March expected to be Britain’s largest far-right rally in decades, and will include speakers from Britain, the US and Europe

More than a hundred people have gathered outside Russell Square before the ‘march against fascism’ counter-protest against the ‘unite the kingdom’ march, featuring far-right activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. Both are being held in central London on Saturday.

According to the PA news agency, people in Russell Square milled around with placards that said “refugees welcome” and “oppose Tommy Robinson”. Chants of “say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here” started at about 11.20am, the news agency reports.

The far right are a menace to the whole of society. Their first targets, asylum seekers and Muslims, are broadening to all migrants, black people and on to trade unionists, all religious minorities and anti-racists.

This is going to be big, but we are also talking about movement to the right of Reform UK and we still don’t know where it is going.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

• Updates from the Lions v Suns clash at the Gabba

• Any thoughts? Get in touch with Geoff Lemon

• During finals sign up for our free weekly AFL newsletter

Q1: 15 mins remaining: Brisbane 1.1.7 – Gold Coast 2.0.12

Haphazard in the forward line from Brisbane, but they’re on the board. Zorko’s pinpoint pass from half back into the centre sets it up, then follows up with the one-two. Kick inside 50 is spoiled, Cameron gets ironed out in the contest, the ball is knocked around via Ashcroft, little kick inboard isn’t marked on the full, Logan Morris gets the snap away as he’s tackled, but he gets enough purchase and it sails through.

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© Photograph: Russell Freeman/AFL Photos/Getty Images

© Photograph: Russell Freeman/AFL Photos/Getty Images

© Photograph: Russell Freeman/AFL Photos/Getty Images

• Match at Emirates Stadium kicks off at 12.30pm (BST)

• Postecoglou vows to helm Forest back to ‘rightful place’

• Share your thoughts with Rob via email

In September 2023, Ange Postecoglou secured a creditable 2-2 draw for Tottenham at Arsenal in his first north London derby. It was a moment – six Premier League games into his tenure – when people wondered whether his team might be the real thing. In September of last year, after another derby against Arsenal, this one at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the manager came out with his famous comment about how he always won silverware in his second season. And here we are again. Postecoglou versus Arsenal in the early weeks of a season; the plot-lines crackling.

It is a little sleepy around the stadium at the moment; too early in the day, perhaps, for any Ange-baiting from the Arsenal support. That will change. It is rare that a visiting manager transcends a game here but that is the unmistakable vibe around Postecoglou’s Nottingham Forest debut. He has succeeded a very popular guy in Nuno Espirito Santo at a club where a major power battle has just played out, Edu (the ex-Arsenal sporting director) getting the vote of confidence from Evangelos Marinakis rather than Nuno. Postecoglou’s preferred approach is the polar opposite to that of his predecessor. And he must get it to click immediately. Good thing Ange has never taken the easy path.

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© Photograph: Jay Patel/Sports Press Photo/SPP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Jay Patel/Sports Press Photo/SPP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Jay Patel/Sports Press Photo/SPP/Shutterstock

PM understood not to have seen messages from former ambassador to sex offender when speaking in Commons

Keir Starmer defended Peter Mandelson in the House of Commons two days after details of the damning emails between Lord Mandelson and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were passed to Downing Street, according to reports.

The prime minister sacked Mandelson as the British ambassador to the US on Thursday after the emails were published, revealing that Mandelson told Epstein “your friends stay with you and love you” while the disgraced financier was facing jail for sex offences.

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© Photograph: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA

© Photograph: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA

© Photograph: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA

Phil Bellamy’s daughters refuse to ride in his electric car without travel sickness tablets. Are there other solutions?

It was a year in to driving his daughter to school in his new electric vehicle that Phil Bellamy discovered she dreaded the 10-minute daily ride – it made her feel sick in a way no other car did.

As the driver, Bellamy had no problems with the car but his teenage daughters struggled with sickness every time they entered the vehicle. Research has shown this is an issue – people who did not usually have motion sickness in a conventional car found that they did in EVs.

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© Photograph: Courtesy of Phil Bellamy

© Photograph: Courtesy of Phil Bellamy

© Photograph: Courtesy of Phil Bellamy

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© Illustration: Madeline Horwath/The Guardian

© Illustration: Madeline Horwath/The Guardian

© Illustration: Madeline Horwath/The Guardian

Customised plates often cost more than the car – and yet the number of people queueing up to buy them is at an all‑time high. What’s the appeal?

‘Well, lot number 56 created quite a buzz, ladies and gentlemen … ” I’m sitting in a marquee in Chichester at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, sheltering from the summer heat. The auctioneer tells us that there have already been several telephone bids for this particular lot. Someone on the phone kicks things off with £180,000. The room holds its breath. Behind us are various astonishingly luxurious cars. One, an orange 1992 Mazda RX-7 FD Veilside Fortune Coupe, was used in the film The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. All of a sudden the bidding for lot 56 is at £220,000. Now £230,000. Now £240,000 from someone online. Now £250,000. I can hear the distant vrooming of race cars tearing around a track. But lot 56 isn’t a car. It’s a number plate.

Until recently, the UK record for a number plate sold at public auction was £518,480, set in 2014 when Ferrari dealer John Collins beat the competition to get his hands on “25 O”. Private deals have been done for millions of pounds. In Dubai, “P7” sold for £12m in 2023, setting a world record. Number plates can dwarf the value of the cars on which they sit. The question is: why?

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© Photograph: Gareth Iwan Jones Photographer/The Guardian

© Photograph: Gareth Iwan Jones Photographer/The Guardian

© Photograph: Gareth Iwan Jones Photographer/The Guardian

The American dream has never looked more seductive, with long and loose summer wardrobes and beachy jewellery

With the death of Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren became the world’s oldest major working fashion designer. The spotlight arrives with great timing for an 85-year-old on a hot streak. His brand is in better health than it has been for decades, with shares up 35% in 2025 and annual sales figures showing an 8% growth to $7.1bn (£1.25bn).

On the first night of New York fashion week, Lauren hosted the curtain-raiser for a month of catwalks with a show in his Madison Avenue design studio. Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King chatted to Lauren’s family; Usher smiled broadly behind sunglasses, lounging on a plushly cushioned front row. Champagne was served on silver trays under twinkling chandeliers. In the fractious climate, with the US reeling from the shooting of the far-right activist Charlie Kirk, Ralph Lauren’s affable, charming vision of the American dream has never looked more seductive.

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© Photograph: Shutterstock

© Photograph: Shutterstock

© Photograph: Shutterstock

The Canada-based photographer used his camera’s slo-mo mode to create a fluid pattern

Raghuvamsh Chavali was born in Hyderabad, India, and now calls Canada – or more specifically Guelph in Ontario – his home. He describes his adopted city as “a peaceful and friendly place, with a mix of heritage buildings and modern life”. It also proved an ideal backdrop for his extended photographic series Wings Over Concrete, which explores the presence and movement of birds in urban environments.

Before he took this image, one cloudy afternoon in downtown Guelph, Chavali had been tracking this particular flock of pigeons for several weeks. “I was in search of the natural patterns of birds, and I’d seen this flock flying in circles around the buildings near a train station at the same time each day. They moved in a tight, repeated loop, and on this day the light was soft and just right to capture their movement clearly,” he says. He utilised his phone camera’s slo-mo mode “to create a visual that almost feels like it was drawn with light. Their flight formed a fluid, layered pattern, like an S-shaped ribbon floating in space.”

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© Photograph: Raghuvamsh Chavali

© Photograph: Raghuvamsh Chavali

© Photograph: Raghuvamsh Chavali

• South Africa thump New Zealand 43-10 in Wellington

• Tourists score 36 unanswered points in second half

The All Blacks suffered their heaviest-ever Test defeat as South Africa beat New Zealand 43-10 in Wellington to revive their Rugby Championship campaign.

Cheslin Kolbe scored a try in each half and Damian Willemse, Kwagga Smith, RG Snyman and André Esterhuizen also touched down at the end of ambitious and clinical attacks as South Africa ran in six tries to one.

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© Photograph: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

© Photograph: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

© Photograph: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

The year’s biggest night in television sees plenty of nominations for Severance, The Studio, The White Lotus and Adolescence – but who will win?

It’s that time of year again, where you consider all that you have and have not watched in the vast world of television. The Emmys are back, more or less kicking off the Hollywood award season with a healthy mix of Emmy stalwarts and beloved newbies. Will voters choose between the head (Severance, with a leading 27 noms) or the heart (The Pitt) for best drama? Will The Studio sweep the comedy awards? Here are our picks for the night:

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© Photograph: Apple TV+

© Photograph: Apple TV+

© Photograph: Apple TV+

Just before Sunday’s crucial qualifier against Samoa in Denver, the American domestic league lost a third team in less than two months

The US Eagles men can qualify for the 2027 World Cup on Sunday, by beating Samoa in the Pacific Nations Cup fifth-place play-off in Denver. Defeat will not end hopes of making it to Australia, as further play-offs await. But in another horrible week for American men’s rugby, to have one weighty challenge dealt with would be welcome indeed.

On Thursday, in a move the Guardian understands caught other team owners by surprise, the Houston SaberCats became the third team to drop out of Major League Rugby this year. That reduced the competition to just seven teams from 11 last season, given the merger of San Diego and LA, announced in August as NOLA Gold and Miami Sharks also called it quits. Houston, San Diego and NOLA were founder clubs in 2018.

Martin Pengelly writes on Substack at The National Maul, on rugby in the US

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© Photograph: USA Rugby

© Photograph: USA Rugby

© Photograph: USA Rugby

The Guardian joins the Swedish coastguard to patrol an area that has become a hybrid warfare battleground

In front of a bank of screens on the boat’s bridge, the Swedish coastguard Jan Erik Antonsson shows on a live map on a laptop how many vessels of Russia’s “shadow fleet” there are in the area. “These green symbols are the shadow fleet,” he says. More than a dozen green triangles representing shadow fleet vessels pop up around the coastline of southern Sweden alone.

Every day hundreds of shadow fleet ships – unregulated ageing tankers from around the world in varying states of repair carrying oil from Russia to states including China and India – are moving through a relatively narrow passage in the Baltic.

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© Photograph: Josefine Stenersen/The Guardian

© Photograph: Josefine Stenersen/The Guardian

© Photograph: Josefine Stenersen/The Guardian

Will Canelo’s power or Crawford’s precision prove the decisive factor in Saturday night’s showdown in Las Vegas? Our writers set out the arguments on both sides

For years Bud Crawford’s name has been synonymous with patience. Denied mainstream recognition and opportunities against name-brand fighters, he kept beating everyone they put in front of him until he’d unified all four titles at junior welterweight. Then he did it again at welterweight with a dismantling of Errol Spence Jr so complete it cemented his place in boxing’s pound-for-pound S-tier alongside Naoya Inoue and Oleksandr Usyk. His gifts are obvious: the ability to switch seamlessly between stances, to read rhythms like sheet music, and to mete out punishment with icy composure once he’s cracked the code.

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© Photograph: Candice Ward/Getty Images for Netflix

© Photograph: Candice Ward/Getty Images for Netflix

© Photograph: Candice Ward/Getty Images for Netflix

The assassination of conservative speaker Charlie Kirk demonstrates how the heckler's veto now silences right-wing voices on college campuses through violence and threats.

No team has made a bigger impact on the 2025 college football season than the South Florida Bulls.

Launched in 2019, the Tulsa Remote program offers remote workers a $10,000 grant to move to the city for at least one year.

The bill heads to Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk.

For the first time, the Savannah Bananas, the barnstorming, trick-filled team from Georgia, will play a pair of exhibition games at Yankee Stadium.

Shop autumnal savings all weekend long on Amazon!

Zoo officials said the elephant, named Ruth, lost her footing after aggressive behavior from a fellow African elephant.

Latin music star Bad Bunny confirms he avoided scheduling U.S. tour dates over fears that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could target his Latino audience.

Kash Patel's premature announcement about Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin sparked conservative backlash before the FBI successfully arrested a Utah man.

TikTok, Meta and YouTube restrict Charlie Kirk shooting videos with age gates and warnings while X faces criticism for allowing continued circulation.