Massive tax-and-spending bill is critical to US president’s agenda but faces division and splits
The senate has adopted an amendment offered by Republican senator Joni Ernst – who represents Iowa - to prevent jobless millionaires from claiming unemployment compensation.
Lawmakers voted 99-1 to strike the AI regulation ban from the bill by adopting an amendment offered by Republican senator Marsha Blackburn.
Huge crowds defied a ban to party on Saturday, yet authoritarians across the continent are targeting LGBTQ+ people to spread division
An animal is at its most dangerous when it is wounded, and the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, was already haemorrhaging supporters before a record number of people took to the streets on Saturday to support Budapest Pride, which his government had legally banned in March.
The pulsating, international, love-fuelled parade, which stretched more than a mile through Budapest’s most prominent landmarks, was everything the Hungarian far right hates. And for Orbán and his nationalist party, Fidesz, the public defiance of Pride organisers, European diplomats and those of us who filled the streets in spite of threats of facial-recognition surveillance,arrests and fines has dented his strongman reputation.
Blink 182’s Tom DeLonge’s directorial debut is nicely shot and benefits from a good cast – but its meandering journey through UFOs and a urinating Bigfoot can be a bit bumpy
Blink-182’s Tom DeLonge directs and co-writes this sci-fi slacker comedy which sees a trio of stoner wastrels hoping to investigate what happened to the father of one of their number, who mysteriously disappeared many years ago and is presumed dead. It’s a slightly frustrating experience, because the film has got loads going for it but could be just that little bit better. So many of the ingredients are right: it’s nicely shot and directed, and the casting feels on point – it’s not so much that you buy these evidently non-teenage actors as teenagers, but that their presence is part of a noble tradition of adults playing teens in films. It’s as cosily familiar to anyone who came of age in the 1990s as baggy skate trousers and a band hoodie.
This sense of cultural time capsule extends to the characters themselves: they feel like 90s teenagers rather than modern-day ones, and that’s presumably a bonus for anyone drawn hither by DeLonge’s status as guitarist and singer for one of the more enduring bands of the pop punk explosion of that decade. These kids are crude and puerile, and it’s somehow fun to see the American Pie-type kid in a contemporary setting; certainly anyone with a fondness for that particular type of high school movie will inhale a pleasant hit of nostalgia without having to think too hard about whether there’s much value here.
Tim Davie was informed of incident while at Glastonbury but live stream of stage continued to be aired in hours after
The BBC’s director general is facing questions over why he did not pull the live-stream footage of Bob Vylan after being informed during a visit to Glastonbury of the chants calling for the death of Israeli soldiers.
Tim Davie, who has led the BBC for nearly five years, was told of the chanting of “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]” by Bob Vylan’s vocalist after it had been broadcast live on the BBC on Saturday afternoon.
From the Maga crowd to Nato’s secretary general, everyone is addressing the president of the US as if he was their actual father. Make it stop!
Is your name Barron, Donald Jr, Eric, Ivanka or Tiffany Trump? No? Then I regret to inform you that President Donald John Trump is almost certainly not your daddy. I say “almost certainly” because narcissistic billionaires do have a nasty habit of spawning willy-nilly. Just look at Elon Musk and Pavel Durov – the latter is the Telegram founder, who has more than 100 children in 12 countries via sperm donation.
Still, unless you are a very high-IQ individual, with an orange glow, an insatiable appetite for money-making schemes, and a weird belief that you invented the word “caravan”, I think it’s safe to say that you’re probably not Trump’s offspring.
In the social media age, football is a fraction of the Portuguese Übermensch’s appeal and he is untroubled by his paymasters’ morals
The winners of next season’s AFC Champions League Two, Asia’s second-tier club competition, will receive about £1.8m. The winners of the Saudi King’s Cup will receive just over £1m. Prize money for the Saudi Pro League is not disclosed, but by the most recent available figures (for 2022-23) is in roughly the same area. Weekly attendances at the King Saud University Stadium, where top-tier ticket prices start at about £12, range between 10,000 and 25,000, although of course you also have to factor in pie and programme sales above that.
And so you really have to applaud Al-Nassr’s ambition in handing an estimated £492m to Cristiano Ronaldo over the next two years. Even if they sweep the board at domestic level, if they fight their way past Istiklol of Tajikistan’s 1xBet Higher League and Al-Wehdat of the Jordanian Pro League, if they extract maximum value from merch and sponsorships, you still struggle to see how they can cover a basic salary that comes to £488,000 a day, even before the bonuses and blandishments that will push the total package well beyond that.
There are many nasty idiots in the world – but whether the offence was at a music festival or online, none of these people should be in jail
News that Avon and Somerset police have launched criminal investigations into the bands Bob Vylan and Kneecap for their Glastonbury sets reminds me that we have a severe prisons crisis in the UK, and that we need to build more of them. Perhaps we should build a special one for all the people we keep criminally investigating for saying, rather than doing, bad things. I’m pretty sure they have a few of those types of prisons in other countries. Although, it must be said that those are normally countries run by people we consider bad. Confusing! But look, maybe we’re becoming the sort of country where we imprison lots of people for saying awful things. I don’t … love this look for us, I have to say. But no doubt someone has thought it all through very, very carefully.
If so, they could put the two nasty idiots from Bob Vylan in it. Obviously all of Kneecap, too. Maybe those guys would have their cell on the same landing as Lucy Connolly, the woman who was imprisoned for two years and seven months for a repulsive tweet in the wake of the Southport child killings. They could be joined by whoever at the BBC didn’t pull the Glastonbury live stream on Saturday after Bob Vylan started their repulsive chants, given that Conservative frontbencher Chris Philp is now officially calling for the corporation to be “urgently” investigated. I see Chris is also calling for the BBC to be prosecuted – so I guess he’s already done the police investigation for them, and all at the same time as absolutely aceing his brief as shadow home secretary for where-are-they-now political outfit the Conservative party.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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The sentencing judge, Mr Justice Sweeting, told Ryland Headley that he would spend the rest of his life in prison for killing Louisa Dunne at her home in 1967.
Former presidents Obama and George W Bush and singer Bono send emotional message to staff as organisation closes
Barack Obama and George W Bush have criticised the closure of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), as a study warned it would result in “a staggering number” of avoidable deaths.
The former US presidents made rare public criticisms of the Trump administration as they took part in a video farewell for USAID staffers on its last day as an independent organisation.
This year marks the first time that local NWS offices have stopped round-the-clock operations in the agency’s history
A brutal stretch of severe weather has taxed communities on the eastern fringes of tornado alley this spring and early summer, while harsh staffing cuts and budget restrictions have forced federal meteorologists to attempt to forecast the carnage with less data.
As of 30 June, there have already been more than 1,200 tornadoes nationwide.
Millions of Americans a year visit national parks and many leave their business anywhere. Contrary to popular belief, that deluge of poop is not going to decompose
Last year, I watched a man squat and relieve himself 30ft (9 metres) from me, holding on to his vehicle’s front wheel with one hand to steady himself. My dog and I were on our usual walk up the dirt road that bisects our old mining town, nestled just shy of 10,000ft (3km) in south-western Colorado.
It was a short walk from the house, and we were out just to get a little movement. Not to see one.
Spain are expected to win the tournament for the first time but England have a Golden Boot contender in Alessia Russo
It feels as if Spain and a revitalised Germany have the wind in their sails to meet in Basel, even if Aitana Bonmatí’s illness is a real worry for the world champions. Spain will win out on the night. England know the ropes and cannot be ruled out but their path to glory looks complicated. Nick Ames
Would Britpop have happened? Would bands still dream as big? As Oasis prepare for their return gig on Friday, it’s worth asking what their cultural impact has been
In the peculiar counterfactual 2019 romcom Yesterday, the Beatles suddenly and mysteriously vanish from history, remembered by just one man. In the interests of a cheap joke, writer Richard Curtis improbably suggests that every band in the world would still exist in the Beatles’ absence, bar one: Oasis.
But what about a world without Oasis? As the Gallaghers themselves would admit, they weren’t innovators like the Beatles, whose every move changed the course of popular music. If Noel had never joined Liam’s band at the end of 1991, Creation Records might well have gone bust, Manchester City would have had less pop cachet, and The Royle Family would have needed a different theme tune, but music wouldn’t have sounded significantly different. Today, new bands are more likely to cite the spiky intelligence of Radiohead or the Smiths than Oasis’s broad strokes, and very few younger than Arctic Monkeys expects to fill stadiums.
For two years, we’ve waited for a final ceasefire that has never come. Peace will be delayed as long as our lives are considered disposable
Last Tuesday night, Donald Trump announced on social media that Iran and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire, ending what he called a “12-day war”. It was the second war this year, after India and Pakistan’s four-day conflict, to start and end under Trump’s watch. They followed another, earlier conflict between Lebanon and Israel during President Joe Biden’s term.
Here in Gaza, all eyes were fixed on the Iran-Israel conflict. Even cut off from the internet, people found ways to follow the news – on the radio, or by catching weak phone signals by climbing to high rooftops or walking near the sea, or just by staying up all night watching the sky, where some of the missiles launched from Iran could be seen from Gaza. Many wondered if Trump, the man who once promised to stop “endless wars”, would seize the moment to stop not only war on Iran but also the genocide in Gaza.
Hassan Abo Qamar is a Palestinian writer and journalist based in Gaza
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Unnamed three from Countess of Chester hospital held on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter, police say
Three bosses at the hospital where Lucy Letby worked have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter, police have said.
The three, who have not been named, were arrested on Monday as part of the investigation into the actions of leaders at the Countess of Chester hospital (CoCH).
Time is short in Australia to make an impression on Andy Farrell and be one of the 23 in Brisbane on 19 July
The British & Irish Lions have barely started their trek around Australia, but the all-important Test series is fast approaching. Some definitive selection calls will soon have to be made and this week’s games, against the Queensland Reds in Brisbane on Wednesday and the New South Wales Waratahs in Sydney on Saturday, will be pivotal for certain individuals. The Breakdown takes a look at the five main areas of debate.
We lock eyes while shepherding unruly, ungrateful teens in and out of changing rooms but don’t speak a word. This needs to change
If there is a solidarity on Earth tighter than “bored middle-aged mothers in a clothes shop”, I don’t know what it is. Whether in Primark, Urban Outfitters or H&M, the crowd is always the same: some teens are in gangs and they are having a fine old time; others, sometimes in sibling pairs, are with their mum, presumably because they have yet to find a way to detach her from her credit card. It’s like that bit in an action movie where you need a guy’s fingerprint to open a vault, so you cut off his arm, except, regrettably, in this case, they have to take the entire body.
Some of us are too hot; others are too embarrassing to be believed and have been told that multiple times between each clothes rack. But the main thing we have in common is that we are all incredibly bored. It’s one of those things about youth that I don’t miss at all, along with paralysing social anxiety and blackheads: the ability to parse the difference between one T-shirt and another for hours; to look at the same pair of jeans for 15 minutes straight, your imagination running riot over what they might look like across every jumper combination and landscape. This is not a spectator sport, yet spectate you must, because ultimately you will have to give a view, so that, whatever you say, they can do the opposite.
Exclusive: Green groups furious at plans to let member states buy controversial carbon offsets from abroad
EU member states may be allowed to count controversial carbon credits from developing countries towards their climate targets, the European climate commissioner has said as states meet for a crucial decision on the issue.
The EU will discuss on Wednesday its target for slashing carbon dioxide by 2040, with an expected cut of 90% compared with 1990 levels, in line with the bloc’s overarching target of reaching net zero by mid-century.
Spaniard substituted in fifth game since returning
Guardiola blames profligacy for shock loss to Al-Hilal
After Manchester City crashed out of the Club World Cup 4-3 to Al-Hilal in Orlando, Pep Guardiola blamed a lack of ruthlessness, and said Rodri had sustained an injury setback.
City were eliminated by Marcus Leonardo’s 112th-minute winner on Monday night at the Camping World Stadium in the shock result of the inaugural 32-team Club World Cup. Guardiola’s team wasted a number of chances, with Jérémy Doku, Erling Haaland, Josko Gvardiol, Rúben Dias and Savinho among those who failed to put City out of sight in the opening half.
Paul, yet to settle, hands Monday two break points … which he hands straight back. From there, the hold is quickly secured.
Thinking of Paul more generally, though, he’s in the same section of the draw as Sinner. There’s not loads else there, so he’ll be wondering if, finally, he can beat someone better than him on the biggest stage.
The French prime minister François Bayrou, who attended a government crisis meeting over the heatwave, was asked about the great difficulty of French schools to handle the heatwave.
More than 1,350 schools across France were fully or partially closed on Tuesday as classrooms proved dangerously hot for children and teachers, amid anger from teaching unions.
Women, children and elderly people among at least 24 killed by attack that turned beach spot into scene of carnage
Witnesses have described the bloody aftermath of an Israeli strike on a crowded seaside cafe in Gaza, which left at least 24 dead and many more injured on Tuesday.
Al-Baqa cafe, close to the harbour in Gaza City, was almost full in the early afternoon when it was hit by a missile, immediately transforming a scene of relative calm amid the biggest urban centre in Gaza into one of carnage.
Using clever tactics and Messi clickbait, Egyptian creators racked up 14m views with highlights posted before kickoff. YouTube didn’t catch on until it was too late
This story was reported by Indicator, a publication that investigates digital deception, and co-published with the Guardian.
It was Thursday morning in America and something didn’t look right in the highlights of the Club World Cup match between Manchester City and Juventus.
Suzi Ragheb provided research support and translation of one of the videos in Arabic.
This summer has 28 Days Later, I Know What You Did Last Summer and The Karate Kid franchises coming back to life but what should come next?
The Thin Man series should not be rebooted so much as remixed, shaken a little and strained into crystal coupes. These glamorous 1930s capers starred the debonair duo of William Powell and Myrna Loy as frisky husband-and-wife sleuths Nick and Nora Charles, who solve crimes while cracking wise and necking cocktails, accompanied by their precocious wire fox terrier Asta. There were six films in the original run, starting with 1934’s The Thin Man, an adaptation of the Dashiell Hammett novel of the same name, and ending in 1947. The perfect recipe for a new Thin Man film would comprise two charismatic movie stars with sizzling chemistry, the kind who look stunning in evening dress, but who can also ad lib their own gags, a cavalcade of plot twists and saucy co-stars, a happy ending, and of course a scene-stealing pooch. It’s good, old-fashioned fun, but that’s why it’s so timeless, and a formula that can run and run – until the ice bucket is empty. Pamela Hutchinson
The small city of Minaçu is hoping to challenge China’s dominance in servicing the global appetite for minerals key to the green energy transition
Minaçu, a small city in inland Brazil and home to the only asbestos mine in the Americas, is set to become the first operation outside Asia to produce four rare earths on a commercial scale – a group of minerals key to the energy transition at the centre of the trade dispute between China and the US.
Until now, China has dominated the separation of rare earths, and accounts for 90% of the manufacture of rare-earth magnets, or super magnets, which are made with these elements and used in electric cars, wind turbines and military equipment such as jets.
From streaming services to food-delivery apps, the modern world conspires to keep us home and alone. But I went out looking for a human connection
I am lucky enough to have some wonderful friends. But recently many of them have moved away because they can’t afford, or simply can’t be bothered, to live in a huge city like London any more. And when you’re in your 30s, meaningfully connecting with new people is no mean feat.
I’m not alone in feeling a little lonely: in 2023, the World Health Organization said that social isolation was becoming a “global public health concern”. From the decline of the office to the rise of single-occupancy flats, our social lives are being leached away from us. Meanwhile, streaming services and food-delivery apps discourageus from going out, their ads extolling the safety and convenience of staying home and not seeing or talking to another human. It’s almost as if they want to keep us single and friendless, with nothing to spend our money on but a disappointing chicken burger with a side of Deadpool & Wolverine.
Dracula’s daughter seeks a more peaceful life making plant-based blood substitutes in this Stardew-Valley-inspired, gently creepy farming game
What if you were a tiny, vegan vampire? That’s the question posed by Moonlight Peaks, the gen Z-coded, achingly TikTok-ready supernatural life sim. Inspired by the popularity of “cosy games” such as Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, Moonlight Peaks drapes you in the cape of Dracula’s daughter, who has fled her father’s corpse-ridden home to start a new, peaceful life.
Soon, she settles among werewolves and witches in the supernatural farming town of Moonlight Peaks, where she grows crops and rears animals instead of subsisting on the blood of innocents. Both cosy and creepy, the game has you creating your own plant-based blood substitutes, befriending the town’s residents and fixing a whole host of problems left in daddy Dracula’s wake.
She has apologised for mentioning a much larger ex – but the comment still haunts me. Should I walk away?
I have been seeing a woman whom I met online for almost a year. Before we met face to face, we had a number of phone calls, during which she became very sexual very quickly. She asked me the size of my penis (which is slightly above average). Then she told me she liked big penises and that an ex-partner’s was 12in (30cm) long. This made me feel very insecure and I told her this. She said: “It’s only a preference.”
Since then, this issue has surfaced again and again. I know it’s hard to believe, but we haven’t had penetrative sex yet. (Initially, I wanted to take things slow. Plus, she is menopausal and hasn’t been feeling sexual much of the time.) We do have other kinds of sex and she says I am the “best” in this respect. But penetrative sex, for me, is very important. She says I’m “big enough” and that she is sure I’ll satisfy her – but the thought that she “prefers bigger” is devastating. She says she doesn’t understand why she made the original remark. She is sorry, but this doesn’t help. I feel I should walk away, but I have strong feelings for her.
Paetongtarn could be heard calling former Cambodian leader ‘uncle’ and criticising Thai commander in recording
Thailand’s constitutional court has suspended the prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, while it investigates alleged ethical violations relating to a leaked phone call.
The court announced on Tuesday that it would consider a petition filed by 36 senators calling for Paetongtarn’s dismissal, accusing her of dishonesty and breaching ethical standards in violation of the constitution.
Manchester United’s search for a suitable striker continues to occupy the minds of the gossip-mongers, with Ollie Watkins now reported to be firmly on Ruben Amorim’s radar. As United toil to get a deal for Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo over the line, amid rumours the Cameroon striker may be persuaded to remain in west London, Aston Villa’s Watkins has emerged as a strong target, the Athletic reports. However, a deal may be dependent on Rasmus Højlund being bundled out of the Old Trafford exit door.
United also continue to be dogged by the “How do you solve a problem like Marcus Rashford?” conundrum; the striker faces starting the season at Old Trafford because Aston Villa will not be taking up the £40m option to sign him.
One of the consequences of Israel’s 12-day conflict with Iran was a drop-off in attention paid to the war in Gaza, where a terrible humanitarian situation deteriorated even further. This is a timeline of what happened
In the weeks leading up to Israel’s war with Iran, which it launched on 13 June, there had been little let-up in its offensive in Gaza. A tenuous ceasefire had broken down in March, and a wave of airstrikes followed, as well as an 11-week blockade on all aid. Though some humanitarian assistance was allowed in from late May, military action intensified at the same time.
Growing numbers of desperate Palestinians were being killed as they sought scarce food either from looted aid convoys or from distribution hubs set up by the new, secretive Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a group backed by Israel and the US as an alternative to the existing, much more comprehensive UN-led system. Rolling IDF “evacuation orders” covered much of the territory.
Untested pairing of Gibson-Park and Russell face Reds
To say the last couple of days have been a blur for Blair Kinghorn is putting it mildly. As recently as the early hours of Sunday he was celebrating Toulouse’s Top 14 title success in Paris and doing interviews clad only in a pair of budgie smugglers. Now here he is wearing a British & Irish Lions tracksuit, squinting into the Australian sunshine and trying his hardest to focus on the next onrushing target.
The Scotland full-back, the last originally chosen squad member to arrive, will not be involved in the Lions’ game against the Reds on Wednesday but is earmarked to feature against the Waratahs in Sydney on Saturday. All being well a potential slot in the Test XV could follow but even for a class act like Kinghorn it is going to take a lot of frantic paddling below the surface to get up to speed.
A deeply researched history that examines colonial and post-colonial faultlines, from Aden to Myanmar
Earlier this summer, amid renewed tensions between India and Pakistan following a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, Donald Trump remarked that the two countries had been fighting over Kashmir for “a thousand years”. It was a glib, ahistorical comment, and was widely ridiculed. Shattered Lands, Sam Dalrymple’s urgent and ambitious debut, offers a more comprehensive rebuttal. Far from being a region riven by ancient hatreds, the lands that comprise modern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar – as well as parts of the Gulf – were divided up within living memory from an empire in retreat.
“You can’t actually see the Great Wall of China from space,” Dalrymple begins, “but the border wall dividing India from Pakistan is unmistakable.” Stretching more than 3,000km and flanked by floodlights, thermal vision sensors and landmines, this is more a physical scar left by the hurried dismantling of British India than a traditional geopolitical divide. What might now seem like natural frontiers were shaped by five key events: Burma’s exit from the empire in 1937; the separation of Aden that same year, and of the Gulf protectorates in 1947; the division of India and Pakistan, also in 1947; the absorption of more than 550 princely states; and, in 1971, the secession of East Pakistan. Neither ancient nor inevitable, these lines were hastily drawn in committee rooms, colonial offices and war cabinets.
Renewable energy and critical minerals projects often want to mine on sacred lands but minority groups are fighting back through the courts
Located in Wikieup, Arizona, at the meeting point of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, H’a’Kamwe’ has for centuries had sacred significance for the Hualapai tribe. They regard the hot spring, fed by water naturally stored underground in volcanic rocks, as a place for healing that symbolises their connection to the land.
So when an Australian mining company announced plans to begin exploratory drilling for lithium at 100 locations on Hualapai land, including as close as just 700 metres from H’a’Kamwe’, they regarded it as a potential desecration.
Meg Hillier to vote for government’s legislation on Tuesday though dozens of Labour MPs still expected to oppose it
Downing Street has “listened” and “honoured” the promises it made on changes to the welfare bill, one of the key rebels, Meg Hillier, has said, saying she would vote for the bill on Tuesday.
The Treasury select committee chair, who authored the original amendment that would have killed off the government’s flagship welfare changes, offered her support amid a continued backlash over the bill from dozens of MPs.
In one of the world’s ‘hottest hotspots’ of biodiversity, an all-female team have turned a patch of forest into a haven for orchids, ferns, succulents and carnivorous plants
The previous night’s heavy rainstorm had brought down several large trees in the forest and broken branches were strewn about the ground. Walking through the felled trees, Laly Joseph spotted an orchid clinging to one of the snapped boughs. She gently secured the plant and carefully transplanted it on to a standing tree.
At the Gurukula botanical sanctuary, where Joseph, 56, is head of plant conservation and the most experienced “rainforest gardener”, every plant is considered precious and an all-female team strives to give them the best chance of surviving an increasingly harsh climate.
Laly Joseph, the head of plant conservation at Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary, has spent most of her life learning about and caring for plants.
From LeMond’s astonishing comeback to Cavendish’s four victories, the final dash up the great avenue is now part of race folklore
It is impossible now to conceive of the Tour de France without two things: the race leader’s yellow jersey and the finale on the Champs-Élysées, a spectacle that is half a century old this summer. The finish has moved away from the great avenue once in the last 50 years, during the Olympic buildup in 2024, and the Tour cannot really be imagined without that final dash up the great avenue with its high-end shops and cafes, its gardens and plane trees.
The Tour had always finished in Paris, postwar on the velodromes at the Parc des Princes and the Cipale velodrome in the Bois de Vincennes, and it had frequently used the Champs for a ceremonial start; the idea for an “apotheosis” on the great avenue seems to have been inspired by the 1974 Giro d’Italia, which included a circuit race within Milan. The suggestion came from a television presenter, Yves Mourosi, who then had the honour of announcing the venture on his 1pm news show in November 1974.
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