Armed officers will be deployed for the UK’s largest Pride festival, police said following the attack on Berlin’s Pride event. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting condemned the “absolutely horrific” van and stabbing attack in the German capital that left one person dead and injured at least 29 others. The suspect – named as Abdul B and said to have links to Islamic State – was shot dead by police on Sunday after being on the run for nearly 24 hours. He was suspected of slamming a van into people...

Shots were fired early on Monday at the US consulate in Toronto, Canadian police said, the second shooting near the diplomatic compound in four months. No injuries were reported. An officer guarding the consulate “heard the sound of a gunshot in the vicinity here where he was stationed” at about 4.45am, the city’s deputy police chief Frank Barredo told reporters, adding that the consulate’s facade was struck by a bullet. Toronto police said a white car with no licence plates was seen fleeing the...

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva agreed on Sunday night to accelerate negotiations for a trade agreement between China and Mercosur, a striking reversal for Brasilia, which for years led resistance to such a deal in the South American bloc. The two leaders spoke by telephone for more than an hour, according to a statement from the Brazilian presidency, and “coincided on the importance of speeding up the talks for a Mercosur-China agreement that...

A major new bridge linking Canada and the United States at Detroit, Michigan opened on Monday to lorries, cars and other vehicles, the climax of a years-long project that lately had been bruised a bit by international politics. Descendants of Gordie Howe, the hockey legend whose name is on the bridge, were among the first to cross over the Detroit River, which separates Detroit from Windsor, Ontario. The span, which was built by Canada at a cost of C$6.4 billion (US$4.5 billion), now becomes a...

Former FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) director James Comey urged a judge on Monday to throw out federal charges against him, arguing that a photo of seashells arranged on a beach he posted on social media was not a call to violence against US President Donald Trump but protected political speech. Comey’s lawyers argue the government cannot prove the Instagram photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47” constituted a “true threat” against the Republican president, who fired...

UK television personality Bill Oddie, best known for his role in the television comedy series The Goodies and presenter of nature programmes, has died aged 85, his agent said on Monday. “Bill was a multitalented celebrity – wildlife presenter, broadcaster, comedian, writer, songwriter, musician and conservationist,” Oddie’s agent, David Foster, said in a statement. “Yet it was never fame that he valued. Instead he encouraged us to respect and protect the environment. “He taught us the wonder of...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in the UK on Monday for talks with new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, with Britain set to offer Kyiv fresh help to breach Russian air defences. “The key priorities are air defence, maritime security, and joint defence production,” Zelensky said in a social media post on his arrival. “Over the years of the full-scale war, we have built the strongest relationship in the entire history of cooperation between Ukraine and the United Kingdom.” The UK is...