How 401(k) fees can cost tens of thousands in retirement savings

About four in 10 workers aren't even aware they pay fees on their 401(k)s, research has found. Here's what to know.

South Carolina Republicans crowd field to succeed Sen. Lindsey Graham

Rep. Russell Fry became the latest South Carolina Republican to launch a campaign to succeed the late Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Suspect in custody after explosion in trash can outside NYC federal building

NYPD sources said fireworks were found in a garbage can and a man was taken into custody outside the federal building in Lower Manhattan.

India's Gen Z 'Cockroach People's Party' started as satire but is serious about change

They call themselves the "cockroaches" and they're on the march — demanding action against corruption, amid a shortage of opportunities for young people in India.

Reeves and Lammy exit cabinet as Andy Burnham reshuffles top team – UK politics live

Earlier the new PM said he wants to put ‘the right values and the right standards at the heart of government’

• Burnham vows his arrival in power will be ‘circuit breaker’ moment for UK

• Six highlights from Andy Burnham’s first Downing Street speech

Andy Burnham may see banners urging the government not to allow the proposed Rosebank oil field development in the North Sea as he drives to Buckingham Palace and the No 10 today.

Here is a banner on Whitehall.

Mexican drug lord ‘El Mayo’ sentenced to life in prison in US federal court

Case against Ismael Zambada García, who helped co-found and lead the violent Sinaloa cartel, unfolded in New York

The Mexican drug kingpin, Ismael Zambada García, known as “El Mayo”, was sentenced in a US federal court on Monday to life in prison, after a plea deal last year in which he admitted ⁠to shipping vast amounts of cocaine and other substances as leader of the violent Sinaloa cartel.

Zambada is 76 and one of the most high-profile Mexican ⁠drug traffickers to be sentenced in a US court since fellow Sinaloa leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman ​was sentenced to life in prison in ‌2019. The case unfolded in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.

BBC defeats ITV again in World Cup final viewing figures

BBC’s average audience was 9.7m, more than three times as much as its rival – similar to its lead four years ago

Their respective World Cup studios have been pored over, their line-up of pundits analysed almost as much as the matches. But when it came to the tournament’s final, the result was clear – audiences once again picked the BBC over ITV.

More than three times as many people turned to the BBC to watch Spain secure victory over a belligerent Argentina, very similar to its lead over ITV four years ago.

JetBlue wins Spirit slots at LaGuardia Airport, eyes move to Marine Air Terminal as airlines fight for space

JetBlue Airways won takeoff and landing slots for up to 12 round-trip flights at LaGuardia Airport.

Canada issues air quality warnings over US wildfire smoke after Trump tariff threat

Officials say smoke from US fires has crossed border days after US president accused Canada of improper fire management

After days of acrid smoke from northern wildfires choking major US cities and inspiring Donald Trump to threaten Canada with tariffs, officials now say the reverse is also happening as parts of Canada issue air quality warnings caused by American fires to the south.

Officials in the Canadian province of British Columbia warned in an alert on Saturday evening that smoke from US fires, spurred on by thousands of lightning strikes in the north-east, was creating smoky conditions as polluted air drifted north.

Infamous cartel boss "El Mayo" Zambada sentenced to life in U.S. prison

Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada ordered torture and plotted murders as he Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán grew the Sinaloa cartel into the world's largest drug trafficking organization, prosecutors said.

Pentagon ID's 2 soldiers killed in Iran strike in Jordan; 1 still missing

U.S. forces launched a new round of airstrikes against Iran at the direction of President Trump following the deaths of two U.S. soldiers in an Iranian strike in Jordan.

Tate brothers detained as they face new charges, possible U.K. extradition

Influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate are scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate in Miami.

Hamas names new leader as Kuwait says it is under fire from Iran – Middle East crisis live

Palestinian militant ⁠group names Khalil al-Hayya as new overall leader as Kuwait army says it is confronting missile and drone attacks from Tehran

• US expands Iran offensive as diplomats claim talks ongoing

The price of oil jumped in early Asian trade on Monday after the US carried out its latest wave of strikes on Iran and a vessel caught fire in the strait of Hormuz.

Brent crude for September delivery rose 2.72% to $90.50 a barrel by around 0100 GMT, after briefly crossing $91 – its highest price since June.

CENTCOM assets targeted Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks to further diminish Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. military is holding Iran accountable at the Commander in Chief’s direction.

What to know about testosterone replacement therapy as the U.S. military plans to test troops

While some research has shown benefits for patients who qualify, questions remain about the therapy's long-term risks and use among men without a medical need. 

What’s left after this World Cup? A kind of messy hope | Jonathan Liew

Kazakhs cheering Uzbeks, Bengalis wild for Argentina … This tournament was once a playground for nationalism. Now it shows how flimsy that allegiance is

It’s the World Cup final, so you pick a side. And don’t worry if you happen to be part of the 98.9% of the human race that is neither Spanish nor Argentinian – just make something up. Maybe you like the Spain kit. Maybe you’ve always been an admirer of Lionel Messi. Maybe you’re still raw about the Falklands or Diego Maradona, maybe you disagree with the Pedro Sánchez government’s stance on Palestine/Israel, maybe you once ate a dodgy empanada on your gap year. Nobody needs to see your working. Only two rules really apply: be partisan and be quick about it.

The MetLife Stadium on Sunday night was a melting pot of colliding incongruities and temporary identities. The former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was wearing an Argentina shirt. The comedian Trevor Noah wore a Spain shirt. Indeed, ticket sales data suggests that an overwhelming proportion of the crowd was American. The most consequential fixture in international sport was, as it turned out, little more than a grand cosplay for the New Jersey leisure market.

Jonathan Liew is a Guardian columnist

F-16s intercept planes in restricted airspace over New Jersey

F-16 fighter jets intercepted multiple planes that flew through restricted airspace over Bedminster and East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Sunday.

A pioneer and a superstar, Kevin Keegan’s achievements were extraordinary

The former England manager may be remembered by many for his ‘I’d love it’ rant in 1996, but that should not obscure the remarkable nature of his football career

Kevin Keegan, who has died aged 75, is the only British player to win the Ballon d’Or twice, was the star of Liverpool’s first European Cup-winning team, a messianic figure at Newcastle United as a player and coach, forging a team so memorable that Fifa’s president wrote to commend him, and was the captain and then manager of the England men’s national team. And yet, as Keegan would ruefully reflect, he will principally be remembered by many for an emotional outburst that precipitated Newcastle’s historic failure in a Premier League title race, a TV interview which presaged the coming era of the modern game.

Keegan’s “I’d love it” rant of April 1996, directed at Sir Alex Ferguson, became a meme before the modern meaning of the word and social media even existed, repeatedly played on Sky Sports and becoming indelibly marked in the minds of multiple generations, many not even born when it occurred. It frequently tops polls as the most memorable moment in Premier League history and foreshadowed an era where digital clips and personality narratives would dominate football coverage.

AliExpress fined record €550m by EU for failing to stop sale of illegal and fake goods

Chinese retail platform handed penalty over listings for items such as counterfeit products and unsafe toys

• Business live – latest updates

The Chinese online retail platform AliExpress has been fined a record €550m (£470m) by the EU over its failure to stop illegal goods including harmful clothing, cosmetics and kitchen gadgets being sold through its site.

The European Commission fine is the biggest imposed by the bloc under Digital Services Act (DSA) legislation to protect consumers from illegal goods and deceptive or addictive marketing techniques.

The U.S. labor market may soon face a new crisis: Too few workers

A severe labor shortage is set to emerge over the next decade amid a wave of baby boomer retirements and a shrinking younger workforce.

Ryanair says 'no shortage' of travelers despite Iran war denting profit

Ryanair's first-quarter profit took a 34% hit as consumers delayed bookings due to the Middle East crisis, while struggling airlines face a "difficult winter."

Kevin Keegan, Liverpool legend and former Newcastle manager, dies aged 75

• Keegan revealed in June 2026 he had stage four cancer

• Starred for Liverpool, Hamburg, Newcastle and England

Kevin Keegan, the former England and Newcastle manager who was twice European football of the year and a stalwart member of Liverpool’s serial First Division and European champions in the 1970s, has died aged 75.

Keegan’s family revealed in January that he had cancer, and in June he revealed himself that it was stage four, the most advanced stage. “It is with immense sadness that we announce that Kevin Keegan has passed away at the age of 75,” read a family statement. “Kevin had been battling cancer and was surrounded by his wife and daughters in his final moments.

More than a million people expected at Spain’s World Cup celebration in Madrid

• Squad arrived home at 2.30pm local time on Monday

• Victory festivities to centre around the Plaza de Cibeles

More than a million Spaniards, many still bleary-eyed and feeling a little delicate after the country’s historic World Cup victory against Argentina, are expected to descend on central Madrid on Monday night to welcome the triumphant national team home.

La Roja, who beat Argentina 1-0 in the final in New Jersey on Sunday night, were afforded the first of many heroes’ welcomes when they touched down at Madrid’s Barajas airport at 2.30pm local time on Monday.

U.S. death toll rises again as Iran war escalates over the weekend

Centcom says it hit Iran's coastal surveillance and air defense facilities a day after two U.S. troops were killed in an Iranian strike on Jordan.

Avengers: Doomsday trailer reveals star-packed Marvel adventure

The first full look at the big-budget December tentpole features returning heroes such as Chris Hemsworth, Patrick Stewart, Florence Pugh and Chris Evans

The first full trailer for Avengers: Doomsday has been released online offering a look at Marvel’s big-budget big hope.

“Something’s coming, something we may not be able to deter,” is the first line heard in the new preview which proceeds to bring back multiple characters from various Marvel movies and universes.

Boeing CEO says company still needs 'a couple more years' to repair finances before new jet

CEO Kelly Ortberg signalled Boeing is focused more on stabilizing its existing business than rushing to develop a successor to its bestselling 737 MAX.

Rodri’s redemption story leaves stars in the shadow of Spain’s great controller | Jonathan Wilson

Much of what Rodri does is indefinable – his great skill is simply being, existing in the right spaces

You don’t need to be long in the US before somebody, finding you’re here to cover “the Fifa” as so many Americans so demoralisingly call it, will tell you that the USA would obviously win it all the time if only their best athletes weren’t distracted by more local pursuits: American football, basketball, eating enormous sandwiches and the like. If you’re really lucky they’ll start shouting names at you with a detailed rundown of height, weight, sprint speed, what they can bench and other fascinating statistics.

At which you wonder whether the 5ft 7in Lionel Messi has ever done a bench press. Rodri probably has, but he’s still nobody’s idea of a great athlete. He’s tall without being physically imposing. He’s not quick. He ambles about games being in the right place. Occasionally he leans into people or passes the ball 10 yards. It would be difficult to put together a highlights reel of his performance in the World Cup final that would convince a neophyte that he was the defining player – but he was, and was rightly named player of the tournament as well.

Tens of thousands of Cockroach party protesters defy police with Delhi march

Youth-led movement calls on education minister to quit in one of India’s largest anti-government rallies in years

Tens of thousands of protesters have defied police orders and descended on Delhi to demand the resignation of India’s education minister in one of the largest anti-government demonstrations in years.

A huge crowd, largely made up of students and gen Z-ers, filled the streets in the heart of India’s capital from early Monday morning shouting anti-government slogans. Hundreds had already camped out overnight.

Louisiana communities are left in the dark on toxic air – and industry helped keep it that way

Lawmakers weakened community air monitoring as industry pushed back against greater scrutiny

Kimbrelle Kyereh lives just a few hundred feet from the massive chemical storage tanks in St Rose, in south-eastern Louisiana. Oily fumes sometimes drift into her home, bringing headaches, nausea and insomnia. On one such night, she grabbed her son at 3am and fled to an all-night Ihop.

In 2023, after years of coping with the noxious odors, Kyereh began collecting air samples in her yard for a local environmental justice group. But soon after, Louisiana passed an industry-backed law that sharply restricted how that kind of data could be used.

Ten of Louisiana’s heaviest air-polluting facilities, based on self-reported data shared with the EPA, operate without a single public air monitor within five miles.

This list includes Dow Chemical’s plastics factory in Plaquemine, which is about eight miles from the nearest air monitoring station. The station measures only ozone even though the plant releases an array of toxic pollutants including ethylene oxide, a known carcinogen.

No public monitors measure ammonia – despite the fact that CF Industries’ Donaldsonville plant emits more than 7m lb of the hazardous chemical each year, according to EPA data.

The three chemicals that researchers have concluded “together account for the large majority of total cancer risk” in the area – ethylene oxide, chloroprene and formaldehyde – aren’t monitored by the state at all.

Toronto film festival: Helen Mirren, Chris Rock and Seth Rogen lead lineup

The 51st edition of the Canadian festival will also feature world premieres starring Taron Egerton, Amanda Seyfried and Chase Infiniti

World premieres of films led by Helen Mirren, Seth Rogen and Chris Rock lead the lineup for this year’s Toronto film festival.

The September festival, taking place after the Venice film festival, has previously seen the premieres of Oscar-winning movies such as Green Book, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Still Alice, Dallas Buyers Club and Silver Linings Playbook.

Melvine Malard hungry for trophies after joining Chelsea from Manchester United

• United get club-record fee of about £850,000 for forward

• Malard follows McCabe and Matsukubo into Chelsea

Chelsea have announced the signing of the France forward Melvine Malard from Manchester United on a four-year contract. The Guardian revealed last week that a deal was close for the 26-year-old, who has left United after three seasons for about £850,000.

Malard had one year on her contract and United were keen to keep the forward. However, once it became clear Malard wanted a move United decided to sell rather than lose a high-value player on a free next summer.

Tuchel is clinging to an outdated English style – he must let players take risks | Jacob Steinberg

Head coach should ditch a physical approach that has rarely worked and embrace England’s gifted ball players

Only England can claim the bronze medal at the World Cup by beating France in a 10-goal thriller and end up even more annoyed with the manager. Yet emotions are still running high after the collapse against Argentina last week and it is going to take more than winning a game low on jeopardy for the criticism of Thomas Tuchel to die down.

Hiring Tuchel was centred around the promise that he would make the difference in the big games. When that fell down, all that was left was anger. It exposed the core emptiness of the appointment, of a rich federation covering up the flaws in its coaching development by trying to game the system by throwing money at an expensive outsider.

‘My shirt was wringing’: National Express bus drivers speak out on 40C conditions

Drivers in West Midlands say buses ‘unbearable’ during heatwaves, raising employee and passenger safety fears

Bus drivers in the West Midlands have spoken out about the “horrendous” working conditions they have experienced during heatwaves, which led to 40C temperatures in their cabs.

The UK was hit by high temperatures and dry weather in three successive heatwaves, with temperatures topping 37C last month when the country recorded its hottest ever June day. Last week, the Met Office warned climate extremes were becoming the “new ‘normal’ for the UK”.

Gangs of New Jersey: how the World Cup final descended into ugly scenes between Argentina and Spain

A blow-by-blow account of how players from both sides fought in the aftermath of Sunday’s showpiece

The World Cup final took an ugly turn at the end of extra time as Spain were crowned champions. Here’s what happened, frame by frame.

Ryanair says its planes are safe despite passenger being nearly sucked out of window

Airline says crew did a “great job” after incident and that it has been in touch with family of man saved from death

• Business live – latest updates

Ryanair has moved to reassure travellers that its planes are safe after a passenger was saved from being sucked out of a window mid-flight and said it had been in touch with his family.

This month, Ljubisa Karović was sucked out headfirst after an engine failure resulted in parts smashing an acrylic window during a flight from Thessaloniki in Greece to Memmingen near Munich in Germany.

Maine Democratic Senate race narrows as candidates rally behind Troy Jackson

The crowded Maine Senate race to replace Graham Platner has narrowed as Democrats rallied around former state Senate President Troy Jackson in the leadup to the party's nominating convention on Saturday.

Fire captain, wife, 3 sons found dead after flash flood in Utah

The victims were a captain in the Provo, Utah, fire department, his wife and their sons, according to fire officials.

See the aftermath of dangerous flash flooding that slammed parts of Utah

Flash floods swept through parts of southern Utah on Sunday, sending a wall of mud rushing through Beaver, which is about 200 miles south of Salt Lake City. Meanwhile, drivers were stranded in New York City by floods and torrential rain. Lonnie Quinn reports.

Putin meets North Korean foreign minister in diplomatic push

The visit by North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui comes without an obvious occasion, such as a multilateral diplomatic event or state anniversary, and has raised speculation that she may be coordinating a possible visit to Russia by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

A new UK prime minister and a lumberjack competition: photos of the day – Monday

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Voters wary of government ownership in companies as Trump administration takes equity stakes

About half of voters believe it isn't appropriate for the U.S. government to own stakes in companies, a new CNBC poll found.

DeChambeau accused of threatening to call Trump in row over Open penalty

• DeChambeau given two-stroke penalty after his second round

• Golfer alleged to have used US president’s name during row

Bryson DeChambeau has been accused of threatening to call Donald Trump during a row with senior R&A officials on Friday after the American golfer was handed a two-shot penalty at the Open.

DeChambeau’s alleged use of the US president’s name as he argued his case marks the latest bizarre turn in what was already the dominant story of the 2026 Open.

Gas prices top $4 a gallon again as U.S.-Iran conflict escalates

The national average for a gallon of gas reached $4.003 on Monday, the first time in over a month it has crossed that threshold, AAA data shows.

Weather service faces hurricane season with less experienced staff, missing data

The National Weather Service is hiring hundreds of entry-level employees after losing about 15% of its staff to federal cuts last year.

‘Most people don’t know we’ve set up a doomsday system’: physicist Laura Grego on satellites, nuclear weapons and the battle for our skies

Elon Musk is trying to own it, competing powers are trying to fight in it and nobody seems to be regulating it. So who does space really belong to?

The last time I saw Laura Grego was in a tent in a baking field on the Welsh borders in May. The conversation on stage ranged from the dangers of space debris to how the law of the sea might pertain to outer space; from our sense of the sacred to our interplanetary futures. At one point Grego, a physicist, said intently, “People have to be aware of what is happening in space. Public knowledge has to catch up.” Three weeks later, SpaceX launched on the stock exchange, temporarily making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

So, I ask her now, what is it that we should all know? Well, she says, the average person’s experience of space is about to change. If, so far, that has been “looking at the stars and being full of wonder, full of connection with the universe”, perhaps noticing the occasional streaking object that was not a shooting star, now “there are plans for tens of thousands more satellites, which would really change your relationship with what you see in the sky”. SpaceX, specifically, has just applied to a federal regulator for permission to launch up to 1m of them.

‘We didn’t want him to be punchable!’: Matthew Broderick and Alan Ruck on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

‘Alan and I have neat hair because we’d both just been in a military play. If we’d had crazy 1980s mullets, it wouldn’t have become a timeless classic’

I’d done WarGames and Ladyhawke and was getting sent a lot of “young guy” parts. I was a little concerned at first because Ferris talks to the audience – I’d done that in two plays and didn’t want to it to seem like that’s all I could do. Meanwhile, my agent said: “You’ve been asked to do a John Hughes movie. You’re doing it.” I didn’t know much about John at the time but I kept hearing him being referred to as the “Spielberg of teen films”.

Vamos España? Why this World Cup victory for Spain feels so different from the others | María Ramírez

The success belongs to many more people around the world from Gaza to Latin America – even if the collegiate spirit of the team has yet to be mirrored in our public life

Just past midnight, the cheers erupted from blocks of lit flats in my neighbourhood in central Madrid. Hours later, people of all generations were still out in the streets in the middle of another tropical night, and not only because it was warm, with temperatures hovering close to 30C. In the big pedestrianised square Plaza de Olavide, fans had gathered around screens, some sitting on the ground while children and dogs ran around. A girl played on the swings, her Spanish-flag cape fluttering as she swung back and forth.

Argentinian Lionel Messi jerseys were visible throughout the crowd. Many fans gathered also at a nearby Argentinian bar. Not too surprising when you consider there are more than 400,000 Argentinians living in Spain. Messi, whose life and career are embedded with Barcelona, is a football hero in Spain too.

María Ramírez is a journalist and deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain

Video shows arrest of Tate brothers in Miami

Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested in Miami on Saturday after prosecutors in the U.K. announced dozens of new charges against the brothers. The two have denied any wrongdoing. Cristian Benavides reports.

Taylor Farms lettuce sample was false positive for cyclospora, FDA says

The FDA said that as of Sunday, it had not found any "confirmed positive sample results for product testing for Cyclospora."

Strategic move by Hungary’s Magyar as he picks chess prodigy for president

Judit Polgár to discuss role with prime minister, who says the country needs someone everybody is proud of

Hungary’s prime minister, Péter Magyar, has announced plans to ask Judit Polgár, widely considered the greatest female chess player of all time, to take on the largely ceremonial role of president.

Magyar said he would meet Polgár on Monday to discuss the matter. “Our country needs unity, peace and a president that all Hungarians can be proud of,” he wrote on social media. “Judit Polgár’s name has been synonymous with talent and perseverance for decades.”

U.S. soldiers killed in Iranian attack on base in Jordan identified

The U.S. military has identified two soldiers killed in an Iranian attack on a U.S. base in Jordan: 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas. Charlie D'Agata has the latest.

Sex, beds and grisly executions: what Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey changed, invented – and left out

From missing scenes and characters to a brand new ending, the director has taken some artistic liberties with Homer’s epic poem

Turning a 12,000-line poem that takes a day to read aloud into a three-hour film was always going to require some pruning. So it has proved with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which dispenses with a number of scenes and characters from Homer’s ancient Greek epic. The director has also changed the emphasis in some of the story’s most famous episodes and made a few of his own additions. Here we run down the most significant alterations.

Rukmini Iyer’s quick and easy recipe for courgette and whipped feta bruschetta with radishes | Quick and easy

Perfect for an al fresco lunch spread, these bruschetta come together as quickly as they disappear …

Fresh, light but filling – these bruschetta are beautiful to bring outside as part of a lunch spread. They take minutes to whip together (sorry) and, for extra Marie Antoinette at Le Petit Trianon vibes, pick mint (or/and baby courgettes) from your own garden. You can get ahead by making the whipped feta and lemon dressing in advance, and keeping the courgette ribbons and radishes in cold water until needed. Drain and dress the courgettes just before serving – they’re lovely with the contrast of the toasted baguette and cool cheese.

The trouble with Trump’s latest nominees lies in one word: integrity | Robert Reich

As Todd Blanche, Erica Schwartz and Jay Clayton face the Senate, a fundamental disconnect becomes clear

There’s been a lot of discussion in America this week about the meaning of integrity.

You didn’t hear the word used directly; it was alluded to indirectly – in wondering whether Lindsey Graham was an immoral opportunist or clever pragmatist; in suspecting Todd Blanche of being more loyal to Trump than to the nation; in distrusting Erica Schwartz, Trump’s latest pick to lead the CDC, when she said she would never compromise on the science; in doubting Jay Clayton, his pick for director of national intelligence, will tell Trump anything he doesn’t want to hear.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now in the US and in the UK

Mockbuster review – how to survive the nightmare of directing a terrible low-budget horror film

Struggling to make it in Australia, aspiring director Anthony Frith cold-calls the team behind Sharknado and bites off more than he can chew in this making-of documentary

‘A bad movie is better than no movie” is the motto of this behind-the-scenes documentary, which charts director Anthony Frith’s quest to make his debut feature for ultra-schlock studio The Asylum; it doubles up as an affable salute to film-making savoir-faire.

Stuck making corporate videos to support his young family, Adelaide-based Frith is in danger of letting his artistic ambitions atrophy. So he opts for career shock therapy by cold-calling The Asylum (of Sharknado notoriety) in Burbank, California and proposing he oversee one of their straight-to-the-digital-cesspit features.

England’s white-ball success risks baking in a divide with future Test setup | Ali Martin

Finding a candidate to lead the red-ball side is no easy task, with Ben Stokes gone and Brendon McCullum still around

As England’s men scatter for the Hundred, ready to pull on new colours, ingratiate themselves with their new paymasters and use the word “exciting” repeatedly, the management above them could be forgiven for letting out a sigh of relief.

Not that everything is shipshape going into their month-long recess. Far from it. Test cricket is king in this country, No 1 across all age groups and demographics – as per Richard Gould, chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, in his Ashes review in March – and in that regard the first half of the season still goes down as a bit of a shambles.

Spain wins 2026 FIFA World Cup with grueling 1-0 victory over Argentina

Spain dominated the match, outshooting Argentina 20-3, but couldn't manage a goal in regulation — finally scoring in the second period of extra time.

João Gomes seals £38m Aston Villa move, Hall and Robinson on Manchester United list

• Brazil midfielder Gomes joins from Wolves

• United sign young winger Thompson from Spurs

The Brazil international João Gomes has joined Aston Villa in a £38m deal. The 25-year-old midfielder, who has 10 caps, ends a three-and-a-half-year spell at Wolves, for whom he made 130 appearances after signing from Flamengo.

Gomes’s arrival at Villa follows the departure of Youri Tielemans to Manchester United and comes with Morgan Rogers on the verge of a £117m move to Chelsea.

3 U.S. personnel killed in Iran conflict. And, Hunter Biden opens up to NPR

Three U.S. service members have been killed since Friday amid rising tension between the U.S. and Iran. And, Hunter Biden talks to NPR's Newsmakers about addiction and public scrutiny.

Experts warn of rise in sadistic online exploitation of vulnerable children

Global increase in cases of predators coercing children to harm themselves or produce child sexual abuse material

Cases of predators coercing children into producing sexual photos and videos of themselves have surged globally in the past year, a cruel phenomenon known as “sadistic online exploitation”, child safety experts and law enforcement officials warn.

In cases of sadistic online exploitation, perpetrators target vulnerable teens on social media platforms and online games. These predators then compel their victims into producing child sexual abuse material (CSAM), harming themselves and others, or, in extreme cases, attempting suicide.

In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453 or visit their website for more resources and to report child abuse or DM for help. For adult survivors of child abuse, help is available at ascasupport.org. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International

The disturbing rise of ‘gooner’ assaults at Dollar Tree stores: ‘They find it funny to degrade women’

In dark corners of the internet, men are goading each other to masturbate in public – and on female shoppers – and post the footage

This article contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault.

***

High school math teacher seeks to win US House seat in Minnesota by emphasizing affordability

Jake Johnson grew up relying on government assistance. Now he’s running for Tim Waltz’s old seat in Congress

High school math teacher Jake Johnson easily recalls the role government assistance played for his family in Stewartville, Minnesota, when he was growing up.

His father was a garbage collector and his mother read meters for the local gas company. They relied on food stamps for groceries and Medicaid for healthcare. When it was time for Johnson to go to college, Pell grants and Stafford loans helped him pay the bill.

Prickly pears, avocados and lemons: how rainwater harvesting is feeding Mexico City’s gardens and homes

Thousands of low-income households are benefiting from a simple system that captures and filters rainfall from the city’s roofs

Walking up a steep hill to a small informal settlement of about 45 houses in Cristo Rey, above San Gregorio Atlapulco in Mexico City, Ana Aparicio Bahena arrives at her simple home. As she walks through her lush, verdant garden, she points out plants such as the prickly pear, cactus leaves with tiny, hair-like spines, and picks blackberries hanging from a bush, handing them to her two daughters.

“I can grow vegetables,” says Aparicio Bahena proudly, holding up a small onion. “I have avocados, lemons, potatoes … I never used to be able to grow my own food. It’s wonderful.”

Vice President JD Vance and wife Usha welcome their 4th child

This is the first time in more than 150 years that a vice president's family had a child while in office.

At least 930 people have died in Congo's Ebola outbreak

Congo's health ministry said the deaths were recorded out of the 2,344 cases confirmed as of Saturday. Thirty-seven new deaths were recorded in the previous 24 hours in one of the highest totals.

U.S. and Iran launch new strikes after 3 U.S. service members are killed

The U.S. attacks were the ninth consecutive day of bombing since peace talks between the two countries collapsed in dispute over a memorandum of understanding focused on the Strait of Hormuz.

Two new tortoises have hatched. Now we have seven – and it’s chaos | Emma Beddington

The males have to be separated or they attack each other. The tiny new arrivals are a constant source of anxiety. Yet, despite all this, my husband is considering adopting more

To hatch one unexpected baby tortoise is universally viewed as a blessing; hatch two more and people start asking pointed questions, such as, “Are you running a tortoise sanctuary now?” and “Do you have the horniest tortoises in Yorkshire?”

The answer to both is “apparently”, and it’s chaos. We now have seven tortoises of which at least three are male and therefore – sorry for the gender essentialism, but it’s true – trouble. The two male adults have to be separated or they attack each other and we got confirmation that the previous baby, who hatched in 2024, is also male when we found him trying to have sex with his mother (it’s OK – she is 10 times his size).

Out of Sight review – mountain idyll on the Swiss border is a gilded cage for distressed asylum seekers

Young men share their heartbreaking experiences of an Alpine ‘deportation camp’ in Lisa Polster’s impactful, gentle documentary

Located on the Swiss-Austrian border, the Bürglkopf mountain is a picture-perfect Alpine landscape, with its verdant fields and scenic trails. The tranquil idyll is a popular holiday spot, with thousands of tourists each year. Some visitors, however, are less welcome than others. Nestled among the lush forest on the mountaintop is a so-called deportation camp, where asylum seekers are held for months, even years. In Lisa Polster’s impactful documentary, one of our first glimpses of the facility and its surroundings is through the window of a moving car. The tightly composed shot suggests the secrecy that enshrouds this place, described by its inhabitants as a prison rather than a shelter.

Through interviews with current residents, Polster’s film weaves a sobering tapestry of experiences – in spite of the centre’s resistance to the documentary project. Many asylum seekers speak of poor living conditions, lack of access to legal support, and the impossibility of social integration due to the camp’s remote location. Their legal limbo, caused by excessive delays in application processing, leads to further psychological distress. In one heartbreaking scene, a detainee looks wistfully at the cattle herds that graze nearby, envious of their freedom of movement. With strict curfew hours and few recreational activities on offer, time at the Bürglkopf camp stretches on seemingly infinitely.

The pet I’ll never forget: Bird the hawk – the predator who once hugged me for 20 minutes

A Harris’s hawk, she is capable of flying at more than 35mph, scouring the ground for prey, while also judging my footwear. The moments of connection with this wild creature are incredible

My children brought hawks into my life. My youngest son, especially, became fascinated by birds of prey at the age of six, drawing beautiful pictures and reciting endless facts to bird owners at various country shows.

Eventually I decided, why not? We live in the countryside, after all, on Anglesey (Ynys Môn). So, during Covid, Bird, the Harris’s hawk, came into our lives. We got her from a breeder after she hatched. It was perfect timing: I was home-schooling my three kids, and at 2pm every day, rain or shine, with a brilliant local falconer, we would set out on to the headland to watch her fly. It was beautiful to see. For years, my youngest never missed a day, no matter how cold.

New York sculptor spent $100,000 to make a Charlie Kirk statue no one wants to buy

Sergio Furnari said he thought the lifesize sculpture – which no one commissioned – would raise ‘millions’ of dollars

A New York sculptor has been left furious after spending $100,000 of his own money to build a lifesize statue of Charlie Kirk, only to find that no one wants to buy it.

Sergio Furnari, originally from Italy, had hoped the statue of the deceased far-right activist, which he intends to display in Times Square, would raise “millions” of dollars. Instead, he said he has been inundated by messages from people saying they intend to urinate on the sculpture.

Severely ill prisoners granted early release are left stuck behind bars

Prisoners with severe medical conditions can be granted compassionate release, but without a long-term care facility willing to accept them, many continue to wait in prison as their conditions worsen.

How Elephant and Castle risks becoming London’s gentrification ‘patient zero’

New £500m town centre welcomes its first tenant this month, but displaced traders say promises that they could return have been broken

Diana Sach once employed more than 30 people and catered for hundreds more every day from her Latin American restaurant and delicatessen, famous for its Peruvian empanadas, in south London’s Elephant and Castle district.

Now, she looks longingly at the shiny tall buildings that have replaced the brightly coloured but shabby shopping centre that was her home from home before being demolished in 2021.

Weather tracker: Flooding and landslides hit large parts of Asia

Torrential rain has battered Vietnam, southern China and South Korea, leading to multiple deaths

Large parts of Asia were hit by devastating flooding and landslides last week, leading to multiple deaths, as torrential rain battered Vietnam, southern China and South Korea.

According to the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological forecasting in Vietnam, the Phuc Than weather station recorded 206mm of rain in 24 hours, from last Thursday into Friday, which caused homes to be swept away, power cuts and destroyed 238 hectares (588 acres) of farmland. Flash flooding swept through the village of Muong Than in southern Vietnam early on Friday morning, causing the deaths of at least four people and leaving four others missing. South Korea also had rainfall totals reaching almost 200mm with a station in Paju, just to the north of Seoul, recording 192.5mm, causing homes and roads to become flooded.

The rave secret: why middle-aged women are larging it – and seeing big health benefits

For those who are burned out, perimenopausal, or both, dancing all night can be a panacea. It’s great exercise, lowers stress, boosts energy and provides connection. No wonder so many are doing it

It’s 4am and I’m in a club – the first time I’ve done this in years. I’m 51 and in my sandwich era, meaning I’ve got teenage and elderly loved ones on my mind – a situation that generally calls for early nights. But when you’re responsibilities-maxxing, sometimes you need the opposite. A blowout. A huge, transcendent, resetting release. A rave.

I don’t know what took me so long to get around to it. Misplaced parental guilt? Internalised ageism? Exhaustion? It’s not as though I didn’t know other gen-Xers who have been regularly getting blissfully – ceremonially, even – lost in house, techno or drum’n’bass, and they’re not alone. A 2025 study by the University of Leeds went viral: “Women aged 40-65 are turning to raves for real mental health,” said one of many Instagram posts and press headlines. “Why many women over 40 still go to raves,” read another. But surely the question should be: why the hell wouldn’t they?

Trump could ‘do something positive’ rather than fixate on 2020 loss, Fetterman says

Senator says Trump revisiting failed run against Biden ‘distracts from important things’ such as Iran war

Rather than continue fixating on the 2020 election defeat that ended his first presidency, Donald Trump could instead “do something positive”, including resolving the US war in Iran, the Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman said in an interview on Sunday.

“I don’t know why the president is dragging up all this stuff,” Fetterman remarked on CNN’s State of the Union, three days after Trump dedicated a televised, primetime address to claims about Chinese meddling in the 2020 White House race that he lost to Joe Biden. “You’re the president. Do something positive – and you are talking about 2020; that’s been settled over six years ago.

Deloitte-run systems denied Medicaid to disabled people. New laws could make it worse

Complex computer systems that decide whether people get Medicaid benefits have a history of errors. Now, changes to comply with Trump's tax and domestic policy law are inundating those systems.

So distressed you can't think straight? Lower the intensity with these 4 skills

A clinical psychologist shares effective strategies to quickly de-escalate stress and anxiety. That includes dunking your head into a bowl of ice water to trigger your mammalian dive reflex.

Morning news brief

The U.S. carries out a wave of strikes against Iran, as fighting between the two escalates, Congress faces long to-do list as August recess approaches, Andy Burnham becomes U.K.'s 7th prime minister.

Andy Burnham becomes U.K. prime minister

In a transition of power presided over by King Charles, Andy Burnham has replaced Keir Starmer as the United Kingdom's prime minister. Both are from the center-left Labour Party.

Jeff Bezos and UK government invest in £2bn British startup CuspAI

Company aims to develop AI software that cuts research times and use of rare metals in chipmakers’ supply chains

• Business live – latest updates

Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, and the UK government have invested in a £2bn British artificial intelligence startup that is aiming to become the “search engine for rare materials” that accelerates the next wave of technological breakthroughs.

The Cambridge-based CuspAI has raised $450m (£330m) in funding from investors including Bezos and the government’s sovereign AI fund, valuing the two-year-old business at $2.6bn.

Donald Trump has to let it linger as he hangs on for Spain’s World Cup celebrations

For the second time in as many years, the US president made sure he was a part of a moment of triumph he had little to do with

He did it again. There was a world championship trophy, waiting to be held aloft at the same gargantuan stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. There was Gianni Infantino, waiting alongside the US president. And there was that same US president, Donald Trump, fresh off a round of stadium-wide booing and jeering, handing off the trophy with Infantino and then staying stubbornly in the frame as another team enjoyed the pinnacle of their professional careers with an octogenarian standing awkwardly in the shot.

Should we be surprised? Marc Cucurella probably wasn’t – the defender was on stage for both occasions, first as a member of Chelsea as they lifted the 2025 Club World Cup, and then again on Sunday when Trump once again remained in the shot as Spain celebrated their World Cup victory.

Yellow Pine by Claire Vaye Watkins review – messy portrait of protest subculture

Watkins should have been the ideal writer for this sympathetic take on new age spirituality and desert eco-activism – but the results are confusing

Rose, the protagonist of Claire Vaye Watkins’s latest novel, has retreated from the world to live in Nothingness Flats, a cinder-block cabin in the Nevada desert. On indefinite leave from her job at an environmental organisation, Rose works on her Al-Anon recovery, goes hiking and joins protests against the Yellow Pine of the title: a solar array being built over a fragile desert ecosystem. She writes in her journal: “I am on this side of the portal. I have compassion in my heart for anyone back on the other side, sending emails, bickering, buying useless shit, getting run by the algorithm, living in the past.” As the story begins, she is reunited with her first love, Miles, who has “fallen apart beautifully: bopped in and out of law school, then spent six years in what’s left of the redwoods reading horny 400-year-old poems before bailing on his PhD”. Soon, Rose realises what she truly wants, this side of the portal, is to have his child.

You don’t often see a sympathetic take on the subculture of 21st-century hippies, with their eclectic leftwing philosophies, new age spirituality and earnest striving to do good and be kind. It’s an important strain in modern life, and one typically dismissed with facile mockery and condescension. As a serious treatment of it, Yellow Pine has notable strengths. The love story between Rose and Miles is very real and specific to this world, and gives a backbone of plot to material that otherwise tends to sprawl. Watkins’s prose can be musical and keenly attentive, and she excels at conveying starry-eyed love. “[Miles] was brilliant, peaceful, grounded as a mountain, kind even when he was blue, an unabashed loner agog at the whole burning world.”

A Useful Ghost review – exhilarating black comedy summons ghosts of Thai past via a haunted hoover

Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s stylish and unique movie features an unquiet spirit that inhabits a vacuum cleaner, before political interests intervene

Here is a stylish and exhilaratingly confident debut from 39-year-old Thai film-maker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, which won the critics’ week grand prize at Cannes last year. It is a supernatural black-comic fantasy of national grief executed with passion and panache, about the ghosts who have refused their afterlife confinement after the country’s succeeding catastrophes: the bloody results of a military crackdown in 2010, coup d’etats in 2006 and 2014, and before them, the 1976 Thammasat University demonstrations, along with loved ones that went to an unquiet grave of their own.

A Useful Ghost is heartfelt and elegant in its compositional flair; dreamlike tableaux are crisply juxtaposed in the edit and the whole effect is disquieting, erotic and terribly sad. It’s in some ways a humorous twist on the serious spiritual realities laid out in the movies of Thai master Joe Weerasethakul, like Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Cemetery of Splendour. And you might also sense the spectral shimmer of western films like Ghost and Truly, Madly, Deeply.

FBI shifts immigration agent cases to HSI after recent fatal shootings, sources say

HSI is an arm of ICE, meaning the immigration enforcement agency would effectively be investigating incidents involving its own agents.

Shania Twain: Little Miss Twain review – rootsy revival strays from the dirt track to the middle of the road

(Republic Nashville)
The country legend’s seventh album revisits her troubled early life but plays it safe with zany humour and fluffy songs about young love

‘When I was a kid, I started on stages just like this,” Shania Twain told the 200 fans sardined into a London pub back in June, trailing her seventh album Little Miss Twain. A reintroduction to the Canadian country legend, the record mines memories from her Ontario childhood for hints of the arena-filling star she would soon become.

Over wistful Mellotron and pedal steel, the title track marvels at little Eilleen, as she was called back then, escaping the rural north and making it big in Nashville. Yet, somehow, it all feels inevitable – as if Twain’s career was conjured into being by the conviction of her mother, who drove her to those tiny bars in a beaten-up Chevy. And yes, from the vantage point of 2026, it’s difficult to imagine it going any other way. Twain’s icon status is certified by five Grammys and the way her free-spirited hits have become karaoke classics – not to mention the fact that her 1997 album Come on Over remains the highest-selling studio album by any female artist in history.

‘Being American feels helpless and scary’: actor Ben Platt on nerves, queer songs and why he couldn’t do it without his husband

The star of Dear Evan Hansen plays a 1960s Greenwich Village crooner in hit queer musical Midnight at the Never Get. It’s the perfect outlet for his anxiety, he says

In performance, Ben Platt is a mellifluous singer and loose-limbed dancer, with a fizzy back-note of neurotic New York. The stage – most famously, as star of Dear Evan Hansen – is his safe space. In person, in a south London rehearsal room, he is sweet, earnest, nervy. He crosses his legs, knots his arms about him. The chat roams widely, the body language is wound tight.

Platt talks frankly about anxiety, like it’s his constant companion. So, how’s that going? “My relationship with my husband is a huge factor in being able to manage anxiety. There’s still highs and lows, but everything’s more in my sights, because I thankfully have him. And having something creative to focus on is a big help.”

Top 30: from half a million World Cup photos, why I love these the most

Our picture editor chooses his favourite images from the tournament including Lionel Messi’s cathedral, that delicious diving header from Jude Bellingham and a humbling scene in Gaza

What makes a great World Cup photograph? Now there’s a question with myriad answers. Composition, newsworthiness, emotional resonance, expert timing and luck can all contribute to varying degrees. But one thing they all share is the power to capture attention.

On the Guardian sport picture desk, we have received more than 500,000 World Cup photographs over the past six weeks, with so many gems among them. Here, with much applause to the photographers who created them and a slight bias towards England, are my favourite images of the tournament.

British YouTuber Yung Filly appears in Australian court over rape allegations

Rapper pleads not guilty to six counts of sexually penetrating a 20-year-old woman without consent after a gig in Perth

A British YouTuber and musician bit and slapped a young female fan while he was raping her after a gig in Western Australia, a court has been told.

Yung Filly, 30, has pleaded not guilty to six counts of sexually penetrating a 20-year-old woman without consent in a Perth hotel room in September 2024.

Can you solve it? Do you think like a physicist?

A scorching puzzle about heat

UPDATE: Read the solution here

In a summer heatwave, you keep the curtains drawn all day.

It helps keep the room cool.

A Sudden Flicker of Light by David Thomson review – a brilliantly eccentric history of the movies

From the golden age of Hollywood to harder times today, this is a rapturous account of more than a century of cinema

Film critic, historian and author of more than 40 books, David Thomson is back with another three-hour free jazz solo on the subject of the movies, though it’s a performance delivered with the magnificent elan of a 1940s big band leader. He’s as brilliant, eccentric, exasperating and absorbing as ever.

By “the movies”, incidentally, he means Hollywood, with a side order of established European and east Asian arthouse: he takes us from the cine-prehistory of photographer Eadweard Muybridge to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, DW Griffith’s Birth of a Nation with its sinister Ku Klux Klan hero-worship, Chaplin, Stroheim, Hitchcock, Capra, Renoir, Bogart, Marilyn Monroe in The Seven-Year Itch, Monroe Stahr in The Last Tycoon, Scorsese’s GoodFellas, David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (“Is it drive or dream?”), Kirk Douglas and his alleged rape of Natalie Wood, Barbara Loden’s Wanda, Sean Baker’s Anora, Tracey Emin’s Why I Never Became a Dancer and much more. He subtitles his book a “revisionist” history.

Chris Packham takes on a terrifying crime ring: best podcasts of the week

The popular broadcaster investigates what happened after a large pile of murdered animals were dumped outside a primary school in Hampshire. Plus, Lena Headey tackles an idea from an ‘ethical pornographer’

Mangled pheasants, mutilated foxes, weeping kids: the third series of the multi-award-winning show about environmental crime opens with a huge pile of murdered animals outside a primary school. The investigation leads to revelations about the world of illegal bloodsports and rural organised crime. It even recruits Chris Packham. “It’s low-level terrorism, isn’t it?” he exclaims at one point – and it’s hard not to agree. An essential listen. Alexi Duggins
BBC Sounds, all episodes available

Why has Britain’s oldest political magazine become such a rabid cheerleader for Islamophobia? | Nesrine Malik

A report on the Spectator’s coverage of Muslims makes for grim reading. Conservatism is now focused on this minority to the exclusion of everything else

I start this column already resigned to the tune out, to the glaze over, the click away. This is not to say that I do not have faith in you, dear reader, to keep reading and caring. But I am aware, and this is central to the problem, that it is now normal, when it comes to a certain minority in this country, to speak of them as if they were some sort of plague. Islamophobia has become so common as to be mundane in large parts of the British media. Foremost among the offenders is Britain’s oldest political magazine: the Spectator.

A large and comprehensive report from the Centre for Media Monitoring reviewed 3,733 articles published in the Spectator relating to Islam or Muslims. Released last week, it criticised the publication for “a sustained and systemic pattern of biased coverage of Muslims and Islam”, according to the CMM, “with more than half of all relevant articles rated as biased over an eight-year period”. It is grim, grim reading.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

‘It’s total devastation’: inside the Amazonian war against illegal gold mining

The Guardian goes on the ground with Brazilian forces fighting to eradicate mining that has destroyed protected areas of Indigenous land

The jerry-built bordello at the foot of Vila Cururu, an illegal gold-mining settlement at the heart of Brazil’s most desecrated Indigenous territory, was a hive of depravity until just a few weeks ago.

Inebriated prospectors huddled around wooden tables, swigging beer and Scotch whisky, and ogling pole-dancing sex workers before going with them to shacks behind the brothel.

Pesto Trapanese, pasta pomodoro and torta caprese: Dara Klein’s favourite Italian recipes

Rustic, authentic and utterly delicious – three dishes that bring the taste of the trattoria straight to your table

Pesto trapanese combines almonds, tomatoes, pecorino and a hint of garlic and basil to create a fresher version than the typical Genovese variety, and I especially love the way the richness of the almonds is lifted by the fresh tomatoes – when they’re pureed together, it creates a wonderful mouthfeel. For me, though, pasta pomodoro symbolises home. My mum’s was a cornerstone of our trattoria, as it is at Italian restaurants around the world, and every family has their own fiercely guarded recipe. I developed this particular method when I started Pasta Princess, which delivered hand-rolled pasta and pomodoro sauce all over London during lockdown. It kept me grounded when I was in between kitchens, and resurfaced at Tiella, where it features regularly on the menu. Finally, torta caprese is a wonderfully rich flourless chocolate cake made with ground almonds. Mum often made a similar cake called torta gianduia, which uses hazelnuts instead of almonds, a recipe that hails from Piedmont, the heart of Italy’s hazelnut production (the Tonda Gentile delle Langhe variety is particularly prized for its incredible quality and flavour, carrying the IGP label to denote regionality and strict production standards). I remember her once buying these special hazelnuts on a trip to Italy, and taking them back home to New Zealand so she could make gianduia. When the cake came out of the oven, the aroma was so incredible that she decided to bring it home rather than putting it on the menu, and shared it with us instead.

From Gary Lineker’s revenge to the bizarre tale of a missing cat: the best viral TV moments of the World Cup

A pranked England manager, a bored Beckham, a Viking takeover and an unwise Wayne Rooney wager: here are the TV treasures of the beautiful game’s biggest ever tournament

A stodgy final saw silky Spain deservedly beat cynical Argentina. Football wasn’t coming home after all as England suffered semi-final heartbreak again, before salvaging some pride to finish third – their best World Cup finish since 1966. The Tartan Army drank America’s bars dry as their team went out with a whimper. Cape Verde lasted longer than Germany. It was the end of the road for Ronaldo and Modric, while the phrase “hydration break” entered everyday parlance. But beyond the pitch, it has been an eventful five weeks, too.

Here are 26 viral World Cup moments you might have missed …

AI-altered images on birdwatching forums putting research at risk

Experts warn increase in enhanced photos on birding platforms creating fake sightings, threatening credibility of tool used by scientists

For many birdwatchers, recording a species outside its normal range is the holy grail. In the UK, the discoveries often make national headlines. The western reef heron, for example, usually found in Africa and southern Europe, was spotted in a seaside town in north Wales in June, and widely celebrated on birding forums.

But a new scourge is threatening to disrupt the fun: AI slop.

A Ruhr treat: can a giant pigeon and a pink basketball revive Germany’s depressed industrial heartland?

The Manifesta biennale is taking over a dozen tiny churches in German towns ravaged by division and decline – and filling them with ball games, bouncy castles and a radical community spirit

After Germany’s Ruhr conurbation – the third-largest urban area in western Europe – was pummelled during the second world war, planners came up with an ingenious idea. About 80% of the sprawl – which incorporates big cities such as Essen and Duisburg, and dozens of smaller towns like Bochum and Gelsenkirchen – had been destroyed. And so, for the reconstruction, a newly formed Diocese of the Ruhr built literally hundreds of closely packed Pantoffelkirchen or “slipper churches”, so named because they were close enough to housing developments for churchgoers to walk to mass in their slippers.

Today, Pantoffelkirchen are declining sharply. Estimates of the amount of disused or derelict churches are as high as 300, and 100 have been sold off in the last year alone. Until October, 12 of them are home to Manifesta, the travelling art biennale. They stand as centrepieces of communities that have been ravaged this time not by war, but by deindustrialisation, mass unemployment and environmental decline.

Spain and Argentina's World Cup trophy count before 2026 final

Spain and Argentina faced off Sunday in the World Cup final, marking just the second meeting between the two sides in the tournament's history, and their first in 60 years.

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.

‘When I get home, my whole body aches’: extreme heat saps health and wages of India’s poorest workers

Exclusive: Outdoor workers losing up to 9% of income as weather becomes ‘poverty multiplier’, research says

Extreme heat is pushing some of India’s poorest workers further into poverty, with income losses of up to 9% for outdoor workers, new research has found.

Analysis done by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and shared exclusively with the Guardian, found that extreme heat is acting as a “poverty multiplier” for hundreds of millions of workers in India’s informal sector.

The Odyssey storms global box office with $264m opening

Epic film marks Christopher Nolan’s best opening since 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises when adjusted for inflation

The Odyssey has stormed the global box office, taking US$264m (£196m, A$378m) in its opening weekend, according to studio Universal Pictures.

Starring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway and Zendaya, the blockbuster is an adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic poem, which follows Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, as he makes his perilous 10-year journey home after fighting in the Trojan war.