US president, who is pushing for ceasefire deal in Gaza, praises Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as ‘fantastic’

Ten more hostages will be released from Gaza “very shortly”, Donald Trump said at the White House Friday. The news comes as the president continues to push for a 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

“We got most of the hostages back. We’re going to have another 10 coming very shortly, and we hope to have that finished quickly,” Trump said during a dinner with Republican senators. He also praised his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as “fantastic”.

Surveys show party may only secure 10 to 15 of 125 seats up for grabs but is eroding support of prime minister Shigeru Ishiba’s shaky LDP minority government

A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls on Sunday, as a rightwing party promoting a “Japanese-first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue.

Birthed on YouTube during the Covid-19 pandemic spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the party, Sanseito, has widened its appeal ahead of Sunday’s upper house vote – railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream.

Determination by IMO organisers to remain apolitical divides participating countries amid wars in Ukraine and Gaza

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

A resounding cheer erupted when on Monday three Palestinian teenagers shuffled on to the stage of a convention centre tucked away behind the golden beaches of Australia’s Sunshine Coast.

All of them from the West Bank, they were only half of a team able to attend the International Mathematics Olympiad, a gathering of the world’s brightest young mathematical minds, where medals can offer tickets to any university in the world and launch brilliant careers.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Trump intelligence chief accuses ex-president and others of ‘treasonous conspiracy’ for alleging Russian interference

• US politics – follow live

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has called for Barack Obama and former senior US national security officials to be prosecuted after accusing them of a “treasonous conspiracy” intended to show that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election win was due to Russian interference.

She said Obama and senior officials in his administration had “[laid] the groundwork for … a years-long coup” against Trump after his victory over Hillary Clinton by “manufacturing intelligence” to suggest that Russia had tried to influence the election. That included using a dossier prepared by a British intelligence analyst, Christopher Steele, that they knew to be unreliable, Gabbard claimed.

President follows through on libel threat over report that said he sent Epstein ‘bawdy’ birthday note and sketch

Donald Trump has sued Rupert Murdoch and two Wall Street Journal newspaper reporters for libel and slander over claims that he sent the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a lewd letter and sketch of a naked woman.

Trump’s lawsuit on Friday, which also targets Dow Jones and News Corp, was filed in the southern district of Florida federal court in Miami.

Yvette Davids, who took the role in January 2004, will be succeeded by Michael Borgschulte

The first woman to lead the US naval academy is being reassigned, with the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, moving to replace her with a Marine Corps general, defense officials confirmed on Friday.

The decision marks the first time in the nearly 180-year history of the academy that a Marine Corps officer has been nominated to take charge.

Lawmakers note cancellation follows Colbert’s criticism of parent company Paramount for settling Trump suit

Democrats are condemning CBS for its recent decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, noting the news comes just a few days after its host criticized the network’s parent company, Paramount, for settling a $16m lawsuit with Donald Trump.

Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who appeared as a guest on Colbert’s show on Thursday night, later wrote on social media: “If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.”

Video at the concert showed Astronomer’s married CEO with his arms around its head of human resources

Astronomer, the company at the center of the Coldplay scandal in which its CEO was caught canoodling with its chief human resources officer, has finally issued a statement on the matter.

More than 24 hours after a Jumbotron camera at a Coldplay concert in Boston, Massachusetts, caught the software company’s married CEO, Andy Byron, with his arms around the company’s HR head, Kristin Cabot, Astronomer has responded to the incident which has taken the internet by storm.

Bergman teamed with wife Marilyn to write lyrics for such hits as The Way We Were and The Windmills of Your Mind

Alan Bergman, the Oscar-winning lyricist who teamed with his wife, Marilyn, for an enduring and loving partnership that produced such old-fashioned hits as How Do You Keep the Music Playing?, It Might Be You and the classic The Way We Were, has died aged 99.

Bergman died late on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles, family spokesperson Ken Sunshine said in a statement on Friday. The statement said Bergman had, in recent months, suffered from respiratory issues “but continued to write songs till the very end”.

“Spain is Spain,” Switzerland’s talismanic captain, Lia Wälti, had warned and, in the quarter-final between the host nation and the world champions, Spain Spained, crushing the resolve of a team that had played in an inspired fashion.

The hosts had more than clung on, they fought, roared on by a crowd that maybe believed, maybe did not, but that did not really matter. It took until the 66th minute for the tournament favourites to find a way through, Athenea del Castillo and Clàudia Pina each striking in a five-minute, second-half spell to crush gentle rumblings of a possible upset.

Scores of Venezuelans deported by US to El Salvador repatriated as Marco Rubio hails return of Americans

Venezuela released 10 jailed Americans on Friday in exchange for getting home scores of migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador months ago under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The resolution represents a diplomatic achievement for the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, helps Donald Trump in his goal of bringing home Americans jailed abroad and lands El Salvador a swap that it had proposed months ago.

UN calls for end to ‘bloodshed’ that has claimed at least 638 lives, according to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

Armed tribes supported by Syria’s Islamist-led government clashed with Druze fighters in the community’s Sweida heartland on Friday, a day after the army withdrew under Israeli bombardment and diplomatic pressure.

The UN called for an end to the “bloodshed” and demanded an “independent” investigation of the violence, which has claimed at least 638 lives since Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The president is reportedly ‘on a warpath’ over a story in the Wall Street Journal – controlled by Trump’s top media ally

For days before the Wall Street Journal published its story about Donald Trump’s salacious friendship with Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday, the president was frantically working the phones.

He reportedly put pressure on the paper’s top editor, Emma Tucker, and even Rupert Murdoch, who controls the paper’s business side, claiming that the alleged facts behind the story were nothing but a hoax, and threatening to sue the paper if it forged ahead. (Following publication of this article, Trump filed a suit against the paper and Murdoch.)

Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture

Deborah Mason, 65, who had moniker ‘Queen Bee’, and seven members of her network sentenced to total of 106.5 years

A family-run organised crime group, orchestrated by a 65-year-old described by police as a “gangster granny”, has been sentenced for dealing drugs with a street value of £80m across the UK.

Deborah Mason, who had the moniker “Queen Bee”, and seven other members of the gang, were sentenced at Woolwich crown court in London on Friday for their involvement in supplying nearly a tonne of cocaine over seven months.

Talk is of a possible clean sweep for tourists but the onus is on Australia to make one or two Lions eat their confident words

Whatever unfolds over the next three Saturdays this British & Irish Lions series will resonate more than its predecessor. Simply to see visiting fans in red jerseys wandering down Queen Street in central Brisbane is to be thankful the whole enterprise has a beating heart once again, in contrast to South Africa four years ago when a Covid-disrupted, spectator-free experience sapped everyone’s spirits.

Because a Lions tour is nothing without a human element, enticed back every four years by the fabled steepness of the challenge. “This is our Everest, boys,” growled Jim Telfer back in 1997 and, as usual, the master coach was right. On only three occasions in the past 50 years has a Lions squad returned home triumphant and, for now, a series win remains the holy grail for the professional egg chasers of England, Ireland, Scotland and, if selected, Wales.

Centre-back’s ordeal against Sweden was damaging but sketchy press and midfield failings need to be addressed before Italy semi-final

Jess Carter glumly accepted her warm-down top, the pallid commiserations of Arjan Veurink and a seat on the England bench. In truth she had been fortunate to see 70 minutes of this quarter-final, and for all the nightmarish apparitions of the first half perhaps the last few minutes were the loneliest of all. Marooned at the back, 30 yards behind the rest of the team while England forced set pieces and pushed for a route back into the game: a last line of defence that had proved to be very little defence at all.

Esme Morgan would replace her to add some extra heft and the entire system would need to be rejigged to a back three. Carter would watch the excruciating last hour from a seated position, reflecting bleakly on the sort of performance that scars international careers, perhaps even defines them. “You’re feeling nothing and everything at the same time,” she said afterwards. “It’s a turbulent experience. I feel like it’s the first time I’ve smiled since the game.”

• Lionesses overturned deficit to win on penalties in Zurich

• Reigning champions will face Italy for place in final

England supporters in Zurich were recovering on Friday from the drama of the Euro 2025 penalty shootout win against Sweden, with one speaking of “absolute madness in the stands” as the team came from two goals down.

England’s official allocation of 2,099 tickets at the Stadion Letzigrund was sold out but there were about another 10,000 England fans in the stadium, including Louisa Holden-Morris, from Crewe, who was attending her 13th match at this tournament. She told the Guardian she could scarcely watch the penalties.

Police commissioner says there has been intelligence of formation of organised crime syndicate intent on havoc

Trinidad and Tobago has declared its second state of emergency this year amid “grave concerns” about a coordinated threat from organised crime gangs inside and outside the country’s prisons.

Announcing the decision on Friday, the commissioner of police, Allister Guevarro, said his force had received intelligence the day before that the gangs had “formed themselves into … an organised crime syndicate” and were intent on wreaking havoc and planning assassinations, robberies and kidnappings.

As part of president’s end to foreign aid, destruction of the long-acting contraceptives will cost US taxpayers $167,000

The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need.

A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July.

• Euro 2025 quarter-final news from the 8pm BST kick-off

• Jonathan Liew on England | And you can email Sarah

Montse Tomé, Spain’s coach, has said:

We know it’s an important quarter-final, and we’re focused on what we need to do. The team is ready, we have a clear plan to attack Switzerland and defend against their fast transitions. We’re eager for the match to begin. We know we’ll be playing away with a crowd supporting Switzerland, but we’re focused on our work and preparation. The players will have their minds on the game plan, and that will help us compete.

Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, combat training in Ukraine, wildfires in France and Iga Swiatek at Wimbledon: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

• Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing

Exclusive: Deputy PM defends action against party rebels and says Send system is priority, in Guardian interview

• NHS to Send: four key areas Labour wants to improve before next election

Angela Rayner has urged Labour colleagues to “step up” and make the case for why the party should be in power as the government attempts to draw a line under a tumultuous first year in office and shift towards a more upbeat approach.

The deputy prime minister urged Labour MPs to focus on the party’s achievements over the last 12 months rather than always thinking about failures, saying they should all be “message carriers” for what had been done well.

Nearly 100 lawmakers claim the agency’s recent actions put veterans’ healthcare at risk. Department of Veterans Affairs chief says ‘no one is being discriminated against at VA’

The US Department of Veterans Affairs has enthusiastically joined Donald Trump’s war on DEI – demanding that staffers report colleagues who engage in diversity initiatives, banning LGBTQ+ pride flags from VA hospitals and shuttering an office investigating why Black veterans are more likely to have their mental health disability claims rejected.

Last week, the VA secretary, Doug Collins, tweeted that “VA is now squarely focused on Veterans – not out-of-touch, woke causes such as DEI and gender dysphoria treatments.”

Ukrainian seeks to unify the heavyweight division again at Wembley on Saturday before putting family time first

Boxing, as Oleksandr Usyk knows, gets everyone in the end. It is a harsh and pitiless business and earlier this week, at the end of a long afternoon answering the same old questions in front of a line of television cameras, Usyk sat down with a small group of familiar faces who have written about him for years. During his last assignment for the day he opened up a little more as he spoke about the sacrifices boxing demands.

He told us how much he wanted to see his wife, Yekaterina, as she had just flown into London and they would be reunited that evening. Three months had passed, in a gruelling training camp, since they had been together and Usyk spoke about missing her and their four children.