World Cup 2026: Haaland v Mbappé; Schweinsteiger’s ‘African football’ comments criticised; Ecuador’s national holiday – live

⚽ Latest news from day 15 | Haaland v Mbappé in data
⚽ Third-place table | Player guide | Bracketology | Mail us

Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland will go head-to-head later on as France take on Norway and they have both scored the same amount of goals so far this tournament with four. They could go top of the Golden Boot standings this evening but who is currently there? Have a look:

Ecuador fans’ nerves will be eased for now but that is not the case for all the nations yet as all of the knockout spots have not been allocated. Here is how the third-place spots are shaking out:

Venezuela earthquakes: international rescue teams arrive, as 235 confirmed dead so far – latest updates

“We hope to rescue as many living people as possible’, says the acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, but authorities fear the death toll will be in the thousands

Spain’s foreign ministry said two Spanish nationals were killed in the earthquake, while an official confirmed 90 others were missing.

“We deeply regret the death of two Spaniards, confirmed by their relatives, to whom we extend our condolences,” the Spanish foreign ministry said in a statement.

England v New Zealand: third men’s Test, day two – live

Cricket updates from second day at Trent Bridge from 11am BST
Day one report | Read the Spin | Mail Taha

87th over: New Zealand 370-4 (Mitchell 8, O’Rourke 0) Archer’s looking sharp, starting the over with an 87mph inswinger. Though he follows that up with a loose, wide one. The England quick sends down a couple of bumpers and has his first maiden of the innings.

86th over: New Zealand 370-4 (Mitchell 8, O’Rourke 0) It’s Josh Tongue to have a go from the other end … and he immediately looks the part. Mitchell decides late to leave the ball – an inside-edge travels for four. There’s a leg slip in position, with Tongue – like Archer – tailing the ball into the right-hander.

Micron falls 5% in premarket, paring earlier gains amid tech rout

Micron Technology's shares tumbled on Friday amid a global sell-off in technology stocks.

Serena Williams faces Maya Joint in Wimbledon opener as Draper and Raducanu dealt tough draw

• Draper to play sixth seed Taylor Fritz in first match

• Ostapenko and Sabalenka drawn in Raducanu’s quarter

Serena Williams will face Australia’s Maja Joint at Wimbledon in her long-awaited return to singles competition after four years of retirement, a match between two players born nearly 25 years apart.

Joint, a talented 20-year-old who won Eastbourne last year, has struggled badly with her form this year, compiling a 3-15 record in 2026. The winner of their first round match could face the in-form Filipino 25th seed Alexandra Eala.

Red Lobster's Ultimate Endless Shrimp promotion described as a 'car crash' for the company, lawsuit says

"Thai Union doubled down on a campaign to squeeze out every drop of value that it could," creditors said

Why did Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene leave the Republican party? | Geoffrey Kabaservice

Disillusioned America firsters, like Carson and Greene, are angry at Trump’s foreign interventions, may sit out the midterm elections

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and former Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene – once among Donald Trump’s most prominent champions – announced recently that they have left the Republican party.

Both rightwing superstars had feuded with the president throughout his second term, but their split was provoked by Trump’s war with Iran and what they viewed as his elevation of foreign affairs over domestic concerns like inflation and high gas prices. Although both have said that they will not support Democrats, their defection points to serious divisions within the Republican party that could weaken its prospects in the midterm elections and beyond.

Geoffrey Kabaservice is the director of political studies at the Niskanen Center in Washington, as well as the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party

Midsummer isn’t the best time for planting, but it’s great for planning

Figuring out how to best use a shady nook or sunny patio is easiest when the light is strongest

The summer solstice is behind us: where did the year go? But the next few weeks are still a good time to work out where your sunny spots actually are, and where they’re not. And that’s helpful for plotting out everything you might want to do and grow in your garden.

Last June, I was desperate to peer at our future garden so I could figure out just this. We hadn’t exchanged contracts on the place yet and my husband pointed out that the young people who were then renting it would probably refuse me access on the grounds of being weird. Perhaps they would! But I still wanted to see where the sun fell.

Outrage as woman jailed for three years after criticising Somali government online

Sentencing of 27-year-old Sadia Moalim Ali condemned by former president and prime ministers as well as rights groups

A rickshaw driver in Somalia has been sentenced to three years in prison for comments she made on social media, in a case that has caught the public’s attention and provoked outrage in the country.

Sadia Moalim Ali, a 27-year-old nursing graduate, was originally charged with insulting government institutions and incitement to commit a crime, but convicted only of the former. Her sentence, immediately condemned as “fundamentally unjust”, was handed down on 25 June.

Shipping rebounds in Strait of Hormuz one week after U.S.-Iran deal – but fragile confidence threatens recovery

Shipping traffic through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz is recovering one week after the U.S. and Iran signed an interim peace deal.

Minister says he ‘won’t be intimidated’ by home secretary as public row escalates

Shabana Mahmood has demanded Mike Tapp be sacked over call for care worker exemption to migration rules

• UK politics live – latest updates

An extraordinary public row between the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, and one of her junior ministers has escalated after he said he “won’t be intimidated” in response to calls by her for him to be sacked.

Mahmood demanded on Thursday that the migration minister, Mike Tapp, should be fired for writing an unauthorised article in the Times calling for overseas care workers to be exempt from controversial changes to the immigration rules. But Keir Starmer has so far not sacked Tapp for apparently breaking the rules around ministerial conduct.

'We are with you, Venezuela': Houston community rallies after deadly earthquakes

Venezuelans living in the U.S organize donation drives in response to the devastating earthquakes.

The Surge review – a wild and haunting wake for Sinéad O’Connor

Aviva Studios, Manchester
The late singer gets a thrilling tribute from a cast of 10 dancers in Sonya Taleh’s heartfelt show

‘I’m just a troubled soul who needs to scream into a mic now and then,” said Sinéad O’Connor. Troubles and screams both sing out in The Surge, an ode to her by American choreographer Sonya Tayeh.

The singer, who died in 2023, attracted both worship and scorn in her lifetime. The Surge is an act of devotion – 10 women sit on pews, swaying, sliding and indeed surging around them. They leap up, circle and shudder as the songs possess them – moved and inspired, they might be dancing in tongues.

First hydropower projects in Great Britain in 40 years given go-ahead

Three pumped storage hydroelectric power station sites in Scotland on list of 16 long-duration electricity storage plans

• Business live – latest updates

The energy regulator has given the provisional green light for the construction of the first new hydropower projects in more than 40 years, part of plans to reduce Great Britain’s reliance on energy imports.

Ofgem has published a list of 16 long-duration electricity storage projects, facilities that can store and release electricity for periods of eight hours or more, it has provisionally agreed can proceed.

Bielsa’s first meeting with former pupil De la Fuente comes at fractious moment for Uruguay

Spain present a formidable obstacle for a Uruguay side needing a win to progress – and quell a rebellious dressing-room mood

In the summer of 2011, at about the time Marcelo Bielsa was arriving at Athletic Bilbao, Luis de la Fuente was leaving. Bielsa was the revolution. De la Fuente was a former left-back with long, curly locks who had come through the academy, played eight years in the first team and coached Athletic’s under-19s and B team but now he was joining Deportivo Alavés, 50 miles south and in the third tier. Eleven games later, he was back again.

Sacked from the first senior club job he had, and the last too, De la Fuente was sure that someone would call but time passed, no one did and he started to wonder whether they would until the Spanish federation got in touch a year and a half later and asked him to coach its under-19s. In the meantime, as the months passed and the concern grew, he returned to Athletic’s Lezama training ground, convinced he had much to learn and that he knew where to do so.

How well do you know your Reflecting Pool news? Because the quiz will test you

This week, the beleaguered body of water faced new woes. Plus soccer, gambling and U.K. politics!

Claire Fuller: ‘Dylan Thomas showed me that writing could make me feel everything’

The novelist on being inspired by Shirley Jackson, discovering the brilliance of Denis Johnson, and finding comfort in Elizabeth Strout

My earliest reading memory
When I was five and starting school, I would catch a coach from the Oxfordshire village where I lived. Twice a day I read the little metal plaque screwed to the upholstery, which gave the warning “Mind your head when leaving your seat”.

My favourite book growing up
In the late 1970s my dad had a copy of Phenomena by John Michell. Each page covers something strange, which might or might not be true: showers of fish, stigmata, spontaneous human combustion. I would lie on the carpet flicking through the pages and loving the chills it gave me that (maybe) there could be such weirdness in the world.

‘I’m a soldier. I don’t have a gun, but I have a pen and a camera’: Mahnaz Mohammadi on fighting the Iranian regime

The director and activist on her fictional drama Roya, drawing on her experience of imprisonment and torture, and why even in Europe she feels unsafe

Mahnaz Mohammadi is a survivor. The Iranian film-maker and women’s rights activist has been arrested on many occasions and imprisoned several times. In 2011, she was held for months in solitary confinement and tortured. In 2014, she was sentenced to five years and spent several months in prison. A few years ago, she met one of her first interrogators, from an early arrest.

“Do you know what he said to me?” she says. “He said he told his colleagues that after doing all those things, if I were going back behind the camera, it meant they couldn’t do anything with me. When I heard this from his mouth, I thought: ‘He’s right! Nobody can hurt me.’”

From cheap transport to football geekery: how Zohran Mamdani won the World Cup

The New York City mayor has made his mark on the tournament to cap an extraordinary run of sporting success over the last few months

A stunning evening sun was setting behind Union City on Wednesday. It made it slightly harder to see the giant screen that had been set up for the Brazil v Scotland watch party in Hudson River Park, but not enough to ruin the vibe of a New York City World Cup evening. Partly it didn’t matter because the clutch of Brazilians watching the game, kitted out in canary yellow and “100% Jesus” headbands, were already in full samba mode, given how comfortable their 3-0 win was. But mainly it was because this was a beautiful World Cup moment.

This is my eighth World Cup. The outdoor screening, combined with the gentle breeze off the Hudson – I had already navigated the hubbub in Times Square, colonised by chanting Germans and flag-waving Ecuadorians – was as captivating as anything I’ve experienced in Marseille, Seoul, Cape Town or Rio de Janeiro. New York City is perhaps the only place in the world where a World Cup may go unnoticed but the tournament genuinely feels like an intrinsic part of life in large parts of the city, certainly since the Knicks’ victory parade finished. In fact, the feelgood endorphins seem to have segued seamlessly into World Cup fever for many in the city.

As billionaires’ wealth soars, US workers struggle: ‘The rich keep getting richer for no good reason’

Ultrarich face backlash as billionaire tax in California makes it to the ballot and Americans organize for higher wages

The day that Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, Gilberto Rubio, a security officer in the San Francisco area, said he was thinking about how to cut back on meals to save money.

Jessica Ordeñana, a bartender in midtown Manhattan, was worrying about air conditioning ahead of a heatwave because she can’t afford her soaring electricity bills.

Ignore the miserabilists: Andy Burnham as PM is a moment when things really can get better | Polly Toynbee

He’s the only person who can keep Nigel Farage out of Downing Street, so let’s embrace his unique blend of optimism and realism

As Keir Starmer bid a brief and emotional farewell at that pillory of a lectern, there was a moment for some to ask: what have we done, and why? He’s not a bad man, not a Boris Johnson or Liz Truss rogue prime minister. How decadent, if lack of charisma has become a sacking offence.

But the reason why isn’t written in Westminster. It’s there in councils up and down the country where the hard-right Reform UK troopers swept through last month, from Barnsley to East Sussex. Look north, where Sunderland has 58 Reform councillors to Labour’s five. Look next door at South Tyneside, where Labour was nearly wiped out, left with only one councillor. Many Labour MPs now find themselves all but alone, their local parties hollowed out in an alien sea of Reform. Here’s why it matters beyond the green benches, beyond MPs’ personal careers, out in the very real world where services are (or aren’t) delivered locally.

Trump axed a Black history exhibit. Former park rangers are teaching it anyway.

As the U.S. prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, former national park rangers are hosting teach-ins and sharing history that the Trump administration has sought to erase from federal land.

Ex-NOAA employees re-create a valuable climate data site shut down by Trump

Former NOAA staffers have launched a new website that provides climate information. It replaces a government site that was shut down when the Trump administration took office.

Morning news brief

Rescuers in Venezuela continue search for the missing after devastating earthquakes, SCOTUS rulings give Trump more power to set immigration policy, Trump works to woo struggling American farmers.

Heathrow expects fall in passengers and profits this year because of Iran war

Airport has also been ‘engaging closely’ with regulator to discuss cost of plan to build third runway

• Business live – latest updates

Heathrow has said that passenger numbers and profits will fall this year because of the war in the Middle East.

Europe’s busiest airport said it expected a 1.1% decline in the total number of passengers to 83.6 million as the Iran war affects air travel.

Ecstasy for Ecuador and draw puts Australia through | World Cup Daily

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Mark Langdon and Archie Rhind-Tutt as Ecuador beat Germany to reach the last 32

Candomblé: Sacred Rhythms in Brazil review | Ammar Kalia's global album of the month

(Flee)
A treasure trove of field recordings are reshaped into pulsating floor-fillers and sparse baile funk by a range of producers

The Brazilian religious and musical tradition of candomblé is a rhythmic barrage. Originating in the 19th century among enslaved west Africans, candomblé manifested in music as a ritual practice of drumming circles, where polyrhythms were hammered out to induce possession by spirits. Athens-based archival label Flee presents a treasure trove of this ceremonial music from a community in Salvador in the late 1980s, alongside a series of ingenious remixes made by contemporary artists.

Side one of the album hosts the field recordings. Hazy, unbalanced and full of tape hiss, the 10 ritual compositions pull listeners into the frenetic environment in which they were recorded. It is as if we are sitting next to the tape recorder witnessing the overlapping, joyous voices glimpsed in the distance on Ossaim or the singular male voice that wails movingly before disappearing on Xangô. The experience can feel frustratingly fragmented, but if melody is fleeting, the drumming is not. Clattering, clave-style hits produce infectious movement on Ogum, while bells and a mid-tempo swing create the feel of undulating waves on Entrada dos Orixás.

Mexico’s new UK ambassador from ‘party of poor’ has 10 houses and £1m of jewellery

Alejandro Gertz Manero’s cars and properties contrast starkly with Morena party’s long association with austerity

With his million-dollar jewellery collection and his two Rolls-Royces, Mexico’s new ambassador to the UK will fit right in with the Mayfair crowd.

Former attorney general Alejandro Gertz Manero was appointed to the post by President Claudia Sheinbaum last year, but only recently disclosed his financial assets.

I will show you fear in a rainbow baseball cap: the right’s culture wars come to MLB

The right’s verdict is in: white, heterosexual, Christian men face the most discrimination in the US. The Giants don’t want to push back

On 19 June, the New York Times published an article on the hostility toward minority members of the military at the Department of Defense and the blocking of several promotions of minority, non-male officers despite their decorations and accomplishments. The Times attributed the ideological climate to defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who, according to the newspaper, is waging a “war on diversity”. Four days earlier, California governor Gavin Newsom said that the Department of Justice was investigating him and his wife for alleged financial irregularities, adding to the speculation long held that Donald Trump’s administration would spend its second term weaponizing the government to settle scores.

As Hegseth attacks race, gender and “diversity” through the military with the aim of restoring an unchallenged and unquestioned white, Christian leadership, and the justice department harasses Trump’s political opponents, the DoJ used the San Francisco Giants’ honoring of pride month to open yet another front in what the president sees as a culture war against white men. The Giants incurred additional damage, all of it embarrassingly self-inflicted. Their milky, cowardly response betrayed their own city, a large part of their fanbase and the organization’s history.

Howard Bryant is the author of 11 books, including The Heritage: Black Athletes, A Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism and Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America.

Cambridge hospital staff investigated over accessing records of boy hurt in crocodile pit

About 40 members of staff reported to have looked at information of boy, three, who ended up in zoo enclosure

About 40 members of hospital staff accessed the medical records of a three-year-old boy hurt in a crocodile pit, prompting an investigation, it has been reported.

Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) has referred itself to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and is investigating whether all the workers had a legitimate reason for looking at his information.

Downtown Boys: Public Luxury review – a joyful blast of bilingual political punk

(Sub Pop)
The Rhode Island five-piece return with a ferocious rallying call to fight for your beliefs, with bouncing basslines, muted house chords and stomping drums

Optimism might feel outdated, but Downtown Boys are proud outliers. On Public Luxury, the Rhode Island band’s third and best album, they wear their politics proudly – while bringing new ambiguity, strangeness and shadow to their passionate, sax-blasted bilingual punk. Opener No Me Jodas (Don’t Fuck With Me) comes out roaring, fists up, but gives way to a bouncing, joyous bassline: a brutal, big-hearted reminder that there’s beauty in fighting for what you believe in.

In the nine years since the band’s last record, they’ve served as public defenders and co-founded the United Musicians and Allied Workers union, and the five-piece sound muscled-up, reinvigorated, by this work. Viva La Rosa kicks off like dive-bar punk, before transforming into something grander, with soaring electric guitar and darkly beautiful lyrics: “Todavía creo en un future / Todavía veo nuestros muertos” (I still believe in a future / I still see our dead).

Chess: Carlsen’s four defeats in a row – just a blip or the start of a career downturn?

The word No 1 has had difficult periods previously, but at 35 and a wealthy family man, could he now be tempted towards a more relaxed lifestyle?

Magnus Carlsen’s four defeats in a row during the World Team Rapid in Hong Kong last week, coupled with his disappointing fourth place among six grandmasters in Oslo last month, have sparked discussion about whether the Norwegian, now a wealthy 35-year-old with a baby son, might be tempted towards a further reduction in his chess activities and a more relaxed lifestyle.

Carlsen had not previously lost four games in succession since Gausdal 2002, when he was 11 years old. The four defeats came after Carlsen had begun well, with a draw and then two victories, one against a historic rival, the Ukrainian veteran Vasyl Ivanchuk. That win was achieved in a classic example of a style and technique which Carlsen has made his own, a prolonged squeeze and grind maintained despite acute time pressure, as was his next victory against China’s Xu Xiangyu.

Child malnutrition in Nepal has reached ‘alarming’ levels since aid cuts, survey finds

Fears hard-won gains in reducing child mortality over 20 years are at risk after end of USAID funding for nutrition programmes

Child malnutrition in Nepal has reached “alarming” levels, according to the largest ever survey of under-fives in the country.

The new figures came just over a year after USAID, the former US flagship agency closed by the Trump administration in 2025, stopped funding work on child nutrition in Nepal.

‘You better remember where you were watching’: 30 years on from England’s loss to Germany at Euro 96

With those words on 26 June 1996, Des Lynam ended his coverage of England’s defeat by Germany, one of the most unforgettable nights in English tournament history. So we did …

Des Lynam ended the BBC’s coverage of that European Championship semi-final between England and Germany on Wednesday 26 June 1996 by telling viewers that they “better remember where you were watching this tonight because in 30 years’ time somebody will probably ask you”. So, 30 years on, the Guardian asked six writers if they indeed remember where, and how, they watched the game. Fair to say it was an emotional trip down memory lane …

Week in wildlife: paddling deer, a spring-loaded penguin and a rare sand cat

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Strung review – far-fetched thriller awkwardly mixes Blumhouse and Tyler Perry

There are flashes of low-rent fun to be had here but a busy script makes it feel like a limited series inelegantly cut down to movie length

Strung is a cautionary tale about following your gut. Directed by Malcolm D Lee – the under-heralded virtuoso behind Girls Trip, Barbershop and other fine franchises – the Peacock suspense thriller stars Chloe Bailey as Laila, a classical violinist with her sights set on a seat in the city philharmonic. A substitute music teaching gig leaves that dream feeling farther away than ever until Laila meets Lynn Whitfield’s Audra – who not only offers more stable and lucrative work as a private music tutor for her granddaughter, but also an inside track to the philharmonic.

Of course, Laila is too bright-eyed, too bubbly and too overwhelmed by the opulence she’s suddenly crossed into to see that it’s all too good to be true. Audra’s daughter, Imani (DC Titans’ Anna Diop), is icy and unmoved by this childcare lifeline, even as she’s well into her third trimester. The prized pupil, Zuri (Romy Woods), is a modern problem child: hyper-allergic, emotionally withdrawn and forever hiding behind a Dahomey warrior mask. The pupil’s antisocial behavior, and its eerie echoes of another young Black girl who looms large in Laila’s imagination (her sister, we later learn), is supposed to set Zuri up for the classic killer kid role. But Lee abandons that tension fairly quickly, and instead traces the girl’s quirks back to the murder of her rapper father. It isn’t until Imani’s husband, Marcus (Emily in Paris’s Lucien Laviscount), re-enters the picture – he and Laila hooked up before she was hired to tutor his stepchild in another coincidence, more inconvenient this time – that Strung really starts to get wooly.

A little bird told her: scientist wins $100,000 prize for decoding birdsong

Julie Elie worked out how zebra finches announce who they are, what they are doing and use individual signatures

A scientist who decoded the dictionary that a bird uses to communicate has won a $100,000 prize for making progress towards a world in which humans can talk to the animals – without being met with a blank response.

Dr Julie Elie at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded the 2026 Coller-Dolittle prize for two-way interspecies communication after working out the 11 core calls in the zebra finch vocabulary and their meanings.

U.S. men suffer first 2026 World Cup loss, 3-2 to Turkey before knockout round

The U.S. men's team had already clinched its spot in the Round of 32, the knockout round, with its 2-0 win over Australia on Friday.

Venezuela reels from earthquakes as rescuers scramble to find survivors

As Venezuela begins counting the cost of its deadliest quake disaster in over a century, a shattered economy and struggling health system threaten to slow recovery efforts.

U.S.-Iran peace deal grants access to Tehran's nuclear sites, UN watchdog says

"The technical work has started, and we hope to be there soon," IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said at a news conference in Japan on Friday.

Reflecting Pool liner was cut with a sharp knife or razor, National Park Service says

A top official at the National Park Service says a liner along the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was cut with a sharp knife or razor this month, causing damage to the foam sealant installed as part of a $16 million rehabilitation project.

South Korea to train half a million military personnel to become ‘drone warriors’

All branches of the military will be taught how to use technology that has become a ‘game changer on the battlefield’, says defence minister

All of South Korea’s military forces will be trained as drone operators in a sweeping overhaul of its warfare strategy, the defence minister has said.

“All soldiers should be able to use drones like a second personal firearm,” Ahn Gyu-back, who heads the defence ministry in Seoul, said on Friday.

Dangerous, Dirty, Violent & Young by Zayd Ayers Dohrn review – child of the revolution

The son of fugitive leaders of the militant Weather Underground recounts his chaotic, peripatetic upbringing

Every aspect of a family’s life will seem normal to the small children within it; only hindsight can bring what was abnormal into relief. Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s earliest years were spent on the run from the FBI; his parents were members of the revolutionary Weather Underground faction, a group dedicated to the overthrow of the US government.

By the age of three he had been coached by his parents on how to recognise plainclothes officers on the street. “It was a bit like playing a game – a grownup version of dress-up or make-believe,” he recalls. He has fond memories of long night-time drives between safehouses. As well as fellow revolutionaries, his family encountered gangsters, IRA members and abortion activists, along with countless undocumented migrant workers.

The Mission review – a surgeon saves lives in war-torn Gaza in a visceral portrait of human endurance

Mohammad Tahir and his colleagues operate through bombing and blackouts in barely functional hospitals – but there are moments of relief amid the documentary’s tragedy and gore

What this documentary might lack in film-making finesse it makes up for with sheer visceral and emotional impact. British nerve surgeon Mohammad Tahir and his colleagues, who also work the cameras, toil in Gaza’s barely operational hospitals during some of the worst days and nights of the war in the winter of 2024-25. Supported by US-based charity FAJR Global, who provide medical care to the world’s most in need, Tahir operates through bombings and blackouts with a bare minimum of medical supplies, sometimes treating patients lying on the floor in puddles of blood because there are no gurneys. This is often hard to watch, and not just because of all the gore; many of the victims are children, out of whom Tahir and the others dig bullets as well as tiny tungsten cubes, new-fangled shrapnel designed to cause maximum damage.

With his matinee-star good looks, rock-steady composure and air of unruffled competence, Tahir makes an excellent guide to all this mayhem. For the most part he soldiers stoically on, but the cool melts when, for instance, he discusses how he had to remove a random jawbone embedded in a patient’s wound. Later on, he treats a little girl who has lost an arm in a bombing; he manages to reattach it after the family find the severed limb in the rubble of their home. The film could have easily started to feel like a numbing, endless procession of tragedy and bloodshed but the film-makers wisely offer a few moments of respite, such as a sequence where Tahir and his fellow medics enjoy a day out at the beach. Likewise, a scene where he teases a medical student bent over her textbooks briefly lightens the load of gloom.

Homes for sale near lidos, lakes and ponds in England and Scotland – in pictures

From a London tower near reservoirs to a Plymouth townhouse close to a historic saltwater lido

UN agency pauses evacuation of ships through the Strait of Hormuz after attack on vessel

(Image credit: Amirhosein Khorgooi/AP Photo/Amirhosein Khorgooi)

King Charles III will not live at Buckingham Palace after its costly refurbishment

The decision was announced Thursday during a briefing on royal finances at which Charles became the first British monarch to reveal the taxes he paid to the government.

Porsche magnate puts historic Salzburg villa up for sale after row over private ‘tunnel for one’

Plans by Wolfgang Porsche to bore private 500-metre road link through Austrian hill caused anger among locals

Wolfgang Porsche, the Austrian-German automotive magnate, appears to have abandoned plans to build a private 500-metre tunnel for his cars through the Salzburg hills after a public uproar over the “tunnel for one”.

In 2020, Porsche bought a storied 17th-century villa on the outskirts of Salzburg for €8.4m (£7.2m), and last autumn he secured permission from the city authorities for an estimated €10m private access road through the rugged limestone hill.

Helen Goh’s recipe for apricot traybake with rosemary, orange and vanilla sugar crust | The sweet spot

Apricot season is about to kick off in earnest, so make the most of that honeyed perfume with this soft, buttery cake

Late June is when apricots begin to appear in earnest, piled high on market stalls and often giving off that elusive, honeyed perfume that suggests they might actually taste as good as they smell. This simple traybake makes the most of them: the cake is soft and buttery, with soured cream lending tenderness and a gentle tang, while the apricots themselves slump slightly into the batter while they bake. The sugar, made fragrant with rosemary, orange zest and vanilla, forms a delicate crust on top.

Bizarre questions and an all-male ‘jury’: woman strangled by US pilot in Britain tells of airbase trial

Sarah Steele waives anonymity to call for greater scrutiny of how US military courts are allowed to ‘rip apart’ vulnerable witnesses in the UK

• Why did a US fighter pilot avoid British trial after strangling a woman in England?

• Explainer: how the US bypasses British courts

A woman strangled by an American fighter pilot at his home in an English city has come forward to criticise the handling of his prosecution via a US court martial, a process she described as “military first, justice second”.

Sarah Steele, a British academic, has come forward to speak about the “distressing and degrading” experience she had with the US military justice system after she was assaulted by the airman in Cambridge.

USA suffer late defeat to Turkey but eye Bosnia and Herzegovina in World Cup knockout stage

The US men’s national team have already made history this summer. They scored the most goals they ever have in a single World Cup game, won two straight games in the tournament for the first time in the modern era, and wrapped up top spot in an evenly-matched Group D with a game to spare.

On Thursday evening they faced a far more familiar foe: World Cup adversity. And in the key moments – the kind of spots where knockout games are won and lost – they wilted. Kaan Ayhan’s goal with the last kick of the game sealed a 3-2 win for Turkey, giving their disastrous tournament a positive ending. It also means the Americans go into last 32 – where they will play Bosnia and Herzegovina – with fresh questions.

Boy, 14, charged with murder over death of teenager Lilly in Wales

Gwent police say accused will face court in Newport following arrest over discovery of teenage girl’s body in Duffryn Park area of Blaina

A 14-year-old boy has been charged with murder after the discovery of a missing 14-year-old girl’s body, Gwent police said.

The boy, from the Blaenau Gwent area, was arrested after the discovery of the body in the Duffryn Park area of Blaina in Wales on 22 June.

UN agency pauses ship evacuations through strait of Hormuz after vessel struck

International Maritime Organization says safety guarantees must be confirmed before ships can move again

A United Nations agency has paused the evacuation of ships through the strait of Hormuz after the British military said a vessel was hit by a projectile off the coast of Oman following the passage of several tankers that used a route backed by the UN.

The head of the UN’s International Maritime Organization said on Thursday that the plan to move stranded ships out of the Persian Gulf through the strait would be on hold until the agency could confirm safety guarantees for the ships on the evacuation list and in the region.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup schedule and how to watch

With 104 World Cup games being played in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, it's like "a Super Bowl every single day for five weeks," U.S. team captain Tim Ream told CBS News.

See the full U.S. men's soccer schedule for the 2026 World Cup

The U.S. men's national soccer team kicked off its 2026 FIFA World Cup campaign against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium on Friday.

Experience: I met my husband in the Dull Men’s Club

Luke spoke about how he irons his T-shirts and keeps a strict budget spreadsheet. I was hooked

The Dull Men’s Club popped up on my Facebook feed one day in late 2023. It’s now called Banana for Scale – a reference to a running joke in the group – as there were many clubs with similar names. It’s a place for people to celebrate the ordinary things in life. Every post had this dry sense of humour, which I’m drawn to.

One member regularly posts about his outings with his friend Nigel; others show off their collection of rocks.

‘Elon Musk is dangerous and crazy. And I kind of used to like him’: Interpol on their political awakening – and making their masterpiece

They were a big 00s buzz band – but looked in danger of fading out. Empowered by fatherhood and anger at war and AI, the New Yorkers explain why they ‘really showed up’ again

Suits. Gnomic poetry. Moody, insistent riffs. It used to be that you’d know what to expect from NYC rockers Interpol. The band’s first two albums, in the early 00s, were blockbuster successes, shifting half a million units each thanks to dramatic songs also fit for jerking around at an indie disco. Interpol duly jumped up to a major label, but then quickly fell back down again. Their talismanic bassist Carlos Dengler quit, and the band settled into a decade of solidly successful but pretty predictable albums. The most recent, 2022’s The Other Side of Make Believe, only reached No 178 on the US charts.

So it’s a bit unexpected that their upcoming eighth album, This Mirror Weighs a Ton, is their masterpiece. “We just all really showed up,” frontman-guitarist Paul Banks says of a band that has swelled to a quintet as two touring musicians, bassist Brad Truax and keyboardist Brandon Curtis, become full-time members. “The lyrics on the last record, it’s really hard for me to identify with what I was doing,” Banks continues. “I felt as if I made some mistakes.” What were they? “I don’t want to draw attention to them! I just didn’t want to walk away with that feeling again.”

Tracing one delicious snack around the Mediterranean showed me that modern borders are absurd | Federico De Blasi

Migration and cultural exchange have always been the norm between coastal European and African nations. We should celebrate this shared history

We are used to mapping the world by continents, dividing the globe into rigid geopolitical blocks. But to understand the complex reality behind each border, we are better off using a different, edible kind of cartography. For most of human existence, the Mediterranean has existed as an intercultural entity in its own right, where peoples and languages from different lands blur the lines that constitute modern frontiers. And nowhere is this shared regional identity more beautifully preserved than in Mediterranean kitchens.

Tracing the Italian Tyrrhenian coast, crossing the sea down to the shores of north Africa and then winding up to the Côte d’Azur, you will find a culinary pattern uniting diverse societies: an elemental batter of chickpea flour, water and olive oil. Baked in blazing wood ovens or deep‑fried in pans, it changes its name at every port, but its soul stays the same: a golden, sometimes crispy, sometimes soft proof that the peoples of the Mediterranean share a singular history that defies modern political boundaries.

Socceroos secure place in World Cup last 32 after nerve-shredding draw with Paraguay

It was not a match of high distinction, but all the Socceroos needed was a pass against Paraguay, and their 0-0 draw in San Francisco Bay Area stadium booked a place in the World Cup knockout phase for the third time in their history.

A much-changed Australia side controlled large parts of the match, but with both teams knowing that a draw would be enough to qualify for the last 32, there were long stretches without impetus.

Mangione's attorneys discussed possible plea deal but talks fell apart, sources say

Mangione​ is facing both state and federal charges for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's murder in December 2024. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases.

Xi Jinping has hosted more than a dozen leaders this year, as ‘middle powers’ look beyond the US

China’s leader wants to promote his alternative to the current world order, and his efforts are being assisted by a capricious US

Xi Jinping meets Bangladesh’s new prime minister on Friday, the latest in a wave of world leaders to visit Beijing this year as the Chinese leader builds his influence and economic ties, and seeks to “shift the balance of power” away from the west.

Xi’s meeting with Tarique Rahman comes less than two weeks after the Chinese leader welcomed Myanmar’s military chief-turned-president, Min Aung Hlaing, in Beijing.

Australian musicians sound warning note after Nick Cave, Kylie and many more slurped into AI training tool

‘It’s all just rendered useless’, Something For Kate’s Paul Dempsey says as AI scrapes millions of songs to learn how to make music

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Paul Dempsey and Bernard Fanning are among big-name Australian musicians upset that their original songs have been found in datasets used to train artificial intelligence.

A dataset search tool recently created by US publication The Atlantic reveals millions of creative works have been scraped from the internet to train the disruptive technology.

WNBA suspends Alyssa Thomas for hitting Caitlin Clark's throat

No foul was initially called after Alyssa Thomas' fist made contact with Caitlin Clark's throat during a game between the Phoenix Mercury and Indiana Fever on Wednesday.

LA investigating construction at warehouse involved in massive fire

Los Angeles building inspectors have launched an investigation into alleged unpermitted construction at a warehouse that erupted in flames last week — its second fire in two years.

Nonprofit lawn-mowing organization hopes to mow the White House lawn for America 250

A decade ago, Rodney Smith Jr. noticed an elderly neighbor struggling to cut the grass. After stopping to help, he founded the Alabama nonprofit Raising Men & Women Lawn Care Service. Now, he's hoping to honor the president for America's 250th birthday. Tony Dokoupil has the story.

Supreme Court sides with Monsanto in case over cancer risks from weedkiller

The Supreme Court ruled that Monsanto cannot be held liable under state laws for failing to warn consumers about the alleged cancer risks of its weedkiller Roundup on its label.

U.S. playing for pride, momentum, a potential record in World Cup match against Turkey

The U.S. Men's National Soccer Team is facing Turkey in a match that, no matter the outcome, will be their last before moving on to the next round. But the stakes are still high, as Nicole Valdes reports, including pride, momentum and a potential record.

Supreme Court lets Trump strip deportation protections from Syrians, Haitians

The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Trump administration can move forward with its efforts to strip more than 356,000 Syrian and Haitian immigrants of temporary protections.

Apple raises iPad and MacBook prices, blaming cost of chips amid AI boom

Company says it cannot shield customers from memory and storage chip costs – and iPhone hikes could be next

Apple raised iPad and MacBook prices on Thursday, saying it could no longer shield customers from soaring memory and storage chip costs driven by the AI industry’s data center buildout.

The move does not affect Apple’s cash cow, the iPhone. But it would take the starting price of the ⁠Neo, its lowest-priced laptop, from $599 to $699 mere months after launch.

Trump has testy meeting with GOP senators, telling Cassidy to sit down

President Trump met with Republican senators soon after canceling plans to sign bipartisan housing affordability legislation at the Capitol.

Supreme Court issues two big wins for Trump's immigration policy

The Supreme Court handed down rulings in a pair of immigration cases on Thursday. Jan Crawford is following the decisions.

On Trump shouting match, Sen. Bill Cassidy says, "Unfortunately, I raised my volume to match his"

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy got into a shouting match with President Trump in a private meeting on Wednesday, telling him the administration has not been honest with the American people about the conflict. Cassidy spoke with Margaret Brennan and Ed O'Keefe reports.

Detroit Lions player arrested on charges of armed robbery and kidnapping

Terrion Arnold, a 23-year-old defensive player for the Detroit Lions and a former first-round pick and all-American at the University of Alabama, has been arrested on charges of armed robbery and kidnapping. He is denying it all. Tom Hanson reports.

Judge orders DOJ to either unredact more Epstein files or explain why it can't

A judge on Thursday ordered the Justice Department to either release unredacted versions of several files on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein or explain why it can't do so.

Phoebe Bridgers: Lost Boys review – ghosts, guns and guileless youth on generational songwriter’s return

(Dead Oceans)
The US singer took years away from public life after her silvery balladry reshaped pop. Her return is an ornate reinvention

Since her Boygenius supergroup with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus went on hiatus in February 2024, Phoebe Bridgers has taken a wholehearted break from life in the public eye. Who could blame her? Bridgers became a figure of invasive parasocial behaviour from fans after her spooked, sad second album, 2020’s Punisher, resonated with life under lockdown and made her a superstar. In recent years, young women making introspective and ornate indie-rock songs have risen to startling, pop star levels of fame and scrutiny – and none more so than Bridgers and her peer Mitski. When Bridgers was rumoured to be engaged in 2022, fans possessed by her devastating music rued her happiness; when she started a new relationship, the gossip mill churned. In 2023, she castigated the so-called fans who aggressed her in an airport while on the way to her father’s funeral.

Even her recent analogue return has prompted reactions that might have a less self-possessed artist wondering why they bother. Last month, mysterious posters started appearing in small towns across the US advertising surprise $1 Bridgers shows in intimate venues later that night, before a concluding gig at New York’s gigantic Madison Square Garden. Phones were banned, along with any kind of recording device, including pen and paper, to stop audience members from writing down lyrics from her third album and sharing them online. The backlash to this – some fans accused her of ableism – prompted its own backlash, a tiresome Russian doll of discourse that’s still dragging on.

Little Brother review – Netflix comedy is neither weird or funny enough for star Eric André

The surreal comedian struggles to sell a middling and mostly conventional film about an uptight realtor whose life is upturned by an unpredictable figure from his past

The specific, unforced strangeness of Eric André’s comedy hasn’t been an easy fit for Hollywood. His surreal and frequently hilarious late-night series The Eric André Show was an unpredictably odd and often violently catastrophic mix of awkward celebrity interviews and daring, dangerous on-the-street pranks and his manic, anything-for-the-bit energy marked him as someone execs would be unwise to entirely ignore.

But André didn’t really feel like someone who desperately needed industry approval and broader acceptance or the inevitable comedy vehicle that would come with it (those projects are also admittedly far less common than they once were). There was an attempt in 2020, a hidden camera hybrid comedy called Bad Trip that saw André lead a fictional narrative playing out in real locations with real people unwittingly cast alongside. But Covid forced a theatrical play into a Netflix premiere and while it had its moments (the zoo-based sexual assault is a work of crude genius), the format was a gamble that, for me, didn’t completely pay off (it was as hit-and-miss as a sketch show). The film’s looseness did at least feel like a more natural fit for André than his follow-up for the streamer, the far more conventional and far less amusing comedy Little Brother, the closest he has come to “fitting in”.

Trump's obsession with SAVE America Act drives Congress into standoff

The president and his conservative allies have stymied other legislation as they unsuccessfully try to pass a voting regulations bill that lacks even simple majority support in the Senate.

6/25: CBS Evening News

Hundreds dead in devastating back-to-back earthquakes in Venezuela; Europe swelters under heat dome.

Democrats probe Trump's troubled $16 million reflecting pool renovation

President Donald Trump has attempted to spruce up Washington in advance of the country's 250th anniversary.

6-alarm fire destroys old industrial building in Allentown, Pennsylvania

A massive fire in Allentown, Pennsylvania, forced nearby residents to evacuate their homes Wednesday night.

Night Swimming by Sharon Kernot review – a sharp, sexy and tremendously satisfying thriller in verse

As in Dorothy Porter’s The Monkey’s Mask, the form is perfectly suited to the story: of a sleep-deprived woman unravelling as she’s haunted by her past

One of the most striking aspects of Sharon Kernot’s verse novel Night Swimming is its portrayal of insomnia, in both its physical strain and its maddening psychological effects.

January Clare Colson, Kernot’s protagonist, has suffered bouts of insomnia alongside intense parasomnias – sleep paralysis, sleepwalking, hallucinatory nightmares – since the death of her best friend, Julie, at the age of 16, and she survives largely by self-medicating with red wine and sleeping pills.

How much water does AI really use?

The heaviest demand on America's water supply isn't data centers or AI. It's from everyday uses such as growing food, watering lawns and flushing toilets.

King and queen will not live at Buckingham Palace after £369m refit

Charles and Camilla to remain at Clarence House and are said to want the public to have more access to ‘monarchy HQ’

• King Charles’s tax bill: what did we learn and what is still in the dark?

• Crown estate makes more than £1bn profit for third year running

King Charles and Queen Camilla will not move into Buckingham Palace when £369m of buildings works to update it finish next year, preferring to remain at Clarence House, their London home nearby.

The announcement came as it was revealed the king paid £12.9m in income and capital gains tax in 2024-25 on his personal income, known as the privy purse, making him among the country’s top 100 taxpayers. Prince William paid £7.76m for the same period.

Chicago Fed President Goolsbee says inflation is too high; Williams sees price pressures easing

In a live CNBC interview from his home district, Goolsbee declined to speculate on where he thinks interest rates are headed.

6/25: The Takeout with Major Garrett

Trump calls for House Republicans to unify; Supreme Court hands down decisions on major immigration cases.

Taylor Swift wedding venue speculation fueled by MSG permit

There appear to be new clues about the location of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding.

Hundreds of veterans snag free World Cup tickets

A program for veterans, current military and first responders secured almost 5,000 free tickets for World Cup matches.

Micron soars 15% after blockbuster earnings, lifting some chip stocks

The company's revenue more than quadrupled from $9.3 billion a year earlier to $41.46 billion, it reported on Wednesday

Microsoft lifts price of Xbox consoles due to soaring component costs

Microsoft said it's increasing the price of Xbox game consoles after Apple announced price hikes for MacBooks and iPads.

What made the deadly Venezuelan earthquakes different

It appears the two big earthquakes in Venezuela that occurred in rapid succession may have involved two separate fault lines. Several faults intersect in this tectonically complex region.

Video from inside plane shows crash in Alaskan wilderness

A plane carrying 10 people crashed deep in the Alaskan wilderness on Monday. Engine problems forced it down, hundreds of miles from the nearest major city. Kris Van Cleave has new video from inside the plane.

Apple and Microsoft are raising their prices as chip costs soar

Apple is raising the prices of some MacBooks and iPads, while Microsoft is raising Xbox prices as semiconductor costs surge.

Iran behind attack on cargo vessel near Oman in Strait of Hormuz, U.S. official tells MS NOW

"The only crop we're harvesting is what you planted: decades of mistrust," Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a social media post.

Supreme court conservatives accused of advancing ‘white-supremacist agenda’

Lawmakers and advocates condemn ‘disastrous’ decisions that allow Trump officials to strip away migrant protections

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Lawmakers and immigration advocacy groups on Thursday sharply denounced two US supreme court rulings that allowed the Trump administration to strip certain immigration protections and fundamentally reshape the asylum system.

Dozens of groups, advocates and members of Congress called the court’s decisions “disastrous” and “cruel”, while the Trump administration, Republican lawmakers and anti-immigrant groups celebrated the rulings.

Big Tech is all in on AI. Now all they need is customers.

Technology companies are betting trillions of dollars that consumers will open their wallets for AI services. But what if Big Tech is wrong?

Supreme Court limits Roundup cancer suits against Bayer's Monsanto

Glyphosate, used in Roundup weedkiller, is the most commonly utilized herbicide in agriculture, and it has long been linked to cancer claims.

Judge says lawsuit against Trump DOJ 'anti-weaponization' fund will proceed

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche originally set up the fund as part of a settlement of a lawsuit by President Donald Trump against the IRS.

Reflecting Pool liner was cut with knife or razor, parks official says

National Park Service official Frank Lands also said at least 70 fence post tops were thrown in to the Reflecting Pool.

The Guardian view on the Ockenden maternity review: lifting standards must be the number one priority | Editorial

Families are right to be angry about devastating care failures in Nottingham. Ministers must respond fast

The painful familiarity of key themes in Donna Ockenden’s review of maternity care failures must not detract from the urgency around this issue. The 400-page report published on Wednesday is a shocking catalogue of what went wrong at Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust. Its contents range from a excruciating case study of the errors leading to the death of baby Harriet Hawkins in 2016 – and the cover-up that followed – to trust-wide problems with staffing, culture and leadership. It also highlights flaws in the wider NHS, citing the finding of the 2022 Messenger review that political pressure can lead bosses “to look upwards to furnish the needs of the hierarchy rather than downwards to the needs of the service-user”.

Given its around 100 action points, implementation is a daunting prospect. Next week, Valerie Amos will add to these, and the more than 700 recommendations of earlier reports, with her own investigation of maternity care in England. Wes Streeting had pledged to chair a new taskforce and his resignation as health secretary alarmed campaigners. Whoever ends up in charge, a commitment to maternity care improvement must be non-negotiable, and firmly grounded in practicalities. The review points to a damaging split between strategy and operations in Nottingham. NHS England must avoid replicating this.

The Guardian view on EU talks with the Taliban: selling out the rights of girls, women and other Afghans | Editorial

Five years after the fall of Kabul, European states are anxious to send migrants back – regardless of what it takes and what awaits them

Days after Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, the EU’s top diplomat stressed the need to protect women and girls. “Cooperation with any future Afghan government will be conditioned on … respect for the fundamental rights of all Afghans,” Josep Borrell pledged. The regime’s attack on women’s rights began immediately, and has only intensified. The Taliban have barred girls from secondary school and university, legalised child marriage, prevented women from travelling without a male guardian and excluded them from jobs, parks and bathhouses. Women have been literally silenced: their voices are forbidden from being heard in public, even from within their own homes.

A new criminal code introduced last year permits men to beat their wives; even if women are able to prove the use of “obscene force”, a husband may still be sentenced to only 15 days in prison. (In contrast, harming an animal could mean five months in jail.) And restrictions on work, movement and contacts are not merely oppressive. They are often deadly in a country gripped by a humanitarian crisis. UN experts have said that this “widespread, systematic and all-encompassing” assault on women’s rights may amount to “gender apartheid”.