Deaths reported as Israeli tanks move in on area IDF believes Hamas are holding some hostages

Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that defence minister Israel Katz said in a statement that the Israeli military “has just struck terror targets of the Huthi terror regime at the port of Hodeida and is forcefully enforcing the prevention of any attempt to restore the previously attacked terror infrastructure.”

In a separate statement, the army said that “among the military infrastructure struck were engineering vehicles... fuel containers, naval vessels used for military activities and force against the State of Israel and vessels in the maritime zone adjacent to the port, and additional terror infrastructure used by the Houthi terrorist regime.”

As I have made clear - Yemen’s fate is the same as Tehran’s. The Houthis will pay a heavy price for launching missiles toward the State of Israel.

Louise Lancaster reflects on the unique challenges faced by neurodivergent inmates, raising concerns for those left behind

Louise Lancaster, 59, was one of a group of Just Stop Oil activists given the longest-ever UK sentences for peaceful protest for planning disruption on the M25 in November 2022. This year, she wrote a diary for the Guardian, detailing her first six months behind bars. Here, written before her release on 8 April and after her sentence was reduced on appeal, she reflects on her final months of incarceration.

No-frills carrier’s ‘gate bag bonus’ of €1.50 a passenger capped at €80 a month for staff members but ceiling could rise

• From liquids to border queues: how changes at UK airports will affect your trip

Ryanair is considering increasing a bonus paid to staff for identifying passengers’ oversized luggage, its chief executive has said.

The Irish budget airline pays staff about €1.50 (£1.30) for intercepting customers who are bringing bags on to an aircraft.

There is no way around the fact that in 2024, those Americans didn’t hear anything worth voting for. Will it be different next time around?

Since Bernie Sanders’s first presidential campaign, the electoral theory of the American left has rested upon the idea that a sizable bloc of Americans – alienated from the traditional politics of left and right – have withdrawn from politics entirely. They stand closer to the Democrats on many issues, but, seeing little by way of material benefit from the party’s soaring rhetoric of “defending democracy”, they have opted out of the political process. And, as the theory goes, a bold, populist candidate – someone like Sanders himself – could bring this silent constituency back into the fold.

If that logic once explained how Sanders might have won, it might now explain why Kamala Harris lost. And, as new troves of post-election data surface, the debate over whether Democrats might have avoided last year’s defeat by mobilizing non-voters has become one of the party’s hottest factional disputes.

About 3,000 workers have left the agency through firings and buyouts in a move Democrats and staff call ‘unlawful’

Workers at the US state department say firings, resignation buyouts, a proposed budget cut of 48%, and reorganization under the Trump administration has left staff with low morale and will likely have long-term impacts.

Foreign programs and services aimed towards LGBTQ+ communities, maternal and reproductive health, and minority groups have been removed or cut in place of far-right ideological policies being pursued by a 26-year-old senior adviser and Trump appointee at the agency.

Cheap sunscreen, sponges, old soap … it’s laughably off-brand. And I’m not the only one who has noticed

There are so many things to despise about the new season of And Just Like That, the Sex and the City spin-off, that criticising it is like shooting shoes in a barrel. (Speaking of which, why is Carrie Bradshaw’s cat called Shoe? Surely it should be Manolo Pussnik or something?) But I was still pettily pleased to find a small community of freeze-framers forensically dissecting Bradshaw’s bathroom cabinet, briefly revealed in episode six. Because even I – a person who hasn’t exfoliated since the late queen got excited about cows – thought it was full of totally off-brand … well, brands.

The dreary drugstore sunscreen, sponges and old soap felt jarring. Plus, what’s with the weirdly prominent Tums? Is it product placement or is acid reflux aspirational now? Someone on Substack better versed in SATC lore than me wrote an impressively exhaustive analysis of why some products (a particular nail varnish; Pond’s cold cream) made sense, but even she thought much of it was wrong. Carrie dresses like Marie Antoinette attending a rival’s wedding just to sit in her mansion writing her (execrable) novel; I agree with the Redditor who commented: “She’d be using La Mer. La Prairie Skin Caviar. That Guerlain Impériale nonsense that you’d have to remortgage your house to afford.”

Thorne plays a girl hunting down sexual abusers in what could be an interesting premise were it not seemingly made for viewers who don’t like really women, or men

Former Disney child star Bella Thorne, now more notorious for a kerfuffle around her OnlyFans account, stars in this muddled horror feature as a young woman called Clare who is convinced she is on a mission from God to slay sex abusers and other bad men. (The fact that university student Clare looks so pretty is a distinct advantage in her quest for deserving victims.) Like predatory creep Joe (Bart Johnson), they find her seemingly by accident, pre-equipped with stock photo prints of their mythical children and hip-flasks full of spiked booze, hoping to dupe her into getting in the car so she can be raped or worse. But Clare has mad self-defence skills, homicidal instincts of her own, and a backpack conveniently stocked with rubber gloves and lint rollers just in case she needs to wipe away fingerprints and evidence.

Funnily enough, it seems there have been numerous unsolved disappearances of young women in the very town in which she lives with her retired actor grandma, Gigi (Rebecca De Mornay, underused but feisty). So Clare gets investigating and nearly every man she meets seems suss, apart from the campus’s flamboyantly gay theatre director (Joel Michealy) who is clearly just there for comic relief. And yet Clare doesn’t seem all that good at building relationships with women either, given the toxic, bitchy interactions she has with supposed friends Amity (Erica Dasher) and Juliana (Joy Rovaris), mean girls whom the film seems quite happy to put in danger.

Emily Thornberry says recognition is vital step towards peace and without long-term solution war in Gaza will continue

• UK politics live – latest updates

A senior Labour MP has said it is time for the UK to recognise a Palestinian state as some western countries are due to press ahead with their own recognition plans at an international conference this month.

Emily Thornberry, who heads the influential House of Commons foreign affairs select committee, said that without a ceasefire and a long-term political solution Israel’s war on Gaza – which has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians since 7 October 2023 – will continue.

The rule is: no telly unless I’m working out. So I pedal moderately while the football is on, and sprint during the ad breaks. I’ve never had more energy

Ever since a nasty concussion stopped me playing rugby when I was 18, I struggled to exercise regularly. I tried plenty of workouts, dabbling in everything from CrossFit to Zumba. While some were more enjoyable than others, I hadn’t found a way to keep a consistent, disciplined regime without it feeling like a chore. I’m 28 now and work from home. My commute from bed to desk is 15 steps. Given the health risks of sedentary lifestyles, I had tried just about everything to break my lazy rut, and then something worked: watching television.

Well, OK, not just watching television like a modern Jim Royle, who reached Olympic levels in The Royle Family, but I imposed a rule: if I want to watch TV, I have to do so while sitting on my exercise bike (the one cardio exercise I can tolerate). The result? I’ve been cycling roughly six hours a week for months now. Generally, I watch a lot of sports: if there’s football, rugby, tennis, boxing, NFL or cricket on, I’ll watch it. So invariably through the year I find there’s roughly two hours of sport on three times a week I want to watch. By combining this with exercise, I find I am able to do so without feeling guilty.

The next in our series of writers drawing attention to their most-watched comfort films is a reminder of Wes Anderson’s idiosyncratic 1998 comedy

“Let’s hope it’s got a happy ending,” Herman Blume, played by Bill Murray in one of his best roles, says near the end of Wes Anderson’s 1998 film Rushmore. He makes the remark about an over-the-top, literally pyrotechnic school play that his teenage friend Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) has just debuted to an audience of dazed teachers and parents. But his comment stands in for the whole movie, an audacious and risky comedy that should not work, but does. I am elated each time I watch this poignant, wise and wildly funny film – and, yes, there is a happy ending.

Rushmore is about children trying to act like adults and adults acting like children. Fischer is a precocious scholarship student at Rushmore, a prestigious private boys’ school. He is the sort of bright but naive young person who tries to impress an adult by telling them, with a straight face, that he plans to apply to Oxford and the Sorbonne for university, with Harvard as a “safety.” In fact, Fischer spends more time planning lavish plays and starting school clubs than studying. He is one of the school’s “worst students,” his headmaster (Brian Cox) sighs.

The league’s best players believe they are not being given a fair deal when it comes to compensation. But sports accounting is a tricky affair

Napheesa Collier was in record-breaking form on Saturday night as she set a new high for a WNBA All-Star Game, with 36 points. But much of the attention was focused on what happened before the game when players warmed up with shirts bearing the message “Pay us what you owe us.”

The move came after players and the league failed to reach a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement. Do they have a point though? Evaluating athlete pay is notoriously tricky because sports accounting always includes a certain amount of voodoo.

Activists who object to plans for Colombia’s biggest copper mine as a serious threat to the environment are fighting legal action initiated by AngloGold Ashanti. But some in the community say the venture will bring investment

Argiro Tobón, 60, rolls up his sleeves above hands covered in fresh earth. Before him lie the green pastures of Jericó, Colombia, a landscape cultivated by hands like his for generations. “Look at the beauty of this place,” says Tobón, fondly known as “Mister”.

“This is the paradise they want to destroy,” he says. “If we have to go to prison, so be it.”

Albert Manifold, ex-boss at buildings material company CRH, to take over from embattled Helge Lund

BP has appointed a successor to its embattled chair, Helge Lund, as the company breaks from its net zero strategy and pivots back to fossil fuels.

Albert Manifold, the former boss of the building material company CRH, will join the BP board on 1 September as a non-executive director and as chair-elect, before taking over on 1 October.

Arrests come after video showing man and woman being fatally shot went viral

Pakistan has arrested 11 suspects after a video emerged on social media of a woman and a man being shot dead for marrying against the wishes of their families, in an “honour” killing, authorities said.

The couple, who were not identified, were shot dead last month on the orders of a local tribal council in Pakistan’s south-western Balochistan province, according to provincial authorities, who investigated after the video went viral.

Today’s fluff is feeling fresh

There can be little more affirming for a player than being deemed not good enough by Pep Guardiola. Over the last few years, James Trafford, Morgan Rogers, Roméo Lavia, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Douglas Luiz and Cole Palmer have all been allowed to leave Manchester City before proving their former manager wrong, and James McAtee could become the latest addition to that list. His price has been set at £35m; both West Ham and Eintracht Frankfurt are interested.

Across Manchester, the opposite is so: rather than leave to get good, players arrive to get bad. Bryan Mbeumo is the latest to jeopardise his prospects and reputation and, with his medical complete, his transfer from Brentford will soon be finalised. But to leave requisite appalling mess prior to getting sacked during the November international break, Ruben Amorim needs more, and a centre-forward is next on his list. He still fancies ruining Viktor Gyökeres, for whom Arsenal have been unable to do a deal with Sporting, but Pio Esposito will be remaining at Inter despite interest from United and Atalanta.

Forget the Salt Path – this writer’s introspective journey provides genuine food for thought

When Jenn Ashworth set out on Alfred Wainwright’s 192-mile coast-to-coast walk, from St Bees in the west to Robin Hood’s Bay in the east, she was stepping out of character. Her daily circular walks round Lancaster during lockdown were no real preparation, and a brief orienteering course was no guarantee that she wouldn’t get lost. She wasn’t walking for charity or running away from a marriage or, like the fell runner who’d done the route in 39 hours, trying to break any record. A homebody “inclined to slowness”, she was a 40-year-old novelist, professor and mother of two going off on her own for two-and-a-half weeks for reasons she couldn’t quite articulate.

Not that there weren’t contributory factors. Lockdown had left her with post-Covid cabin fever, itchy to be elsewhere after the long months of caring for her family and students (“a one-woman battle against entropy”). She also knew that at every pub and guest house she’d booked en route supportive letters would be waiting from her terminally ill but brilliantly animated friend Clive. Most importantly, although her walking wouldn’t be solitary, since she couldn’t avoid bumping into other (potentially annoying) hikers, she’d be “the sole owner of my own skin again”.

Bristling with sexual, political and emotional angst, this finely tuned coming-of-age tale thrives on the grey areas of adolescence

Father Figure opens with a memory of murders, bought and paid for; then skips briskly to scholarship girl Gail, who is on the verge of being expelled from her expensive London academy for writing a scandalous essay. The connection between death and day school is new girl Agata, the daughter of notoriously corrupt East End businessman Ezra Levy.

Ezra, a man who takes phone calls from Putin, buys football clubs and has had people killed, wants more for Agata than he had when young. Her anorexia is killing her, and he, “fleshy and stupid”, can’t stop it. Gail sets her sights on Ezra: part compulsion, part seduction, an adolescent power game taken to dangerous conclusions.

Incident in which migrants were shackled with hands tied of one succession of alleged abuses at jails in Florida

Migrants at a Miami immigration jail were shackled with their hands tied behind their backs and made to kneel to eat food from styrofoam plates “like dogs”, according to a report published on Monday into conditions at three overcrowded south Florida facilities.

The incident at the downtown federal detention center is one of a succession of alleged abuses at Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (Ice) operated jails in the state since January, chronicled by advocacy groups Human Rights Watch, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and Sanctuary of the South from interviews with detainees.

• Manager addresses situation regarding former midfielder

• Partey has been charged with rape and sexual assault

Mikel Arteta has said he is “100%” confident Arsenal followed the correct processes in dealing with Thomas Partey, who was charged this month with five counts of rape and one count of sexual assault.

Partey played for Arsenal while under police investigation and left when his contract expired at the end of June. The midfielder was charged on 4 July and is due to appear at Westminster magistrates court on 5 August.

Gang leader Adolfo Macías was recaptured in June, more than a year after escaping a high-security prison

The Ecuadoran government has extradited the notorious drug trafficker Adolfo Macías to the US, more than a year after he escaped from a high-security prison.

The flight transporting Macías, also known as “Fito”, landed in New York state on Sunday night, according to a tracking site.

World champions set up Germany semi-final after Swiss success while England play Italy following shootout drama

Spain’s quest to win their first European title continues at full pace. Their quarter-final victory against Switzerland was more difficult than expected and required significant patience. They were not at their best – the hosts did not allow them to be – but the calibre of the world champions’ squad means the opposition cannot switch off, even for an instant. Finding a way is relatively easy when you have Aitana Bonmatí on the field, and her back-heeled assist for Athenea del Castillo’s opener on Friday night was the moment of inspiration they needed. Winning in front of a partisan host crowd is also an achievement mentally.

A physician who popped the joints on just one hand every day for over 60 years provides the answer

‘This is a common question I get asked over the dinner table,” says Kimme Hyrich, a rheumatologist and professor of epidemiology at the University of Manchester. And it’s no wonder – as many as 54% of us are habitual knuckle crackers, regularly making those distinctive popping noises as we manipulate the joints.

“The knuckle joint is a very tight space and there’s a little bit of fluid in it. When people crack their knuckles, they very temporarily enlarge the space,” says Hyrich. “The pressure drops and gas that’s dissolved in that fluid forms bubbles – and it’s the bursting of those bubbles that causes the sound.”

• Veteran calls for history to repeat after being part of fightback in 2013

• Australia boosted by return of Rob Valetini and Will Skelton from injury

Steely Wallabies veteran James Slipper is urging his battered troops to block out the “noise” as they look to stop the Lions juggernaut in their do-or-die second Test in Melbourne.

The series is on the line at the MCG on Saturday night with Slipper offering a unique perspective in the current Australian line-up as the only player to have taken part in two series.

Is the extreme output of X’s AI chatbot Grok shifting the political dial? Chris Stokel-Walker reports

In 2023 Elon Musk launched Grok, an AI chatbot marketed as providing “unfiltered answers” on X. In part, it was reportedly created to counter other machines that Musk saw as being trained to be “politically correct”.

Fast forward to 2025 and Grok is no stranger to controversy – sharing antisemitic content and white genocide conspiracy theories, and referring to itself as MechaHitler. One X user, Will Stancil, has even been the subject of extreme, violent, and individually tailored assault fantasies created by Grok, as he tells Nosheen Iqbal.