The curators of shattered historical buildings near the eastern frontline are preserving wartime memories as they reconstruct their collections

The museum of local history in the eastern Ukrainian town of Izium has, like the community around it, endured much since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country.

When Izium was bitterly fought over in early 2022 at the start of the Russian assault, the 19th-century building suffered two direct hits from missiles that blew out the roof and led to flood damage. Under occupation from March to September 2022, a Russian guard was posted on the door – but invaders never transported its collection any deeper behind Russian lines, or found the rare early 18th-century volume of the gospels – one of only three of its type – that museum workers had spirited away and hidden.

Comments come amid reports Washington seeking guarantees about how Canberra would respond in event of Indo-Pacific conflict

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Australia will refuse any US request to join a “hypothetical” conflict with China over Taiwan and won’t make any advance commitment, the defence industry minister, Pat Conroy, has said, amid reports Washington is seeking such promises in discussions over the Aukus submarines.

Conroy called on China to be more transparent about its military buildup, but said any commitment to war would be the sole power of the Australian government of the day. It came after multiple reports this week that the Pentagon was seeking guarantees from Australia and other allies about how they would respond in the event of a conflict in the Indo-Pacific.

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Emmanuel Macron hails ‘new chapter’ for New Caledonia as politicians agree on statehood after 10 days of talks

France has announced a “historic” accord with New Caledonia in which the overseas territory, rocked by deadly separatist violence last year, would remain French but be declared a new state.

“A State of New Caledonia within the Republic: it’s a bet on trust,” the French president, Emmanuel Macron, posted on X on Saturday, hailing a “historic” agreement.

• Third Test, day one: Australia win toss and make 225; West Indies 16-1

• Australia openers again fail to fire in day-night Test at Sabina Park

It was a strange way to start. Out of Australia’s last 146 Test matches before taking the field at Sabina Park in Jamaica on Saturday, off spinner Nathan Lyon had missed seven. Four of those were in 2012 and 2013, left out for other configurations of bowlers. Three were after he blew out his calf during the 2023 Ashes. And that was that.

Surprisingly, Kingston became the eighth match that Lyon has missed in his 14 years of Tests, and the fifth when fit, after a series in which he has gone for a few sixes but taken nine wickets at 18. Instead Australia opted to include Scott Boland as the fourth fast bowler for a day-night fixture on a surface that they guessed would suit pace.

North Korean leader meets Sergei Lavrov in ‘atmosphere full of warm comradely trust’; six people killed in Russian strikes across Ukraine. What we know on day 1,236

• Read all our Ukraine war coverage

Agency director says ‘conspiracy theories aren’t true’ amid backlash against FBI-DoJ decision to block release of files

FBI director Kash Patel has denied swirling resignation rumors over reported unhappiness at a justice department decision to close the book on Jeffrey Epstein after administration officials teased a big reveal earlier in the year.

In a Saturday social media post, the agency director said: “the conspiracy theories just aren’t true, never have been. It’s an honor to serve the President of the United States – and I’ll continue to do so for as long as he calls on me.”

Urban rat populations are booming across the world and the Australian city is no exception. Is the solution pesticide, conceding defeat – or more rats?

Nathaly Haeren has seen patios in Sydney collapse because brown rats have tunnelled under and created sinkholes. She’s been electrocuted in the roof of a house after they chewed through air conditioning wiring. She’s even visited a hairdresser where they’d gnawed a circle through double brick.

More recently, Haeren has started seeing rats standing in the street in the middle of the day, “oblivious” and unbothered – like they just don’t care.

Serving Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, Gergen was a speechwriter and communications director

David Gergen, a veteran of Washington politics and an adviser to four presidents, Republican and Democrat, in a career spanning decades in government, academia and media, has died. He was 83.

Gergen was perhaps best known for a line he summoned for then presidential candidate Ronald Reagan for a TV debate with Jimmy Carter: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

• 2nd Test: Argentina 17-22 England

• England recover from 17-14 half-time deficit to snatch win

Jamie George flies to Australia to join up with the British and Irish Lions on Sunday with a song in his heart after watching England snatch series glory against Argentina with a last-minute try.

England’s senior player and co-captain had been withdrawn from the game just five hours before after Luke Cowan-Dickie was knocked out on Lions duty in Adelaide. It was a significant blow to Steve Borthwick’s inexperienced group and, in truth, their lineout suffered all evening. But none of that seemed to matter after Jack van Poortvliet came off the bench to score a last-minute try and win the tightest of games for the touring side.

xAI’s lengthy apology for antisemitic remarks says they ‘apologize for the horrific behavior many experienced’

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has issued an apology after its chatbot Grok made a slew of antisemitic and Adolf Hitler-praising comments earlier this week on X.

On Saturday, xAI released a lengthy apology in which it said: “First off, we deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced.”

This week Australia’s federal court is due to make a decision in a landmark climate case that could safeguard the future of the island communities

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Uncle Paul Kabai and Uncle Pabai Pabai are afraid for the future of their ancestral homelands. Their country on the outer islands of Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait), less than 10km off Papua New Guinea, is under siege from the impacts of the climate crisis.

The two men fear the loss of their islands, their culture and their way of life, forcing their families and communities to become Australia’s first climate refugees.

Scheme aims to stop cables trailing across pavements and encourage drivers to switch to electric vehicles

Local councils in England will be encouraged to install pavement gullies that link houses to the kerbside so that electric cars owners can charge their cars from home if they do not have a driveway.

The new government scheme hopes to stop cables trailing across pavements, as EV owners in built up areas where off-street parking is scarce, try to charge their cars. The Department for Transport has said it will put £25m towards “cross-pavement” charging – essentially a narrow cable channel with a cover on top.

It was a fixture that had promised a show and it delivered. Sweden embarrassed Germany after Carlotta Wamser’s bizarre handball save reduced Christian Wück’s side to 10 players and handed them a two-goal deficit that would grow to three.

Jule Brand had put Germany ahead early on before Stina Blackstenius levelled and the teenage full-back Smilla Holmberg gave Sweden the lead. Then came Wamser’s incomprehensible save with her hands to deny Fridolina Rolfö, who converted the resulting spot-kick before Lina Hurtig scored Sweden’s fourth late on.

• 5th T20i: England, 168-5, bt India, 167-7, by five wkts

• India win five-match T20 series 3-2

England scraped a consolation five-wicket win in the final T20 at Edgbaston on Saturday evening, chasing down their 168-run target off the final ball.

England needed six runs off the final over, but Tammy Beaumont was bowled playing across the line to the first ball of Arundhati Reddy’s 20th over, before Amy Jones fell to a spectacular flying catch by Radha Yadav at deep midwicket.

The Australian-born soprano’s version of Carmen is contemporary and emotionally complex: a factory worker in present-day Spain, entangled in a toxic relationship

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Not a flounce, ruffle or rose clenched between teeth is in sight when Danielle de Niese sashays onstage as Carmen – dressed in a boiler suit. The Australian-born lyric soprano’s Carmen will not be the Gypsy seductress audiences have come to expect. In Opera Australia’s new production, set in present-day Seville, she is a grounded woman ending another long shift in a cigarette factory.

She loosens the fastenings around the neck of her uniform – a glimpse of glistening shoulder, an arch of the back and throat. To her female co-workers, she is hot, exhausted and stiff. To the lads waiting and watching, she is something else.

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5 min: A really fast-moving, open start to this game. Brand wins a corner down the left. The set piece is hit long, then returned into the middle for Schüller, who heads over from six yards. The flag pops up for offside to save her blushes. Schüller missed from a yard out against Poland, but went on to score later, so perhaps this augurs well?

3 min: Holmberg makes good down the right and finds Asllani just inside the box. Asllani drags a shot across the face of goal from 12 yards. She should have worked Berger at the very least. Somewhere in the multiverse, it’s already 2-1.

With Australia having one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, the consumer advocate group’s report left many worried and wondering about the brands they use

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Sunscreen has been in the spotlight this winter, after testing by the consumer advocacy organisation Choice found 16 of 20 brands failed to provide the level of skin protection advertised on their bottles.

With Australia having one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, the Choice report left many worried and wondering: can I trust my sunscreen to protect me?

While both working in Fiji, Will Hamilton was certain he and Stef were more than an aid-world fling. Then Covid came and the pair were separated for nine months

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At the end of 2019 I was 15 months into a contract working in Fiji. The project was coming to an end and I was ready to head back to the UK when Stef showed up and changed everything.

Working in international development, especially in more remote locations, means those in the sector tend to gravitate towards each other. Whenever a new crop of personnel show up, everyone gets together. It was Stef’s third night on the island when we all descended on a local curry house in Suva to welcome her and the other volunteers. I arrived straight from work in a rather fetching sulu (Fijian sarong) and sandals. I was seated next to Stef and sparks flew instantly. She was clearly super bright, very funny and matched me in stacking away large quantities of chicken tikka butter masala (it’s a thing and it’s very good). We made plans to meet the following day and quickly began spending a lot of time together.

American’s double bagel defeat was a meltdown that nobody saw coming but she can come back from heartbreak

This is what a scream with no vowels sounds like. This is the weight of the soul leaving the body. The arms are no longer connected to the legs, the legs have been severed from the lungs, the lungs have lost contact with the heart and the heart is getting ghosted by the brain. Amanda Anisimova sits on her chair, baking in the heat, stewing in sadness. She dabs her face with a towel and hopes people won’t notice she’s wiping away tears.

A faint voice from the outer edge of the universe calls time. She still has to go out there. She takes a deep breath. Lifts herself from her seat and takes the 18 long steps to her mark just behind the baseline. Ever found it a struggle getting up to go to work? Try summoning the strength to face Iga Swiatek when you’re losing 6-0, 5-0 in a Wimbledon final.

Defender has gone from villain to hero at Chelsea and can embellish his cult status by lifting the Club World Cup

Marc Cucurella is thinking back to his early days at Chelsea. Signed from Brighton for £62m in August 2022, the left-back struggled to adapt to life at a big club. Chelsea were experiencing teething problems during the opening months of the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital ownership and it was Cucurella’s misfortune to be held up as a symbol of the club’s apparent malaise.

It is funny to think that the Spain international was booed on to the pitch by Chelsea supporters before a Champions League match against Borussia Dortmund in February 2023. Cucurella is a cult figure these days. He is loved by the Chelsea faithful and has come a long way since that difficult first season at Stamford Bridge.

• Infantino acts after player welfare fears at Club World Cup

• ‘Heat is definitely an issue. We have covered stadiums’

Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, has said indoor air-conditioned venues will be used as much as possible for day-time kick-offs at the 2026 World Cup to combat expected high temperatures. Concerns have been raised about player welfare during the Club World Cup in the US, which will co-host next year’s tournament with Canada and Mexico.

Enzo Fernández described conditions during Chelsea’s semi-final against Fluminense, when the temperature was 35C, as “very dangerous”.

• Third Test D3: England 387 & 2-0; India 387

• England bat out one over after bowling India out

It has been a tough old series for England’s bowlers. As well as wrestling with docile pitches and doughy Dukes balls in a lengthy heatwave, they have come up against an India batting lineup that is rich with talent and seriously gutsy with it. The upshot has been perspiration outstripping inspiration for long passages of play.

Not that those two elements are mutually exclusive and in Ben Stokes, England have a cricketer who thrives on delivering both. On a gripping third day of this third Test, as India were bowled out for 387 in 119.2 overs to leave the scores level on first innings, the hosts were thankful for their captain’s ability to conjure something from nothing. At stumps, on two for no loss, England had just about returned to the box seat because of it.

• Angharad James says the pressure is all on England

• Wales need four-goal win to have any hope of progress

The Wales captain, Angharad James, says it is in the players’ blood and DNA to want to knock England out of Euro 2025 as the sides prepare to meet in Sunday’s final Group D fixture.

England know victory would guarantee progress to the knockout stages and could go through without winning. Wales must win by at least a four-goal margin to have any hope of reaching the quarter-finals and need the Netherlands to lose to France.

Owners of 1st Edition Collectibles in New Bedford say suspect broke in to courtyard and smashed window in door

More than $113,000 worth of rare Pokémon cards have been stolen from a Massachusetts shop, according to the store’s owners.

Officers responded to a reported break-in at 1st Edition Collectibles, a trading card shop in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on Tuesday. The break-in reportedly happened around 2.30am and the thief stole a handful of Pokémon cards including five to seven rare cards and a few vintage boxes.