Malala Yousafzai says going to university “finally” gave her some time for herself – including eating McDonald’s and playing poker. The Nobel Prize winner, 23, gave a wide-ranging interview to British Vogue and features on the cover of the magazine’s July issue. Ms Yousafzai graduated from Oxford University last year. “I was excited about literally anything – going to McDonalds or playing power with my friends,” she said. “I was enjoying each and every moment because I had not seen that much before. I had never really been in the company of people my own age.” Ms Yousafzai was shot in the head by Taliban militants when she was 14, after campaigning for girls to be educated in her native Pakistan.(BBC)…[+]

Five teenagers have been arrested in Belgium over the alleged gang rape of a 14-year-old girl, who died less than a week later. According to Belgian media, images of the attack were shared online. The victim took her life four days later. Prosecutors say that three of the suspects, who are minors, are in a youth facility, while two men aged 18 and 19 have been arrested and are due to appear in court on Wednesday. The prosecution has only confirmed that they are being investigated for “acts that occurred shortly before the death of the victim”. According to Belgian media reports, the girl had arranged to meet a male friend at a cemetery in Ghent on  15 May. However, he allegedly arrived with the four other suspects and assaulted the victim. Images from the attack were also uploaded to social media.(BBC)…[+]

Eight Venezuelan soldiers seized by an armed group near the Colombian border have been rescued, Venezuela’s Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino says. Gen Padrino did not give any details about the mission in which the eight were freed, or of the captors who had taken them. A group of Colombian rebels had said it was behind the abduction of the soldiers. There have been skirmishes between the Venezuelan army and former rebels. A group calling itself 10th Front Martín Villa said in a letter it sent to the Red Cross in May that it had seized the soldiers during clashes on 23 April in the Venezuelan state of Apure, which borders Colombia.(BBC)…[+]

A manhunt is underway in Florida for three attackers who fired into a crowd of concert-goers on Sunday, killing at least two and injuring over 20 others. The shooting occurred early on Sunday, in Hialeah, a city north of Miami. Police have released CCTV video of the trio emerging from a white van, and a reward for their arrest has climbed to $130,000 (£92,000). The attackers used rifles and pistols to fire “indiscriminately into the crowd” outside the venue, police say. The shooting took place between 24:00-01:00 local time (04:00-05:00 GMT) in Hialeah, which is located around 13 miles (20km) from Miami. As yet there have been no arrests. Officials say the dispute may have been sparked by a rivalry and was not “random”. “These are cold blooded murderers that shot indiscriminately into a crowd and we will seek justice,” Miami-Dade county police director Alfredo Ramirez III said.(BBC)…[+]

Peru has more than doubled its Covid death toll following a review, making it the country with the world’s highest death rate per capita, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The official death toll is now more than 180,000, up from 69,342, in a country of about 33 million people. Prime Minister Violeta Bermudez said the number was increased on the advice of Peruvian and international experts. This was in line with so-called excess deaths figures. Excess deaths are a measure of how many more people are dying than would be expected based on the previous few years. “We think it is our duty to make public this updated information,” Ms Bermudez said.(BBC)…[+]

Plans to rapidly relocate hundreds more Afghans who worked for the British military and UK government, mostly as interpreters, have been announced. Including family members, more than 3,000 Afghans are expected to be allowed to settle in the UK, joining 1,300 who have already done so. The decision comes amid fears for their safety as international troops prepare to leave the country. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said it was “only right” to accelerate plans. He added that those being relocated were those that might otherwise “be at risk of reprisals” from the Taliban. The issue has been a concern since British forces ended combat operations in Helmand in 2014 – with troops who served there being among the most vocal in their support for measures to protect those who assisted them during their deployment.(BBC)…[+]

An armed ex-soldier on the run in south-western France has been shot by police after a 24-hour manhunt. The man, named by police as 29-year-old Terry Dupin, had fled to a forest after shooting at officers on Saturday, sparking a massive search. He was wounded during a shoot-out with a special forces squad, and has been taken into custody, officials say. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said he had been “neutralised” and thanked police for their “decisive action”. The manhunt began on Saturday after a “dispute” at Dupin’s ex-partner’s home, in Le Lardin-Saint-Lazare in Dordogne, led to him shooting at police. The suspect is said to have fled to nearby woods armed with a knife and a long-range hunting rifle. More than 300 officers, four armoured vehicles and a police helicopter were deployed to comb the four sq km (1.5 sq mile) stretch of woodland into Sunday night. Some 1,800 residents were urged to stay at home to avoid the “potentially very dangerous” suspect.(BBC)…[+]

US actor Joe Lara, best known for playing Tarzan, is presumed dead after a plane crash in Tennessee. The 58-year-old is among seven people believed killed when a light aircraft crashed into a lake near the town of Smyrna on Saturday. His dietician wife, Gwen Shamblin Lara, who founded a weight-loss church, is also among the victims. Rescue workers say they found wreckage and human remains at the crash site. Mr Lara played the lead role in the 1989 TV movie Tarzan in Manhattan before reprising the role in the follow-up TV series Tarzan: The Epic Adventures. He gave up acting in 2002 to pursue a career in country music.(BBC)…[+]

The Mexican government has condemned unauthorised building work being carried out at the ancient city of Teotihuacán, near Mexico City. The UN’s international council on monuments and sites (Icomos) said bulldozers threatened to raze as many as seven acres at the protected site. Teotihuacán is a Unesco World Heritage Site and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the country. UN officials raised the alarm about building work at the site on Monday. Icomos Mexico said the excavation work threatened “archaeological, housing and monumental remains which are also being looted” and called on the Mexican government to decisively intervene so that experts can get in to evaluate the damage. Experts from the site say they began to raise the alarm earlier this year after construction began, including the use of heavy machinery, on the complex’s outskirts when supervision was limited because of the pandemic.(BBC)…[+]

US President Joe Biden has called for a ceasefire in Ethiopia’s conflict in the northern region of Tigray. Mr Biden demanded an end to “large-scale human rights abuses”. The fighting, now in its seventh month, has killed thousands and forced two million from their homes. The US president also highlighted the possibility of famine. The conflict pits the Ethiopian army and its Eritrean allies against a regional Tigrayan force. It began last November, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered an attack on forces loyal to the region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), after they had overrun federal army bases. Mr Abiy declared an end to the conflict after just a month, with the capture of Tigray’s capital, Mekelle.(BBC)…[+]