Terrified civilians are watching a fragile peace crumble as politicians are arrested and deadly bombings increase

Night had already fallen on Juba, the capital of South Sudan, at about 7pm on 24 March, when an orange glow lit up the sky. It didn’t take long before news spread that the government had carried out an airstrike. For weeks, clashes had taken place in remote parts of the country between the army of the president, Salva Kiir, and opposition forces, but never that close to the capital. The target – an opposition base in Wunaliet, 15km west of the city – was consumed in flames.

Just hours before the airstrike, Nicholas Haysom, the head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (Unmiss), had warned that the political and security situation in the country had deteriorated. “We are left with no other conclusion but to assess that South Sudan is teetering on the edge of a relapse into civil war,” he told a press briefing.

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• Latest news and previews as we head into the weekend
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Chelsea are chasing a domestic clean sweep in the women’s game. Sunday’s Women’s FA Cup final arrives with Catarina Macario in form and having recaptured elusive fitness following her injury-ravaged start to life at the club.

It hasn’t been the smoothest time or transition back into playing. Having been out for so long, other things come, different little niggles, and it’s hard to pick up form in general, especially in the middle of a season, like this year. Thankfully I feel like I’ve finally been able to be on the pitch consistently since January or so, which has been a big achievement.”

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Two firefighters and member of the public killed and two firefighters seriously injured after fire in Bicester

Two firefighters and a member of the public have died and two firefighters are seriously injured after a fire at a former RAF base in Bicester, Oxfordshire county council has said.

More details soon …

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About 150 changes have been made to the bill since MPs voted on it last year

Good morning. Today MPs will spend five hours debating the assisted dying bill, or the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill, to give it its proper title. The legislation, which covers England and Wales, was passed at second reading in November by 330 votes to 275 – a majority of 55. That does not mean it will definitely become law, because the third reading vote in the Commons will not take place until next month. But, although a few MPs have changed their minds, there is no evidence that opponents of the bill are now close to having a majority.

After the debate in November, the bill went to a committee where MPs debated around 500 amendments to it, and voted in favour of about 150 of them. That means the legislation on the table today is not the same as the bill debated last year. The Commons library has produced a good briefing paper with a guide to the main changes. There is a 179-page document here listing all the amendments that were agreed. Here is the text of the bill as amended.

This was a particularly distasteful letter. Disrespectful to those with faith and without. Condescending to disabled people. And dismissive of professionals who work day in day out to provide the care people who need at the end of life.

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Increased mental health support for young people will give them resilience, say education and health secretaries

Schoolchildren will be helped to develop “much-needed grit” for life beyond school with increased mental health support, the education and health secretaries have said.

Writing in the Telegraph , Bridget Phillipson and Wes Streeting said they would roll out mental health support in schools to a nearly 1 million extra children in England.

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Sunday Times says monarch’s personal fortune has risen to £640m, while that of ex-PM and wife has fallen to that level

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King Charles’s personal fortune increased to £640m in the past year, making him as wealthy as the former prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, according to the Sunday Times rich list.

The 76-year-old monarch, who acceded to the throne in 2022, saw a £30m increase in wealth and ranks joint 238th on the list of the UK’s wealthiest people and families.

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Photo from Vietnam war is now at centre of controversy after documentary claimed it was taken by someone else

The World Press Photo group has suspended the attribution of authorship for one on the most famous press photographs ever taken, after a new documentary challenged 50 years of accepted journalism history.

The photo, officially titled The Terror of War but colloquially known as Napalm Girl, remains one of the most indelible images of the US war in Vietnam. Since its publication in June 1972, it has been officially attributed to Nick Ut, a Vietnamese photographer working with the Associated Press in Saigon.

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Strictly Limited/Giants Software; Mega Drive
It may be seem horrendously old-fashioned, but the seemingly dull repetition of working your wheat fields has a nostalgic pull like a combine harvester

When I got my first job in games journalism 30 years ago, I arrived just too late to review games for my favourite ever console: the Sega Mega Drive. Although a few titles were still being released for the machine in 1995, the games magazine world had moved on and all anyone wanted to read about were the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. It was a bitter blow.

Fast-forward to 2025 and a resurgent interest in producing new games for vintage home computers and consoles has led to Farming Simulator: 16bit Edition – a Mega Drive instalment in the hugely successful agricultural sim series. The passion project of Renzo Thönen, lead level designer and co-owner of Farming Simulation studio Giants Software, the game has been written using an open-source Mega Drive development kit, and manufactured in a limited run of genuine Mega Drive cartridges. Slotting this brand new release into the cart of my dad’s ancient Mega Drive II console felt ridiculously moving and I thought the game could only be a letdown after that. But I was wrong.

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A delightful animation about a shipwrecked robot, plus an extraordinary documentary about a revolt at the only US college for deaf students … after they tried to put a hearing person in charge

Chris Sanders’s delightful family animation attains Wall-E levels of poignancy in its tale of a shipwrecked robot that learns how to feel. Washed up on a remote island populated only by animals, service unit Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) finds it has no one to serve. That is until it falls on to a goose’s nest, killing all its occupants apart from runt of the litter Brightbill (Kit Connor) – who imprints on Roz as his mother. Assisted by Pedro Pascal’s cynical fox Fink, the ever helpful machine reprogrammes itself to rear the gosling well enough so he can migrate with the other geese. The Disney-style anthropomorphising is a bit overdone, but it’s a film full of warmth and wit.
Friday 23 May, 9.10am, 6.10pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

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