International sporting events don’t often see teams refuse to participate for a cause – but when it’s happened, it hasn’t been effective
It was probably fitting that the first call from someone with genuine power should emanate from Germany, long one of soccer’s moral centers. “The time has definitely come,” German soccer federation vice-president Oke Göttlich told the Hamburger Morgenpost, “to seriously consider and discuss” a boycott of the 2026 World Cup.
“What were the justifications for the boycotts of the Olympic Games in the 1980s?” added Göttlich, who is also the president of FC St. Pauli, Hamburg’s earnestly countercultural club. “By my reckoning, the potential threat is greater now than it was then. We need to have this discussion.”
“To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that – and that word is treason,” David Eby told reporters.
Keir Starmer has taken a big step towards rapprochement with China, opening the door to a UK visit from Xi Jinping in a move that drew immediate anger from British critics of Beijing.
During the first visit by a UK prime minister to China in eight years – a period which Starmer has described as an “ice age” – he said talks with the Chinese president had left the bilateral relationship in a stronger position.
Sundance film festival: there are some effective early moments in this ultra low-budget, audio-first horror but deja vu soon replaces intrigue
There’s a swirl of creepy noises in A24’s new hyped-up horror Undertone – screaming, gargling, singing, banging – but nothing is quite loud enough to drown out the swirl of films it’s cribbing from. The debut feature from writer-director Ian Tuason, about horror podcasters who receive a set of mysterious recordings, has elements of Paranormal Activity, Session 9, Hereditary, The Ring, The Blair Witch Project and The Exorcist, enough sighs of familiarity to give horror fans a scary case of deja vu. It’s not that total originality is expected at this particular moment (this weekend’s Send Help has been touted as Misery meets Castaway), but given the genre’s overcrowd, it’s hard to see what pushes Undertone above the noise.
What it does do is make for an impressively resourceful use of a low budget, the whole thing costing about $500,000. It’s all shot in one house (Tuason’s actual home) and for the most part, any sinister goings on are restricted to audio footage, heard through the headphones of our lead Eva (Nina Kiri, who reminds me of a young Alice Eve). She’s living back home with her terminally ill mother, fending calls from a thoughtless boyfriend and patiently awaiting those from her friend, and maybe one that got away, Justin (the voice of White Lotus breakout Adam DiMarco, replacing the original voice after the A24 acquisition). The pair co-host a podcast that analyses creepy tales, Eva as the skeptic and Justin as the believer, the pair’s flirtatious pitter-patter positioning them as the Mulder and Scully of the audio world.
Critics worry that heckling, such as that at a recent Royal Opera performance, is becoming more common
Opera audiences pride themselves on knowing when – and how – to make noise. Cries of “bravo”, “brava” and “bravi” have become a celebrated part of the tradition, with shouted approval seen as evidence of connoisseurship.
Booing, too, has a long history, and as a brave stand-in at the Royal Opera House found out on Tuesday night, its impact may sometimes seem a little blunter.
Donald Trump says ‘time is running out’ for Iran as the threat of war appears to loom closer. A huge US armada is being moved towards the country and is seen as the starkest indication yet that Trump intends to strike. The US president had called on the Iranian regime to negotiate a deal on the future of its nuclear programme, only weeks after he promised Iranian protesters ‘help was on the way’ before backtracking days later. Nosheen Iqbal talks to the Guardian’s deputy international news editor, Devika Bhat, about what Trump could do next
Opponents of bill insist government should not give it special treatment as peers delay its passage
Opponents of the assisted dying bill have accused its supporters of bullying after key backers said they would attempt to bypass the House of Lords if peers continue to block it.
The Labour MP Kim Leadbeater and the Labour peer Charles Falconer said the government had a duty to listen to the anger among supporters about how the bill had been handled in the Lords.
Experts say factors including Trump’s aggressive policies and pressure on the dollar are pushing investors toward ‘safe haven’ of precious metals
Last year’s extraordinary run in precious metals has only intensified in 2026, as Donald Trump has continued to rip up the rules of the global economy.
Gold has been on a tear since last summer, repeatedly breaking records. It has risen by more than a quarter this month and hit a new high of just under $5,595 (£4,060) an ounce on Thursday.
Stephen Cottrell was criticised for renewing contract of David Tudor, despite being aware of his past abuse
The Church of England’s second most senior cleric has been cleared of misconduct over his handling of a priest who committed sexual abuse.
Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York, was criticised after he allowed the disgraced priest David Tudor to remain in ministry during his oversight from 2010, despite Tudor’s history of sexual abuse.
Minnesota housing project to draw energy from water stored deep underground, 45 years on from city’s initial research
Nearly half a century ago, the US Department of Energy launched a clean energy experiment beneath the University of Minnesota with a simple goal: storing hot water for months at a time in an aquifer more than 100 metres below ground.
The idea of the seasonal thermal energy storage was to tuck away excess heat produced in summer, then use it in the winter to warm buildings.
David Beckham – once the most famous footballer in the world, now its most famous parent – was in town to wingman Victoria Beckham as she became a knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. But he was also there for the optics. The remaining kids flew in. So did their partners. Some wore Victoria Beckham, others wore Loewe, everyone looked demure and sober and matchy-matchy, what a celebrity astrologist might call “a united front”.
Prosecutors questioning Crans-Montana head of public safety and a former fire safety officer, documents show
Prosecutors investigating the deadly new year bar fire that killed 40 people in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana have opened a criminal investigation into a current and a former local council official, according to documents and local media reports.
The municipality’s head of public safety was this week summoned to a hearing next Friday, their lawyer, Nicolas Rivard, confirmed on Thursday, adding that his client would be reserving any statement for the public prosecutors.
After the American’s venting went viral, players’ privacy has become a serious issue and deserves to be respected regardless of their income
The court access corridor at Melbourne Park is buried inconspicuously underneath the tournament grounds. A long, spacious walkway, it connects the east and west points of the vast Australian Open venue, allowing competitors to move unaccosted between the courts, player areas and media facilities. Right in the middle of the corridor, a large pair of automatic doors open up to the various private player areas.
Those same doors also lead straight to the entrance of Rod Laver Arena. On Tuesday, in the immediate aftermath of her excruciating 6-1, 6-2 loss to Elina Svitolina, Coco Gauff removed a racket from her bag, exited the double doors into the vacant corridor and up a ramp that she believed was hidden by a wall. She then proceeded to obliterate her racket on the concrete floor. Two days later, the force of that racket smash continues to reverberate around the tour.
“I do not want to hear that “everything that’s been done here has been perfect”, Homan said, without referring specifically to the fatal shooting of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Homan noted that while no “agency is perfect” he did not come to Minneapolis to create “headlines”. The federal immigration enforcement surge is “going to improve because of changes we’re making”, he said.
The winger seems to have lost a yard of pace but he is only 31 and leaving Stamford Bridge to make a fresh start may be the best thing for him
While Raheem Sterling’s bank balance was boosted by his unhappy spell at Chelsea, the professional cost has been huge. The winger’s career has nosedived since his departure from Manchester City three and a half years ago. Sterling was hailed as a marquee signing when he joined Chelsea in the summer of 2022 but there was no place for him inside the tent by the time an agreement was finally reached to end his £325,000-a-week contract by mutual consent on Wednesday.
The decline has been sad to watch. There was excitement when Sterling became the first player to join Chelsea after the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital takeover. He had won four Premier League titles with City and had undoubted pedigree. Thomas Tuchel wanted his threat in the final third and much was made of Sterling, who grew up near Wembley, returning to London when Chelsea signed him for £47.5m.
Talks ongoing to include former Manchester United star
Ryan Giggs was invited to become an inaugural member of the Premier League Hall of Fame in 2020, only for the offer to be withdrawn.
Manchester United’s record appearance-maker was chosen alongside Alan Shearer to become the first inductees to the Hall of Fame in 2020, only for the event to be postponed because of the Covid pandemic. At a rescheduled event in 2021, Giggs was replaced by Thierry Henry.
Known as “Ms Shirley”, she used TikTok to bring food, dignity and hope to Skid Row and beyond
Shirley Raines, a social media creator and non-profit founder who dedicated her life to caring for people experiencing homelessness, has died, her organization Beauty 2 The Streetz said Wednesday. She was 58.
Raines was known as “Ms Shirley”, to her more than 5 million TikTok followers and to the people who regularly lined up for the food, beauty treatments and hygiene supplies she brought to Los Angeles’ Skid Row and other homeless communities in California and Nevada.
Reform UK leader speaks at GB News event also attended by industry minister on second UAE visit in two months
Nigel Farage has paid a visit to Dubai to build diplomatic relations with United Arab Emirates ministers and drum up donations for Reform UK from wealthy expats.
The two-night trip was his second visit to the Gulf state in two months, after a £10,000 trip hosted by Abu Dhabi to attend the Formula One grand prix.
The future Hall of Famer was given a warm welcome against the team where he began his career. But Wednesday’s game felt particularly poignant
A 60-second tribute video honoring LeBron James has become routine over the past eight years whenever he returns to Cleveland, the city where his NBA journey began.
But Wednesday night at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse was different – and it felt that way long before James’s Los Angeles Lakers fell, 129-99 to the Cavaliers in a nationally televised game.
Exhibition at York Minster celebrates nearly forgotten 12th-century archbishop said to be behind Ouse Bridge miracle
The inscription on the large 13th-century stone slab on display at York Minster does not bode well: “Qui cecidit svper capvt Rogeri de Ripvn.” Or, as it translates: “Which fell on the head of Roger of Ripon.”
“We don’t quite know who Roger of Ripon was,” said Jennie England, research coordinator at the cathedral. “But he survived, and a miraculous incident was reported in the 1280s when a stone fell on someone’s head.”
In this adapted excerpt from The Crown’s Silence, which examines the royal family’s links with slavery from Elizabeth I to the present, Ottobah Cugoano directly appeals to the monarchy – but is met with silence
One autumn day in 1786, an unexpected parcel arrived at Carlton House, the London residence of George, Prince of Wales. The sender was Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, a free Black man living in London, one of roughly 4,000 people of African descent in the city at the time. Inside the package were pamphlets describing the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade and the brutal treatment of enslaved people in Britain’s Caribbean colonies. The accompanying letter, signed “John Stuart,” Cugoano’s alias, urged the heir to the British throne to read the “little tracts” enclosed and to “consider the case of the poor Africans who are most barbarously captured and unlawfully carried away from their own country”.
Africans, Cugoano warned, were treated “in a more unjust and inhuman manner than ever known among any of the barbarous nations in the world”.
Football fans are used to seeing a goalkeeper charge upfield for a set piece in the last few minutes of a game. Jan Tomaszewski, the Polish “clown” who denied England a place at the 1974 World Cup, may have been the first to do so, and it has become normalised in the 21st century. On Wednesday in Lisbon, there was a new twist on an old tactic. In the 98th minute, Benfica keeper Anatoliy Trubin legged it upfield – at a time when his team were leading Real Madrid.
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