Ukrainian long-range drones struck an oil terminal in St. Petersburg and set it ablaze, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday, as the Russian city hosted an annual international economic forum promoted by President Vladimir Putin.

The drones flew more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to hit the terminal, Zelenskyy said on social media. Clouds of black smoke rose over the city’s port after the attack.

Russian authorities said only that the Ukrainian drone strike targeted the city’s infrastructure, without providing further details. The airport of St. Petersburg briefly suspended flights overnight because of the attack. Authorities also cut off mobile internet services.

Putin is set to speak Friday at the economic forum in St. Petersburg that the Kremlin views as a prestige event, although major Western investors and officials have stayed away since Russia invaded Ukraine more than four years ago. Saudi Arabia is a special guest country this year and is due to send a large business delegation.

The strikes are an embarrassment for Putin, weeks after he had to prune back an annual Victory Day parade in Moscow due to fears of Ukrainian drone attacks.

The strikes came a day after Russian forces launched a massive drone and missile attack on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, killing at least 22 civilians and wounding 138, as Moscow followed through with its threat of escalating its regular barrages.

With the front line changing little as swarms of drones hinder battlefield movement, both sides have sought an edge by increasingly launching long-range strikes. The war that followed Russia’s invasion of its neighbor has now stretched into its fifth year, with no end in sight.

Ukraine’s attacks are aimed at diminishing Russia’s oil production, which is a key source of funding for Moscow, and disrupting weapon production.

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted oil facilities at the port of St. Petersburg and nearby ports.

Ukrainian drone attacks overnight also hit the Kronstadt naval base, an old base for Russia’s Baltic Fleet, and a manufacturing plant involved in weapon production in Russia’s Tambov region, 600 kilometers (370 miles) from Ukraine, Zelenskyy said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 354 Ukrainian drones overnight.

In the Russia-controlled part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, a Ukrainian strike hit a bus that was traveling from Moscow to Crimea, killing seven and injuring 11, according to the Kremlin-appointed head of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin.

In the Smolensk region, two firefighters were killed by a Ukrainian drone attack, according to the regional governor, Vasily Anokhin. He said two other firefighters and a local resident were injured.

Meanwhile, Russia fired 198 long-range drones at Ukraine last night, according to Ukraine’s air force, with air defenses neutralizing 189.

Authorities in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region said that over the previous 24 hours one civilian was killed and 15 more were injured, including three children, by Russian strikes.

In the southern Kherson, Russian overnight shelling and drone strikes killed an 86-year-old woman and wounded five other people, according to regional authorities.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Emergency services are at the scene of a crash involving a Royal Navy helicopter in Devon.

Devon and Cornwall Police said the incident happened in a field at Sourton Down, near Okehampton.

Several road closures are in place around the A386 and A30 Sourton Cross slip and services area.

A force spokesperson confirmed the helicopter that crashed into a field in Devon was Royal Navy. “The Ministry of Defence have confirmed it was a Royal Navy helicopter”, they shared.

An initial statement from Devon and Cornwall Police reads: “Emergency services are at the scene after a crash involving a helicopter in a field at Sourton Down.

“Several road closures are in place around the A386 and A30 Sourton Cross slip and services area.

“The incident is ongoing and we will share more updates as we have them.”

Devon and Cornwall Police has advised drivers to seek alternative routes around the road closures. Travel monitoring services are reporting that traffic is “coping well” despite the road closures.

Inrix shared in a traffic bulletin: “A386 Bowerland Road Northbound closed due to police incident from A30 (Sourton Cross, Sourton Down) to A3079 Holsworthy Road (Fowley Cross). Traffic is coping well.”

As The Press reprted in December, 4D Capital Partners LLP (“4D”) announced the acquisition of York Handmade Brick Company, which is based at Alne, near Easingwold, and they have now supplied tens of thousands of bricks for the Hawthorn Fields development in Rufforth, a 21-home site by Mulgrave Properties.

Recommended reading:

The bricks used were the company’s Handmade Texture Hambleton Blend and the contract was worth £108,500.

York Handmade Brick company is celebrating its role supplying tens of thousands of bricks for the Hawthorn Fields development in Rufforth (Image: Supplied)

Ian Hessay, managing director of Mulgrave Properties, said: “We are absolutely delighted with the stunning success of Hawthorn Fields.

“There’s no doubt that our buyers have been impressed by the exceptional build quality, which makes these houses stand out.

“We wanted our houses to be special, which is why we chose York Handmade’s bricks.

“The quality of the bricks and their appearance are magnificent.

“We are so pleased with the finished product.

“We wanted to fit in with the local architecture and create a bespoke product, which complemented and enhanced the village of Rufforth and I think we have achieved that.

“All but one of the houses have now been sold and I am sure their attractive appearance, enhanced by York Handmade’s bricks, played an important part in this.”

York Handmade Brick company is celebrating its role supplying tens of thousands of bricks for the Hawthorn Fields development in Rufforth (Image: Supplied)

Alun Nixon of York Handmade Brick said: “It makes us incredibly proud to hear these words from a successful developer like Mulgrave Properties and it was a privilege to play a part in creating some special family homes in Rufforth.

“This is a stunning development, using our bricks with spectacular success.

“It also provides much-needed local housing and enhances the community.

“It is no surprise that it has been a resounding success.

“While we have recently completed some magnificent commissions for residential and commercial developments in London and other UK cities, it is vitally important that we continue to provide our bricks to more local Yorkshire developers and for self-builders.

“It is especially gratifying to see how our bricks blend in seamlessly with the quintessentially rural landscapes of a North Yorkshire village.

“We are deeply committed to North Yorkshire where we have been manufacturing bricks for the past 38 years, and it is a real pleasure to see our work being represented locally.”

Guy Armitage, the managing director of York Handmade, explained that the new-build residential sector remained a key area of growth for the company.

Guy Armitage (Image: Supplied)

Violent scenes broke out after a large group walked across town to the area of Portswood in Southampton.

What started as a peaceful protest outside Southampton Central Police Station against the treatment of murdered teenager Henry Nowak, erupted into a violent chaos which continued until the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Over 1,000 protesters were seen chanting ‘I can’t breathe’ which were some of the last words ever spoken by 18-year-old Henry after he was stabbed five times on his way home from a night out in Southampton.

Henry Nowak’s killer, Vickrum Digwa, 23, was sentenced to life in prison on Monday, with a minimum of 21 years. He stabbed the Southampton student to death using a ceremonial knife – a 21cm (8in) blade called a Kirpan, that Digwa said he carried as part of his Sikh faith.

After Digwa’s sentencing, the police bodycam footage showing Henry Nowak’s last moments alive was published. It shows Henry being handcuffed as he struggled to breathe after being stabbed.

The violence came amid an outcry about the policing response to the murder after the student’s killer claimed he had been the victim of a racial attack while Mr Nowak was handcuffed by police as he lay dying.

In the harrowing footage, Henry can be heard repeatedly saying: “I’ve been stabbed”, to which an officer replies: “Don’t think you have, mate.”

Digwa had told police attending the scene of the stabbing in Southampton on December 3, 2025, that he had been the victim of a racist attack.

As Henry lay dying, he was being arrested by police officers, who appeared to not believe Henry was the victim of any crime. The footage shows him pleading with police for them to call an ambulance before he loses consciousness.

Speaking outside court after Vickrum Digwa’s sentencing on Monday, the family of Henry Nowak called for a “full, fearless and transparent investigation” into his death.

His father Mark Nowak said: “We do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred, or tension. We want his story to make our streets safer for everyone”.

He said his son was “one of the kindest, friendliest, and most inclusive people you could ever hope to meet. He was amazing in every way”.

Mark Nowak added that Henry “should not have died on the streets of Southampton in police custody”.

“Instead of being treated as a dying victim, police formally arrested Henry and read him his rights. That was the last thing he heard,” he said.

“Henry did not die with dignity, he did not die with the care he deserved.”

After Digwa murdered Henry, he gave the knife to his mother and it was later found by police at their family home along with more than 20 other weapons.

Digwa’s mother Kiran Kaur, 53, was found guilty of assisting an offender. Kaur is due to be sentenced for her role in Henry’s death in July this year.

The clashes with police come amid growing tensions and scrutiny over how officers dealt with the incident which included arresting and handcuffing Mr Nowak as he lay dying.

Laurence Fox and British far-right activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon were among those who spoke to the crowd.

Violent scenes broke out when a large group walked across town to the area of Portswood, close to the residential street where Henry died.

A police helicopter hovered overhead as officers were pelted with stones, bricks and other loose items protesters had been picking up from the street such as ladders and road signs.

Some even set a bin alight and pushed it into the riot police, who had formed a wall with their shields.

Demonstrators chanted “Henry, Henry” as the line of police were pelted with bricks.

Chairs, cans and flares were thrown at police in riot gear, eventually forcing officers and three police vans back from the line they had been holding.

Protesters were seen getting into physical altercations with police officers. Some were pictured being pinned to the floor by officers before getting handcuffed.

Two people were arrested after unrest in Southampton following the murder of Henry Nowak, policing minister Sarah Jones said.

She urged people not to “overreact” following the murder of the student by 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, who told police attending the scene of the stabbing in Southampton on December 3 2025 that he had been the victim of a racist attack.

Ms Jones told Times Radio: “Some of what we saw yesterday was unacceptable.

“There have been two arrests, as I understand it from my briefing this morning, one for assault of a police officer, one for possession of a weapon.”

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood later condemned the scenes in Portswood as “completely unacceptable” and accused the demonstrators of “hijacking this tragedy to stir up violence and disorder” in defiance of a plea by the Nowak family not to use the murder to feed division and hatred.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) announced it would review anti-racism guidance – called the Race Action Plan – that some have blamed for the actions of the officers who arrested Mr Nowak.

NPCC chairman Gavin Stephens said: “We are listening to legitimate concerns about how some of these commitments are worded or phrased, and where needed we can and will make changes, but this should not detract from the intent, which is to improve the quality of policing.”

Earlier on Tuesday Hampshire Police said an officer not connected to the case has faced death threats after being misidentified in online posts.

In a post on X, the force said: “We recognise the desire for answers about the police response that night” and warned people not to indulge in “harmful online speculation”.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said he “felt sick” watching “harrowing” footage of police handcuffing Mr Nowak and said there are “serious questions” to answer about the case.

There needs to be an examination into how “accusations of racism” informed the police’s decision-making in the case, he added.

The police watchdog is expected to report on the case within the next three months.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said investigators are examining a large amount of body-worn video as well as material presented during Digwa’s trial.

Hampshire Police confirmed that one of the officers involved in the case has resigned, while the other three are still serving. All of them are being treated as witnesses.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said people should respond with “pure cold rage” to Mr Nowak’s treatment, which he said was evidence of a “two-tier culture”.

Mr Nowak was “actually treated in a way that meant an accusation of a racial slur was treated more seriously than an act of murder”, Mr Farage said.

Attorney General Lord Hermer has received “multiple requests” to consider whether Digwa’s sentence should be reviewed as unduly lenient.

Digwa, his father Moga Singh, 52, and brother Gurpreet Digwa, 27, appeared at Southampton Magistrates’ Court to face multiple weapons charges.

A statement issued by the killer’s family apologised “for the pain and suffering the Nowak family has had to endure”, and for bringing the Sikh community into “disrepute”.

Get daily breaking news updates on your phone by joining our WhatsApp community here. We occasionally treat members to special offers, promotions and ads from us and our partners. See our Privacy Notice

Trial judge Mr Justice Kinney is expected deliver the sentence tariff later today.

Advertisement

A Co Antrim man who killed his pregnant partner is set to be sentenced on Wednesday morning.

Stephen McCullagh, 36, of Woodland Gardens, Lisburn, was found guilty of the murder of Natalie McNally by a jury at Belfast Crown Court earlier this year.

The 32-year-old had been 15 weeks pregnant when she was subjected to a violent attack and murdered at her home in Lurgan in December 2022.

McCullagh denied the murder, claiming that he had been live-streaming himself playing computer games on his YouTube channel at the time.

But police experts discovered the six-hour stream had actually been filmed four days before, and broadcast as live on December 18.

A sentencing hearing in May was told that McCullagh made “self-contradictory” and “incredible” statements to his probation officer, first insisting he “was convinced that he was not guilty of the murder”.

The probation officer further noted McCullagh described the murder as “evil” and “vicious”, and referred to himself as “a monster”, the court heard.

He also said: “I’m sorry for what I did to that poor family, what I did to Natalie.”

He added: “I would take it back if I could.”

Trial judge Mr Justice Kinney is expected deliver the sentence tariff later today.

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.

Police were locked in negotiations Tuesday night with a man holding hostages inside a building that houses a Chase bank branch and school district office in the Southern California city of Bakersfield, officials said.

Officers responding to a call of a bomb threat arrived at the scene around 1 p.m. at the Chase Bank building in downtown Bakersfield, and discovered a man had barricaded himself inside “with several community members,” the Bakersfield Police Department said in a statement.

Through negotiations, two of the hostages were released and the rest are in “good health,” city police Sgt. Eric Celedon said.

“We have every single resource at our disposal out here to bring this to the safest resolution possible,” he said.

Nearby buildings were evacuated, including city hall and the police headquarters, and some roads were temporarily closed, according to officials. Officers established a perimeter around the building and nearby businesses, authorities said.

Celedon warned the public to stay out of the area, explaining that this is still a very active situation.

A spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase said its branch is on the ground floor of the building and is currently empty. The company is working with authorities.

The department’s crisis negotiation team was in contact with the suspect by telephone.

About a dozen police cars were on scene along with one tactical vehicle and multiple emergency responders, and FBI agents were on the scene.

Jacob Davidson, a livestreamer known as Dad’s Gone Live, was a block from the bank at his family’s tattoo shop when he started getting calls from his subscribers alerting him to the bomb threat.

“I went into the bank’s parking garage and watched the cops enter the back of the bank. This is the biggest police presence I’ve ever seen in this town,” Davidson said. “Now I’m watching them set up the trauma tents with the green, red and yellow tags, and black tags too, along with a command center about a block away.”

By Tuesday night, his livestream captured through a window in the building a woman rocking back and forth before crouching further down below the window. Later, two hands could be seen waving.

Law enforcement agencies often protectively set up trauma tents — which are color-coded to help sort people based on the severity of injuries — just in case they become needed during an emergency situation.

Bakersfield Mayor Karen Goh said she is closely monitoring the situation.

“The best way the public can help at this time is by avoiding the area and allowing law enforcement officers, negotiators, and other trained professionals the space and opportunity to safely carry out their duties,” she said in a statement.

___

Associated Press reporter Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed.

“I couldn’t be happier to continue this journey with Scuderia Ferrari HP,” he said.

“It has always been so much more than just a team to me. It’s the team I’ve loved and dreamt of being part of since I was a child, and after all these years it has become a second family.

“Together we’ve shared incredible moments and some tougher ones, but I believe in this team more than ever, and I’m deeply grateful that we will keep pushing side by side toward our shared goal of bringing the World Championship back to Maranello.

“Being a Ferrari driver is a dream, but it’s also a responsibility I never take for granted.

“I’ll continue to give absolutely everything I have to bring this team back to where it belongs, at the very top, for everyone in Maranello, and above all for the tifosi, whose passion is the heartbeat of this Scuderia.”

Michelin-starred chef and restaurateur Giorgio Locatelli is set to join the judging panel of Celebrity MasterChef, bringing his rigorous culinary standards to the BBC spin-off programme.

The 63-year-old, renowned for his role on the Italian version of the amateur cooking show, will now sit alongside restaurant critic Grace Dent.

Locatelli, whose appearance in the upcoming 21st series has already been filmed, announced the news on the podcast Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware. He described his judging approach, stating: “I think I was a bad cop. I’m strict. Strict about cleanliness and organisation. Those little skills that you teach them slowly.”

Reflecting on the celebrity contestants, he noted the unique dynamic compared to aspiring professional chefs. “We’re working with celebrities which is different from working with people who wanted to be a chef, but still, you can really see them growing in what they do, and so this is the thing that interests me more on the whole experience.”

He hinted that one star particularly impressed him, adding: “There was somebody who really surprised me a few times in the positive.”

The chef also observed a distinct difference in performance based on the celebrities’ professional backgrounds. “The people who worked in entertainment found it so difficult to cook to the time. The sportspeople always hit the time. Their life is run by time. While the other people are all about creativity.”

Locatelli’s arrival follows significant changes to the judging line-up.

He joins after TV presenter John Torode was dismissed from the BBC following allegations of using racist language, which were upheld as part of the Lewis Silkin report.

Torode had appeared in the most recent series alongside Dent, who herself replaced TV presenter Gregg Wallace after his sacking due to a series of misconduct allegations during his time on the show.

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day

New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.

Advertisement

Try for free

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day

New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.

Try for free

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

Advertisement

The spin-off series challenges celebrities to test their culinary skills under the watchful eyes of the judges, culminating in one star claiming the Celebrity MasterChef trophy.

Previous winners include professional dancer and choreographer Vito Coppola in 2024, and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK winner Ginger Johnson, whose real name is Donald Marshall, in 2025.

In Ann Patchett’s 11th novel Whistler, a former stepfather and stepdaughter, Eddie and Daphne, meet again by chance after 44 years. They rekindle their bond (before long, Eddie is introducing Daphne as “my daughter”) and revisit the events that prompted Eddie’s abrupt departure from her life when she was nine.

Eddie is a fiction editor beloved by everyone – his name “a bass note called again and again”. Daphne is a private school English teacher “safely past 50”, who describes her post-Eddie childhood as a period of “estrangement”. Both had (unrealised) ambitions to be novelists.

We meet them in the present, in New York’s Met Museum on a spring day, and leave them in their past, “hand in hand” in an ambulance, in Massachusetts in the snow.

Their reunion brings together a handful of wealthy, white-collar, middle-aged and elderly people who are related either by blood, marriage or former marriage. They all reflect, gently, on their lives and relationships. Forgotten family stories are brought tenderly into the light.

There are characters called Trip and Buddy and Candy and Dr Ocean. Despite broken marriages, closeted sexuality and at least one long-term affair, everyone gets along pretty well.

They visit each other’s homes, eat brunch, and occasionally drink slightly too much. They give each other lifts, and take each other to hospital appointments. They bring each other glasses of water, and offer up the guest room. They are forgiving of each other:

I remembered she was a person who had lived her own autonomous life full of mistakes and disappointments and judgements and thwarted love.

The novel’s characters are thoughtful about the past and how to approach it. “Let me know when I cross the line,” Daphne says to Eddie, as they probe the origins of the lifelong affair he has had with his married best friend.

Despite occasional gestures to interpersonal conflicts, everyone is just quite nice to each other. Patchett’s gathering cliches to describe these disputes (the odd “whiff of betrayal” or knowledge of “something fishy going on”) undermine any tension.

Eddie is gay. This is the reason Daphne’s mother divorced him – but there’s no bad blood between them. Their reunion is oddly affectless, as described by Daphne:

“Look at you,” Eddie said when we came through the door. He went right to our mother, took her in his arms. “Look at my beautiful ex-wife.”

Whistler is full of doomed marriages – deaths, divorces and stepparents abound – but none are framed as tragic or traumatising. Rather, the lingering dead – a roguish father; a wife whose main character trait is collecting rabbit paintings; even a curmudgeonly stepfather whose contribution to American letters is a book series called Positivity! – are spoken of with warmth by those whose new unions their deaths have occasioned.

The dissolution of parental relationships and the formation of new ones are received by turns with delight, equanimity or, at worst, indifference.

Health crises – a car accident, a fall from a horse, appendicitis, leukemia – are not catastrophes. Rather, they occur in the context of high-quality healthcare (“Every patient had their own pod with frosted-glass dividers and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city”) and bring characters together in service of the novel’s central theme: the endurance of familial love, in its multifaceted iterations.

Whistler is a chestnut mare, and the central figure in an unwritten book-within-the-book that editor Eddie “tried for years” to acquire.

It’s a slightly hokey parable about a near-death experience that reads like a pitch for a Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie) novel. Stranded on a remote hillside, “badly hurt and alone”, Whistler’s rider is benignly visited by her dead dog, son, father and best friend, before the horse returns to save her life.

Like several of Whistler’s key plot points (a broken ankle; the protagonists’ novelistic ambitions; a sister who is a therapist and can therefore unpack any narrative complexities the reader may have overlooked), Patchett offers this story knowingly. Whistler is a novel that knows it’s a novel.

Its metafictionality is sometimes subtle, but it collapses under its own weight in the closing pages, when Eddie suggests that Daphne write “it all down”. In the proposed book, Eddie, who has leukemia, suggests: “I don’t die. In the book, we’re sitting on this bench, talking about a book about the two of us, and then the story stops.” Reading this felt like learning it had all been a dream.

Whistler reminded me of William Stafford’s poem The Magic Mountain, which begins:

A book opens. People come out, bend
this way and talk, ponder, love, wander around
while pages turn. Where did the plot go?

And yet, there is something compelling about it. Whistler is even, strangely, a pacy read, partly because it’s heavy on dialogue. It doesn’t always work – Patchett’s prose is placid, and there is a lot of exposition.

But it’s interesting to read a novel that so relentlessly engages the idea of niceness, especially among the kind of wealthy people – people who own boats or live in apartments with doormen – who are more often found, in literary and popular fiction, stabbing each other in the back. As Eddie says to nine-year-old Daphne: “I swear to you, it’s mostly good people out there.”

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.