Takeshi Niinami said he never used the products in Japan, where officials are investigating whether they are banned under the country’s strict drug laws.

© The Asahi Shimbun, via Getty Images

OTTAWA — Alberta United Conservative Party MLA Jason Stephan is doubling down on his call for a referendum on the province's independence next year, saying the vote would be a critical expression of popular will. Read More

Emmanuel Macron says Europe ready to provide such guarantees at meeting in Paris today

Rutte says that despite adopting more ambitious spending targets earlier this year, “cash alone can’t provide security.”

He goes on:

“We need the capabilities, real firepower, heavy metal, as well as new tech, and that’s what our defence industry across the Alliance needs to deliver faster than ever in Europe and also in the United States. Simply all over the Alliance, we are not producing enough.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jeanne Accorsini/SIPA/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Jeanne Accorsini/SIPA/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Jeanne Accorsini/SIPA/Shutterstock

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

The price of oil is dropping this morning, on predictions that the Opec+ group could increase production again.

Opec+ are due to meet on Sunday when they will consider whether to agree another increase in output targets.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Eugene Hoshiko/AP

© Photograph: Eugene Hoshiko/AP

© Photograph: Eugene Hoshiko/AP

Hurricane Kiko intensified into a major hurricane in the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday at the same time Hurricane Lorena geared up to lash the coast of Mexico’s Baja California.

Company says customers are holding off bookings

Bolivia, Peru, struggling Nigeria and flagging Italy face an uphill struggle, but others have reason for optimism

There are only three automatic places available via the Concacaf World Cup qualifiers because the USA, Mexico and Canada have secured their spots as hosts, although the two best runners-up head into the inter-confederation playoffs. Suriname have made it to the final round of qualifying only once before and will be hoping to kick off their campaign with a victory when they host Panama in Paramaribo on Thursday. Managed by the former Netherlands goalkeeper Stanley Menzo, they have been steadily climbing Fifa’s rankings since allowing players born in the Netherlands with Surinamese heritage to represent the national side and have the Huddersfield defender Radinio Balker in their ranks.

Continue reading...

© Composite: Guardian Picture Desk; NurPhoto/Shutterstock ; Reuters

© Composite: Guardian Picture Desk; NurPhoto/Shutterstock ; Reuters

© Composite: Guardian Picture Desk; NurPhoto/Shutterstock ; Reuters

• Victory would cement England’s position at top of Pool A

• Jess Breach will win 50th cap on the left wing in Brighton

Alex Matthews will captain England for only the second time in her career in their final pool match of the Rugby World Cup against Australia, among one of 12 changes made to the Red Roses’ starting XV.

Jess Breach will win her 50th cap on the wing in Brighton and Holly Aitchison will potentially make her first appearance of the tournament from the replacements bench with a victory cementing a top of the pool finish. The Red Roses have already secured their quarter-final place.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

© Photograph: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

© Photograph: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

Paul loves his spuds and finds Noor’s preference for rice mystifying. She wants a more equal approach to carbs. You decide who gets a roasting?

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

We split the cooking, so it’s a battle between us as to which carb is better. To me, rice is more versatile

I made thousand-layer potatoes and they were amazing. Noor pretended she didn’t like them

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian

© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian

© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian

Yes, there were some serious problems for Labour this week, but overblown claims in the press undermine what remains of our political debate

• Sign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and more

Tell me, fellow Brits, how are you getting used to our island version of North Korea? How are you coping with life, now that we are a global pariah alongside Pyongyang? How do you feel about modern Britain having to vie with North Korea, Myanmar and Afghanistan for the wooden spoon on every international index of oppression?

For that is the country Wednesday’s Daily Mail front page insists we have now become. It is tempting to laugh off a headline that asks “When did Britain become North Korea?” as just another here-today-gone-tomorrow piece of journalistic hyperbole. That’s even more the case when you read the cobbled-up pandemonium of provocations that form the contents of the headline-writer’s charge that Britain is being strong-armed into “Starmer’s socialist utopia” – nervy bond markets, the possibility of compulsory ID cards, the arrest of the Father Ted writer for his tweets and, of course, Angela Rayner.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Raj Dhunna/The Guardian

© Illustration: Raj Dhunna/The Guardian

© Illustration: Raj Dhunna/The Guardian

The country’s fisheries and the health of its seas still rely on a method practised for nearly 1,000 years – catching skipjack tuna one fish at a time

• Photographs and video by Ibrahim Bassam

At 3.04am, most of the residents of the northern Maldivian island village of Kanditheemu are fast asleep. Only the faint sound of waves lapping against anchored boats and the crunch of sand under weathered sandals breaks the silence. Carrying buckets and small bags, 14 fishers emerge and move quietly towards the harbour, crossing a narrow wooden plank to board a 24-metre-long dhoni boat named Mas Vaali.

For captain Ibrahim Hamid, 61, this routine has been the same for decades: rise before dawn, steer a dhoni across the Indian Ocean, and oversee a crew hauling in silvery skipjack tuna using single poles and lines – in a process that is often unchanged from how they fished as boys.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Ibraham Bassam

© Photograph: Ibraham Bassam

© Photograph: Ibraham Bassam

Mixing dense political ideas with allusions to The Sound of Music and BoJack Horseman, these films have become a thrilling DIY artform – one entirely conceived, written, filmed and performed by their stars

Thirty eight million people and counting have watched Hbomberguy’s near four-hour video Plagiarism and You(Tube), in which the YouTuber – real name Harry Brewis – forensically dissects intellectual theft across the platform in a work of investigative journalism worthy of a Pulitzer. To put that into perspective, 32 million people in the UK tuned in to watch Princess Diana’s funeral broadcast live on the BBC. If you’re not familiar with the work, video essays may just be the biggest cultural phenomenon you’ve never heard of.

Early versions of video essays – thoughtful deep dives that filter cultural analysis through the distinct personality of the creator – emerged in the early 2000s, but it was the converging currents of the “online left” and the creativity that flourished under lockdowns that saw the number of creators rise and the format swell in popularity. For the past eight years, the British Film Institute has put out a yearly ranking of video essays of the year. BBC auteur Adam Curtis has said if he were starting out again, he would become a YouTuber, calling it “the last wild west” of online creativity.

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Olga Khaletskaya/The Guardian

© Illustration: Olga Khaletskaya/The Guardian

© Illustration: Olga Khaletskaya/The Guardian

Dear Abby advises a man on how to handle his relationship with his wife, ever since her hysterectomy has prevented the couple from having sex on a regular basis.

The Orange County Sheriff's Department arrested an Alabama man who deputies said showed up armed with brass knuckles, knives, high-capacity magazines and body armor after allegedly making threats against a Catholic monastery in California.

The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to anyone born in the US, and Rosie O'Donnell was born in New York.

UFC legend Rampage Jackson has cut contact with his son, Raja, and called for the MMA fighter to be jailed for brutally attacking and hospitalizing a professional wrestler.

2026 film Michael ‘panders to a very specific section of my dad’s fandom that still lives in the fantasy’, 27-year-old says, denying any involvement

Paris Jackson has criticised an upcoming biopic of her father, Michael Jackson, saying she had “zero per cent involvement” in the film, which she suggests has been “sugar-coated” in a broader swipe at Hollywood biopics that contain “full-blown lies”.

The comments came just two days after the actor Colman Domingo, who plays the family patriarch Joe Jackson in the film Michael, praised Paris’s contribution.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Earl Gibson III/Deadline/Getty Images

© Photograph: Earl Gibson III/Deadline/Getty Images

© Photograph: Earl Gibson III/Deadline/Getty Images

Elderly woman with Alzheimer’s, medical workers and children among 6,000 Palestinians held

Only one in four detainees from Gaza are identified as fighters by Israel’s military intelligence, classified data indicates, with civilians making up the vast majority of Palestinians held without charge or trial in abusive prisons.

Those jailed for long periods without charge or trial include medical workers, teachers, civil servants, media workers, writers, sick and disabled people and children.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

© Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

© Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

A new walking tour offers a chance to meet the city’s Ukrainian community, with stops for hearty dumplings, castle views and shared histories

Before arriving in Edinburgh, Nataliya Bezborodova’s impression of Scotland was shaped largely by Hollywood. “My knowledge of this country was pretty much based on the film Braveheart,” she admits with a laugh, standing before the grand neoclassical columns of the National Galleries of Scotland. As if on cue, the castle’s daily gun salute fires overhead, scattering pigeons and punctuating our conversation with a jolt.

Three years have passed since the 47-year-old anthropologist left her home in Kyiv for Edinburgh, after the Russian invasion. Celluloid warriors have long been replaced by the rhythms of life in a city she now knows like the back of her hand. So well, in fact, that she has launched a walking tour revealing a layer even locals might miss: the story of Edinburgh’s vibrant Ukrainian community.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jui-Chi Chan/Alamy

© Photograph: Jui-Chi Chan/Alamy

© Photograph: Jui-Chi Chan/Alamy

With 12,000 expected to attend in Birmingham, Nigel Farage’s party hopes to present a more professional image

Reform UK’s party conference will last barely more than 30 hours this weekend, but its rivals fear the glitz and political noise are going to be hard to beat.

“We’re the only party conference to have our own pyrotechnics budget,” says one Reform insider with pride.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Surfer Todd Weaver takes magical pictures of the Golden State – from ombre skies reflected in the sea to crashing waves and rising full moons

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Todd Weaver

© Photograph: Todd Weaver

© Photograph: Todd Weaver

Additional 5x telephoto camera, actually useful AI tools, Qi2 support and slick software make for a quality Android

Google’s new cheapest Pixel 10 has been upgraded with more cameras, a faster chip and some quality software that has brought it out of the shadow of its pricier Pro siblings to set a new standard of what you should expect from a base-model flagship phone.

The regular Pixel 10 costs £799 (€899/$799/A$1,349) – the same as last year’s Pixel 9 – undercutting the 10 Pro by £200 and matching rivals from Samsung and Apple while offering more for your money.

Screen: 6.3in 120Hz FHD+ OLED (422ppi)

Processor: Google Tensor G5

RAM: 12GB

Storage: 128 or 256GB

Operating system: Android 16

Camera: 48MP+ 13MP UW + 10.8MP 5x tele; 10.5MP selfie

Connectivity: 5G, eSim, wifi 7, UWB, NFC, Bluetooth 6 and GNSS

Water resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes)

Dimensions: 152.8 x 72.0 x 8.6mm

Weight: 204g

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

© Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

© Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

This luminous and tender 20th-century saga of wounded souls and small-town secrets has a deep melancholy

I am not the kind of reader who naturally gravitates toward slice-of-life Americana. I’m an enthusiast for the sort of American fiction where cowboys make dolent pronouncements while staring into fires, sure – but less the kind where people are generally nice, and go to places called things like “Fink’s Drugstore” to drink “root beer floats”.

So when Buckeye – the new novel from American author Patrick Ryan, whose collections of short fiction have garnered comparisons to William Faulkner and JD Salinger – clunked obstreperously on to my doorstep, I thought “you’ve got to respect a 440-pager”, and somewhat reluctantly pulled my little socks up for some Norman Rockwell-type business. And you know what? I now think slice-of-life Americana is good, actually.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: David Howells/Corbis/Getty Images

© Photograph: David Howells/Corbis/Getty Images

© Photograph: David Howells/Corbis/Getty Images

Senior China correspondent Amy Hawkins discusses a historic week in China – including a 20-plus country summit and an unprecedented military parade – and analyses what it tells us about the country’s attempt to remake the world

It has been a historic week of diplomacy in China.

As senior China correspondent Amy Hawkins explains, it started on Sunday, with more than 20 heads of state attending the opening of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Among them were strongmen from across Europe and Asia: presidents Putin of Russia, Erdoğan of Turkey, Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Lukashenko of Belarus and many others.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Sergey Bobylev/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/EPA

© Photograph: Sergey Bobylev/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/EPA

© Photograph: Sergey Bobylev/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/EPA