Read the daily news to learn English

Iran launches more strikes after reports of US attack near nuclear plant – Middle East crisis live

Per my last post, the funeral procession of Iran’s assassinated former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approached the country’s holiest shrine for his burial on Thursday with a massive banner reading “We Will Kill Trump” pulled alongside in the enormous crowd. As a week of funeral events reaches its ⁠culmination, Khamenei’s son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei ⁠is still hidden from public view after being injured in the strike that killed his father. Khamenei’s body was carried by truck slowly through the crammed Mashhad streets towards the gilt dome and minarets of the Shrine of Imam Reza, flanked by white-turbaned clerics. Black-clad ⁠mourners pressed in close behind, waving Iranian flags, photographs of the late Khamenei and red placards with revolutionary slogans. Hostilities with the United States burst out again this week despite a truce, with Iran still controlling the vital strait of Hormuz waterway and proclaiming its victory in having survived a months-long assault by its ⁠most powerful enemies. The whereabouts of Mojtaba Khamenei, proclaimed supreme leader by a ‌clerical assembly a week after his father’s death, has remained a mystery to Iranians. He has not appeared in public since the war began with the strike that killed his father on 28 February, and while he has issued written statements, no image or video or voice recording of him has been issued. He suffered debilitating injuries in that same strike, his face disfigured and limbs badly wounded. Senior sources in Tehran have told Reuters he is recovering but that he has not yet been well enough to manage public appearances and state security services are also trying to limit his exposure in case of more US attacks. As crowds jostled in Mashhad awaiting Khamenei’s funeral cortege, the crowd chanted slogans demanding revenge on Donald Trump for his ‌killing. “I swear by the blood of the supreme leader, Trump, we will kill you!” they shouted, with women holding up placards reading “Kill Trump”. The roads leading to the shrine were a sea of black-clad mourners on Thursday, some responding to shouted chants in praise of Khamenei and against Iran’s enemies, including the old revolutionary slogan of “Death to America”. As the crowds awaited the coffins of Khamenei and his family in the sweltering July heat, hoses pumped water high into the air to spray across the mourners and keep them cool. Khamenei’s remains, along with those of four family members killed alongside him, have already been paraded through Tehran, the Shi’ite Muslim clerical centre of Qom, and the Iraqi shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala. At each event, huge crowds have thronged the streets to the mournful accompaniment of sung Shi’ite laments and chanted revolutionary slogans.

‘It was back-to-back explosions’: Iranians recall 48 hours of terror after US attack on port cities

Residents in southern Iran have described two nights of fear this week after explosions shook coastal communities as the US launched fresh strikes on targets including the port cities of Bandar Abbas and Sirik. US Central Command confirmed the attacks, saying they were carried out to “further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the strait of Hormuz”. For residents in Posht-e Shahr, Bandar Abbas, back-to-back explosions marked another night of terror as they scrambled to check on friends and family. Noor, a teacher who lives near the fishing pier, said this week’s strikes were stronger than most in recent months. “Right now there’s calm, but last night and the night before were terrifying. It was around 1am or so that I heard back-to-back explosions – at least 10. There were perhaps also the sounds of the air defences. We have a little cat at home. He was so scared and hid under the bed,” said Noor, who like the other residents, asked to use a pseudonym. The 40-year-old said fear is growing that the attacks may continue. At sunset, she feels increasingly unsettled about what the night may bring. “My biggest fear is for the fishermen. I live very close to the pier, and I know there were so many boats there with just fishermen trying to start early because it’s getting hot early in the morning.” “I found out that many more have been injured in last night’s strikes, and several are dead. I am really worried that this time the impact will be worse for civilians,” she said. Iranian authorities say at least 14 people have been killed in attacks over the past two days, with more than 78 injured. The fresh strikes also hit Sirik, another port city about 180km from Bandar Abbas. For those living in villages around Sirik, this week’s strikes have compounded existing challenges, including water shortages – which were exacerbated by US attacks on two water storage facilities. Those strikes have reportedly affected more than 20,000 civilians. Mina, 41, a mother of two, has been rationing water and paying for water cans for daily chores in the days since June’s attacks. She says further strikes would worsen already dire living conditions as temperatures rise above 45C. “We have a water shortage every year, but last month’s attacks on the drinking water plants mean we need to not only prepare for yearly water crises during summer but also for any new attacks like the one last night. Everyone is fearful, especially since we have been regularly targeted,” she adds. Many families rely on fishing and maritime work, and leaving in the face of a full-blown war would be a difficult decision, Mina says. “We can afford to leave for a few days, but not for a long time, and at this point we have no idea what to prepare for. We feel abandoned and in the dark.” Asked what her friends and family intend to do if the conflict escalates, Noor says: “We have to stay here because our livelihoods depend on it. I am afraid they [the regime] will once again shut down the internet completely if the war begins.” After an 88-day internet blackout imposed by Iranian authorities, connectivity was partially restored in May, but many people had by then already lost their income. Ahead of another night of anxiety, the residents said there was little hope the ceasefire will hold. Mohsen, another resident of Bandar Abbas, saidhe felt hopeless and insecure. “When the ceasefire happened, I felt that perhaps peace and calm could return to our lives, and we had started working on healing our psychological trauma. But then the bombings have started again, and the feelings of despair, hopelessness and insecurity have become stronger,” he wrote. Mohsen described being trapped in a cycle of endless unanswered questions. “What will happen after this? How are we supposed to plan for the continuation of our lives? How long are we going to remain in this terrifying state of limbo?”

US and Iran trade most intense strikes since ceasefire extended

The US and Iran traded strikes hours before the burial of the late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday, with 17 people killed by US strikes while Tehran launched attacks against American bases in the region, straining an already shaky ceasefire. The tit-for-tat strikes were the largest since Tehran and Washington signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on 17 June aimed at extending the ceasefire and giving space for negotiations for a permanent truce. Sirens sounded at least three times in Bahrain, where the US navy’s fifth fleet is headquartered, while Iranian missiles also targeted Kuwait and Qatar. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it fired 10 ballistic missiles at Jordan’s Azraq military base on Thursday afternoon, which the US air force uses. There were no immediate reports of any damage in Jordan or the Gulf. In Iran, officials said strikes targeted the perimeter of Iran’s only civilian nuclear plant in Bushehr province, an area where the UN’s nuclear watchdog has previously warned that attacks could “pose a very real danger to nuclear safety”. “Several areas in Bushehr province were targeted today, including the perimeter of the nuclear power plant, a military base in the town of Choghadak and a fishing pier in the south of the province,” said Ehsan Jahanian, the deputy governor of Bushehr, adding there were no reports of casualties so far. The attacks came hours after Donald Trump said the MoU was “over” because of Iranian attacks on ships in the strait of Hormuz. After the strikes, the US president posted videos of explosions in Iran and threatened the country once again. “This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Hours before, he had promised strikes would not lead to long-term fighting but would be “very fast”. His comments and the exchange of fire prompted worries that the ceasefire could break down and raised concerns about the long-term prospects of negotiations. Significant gaps remain between the two countries over issues such as Iran’s control over the strait, as well as inspections of nuclear facilities. Back-and-forth attacks have happened since the MoU was signed, but Thursday’s strikes were the most intense in weeks. They came as Iran prepared to bury Khamenei in his home town of Mashhad. A fighter jet escorted the plane carrying Khamenei’s coffin amid the tense security situation. Crowds of people gathered for the occasion, some holding banners promising vengeance against the US. Observers waited to see if Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, would attend the burial. He was wounded in the same series of strikes that killed his father and has since only communicated through written statements. The US military said it hit about 90 targets in Iran, showing footage of strikes on missile launchers and a runway. It said the attacks were meant to degrade Iran’s capacity to “threaten freedom of navigation” in the strait of Hormuz, a critical choke point for about 20% of the world’s oil and gas. Iran accused the US of war crimes after it said two bridges in the eastern provinces leading to the city of Mashhad were targeted. The bridges constitute key infrastructure for Iran’s cross-border trade with China, which has dramatically increased since the start of the war. Trump has repeatedly threatened to hit bridges, power plants and other civilian infrastructure in Iran. Targeting civilian infrastructure if it is not a military objective could amount to a war crime. Iranian state media also reported explosions in several cities, including Bushehr, which houses Iran’s nuclear power plant complex. At least three people were killed in Iran’s south-western Khuzestan province, while a firefighter was killed in an airport in the south-eastern city of Iranshahr. Nine members of Iran’s military also died in strikes on Wednesday. The US attacked Iran after Iran struck three ships in the strait of Hormuz on Tuesday. Iran stopped virtually all shipping out of the strait during the war, sending global energy prices soaring and putting pressure on Trump domestically before midterm elections. The MoU calls for the reopening of the strait to commercial shipping for 60 days. Iran says it wants to charge fees to ships transiting through the strait, conflicting with the US, which says it is an international waterway and should not have tolls. Iran continues to view its control over the strait as an important source of leverage in its negotiations with the US, while Trump appears to view strikes on Iran as a way of increasing pressure on Tehran. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a senior Iranian negotiator and parliament speaker, said US pressure would not lead anywhere. “America still hasn’t learned that bullying and breaking promises are no longer cost-free,” he said in a post on X. “Let me put it plainly: If you strike, you’ll get hit.” Mediators attempted to de-escalate tensions between the US and Iran in an effort to salvage negotiations. The Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, a key intermediary between the countries, spoke to Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, on Thursday, condemning Tehran’s strikes on ships in the strait. “His excellency stressed that such actions would undermine trust, threaten international maritime security, and harm efforts to consolidate regional security and stability,” a statement from the Qatari foreign ministry said. Negotiations towards reaching a final deal were intended to start after the conclusion on Thursday of Khamenei’s seven-day funeral. The two days of strikes meant talks would be held amid escalating tensions Trump had said on Wednesday that negotiators were “wasting their time”. Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, shot back at Trump, calling his comments “a confession to the failure of a policy that has been based on force, sanctions and threats for years and could not bring the Iranian nation to its knees”. Gharibabadi wrote on X: “With the criminal and the murderer Trump, one must speak his own language, apparently understands the language of force better!” Additional reporting by Patrick Wintour

Licensed to drill? How a Trump-linked Texas oil company is elbowing its way into Greenland

On 10 June, a snowy-haired American in his 60s addressed the residents of a remote Greenland hamlet. He was there to tell them about a business venture supported by figures linked to Donald Trump. “So,” Robert Price said via an interpreter, “we have a project to drill for oil here.” The Texas oil company that Price represents, Greenland Energy, hopes to prove that billions of barrels of crude lie underground by bringing in 300 shipping containers of drilling kit. “We have the permit to put the equipment on the land,” footage of the gathering in Ittoqqortoormiit shows Price saying. “And then we’ve filed our permits – pending approval – to drill.” But Greenland’s resources ministry said that contrary to Price’s claim, there were “no actually active permissions for any exploration activity or permissions for preparations for these activities”. The dispute threatens a showdown between the Trump-linked backers of Greenland Energy and the authorities in the vast, sparsely populated territory. Trump’s lieutenants are using the prospect of an American oil find in Greenland to bolster their case for an American takeover. The US president’s special envoy to Greenland, the hard-right Louisiana governor, Jeff Landry, returned from a visit in May to declare on Fox News: “We need a deal. Greenland needs a deal. We could be – Greenland could be – exporting 2m barrels of oil a day right now.” Landry, who says his task is to “make Greenland a part of the US”, added: “We could have those barrels on production within 10 months or so.” Greenland Energy appears to be the only company making plans to drill in the territory. Despite seemingly not yet having permission, it has chartered an Arctic-going vessel to ferry its equipment 4,000km through icy waters to Greenland’s eastern coast. Price, an energy industry veteran who has become the public face of the company, said the vessel would depart in two months, on 12 September, with drilling to begin in October. Halliburton, the giant Houston-based contractor once led by the former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney, will run the logistics. Ever since Trump made his imperial desires for Greenland explicit, US business interests have been gaining footholds in its vast expanses. The ventures range from rare-earth minerals and hydroelectric power to bottling “luxury” spring water. Greenlanders have watched nervously as Trump has exercised US military power and toyed with doing so in the Danish territory. The day after he sent special forces to snatch the leader of Venezuela, Trump said: “We do need Greenland, absolutely.” Trump cited oil as the reason the US needed to stamp its authority on Venezuela. The US has since extracted oil revenues of about $8bn with scant oversight. Arriving at this week’s Nato summit in Turkey, Trump renewed his call for the US to wrest control of Greenland from Denmark. Among those alarmed is Avaaraq Olsen, the mayor of the region that covers the capital, Nuuk, and extends east across Jameson Land, where the oil drilling is planned. She said she was “so afraid” that Americans striking oil could align with Trump’s plans. “We are like the most peaceful place on Earth,” she said. “And we have always lived in peace and harmony. And suddenly there is all these Americans trying to take over.” Licence to drill Greenland stopped issuing licences to explore for oil in 2021 after 50 years of fruitless drilling. “The environmental consequences of oil exploration and extraction are too great,” a minister said at the time. But a handful of licences remained valid. They included some covering a chunk of Jameson Land, a region closer to London than to Washington. These licences belong to a company registered in the UK called 80 Mile. It is those licences that Greenland Energy, formed last year and listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York, is hoping to exploit by putting up $60m to drill two wells in exchange for a majority stake in the project. Price has claimed that crude worth $1tn (£750bn) could lie beneath Jameson Land. “I believe it’s there,” he said during the meeting in Ittoqqortoormiit, a settlement of 300 people in Jameson Land. “The scientists believe that it’s there. But until we drill these wells, we don’t know.” The wells are expected to be drilled in an area protected by the global Ramsar Convention to preserve wetlands. David Boertmann, an expert on Greenland’s birds, said the conservation zone hosts important numbers of barnacle geese and pink-footed geese as well as whimbrel, golden plover, Sabine’s gull and snowy owl, plus muskoxen. Oil exploration activities could threaten the birds’ habitat, Boertmann said. Greenland Energy’s stock market filings make clear that its plans can go ahead only if Greenland’s government grants permission for drilling and for it to take a stake in any oil extraction that follows. There are signs that the government may be reluctant to do so. Days after Price’s comments, Greenland’s minister for mineral resources, Múte B Egede, said he could “understand if citizens are concerned” about the project’s connections to Trump. He added: “Activities cannot be carried out until the necessary permits have been granted. I must say again that the company’s statements to the public do not always reflect the actual situation.” Greenland Energy declined to respond to questions from the Guardian. But Larry Swets, a financier who is one of Greenland Energy’s biggest shareholders and serves as executive chair, has acknowledged: “Our enthusiasm for the project led us to communicate in a way that created confusion about who is responsible for what in Greenland – and that benefited no one, least of all the local communities closest to the project.” Trump connections At the Ittoqqortoormiit meeting, one person asked whether Swets had “close relations with Trump”. Price replied: “Not that I know of.” Social media posts by Swets’s wife appear to show that this year she visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. Swets did not respond to questions about whether he had accompanied his wife to Trump’s Florida residence, which serves as a presidential court away from the White House. Although Swets has said the oil project is “not related to American annexation”, Greenland Energy’s connections to the US president are growing, as the company amasses an eclectic array of Trump-linked backers. In April, the Wall Street billionaire Kenneth Griffin bought 9% of Greenland Energy’s shares. Griffin is a Republican mega-donor and, despite criticising the Trumps’ self-enrichment, gave $1m towards the president’s second inauguration. Then in June, a US Navy veteran, Carol Craig, joined Greenland Energy’s board. Sidus Space, the defence tech company she founded, is working on Trump’s Golden Dome missile defence system. Trump has said that controlling Greenland, home to the US armed forces’ space base at Pituffik, is a “vital” part of the Golden Dome plan. The same month, Greenland Energy announced a deal with Phil McGraw’s Envoy Media. Better known as Dr Phil, the TV personality’s 20 years hosting a talkshow that spun out of Oprah Winfrey’s show made him a household name in the US. McGraw spoke at a Trump rally in 2024. After Trump’s victory, McGraw “embedded” himself with ICE agents enforcing Trump’s immigration crackdown. His latest venture, a documentary series about Greenland Energy, will be broadcast on cable and social media and, according to the company, will “capture the mission of these modern-day wildcatters”. Discussing the prospect of oil with Swets and Price in a YouTube curtain-raiser, McGraw says: “We’ve heard Trump talk about buying Greenland and everybody laughed, but actually there is some real value to Greenland.” Days later, McGraw was in the Oval Office with Trump, saying how honoured he was to serve on the president’s Religious Liberty Commission. “Thank you very much, Phil,” Trump said. “I appreciate your support.” Some Greenland Energy shareholders are hoping the president will show similar appreciation for its Arctic oil exploration. On a dedicated Telegram group, they discuss what might send the company’s stock price higher. Referring to a presidential plug for the company that could make them richer before a drop of oil has been drilled, they are hoping to secure what they are calling a “Trump pump”.

Barcelona registers highest temperature in 112 years as French nuclear reactor shuts down due to extreme heat – as it happened

Large parts of western Europe are experiencing another extreme heatwave this summer with temperatures in high 30s across Spain and France. High temperatures up to mid-30s are also expected across the south and south-west of England today and tomorrow, with a public health alert in place (10:18). A high temperature warning has also been issued for a dozen counties in the Republic of Ireland (12:00). The heatwave is expected to continue into the next week (13:37), with authorities telling residents to look after vulnerable family and friend members, avoid prolonged heat exposure, and look out for wildfires (10:29, 11:45). The extreme weather is also testing the continent’s infrastructure with a reactor at the Golfech nuclear power plant near Toulouse temporarily shut down due to the ongoing heatwave (13:40). Stay cool, everyone, and remember: keep drinking fresh water. If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Germany set to make rental e-scooter operators liable for accidents

Victims hit by rental e-scooters on German streets will have an easier time gaining compensation from their operators under legislation due to be passed in parliament that would put the vehicles on a legal footing similar to that of cars. The draft law by the right-left coalition government, which has been welcomed by consumer rights advocates, says that given the rapid rise in the use of e-scooters in recent years coupled with high accident rates, rental operators such as Lime and Bolt should be held liable. “Those who earn money renting e-scooters should also take responsibility for the damage caused by these vehicles,” said the justice minister, Stefanie Hubig, one of the bill’s sponsors, before the vote which was scheduled for Thursday night. Riders will also share liability for any “presumed fault” in a collision they are believed to have caused, in line with policies that already apply to other motorised vehicles, such as cars. E-scooters have been permitted on German roads since 2019 and are restricted to riders aged 14 and over. The new law, which does not address other motorised rentals such as e-bikes, also targets accidents caused by e-scooters improperly left on footpaths and pavements, a problem in German cities which operators and local authorities are under pressure to address. The government cited figures showing e-scooter accidents in which the number of people hurt or killed had more than doubled since 2021, from 5,535 to nearly 12,000 in 2024. The latter figure made up about 4% of all traffic accidents with casualties. Twenty-seven people died in such accidents in 2024, all of them being the riders ofthe e-scooters. About 1,500 people were badly hurt, and about 11,400 sustained minor injuries. Insurance sector data shows that rental e-scooter users tend to be younger, less experienced and more likely to ride on pavements than owners of the vehicles. The government said the number of non-riders who were hit rose to about 5,000 in 2023 from 1,150 in 2020. Data on accidents caused by incorrectly parked e-scooters are not collected centrally. Victims are currently required to show that the e-scooter rider was at fault to file a claim – a standard of proof difficult to provide because the riders are often hard to conclusively identify. In accidents caused by e-scooters improperly parked in public spaces such as pavements, it is even more difficult to find the person at fault. Under the new law, the rental companies themselves can be held responsible and victims can gain compensation directly from the firms. “The rights of affected passersby are being strengthened vis-a-vis the operating companies – they [the victims] will no longer be left just to foot the bill,” Beate Saupe, from the Saxony state consumer advice centre, told public broadcaster MDR. However, Anna Montasser, of the Shared Mobility lobbying group representing e-scooter operators, said the industry expected fraudulent claims to rise. “Damage caused to a person or property can simply be attributed to a provider, entirely regardless of fault,” she said, adding that the legislation could set off a flood of lawsuits that would “inundate German courts”. It was relatively easy to identify a rider who caused a collision based on rental data showing who was using it at the time, Montasser said. But the individuals responsible for accidents caused by e-scooters left in hazardous spots were trickier to trace, she said, noting it was often third parties who overturned scooters, creating obstacles for pedestrians or damaging parked cars. German voters welcomed the plans, with 67% saying they favoured the new liability rules for operators, according to a YouGov poll. The government has already approved a tightening of safety rules for e-scooters from next year, requiring new models to have turn indicators and imposing higher fines for those who ride with two or more people on board. In Great Britain, nearly 500 people were seriously injured in collisions involving e-scooters last year, government statistics have shown.

LGBTQ+ cruise ship refused entry to Egypt days after Turkey turned it away

An LGBTQ+ cruise ship blocked from Turkish waters this week has been refused entry into Egypt. The Scarlet Lady’s 2,000 passengers, including the Broadway performer Patti LuPone, woke on Thursday morning to find a note placed under their cabin doors informing them that the ship was urgently looking for alternative ports. “Early this morning, we were informed that Scarlet Lady has been denied entry into Egyptian waters, and, as a result, will no longer be able to call in Alexandria today,” Rich Campbell, the chief executive of Atlantis Events, the tour group that chartered the Virgin Voyages ship, told passengers. “I know how much this visit meant to so many of you. We successfully sailed a similar itinerary last year without issue. So we were surprised by this unfortunate decision,” he wrote. The note concluded: “Please know that both the Atlantis and Virgin Voyages teams worked tirelessly to make this call in Alexandria a possibility. This news came as a surprise to all of us, and we’re just as disappointed as you are.” The visit to Egypt was already a change to the planned tour, hastily arranged after the ship was refused entry to Turkey. No official reason has yet been given for the decision of the Egyptian government. The 10-day Athens to Venice cruise was blocked from Turkey after authorities published a statement online saying the cruise was chartered “by groups known for behaviours that do not align with the structure of our society and our moral values”. The ship’s arrival had been cancelled after it “sparked significant public concern”, they added. “There is absolutely no possibility of the group in question visiting our province for an event of this nature.” Randy Slovacek, who is on the cruise, wrote on his blog: “In the company’s 36-year history, Atlantis had never had a ship denied entry to dock. And now it’s happened in two countries in one week. “Trust and believe, me and my fellow passengers will be fine: if they don’t want our tourism, we will sparkle and spend elsewhere. As my fellow blogger Joe Jervis once wrote: ‘They wish we were invisible. We’re not. Let’s dance.’” Kyle Olsen, the owner of Hermes Holidays, another LGBTQ+ tour company, said he believed that if Turkey had not refused entry to the ship this week, Egypt would not have issued its ban. “I worry that other countries are going to be emboldened in turn to ban gay cruises from their ports as well,” he said. “This is a sad representation of the way the world is going. Successive governments are falling to rightwing groups and the rights of LGBT+ people are being taken away as a result across the globe.” Olsen said that after the actions of Turkey and Egypt, he would not be recommending the countries to his customers. “But it’s important to note that the views of the government are not necessarily reflective of the views of the peoples of those countries,” he said. “We’ve been to Turkey and Egypt many times in the past and have found the people very warm, friendly and engaging.” Olsen, who has friends onboard the Scarlet Lady, said the Egypt stop had been expected to be a high point of the tour by the passengers, who had got up at 6am to be ready for the day. “This was literally a last-minute call by the Egyptian government,” said Olsen. “The night before, everything was fine. “Lots of passengers had paid a lot of money for private tours to see the pyramids and the museums. It was going to be the trip of lifetime but now they’re in limbo.” The ship has now been rerouted a second time, and will be docking in Chania, Crete, on Friday and Montenegro on Sunday. Campbell called Turkey’s decision “stunning”, telling CNN: “The reasoning behind it is that it’s a gay group.” Atlantis had chartered cruises to Turkey 13 times over the past 25 years without incident, he added, and calls involving the US embassy in Turkey had failed to reverse the ban. LuPone, the 77-year-old Tony award winner who is performing on the ship, shared her shock regarding the news on Instagram on Saturday. “The Atlantis cruise I am performing on next week has been banned from entering Turkey,” she wrote. “A ship – a magnificent ship – full of gay men. And me. Denied entry to Turkey simply because of who is onboard. “I am furious, but I am sailing, as the ship will make other ports of call. I am ready to perform for all the wonderful men on this Atlantis cruise, who deserve so much better than this.” Atlantis Events and Virgin Voyages have been approached for comment.

Pets can suffer heatstroke even when resting, UK vets warn

Extreme temperatures are causing heatstroke in pets even when they are restricted to homes and gardens, vets have warned, as parts of the UK enter the third heatwave of the year. Temperatures have reached 40C or more in recent weeks in countries including Germany, France and Spain, with western Europe experiencing its hottest June on record. While such events have been linked to hundreds of excess deaths in people, the rising mercury is also taking its toll on animals. Experts say cases of heatstroke in pets typically used to occur when owners walked their dogs in the heat of the day or left them in a hot car, but there are now cases in animals resting at home. Dr Katharine Nelson, the director of general practice at the Royal Veterinary College, said: “We haven’t seen any heatstroke as a result of exercising dogs in the heat. So, nobody’s been walking their dogs, throwing a ball, locking them in a car – all the common ways we used to see heatstroke have not happened this time because it’s been so extreme. Everybody’s been aware and been really sensible.” But Nelson said, even so, there had been a definite, albeit moderate, increase in cases of heatstroke during recent heatwaves “when dogs have just been allowed to wander around their own garden or they’ve had to travel somewhere so they have got stressed. We’ve seen that a lot with cats in their carriers,” she said. Dave Martin, a vet and the head of welfare at Inspiring Vet Care, said: “I think people are much more aware of the obvious risks. But what we are seeing is the ones that people haven’t perhaps thought about, and that’s catching people out.” Martin said that included dogs overheating by lying in sunny gardens and cats getting trapped in greenhouses – with the heat even affecting rabbits resting in hutches and runs, particularly if there was less shade than usual. Inspiring Vet Care said its vets dealt with 355 incidents related to suspected heatstroke in 2025, 66% of which occurred during the summer months, with the total number of cases a 28% increase compared with 2024. “You think you’re keeping [your pet] safe, you’re doing all the obvious things, you’re following all the good advice about not putting them in the car, not walking them at midday, all of that, but still finding that it’s just that warm that we’re getting problems unexpectedly,” Martin said. Martin said high-profile campaigns – such as those to prevent dogs being left in hot cars – had worked well. “Butwe are getting some really unusually warm days and some dogs are just very at risk of heat stress. And those two combinations mean that they are getting hot and bothered just being in the garden, in the house,” he said. Nelson said heatstroke was much more common in flat-face breeds, those with thick coats and those with respiratory problems or heart disease. “Dogs that have been stable on medicine, the hot weather has pushed them over into not being stable. And again, that’s not because the owners have been exercising them or doing silly things, it’s just been from the temperature,” she said. She added: “We’ve even seen a guinea pig with heat stress.” Other signs that pets are struggling in the heat include heavy panting, confusion, lethargy and vomiting. Nelson said advice aimed at keeping homes cool for humans was also important for pets, such as closing curtains during the day and keeping windows closed when the temperature is higher outside then opening them when the situation reverses. She also said that in extreme temperatures, dog owners should be prepared to skip walks altogether and replace physical exercise with mental stimulation such as playing scent games indoors. Nelson said cats were most likely to suffer from the heat if they were stressed. “So postpone stressful activities and travel if possible until temperatures drop. If cats do need to travel then a well-ventilated box with a damp towel on the bottom, in an air-conditioned vehicle is the safest way to transport them.” Martin said owners should ensure pets had plenty of water, while fans could also be helpful. He also suggested using a hose, sprinkler or watering can to wet them, because as the water evaporated it would cool the pet. He said owners of dogs that were not clipped could consider removing hair around their undercarriage to help them cool down. He added: “Fundamentally, if we’re somewhere that we’re feeling too warm, the pet will also be feeling too warm.”