First Air India crash funerals held as 30 bodies handed to grieving families

Funerals were held in Ahmedabad for some of the Air India plane crash victims as authorities handed over their bodies to grieving families. DNA tests have also identified 80 victims of one of the deadliest plane crashes in decades.

Indian aviation officials have confirmed that the final words of the pilot of the doomed Air India Flight 171, moments before the plane crashed into buildings near Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, were Mayday distress calls.

“Thrust not achieved… falling… Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” the pilot said before the catastrophic crash that killed at least 270 people on Thursday.

The Boeing Dreamliner, with 242 people on board bound for Gatwick Airport, began losing height seconds after take-off and erupted in a fireball as it hit buildings, in what has been the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade.

IndiaBoeing 787s being operated by local carriers to be inspected. The company said it will provide an interim payment of Rs2.5m (£21,000) each to the families of the deceased and to the survivor, to help address immediate financial needs, in addition to Rs10m (£85,000) in support announced previously by the Tata Group.

Families in India with concerns can call Air India on 1800 5691 444. Those outside India can call the British Foreign Office on 020 7008 5000.

Why it is Groundhog Day for Starmer with Trump at the G7

When Keir Starmer arrived to speak to journalists on Sunday morning at the British High Commission in Ottawa, there was a temporary distraction as one of the resident groundhogs made an appearance.

But in more than one way, the prime minister’s trip to Canada has the same “Groundhog Day” feel to it as the constant repetition of events seen in the famous comedy film of that name.

The G7 summit is taking place on Monday and Tuesday in Alberta as much of the world burns. With escalating crises in the Middle East and Ukraine, the leaders of the world’s top democracies have much to discuss.

But for Starmer, there are a number of issues to be revisited. He confirmed on the flight over that he will hold a mini-summit at the gathering, with representatives from France, Germany, Italy and the EU, over the continuing problems with illegal migration and small boats crossing the English Channel.

There has been much unhappiness about French police failing to stop migrants getting into boats to cross to the UK despite the £400m they have received from the UK taxpayer.

Defence secretary John Healey has expressed his angst in recent weeks.

But the prime minister said: “Look, one of the things we’ve worked hard at is improving the relations with the French in relation to the work we both need to do to stop these boat crossings, which I’m determined we will absolutely bear down on. Nobody should be making that journey.

“As a result of that, we are seeing much greater cooperation in northern France. I want to see more cooperation in northern France, and it’s an issue that I have raised and will raise again with President [Emmanuel] Macron.

“We have good relations between the home secretary and the interior minister, now that we’re working on it jointly. It’s one of the issues I’ll be discussing – not just with Macron, actually, but with Giorgia Meloni, Friedrich Merz, and others.”

While the G7 summit will include formal sessions on Ukraine, trade and the Middle East, much of the real business is done on the fringes in bilateral and group meetings.

For Starmer, the most important of these less formal meetings will be his chat with Donald Trump, who will be attending a G7 gathering for the first time since being re-elected to the White House in November.

Last time Trump was in Canada for a G7, in 2018, he ordered his team to unsign the joint communique because of a row with the then prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. It threw the whole thing into chaos. This time, Trump is opposed to there being any joint communique at all.

Privately, Starmer does not seem to be confident that there will be any joint statements. Instead, he is looking to persuade Trump not to harm British interests. He wants the deal he agreed to last month with the US president to be implemented, with a deadline approaching on Wednesday.

If things are not agreed before Wednesday, UK steel could be hit with a 50 per cent tariff instead of the zero tariff previously agreed in their much-lauded framework deal.

Starmer told journalists: “We’ve shaken on the deal and we’re at the implementing stage now, which doesn’t actually require another shake of the hand, although I am sure there will be many shakes of the hand. I mean, we have reached the agreement and are now implementing it, and that is going on.”

Asked if it was “job done”, he replied: “Well, we are at the final stages. We had to do various things, they had to do various things, but I am very confident we’re implementing it.”

But he will also have defence on his mind with Trump. The two will talk about the US president’s decision to review the Aukus submarine deal between the US, the UK and Australia.

Starmer appears confident that he can ensure the White House does not pull the plug on a vital part of the defence infrastructure.

“Aukus is really important,” he said. “We’re fully committed to it. It’s not unusual for an incoming government to do a review of a project like that. We, of course, looked into the issue when we came into government, we had a look at it, and they’re doing their own review.

“But I’m 100 per cent committed to it, I’m really clear about that.”

Asked if he was confident that Trump would back it in the end, he said: “Yes, I think so. It’s a really important project, so I don’t have any doubt that this will progress.”

But at least Starmer can feel that he is among friends in Canada. He has spoken of his closeness to Canada’s new PM Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England.

The two had dinner on Saturday night before watching the violence of the Stanley Cup ice hockey final featuring Carney’s favourite team, the Edmonton Oilers (who lost).

The body-checks and slamming against the ice, along with the incredible speed of the game, felt quite representative of the kind of diplomacy expected over the next two days. Starmer will need to be on his skates as he deals with the ice patches ahead.

UK set for mini-heatwave as temperatures to soar to 29 degrees

Parts of the UK are set for a week of high temperatures and summer sun as an area of high pressure heads to Britain from the Azores.

London and the south of England will see temperatures soar to around 29 degrees on Thursday (19 June). The mini-heatwave is expected to continue into the weekend, but a “northwest to southeast split is likely to develop”, according to the Met Office.

In the north of England, temperatures will stay in the mid 20s, while Scotland will see highs of around 22 degrees.

Jonathan Vautrey, meteorologist at the Met Office, said: “Many of us will be seeing fine and dry conditions overall, which is all courtesy of an area of high pressure that’s going to be building in from the Azores and gradually stretching towards the UK.”

He added: “As we head into the new working week, it is northern and western Scotland that will start off the wettest. The heaviest of the rain first thing in the morning, it will tend to ease off throughout the day.

“For England and Wales there will be plentiful amounts of sunshine throughout Monday. A little bit of fair weather cloud bubbling up, quite hazy perhaps for some southern counties in England. Otherwise temperatures will be up by a good few degrees compared to today and we’ll start to see highs around the mid-20s.

“From mid-week onwards is when we start to see that high pressure building in more confidently across the UK. The fine and settled conditions will begin to stretch to all of us, and the temperatures will continue to climb.”

The Met Office outlook for next week from Tuesday to Thursday says: “High pressure builds in, bringing drier, sunnier weather from the south.

“Temperatures near normal in the north, with very warm conditions returning again to the southeast. Windier in the north”.

Wet and windy conditions are then expected in the northwest in the last week of June, with heavy rain at times. Things will be more settled in the southeast with the sun shining, weather forecasters predict.

Lando Norris reacts to Piastri collision: ‘I made a fool of myself’

Lando Norris admitted he made a fool out of himself following a “stupid” 200mph crash with McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri at Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix.

George Russell delivered a brilliant performance to win from pole position to claim his first F1 win of the season ahead of his Red Bull rival Max Verstappen. Italian teenager Kimi Antonelli finished third to land his first podium in Formula One.

But the 10th round of the championship in Montreal will be remembered for Norris’ friendly fire on Piastri, which deals a major blow to the British driver’s hopes of winning the world championship.

The papaya-on-papaya flashpoint arrived with three laps to go when Norris launched his McLaren underneath Piastri at the hairpin as they duelled for fourth.

Piastri was able to slingshot his McLaren back alongside Norris as they attacked the concluding right-left chicane.

Piastri had the benefit of holding the inside line under braking to move back ahead of Norris. However, the British driver enjoyed a better exit onto the start-finish straight and sensed an opportunity to squeeze past Piastri.

But Norris misjudged the move and crashed into the back of his team-mate’s car. Norris screeched to a halt with damage.

“Are you alright, dude,” said Norris’ engineer Will Joseph on the radio. “Yes, I am sorry,” replied Norris. “It’s all my bad. All my fault. Unlucky. Sorry. Stupid from me.”

Piastri was able to continue and finished fourth – the race ending behind the safety car following the McLaren collision – to extend his championship lead from 10 points to 22.

“Rule number one is not to make contact with your team-mate, and that’s what I did,” said Norris.

“McLaren is my family and I race for them every single weekend and try and do well for them on and off the track. So when I let them down like this and make a fool of myself like I did today, I have a lot of regret. I’m not proud of myself, I feel bad, so apologies to all of them.

“Of course, he (Oscar) is not going to be happy with what happened. I wouldn’t be either if it was the other way around so I owe him an apology for such a risk.

“He raced me fairly until that point. So, you know, Oscar did nothing wrong here, just myself.

“I’ve let down the team, and that’s going to stay with me for a little while. We will go back to the factory, and I am sure that’s not going to be a nice moment for me because of what happened today.”

McLaren have long been prepared for a collision between their two drivers and Norris’ swift move to accept blame was welcomed by Piastri. It will also go some way to diffuse any tension within the British team.

“Lando has apologised to me and that says a little bit,” said Piastri. “Lando is a very good guy and it is in his character and personality to say what he thinks, even if that is detrimental to himself.

“It is good for the team going forward that we can have these conversations and race like this and have things not go the way we want and get through them.

“If we were too aggressive going through a corner and we clearly got it wrong than that is one thing, but it was an unfortunate incident on a straight and it will not change anything and that is how it should be because we are both fighting for the world championship.”

Blaise Metreweli appointed as first female head of MI6

Sir Keir Starmer has appointed the first ever female head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.

Blaise Metreweli, the current head of technology and innovation at MI6, is being promoted to its 18th chief and the first woman to hold the role as the UK faces growing threats from foreign adversaries.

The head of MI6 is commonly referred to as C and is the only publicly named member of the organisation. Ms Metreweli, a veteran of the organisation and its domestic counterpart MI5, was awarded a CMG for services to British Foreign Policy last year.

She is succeeding Sir Richard Moore, who leaves this autumn after four years in charge.

“I am proud and honoured to be asked to lead my Service. MI6 plays a vital role – with MI5 and GCHQ – in keeping the British people safe and promoting UK interests overseas,” she said.

She added: “I look forward to continuing that work alongside the brave officers and agents of MI6 and our many international partners.”

Announcing her appointment, Sir Keir said: “The historic appointment of Blaise Metreweli comes at a time when the work of our intelligence services has never been more vital.

“The United Kingdom is facing threats on an unprecedented scale – be it aggressors who send their spy ships to our waters or hackers whose sophisticated cyber plots seek to disrupt our public services.

“I’d like to thank Sir Richard Moore for his dedicated service, and I know Blaise will continue to provide the excellent leadership needed to defend our county and keep our people safe – the foundation of my Plan for Change.”

Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who Ms Metreweli will report to, said she takes up the role “at a time of global instability and emerging security threats, where technology is power and our adversaries are working ever closer together”. “Blaise will ensure the UK can tackle these challenges head-on to keep Britain safe and secure at home and abroad,” he added.

Ms Metreweli is director general of technology and innovation in MI6, a role in which she is known as Q. She has held other senior roles across the organisation and MI5.

Ms Metreweli is a career intelligence officer, having joined the secret intelligence service in 1999, shortly after graduating from Pembroke College, Cambridge. Most of her career has been spent in operational roles in the Middle East and Europe.

Outgoing chief Sir Richard Moore said: “I am absolutely delighted by this historic appointment of my colleague.

“Blaise is a highly accomplished intelligence officer and leader, and one of our foremost thinkers on technology. I am excited to welcome her as the first female head of MI6.”

Win a Wilderness Festival luxury package for two

Music fans can win a luxury package for two to this year’s Wilderness Festival, all courtesy of Audi.

Wilderness returns this year to the picturesque nature reserve at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire, and will be headlined by rock band Supergrass, Nineties rave duo Orbital, and Brit Award-winning, Grammy-nominated indie-rock duo Wet Leg.

Completing the headliner lineup are Basement Jaxx, who are making their return to live shows for the first time in over a decade, as they celebrate the 25th anniversary of their groundbreaking album, Remedy.

The winner will receive a pair of complimentary festival tickets and boutique accommodation in a luxury cabin for two. They will also be treated to an Audi Kitchen experience and, for the ultimate luxury, your own private chauffeur to take you and your guest to the festival and return journey.

Enter the prize draw here.

Wilderness Festival is known for its eclectic music lineup, which this year includes performances from pop singer Lapsley, singer-songwriter Bess Atwell, Scottish musician Jacob Alon and DJ Craig Charles.

At The Sanctuary and Spa, guests will discover an oasis of calm, whether that means taking part in disco yoga or a workshop to explore your sensuality. Highlights include boating, massage treatments, sauna rituals, hot tubs, a wild sauna, Wim Hof method ice baths and wild swimming.

Gourmet food offerings can be found at Ben Quinn’s long table banquet in the woods, a once-in-a-lifetime experience set in the woods and lit by chandeliers. There, Quinn and his team will serve up a feast of flavour cooked right in front of you five courses of carefully curated, responsibly sourced, local and seasonal ingredients.

Elsewhere, attendees can join a number of talks, comedy sets and conversations, from Food Stories with Jay Rayner to a live recording of Jamie Laing’s podcast, Great Company.

Comedian, writer and NHS doctor Matthew Hutchinson will share a sharp and moving look at life on the frontline of British healthcare, while cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith will uncover a bold and fascinating alternative history of female friendship.

The prize draw will open for entries at 3pm (BST) on 7 May 2025 and close at 3pm BST on 17 June 2025. Only one entry per person is permitted for the Prize Draw. Terms and conditions apply.

How ‘politically motivated’ Minnesota shooting unleashed conspiracies

Police in Minnesota are grappling with two different chases.

The first, most pressing one, is the arrest of Vance L. Boelter, the man suspected of impersonating a police officer and shooting two state lawmakers and their spouses in a “politically motivated” attack on Saturday.

The other is a race to get in front of feverish conspiracy theories about the incident that are spreading across right-wing corners of the internet.

It didn’t take long for the conjecture to begin after the fatal shootings of state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, as well as the non-fatal shootings of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, hit the headlines.

In regards to Hortman, right-wing conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich wondered aloud on X, “Did [Minnesota Governor] Tim Walz have her executed to send a message?”

Fellow fabulist Alex Jones, meanwhile, used a Saturday broadcast to make a variety of unfounded implications, including that Hortman was killed because she was considering switching parties and joining Republicans, and that suspect Boelter was a “high-level” Walz appointee and “No Kings” protest organizer.

Jones capped off the a misinformation session by reading from a social media post from a seemingly random, pseudonymous account that called the shooting a “professional hit.”

Such claims reached thousands of people, even as they defied common sense and all evidence that eventually became available about the shootings.

Walz was in fact good friends with Hortman.

Boelter was not a high-level ally of the governor, but rather a re-upped appointee from a previous administration on an obscure workforce board with about 60 members.

Hortman was not planning on switching parties, though she did help broker a controversial compromise with Republicans this year to scale back undocumented immigrants’ access to a state health program in order to keep the government open.

Further eroding the narrative of the shooting as a Democratic plot against Hortman, Hoffman, the other targeted lawmaker, voted on the opposite side of the immigration issue.

Evidence found in Boelter’s vehicle reportedly contained a hit list of prominent state Democrats and abortion rights supporters. State officials were worried about safety threats to the protests after finding papers marked “No Kings,” rather than the alleged gunman being a protest leader.

The man’s roommate also described him as a Trump voter.

Such reactions from a right-wing media ecosystem are no longer a surprise, but the Minnesota crisis revealed the depths to which even mainstream, Republican-aligned U.S. politicians and corporate figures were willing to encourage the notion of a violent left-wing plot well before all the facts had come out.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, less than a day after saying he condemned all “political violence” in America after a fatal shooting at a protest in his home state, appeared to mock the Minnesota tragedy, calling it the “Nightmare on Waltz Street” in an X post, an apparent misspelling of the governor’s name.

He also suggested that left-wing ideology had caused the shooting. “Marxism is a deadly mental illness,” he wrote. “This is what happens,” he wrote in a caption for a photograph of the alleged Minnesota shooter, “When Marxists don’t get their way.”

Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio took a similar tack, writing on X: “The degree to which the extreme left has become radical, violent, and intolerant is both stunning and terrifying.”

Former White House adviser Elon Musk — who amplified conspiracy theories surrounding the 2022 hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of Nancy Pelosi — again waded into the fray.

“The far left is murderously violent,” he wrote on X the same day he said he was working to reprogram X’s AI program Grok because it was spreading “leftist indoctrination.”

Dan Bongino, a former right-wing broadcaster who joined the numerous voices on the right suggesting something about the official narrative of the Pelosi hammer attack didn’t add up, is now the deputy director of the FBI, which is assisting in the Minnesota manhunt.

“The FBI is fully engaged on the ground in Minnesota and is working in collaboration with our local and state partners,” he said Saturday.

Local officials and media figures called on outside observers to stop speculating about the shooting, given the intense grief surrounding the attack and the many unanswered questions about how a man was able to disguise himself as a police office, shoot four people, and escape.

“In a different, saner world, they would be humiliated and slink away,” wroteJ. Patrick Coolican, editor of the Minnesota Reformer. “But the smart money is that during the next moment of national crisis and mourning, they will again lie for profit.”

Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, called on those engaging in such speculation to remember that “we have families that continue to grieve.”

“While everybody wants an easy answer, I would encourage everybody online and in our communities to not speculate on what occurred and what the motivation was for this,” he said during a press conference on Sunday.

“We often want easy answers for complex problems,” he said. “And this is a complex situation that our investigators are going to need time to sift through the information and evidence, and those answers will come as we complete a full picture of our investigation.”

“We must truly focus on what matters beneath all of our differences — political, personal or otherwise,” Mayor Ryan Sabas of Champlin, Minnesota, told reporters at the briefing. “We are all human beings, and every human life has a value.”

Real Madrid target second Liverpool star, Arsenal’s Gyokeres bid and Man United continue Mbeumo chase

The transfer window is about to re-open after shutting following its mini-opening ahead of the summer’s Club World Cup. The window will officially re-open on Monday (16 June) and clubs are continuing to make deals in the interim.

Liverpool are making plans for a Florian Wirtz medical after agreeing a record £116.5m deal for the German superstar. The Premier League champions, who have already brought in Jeremie Frimpong, will make Wirtz their club-record signing after agreeing a deal with Bayer Leverkusen. However, they may well lose left-back stalwart Andy Robertson, with Atletico Madrid circling.

Manchester United, who have secured Matheus Cunha from Wolves for £62.5m, are negotiating with Brentford over Bryan Mbeumo, who would prefer a move to Old Trafford over Tottenham Hotspur even as Thomas Frank takes charges in north London – though Spurs want Mbeumo and teammate Yoane Wissa.

Arsenal hope to bring in Spanish midfielder Martin Zubimendi, and Mikel Arteta has made RB Leipzig striker, Benjamin Sesko, their No 1 target for a striker. However, the Gunners have reportedly submitted an offer for another dorward option – Sporting’s Viktor Gyokeres. Chelsea, meanwhile, have been rebuffed in their efforts to sign Borussia Dortmund winger Jamie Gittens.

You can sign up to DAZN to watch every Club World Cup game for free, while all the latest updates, rumours and done deals from what promises to be a chaotic transfer window will be covered in the blog below: