Tennis royalty met British royalty at Wimbledon this month as Roger Federer and Catherine, Princess of Wales, met the tournament’s ball boys and girls, took part in their training, and played a game of doubles.

Kate even managed to win a point against the eight-time Wimbledon champion, hitting a passing shot while he was standing at the net.

“I think it was on the line, amazing,” Federer said in a video released by the tournament organizers, laughing and giving a thumbs up from the other side of the net.

As a royal patron of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, Kate is often seen watching the tennis from the Royal Box at Wimbledon, which this year begins on July 3.

She also recently took on the responsibility of presenting trophies to the tournament’s winners.

Later, as they assumed the roles of ball boy and girl, Kate asked Federer for some tips on her serve, receiving the kind of feedback that any tennis fan would dream of when the 20-time grand slam champion said that her serve “looked good.”

For Federer, who retired from tennis last year, it was a return to his childhood roots having previously served as a ball boy in his hometown of Basel, Switzerland.

“This is proper practice, I’m really impressed,” he said as they rolled balls and ran across the court.

At one point, however, Kate took an impressive one-handed catch, only to be told by Federer that ball girls and boys weren’t allowed to catch the ball at Wimbledon.

“You’re meant to let it bounce and then get it,” a ball girl standing next to her added. “But good catch.”

Carlos Alcaraz is set to reclaim the world No. 1 spot from Novak Djokovic after winning his first-ever grass-court title at Queen’s in London on Sunday.

The 20-year-old Spaniard defeated Australia’s Alex de Minaur 6-4 6-4 in an hour and 39 minutes to claim his fifth title of the season and boost his credentials on grass ahead of Wimbledon next month, which he will now begin as the top men’s seed.

“It means a lot to have my name on the trophy,” Alcaraz said in his on-court interview afterwards. “I’ve watched this tournament since I started playing tennis. It has been really special for me to play here, so many legends have won here. Seeing my name on the trophy, seeing my name surrounded by the great champions for me is amazing.”

Alcaraz proved the more clinical, breaking his opponent at both possible attempts while de Minaur was unable to convert either of his break-point opportunities.

Playing at Queen’s for the first time and in only his third-ever grass-court tournament, Alcaraz lost just one set all week. It marks a comeback of sorts after he crashed out of the French Open in the semifinals against Djokovic, his challenge to the 23-time grand slam champion crumbling when he suffered from cramp.

Djokovic moved into the world No. 1 spot after winning the French Open but will begin Wimbledon – the tournament for which he is the heavy favorite – as the second seed.

“Being the number one, the top seed in such a great event as Wimbledon, for me, it’s amazing,” Alcaraz said afterwards. “I started the tournament not very well … I had to adapt my movement a little bit on grass.”

Alcaraz reached the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2022 where he was defeated in four sets by Jannik Sinner, but he has won his first grand slam at the US Open in the intervening year since.

Brittney Griner of the Phoenix Mercury was announced Sunday as a starter for the WNBA’s upcoming All-Star Game.

Griner’s nine career All-Star Game selections are more than any other starting all-star this year, according to the Mercury.

The All-Star Game will be played in Las Vegas on July 15.

Griner – a two-time Olympic gold medalist – has averaged over 19 points and more than six rebounds a game in 2023 after missing all of last season as she spent nearly 300 days in Russian custody.

The center was released in December last year as part of a prisoner exchange.

The All-Star announcement comes the same day that the Mercury fired head coach Vanessa Nygaard.

Despite Griner’s successful return to play this season, the Mercury hold the WNBA’s worst record with two wins and 10 losses.

Assistant coach Nikki Blue will take over as interim head coach of the team for the remainder of the season, the team said.

Griner – who for years had played during the WNBA off-season for a Russian women’s basketball team – was detained in February 2022 and sentenced to nine years in prison under drug-smuggling charges after Russian authorities found cannabis oil in her luggage.

Since her return last year, she has told reporters that she would never go overseas to play basketball again, unless she made the US team.

Griner won her Olympic gold medals at the 2016 and 2020 Games. The 2024 Olympics are in Paris next July and August.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich lost his appeal against the extension of pre-trial detention in Moscow on Thursday on spying charges, which he denies.

Gershkovich’s detention, at the notorious Lefortovo prison in Moscow, was extended last month to August 30. He faces up to 20 years in jail on espionage charges, which he and his employer vehemently contest.

Gershkovich was in court for the decision, in a glass cage, wearing a dark t-shirt and jeans.

The US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, was also at the hearing at Moscow City Court, as were his parents, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich.

Tracy told reporters outside the court that the US was “extremely disappointed” by the decision to reject Gershkovich’s appeal.

“This was a procedural hearing, appealing the conditions of his continued detention and we were extremely disappointed by the denial of his appeal,” Tracy said, adding that she “could not speak with Evan directly at the courthouse today,” and blasted Russia’s denial of US diplomats’ requests for consular access to him.

“Failing to comply with its obligations under the consular convention enforced between our two countries, Russia has denied the US embassy’s requests for formal consular access on three occasions since I last visited Evan in April,” she said.

“Nonetheless, today, in the courtroom, Evan continued to show remarkable strength and resiliency in these very difficult circumstances.”

Earlier on Thursday, Russian state news agency TASS reported that the Russian Foreign Ministry was considering a request from the United States for consular access to Gershkovich.

The Wall Street Journal called Gershkovich’s continued detention “an outrage” in a statement released Thursday.

“Our colleague Evan Gershkovich appeared in Moscow City Court today for an appeal against his ongoing pretrial detention. Although the outcome was expected, it is no less an outrage that his detention continues to be upheld.”

“Evan has been wrongfully detained for more than 12 weeks for nothing more than doing his job as a journalist,” the statement continued. “We continue to demand his immediate release.”

Russia’s main security service, the FSB, has claimed that Gershkovich, a correspondent based in Moscow, had been trying to obtain state secrets.

His arrest in March was the first detention of an American reporter in Russia on allegations of spying since the Cold War, rattling White House officials and further straining ties between Moscow and Washington.

On May 23, his detention was extended until at least August 30 while he awaits trial.

The US State Department has officially designated Gershkovich as wrongfully detained in Russia. US President Joe Biden has also been blunt about Gershkovich’s arrest, urging Russia to “let him go.”

Some 50 people were injured in the incident, although the Paris prosecutor’s office, which is investigating the blast, said the number may not be final.

About 270 firefighters were deployed to the scene near Rue Saint Jacques in the city’s fifth arrondissement, and contained the fire within two hours, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez told reporters.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin visited the site of the explosion on Wednesday. He said it was unclear how exactly the explosion occurred, adding there was no warning before the incident.

Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor said that early signs indicate that the gas explosion came from within the building that houses the Paris American Academy, according BFMTV.

A part of the building collapsed following the blast and fire, videos show. Smoke was seen billowing from the rubble earlier on Wednesday as rescue workers attempted to tackle the blaze.

Paris American Academy, a fashion and design school, describes itself on its website as the “first bilingual design school” in the French capital

Kent State University, in the US state of Ohio, said all its students at the Paris American Academy are safe and accounted following the blast.

Locals were also stopped from returning to their homes in surrounding streets by authorities in the aftermath of the explosion.

“It felt like an earthquake, the windows banged against each other,” she said.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo visited the scene later on Wednesday, writing in a tweet, “My thoughts go first of all to the victims and their close ones.” Authorities in Paris have opened an emergency response unit to handle the aftermath of the explosion.

French President Emmanuel Macron briefly addressed the disaster later on Wednesday, thanking the first responders for their work. “In celebrating music today, we are also thinking of [the victims] and all those who are going through a difficult time,” Macron added before launching a performance Wednesday night at Élysée for the Music Day.

For the next 22 years, Nwazota lived in constant fear of being deported as his life began to unravel.

His business was closed because he was prevented from working by the Home Office, and he could not gain employment or social housing due to his lack of documents, he said. He was forced to live in temporary accommodation, with intermittent periods of homelessness. He watched the world pass him by from the fringes of society: sleeping in a tent under a shop window, or in an abandoned van in a supermarket car park. Often, he would go to bed hungry due to his benefits being stopped, he recalled – as “no fixed abode” became his new identity in the corridors of the job center.

Christmases and birthdays passed by for almost two decades until the Home Office acknowledged that Nwazota was a British citizen over a phone call in 2018, he said.

For the next four years, Nwazota says, he remained homeless while he struggled to regain his passport. Many of his documents were lost after he claims the council threw away his tent, and he could not receive response letters from the Home Office as he had no permanent address.

“I had been told I was a British citizen – but I was still waiting to get back my passport, waiting for an apology from the Home Office – all while living in a van. I’m not a weak guy but I had no hope. I tried to take my own life,” he said.

Nwazota has since recovered and received his passport from the Home Office in 2022. “The first thing I did when I got my passport back was get a job – and I’m proud to say, I work as a bin man (refuse collector). But even though I’m back in the real world – it’s too late for me. I’m 49 years old now. The Home Office has taken my life from me.”

Nwazota is one of thousands who found their lives derailed in what became to be known as the Windrush scandal, which saw the British Home Office deny residency rights and citizenship to many people who had been living in the UK legally for most, if not all, of their lives.

The victims were members and descendants of the so-called Windrush generation – mostly Caribbean migrants who moved to Britain in the post World War II-era in answer to a call for labor shortages, with the first arriving on the Empire Windrush 75 years ago Thursday. Citizens of former British colonies in South Asia and Africa also became entangled in the scandal.

Like Nwazota, many of their children had been born in Britain and have known no other home, yet also had their UK citizenship revoked.

This has led to multiple generations suffering often devastating harm: job losses, home evictions, no access to healthcare, detentions and even deportations, as outlined in the government commissioned Windrush Lessons Learned Review. In 2018, the Windrush Compensation Scheme was set up to provide compensation to victims of the scandal.

In April that year, Britain’s then-Prime Minister, Theresa May, apologized for her government’s treatment of some Caribbean immigrants and insisted they were still welcome in the country.

But on the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush, thousands are still struggling to access compensation despite the Home Office reinstating their British citizenship.

In April, a report by the NGO Human Rights Watch stated that the Windrush compensation scheme “is failing victims and violating the rights of many to an effective remedy for human rights abuses they suffered.”

Nwazota has applied to the Windrush Compensation Scheme four times – but his application has always been rejected.

Nwazota is currently struggling to find a lawyer to take his case due to his lack of documents and funds.

Thousands without compensation

According to the latest Home Office statistics, 1,518 people have received compensation so far. Another 381 have had their claims refused or withdrawn due to ineligibility and 1,988 have claims that “meet the eligibility criteria” but have been awarded zero compensation. This suggests that of an estimated 15,000 victims believed to be eligible for compensation, some 90% have yet to receive any payout since the scandal broke five years ago.

“The government has access to all the victims’ documents: health records, information from the passport office and their employment history. These are British people who have paid tax and national insurance, have worked for all their lives and the government has confirmed their status as UK citizens, and yet, victims are still being denied access to compensation for the harm caused to their lives,” Steiner said.

“Even when you’ve spent months gathering evidence, drafted clear statements, and have demonstrated a clear impact on (victims’) lives, applications are not assessed properly by the Home Office. There seems to be a bureaucratic tick-box attitude to the claims where people are not recognized as human beings,” Steiner added.

Thomas Tobierre was stripped of the right to work after being told he was not a British citizen and has subsequently received compensation, but his wife Caroline, who was also entitled to compensation under the Windrush scheme, only received her payment after she died with cancer.

“The level of evidence you have to produce is ridiculous – it is almost impossible to prove your status,” said Charlotte Tobierre, Thomas’ daughter. “Because they took so long to compensate, we ran out of time to enjoy life with my mum. The last year of my mum’s life was ruined – the Windrush scandal overshadowed my mum’s battle with cancer.

“When the compensation arrived, it just about covered the cost of her funeral.”

“Approaching its 75th anniversary, the government should be doing something to make the scheme accessible – and the scheme should take it out of the hands of the Home Office. People have no trust when applying because they are the same institution that detained, criminalized and deported the applicants in the first place,” Holbourne added.

His British nationality has since been reinstated. The Home Office has offered him – after deductions – £65,000 and he is appealing. His wife Janet, who is also entitled to compensation, is also appealing her offer under the scheme. Windrush Lives, an advocacy group and victim support network which is helping Janet, says the Home Office is currently disputing the £300 she is claiming for expenses after she repeatedly traveled to visit Bryan while he was wrongfully detained for five weeks.

A hostile environment

According to the latest government statistics from the Home Office, 1,227 claimants are seeking a review. Meanwhile, the number of people being awarded zero compensation is continuing to rise – particularly over the past year. While in April 2022 there were only 26 applicants eligible but receiving zero compensation, a year later this number had risen almost six-fold to 152.

As the backlogs and rejections grow, Home Secretary Suella Braverman issued a statement in January that rowed back on three of the recommendations from the government-commissioned “Windrush Lessons Learned Review.”

These included the appointment of a migrants’ commissioner and the commitment to hold a series of “reconciliation events” with people affected, to “listen and reflect on their stories,” the Windrush Lessons Learned Review stated.

In February 2023, the Conservative government published an assessment of the hostile environment policy’s impact between 2014 and 2018. The report concluded that the five nationalities most impacted by the policy were of Brown or Black heritage and all five were visibly not White.

“While he was sick, we had been told to apply for a new passport through the Windrush scheme and we were told he would get compensation,” Abiona added. He helped his father fill in the application himself, because they could not afford a lawyer. “I kept telling my dad we will have money soon,” Abiona said.

A week after his death, the Home Office paid £5,000 compensation to cover some of the cost of his funeral, Kemi Abiona said. He is now making a Windrush compensation claim through the Home Office to save up for a headstone for his father’s grave.

Almost as if to answer Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement the counteroffensive is “slower” than some might have imagined, a pinpoint strike hit a key pair of bridges for Russia’s occupation. The Chonhar bridges are both rail and road crossings, and head from the northeast of occupied Crimea to Ukraine’s main target in this counteroffensive: occupied Zaporizhzhia region.

Video released from the scene by Russian officials shows a significant hole in the road bridge and apparent damage to the neighbouring rail track, caused, Russian investigators later said, by four missiles. In the video, Vladimir Saldo, the Russian installed governor of occupied Kherson region, walks around the wreckage, and bemoans “another pointless action” assisted, he says, by the London-supplied Storm Shadow missile.

“It won’t decide any results of the special operation”, Saldo adds, before admitting it will make some food and other deliveries a little harder. They will have to use another, longer route, he added, to the West through Armyansk and Perekop, closer to Ukrainian positions.

As a singular event, Saldo is correct to say the one attack decides nothing. But it echoes two earlier events: the damage to the Antonovsky Bridge from Kherson City that eventually presaged Russia’s orderly withdrawal from the right side of the banks of the Dnipro River. And also, less directly, it echoes the damage done last year to the Kerch Strait bridge, which also temporarily disrupted traffic on the only southern supply artery to the peninsula from the Russian mainland. On Sunday, a blast hit what seemed to be a Russian ammunition depot in Rykove, near Chonhar. Blown bridges have a history of impacting both Russian morale and presence.

Alexei Zhivoff, a Russian military blogger, said Thursday the Chonhar bridge was more a “land corridor”, and carried 70% of the military and civilian traffic to and from Crimea. He added the blast showed the area was easily within reach of NATO-supplied missiles and that Russian air defences were inadequate.

It is reasonable to presume these targets have been known to the Ukrainians for some time, and the decision to hit them both in the past week is not an accident. They are likely waiting to impair supply lines to the Russian front lines in Zaporizhzhia at the most damaging time, hoping the sudden loss of supplies, or a panicked bid to restore them, will sap Russian defensive strength at a key moment.

This is in keeping with Ukraine’s tactics in their past two pushes. Both Kherson and Kharkiv – the latter more specifically – relied on hitting the railways that, remarkably in 2023, still form the bulk of Moscow’s rickety – and by now, in this war, legendarily poor – supply chains. Occupying forces fled Kherson when they became cut off. Moscow fled large swathes of Kharkiv, despite it being directly connected to Russia’s borders; they simply could not continue to provide their forces the ammunition and reserves they needed. It will be harder to push Russia into a retreat around Crimea, because of its emotional resonance. But be in no doubt, a peninsula is a tough thing to supply in wartime.

Doubtless, Russia has learned from its significant setbacks. But the strategic accuracy of Ukraine’s strikes on its key infrastructure suggest – amid the slow grind of trench warfare and the incremental seizure of tiny occupied villages – there may be a wider and more potent strategy again at work.

Nearly three years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin stood by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in his hour of need, backing Europe’s longest-running dictator as he faced a wave of street protests.

Now Lukashenko appears to have come through for Putin, if we are to believe what the Kremlin and the Belarusian presidential press service tell us.

A quick recap: A major crisis shook the foundations of the Russian state Saturday, as forces loyal to Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin marched toward Moscow. Then, an abrupt reversal happened — Prigozhin called off their advance, claiming his mercenaries had come within 124 miles of the capital but were turning around to avoid spilling Russian blood.

According to the Belarusian presidential press service, the decision followed an unexpected intervention by Lukashenko himself. The supposed deal struck with Prigozhin would see the Wagner boss leave for Belarus; a criminal case against the mercenary boss would be dropped; and Wagner fighters would be folded into formal military structures by signing contracts with the Russian ministry of defense.

But those, it’s worth emphasizing, are only the bare outlines of the deal. Prigozhin — whereabouts currently unknown — has not commented on the supposed agreement. And the Kremlin and Belarusian account of Lukashenko’s mediation appear to stretch credibility.

“You will probably ask me – why Lukashenko?” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Saturday. “The fact is that Alexander Grigoryevich (Lukashenko) has known Prigozhin personally for a long time, for about 20 years. And it was his personal proposal, which was agreed with President Putin. We are grateful to the President of Belarus for these efforts.”

Those efforts, Peskov claimed, “managed to resolve this situation without further losses, without increasing the level of tension.”

Still, Lukashenko’s apparent intercession raises more questions than it answers.

For starters, Lukashenko is clearly seen as the junior partner in the relationship with Putin. And Belarus depends on Russia for aid: At the height of Lukashenko’s confrontation with protesters, Putin came through with a loan of $1.5 billion. And Belarus has been a springboard for Russian military operations in Ukraine, something that has isolated Lukashenko further from the West and triggered new sanctions on the country’s economy.

So what’s to gain here for Lukashenko? It seems difficult to envision Prigozhin happily harvesting potatoes alongside the Belarusian leader, a former collective farm boss. And why was Putin — who until this weekend, was the reliable arbiter of elite disputes in Russia — unable to cut that deal himself? Delegating Lukashenko to resolve the crisis further damages Putin’s image as a decisive man of action.

The initial details we have, it seems, do not completely add up. And adding to that uncertainty are other questions: What will happen to the Wagner “brand?” Will Prigozhin’s foot soldiers be compliant and let themselves be absorbed into the Russian military? Will they still have loyalty to their boss? And what about Wagner forces operating elsewhere in the world, from Africa to the Middle East?

Prigozhin — if and when he surfaces — may give us some clues.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a stark warning Sunday instructing Jewish settlers not to “grab land illegally” in the occupied West Bank, after humanitarian bodies raised the alarm over a series of deadly attacks on Palestinian villagers.

At the same time, Netanyahu repeatedly endorsed the construction of settlements approved by the government, which are considered illegal under international law.

“Calls to grab land illegally and actions of grabbing land illegally, are unacceptable to me. They undermine law and order in Judea and Samaria [West Bank] and must stop immediately,” he said at a cabinet meeting on Sunday.

“Not only will we not back such actions, our government will take strong action against them.

“These calls and actions do not strengthen settlement – on the contrary, they hurt it. I say this as someone who doubled settlement in Judea and Samaria despite great and unprecedented international pressure to carry out withdrawals that I have not carried out and will not carry out. These calls hurt the vital interests of the State of Israel and they must stop immediately.”

Israeli authorities describe the West Bank as Judea and Samaria.

Netanyahu stressed a twin approach to security. “We have been targeting a record number of terrorists and also building in our country on a broad scale according to approved construction plans. I emphasize – approved.”

The recent uptick in violence peaked on Wednesday, when Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian village of Turmusayya in the occupied West Bank, the day after the killing of four Jewish settlers nearby, according to the mayor of the village.

Those killings had been in retaliation to an Israeli military operation in the Jenin area on Monday, which left seven Palestinians dead and 91 injured, according to the UN. Seven Israeli soldiers were injured.

Israeli security forces have recently ramped up armed hostilities against Palestinian militants, amid Netanyahu’s campaign for illegal settlers’ outposts to be expanded and turned into full settlements.

‘Nationalist terrorism’

Senior Israeli security officials condemned what they called “nationalist terrorism” by some settlers, after the latest attacks took place on Saturday around the Palestinian village of Umm Safr, north of Ramallah.

“In recent days, violent attacks have been carried out by Israelis in Judea and Samaria against innocent Palestinians,” the Chief of the Israeli General Staff, Gen. Herzi Halevi, the Director of the Israel Security Agency [ISA], Ronen Bar and Israel’s Police Commissioner, Yaakov Shabtai, said in a statement.

“These attacks contradict every moral and Jewish value; they constitute, in every way, nationalist terrorism, and we are obliged to fight them.

“Israel’s security forces are operating against those rioters, risking the lives of IDF soldiers, Israel Police officers and ISA personnel,” the statement said, adding that arrests would be made as the violence “diverts the security forces from their main mission of operating against Palestinian terrorism.”

Israeli police were met with resistance when trying to seize vehicles belonging to settlers said to have set fire to two houses, a truck and two vehicles as part of the attacks in Umm Safr, according to a spokesperson for the force.

“The rioters proceeded to throw stones and other projectiles at both police officers and their vehicles, resulting in significant damage,” the police spokesperson said.

It took several hours to reopen the settlement gate, which the individuals had “deliberately damaged” to prevent “entry or exit.”

Additionally, a search of vehicles elsewhere had revealed “a gasoline-like substance, gloves, batons, and a knife,” which were confiscated, and two suspects were apprehended.

Separately, the IDF said on Saturday that rocks had been thrown in Umm Safr while Israeli citizens reportedly set fire to Palestinian property. It said an Israeli citizen had been arrested, adding: “The IDF condemns such acts of nationalist crime that lead to escalation.”

A family of eight was rescued from one burning house, according to Palestinian civil defense teams.

The Palestinian authorities said on Sunday that the Israeli authorities had been forced to make a “clear and public recognition of the existence of national terrorism committed by thousands of settlers carrying weapons, who enjoy public protection from the occupation army and political cover from ministers in the Israeli government.”

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said that the Israeli statement was issued to address international opinion, but “not intended to arrest settler elements and their terrorist leaders or start collecting their weapons.”

Russia’s Supreme Court has on Thursday dismissed an appeal by jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny against restrictions imposed on access to writing materials in prison, according to Russian independent news site Mediazona.

Navalny, who attended the hearing via video link, had been challenging the restrictions imposed on access to writing materials in prisons “not only for himself, but for all prisoners” during a hearing at the Supreme Court in Moscow, his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said.

“Aleksey is trying to achieve the right to correspondence, and not only for himself, but for all prisoners,” she said in a post on her official Twitter account.

The decision came as Navalny is facing a new trial on charges of “extremism” that could result in his prison sentence being extended by decades.

A court spokesperson said Monday that the trial will take place behind closed doors.

Navalny is already serving sentences totaling 11-and-a-half years in a maximum security facility on fraud and other charges that he says were trumped up.

He and his supporters claim that his arrest and imprisonment were politically motivated, intended to silence his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Just hours after the trial began, Navalny announced the start of a campaign aimed at turning Russians against the war in Ukraine.

In comments posted to his Twitter account, Navalny said the “absurd” charges could lead to him serving a further 30 years behind bars.