Jay-Z and Beyonce have purchased the most expensive home in California for $200 million. The 40,000 square-foot home, designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, is made from concrete and glass, sits on eight acres on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu, and has been likened to a supervillain's lair. Despite its hefty price tag, the couple is believed to have secured something of a bargain, as it was privately offered to potential buyers with an original asking price of $295 million. The previous record holder was billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who paid $177 million for his palatial residence in 2021.
Around 118 wind turbines, generating 700MW of power, will be installed over the coming years in the Maestrazgo cluster in Teruel province, Spain, amid controversy about the potential impacts on the landscape and ecosystem. The turbines, some up to 650ft tall, will supply cities and resorts along the Valencian coast rather than local villages. The project’s developer, Forestalia, has pledged to boost employment, but some parties fear that tourism, which already underpins the rural economy, will be harmed. Critics consider the scheme to mirror the extraction of resources from Spanish colonies and to benefit foreign investors at local expense.
The head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has claimed that his forces have captured the whole of Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine. His troops will leave the destroyed city on Thursday. This is the latest claim in a confusing dispute between the Ukrainian military and Mr Prigozhin over the city. Ukrainian officials immediately denied that the mercenary group had taken the city, insisting that they were still fighting for it. There has been fighting in only a few roads inside Bakhmut’s northwest region. Analysts have said that Wagner mercenary forces have lost tens of thousands of men fighting in Bakhmut, with most of the troops being convicted criminals recruited from Russian prisons. Prigozhin is known for being one of Vladimir Putin’s most loyal allies, and has many times before accused Russia’s military leadership of causing unnecessary deaths.
GPS-jamming equipment employed to protect Moscow from drone attacks has left smartwatches in the city prone to erratic behaviour, according to some runners participating in the Moscow half-marathon on 14 May. Russian newspapers reported that GPS signals in the city centre have been disrupted since the Kremlin was bombed by drones on 3 May. The Moscow authorities spent billions of dollars creating their own satellite system, known as Glonass, to match the US-owned GPS system.
The remains of a small plane that crashed in a remote area of Croatia have been found by emergency teams, according to police. The Cirrus 20 aircraft was discovered in “forested and inaccessible terrain” following an hours-long search involving 150 people and an army helicopter. It had disappeared from radar while flying from Maribor in Slovenia to Pula on Croatia’s Adriatic Sea coast on Saturday. Authorities have not specified how many people were onboard and the search is set to continue.
Pete Brown, the songwriter and poet who co-wrote rock classics such as “Sunshine of Your Love” and “White Room” for Cream in the 1960s, has died at the age of 82. Brown worked with drummer Ginger Baker, also Co-Founder of Cream, and wrote the group’s song, “I Feel Fine,” subsequently creating a songwriting partnership with bass player Jack Bruce that lasted more than 40 years following Cream’s break up. Brown, also a noted poet who worked alongside Allen Ginsberg and Spike Milligan, passed away in London from cancer.
Giorgia Meloni, Italy's far-right Prime Minister, has dismissed criticism from Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over her stance on LGBTQ+ rights. At a G7 Summit press conference, Meloni claimed that Trudeau had fallen "victim" to "fake news" and propaganda, with the accusations not "correspond[ing] to reality". Last month, Meloni's government told Italian city halls to stop automatically registering both parents in same-sex couples as parents, limiting recognition to only the biological parent. LGBTQ+ rights activists held rallies in opposition to the move, calling it homophobic.
Around 2,000 Russian flights have taken place over the past 15 months using out-of-date safety equipment due to a shortage of components caused by Western sanctions, said Victor Basargin, head of Rostransnadzor, the Russian government's transport watchdog. Basargin indicated that smaller airlines had been most affected, not major carriers such as Aeroflot, which has released a statement to say that all spare parts undergo strict quality control and certification checks. The Moscow government recently legalised "cannibalisation" which enables airline engineers to salvage serviceable parts from grounded planes to keep others in the air to meet the shortfall of maintenance components.
France and the US have admitted that their diplomats destroyed the passports of Sudanese citizens who had applied for visas, leaving them trapped in the war-torn country. The diplomats claim that they were following protocol to stop sensitive documents falling into the wrong hands. However, this has done nothing to assuage the anger of the stranded Sudanese citizens. The rush to evacuate embassies, because of the fighting erupted between the rival forces of Sudan’s top generals earlier this year, caused many documents to be left behind, including passports that had been submitted for visa applications.
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan is locked in a bitter feud with the country’s military leadership and military chief, Gen Asim Munir. Pakistan is now in political crisis and the feud appears to be personal and stem from a threat made by Gen Munir to investigate allegations of corruption surrounding Khan and his wife. Khan has accused Munir of being an architect of a campaign of persecution against him that is designed to keep him from returning to power. The dispute comes as Pakistan attempts to overcome an economic crisis and secure funds to avoid defaulting on international loans.
While some aspects of Ukraine's military response to the Russian invasion have been prompt, others have been slow. The UK, the US and Poland have given military support to Ukraine swiftly, but other countries have been extremely slow. Defence companies are ready to step up and Ukraine needs a more flexible pipeline of orders. Any country has the right to defend itself and ask its friends for help. NATO should review the commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence by next year; a new minimum of 2.5% should be the target to ensure democracy is safe.
Nine people have been killed and over 100 hospitalised after a stampede took place at an El Salvadorian sports stadium as football fans arrived to watch a local tournament between Alianza and FAS. It is believed that the incident began when the fans entered the stadium and encountered a crush at the entry gate. The match was then suspended as medical personnel worked to evacuate the stadium and treat the victims.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's attendance at the Group of Seven summit, held to discuss among other things nuclear disarmament, has overshadowed a chance to push world leaders to abolish nuclear arms, some survivors of the Hiroshima bombing have said. Zelenskyy was seeking support for Ukraine in its ongoing conflict with Russia. The summit included a leaders’ visit to a peace park and museum dedicated to atomic bombing victims, but Yuta Takahashi, a Hiroshima-born activist, said Zelenskyy's presence sent a message that the need for nuclear deterrence was necessary to prevent Ukraine becoming another Hiroshima.
Nine people have been killed and dozens more injured after stampeding soccer stadium crowds pushed through access gates during a quarterfinal match in the Salvadoran league on March 18. The match between clubs Alianza and FAS at the Monumental stadium in Cuscatlan was suspended. Local television images showed the crush by Alianza fans, with dozens of people making it onto the field where they received medical treatment. Fans who escaped stood on the field waving shirts and attempting to review the gasping bodies lying on the grass. “It was an avalanche of fans who overran the gate. Some were still under the metal in the tunnel. Others managed to make it to the stands and then to the field and were smothered,” said an unidentified volunteer. The Salvadoran Soccer Federation issued a statement regretting the tragedy and sending support to the victims’ relatives.
A Ukrainian government spokesperson has denied that Russian troops have captured the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, following a statement by President Volodymyr Zelensky at the G7 summit in Japan. Zelensky had originally appeared to confirm Russian claims that the city had fallen, but a spokesman said the president's response had referred to whether Russia had taken the town, not whether Ukraine had lost it. Russian forces had claimed to have taken the city on 21 August. The battle for Bakhmut had been one of the longest and bloodiest of the conflict so far.
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan is locked in a bitter feud with the country’s military leadership and military chief, Gen Asim Munir. Pakistan is now in political crisis and the feud appears to be personal and stem from a threat made by Gen Munir to investigate allegations of corruption surrounding Khan and his wife. Khan has accused Munir of being an architect of a campaign of persecution against him that is designed to keep him from returning to power. The dispute comes as Pakistan attempts to overcome an economic crisis and secure funds to avoid defaulting on international loans.
While some aspects of Ukraine's military response to the Russian invasion have been prompt, others have been slow. The UK, the US and Poland have given military support to Ukraine swiftly, but other countries have been extremely slow. Defence companies are ready to step up and Ukraine needs a more flexible pipeline of orders. Any country has the right to defend itself and ask its friends for help. NATO should review the commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence by next year; a new minimum of 2.5% should be the target to ensure democracy is safe.
Hezbollah staged a military exercise at a training site in southern Lebanon as it celebrated Liberation Day on 25 May, the anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from south Beirut in 2000. Dressed in masks and ramming through flaming hoops, fighters also used motorcycles to open fire as well as blowing up Israeli flags and a wall. The exercise came in the wake of heightened tension in Gaza and a maritime border agreement between Lebanon and Israel. Hezbollah senior official Hashem Safieddine proclaimed the exercise was to show the fighters’ complete readiness to cope with any Israeli aggression.
Estonia and Latvia are joining efforts to jointly acquire German air defense systems to protect their NATO nations’ airspaces. They are to acquire medium-range IRIS-T SLM air defense systems manufactured by Diehl Defense in Germany. Although the exact number and cost of the systems were not mentioned, they will consist of truck-mounted launchers and missiles and a separate command vehicle, and can be used to neutralize planes, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other threats such as cruise missiles and loitering munitions. Deliveries are estimated to begin in 2025.
Animal rights activists protested in Madrid against the Spanish archipelago, the Canary Islands next year where a €7m large-scale octopus farm aiming to confine millions of the solitary predators in pools is due to be built. Nova Pescanova, the seafood company supporting the project successfully bred five captivity-born generations of octopus in a pilot project in northern Spain. Farming octopus is regarded as a first step towards sustainable food production as global demand for the Mediterranean delicacy has expanded. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization state the United States recognised a 23% increase in exports, as China experienced a 73% surge between 2016 and 2018.
