As territories shift and divide families, desperate parents are travelling to Russia to find their children, many of whom have been moved into military camps or orphanages

As many as 35,000 Ukrainian children are still missing and thought to be held in Russia or Russian-occupied territories, according to an American team of experts, with families saying they are being forced to take desperate and risky measures to try to rescue them.

As Russian forces began their invasion in February 2022, children were abducted from care homes, from the battlefield after the death of their parents, or under coercion directly from their families.

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Taron Egerton and Jurnee Smollett hit every ball out of the park in this smart, mesmerising crime drama about arson investigators. It’s hugely entertaining – if you can make it through the shaky start

I never want to include spoilers, but sometimes they cannot be avoided. So, because I want you to stick with the new miniseries by Dennis Lehane, starring Taron Egerton (the pair reuniting after their great success with 2022’s Black Bird), and enjoy the myriad benefits it will reap, I urge you to ignore any misgivings you have about the first two episodes of Smoke. Most of them will fall away. The tonal inconsistencies, the apparent self-indulgence of Lehane with his protagonist’s hobby, the dabs of bad characterisation – just keep the faith. If you can’t, then Google the true crime podcast on which Smoke is based and work out what must be happening from there. I’m not giving you the title because you’ll be ruining a lot of fun for yourself.

It is not as though sticking with it will be too much of a hardship, even if you do have loads of questions. At its inception, Smoke is at the very least a solid police procedural. Egerton plays Dave Gudsen, a former firefighter who became an arson investigator after a traumatic callout put an end to his original career. When two serial arsonists start setting fires all over his patch and his searches for them stall, a detective from the local police department, Michelle Calderon (Jurnee Smollett), is brought in to help. She is in effect being punished for ending an affair with her captain (Rafe Spall) and is eager to catch the bad guys and restore her standing. Further complications to her private life include a mother in jail for an act first suggested by Calderon’s flashbacks to a terrifying experience in her childhood, then confirmed by her attendance at her mother’s parole hearing, in the face of deep hostility from her siblings.

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During more than three years of full-scale war, Ukraine’s firefighters have been working on the frontlines of Russia’s air war. Amid ongoing ceasefire negotiations, Russia has steadily intensified its airstrikes in recent weeks and months. Since 24 February 2022, photojournalist Jelle Krings has embedded with firefighters across Ukraine, documenting their lives. His photographs offer a glimpse into the daily reality of these wartime rescuers, who risk everything to save lives while under constant threat from Russian strikes themselves

Last week, on 17 June, Ukraine was attacked with 440 drones and 32 missiles. It was the fourth time this month that Russia launched more than 400 aerial weapons toward Ukraine in a single night, and one of the largest bombardments since the start of its full-scale invasion. For more than nine hours, Kyiv was kept awake by the buzzing sound of drones, the clusters of explosions caused by them and the incoming missiles, and the rattling of anti-aircraft guns firing to intercept them.

The Institute for the Study of War concluded in May that Russian forces have intensified long-range strikes against Ukraine since November 2024. Seven of the largest drone and missile strikes during the war to date were carried out since January 2025. In the same period, Vladimir Putin has stated publicly that Russia is committed to serious peace negotiations. The notion has been met with scepticism in Ukraine in light of the ongoing attacks.

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The final was me and a guy in a Dune outfit. I got the loudest cheer

When I first saw the flyer for the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest last October, I thought it was a joke. Lookalike contests were not mainstream yet. It was also taking place in New York’s Washington Square Park – a place I usually associate with chaos. But last year a TikTok of me at a London barbershop went viral before because people thought I resembled Timothée. So, a day before the contest, I headed to a charity shop and picked out an outfit that made me look like Timothée’s Willy Wonka. Why not?

I was shocked by the size of the crowd on the day. There were thousands there and I was swarmed by people wanting photos. Before the contest even began, the police had arrived to shut it down. We relocated to a nearby park. It was later announced that Timothée had crashed the contest but left when the cops arrived. I missed his visit entirely.

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Friedrich Merz is unwisely trying to revive the discredited postwar ‘guest worker’ programme

Friedrich Merz’s government has sent a clear message to anyone thinking about coming to live in Germany: don’t. Yet its message to those who want to come to Germany to work is: we need you.

This might sound like a contradiction, but it is a revival of the thinking that drove the “guest worker” programme of the postwar boom years. Between 1955 and 1973, West Germany sought to rebuild its economy by attracting labour, mainly from Turkey but also from Italy, Portugal and Yugoslavia. Yet it did so without giving much consideration to the human needs of the people coming.

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The execution of Takahiro Shiraishi would be the first instance of capital punishment in Japan since 2022

Japan has executed a man dubbed the “Twitter killer” who murdered and dismembered nine people he met online, in the nation’s first enactment of the death penalty since 2022.

Takahiro Shiraishi was sentenced to death for murdering and dismembering nine people he met on the social media platform, now called X, in 2017. He was hanged on Friday.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Takahiro Shiraishi made contact with his victims on social media then lured them to his apartment.

The subpoena letter adds yet another front to the battle between the university and Republicans in Washington.

Celebrities were seen in water taxis on Venice's canals in the lead up to the lavish multi-million dollar ceremony.

The Justice Department has demanded that James E. Ryan step down to help resolve a civil rights investigation into the school, three people familiar with the matter said.