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Man accused of ordering Daphne Caruana Galizia murder paid hitmen’s legal fees, court hears

A businessman accused of commissioning the murder of the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia spent more than €400,000 (£343,000) on legal fees for the hitmen convicted of her killing, prosecutors claim. Yorgen Fenech, the 44-year-old heir to one of Malta’s largest fortunes, arrived in court for the second day of his trial on Thursday in an unmarked armoured police vehicle. He is on house arrest having pledged a record bail estimated at €50m. Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist who had exposed corruption at the highest levels, was killed in a car bombing in October 2017. Three men have been convicted for planting a bomb under the seat of her car, in what prosecutors allege was a contract killing initiated and paid for by Fenech. In a day-long opening statement setting out the case against the businessman, the lead prosecutor described how a taxi driver called Melvin Theuma had transferred money to the bombers on Fenech’s behalf. The hitmen, brothers George and Alfred Degiorgio, are alleged to have received €150,000 to carry out the bombing, a further €5,000 in expenses after the event, and an even larger sum after being arrested. They are serving 40 years for voluntary homicide after pleading guilty. Addressing the jury in the courts of justice in Valletta, the prosecutor, Anthony Vella, said: “The accused also financed the legal defence of Alfred and George Degiorgio, through their brother, Mario. Theuma gave him over €400,000 and the police will provide testimony on that.” The Degiorgios were arrested in December 2017. Their legal bills were paid in the months that followed, the jury heard. Caruana Galizia was one of Malta’s best-known journalists, but attacks from the ruling party had made her a target, and public opinion about her legacy remains divided. Addressing the jury, Vella urged them to think of her humanity when making their deliberations. “Daphne Caruana Galizia was a very active journalist with a strong public profile and many investigations ongoing. They used to describe her as a witch, or ‘just a blogger’. “You may agree with what she wrote or not. That is not what matters here. She was a citizen like us, killed because of her work. What matters is that she was a mother, a person, a daughter, a wife, a sister. Daphne never saw her children’s children being born. These crimes cause irreparable harm. A person of flesh and blood, with her aspirations and her dignity. That is what concerns us here.” Caruana Galizia is survived by her three sons. Two are due to give testimony at the Fenech trial. Vella said the jury would also hear testimony from a neighbour who was driving in the opposite direction when the journalist’s car exploded. “A witness was passing by on the opposite lane. He saw her vehicle explode a few metres away from him. He heard a loud scream. The violent and barbaric way they killed her. In the last seconds of her life she realised that her life was over.” He said the hitmen, wanting to be sure Caruana Galizia would die, had attached a container of petrol to the bomb. Fenech, who is on trial for complicity in the voluntary homicide of Caruana Galizia, denies the charges. The trial continues.

Tell us about a local animal celebrity in your area

Wildlife officials have warned people to give Neil the seal space during his visit to Tasmania, where he has been crushing fences, blocking traffic and bashing into parked cars, in what experts say is play-fighting behaviour. Neil, a 1,000kg southern elephant seal, was born – unusually – in Tasmania in October 2020. Most of his kind live thousands of kilometres south on the subantarctic Macquarie and Heard islands. “[H]e’s certainly been a bit of a celebrity, and he continues to earn his status,” said Rod Macdonald, the mayor of Tasman council, which covers the area where Neil was born. With this in mind, we would like to hear about animals that have attained star status elsewhere. Do you have a local animal celebrity where you live? Tell us all about them below. If you’re having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here.

Canadian boy dies of rabies after waking to find bat on his face

Doctors in Canada say a child who awoke to find a bat resting on his nose and mouth while visiting an Ontario cottage later died of rabies, in an “exceedingly rare case” that highlights the need for better public awareness. In a report published this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, infectious disease physicians confirmed that the 11-year-old boy died from rabies, a fatality they said probably could have been prevented with greater awareness of how the virus is transmitted. The child was in northern Ontario with his family in 2024 when he woke up and found a bat on his face. He swatted it away and his father quickly caught it in a pot and released it outside. The parents did not see any scratches or bites on their son’s face or think the bat had been behaving oddly. As a result, they did not consider the possibility that their son had been infected by rabies, or take him to a doctor at that time. Rabies is “exceedingly rare” in Canada, the doctors wrote, with only 28 documented case since 1924 and the last confirmed case in Ontario dating back to 1967. Experts wrote that while rabid bats may show unusual behaviour – such as appearing during the daytime, resting on the ground, having difficulty flying or being easily approached, “the absence of these behaviours does not exclude rabies”. They noted that although skunks, raccoons and foxes carry rabies in North America, the primary animal is bats. Bites and scratches are often so small they are “easily overlooked”. The virus can also enter humans through bat saliva coming into contact with cuts, the eyes, nose or mouth. Nineteen days after his encounter with the bat, the boy developed tingling, numbness and swelling on the right side of his face. He was initially discharged with a presumed diagnosis of herpes gingivostomatitis but the bat exposure led the doctor to ask the local public health authority if anti-rabies medication should be given. By the next morning his conditions had worsened and he was admitted to intensive care with staff “strongly suspect[ing] rabies”. An MRI found lesions on the brain stem and tests indicated rabies. While the team considered administering rabies antibodies straight into the boy’s brain, the “invasive nature and lack of established efficacy” of the procedure led the family and medical team not to pursue further treatment. The rabies virus typically has a relatively long incubation period before symptoms start to show, but once they do there is no treatment or cure and it is usually fatal. If physicians suspect someone has been bitten or scratched by a bat, rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) – a series of treatments given after someone may have been exposed – is administered as quickly as possible and is “nearly always effective”, the paper says, citing overwhelming success in 29m cases. “Early recognition of exposure and timely PEP remain the only effective means of rabies prevention.”

Ethnicity pain gap: the epidural failed and no one believed me – I could feel everything

Julie Hammond, a 35-year-old mother of three from Kent, believes that the “excruciating” pain she experienced during the birth of her second child was not well managed by the medical professionals caring for her. “It’s difficult to put into words just how traumatic it was,” Hammond says. “I could just feel myself panicking throughout the whole procedure, while also trying to tell myself to calm down.” Following a difficult vaginal birth for her first child, Hammond had decided to have an elective caesarean for her second. But due to complications, her son was delivered by emergency caesarean at 35 weeks. Hammond was administered a spinal block, but remembers that at the time, she was still able to move her legs. “I mentioned this to my anaesthetist at the time, who told me not to worry, and just to relax,” Hammond says. “I definitely felt like I was being dismissed.” Despite Hammond raising the alarm that her anaesthetic hadn’t worked properly and she could still feel her legs and abdomen, no changes were made to the amount of anaesthetic she received. “I can’t describe how painful it was, and what a feeling it was to feel exactly everything that was happening,” Hammond says. “I could feel someone cutting through each layer of my skin, fat, and muscle, and I could feel when they’re manipulating my body [to get to the baby], because they’re pulling your muscles apart. I could literally feel every single part of what was happening to me.” Hammond’s experience of having her pain dismissed during childbirth is not as unusual as it should be. A Guardian investigation has found that women from minority ethnic backgrounds are less likely to receive adequate pain relief during labour compared with their white counterparts, building on a growing body of evidence that shows an “ethnicity pain gap” in how pain experienced by people of colour is minimised and left untreated. Although Hammond knew at the time that something had gone wrong with her pain relief, it wasn’t until she had another caesarean for her third child that she fully understood the extent to which her experience had not been normal. “With my most recent pregnancy, I told the consultant about what happened [during my last caesarean] and she confirmed to me that it wasn’t a normal experience and should not have happened at all.” On reflection, Hammond believes that her ethnicity was a factor in her being made to feel that she was exaggerating the pain. She had not thought this to be possible at first, as the medical professional treating her was also a person of colour. “My anaesthetist was an ethnic minority, too, so at the time when I had my experience, I thought it can’t be racism because I was treated by another doctor, and told myself I was just unlucky,” Hammond says. “It was only later on that I realised, even regardless of your skin colour, even if you’re from a global majority background, you can still internalise systemic racism. We are all taught this Eurocentric idea of how pain manifests.” A 2016 study found that a substantial number of medical students and residents held false beliefs about biological differences between black and white people, beliefs that predict racial bias in pain perception and treatment recommendation accuracy. Laypeople and medical staff were both found to hold beliefs such as “Black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s skin” or that “Black people’s nerve endings are less sensitive than white people’s”. People who held more false beliefs consistently rated black patients’ pain as lower than white patients’ pain, the study also found. Adewole Adamson, associate professor at Dell medical school at the University of Texas, said: “There has been progress in awareness which is commendable. However, the recent research points to the fact that the gap still persists and is slow to close. “Studies have revealed that even standardising pain management assessments does not lead to equal treatment for people from different ethnicities.” A 2023 study revealed that even when a standardised treatment plan for addressing postpartum pain, aimed at reducing overall postpartum opioid use, was introduced, it did not eliminate ethnic disparities in how this pain was managed. Gabriella Sarpong, a 39-year-old public health professional from Ilford, also feels that the pain she experienced during her labour in 2023 was repeatedly dismissed by healthcare professionals. Sarpong, who was in labour for 16 hours, had to be induced. When the medical professionals explained what types of pain relief would be available to her, she decided to have an epidural. It was when the anaesthetist began attempting to administer the epidural that Sarpong became concerned. “He kept asking me lots of questions, such as: ‘Do you think it’s in the right place,’” Sarpong says. “I remember thinking: if you’re an anaesthetist and you’re putting something in my back, how am I supposed to know? I remember looking at my husband, who looked so worried despite trying to remain composed.” For some reason that remains unclear to Sarpong, the epidural failed, leaving her in “immense” pain. “I was expressing that the epidural was not working but I wasn’t being taken seriously,” Sarpong says. “I was in horrendous pain … I remember the [anaesthetist] coming in and saying: you’re going to have to wait until the morning [to have it sorted], and I was left like that for 10 hours.” As a result, Sarpong was left without adequate pain relief throughout the whole night, and due to the failure of the epidural she wasn’t able to sleep or rest. “I was just in constant pain. Staff were coming in and out but nothing was done.” Sarpong, who was diagnosed with PTSD as a result of her experience, feels that being from a minority background was a contributing factor in her pain not being taken seriously. “I felt ignored and it was honestly the worst thing I’ve ever experienced,” Sarpong said. “I know that black women face worse outcomes when it comes to maternity care, so to experience that first-hand was really scary.” Chinasa Ezugha, 35, an arts professor from London, gave birth to her third child in 2025. “I was in a lot of pain, but I felt prepared and had an understanding of what pain medication was available to me. I requested an epidural because I understood that my labour was progressing really quickly,” Ezugha said. Despite having the right to ask for an epidural, Ezugha was denied one. Instead, the midwife kept telling her: “You don’t need it, you’re doing well without it.” “It was so condescending; I was in so much agony,” Ezugha said. “I felt humiliated because I was screaming, and I was in so much pain. I can’t describe to you how belittling the experience was.” Ezugha’s negative experience during her labour was not just because of being denied the pain relief she wanted, but also due to the way her midwife interacted with her. “When I was in excruciating pain, she was acting standoffish and didn’t even hold my hand or rub my back,” Ezugha said. “I remember reaching my hand out and the midwife just stood there.” Ezugha, who has an ongoing complaint with the hospital due to her experience, believes her ethnicity played a factor in her treatment. “I was already aware of the extra risks black women face during childbirth,” Ezugha said. “As a black mum we’re in a vulnerable position because we’re dealing with all the stereotypes already. It’s really important for black mothers to be heard, to be respected, and to be treated with dignity.” Fiona Gibb, the director of midwifery at the Royal College of Midwives, said that “any suggestion that women’s pain is not taken seriously, or that access to appropriate pain relief differs by ethnicity, is completely unacceptable”. “More consistent data collection is essential. Without robust data on pain relief, interventions and outcomes broken down by ethnicity, it is harder to identify where inequalities exist and to hold systems to account for addressing them,” she said.

Death toll rises to 21 with more than 80 injured in huge Russian attack on Kyiv –as it happened

We are now closing the blog. Here is your summary of the day so far: At least 21 people were killed and dozens injured overnight in Kyiv, local authorities said, in what the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko claimed was the worst Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital during more than four year’s of Russia’s air assault on Ukraine (9:25). Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed to “definitely” retaliate against Russia as he visited one of the sites of the attack (16:48). EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she would propose further sanctions on Russia, saying “the more Moscow attacks civilians, the more sanctions must be imposed” (9:31). In other news, Over in Germany, chancellor Friedrich Merz has laid out his plans for wide-ranging reforms in a bid to revive the country’s struggling economy and counter the rise of the far-right ahead of key land elections this autumn (10:09). German prosecutors have accused Ukrainian “state authorities” of ordering the 2022 explosives attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia with Europe, a charge likely to ignite tensions between Kyiv and Berlin, its biggest military backer (11:44). France, Portugal (15:50) and Spain are bracing for another possible heatwave that could bring temperatures of 44C over the coming days, as figures show that June’s extreme heat was responsible for more than 2,000 excess deaths in the two countries. 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.

German prosecutors accuse Kyiv of ordering 2022 Nord Stream sabotage

German prosecutors have accused Ukrainian “state authorities” of ordering the 2022 explosives attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia with Europe, a charge likely to ignite tensions between Kyiv and Berlin, its biggest military backer. The sabotage in the Baltic Sea by a team of assailants almost entirely destroyed the seafloor infrastructure of the key source of Russian gas to Germany. A suspect who was arrested last August in Italy and extradited to Germany in November was indicted this week. He was named at the time of his capture as Serhiy Kuznietsov. The federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement it had charged him with war crimes “for an attack on a civilian site” as well as causing an explosion and disrupting public services. Crucially, the office said Kuznietsov, then an officer in the Ukrainian army, had, together with other members of the military, devised the plan to destroy Nord Stream pipelines 1 and 2 “on the orders of state authorities in Ukraine” after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Nord Stream 1 pipeline was a vital route for Russian gas exports to Europe, while Nord Stream 2 was yet to enter service. “The aim was to permanently halt gas supplies via the pipelines and prevent Russia from using the revenue from natural gas trade to finance its war effort,” the prosecutors said. At the time of the attack, Moscow had recently choked off deliveries via Nord Stream 1, citing western sanctions and technical issues, though European countries accused it of weaponising gas supplies. Germany, the EU’s top economy, was forced to scramble in the ensuing months to meet its energy needs. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Wednesday he was yet to receive full details of the indictment, which had been served that day, Reuters reported. The list of charges was published on Thursday. “The relevant authorities of our ‌countries will get in touch, and when ‌we receive more details, we will probably be able to respond. For now, it is too early to speak,” he said. Germany has overtaken the US as Ukraine’s single biggest national military backer. The German government did not immediately comment on the charges. According to the indictment, a group was formed to carry out the plot comprising professional divers, a skipper and an explosives expert “under the leadership of the accused”. Kuznietsov allegedly entered Germany via Poland on 4 September 2022 using a forged Ukrainian passport, the prosecutors said. Shortly afterwards, he is alleged to have boarded an ocean-going sailing yacht with the other members of the group. The vessel had previously been chartered from a German company in Rostock using fake IDs, according to the prosecutors’ case. Kuznietsov and his accomplices allegedly transported large quantities of weapons-grade explosives to a site near the Danish island of Bornholm and the group “affixed explosive devices fitted with timers to the gas pipelines running along the seabed”. The devices detonated on 26 September, causing severe damage to the two pipelines and released record amounts of methane into the atmosphere. “Prior to the incident, Nord Stream 1 transported around half of Germany’s annual natural gas needs for energy production,” the prosecutors said. Suspicion had initially focused on Russia and the US, which had long criticised the pipelines for increasing western dependence on Moscow, before falling on Ukraine. People who allegedly had detailed knowledge of the incident told German media they had considered it an attack on a legitimate military target because the profits from gas deliveries had helped bankroll Russia’s war on Ukraine. Under German law, the war crime charge of directing an attack against civilian objects carries a minimum prison sentence of three years, or one year in less serious cases. The courts have treated the case as falling within their jurisdiction because the damaged pipelines end at Lubmin, north-east Germany, and their loss affected the country’s energy security and domestic safety. The case is expected to go to trial in the autumn in Hamburg. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, which opposes German military support for Ukraine, is likely to seize on the case in the run-up to elections this September as a means to press the government to cut off its aid to Kyiv. The AfD holds the lead in national opinion polls. Reuters contributed to this report

Vatican excommunicates all members of ultra-conservative rebel group SSPX

The Vatican has excommunicated a rebel group of ultra-conservative Catholics who defied Pope Leo by ordaining bishops without his consent, creating a schism in the Roman Catholic church. In a statement on Thursday, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, who heads the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the group from the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), founded in the Swiss village of Écône in 1970, had “committed an act of a schismatic nature” which, under canon law, was punishable with automatic excommunication. The Vatican went further than expected and said all priests of the SSPX and all Catholics who “adhere formally” to the group were in schism and excommunicated. The Vatican also reversed concessions on sacraments made to the society by the late Pope Francis, meaning confessions and marriages administered by its priests are invalid. A schism is a term to indicate a severe, formal rupture within the church. Andrea Vreede, the Vatican correspondent for NOS, the Dutch public news radio and TV network, said: “The Vatican hopes that by being harsh on the bishops, the priests and faithful, maybe some of them will repent and turn back to mother church. Because it’s not nice to be excommunicated.” Pope Leo had made a last-ditch effort to persuade the society to halt the ordinations, which took place during a ritual-filled ceremony on Wednesday, calling them a “schismatic act” and a “sin of extreme gravity”. But the society said the ordination of bishops who “are entirely faithful” to the Catholic church’s “tradition” was “a sacred duty”. An estimated 16,500 people gathered in Ecône for the ceremony, including members of New Force, an Italian neofascist political party, and National Future, a new far-right force threatening the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s chances of winning a second mandate in general elections next year. Despite being a splinter group, the SSPX, which has nearly 1,500 priests, seminarians and other vocational members, has made strides in attracting a following of an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people around the world, especially in the US, France and Argentina. The society rejects central changes that emerged from the second Vatican council – a landmark gathering of cardinals, patriarchs, bishops, theological experts and others between 1962 and 1965 – including allowing mass to be celebrated in local languages. Until then it had been said only in Latin. It also rejects dialogue with other religions and does not recognise other Christian churches. “It’s a very minor group but they are very loud and very ultra-right,” said Vreede. Since Leo was elected in May last year, the first North American pope has made church unity a priority and has worked especially hard to heal rifts with traditionalists, which had deepened during Francis’s papacy. The society had pursued the ordinations for three reasons, said Vreede. First, with only two ageing bishops left, the order needed new ones. It bided its time after Leo was elected and, seeing that he wore the classic papal vestments and revived the tradition of going to the summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo, close to Rome, had hoped he would be more tolerant of them than Francis was, only to discover he mostly followed in his predecessor’s footsteps. Last, the order is hoping it can gain traction from the global far-right resurgence. “The world is so much turning towards extremism, and they think they might flourish with that,” added Vreede, who expects Leo to continue to prioritise unity and not try to appease the traditionalists. The clash is the first between the Vatican and the SSPX since 1988, when Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the society’s founder, and four bishops he had ordained without the permission of the then pope, John Paul II, were excommunicated, including a British bishop, Richard Williamson. In 2009, the conservative Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications. Shortly before, Williamson had caused uproar by denying the Holocaust. “Leo will be very unhappy about [what’s happened], but he saw it as inevitable,” Vreede said. “It has happened in the past and it might happen again. It’s a nuisance but it won’t damage him. It’s not a very important schism and I think people will appreciate his coherence.” Marco Politi, a Vatican journalist and author, said that while the SSPX put on “a big show”, the schism would not have a dramatic impact on Leo or the Catholic church, especially given the roughly 1.4 billion Catholics in the world compared with the society’s small number of followers. “Everyone saw that Leo tried to find an agreement with them, and the reaction shows his firm stance,” he added. “The other element is that even though there are the most conservative factions in the Catholic church, when one goes against the pope and gets excommunicated, they are rarely on the side of the excommunicated.”