• Former Spurs boss has been leading USA since late 2024

• Tottenham job open after sacking of Ange Postecoglou

Mauricio Pochettino pushed back against suggestions he is a candidate to take over the newly-vacant Tottenham Hotspur managerial position, telling reporters on Saturday that it was “not realistic” for him to leave his current role as US men’s national team manager.

Pochettino had been considered a possible candidate to replace Ange Postecoglou, who was sacked by Tottenham on 6 June despite him leading the club to Europa League glory – the club’s first trophy in 17 years. However, Tottenham finished 17th in the Premier League, their lowest position since 1977.

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© Photograph: Mark Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images

© Photograph: Mark Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images

Tataloo’s music became popular among the Islamic Republic’s youth, as it challenged Iran’s theocracy at a time when opposition to the country’s government was splintered and largely leaderless.

They came in like a wrecking ball.

Signing Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo are leaps of faith, as is hoping Ruben Amorim can solve all the problems

In publicly rejecting the overtures of the Saudi Pro League, Bruno Fernandes has made it clear he wants to continue playing football at the highest level. That he wants to challenge for trophies. That he has no interest in wasting what remains of his peak years jogging around aimlessly in the service of a vast public relations project, providing lucrative content for a cruel and heartless regime. Despite all this, he’s more than happy to remain at Manchester United for now.

There were other angles to this decision. In a sense, Al-Hilal’s courtship of Fernandes represented a kind of catch-22 for United, desperate to reinforce their underperforming squad while remaining compliant with profitability and sustainability rules. Only a player who truly loved United could contemplate leaving in order to help balance the books. But in signalling his willingness to leave, Fernandes merely demonstrated why United could not possibly let him go.

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© Photograph: Ash Donelon/Manchester United/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ash Donelon/Manchester United/Getty Images

Given these sides’ catastrophic meeting in Belgrade almost 11 years ago, the real measure of success was its smooth completion

Inside Arena Kombëtare, more than 20,000 supporters caught their breaths and trained every last squint of focus on Rey Manaj. Outside, the legions who had flooded into Tirana all day just to be part of things, some queueing at borders before racing to bars and public viewings through the heat, clasped their beers. Albania had been awarded a penalty and nobody cared that it was soft; if Manaj kept his nerve then maybe a football hero could finally be born, the accursed feel around this fixture banished at long last.

Manaj straightened up, perhaps a little too much, and approached the ball head on. If he needed any reminder of the context he could always heed the reverberations of “Serbia, Serbia, f*ck your sister” that had formed much of the day’s soundtrack and had only just paused before he stepped up. The shot was low, far too close to Djordje Petrovic and firmly pawed to safety. The half-time whistle sounded immediately, members of Serbia’s delegation making a beeline for the pitch to embrace their keeper. For Manaj, all that lingered was the frozen image of a moment he had failed to meet.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Collapse of once-feared security apparatus, coupled with widespread poverty, has triggered a gold rush

They come by night. Armed with pickaxes, shovels and jackhammers, looters disturb the dead. Under the cover of darkness, men exhume graves buried more than 2,000 years ago in Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra, searching for treasure.

By day, the destruction caused by grave robbers is apparent. Three-metre-deep holes mar the landscape of Palmyra, where ancient burial crypts lure people with the promise of funerary gold and ancient artefacts that fetch thousands of dollars.

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© Photograph: William Christou

© Photograph: William Christou

Hawks, spikes and sonic repellants are among the measures used to deter these birds. Perhaps we should try sharing our planet

At this year’s Cannes film festival, some unexpected hires joined the security detail at luxury hotel the Majestic. They were clad not in kevlar but in deep chestnut plumage, with wingspans up to four feet, talons for toes and meat-ripping ebony beaks. The new recruits were Harris hawks and their mission was clear: guard stars from the aerial menace of gulls daring to photobomb or snatch vol-au-vents.

This might sound like an extreme solution to a benign problem – after all, haven’t most of us lost sandwiches to swooping beaks and come out relatively unscathed? But as these notorious food pirates come ashore in growing numbers, cities around the world are increasingly grappling with how to manage them. Hiring hawks from local falconer Christophe Puzin was the Majestic’s answer to curbing gull-related incidents (such as Sophie Marceau’s 2011 wine-on-dress situation). But in metropolises such as New York, Rome, Amsterdam and London gulls are widely considered a menace, too, as they take up permanent residence on urban stoops.

Sophie Pavelle is a writer and science communicator

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© Photograph: photo by Tony Millar/Getty Images

© Photograph: photo by Tony Millar/Getty Images

What was once simply a garment that declared your affiliation to a club is now a global business earning millions from collectors of vintage kits

On the second floor of an unprepossessing building on the outskirts of Amsterdam, there is a metal cabinet that destroys footballers’ DNA. The contraption belongs to MatchWornShirt and was part of a deal to sell the kits of Real Madrid players to the public. To allay concerns that the genetic material of Cristiano Ronaldo might escape into the wild, the steel wardrobe was built so that every shirt could be blasted by a germicidal lamp.

For new, read old, because MatchWornShirt sells precisely what the company’s name suggests: kits that have been stuck to the bodies of professional athletes. Want the jersey Son Heung-min pulled on against Manchester United in the Europa League final? You can have it, if you beat the current auction price of £22,000. The very shirt Cole Palmer had on when he scored four first-half goals against Brighton last season? That went for £34,000.

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© Photograph: MatchWornShirt

© Photograph: MatchWornShirt

A Dear Abby reader asks for advice on what to do with her daughter in future situations so she is not disrupting.

The slain woman's parents witnessed the heartless execution after she called them for help as the lovers' quarrel spiraled out of control.

An internet famous California bald eagle family launched its last baby into the world.

Romano shared details for the first time about what transpired.

Merab Dvalishvili and Kayla Harrison won the men's and women's bantamweight titles respectively Saturday night at UFC 316 at Prudential Center.

From Baltic beach holidays to Spanish city breaks and cruising on French canals, here’s our pick of the best getaways for dogs – and their owners

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© Photograph: Freddy Planinschek

© Photograph: Freddy Planinschek

Forget luxury escapes: it’s more fun to share time and space with people of all ages and from all walks of life

I’ve never been in a band. But I have been to a youth hostel with four babies, which is sort of the same thing. Everywhere we turned there was singing, selfies, strangers coming up to us in the street and women getting their boobs out – it was the Small Faces, but with actual small faces.

My God, how I love youth hostels. In all their strange, intergenerational, shared washing-up sponges and boot-room glory, they are the best of us. You can keep your sponsored hotel stays and luxury apartments as far as I’m concerned. Give me a fluorescent-lit kitchen with five electric hobs and a roll of stickers to label your milk any day.

Nell Frizzell is a journalist and author

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© Photograph: YHA

© Photograph: YHA

Tskaltubo enjoyed years of prosperity as a jewel of Soviet architecture. But after the collapse of the USSR in December 1991 the sanatoriums were abandoned, and in 1992 people fleeing the war in Abkhazia found refuge here. While efforts continue to restore the spa town to its former glory, silence and greenery prevail as a few families hold out amid the rubble

The right to rest for workers was enshrined in the 1936 constitution of the Soviet Union. Article 119 guaranteed “annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoriums”. Fourteen years earlier, the 1922 labour code had established that every worker was entitled to two weeks of annual leave and hundreds of sanatoriums were built across the vast territory that made up the Soviet socialist republics. These establishments, conceived as a combination of health resorts and medical centres, served as places for workers to rest and recuperate, thus helping to optimise their productivity.

Bath House No 8, located in Central Park where the hot springs spring forth, is the UFO-shaped Tskaltubo spa with a curved, circular roof and a central opening that lets in light.

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© Photograph: Oscar Espinosa

© Photograph: Oscar Espinosa

The former lead singer of an award-winning Christian-rock band was allegedly "living a double life" as he faces accusations of sexual assault, grooming and drug abuse dating as far back as 2004.

The party that loves to claim to stand "the rule of law" proved themselves liars yet again.

Norway will set up state payment scheme for families of 123 men killed in Kielland disaster, but some feel it comes too late

“I think we all feel like we’ve had a bit of a weight lifted off our shoulders,” said Laura Fleming after an important milestone in one of Europe’s longest-running industrial disaster sagas. “It is just 45 years too late.”

Fleming’s father, Michael, was one of 123 men who were killed when the Alexander L Kielland accommodation rig capsized during a fierce storm in the Norwegian North Sea oilfields on 27 March 1980.

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© Photograph: NTB/Alamy

© Photograph: NTB/Alamy

The UK government is desperate to show it is preventing small boat crossings, but its PR-heavy approach may cause more problems with voters than it solves

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© Composite: Guardian/Christopher Thomond

© Composite: Guardian/Christopher Thomond

There’s this idea that friendships should just happen, but they need input and confidence
• Every week Annalisa Barbieri addresses a problem sent in by a reader

A couple of years ago, I moved to a new city. The pandemic put my university plans permanently on hold, and I’ve recently started working full time. I built up a sizeable network of online friends during and after the pandemic, but I’ve found myself craving real-life friends to interact with more often.

I don’t drink and I’m struggling to find activities for people my age that I’m interested in. Apart from a few at my job, I haven’t been able to make any new friends, and my contact with old school friends has become less and less frequent.

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© Illustration: Alex Mellon/The Guardian

© Illustration: Alex Mellon/The Guardian

Experts, Guardian readers and writers share ingenious solutions to life’s everyday irritations, from wobbly tables to persistent hiccups

Stuffed-up sieves
Always use a dishwasher. If one isn’t available, soak in the sink first, to loosen particles, then take a dish brush or nail brush to it. Rinse under a fast hot tap.
Aggie MacKenzie, TV presenter and author

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© Photograph: Ilka and Franz/The Guardian

© Photograph: Ilka and Franz/The Guardian

The UK’s strategic defence review risks normalising nuclear warfare. Don’t believe the PR hype: these weapons are immoral, irrational and catastrophic

Plans by Keir Starmer’s government to modernise and potentially expand Britain’s nuclear weapons arsenal, unveiled in the 2025 strategic defence review (SDR), seriously undermine international non-proliferation efforts. They will fuel a global nuclear arms race led by the US, China and Russia. And they increase the chances that lower-yield, so-called tactical nukes will be deployed and detonated in conflict zones.

This dangerous path leads in one direction only: towards the normalisation of nuclear warfare.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

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© Photograph: Reuters

© Photograph: Reuters

iPhone-maker hit by technological challenges that have led to delays to the full rollout of its ‘Apple Intelligence’ features

Start-up has embarked on expansion of its own infrastructure and secured significant contracts

Canada’s most famous astronaut on his unusual party trick, predictions on extraterrestrial life and favourite space movies

What’s the most chaotic thing that’s ever happened to you in space?

Launch – you go from no speed at all to 17,500 miles an hour in under nine minutes. The chaos is spectacular, the power of it is just wild, the physical vibration and force of it is mind-numbing – and it all happens so blisteringly fast. In the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, you go from lying on your back in Florida to being weightless in space. It’s just the most amazing, chaotic, spectacular, rare human experience I’ve ever had.

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© Photograph: Fane Australia

© Photograph: Fane Australia

Ex-banker Zia Yusuf will lead efficiency-seeking initiative for local councils

The United States is becoming just another country with a corrupt strongman personalizing and profiting from power.

© Photo illustration by Pablo Delcan and Danielle Del Plato; source photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.

Dvalishvili retained his men’s bantamweight title in dominant fashion as Kayla Harrison was crowned champion

© Getty Images

A prominent voice in the fight for trans rights, the author, model and activist reflects on the cost of speaking out in a new documentary and calls for deeper allyship in her latest book. In recent years, while working on these projects, she has faced significant personal challenges, which she shares with Olivia Petter

© Luke Nugent Studio

Sub-Saharan Africa has the world's highest school dropout rates and a driving factor is that parents are being crushed by unpredictable school fees

© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Ellie Muir has noticed that her friends are becoming reliant on OpenAI’s popular generative language model ChatGPT, using it to do everything from deciding what’s for lunch to writing work emails. But when one query on the platform uses 10 times more energy than a normal Google search, does our dependency on AI have darker consequences?

© Getty/iStock

The Man Who Pays His Way: Cancer can have a long-lasting effect on travel, even after it has been beaten

© Mark Lambert

It started with a walk, a glass of wine and a pizza dropped face-down on the floor. Hannah Twiggs shares her dad’s hard-earned lessons in home pizza – plus three topping combos worth arguing over

© Getty/iStock

The actor is fast becoming a familiar face on British television, from ‘Glue’ to ‘Line of Duty’. As she returns as Nicki Jennings in BBC’s heist drama, she talks to Gabriel Tate about rejection, rethinking accessibility in the arts and ‘why she’s not expecting to be famous’

© Matt Smith

Italians vote over two days on referendums that would make it easier for children born in Italy to foreigners to obtain citizenship, and on providing more job protections

A pair of singing androids

© Copyright ©2025 Julieta Cervantes

This year's Boulder Jewish Festival is being reimagined to focus on community healing

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Mohammad Sharafoddin, his wife and young son managed to make it out of Afghanistan as refugees nine years ago, at one point walking 36 hours in a row over mountain passes

© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

President’s message about anti-ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles harkens back to George Floyd protest remark that was condemned for its dark history

© Getty Images