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The silence from the White House about Russia’s deliberate campaign of killing Ukrainian civilians in the last few days may indicate that President Trump, having failed to bring an end to the war in 24 hours or his first 100 days, has now lost interest. Let’s hope this isn’t so…

Another sad death. I loved Marcel Ophüls, the magnificent French documentary-maker, from the moment we first met during the siege of Sarajevo in 1992. Brave, uncompromising and humane, he was working up to his death on a doc about the suffering in Gaza. Bless you, Marcel.

Brilliant Chelsea!!!

Is Israel committing war crimes in Gaza as its former prime minister Ehud Olmert says? Watch ‘Unspun World’ on BBC Two tonight at 11.05. If you can’t stay up, catch it on iPlayer or BBC News Channel — or listen on BBC World Service.

Wall Street traders have a new acronym — TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out. When he announces vast tariffs, stocks fall — then rise again when he lets China, Canada, Mexico, the EU etc off the hook. The traders are making big bucks betting that this will happen.

I’ve always felt people should pronounce words exactly how they want (though I’m not keen on ‘haitch’ or ‘mischiev-i-ous’). But pronouncing the ‘j’ in Beijing softly like French ‘je’ instead of hard like ‘jingle’ pains me because people think it’s accurate. It isn’t.

Now I’ve started I might as well go on. It irritates me to hear broadcasters say ‘kilOMetres’ (US) instead of ‘KILometres’ (UK), ‘REsearch’ instead of ‘reSEARCH’, and as for ‘skedule’…. Grrrr. But my Edwardian grandmother used to say ‘BalCOny’ and got cross with ‘BALcony’.

And since I’m being pedantic, it should be ‘different from’ not ‘different to’, and certainly not ‘different than’. But I’m not sure it really matters, as long as people understand you — which is the purpose of speech.

My director of studies at university came from a working-class background in Nottinghamshire. He used to tell us, ‘There are class usages and regional usages, but there are also rules. And though the rules change, they still matter.’

I took my Irish terrier to church and he howled when we sang the hymns. Hugely embarrassed, I apologised to the vicar afterwards. ‘Not at all. The Book of Psalms tells us to make a joyful noise unto the Lord,’ he said, ‘but it doesn’t specify what sort of noise!’

To our local cinema to see ‘The Salt Path’. I can’t recommend it too highly: very moving, gorgeously filmed, and stunningly acted.

I watched this happen on the morning of 4 June 1989 in Chang’an Avenue, near Tiananmen Square, the morning after the night’s massacre. Don’t believe the propaganda lie that no massacre took place: I saw 40 people killed in front of me before giving up counting in despair.

I decided to become a journalist aged fifteen after reading ‘1984’ and being appalled at the thought that governments could rewrite history. Orwell knew the USSR did it. Now China pretends the Tiananmen massacre didn’t happen. It did. I was there, and saw it for myself.

Remembering my friend and colleague, the Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot dead three years ago in Jenin in the West Bank. Israel has acknowledged that she was ‘probably’ shot by one of its soldiers, but no one has been prosecuted for her killing.

British surgeon Victoria Rose, who's just returned from Gaza: "They're coming through the doors like a conveyor belt... really small children with massive injuries.. bits of their bodies blown off... every day at least half [of my cases] were under the age of 11.. its barbaric"

“All that is asked of us is that we fight for what is right” – Alaa’s words spoken here by his hunger striking and desperately ill Mum

Excellent!

Can't show his own face but criticises the looks of a blind man who has had a brilliant career at the BBC, played blind football for England and graduated from Oxford

It was always predictable that the richest man in the world would fall out with the supposedly most powerful man in the world. But I didn’t think Musk’s break with President Trump would happen so fast, or be so excruciatingly embarrassing.

Coastal Landscape by William Trost Richards 1901 Oil on Canvas (Private Collection)