Passing the package, Musk said, would be ‘political suicide’ for the Republican party
The billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk on Saturday criticized the latest version of Donald Trump’s sprawling tax and spending bill, calling it “utterly insane and destructive.
“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!” Musk wrote on Saturday as the Senate was scheduled to call a vote to open debate on the nearly 1,000-page bill.
Rafael Grossi says some of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile could have been moved before US attacks
The UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi says Iran likely will be able to begin to produce enriched uranium “in a matter of months”, despite damage to several nuclear facilities from US and Israeli attacks, CBS News said on Saturday.
Israel launched a bombing campaign on Iranian nuclear and military sites on 13 June, saying it was aimed at keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon – an ambition the Islamic republic has consistently denied.
Chelsea overcome long weather delay to take 1-4 victory over Benfica
Caicedo will miss quarter-final after receiving yellow card
The never-ending season had the never-ending game. This was Chelsea’s 61st game of a gruelling campaign and they emerged victorious only after the competing forces of the erratic American weather and the pedantic interference of VAR dragged it into extra-time at the Bank of America Stadium.
There cannot have been a weirder denouement to a football match. There was a delay lasting close to two hours because of a thunderstorm, a contentious equalising penalty from Benfica after play resumed, a red card and, perhaps least expected of all, a winning goal from Christopher Nkunku to send Chelsea through to the last eight of the Club World Cup.
Can he really be that old? Was I ever that young? A trip to clear out his student flat has brought back so many memories
There’s an accurate, if snide, thing I’ve seen online that reads “No parent on Facebook can believe their child has turned any age”, and yes, OK, not the “on Facebook” bit, but there is a rote astonishment at time passing that I sometimes slip into, contemplating my adult sons. But, allow me, just this once, a Facebook parent moment. My elder son turned 23 last month and we’ve just been to London to collect his stuff at the end of his degree. On the way, I realised I was 23 when I moved there myself.
You can’t often pre-emptively pinpoint parenting “lasts”, but when you can, they’re strange and melancholy – even when they’re not, objectively, things a person would choose to do again. This trip involved (I hope) my last time standing, hips screaming from the drive, texting “We’re outside” as we waited for our son to wake up (my husband ended up throwing a ball at his bedroom window). It was definitely my last time removing my shoes amid the overflowing bins of that sticky-floored student house, and hovering over the Trainspotting-esque toilet then deciding against drying my hands on any of the towels. It ended with the last trip along the M1 squished between a salvaged chair, a duvet and an Ikea bag of pans threatening to decapitate me if we made an emergency stop. We were bringing his stuff “home” knowing that it won’t be home for him in the same way again: he’s moving to New York this summer. Maybe not for ever, but for years, not months.
Other stage Playing to a dizzyingly huge crowd, for many this is Saturday’s true headlining set: a bawdy and uncompromising icon playing alone with no frills
For my money, one of the best pop tours of the 21st century was Kanye West’s Yeezus tour. Like the album it was supporting, the Yeezus tour was abrasive and minimal and totally spectacular: West stood in front of gigantic bright-red screens and blasted arenas with some of the harshest, most acidic sounds ever considered mainstream. That tour was unrelenting and uncompromising and, as a result, totally compelling.
Charli xcx’s Brat tour may be the only clear successor. It is a show whose main components are a curtain, a few stadium strobe light rigs, and one star whose vision is so specific and so well realised that the “necessities” of an A-list pop show – dancers, set pieces, etc – suddenly seem like crutches for anyone less in tune with themselves. This makes sense, given that Charli is also our clearest successor to West himself: despite being a prodigiously talented mainstream songwriter, she has dedicated her career to exploring the most caustic, hallucinatory sounds of the underground, and working out how best to synthesise them with the pleasures of pure pop music.
The nursing home becomes a vault, sealing away what disrupts the orderly march of life, writes aged care resident Andrew McKean. Yet there’s life here too
I sit in my room in this nursing home near Sydney, a box of four walls that holds all I now call my own. Two suitcases could carry it: a few clothes, some worn books, a scattering of trinkets. The thought strikes me as both stark and oddly freeing.
Not long ago my world was vast, a house with rooms I rarely entered, a garden that sprawled beyond need, two cars idling in the driveway, one barely driven.
Saturday evening’s bash set to take place in Arsenale, a former medieval shipyard in eastern district of city
Newlyweds Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and journalist Lauren Sánchez left their luxury hotel on Venice’s Grand canal on Saturday for a final night of partying, crowning a three-day star-studded wedding extravaganza.
Bezos, 61, and Sanchez, 55, exchanged rings on Friday evening on the small island of San Giorgio, across the water from St Mark’s Square, accompanied by singing from Matteo Bocelli, son of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.
Whatever Lee Carsley goes on to achieve in his managerial career, this will be very hard to beat. England Under-21s had been pegged back by Germany after racing into a 2-0 lead with goals for Harvey Elliott and Omari Hutchinson and those of a negative disposition could be forgiven for thinking back to the 1970 World Cup quarter-finals, when Sir Alf Ramsey’s reigning champions were eliminated after extra time by West Germany in the same scenario.
But with Thomas Tuchel watching on from the stands after dashing across the Atlantic to be here, Carsley – who was not even born back then – clearly had no such thoughts. Instead, he boldly gambled by taking off Elliott and the captain, James McAtee, and was rewarded by the substitute Jonathan Rowe scoring with almost his first touch. It means the Young Lions have followed in the footsteps of Dave Sexton’s sides more than 40 years ago by winning successive European titles and their fourth in total. On this evidence, the future looks very bright indeed.
It was the day before my 25th birthday in 2005. I was living alone in a flat in Sydney and getting ready for a friend of a friend’s 30th that night. I wanted to look vengefully hot for the occasion – someone who had dumped me was going to be there. But later that night I forgot all about my ex.
As I was sitting in the back garden at the party, making balloon animals, I looked up and saw a man wearing a bright blue floral 80s outfit – a dress and matching jacket – with fishnet stockings and a floppy hat. It was a circus freaks-themed party and he was one of only a handful of other guests who had dressed up, the only Bearded Lady among us. His humour and confidence glowed as brightly as his pearl choker and matching clip-on earrings. I instantly sensed a strong connection.
Got something to say sorry for? Here are words that have no place in your apologies, according to those who have spent years analysing them: “It was not my intent”. “What I meant was”. “Sorry you misunderstood”. And any use of the word “obviously”.
Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy call it “bad apology bingo”. They have heard a lot of them as co-authors of Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies and the blog Sorrywatch, where they critique public apologies. “We’ve looked at so many studies, from so many different fields, on what makes an effective apology,” Ingall says.
West Holts stage From Rod Stewart to Keir Starmer, no one is safe from the Irish group’s ire, as the weekend’s most talked-about set became a mosh-heavy, provocation-filled melee
It is perhaps worth recalling Kneecap’s appearance at last year’s Glastonbury, a lunchtime set in the Woodsies tent that saw the band widely acclaimed as bringers of boozy, edgy hilarity, complete with songs called Get Your Brits Out and Rhino Ket. Twelve months and some provocative onstage comments about Palestine and Conservative MPs later, they’re both folk devil and cause celebre, whose appearance at the festival is the most hotly debated of 2025 – both the prime minister and the leader of the opposition have had strong opinions about it.
It’s a perfect example of how quickly stories can become overheated in the 21st century: vastly more people now have a opinion about Kneecap than have ever heard their music, which is, traditionally, a tricky and destructive position for a band to find themselves in. Invoking a name one probably shouldn’t invoke under the circumstances, you might want to ask the surviving members of the Sex Pistols how that worked out for them.
Minute-by-minute updates on the action in North Carolina
Any comments or thoughts? Feel free to email Scott
2 min: … so Benfica slow it down with a bit of passing around at the back.
43 seconds: Chelsea are immediately on the front foot, Neto chasing after a long pass down the right. He makes it all the way into the box, and whips a shot towards the bottom right. Trubin parries and claims, albeit in a slightly clumsy style. There’s an early statement, then.
The teams are out. The national anthems have been sung. The U21 European Championship final is just a few moments away!
With the final just a matter of moments away, Ben McAleer has looked at the top 10 standout players from this summer’s U21 European Championship in Slovakia - with four finalists included.
Richard Carapaz, the reigning Tour de France king of the mountains, will miss this year’s race after developing a gastrointestinal infection training at home in Ecuador.
“Last week, he began experiencing abdominal pain and a high fever,” his EF team said on their website. “[Doctors] have advised against long-haul travel and competition at this time. As a result, Richard will not take part in this year’s Tour de France.”
The trend for unorthodox sporting nicknames has made way for a return to more traditional monikers
The naming trends for Australian professional sports teams have come full circle, as fans and officials overlook vibe-driven monikers like Glory and the plurally challenged Power or Storm to return to animals that bite, some 30 years after one of the great sports marketing revolutions took hold.
The three latest expansion announcements in the NRL and AFL have revived classic animal mascots, through the Perth Bears, Tasmania Devils and Dolphins from Redcliffe.
Meta CEO reportedly to offer pay packages worth up to $100m, a gambit OpenAI’s Sam Altman calls ‘crazy’
Mark Zuckerberg reportedly spent months putting together a list of the top AI engineers and researchers across the globe, preparing to offer potential recruits lucrative compensation packages in Meta’s attempt to poach AI talent from key competitors.
Silicon Valley has been talking for weeks about the Meta CEO’s quest to attract top AI talent, including by offering pay packages worth up to $100m.
24-time winner reached semis in Melbourne and Paris
Sinner plays down split from trainer and physio
Novak Djokovic believes that this year’s Wimbledon likely represents his best chance of winning a record-extending 25th grand slam title as he tries to disrupt the dominance established by Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz at the biggest tournaments in the world.
“I would probably agree that Wimbledon could be the best chance because of the results I had, because of how I feel, how I play at Wimbledon, just getting that extra push mentally and motivation to perform the best tennis at the highest level,” said Djokovic.
Scotland’s Ben White could come in from New Zealand
Farrell: ‘We fixed things up and played some good rugby’
The British & Irish Lions are weighing up their scrum-half options after an injury to Tomos Williams that threatens to sideline the Welshman at the busiest stage of the squad’s Australian tour.
The head coach, Andy Farrell, said a decision on calling up a replacement would be made on Sunday, with Scotland’s Ben White among the leading contenders to replace Williams at No 9.
Crackdown on Pride is part of effort to curb democratic freedoms ahead of a hotly-contested election next year
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Budapest in defiance of the Hungarian government’s ban on Pride, heeding a call by the city’s mayor to “come calmly and boldly to stand together for freedom, dignity and equal rights”.
Jubilant crowds packed into the city’s streets on Saturday, waving Pride flags and signs that mocked the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, as their peaceful procession inched forward at a snail’s pace.
World No 1 smooths things over after Paris final outburst
Sabalenka: ‘I just lost it. Of course she’s got my respect’
Winning Wimbledon is hard enough to do when everything’s going swimmingly off the court as well as on it. When something is rumbling beneath the surface, focusing on the job in hand can be almost impossible.
So it was perhaps no surprise that Aryna Sabalenka chose to clear the air with Coco Gauff after the world No 1’s harsh words in the wake of her painful loss to the American in the final of the French Open this month.
England’s one-sided series against West Indies last month was merely a dress rehearsal: India was always going to be the main show. And so the curtain finally went up on the Charlotte Edwards-Nat Sciver-Brunt era for a Trent Bridge Saturday matinee.
The audience, though, went home disappointed after witnessing an England performance akin to The Play That Goes Wrong, bowled out for 113 inside 15 overs, to hand India a 97-run win, England’s heaviest T20 defeat in terms of runs.
Vessel that sank in storm off Sicily last year killing seven people is being examined by investigators
The first images of the inside of the superyacht Bayesian, which sank in a storm off Sicily last year killing seven people including the tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his teenage daughter, have emerged in Italian media.
The hulk of the 56-metre (184ft) vessel was raised from the seabed near Porticello last week and taken to the port of Termini Imerese, where it is being examined by investigators working to determine how and why it sank.
5 min Richard Rios is still down and looks in a lot of pain. All his team-mates are around him; I don’t think he’s broken anything but he’s clearly struggling.
3 min The first yellow card goes to Botafogo centre-back Barboza for a poor scissor tackle on Rios. He’ll miss the quarter-final should Botafogo get through. Barboza may have slipped slightly but he’d already committed to what was a reckless challenge.
Joint defeats Eala 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 for second WTA title
Pegula overcomes Swiatek in Bad Homburg Open final
Australia’s Maya Joint saved four match points before beating Alexandra Eala 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (10) to win the Eastbourne title in a gripping final on Saturday.
Four times Eala, the first player from the Philippines to reach a WTA Tour final, was a point away from victory in the final-set tie-break but Joint dug deep to prevail. The 19-year-old showed tremendous resilience to stay alive and when she earned her second match point at 11-10 and made no mistake, drilling a backhand crosscourt winner.
McLaren driver has perfect response to Canada crash
Verstappen calls Red Bull car ‘completely undriveable’
Lando Norris enjoyed the stirring satisfaction of proving he still has skin in the game in the most emphatic fashion, taking pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix by more than half a second here on Saturday. His show of reinvigorated strength could not have sat in starker contrast than with the frustration and disappointment of Max Verstappen, whose seventh place in what he called an “undriveable” car will only have fuelled speculation about the defending world champion leaving Red Bull.
That was addressed by the Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner, after qualifying. “It’s a lot of noise, I think Max gets quite annoyed by it,” he said. “We’re very clear with the contract that we have with Max until 2028. Anything is entirely speculative that is being said. We tend not to pay too much attention to it.”
Latest deaths come amid worsening humanitarian situation despite renewed hope for ceasefire
At least 62 people have been killed in Gaza by overnight Israeli strikes, according to health officials, as the humanitarian situation worsens in the besieged strip despite renewed hope for a ceasefire.
Airstrikes began overnight on Friday and continued into Saturday morning, killing a dozen people near a displacement shelter near Palestine Stadium in Gaza City. A strike at midday on Saturday killed at least 11 people.
Venue drops gig under pressure from campaigners and local MP, who said show was against ‘city’s values’
Heavy metal star Marilyn Manson, has had the first UK concert of his One Assassination Under God Tour cancelled after pressure from campaign groups and an MP.
The first leg of the tour was due to kick off at the Brighton Centre on Wednesday, 29 October. Ticketmaster have since informed customers that the event will no longer go ahead as planned and they will be refunded.
Family dies in Swat River, with witnesses saying they waited to be rescued for more than an hour
At least 32 people have been killed in Pakistan in recent flash flooding caused by heavy rains, including a family of tourists who died after being swept away by flood waters while apparently awaiting rescue.
Videos of the family stranded on a small piece of land as the raging Swat River in northern Pakistan swept them away were shared widely on social media, prompting anger towards the provincial government as witnesses said the family waited helplessly for more than an hour.
After a short moment of silence remembering the victims of the Air India 171 crash, we’re ready to go.
There’s a real excitement around this series for us. A big opportunity to play at some bigger grounds and test ourselves against one of the best teams in the world.
This is going to be a tougher test for us [than West Indies]. This India batting line-up provides us with an opportunity to expose some of our young bowlers and a new bowling group in many ways. It gives us an opportunity to look at options.
Organisers of Budapest Pride said the government was attempting to restrict peaceful protests by targeting them
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez are preparing for the last party of their three-day wedding festivities in Venice as demonstrators mobilise for a final protest against the couple’s opulent nuptials in the Italian lagoon city.
Lando Norris laid down a marker ahead of qualifying by finishing fastest in final practice for the Austrian Grand Prix. Norris, who set the quickest time at the Red Bull Ring on Friday, was again the fastest man in the concluding running before qualifying.
Norris’ best effort was enough to see off McLaren team-mate and championship rival Oscar Piastri, who holds a 22-point lead in the standings, by 0.118 seconds.
Not the most joyful conversations but conversations that needed to be had clearly. Some very constructive things and in an unfortunate way but a good way I think many things have come out stronger than I would say they were prior to the weekend. Which you might not expect but is a good outcome. Through an unfortunate circumstance a lot has been learned and a lot of things have turned into being stronger than they were before.
There’s a stacked bill on offer at Worthy Farm. We’ll be bringing reviews, news, pictures and more throughout the day, with Raye on the Pyramid and Skepta replacing Deftones
When Ichiko Aoba was a child, experiencing loneliness and isolation, she lost herself in the fantasy worlds created by animation studios such as Studio Ghibli and Disney. The Japanese folk singer-songwriter further nurtured that interest in intricate world building as a form of escapism through creating her music – and despite its niche and experimental composition, she has found global popular appeal built up from a significant cult following.
She sings entirely in Japanese so live I cannot dissect her lyrics, but you can parse her themes from the visuals and from her tone: the stage is draped with willows and Aoba’s airy vocals are atmospheric and expansive, bringing to mind the serene and tranquil ancient forests of Japan like Aokigahara or Yakushima. You half expect a deer to gallop on stage and be fed by her hand. Aoba certainly looks the part of a nature deity: she is donning a laurel crown and she wears a shimmering, long ruffled dress with iridescent and metallic colours. “That must be so warm,” says a woman sat next to me, and indeed Aoba acknowledges the “sunny day” and sips from her bottle.
Czech intelligence revealed Chinese diplomats allegedly planned staged incident during Hsiao Bi-khim’s 2024 visit
Taiwan’s vice-president has said she will not be intimidated after reports by Czech intelligence that Chinese officials planned to stage a car collision when she was in Prague last year.
Hsiao Bi-khim visited the Czech Republic in March 2024, in the first overseas visit by her and Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, after winning the election in January. It was reported at the time that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following her car – under police escort – from the airport.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new building has been a decade in the making and has long vexed critics, but its CEO hopes to turn things around
As Los Angeles county’s new $720m art museum building nears completion, it’s still haunted by a single, vexing question: how do you hang art in a gallery where every single wall is made of massive slabs of concrete?
Designed by Peter Zumthor, a prizewinning Swiss architect, the new building at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) has sparked controversy in the art world since its initial designs were made public in 2013.
True or not, people find it all too easy to believe that a humorous picture of the vice-president could get you barred from the US
I have a very important public service announcement to make. Do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, make fun of Vice-President JD Vance by sharing one of the millions of unflattering memes dedicated to him. Don’t you dare chuckle at the images of him looking like the “lollipop kid” in Shrek (the resemblance is uncanny) or a chicken nugget. And, whatever you do, do not share the meme that you can find here, where he looks like a big bald baby. You risk hurting the poor man’s feelings and, also, you might get kicked out of the country.
The 72-year-old pensioner from Northern Ireland is referring to Charles Smethurst, the German-British businessman who set up Dolphin Capital in 2008, later renamed Dolphin Trust, then German Property Group (GPG), with 200 affiliated companies. In July 2020, the business filed for insolvency, owing more than €1bn to up to 25,000 investors around the world.
For someone who gets lost on the way back from a restaurant bathroom, the 364-hectare (900-acre) sprawl of Glastonbury is a navigational nightmare. I’ve been to the festival three times, and between the music and the drinking I’ve always been glued to my phone, risking a rolled ankle as I hurry along, staring at the site map on the app and racing to recorrect my route to the shows. Losing power or losing my phone hasn’t ever seemed an option here. Without it, I would cease to function.
But perhaps, at the ripe old age of 31, it is time to face my fears. What would happen if I ditched my phone for the day? Would I perish from boredom or find myself liberated, finally embracing the full freedom of the Glastonbury experience?
Paetongtarn Shinawatra has angered Thai nationalists, who accuse the Thai leader of kowtowing to Cambodia
Thousands of protesters have gathered in Bangkok to demand the resignation of Thailand’s prime minister over a leaked phone call with a former Cambodian leader.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra has faced growing pressure over her handling of a border dispute with neighbouring Cambodia that flared in May when a Cambodian soldier was killed during a brief exchange of fire.
Defenseman’s endured several deaths in recent years
Islanders picked three times in opening round
The New York Islanders selected defenseman Matthew Schaefer with the No 1 pick in the NHL draft on Friday night.
High-scoring forward Michael Misa went second overall to the San Jose Sharks, and the Chicago Blackhawks took Swedish forward Anton Frondell third at the ceremony in Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater.