The director of hit superhero film Black Panther was mistaken for a bank robber as he tried to take money out of his own account in the US, a police report has revealed. Ryan Coogler was briefly arrested after trying to withdraw $12,000 (£9,100) from the Atlanta bank in January. The teller had reportedly told her boss she suspected an attempted robbery after misinterpreting the situation. Mr Coogler told US outlet TMZ the “situation should never have happened”. However, the 35-year-old said Bank of America had since “worked with me and addressed it to my satisfaction and we have moved on”. According to the police report, which was obtained by the entertainment website, Mr Coogler – reportedly wearing a covid face mask, as well as sunglasses and a hat – handed the teller a withdrawal slip with a note saying he wanted $12,000 from his checking account. The note also asked for the money to be counted somewhere else, ending “I’d like to be discreet”. He also showed identification. The New York Times reported that he told police he was paying for a medical assistant who worked for his family and sought discretion over safety concerns due to the cash amount he requested.(BBC)…[+]

Florida’s Senate has passed a bill to ban discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in primary schools. Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the measure, which would bar teachers from teaching these topics to children under 10 years old. Critics say the bill will isolate LGBT youth. Proponents say it is about empowering parents on education issues. Activists have dubbed it the Don’t Say Gay bill. It is officially known as the Parental Rights in Education Bill. The Republican-backed legislation passed on Tuesday. It prohibits any instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity between kindergarten and third grade – when students are roughly between five and nine years old. It also calls on school districts to avoid LGBT topics “when not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students”.(BBC)…[+]

Convoys of civilians are due to leave several towns near the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, according to regional leader Oleksiy Kuleba. Ukraine says it has agreed a 12-hour ceasefire with Russia for six routes in the war zone, and Mr Kuleba said the first groups had already left. Russian shelling has continued with further reports of civilian deaths. Ten people died in Severodonetsk in the east and five people were killed in Malyn near Kyiv, Ukraine says. Sumy governor Dmytro Zhyvytskyi said a night air raid on Monday flattened six houses and three children were among 22 people killed. “Three bombs in one evening… It was a terrible night,” he said. Fighting is continuing north and north-west of Kyiv as Russian forces continue their offensive. Ukrainian MP Inna Sovsun told the BBC that the Russian military was struggling to make significant progress. Air raid sirens were heard again in cities across Ukraine on Wednesday.(BBC)…[+]

Venezuela has released two jailed US citizens following talks with a high-level US delegation in Caracas. One of those freed is Gustavo Cárdenas, an executive with Citgo, a US refining company once controlled by Venezuela’s state oil firm. The other is Jorge Alberto Fernández, who was arrested last year in Venezuela and accused of terrorism. US President Joe Biden confirmed their release and said both had been “wrongfully detained in Venezuela”. In a statement, President Biden thanked Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens and “the entire diplomatic team for their tireless efforts to secure their release and reunite these families”. Mr Cárdenas is one of a group of six jailed oil executives known as the Citgo 6.(BBC)…[+]

Bhavana Menon, a popular actress from the southern Indian state of Kerala, who was abducted and sexually assaulted in 2017, has broken her silence after five years, describing her “difficult journey from being a victim to a survivor”. Menon, who has worked in more than 80 films in southern Indian languages and won a number of prestigious awards, was assaulted by a group of men while travelling from Thrissur to Kochi in February 2017. Her assault made headlines, especially after Dileep, one of the Malayalam-language film industry’s biggest actors and Menon’s co-star in half a dozen films, was named as an accused and charged with criminal conspiracy. He denied the charges against him, but was arrested and held in custody for three months before being released on bail. The case is being heard in a trial court. “I was just a normal fun-loving girl and then this one incident happened that turned my life upside down. Most people see the smiling photos I post on social media, but I have been to hell and back,” Menon told me on the phone from the southern city of Bangalore.(BBC)…[+]

The World Bank has approved $723m (£551m) in loans and grants for Ukraine, as the country fights against a Russian invasion. The bank said it is continuing to work on another $3bn package of support in the coming months for the country. It also promised extra help for neighbouring countries that are taking in more than 1.7m refugees, which are mostly women, children and the elderly.  The financial package for Ukraine includes a $100m pledge from the UK. “The World Bank Group is taking quick action to support Ukraine and its people in the face of the violence and extreme disruption caused by the Russian invasion,” the bank’s president David Malpass said in a statement. The bank said the funds would help Ukraine’s government provide critical services, including wages for hospital workers, pensions for the elderly and social programmes for the vulnerable.(BBC)…[+]

Shell has pledged to stop buying oil from Russia as it apologised for its purchase of cheap Russian crude at the weekend. The energy giant also said it would close all its service stations in the country and stop all current work there. Shell came under huge criticism at the weekend after it purchased a cargo of Russian crude at a discounted price. Its boss said on Tuesday, however, that it was wrong to buy Russian oil. “We are acutely aware that our decision last week to purchase a cargo of Russian crude oil… was not the right one and we are sorry,” Mr van Beurden said. The company said it will immediately stop purchasing Russian crude oil and will shut about 500 service stations there, as well as halting its aviation fuel and lubricant operations in the country. The rest of the company’s exit from Russian oil and gas is expected to take some time. The Ukrainian foreign minister had hit out at the firm on social media after it emerged Shell had bought crude.(BBC)…[+]

For more than a week, an Indian doctor in war-torn Ukraine has been holed up in a basement at home with his pet big cats – a black panther and a jaguar. Girikumar Patil, who bought the two cats from the Kyiv zoo, says he will not leave home without his pets. He has lived for over six years in Severodonetsk, a small town located in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. After the war began, Mr Giri, who is single, has been stepping out of his cramped basement only to buy food for his cats – the male jaguar is 20 months old and the female panther is a six-month-old cub – after the curfew ends early in the morning. (The jaguar is a rare hybrid between a male leopard and a female jaguar, he said.) So far, Mr Giri said he had bought 23kg of sheep, turkey and chicken meat from neighbouring villages at prices four times higher than normal. “My big cats have been spending nights in the basement with me. There has been a lot of bombing happening around us. The cats are scared. They are eating less. I can’t leave them,” Mr Patil, 40, told the BBC. “This is the second war I am living through. But this is scarier.” 

Australian cricket legend Shane Warne’s death in Thailand on Friday was from natural causes, police have confirmed. A senior Thai police official said the post mortem exam showed no signs of foul play in the 52-year-old’s death. Warne, who is considered to be one of the greatest cricketers of all time, died of a suspected heart attack on Koh Samui island, where he was holidaying. The Australian government is bringing his body back to Australia where he will be given a state funeral. Warne was a larger-than-life figure whose fame transcended sport and he inspired generations of fans.(BBC)…[+]

More than 4,300 people were detained at anti-war protests across Russia on Sunday, rights groups and Russian authorities say. Some 1,700 people were detained in Moscow alone, Ria news agency reports, citing the interior ministry. The OVD-Info rights group says detentions took place in 53 cities. Although protests have become increasingly restricted in recent years, numerous rallies have taken place across Russia since the invasion. In the last 11 days, more than 10,000 people have been detained at protests, OVD-Info says. “The screws are being fully tightened – essentially we are witnessing military censorship,” Maria Kuznetsova, OVD-Info’s spokeswoman, told Reuters news agency from Tbilisi in Georgia. “We are seeing rather big protests today – even in Siberian cities, where we only rarely saw such numbers of arrests.”(BBC)…[+]