Tusk seeks to bounce back from presidential election defeat two weeks ago after unexpected victory by right-wing populist Karol Nawrocki
Tusk says his government struggled to communicate its successes to the public, as he lists some key achievements.
“If we told our story even half as well as we actually governed, we would be winning election after election,” he says.
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© Photograph: Paweł Supernak/EPA
© Photograph: Paweł Supernak/EPA
Ecuador also qualify for finals with 0-0 draw in Peru
Uruguay need one point after beating Venezuela
Brazil and Ecuador have secured spots at the 2026 World Cup, taking the second and third of South America’s six automatic qualifying berths after the champions, Argentina, booked their ticket in March.
Brazil beat Paraguay 1-0 while Ecuador drew 0-0 in Peru as both teams climbed to 25 points with two matches to play, beyond the reach of Venezuela in seventh place. Uruguay (24 points), Paraguay (24) and Colombia (22) occupy the remaining three automatic qualification positions before the final two fixtures in September. Venezuela (18) would earn a playoff spot against a team from another confederation by finishing seventh.
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© Photograph: André Penner/AP
© Photograph: André Penner/AP
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
Richard Hunter, head of markets at interactive investor, says this week’s talks in London between the US and China “represent progress”, despite the lack of detail about what was agreed:
“Apparently constructive talks between the US and China have put markets on a firmer footing, as investors hope that the worst of the tariff turbulence may have passed.
Details of the framework which has been agreed in principle were patchy and in any event yet to be signed off by both Presidents. Chinese exports of rare earth minerals are likely to have been high on the agenda, although at this stage it has not become apparent what China may have negotiated in return.
“Markets will likely welcome the shift in tone from confrontation to coordination. But with no further meetings scheduled, we’re not out of the woods yet. The next step depends on Trump and Xi endorsing and enforcing the proposed framework.
“It’s important not to mistake this tactical de-escalation for a full reversal of strategic decoupling. The underlying competition around technology, supply chains, and national security remains very much intact. New issues can always emerge, and the real test will be how far this “new old deal” is implemented.”
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© Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters
© Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters
Mayor Karen Bass issues curfew for one square mile area in downtown, beginning at 8pm local time on Tuesday until 6am local time on Wednesday
The Guardian has been reporting on the protests against ICE raids in Los Angeles, as Donald Trump ramps up his administration’s efforts to detain undocumented migrants.
My colleague Robert Mackey has fact-checked a speech President Trump made at military base Fort Bragg, which contained lies and conspiracy theories about LA.
Trump falsely claims protesters are bearing foreign flags as part of a ‘foreign invasion’
In his deeply partisan speech at Fort Bragg, Trump made the baseless claim that the protests against immigration raids in LA are being led by paid “rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion”.
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© Photograph: Ringo Chiu/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Ringo Chiu/AFP/Getty Images
I love her and find her sexy but can’t climax when we have sex, and am getting increasingly worried about it. Is treatment available?
I think I have a problem sexually. I can ejaculate alone when I masturbate, but not with a partner. This is becoming a problem as my partner is complaining about my inability to ejaculate when I am with her. I am now over 30 and it is starting to get me worried. Is there any treatment or help I can get? I really love this woman and find her sexy, but I am not able to get to the point of ejaculation.
The transition from solo sex to satisfying partner sex is not always easy. Some people become so accustomed to particular types of touch, pressure or strokes during masturbation that they find switching to the different sensations with another person extremely challenging. In addition, some people require intense focus to achieve orgasm or ejaculation, and the anxiety or distraction of intimacy with a partner interrupts their usual process.
Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.
If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.
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© Composite: Getty Images/Guardian Design Team. Posed by models
© Composite: Getty Images/Guardian Design Team. Posed by models
Team featuring Jeremy Guscott and Mike Catt won Bath’s most recent title before professional era changed the game
It doesn’t take long to realise that one of England’s greatest attacking minds is still as sharp as ever. Asked what is keeping him busy at the moment, Brian Ashton, now 78, shoots back: “Staying alive.” There are many ways to emphasise how long it has been since Bath won the title but a two-word riposte from the man who led them to the league and cup double in 1995-96 does it better than most.
It is well documented that the dawn of professionalism was not kind to Bath, how it both enabled their rivals to catch up and derailed the country’s dominant side in the following years. As the former full-back Jon Callard has put it: “Bath got lost in professionalism, sometimes players forgot the value of the shirt.” In the final throes of the amateur era, however, Bath were the trailblazers.
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© Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images
© Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images
Plus: has anyone done the Beautiful South journey; champions in three different confederations; and did a player score while carrying an umbrella?
Mail us with your questions and answers
“Fenerbahçe have finished runners-up for the fourth season in a row and 26th time in the Turkish top flight (since 1959),” weeps Emre Öztürk. “Which teams have been runners-up most times? Is my team second in that list, too?”
Fear not, Emre: Fenerbahçe are among the also-rans in this particular competition. But they are Turkey’s greatest runners-up: they’ve assumed the position 30 times overall, 26 since the introduction of the Süper Lig in 1959. That puts them well clear of Galatasaray (19 overall, 11 since 1959) and Besiktas (19/14).
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© Composite: Getty Images
© Composite: Getty Images
Murder accused also tells Victorian supreme court that she thought beef wellingtons were ‘the perfect dish’ for dried mushrooms
Erin Patterson has denied leading health officials on a “wild goose chase”, and that she foraged death cap mushrooms two hours before buying a food dehydrator, a Victorian court has heard.
Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to poisoning four lunch guests with beef wellington served at her house in Leongatha, Victoria, on 29 July 2023.
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© Photograph: James Ross/AP
© Photograph: James Ross/AP
From gay penguin parents to snake orgies, a biology professor looks at sexual adaptation in the animal world
In 1998, Roy and Silo, a pair of male chinstrap penguins at Central Park Zoo in New York, were given an abandoned egg to incubate after zookeepers observed them performing mating rituals together. For 34 days, they took turns sitting on it. When the egg hatched, the story became a viral sensation. The New York Times celebrated “A Love That Dare Not Squeak Its Name”. Roy, Silo and their daughter Tango became the subject of a LGBTQ-friendly children’s book, And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell.
Biology professor Nathan Lents remembers receiving copies of Tango as a gift when he and his husband became foster parents. Fast-forward to the present day, and Tango tops Pen America’s list of the most frequently banned picture books in the US. It was part of a high-profile lawsuit in Nassau County, Florida, and was designated for pulping by officials in Singapore. In 2025, it’s apparent that “conventional categories for gender identity and expression, and sexual attraction and romanticism, are just not cutting it any more”, Lents writes. Queer, non-binary, transgender, polyamorous – terms that were perhaps once obscure are here to stay. But at the same time, a powerful backlash is under way.
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© Photograph: Lee Saunders 76/Getty Images/iStockphoto
© Photograph: Lee Saunders 76/Getty Images/iStockphoto
In her new book, Vanished, the history professor picks apart the political and philosophical dimensions of species loss
Would you bring an extinct species back to life if you could? If so, which species would you pick? Prof Sadiah Qureshi has taken to asking her friends, students and complete strangers this question because, she says, their answers reveal a lot about how we understand extinction.
Some choose a dinosaur, others pick a species like the dodo, killed off by humans. Almost no one chooses a plant or insect.
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© Photograph: Irina Zoteeva
© Photograph: Irina Zoteeva
During a period of deep personal turmoil, Marjolein Martinot took her camera down to the riverside in southern France – and began to feel connected again
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© Photograph: MARJOLEIN MARTINOT
© Photograph: MARJOLEIN MARTINOT
Tony Burke’s moreish, messy debut thriller about an iron-pumping cannibal who sparks a turf war between drug gangs excels in narky repartee
‘It’s basic detective work,” says veteran smalltown cop Stanton (Charles Dale), trying to justify pressurising a lead about her love life. “Very fucking basic,” says Patch (Andrea Hall), a London colleague who has come to the sticks because of a possible connection with a grisly serial killer. That’s the narky style of this ramshackle but moreish Welsh thriller, which takes place in the coke-sniffing milieu of endemic poverty and petty criminality, under ubiquitous sallow street lighting, in which everyone’s looking for an out.
Patch is right about the serial killer: drifter Sion (Craig Russell) has pitched up in town and blags a cleaning job at a local gym. A traumatised ex-squaddie with an inferiority complex, he takes offence at the group of hoodlums lording it over the machines. So he hammers in the skull of bouncer Dwayne (Kai Owen) and stores some choice morsels in a freezer; an extra protein source for his iron-pumping. But Sion is oblivious to Dwayne having recently cut in on a drug deal with rival Albanian gangsters – so his seemingly brutal murder threatens to kick off a turf war.
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© Photograph: Publicity image undefined
© Photograph: Publicity image undefined
At least 225 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza since 2023. One was the son of Wael al-Dahdouh, who also lost his wife, two other children and a grandchild. Here, he talks about regaining his sense of purpose amid the desolation
Purpose was never something Wael al-Dahdouh struggled with. Even when struck by personal tragedies, the Palestinian journalist would take his place in front of Al Jazeera’s cameras to report the news from Gaza.
He returned to work almost immediately after his wife, two of his children and his toddler grandson were killed by an Israeli airstrike in October 2023. He showed the same determination seven weeks later when he was himself injured, and his friend and colleague Samer Abu Daqqa killed, as they reported on the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on a school.
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© Photograph: Steffen Roth www.steffenroth.com/The Guardian
© Photograph: Steffen Roth www.steffenroth.com/The Guardian
I felt peace flood over me as I realised I no longer needed to seek validation from others. Rather than saying yes to everything, I became more open, present and patient
‘Are you afraid of dying, or are you afraid of not living?” Last year, I was sitting in a circle of strangers – half Buddhist monks, half morbidly curious members of the public – when someone asked one of the most profound questions I had ever heard. I was at a “death cafe”, at my local Buddhist centre in south London. A plate of biscuits was passed around while people nursed mugs of hot tea. At 29, I was one of the youngest attending the informal chat about death and dying, which was part of an initiative to encourage more open conversations about the ends of our lives.
During the session, people reflected on the lives of those they had lost. Stories were shared about the joyful moments they had had together. A woman asked me why I would want to come to something like this, at my age. I looked around before revealing more than I had ever told my own friends and family.
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© Photograph: Courtesy of Elizabeth McCafferty
© Photograph: Courtesy of Elizabeth McCafferty
Accused held senior positions with Democratic Progressive party including one who worked for Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s president
Taiwan prosecutors have charged four former staffers in the ruling Democratic Progressive party with spying for China while they worked in senior positions.
The four include a former aide to Lai Ching-te, when he was vice-president and for a time during his current presidency, and a senior staffer to Joseph Wu, then foreign minister and now national security chief.
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© Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images
© Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images
Year 5 children’s punctuation pun scoops top prize in the Beano’s Britain’s Funniest Class competition
A joke about punctuation has been chosen as the funniest in a competition run by the Beano comic.
Year 5 pupils at Riverley primary school in Leyton, east London, won the accolade with their joke: What do you call the fanciest punctuation? An a-posh-trophe.
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© Photograph: Matt Alexander/PA
© Photograph: Matt Alexander/PA
What the chancellor has considered when setting out investment to improve services and security through to the next election
Rachel Reeves will announce her highly awaited spending review on Wednesday amid pressure on the government to invest in national security and public services and to reboot the UK economy.
In what will be a defining policy announcement of the current parliament, the chancellor’s address to the Commons will outline Labour’s day-to-day spending plans for the next three years up to the next general election.
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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
A spicy-sweet broth with oily fish and a seasonal variation on a classic Korean side
When we first came across today’s main course, described in Chang Sun-Young’s classic A Korean Mother’s Cooking Notes as “hard-boiled mackerel”, we were as sceptical as we were intrigued. While the idea went against every fish-cooking mantra we knew, a large, fatty fish actually stands up rather well to a fairly long boil, and the process firms it up nicely, so you can pick up chunks of fish while leaving the bones (essential to give body and flavour to the broth) in the bowl. Our all-time favourite version of this dish was at the now defunct Jeju Hang restaurant in Seoul, where they served it with plump, broth-imbued half-moons of Korean radish and a condiment of fermented cutlass fish innards, as well as perfectly steamed rice. The salad, meanwhile, is a seasonal take on one of Jeju Hang’s side dishes (the original used seaweed instead of asparagus), and its mild, nutty, herbaceous flavour is the perfect foil to the sweet, spicy fish.
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© Photograph: Emma Guscott/The Guardian. Food styling: Ellie Mulligan. Props styling: Louie Waller. Food styling assistant: Alice Earll.
© Photograph: Emma Guscott/The Guardian. Food styling: Ellie Mulligan. Props styling: Louie Waller. Food styling assistant: Alice Earll.
Militia led by Yasser abu Shabab says Israeli troops stepped in to defend the militia gang backed by its forces
Hamas has killed 50 fighters in recent months from a Palestinian gang armed by Israel in Gaza, according to a statement released amid reports that Israeli troops directly intervened this week to protect the faction.
According to media reports in Israel, clashes between Hamas fighters and members of a militia led by Yasser abu Shabab, known locally for his involvement in criminal activity, erupted early on Tuesday in Rafah.
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© Photograph: Popular Forces/Facebook
© Photograph: Popular Forces/Facebook
Debating SA says callers have been ‘ringing up screaming’, accusing it of undoing centuries of female advancement
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Year 9 students in South Australia are about to debate whether “the ‘tradwife’ movement is good for women” – but the topic has sparked fierce discussion before the debates have even started.
The topic will start being debated next week as part of the third round of Debating SA’s competition, for which all schools in the state are eligible.
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© Photograph: Lincoln Beddoe/Getty Images/iStockphoto
© Photograph: Lincoln Beddoe/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Tuchel: ‘We don’t go to the World Cup next week’
Manager defends late introduction of Ivan Toney
Thomas Tuchel insisted England should not panic over their World Cup prospects despite being humbled 3-1 by Senegal one year and one day before the tournament starts.
Tuchel suffered the first defeat of his reign at the City Ground and England their first loss to African opposition in 22 matches as Senegal ran out deserving 3-1 winners. Jude Bellingham had a goal controversially disallowed at 2-1 but, after the laboured win against Andorra in World Cup qualifying on Saturday, there was no disguising the paucity of England’s latest performance under their German coach. England were booed off for the second game in succession.
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© Photograph: Carl Recine/Getty Images
© Photograph: Carl Recine/Getty Images
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