Donald Trump’s approval rating has plunged in a national poll, published on Sunday, that charts Americans’ perceptions of a stalling domestic policy agenda and declining leadership on the world stage. The Washington Post/ABC News poll, which put Trump’s six-month approval rating at a historic 70-year low, came amid mounting controversy over Russian interference in the 2016 election.

It emerged on Saturday that Trump’s campaign committee made a payment to the legal firm representing the president’s eldest son almost two weeks before a meeting between Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer promising compromising information on Hillary Clinton was made public. Trump now has a 36% approval rating, down six points from his first 100 days’ rating. The poll found that 48% believed America’s leadership in the world is weaker than before the billionaire took office, while support for Republican plans to replace Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act was at just 24% compared with 50% who support the former president’s signature healthcare policy.(theguardian)…[+]

Iran’s state-run newspapers on Sunday broke with the country’s strict rules on female dress to show the mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani with her head uncovered, as the country mourned the death at the age of 40 of the woman known as the queen of mathematics. Tributes were led by the president, Hassan Rouhani, who posted a recent picture of Mirzakhani on Instagram without a hijab. “The grievous passing of Maryam Mirzakhani, the eminent Iranian and world-renowned mathematician, is very much heartrending,” he wrote.

Mirzakhani, a Stanford University professor, died in hospital in California on Saturday after cancer in her breast spread to her bone marrow. The university president, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, said Mirzakhani’s influence would live on in the “thousands of women she inspired” to pursue maths and science. When in 2014 she became the first woman to win the Fields medal, often described as maths’ Nobel prize, Iranian newspapers digitally retouched Mirzakhani’s photograph to put a scarf over her head while others published a sketch showing only her face. Iran’s strict laws on female dress require all women to be covered in public.(theguardian)…[+]

Two Israeli police officers have been shot dead and three gunmen killed during an early-morning shootout in one of Jerusalem’s most holy and sensitive sites.

The attack – involving three Israeli citizens of Palestinian origin – took place just after 7am in the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif complex in Jerusalem. It began near the Lions’ Gate entrance to the compound, which is revered as a holy site by both Muslims and Jews. A few hours after the incident, the chief of the Israeli police, Roni Alsheich, confirmed the death of the two male officers from wounds sustained in the attack. The incident was among the most serious in Jerusalem in recent years and threatened to raise Israeli-Palestinian tensions. The two dead police officers were named as Hael Sathawi, 30, and Kamil Shnan, 22.

According to police, the three men – residents of the Israeli Arab town of Umm al-Fahm who were armed with home-made Carlo machine guns and a pistol – opened fire on police near the gate before fleeing back into the heart of the compound which houses the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Israel’s Shin Bet security service later named the three attackers as Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed Jabareen, 29, Mohammed Hamed Abd Al-Latif Jabareen, 19, and Mohammed Ahmed Mafdal Jabareen, also 19, noting that none had previous security convictions.(Theguardian)…[+]

When France’s top military band, in their gold-buttoned uniforms, shattered the formality of the Bastille Day military parade by breaking into a medley by Daft Punk, it wasn’t a surprise. For days, the French military’s top musicians had been bemusing passersby on the Champs Élysées as they rehearsed their bewilderingly fast dance steps, with many of them darting to and fro heaving tubas and trombones.

Some band members had even questioned why they should be doing “pop”, but orders had come down from on high: this year’s parade had to “reach out to the youth”. Whether the US president, Donald Trump, who was guest of honour at the celebrations, got the joke was another matter.

From the VIP viewing platform, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, could barely suppress a smug grin. But Trump looked on, pursing his lips earnestly, as he had done watching the hundreds of troops parading moments before. At one point, he mouthed “so good” to his wife, Melania Trump, but he did not appear to recognise the hits. While French dignitaries clapped and swayed in their seats, Trump sat resolutely still, his blonde comb-over lifting and falling slightly in the breeze.(theguardian)…[+]

A lioness has been spotted nursing a tiny leopard cub in Tanzania, the first time a wild cat is known to have adopted a cub from another species. The five-year old lioness, called Nosikitok is closely monitored by conservationists in the Ngorongoro conservation area and is known to have had a litter of her own in mid to late June.

How she came to adopt the leopard cub, thought to be three weeks old, is not known. But Luke Hunter, president of big cat conservation group Panthera, said her recent births are a critical factor: “She is physiologically primed to take care of baby cats, and the little leopard fits the bill – it is almost exactly the age of her own cubs and physically very similar to them.

“She would not be nursing the cub if she wasn’t already awash with a ferocious maternal drive. Even so, there has never been another case like it, and why it has occurred now is mystifying. This is a truly unique case. It is quite possible she has lost her own cubs, and found the leopard cub in her bereaved state when she would be particularly vulnerable.”(theguardian)…[+]

A heatwave is rolling across southern Europe, fuelling wildfires, exacerbating droughts in Italy and Spain and leading the Greek authorities to close some of the most popular tourist sites. Blazes have broken out across southern Italy and Sicily, where the temperatures have climbed above 40C this week. Wildfires near the Calampiso seaside resort west of Palermo, the Sicilian capital, forced the evacuation by boat of more than 700 tourists on Wednesday night. About 10 people were taken to hospital for smoke inhalation but there were no reports of serious injuries. The resort will remain closed until the weekend. “The fire didn’t enter the village and everyone was evacuated. It is safer now,” said Anna Maria Como, from the mayoral office of the nearby town of San Vito Lo Capo. By Thursday morning, the fires were under control. About 23 wildfires raged in southern Italy on Wednesday, including on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius near Naples.(theguardian)…[+]

Last year was the most perilous ever for people defending their community’s land, natural resources or wildlife, with new research showing that environmental defenders are being killed at the rate of almost four a week across the world. Two hundred environmental activists, wildlife rangers and indigenous leaders trying to protect their land were killed in 2016, according to the watchdog group Global Witness – more than double the number killed five years ago. And the frequency of killings is only increasing as 2017 ticks by, according to data provided exclusively to the Guardian, with 98 killings identified in the first five months of this year.

John Knox, UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, said: “Human rights are being jettisoned as a culture of impunity is developing. “There is now an overwhelming incentive to wreck the environment for economic reasons. The people most at risk are people who are already marginalised and excluded from politics and judicial redress, and are dependent on the environment. The countries do not respect the rule of law. Everywhere in the world, defenders are facing threats.(theguardian)…[+]

Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has launched a defiant public defence after being convicted of corruption and money laundering, and vowed to run for president next year.

“If anyone thinks that with this sentence they will pull me out of the game, they should know that I am in the game,” Lula told supporters at the headquarters of his Workers’ party a day after he received a nearly 10-year sentence for accepting bribes in return for helping an engineering company win contracts with the state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro, or Petrobras. In a brief, at times emotional speech, Silva told supporters in São Paulo that the court had no proof and the conviction was politically motivated. To cheers, he said he wanted to run for re-election next year. “From this moment, I want to ask the Workers’ party for the right to be a candidate for president,” he shouted.“Lula for president!” the crowd responded.(theguardian)…[+]

Authorities in the Balearic Islands, home to the party resorts of Ibiza and Mallorca, have asked Spain and the European Union to ban alcohol on flights and in airports as they battle “anti-social tourism”.The plea comes after recent, much-publicised reports of drunken brawls or alcohol-fuelled sexual antics on flights to an archipelago that attracts millions of visitors every year – with many flocking to resorts notorious for their sex and booze excess.

“We ask the central government and the European commission to ban the consumption of alcoholic drinks on flights and in airports,” said Pilar Carbonell, in charge of tourism for the local government of the Balearic Islands. In a statement, she said authorities were asking that these measures be taken “to guarantee security … and tackle anti-social tourism.”The statement did not say if the local authorities were asking for alcohol to be banned on all EU flights, or only those going to the Balearic Islands. “The aim of the measure is to improve passenger security and also that of security forces in planes and airports in our islands, who are often faced with drunk passengers,” it said.(theguardian)…[+]

The European Union has said the Brexit talks could be derailed by an escalating fight over money as it fired back at Boris Johnson for telling the EU leaders to “go whistle” if they expected Britain to pay a divorce bill for withdrawing from the bloc. “I am not hearing any whistling, just a clock ticking,” said the EU negotiator Michel Barnier at a press conference in Brussels to preview the next round of talks, due to begin on Monday.His London counterpart, the Brexit secretary, David Davis, has not yet presented a formal UK position on the scale of any financial settlement when Britain leaves, which some estimates have suggested could be as a high as €100bn.

But EU officials are adamant that failure to at least acknowledge the principle of ongoing budget obligations would prevent talks from proceeding at all and not allow any discussion of future relationship issues such as a free trade deal.

“The three priorities for the first phase are indivisible,” said Barnier, referring to the financial settlement, citizens’ rights and other separation issues such as the Northern Irish border. “Progress on one or two would not be sufficient in order for us to move on to the discussion of our future relationship.”(theguardian)…[+]