Camp Mystic leader, who died trying to save small children, waited over an hour after alert before starting evacuation
The adult leader of Camp Mystic, the Texas summer camp where 27 children and counselors died in the Hill Country floods, waited more than an hour after receiving a severe flood warning before initiating an evacuation, it was disclosed on Monday.
Richard “Dick” Eastland, who had run the popular all-girls, Christian-values sleepaway camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River with his family since the 1980s, was among the fatalities after a wall of water rushed through the camp early on 4 July.
US president Donald Trump has claimed that the Club World Cup trophy that has featured prominently in the Oval Office will stay there, and that Fifa made a copy of the trophy that was awarded to Chelsea after their win in the tournament’s final on Sunday.
Trump attended the final along with numerous members of his cabinet and Fifa president Gianni Infantino. The pair of presidents jointly presented the trophy to Chelsea captain Reece James, with Trump staying front-and-center despite the apparent confusion of Chelsea players and the pleading of Infantino.
Military opposed to Gaza ‘humanitarian city’ plan, which a former Israeli PM has likened to a concentration camp
A feud has broken between the Israeli government and the military over the cost and impact of a planned camp for Palestinians in southern Gaza, as politicians criticised the former prime minister Ehud Olmert for warning that the project would create a “concentration camp” if it goes ahead.
The “humanitarian city” project has become a sticking point in ceasefire talks with Hamas. Israel wants to keep troops stationed across significant parts of Gaza, including the ruins of Rafah city in the south, where the defence minister, Israel Katz, says the camp will be built.
US president says he will supply Kyiv with billions of dollars of military equipment paid for by European allies
Donald Trump said he has sealed an agreement with Nato allies that will lead to large-scale arms deliveries to Ukraine, including Patriot missiles, and warned Russia that it will face severe sanctions if Moscow does not make peace within 50 days.
After a meeting with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, Trump said they had agreed “a very big deal”, in which “billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment is going to be purchased from the United States, going to Nato … And that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
We’ve fled the attacks again and again. Now Israel plans to force us into the ruins of Rafah in order to increase pressure on Hamas
After 21 months of war, the Israeli minister of defence, Israel Katz, has proposed a new initiative to force all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp on the ruins of Rafah.
I lived west of Gaza city, just five minutes away from the beach. I used to see the waves from the roof of our house. The area was marvellous, with luxury architecture, hotels and tourist resorts.
Nour Abo Aisha is a freelance writer based in Gaza
The energy secretary framed environmental action as practical and patriotic, not in terms of wordy ideological pieties. But holding the line won’t be easy
Ed Miliband is a target for the political right; not because he’s irrelevant, but because he’s effective. The bacon sandwich gags and “Red Ed” jokes mask a deeper unease: that Mr Miliband, with his dogged insistence on science, public investment and long-term thinking, is right. Now, as energy secretary, he has delivered what he calls an exercise in “radical truth-telling” and a stark warning to MPs that rejecting climate action is a betrayal of future generations. The language, for once, isn’t overblown. It’s belated.
By highlighting the Met Office’s annual State of the UK Climate report, Mr Miliband shows that the hotter, wetter and more arduous future we feared has already arrived. Extremes are becoming the norm: the number of very hot days has quadrupled; in the last 250 years, six of the 10 wettest winter half-years have occurred in the 21st century. Britons experience this in cancelled hospital appointments, flooded homes and hosepipe bans.
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A renewed threat of punitive tariffs from the White House is a reminder that the EU must invest in its own values in a volatile and transforming world
As the world has grown used to Donald Trump delivering aggressive ultimatums that are then revised or watered down, the shock-and-awe effect of a presidential edict on Truth Social has somewhat diminished. On Saturday, Mr Trump unexpectedly announced that the United States would hit the European Union with swingeing tariffs on goods of 30% from 1 August. That certainly prompted urgent weekend discussions in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. But for now, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, is placing all countermeasures on hold, in the hope that what the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, described as “reasonable solutions” can be found.
Given the stakes, betting on the success of a softly, softly approach to trade negotiations remains sensible. Mr Trump’s previous imposition of 25% tariffs on European carmakers (on top of the pre-existing 2.5% rate) has already panicked German manufacturers in particular. But the president’s attempts to further batter Europe into economic submission, risking a trade war with an ally and threatening an annual €1.7tn worth of commercial activity, would be likely to trigger another market backlash if taken to the brink.
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India broke a golden rule in the third Test: don’t try to pick a fight with Ben Stokes
There was a large handwritten sign propped against the inside wall of the North Gate of Lord’s. “In affectionate remembrance of Bazball,” it said, the letters drawn in the bacon‑and-egg colours of an MCC tie, “which died at Lord’s on 10 July, 2025. RIP.” The stewards must have taken it off one of the Indian fans who hadn’t read the small print on his fifth-day ticket. Lord’s being the place it is, instead of stuffing it into a bin, they had put it aside and popped an item ticket on the top corner in case the writer wanted to pick it up on his way back out of the ground.
It was still there six hours later, waiting for someone to reclaim it at the end of one of the great Tests.
The IBF champion on flying under the radar, Oleksandr Usyk’s weaknesses and how past defeats have steeled him
“It’s definitely the biggest fight of my life,” Daniel Dubois says of his world heavyweight title unification bout against Oleksandr Usyk at Wembley Stadium on Saturday night before, following a slightly deflated pause, he highlights an unusually downbeat buildup. “It’s strange but it feels like it’s been going under the cover, like it hasn’t been really hyped‑up as I would have thought a unification fight will be. But maybe that will pick up on the night.”
Sitting in the July sunshine outside his gym in Borehamwood, with the Wembley arch clearly visible through the haze of heat, Dubois looks a little hurt when I ask if he can explain why there has been such limited fanfare around an interesting rematch between two contrasting heavyweights who own all the world titles between them. “I’m not sure,” Dubois says in his role as the IBF champion. He then laughs ruefully.
Aggressive, motivated, extremely talented and now champions of the world, Enzo Maresca’s squad have the confidence and real depth
When Chelsea won the Conference League in May, a victory secured by the standard ice‑cold Cole Palmer performance in a final, the reaction was restrained and there was no internal talk of an impending title challenge. Now the vibe is different. It is hard not to dream when Chelsea perform as they did against Paris Saint‑Germain in the final of the Club World Cup.
Nobody is getting carried away. Chelsea know what the rest of us know, which is that they are not the best team in the world. They are not the finished article. They are young and still have much to learn. Yet there is a gold badge on the shirt for the next four years and if Chelsea woke up feeling $100m on Monday morning it will not only have been because of the prize money made during their month in the US.
Centre-back wary of Thursday’s quarter-final opponents
Williamson feels Swedish side deserve more respect
The England captain, Leah Williamson, has said Sweden deserve more respect and that their strong record at major tournaments should be spoken about more frequently, as the two sides prepare to meet in Thursday’s Euro 2025 quarter-final.
Sweden have reached the knockout stages of every Women’s European Championship since 1995 and have been in the semi-finals at three of the past five Euros. They have also finished third in the past two World Cups and claimed silver medals at both the Rio and Tokyo Olympics.
Donald Trump managed something unusual last week. In his administration’s claim that it did not have a list of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged clients, and that the convicted sex offender was not murdered, it succeeded in upsetting the rightwing influencers and commentators – and reportedly even Trump’s deputy FBI director – people who typically champion his every move.
“This stinks. This just reeks,” was the verdict of Jesse Watters, the primetime Fox News host.
A report suggests New Yorkers pay nearly $26,000 a year on childcare and Mamdani’s promise could transform lives
Maggie Stockdale hadn’t given much thought to childcare before welcoming her first child last year. But once she learned the high price of full-time daycare tuition in Brooklyn, New York, she knew she had to find another solution.
Now, her care duties are split between Stockdale’s parents, who relocated from Wisconsin to help out, and her husband, who cut his hours down to part time and arranged with his employer to let him bring their 10-month-old to work several days a week.
Montse Tomé’s side remain the favourites after a superb group-stage showing but Iceland go home with a whimper
Spain were favourites coming into the Euros and, based on their form in Group B, they still are. They matched England’s Euro 2022 record of 14 goals in the group stage. Alexia Putellas is continuing her charge for the Ballon d’Or with three goals and four assists and has lit up their midfield while the 18-year-old Vicky López has impressed in her first major tournament. While in sensational form going forward, their defence does leave opportunities for their opposition. Montse Tomé’s side will be favourites to win the quarter-final against hosts Switzerland but it will be a mouth-watering occasion in Bern.
Hackers also demanded the US government release more information on the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein
Hackers gained access to the X account of the puppet Elmo over the weekend and used it to post racist and antisemitic threats as well as make profane references to Jeffrey Epstein. Sesame Workshop was still trying to regain full control on Monday over the red character’s account.
“Elmo’s X account was compromised by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts. We are working to restore full control of the account,” a Sesame Workshop spokesperson said on Monday. Sesame Workshop is the non-profit behind Sesame Street and Elmo.
For over a decade, John Knuth has created art using the regurgitation of flies and after he lost his home in the California wildfires, his work has a new perspective
One morning in Denver as artist John Knuth was getting his exhibition ready at the David B Smith Gallery, the police knocked on the door to check he wasn’t housing a dead body. “They said, ‘We’ve got a report of a lot of flies in here. Is there a dead body or anything rotting?’” Knuth recalls to the Guardian over Zoom.
The hundreds of flies emerging from Knuth’s gallery were actually his collaborators. For over a decade, Knuth has been creating paintings using the regurgitation of tens of thousands of flies. “When flies eat they digest externally,” explains Knuth. “They’re in a constant state of regurgitation. They land on a surface, puke up, suck it back in. Puke up, suck it back in.” After feeding the insects a mixture of acrylic colored paint and sugar water, the flies spend several weeks expelling the mixtures on to his canvases. “From that I get these really transcendent color connections.”
EPA’s move comes as it slashes climate research funding and cuts weather forecasting and scientific agencies’ staff
Trump officials’ recent attempt to dispel concerns about “chemtrails” has perplexed and angered some experts who say the administration has itself promoted the conspiracy theory while also spreading climate misinformation.
“This is an intriguing strategy … in an administration that, depending on agency, is actively promulgating conspiracy theories or at least conspiratorial thinking,” said Timothy Tangherlini, a professor at the Berkeley School of Information who studies the circulation of folklore and conspiracy theories.
Has director James Gunn reinvented the superhero film – or just lovingly detonated it? Let’s have a deep dive into the new Man of Steel movie
• This article contains spoilers for Superman
James Gunn’s Superman is a curious film: so earnest, so heartfelt, and so defiantly weird it sometimes feels less like a reboot of the world’s most iconic superhero and more like an elaborate fan project. Most of us will be relieved we’ve said goodbye to the heavy metal space Jesus of the Zack Snyder years, and that Gunn has avoided paying too much retro cosplay tribute to the Christopher Reeve era. This is undeniably a Superman we’ve never seen before on the big screen: a Kal-El who’s deeply human, flawed, and more likable for it.
The new Man of Steel, played with boyish charm and the right amount of golden retriever energy by David Corenswet, spends most of the movie juggling black holes, battling clone siblings, and dealing with the looming realisation that his space dad might have been one bad day away from full-blown genocide. And yet there’s always the sneaking suspicion he would break off from all this in a second if you asked him to fix your router and play Enya until your existential dread subsides.
Defendant accused of using deadly cocktail of drugs and of setting fire to many victims’ homes to cover up evidence
Hearings have begun in the Berlin trial of a German palliative doctor accused of murdering 15 patients in his care using a deadly cocktail of sedatives and setting fire to many of their homes to try to cover up his crimes.
Prosecutors have charged the 40-year-old defendant with 15 counts of “murder with premeditated malice and other base motives” and are seeking a life sentence, which in Germany usually amounts to 15 years in prison.
Healy becomes first Irishman in 38 years in maillot jaune
Giro winner Yates takes his third career Tour stage win
The Bastille Day stage of the 2025 Tour de France ended with an Englishman winning in the Auvergne, an Irishman in yellow, and a French hope falling by the wayside, as Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard called a truce on the eve of the first rest day.
Simon Yates took a third career stage win in the Tour, only a few weeks after his unexpected success in the Giro d’Italia, dropping the last of his breakaway companions on the uphill finish to Puy de Sancy, while Ireland’s Ben Healy claimed the first yellow jersey of his career.
Shoaib Bashir takes final wicket after tense run chase
At the end of an undulating Test match that transformed into an intense battle of the wills, it was England who emerged victorious. India were just 23 runs short of their target when, at 4.54pm on the final day, Mohammed Siraj repelled a bouncing delivery from Shoaib Bashir, only to see it trickle back on to the stumps and knock off a bail.
It was a galling way for the tourists to go 2-1 down, while the jubilant hosts still resembled the survivors in a disaster movie. Both sides deserve credit for five dramatic days; the second of back-to-back Tests that began in a heatwave and hit boiling point once a row about time-wasting blew up day three. Unlike similar scenes at Lord’s four years ago – Virat Kohli’s “60 overs of hell” match – England just about kept their heads this time.
Adults over the age of 50 represent nearly a third of US gamers and are becoming more visible in the mainstream
Michelle Statham’s preferred game is Call of Duty. It’s fast and frenetic, involving military and espionage campaigns inspired by real history. She typically spends six hours a day livestreaming to Twitch, chatting to her more than 110,000 followers from her home in Washington state. She boasts about how she’ll beat opponents, and says “bless your heart” while hurtling over rooftops to avoid clusterstrikes of enemy fire. When she’s hit, she “respawns” – or comes back to life at a checkpoint – and jumps right back into the fray.
The military shooter game has a predominantly young male user base, but Statham’s Twitch handle is TacticalGramma – a nod to the 60-year-old’s two grandkids. Her lifelong gaming hobby has become an income stream (she prefers to keep her earnings private, but says she has raised “thousands” for charity), as well as a way to have fun, stay sharp and connect socially.
HBO releases first glimpse of new Boy Who Lived as cameras roll on small screen adaptation of JK Rowling’s books
HBO has provided a first glimpse at the new world of Harry Potter, as filming begins on its hotly anticipated television adaptation of JK Rowling’s beloved book series.
A photo provided by the broadcaster shows Dominic McLaughlin in character as the young wizard for the first time. The 11-year-old was selected alongside Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley and Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger after an extensive casting search among British children aged 9-11. As with Daniel Radcliffe before him, McLaughlin sports Potter’s trademark round glasses and Gryffindor uniform.
Player’s claim relates to injury in final year at club
Fletcher appointed lead coach of United’s Under-18s
Axel Tuanzebe has lodged a legal complaint against Manchester United alleging “medical negligence”, with the claim by the club’s former defender relating to an injury sustained in or after July 2022.
A submission entitled “Tuanzebe v Manchester United Football Club Limited” was registered last Wednesday at the high court, with the case type described as “Clinical Negligence – Part 7 Claim – Medical Advice”. The claim is understood to relate to an injury in his final year at the club.
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