Good morning.
A UK justice minister has described the case of a British woman strangled by a US fighter pilot on UK soil as “really serious” and said the Ministry of Justice would examine it.
Sarah Steele, an academic, has come forward to speak about the “distressing and degrading” experience she had with the US military justice system after she was assaulted by the airman. Jacob Wulfson assaulted Steele in Cambridge in late 2023 after the pair met on a dating app. US military police quickly took over the case and the pilot was tried by US air force prosecutors.
UK law enforcement has primary jurisdiction over crimes that occur outside US bases while military personnel are off duty. Steele’s case has put a spotlight on how UK authorities cede authority to the US military.
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Why did a US fighter pilot avoid British trial after strangling a woman in England? Technically, the UK authorities should have primary jurisdiction to prosecute crimes allegedly perpetrated by US service members off duty and off base. But the Wulfson case is one of several uncovered by the Guardian in which UK police and prosecutors appear to be ceding responsibility to their US military counterparts.
Supreme court conservatives accused of advancing ‘white-supremacist agenda’
Lawmakers and immigration advocacy groups have sharply denounced two US supreme court rulings that allowed the Trump administration to strip certain immigration protections and fundamentally reshape the asylum system.
Dozens of groups, advocates and members of Congress called the court’s decisions “disastrous” and “cruel”, while the Trump administration, Republican lawmakers and anti-immigrant groups celebrated the rulings.
“Today, Trump’s loyalists in the supreme court have joined forces with him to deny immigrants’ internationally recognized human rights and advance an authoritarian, white-supremacist agenda at home,” said the Illinois congresswoman Delia Ramirez, a Democrat.
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What is temporary protected status (TPS), and why is it under threat? People with TPS have permission to live and work in the US because the Department of Homeland Security deemed their home countries to be unsafe. The Trump administration has attempted to slash the program for various countries in its anti-immigrant crusade.
Rescue teams race to Venezuela amid fears thousands killed in earthquakes
Rescue teams are racing to Venezuela’s shattered northern coast after two almost simultaneous earthquakes reduced dozens of buildings to rubble, killing at least 235 people with thousands more fatalities feared. Officials said at least 4,300 people were injured as rescue missions continue.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the defense department would help search and rescue teams deploy to the affected region. Venezuela’s main gateway, Simón Bolívar international airport, near the capital, Caracas, was badly damaged late on Wednesday afternoon by 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude quakes less than 40 seconds apart.
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Which area has been worst hit? The coastal area near the international airport, around the cities of La Guaira, Catia La Mar and Caraballeda, appears to have sustained by far the worst damage, with a string of large tower blocks levelled and people desperately hunting for missing loved ones.
In other news …
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A senior National Park Service official has said a liner along the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool was “cut with a sharp knife or razor” earlier this month, repeating Donald Trump’s claims of vandalism.
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Two countries on Nato’s eastern flank have warned that Russia is preparing a possible “provocation” in the Baltic states or Poland in an effort to test the cohesion of the western military alliance.
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The US men’s national soccer team have already made history this summer. They scored the most goals they ever have in a single World Cup game and wrapped up top spot in an evenly matched Group D with a game to spare.
Stat of the day: Xi Jinping has hosted more than a dozen leaders this year, as ‘middle powers’ look beyond the US
Xi Jinping meets Bangladesh’s new prime minister on Friday, the latest in a wave of world leaders to visit Beijing this year as the Chinese leader builds his influence and economic ties, and seeks to “shift the balance of power” away from the west. More than a dozen world leaders have visited so far this year.
Culture pick: Self-doubt, burnout … and Taylor Swift: why Toy Story 5 is the ultimate millennial girl movie
“Thirty years have passed since we first met Andy’s toys,” writes Hollie Richardson. “It’s an especially poignant milestone for the girls who are now older than his mum was back then. Nostalgia hits hard for anyone who has grown up with the franchise. But little could prepare me for the emotional punch of this latest film – and the very specific vulnerabilities it taps.”
Don’t miss this: As billionaires’ wealth soars, US workers struggle – ‘The rich keep getting richer for no good reason’
The US is home to 989 billionaires. They owned more than $9.2tn in wealth in 2026, up 31.8% since 2025, according to a report by Americans for Tax Fairness. On Thursday, California’s controversial billionaire tax measure officially made it to the ballot after an expensive and hard-fought campaign in which some of the world’s richest people poured millions into efforts to derail the measure.
Climate check: European heatwave is worst ever and impossible without climate crisis, scientists say
The heatwave scorching western Europe is the most severe and widespread ever and is only possible due to the climate crisis driven by fossil fuel burning, scientists have said. Almost half of Europe’s 850 largest cities were also enduring their worst ever heat stress, a combination of temperature and humidity, they found.
Last Thing: A little bird told her – scientist wins $100,000 prize for decoding birdsong
A scientist who decoded the mental dictionary that a bird uses to communicate has won a $100,000 prize for making progress towards a world in which humans can talk to the animals – without being met with a blank response. Dr Julie Elie at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded the 2026 Coller-Dolittle prize for two-way interspecies communication after working out the 11 core calls in the zebra finch vocabulary and their meanings.
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