Category World News

Social media’s influence and society’s pressure for the “perfect” wedding often push couples into debt before they even say “I do”. We’re breaking down whether a budget-friendly wedding is still truly possible – and examining the heavy financial burden that comes with a lavish celebration.

Presenter: Stefanie Dekker

Ducati’s Marc Marquez resisted a spirited challenge from Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi to win the San Marino Grand Prix on Sunday, taking his revenge after crashing out of the lead in Saturday’s sprint, and inching closer to the MotoGP title.

Bezzecchi had inherited victory in the sprint when Marquez crashed out. This time, however, the determined Spaniard overtook the Aprilia rider on lap 12, having started on the second row of the grid, and never looked back.

Marquez’s 11th race victory of the season takes him to 512 points – a record tally for a MotoGP rider in a single season – and he celebrated his victory by unzipping his leathers and holding his red suit up on the podium like a matador.

Gresini Racing’s Alex Marquez finished a distant third, and brother Marc, with a 182-point lead, can clinch his seventh title at the Japanese Grand Prix this month.

“Today I gave everything I had. It’s true that the mistake from yesterday gave me extra concentration, extra power, extra energy,” an exhausted Marc Marquez said.

“I was just there following him [Bezzecchi], trying to push him always super close, because it’s impossible to do 27 laps without any mistake. And in the end, he did a small mistake on turn eight, and then I led the race.

“Super important for Ducati; I felt the pressure this weekend.”

Six more rounds remain, but Marc Marquez can now win his first title since 2019 if he outscores brother Alex by just three points in Japan.

Superb launch

At the start, Marc had a superb launch off the line and he veered to the outside to quickly move up to second behind polesitter Bezzecchi while Alex was pushed down to third.

As the top three streaked away, Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo found it difficult to maintain that pace, and he was soon battling with KTM’s Pedro Acosta, who eventually found his way past the former champion to chase the leading pack.

But Acosta’s hopes of fighting for the podium went up in smoke when he retired with a broken chain, with the young Spaniard furiously wagging his finger at the bike after he stopped on the side of the track.

Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia had another race to forget in a nightmare season for the twice champion, who crashed out of seventh place, his third place in the championship now seriously under threat from Bezzecchi.

Up front, Marc continued piling the pressure on Bezzecchi, and the Aprilia rider finally buckled on lap 12 when he was a breath late on the brakes and went wide, opening the door for the red Ducati to ease past him and into the lead.

Unrelenting Bezzecchi

Bezzecchi gave chase, unrelenting and eager to reclaim the lead. But Marc remained calm and the Spaniard was in no mood to crash out of the lead twice in one weekend.

Bezzecchi shook his head in frustration with six laps left as Marc set the fastest lap of the race.

Marc tried his best to shake off the younger Italian, who found an extraordinary late race pace to challenge for the lead. But the Ducati rider responded once again as they traded fastest laps and left third-placed Alex more than six seconds behind.

“Besides [missing out on] the victory, this is maybe the best race of my life, because I was super competitive all weekend – pole position, sprint win, second place,” Bezzecchi said.

“I was close to Marc, who is at the moment the strongest on the grid. I’m very happy, I gave my all, I’m destroyed!”

VR46 Racing riders Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Di Giannantonio finished fourth and fifth, respectively, while Gresini’s Fermin Aldeguer was sixth.

Russia and Ukraine have been engaging in major aerial battles, targeting energy and transportation infrastructure, as Moscow presses its fierce ground assault in the Ukrainian east in the war’s fourth year and tests a type of hypersonic weapon.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence announced on Sunday that its air defences shot down 361 drones, four guided aerial bombs, and rockets from a US-made high mobility artillery rocket system (HIMARS) overnight.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported bringing down a ballistic missile and 164 drones of different types.

Russian authorities and Ukraine’s military confirmed that a main target of Ukrainian drones was the Kirishi oil refinery in Russia’s northwestern Leningrad region – one of the largest in the world’s second-biggest oil-exporting country.

“Explosions and fire were recorded at the refinery,” Ukraine claimed, calling it a “successful strike”. But the scale of the damage, if any, could not be independently verified.

Alexander Drozdenko, the governor of the Leningrad region, said that three drones were destroyed in the Kirishi area and that a fire sparked by falling debris had been put out. He said no one was injured.

Attacks on energy infrastructure by both Russia and Ukraine come as United States President Donald Trump has said he is ready to sanction Russia, but only if all NATO allies agree to completely halt buying oil from Moscow and impose their own sanctions.

Also in Russia’s Leningrad, two freight trains in separate parts of the region derailed early Sunday, leaving a train driver killed and disrupting railway traffic, according to Governor Drozdenko.

An oil company in Russia’s Bashkortostan region will maintain production levels despite a drone attack on Saturday, the region’s Governor Radiy Khabirov said.

The incidents came shortly after an explosive device detonated on a section of rail track in Russia’s western Oryol region late Saturday, killing three people.

Ukraine did not claim responsibility for these incidents, as with previous ones hitting Russia’s railway network, but its military said it continues to target infrastructure used by Russia to deliver troops, fuel and ammunition to the front lines.

Ukraine’s Commander of the General Staff Andrii Hnatov told Ukrainian online video channel Novyny Live that the country may intentionally reduce the quality of 4G and 5G mobile communications in certain areas to prevent Russian drones from accessing the internet to transmit images during attacks.

Separately on Sunday, Russia said it had fired a Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic cruise missile at a target in the Barents Sea as part of joint military exercises with Belarus.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said that long-range anti-submarine aircraft of the Northern Fleet’s mixed aviation corps were also involved in the “Zapad”, or West, joint strategic exercise, and that Su-34 supersonic fighter-bombers practiced a bombing strike against ground targets.

In the meantime, a drone breached Romanian airspace during a Russian drone attack on Ukrainian infrastructure overnight, with Romania dispatching fighter jets, which did not manage to shoot down the low-flying projectile before it left national airspace towards Ukraine.

Poland also deployed aircraft and closed an airport in the eastern city of Lublin amid Russian drone strikes on Ukraine, with the move coming three days after Poland shot down Russian drones in its airspace with the backing of aircraft from NATO allies.

NATO announced a new initiative on Friday to bolster the security of its Eastern European members in the wake of Russia’s violation of Polish airspace.

“NATO is launching Eastern Sentry to bolster our posture even further along our eastern flank,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in Brussels during a joint news conference with NATO’s top commander in Europe, US General Alexus Grynkewich.