Adams’ comments about Israel have provoked particular concern in Malaysia, a staunch supporter of Palestine

Former government ministers and youth politicians in Muslim-majority Malaysia have slammed a decision to nominate right-wing influencer Nick Adams as US ambassador to the country, calling it an insult to the nation.

Donald Trump announced last week that Nick Adams, a self-proclaimed “alpha male”, had been announced as ambassador to Malaysia, praising him as a “incredible patriot”.

Investigation finds wind conditions at 14 July 2023 event exceeded the drones’ capacity shortly after launch, triggering collisions and errors

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Strong winds have been blamed for more than 400 drones falling from the sky into Melbourne’s Yarra River during a light show celebrating the Matildas before the Women’s World Cup.

The light show, using 500 Damoda drones, was scheduled for the evening of 14 July 2023 over the river in Docklands, in Melbourne’s CBD.

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‘The spending is not about safety’: rights groups concerned as funding for data centralization increases

Donald Trump’s sweeping tax bill will finance a vast expansion of surveillance along the US-Mexico border, according to a new report.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA) will give the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – where US immigration agencies are housed – an unprecedented injection of $165bn in additional funding over the next four years. It’s welcome news for the surveillance and defense tech industries that have been racing to cash in on the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Rate is significantly below the 32% the US president had threatened but timeline for implementation of deal remains unclear

US President Donald Trump says he has struck a trade pact with Indonesia resulting in significant purchase commitments from the south-east Asian country, after negotiations to avoid steeper tariffs.

Indonesian goods entering the United States would face a 19% tariff, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. This is significantly below the 32% level the president earlier threatened.

As South Korea grapples with an epidemic of loneliness, the capital city has launched an ambitious new programme to address it

On the third floor of a community centre in Dongdaemun in Seoul’s east, a massage chair hums gently at the entrance to an airy room – a cool refuge from the sweltering summer heat.

Inside, the space buzzes with quiet activity: soft bleeps from a touchscreen board game, muted chatter from the cooking area, the rustle of turning pages.

Government review says PAs sometimes used to fill roles designed for doctors, potentially exposing patients to risk

NHS physician associates should be banned from diagnosing patients who have not already been seen by a doctor, a government review has concluded.

The review calls for the government to overhaul the role of physician associates (PAs), who it says have been substituted in for doctors to fill staffing gaps despite having significantly less training.

Report led by former Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson warns of ‘sometimes catastrophic’ treatment of passengers

Airline and airport staff should have mandatory training in disability and accessibility awareness, a government taskforce has urged, to ease the stress, confusion and harm experienced by the growing numbers of passengers requiring assistance to travel.

A report from the group, led by the crossbench peer and former Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson, said the experience of flying for disabled people “can be ad hoc, inconsistent and sometimes catastrophic”.

Trump has faced growing resentment over the decision of his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to withhold information

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• Analysis: How Epstein files uproar became a vehicle for QAnon

Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, called for the justice department to make public documents related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, breaking with Donald Trump over an issue that has roiled the president’s rightwing base.

It was a rare moment of friction between Trump and the speaker, a top ally on Capitol Hill, and came as the president faces growing backlash from conservatives who had expected him to make public everything known about Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 while in federal custody as he faced sex-trafficking charges.

Despite popularity of weight loss jabs, more Britons are going abroad for surgery, analysis suggests

A booming trade in medical tourism for weight loss surgery is placing patients at risk and needs urgent regulation, experts have warned.

Despite the growing popularity of injections such as Mounjaro to treat obesity, the number of patients travelling to other countries for surgery is increasing, the latest analysis suggests.

• Tennis player suspended for second time after Cas appeal

• Moore blamed contaminated meat for failed drug test

The British tennis player Tara Moore, who was previously cleared of an anti-doping rule violation, has been handed a four-year ban after the court of arbitration for sport upheld an appeal filed by the International Tennis Integrity Agency.

Moore, Britain’s former No 1-ranked doubles player, was provisionally suspended in June 2022 owing to the presence of prohibited anabolic steroids nandrolone and boldenone in a blood sample.

Body of Falconio, who Murdoch killed in the Australian outback in 2001, has never been found

Outback killer Bradley John Murdoch, the man who murdered British backpacker Peter Falconio in 2001, has died from throat cancer at the age of 67.

Murdoch, who had never revealed the location of Falconio’s body, died on Tuesday night at a hospital in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, a corrections spokesperson confirmed.

• 24-year-old set to sign $120.4m extension through 2030

• Jets also set up $130m deal with WR Garrett Wilson

The New York Jets are making Sauce Gardner the highest-paid cornerback in the NFL.

The Jets and Gardner agreed on a four-year, $120.4m extension through the 2030 season, according to a person familiar with the situation. The person spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity Tuesday because the agreement had not been announced.

There are questions around the race contenders’ teams but Wout van Aert’s form could be key for the Danish challenger

There is always a sense of phoney war in the run-in to the Tour de France’s first stage in the high mountains, and at least one debate of the opening 10 days of this year’s race fits that context to a T. Has Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike team at times been towing the bunch deliberately in order to ensure that Tadej Pogacar retains the yellow jersey? It’s a gloriously arcane question, the kind that only comes up in the Tour’s opening phase, but it distracts from a point that could be key in the next 10 days: how the two teams manage the race will probably be decisive.

Firstly, a brief explainer. The received wisdom in cycling lore is that holding the yellow jersey early in a Grand Tour can be as much a curse as a blessing, because the daily media and podium duties cut into recovery time. Hence the thinking goes that Visma might have been chasing down the odd move purposely to keep Pogacar in the maillot jaune, so that he will be answering media questions and hanging about waiting to go on the podium, while Vingegaard has his feet up. Only Visma’s management know if this was the case, but what is certain is that the febrile atmosphere between the two teams will intensify from here on in.

Letter calls for AG and FBI chief amid rift between Trump and supporters over files on notorious sex criminal

Democratic members of the House judiciary committee on Thursday demanded that Republicans summon the attorney general, Pam Bondi, the FBI director, Kash Patel, and their deputies for a hearing into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s death and the sex-trafficking case against him.

The letter from all 19 Democratic members on the committee to its Republican chair, Jim Jordan, comes amid a rift between Donald Trump and some of his supporters over the justice department’s conclusion, announced last week, that Epstein’s death in federal custody six years ago was a suicide, and that there is no secret list of his clients to be made public.

Leaked details are just another example of how the UK let down Afghans who believed in what Britain promised their country

This week’s revelations about the UK’s dangerously cavalier treatment of Afghans who worked with British forces are shocking but not surprising.

The carelessness with which Britain went to war in Afghanistan was matched by the carelessness with which it left the country and its people to Taliban rule two decades later.

• French federation puts forward hosting 2027 warm-up

• Meeting before second Test over new Lions model

A British & Irish Lions tour of France could move a step closer next week when executives hold talks over “a new business model” in Melbourne before the second Test of the series against Australia.

Abdel Benazzi, the vice-president of the French federation (FFR), held informal discussions with Lions executives in Dublin before the warm-up match against Argentina, and he will travel to Australia next week to further press his nation’s claims of facing the touring side again, having previously done so in 1989. France have emerged as leading contenders to face the Lions in a warm-up match before the tour of New Zealand in 2029 and, according to Benazzi, could also fulfil the same role before the inaugural women’s tour in 2027, also to New Zealand.

A New York doctor faced a $113,000 penalty from Texas after being accused of shipping abortion pills across state lines

A New York county clerk again rejected an effort by Texas to fine a New York-based doctor accused of shipping abortion pills across state lines, in a case that could tee up a US supreme court showdown between states that protect abortion access and those that ban it.

On Monday, the acting Ulster county clerk, Taylor Bruck, rejected a court filing by Texas’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, which sought to collect a $113,000 penalty against Dr Margaret Carpenter. Paxton had sued Carpenter in December 2024 over allegations she shipped abortion pills to a Texas woman in defiance of the state’s ban on virtually all abortions. When Carpenter did not show up to a court hearing earlier this year, a judge automatically ruled against her and ordered her to pay the fine as well as stop mailing pills to Texas.

Teenagers suspected of being hired by criminals paid to carry out acts on behalf of states, it is understood

Schoolchildren have been arrested by detectives investigating Russian and Iranian plots against Britain, a police chief has said, as he warned hostile state aggression was rising and youngsters were at risk.

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan police’s counter-terrorism unit, said children in their “mid teens” had been investigated. It is understood they were suspected of being hired by criminals paid to carry out acts for Russia and Iran.

BBC show’s producers Banijay UK say Torode’s contract will not be renewed after allegation, which he has denied

John Torode will not return to MasterChef after its producers confirmed his contract would not be renewed after an allegation of using racist language.

The Australian-born chef, 59, had confirmed on Monday evening he was the subject of an allegation that was upheld as part of an inquiry into the behaviour of his former co-presenter Gregg Wallace.

Boxing great made two symbolic political gestures in London with his bout against Daniel Dubois only days away

On Monday afternoon, in central London, Oleksandr Usyk looked resplendent on an open-topped black bus as he prepared to send loaded messages to Daniel Dubois, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. High in the air he held three fingers on his right hand to signify his intention to become a three-time undisputed world champion. It was a typical sporting gesture and underlined his determination to defeat Dubois at Wembley Stadium on Saturday night and follow his earlier achievements in winning all the belts as a cruiserweight and then, last year, becoming the first boxer to unify the world heavyweight division this century.

Usyk remains the WBA, WBC and WBO champion but boxing politics forced him to vacate his IBF title soon after he beat Tyson Fury in their magnificent first world title unification fight 14 months ago in Riyadh. He looks ready now for the dangerous challenge of Dubois, the new IBF champion, but Usyk’s arrival in London was a timely reminder of the far more significant role he plays in Ukraine.

While Severance, The Studio and Adolescence triumphed, this year’s TV nominees also saw some major snubs

• Emmy nominations 2025: the list of key categories

I don’t know if you had the time or the energy to watch today’s Emmy nominations on YouTube, but if you did – and you followed along with the comments in real time – then you will know that there was one glaring omission that has sent the entire world into a screaming tailspin of panic and terror. I am talking, of course, about Thanos from Squid Game.

For some, Thanos – a purple-haired Konglish-spewing drug-addicted rapper played by the Korean performer T.O.P – was the standout actor of the entire year, in any genre or format. But not only was this a bad result for Thanos, it was a bad result for Squid Game altogether. A show that comprehensively did the numbers for Netflix found itself being locked out of all categories. Still, at least it finds itself in decent company; Black Doves, Netflix’s other wildly entertaining genre series, also found itself snubbed. As was The Handmaid’s Tale, which is admittedly a little less surprising, given the amount of heat it has lost in the years since it debuted.

Pittsburgh event angers climate groups as Trump ties AI expansion to oil and gas, sidelining renewable energy

Donald Trump joined big oil and technology bosses on Tuesday at a major artificial intelligence and energy summit in Pittsburgh, outraging environmentalists and community organizations.

The event came weeks after the passage of a mega-bill that experts say could stymy AI growth with its attacks on renewable energy.

Fast bowler displayed all the attributes which set him apart from others to deliver optimism for rest of series and Ashes

The electric return of Jofra Archer in England’s tight victory against India at Lord’s set straight a couple of narratives that arose during his four-year absence from Test cricket. It is often said that a player’s stock can rise when they are sat on the sidelines – yet sometimes, in some quarters, the reverse can also be true.

Chief among them was a reminder that England possess a special fast bowling talent here, Archer displaying the attributes that set him apart from others. As the man himself confidently put it regarding the 89.6mph beauty to Rishabh Pant that angled in, nipped away and gave the snappers the stumplosion they craved: “I guess it was just a matter of when, if I kept bowling like that. I can’t imagine many left-handers getting away with it.”

Ex-national security adviser questioned about controversy during a Senate hearing to be US ambassador to UN

Just over two months after being ousted as national security adviser, Mike Waltz faced lawmakers on Tuesday during a confirmation hearing to be US ambassador to the UN, telling them that he planned to make the world body “great again”.

“We should have one place in the world where everyone can talk – where China, Russia, Europe and the developing world can come together and resolve conflicts,” Waltz told the Senate foreign relations committee about the UN. “But after 80 years, it’s drifted from its core mission of peacemaking.”