Weather tracker: Typhoon Podul pounds southern Taiwan | Environment

Typhoon Podul crossed southern Taiwan on Wednesday with wind speeds of up to 110mph (177km/h), equivalent to a category 2 hurricane. Podul had developed a week earlier, near the Northern Mariana Islands, and tracked west across the Philippine Sea, achieving typhoon status on Tuesday before making landfall in south-east Taiwan the following day. Podul whipped … Read more

The Guardian view on Keir Starmer and the Ukraine summit: a pivot point for Labour policy too | Editorial

The aim of Thursday’s Downing Street meeting between Sir Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelenskyy could not have been clearer. It was to send a strong visual political message to President Trump on the eve of his Alaska talks with Vladimir Putin. Neither the prime minister nor Ukraine’s president spoke publicly. The Ukraine leader was greeted … Read more

Merz’s manoeuvres on world stage fail to quell doubts about his leadership | Friedrich Merz

Friedrich Merz hosted the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Wednesday as a weakened leader 100 days into his term, with his attempts to rally western support for Kyiv and wrangle Donald Trump failing to silence his domestic critics. The German chancellor took the initiative for Wednesday’s lightning round of telephone conferences bringing in EU leaders, … Read more