Europe wildfire in pictures: Gigantic fire cloud engulfing France, Spain regions

A rare wildfire spreading across France's Bordeaux region and has spread to Western Madrid is fire cloud that can generate its own thunderstorms.

Commonwealth Games 2026: athletics, weightlifting and gymnastics on day five – live

• Follow updates from Tuesday’s action around Glasgow

• Latest medal table | Sprinter slams no-shows | Mail Will

Athletics: The women’s heptathlon is up and running with the 100m hurdles. It is looking a little wet on the track not that Sienna MacDonald is concerned, who gets the quickest time to earn an early lead.

Australia are loving life in Scotland, dominating at the top of the medal table.

AI sell-off deepens as chip stocks slump in market retreat - business live

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

Mortgage rates in the UK have risen this morning.

Moneyfacts has reported that the average rate of two and five-year mortgages are both higher than on Monday.

The average 2-year fixed residential mortgage rate today is 5.62%. This is up from 5.60% the previous working day.

The average 5-year fixed residential mortgage rate today is 5.64%. This is up from 5.61% the previous working day.

“When Santander follows Halifax within 24 hours, that’s not a coincidence, that’s a signal. The two biggest high street lenders repricing on the same day tells borrowers everything they need to know about where the market is heading in the short term.

“The pattern is familiar: one major lender moves, others follow within days. Anyone waiting to see how things settle is usually the last one through the door before rates climb again.

Well, I thought this would be drama free, how wrong I was. During the period we paid c.£12 million in new US tariffs. Following the US Supreme Court ruling we reclaimed £7.8 million of tariffs for the period to February 2026.

Ariana Grande sues hackers who allegedly sold unreleased music and photos online

Pop star aims to use legal process to name ‘wrongdoers who hide in the shadows and wreak technological havoc with impunity’

Ariana Grande has filed a lawsuit against hackers who she alleges have stolen unreleased music, as well as private photos and video footage, and sold them online.

Grande filed the lawsuit in a Los Angeles court on Monday. It doesn’t name the hackers, who are referred to with the generic name John Doe. Grande will look to have them identified during the legal process “in order to hold them accountable for their invasive and reprehensible conduct”, the lawsuit reads.

AI sell-off intensifies as investors ditch chip stocks

Samsung and SK Hynix fall by more than 10% amid renewed fears over AI spending and Chinese competition

• Business live – latest updates

The sell-off in AI stocks has intensified, driving South Korea’s stock market down to its lowest level in three months.

Investors continued to ditch chip stocks on Tuesday, amid rising concerns about the huge amount of borrowing among AI companies to fund their datacentre expansion plans.

Yes, it's possible to save money while paying off credit card debt. Here's how

In fact, experts recommend it because it can keep you off the hamster wheel of debt. Here's how to find the money in your budget to put toward savings and credit card payments.

Firefighters hasten efforts to contain massive wildfires in France and Spain ahead of heatwave – Europe live

Emmanuel Macron warns that ‘we have to hold out’ as fires burn near city; Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez warns of ‘difficult hours’ ahead

• France and Spain race to contain huge wildfires before fresh heatwave begins

But it’s not all good news: up to 4,000 people have been evacuated from campsites in Lacanau near Bordeaux in south western France as part of a “precautionary” move.

“Due to weather conditions (heatwave) and to facilitate emergency operations, the Prefect has ordered the preventive evacuation of campsites in Lacanau, as well as group tourist residences and holiday villages,” the Lacanau town hall said on its Facebook.

Britain promised to protect Hongkongers from China. Why does it now seem ready to sacrifice us? | Nathan Law

Activists under threat from Beijing are facing strange difficulties with UK immigration. Our safety must not be traded for warmer relations with China

• Nathan Law is a pro-democracy activist and former legislator from Hong Kong. He is currently a political refugee in the UK

As authoritarian countries such as Russia, China and Iran are more active in engaging in long-arm strategies to silence their critics in the UK, transnational repression is garnering more attention. It is right that the Metropolitan police and other British law enforcement agencies have specific units and mechanisms to counter it. But it takes more than just confronting this long-distance repression to make political dissidents of these authoritarian countries feel safe in the UK, and the UK government is not living up to expectations.

The threat is real. Members of the Hongkonger community have received threats from the Chinese regime – some have had threatening letters, some people were deepfaked into sexual content, some even had families questioned and arrested back home. With the level of this targeting linked to the deterioration of Hong Kong politics, many have utilised the humanitarian pathway enabled by the previous government to relocate.

How one man’s near-death experience led to the discovery of the first Jurassic sea dragon in Wales

Matthew Myerscough’s remarkable find is one of many detailed in his new book. But his journey into fossil hunting began years earlier, when he was caught in an avalanche

When Matthew Myerscough walks along a beach, he cannot help hunting for fossils. “I think my fossil radar is always on – even if I’m not looking, it’s hard sometimes to not see things,” says the 40-year-old civil engineer, who has discovered thousands of fossils on British beaches.

It was while he was “not looking” on Lavernock beach near Penarth, south Wales, that he recently stumbled across the fossilised bone of an early type of plesiosaur, a marine reptile that roamed the oceans while dinosaurs stalked the land during the early Jurassic period.

I’m a refugee who reports on America’s ills. I still believe in its promise | Lok Darjee

Born in a camp in Nepal, I was welcomed to the United States as a child. Loving this country does not mean ignoring its contradictions

It was a hot, dry afternoon, sometime in the spring of 2009. I was wearing an oversized T-shirt and a pair of shorts twice the size of my waist, held up with a piece of wire. I sat beneath a tree across from the bamboo office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), waiting.

My heart pounded as sweat rolled down my face. Every few minutes I looked toward the dirt road, hoping to see the white van. Finally the blue IOM logo came into view, and within seconds, dozens of people were running toward it.

I had my first alcoholic drink at 16. By 26, I was given six months to live

Holly Dyson’s addiction led to extreme pain, hospital trips and thousands of pounds’ worth of debt. Here is how she recovered

Holly Dyson’s last alcoholic drink was a can of cider to manage her withdrawal symptoms, which she had in her dad’s car on the way to rehab on 2 May 2023. She’d barely eaten in two weeks. Instead, she spent her last few days at home in the north-west of England vomiting blood into the toilet bowl and lying in bed twitching, feeling unbearably nauseous. Her hand hovered over the numbers 999 on her phone, ready to call an ambulance. At 26 years old, Dyson’s body was shutting down.

About a week earlier, a doctor had given her six months to live. For the past few years, her drinking had spiralled out of control. Her liver was “deranged”, the doctor said. To Dyson, it felt like “a bowling ball” – weighing her down so much that she would have to use “two hands to lift my body up out of bed because my liver felt so heavy and swollen.” Her face was also swollen and she was unrecognisable from the sporty young woman she had once been.

Trump shattered ethics norms. Will voters trust Democrats to fix them?

Democrats are making the case that now is the time to tackle anti-corruption reforms — to serve as a check on Donald Trump and to overhaul a system voters say is co-opted against their interests.

‘The Messi of ballet’: Marianela Núñez, the Buenos Aires bombshell shaking up British dance

The superlative Royal Ballet star finally has her own show. She talks about fabulous footwork, her Argentina-inspired leotard – and why she named her cat after a certain footballer

Marianela Núñez is talking about football. This is before the World Cup final, after England’s game with Argentina. “That was a hard position for me!” she says. Núñez moved to England from Buenos Aires aged 15 and has danced with the Royal Ballet for 28 years. She’s a British citizen, but her loyalties are clear: check out her Argentina-inspired leotard on Instagram or her cat named after Lionel Messi.

In Argentina, they call her the Messi of ballet – although when it comes to who has the finest footwork, they should really be calling him the Núñez of football. A principal dancer since the age of 20, Núñez has been at the top of her game for so long you can forget what a remarkable dancer she is. When she faces the ballerina’s equivalent of a penalty kick – Swan Lake’s 32 fouettés, Sleeping Beauty’s Rose Adagio – you never doubt her, but it’s her romantic spirit, the bright beaming energy, her vivacity in Don Quixote, the tragic yearning of her Odette, the way she breathes in ballet like oxygen, that make her special. She is deeply besotted with what she does.

Football transfer rumours: Manchester United to sign Juve’s Francisco Conceição?

Today’s rumours are napping on the beach

As sports fans everywhere eagerly await the resumption of cricket’s County Championship season, what better way to while away a few minutes than to contemplate the latest football transfer rumours?

Manchester United and Michael Carrick want to sign the 23-year-old Portugal winger Francisco Conceição from Juventus. The tricky former Porto player, who recently returned from the World Cup, is valued at around £43m (€50m). United are also said to be ahead of Chelsea in the race to snap up Alex Scott from Bournemouth.

‘He made Damien Hirst look like a sideshow’: the bloodsplash horrors of Gunther von Hagens

The German scientist showman turned corpses into gruesome entertainment and scored a global hit – but he sidestepped the moral questions truly great art asks

Gunther von Hagens, the inventor of “plastination”, will be remembered as the man who killed off 1990s shock art. He certainly plastinated any reputation Damien Hirst had as a disturbing artist of mortality.

When this German scientist turned showman made a popular bloodsplash around the world in the latter half of the 90s, Hirst was still pickling sheep, sharks and pigs and displaying them as philosophical specimens. Other artists, too, played with carnality and horror, from endoscopy videos to model landscapes filled with Nazi atrocities. But it was just art. Then along came Von Hagens with his Body Worlds exhibitions, using plastination to perfectly preserve dissected bodies. He did what Hirst and co never dared: he displayed actual human corpses as a kind of grisly but purportedly educational art object.

Tinsman Road review – found footage haunted horror as a film-maker searches for his sister haunts

The soundscape of Robbie Banfitch’s latest low-budget film is key to the creepy mood, in a story of a disappeared girl and her brother’s attempts to find out more

The latest feature from ultra-low-budget film-maker Robbie Banfitch (after The Outwaters and White Light) sees him wearing many hats; he is the film’s director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and lead actor, multitasking truly above and beyond the call of duty. The result is a reasonably impressive achievement: a sad little horror story about a family grieving for a missing daughter-sister that tempts the viewer to think there are ghosts about, or at least something supernatural afoot. Feet and the sound of footsteps play an outsize role here, with the carefully constructed sound design making this found-footage exercise more nuanced than most cheap horror iterations of the genre.

Banfitch plays a guy named Robbie Lyle, an aspiring film-maker who has come home to rural New Jersey to spend time with his mother Leslie (played by Banfitch’s own mother Leslie Ann Banfitch, giving a moving performance). Both son and mother are still trying to cope with the unexplained absence of Robbie’s sister Noelle (Salem Belladonna, seen only in pictures and old home movies, but heard singing often), who went missing a few years ago while out for a walk on the secluded road of the title. Robbie tells Leslie that he’s making a doc about angels or spirits; she is convinced Noelle is haunting the house, but when he goes out and asks local people about what they know of his sister’s disappearance, it’s clear he’s a sceptic.

Underdogs by Louise Powell review – a powerful debut with plenty of northern soul

A bereaved father and son bond over greyhound racing in an east Durham town in terminal decline

The adjoining villages of Easington and Easington Colliery in the coalfields of east Durham make the perfect case study of the shift from England’s industrial boomtime to terminal decline. Twenty miles from a major town or city, they’ve been left to languish ever since Thatcher went to war with the industry that made them. If you want to understand why the white working class feel abandoned today, go to Easington Colliery and its surrounding villages.

It’s this community that Middlesbrough-born writer Louise Powell brings to life in a powerful debut set in the world of greyhound racing, or “flapping”. Underdogs is an utterly authentic depiction of an England that’s overlooked, but still very much alive. Pigeon lofts and flat caps, meat raffles and social clubs – all still exist, just very rarely in 21st-century novels.

Supreme Court approval hits record low as Republicans' support declines

The Trump administration saw some big losses at the Supreme Court in 2026 on issues involving tariffs, birthright citizenship and the Federal Reserve.

Netanyahu to meet Trump in a first encounter since the Iran war began

The meeting comes as both face pressures at home. Netanyahu is up for reelection, embattled in part due to his deteriorating relationship with Trump. Trump is under pressure to end an unpopular war.

India’s Cockroach movement threatens to restart protests after mass student arrests

Cockroach Janta party says government has broken promise, with detentions in Delhi, Assam, West Bengal and Bihar

India’s youth-led “Cockroach” movement, whose nationwide protests forced the resignation of the education minister, has accused the government of backtracking on its promise not to act against student protesters and has threatened to restart demonstrations.

The Cockroach Janta party (CJP), which organised mass protests over exam paper leaks and other irregularities, said it had received reports of hundreds of students being detained or “harassed” by police.

F1 summer report card: from top of the class Mercedes to the team that must do better

As the paddock disperses for its traditional mid-season three-week break, the race is on to catch Kimi Antonelli

Mercedes came into the season as favourites and have lived up to the billing. Their car has been dominant with eight wins from 11 meetings, a strike rate greater perhaps even than the team had expected. Despite the rather skewed conclusions of the Aduo engine assessment, which declared the Red Bull the cream of the crop (on the basis of internal combustion output rather than overall capacity) the Mercedes power unit as a whole, including the hybrid electrical element which is now so vital, is without doubt the class of the field.

How Premier League Futures programme is helping former academy prospects

In six months Iyiola Adebayo went from captaining West Ham youth teams to delivering pizzas but he has found a new direction

“Within six months of being the captain at West Ham and playing in the Youth Cup, I was delivery driving at Domino’s,” says Iyiola Adebayo.

Adebayo had joined at eight the academy that produced Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole and Declan Rice and the defensive midfielder from Tilbury was tipped to follow in their footsteps when awarded a scholarship before anyone else in his age group. However, a dislocated shoulder set him back in the first year and despite making appearances for the under-21s and under 23s, he was released at 16.

With wildfires raging in France and Spain, fire crews race against next heat wave

French authorities ordered nearly 4,000 people evacuated Tuesday from tourist sites on the Atlantic coast as returning heat threatened firefighters' fragile hold on a vast wildfire west of Bordeaux.

A family tour de France: cycling and camping in Normandy with two toddlers

Ebikes with child seats – plus idyllic campsites and pit stops en route – turn a five-day ride on the car-free Véloscénic into a wonderful family holiday

“Are you mad?” says a fellow guest over dinner at our campsite. “I heard you’re here on a long-distance cycle ride with your toddlers.”

I am in Orne, a region in Normandy, with my sister Issy and our three-year-old sons, Sid and Ralph. The landscape folds around us in green-over-green – hedgerow, oak, mossy manor wall – then opens into meadows where Percheron horses graze, knee-deep in wildflowers. Deer leap from the bocage. Cidre and poiré have been pressed here since the middle ages. The villages are sandy stone, blue- and green-shuttered; roses against the boulangerie.

Upland by Ed Douglas review – a glorious survey of Britain’s high places

The writer and climber brings colour and carnival to his account of a country and people shaped by its mountains

It comes as a shock to learn that Britain’s uplands were not always rocky, covered with coarse grass and suitable only for sheep. About 54,000 years ago – a mere blink in geological time – this island’s high places were teeming with nature. Lushly forested peaks, crags and gorges were home to megafauna including mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and giant elk. The one sour note in this elevated Garden of Eden was the carnivorous cave lions and sabre-tooth cats who prowled the browse looking for a meaty dinner.

Ed Douglas’s achievement in this excellent book is to return a proper sense of colour and even carnival to Britain’s high places. His first job, though, is to define his terms. In 1936, the celebrated US geographer Roderick Peattie declared that what made a mountain was not its elevation so much as its capacity to “enter into the imagination of the people who lived in [its] shadows”. But by the 1990s, the United Nations, newly tasked with protecting the world’s high places from environmental and economic decline, insisted on getting out its tape measure and statistical charts and coming up with some universal criteria.

Wham! 10 Days in China review – pop meets politics in George and Andrew’s great leap east

The duo’s groundbreaking 1985 tour reveals a strange collision of pop stardom and communism, a re-edit of Lindsay Anderson’s efforts that got him fired

Here is a documentary that has a very important story to tell, maybe more important than it feels comfortable admitting. It’s about two separate subjects – or maybe three: Wham!, China and film-maker Lindsay Anderson. A superpower nervously edging towards western-style openness, a pop band nervously doing what needed to be done to make it big in the US, and a great film director, needing the money, taking on a project he didn’t really believe in.

In 1985, Wham!’s beetle-browed manager Simon Napier-Bell had a cunning plan for how George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley could break the US: Wham! would be the first ever western pop band to perform in mainland China. They would play where the Beatles, the Stones and Elvis had never played, and the resulting global publicity would launch them into the US. (He was right – it did.) In our modern age, the movie and music businesses routinely consider China as the key element of the all-important Asian market, but in 1985, Michael and Ridgeley were the Kirk and Spock of the charts, going where no pop act had gone before.

Johnson & Johnson to pay $5.5bn settlement in talc cancer lawsuit

Landmark deal covers about 76,000 claims and could end contentious, decade-long legal battle

Johnson & Johnson said it would pay an estimated $5.5bn to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its baby ⁠powder and other talc products caused ⁠ovarian cancer, in a landmark ​deal that could end a contentious, decade-long legal battle.

Johnson & Johnson on Monday said the settlement covers about 76,000 claims, including ones consolidated in a federal court in New Jersey, and related cases in state court, ⁠representing nearly all of the remaining talc claims against the company.

US airman accused of ‘spree’ of rapes on sleeping women avoided UK courts

Suffolk police ceded investigation into James Loubeau to the US military, leading to court martial acquittal

A US airman accused of a “spree” of rapes and sexual assaults in England, drugging some women and breaking into the homes of others, was able to avoid British justice after local police handed over part of the case to the American military.

Two British women went to Suffolk police in August 2019 to allege that James Loubeau and another US airman had drugged and raped them after they met in a nightclub in Bury St Edmunds, a local market town.

‘We’re not going to give up’: 40 years since Suzy Lamplugh vanished, police still hope to find her

Met officers issue a final appeal for information as they seek a breakthrough in hunt for missing London estate agent

Det Ch Insp Teresa Foster, who leads the Metropolitan police’s cold case homicide team, first heard about the disappearance of the London estate agent Suzy Lamplugh when she was 12 years old watching the TV news at home in the small New Zealand town where she grew up.

“It was a huge story,” she said, recalling how the unsolved case attracted global attention in 1986. “It was shocking.” Foster later emigrated to the UK and four decades on is making a final appeal for information that could lead to the discovery of Lamplugh’s body and bring closure for her family.

Cottage pie and glass of red, anyone? Britons shun salad despite heat in ‘reverse comfort eating’

Nostalgic foods like toad-in-the-hole also in demand at Waitrose as people pivot towards familiarity amid climatic and political upheaval

Forget a crisp salad and glass of chilled rosé. Enervated Britons are seemingly more likely to crave a rich cottage pie and a robust red in heatwaves.

In a trend termed “reverse comfort eating”, Waitrose’s cottage pie sales have soared 110% in the last month and South African red wine is up 68% compared with the same period last year. The surprise spike in demand for winter comfort foods also includes retro chicken, bacon and leek pie (up 41%), chicken korma (up 67%) and chicken and ham gratin (68%).

Scoop of the year! We taste-test 99 of 2026’s most unusual ice creams, from the unbeatable to the unlickable

From olive oil to matcha, soy sauce to sage and onion stuffing, there’s a frozen designer dessert out there to tickle even the most jaded palate. Here’s the best – and worst – of what’s on offer in Britain this summer

What’s with all the weird ice-cream flavours this year? It feels as if supermarkets and independent companies are vying to make the most novel alternatives to a good old scoop of vanilla. But which are actually worth having? I tried 99 varieties of ice-cream tubs and ranked them from sickeningly sweet to dinner party-worthy.

99. Paxo sage and onion stuffing, Anya Hindmarch
(One scoop £4.50 or 500ml tub £16, The Ice Cream Project, London)
Anya Hindmarch’s Ice Cream Project has become a yearly summer fixture, in which the fashion designer collaborates with well-known brands to create nostalgic novelty flavours (at designer prices) for which customers queue round the block. This year the flavours skew toward roast dinners, and include Oxo (which I couldn’t try, being vegetarian) and Paxo. It tastes exactly like the stuffing … which isn’t really what I want from an ice-cream. Taste 1/10, Value 1/10, Originality 7/10

Train drivers in Great Britain consider strike action over lack of toilets

Unions say basic needs still not being met a year after regulator told operators to improve facilities

Train drivers are considering strike action over a lack of toilets, with unions saying basic needs are still not addressed a year after the rail regulator told operators to provide more facilities and breaks.

Aslef said it was “putting the industry on notice”. The train drivers’ union added that companies had failed to deliver adequate toilets and reduce maximum driving times without a toilet break.

Nudists, peaceniks and freeloading travellers: the people keeping the Esperanto dream alive

Esperanto had always seemed to me like an idealistic movement that had failed. So why was its annual congress so vibrant and full of young people?

• The summer issue of the Long Read magazine is out now. Click here to order

One day, as a 16-year-old in the late 2000s, I received an AOL instant message from my friend Kenyon. He wanted to know whether I had heard of Esperanto, the universal language. Kenyon was several years older than me, and something of a mentor. Like me, he was a musician – he engineered my teenage band’s first record – but unlike me, he had a head full of trivia that made him the confidently nerdy star of any Saturday-night gathering of outcasts. His pitch: Esperanto was invented in the late 19th century by a Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist named LL Zamenhof, who aimed to create a language so irresistibly easy to learn that it would be adopted as a shared second tongue by people the world over. From a position of mutual understanding, world peace would surely follow. Yes, the language had been around for well over 100 years and, yes, universal fellowship had yet to be achieved. But the internet had inaugurated a new era of global connectivity, and users could learn through an abundance of online classes. Perhaps we were on the verge of an Esperanto renaissance. Kenyon had been practising for a few years and was practically flua.

As a typical adolescent, I was in the midst of my own social awakening. I had begun to travel the US playing music, relying on nothing but the hospitality of friends of friends of friends. I was finding communion and what felt like boundless possibility in mass bike rides and sweaty dance parties in derelict churches. I was also dabbling in the world of hitchhiking and freight-train-hopping, visiting new places by exploiting the only slightly off-limits mechanisms of our industrialised society. Goods needed to move, and I could move with them, thanks to the kindness of those who showed me the ropes just because I wanted to learn. Esperanto seemed comparable: another disparate social club with a baked-in rejection of the forces, writ large and ill-defined, that sought to divide us. But even then, its goals felt redundant: the internet had already given me new tools to communicate across distance and difference. Simple as it might be to learn the language, why bother?

Suspect among 3 killed in Seattle shooting; teen arrested, 3rd suspect sought

Police believe a suspect in the deadly shooting at a food festival in Seattle was among those who were killed, as another suspect remains on the loose and a teenager is in custody.

In Michigan Senate Democratic debate, Stevens and El-Sayed spar over outside spending

Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens clashed on outside spending and electability in their last debate before Michigan's Democratic primary next week.

Fauci diaries, released by Sen. Paul, touch on COVID origins, Trump

Republican Sen. Rand Paul released more than a thousand pages of journal entries from Dr. Anthony Fauci, teeing up what is likely to be a contentious hearing on Wednesday.

Ohio's GOP governor calls Trump's plans to deport Haitians a "mistake"

Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine told CBS News the Trump administration's plan to ramp up deportations of Haitian migrants is a "mistake," arguing the move could bruise Ohio's economy.

Well-connected Melbourne man found guilty of raping former staffer

Jury finds that the man, who cannot be named, assaulted the woman at his home in March 2023

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A well-connected Melbourne man has been found guilty of raping a former employee.

The man, who cannot be named, faced two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault in the county court of Victoria, and pleaded not guilty.

Meta disregarded its own research on teen harm, Tennessee lawyers tell jury

In opening statements, state argued Meta’s own research showed it harmed teens while firm’s attorneys pointed to transparency

The long-awaited trial between the social media company Meta and the state of Tennessee began proceedings on Monday. Attorneys for Tennessee told a jury in Nashville that Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, disregarded internal research about its platform’s impact on teenagers, while the company sought ⁠to maximize profit from those young users.

During ⁠opening statements in a seven-week ​trial in state court, the state’s lawyers said Meta researchers repeatedly flagged teenagers’ compulsive use of the platform – leading to eating disorders, depression and self-harm. But despite those warnings, Meta did not ⁠disable features such as autoplay, notifications and infinite scroll which, the lawyers said, were designed to keep teens on Instagram as long as possible and increase the number of ads they viewed.

Betye Saar, pioneering figure of Black arts movement, dies at 99

Leading assemblage artist was known for reclaiming Jim Crow-era memorabilia as images of Black liberation

Artist Betye Saar, the pioneering figure of the Black arts movement, died on Sunday morning in her home town of Los Angeles. She was 99.

Saar, a famous practitioner of assemblage, an artistic style that builds sculpture from everyday objects, was best known for reclaiming Jim Crow era memorabilia such as dolls and washboards and recasting them as images of Black liberation. Saar also worked in genres including printmaking and film, exploring themes from family to spirituality.

"The Odyssey" movie sparking renewed interest in original book

Moviegoers are turning out in droves for the IMAX spectacle "The Odyssey," but they're also flocking to something else: the 2,700-year-old source material. Matt Gutman has more.

Search continues for American mom missing in Grenada

On the Caribbean island of Grenada there is an increasingly desperate search for Elizabeth Waddell, a 44-year old North Carolina mom who's been missing for five days. Cristian Benavides reports.

Biden recordings with ghostwriter released over his objections

Roughly 70 hours of recordings of an interview former President Joe Biden did with a ghostwriter in 2017, before he was president, were released Monday over Biden's objections. Weijia Jiang reports.

Entries from Dr. Anthony Fauci's diary released

Diary entries by Dr. Anthony Fauci are shedding light on his soaring notoriety during the COVID-19 epidemic. The documents, released by Republican Sen. Rand Paul, include Fauci's reflections about being invited to A-list parties, but also some uncertainty about the origin of COVID.

The biggest weather risk for homeowners? It's no longer hurricanes.

Severe "convective" storms account for roughly a third of global natural disaster economic losses, a new study finds.

Rand Paul releases Anthony Fauci's pandemic-era diary notes. Here's what they tell us

Sen. Rand Paul has released a tranche of Dr. Anthony Fauci's diary entries from the COVID-19 pandemic. Fauci is set to appear before a Senate committee Wednesday on the origins of the coronavirus.

Ex-husband testifies in trial for mom accused of murdering her kids

The trial for Lindsay Clancy, the woman accused of murdering her three small children, began Monday with her ex-husband taking the stand. Shanelle Kaul reports.

Manhunt underway for suspect in Seattle food festival shooting as new details about incident emerge

A manhunt is underway in Seattle for a suspect after police say a possible dispute turned into a mass shooting Sunday. It happened at a summer food festival near the iconic Space Needle. Three people were killed and a toddler was among the injured. Carter Evans has the latest.

Pair of lifeguards keep young swimmer from being swept out to sea in California

A pair of lifeguards stood their ground against ferocious waves to keep a young swimmer from being swept out to sea amid dangerous rip currents that affected parts of the California coast over the weekend. Jericka Ducan has the story.

Russia and North Korea finalising first road crossing amid concerns it serves as Ukraine war supply route

New bridge makes it easier to dodge satellite surveillance, investigation argues, as Ukrainian president warns Russia is to receive 30,000 more North Korean soldiers

Russia and North Korea are close to completing a bridge that will form the first road link ever built between them, amid concerns the two increasingly close allies are creating infrastructure to boost military cooperation in the Ukraine war.

The bridge spans the Tumen River, between Khasan in Russia’s far east and Tumangang in North Korea, a remote, thinly populated stretch of borderland where the river marks the final few miles of the frontier before it reaches the coast.

Extremely dangerous tornado tears through Wisconsin in wild day of severe weather

A dangerous tornado barreled through Wisconsin on Monday as a severe weather system impacted more than 100 million people. CBS News' Ian Lee and Rob Marciano have more.

Microsoft touts cost-saving AI model for cybersecurity

Microsoft says that when integrated with OpenAI's GPT-5.4, its new cybersecurity model can beat Anthropic's new Mythos 5.

Machine could make more donated lungs suitable for transplant

Nice backs wider use of system that keeps organs alive outside the body, to help improve low transplantation rates

A machine that keeps organs alive outside the body could save four in every five donated lungs that currently go to waste in England and Wales.

The UK has one of the poorest lung transplantation rates in the world. The latest figures from NHS Blood and Transplant show that 170 patients in the UK, including six children, are waiting for new lungs.

Taylor Farms CEO pressed by lawmaker over cyclospora outbreak

Rep. Robert Garcia is seeking information about whether Taylor Farms used White House ties to influence the federal response to the foodborne illness outbreak.

7/27: CBS Evening News

Dangerous tornado tears through Wisconsin; lifeguards save young swimmer from rip current in California.

Trump warns of return to ‘strong military action’ if Iran diplomacy fails

Washington and Tehran issue conflicting messages over the status of talks to end Middle East crisis

Donald Trump has once again warned that the US will return to “strong military action” against Iran if diplomatic efforts do not bring a rapid resolution to the crisis in the Middle East.

“We are in very deep talks with Iran. If they don’t work out, we will go back to very strong military action,” the US president told Axios on Monday. Asked for how long he would allow the talks to proceed, he answered: “Not much time. Either it goes fast or not at all.”

Chiefs assistant coach Eric Bieniemy's son charged in shooting of his mother

The son of Chiefs assistant coach Eric Bieniemy has been arrested and charged with a shooting that wounded his mother, Mia Bieniemy, according to authorities in Virginia.

Georgia man who ran toward Capitol with shotgun pleads guilty

Prosecutors say Carter Camacho of Smyrna, Georgia, told police officers who apprehended him outside the Capitol that he intended to confront members of Congress and "scare them into speaking the truth."

Platner energized Maine's Democrats. Jackson's challenge will be to keep them engaged

Democrats have a new candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine: Troy Jackson. In one of the country's most closely-watched races, he'll have less than 100 days to make his case.

Maldini and Leonardo resign from Italian FA after Pirlo appointment falls through

• Pirlo no longer in running for coach role over betting ties

• Paolo Maldini only appointed technical director on 11 July

Paolo Maldini and Leonardo have reportedly resigned from their roles with the Italian football federation in the wake of Andrea Pirlo’s appointment as Italy head coach falling through.

Both figures had recently taken on roles as part of an overhaul of the national team management. Maldini ‌was appointed ‌on 11 ‌July as technical director of the Italian federation, to help to rebuild the national side after they failed to qualify for a third successive World Cup finals. But he has stepped down just 16 ‌days later alongside Leonardo, the former Brazil international who had been brought in as his adviser.

Apple ends day as world's most valuable company, passing Nvidia

Nvidia had held the top spot as the most valuable company since June 2025, when it took the crown from Microsoft.

Police make inquiries after Farage reports Polanski post for ‘inciting murder’

Green party leader shared picture of man wearing T-shirt with words ‘we’re only making plans for Nigel’ alongside a guillotine

Police are “conducting inquiries” into an image shared by Green party leader Zack Polanski on Instagram after Reform UK reported it for “inciting murder”.

The image showed a man wearing a black T-shirt with the words “we’re only making plans for Nigel”, alongside a photograph of a guillotine.

Moms speak out, alleging their sons were switched at birth decades ago

The mothers of two men who accuse a North Dakota hospital of switching them at birth are speaking out after the discovery.

7/27: The Takeout with Major Garrett

New CBS News polling has Trump underwater on Iran; ICE to ramp up deportations of Haitian migrants, sources say.

Authors have mixed feelings about the $1.5B Anthropic copyright infringement ruling

Some say the $3,100 per title payout is small compensation for what they view as big, ongoing threats from the makers of generative AI models.

Bryan Kohberger challenges conviction in Idaho murders

Bryan Kohberger​, the man serving multiple life sentences for the murders of four University of Idaho students​, filed a petition for post-conviction relief Monday.

Trump asks Supreme Court to step into dispute over mail-in ballot executive order

A federal appeals court on Sunday left in place a lower court decision that blocked implementation of key parts of President Trump's executive order.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino called to appear before Congress over Trump ties

Democrat Jamie Raskin pushes Fifa to release records of contact with Trump, administration and family business

Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, has launched an investigation into Fifa president Gianni Infantino, seeking documents that would detail the ties between soccer’s governing body and Donald Trump and his administration.

In a Sunday letter, Raskin wrote to Infantino and called for Fifa to provide any documents and communications related to gifts, payments or benefits provided to Trump and his associates, as well as the visitor logs for Fifa’s office space in Trump Tower, which it acquired last year. The committee also requested that Infantino sit for a transcribed interview.

Andrew and Tristan Tate to remain in jail until next extradition hearing

Social media influencers fighting against extradition to UK where they face rape, sexual assault and other allegations

Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate will remain in jail at least two more weeks until their next hearing as they fight extradition to the United Kingdom, where the brothers are accused of rape and sex trafficking, a federal judge said on Monday.

US magistrate Lauren Louis set a detention hearing for 13 August to determine whether the Tates should stay in jail or be released during what could be a months-long extradition process.

DoJ urges supreme court to allow Trump order targeting mail-in voting

Emergency appeal comes after court upheld ruling blocking president’s order ahead of November midterms

The Trump administration has asked the supreme court to clear the way for an executive order from Donald Trump that could dramatically change mail-in voting.

The emergency appeal comes after an appeals court upheld a ruling blocking the president’s order in nearly half the country ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Inside Joe Manchin's new quest to elect more Independents to Congress

The former West Virginia senator was a lifelong Democrat before deciding to register as an independent two years ago. He now wants to create similar pathways for other politicians in both parties.

Amazon plans to deploy more than 5,000 satellites for new telecom service

Amazon Leo wants to launch a constellation of thousands of satellites to connect devices directly from space.

Industrial chicken farming accelerating spread of diarrhoea bacteria, study finds

Intensive nature of modern chicken farming creates ideal conditions for campylobacter, allowing bacteria to evolve

Industrial chicken farming is accelerating the spread of the world’s most common bacterial cause of diarrhoea, scientists have found.

The study found a dramatic increase in the exchange of campylobacter strains between wild birds and chickens as farming has intensified, creating the ideal conditions for the bacteria to mix, spread and acquire new traits. There has also been a rise in antimicrobial resistance traits in circulating strains, raising concerns that serious illness in people will be more difficult to treat.

Mind the ever-growing gap: the Premier League keeps spending big

English clubs have spent more on players this summer than the other four major European leagues combined

The financial power of the Premier League is unmatched. The teams in England’s top division have collectively invested more than £1.4bn in new players already this summer (through disclosed fees alone), around £303m more than the 76 clubs from the Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1 and Serie A combined.

These figures are the gross spend, so take no account of players sold to help balance the books. Factoring this in only increases the divide. The clubs of Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga are £203.4m and £72.2m in credit from their transfer dealings respectively. While La Liga (£163.1m) and Serie A (£124.1m) have spent more than they have earned, they are an ocean adrift of the Premier League’s net spend of £523.6m.

Savannah Guthrie asks alleged kidnappers to "do the right thing" in new video

In her Instagram post,​ the "Today" show host said her family had "done our part" and would "never stop looking for" their 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie​, who has been missing since February​.

Trump backs 'fantastic' Warsh while calling for lower rates and citing 'bad intentions' of other Fed officials

President Trump Monday voiced support for Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh while insisting that the U.S. should have the lowest interest rates in the world.

U.S. and Iran pause fighting, Trump dismisses concerns of dwindling stockpiles

A temporary pause to the U.S.-Iran conflict appeared to hold on Monday, after negotiations over a lasting peace faced fresh hurdles over the weekend.

Amazon seeks federal approval to launch 5,105 satellites for direct-to-device network

The proposed network will partly rely on assets from Globalstar, which Amazon announced plans to acquire in April for roughly $11.6 billion.

Comey asks judge to dismiss Trump 'seashells' case citing lack of 'true threat'

Ex-FBI Director James Comey is charged with threatening to kill President Donald Trump by posting an Instagram photo of seashells forming the message "8647."

The Guardian view on Europe’s wildfires: politics must catch up with the new reality | Editorial

At a time when the quickening pace of global heating has never been clearer, climate policies are being deprioritised

A new and ominous word has entered the vocabulary of firefighters struggling to cope with the vast wildfire sweeping through south-west France. A pyrocumulonimbus is a fire-generated thunderstorm that can whip up winds in unpredictable ways, making the containment of a blaze and assessment of its likely course far more difficult. A known phenomenon in North America and Australia, firefighters believe France is suffering its first in the Bordeaux region, as the country endures the consequences of the third major heatwave of the summer and prepares for a fourth.

The dire statistics of the ongoing fires in France and Spain tell a story of deepening devastation and human misery. A far greater expanse of French land has already been burnt this year, compared with the 30,000 hectares during the whole of 2025, while 220,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in the Gironde. In Spain, the environment ministry has calculated that over 170,000 hectares have been affected, compared with 29,000 last year. Over 100,000 people have been forced to flee.

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

The Guardian view on ancient DNA: a female shaman exposes our flawed assumptions about the past | Editorial

Thanks to new technology we are are acquiring insights into earlier times, and realising how little we truly know

Archaeologists believe the Upton Lovell Shaman, who lived in what is now Wiltshire 4,000 years ago, was an important religious leader and metalworker because of the artefacts and tools buried with the body. Until very recently it was also believed, on considerably slimmer evidence, that this shaman was a man: it was simply assumed that someone of such status must be male, and the view was barely questioned over the years. Now ancient DNA analysis performed at the Francis Crick Institute has revealed that the body, held by the Wiltshire Museum, is in fact a woman.

That should cause a stir in bronze-age studies. But it is also yet another example of how many of our assumptions about human history have been upended by the rise of ancient DNA analysis over the past two decades. Others include the revelation that there were (frequent) liaisons between humans and Neanderthals just 50,000 years ago, a reconstruction suggesting that the first modern Britons had “dark to black” skin, and the closing of longstanding mysteries such as what really killed two members of Italy’s powerful Medici family in the 16th century (probably malaria, not murder as was often believed). Every time we widen our keyhole view of the past even slightly, we are confronted by how many of our seemingly grounded assumptions are, in fact, wrong.

JetBlue overhauls fare options, from basic first to flexible economy. Here's what to know

JetBlue is doing away with its "Core" product and putting economy tickets under a new name.

Sen. McConnell still not cleared to go back to work as he recovers from fall, doctors say

McConnell's office shared a written statement from the senator apologizing for being unable to attend an annual Kentucky picnic and a physician's assessment.

Ben Jennings on southern Europe’s wildfires – cartoon

• Discover and buy more of Ben’s cartoons here

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Carly Simon reveals Parkinson's diagnosis: "Learning how to live with it"

Carly Simon, the singer known for 1970s hits like "You're So Vain," announced she has Parkinson's disease and also was treated for basal cell carcinoma.

Off-duty police officer detains man who attacked three women with knives in Paris

Two women severely wounded before bystanders intervened in incident near Porte de Clichy

A man attacked three women with knives in Paris before bystanders pinned him to the ground and an off-duty police officer detained him, the French interior ⁠minister, Laurent Nuñez, has said.

The man attacked the three women, aged 19, 24 and 36, with ⁠two kitchen knives, severely wounding two of them, near Porte de Clichy on Monday, Nuñez said.

The 'cockroach' in the machine: How Gen Z is rattling South Asia's elites

South Asia's leaders have long boasted about their demographic dividend. But the region's young people are turning it into a political reckoning.

I work in a hospital – and didn’t know I was having a heart attack. Here’s what more women should know

Women and men exhibit different heart attack symptoms. Knowing these lesser-known factors can help save your life

A few months ago at work, when I rose from my seat and walked a few steps, something felt off. There was a strange pressure in my chest and rib cage, but I ignored it, took my water bottle from the kitchen and returned to my desk.

The next day it happened again. There was no pain and my breathing was fine. But whenever I stood up and took a few steps, the odd squeezing would return. I work at a hospital as a neurosurgery coordinator, and the wall was lined with posters about stroke and heart distress signs. I barely glanced at the pictures, having memorized them years ago.

Elevated high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, or hs-CRP, score: the level of these proteins increases with inflammation, and a high level can indicate blood vessels in the heart are narrowing (cardiovascular disease).

Lipoprotein(a) elevation: a genetic test for inherited LDL (“bad”) cholesterol; high levels significantly increase risk of heart attack via plaque buildup in arteries.

Apolipoprotein B elevation: measures the amount of Apo B, which carries substances in your blood that make the plaque.

Coronary artery calcium score (high CAC): a high score probably means a large amount of plaque is present in arteries and the risk of a future heart attack is high.

Ask your primary care doctor what kinds of cardiac testing are available to you. If bloodwork is suggested first, do it. If you have a family history of heart attacks and want to check your arteries now, discuss proteins and inflammation markers. You may need to consult a specialist for these steps.

Provide as much information as possible, even if you don’t think it’s related to your current problem. It could make a difference in someone deciding on a scan or sending you to the ER. The more details you provide, the better someone can assist. For instance, if you have a stomach ache that hasn’t gone away in three days, disclose it.

Keep asking about next steps. You are entitled to an answer and it’s the doctor’s job to help you find it. If your inquiries are not being taken seriously, book an appointment elsewhere. Do not give up or wait it out. Persistence can help you identify serious risks.

Julie Charnet is a healthcare worker and writer in Philadelphia

David Jonsson: the London rising star handpicked to be the new Black Panther

Jonsson has come a long way from east London’s Docklands, winning accolades on stage and screen

Few characters carry the cultural weight of Black Panther. Since 2018, the Wakandan king has become a global symbol of Black excellence, credited with reshaping expectations of representation on screen.

The first film grossed more than $1.3bn (£1bn) worldwide, won three Oscars and became the first superhero movie nominated for best picture.

Pinochet-era soldier jailed for killing folk singer Víctor Jara 53 years ago

Nelson Haase Mazzei was sentenced for murdering Jara in 2023, but fled from authorities in Chile

More than 50 years after the murder of the Chilean folk singer Víctor Jara, the last man wanted in connection with his death has been tracked down and brought to justice.

Nelson Haase Mazzei, a retired colonel, fled from authorities in 2023 after he and six other retired soldiers were sentenced in absentia for murdering Jara and another man.

Comey asks judge to drop case over seashells Instagram post

Former FBI Director James Comey argued that criminal charges stemming from an Instagram post should be dropped because his speech is protected by the First Amendment.

Britain braces for fourth heatwave of year as fire chiefs issue public appeal

Temperatures up to 35C forecast, triggering heat health alerts and pleas to take care in parched parks and rural areas

Paramedics and firefighters are braced for emergencies across the country this week after UK forecasters predicted a fourth heatwave of the year.

Temperatures are forecast to reach as high as 35C by Wednesday, triggering heat health alerts and an appeal from fire chiefs to take care in parched parks and rural areas.

A job that changed me: My year as a ‘gopher’ taught me that all errand runners are holy

The work was simple: deliver letters, notices of assessment and other important legal documents, by bicycle. The locations, I came to realise, were varied and inconvenient

• Read more in this series here

A gopher is a small, solitary rodent with large front teeth native to North and Central America. It’s also the name of the job some workplaces give to errand runners (though it’s more usually spelled gofer).

When I was a 21-year-old law student in Canberra, I was in desperate need of casual work. I came across an ad pinned to one of the corkboards outside the library. Bleary-eyed after another all-nighter to finish an assignment, I took down the number of the law firm.

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Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason review – a witty story of infatuation set in the literary world

A sad, heartbroken woman becomes obsessed with a famous writer in a continuously humorous and touching story from the Sorrow and Bliss author

The protagonist of Meg Mason’s new book, the follow-up to the 2020 tragicomedy Sorrow and Bliss, is an invisible woman. She might well be standing there but you won’t notice her. She’s a techie at literary festivals – the person who shuffles up to a famous writer a few minutes before their event and apologetically slides a microphone cable down their shirt while they’re making small talk with the chair or accepting a bottle of room-temperature mineral water from an anxious publicist.

No man is a hero to his valet, and no writer is a hero to the technical staff lurking in the wings of a venue. Mason’s opening pages present a teasing but not quite libellous series of cameos of real writers: George Saunders deciding at an inconsiderately late stage to insist on swapping his headset for a lapel mic; Ann Patchett being frosty with a fan; Mick Herron accidentally stepping on someone’s foot and not apologising.

‘I would be ashamed to have written any part of this’: Odyssey translator Emily Wilson attacks Nolan blockbuster

Wilson, whose work on Homer’s epic was praised by Nolan, said his film was grandiose and superficial with ‘nothing convincing to say’

• Peter Bradshaw reviews The Odyssey
• ‘At times I felt I’d bitten off more than I could chew’: Christopher Nolan interviewed
• What Nolan’s Odyssey changed, invented – and left out

Emily Wilson, the classicist whose 2017 translation of Homer’s Odyssey was cited by Christopher Nolan in early publicity for his hugely successful adaptation of the poem, has roundly criticised the film, saying “it has nothing convincing to say” and that it “lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth”.

In a scathing essay for the London Review of Books, Wilson writes: “I had hoped that Nolan’s affinity with these Homeric themes might push him to new creative heights, and enable him to conjure more believable characters. But The Odyssey features his usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality … the film’s vision is too confused, its characters too underdeveloped, to deliver what it half-promises in terms of big ideas – although it is very good at conveying big bangs and big giants.”

‘You say genocide, I say war’: Boy George releases pro-Israel song, We Will Dance Again

Culture Club singer sings ‘I stand with the Jews / I don’t feel brave, I just need to behave like a human’, in song defending Israel’s response to Hamas attack

Boy George has released a new song entitled We Will Dance Again, which voices support for Israel’s military action in Palestine.

Posted on X and Instagram with the Hebrew title עוד נרקוד alongside its English translation, the song features a pop-reggae backing. The opening lyrics are: “You say genocide, I say war / When you’re attacked, that’s what the army’s for / Does it get ugly? You bet it does / When I know you wanna kill every last one of us.”

Carly Simon shares Parkinson’s disease diagnosis and says music has ‘rescued’ her

Singer-songwriter also had surgery to treat carcinoma on her face, leading her to ‘withdraw from public view’

The musician Carly Simon has revealed that she has Parkinson’s disease in a statement shared on Monday.

“So many people have written to me, kindly wondering about my relative silence, asking how I am and what I have been doing,” Simon said. “The truth is, I’ve been learning how to live with Parkinson’s disease.”

Tariffs are Trump’s favorite plaything – and his justifications are absurd | Steven Greenhouse

The president is using forced labor as a pretext to slap tariffs on countries around the world

With the midterm elections less than four months away, it’s a precarious time for Donald Trump and Republicans: Trump’s war against Iran is going badly, his approval ratings are in the toilet, gas prices are soaring and pushing up inflation, and nation after nation is furious about Trump’s insults, bullying and ugly American unilateralism.

So amid all this mess, what does Trump do? He turns to his favorite economic plaything: tariffs. On Monday, Trump signed orders to slap a 50% tariff on many Canadian goods, and four days later, he imposed across-the-board 10% or 12.5% tariffs on goods from more than 80 countries. Trump was no doubt thumping his chest, while millions of people overseas were dumping on him for yet another unnecessary, hostile act.

GOP targeted progressive dark money. That could boomerang on Trump.

The Trump-linked group Freedom 250 staged America's birthday with tens of millions that it is not required to disclose.

Remains found by kayakers identified as woman missing since 1985

Human remains found in a Florida canal two years ago have been identified as those of a woman who vanished in 1985, police said.