2 min Slovenia are a good side, who finished top of their qualification group despite losing 4-0 at home to France*. They drew the return game – against a France team that included Desire Doue and Mathys Tel – and won five of the other six.
1 min England kick off from left to right as we watch. It really is warm out there, 28 degrees apparently. Little brisk.
It’s a hot day in Canada, and the cars are out and testing. As ever, the discussion is about tyres. When isn’t it? All that tech and it always comes down to rubber.
Feels like old times to kick off in Melbourne next season.
Scottie Scheffler needs to pull a Johnny Miller if he’s to realistically challenge today. A fast start is essential; par at the 1st, the self-styled hardest opening hole on the US Open rota, and one that’s averaging 4.34 shots this week, isn’t the worst way to begin the gargantuan task in hand. He remains at +4.
The weather could play a part this afternoon. It’s sunny enough now, but there’s a possibility of thunderstorms quite soon, or possibly in a few hours, or both. Hard to forecast anything with supreme confidence, given that when the heavens opened during yesterday’s third round, the rain was coming down heavily on some holes while the sun still blazed on others. Not untypical Pennsylvania weather, the locals will tell you. Fingers crossed none of this comes to pass, but if it does, we could be heading towards a Monday finish. Let’s cross this bridge if and when it’s necessary.
Fly-half relishes end to his 10-year wait for a league title before homing in on British & Irish Lions challenge
Had Handré Pollard done his homework he might have known what was coming. For Finn Russell has previous with intercepts when attacking Twickenham’s south stand. It was playing that way that he picked off Owen Farrell’s pass before streaking clear in the madcap 38-38 draw between England and Scotland in 2019. And he was at it again on Saturday, coming up with the decisive moment in Bath’s dogged Premiership final victory over Leicester.
On this occasion he did not finish off the try himself – you suspect he probably could have – instead flinging a nonchalant pass inside to the onrushing Max Ojomoh. In a final short on champagne moments, it put the fizz in Bath’s performance, extending their lead to 20-7 before a second penalty of the match proved pivotal in ensuring the 29-year wait for a Premiership title was over.
Relatives of Pooja and Harshit Patel, who were visiting from Leicester, want to cremate them together but have faced painful wait for identification
In the ramshackle, cramped lanes of Ambika Nagar in the Indian city of Gujarat, everyone spoke of Pooja and Harshit Patel with pride. The couple had done what none of their relatives or neighbours had managed to achieve before; they had moved abroad, settling among the thriving Gujarati diaspora community in the British city of Leicester.
Their lives in Leicester, where the couple had moved so Pooja could complete her business masters degree – later getting a job at Amazon alongside Harshit – seemed unimaginably glamorous to their relatives and close-knit community back in India. Pooja would call her mother, 58-year-old Chandra Mate, at least three times a day with tales of British life and to show off her latest outfits, spinning in front of the mirror.
Even in the most harrowing cases, a fair society must allow for review, and the possibility of judicial error
When Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies, and attempting to murder seven more, the judge sentenced her to multiple whole-life terms for what he said had been “a cruel, calculated and cynical campaign”. The convictions shook public trust in the NHS and demanded a reckoning with a system and culture that had failed to prevent such horrors. In August 2023, this newspaper urged readers to look beyond individual guilt to the institutional failures that allowed such crimes to go undetected for so long. It remains the case that serious questions must be asked of NHS management and clinical staff in relation to the tragic events at the Countess of Chester hospital.
However, justice, like science, should not be afraid to re-examine its conclusions when reasonable doubt or fresh evidence emerge. Since Letby’s conviction, many have questioned the basis of the prosecution case. Leading experts have raised challenges about the reliability of key medical assumptions and the quality of statistical interpretations that led to Letby being jailed. Her guilt or innocence is not for the media to decide. But journalism plays a vital role in scrutinising government, parliament and the courts. When a serious body of concern arises around a conviction, particularly one so grave and emotionally charged, the state has a duty to respond not with defensiveness, but with clear candour.
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Having a separate award was good for female novelists. Now a medical author is blazing a trail with a true story
Female nonfiction writers are paid less on average, receive fewer reviews and win fewer prizes than men. Unsurprisingly, this means that women sell fewer books. So far this year, more than 60% of titles on the UK’s hardback and paperback nonfiction bestseller lists have been by men.
Kate Mosse wants to change this. Famously, she set up the Women’s prize for fiction after there was not a single woman on the 1991 Booker shortlist. This year Ms Mosse’s award celebrates its 30th anniversary. With previous winners including Zadie Smith, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Maggie O’Farrell, it has changed the publishing landscape to the extent that some suggest it is now redundant: last year, five out of the six books on the Booker prize shortlist were by women, and the winner was Samantha Harvey. Indeed, such is the pre-eminence of female novelists that there is talk of a crisis in men’s fiction, and plans for an independent publisher, Conduit Books, especially for male authors.
Polish driver had a life-threatening accident in 2011
Ferrari complete third successive win in endurance race
Poland’s Robert Kubica sealed a deserved place in motor racing history as he took victory – alongside China’s Ye Yifei and Britain’s Philip Hanson – at the Le Mans 24 Hours. Hard fought with a relentless determination that has matched his refusal to be cowed after a life-threatening accident, his victory also secured an impressive third consecutive win for Ferrari at the 93rd edition of the vingt-quatre.
The victory after 387 laps for the No 83 privateer Ferrari 499P, run by the Scuderia’s works partner AF Corse, was the first overall win at Le Mans for drivers from Poland and China and will make Ye a household name in his home country, while for the 25-year-old Hanson it is a career high in only his second run in the top, hypercar, category.
Spaniard enjoyed trip to Ibiza after French Open victory
‘After Roland Garros is the best moment to go anywhere’
Carlos Alcaraz says he plans to carry on with his annual post-French Open trips after unwinding from his historic five-set triumph over Jannik Sinner in Paris last weekend with three days of partying in Ibiza.
“Probably,” the Spaniard said on Sunday as he was preparing for Queen’s Club, which starts on Monday. “It’s kind of the middle of the season. It’s really, really intense, the clay season. So soon after Roland Garros is the best moment to go anywhere. My friends are going Ibiza every year. So I thought I’ll go to Ibiza as well. But it doesn’t matter the place you’re going, it’s time to turn off your mind a little bit, to reset physically, mentally and coming back to the grass season as good as I can.”
French president is first foreign head of state to visit Arctic territory since US president made comments
Emmanuel Macron has criticised Donald Trump’s threats to take over Greenland as he became the first foreign head of state to visit the vast, mineral-rich Arctic territory since the US president began making explicit threats to annex it.
“I don’t think that’s what allies do,” Macron said as he arrived in the Danish autonomous territory for a highly symbolic visit aimed at conveying “France’s and the EU’s solidarity” with Greenland on his way to a summit of G7 leaders in Canada.
At least eight Palestinians were killed and dozens more wounded on Sunday in shooting near food distribution points in Gaza, as residents described an escalation of Israeli attacks happening against the backdrop of the new war with Iran.
Although Israel has said Gaza is a secondary theatre of operations to Iran, Palestinians reported continuing serious violence including fire around US- and Israel-supported aid distributions points and there are fears that global attention is moving on from Gaza.
I was towards the end of a nine-week trip, travelling solo around the world. After that long abroad, I was just exhausted. So when I went to the ATM to get money out, I made a critical mistake.
At home in Australia, we take the card out and then we get our cash. In Argentina, where I was, it’s the reverse – first your cash comes out, then your card. So I put my card in, got my money and just walked away, leaving my card behind.
Dave Grohl is Bjorn Again’s ‘biggest fan’. Kelly O’Brien took out a loan to buy boobs to match Dolly Parton’s. Four tribute acts reflect on ‘the best job in the world’
Pink Floyd, Queen, AC/DC and, of course, Elvis play every weekend around Australia, often to sell-out crowds. Sure, they might not be the real thing – but they’re close enough.
Tribute acts – the artists who make their living performing covers of well-known musicians – are not new. But in the past few years they’ve surged in popularity – even while Australia’s live music industry has struggled – as audiences embrace nostalgia more than ever before. RSLs and regional towns might be the stomping ground for tribute acts but today the best in the business can charge more than $100 a ticket.
Singer says attitude of officials ‘stinks’ after documents show concern about crowds and intoxication
Liam Gallagher has criticised Edinburgh council bosses after Oasis fans attending three sellout concerts at Murrayfield Stadium were described as mainly “rowdy” “middle-aged men” who “take up more room” and would drink to “medium to high intoxication”.
The Scottish Sun said it had obtained safety briefing documents through freedom of information requests, before the reunion gigs on 8, 9 and 12 August.
Maria wins first women’s final in 52 years 6-3, 6-4
Tatjana Maria completed an extraordinary week of giantkilling in London by becoming the surprise first women’s champion at Queen’s Club in 52 years as she defeated Amanda Anisimova 6-3, 6-4.
Maria, a 37-year-old German qualifier, is the oldest WTA 500 champion in history. She had arrived at Queen’s Club on a nine-match losing run before building momentum from the qualifying draw and defeating four top-20 opponents in a row.
Gunman believed to have left Minneapolis region after killing one legislator and wounding another
The hunt for the man suspected of shooting two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses while impersonating a police officer, killing one legislator and her husband, continued on Sunday more than 24 hours after the killings.
Vance Boelter, 57, now on the FBI’s most wanted list, is believed to have left the Minneapolis region after allegedly gunning down Democratic state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their home, according to CNN. Boelter is also suspected of shooting Democratic state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their residence, gravely injuring them; a relative posted on Facebook that they were out of surgery and recovering.
Tatjana Maria, a qualifier, beat Amanda Anisimova, the number eight seed, in straight sets to win the first women’s tournament at Queen’s since 1973
Ready … play.
Apparently Anisimova was practising this morning and had someone hitting slices at her. That makes sense, but it won’t be the same as what’s in store for her on court this afternoon. Thing is – and as I type, there’s another “slice and dice” – the match may, in fact, be decided by how her excellence on the return matches up with Maria’s excellence on serve.
‘The blue jersey is like a second skin for him’, claims FIGC
Former Milan and Napoli manager Gennaro Gattuso has been appointed Italy national team coach, the Italian football federation (FIGC) confirmed on Sunday.
Gattuso replaces Luciano Spalletti, who was sacked last week following a heavy defeat by Norway in a World Cup qualifier. Gattuso will be formally introduced as head coach on Thursday at Rome’s Parco dei Principi Hotel.
Protests have erupted across LA in response to raids
Angel City, Los Angeles’ NWSL team, wore shirts that proclaimed themselves “Immigrant City Football Club” before Saturday night’s game against the North Carolina Courage.
The team also printed 10,000 t-shirts bearing the same message, with “Los Angeles is for Everyone” on the back in English and Spanish, and gave them to fans at the game. The move was in solidarity with immigrants in the city who have been targeted by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Smartphones offer instant stimulation, but do they silence a deeper message
In 2014, a group of researchers from Harvard University and the University of Virginia asked people to sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. The only available diversion was a button that delivered a painful electric shock. Almost half of the participants pressed it. One man pressed the button 190 times – even though he, like everyone else in the study, had earlier indicated that he found the shock unpleasant enough that he would pay to avoid being shocked again. The study’s authors concluded that “people prefer doing to thinking”, even if the only thing available to do is painful – perhaps because, if left to their own devices, our minds tend to wander in unwanted directions.
Since the mass adoption of smartphones, most people have been walking around with the psychological equivalent of a shock button in their pocket: a device that can neutralise boredom in an instant, even if it’s not all that good for us. We often reach for our phones for something to do during moments of quiet or solitude, or to distract us late at night when anxious thoughts creep in. This isn’t always a bad thing – too much rumination is unhealthy – but it’s worth reflecting on the fact that avoiding unwanted mind-wandering is easier than it’s ever been, and that most people distract themselves in very similar, screen-based ways.
Nadya Tolokonnikova tells the Guardian she felt she had ‘entered a wormhole’ when her police state exhibition was shut down – by the police state
Nadya Tolokonnikova, the co-founder of the feminist art collective Pussy Riot, was sitting in a replica Russian prison cell in downtown Los Angeles when the police started shutting down the streets around the art museum.
Police helicopters hovered overhead. Somewhere, through a loudspeaker, an officer delivered a tinny order to disperse.
Department’s rapid response team is weaponizing the social platform to champion defense secretary and attack rivals
While it’s true no president or political leader has ever used social media quite as prolifically as Donald Trump, no recent secretary of defense has ever weaponized X or any other platform, quite like former Fox & Friends weekend host, Pete Hegseth.
Hegseth is actively reshaping the Pentagon in his own image since taking over, prompting a social media policy that has taken a dramatic turn towards supporting Hegseth’s every move and public appearance.
Whether you enjoy ‘rucking’, walking, running or making your own sandbags, life after winding up your monthly membership can be your healthiest and happiest ever
After almost two decades of regular gym-going, I’ve finally cancelled my membership. The reasons for this are many and varied – I’m trying to save money, gym music is terrible these days, everyone seems to have forgotten how to share the equipment – but the main one is, I think it may actually make me fitter.
Working for Men’s Fitness magazine for almost 10 years, I got to try out every trend, workout style and fitness event I wanted, and I noticed something interesting: quite frequently, the people with the fewest resources were in the best shape. I’m not including Hollywood actors in this, but otherwise, it’s often true: powerlifters working out in unheated concrete sheds get the strongest, runners who stay off treadmills get the fastest, and people exercising in basements have a focus rarely seen in palatial upmarket gyms. Browsing through photos from when my own gym membership was (briefly) paused during Covid lockdowns, I look … if not quite like Jason Statham, then at least his off-brand office-party equivalent. I might not have had the best cardio of my life – even social distancing couldn’t convince me to run more than three miles (5km) at a time – but I was certainly lean.
Israel attacked Iran’s energy industry and defence ministry on the third day of an escalating conflict, as several Iranian missiles evaded Israeli air defences to hit a refinery and rip through a high-rise apartment block south of Tel Aviv.
As fuel depots outside Tehran blazed, Donald Trump presided over the US’s biggest military parade in decades. He later said the arsenal on display could be deployed against Iran if it targeted American assets.
The president has spent the past decade employing a familiar tactic. Accusing protesters of ‘insurrection’ is just the latest example
Donald Trump and his allies wasted little time in branding the people protesting against immigration enforcement raids in Los Angeles as “insurrectionists”. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy – particularly the vindictive kind – spoke darkly of a “violent insurrection”. JD Vance, the vice-president, inveighed against “insurrectionists carrying foreign flags” on the streets of the nation’s second-biggest city.
It didn’t escape notice that an insurrection was exactly what the president was accused of instigating on 6 January 2021, when the flag being paraded through the Capitol was that of the Confederate secessionists. And that Trump hadn’t shown quite the same enthusiasm for sending in the troops then.
The author on her love for Spike Milligan, the furore over Puberty Blues, and why being middle-aged is great
Born in 1958 in Sydney, Kathy Lette burst on to Australia’s literary scene in 1979 with Puberty Blues. Co‑written with Gabrielle Carey, the irreverent portrait of teenage girlhood became a cult classic, a film and a TV series. Relocating to London in the 1980s, Lette has worked as a columnist, television writer and campaigner, and has published a string of bestselling comic novels. She lives in London and has two children, Julius and Georgina, with her former husband, the human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson. Her latest novel, The Revenge Club, is out now.
When I was 19, I was in a band called the Salami Sisters. As well as the occasional gig in a pub, we’d busk. The problem was, we kept getting arrested. I was furious. How come we were getting arrested for singing, when actual rapists were running free? My sister was a police constable at the time, so one day I borrowed – stole, really – her uniform and went out busking, performing send-up songs about the police. Fortunately, I didn’t get arrested for impersonating an officer. I’m a woman with the courage of my convictions, but I don’t particularly want to go to prison. Mainly I just wanted to blow some raspberries at the police, which I happily did.
Whether inept, driven by survival or corrupt, they are unfit to lead their countries, let alone make decisions that imperil the whole world
This was not inevitable. This is a war Israel chose. It could have been prevented. Diplomatic talks were ongoing when the bombers took off for Iran. Israel’s continuing, illegal, unjustified airstrikes are unlikely to achieve their stated aim – permanently ending Tehran’s presumed efforts to build nuclear weapons – and may accelerate it. They must stop now. Likewise, Iran must halt its retaliation immediately and drop its escalatory threats to attack US and UK bases.
This conflict is not limited, as was the case last year, to tit-for-tat exchanges and “precision strikes” on a narrow range of military targets. It’s reached a wholly different level. Potentially nothing is off the table. Civilians are being killed on both sides. Leaders are targets. The rhetoric is out of control. With Israel fighting on several fronts, and Iran’s battered regime backed against a wall, the Middle East is closer than ever to a disastrous conflagration.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator
The Belgian remains a superstar despite his age and will be a huge boost to Conte, Lukaku and McTominay
Kevin De Bruyne’s move to Napoli this past week felt understated: one of the finest players of a generation switching clubs for the first time in a decade, to little fanfare. The arranging of his medical in Rome, not Naples, played a part, avoiding the crowds that would have turned out to greet him. A handful of fans still found a way to be there when he arrived at the Villa Stuart clinic, 140 miles from their team’s home ground.
Confirmation of his move came first from the Italian club’s owner, Aurelio De Laurentiis, who posted a picture to social media of them sitting side-by-side in director’s chairs. “Welcome Kevin!” were the accompanying words.
Corporation has been targeting audiences across the Atlantic as it tries to shore up revenue streams
Senior BBC figures are examining plans that would lead to American consumers paying to access its journalism, as the broadcaster looks to the US to boost its fragile finances.
The corporation, which is facing fierce competition from streamers and falling licence fee income, has been targeting US audiences as it attempts to increase its commercial revenues outside the UK.
As a young gay kid who was often teased and bullied for prancing around like a ballet dancer, I drew confidence from self-assured characters like Nina from Tekken
Growing up, fighting video games such as Tekken and Street Fighter were a core part of bonding during summer holidays for my brothers and I. For me, beat-em-ups were less about nurturing any masculine impulses toward strength and destruction, and more about the lore of the fighting game and its varied fighting styles, which played like a dance on the TV screen. That, and the ever-expanding rosters of sexy, glamorous femme fatales.
There is a joke I have often heard that you know a young boy may be of the lavender persuasion if he only picks female characters in beat-em-up fighting video games – the parents might think it’s because he fancies them, but really it’s a form of diva worship. That was certainly true for me.
Your step-by-step guide to authentically gooey, chewy cookie heaven
Once upon a time, not so long ago, the only so-called chocolate chip cookies on offer in the UK were, in fact, biscuits – small, brittle ones peppered with tiny, waxy, cocoa-coloured pellets. When I finally discovered the soft, chewy American originals in a subterranean outlet at Birmingham New Street station, my teenage mind was officially blown. These are even better.
Chichester Festival theatre Natalie Dormer is exceptional in the title role while Phillip Breen’s production reflects the scope of the novel’s ambition, though the story never fully reaches its emotional depths
The stampede of actors making their way from screen to stage continues with Natalie Dormer’s return to the boards as the lead, tragic figure in Leo Tolstoy’s story of one aristocratic unhappy family.
She is exceptional in the part of Anna, inhabiting the boldness, insecurity and anger of the discontented wife seeking her freedom through romantic passion. But there is little chemistry in her relationship with Vronsky (Seamus Dillane) – the rakish military man for whom she leaves her loveless marriage, and he is a non-character, left uncoloured.
Unlike Keir Starmer and his cabinet, Reform UK’s leader actually understands and exploits the rules of engagement in our digital age
As so often happens, what Nigel Farage said on a recent visit to south Wales deserved endless pejoratives. It was ludicrous, condescending, half-baked, opportunistic and plain stupid. Even he didn’t seem to know exactly what he wanted. At a Reform UK press conference in Port Talbot, he seemed to make the case for reopening the town’s steel-making blast furnaces, before admitting that “it might be easier to build a new one”, though he also acknowledged that it would “cost in the low billions” to do so. But he had even more dizzying visions of reopened Welsh mines. “If you offer people well-paying jobs … many will take them,” said Farage, “even though you have to accept that mining is dangerous.”
The climate crisis, predictably enough, was not worth considering. He also did not offer any opinions about coal-related issues such as slag heaps, land slips, rivers that run black, and unimaginable underground disasters. When he was asked where new pits might be located, he blithely offered the opinion that it “comes down to geology”. That is true, up to a point, but he would surely also have to think about the housing developments and business parks that often sit atop all those disused coal seams.
Former French president loses country’s highest state award despite Emmanuel Macron’s opposition to move
The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been stripped of his Legion of Honour, the country’s highest distinction, after his conviction for corruption was confirmed last year, according to an official decree published on Sunday.
The conservative one-term president has been beset by legal problems since leaving office in 2012. In December France’s highest court upheld his conviction for influence peddling and corruption, ordering him to wear an electronic ankle tag for 12 months.
Healthy scepticism is needed because flaw is that large language models remain prone to casually making things up
From helping consultants diagnose cancer, to aiding teachers in drawing up lesson plans – and flooding social media with derivative slop – generative artificial intelligence is being adopted across the economy at breakneck speed.
Yet a growing number of voices are starting to ask how much of an asset the technology can be to the UK’s sluggish economy. Not least because there is no escaping a persistent flaw: large language models (LLMs) remain prone to casually making things up.
From blackmail to burglary, the events of Spark’s life often uncannily echoed those of her novels – no wonder the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie believed she could predict the future
“There is a supernatural process going on under the surface and within the substance of all things,” says a priest in Muriel Spark’s 1965 novel The Mandelbaum Gate. Spark believed herself wired into this process. The novelist was aware from the start of “a definite ‘something beyond myself’”, an “access to knowledge that I couldn’t possibly have gained through normal channels”.
“Somehow things happened, odd things, when Muriel was around,” recalled her friend Shirley Hazzard. “Everything that happened to Muriel,” according to her American editor Barbara Epler, “had been foreseen”, usually in her books themselves. If Spark wrote about blackmail, she too would be blackmailed; if she wrote about a burglary, she would then be burgled. Thirty years after toying with an idea for The Hothouse by the East River (1973), in which electrocution by lightning takes place down a telephone line, lightning struck Spark’s house in Italy, sending a current of electricity through the external wires and burning her upper lip.
Foreigners treated as enemies, judges under attack: the signs are everywhere in the US. But there are still reasons to hope
Like so many others, I watched the video of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish student at Tufts University, as she was surrounded by men dressed in black, some wearing masks. They carried guns. One grabbed her by the collar. The men surrounded her, and one handcuffed her. You can hear her short shrieks of fear.
She must have been terrified. I know I was when, as a 19-year-old student, I was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires by members of an irregular taskforce. I know what it feels like and I know what it portends.
Miriam Lewin is a leading Argentine journalist and survivor of the dictatorship. She is the author of six books, including Iosi, the Remorseful Spy forthcoming in English in July 2025 (Seven Stories Press). A seven episode podcast about Miriam Lewin’s experience as a prisoner of the state and her fight for justice is titled The Burden: Avenger
Budding scholars pursue overseas jobs amid attacks on education and research, prompting fears of an American brain drain
Eric Schuster was over the moon when he landed a lab assistant position in a coral reef biology lab at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography (SIO). The 23-year-old had recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in nanoengineering from the University of California, San Diego, into a fiercely competitive job market. He felt like he’d struck gold.
Mark Lynas has spent decades pushing for action on climate emissions but now says nuclear war is even greater threat
Climate breakdown is usually held up as the biggest, most urgent threat humans pose to the future of the planet today.
But what if there was another, greater, human-made threat that could snuff out not only human civilisation, but practically the entire biosphere, in the blink of an eye?
Connexion
