Liverpool’s move for Bayer Leverkusen playmaker Florian Wirtz is at an advanced stage, with the clubs in discussions over the structure of a transfer that could be worth £114m.
The Reds submitted a third formal bid for the Germany playmaker last week, worth £100m guaranteed and a further £14m of add-ons. If completed, it would smash the club’s £75m record signing of captain Virgil van Dijk in 2018.
Sources have told BBC Sport that talks are now focused on the structure of the final details of the transfer, including the value of the add-ons and how achievable they are. Leverkusen had valued the midfielder at around £126m
Wirtz, 22, has made it clear that his preference is to move to Anfield following interest from Manchester City and Bayern Munich.
He made his debut for Leverkusen at the age of 17 and has scored 57 goals in 197 games for the club.
He helped them win the Bundesliga for the first time in 2024 and has scored seven goals in 31 appearances for Germany since making his national debut in 2021.
Kyiv, Ukraine – Swarms of Russian kamikaze drones broke through Ukrainian air defence fire early on Tuesday, screeching and shrilling over Kyiv in one of the largest wartime attacks.
Oleksandra Yaremchuk, who lives in the Ukrainian capital, said the hours-long sound of two or perhaps three drones above her house felt new and alarming.
“This horrible buzz is the sound of death, it makes you feel helpless and panicky,” the 38-year-old bank clerk told Al Jazeera, describing her sleepless night in the northern district of Obolon. “This time I heard it in stereo and in Dolby surround,” she quipped.
Back in 2022, she crisscrossed duct tape over her apartment’s windows to avoid being hit by glass shards and spent most of the night in a shaky chair in her hallway.
This week’s Russian attack involved seven missiles and 315 drones – real, explosive-laden ones as well as cheaper decoys that distract and exhaust Ukraine’s air defence, Kyiv’s officials said.
The assault was the third since Ukraine’s June 1 sting to destroy Russia’s fleet of strategic bombers on four airstrips, including those in the Arctic and Siberia.
Fire and smoke are seen in the city after a Russian drone strike this month [Gleb Garanich/Reuters]
The wave of attacks also showed Russia’s tactics of overwhelming Ukrainian air defence units with the sheer number of targets that approach from different directions.
“The drones have been evolving for a while, now [the Russians] use massiveness,” Andrey Pronin, one of Ukraine’s drone warfare pioneers who runs a school for drone pilots in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.
The attack mostly targeted Kyiv, killing one woman, wounding four civilians, damaging buildings in seven districts and causing fires that shrouded predawn Kyiv in rancid smoke.
It damaged the Saint Sophia Cathedral, Ukraine’s oldest, whose construction began a millennium ago after the conversion of Kyivan Rus, a medieval superpower that gave birth to today’s Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.
The onslaught also hit the southern city of Odesa, killing two civilians, wounding nine and striking a maternity ward in the Black Sea port that lies close to annexed Crimea and lacks Kyiv’s Western air defence systems.
‘The Russians learn, every time, after each flight’
The Russia-Ukraine war triggered the evolution of drones that already rewrote the playbook of warfare globally.
While Kyiv focuses on pinpointed strikes on Russian military infrastructure, oil refineries, airstrips and transport hubs, some observers believe Moscow deliberately chooses to strike civilian areas to terrify average Ukrainians – and perfects the strikes’ lethality.
“Of course, [Russians] learn, every time, after each flight. They make conclusions, they review how they flew, where mobile [Ukrainian air defence] groups were,” Pronin said.
To save pricey United States-made anti-drone missiles, Ukraine employs “mobile air defence units” that use truck-mounted machineguns often operated by women and stationed on the outskirts of urban centres.
The Russians “used to fly the drones in twos, now they fly in threes,” Pronin said about the Iranian-made Shahed drones and their modified Russian Geran versions that carry up to 90 kilogrammes of explosives.
Firefighters work at the site of a Russian drone attack in Kyiv. Ukrainians say this week’s assault was the biggest Russian drone attack since the start of the war [Thomas Peter/Reuters]
Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen University, named three factors that contribute to the harrowing efficiency of recent drone attacks.
Firstly, the number of Russian drones rose dramatically, requiring more air defence power and, most importantly, more ammunition, he told Al Jazeera.
“The latter causes most problems, and after three massive attacks within a week, their number possibly didn’t simply suffice,” he said.
Earlier this week, the White House diverted 20,000 advanced anti-drone missiles intended for Ukraine to Washington’s allies in the Middle East.
Secondly, the Geran (“Geranium”) drones “evolve” and fly more than five kilometres above the ground at a height unreachable to firearms and many surface-to-air missiles, Mitrokhin said.
These days, Gerans have a range of 900km (660 miles) and are linked to their operators via satellite, US-made Starlink terminals smuggled into Russia or even hacked SIM cards of Ukrainian cellphone operators, according to Ukrainian officials and intelligence.
Investigators looked at what they said was the engine of a Russian Geran drone after it slammed into an apartment building in Kyiv on June 6, 2025 [Thomas Peter/Reuters]
A Russian plant in the Volga River city of Yelabuga started manufacturing Gerans in 2023 and now churns out some 170 of them daily.
Thirdly, Russia uses more decoy drones that waste air defence ammunition, Mitrokhin said.
Therefore, Kyiv “needs massive amounts of drones that could quickly gain the height of five to six kilometres, locate flying Gerans and their analogues and shoot them down”, he said.
Instead, Ukrainian forces have focused on long-distance strike drones such as Lytyi (“Fierce”) that have hit military and naval bases, oil depots, arms factories and metallurgical plants in western Russia, he said.
“Now, Ukraine needs to quickly change its strategy and produce 5,000-10,000 high-flying drone hunters a month. Which is not easy,” he concluded.
‘I felt the return of what we all felt in 2022’
Russia’s attacks underscore Washington’s failure to start the peace settlement of Europe’s largest armed conflict since 1945.
The attacks “drown out the efforts of the United States and others around the world to force Russia into peace,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, hours after Tuesday’s attack.
US President Donald Trump pledged to end Russia’s war on Ukraine “in 24 hours,” but his administration’s diplomatic efforts yielded no results.
Despite occasional criticism of the Kremlin’s warfare in Ukraine, Trump prefers not to use the White House’s diplomatic and economic arsenal to force Russia to start a peace settlement or even a 30-day ceasefire that Kyiv proposed.
While Washington continued to supply US military aid in accordance with the commitments of President Joe Biden’s administration, Trump’s cabinet did not pledge to provide any additional arms or ammunition shipments.
“This administration takes a very different view of that conflict,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a congressional hearing on Tuesday.
“We believe that a negotiated peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation’s interests, especially with all the competing interests around the globe,” he said, without specifying the extent of cuts.
Trump’s policies leave many Ukrainians reeling.
“He single-handedly lost the Cold War to Putin,” Valerii Omelchenko, a retired police officer in central Kyiv told Al Jazeera. “I honestly can’t fathom how one can be so indecisive and cowardly towards Russia.”
The horror of drone attacks, however, helps further unite Ukrainians, he said.
“In the morning, I felt the return of what we all felt in 2022, when we were treating total strangers like family, asking them how they were, trying to help them,” he said.
A resident stands near the site of an apartment building hit by a Russian drone strike in Odesa, on June 10, 2025 [Nina Liashonok/Reuters]
A Palace insider has reportedly called out Meghan and Harry over one awkward decision they made while distancing themselves from royal life. It allegedly ‘spelled disaster’ for the late Queen
One word from Harry and Meghan is said to have made the Queen worried about ‘disaster’(Image: Getty Images)
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry sent shockwaves across the world when they stepped down from royal duties five years ago, and a Palace insider was said to be left ‘raging’ at one aspect of their departure.
When the couple first announced their desire to represent the crown on a part-time basis – while working towards being “financially independent” – royal watchers were stunned.
And within the House of Windsor, a sense of impending “disaster” quickly settled, with a royal source claiming that one particular world in Harry and Meghan’s sensational statement left insiders reeling.
The couple made it clear that they never wanted to fully break away from the monarchy, but instead “carve out a progressive new role within this institution”. In their initial statement, the Sussexes added: “We will continue to collaborate with Her Majesty The Queen, The Prince of Wales, The Duke of Cambridge and all relevant parties.”
Harry and Meghan have only ever spoken positively about the late Queen(Image: Getty Images)
But it was the use of the word “collaborate” that caused deep concern. The monarchy is, by definition, an inherently hierarchical institution. Only one person wears the crown, and the rest of the senior royals work to support the monarch – so the idea that there would be a collaboration of some kind left one Palace insider baffled, and ‘raging’.
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“No one ‘collaborates’ with the Queen. This is not one of those ‘Kate Moss Top Shop tie-ups’,” the source told the Daily Mail. Another said, “Her Late Majesty was nobody’s fool and knew that the chances were, it would all end in disaster”.
Meghan and Harry have gone on to embark on a number of high-profile professional endeavours, as they fund their own lives in California – including incredibly expensive private security and running their Montecito mansion.
The couple produced a six-part self-titled documentary series for Netflix, during which they retreaded old ground about their reasons for exiting royal life, and provided never-before-seen insight into their love story, to the delight of their fans.
Harry’s memoir Spare broke records upon its release in 2023 and gave readers a behind-closed-doors look at what life growing up inside the monarchy is really like, warts and all – at least from Harry’s perspective.
Both of these high-profile – and incredibly candid projects – were not received well at the palace, with Prince William now totally estranged from his once-close younger brother, and King Charles – by Harry’s own admission – refusing to speak to his son due to the Duke’s ongoing legal battle of the removal of his automatic police security in the UK.
Most recently, Meghan has stepped into the lifestyle world, launching a new series about hosting tips entitled With Love, Meghan and an accompanying brand – As Ever.
She has also returned to Instagram, having given up her personal online accounts back when her relationship with Harry got serious and she planning to spend a lifetime as a working royal.
Since returning to social media, Meghan has not been afraid to show her personality and some aspects of her private life – including recently posting a video of herself dancing around a hospital room the day she went into labour with her daughter Princess Lilibet.
“Four years ago today, this also happened,” she captioned the post marking her daughter’s birthday. “Both of our children were a week past their due dates… so when spicy food, all that walking, and acupuncture didn’t work – there was only one thing left to do!”
Meghan posted the lighthearted video of herself dancing to induce labour(Image: meghan/Instagram)
In response to the clip, a source quoted as a palace insider told the Mail: “This is exactly why Queen Elizabeth knew this whole half-in, half-out version of royalty they were lobbying for was never, ever going to work.
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“Harry and Meghan were a law unto themselves from the start, pushing and pushing the envelope to their own professional and financial advantage.”
This cream blusher from a celebrity-owned beauty brand is a real hit with every member of our beauty team, and it’s now available in a new suits-all shade that’s perfect for summer
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We love this new shade of blush(Image: Laura Mulley)
With different skin types and tones and different personal styles, it’s rare that a beauty product really impresses every member of The Mirror’s beauty team, but that’s exactly the case with this gorgeous cream blush stick – and it’s now got even better.
We – along with loads of other beauty editors – absolutely love Pocket Blush by Hailey Bieber’s skincare and make-up brand Rhode; this super-creamy stick is so easy to apply, blends brilliantly, and the shades are perfection. I love the baby pink shade Piggy, or the sun-kissed colour Toasted Teddy in the summer, while Freckle is another popular choice – until now, that is, when a new favourite has just dropped.
READ MORE: ‘I bought 5 Nobody’s Child dresses for a posh event and this one got so many compliments’
READ MORE: ‘I tested 9 skin tints and this is the best lightweight face base I’ve found’
Rhode has just launched a new shade of its Pocket Blush(Image: Laura Mulley)
Rhode initially dropped Pocket Blush, £24, in the shade Sprinkle – a warm pearly pink, and the only slightly shimmery one in the line-up – as a limited-edition launch, but it proved so popular with fans that the brand has now brought it back for good.
I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it and, after trying it, I know I’ll be reaching for it all this summer. Neither too warm nor too cool, this shade instantly makes me look more awake and fresher-faced (this is also helped by the very very subtle shimmer in the formula, which reflects the light more). I think it would suit all skin tones, too.
And don’t just take our word for it – Pocket Blush has been a huge hit with customers since it launched too. Writing specifically about the new shade Sprinkle, one shopper wrote: “I love this blush, it is so beautiful and it is so easy to use.”
Another review titled ‘My new favourite colour’ reads: “Sprinkle is just the right amount of pink for me! You can be subtle or build up colour.”
It made us look instantly more awake(Image: Laura Mulley)
“This absolutely melts beautiful with all the other products and gives me such a beautiful ‘I’ve just been in the sun’ glow!” a third review of Sprinkle reads. “The perfect soft glam colour as well!”
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One point that a few customers make, however, is that it doesn’t last particularly long on the skin, as is the case with more cream blushes. “I love the consistency, colour and packaging [but] it has very little staying power,” one person mentioned. If you need your blusher to last a long time, you might be better off using a powder formula (try Kylie Cosmetics Pressed Powder Blush, £21) or a cheek tint, such as the now-viral Milk Makeup Cooling Water Jelly Tint, £22.
Russian drone strikes have killed three people and wounded 60, including children, in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, officials say.
The city, just 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the Russian border, bore the brunt of Russia’s latest aerial assault early on Wednesday, with 17 drones striking two residential areas, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
“Those are ordinary sites of peaceful life … that should never be targeted,” he wrote on Telegram.
Among the 60 wounded in the attacks were nine children aged between 2 and 15, according to Kharkiv regional head Oleh Syniehubov.
One Kharkiv resident, Olena Khoruzheva, told the AFP news agency how she had run with her two children away from the windows of her building when she heard the drones approach.
“The younger one lay on the floor, hands on his head. I was on top of him,” the 41-year-old pharmacist said.
“We heard it approaching. Silence, and then we were thrown against the wall … there were more explosions, then we heard people shouting ‘Help! Help!’”
Her 65-year-old neighbour was killed in the attack, she said.
The assault left emergency crews, city workers and volunteers scrambling through the night to rescue people from burning buildings and restore essential services in the city, which has been frequently targeted in recent months, The Associated Press news agency reported.
“We stand strong. We help one another. And we will endure,” the city’s mayor wrote on Telegram.
Nightly assaults
The strikes on Kharkiv were part of a wave of 85 drones deployed by Russia overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said, adding that its air defence systems had intercepted 40.
The latest assault followed much larger Russian drone and missile attacks in the previous days, in retaliation from Moscow for an audacious Ukrainian drone operation, codenamed “Spiderweb”, that knocked out aircraft stationed at military bases on Russian soil.
Moscow sent a record bombardment of almost 500 drones overnight on Monday, followed by a wave of 315 drones and seven missiles the following night.
Kyiv has sent its own drones in response, with Moscow’s Ministry of Defence saying 32 Ukrainian drones were intercepted overnight, the AFP news agency reported.
The exchange of aerial attacks has continued even as both sides have participated in recent days in prisoner exchanges agreed to in talks in Istanbul earlier this month.
The exchanges began on Monday and continued on Tuesday, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posting footage of emotional reunions as shaven-headed prisoners stepped off a bus and draped themselves in Ukrainian flags.
Вдома 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
Home 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/0E5xZxtlCv
Two rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine have failed to yield a breakthrough in agreeing to a ceasefire and ending the war.
Spain record goalscorer Jenni Hermoso has been left out of their squad for the upcoming European Championships in Switzerland.
Hermoso, 35, has scored 57 goals in 123 appearances for her national side and played a key role as Spain lifted the World Cup in Australia in 2023.
The Tigres striker featured in all six qualifiers, but her last appearance was in October 2024. She is among 12 changes to the World Cup-winning squad.
After receiving her World Cup winners medal, Hermoso was kissed by Spain’s former football federation boss Luis Rubiales without her consent. Rubiales was later found guilty of sexual assault.
Head coach Montse Tome gave a reason for her omission, saying: “I understand Jenni is an important player. I spoke with her about her situation and we’ve done the same work with her as everyone else.
“We have assessed her performances for Tigres and spoken with her coach. In her position, we have Patri [Guijarro], Aitana [Bonmati], Alexia [Putellas], Maite [Zubieta], Vicky [Lopez] and even Mariona [Caldentey] or [Claudia] Pina can come in there.
“It’s hard to pick 23 players, but we do the job professionally. At the end of the day that is what we have chosen.”
Mariona Caldentey, who started in Arsenal’s Champions League final win over Barcelona, and Manchester City’s Leila Ouahabi have been included in the squad alongside two-time Ballon d’Or winners Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmati.
