A quest for one of Europe's vanished states brings close encounters with past and present

Michael Phelps tonight became the most decorated Olympian of all-time after claiming a silver and a gold at the Aquatics Centre.

Forget boxing – London 2012's most violent discipline is staged in the pool

Two things stand out at the first Kiev International Biennale: the superior video pieces on show and a range of intelligent, original works made by a selection of Ukrainian artists (22 in total, providing a prime nationalistic platform for this under-the-radar group).

In November 2009, the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death by guards after 358 days in "preventive custody" in Moscow. His offence had been to uncover a massive tax fraud scheme stretching high into the Russian government. The case became a cause célèbre, Exhibit A of the lawlessness and corruption that plagues the country's business life.

This is a factfile of some of the most deadly incidents in history:

The first truck carrying supplies through Pakistan to US and Nato troops in neighbouring Afghanistan has crossed the border after a seven-month closure of supply routes by Pakistan ended.

Police fired teargas and used batons to disperse hundreds of protesters in Kiev today after parliament voted to make Russian, rather than Ukrainian, the main language in schools and local government in some parts of the former Soviet republic.

Briefly

There was always likely to be awkwardness about whom the Germans would face in the quarter- finals. Many had

The man who pays his way

Teofilo Stevenson, who has died of heart disease at the age of 60, was one of the best heavyweight boxers of his generation, and was widely regarded as the greatest boxer never to fight for money. He won gold medals at three consecutive Olympic Games from 1972 to 1980, in Munich, Montreal and Moscow. He said of that era: "The Olympic Games in Munich and Montreal are the fondest memories I have from my life, the best stage of my career."

With Europe bigoted and broke, there has never been a better time to be a little Englander. Everywhere you look, according to our media, we have left the hapless continentals far behind. Take football. As England limber up for their biennial heroic defeat, TV and newspapers have focused on racism and hooliganism in Ukraine and Poland. Russian fans were apparently the first culprits in the tournament itself, in their game on Friday night.

A Kazakh border guard has confessed to killing 14 fellow soldiers and a herder in cold blood at a remote post near the Chinese frontier, prosecutors said today, adding that hazing, or severe bullying, may have prompted the massacre.