US and Russian presidents to meet at 11.30am local time in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday 15 August
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(I know, this No10 mug is really cool, but it doesn’t appear that it’s in open sales – a quick Google tells me it was commissioned ‘years ago’ and meant as a gift for foreign leaders visiting London. So if you want one, you need to get elected somewhere, I suppose.)
Russian hackers took control of a Norwegian dam this year, opening a floodgate and allowing water to flow unnoticed for four hours, Norway’s intelligence service has said.
The admission, by the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST), marks the first time that Oslo has formally attributed the cyber-attack in April on Bremanger, western Norway, to Moscow.
Israel’s far-right finance minister approves tenders for housing which international community says would split West Bank in half, reports Times of Israel
The health ministry in Gaza has just issued a statement, saying four more people have died from famine and malnutrition in the past 24 hours.
This brings the total to 239 since the start of the war, including 106 children, according to the health ministry.
Actor says reaching milestone made him want to not waste time and reveals his top regret is not doing Boogie Nights
Often romantically linked to women much younger than himself, Leonardo DiCaprio may have hinted at why the age gap is of no significance to him as he reflects on turning 50.
The Hollywood star of films including Titanic and The Wolf of Wall Street claims he feels as if he is only in his early 30s.
A heated bidding war for the future of the Bourne franchise is over, so whether we need him or not, the amnesiac assassin is set to return
What do you consider to be the end of Jason Bourne? For connoisseurs, Bourne’s story definitively ended in 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum, which masterfully wrapped up the story that began five years earlier with The Bourne Identity. For the less discerning viewer, it ended with 2016’s scraggy and inconsequential Jason Bourne. For the three people who watched the USA Network’s 2019 series Treadstone, it ended there. So which is it?
Trick question, because Jason Bourne is never actually going to end, ever. This week, NBCUniversal has won a bidding war to acquire all non-publishing rights to Robert Ludlum’s Bourne and Treadstone properties in perpetuity. The deal, described as “very large”, means that Bourne is now firmly as much a part of Universal as Jaws, Jurassic World and the Minions. It also means we are never getting rid of him. As the Universal Pictures president, Peter Cramer, said: “We’re energized to continue expanding the Bourne universe into the future with exciting new stories for global audiences.”
As a new Netflix documentary looks back at the hugely successful – and highly controversial – TV weight-loss competition, its longest-serving trainer tells all
In Netflix’s new documentary about The Biggest Loser, Joelle Gwynn, a contestant on the televised weight-loss competition, has a message for her former fitness trainer: ‘Fuck you, Bob Harper.’ Gwynn was a contestant on the US show in 2008, and she has just watched a clip of Harper screaming at her to “shut the fuck up” after she failed to run on a treadmill for the specified time. “Oh, and your little dog too,” she adds.
The Biggest Loser was a phenomenally successful TV show. It ran for 18 seasons in the US, attracting more than 10 million viewers in its prime and spawning more than 30 international versions, including a UK iteration presented in 2012 by Davina McCall.
The rumble, the explosions and the deaths: they are so frequent that they seem normal. It’s a fight to protect our homes, our cities and the psyche
Day 1,254 of the invasion; 31 July 2025, Kyiv, 4.30am. The air-raid alarm started again just a moment ago. I wake up from the roar and rumble of rockets. It’s a sound that makes you want to flee in primeval terror.
Time slows down. I roll over on the bed, embrace my girlfriend Dasha, make another half-turn and we drop down softly to the floor. I am not thinking or reflecting, I’m guided by instinct – move away from the windows, position our silhouettes as low as possible. I cover Dasha with my body. All she has time to ask for is: “The doggie? Where’s the dog?” From under the bed, we can hear the rustling of our old chihuahua’s paws.
Oleksandr Mykhed is the author of The Language of War and a member of PEN Ukraine. Translated by Maryna Gibson
A 10,000-seat arena for a school in Georgia with fewer than 2,000 students raises questions about America’s sporting and educational priorities
When the television cameras pan around the US’s newest sporting temple to show the cavernous stands, elegant brick exterior, VIP suites and massive video board, viewers might believe they are looking at a professional venue.
Yet the occupants of Phillip Beard Stadium, the Buford Wolves, are not a professioanl team or even a college one. They are high-schoolers. In the exorbitant world of high school football, Buford’s $62m, 10,000-capacity arena is not the biggest or most expensive taxpayer-funded student stadium in the US. But it may be the most luxurious.
Forward has not yet been registered by financially troubled club in a summer when Real Madrid have spent €200m
La Liga begins again in Girona on Friday evening, a five-day weekend to start it off, and for the first time the division’s biggest clubs, every side competing for the title, share a vital weapon: they all have Englishmen in their team. Trent Alexander-Arnold, just Trent now on his No 12 shirt, has joined Jude Bellingham at Real Madrid. Nine players have left Atlético Madrid, but Conor Gallagher isn’t one of them. Marcus Rashford has landed in Barcelona, 39 years after Gary Lineker. And Oviemuno Ejaria has just signed a two-year deal at Real Oviedo.
Or, if you prefer your obvious jokes to have a slightly different bias, another team for the punchline, Tyrhys Dolan has joined Espanyol.
The Better Call Saul star reprises his role as a kickass family man in a forgettable follow-up riddled with endless gonzo fight sequences
Bob Odenkirk’s unlikely new career journey as a kickass tough guy continues in this pretty formulaic and forgettable sequel to the amusing original hit, which first showed us Hutch (Odenkirk), an apparent suburban nobody with wife-plus-kids who keeps forgetting to put the garbage out in time – then from nowhere busts out some serious fight moves.
This sequel from Indonesian action director Timo Tjahjanto, co-written by the writer of the original, Derek Kolstad, really doesn’t have much of the humour and the storytelling chutzpah of the first film. But what it does have, inevitably, are endless gonzo fight sequences in which Hutch is unfairly matched against half a dozen or so humongous goons, and winds up reducing these bullies to cat litter. There was a big scene in the first film set on a bus, and it seems to have become the Nobody franchise’s USP.
As subscription costs rise and choice diminishes on legal sites, film and TV fans are turning to VPNs and illicit streamers, with Sweden – home of both Spotify and The Pirate Bay – leading the way
With a trip to Florence booked, all I want is to rewatch Medici. The 2016 historical drama series tells of the rise of the powerful Florentine banking dynasty, and with it, the story of the Renaissance. Until recently, I could simply have gone to Netflix and found it there, alongside a wide array of award-winning and obscure titles. But when I Google the show in 2025, the Netflix link only takes me to a blank page. I don’t see it on HBO Max, Disney+, Apple TV+, or any of the smaller streaming platforms. On Amazon Prime I am required to buy each of the three seasons or 24 episodes separately, whereupon they would be stored in a library subject to overnight deletion. Raised in the land of The Pirate Bay, the Swedish torrent index, I feel, for the first time in a decade, a nostalgia for the high seas of digital piracy. And I am not alone.
For my teenage self in the 00s, torrenting was the norm. Need the new Coldplay album on your iPod? The Pirate Bay. The 1968 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet? The Pirate Bay. Whatever you needed was accessible with just a couple of clicks. But as smartphones proliferated, so did Spotify, the music streaming platform that is also headquartered in Sweden. The same Scandinavian country had become a hub of illegal torrenting and simultaneously conjured forth its solution.
Red Roses prop on her creative endeavours and England expectations before the Rugby World Cup on home soil
“I like capturing people’s laughs; I think being able to hear it through the picture is so cool,” Maud Muir says as she discusses her favourite photographs from hundreds she has taken behind the scenes in the England women’s camp over the past five years.
Muir, the 24-year-old prop, and her teammates are preparing for a home Rugby World Cup, starting with the opener against USA in Sunderland next Friday.
The up-and-coming musical theatre star’s online audience of 1.2 million has been crucial in scoring her major roles. Her career is part of a shift in the industry towards performers with social media clout – but not everyone is happy
If you’re on TikTok, you’ll probably recognise Hannah Lowther. Known affectionately as the “Tesco TikToker”, she found viral fame during lockdown by filming herself singing and dancing in the aisles of the supermarket during her shifts there.
“I got 10,000 views on a video and I thought: OK, that’s it, I’m famous, and I just never let it go,” the 27-year-old laughs. Since then, Lowther has built an audience of 1.2 million followers and leveraged her social media presence into a starry stage career, landing roles in West End musicals including Heathers and Six. “At the back of my mind, I was thinking: You know what? Maybe this could help me one day.”
Fatehi Bin Lazreq has used social media, newspapers and radio to expose corruption and everyday injustices since the country’s civil war started a decade ago
When dozens of gas tankers near Yemen’s southern city of Aden were held up at a checkpoint by soldiers demanding heavy bribes, the frustrated drivers and traders turned to a man they trusted: Fatehi Bin Lazreq, a prominent Yemeni journalist.
Known for using his media outlets and social media platforms to demand accountability, Bin Lazreq posted about the drivers’ ordeal on Facebook. It quickly went viral, generating thousands of likes and comments. Within hours, the post prompted a phone call from the prime minister and another senior official, both pledging to resolve the issue. Soon, the tankers were able to move on.
Celebrities play it. Footballers play it. Gradually, insidiously, fantasy football has seeped into the way we consume the game
Perhaps you’re a template kind of guy. Perhaps, by contrast, you’re spurning the triple Liverpool consensus and stacking your team with handy differentials like Jarrod Bowen and Donyell Malen. Perhaps even Erling Haaland could be considered a differential given his historically low current ownership stats. Perhaps you’re feeling a cheeky BB GW1, followed by a FH GW2. Perhaps, by contrast, you’re furiously stabbing at the “close tab” button on your browser in the hope of purging these words from your eyes as expeditiously as possible.
In which case, relax. This is actually a column about sport: what it is, what it isn’t, how we watch it, where it’s going. Most important, you can rest assured I shall not be relating any details of my Fantasy Premier League exploits, for the same reason I will not be sharing my dreams, my Wordle stats or the contents of my belly button. However fascinating you may find your own, it is genuinely no excuse for wasting anybody else’s time.
Dispute between governing body and commercial partner has forced top-flight clubs to suspend player salaries
Crystal Palace may be disappointed the court of arbitration for sport ruled against them on Monday but at least they now know their fate. Imagine if all Premier League clubs were waiting for a court decision that would, in effect, determine whether the season would go ahead at all. That is the situation the 14 Indian Super League (ISL) teams find themselves in. The whole of football there has been waiting for a ruling from the supreme court. It was expected in mid-July but has still not arrived. The season is due to start in September. Or at least, it was.
The ISL, formed in 2013, has grown from eight teams to 14, becoming the top tier along the way. Football Sports Development Ltd (FSDL) runs the competition but put the 2025-26 season on hold on 11 July. At the time, despite the shock, most stakeholders felt it would go ahead but confidence, trust and bank balances have taken a turn for the worse.
Residents torn between excitement over high-profile visit and trepidation over what US-Russian leaders might agree
It is set to be one of the last good summer weekends in Anchorage, Alaska – the peak of the salmon run and the middle of berry season – and residents hope that Friday’s summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin isn’t going to ruin it for them.
“I’m looking forward to taking my boat out on the water at Prince William Sound – that’s my plan,” said Andy Moderow, who works at a conservation nonprofit in Anchorage.
Companies like SpaceX and Blue Horizon may be able to forgo reviews required under National Environmental Policy Act
Donald Trump is looking to relax environmental rules for commercial spaceship companies. In an executive order titled “enabling competition in the commercial space industry” that he signed on Wednesday, he said it’s imperative to national security that the private rocket-ship industry increase launches “substantially” by 2030.
That would mean, according to the executive order, that those companies may be able to forgo the environmental reviews that are required under the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa). Private space companies are required to get launch permits from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). And, as part of that process, companies are subject to review under the National Environmental Policy Act.
‘They gave everything – it’s the smallest of margins’
Thomas Frank described himself as “very, very proud” of a Tottenham team that came within two minutes of a famous Uefa Super Cup win over Paris Saint-Germain. They were ultimately defeated on penalties after squandering a two-goal lead and their new manager was left to rue an inability to bend the outcome to their will in the shootout.
Goals from Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero appeared to have rocket-launched Frank’s tenure before Lee Kang-in and Gonçalo Ramos curtailed the celebrations. But the Dane saw plenty of encouragement in the way his players dominated their star-studded opponents for the first three quarters of the match.
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The UK economy grew at a faster rate than expected in the second quarter, official figures show, despite a slowdown from a strong start to the year amid pressure from tax increases and Donald Trump’s global trade war.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed growth in gross domestic product slowed to 0.3% in the three months to the end of June, down from a rate of 0.7% in the first quarter.
In an open letter, writers denounced abrupt scrapping of a Harvard Educational Review issue dedicated to Palestine
More than 115 education scholars have condemned the cancellation of an entire issue of an academic journal dedicated to Palestine by a Harvard University publisher as “censorship”.
In an open letter published on Thursday, the scholars denounced the abrupt scrapping of a special issue of the Harvard Educational Review – which was first revealed by the Guardian in July – as an “attempt to silence the academic examination of the genocide, starvation and dehumanisation of Palestinian people by the state of Israel and its allies.”
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