President Vladimir Putin told US president Donald Trump that he was ready to use Russia’s close partnership with Iran to help with negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme, the Kremlin said on Thursday.
Trump said after a phone call with Putin on Wednesday that time was running out for Iran to make a decision on its nuclear programme and that he believed Putin agreed that the Islamic Republic should not have nuclear weapons.
Sabalenka 1-0 Swiatek* (*denotes server) Swiatek is so methodical in her work, particularly when serving, and her first delivery makes 15-0. But two booming returns, full of length, rush her, and at 15-30, Sabalenka again unloads, her forehands too hot; Swiatek pushes wide and must now face two break points. A double follows, and that’s a poor start from the champ, who somehow seemed surprised by the power coming at her from the other side of the net.
Elon Musk’s company sold 36% fewer cars in Britain compared with the same month last year
Sales of new Tesla cars slumped by more than a third in the UK last month, as the electric carmaker lost ground to China’s BYD and other rivals, amid a political backlash against Tesla’s billionaire boss, Elon Musk.
Tesla sold 2,016 vehicles in the UK in May, down from 3,125 in May 2024 – a 36% drop, according to the monthly snapshot from the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT).
Kremlin comments seem to confirm reports Putin told Trump Moscow was obliged to hit back
Russia will respond to Ukraine’s daring drone operation “how and when” it sees fit, the Kremlin has warned, seeming to confirm reports Vladimir Putin had told Donald Trump that Moscow was obliged to retaliate.
Ukraine has been bracing for retaliation after its SBU security service carried out a surprise drone strike over the weekend, targeting four airbases and damaging up to 20 Russian warplanes deep inside the country, according to US officials.
AB Hernandez, 16, and her mom tell the Guardian about her love of track, how her community has stood by her – and why ‘intimidation tactics’ won’t work
AB Hernandez, a 16-year-old track and field athlete from California, had trained for years for this moment.
On Saturday, the high school junior from Jurupa Valley, a city east of Los Angeles, won first place in the high jump, first place in the triple jump and silver in the long jump in the state finals.
The European Central Bank has cut interest rates to 2% in an effort to boost flagging economic growth across the eurozone.
The ECB, making its eighth quarter-point cut in a year, said the 20-member currency bloc needed a reduction in the cost of borrowing as it reeled from the damage caused by Donald Trump’s trade wars.
Former president says investigation of decision-making in office is designed to take focus off ‘disastrous legislation’
Joe Biden accused Donald Trump of “distraction” after he launched an investigation into the former Democratic president’s time in office, claiming Biden’s top aides had covered up his cognitive decline and taken decisions on his behalf.
Biden said in a statement widely emailed to US media that the move announced late on Wednesday came at a time when Trump was pushing a major piece of legislation that critics had said included massive tax cuts and huge slashes to social spending.
The actor on plans for a new Pitch Perfect, pretending to lick Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi’s ‘fun grandpa vibe’
What’s been the most fun you’ve had on set? FrNthOld Pitch Perfect, because it felt like theatre camp. We came together in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was like college: hanging out with my friends, having fun, not really acting. For four weeks we were in boot camp, where we’d dance and do conditioning in the mornings – so sit-ups, stretching and learning the choreography. In the afternoons, we’d learn our 10-part harmonies and go into the recording studio. Sometimes we were really dorky and said: on Friday we’re all going to wear the same colour T-shirts, just to be like a squad.
You’ve worked with Sir Derek Jacobi twice – in Juliet & Romeo, and the upcoming Tinsel Town. How was he? Derekj2210 It was pretty cool to be in scenes with him. Even though we weren’t doing the iambic pentameter, it was interesting to watch how the language fell off his tongue. We were filming in this medieval Italian church. It was zero degrees, but he was so easygoing: always telling stories, with this fun grandpa vibe. He’s one of the most amazing Shakespearean actors ever: in his 80s, still crushing every line. I kept wanting to get selfies with him, because he really is one of the greats.
Young voters are worried about their financial future and rising costs, advocacy organisation NextGen America says
Young people in the US are looking for Democrats to embrace economic populism and authentic candidates willing to fight for them, says the new leader of a group dedicated to youth voter mobilisation.
Victoria Yang is the interim president and executive director of NextGen America, an organisation that engages young people through voter education and registration. She succeeds Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, who held the post for four years.
Fortunate timing and government hesitation allowed the Switch 2 to come out on time, but the headache isn’t over
Nintendo fans across the US are breathing a sigh of relief as they tear apart the boxes housing their new Nintendo Switch 2 video game consoles. On-again, off-again trade tariffs implemented by Donald Trump, which precipitated pre-order delays from Nintendo, made the 5June release date of the highly coveted hardware feel more like a hope than a certainty. A potential price hike up from $450 loomed over launch day, but would-be buyers’ fears did not come to fruition.
Nintendo’s maneuvering around Trump’s tariffs isn’t over, though – far from it. The Japanese console maker managed to luckily launch its device squarely within a 90-day tariff pause issued by the president. If tariffs on countries like India and Japan return to the levels proposed during Trump’s “Liberation Day” speech at the start of April, however, experts say Nintendo will have to limber up for yet another delicate trade policy dance.
A trade court ruling is exposing the civil war on the right, as key legal establishment figures oppose the president
Donald Trump’s trade war has become his quagmire: legal, economic and political. On 28 May, the court of international trade ruled his tariffs exceeded his constitutional authority. Point by point, the decision decimated Trump’s arguments as flimsy and false, implicitly castigated the Republican Congress for abdicating its constitutional responsibility, and reminded other courts, not least the supreme court, of the judicial branch’s obligation to exercise its authority regardless of the blustering of the executive and the fecklessness of the legislative branches.
Trump’s tariffs, along with his withdrawal of active support for Ukraine and passivity toward his strongman father figure Vladimir Putin, have broken the western alliance, forcing the west to make its own arrangements with China, and cementing the idea for a generation to come that the United States is an untrustworthy and unstable partner.
Tech firm is building ‘humanoid park’ in US to try out robots, which could ‘spring out’ of its vans
Amazon is reportedly developing software for humanoid robots that could perform the role of delivery workers and “spring out” of its vans.
The $2tn (£1.47tn) technology company is building a “humanoid park” in the US to test the robots, said the tech news site the Information, citing a person who had been involved in the project.
Winger has just two years remaining on Liverpool deal
Colombia international remains part of Arne Slot’s plans
Liverpool have told Barcelona that Luis Díaz is not for sale after rejecting the Spanish champion’s first approach for the Colombia international.
Barcelona’s sporting director, Deco, contacted Liverpool officials on Wednesday to discuss the possible transfer of Díaz, who also has interest from the Saudi Pro League.
(Roadrunner) The Charli xcx-approved quintet further their unlikely leap into the mainstream with this deft dash through pop and rock idioms – from emo to Sting, funk and nu-metal
In April, Turnstile’s name unexpectedly appeared in vast letters on the backdrop of Charli xcx’s set at the Coachella festival. In the coming months, she suggested, “Turnstile summer” would replace her ubiquitous “Brat summer”. Hedging her bets slightly, she also suggested that 2025 would be the summer of everyone from Addison Rae and PinkPantheress to Kali Uchis to Pulp. Nevertheless, Turnstile’s name stood out: the quintet are, at root, a hardcore punk band, a product of the fertile Baltimore scene that spawned Trapped Under Ice, Ruiner and Stout. For the most part, hardcore exists in its own world of rigid rules and codes, some distance from the mainstream: extant hardcore punk bands seldom get shouted out by huge pop stars.
Then again, hardcore punk bands don’t tend to receive Grammy nominations or make the US Top 30, as Turnstile have done. Meanwhile, Charli xcx’s endorsement is just another celebrity nod in the band’s direction after backing from Metallica’s James Hetfield, Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, R&B star Miguel and Demi Lovato, who described them as her favourite band. Their tipping point came with the release of 2021’s Glow On, on which frontman Brendan Yates moved his shouty vocal style towards singing, and the band expanded their musical remit in unexpected directions. They may be the only act in history to sound like a warp-speed hardcore band in the time-honoured tradition of Minor Threat or the Circle Jerks, and – entirely without irony or satirical intent – like the kind of glossy new-wave 80s pop to which hardcore was once ideologically opposed, on adjacent tracks of the same album.
Going along with the US’s perverse programme is not just a moral failure – it directly contravenes EU and British law
Organising a women’s networking event in the US has become an act of defiance. Companies with equality-driven agendas risk losing government contracts. Some are receiving McCarthy-like letters asking them to confirm that they have no diversity policies. Activities designed to support women, including healthcare research, are being threatened, and companies are backtracking on former commitments. Women’s networking events, the gathering of diversity data and targeted training are being questioned. And some companies are requesting that charities focused on women and girls consider changes to their programmes in order to navigate the current climate. The one I founded, Inspiring Girls, has already been asked to “include men as role models”.
This anti-diversity wave isn’t just a social backlash to the many excesses of wokeness – it is politically orchestrated and driven. It crystallised in 2021, when the senator Josh Hawley devoted his entire keynote speech at the second National Conservatism Conference to “reclaiming masculinity”, calling for boys (not girls) to be taught competitiveness, strength, honesty and courage – as if those were only male values. Since then, the movement has reached the highest offices of power: the White House is its headquarters and its commander-in-chief is Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, who promised last year to tackle “anti-white racism” if Trump won a second term.
Miriam González Durántez is an international trade lawyer and the founder and chair of Inspiring Girls
After the huge success of projects across Europe, southern Africa, South America, the Middle East and the UK, the Wembley to Soweto Foundation started its US rollout in 2022. Focusing on young people affected by gangs, the charity uses photography as a catalyst to improve participants’ self-esteem and confidence and teach life skills to help disadvantaged youth into employment and tertiary education
The backdrop of sport has been a constant in the Wembley to Soweto Foundation’s projects, and the foundation has encouraged the young photographers to reflect how their communities are shaped by football, rugby, athletics, cricket, boxing and the like.
Since the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa, the charity has worked alongside the Premier League, the FA, the Olympic Games, the Cricket World Cup, the RFU and now the MLS in North America. Ultimately the US cohorts will be given the opportunity to photograph at the US Soccer World Cup in 2026 and the 2028 LA Olympics.
Many see attacks as part of a rise in antisemitism, while others object to conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism
On the first night of Passover, it seemed like a one off – an arson attack on Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro’s mansion. The arsonist, per police, took issue with Shapiro’s stance on Israel and Palestine.
Then, in late May, outside an American Jewish Committee young professionals’ event for young Jews in the DC area to meet young diplomats, two Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed; the shooter yelled, “Free Palestine.” Roughly a week and a half later, in Boulder, Colorado, a rally in solidarity with hostages held in Gaza was firebombed; the attacker also reportedly yelled, “Free Palestine.”
By casting excess embryos as ‘little frozen orphans’, these programs appeal to infertile US Christians – and push an alarming view of personhood
As soon as they arrived home, Tyler, seven, and Jayden, three, rushed to a small green tent perched on the living room table and pressed their faces against its mesh windows. Inside, several gray cocoons hung immobile as the boys’ eyes eagerly scanned them for the slightest sign of movement. “We’re waiting for butterflies to emerge,” explained their mother, Alana Lisano. “It’s our little biology experiment.”
Within seconds, the boys were off to play with their cars, having no patience for such waiting. But Tyler and Jayden, Alana told me, were like those butterflies not so long ago, suspended in a different kind of stasis for two decades.
Time is running out before the tournament in Switzerland. We rank the 16 sides heading for this summer’s Euros
With the Nations League group stage coming to a close, we take a look at the 16 teams taking part in the European Championship this summer to see how they are shaping up:
A stoppage time goal from Aziz Behich at Optus Stadium seals victory over Japan for the first time in 16 years
Something to give sustenance while we’re missing Jackson Irvine, thanks to Dave Squires.
Another player not featuring for the Socceroos is Nectarios Triantis. The Sunderland midfielder withdrew from the squad at the last minute as he weighs up whether to change his allegiance and turn out for Greece.
We had him in the squad for the camp, and on the day that he was supposed to travel he informed us that he’s not coming in.
He just said he’s got a lot of things on at the moment, a lot on his mind in terms of what he wants to do. We have to respect that, and we’ll see what happens.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth says there is ‘near consensus’ on funding commitment for Nato member states
UK trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds has also called for reforms of the WTO including changes to the much-criticised dispute resolutions system which can also take years to settle disputes between trading nations.
“We do recognise that reforming and repositioning the WTO so that it can respond more effectively to the challenges of today is the only way to safeguard long term stability and growth tomorrow.
Israel has recovered the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages who were killed and abducted in Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the remains of Judih Weinstein, 70, and Gad Haggai, 72, both of whom had Israeli and US citizenship, were returned to Israel by the army and the Shin Bet internal security agency after an overnight operation in southern Gaza.
Their deaths had been announced in December 2023. “My beautiful parents have been freed. We have certainty,” their daughter, Iris Haggai Liniado, wrote in a Facebook post. She thanked the Israeli military, the FBI and the Israeli and US governments and called for the release of all the remaining hostages.
The Israeli military said in a statement that Judih Weinstein and Gad Haggai were murdered by gunmen when they attacked Kibbutz Nir Oz on 7 October 2023.
The Israeli military said in a statement that Judih Weinstein and Gad Haggai were murdered by gunmen when they attacked Kibbutz Nir Oz on 7 October 2023.
It’s the first major console launch in five years, so is it worth forking out for? From new tech to add-ons, our guide will help you decide
Since its announcement in January, anticipation has been building for the Nintendo Switch 2 – the followup to the gaming titan’s most successful home console, the 150m-selling Nintendo Switch. Major console launches are rarer than they used to be; this is the first since 2020, when Sony’s PlayStation 5 hit shelves. Whether you’re weighing up a purchase or just wondering what all the fuss is about, here’s everything you need to know.
Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday. How will you fare?
One of these days, like an exciting curveball, the Thursday quiz is going to end up appearing on a Wednesday or a Friday, just to keep everybody on their toes. But not this week. It is definitely Thursday, and this is definitely an increasingly weirdly niche quiz about topical news, general knowledge, and pop culture, which is excited today to lean into genuine newsy questions about Sparks and Doctor Who. There are no prizes, sadly, as the Thursday quiz operates on the most shoestring of budgets, but we hope you have fun and will let us know how you get on in the comments.
The administration has touted its efforts against illegal immigration. But what sets his actions apart is his crusade against those in the US legally
The Donald Trump administration has billed itself as taking unprecedented steps to crack down on illegal immigration. While the total number of deportations has yet to surge, it may happen soon. The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, supports suspending habeas corpus to speed up deportations, and the border czar, Tom Homan, has suggested blatantly ignoring court orders. Private companies are also lining up to cash in on mass deportations.
Nonetheless, Trump’s approach so far to immigration deemed illegal has not differed much from what Barack Obama and Joe Biden did. So why does everything feel different?
Daniel Mendiola is a professor of Latin American history and migration studies at Vassar College.
I can’t explain what was going through my mind my when I splashed out on them. But I’ve spent three years trying to make amends
One day in my late teens I found a pair of jeans that fitted me nicely. This was at the newly opened Merry Hill shopping centre in the Black Country. The jeans were an odd colour but I liked the cut of my jib in them. This was until I told a schoolfriend I’d bought some mustard-coloured jeans. “What kind of mustard?” he asked. “Not English, surely?”
I’m afraid they were. But I stuck with them, resolving to wash the colour issue away. Sadly, thanks to the ferocity of the laundering, soon after I’d got them from English mustard down to dijon, they fell apart, bringing the whole unhappy episode to an end.
A Hungarian law banning content about LGBTQ+ people from schools and primetime TV has been found to violate basic human rights and freedom of expression by a senior legal scholar at the European court of justice.
The non-binding opinion from the court’s advocate general, Tamara Ćapeta, issued on Thursday, represents a comprehensive demolition of the arguments made by the Hungarian government defending its so-called childprotection law, passed in 2021.
With the distraction of actual football finally over, the football fans among us are finally able to focus on what this is all really about: whether James Trafford will leave Burnley for Newcastle.
The 22-year-old burst on to the scene when leaving Manchester City as the third most-expensive British goalkeeper in history, despite never having played in the Championship, never mind the Premier League. Newcastle tried to buy him last summer, but in true football is the winner style, instead sold Elliot Anderson to Nottingham Forest and took the Greek keeper Odysseas Vlachodimos in part exchange, thus helping satisfy PSR concerns. But now they’re back with a vengeance!
Parliament votes to enact punishment after hours of fraught debate including attitudes towards Māori culture
New Zealand legislators have voted to enact record parliamentary suspensions for three MPs who performed a Māori haka to protest against a controversial proposed law.
Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke received a seven-day ban and the leaders of her political party, Te Pāti Māori (the Māori party), Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi, were barred for 21 days. Three days had previously been the longest ban for a New Zealand MP.
I spent far too many years lonely and angry, thanks to schoolmates who called me ‘weird’ and bosses who dismissed me as ‘hysterical’. But was it my sexuality that put their backs up – or the autism I am still coming to terms with?
My earliest memory is of feeling different. I’m gay, and grew up in the 1980s, in a tough, working-class town in the north of England at the height of the Aids crisis. My gayness was obvious in the way I walked and talked. I was bullied at school, called a “poof”, “pansy” and “fairy”; other children did impressions of me with their wrists limp. I experienced physical violence, too. I was shoved, kicked, my head was slammed against the wall. I was punched in the face more than once.
But it wasn’t just my sexuality that set me apart. I was “weird”. I had a rigid attachment to routine and was terribly shy, sometimes freezing in social situations. I needed to be on my own for long periods; not easy when you’re in a family of five and share a bedroom with your brother. I was obsessive, channelling this at first into the Star Wars films, then the Narnia novels and, as I got older, Madonna. Lots of kids have short-lived interests but mine were intense: I’d collect facts and statistics about Madonna, memorise the chart positions of her singles, then reel them off to anyone who would listen. If anyone criticised her, I took it as a personal attack and would be distraught.
A Madrid exhibition of work by the celebrated comic book artist Paco Roca marks 50 years since the death of Franco
The map of Paco Roca’s mind, a landscape of memory and loss, unfolds across the walls of an exhibition hall in Madrid, inviting visitors to acquaint themselves with the bittersweet geographies that have shaped the work of one of Spain’s best-known graphic artists.
Donald Trump’s newly signed travel ban contains an exemption that could apply to players, staff or associated families with clubs participating in the 2025 Club World Cup, the 2026 Fifa World Cup or the 2028 Olympics.
The US president has signed a sweeping order banning travel from 12 countries and restricting travel from seven others, reviving and expanding the travel bans from his first term.
Eighty-year-old singer has another health setback, following cancelled concerts earlier this year
Rod Stewart has cancelled two concerts this week while he recovers from a bout of flu.
As he considers one of the biggest gigs of his life later this month, playing to what is likely to be more than 100,000 people at Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage, Stewart cancelled performances at the Colosseum theatre in Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas.
Cooke, who ran the Royal Court for several years, will succeed Rupert Goold at the illustrious London venue in 2026
Dominic Cooke has been appointed as the new artistic director of the Almeida theatre in London, succeeding Rupert Goold in 2026.
Cooke ran the Royal Court for several years and is an in-demand director with recent hits in the West End and at the National Theatre. “Twelve years after leaving the Royal Court, I couldn’t be more excited to be returning as an artistic director and to be taking the reins of this unique theatre,” he said. He described Goold’s Almeida as “a beacon of quality and innovation” and added: “I’m hugely grateful to him and his team to be handed an organisation in such good health. I look forward to building on this legacy and to future adventures in this magical space.”
Former Southampton coach beats Davide Ancelotti to job
Appointment part of major changes by new US owners
Rangers have confirmed the appointment of Russell Martin as the club’s new head coach. The 39-year-old former MK Dons, Swansea and Southampton boss has signed a three-year contract. He will be joined at Ibrox by the assistant head coach Matt Gill and performance coach Rhys Owen.
Martin guided Southampton to promotion to the Premier League last year, but was sacked in December after one win from their first 16 games. Rangers finished last season under the caretaker management of the former captain Barry Ferguson, having dismissed Philippe Clement in February.
Planemaker seals $1.1bn agreement to avoid prosecution over two crashes that killed 346 people
Boeing has agreed to pay $1.1bn (£812m) to avoid prosecution over two plane crashes that killed 346 people, in a deal that a lawyer for 16 families of the victims has described as “morally repugnant”.
The plane manufacturer has secured a deal – agreed in principle last month – with the US Department of Justice (DoJ), which includes paying $444.5m to the families of those who died in the crashes of 737 Max jetliners in 2018 and 2019.
Three years ago, British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous defender Bruno Pereira vanished while on a reporting trip near Brazil’s remote Javari valley. The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, investigates what happened in the first episode of a new six-part investigative podcast series
UK trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds has also called for reforms of the WTO, including changes to the much criticised dispute resolutions system which can also take years to settle disputes between trading nations.
Reynolds told the EuropeanPolicyCentre security conference in Brussels:
“We do recognise that reforming and repositioning the WTO so that it can respond more effectively to the challenges of today is the only way to safeguard long term stability and growth tomorrow.
“Our eyes are fixed on greater flexibility in decision making, greater openness in the east of plurilaterals and building a fully functioning dispute settlement system,”
“the trees that survive the storms aren’t the tallest. They’re the ones whose roots are intertwined with their lives.
“Just in the past two days, during the OECD trade ministerial [summit] the message was clear and unequivocal – deep reform of the World Trade Organisation is long overdue and urgently needed to match today’s realities.”
“We negotiate. We do not isolate. We do not leave the table… trade agreements are more than transactions. They are upgrades that empower our partners, helping them grow with us and creating a cycle of shared prosperity.”
Israeli PM says bodies of Judih Weinstein and Gad Haggai returned to Israel after special operation
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday the bodies of two Israelis killed in Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack and held in Gaza had been returned to Israel.
Netanyahu said the remains of Judih Weinstein Haggai and Gad Haggai were recovered and returned to Israel in a special operation by the army and the Shin Bet internal security agency. According to the Associated Press (AP). He said in a statement:
Together with all the citizens of Israel, my wife and I extend our heartfelt condolences to the dear families. Our hearts ache for the most terrible loss. May their memory be blessed.
A US- and Israeli-backed group operating aid sites in Gaza pushed back the reopening of its facilites set for Thursday, as the Israeli army warned that roads leading to distribution centres were “considered combat zones”. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) closed its aid distribution centres after a string of deadly incidents near sites it operates that drew sharp condemnation from the United Nations.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 10 people in the battered Palestinian territory on Thursday as the military keeps up an intensified offensive. “Ten martyrs so far resulting from Israeli strikes since dawn,” agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP, adding that they had targeted an area where displaced civilians were sheltering in the southern city of Khan Younis and houses in Gaza City and the central town of Deir el-Balah.
UN security council members criticised the US on Wednesday after it vetoed a resolution calling for a ceasefire and unrestricted humanitarian access in Gaza, which Washington said undermined ongoing diplomacy. “Today, the United States sent a strong message by vetoing a counterproductive UN security council resolution on Gaza targeting Israel,” secretary of state Marco Rubio said in a statement after Wednesday’s 14 to 1 vote.
Israeli bombardment on Wednesday killed at least 48 people across the Gaza Strip, including 14 in a single strike on a tent sheltering displaced people, the civil defence agency said. A day earlier, the civil defence and the International Committee of the Red Cross said 27 people were killed when Israeli troops opened fire near a GHF site in southern Gaza. The military said the incident was under investigation.
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