The world, briefly

Donald Trump said in New York on Friday he would "soon" declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory, after defeating Iran.

The Guardian says it is unclear how serious the remark was or whether it signalled new policy, adding that the administration has so far struggled to end the war with Iran. The Hindu reports Tehran has established de facto control over much of the strait, a key passage for global energy shipping. Deutsche Welle says Trump told Americans to accept higher petrol prices, which rose after Iran closed Hormuz in response to US and Israeli attacks.

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung on Saturday proposed talks with North Korea to formally end the Korean War, never closed by a peace treaty.

The 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, leaving the two countries technically at war for more than seventy years. The South China Morning Post says the offer comes as Pyongyang deepens ties with Russia and asserts its status as an "irreversible" nuclear state. No North Korean response is reported.

Zambia resumed vote counting on Friday after a nationwide suspension prompted by alleged attacks on polling staff.

The electoral commission said the violence resulted in the theft of marked ballot papers. The halt came a day after presidential and parliamentary elections. Opposition leader Brian Mundubile has already claimed victory, though no official result has been declared.

Four Japanese ministers, including Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, visited Yasukuni Shrine on the 81st anniversary of Japan's surrender.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi skipped the visit and sent an offering instead. Beijing said it had "strongly condemned" the visits and lodged a formal protest; South Korea also objected. The shrine is a recurring source of dispute with neighbouring countries.

In his Independence Day address, Indian PM Narendra Modi announced free online coaching for competitive exams and AI training for 10 million young people.

The announcement comes weeks after youth-led protests over alleged exam paper leaks and recruitment irregularities, which one source says led the education minister to resign. Modi said the initiative aims to ease the financial burden on students.

Israeli Defence Minister Katz wants to transfer law enforcement powers over Israelis in the occupied West Bank from the military to the police.

According to the sources, if implemented the move would be a step towards Israeli annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory, an aim openly stated by several ministers in Netanyahu's government. Palestine's vice-president called the plan a violation of international law. Both outlets reporting it share the same editorial leaning.

Margarita Reut, 32, was arrested in Sevastopol, accused of planting a bomb that killed Robert Shageev, a serviceman who switched from Ukraine's fleet to Russia's in 2014.

The FSB says she confessed and acted on orders from Ukrainian intelligence, with the device placed in a bin. Repubblica stresses the account has not been independently verified. Outlets give conflicting descriptions of her background, variously as a biologist, florist or escort. According to Libero, Shageev had been wanted by Kyiv since 2022 for high treason.

Overnight Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed at least 11 people, including three children, according to Lebanon's state news agency.

At least seven of the dead were killed in a single strike on a family home in Ansar. Israel says it targeted Hezbollah infrastructure. Sources describe the strikes as the deadliest since the US-mediated peace framework agreed in June and the lull that began two months ago, with possible consequences for ongoing talks.

Palestinian families say they have been trapped in their homes in the occupied West Bank for days, surrounded by Israeli settlers.

Sources differ on the number: one reports three families trapped for nearly a week, the other two families for several days. Activists have tried to deliver aid to the besieged homes. The account comes from the families involved.

Trump dismissed concerns over living conditions and crew mental health aboard the carrier Abraham Lincoln, deployed against Iran, and confirmed the ship will soon rotate out.

Asked by reporters whether family members were worried, the president said they were not. Separately, the acting Navy secretary spoke of a small number of mental health cases aboard and no deaths, attributing the extended deployment to operational needs in the Middle East.

Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty to two federal stalking counts and admitted in a Manhattan court that he killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

The plea, entered on 14 August 2026 at a hastily scheduled hearing in Manhattan federal court, covers charges of stalking the executive with intent to kill; Thompson was shot dead in New York in December 2024. Mangione told the court he shot Thompson, after long denying his role. State murder charges remain, with trial set for 8 September; his lawyers are seeking to have them dropped under New York's double jeopardy protections.

Five people were wounded by gunfire early on Saturday at Virginia State University, which said multiple suspects were involved.

Campus police and Chesterfield County officers found the victims near the Quad Annexes, by the halls of residence; the BBC says one is in critical condition. The campus was locked down and, according to the Guardian, several suspects remained at large.

Jason Arday, 41, who resigned from Cambridge University amid plagiarism allegations, was found dead on Friday 14 August at an address in Battersea, south London.

The university confirmed the death; Arday was found unresponsive on Friday afternoon and police, according to Repubblica, are not treating it as suspicious. He became Cambridge's youngest Black professor in 2023; academics and media reports later accused him of plagiarising parts of his doctoral thesis, a case that divided British opinion and which, the South China Morning Post reports, also featured racism claims. His family, per Repubblica, alleges harassment.

A 50-year-old man and his two sons were rescued off the Thai island of Koh Samui after more than 16 hours adrift when their jet ski capsized.

The family, who are French, spent the night at sea before being spotted. A local official confirmed the rescue to the AFP news agency on Saturday.

American missionary Kevin Rideout, kidnapped in Niamey in October, has been released after nine months and is in good health, his organisation says.

SIM International (Serving in Mission) said Rideout is in the care of US officials and will soon be reunited with his family. The abductors are described as unknown assailants; the material does not explain the circumstances of the release.

Italian police recovered three works by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse worth millions of euros, stolen this year from a private museum near Parma.

According to the Carabinieri art recovery squad, the works are Auguste Renoir's painting "Fish", Paul Cezanne's pencil and watercolour "Still Life with Cherries", and Henri Matisse's colour aquatint "Odalisque on the Terrace". The recovery was announced on Friday.

Afghanistan marks five years since the Taliban returned to power, with gatherings in Kabul and international criticism over restrictions on women and girls.

France 24 reports women face limits on education, work, movement and public life: they are barred from parks and most jobs, and girls are excluded from schooling beyond age 12; the UN calls Afghanistan the world's worst country for women's rights and urges donors not to cut aid. Afghan women told the BBC of public floggings, job losses and barriers to healthcare. The Taliban, for their part, mark the anniversary by presenting a more secure and "free" country.

France's Constitutional Council struck down a law banning social media for under-15s, calling it a disproportionate limit on freedom of expression.

The Council said Article 1 of the law was an infringement "neither appropriate, necessary, nor proportionate" to under-15s' freedom of expression and communication; France 24 also notes privacy concerns over age verification. Platforms covered include Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. President Emmanuel Macron said the government will prepare a new draft. In the same ruling, France 24 reports, the court upheld the assisted dying law.

Moroccan security sources cited by the Efe agency say hundreds of people heading to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta were stopped, halting an attempted crossing from Fnideq.

The same sources say the situation is under control, with no reports of injuries but several detentions. One outlet also reports the use of gas and tear gas to disperse dozens of people near the border. The information comes from Moroccan authorities and is not independently verified in the material.

A magnitude 7.7 earthquake off Indonesia's Flores Island killed dozens of people and collapsed buildings, with rescue operations still under way.

Sources give differing tolls: at least 38, at least 40, or at least 47 dead, plus six injured according to France 24. The quake struck early Saturday at a depth of about 10 km; footage from Maumere shows people running for safety. Euronews reports a second, magnitude 6.9 quake later hit Pematangsiantar on Sumatra at a depth of about 183 km. Aftershocks, power outages and widespread damage are hampering the search for survivors.

According to a Guardian investigation, more than 100 homes on the estates inherited by King Charles and Prince William have EPC ratings of F or G yet are rented out.

F and G ratings fall below the legal minimum energy efficiency standards for rented properties in the UK. The paper collects tenants' accounts of struggling to heat poorly insulated homes. The reporting comes from a single outlet and no response from the estates appears in the material.

Italy's motorway network is adopting free-flow tolling without barriers or toll booths, starting on the first stretches in the north before wider rollout.

Vehicles are detected without stopping and pay afterwards; according to the reports, those who do not pay within 15 days of transit face fines. The sources also flag a risk of digital scams tied to online payments. No full timetable for extending the system nationwide is given.

A study by the Jfc institute estimates the value of family tourism in Italy at over 15 billion euros.

The study lists Emilia-Romagna, Trentino, Puglia and Abruzzo as the regions most focused on this segment. The available material does not specify the reference period or the methodology behind the estimate.

A 75-year-old man stabbed his wife to death at a family house in Sant'Angelo a Cupolo, near Benevento, then attempted to take his own life.

Sources say the attack happened around 2:30 p.m. on 15 August after an argument; the man, named as Faustino Cardillo, cut his wrists and was taken to hospital in Benevento. The victim is named as Maria d'Alessandro. One outlet reports he had shown signs of distress in recent days.

A 45-year-old man was found dead in the street in Palermo's Zen district after surprising thieves in his garage, struck in the face with a screwdriver.

According to the reports the victim, named as Vito Genovese, was found lying in via Costante Girardengo, where paramedics arrived. The exact circumstances of the attack and the identity of those responsible are not clarified in the available material.

In Genoa a 26-year-old man wounded his 18-year-old sister with a knife and then fell from a fifth-floor window, dying instantly.

It happened shortly before 2 p.m. in a building in the San Teodoro area, reportedly during an argument between the two. The young woman suffered minor injuries and was taken to hospital in yellow code. Whether the fall was accidental or deliberate is unclear; an investigation is under way.

A juvenile court judge in Bari upheld the detention of a 17-year-old accused of killing a young man in Trani and ordered him held in custody.

The charge is voluntary homicide, aggravated by premeditation and trivial motives. The ruling followed the validation hearing. The material gives no further detail on the circumstances or motive, which remain under investigation.

A 13-year-old girl died in Palermo after falling from a building on via dei Nebrodi at around 7 a.m.

Police and forensic officers were at the scene. Family members who were at home with her at the time, and other witnesses, were questioned. The sources differ on the height of the fall, one citing the ninth floor and the other the eighth. The causes are not clarified.

Eleven bodies in an advanced state of decomposition were sighted off the Libyan coast, about 57 nautical miles from Zuwara.

The sighting occurred in the morning in the Libyan SAR area, and the report reached the coast guard's national operations centre. The available material does not clarify the victims' identities or the circumstances of their deaths.

Diomede Barchiesi, 50, died at Pescara hospital after being punched on the Fossacesia seafront while protecting his son.

According to accounts, the man had stepped in to defend his 18-year-old son and was assaulted by an 18-year-old. Death was declared at the end of the legally required observation period for confirming brain death.

Leo XIV, at the Angelus in Castel Gandolfo, offered a thought for peoples suffering from war in the Holy Land, Ukraine and Russia.

On the feast of the Assumption the pope prayed to Mary for communities in need of consolation and hope, and also mentioned Colombia. According to one source he criticised consumerist standards of beauty and wished the faithful rest, reading and time in nature.

A magnitude 3.9 quake at 12:24 in Linguaglossa, Catania province, cracked the road to Piano Provenzana; no injuries were reported.

The magnitude was reported by Italy's INGV. According to the reports the fracture runs along the Pernicana fault, linked to Etna's activity. Restaurants in the area, busy with the 15 August holiday lunch, were evacuated as a precaution.

The Stelvio cableway company has suspended summer skiing on the glacier for safety reasons because of high temperatures recorded in recent days.

The decision was announced by Sifas, the Stelvio cableway operator, to businesses and tourists in the ski area. The material does not say how long the suspension will last.

From the Alps to the Maremma, high temperatures are altering the behaviour of Italian wildlife, with animals more active at night and seasonal rhythms disrupted.

Examples cited include marmots playing less, roe deer moving mainly at night, wolves rolling in mud and bears not hibernating. According to studies cited by the sources, there is a risk of long-term consequences.

About fifty underage scouts suffered nausea and vomiting at a camp in Cavazzo Carnico, Udine province, with numerous ambulances sent to the site.

It is described as suspected food poisoning. According to the accounts, the group had eaten pasta with tuna and cheese at lunch, the only food common to everyone. The cause has not yet been confirmed.

Actor Massimo Boldi, 81, was hospitalised after falling and hitting his head on the pavement in Forte dei Marmi while out walking.

It happened around 5 p.m. near the Caffè Principe while he was with friends; sources differ on the date, one giving Thursday 13 August and another Friday 14. What caused the fall is unclear.

The Golden Leopard at the 79th Locarno Film Festival went to Florin Serban's 'You don't belong here'; Monica Bellucci won the best performance award.

The winning film's original title is 'Nu e locul tau aici'. The best performance prize went to Monica Bellucci for 'Ketticè'. The material does not list the full slate of awards.

At the European championships in Birmingham, Massimo Stano and Sofia Fiorini won gold in the walk marathon, with a world record for Fiorini.

In the same morning Italian race walking took five medals in four events: silver for Francesco Fortunato and Alexandrina Mihai in the half-marathon walk and bronze for Andrea Cosi. Antonella Palmisano finished fifth. The record is cited over the 42.195 km distance.

In Paris Nicolò Martinenghi won the 50m breaststroke in 26.57, ahead of Simone Cerasuolo (26.62), an Italian one-two in the event.

Sources say Cerasuolo tied for second with a Dutch swimmer. Sara Curtis took bronze in the 50m freestyle and Anita Gastaldi finished second in the 200m medley, while Alberto Razzetti placed fourth. Italy is aiming to defend the top spot in the medal table.

At the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, Gianmarco Tamberi won high jump gold with 2.32 metres and Nadia Battocletti took the 10,000m title.

In the high jump Tamberi finished ahead of Ukraine's Doroshchuk, who missed three attempts at 2.32, and Italy's Matteo Sioli, bronze with 2.27. Battocletti clocked 31:41.17, a season's best, days after winning the 5,000m. The sources also mention a medal for Fausto Desalu in the 200m.

Ferrero has acquired Purely Elizabeth, a US health-and-organic food brand, expanding its presence in the United States after its Kellogg deal.

Purely Elizabeth is based in Boulder, Colorado, and specialises in health-oriented and organic food products; sources say it has more than doubled its revenue in recent years. The deal follows Ferrero's Kellogg acquisition and is described as consolidating the group's position in the US market. No deal value or closing timetable is given.