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Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, supported a visit to the Oxford Union by Professor Kathleen Stock, who believes that there are such things as women: ‘University should be an environment where debate is supported, not stifled,’ he said. He said in a separate announcement that he would ban companies from giving out free samples of vaping supplies to people under 18. He then packed his bags for a visit to Washington, DC, in the coming week for talks with President Joe Biden. Delaney Irving, aged 19, from Vancouver Island, won the women’s race at the Cooper’s Hill cheese-rolling event near Gloucester.

Food prices continued to rise rapidly, according to the British Retail Consortium, by an annual rate of 15.4 per cent in May, compared with the even steeper rate of 15.7 per cent in April. The government discussed plans for supermarkets to introduce a voluntary cap on the price of basic food items. But Lord Rose of Monewden, the chairman of Asda, warned that any such agreement might have the contrary effect of limiting price reductions, tantamount to an illegal cartel. Banks and building societies withdrew more than 800 different mortgage packages, and mortgage interest rates crept up. BT laid plans to cut 55,000 jobs or 42 per cent of its workforce by the end of the decade, citing the effects of AI technology. The Rugby Football Union offered London Irish a stay of execution as the club faced financial ruin and suspension from the Premiership. Five men who streamed Premier League association football matches to 50,000 subscribers and received more than £7 million were jailed, the ringleader for 11 years, after a private prosecution brought by the Premier League. Train drivers went on strike on two separate days, affecting travel to the Derby and the FA Cup Final.

The official Covid inquiry demanded that the Cabinet Office should hand over Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages from his time as prime minister. A spokesman for the former prime minister said: ‘Mr Johnson has no objection to disclosing material to the inquiry.’ The Covid inquiry announced that it did not aim to finish hearing public evidence until the summer of 2026. Hundreds of travellers were delayed at airports after electronic passport machines failed; soldiers manned posts at Heathrow.

Abroad

Kyiv was hit by its 17th drone attack from Russia in a month, one coming in daylight; Ukraine lost 133 civilians in Russian air attacks in the first three weeks of May. Moscow reported an attack by eight drones, damaging buildings and wounding at least two people. ‘We have nothing to do with this,’ said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, adding that Kyiv was ‘watching with pleasure and forecast an increasing number of attacks’. President Vladimir Putin of Russia said: ‘They are provoking us into responding in kind.’ President Isaias Afwerk, the ruler of Eritrea for 30 years, paid an official visit to Russia.

‘Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,’ said a statement signed by leaders in the field, including the heads of OpenAI and Google Deepmind. The value of the chipmaker Nvidia soared above $1,000 billion. The possibility that the Covid virus leaked from a laboratory should not be ruled out, according to Professor George Gao, the head of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control. President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda signed into law the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which increases penalties to life imprisonment. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey began another five years of rule after winning 52.16 per cent of the vote in the second round of elections. Pedro Sánchez, the Socialist Prime Minister of Spain, called a snap general election after his party did badly in local elections, being overtaken by the moderate People’s party. President Biden urged Congress to pass measures agreed by the Democratic and Republican parties to raise the government’s borrowing limit. A truce declared in Sudan failed to stop the fighting. Two or three dozen Nato soldiers were wounded by Serbs protesting against the installation of ethnic Albanian mayors in northern Kosovo; the United States objected to the forcible nature of the installations. Two people working for the Italian security agency and a retired member of the Israeli security forces were among four who drowned when a boat sank in a storm on Lake Maggiore.