Chelsea fined £10m and given suspended transfer ban by FA over agent breaches

• Club escape suspended six-point deduction on appeal

• Owners admitted secret payments by previous regime

Chelsea have been fined £10m and given a suspended two-window transfer ban after admitting breaches of agent rules, the FA announced on Friday.

An earlier independent commission had imposed a suspended six-point deduction, which has now been set aside with the suspended transfer ban imposed in its place.

This story will be updated.

Here comes the alt-bride: wedding gowns enter a more experimental era

Celebrities including Charli xcx and Gabbriette and avant-garde brands honour tradition while also rejecting it

If a wedding day brings to mind a bride dressed in a big white dress, the styles coming down the aisle in the near future may strike you as a little different. Whether it is through celebrity references, or new brands, wedding gowns are entering a more experimental era.

For Charli xcx’s marriage to the 1975 drummer George Daniel last year, the bride wore a minidress and sunglasses.

Commonwealth Games 2026: Scotland’s Woods wins again in restaged para-athletics final – live

• Updates from Friday’s live action around Glasgow

• Medal table | Campbell cooks up gold | Email Taha

Boxing: Scarlett Savannah Delgado of Canada and Preeti Preeti of India will contest the women’s 54kg final after winning their respective semi-finals. England’s Lauren Mackie and Zambia’s Catherine Mwape will fight for bronze.

Up next it’s a 65kg home nations derby between Kaci Rock (Northern Ireland) and Caitlin Rainey (Scotland). Rock is the daughter of the former Irish boxer Jim Rock (the only man to hold Irish titles in four different weight divisions) and idolised Katie Taylor growing up. Initially her father tried to dissuade Rock from taking up boxing. “Sometimes when your mum and dad tell you you can’t do something, you want to do it more and I think that’s what happened,” she told BBC Sport.

Spain’s Sánchez blames trafficking gangs as estimated 60,000 migrants reach Ceuta – Europe live

PM says criminals have misled people over a recent court ruling about those arriving in Spain via the sea

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez is now in Ceuta, accompanied by interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska.

He first visited the Tarajal border crossing, and is now talking to officials from local authorities, border and police services.

GM to launch its own in-vehicle AI system later this year

General Motors plans to launch a proprietary in-vehicle artificial intelligence system that's better tailored for its customers later this year.

Amazon surges 14%, Apple falls 9% as investors pick post-earnings AI winners

Amazon reported a surge in revenue at its key cloud business while Apple issued disappointing guidance.

World-renowned climber Nirmal Purja among 10 struck by avalanche on Pakistan mountain

Rescuers say four bodies found in search for team caught in Broad Peak avalanche, after trackers showed rapid descent

The world-renowned Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja – a former British Special Forces member – is among 10 climbers caught in a deadly avalanche on Pakistan’s Broad Peak.

Rescuers on Friday said four bodies had been found and efforts were under way to retrieve them despite the harsh weather. Two of the dead have been identified: Pur Bahadur Gurung, a Nepali citizen, and Nadhira Alharthy, who was the first Omani to climb Everest.

Trump says ‘complete disarmament’ of Hamas agreed in Gaza but Israel yet to accept

US president hails breakthrough but Israeli far-right minister says ‘only solution’ is ‘encouraging emigration and destroying Hamas’

• Middle East crisis – live updates

• What is Trump’s Board of Peace and who is involved?

Donald Trump has declared a breakthrough in negotiations over the disarmament of Hamas in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, issues that have so far stalled implementation of last October’s ceasefire, but Israel has yet to respond officially to the plan and government officials have voiced scepticism over the deal.

Announcing the agreement in a social media post on Thursday night, Trump said it involved the “complete disarmament” of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza and was “a monumental step toward ending the fighting”.

Dwindling cash and soaring memory costs: Tech's AI buildout has ballooning price tag

Amazon, Alphabet and Tesla all reported negative cash flow in the latest quarter, while Meta's cash generation plummeted by 91%.

In Nebraska, Americans begin to lose Medicaid under Trump's work rules

Nebraska's Medicaid director, in an exclusive interview with nonprofit news organization Tradeoffs, said roughly 200 people will lose health coverage on Aug. 1.

U.S. probing if Iran was behind cyberattack on water systems in 7 states

Malicious cyber activity affected technology at water systems in at least seven states this week, including Minnesota, leading authorities to dig into whether Iranian actors are behind the attack, CBS News has learned.

Lawyer for Rep. Miller's ex-wife files for restraining order amid abuse claims

The ex-wife of GOP Rep. Max Miller asked a court to issue a restraining order blocking Miller from contacting her lawyer, as the Ohio congressman faces allegations of abuse — which he denies.

State department to offer Trump-branded US passports nationwide

Passports with the president’s portrait, previously only available in DC, will be offered at 27 agencies nationwide

• US politics live – latest updates

Americans outside the nation’s capital will soon be able to get limited-edition passports that feature a picture of Donald Trump and celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, the state department announced.

The department’s 27 passport agencies nationwide will start offering the special travel documents next month. They previously had only been available at the Washington DC passport office for in-person applicants.

Andy Burnham signals he will scrap plans to curb jury trials

Prime minister says he has concerns about one of most significant proposals from Keir Starmer’s government

• UK politics live – latest updates

Andy Burnham has indicated he will scrap plans to curtail jury trials in England and Wales, abandoning one of the most significant overhauls from Keir Starmer’s government.

The prime minister said he had concerns about the proposals and that his instinct was to keep juries at the heart of the justice system.

Arsenal target Bruno Guimarães not on Newcastle’s flight to pre-season camp

• Midfielder may still fly to La Manga on Sunday

• Incoming head coach Jaissle to meet squad in Spain

Bruno Guimarães was not on Newcastle’s flight to Murcia on Friday lunchtime as Eddie Howe’s former players prepared to meet their new head coach in southern Spain.

As Guimarães, who is believed to be in Brazil, appeared to inch closer towards a transfer to Arsenal, Matthias Jaissle was completing his managerial move from Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ahli. Howe’s successor is expected to arrive at the club’s pre-season training camp in the La Manga complex at some point this weekend.

A World Cup with no participants – it could be Gianni Infantino’s boldest move yet | Marina Hyde

You’ve got to admire the Fifa president’s chutzpah in trying to flog off football’s greatest prize. If only Uefa wasn’t being so pesky about it all

Imagine a plan so distasteful that even the Americans and a Middle Eastern nepo-royal football boss can’t be doing with it. Such is the status of Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s scheme to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private investors. More historically, perhaps, the 55 nations that make up Uefa have reacted to this horror show by voting unanimously to boycott Fifa tournaments, including World Cups, if Infantino presses ahead. That would mean Spain and Portugal boycotting their own men’s World Cup next time around, which you’d think – not to call it too soon – would come off as slightly bad vibes.

A testing moment, then, for the haunted cue-ball. Again. Can it really already be time to turn to Infantino once more, even after he appeared in this spot only on Tuesday, after his 15-page Instagram crash-out about his haters? Yes. Yes, I’m afraid it can. Demanding the federations of the world sell off the World Cup to some fund led by Donald Trump’s son-in-law’s brother will regrettably draw attention to you in ways that will prove difficult to control. As indicated, the Fifa president’s plan has contrived to appear vulgar to the North American confederation, Concacaf, as well as the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Why undercover footage exposing lobbyists raises concerns for journalism – video explainer

A Guardian investigation has revealed that a political lobbying firm, founded by the former electoral strategist for David Cameron and Boris Johnson, secretly pays journalists to write pieces for British newspapers that are favourable to its clients.

In a practice that appears to create a back door for private companies to influence public opinion, lobbyists for CT Group, which was co-founded by the campaign strategist Lynton Crosby, told an undercover reporter they had paid journalists to place apparently independent stories in newspapers.

In a statement, CT Group said: 'We do not comment publicly on work we do for clients and we therefore cannot respond to the specific allegations you have made.' CT Group said the events had been 'deliberately mischaracterised' and it did not engage the undercover journalist to do anything and did not pay him anything. It said the journalist was looking for work and 'chased us relentlessly over a period of more than six months'

• Lobbying giant filmed offering reporter payment for flattering client coverage in national press

Fed officials who voted to hike rates say action is needed now against inflation

Kashkari and Hammack joined Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan in dissenting against holding the Fed's key overnight borrowing rate steady.

Netflix sued for allegedly losing unreleased Nicolas Cage movie

Lawsuit alleges that a drive storing $45 million spy film starring Nicolas Cage was "stolen right off a Netflix desk."

Fifa rapidly accelerates plan to expand World Cup to 64 teams from 2030 tournament

• Research analysis to be delivered by 11 September

• Decision on expansion could be taken this year

Fifa is pushing ahead with plans to expand the World Cup to 64 teams from 2030 and has opened a tender to research companies to assess the economic benefits on a hugely accelerated timescale.

In another twist during a week of astonishing revelations about the global governing body’s plans to reshape football, the Guardian has seen a “research brief” outlining a consultation process to assess the potential increase from the tournament’s current 48 teams. A period of just four weeks has been allocated for the successful party, which will be selected on 14 August, to analyse the proposed expansion. Fifa has required that the analysis is delivered by 11 September, indicating that a decision could be taken this year.

Key keeping England door open for Stokes: ‘Anything’s possible with Ben’

• England captain retired from international game in June

• Key says Fleming will start as Test coach in September

Rob Key has opened the door for Ben Stokes to return to England’s Test team a month after the former captain’s shock international retirement, saying he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the 35-year-old decides to come back into a new-look red-ball set-up for next summer’s Ashes.

England’s managing director of men’s cricket insisted his relationship with Stokes has not frayed beyond repair should the player decide to return to the international fold. “Not at all, not as far as I’m concerned,” Key said.

Franco Baresi was not only the captain but the moral heart of great Milan team

Centre-back defined era of hard Italian defending and collection of honours are eternal proof of his class

There are very few players who become bywords for their position, who enjoy universal acclaim. But for anybody who watched football in the late 80s or early 90s, Franco Baresi was the central defender. He was unsurpassed, obviously the best in his position in the world, the definition of the art of the defending. The oddity is, he really wasn’t like very many other defenders at all.

Baresi had just turned 19 when he won his first scudetto at Milan under Nils Liedholm. It was 1979 and Italian football was still dominated by the ideals of catenaccio. Most defences comprised a libero, two man-markers and, if you were lucky, an attacking left-back. But not Liedholm’s. The Swede was a pioneer in Serie A of zonal marking, and the idea that the game was not a series of physical battles but a question of space. Baresi was only 5ft 9in and a teenager. More traditional coaches might not have trusted him. But Liedholm saw an impeccable reader of the game, even at that age. Baresi was an ever-present, not only in the league but in the Coppa Italia and Uefa Cup as well.

Hull funeral director who left bodies to rot in mortuary jailed for 20 years

More than 80 loved ones spoke of horrors of learning about Robert Bush’s crimes, including mother of a miscarried baby

A funeral director has been jailed for 20 years for leaving dozens of bodies – including a miscarried baby – “rotting” in his mortuary and giving bereaved families the wrong ashes.

Robert Bush, the owner of Legacy Independent Funeral Services in Hull, pleaded guilty to 67 offences spanning 12 years and affecting hundreds of families, including 30 counts of preventing a lawful and decent burial.

‘Change is happening! I can cut off my hair and misbehave’: Vicky Krieps on rage, rebellion, and rejecting Hollywood

After her star turn in Phantom Thread, everyone expected a move to Tinseltown – but the actor embraced indie European films instead. It’s because of a lifelong instinct to be bold, she says

Back when she was a rising actor, Vicky Krieps had her fill of people telling her what not to do. When she got pregnant in her 20s, she was advised not to have the baby as it would derail her career, but she did it anyway. When, after playing a fashion designer’s muse in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, she went back to making low-budget French films, she was, she says, “actually laughed at. It just seemed absurd to these people that I would turn my back on Hollywood and invest so much energy and passion in something that wasn’t giving me money.”

Yet Krieps’s determination to forge her own path has reaped rewards. For the last decade she has had one foot in the Hollywood mainstream, appearing in Fede Álvarez’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web and M Night Shyamalan’s Old, while keeping the other firmly in independent cinema where she has freedom to experiment. Krieps also does her utmost to avoid the pantomime of red-carpet events. On the occasions she does make an appearance, she will stick out her tongue or give photographers the finger. “I always smile when I’m doing it. But I’m telling them: ‘Guys, this is really ridiculous and the shouting is a bit much. Just talk nicely to me.’”

Cocktail of the week: the Culpeper’s papa doble – recipe | The good mixer

Cherry pops and citrus zings in this twist on a Hemingway special

A bright, citrus-forward riff on the classic Hemingway special, with cherry depth and a clean white rum base.

Daniel Emson, bar manager, The Culpeper, London E1

BTS are back: return of K-pop superstars sparks US economic boom

Cities in North America hosting 14 concerts in August and September – and economic impact is set to be significant

BTS’s “Army” fanbase is descending on New York this weekend as the K-pop supergroup continues their first world tour after a four-year hiatus, sparking an economic boom wherever they land.

After shows in South Korea and Europe, the group are back in North America, with 14 shows in six US cities in August and September.

Digested week: As wildfires rage, should I buy a helicopter or marry a guy with a bunker?

Plus, train toilet roulette, an astonishingly stoic hiker and the tradwife paradox

As I read the headlines about Europe on fire, and imagine – or is it true? – I can smell smoke from the Suffolk wildfire encroaching on a nuclear power facility a county away from me, I’m remembering the wisdom of a friend who told me years ago that she wasn’t aiming to buy a house but a helicopter. “Because,” said Sarah, gesturing around us, “it’s going to be no good trying to get across flood waters or dusty plains or great drifts of virus-ridden corpses. You’re going to need to go up.”

Archbishop of Canterbury vows to support £100m pledge helping communities affected by enslavement

During her first visit to Ghana, Dame Sarah Mullally expressed regret and said the controversial fund symbolises the Christian belief in repentance

At a former British castle where thousands of enslaved Africans were held before being shipped across the Atlantic, the archbishop of Canterbury expressed “lament” for the Church of England’s involvement in transatlantic chattel slavery and reaffirmed her commitment to a controversial £100m fund for affected communities.

Sarah Mullally made the comments on Thursday during a visit to the Cape Coast castle, a 17th-century fortress built by Swedish traders, but occupied by the Danish and the Dutch, before the British seized it in 1664.

Trump announced a deal for Hamas to disarm. And, the U.S. economy slowed a bit

President Trump says a deal has been reached for Hamas to completely disarm and Israeli forces to withdraw from Gaza. And, the U.S. economy slowed some, but Americans continued to spend.

Who should win the men’s Ballon d’Or?

Harry Kane, Rodri, Lamine Yamal, Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi are the frontrunners for the annual prize

By WhoScored

Seventy-three goals in 64 games for club and country – the second most prolific season by any player in history after Lionel Messi’s 82-goal campaign in 2011-12 – not bad for a man who once sat on the bench alongside Jamie Vardy in the Championship. Harry Kane was not a teenage prodigy like a few of the other players on this list but here he is crashing football’s top table at the age of 33.

The Tech Download: Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf talks AI in warfare and manufacturing push

CNBC's Arjun Kharpal sits down on The Tech Download podcast with the defense company chief.

Southport killer Axel Rudakubana charged with attacking prison staff

Rudakubana, serving life sentence for murders of three girls at dance event ⁠in 2024, charged with multiple assaults

The Southport killer Axel Rudakubana, serving life in prison for ⁠the murders of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event ⁠in 2024, ⁠has ​been charged with assaults on prison staff, police have said.

On ⁠29 July 2024, Rudakubana, then 17, launched a frenzied knife attack in Southport, north-west England, killing Bebe King, six, Elsie ​Dot Stancombe, seven, ‌and Alice da Silva ‌Aguiar, nine.

AOC 2028: could she be the first female US president? | Politics Weekly America

Leftwing Democrats are having their political moment in the sun, with Zohran Mamdani in New York, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and the endless calls for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to run for president in 2028. Has Democratic socialism shifted from the political fringe to the mainstream? And can this group lure back the all-important swing voters? Jonathan Freedland speaks to Bhaskar Sunkara, the president of the Nation magazine, founding editor of Jacobin and author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality

‘It ain’t the same’: inside the bitter battle to free Ben & Jerry’s

Ben Cohen says his ice-cream company has been silenced by corporate ownership – and a boycott of Magnum brands could force a sale

Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream in the tub is still great, but the brand’s newest chocolate-covered ice-cream bar on a stick?

“It ain’t the same,” Ben Cohen, the company co-founder, told the Guardian. Sure, the chocolate coating is still thick enough, but the ice cream itself is “kinda fluffy”, Cohen said – an insult in the ice-cream world that suggests extra air was added to cut costs.

Can Andy Burnham turn a flying start into sustained success?

Labour has regained the lead in polling but the new PM will need to widen his appeal further to win a general election

Andy Burnham has spent his first two weeks as prime minister in a blitz of hyperactivity. Bus fares, business rates, energy bill cuts, defence, Ukraine and devolution – he has been everywhere.

But at his speech on Wednesday at Jewish Care in north London, there was a stark reminder of how much even the most energetic prime minister can cut through.

What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in July

Max Porter, Daisy Johnson, Avni Doshi and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

I recently read Gaining Ground by Joan Barfoot. It’s one of the best novels I’ve ever read about what it means to live with others, or decide not to; what we owe the people we love, the natural world, and ourselves. I also really enjoyed Robert Frost, by Robert Frost and Stacy Skolnik. It’s not that Robert Frost; it’s an itinerant young American Robert Frost who jots down his thoughts and observations on homelessness, food, value, music, drugs, the philosophical wastelands of contemporary life, and Stacy Skolnik has turned them into these delightful, oddly profound, poems. Also, coming soon, End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor. Everyone should read it. It tells us exactly what’s going on.

The best recent poetry – review roundup

Small Birds Singing by Matthew Welton; The Channel by Jana Prikryl; Stepmother by Helen Mort; Drunken Driving by Martina Evans

Small Birds Singing by Matthew Welton (Carcanet, £12.99)
Written in unrhymed couplets that shrink and grow across the page like a concertina going through its scales, Welton’s poems focus attention on the city through the seasons: weeds through concrete, wasps emerging from the gaps between bricks, frozen towels on a clothesline, the shadows of jackdaws on a lawn. His gaze is neutral, and it often falls on that which we’d normally turn away from, things slightly out of place, or that disturb our sense of propriety: “more cardboard in the recycling bin / than the recycling bin can contain”. This is a poetry of things, like the poetry of Francis Ponge, but as Welton says: “no thinginess without thought”. Welton’s thoughts – though whether they are his or whether they emerge from his surroundings or from the act of writing itself, it is impossible to say – are couched in deliciously riddling couplets: “it is not the habit of patterns / to emphasise the pattern of habits”. He reminds us forcefully that poetry is all around us and within us, that anything can go in a poem: a sandwich, a desiccated lump of duck shit, the pile of junk left outside a house during a refurbishment. Poems can mirror our world in all its messiness, and in doing so let us see it a little bit better.

The Channel by Jana Prikryl (Faber, £12.99
The casual violence of King Lear, the greed, the bureaucracy, and the indifference to human life, make the play particularly resonant to contemporary audiences. In her fourth collection, Prikryl channels the voice of Cordelia to think back through her own family story of displacement from the Czech Republic. Shakespeare’s Lear becomes “a document of fact / of things that happened and keep happening”, enabling Prikryl to explore her own separation from friends and family and her experiences of migration, where home is nowhere. In Dover Calais a ferry trip to France is meshed with the story of Cordelia’s exile, morphing into an account of a ferry disaster which in turn cuts to a scene where refugees make for shore in small boats: “Waves / unreal, and driving rain, the two-year-old / left face-down on a beach nine years ago / came up for me”. Like the scissored-off hospital undershirt in In the Mould, Prikryl’s language cuts off, ending abruptly: “or was the famous sweetness / of grandmother a bluff / which through and through was too”. This rewiring of the sentence creates dazzling leaps of thought, jumping from refugee camps to Shakespeare’s Fool battling with a tsunami of text messages to dissident window cleaners out of the novels of Milan Kundera to tender moments shared with her father. It’s a bold “stepping out of form” that turns its back on the neatness of the lyric, and by doing so creates a new poetic language which, like the language of Calvino in Invisible Cities, is able to connect everything to everything.

Robots on parade and a German warship wreck: photos of the day – Friday

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

Ryan Gosling is entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe – on a motorbike, in flames, wearing a leather jacket. What could go wrong?

After coveting the role for years, Gosling has been announced as the new Ghost Rider – a superhero stunt rider with powers bestowed by Satan. Is this a smart move all round or has he sold his soul to the devil?

Steven Spielberg once said: “If a person can tell me the idea in 25 words or less, it’s going to make a pretty good movie.” And Marvel’s most popular big-screen superheroes can be described using less than half that number. Iron Man is a tech bro in a tin suit; Spider-Man has the powers of an arachnid; Thor is a Norse god. Go and watch a film featuring any of these characters and you know exactly what you’re going to get.

But then there is Ghost Rider, who, according to reports from San Diego Comic-Con last week, will be the subject of a new Marvel Cinematic Universe film directed by Deadpool & Wolverine’s Shawn Levy, and starring Ryan Gosling. There is no quick way to explain what is going on with this guy. In the 1972 origin story, stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze sells his soul to Satan to save his adoptive father from cancer. The cure works but its beneficiary is killed almost immediately. The devil then tries to claim Johnny’s soul and, when that fails, binds him to the demon Zarathos. This, if Christopher Marlowe is to be believed, ought to result in corruption, despair and eternal, fiery damnation. Yet somehow our hero emerges from the arrangement with a cool flaming skull, vast supernatural powers and a motorbike capable of riding up buildings and across dimensions. Blaze regards the whole arrangement as a curse, but to the casual observer his principal penance is to roam the Earth passing judgment on people more wicked than he is, while looking good in a leather jacket.

Iran targets strategic U.S. assets in Kuwait, Bahrain after Egypt drone attack

Iran's army said it launched attacks on strategic U.S. assets and military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.

‘If a space is cared for, everything improves’: Meet four gardeners transforming their urban communities

From improving biodiversity to managing antisocial behaviour, the benefits of greening towns and cities are massive. These names are leading the charge…

The importance of green space in Britain’s increasingly urban landscape – from city parks to community gardens and allotments – is unequivocal. Public Health England reports that regular exposure to green space reduces stress and improves wellbeing and physical fitness, while the Natural History Museum has highlighted its value in cooling city infrastructure and reducing pollution. Functional cities depend on functional greenery, yet the upkeep of these vital environments remains precarious. With parks and green spaces classified as non-statutory services, local authorities continue to slash their funding, relying increasingly on volunteer groups to maintain them.

A leading voice advocating for change is John Little of Care Not Capital, a community interest company offering free training for gardeners working in the public sphere so that they can have a greater influence on the spaces they maintain and those who govern them. “Green spaces are not sustainable unless you have someone looking after them,” says Little. “Yet in the public realm, the investment is often about infrastructure – overly designed landscapes and extravagant architecture – and rarely the ongoing care.” Investment in skilled gardeners, he argues, leads to positive outcomes far beyond good horticultural upkeep, from biodiversity increase and climate crisis mitigation to better community engagement and reduced antisocial behaviour.

McCarthyism has returned to the United States – and this time it’s even more dangerous | Judith Levine

Trump’s campaign of repression echoes the red scare. But now the government has bigger ambitions and more powerful tools

There are many parallels between the first McCarthy era, roughly 1946 to 1956, and Trump’s campaign of political repression, his own updated McCarthyism.

Both regimes crafted a monster of quasi-facts and innuendo and fed it with fear: an enemy within, well-organized and financed, secretive and violent, allied with evil foreigners and bent on overthrowing capitalism, democracy and Christian morality. Both used flagrantly unconstitutional means to cleanse the nation of the spectral menace.

The dead doctor and a dicey diet: how a ban made a hero of Egypt’s rogue medic

Diaa al-Awadi claimed insulin was a fraud, smoking was safe and chemotherapy useless. But despite losing his medical licence and dying at early age, his reach continues to grow

It had been a struggle with conventional treatments. For Fatima Adel, a 50-year-old author living in Cairo’s upmarket Sheikh Zayed neighbourhood, the misdiagnoses and medical errors she had experienced had began to erode her confidence in doctors.

But when the videos of Diaa al-Awadi began circulating – an Egyptian doctor who spoke plainly, invoked the Qur’an, and told his audience that their bodies could heal themselves if they changed their diet – Adel, like tens of thousands of other Egyptians, listened.

Back in HG Wells’ time machine: the Stephen Collins cartoon

Continue reading...

Week in wildlife: snub-nosed monkeys, amorous cobras and a milk-snatching fox

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Who's driving a bookmobile full of Epstein files? The quiz knows!

Plus: scandalous Senate drama, Grammys drama and Homeric drama.

Jacqueline Crooks: ‘Toni Morrison’s voice made me want to find my own’

The novelist on learning empathy from Charles Dickens, the playfulness of Irenosen Okojie and avoiding Jane Austen

My earliest reading memory
I was eight when I was given The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley, after being moved from my grand­mother’s care to live with my mother and her husband, who I barely knew. The story is about leaving one world, adapting to another. Surviving. It gave shape to unnamed feelings and developed my survival imagination: imagining beyond my circumstances.

My favourite book growing up
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I followed David’s journey from exclusion to belonging. Dickens vivifies his characters; you grow alongside them. The novel taught me empathy, and that some relationships sustain us while others must be left behind.

My family is coming apart – so it’s time for one last video game session | Dominik Diamond

I wanted our last family games night to be the best fun we’ve ever had. Maybe we should have stuck with Mario Kart …

It is the end of an era for the Diamond family. For 20 years, there have been five of us living together. It has not been easy. Militant vegan daughters, sons who have inherited Scottish tempers, and a youngest child who attracts trouble like an industrial magnet, have meant our house has been conflict-laden at times. Throw in the fact that we are beset with all manner of mental health bobbins and chronic illnesses that resulted in two of our three kids almost dying in hospitals and you get a family that is combustible – but extremely close.

Through it all, we had games. They always brought us back together. Not just us all hunkering over Super Mario Kart like some kind of UN-mandated family therapy, but the conversations that happen when any of us spy another playing something new. Games are a cultural touchstone that helped us crack through the veneer of disagreements and distrust and remind us that we have more things in common than we sometimes feel.

Democrats show divisions on Israel amid competitive midterm elections

Democratic socialists are on the ballot in high profile races coming up in Michigan and Wisconsin, putting mainstream Democrats in a tough position when it comes to the issue of Israel and Gaza.

One Big Beautiful Bill cut healthcare funds. Now, Republicans have to sell the costs

Blanketing the airwaves with ads about healthcare, Republican candidates who voted to cut federal funding in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are positioning themselves as advocates for lower costs.

Morning news brief

President Trump says he may pull Todd Blanche's nomination, Trump says a deal has been made to disarm Hamas and withdraw Israeli forces from Gaza, the U.S. economy is growing, but at a slower pace.

Thousands in France allowed to return home as Europe tackles wildfires and heatwave

Firefighters in the Gironde region of France said the situation had "stabilized", after a week of wildfires caused by a major heatwave across Europe.

'I can do this': Woman with cancer reflects on her life and facing death

For StoryCorps, Karán Founds-Benton talks to her friend about her cancer diagnosis and facing death.

Weather tracker: Wisconsin hit by rare tornado and meteotsunami

Unusual atmospheric phenomenon causes widespread damage in US state, while heat continues to grip Europe

A rare and powerful tornado developed over north-east Wisconsin on Monday, lasting 26 minutes and carving a 12-mile path of destruction in western parts of Appleton and Menasha before dissipating over Lake Winnebago.

The US National Weather Service classified the tornado as an EF3, making it the fourth of that strength to strike Wisconsin in 2026. EF3 tornadoes are relatively rare in north-east Wisconsin, and this year’s total is already the state’s highest since 1984.

Arca: XXXXX review – a wild, brilliant album that taps into our bodies’ most feral frequencies

(XL)
In the follow-up to her Kick series, Arca jumbles the building blocks of electronic music to create a beautiful, disorienting sound world

XXXXX, the new album by Venezuelan producer-vocalist Arca, is reportedly laden with meaning: a press release claims that “suspended between posthuman augmentation and raw emotion, XXXXX exposes the mainframe”. But the reason Arca, real name Alejandra Ghersi, has become such a star of electronic music – and a mainstream-adjacent one at that – is not because she lets philosophy postgrads in Berlin write her marketing copy: it’s because, for well over a decade, she has been putting out records like XXXXX, which seem to tap into the body’s most primal, feral frequencies better than nearly anyone else. That ability has resulted in recent callups to collaborate on Madonna’s Confessions II and remix pop singer Addison Rae, and she has amassed a large, loyal fanbase – uncommon for someone making such outre music.

The follow-up to her phenomenal Kick series – five albums, each highlighting a different side of Arca’s work – XXXXX sometimes channels the frenetic feel of Aphex Twin (as on Everything) and zeroes in on the wild, footwork-y high-tempo club music she made her name with (like on Fxck, a breathless and grimy rebuke to patriarchy). But it also delves more deeply into worlds the musician has previously skirted around. The sound of a tolling bell on Willow rings into a song that’s harsh and uncompromising; Raver jumbles the building blocks of classic mainstream EDM into a piece of beautiful, disorienting sound design.

How India's 'cockroach' protests toppled a government minister – video

For the first time in more than a decade, a government minister in India has resigned following pressure from a street protest movement. The demonstrations erupted after the chief justice compared unemployed youths to cockroaches.

For many young Indians, the remark became the tipping point after years of high unemployment and repeated exam paper leaks that had shattered the hopes of millions of job seekers. The Guardian spent a week embedded with protesters as they faced police crackdowns, arrests and intimidation, documenting an extraordinary week that culminated in the education minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation.

Ebola outbreak in DRC the fastest growing in the history of the virus

As the death toll rises to almost 1,500, and with a vaccine against the Bundibugyo strain potentially still months away, health workers face a battle to slow the outbreak

The latest numbers of confirmed cases of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has made this latest outbreak the fastest growing in the known history of the virus.

At 3,360 confirmed cases, the disease is now affecting people in five provinces in the east of the DRC, with 1,487 deaths recorded, representing an overall case fatality rate estimated at about 45%, according to Congolese health officials. Health responses to the outbreak have been badly hampered by conflict in many of the affected areas.

SingStar Take That anyone? The strange joy of charity shop video games

Hidden gems can be unearthed, but you have to dig deep into the bargain bins of countless outdated Fifas, Wii Fits without the controllers and partially finished quizshow games

As an eternally optimistic charity shop fan, I hold on to the fantasy that one day I’ll walk into my local Oxfam and find a pristine copy of the Sega Saturn shooter Burning Rangers for £1.50. Or perhaps a box full of old Neo Geo carts for a quid each. Sadly, this is now unlikely. Charity shops have caught on to the fact that old video games – like old vinyl albums – are highly collectible, and so they’re putting the good stuff on eBay. That’s fine, it’s their job to raise money, not to provide opportunist swine like me with bargains. But what games can you find tucked away in your local branch of Barnardo’s? To find out I visited about 40 charity stores across the country. Here is what I discovered on the shelves … And please do share your own charity shop gaming finds in the comments!

SK Hynix, Samsung shares skyrocket to clock best days as AI rally roars back

South Korea's chip heavyweights SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics soared more than 20% on Friday, tracking a sharp rally in U.S. technology stocks.

Melodies International presents Ariwa Sounds review – head-spinning classics from dub legend Mad Professor

(Melodies International)
With cuts from the producer’s Ariwa Sounds label between 1984 and the present day, this compilation hops from skulking proto-grime to dreamy lovers rock

In the late 1970s, Neil Fraser, AKA Mad Professor, and his wife moved into a house in Croydon. “The normal thing would be to put in some chairs, a table,” he said in a podcast last year. Instead, the legendary dub producer fitted his living room with a four-track mixing desk and his collection of homemade gear, thus marking the beginning of the studio and label Ariwa Sounds.

The early years of Ariwa were captured in a 1984 album, which was reissued by Melodies International in 2023. Now, the two labels reunite to document the sounds that followed. This double compilation isn’t an attempt at a greatest hits collection, nor a chronological history, but an insight into the label’s expansive output between 1984 and 2026, featuring big names like Sister Nancy, Horace Andy and Sandra Cross, plus a handful of deeper cuts.

‘Extremely scary findings’ show climate crisis is supercharging Europe’s wildfire weather

Latest study says global heating has made hot, dry and windy conditions in Spain at least 20 times more likely

The extreme heat and drought stoking huge wildfires in Spain and France were made far more likely by the climate crisis, a scientific analysis has found.

Global heating made hot, dry and windy weather at least 20 times more likely in Spain and twice as likely in France, experts from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium calculated. The finding is the latest to pin the blame for the continent’s sweltering and deadly summer firmly on the heating caused by the burning of oil, gas and coal.

‘I was born without self-esteem’: Hannah Einbinder on Hacks, her buzzy queer horror – and being Hollywood’s most outspoken star

The Hacks lead was cast in meta-slasher sensation Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma for her ‘deranged physicality’ – but it’s a fitting role for an actor who has made a point of confronting shame and speaking her mind

‘God is good all the time,” laughs Hannah Einbinder. She’s fresh off a plane from Los Angeles and curled up barefoot in an armchair. This, she says, is “a crazy time in life. Starring in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma in the midst of Hacks ending … it’s definitely an embarrassment of riches.”

Hacks is the HBO comedy that ended earlier this year; in May, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Jane Schoenbrun’s queer meta-horror, became the breakout hit of this year’s Cannes film festival.

John Tilbury: At Home album review – an eclectic and extraordinary treasure trove

John Tilbury
(Another Timbre, four CDs)
The great interpreter of Morton Feldman and a towering figure of experimental music signs off with four discs of intimate, revelatory recordings

Few have made a more significant contribution to the fields of contemporary, improvised and experimental music than John Tilbury. When, at 82, he decided to end his live appearances, Simon Reynell, founder of Another Timbre, asked if he might occasionally visit the pianist’s home in Deal, on the Kent coast, and record whatever happened to be on his mind. Eight years later, Tilbury has decided to hang up his hat for good, hence this four-disc set celebrating a unique artist and musical pioneer.

Morton Feldman admired the “swagger” of Tilbury and the British avant garde, and the pianist went on to become perhaps the US composer’s leading interpreter. His recording of Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety is authoritative, a masterclass in spontaneous phrasing and sonic sensitivity.

Jacaranda by Gaël Faye review – the limits of forgiveness after Rwanda

This bold family saga explores a search for healing and truth in the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide

How to forgive the unforgivable? How to live in the aftermath of atrocity? Following 2016’s Small Country, French-Rwandan rapper and writer Gaël Faye takes on huge questions in his second novel, Jacaranda, which explores the seismic events of the Rwanda genocide and the aftershocks that continue to ripple through the generations.

Structurally bold, the story opens in summer 1994 with Milan, Faye’s then 12-year-old protagonist, enjoying an extended break from school. Milan’s father is white French and the family’s life in Versailles is the embodiment of first world ease – their holiday that year, as usual, spent sailing at the Île de Ré. Milan’s mother, though, is Rwandan. Venancia arrived in the 1970s, establishing a life for herself, a successful clothing boutique, a family. However, she cannot share the French ease, much less her thoughts on the disturbing reports from Rwanda now making the evening news.

Luxury is coming for our teeth – but should we really be paying £20 for a tube of toothpaste?

Minty fresh flavours are out, gold plated toothbrushes are in, and dental experts are sceptical

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First it came for handwash. Then deodorant. Now, the fancification trend has claimed its next victim: dental products. From £20 toothpastes to bottles of mouthwash that sound more like a perfume than a breath freshener, a new wave of oral care is blurring the lines between function and fashion.

Rather than being shoved in an old tumbler on the back of the shelf, today’s iterations of toothbrushes and pastes are at the forefront of social media sink shots, proudly displayed alongside a three-wick candle and curated pile of skincare.

Benjamina Ebuehi’s summer berry dutch baby recipe

Think giant sweet yorkshire pud filled with a lake of summer berry compote … that’s some brunch!

This pancake/yorkshire pudding hybrid is nothing if not fun. The edges crisp and puff up in the most dramatic way, making for a very impressive brunch centrepiece that makes a change from regular pancakes. Although delicious just with some icing sugar, I’ve filled this one with a quick fruit compote to make the most of summer berries. The juices soak into the base, making way for my favourite part of a yorkshire: the slightly soggy bottom.

Drones offer alternative to balloons for weather research

Pre-programmed flights gather data at different altitudes then return to bases to recharge and download

Weather happens in the boundary layer, the atmosphere from ground level to a few thousand metres, but this can be difficult to study in detail: weather stations are too low, and aircraft are expensive. Instrumented weather balloons are the traditional solution, and thousands are released every day. But these are at the mercy of the wind and use irreplaceable helium.

Drones offer an alternative and the US company Meteomatics has taken the idea further with Meteobase, a base station on the ground with a drone that can be launched and recovered automatically. It carries out a pre-programmed flight, gathering data at different altitudes, then returns to recharge and download data which the Meteobase sends to researchers.

Country diary: Rumours of glowworms set me off on a twilight stroll | Anita Roy

Wellington, Somerset: Desiccated leaves crunch underfoot and ponds have shrunk to muddy pools. Will I catch a glimpse of bioluminescence?

July is staggering to a close: exhausted, feverish and desperate for a drink. It’s been one of the hottest on record, and still no sign of rain. Townsfolk have become crepuscular: walking the dog before dawn and venturing out only after sundown.

It’s been a terrible year for plants and trees – everyone battling to keep gardens watered and alive. But it’s been an extraordinary year for Wellington wildlife: we’ve had ospreys, beavers – and now glowworms?

Experience: I drive a bus for dogs

I worked with children for years, so the noise doesn’t bother me. You know you’ve done a good job if they’re quiet on the way home

I’ve been a bus driver for 25 years. Before that, I worked in engineering sales and was on the road a lot, but it became impractical once I had young children. I took my kids to soft play centres and I thought: “I could run a place like this.” I opened my own centre in a Victorian shopping arcade in Otley, West Yorkshire, in 1995. It was great as my daughters could come with me. Then, a customer told me about play buses – vehicles converted into soft play centres with slides, ball pits and climbing frames. I liked the idea.

I went to an exhibition to look at some and bought a doubledecker that had already been converted. My uncle drove it home, because I couldn’t. I had to learn quickly as it was parked outside my house. It had no power steering and a ratchet handbrake. I threw up during my first lesson because I was so scared, but driving it soon became second nature. I passed my test within six months.

‘I was so self-assured in my early 20s. Then my frontal lobe hit’: Rachel Chinouriri, every pop star’s favourite UK pop star

​She faced racist bullying as a child – then pigeonholing as an artist. Now following up a hit debut album championed by the A-list, the Croydon singer-songwriter says she finally understands who she really is

In October 2017, Rachel Chinouriri had her first panic attack. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. She’d just landed her first major gig as a professional musician, supporting Celeste at the London members’ club Laylow. Out of nowhere, she began to spiral. “I don’t know what happened,” she says. “I just started having a mental breakdown.” Her manager told her to go home, try again next time. But that only made things worse. “I started feeling like I was wasting everyone’s time,” she says. “I started feeling ashamed.” It would be better, she decided, to go on stage and sing, “half crying”.

Tears were already a familiar response to Chinouriri’s performance anxiety: the first time she sang in front of her classmates at the Brit school – the performing arts institution that trained Adele, Amy Winehouse and more – she burst into sobs afterwards. A rather inconvenient habit for an aspiring pop star, but at least she front-loaded the humiliation at the start of her career. “That was a big milestone for me,” she says of the Celeste show. “The fact that I could stand up there completely embarrassed, with people looking at me like, ‘Don’t really know what’s up with this girl’, but I still got through it and everything was fine.” The experience taught her that the catastrophic scenarios in her head rarely come to pass. “I’d given myself this pressure of, ‘This is the music industry. If they think I’m rubbish, I’m never gonna perform again.’” Chinouriri rolls her eyes at herself.

Soy sauce refills and reused jars: can Philippines’ tingi culture hold back deluge of plastic waste?

A zero-waste shop set up by a district council provides plastic-free products at affordable prices in a country that gets through 164m sachets a day

Just after classes finish for the day in Malabon City, in the Philippines, a corner shop begins to fill. Mothers arrive with their children, handing over empty bottles to be refilled with soy sauce and cooking oil. Plastic tubs that previously held ice-cream or biscuits are weighed and filled with flour or sugar. The kids get some sweets and banana chips bagged in brown kraft paper.

This store, Tingi Tindahan, offers a different experience from other small independent shops in the country. It retains the accessibility of micro-retail, colloquially known as tingi, while reintroducing reuse and refill methods instead of selling products in sachets and plastic packaging that too quickly becomes discarded waste.

Anthropic reveals Claude "gained unauthorized access" to "real-world systems"

Anthropic's artificial intelligence model Claude "gained unauthorized access" to three outside organizations on three separate occasions during testing.

Trump says he may pull Blanche's nomination until 2 Senate critics leave office

President Trump said Todd Blanche will remain acting attorney general as a holdup on his nomination continues.

‘A car in the bus!’: Toyota becomes airborne and then wedged in side of Brisbane bus

Queensland police fine driver of another car that allegedly caused Yaris to swerve before it hit kerb and catapulted into air – and bus

A Queensland driver has been fined after being involved in a stunning crash that saw a car become airborne and then stuck in the side of a bus.

The drama unfolded at Rocklea in Brisbane’s south on Wednesday evening. A blue Toyota Yaris hit a traffic island and was catapulted into the air before smashing into the side of the council bus. The back of the car was left protruding from the bus.

Could AI take your job? Some workers in China already know the answer

Across the country, workers are fearful about the impact of AI on their livelihoods in an increasingly fragile labour market

On the tree-lined streets of Wuhan, where cars jostle for space with mopeds and cargo trucks, the malfunctioning of a new type of vehicle has recently been causing chaos on the city’s roads.

In March, several cars from a fleet of driverless taxis stopped abruptly in the streets. The “system malfunction” left distressed riders stranded for hours. The robotaxis, known as Apollo Go and powered by artificial intelligence (AI), were taken off Wuhan’s streets for months for investigations.

Tim Cook sees Apple's hybrid AI strategy as a 'competitive weapon'

Ahead of the launch of Siri AI, Apple's outgoing CEO Tim Cook said the company will charge for artificial intelligence through iCloud.

Instead of selling his luxury boat company for millions, he invested in his employees

Eddie Smith, the owner of Grady-White Boats, could have sold his business for hundreds of millions of dollars. Instead, he decided to turn the company over to a charitable trust.

Hair sample from Nancy Guthrie's home inconclusive as search hits 6-month mark

A hair sample found at the home of Nancy Guthrie came back inconclusive after undergoing testing, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos revealed Thursday.

Pima County sheriff says he is optimistic about Nancy Guthrie's case "based on all the evidence"

Nearly six months after Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped from her home in Tucson, Arizona, Jonathan Vigliotti sat down with the sheriff at the forefront of the investigation.

WNBA sees sideline controversy over trans athletes in sports after Cunningham comments

Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham made news off the court for her recent comments about transgender athletes in women's sports. Jan Crawford has more.

U.S.-Iran war widens further after drone strikes on Egyptian port

U.S. Central Command released new video it said to show fighter jets launching what it described as a "heavy wave" of strikes against Iran. It was the first resumption of strikes in several days. The U.S. said it was in direct retaliation for the recent missile attack on U.S. forces in Jordan. Charlie D'Agata reports.

ICE agents increasingly arresting immigrants at U.S. airports

ICE agents have ramped up arrests at some U.S. airports, working with the TSA to crack down on travelers at check-in counters and even at the departure gates. Camilo Montoya-Galvez has the story.

Trump suggests he may pause Blanche's confirmation amid GOP pushback

Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche's confirmation is on hold after some Republican senators refused to vote for him. President Trump suggested that he may press pause on the nomination. Nikole Killion has more details.

Police fatally shoot suspect in deadly California kidnapping

On Wednesday night in Chino Hills, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles, deputies fatally shot a suspect after a deadly kidnapping. Carter Evans reports as authorities piece together exactly what happened.

Massive explosion rocks quiet Ohio neighborhood

A massive explosion rocked a quiet Ohio neighborhood on Thursday. The blast was caught on video. Tom Hanson has the details.

Stolen Civil War-era cannonballs found in suitcase at Alabama airport

Law enforcement officials say a set of stolen Civil War-era cannonballs was discovered in a passenger's suitcase during a routine security screening at Alabama's Gulf Shores International Airport.

Reddit CEO says Google's AI Overviews can't replace '10 blue links' for referral traffic

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said his company has to find ways to work around changes at Google, which is delivering less traffic than in the past.

Microsoft's Xbox chief lays out plan to pass rivals on margin by 2030 in memo to employees

Microsoft's gaming unit wants to invest in its Minecraft franchise and expand through partnerships, including in China.

US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference

State department ‘takes full responsibility’ for erroneous, widely shared chart displayed at Aids conference in Brazil

A US government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a ⁠global conference in Brazil ⁠this week, ​causing a stir among attenders who took screenshots and posted them online.

Reuters viewed a video of the presentation given at the Aids 2026 conference in ⁠Rio de Janeiro, which shows the errant map displayed halfway during a presentation about the state department’s new health agreements.

Amazon got $600 million in Trump tariff refunds and will pass return along to some customers

The company previously hadn't disclosed whether it would recoup tariff costs after the Supreme Court ruled many of President Donald Trump's levies were illegal.

7/30: CBS Evening News

Mass migration triggers a military response in the Spanish city of Ceuta; a powerful explosion destroys an Ohio home.

Reddit shares sink 11% on 'choppy' search referrals even as results blow past estimates

Reddit reported second-quarter earnings that beat on the top and the bottom, and gave a revenue forecast that topped estimates.

This week on "Sunday Morning": The Money Issue (Aug. 2)

This week Jane Pauley hosts "The Money Issue," our annual special broadcast dedicated to the many ways in which money underscores the way we live.

American Airlines makes its flight refund policy more restrictive

American Airlines is tightening its flight refund and cancellation policy. Here's what to know.

Don’t Date Brandon review – this lazy true-crime show doesn’t start to do justice to these women’s horrors

The tale of the women who came together to unpick the destructive swathe that one man cut through his local dating pool is woefully lacking in the detail you need to understand their plight. It feels voyeuristic and misguided

I’m beginning to suspect that the feminist movement is operating a covert psyops wing. I like to think that this is the motive force behind the slew of true-crime documentaries that show us, time and again, what bad men do and how they go about it. Perhaps the repeated stories of women – often unhappy with parts of their lives, or otherwise emotionally vulnerable – being love-bombed by apparent male saviours then finding themselves isolated, controlled, coerced, destabilised and battered into submission and sometimes killed that form the predominant subject of this popular modern genre are a way of teaching the young (especially) what is out there. Maybe it’s a way to help them spot the earliest signs of a predator’s approach and arm the innocent against them.

Otherwise, you know, it’s just voyeuristic filler for the ever-gaping schedule maw.

Peptide vendor sentenced to nearly 6 years in prison: "An incredible trail of harm"

A federal judge sentenced the owner of a peptide company to nearly six years in prison after finding the business deceived customers and sold products that were adulterated with steroids.

Apple and Amazon report rising revenues as investors turn on some tech stocks

Both tech companies beat Wall Street predictions on revenue in their second quarters

Apple and Amazon both released their second quarter earnings on Thursday, a test of investor confidence in major tech companies amid growing concerns over exorbitant AI spending.

Apple revealed quarterly revenue of $109.4bn, beating Wall Street expectations of $108.65bn in revenue. It also reported $2.02 earnings per share, driven by sales of its marquee products such as iPhones and laptops.

North American nations join Europe's, reject FIFA head's World Cup investment plan

North America's soccer body on Thursday rejected FIFA president Gianni Infantino's plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private equity investors, joining European nations in opposition.

Amazon hikes 2026 capex to $220 billion due to higher memory costs

AWS sales expanded 37% year over year, which trounced analysts' expectations for 31% growth.

Ex-White House counsel says Epstein accuser’s testimony ‘lacked inherent credibility’

Kathryn Ruemmler was blasted by family of late Virginia Giuffre after House committee transcripts were released

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A former White House counsel and former general counsel of Goldman Sachs, who has faced scrutiny over her past ties to Jeffrey Epstein, told a House committee this month that some of the allegations made by one of his most prominent accusers “lacked inherent credibility”, according to newly released transcripts.

Kathryn Ruemmler’s name appeared thousands of times in records related to Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, that were released earlier this year by the US Department of Justice under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.