US president says first deliveries of Patriot missile systems via Germany are ‘already being shipped’

Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski has just said that overnight Russian drone attacks on Ukraine “deliberately” targeted a Polish company’s factory in Vinnytsia with strikes “from three sides.”

The company is owned by the Barlinek Group, a major manufacturer of layered wood floors, Sikorski said. Vinnytsia is about 400-500 km away from the Polish border.

Putin’s criminal war is approaching our borders.

Israeli-backed logistics group the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation claims people trampled in Khan Younis while health officials say they were suffocated

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has accused Hamas of fomenting panic and spreading misinformation that led to the violence which resulted in the 20 deaths near an aid distribution site in Khan Younis, Reuters reports.

The GHF said in a statement:

We have credible reason to believe that elements within the crowd - armed and affiliated with Hamas - deliberately fomented the unrest."

When the U.S. use negotiations as a tool to deceive Iran and cover up a sudden military attack by the Zionist regime (Israel), talks cannot be conducted as before. Preconditions must be set and no new negotiations can take place until they are fully met,

The 2011 Open winner practised on Tuesday with the Masters champion and Tom McKibbin, and is keen for all three to make their mark

The 7am tee-time practice trio on Tuesday at Royal Portrush: Darren Clarke, Rory McIlroy, Tom McKibbin. The galleries grew and grew. The venue for the Open this week was the site of a starstruck McIlroy meeting Clarke on his 10th birthday in 1999. Clarke’s foundation played a key role in the early development of McIlroy. McKibbin, as a 13-year-old playing at McIlroy’s home club in Holywood, was invited by him to play in the Irish Open’s pro-am in 2016. The connections are as uplifting as they are strong.

Clarke’s description of seeing McIlroy win the Masters in April, completing his set of majors, is therefore understandable. “I watched every shot,” Clarke says. “I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Rory winning there was almost like watching my two boys, Tyrone and Conor, win. I was that emotional.

Today’s rumours are drying off

Liverpool are interested in signing Newcastle’s Alexander Isak for a whopping £120m, but it’s always good to have a backup because the world of transfers is never a straightforward place. Plan B comes in the form of Ollie Watkins and a call has been made from Anfield to Aston Villa to check on the England forward’s availability and price tag. Plans C, D and E are also known; Napoli’s Victor Osimhen, Brentford’s Yoane Wissa and Real Madrid’s Rodrygo are of some degree of interest to Arne Slot.

Amid all the shenanigans relating to Morgan Gibbs-White and Tottenham, Nottingham Forest are in the market for a replacement. Aston Villa’s Jacob Ramsey is a candidate to replace him and his current employer would consider selling him to help satisfy those pesky profitability and sustainability rules because any fee would be pure moolah in the account as he is an academy graduate.

• Applicants beset by software problems and lost time on 18 June

• Some resits on 30 June but others told to wait 12 months

Technical problems with Fifa’s online football agent exam have prevented candidates from completing the test, with many told they will have to wait 12 months for their next opportunity.

New regulations on agents introduced at the start of this year mean candidates must complete 20 multiple‑choice questions online rather than attend a test in person, usually at their national federation’s headquarters. It is understood the change was made by Fifa to provide consistency over the cost, with candidates now paying $100 (or the equivalent in pounds or Euros) to sit the annual exam, which took place for the first time on 18 June.

Plus: most champions-in-waiting beaten en route to Champions League glory and the hottest English match on record

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“Arsenal have signed a new keeper, Kepa,” noted John Marsden last week. “Are there any other examples of players with a name so similar to their position?”

While we can’t find a player named Left Back, there is a former Anderlecht defender by the name of Mark De Man (which, admittedly, is an on-pitch instruction not a role). The Belgium international earned five caps for his country and retired in 2012 with a spell at third-division KSK Hasselt, having rejected the chance to make the move to Kilmarnock. “I have two children and my wife has a good job. I did not want to move to Scotland on my own,” said De Man.

Years of austerity have destroyed the web of services that tackled this complex problem. Compared to our European neighbours, we are failing

It takes the passing of time to fully grasp the scale of the previous government’s vandalism. Think where we would be now had the Tories not dismantled the social programmes they inherited from New Labour, with so many showing rapid progress. Those watching the statistics had a jolt last week when figures from the Office for National Statistics for 2022 seemed to show the second annual rise in teenage pregnancies in England and Wales, after a decade of falling rates.

This may turn out to be the result of pandemic distortions in the previous year, when numbers dropped due to teens not meeting. The next figures may return to the previous trajectory, but that’s still a sluggish rate of falling teenage conceptions and it throws into stark perspective how far Britain lags behind similar countries. The UK now has the 22nd-lowest teenage pregnancy rate out of the 27 EU countries and us. Many of these countries’ rates are falling faster, while ours lags, largely due to our exceptionally high level of inequality. Had New Labour’s remarkable programmes around social exclusion been doing their work through these wasted Tory years, we may no longer be such a social laggard of the western world.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

It’s bad (real bad) but it’s NOT over

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Annual increase in June follows two months of negative growth and comes as speculation mounts over tax rises

• Analysis: UK inflation rise makes it clear: the cost of living crisis has not gone away

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UK inflation unexpectedly rose in June driven by fuel and food prices, according to official figures, underscoring the challenge facing the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

The Office for National Statistics said the consumer prices index rose by 3.6% last month, up from a reading of 3.4% in May. City economists had forecast an unchanged reading.

This wild ride of a novel is remarkable for the honesty of its treatment of both mental illness and adolescence

The narrator of American nonfiction author Michael Clune’s first novel is the 15-year-old Nicholas, who lives with his father in a housing development so cheap and deracinated it inspires existential terror. It’s a place exposed to “the raw death of the endless future, which at night in the midwest in winter is sometimes bare inches above the roofs”. Just as frightening is Nicholas’s sense that “anything can come in”. One day in January, what comes into Nicholas is the god Pan – a possessing, deranging, life-threatening spirit. Or that, anyhow, is how Nicholas comes to interpret his increasingly disabling anxiety.

Pan is remarkable for the honesty of its treatment of both mental illness and adolescence. It shows more successfully than any other book I’ve read how these can be experienced as black magic – indeed, it allows that they might be black magic. Nicholas successfully prophesies trivial events (the wind rising, someone saying the word “diabetes”) and is haunted by a dead mouse’s squeak. Another boy finds a means of divination in a schlock fantasy novel. Even the pop anthem More Than a Feeling is a path to the uncanny; it’s a song with “a door in the middle of it … like the door on a UFO”. Nicholas becomes convinced that he is perpetually at risk of leaving his body – specifically, that his “looking/thinking could pour or leap out” of his head – and his friends, also being 15 years old, are ready to believe it, too. They are easy prey for Ian, a college-age man who sets himself up as a small-time cult leader among these high-school kids. Ian particularly targets Nicholas, telling him that only they are capable of real thoughts; the others in the group are “Hollows” who have “Solid Mind”, a deterministic mentality with no animating self. “The sound of words from a Hollow mouth,” says Ian, “contains an abyss.” Soon the group is staging rituals incorporating sex, drugs and animal sacrifice.

Lionesses’ impact players are viewed as an important piece of the team’s puzzle and have a key role to play in their Euro 2025 quarter-final

There was confusion among England’s starters on Sunday night when both Beth Mead and Aggie Beever-Jones scored and wheeled away clicking their fingers. It was an in-joke between the substitutes, or “finishers” as they are referred to internally, viewed as an important a piece of the team’s puzzle as much as those who step out of the tunnel before kick-off.

“It’s great,” the Arsenal forward Chloe Kelly says. “We have a little group of us, the finishers, the positive clique [pronounced click by Kelly, a play on words] we call it. We said if one of us comes on to score then we should do that as our celebration.

Helena Bonham Carter, Gabriel Byrne and Pierce Brosnan feature in sugary story of destiny and dreams, which brings together two troubled young people and a prize painting

Niall Williams has adapted his own international bestseller for this slushy romantic drama set in the west of Ireland, about love and destiny and dreams never given up on. For me, it pushed the bounds of absurdity and melodrama one step too far, though it undoubtedly has an audience. Something here reminded me of the romdram hits of author Nicholas Sparks, and particularly Message in a Bottle – although to be fair it should be borne in mind that Williams published his novel a year before Sparks’ book came out.

Two young lives unfold in parallel, fated to be brought together. Fionn O’Shea is Nicholas Coughlan, whose civil-servant dad William (Pierce Brosnan) has an epiphany at work one day when a lozenge of sunlight is blazoned on his drab desk and he abandons his job and heads west from Dublin to pursue his new vocation of painting. It is around these parts that Isabel (played by the excellent Ann Skelly, from Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy’s Rose Plays Julie) has been traumatised by her brother’s illness and is on the point of being sent away to be schooled by nuns and parted from her kindly parents – poet and schoolteacher Muiris (Gabriel Byrne) and Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter).

Finns’ deep affinity with nature is blossoming in its restaurants, where a new generation of chefs are fusing local wild produce with more exotic flavours – all at reasonable prices

Unexpectedly, porridge is a Finnish obsession, available in petrol stations, schools and on national airline flights. But Helsinki’s gastronomic offerings are a lot wilder, featuring reindeer, moose, pike perch, salmon soup, herring, seaweed – and even bear meat. And from summer into autumn, Finns’ deep affinity with nature blossoms, fusing local organic produce with foraged berries and mushrooms. This inspires menus to feature whimsical fusions of textures and flavours, all straight from the land.

Garlanded with superlatives, from “friendliest” and “happiest” to “world’s most sustainable city”, this breezy Nordic capital is fast catching up on its foodie neighbours. Enriched by immigrant chefs, the youthful, turbocharged culinary scene now abounds in excellent mid-range restaurants with affordable tasting menus – although wine prices are steep (from €10/£8.60 for a 120ml glass). Vegan and vegetarian alternatives are omnipresent, as are non-alcoholic drinks, many berry based. Tips are unnecessary, aesthetics pared down, locals unostentatious and dining starts early, at 5pm. And, this being Finland, you can digest your meal in a sauna, whether at an island restaurant (Lonna) or high in the sky on the Ferris wheel (SkySauna).

From kids sat in dusty vintage cars to a moving exploration of the Rwandan genocide, these spectacular images triumphed at the 2025 LensCulture awards

Novel design and cool software proves phones can still be fun, but this one struggles to beat flagship rivals

The Phone 3 is London-based Nothing’s latest attempt to get people to ditch Samsung or Apple phones for something a bit different, a little quirky and more fun.

As the firm’s first high-end Android in several years, it has most of what you’d expect a flagship phone to have. But where it tries to set itself apart is with slick, dot-matrix-inspired software and a design on the back that includes a small, unique LED screen.

De-dollarisation is not a threat to global stability. Countries are simply questioning the rules of a game long rigged in Washington’s favour

For more than eight decades, the US dollar has reigned supreme as the world’s reserve currency – a position cemented at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 and reinforced by America’s postwar industrial power and military dominance.

Today, that supremacy is facing growing resistance from multiple directions – from African revolutionary movements to economic recalibrations in Europe, and from the counterbalance efforts of Brics nations to the geopolitical entanglements of Ukraine and Israel.

• Coach Andy Farrell likely to opt for Marcus Smith

• England’s Tom Curry to feature in back row

Owen Farrell is expected to be omitted from the British & Irish Lions squad to face the Wallabies on Saturday in Brisbane. Farrell impressed in his first appearance of the tour last week but it is believed Andy Farrell is ready to overlook his son, with Marcus Smith the likely beneficiary.

Farrell appeared for 30 minutes off the bench against the AU & NZ Invitational XV last Saturday and had a hand in three of the Lions’ tries. Offering cover at inside-centre and fly-half he was tipped to make the Test squad but he is now likely to have to wait for a seventh Lions cap.

I always thought hitting the bottle made me the life and soul of the party, but sobriety helped me to be honest with myself – and make genuine connections with other people

The conversation began with an apology. I’d rehearsed it many times, trying not to sound too defensive or pitiful. I’d walked through every potential rejection that might come as a result of letting my friend Gillian into a side of my life I’d tried hard to keep hidden. But she had just told me that she wanted to come to visit me in New Haven, so I was cornered. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sober now.” I felt embarrassed. “I have stopped drinking,” I added, to clarify. “If you visit, I can’t drink with you.”

In the pause that followed, I imagined her politely trying to work her way out of coming to see me, now that our favourite thing to do together wasn’t an option.

Grijalva beat Gen Z activist Deja Foxx in the race and will succeed her late father, Raúl Grijalva, in the role

Adelita Grijalva won the Democratic House primary in Arizona to succeed her father, beating a young social media activist in a closely watched election seen as a test of the party’s generational divide.

Raúl Grijalva, a longtime congressman in southern Arizona, died from cancer earlier this year and left a vacancy in the state’s seventh district. The younger Grijalva, a 54-year-old who served for 20 years on a Tucson school board, has been a Pima county supervisor since 2020.

Rate is significantly below the 32% the US president had threatened but timeline for implementation of deal remains unclear

US President Donald Trump says he has struck a trade pact with Indonesia resulting in significant purchase commitments from the south-east Asian country, after negotiations to avoid steeper tariffs.

Indonesian goods entering the United States would face a 19% tariff, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. This is significantly below the 32% level the president earlier threatened.

Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, reduced military in the city, which had erupted in protest over Ice raids

The Trump administration said it would scale down its military operation in Los Angeles with the removal of half of the national guard troops that were deployed to the area last month amid protests over the federal government’s mass immigration sweeps.

Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, ordered the release of 2,000 national guard troops, the Pentagon announced on Tuesday, significantly reducing the military presence in the city.

• ‘We earned the right to be there and will show support’

• Palace in Conference League after ownership breach

Furious Crystal Palace supporters have demanded that Uefa reverses its decision to demote the FA Cup winners from the Europa League to the Conference League next season as they staged a protest march outside Selhurst Park on Tuesday evening.

It was confirmed last week that Uefa’s club financial control body had concluded Palace breached its multiclub ownership criteria, with the south London club expected to appeal to the court of arbitration for sport against a decision that their chair, Steve Parish, described as “probably one of the greatest injustices that has ever happened in European football”.

Report finds vaping rate among children aged 14-17 years has declined, with some describing embarrassment about being a ‘vaper’

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The federal government believes dangerous vaping rates among younger Australians may have turned a corner after years of rapid growth, with new research showing take-up could have peaked among teenagers and high school-age children.

Data released by the health minister, Mark Butler, on Wednesday showed that vaping rates fell from 17.5% at the start of 2023 to 14.6% in April this year among children aged 14-17 years.

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We would like to hear from Afghans who have arrived or are due to arrive in the UK under the Afghan Response Route

Thousands of Afghans have been relocated to the UK under a secret government scheme following a data leak.

Personal information about more than 33,000 Afghans seeking relocation to the UK after the Taliban takeover was released in error by a defence official. Fears that the individuals named would be at risk from reprisals from the Taliban led the last government to set up a secret relocation scheme, the Afghan Response Route (ARR), involving 20,000 people.