André Corrêa do Lago issues plea to preserve Paris agreement with countries far from reaching agreement on scheduled final day
An informal stocktake plenary is now underway [see live feed at the top of the blog]. Here the presidency will update parties on the state of the negotiations.
My colleague Damian Carrington will be keeping across the main developments.
Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor-elect, are scheduled to meet at the White House this afternoon in an encounter between two ideologically opposed leaders with conflicting visions for the nation’s largest city.
The meeting marks the first face-to-face discussion between the combative Republican president and the defiant democratic socialist who secured a commanding electoral victory last month with over 50% of the vote. The meeting comes after months of back and forth, with Trump only recently having called Mamdani a “communist lunatic” while the incoming mayor has pledged to “Trump-proof” New York City and accused the administration of pursuing policies designed to punish the metropolis.
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
Shares are falling faster than wickets in Perth at the start of trading in London, as fears of an AI bubble rip through markets again.
Following losses on Wall Street last night, the FTSE 100 share index has dropped by 104 points, or just over 1%, at the start of trading to 9423 points. That’s a one-month low.
it’s been a truly remarkable 24 hours, with a sequence of moves that were almost impossible to predict….
After the world’s largest company reported spectacular results, the stock was up around +5% by 3pm London time. It closed down -3.15%. The broader market followed a similar pattern: the S&P 500 initially climbed +1.93%, only to fade and close down -1.56% as doubts about AI valuations crept back in. That marked the biggest intra-day swing for the S&P since the six days of extreme market turmoil that followed the Liberation Day tariffs in early April. Adding to the negative backdrop for crypto were lingering questions over the crypto market structure bill that’s being worked on in Congress.
Classification plan will create basis for ‘significantly stricter’ prosecutions, says interior minister
Germany plans to treat the use of date rape drugs like the use of weapons in prosecutions as part of measures to ensure justice for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
“We classify date rape drugs, which are increasingly used as a widespread tool in crimes, as weapons. This creates the basis for significantly stricter prosecutions,” Alexander Dobrindt, the interior minister, said on Friday. “We are committed to clear consequences and consistent enforcement. Women should feel safe and be able to move freely everywhere.”
Will Quaritch, the square-jawed representative of military-industrial destruction befriend the Na’vi in James Cameron’s forthcoming Avatar: Fire and Ash? And if so, what other unlikely character about-turns should we be prepared for?
It’s almost possible to feel a little sorry for Colonel Miles Quaritch, the main villain of Avatar. Imagine: first you’re sent light years from Earth to hang out with 14ft blue space hippies, then you’re suddenly dead. Then you’re resurrected as one of the 14ft blue space hippies. And now, according to James Cameron, you might just be starting to realise that the giant tree-hugging freaks you’ve spent two films trying to erase are your kind of people after all.
Speaking to Empire in an interview last week, Cameron revealed that the Quaritch we will meet in the forthcoming Avatar: Fire and Ash (although still played by Stephen Lang) is no longer the same person we first saw stomping through the rainforest in the original 2009 film. Yes, he’s a “recombinant” – a lab-grown Na’vi reboot of a man carved out of granite and patriotism – but he’s also going through a full-blown existential wobble after discovering in the last instalment that he has a human son, Spider. “Quaritch is undergoing an identity crisis,” said Cameron. “His interest in the biological son of his biological precursor form is all about trying to define, ‘Am I a completely new person? Am I bound by the rules and the behaviours of the person whose memories and personality I was imprinted with?’ It’s a true existential dilemma for him in the philosophical sense.”
From Claire Foy’s Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall to Adriana in The Sopranos, we meet the actors who had to bump off TV legends … and then face the wrath of the public
Talk about being a pantomime villain. It’s unpopular enough playing the antagonist who murders a long-running TV character. When your victim is a fan favourite, though, you risk being vilified even more. So what’s it like being the ultimate baddy and breaking viewers’ hearts? Do they get booed in the street or trolled online? We asked five actors who killed off beloved characters – from Spooks to The Sopranos, Wolf Hall to Westeros – about their experiences …
He may now live in Germany, but he loves returning to Britain, not just to put on a show, but to enjoy the weather, the food, the humour – and the selfie-takers in galleries
Let’s suppose that you are a Turner prize-winning sculptor, with more than 50 years in the game. One restless night, an idea comes to you. You work it up in your studio and send it off to the foundry, to be cast in bronze. Finally, you’re ready to show it to the world, but the first person through the gallery doors barely glances at it before taking a selfie with it. What do you do? Bear in mind that you are Tony Cragg, Royal Academician, and you are on record bemoaning the preference of many art-lovers for listening to audio guides as they tour exhibitions.
The perhaps unlikely answer is that you welcome the selfie-taker with outstretched arms, or at least give a convincing impression of doing so. “No, I don’t have problem with that,” says Cragg, albeit faintly, as if he’s thinking about the people who might be crossing the threshold of his latest show, which just opened in London. “People are bound to respond in different ways.”
As debate continues to rage over the welfare of animals in captivity, David Field is hoping to drag the sector forward
He has loved zoos all his life, but would close many of them down if he could.
David Field, who this month became head of the world’s zoo industry group, said of zoos that treat animals badly: “It makes me feel desperate. I’ve probably in my life tried to close down more zoos than open them.”
Presenter Ives was breezy, while Cook fronted everything like the last ceremonial horse of some dying cavalry unit
You know what they say. Never judge a pitch until both teams have batted really badly on it. You know what they say. Over here you bat long, bat hard, bat short, bat soft. You know what they say, the Ashes in Australia is all about a hybrid maverick production with a fan-first identity.
Given the brilliance of the basic entertainment on day one in Perth, it was easy to forget that England’s Baz-facing tourists aren’t the only setup with a brave new philosophy in play, out there disrupting the norms, and in need, above all, of a decent start.
“I dunno what to tell ya, mate,” a young knight once told me through his helm’s lifted visor. “Gettin’ shield bashed just feels good.”
For the knaves among thee, a “shield bash” is what it sounds like: to bash, or be bashed, with a shield. It’s simple and to the point, like a mace to the face or an arrow to the knee. Witnessing a shield bash, you understand the “haha yesss” that the basher must feel upon bashing, just as you empathetically presume a long “oh noooooo” on behalf of the bashee. So I was surprised to learn being bashed was, in itself, just as fun.
But it’s not always easy to tell which foods are ultra-processed.
Group one: unprocessed or minimally processed foods including whole fruits and vegetables, milk, oats and rice.
Group two: processed basic ingredients used in cooking including salt, sugar and vegetable oils.
Group three: processed foods made by adding items from groups one and two. Includes canned legumes, bread and cheese.
Group four: ultra-processed foods which are commercial products made from extracts of foods, often with added chemicals, flavours and other ingredients you wouldn’t find in a home kitchen.
With thanks to Dr Priscila Machado from the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition at Deakin University for checking this quiz for accuracy
Six people died during the shootings at a remote property in Wieambilla, Queensland. A coroner says a family’s shared paranoid delusions drove their attack
Three years ago on a remote Australian property, a trio of paranoid, deluded conspiracy theorists lay in wait.
The three members of the Train family spent a year preparing ambush positions for a confrontation with Queensland police at their home in Wieambilla, 270km west of Brisbane, believing the battle marked the end of the world.
There is no point pretending that change is not happening, or that it can be avoided. But these are the risks we must address
The idea of serving the public has been baked into the bones of journalism ever since the profession was created.
Whether it was quality information to inform the citizenry, or sensationalism and gossip, newsrooms and editors have had the desires and needs of their audiences, noble and ignoble, front of mind.
Campaign group says it will pursue all legal means to ensure personal accountability for ‘grave betrayal’
Covid-bereaved families have called for Boris Johnson to lose access to public funds and said they will pursue all legal options for personal accountability after a damning report into his handling of the pandemic.
The families said they wanted all privileges Johnson received as a former prime minister – including his ministerial pension, his place on the privy council and access to the public duty costs allowance – to be withdrawn.
Ahmad Mulakhil changes his plea at Warwick crown court, admitting single charge of rape of a child under 13
A man has pleaded guilty to the rape of a 12-year-old girl in Warwickshire, in a case that prompted anti-asylum protests in Nuneaton.
Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, of no fixed abode, changed his plea at Warwick crown court on Friday, admitting the single charge of rape of a child under 13 on 22 July.
Texans planned to utilize unhoused US people to take over Gonâve and fulfill ‘rape fantasies’, justice department says
The Department of Justice has alleged that two Texas men plotted a murderous coup d’etat on the island of Gonâve, the largest in Haiti, “for the purpose of carrying out their rape fantasies”.
The two men, 21-year-old Gavin Rivers Weisenburg and 20-year-old Tanner Christopher Thomas, have been accused of plotting to take the island by force, utilizing the homeless population of Washington DC, then killing all the men on the island and “using the women and children as sex slaves”, according to an announcement by the US attorney’s office of the eastern district of Texas on Thursday.
Former world champion promises to restore trust in sport
World Boxing replaced IBA as governing body this year
The former world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin is to be elected president of World Boxing and lead the sport as it heads towards the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
Golovkin, who won Olympic silver in Athens in 2004 and went on to make the most world title defences in middleweight history, is the only presidential candidate approved by the sport’s independent vetting panel for Sunday’s election. As a result he will take charge of World Boxing, which became the governing body for amateur Olympic boxing this year.
Central bank chief warns that the bloc’s dependence on third countries for trade and security has left it vulnerable
Europe’s economy is “geared towards a world that is gradually disappearing”, according to a warning from Christine Lagarde that the EU needs reforms to spur growth.
The president of the European Central Bank (ECB) said the EU’s dependence on international trade had left it vulnerable, as major partners had turned away from the trade that made the bloc’s exporters wealthy.
Billionaires gave desk clock and engraved gold bar weeks before Trump slashed tariffs on imports from Switzerland
A gold Rolex desk clock and a $130,000 engraved gold bar given to Donald Trump by a group of Swiss billionaires have raised questions in Europe and the US about the personalisation of US presidential power.
Pasquale Tridico, an Italian MEP and the former head of the country’s national institute for social security said he was “disgusted” by the golden charm offensive, made weeks before Trump decided to slash 39% tariffs on Swiss imports to 15%.
Alice and Ellen Kessler, who died by joint assisted suicide this week, entertained – and occasionally scandalised – Europe with their glitzy and subversive pop music and classically informed dance
When Dean Martin announced the Kessler sisters’ appearance on his show in 1966, he remarked that he had been desperate to book them not just because the German-born dancer-singers were “so pretty and so talented”, but “also because they’re twins, that means there are two of them”. “They’re a double,” he added with a nod to his half-drunk crooner persona, “and there’s nothing I like more than a double”.
The two sisters, who died by joint assisted suicide earlier this week, also performed with Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte and Fred Astaire, but the American market never impressed them much. In 1964 they turned down a role in Elvis’s Viva Las Vegas for fear of being pigeonholed in American musical comedies.
Trump press secretary accuses Cyril Ramaphosa of ‘running his mouth’ after US boycott of summit in Johannesburg
The dispute between South Africa and the US over the Trump administration’s decision to boycott the G20 in Johannesburg has continued, with South Africa objecting to a US plan for a junior embassy official to take part in the closing ceremony meant to mark the handover to the next summit, which will take place in Florida.
The two-day summit, which opens on Saturday, comes at a febrile moment in global politics. The US has proposed a deal to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which it agreed with Moscow without the involvement of Ukraine or the EU.
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