-minute political drama. Peru’s first round of voting was delayed for weeks by crippling logistical failures and a slow vote count, deepening public skepticism of the country’s already fragile democratic institutions. A day before polls opened, a judge ruled that Sanchez must stand trial on charges of past financial irregularities tied to his political party, a decision that has sparked accusations of judicial interference in the election. If Sanchez wins the presidency, he will gain legal immunity, though he will still face a hostile right-leaning legislature that has already removed multiple sitting presidents from office in recent years.

    For Fujimori, her campaign leans heavily on the complicated legacy of her late father, Alberto Fujimori, who served as president in the 1990s. While he is credited with stabilizing Peru’s economy and defeating the violent Shining Path Maoist insurgency, he died in prison while serving a sentence for corruption and crimes against humanity. Keiko Fujimori has positioned herself as part of a broader right-wing wave across Latin America, where U.S.-backed conservative candidates have claimed victory in recent elections in Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and other regional neighbors. She has campaigned on hardline security pledges, promising to militarize the country’s prison system and expel irregular migrants with the same “force” her father used against insurgents in the 1990s.

    Sanchez, a trained psychologist and sitting congressman, draws his political roots from the rural, working-class base of his political mentor, former president Pedro Castillo, who was removed from office and jailed in 2022 after he attempted to dissolve Congress. A visible marker of that connection is the wide-brimmed palm straw hat Sanchez always wears in public, a gift from Castillo; he has pledged to pardon Castillo if elected. Over the course of the campaign, Sanchez has moderated his early calls for “radical change” and distanced himself from radical ultranationalist factions, saying he seeks a “respectful” working relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump. He frames his opponent as a product of the powerful, corrupt political establishment controlled by a deeply partisan Congress that he labels a “dictatorship.”

    Public frustration with the status quo runs deep across the country. Many voters say they see no ideal option on the ballot. “There is a lot of disorder and corruption, and we’re going to vote, as always, for the ‘lesser evil’,” Hugo Vasquez, a 67-year-old craft vendor in the capital Lima, told reporters. Early voter Evelyn Pazos, 43, echoed the widespread desire for a fair process, saying “I hope the entire process is carried out transparently, that the people’s vote is respected.”

    For most Peruvians, the top issue driving their vote is public safety. Criminal gangs have expanded their control across much of the country, and official reports show extortion complaints have jumped ninefold over the past five years. “They kill, dismember, demand protection money. Enough!” said Roberto Lovaton, a 58-year-old Lima taxi driver. Sanchez has campaigned on rooting out systemic corruption within the police and judiciary, which he says has allowed criminal networks to flourish with impunity.

    Economically, the next president will inherit a mixed picture: official indicators show steady GDP growth of more than 3% and low inflation, but 70% of all working Peruvians remain trapped in the informal sector with no labor protections or social benefits. Fujimori runs on a platform of neoliberal economic reform, strong protections for private property rights, and attracting increased foreign direct investment from the United States. Sanchez, meanwhile, has promised to raise minimum wages for working Peruvians but has sought to reassure nervous investors by committing to maintain an open market economy and preserve the independence of Peru’s central bank, two key pillars of the country’s current economic stability.

    Political analysts warn that no matter the outcome, Peru is unlikely to see a quick end to its long-running instability. Neither candidate holds a majority in the 130-seat unicameral legislature, meaning the next president will be forced to build cross-party alliances to pass legislation and complete their full five-year term, a requirement that has sunk previous administrations. “Whoever wins will face questions of legitimacy if the result is close. That means more instability,” said analyst David Sulmont. The winner of the runoff will be sworn in to replace interim president Jose Maria Balcazar on July 28.