OBBUERGEN, Switzerland (AP) — U.S. Vice President JD Vance and senior Iranian officials arrived in Switzerland on Sunday to formally launch negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program and build out the fragile interim deal to end the war in Iran.

The framework was signed last week, and now top U.S. and Iranian negotiators are in a 60-day sprint to reach an agreement on the technical details that hold massive implications for the world economy and global security.

Yet only days after signing the agreement, it’s being stress-tested after fighting escalated in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah — and by the subsequent announcement by Iran’s military that it had closed the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway that transits a fifth of the world’s traded oil and natural gas.

Vance had originally been slated to be on the ground at the picturesque Bürgenstock resort near Lucerne on Friday, but his departure from the United States was delayed after fighting escalated in Lebanon and Iranian officials canceled plans to attend the talks.

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Delegations from the U.S. and Iran, as well as mediators Pakistan and Qatar, arrived at the picturesque mountainside resort near Lake Lucerne on Sunday morning. Talks were expected to begin soon, according to the Swiss government.

U.S. Central Command disputed Iran’s claim that it had once again shuttered the strait and said U.S. forces continued to monitor the situation to ensure traffic continues to flow through the waterway. Vance has said that millions of barrels of oil have moved through the strait in recent days.

Vance departed the U.S. just after Iranian state TV said Iran’s negotiators had arrived in Switzerland. Tehran’s negotiators include parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, along with central bank and oil officials.

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The U.S. vice president joins special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, who have already been on the ground to begin sifting through the technical details of the nuclear talks.

The talks between the U.S. and Iran will also include Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, as well as Qatari mediators. Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Sharif will also meet separately with each delegation from Iran, Switzerland and the U.S. “to reaffirm Pakistan’s enduring commitment to dialogue and durable peace in the region.”

While Vance said he planned to be in Switzerland for just “a day or two,” leaving much of the detailed negotiations to be spearheaded by Witkoff and Kushner, his role in the talks has heightened scrutiny of the vice president at a time when he’s actively considering a 2028 presidential campaign.

Trump and Vance have come under searing criticism from parts of their own party for the deal, with Republican hard-liners unfavorably likening it to a nuclear agreement signed by the Obama administration that Trump and the GOP have insisted did nothing to actually terminate Iran’s nuclear program.

The agreement signed by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian immediately allows Tehran to sell its oil freely and paves the way for Iran to tap into billions of dollars in assets that are currently frozen. It also calls for Iran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, believed to be buried under nuclear sites that were targeted in U.S. strikes last summer.

The agreement says commercial vessels can pass through the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days without a charge, but does not preclude future fees imposed by Iran. Trump made his own threat on Saturday to levy U.S. tolls on the strait if there is no deal with Iran in 60 days, insisting in a social media post that the money would be for “services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East.”

The Trump administration has been working to reassure global markets that the Iran war has been merely a blip on oil prices, as Americans have complained the conflict resulted in hiking gasoline prices ahead of peak summer travel months. After the White House announced the deal a week ago, oil futures dropped almost 8% — and markets are expected to closely track the progress of talks when they open for trading on Sunday evening.

Further complicating matters, neither Israel nor Hezbollah is a signatory to the deal between the U.S. and Iran, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep his forces in southern Lebanon until any threat to Israel is eliminated. Hezbollah has refused to halt its attacks unless Israel commits to withdrawing from Lebanon.

Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in the initial days after the agreement between the U.S. and Iran killed 47 people in Lebanon, as well as four Israeli soldiers.

___

Kim reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.

The former pumping station in Sunderland provides some of the film’s most atmospheric period backdrops, helping director Tina Gharavi turn the region into Edwardian Britain for her new adaptation of Woolf’s novel.

‘Such a gem’ – The location the director didn’t know

Gharavi has lived in the North East for almost 30 years, yet she admits she only discovered Ryhope when she began scouting for sites that could pass as early 20th‑century industrial England.

“It’s such a gem. It is absolutely unbelievably good, you know, like staggeringly good for the region,” she said.

The museum – built around magnificent Victorian and Edwardian beam engines – offered exactly the kind of authentic machinery and architecture the production needed.

Instead of building sets, Gharavi could frame her actors amid real ironwork, brick and steam‑age engineering, giving Night and Day a physical texture that’s hard to fake.

Powered by volunteers like Keith

Part of what moved Gharavi about Ryhope Engines Museum was not just the building, but the people who keep it running.

The site is maintained by volunteers, some of whom have been giving their time for decades.

“The men who work there, they’re just incredible because they’ve been doing it as volunteers, one of them for like 40 years, like this guy called Keith,” she said.

“Keith is just my hero, really… I just can’t give enough props to those men who have kept this kind of Edwardian‑Victorian factory alive forever and ever and ever and it’s just so lovingly looked after.”

The lovingly preserved engines and pipework help Night and Day feel rooted in the real industrial world that sits in the background of Woolf’s story about class, work and social change.

Director Tina Gharavi was blown away by Ryhope Engines Museum. (Image: BRIDGE & TUNNEL PRODUCTIONS)

A perfect fit for Woolf’s Edwardian world

While Night and Day follows the emotional and intellectual lives of characters like aspiring astronomer Katharine Hilbery, it is also very much a story about a country on the brink of transformation.

Suffrage protests, new technologies and shifts in work and family life all loom over the relationships at its centre.

Locations like Ryhope Engines Museum quietly underline that context.

The museum’s great engines speak to the power systems – literal and metaphorical – that kept Edwardian Britain running, while the volunteers’ dedication mirrors the film’s interest in communities and unseen labour.

By shooting in a working heritage site rather than on a backlot, Gharavi adds another layer of authenticity to Woolf’s world.

Putting Sunderland on the cinematic map

For the director, using Ryhope was also part of a bigger mission: to showcase the North East as a serious filming destination.

She has talked about the region as “spectacularly diverse”, with everything from cities and coastline to factories and forests available within a short drive.

“I didn’t know about [Ryhope Engines Museum] until I made this film and we were looking for period locations,” she admits – before adding that now, “everyone should visit it” because “it’s staggeringly good.”

Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day could soon see cinema‑goers across the country follow her advice, stepping inside a place where North East engineering history and big‑screen storytelling meet.

Television star Vanessa Feltz broke her silence as she presented her programme on LBC

Vanessa Feltz has broken her silence after it was announced that her Channel 5 programme is being “rested”.

The news about her self-titled show Vanessa – which she had been presenting since March last year – came earlier this week.

The star has now addressed the decision while speaking on her LBC programme, admitting that she was “shocked” by the move.

She told her listeners: “It was a bit of a shock. It was meant to be a delightful year’s contract, the show was going really well… I was shocked to the core and very upset and I still am.”

The chat show saw Vanessa in conversation with studio guests and members of the public, who called in to the show to share their stories on whatever was being discussed.

However, during its time on air the programme did receive some calls from hoaxers, some of whom posed as characters from EastEnders and recounted plotlines from the BBC soap.

Confirming that the programme was being dropped, a 5 spokesperson said: “Due to afternoon scheduling changes, Vanessa will be rested from July 17th. We thank Vanessa and her team at ITN for 18 months of warm, witty, wise and searingly honest shows.”

“Vanessa remains a valued member of the 5 family and we are discussing future projects together,” they went on.

Vanessa’s television chat show was first broadcast from 1994 to 1998 on ITV, before it was succeeded by Trisha.

She went on to several other projects, working on shows such as Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast, BBC Radio 2, This Morning. Then last year she revived her chat show on Channel 5, and it has been airing for an hour on weekdays.

However, after it was rebooted the programme went through some changes – it underwent three redesigns, which affected both the studio and the branding. It was thought that this was a bid to attract more viewers.

As well as her presenting work, Vanessa is known for her appearances on reality TV programmes. She has taken part in series such as Strictly Come Dancing, Celebs Go Dating and Celebrity Big Brother.

Vanessa aired on Channel 5.

The boyfriend of a Citibank boss who was found beaten to death in her flat in London has been arrested – this is a breaking story

The boyfriend of a Citibank boss who was found beaten to death at her flat in London has been arrested.

Brian Kiprop Kipglagat was detained by immigration officers on June 10 as he attempted to travel to Tanzania.

Marianne Kilonzi, 43, who was vice president of trade and working capital sales, was found dead in her home in Woolwich, south-east London, in January 2025.

This is a Breaking News story. You’ll be more likely to see our stories when any big news breaks in future by simply by clicking this link. You can also join The Mirror’s WhatsApp Community or follow us on Google News, Flipboard, Apple News, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads – or visit The Mirror homepage.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a career-defining decision: step down or fight a challenge from Labour Party rival Andy Burnham.

Starmer has publicly vowed to stay in post, but pressure is building as more and more Labour Party colleagues conclude his time is up. Expectation is growing that he will announce a timetable for his resignation as soon as Monday. That’s the day Burnham will be sworn in as a lawmaker in the House of Commons after winning a special election last week.

Starmer is spending the weekend at Chequers, the country mansion used by British prime ministers, with his family.

Business Secretary Peter Kyle said Sunday that Starmer is “making time to reflect on the political realities, challenges and opportunities that he finds himself in.”

“I know he is a prime minister who always puts his country first,” Kyle told the BBC, though he said reports that Starmer will resign are “speculation.”

Discontent with the prime minister has been building for months, with Labour lawmakers desperate to reverse the government’s decline in popularity since Starmer led the center-left party to a landslide election victory in July 2024.

He has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and has been hamstrung by repeated missteps, including his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as the U.K. ambassador to the United States.

Labour is losing liberal voters to the growing Green Party and facing a rising Reform UK, the Nigel Farage -led anti-immigration party that consistently leads in nationwide opinion polls.

Burnham, until this week the popular mayor of Greater Manchester, decisively won the seat of Makerfield in northwestern England in a special election held Thursday. He took almost 55% of the 45,510 votes cast, over 9,000 more than the Reform UK runner-up.

Now that he is a lawmaker, he’s in a position to challenge Starmer for leadership of the Labour Party. Burnham’s acceptance speech left no doubt that he wants to lead both the party and the country.

“Everyone knows that politics isn’t working,” he said. “Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could, just could, be the turning point.”

Starmer congratulated Burnham on Friday, but insisted he would fight any attempt to oust him.

“I will run, I will stand,” if there is a Labour leadership contest, Starmer said. “I’ve said repeatedly I’m not going to walk away from that.”

But Charlie Falconer, a senior Labour member of the House of Lords, said Saturday that Starmer has “absolutely no authority” left.

“There should be an agreed transition process in which Andy and Keir cooperate as to when the handover should take place,” he told the BBC.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Saturday announced that federal authorities had made “multiple arrests” of people he said were vandalizing the Reflecting Pool as he struggled to explain why the $14-million-plus rehabilitation project he launched for the nation’s 250th anniversary seemingly backfired.

Trump said his predecessors had let the pool turn an algae-stained green and that he’d line it with “American flag blue” so it better reflected the Washington Monument. But after the new pool was unveiled, its blue tinge quickly became a familiar green. Workers treated it with chemicals to kill the algae, but then the painted blue lining on the bottom began to peel.

On Friday night, Trump posted about the pool.

Even if someone pulled ribbons of paint from the side of the pool, it would not explain the clouds of algae in green water and swaths of loose blue paint detached from the bottom.

Trump insisted something nefarious has been going on at the scene. “No different than the chemicals that were used on the National Mall, they used something similar in the Reflecting Pool to try to destroy and demean our beautiful work,” he posted Friday evening.

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Senior Labour figures believe a “clear statement” could come as early as Monday, according to The Observer.

Sir Keir Starmer is under sustained pressure amid reports he could stand down next week as a leadership threat from Andy Burnham looms.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly vowed not to walk away from his post, even as public talk of a leadership contest or handing power to Mr Burnham has gained pace among Labour figures since he won the Makerfield by-election on Friday.

The number of Labour MPs calling for Starmer to go has since topped 100 – just under a quarter of the party’s MPs – and includes some who signed a letter warning against a leadership contest just last month.

Labour grandees have also spoken out, with former home secretary Alan Johnson saying Sir Keir should step aside and Lord Falconer saying he has “no authority” because it is assumed he will be replaced.

The Prime Minister is understood to be at Chequers with his wife, Lady Victoria, this weekend, and is reportedly reflecting on how to proceed.

A senior ally told The Sun they believe there is “just a 25% chance he fights on now”, while The Observer cited a Labour peer who said they think Sir Keir sees that “stopping ‘chaos’ (as he rightly put it) is now not possible by staying.”

Senior Labour figures believe a “clear statement” could come as early as Monday, according to The Observer.

No 10 said Sir Keir’s position remained unchanged from Friday, when he said he will not “walk away” from Downing Street and that he plans to stand in any potential contest.

He warned Labour staffers during a call on Friday lunchtime to avoid “plunging our party and our country into chaos by turning on each other and tearing apart our party and our movement”.

He is understood to have spoken to a number of Cabinet ministers on Friday, some of whom are reported to have told him he should set out a timetable for his departure.

Some in Westminster believe a contest could begin as early as next week, but allies of Mr Burnham favour a longer wait to allow them to prepare for government.

It is understood that Mr Burnham’s camp wants Sir Keir to set out his plans in the coming days but would accept a timetable that kept him in No 10 until September.

The incoming Makerfield MP is expected to be in Westminster on Monday to be sworn into the Commons.

He is reportedly planning to speak to Sir Keir afterwards and present him with a list of backers – which he is said to be seeking to get up to 200 – in a bid to press him to step down and set out a transition.

In a blow to Sir Keir, Labour peer Charlie Falconer said Sir Keir has “absolutely no authority” because “everybody assumes” Mr Burnham is going to challenge him and win.

He said he would advise Sir Keir not to stand in a leadership contest and instead agree a handover, preferably before the parliamentary recess on July 16.

And former deputy leader Baroness Harriet Harman, who Sir Keir appointed as a special envoy for women and girls, said there is a “sense of collective movement” from within Labour and that she expected Sir Keir to leave office and for Mr Burnham to take his place.

She has urged the party to move faster than aiming for a timetable ending in September, telling Sky News’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast ministers could not be left “in a state of paralysis all through the summer”.

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

Rising out of the Adriatic sea with turquoise waters lapping the shore, pine forests climbing its hills and cormorants swooping along the shoreline, Albania’s Sazan Island is striking in its beauty.

It’s not hard to see why Ivanka Trump was enraptured by Sazan when she took a swim over to the island while sailing on Rothschild’s yacht several years ago, as she told the David Senra podcast last month. Ivanka spoke breathlessly of swimming from the boat to and hiking barefoot to the “top” of the island.

So taken was she by Sazan that she and her husband Jarad Kushner made plans for a real estate project of a “massive scale” to develop the island, and returned with “some of the greatest living architects of our time”.

These plans have not gone down well in Albania, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets of the capital Tirana in protest against development in a protected area of the country.

Initially centred on environmental concerns, the protests have since swelled into huge anti-government demonstrations dubbed the “flamingo revolution’– so named after the pink wading bird that is found on this part of the Mediterranean coastline.

With protests now rolling into a nineteenth day consecutive day, activists are calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama and a complete overhaul of the government of Albania, along with investigations into organised crime, corruption and lack of transparency.

At the heart of it all: a rugged outcrop springing out the Adriatic ocean. Sazan, Albania’s largest island, has become a symbol of resistance to oligarchy, neoliberalism and privatisation.

The 570 hectare island (around 4.8km by 2.7km) sits roughly 18km from the Albanian mainland on the southern coast, with steep cliffs, two hills and thick pine forest. A couple of rocky paths wind their way up into the hills past disused, crumbling buildings and Cold War-era bunkers. (It would be very hard, if not impossible, to hike barefoot through).

The island is often described as “untouched” but it actually has a long human history, with records that date back as far as the sixth century BC when it was mentioned by ancient Greek geographers.

Sazan has been the target of invasions since the Middle Ages, and was occupied by Italy from 1914 and then Germany for a brief time during the Second World War.

After being liberated by the Albanian army in 1944 the island was used as a military naval base and closed to the public. Some 3,600 bunkers were built across the island under the orders of communist leader Enver Hoxha who presided over a brutal regime until the early 1990s.

Now the buildings have been taken over by nature, but their ghostly structures can still be seen by climbing up poorly paved roads from the harbour: a school, hospital, homes and even a former cinema.

A small but steady stream of tourists and locals visit the island daily during the summer months, travelling over from the mainland on small speedboats and the occasional sail boat to swim and sunbathe on the rocky beach.

Biologist Bledi Hoxha is a member of the Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA), an organisations that has been protesting development in the region for several years.

He describes Sazan Island as a “natural laboratory for studying the distribution and evolution of species”. He explains: “It hosts a large number of plant and animal species, including endemic species of particular importance to the country’s biodiversity.”

One of these species is the Mediterranean Monk Seal, which uses the island’s sheltered coves for breeding. A critically endangered marine mammal, the Monk Seal can now only be found in a handful of areas across Europe.

Ivanka and Jared’s plans span beyond Sazan to the Zvernec Peninsula on the mainland; a thin strip of land around 10km from the coastal city of Vlore with the Adriatic sea on one side and the Narta lagoon on the other. The peninsula sits within the Vjosa-Narta ecosystem, which is part of the last intact Mediterranean river delta system made up of wetlands, salt marshes, and coastal forest.

“It’s one of the last places where you can find massive colonies of flamingos,” says Aleksander Trajçe, executive director of PPNEA. “Hence the name flamingo revolution.” He adds: “There have been days where we’ve counted up to 10,000 individuals congregated in small patches in the lagoon.

There are currently a few campsites and beachfront restaurants on the coastline running from Vlore to the peninsula, and on Zvernec island, which is reached by a boardwalk, there are often a handful of tourists exploring the Byzantine monastery built in the 13th century.

The Narta lagoon is also an important site for birds migrating between northern Europe and Africa. Ariel Brunner, regional director of BirdLife for Europe and Central Asia, says: “It hosts regionally important populations of a host of species ranging from collard pratincoles, to avocets to gull billed terns and many more.

“The dunes and coastal scrub vegetation harbours habitats that have been wiped out by coastal development almost everywhere along the Mediterranean coasts.”

A few kilometres from the island at the spot where Kushner has spoken of building a luxury resort, a vast swathe of sand opens up, backed by dense vegetation that runs down to the lagoon where egrets and herons can be spotted wading in the shallows. Beyond here are sand dunes used by loggerhead sea turtles for nesting.

“If you want to find a place where the Mediterranean is as natural as possible, this is it,” says Mr Trajçe. “It’s the last place.”

He is due to appear in court

A man has been charged in connection with an incident at a Salford primary school. Officers were called out to St Mark’s RC Primary School on Queensway, in Clifton, Swinton, at around 10am on Friday morning (June 19).

A man was later arrested on nearby Rake Lane. In an update issued this morning (Sunday), Greater Manchester Police confirmed a man had since been charged in connection with the incident.

Lee Graham Wallbank, of Tyldesley Road, Wigan, has been charged with affray and criminal damage. The 36-year-old has also been charged with breach of court order, which GMP says is connected to an unrelated matter.

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Wallbank is due to appear at Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Court on Monday, June 22. Following the incident, a spokesperson for Salford Diocese, on behalf of the school, said: “We are aware of the incident that took place at St Mark’s Primary School in Swinton on Friday morning.

“The school are working closely with relevant emergency services, and will offer support to pupils, staff, families, and the wider school community. The safety, wellbeing, and pastoral care of all those affected remain our highest priority.”