NYPD says dozens rescued from human trafficking during World Cup

There were 89 people arrested in the New York area over the course of the World Cup, the NYPD said.

Tesla falls 14%, Alphabet sinks 6% as AI spending concerns spook investors

Both Tesla and Alphabet signaled higher spending as they invest in artificial intelligence.

Fewer Americans own homes than thought, new Fed search finds

Only about 53% of Americans own homes, or about 12 percentage points lower than previous data has shown, the study found.

Russia’s Amazon-style retail giant Wildberries is now in Ukraine’s crosshairs. Here's why

Ukraine has ratcheted up its attacks on Russia's Amazon-style retail giant, Wildberries, signaling a new phase in the war.

American Airlines stock tumbles 9% as fuel spike further postpones turnaround

American Airlines further cut its 2026 earnings outlook, citing higher fuel costs.

Congress splits on war powers resolutions to force Trump to abandon Iran war

Trump would be nearly certain to veto any measure to curtail his ability to wage war with Iran.

Vance Boelter gets 2 life terms and more in Minnesota lawmaker shootings

Vance Boelter, the man who admitted in court to shooting two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses, was sentenced to two life terms in prison followed by 40 years Thursday morning.

For a 2nd time, House approves resolution to end the war in Iran in a rebuke to Trump

Four Republicans joined Democrats to approve the measure. And while it is not legally binding, the resolution represents growing frustration inside Congress over the war.

House lawmakers grill former JPMorgan executive Jes Staley over Epstein ties

House oversight Chair James Comer said Jes Staley defended Jeffrey Epstein and encouraged JPMorgan to retain him despite internal red flags.

The Hegseth budget: defense secretary’s $1.5tn ask reveals military-industrial chaos

The Pentagon head proposed a 44% increase – to second world war levels – while ‘woke’ programs are gutted

• US politics live – latest updates

When the ‘“department of government efficiency” was raging unchecked through the federal government in February 2025, the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered his subordinates to find cuts of 8% a year for the next five years, theoretically trimming a total of $340m from the Pentagon budget.

The disclosure briefly sent Palantir and defense stocks tanking – though soon the plan evaporated, as if it never existed.

Tilly Norwood's creator insists the AI actor is creating Hollywood jobs

The robot actor is generating work for Hollywood creatives, not stealing jobs from actors, her inventor tells CBS News.

As Honda CR-V leads U.S. sales, automaker teases new American-built pickup truck

The future of the Ridgeline midsize pickup truck had been in flux, and the automaker said there will be a temporary production stoppage for the truck.

Trump says he is close to decision on largest-yet attack on Iran

Escalation would follow oil passing $100 a barrel again and Houthi strikes on Saudi tankers in the Red Sea

The US president, Donald Trump, has said he is close to deciding whether to launch “a massive attack” against Iran, on a scale larger than strikes already witnessed during the months-long conflict with Tehran.

Speaking to the Axios news site Trump said: “I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.”

Tour de France worries emerge for Tadej Pogacar after illness sweeps through team

• Richard Carapaz roars clear of breakaway to win stage 18

• McNulty abandons, Wellens and Vermeersch struggle

Richard Carapaz won stage 18 of the Tour de France after a breakaway group of six riders duelled their way to the winter sports station at Orcières-Merlette, but uncertainty surrounds the health of race leader Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Emirates XRG team, which has been swept by a virus since Monday’s rest day.

After Adam Yates’s stage-long calvary on the road to Voiron, Pogacar’s team was further weakened by the abandonment of his American colleague, Brandon McNulty, who quit the Tour with 21km of Thursday’s stage remaining.

Ben Jennings on Elon Musk and The Odyssey – cartoon

Continue reading...

House again rebukes Trump over Iran, while similar effort stalls in Senate

The House on Thursday voted to direct President Trump to end the war with Iran, after four Republicans joined Democrats to rebuke the president over his handling of the conflict.

White House trails announcement on tariffs amid reports of new duties

Trump officials say they will announce next phase of US trade policy as 10% global tariffs are due to expire on Friday

Donald Trump’s administration will unveil the latest stage of his aggressive trade policy on Thursday, the White House has said, amid reports the US president is preparing a fresh wave of sweeping tariffs.

Trump’s tariffs policy suffered a damaging blow in February when the US supreme court ruled that many of those tariffs were illegal. While the US replaced those tariffs with a 10% tariff regime on much of the world, these are due to expire on Friday.

Lobbying firm pressed for details about payments to journalists for favourable stories

MPs and others condemn behaviour of CT Group, which offered cash for positive coverage of clients

A political lobbying firm secretly paying journalists for articles favourable to its clients is facing calls to reveal full details of the payments, after the practice was denounced as a dangerous “attack on democracy”.

MPs, senior lobbyists and transparency campaigners all condemned the behaviour of CT Group, the firm co-founded by the campaign strategist Lynton Crosby, an election guru previously hired by both David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

Tropical Storm Bertha moves off Louisiana, heads for Texas. See its path.

Tropical Storm Bertha is the second named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.

Senate fails to advance latest attempt to limit Trump's Iran war powers

The Senate rejected an attempt to rein in President Trump's war powers in Iran, soon after the House adopted a separate measure rebuking the president amid escalations in the conflict in recent days.

Thousands flee wildfires in France as temperatures reach extreme levels in southern Europe

Some parts of Mediterranean Sea 5C hotter than normal, with air temperatures above 44C expected in Spain

• Europe live – latest updates

Brutal heat torching southern Europe has forced more than 20,000 people to flee wildfires in France as a marine heatwave scalds the Mediterranean and researchers warn that “Dantesque” scenarios cannot be ruled out as infernos worsen.

A “particularly intense” wildfire on France’s Atlantic coast prompted a series of evacuations, including thousands of tourists from campsites and other holiday accommodation, as firefighters struggled to control the blaze.

Mayor shot dead in Mexico months after surviving assassination attempt

Valentín Lavín Romero is the 14th mayor to be murdered since Claudia Sheinbaum became president in 2024

A mayor was shot dead on Wednesday in the Mexican state of Morelos after having survived a previous assassination attempt earlier this year. He is the 14th mayor to be murdered since Claudia Sheinbaum became president in October 2024.

Valentín Lavín Romero, who was from the Green party, an ally of the ruling leftwing Morena party, was wounded at the end of January when hitmen shot him at a petrol station on a motorway.

‘Eyes forward now’: George Russell upbeat after Mercedes solve engine problem

• Electrical fault had damaged Briton’s world title hopes

• ‘I’m glad we found it. Spa and Silverstone exposed issue’

George Russell believes his Mercedes team have identified the problem with his engine that damaged his world championship hopes over recent races and left the driver fuming when it played a key role in him being knocked out of Sunday’s round in Belgium.

Russell has been struggling with issues with his electrical energy deployment for three races now, since the Austrian GP, particularly at Silverstone and Spa which are energy-dependent circuits. In Belgium he was furious after he lacked electrical energy when exiting turn one on the opening lap. It left him vulnerable to the chasing pack, notably the Ferraris which swept past and he entered Les Combes corner alongside Lewis Hamilton, who clipped the Mercedes, sending Russell out of the race.

Google slapped with $1 billion fine under landmark EU digital law

European regulators fined Google $1 billion, alleging the company gives preferential treatment to its own services.

On the ground at India's 'Cockroach' protest

The unprecedented expression of dissent against India's government, headed by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, has shown no sign of abating, as protests by the youth-led “cockroach” protest movement entered its fourth day.

The Guardian’s south Asia correspondent Hannah Ellis-Petersen was on the ground in Delhi, where thousands still thronged the streets, many having travelled hundreds of miles to be there.

While the Cockroach Janta party has primarily focused on accountability for the devastating recent leaks of exam papers and called for the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, the overriding feeling as the week develops is that this is now bigger than one issue. 

For some, this is the moment that India’s youth – totalling more than 600 million – found its political voice.

FDA says new cyclospora outbreak linked to unspecified product

Federal health officials said they've identified a new outbreak of the cyclospora parasite, but the source hasn't been specified.

Amazon and Microsoft pivot cloud gaming strategies to target different players

Amazon is bringing Luna to the Prime Video streaming service, while Microsoft will test an ad-supported streaming of titles that people own.

At least two people missing in West Virginia after torrential rain causes flash floods

State’s governor had declared a state of emergency for all 55 counties, and deployed 500 national guard members

Patrick Morrisey, the West Virginia governor, said at least two people were unaccounted for in Upshur county, after torrential rain caused flash floods in parts of the state.

Speaking at a news conference, Morrisey said that during search-and-recovery operations state police found an overturned vehicle in Upshur county believed to be “connected to two individuals who were reported missing”.

Before you throw out all the synthetic fabrics in your closet, read this

Experts weigh in on wellness culture’s obsession with natural fibers and the growing trend of people shunning plastic-based clothing

A few months ago, Lane Koch made a decision: she would purge her family’s closets of all plastic-based fabrics and replace them with natural fibers, such as cotton and linen.

Koch, a longtime Republican political strategist who was a senior staffer on Robert F Kennedy Jr’s presidential campaign, has long avoided processed foods and rid her kitchen of plastic cookware about a decade ago. But, for all that she cared about what she put in her body, she told me she had paid little attention to what she put on her body.

Elliot Anderson lauds City as ‘kings of Manchester’ after £116m Forest transfer

• ‘They’re winners, relentless, a team I want to be part of’

• Midfielder hails De Bruyne as a childhood inspiration

Elliot Anderson has called Manchester City the “kings of Manchester” after completing his £116m move to the club from Nottingham Forest.

The 23-year-old was a key part of England’s third-place finish at the World Cup, having been an ever-present for Forest in the Premier League last season. Before Morgan Rogers’ £117m transfer to Chelsea from Aston Villa on Tuesday, Anderson’s fee was the record for a British player.

Ex-BBC journalist awarded £20,000 after MI5 and PSNI unlawfully accessed phone data

Tribunal rules surveillance aimed at identifying Vincent Kearney’s sources was disproportionate and unlawful

A former BBC journalist has been awarded £20,000 in damages after MI5 and the Police Service of Northern Ireland unlawfully obtained data from his mobile phone.

A specialist tribunal on Thursday ordered the agencies to pay the compensation to Vincent Kearney for attempts to identify his sources while he was the BBC’s Northern Ireland home affairs correspondent.

Drought declared in parts of Wales as July on course to be driest in nearly 200 years

Government agency announces status in north Wales and Upper Severn after series of heatwaves and lack of rainfall

Parts of Wales are now in drought and all other areas of the country are experiencing prolonged dry conditions, with this month on course to be the driest on record for nearly 200 years.

Natural Resources Wales (NRW) said on Thursday that record-low river flows, back-to-back heatwaves and widespread wildfires have prompted the declaration of drought status in north Wales and the Upper Severn.

Owner of Viking ship used in The Odyssey says studio has not paid bill for damage

Swedish nonprofit alleges cost to repair replica was $6,000 but Universal – which made $264m on film’s opening weekend – has not stumped up

The Swedish owners of a Viking longship replica that features in the Hollywood blockbuster The Odyssey say they feel “forgotten” after film-makers allegedly returned the vessel damaged and failed to foot the bill for repairs.

In nearly three decades at sea, the warship Glad av Gillberga – based on a wreck from around 1040 found in Denmark’s Roskilde fjord – has successfully sailed the North Sea, the Baltic and even voyaged to Canada.

‘I got carried away’: Elon Musk expresses regret about Doge and wading into Trump’s orbit

Billionaire in interview with the Economist admits he was too consumed by politics and shares predictions about AI

Elon Musk has admitted he became too consumed by politics during his volatile alliance with Donald Trump and his brief appointment as the president’s financial axman, running the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge).

The world’s richest person, and briefly its first trillionaire after his SpaceX company floated on the New York stock exchange in June, made the confession in a wide-ranging interview with the Economist published on Thursday. He shared his positions on subjects from foreign wars to AI, and made a number of eye-opening predictions for the future.

Alphabet and Tesla test Wall Street's patience as AI spending overshadows growth

Shares of Alphabet and Tesla dipped after the companies reported massive spending increases in their quarterly earnings reports.

​’Ian Curtis didn’t have a chance’: the Durutti Column on departed friends, Factory Records and fun with Morrissey

As they release their first album in 16 years, the Vini Reilly-fronted band answer your questions on sandpaper record sleeves, having Harry Styles as a fan and inventing a new style of guitar music

Vini, you’ve created some of the most beautiful, ethereal music of the last 40 years. Is it true that in your youth you were in a violent Manchester street gang? Songy24
Vini Reilly [guitars, vocals, keyboards]: Gangs then had a different meaning. It was just “their lot” and “our lot”. We’d sling insults at each other. Then you’d play football in the park and realise you were playing with the local thugs. They were actually very funny, and I could have fun with them because I was so little. At the time I’d been going through a recurring depressive illness and felt I didn’t fit in at home, so I left without any clean clothing. I wanted to end my life so I decided to go to Moss Side, where the gangsters would shoot me. Of course they didn’t. I’d had a very happy childhood until my father died when I was doing my O-levels, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the really bad things gave me more than they could ever take. How can you know happiness until you’ve known deep sadness?

Bruce Mitchell [drums]: Vini does kick off, though, properly battles. We had to section him once, and six people had to hold him down.

My first relationship just ended. How can I expect to find someone else when it took 15 years to find her? | Leading questions

To stay open-hearted and optimistic, you need hope, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. That’s not the same as expectation

• Read more Leading questions

I’m nearly 30 and my first serious relationship just ended a month ago. It lasted eight months, she was my first girlfriend and first kiss, etc. She broke up with me in a very kind and respectful way, and I have been … OK, I guess.

The thing is, everyone has been saying to me, “But you must feel so much more confident now.” I don’t. My self-esteem and confidence wasn’t exactly soaring before I met her, but now I feel even less so. It just feels like most people are less tolerant or accepting of my shortcomings.

The roaring 20s: how the current decade revolutionised cinema

Pre-Covid, the movie landscape was dramatically different: YouTubers weren’t dominating the box office, video game spin-offs rarely made an impact and Winnie-the-Pooh wasn’t yet the star of a slasher movie. Why such a flurry of innovation – and what will be next?

Cinema has always been a medium of research and development. At any given point, the industry is searching for yet another breakthrough that can drive it into the future. Synchronised sound in the 1920s. Technicolor in the 1930s. The invention of the modern blockbuster in the 1970s.

Conversely, the consensus is that, if the 2020s has a defining trend, then it is one of decline. The theatrical experience is under attack from all angles: streaming, YouTube, a once-in-a-century health crisis that shut cinemas down entirely. And yet, if you look closer, this has actually been one of the most innovative decades that cinema has ever seen. Whether down to technology or desperation, the film industry has spent these last few years figuring out new ways to make films that simply could not have existed even at the turn of the decade.

Pauline Hanson blames ‘fake news’ media for her bad press. But serious leaders have to own their actions

In a fortnight of rolling blunders, the One Nation leader digs deep into the Trump playbook of blame-shifting

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

There’s apparently only one thing to blame for Pauline Hanson’s string of bad headlines in recent weeks, from her decision to pal around with the far-right convicted criminal Tommy Robinson to her description of domestic violence on Wednesday as a “two-way street”.

According to the One Nation leader, it’s of course not Hanson herself who is to blame.

Member of Vance's Secret Service detail under investigation for leaking

The Secret Service said a member of Vice President JD Vance's detail is under investigation for "compromising operational and information security."

Murdoch and Musk in the crosshairs at Venice film festival

Danny Boyle’s drama about the acquisition of the Sun and a four-hour Elon Musk documentary will premiere alongside new films from Martin McDonagh and Werner Herzog – but only one female director has a movie in competition

The Venice film festival promises to take a swing at media moguls of the print and digital era this year, with Trainspotting director Danny Boyle’s new film about Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of the Sun and a new documentary about Elon Musk included in the lineup of the films for the festival’s 83rd edition.

In Boyle’s Ink, which will open the festival on the Lido on 2 September, Australian actor Guy Pearce plays compatriot newspaper tycoon Murdoch, whose purchase of the Sun in 1969 sensationalised the media landscape and transformed public life in Britain. The script is written by Olivier award-winning playwright and screenwriter James Graham (Dear England, Brexit: The Uncivil War).

In a first, Chinese woman wins the prestigious Fields Medal

Despite criticisms of a brain drain from China to the U.S., the awards come at a time when several high-profile Chinese scholars have returned home, some citing an increasingly hostile academic environment in America.

Maldini confirms crisis-hit Italy have held talks with Guardiola and Ancelotti

• Italy have failed to qualify for last three World Cups

• Guardiola is out of work while Ancelotti is still with Brazil

The Italian football federation (FIGC) has talked to Pep Guardiola, the former Manchester City coach, and Carlo Ancelotti, the Brazil manager, about taking over the crisis-hit national team.

It hopes to announce the new Italy coach within the week, with the Azzurri still reeling after failing for a third straight time to qualify for the World Cup.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner's widow on actor's death: "My body went through shock"

Tenisha Warner, the widow of "The Cosby Show" actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner, spoke exclusively to "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King about coping with grief one year after his death.

1.6 million eggs are recalled over potential salmonella contamination

The recall affects white-shell and cage-free eggs sold under multiple grocery brands in six states. No illnesses have been reported.

Israeli security minister joins Jewish extremists as they storm al-Aqsa mosque compound

Far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was among thousands who gathered at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site

Israel’s far-right minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, joined thousands of Jewish extremists who stormed Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site on Thursday.

Escorted by armed police, they prayed, waved the Israeli flag and sang the national anthem in a provocative display of political power.

IRS chief Frank Bisignano may have misled Congress, Democrats say

The IRS alone hemorrhaged more than 31,000 employees as of January in President Trump's government cuts, according to the agency's inspector general.

Two Russian men jailed in Angola for terrorism and spying

The men were convicted over alleged plan to stage coup and organise deadly demonstrations over fuel prices last year

Two Russian men have been found guilty by an Angolan court of terrorism and spying after being accused of planning a coup and helping to organise deadly demonstrations in the southern African country last year.

Lev Lakshtanov and Igor Ratchin were sentenced to eight and 11 years in jail respectively. They had denied the charges, claiming they were in Angola for cultural and business activities.

Global oil prices hit $100 a barrel amid attacks in Red Sea

The last time global oil prices settled above $100 was on May 22, data from FactSet shows.

Republicans urge Justice Department to investigate former prosecutor Jack Smith

The former special counsel led two criminal investigations of President Trump and has been a frequent target of Trump's ire on social media.

MoD cancels army training in Kenya over powers to prosecute British soldiers

September exercise called off after Kenya raises concerns over funding and jurisdiction for criminal offences

The British army has been forced to cancel training for its troops in Kenya after the Kenyan government refused to ratify a bilateral defence agreement.

While the UK government wanted to renew the existing agreement, Kenyan lawmakers had sought changes to give local authorities greater powers to hold British soldiers accountable for any offences committed in the country.

Like Trump, I went through a home-renovation obsession. The results are often disappointing | Jackie Delamatre

We are now a nation of homogenized open concepts and curb appeal. It’s an approach that leads to anxiety and isolation

Recently, Jonathan Swan – one of the authors of a new tell-all about Donald Trump’s second term – told the hosts of The View that if you had a pie chart of Trump’s mind, “a pretty substantial slice is devoted to interior decorating”. He also revealed that Trump is engaged in “design wars” with Melania and moved furniture she had selected into his spaces. The commander-in-chief apparently has even been caught supergluing gilded accents to the Oval Office mantel himself. Though Trump claims taxpayers won’t be on the hook for the costs of his renovations, the New York Times reported that the White House’s 18 major remodeling projects – from the botched Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool to the paved-over Rose Garden to the looming “Arc de Trump” – will probably come with a price tag of $1.2bn.

Of course, Trump’s renovation compulsion didn’t start this year. The president celebrated winning his first term, in 2017, by ripping out the Oval Office’s royal blue carpet with the presidential seal and replacing it with a Mar-a-Lago peach version, accented with – what else? – gold. But in his second term, he’s gotten bolder, both politically and aesthetically – and more addicted. By the autumn of his first year back in office, he went ahead and tore down the East Wing entirely.

Eli Lilly says it will file for approval of next-generation obesity drug in 2027 as it clears two more trials

There are now positive results from five late-stage trials on retatrutide, which Lilly is positioning as the next pillar of its obesity portfolio.

Democrats claim Social Security email included "misleading information"

Lawmakers claim Commissioner Frank Bisignano used an agency email to exaggerate tax savings under the Republicans' OBBBA while inserting partisan political messaging.

Norway considers filing Fifa ethics complaint over Trump role in World Cup red card saga

• Norwegian federation president: Fifa on a ‘slippery slope’

• Trump called Infantino for review of Balogun’s red

Donald Trump’s role in clearing Folarin Balogun from a mandatory one-game ban at the World Cup is set to provoke a formal complaint to Fifa ethics investigators.

The Norway soccer federation said Thursday its board of directors will consider filing the complaint at its next meeting, likely on 6 August.

Southwest Airlines' third-quarter forecast falls short as fuel bill climbs

Southwest Airlines reported a more than 9% increase in second-quarter profit as higher fares are increasingly helping the airline cover its fuel tab.

Risk of Parkinson’s disease may increase with prolonged exposure to road traffic noise

Pioneering study linking noise pollution to Parkinson’s finds 3% increase in risk for every 11.5dB rise in noise levels

Long-term exposure to road traffic noise is associated with a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease, the biggest study of its kind has found.

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive disorder in which parts of the brain become damaged over time, affecting movement and balance.

Man shot and killed by police in Madison, Wisconsin, sparking protests

Madison's chief of police says an officer in Wisconsin's capital city shot and killed a man who had injured him with a knife while resisting arrest.

There Are No Ghosts at the Grand – stripping back the physical and metaphorical layers of a haunted hotel

Renovate rooms, investigate the supernatural and watch people burst into song in this surreal British ghost story

A young American man arrives in a dilapidated British seaside town to take on the renovations of an equally run-down hotel, inherited from a mysteriously absent father he never knew. His power tools talk to him in a Scottish accent, the local people speak in baffling slang, and occasionally people burst into song. Oh, and there are ghosts.

There Are No Ghosts at the Grand is a novel mix of genres – no bad thing in these times of sequels and remakes – but, according to the creative director of independent developers Friday Sundae, Anil Glendinning, it grew organically from a single goal: to tell a very British ghost story.

Nolan Wells' cause and manner of death are undetermined, independent autopsy finds

Independent autopsy results commissioned by Nolan Wells' family found the cause and manner of the 18-year-old's death were undetermined, pending further investigation. Wells died during a July Fourth boating trip with friends.

Protests after police shoot and kill man allegedly armed with a knife in Wisconsin

Four police officers are on leave after a man who was allegedly armed with a knife was shot and killed in Madison, Wisconsin, on Wednesday. Within hours of the deadly shooting, there were protests and a vigil held for the man. Mark Strassmann has more.

Tenisha Warner, widow of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, opens up about being a single mom

Tenisha Warner sat down for an exclusive interview with "CBS Mornings" before a lawsuit over her late husband's estate became public, and discussed her grief and raising her daughter alone.

Track where Tropical Storm Bertha is heading after making landfall in Louisiana

Tropical Storm Bertha is expected to make a second landfall on Thursday, this time in Texas, after it brought dangerous flooding to Louisiana. CBS News meteorologist Rob Marciano has the latest on the storm's path.

Get into med school in the graphic memoir 'See One, Do One, Teach One'

Grace Farris' book brings readers behind the med school scenes — documenting anxiety over loans, bouts of impostor syndrome, friendships forged in stress, and the ever-impossible work-life balance.

Trump says U.S. will hold Iran responsible for Houthi attacks after oil tankers targeted in Red Sea

Yemen's Houthis said they had targeted two Saudi oil tankers with drones and missiles for allegedly violating its maritime blockade.

Former Barclays CEO Jes Staley faces US congressional panel over Epstein ties

Staley is latest high-profile figure to testify before House amid investigation into Epstein, convicted sex offender

Former Barclays boss Jes Staley appeared before by US lawmakers on Thursday in a closed-door interview about his past ties to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Staley, who spent more than three decades at JPMorgan Chase before joining Barclays in 2015, is the latest in a series of high-profile figures to appear in front of the House committee on oversight and reform as part of its investigation into Epstein, who died in prison in August 2019 while awaiting trial over child sex-trafficking charges.

Pastor sues OpenAI alleging ChatGPT's medical advice nearly killed him

The case accuses OpenAI of practicing medicine without a license and failing to safeguard users seeking health advice.

Beyond the body: Wayne McGregor stretches the definition of dance at this year’s Venice Dance Biennale

With the British dance legend at the helm, this year’s themes ranged from quantum gravity to slightly muted geopolitics

The most memorable performance in the opening days of this year’s Venice Dance Biennale had barely any dance in it at all. Italian choreographer Andrea Salustri’s Invisible is built around movement, but it’s movement of light, air, water and sound waves, with Salustri and co-creator Alice Rende as shadowy figures conducting the elements. They brew up storms like Zeus and Poseidon, with flashing veins of light, sounds of pummelling rain (in fact small drips and bubbles amplified by powerful microphones) and an enormous amount of billowing smoke that ultimately whips itself into a spinning tornado.

Salustri, who won the Italian callout to create a new work for this year’s biennale, is a circus artist and philosophy graduate, and he is also a choreographer – a definition so much wider than one who devises dance. This year marks the 20th dedicated dance festival in Venice (dance was previously seen as part of the theatre or music programmes here until 1999, since when it has been an annual, then biennial, and now annual feature of Venice’s arts bonanza). In a talk to mark this anniversary, current artistic director Wayne McGregor was joined by four former directors to discuss their aims for the event. The question of “what dance is” kept arising as the ongoing line of inquiry, a question “so ordinary that it is still necessary somehow”, said choreographer Marie Chouinard.

A new film, Life Lines, put together by McGregor and filmmaker Ravi Deepres, compiles archive clips from festivals past, showing that the range of dance here has been vast and multifarious, from the fairly conventional to the theatrically wild. There’s clearly no single story of contemporary dance’s development, and McGregor’s theme for this year’s festival is Time Does Not Exist. Influenced by physicist Carlo Rovelli and the theory of quantum gravity, his is not a linear view of time, and without doubt, in dance (and in life), we carry our embodied pasts constantly into the present. That’s no more evident than in Soa Ratsifandrihana’s piece Fampitaha, Fampita, Fampitàna (meaning “comparison, transmission, rivalry” in Malagasy, the language of Madagascar, from where the choreographer is from). It’s a piece about living in the diaspora and concerned with the sometimes joyful, sometimes painful, memories that link back home – especially the memories stored in our bodies, in songs, stories and dance steps. It’s a gentle piece, conversational between the three dancers and fabulous guitarist Joël Rabesolo, in the sense that like many conversations it meanders, then touches on the profound, then gets self-absorbed, connects again, tails off. But it has its moments.

See the damage Tropical Storm Bertha left behind on Gulf Coast

Tropical Storm Bertha made landfall Wednesday in southeast Louisiana, bringing dangerous flooding to the region. Lana Zak has a look at the damage.

Gold from Byzantium shipwreck and a pub-serving PM: photos of the day – Thursday

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

‘Why do I feel crappy?’: women are learning about their luteal phases - and Maha is weaponizing it

People have found language for moodiest part of their menstrual cycles, and the right has seized on it

Emily Rae Detrick, a health coach, wants women to be more in touch with their menstrual cycle in its entirety. This, she said on an October episode of Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, a podcast popular among “Make America Healthy Again” (Maha) adherents, is “a way that you honor God and the way we were created”. It also serves her self-assigned mission to help “make America fertile again”.

In the episode and on social media, Detrick speaks at length about the luteal phase, the 14-ish days between ovulation and menstruation when women are more likely to experience irritability, bloating and food cravings. If a woman does not get pregnant after ovulating, or so Detrick’s line of thinking goes, her body becomes upset. “During the luteal phase, the reason why your stress threshold is so much lower is because this is the time your body would be incubating a potential baby,” she said. No baby, and you might turn into a frazzled, nagging shrew.

‘Unbearably sexy in his rodenty way’: Benedict Cumberbatch’s 20 best films – ranked!

To mark the two-time Oscar nominee’s recent 50th birthday, we rate his finest screen roles – from hyper-British patricians and seething serpents, to ghastly Yanks, tragic codebreakers and sci-fi scoundrels

Benedict Cumberbatch does his considerable best opposite the equally prestigious Olivia Colman in this souped-up marital-breakdown dramedy, essentially remade from the 1989 movie with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. This time, though, it’s all about the Britons – indicating the supposed classiness of the affair. But the film is overwrought and unconvincing; it never convinces us that the couple were once passionately in love and now passionately in hate. The below-par script has the effect of bringing out an unrewarding kind of coldness in Cumberbatch, technically assured though he always is.

‘Barbecue plus one’: My friend’s genius solution for feeding the masses without sweltering next to the coals

Throw one thing on the grill and serve with a huge bowl of something else – from spicy roasted aubergines to a Greek salad

Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

While I am glad to be home in Rome, it was particularly hard to leave England this year. After a few days in London, we spent two weeks between Dorset and Devon, in gardens or on the pebble beaches of West Bay, Lyme Regis and Branscombe. Thrashing around in the sea has never felt so necessary. There was also plenty of good eating, the air filled with suggestive scents – of fat dripping on to hot coals, sun cream, insect spray and lavender. Which brings me to the theme of this newsletter: a barbecue plus one.

The term is actually borrowed from an Australian friend. It is her solution to feeding lots of people well without too much work or clearing up: one thing on the barbecue (be it sausages, chicken, slices of cheese, kebabs or vegetables) plus one enormous bowl of something else. The solution came about after a particularly chaotic afternoon when her kids were all young, for which she made loads of dishes and compromises, and still didn’t manage to make everyone happy. Clearing up, she thought: “Thats it – next time it is going to be one or two things on the barbecue plus the biggest bowl in the house, filled with one substantial dish.” If I am being precise it should be ’barbecue plus one’, plus pitta bread, so helpful people can stuff the item from the grill, plus the bowl ‘thing’ into a pitta pouch, avoiding the need of a plate, plus sauces in squeezy bottles.

China's Geely to make EVs at Ford plant in Spain under new joint venture

Ford and Geely plan for the joint venture will begin operations in the first half of 2027, with the first new vehicles scheduled to roll off the line in 2028.

U.S. signs nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. And, Nolan Wells' independent autopsy results

The U.S. has signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia. And, the independent autopsy results of Nolan Wells fuel more questions surrounding his cause of death.

This AI tool promises a 'second pair of eyes' to clinicians. Did patients benefit?

Medical workers in a Nairobi clinic used an AI tool to check their work. A new study evaluates the result.

‘My life’s work was being delightful. That really hurt me’: breakout Americana star Brennan Wedl on freeing herself through song

​With her roots stretching from the Catholic church to riot grrrl, the US singer-songwriter explains how sobriety and self-analysis powered her classic new Waxahatchee-produced album

The songwriting on Brennan Wedl’s new album is so ironclad that I kept checking the credits to see if any of its songs were actually covers of peak Lucinda Williams tracks that I’d somehow missed. Nope: all originals by a 29-year-old songwriter whose radiant, hooky, tough Americana puts her toe-to-toe with genre godheads such as Williams circa Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, or Sheryl Crow had she grown up playing church basement punk shows; also, a vision of Courtney Love in cowboy boots.

“I love Lucinda’s very earnest way of looking at daily life, and I hoped to achieve that on this record,” says Wedl, calling from her Nashville home, surrounded by vintage magazines and tchotchkes. Wedl is warm and dudely; she answers almost every question with an exuberant “toootally!”. She cites her favourite of her new songs, the absurdly immediate Just Another Daddy Who Did Me Wrong, a bittersweet number that questions her self-destructive appeal. “It’s a very harsh look at reality, but also about how our minds can create so much fantasy around reality. I’m working on not projecting too much on reality these days.”

Dubai offers £600 rewards to residents who lure friends to visit as tourist numbers plummet

Residents eligible for dining and hotel packages if they can persuade family and friends to city spurned by visitors amid Iran war

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Dubai is offering to pay residents who attract family and friends to visit the emirate in an effort to revive tourist numbers that have plummeted since the city was drawn into the US-Israel war on Iran.

The Dubai Invite scheme, an initiative of the department of economy and tourism, allows residents of the United Arab Emirates to nominate friends and relatives and then to receive benefits worth more than 3,000 UAE dirham (about £610) if they visit.

Why health officials do not have a good handle on the current Ebola outbreak

To get slightly ahead of the virus, health officials need to quickly identify people at risk of infection, a practice known as contact tracing. That's a challenge in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Senate panel advances China auto bill that could bar Mercedes-Benz from U.S.

Mercedes-Benz’s largest individual shareholder is Chinese state-owned BAIC. Cruz warned the bill could hurt Mercedes and accused GM of backing it.

Moonshot AI accessed Nvidia's chips despite Chinese export ban, White House official says

A White House official said Moonshot AI, which released the powerful Kimi K3 model last week, accessed Nvidia's GB300 chips in Thailand.

Space datacenters proposed by Musk and Bezos ‘catastrophic’ for planet, experts warn

New US petition demands review of plans from tech companies amid fears of environmental destruction

Space datacenters proposed by SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and others would release staggering levels of pollution that would probably alter the Earth’s atmosphere and be “catastrophic” for the planet, space industry experts and environmental groups warn in a new petition demanding a review of their impacts.

Tech companies have collectively proposed millions of “orbital datacenters” and are pressing forward with plans, which require Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval. Among other issues, pollution from satellites and rockets burning up upon re-entry appears to be accumulating in the stratosphere at alarming levels. The spacecraft release black soot, rare metals, aluminum oxides and other pollutants with unknown effects.

‘Don’t become the protagonist’: Andoni Iraola on the secret of Spain’s success and his role at Liverpool

Liverpool’s new head coach is settling into the pre-season tour in Chicago as he begins to reshape the Reds’ identity

Over coffee in Liverpool’s plush hotel in Chicago, Andoni Iraola presents his theory for the phenomenal success of Basque and Spanish coaches. It is a theory that will shape his entire approach to life as the Liverpool head coach and his attempts to bring the connection, the joy and the belief back to Anfield. It centres on the power of the collective.

The Champions League, the Premier League, the Europa League, the FA Cup, the League Cup, the European Championship and, as of Sunday, the World Cup: all currently in the hands of Basque and Spanish coaches, even if Pep Guardiola has since taken his leave from Manchester City. Next season, four men from the small Basque region of Gipuzkoa will manage four of the Premier League’s main contenders, Iraola included, alongside Mikel Arteta, Xabi Alonso and Unai Emery. There is, Iraola believes, a simple explanation for the rise of the guys from Gipuzkoa and for Spanish dominance across a global stage.

‘Everyone is hooked on football’: Indian league seeks to ride World Cup wave

Club chiefs hope that a revitalised setup can help huge interest in this summer’s tournament translate into growth of the Indian domestic game

India was not at the World Cup, but the tournament drew huge interest from within the country. This has happened before but now comes with significant, and necessary, changes in the domestic game that could transform a quadrennial passion into perennial interest.

After more than a year of negative headlines regarding the Indian Super League, the country’s top tier will kick off on 4 September. “The timing couldn’t be better,” says Ravi Puskur, chief executive of the ISL’s FC Goa who last season won the Super Cup, India’s top knockout competition. “A World Cup that was not ideal in terms of viewing times has drawn strong interest and support from the Indian market. It does something a domestic league alone can’t do; it puts football at the centre of the conversation.”

Trump says Saudi Arabia's nuclear deal hinges on the kingdom normalizing Israel ties

After a Saudi nuclear power deal raised alarm in Israel, President Trump announced online that the arrangement is subject to the kingdom normalizing relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords.

Murders continue historic decline despite spikes in a few cities, study finds

Violent and property crime categories were also down, new analysis shows. But reported drug crimes were up when compared to the same period last year.

‘Cockroach’ protests: India’s Modi promises to punish officials over exam leaks

PM says ‘those who try to harm the future of our youth will not be spared’ as scandal spirals into widespread anger

Narendra Modi has vowed to set up “fast-track courts” to speed up the punishment of officials accused of leaking examination papers, as the Indian prime minister seeks to quell a youth-led “cockroach” protest movement that has rocked Delhi and posed one of the biggest challenges to his government.

In his first public remarks on the movement, Modi posted on X: “Nothing is more important than the welfare and future of our youth … Those who try to harm the future of our youth will not be spared.”

EU fines Google €890m for competition breaches over search and apps

Firm told to treat third-party services that appear in its results in ‘fair and non-discriminatory manner’

Google has been fined a total of €890m (£760m) by the EU for breaches of online competition laws by its search and app store services.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said Google had broken the Digital Markets Act by giving priority to its own services, such as shopping and hotel deals, in search results over those of its rivals.

Legal logging and soaring saplings: the ‘green islands’ bucking the deforestation trend in central America

In Guatemala’s Maya biosphere reserve local people are making a living from trees at the same time as increasing forest cover, showing nature is best protected by those who depend on it

The low rumbling grows louder until a huge harvester crashes into the open, dragging a 15-metre trunk of mahogany in its wake. The tractor manoeuvres before releasing its load and shovelling it like a matchstick on to a growing pile of lumber at the edge of the clearing. Then, with a crunch of gears and a belch of diesel, it turns and lurches back into the forest.

This is sustainable forestry at its most brutal, yet in a few weeks’ time silence will return to this pocket of tropical forest in Guatemala’s Maya biosphere reserve (MBR). Nature will be left to reclaim the land and chainsaws won’t return for at least four years, as part of a strict management plan that is helping to buck the trend of rampant deforestation.

The real aim of Trump’s New York Times leak investigation is to punish reporters | James Risen

A decade ago, experts said I’d be the last reporter to face a subpoena in a leak investigation. How wrong they were

In 2015, after I won a seven-year battle with the federal government and refused its demands that I reveal my confidential sources for a story I wrote about a botched CIA operation, many media experts predicted that I would be the last journalist ever subpoenaed by the government in a leak investigation. They argued that new surveillance technology made it possible for the government to more readily identify sources inside the government without having to rely on the testimony of reporters. There was no longer any need for the government to go through the lengthy and bitter legal process of trying to haul reporters into court and threaten them with jail if they refused to reveal their sources.

Fast forward more than a decade, and it is obvious that those predictions from the experts were wrong. The notion that leak investigations are primarily designed to find leakers now seems quaint.

James Risen is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist

The music in Nolan’s Odyssey is as well-crafted – and bloodlessly forgettable – as the film itself

Ludwig Göransson’s meticulous score uses instruments of the era to create an earthy, raw and bleak soundscape, but it merely supports the portrayal of an uncomplicated hero

A few weeks ago I came across a video of Professor Armand D’Angour, associate professor of classics at Oxford university. He explained how, through groundbreaking research involving fragments of melody and rhythms found on papyrus and stone and the reconstruction of ancient instruments, it is now possible to hear for the first time in 2,000 years what ancient Greek music would have sounded like.

Given Ludwig Göransson’s beautiful theme for the aulos (an ancient double-barrelled flute) in Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster, The Odyssey, and his reputation for dedicated research into his subject matter, it seems very likely that he too has heard these calls from the ancient past.

The end of Heartstopper is a bittersweet loss – it’s never felt scarier to be young and queer | Alim Kheraj

The gay Netflix romance maintained a political edge despite rollbacks to queer and trans rights

After six books, three seasons of television and a film-length finale, Heartstopper has come to an end. Often dubbed the most wholesome show on TV, Netflix’s adaptation of Alice Oseman’s young adult LGBTQ+ graphic novel series, which itself began life as a web comic, is a legitimate cultural phenomenon, turning its two leads – Kit Connor and Joe Locke – into household names, while racking up tens of millions of views. In print, meanwhile, the Heartstopper series has sold over 10m copies worldwide, including about 1.3m in the UK alone.

Yet these figures only tell one side of the story of Heartstopper’s impact. At the queer and feminist bookshop where I work part-time in Sheffield, the young people who come in are immediately drawn to copies of Oseman’s books, and often take pictures of the now permanent window display depicting Nick and Charlie, the couple at the story’s heart. I see young queer people’s faces light up when they see we have the book in stock, even though they probably already have a copy at home.

Why would Trump agree to the Saudi nuclear deal? | Kenneth Roth

The agreement offers the Saudis the same options Trump has sworn Iran will never have

The stark contrast between Donald Trump’s nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia and his nuclear demands for Iran would be comical if not so tragic. Trump has handed the Saudis the same nuclear options he swore Iran would never have.

To make matters worse, Trump seems to have offered the Saudis this sweetheart deal to make amends for his disastrous war of choice with Iran. Meanwhile, he continues to bomb Iran in a push to open the strait of Hormuz, which was not closed until Trump launched his counterproductive war.

Meet the man whose groundbreaking book is being devoured by the left

Anton Jäger has been lauded for his exceptional ability to make sense of these strange political times – and he’s only 32. The writer and academic explains why we’re living in an age of hyperpolitics

‘I am acutely conscious,” said Andy Burnham outside 10 Downing Street on Monday, “that I am the sixth person in the last 10 years to walk up this street.” It was good to hear him say it because, beneath all the cabinet gossip and rune-reading, there is a feeling of terror about the immediate future and also about ourselves, the electorate. Is this who we are now? Wildly enthusiastic one minute, seething the next; as passionate about the change we want as we are convinced that those who promise it are incapable of enacting it?

It is perhaps not surprising that Anton Jäger’s recent book, Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences, is being read by Labour watchers and leftwing thinkers. As the New York Times wrote, it’s “among the best and most dazzling efforts to model the political present in all its maddening strangeness”. Still, I think Jäger was surprised to have his honeymoon interrupted so I could interview him about it. Life comes at everyone quite fast in a hyperpolitical age.

DOT cranks up its campaign to strip bike lane references from federal websites

Transportation officials have removed a growing list of safety materials that mention bike lanes from federal websites. Safety advocates warn that's undermining proven measures for reducing crashes.

Amid a big hiring push, police experts question ICE officer vetting

The recent fatal shootings by ICE officers in Texas and Maine come at a time when the federal agency has hired a huge number of officers quickly. Some law enforcement experts worry that this kind of a hiring spree can lead police agencies to cut corners in vetting new hires.

Pride organisers vow to march in Romanian city that has blocked event four years in a row

Oradea is only major city in EU where local authorities have repeatedly blocked Pride plans

Campaigners in a Romanian city have vowed to go ahead with a Pride march after local authorities denied permission for the fourth consecutive year.

Since 2023, campaigners in the western city of Oradea, which has a population of about 180,000, have sought permission to hold Pride events. However, each year they have faced opposition, making Oradea the only major city in the EU where local authorities have repeatedly blocked Pride marches.

Scottish police officer was rapist who attacked women over 14 years

Alan Greer, who killed himself after officers visited his home, could be ‘Police Scotland’s Wayne Couzens moment’

A police officer who took his own life in May was a rapist who attacked at least nine women over 14 years.

PC Alan Greer’s offending came to light when his first known victim, a woman he raped in her home in Glasgow in 2012 after she had called the police to report being the victim of a crime, reported the attack late last year.

Commonwealth Games: 10 things to look out for at Glasgow 2026

With the Games about to get under way, here are 10 of the most intriguing subplots to the event

Twelve years after winning his first major international title in the 100m breaststroke at Glasgow 2014, Adam Peaty, now 31, heads back to Scotland hoping to remind everyone why he is one of Britain’s greatest swimmers. Peaty has won three Olympic gold medals and dominated the event for much of the past decade, but his aura of invincibility has faded since losing his unbeaten streak in 2022 and dealing with injuries and time away from the sport. Glasgow offers an opportunity to complete the circle.

Don’t like the result? Don’t worry, sport no longer ends on the field of play | Jonathan Liew

From the wrong headset in an F2 garage to Fifa overturning a red card, we are in a landscape where fairness is the enemy

A funny and very small thing happened at the Formula Two race at Spa on Sunday. Noel León, of Campos Racing, carved his way through the field to finish seventh, earning himself six points in the drivers’ championship, and promptly left the circuit to go and do whatever it is Noel León likes to do after a race. Take a nap, hit the Belgian brews, congratulate himself on his palindromic name – whatever. Anyway, while he was doing that, more than three hours after the chequered flag, the FIA governing body called a meeting and decided to disqualify him.

The reason: a serious breach of appendix 5 and article 21.5 of the F2 Sporting Regulations – and assuming you don’t have those to hand, it’s the rule governing the use of headsets. During the race, a guest of León had been spotted in the Campos garage wearing what was deemed the wrong type of headset. According to the aforementioned appendix 5, only listening devices may be used by non-team personnel. This headset had a microphone, albeit upturned and unused.