Top story: Isis claims responsibility for attacks
Good morning. This is Martin Farrer with the top news stories today.
The London attacks will dominate the agenda today. The latest on the investigation is that police have raided more addresses this morning in east London as they hunt for a wider network. Although Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on Sunday night, it is still not clear what links the three attackers had to any terror groups. Twelve people have already been arrested including four men and one woman who live in the same block of flats in Barking, east London, where one of the alleged perpetrators was believed to have lived. Neighbours described the man as married with young children who regularly attended two local mosques.
The first victim has been named as Canadian woman Christine Archibald who had moved to Europe to be with her fiancé. A French national was also killed, the country’s foreign ministry said.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, has berated London mayor Sadiq Khan for telling Londoners not to be alarmed about the increased police presence on the streets, and later told an audience in Washington that “This bloodshed must end, this bloodshed will end.”
The attacks will also dominate the days running up to Thursday’s election with Theresa May being challenged by Jeremy Corbyn and Tim Farron not to suppress a sensitive government report into the funding of jihadi group. It is believed the report focuses on the alleged links to extremist causes of Saudi donors.
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City of love – The attack in London reinforced the emotions swirling around Old Trafford cricket ground in Manchester last night when 50,000 gathered to see Ariana Grande lead an all-star line-up at the One Love concert, 13 days after a suicide bomber killed 22 people at her show in the city. She was supported by Justin Bieber, a shaven-headed Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus, while the surprise turn was Liam Gallagher. In the crowd were thousands of fans who had survived the Arena gig, including eight-year-old Lily Harrison who took a special bus from hospital to see the show.
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Blackmailing? Moi? – From the US, there comes a juicy update in the Trump-Russia saga after Vladimir Putin denied having any compromising material about the US president. Speaking in an interview with Megyn Kelly on NBC, Putin dismissed as “nonsense” the suggestion that he was blackmailing Trump, who has not been able to shake off the whiff of scandal concerning his campaign and administration links to the Kremlin. Putin said US intelligence agencies had been “misled” into thinking there had been collusion with Russia, adding that there was, in any case, no “direct proof”. It all comes ahead of a potentially explosive appearance by former FBI chief James Comey at the Senate intelligence committee on Thursday when he will be quizzed about whether Trump asked him to back off from investigating the alleged links.
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Cancer hope – Some hopeful news for cancer sufferers from the world’s largest conference on the disease. Delegates at the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago heard that a healthy diet and exercise could reduce the fatal risk for colon cancer patients and walking could improve the outlook for breast cancer survivors. The findings were based on studies in the US and Australia, though researchers admitted that their work remains epidemiological, and that causal links are yet to be established.
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A gulf in understanding – We can’t really get away from terror today. Breaking overnight is news that Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have broken off diplomatic ties with Qatar. The Saudis cited Qatar’s “media incitement, support for armed terrorist activities and funding linked to Iranian groups to carry out sabotage and spreading chaos in Bahrain” for the move. The kingdom has also removed Qatari troops from its coalition force in Yemen where it is fighting Iran-backed rebels.
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Out of this world – It’s been described as the “moon landing of free-soloing” – the rock climbing discipline where participants eschew a rope or harness. And the Neil Armstrong figure is Alex Honnold, who has scaled the fiendishly difficult 883-metre high Freerider route on El Capitan in Yosemite using only his hands and feet. However, it seems certain that nerves of steel must have been used too.
Lunchtime read: Golden celebration for Sgt Pepper
While in 2017 we have musicians responding to terror on the streets with the One Love Manchester concert, 50 years ago the Beatles marked the more innocent Summer of Love with what many regard as the greatest album ever, Sgt Pepper.
Our chief music critic Alexis Petridis has been to Liverpool where a three-week festival celebrating the album’s golden anniversary is in full swing. Thirteen works of art have been commissioned – one for each track – including a firework display (Lucy In The Sky) and a short film about zero hours contracts starring Tom O’Connor, of all people (A Day In The Life).
Sport
The ICC Champions Trophy is now well under way, with Virat Kohli leading India to a commanding victory over Pakistan on a day in which Andy Bull found supporters of both sides putting aside their differences and paying their respects to victims of the London attacks. England, meanwhile, have decided that in the absence of Chris Woakes and anything close to consistent swing from their white ball bowlers, they might as well give Steven Finn a try.
In football, Zinedine Zidane the manager is already outperforming Zidane the player, according to Sid Lowe, while Gareth Bale is ruling out the talk of a move to Manchester United and staying put at Real Madrid. Not so Eden Hazard, who is ruling in the talk of a move to Bale’s club.
A triple-double to LeBron James wasn’t enough for the Cleveland Cavaliers as Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors took a 2-0 lead in the NBA finals, while in rugby, the British & Irish Lions want a rethink on their schedule for future tours following their sluggish display on Saturday. Not so Andy Murray, who has managed to keep calm and carry on to the fourth round at Roland Garros, displaying little more than his normal quota of chuntering.
Business
The pound has suffered on the foreign exchange markets overnight as investors took fright at the implications of the London attacks. It fell as much as 0.3% before paring the losses to trade down 0.2% at $1.2864. It is buying €1.141. London’s stock market is not expected to react negatively, however, with the FTSE100 forecast to rise slightly at the openbing bell.
The papers
All of the main UK papers lead with the London attacks with many using the now famous photograph of the three men, who carried out the assault on London Bridge and Borough Market, dead on the ground after being shot by police.
Many combine this with the words of Theresa May who declared that “Enough is Enough”. The Sun’s headline is “Jihadi killer in a Arsenal shirt” and claims 21 pages of coverage while the Mail goes with “Bloody day all of Britain said: Enough is Enough” and claims 24 pages of “unrivalled” coverage.
The Scotsman has a simple picture with the message “United and Defiant” linking the two attacks in Manchester and London. The Times also uses the photo of the dead attackers with the headline “Massacre in the market” and the Guardian’s front shows a group of heavily armed police in balaclavas. The FT’s headline is more explanatory: “Enough is enough says May in vow to ramp up war on extremism”.
The Star simply has the word Heroes as its headline and highlights the role of the Sunday Express business editor Geoff Ho who was injured fighting with the attackers. The i has a dramatic photo of again heavily armed police descending an escalator in London under the word “Defiant”.
For more news: www.theguardian.com
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