UK News
London Marathon: Record of 1.33 million people apply for 2027 event
A record number of people have applied to participate in the 2027 London Marathon via the public ballot.
In total, 1,338,544 people have applied for the event which will take place on 25 April, breaking last year’s record of 1,133,813.
The 2026 marathon had a record 59,830 finishers and was the biggest annual one-day fundraising event in the world.
“This astonishing total of applicants firmly establishes London as the world’s most sought-after marathon,” said Hugh Brasher, chief executive of London Marathon Events.
“Nothing else comes close. Our mission is to inspire people of every age and ability to get active – and these extraordinary numbers show the massive draw and power of the London Marathon.”
The ballot results will be released early in July, with places allocated through a random draw.
It is the first time that more than a million applications from the UK alone have been submitted, and there was near parity in male and female registrations.
At last weekend’s historic event, Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe ran the first sub-two-hour marathon in a competitive race, and Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa broke her own women’s world record.
UK News
Russia launches attacks on Ukraine energy infrastructure amid truce talks – Europe live | World news
Morning opening: Zelenskyy condemns ‘utter cynicism’ of Russian attacks amid truce talks
Jakub Krupa
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticised Russia’s “utter cynicism” of launching more attacks on Ukraine while also calling for a short ceasefire enabling it to stage its 9 May Victory Parade in Moscow.
In a post on X condemning the latest series of attacks, he said:
“It is utter cynicism to ask for a ceasefire in order to hold propaganda celebrations while carrying out such missile and drone strikes every single day leading up to it. Russia could cease fire at any moment, and this would stop the war and our responses. Peace is needed, and real steps are needed to achieve it. Ukraine will act in kind.”
The overnight attacks were primarily aimed at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, but killed four people and injured more, Zelenskyy said.
Earlier, Zelensky said that holding a ceasefire between 8 and 9 May so Moscow could hold the Victory Parade despite fears of a Ukrainian attack was “not serious”, and suggested an earlier truce starting already midnight (9pm GMT) on Tuesday.
“It is time for Russian leaders to take real steps to end their war, especially since Russia’s defence ministry believes it cannot hold a parade in Moscow without Ukraine’s goodwill.”
There is nothing to suggest that Russia will abide by the proposed ceasefire.
Elsewhere, I will keep an eye on the EU leaders’ meeting in Yerevan, Armenia after the latest round of Donald Trump’s threats against European partners, and on a vote of no confidence in Romania’s prime minister Ilie Bolojan, which could see his government collapse this afternoon.
It’s Tuesday, 5 May 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
Key events
UK’s Starmer lauds benefit of joining EU’s €90bn loan for Ukraine as ‘some’ alliances ‘are not in place we would want them’
Another big topic of the Yerevan summits – which continue today after an earlier meeting of the European Political Community over the bank holiday weekend – is the UK’s willingness to join the EU’s €90bn loan for Ukraine.
Prime minister Keir Starmer has said the benefit of joining the European Union’s scheme for Ukraine “outweighs the cost” as he argued the continent must move at pace to bolster its own defence.
The prime minister, who said the UK’s involvement in the recovery loan plan would also help create jobs at home, acknowledged that tensions were high between Donald Trump and Europe, particularly over military issues.
As the Nato military alliance comes under intense pressure from Trump’s threats amid a difference in stances on the war in Iran, Starmer said: “We cannot deny that some of the alliances that we have come to rely on are not in the place we would want them to be.”
He continued:
“There is more tension in the alliances than there should be and it’s very important that we therefore face up to this as a group of countries together.”
EU ‘prepared for every scenario’ after Trump’s car tariff threats
Meanwhile, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, responded to US president Donald Trump’s latest threats on car tariffs.
Blindsiding Brussels late on Friday, a public holiday in much of Europe, Trump announced that he would be increasing tariffs on cars and lorries imported into the US from the EU from 15% to 25% from next week.
Speaking from Yerevan, where the EU-Armenia summit is taking place, von der Leyen said:
“A deal is a deal, and we have a deal, and the essence of this deal is prosperity, common rules and reliability. Now we are both implementing this deal while respecting the different democratic procedures we have on both sides.
On the European Union side, we are now in the final stages of implementing the remaining tariff commitments. At the same time, the US has the commitment, for example, where alignment with the agreed ceiling is still outstanding.
So we want from this work mutual gain, cooperation and reliability, and we are prepared for every scenario.”
Morning opening: Zelenskyy condemns ‘utter cynicism’ of Russian attacks amid truce talks
Jakub Krupa
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticised Russia’s “utter cynicism” of launching more attacks on Ukraine while also calling for a short ceasefire enabling it to stage its 9 May Victory Parade in Moscow.
In a post on X condemning the latest series of attacks, he said:
“It is utter cynicism to ask for a ceasefire in order to hold propaganda celebrations while carrying out such missile and drone strikes every single day leading up to it. Russia could cease fire at any moment, and this would stop the war and our responses. Peace is needed, and real steps are needed to achieve it. Ukraine will act in kind.”
The overnight attacks were primarily aimed at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, but killed four people and injured more, Zelenskyy said.
Earlier, Zelensky said that holding a ceasefire between 8 and 9 May so Moscow could hold the Victory Parade despite fears of a Ukrainian attack was “not serious”, and suggested an earlier truce starting already midnight (9pm GMT) on Tuesday.
“It is time for Russian leaders to take real steps to end their war, especially since Russia’s defence ministry believes it cannot hold a parade in Moscow without Ukraine’s goodwill.”
There is nothing to suggest that Russia will abide by the proposed ceasefire.
Elsewhere, I will keep an eye on the EU leaders’ meeting in Yerevan, Armenia after the latest round of Donald Trump’s threats against European partners, and on a vote of no confidence in Romania’s prime minister Ilie Bolojan, which could see his government collapse this afternoon.
It’s Tuesday, 5 May 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
UK News
Middle East crisis live: ‘We have not even begun’, Iran warns US amid escalation in strait of Hormuz | US-Israel war on Iran
Continuation of status quo ‘intolerable’ for US, says Iran’s top negotiator
The Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said in a post on X this morning that a “new equation of the strait of Hormuz is in the process of being solidified” and warned that the continuation of the “status quo” was an “intolerable” position for the US to maintain.
Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator, added:
The security of shipping and energy transit has been jeopardised by the United States and its allies through the violation of the ceasefire and the imposition of a blockade; of course, their evil will diminish.
We know full well that the continuation of the status quo is intolerable for America; while we have not even begun yet.
Iran imposed a blockade on foreign shipping using the strait of Hormuz soon after the war began with a US-Israeli attack on 28 February which killed the country’s former supreme leader. The US president, Donald Trump, imposed a counter-blockade of ships using Iranian ports on 13 April.
Trump’s so-called “Project Freedom”, which began yesterday, says its aim is to use the US military to guide stranded cargo ships out of the strategic waterway. But in doing so it makes the resumption of war much more likely as Iran’s military central command warned that it would strike any US naval vessel approaching the strait.
Key events
The Israeli military has issued more forced displacement orders for people in southern Lebanon – this time for those in the towns of Jabsheet and Sarafand.
In a statement on social media, the military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee said these residents should evacuate their homes “immediately and move away from the villages and towns for a distance of at least 1000 metres to open areas”.
Signalling upcoming airstrikes, Adraee claimed the IDF are “compelled to act forcefully against” Hezbollah, which he said had violated the US-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon that came into effect in mid April.
Hezbollah, which has been striking Israeli troops in Lebanon, says it will not cease its attacks on Israeli troops inside Lebanon and on towns in northern Israel as long as Israel continued its ceasefire violations.
Israel has been accused of violating the ceasefire agreement many times, with strikes killing civilians and homes continuing to be demolished despite the military saying it is only targeting Hezbollah sites.
Under the agreement’s terms, Israel was effectively given permission to continue its assault on Lebanon as it retained a “right to take all necessary measures in self-defence, at any time, against planned, imminent, or ongoing attacks”.
India’s ministry of external affairs said the attack on Fujairah in the UAE – which injured three Indian nationals – was “unacceptable” and called for an immediate end to the “targeting of civilian infrastructure and innocent civilians”.
Officials in Fujairah said yesterday that a fire broke out at the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone following what they described as a drone attack originating from Iran. Civil defence teams were deployed immediately to contain the blaze, Fujairah Media office said in a statement.
Opening summary: US targets Iranian boats amid tense push for control of strait of Hormuz
We are restarting our live coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran. The US and Iran launched new attacks in the Gulf on Monday as they wrestled for control over the strait of Hormuz amid dual maritime blockades, taking the region back to the brink of full-scale war.
The fresh volleys of missiles and drones came after Donald Trump launched a new effort to get stranded tankers and other ships through the vital energy and trade route that has been virtually shut since the US-Israeli war against Iran began in late February.
On Monday, several merchant ships in the Gulf reported explosions or fires, the US said it had destroyed six small Iranian military boats – a claim Tehran denied – and Iran attacked the UAE with drones and missiles, setting the oil port of Fujairah on fire.
The US military’s Central Command (Centcom) said two US-flagged merchant vessels crossed through the strait of Hormuz on Monday as US navy destroyers operated in the Gulf. Shipping company Maersk later said one of its US-flagged commercial vessels had successfully exited the strait under US military escort.
In other key developments:
-
Trump warned that Iran’s forces would be “blown off the face of the earth” if they attacked US vessels trying to reopen a route through the strait. The president announced the US operation – called Project Freedom – on Monday to help hundreds of ships trapped in the Gulf.
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Centcom chief Adm Brad Cooper declined to say whether he thought the ceasefire with Tehran that begun on 8 April remained in effect amid Iranian attacks in the region but acknowledged Iran’s Revolutionary Guards tried to “interfere” with Trump’s operation.
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Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said Monday’s events showed there was no military solution to the crisis. He said peace talks were progressing with Pakistan’s mediation and warned the US and the UAE against being drawn into a “quagmire by ill-wishers”.
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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Monday that no commercial vessels had crossed the strait in the past few hours, and that US claims to the contrary were false. Iranian state media also denied reports the US had sunk Iranian vessels.
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The UK and Saudi Arabia both called for de-escalation after Iran’s attacks on the UAE – the first on the US ally since Washington’s ceasefire with Tehran took effect about a month ago.
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In Oman, two people were injured by an attack on a residential building in Bukha, on the Hormuz strait’s coastline, an Omani state news agency reported.
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A fire on a South Korean-operated vessel that had an explosion in the Hormuz strait has been extinguished, ship operator HMM said. South Korea’s foreign ministry said all 24 crew on the HMM Namu – including six South Koreans – were unharmed. Trump blamed an Iranian attack.
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International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva warned that inflation was already picking up and the global economy could face a “much worse outcome” if the war dragged into 2027 and oil prices hit about $125 a barrel.
In opening remarks, the prime minister is expected to say the Golders Green attack was “part of a pattern of rising antisemitism that has left our Jewish communities feeling frightened, angry, and asking whether this country, their home, is safe for them”.
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